As the birth rate continues to plummet to record lows, data shows that a significant percentage of liberals are deprioritizing the importance of marriage and having children, especially among teens. Among conservatives, however, the phenomenon does not appear to be occurring.

In an article published last week by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), sociologists Brad Wilcox and Grant Bailey highlight how the aspirations that many liberals claim to have about marrying and having children are not lining up with their real-world behavior, which appears to be heavily influenced by negative media narratives.

They note that mainstream media outlets like Bloomberg, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have been publishing a steady stream of articles for decades that “devalue, deny, and discount the institution of marriage.”

Wilcox and Bailey further noted that current data on marriage has made it clear that the anti-marriage messaging is having an effect on the actual marriage rates of left-leaning, college-educated Americans. “No group of Americans is less likely to say marriage matters than liberals, especially the college educated,” they observe.

Among the cohort, only 30% agree that “children are better off with married parents,” according to the 2022 American Family Survey. Interestingly, less educated liberals were more supportive of the principle at 36%.

Conservatives hold strikingly different views on the question (which has been proven to be true time and again by social science data). The survey found that over nine in 10 college-educated conservatives (91%) say that children are better off with married parents, with 73% of less educated conservatives agreeing.

The proof of the importance of worldview regarding marriage is borne out in the actual data of who is married. As Wilcox and Bailey point out, “a majority of conservative men and women are married, and a majority of liberals are not,” with college-educated conservatives aged 22-40 being 50% more likely to be married than their liberal peers.

The bleak marriage picture for liberals becomes worse when considering the data on progressive teens’ views on the institution. A Monitoring the Future study found that since 2010, the percentage of liberal 12th graders who say they expect to get married has plummeted, with boys dropping 22 percentage points to 53% and girls dropping 12 points to 63%.

The outlook among conservative teens is far more positive, holding largely steady at around 83% for boys and 90% for girls over the last decade and a half.

“Despite many on the Left suggesting declines in marriage are largely a class issue, we found that political views were a stronger predictor of being married than college education,” IFS Research Fellow Grant Bailey told The Washington Stand. “Marriage rates are significantly lower among liberal adults, and left-leaning teens are increasingly disinterested in marriage.”

The grim marital outlook and the decreasing number of marriages among liberals, who encompass roughly 48% of the U.S. population, are likely a significant factor in the dwindling American birth rate. This is because the birth rate among married women (81.6 per 1,000) is considerably higher than it is for unmarried women (36.4 per 1,000).

Studies show that what liberals (and conservatives) are missing out on by eschewing marriage and children is happiness and fulfilment. Data collected in 2024 shows that just 66% of unmarried liberals aged 22-40 say they are “pretty” or “very” happy, compared to 86% of liberals who are married.

A considerable (although not as sharp) difference also exists among conservatives, with 90% of those who are married saying they are happy compared to 73% of those who are not.

Policy analysts like Leah Libresco Sargeant argue that those who are married are called to witness how married life brings meaning and purpose to a world hungering for both. “As a married woman, I think marriage is great,” she recently observed. “It shouldn’t be this ‘hard sell.’

We should approach marriage with a real sense of optimism in that we’re trying to invite people into this phase of life that is both challenging and beautiful.”

Originally published at The Washington Stand

The Obamacare marketplace is reportedly facing significant upheaval following the expiration of enhanced federal subsidies.

Cigna announced in late April that it will leave the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges in 2027, which could further shake up the individual marketplace. CVS’ Aetna ceased offering plans and overall enrollment has declined since Congress refused to renew ACA subsidies, The Hill reported.

“Medical insurance has become unbearably expensive, and this is even before a single service is used,” Jeffrey Tucker, founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “For many people this truly makes no [sense].”

“Crowdsourced alternatives [to the ACA] are doing well even with the legal limits,” Tucker added. “Some people with built up [Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)] who go independent drop medical insurance completely and take their chances. This is actually a rational choice.”

Tucker emphasized that some U.S. insurers are facing “extreme limits” to “leaving the [Obamacare] system now.”

In most cases, carriers who decide to exit the market elect to do so at the end of the calendar year, according to a May 1 report from Healthinsurance.org. Mid-year carrier exits have been highly uncommon in the ACA-compliant individual market.

“There are draconian mandates on business,” he explained, adding that “the exit ramps are too restrictive.” He also said Americans “desperately need universal and unlimited HSAs and we need further to break down the defined benefits mandates.”

An HSA is a type of savings account that allows people to set aside money on a pre-tax basis to pay for qualified medical expenses, according to HealthCare.gov.

A KFF survey published in March found that 80% of returning ACA Marketplace enrollees said their 2026 plan’s premiums, deductibles or coinsurance and co-pays are higher than last year, including 51% of returning enrollees who say they are now “a lot higher.”

Almost 23 million Americans get medical insurance through one of the online exchanges that operate under the ACA, according to Pew Research Center. An estimated 8% of U.S. adults under age 65 who generally worked over 20 hours per week in 2023 got their coverage in the individual market, KFF reported in September 2025.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) stated in a January fact sheet that the agency is “exercising its full statutory and regulatory authority to protect consumers from unauthorized enrollment activity and safeguard the integrity” of the ACA exchanges.

“CMS is committed to a strong, stable, and competitive Marketplace that continues to deliver meaningful coverage options for millions of Americans,” an agency spokesperson told the DCNF in a statement. “Each year, the agency sees issuers expand and contract on the individual market for various reasons, and while it is concerning when any issuer decides to leave even one county, the agency continues to see strong market participation nationally.”

“Consumers in every state still have access to a range of high-quality plans, and the agency is focused on ensuring the ACA Exchanges remain a reliable pathway to affordable, comprehensive coverage,” the CMS spokesperson added.

Cigna did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Aetna declined to comment.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in October 2025 that 2.3 million marketplace enrollees improperly claimed the premium tax credit via intentional overstatement of income for that year.

The Department of Justice announced in February that two executives were each sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of being involved in a years-long scheme to defraud the ACA program. The Wall Street Journal editorial board asserted in December 2025 that Obamacare has become a “Mecca for fraud.”

“The ACA exchanges are not in upheaval; they are adjusting after a period of subsidy expansion and a tremendous increase in enrollment, much of it improper,” Gabrielle Minarik, program manager at the Paragon Health Institute, told the DCNF.

“Following the law’s early instability, coverage stabilized during the first Trump administration as reforms expanded consumer options and restored greater market discipline,” Minarik explained. “The 2026 debate reflects a return to the ACA’s original subsidy framework after the expiration of temporary COVID-era subsidy boosts. The enhanced subsidies distorted prices, weakened eligibility safeguards, inflated enrollment, led to widespread improper and phantom enrollment, and imposed substantial costs on taxpayers as well as people enrolled without their consent.”

In 2021, federal spending on the ACA exchanges hit $60 billion, leading to 1.6 million additional Americans obtaining private insurance coverage, according to Paragon Health Institute estimates published in October 2023. U.S. taxpayers paid an estimated $36,798 per each additional private insurance enrollee and $20,739 for each additional non-group enrollee, which was notably more than three times as much as the CBO’s original estimates, Paragon Health Institute reported.

“Some enrollment decline is expected, given the large numbers of improper and phantom enrollments,” she continued. “Republicans and the administration have responded with targeted relief options rather than even higher subsidies to insurers, underscoring a preference for sustainable reforms over fiscal dependency.”

Minarik also said she thinks “a wave of additional insurer exits from the ACA marketplace is unlikely.” She added that “further reductions in effectuated enrollment” in the individual marketplace are likely to occur “as the market returns to more normal subsidy parameters and program integrity measures take effect.”

In June 2025, CMS issued a final rule aiming to finalize “additional safeguards to protect consumers from improper enrollments and changes to their health care coverage, as well as establishes standards to ensure the integrity of the ACA Exchanges.”

A recent report from Wakely Consulting Group, a strategic consulting firm, projects that coverage in the marketplaces may plummet by up to 26% in 2026 compared to the average enrollment in 2025. Top Obamacare provider Centene disclosed in March that its enrollment had declined by over 1.5 million over just a few months, Forbes reported.

As of 2025, 93% of ACA Marketplace enrollees received some form of premium tax credit which subsidized their coverage, according to KFF.

In 2025, for enrollees who received advance premium tax credits the average monthly gross premium was $619, per KFF’s estimates. By comparison, the average monthly gross premium for a benchmark silver plan is $625 in 2026, and the average gross monthly premium for an individual’s lowest-cost bronze plan option is $456, KFF reported.

Health insurance premiums for individuals purchasing coverage on their own rose an average of 10% or more annually during the three years before ACA was enacted, according to a June 2014 Commonwealth Fund report.

Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado claimed Wednesday in a X post that rising healthcare premiums in the U.S. are “added costs for families who are already struggling to cover gas, groceries, and housing.”

Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri wrote in a Jan. 22 social media post that “after 15 years of a Democrat-created health system under Obamacare, [healthcare] prices have only gone up.”

Analysts previously told the DCNF that surging U.S. medical costs will likely play a pivotal part in the outcome of the November’s midterms. Healthcare currently represents almost one in every five dollars spent in the nation’s economy, KFF reported in March.

The Daily Caller

The term “bloodbath” is being thrown around to describe Labour’s position, and that sounds about right. Of course, just as important as who loses is who wins, and Nigel Farage’s right-wing, anti-immigration, anti-Islamic Reform Party dominated. In just a few years, they have gone from a small upstart, laughed at by the broader press, to being the ascendant political power in the country. Even in far-left Wales, Labour lost its grip on power.

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Alex Armstrong @Alexarmstrong BREAKING:

Labour are conceding defeat in Wales. This will be the first time in the history of the Senedd where Labour have not controlled the country. Historic. 6:46 AM · May 8, 2026 · 13.3K Views

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Here’s a bit of Farage celebrating his victory. You’ll have to ignore the bit of cope from The New York Times reporter who penned the report. The press still doesn’t want to accept that an “anti-immigration” agenda in the UK isn’t a gimmick. It’s a legitimate issue for voters who have been inundated with unvetted Islamic migration and have paid a steep price for their leadership’s haphazard policies.

For more than a year, opinion polls have indicated that Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party, was Britain’s most popular party as its leader, Nigel Farage, imitated President Trump’s anti-immigration agenda and railed against the Labour government.

Now, it’s looking increasingly official.

In early results from a set of local elections on Thursday, Mr. Farage and his party have emerged victorious in more than 400 council seats across England. The wins have come at the expense of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and the Conservatives, the parties who have led the country for decades.

“Labour are being wiped out by Reform in many of their most traditional areas, and what you’re going to see later on today is the Conservative Party being wiped out in their heartlands,” a beaming Mr. Farage told reporters Friday morning.

“It can’t continue to be a fluke or a protest vote,” Mr. Farage said. “I would honestly say you’re witnessing a historic shift in British politics. This is now the most national of all parties.”

So what does this all mean?

On a micro-level, a large number of municipalities across the UK will now have better governance, and that can certainly make a difference on issues like migrant crime, which has become a touchpoint for voters. On a macro-level, though, this portends very bad things for Labour. While the next national election isn’t scheduled until 2029, remember that the UK has a parliamentary system, and it’s unlikely that Starmer lasts anywhere near that long. An election will probably be called well before that, and unless something dramatic changes, it appears that a Reform-led coalition (presumably with what’s left of the Tories) will be in power soon enough.

And that’s the thing about Western politics. Once the ball gets rolling downhill, it doesn’t tend to stop until after the next national election, and the Reform ball is only picking up speed. I’m not even sure what Labour could do at this point to win back the goodwill it has lost, and lost in record time, no less. London will no doubt continue to burn itself to the ground, and as of now, it seems to just be going further left by handing seats to the progressive Green Party, but for the first time in a long time, the majority of the rest of the UK has a chance at redemption and reclaiming their country.

Unfortunately, though, it may be too late. As I’ve written before, there is a point of no return for countries that import Islamism and crack down on civil liberties, and it really feels like the UK crossed it over the last few years. Still, even a managed decline, doing what can be done to slow the bleeding, would be preferable to what they have now.

When the scale of the Medicaid fraud in Minnesota started to emerge, our first thought was that, if it’s that easy to rip off Medicaid, the North Star State can’t be the only place where it’s happening.

Turns out we were right, as the Daily Wire’s exposé of massive fraud schemes in Ohio makes clear. Which means there are almost certainly still more to be uncovered. Which leads to the question of why we are learning about this only now.

Daily Wire is releasing a five-part series that alleges massive fraud in an Ohio Medicaid program – a state that obtained a waiver so it could reimburse “home healthcare.” The idea made sense. Care at home is cheaper than in skilled nursing facilities.

But it threw open the door to fragrant abuse.

As the Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak explains, “Ohio pays people to go to Medicaid beneficiaries’ homes to perform ‘homemaking’ and ‘chores’ like cooking and cleaning. The people performing these ‘personal services’ tasks don’t even have to be healthcare workers — and in many cases, are actually relatives of the Medicaid recipient.”

Rosiak dug into a treasure trove of Medicaid data released by DOGE and found the same thing being uncovered by independent journalists in Minnesota and in California. Obvious cases of fraud. Storefronts that don’t appear to be doing anything other than billing Medicaid. And, as it turns out, lots of immigrants are running these scams.

In the second part of his series, he reports finding 288 “home health” companies in just seven buildings in Columbus, Ohio, that collectively billed Medicaid $250 million.

So now, independent, muckraking journalists have uncovered massive child care fraud schemes in Minnesota, hospice fraud schemes in California, and a bustling “home health” care racket in Ohio.

And in each case, the governors have dismissed the allegations, claiming that their administration is aggressively rooting out fraud and that this is all just MAGA types causing trouble.

Even Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s initial statement – after the Daily Wire’s first article in the series was published – was dismissive of the report, saying that it “does not seem to allege any fraud in the details provided.”

One big problem with Medicaid is that, because of the way it’s financed, fraud actually pays dividends to the states, which get federal matching dollars for every dollar spent on providing Medicaid benefits. So, if the state doles out hundreds of millions of dollars to phony day care, hospice, or “home health” companies, Washington kicks in hundreds of millions, which the state can then use to pay for legitimate healthcare.

So, how many more Medicaid schemes are out there? How many schemes involve food stamps? Obamacare? Medicare?

If the journalism profession weren’t so hopelessly captured by the Democratic Party, every investigative journalist at every major news outlet in every state would be digging into to see if it’s happening in their hometowns.

But our guess is that zero are, because it would be seen as somehow helping Donald Trump.

Instead, reporters are filing stories about the “devastating,” “draconian,” and “deadly” Medicaid cuts Republicans approved as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Typical is an NPR headline from last week: “It’s Day 1 of Medicaid work requirements in Nebraska. People are worried.” The Bulwark, which is so insanely anti-Trump that it now makes the Huffington Post look sensible, cried that “Trump’s Big Medicaid Cuts Are About to Get Very Real.”

You’d think Democrats would be as adamant as anyone about rooting out fraud. After all, every dollar that goes to a con artist is a dollar that isn’t being used to help the needy.

But as we’ve said before, for today’s Democrats, fraud isn’t a bug that needs to be stamped out. It’s a feature that enriches their friends and family — and gets them reelected.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris made a recent appearance on ABC’s The View, where she stated that the 2024 presidential race was “the closest presidential race in the 21st century in terms of the outcome,” a comment that led to a rousing round of applause from the audience. It also prompted co-host Ana Navarro to say, “You know, say that again because he likes to say over and over again that he got a mandate.”

In response to Navarro, Harris said, “Well, and that’s part of why I wrote the book, because history will talk about this race. It is part of American history. And it was important to me that when history is written, that my voice be present.” The only problem with Harris’ statement is that, as usual, it isn’t true. President Donald Trump won the popular vote by 2 million votes. He also won the Electoral College vote by 86 points.

In fact, according to a report published by Fox News, the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore was far closer than the Trump and Harris race, both in terms of the popular vote and Electoral College vote. This fact was pointed out by a user on social media platform X, who shared a clip from the episode.

According to Fox, Harris, who was on the program to promote her new book, “107 Days,” which is a rehash of her failed presidential campaign, in which she also said the biggest reason she lost to Trump was due to not having enough time to campaign. “There are many factors I think that played into the outcome of that election, but I think probably one of the biggest in my mind is, we just didn’t have enough time,” she stated.

Navarro prompted Harris’ answer, stating she believed that the former vice president had the whole race sewn up going into election night, but was shocked that Trump still defeated her. “I felt so good going into Election Day, and then I read in the book that you did too. I went into Election Day thinking you were going to win,” the co-host said.

“So did you,” Navarro said, to which Harris replied, “Yeah. I did.” Navarro chimed back in, saying, “So — I mean, it was a very tight race — but, ultimately, if you have to pin it down to one thing, what was the primary reason, do you think, that you lost?” Harris then blamed her loss on only having four months to campaign after stepping in to replace former President Joe Biden.

Biden opted to step down as the Democratic Party nominee after a horrifically bad debate performance against Trump in June. Harris then told the co-hosts of the show that the whole situation was unprecedented. “And, you know, I mean, one of the reasons I wrote the book is this is unprecedented. Think about this, that there is a race for President of the United States,” she said.

“The current sitting president is running for re-election. Three-and-a-half months from the election, he decides not to run,” the former vice president continued. “The sitting vice president then takes the mantle, running against a former president of the United States who had been running for ten years — with 107 days until the election.”

The award-winning actress, who has long been an LGBTQ+ ally, returns to her iconic role of Miranda Priestly in the upcoming ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’.

Acting royalty Meryl Streep is returning as sharp-tongued fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the upcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2, which hits cinemas worldwide next week.

During the press tour for the sequel to the 2006 film, Streep commented on the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada with the LGBTQ+ community.

“It makes me so happy! Would we have fashion without gay people?” she told Out magazine. “Forgive me, would we have anything? I wouldn’t know how to put together anything. It’s a joy to have made it with [the LGBTQ+] community in mind. Top of mind.”

She added that the new film has been well received by people from a wide variety of backgrounds, saying: “It’s cross culture. We’ve just been around the world with this. The reaction is the same in Mexico City as Tokyo, as Seoul, as Shanghai… I honestly was surprised. I really was surprised by the universality of the response and from so many different kinds of people.”

The Devil Wears Prada 2 sees Streep joined by returning cast members, including Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci.

Streep said of her cast members: “I feel so lucky to be able to come back to something we did 20 years ago. Who gets to do that? We’ve had a whole lifetime. Look at Stanley Tucci! He’s blossomed! [Emily Blunt] blossomed at birth.”

Streep has long been an LGBTQ+ ally, expressing support for the queer community on numerous occasions.

In 2004, during her Golden Globes acceptance speech for Angels in America, she spoke out in support of marriage equality, condemning then-president George W. Bush for his anti-gay marriage stance.

In 2017, the Human Rights Campaign honoured her with its Ally for Equality Award, saying she had used her voice throughout her career to support LGBTQ+ people. In her speech, she took aim at anyone threatening to disrupt the progress women, people of colour and the accomplishments of the LGBTQ+ community.

“We should not be surprised that fundamentalists, of every stripe, are exercised and fuming,” she said. “We should not be surprised that these profound changes come at a steeper cost than we originally thought. We should not be surprised that not everyone is actually cool with it.”

Streep also memorably ended her speech by saying: “There is a prohibition against the establishment of a state religion in our Constitution, and we have the right to choose with whom we live, whom we love and who and what gets to interfere with our bodies. As Americans, men, women, people, gay, straight, L, G, B, T, Q, all of us have the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And if you think people got mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait till they come and try to take away our happiness!”

Fox News contributor Mark Thiessen joined anchor John Roberts on Thursday to discuss the latest developments in President Donald Trump’s negotiations to end the conflict in Iran, which Thiessen warned risked putting the U.S. in a weaker position.

Roberts introduced Thiessen and noted, “He’s got a new column out today in the Washington Post titled ‘Trump Risks Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory.’” Roberts continued:

You’re offering the president some advice here, including on X, where you said: “Here’s what Iran sees after being warned not to. They hit UAE and fired on a U.S. ship, and we didn’t respond. Instead, we suspended the Strait of Hormuz mission. They take that as weakness. They don’t think Trump is willing to bomb them again. They think they have leverage. He needs to prove them wrong.” What would you tell him if you had the honor?

“Exactly right. So look, first of all, let’s stipulate that Donald Trump’s decision to do this operation is one of the most courageous things an American president has done in my lifetime,” Thiessen replied. Notably, the U.S. did bomb Iran shortly after the segment aired on Fox. Thiessen continued:

No other president—four presidents said Iran can’t have a bomb—Donald Trump is the only one who did anything about it. But how you start a war and how you finish a war is as important as how you started it. And right now the Iranians are not seeing that Donald Trump has all the cards. They think they have the cards. He started Project Freedom.

Said if you fire on a U.S. ship or fire on U.S. allies, I’m gonna blow you off the face of the earth. And they did exactly that—they fired at a U.S. destroyer. They fired at our allies in the UAE. And we didn’t do anything. And then Marco Rubio announced that we’re ending Operation Epic Fury, and we’re now into Project Freedom. And then the next day we suspended Project Freedom. So what the Iranians see, if you’re looking at that from an Iranian perspective, you see weakness.

You see that the president seems to not want to enforce this blockade. That you’ve got this threat of attacking Gulf oil that is stopping him, not only from restarting the war, but also from opening the Strait of Hormuz. And you think that you’ve got all the cards. Now, they don’t have all the cards because Donald Trump can start the campaign again.

We’ve got double the firepower that we had at the start of the war, and he has that cocked and ready to go. They should have none of the cards. They should know that they have no cards. But they think they have cards because we’re sending signals to them that they have cards.

“So there’s this idea of a memorandum of understanding that might lead to some sort of peace deal. Here’s what Hugh Hewitt wrote about that on X. He said, ‘This would be a terrible deal. I hope the terms of any deal would be significantly stricter. No enrichment ever. Highly enriched uranium to us, stat. No more proxies. Turn on the internet. President Trump never gives up leverage. Why would he start now with Iran on the ropes?’ And then this from Ari Fleischer: ‘This is a far cry from unconditional surrender.’ You know, there’s a certain zigzag quality to where we are in terms of decision-making,” Roberts followed up.

“So Trump is trying to get a deal, and I understand that. But the fact is, the Iranians are not going to give him a deal when they’re emboldened. They think that they are dictating the pace of play. And so he needs a reset in order to show them who’s really in charge. What I would do if I were him is I would finish what he started,” Thiessen replied, adding:

Reopen Project Freedom, open up the Strait of Hormuz, and tell the Iranians that if you fire on our Gulf allies and try to target their oil infrastructure, we’re gonna destroy your oil infrastructure. We’re gonna blow up Karg Island—which is 96% of their oil—goes through Karg Island.

If we blow up Karg Island, their economy is destroyed. And then you unleash Israel to start the combat operations again. We take care of the Strait of Hormuz operation. Israel starts targeting their leadership, their energy infrastructure, their military bases. And you finish the job. And then if they’re not willing to capitulate at that point, then you say, “Okay, we’ve accomplished our military mission, and now we’re going to have a covert op to send arms to the Iranians.”

President Trump said this week: if the Iranians get guns, they’re going to overthrow the regime. So give them the guns. Let them overthrow the regime. The problem that he faces is that all of the accomplishments that he’s had in terms of taking down their nuclear capabilities and their military capabilities are necessarily temporary if this regime remains in power. Because even if he gets a deal, as soon as he’s gone, they’re gonna break it. The only way you guarantee that these stay is if the regime is gone.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as an innocuous Muslim civil rights group—a reputation it reinforces with litigation and claims of anti-Muslim bigotry. But the group finds itself under increasing scrutiny for alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. Last November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated CAIR a terrorist organization. The following month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis followed suit, citing CAIR’s being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism financing case.

But as other states move to sideline CAIR, California is embracing this alleged terror front. CAIR-CA, the organization’s largest statewide affiliate, is flush with taxpayer cash. In the last five years, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has rubberstamped at least $41 million in funding to the group. The vast majority of that money, it turns out, comes from the federal government. These federal dollars are flowing into CAIR-CA’s coffers even after it was the target of a recent Department of Justice investigation.

This City Journal report—based on a trove of documents provided to us by the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based nonprofit—reveals good reason for the DOJ to be digging into CAIR-CA. It also raises serious questions about why Gavin Newsom’s government is funding a chapter of an organization with alleged terrorist ties.

CAIR was founded in 1994 with the ostensible aim of advancing Muslim-American civil rights. The organization claims that it “is not and never has been an agent” or affiliate of “any militant group.” But the historical record offers justification to question that characterization.

CAIR’s co-founders, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, were leading members of the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. That committee “effectively became the US-based Hamas infrastructure,” according to a George Washington University Program on Extremism report. In an October 1993 meeting planned by the Palestine Committee—secretly monitored by the FBI—participants discussed how to support Hamas’s efforts as well as how to help derail the Oslo Accords.

A year later, CAIR was born, with Ahmad and Awad assuming leading roles. For 11 years, Ahmad served as CAIR’s national chairman. Awad remains CAIR’s national executive director.

Some of this information came to light during the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, which saw five of that sham charity’s leaders convicted for collectively funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. The investigation uncovered a network of Hamas-linked organizations. While CAIR was not prosecuted, the court found “ample evidence to establish” that it was associated with the Palestinian terror group. An FBI Special Agent reportedly testified at trial that CAIR was a “front group for Hamas.”

Lara Burns served as an FBI Special Agent for more than two decades and was the lead investigator on the Holy Land Foundation case. She currently serves as the head of terrorism research at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

“You can’t look at what CAIR is doing today in isolation,” Burns said. “The government established the fact [during the trial] that a conspiracy existed among these organizations, including CAIR, to support Hamas, and that acts were taken in furtherance of that conspiracy. . . . CAIR’s role was to operate an entity out of Washington, D.C. that would serve to defend the interests of the rest of the network—against scrutiny from the media, against scrutiny from law enforcement. . . . In my opinion, the executive director, Nihad Awad, and other components of CAIR that were a part of this original infrastructure, are still operating CAIR in furtherance of an agenda to support Hamas.”

CAIR-CA leaders have also effectively endorsed Hamas’s perspective on the Middle East. On October 7, 2023, the day of Hamas’s terror attack on Israel, Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco office, posted to social media: “We are witnessing decolonization.” On July 31, 2024, following the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Billoo again took to social media, where she declared him a martyr. On November 12, 2023, Hussam Ayloush, the CEO of CAIR-CA, likened Israel to Nazi Germany and said, given the Jewish state’s “occupation” of Palestine, that “Israel should be attacked.”

One would think that CAIR’s ties to an Islamist terror group would make government agencies pause before providing it with public funds. But under Governor Gavin Newsom, California’s state government has seemingly never met a “marginalized group” it did not want to shower with other people’s money. CAIR-CA is rolling in tax dollars.

In 2022, CDSS awarded CAIR-CA $7.2 million in federal funds via a state program to provide immigration-related legal assistance. For its part, CAIR-CA pledged to serve approximately 1,800 people through September 2024, and earlier this year, claimed to have fulfilled that promise “across . . . various subgrantees.” According to IAN, a public records request submitted to the CDSS did not confirm how many legal cases have been handled as part of the grant; in its most recent annual report, CAIR-CA said that it had helped “dozens of Afghan families” through the project. In September 2025, CDSS rubberstamped an additional $23 million in federal funds for CAIR-CA.

In 2024, CAIR-CA’s IRS filings revealed that it had distributed more than $4 million in subgrants to 39 organizations. Among these sub-grantees were various groups with Islamist ties. For example, CAIR-CA sub-granted roughly $185,000 to California chapters of the Muslim American Society (MAS). GWU’s Program on Extremism identifies MAS as an open “Brotherhood legacy group” in the U.S. In 2004, a top MAS official estimated that nearly half of the organization’s activists were Muslim Brotherhood members. (MAS, which did not respond to our request for comment, claims to have “no affiliation” with the Muslim Brotherhood.)

CAIR-CA also sub-granted $30,000 to the Islamic Society of Orange County, which has ties to an individual connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1992, ISOC’s director invited Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the “Blind Sheikh,” to deliver a lecture, during which he reportedly “dismissed” nonviolent interpretations of jihad. A year later, Rahman was charged with seditious conspiracy for his connection to the attack. (ISOC did not respond to our request for comment.)

In 2024, CAIR-CA sub-granted $117,000 to California “relief” chapters of the Islamic Circle of North America. ICNA was originally established as a U.S. affiliate of the Jamaat-e-Islami movement, whose founder’s ideology influenced the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, in 2000, a former ICNA president penned an article that seemingly endorsed the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the U.S. (ICNA did not respond to our request for comment.)

CAIR-CA has claimed, however implausibly, that it has no control over the selection of its sub-grantees. In January 2026, the director of CAIR-CA, Hussam Ayloush, wrote to a congressional subcommittee claiming that his organization “had no input or role” in determining the sub-grantees. Instead, he suggested that CDSS had selected them.

While CDSS told IAN that it “reviews and authorizes all . . . subgrantees,” the department did not release records showing that it approved or authorized the CAIR-CA sub-grants. Additionally, Alyoush’s signature appears on the sub-grant contracts, which, according to IAN, suggests that CAIR-CA exercised significant discretion over millions in federal tax dollars.

“Ayloush personally signed every one of these ALSP [Afghan Legal Services Project] grants as executive director of CAIR-LA,” a spokesman for the Network Contagion Research Institute and IAN told the New York Post. “[A]n entity contractually charged with administering funds and subgranting services necessarily plays a role in identifying subgrantees and their performance under the grant.”

In response to our request for comment, a CAIR-CA spokesman called allegations against the organization “baseless” and “part of a broader defamation campaign.” “All contributions and grants that CAIR California receives are fully reported, accounted for, and used strictly for their intended purposes,” he said, “subject to rigorous internal and external auditing and reporting. This transparency is why both private and public funders have worked with us and continue to do so.”

In March 2025, IAN requested that the Department of Justice launch an investigation into CAIR-CA, stating that a “forensic audit” was needed to determine the scope of the organization’s “financial misconduct, compliance [breaches], and support for terrorism.” Three months later, the DOJ confirmed that an investigation was underway.

Given California’s track record under Newsom—on whose watch the state has lost billions of dollars to fraud—taxpayers should not hold their breath that state agencies will hold CAIR-CA accountable. Nor should they expect California to come to its senses anytime soon and stop turning over buckets of tax dollars to a chapter of a “civil rights” group with alleged ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the failures of California state government present an opportunity for the Trump administration. If the Department of Justice were officially and permanently to revoke CAIR-CA’s accreditation with the Executive Office for Immigration Review—a status that the group relies on to receive federal immigration funds—then tax dollars currently flowing into its coffers would be halted. In other words, the solution is simple: turn off the taps.

Yes, the United States effectively inherited the existing institution of slavery in the territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France (which had briefly reacquired it from Spain in 1800). The U.S. did not introduce slavery there as a new practice; it was already well-established under prior colonial rule, and the transfer preserved the property rights of slaveholders.

Historical Context of Slavery in the Louisiana Territory

* French origins: France introduced chattel slavery to the Louisiana colony starting in the early 1700s, importing enslaved Africans (beginning around 1710) to support plantation agriculture, alongside some raids on Native American groups for labor. The Code Noir (1685) regulated slavery in French colonies, outlining rules for treatment, manumission, and rights of free people of color.

* Spanish period (1762–1800): Spain continued and expanded the transatlantic slave trade in the territory. By the time of the Purchase, there was a significant population of enslaved Africans, especially in the lower Mississippi Valley (present-day Louisiana), along with free people of color. Spain had banned enslavement of Native Americans in 1769, but some mixed-descent individuals remained in bondage.

* Brief French return (1800–1803): Napoleon reacquired Louisiana from Spain via the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso but never fully reimposed control on a large scale. His broader plans for a New World empire (including using Louisiana to supply Saint-Domingue/Haiti) collapsed due to the successful Haitian Revolution (a massive slave rebellion that led to Haiti’s independence in 1804) and disease among French troops. Napoleon restored slavery in other French colonies in 1802 but sold Louisiana before deeply reasserting it there.

At the time of the Purchase, slavery was a functioning economic and social institution in parts of the territory, particularly around New Orleans and agricultural areas. The Purchase doubled the size of the U.S. and brought in a diverse population that included thousands of enslaved people.

The Louisiana Purchase Treaty and Its Provisions

The 1803 treaty (signed April 30, 1803) made no direct mention of slavery or its abolition. Key relevant language came in Article III:

“The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all these rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the Religion which they profess.”

In the legal and social context of the era, enslaved people were treated as property under colonial (and later U.S.) law. Protecting “property” rights thus meant the U.S. recognized and upheld existing claims to enslaved individuals. President Thomas Jefferson and Congress had no intention of ending slavery in the acquired lands; they focused on governance, citizenship for free inhabitants (including free people of color in some cases), and eventual statehood.

Early U.S. actions included:

* Temporary restrictions on importing new slaves into the Orleans Territory (except those brought by migrating owners), but these were quickly weakened or removed due to local opposition.

* The territory (later split into the Orleans and Louisiana Districts) adopted laws similar to those in southern U.S. states while incorporating some French/Spanish precedents. Slavery expanded significantly post-Purchase, fueled by the cotton gin, sugar plantations, and the domestic slave trade. New Orleans became a major slave-trading hub.

Broader Impacts

The Purchase did not “create” slavery in the region but integrated an existing slave society into the U.S., exacerbating sectional tensions over whether new states carved from the territory would allow slavery. This contributed to debates leading to the Missouri Compromise (1820), the expansion of the domestic slave trade, and ultimately tensions culminating in the American Civil War. Parts of the territory (e.g., future Missouri) already had some slaveholders; lower Louisiana had many more.

In short: The U.S. acquired a territory where slavery was a longstanding colonial practice under France (and Spain). By guaranteeing property rights and incorporating the inhabitants without disrupting the institution, the U.S. inherited and then expanded slavery there under American law and governance. The Haitian Revolution indirectly enabled the sale by derailing Napoleon’s plans, creating an ironic link between the end of slavery in one former French colony and its reinforcement in another.

Today’s Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional working-class, patriotic roots and embraced a radical Jacobin ideology built on division, coercion, and political extremism.

By Victor Davis Hanson

May 7, 2026

Today’s Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional working-class, patriotic roots and embraced a radical Jacobin ideology built on division, coercion, and political extremism.

For the past century, the agendas of the Democratic Party were predictable. They professed concern for working Americans and supported blue-collar unions.

Unemployment insurance, a 40-hour work week, disability insurance, and Social Security were their trademarks—often rapidly achieved by growing government bureaucracies and continually raising taxes. Still, many Democrats were socially conservative.

By the 1970s, Democrats still deplored antisemitism. Party officials had rejected their own segregationists to champion civil rights.

Presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy all supported strong defense and military deterrence.

All that is now passé.

The only vestigial Democrat left in Congress is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, himself roundly despised by Democrat leaders.

Today, supporting Israel and calling for campuses to stop their institutionalized antisemitism is Democratic political suicide.

Forty years ago, any Democrat with a Nazi tattoo was political toast; today, he can become the party’s nominee for the Maine Senate race.

So, the current Democrat Party is no longer truly democratic at all. Its new spirit and methods resemble the radical Jacobin Party of the French Revolution. Today, Democrats claim that if any opponent gives a Roman salute, he is a Nazi—while insisting that one of their own with a Nazi tattoo is not.

Jacobinism rejects Martin Luther King Jr.’s emphasis on the “content of . . . character.” It instead prefers fixating on “the color of . . . skin.”

It aims to divide the nation arbitrarily between the noble oppressed and the toxic oppressors.

So these new Jacobins have institutionalized racially separate college dorms and graduation ceremonies, along with hiring and promoting on the basis of race.

The new Jacobins destroyed the southern border and welcomed in 10–12 million illegal aliens, seen as a future proletariat constituency. Today’s Jacobins would now ridicule Bill Clinton’s 1990s calls for secure borders and an end to illegal immigration as “fascist” and “racist.”

The most recent nihilist developments in American society can be attributed to these Jacobin “Democrats”: biological men competing in women’s sports; critical legal theory that normalizes cashless bail; race-based reparations; violent felons arrested and back on the street hours later; radical abortion on demand until birth; attacks on the concept of the cultural “melting pot”; and opposition to organized Christianity.

These agendas lack broad majority support. So street theater and violence focus on Tesla dealerships, ICE officers, conservative campus speakers, and, at times, any journalists covering the unrest.

Jacobins make excuses for pro-Hamas campus violence, which often targets Jewish students. The often violent and corrupt Black Lives Matter movement was a Jacobin ancillary.

Free speech is labeled “disinformation” and “misinformation”—synonyms for not toeing the Jacobin Party line. Until recent pushbacks, near-religious radical green agendas warred against fossil fuels and cost the working classes billions of dollars for sky-high fuel and electricity costs.

Like the Robespierre brothers of old, the most radical Jacobins are so often to be found among the wealthiest and most privileged Americans. Radical New York mayor Zohran Mamdani grew up as a rich Ugandan. Radical, self-described communist Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner attended one of the most elite and expensive prep schools in the United States.

When avowed socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders barnstormed the country, they did so via private jets.

Radical “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar cannot decide whether she is worth $30 million or nothing. Hard-left California billionaire, gubernatorial candidate, and radical environmentalist Tom Steyer is a billionaire who jump-started his fortune by investing in coal plants overseas and offshoring profits to avoid taxes.

At least 10 states are drafting laws to tax the net worth, as well as the income, of “billionaires and millionaires,” apparently for their “social” crimes. Mayor Mamdani taps on the window of philanthropist Ken Griffin as a warning to get out of town. The mayor of Seattle scoffs at the rich leaving her state with their billions due to new punitive taxes, offering a sarcastic “bye.”

In the old days, Democrats were embarrassed by their radicals and distanced themselves from the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers. Today, left-wing bomb throwers are the Democrat Party.

Hasan Piker, another multimillionaire, $200,000 Porsche-driving communist, has openly supported “social murder.”

So Piker praised Luigi Mangione’s targeted murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Meanwhile, Jacobins on social media expressed disappointment that all three assassination attempts on Donald Trump failed. The arsonist who burned down Pacific Palisades was a Mangione acolyte and saw his destruction as a revolutionary act, perhaps a form of mass “social murder.”

Jacobin politicians call for Trump to be “eliminated,” label him as a “fascist,” and call for “any means necessary” to end his presidency. The aim is to lower the social and psychological barrier to violence.

The Jacobin Democrats of today are systematically destroying the legacy of the Democratic Party. And why not?

Their model is not the American Founding, but the radical mandated equality—and violence—of the French Revolution.

Victor Davis Hanson