Authored by John Gallo,

In hindsight I should have known better, but sometimes a conversation that seems harmless at the time lingers long after it is over. Last November I was in San Sebastian in Northern Spain enjoying food and a beer at a local bar. As I was finishing my food, I overheard a young American woman a few feet from me speaking with her friend explaining, “You know he’s going to run again. He’s definitely running again.” It was clear she was talking about Donald Trump, and for better or worse, my cerveza overtook my discretion, and I said to her, “I’m sorry, but he’s not running again, he can’t do it.” She appeared stunned, and told me that Trump was going to change the Constitution and was absolutely running again. After some back and forth, she asked whether I wore a “red hat or a blue hat.” She didn’t like my answer, and then proceeded to tell me that I was a “horrible person with horrible values.” I wasn’t angry, but there was not much I could do; I simply finished my beer, said “muchisimas gracias,” and left the bar. I was amused at the time, because from my perspective, the woman had been coopted by a distorted set of facts. But seven months out, that conversation is a perfect example of our current political divide, and forced me to ask how we arrived at this point.

I enjoyed the benefit of a first-rate education – a prep school in Brooklyn, a private college in Pennsylvania, and law school in our nation’s capital. For the majority of my personal and professional life, I have walked hallways and corridors with liberals and progressives. Many of my friends – both growing up and into adulthood – were Democrats, and I have listened to their ideas and worldview most of my life. My first vote for president was in 1976, and I responded as many college students at that time and voted for Jimmy Carter. I was taken by what I perceived to be Carter’s fundamental decency as a person, but looking back, I had little understanding of either conservatism or the ideological differences between the two parties. More importantly, I had no historical understanding of the failures of progressivism. And while I always intellectually understood the arguments from my Democratic friends, there was always a part of me that found liberalism difficult to embrace – too many ideas just didn’t make sense. I stopped reading The New York Times more than 25 years ago, a talking point that causes great consternation among my remaining friends on the left to this day. Over the past ten years, I have been called a traitor to my class, confused, and God knows how many other things. I have been excommunicated from a golf foursome for my political views, removed from guest lists, and lost more than one friend along the way. But I am at peace with my worldview, and I offer no apology for being willing to express my thoughts and ideas.

I have voted Republican for the majority of my adult life, never voted for Obama or Clinton, and voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024. I abstained from the presidential vote in 2016 because I believed that Trump’s personality was too abrasive and stories about his past too disconcerting to think that he was an appropriate individual to occupy the White House. What happened in 2017 and beyond, however, was both alarming and eye-opening. I agreed with many of the policies that Trump tried to implement during his first term, and then watched as Democrats embraced a newfound craziness on an almost daily basis. It started with wearing pink hats and condoning violent protests on the streets of DC on Inauguration Day. Madonna shared her fantasy about burning down the White House, and Johnny Depp speculated about killing a president. Kathy Griffin displayed a severed head of a Donald Trump figure, and an actor dressed as Trump in a Central Park Shakespeare production was stabbed in the back. But that was just a preamble. What we have seen in the ensuing decade is the descent of Democrats from a political party that did not like Trump to a party that has sought to destroy all vestiges of conservatism – originally through protest and intimidation and now through violence as a political strategy. Bill Ayres would be proud. At first, we were exposed to behavior that most on the right thought was simply irrational. Progressives started to impose their agenda by removing names such as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington from schools, and removing statues of Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt from their rightful places in New York City. Conservatives of all stripes were being doxed, censored, and fired from their employment for not agreeing with leftist precepts. I was criticized routinely for questioning leftist ideology, but understood my universe well enough never to discuss politics in my workplace, save for a few exceptions. One was condemned if you dared to question BLM, or worse, critiqued Critical Race Theory or the anti-racist literature from Robin D’Angelo and Ibrahim X. Kendi. One thought carefully before saying systemic racism was an overhyped metaphor, and if you did not think Hamilton was the greatest play produced in the history of mankind, it was proof that you were an outright bigot. Under Biden, the left fully embraced the idea that “equity” was a fundamental principle to which everyone needed to conform. The new intellectuals discovered new pronouns, The 1619 Project was offered as legitimate history, and we were admonished that gender differences in athletics were simply an artificial construct. Intolerance became the order of the day.

What is happening now, and why this is such a compelling moment in our history, is that there are two convergent forces working together to rewrite our country’s future. One force comes from traditional Democrats, and the second from far-left radicals and the Progressive/Socialist wing of the Democratic Party. They are unified in interest because they are jointly motivated by their hatred of Donald Trump – a hate that sadly has evolved into an unhinged pathology never witnessed in American history. That hatred has erupted into a universe of irrational fears and false assumptions by the left, and is now offered as rationalization for acts of retribution on conservatives throughout the country. The hatred of all things related to Trump has engulfed the thought processes of both traditional Democrats and their far-left allies, and both are committed to employing all means necessary to achieve their respective goals. Traditional Democrats want power, and their objective is to reshape our governing institutions so as to cement changes into our institutions that will be permanent. They have made clear that they want to end the Senate filibuster and add the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states. And to control the legislative process, the Democrats will seek to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court to thirteen. Once that is accomplished, there may be a movement to abolish the Electoral College, although this would be a multi-year process requiring changes to the Constitution. Democrats rely on one strategic maneuver – if they can’t win by traditional rules, they will just change the rules, while simultaneously making disingenuous protestations about the status quo as a threat to democracy. If successful, the Democrats will create a new power structure with one-party rule that they will never surrender.

The far-left, however, want more. They don’t want political power as much as they want to replace capitalism with socialism, and they harbor no pretense. We see socialist mayors in Seattle and New York City, and complete ineptitude in mayor’s offices in Chicago and Los Angeles. We have socialists in Congress, billionaires have become evil, and “tax the rich” has become a talking point among progressives throughout the country. Antisemitism under the label “Free Palestine” is now in vogue. Democrats are heading towards a full embrace of Mamdani’s campaign theme of socialism under the guise of affordability, while ignoring the fact that billionaires contribute a greater percentage of revenue to state and local governments than their numbers suggest, and dismissing the fact that increasing taxes on the wealthy does not reduce the wealth gap. Neither the child-like Mr. Mamdani nor the historically illiterate Ms. Cortez have a serious understanding of economics, but they do understand the power of rhetoric and social media. In the process, they have convinced a generation of young Americans that the capitalist system is flawed and must be changed. Unfortunately, socialists are unfamiliar with the work of economist Thomas Sowell, who has described The Communist Manifesto as a masterpiece of propaganda with “absolutely no contact with actual economic reality.”

What has changed, however, is that Democrats and their radical allies understand that they cannot obtain their objectives through traditional democratic means, so instead have chosen intimidation and violence as their new weapons of choice. Democrats for a decade have called Trump supporters and conservatives deplorable, fascists, and Nazis, and all too often have employed a Hitler analogy, which is both obscene on its face and ignorant of history. Politicians on the left have encouraged supporters to get in the face of Republicans, and the last president gave a speech in Philadelphia before the entire nation in which he essentially called half the country racist. Earlier this year, Susan Rice pledged retribution against Republicans who supported Trump if Democrats take back power, and asserted that all such individuals would be held accountable for their behavior. “It will not end well” for Republican-leaning corporations was one of her threats. In April, Hakeem Jeffries declared that “we are on a state of maximum war” when discussing the ongoing redistricting battles. James Carville assured followers that Democrats will launch investigations into President Trump and his family if the party retakes Congress in the midterms, warning that the political fallout will feel like getting “punched in the mouth by Mike Tyson.” Senator Booker has expressed his desire to punch President Trump in the face, and Nancy Pelosi famously commented, “people are going to do what they’re going to do” when questioned about violence during the George Floyd riots.

But to this day, the left ignores that when you dehumanize and threaten a group of individuals, you leave the offended group no option but to take note. Worse, by constantly invoking the Hitler analogy, you convince unstable individuals that it is rational to commit acts of violence upon those whom you are calling Hitler. Logic dictates that it is appropriate to use any means necessary to kill someone as bad as Hitler, but when you embrace that rationale as part of your political rhetoric, mentally unbalanced people feel justified in taking matters into their own hands. Charlie Kirk would be alive today but for this logic.

Far-left activists have become the modern-day equivalent of the Jacobins of the French Revolution. This is not hyperbole; the language of revolution resonates throughout history, and repeats itself today. From Robespierre and the French Revolution: “The revolutionary government owes to the good citizen all the protection of the nation; it owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death.” Mao Zedong viewed violence as a way to destroy the Nationalists and build a new socialist society, and noted as far back as 1927 that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Che Guevara embraced hatred as a core element of his power struggle, and argued that to vanquish a “brutal enemy,” revolutionaries must transform into violent killing machines. And from today, we have the Democratic social media influencer Hasan Piker, who offers strikingly similar rhetoric. Piker recently wrote: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” Piker, an Antifa supporter who has more influence today within the Democratic Party than John Fetterman, has also said that America “deserved 9/11.” Most ominous perhaps is the warning from Elon Musk, speaking about Democrats in the aftermath of the most recent attempt on Donald Trump’s life: “If they’re willing to die to assassinate, imagine what they will do if they gain political power.”

In the past few years, we have seen three efforts to assassinate President Trump, one assassination attempt on a Supreme Court justice, and the assassination of a conservative thought leader. Following the George Floyd riots, 25 people were killed and over two billion dollars in property damage incurred nationwide in the name of a better world. There were violent protests with no legitimate justification in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of a young male who had tried to rob a liquor store, and protestors in New York on behalf of Black Lives Matter expressed their desire to “fry cops like bacon.” During 2025, there were approximately 238 assaults on ICE officers in the country including 68 assaults committed by individuals driving vehicles. St. John’s church near the White House was set on fire during the George Floyd riots, and Tesla dealerships were burned in 2025 as a way of protesting budgetary constraints proposed by Elon Musk. There has been violence from the right – witness the 2025 murders of two Minnesota state representatives and the chaos of January 6. But the overall picture is not one of equivalence, and those who insist that it is are either poorly informed or willfully ignorant. Journalists such as Nick Shirley, who did nothing more than expose financial corruption in Minnesota, have received multiple death threats. None of this comes from the conservative echo chamber – it is purely a Democratic playbook run amuck. And to top things off, we have seen an appalling uptick in overt antisemitism in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks in Israel – according to the Anti-Defamation League over 7,300 reported incidents of antisemitism in 2024 and more than 6,700 in 2025. And while there are certainly antisemites on the far right who would engage in antisemitic violence if they had the opportunity, the current iteration of the anti-Israeli movement appears to come largely from the far-left progressives and the Free Palestine movement born on college campuses. Consider that in 2024 the Democratic Party debated whether a Jewish governor from Pennsylvania could be its nominee for vice president, and that the Democratic Party of Maine has chosen as its candidate for U.S. Senate a man who wore a Nazi tattoo on his chest. As a parallel, consider that Republicans in Florida are in the process of electing a black male as governor. The far left embraces its ideology more than it loves history, and is unconcerned that earlier historical tragedies could repeat themselves. Recent polling data make clear that members of Gen Z see political violence as a rational means by which to achieve their political ends, which in a normal world, would cause great concern across the political spectrum.

As we embrace our nation’s 250th birthday, we need to remember that we are a good country, not a perfect one. We were born of a revolution, and protest is baked into our national DNA; protest is both legitimate and consistent with our history. However, what is happening now is not normal – what we are witnessing is a violence born of an irrational hatred of one individual that in some ways rivals the socialist uprisings of the early twentieth century or tracks the divisions that led to the Civil War. Donald Trump may have many personality traits that have stretched the bounds of presidential behavior, but none of what the left has done has either healed the nation or enhanced the cause of traditional Democrats. The traditional Democrats have remained silent in the face of the ongoing violence, and have formed a toxic relationship with the lunatic wing of their party that neither side is willing to break.

Perhaps the woman in San Sebastian was correct, and I am a horrible person with horrible values. I will let others decide that, but I am at peace with my beliefs. I have exhausted my attempts to convince people to change their minds, but I cannot unsee threats that to me are all too apparent. I cannot unsee individuals who openly mocked the death of Charlie Kirk, nor can I unsee individuals who expressed remorse that the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was not successful. That is too much to ask. I have believed for more than a decade that the far left is more dangerous than the far right. I know that we as conservatives have issues to address, but I am convinced that the behavior from the far left unchecked will lead to continued dissolution of our national fabric and further Balkanization of our nation. But this is exactly what the far left wants, and we as a constructive opposition must stand up against those who would dissolve our national identity. We have two legitimate weapons at our disposal – our voices and the ballot box. We must use both, and we cannot surrender our country to the untender mercies of the Jacobins. They are at the gate, or as Ronald Reagan once noted, “if fascism comes to America, it will be in the name of liberalism.” We have been warned.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump’s administration on May 26 floated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for federal employees who have access to what the government described as sensitive information.

The proposed NDA says that employees may access “non-public, confidential, or proprietary information,” such as personal health information and details relating to agency operations.

It states that employees understand they are required to follow laws and regulations governing confidential information and that they agree to “take all reasonable precautions to safeguard and protect Confidential Government Information from unauthorized disclosure.”

Violating the agreement could lead to repercussions, including termination and civil or criminal penalties, according to the draft.

The Office of Personnel Management developed the NDA form in the wake of leaks, including the leak of information about the U.S. raid on Venezuela prior to American forces carrying it out, the office said in a notice set to be published on May 27.

“Federal employees do not have discretion to disclose Confidential Government Information outside of narrow circumstances prescribed by relevant authorities and implemented by procedures which may differ by agency,” the notice states. “Unauthorized disclosures of Confidential Government Information disrupt agency operations and erode public trust.”

In recent months, there have also been disclosures of personal information of about 4,500 employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the agencies charged with enforcing immigration law, as well as leaks of planned immigration enforcement operations.

“In much of the private sector, employees handling sensitive business or customer information are routinely required to sign confidentiality agreements, and the federal government should not be held to a lower standard,” Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, said in a statement.

“Americans should be able to trust that their personal data and sensitive government information are being handled responsibly. This proposal reinforces accountability across the federal workforce while helping agencies better protect against unauthorized disclosures.”

The draft says that nothing in the agreement prohibits or restricts an employee from becoming a whistleblower or from making public details about possible wrongdoing.

If a disclosure violates the law, the employing agency may report the breach to law enforcement officials, per the draft.

It states that the agency “shall be entitled to seek equitable relief … from any court of competent jurisdiction” and that the employee “assigns to the United States all royalties, remunerations, and emoluments that have resulted, will result, or may result from any disclosure, publication, or revelation of Government Information in violation of the terms of this Agreement.”

Authored by Maryanne Demasi via Brownstone Institute,

In September 2025, then-US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr Marty Makary publicly acknowledged that the agency was investigating reports of child deaths following Covid-19 vaccination.

“We do know at the FDA…that there had been children who have died from the COVID vaccine,” Makary said during a CNN interview.

By that stage, however, a fierce internal dispute had already emerged inside the FDA over what investigators believed the evidence showed – and whether the public should ever see the full findings.

“It really did feel like there was some sort of cover-up going on about the Covid-19 vaccines,” said one individual familiar with the discussions.

MD Reports spoke with several current/former agency officials, advisers, and individuals briefed on the discussions, all of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorised to publicly discuss internal FDA deliberations.

At the centre of the controversy was an internal FDA review led by Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, a physician-scientist who was working as a senior scientist inside the FDA’s vaccine division at the time.

FDA officials examined roughly 96 paediatric death reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the government database used to detect potential vaccine-related adverse events.

The review included medical records, autopsy reports, pathology findings, and follow-up investigations conducted by agency staff.

About 25 deaths following Covid vaccination were ultimately considered serious enough for high-level internal discussion inside the agency.

The findings were expected to be presented at a September 2025 meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP), the federal panel that shapes US vaccine recommendations.

But before that could happen, details of the review leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Høeg quickly became the focus of intense media scrutiny and criticism from vaccine advocates and unnamed FDA officials who argued she was relying too heavily on VAERS reports and overstating preliminary findings.

People familiar with the fallout said some FDA staff strongly objected to Høeg’s methods and conclusions and allegedly sought to undermine her credibility by leaking details of the review.

The leak effectively ended plans for a public ACIP discussion and deepened divisions within the FDA over how the findings should be handled.

Some officials believed the findings warranted stronger warnings and greater transparency. Others feared public acknowledgement of vaccine-linked child deaths would damage confidence in the Covid vaccines.

“We know that there are these deaths that are due to the vaccine,” said one source, referring to myocarditis cases and published reports from countries including Korea and Israel.

The controversy intensified after then-FDA vaccine chief Dr Vinay Prasad ordered additional investigation into the deaths identified in Høeg’s review.

Months later, another leak brought the issue back into public view.

In November 2025, an internal memo circulated by Prasad became public. In it, Prasad acknowledged that “at least 10” children had died “after and because of receiving Covid-19 vaccination.”

He described the findings as “a profound revelation.”

“COVID-19 vaccines did result in the death of children,” Prasad wrote. “Dr. Hoeg was correct in her assessment.”

The memo triggered another round of backlash from media outlets and vaccine advocates, many of whom accused Prasad of overstating the evidence before the agency’s analysis had been finalised.

Inside Medicine reported on a Dec 5 memo about a subsequent FDA analysis using a World Health Organization causality framework, which classified zero deaths as “certain,” two as “probable/likely,” and five as “possible.”

But individuals involved in the discussions said pressure steadily mounted inside the agency to “downgrade” the findings with each successive review.

“It seemed like there was a lot of pressure to keep decreasing the number of deaths,” said one source.

“It does seem like they tortured the data to get something that was more palatable.”

At the same time, tensions were also growing around another unresolved issue inside the FDA – residual DNA contamination in Covid mRNA vaccines.

The issue surfaced repeatedly during ACIP discussions throughout 2025, with some advisory group members seeking additional information from the FDA about DNA levels and biodistribution studies involving lipid nanoparticles.

According to individuals familiar with the discussions, those requests were repeatedly delayed.

One individual identified Dr David C. Kaslow, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review (OVRR), as the official responsible for liaising with ACIP on the issue.

Another person involved in the discussions described Kaslow as the person “stonewalling” the issue of DNA contamination.

The controversy has since drawn Congressional scrutiny.

In May 2026, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) wrote to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. referencing an FDA memorandum examining paediatric deaths following Covid vaccination.

Johnson said the documents raised concerns about a potential “cover-up” of vaccine safety risks.

The letter confirmed that FDA officials reviewed 96 paediatric deaths following vaccination and ultimately classified seven cases as either “possibly” or “probably” related to Covid vaccination.

It also acknowledged that fatal myocarditis cases represented “new safety information” and documented discussions about revised vaccine warning labels.

By then, the internal dispute at the FDA had expanded beyond the deaths themselves and into a broader fight over vaccine safety warnings.

Høeg later delivered an internal presentation arguing that Covid mRNA vaccines warranted a black box warning – the FDA’s strongest warning reserved for products associated with serious injury or death.

The proposed warning would have explicitly acknowledged the risk of death in children.

“If a vaccine has potential to cause death to children, I think it should be on the label,” said one source familiar with the discussions.

Høeg’s proposal was ultimately rejected by the agency.

In December 2025, Makary publicly confirmed that the FDA had declined an internal recommendation for a black box warning on Covid mRNA vaccines.

Makary argued that earlier safety concerns emerged during the initial multi-dose rollout and might not apply to annual vaccination schedules.

According to individuals familiar with the discussions, Høeg’s persistent probing of Covid vaccine safety issues increasingly isolated her inside the agency.

Her eventual transfer out of the vaccine division and into the FDA’s drug division, CDER, effectively ended her involvement in those investigations.

Only last week, Høeg was fired from the agency after refusing to resign from her position.

To this day, the FDA has never publicly released the full paediatric death review examining 96 VAERS reports of child deaths following Covid vaccination, nor the multiple revised versions of the agency’s subsequent analyses.

“Why do we collect these VAERS reports if we’re not going to explain to the public what we find?” said one source.

Now, months after the internal disputes first erupted, the FDA continues to face questions about what officials knew, when they knew it, and why the agency failed to promptly release its investigations into paediatric deaths following Covid vaccination.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

The United States and India signed a key agreement on May 26 to secure critical minerals and rare earth mining, processing, and supplies, further loosening China’s grip on the global market, during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s four-day visit.

“We are two countries who have a strategic interest in ensuring reliable long-term access to critical minerals and supply chains that are important for our innovation economy,” Rubio said during the signing. “This is a very important step.”

Rubio was in India for a four-day diplomatic visit May 23-26 to shore up the United States’ partnership with what he called “one of our most important strategic partners in the world.”

He said the talks included a scope of issues that the United States works together on with India.

In a similar statement about the agreement, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said the framework will strengthen resilient and diversified supply chains, help both nations collaborate on financing, and also help with the effective management of critical minerals and rare earths.

“I think it’s a very important initiative,” Jaishankar said during the signing. “It’s one more sign of how close our cooperation is and how important it is today in a world where there are so many challenges but also so many opportunities.”

The framework for the agreement first began to take shape in February when India signed onto Pax Silica, a U.S.-led strategic initiative and coalition aimed at securing a global supply chain for artificial intelligence (AI) progress and economic security. India was one of 14 countries to sign the agreement.

India has one of the world’s largest rare earth elements reserves, and existing processing capabilities that can be developed, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan think tank organization. The country has rich sand deposits containing monazite, which includes thorium and other minerals. Thorium is a nuclear fuel.

China accounts for about 60 percent of global rare earth elements production and about 90 percent of processing.

On May 26, Rubio also announced signing a partnership charter and agreement on critical minerals with Armenia.

Rubio held a ceremony with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signing the bilateral framework agreement on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. They also signed a Strategic Partnership Charter and agreement on critical minerals.

Armenia mainly mines iron, copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc, gold, silver, antimony, and aluminum. The country also has valuable reserves of rare metals, including gold-polymetallic, copper-molybdenum, and copper pyrite deposits, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.