Poll finds 4 in 10 young USA citizens support Islamic sharia

I rarely read the Federalist site now, because of how some writers like editor John Daniel Davidson leave a bad aftertaste, but the following report (via Jihad Watch and Front Page), which is favorable to Israel as well, tells the USA has a very sad case of whole generations who were indoctrinated into being Vladimir Lenin's "useful idiots":

A set of polls released this week by Our Republic and Rasmussen show a concerning trend among American youth, especially in light of recently revealed immigration numbers under Biden: A quarter of 18-35 voters polled would support a community implementing Sharia law as the legal code for the entire town, city, or state if the majority of residents living there desired its adoption.

Additionally, according to the Our Republic poll:

Overall, 21% of likely voters said they have a mostly or somewhat positive opinion of sharia, compared with 57% who have a negative opinion. Positive views were much higher among younger Americans, including 43% of voters ages 18–24 and 39% of those ages 25–29.

The reason American youth may be trending this way, according to Justin Haskins, president of Our Republic, is a lack of understanding about the “value [of] the Constitution and the protections it provides.”

It could also be that they lack appreciation of civilized values, and if it turns out they know more than we think about what Islam is like, they're actually okay with it.

Other findings from the same set of polls clarify the suspicion young people have of Israel, with 46 percent of voters ages 18–24 and 60 percent of those ages 25–29 reporting they would support a proposal “to completely dismantle Israel and replace it with a Palestinian-led nation in exchange for ending the war with Iran and providing the United States with lower oil and gas prices.”

Haskins does not believe that American youth who take these positions are necessarily committed Islamists, nor does he believe they are considering Sharia primarily “as an extension of religious liberty.” Rather, says Haskins, “the more important factor is that Muslims are widely perceived as an oppressed or marginalized group in the United States,” he says. “Within that framework, groups perceived as marginalized are often treated sympathetically without much scrutiny of what those groups or their belief systems actually teach.”

That's another chilling problem - they practically indoctrinated into taking predetermined positions, yet if and when it turns out some leftists get caught committing crimes, those who pretend they're not guilty complain the MSM is just cliche-hunting and never does any research. This is exactly why laws are badly needed to deal with such an issue as sharia. It wouldn't be shocking if the pro-sharia crowd they speak of is already willing to support imposing sharia in cities like Dearborn and Hamtramyck, Michigan. Also, if they're against the war on Iran's autocrats, that too speaks volumes, as does their hostility to Israel, and their potential desensitization/willingness to commit violence, the latter which is particularly offensive.

Now since we're on the subject, the Van Zandt County committee in Texas passed a resolution condemning sharia:

Van Zandt County Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday denouncing Sharia, making it the first Texas county to pass a resolution specifically addressing use of the Islamic religious code.

Van Zandt County Precinct 2 Commissioner Cliff Williams said he brought the resolution forward because of an 80-acre land purchase in southern Van Zandt County by a family with ties to Muslim youth organizations.

The resolution was inspired by a draft resolution introduced by Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, that denounces Sharia in the United States. Self’s resolution has not been passed by Congress.

While introducing the resolution, Williams explained how Sharia is practiced in various Muslim-majority countries.

“Sharia, as practiced by governments around the world, is more than a private devotion. It operates as a complete political and legal order,” he said. “Where states enforce it, the record speaks for itself. In Iran, women have been beaten in jail for uncovering their hair. In Pakistan, blasphemy laws have sent people to prison and stirred mobs against them on a single person’s accusation.”

Williams also discussed the treatment of women under some interpretations and applications of Sharia, saying a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s, her inheritance is half that of her brothers, and her ability to work, marry or travel can depend on a male guardian.

“It’s not American,” Williams said. “Compare that with what we hold as Americans and Texans. Every person stands equal before the law.”

This is also exactly why even abroad/overseas, we can't just stand idly by while Islam dominates anywhere else. And parents who really care have to start taking serious responsibility for what their children think and end up advocating.

Update: the surveys get worse, as the following from the Buckley Institute reveals there's a considerable number of undergraduate students who believe what Hasan Piker espoused:

Just weeks after the United States commemorated the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks, a new poll reveals more than one in five undergraduate students believe America deserved the attacks, while nearly half of all undergraduate students think physical violence is justified to stop so-called hate speech.

The Buckley Institute’s 2026 National Undergraduate Student Survey polled 803 American undergraduate students between September 5 and 14.

A shocking 22 percent agreed that America deserved 9/11, including 28 percent of liberal students. Notably, leftist streamer Hasan Piker — who campaigned with Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and cozies up to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — has said America deserved 9/11. Meanwhile, Aber Kawas, a Democratic Socialist of America member and nominee for the New York state Senate, has said that America brought on 9/11 because of capitalism, alleged white supremacy and racism, and alleged Islamophobia.

The poll also found that 45 percent of American college students believe physical violence can be justified to stop hate speech — among which 54 percent of liberals agree compared to 30 percent of conservatives.

“Interestingly, 72% of those who agree that physical violence can be justified to stop hate speech also agree that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment,” The Buckley Institute found.

Shortly after Charlie Kirk was murdered on a Utah college campus for his free speech, a YouGov survey conducted from September 10-12 asked respondent whether they think “it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?” Twenty-five percent of respondents who identified as “very liberal” said it can be justified, while 17% of self-identified liberals said the same. Just nine percent of people who identify as either conservative or very conservative said it was justified.

Meanwhile, a recent poll conducted by the Center for Strategic Politics found “Democrats want Trump out by (almost) any means necessary” — including assassination.

Well this is also very chilling, and fully confirms why parents need to stop even sending their children to universities, even if they don't espouse this kind of garbage indoctrination. The influence of violence is a very grave issue that needs serious address everywhere, and Europe too is in sore need of it.

Moral assymentry is horrific

Adam Milstein writes about how the USA is failing to honor the victims of Islamic terrorism ever since 9-11:

We promised never to forget, and to defend our American freedoms and way of life in memory of those who perished that day. But sadly, over time, our promise to America has evaporated. The evidence is everywhere: in our classrooms, in our city halls, and in the fastest-growing factions of our own politics.

As America marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11, while celebrating 250 years since its founding, those anniversaries compel us to confront a question that is uncomfortable but unavoidable:

What happens when a civilization loses confidence in its own values while its enemies remain completely convinced of theirs?

The threat of radical Islam, foreign and domestic, has not receded. It has spread.

The terrorists of 2000 wanted to murder Americans abroad, and the terrorists of 2001 wanted to destroy American lives and symbols on our homeland. Today’s Islamist threat can still take the form of terrorism, but it also operates through propaganda, political influence, ideological networks and efforts to reshape how Americans normalize, accept, and even cherish radical Islam.

The examples are no longer isolated. In August, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) promoted a back-to-school resource guide that blamed 9/11 on “American support for Israel” and recommended Osama bin Laden’s infamous “Letter to America” to students. After deserved backlash, the material was removed.

Imagine a curriculum about Pearl Harbor that treated Japanese propaganda as required reading while suggesting that American policy was fundamentally responsible for the attack.

We would immediately recognize the moral inversion.

If they did, would it be because religions of the far east aren't built on the same kind of barbarism those of Islamic countries are? Although some could reasonably wonder if today, any moral inversion emphasizing the National Socialist ideology that grew in Germany during WW2 would be considered acceptable.

The problem is moral asymmetry.

When Islamist extremists attack the West, we are told to examine the grievances that supposedly caused them to act.

When Western countries defend themselves, we are told that their very existence is the problem.

When Islamists or their sympathizers are criticized, the discussion immediately shifts to Islamophobia.

This moral relativism is one of the most dangerous weapons available to an extremist movement.

Because if there is no objective distinction between terrorism and self-defense, between murdering civilians and fighting terrorists, between democratic government and authoritarian rule, then there is no moral basis for defending civilization at all.

They understand something that many Western elites have forgotten, ideas matter.

Osama bin Laden understood that he was fighting not simply the American military but American pride. His objective was not merely to kill Americans. It was to convince Americans that their civilization was corrupt, illegitimate and unworthy of defending.

Twenty-five years later, we are helping him make that argument.

Some could say it all began with the Bush administration, which tried at the time to take steps to "convince" the Islamic world that American culture isn't "materialistic and lewd". Bush's appeasements are something Daniel Greenfield also brings up, and that there's a chilling number of people now in the MSM and on the left who're justifying Islamic terrorism:

“Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that,” President George W. Bush had claimed in remarks at a mosque after 9/11 while accompanied by terror-linked Islamists. “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace.”

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently asked the former president to talk about his mosque visit after the attacks to “make sure that our Muslim American citizens knew that we didn’t blame them for what had happened.” Bush chimed in, “I also made it clear that Islam was a religion of peace, not a religion of war, and that these people subverted their religion.”

Muslims, however, don’t agree. It’s not just the generation of Islamic terrorist attacks that have taken place in America since then, the vast majority of which were not organized or planned out by any central terror network like Al Qaeda, but by ordinary Muslims living in the United States.

Some of them may have even paid their taxes.

While Bush was nostalgically recalling his comments after 9/11, the father of Todd Beamer, one of the heroes who led the effort to retake Flight 93 from the Islamic terrorists who had hijacked it, was recording a commercial against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. David Beamer had not previously gotten involved in politics, but El-Sayed had been campaigning with Hasan Piker, a Turkish Muslim influencer who said that “America deserved 9/11” and recently told an interviewer that “pound for pound”, America was worse than Al Qaeda and that was too much.

What does it say that Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani, the two most prominent Muslim politicians right now, have both been tied to a Muslim who said, “America deserved 9/11”?

Or that the biggest expansion of Islamic political power in America came after Muslims rallied on behalf of Hamas after Oct 7 (Hasan Piker had defended Hamas as “a militant resistance comprised of orphaned soldiers born into a 77-year occupation” and dismissed its atrocities as “rape fantasies”) and in doing so hijacked the Democratic Party to elect terrorist supporters.

Their current crop of candidates includes Melat Kiros, a Colorado congressional candidate who refused to condemn a Muslim terrorist setting a Holocaust survivor on fire, Dariazila Avila Chevalier, a Muslim congressional candidate in New York City who attended a rally celebrating the Oct 7 massacres, Aisha Wahab, a Muslim congresswoman in California who called for diplomatic relations with the Taliban, and Hisham ‘Adam’ Hamawy, the former translator for the Blind Sheikh terror leader at the center of the World Trade Center bombing, and who had volunteered for an Al Qaeda front group. The mask is off and they aren’t hiding it anymore.

A vital lesson could be learned from this, that when nobody's vigilant enough, it's a "conservative" who could end up sowing the seeds of defeat, as Bush did when he basically groveled, and repeated his defeatist positions later on too. Why, the French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who was in office during 1974-81, was also "right-wing", and he enabled mass Muslim immigration to France that's taken a horrifying toll since. Even Ariel Sharon was supposedly "right-wing", and was another example who turned out to be a monster. That's why anybody who cares has to pay careful attention so that the right isn't infiltrated by bad actors as the left has. Today's generation of conservatives thankfully seems to have what it takes for that, but it still may not be enough. More vigilance is needed.

What 9-11 sadly led to an increase of over the past quarter century

Vince Coyner reflects on the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and how Orwellianism sadly led to some of the worst, most disastrous effects on society in over 25 years:

I must confess, I knew very little about Islam or Muslims at the time, and what little I knew was from headlines: the ’72 Munich Olympics, Ayatollah Khomeini’s takeover of Iran, the 1993 WTC bombing, the twin embassy bombings in 1998, and a few other events.

So I did some reading… Things like Bernard Lewis’s The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years, Dore Gold’s Hatred’s Kingdom, Steven Emerson’s American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, as well as anything I could get my hands on from Robert Spencer and David Horowitz.

That reading, along with observing actual events, made it clear we were seeing the revival of a 1,400-year clash of civilizations that had largely waned for most of the last 400 years. A crystal-clear result of 9/11 for me was the realization that Islam is simply incompatible with the United States.

But 9/11 turned out to be a catalyst for much more. George Bush, against all observable facts, claiming “Islam is peace,” was just the beginning and the latest iteration of political correctness that was beginning to infect America.

Although Americans were united in a way not seen in decades in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it would not last. The media would showcase every American wartime mistake and lionize those calling for America to withdraw.

By 2003, rallies were common, with activists calling George Bush “Hitler”, and in 2004, the Democrats would nominate a globalist, John Kerry, for president. Four years later, America would send Mr. “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” to the White House.

So despite how Bush did not act responsibly at the time, the left resorted to offensive slurs against him, yet never because of the wrongs he actually did. Such tactics became worse when Donald Trump was elected president.

The quarter-century following 9/11 would see “political correctness” meld the interests of Communists, environmentalists, gays, minorities, and Islam, and together they would morph into a largely anti-American party, i.e., Democrats. They were and are anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, and, fundamentally, anti-Western civilization. Their immediate need to protect the “religion of peace” started an avalanche of victimization that would pick up every minority or disgruntled group along the way.

Statues would come down, and not only those of Confederate Civil War generals, but men who built our history, men like Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and more. Language would change. Marriage, which had meant one man and one woman for more than 2,000 years of Western civilization, was suddenly something else.

Wearing a sombrero or dressing like an Indian for Halloween was suddenly cultural appropriation. The “Broken Windows” policing and “stop and frisk” approach to manifest criminals that had saved urban America from the devastating crime rates of the 1990s were replaced with “Defund the Police” and “community responders.”

Our borders were essentially eliminated, and blue states and cities decided that protecting invaders was more important than immigration law. Not to mention that millions of years of biology were erased by the sudden “reality” that men could become women and women could become men. And from that, children could be butchered without their parents’ consent.

For too many Americans, the legacy of September 11 is a nation that is something of a Bizarro world, where up is down, right is wrong, and anything pro-American is somehow bad.

I’m not one of them. For me, the legacy of September 11 is just the opposite. It reinforced much of what I already knew to be true and, regrettably, took for granted.

A lot of terrible things did indeed occur, with the saddest part being that Bush himself did nothing to prevent bad influences from taking hold, so he has some responsibility there too, and he would not support Trump's presidency. One of the worst things about modern tragedies is how phony "conservatives" enabled them to occur, with disastrous results.

Dubya failed to take warnings of terrorist attacks seriously in 2001

Catherine Salgado addressed the news of George W. Bush not taking the threat of 911 seriously prior to the tragedy:

Don't forget that jihadis who would become 9/11 hijackers were approved to enter our country, and even trained at U.S. flight schools. You'd think a bunch of Arabs interested only in controlling planes in flight and not in landings would set off alarm bells. But that would have required American politicians from both political parties and flight instructors to overcome their delusion of a century or more that Islam is a religion of peace, and that flagging suspicious behavior from Muslims is racist. Was that why the memo below didn't result in a contingency plan for if a hijack attack occurred? Something obviously got dropped, because in September 2001, when the hijackings did occur, there was no U.S. military response that went into prompt action.

BREAKING: George W. Bush was personally warned in May of 2001–via a top secret memorandum marked “For the President Only”—that Osama Bin Laden was planning spectacular attacks against the U.S. using hijacked aircraft.

The May 22, 2001 memo, prepared exclusively for President… pic.twitter.com/4MJxZN94O2

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 11, 2026

President William J. Clinton was also personally warned in a PDB that Osama Bin Laden was planning to attack the U.S. with hijacked aircraft pic.twitter.com/kqPHVGSR0U

— Billy Pandos (@billyp258) September 11, 2026

Westerners keep forgetting that Muslims pass down their goals of conquest from generation to generation and from country to country. We are not fighting isolated terrorist groups or radicalized individuals. We are fighting a global religious and political cult. Read more here: Ex-Muslim Warns Islam’s Threat Is Much More Than Terrorism. That is precisely the point that Bush ignored after 9/11, and that has caused Americans so much trial and trouble since then.

Also note the info on X telling that Bill Clinton ignored warnings of al Qaeda threats, and that too tells something. Since that time, there have been people who've come to depise Dubya for his failings, based on what he said at least 5 years ago. No doubt, there are plenty of 911 Families members who're outraged at him too, with reason.

Interestingly, at this year's 9-11 Memorial, former secretary of state Condoleeza Rice, who also caused damage to Israel based on how she carried out Dubya's demand for Israel to exit Gaza, had the following to say:

Condoleezza Rice, who served as White House national security adviser at the time of the attacks, provided another unusual moment by accepting a measure of responsibility for the failure to prevent them. Rice said she continued to feel profound pain that "those of us in authority on that day did not see the nature of the danger in time to prevent the attack of 9/11."

"We did what we knew how to do, but it was not enough," she said. Rice added: "I will always carry deep personal remorse for the pain that you, the families of the fallen, still feel, and for the trauma that our country endured."

Forget it, if she hasn't apologized for hers and Dubya's role in what led to October 7, 2023, then her alleged "take of responsibility" for September 11, 2001 remains unconvincing. There've been so many failures to be vigilant over the years on serious issues like these, and some would-be conservatives certainly have a lot of explaining to do.

What else did Milo Yiannopoulos do wrong?

A gay provocoteur who was supposedly a "conservative" has since broken the law on immigration in the USA, and has been deported. Based on what else is told here about Yiannapoulous, he was asking for it:

Disgraced British provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday and will remain in custody pending deportation, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday.

Yiannopoulos, a 41-year-old British citizen, was arrested at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. DHS said he legally entered the United States through New York City on May 14, 2019, but overstayed his visa.

An immigration judge issued Yiannopoulos a final order of removal on July 22 after he failed to appear for an immigration hearing, according to DHS. [...]

TMZ first reported that immigration officers had apprehended Yiannopoulos at the airport ahead of a Kanye West concert scheduled for Friday night in New Orleans.

Yiannopoulos previously served as West’s chief of staff and political director. The former Breitbart News editor also served as an unpaid summer intern for former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022.

Yiannopoulos’ career collapsed in 2017 after footage surfaced in which he argued that relationships between older men and younger boys could be a positive “coming-of-age” experience.

He stated that such relationships could “help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable sort of rock, where they can’t speak to their parents.”

That same year, footage surfaced of Yiannopoulos in 2016 singing at a Dallas bar as members of the crowd gave Nazi salutes. The bar’s owner said the staff began removing the group once the “Neo-Nazi type stuff” started, saying the establishment did not condone it.

Those vile statements of his involving children were repulsive, and it was humiliatingly bad what he did. How couldn't we have seen through this chalatan to begin with? He even recently indicated he was kowtowing to Islam, and that spoke volumes too. Taylor Greene's also a bad lot, and why isn't it shocking he'd work as an intern for her?

Anyway, it looks like he's already been shipped back to Britain, and may never have a chance to return to the USA. He really was useless for the conservative movement, and if he was trying to humiliate it in the long run, he sure did quite a job in that context. Maybe he should now languish in a prison cell, based on what he said about young boys, and his drivel is more than reason enough to fully ostracize him.

America before the dhimmitude propaganda took hold

Tim Rice tells about how the USA got to where it is now with Islam having taken hold in the quarter century since September 11, 2001:

It’s popular among a certain sort to point out that Islam has always been a fact of American life — Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran, don’t you know — but that’s not really true. Before 9/11, Islam was only tangentially relevant in American life. As recently as 1993, the journalist Robert Kaplan was still using the term “Moslems,” which feels like “Boer” or “Hottentot” or something else we left in the 19th century.

But on September 11, 2001, Islam and America collided, and the former has been on a speedrun in our country ever since.

It’s fascinating but not entirely surprising that an Islamic terror attack on the United States somehow led to the rapid mainstreaming of radical Islam in this country. Countries tend to import bits of former enemies’ cultures, like how we all drive Hondas and the Japanese love baseball. But the acceptance of even the most vile and un-American forms of Islam was hastened by the liberal obsession with fighting “Islamophobia” during the War on Terror, an arguably good intention that paved the road down which folks like Abdul El-Sayed now trod.

Our problem is not a lack of awareness necessarily — consumers of conservative media at least are familiar with things like the footwashing station in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and the semi-autonomous Muslim town in Texas. The problem is that even those of us paying attention don’t appreciate how quickly we got here.

As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, consider the scandal that rocked the 10th: the planned construction of an Islamic community center blocks away from the site of the terrorist attack. Dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque,” the project was almost universally derided. Howard Dean said the project was “a real affront to people who lost their lives” on 9/11, while then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called for the builders to pick a different site.

It’s hard to imagine Democrats reacting that way now, and that’s a problem. But even in 2011, things had gotten away from us. Reid and Dean broke with President Barack Obama, who defended the project. Obama may not be a secret Kenyan Muslim, but he sure did his best to make criticizing Islam socially unacceptable.

Even years before, both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were already enabling footholds, and there were alleged conservatives who were just as hostile as some leftists to the whole notion of daring to speak negatively about the Religion of Peace. Tucker Carlson's quite possibly one of those. Many of these same people are more than utterly willing to call even 911 Families "bigots and xenophobes", and in the past quarter century, I remember a man from Titusville, PA, claiming to be a teacher, who said that while he may not call a kid whose firefighting father died in the WTC tragedy a bigot, he would be perfectly willing to say he was wrong to come within even miles of saying anything negative about the Religion of Peace. Its makes no difference whether somebody's willing to employ crude language or not, what's offensive there is that somebody in a position of "education" is basically saying survivors of 911 and their families have no moral authority and are systematically forbidden to address serious issues like these in any way, shape or form. And it should be noted the man I speak of later embraced a book laced with anti-American metaphors that minimized sexual violence. That man, to my knowledge, died 4 years ago at just 57 years old, of an illness, but the damage people like him did to morale and unity is stunning. And that people like him were willing to support books with repulsive viewpoints speaks volumes.

I've thought at times about what Rice says on the high liklihood the Democrats today wouldn't say a word against building a mosque near Ground Zero. And the election of Zohran Mamdani to mayoral office in NYC is additionally chilling, because it speaks volumes about what kind of electorate now resides in the Big Apple, and not just Muslims themselves. It also makes clear how many non-Muslim leftists now reside in a burg I myself never felt much attachment to, and that spells serious trouble going forward. Especially if they reelect Mamdani in the next few years.

John Daniel Davidson now claims Ben Shapiro's a "neo-con"

The Federalist editor John Daniel Davidson continues to go insane in his claims it's "neo-cons" like himself who're responsible for supposed problems like attacking vice president J.D. Vance:

As we near the halfway point of President Donald Trump’s second term, the neocon establishment is openly scheming to reclaim the Republican Party.

That’s why they’re attacking his proxy and likely successor, Vice President J.D. Vance, attempting to paint him as a socialist of the “woke right.” These attacks are being launched by the same people who opposed Trump in 2016, who derided the America First agenda as protectionist, socialist, isolationist, and denounced the president as a fascist and a xenophobe over his immigration agenda. The NeverTrumpers are back, and they’re recycling the same attacks they leveled against the president a decade ago, aiming them now at Vance in a bid to retake the GOP.

The NeverVance campaign has been going strong, especially on X, ever since Vance said in an interview last week on Fox News’ The Will Cain Show that “You don’t stop socialism by throwing slogans at people about the free market. You stop socialism by making people’s lives better.” He was responding to the primary success of a handful of DSA-affiliated Democrats who are selling voters on the idea of socialism as the answer to affordability problems.

Vance’s crime, according to critics like Ben Shapiro and Erick Erickson, was acknowledging the affordability issue is real and proposing that government should do something about it. Shapiro responded with a bizarre post about free markets and process neutralism, while Erickson wrote a lengthy essay arguing that Vance thinks low prices are bad and that America needs a strongman to manage its decline. [...]

Neocons like Shapiro are not making an actual argument, either for the free market or against socialism. They use these as slop terms to express dislike for Vance. Indeed, Vance’s shot last week at those who would “throw slogans at people about the free market” is well-aimed in this regard. What we have in America today, across vast swaths of the economy, is not really a free market but a rigged market full of moral hazard, overregulation, and manufactured scarcity — precisely in the industries that hit families the hardest.

While Erickson is a bad lot himself, I've never heard of Shapiro being accused of being a neo-con before, and while Shapiro has said some stuff I disagree with, something tells me Davidson's much too eager to take swips at him while excusing anything appalling Vance has done so far. What Davidson's telling here only hints he hasn't mended any of his own woke rhetoric, nor his negative stands on Israel. And then, Davidson even makes a questionable statement about the following subject:

Why is this happening? One reason is mass legal immigration, which has brought millions of foreign nationals into our country on H-1B visas, taking jobs in tech and software development that should have gone to American workers. Recent data from the Labor Department showed that through the third quarter of this fiscal year, employers filled more than 830,000 positions with foreign workers on the H-1B program — nearly a third of which went to software development positions.

Umm, how do we know none of those jobs went to illegal immigrants? And how do we know the legal ones didn't study for these particular jobs? They're not allowed to seek employment in the USA, if they think that's where they'll find the best wages? All that aside, some of the people Davidson's attacked don't read as neo-cons at all, and it sounds more like he's just desperate to belittle everyone else in his own confused quests. This is another example of how Davidson's not worth listening to, and perhaps it's about time I just ignored him altogether, because no matter the content in his "op-eds", he fails to convince, and the Federalist itself has gone way downhill for a number of years now. People like Davidson simply aren't worth reading.

John Daniel Davidson still gives fishy signs, even if he now ostensibly takes up a legitimate issue, while other writers do a better job

The Federalist editor John Daniel Davidson, who previously wrote some very reprehensible screeds against bringing down Iran, and even attacked Israel, is now seemingly taking up a more legitimate subject, that being Islamic entrenchment in America, but he still gives troubling signs he's not grasping the full picture, or appreciating certain measures taken to prevent sharia law being imposed in the USA:

What might that look like in America in 2026, practically speaking? Well, Democratic lawmakers in Massachusetts recently introduced a bill to create a “Muslim Commission” to place Muslims in state government and influence policymaking. In addition to assessing programs and policies in state agencies and recommending new legislation, the commission will serve as a “liaison between government and private interest groups,” and accept private donations and grants.

On the local level, it means Muslim immigrant communities recreating versions of their home countries here in America. In Hamtramck, Michigan, the first Muslim-majority city in America, the all-Muslim city council recently voted to legalize backyard animal sacrifice over the objections of the non-Muslim minority. Sharia courts, which function as putatively voluntary arbitrage bodies on matters of family law, have in recent years drawn the attention of some Republican officeholders. Yet efforts to “outlaw Sharia” miss the mark, mistaking the effect for the cause. The reason Sharia courts are growing across America is because we have brought in a large population of Muslims that want to use them. Even El-Sayed has said he has an “obligation” to follow Sharia law until the day he dies.

While there's a fully valid argument that it's bad to allow Islamists into the country, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make efforts to pass laws to prohibit sharia courts, regardless of whether Muslims are in the USA or not. Same with laws to prohibit communism. And if Davidson, the same man who opposes toppling Iran's Islamofascist government, is against outlawing sharia, that's troubling, as is the following:

The results have been mixed, to say the least. The Muslims of Britain do not have the same priorities as the left-wing managerial class represented by the likes of Labour’s erstwhile prime minister, Kier Starmer. They also don’t necessarily conceive of themselves as ideologues making common cause with the left. Rather, they tend to view themselves as a distinct ethno-religious community with its own distinct priorities and commitments, not least of which right now is Gaza.

Indeed, the appearance of independent Muslim political candidates in Britain in the 2024 elections — candidates that might have once run under the Labour Party — was the direct result of the Israel-Hamas conflict. There were five such candidates, all of whom won thanks to large numbers of voters in their districts who say the number one political issue for them is the conflict in Gaza. They delivered huge upsets to Labour in areas that had long been secure. Elsewhere, senior Labour politicians in areas with large Muslim populations narrowly fended off pro-Palestine independent candidates and saw their majorities drastically diminished. Because a majority of British Muslims are more likely to have a positive view of Hamas than a negative one, it simply made political sense for single-issue candidates in 2024 to run on a pro-Hamas platform.

Is Davidson implying that fighting against a savage entity following the same Islamic doctrine as many other Muslim societies is wrong? Or that that's the only reason Muslims in Britain voted for Muslim candidates? Well that's disturbing, and there's something fishy about this, not the least being that he apparently buys into taqqiya that would imply Israel's the sole cause of their tyranny. Davidson is one truly naive disgrace.

Geert Wilders, writing on Breitbart, has a much better view of the situation:

The holiday season is not over yet, but it is time for some reflection. Those who have been travelling in Western Europe will undoubtedly have noticed how our continent is rapidly changing.

From Bergen, Norway, to Cork, Ireland, from Salzburg, Austria, to Florence, Italy, from Hamburg, Germany, to Perpignan, France, everywhere the number of djellabas, headscarves, even niqabs, has dramatically risen.

The media talk about heatwaves, but none of them dares to mention the demographic wave. Its effects on our economy (drained), our way of life (diminished), and our well-being (squandered) are profound. And while the heat will pass, the change in population will not.

Across Western Europe, Islamic radicals are increasingly asserting themselves. Women are intimidated. Jews face rising antisemitism. Homosexuals are attacked. Critics of Islam require police protection. Yet Europe’s political class refuses to connect the dots.

Our countries are rapidly Islamizing. Politicians, the media, the police are very keen to show off their “respect” for Islam. Is it respect or submission? In the Netherlands, Islam has already become the largest religion among people under-25. It is realistic to think that by mid-century, Islam will be the largest religion in the land – larger than Christianity.

We are already reaping the bitter harvest of this transformation. The Dutch government, once Israel’s staunchest ally, now takes the lead in advocating sanctions against the Jewish state. Our changing demographics, and its electoral repercussions, have prompted politicians of the left and centre-right to internalise the malevolent lie that there is an Israeli genocide going on in Gaza.

Our streets are taken over by neo-Marxist and Islamic extremists, staging violent demonstrations in favour of Palestinian terrorists and Iranian mullahs. Our traditional religion, our values, our national identity are being replaced. We are becoming strangers in our home, paralyzed by a fear to assert our national interest and back our allies.

While we stand at the precipice of a silent conquest, the ruling establishment keeps singing the praise of cultural and religious diversity. But if we do not halt immigration, we will soon be a mono-cultural society again. No longer Judeo-Christian, but Islamic.

Absolutely correct. And 2 Republicans from New York have warned about the rising influence of socialism in the USA:

Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) are warning that socialist ideas are gaining traction among young Americans as the country heads toward the midterm elections, pointing to the education system, the appeal of “free stuff,” and the experiences of countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and the former Yugoslavia as they argue against bringing similar policies to the United States.

Tenney and Malliotakis discussed the rise of socialism and left-wing politics in an upcoming episode of the Republican Study Committee’s Right to the Point podcast. Breitbart News obtained an advance transcript of the interview ahead of its release.

The interview comes as both parties turn toward the midterm elections, with Tenney and Malliotakis focusing much of the discussion on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other socialist candidates.

Both lawmakers brought personal experience to the discussion. Malliotakis said her mother fled Communist Cuba in 1959, while Tenney said she grew up spending significant time in Communist Yugoslavia, later studied there, and worked for the Yugoslav consulate during the Sarajevo Olympics.

Malliotakis argued that socialist systems begin by gradually expanding government power through measures such as price controls and restrictions on individual freedoms.

“It is sort of the baby steps where they begin to implement changes. They begin to take away freedoms. They begin to ration things, to implement price controls that are very destructive to the economy,” she said.

She pointed to Cuba and Venezuela, arguing that policies advocated by Mamdani resemble policies implemented in those countries.

“They want to seize the means of production. They did that, particularly with the oil sector in Venezuela,” Malliotakis said. “They want to abolish private property rights. They want to have government-run supermarkets.”

It's vital to note that Islamism could be rising among young Americans too, even hidden in plain sight, and that too is bad. Also note that the government-run groceries Mamdani's opening are operating according to halal customs, and that's also very telling. And then, Bill Maher has an interesting observation on immigrants not assimilating:

During his “New Rules” segment at the end of the show, Maher said, “And finally, new rule: If you want the American Dream, you have to take the American values. There’s no bigger issue in electoral politics these days than immigration. And there’s no doubt, at least in my mind, that both sides went to extremes, Biden’s policy of open doors, and then Trump’s policy of broken windows. Now I’m on the page of America doing what it used to do so well, stealing hard-working, talented immigrants from around the world and making them Americans. But something has changed in the equation. Now most immigrants still want to assimilate, but some now have this other attitude of melting pot? F*ck you, you melt.”

Maher also takes issue with Zohran Mamdani's opening government-run groceries, which again reeks of communist tactics mixed with sharia:

Maher said, “He’s opening these city-run stores, grocery stores. I don’t think they have one yet, but that’s the plan, that will sell meat and bread and other items, I assume, for 30% below market rate. His quote was, the Mayor said, I look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store win. Well, it’s not competition if you’re undercutting legitimate businessmen by 30%. I wonder who’s going to win. But who’s subsidizing that, who’s paying for that? I guess richer people, and that’s the plan.”

And then, as Josh Hammer at PJ Media says, electoral integrity issues aren't about Israel, but about Islam:

More than any political cycle in memory, the 2026 primary campaign season has been marked by frequent, and often hysterical, condemnations of the influence of the so-called "Israel lobby."

After the conspiratorial anti-Trump gadfly Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) lost his Republican congressional primary in northern Kentucky in May, he quipped about the Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL officer who defeated him: "I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv."

Way to question the patriotism of a decorated SEAL Team Six veteran, Tom. Keep it classy!

On the Democratic side, the bogeyman du jour has been the America Israel Public Affairs Committee. Some successful Democratic candidates, such as Abdul El-Sayed in Arab-heavy Michigan, rode anti-AIPAC fervor to victory. And some losing candidates, such as the comically corrupt Cori Bush in St. Louis, blamed AIPAC for their rejection. In her concession speech, Bush vowed to dismantle AIPAC's "kingdom."

Your loss couldn't possibly be because you defrauded two federal relief programs during COVID-19, could it, Cori?

These (literal) losers are barking up the wrong tree. [...]

Last year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia deployed the single largest sum of money of any foreign country — nearly $92 million — to lobby for its interests in Washington. Turkey was fourth; Israel wasn't anywhere close. In the two decades beginning in 2001, the kingdom — whose nationals included most of the 9/11 hijackers that same year — retained the single most agents registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (148).

Saudi frenemy Qatar, the spiritual and financial home of the Brotherhood worldwide, is routinely the single largest foreign funder of American higher education. The Qataris cut massive FARA checks to land favorable coverage with prized outlets, such as Tucker Carlson's cesspool of a podcast. The emirate owns a piece of the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals, and even a chunk of the Empire State Building.

And I thought it was bad enough Qatar may own a large share of the Shard office building in London, UK. If Massie - and Davidson - have nothing to say about Saudia Arabia's influence, that can say all we need to know about where they stand. People like the latter now stand as unconvincing in their alleged concerns over Islamofascism, mostly because they won't jettison their anti-Israel obsessions. And in the long run, that could be very costly. Update: I just found 2 of Davidson's posts on X that say quite a bit more about where he really stands:

If this reporting is accurate, it vindicates those who have been warning about the dangerous influence of Christian Zionism inside the US government and the Trump admin. Protestant dispensationalism should have no place in US foreign policy, and it's not antisemitic to say so.

— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) March 3, 2026

So I guess even mild criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza is considered “antisemitic.” What nonsense. Israel and Netanyahu are not beyond criticism, and pointing out the horrifying civilian casualties in Gaza—including of children and noncombatants—isn’t some kind of double standard aimed at Jews. To suggest so, and smear @RCamposDuffy in the process, is disgusting and dishonest in the extreme.

— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) July 23, 2026

Well. And this was just a few months ago he spewed out this garbage that actually hurts the Christian movement Davidson supposedly belongs to, and makes clear he really is hostile to Israel. In that case, I'm not convinced he's actually opposed to the Islamic religion at all. And I don't think he wants to help Arab/Iranian women find a better life either. Just a shameful man this Davidson is, and now he's really showing his true colors.

Curtis Sliwa offends 911 Families, and indicates he's pro-Islam

I think the following disgust makes clear why Sliwa lost the election for NYC mayor almost 2 years ago:

Curtis Sliwa on Thursday told relatives of 9/11 victims who want New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani kept away from this year’s Ground Zero commemoration to “stop being sore losers,” arguing that they should respect the office even if they disagree with the person holding it.

“He’s the mayor. Stop being sore losers!” Sliwa told reporters Thursday. “You knew this is Zohran Mamdani. He was never a fake, phony, fraudulent, fugazi like a lot of politicians. He told you who he was.”

And what does that mean? Does Sliwa actually believe 911 Families voted for Mamdani?!? Or is Sliwa saying that because Mamdani made some of his repellent beliefs and platforms known, they should've literally accepted that a whole segment of NYC's populace would turn traitor by voting for him? I'm not sure what exactly Sliwa's driving at here, but the following should be telling something:

Sliwa also revisited a controversial exchange involving Cuomo and radio host Sid Rosenberg during the closing stretch of the 2025 mayoral campaign.

Rosenberg had joked with Cuomo, who was running as an independent, that Mamdani would cheer for the terrorists if another September 11 attack occurred while he held office. Cuomo chuckled before responding, “That’s another problem.”

Sliwa said Thursday that the comment damaged Cuomo politically at a moment when the former governor had been gaining momentum.

“He was gaining traction, and then he made that stupid remark and then didn’t handle it well,” Sliwa said. “And then Zohran exploited the hell out of it, as he should.”

“That was Islamophobic,” Sliwa added.

This says all you need to know what's wrong with Sliwa, and explains perfectly why he never discussed Mamdani in his own interview on Rosenberg's program. Now, maybe Rosenberg's the one who actually made a mistake there by joking about a serious topic, but it's bizarre how Sliwa doesn't seem to notice, and only seems interested in Cuomo. One of the commentors on the article said:

By using the word "Islamophobic" Sliwa has lost all credibility. As anyone with a functional brain knows it is simply a term of manipulation and abuse.

I always thought there was something really fishy about Sliwa.

He's just another two-bit political poser who will say or do whatever he has to for a photo-op or sound-bite.

His disrespect for those who lost family members in the 9-11 attack by Islam reveals what an iniquitous TOAD he really is.

Henceforth thou shalt be known as Slime-bag Sliwa!!!

For all we know, Sliwa was quite possibly helping Mamdani secretly during the election. Sliwa's made clear that as an alleged Republican, he's a poor example for a mayoral candidate, and it's to be hoped his repulsive attack on 911 Families will end his career aspirations. I hesitate to think if Sliwa would've helped build up Islam's presence in NYC more than it already is now. Another commentor said:

Curtis, calling 9/11 families “sore losers” is disgraceful. They didn’t lose an election. They lost husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers to Islamist terrorists.

I visited Ground Zero when it was still essentially two enormous holes in the ground. I saw some foreigners standing in front of it smiling for pictures with a disposable camera. You don’t get it comrade.

Seeing people smiling for pictures in front of the place where nearly 3,000 people had just been murdered enraged me. I grabbed the camera, threw it over the fence, yelled at them, and Americans around me cheered.

You want to stand in front of the place where 3,000 Americans were murdered and treat it like a smiling tourist photo op? Go fK yourself.

And spare me the “Islamophobic” label. Criticizing Mamdani’s associations, or objecting to Hasan Piker saying America “deserved 9/11,” is not hatred of Muslims. Calling criticism “Islamophobia” does not answer the criticism.

You say we should “respect the office.” Fine. Start by respecting the dead and the families who buried them. America is not FOR you comrade.

Sliwa certainly made a pariah of himself. For all we know, he's probably of the Tucker Carlson crowd. He has no business representing NYC on anything, and he's disgraced the Guardian Angels security patrol movement he co-founded in the 1970s. If there's anybody else who doesn't belong anywhere near the 911 Memorial service, it's Sliwa.

Federalist writer Eddie Scarry lets his hostility to Israel poke through the seams

Here's another example of how the Federalist's writers are going downhill, as their contributor Eddie Scarry, in pretending neo-cons are truly the ones against J.D. Vance, goes so far as to attack support for Israel from the right-wing side, and perpetuates the RINO opposition to the war on Iran's dictatorship:

Worth slightly more attention is what Thiessen wrote this week in The Washington Post. Recall that Thiessen is the Post content creator and former George W. Bush speechwriter whom Trump, for inexplicable reasons that may be explained in the future, has reportedly been reading and consulting privately about foreign affairs. Thiessen took an opportunity on Thursday to continue the very obviously coordinated attack on Vance planned by a slimy mix of neocons, lazy Republicans, and Israel Firsters.

Evaluating the Iran war, which has grown increasingly unpopular, even among Republicans, Thiessen wrote, “Perhaps it’s time for the president to take the advice of those who have delivered him success in Iran — not those like Vance who have failed him.”

Thiessen blames the failures in Iran not on what certainly look like short-sighted decisions by the commander in chief, but on Vance, whose primary responsibility in the conflict has been negotiating its end with Iran’s leaders. That’s at least honest. But let’s look at what Thiessen says a real victory, without any negotiation, would look like.

He wrote that the war’s objectives are: “eliminate remaining [Iranian] leadership figures; further entomb Iran’s nuclear sites; take out Iran’s remaining ballistic missile sites; destroy the economic and energy infrastructure that provides the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with a financial lifeline, as well as key highways, railroads, airports and seaports by which the regime gets financial assistance from bordering countries; and demolish Iran’s remaining defense industrial base so it cannot rebuild its destroyed capabilities.” Then, with presumably a straight face, Thiessen said, “That’s it.”

Oh, is that all?!

Well, not really. Thiessen, perhaps to his credit, didn’t even pretend to hide the ball. Though having concluded, “That’s it” — just the complete decimation of a global energy supplier’s entire transportation infrastructure and economy — Thiessen went on to do the equivalent of, But wait! There’s more! He then said the U.S. would simply have to commit to keeping American troops just off the shore of Iran in perpetuity and “provide covert support” to Iranian rebels, in hopes that they might fight their own government. You know, just like they are now! Wait, that’s not actually happening, is it? Oh well!

Mr. Scarry ignores so much of previous research it's not even funny. He relies on reports from the otherwise shoddy AP Wire, doesn't pay any attention to the Tea Party Patriots research on the USA public's support for the war, and even ignores that much of the Iranian inhabitants are unarmed, making it difficult to fight against the Iranian government savages. If that's how Scarry's going to act, can somebody like that be counted on to fight against the Islamofascist regime being established in Europe? Or even the USA itself?

With this, the Federalist continues to send troubling signs they're not dedicated to freedom and liberty any more than say, Ron Paul, who was probably the role model for some of their more questionable writers. It's utterly head-shaking as it's sad they're becoming as overrun with phonies like Scarry, much like the Democrats are becoming overrun with Islamists and communists.

Co-founder of the Federalist continues the Orweillian ignorance act

Perhaps it's not a shock, but Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of the Federalist, has indicated he's against the war on Iran's tyrants, despite previous research telling there are Americans who believe Iran's Islamofascists should be brought down, and tries to frame it all as some kind of "neocon/never-Trump/RINO" conspiracy, all the while not willing to admit he actually represents such disgraceful movements:

It is inarguable that the war in Iran is a massive drag on Donald Trump’s numbers, as well as those of the Republican Party heading into November. This is largely driven by consistently high gas prices, which also drive up the price of everything else.

Trump obviously knows this, which is why he’s been searching for an off-ramp for months. He knows he was elected to get gas prices down and the economy in shape (which he did until the war jammed up the gears).

But a major problem for Trump’s presidency right now is that nearly everyone outside his inner circle pushing for this war — and this includes the entirety of so-called conservative pundits who never found a war they weren’t willing to make others fight and pay for — also hates Trump (and especially J.D. Vance) and sees the war’s negative effect on his popularity as a secondary benefit of the war they’ve been salivating over for decades. To them, his declining numbers are a feature, not a bug.

With the Iran war, the NeverTrump neocons have gotten everything they ever dreamed of — war (which they love), and a massive political quagmire for Trump that threatens to consume the rest of his presidency and destroy any future political chances of J.D. Vance and the entire MAGA/America First movement.

Boy, this guy sure is clever and cunning, trying to do what the British call "fobbing off" the blame on everyone else but himself, all the while pretending he's actually a Trump supporter himself, but in reality, chances are very high he's actually a Vance supporter for all the wrong reasons. Assuming he supposedly opposes having an Islamic caliphate established in Europe, what Davis is doing decidedly contradicts any claim he might make that he's against having Islamofascism conquer Europe. Seriously, I'm not convinced people like him are against the Religion of Peace at all. Period.

I sadly predicted the Federalist would not debate the points of the Tea Party Patriots' polling research, and Davis' bizarre propaganda screed certainly confirms that, more or less. The Federalist is once again proving they're a blight upon conservatism, and an insult to anybody who's against totalitarianism conquering the world. What if it turns out Davis has no genuine issues with NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, or even communism? He also ignores very valid reasons why Iran's Islamofascist leaders should be taken down, and is practically undermining efforts to protect the USA in the long run. We can only hope the Federalist's losing audience they don't need over their disgraceful behavior, which again only obscures challenging polls that tell a different story than the ludicrous narrative they sadly want to follow.

Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges are still a danger being hidden underground

Recent reports warn that Iran's dictatorship has moved their uranium enrichment tools to a deep underground complex in Natanz:

Iran transferred thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges to underground facilities deep inside Natanz's Pickaxe Mountain last fall, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing Israeli and US officials.

The centrifuges were transferred to the mountain following the 12-day war in June 2025.

During the war, American and Israeli strikes pummeled three of Iran’s main nuclear sites, in an operation the US called "Midnight Hammer."

US and Israeli officials noted that the transfer of sensitive equipment inside the mountain increases concerns that Tehran is working to ensure continued uranium enrichment, even in the event of a large-scale military attack on its soil.

Pickaxe Mountain is located south of the Natanz nuclear complex, the site of two of Iran’s uranium enrichment plants bombed in June 2025.

The tunnel facility under construction at Pickaxe Mountain wasn't targeted in either of the wars, according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a US-based think-tank focused on nuclear non-proliferation.

Satellite imagery shows that the complex was carved to a depth of more than 100 meters below bedrock, making it deeper and more fortified than the Fordow enrichment facility, a highly fortified, underground uranium enrichment facility.

I suppose the RINOs at the Federalist are okay with this? I noticed one of their writers publishing stealth propaganda against the war on Iran just late last month, and continuing their attacks on Mark Levin as well. Oh yes, and even sugarcoating JD Vance, despite how otherwise poor and questionable his own dedication to civilized values and liberty is. And the writer even made sure to scapegoat Israel stealthily too. Writers like those at the Federalist are the reason this war is being prolonged, and also puts in serious doubt whether they're really concerned about Islamofascism's infiltrations into Europe. It also makes clear they don't put much value on concepts like selflessness, let alone caring about the lives and safety of innocent and defenseless women. This is why the war has to be waged, and we can only hope the military is doing what it can to put a stop to Pickaxe Mountain's own chamber of horrors without letting the whinings of RINOs like the Federalist's get the better of them.

JD Vance shows his true colors on Joe Rogan's podcasts

The USA vice president is proving to be the one of the worst omens for Israel, and making matters worse is that he aired horrific viewpoints on the podcast of a man who already gave indications he was hostile to Israel too:

U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested on Wednesday that some elements within the Israeli government backed an influence campaign aimed at undermining the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, while emphasizing that Israel remains a U.S. ally.

Speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Vance said, “I think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal.”

“There was a Times story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal,” Vance said. “It lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government.”

He said he has been accused of taking “marching orders from Tucker Carlson” and that “there’s just so much bullsh** out there when what I’m actually trying to do is accomplish what the president of the United States told me to accomplish.”

The vice president said he had no objection to Israel attempting to influence U.S. policy, calling such efforts a routine part of international diplomacy.

“A lot of other countries do,” Vance said. “I think some are better at it than others. I think the Israelis are definitely more effective at it than most. But I wouldn’t say that they’re the only effective country by any means that tries to influence American politics.”

“I mean, why wouldn’t you?” he said. “It’s a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people. And so, of course, they’re going to try to persuade Americans. They’re going to try to move Americans in one direction or another. I think that’s just the nature of the beast.”

I think the use of the word "beast" is disturbing, and no matter what he says about not objecting to Israel trying to influence USA policy, it's clear he is disturbingly biased. Ruthie Blum addressed the news like this:

As much as I dislike citing Maya Angelou—and absolutely loathe using a single plural pronoun to describe a single noun—one of the late activist-poet’s famous quotes is so spot on that it bears repeating: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

This certainly applies to U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who illustrated it most recently on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

Yes, during a nearly three-hour chat with the most-streamed podcaster on Spotify, Vance yet again showed us just who he is.

Not that it was tough to do with a host like Rogan, who didn’t challenge a word his interviewee said. Oh, other than asking him what “MoU” stands for and expressing surprise that “dove” in the political context is the opposite of “hawk.”

Where blaming the Jews and Israel for the doomed memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Republic was concerned, there was no pushback. On the contrary, Rogan goaded Vance to keep going down his embarrassing rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.

These included the groyper line about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s deep ties to the Mossad or the CIA. It was as though anti-Israel political commentators and podcasters Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens prepped the VP for the one-on-one. They undoubtedly were pleased with his performance.

Take the following passage, for instance:

“I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and derail the deal,” he said, referring to the MoU with the Islamic Republic that his boss, U.S. President Donald Trump, had declared dead in the water mere days earlier.

Nonetheless, Vance continued in this vein, totally omitting two facts: that Tehran has been blitzing the Gulf (his only mention of the countries in that region is to say that they’re gung-ho for the MoU); and that Israel has been totally out of the fray for many weeks.

Well he certainly isn't helping to end the Iran war sooner than it could be done. Stuff like this also puts his sincerity regarding Europe into doubt. What if it turned out he had some responsibility for getting former Hungarian premiere Viktor Orban voted out? It remains to be seen if Vance will apologize for causing all the trouble he's going to cause with his conspiracy theory tactics, which aren't helping the situation one bit. Just plain embarrassing.

Update: here's what Fox News' Brian Kilmeade has to say about the subject.

Why recognizing Ahmed al-Sharaa as legitimate is bad

Amine Ayoub wrote about why the Trump administration's continued recognition of Islamists like Ahmed al-Sharaa is bad news:

The recent declaration by President Donald Trump indicating a willingness to remove Syria from the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism marks a perilous pivot in American foreign policy. Coupled with optimistic projections regarding an Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Washington appears to be rushing toward a premature stabilization narrative in the Levant. At the center of this strategy is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the interim Syrian president who assumed power following the dramatic collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Sharaa's sudden elevation from an international terrorist to a prospective diplomatic partner is not a triumph of moderate reform. Instead, it represents the most sophisticated mutation of Salafi-jihadist ideology observed in the modern era, posing a severe long-term threat to Western security and regional minorities.

The Illusion of Transformation

To understand the danger of the current U.S. trajectory,we must examine the meticulous career of Sharaa, previously known by his battlefield moniker, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Sharaa is a veteran of the global jihadist movement who gained operational experience fighting American forces alongside al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Following his subsequent incarceration at Camp Bucca, he spearheaded the creation of Jabhat al-Nusra, which operated as al-Qaeda’s official Syrian franchise.

Under his command, the group executed horrific suicide operations, systematically targeted religious minorities, and enforced an uncompromising version of Islamic law. His subsequent break with al-Qaeda and the creation of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, were widely interpreted by Middle East experts as tactical maneuvers rather than genuine ideological transformations.

The institutionalization of HTS under Sharaa demonstrates how modern radical groups adapt their vocabulary for Western consumption without abandoning their core Islamist objectives.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, so read the rest. What the Trump administration's doing, continuing to give al-Sharaa legitimacy, is a very bad example, and when the Democrats don't raise any objections to the administration's dealings with al-Sharaa, you know something's wrong.

Opposition grows against selling military planes to Turkey

Benjamin Netanyahu urged Donald Trump not to sell F35 jets to Turkey:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced strong opposition to the possibility of the US selling F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey, following comments by US President Donald Trump indicating that he is considering approving the deal.

In an interview with CNN, Netanyahu argued that such a move would undermine regional stability and reward a government that has repeatedly adopted hostile positions toward both Israel and the US.

"Turkey is not a friendly state to the US," Netanyahu said, describing the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as "a regime that's infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the US."

Turkey under Erdogan has made clear they're as dangerous to Israel as Iran is, and the whole notion the USA would sell them military tools is despicable as it's also dangerous. Why, what if, just like Iran, Turkey's also working on nuclear development, and one day has weapons similar to what Iran's had until recently? Then nothing was solved to begin with. Also, what if Erdogan and his minions are planning to subject the country to Islamic sharia dictates? Another reason why they can't be allowed to posess western-developed weapons.

This issue comes as recent polls show Israelis are losing confidence in Trump on security issues:

The share of Israelis who believe that Israel’s security is a central consideration of President Donald Trump fell to a record low as Democratic support for Israel in the US continued to decline, according to two new polls on Tuesday.

A new poll from the Israel Democracy Institute found that, amid widening disagreements in Israel over US efforts to broker a new nuclear deal with Iran, the share of Israelis who believe Trump prioritizes Israel’s security had seen a “collapse" from 44% in May to 28% in June, pollsters said.

The survey, which polled 603 Jewish respondents and 151 Arab respondents from June 28 to July 1, found that among Jewish respondents, the belief that Israel can fully rely on Trump has plummeted by 38 points between March and June 2026.

Just over one-third of Israelis said they believed Israel’s strategic security situation is better today than it was before the war with Iran. The margin of error was 3.57 percentage points.

It's also reported a poll conducted in part by the AP Wire tells there's a considerable number of Jewish Americans who're hostile to Israel, and quite possibly even favorable to Zohran Mamdani. Assuming that poll has any weight to it, that too is disturbing, and very sad.

Update: also note how Trump's continuing relations with the new Syrian despot, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and that too is troubling.

Update 2: John Fetterman's the only liberal who's willing to oppose the sale of weapons to Turkey.

Does Vietnam-era mentality continue in the USA?

If the following poll data says anything, the mindset opposed to seriously defeating the Iranian dictatorship continues in the USA:

A majority of Americans want the United States to end the war with Iran now, according to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll.

The survey, which was taken Wednesday through Friday, asked participants, “The Conflict with Iran: What Should the U.S. Do Now?” CBS reported Sunday.

Seventy-eight percent said the nation should end the conflict now, while 22 percent said continue the conflict until Iran gives up more:

CBS/YouGov poll | 6/17-6/19

Do you think the U.S. should end the conflict with Iran now, or should it continue the conflict until Iran gives
up more?
End the conflict now 78%
Continue the conflict until Iran gives up more 22%
——
Do you consider the conflict with Iran to have… https://t.co/1fuGXyZcXD pic.twitter.com/UESuDVdYkC

— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) June 21, 2026

The poll also surveyed Republicans, asking them, “What Should the U.S. Do Now?”

Sixty percent of all Republicans said the nation should end the conflict now and 56 percent of “MAGA” Republicans agreed. Forty percent of Republicans said the nation should continue the conflict until Iran gives up more, while 44 percent of “MAGA” Republicans agreed.

“This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,519 U.S. adults interviewed between June 17-19, 2026. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.4 points,” the article noted.

Now this is coming from a MSM business, so for all we know, it could be faked and distorted. Even so, if there's anything to it, it'll just further make this a most discouraging situation, considering there appears to be a sad case of those in the USA who won't study reality seriously. There's already people in Israel who're understandably worried about the deal with Iran, and if it leaves the current dictatorship in place, that's what's bad.

JD Vance sets a most divisive example

I don't know what exactly is in the final "deal" between the USA and Iran, something I'll try to comment on another time, but for now, vice president J.D. Vance is not improving the situation with attacks on Israel in regards to Lebanon:

The harsh criticism leveled against Israel by U.S. Vice President JD Vance has sparked angry reactions.

Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida wrote: “Israel is our greatest ally and strongest partner in the Middle East. The evil Iranian regime wants to wipe BOTH of us off the face of the Earth. That will never happen because we will ALWAYS stand together."

“America’s unwavering support for Israel’s defense helps make the America First agenda possible, the U.S. stronger, and the world a safer place," he stressed.

Professor Jeffrey Lax of New York University, a prominent activist for the Jewish community and in the fight against antisemitism and discrimination against pro-Israel professors and students, was even sharper in his criticism.

“The most sickening part of JDVance's mid-book tour press conference? Right here, where he accuses Israel(!) of attacking civilian population centers in Beirut when every honest person on earth knows it is exactly the other way around," Lax said.

“This man CANNOT be our next president," Lax declared.

The criticism was also echoed by the “Green Prince," Mosab Hassan Yousef, who lives in the United States.

"Israel is not a client state. It is a sovereign, independent, and powerful nation. Its strength has never depended on any foreign leader, it comes from its own people. While the partnership with the United States has been valuable, Israel has never been a burden. It has delivered massive contributions to American technology, medicine, cybersecurity, and defense, far beyond what most Americans realize. At a moment when America is facing deep internal and external challenges, turning against one of its most capable and loyal allies is not just shortsighted, it is self-destructive. Those who believe they are weakening Israel by attacking it are actually weakening America’s own interests," Yousef said.

During a White House briefing yesterday (Thursday), Vance claimed that Israel was bombing Lebanon indiscriminately.

Based on what Vance has done, no, he's not fit to be the next presidential candidate. And we shouldn't buy his books either. So he obscures the Hezbollah's evils, and rails against Israel instead? Vance has really disappointed.

Update: on the subject of Iran, they've backed out of the deal signing in Switzerland, and Vance has delayed a trip there. So what's being accomplished so far when the deal may be questionable at most?

Update: the Federalist is making things worse by fudging the exact details, and makes it sound like it's wrong to destroy a terrorist organization, and as though Iran's literally right to defend said monsters:

Israel’s targeting of Hezbollah in Lebanon has been a point of tension during negotiations with Iran, sometimes breaking ceasefires and jeopardizing the openness of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel has also killed negotiators from Iran in the past in the middle of talks.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have reportedly resulted in tense phone calls between Trump and Netanyahu, in which Trump has reportedly said his Israeli counterpart has “no f-cking judgement” during the negotiating process.

This is insulting to the intellect, and could also explain why the same news writers seem disinterested in freeing all Iranian citizens who don't want to wear outfits like the chador. This can also explain why there are certain commentators on the right, in and out of Israel, who find the way this has been handled troubling, and don't sound optimistic this'll go over well.

How conservatives woke up and realized their support for homosexual marriage "rights" was harming children

In past decades, many conservatives/Republicans regrettably supported LGBT ideology, until they finally realized that, worse than validating perverse practices, mainly by men, it was seriously hurting children in the process:

Conservatives are jumping the gay marriage ship. According to a new Gallup poll, Republican support for same-sex marriage has plummeted from 55 percent in 2021 and 2022 to just 37 percent today.

The reason is simple: Republicans were told that supporting same-sex marriage meant supporting their gay brother, daughter, coworker, or friend. They were told that opposing it meant they hated gay people, and many bought it. If supporting same-sex marriage was simply the price of treating loved ones with dignity and respect, they were willing to pay it.

What they were not told was that same-sex marriage would victimize kids. No sooner had gay marriage been achieved on the grounds that marriage had nothing to do with children than activists, judges, and lawmakers turned around and demanded parenthood too.

Republicans have no interest in persecuting their gay friends and family members. What they reject is the claim that adult equality requires making children lose their mother or father. And after a decade of watching the consequences unfold, it has become obvious that “equal marriage” was never just about adult “rights.” It was about parenthood and children.

Some could say it was about cutting the mother out of the child's life, and in hindsight, I think ultra-Orthodox clans like the Satmar have some blame to shoulder for putting the keys in the ignition with their ideological approach. Even Islam's doubtless had some responsibility, based on its horrific suppression of women. One could wonder if LGBT activists paid attention to the MO of certain religious movements and adapted some of it for their own MO as well. The irony some aren't willing to consider is that religion may have played a much larger role than we think in leading to homosexuality and transsexuality by extension. Also in discussion in this article is how the efforts to remove gendered words from legal statues are still prevalent, in New York, if anywhere:

Parenthood statutes are being stripped of sexed terms. Mothers and fathers are now interchangeable “parents.” Infertility is being reclassified so same-sex couples can deliberately produce motherless or fatherless children with the help of insurance subsidies. Birth certificates have been altered to legally exclude a child’s biological parent. New parentage pathways bypass both biological and adoptive safeguards. It is the legal obliteration of the nuclear family. When familial distinctions are erased, children become items to be awarded by state-enforced contract.

The madness has not stopped. Even now, New York Democrats are advancing legislation that continues to scrub sex-specific parentage language from state law. New York legalized commercial surrogacy through its version of the UPA, the ironically named Child-Parent Security Act. Now lawmakers are cleansing the remaining statutory code so the language matches the new reality they created, replacing longstanding mother-and-father terminology with sex-neutral parentage concepts.

That’s because if you can’t name it, you can’t legally defend it. And gay activists regard even the mention of mothers and fathers as an attack on their “rights.”

And this is another reason why I'd rather not visit NY ever again. Who would've thought it be one of the worst places you could live in the USA? And only Muslims will be allowed to retain the dignity of father-mother descriptions, no doubt. NY is really going down the drain of all this shoddy propaganda.

John Daniel Davidson is wrong to use Spain's 15th century expulsion of Jews as an analogy

Well, it looks like Federalist editor Davidson's crossed the line big time, and demonstrated why his news site has to be taken with a serious grain of salt. Case in point: he's taking issue with SCOTUS justice Neil Gorsuch in relation to topics like immigration, and along the way, he employs a horrific analogy with Jews as a subject:

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has done a series of interviews this week to promote his new children’s book about the Declaration of Independence and very clearly has a set of talking points, including a familiar liberal trope that’s no less false and incoherent for being familiar. America, says Gorsuch, is a “creedal nation,” essentially a set of ideas that anyone can subscribe to and become an American. What’s more, Gorsuch claims America was founded as a creedal nation — a creed that enshrines the three ideals of equality, inalienable rights, and the right of self-government.

“What unites us is not a religion, it’s not a race, it’s a belief in those three ideals,” Gorsuch told NRO in a recent podcast. To Nick Gillespie of Reason he said, “Our nation is not founded on a religion. It’s not based on a common culture even, or heritage. It’s based on those ideas. We’re a creedal nation.”

For conservative-minded Americans of a certain age, repeating this mantra that we’re a creedal nation, not a blood-and-soil nation like bad old Europe, has become something of a reflex — a defensive posture meant to deflect charges of racism and xenophobia from the left.

But it’s obviously false. One way you can tell it’s false is that no one who espouses this America-as-creed idea would ever follow through on its implications. If we were really a creedal nation, and in order to be fully American you had to believe and live by a certain civic creed derived from the Declaration and the Constitution, enshrining those three ideals Gorsuch mentions, then millions of our fellow citizens today would not be considered true Americans — to say nothing of the millions of recent immigrants who have never even heard of the ideals supposedly at the heart of our creed.

If we’re a creedal nation, such people cannot be our countrymen. If we were serious about our creed, we would denaturalize and deport them. We would expel heretics and unbelievers as readily as King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled all unconverted Jews from their kingdoms in 1492. That’s what creedal nations do.

Wow. If he'd made a case why Moslems need to integrate and assimilate or leave, that would've been impressive. Instead, Dumberson - as perhaps his nickname should be - chose to fall back on classic antisemitic allegories, and fail to make any distinctions between good and bad religions, if anything. If he doesn't think the USA should be founded solely on Judaism, that's one thing. But to say it was literally justified for Spain's monarchy to expel the community that founded the religion in remote times goes way too far, and I couldn't find anything about Islam in the "op-ed" Dumberson wrote. Suggesting that perhaps he really is that kind of a coward that he can't bring himself to research and point out anything disturbing about the koran's contents, and then, he even has the gall to say:

It’s telling that those most likely to invoke this notion of a creedal nation are the least likely to support something like mass deportation and denaturalization. They will declare that we’re a creedal nation but recoil if you suggest we should act like one. That’s because they either don’t understand what they’re arguing or don’t really believe it, and instead believe America isn’t a nation at all but an economic opportunity zone where anyone from anywhere can, with enough determination and skill, strike it rich.

Alas, based on what he previously told, that's why Dumberson's argument here falls flat, because he doesn't seem to either, and let's not forget his unwillingness to support a ground raid in Iran. And if he won't take an objective view of Islam, then it's hard to buy he's a devout Christian any more than the very pope he chose to whitewash. Does Dumberson also believe Jews/Israelis only came to the USA to "strike it rich"? That sounds eerily reminiscent of socialist cliches.

Amazingly, unlike Dumberson, another Federalist writer, Chris Bray, did show the courage to bring up the issue of Islamofascism while discussing Britain's election where Nigel Farage made significant gains. But it doesn't excuse the harm Dumberson's causing with his loathsome lectures, and if their staff is smart, they'll do what they can to give him the pink slip. He's as awful as Tucker Carlson, and clearly comes from almost the same school of thought.