Do the job the media refuses to do: Get this list out there. Share it on social media, email it to friends and family, bring it up at the water cooler—use every part of your sphere of influence. Don’t assume people know what Trump has accomplished. Put the facts in their hands. Fashion yourself a Paul Revere – an army of Davids.
Reality versus propaganda—that is what’s at stake in the upcoming election. Actual news is ignored, inconvenient facts are buried, and the legacy media pounds out the same politically useful narratives until repetition passes for truth. Voters are being asked to judge a reality the press refuses to report honestly.
And what do too many Republican candidates do? They retreat. Frightened by left-wing polling they should be scrutinizing, they distance themselves from Trump—the very man who brought voters into their party and gave them a fighting chance. They mistake surrender for strategy and timidity for sophistication. You cannot win an argument you are afraid to make.
Meanwhile, Democrats close ranks, even around pro- terror, Soros candidates whose apologetics should make them politically untouchable. Their candidates can embrace extremism and still count on the party to defend them. Republicans have no such resolve for the president their own voters elected.
If the GOP loses, its leadership will have to answer for failing the people who put it in power. Voters did their part. They showed up, endured the smears, donated, organized, and delivered a mandate. They expected Republicans to use the authority they were given—to fight, deliver, and defend the agenda they campaigned on.
Instead, the Senate under John Thune has been a disaster of squandered opportunity. A majority is supposed to produce results. What good is winning power if your leaders remain afraid to exercise it? What good is a mandate if it disappears into procedural excuses and endless accommodation?
Republican voters did not work this hard to elect spectators. They did not give the party a majority so its candidates could run away from Trump while its Senate leadership frittered away the opportunity to govern.
We did our part. They owe us results. If they squander this election through cowardice and division, they should spare us the lectures about what the voters should have done differently. The voters delivered. The failure will belong to leaders whose retreats aided the very opposition they were elected to defeat.
Record household income: Median household income reached $87,500 in 2025, an all-time high.
Record-low poverty: Poverty rates fell to an all-time low.
Strong employment: Low layoffs and firings, with historically low unemployment claims.
Manufacturing and construction growth: Both sectors are reported to be surging.
Record oil production: Domestic oil output reached an all-time high.
Growing retirement savings: Average 401(k) balances rose $25,000, benefiting plans held by more than 100 million Americans.
Higher income after inflation: Real median household income increased $6,600 during Trump’s first term and another $2,000 during his second term so far.
Tax-cut savings: The authors estimate Trump’s tax cuts add at least $2,000 annually to middle-class disposable income.
Nearly $10,000 in added purchasing power: The authors estimate the combined income gains and tax savings across Trump’s time in office total just under $10,000 for a median-income family
USAID and the “Institute for Peace” closed
Negative net migration for the first time in 50 years
Treasury Will Auto-Enroll 60 Million Children in Trump Accounts
The U.S. military withdraws from Iraq over 2 decades after its invasion.
2.6 million+ illegal aliens removed (including 650,000 arrests and 400,000 convicted criminals) + 2 million self-deportations induced by ending incentives
Fentanyl trafficking crushed 56%+; overdose deaths down 21% monthly since inauguration
Laken Riley Act signed and aggressively enforced
Catch-and-release ended (99.9% drop); zero releases into the U.S. for eight straight months
Record-low border encounters; Darién Gap migration cut 99%
Largest one-year homicide drop in U.S. history; violent crime (rapes, robberies, assaults) down significantly
Targeted crime operations in major blue cities delivering record-low murders in several metros
Law enforcement officer deaths down 25%
Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and other cartels dismantled; international drug cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations
Antifa designated a domestic terrorist organization
Gas under $3/gallon in 43 states; record U.S. energy production and exports at all-time highs
654,000+ new private-sector jobs (all net gains to native-born Americans); 671,000+ jobs added since January 2025
4.3% GDP growth in Q3 2025; largest blue-collar wage growth in 60 years; real earnings up ~$1,100 annually
Inflation tamed to ~2.4% core CPI (down ~70% from Biden peak)
One Big Beautiful Bill passed (July 2025) — making 2017 tax cuts permanent, No Tax on Tips, Trump Accounts for newborns, senior deductions
$5T+ in deregulation savings + $215 billion in government efficiency cuts ($1,335 per taxpayer)
$10T+ in reshored/domestic investments secured
Trade deficit at lowest level since 2009; $300 billion+ in tariff revenues collected; predatory global tariffs shifted in the US’s favor for the first time in modern history
NATO allies leaping toward 5% GDP defense spending
OPEC dismantling
85+ detained Americans released; Abraham Accords expanded
Strikes on Houthis, Iranian assets, and narcoterrorist vessels; Nicolás Maduro captured
South America shifts rightwards; Europe shifts rightwards
Record military recruitment goals met; largest military investment in decades with AI integration; F-47 sixth-generation fighter unveiled
VA backlog reduced 60%; 3 million disability claims processed; 51,936 homeless veterans housed; benefits restored for vaccine-mandate discharges
Transgender enlistment barred; DEI eliminated across military and federal agencies
Over 269 executive orders signed in the term (230 in first year alone — highest first-year total since FDR); 81 memoranda + 158 proclamations
DOGE-driven bureaucracy cuts; IRS IT budget savings of $2B; wasteful contracts eliminated; federal retirement system automated and brought out of a literal coal mine
DEI discrimination banned in federal contracting and agencies; race-based hiring ended
DEI outlawed for college admissions; colleges’ patent revenue shared with taxpayers who funded it
Federal ‘boards’ and ‘commissions’ fired and replaced with conservatives
Washington, DC beautified; reflecting pool refinished
Gender ideology extremism curbed in schools, medicine, and government (minors protected from chemical/surgical procedures); girls’ sports protected from creeps
MAHA reforms launched: Presidential Commission established; Most Favored Nation drug pricing with 16+ major pharma companies; 8 artificial food dyes phased out (40%+ industry compliance); Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act; marijuana reclassified to Schedule III; childhood vaccine schedule revised from 72 to 11 consensus shots; expanded IVF access; $50M autism initiative; new whole-foods dietary guidelines
Massive firings at CDC, FDA, NIH of sold-out scientists; Ralph Baric and EcoHealth debarred; even some arrests
Withdrew from WHO
Crypto regulatory framework via GENIUS Act; Strategic Bitcoin Reserve created; Operation Choke Point 2.0 ended
Sanctuary city funding cuts implemented
Election integrity and citizenship verification measures expanded nationwide; USPS program pending; SAVE Act drafted and run at Congress several times now
Energy dominance unleashed: National Energy Emergency declared; 6,000+ drilling permits approved (55% increase); 13.1 million acres opened for coal leasing; record LNG exports (>100 million tons); nuclear projects advancing toward online status; major energy export deals ($100B South Korea, $200B Japan); Paris Agreement withdrawal
US becomes a net oil exporter for the first time in history
Trump Accounts launched for newborns with federal seed funding + corporate matching
Farmer aid secured; skilled trades and domestic manufacturing (semiconductors, autos, heavy equipment) expanded
Over 100,000 fraudulent visas revoked; 275,000 illegal aliens removed from Social Security rolls; benefits terminated for 1.4 million illegal aliens; H1-B crackdowns and $100,000 application fees
62,000+ missing migrant children rescued; Alien Enemies Act invoked against gangs
Vice-president-led welfare fraud task force recovering billions and making mass arrests
$2B sent to rebuild Western North Carolina
Massive AI, space, and nuclear investment projects
John Bolton convicted.James Comeyarrested. John Brennan under investigation (probably facing a grand jury).
RussiaGate grand jury set up and running in Florida
DOJ/ODNI seized Fulton County 2020 ballots. Trump is still working on Plans B, C, D, etc., with a ‘new’ integrity announcement scheduled as soon as tomorrow night.
What a paradox: Almost all US economic indicators are strong today, and America’s economy is the envy of the world — yet consumers, stressed by gas prices at almost $4.50 a gallon, are in a bad mood.
After all, median household incomes jumped to an all-time-high of $87,500 in 2025, while poverty rates fell to an all-time low.
The latest jobs numbers show very low numbers of firings and layoffs, and record low sign-ups for unemployment benefits, as manufacturing and construction surge.
The Energy Department just announced that domestic oil production is at all-time record levels, thanks to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” policies.
Meanwhile the 401(k) plans held by more than 100 million Americans, a useful gauge of household wealth, are up an average of $25,000 — after losing $24,000, in real terms, under former President Joe Biden.
But elections are about tomorrow, not yesterday — so celebrating these gains, strong as they are, isn’t enough to convince voters to stay the course.
And while the $5,000 government “dividend” payment that Trump floated in September may be a political non-starter, there’s a better way.
Republicans should pledge a sustainable “financial dividend” by continuing to slash taxes for middle-class families — expanding the work they started in their One Big Beautiful Bill a year ago.
That means making the bill’s individual tax cuts (tax-free tips, overtime and Social Security payments) permanent, along with 100% permanent depreciation for machinery, equipment, plants and data centers — pro-growth incentives that will expand the jobs boom.
They should also eliminate the unfair capital-gains inflation tax on stocks and homes, which would free up supply and make buying a new home less expensive.
This tax-slashing agenda will offer a sharp and much-needed contrast in the midterm elections, as Democrats keep pushing to raise tax rates.
They’re stumping all over the country promoting the Bernie Sanders line, replete with big-government, free-lunch socialist solutions.
If the GOP argues instead for free-enterprise prosperity, it’ll make a clear case for voters to choose the alternative that’s demonstrably best for family finances.
That’s because Trump’s agenda already has delivered high financial returns for families.
Trump’s affordability track record is outstanding.
In his first term, real median household income rose by $6,600 — and only the COVID lockdowns of 2020 kept that from becoming a nearly $8,000 median “dividend” per family.
Compare that to Biden, who oversaw a paltry $500 gain in median family income during his four years in the White House.
So far, through the first year and a half of Trump’s second term, real median income is up an additional $2,000 — that’s above inflation.
These are also pretax numbers: Including the value of the Trump tax cuts adds at least $2,000 more to middle-class annual disposable incomes.
Add it all together and we estimate — based on Census numbers and the value of the Democrat-opposed Trump tax cuts — that the median-income family has gained just under $10,000 in purchasing power in Trump’s first five-plus years in office.
That’s almost 20 times more than Biden delivered in four years.
In fact, most of the affordability crisis that’s driving voter anxiety was created during Biden’s presidency: About 80% in the rise in prices happened from 2021 to 2024, when inflation rose by more than any presidency since Jimmy Carter’s.
GOP candidates should be shouting these numbers from the rooftops — because the media sure won’t.
Republicans, don’t run away from the Trump economic miracle: Celebrate the fact that America is leading the world, thanks to our strategy of successful tax cuts, deregulation and energy dominance.
That’s a strong closing argument in these last few weeks of election season.
I told you it was a long list. (And I probably even forgot some stuff.)
Whenever someone posts “we should stay home on voting day because Republicans refused/failed to whatever”— that’s just self-destructive clickbait. As I said, we’ve seen this kind of narrative before. The formula is always the same— cherry-pick whatever issue is in the headlines this week that MAGA is unhappy about and promote that issue above every single good thing that has already been delivered— and delivered over just the first 18 months.
At best, it’s childish petulance of the worst sort; an all-or-nothing, perfectionist obsession that can never, ever be satisfied. At worst, it’s an organized demoralization campaign.
As evidence, the first person I quoted above claimed to have switched parties just last year, when he swore undying loyalty to MAGA after President Trump saved Western North Carolina. His ‘undying loyalty’ was, apparently, conditional and short-lived.
Confusing low-information voters by deliberately ignoring all the Administration’s successes is our political enemies’ job. Don’t do their job.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think any honest conservative with valid complaints would start by acknowledging that “the GOP has delivered a miraculous turnaround, saved the country, and nothing else even comes close,” and then say, “but I’d like them to … (pass the SAVE Act or require paper ballots or deport even more people).” Then, they’d suggest something constructive, like primarying someone or calling Senators’ offices.
But suggesting withholding our vote in the midterms it not constructive. It’s destructive. It sounds like exactly the kind of advice a DSA activist would offer us. Elect a few more socialists! That will teach them!
Look, I’m not accusing all these ‘conservative influencers’ of getting paid to publish the same psyop language as if it were from a template, even though, apparently, there is a lot of that kind of thing happening these days. I’m just saying. Be smart.
I bet you never thought mild-mannered House Speaker Mike Johnson had it in him. Yesterday, at a Republican Leadership press conference, the Speaker delivered a passionate, historically literate, and persuasive argument against the Democrats and their far-left allies, i.e., the Democratic Socialists of America.
“Our rights come from our Creator, God; they do not come from the government,” Johnson explained, warming up. “The communist believes the opposite. They believe that government of the state is god, and that the state gives you all your rights. And you know what? The state can also take those rights away. And that’s exactly what happens. It’s inevitable in communism.”
All our beloved, muscular, anti-communist Cold Warriors from the last millennium have either retired or died off. The battle-worn GOP relaxed its battle against communism after the fall of the Soviet Union, giving the communists a 30-year ceasefire and time to rebuild and flourish.
But now —finally!— the cease-fire has ended, and we are manning battle stations again. I should have put that on the list.
“These crazy little mini-Mamdanis who are popping up all around the country—” Johnson continued, “they are a danger to you and your family. This is not a game. If they promise you free stuff, there is far more beneath those promises than some of these people understand themselves.”
“There have been a small number of times in the history of America where the actual experiment in self-governance was on the ballot,” the Speaker reminded. “The American people have to decide in November, in a midterm election for Congress and Senate. The barbarians are inside the gate.”
Watch the whole thing. We have only now begun to fight. They haven’t seen anything yet.
RELATED: Yesterday, the Hill reported the encouraging news, “House GOP breaks weeks-long standoff between Republican leaders and hardliners” The gist was that Speaker Johnson added the SAVE America Act as a rider to the latest National Defense Authorization Act, and Republicans squeaked it through on party lines, 215-211.
They legislatively MIRVed it (a MIRV is a type of missile carrying “multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.”) True, it will still face all the usual hurdles in the Senate, where even the DST bill’s fate is uncertain. The Senate can still amend the NDAA and remove the Save Act.
But the point is— they aren’t giving up. This game is about shots on goal. You miss every single shot you don’t take.
Yesterday, Fox News reported the single largest month-to-month drop in inflation since the pandemic. “Sure, energy prices have come down, but everything else is down, too,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said. The Wall Street Journal reported, “ Cooling Inflation, Surging Bank Earnings Power Stocks.”
“This gives the Fed a little bit of room to breathe,” said Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird. “It’s definitely good news.”
Cooling inflation was the opposite of what 67 experts surveyed by Bloomberg unanimously predicted would happen. “It wasn’t just about energy,” Director Hassett explained, “it’s about all the other things that President Trump is doing to cut costs.”
If the drop represents a trend, not just a blip, then the economy could start moving quickly in a really strong direction. Experts say that will never happen. The Administration’s economic team says that is exactly what is happening. Whom to believe?
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-10-02 07:51:272026-10-02 07:51:27Trump’s Accomplishments: Here’s COMPREHENSIVE LIST the Media Buries While Cowardly Republicans Run From His Record
It seems likely that someone at Flydubai was sympathetic to the jihad against Israel and wanted to see this Omani jihadi take down a plane full of Israelis.
“Omani hijacker who stabbed fellow pilot ‘was a religious extremist who refused to shake hands with women’: Israel launches probe into how ‘terrorist’ was cleared to fly as Flydubai jets are grounded,” by Isabella Machin, Daily Mail, October 1, 2026:
Israel is probing how a religious extremist from Oman who stabbed his co-pilot during a hijacking described as ‘Israel’s 9/11’ was cleared to fly….
A fellow pilot has also now claimed the assailant – who is believed to be an Omani national – was a religious extremist.
Speaking in Hebrew on Israel’s Channel 16, foreign editor and news anchor Yosef Yisrael described how he spoke to a colleague of the attacker, who wishes to remain anonymous.
In a translated version, Mr Yisrael reads out how the violent pilot ‘was someone characterised by very strange behaviour, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings [at Flydubai]. For instance, he used to pray a lot, and would not shake hands with women’.
Mr Yisrael said his source ‘expressed contrition’ and said Flydubai had ‘betrayed Israel’.
‘There is no other way to put it, we hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people,’ Mr Yisrael said the man told him. ‘Usually only Emiratis fly to Israel. It is not clear how he got on this flight.’
Mr Machchhar was hailed for saving the lives of those 174 passengers on board. While cruising mid-air, the hero was able to fight off his co-pilot in the cockpit and his attempts to sabotage the plane’s systems.
Israel is now investigating how the alleged terrorist was cleared to fly the plane bound for Tel Aviv, given Oman has no diplomatic relations with Israel and foreign crew flying into its airspace are strictly controlled.
Flydubai has now grounded all its jets to and from Israel as it probes the incident….
While flying over Saudi Arabia, it briefly issued a code of 7500, signalling unlawful interference or a hijacking. Officials feared the incident could have become another ‘September 11’ attack, adding that passengers had prevented an ‘Israeli 9/11’ by tying up the assailant….
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-10-02 07:51:262026-10-02 07:51:26Flydubai co-pilot who tried to crash plane was ‘religious extremist’ — how was he cleared to fly?
The Trump administration’s proposed changes to the 2030 U.S. census, to cease counting illegal immigrants, could boost congressional seats and electoral votes for battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the expense of large states such as California and Texas, research suggests.
A 2024 study projected immigration trends under the Biden administration for the 2030 census, said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies. Those projections would be altered by President Donald Trump’s existing crackdown on illegal immigration and could be reversed entirely under the census proposal.
“This census proposal could flip the dynamic,” Camarota told the Daily Signal. “Midwestern states would not lose as much, nor would Texas or California, which have large immigrant populations, both legal and illegal, gain as much.”
The current census model apportions congressional districts to states based on total population rather than total citizens. But the administration published a regulation in the Federal Register last month, now open for public comment, that would no longer count illegal aliens or legal residents with a status lower than a green card. The new rule would also eliminate questions on the form about race and sexual preference.
The study shows that under the existing model of counting illegal immigrants, the 2030 census would result in California, Texas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida gaining congressional seats and electoral votes. Meanwhile, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, with a lower illegal immigrant population, would lose a seat in Congress. That would be reversed under the Trump plan, Camarota said.
There are about 24 million noncitizens in the country, of whom 13 million are illegal aliens and 3.6 million are temporary workers or another legal status that falls short of being a legal permanent resident. So the new rule could mean counting about 16 million fewer people, Camarota said.
Only citizens can legally vote in any congressional district, which are divided based on total population. Camarota notes it’s easier to win a congressional seat with a smaller voting pool than in a district with a larger one.
“It seems on its face, this would undermine the intent of one-man, one-vote,” Camarota said.
The report points to the 33rd Congressional District of Texas that has one-third noncitizens and 262,000 fewer voting-age citizens than the 21st District, where 6% are not citizens. California’s 40th Congressional District is one-third noncitizen, or about 233,000 fewer voting-age citizens than the state’s 4th District, where just 4% are noncitizens. New York’s 14th District is almost one-third noncitizens, with 172,000 fewer voting-age citizens than the state’s 27th District, where 1% are noncitizens.
“Illegal immigrants should not be counted in the census at all. It’s about congressional apportionment, and Congress is here to serve the citizens,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow for national security policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal.
Gonzalez contends that striking the racial and sexual preference boxes from the census could strike a potential “fatal blow” to the Left’s balkanization of the country.
“The census has been the Left’s building block for identity politics,” he said.
Notably, Gonzalez added, a future Democrat president possibly taking office in 2029 likely couldn’t reverse it in time for the 2030 census.
“There may not be enough time for a future administration to add this back. They would have 11 months. They might have to wait to 2040 to reverse this,” Gonzalez said.
Not all Democrats have been subtle about a potential advantage from counting illegal immigrants. At an October 2021 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said, “I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes, and those members could clearly fit here.”
The Center for Immigration Studies’ 2024 study extrapolated from 2020 census data and compared the immigrant count to what the count would have been without immigrants.
As a result of the immigrant population in the 2020 census, California and New York benefited the most, respectively, with eight and three extra House seats, according to the Center for Immigration Studies report. Florida has two additional seats, while Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Texas have one additional seat because of immigrants.
Immigration caused other states to lose a House member, which included battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The rest were red states of Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. Ohio had two fewer seats than it otherwise would have.
When looking only at the illegal immigrant count, it would distribute another seven seats in 2030. Without factoring in a proposed new census model or the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Center for Immigration Studies study shows that Texas and California would each have two additional seats in 2030 from illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida would each have one additional seat.
The losers would be the states of Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, which would have one fewer seat due to illegal immigrants being included in the 2030 census.
Counting legal and illegal immigrants, the numbers are even larger.
California would have nine more House seats in 2030 than it would have had without immigrants. Immigrants in 2030 would cause New Jersey and Florida to have three more seats under the previous trends. Massachusetts, New York, and Texas would get two more seats than they otherwise would have had without counting immigrants. Georgia would get one extra House seat.
Under the previous 2030 projection that did not factor in a new census proposal, a new census policy, or a crackdown on illegal immigration, Wisconsin and Ohio would have two fewer seats. States that would lose one seat are Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-10-02 07:51:252026-10-02 07:51:252030 Census Shake-Up: Which States Win and Lose Under Trump’s Plan?
The hammer-wielding madman accused of smashing windows at Vice President JD Vance’s Cincinnati home during an early January rampage formally pleaded guilty to multiple crimes. William DeFoor, 26, pleaded guilty to causing willful injury or depredation and carrying out physical violence against government officials during a Tuesday court hearing. DeFoor, who has a schizophrenia diagnosis, is staring down 30 years in prison for allegedly smashing glass windows in front of Vance’s residence and hitting security assets with a hammer.
The vandal is reportedly the son of a prominent Ohio millionaire family — and appears to have been going by “Julia” on social media. “Acts of violence directed against our political leaders, their families, or property, have no place in our society and will not be tolerated,” US attorney Dominick Gerace II said about the guilty plea. “Our elected leaders, at all levels of government, must be permitted to carry out their duties free from threats, vandalism, and other forms of violence,” Gerace added. “Perpetrators like DeFoor, who put that freedom at risk, particularly through violent, destructive actions, will, like here, be vigorously prosecuted.”
DeFoor’s father, named William, is a successful Harvard University graduate, a pediatric urologist in Cincinnati and professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine.
The elder DeFoor donated thousands to Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign in 2024 and lives in a $1.3 million house in the tony Hyde Park neighborhood. His mother, Catherine, stressed that DeFoor suffered from mental illness. “Mental illness is a terrible thing. It is a struggle which can take over the life of a beautiful person,” she said in a statement. “Unfortunately, for our child, it has taken over his life in a way that we never could have imagined.”
In the wee night hours on Jan. 5, DeFoor was caught by Secret Service agents breaching the property line at Vance’s residence and smashing the window of an unmarked law enforcement vehicle, according to prosecutors. Authorities told DeFoor to drop his hammer and stop, but he ignored them and instead began busting “historic glass windows” on Vance’s property, per the feds. Ultimately, he attempted to flee on foot but was nabbed by the Secret Service.
The damage done to the windows totaled an estimated $28,000, according to the Justice Department. The Vances were not at the house at the time of the attack. After President Trump’s victory in 2024, the Vances moved into the vice president’s official residence at the Naval Observatory in DC, which is about 2.5 miles away from the White House.
DeFoor has a rap sheet, which includes a two-year mandatory health treatment sentence for vandalism at an interior design company. He was also hit with charges for trespassing at the UC Health psychiatric and emergency services.
A Department of Justice investigation found that the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law has illegally discriminated based on race in admissions, the Daily Caller News Foundation first learned.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is alleging that UCLA Law discriminated against white and Asian students in granting admission to its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. UCLA Law’s alleged discriminatory conduct violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which prohibited racial discrimination in admissions, according to the Department.
“Like many of its peer institutions, UCLA Law School runs a two-tiered admissions system whose academic bar for acceptance shifts up or down depending on the color of your skin,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told the DCNF in a statement. “The use of race as a thumb on the scale that helps or disadvantages any student is illegal.”
“The Department will continue to enforce equal treatment under the law everywhere — including in our nation’s law schools,” Dhillon continued.
UCLA Law did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Department’s probe found that UCLA Law’s application includes personal statements and essay prompts intended to extract information about race. Additionally, UCLA Law’s admissions staff told prospective applicants how to reveal their race in these sections of the application during certain race-based recruitment efforts, according to the DOJ.
Additionally, the Department found that UCLA Law rejected white and Asian applicants who had the same LSAT scores as admitted black and Hispanic applicants. Moreover, half of the total admitted black applicants had LSAT scores that were at or below 90% of the admitted white applicants in 2024 and 2025 combined, the DOJ’s investigation found.
The DOJ announced in May that it was suing UCLA for allegedly creating an “antisemitic hostile educational environment,” just a few months after filing a separate lawsuit against the university over similar allegations. On Wednesday, UCLA asked a judge to terminate the antisemitism lawsuit against it, alleging that the Trump administration was “weaponizing” civil rights laws, The New York Times reported.
The Trump administration has been cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and racial preferences in schools in recent months. In early September, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service introduced regulations that would end the federal tax-exempt status for private schools that discriminate on the basis of race rather than rewarding merit, the Daily Caller first reported.
President Donald Trump issued a January 2025 executive order to “end illegal discrimination” and restore “merit-based opportunity” in the U.S.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-10-01 19:51:262026-10-01 19:51:26EXCLUSIVE: UCLA Law Discriminated Against White And Asian Students, DOJ Says
Soon, the opportunity to register to vote will come to an end. For anyone who is not registered to vote, please do so now. It’s easy and quick.
In America, if we don’t like the government we have, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
If the common sense side of things loses in the Midterms 2026, this nation will get bogged down in attempts to impeach (again) the president. What does this mean for…
the economy and affordability,
on safe and secure elections,
the borders,
the unborn,
religious liberty,
on keeping boys out of women’s sports?
the threat of radical Islam?
The founders intended impeachment as a means to drive corrupt politicians out of office. It was never a means to be used against political opponents.
In Article 2, Section 4, the U.S. Constitution states: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
America is not a banana republic. And it should never be turned into one.
During the Constitutional Convention debate, James Madison, a key architect of the American Constitution, took notes during the deliberations. He declared that he “thought it indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community against the incapacity, negligence or perfidy [treason] of the chief Magistrate. The limitation of the period of his service, was not a sufficient security. He might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation [embezzlement] or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.”
Yet the left has already warned us that if they prevail in the midterms, we can expect more impeachment efforts against the president and his cabinet.
Meanwhile, are Christians and conservatives planning to sit this election out? I hope not.
Princeton-trained Debbie Wuthnow, the director of ivoterguide.com, a division of the American Family Association, writes: “Dr. George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University revealed, while 85 percent of likely voters will pull the lever at the top of the ticket, only 55 percent say they will ‘definitely vote’ for offices further down the ballot.”
What kind of offices could be neglected by voters? Wuthnow counts the ways: “District attorneys. Mayors. Judges. County Commissioners. City Council. School board. When we relinquish our votes as Christians, these critical offices are being left to chance or influenced by activist groups. In the process, we inadvertently silence the Christian voice in politics and surrender our values to the unbelieving political culture. If godly people don’t vote, they leave the ungodly to choose for them.”
Yipes. Wuthnow’s group works to provide information on these various candidates.
We hear so often that “this is the most important election in our lifetime” that it has become a cliché. But there is a lot at stake in Midterms 2026.
Here’s the real question: Whose vision do you want to prevail in America? That of Donald J. Trump, despite his prideful boasting, or that of Hasan Piker, the Islamist, socialist influencer, who says America deserved 9/11 and that he wants to see the spilling of capitalist blood on the streets of America?
The First Amendment states in part that we the people have the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” But why resort to such a measure, when we can simply vote?
Sometimes, it’s hard to get Christians to go out and vote. Why? Somehow, they associate politics with being a dirty business. But John Calvin Coolidge warned us: “If good men don’t hold office, bad men will.”
Dr. D. James Kennedy was a mentor to me. I had the privilege to write almost twenty books with him. He once observed this about Christians and politics, including voting: “I remember 20 years ago, a Christian said to me, ‘You don’t really believe that Christians should get active in politics, do you?’ And I said, with tongue in cheek, ‘Why, of course not, we ought to leave it to the atheists, otherwise, we wouldn’t have anything to complain about. And we’d really rather complain than do something, wouldn’t we?’”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said recently that what is on the ballot this time around is not just representatives of our two political parties, but “this is a contrast between two completely different worldviews for America, who we are, and what we’re going to be. And that’s what’s on the ballot.”
What’s at stake this time around? As I see it…Freedom and flourishing versus socialism and suffering. There’s a great quote, widely attributed to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Whatever its true origin, it stands on its own: “Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-10-01 19:51:252026-10-01 19:51:25Last Chance to Register to Vote
JERUSALEM/DUBAI/TEL AVIV (Reuters) — Passengers on a flydubai flight reached Israel safely on Wednesday after customers and crew foiled a co-pilot’s attempt to crash the aircraft, Israeli officials said, in a struggle that began when he stabbed the pilot and sent the jet plunging nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds.
Passengers and crew entered the cockpit, overpowered the co-pilot and enabled a second pair of flydubai pilots who were aboard the flight to land the jet safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Israeli officials said.
More than 10 hours later, the passengers arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport aboard a flydubai replacement aircraft, with several describing the episode as a miracle and recounting a frantic struggle to prevent a catastrophe.
Israeli officials said the attacker’s motive aboard flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv remained under investigation. Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, signed the Abraham Accords normalizing relations in 2020.
The incident sharpened concerns about global aviation security in a region scarred by years of conflict, prompting Israel to tighten checks on pilots flying into the country.
“I just can say that it was a miracle. It was awful, crazy, and we thank God that we survived it, we didn’t think we will make it but thank God we are in Israel. We are back home. And we are happy to see everyone here,” passenger Lital Shachaf said.
Israel’s ambulance service said a 51-year-old man was taken to an Israeli hospital to be treated for injuries to his upper body. The man was in a “mild condition,” it said.
Describing the event as “a serious security incident,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saudi authorities would interrogate the co-pilot.
Flydubai said in a statement that the underlying reasons for the event remained unknown and warned against “premature speculation.” An Israeli official identified the co-pilot as an Omani national. There was no immediate comment from Oman.
Israeli officials applauded the passengers, who they credited with avoiding a much more serious disaster. Netanyahu said there were 174 people on board the flight from Dubai, most of them Israeli nationals.
US President Donald Trump said he spoke “at length” with Netanyahu on Wednesday about the incident. He proceeded to give reporters in the Oval Office a detailed account of what happened, adding: “This is the story that I heard — I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi (Netanyahu).”
‘Something You Do without Thinking’
A Netanyahu spokesperson told Reuters that the wounded captain, identified by the Israeli leader’s office as Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, was covered with blood on the floor when he managed to click the release to open the cockpit door. Passengers who entered found the co-pilot bashing at the plane’s control panel, the spokesperson said. “This is something you do without thinking, just running to save your daughter’s life, your family’s life,” said Asaf Rajuan, one of the passengers who helped restrain the attacker. He spoke with a forehead still bloodied from the struggle.
Netanyahu’s office released a video showing the prime minister at Ben Gurion Airport giving a hug to another passenger, Yaniv Hayun, who his office said “broke into” the cockpit. “I see you and I see a lion – a big hero,” Netanyahu told the man, who was still wearing the blood-stained shirt he had on during the flight.
Flydubai operates daily return flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, a route that is popular among Israeli nationals. The flight path normally uses airspace over Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
It is not the first time a flight between Israel and the UAE has landed in Saudi Arabia. A flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Riyadh in September 2025 due to a medical incident, Israeli media reported at the time.
Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport, where the plane landed, said both pilots had been hospitalized after sustaining injuries.
The incident heightened security fears in Israel weeks before Israelis vote in the first election since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, with Israel’s security figuring prominently in the campaigning.
Responding to the incident on X, far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote, “Terrorism is a devil with whom no agreement must be reached.”
Israel to Tighten Checks on Pilots Flying to Israel
Israeli media published conflicting reports on the incident, with some outlets reporting that a pilot had tried to crash the passenger plane in an alleged suicide attempt. Some Israeli media outlets initially identified the pilots as Omani and Emirati nationals, while others said they were Russian and Ukrainian.
“Every pilot that is going to be flying into Israel, we are going to know the pilots’ identities, know who they are, and do some type of security check,” Doron Spielman, a Netanyahu spokesperson, told Reuters.
Netanyahu met on Sunday with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a rare visit to the Gulf country. Israel and the UAE have forged close security, military and economic ties since establishing diplomatic ties.
Israel provided the UAE earlier this year with Iron Dome air-defense systems and Israeli personnel to operate them, helping defend against Iranian attacks launched after Israel and the US began strikes on Iran.
The UAE government had yet to comment on the flydubai incident, while the Dubai state-owned airline said an “altercation” occurred in the cockpit and the flight subsequently diverted to Tabuk, where it landed safely. The UAE’s aviation regulator, the GCAA, said the flight “experienced a security incident that was brought under control.”
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, Rami Ayyub, Rami Amichay, Federico Maccioni, Pesha Magid and Lina Obeid; Additional reporting by Edward Carron, Marine Delrue, Magdalini Gkogkou and Daphne Psaledakis; Writing by Tom Perry and David Morgan; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Gareth Jones and Howard Goller)
EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
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A wonderfully revealing first-person explanation about what is happening to our younger generations, by heroine Lucy Biggers… (Note: her original Substack article has a short video to go along with each of her three points.)
In three parts, I explain how I was brainwashed into becoming a biased climate reporter.
Step 1: Deconstruct your identity.
When I entered a newsroom at 25, this was the pervasive ideology: The world is divided into two groups—the oppressed and the oppressors.
If you are white, straight, privileged, or American, you are inherently an oppressor. Everything you grew up believing is wrong or evil. You cannot be trusted to see the world as it really is because you are inherently racist, biased, and part of the oppressor class.
I was young, excited to be there, and surrounded by people I thought were smarter and cooler than I was. So I absorbed their worldview and ceded my judgment to the group.
Once you are demoralized, feel guilty for being an oppressor, can no longer trust your own intuition, or your own interpretation of the facts, you will believe whatever the group tells you to believe.
Step 2: Atone for your sins.
Because you are an oppressor all you can do is atone for the sins of your birth. You can do that by repeating and advancing the group’s ideology. You never question it, because questioning the ideology is treated as proof that you are racist, selfish, or an oppressor.
For me, this manifested as becoming a climate reporter. Through my work I could help the downtrodden, the indigenous people and other marginalized groups. I could be a good ally.
And so without questioning, I pushed the idea that climate change was an existential crisis, fossil-fuel companies were evil, capitalism was destroying the planet, and America was an imperialist country that had destroyed the environment. Essentially all of the problems we faced were because of Western imperialism.
If I had any doubts about this way of thinking I would shut them down. Who was I to question any of it? I was just some stupid, privileged white girl who didn’t know anything. That was what I had been told about myself and that is what I believed. Better to go along with the group, keep my head down, and be a good ally.
Step 3: Fully submit to the ideology.
The West is evil. America is evil. Capitalism is evil. White people are evil. Everything you grew up believing is wrong, and the only way to fix the world is to tear all of these systems down.
The weird thing is that I fell for all of this from a place of compassion. I wanted to help the downtrodden. I wanted to solve inequality. I wanted to fix the world.
I thought that by giving up my personal agency to this ideology, I was playing my part in atoning for the sins of my birth.
I believe what I went through (and how thoroughly my sense of self was deconstructed) is still incredibly relevant today. It helps explain the DSA’s growing power within the Democratic Party. Why most Democrats can’t bring themselves to condemn socialism. Why so many young people believe America deserved 9/11. Why young people and celebrities chant “Free Palestine” without understanding that Hamas is a terrorist organization or anything about the conflict. They’ve been told what to believe and who the oppressor is in each of these situations.
Ten years of cancel culture has taught people that questioning the ideology doesn’t simply mean you disagree. It means you are an evil oppressor. You are racist, sexist, privileged, out of touch, evil. Disagree and you will be cast out and lose everything.
Once people become afraid to trust themselves, examine the facts, or stand against the group, you’ve got them. They can be convinced to believe and do anything.
What do you all think? Did I describe this accurately?
Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:
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My commentaries are my opinion about the material discussed therein, based on the information I have. If any readers have different information, please share it. If it is credible, I will be glad to reconsider my position.
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Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from climate to COVID, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2026 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time!)
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Virginia is one of the first states to open its polls, and I cast my ballot the day early voting began.
There’s a lot at stake this election year in the commonwealth, particularly Virginia’s proposed constitutional amendments on abortion and marriage. But Virginia is hardly alone among the states that will shape the direction of the country.
That’s why I invited three members of the Daily Signal’s State News Network to join me on the latest episode of “Midterm Report” to talk about the election news they’re tracking in the states they cover.
I spoke with Joe Thomas in Virginia, Rebecca Downs in Ohio, and Emily Medeiros in Texas. Our state team is now active in five states, covering both the policy debates in state capitals and the candidates who will determine control of Congress next year.
What struck me most was how often the three of them came back to the same point: The issues animating voters this year are intensely local and quite personal, and the candidates who tap into them will have the advantage. From data centers to immigration to the cost of living, those concerns vary from state to state.
“All politics are local,” Thomas said. “These are all local issues that these national candidates have to tap into because that’s where the motivation is going to be.”
Virginia’s Ballot Measures: Read the Fine Print
On his morning radio show and in his Daily Signal coverage, Thomas has been tracking the constitutional amendments on Virginia’s ballot, which have drawn opposition from the commonwealth’s two Catholic bishops and more than 200 pastors. They’ve voiced concern about the implications for expanding abortion throughout pregnancy and redefining marriage.
Thomas warned voters to pay close attention to the wording of the ballot questions. The Democrat-controlled General Assembly wrote the language, and Republicans, lacking a majority in either chamber, had no say.
He noted that abortion and same-sex marriage are already legal in Virginia. So why are Democrats putting the amendments on the ballot? Thomas said they are designed to punish people who object or fail to comply, such as a doctor who won’t perform a late-term abortion.
He also sees a strategic purpose to boost Democrats. The amendments, Thomas said, are intended to make conservatives uncomfortable enough to stay home rather than vote no.
“It’s very important to look into the nerdy details of these ballot referendums because there’s so much more going on here than meets the eye,” he said.
The money gap is significant. Thomas noted that $2.8 million has flowed to the pro-abortion side of just one amendment, compared with $444,000 for the “vote no” campaign.
Ohio: Two Toss-Ups in a Red State
Downs is following two marquee races in Ohio, and she considers both toss-ups.
In the Senate special election, Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, faces former Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Brown lost to Sen. Bernie Moreno by about 3.6 points in 2024, a year President Donald Trump carried Ohio by roughly 11 points. In a midterm election year with a Republican in the White House, Brown has a chance to return to Washington.
The governor’s race pits former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy against Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director who led Ohio’s COVID-19 response. Downs said that record has hurt Acton.
Downs said the issue generating the most attention is data centers. Brown has hammered Husted over his ties to the industry, with ads effective enough to prompt a warning memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee in August. Husted’s position is that decisions should be made locally. He’s also sponsoring legislation requiring data centers to pay their own way rather than pass costs to ratepayers.
Downs is also tracking legislation from Husted and Moreno that would withhold federal funding from states that issue driver’s licenses to people who can’t prove legal status—a response to fatal crashes on Ohio roads.
In the weeks ahead, Downs will cover the contest between Democrat Rep. Marcy Kaptur and Republican Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th District, a recent federal appeals court ruling that lets Ohio require proof of citizenship from people registering to vote at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and Ohio Issue 3 that would enshrine voter ID in the state constitution.
Texas: Talarico Under Scrutiny
Medeiros is closely tracking the Senate race between Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democrat state Rep. James Talarico, which she described as neck and neck.
Most recent polling has Talarico up slightly, although Medeiros is skeptical of those numbers. She said polls tend to underrepresent rural conservatives and reminded me that many predicted Beto O’Rourke would beat Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.
Talarico has faced persistent questions about his religious beliefs, and last week brought a new one: undercover video released by Blaze Media of a pastor Talarico has called a mentor. Medeiros said the controversies could ultimately help Paxton.
She also questioned the Democrats’ claim that Texas isn’t a red state but a “non-voting” one. “It is very much still a red state,” she said. “I just think the Democrats are being extremely loud right now.”
Medeiros sees three issues motivating conservatives in Texas: H-1B visas, data centers, and the Islamification of parts of the state. She cited the roughly 50 mosques built in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the past two years, and she’s covered a recall effort in McKinney that grew out of residents’ opposition to a mosque near a high school. Organizers say they’ve gathered about 6,500 signatures, exceeding the roughly 5,800 required. On data centers, she said water use is the top concern for rural Texans, particularly in Corpus Christi, which is nearing a water emergency.
She’ll also be watching South Texas congressional races reshaped by redistricting, including Rep. Henry Cuellar’s reelection bid.
The Daily Signal publishes a weekly state newsletter for each of our five states. Subscribe now to follow the work of our State News Network reporters.
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The Jewish state’s greatest strength is not only its army, but a society that drives ordinary people to become extraordinaryn when it matters most.
On Wednesday, somewhere between 34,000 feet and the Middle East desert, several Israelis stood up, and more than 170 Israelis eventually came home. This is neither a parallel universe nor Marvel.
The Jewish state’s greatest strength is not only its army, but a society that drives ordinary people to become extraordinary when it matters most.
There is an Israeli song that explains Israel better than a thousand books about the country. It is called “גיבורי על” — “Superheroes” — by Hatikva 6, an Israeli band that is famous locally for its beautifully Zionist songs.
The song was inspired by a viral Facebook post written by Israeli author Asaf Peri in November 2023, shortly after October 7th. Hatikva 6 lead singer Omri Glickman was struck by the way Peri captured the surreal duality of Israeli life: ordinary people with ordinary jobs who, almost overnight, become soldiers, officers, medics, and commanders — while specifically nodding to popular Israeli musician and actor Idan Amedi, who left his career, served as an elite combat engineer, and was seriously wounded in Gaza.
The song does not describe generals, commandos, or decorated war heroes. It describes a Bible teacher in Givati (an IDF brigade). It describes a Bible teacher in Givati (an IDF brigade), a contractor who has disappeared from the apartment upstairs because he has been in the reserves for a month, a lawyer who has become a military intelligence officer, a high-tech executive who is suddenly a sniper, a bank manager who becomes a general, a toy-store owner who becomes a tank company commander, a bus driver who becomes an artillery commander, and a university student who becomes an army captain.
Then comes the line that explains everything about Israeli society: “Everyone here looks ordinary, but we are a people of superheroes.” And then another: “There is always a soldier hiding in each of us, ready to save the world.” It is easy to hear this as patriotic exaggeration. It is not.
On Wednesday, September 30, 2026, somewhere high above the Middle East, a plane full of ordinary Israelis suddenly became the most literal possible demonstration of what that song means. A passenger identified as Daniel later described hearing a struggle near the cockpit aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The cockpit door was partly open. He could see a physical confrontation. Three Israelis sitting near him got up to see what was happening. Then the airplane dropped.
According to flight-tracking data, the aircraft plunged nearly 20,000 feet in less than one minute. The flight was carrying more than 170 Israelis. Israeli officials say the copilot had stabbed the captain and was trying to crash the aircraft. The plane entered a violent dive while passengers and a crew member forced their way into the cockpit and subdued him.
A second team of pilots aboard the aircraft ultimately took control and landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Daniel remembered thinking: “It felt like, that’s it. It’s over. September 11th is happening again.”
But something else was happening too: Israelis were getting out of their seats. They were not waiting for instructions, not asking who was officially responsible, and not assuming somebody else was better qualified.
When the cockpit erupted in violence and the plane began plunging toward the ground, four Israeli passengers moved toward the danger. Yaniv Hayon forced his way into the cockpit, grabbed the attacker, choked him, dragged him away from the controls and then, drawing on nothing more than what he had seen on aviation TV shows, pulled back on the controls to help level the aircraft.
Zvika Manes and Assaf Rajwan joined him in overpowering and restraining the attacker, improvising with whatever they could find, including the cord from airline headphones. Rajwan later described the instinct simply: There was no time to think. They decided to fight because their families, the crew, and everyone aboard depended on it.
At the same time, Israeli dentist Shota Musayev first helped subdue the attacker and then turned to the critically wounded captain, stopping his bleeding and keeping him stable until landing. The captain himself, Indian pilot Smith Machtsar, had also displayed extraordinary courage: Despite being repeatedly stabbed, he apparently managed to leave the cockpit accessible before collapsing, giving the passengers the chance to intervene.
None of these men boarded the flight expecting to become heroes. They were a banker, an insurance executive, a dentist, and ordinary travelers. But when the aircraft was falling and lives depended on immediate action, they did not wait to be told what to do. They acted.
Think about the madness of that moment. You are not in the army. You are not carrying a weapon. You did not wake up that morning expecting to save anyone. You are a passenger on a commercial flight. Maybe you spent the trip watching a movie. Maybe you were sleeping. Maybe you were complaining about the food. Maybe you were thinking about work tomorrow, your children waiting at home, the messages piling up on WhatsApp.
And then the nose of the airplane points toward the earth. Someone screams. There is blood coming from the cockpit. And within seconds, the question becomes brutally simple: Who are you when nobody has appointed you to be the hero?
Israeli society has been answering that question for generations. That is what Hatikva 6 understood when it wrote “Superheroes.” The genius of the song is that the superheroes are not superheroes at all. They are teachers and electricians and musicians and lawyers and students and business executives. There is no transformation booth. There is no cape. There is just a moment when ordinary life is interrupted and another part of the Israeli identity takes over. The civilian becomes responsible.
That idea has become increasingly foreign to much of modern life across the rest of the world. Modern societies are built around specialization. Something is on fire? Call the fire department. Someone is injured? Call an ambulance. Someone is violent? Call the police. The country is threatened? That is what the professional military is for.
Modern civilization is increasingly organized around the assumption that somewhere there is a trained person whose job it is to handle the problem. Usually that is a wonderful thing. Civilization requires professionals. But it can also quietly train people into passivity. Responsibility becomes another service we outsource.
Israel has never had that luxury. It is one of the few modern countries where the line separating citizen from defender remains extraordinarily thin. The person designing software on Monday may be wearing body armor on Tuesday. The surgeon operating in a hospital may also be an army doctor. The father coaching his child’s soccer team may have a reserve unit waiting for him. The person sitting beside you in a restaurant may have spent months commanding soldiers and then returned home to argue about the bill.
The security apparatus is not some distant caste of professionals hidden behind the walls of a base. It is your brother, your daughter, your accountant, your dentist, your employee, the guy selling toys, the woman sitting beside you on an airplane.
And therefore something very unusual happens to the psychology of the society. Israelis grow up with the idea that in a crisis, you may be the cavalry. There may be nobody else coming. That instinct does not disappear when the uniform comes off. It follows Israelis into restaurants and highways and hospitals and airports. It follows them on vacation. It follows them onto airplanes. The uniform Hatikva 6 sings about may be sitting at home inside a closet, but the instinct that comes with it is harder to put away.
And that is why what happened aboard Flight FZ1073 feels almost like a verse that Hatikva 6 somehow forgot to write. There is a businessman in row 14. There is a reservist in row 18. There is someone’s husband staring at the cockpit. There is blood on the floor. There is an airplane falling out of the sky. And suddenly the passengers are no longer passengers. They are Israelis. They are real-life superheroes.
That does not mean Israelis do not panic. Of course they do. Courage has never meant the absence of terror. Anyone who imagines otherwise has probably never been truly terrified. The extraordinary thing is what happens while they are terrified.
According to passenger accounts, people prayed Shema Yisrael because they believed they might die. At essentially the same time, other passengers were moving forward to stop the attacker. That combination is one of the most Jewish things imaginable. Pray as though everything depends upon God; move as though everything depends upon us.
None of this was supposed to be the Israeli passengers’ job. They were customers, but they acted like guardians, because heroism is not really about military skill; it is about the assumption of responsibility when responsibility suddenly becomes yours. This is among the deepest cultural inheritances of Israeli society.
After October 7th, the world saw it on an almost incomprehensible scale. Israelis did not wait for the state to become perfectly organized before acting. People opened their homes. Restaurants became kitchens. Hotels became shelters. Volunteers moved supplies across the country. Reservists left businesses, universities, honeymoons, and families to return to their units. People filled gaps because gaps existed.
There is a phrase Israelis use constantly: אין ברירה — ein breira (There is no choice). Foreigners sometimes hear fatalism in those words. I hear something else: responsibility. There is no choice because somebody has to do it. There is no choice because these are our people. There is no choice because if I do not stand up, perhaps nobody will.
This is very different from performative heroism. There were no cameras waiting inside that flydubai cabin when those men stood up. There was no medal waiting, no social-media audience, no certainty that they would survive.
In fact, rushing toward a cockpit while an aircraft is plummeting may be one of the purest tests imaginable because almost every incentive points in the opposite direction: Stay seated, protect yourself, comfort your loved ones, hold onto something, pray, hope.
Instead, they moved toward the problem. That is heroism.
Marvel superheroes know they are superheroes. They have costumes and origin stories and special powers. Israeli superheroes complain about parking, argue about politics, answer emails, take their children to school, and forget to pay their electricity bills.
Then something happens — a siren, a gunshot, a car ramming, a war, a wounded stranger, an airplane falling toward the desert. And some buried switch flips.
This quality comes with costs. A society that must remain permanently ready for an emergency pays an enormous psychological price. Israelis would undoubtedly prefer a world in which the uniforms really could stay forever inside those closets. But history has rarely offered Jews that world, so Israel developed something else instead: a civilization of civilian readiness, and a culture in which adulthood carries with it an unusually powerful idea that your life belongs to you, but responsibility for the person beside you belongs partly to you too.
That is what other modern societies should study about Israel — that reflex, the willingness to say: This is happening near me, therefore it is partly my responsibility.
Civilizations ultimately depend upon people who are willing to do things that are not technically their jobs. They are the stranger who runs into the water, the neighbor who enters the burning house, the civilian who applies the tourniquet, and the passenger who gets out of his seat. Strip away the uniforms, institutions, titles, and slogans, and that may be the oldest definition of a hero there is: someone who could have said, “Someone else will do it” — and did not.
That is why “גיבורי על” is much more than a catchy Israeli song. It is anthropology. Israel’s superheroes are not extraordinary people walking around waiting for history to notice them. They are ordinary people living ordinary lives who have been raised inside a society that still understands one ancient truth: When the moment comes, you do not get to choose whether the world needs a hero. You only get to choose whether you will stand up.
On Wednesday, somewhere between 34,000 feet and the Middle East desert, several Israelis stood up, and more than 170 Israelis eventually came home. This is neither a parallel universe nor Marvel. It is the story of the people of Israel.
Joshua Hoffman a 37-year-old entrepreneur and author. Joshua has written three books, one about Israel and two about the Jewish world. The latest, “Journeys of the Jewish Spirit”.
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Virginia is one of the first states to open its polls, and I cast my ballot the day early voting began.
There’s a lot at stake this election year in the commonwealth, particularly Virginia’s proposed constitutional amendments on abortion and marriage. But Virginia is hardly alone among the states that will shape the direction of the country.
That’s why I invited three members of the Daily Signal’s State News Network to join me on the latest episode of “Midterm Report” to talk about the election news they’re tracking in the states they cover.
I spoke with Joe Thomas in Virginia, Rebecca Downs in Ohio, and Emily Medeiros in Texas. Our state team is now active in five states, covering both the policy debates in state capitals and the candidates who will determine control of Congress next year.
What struck me most was how often the three of them came back to the same point: The issues animating voters this year are intensely local and quite personal, and the candidates who tap into them will have the advantage. From data centers to immigration to the cost of living, those concerns vary from state to state.
“All politics are local,” Thomas said. “These are all local issues that these national candidates have to tap into because that’s where the motivation is going to be.”
Virginia’s Ballot Measures: Read the Fine Print
On his morning radio show and in his Daily Signal coverage, Thomas has been tracking the constitutional amendments on Virginia’s ballot, which have drawn opposition from the commonwealth’s two Catholic bishops and more than 200 pastors. They’ve voiced concern about the implications for expanding abortion throughout pregnancy and redefining marriage.
Thomas warned voters to pay close attention to the wording of the ballot questions. The Democrat-controlled General Assembly wrote the language, and Republicans, lacking a majority in either chamber, had no say.
He noted that abortion and same-sex marriage are already legal in Virginia. So why are Democrats putting the amendments on the ballot? Thomas said they are designed to punish people who object or fail to comply, such as a doctor who won’t perform a late-term abortion.
He also sees a strategic purpose to boost Democrats. The amendments, Thomas said, are intended to make conservatives uncomfortable enough to stay home rather than vote no.
“It’s very important to look into the nerdy details of these ballot referendums because there’s so much more going on here than meets the eye,” he said.
The money gap is significant. Thomas noted that $2.8 million has flowed to the pro-abortion side of just one amendment, compared with $444,000 for the “vote no” campaign.
Ohio: Two Toss-Ups in a Red State
Downs is following two marquee races in Ohio, and she considers both toss-ups.
In the Senate special election, Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, faces former Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Brown lost to Sen. Bernie Moreno by about 3.6 points in 2024, a year President Donald Trump carried Ohio by roughly 11 points. In a midterm election year with a Republican in the White House, Brown has a chance to return to Washington.
The governor’s race pits former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy against Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director who led Ohio’s COVID-19 response. Downs said that record has hurt Acton.
Downs said the issue generating the most attention is data centers. Brown has hammered Husted over his ties to the industry, with ads effective enough to prompt a warning memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee in August. Husted’s position is that decisions should be made locally. He’s also sponsoring legislation requiring data centers to pay their own way rather than pass costs to ratepayers.
Downs is also tracking legislation from Husted and Moreno that would withhold federal funding from states that issue driver’s licenses to people who can’t prove legal status—a response to fatal crashes on Ohio roads.
In the weeks ahead, Downs will cover the contest between Democrat Rep. Marcy Kaptur and Republican Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th District, a recent federal appeals court ruling that lets Ohio require proof of citizenship from people registering to vote at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and Ohio Issue 3 that would enshrine voter ID in the state constitution.
Texas: Talarico Under Scrutiny
Medeiros is closely tracking the Senate race between Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democrat state Rep. James Talarico, which she described as neck and neck.
Most recent polling has Talarico up slightly, although Medeiros is skeptical of those numbers. She said polls tend to underrepresent rural conservatives and reminded me that many predicted Beto O’Rourke would beat Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.
Talarico has faced persistent questions about his religious beliefs, and last week brought a new one: undercover video released by Blaze Media of a pastor Talarico has called a mentor. Medeiros said the controversies could ultimately help Paxton.
She also questioned the Democrats’ claim that Texas isn’t a red state but a “non-voting” one. “It is very much still a red state,” she said. “I just think the Democrats are being extremely loud right now.”
Medeiros sees three issues motivating conservatives in Texas: H-1B visas, data centers, and the Islamification of parts of the state. She cited the roughly 50 mosques built in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the past two years, and she’s covered a recall effort in McKinney that grew out of residents’ opposition to a mosque near a high school. Organizers say they’ve gathered about 6,500 signatures, exceeding the roughly 5,800 required. On data centers, she said water use is the top concern for rural Texans, particularly in Corpus Christi, which is nearing a water emergency.
She’ll also be watching South Texas congressional races reshaped by redistricting, including Rep. Henry Cuellar’s reelection bid.
The Daily Signal publishes a weekly state newsletter for each of our five states. Subscribe now to follow the work of our State News Network reporters.
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New figures show that Trump has cut legal immigration from majority-Muslim nations by 96% since taking office in January 2024. This is what should have happened after 9/11.
America’s domestic enemies will club us like baby seals with this (islamofauxbia!) but it is impossible to know how many lives have been saved, how many terror attacks, rapes, fraud crimes and Gd knows what were prevented.
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“Kill them wherever you find them” — Qur’an 2:191, 4:89, 4:91, cf. 9:5
The Islamic jihad against Israel is worldwide. Numerous Islamic jihad groups have called for the murder of Jews all over the world.
It’s noteworthy that the pilot who attempted this aerial jihad was Omani. Oman is not often heard from in connection with jihad, and many assume that the Muslims there are “moderates.” The jihad, however, is universal. In fact, when a Muslim land is attacked, Islamic theology holds that defensive jihad is obligatory upon every Muslim worldwide. And many Muslim authorities consider the very existence of Israel to constitute the attack of a Muslim land.
“Israel-bound plane pilot stabbed by co-pilot, causing jet to plunge 18K feet: They ‘tried to do 9/11,’” by Chris Bradford, New York Post, September 30, 2026:
An Israel-bound passenger plane pilot was reportedly stabbed several times by the jet’s co-pilot in the cockpit — and the terrifying scenes caused the aircraft to plunge almost 20,000 feet in minutes, sparking fears of a “terrorist attack in mid-air.”
The jet, which departed Dubai for Tel Aviv just before 7 a.m., was cruising at around 34,000 feet before violence broke out in the cockpit around two-and-a-half hours into the flight, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.
The co-pilot tried to take control of the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane, which was carrying 174 passengers including 27 children, and attacked the pilot several times, the outlet reported.
“We were either going to crash or be murdered,” one passenger told I24 News.
“It was like a terrorist attack in mid-air.”
“One pilot stabbed the other and tried to do 9/11,” an official said, according to Channel 12.
“A very serious disaster was averted,” they said, fearing a repeat of the July 1976 incident where an Air France Flight bound for Paris was hijacked.
The jet dropped from an altitude of approximately 33,000 feet to around 15,400 feet in just 12 minutes, according to FlightAware data.
Israeli fighter jets were scrambled as a precaution and the flight crew and passengers rushed to stop the aggressor. The plane made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia — a civilian and military base in the kingdom.
Pictures have since surfaced showing passengers covered in blood, the Mail reported….
“Passengers Heroically Stopped Omani Pilot From Crashing Plane,” by Efrat Briner, C14News, September 30, 2026:
A dramatic and shocking turn of events has emerged in the investigation of the incident involving the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv: according to initial accounts from those on board, this was not merely a medical emergency or a routine internal dispute, but rather an attempted hijacking and deliberate crash by one of the pilots, an Omani citizen. Witnesses report that the pilot initiated a steep, dangerous dive with the intent to crash the plane; only the extraordinary quick thinking of Israeli passengers—who joined forces with another crew member to physically subdue the suspect—managed to halt the descent at the last moment, saving the lives of approximately 180 Israeli citizens and the other passengers.
The incident, which triggered an urgent response from security and aviation authorities in Israel and across the region, began just minutes after takeoff. The aircraft suddenly plunged to an altitude of about 15,000 feet, deviated from its original flight path toward Saudi airspace, and broadcast the general emergency code 7700….
However, as the minutes ticked by, the astonishing reality emerged: it was not hostile actors attempting to hijack the flight, but rather a physical altercation that had broken out inside the cockpit between the two pilots in charge. Amidst the exchange of blows and the loss of control within the cockpit, the critical distress signal was activated, prompting regional authorities to prepare for a worst-case scenario. Data from the Boeing 737 MAX 8’s monitoring and tracking systems reveal a harrowing picture, illustrating the moments of terror experienced by those on board: during the cruise phase, at an altitude of approximately 35,000 feet, a sudden, vertical plunge occurred at an unfathomable rate—peaking at roughly 30,976 feet per minute—accompanied by a ground speed exceeding 500 knots (about 930 km/h).
During those critical seconds, the engines and flight controls were driven to execute a maneuver with a single, clear implication: a deliberate crash of the aircraft into the ground. According to information now coming to light, the co-pilot recognized the attempt at mass suicide; he lunged at his colleague in the cockpit and engaged in a fierce physical struggle for control of the flight stick and controls. Amidst the in-cockpit battle, distress signals 7700 and 7500—the latter indicating a hostile takeover or unlawful interference—were transmitted, triggering alerts across security systems in Israel and the Middle East and leading to a halt in takeoffs at Ben Gurion Airport. The second pilot managed to overpower the pilot who intended to crash the plane, leveling it off at an altitude of approximately 15,000 feet and halting a dive that could have caused the airframe to disintegrate due to extreme G-forces and speed. Immediately after stabilizing the aircraft, the crew member took control of the flight, executed a U-turn, and returned to Dubai International Airport for an emergency landing.
Shocking footage from inside the cabin shows one of the Israeli passengers with blood-stained clothing—likely the result of the direct physical altercation or injuries sustained from the violent turbulence and heavy G-forces during the sudden dive. Their combined struggle ultimately succeeded in arresting the descent at around 15,000 feet, stabilizing the aircraft, and bringing it back for an emergency landing at Dubai International Airport….
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
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This creates an interesting situation. If these designations have any teeth, they will raise questions regarding how these organizations, particularly the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), are regarded nationwide. Will CAIR-Florida have to shut down? CAIR wields enormous influence among clueless and compromised politicians nationwide, as they court Muslim votes. Will politicians in other states think twice about appearing at Hamas-linked CAIR events since it is designated a terror organization in Florida? Or will they dismiss this as DeSantis’ political grandstanding? The latter is much more likely. Also, once DeSantis is out of office and the Democrats are back in charge, watch for them to lift these designations and turn around and designate some patriotic groups as terror organizations.
That’s not to say that DeSantis shouldn’t have done this. The question now, however, is what practical difference it will make.
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unveiled a new military training program in partnership with several universities aimed at growing the number of “patriotic” officers.
The War Department is establishing America’s Corps of Cadets Monday, partnering with several universities to expand available officer training programs, according to a memo to Pentagon leadership obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller.
The program will include Louisiana State University (LSU), Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University (MSU), and Hillsdale College. Notably, LSU was founded as a military school in 1853, known as the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy.
Each member school will be designated a “Distinguished Military College,” requiring the institutions to maintain “exceptionally high standards of cadet discipline, tactical instruction, and military organization.” The schools would also earn the prestigious “Honor School” status, granting priority for officer commissioning.
“From the Ivy Leagues to most liberal arts colleges, our colleges and universities have become anti-American, DEI-worshipping, woke factories,” Hegseth said during his State of the Force address. “Qualities like grit and courage were replaced with political correctness and social justice. God and country traded for Che Guevara and critical theory.”
“We need students of western civilization and the pillars of our republic,” Hegseth added. “Leaders who understand the faith of Jerusalem, the philosophy of Athens, the power of Rome, and the freedom of Philadelphia, circa 1776. Officers of the republic, proud of our country, our heritage, and our history.”
Hegseth commended the existing military colleges like Texas A&M and the Citadel, noting the “patriotic and selfless service being taught” at these institutions.
“The status quo of our officer pipeline is good,” Hegseth said. “The future will be even better.”
“By embedding continuous military discipline and leadership development into new institutions, by growing our Corps of Cadets, the War Department will ensure our Republic is defended by even more officers of unwavering character, patriotism, and rigor.”
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American vulnerability emanates from a sense of complancency and gullibility.
We belive what we are told and what we want to believe. Despite millennia of history, we choose to disbelieve the many leaders are actively working for a worldwide caliphate as the endpoint of expess Islamist goals.
California is a living example of a “Califate-In-The-Making” incrementally, largely under the radars of the silent majority.
California is now officially recognizing two Islamic holidays after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation making Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha official state holidays.
The law gives Muslim state workers the right to take those days off, and public schools may choose to close in observance of the holidays.
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, while Eid al-Adha commemorates the conclusion of the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
“This is really disconcerting,” Rabbi Michael Barclay told CBN News.
“Ramadan is not a month of peace; in fact, al-Qaida calls it the month of conquests,” he explained. “And it’s a horrible statement about California and about our politicians who are pandering for whatever money or votes they think they can get from the Islamic community.” Commentators like Barclay argue that recognizing these Muslim holidays puts Islamic traditions on a special tier above Christian and Jewish holidays. The push to elevate Islam appears to result from a growing alliance between Muslim advocacy groups and political progressives.
“The state of California doesn’t honor any other religion. But now suddenly they’re kowtowing and catering to what is effectively Sharia law,” Barclay said.
California has a smaller percentage of Muslims compared to Christians and Jews, and yet major Islamic holidays have now received state-level recognition without equivalent status for other faith traditions, critics note.
Meanwhile, Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign a separate bill recognizing the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in state law. However, that measure would not grant the same status that has been awarded to the Muslim holidays.
Instead, the bill would only require public schools and universities to make reasonable efforts to avoid scheduling public meetings or major events on those Jewish holy days.
California does not officially recognize Christmas or other Christian holidays as paid state holidays.
Muslims make up about 1% of California’s population, Christians are 55%, and Jews are closer to 3%.
CBN News is a national/international, nonprofit news organization that provides programming 24 hours a day by cable, satellite and the Internet.
Staffed by a group of acclaimed news professionals, CBN News delivers stories to over a million viewers each day without a specific agenda. With its headquarters in Virginia Beach, Va., CBN News has bureaus in Washington D.C., Jerusalem, and elsewhere around the world.
What began as a segment on CBN’s flagship program, The 700 Club, in the early 1980s, CBN News has since expanded into a multimedia news organization that offers today’s news headlines and other stories that impact the global Christian community.
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Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Trump administration can continue to use a modified systematic alien verification database to confirm the citizenship of voters. Experts say the ruling could play a crucial role in securing the integrity of the midterm elections.
“The fact that DHS and this administration is going to utilize the information it gathered to try and help clean up some of these voter rolls and prevent illegal aliens from getting ballots in the first place is a huge step forward,” Hogan Gidley, vice chair of secure elections policy at America First Policy Institute, said during a Monday appearance on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.”
In March, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to put a system in place allowing state and local governments to prevent illegal immigrants from voting in elections.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements initiative, known as SAVE, “uses online systems to check information about a benefit applicant’s immigration status or naturalized or derived United States citizenship against records contained in relevant immigration databases.”
In June, SAVE was blocked by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C. Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, wrote in her opinion, “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens,” leading to a halt in the initiative.
Gidley explained that SAVE exists to protect the integrity of U.S. elections. “Democrats have taken the wrong side of so many of these issues. Instead of standing up with safe and secure American communities, they’re fine with letting out criminals. Instead of saying, ‘We need to make sure these elections are protected,’ they’re fine with putting people on the [voter] rolls that don’t need to be there.”
The election security expert contended that other countries have safeguards against noncitizens voting, and America should be no exception. “We have way too many people in this country casting ballots that don’t have a right to do so. … I don’t think if you went to Germany, they would let you vote in their elections, or France. You couldn’t vote in their elections, or [in] Italy for that matter. So, the fact [that] we let people in this country who are not citizens vote in our elections is absolutely insane. And a vast majority of the American people know that, and [Democrats] reject it.”
In July, a Fox News poll found that roughly 83% favor requiring photo identification to register to vote and 77% to cast a ballot. “Support for requiring photo ID to vote has remained consistently high, between 77% to 85%, in Fox News polling since 2011,” the network additionally reported.
Gidley asserted that the SCOTUS ruling could help move the needle in the right direction, just weeks before what some predict could be a “bloodbath” midterm election cycle. “When I’m on TV and these liberal reporters say there was some illegal voting… but it’s not enough to affect the outcome of the election, I say, ‘First of all, how many illegal votes are okay? Is it one? Is it 100? Because a single illegal vote that is cast by someone who doesn’t have a right to do so cancels out your vote.’ And I think that’s quite frankly egregious.”
“But moving forward, I think this election cycle is going to be clunky because a lot of these states are going to try and fight against it,” Gidley added. “Blue states aren’t going to accept it, per usual. They’re going to fight the courts and allow people who shouldn’t vote the opportunity to do so. And I think that’s just wrong.”
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.
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Miami grew and transformed in the 1960s following successive waves of Cuban exiles fleeing a socialist tyranny that would forever alter the Hemisphere.
It is precisely on the streets of Little Havana, in the factories of Hialeah, or among the skyscrapers of Miami Beach that one finds stories of the cruelty and loss endured under Fidel Castro’s regime — stories of property confiscation, torture, and executions passed down from generation to generation. It is no coincidence that, in 2024, nearly 70% of Cuban-American voters in Miami-Dade leaned toward the Republican Party.
This month, speaking from that South Florida city, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) championed new educational standards regarding the history of communism — standards the state began implementing in Florida schools this academic year.
At the Brigade 2506 Museum — which preserves the history of the exiles’ 1961 armed attempt to overthrow the Castro regime — DeSantis stated that his goal is to prevent new generations from being drawn in by the promises of socialism.
Joined by State Education Commissioner Henry Mack during the press conference, DeSantis asserted, “It is our duty to ensure that the next generation understands the truth about communism.” With the rise of that political “preference” among young Americans and the socialist kidnapping of the Democratic Party, leaders have made this a priority.
The curriculum will lay bare the damage caused by that ideology and the experiences of those who lived under communist rule. In doing so, the governor noted, young people will be able to recognize what he described as the “false promises” of the radical Left, which seeks to upend the United States’ political and economic model.
Former State Senator Bryan Ávila (R), the program’s legislative sponsor, was announced in August as Byron Donalds’s running-mate for Florida lieutenant governor. Efforts to promote these new educational standards were grounded in Senate Bill 1264 — signed by DeSantis in April 2024 — which mandated the inclusion of instruction on communism tailored to students’ age and developmental levels.
The most interesting aspect of the curriculum is that it will not merely require a lesson on the rise of communism and socialism elsewhere in the world; it will also focus on movements within the United States, tracing their trajectories and tactics.
According to the state Senate’s website, the curriculum will cover the history of atrocities committed in foreign countries under communist rule. It will also address communist policies in Cuba and the spread of communist ideologies across Latin America, including the depredations of guerrilla groups and regional terrorism.
Furthermore, the sessions will encourage a comparative analysis of totalitarian political ideologies that conflict with the founding principles of liberty and democracy in the United States. There is no better gift for this nation as it approaches its 250th anniversary. Other states should follow Florida’s lead.
Given that the state is home to so many people who have experienced the disaster of totalitarianism, first-hand testimonies are essential. The program embraces this approach, aiming to be a living initiative rooted in the community’s memories.
Florida had already established Victims of Communism Day — observed annually on November 7 — to address the consequences of that disastrous ideology. For high school government students, the law required at least 45 minutes of instruction on Mao, Stalin, Castro, Lenin, Pol Pot, and the convicted Nicolás Maduro, including the suffering endured by their victims. However, this new educational initiative goes far beyond those earlier measures.
The state’s education commission “may solicit input from any person who has been a victim of communism or from any state- or nationally-recognized organization dedicated to victims of communism,” the Senate website noted. DeSantis echoed this sentiment during a press conference at the Brigade 2506 Museum. He emphasized that instruction should not be limited to theoretical definitions but also focus on the lived experiences of exiles and former political prisoners to demonstrate the human consequences of repression, censorship, the loss of freedoms, and state control of the economy.
The governor presented the initiative as an extension of his education policy, asserting that Florida has a responsibility to preserve these testimonies so that students understand that the loss of freedom is not merely an abstract episode, but an experience endured by thousands of families and individuals in the state.
One of them, journalist Ninoska Pérez Castellón, stressed that the law aims to equip young people with the tools “to ask questions, challenge ideas, and stand up for themselves when someone tries to sell them — as a utopia — something that, in practice, has crushed individuality, concentrated power, and turned freedom into the privilege of a select few.”
Yoe Suárez is The Washington Stand’s international affairs correspondent. He is an exiled journalist, writer, and producer who investigated in Havana about torture, political police, gangs, government black lists, and cybersurveillance. A graduate of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, he was a CBN correspondent, and has written for outlets like The Hill and Newsweek. He has appeared on Vox, Univision, and Deutsche Welle as an analyst on Cuba, security, and U.S. foreign policy.
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.
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War Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to announce plans to cut the number of generals and admirals by 20 percent during his State of the Force address that will take place on Wednesday, according to a report from Fox News.
The reduction of top brass will be a downgrade of some positions instead of eliminating all of them altogether. The reduction plans apply to the Army, Navy, Air Force and the military’s joint pool and were approved earlier this month. The directives will be given and will be expected to be completed by the new year.
Last year, as part of an overall reduction in general and flag officer positions, there was a 10 percent reduction goal. The order this time around doubles that reduction rate as Hegseth has started to streamline a reduction in military ranks.
He has dubbed the effort “less generals, more GIs,” and has said that the reduction of top brass allows for those troops on the ground to have more authority over decisions on the ground and closer to the fight. In the September 16 memo directing the effort, Hegseth ordered that official will establish 0-6 requirements for positions that will be downgraded.
The move from Hegseth comes after the War Secretary announced new battlefield testing for future generals and that promotions will be based on their ability to “to fight, adapt, and win.”
“While the backbone of our military is our NCOs [noncommissioned officers] and our petty officers, victory depends on the commanders who lead them,” Hegseth said in a video posted to social media earlier in September.
“This is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers,” Hegseth said about earlier reductions in May 2025. “This has been a deliberative process, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff with one goal: maximizing strategic readiness and operational effectiveness by making prudent reductions in the general and flag officer ranks.”
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“Our destiny’s written by God… America will never be a Communist country!” — President Donald J. Trump
The Soviet Fraud invaded our entire nation: from the East to the West, from the North to the South. There are millions of fraudsters destroying America in many different ways. Fraud has a variety of different forms and shapes. Fraud indicates a loss of societal virtue. I am a former Soviet attorney, who was writing and warning you about Soviet fraud for decades. I was often reminding you about the Socialist Modus Operandi, because fraud is the major feature of the Soviet System and Soviet Ideology. Here is the Socialist Modus Operandi: lies, deceit, fabrication and fraud, let alone cheating and stealing. The entire Biden team was lying and defrauding us for years. To understand the nature of the Soviet Fraud, please read my column Soviet Fascism: Worldwide Threats and Threats from Within April 23 2026.
The Soviet Fraud has a long history of hundred years. It was designed by Comrade Stain in 1930s Russia. While designing his economic model of Soviet Socialism, Stalin preached and used Marxist Theory to advance his authority. He did it, knowing that Marx developed his Theory for “Industrial European countries”. But, none of “Industrial European” countries materialized Marxist Theory and there was no force to spread and promote it. Western civilization of Europe didn’t accept it and Marxist Theory was left on the paper.in the 19th century. Unfortunately, Republicans didn’t know that and wasted 30 years fighting Marxist Theory and ignoring the real enemy Stalin’s Soviet Socialism and its manager that was destroying America with impunity…
Socialist Revolution in agricultural Russia was the first and the only revolution materializing the Theory in the 20th century. Preaching Marxism, but in direct contradiction to Marxist Theory, Dictator Stalin was building his model. Agricultural Russia didn’t have a proletariat, Stalin had substituted it with a Law Enforcement agency, weaponizing his model of Soviet Socialism. The Soviet people called the Soviet system—Stalinism. In fact, the basis of Stalin’s model had been a fraud. Stalin’s model of Soviet Socialism has been spread and promoted around the World by the KGB’s Mafia/Army. You won’t find a country where Soviet Socialism is working, because Soviet Socialism is a fraud.
Though Stalin’s parents had been Christians, it was the Muslim streets that brought Stalin up. He had married his model of Soviet Socialism with Islam; it was the fusion of fraudulent Ideology with the menacing force of Jihad: It was a form of Jihad with the concept of external struggle, similar to communist ideas. Stalin’s model has become a fusion of Jihad and Soviet Socialism, which I called Soviet Fascism. Stalin and other Soviet leaders after him had very successfully fooled the world by talking about Socialism in one country, while spreading Stalin’s highly Antisemitic model of Soviet Socialism globally. Actually, Stalin’s agenda had been One World Socialist Government under Russia’s rule. I had an additional point to call Soviet Socialism–Soviet Fascism.
Gitler and Stalin had been the Partners. Gitler came to power by the democratic election in 1933 Germany. To secure the Fascist ideology, the Third Reich, he created a law-Enforcement agency—Gestapo. Stalin came to power, after the leader of the Socialist Revolution, Vladimir Lenin had been assassinated. Stalin wasn’t a well-known leader and needed authority of the Marxist Theory. He also started creating his model of the Soviet System, Soviet Socialism in the beginning of the 1930th. To secure his ideology of Soviet Socialism, Stalin set-up a law-Enforcement agency—the KGB, the Soviet people called it—Soviet Gestapo. Both Dictators had weaponized Law Enforcement. Yes, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had been the Partners. Read my column Soviet Socialism in America: Fraudsters, Saboteurs, Spies, and Traitors June 16, 2026.
You can ask me, why do I give you the history of Russia? My answer is because the past is the best predictor of the future. I am a student of history and considering the last day of the Trump-Xi Summit, I’d like to give you information you don’t know. It was Stalin, who had established North Korea, by signing a Korean Soviet policeman to set up a country of North Korea in 1948. It has been done—the North Karea became the first country of Soviet Socialism in Asia. The next was China. Stalin had been involved in China politics since 1920s. The Soviet Military and Intel had helped Mao to build a Socialist State, implementing a model of Soviet Socialism. It was done in 1949. A devoted disciple of Stalin, the Chairman of the KGB Yuriy Andeopov had orchestrated the Socialist Revolution in the Mideast where Soviet Socialism had been implemented in the Shiites countries, including Iran in 1979.
Please, remember—Soviet Fascism never sleeps, it’s spreading the model of Soviet Socialism globally, regardless of country’s race, ethnicity and religions. Everything written in this column has been managed by the agency I have been describing for forty years—the KGB’s Mafia/Army—the Evil Doer—the Home of the President Vladimir Putin. If you don’t know, Putin is a devoted disciple of Stalin and Andropov. Ukraine’s residential destruction is his legacy… Yes, Soviet Fascism didn’t sleep in September 2026 and you saw bad actors in America. They all are different nationalities and races, but they behaved identically, as they all were using Socialist Modus Operandi. Do you remember how the President of Iran was accusing us and lying without blinking? Though President Xi released Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri from prison by request of President Trump, I’m not sure President Xi will stop providing Iran with missiles and images of our military bases. I don’t trust him. We will see.
Now, when you are familiar with Russian history, let me give you the information of the Punitive Jurisprudence of Soviet fascism to grasp the entire picture of the Police State. As a matter of fact, Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR addresses counter revolutionary crimes in the USSR. “Counterrevolutionary Agitation and Propaganda: Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code—punishment—20-25 years in GULAG”. The family of the defendant was deported to Siberia of the Far East. In my opinion, combating Western civilization, the Soviets had reversed their domestic policy by redressing with raging Counter Revolutionary Agitation and Propaganda against Free Market Capitalism. It has been done consciously according to Stalin’s diabolic Doctrine of global war: “Soviet strategy for revolutionary war is a global strategy… narcotics strategy is a sub-component of this global strategy. Read my column: WWIII Began in 1955 September 14, 2026.
Unfortunately, America doesn’t know Soviet Socialism and allows enemies to create Ideological Chaos in America. To understand who the new Socialists of the Democrat party are and grasp their agenda aimed against the American republic, please, remember raging Counter Revolutionary Agitation and Propaganda against Free Market Capitalism in the above paragraph. Watch Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, Melat Kiros, Hasan Piker, Rashida Tlaib, and Daria liza Avila Chevalier and thousands of others. For me, Hasan Piker is a leader of Muslim brigade, and when he said ”Hamas is 1000x better than Israel,” I saw it as his direct connection to Stalin’s terrorism and his highly Antisemitic model of Soviet Socialism, which I called Soviet Fascism, managed by the KGB.
“…Now under a U.S. global terrorism designation, provided services to overseas terrorist groups and violent far-left agitators causing chaos in American cities.”
The main topic of my writings was and is those terrorist groups managed by the KGB’s Mafia/Army-the Evil Doer. The agency gave an assignment to Socialist families to bring up their children under the banner of One World Socialist Government 25-30 years ago. Don’t be surprised now by the election in New York City, Socialists like Zohran Mamdani from Uganda, a country of Soviet Fascism(check the history). Like Zohran Mamdani’s parents have prepared Zohran for political career, the same way parents of Abdull El-Sayed, and Hasan Piker had prepared their sons. Talking about healthcare Abdul said “He wants a collective public good.” Obama also wanted a collective public good, when he took a page from the Soviet Healthcare and put it into Obamacare. Those are the Dems’ members of Stalin’s menacing fusion—Jihad and Soviet Fascism. Hasan Piker is an extreme communist political commentator, canceler of the Dems’ party. He is a Muslim, brought up in Turkey. His parents prepared him to be a political activist in America, like Mamdani’s parents did.
Those families came from the countries with “Putin’s Network of Influence.” Turkey has ties with Putin. Abdull El-Sayed came from Egypt; he hates our American culture. He hates America and wants to be an American Senator? With his policy program, he is unexpectable. Another member of DSA Melat Kiros came from Ethiopia, a neighbor of Somalia also a country of Soviet Fascism. Do you remember a huge Soviet fraud brought by Somalian refugees to America? Does that geography tell you anything??? It’s definitely telling us about the global activities of International Terrorist Organization I called The KGB’s Mafia/Army-the Evil Doer. That agency was my main topic for forty years. It was the agency that began infiltration of the Shiites Hamas and Hezbollah of the Middle East in the 1950-1960, Yassir Arafat was recruited by the agency in 1957. Highly Antisemitic Soviet Socialism showing a result in 2026, 70 years later. Don’t you recognize an International Terrorist Organization acting globally?
I have been warning you countlessly about the failed American Intel that had no knowledge of the Russian Intel’s activities and allowed mass infiltration of bad actors on our soil and our government for 30 years. The FBI and CIA had been infiltrated by Russian Intel all those years. 90 percent of Biden’s administration consisted of communists, socialists, anarchists and other thugs, let alone bad actors from the 20th century. Let me give a list of individuals Dems that should be investigated: Bill Clinton gave an assignment to George Stepanopolus to create a Media a-la Soviet State Media. We have it now… Mayor Pete’s Father was a lecturer of Marxism-Leninism in Russia with ties to the KGB. As the Secretary of Transportation, he committed several crimes, now he is running for the U.S. President. OAC had a romantic relationship with her staffer, he had been a KGB member. Read my columns for the details and about other traitors, like Rahm Emanuel.
The Cold War has never ended, it covertly and imperceptibly moved to WWIII. The Socialist-Communist aggressors have never stopped fighting Western civilization; they just changed the methods and dirty tricks of Stalin’s Doctrine. The root causes of instability in America are also Stalin’s Doctrine and aggressive forces that implement it. What we witness in America today is the result of our Intel’s inability to expose this menacing Evil and show the aggressive and criminal methods and tricks of the Socialist/Communist Cabal of Soviet Fascism fighting the American Republic. Will Cain asked Condoleezza Rice: What should we do? Mrs. Rice thinks that: Patience is necessary. I agree, in terms of China and Russia patience is necessary. Rut in Iran, we are dealing with fanatical theological Fascism and we can’t wait. Western civilization and the entire world are at stake.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-09-30 07:51:162026-09-30 07:51:16The Soviet Fraud in America and in the World
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