As plaintiffs suing energy companies for global warming gear up for their upcoming Supreme Court hearing, the plans to extract billions under local tort laws suffered significant setbacks in recent weeks. 

Last week, the modeling scenarios used to predict the most dire consequences from global warming were deemed “implausible” by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which climate activists typically cite as the key source for global warming projections.  

And on May 12, the government of New Zealand outlawed climate lawsuits in that country, echoing energy companies’ defense that regulating global greenhouse gas emissions belonged under the purview of national regulators and lawmakers rather than local courts. 

“Even in a place that is far to the left of the United States on most policy issues, they can see the common sense that you don’t want your government policy and your national economy regulated by lawsuits,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, told the Daily Signal. 

Calling the lawsuits “a backdoor way to set policy through the courts instead of through elected lawmakers,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, said that the “legal and evidentiary landscape has shifted substantially” against climate litigators. 

“Layer on the recent developments—the Federal Judicial Center pulling its climate science chapter from its judicial reference manual, the EPA reconsidering the 2009 Endangerment Finding, and the IPCC retiring [its most extreme modeling scenario]—and the entire scientific scaffolding underpinning these cases is being reassessed in real time,” Isaac told the Daily Signal.  

On the New Zealand government’s website, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith stated that climate lawsuits were increasing uncertainty and undermining energy investment.  

“The courts are not the right place to resolve claims of harm from climate change, and tort law is not well-suited to respond to a problem like climate change, which involves a range of complex environmental, economic and social factors,” Goldsmith stated.  

This action comes as climate lawsuits proliferate, not just in America, but around the world.  

According to a 2025 report by London School of Economics research fellows Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham, there have been nearly 3,000 climate lawsuits filed in 60 countries since 1986. About 1,900 of them were filed in the U.S., 164 in Australia, 133 in the U.K., and 131 in Brazil.  

“Climate litigation has evolved into a powerful global tool for advancing climate action and accountability,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environmental Program, stated. 

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, a Colorado lawsuit that will likely set a national precedent. In these suits, plaintiffs claim that burning oil, gas, and coal harmed local residents by creating a “public nuisance” and that energy companies “failed to warn” consumers that using their products can cause bad weather. Plaintiffs are seeking billions of dollars in damages, with one lawsuit in Multnomah County, Oregon, alone demanding $50 billion. 

These claims are often based on climate models produced by organizations like the IPCC, but the IPCC’s recent statement that the most extreme modeling scenarios are unrealistic undermines many of the damage claims. The IPCC’s “Representative Concentration Pathways (RPC) 8.5” projection is based on assumptions, such as the dramatic expansion of coal burning, despite the recent rise of natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar energy.  

“Every study that comes out that says the world is ending is based on these extreme scenarios,” Kenny Stein, policy vice president at the Institute for Energy Research, told the Daily Signal. “If you use the scenario estimates that are actually closer to what’s really happening and you run those through a climate model, you don’t get significant impacts.” 

Climate litigators have denied that they are attempting to regulate energy companies.  

Attorney Victor Sher argued before state supreme court justices last fall that his lawsuit on behalf of Baltimore, Annapolis, and Anne Arundel County “does not involve capping, regulating or limiting emissions by the defendants or anybody … It doesn’t involve changing pollution control measures or installing equipment or anything like that.” 

But attorney David Bookbinder, who represented Boulder in its suit, stated that the goal of the suits was indeed to impose “an indirect carbon tax.”  

“You sue an oil company, an oil company is liable, the oil company then passes that liability on to the people who are buying its products. In some sense, it is the most efficient way—the people who buy those products are now going to be paying for the cost imposed by those products,” Bookbinder stated at an Oct. 10 Federalist Society webinar. 

If the suits succeed, Isaac said, “they would raise prices sharply—through damages passed to consumers, higher liability insurance and capital costs, and reduced investment in domestic energy production.” 

And this presents another hurdle for climate litigation. The recent spike in gasoline prices due to the Gulf war has given consumers around the world a taste of what would happen if climate lawsuits succeeded. European consumers have already been paying significantly higher electricity rates since the EU-mandated shift to wind and solar energy. 

“In a democracy, that’s a political problem because people rightly ask their governments: why are our prices rising?” Stein said. “Climate change actions are absolutely on their back foot in general because of this problem of responsive democracy.” 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal. 

After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Apostles all gathered together in a building’s upper room, worried and confused about how to move forward. Then the Holy Spirit came rushing forth upon them (Acts 2:2). They were immediately emboldened to rush out of the upper room and proclaim Jesus’ identity to anyone who would hear.

This is what the God’s Spirit does: It ignites us.

The Holy Spirit was felt and seen among the Apostles, and He reminded them of who Jesus called them to be. The Apostles were convicted; they knew that they were not alone. God’s presence in them showed them how to act and what to do.

The same is true for Christians today.

Pentecost confronts us with a question: are we stuck in our own “upper room”? Do we silo our faith from our lives, rather than allowing God’s Spirit to move through us in all of our interactions?

In my prayer during this Easter season, I have been reflecting on the general tone of my conversation with God. If I am completely honest, much of it is self-centered. I ask Him for help. I implore His love to be with my wife and kids. I pray for sick family members, and I am open with God about what is bothering me. My prayer is often too centered on myself, rather than being an expression of the fact that God is with me.

This had to be a factor in the Apostles’ gathering in the upper room. They were worried about what to do and how to move forward. In the midst of their turning inward, the Spirit came to convince them of their identity: They were made to be with God and to tell others about Him.

The role of the Christian in today’s world is the same.

In 2003, Pope Saint John Paul II put it well: “The Church of Christ is always, so to speak, in a situation of Pentecost: she is always gathered in the Upper Room in prayer, and at the same time, driven by the powerful wind of the Spirit, she is always on the streets preaching.”

This is the dual foundation of the Christian life: to be in communion with God and to be willing to share that union with others. Believers in Christ exist in order to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Therefore, the celebration of Pentecost implores us to consider how we do so. We should ask ourselves two questions.

First, are we people of daily prayer? Do we make intentional and personal time for God each and every day?

If the answer is no, then we can implement practices and structures that can help bolster our prayer life. Set aside an extra 10 minutes when you wake up and before you go to bed. Start small, perhaps by making a promise to God, in prayer, that you will give Him this time. Tell a friend or family member about it so you are kept accountable and have someone to speak with about your prayer life.

Second, we must ask ourselves if we courageously speak about the faith openly to people. This does not mean that we become street preachers, nor does it mean that we heckle people with our faith. It simply means that we become more aware of how we can bring up the faith or our practice of prayer to people in casual and organic ways.

This can happen at work when someone asks about our weekend. We can explain our experiences with family and friends but also mention our attendance at church and how it helps guide us. This can also take place among our immediate family by calling for more opportunities to pray before meals or together as a family before bed.

These two little practices can go a long way to mold us into men and women like the Apostles, who ran out of the upper room on that first Pentecost.

It only takes some commitment and a daily encounter with Christ in prayer to light a fire in our souls to live with a Pentecost spirit. This spirit will help shape our families and communities for a brighter future and a holier world.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The Department of Justice and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced last week a seismic shift in medicine.

For the first time, a major hospital will open a clinic dedicated to providing health care for people victimized by harmful medical experiments to make them appear like members of the opposite sex.

The Struggles of Detransitioners

While activists claim that teens who suffer from gender dysphoria—the painful and persistent condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s sex—need experimental medical interventions to prevent suicide, the Department of Health and Human Services concluded there is little evidence for positive impacts from such “treatments” for minors.

Although the full side effects of transgender “medicine” remain unclear, studies have demonstrated concrete harms. One study found that males who identify as transgender and take estrogen in order to appear female face higher risks of infertility, diabetes, testicular and breast cancer, and early death. A Food and Drug Administration study found that suicidal thoughts actually increase among kids who take so-called puberty blockers.

A jury awarded a detransitioner $2 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit in February, and psychiatrists reportedly agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle another detransitioner’s medical malpractice claim this week.

Yet the medical establishment has vigorously championed grotesque interventions, euphemistically branded “gender-affirming care.”

Transgender ideology has spread—particularly among teenage girls—as a social contagion, promoted by schools, YouTube algorithms, and TikTok influencers. Thousands of children and teens across the country have taken experimental hormone “treatments,” and by 2023, surgeons had operated on more than 5,000 minors.

Many of these unfortunate people have since realized the truth. No matter how many hormone shots they take, no matter how many surgeries they undergo, they cannot change their biological sex. The DNA in their cells will still be coded male or female, and their bodies will reflect this, in one way or another.

Women like Chloe Cole, who underwent chemical and surgical alterations to appear male, have rejected that false identity and returned to accepting their biological sex.

But these detransitioners struggle to find doctors who can fully address their struggles.

“After over 5 years of searching I’ve finally found a doctor who wants to help me,” Cole shared on X Wednesday.

She told me that this doctor is an internal medicine specialist who is “not working on autopilot like most docs are.” That makes it hard to find a doctor willing or able to address her struggles.

The health care system manages treatment through the International Classification of Diseases diagnosis codes, but detransitioners remain mostly invisible in this system. Doctors and public policy groups have advocated for detransition codes.

A New Hope for Detransitioners

That’s why it matters so much that Texas Children’s Hospital has agreed to open a special clinic dedicated to detransition care, as part of a settlement with the Justice Department. Under the terms of the agreement, the hospital will pay $10 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false billings to public and private payors to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex-rejecting procedures, and it will terminate the doctors who arguably violated their Hippocratic Oath by subjecting patients to these harmful procedures.

As the Justice Department announced, the hospital “has committed to establishing the first-of-its-kind clinic dedicated to restorative care for detransitioners.” The clinic will provide free detransition care for its first five years.

Paxton opened an investigation into Texas Children’s in 2022, after determining that sex-rejecting medical procedures may constitute child abuse under Lone Star State law. In June 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill banning these procedures statewide.

Texas Children’s framed its decision to settle the case as an attempt to avoid wasting money.

“We are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation,” the hospital said in a statement reported by NBC News. “This settlement will allow us to redirect those precious resources to focus on the life-saving care.”

“The detransition clinic will formalize the supportive, multidisciplinary services we already deliver to all patients who need our care,” the hospital added.

Formalizing detransition services would represent a tremendous step forward for the medical industry.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the hospital’s agreement “protects vulnerable children, holds providers accountable, and ensures those harmed receive the care they need.”

The medical profession needs to understand the struggles of detransitioners and how to help them, and a new clinic dedicated to this noble mission will change the game.

The new clinic should bring together endocrinologists (hormone specialists), plastic surgeons, psychiatrists, and obstetricians and gynecologists. Providing care for people in detransition truly is a groundbreaking medical field, and it’s inspiring to see a hospital that once harmed children now pioneer a new way to reverse those harms.

The suspect, 21-year old male Nasire Best, was shot by Secret Service agents and died on the way to the hospital.

“Shortly after 6 p.m Saturday an individual in the area of 17th street and Pennsylvania Avenue pulled a weapon from his bag and began firing,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the United States Secret Service, said in a statement to The Daily Signal.

“Secret Service Police returned fire striking the suspect who was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced deceased,” he continued. “During the shooting one bystander was also struck by gunfire.”

No injuries were sustained by officers, Guglielmi said. He added that the president was in the White House during the incident, but no protectees or operations were impacted.

“This incident remains under investigation, and additional information will be released as it becomes available,” Guglielmi said.

Best allegedly had multiple prior encounters with law enforcement, as well as a history of mental health concerns.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Saturday evening that the bureau is investigating after reporters heard shots fired near the White House.

“FBI is on the scene and supporting Secret Service responding to shots fired near White House grounds – we will update the public as we’re able,” Patel posted on X.

About 15 to 30 gunshots were fired, according to CBS. After an altercation between a Secret Service agent and the suspect, a bystander was also struck by gunfire, though that person’s condition is unclear.

“The U.S. Secret Service is gathering information and will have more on this incident shortly,” the Secret Service told The Daily Signal in a statement Saturday.

Police and security forces swarmed the area around the White House after reports of shots fired, AFP journalists reported. President Donald Trump was at the White House at the time.

Selina Wang, senior White House correspondent for ABC News, was on the scene.

Trump recently posted an update on the negotiations seeking peace with Iran.

“Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “In addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Now, Democrats in the Senate are preparing a vote on whether or not the administration can use force against Cuba.

Since the Department of Justice unveiled charges against 94-year-old former Cuban president Raúl Castro, multiple Cabinet-level officials have been ramping up pressure on the island nation.

“This isn’t a show indictment,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday of Castro, who is facing murder charges for the fatal downing of two planes carrying American citizens in 1996. “There was a warrant issued for his arrest, so we expect that he will show up here [in America] by his own will or by another way.”

The prosecution of Castro is reminiscent of the prosecution of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on drug trafficking charges, which the administration used as justification for the arrest of the head of state in a military operation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also indicated the administration is dead serious about Cuba.

Asked about the possibility of striking Cuba to induce regime change, Rubio told reporters Thursday the United States prefers a “negotiated diplomatic settlement” in Cuba, but that “the president always has the option to do whatever it takes to support and protect the national security of the United States.”

In the same conversation, Rubio argued Cuba is “a national security threat to the United States” due to Russian and Chinese weapons and “intelligence presence” in the country.

On Thursday, Democrat Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Adam Schiff of California, and Ruben Gallego of Arizona introduced a resolution that would block hostilities against Cuba. 

War Powers Resolution Momentum

While the Cuba war powers legislation is unlikely to gather a veto-proof level of support, recent war powers resolutions have been gaining traction in Congress.

Expedited procedures in the House and Senate allow the minority to bypass leadership and force votes on war powers resolutions.

On Tuesday, the Senate advanced a resolution to deprive the president of his power to use force against Iran.

The resolution advanced by a 50-47 vote, with four Republican senators voting in favor: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine.

In the House, where an Iran war powers resolution failed in a tie last month, leadership sent the chamber into recess a day early on Thursday, canceling a planned war powers vote.

If the House’s concurrent resolution disapproving of the Iran war had come to the floor and succeeded, it would likely not be binding on the president due to a Supreme Court precedent blocking unilateral legislative vetoes on presidential action.

However, it would be a public defeat for the Republican administration’s military agenda in Congress.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued leadership punted on the vote because it would have succeeded.

“We had the votes to pass it today. Every Democrat was on board, [and] we had the sufficient number of Republicans on board,” Meeks told reporters.

The administration is also facing some Capitol Hill pushback on its troop movements in Europe, as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., have both publicly criticized troop withdrawals from Germany.

Rogers told Punchbowl News in a recent interview that he is seeking legislative “guardrails” to prevent European troop withdrawals going forward.

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act—an annual defense policy bill—included provisions intended to block the executive branch from withdrawing forces from Europe without congressional approval.

“Dalilah’s Law would have revoked this illegal trucker’s license,” Duffy wrote on X, responding to reports that an illegal immigrant truck driver was arrested in connection with a hit-and-run that injured two people near Sacramento, California. “Congress must pass Dalilah’s Law NOW.”

Testifying earlier this week before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Duffy said he is committed to restoring “integrity and safety” to the trucking industry while improving job prospects for American drivers.

“It was the policy of the last administration to allow for unqualified foreign drivers to get behind the wheel of a truck,” he said, criticizing the administration of former President Joe Biden. “Those days are over.”

“We’ve also knocked more than 20,000 drivers out of service for failing to meet basic requirements like reading our road signs or being able to communicate with law enforcement,” Duffy added. “These changes aren’t just keeping you and your family safe on the road—they have the added benefits of boosting wages of hardworking American truckers.”

The bill, introduced by Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., has been referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and could soon advance to a committee vote before heading to the House floor.

Houchin’s legislation is named after Dalilah Coleman, who was 5 years old when she was severely injured in a crash involving an illegal immigrant truck driver who allegedly ran a stop sign.

President Donald Trump highlighted Coleman and her family during his January State of the Union address as he urged Congress to act on the proposal.

“Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger, or location,” Trump said. “That’s why tonight I’m calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Dalilah Law, barring any state from granting commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.”

In the Senate, the companion measure is being led by Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., a close ally of the president.

If enacted, the legislation would prohibit issuing CDLs to individuals who are not U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or holders of certain work visas. It would also require states to permanently disqualify individuals who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents from operating commercial vehicles.

“If you can’t speak English or read a road sign, you have no business driving a truck in the United States of America. This is common sense, this is basic public safety, and this is why I’m leading The Dalilah Law,” Banks said in a statement to the Daily Signal.

Democrats have opposed the bill, arguing that it “demonizes” illegal immigrants.

Banks, speaking on the Daily Signal’s “Tony Kinnett Cast,” said differing state policies have contributed to safety concerns.

“When you have Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, or blue states like California or New York, [where] they hand out truck driving licenses to illegals like candy, of course you’re going to see them behind the wheel of a semi and tragically killing people,” Banks said.

Banks added that Coleman continues to recover but faces lasting effects from the crash.

“She will never be the same—she’s recovered physically, but she will never be the same,” he said.

When it comes to asset managers, BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard are often referred to as the “Big Three,” and it has been reported that together “they are the largest shareholders in 88% of S&P 500 companies.”

A large part of this immense control of corporate America stems from shares held in “passive” funds that millions of Americans invest in. Passive funds are generally designed to track the results of a given index such as the S&P 500. Given that no active management is involved, such funds typically charge lower fees.

At least part of the theory behind passive funds is that they provide great diversification to unsophisticated investors while allowing them to piggyback on the capital allocation-growth magic of free markets.

Putting aside for a moment concerns about the viability of free-market capital allocation if everyone is invested in index funds, one puzzling feature of passive funds is that their proxy voting is often anything but passive. In fact, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, has stated that using the voting power of BlackRock’s funds to force corporations to bend the knee to his woke vision of corporate utopia is a core feature of his role.

This is particularly disturbing when people think they’re signing up for passive investments, when in reality their money is being leveraged by woke stewardship teams to undermine investors’ values without their consent. And given the entire model’s efficiency rationale, one should likely assume those woke stewardship teams replace company-specific expertise with top-down ideology.

Now, some may argue that we are post-woke when it comes to corporate governance, pointing to articles with headlines like: “How BlackRock Abandoned Social And Environmental Engagement.” But there are very real reasons to be concerned that asset managers like Fink are just waiting for the political winds to change. So those concerned with keeping corporations focused on the bottom line and free from ideological capture by leftist neo-racists and neo-Marxists should continue to stay vigilant.

And we have certainly seen some positive movement on that front, including President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, “Protecting American Investors From Foreign-Owned and Politically Motivated Proxy Advisers,” which among other things addresses related concerns about proxy advisers by calling for “action to enhance transparency concerning the use of proxy advisers, particularly regarding ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ and ‘environmental, social, and governance’ investment practices.” 

But what about those asset managers and their very active proxy voting schemes? A couple of proposals for improvement involve increased mirror or pass-through voting.

In mirror voting, the asset manager may retain control of 10% of the passive fund’s votes, while the rest mirrors the votes of investors writ large such that if “other investors support a proposal or a director by 75%, then the votes over the cap [are] voted 75 to 25 as well.” Meanwhile, pass-through voting allows the true owners of the fund to select a voting benchmark to reflect their voting preferences.

Certainly, attempts could be made to force asset managers to vote all shares held in passive funds via mirror voting, pass-through voting, or some other similar mechanism. Even if that happens, myriad related issues remain unresolved.

First, to the extent pass-through voting is understood to mean offering clients voting choice options, the scope of options becomes critical.

Second, to the extent pass-through voting places direct responsibility for discrete proxy votes on clients, the reality of rational ignorance means many proxies will go unvoted.

Third, promoting alternative voting structures potentially lets asset managers off the hook in terms of whether they should be subject to fiduciary duties in connection with their voting decisions and the extent to which any such duties have been breached.

Fourth, focusing on voting may obscure the engagement elephant in the room. Even with some asset managers promoting “dual-track” engagement options, concerns remain about the extent to which the new options boil down to left and far left, though this may also raise issues of false advertising.

Finally, there is some uncertainty about which voting agendas fill any gap left open by asset managers reducing their active voting.

Having said all that, we should likely all be concerned about the consequences of failing to hold asset managers sufficiently accountable when it comes to proxy voting past, present, and future—and making sure related disclosures don’t mislead is one way to improve accountability. A recent settlement by Vanguard of a suit brought against it, BlackRock, and State Street by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton can certainly be viewed as a strong step in the right direction, but another route to accountability could be to make it a form of false advertising for asset managers to offer “passive” or “index” funds wherein the shares are actively voted by the asset manager without prominent and full disclosure of the asset managers use of the funds voting power.

Such an approach could allow investors to make more fully informed decisions while reducing the undue influence of woke asset managers without excessive regulation.

Once you create a moral framework in which violence is not merely understandable but righteous—once you argue that certain institutions are so corrupt, so “murderous,” that the people who participate in them deserve to be killed—you are no longer condemning violence. You are licensing it.

And when that cultural permission structure meets a criminal justice system increasingly designed to favor perpetrators over victims, the results are predictable: more criminals walking free, more public cynicism, and more people tempted to believe that vigilantism is the only remaining form of accountability.

Consider the case of Luigi Mangione, accused in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. A New York judge ruled this week that while the murder weapon will be admissible at trial, several other pieces of evidence seized during Mangione’s arrest will be suppressed.

The admissible items include a gun, a 3D-printed silencer, and a red notebook reportedly filled with incriminating writing. But the judge excluded other evidence found in Mangione’s backpack: his phone, passport, gun magazine, wallet, and a computer chip.

The rationale is the kind of procedural hair-splitting that leaves normal Americans wondering whether the system has lost its mind. The defense argued that the backpack was searched unconstitutionally because it had been moved away from Mangione’s immediate reach before officers searched it. The judge agreed.

What makes it stranger is that the search occurred in Pennsylvania—inside a McDonald’s—yet the judge ruled that New York law governs suppression issues because Mangione is being tried in New York. In other words, a police officer in Pennsylvania is apparently expected to know the intricate procedural rules of New York criminal law while making an arrest in real time.

This is not a recipe for justice. If Mangione was caught in California, would cops there be expected to know New York law to properly do their job?

These kinds of rulings are the downstream consequence of decades of doctrine that has steadily shifted the criminal justice system away from protecting the public and toward protecting defendants. Mapp v. Ohio established the exclusionary rule, which bars evidence obtained through unconstitutional searches. The practical result is simple: When the police make a mistake, the public pays the price.

The deeper problem in the Mangione case, however, is cultural.

Mangione has loud supporters, and they are not operating in a vacuum. They are the product of a long-running ideological campaign—largely from the political Left—that frames American institutions not as flawed systems in need of reform but as evil systems maintained by evil people.

This worldview has been building for years. Occupy Wall Street in 2011 was a turning point. Instead of focusing anger on government policy, bailouts, and political corruption, activists targeted “Wall Street” itself—the private sector, the idea of profit, and the legitimacy of business power.

Today, this mentality is embedded in the rhetoric of politicians like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently argued that government should use its power to lower prices and make life more affordable. The underlying assumption is always the same: If people are suffering, the private sector must be guilty, and government must be the savior.

That ideological reflex produces what activists now call “social murder”—the claim that private-sector actors are morally responsible for deaths caused by imperfect systems. Under this logic, a CEO operating legally within a flawed health care structure is the moral equivalent of a killer.

Outside Mangione’s proceedings, self-described “Mangionistas” reportedly proclaimed that Thompson’s children were “better off without him” and compared Thompson to Osama bin Laden. One even praised the idea of “heroic violence.”

This is moral psychosis.

Bin Laden orchestrated mass murder. Thompson ran an insurance company. To equate the two is not just wrong—it is the kind of rhetoric that turns political disagreement into justification for assassination.

When a culture begins to rationalize murder as justice, it will get more murder.

If you want more political violence in the U.S., keep telling people that political opponents are not merely mistaken but murderous—and that killing them is “heroic.”

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We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Family road trips from our home in southern Michigan to New Hampshire, Alabama, northern Michigan, and Yellowstone National Park formed strong childhood memories and made me love my country. If we couldn’t swing a long trek to a National Park, we tried to see some part of America—even if it was just a state park on Lake Michigan.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s efforts to encourage similar “tourism and travel” by filming “The Great American Road Trip” with his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy and their nine children is a great promotion of American tourism and this classic summer pastime.

Road tripping captures part of our national character. The same independence and desire to see the limits of America that drove the pioneers to follow the Oregon Trail are what stir Americans today to take Route 66 from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. 

Yet Democrat Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Patty Murray of Washington lambasted Duffy for this project in a recent hearing regarding the 2027 Department of Transportation Budget Request.

Both alleged the trip’s funding raised ethical concerns, with Gillibrand saying the road trip “doesn’t smell right” because the nonprofit that funded the trip received donations from companies such as Toyota and Boeing, implying that Duffy would favor those organizations for sponsoring his family’s “vacation.”

It’s unjust of the senators to assume there is some behind-the-scenes understanding between Duffy and these companies, as if Boeing will get unsafe aircraft designs approved by the DOT because they earned Duffy’s favor by contributing to a nonprofit that funded his America 250 project.

They’re questioning why Toyota and Shell would promote American road trips, as if there must be a deeper reason why a car and a gasoline company would encourage Americans to travel this summer.

It seems doubtful that Toyota tried to buy Duffy’s favor. They want Americans to buy their cars.

Specifically, they’ve donated to a nonprofit to advertise for them not only by encouraging car trips, but by showing a family traveling in a Toyota vehicle. Presenting traveling by car as part of our American identity is the oldest trick in the book for car advertisements. Chevrolet released their iconic “Baseball Hot Dogs Apple Pie” ad in 1974, promoting its vehicles as classic Americana culture. This summer, Toyota’s doing the same.

Duffy stated in an X post on May 9 that “career ethics and budget officials” reviewed and approved his participation in filming “The Great American Road Trip.” He’s been charged with promoting travel in America and celebrating the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, plus he and his wife met because they were both stars on reality TV shows.

Why wouldn’t he promote American tourism with a TV series on YouTube, the most popular online platform?

Murray also claimed that the trip is “incredibly out of touch” with the high gas prices that are a burden for many Americans, citing the national average cost for a gallon of gas at $4.50. Gas prices are high now, but when Duffy and The Great American Road Trip Inc. launched this campaign in September, gas prices were at a national average of $3.17, $1.33 cheaper than the average when the senators grilled Duffy.

It will cost more to take a road trip this summer than Duffy could have anticipated when he and his family filmed their trip. But for many families, sacrificing morning Starbucks runs and delaying the purchase of a new TV to bring their children to hike the Adirondacks or marvel at the stone faces carved into Mount Rushmore is worth it. 

Duffy’s project calls Americans to celebrate our nation’s culture in the summer of America’s semiquincentennial and revel in the land our forefathers fought for us to have.

“Excuse me,” I said, “can I ask you where you get your news?”

She said, “You mean like news about what’s going on in the world?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, TikTok.”

This reminded me of a dinner conversation I once had with economist Thomas Sowell. We discussed the overwhelming consensus among economists that the minimum wage does more damage than good. He called the minimum wage perhaps one of the most studied topics in the field.

Sowell talked about a 1987 New York Times editorial with the headline, “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.” It said:

“There’s a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market …

“An increase in the minimum wage to, say, $4.35 would restore the purchasing power of bottom-tier wages. It would also permit a minimum-wage breadwinner to earn almost enough to keep a family of three above the official poverty line. There are catches, however. It would increase employers’ incentives to evade the law, expanding the underground economy. More important, it would increase unemployment: Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and fewer will be hired.”

Now The New York Times has since reversed its position. But Economics 101 has not been repealed.

“Given this consensus,” I asked Sowell, “why does the minimum wage remain so popular even among some Republican politicians? Why haven’t you economists won this argument?”

He said, “Because many people, especially on the Left, have never heard the arguments against the minimum wage. They get their information from TV news, and they’re not interested in the downside of the minimum wage.”

This conversation about this “ignorance bubble” took place about 25 years ago. Today, most people no longer get their news from the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC.

News aggregators like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, TikTok, and YouTube now serve as primary news conveyors and deliver the news feeds that pop up on smartphones. As aggregators, they select stories from news outlets and serve them to consumers based on what the platforms think users want to see.

This means the aggregators increasingly prioritize stories that reinforce a user’s preexisting worldview. Their goal is to keep the user glued to the phone. The best way to do this is to tell people what they want to hear and give “news” that confirms what they already believe. And that’s the problem: People increasingly consume information that confirms their beliefs instead of challenging them.

All Sides is a company that measures media bias, whether from the left or the right. This is from a recent analysis:

“AllSides conducted news aggregator bias analyses in late 2025. Among the most biased remain Google News and Apple News—in 2025, Google News (Lean Left) curated 73% of articles from outlets with a bias on the left and just 1% of articles from outlets on the right. Apple News (Lean Left) curated 50% from the Left and just 2% from the Right.

“Most news aggregators curate primarily from media outlets with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Lean Left or Left. Our 2025 analyses found that most curate less than 10% of articles from news outlets rated Lean Right or Right. Aggregators tend to source from legacy media outlets that Americans and expert bias reviewers on average rate Lean Left or Left, like CNN (Lean Left), AP (Left bias), and The New York Times (Lean Left).”

Take one narrative pushed by the likes of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “The rich don’t pay their fair share in taxes.” In fact, the top 10% of earners pay nearly 75% of all federal income taxes. The top 1% pay over 40% while earning roughly 20% of the nation’s income. These numbers certainly undermine the narrative that “the rich don’t pay their fair share.” Indeed, based on their share of the nation’s income versus their share of federal taxes paid, one could argue that the rich are overtaxed.

Large numbers of Americans do not know this. If the news aggregators have anything to say about it, many Americans never will.

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Roger Pielke Jr.’s research on climate and disaster policy wins awards and is cited by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“My views are entirely mainstream,” says Pielke. “My work is cited by all three working groups of the IPCC. There’s nothing contrarian.”

Both Steyer and Pielke agree that “greenhouse gases warm the climate,” but Pielke’s sin was saying, “it’s not the apocalypse.”

Because of that, “the Center for American Progress decided to make me a target,” he says.

The center is a lefty group that pushes climate hysteria, running articles claiming, “Climate change is fueling more deadly and destructive floods,” “Extreme weather is only intensifying,” etc.

Anyone who disagrees is labeled a “climate denier.”

Steyer, now running for governor of California, gave the center enough money to run hit piece after hit piece that describes Pielke’s work as “fantastical falsehoods,” and calls him a “disinformer” who “ignores the data on climate science.”

Pielke didn’t know who funded the smears until WikiLeaks revealed an email to Steyer from ThinkProgress’s editor: “Thanks for your support of this work … it’s fair to say, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change.”

Think about that.

“Progressive” activists are proud to stop a researcher from writing about what he knows.

Pielke describes his persecution in my new video.

It began after Al Gore’s Oscar-winning movie in which Gore claimed that temperature increases create stronger storms.

Pielke had the nerve to disagree.

“Doesn’t warmer water create bigger storms?” I ask him.

“All else equal, yes, it does. But the atmosphere is a complicated place. You have things like windshear, which knocks over storms. … We haven’t observed changes in the frequency or intensity beyond natural variability.”

Pielke’s research acknowledged that there were “increasing impacts of extreme weather, mostly economic costs and loss of life,” but said the impacts were not caused by bigger storms but by “what we build, where we build, how much wealth we have in harm’s way.”

“When the climate advocacy movement shifted to extreme weather, I was on the ‘wrong’ side,” he adds. “I had a choice to make. Was I going to call things like I see them, or was I going to succumb to pressure to say things that maybe I didn’t believe?”

Pielke called it as he saw it and paid a price. 

“There was an enormous effort to try to silence people who had a voice,” says Pielke.

Testifying before Congress, Pielke said, “It is misleading … to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or drought have increased.”

That information is also in the findings of the IPCC.

But the Obama White House put out a 3,000-word memo attacking him: “Dr. Pielke’s statements … are seriously misleading … not representative of mainstream views.”

“It was the sort of thing your crazy uncle might put on Facebook,” laughs Pielke. “I’m the only academic or researcher that any president, including Donald Trump, has ever singled out.”

The University of Colorado, where Pielke worked for 24 years, caved in to the pressure. They closed Pielke’s research center, canceled his classes, and moved his office into a closet.

“What I went through was not what a university is supposed to be for,” says Pielke.

The state-funded school, after dumping Pielke’s actual scientific research, now calls “climate change and sustainability … the central focus of our campus-wide initiatives” and hosts silly things like “climate summits” with panels on “youth climate advocacy.” 

It’s so dumb. And so wrong.

Fortunately, Pielke found another job. Now he researches climate at the American Enterprise Institute, one of many think tanks that does research universities once did.

As I write, betting sites have Steyer in second place in California’s governor’s race.

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In January, Loeffler opened a review into whether Planned Parenthood affiliates illegally received funds through the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided loans to small businesses to maintain payroll and cover other costs during the COVID-19 pandemic. She told The Daily Signal Wednesday that the process of scrutinizing the funding is ongoing.

“The Biden administration said they wanted to blow through the affiliation laws that prevented Planned Parenthood from getting that money and allow them to have those loans and forgave those loans,” she said, “and so our agency has really ensured that we look at where we can make sure that doesn’t happen again, and that we cooperate in any of the investigations.”

Planned Parenthood affiliates have been informed that they received the money unlawfully, she said.

The administration has “strict” rules for lending, Loeffler said, “and it’s clear that affiliation rules would have prohibited Planned Parenthood from getting those funds, and so that’s already not possible for Planned Parenthood under the application of the law to get those funds.”

Loeffler said the review is still in process. The administration sent letters to 88 Planned Parenthood affiliates asking them to prove they were eligible for the COVID-19-era relief, which totaled more than $88 million.

“We published the letters,” she said, “and we did let people know that we had contacted them, let them know that they did get the money unlawfully.”

Loeffler said the Planned Parenthood loans show the need for Vice President JD Vance’s task force on fighting taxpayer fraud.

“We should make sure that these funds are never even dispersed because they’re harder to claw back than they are to stop at the front end,” she said, “and I know the Vice President is very focused on how we cut that off.”

Loeffler has been tracking the issue since she was in the Senate, she said. In 2020, Loeffler penned a letter to the Department of Treasury asking them to investigate Planned Parenthood’s “abuse of the taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program.”

Per Brennan, the Christian character of the event, and the Protestant content, flies in the face of the national value of religious diversity.

The bottom line on the religious diversity claims points to religion not being a national value at all.

I am perplexed how this squares with the rights noted in our Declaration of Independence asserted under the authority of the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and the appeal of the signers at the Declaration’s conclusion to “the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions.”

The Constitution’s preamble notes its objective is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.”

The late Claremont Institute scholar Harry V. Jaffa noted, in this context, that “What is a blessing is what is good in the eyes of God.”

Lincoln spoke, in his second inaugural address, to a nation that accepted God, but was no longer “one nation.”

“Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.”

Today we have something very new with profound implications for our future.

Our social and political tensions are increasingly not rooted in different understandings about what God wants from us but in whether the Creator is relevant at all. True and false, good and evil, are among many different, equally legitimate, possibilities. It’s all relative.

This gets back to the objections to Rededicate 250.

Our differences about religion are now increasingly partisan.

Per Gallup, in 2001 the percentage of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who identified as having “no religion” was 11%. The percentage of Republicans/Republican-leaning independents identifying as “no religion” was 7%. This made a difference of 4 points.

By 2023, Democrat “nones” was up to 33% and Republicans 12%. The difference increased to 21 points.

Per Gallup, in 1980, among 30- to 50-year-olds, among those identifying as Republican, 84% were married, and among those identifying as Democrat, 82%. This made a difference of 2 points.

By 2024, the percent of Republicans married was 67% and of Democrats 49%—a difference of 18 points.

Growing divergent partisan attitudes about religion translate into significantly different partisan results regarding marriage, family, and children.

In 2025, Gallup reported differences in attitudes among Republicans and Democrats regarding capitalism and socialism.

Among Republicans, 74% said they have a positive view of capitalism. Among Democrats, 42% said they have a positive view of capitalism.

Among Republicans, 14% said they have a positive view of socialism. Among Democrats, 66% said they have a positive view of socialism.

The dramatically different views among Republicans and Democrats regarding capitalism and socialism flow logically from the different dispositions among the parties regarding religion.

The Eighth Commandment says “Thou shalt not steal.” It recognizes private property. The Tenth Commandment says “Thou shalt not covet.” It recognizes that your business is what is yours, not what your neighbor has.

Socialism is the opposite. It is secularism. It erases the sacred nature of private property and is driven by redistributing wealth—concern with what your neighbor has.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the new progressive socialist face of the Democratic Party, exclaimed: “You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than their worth, but you can’t earn that.”

Apparently, Bill Gates did not build Microsoft, or Jeff Bezos Amazon, or Elon Musk Tesla with super hard work, creativity and risk-taking. They are all scoundrels.

Progressives think we need AOC, who can draw on her work experience as a bartender, to straighten everything out.

Never has what party rules in Washington meant so much to our country’s future.

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We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.  

The midterm elections are about five months away, and we’re having here in California a hotly contested governor’s race. And of course, everybody’s heard about the mayor’s race. They all have something in common if we examine them. There is no Democratic agenda. 

There’s no antithetical agenda to the Republicans.  

What I’m getting at is if you watch the debates between Spencer Pratt, Karen Bass, and Councilman [Nithya] Raman, none of them run on their records as incumbents. Karen Bass does not say, “I solved the homeless problem, and here’s how I did it.” She’s not saying, “I’ve stopped crime, and here’s how I did it. I have solved and rebuilt Pacific Palisades after the fire, and here’s how I did it. And here’s my new fire prevention plan. Here’s my new water plan, so we don’t have empty … ” None of it.  

And when you see Councilman Raman, she doesn’t either. She doesn’t offer—all it is, is personal invective against Spencer Pratt. 

When you look at the governor’s race in California, you have two Republicans in this jungle primary: Chad Bianco, the sheriff from Southern California, and Steve Hilton, Northern California entrepreneur who’s running. They’re both conservative, but they’re up against a whole array of Democratic candidates. 

So, if you look at what Xavier Becerra says, Kathleen Porter says, Tom Steyer says, there’s no agenda. They don’t say, “I want to continue Gavin Newsom’s program. High-speed rail has been a great success. I know we’ve had some controversies, but I want to finish it, and I can come up with the $250 billion to do it. We should be proud that we have the most illegal aliens in the country. Gavin Newsom allotted $500 million to illegal alien medical care. I’d like to boost that and improve on it. We have a very sophisticated penal system. I know crime is high, but when you treat criminals humanitarily, in a humane way, crime goes down.  

“So, when Governor Newsom, which I second, allowed iPads for people in prisons to use, and maybe some of them abused them a little bit, that’s a good idea and I’ll build on it. And we have the homeless, half the homeless people in the country because they like our weather and we’re a humane people. We’ve got to improve on that. We have the highest gas prices, but that means less pollution. And we have the highest taxes, that’s share the wealth. And we’re going to tax accumulated wealth of billionaires. Why not? They can pay their fair share.” 

But they, they don’t defend the record in any specificity. None of them do. And none of them do in the Democratic Party on these congressional elections. They never say that we had a president. What happened?  

We had Joe Biden, and we had a very orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was a model operation. Or why do we need a border? Joe Biden showed you that we could let in ten thousand people a day, ten million over four years. Nothing was wrong with that.  

We had a few criminals here and there, but it was a very humane policy. And we want to open that border, tear down that wall, and resume the Biden immigration policy. 

Now, as far as crime, why would we want to be punitive? Some people, you know, they commit violent crimes, but they have to come up with cash to get out of jail. We got rid of cash bail because society, society is guilty, not the criminal. We should understand that by now.  

And, you know, before Trump came in, we had DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. And what it was is that we took into account, in a preferential manner your race, superficial appearance, your ethnic background, your sexuality, your gender, etc.  

And that was a wonderful thing because the country had been founded by white males. The Founding Fathers were all white males. And ninety-five percent were white males. And you know how bad the country is now. So, why don’t we, kind of, reverse the process. And let other people have preferences to make up for systemic bias and racism? So, we want more DEI. That’s what we’re going to do if you elect us. 

Now, there’s been a lot of attack on government, DOGE, etc. But whatever you say about the fraud in Minnesota or the fraud in California or the fraud in Chicago, notice that a lot of the people who are allegedly committing it are people of color.  

So this is a right-wing racist campaign.  

But more importantly, even if it wasn’t DEI, what is so wrong with taking government money from wealthy people, taxing it, and then spreading it around? Do we really care if somebody is on electronic banking transfer or food stamp card and he has two or three of them? He’s in need. He’s not a billionaire like Ken Griffin. 

Here’s what I’m getting at. They don’t take the Biden record or the Obama record and defend it. They don’t give specific anecdotes to the Republicans, so that they can win.  

So, what do they do? When you listen to these debates, you look at these congressional races, they say the following.

Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. We are not Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a Nazi. No, he’s a fascist. No, he’s an Epstein molester. No, he’s a pedophile. No, he’s a rapist. No, he’s a terrorist. That’s about all they have. And to the degree they do get specific, they call people fascists and Nazis. 

Why do they do that? They do that because they know the agenda was not popular with the American people. And so their agenda is not going to be defended. And they know that Donald Trump is a counterrevolutionary. He’s doing things that are shaking up the United States that we haven’t seen in 100 years. And that offends a lot of entrenched interests. And so, they think by just saying Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, fascist, fascist, Nazi, they can get that message across. 

More importantly, they do one other thing, one other thing in these elections. They talk about changing the system. Not working within it when they’re out of power.  

When they lose power, the Left, they say, the system, not us, lost our power. So, if we get back in power, we’re gonna start lawfare again, just like the five civil and criminal cases that went after Donald Trump.  

You know what else we’re gonna do? We’re gonna pack the court. We’re gonna get 15 justices to nullify the, since 1869, nine-justice court.  

We’re gonna get rid of the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Compact. We’re gonna let in Puerto Rico. We’re gonna let in D.C. as states. We’re gonna get four senators, as well. We’re gonna get rid of the 180-200-year Senate filibuster. That’s what they talk about. 

They talk about changing the system because within the system they’re not successful.  

So we have not heard agendas that are positive, that counter the Republican agenda. This is not the party of JFK or Bill Clinton. This is something very different. This is a revolutionary socialist agenda that wants to change fundamentally the United States. It’s what Barack Obama said he wanted to do. But he didn’t, yet, have the power to do so. And now they want to reify that radical socialist agenda. 

And the only way they can do it is by demonizing other people and calling them names or changing the system. Otherwise, they’d have to have a positive agenda, and that would be equivalent with defeat.  

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Since Newsom took office, total Medi-Cal spending has roughly doubled and is now approaching $200 billion annually. Yet multiple community hospitals have eliminated their inpatient pediatric departments in recent years.

In March 2026 alone, Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital closed its pediatric unit, and UCI Health shut down pediatric services, including its pediatric intensive care unit, at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital. Similar closures occurred at Los Robles Health System in 2025 and Adventist Health White Memorial late last year.

As Medi-Cal covers about half of California’s children, the report argues that these closures are leaving families in several regions without local inpatient care for children. The report was first obtained by the Daily Signal.

“Children’s inpatient care is foundational to a functioning healthcare system. California’s current trajectory reflects a failure of leadership and prioritization. Expanding coverage without ensuring access to care is not a success; it is a systemic failure,” the report states.

“The true measure of healthcare policy is not how many individuals are enrolled in a program, but whether care is available when needed,” the report adds. “Right now, in California, that standard is not being met.”

According to the report, the closures, particularly in Northern and Central California, have created major access problems. Families now face multi-hour ambulance transfers, longer emergency department boarding times, greater concentration of care in overburdened regional children’s hospitals, and reduced surge capacity during respiratory illness seasons.

The report also points to emergency department congestion, noting that children often remain in emergency departments longer while awaiting transfer. This leads to increased clinical risk, higher provider burnout, and reduced emergency capacity for all patients.

“As pediatric units close, specialists relocate to larger systems, leaving entire regions without adequate pediatric expertise,” the report states. “Once these workforce ecosystems collapse, they take years—if not decades—to rebuild.”

But prior to the new reports of the state’s program failing in various ways, Medi-Cal had been under the media spotlight in recent years due to its expansions.

Under Newsom’s Medi-Cal expansion, the program’s growth included full-scope coverage for undocumented immigrants, first for adults ages 19 to 25, then for those over 50 in 2022, and for those ages 26 to 49 by 2024.

The expansions increased the number of Medi-Cal enrollees and shifted more of the financial burden onto the state, as coverage for undocumented immigrants is funded entirely by California. However, the report states that Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for inpatient pediatric care did not keep pace with the growth in enrollment.

Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for hospital services have long been a point of tension in California, with hospitals criticizing them as falling short of the actual cost of providing care. According to the California Hospital Association, Medi-Cal reimburses hospitals roughly 80 cents for every dollar spent on patient care.

“The structural challenge is clear: Policymakers expanded coverage without adequately ensuring the healthcare system could sustainably deliver care,” the report states.

The key failures, according to Defend Forgotten America, include the failure to align pediatric inpatient rates with post-pandemic labor costs, the lack of meaningful pediatric-specific stabilization funding, the absence of a rural pediatric preservation strategy, and the lack of enforceable transparency around pediatric unit closures.

“When state leadership dismisses pediatric closures as ‘local operational decisions,’ it deflects responsibility from the policies that created the crisis,” Defend Forgotten America states. “Hospitals do not set reimbursement policy—the state does.”

The report recommends several steps to address the issue. These include aligning pediatric inpatient reimbursement rates with actual costs, creating a pediatric infrastructure stabilization fund, expanding workforce incentives for rural areas, requiring advance notice and community impact assessments before closures, and conducting a statewide pediatric capacity audit.

Newsom’s office did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Trump is on a hot streak with primary challenges.

Last weekend, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, placed third in the Senate primary, with Trump-backed challenger Rep. Julia Letlow advancing to the runoff round.

On Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a libertarian-leaning House rebel who has defied Trump on key votes, lost by nearly 10 points to the Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein. Massie has been in the House since 2012.

But Trump didn’t stop there.

On Wednesday, he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to take the Senate seat of incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, paving the way for the die-hard Trump loyalist to become the Republican nominee after the May 26 runoff.

By targeting multiple incumbent senators from his own party, Trump is engaging in a style of politics unheard of since 1938, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt supported multiple challengers against senators in a bid to reshape the Senate.

However, it was also a week of trouble on Capitol Hill, where the Republican-controlled Congress defied the president.

On Tuesday, shortly after losing his primary, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., voted to advance a resolution to restrain the president’s power to use military force against Iran. 

The resolution advanced 50-47, with four Republicans voting for it: Cassidy, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine.

Additionally, Congress failed to advance a party-line budget reconciliation bill, which would have injected funds into border security. 

Instead, the Senate broke for recess until June, as Republicans were divided over whether to support funding for security at the White House’s East Wing, where the president is attempting to build a ballroom.

Again, Cassidy played a role in this debate, refusing to support the funding.

“I think this is a spit-in-the-eye insult to all my taxpayers in Louisiana to spend a billion on a ballroom when we should be doing something about the high price of gas, groceries, and health care,” he said Tuesday.

He was not the only member of the Senate’s growing retirement caucus to be in opposition.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who announced his retirement in July shortly after the president called for a Republican to challenge him in his primary, has been a staunch opponent of the funding.

“I’ve got a lot of questions that need to be answered,” Tillis told NOTUS of the funding.

“If I’m in the Democratic marketing department, I’m probably thinking of a lot of ways I would use this to target senators that vote for it,” said Tillis, who added he thought “the timing and optics are really bad.”

Republicans were also unable to settle disagreements on the Department of Justice’s announcement of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of a settlement agreement in Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.

The $1.776 billion fund is meant to “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” per the DOJ.

Tillis and Cassidy were opposed.

“I think it’s stupid on stilts,” said Tillis.

“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries, and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the president and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability,” said Cassidy.

Trump has defended the fund, writing on Truth Social that he is forgoing money he could have received from the settlement.

“Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden administration, receive, at long last, Justice!” he wrote.

Republicans, unable to settle disagreements, decided not to hold any vote on their ambitious budget bill at all. 

The House likewise went into recess, avoiding a vote on whether to restrain the president’s military power in Iran.

The growing flock of Republican lame ducks in the Senate defying the president could be a problem for the president going forward, given Republicans’ already slim majority.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., asked if the budget flop was related to Trump’s targeting of incumbents, replied, “I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us.”

On Friday, Trump lashed out at Tillis, whom he called a “weak and ineffective Senator,” but argued the Republican party will have a new start with the senator and his ilk gone.

“Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months, with some of his RINO [Republican in name only] friends, screwing the Republican Party,” said Trump. “In the end it will only get bigger, and better, and stronger, than ever before!!!”

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Gabbard posted her resignation letter on X, explaining that the reason for her resignation is to care for her husband, who is fighting “an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”

Gabbard says her husband, Abraham, “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months,” and she “must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”

“Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” the letter says.

Gabbard’s letter to the president adds that she is “deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half.”

The intelligence chief believes she “made significant progress at the ODNI” over her tenure, which includes “advancing unprecedented transparency and restoring integrity in the intelligence community.”

During her tenure as director of national intelligence, Gabbard initiated a restructuring of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence called “ODNI 2.0,” with which she sought to right-size the intelligence community under the belief that the office had become bloated.

Gabbard also launched initiatives aimed at “eliminating politicization and weaponization within the intelligence community.” She dismissed, reassigned, or revoked security clearances from individuals in the intelligence community she believed were responsible for politicizing intelligence.

The director also released critical information on the intelligence community’s role in creating the Russian-collusion narrative in the lead-up to and the aftermath of the 2016 election of Trump.

Nevertheless, Gabbard claims “there is still important work to be done” and that she is “fully committed to ensuring a smooth and thorough transition over the coming weeks.”

Gabbard earned her Cabinet position after a political conversion.

The once 2020 Democrat presidential hopeful became a supporter of Trump over the course of the 2024 election cycle.

During the 2024 campaign, she became one of Trump’s closest advisers on how to combat former Vice President Kamala Harris because of Gabbard’s previous success debating Harris in 2020.

Gabbard’s departure comes at a critical juncture for the Trump administration.

Seen as one of the voices for foreign policy restraint in the administration, she has led intelligence-gathering efforts over the course of the United States’ war with Iran.

As the war in the Middle East persists, the Trump administration is also considering its next moves with respect to Cuba.

This story is developing and may be updated.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday to address allegations of fraud against the left-leaning nonprofit titled “The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate.”

The Daily Signal’s Tyler O’Neil, who has long faulted the SPLC for putting mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” alongside Ku Klux Klan chapters, testified as a witness for the hearing. Alongside him sat Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an organization that endorses the SPLC and places it among a coalition of groups the Leadership Conference supports.

The SPLC added Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization, to the “hate map” last year, a few months before his assassination.

Because of Wiley’s connection to the SPLC, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked Wiley about what the SPLC claimed about Kirk. “Would you agree with the statement that Charlie Kirk was a dangerous extremist?”

Wiley took a sigh before answering. “I can’t answer the question that way,” she said. “I can certainly say that statements that I am aware of that Mr. Kirk made were ones that I would consider to be dangerous.”

She added, “I am referring to the ones that he made about black women and black communities. The stereotyping that stereotyped a whole group of people.”

While critics often accused Kirk of racism because of his opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in universities, commentators such as Ben Shapiro often praised him for keeping racists and antisemites out of Turning Point. When TPUSA’s national field director’s texts revealing racist comments toward African Americans were leaked, Kirk took immediate action.

“Turning Point assessed the situation and took decisive action within 72 hours of being made aware of the issue,” Kirk told The New Yorker.

In May 2025, when the SPLC added Turning Point to the “hate map,” SPLC released a report called “Turning Point USA: A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.” This article accused Kirk and his organization of embracing a “white nationalist conspiracy theory” and enforcing a “social order rooted in white supremacy.”

The article warned that Kirk wanted to “restore America’s biblical values,” which is an “extreme, authoritarian vision for the country that threatens the foundation of our democracy.”

But Kirk was not only an authoritarian, white nationalist conspiracy theorist, according to the SPLC. He was also a “male supremacist” whose organization exploits “fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and civil rights activists.”

Just four months later, Kirk was assassinated for his alleged hate. Tyler Robinson, who allegedly shot Kirk, texted his roommate, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” and “the guy spreads too much hate.”

In an April article titled “Why I support the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Wiley alluded that the SPLC indictment is merely a part of President Donald Trump’s attempt to attack civil rights. She said, “This indictment is not just an attack on SPLC. It is an attack on advocacy against hate and extremism and on enemies of organizations Donald Trump and Trump supporters have embraced.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, also testified before the committee. In 2012, the Family Research Council was targeted for an attempted mass shooting. According to Perkins, the SPLC “may not have pulled the trigger, but they inspired the gunman … then of course, Charlie Kirk, who also was targeted by SPLC was assassinated. So there is culpability that this list—this ideological labelling—leads to violence.”

Robert Gorham Fuller Jr., 87, was shot and killed on Feb. 14 at Cogir of Potomac in Potomac, Maryland. Fuller was a retired Navy Reserve officer, an attorney, and a millionaire philanthropist in Augusta, Maine, largely responsible for funding a new hospital, a new YMCA center, and the expansion of a high school there, according to news reports. He had reportedly moved to Maryland to be closer to family members.

Last week, a Maryland judge determined the suspect, Maurquise Emillo James, 22, was not competent to stand trial in the case. James was also charged in February with attempted first-degree murder for shooting at a state trooper in a traffic stop in Baltimore. Police believed the same gun was used in the Fuller shooting after recovering one of the bullet casings, Montgomery Community Media reported.

The judge ordered that James be placed in a psychiatric facility under the Maryland Department of Health until his next evaluation on Nov. 9, WTOP News reported.

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Karla Smith said, based on his evaluation, “James at this point is not competent to proceed to trial.” The judge determined he “presents a danger to himself, to others, to the property of others. And based on that, the court will have him committed to work on competency.”

After the Fuller shooting and before the incident with the police officer, James reportedly continued working at the senior facility for several days.

The Montgomery County Attorney’s Office, which oversees prosecutions in the area, did not respond to the Daily Signal for this story by the time of publication.

A charging document said James administered Fuller’s medication to him the night before the killing, which police allege James committed, The Baltimore Sun reported.

A nurse at Cogir Potomac warned the senior living center in a written complaint 11 days before the homicide about unusual behavior by James, according to a negligence lawsuit filed by Linda Buttrick, who lived with Fuller.

The nurse was not identified by name in the lawsuit filed in Baltimore County Circuit Court on March 19. But the lawsuit said another employee made similar verbal warnings about James. The case was filed in Baltimore County, because Cogir operates in Baltimore and James lives there.

Buttrick’s attorney, Michael Belsky, said at this point he and his client are just waiting for a response from the defendants.

“We are continuing to move forward with the civil case and investigate the matter,” Belsky told the Daily Signal.

The facility in Maryland referred the Daily Signal to Cogir spokeswoman Heidi Brashear, with the Arizona-based parent corporation. Brashear did not respond to the Daily Signal for this story by publication time.

However, a spokesperson for the company told the Portland Press Herald that the well-being of residents is the company’s highest priority.

The Cogir spokesperson added, “We take all concerns raised by staff, residents and residents’ families seriously, and have clear processes to ensure every report is thoroughly reviewed and addressed.”

The lawsuit alleges the death was “entirely preventable,” and also names James as a defendant.

The lawsuit says that James’s mother is Cogir Health and Wellness Director Shenise James-Dubose.

The civil complaint says that Buttrick identified James as a suspect in the Fuller murder. According to the lawsuit, James continued to enter her apartment after the death of Fuller to dispense medication to Buttrick, the Portland Press Herald reported.

“Ms. Buttrick, a woman with Parkinson’s disease who had just discovered her partner’s body, was required to receive medications from the hands of the man she had identified to police as a suspect, alone in her home, which was still a crime scene, with zero protection and no recourse,” the lawsuit says.

“I want Kevin to be totally independent,” Trump said. “I want him to be independent and just do a great job. Don’t look at me, don’t look at anybody, just do your own thing and do a great job.”

Trump said Warsh will restore respect to the Fed. Trump repeatedly criticized Warsh’s successor, Jerome Powell, for failing to cut interest rates. While Trump has called for interest rate cuts for years, some investors say they expect a rate increase as the Fed’s next move amid rising inflation, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Justice Department also investigated Powell for spending over budget on the renovations of the Fed building and allegedly lying to Congress about the matter, but it dropped the investigation in April.

“Unfortunately, in the eyes of many, the Fed lost its way in recent years,” Trump said. “It became distracted by concerns far removed from its core mission and mandate, drifting into matters such as climate policy and DEI initiatives, with the Fed straying from its mandate, while the last administration blew out the deficit.”

Trump said Warsh will bring “much-needed reform” and will modernize data collection methods, roll back reliance on inaccurate models, and end the Fed’s practice of issuing “forward guidance.”

“Kevin will restore confidence in the Fed, which is so important, and among Americans all across the political spectrum, and people from all over the world, and they’re going to be looking to Kevin, probably, and possibly more than any other person that’s had your esteemed position before,” Trump said, adding that he will “safeguard the Fed’s integrity.”

“They’ll make their own decisions and hopefully make them well, but they’ll be listening to Kevin all the way,” Trump said of the Fed’s Board of Governors. “I really believe that even if they’re from a somewhat different persuasion, they’re going to be listening to him out of respect, because everybody respects him.”

Warsh thanked the president for the honor of being sworn in at the White House. He said he will lead a “reform-oriented Federal Reserve.”

“When we pursue those aims with wisdom and clarity, independence and resolve, inflation can be lower, growth stronger, real take-home pay higher, and America can be more prosperous, and no less important,” Warsh said, “America’s place in the world more secure.”

Warsh is the Shepard family distinguished visiting fellow in economics at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also a partner of Stanley Druckenmiller at Duquesne Family Office LLC.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Warsh was skeptical of cutting rates. At the November 2010 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Warsh expressed concerns about the Fed’s plan to stimulate the economy by lowering long-term interest rates through additional asset purchases.

But more recently, Warsh has criticized Powell for being too hesitant to lower interest rates. He told Fox Business’ “Kudlow” program in July that he had “some sympathy” for Trump being frustrated with how Powell is handling interest rates.