There are no flotillas on the way to save Iran. No Soros-funded “democracy” groups pressuring Western governments to intervene on behalf of civilians who are being arrested and murdered. No astroturfing movement demanding economic boycotts. When college students returned from winter break last week, they didn’t find a single encampment supporting the Iranian uprising against one of the world’s most brutal regimes. Nor are there any emergency meetings or condemnations from the United Nations. Member states were busy denouncing the United States for removing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and Israel for its recognition of Somaliland. The more people might be free, the more the U.N. is distressed. Outlets such as the BBC, which spread virtually every fictitious claim about the Gaza “genocide” and “famine” that was handed to them by Hamas propagandists, could barely spare a segment for the widespread protests in Iran. A year ago, Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, Guy Pearce and scores of other moral ignoramuses were seen wearing red and orange pins featuring a hand around a black heart symbol — referencing a Ramallah lynching of two Israeli reservists in 2000 who drove down the wrong street and were literally torn apart by a Palestinian mob. One of the murderers deliriously displayed his blood-soaked hands from the window to a cheering throng. This year, the Golden Globes didn’t feature a single celebrity championing the Iranian people. All the silence is revealing. Not because it’s hypocrisy. It isn’t. It expresses a consistent political position. The progressive Left and woke Right are on the side of the mullahs. There are many reasons for it. The charge of “hypocrisy” against leftist defenders of the mullahs reminds me of the mockery we throw at members of groups such as “Queers for Palestine.” It misses a larger point. The red-green alliance between leftists and political Islamists is nothing new. They have all the same enemies. The press? As Tahmineh Dehbozorgi recently noted, the Western media largely ignore the Iranian uprising “because explaining it would force an admission it is desperate to avoid: the Iranian people are rebelling against Islam itself, and that fact shatters the moral framework through which these institutions understand the world.” Indeed, Western progressives in the media treat Islam with, at best, a self-destructive moral equivalence or, at worst, reverence. The same people who cover domestic immigration enforcement as a portend to the Fourth Reich treat the Iranian regime, which regularly executes women for crimes against Islam, with kid gloves. This deceptive coverage of political Islam is reminiscent of the Left’s complicity in Stalin’s terror in the 1930s, whitewashed to shield the broader communist cause. Like the Soviet Union, the modern Iranian state is a full-blown totalitarian system. Not merely because it functions under an array of fundamentally illiberal ideas but because it controls virtually every aspect of life, from the spiritual to economic. What’s worse is that the Iranian state is the biggest exporter of this brutal ideology, responsible for at least 1,000 American deaths over the years. Let’s call the Iran-championing “intellectuals” in Washington who would like to see the mullahs obtain nuclear weapons as a bulwark against Israeli regional hegemony the Ben Rhodes faction. The brutality of the regime doesn’t concern them whatsoever. And let’s call the Israel-obsessives on the right the Tucker Carlson faction, who find modern Western ideals, “neocons” and the AIPAC far more offensive and dangerous than the theological fascism of political Islam. A successful revolution against the Shia radicals would almost surely benefit the region. The clerics’ fixation with Israel has little rational geopolitical reasoning. It is theologically motivated, while also useful in deflecting attention away from the regime’s domestic failures. Of course, we don’t know whether this new uprising will succeed or what would happen if it did. This isn’t the first time Iranians have rebelled. Thousands have probably been murdered already. Tens of thousands are in prison. It seems unlikely that an Iranian revolution would succeed without a political or military coup or some external force. The Twelver Shi’ism of the clerics makes them different from the shah or other secular dictators who might be concerned about the lives of their people or their own fortunes. Mullahs would likely rather see the entire country in flames than surrender. Just look at how much needless peril and pain they place themselves and their nation in chasing nuclear weapons. The president is reportedly weighing military options to support the protesters’ efforts to dislodge these murderous fascists. You may support him in this effort or not. But any true champion of human rights is rooting against the mullahs. 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.  The post The Left’s Silence on Iran Isn’t Hypocrisy. It’s Consistency. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

One of the most embarrassing moments of the extremely embarrassing Barack Obama presidency came in the context of the Syrian civil war. In August 2012, Obama vowed that “a red line for us,” which would thereby necessitate some sort of American intervention, “is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” The 44th president continued: “That would change my calculus.” Except it didn’t. A year later, former Iran- and Russia-backed Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s “red line,” launching a lethal sarin gas on his own people. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed, including many children. In response, the Obama administration initially uttered a few tough words before quickly reaching a deal with Assad patron Russia, under which the Kremlin would be responsible for overseeing the surrender and eventual destruction of Assad’s chemical weapon stockpile. The result was a “red line” flagrantly crossed and a tremendous blow to American credibility on the world stage. Obama’s presidency never recovered. Now, over a decade later, President Donald Trump risks repeating Obama’s mistake. The stakes are high. On Jan. 2, Trump wrote on his own platform, Truth Social: “If Iran shots (sic) and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” He has followed up on that threat multiple times, including a post earlier this week that read: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” It’s impossible to avoid the obvious implication of these statements: If the Islamist regime’s slaughter of its own citizens continues, the U.S. will take some unspecified — but clearly major — action to stanch the bloodshed. Trump encouraged the protesters to keep on risking their lives for freedom, in the face of wanton Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps repression, because help is coming soon from Uncle Sam. What’s more, the regime’s massacres have dramatically escalated since Trump’s initial warning. There are no reliable numbers, but rough estimates suggest the number of Iranians killed by the regime has risen from 500-600 two weeks ago to potentially as many as 20,000-plus today. To be sure, I am not a big proponent of drawing “red lines” in foreign policy. I subscribe to the notion, advanced by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 70, that the advantage of executive “unity” is that “decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.” The key word here is “secrecy”: Statesmanship on the world stage and the conduct of foreign affairs is a core executive function, and it should generally be done after privately and “secretly” weighing various courses of action. “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” Theodore Roosevelt put it. He was right. But that simply isn’t relevant anymore. Trump issued his red line. He doubled down on that red line. And the Iranian regime, which chants “death to America” on a daily basis and has even attempted to assassinate Trump, crossed that red line. Indeed, Trump’s red line hasn’t just been violated—it’s been eviscerated. Now, Trump seems to be wavering. On Wednesday, Trump commented from the Oval Office, “We have been told that the killing in Iran is stopping, has stopped. … I’ve been told that on good authority.” The same day, French media reported that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman persuaded Trump to “give Iran a chance” because any American strike on Iran would lead to “serious consequences.” Perhaps even more peculiarly, The New York Times reported on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that Trump postpone any planned attack on Iran. None of this makes much sense. Trump certainly didn’t fear any repercussions when he ordered American B-2 bombers to strike key Iranian nuclear facilities last June, following a series of initial Israeli salvos. And after following through so dramatically on his recent threats to both Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and the Islamists slaughtering Christians in Nigeria, why would Trump now so publicly equivocate—especially when the target is a country he’s already bombed within the past year? This seems to be coordinated kayfabe—a deliberate head fake of sorts to throw off the Iranian regime. I would wager that some sort of American action—perhaps cyber, perhaps kinetic, perhaps both—is still coming. I would not have personally advised Trump to issue such a clarion red line threat against the mullahs. But now that he has done so, it is imperative that Trump live up to his word. His continued credibility and America’s deterrent posture both depend on it. Don’t replicate Obama’s mistake, Mr. President. Instead, you can become even more of a man of history than you already are. 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.  The post Is a Red Line Still a Red Line? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Moments of true clarity are all too rare in our pampered, distracted lives. We seek endless entertainment, filling our days with buzz, gossip, sports, and movies to avoid the inevitable truth: we are all going to die. Unlike our ancestors, we don’t witness death constantly. We don’t even consider how lucky we are to have escaped what they faced—infant mortality, death in childbirth, more frequent wars, and ever-present disease and poverty. So, when someone like former Republican Senator Ben Sasse announces that he’s been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, it puts us face to face with our own mortality. Sasse, at 53, had to tell his parents that they’ll probably be burying their son. He had to tell his daughters that he won’t be there to walk them down the aisle. Then, he gave the world this news—and he also gave the reason for a hope that is in him. We All Have a Death Sentence “Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence,” he wrote. “But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.” Even insulated from the constant experience of death as we are, we know that death is coming. It’s nearly impossible to watch the news without hearing of death: the death of Renee Nicole Good, the death of Scott Adams, the death of 31-year-old Charlie Kirk—who left a wife and two very young children. Each death is a tragedy, but each death also presents an opportunity for us to learn. When my time comes, I pray I have the courage and faith to face death like Ben Sasse. Ben Sasse’s Courage and Hope Sasse announced his “death sentence” two days before Christmas, and he said the season of Advent was a fitting time to do so. Why? Because Advent isn’t just the four weeks leading up to Christmas, it’s also a time for Christians to look forward with anticipation to the Second Coming of Jesus. It’s a time to “orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.” For those who don’t know, Jesus promised that he would return to earth from heaven, that the dead would be raised, and that those who accept his gospel would enjoy a new kind of life, where every tear will be wiped away. Christians don’t earn this eternal salvation—it’s only available for us because Jesus himself paid the penalty for our sins, and God calls us to follow him, to love others and die to ourselves. Sasse rightly noted that this isn’t some “abstract hope in fanciful human goodness,” or a “Hallmark-sappy spirituality,” or even a reliance on our own strength. It’s a “stiffer” hope, the hope of those walking in darkness who have seen a light off in the distance. It’s the hope of God telling Abraham that he will give his descendants the land of Israel—after they spend 400 years in Egypt. It’s the hope of God telling the Israelites in Babylon that they’ll be able to return home—after 70 years in exile. It’s the masculine hope that gives us strength to hold out amid tribulation, because the destination is worth the journey. Sasse said it’s the kind of hope you shout “often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.” This hope “doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings,” but it does put them in a new perspective. None of this means Sasse—who attended Harvard as a wrestling recruit—is just going to throw in the towel. “I’m not going down without a fight,” the former senator writes. “One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years … Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived.” Sasse viscerally feels the pain of losing the muscle he was so proud to have put on as a youth. His body is breaking down, but he isn’t giving up his fighting spirit. Most importantly, he’s using the last few public messages of his life to share something important with the world. His hope isn’t found on earth, but in the promises of Jesus. Ben Sasse may not be able to stop the decay of his body, but he can encourage us to take hold of the thing that gives him the most important hope. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but I tell you a mystery: this mortal body will put on immortality. Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. We work hard to distract ourselves, but the truth of our mortality will break through, sooner or later. Is there a reason for this kind of hope within you? I pray that there is. Friends-This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die. Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence.…— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) December 23, 2025 The post Ben Sasse’s Powerful Deathbed Testimony appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Trump administration has filed two dozen lawsuits to ensure states are complying with voter list maintenance laws, including against Republican-led states and states Trump won in the 2024 election.  The Trump administration’s Justice Department has sued 23 states and the District of Columbia, alleging they did not provide voter registration data to ensure compliance with federal law. The lawsuits included four states with Republican governors–two of which also have a Republican secretary of state running elections, Georgia and New Hampshire.  Also, in 2024, President Donald Trump won five of the states his Justice Department is now suing: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Georgia contends it provided the necessary voter information to the Justice Department on Dec. 8, but redacted sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers to ensure it did not fall into the wrong hands. “Georgia is the gold standard in voter list maintenance at the state level,” said the letter to the Justice Department from Charlene McGowan, General Counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State. McGowan’s letter said that in 2025, Georgia cancelled the registration of 477,883 names who were listed as “inactive” for the past two general elections.  Georgia ties for fifth place on The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard. Ltr to H Dhillon 12.8.25Download Gov. Brian Kemp’s office deferred comment to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.  Nevertheless, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Georgia on Dec. 18 to obtain the voter information.  “Our office has complied with the Department of Justice’s request to the fullest extent of state law,” Michon Lindstrom, a spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, told The Daily Signal.  “Hardworking Georgians can rest easy knowing their Social Security numbers and other personal information are being protected from being shared with an outside, unknown party that has no clear limits or supervision,” Lindstrom added.  The Justice Department has sought to ensure states are complying with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which both require states to update their voter registration lists and ensure they are free of names of dead people or people listed as voters in jurisdictions where they no longer live.  “Enforcing the nation’s elections laws is a priority in this administration and in the civil rights division,” a Justice Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal.  “Congress gave the Justice Department authority under the NVRA, HAVA, the Civil Rights Act, and other statutes to ensure that states have proper voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls containing only eligible voters in federal elections,” the DOJ spokesperson continued. “The recent request by the Civil Rights Division for state voter rolls is pursuant to that statutory authority, and the responsive data is being screened for ineligible voter entries.” Several other states won by Trump in 2024 rank significantly lower than Georgia on the Heritage Election Integrity Scorecard. Arizona and Pennsylvania are tied for a ranking of 24, Michigan ranks 31, and Nevada ranks 39.  Of the two New England states that have Republican governors but didn’t give electoral votes to Trump in 2024, New Hampshire ranks 20 on the score card, while Vermont is tied for 48th place.  Vermont is a very blue state where Republican Gov. Phil Scott, first elected in 2016, has been a consistent Trump critic and endorsed Trump primary opponents. Vermont statute makes it illegal to share voter registration data with commercial entities, foreign entities, or the federal government, said Vermont Secretary Sarah Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat first elected in 2022.  “We don’t believe the DOJ has made the case that we are in violation of election law or voter list maintenance requirements,” Copeland Hanzas told The Daily Signal. “If the lawsuit is to ensure our compliance with the law, they should have asked for access to how we ensure voting access and list maintenance.” She said Scott stands with her against the Trump administration.  “The governor does not have a role to play in maintenance of voter registration, but he has stood in support of our legal position,” she said.  Last month, Scott told reporters: “I’m supportive of the secretary of state and this is down in her bailiwick, so to speak. We’ll see where it goes from here.” Neither the offices of New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte, nor New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlon, both Republicans, responded to requests for comment for this story.  Neither the offices of Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, nor Nevada Democrat Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar responded to inquiries for this story.  The post DOJ Voting List Lawsuits Extend to GOP-Led and Trump States appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Trump’s operation to capture Nicolás Maduro in the early hours of Jan. 3 was a title wave that changed global politics drastically. Not only was a dictator de-throned and will soon be brought to justice, but Cuba, China, Iran, and Russia all stand to lose the most economically and politically—a win for all Americans. E.J. Antoni joins The Daily Signal to lay out the global implications of Maduro’s capture, and how it all will not only impact the global economy, but the U.S. as well. For more analysis and content, be sure to subscribe to The Daily Signal’s YouTube page. Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript from The Daily Signal’s latest video with E.J. Antoni. Parts of this commentary are adapted from a piece that originally published in Townhall. I’d like to talk today about the recent events in Venezuela, specifically from an economic point of view, and who are the real winners and losers. The U.S.—for a change—is firmly in the driver’s seat and master of its own destiny and hemisphere. The economic story here also goes well beyond oil too, although that’s what has gotten most of the attention. Venezuela is a veritable gold mine of other natural resources like. Rare earth minerals, lumber box site, the primary source of aluminum natural gas and more. But the biggest loser of all isn’t China or Russia—it’s Canada. After last weekend’s events, not only is Canada losing its biggest crude customer, but it’s also losing, its only real leverage in trade talks with the United States. Hi, I am E.J. Antoni for The Daily Signal.   I’d like to talk today about the recent events in Venezuela, specifically from an economic point of view, and who are the real winners and losers. Let’s start with the obvious. The Venezuela operation is a win for America and the Venezuelan people. American consumers and businesses will benefit from lower prices while oil companies have a chance for bigger profits. Venezuelans will benefit from increased investment, jobs, and profits in their country as well. This is why their stock market jumped 50, 60, 70, 80% after the U.S. takeover. And if we recall that economic security is national security, then the new order in South America also simultaneously supports U.S. national security while undermining our greatest rival, China. In war, dependable access to oil is as important as dependable access to kinetic arms. Access to ample, reliable flows of oil represents a key strategic interest. Removing one such flow from the Chinese sphere of influence and bringing it into our own is tremendous progress toward this goal. But the biggest loser of all isn’t China or Russia, It’s Canada. Western Canada sends over four million barrels a day of heavy crude to American refiners that are equipped to handle this type of oil. But now, with access to the massive flows of Venezuelan crude, which is similar to the Canadian flavor, the U.S. no longer needs to rely on Canada to keep the refineries on the Gulf of America running at full capacity. Instead, the oil shipments that previously went to China are already being redirected to American refiners—tens of millions of barrels worth just days after Maduro’s capture. And while the United States is paying full market price for that oil, don’t be surprised if oil prices start coming down because of this redirection. After all, increasing supply puts downward pressure on prices. As American investment rebuilds Venezuela’s severely neglected oil infrastructure, we can expect production and exports to the U.S. to only increase, simultaneously benefiting the American and Venezuelan people. That’s why this is such a massive economic win for American families and businesses who will benefit from lower prices, courtesy of more energy supplies. And since energy affects the price of everything else in an economy, lower prices for products like gasoline will put downward pressure on countless other prices, providing relief after four years of inflation under the Biden administration. Consider when you go to a grocery store how much of the price of food you’re buying is dependent on energy prices. First off, farmers and ranchers are fueling their tractors and other vehicles with diesel and gas. They’re also using synthetic fertilizers created with natural gas. But how did the gallon of milk, the carton of eggs, or the bag of bread get to grocery store in the first place? It got there on a trunk. Fueled by oil. What I’m getting at here is that we seriously underestimate just how much the price of energy affects everything we do and everything we buy. Bring down energy prices, and you put downward pressure on prices throughout the economy. That’s a win for American consumers and businesses alike. And U.S. control of Venezuela is also a second chance for jilted American oil companies to again profit from nearly one-fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves. Years ago, those American companies poured investment into Venezuela to essentially modernize the entire industry there. For their troubles, these oil firms had their physical property confiscated and their intellectual property copied as the communists “nationalized” Venezuelan oil. Of course, communist rule there was a disaster, as it has been everywhere, and the oil industry languished as infrastructure decayed, investment lagged, and production fell well below its potential. Venezuela pumps much less oil today than they did a quarter century ago. But this is poised to reverse. Venezuela will now assuredly receive billions of dollars of investment from American oil companies, many of whom are champing at the bit to regain access to the largest reserves in the world. That will mean a windfall of jobs and income for the Venezuelan people, all of which could have been Canada’s, bringing us back to the story of the biggest economic loser here. It didn’t have to be this way for the fifty-first state. But instead of welcoming oil and gas investment from the United States and building valuable infrastructure like pipelines, Canada has preferred to prioritize far-Left causes and an anti-energy agenda. After last weekend’s events, not only is Canada losing its biggest crude customer, but it’s also losing its only real leverage in trade talks with the United States. This is an economic reality that few professional pundits seem to have grasped. To be clear, the flood of cheap Venezuelan crude will not arrive in the U.S. overnight. It will take time, years in fact, to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure and really ramp up production to replace most Canadian crude imports. But the writing is on the wall. The U.S., for a change, is firmly in the driver’s seat and master of its own destiny—and hemisphere. The economic story here also goes well beyond oil too, although that’s what has gotten most of the attention. Venezuela is a veritable goldmine of other natural resources like rare earth minerals, lumber, bauxite (the primary source of aluminum), natural gas, and more. Canada just lost not only its leverage with oil, but just about every other one of its exports too. Since the Canadian economy is much more dependent on exports than the U.S. economy is, and since nearly all Canadian exports come to the U.S. while relative few of ours go to Canada, the slowdown in trade between our two countries has very unequal effects. In short, this has been very harmful to Canada and will be devastating in the long run. But it’s little more than a speedbump here in America. President Donald Trump has effectively barred the door on Canada, and the latter will have few alternatives to completely opening every one of its markets to free and fair competition. Of course, Canada can always choose to fall further into irrelevance and economic impoverishment by stubbornly continuing to snub American manufacturers, farmers, and workers. Let me close by saying that if the Monroe Doctrine warned Europeans to stay out of the Western Hemisphere and the Roosevelt corollary established American intervention therein, then the Trump corollary has put a finer, and more economic, point on the matter that’s best summed up in two words: America first. I’m E.J. Antoni for The Daily Signal. The post How Canada’s Only Leverage Over America Disappeared in an Instant appeared first on The Daily Signal.