Cuba’s communist regime and drug cartels continue to be in a state of alert after President Donald Trump’s administration made it clear that the fight against communist regimes in the Western Hemisphere continues.

As U.S. troops train in Panama’s jungle terrain, which resembles that of Cuba, U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that all options, including military intervention, are on the table regarding Cuba.

“Countries like Cuba are on notice. We’re not going to allow that kind of malign influence in our hemisphere,” Hegseth stated.

While the nature of Cuban-American tensions remains unclear, this week the Dominican Republic gave Cuban diplomats a seven-day deadline to leave the country, signaling stronger American alliances in the region.

Florida state Rep. Juan Carlos Porras, who represents a majority-Cuban American district, told the Daily Signal that he sees this as a step from an American ally in standing up for the Western Hemisphere.

“This administration has been clear that all options are on the table, and the Castro regime should count its last days,” Porras added.

America’s allies in the region are beginning to expel the presence of Cuba’s regime as well, which has been warmly embraced by American policy experts and lawmakers alike.

“I applaud the Dominican government for standing for freedom and liberty in the hemisphere,” Porras continued. “The United States and our allies all want to see a free Cuba.”

Miguel Granda, a legislative aide for Florida state Rep. David Borrero, told the Daily Signal that “the wisest path forward for Cuba is greater cooperation with the U.S. and a genuine move toward democratic governance and economic openness.”

“Cuba and the United States would both benefit from choosing dialogue over confrontation,” he continued, warning Cuba that, if not, Hegseth’s remarks that military force is on the table should not be taken lightly.

“America’s military strength speaks for itself, but our preference is to lead with partnership, not pressure,” Granda concluded.

Monroe Doctrine

The Trump administration has made it clear that, unlike previous presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it will not be employing failed diplomatic solutions like the Good Neighbor Policy or the Alliance for Progress to stop the spread of communism in the region.

Many national security policy experts agree with the president’s assessment, reaffirming the importance of the administration’s desire for “peace through strength.”

“The principle of the Monroe Doctrine that foreign powers must keep their malign influence out of the Western Hemisphere is as solid today as it was in the day that it was formulated by Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow for security and foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal.

The rise of anti-American left-wing governments in the region in recent decades has not only undermined American interests in the region but also opened the door to foreign adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran to use the Western Hemisphere as a zone for military and intelligence operations.

“China, Russia, Iran, and the rest have no business here, and their support for the Cuban dictatorship has resulted in hardship for the Cuban people,” Gonzalez continued.

The left-wing governments, like that of Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, have also paved the way for drug cartels to thrive in the region, ultimately bringing drugs, illegal aliens, weapons, and other contraband into the United States.

“If governments like those in Mexico and Venezuela are incapable of keeping their own territory under control, or worse, profit from the drug trade, the U.S. has no other choice but to act,” Gonzalez added.

Recent reports from the federal government have also identified the vast networks that left-wing governments in the hemisphere have built with drug cartels and Islamic foreign terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.

During an address this week, Hegseth said these are now reasons for the administration to reinstate the doctrine, which has not been invoked since it was first invoked by former President James Monroe in 1823.

“We will defend our hemisphere from external threats to national sovereignty, whether from narco-terrorism or foreign malign actors,” Hegseth said during an address this week.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the latest edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Sami Winc: So, Victor, let’s look at some of these primaries. We already talked a little bit about Francesca Hong, who lost to David Crowley, which was a good thing, but I think it was by a very small margin. And I don’t know the hope for the GOP in that primary, but you’ve suggested it’s not very good. 

And then in Minnesota, we have a governor’s race and a Senate race that are very important. We might take the Senate. Michelle Tafoya.  

Victor Davis Hanson: I like Michelle Tafoya. 

Winc: Yes. 

Hanson: I remember her when she was a network sideline newscaster. Sportscaster. 

Winc: And she apparently has a pretty good chance against a hard-left candidate, Peggy Flanagan, so that will be a very interesting race. 

Hanson: It will. She’s an underdog because it’s Minnesota. This, again, these socialists, the demography of it is the democratic socialists are 85% white and 70% with a degree. And they are focused in Minneapolis, Washington state, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Washington. They like big-city enclaves and urban areas, and they are degreed. 

But they go to these schools, and they run up a couple hundred thousand dollars of debt. And then they rent apartments and they pay $4,000 or $5,000 a month for rent. And they love, as a single, the big-city dating, going to rock concerts, going to cultural parties and getting to know players and shakers and movers, and they’re very glib. 

But given higher education today, and given in particular their degrees in psychology, sociology, public policy, gender studies, race studies, leisure studies, recreation, you name them, they’re poorly educated, but they’ve got a very strong sense of self. In other words, they’re ignorant and arrogant. 

So, then they get in there, and they live there. It’s exciting for a couple years, and they look around and say, “I have a friend who I met at this party. He’s a lawyer, a corporate lawyer. Hey, I know a guy who works on Wall Street. Oh, you know what? I just know a guy and his wife. They’re both doctors at Boston General, and they have beautiful homes. And you know, I’m just like them.” 

No, you’re not. They made choices that you didn’t. 

“But I have $200,000 in debt, and houses are $2 million. This is so unfair. I’m a socialist now.” 

Well, you may be a socialist now, but you would like to be a capitalist, and you can’t be because of the choices that you’ve made. 

And so just this week, I live in a predominantly … Oh, I’ll say the last two or three weeks. I had one person come, and he was an electrician, Mexican American, a master electrician, and he’s very expensive to pay.  

He works on weekends as an independent contractor, and he works with a salary, and electricians are very highly paid, and he’s living in his house. 

I had another guy who was Hispanic, and he was a master gutter maker. I mean, he made the gutters on the house here. He had a machine to do it. And then he was very well paid, and he makes a lot of money. In fact, I won’t tell you his name or anything about him, but he wanted to show me his total income, and I would tell you that the income he made was equivalent to a provost or a dean at the CSU or UC system in Fresno County, of all places. 

And then I don’t even ask the electrician. And then in addition to that, there’s a guy that came out and worked on the pump. I was out there with him, and I was talking to him. 

And my point is, none of them are socialists. None of them are radicals. I would say they were all Trump voters because I talked to them, and my point is they have homes. 

But you know what? They don’t live in San Francisco, and they don’t have any student debt, and they’re not unemployed. They’re turning down jobs. So there is a demand for those types of people who have skills, trade skills, but not a psych major. 

And then I started to be curious because I always knew that the homeownership rate was 62% of the population living in their own homes. So I looked it up. I had to debate Piers Morgan. So I wanted to check my facts after I did, and I was correct. It’s 65%. It’s above 62. 

So when everybody said, “Oh, the socialists are coming because of affordability,” and then I looked up the aggregate inflation rate. Under Donald Trump, the first year of his second term, and so far, it’s about 2.8, 2.9 that we know of. It’ll get higher because of oil. Under Joe Biden, the average was 5.3. 

And that was not … And if you looked at what counted, not paper clips, but car insurance, house insurance, food, gas and diesel, the price of cars, the price of homes, they all went up over 21% over his four years. 

So, this affordability, the Republicans have been really inept at trying to show everybody that we had this huge COVID-19 spike where the government just handed out money. We had all these low interest rates, and it sparked inflation.  

And now they expect Donald Trump to lower that. You’re never going to lower that 20. It’s like a rat in a snake. It’s there. It’s making its way through the economy. 

But my point is that you can’t say that. I was on Piers Morgan, and I tried to be … He said, “Well, affordability, you can see why … ” 

I said, “No, I can’t see why they’re socialists. I see people working all the time across America that aren’t socialists. And they don’t do what these people do. They go out, and they look at the job market, and they say, ‘Do they need sheetrockers? Do they need plumbers? Do they need electricians? Do they need high school’ Whatever it is. And then they say, ‘I want to get married, and I want to have children. Can I do that in New York?’ No. ‘Can I do that in Denver?’ No. ‘Can I do that in San Francisco?’ No. ‘Can I do that in P—'” 

I go to Palo Alto, right? And I have colleagues that work at Stanford, and they tell me they’re hurting because they’re younger and they can’t buy a house. Well, a 1,500-square-foot home is $3 million. Over here in Fresno County, you could probably buy it in Selma for $220,000. They would never live here. 

So, yes, it’s unaffordable if you have these certain demands, you know, that I have to live in this area, and I have to have this type of house, and I have to have this type of job. 

But, you know … Another guy came. He’s looking at my foundation, and he’s very happy. He’s doing very well. But I thought, wow, he has no student debt, and he likes … 

I said, “What do you do every day?” 

“I crawl into crawl spaces.” 

And I said, “Well, I know my crawl space.” 

And he said, “Victor, you have 3 feet of crawl space. You have a lot of ducting, but that’s heaven compared to where I go under.” 

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

Two Nebraska families sued state and local officials Thursday, arguing the state’s K-12 education funding system violates parental rights.

Parents opposed to LGBTQ+ ideology in local public schools have no other cost-free option, the lawsuit argues, alleging “viewpoint discrimination” by the state and an unconstitutional condition on a public benefit.

“Parents have a right to provide education with the speech of their choice,” Christian Clase, litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is representing the families, told the Daily Signal. “This right applies to any parent. It should be up to them the values their children are taught.”

The plaintiffs, Justin Jacobsen and Timothy and Joanna Menter, previously enrolled their children in Lincoln Public Schools and later withdrew them to pursue alternative education aligned with their values. Private high school education can be an expensive alternative, exceeding $100,000 per student, while homeschooling involves the lost income of one parent staying home to teach, they noted.

The complaint says that Lincoln Public Schools promoted “alternative sexuality and transgendered ideologies” in classrooms and libraries, and expected students to use “LGBTQ-affirming pronouns.”

“For example, while the Menter[s’] very young children were in government school, LPS produced a sticker endorsing alternative sexuality and transgendered ideologies. The sticker was prominently displayed on many classroom doors,” the complaint says.

Later, the complaint noted: “One of Mr. Jacobsen’s daughters was told that she must accommodate transgender individuals in the girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. She was encouraged to remove herself from those spaces if she felt uncomfortable sharing them with biological males.”

The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin state and local officials from conditioning benefits on public school enrollment. It doesn’t prescribe a remedy but would leave that to the state Legislature. The state spent an average of $19,038 per pupil in public schools during the 2024-25 academic year, with local funding providing nearly half of the revenue for Lincoln Public Schools.

While most states, including Nebraska, have laws requiring education for students, other states provide options such as vouchers or tax rebates for parents who choose either to homeschool or to send their children to private school, Clase said.

“There are financial pressures that parents in Nebraska face that parents in other states don’t,” Clase said.

“When parents send their children to a government school, the government’s preferred speakers instruct the child using a government’s choice of curricula, standards, codes of conduct, textbooks, lessons, and other applicable resources or rules,” the complaint says. “… The speech in government schools therefore inevitably advances values and ideas preferred by the government. Government schools do not merely teach students how to think; they teach them what to think.”

Besides Joey Spellerberg, the defendants include the City of Lincoln, Lancaster County, Lincoln Public Schools, State Commissioner of Education Brian L. Maher, State Board of Education President Elizabeth Tegtmeier, Attorney General Michael Hilgers, Lancaster County Treasurer Rachel M. Garver, and Lincoln Board of Education President Bob Rauner.

Lincoln Public Schools Director of Communications Mindy Burbach said the school district contacted its counsel and would not have a comment on the lawsuit on Thursday.

The lawsuit, Jacobsen v. Spellerberg, was filed in the District Court of Lancaster County, and is named for Nebraska State Treasurer Joey Spellerberg, who oversees state funding issues.

Spellerberg is named only in his official capacity for overseeing the state’s finances, said Jamie Karl, the treasurer’s chief of staff.

“Treasurer Spellerberg and his staff are committed to faithfully carrying out our statutory and constitutional duties under Nebraska law,” Karl told the Daily Signal.

For years, many of us have argued that so-called “gender-affirming care” for kids (read: sex-rejecting procedures) is neither caring nor affirming. It’s a euphemism for drugs and surgeries that sterilize and harm minors struggling with their sexed bodies. This madness may not have started as a fraudulent money-making scheme. But that’s where it ended up.

Now the federal government agrees and has released the evidence to prove it.

On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report with a perfect title: “Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of ‘Gender Medicine.’” It’s a milestone that follows the major scientific report on pediatric gender quackery published by HHS late last year. For the first time, this crucial federal agency has exposed how hospitals engineered a business model using the bodies of suffering kids.

Fraud and Money

Building on what we already know about the harms of these procedures, the report shows how the money moved. It draws on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidance, Department of Justice investigations, peer-reviewed literature, hospital records, whistleblower testimonies, nationwide insurance claims, and interviews with patients and parents to show how an industry pushed and profited off so-called gender medicine.

The scale is staggering. More than 225 hospitals and health clinics, including many Planned Parenthood affiliates, set up pediatric gender programs across the country. These weren’t fly-by-night clinics on the edge of town. They are mainstream institutions with white coats, official credentials, and polished PR outfits.

The report analyzed claims data from 2015 through 2025 and found roughly $50 million in insurance claims for puberty blockers billed under an endocrine disorder code, E34.9, which means “Endocrine Disorder, Unspecified.” In other words, they categorized what they were doing with a vague label.

Worse, nearly $11 million in claims for kids ages 13 to 17 were billed using a code for precocious puberty. That’s a diagnosis for children whose puberty starts too early. Using it for teenagers looks a lot like a cover.

The medical establishment reportedly created what the HHS report calls “captive patients,” placing vulnerable children on a path toward likely lifelong medical interventions. Once a child starts down this road, there’s often no easy way back.

Finally, Some Accountability

For years, activists both inside and outside of government agencies insisted that “gender-affirming care” was settled science and that anyone who objected was “transphobic.” But there is new leadership in the federal government, and they’re not playing along. Nor are they offering mere platitudes.

Vice President JD Vance, as chairman of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy referred the hospitals and clinics named in the report to the Department of Justice and the HHS Office of Inspector General for possible violations of federal law.

Kennedy put it bluntly. “Doctors and hospitals must put children’s health ahead of ideology and financial gain,” he said, promising that HHS would follow the evidence, protect taxpayers, and hold accountable those who broke the law or violated the trust of families.

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz exposed the coding trick. “When billing practices obscure what care was actually provided, especially when children are involved, we have an obligation to follow the facts,” he said. Exactly right. You don’t consistently disguise a diagnosis, and in the same way, unless you have something to hide.

Human Faces Tell the Story

Numbers tell part of the story and human faces tell the rest—through a short documentary released with the report, hosted by Adm. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for health. In the mini-documentary, Christine interviews young people who were promised healing and were instead handed lifelong harm.

In his role as assistant secretary for health, Christine has been bold about what’s at stake. He’s a distinguished urologist, not a culture warrior. He rejects using “castrating” chemicals, cross-sex hormones, or “mutilating surgeries” to treat gender dysphoria. As he says, youth gender dysphoria is real, but the recent explosion of cases is clear evidence of social contagion. Before the ideology-infused gender social contagion set in, most minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria had their symptoms resolve if allowed to get through puberty.

The best evidence now confirms common sense: The way through such struggles is not puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and the scalpel. These kids needed adults who would tell them the truth and help them wait for the storm to pass.

The Beginning of the End

This report is not the end of the story by any means, but let’s hope it’s the beginning of the end for the gender-medicine-industrial complex. The report recommends that federal and state agencies review coding and billing practices, strengthen oversight of claims submitted to public health programs, and refer suspicious billing for investigation. Those are commonsense steps. They’re also long overdue.

Many of us have argued for years that “gender-affirming care” is a fog of words meant to hide a brutal practice. “Wolves in White Coats” lifts the fog and names the wolves. And it starts the work of holding them to account.

Our children deserve doctors who heal, not predators who profit. This HHS report finally treats pediatric gender medicine as the fraudulent scandal it is.

Flock cameras have been a hot news topic, bringing together those who might not normally be on the same side of a policy debate. Like many issues, though, especially when it comes to cautious allies, the nuances of certain views ought to be further examined.

Who are among those opposing Flock cameras? Abortion activists in Ohio.

Ohio may be a red state, but a 2023 ballot initiative opened the door to unlimited abortion. Not only have abortions gone up, but a significant portion of women receiving abortions last year in Ohio came from out of state. Abortion activists are concerned that Flock cameras could be used against women traveling for an abortion.

On this issue, the Statehouse News Bureau highlighted remarks from Jaime Miracle, deputy director of Abortion Forward.

“The concern is a person who is leaving a state where abortion is illegal and coming to Columbus to get the abortion care they deserve should not be followed into our city by this dragnet surveillance system that we have,” she said.

The concerns mentioned involved Texas, where abortion is restricted under state law. However, interstate travel is not illegal, and the Biden administration’s Department of Justice put out a press release in 2023 arguing that it is a protected right for women to go out of state for an abortion to where it is legal.

Such fearmongering calls to mind a sense of entitlement for the abortion cause, though it’s not the only example.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 with Dobbs v. Jackson, activists were urging women not to track their menstrual cycles using apps, though the use of these apps has actually increased.

A Reddit channel on “feminism” cheered on those who were not forthcoming with medical professionals about their last menstrual period. “Doctors, nurses & basically anyone has no right or need to know when your menstrual cycle is,” claimed one user, despite there being valid health reasons that may have nothing to do with abortion.

There are reasons to oppose Flock cameras. But abortion activists seem to have a habit of making unrelated issues about them and their causes. That doesn’t necessarily mean one should support Flock cameras, but Flock opponents don’t need abortion activists as allies in this fight.

During “The Tony Kinnett Cast” on Monday, host Tony Kinnett addressed general concerns with Flock cameras, referencing strong feelings from both sides.

“They’re mounted on poles and streetlights, and these solar powered cameras capture vehicle details, including license plates, make, model, and color to help law enforcement track stolen cars and investigate crimes,” he said, adding, “I don’t like these at all.”

Although Kinnett said it is good to provide resources to law enforcement, he stressed that he doesn’t like “increasing CCTV [closed-circuit television] coverage for automated car information and tracking.”

Kinnett’s opposition has to do with how COVID-19 was handled and how Flock cameras “do explicitly seem built for the purpose of capturing automotive data and transferring that information to law enforcement.”

He also addressed the argument that non-criminals shouldn’t care.

“The people who were debanked during the COVID-19 era, were they criminals? When the FBI under the Biden administration … classified Catholics as a terrorist threat, those who went to school board meetings as a terrorist threat, could you see the federal law enforcement requesting information from Flock?” Kinnett asked.

“I don’t think that creating a a broader camera-ized surveillance state in that manner is a good method,” he continued, pointing to “better ways” to protect vehicles and property.

On Thursday, Fox Business’ “Varney & Co” spoke with Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley, who announced his company is mandating that law enforcement agencies use features that audit how tracking capabilities are used.

Four months ago, Flock Safety built a tool to automatically flag potentially abusive behavior, which about one-third of customers turned on, something Langley said “is working.”

Langley also shared that data is not saved forever, but for 30 days. Given that over 90% of crimes are solved in seven days using Flock, Langley continued, there are now recommendations for seven-day retention before data is deleted.

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

Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico has a lengthy record from his time in the Texas Legislature, where he voted against several bills addressing bail, criminal penalties, and police funding.

Talarico has served in the Texas Legislature since 2018, first representing House District 52 and then House District 50 since 2023. During his tenure, he has voted against multiple bills addressing crime and public safety.

During the 87th Legislative Session, Talarico voted against House Bill 20, legislation considered during a special session that restricted cashless personal bonds and tightened bail conditions for defendants accused of violent or sexual crimes. He also voted against Senate Bill 6, a major bail-reform bill that placed restrictions on personal bonds and charitable bail organizations.

Talarico also voted against House Joint Resolution 4, which became a constitutional amendment restricting bail for certain sex offenses against children and continuous human trafficking.

Additionally, Talarico voted against House Bill 1900, which financially and operationally penalizes large Texas cities that reduce year-over-year funding for their municipal police departments.

During the 88th Legislative Session, Talarico voted against Senate Bill 4, which increased penalties for human smuggling operations and operating a stash house. He also opposed House Bill 17, which allowed local prosecutors to be removed from office if they adopt policies declining to prosecute certain offenses.

In 2025, Talarico was absent for a vote on Senate Bill 955, which increased punishment for human trafficking offenses.

Alongside his record of opposing multiple crime bills, he did support some measures addressing crime and public safety during his time in the Texas Legislature.

During the 88th Legislative Session, Talarico, along with every other Democrat and Republican state representative, voted in favor of House Bill 28, which enhanced the punishment for certain conduct constituting the criminal offense of aggravated assault. 

He also supported Senate Bill 1401, which expanded the rights of sexual-assault victims and changed procedures and reimbursement related to sexual assault and other sex offenses. The bill received bipartisan support, with most Republicans voting in favor.

During the 89th Legislative Session, Talarico voted in favor Senate Joint Resolution 5, which put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would require the denial of bail under certain circumstances for people accused of certain felony offenses.

However, Talarico kept his streak of opposing the Second Amendment, when he authored House Bill 5025, which would have created a criminal offense for individuals who carry handguns on the premises of a public library. The bill did not advance out of the House Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

In addition to his voting record, in 2020, Talarico’s campaign committee donated $2,500 to the Austin Justice Coalition in 2020. The donation was made during Talarico’s 2020 Texas House campaign, according to The Texan.

The Austin Justice Coalition is an advocacy group that pushed for cuts to the Austin Police Department’s budget following the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Talarico’s voting record has also drawn scrutiny in other areas, including his record on the Second Amendment, his positions on border security, and his record on tax legislation.

Madison Cercy, a spokesperson for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s campaign, told the Daily Signal that Talarico has the “most consistently anti-law enforcement record in the Texas Legislature.”

“If it were up to Talarico, we would hand our communities over to the radicals who fought to defund our police and let criminals out of prison in pursuit of his socialist agenda,” Cercy said.

Election Day is Nov. 3, 2026.

Talarico’s campaign did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment by the time of publication.

In a historic $10 million settlement, Texas Children’s Hospital agreed to open the nation’s first-ever detransition clinic by October and fire five physicians after the hospital allegedly funded gender-transition procedures using Texas Medicaid.

Vanessa Sivadge, the whistleblower who sounded the alarm in May 2023, explained that working as a nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital was a dream come true.

“I thought I had peaked in my career,” Sivadge said during an appearance before grassroots leaders at Heritage Action’s Southwest Sentinel Summit in Phoenix this month.

“I thought this was going to be my dream job where I would be for the rest of my life,” she said.

Sivadge recalled watching Texas Children’s Hospital “sell a lie” to struggling children and make them “a slave to the pharmaceutical industry for life” through permanent gender-transition procedures.

“They were promised that on the other side of medical transition, that they would find fulfillment and happiness and peace,” Sivadge said. “That is the lie of the gender medicine industry. It convinces and exploits children to believe that they were born into the wrong body, that they are not fearfully and wonderfully made, and that their confusion will resolve on the other side of a drug or a surgery.”

Sivadge told the crowd of grassroots leaders that this spiritual attack on God’s design of “male and female” eventually forced her to expose the “darkness.”

“So, with a lot of fear and with a lot of tears and a lot of uncertainty, I called a journalist in May of 2023,” Sivadge said. “That is when, anonymously, I blew the whistle against the secret transgender medicine program that Texas Children’s Hospital was conducting.”

While she thought no one knew her identity, Sivadge was shocked when two agents from the Biden-Harris Federal Bureau of Investigation knocked on the front door of her home. Sivadge explained that the FBI agents proceeded to intimidate and threaten her to remain silent about the alleged Medicaid fraud.

Yet what she characterized as a scare tactic had the opposite of its intended effect.

“I often say now that if the FBI hadn’t come to our home and hadn’t threatened my career, my safety, I don’t think that I would have been as emboldened as I was to do what happened next,” Sivadge said.

Sivadge came forward publicly in June 2024 after seeing three ways the hospital was allegedly committing fraud: failing to list the biological sex on claims; using false diagnoses to receive reimbursements; and filing for Medicaid when Texas clearly forbids taxpayer-funded gender procedures.

Texas Children’s Hospital fired Sivadge two months later, and the nurse was unable to find other employment after the hospital began making public statements. Sivadge finally found an ally in President Donald Trump when he assumed office in 2025. One week after she testified in a congressional hearing on ending lawfare toward whistleblowers who protect children, the Department of Health and Human Services launched a formal investigation.

“The most important and the most profound action that was taken was that they opened a whistleblower tip line for the first time ever, where they invited the public to submit tips on this publicly accessible tip line under HHS,” Sivadge said.

She believes the new detransition clinic will provide hope to those who are victims of gender procedures.

“This will be the first clinic of its kind where not just victims from Texas, but victims from America, victims from all over the world will be able to come and get free mental and medical care for the first five years,” Sivadge said.

Sivadge is now the president of Protecting Texas Children, an organization she founded to advocate for Texas children to “fulfill their God-given potential.” She continues to speak up on the realities of “radical gender ideologies” and encourages others to advocate for the rights of children.

“My advocacy has just changed addresses,” Sivadge said. “Before it was in the hospital, and now it’s in the capital.”

“Each one of you has an opportunity to expose darkness and to embrace what is right and good and beautiful and true,” Sivadge said. “And so, that would be my encouragement to each of you, is to choose courage.”

Virginia’s economy thrives on imports and exports. In June, imports touched $5.4 billion, up $2.5 billion year over year.

The commonwealth recently wrapped up the $1.4 billion Gateway Investment Program to deliver better port services. As a result, Norfolk Harbor offers channels on the U.S. East Coast that are among the deepest and widest, allowing safe, two-way traffic for fully loaded ultra-large container vessels.

In addition, the Virginia Port Authority operates an inland port near Front Royal, which is connected by rail to the harbor and provides swift access to importers and exporters. The facility is such a success that state lawmakers are considering a second such facility in Washington County.

However, not all imports are high value. While plenty of iPhones and automobiles flowed into Virginia last year, so did tons of trash.

According to the state Department of Environmental Quality, solid waste management facilities received 22,961,793 tons of solid waste in 2024.

“Of this total, 17,413,532.06 tons originated in the Commonwealth and 5,548,261.26 tons originated from other jurisdictions. The total amount of solid waste received increased by 1.46%, or 331,139.09 tons, compared to 2023,” the department stated in its most recent solid waste report.

Municipal solid waste made up more than 15 million tons of the total garbage disposed of in 2024. Of that amount, 10.8 million tons originated in Virginia and 4.2 million tons originated from other states. Of trash imported from elsewhere, Maryland accounted for 44.83%, New York originated 18.38%, Washington, D.C., contributed 12.52%, and New Jersey and North Carolina accounted for 12.22% and 6.76%, respectively.

None of the trash disposed of in 2024 went to the Shoosmith landfill in Chesterfield. That facility closed in 2022 but remains a major source of pollution. Last year, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality warned that the shuttered landfill was pouring out almost 400,000 gallons per week of leachate, the polluted liquid that occurs when rainwater flows through a landfill. The Chesterfield Department of Utilities found that the landfill had been discharging its leachate, untreated, directly into the county wastewater system from 2019 until 2023.

“In 2024, Chesterfield revoked a permit for Shoosmith landfill, and the operators subsequently stopped pumping any leachate into the county wastewater system,” the county’s Natalie Spillman told the Board of Supervisors in May. “Instead, they began hauling leachate by truck to an off-site location for disposal.”

In June, state lawmakers budgeted $10.6 million toward cleaning up the landfill. That is enough “to prevent it from becoming a catastrophe,” Republican state Sen. Glen Sturtevant told the Virginia Mercury, but not nearly enough to fix the problems. A full cleanup could cost $173 million. As a stopgap solution, the James River Association estimated it could cost $50 million to locate an on-site leachate treatment facility that would slow the flow of the liquid into area waterways, including the James River.

Meanwhile, the attorney general’s office is investigating whether the landfill’s owners violated state law by failing to financially provide for the landfill’s decommissioning. The owners “pocketed millions of dollars,” lawyers for the state said in court papers filed last month, “rather than investing in the necessary infrastructure and remediation efforts that were required to comply with applicable law.”

The state’s next trash report, covering the year 2025, is due to the governor and General Assembly on Oct. 1.

Democrats will vote this weekend on a resolution to ban ranked choice voting, in a proxy battle between the establishment wing of the party and the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America.

On Saturday, delegates attending the Democratic National Committee’s Summer Meeting in Austin, Texas, will vote on a resolution to ban ranked choice voting in presidential primary contests. The DSA favors the policy.

“Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate,” the national organization’s program says.

The DSA first included ranked choice voting in its 2021 platform, noting it “has been adopted by several countries, most notably Ireland, where it has allowed left-wing parties like Sinn Féin and People Before Profit to secure parliamentary representation.” Domestically, the group added, states and municipalities used it to provide “such an opportunity for proportional political and ideological representation.”

Under ranked choice voting, voters rank their first, second, and third choices of candidates. If no candidate gets 50% or more of the vote, another round of counting commences in which the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated. Rounds continue until one candidate reaches a majority. This is also known as the “instant runoff.”

“Clearly this is a setback for the DSA because they embraced ranked choice voting,” Trent England, executive director of Save Our States, told the Daily Signal of the Democratic National Committee’s vote. His group opposes the policy.

“RCV was a way for them to flex their muscle, even if they were in a race where their candidate had no chance to win, their candidate could possibly win first or second place in the first round of voting. It’s really about their messaging,” England said of the DSA.

Prominent DSA-backed candidates have won elections featuring the system. DSA member Zohran Mamdani won a ranked choice voting Democrat primary before his election as New York City mayor in 2025. This year, DSA-aligned candidate Janeese Lewis George won the Democrat mayoral primary for the District of Columbia, which also featured the system.

Neither the DSA nor the DNC responded to inquiries for this story.

Jim Roosevelt, the co-chairman of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, told WABI of Maine that ranked choice voting “is incompatible with the party’s delegate allocation process at this time, since RCV is a winner-take-all system while the DNC uses proportional delegate allocation.”

The DNC action is coming three years after the Republican National Committee approved a 2023 resolution in opposition to ranked choice voting. The party affirmed that for the 2024 primary season, if a state uses ranked choice voting, the RNC would count only the first round of votes.

It’s significant that both parties are on the cusp of opposing the system, England said.

“People deciding this, the rules and bylaws committee, are people that understand an efficient nominating process, not focused on posturing and messaging,” England said.

Alaska and Maine are the only states that use ranked choice voting, while 15 cities and counties use it for local elections, according to FairVote, an organization that advocates for the system.

In 2020, the last competitive Democrat presidential primary, five states—Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, and Wyoming—used ranked choice voting to pick a nominee, according to FairVote.

“Ranked choice voting works well for presidential primaries, given their crowded and constantly changing candidate fields,” FairVote spokesman Will Mantell told the Daily Signal.

Voters in several states, both red and blue, rejected the system in 2024. Missouri, a red state, voted to ban its implementation statewide, while red Idaho rejected it. Meanwhile, voters in blue and battleground states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon also rejected proposals to adopt ranked choice voting. Voters in Alaska, a red state, opted to keep it.

“A lot of this likely has to do with how poorly ranked choice voting did on the 2024 ballot,” England said. “A lot of Democrats voted against RCV. The DNC donor base is not on board, and DNC realizes this is not the wave of the future.”

A newly uncovered document from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation shows that Dallas Fort Worth International Airport will install dedicated Muslim ablution stations at a cost of $300,000.

The project includes two stations in Terminal D.

“[The] project consists of adding Ablution stations to existing concourse level restrooms in Terminal D, one Men’s ablution station in existing men’s restroom and one Women’s ablution station in the existing women’s restroom,” the document states.

Wudu, or ablution, is an Islamic ritual of purification performed before daily prayers. Wudu stations are specialized plumbing fixtures that feature low-level basins for washing the feet and seating that allows individuals to comfortably wash their hands, face, and arms.

According to the project document, the installation costs $300,000 and is privately funded. The document also shows that the accommodation was registered with Texas regulators on July 31 and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2026.

After the project gained national attention, Republican U.S. Rep. Keith Self, writing on X, said it was only the beginning of a broader effort.

“Islamic foot-washing stations are coming soon to DFW. This isn’t accommodation, it’s conquest. And it’s only the beginning,” Self wrote.

“The Sharia takeover happening right before our eyes must be stopped!” he added.

Republican U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill also criticized the installation on X, suggesting an irony between airports accommodating Muslims in 2026 and the airline terrorist attacks of 9/11.

DFW Airport is not the only Texas airport to provide facilities for Islamic religious practices. Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport has also installed a Sharia-compliant Islamic prayer complex in Terminal D of its airport.

The RAIR Foundation reported back in July 2025 that the space was “fully equipped with Islamic prayer-specific amenities, including Qurans, prayer rugs, prayer beads, and a turbah (a clay tablet used in prostration),” characterizing the complex as “a dedicated Islamic worship center embedded inside a major American airport.”

Last year, Pastor Tom Ascol said he encountered a group of Muslims using the airport chapel while he was waiting for a flight. According to Ascol, an airport announcement invited travelers to a “prayer service” in the chapel. When he arrived at the chapel, he found a group of Muslims had taken over the space with their prayer rugs and Ascol was denied entry.

Ascol told Amy Mek, the founder and editor-in-chief of the RAIR Foundation, that he was physically blocked from entering an inner room of the chapel.

“They blocked my way in the inner room,” Ascol told Mek. “A man who had offered a loud prayer, not the imam, said I could come in if I took my shoes off. I refused. He would not let me walk in. I did not want to create a scene, so I left. Muslim prayer rugs lined the floors.”

Another woman, Kira Davis, posted on X about her experience at DFW Airport, and she filmed what appeared to be a compass on the ceiling of the chapel, which she said will “tell you how to get to Mecca.” 

Davis said that when she entered the chapel, she said Bibles were present but stored in cabinets. By contrast, she said that there were about 100 prayer rugs available in the room.

Davis also said she remained in the chapel for two hours and that several Muslim men entered to pray during that time.

Following the reports about the DFW Airport, Republican Texas state Sen. Tan Parker announced that he is investigating the airport and the decision-making process behind the project.

“I want to be direct with the Board. I object to how this decision was made. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is a public asset, owned by two Texas cities and governed by a board that answers to them,” Parker’s letter states. “Permanent modifications to that asset—regardless of who pays for them—ought to be made under a published standard, applied evenhandedly, through a process the public can see. On the record available to me, none of that appears to have occurred here.

“A project of obvious public interest was routed through what appears to be an administrative approval, with an undisclosed private funder, and the people of North Texas learned of it from a permit filing. That is a failure of process, and it is one this Board can correct. It appears that DFW appears to be setting precedent about who may pay to alter a public facility without first having written a rule that would govern the next request, and the one after that. 

“Good governance requires the rule to come first,” Parker added.

The DFW Airport did not return the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

REUTERS—Luigi Mangione admitted in court on Friday to fatally shooting a health insurance executive and pleaded guilty to two federal charges of stalking the executive with the intent to kill him.

The guilty plea will avert a federal trial in the closely watched case over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. It could also allow him to seek dismissal of state murder charges and delay an upcoming trial in that case. 

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett told Mangione that if he pleaded guilty he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison on each count. Garnett set Mangione’s sentencing for Dec. 18.

Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said there was no plea agreement with prosecutors. 

Thompson led UnitedHealth Group’s insurance unit before he was shot dead in the early morning of Dec. 4, 2024, outside the hotel where an investor conference was taking place. Thompson’s widow sat in the front row of the gallery with other members of his family.

Mangione, 28, said in court that he researched details of UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference in December 2024 after suffering a broken back and navigating the health insurance system. He said he then used a 3-D printer to make part of a gun and traveled to New York with the intent of killing Thompson. 

“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said. 

No Possibility of Death Penalty

Graphic footage of the killing and a five-day manhunt for a suspect made the case a media fixture and social media sensation. Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania.

He had previously pleaded not guilty in April 2025 to murder, weapons, and stalking charges brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors.

Garnett threw out the murder and weapons charges over legal technicalities in a surprise ruling in January 2026. The decision eliminated the possibility that Mangione would face the death penalty in the federal case, though he still faces a possible sentence of life without parole if convicted on the remaining stalking charges.

His federal trial was most recently set for January.

Mangione separately pleaded not guilty in December 2024 to state terrorism, murder, weapons and forgery charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The terrorism charges were thrown out by a judge in September 2025. 

A trial in that case is scheduled for Sept. 8 before Justice Gregory Carro in Manhattan. Mangione would face 25 years to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. 

The guilty plea in the federal case could allow Mangione to seek dismissal of the murder charge under New York’s double jeopardy law, which protects people from being prosecuted twice for the same conduct. Bragg’s office would oppose the move, arguing that the murder charge is legally distinct from the federal charges. 

Whoever loses would likely seek an emergency appeal. 

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Mark Porter)

America’s private fortunes are the economic engines that built the most prosperous economy in world history, and they are giving themselves away.

Since her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott has handed out $26 billion—much of it to racial equity, DEI, and “social justice” causes. Warren Buffett has pledged 99% of his roughly $170 billion. Bill Gates has given away more than $100 billion and vows to spend his foundation to zero by 2045. George Soros has poured $32 billion into his Open Society Foundations. Different fortunes, different causes—but the same destination, and the same motivating logic: The tax code has made nongovernmental organizations the most rational place for private fortunes to end up.

This is no accident; it’s inherent to the structure of how the tax code treats capital. The income tax hits the nominal value of a capital gain at rates of up to 23.8%, creating a powerful disincentive against selling. It is easier for founders of companies to borrow against shares rather than sell, incur massive tax bills, and dilute their ownership interest. If the appreciated asset is held until death, it will pass tax-free to the decedent’s heirs. 

The market value of assets held at death goes into the computation of the decedent’s estate. If the decedent is married, assets pass tax-free to the surviving spouse. When the surviving spouse dies, the estate tax kicks in. The estate tax is due almost immediately and payable in cash.

Although technically progressive, practically speaking the modern American estate tax is either 0% or 40%—the latter being a punitive rate that incentivizes endowing a charitable foundation. Charitable giving counts as a deduction against the estate tax. For builders of successful companies with vast appreciated wealth, the rational course is never to sell, but hold until death, and donate appreciated assets to a nonprofit foundation or NGO.

The Incentives All Point One Way

Despite the toll that it can take on family fortunes, the estate tax captures few families and contributes little to federal tax revenue. It falls on roughly 0.07% of estates—down from more than 7% in the mid-1970s—and raises less than 1% of federal revenue. Why? Because the wealthiest are forced to route around it. The rates are extractive, and there’s nowhere near sufficient liquidity to pay a tax bill potentially in the billions without selling assets at fire-sale prices.

A study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School confirms the thesis; tax revenue is falling, and avoidance is part of the reason why. The tax does not gather deferred income tax revenue from America’s largest estates so much as dismantle them out of the taxable and wealth-creating private economy and into tax-exempt—and today often progressive—foundations.

Even the 1900s-era goal of preventing the rise of dynasty wealth and the “idle rich” is arguably unmet by the current structure. It is often families’ direct heirs who become the well-compensated managers of foundations directing the use of vast resources, as with Alexander Soros and the Open Society Foundations.

The NGO sector is vast. America’s tax-exempt economy today composes roughly 15% of gross domestic product—an economy the size of California and up from perhaps 4% of GDP in 1970. It holds more than $8 trillion in assets.

Foundations alone number over 100,000, and their growth has outpaced the broader economy for decades. A newer vehicle, the donor-advised fund, now holds more than $300 billion that can sit untouched indefinitely: The donor takes the deduction and sheds the capital gains tax at once. Every year, these breaks cost the Treasury tens of billions more, meaning that it is effectively subsidizing their growth. And before conservatives rejoice, the beast isn’t being starved; the private economy is.

Much of the private foundation money is used for genuinely charitable purposes like providing essential support for the needy, church and religious giving, or generating innovative knowledge. But much of the sector—health care, hospitals, universities—is increasingly ideological.

The largest foundations lean increasingly one way, and they have become the financial backbone of the professional progressive movement. The Ford Foundation renamed its Manhattan headquarters the “Center for Social Justice.” Soros’ Open Society—which The New York Times called “a sprawling political empire” advancing a liberal agenda—bankrolls progressive prosecutors and activist networks. Scott’s billions pour into DEI and racial equity groups. The Gates Foundation runs a diversity office.

Indeed, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has drifted in the last decade beyond fighting malaria in sub-Saharan Africa to becoming one of the largest financial supporters of funds controlled by far-left-linked Arabella Advisors group. As left-leaning publication The Nation concedes, most explicitly progressive nonprofits survive on institutional philanthropy.

A striking share of the machinery of DEI and “social justice” is billionaire foundation money.

There is an old warning here. In 1977, Henry Ford II resigned from the board of the foundation his family had built, complaining that its staff had come to disdain the capitalist system that produced its wealth. By the quiet operation of the tax code, fortunes built through American free enterprise are steadily converted into endowments that fund America’s sharpest critics.

Unnoticed Consequences

Today many Americans argue over whether to tax the rich more as though we could make them write checks to the Treasury with proceeds from checking accounts. This drastically misrepresents the situation.

A code that taxes phantom gains on sale, ignores the liquidity problems inherent in trying to tax founders whose fortunes are largely in company stock, but then forgives debts entirely at death if disposed of “correctly” does not redistribute great fortunes as progressives want or leave them in the productive economy that built them. It channels them into a permanent, tax-advantaged endowment for the often progressive activist nonprofit sector, accountable to almost no one.

Any honest reform of how we tax wealth must reckon with the escape hatch that turns private fortunes into progressive political power. Wealth taxes ultimately fail in their stated goals–generating meaningful and ongoing government revenue–but succeed in funneling vast sums around the tax.

An overhaul of how we tax investments, savings, and assets is necessary to reduce inefficiencies in the tax code, reduce the public debt, promote innovation, and protect and reward truly charitable giving.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the latest edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Jack Fowler: I think we should leave [Dr. Anthony] Fauci. The news stories that have come out the last few days of some of his text messages and phone records.  

And only 11, I think only 11 messages have been released by Rand Paul and Ron Johnson. They’re very troubling about the Moderna vaccine for pregnant women. This seems like a big stinking lie there.  

But I’m sure more information will come out in the next day or two, and I would hope that you, Victor, and the great Sami Winc would take that on as more information comes out. 

Jay Bhattacharya is just one of the greatest guys, as you know, and he is running the National Institutes of Health. And he went on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, and Margaret Brennan, who is the host of the show, tried to essentially make him a stand-in for the right wing responsible for a murder that happened a year ago. 

And he’s such a good man. His studies early on about what COVID was really happening, of course, were rejected. And he was vilified by Fauci, as you know, and many people at Stanford, actually. 

But anyway, what’s your thought, Victor, of that performance, more so on Margaret Brennan and the media and—

Victor Davis Hanson: She’s not very bright. I think JD Vance, that was another one of her victims that he eviscerated. You know what I mean, when she was a moderator. It was either him or [President Donald] Trump. She’s pathetic. And the idea that, of all the people who work in the Trump administration, there’s not a more magnanimous, kinder person than Jay.  

He’s soft-spoken. He’s polite. He’s very principled. And his crime was, very early on, along with [Martin] Kulldorff and Dr. [Sunetra] Gupta from Oxford, they just said, as Scott Atlas was doing from the inside, they were doing from the outside, the Great Barrington Declaration. 

And all he was trying to say, and Margaret Brennan did not want to bring that up or defend the opposite Fauci view, is three or four things. The vaccinations may have initial value for people who are immunocompromised or are elderly, but they do not stop being infectious or being infected, and we should keep that in mind in a cost-benefit analysis. 

And keeping all of these children out of school for two years will ruin the education system and have lasting damage to it and to the students. 

Three, we’re gonna destroy a lot of small businesses, entrepreneurial families. We’re gonna increase child abuse cooped up in apartments, spousal abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse. 

There’s going to be … We have told the American people they need to get a breast exam every four years, a PSA every year, a colonoscopy. These are not gonna take place, and people are gonna die at a higher rate from cancer and heart problems because of this, and they laid it all out. 

And Fauci called them The Three Stooges. That was what he said. These are The Three Stooges. 

And then he tried to vilify them because he knew in his dark heart that he had transferred money to break U.S. law that said no gain-of-function research was allowed in the United States. I should say to skirt it by surreptitiously funding it in China on the stupid idea that they would share the results with Fauci. And then a whole league of co-conspirator scientists were either going and visiting there or giving them instrumentation or expertise remotely. 

And so, he had helped birth this monster, and yet a lot of his efforts were to suppress it. 

You know, [Robert] Redfield, the head of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], is on TV now almost every day, and he’s basically … And he’s no left-winger. I mean, he’s basically saying no one was closer to Anthony Fauci. 

And they say, “Well, what happened?” 

He said, “Well, he had some involvement with gain-of-function research, and he was wedded to the idea that he would say and do anything to get people vaccinated, and that caused calamity and death.” 

He said that, essentially. 

You know, Jay was treated terribly by Stanford University, and it was kind of strange that at the time this thing broke out, you could argue that the three most prominent scientists, doctors, medical public health experts in the entire United States were right at Stanford University. 

There was Jay Bhattacharya, whose publication record was sterling. I’ll enlarge that. I’ll say four. 

And he was issuing warnings not to shut down the economy. 

Then there was Scott Atlas, who was writing the same thing, but in greater scientific depth in some cases, and talking about it from a public policy point of view. 

And they were both talking about natural immunity. And they never said, “Don’t take the vaccinations.” They said, “You make that choice, not a mandated government choice, based on the information that you must have, that we have, in a cost-benefit analysis.” 

And then there was John Ioannidis, and he was the one that broke wide open the Theranos scam that you could get a drop of blood and suddenly test for, like, 17, 20, 50 maladies. That whole $8 billion fiasco, which a lot of my colleagues were on the board of, unfortunately. 

And he did that. And he wrote from the very beginning that this is more like the flu than Ebola, basically. 

And then there was Michael Levitt, I think that’s his first name, and he was a Nobel Prize-winning biologist. And he looked at the data, and he said very early on, “This has to be lab-orientated.” 

And then there was the former Stanford professor. Now, I think he’ll probably, I think, I don’t know if it’s announced, but Redfield said it the other day, so I don’t feel reluctant to say it, that he’s gonna be Fauci’s replacement. We’ve had him on the show. 

And he said from the very beginning, based on the scientific examination of the genomes and everything, that this could not be naturally created in the wilderness, so to speak. It had to be concocted. 

Those four people, especially the first three— 

Fowler: Steven Quay, by the way. You didn’t mention his name. So, Steven Quay. 

Hanson: Yeah, Steven Quay, a former Stanford professor, and he had created gadolinium, the dye in the MRI, while he was a professor and researcher. 

But the thing I’m getting at is, you had right on the campus Bhattacharya, Atlas, Ioannidis, right there, three of them. And they were at the forefront of the opposition to Fauci. 

And they were very different. Sometimes Scott was a lot more outspoken. Jay was more soft-spoken. They were very complementary. They got along wonderfully. 

But what was the reaction of the university to all of them? 

They went after Scott because he was courageous and actually joined the Trump administration as their COVID czar and fought relentlessly with [Deborah] Birx and Fauci. And they censored him. 

And then, when they found the evidence, they were so embarrassed that when there was a motion to rescind the censure, they wouldn’t do it, the faculty. They hated him so much. 

And Jay, they ostracized, ostracized. 

I was at a meeting once when he was discussed, and I won’t discuss what happened, but it was the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. 

And Ioannidis, he had been Stanford’s prize catch, came from Greece. He was one of the best immunologists, public policy people, and epidemiologists there was, and all of a sudden they were saying that he was second-rate. 

And they’ve never apologized to them. 

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

REUTERS—President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to continue construction of his $400 million White House ballroom after an appeals court ruled the project lacked the necessary approval from Congress.

The Trump administration asked the justices to keep the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on hold while it prepares a full appeal to the Supreme Court.

Justice Department lawyers, in their filing, echoed Trump’s contention that the ballroom project is a security necessity. Citing numerous assassination attempts against Trump, lawyers described the project as “vitally required by national security.”    

“This case involves an extraordinary and unlawful injunction that will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security,” they wrote.

The D.C. Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling on Aug. 7, upheld a lower-court judge’s order directing the administration to halt above-ground construction.

“Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,” the panel wrote. 

The appeals court had paused its order from taking effect for 14 days to allow the Trump administration to challenge it at the Supreme Court.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation brought the case last year after the administration tore down the East Wing and began building a 90,000-square-foot ballroom without seeking authorization from Congress.

The National Trust did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has said the ballroom project is a security necessity, and referred to the structure as a “military center” in a post on Truth Social earlier this month. He called the D.C. Circuit’s decision “horrendous” and politically motivated and said it left him, other White House officials, and visitors exposed to attack.

“This unjust decision must be overturned by the Supreme Court in its entirety,” Trump wrote. He said the ballroom plan includes bomb shelters, medical facilities, shielding from drones and missiles and other security features that are “all tied together as one big, expensive, and very complex unit.”

The D.C. Circuit’s opinion said national security arguments “are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card.”

The appeals court’s order did not permanently bar construction of a ballroom, but blocked above-ground efforts until the administration secures approval from Congress.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella, with additional reporting by John Kruzel and Andrew Chung; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, David Bario, Rod Nickel)

Daily Signal journalism fellow Pedro Boccalato Rodriguez-Aparicio and Manhattan Institute fellow Daniel Di Martino drew on their own experiences under Venezuela’s communist regime to expose the intentions behind the new push for “democratic socialism” in the United States.

In a special Daily Signal podcast, the fellows explained how socialism and communism are the same, despite the Left claiming there is a distinction between the two, while exposing the true intention behind the Marxist movement, which is to have full control over all aspects of life, such as property, faith, family, education, the economy, and government.

“It’s all about control,” Rodriguez said, and “when voters realize they made a mistake, the government makes sure that it’s too late to turn back.”

During the course of the conversation, Di Martino argued that America’s foreign adversaries support the rise of socialism because it offers a way to “destroy America from within,” undermining the Constitution and the anti-Marxist principles that have helped the nation thrive for 250 years.

Family

Since the early 1900s, communists have argued that in order to create more workers, the “state” will have to “replace the family,” making the destruction of the nuclear family essential for a Marxist society to prevail.

The two fellows argued that these tactics, used by overreaching governments to decentralize a child’s identity to facilitate the state ownership over the child, are gradually being deployed throughout the United States. These include such acts as laws restricting the abilities of parents over their kids’ education, exposing children to transgender ideologies, and making it unlawful for a school to reveal the students’ desire for a gender transition,

Other, more extreme tactics that ultimately erode the shared identity between the child and his or her parents, such as forcefully separating the child from their parents, are commonly deployed by Marxist regimes.

“When I tried to leave Venezuela, they let my parents go because they were not Venezuelan nationals and were over the age of 18, and tried to hold me captive,” Rodriguez said. “Why? Because, since I was a kid, I was considered property of the state.”

Di Martino expanded on the remarks, adding that a Marxist government attempts to divide parents from each other as much as they do with their children.

The Manhattan Institute fellow cited a tactic used by the Soviet Union, where they mixed married couples in the same housing unit for long periods of time, essentially encouraging them to become disloyal to each other.

“This was purposeful. They [state] had the goal of destroying married couples,” Di Martino said. “It’s really sick, sick behavior.”

Faith

In order for Marxists to continue exerting control over a naive population, governments have historically taken the place of the God, in order to decentralize the population, the two argued.

Di Martino provided the example that under Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship of Hugo Chávez in the early 2000s, the Marxist dictator began placing his face in Catholic rosaries given out to the public en masse.

“They [Marxists] have certainly used faith to their advantage, he wanted people to pray to him,” Di Martino continued, before adding that one of the reasons Marxist leaders want to idolize themselves is because of their lack of faith, suggesting that they place themselves above God.

“There are no self-proclaimed democratic socialists who are Christian. Find me a churchgoing Christian leader who is a socialist,” he said. “That is not a coincidence.”

Economy

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to seize private property through rent control and tax increases dominated the conversation.

Regarding the mayor’s implementation of rent control and increases in property taxes, which they said pushed the city’s average rent to more than $6,600, both fellows agreed that this is a plan of Mamdani’s to push homes into bankruptcy. Once a property is forced into bankruptcy, they argued, the government swoops in and acquires it.

Di Martino, who commutes into Manhattan every day for work, believes the properties would then be distributed to nonprofit organizations “run by his friends” and converted into public housing.

The Cuban communist regime previously executed this strategy, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who fled Cuba, recently claimed.

Di Martino referenced Mamdani’s release of the personal information of wealthy figures “he resents,” such as Scott Galloway and Ken Griffin, arguing that the individuals are now being “doxed” after the mayor released their and their families’ personal information.

The two noted that Venezuela’s Marxist regime deployed a similar tactic in order to drive out capitalist companies from the country.

Government

The claim from Marxists that they will not rig elections, eliminate checks and balances, or stack the deck in their favor if elected to power is a myth, the two argued.

In 2013, Venezuela held presidential elections for the first time since Nicolás Maduro assumed power when his predecessor, Chávez, died of cancer. Maduro claimed victory after winning by less than 2% of the vote. However, many international organizations and world leaders alike claimed the system was rigged in his favor.

However, this did not stop American Marxists like Mamdani from praising the 2013 Venezuelan electoral system.

Recently, left-wing streamer Hasan Piker asserted that if candidates he endorsed are elected to office, conservatives will never be able to regain power.

“Was that a threat?” Di Martino asked of Piker’s comments.

The two then discussed the socialist talking points commonly chanted in American cities, like abolishing the Senate and packing the Supreme Court, which Maduro publicly did before and after he rose to power.

“They want a one-voice system,” Rodriguez said, adding that this in an example of Marxists wanting to eliminate checks and balances in order to facilitate their pursuit of power.

A suspect is in custody for allegedly vandalizing the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Friday.

Melissa L. Farris faces two felony charges of depredation against property of the United States and destruction of veterans’ memorials, carrying penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro stated in a post on X.

The memorial was found vandalized on Thursday, with a fountain bubbling over with suds and “Clean hands Dirty $” painted on one surface, according to Reuters.

President Donald Trump on Friday morning threatened action against the vandals.

“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals,” Trump wrote Friday in a Truth Social post. “THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II. First the Reflecting Pool, now this.”

“We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???” the president stated.

Dedicated in 2004, the memorial features 56 granite pillars around the edge of an elliptical plaza on the National Mall as a monument to the 400,000 Americans who died and the 16 million who served in the armed forces during the conflict, according to the National Park Service.

“The vandalism that occurred is an utter disgrace and will not be tolerated,” the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement. “Our U.S. Park Police are on the scene and the investigation is ongoing. The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act.”

The Friends of the National WWII Memorial, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the memorial, called the vandalism “unacceptable,” saying the memorial was a “sacred place of remembrance.”

“There are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism,” the group said in a statement.

Reuters contributed to this report.

In an open letter to Democrat Jon Ossoff published on Wednesday, Michael Morris of the Atlanta Jewish Times accused the U.S. senator of lying about his stance toward Israel, especially when it comes to his voting record.

In one example, Morris calls out the senator for voting against U.S. military aid to Israel.

“When a bill offers Israel tangible strategic support—munitions, rifles, bombs, military and financial assistance—your record is abysmal, and you throw Israel under the bus,” he wrote.

Morris then accuses Ossoff of pretending to support Israel in “rhetorical” actions, not meaningful ones.

“When a rhetorical bill reaches the floor—condemning Hamas after Oct. 7 or affirming Israel’s right to defend itself—you vote with heartfelt sympathy for Israel.”

He said Ossoff supports Israel only when convenient, including for “nonbinding rhetorical measures,” such as Israel’s right to protect itself, or in denouncing Hamas.

U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, who is running against Ossoff in the November election, told the Daily Signal that Ossoff is “a sellout who is too afraid to stand up for what’s right when his next political promotion is on the line.”

“He must answer for why he has sided with the pro-Hamas, anti-America faction that’s sweeping his party and wants to obliterate our borders, cut off our allies, and open our jails,” he continued.

“Ossoff has voted against Israel’s right to defend itself at every opportunity,” Collins concluded.

The accusation of being anti-Israel comes at a pivotal time in Ossoff’s career. The open letter is just the most recent sign of frustration among leading Jewish voices across the state, Jewish Insider reports.

In an email exchange with the Daily Signal, Morris further voiced frustration with the senator from Georgia.

“I believe he is making his vote political—either attempting to be part of the anti-Trump group, or jumping on the bandwagon of Netanyahu bashing, or wanting to send a signal to Israel, or wanting to send a signal to the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] faction,” Morris said.

Elsewhere in his open letter, Morris wrote, “[You] backed some of Senator [Bernie] Sanders’ resolutions to cut off Israel’s weapons in late 2024, again in July 2025, and on April 15, 2026, you went furthest yet—voting to block every sale on the floor. Your vote continues to demonstrate a lack of support for the Jewish state.”

Morris concluded by urging the senator to stand with the nation of Israel.

Speaking again to the Daily Signal, Morris said, “What he is totally missing is that his non-support of Israel is threatening a staunch ally, and we should never make political decisions that can cause our allies harm.”

The Ossoff campaign did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Gavin Newsom is nearing the end of his time as California governor, but as speculation continues over a potential 2028 presidential run, the longtime politician is describing himself as an “established insurgent.”

Newsom made the comment during a weekend trip to Michigan, where he spoke with reporters about the direction of the Democratic Party.

When asked about concerns that Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed represents a shift too far to the left, Newsom pushed back, pointing instead to voters’ “desire for change.”

“I’ve long felt like I’ve been an established insurgent. I’ve always had that mindset. I’ve been in elected office a long time, but I’ve never been naive about people’s desire for change, including my own desire for change.”

Newsom’s characterization has drawn attention from political observers as he openly weighs a potential presidential campaign in 2028.

CNN Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director David Chalian said he believes Newsom is attempting to tap into growing anti-establishment energy within the Democratic Party.

“This guy—Gavin Newsom was a two-term San Francisco mayor, a two-term lieutenant governor, and now a two-term governor of California. Tough to call him an insurgent, right?”

“He wants to use that to translate, ‘Hey, I’m a fighter, I’m part of that side of the party, I’m not the establishment’ despite his very long resume showing just how establishment he is.”

Newsom’s “insurgent” characterization also comes as he approaches the end of nearly eight years governing California, spending roughly $24 billion addressing homelessness while the state’s homeless population has grown by approximately 30,000 people, reaching more than 181,000.

California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project has also spent billions without beginning passenger service, while the state’s unemployment rate currently stands at 5.2%.

Newsom has not announced a 2028 presidential campaign, but he has publicly acknowledged considering a run, and his travel outside California has continued to fuel speculation about his political future.

Newsom also took time during his Michigan trip to meet with El-Sayed.

Neither Newsom nor El-Sayed has publicly detailed their private conversation. However, podcaster Mark Halperin reported that Newsom came away impressed with El-Sayed, citing an attendee who said they overheard the governor discussing the meeting afterward.

According to Halperin’s source, Newsom described El-Sayed as thoughtful and persuasive and rejected portrayals of him as a “wild ideologue.”

Whether Newsom’s “established insurgent” label becomes part of a future presidential pitch remains to be seen, but his comments in Michigan are already drawing attention to how the longtime California politician may position himself beyond the governor’s office.

The Daily Signal contacted the governor’s press office for details but did not receive a response by publication.

The menace of the “woke era,” which I’d argue we are still suffering through despite the current counterrevolution, was about far more than just cultural vibes and overheated rhetoric.

It was about creating a larger, global cultural revolution and ensuring that every institution from the most elite on down enforced its evolving ideology and mandates, whether it be racialized diversity, equity, and inclusion, or the untruths peddled by the transgender movement.

A report released by the State Department on Thursday is a good reminder of how DEI and other forms of leftist cultural dogma became intrinsically wedded to all domestic and international policy in this country.

The constellation of organizations and institutions looking to further their cause weren’t pleased merely to enforce the new cultural conformity at home.

They were obsessed with spreading it abroad too.

The State Department explained in a press release how, after an internal review, it was putting an end to DEI in the foreign service, which had apparently lingered in training materials and personnel instructions.

A lot of the nonsense they uncovered was stuff that became quite familiar to many Americans in the last five years. The resources included “How to Be Anti-Racist in [Humanitarian] Aid,” Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement,” and “From White Racist to White Anti-Racist,” among other equally ridiculous and downright enraging materials.

“Foreign Service Officers were also asked to read materials including ‘Where are you in your understanding of your whiteness?’; ‘Tools for interrupting microaggressions’; ‘Anti-Racism for Kids 101’; and ‘In Defense of Looting,’” my colleague Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell reported for the Daily Signal. “The last document describes looting by groups like the Black Panthers as ‘one of the most righteous anti-white supremacist tactics available throughout American history.’”

This is what the Biden administration thought was essential to teach State Department employees working abroad. And they weren’t content with just indoctrinating their own employees. They insisted that these lessons were internalized and then evangelized abroad.

“Guidance on how Foreign Service Officers could fulfill a DEI promotion metric urged diplomats to discuss DEI issues with high-level foreign government counterparts, demonstrate ‘allyship,’ and ‘acquire more DEIA knowledge on your own’ instead of depending on “others from historically marginalized groups to teach you,” the State Department memo read.

Under the Biden administration, DEI became essentially a secular state religion in America, one as expansive and ultimately totalitarian in its aims as the worst ideologies of the 20th century.

The Trump administration has now spent nearly two years attempting to untangle this nest from the top.

Creating a strict wall of separation between DEI and our government is the best way to ensure that its ruthless, contradictory, absurd, and in many cases, unpopular ideas are allowed to wither on the vine.

This latest move from the State Department shows that this remains a long and still incomplete process. It takes a long time to extract the most poisonous ideas from our national institutions.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in an interview with the Daily Signal that under the current administration the department is committed to focusing on “statecraft” in its training of foreign service personnel.

That’s great. What a novel idea, right?

President Donald Trump and his administration deserve a lot of credit for taking DEI and its pervasive influence seriously. Its promoters are deadly serious in ensuring that their brand of nouveau racism and gender insanity are accepted, or else.

The administration has demonstrated a willingness to take dramatic and necessary measures to counteract this movement beyond just declaring that the era of woke is over. That means shattering the larger movement’s networks, severing its global tendrils, and defunding them so they can’t continue operating with impunity.

This is why, for instance, the State Department disbanded the U.S. Agency for International Development, an organization that long ago ceased fulfilling its function of promoting American values abroad while blocking the tide of communism.

It was instead creating anti-Americanism abroad, while occasionally infuriating allies, playing right into the hands of our serious international rivals, like Communist China.

The media squawked about it and the bureaucrats howled, but the benefits of shuttering it have already paid off beyond the small amount of money saved.

Our government is no longer being used as a financial engine to promote global leftism.

But the problem goes beyond just one agency.

Unfortunately, woke lunacy under different names has plagued the State Department and our federal government much longer than four years. It’s just that under Biden it became blatantly and expressly elevated above all other priorities.

A lot of eyes were opened in those years.

If the woke revolution continued, the United States would be wholly changed and the world along with it. Americans broadly realized that and elected Trump.

That doesn’t mean the threat is gone.

Just look around at other Western countries still under left-wing governments. They haven’t broken the woke spell. Just the opposite. They’ve continued as if it remains perpetually 2020. DEI is as strong as ever, and ruthless crackdowns on free speech and dissenters have, if anything, escalated.

But now the West has a greater chance of breaking its fever. America may yet remain America. Hopefully our friends can now follow our lead and break free of the madness.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is accusing city leaders of political retaliation after losing her position as chair of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, adding another layer of tension to her battle against Mayor Karen Bass.

Raman had led the Housing and Homelessness Committee since 2023. But that changed last week when the committee was split into separate housing and homelessness panels, neither of which Raman will chair.

Bass’ campaign argues Raman has only herself to blame.

“It’s not surprising. Nithya Raman canceled committee meetings for weeks, didn’t show up to votes, and failed to deliver on building more housing or getting people off the streets,” Bass campaign spokesman Alex Stack told The Daily Signal.

“Her signature program has been a failure, spending over $60 million for nearly a year but only filling 3 apartments.”

Raman, however, says the decision was political.

In a video posted to social media, Raman accused Bass and her allies of retaliating against her for challenging the administration’s homelessness spending and running against the incumbent mayor.

“The Mayor may be trying to punish me for challenging her, but Angelenos are the ones who pay the price for these political games,” she wrote on X.

In an article by NBC Los Angeles, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson denied the retaliation claims, explaining that the Housing and Homelessness Committee was being divided into two separate panels to allow the council to better address pressing policy questions surrounding each issue.

“It was very, very disappointing to see her reach to the bottom of the barrel politically,” said Harris-Dawson about Raman’s accusations.

The Daily Signal reached out to Raman’s campaign but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The shake-up only adds to the messiness of the mayoral race, where homelessness is becoming a major point of attack for both candidates.

Raman has criticized Bass over the city’s homelessness spending and pushed for greater oversight, while Bass’ campaign is now pointing right back at Raman’s record as chair of the committee responsible for housing and homelessness.

Both candidates are trying to convince Angelenos that the other has failed to deliver on one of the city’s biggest problems.