Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba announced that the office is investigating New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin over their instructions not to cooperate with ICE on certain warrants.

Prosecute them. Lock them up. Murphy has never been punished for wrecking his state with lawless lockdowns in 2020-2022. And state governments are going after Fauci and others given the fake, illegal federal pardons by Biden’s autopen. One way or another, get these people locked up. I would include the Bidens, Obamas, Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. It’s not simply payback. It’s accountability for lawless tyrants wrecking our republic. Americans should see that there’s a price for lawless tyranny. The Democratic Party is 100 percent tyrannical, top to bottom. In my view, they shouldn’t be allowed to run or hold office, because they are openly Communist and fascist. We should go after lawless Republicans too. If we don’t? THEY WILL KEEP DOING IT.

Notice how the leftist response to EVERYTHING is destruction. Feeling that black or brown people get a raw deal? Destroy white people. Dislike rich people? Loot the rich, give it all to USAID, and wreck the currency through inflation. Want electric cars? Eliminate fossil fuels. Want people to accept transgenders, whatever that means? Make life miserable for the 99.99 percent of children not confused about whether they are a boy or a girl.

Leftism is all about destruction, never about production. It’s all about rewarding the unearned and shaming those who earned. It’s about hatred of good for being the good, and celebration of insanity because it’s insanity. Leftism burns, bombs, destroys, censors, masks, shuts down and sneers. It never builds, enlightens, persuades or fosters good will among men. I refuse to call leftism “liberalism.” It’s the least liberal attitude there is. Leftism is not authoritarian, but totalitarian. It feeds on control like a drug. It will never gain enough control, and never achieve enough destruction.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

When the Justice Department announced a criminal investigation into rampant waste and fraud in California’s multi-billion-dollar homelessness boondoggle, our first question was, why stop there? The state has poured hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into a bullet train, water reservoirs, COVID relief, free health care, public schools, and has nothing to show for any of it.

Why should anyone outside California care? Because the state wasn’t just wasting its own taxpayers’ money – a lot of it came from Uncle Sam. And because the state’s current governor desperately wants to succeed Donald Trump in the White House.

A year ago, an audit found that the state had no idea why the $24 billion it had spent on more than 30 programs had no impact on the homeless population.

Now, the feds have launched a criminal investigation into this fraud. “Taxpayers deserve answers for where and how their hard-earned money has been spent. If state and local officials cannot provide proper oversight and accountability, we will do it for them. If we discover any federal laws were violated, we will make arrests,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

The Trump administration has also launched an investigation to see where $4 billion in federal money went for California’s never-ending bullet train project, which was supposed to cost $33 billion and would – when completed in 2020 – zip riders more than 400 miles from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in just over two hours.

The price tag is now more than triple the initial estimate, and the state has no idea when – or if – it will ever be completed. Just building a 119-mile stretch through California’s central desert is now projected to cost more than $35 billion and won’t be completed for at least five more years.

Also this week, Republicans in the state legislature called for an audit of Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, to find out exactly how much taxpayer money was going to pay benefits to illegal immigrants.

“Over the past six years, general fund spending on Medi-Cal has nearly doubled,” wrote San Diego Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio. “The governor’s administration admits that nearly one half of the growth … results from California’s expansion …. to undocumented immigrants.”

The audit came in response to Newsom’s request for a $6.2 billion bailout of the program.

Meanwhile, California lost $20 billion in COVID-related unemployment money – the most of any state – to “fraudsters using stolen social security numbers and stolen or made up names,” according to NPR. Not surprisingly, the state is barely lifting a finger to get that money back.

As NPR put it, “critics say the California money recovery effort remains feeble, with too few people held to account, and that the real fraud figure is likely far higher.”

Next on the waste-and-fraud hit parade are the billions spent to prevent and fight wildfires, a scam that came into high relief as thousands of homes burned to the ground around Los Angeles earlier this year. As we noted in this space, “California has wasted fantastic sums of money” on forest management and building reservoirs.

One investigation found that “Newsom overstated, by an astounding 690%, the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns in the very forestry projects he said needed to be prioritized to protect the state’s most vulnerable communities.”

In 2014, California voters overwhelmingly approved a $7.5 billion water bond proposal, nearly $3 billion of which was set aside to build new reservoirs. More than a decade later, not a single new reservoir has been built.

Last September, the state ditched a plan to nearly double the size of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County (which is east of San Francisco), after it couldn’t resolve bureaucratic infighting. The state can’t even figure out how to redirect money already allocated to that project.

California taxpayers should also demand an investigation into what happened to all the education money the state poured into its public schools. Since 2013, per-pupil spending has more than doubled, yet test scores have either remained flat or have fallen over those same years. (California’s teachers are the highest paid in the nation.)

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” writes Zac Townsend, “California’s government is rife with waste. As a state data official, I saw first hand how departmental silos obscure spending, how outdated systems hide inefficiencies, and how fraud festers in a budget so vast it defies comprehension. The Legislative Analyst’s Office routinely flags billions in questionable allocations, yet we rarely see follow-through.”

That follow-through is never going to happen so long as California remains a one-party state run by grifters, con men, and radical leftists who infest the Democratic Party.

Issues & Insights, Editorial Board

China’s trade war bluff may backfire as the U.S. pushes allies to choose between a rogue economic actor and a flawed but fairer partner with unmatched global power.

No one wants a “trade war” with China, or for that matter with any nation. Nonetheless, China has been waging one for years and is now locked in a tariff recalibration with the Trump administration.

In this American effort to find trade parity and equity, China can do some short-term damage to the U.S., especially in terms of ceasing exports of some pharmaceuticals, phones, and computers. But ultimately, it cannot win—and will eventually lose catastrophically. It will likely accept that reality sooner rather than later.

We are only in the first week of the escalating rhetoric and tariffs. But already China is appealing to its Asian rivals, Australia, and the EU to join in fighting the supposed American bully.

But so far, there are understandably few takers.

An exasperated China is now also running vintage Korean War-era propaganda videos of Mao Zedong bragging about how he was standing up to then-President Dwight Eisenhower.

Does Beijing really believe that airing ossified threats from decades ago—issued by the greatest mass killer in human history to the one U.S. president who warned of the military-industrial complex—is going to win over neutral nations?

Or maybe China thinks calls to Western nations to stop American trade “bullying” will resonate—this, from the greatest trade bully, cheat, and rogue commercial nation in history.

China is running a nearly $1-trillion trade surplus with the world. Its mercantilism is the result of market manipulations, product dumping, asymmetrical tariffs, patent, copyright and technology theft, a corrupt Chinese judicial system, and Western laxity—or what might be mildly called “bullying.” The U.S. accounts for about a third of China’s trade surplus, with most of the EU and Asian nations accounting for the other two-thirds.

In the past, third-party nations did not appreciate the ends to which China has gone to warp the international trading system. In one sense, unable to address their deficits with China, our friends and neutrals turned to America, where they sought to make up their trade asymmetries by going China-light and running surpluses with the U.S.

However much they criticize the United States, it is unlikely that European and Asian nations will join China—which imposes high tariffs and steals from them—in order to gang up on the U.S., which has tolerated massive trade deficits for decades.

To the degree that the world accepts China as an international commercial rogue nation, it does so out of fear —or, again, on the assumption it can recycle its deficits with Beijing by running surpluses with the vast open American market.

Countries like Panama, which once thought China’s Belt and Road Initiative was advantageous, soon learned that it was exploitative. Nothing is free with China. Its Silk Road policy is mostly designed to manipulate strategically located—and soon to be indebted and subservient—nations as future choke points in times of global tensions and is directed at the West in general and in particular the U.S.

China has done everything possible to incur global distrust and fear.

Most of the world accepts that the COVID-19 epidemic that killed and maimed millions worldwide was birthed in a Wuhan virology lab under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army. The world also remembers that China and the Chinese-controlled WHO lied repeatedly about the origins and spread of the virus.

However much they criticize the United States, it is unlikely that European and Asian nations will join China—which imposes high tariffs and steals from them—in order to gang up on the U.S., which has tolerated massive trade deficits for decades.

To the degree that the world accepts China as an international commercial rogue nation, it does so out of fear —or, again, on the assumption it can recycle its deficits with Beijing by running surpluses with the vast open American market.

Countries like Panama, which once thought China’s Belt and Road Initiative was advantageous, soon learned that it was exploitative. Nothing is free with China. Its Silk Road policy is mostly designed to manipulate strategically located—and soon to be indebted and subservient—nations as future choke points in times of global tensions and is directed at the West in general and in particular the U.S.

China has done everything possible to incur global distrust and fear.

The global public may recall that China stopped all domestic flights out of Wuhan on the internal news of the lab leak of the virus, while for days greenlighting nonstop air travel to major European and American cities. The world now accepts that China will never explain exactly when the virus appeared, how it “escaped” from the lab, why it was created in the first place, why Beijing repeatedly lied about all such inquiries, and what happened to an array of whistleblowers who warned of the leak.

China’s so-called allies, such as Russia and India, have historical grievances and ongoing border disputes fueled by Chinese aggression.

NATO, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the US also are curious as to why China is using its vast foreign exchange not to lift about a quarter of its population out of third-world-level poverty. Instead, it is frantically building 3-4 nuclear bombs a month, a 700-ship navy, and 2,500 combat aircraft as it ratchets up pressure on Taiwan.

The complexities of trade and tariffs present all sorts of minefields. But the Trump administration is beginning to navigate them, and its trajectory is rather simple. In the next 90 days, it will likely conclude trade deals with our allies and third parties that bring either tariff parity or no tariffs at all that will reduce the U.S. trade deficit.

Of course, our allies and neutrals still use stealth tariffs to ensure advantage by money manipulation, VAT taxes, and pseudo-health and security impediments to free trade. And they deeply resent the Trump administration’s loud denunciations of their surpluses and asymmetrical tariffs. But those machinations can be addressed later in round two after tariff reciprocity or elimination is finalized.

For now, Trump should persuade our allies that if they were not so subject to Chinese mercantilism, they would have more flexibility to ensure fair trade with the U.S. And thus, they should not do something self-destructive and side with China but instead join the U.S. to force China to keep its long-broken promises and play by international rules. A reduced import footprint from China in the U.S. could make room for increased imports from the EU, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—if they strike parity deals with the Trump administration. Barring that, they should simply get out of the way and not opportunistically cut reformist trade deals with China.

If China really does reduce most of its exports to the U.S., America will have to scramble for a year or so to establish new supply chains and some alternate importers of U.S. products. But after a year of gradual dislocation, China will begin to hemorrhage, and then quite suddenly, given the U.S. has almost all the advantages—if it chooses to use them.

One, if it ever comes to a real trade war, remember that nations with the higher tariffs and larger trade surpluses usually lose, given that their economies are far more dependent on mercantile exports and trade imbalances. Psychologically, it is far harder to convince the world of victimhood when tariffs and surpluses illustrate contrived trade aggression.

Two, consensual societies are far more flexible in dealing with external pressures and volatile public opinion. True, Trump must face a midterm election in 18 months. However, Xi Jinping may soon face a third of his export factory workforce unemployed—in a society that has no mechanism for them to vent tensions and objections peacefully.

Three, trillions of trade dollars are at stake as a result of the U.S.-China standoff. And should China escalate, it may well lose elsewhere as well. There are nearly 300,000 Chinese students here in the U.S. and now very few Americans in China—plus an unknown number of young Chinese males who mysteriously and illegally crossed the border en masse during the Biden illegal alien influx. A small percentage—but still a significant number, say 1%, or 3,000 “students”—are likely actively engaged in espionage. More importantly, thousands of PhDs and MAs return to China as now Westernized researchers, professors, and government and corporate scientists in technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The results of such technology absorption are not hard to fathom. Almost every Chinese jet fighter, armored vehicle, missile, or rocket; almost every EV automobile; and almost every solar panel have their origins in either U.S. and European research and development or from Western-trained Chinese engineers.

American universities recruit Chinese students and then often charge premium tuition without discounts or scholarships, but then again, universities are not especially popular now. The Trump administration may feel that if the trade war escalates, then it can always choose to recall visas from Chinese students—in the manner there were few Soviet Russian students in the U.S. during the Cold War. That step would serve a dual purpose by forcing universities to recalibrate their finances and cut their unnecessary or deleterious programs.

In terms of self-sufficiency, the U.S. is the world’s largest oil and gas producer. China has four times America’s population but only a third of its oil and gas production. China is desperately trying to catch the U.S. militarily but remains behind in both the quality and quantity of its manpower and munitions. It will take a decade or more to match the U.S. all-nuclear submarine fleet, eleven huge nuclear aircraft carriers, the sophistication and number of 4,000 fighters, bombers, and support aircraft, and the 5,000-6,000 nuclear weapons and the American nuclear triad delivery system.

Morally, China is the only major country that holds an entire ethnic minority—over a million Uyghurs—as virtual indentured servants. If China moves on Taiwan, it will face tough global sanctions. If the Ukraine war ends this year, there will be efforts by the Trump administration to adopt Kissingerian triangulation to see that Russia is no closer to China than to the U.S.

In sum, if the Trump administration can conclude first-round—good enough but not yet perfect— trade deals in the next few weeks with major EU countries, Japan, and other Asian and Pacific powerhouses, and then redirect to China, it will gain both political support and economic advantage. It also must message strategically, given that China, for a half-century, has waged a quiet trade war that has now birthed a loud reaction. So, the administration must remember that the current status quo is the aberration, and its correction is a return to normalcy.

After all, in the end, the EU and Asian nations should know the difference between their protective and rules-based ally, with whom they have run up huge and unfair surpluses, and a rogue bully, whose flagrant violations of trade norms and unfair tariffs have ensured them large trade deficits. And if they don’t calibrate their economic self-interest, but act emotionally, then they should at least consider realpolitik facts, such as which nation has the larger economy, the more open political system, and the largest and most lethal military that, in extremis, would come to their aid—against a bullying China.

About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O’Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent  The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.

The United Kingdom has been in managed decline since 2008. The dismal performance of the British economy — characterized by slow growth, low productivity, and stagnant wages — has been the subject of much analysis in recent years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has highlighted that the UK’s recovery from the 2008 financial crisis has been the slowest on record, even weaker than the recovery following the Great Depression in the 1930s and the early 1920s slump.

The authors have spent part of their careers in Singapore and have written extensively on the city-state’s economic growth since its independence. On several occasions, we have been asked about what lessons the Singapore experience might hold for Britain. We believe that an assessment of just what lessons can be derived from the Singapore’s policy-mix that would be of relevance to Britain’s economic stewards would be useful.

The Record

Before we proceed with the “lessons” part of this article, it would be useful to briefly compare the economic performance of both countries since the 1960s when Singapore became an independent nation-state. UK’s economic growth experience needs to be measured against comparable developed economies such as France, Germany, the EU area and the US. As a rapidly developing country, Singapore for much of its history is not comparable to a matured economy like the UK. Nevertheless, Singapore’s per capita GDP had already exceeded Britain’s by 2010 ($47.2 thousand and $39.6 thousand respectively in current US dollars). For all intents and purposes, Singapore can be broadly considered as a developed market economy by 2000 when Singapore’s per capita GDP was slightly less than the UK’s according to World Bank data.

Not Keynesian and Not Fabian

Perhaps the single most important aspect of the Singapore government’s approach to public policy is its core conservatism, or rather classical liberalism, that reflects the insights of Adam Smith. One of the abounding ironies that stand out in this tale of two nations is how Singapore’s social and economic policies reflect Smithian insights into the wealth of nations more so than in the great sage’s own homeland. We submit that the remarkable economic success of the small city-state, with a population of under 6 million, reflects Smith’s aphorism rather well:

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

The tone set by Singapore’s visionary first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, widely respected as “father of the nation”, is crucial to understanding Singapore’s governing philosophy. Lee—famously referred to in the 1960s as “the best bloody Englishman east of Suez” by British Foreign Minister George Brown– tasked his key right-hand man Dr. Goh Keng Swee to serve as the economic architect of what has become known as the Singapore economic miracle. A key principle that Dr. Goh held to steadfastly explains the contrast between the dismal performance of Great Britain and the stellar one of Singapore’s.

Dr. Goh was determined with his insistence on prudent public finance. Dr. Goh was a Victorian through and through. He wrote favorably, for example, about the British “self-help” moral reformer Samuel Smiles. According to Goh, the cardinal virtue of state was the principle that the public budget should be in balance, if not in surplus, and that deficits were to be tolerated only in extraordinary circumstances. Dr Goh’s early advocacy of prudent fiscal and monetary policies—unusual in the 1960s and early 1970s when neo-Keynesian policies were in vogue around the world– helped to establish a sound basis for the “easy taxes” favoured by Adam Smith. This was in keeping with Adam Smith’s dictum that “what is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”

Compare that to the experience of post-war UK (except for the Thatcher interregnum) where a liberal Keynesian/Fabian consensus indulged in profligacy to win elections and construct a paternalist welfare state with endemic budget deficits and inflation. In its application to public finance, the tenets of popular Keynesianism were directly opposed to the Smithian virtues of prudence and small government with “easy taxes.” Lord Keynes himself seemingly believed that a small group of enlightened policymakers would, for the greater public good, defy sectional and vested interests which clamoured for public handouts.

The spendthrift public policies of the British welfare state —and ensuing fiscal meltdowns and foreign exchange crises including begging bowl visits to the IMF – have been widely written upon. The open border, and the lavish benefits accorded to illegal immigrants, over the past several years have only added to the burdens of the welfare state on taxpayers.

Reflective of the stark contrast between the Britain’s liberal welfare state and Singapore’s flinty approach to state-aid for the destitute and the disabled can be seen in their relative tax rates. Singapore’s flat corporate tax rate of 17% is significantly lower than the UK’s main rate of 25%. The city-state’s lack of capital gains taxes gives it an edge for businesses with significant investment gains. Singapore’s incentives for startups and exemptions further enhance its appeal for new or growing businesses.

Singapore’s top personal income tax rate (24%) is much lower than the UK’s (45%), and its exemption of capital gains and dividends contrasts sharply with the UK’s taxation of these income types. Furthermore, the difference in import duties between Great Britain and the “free port” of Singapore with zero-duty tariffs on almost all its imports adds to the overall tax differential.

UK’s Godly NHS vs. Singapore’s Co-Pay Health System

The healthcare systems of the two countries provide another interesting vantage point in assessing the differences between the political leaderships and characteristic governing philosophies of the two countries. It should be noted that in the UK, with the significant exception of the Thatcher years, the Conservative and Labour governments shared the same fundamental beliefs in social and economic policy 

The NHS is the closest thing British people have to a religion. No politician can dare announce it is not fit for purpose, nor even hint to allowing some level of privatization in the institution. Yet, despite spending approximately 20–30% higher per capita than Singapore, Britain’s health system yields inferior outcomes. Singapore boasts one of the world’s highest life expectancies at 84.8 years, compared to Britain’s 80.4 years and in terms of another key indicator–healthy life expectancy at birth—Singapore beats the UK by 3.5 years

Stark differences in the healthcare systems show up in other ways as well. Estimates based on NHS data show that the median wait for elective (non-emergency) procedures like hip replacements or cataract surgery is around 12-14 weeks, with over 6 million people on waiting lists by late 2024. Comparable waiting times in Singapore hospitals are 2 – 4 weeks.

Singapore’s founding political leaders like Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee, both having lived and studied in England, realized that free healthcare sounded “civilized” but was bound to fail once human nature and system incentives were considered. A key part of their healthcare system was ensuring that hospital charges involved some level of “co-paying” to ensure that no abuse of a free service was involved.

The government introduced the “Medisave” scheme where every employee had to contribute a portion of his or her salary to a medical insurance system that covered part of the costs of healthcare. Ensuring there was no incentive-dissipating pooling system, each Medisave account can only be used by the corresponding contributing employee. Being aware that sovereign consumers know best of their own needs, the government ensured that all healthcare providers, public and private, displayed their costs so that patients could assess the costs of treatments upfront. Consumers could choose their own level of services and amenities regarding their healthcare (private or semi-private hospital wards, for example) On almost every count, where UK’s NHS absolved people of responsibility, Singapore ensured that the health system did not entertain free riders.

Tilak Doshi and Peter Coclanis

On Saturday night, President Donald Trump strode into the Kaseya Center in Miami to a standing ovation from the raucous crowd attending the UFC 314 event. It was another triumphant Trump appearance at a sporting event. Since his election, he has attended the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, and a professional golf tournament.

President Trump likes sports, and he likes interacting with regular people. His signature rallies are always well attended and festive events with Trump mixing it up with enthusiastic supporters.

Trump has a special bond with the American people, which makes him unique among recent Presidents. Unlike many elected officials, President Trump prefers to be with everyday Americans, not elitists.

He is the President of Main Street, not Wall Street. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated, “the Trump agenda is focused on Main Street…It’s Main Street’s turn to hire workers. It’s Main Street’s turn to drive investment, and it’s Main Street’s turn to restore the American Dream.”

The President’s desire to help average hard-working Americans is the reason he is pushing for no tax on tips, overtime, or social security. At a September 12, 2024, rally, the President said, “The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them.”

Of course, the President is right. In Washington D.C., politicians respond to pressure from well-heeled lobbyists or special interests and dismiss the interests of average Americans. Thankfully, President Trump is different.

President Trump has enjoyed tremendous success in bringing home American hostages. Since his inauguration, 26 Americans have been released from captivity. Last week, another hostage, Russian American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, was released. Upon her arrival she said,  “Mr. Trump, I’m so, so grateful for you bringing me home. I never felt more blessed to be American.”

These wonderful stories have happened for one reason, President Trump is in the White House. Of course, this has been an extremely difficult journey for President Trump. He has endured ten years of media attacks, lawfare, investigations, impeachments, an FBI raid of his home, a mug shot, a patently biased conviction, and two attempted assassinations.

If he were a selfish man, President Trump would be enjoying his riches, playing golf, and living in luxury. Instead, he is leading the nation and the world and continuing to put his life in jeopardy by taking on enormously powerful enemies.

The latest individual to threaten the President was Shawn Monper of Butler, Pennsylvania. He was arrested by law enforcement authorities on Wednesday and charged with making threats to assault and murder the President.

These threats are not surprising as a recent survey by the Network Contagion Research Institute indicated that 48% of “left leaning” respondents felt it was “somewhat justified” to “murder” President Trump.

President Trump has endured this abuse because he genuinely cares about the American people and realized the damage his predecessor did to our country. At the end of President Joe Biden’s four horrific year term, America was on the verge of financial ruin, with an open border, a declining military, and a world at war.

President Trump and his administration are working tirelessly to fix the multitude of problems left by Joe Biden, the worst President in American history. None of this will be easy or quick. It will take a determined effort for the remainder of his term. Not a small challenge for a 78-year-old man, but Trump has the stamina of a man half his age.

Regarding his health, Trump was transparent about his physical examination and has disclosed that he took a cognitive test, unlike Biden. Trump reveals the truth to the American people on everything.

He is also offering accessibility and openness, a refreshing change from the previous administration. He consistently offers the media opportunities to ask questions at the Oval Office or Air Force One, among other places.

For example, at his three cabinet meetings, President Trump has answered 90 questions. In contrast, Biden only answered five questions at cabinet meetings during his entire term.

Along with transforming the White House operations and interactions with the media, President Trump has completely remade the Republican Party. Historically, the GOP was the political party for country clubs and Wall Street, known for elitism and snobbery. Average Americans felt unwelcome in the Republican Party.

Fortunately, the old Republican Party is gone forever, thanks to Donald Trump. He has transformed the GOP into a party that represents working class Americans.

Thank goodness, the Republican Party is no longer represented by blue bloods like George Bush and Mitt Romney. According to CNN political analyst Harry Enten, “within the last decade…since the beginning of the Donald Trump administration…among the working class…Republicans have overwhelmingly gained on this all-important question of which party cares more for people like yourself.”

Because of his policies, his personality and his communication ability, President Trump has reinvigorated a political party that was losing elections and popularity. He turned the GOP into the majority party today with control of the White House and Congress.

The main reason for this success is President Trump’s immense capabilities to connect with average Americans. He is truly the People’s President. He is looking out for the interests of the working class and these voters, long ignored, know that they finally have a champion in the White House.

Jeff Crouere

Boston Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu’s 2021 campaign received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fundraiser who is listed by a Chinese intelligence agency as an official, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.

Gary Yu, the founder of Boston International Media Consulting, helped raise over $300,000 for Wu with the help of a Chinese civic association he leads. However, Yu — whose Chinese name is Yu Guoliang — is listed as an official by an agency of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence and intelligence service called the United Front Work Department (UFWD), and also operates as a recruiter for the Chinese government, according to reports from the CCP, Chinese state media and civic associations led by Yu.

The Communist Party’s UFWD never rests,” author and China expert Gordon Chang told the DCNF. “There is no ethnic Chinese official in America who is not targeted. It’s time for law enforcement to investigate the CCP’s ties to Gary Yu and Yu’s ties to Mayor Michelle Wu.”

Wu has risen to national prominence as a central figure in the Democratic resistance to Trump’s border and deportation policies. Wu recently defended her city’s refusal to cooperate with immigration officials during her March 19, 2025 “State of the City” address, during which she criticized “presidents who think they are kings,” prompting the White House to fire back the next day with a press release labeling Wu a “radical mayor” who “puts violent criminal illegal aliens first.”

“Wu’s ultra-leftism makes her the perfect candidate for CCP recruitment and capture,” Chang said. “Or do we have it backward? Is her ultra-leftism the result of CCP recruitment and capture? More than just the people of Boston would like to know.”

Wu’s office, Yu, and Boston International Media Consulting did not respond to multiple requests for comment. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon, Energy Dept. Nuclear Research Projects Tapped Sanctioned Chinese Communist Party Supercomputers)

‘Overseas Chinese’

Yu has repeatedly met with high-ranking CCP intelligence leaders in China and is listed as an official by two regional branches of a UFWD arm, according to Chinese government announcements, state media reports and records from Chinese civic associations led by Yu.

The UFWD’s operations are a “unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations that the [CCP] uses to shape its political environment, including to influence other countries’ policy toward the [People’s Republic of China] and to gain access to advanced foreign technology,” according to the House Select Committee on the CCP.

Yu is identified as an “overseas committee member” by the Hangzhou municipal All-China Federation Of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC) branch in Zhejiang province and has met with their officials in China multiple times, according to the website of the North American Hangzhou Association (NAHAUS), where Yu serves as chairman.

ACFROC is a UFWD agency specializing in overseas influence operations, including allegedly directing Chinese community leaders to illegally establish a secret Chinese police station in New York City.

“China’s strategy to influence state and local policymakers is executed, in part, through hundreds of ostensibly ‘civil society’ organizations that are actually affiliated with the CCP’s UFWD,” Michael Lucci, CEO of State Armor, a nonprofit focused on countering the CCP, told the DCNF. “Xi Jinping considers United Front work a critical tool to undermine democracies. It involves influence peddling, intelligence collection, and intellectual property theft, all for the end goal of aligning U.S. subnational governments with China’s foreign policy and exploiting weaknesses they find.”

NAHAUS’s website details one meeting in China between Yu and the Hangzhou ACFROC Communist Party secretary on Nov. 29, 2018. During the meeting, Yu said NAHAUS would “work tirelessly to support the construction of Hangzhou and continue to serve the function of uniting and leading overseas Chinese,” according to a Chinese social media post that includes a photo of Yu alongside the ACFROC Party secretary.

Yu is likewise listed as an “overseas committee member” by the Zhejiang ACFROC branch, and he also met with officials from that group in China in November 2018, according to NAHAUS’ website. In March 2023, Yu participated in a Zhejiang ACFROC overseas advisory committee webinar, according to Zhejiang ACFROC. During the webinar, Yu and other ACFROC officials discussed matters such as building overseas coalitions.

Talent Recruitment’

Yu also agreed to headhunt U.S. talent for at least half a dozen Chinese regional governments, including the cities of Hangzhou and Guangzhou, according to Chinese government and ACFROC announcements.

For instance, in November 2019, the CCP announced that Yu agreed to establish an “Overseas Talent Recruitment Work Station” in North America for the party’s Organization Department in Nanning, a city located in the Guangxi Autonomous Region.

The Organization Department oversees China’s malign talent recruitment programs, like the Thousand Talents Plan, which incentivizes participants to “return to China to augment its scientific and military capabilities,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Yu has also agreed to help recruit U.S. talent to support China’s high-tech development, including in the field of artificial intelligence.

Guangxi’s ACFROC branch recently announced that Yu had met with its officials on March 27, 2025. During that meeting, Yu promised to continue introducing “top-quality resources to Guangxi” after the ACFROC chairwoman told him the region’s artificial intelligence industry urgently required “overseas high-level talents.”

A November 2018 article by the Chinese media outlet Sohu reported Yu had previously headhunted for the Chengdu government’s High-Tech Zone and Tianfu Software Park, which are home to multiple Chinese military companies sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Defense, including Chengdu JOUAV Automation Tech Co., Chengdu M&S Electronics Technology Co., Tencent, and Huawei.

Unlimited Power’

Meanwhile, Yu has organized the Chinese American community in Massachusetts to canvas and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect Democratic lawmakers like Wu.

Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) records show Yu has personally donated $45,515 to various Massachusetts Democratic politicians since 2018, including $3,200 to Wu and $2,175 to Gov. Maura Healey.

Among other leadership roles, Yu also serves as the co-chair of the New England Chinese American Alliance (NECCA), which has “actively engaged the Chinese community in political campaigns,” according to the nonprofit’s website. Toward that end, NECCA has hosted “fundraising events” for at least nine Massachusetts politicians including Wu and Healey.

NECCA’s website claims it “raised over $300,000 from the Chinese American community for Michelle Wu,” and Yu’s Twitter advertised fundraising events for the future mayor in November 2020 and June 2021.

“We organized so many fundraisers and translated campaign materials into Chinese for more Chinese residents to read,” Yu said about his work for Wu, according to a November 2021 Boston University News Service (BUNS) report. “We did street canvassing every week. We had unlimited power for supporting her in the past year.”

By September 2021, NECCA had “expanded the fundraising scope from the Greater Boston area to more than 30 states across the country,” BUNS reported.

“Public officials need to thoroughly vet any organization and individual that has ties to China’s government, and interface with state and federal law enforcement when there is any uncertainty,” Lucci told the DCNF. “It is well-known that China’s government seeks to influence U.S. politics and place agents within our governance systems to further the CCP’s agenda. We need to stop letting them get away with it.”

Yu also donated $3,000 to Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio, OCPF records show.

DiZoglio added Yu to her “policies and priorities” transition team after winning her race for state auditor in June 2021, and later appointed him to serve as a commissioner on the state’s Asian American and Pacific Islanders Commission (AAPIC) in January 2024.

Yu now serves as vice chair of AAPIC, which describes itself as “the Commonwealth’s only permanent, statewide body dedicated to addressing the needs and challenges of the AAPI community.”

AAPIC’s chairman, Saatvik Ahluwalia, told the DCNF by email the organization was completely “unaware” of any activity between Yu and ACFROC.

“[T]his is the first time we have heard of ACFROC, and we’ve had no contact, affiliation, or engagement with either the organization or the Chinese Government,” Ahluwalia said. “We absolutely intend to investigate what you outlined in your questions, including talking directly to Mr. Yu.”

NECCA, Healey, and DiZoglio did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Philip Lenczycki

Daily Caller News Foundation senior investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip

In just their latest bizarre twist of logic, leftists are again accusing President Donald Trump of planning to steal an election — even though for the last four years, they insisted this was impossible.

On Friday, Paul Rosenzweig asserted in an article for The Atlantic that “Trump Is Already Undermining The Next Election.” He claimed Trump’s executive order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote was “nothing less than an attempt to disenfranchise his opponents and forestall electoral defeat.” In reality, the measure would simply prevent noncitizens from voting and reinforce other vulnerable areas of elections, for example, by requiring paper ballots. Still, he apparently thinks Trump will rig the next election.

Rosenzweig is not alone. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told The New Yorker last month that he thinks Trump is turning America “from a democracy to an autocracy,” and that “the chances are growing that we will not have a free and fair election in 2026.” These concerns come as Democrats’ favorability is plummeting.

Even before Trump’s landslide victory in November, legacy media were planting seeds that he might “steal” the race. MSNBC said in October that then-Vice President Kamala Harris was “prepared if Trump tries to steal the election,” while NBC said Trump could “declare a premature election win.” Vox even speculated that Trump would use the Supreme Court to “steal the election.” And just days before the election, The Rolling Stone published an article on “How Republicans Could Help Steal The Election From Harris.” 

After Trump won, many Democrats began wondering how their immensely popular candidate could have lost. After all, she spent millions on celebrity endorsements, and rapper Lizzo promised that if Harris won, the “whole country will be like Detroit.” What could have gone wrong? 

Leftist writer Greg Palast claimed Trump used “Jim Crow tricks” to cheat Harris out of more than 3.5 million votes. Various other Democrats online began crafting stories about how Trump might have cheated Harris out of the election. It spiraled so far out of control that even NBC published a story stating, “Election denialism emerges on the left after Trump’s win.” 

This was a remarkable turn from the last four years, when leftist outlets constantly claimed rigging the election was impossible. When conservatives expressed concerns about things like noncitizen voting, or government censorship, or Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg giving millions to election administrators through leftist nonprofits to boost Democrat turnout, leftists smeared them as “election deniers.” 

To rewind the clock even further, Democrats were the real “election deniers” when Trump first won office in 2016. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign hatched a plot to paint Trump as a “Russian asset,” hiring the firm Fusion GPS to fabricate a dossier peddled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. It turned out that Steele’s sources lied extensively. Meanwhile, Clinton called Trump an “illegitimate president,” and Harris — then a senator — claimed that “Russia interfere[d] in the election of the president of the United States.” 

The amount of back-and-forth from Democrats on elections is enough to cause whiplash. When they lost in 2016, they denied the results. When then-candidate Joe Biden won in 2020, they claimed American elections were bulletproof, and anyone claiming otherwise must be an evil “election denier.” But after November’s election, which Trump won with both the Electoral College and popular vote, they again claimed he stole the election. Now, leftists are already planting seeds that Trump is planning to steal another.

This all goes to show that Democrats are not really concerned about election integrity — they are only concerned when they lose. 

Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.

European energy expert Samuel Furfari sums up green hydrogen (GH) perfectly; “It’s like burning Louis Vuitton handbags for heat.” He says this because it is so very expensive. Federal law allocated $9.5 billion for GH hubs, and the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act (Inflation Causing Act) expanded tax subsidies. Even with massive taxpayer subsidies, GH is a money loser.

Leftists claim GH is a way to replace batteries for transportation. It is at least five times more expensive, which doesn’t include all the extra costs associated with the production of natural gas, such as purifying massive amounts of water, which takes about 13 times more water than the hydrogen it produces. Desalination is an additional cost. Putting these processes anywhere they’ll need to compete for water resources is just plain stupid.

Infrastructure costs are astounding because we currently have none, and hydrogen is not suitable for pipelines because it escapes easily, embrittles metal, and is prone to explode. It only takes a few massive hydrogen car or truck explosions to end hydrogen use for transportation, just like the Hindenburg disaster that ended hydrogen ballon travel.

GH is an excessive waste of money, and it hasn’t ever been made at scale—even after tens of billions spent by Europeans, Australians, and the United States.

All it takes is a little critical thinking to realize that something is amiss once one understands how GH is produced. First of all, we don’t have enough wind and solar to power the hydrogen plants. Second, wind and solar are part-time and weather dependent. The GH process is required to run at all times, not just the 30 percent of the time the wind blows and the 20 percent of the time the sun shines bright enough.

Making GH requires pure water to be heated to 2,000° F and is then electrocuted. This cracks the hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The hydrogen is then chilled to 420° F below zero, turning it into a liquid, and then it is finally compressed to 10,000 psi, comparable to three times the average scuba tank or compressed natural gas (CNG). Without this chilling and compression, hydrogen has one-tenth the energy per volume as natural gas. Under normal compressed circumstances, hydrogen has less energy than CNG. A kilogram of this liquid hydrogen has the energy of a gallon of gas.

When working with the liquid near zero, compressed hydrogen is tricky, as it is the smallest molecule, escaping normal pipelines and embrittling metals, causing them to crack sooner than later.

“Every time you involve hydrogen, you get not small losses, but large, substantial losses,” an energy specialist tells us. “The main cause of the issue is that hydrogen is a molecule that is too small and volatile to be used, transported effectively using the gas pipelines, turbines, boilers, cooktops, or burner jets that are now in place.” Deep pocket oil companies are getting out of this boondoggle. BP cancelled 18 hydrogen projects because they were unprofitable, all in an effort to save $200 million a year. Shell cancelled a Norway hydrogen project and others for lack of demand, while a $750 million GH plant in Australia was cancelled because it was a money loser.

The first argument raised by climate hawks is the production of GH, which costs 40 percent more in energy than it produces. Some of the GH will leak, as it is stored in salt caverns.

When there isn’t any wind or solar power, which is usually the case, they then say we can use this stored hydrogen to create second-generation GH. Using second-generation hydrogen alone will bear 80 percent of the cost of the energy that is actually produced—not including losses—which doesn’t even factor in all the other costs associated with the process.

And what about water needs?

It’s just stupid to put hydrogen hubs in areas without enough water. Houston, Utah, and Southern California, to name a few, are recognized as government sponsored GH hotspots.

Particularly in Utah, on the edge of the desert, where solar and wind power barely account for 2 percent of total electricity generated. Or California, which suffers from droughts, and often sees water shortages.

Trump and Congressional Republicans must stop wasting billions on GH. Any money spent on GH adds to our $36.5 trillion national debt, driving up inflation. While it was reported that Trump is considering killing hydrogen hubs in blue states, Trump should kill all of them.

Green hydrogen is an expensive pipedream we simply cannot afford.

Frank Lasee, Townhall

https://youtu.be/ZqylROx2n3M?si=hN9eM1Uph19ZxtNu