From my friends at Power Line Blog:
Monthly Archives: November 2025
The Real Cost Of Illegal Immigration
On Thursday, PJ Media posted an article about the long-term consequences of unlimited illegal immigration. The article tells the story of a small Kentucky town.
The article reports:
I grew up forty miles north of Louisville, Ky., in a one-stoplight town held together by tobacco, construction, and the kinds of gritty jobs that built the region’s character. My dad ran a small construction contracting business and held a small tobacco base, which gives you the legal right to grow a certain weight of tobacco. My brothers and I worked tobacco as teenagers, starting at 12 or 13, and my brothers did construction with Dad as soon as we were old enough to hold a hammer.
Those jobs weren’t easy. Tobacco paid around $10 an hour in the early-to-mid 1980s, the equivalent of $30 today, and you earned every penny. The work was filthy, exhausting, and dangerous: Sticky sap soaked into your skin, July sun cooked you alive, and harvest season meant hatchets, long metal spikes, and dark, dusty barn lofts where one bad step could break a leg. But we did it gladly because the pay was good and the work meant something. Every kid I knew in high school worked tobacco, along with a good share of the adults. It was the backbone of the community.
Then illegal labor arrived, and things began to shift. The first wave hit the tobacco farms. Farmers who had paid teenagers and local laborers fair wages realized they could hire adults from Mexico and Central America for far less and house them in the kinds of conditions Americans would never tolerate: eight men to a sagging, leaking trailer with no electricity, no running water, no insulation. They were paid in cash, they didn’t complain, they worked year-round, and they had no leverage because they knew their employers could always get them deported. Within a few seasons, American teenagers were no longer hired. Within a few more, the full-time local farmhands, many of whom had been in the area for generations, were gone, too. My parents saw exactly what was happening when one neighbor proudly moved an entire illegal crew into a run-down trailer on their property on a hillside, right in the center of a dairy cow pasture. They thought they had found a clever solution to their labor costs. My parents were disgusted, because they understood what it meant: the beginning of the end for the community’s economic life.
Please follow the link above to read the rest of the story. The importation of illegal laborers that are paid less than the minimum wage hurts all working Americans.
Stopping An Unnecessary Drain On America’s Finances
On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article about a new regulation being put in place by the U.S. Treasury Department that will potentially save taxpayers anywhere from $870 million to $1.6 billion.
The article reports:
President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department will issue a new rule that prevents illegal aliens and foreign nationals from securing income tax credits such as the lucrative Earned Income Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the agency would issue new regulations regarding who is eligible for such income tax credits under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA).
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are enforcing the law and preventing illegal aliens from claiming tax benefits intended for American citizens,” Bessent told Breitbart News.
In particular, the rule will clarify that refunded portions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, and the Saver’s Match Credit are federal public benefits and, therefore, illegal aliens and other foreign nationals will not be eligible to receive such benefits.
…The rule comes after the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel released an opinion on the matter that interprets income tax credits as federal public benefits, thus making illegal aliens ineligible.
The article concludes:
Researchers estimate that illegal aliens given Social Security Numbers likely enjoy $2.9 billion in cash payments — $2 billion deriving from the Earned Income Tax Credit and about $890 million from the Additional Child Tax Credit.
Likewise, illegal aliens with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers are estimated to receive anywhere from $870 million to $1.6 billion in Additional Child Tax Credit payments.
The Treasury Department rule is set to take effect for the 2026 tax year.
America has an economic safety net for Americans. We cannot afford to have an economic safety net for the world.
The September Jobs Report Is Out
The September jobs report was delayed because of the government shutdown. It is now out.
CNBC reported on November 20:
- Nonfarm payrolls increased by 119,000 in September, up from the 4,000 jobs lost in August following a downward revision, according to a long-delayed report Thursday from the BLS.
- The unemployment rate edged higher to 4.4%, the highest it’s been since October 2021. A broader measure edged lower to 8%.
- Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% for the month and 3.8% from a year ago, compared to respective forecasts for 0.3% and 3.7%.
- The report ends a data drought on the labor market that began in early September and continued through the record 44-day government shutdown.
The workforce participation rate eased up slightly to 62.4. Notice also that average hourly earnings increased slightly for the month and 3.8 per for the year. People also have more spending money due to the lower cost of gasoline.
The article notes:
The total level of those employed rose by 251,000 while the labor force increased by 470,000 to a fresh record of 171.2 million. The participation rate, which measures the share of the working-age population either working or seeking employment, edged higher to 62.4, the highest since May.
The rolls of full-time employment swelled by 673,000 while part-times fell by 573,000.
The article concludes:
The lack of comprehensive indicators has presented a challenge for Fed officials, who cut their benchmark interest rate in both September and October but face a tougher decision in December. Officials at the October meeting noted the difficulty in navigating policy without the usual array of economic metrics to rely on, and there was a significant inclination to forgo a December cut, according to meeting minutes released Wednesday.
With September’s payrolls count released, the BLS is preparing the first influx of other data in coming months. The bureau on Wednesday announced it will release jobs data for October and November simultaneously on Dec. 16. October’s numbers will not include the customary unemployment rate calculation as that comes from a survey of households that will not be able to be completed because of the shutdown.
It will be interesting to see the October and November numbers. Despite what the mainstream media is telling us, the economy seems to be turning around–jobs are increasing and the rate of inflation is slowing going down.
Welfare Fraud In Minnesota
Not every country in the world is interested in ethical behavior. America, even with its flaws, values honesty. Many years ago, my husband and I were talking to a missionary who trained pastors in another country. He talked about the problem of explaining to them that it was wrong to cheat on their exams. In their country, cheating was no big deal. America needs to consider the values of the countries it accepts immigrants from or we will find ourselves dealing with pockets of immigrants who see nothing wrong with cheating. We are dealing with that problem now in Minnesota.
On Wednesday, The City Journal reported:
Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.
In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”
Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.
The article continues:
If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing. It was designed with “low barriers to entry” and “minimal requirements for reimbursement.” Nonetheless, before the program went live in 2020, officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.
Costs quickly spiraled out of control. In 2021, the program paid out more than $21 million in claims. In the following years, annual costs shot up to $42 million, then $74 million, then $104 million. During the first six months of 2025, payouts totaled $61 million.
On August 1, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services moved to scrap the HSS program, noting that payment to 77 housing-stabilization providers had been terminated this year due to “credible allegations of fraud.” Joe Thompson, then the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, went even further, stating that the “vast majority” of the HSS program was fraudulent.
The article concludes:
The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it. By extension, that means recognizing the problem’s true source. So far, Minnesota’s governing class and its media establishment have failed to take that basic step. Minnesotans will have to confront the uncomfortable but unavoidable reality: members of the Somali community have played a central role in the massive fraud now engulfing the North Star State.
Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There is no reason that American taxpayers should be funding terrorism!
We Need To Make Our Roads Safer
On November 20, Townhall posted an article about another fatal accident involving an illegal immigrant driving a semi truck. This is getting old.
The article reports:
Over the weekend, yet another illegal immigrant with a commercial driver’s license issued by the State of New York caused a multi-car collision resulting in the death of an Indiana National Guardsman. The illegal, Georgian national Goderdzi Gujabidze, 56, has since been arrested.
Gujabidze was driving an 18-wheeler in Boone County, Indiana, when he collided with a military Humvee and another vehicle. Indiana National Guardsman Terry Frye died on the scene, and three others were hospitalized.
When authorities attempted to communicate with Gujabidze, they encountered a “language barrier” that required “a translator.”
Officials discovered that the illegal immigrant had secured a non-domiciled Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) in New York after the Biden administration waved him across the border in San Luis, Arizona, in 2022.
The article concludes:
The Department of Transportation, led by Sean Duffy, initiated an audit of state records for CDL holders. California alone was found to have illegally issued 17,000 CDLs to foreigners.
“What our team has discovered should disturb and anger every American,” Secretary Duffy said recently. “Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers — often times illegally. This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it. Today’s actions will prevent unsafe foreign drivers from renewing their license and hold states accountable to immediately invalidate improperly issued licenses.”
The federal highway funds allocated to the states that are issuing CDL’s to illegals need to be suspended until the practice is stopped. Unfortunately, I believe this move has been blocked by the courts.
Following The Money
If you are not familiar with the history of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR), one important thing to know is that the group was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial (details here).
On Tuesday, The New York Post posted an article about the money being paid to the anti-Israel agitators that created disturbances at America’s colleges.
The article reports:
Anti-Israel agitators who spread disruption at US colleges and were punished by authorities were awarded checks for $1,000 by a Muslim nonprofit, The Post has learned.
The money was given to students who faced penalties for leading pro-Palestinian protests before and after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023, according to a bombshell report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN).
The cash was awarded from a “Champions of Justice Fund,” set up by the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) as “institutional endorsement,” the report claims.
In California, the largest arm of the CAIR web of nonprofits, affiliates in San Francisco and Los Angeles raised more than $100,000 in donations for campus radicals, while the main group solicited $64,000 in donations, records show.
The article also notes:
CAIR says it is the largest Muslim charity in the US, receiving hundreds of thousands in donations from progressive nonprofits, including Tides Foundation and the California-based Weingart Foundation.
It claims that less than 1% of its funding comes from outside of the US. However, when an ex-employee, Lori Saroya, filed a lawsuit against CAIR for defamation, which asked for details on who their foreign sources of funding were, and a judge ruled they had to disclose them, the charity abruptly settled the case out of court.
The charity had previously been awarded $500,000 from Saudi Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, according to a 2002 report in Arabnews.com
Separately, CAIR-CA is under probe by the Department of Justice, according to IAN, and the California Fair Political Practices Commission over alleged financial misrepresentation of federal funds.
In one instance, the charity took $7.2 million in taxpayer cash intended to settle impoverished immigrants in California between 2022 and 2024.
The cash, which was intended to assist 1,800 Afghan refugees, only helped 177 Afghan refugees from 2021 to 2023, less than 10% percent of the total it was meant to serve, according to the report.
Much of the money could not be accounted for within CAIR’s official filings, reviewed by The Post.
Please follow this link to further understand CAIR and what they are about.
About That Affordability Thing…
Affordability is the new buzz word of the day. The attempt is being made to use it as a hammer to bludgeon President Trump. Interesting, since he hasn’t even been in office for a year yet.
On Tuesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog reported:
Normally I wouldn’t do anything so facile as to blame inflation on a particular politician, but given that the Democrats are pinning their hopes on hanging the “affordability crisis” around President Trump’s neck, a little historical perspective is in order. Thus, from the Unleash Prosperity Hotline:
We went back to January 2020 when the pandemic started. We found that 13.5% of cumulative inflation (prices are 24% higher today) has happened under Trump, while 86.5 percent of cumulative inflation happened under Biden.
So the “affordability crisis” is the hangover effect of Bidenomics when the White House dumped some $4 trillion of helicopter money out the windows.
The article includes the following chart:
Obviously prices are still rising, but there are a few good things in the future economically–the price of gasoline at the pump is trending down–that impacts everyone and everything. The price of energy should come down in the near future as America increases its energy independence, although some states may not experience the downward turn due to excessive regulation. Most food prices are also stabilizing or moving downward.
Affordability is improving, but it is going to take a while. Two things that will help with the cost of housing are to lower the demand by removing the illegals and to lower the interest rates. Overall, I am optimistic about the future, but there will be a price paid at some point for the excesses of the Biden administration.
Dealing with the Islamic Threat Part II
Article: Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.
In Part I of this article, I noted that there is an important distinction between nationalistic Islamists who want to change our government/culture and Muslims who want to practice their religion but are not dissatisfied with the secular aspects of America. Let’s examine the impact of Islamist immigrants in European countries, where their numbers are much greater (about 8% of their populations) compared to our country (about 2%).
Let’s start off with Sweden, which has been allowing Muslims refugees for several decades into their country which has historically had very little immigration. Currently. There are about 60 enclaves/neighborhoods in Sweden that are occupied almost exclusively by Muslims. Most of these enclaves follow Sharia law and discourage non-Muslims from entering there or living there. In fact, many of them have erected physical and/or informational barriers to non-Muslims. Some of them have vehicle check points operated by Muslim gangs. They are known as “No-Go” zones where local police rarely if ever enter. One reason the police are reluctant to enter is that the authorities are reluctant to provoke demonstrations, which at times in the past have led to violence. Essentially, the Islamists have taken over these so-called enclaves and are functioning as if they were in a middle- eastern country. Non-Muslims who enter these areas are required to follow Sharia law or face a potential violent reaction. As a result, the crime rate against native Swedes has increased dramatically, especially sex crimes against native born women. In 1975, there were 421 reported rapes in Sweden, in 2024 that has risen to 10,167 which is an astonishing 2300% rise. Sixty three percent of the reported rapes were by immigrants. Immigrants are also 5 times more likely to commit robberies. Similar crime increases have occurred in France, Britain, Austria and Brussels. In Britain, a Muslim group known as “Muslims Against the Crusades,” have identified 12 cities that they plan to occupy and turn into independent micro-states that will operate outside British law. These European countries are being taken over piece by piece by Islamists. This is the opposite of assimilation, where immigrants accept, value, and practice the rules and traditions of their new country. This threatens the very existence of these countries as we have known them.
Is this happening in America? You bet. For example, in Patterson, NJ, which has a large percentage of Muslims, the city council, sheriff’s department, and the local schools are effectively controlled by Muslim immigrants. Recently, a mob tore down the American flag and replaced it with the Palestinian flag and declared Patterson to be the capitol of Palestine in America. This is happening in other cities as well, particularly in Michigan. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbot, and his administration are fighting against the establishment of a Muslim enclave in Collin County where a Muslim group is trying to establish a community on 400 newly purchased acres of land, called East Plano Islamic Center, funded by Community Capitol Partners. A promotional video shows the President of this group speaking against American law and openly advocating for Sharia law. They plan to establish seven other similar communities. To purchase a dwelling a person must agree to financially support the local Mosque and Islamic private school. According to Governor Abbott, he signed a law several years ago that prohibits replacing American law with Sharia law (as have a few other states). The effectiveness of these efforts has yet to be demonstrated. Texas Congressional Representative Chip Roy, has introduced a bill entitled “Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act,” and Senator Tommy Tuberville from Alabama has done likewise in the US Senate. Whether either bill will generate enough support, remains to be seen.
We need to learn from what Europe’s experience and take appropriate steps before it is too late. Part III of this article will address what needs to be done, assuming we have enough leaders who recognize the problem and have the courage to take appropriate action. We cannot allow what happened when New York City elected a Marxist Muslim mayor to spread to other areas of our country. Stay tuned.
From my friends at Townhall:
A New Level Of Chutzpah
The link below is to a video posted on X by a group of Democrats with prior military and intelligence service. The video is a message to our current military and intelligence service members. It is a reminder that it is okay to disobey an order if the order is unconstitutional. (Actually, the way the video is framed, it is an encouragement to disobey orders). The intelligence people making this video were part of two administrations that illegally spied on American citizens and made up intelligence for political purposes. Those administrations used the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to stop conservative groups from getting tax-exempt status. They sent a S.W.A.T team to arrest a non-violent pro-life protester. They are reminding people of the Constitution now? The military people stood still as the military was quietly purged of people who were patriots and might resist the authoritarian efforts of the President (former President Obama with a pen and a phone, and former President Biden who completely ignored the Supreme Court ruling on student loans) just to give a few examples.
This is the X Post:
We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.
The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.
Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r
— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) November 18, 2025
What they are saying is essentially true, but it should include a warning to anyone following their advice that if they are not on solid ground with their claim that an order is unconstitutional, they could wind up in jail.
Here are some of the comments in the video (source here):
In her post on X, Slotkin said the group wanted to speak “directly” to service members, claiming “the American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.”
Kelly, a former Navy pilot, accused the Trump administration of “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” echoing similar claims from Crow and Slotkin.
At several points in the video, Kelly, Slotkin, and Deluzio repeat the line: “You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders.”
Goodlander joined Kelly in reminding viewers that “like us, you swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.”
One of the comments on X about the video is a picture of Senator Slotkin allegedly on the airplane to Ukraine in 2015 to fire the state prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. This is the caliber of the people who made this video. The other people involved are Senator Mark Kelly, Representative Chris Deluzio, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander, Representative Chrissy Houlahan, and Congressman Jason Crow. All of them need to be disciplined for attempting to create disunity in the military and intelligence communities. As I previously stated, what they are saying is true, the manner in which they are saying it is highly inappropriate.
This Could Get Very Interesting
On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article stating that the Clintons might have to pay a price for defying a Congressional subpoena.
The article reports:
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Tuesday said he would give former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the same treatment Democrats gave Steve Bannon if they do not comply with congressional subpoenas to testify on their alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
House Democrats referred Bannon for prosecution after he failed to comply with a House January 6 subcommittee subpoena. He was later convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison in 2022.
Comer said the Clintons are two Democrats that his committee has not heard back from regarding subpoenas for their testimony on their ties to Epstein, and that continued silence will be met with criminal referrals.
The law is supposed to be enforced equally. The Democrats should have considered that in dealing with Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. Evidently, the Democrats planned on being perpetually in power (until their candidate ran out of steam).
The article concludes:
“So we expect the Clintons to come in, or I expect the Clintons to be met with the same fate that Bannon and [Peter] Navarro were met with when the Democrats were in control,” he concluded.
Comer also noted that other Democrats have not helped bring the Clintons in to testify because they are too focused on trying to criminally connect Trump to Epstein. Neither Trump nor the Clintons have been accused of any wrongdoing.
“The Democrats have Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Comer said. “They’re just hoping and praying that there’s something in these documents, somewhere they don’t know where, but somewhere that would implicate Trump.”
Stay tuned.
Trouble In The Tank
The Heritage Foundation is one of the major think tanks in the conservative movement. Lately there has been some serious trouble within that think tank. The dust-up is in the reaction to an interview Tucker Carlson did with Nick Fuentes. I question the wisdom of anyone giving a platform to Nick Fuentes, but the interview happened, and there was very little push-back from Tucker Carlson during the interview. Essentially, Tucker Carlson sat quietly by while Nick Fuentes repeated a lot of lies about World War II and about the Jewish people.
On Monday, The New York Post reported:
A senior conservative legal scholar who holds one of Princeton University’s top academic chairs has resigned from the Heritage Foundation’s board in protest of the think tank president’s defense of Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Robert P. George, long regarded as one of the right’s leading constitutional thinkers, is the latest figure to step down amid an internal revolt that has already prompted at least seven other staffers, fellows and task force members to sever ties.
His departure came after a leaked video showed Heritage president Kevin Roberts standing behind Carlson in the wake of the host’s podcast appearance with Fuentes.
“I have resigned from the board of the Heritage Foundation. I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on October 30th,” George wrote in a Facebook post announcing his departure.
“Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse,” he added.
The article notes:
George’s exit is just the latest sign of a widening rupture inside the conservative policy powerhouse, which has been hit by a series of defections since Roberts released the video defending Carlson.
In the clip, Roberts rejected calls to distance Heritage from the former Fox News host and insisted the group would not “cancel” either Carlson or Fuentes, whose extremist record includes Holocaust denial and repeated antisemitic statements.
The backlash was immediate. Members of Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism quit en masse, several scholars and fellows publicly walked away, and Roberts’ own chief of staff stepped down after amplifying posts attacking internal critics.
The only reason to give someone like Nick Fuentes a platform is the show the absolute intellectual vacuity of antisemitism.
From my friends at The Patriot Post:
The Right To Take Your Child To Church
On Friday, WABI Channel 5 in Maine posted an article about a divorce custody case where the court is deciding whether or not the mother has the right to take her daughter to church.
The article reports:
Maine Supreme Court justices heard arguments in a parental-rights case on Thursday involving a mother who says she has been unconstitutionally barred from taking her 12-year-old daughter to church.
Emily Bickford is challenging a December 2024 custody order that prohibits her from bringing her daughter to Calvary Chapel in Westbrook.
A district court judge sided with the child’s father, Matthew Bradeen, ruling that some of the church’s teachings could be psychologically harmful to the girl.
The order allows Bradeen to solely decide on his daughter’s involvement with Calvary Chapel Church.
When it comes to any other religious organization, the order states that the parents share rights and must discuss.
Bickford’s attorneys, led by Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, argued that the lower court’s decision violates her First Amendment rights.
“This is a nuclear option, where you give total authority to one parent to make decisions regarding religion over the other parent, who’s a fit parent,” Staver told our media partner WMTW outside the courthouse in Portland, where justices heard roughly 30 minutes of oral arguments.
Bickford said after the hearing that the order has prevented her daughter from attending a place that is meaningful to her.
This is amazing. I looked up the Calvary Chapel website. Their beliefs are basic Christianity. Even if their beliefs were strange, I think a mother is entitled to take her daughter to the church of her choice. This is a definite affront to the First Amendment rights of the mother and daughter.
The Missing Generation
On Sunday, Cypher News posted an article about Generation Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2011. One-third of them are missing.
The article reports:
…In roughly the past five decades, abortion has shifted from something whispered about in the shadows to something practically celebrated in the mainstream. The left frames this shift as progress, but the data tells a different story. As a result, a full third of an entire generation was erased before it ever drew breath. Let’s break it down.
For years, abortion has been absorbed into Western culture as if it were just another lifestyle choice. Women are encouraged to “own their bodies,” redefine autonomy, and treat a procedure once viewed as a last resort like a routine errand. Normalization became the goal, and frankly, normalization succeeded. But when something this widespread becomes this accepted, the impact shows up in the numbers. People may avoid saying it out loud, but the demographic data strips all the flowery language away.
Between 1997 and 2011, almost twenty million pregnancies ended before delivery. This isn’t a social trend, folks; it’s basically generational deletion. You see it in declining birth rates, shrinking classrooms, and a workforce that is thinning out year after year.
The global picture is just as stark. Nearly one in three pregnancies worldwide ends in abortion. Wealthy nations call it empowerment. Poorer nations call it routine. But while the terminology changes, the outcome doesn’t.
Fewer children. Fewer families. Fewer futures.
The article concludes:
Look, the data here leaves no room for interpretation. America is not simply dealing with a cultural shift; it’s dealing with the aftermath of eliminating twenty million members of a single generation. When a society normalizes abortion at the scale we have, the demographic consequences are not just simply theoretical. They’re visible in every corner of life.
Shrinking classrooms are not a mystery. An aging workforce is not a coincidence. A collapsing birth rate is not an accident. A country simply cannot delete a third of its potential children and expect to grow. It cannot maintain a stable future when its fertility rate sits below 1.6. And lastly, it cannot solve labor shortages, economic stagnation, or cultural fragmentation when entire age groups are missing.
The fact is that nations with declining populations face slower economies, weaker social structures, and political systems that strain under the weight of an older base with fewer young families to balance it.
The issue here isn’t about politics or slogans… it’s about math. Once a nation chooses a path that produces fewer children than it needs to sustain itself, decline is not just a possibility; it’s the guaranteed outcome. And sadly, America is already living inside that outcome.
NOW YOU KNOW
The emptiest part of Gen Z isn’t online. It’s the twenty million who never made it here.
Wow.
This Really Is Not A Surprise
On Monday, The Washington Free Beacon reported that a group claiming to be working against war crimes that happens to have filed complaints against over one thousand Israeli soldiers has ties to Hezbollah.
The article reports:
An obscure Belgian nonprofit that has single-handedly filed more than 1,000 complaints against Israeli soldiers at the International Criminal Court (ICC) bills itself as a neutral legal entity crusading against “war crimes and human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli state.” According to a new watchdog report, though, one of its co-founders has openly identified himself as a former Hezbollah terrorist, and the organization itself is entrenched within Hezbollah’s financing network across multiple continents.
Lebanese-Belgian activist Dyab Abou Jahjah, who co-founded the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) in late 2024, described himself in a 2003 New York Times profile as a “very proud” former Hezbollah member. He was arrested by Belgian authorities in 2002 for inciting Arab riots in Antwerp, and has repeatedly pledged his allegiance to Hezbollah and Hamas on social media. One of Europe’s leading anti-Israel activists, Abou Jahjah allegedly remains “linked to organizations associated with U.S.-designated terrorist groups” like Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the report states.
The HRF does not publicly disclose its funding structure, but the watchdog report identifies it as “part of Hezbollah’s extensive business networks tied to families and local diaspora connections across Europe, Latin America, and Africa.” These networks, the report states, “are known to support front companies, informal trade, and layered laundering operations” through “used car exports, counterfeit goods, and commodity trades, facilitated through relatives or friendly businessmen.”
The article concludes:
An HRF spokesman denied any affiliations with Hezbollah and described the watchdog report as “false, defamatory, and politically motivated.”
“We have no ties—financial, operational, or organizational—to Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other group designated as a terrorist organization,” the organization said. “HRF operates transparently under Belgian and EU law, and is entirely funded by small public donations.”
The sole specific piece of information the HRF spokesman disputed in an email exchange with the Free Beacon was the report’s characterization of Hassoun as “Lebanese-Belgian,” stating that “both parents of Mr Hassoun Morrocan-Belgians [sic].” Though the spokesman said the report had misrepresented Hassoun’s origins, both Israeli news outlet Ynet and the Anti-Defamation League have also described Hassoun as Lebanese-Belgian.
The Trump administration may disagree with the spokesman’s claims. A second senior U.S. official tracking the matter told the Free Beacon the watchdog group’s findings “are another example of the dangerous precedent being set by the ICC. We’ve been clear that the United States will actively oppose actions that threaten our national interests and infringe on our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
Keep in mind that the Islamic concept of taqiyya allows Muslims to lie to non-Muslims if the purpose of the lie is to advance the cause of Islam. Also remember that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has never supported the State of Israel.
Trying To Gain An Edge In The 2026 Elections
On Friday (updated Monday), The Epoch Times posted an article about the redistricting taking place in some American states.
The article includes a map showing the current state of redistricting:
I find it interesting that New York is redistricting. New York currently has 26 Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives; seven of them are Republicans. They may have to do some serious gerrymandering to change that.
The article lists the states that have redistricted and the projected changes, the states that are considering redistricting, and the states the have ruled out redistricting. Please follow the link to the article for the details.
The 2026 mid-term election is crucial. If the Democrats take control of Congress, we will have two years of impeachment attempts of President Trump. If the Republicans take control of Congress, we might make progress in dealing with the national debt. The choice is up to voting Americans.
Taking Care Of National Security
On Sunday, Just the News reported that America has begun replenishing the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The article reports:
The oil will be delivered to the Bryan Mound Strategic Petroleum Reserve site near Freeport, Texas, in December and January, the Energy Department said in a statement. The U.S. petroleum reserve contains about 410 million barrels of crude oil and at full capacity can hold approximately 714 million barrels.
The strategic reserve, the Energy Department said in a release, was weakened by the previous administration’s “reckless” 180-million-barrel drawdown in 2022.
The drawdown caused delays to critical infrastructure maintenance and put unprecedented wear and tear on storage and injection facilities, the department said.
“President Trump promised to protect America’s energy security by refilling and managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve more responsibly,” said Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “Awarding these contracts marks another step in the important process of refilling this national security asset.
While this process won’t be complete overnight, these actions are an important step in strengthening our energy security and reversing the costly and irresponsible energy policies of the last administration.”
The article concludes:
The 410 barrels of crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in October was equivalent to approximately 125 days of U.S. net oil imports. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve distribution system consists of four salt dome storage sites; commercial pipelines owned by the Energy Department and commercial firms that connect to major refineries along the Gulf Coast and in the Midwest; and marine terminals operated by the department and private companies which facilitate the loading and off-loading of crude oil onto oil tankers and barges.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a necessary part of national security. It is supposed to be used for strictly military purposes. Unfortunately, the Biden administration used part of the reserve in an attempt to lower the gasoline prices at the pump in order to gain political points. We are much more energy independent than we were then, but it’s always a good idea to have a readily available backup supply of oil.
We Don’t Seem To Be Doing Very Well At Helping Disaster Victims
On Saturday, Breitbart posted an update about the victims of the Palisades Fire in California.
The article reports:
More than 70 percent of people who were affected by the Palisades Fire in California from January are still living in temporary housing, according to a report.
A survey conducted by the Department of Angels surveyed “2,300 fire-impacted residents across” Los Angeles County, according to the Los Angeles Times. The survey found that 75 percent “of surveyed Pacific Palisades residents and 67% of surveyed Altadena residents are in temporary housing.”
Per the outlet:
Roughly 75% of surveyed Pacific Palisades residents and 67% of surveyed Altadena residents are in temporary housing. Many expect they’ll have to move again in the next few months. The report found that although residents who experienced a total loss have struggled with finding stable housing, residents who experienced structural and smoke or ash damage have had to move more frequently.
For residents who lost their homes in Altadena, Pacific Palisades, Pasadena and Malibu, 22% said they expected to move again within the next six to 12 months and 9% expected to move within the next few months. Of those residents who experienced structural and smoke or ash damage, 19% expected to have to move in the next few months and 18% believed they’d have to move within a year.
Fox News reported one person explained that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “has Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief Dollars.”
The person explained to Fox News that prior to the government shutdown, they were “going to meet with HUD” to talk about that, adding that it could be used to reinvest in infrastructure.
I’m sorry–the fire was almost a year ago–you waited until September to meet with HUD? The government was shut down for forty days. Am I supposed to believe that those were the exact forty days you chose to meet with HUD?
There are a number of problems with rebuilding Pacific Palisades. The first is the excessive permitting in California. The second is the fact that many of the residents did not have fire insurance because it was canceled and they did not have time to renew it. That means taking out a construction loan for the full value of what you are building. That is expensive. There is also the reason of taxes. The land has significant value. Even with a small house, the tax assessment of what you build is going to be high. In California when you buy a house, you pay taxes on what you paid for the house for as long as you own the house. When you sell your house, the buyer pays taxes on whatever he paid for the house. I suspect that if the residents rebuild the houses, they will be assessed at their current value–not at whatever they were previously assessed for. If you bought your house in 1970 for a million dollars and paid taxes on that amount until it burned down, what will the rebuilt value be? Just based on inflation it will be at least three times what it was previously valued at. There is also the fact that the California government has floated the idea of turning the area into low-income apartment buildings.
This isn’t looking good for those who lost everything in the fire.
One Unexpected Positive Consequence Of The Shutdown
On Friday, The Hill posted an article about what may be the only positive result of the shutdown–some of the corruption in our government may actually be dealt with!
The article reports:
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday said the Trump administration is planning to have all Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries reapply for the program due to alleged fraud.
The secretary said after receiving data on SNAP recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”
…Every state has a periodic recertification process that requires SNAP or food stamp recipients to update their whereabouts and earnings, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most municipalities require updated data every six to 12 months.
The article concludes:
More than 41 million Americans rely on the benefits to buy groceries, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
However, Rollins told Newsmax that 120 Americans have been arrested for committing SNAP fraud and on Thursday told CNN the program was “corrupt.”
“These are the things that we’re uncovering that, for years, no one has really ever dug into because the feds didn’t have the system in place to do it. But we do now,” the secretary told Newsmax.
“The president has made this a priority,” she added. “We will fix this program.”
Imagine how many taxpayer dollars could be saved if we stopped all of the cheating in government programs.
Good News From Florida
On Friday, Just the News posted an article that highlighted some of the great work American law enforcement is currently doing.
The article reports:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers arrested 230 foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally, many with extensive criminal histories. More than half, 150, are criminal sex offenders, the Department of Homeland Security said.
The statewide initiative, Operation Criminal Return, targets convicted sexual predators and offenders who pose significant threats to public safety.
“Through Operation Criminal Return, hundreds of the most dangerous illegal criminal aliens with horrific criminal histories, including sexual crimes against children, are off our streets and will be out of our country soon,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “Florida has been the most aggressive state in America on combating illegal immigration, and our state and local law enforcement agencies are doing more every day to be the federal government’s greatest tool in the fight to enforce immigration law.”
The article concludes:
FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) participated through an ICE 287(g) program. It’s named after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996, 8 USC 1357, Section 287(g)(1), which authorizes ICE to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration functions only under ICE’s direction and supervision. Local law enforcement officers can apply to participate in the Jail Enforcement Model (JEM), Task Force Model (TFM) and Warrant Service Officer (WSO) model, The Center Square reported.
Florida leads the U.S. with having the most 287 (g) agreements – more than 270 – as of November 13. All of Florida’s sheriff’s offices are participating, as well as dozens of colleges, police departments, state agencies, airports, county boards of commissioners and university board of trustees. More than one third of Florida sheriffs are participating in more than one program.
…In Florida, strong partnerships are vital to public safety, and our collaboration with ICE provides a model for the rest of the country as we continue to carry out the mission of President Trump and Governor DeSantis in removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our communities,” FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass said.
In just 10 months this year, ICE has signed 1,154 Memorandums of Agreement for 287(g) programs in 40 states. They include 139 JEM agreements with law enforcement agencies in 31 states, 419 WSO agreements with law enforcement agencies in 36 states, and 596 TFM agreements with agencies in 34 states, according to data as of Nov. 13.
If the states are the individual laboratories to discover government programs that actually work, every state should be copying Florida!
Life Is Hard When You Don’t Have Any More Influence To Sell
On Saturday, Townhall posted an article about a recent podcast interview of Hunter Biden. I need to say up front that I wish Hunter Biden a successful trip to drug rehab and honest employment afterward. May he have a successful, clean, sober, and honest life. I am not willing to make a wager on the possibility of that happening, but it is my wish for him.
The article’s opening paragraph says it all:
Hunter Biden needs to go away. He won’t, but give it a rest, man. You and your family are done in professional politics. You are sure as hell aren’t going to be elected to anything. Your dad drools in his soup. And your laptop is what opened Pandora’s box into your family’s alleged government access shenanigans. It was the roadmap. Then, daddy started to fall apart—and his own party booted him off the ticket because he was going to get slaughtered by Donald Trump in 2024.
The sad part of the interview is that Hunter Biden in no way is taking responsibility for his past (or present) actions.
The article reports:
During his sit-down on the Wide Awake Podcast, Hunter went off on Miranda Devine, one of the reporters at The New York Post, who reported on the Biden crime family. The other, at the time, was Emma-Jo Morris. He also whined about The Daily Mail, said they were “whores,” which is ironic given that he goes through escorts like senior citizens at an Old Country Buffet. We know about the Chateau Marmont, Hunter, and what you did with those M&Ms.
I don’t know what is worse–his continual quest to be in the spotlight or the fact that some of the media is putting him in the spotlight. The Bidens need to be encouraged to and allowed to ride off into the sunset.
From my friends at Power Line Blog:
What History Says vs. What The Media Says
On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about what the historical data says about the impact of tariffs.
The article reports:
A sweeping new analysis of tariff policy spanning 150 years suggests that the economic establishment may have fundamentally misunderstood how tariffs affect prices and employment, a finding with profound implications for understanding President Donald Trump’s trade policy and the proper response by the Federal Reserve.
Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco examined major tariff changes from 1870 through 2020 across the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Their conclusion challenges the conventional wisdom that dominated economic policy debates in recent years: when countries raise tariffs, prices actually fall, not rise.
The article concludes:
More importantly, the study removes the most potent intellectual weapon from the free-trade arsenal: the claim that tariffs inevitably raise consumer prices. For generations, this assertion ended policy debates before they could begin. Policymakers considering tariffs faced the accusation that they were imposing a regressive tax on consumers. Kamala Harris, in her failed bid for the presidency last year, repeatedly described Trump’s tariff proposals as a national sales tax that would increase consumer prices. Now that idea lies in tatters.
With the consumer price argument dismantled, the debate over tariffs can proceed on grounds better rooted in economic history and national purpose. Policymakers can weigh the benefits of protecting domestic industries, rebalancing trade relationships, and rebuilding manufacturing capacity against the effects on economic activity and employment. They can consider whether tariffs might encourage productive investment and industrial development, questions that have been largely off-limits in mainstream economic discourse.
The paper’s findings also call into question the Fed’s response to tariffs. If the main effects are lower inflation and higher lower employment, monetary theory would suggest that the Fed should cut interest rates when tariffs are imposed. Instead, the Fed this year took the opposite course, holding interest rates steady and only cutting hesitantly—moves that now look like a major policy mistake.
Unfortunately, in recent years, cutting interest rates has more to do with politics than economic data. When someone the fed likes is President, interest rates move lower quickly and stay low if at all possible (however, if inflation becomes too high and too obvious, they will raise them). When someone the deep state dislikes is President, interest rates tend to be lowered very slowly if at all.