Month: December 2025

Guest post by Bob Cushman – Investigative Reporter – The Freedom Press – (https://michiganscorruption.com)

The Senate Leader has been accused of massive money laundering!

One of the best Freedom Fighters in America just dropped a “Truth Bomb”.

Investigative Reporter Peter Bernegger just released information that pertains to the “Pretend Republican” that is the “Senate Majority Leader.”

In this recent complaint to the FEC, Bernegger names both Thune and his treasurer.

In a December 26, 2025 dated tweet, Peter Bernegger stated the following:

“Senator @JohnThune I named your Treasurer, Nicole Weyers, in my complaint to the FEC on the money laundering into your campaign. I’m also referring her for alleged felony crimes from her position as Treasurer in your campaign committee. It’s going to be interesting about your bank your campaign committee used to launder the money.

Interesting John you went from college right into politics and never worked in the private sector. Then called for President Trump to drop out and let judas Mike Pence run for President instead.

‘Republican’ John Thune: never worked a day in the private sector for 40 some years yet wants to play with all our lives. He’s is also a big supporter of the fake, corrupt, Ukraine war — which the USA’s 3 letter agencies started. He is the one who has been blocking the vote to stop the weekly $40 million to the Taliban.”

Senator @JohnThune I named your Treasurer, Nicole Weyers, in my complaint to the FEC on the money laundering into your campaign.

I’m also referring her for alleged felony crimes from her position as Treasurer in your campaign committee.

It’s going to be interesting about your… https://t.co/axOw8G7Q2a pic.twitter.com/2x2d3mmDxJ

— Peter Bernegger (@PeterBernegger) December 26, 2025

A little history about Peter Bernegger

Bernegger has been investigating and documenting money laundering of Democrats (ActBlue) for several years now.

More recently he has become aware of the Republican money laundering through WinRed. I too have been investigating and analyzing money laundering for quite a few years.

I can state that Peter Bernegger is, to the best of my knowledge, the most knowledgeable person on this subject and has been fighting to make the world aware of this vicious practice where money is laundered to re-elect the persons that can be counted on to vote the way that they are “told”.

Peter Bernegger is the best “smurf finder” in the world!

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Consider Peter’s recent history in this regard:

Timeline of Allegations

12/26/25 – US Senator John Thune
From Peter Bernegger — A complaint was filed this morning against US Senator John Thune — the Republican Senate Majority Leader — to the FEC for Smurfing $1,148,902 into his campaign. Smurfing is criminal money laundering into political campaigns. Much of the money is coming from the US Treasury = you. @AGPamBondi unfortunately is not stopping this money laundering. So we are going to stop it.

12/22/25 – US Senator Mark Kelly
From Peter Bernegger — An FEC complaint has been filed against US Senator Mark Kelly for Smurfing, totaling a stunning $41,300,637. Political Committee C00696526, MARK KELLY FOR SENATE, has accepted 790,641 smurfed donor transactions totaling $39,246,003 from 46,697 unique smurfing donors. These transactions encompass 68.3% of the 1,157,117 available committee transactions and 36.6% of the $107,149,771 full committee transaction valuation.

9/18/25 – US Senator Adam Schiff
From Peter Bernegger — Caught US Senator Adam Schiff smurfing $20,332,426 into his campaigns. Smurfing is structured criminal money laundering by politicians into their political campaigns. They do it by stealing the identities of senior citizens. “Smurfs” are the victims — the elderly.

5/16/25 – Senator Tammy Baldwin
From Peter Bernegger — Exclusive: I have filed a complaint to the FEC against US Senator Tammy Baldwin for criminally laundering $36,820,755 into her campaigns since 2017. This is smurfing by Baldwin, where she is stealing the identities of senior citizens — called smurfs — who are victims in this scheme. Tied in is the corrupt DNC.

2/27/25 – US Senator Tammy Baldwin
From Peter Bernegger — FEC complaint filed, lawsuit filed: $36,820,755 criminally laundered.

2/27/25 – US Senator Lindsey Graham
From Peter Bernegger — FEC complaint filed, lawsuit being filed within days: $11,090,385 criminally laundered.

2/27/25 – US Senator Amy Klobuchar
From Peter Bernegger — FEC complaint filed, lawsuit being filed Jan 2nd, 2026: $9,633,912 criminally laundered.

2/27/25 – US Senator Elissa Slotkin
From Peter Bernegger — FEC complaint filed: $16,126,348 criminally laundered.

2/26/25 – US Senator Patty Murray
Peter Bernegger reports: Senator Murray caught smurfing — criminally laundering money into her campaigns.

2/25/25 – US Senator Raphael Warnock
From Peter Bernegger — Political Committee C00736876, WARNOCK FOR GEORGIA, has accepted 969,936 smurfed donor transactions totaling $57,345,638 from 65,074 unique smurfing donors. These transactions encompass 64.9% of the 1,494,773 available committee transactions and 35.3% of the $162,521,122 full committee transaction valuation. After the FEC does nothing, then I’ll file suit.

2/25/25 – Senator Ruben Gallego
From Peter Bernegger — Caught smurfing, i.e., criminally laundering money into his campaign. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

2/24/25 – Senator Jon Ossoff
From Peter Bernegger — @SenOssoff caught smurfing. The top 20 smurfs made a minimum of 197,223 contributions to Ossoff’s campaign just via ActBlue.

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Why do you think that the Senate has stonewalled Trump’s appointees?  Why do you think we are still funding the war in Ukraine? Did you know that John Thune posted the following tweet in October of 2016?

“Donald Trump should withdraw and Mike Pence should be our nominee effective immediately.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that both Democrats and Republicans are afraid to admit that Massive Money Laundering has been going on quietly but powerfully for years now.

The recent revelations in The Gateway Pundit have led to a very large increase in Public Awareness.

Consider the following GP revelations in the past few weeks:

• Fani Willis Hit With Explosive New Allegations Tied to MASSIVE Democrat Money Laundering Scheme
• ‘The Seditious Six’ Face New Legal Challenges — Massive MONEY LAUNDERING Allegations Emerge
• TGP Was First to Report on Democrat Money Laundering Using ActBlue – President Trump Called for an Investigation – The Seditious Six Now Implicated

Now consider the fact –  President Trump ordered an investigation into the unlawful Voter Mule activity using ActBlue in April.

Now here the “confession” of a seasoned campaign operative!

In a very informative news discussion between Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Charlie LeDuff in a “No BS Newshour Episode #395” and campaign strategist Jason Roe (Fraudette Smurf – YouTube) , it was stated that ActBlue has allegedly received over 16 billion dollars since 2004.

It was also revealed that several senior members of ActBlue have abruptly resigned since allegations of fraud have come forward and several federal investigations have begun in 2025.

Jason Roe stated that people working within political campaigns for many years have been aware of the money laundering that was enabled by ActBlue and that Charlie LeDuff had, within the first few minutes of Episode 395, done a far better job of explaining how ActBlue had laundered money than any mainstream media ever had!

Jason Roe further states that:

• This activity is fraud
• This activity is money laundering
• This activity is funneling money from outside the US
• That Republicans are now outraising Democrats for the first time in a decade


 

What we have at this juncture is the making of a “Perfect Storm”!

• Neither Democrats or Republicans want to admit to this massive wide-spread fraud!
• The public is becoming very aware of this illegal practice.
• President Trump has ordered Pam Bondi to investigate this very troubling situation!
• Politicians in both parties have been named in formal complaints to the FEC for Illegal money laundering.
• Michael Flynn Issues Urgent Open Letter to President Trump — Says “We The People Demand ACCOUNTABILITY!” (12-29-25)

The obvious question is: “Will President Trump force our government to rectify this cancer in our Constitutional Republic?”

The post Senate Majority Leader John Thune Faces FEC Complaint Over Alleged $1.1 Million Campaign Money Laundering Scheme appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has backed down on federal enforcement of commercial driver’s license revocations, announcing a delay in the cancellation of 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued to immigrant drivers — now postponed until March 6, 2026.

The move comes only after immigrant advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit and secured a temporary reprieve against the state’s efforts to comply with federal safety and immigration rules.

The Gateway Pundit reported in November that California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) had confessed to illegally handing out 17,000 non-domiciled Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDLs) to dangerous foreign drivers who have no business operating massive semitrucks or school buses on American roads.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blasted California for “illegally issuing 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses” to individuals whose credentials did not meet federal requirements, even threatening to withhold up to $160 million in federal highway funds if the state refused to act.

“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”

Each of the 17,000 non-domiciled CDL holders has been issued notice that their license will expire within 60 days, as it no longer meets federal requirements.

FMCSA is now requiring the California DMV to hand over a full audit of all non-domiciled CDLs to verify that every unlawfully issued license is revoked and that the state corrects the systemic failures that allowed this fraud to occur.

Federal auditors found that over one in four foreign driver records sampled in California failed to comply with federal law, including CDLs that extended beyond the expiration of a foreign worker’s visa, a blatant violation of federal safety regulations.

Now, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) confirmed that the previously scheduled cancellation, originally set to begin in early January, will now be deferred while legal challenges play out in court.

This stunning reversal follows a wave of legal filings by organizations such as the Asian Law Caucus and the Sikh Coalition, who rushed to court arguing that the state’s actions threatened the livelihoods of thousands of “hard-working” immigrant truck drivers and bus operators.

Their lawsuit claimed that the DMV’s enforcement actions were unlawful and violated due process, alleging that drivers were not financially or legally equipped to respond to abrupt cancellation notices.

Newsom’s announcement provides additional breathing room for the state, which had been under immense pressure from the Trump Administration — and the U.S. Department of Transportation — to clean up a disastrous licensing program that federal auditors found had issued CDLs beyond the lawful terms of the drivers’ immigration status.

KTVB reported:

The Sikh Coalition, a national group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the California drivers. They said immigrant truck drivers were being unfairly targeted. The driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikhs.

Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but these non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses or about 200,000 drivers. The Transportation Department also proposed new restrictions that would severely limit which noncitizens could get a license, but a court put the new rules on hold.

The post INSANITY: Newsom’s California Delays Revoking 17,000 Commercial Driver’s Licenses Until March Following “Dangerous Foreign Drivers” Legal Challenge appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Greg Kelly sparked controversy by claiming Barack Obama has adopted an inauthentic “hood” persona in recent videos, suggesting the former president is deliberately changing his public image for political gain.

Kelly’s Authenticity Challenge

NewsMax host Greg Kelly delivered sharp criticism of Barack Obama’s recent public appearances, arguing the former president has deliberately adopted what Kelly terms a “hood” persona. Kelly contends this represents a calculated departure from Obama’s established public image, questioning whether voters are seeing the real Obama or a manufactured version designed for specific audiences.

“[Barack Obama’s] going back to the hood, and trying to pretend that he’s a really hood type of guy.”

Greg Kelly reacts to the reemergence of former President Barack Obama to the media. pic.twitter.com/QTfIdLJAM7

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) December 13, 2025

The commentary touches on longstanding questions about political authenticity in modern media. Kelly suggests Obama’s communication style shifts reflect strategic image management rather than genuine expression, raising concerns about politicians who modify their personas based on their intended audience or current political climate.

Political Image and Public Perception

Kelly’s observations highlight a broader conservative critique of progressive politicians who allegedly adjust their public personas to appeal to different demographic groups. This phenomenon extends beyond Obama to include questions about whether political figures maintain consistent identities or strategically adapt their messaging and presentation style for maximum political impact.

The debate over authentic political communication has intensified in the social media age, where politicians can directly reach audiences without traditional media filters. Kelly’s criticism suggests conservative voices increasingly scrutinize progressive leaders for what they perceive as calculated image shifts designed to maintain relevance with younger or more diverse voter bases.

Have you ever seen the energy when Trump walks into a lobby or restaurant? That’s not this.

Obama says “brothas” like we would believe that he’s from the hood, that’s he’s one of the brothers from Brooklyn or the Chicago streets.

Dude lives in a mansion in Martha’s Vineyard. pic.twitter.com/ermGGdVhPK

— M-Û-R-Č-H (@TheEXECUTlONER_) October 11, 2024

Conservative Media Response

Kelly’s commentary represents typical conservative media analysis of progressive political figures, focusing on perceived inconsistencies between public personas and authentic character. Conservative commentators frequently challenge progressive politicians on authenticity, arguing their policy positions and public presentations reflect political calculation rather than genuine conviction.

The broader conservative criticism extends to questions about elite liberal politicians who attended prestigious universities and grew up in privileged circumstances but later adopt different communication styles when addressing certain audiences. Kelly’s remarks fit this pattern of questioning whether progressive leaders truly represent the communities they claim to champion.

At 104 years old, most Americans are far removed from the public eye.

But for one World War II veteran and New York Islanders fan, age was nothing but a number as he stepped onto center ice with a soprano saxophone in hand and brought an NHL arena to its feet on Saturday.

Instead of singing the national anthem, Dominick Critelli played it — just as he once did overseas during the war, according to cable channel News 12 Long Island — turning a familiar pregame ritual into a deeply personal act of remembrance.

The response was immediate and overwhelming at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, with fans erupting into sustained patriotic applause as the final notes echoed through the building.

You can watch the incredible moment, and the swelling “USA” chants at the end, for yourself below:

104 year old World War 2 Veteran Dominick Critelli performed the National Anthem on the saxophone at tonight’s game! pic.twitter.com/m0v0WT6L2Y

— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) December 28, 2025

Afterward, the veteran explained the moment was not about him, but about the men he served alongside, saying the performance was dedicated to his fallen buddies who never made it home.

“That’s why I go to these places, I want to do it, I want to represent them, to do something for them. That’s all I can do for them,” Critelli told the news station.

Critelli added that he’s been playing music for over 90 years now — but that’s hardly his claim to fame.

According to the NHL, Critelli spent 151 days in combat during World War II, enduring some of the conflict’s most dangerous moments.

He survived the Battle of the Bulge and flew missions behind enemy lines, delivering critical supplies to isolated American troops cut off from support.

For that service, he earned the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three Bronze Stars, along with the American Theater Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and a Good Conduct Medal.

According to the New York Post, Critelli was born in Italy, giving him an especially unique perspective of some of the horrors of WWII.

“I love this country,” he told the New York Post.

Critelli added: “If I hadn’t come home to this country, I’d be stuck with Mussolini.”

Critelli now resides in Floral Park.

The emotional rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” appeared to have also inspired Critelli’s Islanders, who beat their cross-state rivals, the New York Rangers, 2-0 in Saturday’s tilt.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Watch: NHL Crowd Erupts in Chants of ‘USA’ After 104-Year-Old WWII Vet’s Epic Anthem Performance appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

In a wide-ranging interview on ABC’s “This Week”, bumbling Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi declared that while President Donald Trump has regained the White House, he will ultimately “pay a price in history” for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Speaking with co-anchor Jonathan Karl just days before the new year, Pelosi rejected the notion that Trump has escaped consequences what she called an insurrection on January 6th, 2021, insisting that the judgment of posterity will be severe despite his current political resurgence. The former House Speaker expressed profound frustration with what she claimed was Trump’s ongoing efforts to “rewrite history”.

Pelosi dramatically recalled the danger of that day, describing the rioters’ intent to put “a bullet in my … head” and noting the gallows erected for then-Vice President Mike Pence, which she cited as evidence of the mob’s lethal intent. Pushing back against claims that she delayed security reinforcements, Pelosi claimed that congressional leaders “begged” Trump to deploy the National Guard, but “typical of him, he never represents the truth” about his refusal to act. Yet her own daughter filmed her on that take literally taking responsibility for failing to secure the capitol.

Beyond the events of January 6, Pelosi offered a delusional assessment of Trump’s character and governance, characterizing him as a “rogue” president who has undermined the Constitution and “scared people” legally residing in the country. She also criticized the current Republican-led Congress, arguing that GOP lawmakers have effectively “abolished” the House of Representatives by ceding their institutional power and acting as “toadies” to the President.

The interview highlighted the long-standing animosity between the two leaders, with Karl revisiting iconic moments of their feud, such as Pelosi ripping up Trump’s State of the Union address and her confrontational exit from a White House Cabinet meeting. Pelosi defended those past actions as spontaneous responses to Trump’s conduct. As she prepares to retire from Congress after nearly four decades of destructive service, Pelosi’s final warning focused on the fragility of American institutions, asserting that the country “cannot withstand an assault on the Capitol, the Congress, the Constitution” if such actions are allowed to stand normalized. Talk about projection.

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The post Did Nancy Pelosi Just Threaten President Trump? | Drew Hernandez appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Foreign Affairs

How Brazil’s Government Foiled Trump’s Effort to Save a Key Ally

A corrupt Brazilian court has neutralized the former president Jair Bolsonaro.

This summer, the Trump family ally and former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in the January 8 protests by a modified Brazilian Supreme Court panel, handpicked to ensure that outcome by the country’s chief justice and chief censor, Alexandre de Moraes. Then, in November, before an official sentence could even be read, Moraes ordered the Federal Police to prematurely arrest and imprison the former president.

The imprisonment of Bolsonaro is merely one abuse in a series of authoritarian actions overseen by de Moraes, known in Brazil as Xandão (Big Alex), through which judicial, investigative, prosecutorial, and enforcement authority have each been consolidated within a single office to a degree not seen since Brazil’s rule under military dictatorship. 

In his previous role as São Paulo’s secretary of public security, Moraes drew constant criticism from both human rights organizations and the Brazilian left, who labeled him a “fascist” and accused him of perpetrating “genocide” over the violent favela raids he oversaw. Now, many of those same political forces revere the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) judge for his relentless pursuit of right-wing protesters and for overseeing the jailing of the Brazilian left’s chief political adversary, effectively disqualifying him from future elections.

Since initiating prosecutions in 2022, Moraes has expanded the scope of his enforcement beyond individuals accused of physically participating in the January 8 unrest to include Brazilians targeted merely for political speech, online posts, and memes. In a near mirror image of the authoritarian censorship regime that has captured Western Europe, Moraes has used unilateral STF orders to authorize numerous preventive detentions, social media account suspensions, asset freezes, and passport seizures against people accused of disseminating what the court arbitrarily classifies as “anti-democratic” content.

Among those targeted was Filipe Martins, a former Bolsonaro adviser arrested in 2024 after Moraes alleged—based on a border-entry record supplied by U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the Biden administration—that he had fled to the United States to evade prosecution, a document that was contradicted by CBP’s own internal data and airline records and later proven to be a forgery likely cooked up by the Biden government and Moraes himself. Despite the exposure of the record as fraudulent, Moraes has relied on it to justify Martins’s preventive detention and to impose continuing judicial restrictions after his release.

The expansion of those prosecutions has coincided with Moraes’s transformation of the STF into an active censorship authority. He has personally compelled social media platforms to remove posts, suspend accounts, and disclose user data, often under secret orders, causing the exodus of free speech websites like Rumble from the country and, in 2023, temporarily banning X in Brazil over that website’s refusal to censor the accounts Moraes arbitrarily demanded be removed from the internet.

This month, Moraes has once again drawn intense scrutiny following revelations involving Banco Master and its owner Daniel Vorcaro (now labeled online in Brazil as the “Brazilian Jeffrey Epstein”), which emerged as the top client of a law firm run by Moraes’s wife and children, signing contracts that earned the Moraes family as much as R$129 million (about $23.5 million in U.S. dollars) as he simultaneously consolidated his authority over the STF. Banco Master has been under investigation for allegedly falsifying accounting records, funneling money through affiliated companies, and masking heavy losses to create the appearance of financial stability. 

When the criminal complaint against Banco Master reached the STF just a few weeks ago, Moraes’ ally on the court, Dias Toffoli, imposed sigilo máximo (maximum secrecy) over the proceedings, completely barring all public access to them, shielding his political ally and patron Daniel Vorcaro from further media scrutiny, behavior which has raised serious questions about corruption within the court. 

When President Donald Trump this past summer, at the personal request of Jair Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, levied sanctions against Moraes in response to that series of abuses, many on the Brazilian right believed that the U.S. government would be their saving grace. They were mistaken. 

After the White House deployed Magnitsky Act sanctions on Moraes, the STF unilaterally barred Brazilian financial institutions from observing U.S. sanctions unless validated by the Brazilian government, and within weeks President Trump dropped them entirely. Capitulating to the Brazilian government even further, the administration removed a series of tariffs that were put in place earlier this year after Brazilian President Lula kindly asked him to do so on a phone call.

The New York Times accurately describes what happened with the appropriate headline: “Brazil Defied Trump and Won,” interpreting the failure as a “stark example of the limits” to the U.S. president’s ability to influence the internal politics of foreign governments. 

The Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has published an investigative series on Moraes agreed, writing that:

At age 78, [Lula] just gained one of his most spectacular victories, handing a huge defeat to Trump, the US and its sanctions regime…Lula told the US to f— off with its sanctions. And Trump just did. Brazil created a new model to defeat US sanctions.

As Greenwald notes, Brazil’s major media outlets have only now begun scrutinizing Moraes’s abuses and conflicts of interest after his central objective, “jailing Jair Bolsonaro and weakening his movement,”  has already been achieved. With Bolsonaro removed from electoral politics, the fractured right has turned to his eldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, as a potential standard-bearer, although polling shows him trailing Lula by wide margins. 

Trump’s retreat is perhaps best explained by a pattern long evident in his political instincts, most recently on display in his public embrace of New York City mayor-elect and supposed adversary Zohran Mamdani: “we love winners,” as Trump repeatedly puts it. By abandoning his own foreign policy and conceding to Lula despite obvious ideological differences, it is obvious that Trump views Lula as one of those winners.

The post How Brazil’s Government Foiled Trump’s Effort to Save a Key Ally appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics

American Militarism Is the Missing Element in the Creed–Nation Debate

War is no longer the business of citizens.

With his usual panache, Vivek Ramaswamy, erstwhile presidential candidate and DOGE co-czar, current candidate for governor of Ohio, kicked off one of his classic Christmas agonies with a speech at Turning Point USA’s annual AmFest confab. Ramaswamy, who last year took the opportunity of Our Lord’s birthday to defend the merits of H-1B workers relative to “mediocre” Americans, enunciated an aggressive version of the “propositional” theory of America—those are Americans who subscribe to the American creed (a phrase that makes the Menckenites among us smile).

Ramaswamy’s many and articulate critics, including our own Andrew Day, have pointed out the problems a conservative might have with this very loose definition of America, not least that it tends to prioritize the interests of would-be Americans over the actually existing nation notionally served by our government. It is also historically suspect. Our traditions, liberal and expansive as they are in orientation, did come from a particular people in a particular place; regime construction does not occur in a vacuum, no matter how much the Straussians would like it to do. 

But it must be granted to the propositionists (or credalists, or whatever you want to call them—all the available nouns are phonologically repellent) that America has in fact successfully absorbed a great number of primarily Western Europeans of different languages, traditions, and religions. Here, the more zealous champions of the “Heritage American” tend to get into difficulties—it is politically unactionable to assert that anglophone, tax-paying, law-abiding descendants of the Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, and so on who came in the second and third waves of immigration aren’t “real” Americans. Are you going to levy political penalties on them? Deport them? Good luck. (For one thing, your favorite magazine would be out of a managing editor.)

So why did that assimilation work, and why is it difficult or impossible to replicate? Scale is one reason; the numbers even when Coolidge issued his immigration moratorium fell far short of the Biden wave. The difficulties of assimilating larger populations, and the unusual phenomena that a nation sees when approaching the 15 percent foreign-born mark, have been well catalogued and need little repetition. 

Another aspect, however, that has gone all but unremarked is the decay of a very ancient feature of republics: the linkage between citizenship and military service. In antiquity, political rights were explicitly conditioned on an individual’s ability to take the field in time of war. Death for the polity was the highest consummation of a citizen’s life qua citizen; let’s take a look at Pericles’ Funeral Oration from Thucydides (Jowett translation), delivered in honor of the war dead:

I believe that a death such as theirs has been the true measure of a man’s worth; it may be the first revelation of his virtues, but is at any rate their final seal. For even those who come short in other ways may justly plead the valor with which they have fought for their country; they have blotted out the evil with the good, and have benefited the state more by their public services than they have injured her by their private actions.

Nor was this outlook an Athenian tic. The most common route to gaining Roman citizenship was service in the legions. Willingness to risk death for the state was the ultimate test of identification with it. It is in this sense that Carl Schmitt writes that war or the possibility of war affords the “high points” of politics: These are the instances in which the subjectivity of nationhood is made concrete and visible. You are with us, or you are with them.

It is in this tradition that the American Founding documents must be read. The Second Amendment situates the citizen’s right to bear arms within his duty in “the militia,” which was synonymous in the Anglo-American tradition with the corps of able-bodied male citizens. The democratic identification of the state—that is, the monopoly on violence—and the people was why (among other reasons) the Founders had such a leery attitude toward professional militaries. High up in the Declaration’s list of grievances against good King George: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” The Constitution very carefully mandates Congress to raise armies, but to maintain navies (which are pragmatically difficult to secure in emergencies, but also pose less threat to political life, particularly in a continental nation like the United States).

While there was some erosion of these principles over time, especially as political elites of the late Gilded Age and Progressive Era started to envision a more imperial American project, standing armies remained relatively small into the 20th century. In 1935, the army was in the ballpark of 130,000 out of a total population of 127 million. War depended on the bureaucratic descendant of the militia concept, the draft. So when the nation threw in against the Axis in 1941, the war was waged on the whole-of-society basis posited in republican government. It was in the Second World War that these newly arrived Italians and Greeks became, unambiguously, Americans—not because they subscribed to some list of abstractions, but because of blood shed for country.

The Cold War brought about a change. The military was professionalized and, even in times of nominal peace, remained very large. In 1975, two years after the end of American involvement in the Vietnam War, the standing army was 784,000 out of a population of 216 million. War became something that those people who pursued a soldiering career did, not something that was intimately linked with national will and collective effort, let alone civic duty. Wars, Schmitt’s “high points” of the nation’s politics, became something that did not involve most nominal citizens. It is perhaps for this reason, among others, that war has become more and more prevalent as an activity; it no longer concerns most of the nation. The crucible for defining a national citizenry has been broken. No wonder immigrants in the postwar period have not assimilated so thoroughly.

A return to the militia theory is ideal, but probably impractical; modern international relations posit standing armies, and it is difficult to imagine the United States taking the plunge to see what happens. (Not least among the many pragmatic problems is that the military as it exists is enormously popular with the voting public.) Given that the probably unconstitutional, probably illegal standing army looks to be here to stay, the statesmen among us who aren’t friends of militarism might consider returning to the roots of republican ideology by instituting a national service requirement. Not only would there be fewer frivolous wars if people’s own children were on the line rather than strangers’; those who came through it would have an irrevocable claim to being real Americans.

The post American Militarism Is the Missing Element in the Creed–Nation Debate appeared first on The American Conservative.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump Administration from defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, ruled that the White House has to use funds from the Federal Reserve to continue funding the CFPB.

OMB Director – and Acting Director of the CFPB Russ Vought earlier issued a “reduction in force” (RIF) for the CFPB after Trump shut down the agency shortly after he was sworn into office.

The Federal Reserve has been operating at a loss since 2022 thanks to Bidenflation.

CBS News reported:

The White House may not stop funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, days before funds at the bureau were likely to run out and the consumer finance agency would lack the funds to pay its employees.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman ruled the CFPB can continue to get its funds from the Federal Reserve, though the Fed is operating at a loss, and the White House has made a new legal argument that way the CFPB gets its funds is not valid.

At the heart of this case is whether White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who is also the acting director of the CFPB, can effectively shut down the agency and lay off all of the bureau’s employees.

The CFPB has largely been inoperable since President Trump was sworn into office nearly a year ago.

Its employees are mostly forbidden from doing any work, and most of the bureau’s operations this year has been to unwind the work it did under President Biden and even under Mr. Trump’s first term.

Earlier this year, President Trump began cleaning house after he fired Rohit Chopra, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Rohit Chopra was a toxic Biden holdover who previously threatened banks that refused to give credit lines and loans to illegal aliens.

Obama-appointed Judge Amy Berman Jackson previously barred the Trump Administration from firing CFPB workers without cause.

The post Corrupt Obama Judge Amy Berman Jackson Blocks Trump Admin From Defunding Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Josh Gerstein, a journalist who works at the liberal outlet Politico, tweeted something on Monday night that is raising a lot of eyebrows.

In response to the explosive report from independent journalist Nick Shirley about Somali fraud at daycare centers in Minnesota, Gerstein tweeted:

“At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws”

The tweet is still up:

At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) December 30, 2025

Who knew that liberal journos support ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws? Of course, Minnesota, being controlled by Democrats, has no such laws, but still.

Isn’t it amazing how journalists always rush to attack the person reporting the wrongdoing in a situation like this rather than calling out, you know, the wrongdoing itself?

People were quick to push back on Gerstein’s tweet. See some of the responses below:

The senior legal affairs reporter for Politico suggesting “stand your ground” laws means shooting people who knock on the doors of a daycare.

My God. https://t.co/6RWhN2XILo pic.twitter.com/LSX4ViXjwR

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) December 30, 2025

Babe wake up new entry on the It’s Not Happening meme just dropped https://t.co/PctgfxI3Uw pic.twitter.com/7LkSXRnXC2

— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) December 30, 2025

WTF?! Politico’s “Senior Legal Affairs Reporter” just suggested “daycare centers” might be justified in SHOOTlNG citizen journalists for knocking on their doors

Legacy media is FULL of deranged freaking lunatics.

They’re pissed off that we’ve taken their power away.

Losers. pic.twitter.com/80pOkQuv7b

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 30, 2025

Stand your ground isn’t castle doctrine, and castle doctrine doesn’t apply to someone just knocking on your door in a peaceful manner.

But we have arrived at journos fantasizing about killing people who uncover welfare fraud. https://t.co/51a6XIRwPK

— Sunny (@sunnyright) December 30, 2025

1) Stand Your Ground does not permit the murder of door knockers
2) MN is not a SYG state
3) in no world should Somali fraudsters be encouraged to murder taxpaying US citizens for doing the journalism well-funded reporters refuse to do https://t.co/VOHWNcmD84

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 30, 2025

Lib reporters will literally call for people to be murdered to avoid talking about a left-wing fraud scandal. https://t.co/R0CpK2wEK0

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 30, 2025

Liberals really have no idea what “Stand Your Ground” laws actually are do they? https://t.co/2NnjxajAOD

— EducatëdHillbilly (@RobProvince) December 30, 2025

Gerstein followed up with this meaningless tweet:

To observe that something is likely to happen or there’s a serious risk of it happening is not to advocate for it happening

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) December 30, 2025

Some people have suggested that Gerstein should be fired over this but we all know that’s unlikely to happen.

It does serve as a good reminder of who the people in the journalist class really are.

The post SAY WHAT? Liberal Politico Reporter Suggests Somali Daycare Owners Could Justifiably Shoot People for Asking Questions appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The 2028 election may be a long way off, but at the moment it looks as if the GOP nomination is JD Vance’s for the taking.

CNN data analyst Harry Enten recently crunched the numbers and found that no other candidate even comes close to him. Even Marco Rubio, who has been a pleasant surprise for many conservatives during Trump’s second term does not come close to the level of support for Vance.

Vance overwhelmingly won a straw poll at a Turning Point USA event and it looks like that was not an outlier.

Enten points out that this level of support is historic, even.

Mediaite has details:

CNN’s chief data analyst, Harry Enten, marveled on air Monday at Vice President JD Vance’s lead in the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary for 2028, saying he couldn’t find any poll showing a similar lead in the past.

Enten began by telling anchor Sara Sidner, “I will just note it is never, never too early to talk about this because these guys are running already, even if they haven’t formally declared.”

“They’re already running, and JD Vance is running well ahead of the field. I mean, take a look here. Top chances to be the 2028 GOP press nominee, the prediction market odds. Look at this: JD Vance, 48% chance. Nobody else is even close. Marco Rubio is way back at 12%, and no one else is even above a 5% chance of being the 2028 GOP nominee. JD Vance is like Mario Andretti, and Marco Rubio and the rest of the field, they’re like going around in go-karts at this point. I mean, that’s really what we’re looking at. JD Vance is the clear, heavy favorite at this time,” Enten added…

“Yeah, okay, so I saw this 51%, and all of a sudden, there was a buzz going around in my head. I said, “Boy, this seems really weird. I can’t recall anyone being this far ahead at this early stage in New Hampshire.” I looked back—hitting 50% plus in the early New Hampshire polls for a non-sitting president—JD Vance is the only one, the only one ever”

Watch the video below:

JD Vance is like Mario Andretti & the rest of the GOP is going around in go karts when it comes to 2028.

Vance is the clear favorite to win the 2028 GOP nom. He’s the 1st ever non-sitting pres to get 50%+ in early New Hamp primary polls. Has a 40+ pt lead over the competition. pic.twitter.com/UJclcrJep0

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) December 29, 2025

A lot could change between now and 2028 but at the moment, it’s looking like Vance is in a position to sweep the GOP primary if he chooses to run.

The post CNN Data Analyst Blown Away by JD Vance’s Early Lead in 2028 Republican Primary (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.