An impending government shutdown would “stall funding” for the Federal Emergency Management Agency shortly after a “crippling” winter storm, Sen. Marsha Blackburn told The Daily Signal.

“Most of the Democrats do not want a shutdown,” Blackburn said. “I think also it’s important to realize we have had a massive storm. It has crippled much of our nation and FEMA funding, Coast Guard funding, comes out of the DHS budget, and I really don’t think they want to end up stalling funding for FEMA as we are dealing with such a tragic aftermath.”

Some Democrats are threatening to vote against an upcoming spending package if a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security is not given a separate vote. The House has sent the Senate a package of six appropriations bills, including one for DHS, that the president must sign into law in order to avert a partial government shutdown on Jan. 30.

Democrat threats to shut down the government by voting no on DHS funding come after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis by federal immigration enforcement officers. The agency oversees immigration enforcement.

However, the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law in 2025, already funded Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Thus, the agencies would still remain funded and fully operational regardless of the vote this week.

If the Senate removed DHS funding from the package, it would have to go back to the House for approval. The House is not in session this week, making it unlikely that the government would remain funded beyond the Jan. 30 deadline.

The government shutdown would follow a week of historic winter weather across the nation.

“Tennessee has been hit unbelievably hard with the ice storm,” Blackburn said. “This is going to take a while to clean up, and it’s inappropriate to not fund DHS in the middle of this.”

When asked if Congress needs to investigate the events surrounding Pretti’s death, Blackburn said “there’s already two investigations going on: the FBI investigation and the professional responsibility investigation.”

“They should be completed soon, and we should know those results,” she said.

Alex Brusewitz, a top adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, said a Democrat shutdown over DHS funding is “terrible politics.”

“I think it’s absolutely terrible politics to vote against border security, to vote against ICE,” he said. “And if I was a Democrat consultant, I would be saying, ‘Don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that.’ But because I’m a Republican consultant, I’m gonna say, ‘do it, do it, do it.’ Who cares? Because it’s terrible politics for them.”

Democrats are “always on the wrong side of the issues,” the Republican strategist said.

“Donald Trump has done such a great job of identifying issues that 80% of Americans support, and then getting the Democrats to take the 20% side, every time,” he said. “On the gender transition stuff, they take the 20%. Actually I think it’s like 1%, only 1% wanna see gender transition surgeries for children. But with the immigration, 80% of Americans, maybe more, they want strong borders. They want a strong country.”

“I don’t think picking a fight on border security is gonna be a good move for them,” Brusewitz said of the Democrats.

The post Senator Warns Democrat Shutdown Could Endanger Americans Facing Winter Storm appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education found that California violated federal parental rights law by pressuring schools to hide children’s so-called transgender identity from their parents.

A U.S. Department of Education investigation found that the California Department of Education violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA.

The state’s policies “have created state directed pressure for schools to violate FERPA by concealing student records about a child’s so called gender transition from a child’s parents,” an official for the U.S. Education Department said.

“During our investigation, we uncovered a systemic problem of schools maintaining secret records, such as gender support plans, and other records of the like, and claiming that they are not part of a student’s cumulative record, which is accessible to parents under FERPA.”

At least 300 students in California were put on “Gender Support Plans,” a document that establishes steps to hide a child’s new gender identity from his or her parents.

“Children do not belong to the state. They belong to their parents,” the official said. “Parents must know about the most sensitive information pertaining to their child’s health and well being.”

The agency said it had notified California’s education department of the findings, and that it is required to comply.

“If a student is contemplating life-altering changes, the least a school can do is notify their parent or guardian,” Secretary Linda McMahon said on X. “California will be held accountable.”

The post Trump Finds California Illegally Hid Gender Identity from Parents appeared first on The Daily Signal.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “innocent people” are being “torture[d] and deport[ed]” because of President Donald Trump’s use of the War Time Alien Enemies Act.

Duckworth asked Rubio if he would “encourage” the president to “rescind” the invocation of a presidential authority from 1798 to deport or detain citizens of enemy nations, which the president summoned to fight criminal Tren De Aragua gang members.

Rubio, however, was quick to defend the administrations use of the act to deport criminal gang members.

“These groups have waged war on the United States,” Rubio said. “Tren De Aragua is not just a criminal gang presence in our streets, they are a criminal gang directly responsible for narco-trafficking.”

During his response, Rubio suggested that Duckworth was confusing the military operation against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the use of the War Time Alien Enemies Act against criminal drug gangs such as Tren de Aragua.

The senator, however, raised her voice and asked a similar question.

“Again, I want to ask you, the vast majority of the men that were rounded up and deported for torture under this law had no criminal record whatsoever,” she stated. “Will you advise the president to rescind his invocation of the War Time Alien Enemies Act?”

“Of course not,” Rubio responded. “I mean, these are people that are threats to the national security of the United States.”

The senator interrupted the secretary once more, and implied that the United States is engaged in an unauthorized war because it is taking action against drug cartels.

“So you’re saying that we are at war?” the senator interrupted.

Rubio responded that United States has not declared war, but that the narco-traffickers are “waging war against us, and they’re enemy combatants as a result of it.”

“And the fact of the matter is that we are confronting these irregular groups,” Rubio said.

Duckworth proceeded to claim that the War Time Alien Enemies Act is being used to “torture” people, to which Rubio responded as being a baseless claim from the senator.

“Who did we torture?” Rubio questioned. “We haven’t tortured anybody. We’ve arrested people who are members of gangs.”

Rubio then told the senator she is asking him a question that does not belong in the hearing, since it falls “in the realm of the Department of Justice.”

“I’m here to discuss foreign policy from the Department of State,” Rubio said. “You’re asking me a question about the justification of a law that is best directed to the Department of Justice.”

The post Duckworth Claims Trump Admin Is Torturing and Deporting ‘Innocent People’ in Heated Exchange with Rubio appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Elliot Forhan, a Democrat running for attorney general in Ohio, has told The Daily Signal he’s still “running to be Ohio’s next attorney general,” after saying he’s “going to kill Donald Trump.”

Forhan explained in a Facebook video on Tuesday that he will get President Donald Trump convicted of a capital crime if he becomes the Buckeye State’s next attorney general.

“I’m going to obtain a conviction, rendered by a jury of his peers, at a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, based on evidence, presented at a trial, conducted in accordance with the requirements of due process, resulting in a sentence, duly executed, of capital punishment. That is what I mean when I say that ‘I am going to kill Donald Trump,'” Forhan said in a video posted on Facebook.

Forhan told The Daily Signal that, “I am running for Ohio attorney general to apply the law equally to everyone, including the rich and the powerful. Including the U.S. president.”

“If Donald Trump tries again to end American democracy, then as Ohio attorney general I will hold him accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Forhan added.

Forhan Calls Opponent ‘Simple Trump Thug’

Forhan also spoke out against Auditor Keith Faber, the Republican candidate for attorney general who has called on Acton to condemn Forhan.

Referencing an op-ed from Faber, Forhan called Faber “a simple Trump thug” who “does not believe in the truth or the rule of law.”

The Democrat also took issue with ICE presence in Minneapolis and the death of Renee Good. He also mentioned the death of Alex Pretti, a Border Patrol Officer involved shooting.

“ICE is not enforcing the law. They are breaking the law. Mr. Faber is telling Ohioans that, if elected, he will let Trump get away with murder,” Forhan claimed. “Ohio voters should take Mr. Faber at his word.”

GOP Calls on Democrats to Condemn Forhan’s Comments

Some Republicans are calling for Democrats to condemn Forhan and for Forhan to drop out of the race in response to these comments.

Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou and Attorney General Dave Yost condemned Forhan’s remarks while appealing to former Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, candidate for U.S. Senate, and Amy Acton, candidate for governor.

The Daily Signal reached out to Brown and Acton. Neither responded.

Senate President Rob McColley, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor to Republican Vivek Ramaswamy did so as well. Ramaswamy, in his own post, said it’s what Acton “and the Ohio Democrats implicitly endorse.”

Forhan Refuses to Drop Out

Forhan previously served in the Ohio General Assembly, where former Speaker Jason Stephens reminded, who referred to Forhan as “a lunatic” on X, stripped Forhan of his committees and forbade him from contact with legislative staff based on harassment allegations.

Republican Ohio state Rep. Adam Mathews, told The Daily Signal that, “these statements are sent out as shock value, but as we have seen all too often, they are heard and acted upon by malicious elements on the fringes.”

“The thankfully former-state-rep should recant, leave the race, and reconsider his conscience,” Mathews added.

“With all due respect to Rep. Mathews, no. I am running to be Ohio’s next attorney general,” Forhan told The Daily Signal when asked if he would drop out of the race.

The post Dem Won’t Drop Out of Ohio AG Race After Plan to ‘Kill Trump’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators this morning that, after the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan government is cooperating with the U.S. on confronting narco-terrorism.

“For the first time in 20 years, we are having serious counter-narcotic talks with Venezuelan authorities,” Rubio said in his opening remarks.  

Rubio appeared as a witness to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about America’s policy towards Venezuela on Wednesday morning.

While most Republican senators praised the Trump Administration’s strategy and the U.S. military operation that captured Maduro, Democrats criticized both.  

Rubio told the Committee that the regime is successfully cooperating with the U.S.  

“The Venezuelan authorities are now identifying ships that they want us to grab,” Rubio said while answering questions from Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. 

The U.S. has been conducting strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats since September 2025.

There have been more than 30 known strikes on these boats, mainly in the Caribbean Sea coming out of Venezuela. 

Rubio shared that the Venezuelan regime—led by Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president of Maduro—is cooperating and providing information on unauthorized ships.

“In fact, about a week and a half ago, we grabbed one of these ships,” Rubio continued.

Rubio claimed that after Maduro’s capture, “about five ships took off without authorization from the Venezuelans, because they were controlled by some [other] network in the country,” the secretary described. 

“With the cooperation of the interim authorities, we seized one of those ships, we brought it back into Venezuelan waters, handed the ship off to the Venezuelans,” he continued.  

The post Rubio: Venezuela Helping US Identify Narco Boats After Maduro’s Capture appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Department of Homeland Security has taken two federal immigration agents involved in a deadly shooting off field duty as an investigation into the incident moves forward.

Two Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers involved in a deadly Minnesota shooting on Saturday have been placed on administrative leave, a spokesperson for the agency confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The incident involved Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who allegedly obstructed a federal immigration operation at the time of the deadly encounter. 

“The two officers involved are on administrative leave. This is standard protocol,” the CBP spokesperson stated to the DNCF.

Pretti, who was carrying a semi-automatic pistol at the time, confronted Border Patrol agents attempting to conduct an enforcement operation in Minneapolis, ultimately leading to a deadly scuffle.

The incident marked the second deadly shooting in the city involving federal immigration agents, with Renee Good having been fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent earlier in January after allegedly plowing her car into the agent.

While initially referring to Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” who posed a serious threat to law enforcement agents, top administration officials have since backtracked on this framing. Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino, who led the federal immigration enforcement surge across Minnesota, has reportedly been demoted and instructed to leave the state.

The two incidents have sparked intense public backlash, with Democrats in Congress threatening a government shutdown unless major reforms are enacted.

A growing chorus of liberal lawmakers are also demanding Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem be impeached for the shootings.

President Donald Trump dispatched Tom Homan, who leads the administration’s deportation agenda, to Minnesota to handle the chaotic situation.

The president also confirmed he had a productive phone call with Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and that the two were on a similar “wavelength” over how to work together.

“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. “I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future.”

Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Trump Admin Places Agents in Alex Pretti Shooting on Administrative Leave appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday reversed a Biden-era mandate that pharmacies carry abortion drugs. 

The agency, under President Joe Biden, sent a notice to about 60,000 retail pharmacies in 2022 stipulating that they had to provide drugs as a condition of serving patients with Medicare, Medicaid, or other federally-funded coverage.

That notice was issued in response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that sent abortion back to the states.

After a 2023 court ruling in favor of religious pharmacies that opposed the mandate, the Biden administration altered the policy. However, critics said it was still unclear if pharmacies were required to carry abortion-inducing drugs under the revised rule.

On Tuesday, HHS said it took action “in light of the stated policy … to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.” 

In its notice rescinding the policy, published in the Federal Register, the HHS Office for Civil Rights said the 2023 update “can still be read as an effort to use taxpayer dollars to promote abortion and likely force pharmacists to participate in abortion even if doing so violated their convictions, which would be potentially against the law.”

The Biden administration framed the original 2022 mandate as a civil rights requirement for pharmacies under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

In the 2023 case of State of Texas and Mayo Pharmacy v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a court ruled in favor of pharmacy owners who did not want to sell abortion drugs as a matter of conscience.  

The updated guidance “still subjected pro-life pharmacies across the country to a looming threat from federal bureaucrats,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Bowman said in a statement.

“Now, we are grateful to the current administration for eliminating the remnants of this Biden-era abortion mandate by repealing it entirely.”

The rescission of the Biden rule says that the 2023 guidance “remains inconsistent with the law and the policies set forth” in two executive orders last year by President Donald Trump.

One of the orders enforces the Hyde Amendment that bars Medicaid and other tax dollars from funding abortions. The other order relates to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in terms of controlling government spending. 

The 2023 Biden era mandate used the term “pregnant person.” The HHS post in the register noted this was also inconsistent with a Trump executive order that defines a “woman” or a “girl” as “female” based on biological facts. 

“Accordingly, the term ‘pregnant person’ is unnecessarily broad since only women and girls can be pregnant,” the HHS recission states.

The HHS pharmacy action comes as the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday asked a federal court to pause a Louisiana lawsuit seeking to restrict mail-order abortion drugs. The administration asked for a pause until it has completed its safety review of the drugs.

Pro-life leaders are asking the Trump administration to take action against mail-order abortion drugs, and have requested the FDA complete its safety review.

The post HHS Scraps Biden-Era Abortion Pill Mandate for Pharmacies appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Two days after President Donald Trump spoke with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on the phone after a Border Patrol-involved shooting, Trump accused Frey of ignoring U.S. law.  

Frey is “PLAYING WITH FIRE,” according to Trump.  

“Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’ This is after having had a very good conversation with him. Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.  

Frey fired back on X, writing, “[The] job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce fed immigration laws. I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to [Minneapolis and] is from Ecuador.”  

The Trump administration has repeatedly asked state and local authorities to adhere to federal immigration law and work with federal law enforcement to apprehend criminal illegal aliens. 

This includes allowing federal immigration officials to take criminal illegal aliens immediately into custody after they have served time in a county jail or state prison, instead of releasing them back onto the streets.  

Frey has consistently voiced criticism of Operation Metro Surge, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that began in the Twin Cities area in December.  

Despite a reported positive call with Trump on Monday and a meeting with White House border czar Tom Homan on Tuesday, Frey has consistently declared that “Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.”  

Pinned to the top of Frey’s X account is a Jan. 11 post reading: “Today is a good day for ICE to get out of Minnesota.”  

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., criticized Frey’s refusal to work with federal law enforcement, claiming “it doesn’t appear that Democrat elected officials will admit that the public is safer if they cooperate with, rather than obstruct, federal officials trying to clean up Democrat-created messes.”  

Trump made immigration a key political priority of his 2024 presidential campaign, vowing to enforce immigration law and deport illegal aliens. He took swift action to execute executive orders on immigration on his first day back in the Oval Office. 

Republicans in Washington, D.C., have largely supported the Trump administration’s immigration policies, but some have taken a noticeable shift in rhetoric following two fatal shootings of protesters by immigration enforcement agents in the Minneapolis area. Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, 37, on Jan. 24, and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot and killed Renee Good, also 37, on Jan. 7.  

Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, said Tuesday that she had spoken with the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about immigration enforcement. 

“I asked Secretary Noem to pause the operations in both Maine and Minnesota,” Collins said. “I believe they should be reviewed and far more targeted in their scope.”  

The Department of Homeland Security had announced Operation Catch of the Day in Maine last week.  

Collins says the pause in the immigration enforcement operations is necessary due to the current “heightened tensions.”  

Trump himself said, “We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” during a Tuesday interview with Fox News on “The Will Cain Show,” while addressing the ICE operation in Minnesota.  

House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., announced Monday that the senior leaders of DHS, ICE, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will testify before members of Congress on Feb. 10.  

The post Trump, Frey Spar After ‘Very Good’ Phone Call appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro criticized House Republicans last fall for passing a downsized education budget, accusing them of attempting to “eliminate public education” and “decimate support for children in K-12 schools.” The charge was overdramatized and incorrect.

Federal education funding accounts for roughly 10 percent of total K-12 spending nationwide. Despite decades of increasing federal investment, student achievement has stagnated. Math and reading scores on the Nation’s Report Card are at or near historic lows. The Department of Education has existed only since 1980, making it younger than most members of Congress.

This week, the Senate is set to vote on the final spending bill for fiscal year 2026, which includes funding for the Department of Education. The bill represents a striking reversal from what the House of Representatives advanced just months ago, and from what the president himself requested.

The House version passed out of the Appropriations Committee last September would have cut education spending by roughly 15 percent, reducing the Department’s budget to about $67 billion. That approach aligned with the president’s fiscal year 2026 request and reflected a long-overdue recognition that federal education programs are duplicative and ineffective. At the same time, the president explicitly preserved funding for Title I and IDEA, ensuring that low-income students and students with disabilities would continue to receive support.

The president’s budget also proposed consolidating 18 competitive grant programs into a single $2 billion formula grant, giving states greater flexibility to distribute funds and set priorities.

Yet after closed-door negotiations, the final conference bill does the opposite. The bill allocates roughly $79 billion for the Department of Education, an increase of $217 million over fiscal year 2025 levels. It boosts funding for charter schools, rural education programs, and Impact Aid, while preserving nearly every K-12 program House Republicans previously sought to right-size. Only modest cuts were made to the Institute of Education Sciences and the Education Innovation and Research grants.

In short, right-of-center lawmakers walked away from their own reform agenda.

That retreat matters because the underlying programs have failed to deliver results. Title II, Part A, which funds teacher and principal professional development, has failed to raise student achievement. The president rightly proposed consolidating program funding into a single State formula grant program that would give states and localities greater flexibility to use the funds for a range of education activities consistent with their community’s needs, rather than just for professional development. In the conference version of the bill, Congress decided to keep level funding and maintain its dedicated line budget.

Per-pupil education spending is already at record levels. In inflation-adjusted terms, spending per student has more than tripled since the mid-1960s, rising from $5,053 in the 1963-64 school year to $18,614 in 2020-2021. Over the course of the 20th century, real per-pupil spending increased by an average of 3.5 percent per year. 

Lawmakers also appear to have forgotten recent history. In response to the pandemic, Congress poured nearly $190 billion in emergency funding into K-12 schools, the largest infusion of federal education funding in U.S. history, and it took most states years to spend it down, even as enrollment was declining.

Those enrollment declines are not temporary. Due to falling birth rates, districts are projected to lose between approximately 3 and 6.5 million students over the next 25 years. At the same time, families are increasingly choosing alternatives to traditional district schools, such as charter, private, or parochial schools, putting further pressure on status quo funding structures.

Given stagnant academic outcomes, the unprecedented surge in post-pandemic federal spending, declining student enrollment, and growing demand for alternatives to district schools, expanding or even maintaining federal education spending is far from the right choice.

If right-of-center lawmakers are serious about improving education outcomes and restoring fiscal discipline, they should return to first principles: reduce federal overreach, consolidate ineffective programs, block-grant remaining funds to the states, and consider proposals that wind down the Department of Education.

The post The Education Spending Reversal Right-of-Center Lawmakers Didn’t Explain appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Cook.

This case came to the court on an expedited basis because in August of last year President Donald Trump posted on social media a letter addressed to Lisa Cook telling her that “Pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, as amended, you are hereby removed from your position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately.”

Cook, of course, didn’t like that and immediately ran to a District of Columbia district court, which enjoined—stopped—the removal from moving forward. The D.C. Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court both declined to put that order on hold. But the Supreme Court did agree to hear the case on an expedited basis.

The crux of the case primarily turns on what qualifies as “cause” for removal under the Federal Reserve Act. Unlike other statutory removal provisions that specify the president can only remove officials for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” the Federal Reserve Act contains no such limitation. It only provides that a President can remove a member of the Board of Governors “for cause.”

And here, the president says that cause exists because Cook—before she joined the Fed—had listed two different properties on mortgage applications as her “primary residence.” This matters because primary residences typically receive more favorable mortgage terms—like lower interest rates—than second homes or other types of properties.

Trump said the situation, “[a]t a minimum … exhibits the sort of gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question [her] competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator,” asserting “sufficient cause to remove [Cook] from [her] position” due to “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter” or “gross negligence in financial transactions.”

While the advocates at oral argument sparred over a host of issues, three stood out: 1) What qualifies as cause? 2) Can it be based on pre-office conduct? And 3) what process, if any, is due to an individual before being removed?

No clear consensus seemed to exist among the justices based on their questions at oral argument—though all agreed that for purposes of this current case the president is only advancing a claim that he can remove Cook under the express terms of the Federal Reserve Act. He is not invoking a broader Article II authority to remove Cook or to control the Fed, as he did in a similar case involving his removal of Rebecca Slaughter at the Federal Trade Commission. That fight will wait for now.

Of course, the oral argument came on the heels of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell publicly announcing that he had received subpoenas seeking information about testimony he gave before Congress and expensive renovations to the Fed’s headquarters in Washington. (We don’t know the exact parameters of those requests, though, because the Justice Department typically cannot, and will not, divulge those types of details).

Part of the conversation too revolved around what role courts should play in this process.

Can judges substitute their own views of what constitutes “cause” for the president’s where the statute doesn’t define the term? Can courts reinstate an official who has been removed from office?  Can courts compel the president to adopt a specific process to follow in making these decisions?

The justices will continue to wrestle with all these questions—and others—while deciding this important case.

The post Federal Reserve Firing at the Supreme Court. Here Are the Facts. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument recently on multiple state statutes addressing the participation of transgender-identified male athletes in girls’ sports. What was once settled policy has become a national reckoning on identity, privacy, fairness, civil rights, and what it means to be a girl. 

In the pair of cases from West Virginia and Idaho, the court is being asked whether states may limit participation in girls’ and women’s sports teams to females, or whether doing so violates Title IX of federal civil rights law. 

These cases concern far more than team rosters. Title IX governs the entire educational environment, from classrooms and scholarships to housing, athletics, and the most intimate spaces on school grounds. It protects girls not only where they compete, but also private spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms. 

The court must decide whether Title IX will continue to protect girls’ sports and spaces as it was written, or whether males and females will be treated as legally interchangeable. The integrity of women’s sports, privacy, and dignity depends on the court choosing the former. 

During oral argument this week, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination requires schools to allow transgender-identified athletes (boys and men) to compete on girls’ teams if they identify as female. That reading deliberately perverts the true meaning of Title IX, and in doing so, disenfranchises the girls and women it was designed to protect.  

Title IX was adopted to ensure that girls and women, who have natural physical differences from boys and men, had fair opportunities to compete and benefit from all that comes with athletic competition. Before Title IX, existing girls’ teams lacked funding, scholarships, and administrative support. 

 Before Title IX passed, women received about one percent of college athletic funding, and boys outnumbered girls in high school sports by more than twelve to one. Within decades of the law’s passage, girls’ participation grew from fewer than 300,000 to nearly three million. Women now make up more than 40 percent of college athletes. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh described that growth as one of the “great successes in America.” He also noted the cost when a girl “does not make the team or doesn’t get on the stand for the medal” because a male has taken her place: “There’s a harm there … we can’t sweep that aside.” 

Separate teams were created not as a courtesy but to give female athletes equal opportunities and protection as male ones. It is unthinkable that 50 years later, the law that demolished the foundation of inequity between the sexes is being used to rebuild it.  

Chief Justice John Roberts warned during oral arguments that whatever rule the court adopt would apply to all areas governed by Title IX, “across the board and not simply to the area of athletics,” including classrooms, programs of study, housing, and Title IX’s protections against sexual harassment, assault, and other violence against women.” 

If sex no longer matters in sports, it will not matter anywhere Title IX applies. What begins with athletics would quickly extend into every aspect of school life. 

Unfortunately for many girls, this injustice is already real. On the field, that means losing championships, records, and scholarship opportunities to male competitors. It means training for years only to watch a podium or roster spot disappear, then being told that objecting is a form of intolerance or bigotry. Across the country, girls are being forced to accept policies that erase sex-based boundaries in the name of inclusion. 

These losses are not limited to elite athletes. When a male takes a spot on a girls’ team, it is often the late bloomers, bench players, or those just good enough to make the roster who are cut. Their chance to participate disappears, along with their access to coaching, teamwork, discipline, and the physical and emotional benefits of competition. 

Off the field, girls are being told to change clothes alongside males and to treat their discomfort as something they must simply overcome. A framework that once protected fairness and privacy is being replaced with one that elevates ideology over experience. 

The court’s decision will determine whether states are allowed to protect their female citizens from that harm. 

The Supreme Court does not need to settle every cultural debate about gender–our elected lawmakers must step up and do that. The court does, however, need to affirm that sex, when used in our law, means sex, and not self-idenfication, to protect women and girls’ sports. For more than fifty years, the law has protected girls by recognizing that sex matters in sports and in private spaces. And it matters just as much today as it did fifty years ago. 

The post What Girls Stand to Lose in the Supreme Court’s Title IX Case appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Alex Pretti reportedly had at least one previous encounter with federal immigration officials before he was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday.  

About a week before his death, federal officers tackled Pretti, breaking one of his ribs as he was shouting and blowing a whistle while agents were attempting to make arrests in Minneapolis, CNN first reported. 

Anti-ICE protesters have commonly used whistles to alert passers-by to the presence of immigration enforcement agents in the area.

Federal immigration agents have kept a record of the individuals they have interactions with, according to CNN, but the Department of Homeland Security said it did not have a record of a prior confrontation with Pretti. 

Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, the second fatal shooting by immigration enforcement agents in the area in less than three weeks.

The incident is under investigation and has sparked calls for a reduced federal immigration presence not only in Minneapolis but other cities and states across the country. Pretti’s death occured after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement-involved shooting in Minneapolis killed 37-year-old Renee Good on Jan. 7. 

Federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis have been met with opposition protests and demonstrations.  

ICE agents are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults and an 8,000% increase in death threats, according to DHS.  

“This unprecedented increase in violence against law enforcement is a direct result of sanctuary politicians and the media creating an environment that demonizes our law enforcement and encourages rampant assaults against them,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement earlier in January.  

Following the deaths of Good and Pretti, Trump announced Monday he was sending border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to take over the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called Trump’s decision “good news for peace, safety, and accountability in Minneapolis.” 

Homan met with Gov. Tim Walz, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, on Tuesday. Following the meetings, Homan said everyone agreed on the “need to support our law enforcement officers and get criminals off the streets.” 

“While we don’t agree on everything, these meetings were a productive starting point and I look forward to more conversations with key stakeholders in the days ahead,” Homan said. “President Trump has been clear: he wants American cities to be safe and secure for law-abiding residents — and they will be.” 

The post Alex Pretti Reportedly Had Previous Run-in With Federal Agents appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump issued a warning to the Iranian regime, reminding the leaders of past U.S. strikes on Iran and threatening the “next attack will be far worse” if the regime refuses negotiations over its nuclear program. 

Trump reiterated his desire to strike a deal with Iran in a Truth Social post Wednesday, calling on the regime to ‘quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties.”  

“Time is running out, it is truly of the essence,” Trump said. “As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”  

The U.S. struck Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, Iran’s three key nuclear facilities, last June during Operation Midnight Hammer, significantly damaging Iran’s nuclear program.  

Trump’s warning comes two days after the president told Axios in an exclusive interview that while the situation in Iran is “in flux,” he believes the regime does want to make a deal.  

Trump was close to ordering a strike on Iran earlier in January, Axios reports, but chose to wait until more U.S. military assets arrived in the region, which they now have.  

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is heading the “massive Armada,” according to the president, who added that the fleet is larger “than that sent to Venezuela.”  

Trump moved a large U.S. military naval presence towards Venezuela before capturing dictator Nicolás Maduro and bringing him to New York to stand trial.  

“Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary,” Trump said of the fleet.  

Iranians began protesting in the streets against the regime at the end of December. The protests are driven by dissatisfaction over Iran’s government, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and frustration over the nation’s struggling economy.  

Trump has previously threatened to act against Iran if the regime killed civilian protesters. Estimates on the number of protesters killed range anywhere from 6,000 to more than 30,000. 

An accurate death toll has not been confirmed due to limited information coming out of Iran during regime-imposed internet blackouts.   

On Jan. 13, Trump encouraged Iranians to “keep protesting,” telling them, “help is on its way.”  

The post Trump Threatens Iran: ‘Next Attack Will Be Far Worse’  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump said that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “probably had herself sprayed” after the congresswoman was attacked by a man with a syringe at a town hall.

The firebrand member of the House who has been the subject of a federal fraud probe was sprayed by an unknown substance during a town hall meeting on Tuesday in Minneapolis, the location of intense turmoil over the enforcement of federal immigration laws. 

“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” Trump told ABC News, when asked if he saw the video of the incident. “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”

Regarding the video, Trump added: “I haven’t seen it. No, no. I hope I don’t have to bother.”

Video of Omar’s town hall meeting showed the suspect jumping up from the front row, charging at Omar, and then spraying her shortly after the congresswoman called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign or be impeached. 

Anthony James Kazmierczak, 55, was reportedly charged with assault in the third degree.

The suspect used a syringe to shoot the liquid at Omar’s chest. Omar wasn’t hurt and continued the town hall.

“We will continue,” Omar said after the incident, adding that the suspect “is not getting away with this.”

The post ‘Had Herself Sprayed’: Trump Dismisses Omar Town Hall Attack appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A coalition of 47 conservative organizations is launching a campaign to challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which the groups claim redefined marriage to emphasize the desires of adults over the needs of children.

The “Greater Than” campaign focuses on one message, which a handful of conservative leaders state clearly in a launch video: “Children are greater than equal, and it’s time we fought for their rights.”

The messaging responds to the LGBTQ activist narrative that redefining marriage as between two people, rather than between a man and a woman, involves “equality.”

“Since the redefinition of marriage a decade ago, we’ve seen the consequences: parenthood treated as replaceable, and children deprived of the unique love and guidance only a mother and father can provide,” Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us and a spokeswoman for the campaign, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Ten years of Obergefell have shown us, loud and clear, that children deserve better and that they are Greater Than adult desires—and it’s time we make a change,” she added.

Alongside Them Before Us stand four other core allies: the American Family Association, the Colson Center for Biblical Worldview, the Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family.

The coalition also includes 14 national allies, such as the Christian Medical and Dental Association, the pro-life group Live Action, the Ruth Institute, and the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. Fourteen more state allies include family policy nonprofits across the country, representing Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, among others. Organizers told The Daily Signal that the coalition includes more groups than appear on the website,

The coalition lays out a three-part strategy to overturn Obergefell and same-sex marriage: returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship; changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children; and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.

The Launch Video

“Marriage policy should be about the children,” Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer says in the launch video. “It’s not about bestowing public policy legitimacy and conferring economic benefits when it comes to adults who have their own idiosyncratic desires.”

Colson Center CEO John Stonestreet argues that social science data reveals that kids “do best when they are raised in a home with married, biological mom and dad.”

“We’re prioritizing the fantasies of adults, no matter how earnestly those fantasies are felt, over the real needs and the real good of children,” The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles warns.

Of gay marriage, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler says, “It harms children in virtually every way imaginable.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Delano Squires notes that “every single child, every single human being is the living embodiment of the relationship between exactly one man and one woman.”

“There’s two legitimate ways to unite a child to adults,” Faust, the campaign’s spokeswoman, argues. “The first one is biology: if you made the baby, that baby has a claim to you. The second pathway is adoption, where a child has suffered loss, and a just society responds by placing them with parents who have undergone screening, and vetting, and background checks, to as much as possible, replicate the kind of protectiveness that a biological mother and father would offer the child.”

What Happens If Obergefell Falls

The coalition argues that Obergefell rearranged family law, treating the parent-child relationship as “a configurable legal status rather than a natural bond grounded in biology.”

According to the coalition, if the Supreme Court overturned Obergefell, that would not dissolve existing same-sex marriages or invalidate settled parental determinations.

The coalition also argues that the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2024, only “requires states to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere; it does not require states to license them.” If the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, “the constitutional foundation for mandatory recognition would be significantly weakened.”

The list of allies on the website includes:

• Core Allies: American Family Association, the Colson Center, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Them Before Us
• National Allies: the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Live Action, Firmly Planted Family, The Heidi St. John Podcast, Citizens for Renewing America, Abby Johnson, Steve Deace, Ruth Institute, Pro-Family Legislative Network, (Ron Coleman) Coleman Law Firm, Word on Fire Institute, Center for family and human rights, The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, The White Rose Resistance, Catholic Vote, Family Watch International
• State Allies: the Alaska Family Council, the Indiana Family Institute, the Maryland Family Institute, the Massachusetts Family Institute, the Family Foundation of Kentucky, The Family Leader (Iowa), NC Family, Nebraska Family Alliance, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Wisconsin Family Action, the Louisiana Family Forum, FPIW Action (Washington state), Center for Christian Virtue (Ohio), the Family Council (Arkansas), Frontline (Georgia), and Texas Values

The post EXCLUSIVE: Nationwide Coalition Organizes to Overturn Gay Marriage, Center Needs of Children appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump’s Arctic strategy has been 500 years in the making.

When Christopher Columbus set sail across the Atlantic in 1492, he intended to find a direct path from Europe to Asia.

He didn’t, of course—but the first transatlantic explorer to sail under an English flag, John Cabot, tried again a few years later and became the first modern explorer to reach what is now Canada.

The commercial potential of the Northwest Passage was obvious from the start, but even once explorers at last figured out how to thread their way through the Arctic’s ice and islands, there was no possibility of developing the route: The sea ice was just too dense.

Until now, that is: Warmer temperatures and 21st-century technology put a trade route the world has sought for centuries within reach—but whose?

Canada claims the passage as its own territorial waters.

America, like most of the world, has never accepted that assertion.

The future of what one day may be the planet’s most important shipping lane is being decided today.

China is already literally testing the waters. In 2017, the Chinese used a research vessel to confirm that cargo ships can now make it through the passage.

Talk of a “Polar Silk Road” has been rife since the Xue Long made its trek.

“It opened up a new sea lane for China,” the state news agency Xinhua boasted. “From Shanghai to New York, the traditional route that passes through the Panama Canal is 10,500 nautical miles, while the route that passes through the Northwest Passage is 8,600 nautical miles, which saves 7 days of time.”

Canada granted the ship permission to make the crossing but didn’t know its “research” had a commercial angle until China announced its triumph.

Since then, Beijing has focused most of its Arctic attention on its relationship with Russia, whose northeastern sea routes are already well developed—the Arctic’s overall economic activity is still small, but Moscow is the dominant player.

Yet there’s no doubt about China’s long-range intentions.

One former Canadian security official, professor Stephanie Carvin, told the Canadian Broadcasting Company last September that China “has an ambitious plan to basically control a lot of the rare-earth elements and mining and wants to invest in the Canadian Arctic.”

Trump recognizes the dangers here.

Canada is heavily reliant on America’s intelligence capabilities and military strength, but Canadian security also depends on Canadian politics, and that’s the weak link—for us as well as them.

Successive governments in Ottawa have failed to meet Canada’s NATO commitments to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on defense.

They’ve also been complacent about Chinese and Russian activities in the waters Canada claims as its own.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s courtship of Chinese trade in recent weeks highlights how economically vulnerable America’s northern neighbor is.

Carney quickly backed off after Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs if Canada sought a major trade deal with Beijing. Carney now says he’s never intended to strike a free-trade bargain with China, despite recent bilateral agreements.

The Northwest Passage and the Arctic’s mineral resources are vital to the economic security and military defense of America, Europe, and Canada alike.

Yet national pride—the claim of exclusive dominion over the Northwest Passage—will lead to national disaster, and a global crisis, if Ottawa doesn’t get serious soon.

Trump’s hardball diplomacy with Ottawa, his tariffs, and his jokes about Canada becoming America’s 51st state put a strain on America-Canada relations, but they also force Canadian leaders to think about the country’s ultimate choices:

Can Canada develop and defend the Arctic without America?

If Trump seems like a bully, what can Ottawa expect from China and Russia as the Northwest Passage’s potential is realized in the decades to come?

Americans, too, have to face reality: We can’t afford to be complacent about how this neighbor and ally governs the waters it claims but can’t secure.

Canada should take a lesson from Greenland’s experience: Trump seemed to demand nothing less than Denmark’s surrender of the territory to America, but once he’d succeeded in shocking everyone into thinking about the most basic questions of sovereignty and security, he used the opportunity to strengthen America’s commitments to Greenland’s defense.

His approach to Canada is similar—Trump is not trying to repeat James Madison’s folly in the War of 1812, when America actually tried to annex Canada.

Instead, he’s asking Canada’s leaders to acknowledge they can’t take our trade and defense assistance for granted while resenting our interests in the Northwest Passage and the region as a whole.

Today the Arctic is the free world’s frontier, and Canada can keep it safe only by treating America as a partner, not a piggy bank.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM

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

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Border czar Tom Homan has arrived in Minnesota to oversee the immigration enforcement operation there and “hopefully” pioneer a model that the Trump administration could use in other sanctuary states, an immigration expert explains.  

Minnesota is a “sanctuary state,” according to the Department of Justice, meaning state and local law enforcement do not cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Homan arrived in Minnesota on Tuesday and met with Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats. The negotiations could produce “some sort of agreement that could serve as a model for other sanctuary jurisdictions around the country,” Cooper Smith, director of Homeland Security and Immigration at America First Policy Institute, tells The Daily Signal.  

The administration needs to find a way for immigration enforcement operations to continue, something for which “the American people voted,” Smith said, “while at the same time working with sanctuary jurisdictions to ensure limited public safety threats, limited violence and mayhem that neither side wants to see.” 

Successful negotiations in Minneapolis could provide a blueprint for other cities around the country, Smith noted.

If Homan is able to negotiate with Walz, the Trump administration “can perhaps take that model to Portland, to Chicago, to LA, to New York with [Mayor Zohran] Mamdani, and hopefully that’s a path forward that everyone can be happy with,” Smith said.  

Walz and Frey have called on the Trump administration to end immigration enforcement operations in the state, and have only increased those demands following the Border Patrol-involved shooting of 37-year-old nurse Alex J. Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Pretti was killed less than three weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good. 

The two recent deaths have prompted concerns over enforcement operations not just on the political left, but also from some Republicans.  

‘Can’t Go Wobbly’

Following a phone call with President Donald Trump on Monday, Frey announced that “[s]ome federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.”

Now is not the time to pull back immigration enforcement, according to Lora Ries. 

“What I’m concerned with right now is some on the right retreating, and we can’t go wobbly. We can’t nullify federal laws or enforcement of our federal laws,” Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, said.  

If federal immigration officials stop operations in Minnesota, then “these rioters win,” Ries said.  

The Trump administration launched a large immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities in December and has since deployed about 3,000 agents to the region.

Anti-immigration protests have continued in recent days following Pretti’s death. Minnesota police made multiple arrests of protesters outside a hotel Monday night after the gathering was declared no longer peaceful.  

Ries stressed that the anti-ICE demonstrations in Minnesota are not traditional protests, but are rather highly coordinated operations meant to undermine federal agents.  

The ‘Information War’

The Trump administration and those who support enforcement of U.S. immigration laws are “losing the information war,” a senior Trump administration official told The Daily Signal. 

The senior official said there is likely not a new “marketing strategy” the Department of Homeland Security could employ that would end the opposition to ICE “because it’s just one of those impossible battles.”  

“The other side is behaving in ways that guarantee people are going to get killed and shot and maced in the face, in front of cameras, [but] then that’s the point,” the Trump administration official said.  

Despite the challenges, the senior official said retreat is not an option.  

“I don’t think that the administration can pull back,” the senior official said, “because if they do, then these tactics will spread nationwide and defeat all … of our operations in all 50 states. And so, the Trump administration can’t really afford to take a defeat here or to look weak.”  

The post Could Minneapolis Become Model for Dealing With Sanctuary Jurisdictions?  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

You’re seated at the restaurant, given a menu, and notice something missing: no prices. What’s going on?

It’s sure to be an expensive place, but even most nicer establishments list their prices. A menu without prices suggests, “money is no object.” It heightens a sense of conspicuous consumption for customers kept in the dark—at least until they pay the bill.

So why does American medicine work this way?

Whether buying a coffee or a car, we expect to know the price first. If the coffee shop’s menu says $4.00, but a barista tries to charge $7.00, we call it a scam. Yet hiding prices, or even changing them after providing service, has become part of the business model for many medical providers and insurers.

One obvious reason is health care executives want to maximize revenue. Prices invite questions about relative value. They make it possible to shop around. Even more obviously, as in the coffee shop example, they serve as an agreement that protects customers.

Yet in medicine, some providers actually hire consultants to find more “codes” to bill additional and greater amounts after completing treatment. This upcoding artificially inflates the cost of health care and health insurance. It’s not only unnecessary, it should be considered unethical.

Under pressure to become more transparent, some medical providers do offer an estimate. Read the fine print, however, and patients discover the listed prices are not binding. They’re basically meaningless.

Without true prices, there is no financial certainty for people making health care decisions—except that they’ll be held responsible for the final bill. This puts patients at a real disadvantage, especially when a bill has errors or unexpected fees, since the charges are unknown until after services are provided and the bill is due.

The first Trump administration began work to require health care providers and insurers be upfront with patients about the real costs of care.

The Biden administration sidelined those efforts, dropping the ball on measures that could have long been implemented to protect patients.

It is telling that both the Obama and Biden administrations consistently sided with medical corporations and insurance companies over patients. Remember: all the Obamacare and other “subsidies” flow directly into the pockets of those two industries.

Now, the Trump administration is at work again on rules to protect patients, improve health care, and hold industry executives accountable.

Whenever possible, informed consent for medical treatments should mean knowing the actual costs before care. This would put more power in the hands of patients instead of medical and insurance executives. For too long, they have made backroom deals while premiums went up and out-of-pocket costs soared. The new rules would end surprise medical bills and allow patients to be informed consumers with greater choice.

Another step that the Trump administration could take quickly to hold insurers accountable and empower consumers is to require advanced notice to patients that shows exactly what insurance will cover and what will be the out-of-pocket cost. Think of it: no surprises, no hidden fees, all the details up front. Every American would benefit, and see the difference, the next time they receive care.

President Trump signed this policy, which is called an Advanced Explanation of Benefits into law in his first term. Again, the Biden Administration did nothing to implement it, but the law remains on the books and ready to be put into action. That’s why Save Our States recently wrote President Donald Trump to applaud his historic leadership on price transparency and urge full implementation of AEOBs.

While Democrats in Washington argue over subsidies that only push prices higher, this is a cost-saving policy that would help all Americans, providing financial certainty, lower costs, greater freedom of choice, and accountability to big insurance companies. Price transparency isn’t a partisan policy. It’s something that will help every American in ways that are easy to see and understand. For families nationwide, making health care decisions should be more like buying a cup of coffee, and less like dining on caviar.

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

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A Virginia judge on Tuesday blocked a Democrat redistricting plan designed to give the party more seats in Congress.

Judge Jack Hurley Jr., a judge on the Tazewell County circuit court, ruled that the Democrat-controlled state legislature did not follow procedure to approve a state constitutional amendment on redistricting.

Democrat Speaker Don Scott of the Virginia House of Delegates stated on X following the ruling, “We will appeal immediately, and we expect to prevail. Voters—not politicians—will have the final say.”

In October 2025, the legislature passed a measure to redraw the state’s congressional map.

In January, under a new Democrat governor, the legislature finalized a plan to put the issue to voters before the midterm in an April 21 special election. The goal was to lock in heavily Democrat districts before the November midterm elections.   

Judge Hurley found that using a special session to pass the measure was not allowed because early voting in last year’s state elections had already begun.

He also found state law requires the lawmakers pass proposed constitutional amendments both before and after an election. 

“Therefore, the court find FINDS that following the October 31, 2025 vote and passage of House Joint Resolution 6007, there has not been an ensuing general election of the House of Delegates, and such ensuing general election cannot occur until 2027,” the judge wrote. 

“Thus, the action of the General Assembly during its Regular Session 2026 CANNOT meet the second passage required of Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution, which second passage must occur before the same can be submitted to the voters of Virginia for adoption,” he continued. 

In October, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, told The Daily Signal this might be a legal problem for Democrats because the 2025 election early voting already began on Sept. 19, before the October special session. 

“The next intervening election likely can’t happen until 2027, so the earliest this can go to the ballot is 2028,” Cuccinelli said. “Do they really want this fought out on a presidential year ballot?”

Virginia Republican state Sen. Ryan McDougle is the plaintiff in the case. Democrat House Speaker Don Scott is the defendant. 

Democrats have a trifecta in Virginia after retaking the governor’s office in November with Abigail Spanberger’s victory. 

Virginia currently has a bipartisan redistricting commission.

Speaker Scott stated, “We always knew this would be a fight— because this has never been about what’s easy. It’s about what’s right: leveling the playing field and protecting the right to vote.”

Jason Miyares, former Republican attorney general of Virginia, praised the court for finding “that the General Assembly cannot sidestep constitutional accountability in pursuit of partisan gain,” in a post on X.

This is a developing story and may be updated.  

The post BREAKING: Court Blocks Virginia Democrat Redistricting Plan appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In the years ahead, artificial intelligence has the potential to transform how we work, learn, communicate, travel, and live. In Tennessee and across America, we are already seeing what this emerging technology can accomplish. 

In Nashville, health care companies are developing new AI-powered tools to improve diagnostics, monitoring, patient scheduling, and task management. Across the state, manufacturers—from Nissan’s Smyrna assembly plant to LG Electronics’s Clarksville plant—are integrating AI into their production processes to spot defects, lower costs, and increase efficiency.

While scientists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are studying how AI can strengthen our nation’s hypersonic defense, researchers at nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using Frontier—the second-fastest supercomputer in the world—to develop AI models that support nuclear energy.

These incredible developments represent just a fraction of the work Americans are doing every single day to develop this promising technology. John Deere, which first opened doors in 1837, is incorporating AI in its farming equipment to improve performance and better target weeds.

Banks from Wells Fargo to Capital One are using the new technology to detect and prevent fraud. AI powers SpaceX’s autonomous rocket launches and landings, reducing the cost of space travel for NASA and American businesses. 

Nationwide, AI could significantly boost economic growth, with estimates of GDP gains ranging from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars. Even as we realize AI’s potential, however, communities across the country are confronting the unintended harm it poses.

No state is more familiar with these drawbacks than Tennessee.

While our world-famous creative community explores innovative uses of AI, bad actors are using AI technology to steal artists’ voices and likeness to create new songs without their consent—directly threatening their livelihoods.

Just last month, an AI-generated song, “Walk My Walk,” reached number one on Billboard’s Country Digital Songs Sales Chart, racking up millions of streams. The only problem? The song mimicked the voice and likeness of country star Blanco Brown without his permission. The month before, an unauthorized, AI-generated album purporting to be recorded by country legend Don Williams—who passed away in 2017—appeared on streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music, featuring an AI-produced image of Williams on the cover. Such abuses of AI could reduce artists’ incomes by a quarter within the next four years.

Unfortunately, this misuse represents just one way AI is harming Americans. Predators are using AI to produce child sexual abuse material, while AI chatbots have sexualized children in roleplaying fantasies. AI data centers have sent energy costs soaring for host communities by as much as 267 percent. AI models have demonstrated systemic bias against conservatives, going so far as to fabricate entire criminal allegations against them, including me.

In the absence of congressional action, state governments have stepped in to protect their citizens from AI-related harm.

Tennessee, for example, enacted the ELVIS Act, which protects artists from having their voice and likeness used in unauthorized music. To preserve such protections, I led the fight last year to defeat an AI amnesty proposal that would have decimated state AI laws across the country, succeeding by a decisive 99-1 vote in the Senate. This victory garnered national attention, and it was an honor to be recognized alongside other world AI leaders following this effort.

Instead of implementing a blanket AI moratorium that would eliminate state protections without federal laws to replace them, President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month that calls on Congress to pass federal standards as part of a national AI policy framework.

To that end, I recently unveiled the framework for my TRUMP AMERICA AI Act, which would preempt state protections with strong federal guardrails that both encourage innovation and protect Americans from Big Tech exploitation—all while ensuring that America remains the global leader in the technology.

The bill provides protections for what I call the four Cs: children, creators, conservatives, and communities.

To protect children, the legislation would place a duty of care on AI developers in the design, development, and operation of AI platforms to prevent and mitigate foreseeable harm to minors. It would also include my Kids Online Safety Act to ensure social media platforms are safe for children by default.

To protect creators, the legislation includes my NO FAKES Act to protect artists from unauthorized replications of their work. It would also create a federal right for individuals to sue companies for using their data and copyrighted material for AI training without explicit consent.

To protect conservatives, thebill would require high-risk AI systems to undergo regular bias evaluations to prevent discrimination based on protected characteristics, including political affiliation.

To protect communities, the legislation would require data center operators to be responsible for the full cost of all energy and water infrastructure needed for their operation, including construction, maintenance, and upgrades, with no impact on ratepayers

I look forward to introducing this legislation and getting it to Trump’s desk as soon as possible. By encouraging responsible innovation while protecting Americans from AI’s harms, the TRUMP AMERICA AI Actwould secure a brighter future for generations to come.

The post Why America Needs One Rulebook for AI appeared first on The Daily Signal.