Tag: politics

GOP, Here’s Your Soundbite for the Looming Schumer Shutdown Fight.

There’s not going to be a deal to keep the government open, so a shutdown is imminent. It will also last a few days. The Senate will be adjourned for Yom Kippur, although it is unlikely that Democrats will budge, at least for now. The GOP war room must weaponize what the party already clipped and posted on social media: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) admitting that the Democrats are shutting the government down over health care for illegal aliens.

This exchange says it all. Republicans should give her a gift basket. This issue was settled with the Big, Beautiful Bill, which purged illegals from the Medicaid rolls. When you peel back the theatrics, the Democrats are gearing up for a fight they cannot win. Shutting down the government over illegal alien health care, funding for National Public Radio, and repealing the rural healthcare fund are loser issues. The only question is whether Republicans a) recognize it, and b) have a killer narrative to shred the Democratic theatrics here.

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Texas Congressional Staffer ‘Doused Herself in Gasoline’ and Lit Herself on Fire

According to a new report, the Texas GOP congressional staffer who died earlier this month after she caught on fire in her home doused herself in gasoline and set her body on fire.

After reviewing surveillance video, authorities determined Regina Santos-Aviles was in her backyard alone when she caught fire on September 13.

Santos-Aviles was alive when first responders arrived at her home late in the evening on September 13; however, she passed away the next morning.

Firefighters also had to put out burning gas cans, according to the report obtained by Uvalde Leader-News.

Texas officials did not disclose whether Santos-Aviles deliberately set herself on fire; however, her family insists it was an accident.

“Her last words were, ‘I don’t want to die,’” a family member previously told KSAT.

The 35-year-old worked for US Rep. Tony Gonzales as a congressional staffer.

The official cause of death is still pending.

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If Socialists Actually Understood Socialism…

In light of recent developments in New York City, specifically on the recent primary elections and the emergence of self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as a potential mayoral candidate, as well as the increasingly aggressive public engagement of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in their tour around the United States, and the fact that AOC’s chances of becoming the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee have doubled within one week, it has become clear to me that socialist rhetoric is gaining momentum in American political discourse.

This trend is further reflected in survey data from the Pew Research Center, which shows that approximately 36 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 to 29 now view socialism positively. In response to these developments, it is imperative to contribute to the proper education and clarification of what these socialists are actually advocating for, or even what true socialism truly advocates for.

Friedrich von Hayek, Nobel laureate and one of the most influential economists and political philosophers of the 20th century, once remarked, “If socialists understood economics, they wouldn’t be socialists.”

Building on his erudition, I would add: If socialists understood socialism, they wouldn’t be socialists.

The true definition of socialism is a social and economic doctrine that advocates for public, rather than private, ownership or control of property and natural resources—the means of production. It is both a political and economic system in which the means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the community or the state, rather than by private individuals. In other words, in practice, the means of production are controlled by a minority political elite.

Now, no matter whether an economic system is capitalist, socialist, or any other, it is important to note that the system itself is not a utopia or an end in and of itself, but a means to an end. Economic systems ration scarce resources, goods, and services, and each one does this through either a private or a social decision-making process, but only individuals can truly make decisions. Modern money economies operate on prices which reflect the value assigned by either individuals or groups, as well as supply and demand. However, who gets to decide what is supplied and what is demanded differs across these systems. Socialism claims that shared ownership will foster broader participation, leading to everyone sharing in the benefits. Although this is impossible, it remains the foundational argument.

Many socialists have bypassed the foundational principle of collective ownership of production and have instead jumped straight to demands for ownership or redistribution of the output of production. Production is seemingly taken for granted. This conceptual shortcut makes socialism seem like a dream economic system by avoiding what socialism really is.

Therefore, although many public and political arguments are made in the name of socialism, what is often advocated for is not true socialism. In reality, the debate has rarely centered on collective ownership of the means of production—such as the factories, tools, land, and capital that make production possible—but instead on ownership or control of the outputs of production (goods and services).

Simply put, many self-identified socialists are less interested in owning the means of production and more interested in claiming entitlement to what is currently being produced or the production that someone else already owns.

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John Fetterman Shares Study of ‘Left-Wing Terrorism’ Reaching 30-Year High, Slams Dems’ ‘Extreme Rhetoric’

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) shared a study that showed that left-wing terrorism had reached a “30-year high,” and criticized Democrats for using rhetoric such as “Hitler” or “fascist.”

In a post on X, Fetterman included a screenshot of an Axios article titled “Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year high.” Fetterman noted that “political violence is always wrong,” and called for everyone to “turn the temperature down.”

“Unchecked extreme rhetoric, like labels as Hitler or fascist, will foment more extreme outcomes,” Fetterman said. “Political violence is always wrong — no exceptions.”

“We must all turn the temperature down,” Fetterman added.

Per Axios, research from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) found that during the “first six months of 2025,” far-right violence, which has usually “been more frequent,” had decreased significantly.

The CSIS “compiled and analyzed a data set of 750 domestic attacks and plots” that had occurred between January 1, 1994, and July 4, 2025. Researchers found that out of the attacks that occurred since 2016, “left-wing extremists” were responsible for more than 40 of those attacks, while right-wing extremists were responsible for 152 attacks “over the same period”:

• The data showed that left-wing extremists have carried out 41 attacks since 2016, compared with 152 from the far right over the same period.

• Left-wing violence has killed 13 people over the past decade — far fewer than the 112 deaths from right-wing attacks and 82 from jihadists.

• But at least five left-wing plots or attacks have already been recorded this year, compared to just one right-wing attack.

The study comes after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10, while taking part in a question-and-answer event with students at Utah Valley University.

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In Today’s Democrat Party, Political Violence Is Mainstream

Within the last two weeks, the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the targeted shooting of a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement office have confirmed a grim reality. The so-called “fringe” left is not fringe at all, but a fully entrenched, violent, mainstream force.

More concerning, the once near-universal belief that violence is never an acceptable response to speech is quickly eroding, particularly among younger generations.

The reaction to Kirk’s murder made this abundantly clear.

Across social media and in sympathetic corners of the corporate press, voices rushed not to condemn the violence but to rationalize it. Some, like popular streamer Destiny, even celebrated it, suggesting that conservatives bring such attacks upon themselves, adding that they need “to be afraid of getting killed when they go to events.”

Former MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd (he was fired for his comments) captured this mindset when he said immediately after Kirk’s shooting: “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have, saying these awful words, and then not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”

In other words, the violence itself is treated as inevitable and, by extension, justified.

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The American Left Is Resurrecting The Bloody Legacy Of John Brown

On the same day this week that a leftist sniper unleashed a deadly attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas, fliers were spotted on the campus of Georgetown University for something called the John Brown Club. The fliers quoted a phrase that Charlie Kirk’s assassin, Tyler Robinson, inscribed on one of the bullets recovered from his rifle: “Hey, Fascist! Catch!” Under this, the flier read, “The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.”

The flier includes a QR code linking to a signup page that says, “We’re building a community that’s done with ceremonial resistance and strongly worded letters. If you want to make a real change in your community, let us know below.”

In the context of the ongoing wave of left-wing political terrorism in America, this flier for the John Brown Club should be understood as a direct call to violence. A tide of left-wing terrorism is rising in America, thanks largely to incessant incitement by Democrat politicians and aggressive propaganda from the corporate press. The foot soldiers of the left are drawing on — and actually resurrecting — the bloody legacy of John Brown, the abolitionist who unleashed a reign of terror in the years preceding the Civil War.

It’s time to take the left’s repeated invocations of Brown seriously, because they obviously do.

Consider what happened in Dallas on Wednesday. The suspected sniper, 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, fired from a nearby rooftop at an unmarked ICE van transporting detained migrants. He killed a detainee and seriously injured two others before taking his own life as police closed in. A rifle cartridge recovered from the scene was inscribed “ANTI ICE.”

As of this writing, details were still emerging about Jahn, but he apparently comes from a left-leaning family in suburban Dallas and himself was a Democrat voter whose now-deleted Facebook page included Antifa and communist imagery. Like Robinson, who also inscribed left-wing slogans on his rifle cartridges, it seems Jahn used an older bolt-action rifle to carry out his attack on the ICE facility.

Two months ago, a major Antifa plot to ambush and kill ICE agents in Alvarado, Texas, was foiled, but only after a police officer was shot in the neck. Eleven left-wing extremists, members of a North Texas Antifa cell, were arrested on federal charges of terrorism and attempted murder. They were heavily armed with rifles, pistols, and body armor.

One of the suspects in that case is a man named Benjamin Song, a longtime Antifa agitator who was a member of something called the John Brown Gun Club, which has chapters all over the country.

In 2019, a man named Willem van Spronsen, who was a member of a John Brown Gun Club chapter near Seattle, was killed by authorities when he tried to blow up an ICE facility in Tacoma. Van Spronsen, 69, was an avowed anarchist and member of Antifa. He sent a manifesto to friends the day before the assault on the ICE facility in which he wrote “I am Antifa.” And he was later lionized by members of the group as a “martyr” in a Facebook post.

“Throughout history we idolize figures like John Brown for their courage to take the ultimate stand against oppression, and today we stand strong in our support for yet another martyr in the struggle against fascism,” the post read. “May his death serve as a call to protest and direct action.”

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Zohran Mamdani Wants to Spend $100 Million in NYC Tax Dollars on Increased Services for Illegal Aliens

Zohran Mamdani, the communist running for mayor of New York City, wants to spend $100 million in tax dollars on increased services, specifically legal services, for illegal aliens living in the city.

It’s so stunning to see this man admit that he wants to take the hard earned dollars of the citizens of New York City and give the money to non-citizens who are in the country illegally, and yet is leading in the polls. Has everyone in New York City gone insane?

His candidacy is being driven by far left progressive hipsters in the city, but are they really the majority?

Townhall reported:

New York City’s sanctuary policies don’t go far enough for Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” he wants to spend even more taxpayer money to help illegal immigrants if he’s elected…

“I would also commit to increasing the staffing of our law department by 200 to bring us back to pre-COVID levels, and to ensure that when we look at this city we are using every tool at our disposal to keep New Yorkers together, to keep families together,” the democratic socialist continued.

Mamdani emphasized the urgency of his plan, claiming “400,000 of our residents are right now in urgent risk of deportation.”

“The city knows that when it provides legal assistance to those same New Yorkers, their chances of going home increase 11-fold, and yet it has only assisted fewer than 200 of those New Yorkers,” he added. “That’s why also a cornerstone of our campaign is a commitment to increase funding for those very legal defense services by more than $100 million so we can ensure we’re taking every step we can to keep New Yorkers safe, to keep New Yorkers together, and to show the world that they are welcome in this city.”

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Large-scale syllabi study finds professors only teach left-wing side of controversial issues

Contentious topics are often taught in college classrooms from a uniformly one-sided perspective, according to newly published research that used the Open Syllabus Project, which hosts over 27 million syllabi, to develop its findings. 

The research focused on three topics — “racial bias in the American criminal justice system, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the ethics of abortion”  — to determine how controversial issues are presented.

The research primarily looked at assigned reading materials to conclude that “professors generally insulate their students from the wider intellectual disagreement that shape these important controversies.”

“Personally, I thought we’d find some imbalance, some activist teaching,” co-author Jon  Shields, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, told The College Fix. “I just didn’t expect it to be the norm in the cases we studied. That was genuinely surprising to me.”

The 66-page working paper, “Closed Classrooms? An Analysis of College Syllabi on Contentious Issues,” was also co-authored by Claremont McKenna College Professor of Government Stephanie Muravchik and Scripps College Professor of Philosophy Yuval Avnur.

“We were concerned about the health of liberal education, especially in an age when our democracy needs it so desperately,” Shields said. “One way liberal education supports democracy is by shaping the next generation of citizens. And citizens need to acquire both a fluency with the issues that shape our public life as well as an ability to critically assess them.”

“So, we wondered: How well are we in the university fulfilling this fundamental mission?”

The trio looked at how prominent works pertaining to select issues are taught alongside equally influential or authoritative works that present opposing views. Turns out, not often.

And that’s a problem, the scholars wrote.

“[S]tudents need to acquire some fluency in the intellectual controversies that shape our nation and world,” they wrote. “If all we expose them to are disagreements within cramped intellectual spaces, then we are not preparing them to think seriously about contentious public issues, much less exercise power over them one day.”

‘Distorted sense of social reality’

The Open Syllabus Project contains 27 million syllabi scraped from the websites of universities, mostly located in English-speaking countries. 

According to the research, influential works such as Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and Edward Said’s “Orientalism” are taught more often than John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

The former argues the American criminal justice system perpetuates racial oppression. The latter is highly critical of Israel. Yet neither, the scholars found, are regularly presented with critics of those works. Instead, such works, they noted, are generally assigned with “fellow travelers.”

Conversely, they also found, when critics of Alexander’s or Said’s works are taught, they are typically taught in addition to the more left-leaning works of Alexander and Said, indicating that there does not appear to be a comparable bias by presumably more right-leaning scholars when assigning texts.

With regard to the issue of abortion, the scholars found that although a similar left-leaning bias was present, it was considerably less prominent than that which was identified for classes dealing with the other two issues.

Nonetheless, the scholars argued that their work still reveals a strong bias in the materials selected to introduce students to important controversies in our society and that this has serious implications. 

Students, they wrote, are not being prepared “to think seriously about contentious public issues, much less exercise power over them one day” or acquiring “the civic skills they will need to become citizens in a pluralistic nation.”

Additionally, the scholars noted, “insofar as we’re educating tomorrow’s leaders, they probably won’t lead us anywhere we want to go if they have a distorted sense of social reality.”

Universities should be cultivating “intellectual virtues, like curiosity, critical thinking skills, and intellectual humility,” they stated.  Yet, instead, they noted, universities are cultivating adherence to orthodoxy and presenting false intellectual consensuses.

Looking forward, the trio wrote in their report, “universities must recommit themselves to teaching our disagreements.” 

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Charlie Kirk’s Allegedly “Racist” Comments Are Just Uncomfortable Truths

The left keeps portraying Charlie Kirk as a racist. Anyone who has actually watched his debates or listened to his podcasts knows that he is not.

After scouring articles and social media posts for the evidence used to label him a racist, it seems to center on a handful of statements taken out of context which, do not represent racism but rather uncomfortable truths that run against the liberal narrative.

Alleged or documented remarks attributed to Charlie Kirk include the “brain processing power” comment regarding specific Black women, the statement that “prowling Blacks go around for fun to target white people in urban America,” and the accusation that he is antisemitic despite his frequent and explicit support for Israel.

This last charge is especially ironic, since liberals now hate Israel and are openly antisemitic.

On July 13, 2023, Charlie Kirk said one could, “without being called racist,” say that four prominent Black women, Sheila Jackson Lee, Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, were affirmative-action picks. He then showed a clip of Jackson Lee stating before Congress that she was an affirmative-action hire.

He added that they did not have “the brain processing power to be taken seriously” and should yield opportunities to someone “more deserving.”

The statement was attacked as racist, but Kirk was not making a claim about all Black people.

He was criticizing these four individuals, at least one of whom explicitly said she was an affirmative-action hire.

This is yet another example of how conservatives want to judge people as individuals and liberals demand that every interaction be based on skin color, where even arguing with a single person is characterized as a global attack on an entire demographic.

This criticism connects to Kirk’s broader statements on affirmative action.

He previously stated that because of affirmative action, when he sees a Black pilot, he has to consider if the person was hired based on diversity rather than merit.

He made the same observation about an incompetent customer service representative. In both instances, his statement is accurate and consistent with the definition of affirmative action.

Kirk did not say Blacks cannot be good pilots or good customer service representatives.

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Politicians Go Out of Their Way To Make Political Tensions Worse

At the Arizona memorial service for Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated two weeks ago, President Donald Trump acknowledged Kirk’s character, saying, “he did not hate his opponents; he wanted the best for them.” And then he added, “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents. And I don’t want the best for them.”

It was an honest moment if an awkward comment to make at a memorial service for a man murdered (to all appearances) by a political opponent. Like too much of the political class across the ideological spectrum, Trump is prone to despising those he disagrees with. It raises questions about why people should ever submit to the governance of those who hate them—and whether politicians realize that they’re a big part of what brought us to this unfortunate moment.

“It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree,” Trump had told the nation on the day of Kirk’s assassination at a kinder and, perhaps, more self-aware moment. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”

In truth, that day Trump also put the blame for Kirk’s murder on “the radical left” and promised to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence,” hinting at something nastier than a criminal investigation. But for a moment, the president seemed to recognize that hating political opponents and wishing them ill might have unhappy consequences. For a moment.

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