How Bibi “ruined” Israel?

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The impressive post-October 7th achievements of the current government are often overlooked and undervalued.

One of the most recurring refrains that resonates in the Bibiphobic echo chamber that overhangs much of the political debate in Israel is the allegation that “Bibi has ruined the country.”

 Indeed, the incessant repetition of the charge has given it almost axiomatic status — as if it were a self-evident truth requiring little substantiation on the part of its purveyors to establish its veracity.

Indeed, a wideranging array of achievements runs starkly counter to this grave accusation.

Impressive, if incomplete, security accomplishments

In the realm of security, many of the facts are largely well established in the public domain, so I will not dwell on them in any great detail.

Virtually all of the pre-October enemy leadership, devoted openly to the destruction of the Jewish state, has been “dispatched into the hereafter”, sending a clear message that following in their footsteps could be a risky path to tread. The array of those no longer with us includes the bloodthirsty Sinwar brothers, the once elusive Mohamed Deif, the hedonistic plutocrat Ismail Haniya, the boastful Hasan Nasrallah, and the brutal theocrat Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with a long entourage of cronies and henchmen.

On the battlefield, sustained IDF action has brought Syria to the brink of disintegration, but most importantly, has decoupled it from Hezbollah and Iran, effectively disrupting the longstanding Shi’a arc linking Iran to Lebanon. In Lebanon itself, Hezbollah, although still a formidable force, is no longer viewed as the protector of Lebanon, but by many as the enemy of Lebanon. In Gaza, much of the enclave lies in ruins, with 60-70% of it under the control of the IDF, and with the prospect of large-scale emigration of the inhabitants gaining momentum — albeit sluggishly. In Iran, much of the infrastructure—physical and human—on which its nuclear program was based, has been eliminated and, at the very least, set back for years.

Emphasis on Economics

But a word of caution is called for here.

Initial operational successes can turn out to be fleeting and ephemeral. Perhaps the starkest example of that is the case of Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas al-Musrawi, who was eliminated by the IDF in Lebanon in 1992, a measure that brought the arguably even more murderous Nasrallah to power, as well as resulting in a series of lethal terror attacks on Israeli personnel and installations – particularly in Buenos Aires.

However, for the remainder of the analysis, the focus will be on the economic performance of the country under the Netanyahu government —particularly in the post-October War period—which has received far less media attention than that allotted the security sphere.

Significantly, Israel’s overall economic performance has outstripped virtually all other leading Western economies across a wide range of major indicators.

GDP per capita:

Indeed, while traditional Western European economies have faced prolonged stagnation, Israel maintained a top-tier global position, with its GDP per capita rising to almost $70,000—surpassing major Western economies such as Germany, France, Japan, Canada and the UK — and even the petro-rich UAE.

The exchange rate:

The country’s economic robustness is reflected in the strength of its currency. Indeed, the demand for the shekel has propelled it to be one of the world’s strongest currencies in recent years. Moreover, despite the war and gloomy prospects that abounded in its immediate wake, the shekel has risen dramatically against the US dollar (around 36%) — from a low of just over 4 to under 3 to the dollar! Likewise. It has appreciated substantially against the Euro (over 18%) and Sterling (over 17%)

Direct foreign investment (FDI)

Direct foreign investment in the country has soared since the post-October War. Indeed, Israel has led the world in attracting foreign investments relative to GDP (which of course also contributed to the demand for the shekel and its high rate of exchange)

Moreover, cross-country comparison of FDI as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation shows that international investors see Israel as a distinctly profitable place in which to invest: Thus, in Israel, the rate of FDI in gross fixed capital formation is 13,7% over twice the overall World rate of 5,3% and three times that of the developed economies (4,7%) and of the US (4.4%).

The growth rate of GDP per capita:

In terms of the growth of GDP per capita (as distinct from the absolute levels discussed above), over the last three decades—for most of which Netanyahu was Prime Minister—in Israel this has been +275%, easily surpassing the US (215%) and almost doubling that of the UK and the EU (147% and 147% respectively)

Flawed but successful

Of course, none of this is to suggest that Netanyahu is above all reproach. Indeed, for all his manifest merits, he is a leader with profound faults, who has not done many things that he should have, and done many things that he shouldn’t have.

However, whatever his undeniable shortcomings are, they are apparently far fewer than any of his even remotely relevant rivals.

Accordingly, when coming to decide on how to cast one’s ballot in the upcoming elections, it would seem prudent to heed the well-known dictum: If it works, don’t fix it.

©2026 . All rights reserved.

The Value and Virtues of Capitalism

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Socialism is on the rise, and capitalism is on its back foot. The implications span all parts of our society but certainly include corporate governance. As is often the case, the corporate governance issue boils down to who makes decisions and to what end those decisions are — and should be — aimed.

Should corporations strive solely to maximize shareholder value? If the answer is “yes” — whether for reasons of law, economics, or philosophy — is it even possible to maximize shareholder value based solely on expected value and return-on-investment calculations? Or must other considerations inform the relevant decision-making?

And if one concludes that other factors are necessarily relevant, does that mean only a hypocrite could oppose “stakeholder capitalism,” or the use of “environmental, social, and governance” factors, or the pursuit of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agendas?

To attempt to thread this needle, such that one might advocate for a combination of free market capitalism, shareholder wealth maximization, and principles like The Heritage Foundation’s “Four Cornerstones” as an effective basis for corporate governance, while at the same time rejecting ESG, DEI, and “stakeholder” capitalism, is sure to generate much debate.

However, for purposes of this op-ed, I am going to posit precisely that under the banner of “free enterprise.” Obviously, space limitations will necessitate merely flagging some relevant issues. But these debates are critical right now, and just marking the outlines of parts of the relevant landscape matters.

Focusing on free market capitalism generally (and shareholder wealth maximization specifically), a complaint one often hears is that it supposedly prioritizes shareholder wealth maximization at the expense of the environment, workers, consumers, and other stakeholders. However, several points should be considered before accepting that characterization.

First, the reason that free market capitalism has been so successful, including bringing us to the cusp of eliminating poverty, is that it incentivizes business owners to provide potential consumers with products and services that improve the purchaser’s life sufficiently to warrant the cost of obtaining that product or service.

In other words, rather than incentivizing exploitative behavior, free market capitalism promotes precisely the opposite, which is to say it promotes improving the lives of consumers, employees, and other stakeholders in order to be the most attractive seller possible.

Second, the minute that one imposes other goals on entrepreneurs beside profit maximization, one runs into the “many masters” problem. If your North Star is constantly found in a new place, you are essentially rudderless. One day you are maximizing shareholder value; the next you are setting that value on fire in pursuit of net-zero goals.

And this assumes the decision-maker is acting in good faith. Allowing the well-being of myriad stakeholders to serve as rotating justifications for corporate decision-making provides great cover for self-dealing insiders who are then able to brush off underperformance by claiming it was all to “save the trees.”

On top of that, the argument that one can’t avoid the “many masters” problem — because shareholders themselves have varying time horizons and interests — is foolish. Shareholders who want something other than profit can deploy their money accordingly via charities or public benefit corporations, and expected value calculations account for time differences.

Third, while adding ESG screens and pursuing DEI sounds admirable, what has been repeatedly demonstrated is that these initiatives seemingly can’t avoid being captured and weaponized by leftists who proceed to promote neo-Marxist and neo-racist ends.

Corporate managers using other people’s money for pet projects has long been a problem, but the problem becomes particularly acute when those projects include things like divisive racial quotas and utopian climate agendas that undermine national security and increase energy prices.

To see the truth about ESG, DEI, and stakeholder capitalism, one must look past the pleasant-sounding words and examine the substance of those regimes. Behind the newspeak lurks neo-racist and neo-Marxist leftism in myriad forms, whether promoted by radical true believers, opportunists, useful idiots, or cowards.

Fourth, while limited government is the best government, we still need some government. Accordingly, in assessing this debate, we should keep in mind that external regulation is available to protect society against exploitative externalities created by the pursuit of profit maximization.

If truly needed, this is far better than killing the goose that lays the golden eggs by distorting the signaling function of profit-seeking with myriad commitments to stakeholders. However, we must remain vigilant against the fabrication of externalities to support the market-distorting and value-destroying promotion of ESG via inefficient subsidies and otherwise.

Finally, it is important to note that defending free market capitalism against socialism does not undermine the importance of purpose and virtue. In fact, the “value” in “expected value” is arguably impossible to calculate optimally if one ignores the purpose of the product or service and whether the seller will be trusted as a virtuous actor or not.

At least two points are critical to differentiating the work we do from leftist ESG, DEI, and stakeholder capitalism.

First, lumping all arguments based on virtue or related concepts together constitutes a false equivalency. Merely because both left and right may point to implications and consequences that are difficult to distill into expected value calculations does not make conservatives guilty of hypocrisy for merely promoting “right-wing ESG.” Part of promoting free market capitalism includes defending the marketplace of ideas as capable of distinguishing truth from falsity and good ideas from bad ideas.

There may be a superficial equivalence between pushing corporations to adopt transgenderism or pushing them to defend biological reality. However, people can properly discern that if you are making corporate decisions based on the belief that a child can be born in the wrong body, then you are making a delusional rather than fully informed decision. This becomes particularly obvious when you are incapable of defining “woman” by anything other than a circular, non-falsifiable “self-identification” definition. A similar analysis applies to making corporate decisions based on the neo-racism of DEI or the utopianism of net-zero commitments.

Second, and arguably more importantly, we leverage the duties of care and candor within the shareholder wealth maximization regime rather than advocating for an overthrow of that regime. As just one example, we have asked whether the decision to adopt commitments to be a net-zero company by 2030 are fully informed on the basis of expected value and ROI calculations as opposed to demanding that net zero be accomplished regardless of the impact on firm value. A similar analysis applies to the use of related arguments rooted in federal and state antitrust and consumer protection laws.

This debate has a long history, but like many such debates, the need to go once more into the breach reappears with every new generation — if not every other administration.

And to the extent some conservatives might be tempted to argue that those of us defending free market capitalism against that assault of stakeholder capitalism, ESG, and DEI have won, I submit that we have achieved the equivalent of landing on Normandy Beach. We’ve achieved victories worth celebrating, but if the Allies had packed up and gone home after taking that beach all would have been lost.

What we have ahead is our own long march — not to Berlin but back to neutral for corporations that have been ideologically captured by the enemies of valuable and virtuous free markets.

This article originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Stefan Padfield

Stefan Padfield is a principal for the Free Enterprise Initiative and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

RELATED VIDEO: Proud Nazi Hasan Piker Is Now the Face of the Democratic Party

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Lifetime Taxes, by State

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I was sent this interesting graphic from this article. It said:

This visualization maps the estimated lifetime tax bill for a single filer in every U.S. state, including federal and state income taxes, as well as sales, property, and vehicle taxes.

The data for this visualization comes from Self Financial, with estimates as of June 2026.

The analysis assumes a 45-year working life with constant earnings and tax rates, a life expectancy of 79.6 years, homeownership beginning at age 40, and ownership of five vehicles over a lifetime.

I had a firsthand experience when we moved our primary home from New York State to North Carolina. For example, the property taxes on our NY home were 5± TIMES the property taxes on our new NC home — and they were both valued almost identically… Gas prices are almost always 40±¢/gal lower in NC… Cost of electricity in NC (per KWH) is less than half the per KWH cost in NY. Etc., etc.

One obvious observation is that the highest tax states (those more reddish) are almost all Democrat run.

Those who now complaining about the cost of gas should look more closely at all the other taxes they are paying in their State.

©2026 All rigts reserved.

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Woodrow Wilson’s Vision of ‘Progress’ Was at Odds With Human Nature

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Welcome to the seventh in our series “Landmark Speeches in American History.” We are celebrating America’s 250th anniversary with articles by prominent authors about how some of the greatest speeches in our history—by celebrated orators like Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr.—honored the vision of our founding document, the Declaration of Independence.

Today’s federal government employs over 2 million people. It is composed of over 400 agencies that often combine legislative, executive, and judicial powers. These agencies regulate nearly all areas of life from cradle to grave. We may take this arrangement for granted, but it is far from what the Founders envisioned. For them, the federal government was meant to have a limited range of power. And these powers were to be assiduously separated, checked, and balanced by the constitutional system they crafted.

How did we go so far astray? The progressive era marks a key turning point. Woodrow Wilson, foremost among progressives, offered a candid vision of a new form of government in his 1912 presidential campaign speech.

In this speech, which would later be published under the title “What Is Progress?”, Wilson argued that government should be adapted to the latest theory of Darwinian evolution. “Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice,” Wilson explained. “Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop.”

According to Wilson, the Founders’ political theory was modeled upon the prevailing scientific theory of their day: Newtonian physics.

“They were scientists in their way … those fathers of the nation. [Thomas] Jefferson wrote of ‘the laws of Nature’—and then by way of afterthought—’and of Nature’s God,’” he states. “Politics in their thought was a variety of mechanics. The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation.”

If the Founders’ system of government was based upon outdated scientific models, then we should update it according to new scientific breakthroughs if government is to remain effective.

Hence Wilson’s request:

“All that progressives ask or desire is permission— in an era when ‘development,’ ‘evolution,’ is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.”

If society is a living organism, then government should not be constrained by mechanisms like checks, balances, and so forth. “No living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live,” said Wilson. It should be able to grow, adapt, and act as a coordinated whole.

Darwin’s theory, strictly speaking, didn’t have much to say about social and political life—though many apply natural selection to cultures with various degrees of plausibility. Wilson and other progressives adapted Darwin’s theory of natural selection to “artificial selection,” which suited their own ends. This was the idea that humans can control their environments such that they shape society and human nature. And human nature is seen as plastic, so there are no built-in limits to what we can do or become.

The Founders would’ve seen this proposal as naïve and reckless. Aside from some passing mentions, they were not relying on Newtonian physics in crafting the U.S. Constitution. They were relying on millennia of tradition and experience, reflections on human nature, and more recent historical memory of Britain and Colonial America.

When Jefferson and the Founders appealed to the “laws of nature”, they were not speaking simply of physical laws like gravity as Wilson suggests. They were appealing to a moral order—a standard of justice that can be known by reason and that tells us crucial facts about what humans are.

For all their differences, the Founders generally agreed humans are “rational animals” endowed with intellect and will. But as revelation and observation show, we are also fallen. Passions often override our reason. Too much power can corrupt even the noblest of men.

This is why the Founders crafted the form of government they did. The seemingly “mechanical” Constitution arose from a sober view of human nature. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” as James Madison observed.

Wilson dismisses this understanding of human nature and with that the need for constraints upon government. As the Declaration of Independence states, governments exist to secure certain unalienable rights. These rights derive from certain unchanging features about man and from our status as created beings.

But just as he rejects fixed constitutional limits, Wilson also reinterprets the declaration as an ever-evolving program of action.

The declaration, he argues, is of no use “unless we can translate its general terms into examples of the present day….” It is “not a thesis for philosophers, but a whip for tyrants; not a theory of government, but a program of action.”

For Wilson, the only enduring principle in the declaration appears to be the contest between freedom and tyranny. And that is historically contingent. The relevant questions, then, are:

“What is the special form of tyranny we now fight? How does it endanger the rights of the people, and what do we mean to do in order to make our contest against it effectual? What are to be the items of our new declaration of independence?”

In other words, the declaration is a permission slip for government to address present-day injustices and pursue new ideals and aspirations. While the Founders believed government exists to secure certain preexisting rights, Wilson’s government exists to create new rights and expand its scope to secure them.

Taken together, Wilson’s reinterpretation of the declaration and his dismissal of the Constitution’s checks and balances points toward a much more expansive national government. If rights are evolving, and government must evolve to secure them, then limits placed on government begin to look more like obstacles than safeguards.

Beneath the appeals to Darwinism vs. Newtonian theories is a deeper conflict over human nature and the purpose of government. Wilson saw the purpose of government as administration by experts who could keep up with social progress. The Founders, by contrast, recognized the need for constraints within government, stemming from certain unchanging features in human nature.

For them, just government was not so much a matter of scientific or technical expertise as it was of prudence—the highest virtue of the statesman.

Wilson notes that some will insist on clinging to old political forms and ways of life. These “stand-patters,” as he calls them, don’t know a “procession is under way.” “The world has a habit of leaving those behind who won’t go with it,” he states. “The world has always neglected stand-patters.”

The world does go on, but looking back on this procession should show that some things remain the same. Humans remain fallible creatures, capable of virtue but prone toward vice. Too much power in the hands of one or a few is always bound to corrupt.

Wilson may have justified expanding the government to combat tyranny. But the form it produced—effectively a “fourth branch” of government in which offices combine legislative, executive, and judicial powers—is what Madison described as “the very definition of tyranny.”

Contrary to his intentions, Wilson’s speech should prompt us to cling even more steadfastly to the perennial truths that lay at the heart of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this nation, we should take pride in being the “stand-patters” Wilson bemoans.

AUTHOR

Gillian Richards

Gillian Richards is a research associate in The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. Follow on X gn_richards.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

PROFITS SKYROCKET at America’s Biggest Companies While Blue States Suffer Record-High Living Costs Under Mamdani-Style Democrat Policies

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that profits are soaring at America’s biggest companies—and their leaders say that likely won’t change soon. From Target and J.M. Smucker to farm-equipment maker Deere, companies spanning the breadth of the U.S. economy are ringing up heftier sales and earnings. Many have raised financial outlooks for the year. Chalk the good times up to a confluence of fortunate events: red-hot AI spending, federal spending and the windfall companies are getting in the form of refunds of some of their past tariff payments. Plus, a booming stock market and high home values are helping many shoppers keep spending, even as plenty of others struggle to absorb rising prices. What are they buying? New appliances, toys and clothing.

The Democrat media narrative and reality have never been more at odds.

Trump economy soars as Democrats like Mamdani’s socialist ‘affordability’ agenda drives New York housing costs to record highs.

As the American economy surges and corporate profits soar, Democrat moochers and looters are dragging their cities in the opposite direction. The irony is staggering: Zohran Mamdani campaigns on “affordability,” yet his rent-control crusade and war on landlords have achieved the polar opposite—choking off housing, driving owners from the market and pushing New York’s rents and housing costs to unprecedented levels. Democrats create scarcity, call the resulting catastrophe “capitalism,” and then demand even more power to intensify the policies that caused it.

Corporate America’s Profits Are Booming—and Signal More Good Times Ahead

By: Sarah Nassauer and Theo Francis, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30, 2026:

Profits are booming at America’s biggest companies—and their leaders say that likely won’t change soon.

From Target and J.M. Smucker to farm-equipment maker Deere, companies spanning the breadth of the U.S. economy are ringing up heftier sales and earnings. In recent days, many have raised financial outlooks for the year, citing robust sales as just one of the reasons.

Chalk the good times up to a confluence of fortunate events: red-hot artificial-intelligence spending, federal spending and the windfall companies are getting in the form of refunds of some of their past tariff payments. Plus, a booming stock market and high home values are helping many shoppers keep spending, even as plenty of others struggle to absorb rising prices.

At Abercrombie & Fitch, consumers kept buying even after the fashion retailer pared back discounts in the most recent quarter, executives told investors on a conference call last week. That, plus around $120 million in expected tariff refunds, led the retailer to raise its full-year financial estimates.

“The underlying business performed above our expectations,” Chief Financial Officer Robert Ball said on the conference call.

Across S&P 500 companies, per-share earnings soared 53% in the second quarter from a year earlier, while sales rose nearly 16%, according to data from LSEG. Investment gains from tech giants Amazon.com and Alphabet added fuel to the big earnings surge.

Even without those gains, S&P 500 earnings rose the most since fall 2021. Quarterly sales also climbed more than they have in years. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, more companies raised their profit guidance for the current quarter than lowered it—a turnaround from a year ago, when more were lowering their outlooks.

Tariff refunds are providing a big, temporary tailwind. They are likely to account for more than 4% of third-quarter economic growth—or add about 0.2 percentage point to the Atlanta Fed’s growth forecast of between 4% and 5%—according to a mid-August estimate from Apollo Global Management.

Improved full-year financial estimates came from a diverse set of companies, including healthcare companies McKesson and Charles River Laboratories International and jelly giant Smucker. At many of them, the refunds flowed primarily to the bottom line, rather than into lower prices for shoppers.

At fitness-watch maker Garmin, $21 million in tariff refunds boosted profit margins in the quarter that ended in late July, executives told investors late last month. Strong demand for its fitness products helped, too, leading the company to raise its full-year financial guidance.

Even without the refund, “our gross margin performance was impressive by any historical comparison,” Chief Executive Clifton Pemble told investors.

Retailers generally reported strong quarterly sales figures in recent weeks, noting that consumers are spending on new appliances, toys and clothing even as they navigate higher fuel prices and long-term inflation.

Dollar General, known for drawing cash-strapped shoppers to its mostly rural stores, posted a fifth consecutive quarter of higher traffic and a 3.5% increase in comparable sales. Electronics retailer Best Buy said its shoppers were buying up computers, TVs and AI-enabled glasses, lifting its most recent quarterly sales and profit. Target also reported higher sales, profit and a benefit from tariff refunds in the most recent quarter, noting shoppers pushed up sales of toys, food and beauty products.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Common Good Versus Stakeholder Capitalism

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Amid the on-going debates about capitalism, it is worthwhile to flesh out some distinctions between common good capitalism and stakeholder capitalism.

Let’s start with some definitions.

Capitalism is generally associated with free enterprise and free market exchange whereby producers and traders generate profits by providing value to counterparties.

It can perhaps most starkly be contrasted with communism, wherein business decisions are centralized within government bureaucracies and the pricing signals of free market exchange are destroyed while prosperity turns into breadlines.

It can also be contrasted with socialism, wherein business decisions ostensibly remain in private hands, but profits are redistributed to the point of destroying all incentives to create value and—again—prosperity turns to breadlines.

Finally, the proposition that the corporatism of fascism ends badly is widely accepted.

Meanwhile, common good capitalism may best be defined at least in part by contrasting it with what it is not.

For example, one might envision a spectrum with (1) laissez-faire capitalism on one end and (2) government control of business decisions via socialism, fascism, and communism on the other. Common good capitalism may then be viewed as providing more government involvement than laissez-faire capitalism but less interference than socialism, fascism, or communism.

Finally, stakeholder capitalism may be differentiated from the foregoing because it proposes a system of internal corporate governance rather than external regulation (though it may be imposed by regulation). It is best contrasted with profit maximization in terms of determining the end of internal corporate decision-making. In other words, instead of private corporate decision-makers pursuing the one true north star of profit, they attempt to balance the interests of myriad stakeholders.

(There is perhaps an argument to be made that fascism is better understood for these purposes as imposing a form of internal corporate governance to the extent it leaves profits and decision-making with the private sector so long as those profits and that decision-making sufficiently align with the interests of the state. But we’ll leave that discussion for another day.)

Stakeholder capitalism is typically critiqued as suffering from a many-masters problem that both undermines efficient decision-making and provides cover to self-dealing insiders.

In addition, it ignores the role of stakeholders that is already baked into capitalism in the form of the incentives inherent in capitalism to be deemed a trustworthy and responsible counterparty to trades.

Finally, proponents of stakeholder capitalism often ignore the availability of external regulation in addressing perceived negative externalities.

For example, if it is concluded that corporations pollute too much, it is arguably better to make certain pollution illegal rather than adding “the environment” to a laundry list of stakeholders corporate managers are somehow supposed to balance ethically.

(It may also be worth noting that stakeholder capitalism can be a Trojan horse for ESG and DEI.)

Turning back to common good capitalism, one frequent criticism levied against it is that government should be neutral vis-à-vis markets, but there are several rejoinders to this assertion.

First, it is reasonable to conclude that no market the size of the United States can function without at least some government regulation. Accordingly, any binary characterization of government regulation as presenting an either/or choice is a red herring.

Second, neutrality is desirable except when it’s not.

On the one hand, if corporations are taking a side in our culture wars regarding transgenderism by supporting the Human Rights Campaign, it might be perfectly reasonable to want them to get back to neutral by either stopping support of HRC or at the very least adding support for a balancing organization such as the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Similarly, if a corporation’s employee health insurance coverage pays for chemical or surgical sex change procedures for minors, it might be perfectly reasonable to want them to get back to neutral by either stopping their financial support of what is arguably child abuse or at the very least also paying for detransitioning procedures.

On the other hand, it is also perfectly reasonable to expect the U.S. government to not stay neutral while U.S. jobs are shipped overseas and national security is undermined via one-sided or abused trade agreements. In those cases, the good of neutrality is arguably outweighed by the common good of the American worker and national security.

Even a pro-free-trade stalwart such as Paul Krugman has apparently recently acknowledged that there are tradeoffs between free trade and things like national power that may need to occasionally be resolved in favor of national power.

To be sure, the previous two points mix internal and external governance, but the general idea about the potential myth of neutrality arguably remains.

Put another way, if every time leftists are in power, they utilize all the levers of government available to them but every time conservatives are in power, they keep their hands off those levers under the banner of “neutrality,” then you should expect to end up with leftist culture dominating your society. (Sound familiar?) This may be what Lenin meant when he allegedly predicted that: “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Of course, the devil is in the details. And we may well debate whether proponents of free enterprise and free market exchange should even be using the term “capitalism” given its Marxist roots.

However, while there will certainly be some line-drawing issues, there should be room to operate between laissez-faire on the one hand and socialism, fascism, and communism on the other. A good-faith, pro-market position advocating for common-good capitalism while rejecting stakeholder capitalism, socialism, fascism, and communism is possible.

As a relatively recent Conservative Perspective published by Alexander William Salter via The Heritage Foundation (where I work) noted: “The question is not whether to jettison free enterprise in favor of the common good, but how to orient free enterprise in support of the common good.”

Or as Vincent Phillip Muñoz recently put it in a related context: “Rather than jettisoning American principles, we need to recover their genius … The Founders’ natural-rights republicanism offers … a principled and prudent commitment to the common goods belonging to the political order.”

AUTHOR

Stefan Padfield

Stefan Padfield is a Principal for the Free Enterprise Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Follow on X @StefanPadfield.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

What Happened to Safety First?

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When I was studying to become a nurse in the late 1960s, I learned that the most important value in patient care, for both nurses and doctors, was safety. Not curing, which is hoped for but often impossible, and not even empathy, although a high priority. That is because the patient who falls out of bed or is given the wrong dose of medicine or whose grievance is ignored or–– Yikes! this just happened in Nashville––may pay with nothing less than his or her life.

As a mother of three, I already knew this––that all the love and support and education in the world meant nothing in comparison to keeping my young children safe…away from unprotected electrical outlets, sharp table corners, a hot stove, automobile traffic, people with contagious diseases, and of course bad values.

I never forgot this lesson: safety first, a value that applies as well––first and foremost and above all others––to our country.

Among the most blatant of unsafe conditions is a home without locks on the doors and windows or, today, that lacks some kind of alarm or alert system. Does even one person you know or have ever known in your entire life live in a home, apartment, condo, or co-op with no locks on its doors or windows? An honest answer would be a thundering “no!”

That is because we live in a world where there are people who are seriously mentally disturbed and criminals too numerous to mention whose sole raison-d’être ––reason for being––is to rob you of your possessions and often rape you or torture you or kill you in the process.

Don’t believe me? According to OpenCrime.us, over a million violent crimes were committed in America in 2025 alone!

WE ALL SAW THIS WITH OUR OWN EYES

Everyone in America, in fact everyone in the world, witnessed this in living color under the faux Biden regime, when 11 million unvetted illegal aliens––during the faux Covid pandemic, no less––were welcomed with open arms into our country. While the powers-that-be, meaning the so-called medical experts, were keeping us six feet apart and masked and shutting down schools and businesses and even military units, they were opening their arms not only to sex traffickers, drug traffickers, communists, jihadists, and career criminals, et al, but also to the de facto implementation of the Cloward-Piven strategy from the 1960s, the leftist goal of which was and is “to facilitate a political crisis by overloading the system with crushing welfare costs, forcing the creation of a system of a guaranteed minimum income, and “redistributing income through the federal government.”

In other words, to actualize their longtime goal and ongoing fetish with Communism by bringing about the collapse––actually the destruction––of the capitalist system by bankrupting it from overwhelming welfare expenditures. And that is what we witnessed as massive numbers of illegal aliens were put up in posh digs like the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City (and other fancy venues), and promptly provided with monthly cash stipends, cell phones, free medical care and food, and top-flight education for their children.

It is also relevant to mention that our porous borders accounted for a reported case of bubonic plague in Oregon (attributed to a cat…yeah, right!), the resurgence of tuberculosis in New York City, and an epidemic of measles in 14 states.

All because of the Biden regime’s abject neglect of––indeed contempt for––the most important thing our elected officials are charged with protecting… our safety! Not our happiness, not our well-being, not our employment status, not our relationships, not our mental or physical health, not our entertainment, but our safety!

NOT EVERYONE AGREES

There are quite a few people who have a soft spot for illegal immigrants and a collective blind spot for the huge spike in crime, including murders and child abduction, that has been reported across the country. In fact, as reported by Julio Rosas, at the recent Democratic National Committee’s meeting, Democrats uniformly pledged their allegiance to open borders, and of course the complete the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and all the mean people who work for ICE.

Really, says Tom Homan, the White House border tsar. “So, you want to abolish an agency that found 151,000 children… that seized enough fentanyl to kill every American three times over… that is attacking sex trafficking?”

We know that Biden lost track of hundreds of thousands of kids. Trump’s ICE is finding them, and some were being trafficked or forced into labor.

Additionally, writes Rosas, “the resolution calls for restricting the Department of Homeland Security’s funding until workplace raids, mass roundups, arrests at courthouses and check-ins, enforcement actions near schools and houses of worship are no longer carried out.”

Did you ever notice that when Democrats––i.e., liberals, leftists, progressives––speak about the tsunami of foreigners who have flooded into our country, they always––100 percent of the time––omit the word “illegal”?

Makes sense when you think about it. These are the people who embraced and applauded and supported and sent millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter and Antifa when those seditious, anarchic groups were rampaging across the nation, committing widespread arson, hurling (pre-planted) bricks through businesses, sending dozens of people to Intensive Care Units, and causing a significant number of deaths in their leftwing anti-capitalism, anti-American path.

Make no mistake about it, destroying ICE and its agents is among the major issues Democrats will run on in the midterms and will implement immediately if gaining the majority.

THEY HAVE ALLIES

In keeping with the oh-so-compassionate bleeding hearts in the Democrat Party, we have State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-NY), a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who has gone public with her belief––not a theory, but a belief––that it is perfectly fine for a person to shoplift––i.e., steal––if they have a “biological need”––like for toothpaste and soap. She even suggested that shoplifting should be legalized!

And surprise, surprise! In keeping with her Party’s passionate embrace of Jew- and Israel hatred, in 2024, Gallagher “attended an anti-Israel phone bank sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, whose leaders have espoused vile antisemitic rhetoric and are under investigation by Virginia’s attorney general for potentially funding terrorists.”

With allies like this, who needs enemies!

WHAT DOES SAFETY LOOK LIKE?

That is why in President Trump’s first acts when taking office in his second term, he immediately moved to close our wide-open southern border and to deport the multi-millions of illegal aliens who the liberals/leftists/progressives among us welcomed in with open arms.

“We’re a nation of immigrants,” they opine. “Immigrants built our country,” they scold any critics. “Deporting our immigrants is not who we are!” they bleated endlessly.

Again, the word they always omitted when pleading their bleeding-heart case is “illegal”!

But President Trump, ever the empiricist, knew the exorbitant costs in dollars and in crime that this tsunami of illegal immigrants brought with them.

According to writer Jasmine Baehr, the Trump border crackdown against drug cartels and arrests of convicted fentanyl traffickers has led to a drop in synthetic opioid deaths from 48,913 to 38,084, while, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), total drug overdose deaths fell 14 percent, and fentanyl deaths plunged 22 percent. And total drug overdose deaths also fell 14 percent during the same period, from 81,313 to 69,973.

In addition, the president signed legislation that strengthens criminal penalties for fentanyl––which he calls “a weapon of mass destruction”––and his administration has arrested more than 10,000 suspected gang members and foreign nationals who the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said had prior fentanyl-related convictions.

Ask the thousands upon thousands of parents who have lost their children to this vicious drug how grateful they are for the president’s enhanced border security and for saving other parents the lifetime grief they themselves are experiencing.

This is not to omit, as journalist and TV correspondent Sharyl Attkisson documents, that President Trump has delivered the largest drop in violent crime in American history! This includes:

  • Violent crime plunged 9.3% in 2025 — the largest annual decline on record.
  • Murder dropped 18.1% –– tying the lowest rate in recorded history.
  • Robbery fell 18.5% –– resulting in nearly 38,500 fewer robberies.
  • Rape declined 7.6% — resulting in more than 10,000 fewer victims.
  • Aggravated assault fell 7.2% — resulting in over 62,700 fewer attacks.
  • Property crime dropped 12.4% –– the second-largest decline in history, with nearly 750,000 fewer offenses.

These numbers, Atkisson cites — are in line with the Council on Criminal Justice, Major Cities Chiefs Association, and many other sources — mark the decisive reversal of the crime crisis Democrats left behind.

NOT EVERYONE AGREES

In stark contrast, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) think it’s a much smarter and much better to fuggedabout safety and implement their notion of an ideal America which includes––this is the short list;

Ø  Replacing the president and the Supreme Court with people chosen by Congress,

Ø  Abolishing the US Senate,

Ø  Implementing amnesty for all immigrants,

Ø  Defunding the Department of War (and, of course, the police),

Ø  Terminating ICE,

Ø  Extending full voting rights to people with criminal convictions and noncitizens,

Ø  Medicare for all,

Ø  Free public college,

Ø  Expanded government ownership of key industries.

Needless to say, Vladmir Putin would approve!

WHAT’S THE CATCH?

We’ve all seen this scenario before, for decades. The radical leftists among us are very good at pretending––and convincing naïve voters––that they will implement socialism/communism significantly more successfully than all the crashingly failed regimes that have collapsed so catastrophically throughout history, as well as those pitiful communist regimes that exist today.

These radicals, who see the world comprised exclusively of victims and victimizers, may promise to change things for the better, but one thing they will never change is the privilege and private security and financial stability they will claim for themselves.

When it comes to the all-important issue of safety, you can be sure that they will never put their constituents or our country first!

©2026 . All rights reserved.

AWED MEDIA BALANCED NEWS: We cover Energy to Education to Elections — and more!

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Welcome! We cover Energy to Education to Elections — and more!

Here is the link for this issue, so please share it on social media.

Checkout the 2026, 2025, & 2024 archives, plus asterisked items below.

Trump announces ‘biggest oil deal in world history.’

— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

Secondary Education Related:

*** What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?

*** The Machinery of Compliance

*** The failed state of American education

*** Durable Skills are the Most Demanded, Least Developed Skills in the Economy & Has to Change

*** Classical Education Is Booming, but What Is It Exactly?

*** Meta pays $17± B over claims Facebook, Instagram addict children

*** Raising an AI Genius, Not an AI Cheater

*** Report: The evolution of business school skills

The K-12 Techlash Moment

Who Put the SAT and ACT in Charge?

Trump administration touts ‘hard reset’ for American schools, vows to put parents ‘back in charge’

Higher Education Related:

*** Imagine Michigan’s new hide-the-grades policy in a Wolverines practice

*** People with Exceptionally Strong Critical Thinking Skills Say 9 Phrases in Casual Conversation

*** American colleges are facing an enrollment crisis as young people turn to trades

*** The enrollment crisis taking down smaller schools is now hitting bigger, brand-name universities

Pentagon Wants to Curb CCP Infiltration in America’s Universities, But There’s a Problem

Democrats Are Falling Out of Love With Higher Ed

Dennis Prager on The Absurdity of Not Giving College Students Letter Grades

Artificial Intelligence:

*** Hundreds of AI Agents Go Rogue in Jaw-Dropping ‘Swarm’ Hack

*** AI is a Liar. Here’s Why That’s So Dangerous.

*** When AI Starts Saying ‘No.’

Harvard’s Howard Gardner on What AI Means for Schooling

Chinese humanoid robot breaks Usain Bolt’s 100m dash record at 9.39 seconds

Which skills can AI not replace?

Unreliables (General):

*** Grid Instability

Geopolitical Reality Has Ended the Rush to Renewables

The Renewable Data Center Fantasy

New York’s New Solar Religion is Absolutely Devastating to Wildlife, Farmland

Nuclear Energy:

America is Watching the World’s Movement to Nuclear Power Generation

Billion-dollar machine aims to set a fusion-energy record — and study nuclear weapons

Fossil Fuel Energy:

*** Trump announces ‘biggest oil deal in world history,’ says it will substantially lower gas prices

*** Why Gasoline Costs More in Democratic-Controlled States

Trump administration to pay German firm to halt US wind projects – and ‘re-invest’ in gas schemes

Yes, Coal Clearly Has A Future

Electric Vehicles (EVs):

They were told to park outside – then their cars burst into flames

Misc Energy:

*** Shockingly vulnerable US power grid could result in 18-month nationwide blackout, expert warns

*** Energy War: Iran, China, AI and the fight to control the future

*** A sort talk: Meredith Angwin and the Two Grids in the Hudson Valley

Battery System Capital & Operating Costs, Energy Losses and Aging

Hydrogen: Not Market Ready

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

*** Climate ‘Experts’ Are 0-54 with Their Doomsday Predictions

*** Climatologist Says a Century of Weather Data Contradicts Claims of Record Heat

*** Net Zero Won’t Fix Climate Change. Technology Will

*** AGs from 25 states are accusing the National Academies of Sciences of producing a biased climate report designed to bolster lawsuits against fossil fuel companies

*** Climate Emergency Skepticism in Eight Charts

*** Democratic Climate Silence is Hiding Trillions of Inflationary Additional Costs

*** UN Green Climate Fund emission reduction claims are fraudulent

US Election:

*** Report: Noncitizen Voting in the 2020 Election, a Beginning Analysis

*** Vote Tampering in Alaska? 36,352 Suspected Violations of Federal Law

*** Democrats’ ActBlue Scandal Gets WORSE

*** The Supreme Court Applies Rationality to Election Integrity

The Man Who Cracked Down on Voter Fraud In Wyoming is Headed to DC

Trump:

*** What Is Causing US Prescription Drug Costs To Plummet?

Misc US Politics:

*** Trump DOJ Arrests Corrupt Democrat Activist

*** Thune Flubs SAVE America Act, Flees for 5-Week Break

*** DSA: ‘Our Goal Is Communism’

*** Tucker Carlson’s Third-Party Fantasy Threatens the Republic

Why Is the Democrat Party Short on Cash?

The Candace Owens Debate was a Disaster for Everyone

The Real History of Civil Rights Part 1

The Real History of Civil Rights Part 2

The Socialist, a Million-Dollar Rowhouse and Unanswered Questions

The Rise of Socialism Starts in the Classroom

Lifetime Taxes in Every U.S. State

Mamdani sparks tenant complaint crisis to ‘squeeze’ landlords and seize private property: critics

Misc International Politics:

CCP Intelligence Official Buys Building Steps From White House

China’s Orwellian Threat to the Free World

Societally US:

*** Dr. Malone: Ground News and the Factuality Scam

*** If I Were Parenting Czar, Here’s What I’d Outlaw

Religion Related:

Consequences of Secularism, Part I

Health (Other):

*** Madness. Moderna Cashes in on Drugs Before Publishing Trials

*** Largest Human Cancer Study of Ivermectin + Mebendazole Is Now PEER-REVIEWED and PUBLISHED in a Major Cancer Journal

*** The Part of the Berberine Story Everyone Is Missing

Science:

Matt Ridley: An amateur sleuth is singlehandedly demolishing dangerous scientific groupthink

COVID-19 — Misc:

*** Dr. Fauci’s Deception Was Always in Plain Sight

*** We Knew About COVID Vax and Miscarriages Before the Fauci Diaries – Part 2

*** New E-mail Shows Fauci and Others Knew About Serious Vaccine Injuries in May 2021

*** Biden Tried To DESTROY this Doctor For Saving Lives (Start at 16:00)

A Doctor Tested Thousands for COVID. The Government Called It Fraud.

HHS Terminates the COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Declarations Covering mRNA Shots, Drugs, and Biologics

Iran:

Iran’s supreme leader admits economic hardships as US sanctions campaign takes toll

Israel/Ukraine:

Latest Developments in Israel

Pray for the safety of the Israeli people

Latest Developments in Ukraine

Pray for the safety of the Ukrainian people

A well-rated source to make a Ukraine donation

Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…If you’d like to be added to (or unsubscribe from) the distribution of our popular, free, worldwide Media Balance Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g., PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from 2023, 2024, 2025 & 2026. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all fifteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2026; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

U.S. Approaching ‘Massive’ Deal for Venezuelan Oil Fields: ‘HUGE Would Be An Understatement’

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A big development for Trump’s energy-centric administration. The historic deal would more than double U.S. oil reserves by drawing from a country that has the world’s largest proven reserves.

It’s massive.

WATCH: Trump team is closing in on a Venezuela oil deal that would MORE THAN DOUBLE U.S. reserves!

The GOAT strikes again.

Axios reports: The Trump administration is in talks with Venezuela’s interim government about taking an ownership stake in the South American country’s enormous oil resources, two U.S. officials tell Axios. The historic deal would more than double U.S. oil reserves by drawing from a country that has the world’s largest proven reserves. “Calling this deal huge would be an understatement,” one of the officials said. “It is massive.” Adding pressure to get the deal signed: the wars in Iran and Ukraine, which have disrupted global oil supplies and raised prices. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now at a 40-year low. Details are still being hammered out, but the discussions involve more than a dozen productive oil fields — not all of Venezuela’s 300 billion barrels of proven reserves…. The Venezuelan oil deal would be a legacy-defining moment for President Trump, who has made U.S. energy security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere pillars of his so-called “Donroe Doctrine.” “President Trump is close to securing America’s energy future for generations to come, not just in the U.S. but in the hemisphere,” a second official said.

Wow.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Responds to Concerns About Canada Trade War Raising US Prices

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President Donald Trump brushed off affordability concerns related to his trade war with Canada in response to a question from the Daily Signal on Thursday.

Earlier this week, Trump announced he will impose tariffs on Canadian cars amid his trade war with our neighbor to the north. He has called Canada “one of the worst countries in the world to deal with.”

Canada retaliated against new U.S.-imposed tariffs, announcing it will impose a set of tariffs on over 700 American goods and doubling its duties on U.S. Steel and aluminum, matching the U.S. rates on Canadian steel and aluminum.

When asked by the Daily Signal how this dispute will impact affordability ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections, Trump said that what he is doing will be good for the country.

“Ultimately, it’s going to be very good for us because we’re losing,” he told the Daily Signal. “When you talk about affordability, we’re losing $62 billion a year on average with Canada, and if you really look at it, we’re losing more than that.”

“It’s too much. It’s too much. We can’t lose it. We don’t want to lose it. We don’t want to lose it anymore.”

He addressed affordability concerns after renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America by executive order, effective immediately.

“The lake change in the Lake of America was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” he said. “Actually, as you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico. We changed it, and now it’s very routinely the Gulf of America. So if you think about it, we have a Gulf and we have a lake.”

“Now all we need is an ocean,” he joked. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.”

Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday that Canada has been “Ripping Off” America for decades.

“They have been charging our Farmers 400% Tariffs, and more,” he said. “They have driven many wonderful U.S. companies out of business. For 10 years they wouldn’t certify Gulfstream Jets, until I got involved. They wanted 100% of the market for Gulfstream’s Canadian competitor.”

AUTHOR

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell is the White House correspondent for the Daily Signal. Follow on X TheElizMitchell.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Report: Trump Admin Nearing ‘Massive’ Venezuelan Oil Deal

Trump Signs ‘Lake America’ Executive Order ‘Effective Immediately’

U.S. Military Makes Iran Pay for Strait of Hormuz Ploy

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

JD Vance, Ohio Figures Give Rousing Middletown Speech on Manufacturing Investments

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Vice President JD Vance spoke at a factory in Middletown, Ohio, on Friday, his first appearance in his hometown since being elected to the nation’s second-highest office. In addition to sharing sentiments about his papaw working at that same factory, the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant, Vance spoke on what the Trump administration is doing for manufacturing.

The Cost of Not Investing

The announcement of a $1 billion investment in Middletown Works from Cleveland-Cliffs, thanks to a $500 million grant from the Trump administration, centered the day’s remarks. “Now, this is only possible because of my friend Chris Wright and the president’s energy dominance agenda,” Vance said about the secretary of energy.

Vance described factory workers being able to provide for their families as “the American dream” when speaking of his papaw.

“My papaw hated the politicians who ignored this place. He hated the people who saw this as the place of the past,” Vance said. “He hated the people who forgot about this town when they should have been fighting for this town.”

Those at Fault

Vance recalled how, when he was growing up, people shared that their fathers had lost their factory jobs because those factories were going overseas.

“Now, economists have measured the ways in which the opioid crisis exploded in the very locations where jobs were shipped overseas,” Vance shared, as he brought up open borders, which “brought the fentanyl trade,” and how “it left us with millions of orphan children being raised by grieved grandparents,” including his own.

Signs of Hope

“In November of 2024, you made a choice to reverse 40 years of American decline and make Donald Trump the president of the United States. And I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or it’s all going to happen overnight, but in just 18 months, we have seen an explosion of rebuilding in the American heartland,” Vance continued.

He went on to tout the successes of the Trump administration on manufacturing. “We’ve created more than 29,000 new jobs in the sector in 2026 so far, reversing years of decline in manufacturing employment. And year-over-year, manufacturing workers’ wages actually went up 4.2% where they went down under the Biden administration,” Vance explained.

Vance also insisted that companies hire American workers or otherwise face tariffs.

“For the first time in my life, America saw net migration out of the country as we sent millions of illegal immigrants back home.” Describing it as “maybe the thing I’m the most proud of in the last 18 months,” Vance brought up how the net job growth over that period “went to native-born Americans,” reversing a trend.

A Special Investment

The announcement of the $1 billion investment came from Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves, as he reminded attendees that it was made possible thanks to the Department of Energy.

That $500 million grant was later addressed by Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson, as “one of the largest investments out of [her] office,” and “a vote of confidence in the American worker in the state of Ohio and in President Trump and Vice President Vance’s staunch belief that the future of heavy industry belongs right here on American soil.”

As he introduced the vice president, Wright referred to Vance as “the leader of the reindustrializing the United States of America.”

The Need to Do More

Ohio’s Republican senators shared how their families were both affected by the decline in manufacturing.

Sen. Bernie Moreno spoke of how his father-in-law was impacted, as he had lamented that it “totally screwed up the company” to ship jobs overseas.

He went on to call on Cleveland-Cliffs to strive to become the No. 1 steel for auto production in the world.

Sen. Jon Husted‘s father lost his job at the factory, the senator revealed, lashing out against people who “thought it was OK to send our jobs to China, get back cheap products in return, and weaken basically export American manufacturing.”

Husted pivoted to a more hopeful message about “America First,” and the kind of place that Ohio has since become, which would be a theme of his remarks.

“We’ve added in this state 3,000 manufacturing jobs,” he said, as he recalled candidates claiming manufacturing was dead and jobs were gone, and the industry was not coming back. “They were wrong. We can bring back manufacturing to this great country in places like Middletown and across places across our great state,” Husted insisted.

Good News for Ohio

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, had a heavy focus on Ohio as he celebrated the “good news” of the investment. He thanked Goncalves “for believing in Ohio” and “these great workers that you see here today.”

“We are red hot,” DeWine said about Ohio, speaking of improvements in doing business, lower unemployment, and filling jobs. The governor also spoke about how companies are leaving other states for Ohio, which involves recognizing “a long history of leading in manufacturing.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee who may replace the term-limited DeWine, also spoke. He addressed the need to “successfully fix what needs to be fixed,” which involves being “first grateful for what we’re actually getting right,” as he also touted the United States and Ohio, and the humble beginnings of many speakers.

He also addressed making Ohio the state to envy.

Ramaswamy concluded by making a promise about “ensur[ing] that Middletown’s best days, that Ohio’s best days, and honest to God, through Ohio, America’s best days are actually still ahead of us.”

AUTHOR

Rebecca Downs

Rebecca Downs is an Ohio correspondent for the Daily Signal. Follow on X RebeccaRoseGold.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Smart, Strong, Elegant Women Have Always Had Trump’s Ear

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The effort to concoct a scandal around President Donald Trump’s executive assistant, Natalie Harp, ignores one of the peculiar, if underreported, facts about Trump.

For decades, the president has had an archetype of the person he trusts and heeds: strong, smart, elegant women.

Oh, I hear the cackles from half the country. They could drown out the Indy racers set to roar through the nation’s capital this weekend.

And there’s enough in Trump’s background to admit the cackles, if not earned, are at least understood.

However, look at the record and you will see the archetype follows Trump around the way the Easter Bunny followed Joe Biden.

Start with the president’s first wife, Ivana Trump.

It’s easy to remember Ivana as the colorful A-list celebrity and the tabloid fixture. Who can forget her line from “The First Wives Club,” coyly chirping with her thick Czech accent, “Don’t get mad, get everything,” before she walks away with some gentlemanly hunk?

Less remembered is how Ivana was Trump’s shrewd and trusted partner in building his real estate empire.

In “The Art of the Deal,” the billionaire developer brags about her smarts and skills almost as much as his own.

Speaking of Ivana, here’s a pro tip to the media and Democrats trying to smack Trump around with this Natalie Harp business: It won’t work. When you’ve had your first wife and mistress (and eventually second wife) get into a WWE-worthy altercation on a ski slope with paparazzi on hand, you’re not going to sweat cheap innuendo about an executive assistant.

Who Hired the First Woman to Oversee the Building of a New York Skyscraper?

Now for some trivia: Who built Trump Tower? Answer: A young woman named Barbara Res. Trump hired Res as the vice president in charge of its construction, making her the first woman to oversee the building of a major New York City skyscraper. She was only 31 years old.

Res went on to become the executive vice president overseeing construction and development for the Trump Organization, spending 18 years with the company.

She’d turn on Trump during the run-up to the 2020 election, becoming a darling of liberal media when she published a book slamming the president. However, in 2013, before Trump went into politics, she wrote “All Alone on the 68th Floor: How One Woman Changed the Face of Construction.” She wouldn’t have been on that floor but for Trump.

When Trump gave the media a tour of the construction going on in the White House earlier this week, you could just feel the passion and love he has for construction. I mean, he was speaking of the new helicopter pad the way Romeo spoke of Juliet. If he could replace “Hail to the Chief” with the sound of sledgehammers, he would.

And Trump had in charge of his beloved construction endeavors a young woman.

Res wasn’t the only female hotshot Trump had in a high position. Fans of “The Apprentice” may remember Carolyn Kepcher. This Trump archetype was his right-hand in the show’s famous boardroom. For the first five seasons, she was right there when Trump growled, “You’re fired!”

However, in real life, Kepcher was an executive vice president of the Trump Organization and COO and general manager of Trump National Golf Clubs.

We know Trump’s passion for golf. If he had his druthers, he’d turn Iran’s Kharg Island into a championship course. And yet he put his clubs in the capable hands of a woman.

Meanwhile, as she came of age, Ivanka, like her mother before her, took a key role in the Trump Organization. And Melania Trump? You couldn’t create a stronger, smarter, more elegant woman in a lab.

The Women of His Political World

Then Trump came down the escalator.

Who ran his campaign in 2016? Kellyanne Conway. Archetype.

Who were three of his most trusted aides that first term? Ivanka, Hope Hicks, and current Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Even former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley fits the archetype.

Did you notice that even with all the smack Haley threw at him during the 2024 campaign Trump never really went after her?

Because the archetype can get away with telling Trump what he might not want to hear.

Who have been his successful press secretaries? Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kayleigh McEnany, and Karoline Leavitt.

Look at Trump’s second-term Cabinet: Sure, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did herself in, former Attorney General Pam Bondi fell a little short, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had to go help her husband whip cancer. But it’s crucial to note Trump put women of the archetype in three of the four top positions for protecting our country.

Even look at his chief of staff. During his first term, Trump went through chiefs of staff the way Spinal Tap goes through drummers. All men. Susie Wiles? In the 2024 campaign and thus far in his second term, Wiles has pulled off the feat of keeping Trump focused. As human endeavors go, I’d put that up with the moon landing.

Put it all together, what am I saying? Donald Trump makes for one heck of a terrible misogynist.

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

AUTHOR

Al Perrotta

Al Perrotta is a contributing editor for the Daily Signal.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

IRAN’S LAST WEAPON SHATTERED: Tanker Traffic Through Strait of Hormuz Soars Nearly 400%

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Iran’s last weapon is being stripped away before the world’s eyes. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has surged nearly 400 percent as U.S.-protected oil tankers defy Tehran’s threats and move through the critical waterway. The chokehold Iran once wielded over global energy markets is collapsing, along with its power to terrorize the world.

Open for business Traffic in Strait of Hormuz skyrockets nearly 400%, as analysts say Iran’s grip on critical waterway weakens

The US has been quietly shepherding oil tankers across Hormuz since May, using shadow fleet tactics like turning off their radars to sneak by undetected and navigating close to the coast of Oman.

By Gabrielle Fahmy, NY Post, August 22, 2026:

Iran appears to be losing its grip on the Strait of Hormuz while traffic through the critical waterway has exploded by nearly 400% over the last two weeks — as ships increasingly use a US-backed corridor to cross.

Nearly 200 ships navigated the strait last week, up from 150 the previous week and just 40 two weeks earlier, according to data from the UK Maritime Trade Operations Center.

The surge brings total traffic along the passage route to about 20% of pre-war levels, through which roughly 20% of the world’s seaborne oil flowed in peacetime.

Activity in Hormuz ground to a near halt after the Iran war began in late February, but vessels are now increasingly navigating through despite the ongoing standoff between Tehran and the US.

More than 80% of liquid cargoes transiting the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have either taken the Omani route — a US-backed, UN International Maritime Organization-authorized channel Iran rejects — or gone “dark,” likely slipping through the same corridor, according to maritime intelligence firm Kpler.

“It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait,” Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler, told CNN this week.

“The Oman route absolutely makes the most sense,” added Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners, noting it’s a way for vessels to avoid the possibility of paying a toll to Tehran.

Over the past seven days, 103 ships entered the strait and 89 exited it — a 27% jump from a week ago, when 76 ships entered and 75 exited.

The change is even more visible compared to two weeks ago — when just 18 ships entered and 21 ships exited the waterway at the center of the dispute between the warring countries.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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The “S” in Socialism stands for “Stupid” — Here’s Why!

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Socialism Is Stupid — Here’s Why

By Ray DiLorenzo

History is a beneficial way to learn. When schools cut back on history, society suffers. And we are suffering.

To all those 50 years of age and under, did you learn in school that the early American colonies were initially administered under socialism?

In the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, a communal labor system or agricultural socialism was used. Land was held collectively, and produce was distributed equally regardless of individual effort.

The experiments in both colonies resulted in severe starvation, death, and economic collapse. The lack of personal incentive led to widespread food shortages, laziness, and societal ruin.

People refused to work either because they simply didn’t want to or because they felt others were unequally taking advantage of their efforts. Working all day in the fields is not the same as sweeping out the barn for an hour.

Governors of both colonies eventually abandoned collective ownership and communal mandates in favor of private ownership, assigned plots of land to families and individuals.

In Jamestown, starvation ceased after 1611 when private land grants replaced collective (communist) farming.

By 1623, starvation had claimed half of the Plymouth colony. However, the introduction of private property resulted in a food surplus by 1624, just one year later.

Protecting private property was a central issue during the American Revolution that unified the colonies (see 4th and 5th Amendments).

Robert Owen (1771-1858), a Welsh textile manufacturer, the father of British socialism, tried multiple times to introduce socialism, both in Britain and the United States. He tried 7 times in Britain and 17 times in different places in America. All failed for the same basic reasons… internal conflicts, lack of discipline. He founded New Harmony, Indiana.

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was a German philosopher, social scientist, and revolutionary socialist. He was a lifelong collaborator of Karl Marx, with whom he co-wrote the Communist Manifesto.

Karl Marx, the famous communist, was just a leech who exploited others’ generosity. He lived off relatives and Engels. Marx was a drunk who never took care of his family or accepted responsibility for his actions; instead, he used servants, whom others paid for, and treated them badly. He fathered a son with a servant but refused to acknowledge him. He is the type of person who, while living on a commune, would do nothing but boast about his great ideas while filling his plate. Communism was perfect for him.

Communism seems to attract nerdy, ne’er-do-well types. People who have nothing but ideas and discover they can attract attention and a good living from just their many promises.

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is our very own Karl Marx. He did not hold any traditional corporate, 9-to-5 job. He just had a series of odd jobs as a carpenter (reportedly a bad one), researcher for the Vermont Department of Taxes and later helped people register for food stamps. After running for governor multiple times and the senate, he managed to become mayor of Burlington, VT. You might say he lucked out. If you ask Bernie any questions, stick to the issues. He doesn’t like personal questions. He used to hate millionaires until he became one. Now he hates billionaires.

Vermont is an enigma. Their motto is “Freedom and Unity” and yet have a communist senator for almost 20 years.

Katie Wilson, the new mayor of Seattle, who has a resume as small as a pin and is a former community organizer (just like Obama), is discovering the hard way what happens when business and entrepreneurship are discouraged. They’re leaving.

Has anyone noticed that Mamdani is not smiling anymore? Just 8 months into his mayoral term, and he’s facing intense criticism and allegations of failure. New York City is seeing a sharp increase in antisemitic hate crimes, deteriorating school literacy, and administrative incompetence. No wonder. He has no administration experience, and he’s now the mayor of the nation’s largest city.

Now we have AOC, whose previous work experience before being elected involved working as a waitress and bartender. You can still work your way up in America. She does have a B.A. degree in economics but insists that communism is better than capitalism. In 2018, the far left hired and groomed her as a proxy for a congressional career, and she is now being considered for the presidency. She can’t answer the simplest questions, but she can show you how to apply makeup.

Socialism DOES NOT WORK. It is stupid to think it will work now. People have not changed. They still are keen to work for a goal, whatever it may be, and be appreciated and compensated for their success. Socialism supplies none of it. The only place it goes is against the grain.

The problem with the world is that there is too much socialism, especially in capitalist countries. It never solves problems but aggravates and introduces a whole new set of other problems.

This crew of communists are dangerous, eager to incite violence, yet unwilling to soil their hands, and horribly antisemitic.

The nerds of socialism are just that: cowardly nerds, dorks, and geeks. For the benefit of yourself, your family, and our country, give them no comfort.

Ray DiLorenzo——

Ray DiLorenzo is a career pilot having retired after 22 years as a contract fire pilot with the California Department of Forestry (Cal-Fire).  He is presently affiliated with Stand Up America US Foundation founded by Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely (Ret).

©2026 . All rights reserved.

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Ending the Welfare State as We Know It

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President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, otherwise known as welfare reform, into law 30 years ago on Aug. 22, 1996. The following is an excerpt from Lee Edwards’ book “The Power of Ideas”. Edwards served as a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation and died in 2024.

In the spring of 1994, President Clinton, having done almost nothing to redeem his campaign pledge on welfare, Heritage Foundation senior analyst Robert Rector proposed a comprehensive reform of the federal welfare system that would end government subsidization of “self-destructive behavior” and reinforce “moral and cultural renewal.”

It was not just another paper but the culmination of years of thought and study by the veteran expert on welfare and family issues. Rector’s seminal study, running 28 pages and 10,000 words, would serve as a model for future work in the area of cultural policy studies by Patrick Fagan and other Heritage analysts.

Rector pointed out that more than 10,000 days—dating back to the mid-1960s—had passed since President Lyndon B. Johnson told the nation that “the days of the dole are numbered.” Now, nearly 30 years later, the War on Poverty had cost American taxpayers more than $4.9 trillion (repeat, trillion) on antipoverty programs, about $305 billion in the last year alone.

But instead of eliminating poverty, the Heritage analyst reported, the welfare system had actually “bribe[d] individuals into behavior-such as not marrying and having children out of wed-lock— which is self-defeating to the individual, a tragic handicap for children, and … increasingly a threat to society.”

What was needed, Rector insisted, was “a complete reversal of existing policies.”

A true welfare reform strategy would be based on three principles: promoting individual responsibility by requiring welfare recipients to give something in return for benefits; controlling welfare costs; and dramatically reducing the illegitimate birth rate by increasing the marriage rate. These principles were embodied in pledge number three of the 1994 Contract with America—the Personal Responsibility Act.”

Specific reforms proposed by Rector included establishing “serious workfare,” denying additional payments to mothers who had more children while on welfare, and putting a 3.5% cap on welfare spending growth.

All these ideas were included in the welfare reform legislation of 1996, which won Rector’s praise as “historic … the largest change in welfare since the early days of the War on Poverty.”

The Heritage analyst, frequently consulted by members of Congress as they wrote the bill, pointed out that the growth of welfare spending would be slowed, albeit by a 4.5% growth limit rather than the 3.5% recommended by Heritage. Illegitimacy would be reduced by three provisions, including extra funding to states that lowered the number of illegitimate births without increasing abortions. And a specified percentage of AFDC recipients would be required to take private-sector jobs or to perform “community service work in exchange for benefits.

AUTHOR

Lee Edwards

Lee Edwards is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. A leading historian of American conservatism, Edwards has published 25 books, including “Just Right: A Life in Pursuit of Liberty.” Follow on X LeeWEdwards.

RELATED ARTICLE: 30 Years Later, Welfare Reform’s Biggest Legacy May Be Stronger Families, Architect Says

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.