by Cristina Laila 

Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton transmitted classified emails over a private server system and they were intercepted by a hostile foreign country’s spy service, according to a leak to The New York Times.

As reported last week, John Bolton is reportedly under investigation for violating the Espionage Act, according to The New York Times.

“The investigation into whether John Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, mishandled classified information is trying to determine if he violated certain sections of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to illegally retain or transmit national defense information, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the case,” The New York Times reported.

The FBI raided the home of Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, last Friday morning.

The Biden Administration halted the investigation into Bolton, but FBI Director Kash Patel revived it and ordered the raid on the former NatSec Advisor’s home.

John Bolton has not been arrested or charged with any crimes (yet).

The New York Times on Wednesday reported that the US Government actually discovered John Bolton’s classified emails while gathering information from an “adversarial country’s spy service.”

The New York Times reported:

The investigation into President Trump’s former national security advisor, John R. Bolton, began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that he had mishandled classified information, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.

The investigation of Mr. Bolton, who has become an ardent critic of the president, burst back into public view last week when federal agents searched his Maryland home and Washington office.

While those searches have raised fresh questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump may be using the Justice Department and F.B.I. to try to punish those he dislikes, the new details of the case present a more complex chain of events. The disclosures suggest that a long-running investigation into Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time, with some of the issues echoing past inquiries into the handling of national security secrets.

The emails in question, according to the people, were sent by Mr. Bolton and included information that appeared to derive from classified documents he had seen while he was national security adviser Mr. Bolton apparently sent the messages to people close to him who were helping him gather material that he would ultimately use his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

Biden Administration halted the investigation into Bolton, but FBI Director Kash Patel revived it and ordered the raid on the former NatSec Advisor’s home.

John Bolton has not been arrested or charged with any crimes (yet).

The New York Times on Wednesday reported that the US Government actually discovered John Bolton’s classified emails while gathering information from an “adversarial country’s spy service.”

The New York Times reported:

The investigation into President Trump’s former national security advisor, John R. Bolton, began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that he had mishandled classified information, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.

The investigation of Mr. Bolton, who has become an ardent critic of the president, burst back into public view last week when federal agents searched his Maryland home and Washington office.

While those searches have raised fresh questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump may be using the Justice Department and F.B.I. to try to punish those he dislikes, the new details of the case present a more complex chain of events. The disclosures suggest that a long-running investigation into Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time, with some of the issues echoing past inquiries into the handling of national security secrets.

The emails in question, according to the people, were sent by Mr. Bolton and included information that appeared to derive from classified documents he had seen while he was national security adviser Mr. Bolton apparently sent the messages to people close to him who were helping him gather material that he would ultimately use his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

By Howard J. Warner

A few days ago, Vice President J.D. Vance in an interview was asked why the Democrats are getting behind criminals and blocking prosecutions and police protection.  He responded (to be kind) that the politicians have lost touch with their constituents.  But although this might be true of some, he did not get to the real reason.

When Barack Obama was elected president, he indicated that he wanted to fundamentally change America.  To that end, he fundamentally changed our health care system, in which many now acknowledge a lack of personal care, as our doctors have become employees of hospitals and large medical groups.  Office visits are often to nurse practitioners, as physicians are generally engaged in procedures that generate greater renumeration than office visits.  The visits are generally faster, and the provider spends much of the time on the computer.  Government influence over our health care system has increased for sixty years (since Medicare and Medicaid), but the Affordable Care Act accelerated this trend.  Gaining control over health care was just the beginning to fundamentally changing America from the Enlightenment to Marxism.

As Mark Levin has brilliantly detailed in his book American Marxism, our country did not accept classical class-warfare Marxism, since our creed is to become rich by accumulating wealth through property.  But the Frankfurt School version of Critical Theory provides the opportunity to identify oppressed groups aside from the proletariat and bourgeoisie.  Democrats have decided to separate the population via race and ethnicity and this has succeeded.  For this approach to work there must be a dependent group which appears disadvantaged.

Obama is an intelligent person who morphed Saul Alinsky, Marx, Critical Theory, and anarchy into a legitimate political movement.  Although it was successful in his personal ascension to power, this approach has not generally gained ground nationally.  (It is well received in the large urban cities with large minority populations.)  The movement toward radicalism includes a reduction in policing and punishment for crimes.  This results in chaos which threatens the local poor and minority population most giving them a sense of hopelessness and desperation.  This is critical to the theory.  Hence, these political leaders will resist any attempt to make our streets safer.

Democrats defend crime and defunding the police because this keeps them in power.  If people are threatened, they are more willing to distrust those who fall into the “oppressor” groups.  The impetus to change paradigms does not come easily when “free” stuff is offered to those with little resources.  Hence socialist Mamdani is leading for NYC mayor in a city with a large immigrant population.  Crime is the chaos that Critical Theory has ordered.  Lowering the crime rate in Washington, D.C. by the Trump initiative is a threat to the Democratic leadership.  Of course, the opposition to Trump labels this effort as racism, since Critical Race Theory is one element of this Marxist approach.

Cleaning up Chicago’s southside and west will be of great benefit to the citizens.  It will demonstrate Democrat failure.  But fixing the problem removes the chaos and might hurt the radicals’ power base.

American Thinker

In a strongly worded post, President Trump calls for RICO charges against George Soros and his son, citing their alleged ties to violent protests.

President Donald Trump issued a scathing statement on Wednesday, calling for legal action against billionaire George Soros and his son, Alexander, citing their alleged role in supporting violent protests across the United States.

“George Soros, and his wonderful radical left son, should be charged with RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) because of their support of violent protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America,” Trump wrote in a social media post. He accused Soros and his associates of contributing to national unrest, saying, “Soros and his group of psychopaths have caused great damage to our country!”

The President’s remarks reflect longstanding concerns among conservative groups regarding Soros’s financial influence through the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which has directed significant resources toward progressive causes in the United States. OSF’s funding portfolio includes numerous NGOs and advocacy groups involved in issues such as criminal justice reform, immigration policy, and campus activism.

Several watchdog organizations have drawn attention to OSF’s financial support for groups accused of anti-Israel activity. According to NGO Monitor, recipients of Soros-linked grants have included organizations supportive of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and other groups active in Judea and Samaria. Critics argue that some of these NGOs have undermined Israel’s legitimacy on the international stage and maintained affiliations with entities hostile to the Jewish state.

Public records and investigative reporting have also highlighted OSF funding ties to J Street, a Washington-based advocacy group that has faced criticism in the Israeli political sphere for its policy stances. In the realm of campus activism, Soros-funded entities have been linked to student groups engaged in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, some of which have drawn scrutiny for their rhetoric and tactics.

President Trump also issued a warning to Soros’s “crazy, West Coast friends,” stating, “Be careful, we’re watching you!” He concluded the message by emphasizing that the American public would no longer tolerate efforts to destabilize the nation: “We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to ‘breathe,’ and be free.”

Neither George Soros nor representatives of the Open Society Foundations have responded publicly to the President’s comments as of publication.

Israel National News

Banda Aceh, Indonesia: Two men were publicly flogged 76 times each in Indonesia’s conservative province of Aceh on Tuesday after they were found guilty of sexual relations by a court operating under strict Islamic law.

Gay sex is outlawed in Aceh, which imposes a version of sharia, the Islamic legal code, but it is not illegal elsewhere in the world’s most populous Muslim majority country.

The men were part of a group of 10 who were flogged Tuesday at a park in the provincial capital Banda Aceh for a range of alleged crimes.

The pair were flogged separately with a rattan stick as a small crowd watched, according to an AFP journalist present.

Their initial sentences of 80 lashes each were reduced by four for four months spent in detention.

In April local sharia police found the two men together at a public toilet in the same park where they were later flogged, said Roslina A. Djalil, head of Banda Aceh sharia police’s law enforcement.

“A member of the public saw suspicious people and reported it,” Roslina said.

Amnesty International condemned the punishment.

“The criminalisation of same-sex conduct… has no place in a just and humane society,” Amnesty’s regional research director Montse Ferrer said in a statement.

Three women and five men were also flogged Tuesday after being found guilty of sex outside marriage, being in close proximity to members of the opposite sex, and online gambling.

Caning retains strong support among Aceh’s population as a common punishment for offences including drinking alcohol and adultery.

The region started using religious law after it was granted special autonomy in 2001 as Jakarta tried to quell a long-running separatist insurgency.

After his first arrest for sex crimes, Jeffrey Epstein tried to get into a new line of work: surveillance. In 2015, he partnered with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to invest in a security tech startup called Reporty Homeland Security, now known as Carbyne. Leaked emails show that Epstein was using Barak to seek out opportunities in the surveillance industry and build connections with powerful figures around the globe, including American businessman Peter Thiel, the former director of Israeli signals intelligence, and two people in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s circle.

After he was first caught sexually exploiting teenage girls, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution in 2008; he served a little over a year in detention. Meanwhile, he invested his wealth in bizarre projects, including a ranch to breed women with his DNA and “efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling that someone is watching you,” according to The New York Times.

The leaked emails show that Epstein was also interested in more mundane means of spying on and manipulating people, which overlapped with the technologies governments often pursue. This interest crossed borders.

Jeffrey Epstein engaged in security tech by investing his vast fortune in, and building connections with, surveillance and security-related companies, particularly after his 2008 conviction. Leaked emails from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak revealed Epstein’s efforts to get involved in the surveillance industry and his connections with powerful figures in tech and intelligence.

Epstein’s Security and surveillance investments

Carbyne (formerly Reporty): In 2015, Epstein partnered with Ehud Barak to invest in Reporty, a startup that aimed to overhaul 911 emergency dispatch technology. Epstein actively used Barak to build connections in the surveillance industry to seek new opportunities. The investment was structured to conceal Epstein’s involvement.

Epstein used his connections to arrange meetings between Ehud Barak and Peter Thiel, the co-founder of the surveillance contractor Palantir. Epstein later invested $40 million into Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm co-founded by Thiel, and reportedly pitched Carbyne to the fund in 2016.

Levitection: In 2016, Barak also asked Epstein to invest in Levitection, an electromagnetic imaging startup whose staff were veterans of an Israeli weapons company. The company later won a contract with the US Department of Homeland Security.

Pursuit of a “military-like” tech perspective
Leaked emails show Epstein was highly interested in security-related technology and surveillance. In one email, he wrote that he was “AMAZED by the rate of which technology has moved into the private sector” and that many companies were “looking for a new military like perspective on mgmt”. This reflected his interest in positioning himself at the intersection of private money and public surveillance.

Fifth Dimension: In 2015, Barak consulted Epstein about an intelligence company called Fifth Dimension, which was backed by a Russian businessman allied with Vladimir Putin. The company’s pitch included using AI to transform data into intelligence, along with maps tracking individuals.

Broader tech and science connections: Beyond security, Epstein also cultivated relationships with many prominent figures in the broader tech and science worlds, funding research and attending exclusive gatherings. He had deep connections to the MIT Media Lab, where he funded research and leveraged his connections to solicit donations from others, including Bill Gates. Some of Epstein’s ventures were tied to transhumanism and genetic engineering, including an ambition to “seed the human race with his DNA”.

Reason Magazine, Matthew Petti

Go woke, go broke. Just ask Cracker Barrel. The irony? Reasonable people do not care about the things that drove Cracker Barrel corporate Communists to change their logo. The only way even to notice, much less care about, such things? If you have ABSOLUTELY no life. Nothing to live for except controlling others for the sake of controlling others. Corporate Communists are afraid to confront the lethal stupidity overtaking our whole world. So instead, they go along to get along and hope to be praised for it by the academic psychopaths and media morons who offer ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of virtue or value to anyone.

I hope Cracker Barrel shuts down and loses everything. We need the companies who kowtow to idiocy to perish from the scene, so our culture can start over on rational ground.

Michael J. Hurd

An economist looks at three possible artificial-intelligence futures.

Virtually every observer of American higher education agrees that it is in trouble, and most think the short to midterm future for universities is pretty bleak. Most emphasize growing disenchantment with the academy on the part of governmental funders, most conspicuously the Trump-era federal government. Still others point to both the enrollment decline of the past 15 years along with the shrinking supply of college-age Americans in coming years because of declining fertility rates.

Another factor arising that could be both a threat and an opportunity for colleges is artificial intelligence (AI). Will it magnify higher education’s troubles or help foster a period of expansion and prosperity?

Technological change until recently almost always meant that machines substituted for manual-labor tasks.Warning: I am an economist, and my profession’s record at forecasting future events is pretty dismal. An early economist, T.R. Malthus, in 1798 predicted a coming era of extreme poverty and near starvation, whereupon Britain then had the longest sustained period of rapid economic growth the world had ever seen. In the early 1940s, many prominent Keynesian economists predicted a resumption of the Great Depression at World War II’s end: It never came.

But now AI has rapidly grown in sophistication and importance, so machines using AI are replacing college-trained workers.So let me hedge my bets by offering both a pessimistic and an optimist take on the possible impact of AI on higher education’s future.

The Pessimistic Perspective

During the first great Industrial Revolution, beginning in Great Britain around 1750, new technological advances increased incomes and jobs for most people, but there were some losers, too. Most famously, in the cotton textile industry the invention of machine-based technology to spin and weave cloth (i.e., the spinning jenny and power loom) meant some home-based spinners and weavers lost their jobs to new factory-based workers operating much more productive machines. The losers were often illiterate or marginally educated, while the more educated classes generally participated in the growing income arising out of increased production.

Similarly, in the U.S. over the last half of the last century, employment and job opportunities in Rust Belt manufacturing communities declined for factory workers with modest amounts (at most, high-school diplomas) of formal education, while other parts of the country, embracing tech-heavy new industries using lots of brainy, highly educated people, seemingly prospered. Compare Silicon Valley’s robust job growth with employment in the auto and steel industries in states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which started losing out to new foreign competition. For example, Ohio’s personal income per capita in 1940 was about 10 percent above the national average, whereas today it is over 10 percent below it, and many Rust Belt cities (think Detroit or Cleveland) have dramatically smaller populations today than they did in 1950.

Technological change until recently almost always meant that machines substituted for manual-labor tasks previously inefficiently performed by humans. But now AI has rapidly grown in sophistication and importance, so machines (computers) using AI are replacing college-trained workers. “The Bull Market for Economists Is Over. It’s an Ominous Sign for the Economy” read a New York Times headline recently. The author added, “Earning a Ph.D. in economics has long been a reliable path to affluence and prestige. Not anymore.”

Right. Why hire a bright economist for over $100,000 a year to predict, say, interest rates a year from now based on some mathematical modeling, when a much-lower-paid worker with a high-school diploma can retrieve similar results from a computer using AI?

Previously, machines replaced human physical labor; now, perhaps, they are replacing human brainpower enhanced by high levels of education—and not just in economics. For the first time in history, perhaps, new technology’s benefits are biased against the brainy and book-educated—the people who go to college.

Since college is primarily viewed as an investment in “human capital” improving vocational outcomes, AI could be devastating, since human brainpower is being replaced by sophisticated computer-based machinery. There’s the “dismal science” of economics at work!

An Optimistic Interpretation

However, the July 26 issue of the Economist offered precisely the opposite interpretation with its article “The Economics of Superintelligence.” (Gated for subscribers here.)

Productivity will explode as a consequence of this most dramatic technological advance in hundreds of years. While the owners and producers of AI technology will derive huge financial benefits, other Americans will gain, as well, from growing incomes. Moreover, AI probably is not much help in dealing with an overflowing toilet and cannot do welding or roofing. AI doesn’t do beautiful painting or, at this stage at least, write beautiful symphonic music. With rising incomes, there will be enhanced demand for plumbers, fine painting, and roofers. Indeed, AI might favor those doing some forms of manual labor or even studying the arts and humanities.

Demand for colleges might rise as more affluent Americans embrace exploring the sources of truth and beauty.Indeed, demand for colleges might rise as more affluent Americans embrace exploring the sources of truth and beauty via a liberal-arts education. Increased funding arising from prosperity can also fund more advanced high-level university research in scientifically oriented areas. Higher income-tax revenues can enhance subsidizing universities.

Additionally, as incomes rise from technological advances, more Americans will go to college for reasons that extend beyond traditional learning: Upscale residential colleges might flourish as increasingly affluent Americans use universities for an extended gap period of relaxation between the perils of adolescence and the trials of adult life. Colleges will more than ever become like country clubs, with some culture and learning thrown in.

As worldwide incomes rise, the demand for high-quality but also fun higher education in America will soar, leading to robust growth in foreign enrollments in American colleges.

Some Alternative Thoughts

Maybe we are overpromoting AI a bit, and both its impact on society as a whole and on America’s colleges and universities will be notable but not revolutionary. After all, for two or three generations, computers have substituted machines for workers performing mathematical calculations—roughly what AI purports to do. And while computers have changed our lives importantly, it is not clear what they specifically did for university growth—probably enhanced it a bit but not in a revolutionary fashion.

Alex Green, a teacher at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has argued persuasively in the Wall Street Journal (“AI Robs My Students of the Ability to Think”) that the ubiquitous presence of AI in classroom settings has meant that students have substituted the use of a machine (AI) for thinking and brain-centered evaluation of alternative ideas. Human learning therefore is being retarded. My sense is that Green is right and that students are not exerting their mental capacities to evaluate alternative approaches to ideas and problems. Thus, not only is AI substituting for human intellectual resources, it is reducing the size of those assets—turning humans into clueless prisoners of a technology they have embraced but do not understand.

If Green is right, why send kids to college if they are not exercising their human capital—brain power—to evaluate alternative solutions to real-world problems? Are humans becoming servants to machines? Why go to college if not to learn how to think?

But Angus Fletcher makes yet another appealing argument in his new book Primal Intelligence. Humans possess something called “intuition” that often guides us to doing innovative things not easily modeled by machines that think. Human ingenuity has given us an extraordinary tool, AI. Whether it is strengthening the role of universities in our lives or hastening their weakening is currently an unsettled matter.

Richard K. Vedder is distinguished professor of economics emeritus at Ohio University, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, and author of Let Colleges Fail: The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education.

We are living in what can be called the Third Arc of American history, a period as consequential as the American Revolution and the U.S. Civil War. The threats we face today are not only abroad but also here at home: infiltration, radical ideologies, and forces working to dismantle the very foundation of our Constitutional Republic.

The most significant battle is not fought overseas with weapons, but here with courage, conviction, and truth.

This is not just President Trump’s fight, nor the fight of those who have worn the uniform. It is the responsibility of every American.

Each of us has a responsibility. Don’t simply ask what others are doing, ask yourself:

“What am I doing to serve my country now?”

Our borders, sovereignty, and freedoms are under attack, yet we are not powerless. Together, decisive action can safeguard the future of our beloved Nation.

The deep state, globalists, or foreign powers will not determine the future of America. It will be decided by We the People.

Michael T. Flynn LTG USA

The tallest of Snow White’s dwarfs is not tall. The cheapest Tesla is not “cheap.” And, moderate Democrats are not “moderates.” Not by any standard of what we used to mean by moderate.

Pennsylvania’s two leading Democrats — Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator John Fetterman — underscore it. Even if one believes they say moderate things, compared to their fellow Democrats, their votes and records prove they’re not moderates.

Any attempt to label them moderates is an attempt not only to mask their progressive views, it papers over the reality that today’s Democratic Party is built around a left-wing platform, many clicks to the left of what it was just a generation ago.

Even more than Republicans, elected Democrats vote the same way, and their activists demand unity of thought. So we take note when we hear any deviation in substance or tone (which is really important in the suburbs.).

Throughout 2024 and even during year one of President Trump’s second term, there are Republicans who publicly disagree with the President, vote against him or even try to block his policy goals. Moreover, there are elected Republicans who partner with Democrats on issues—from “libertarian” Congressman Thomas Massie to Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick; from Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski to South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, legislators who on any given issue might be Trump’s most passionate defender or his most vocal critic.

There are important distinctions. No one thinks Thomas Massie is a moderate. Some think Lindsey Graham is. However, neutral commentators accurately see Lisa Murkowski and Brian Fitzpatrick as moderates — working in a bipartisan way on issues.

Isolated acts of independent thought have caused many commentators to refer to Shapiro and Fetterman as moderates. It’s actually the near unanimity of priorities, votes, language and temperament among Democrats that draws attention to any elected Democrat who deviates from the script.

Ironically, moderate is a title that Josh Shapiro craves as a candidate for reelection as Pennsylvania’s governor, yet, one that he’ll reject faster than a “Schwarbomb” leaves Citizens Bank Park when campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Senator Fetterman is notable for his clarion call to protect Jewish Americans against antisemitic rhetoric, rallies and violence — and support of Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of the barbaric attacks of October 7 (hostages from which are still being tortured in captivity.)

His independence on this issue even had his fellow Democrats and legacy media allies cruelly suggesting that he has mental health issues. 

Fetterman had another episode of  “independence” during the recent riots in Los Angeles. He rightly stated that it was wrong to riot, attack innocent people, and burn police cars.

Yet, review his actual voting record. He’s for legalizing abortion on demand up until the moment of birth; allowing men to play women’s high school and college sports; legalizing recreational marijuana; and opposing school choice. He gets a 100 percent rating from the AFL-CIO. He has frequently described climate change as an “existential threat.” In his first two years, he was rated as the second most “left” freshman Senator.

Fetterman is a card-carrying progressive — with an independent streak, whether progressives want to admit it. He’s no moderate.

Shapiro. The starched shirt, tie-less, Brooks Brothers suit wearing politician — right out of suburban central casting — is often referred to as a moderate. 

Yet Shapiro supports abortion on demand and without apology. He is so pro-abortion that he is the only governor in Pennsylvania history to veto funding for “crisis pregnancy centers” — certified care centers that offer information, medical and financial support for women who are scared and feel they have no option but to abort their baby. Something that not even “Lockdown Tom Wolf” did. He’s even sued the Little Sisters of the Poor to force them to offer abortion “care” in their employee health insurance coverage.

Shapiro has introduced three state budgets. Each one planned to spend more money than the state had, and tried to raise fees or taxes. Shapiro attacked those wanting to protect women’s sports from men as “extremists.” When he’s not tweeting about abortion, he tweets about the latest LGBTQIA+ issue. In fact, he’s joining with Democrat governors to sue Trump to allow hospitals to perform gender surgery on minors — even using taxpayer funding.

Being Jewish, he has rightly spoken out against anti-Semitic rhetoric. This causes Shapiro to (sadly) stand out. Yet, he still advocates the Democrats’ “two-state solution” that even Palestinians oppose.

He says he’s for school choice, yet he vetoed legislation to enact it— Lifeline Scholarships. He attends natural gas energy conferences, yet he’s suing in the Supreme Court to defend his right to unilaterally impose taxes and regulations that punish natural gas use.

Commentators occasionally label Shapiro as a moderate. This is possibly because of his appearance and tone — or because of who he isn’t: AOC or Jasmine Crockett. But his spending, energy, education, social and cultural policies, tweets, and vetoes are those of a progressive. It’s false advertising to describe his record as moderate.

Today’s Democrats support higher taxes. They supported vaccine and mask mandates — including firing soldiers, police, and nurses who didn’t comply. They oppose school choice. They oppose Trump’s border wall and policies. They support abortion on demand up through delivery — some after delivery! They support men playing women’s sports. They support an ever-evolving laundry list of genders. They supported “defund the police.” They defended antisemitic rhetoric and rallies. They want to ban fossil fuels.

Commentators rushing to label them as moderates says more about the left-wing agenda of 2025 Democrats than it does about Fetterman or Shapiro. One may argue that they’re moderate Democrats, but one cannot accurately label them moderates.

After all, the tallest of the dwarfs isn’t tall by any measure.

Guy Ciarrocchi writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. A Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, you should follow Guy at @PaSuburbsGuy.

President Trump is facing outcry from some of his supporters after saying he plans to allow 600,000 students from China into the U.S.

“It’s a very important relationship. We’re going to get along good with China,” Trump told reporters Monday during a meeting with the president of South Korea.

“I hear so many stories about, ‘We’re not going to allow their students,’” he continued. “We’re going to allow their students to come in. We’re going to allow it. It’s very important — 600,000 students. It’s very important.”

Trump’s comments marked a shift from earlier in the year, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he planned to “aggressively” revoke visas from Chinese students, particularly those “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

The president’s openness to welcoming hundreds of thousands of Chinese students did not sit well with some members of his base, who questioned how it aligned with Trump’s “America First” mantra.

“We should not let in 600,000 CHINESE students to attend American colleges and universities that may be loyal to the CCP,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted on the social platform X.

“Why are we allowing 600,000 students from China to replace our American student’s opportunities?” Greene added. “We should never allow that. And we need more trade school graduates.”

Laura Loomer, a consevative activist and staunch Trump ally who has influenced policy and personnel decisions in the administration, also expressed her displeasure with the move in a series of posts on social media.

“Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese ‘students’ aka Communist spies in the United States,” Loomer posted on X.

“China murdered 1.2 million Americans,” she added, a reference to the COVID-19 virus that originated in China. “Now they get to replace us? This cannot happen.”

Michael Flynn Jr., the son of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, posted online that Trump’s comments were “Not what I voted for.”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham raised the issue with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during her show Monday night.

“Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, how is allowing 600,000 students from the communist country of China putting America first?” the Fox host asked on “The Ingraham Angle,” noting it’s been a long-running issue for conservatives.

Lutnick argued without the 600,000 Chinese students, U.S. students would go to better schools with openings created by the lack of foreign students, and “the bottom 15 percent of universities and colleges would go out of business in America.”

Trump’s comments came as he has touted the relationship he has with Chinese President Xi Jinping during trade negotiations between the U.S. and Beijing. The two sides levied huge tariffs on goods earlier this year, but brought the rates down significantly amid ongoing talks.

Trump told reporters Monday that he hoped to visit China later this year or “shortly thereafter.”

Brett Samuels, The Hill