“Duty to Disobey,” a documentary examining the experiences of U.S. service members who refused the COVID‑19 vaccine mandated by former President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense, is set to hit theaters in June. The film details what happened to men and women in uniform who declined the mandate. It explores physical injuries linked to the vaccine among some service members, and it frames their experiences as a case study in civil liberties, constitutional limits on government authority, and the costs of dissent within hierarchical institutions. Featuring testimony from former and active-duty service members across multiple branches and ranks, “Duty to Disobey” argues that the stories matter to all Americans. The filmmakers highlight what they describe as courage under pressure, institutional failures within the military, and what they call the often-unseen boundary between lawful authority and unlawful orders. One of the featured testimonies is from former Army Specialist Karolina Stancik, who says she suffered “a debilitating heart condition.” According to the film, the Army acknowledged the condition in a memorandum stating it was linked to the COVID‑19 mRNA vaccine. “I was left behind and trampled,” Stancik said in an interview posted on social media. “They watched it, they came back, walked all over me, then left again.” Another individual featured in the documentary is Nick Kupper, a retired airman who served more than 20 years in the U.S. military. The film states that Kupper nearly lost his career—and faced the possible loss of medical benefits for his disabled daughter—after refusing the COVID‑19 vaccine. Kupper ultimately remained in the service following a 2023 injunction filed against the Department of Defense by Children’s Health Defense, according to the documentary. He later retired on his own terms and now represents Arizona’s 25th District in the state House of Representatives, where he advocates against vaccine mandates. Similarly, Lt. Col. Carolyn Rocco, U.S. Air Force, refused the COVID‑19 vaccine and was not forced out of the service. According to the film, she continues to serve in a special assignment in Washington, D.C. Others, however, were not as fortunate. John Frankman, a retired U.S. Army captain, was separated from the military in the summer of 2023 for refusing the COVID‑19 vaccine mandate. A former Special Forces Green Beret, Frankman has since spoken publicly about his experience and advocates on behalf of other service members that he says were harmed by what he describes as an unlawful mandate. Frankman is now running to represent Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is positioning himself with characteristic flair for a national run in 2028, but at least one major obstacle stands in his way: his radical wife. Movie-star good looks, smooth delivery, and nearly a decade as California’s governor have made Newsom the early Democrat front-runner. He has spent the Trump years delivering fierce attacks on the administration while dropping hints about the White House. Yet, presidential success requires more than style. Candidates need a spouse who humanizes them, softens edges, builds bridges to skeptical voters, and projects steadiness in crisis. America’s most effective first ladies have quietly performed that work. Abigail Adams gave candid counsel. Eleanor Roosevelt served as FDR’s eyes and ears. Jackie Kennedy brought grace after tragedy. Dolley Madison showed resolve in 1814: As British troops advanced on Washington, she refused to flee until George Washington’s portrait was cut from its frame and saved. These women often compensated for their husbands’ shortcomings with warmth, courage, and relatability. Newsom needs that asset. His California record is elite failure writ large: homelessness exploding, businesses and families fleeing in record numbers, punishing taxes, rolling blackouts, and cities turned into open-air drug markets and tent encampments. These failures repel voters beyond coastal enclaves. His own gilded lifestyle only heightens the detachment. A wife who could connect authentically and show quiet strength would help mask those liabilities. Instead, he has Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Siebel Newsom consistently comes across as sharper, more condescending, and more ideologically extreme than her husband. Where successful first ladies softened edges, she sharpens them. She cannot be kept in the background. The latest example came right after the third assassination attempt on President Donald Trump. On April 25, 2026, a gunman breached security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in a clear bid to kill the president.  A day later, Trump sat for a tense “60 Minutes” interview with Norah O’Donnell. When she read from the alleged shooter’s manifesto calling Trump a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor,” he pushed back forcefully. In any normal climate, an attempt on the elected leader’s life would prompt basic decency or shared rejection of violence. Siebel Newsom responded differently. Within hours, she posted on X that her family watched, “shocked.” She ignored the assassination attempt and instead attacked Trump’s “level of contempt” toward the female journalist, his “pattern of misogyny,” and its effects on boys and men. An attempt on the president’s life became another lecture on patriarchy. The timing exposed a profound disconnect: when the nation faces real peril, California’s first partner chose moral scolding aimed at the victim. This fits her pattern. A resurfaced clip shows her describing a family trip through Southern red states as a mission to expose her children to racism, misogyny, and sexism so they could “be the change.” Ordinary Americans became exhibits for her Bay Area kids. The condescension stunned observers like Scott Jennings—especially from a state drowning in its own dysfunction. She has labeled Jordan Peterson “alt-right extreme” hate speech and demanded tech censorship. In 2022, she dismissed evangelicals and conservatives as trapped in a “silo”, dragging America backward. Tens of millions of religious Americans were written off as obstacles. That is not empathy—it is contempt. Her activism—gender as a spectrum, dolls for boys, pronoun stories, anti-patriarchy lectures—comes with serene certainty while California families endure the highest cost of living, unreliable power, and streets full of tents and needles. Her nonprofit, The Representation Project, has paid her roughly $150,000 annually plus millions more to her company, while taking donations from interests with state business. The optics scream elite double standards. Effective first ladies rarely insulted broad swaths of the country. They offered steadiness in crisis. Siebel Newsom amplifies coastal elitism, never more glaringly than by pivoting from an assassination attempt to score points against its target. Newsom’s children have reportedly urged him to delay presidential ambitions for family time. They may sense how toxic their mother’s clips will be nationally. Newsom faces a clear liability: a wife whose persona feels more radical than his record and whose instincts in crisis reveal a deep disconnect from ordinary Americans. He cannot sideline her without losing his activist base. Those viral moments—the red-state tour, Peterson attack, evangelical dismissal, and post-assassination lecture—will loop endlessly in primary states. Voters spot condescension. Jennifer Siebel Newsom radiates it. Gavin Newsom is a smooth operator. Yet no polish can overcome the constant reminder from his closest partner that much of America—and the survival of its president—is viewed with disdain by the coastal elite. In the end, his national story may be less about a flawed record than failing to overcome his wife.

Many of us grew up in times when our public workers were deservedly revered. This was because they were positive and helpful despite being both overworked and underpaid. Those days are long gone. Today, most public employees seem either apathetic or simply unwilling to help the taxpayers who pay their salaries. To make matters worse, today they are paid much better than their private industry equivalents. That was colorfully announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a recent news release. The statisticians responsible told taxpayers that private industry employees make an average of $32.37 per hour, and that their counterparts in state and local governments make $40.24 per hour. This difference is more significant when benefits are added to the picture. Each private industry employee receives an average of $13.68 per hour in benefits, compared to $25.04 per hour for the poor, humble public employee. That is an overall cost of $46.05 vs. $65.28 for our public employees. That is a whopping difference. The disparity is dramatically illustrated by the Los Angeles Unified School District’s move to give starting teachers an annual pay rate of $77,000 and 15-year veterans pay of $125,156. That is before a rich benefits package and on top of the perk of having summers off. Meanwhile, the district is an overstaffed operation with shrinking enrollment that matriculates poorly educated students. Those figures are for the period ended September 2025. You might notice that federal employees are not included in this study, meaning the pay disparity between them and private sector workers might be even worse. Think of it this way: When you go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to be harassed and ignored, the worker behind the counter is making more than the average person pleading to escape the DMV’s dysfunctional dystopia. The BLS also released regional analyses of employee costs across the country for private industry. I asked a highly placed source in the Department of Labor why there are no similar regional studies for public employees, and I was told the sample size was too small. I observed that there are 23.3 million public employees, 14% of all employees in the U.S. Twenty million are local and state employees. The response I got was simply, “You have a good point.” In addition, many public employees don’t pay into the Social Security system because they are covered by a richly funded pension program. All government employees are required to pay the Medicare tax of 1.45%. In states like California, Ohio, and Massachusetts, teachers, police, and firefighters don’t pay into the Social Security system. Many of these public employees receive retirement benefits through a defined-benefit plan, while almost all of private industry employees have been converted to a defined-contribution plan. The most prevalent pension plan today is the 401(k) plan. Employees with this kind of plan make contributions out of their earnings, often at least partially matched by the employer. Each account is in an individual employee’s name, who has control over it. Defined-benefit plans, on the other hand, are made up entirely of employer contributions. Most public employees participate in these plans, in which the employer (the taxpayer) pays all the contributions, and the employee receives benefits based on time and service. These plans are often richly funded by elected officials voted in by the public unions. Instead of giving current raises to the employees, they increase these pension benefits, which are paid with future tax dollars. These employer-funded benefits are not included in the above-cited calculations by the BLS, since they are somewhat nebulous and in the future. Minnesota pension plans are currently underfunded by $17.5 billion, and California plans are underfunded by $300 billion. Yet these benefits continue to grow for former public employees and have been ruled by judges as “non-negotiable obligations.” Public employees also receive lifetime health care benefits that were described to me by one spouse of a public employee retiree as “a Cadillac plan.” Some of the additional benefits public employees enjoy are more holidays than private industry. In California, they receive a total of 12. I know for a fact that one major company with largely unionized employees provides eight. One of the days that only public employees get off is the holiday formerly known as Cesar Chavez Day. Your head may have been spinning with how fast Democrats tossed Chavez out once allegations of sexual improprieties were brought forth 30 years after his death. Since then, his day has been known as “Farmworker Day,” ensuring all public employees continue to enjoy this day off while farmworkers continue their daily labor. Even the calculations by the BLS don’t begin to touch the real compensation differential between public employees and private industry ones. Our country still fosters this illusion of the public servant. Some public employees do provide essential services that require great personal sacrifice, such as police and firefighters, but that is a small portion, even if pro-tax politicians regularly shove them in our face.. Most—including schoolteachers—are better paid than the public they serve without commensurate performance standards and with little chance of being relieved for poor performance. They are now underworked and overpaid. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

Americans love arguing about free speech. We invoke the First Amendment as a kind of political force field: You can say whatever you want, whenever you want, without consequence. But the First Amendment only restricts government action. It does not guarantee you a career, a platform or immunity from backlash. The real question is not whether certain speech is legal but rather what kind of speech deserves social consequences—and what kind doesn’t. And if we’re talking about reckless political speech, we should talk about Jimmy Kimmel. Years ago, he abandoned comedy in favor of applause lines, tearful monologues, and the occasional performance of empathy. He’s an unfunny late-night scold who treats half the country as a punchline. As annoying as that is, being unfunny is not a crime. The bigger issue is when media figures cross the line from tastelessness into rhetoric that creates a permission structure for violence. To understand the difference, it helps to break political speech into three categories. First: illegal speech. Yes, illegal political speech exists in America. A classic example: “I want to kill the president.” That’s not merely commentary. It is an actionable, direct threat. There is also incitement. Under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg standard, speech qualifies as incitement only if it is intended to and likely to produce imminent lawless action. “Someone should do something about the president” is protected, though irresponsible, speech. “Go kill the president” crosses into territory the law can punish. It’s speech but also an attempt to trigger violence. Second: typical inflammatory rhetoric. American politics is filled with heated language. “Fight like hell.” “We’re going to war with the other party.” That sort of rhetoric can be ugly and excessive, but it is also normal. We’ve seen how absurd it becomes when people try to treat that as literal incitement. After Gabby Giffords was shot, some on the left blamed Sarah Palin because a campaign graphic had “targeted” certain districts. That was ridiculous. Using combative imagery is not the same as directing violence. Third: the permission structure for violence. A permission structure for violence is created when people repeatedly portray political opponents as monsters. This is how you create the mental environment where unstable people conclude that violence is justified. If the president is a traitor, rapist, pedophile, and mastermind behind a corrupt system, then how else could he be stopped? This kind of rhetoric leads directly to chaos. It is also the kind of rhetoric Kimmel has trafficked in for years. Recently, Kimmel tastelessly joked that Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow.” It was disgusting, and she has every right to be furious. But it wasn’t a call to violence. It was a cheap, ugly joke suggesting she secretly wants her husband dead. Kimmel later claimed he rejects violent rhetoric, then immediately pivoted to blaming Donald Trump for rhetoric that supposedly inspires violence. It was the standard modern play: Insult someone, then wrap yourself in moral superiority. But when it comes to rhetoric that encourages violence, it isn’t the widow joke that should be the focus; it’s the conspiracism. Kimmel has repeatedly called Trump a pedophile, suggested he is connected to Jeffrey Epstein and involved in a coverup, called him a rapist and accused him of protecting pedophiles, coming after voting rights, enriching billionaires while harming the poor, and manipulating the system to evade accountability. That is not “normal political speech.” It is speech that turns a political opponent into a movie villain—a figure so corrupt and monstrous that extreme action begins to feel righteous. This kind of conspiratorial framing has a track record. It fuels ugly episodes of modern political violence: a steady stream of baseless accusations designed to convince audiences that the other side is not merely wrong but evil. If someone eventually acts on that belief, we shouldn’t pretend it came out of nowhere. So should Kimmel be fired? Firing him for the Melania joke would be punishing the wrong offense. A tasteless, bad joke is not the central issue. The central issue is rhetoric that treats political opponents as criminals without proof, assigns monstrous motives without evidence, and creates a cultural climate where violence feels justified. If America wants to lower the temperature, scrutiny should be directed at conspiratorial storytelling that teaches people to hate.COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

May 1 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked a federal rule allowing the abortion drug mifepristone to be dispensed through the mail, significantly curtailing access to the drug nationwide and particularly in states that have banned abortion. A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the state of Louisiana was likely to prevail in its challenge to the 2023 rule adopted by Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration. While the ruling is temporary, it is the first to significantly curtail access to mifepristone in a series of lawsuits challenging the drug’s initial approval in 2000 and subsequent rules making it easier to obtain. The 2023 regulation removed a requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person. (Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Mark Porter) This story is developing and may be updated.