Chinese dictator Xi Jinping told his Politburo on Monday that tougher law enforcement in religious affairs was needed to complete the project of “Sinicizing” all faiths, which means making them all subordinate to the authority of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Governing religious affairs in accordance with the law is the fundamental way to properly handle various contradictions and problems in the religious field,” Xi told a Politburo study group, as reported by Chinese state media.
Xi told the Politburo to “enhance relevant laws and policies, carry out in-depth legal publicity and education, and implement strict law enforcement” to achieve full Sinicization, which he said was “the only way” to achieve social harmony.
Xi directed his regime to make “efforts to guide religious figures and believers to develop an accurate understanding of country, history, ethnicity, culture and religion.”
“He said religions in China can only be passed down healthily by always having their roots in the Chinese culture, and required efforts to promote the integration of religions with fine traditional Chinese culture,” China’s state-run Xinhua news service reported.
The India-based Tibetan Review smelled another Chinese crackdown on religion brewing, noting that Xi placed a heavy emphasis on Sinicization during his unusual visits last month to Tibet and Xinjiang, home of the oppressed Uyghur Muslims. In both cases, Xi commemorated China’s forcible conquest of the regions and talked up efforts to subordinate their language, culture, and religion.
The Tibetan Review pointed out that Sinicization is as much a war against culture as against religious freedom, since the Chinese use the excuse of “correcting” religious practices to marginalize Tibetan and Uyghur language and cultural traditions. A heavy component of Sinicization involves forcing religious schools to use the Chinese language, and forbidding religious groups from accepting overseas support.
Asia News saw Xi’s remarks to the Politburo as further confirmation of how the dictator’s “political vision” depends on subduing the five officially recognized religions in China – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism – and teaching adherents to view Chinese Communist dogma as superior to any religious text.
Xi told the Politburo to strengthen the “Five Identities,” one of Chinese Communism’s myriad euphemisms for its tools of political and cultural control. The Five Identities essentially tell religious leaders they are required to imbue their teachings with the principles of loyalty to the government in Beijing, Chinese nationalism, Chinese culture, Chinese socialism, and the Chinese Communist Party.
“These identities clearly show that for Beijing, Sinicization is not simply a matter of translating the message of each faith into its own cultural categories, but a patriotic imperative that views religions as cogs in its own system.,” Asia News noted.
Some observers think Xi is battening down his political hatches ahead of a major conflict with Tibetan Buddhism, as Beijing is demanding the power to choose the spiritual successor to the Dalai Lama, who will soon turn 90 years old. Human rights groups have called on China to cease its political interference with Tibetan Buddhism, but if anything, Xi is ramping up his efforts to exert supremacy and control over the religion.
It wasn’t long ago when the party anxious to avoid piling on more debt (Republicans) would capitulate to additional spending when shutdowns loomed. Democrats ran an extortion racket: acquiesce to more spending or we’ll close the government and blame Republicans. 2025 began with DOGE slashing government spending. Democrats then rushed to the courts seeking injunctions. That was then. With their government shutdown push, Democrats just ran a bus over their base. Because you-know-who resides rent-free in their heads, they’ve concluded a government shutdown sounds great.
Because Republicans cut funding to the Democrats’ favorite programs, Democrats’ brain trust now grants OMB Director Russ Vought unlimited rescission authority. Their specious logic goes like this: if Democrats support a shutdown because Republicans support insufficient spending, voters will blame Republicans for the ensuing shutdown. Yet it’s not Republicans supporting the shutdown.
It’s unclear whether Democrats managed to self-destruct on their own or were manipulated into it. The party of Really Big Government handed the administration a blank check for wholesale layoffs. Maybe Democrats believe a shutdown will encourage voters to rise up and demand restoring positions. Maybe they’re just insane. Nobody will notice or care if hundreds of thousands of surplus federal workers are fired, except the workers.
Democrats might want to rethink this one. The ones being hurt the most are their fellow travelers, foot soldiers comprising the ranks of overpaid and underworked federal bureaucrats. Shutdowns normally conclude with furloughed government employees receiving vacations, then receiving full back pay after the charade concludes. Except this time, workers will be terminated. Have Democrats considered the loss of campaign contributions from federal workers and their unions?
Republican presidents have long dreamed of a constitutional amendment granting them unlimited line-item veto authority. Christmas arrived early for Trump this year. The areas targeted for the largest cuts include healthcare, education, science, and social services. Defense (War), immigration enforcement, and law enforcement workers are safe. The federal government is being reformulated away from touchy-feely objectives, with an emphasis on restoring its original primary mission to ensure public safety. It’s not all cuts. Thanks to the OBBB, ICE is adding 10,000 agents.
Education faces approximately $5 billion in additional cuts; HHS is slated for $33 billion (about 26%); NSF faces a 56% cut, with HUD scheduled for a 43% cut. Labor faces a 35% cut, and over $10 billion more is slated to be drained from foreign aid and public broadcasting. Imagine the horror: platoons of overpaid NPR and PBS executives forced to take pay cuts or pink slips. Woke corporations might need to advertise to woke listeners and viewers.
By September 30, over 350,000 workers had left the federal workforce from an initial 2.4 million total, almost a 15% reduction. The biggest cuts were made to the War Department, 55,000. The second biggest was Treasury, down 33,000, mostly from the IRS. Agriculture cut 21,000 and HHS cut 20,000. A shutdown provides the administration a clean way to permanently eliminate hundreds of thousands more jobs. Litigation and costly buyouts are avoided.
Critics complain that the administration’s planned cuts bypass Congress. Precisely. The Number One impediment to wholesale reform is Congress. Number Two is the judiciary. A government shutdown removes the ability of both branches to obstruct executive branch spending determinations. Democrats just defenestrated two government branches, then empowered the executive.
Shutdowns eventually conclude. The longer that date gets postponed, the more bureaucrats who will be signing up to learn to code. Democrats are running out of factions in their base to antagonize. Legal citizens, males, Whites, Christians, Jews, cisgenders, female athletes, the law-abiding, and now bureaucrats have been systematically run over by the bus. The party’s remaining minority females, criminals, and transgenders don’t yield a winning coalition.
Senator John Kennedy concluded that Democrats’ shutdown antics provide “that much more evdence that human evolution is a slow, slow process. I thought humans had advanced more as a species, but apparently we haven’t.” Trump has dialed his trolling up to 11, with backup from MAGA forces. The White House assembled a highlights reel of Democrats decrying shutdowns. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Bedlam): “If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer the most.” There might be a sliver of truth in Schumer’s statement, but Democrats’ problem is they’re the ones creating chaos. The shutdown’s impact is mostly confined to hundreds of thousands of overwhelmingly leftist bureaucrats.
We’ve seen this movie before. TDS victims such as Hillary, Mitt, or Kamala never recover their bearings. They wallow in self-pity, seeking others to blame. The infection has spread throughout Democrats’ ranks. Kaitlan Collins tried, but failed, to trip up House Speaker Mike Johnson over the Schumer Shutdown. Johnson noted that Democrats oppose the same funding they voted for in March. Polling shows 2.4 times as many voters oppose Democrats’ refusal to fund the government as those who approve.
Gaza parallels are obvious. Hamas leaders, wallowing in luxury abroad, sacrifice their population on anti-Zionism’s altar. Democrats routinely sacrifice their constituencies. They also aren’t allowing their shutdown to go to waste. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee scheduled an October 13-14 retreat at the five-star Estate Yountville in Napa Valley. Rooms start at $700 nightly. Organic wine, hot tubs, massages, and spa treatments are extra. The event features vineyard and wine cave tours before dinner at the exclusive Staglin Family Vineyard.
Feel free to draw the Marie Antoinette analogy. The retreat also includes a crypto roundtable. Maybe Democrats’ $40 million donor Sam Bankman-Fried can phone it in. His schedule remains free for 24 years. Trump is unconcerned about the shutdown: “I don’t worry aboutthat because people that are smart see what’s happening. The Democrats are deranged.”
DouglasSchwartz blogs at The Great Class War, applying pattern recognition of historical cycles to place current events into context.
Of course Democrats and Republicans can’t agree enough to keep the government open. Democrats view government as a means of forcing unpopular, irrational ideology down people’s throats while turning the United States into a totalitarian international welfare state. Republicans are looking to return us to something resembling the original American idea of private property, freedom of association and freedom of thought. These two avenues are completely at odds and the impossibility of keeping the government open makes sense given the utterly irreconcilable differences.
If you still don’t think it’s time for some kind of a national divorce, then ask yourself how this situation can sustain itself, and how much worse a divorce might actually be than what we’re forced to watch right now.
If violence can be cloaked in the language of ‘justice,’ then terrorism is transformed into activism.
Assata Shakur died Thursday. If you read The New York Times’ headline, you’d think Shakur was convicted for being a “revolutionary” and had to flee to Cuba. USA Today headlined their piece, “Assata Shakur, Tupac’s godmother who sought political asylum in Cuba, dead at 78.” Rolling Stone wrote she was a “Convicted Black Liberationist and Tupac’s Godmother.” Harper’s Bazaar wrote: “Assata Shakur, Legendary Revolutionary and Black Liberation Army Member, Has Died.”
But you wouldn’t necessarily glean from any of those headlines the actual truth — that is, Shakur murdered New Jersey officer Werner Foerster and was convicted of first-degree murder. She then escaped prison and was placed on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list. Shakur was also part of the Black Liberation Army, which supported “killing cops,” according to the Maryland state police, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
So why the whitewashed coverage?
Because the left weaponizes language to launder extremism into respectability. Branding Shakur as a freedom fighter is meant to justify being a cop killer — the same way the modern left brands itself “Antifa” to legitimize assaulting conservatives or fighting for “democracy” to justify violence, murder and destruction. In all of these instances, radical leftists seek a moral veil for their crimes.
And this isn’t a one-off trend. The left has a long history of glamorizing terrorists in order to reach a political end.
Take, for example, the Black Panther Party — a radical, militant group of anti-white, cop-hating terrorists. One example of their barbarism is their torturing of Alex Rackley. Rackley, a 19-year-old black kid who joined the organization but was accused of being a rat, was strung up in a noose during a mock lynching before he was placed in a wooden chair, as The Daily Beast reported. But his captors bound and gagged him so that his screams couldn’t be heard when the group proceeded to pour boiling water over his naked body. After days of torture, Rackley was murdered. The FBI states the Black Panther Party is an “extremist organization” that “advocated the use of violence and guerrilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government.”
Nonetheless, The Black Panther Party has been recast as merely “challenging police and promoting social change,” and as a group that “protected black citizens from brutality” and created so-called “survival programs” to provide food, clothing, and transportation to the black community, according to the Smithsonian. PBS News said the group is “often misunderstood” and was “vilified by the white establishment.”
Or take Black Lives Matter — a radical left-wing organization that gained popularity in the summer of 2020. The organization led nationwide riots that resulted in burned-out police precincts, looted cities, toppled statutes, and the murder of retired officer David Dorn.
Despite the violence, bloodshed, and destruction, the propaganda press has spent the past five years peddling the lie that the riots were merely “protests” and “peaceful.” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi described watching a liquor store burn in Minneapolis in the days after George Floyd’s death, noting that the AutoZone that had been burned to the ground by rioters the night before was still smoldering. Velshi justified the violence, writing: “Violence that is intended to spread democracy, end injustice and encourage fairness in the application of the rule of law” is permissible, compared to “wanton” violence.
But that line encapsulates the left’s entire playbook: if violence can be cloaked in the language of “justice,” then terrorism is transformed into activism.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent acts of heinous violence we’ve witnessed.
When Luigi Mangione allegedly murdered United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood on a New York City street less than a year ago, the left rushed to excuse the massive outpouring of ghoulish delight from the people who celebrated Thompson’s murder. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sympathized with the “visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies” and suggested Thompson’s death “should be a warning to everyone in the health care system.”
Then were was a proposed California ballot measure — “the Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act,” — that would target health insurance denials, one of Mangione’s reported flashpoints. It was a measure framed as “reform” but was nothing more than an attempt to legitimize a political assassination by turning it into a policy platform.
And, most recently, Charlie Kirk was gunned down on a Utah college campus by a deranged leftist who inscribed anti-fascist slogans on bullet casings. The message was clear: the alleged shooter thought Kirk was a fascist. Drawing such a historic parallel conditions people to believe that resistance to fascism by any means necessary is justified just as it was during WWII.
But the left doesn’t merely glorify terrorists — it rewards them. The same movement that rebrands radicals as “revolutionaries” and freedom fighters is the same movement that elevates them with commutations, pardons, honors.
Then-President Joe Biden commuted Leonard Peltier’s sentence despite Peltier having murdered two FBI agents. President Bill Clinton granted clemency to Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) members despite the “militant terrorist organization” having claimed responsibility for “the bombings of approximately 130 civilian, political, and military sites throughout the United States,” according to a congressional resolution deploring the decision. President Barack granted clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, who NPR describes as “either a freedom fighter or a terrorist” depending on who you ask. Rivera was a member of the FALN and involved in a deadly bombing in the United States.
Obama also has deep ties with William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers is the co-founder of the terrorist organization, the Weather Underground. He and his wife were involved in the firebombing the home of a New York judge who was overseeing a case related to the terrorist group. Obama hosted a fundraiser at their home. Ayers went on to teach at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Or take Cambridge University, which conferred an honorary degree to Angela Davis earlier this year. Davis, as described in these pages by David Harsanyi, was a “Stalinist cheerleader,” and the Soviet Union propped her up via a propaganda campaign. Davis supplied the guns that black radicals used to take over a courtroom, kidnap a judge, and eventually kill four people. The killers were attempting to secure the release of other radicals from prison. Davis was later acquitted of involvement in the crime. She also stood by ideologies that led to the imprisonment of dissidents and the deaths of tens of millions of people.
But, as Harsanyi pointed out, Davis is “another reminder that the progressive left will tolerate the most odious characters as long as they seek ‘justice’ for a favored cause.”
Whether it’s the whitewashing of groups like the radical and violent Black Panther Party or the rewarding of violence, it’s clear the left seeks to turn terrorists into martyrs and to transform political violence into some type of virtue. The pattern is the same: violence for the cause is justified, as Velshi said. And until this is confronted, the cycle will continue.
Russell Vought, Office of Management and Budget director, speaks alongside, from left, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), and Vice President JD Vance as they address members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House, September 29, 2025, in Washington.
Talks at the White House on Monday aimed at preventing a government shutdown left both sides far apart on a deal. Earlier in the day, reports emerged that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would consider a ten-day extension of government funding if Trump agreed to negotiate on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
Reaction to this was swift. “You don’t pick a fight and then run away,” said Emma Lydon, managing director of P Street, the government relations arm of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Within a couple of hours, Schumer told reporters that he would not back a short-term funding agreement under any circumstances. But one bigger problem with the conversation around government funding, with less than 24 hours to the deadline, is the nature of the fight being picked.
The negotiations and debates are operating under the premise that appropriations to federal agencies are flowing today and will stop flowing tomorrow, and that this is something political leaders want to avoid. It’s hard to uncover any evidence that this is truly the case.
The Supreme Court’s latest ruling definitively allows the Trump administration to cancel whatever funding they disfavor within 45 days of the end of the appropriation, without any approval from Congress. The administration now has power, formalized by the Court in a sleight-of-hand move by claiming nobody has standing to sue, to cut whatever they want out of the budget, at a time when they are pressuring Congress to send them a budget.
That Supreme Court ruling involved $4 billion in foreign aid funding that the administration semi-formally tried to rescind; it doesn’t include the $410 billion that the White House has simply withheld from programs across the country. That represents close to half of all outlays in the fiscal year 2025 nondefense discretionary budget, which have simply vanished, perhaps permanently after the last day of the fiscal year, which is today. The Office of Management and Budget, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has explained, has offered no explanation of how money is being spent or where withheld spending is going.
About 12 percent of the federal workforce has been terminated. Last week, we heard threats from OMB director Russ Vought that a shutdown will really allow the Office of Management and Budget to fire workers. A shutdown provides no actual legal authority to fire federal employees, but then again there was no legal authority to rescind or withhold appropriated spending without congressional approval, or put workers on extended administrative leave, as they did with the unauthorized buyout back in January.
As Daniel Schuman points out, Vought presented guidance to agencies in February that they should prepare for mass layoffs by today, September 30. Any allegedly shutdown-induced “mass layoff” should be seen as the continuation of an existing plan that has been public for seven months.
The reality is that Republicans have every opportunity to fund the government if they want.
The larger point is that the government is already shut down, and has been for several months, as the Trump administration initiated an assault on this system of government. Activities deemed “essential” by the president—stalking immigrants, lobbing missiles at Iran, etc.—have gone on, but activities purported to conflict with the president’s policies, regardless of whether they have been authorized by the lawmaking body of the United States, have been stopped, interrupted only by occasional federal courts telling the president that doing so is illegal, which the Supreme Court subsequently brushes aside.
The shutdown can certainly be used rhetorically to justify more firings, but they’re just the same firings with a different rationale, one that is no more legal or legitimate than before. Of course, “legal” and “legitimate” are loaded words given the rubber-stampers at the Supreme Court.
“Unfortunately, a shutdown seems very likely because nobody, not even my Republican colleagues, can trust Donald Trump,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) told the Prospect. “So far, Republicans refuse to sit down and have an honest negotiation.”
The individuals most knowledgeable about this slow-motion shutdown, and most forthright about what Democrats should do in the face of it, are the workers living through it. On Monday, 30,000 federal workers told House and Senate Democratic leaders that they’d rather miss out on their paychecks than see Trump further erode federal programs.
In a letter delivered Monday morning and coordinated by the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), workers implored Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the House Democratic leader, to “reject any bad deal in the name of protecting federal employees,” and said fighting Trump’s consolidation of power is paramount, even if that means shutting down the government. “A government shutdown is never Plan A. Federal workers and the communities we serve will face severe hardship. But federal workers will willingly forego paychecks in the hopes of preserving the programs we have devoted our lives to administering,” workers said in the letter.
The letter, which agreed that the government is functionally shut down, outlined the “unprecedented harms” Americans are already experiencing from Trump’s deadly funding cuts, including to Social Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and from Trump’s attacks on independent science and data, agency closures without congressional input, and the decimation of labor.
“Enough is enough. At a certain point we can’t allow continued destruction of programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on,” federal worker and labor lawyer James Kirwan told the Prospect. Kirwan said Americans want politicians who “stand up and protect them from further harm.”
Jeffries and Schumer didn’t respond to requests for comment on the letter. But Democrats, by and large, have appropriately depicted Vought’s threats as empty intimidation. Unfortunately, they are foregrounding health care cuts as the main reason for the fight, and not the fact that the government has been shut down for several months and it must be reopened, with guarantees that Trump and Vought cannot meddle to shut it down again, piece by piece.
Some members of Congress understand this imperative. Behold this quote: “If you’re a Democrat—even just like a mainstream Democrat—your predisposition might be to help negotiate with Republicans on a funding mechanism … Why would you do that if you know that whatever you negotiate is going to be subject to the knife pulled out by Russ Vought?” That didn’t come from a Democrat but from Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), a senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.
Schuman has put this best: “There is no point for Senate Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter) to negotiate or vote for a spending bill, short term or otherwise, unless it resolves or leads to the resolution the issues of impoundments and restricting further withholding of funds, reinforces GAO authority to investigate and litigate impoundments, places political shackles on Vought (such as a new Inspector General at OMB), and requires regular, accurate reporting of agency spending.”
The reality is that Republicans have every opportunity to fund the government if they want. They can do what they have done repeatedly when stymied by Democrats in the Senate from achieving their goals; they can change the Senate rules. In this case, they can end the filibuster on legislative activities like the budget and pass it with the majority they have. Democrats are not needed to lend support to a process that is so distorted and broken that the executive is telling Congress he will not honor any deal they make. If Republicans want to hand over Congress to Trump, they can do it themselves.
Vought has been waiting for four years to implement his pre-20th-century vision of supreme executive power that invests the prerogatives of government in one person. In a shutdown, the government can dictate what parts of the executive branch stay open; Vought has already been doing that. If it feels like the current fight isn’t about health care or insurance subsidies but about our system of government itself, that’s because it is.
David Dayen is the Prospect’s executive editor. His work has appeared in The Intercept, The New Republic, HuffPost, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and more. His most recent book is ‘Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power.’
Whitney Curry Wimbish is a staff writer at The American Prospect. She previously worked for the Financial Times newsletters division, The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh, and the Herald News in New Jersey.
Authoritarian movements thrive on hopelessness. They want you to believe nothing can change, that corruption is inevitable, that truth doesn’t matter, that democracy is already lost.Cynicism is their weapon.
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The Art of the Budget DealToday on TAP: With a government shutdown looming on Wednesday, will Trump screw Democrats, Republicans, the public, or himself?Sep 29, 2025
Russ Vought’s Empty Shutdown ThreatToday on TAP: The OMB director says that if Democrats don’t cave, he will do mass layoffs. Imagine that.Sep 25, 2025
Russ Vought’s Scheme Has Been UnmaskedHundreds of billions in appropriated spending has been withheld, with dire consequences. Government funding shouldn’t be derailed like this.Sep 16, 2025
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At Quantico, Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump delivered a blunt message to America’s generals: the age of political correctness is over, and uncompromising readiness is now the standard.
When Secretary Pete Hegseth strode to the podium at Quantico and declared, “Welcome to the War Department,” he did more than rename an institution. He called for a reckoning.
Hegseth’s speech was direct and unsparing. “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now.” He pledged to “clear out the debris, remove distractions, [and] clear the way for leaders to be leaders… You might say, we’re ending the war on warriors.” He ordered that “each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male standard only.” He invoked a new rule “for commanders”: “Do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit.”
President Donald Trump then completed the message with a vow to rebuild America’s military might. He promised to make the armed forces “stronger, tougher, faster, fiercer and more powerful than it has ever been before,” adding, “I support you, and as president, I have your backs 100%.” Yet he also issued a stark warning: “If I don’t like somebody, I’m going to fire them right on the spot.”
The words were bold, even historic. But the challenge is clear: rhetoric must be matched by disciplined reform.
Readiness Must Follow Rhetoric
The “warrior ethos” cannot rest on slogans or speeches alone. Standards must be tied to measurable outcomes: deployable brigades, validated joint certifications, combat-credible training cycles. “Clearing debris” must mean doctrine and discipline, not theater.
Meritocracy, Not Ideology
Trump’s solidarity line — “I have your backs 100%” — is important for morale. However, his threat to fire generals risks undermining professionalism. Promotions, reliefs, and assignments must rest on performance in warfighting environments, not political litmus tests.
Trim Bureaucracy, Protect Combat Edge
The U.S. general and flag officer corps has grown disproportionately. After World War II, there were about 2,000 generals for sixteen million in uniform — roughly one for every 8,000 troops. Today, with ~1.3 million active duty, there are about 800 generals and admirals — closer to one for every 1,500. Cutting overhead is overdue. But reforms must target staff inflation, not operational commands.
Keep Posture Steady
Adversaries may read a mass gathering of generals as turmoil unless it is balanced by continuity in global presence. Trump’s morale-boosting message must be matched by consistent deployments, exercises, and surge readiness.
Transparency Is the Antidote to Rumor
Sweeping rhetoric breeds speculation. The Pentagon should publish standards, metrics, and promotion criteria. Transparency will strengthen trust within the ranks, with Congress, and with the American people.
The Quantico meeting was unprecedented. Hegseth declared war on drift; Trump declared war on complacency. History will not judge the speeches by applause lines but by results.
If today marks the beginning of a disciplined, principled reset, the military will emerge stronger and more credible. If it fades into spectacle, America risks weakening the very force it seeks to restore.
This gathering was historic. The test now is whether it marks the beginning of a real reset — or just a day of tough talk.
Robert L. Maginnis is a retired U.S. Army infantry officer, a former Pentagon official, and author of Preparing for World War III.
Newly uncovered documents from the National Archives shed light on the extensive preparation materials used by the Biden White House, including palm-sized note cards that provided the former president with photos and basic biographies of prominent Democrats he had worked alongside for decades. These cards, obtained through an investigation into the administration’s use of an autopen, detail reminders for events where Biden interacted with figures such as Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer.
One card, prepared for the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in January 2025, listed recipients with accompanying images and brief descriptions. It included a photo of Clinton along with the note that she “was the Secretary of State in the Obama-Biden administration.”
This reminder came despite Biden’s long history with Clinton, dating back to their time together in the Obama era, where she served in his cabinet. The same card featured a photo of actor Denzel Washington, described as an actor, director, and producer whom the New York Times called “one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.” Other honorees, like chef José Andrés and philanthropist David Rubenstein, also appeared with similar visual and textual cues.
Another card, stamped “PRESIDENT HAS SEEN” and titled “Judicial Confirmations Milestone Speech,” displayed photos of Schumer and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, noting their roles, party affiliation, and home states. Biden delivered remarks on confirming 235 judicial nominees that month, flanked by the two senators at the White House. Given Schumer’s decades-long presence in Washington and his close coordination with Biden on legislative matters, the inclusion of such basic identifiers prompts questions about the level of detail deemed necessary.
A former Biden staffer defended the practice, telling Fox News Digital that listing notable attendees and bios “is standard operating procedure for briefing materials.” The staffer added, “Should the staff not have told the President that Chuck Schumer was attending?”
In Biden’s case, these materials align with a broader pattern of heavy dependence on prepared notes, as seen in prior incidents that drew scrutiny over his mental acuity.
For instance, during a 2023 press conference, a photo captured Biden holding a card with a reporter’s question pre-written, sparking debates about potential coordination between the White House and media. Similar concerns arose at private fundraisers, where donors noted Biden consulting note cards for detailed responses to prescreened questions, raising alarms about his ability to engage spontaneously. Even earlier, in 2021, conservatives highlighted Biden’s use of notes during his first press conference as evidence of over-reliance on prompts. While the White House has consistently pushed back, describing such aids as commonplace, critics argue they reflect deeper issues, especially amid reports of Biden’s age-related challenges.
Additional cards from the documents include one outlining family members of director Francis Ford Coppola ahead of the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors, and another for January 18, 2025, greets featuring White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin alongside the Pritzker family, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. A fifth card, without the “PRESIDENT HAS SEEN” stamp, scripted a response to ABC News reporter Mary Bruce’s question: “2024: How do YOU view the path forward? How do YOU think about YOUR place in” – though the documents cut off there, it appears tailored for a specific exchange.
These revelations come at a time when the current administration is probing Biden’s past practices, including autopen usage, amid ongoing discussions about leadership fitness. While aides maintain that detailed briefings prevent mishaps in a demanding role, the cumulative examples suggest a presidency where even routine interactions required visual reinforcements for well-known allies.
Climate scientist Michael Mann has resigned from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) after fallout from controversial comments he posted following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Mann went on a social media spree in the wake of the murder, sarcastically describing the assassination as “white on white violence” and reposting multiple inflammatory remarks about the conservative leader, including one that referred to Kirk as the “head of Trump’s Hitler Youth.” Despite later attempting to backtrack, Mann has now resigned from his role as Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action.
“I have reluctantly come to the position that the science policy advocacy work I am doing … at times feels in conflict with the nonpartisan role demanded of me as an administrator at a university with an established institutional neutrality policy,” Mann wrote in a statement on his personal website. “Particularly at this moment in time, I don’t feel that I can forsake the public scholarship and advocacy that I am doing and have thus decided to step down from the VPC role.”
Mann was previously sanctioned by a judge for knowingly providing misleading information to a jury in a defamation case against his conservative critics.
Kirk — who was known for taking to college campuses to have civilized debates with students on controversial topics — was murdered during his Sept. 10 event at Utah Valley University. His alleged killer was discovered to have been “indoctrinated with leftist ideology” and fixated on gay furry porn.
Mann joins a long list of teachers and administrators who have lost their jobs over their comments celebrating Kirk’s death.
Trump faces endless lawsuits, partisan judges, and extremist attacks—so why shouldn’t he use lawfare to make his enemies pay the same price?
Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, and probably many other people, are not pleased that President Trump is continuing to wage lawfare, depending on what you include in the term “lawfare.” Is the indictment of James Comey lawfare or an entirely proper prosecution of a man who sought to derail Trump’s first term with the Russia collusion hoax?
Trump said during the campaign that his “retribution” for the legal attacks on him would be winning and making the country successful. He had every right to be angry: he must have spent tens of millions defending against nonsense charges. Despite all the charges, clearly the American people wanted Trump back in the White House, and just as clearly the Democrats wanted to stop that from happening. Hence the endless lawfare, which, as now even Democrats must realize, may have played a significant role in re-electing him. Ha!
But the Democrats’ lawfare hasn’t ended yet, so why should Trump stop going after his enemies? He should make their campaigns against him as expensive as he can.
It’s true that the judgment against Trump in the New York case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, forcing him to pay nearly half a billion dollars, was vacated by a New York State appeals court (the second-highest court in the state), but the court upheld the fraud conviction, which is nonsense—as was the whole affair. James had campaigned on “getting” Trump before she had even found a “crime” to pin on him. Apparently, that meant nothing to a majority of the judges.
On social media, Trump called the appellate division’s decision a “total victory.” But of course, it wasn’t. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the court’s decision was that a majority of the judges did not recognize that no crime had been committed. How many businessmen are squirming as a result of that decision, and how many are thinking of relocating their businesses out of New York State?
Trump will appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, but can anyone be sure he will get justice there?
And what about now? How has Trump’s attempt at “winning and making the country successful” been going?
In the first four weeks of his administration, at least 74 lawsuits were filed against his policies, 58 of which were brought in federal district courts in Washington, Boston, Seattle, and Maryland. Those courts have a majority of activist judges nominated by Democrat presidents, and cases from those courts go to appeals courts, also packed with judges nominated by Democrats.
In total, since his second administration began, according to the New York Times, hundreds and hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Trump’s policies. The New York Times has tracked 401 of these lawsuits, at least 167 of which (more than 40 percent) were brought in federal district courts in the same places named above: Washington, Boston, Seattle, and Maryland.
So far, plaintiffs have won in only two of the cases, while at least 37 have been dismissed.
Not that the Democrats have been successful on appeal either: as of September 10, the Trump administration has filed 25 emergency applications to the Supreme Court, where the justices have ruled in his favor 18 times (72 percent). Some of those victories were
Transgender military ban (the Supreme Court stopped an injunction prohibiting the ban from going into effect) Ending federal DEI funding (the Supreme Court blocked a lower court from forcing the Trump administration to give back education money it had cut) Allowing the Trump administration to end the protected status of Venezuelan migrants (the Supreme Court blocked a lower court from forcing Trump to keep the protection in place) Allowing Trump to continue deportations to South Sudan (the Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision requiring expanded due process for the migrants) Allowing federal firings to proceed (the Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling saying that Trump had exceeded his authority with the firings) Allowing immigration raids in Los Angeles (the Supreme Court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to allow ICE agents to patrol in LA). So, Trump may be winning the lawsuits, but every victory is an uphill struggle and a significant expense.
And there’s more, of course. The Senate has been slow-walking confirmation of all his nominees, not just the important ones. How can he govern without his people in place? He can’t—and that’s just what the Democrats want.
And in addition to trying to cripple his administration through lawfare, Democrats are cranking up their extremist rhetoric. Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) gave a speech titled “Trump’s Threat to Our Democracy.” Kamala Harris has also publicly said, “It’s simple: Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms.” Harris also explicitly called Donald Trump a “fascist” during an interview. She justified using the term in reference to what she views as his authoritarian rhetoric and threats to democratic norms. Other Democratic leaders, e.g., Representative Jason Crow (D-CO), have called Trump an “extreme danger” to the constitutional order.
After a Supreme Court ruling allowed expanded ICE raids in Los Angeles (under Trump administration policies), California Governor Gavin Newsom called the Court’s decision “the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror,” alleging that the Trump administration was targeting Latinos. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) also decried the decision as an attack on personal freedom.
Against all those personal and scurrilous attacks on him and his administration, why shouldn’t Trump engage in a lawfare campaign of his own? The fact is, even after the murder of Charlie Kirk, the Democrats are never, never going to let up on Donald Trump. The only way for him to be free of the Democrats is to find ways to make lawfare too expensive for them.
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has often served as critical voice of reason on the U.S. Supreme Court. So, it wasn’t a surprise when he delivered a much-needed dose of reality about the high court’s constitutional role during a rare public appearance late last week.
Speaking at the Catholic University Law School, the current court’s longest-serving member reportedly discussed the Supreme Court’s overturning of longstanding precedents in several of its recent decisions. He specifically tackled the subject of stare decisis, arguing that the high court should not blindly follow past precedents without considering whether those decisions adhere to the Constitution.
“At some point we need to think about what we’re doing with stare decisis,” Thomas said in reference to the legal doctrine of abiding by past decisions. “And it’s not some sort of talismanic deal where you can just say ‘stare decisis’ and not think, turn off the brain, right?”
As described by Courthouse News, Thomas went on to characterize adherence to stare decisis as “a series of cars on a long train,” wherein new SCOTUS cases “become additional cars, following the train wherever it’s going.” The H.W. Bush appointee notably said, “We never go to the front to see who’s driving the train or where it is going, and you could go up there to the engine room and find out it’s an orangutan.”
Thomas’ most impactful remarks, however, centered on the Supreme Court’s obligation to the rule of law. While acknowledging the fallibility of judges, the justice noted that regardless of what precedent is established, that precedent must abide by America’s founding document and the country’s “legal tradition.”
“I don’t think that I have the gospel,” Thomas said, “that any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel, and I do give perspective to the precedent. But it should — the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition, and our country, and our laws, and be based on something, not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”
In recent years, the Supreme Court has taken a sledgehammer to longstanding precedents that lacked adherence to the Constitution and existing statutes — the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Chevron deference being among them. Such decisions have unsurprisingly angered American leftists, who had for decades relied upon the court to enshrine their radical agenda into law via legally dubious rulings.
Yet, for all their outrage, the left’s antagonism toward SCOTUS doesn’t make Thomas’ points any less true. In fact, his analysis of stare decisis is exactly the view every justice should hold when examining important legal questions before the court.
Take, for example, the Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, in which a majority of justices upheld state-enforced racial segregation under the guise of “separate but equal.” Of course, the decision was completely at odds with the 14th Amendment and represented a gross infringement upon the constitutional rights of black Americans.
Fortunately, that precedent was eventually overturned in the high court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. But the fact remains that had the court adopted the view of strict proponents of stare decisis — that longstanding precedent cannot be reexamined — the horrific “separate but equal” doctrine would have been allowed to stand.
As Thomas so eloquently demonstrated, it is not the job of judges or justices to abide by wrong precedent, but by the Constitution and existing law. And that means interpreting these documents in line with their original meanings and not inventing new provisions out of thin air through unsound legal arguments.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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