Is Social Security still taxable? Here’s what you need to know about the recent tax law.

Posted on July 22, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Key takeaways

Social Security income continues to be subject to federal income tax.
A new senior deduction means only about 12% of seniors will pay taxes on their benefits.
Nine states impose some income tax on Social Security.

Is the income you receive from Social Security taxable? With the recent tax law, Social Security income continues to be taxable, but an additional deduction for seniors may help offset what is owed.

Under the recent law, taxpayers age 65 or older—and their spouses, if filing jointly—can each claim a $6,000 deduction for tax years 2025–2028. This senior deduction is reduced by 6% (but not below zero) for adjusted gross income that exceeds $75,000, or $150,000 for joint filers.

With the new deduction, only about 12% of seniors will pay taxes on their Social Security benefits, according to a White House Council of Economic Advisors analysis.

Some also will pay state income taxes, if they live in one of the few states that doesn’t exempt Social Security benefits.

Let’s look at the formula for federal income tax and the states that still tax Social Security income.

Social Security and federal income tax

The IRS uses a “combined income formula” to determine if you must pay taxes on your benefits. Combined income includes typical forms of income such as wages, interest, dividends, pension payments, and taxable distributions from traditional 401(k)s and IRAs (less adjustments), as well as nontaxable interest and half of Social Security benefits.

Whether you will have to pay federal income tax on your Social Security benefits depends on your combined income:

If you file as an individual:
- Up to $25,000: No tax
- $25,000–$34,000: Up to 50% of your benefits may be taxed.
- More than $34,000: Up to 85% of your benefits may be taxed.
If you file a joint return:
- Up to $32,000: No tax
- $32,000–$44,000: Up to 50% of your benefits may be taxed.
- More than $44,000: Up to 85% of your benefits may be taxed.

Tip: There are ways to save on taxes in retirement. Read Viewpoints on Fidelity.com: 2 ways to save on Social Security income tax.

Do states tax Social Security income?

Most states do not tax Social Security income. But some portion of your benefits may be subject to state tax if you live in one of these 9 states: Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, or West Virginia. The rules vary widely from state to state. Some states may allow you to exclude federally taxable Social Security benefits for state income tax purposes based on your adjusted gross income, or AGI, so keep this in mind when reviewing the information below.

Quick refresher: What is adjusted gross income? Your AGI is income for the year after you subtract amounts—or “adjustments”—that are not taxable. The IRS uses your AGI as a starting point for calculating how much income tax you owe for the year.

Here’s a closer look at how those states tax Social Security benefits for 2024:

Colorado

Under 65: Up to $20,000 of federally taxable Social Security benefits are not taxed by the state of Colorado. Beginning in 2025, individuals ages 55–64 will be able to deduct all federally taxable Social Security income if their AGI is $75,000 or less for an individual and $95,000 or less for a couple filing jointly. Above those thresholds, $20,000 of federally taxable Social Security income may be excluded.
65 and older: No state taxation of federally taxable Social Security benefits.

Connecticut

Up to 25% of benefits may be taxed above these thresholds:

Single filers: Federally taxable Social Security benefits are not taxable in Connecticut if AGI is below $75,000.
Married filing jointly: No tax if AGI is below $100,000.

Minnesota

Single or head of household filers: Federally taxable Social Security benefits are exempt from Minnesota state income tax if AGI is $82,190 or below for 2024. Starting at $82,191 in income, federally taxable Social Security benefits receive a partial exclusion from Minnesota state income tax, and at $118,191 and above, all federally taxable benefits are subject to state tax.
Married filing jointly: Federally taxable benefits are exempt if AGI is at or below $105,380. Starting at $105,381 in income, federally taxable Social Security benefits receive a partial exclusion from Minnesota state income tax, and at $141,381 and above, all federally taxable benefits are subject to state tax.

Montana

Social Security benefits are taxed as they are at the federal level.

New Mexico

Single filers: No tax on federally taxable benefits if AGI is below $100,000.
Married filing jointly: No tax on federally taxable benefits if AGI is below $150,000.

Rhode Island

The following apply once residents reach their full retirement age (66 or 67, depending on year of birth):

Single filers: No tax on federally taxable Social Security benefits if income is below $104,200.
Married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er): No tax on federally taxable Social Security benefits if income is below $130,250. If only one spouse has reached retirement age and both are receiving Social Security benefits, only the percentage of taxable Social Security benefits attributable to the spouse who has reached full retirement age are exempt from taxation.

Utah

Single filers: Federally taxable Social Security benefits are taxed if modified adjusted gross income (What is MAGI?) exceeds $45,000. A state tax credit may reduce the amount of income tax paid.
Married filing jointly: Federally taxable Social Security benefits taxed if MAGI exceeds $75,000. A state tax credit may reduce the amount of income tax paid.

Vermont

Single filers: Federally taxable Social Security benefits are not taxable in Vermont if AGI is $50,000 or below. Federally taxable Social Security benefits are partially exempt from state income tax if AGI is above $50,000 and less than $60,000. If AGI is $60,000 and above, federally taxable benefits are fully taxable in Vermont.
Married filing jointly: Federally taxable Social Security benefits are not taxable in Vermont if AGI is below $65,000. Federally taxable Social Security benefits are partially exempt from state income tax if AGI is above $65,000 and less than $75,000. If AGI is $75,000 and above, federally taxable benefits are fully taxable in Vermont.

West Virginia

West Virginia is one of the latest states to phase out taxes on Social Security benefits. Single filers with AGI at or below $50,000 and married filers with AGI at or below $100,000 can exclude 100% of federally taxable Social Security benefits from West Virginia state income tax. If they have AGI above their respective thresholds, they can deduct the following percentages of federally taxable Social Security benefits until they are fully exempted for all income levels in 2026:

2024: 35% exempt
2025: 65% exempt
2026: 100% exempt

State and federal income tax rules can be confusing, especially as they can change year to year. That’s just one of the things that can make managing taxes through retirement complicated. Working with a tax professional can help you better understand the potential tax impacts of any planning decisions.

Fidelity

Soccer, America, ‘Country Roads,’ and the World

Posted on July 22, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Steve Cortes• July 21, 2026

The country roads of America brought the world across our land, as our role hosting the World Cup fittingly coincided with America 250. The sprawling event on a grand stage reminded the world—and us—about important realities of our nation at its quarter-millennial birthday.

Now, like most Americans, I hugely prefer our football—which starts soon. We are just culturally biased toward a game that is far higher scoring, much more violent, and far more of a spectacle. We opt for the sports version of opera, with heightened, dangerous drama, rather than the grind and nuance of soccer.

But regardless of anyone’s sports preferences, the World Cup served to remind the world about the realities of Americans and life in the United States. Pew Research recently revealed that global polling shows China is now viewed more favorably than the U.S. around the world. It marked the first time in two decades of polling that China has surpassed America by this metric.

Notably, very few of those respondents wish to immigrate to China, even if it were possible. In contrast, most of the world yearns to come to the U.S. Nonetheless, America does have an emerging image problem. As America reasserts a populist nationalist worldview, some of this resentment is expected and even helpful. After all, it is more vital for a strong nation-state to be properly respected, and even feared, than to be loved.

But the World Cup experience made clear that much, if not most, of America’s image problem abroad flows from myths. Smears of the U.S. flow nonstop from legacy media platforms, especially the most powerful ones in the rest of the Western world. Unfortunately, the whole world lags badly behind America in developing alternative new media. Consequently, those legacy outlets in places like England and Brazil still shape public opinion very effectively.

Like the legacy media players here, those media conglomerates constantly push a dispiriting false narrative that the U.S. is a brutish bully country, bereft of both sophistication and gentility.

But then the world came to America.

More specifically, the world came to “parts unknown” to most foreign travelers. When these international visitors ventured beyond New York City and Disney World, they found a giant, diverse country of wonder, hospitality, openness, and just plain fun.

Thankfully, social media fostered an unfiltered flow of storytelling, straight from the experiences of the international fans themselves. These superfans could not get enough of America, especially flyover country, the parts of the nation normally ignored by their home media outlets. The joy of the visitors was genuine and immense, and it was returned in kind by generous Americans thrilled to show off local customs and cuisines.

Some of these social media accounts went viral, and the videos truly entertained the world. We will never forget the amazed reactions of Japanese fans eating BBQ in Texas and the champion Spanish team gushing with gratitude for their training camp hosts in Appalachia, in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Norwegians “rowing” all across the States became a meme, and the Scots sang like one giant bawdy chorus as they outdrank even the Irish-American locals in Boston pubs.

Speaking of singing, the playlist for global soccer reflects the enduring soft power of American culture. Matches across the globe feature American songs, from “Sweet Caroline” to country favorites, and especially “Country Roads.” In fact, that John Denver ballad has become the unofficial anthem of global sports, belted out with gusto all over the earth by people who know nothing about West Virginia.

The throngs of happy foreigners loved on America. They sang our classic tunes with overseas accents and highlighted the unique appeal of the U.S. to the world, at least when America is authentically presented. The world saw that the U.S. is not the caricature portrayed to them by The Times of London, Der Spiegel, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Instead, visitors marinated in the vibrancy and eccentricity of regional American cultures. The guests were welcomed with open arms by a country that is largely not enamored with their sport but grateful to serve as host country regardless.

As these masses of visitors marveled at our stadiums, they also came to understand the emerging consensus among American citizens regarding foreigners. The U.S. is an exceedingly generous and welcoming country. We allow far more legal immigration than any other country on earth. Even the most nationalist among us do not seek a “Fortress America,” sealed off from the globe. Instead, we demand a country that welcomes the world, but only on our terms.

null

As our nation turns 250 years old, Americans have much to celebrate, of course. We also face major challenges and intense debates over foundational principles. For example, the modern Democratic Party is increasingly devolving into an extremist alliance of Marxists and jihadis, the starkest challenge to the Union since the Civil War.

But we are a great and mighty country as well, showcased superbly through the carnival of the world’s soccer championship. The world experienced the dynamism of the U.S. economy, the warmth of Americans as friends, and the spirit of the greatest republic ever to exist.

As the fans now fly home across the oceans, they bring with them a new and realistic vision of who Americans truly are. Accordingly, they might explain to their countrymen that in America, “life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze.”

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

Steve Cortes | Contributor

Steve Cortes is a contributor to the Daily Signal.

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Endangerment Finding Litigation Update

Posted on July 22, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

On February 13 this year, the federal EPA rescinded one of its regulatory actions known as the “Endangerment Finding.” (EF). The EF, originally adopted in 2009 early in the Obama administration, was likely the single most costly and destructive regulatory action ever to spring forth from the administrative state. The EF became the fundamental underpinning for all the subsequent regulations that sought to restrict and ultimately ban use of fossil fuels in the economy — everything from regulations seeking to force closure of power plants, to efforts to mandate only electric cars, to restrictions on drilling and pipelines, and much, much more. The Trump administration is now systematically dismantling all those regulatory wrecking balls.

But the opposition has not been idle. Once the rescission became final, the Climate Blob immediately sprang into action with a barrage of lawfare. The first litigation challenging rescission of the EF was filed in the D.C. Circuit on February 18. Over the succeeding several weeks, dozens of additional petitioners joined the fray. Since then, however, the case, although pending, has not moved quickly. I last provided an update in this post from June 8.

For discerning observers of this process, here is the key question of interest: Will the D.C. Circuit schedule this matter to move at a pace consistent with enabling final review of EPA’s action to be concluded by the Supreme Court before the end of President Trump’s term? Or, alternatively, does the D.C. Circuit intend to stall resolution of the case in order to potentially give a new Democratic administration a chance to come into office in early 2029 and do another 180 degree course reversal? At this writing, it is still too early to know fully how the D.C. Circuit will deal with this issue. However, from evidence so far, it looks like those betting the court will slow walk the case have the odds on their side.

The first indication that the court is not in a hurry came in a scheduling Order on April 22, setting dates for the next events in the case. April 22, about two months after the case had begun, would have been a normal time for the court to set deadlines for the parties to file their briefs on the merits. But this Order did not do that. Instead, it only set deadlines for the making of certain motions — “procedural” motions by May 20, and “dispositive” motions by June 4. The court in that Order also specifically declined a request to direct the parties to propose deadlines for the main briefing, and stated: “any order directing the parties to file briefing proposals will be entered after any procedural or dispositive motions are resolved.” You might say that the court was sending a clear signal that parties could file any crazy motions that they could think of, and thereby get several months of free delay in the case.

And indeed the May 20 deadline did bring two motions that you might think are completely ridiculous — until you realize that the real point is probably to buy a few months of delay. One of those motions requested a “stay” of the rescission of the EF. I covered that one in my June 8 post, and won’t repeat that here, except for this great quote on the claimed basis for the stay:

The Repeal Rule substantially burdens Petitioners Elena, J.K., M.D., and E.S.’s sincerely held religious beliefs. . . . Petitioners E.S. and J.K. are observant Jews whose religion requires them to walk to synagogue on the Sabbath. . . . M.D. is an observant Muslim whose religion requires her to fast during Ramadan. . . . Each Sabbath that is made too hot for E.S. and J.K. to walk safely to synagogue, and each day of Ramadan that is made too hot for M.D. to safely fast and wear hijab, is a day they are prevented from observing important requirements of their religions.

The second “procedural” motion filed on May 20 styled itself as a “motion to complete the record.” That sounds minor and technical. Such motions are not uncommon, and often just ask to add one or a few documents that may have been omitted from a record, perhaps by mistake. But of course this one is not like that, and rather is a very strategic effort to throw a monkey wrench into the whole process.

For starters, check out this list of parties who signed on to this motion:

Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, Rio Grande International Study Center, Sierra Club and Union of Concerned Scientists in 26-1037, ZETA in 26-1039, Service Employees International Union in 26-1051, City and County of Denver, Colorado, City and County of San Francisco, California, City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, City of Boston, Massachusetts, City of Chicago, Illinois, City of Cleveland, Ohio, City of Columbus, Ohio, City of Los Angeles, California, City of New York, New York, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Virginia, DC, Harris County, Texas, Martin Luther King Jr. County, Washington, Santa Clara County, California, Josh Shapiro, State of Arizona, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Delaware, State of Hawaii, State of Illinois, State of Maine, State of Maryland, State of Michigan, State of Minnesota, State of Nevada, State of New Jersey, State of New Mexico, State of New York, State of North Carolina, State of Oregon, State of Rhode Island, State of Vermont, State of Washington, State of Wisconsin and Virgin Islands in 26-1061, Bay Area Air Quality Management District in 26-1090.

It’s an entire who’s who of environmental NGOs and blue states.

So what is the big complaint? When an agency like EPA rescinds a regulation like the EF, one of the things it needs to do is take public comments and respond to the comments. That process is the main reason why there was a nearly thirteen-month period between President Trump’s Executive Order directing EPA to reconsider the EF (January 20, 2025) and EPA’s final rescission of the EF (February 13, 2026). The public comment period here extended from the end of July through September 22, 2025. A big part of the game of the environmental NGOs is to gum up the process by orchestrating the submission of so many tens or hundreds of thousands of comments as to make it next to impossible for the agency to respond thoroughly within any reasonable time frame. Here, many tens of thousands of comments were received. When EPA issued the final rule, it also issued a document responding to the comments. That document was 1,794 pages long! Here is the gripe from the petitioners’ motion:

EPA included a version of EPA’s Response-to-Comments document that was created some 10 hours after Administrator Zeldin announced that the Rescission was “signed, sealed, delivered.” When asked if the document was supplemented or modified after the Administrator signed the final rule, the agency refused to say—suggesting the document reflects post-decisional additions of or edits to EPA’s responses.

Nefarious! With trillions of dollars of economic activity in the balance, this case is getting held up by a demand to fly-speck the final edits of the nearly 2000 page response-to-comments document to see if anything embarrassing can be found.

The government submitted its response to this motion on June 12. Here is the gist of the response on that main point:

[T]he Response to Comments—finalized, as required by the Clean Air Act, on the “date” that the rule was promulgated—is properly part of the record. 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(6)(C). In this Circuit, as in everyday speech, “date” means date. The Court should reject Petitioners’ invitation to rewrite the statute to require the Response to Comments to be finalized, docketed, and time-stamped at either the hour or the exact moment of promulgation.

And then the moving parties got to submit a Reply on this motion, which came in on June 29.

So here we are on July 21, more than five months since the case began. The court has not issued a decision on either of these preposterous “procedural” motions. And while we await those decisions, there is no scheduling order as to when the real briefing in the case will begin or end.

If you are a betting person, you will likely bet that the D.C. Circuit will rule against the Trump administration on the merits of this case. After all, the climate scam is a central tenet of Democratic Party orthodoxy, and 7 of the 11 active judges on the D.C. Circuit are reliable partisan Democrats. But the Supreme Court is likely to support the position of the Trump administration. The case needs to reach final resolution in the D.C. Circuit by, at the absolute latest, some time in late 2027, in order for the case to reach resolution in the Supreme Court before President Trump leaves office in January 2029. (Some Supreme Court specialists may say that the drop dead date for D.C. Circuit resolution is even earlier.). Will the D.C. Circuit game the scheduling to make this case take that long to resolve? Place your bets!

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

Democratic Socialists Are Courting the Youth

Posted on July 22, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

How do we stop them?

Carole Hornsby Haynes | July 22, 2026

They fail to recognize that the federal takeover of college loans with easy access to excessive funding for “equality” has resulted in outrageous college costs. Default on these loans adds billions to our already gargantuan national debt.

Young Americans blame capitalism for the high cost of rent and housing. Yet a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas showed that mass immigration allowed by the government between early 2021 and early 2024 was responsible for roughly 20 percent of rent growth and 30 percent of the overall increase in house prices.

Young Americans don’t understand that big government regulations increase the cost of building a house or manufacturing a car or a gallon of gas at the pump.

They don’t recognize that the types of government involvement they might favor, such as subsidies for green energy or special benefits in the name of social justice, contribute to the crony capitalism they oppose.

America is obviously at a critical crossroads. Our Founding Fathers understood how vital knowledge is to our freedom. In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” He believed that people who do not learn about their rights or government can be easily tricked.

Currently, 39 states require students to take a personal finance course to graduate. Only twelve states require that the fundamentals of free market capitalism be taught in personal financial literacy and personal economic courses.

Texas, one of the nation’s leaders in education, requires students to take one of two courses that combine personal financial literacy and economics with emphasis on the free enterprise system.

If America is to remain a free nation, each state must mandate courses that teach students the building blocks of our capitalist system, with individual liberty, personal responsibility, and economic opportunity. Once our youth understand how free market capitalism has made America the freest and richest nation on earth and the benefits of free enterprise to them personally, organizations like the Democratic Socialists of Am

In recent years, America’s positive views about capitalism have declined, and its positive views about socialism have increased. The shift is especially pronounced among younger voters. A 2021 Gallup poll found that just 47 percent of American youth, aged 18 to 34, favored capitalism, down nearly 20 points from 10 years earlier. By 2025, support had plunged still more, with only 39 percent favoring capitalism, according to the Harvard Youth Poll.

The shift helps explain the rise in support by Gen Z and Millennial voters for political candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). New York City’s Gen Z and Millennial voters turned out en masse to elect DSA candidates.

DSA advocates for government control over almost every aspect of the economy, which brings loss of personal freedom. Why would young voters reject free market capitalism when it is responsible for much of America’s standing as the world’s largest economy and the most innovations over the past century. Why would young adults reject free market capitalism, which has brought economic freedom and lifted more than one billion people out of poverty worldwide?

A survey by Newsweek showed clearly that Gen Z and Millennials do not understand free market capitalism and socialism.

Of those responding, 55 percent believed that capitalism is an economic system in which property is privately owned and production and pricing are driven by market forces. This is free-market capitalism.

The other 45 percent viewed capitalism as an economic system in which corporations gain an edge over competitors with special tax breaks, political connections, and separate rules. This is crony capitalism.

The distinctions matter: 42 percent of those who identified free market capitalism viewed it positively, whereas 2 percent of those who identified capitalism as crony capitalism held a positive view.

When asked about socialism, 42 percent said it is an economic system with planning by the government and property owned by society. This is central planning.

The other 58 percent said socialism is an economic system in which individuals and companies make decisions on goods and services and their pricing, but the government plays an active role in assuring that pricing and distribution are equitable “between rich and poor.” This is redistribution

For students who defined socialism as redistribution, 45 percent had a positive view, whereas 14 percent who defined it as central planning had a positive view.

Gen Z and Millennials face major financial hurdles with exorbitant college debt, high housing costs that force many to get roommates or move back home, and difficulty in finding or keeping jobs. Expensive rent makes it difficult to save money, so many are postponing marrying, buying a home, and starting a family. They believe that the American Dream of education, hard work, and upward mobility is merely a dream from the distant past. They see only a bleak future.

Naïvely, they blame capitalism for their dire circumstances, unaware of the real cause of the problems.

Young Americans don’t understand that big government regulations increase the cost of building a house or manufacturing a car or a gallon of gas at the pump.

Texas, one of the nation’s leaders in education, requires students to take one of two courses that combine personal financial literacy and economics with emphasis on the free enterprise system.

Big Government Inevitably Invites Corruption

Posted on July 22, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Three days before his 2025 inauguration, Donald Trump launched a cryptocurrency called $TRUMP. That May, he dined with 220 of its largest holders, some of whom bought up the coin expressly to secure invitations. In October Mr. Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a Binance co-founder who had been convicted of violating money-laundering laws. Binance had assigned a team to develop the stablecoin for World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture tied to the Trump family. The undertaking netted Mr. Trump hundreds of millions, part of $1 billion in crypto gains, while most token buyers lost money. Last year Paramount agreed to pay Mr. Trump $16 million—with some payments made to his future presidential library—to settle a lawsuit it had called meritless, and within weeks the government approved its $8 billion merger with Skydance.

Each episode has been reported, with people raising questions about Mr. Trump’s behavior. But what makes such conduct possible in the first place? Democrats rightly blame the man.

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Big Government Inevitably Invites Corruption

Democrats blame Trump, but their policies would create more opportunities for the selling of favors.

Marian L. Tupy

July 20, 2026 2:00 pm ET

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Each episode has been reported, with people raising questions about Mr. Trump’s behavior. But what makes such conduct possible in the first place? Democrats rightly blame the man.

But there is another culprit. The power of the federal government, which commands the fate of every major enterprise in America. A tariff waiver can mean billions for one company and bankruptcy for its rival. An antitrust filing can erase a decade of shareholder value in an afternoon. A procurement decision can build a company, and a regulatory finding can bury one. When the government holds that much influence, officials need not even demand tribute. Tribute arrives on its own.

The problem arose long before 2025. When government can make or break a business, businesses will invest in making friends with government, and the return on a lobbyist will exceed the return on an engineer. Corruption and discretionary power go hand in hand.

There is a remedy, though it comes from an unfashionable quarter. Libertarians have long argued for a wall between the economy and the state: a government confined to courts, defense and a handful of public goods—too small to be worth bribing. Nobody buys favors from an office that has no favors to sell. A president who can’t reward a donor with a tariff can’t be paid for one.

The Democratic Party rejects that remedy. Its answer to the corruption it decries is personnel: Elect us, and we will staff the agencies with people of integrity. The claim deserves scrutiny rather than applause.

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James Buchanan, who received the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and Gordon Tullock argued in their 1962 book, “The Calculus of Consent,” that politicians and bureaucrats respond to incentives just as merchants and consumers do. Buchanan called for “politics without romance.” Voters may imagine that office transforms self-interest into public spirit, but no mechanism exists to perform that transformation. The behavior of officials is governed by what the office rewards, not by what the campaign promised.

Friedrich Hayek, another Nobel laureate, carried the argument further in “The Road to Serfdom” (1944). A state that dispenses fortunes will attract the people most eager to dispense them; positions of discretionary power select for those who relish wielding it. Screening for virtue can’t prevent that, because the applicant pool is already sorted by appetite, and the appetite grows with the budget.

The Democrats’ proposed programs would let officials choose which factories rise. Subsidies for favored technologies would let officials choose which investors prosper. Price regulation would let officials decide which companies earn a profit—and which don’t. Every one of these tools gives officials more decisions to sell, and every decision worth money to a business is a decision some business will pay to shape. A party proposing to multiply the levers of economic power is proposing to multiply the buyers lining up to pull them.

The question for Democrats isn’t whether they disapprove of the current president’s conduct. It is what feature of their program would prevent similar conduct under a president of either party. Their platform contains no such feature, demanding instead more agencies, more waivers, more approvals—more of the raw material from which favors are minted. To the question “Why would your government be cleaner?” the answer “because we are better people” isn’t convincing. It is a request for faith that Buchanan and Tullock’s public-choice theory gives us every reason to withhold.

That may solve a puzzle that has vexed the president’s critics. Their charges are documented, yet the charges don’t move voters as they should. Perhaps the voters have intuited what Mr. Trump’s critics haven’t, or pretend they haven’t—that the accusers propose to keep the machine and merely change the operator. An electorate offered a choice between two managers of the same favor factory may reasonably shrug.

The Founders foresaw figures like Mr. Trump. They did not foresee a government of the current scope and size. The way to end the sale of government favors is to close the store. Until one of our parties says so, the outrage will remain what it is today: sincere and useless.

Mr. Tupy is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute

Democrats Are Now The Socialist Party

Posted on July 21, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Posted on July 21, 2026

Based on this poll, Democrat voters are getting the socialist candidates they want and deserve. The reason that civilization is in trouble? The rest of us are, increasingly, getting the socialist candidates Democrats want and deserve.

Under our Constitution, socialism is essentially illegal because you may not vote away another’s individual and property rights. The problem? Democrats in office and the judges they appoint do not care. In 10 years or so (maybe less), today’s problem will be a major crisis. Today’s Communist blue cities are the future of America unless those who love liberty learn to resist, defy, fight and (perhaps inevitably) break apart from the Commies. Donald Trump gave us part of the model and loads of inspiration. The rest will be up to us.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

As AG, Todd Blanche Will Finally Seek Justice for Dems’ Dirty Lawfare

Posted on July 21, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

It’s easy to forget, but from 2022 through 2024, Democrats engaged in some of the most reckless, republic-destabilizing actions since their partisan forebears fired on Fort Sumter in 1861. In colluding to prosecute then-former (and future) President Donald Trump on sham legal grounds across four different jurisdictions and three separate prosecutors, Democrat-Lawfare Complex thugs acted in a manner more befitting tribal warlords of a third-world hellhole than elected officials in the greatest country on earth. They crossed a line that never should have been crossed, effectuating the old Stalinist creed, attributed to Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

Many have conveniently forgotten or moved on, but we are still learning more about the Democrats’ depths of lawfare depravity.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have learned more about so-called special counsel Jack Smith, the one-man wrecking ball who brought the twin federal probes against Trump in Washington, D.C. (the 2020 election case), and Florida (the classified documents case). Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) revealed that Smith’s own henchmen may, ironically, have committed the same classified documents offenses for which Smith prosecuted Trump. Grassley also revealed Smith obtained text messages from 44 Republican members of Congress — despite the fact Smith has explicitly denied doing exactly that.

That looks an awful lot like perjury. And perjury is actually just the tip of the iceberg. There are myriad other crimes that Smith and his primary colluders — namely, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis — likely committed. For instance, federal law criminalizes conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” That is an awfully good match for the lawfare cabal’s coordinated assault on Trump and the rule of law.

There has thus far been no accountability for Democrats’ debilitating lawfare. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi, to her credit, oversaw the indictment of scandal-plagued former FBI Director James Comey, but the case was dismissed on bogus procedural grounds. The same thing happened to the Bondi Justice Department’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who in 2018 had sought statewide office in the Empire State on a Beria-esque platform: James said her run for office was motivated by a desire to hold “that man in the White House” accountable. Forget about securing the blessings of liberty or meting out justice. For some, it’s just “orange man bad” all day long.

Enough already. These scoundrels must pay for the havoc they unleashed upon the American people and the torch they took to our rule of law. Democrats drone on endlessly about “norms,” but their lawfare cabal blew up countless norms and laughed about it — and then conveniently forgot it all ever happened.

But not that’s not how it works. Only with real accountability and justice for those who acted so wrongly can we ensure this lawfare never happens again. And in light of the new Grassley revelations, Rabbi Hillel’s famous question comes to mind: “If not now, when?”

Fortunately, Todd Blanche, Trump’s acting attorney general who just had his confirmation hearing to take the job permanently, is the perfect man to secure real lawfare justice for the American people.

Blanche has a sterling resume for the nation’s top law enforcement job. As legal eagle Jonathan Turley said on Fox News, Blanche is one of the most qualified attorney general nominees in the history of the Justice Department. He prosecuted violent crimes for eight years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. More recently, he served as Bondi’s deputy attorney general, which means he ran the department on a day-to-day basis.

Even more significant is what Blanche did between those stints at S.D.N.Y. and Main Justice: He represented Trump as the president’s lead criminal defense attorney at the very height of the Biden-era lawfare. That shows Blanche is principled. That shows he has moral courage — far more, frankly, than the crusty barnacles of the conservative legal establishment.

But even more important, it means Blanche lived firsthand through the Democrats’ lawfare hell on earth. If anyone wants accountability now, it’s Blanche. And he knows where the bodies are buried.

Americans deserve justice for the Democratic lawfare that almost destroyed the republic. Todd Blanche will help us get it. He should be swiftly confirmed.

Josh Hammer, Hotair

Why are so many Muslim Migrants Involved in Massive Fraud Schemes

Posted on July 21, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Jul 18, 2026 5:00 am By Robert Spencer

The answer, like so much else, goes straight back to the Qur’an.

The fraud never seems to end; every day, there seem to be new cases. The Dallas Morning News reported Friday that “A Garland man who authorities say fled the United States while awaiting trial has been extradited from Qatar to face federal fraud and money laundering charges in Texas. Abdullah Anwar, 28, arrived in Texas on Friday and was being held in Collin County, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas.”

That’s on top of the ever-growing fraud cases involving Somali Muslims in the Minneapolis area. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted in January 2026 that “Over the last several years, criminals have exploited the culture of ‘Minnesota nice’ to steal billions of dollars in taxpayer funds in one of the most egregious frauds in our nation’s history. Under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, these fraudsters—many of whom are not even American citizens—lined their pockets with money that was initially intended to feed hungry children, house disabled seniors, and provide services for young students with special needs.”

There are other similar cases elsewhere in the country. Many people are indignant about this massive fraud, but fewer are asking why there is such a preponderance of people of one particular religious group among the fraudsters. The answer to that question, however, is quite simple: this behavior is sanctioned in Islam.

Bruce Bawer, in his prophetic 2006 book While Europe Slept, tells the story of “an Oslo imam who has preached that Christians, under sharia law, must pay jizya, the protection tax demanded of all infidels living in Muslim lands: ‘In Norway, they don’t do this. Therefore the Muslims have a right to steal from them. If a Muslim walks straight into a store and steals, it is thus a legitimate act.’”

Since then, we have seen millions upon millions of Muslims stream into Europe and then immediately go on welfare, and/or engage in fraud. This is because the Oslo imam was correct: non-Muslims paying for the upkeep of Muslims is a Qur’anic dictate. The Islamic holy book says: “Fight against those do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)

Paying the jizya, a poll tax, is thus a sign of the humiliation of the unbelievers, and of Allah’s punishment of them in this world and in the next for the crime of rejecting Muhammad and Islam. Seizing money or goods from unbelievers is thus simply a move to restore the natural order of things, in which non-Muslims work and Muslims enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Muhammad’s second successor, the caliph Umar, said the jizya payments from the dhimmis were the source of the Muslims’ livelihood: “I advise you to fulfill Allah’s Convention (made with the Dhimmis) as it is the convention of your Prophet and the source of the livelihood of your dependents (i.e. the taxes from the Dhimmis.)’” (Bukhari 4.53.388)

And UK jihad preacher Anjem Choudary, who is now in prison for his jihad activities, said in February 2013: “We are on Jihad Seekers Allowance, We take the Jizya (protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims) which is ours anyway. The normal situation is to take money from the Kafir (non-Muslim), isn’t it? So this is normal situation. They give us the money. You work, give us the money. Allah Akbar, we take the money. Hopefully there is no one from the DSS (Department of Social Security) listening. Ah, but you see people will say you are not working. But the normal situation is for you to take money from the Kuffar (non-Muslim). So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.”

Some of the Muslim migrant fraudsters in America may have been collecting the Jihad Seeker’s Allowance, as some of the money they stole may have made its way to the Somali jihad terror group al-Shabaab. Others may simply be taking what they consider to be their due, in lieu of the jizya. We will see much, much more of this.

We Are Living Through An Era Of Cultural Destruction

Posted on July 21, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Turning beloved stories woke or repurposing destroyed monuments is the beginning of a process that ends with real violence.

t was difficult to peruse social media last week without seeing a steady stream of reactions and reviews of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey — a film that had already prompted, weeks before its premiere, mountains of derisive commentary for its purportedly woke casting choices, strangely modern costumes, American accents, and flat color palette.

But now that the film is out, reviews have been largely positive. Fears of a wokeified epic mocking the heroic age of the West turned out to have been overblown, we’re told. The DEI casting is just a blip in an otherwise stunning film. Yes, there’s some deviations from Homer, some inventions and rewriting by Nolan, but nothing that really offends.

And yet, even reading the positive reviews, one senses that Nolan’s film is not primarily an act of cultural transmission, of re-telling an ancient epic for a modern audience, but of cultural destruction. Spencer Klavan, a classicist and very smart guy, raved about the film for The Washington Post, calling it “a gorgeous rendition of a story that never gets old.” But even Klavan notices that some of Nolan’s thematic changes depart dramatically from Homer. Nolan’s Odysseus, writes Klavan, “is racked with remorse over his role in the Trojan War, whereas Homer’s story is more about the savage but righteous fury of the warrior who must tame that anger and reintegrate himself into domestic life.”

Other, less enthusiastic reviewers have more deeply analyzed these deviations from Nolan’s source material and exposed them for what they are. Writing for Compact Magazine, John Byron Kuhner concedes that the material is Homeric, but “the connective tissue and the overall shading suggests guilt, and in particular an imperial, tonally British version of white guilt. Think of it as the ghost of Kipling’s White Man’s Burden taking up his abode in the conscience of a Bronze Age Greek.”

This is not to say that giving Odysseus survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder isn’t a plausible, if hopelessly modern, interpretation of Homer’s poem, and Kuhner concedes as much. But it’s not how Homer told the story. Writes Kuhner: “Homer carefully begins Odysseus’s journey on Calypso’s island, where he lives with a beautiful goddess and has no responsibilities yet is still unhappy, and ends it on Ithaca, where everything is a struggle and a responsibility: but that is where true satisfaction resides. Nolan has come to a different conclusion, however: It was a mistake to go to Troy. It was a mistake to win that war. And being king of Ithaca is not worth the responsibility. So Nolan ends the film with Odysseus and Penelope leaving.”

So yeah, maybe casting black actress Lupita Nyong’o as the legendary “white-armed” beauty Helen of Troy or Elliot (formerly Ellen) Page as one of the Greek heroes are relatively minor blips of wokeness in a sprawling epic. But the larger problem is Nolan’s reinterpretation of major themes in The Odyssey, which doesn’t just change the visual presentation of the material, but its meaning. What it amounts to isn’t just artistic license, but deliberate deconstruction.

Today, we see this everywhere. Consider the recently released Netflix adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved Little House on the Prairie. As my colleague Elle Purnell writes in these pages, the “reimagined” series is a betrayal of the source material. In the series, “the Ingalls have become a convenient vehicle on which showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine has piled high her own characters, plot, and political agenda.”

That agenda, no surprise, is to replace the themes of the original books. Instead of depicting Pa Ingalls as a model of self-reliance and masculine virtue, he is reduced to making land acknowledgements, paying reparations, and apologizing for infringing on Indian lands. Instead of a model of feminine poise and civilization in an untamed land, Ma Ingalls is a feminist scold. People like Sonnenshine do this because they hate these characters and they hate this story.

Their aim is to dissect and then repurpose the tale to serve a liberal, and ultimately revolutionary, agenda. Indeed, as Purnell notes, the basic betrayal at the heart of the show is that it repurposes the story “to explain that families like the Ingalls were bad for going west and stealing the Indians’ land.” Sonnenshine herself has admitted that the goal here is to “reckon with some of the things that are in the books that have been problematic for people.”

There is of course nothing problematic in the books and nothing to reckon with. People use language like that when they want to destroy a work of literature and wear it like a skinsuit. Everyone who consumes pop culture in the 21st century recognizes this for what it is. Nearly every beloved myth or story from western culture has been “reimagined” and foisted on us as a piece of liberal propaganda. What it amounts to is a sustained campaign of cultural destruction — a war not just on the past, but on everyone in the present who venerates our cultural patrimony.

The theater of conflict in this war is not limited to the arts but includes nearly every aspect of public life. Consider the left’s never-ending war on Confederate monuments and symbols. Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that a Boston firm has been selected to create a monument to racial diversity in Charlottesville using bronze from the melted-down statue of Robert E. Lee.

This is the iconic Lee statue that was removed from the city’s Market Street Park in 2021. It had stood in the park for more than a century before Charlottesville’s city council voted to remove it in early 2017. Controversy surrounding the statue’s planned removal led to the Unite the Right rally later that year, at which opposing camps clashed and a woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when a car driven by a protester plowed into the crowd.

In the ensuing years, statues and monuments all over the country would be removed or torn down by mobs — and not just statues of Confederates but also our Founding Fathers, Catholic saints, and nearly every conceivable figure from our nation’s past. It wasn’t enough to destroy these images, though, because the point was not simply to remove them from public spaces but to show complete cultural dominance over those who wished to preserve them — and to forecast what would be done to anyone who resisted.

Hence some of the more prominent statues were melted down, and the process of destruction was filmed and broadcast for all to see. Notably, images of the Lee statue’s face, bright orange and melting, were widely disseminated. The purpose wasn’t just to demoralize anyone who objected to the destruction, but to suggest that resistance is futile, that this history is being wiped out, that there is no future in America for those who aren’t on board.

In some cases, it wasn’t enough to remove or even melt down a statute. Instead, a mockery had to be made of the thing. In Los Angeles, a bronze equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson was cut up and welded back together in a grotesque, inhuman form — a deliberate act of defacement and mockery and perversion. It was part of an entire exhibition of removed or defaced Confederate statues put on by the Museum of Contemporary Art last year.

The melted down Lee statue in Charlottesville takes this one step further. Instead of removing or defacing or chopping up the monument, Charlottesville is going to use the melted down bronze from the Lee statue to create a new work called “Rooted,” with a design centered on the baobab tree, a pan-African symbol of wisdom, longevity, and connection. The message here is that the disfavored past and its cultural symbols and figures will not just be destroyed but replaced, figuratively and literally, by the new order. It is the equivalent of disinterring and scattering the bones of your enemies simply to desecrate their graves.

All of this comes with a not-so-subtle threat of violence. Indeed, real-world violence is the final object of the cultural destruction. The left first whipped up violent mobs that tore down statues. Then they rioted in the cities. Now they’re chopping up the statues to make trophies out of them, broadcasting what they plan to do to their enemies once they amass enough power. Any student of history knows this. What begins with book-burning and statue-smashing always leads to real violence. As my friend Christopher Bedford once wrote about mobs targeting a society’s icons, “The symbols of a people never satisfy: People themselves must always come next.”

That’s the key thing to understand about the era of cultural destruction we’re living through. The revolutionaries of the left might start by censoring books or authors they dislike, but eventually they appropriate those stories and transform those authors’ works into something useful for their revolution. Likewise, they might start with vandalism or defacement of statues and monuments, but eventually it’s not enough and they melt the statues down and recast them into something that demonstrates their cultural and political power. The ancient Romans called this damnatio memoriae, the condemnation of memory, and it was a political tool employed when there was a change of emperor: the previous order is destroyed, it will not be remembered.

But it never stops with books or monuments. Eventually the revolutionaries get around to their real target — people. Like stories and statues, the people themselves must be transformed, and if they refuse then they must be destroyed and replaced. That process is playing out right now, all around us, and it won’t stop until all those who want to preserve their culture and heritage stand up and refuse to let the destruction continue.

John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist

Dems Fight Aid to Israel, Send Aid to Egypt Which Persecutes Christians

Posted on July 21, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Military aid vote shows the double standard and the real agenda.

Last year, a bipartisan group of members of Congress introduced H.Res.776: a resolution expressing concern about the persecution of Coptic Christians under Egypt’s Islamic regime.

The resolution has only picked up 8 cosponsors and has yet to make it out of committee.

By contrast, 103 House Democrats voted in favor of the Massie amendment to cut aid to Israel out of H. R. 8595 which also apportions $1.4 billion to Egypt and $1.6 billion to Jordan.

Meanwhile an amendment to zero out the $1.4 billion in military aid to Egypt never even made it out of the House Rules Committee while none of the Democrats who voted to cut off aid to Israel voted in favor of a similar amendment to cut off aid to Jordan, a totalitarian monarchy which harbors Islamic terrorists, including those who have murdered Americans, by 421-6.

The inability of resolutions and amendments critical of Egypt to make it out of committee comes a year after Sen. Bob Menendez was sent to prison over bribery and foreign agent charges, for taking “actions to benefit the Government of Egypt” and even “ghostwriting a letter for Egypt to be provided to his own Senate colleagues”: but that led no congressional action against Egypt.

Both Israel and Egypt aid use the ‘Foreign Military Financing Program”. There are, however, profound differences between Israel and Egypt. Israel has been a longstanding American ally while Egypt was a Soviet ally until the 1970s. Israel and America have cultural and religious ties while Egypt is one election away from becoming an Islamic terror state… as we saw in 2012.

Before his death, 1 in 5 Egyptians had expressed “confidence” in Osama bin Laden, about half of them support Hamas: a spinoff of the Muslim Brotherhood that was transplanted into Gaza.

Last year, Egypt and China conducted the joint ‘Eagles of Civilization’ air force drill. And Egypt has also taken to buying weapons systems from the People’s Republic of China. Despite that, the United States continues providing advanced weapons systems to Egypt, including nearly $5 billion in M1A1 tank upgrades conducted in Egypt, whose only possible target could be Israel.

Or perhaps the United States.

With an 83% favorable rating, the Israelis like us, while most Egyptians don’t like us and don’t even want our aid..In one survey a decade ago, 58% of Egyptians had a negative view of our military aid while only 10% had a positive one. It’s not surprising then that Christians continue to be a persecuted minority in Egypt despite making up 10% of the country’s population.

The persecution of Christians in Egypt has been a longstanding issue and includes both mob violence directed against Christians trying to build churches and worship in them that has led to incidents of ethnic cleansing as well as oppression that comes from Egyptian law and from the Egyptian state. The Egyptian constitution, like those of most Muslim countries, states that, “Islam is the religion of the State” and “Islamic law (Sharia) is the principal source of legislation”.

Egyptian ID cards include every individual’s religion making it easy to discriminate against Christians. Christians must apply for permission to build churches, preachers have been imprisoned for defending their religion in debates and Christian converts are threatened.

And yet aid to Israel is controversial, over ‘human rights’ while aid to Egypt sails through.

A number of Democrats claimed that they voted to end aid to Israel to ‘send a message’ to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but none felt impelled to send a message to Egypt’s government despite the State Department and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reporting multiple incidents in which Christians were sent to prison for their religion: including a prisoner who was placed in solitaryconfinement for copying bible verses.

But 103 Democrats believe that a Muslim country locking up Christians deserves $1.4 billion in aid while Israel has to be cut off because it’s bombing too many Hamas Islamic terrorists.

The Democrats who voted to cut off aid to Israel, complained about ‘democracy’, even though elections bring actual changes of government in Israel, while in Egypt they’re meaningless.

After being briefly run by the Muslim Brotherhood during Obama’s Arab Spring, Egypt is once again being run by the military. The same Democrats who have been scolding Israel and claiming that it’s undermining a “democratic future” by refusing to surrender to terrorists have generally failed to note that Egypt, just across the Gaza border, is run by political parties that act as fronts for the army, the police, militias and other elements of an authoritarian regime.

Egypt and Israel are fighting Islamic terrorists around 30 miles apart from each other.

Israel originally began fighting Hamas in Gaza. Egypt has been fighting on the other side of the border in North Sinai. Both conflicts intensified due to the fallout from the brief Muslim Brotherhood coup in Egypt. Weapons were smuggled in and out of Gaza, leading to street violence in Egyptian cities and an insurgency in the Sinai that involved Islamist groups, local Bedouin tribes and eventually ISIS. Egypt and Israel have fought their respective conflicts similarly with air strikes, ground deployments, and house demolitions. Both militaries have been accused by Islamist media of killing civilians. But only one of those led to a worldwide campaign on behalf of the Islamic terrorists. And with equal predictably, it was the one in which the conflict was between fellow Muslims, rather than between non-Muslims and Muslims.

The lack of any vote on Egypt shows that this isn’t about ‘democracy’ or ‘human rights’, it’s not about sending a message to a government, it’s about pandering to Islamist terrorist agendas.

In Egypt, 10 million Christians face persecution, lack equal rights and risk prison for speaking about their religion, and yet Democrats are willing to keep sending $1.4 billion in military aid.

The few Democrats who mention the human rights situation in Egypt generally focus on the status of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned after staging its coup, rather than on the millions of Christians who aren’t trying to take over Egypt, just to worship in their own way.

The message from House Democrats is that Christian lives don’t matter and Jewish lives don’t matter, only Islamic Jihadist lives and agendas do.

Avatar photo Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Daniel became CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 2025.

Reader Interactions Comments jeremiah says

July 21, 2026 at 1:59 am

Massie really shows his ugly anti-semitic side. Maybe I’m not being fair, but it is assuredly what is underlying this.

Glad Trump got this guy out of office. I really don’t think Egypt needs to get any money from us regardless. If they do, it should be directed at the Coptic Christians and Jews in Egypt. Relief directed at their persecutions.

Ai “There are fewer than five openly practicing Jews remaining in Egypt, almost exclusively elderly women residing in Cairo, including community leader Magda Haroun. This marks a drastic decline from the thriving community of up to 80,000 Jews who lived in the country prior to 1948.”

Works out to a 200 dollar check for each person being persecuted.

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