A massive $126 billion spending plan approved by the New York City Council earlier this week includes nearly $7 million for so-called ‘trans equity’ programs and drag queen story hours.
The New York Post reports that the budget was approved by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and directs the taxpayer money to programs and services “to help empower the transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) community.”
NYC budget funnels $7M to transgender programs, drag story hours
For the record, Drag Queen Story Hour now receives more city funding than the Department of Veterans Services.
The city council said, “Funding may support education programs, employment services, workforce development, healthcare navigation, legal guidance, community workshops, or academic research, among others.”
According to The National Review, the new budget doesn’t include any spending for the additional 580 police officers Mayor Mamdani promised to hire.
State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar questioned, “Why isn’t there more money for police?”
“This goes way beyond recognizing transgender individuals into spending millions of taxpayer dollars to promote transgenderism.”
Key funding initiatives of the nearly $7 million earmark include $1 million for directed to Destiny Tomorrow for the first transitional housing program for transgender individuals in the Bronx as well as $705,000 for community health for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and $600,000 for the Caribbean Equality Project.
The allocation also includes funding for education and tolerance with funds for the Advocates for Trans Equality Education Fund and the Trans Formative Schools program, alongside localized funding from city council members for drag story hours in schools and libraries.
Allen Roskoff, head of the Jim Owles Liberal LGBT Democratic Club, told the New York Post, “Transgender youth need our support. These individuals are the most vulnerable people out there. We will do everything in our power to protect these children from hate orchestrated by far right Republicans. We are going to see to it they get the health care and protection they deserve.”
The approval of the nearly $7 million earmark comes on the heels of Mamdani encouraging New Yorkers to set their thermostats to 78 degrees to conserve energy, with Republicans calling the mayor’s budgeting priorities into question.
Ships Abruptly U-Turn Near Hormuz As Some Shift To Iran-Approved Routes
The reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint has proceeded relatively smoothly for weeks, but an overnight development shows that the process remains fragile. At least eight ships attempting to exit the Persian Gulf abruptly reversed course near the critical waterway.
Bloomberg cites ship-tracking data showing that the vessels, including oil tankers, product carriers, bulk carriers, and vehicle carriers, were moving toward the strait along the Omani coast before abruptly turning back. Several ships later resumed their transits through the strait by shifting northward onto a route closer to the Iranian coast, in line with Tehran’s request that ships use authorized Iranian-designated lanes.
via Bloomberg:
It is unclear why the ships abruptly altered course, though Tehran has repeatedly warned vessels by VHF radio to follow designated routes.
Earlier on Saturday, Iran warned Western powers that the Hormuz waterway is not a “theater for the military display of extra-regional powers.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Iran views itself as the responsible power and security guarantor of the strait, adding that Tehran would closely monitor any foreign military movements in the waterway.
Gharibabadi’s warning came shortly after the UK and France announced that their navies were ready to support freedom-of-navigation operations in the waterway.
“Iran, as the responsible power and guarantor of the Strait’s security, warns with sensitivity to any military movement in this waterway,” Gharibabadi said on X.
He added, “The security of Hormuz lies with the coastal states; the crisis-makers will be held accountable for the consequences of their adventurism; this is a serious warning.”
While daily commodity vessel crossings have averaged around 34 since Monday, Hormuz vessel traffic remains well below pre-war levels.
Natasha Kaneva, JPMorgan’s top commodities strategist, provided clients with more color on Hormuz ship flows and what it means for energy markets:
There is now a rush to move stranded cargoes out of the Strait of Hormuz. Average crude exports from the Persian Gulf plus re-routed volumes over the last ten days have already recovered to about 19 mbd, just 3 mbd below pre-war levels. The backlog is also disappearing quickly: floating storage has fallen to just 20 million barrels, while another 10 million barrels remain in onshore tanks awaiting exports.
Meanwhile, inbound tankers are lining up to enter the Strait, preparing to load barrels that have been sitting in storage tanks for months. More entering vessels will be needed as production across the Gulf gradually returns to normal operating levels. We are already seeing a growing queue of ballast VLCCs moving towards the Gulf.
The line is long and deep—an important signal that the logistical chain is reconnecting and that loadings can continue uninterrupted as the system works its way back toward normal.
The United States has transformed from a collection of 13 eastern colonies into a transcontinental nation spanning 50 states, one district, and five major territories—a geographic expansion forged through land purchases and war treaties.
America’s two-and-a-half-century evolution includes not only geographic growth, but also transformations in population, family structures, wages, the housing market, and health.
Through data and graphics, here is a look at how the country has changed over 250 years.
Changing Face of America
In 1790, 95 percent of Americans resided in rural areas; by 2020, that figure had dropped to 20 percent.
This demographic shift transformed the rural landscape itself. More than 50 percent of rural residents lived on farms prior to 1940, but that share dwindled to a mere 5 percent by 2000.
Although the U.S. urban population surged from 5 percent in 1790 to 80 percent in 2020, this growth shifted heavily toward suburban and outlying areas after 1950, leaving central cities with less than half of the total urban population.
While domestic migration altered where Americans lived, shifting global immigration patterns simultaneously refined who made up the nation.
The number of U.S. foreign-born residents grew from 2.2 million in 1850 to 50.2 million in 2024, or from 9 percent of the national population to nearly 15 percent.
Europe supplied the majority of immigrants during a century-long window from 1850 to 1970, though its share dropped from 92 percent to about 62 percent.
The Mexican-born population of the United States multiplied more than 15 times between 1970 and 2010, exploding from fewer than 800,000 to nearly 12 million.
The pivot point of modern immigration was the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, according to a 1999 study from the Organization of American Historians.
Men sit on a bench outside a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles on April 27, 2005. The Mexican-born population in the United States grew from fewer than 800,000 in 1970 to nearly 12 million in 2010. Hector Mata/AFP via Getty Images
The law was “instrumental in transforming Mexican immigration” from a seasonal flow of undocumented workers into settled families across the country, according to the journal.
Spurred by economic instability in Mexico in the late 1980s, migrants “opted to remain abroad, accept the proffered legalization, and settle more permanently into a United States life.”
By 2010, the regional makeup of the foreign-born population was led by Latin America (over 50 percent), followed by Asia (28 percent) and Europe (12 percent).
California, Texas, and Illinois were the leading states of residence for Mexican-born populations.
Despite the global immigration and an 84-fold population increase over 230 years, the most common American last names have remained consistent, according to an April report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Surnames such as Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Miller, Davis, and Wilson all placed in the top 15 in both the 1790 and 2020 censuses.
Notably, Asian last names such as Zhang, Liu, and Wang ranked among the fastest-growing surnames between 2010 and 2020, according to the bureau’s data.
Evolution of the American Household
America was young in 1800, with high fertility rates and abundant land. Its population was young, too—roughly 50 percent of the population was 16 years old or younger.
In the 18th century, the average American woman bore at least seven children.
Benjamin Franklin attributed the high fertility rates to the ease of acquiring good farmland.
A portrait of the D.D. Miller family of Goshen, Ind., from an album dated 1910–1920. Large families were common in the United States in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Mennonite Church USA Archives/Public Domain
“So vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle fully,” he said in a 1751 essay. “Land being thus plenty … a labouring man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family.”
The American population grew and lived longer. It expanded from from 3.9 million in 1790 to roughly 342.6 million by June 2026, while its median age more than doubled, from 16 to around 39.
In 1790, large families dominated the landscape, with 36 percent of U.S. households containing seven or more members. Conversely, small households (one to two people) made up just 11.5 percent of the population.
The trend reversed over time. By 2010, large households with seven or more people dwindled to under 2 percent, while small households of one or two individuals surged to a 60 percent majority.
Despite the shrinking size of the American family, the cultural ideal of a stable, self-sufficient home remained a cornerstone of national policy.
“A family that owns its home takes pride in it, maintains it better, gets more pleasure out of it, and has a more wholesome, healthful, and happy atmosphere in which to bring up children,” President Herbert Hoover said in a 1931 handbook for homebuyers.
The federal government implemented standardized housing, city plans, and building codes to increase homeownership beginning in the 1920s.
By 1930, the federal government introduced long-term, fixed-rate mortgages that self-amortized over 20 years—later expanded to 30 years.
Homes in Staten Island, N.Y., on April 10, 2025. The modern, long-term mortgage introduced during the 1930s, to combat a foreclosure crisis during the Great Depression, enabled widespread middle-class homeownership. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
But before 1940, homeownership never exceeded 50 percent.
Then began, in 1945, the economic miracle of the postwar era—a “golden era” for the American family.
Homeownership climbed steadily through this era and reached almost 65 percent by the end of the 1960s, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Since then, it has stayed relatively stable, rising to just over 66 percent in 2000 and dropping to 63 percent in 2020.
In the pre-Depression era, most homeowners were mortgage free. Those who carried mortgages often had short-term contracts of around one to five years, with large downpayments of more than 50 percent. Many homeowners turned to second mortgages as a source for downpayments.
The modern, long-term mortgage introduced during the 1930s to combat a foreclosure crisis during the Great Depression enabled widespread middle-class homeownership.
At the same time, it had the effect of reducing the number of homeowners who owned their homes outright. Less than 19 percent of Americans owned their homes free and clear in 2000, but the number is rising, according to Census Bureau data. Almost a quarter of Americans owned their homes outright in 2020.
Cost of the American Dream
The U.S. government sold land at just $1 an acre in the 1790s. But there was a catch.
Congress needed a way to raise funds to support the fledgling government after the costly American Revolutionary War. The Land Ordinance Act of 1785 raised those funds through land sales. The acreage was cheap. However, buyers had to purchase a minimum of 640 acres and had to pay in cash or military land warrants.
Before 1800, the average wage for laborers—such as hod-carriers, mortar-mixers, diggers, and choppers—was $65 a year, “with food and, perhaps, lodging,” estimated historian John Bach McMaster in his book “A History of the People of the United States, From the Revolution to the Civil War.”
Wages varied by occupation and state. Women at a cotton factory in New York were paid around $104, Henry Wansey reported in his traveling journal, published in 1796 as “An excursion to the United States of North America, in the summer of 1794.” Salaries of seamen were from $240 to $288.
Clergy’s salaries were higher. A Connecticut clergyman could earn 100 pounds—about $475 in 1794, according to Wansey’s journal.
Farmers harvest potatoes in an unknown location in the United States, in this file photo from the 1930s. Before 1880, the American workforce was rooted in agriculture, but by 2000 the proportaion of farm-related workers had fallen to less than 1 percent of the workforce. Stringer/Files-ACME/AFP via Getty Images
Before 1880, the American workforce was rooted in agriculture. Nearly 30 percent of working adults aged 16 and older were farmers, and an additional 20 percent or more worked as laborers.
By 2000, the number of farm-related workers had dropped to less than 1 percent of the workforce. Instead, professional roles grew to command over 20 percent of American jobs, followed closely by office and administrative occupations at more than 15 percent.
No matter how much the job market changed, the difficulty of translating that income into property ownership has remained a permanent financial hurdle.
While a buyer in the 1790s might have paid almost 10 years wages’ for land, a modern buyer may pay over six years’ salary for a home.
Houses line sidewalks in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., circa 1945. Formerly occupied by the U.S. Coast Guard, the properties were turned over to veterans to ease the city’s post-war housing shortage. The national homeownership rate rose to 55 percent by 1950. European/FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images
A closer look at the 1790s housing market reveals that while a basic roof was within reach for some, luxury estates demanded an astronomical premium.
A log house in Hamburg, Pennsylvania—with four rooms on a floor, including doors, windows, wainscoting, and locks—cost roughly $200, Wansey observed in his travels.
A New York villa on 80 acres of improved land was listed for around $19,000 in 1794, according to Wansey.
That was a fortune compared to laborers’ wages.
Then as now, the steep premium on New York real estate also extended to the rental market. “House rent is very dear,” Wansey said in 1794 from New York City. “One hundred and fifty pounds sterling is a common rent for storekeepers and tradesmen to give.”
That yearly rent was equivalent to more than $600 in 1794, or around $18,000 today.
Causes of Death
In 1811, tuberculosis (23.5 percent), diarrhea (6 percent), pneumonia (5 percent), and stillbirths (5 percent) dominated the causes of mortality among 942 deceased Boston residents, according to an abstract reprinted in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012.
Teething, worms, and drinking cold water were also found to kill, according to the study.
In the early 20th century, tuberculosis was still a leading cause of death in the United States, along with pneumonia and influenza.
By 2010, influenza remained on the list but heart disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions assumed more dominant roles.
Circulatory diseases accounted for the largest number of excess U.S. deaths—the number of deaths over the estimated number based on historical trends—from 1999 to 2022, according to a study of more than 63.5 million deaths published in May in JAMA Network Open. The nation’s death rate fell in 2025 to its lowest point on record, according to CDC data. The leading causes of death in 2025 were heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injuries.
Over two-and-a-half centuries, the American population has lived longer.
In the late 1700s, the life expectancy was around 35 to 40 years old, according to historical estimates. Today, the average American life expectancy is about 79 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Average life expectancy in the 18th and 19th centuries was heavily influenced by high infant and childhood mortality rates. Infections such as dysentery, diphtheria, scarlet fever and pneumonia killed many babies and children.
Over the nation’s history, advances in technology, sanitation, food safety, and medicine, including the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century, reduced infant mortality—the death of an infant before its first birthday—dramatically.
Mothers and their babies gather at a health station for feeding babies with bottled milk, on Madison Street, New York City, circa 1930. Infant mortality—which claimed about 100 babies per 1,000 births in 1915, fell throughout the 20th century to 5.4 infant deaths per 1,000 births in 2025, due to advances in medicine and other factors. Keystone View Company/FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images
A lack of data on births and infant deaths in the 19th century United States makes it hard to gauge infant mortality, although by some historical estimates, up to 20 percent of infants died in the first year of life in the 19th century United States.
By 1915, when U.S. Census Bureau annual data on the subject was first available, the infant mortality rate in the United States was 100 per 1,000 live births.
In 2025, the infant mortality rate dropped to an all time low of 5.4 infant deaths per 1,000, according to the CDC.
Maternal mortality rates also plummeted. In 1900, the maternal mortality rate in the United States was about 850 women per 100,000 births, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 2026, that number stands at just 17.9 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the CDC.
Heat Dome Threatens America’s 250th Birthday As Power Grid Crisis Continues
A massive heat dome continues to threaten the eastern half of the US, with the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast at the epicenter of the sweltering conditions.
The summer heat is already disrupting July 4 celebrations and World Cup matches, while pushing the nation’s largest power grid toward crisis mode later this afternoon for the third consecutive day.
The annual Independence Day Parade in Washington, DC, set for later today was canceled “due to extreme heat,” organizers said in an overnight memo.
Cooling demand will surge again later today, just as PJM faces a record load. The grid that serves 67 million people across 13 states has held up so far because of the Trump administration’s emergency orders requiring fossil-fuel power plants to run at full capacity. This comes as disastrous climate socialist policies have neutered parts of the grid that collided with a data center boom.
A soul-crushing “Heat Dome” will build across the Eastern United States 🇺🇸into Independence Day weekend🎆70 million population at least 100°F
“On July 2, PJM’s peak instantaneous load was approximately 162,700 megawatts between 5 and 6 p.m., according to preliminary figures, but that figure was suppressed by the use of demand response programs,” PJM told members and stakeholders in an operations update. “The peak load is likely to have surpassed the all-time PJM record.”
The website GridStatus has shown throughout this week that the main power mix that has saved PJM from total collapse has been a combination of natural gas, nuclear, and coal. At the same time, unreliable solar and wind have together contributed only a mid- to high-single-digit percentage of total power generation.
Temperatures are expected to climb into triple-digit territory on Saturday, with relief on the way.
Forecasts show average temperatures across the region plunging below the 30-year average of around 70F next week, offering a brief break from the heat dome. However, that may not last long, as the latest two-week outlook points to another potential heat dome after the midpoint of the month.
Climate change in the 1930s? Someone tell the climate socialists.
These are not heat indices, but actual temperatures. Let that put some perspective on how bad the 1930s were. Only 6 states have had their record highs set since 2000 pic.twitter.com/t9SnPInKXS
— The American Storm (@BigJoeBastardi) July 4, 2026
Bryan Jackson, a forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center, told Bloomberg what’s next for the Mid-Atlantic region: “We are going to go from a period of intense heat to what should be quite a few stormy days. The heat will be down but the storm chances will be way up.”
Russia Planning Provocation Against Poland To Test NATO Resolve, US Reportedly Warned
The Telegraph along with various Eastern European media outlets, including Polish national sources, are reporting that United States passed Warsaw a warning based on intelligence that Moscow is considering an armed provocation against Poland to “test NATO’s resolve”.
Provocation scenarios are said to potentially include drone attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants, or else testing airspace by simulating a large-scale air attack to try and force Poland to prematurely activate its air defenses.
An official within President Karol Nawrocki’s administration said the US “systematically informs Poland about ever-new Russian plans for a conventional attack on NATO’s eastern flank, from which Poland is by no means excluded.” These reports are rife with wild speculation, however, and thus could be standard wartime propaganda.
A “hybrid attack” on the border region, possibly involving Belarusian armed forces, is considered to be the most serious possibly scenario, according to the reports.
It would be portrayed as an ‘accidental’ incursion:
Moscow could portray such an incursion as accidental, claiming troops crossed the border because of a GPS failure or entered Poland to retrieve a malfunctioning helicopter, according to the report.
Russia could then seek negotiations rather than a military response, betting that the United States would pressure Poland not to open fire on Russian or Belarusian personnel.
The Telegraph lays out a potential motive in the following:
Russia would count on the fact that, instead of opening fire on Russian or Belarusian soldiers in such a situation, Poland would be forced by the US to negotiate with Russia or Belarus rather than respond forcefully, Polish sources told Onet.
A scenario in which the Russians would withdraw from Poland as a result of those negotiations, rather than because they were forced to do so by military means, would be seen as a win from Moscow’s perspective.
An end to Western support for Ukraine could even be a central Russian demand of such talks in return for withdrawal from Poland.
Given the reporting on all of this ultimately originated in Polish media, and cited sources close to the presidency, there’s also the likelihood that it is pure propaganda – aimed at dialing up Western pressure and ‘readiness’ with an eye on Moscow.
Poland is meanwhile busy with ongoing plans to complete a new set of anti-drone fortifications along its eastern borders, part of a broader EU and NATO push for a protective ‘drone wall’ in defense of European airspace.
There’s been much speculation that ‘Union State’ Belarus could play a key role in future Russian maneuvers targeting Poland.
This planning began in earnest in 2025 after repeat aerial spillover incidents related to the Ukraine war – at various times errant drones, missiles, interceptors – and also even warplanes – have breached Baltic and Eastern European nations’ airspace. Often, however, these incidents arise from off-course Ukrainian drones.
A convicted ISIS terrorist who attended beheadings and public floggings in Iraq has been jailed for two years after arriving in Britain on a small boat. He told officials he came because he heard on TikTok that the UK “accepts everyone” and respects human rights.
Mohammed Yaseen, 35, had lived a desolate existence in Iraq before aligning with ISIS. He watched ceremonies including stonings and was found with a Kalashnikov rifle. He later travelled to Germany in 2014, made multiple asylum claims, and was convicted in Dusseldorf for participating in a terrorist organisation and membership of ISIS. He received a four-year-and-three-month sentence and a 20-year expulsion order.
Instead of being returned to Iraq, Yaseen made his way to France and then crossed the Channel. On 13 December 2025 a Border Force vessel intercepted the small boat carrying around 80 people. Yaseen gave a false name, claimed to be from Kuwait, and lied about his age and background. He was placed in a hotel in Basingstoke with clean clothes and asylum support.
Convicted ISIS terrorist who attended beheadings and public floggings in Iraq came to Britain on small boat after hearing on Tiktok that UK ‘accepts everyone’ court hears https://t.co/iLuMUHA6iu
Biometrics exposed the deception. He was arrested on Christmas Eve and later admitted attempting to enter the UK without valid clearance. Winchester Crown Court heard the full extent of his past.
Prosecutor Steven Molloy told the court: “He said he travelled from Kuwait to France from Belgium and was seeking asylum. He said he did not like it in France but heard on TikTok that the UK accepts everyone and respects human rights.”
Molloy added: “There is a deeper and lengthy involvement in terrorism and Islamic extremist ideology. Our assessment is that he is high risk in all categories. There is a danger that this individual poses to the whole of the UK.”
Defence barrister Katie Porter-Windley acknowledged the German convictions but insisted they had no bearing on his UK intentions and that he had committed no further offences here.
Yes, they really argued that the convicted ISIS terrorist should be allowed to claim asylum.
Judge Christopher Parker KC noted evidence that Yaseen could speak English despite claiming otherwise and stated: “You made absolutely no mention of what had happened in Germany in 2020 when you were convicted of a serious offence. My judgment is that your culpability is exceedingly high. There is a strong likelihood that you will be deported from this country either at the start of or before your sentence is concluded.”
Yaseen is now serving his sentence and faces removal.
The question is, how many more cases like this have slipped through the net?
The case occurs against the backdrop of sustained small boat arrivals across the English Channel. Official figures show around 36,000 people reached the UK by small boat in the year ending 31 May 2026, down 13% on the previous period.
In 2025 the total stood at approximately 41,500. The first five months of 2026 saw roughly 9,000 arrivals, 38% lower than the same stretch of 2025, though numbers typically rise through summer. Recent daily counts have fluctuated, with over hundreds arriving some days.
A Home Office spokesperson claimed the government is “bearing down on small boat crossings, with removals of small boat migrants at record levels and asylum claims down by 12%,” adding that joint work with France has stopped over 44,000 attempted crossings since the election and that nearly 70,000 people here illegally have been removed or deported, up 41%.
Yet the presence of a convicted ISIS operative who simply watched a TikTok video and decided Britain would take him demonstrates that vetting and deterrence remain dangerously inadequate.
Footage captured by GB News shows the mindset of some arrivals. Illegal migrants on a small boat in the Channel can be seen discarding passports and shouting “this is the end of England” moments before landing on British shores.
EXCLUSIVE: Illegal migrants shout ‘this is the end of England’ just moments before landing on British shoreshttps://t.co/4vugM38Q9l
Meanwhile, the government plans to house more than 1,000 adult single male boat migrants at a former MOD site near the villages of Upper Arncot and Piddington (combined population around 1,600).
The men, who crossed from France, will not be detained and will be free to wander local areas. Even voters in areas that backed pro-migration parties are now confronting the direct consequences.
The same pattern appears in housing decisions that have sparked fury in rural communities. There is outrage over plans to move more than 80 asylum seekers into £250,000 new-build homes on what locals call “Migrant Street” in Stoke Heath, Shropshire.
The properties had been promised as social housing for local families. Residents described feeling lied to and expressed fears for safety, particularly around children.
More than 80 asylum seekers set to be moved into £250,000 ‘Migrant Street’ newbuild village homes – sparking fury among residents https://t.co/IKN77OFbFI
GB News correspondent Alex Armstrong spoke to locals in Stoke Heath. One resident stated: “These houses were built for locals, for families who’ve never had a chance… It’s putting our lives in danger.”
‘These houses were built for locals, for families who’ve never had a chance… It’s putting our lives in danger.’@AlexArmstrong speaks with residents in Stoke Heath in Shropshire at so-called ‘migrant street’ where 20 new homes have been set aside to house asylum seekers. pic.twitter.com/gRRAAbCEUn
The new-build estates purported to be for social housing are instead now being allocated to hundreds of random foreign men, placed next to a children’s playground and primary school.
Proposals for large numbers at sites such as Linton-on-Ouse and former military bases, stand in stark contrast with 1.5 million British households on council waiting lists and the lack of local consultation or amenities in many receiving areas.
Residents have voiced concerns about safety, cultural change, and the sudden tripling of small village populations.
Beyond immediate arrivals and housing, policy shifts are accelerating the erosion of British identity. The Centre for Migration Control has today highlighted how citizenship is being systematically devalued.
After the earlier emphasis on vague “British values,” the Home Office is now allowing illegal migrants to obtain British citizenship simply by remaining in the country for six years, regardless of integration or values.
British citizenship is being systematically devalued.
First it was the vapid notion of “British values”. Now the Home Office is abandoning even that loose concept – allowing illegal migrants to become British simply because they have been in the country for 6 years. https://t.co/DwhIAD6unF
— Centre for Migration Control (@migrationCtrl) July 2, 2026
Further examples underscore the enforcement gap. GB News reported that Labour has been urged to pursue rapid deportation after the so-called “Godfather of smugglers,” who boasted “this city is ours,” claimed asylum in the UK.
Labour told to make rapid deportation as ‘Godfather of smugglers’ claims asylum in UK after boasting ‘this city is ours’https://t.co/DIDi8Mqx2r
The cumulative picture is stark. A terrorist who attended beheadings enters because social media told him Britain would accept him – and the court record confirms the claim aligned with his experience. Migrants on incoming boats declare the end of England. Rural communities watch new homes handed to unvetted arrivals while local families remain on waiting lists. Citizenship rules loosen further, and even notorious smugglers are benefitting from the system.
Britain’s borders are not merely porous; they function as an open invitation that high-risk actors and economic migrants alike have learned to exploit.
Every fresh arrival and every housing dispute adds to the pressure on communities already stretched by years of uncontrolled inflows.
Secure borders, rigorous vetting, swift removals of those without valid claims, and an end to policies that place newcomers ahead of citizens are baseline requirements for any nation that intends to remain sovereign and safe.
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
German Clampdown On Sick Leave: No More Phoning It In, Doc Note Needed On Day 1
In a stark departure from its reputation for employee-coddling, the German government is attacking the mass abuse of sick leave with strict new policies that would require a doctor’s note obtained on the very first day an employee is sick, with no ability to simply take a sick day with a mere phone call. The reform package also targets retirement ages, tax rates, regulations, welfare benefits and the ease of hiring and firing. It’s expected to pass parliament by year’s end.
“The number of sick days is too high,” German chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters. “We are creating a set of tools that will enable those involved, both employees and companies, to correct this. We know this is a tough decision. But we can no longer afford the competitive disadvantage caused by prolonged absences from work.” Merz said the changes are needed to invigorate Germany’s economy, which has faltered after the COVID pandemic and suffered from the West’s interventions in the Ukraine war and Iran.
After months of disagreements, Germany’s governing coalition has agreed on sweeping reforms to revive its economy.
Chancellor Merz hopes changes to the tax code, less bureaucracy, and a more flexible job market will help. But will they be enough to fix Germany? pic.twitter.com/jHqmUJBG4D
Previously, employees in Germany didn’t need a doctor’s note until their third day of absence, and they could obtain the note via a phone call to a doctor. The rules also granted up to six weeks of leave per illness. A new bout of sickness started a new six-week clock.
On top of enjoying six weeks of vacation time, the average German has been taking nearly three weeks of sick leave per year. The German sick-time pace is about double the US pace, and is also higher than the call-out frequency in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Italy. However, sick-leave abuse is even worse in France and most of the Nordic states.
Predictably, German trade unions are up in arms. Frank Werneke, who leads the services-sector union Verdi, said Merz was “creating a culture of distrust of employees.” (Seems like maybe the employees collectively cultivated that distrust by casually calling out sick.)
“Now remove their sick leave, tell them they need to suffer through a heatwave without AC, and make their trains break down”
Medical professionals are squawking too, warning the policy will be a hammer-blow to efficiency and doctor availability. The German Association of Family Physicians called the new rules “an absolute catastrophe,” adding that “our practices would be flooded with patients who don’t need in-person care and would be better off in bed.”
The German reform package resulted from negotiations between Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union Party and the Left-wing Social Democrat Party that is part of the ruling coalition. The package also includes:
A gradual increase of the retirement age from 65 to 67
The introduction of a capital-markets fund for the investment of contributions to the state pension system
Greater ease in hiring short-term workers and firing top-earners
Welfare reform that incentivizes laid-off workers to get a new job as soon as possible
€10 billion in income tax relief for working-class and middle-income households, fueled by a tax hike on those earning more than €250,000 a year, along with reductions of assorted tax breaks
Deregulation, including sweeping relief that drops most requirements for employers to feed statistics to government bureaucracies, and the easing of data privacy regulations for small firms
Bakeries and pastry shops will have the freedom to stay open later on Sundays
National self-sufficiency beats globalism’s mass dependency.
What makes a nation wealthy? It’s not just arable lands surrounded by other lands filled with water, timber, coal, gas, oil, metals, and minerals. It’s the farmer who knows best how to cultivate those lands in order to maximize food production. It’s the woodsman, miner, fisherman, and oilman who can extract nature’s bounty and provide the raw materials for every kind of manufacturer.
Producing things requires knowledge and skill. Competition between producers creates an incentive to innovate. This motor of discovery — in which human ingenuity uses established knowledge and long-harnessed skills as inputs for creating new forms of knowledge and skill — generates increasing efficiencies in production. Costs go down; prices go down; producers produce more; consumers consume more. Economic freedom, therefore, is a wealth-generating feedback loop that benefits all of society.
A nation that can do all of these things on its own is a self-sufficient nation. A nation that is capable of producing more than it consumes is an exporting nation. A nation that exports more than it imports is a nation whose people become increasingly wealthy. The rest of the world pays that nation for its way of life. The world pays that nation simply for existing.
Anyone who says that a nation’s culture is irrelevant to a nation’s standard of living is a liar. Productive cultures generate national wealth. Lazy, reckless, or destructive cultures ensure lasting poverty. There’s an adage so old and universally embraced that numerous cultures claim authorship: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. People generally acknowledge these truths. Whether you are a ninth-century Viking raider or a twenty-first-century welfare queen, if you cannot produce for yourself, you cannot feed yourself without taking from others. Whether a Somali pirate or a Somali “l-e-a-r-i-n-g” center fraudster, you are dependent on theft from others because self-sufficiency is out of reach.
What might a nation do to encourage wealth creation? Just as a good farmer cultivates the land to maximize a harvest, good national leaders cultivate social values that maximize personal production. A culture that values knowledge, skill, and hard work encourages members of society to learn and labor in pursuit of productive innovation. A legal system that prioritizes protections for private property and personal liberty encourages increased production and wealth creation. A society that takes pride in building and manufacturing new things fosters a spirit of entrepreneurship. An entrepreneurial society encourages a self-sufficient society. A self-sufficient society produces a self-sufficient nation. Therefore, the cultivation of virtue within society simultaneously cultivates a wealthy nation.
These aren’t difficult concepts to understand.
Why, then, do most Western nations reject the proven path toward national wealth? Why do Western politicians celebrate “multiculturalism” over the historically productive virtues of Western culture? Why do Western pundits disparage knowledge, skill, and hard work as attributes of “white supremacy”? Why do Western lawmakers make it more difficult for Western citizens to own land and personal property? Why do Western bureaucrats churn out rules and regulations that limit what can be built and manufactured? Why do Western governments make it difficult for small businesses to thrive? Why do Western news media claim that only foreign migrants are willing to perform blue-collar jobs? Why do Western bankers claim that only foreign slave laborers are capable of manufacturing critical goods? Why do Western professors spend more time lecturing about racism and oppression than how to critically think, invent, and build new things? Why do Western NGOs support open borders, “climate change” regulations, and economy-killing taxes? Why do religious leaders praise the criminal and not the faithful Christian? Why do cultural leaders encourage citizens and foreigners alike to become dependent on social welfare? Why do pop culture leaders extol frivolous excess over hard work and discipline? Why do Westerners celebrate gay “pride” for at least a month each year instead of encouraging all citizens to take pride in what they build, learn, and accomplish? Why do Wall Street and the City of London work so hard to deprive the United States and the United Kingdom of economies that benefit Main Street businesses as much as multinational conglomerates?
Reading through the above questions should lead a rational person toward a reasonable conclusion: The people who currently maintain economic and political power in the West have no interest in making the nations that they ostensibly call “home” wealthy. The United Kingdom and the European Union cannot produce wealth if their manufacturers are forced to use windmill-generated energy that has been exponentially outpowered by coal and steam for four centuries. Germany cannot produce wealth if it subsidizes Chinese automakers while bankrupting its own with “green energy” regulations. Canada cannot produce wealth if it refuses to use its abundant natural resources while importing most manufactured goods from Asia.
Western nations that refuse to use hydrocarbon and nuclear energies are nations dependent on foreign powers for manufacturing. Western nations that refuse to allow their farmers to grow crops and produce meat and dairy supplies for their home populations are nations dependent on foreign powers for food. Western nations whose people lack the knowledge and skills to repair everything from small appliances to entire electric grids are nations dependent on foreign powers during crises. Western nations that lack the cultural will to be self-sufficient are nations stuck in a permanent state of dependency. If you hand out food stamps liberally and look down on people who insist on providing for their families without government assistance, then you will produce a nation of pirates and fraudsters who make, grow, and build nothing.
How does the United Kingdom survive when it produces next to nothing? Right now it generates most of its revenue by acting as the economic middleman for most of the globe. Even though its empire has collapsed and its navy has disappeared, the City of London’s army of bankers, consultants, and lawyers still take a nice cut of every economic transaction around the planet. They collect insurance fees, regulatory fees, and investment fees like an absentee landlord still bilking old colonies with “rules-based” trade agreements that put money in the pockets of English lords who create nothing. The Bank of England and the Secret Intelligence Service work together to game the international economy by stirring up regional conflicts and using insider knowledge to bet on the eventual market winners. Britain’s central bank has ensured that the wealthiest members of society profit from market manipulation while the rest of society suffers from currency depreciation. This is an economic model engineered to benefit a small cabal of “noble elites” while impoverishing the larger nation.
Ever since some of Britain’s nobles succeeded in convincing some of America’s nobles to erect a Federal Reserve central bank in the Bank of England’s image back in 1913, this funny money con game has drained America’s wealth, too. Although Americans’ can-do spirit has buoyed economic liberty and growth, the parasitic structure of central banking has steadily deprived the United States of its once unparalleled self-sufficiency. The gradual debasement of the U.S. dollar has led to the decoupling from the gold standard, the creation of a petrodollar dependent on forever-wars and foreign entanglements, the offshoring of industry and manufacturing, and international trade “deals” that make America more dependent on foreign powers while kicking back “service” fees to Wall Street and City of London bankers.
This is what globalization really produces: dependency.
For the United States to be wealthy and strong, we must return to an American system that mines, grows, and builds everything. Our people must embrace both personal and national self-sufficiency. We must reject Europe’s economic suicide.
Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant 3,000 miles away or by 3,000 tyrants one mile away?
— Rev. Mather Byles (1706-1788)
Does it really matter if the instrument curtailing liberty is a monarch or a popularly elected legislature? This conundrum, along with the witty version of it put to a Boston crowd in 1775 by the little-known colonial-era preacher with the famous uncle — Cotton Mather — addresses the age-old question of whether liberty can long survive in a democracy.
Byles was a loyalist who, along with about one-third of the American adult white male population in 1776, opposed the American Revolution and favored continued governance by Great Britain.
He didn’t fight for the king or agitate against George Washington’s troops; he merely warned of the dangers of too much democracy.
Many of us who monitor federal excess are fearful of out-of-control democracy, which is what we have in America today, yet there remain in our federal structure a few safeguards against runaway federal tyranny, such as the equal state representation in the Senate, the Electoral College, the state control of federal elections, the remnants of state sovereignty, and life-tenured federal judges and justices.
Of course, the Senate as originally crafted did not consist of popularly elected senators. Rather, they were appointed by state legislatures to represent the sovereign states as states, not the people in them.
Part of James Madison’s genius was the construction of the federal government as a three-sided table. The first side represented the people — the House of Representatives. The second side represented the sovereign states that created the federal government by surrendering limited powers to it — the Senate. And the third side manifests the nation-state — the presidency, which is both head of state and head of the executive branch of the federal government. The judiciary, whose prominent role today was unthinkable in 1789, was not part of this mix.
In his famous Bank Speech, Madison argued eloquently against legislation chartering a national bank because the authority to create a bank was not in the Constitution and thus was retained by the states and reserved to them.
In that speech, he warned that expansion of the federal government would trample the powers of the states and also the unenumerated natural rights of the people that he would soon protect in the Ninth Amendment.
Madison gave the Bank Speech in February 1791, 11 months before the addition of the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments — to the Constitution. Given the popular fears of a new central government, Madison assumed that the Bill of Rights would be quickly ratified. He was right.
Had Madison been alive during the presidency of the anti-Madisonian Woodrow Wilson — who gave us World War I, the Federal Reserve, the administrative state of government by experts, the popular election of senators, the judicially sanctioned suppression of political speech, and the federal income tax — he would have recoiled at a president destroying the three-sided table. Wilson did that by leading the campaign to amend the Constitution so as to provide for the direct popular election of senators.
Part of Madison’s genius was to craft anti-democratic elements into the Constitution, as well. And some of them — like state sovereignty — created laboratories of liberty, since some states protect more personal liberties than the Bill of Rights does. President Ronald Reagan reminded the American public in his first inaugural address that the states formed the federal government, not the other way around. Had I been the scrivener of that speech, I’d have encouraged him to add: “And the powers that the states gave to the feds, they can take back!” Of course they can.
Reagan also famously said that we could vote with our feet. If you don’t like the over-the-top regulations in Massachusetts, you can move to New Hampshire. If you’re fed up with the highest state taxes in the union in New Jersey, you can move to Pennsylvania.
But the more state sovereignty the feds absorb — the more state governance is federalized — the fewer differences there are among the regulatory and taxing structures of the states. This has happened because Congress has become a general legislature without regard for the constitutional limits imposed on it.
If Congress wants to regulate an area of governance that is clearly beyond its constitutional competence, it bribes the states to do so with borrowed or Federal Reserve-created cash. Thus, it offered hundreds of millions of dollars to the states to lower their speed limits on highways and to lower the acceptable blood alcohol level in peoples’ veins — this would truly have set Madison off — before a presumption of DWI may be argued; all in return for cash to pave state-maintained highways.
The states are partly to blame for this. They take whatever cash Congress offers, and they accept the strings that come with it. And they, too, are tyrants. The states mandated the unconstitutional and crippling COVID lockdowns of 2020-2021, not the feds. The states should be paying the political and financial consequences for their misdeeds, not the feds. They took property and liberty without paying for it as the Constitution requires them to do. And, of course, some of the states maintained legal protections for slavery.
Byles feared a government of 3,000. Today, the feds employ close to 3 million. Thomas Jefferson warned that when the federal treasury becomes a federal trough, and the people recognize it as such, they will only send to Washington politicians — faithless to the Constitution — who promise to bring home the most cash.
In a democracy, a faithless majority will take whatever it wants from the minority — including its liberty and property. That’s where we are today on the 250th anniversary of the start of this Jeffersonian and Madisonian experiment — a country the Founders wouldn’t recognize as their creation.
First $1 Billion, Now $50 Million: Khanna Says Wealth Tax “Must Not Stop At Billionaires”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) – fresh off endorsing California’s November ballot measure to seize 5% of billionaire wealth – published a Substack essay Wednesday titled, no really, “Why I Support a Billionaire Wealth Tax.”
He makes it roughly a dozen paragraphs before explaining that it isn’t one.
“The tax should not stop at billionaires, it must reach centimillionaires,” Khanna writes, before spelling out exactly what that means: every fortune of $50 million and up, hit with a 2% federal levy on wealth above that line – every year, forever, on top of everything else you already pay. The vehicle is Elizabeth Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which Khanna notes he has cosponsored every single year it’s been introduced.
And before anyone reaches for the estate planner: Khanna wants the levy to pierce irrevocable trusts, with the tax billed to the grantor who set them up – because parking a fortune in a trust, in his telling, shouldn’t take it off the government’s books.
Former Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky summed up the reveal in eight words: “Just like that, no longer a billionaires tax.“
Pirate Wires’ Mike Solana was less diplomatic, characterizing the scheme as an annual asset seizure in which the government tallies everything you own and demands a cut on top of your existing tax bill – now openly targeting anyone worth $50 million. His prediction for where the ratchet stops: “this ends with your 401k.”
khanna’s ‘billionaire wealth tax,’ which is not a tax but an asset seizure in which he tallies everything you own, then demands a percentage *on top* of what you’re taxed — every single year — is already targeting anyone worth $50 million or more. this ends with your 401k. https://t.co/jt7VtK1j4wpic.twitter.com/IH9vxcBxKG
For those keeping score at home, the threshold discourse has traveled a long way in a short time:
The measure headed to California voters in November is a one-time 5% tax on the state’s roughly 250 billionaires. Newsom, opposing it, countered on June 26 with a national “billionaires’ tax” – which, in its original form, applied to anyone worth $100 million or more, language that was quietly scrubbed after multiple outlets quoted it as we reported. Six days later, Khanna planted the flag at $50 million.
None of this is exactly new, of course. The Warren bill has carried the $50 million line since she rolled it out in 2019, and Biden’s 2022 “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax” kicked in at $100 million households. The branding always says billionaire, but the fine print ios a slippery slope.
Then there’s inflation… The bill’s $50 million threshold is a flat statutory number that hasn’t moved since 2019 – meaning inflation has already quietly cut the real threshold by more than a fifth. The creep shows up in the sponsors’ own math: when the bill debuted, backers said it touched the top 0.05% of American households; the 2026 reintroduction, per the same Saez-Zucman analysis the sponsors tout, now reaches 260,000 households – the top 0.15%. Same words, triple the coverage, five years. Asset inflation does the broadening automatically. Congress just has to sit still.
The escalator, meanwhile, is pre-drafted: buried in the bill is a provision doubling the top rate to 6% automatically in any year that qualifying trigger legislation is on the books.
And anyone curious where a “normalized” wealth tax eventually settles can consult the countries that already normalized one. Norway’s kicks in around $160,000 of net worth. The Netherlands taxes deemed returns on assets above roughly €57,000. Swiss cantons start in the low six figures. The European wealth taxes that stayed rich-only – France, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Denmark – were repealed as revenue duds. The ones that survived did so by reaching the middle class. The slippery slope is quite literally the only way these things ‘work.’
Khanna spends a portion of the essay taking intramural shots at Newsom, dismissing the governor’s version as an income tax billionaires will never feel – since they take no salary, borrow against their stock, and pass fortunes to their kids without selling a share – while boasting that he and Bernie Sanders tax the wealth itself, to the tune of a claimed $4.4 trillion.
The replies were not kind. Christopher Rufo suggested Washington recover the estimated half-trillion dollars a year lost to fraud before inventing new revenue streams. The most-liked response, from James Hafner, noted that the essay’s “philosophical case” never actually argues its one load-bearing premise – that one man’s need constitutes a claim on another man’s property. “There is arithmetic, and there is need,” Hafner wrote of the piece’s actual contents.
Khanna’s comeback – asking Hafner what he thinks of property taxes – was promptly ratioed, sitting at 135 replies to 11 likes at press time.
Except – property taxes are local, visible, and appealable; they pay for the pothole crew, the 2 a.m. patrol car, and the school down the street – and when assessments outran paychecks, voters famously revolted and capped them. Khanna’s essay actually frames the California fight as Proposition 13 in reverse, which is a remarkable self-own: he’s marketing the sequel to a movie that ended in a taxpayer revolt, triggered by precisely the dynamic critics warn about – paper valuations rising faster than the cash available to pay the levy.
The federal version offers none of the offsetting virtues. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax deposits into the general fund; the child-care-and-community-college wish list lives in the press release, not the bill text. What the bill text does contain is enforcement – just not of the spending. It orders the IRS to audit at least 30% of everyone subject to the tax, every single year. It hands the agency expanded authority to assign values to private businesses, farmland, art, and anything else that’s hard to price. It wires in FATCA-style third-party reporting. And should you decide you’ve had enough of the annual appraisal and leave, it imposes a 40% exit tax on net worth above $50 million on your way out the door. In other words: relentless annual oversight of the taxpayers, and none whatsoever of where the money goes. Even Khanna seems to grasp the trust problem – he launched a state-fraud probe in December, conceding taxpayers “need to have a receipt” for what their money funds – which rather makes Rufo’s point: by his own estimate Washington loses half a trillion a year to fraud, and the remedy on offer is an audit of your art collection.
All of which lands a little awkwardly next to this week’s Free Beacon report detailing how Khanna’s own family fortune – courtesy of centimillionaire father-in-law and auto-parts magnate Monte Ahuja – is sheltered through the very sort of irrevocable trusts the congressman now wants taxed to the grantor. Per the Beacon, Khanna’s minor children hold trust stakes in three private golf clubs and multiple hedge funds, the family occupies a $6 million, marble-clad Washington home with a private elevator, and the congressman’s financial disclosures run to 333 pages of conveniently non-searchable tables.
What it does say, in writing, is what the fine print has said all along: the number was never $1 billion. This week it’s $50 million. Ask again next cycle.
