Authored by James Taylor via RealClearEnergy,

Policymakers on both sides of the political aisle increasingly advocate for affordable, reliable, and clean energy. This is for good reason – modern society requires energy that is affordable and available on demand. Environmental concerns are also very important. Together, affordability, reliability, and cleanliness form the three pillars of ideal energy policy.

Two new analyses evaluate competing electrical power sources and produce an affordable, reliable, and clean scorecard. The two analyses – one published by Northwood University and the Mackinac Center, and the other published by my public policy organization, The Heartland Institute – independently reach near-identical findings.

Both analyses find natural gas is the most affordable, reliable, and clean electrical power source. Not far behind natural gas are nuclear, hydro, and coal. Lagging at the bottom of the affordability scorecard are wind and solar power.

Natural gas is easily the lowest-cost electrical power source, with coal the second-most affordable. Natural gas also scores very high for reliable high-volume power production, as do nuclear and coal.

Despite some claims that wind and solar are less expensive than conventional power, the opposite is true. Wind and solar benefit from far more subsidies than other power sources, which merely shift their high costs to taxpayers rather than directly to customers’ electricity bills. Also, the intermittent and often unpredictable nature of wind and solar power impose substantial costs on the grid, requiring other power sources to frequently ramp up and down – quite inefficiently – to cover for the variability of wind and solar. Finally, wind turbines and solar panels must often be built far from population centers, requiring extensive and expensive networks of transmission wires to deliver power to customers.

Taking all the above factors into account, a peer-reviewed analysis of full-system levelized costs of competing power sources shows wind power is seven times more expensive than natural gas power and solar power is 10 times more expensive. That explains why most of the world – and nearly all the developing world – is building natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants rather than wind and solar power facilities.

Perhaps the most noteworthy findings of the two independent analyses are the poor environmental performance of wind and solar power. Wind and solar, like hydro and nuclear, are emissions-free. However, wind and solar score quite poorly regarding many other important environmental factors. Wind and solar require disrupting and developing far more land and ecosystems than other power sources. Wind and solar generation directly kill far more animals than other power sources, including many protected and endangered species. The mining of toxic and rare earth minerals for wind turbines and solar panels is enormously and uniquely harmful to water and soil health.

Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order noting the affordability and abundance of coal and removing obstacles to coal production and utilization. The two new analyses support the Trump administration’s energy policies, which emphasizes increased domestic production of oil, natural gas, and coal. At the same time, the two analyses support similar action to remove obstacles to nuclear power, hydro power, and – especially – natural gas.

Don’t expect the big utilities to necessarily support natural gas and other affordable, reliable, and clean power sources. Utilities typically operate under a government-protected monopoly such that they don’t need to produce affordable power to gain an edge over competitors. Also, governments typically guarantee utilities approximately 10% profit on so-called green power projects and expenditures. As a result, utilities typically lobby for the most expensive power sources to boost their total profit.

For consumers and grid integrity, however, natural gas is the gold standard for affordable, reliable, and clean electricity generation. Nuclear, hydro, and coal are not too far behind.

James Taylor (JTaylor@heartland.org) is President of The Heartland Institute. 

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has dealt a partial blow to President Donald Trump’s push to secure America’s elections, blocking his initiative to require proof of citizenship for voter registration. The ruling marks yet another roadblock from the judiciary thwarting the administration’s America First agenda, which could raise further concerns among conservatives about the integrity of the electoral process.

Kollar-Kotelly also prohibited the Election Assistance Commission from withholding federal funds from states that fail to comply with the citizenship verification mandate.

“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States – not the President – with the authority to regulate federal elections,” the judge wrote in her 120-page opinion obtained by ABC News. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

Kollar-Kotelly declined to halt key components of President Trump’s election security order, allowing tightened mail-in ballot deadlines and a directive for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cross-check immigration databases with state voter rolls, The Hill reports.

In March, Trump signed an executive order to enforce federal law and “to protect the integrity of our election process”—a move which sparked several lawsuits from organizations that were partly represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

States that fail to comply with parts of the Trump memo risk losing federal election funding, the order reads.

“The Attorney General shall take appropriate action against states that count ballots received after Election Day in Federal elections. Federal election funding will be conditioned on compliance,” the executive order says.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller blasted the ruling, labeling it a “JUDICIAL COUP.”

JUDICIAL COUP https://t.co/eKR2kHM8zs

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) April 24, 2025

Earlier this month at a Wisconsin rally aimed at boosting voter turnout, Musk and DOGE volunteer Antonio Gracias disclosed that millions of noncitizens were granted Social Security numbers under former President Joe Biden’s administration. They presented a chart illustrating a consistent annual rise, peaking at over 2 million in FY 2024, which concluded on September 30. In both FY23 and FY25—the latter starting in October and running through September of this year—approximately 1 million noncitizens received Social Security numbers.

“None of this would have happened without President Trump,” Gracias told Fox News. “President Trump had the courage to allow us to go across databases. He signed an executive order. It’s never been done before, where agencies could talk to each other and databases could talk with each other.”

“That allowed us to connect all this data, to find these people across the system, across the benefit system, all the way to the voting records. It really took a lot of courage,” he added.

Via SchiffGold.com,

In Friday’s episode of The Peter Schiff Show, Peter sets his sights on the market’s astonishing complacency in the face of gold’s surge, the misplaced confidence in U.S. trade policy, and the broader implications of America’s debt addiction. He makes the case that the real warning signals aren’t flashing on Wall Street or Capitol Hill, but embedded in the price of gold—while few seem willing to pay attention.

He opens by highlighting one remarkable aspect of gold’s climb—not the price itself, but the collective ignorance around it:

But you know, what’s more significant even than the increase in the price of gold is the fact that nobody cares. Nobody pays attention. You know, I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. When you don’t know there’s a bubble, you don’t see the pin. And that is something that I came up with during the housing crisis. Because a lot of people, even after 2007, after the subprime market really started to collapse, most people just shrugged it off. They didn’t care. They thought it was nothing.

Peter moves to the unstable environment driving these changes—specifically, the trade wars ignited by tariffs under President Trump. He points out that the expert consensus was flat-out wrong when it came to the consequences for the dollar and the global economy:

What’s even more significant is that this is happening during a time of turmoil. Trump basically started it with these tariffs, launched this global trade war, created all this economic uncertainty. No one knows what the hell is going on. Trade is a big part of the global economy. And again, remember, all of these so-called experts predicted that tariffs would cause the dollar to go up. That’s why the dollar rallied right after Trump won, because the markets were saying, oh, we’re going to get tariffs, that’s good for the dollar.

Turning to international affairs, Peter takes aim at the mistaken belief that China is desperate for American consumers. He challenges the narrative of U.S. indispensability with a clear-eyed assessment of both nations’ economic realities:

I’ve got to counter all the nonsense that I’m hearing… Trump or one of his advisors said  that China is desperate to make a deal. … China needs to make a deal because China wants what we have, the American consumer.  China wants consumers. There’s a billion Chinese. Why would they need consumers? They got more consumers in China than we got in America. What’s so special about the American consumer that China needs us?

Reinforcing the theme of economic misunderstanding, Peter spotlights a fundamental error in how government officials—particularly at the Treasury—think about abundance and scarcity. He uses a simple analogy to question why policymakers seem to prefer an economy of limits, rather than one of overflow:

What is better if you can make more than you need, or you can’t make as much as you need, right? If you make too much food, what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? Some of it’s going to rot. If you don’t make enough food, you could starve to death, right? So what do you want to have, a surplus? Do you want to have abundance or do you want to have scarcity? See, according to the Secretary of the Treasury … scarcity is better than abundance.

Peter wraps his analysis by returning to the heart of the issue: the United States’ addiction to debt and the inevitable consequences of monetary intervention. He warns that we’re heading toward not just another crisis, but a distinctly American reckoning—one that might spare the rest of the world for once:

I mean, that is the bottom line, right, massive QE. We are heading to another financial crisis, only it’s not a global crisis, it’s going to be a U.S. crisis. We’re going to liberate the world, because they’re not going to be dragged down, they’re not going to be buying our dollar and buying our debt. They’re going to be taking their money home, keeping their goods for themselves. And so the world is going to be better off keeping its stuff and investing its savings in their own economies rather than giving us their stuff and investing their money here in America. 

Be sure to check out Peter’s latest interview with Jimmy Morrison on “Let Us Disagree!”

As he continues his bid for the New York City mayor’s office, scandal-plagued former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was accosted by storm-staging protesters at a candidate forum on Wednesday evening. The young throng hurled profane insults at him, and condemned him for his deadly and dishonest mishandling of the Covid pandemic. Afterward, the organizer of the “Black Agenda for NYC” forum said it was a particular “disgrace” that some of the disrupters were white people.  

Cuomo was in mid-sentence on the stage at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn when the group of perhaps 10 protesters stormed the stage, some shouting “Fuck you, Cuomo!” They tried but failed to unfurl a long banner —  as NYPD officers wearing “Community Affairs” shirts quickly moved to intercept them. 

It appears at least one of the prominent words on the banners was “KILL.” As they were ushered out of the auditorium, some of the protesters chanted “Cuomo Lied, New Yorkers Died!” That line of attack almost certainly refers to Cuomo’s catastrophic bungling of New York’s response to Covid-19, which struck during his tenure as governor. His administration was widely condemned for ordering nursing homes to accept Covid-positive patients who were discharging from hospitals — a mandate linked to upwards of 15,000 deaths. The Cuomo regime was also accused of deliberately understating the number of those long-term-care-resident deaths by some 50%.  

#Breaking A crowd storms the stage at Medgar Evers College as Former Governor Andrew Cuomo begins speaking at the Black Agenda’s Democratic Mayoral Forum #nyc #nycmayor #AndrewCuomo #cuomo #democrats #breakingnews @1010WINS pic.twitter.com/kMMjWjgaAx

— Mary-Lyn Buckley (@ml_buckley) April 24, 2025

Cuomo barely budged as the mayhem broke out and then engulfed him. When it subsided he said, “That’s part of the problem in this system, right? Too much politics, not enough substance, not enough discussion.” Later, he said, “If I don’t get protested about something, it’s a slow day…A lot of these issues are contentious. People have different opinions and God bless.” Speaking of God, Cuomo resigned his governorship in August 2021 after at least 11 women filed various accusations of unwelcome sexual advances by the now-67-year-old — from kisses to groping to creepy comments. 

At the podium, Henry Butler, the vice chair of the Brooklyn Democrats and organizer of the event — and an endorser of Cuomo — expressed disgust that white people would attempt to affect black people’s opinions:  

“The clown show is over. One of the issues and problems with the Democratic Party, who claim to be a big tent party, is that if you don’t have a certain view, then they try to shout you down. And I think it’s a disgrace when I see a bunch of young, WHITE progressives trying to tell black people who we should vote for. Do not tell us who we should vote for — we are educated, we know how to think for ourselves. We don’t need you here telling us what we should be doing and how we should vote!”

Contrary to Butler’s characterization, it appeared most of the protesters were black — including the first ones to mount the stage. If he’s blaming the white protesters for the actions of the black ones, that would seemingly contradict his assertion that black people “don’t need [whites]…telling us what we should be doing.” Regardless, his denunciation of the white presence predictably elicited loud cheers and applause from the crowd:

“I think it’s a disgrace when I see a bunch of young, white, progressives trying to tell Black people who we should vote for,” Brooklyn Dems Vice Chair Henry Butler, who’s endorsed Cuomo for mayor, said after the protesters were walked out. “We know how to think for ourselves.” pic.twitter.com/qPRDKXh227

— Jeff Coltin (@JCColtin) April 24, 2025

It’s been a rough couple weeks for Cuomo. First, auditors reported that, under Cuomo, the state government poured $453 million into building an enormous stockpile of medical equipment essentially that went unused: Out of 247,343 medical devices purchased, the state wound up using only three pieces of equipment — then left it to decay in warehouses the state rented to hold the horde. It’s still sitting there five years after the pandemic arrived. 

On Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer sent a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, renewing his committee’s criminal referral urging that Cuomo be investigated for making false statements to Congress — about the deadly nursing home scandal. The previous referral was ignored by the Biden administration. 

Several candidates are running for the Democratic nomination, but a recent poll has Cuomo well out in front at 45%, leading Socialist, Muslim, ethnic-Indian, Uganda-born, New-York-raised, failed rapper and Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, who’s the choice of 22% of likely voters. However, he’s surged from just 9% in January on a campaign centered on rent-freezes, free buses and free childcare funded in part by higher corporate taxes. Consistent with the messaging of the stage-stormers, he’s also attacked Cuomo on his handling of Covid-19. 

“We will tax the most profitable corporations at the same rate as the radical socialist utopia of New Jersey and use those taxes to pay for things that’ll improve the lives of every New Yorker.”

Unlike the Post, @ZohranKMamdani doesn’t think affordable rent should be scary. pic.twitter.com/G3jlK3wvBk

— Jack Cocchiarella (@JDCocchiarella) April 23, 2025

If you enjoyed Wednesday night’s spectacle, there’s ample opportunity for more: The Democratic primary isn’t until June 24; the general election is on Nov. 4.

Authored by Benjamin Weingarten via RealClearInvestigations,

Against fierce resistance, the Trump administration is enlisting the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration in its crackdown on illegal immigration.

On April 7, the IRS signed an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that alarmed progressive pro-immigration groups and like-minded advocates – and reportedly prompted the tax bureau’s acting chief to resign in protest. 

The deal allows ICE to request the tax return information of migrants who are not in this country legally. In recent days, as part of a push to encourage self-deportation, the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration have also coordinated to strip benefits from otherwise inadmissible migrants granted parole during the Biden administration – a group posing national security concerns who have now had their parolee status revoked.

“Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals,” an unnamed senior DHS official told ABC News, while stressing the desire to “determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, as well as identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.” 

Past administrations have largely avoided such information sharing, both because of turf-protecting impulses and privacy concerns. In the current climate, several immigrant advocacy groups have sued to thwart cooperation between the IRS and Department of Homeland Security, claiming that they are likely to violate taxpayer confidentiality laws. The critics assert that the new policy is aimed not at legitimately prosecuting individuals, but at identifying migrants as part of an effort to deport them en masse – or to pressure them into leaving on their own.

The controversy highlights the sometimes novel ways in which the Trump administration is seeking to break down walls between agencies to share data in pursuit of its policy goals – whether to combat illegal immigration, streamline government, or ensure election integrity – and resistance has come both from outside groups and from within the federal bureaucracy itself.

As RealClearInvestigations reported in 2022, the IRS and its partners, including the Social Security Administration, have been reluctant to share information with agencies like DHS pursuing non-citizens, in part on privacy grounds. The IRS has neglected to use its own enforcement powers, evidence suggests, because of a view that the benefits to working illegal migrants – in their tens of billions of dollars in tax contributions annually – outweigh the costs to Americans victimized by identity theft by migrants using their stolen Social Security numbers.

But the Trump administration has pledged to mine and modernize the government’s data systems to eliminate “information silos” and help combat waste, fraud, and abuse.

The Social Security Administration is ground zero for these efforts. Millions of non-citizens have been issued Social Security numbers in recent years after entering the country and being legally authorized to work. The Trump DHS said in a January 2025 statement that the “Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country.”

This month, DHS revoked the temporary parolee status of over 6,300 migrants either on the FBI’s terror watch list or with FBI criminal records. The federal government had issued all of them Social Security numbers. The Trump administration asserted that hundreds of them were collecting Medicaid. Dozens were also receiving unemployment insurance. Some obtained student loans.

On April 8, the Social Security Administration rendered this group ineligible for benefits and legal employment. It moved them to an internal “Ineligible Master File” – previously known as the “Death Master File,” since it contained rolls of dead former beneficiaries.

The Trump administration acted despite internal pushback, including from a senior Social Security IT official who appears to have been forcibly removed from his position in light of his opposition.

“President Trump promised mass deportations, and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told RCI. “He is delivering on his promise he made to the American people.”

Some 92,000 additional illegal migrants with criminal convictions but with Social Security numbers reportedly make up the next group to be shifted to the Ineligible Master File.

Former Biden administration Social Security Administration head Martin O’Malley expressed outrage. “If without due process, Trump and [Elon] Musk can unlawfully ‘disappear’ or ‘digitally murder’ anyone who legally entered our country, then they can do it to anyone already legally here,” said the former Maryland governor.

O’Malley’s acting successor at the Social Security Administration, like her IRS counterpart, left the agency in February amid efforts by DOGE to access “sensitive government records.”

During a recent interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Elon Musk and DOGE staffers suggested that they are also seeking to root out the massive fraud they believe plagues Social Security. Musk’s colleagues said 40% of phone calls to Social Security offices come from fraudsters trying to change direct deposit information to steal legitimate recipients’ funds. They also said that they had found that millions of people listed as over the age of 120 were marked as alive within the Social Security database, affirming 2023 findings from Social Security’s inspector general. Reports and independent analyses suggest at least a percentage of the dead have been issued Social Security benefits.

The X owner on loan to the federal government says fraudsters have exploited the fact that government “databases don’t talk to each other.” As an example, Musk said some seek disability or unemployment insurance using the Social Security number of a person marked as living in the Social Security Administration’s systems but actually dead. Such fraud “is happening all the time at scale,” he asserted.

Social Security’s inspector general reported around $72 billion in “improper payments” over the period from 2015-2022. DOGE has reported that some 1.3 million non-citizens issued Social Security numbers during the Biden years were enrolled in Medicaid. Only certain classes of non-citizens may be eligible for such benefits.

The government efficiency agency has also identified nearly $400 million in fraudulent unemployment claims since 2020 – though it is unknown if any significant portion of these claims went to non-citizens.

In March, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, limiting DOGE’s efforts to access Social Security Administration data, asserting that it was “essentially engaged in a fishing expedition … in search of a fraud epidemic.” On April 17, the judge granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction prohibiting DOGE members from accessing Social Security systems or records containing personally identifiable information – a ruling the Trump administration has indicated it will appeal.

The White House has argued that while federal law prohibits illegal migrants from obtaining taxpayer-funded benefits, “numerous administrations have acted to undermine the principles and limitations directed by the Congress through that law.” Such benefits in turn serve as a “magnet” for and “fuel” illegal immigration in the administration’s view. 

Consequently, on April 15, President Trump issued an executive order, building on a prior order “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” aimed at “Preventing Illegal Aliens from Obtaining Social Security Act Benefits.” Such benefits include not only Social Security, but Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and myriad other social programs.

A recent analysis by Center for Immigration Studies shows that 59% of households headed by illegal immigrants use at least one welfare program – and are “especially likely to receive food benefits and Medicaid relative to native households.”

The Trump administration released a fact sheet in conjunction with its latest order citing a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform indicating that taxpayers spend “at least $182 billion annually to cover the costs incurred by the presence of 20 million illegal aliens and their children, which includes $66.4 billion in Federal expenses plus an additional $115.6 billion in state and local expenses” – vastly outweighing their contributions including through paying taxes.

The order directs all impacted agencies not only to take relevant measures to ensure ineligible aliens are not receiving benefits, but also to prioritize civil or administrative enforcement actions – while beefing up the full-time fraud prosecution teams across such agencies in conjunction with the Justice Department. The order also calls for the Social Security Administration to investigate earnings reports for those 100 or older with names mismatching those on file at the administration and, when warranted, to refer matters to relevant law enforcement agencies.

The Earnings Suspense File

A major area of Social Security fraud pertaining to immigration is found in the agency’s Earnings Suspense File.

This file records the earnings of employees whose W-2 wage and tax statements have names and Social Security numbers that do not match official records. For decades the file was relatively small and mostly included women whose names had changed with marriage. That change followed the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which required those seeking employment to fill out I-9 forms attesting to citizenship or work-authorized immigrant status, and to provide corroborating documentation and a valid Social Security number.

This effort failed to deter masses of illegal immigrants from entering the country and working – in turn contributing billions of dollars to entitlement programs in tax dollars, but doing so through stealing or fabricating Americans’ Social Security numbers, including those held by the elderly and children. The Social Security Administration estimated two decades ago that up to 75% of illegal migrants working on the books used fake or stolen Social Security numbers.

A 2018 Treasury inspector general report documented more than 1.3 million cases of employment-related identity theft from 2011-2016, and, in 2017 alone, 1.2 million cases in which illegal migrants used Social Security numbers that belonged to someone else or were fabricated. 

Reflecting this identification theft, the total amount of wages recorded in the Earnings Suspense File rose from under $80 billion in the 1980s to nearly $190 billion in the 1990s and then multiplied tenfold over the ensuing two decades, to $1.9 trillion in wages by the end of the first Trump administration. During the Biden years, as millions of additional illegal migrants entered the country, that number would again surge upwards to $2.3 trillion by September 2024. 

For comparison with those numbers, workers all told generated $9.2 trillion of earnings taxable under Social Security – up to the individual maximum of $147,000 – during 2022, the latest year available.

Boon or Bane?

Some see the work of illegal migrants as a major boon to the economy. In a June 2024 report, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which favors an “equitable and sustainable tax system,” estimated that in 2022, some 10.9 million illegal workers generated $373 billion in earnings, and paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocate for limited immigration, has challenged that analysis, and presented its own, indicating that a far higher estimated illegal migrant population of 15.5 million as of early 2022, earning lower wages than the competing analysis suggested, generated a net cost to taxpayers of $150.7 billion annually. 

The Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camerota has testified before Congress that illegal migrants “tend to earn modest wages and make modest tax contributions even when income and payroll taxes are taken out of their pay. This fact, coupled with the relatively heavy demands they make on public coffers – especially for education, health care, and means-tested programs – is the reason they are a net fiscal drain.”

These figures do not take into account the costs to those whose identities have been stolen by illegal immigrants working off the books.

In a recent interview, Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan acknowledged the problem. “We know for a fact illegal aliens use Americans’ Social Security information to apply for jobs,” he said. Homan asserted that his wife had had her number stolen by an illegal migrant, hurting her credit. 

In response to questions about whether immigration authorities would be making use of Social Security information to target illegal aliens for deportation, Homan replied that they should: “This is about protecting the American taxpayer, protecting their Social Security information. 

“We’re protecting Social Security for the people who deserve it, for the people who paid into it for decades. We need to protect it for those that need it, and those who are authorized to receive it.”

The White House, Social Security Administration, DOGE, and the Treasury Department did not respond to RCI questions about whether they are examining the Earnings Suspense File to identify potential illegal migrants for pursuit in workplace enforcement activities. 

Workplace Enforcement Called Key

The Social Security Administration did not say whether it would be restarting the process of issuing “no-match” letters to employers, indicating mismatched records between W-2s submitted and Social Security Administration records. The first Trump administration had issued such letters, but the Biden administration curtailed the practice, and generally eschewed workplace enforcement of immigration laws.

Proponents of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans believe workplace enforcement is key to any such efforts. Ronald Mortenson recently wrote for the Center for Immigration Studies that “removing millions of individuals illegally in the United States … can only ultimately be accomplished by large-scale workplace enforcement actions that identify large numbers of illegal aliens and lead to their deportation, that eliminate jobs for illegal aliens by holding employers accountable, and that encourage illegal aliens to voluntarily leave the United States.” He has argued DOGE and the Social Security Administration can facilitate these efforts by identifying fraudulently obtained and used Social Security numbers.

Tracking Illegal Voting

DOGE has reportedly used Social Security Administration information to help the Trump administration’s efforts to ensure non-citizens are not participating in U.S. elections. Antonio Gracias, a top DOGE official deployed to the Social Security Administration, recently revealed that of more than 5 million non-citizens to receive Social Security numbers during the Biden years, not only were 1.3 million on Medicaid, but thousands were registered to vote, and some had voted – based upon DOGE’s investigation of the records of just a few states. The administration, Gracias said, had made criminal referrals. DOGE did not respond to RCI’s inquiries.

In a March 25 executive order, the Trump administration instituted a series of measures designed to ensure that only citizens vote in federal elections, while also calling on the Homeland Security Secretary to grant state and local officials access to federal databases for verifying the immigration status of those registering to vote or who have already been registered; to, in coordination with DOGE, review state voter rolls and cross-reference them with federal immigration databases and request relevant state records to identify foreign nationals registered to vote and to share such names with state or local election officials; and for the attorney general to “prioritize enforcement” of laws punishing non-citizen registration and voting, including through use of relevant federal and state databases.

As RCI has previously reported, many states historically lacked access to federal databases for ensuring their voter rolls are free of non-citizens – in part due to the alleged reticence of the Homeland Security Department.

The administration’s critics have not only cast doubt on DOGE’s findings of fraud and questioned the intent of the administration’s associated policies, but sought to challenge the efforts to unearth them in court as illegal. Plaintiffs have challenged DOGE’s ability to access systems and data at agencies ranging from the Treasury Department to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Personnel Management.

Generally, they characterize such officials as unqualified if not separate and apart from the government – and therefore unauthorized to access the sensitive data contained in government databases, including under the Privacy Act.

In a representative response to one such suit, the Trump administration replied that it was facing “a spate of similar lawsuits seeking unprecedented judicial micromanagement of the Executive Branch’s ability to share government data with its own employees in exercising politically accountable oversight of agency activities.”

The administration boiled the arguments on the other side of many such cases down to this: “that it is unlawful for one employee of a federal agency to provide access to its data systems to another employee for the purpose of carrying out an Executive Order of the President.”

A 19-year-old from Ocean Township, New Jersey, has been arrested and charged with sparking what could be the Garden State’s largest wildfire in decades. 

On Thursday morning, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office wrote on Facebook that Joseph Kling was charged with aggravated arson and arson in connection with a wildfire that scorched 15,000 acres in the New Jersey Pine Barrens area. 

The latest New Jersey Forest Fire Service update indicates that the wildfire is 50% contained. 

Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office provided additional color about the suspect, Joseph Kling:

Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette and Ocean Township Chief of Police Michal Rogalski announced that on April 23, 2025, Joseph Kling, 19, of Ocean Township (Waretown), was charged with Aggravated Arson and Arson in connection with a wildfire that started in Waretown on April 22, 2025, and continued to spread throughout the southern Ocean County area

On April 22, 2025, at approximately 9:45 a.m., the Cedar Bridge Fire Tower located a column of smoke coming from the area of Jones Road and Bryant Road in Ocean Township. Upon arrival, emergency personnel observed a fire within the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust’s Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area, which is on the east side of Jones Road.

As of April 24, 2025, the fire has burned approximately 15,000 acres in Waretown and Lacey Townships, and has destroyed a commercial building.

A thorough and extensive investigation conducted by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit-Arson Squad, New Jersey Forest Fire Service, Ocean County Fire Marshal’s Office, and New Jersey State Fire Marshal’s Office, plotted the origin of the fire via Global Positioning System (GPS).  The cause of the fire was determined to be incendiary by an improperly extinguished bonfire.

Further investigation has revealed that Kling was the individual responsible for setting wooden pallets on fire – and then leaving the area without the fire being fully extinguished.  Kling was taken into custody at Ocean Township (Waretown) Police Headquarters; he was thereafter transported to the Ocean County Jail, where he is presently lodged pending a detention hearing.

There are no indications yet as to whether stupidity, political motives, or climate activism played a role in Kling’s actions that sparked the fire. Certainly, we’ll leave it to federal investigators to comb through social media profiles, voting records, and other databases to determine who Kling is and possible reasons why the blaze started.

Authored by Stacy Robinson & Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The world awoke on April 21 to news that Pope Francis, the 266th leader of the Roman Catholic Church, had died at 7:35 a.m. local time.

The 88-year-old pontiff had recently suffered a bout of double pneumonia, complicated by the chronic bronchial infections that had plagued him over the past decade. The Vatican has revealed that Francis died after suffering a stroke and heart failure not long after getting out of bed on April 21.

Behind the scenes, preparations for the next conclave—the papal election—have begun.

The papal account on social media platform X, previously bearing the name of Pope Francis, has been changed to Apostolica Sedes Vacans, Latin for “the apostolic seat is empty.”

While Catholics around the world mourn the late pontiff ahead of his funeral on April 26, speculation has begun about a possible successor. However, the process has historically often ended with an unexpected outcome. When the most recent conclave convened to replace resigning Pope Benedict XVI, few predicted that Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, would be elected.

An old Italian saying riffs on the historical difficulties that observers have had in predicting the new pope.

“He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal,” it states.

Nevertheless, there are some expected frontrunners in the race to become the leader of the 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

A few months ago, Vatican journalists Edward Pentin and Diane Montagna assembled a website examining some potential candidates—and their viewpoints on different issues facing the church.

Whoever is chosen will face the heavy task of guiding the Catholic Church during one of the most tumultuous times in its history, in which multiple wars and cultural clashes loom daily.

Here is a brief look at a few of the top contenders.

Cardinal Sarah

Cardinal Robert Sarah, a native of Guinea, is viewed as a conservative and champion of orthodoxy in Catholic teaching. Author of the book “The Power of Silence,” Sarah is the former head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, which regulated the liturgical norms of the church. In 2019, he co-authored another book with Pope Benedict XVI defending priestly celibacy.

Cardinal Pizzaballa

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa first came to public attention shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Gaza, when he offered himself to Hamas in exchange for the release of children being held hostage. The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, he is viewed as conservative-leaning and may appeal to centrists.

Cardinal Erdo

Cardinal Peter Erdo is the archbishop of Budapest, Hungary, and is also considered as leaning conservative. At a speech before the 2015 Synod on the Family, he quoted the church teaching that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family” but also noted that such individuals should be treated with respect and dignity.

Cardinal Parolin

Cardinal Pietro Parolin is the Vatican secretary of state and was one of the nine cardinals who made up Pope Francis’s inner circle of advisers. Parolin is the architect of the 2018 China–Vatican agreement, which gave the Chinese regime wider control over the Catholic Church in China, although the details are still unpublicized.

Cardinal Tagle

Cardinal Luis Tagle, archbishop of Manila, Philippines, has long been considered a possible successor to Francis and is known for his progressive, informal approach, including singing and dancing in church. Tagle has also been supportive of the Vatican’s agreement with China, which he said is meant to “safeguard” the Catholic Church in that country.

Cardinal Zuppi

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, Italy, is viewed as another possible candidate. Aligned with the more liberal wing of the church, Zuppi is seen as likely to continue Francis’s legacy if elected pope. Zuppi’s family has ties with the Vatican, while Zuppi himself has strong credentials within the church. Under Benedict, Zuppi was appointed auxiliary bishop of Rome, while under Francis, he was appointed as archbishop of Bologna, where he has served since.

Russia has issued a fresh nuclear warning aimed at the West at an ultra-sensitive moment that diplomatic engagement with the US on efforts to achieve peace in Ukraine are stalling.

Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shoigu laid out in fresh comments that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if under direct aggression from Western nations, which includes close ally Belarus coming under threat.

Shoigu reminded the world that new amendments made to Russia’s nuclear doctrine back in November means Russian leaders can “use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against it or the Republic of Belarus, including with the use of conventional weapons.”

He further warned nuclear doctrine can be activated “in the event of foreign states committing unfriendly actions that pose a threat to the sovereignty and territory integrity of the Russian Federation, our country considers it legitimate to take symmetric and asymmetric measures necessary to suppress such actions and prevent their recurrence.”

There was a carrot-and-stick aspect to the fresh warning, given that Shoigu pivoted to saying Russia is ready to forge a new nuclear pact with Washington, despite soaring tensions centered on Ukraine.

“Russia is prepared to resume talks on nuclear arms control with the US, two years after suspending the last accord limiting their atomic arsenals,” he has been further quoted in international reports as saying.

“The administration of Donald Trump is currently demonstrating a readiness to resume dialogue on the issue of strategic stability,” Shoigu told TASS in an interview published Thursday. “We are ready for such work.”

The hope is that some kind of new strategic pact could come out of recent efforts of US and Russian delegations to normalize diplomatic relations during bilateral talks.

Both sides have by now recognized that the conflict in Ukraine is a proxy war pitting NATO against nuclear-armed Russia. Russia increasingly has international backers too, and is reportedly using Iranian and North Korean advanced weapons.

Prior to the war’s start, one activist group and nuclear monitor, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), estimated that a nuclear war between the US and Russia would see nearly 100 million casualties in just the first few hours of nuclear warhead exchanges alone. 

#Russia Ready for Talks on New Nuclear Pact With US, Shoigu Says https://t.co/0dfWKwk9DT

— Giovanni Staunovo🛢 (@staunovo) April 24, 2025

“34.1 million people could die, and another 57.4 million could be injured, within the first few hours of the start of a nuclear war between Russia and the United States triggered by one low-yield nuclear weapon, according to a new simulation by researcher’s at Princeton‘s Science and Global Security program,” the group said.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Two alleged intelligence community leakers have been referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution, according to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard said in an April 23 post on the social media platform X that besides the two already referred for prosecution, a third referral is on its way.

Gabbard wrote that “politicization of our intelligence and leaking classified information puts our nation’s security at risk and must end” and that “those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

“These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine POTUS’ agenda. I look forward to working with [the Justice Department and FBI] to investigate, terminate and prosecute these criminals,” she said.

Gabbard’s office did not respond to a request for more information, and the DOJ did not return an inquiry.

Gabbard said that the unidentified officials leaked information to The Washington Post, which had reported recently on a classified assessment of the Tren de Aragua gang that allegedly found Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is not directing the invasion of the United States.

President Donald Trump in March invoked the Alien Enemies Act, finding that Tren de Aragua, at the direction of the Venezuelan government, was invading the United States.

“The weaponization of intelligence to undermine the President’s agenda is an assault on democracy. Those behind this illegal leak of classified intelligence, twisted and manipulated to convey the exact opposite finding, will be held accountable under the full force of the law,” Gabbard said on April 21.

She said that her office “fully supports the assessment that the foreign terrorist organization, Tren De Aragua, is acting with the support of the Maduro Regime, and thus subject to arrest, detention and removal as alien enemies of the United States.”

Gabbard also said that “rooting out this politicization of intelligence is exactly what President Trump campaigned on and what Americans overwhelmingly voted for.”

Federal law states that a person who communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available classified information to an unauthorized person can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The DOJ announced in March that it was probing the disclosure of other intelligence concerning Tren de Aragua.

“The Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation relating to the selective leak of inaccurate, but nevertheless classified, information from the Intelligence Community relating to Tren de Aragua,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the time.

“We will not tolerate politically motivated efforts by the Deep State to undercut President Trump’s agenda by leaking false information onto the pages of their allies at The New York Times.”

Update (1538ET): And moments later, a second federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding funds from schools with DEI initiatives. 

Shortly after US District Court Judge Landya McCafferty, an Obama appointee, issued a similar order – U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher of Maryland, a Trump appointee, issued a broader ruling that prohibits the Department of Education from using federal funding to end DEI initiatives in public schools.

“This Court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue here are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair,” wrote Gallagher. “But this Court is constitutionally required to closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. The government did not.“

Siding with the groups that brought the lawsuit, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Sociological Association and a public school in Oregon, Gallagher determined that they had successfully argued that they would be irreparably harmed, and that an Education Department letter at issue likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

“This Court ends where it began—this case is about procedure,” the judge continued. “Plaintiffs have shown that the government likely did not follow the procedures it should have, and those procedural failures have tangibly and concretely harmed the Plaintiffs. This case, especially, underscores why following the proper procedures, even when it is burdensome, is so important.”

*  *  *

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Department of Education’s push to eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) from K-12 schools. Raise your hand if you’re shocked.

US District Court Judge Landya McCafferty, an Obama appointee who last year blocked a law in New Hampshire that would have kept transgender biological men out of women’s sports in public schools, sided with the National Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in their lawsuit against the Trump administration to block the effort, arguing that the directive violated teachers’ due process and First Amendment rights.

In her order, McCafferty said that the Trump administration’s argument is “unconstitutionally vague.”

“The letter does not even define what a ‘DEI program’ is,” she wrote.

🚨 NEW: Obama-appointed Judge Landya McCafferty (2013) strikes again!

Her ruling BLOCKS Trump’s defunding of K-12 schools with DEI programs, calling it “viewpoint discrimination.”

She also allowed trans athletes in girls’ sports (2024)

Another Left-Wing Activist Judge… pic.twitter.com/motwIkq9Lv

— Publius (@OcrazioCornPop) April 24, 2025

The Trump administration has until Thursday to comply with her directive, including a prohibition on enforcing use of its “End DEI Portal” and a certification requirement it had imposed, Axios reports.

In January, Trump ordered the end of DEI in public schools and federal contractors in an executive order.

On April 3, the Department of Education sent letters to K-12 agencies ordering them to comply with the administration’s anti-DEI policies, a move which followed a February warning that they may lose federal funding for schools that refuse to get rid of DEI.