The City Club of Cleveland is defying LGBTQ activist pressure to cancel or substantially alter an event featuring a conservative Christian leader next month, and Ohio’s attorney general is standing with the venue. “We’re not canceling, and we have never had any intention of canceling this,” Dan Moulthrop, the City Club’s CEO, told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “We’re gonna continue to do what we always do, and have done for 113 years, which is convene conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive and do that with the leadership of relevant organizations who are shaping our communities.” Moulthrop confirmed that he has no intention of changing the Jan. 16 forum in which he will interview Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue. The center says it “seeks the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the Gospel.” It advocates for religious freedom, free speech, educational freedom, and pro-life and pro-family policy. The Letter Yet more than 100 LGBTQ leaders and organizations across Ohio signed an open letter denouncing the City Club for hosting Baer and urging the venue to “cancel or modify this forum in a way that does not platform an organization that has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQIA2S+ hate group.” The letter makes four demands: cancel the event or include an LGBTQ activist; replace Moulthrop with a likely pro-LGBTQ “external moderator;” “disavow platforming hate speech;” or “structure the event so that diverse and impacted perspectives are not only present but also meaningfully centered.” More than 20 organizations—including HRC Cleveland, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, Equality Ohio, GLAAD, and Plexus LGBT & Allied Chamber of Commerce—signed the letter, which aims to “prevent extremism from going unchallenged” and suggests a distinction between “facilitating dialogue and platforming organized hate.” “Free speech is a cornerstone of our democracy,” Dwayne Steward, CEO and executive director of Equality Ohio, told The Daily Signal. Yet he argued that Baer’s message is “rooted in oppression and erasure.” “CCV is fueling the equality crisis in Ohio and across the nation,” Steward argued. He cited the LGBTQ activist Trevor Project in claiming that “anti-transgender legislation” of the kind CCV supports was “directly related to a 72% increase in suicide rates among Ohio’s transgender and gender non-conforming youth.” “I hope any public forum featuring Baer that seeks inclusive community dialogue illuminates the harmful impact of his actions and the actions of his organization,” Steward added. Steward referred The Daily Signal to Plexus, which did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. 2025-City-Club-CCV-LetterDownload Bringing Down the Temperature “This petition is the same broken playbook the Left has deployed for the last decade,” Baer told The Daily Signal on Wednesday. “They’ve lost the public debate, and all these LGBT groups have left is to try to pressure the City Club to cancel us.” “But the City Club and Dan Moulthrop deserve credit for inviting a different perspective to their stage and holding fast to this point,” Baer added. “After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, it’s going to take events like this to bring the temperature down in our country.” Kirk’s assassination came after the SPLC put his organization, Turning Point USA, on a “hate map” alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. While there is no direct evidence the SPLC inspired that assassination, a terrorist used the “hate map” to target the Family Research Council—which the SPLC brands an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” alongside the Center for Christian Virtue—in 2012. The SPLC condemned both attacks but kept both groups on the map. The SPLC advocates for LGBTQ issues, and puts those who oppose that agenda on the “hate map.” The SPLC has used the “anti-LGBTQ hate group” label against Alliance Defending Freedom (which even left-leaning attorneys like former ACLU President Nadine Strossen have contested), and Gays Against Groomers, even though it consists of LGB people. The SPLC has even suggested that agreement with the Catechism of the Catholic Church qualifies one as a “hate group.” Ohio’s AG Weighs In Attorney General Dave Yost, R-Ohio, urged Moulthrop to stand by Baer in a letter Wednesday. “To land on the SPLC’s list, a group need only offend progressive orthodoxy,” Yost wrote. “The Center for Christian Virtue apparently falls afoul the SPLC in its adherence to an orthodox Christian worldview against a variety of postmodernist views about human nature, including sexuality,” he added. “The City Club has long prided itself as a citadel of free speech, and rightly so,” Yost wrote. Yet he warned that “the reason for your very existence as a forum will evaporate if you give in to the demands to cancel Mr. Baer’s talk” (emphasis original). “I believe you and your board are made of sterner stuff,” Yost concluded. LGBTQ activists are demanding the City Club of Cleveland CANCEL the January 16 speech by Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Values. (The Club hasn’t as of this writing)My letter to the City Club setting out the arguments against this totalitarian action is below. pic.twitter.com/ACNr11EIlv— Dave Yost (@DaveYostOH) December 10, 2025 “Dave Yost has always been a champion for free speech—he’s demonstrating how Christians can use their voice to engage in courageous discussion today,” Baer said in response to Yost’s letter. The SPLC did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The post ‘WE’RE NOT CANCELING’: Ohio Venue Stands for Christian Leader’s Free Speech Amid LGBTQ Activist Pressure appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Finally, the time has come: the end of the unlawful so-called SAVE era, an era marked by the Biden administration’s attempts to force American taxpayers to pay for college loan debts. On Tuesday, the Department of Education announced a proposed joint settlement with the State of Missouri and six other states to end the Biden administration’s Saving on A Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, an income-driven loan repayment plan that courts ruled illegal, and were clearly costly and poor policy. If the department receives judicial approval, officials will be able to eliminate the SAVE plan altogether. While the name sounds appealing, the SAVE plan delivered the opposite of what it promised. It did not “save” anything, merely transferred unpaid debts from individuals who took out loans for college to taxpayers. Had the program continued, it would have shifted billions in student debt to hard working Americans. SAVE fundamentally reimagined the Department of Education’s income-based repayment plans for the worse. The plan halved borrowers’ monthly payment from 10% to 5% of discretionary income and raised the income threshold of borrowers who are exempt from repayment from 150% to 225% of the poverty line. Borrowers could also qualify for loan cancellation in as little as 10 years instead of 20 or more, depending on their loan amounts. On top of all that, the plan also waived accrued unpaid interest. What did these overgenerous provisions mean for American taxpayers? The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School’s budget models estimated that it would cost almost half a trillion dollars over 10 years, and only 22% of undergraduate borrowers enrolled in SAVE were expected to repay their loans. The proposal would have set a dangerous precedent: Borrowers could assume that Uncle Sam would wipe away whatever debt they incurred, and colleges could continue raising tuition with little accountability, confident that taxpayers would shoulder the cost. Thankfully, in the spring of 2024, the attorney general of Missouri, on behalf of the state, filed a lawsuit along with six other states to challenge the unlawful SAVE plan. A few months later, two federal court judges issued nationwide injunctions stopping the Biden administration from administering the SAVE plan. The following year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued an injunction enjoining implementation of the entire plan and sent the case back to the district court. Now, the Department of Education and the State of Missouri have reached a settlement agreement to dismiss the litigation in exchange for taking steps to end the plan. If the courts authorize this settlement, taxpayers will not have to pay for college loans held by someone else, and the Education Department will deny any future or pending applications and begin encouraging borrowers to voluntarily transition to other legal repayment plans. The department will also undertake rulemaking over the next year to remove the SAVE plan from the federal books (“with the exception of the forbearance and deferment provisions that were included in the final SAVE Plan rule that will continue to count for Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) forgiveness purposes”), but this will not prevent it from carrying out the actions above.   In the coming weeks, the department will conduct direct outreach to affected borrowers to help them select an alternative repayment plan and get back on track with repayment. Over the past few years, roughly seven million student borrowers enrolled in SAVE have been stuck in an unnecessary limbo, uncertain about their obligations. Had the prior administration not pursued the SAVE plan unlawfully, students would not have been placed in this position, and they would have continued making payments on the loans they personally agreed to repay. Moving forward, American taxpayers should not be left to shoulder the debts of borrowers, and colleges and universities must be held to higher standards for the return on investment they deliver. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The SAVE Plan Is Ending. Here’s Why It Matters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Indiana State Senate will reconvene Thursday to discuss a redistricting bill that could help keep Republicans in control of the U.S. House of Representatives following the 2026 midterm elections.  The legislation, which could give Republicans two more House seats from the Hoosier state, has faced a surprising amount of opposition from some Republican lawmakers even as other GOP legislators in states like Texas and Missouri have enthusiastically supported redistricting. The Daily Signal spoke with Andrew Ireland, a freshman member of the Indiana House of Representatives, to discuss the state of play heading into today’s senate meeting.  Ireland told The Daily Signal that the vote Thursday will probably be one of the closest the state senate has had in a long time. This despite the fact that there were blue states with no qualms about gerrymandering Republicans out of seats. “When you look at what’s going on in states like Virginia now, where they’re almost certain to draw four Republicans off the map … it’s hard to imagine how Republicans in a bright red state, like Indiana, don’t want to respond,” Ireland explained.  “We’ll just sit out of the fight and let the majority disappear on its own. That’s a frustration of mine, but I’m not in the [state] senate, so now I have to sit back and let the process play out,” he said. The state lawmaker, who at 30 years of age represents a new generation of Republican leadership, emphasized the importance of having Republicans control the federal House of Representatives.  “I think as much as people kind of see this as just a political piece, at the end of the day, this is very policy oriented too,” he stated. “I mean the difference between two votes, if you look at the journey right now, is the difference between the One Big, Beautiful Bill passing and not, for example. And for all the frustrations that I and I’m sure others have with what happens in Washington and Republicans in Congress letting us down, I think we’ve also seen the consequences of having Democrats in the majority,” Ireland continued. Ireland also cautioned about the impact a Democrat majority would have on the effectiveness of the last two years of the Trump administration. “There’s no doubt that [the House Democrats would] proceed with investigation after investigation and impeachment after impeachment. They’ll use the subpoena power that they have to largely bring the administration to a halt.” An attorney by occupation, Ireland also earned an MBA from Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea. Curious about his experiences in a foreign culture, I asked the Indiana lawmaker if there was anything Americans could learn from Korean society. He emphasized the chivalry that still exists in the East Asian nation. “It’s a very family-oriented culture. When you go on the train, there was always a spot for expecting mothers. When the train gets crowded, you always gave up your seat for the elderly ladies,” he said. “There’s something to be said for that,” Ireland added. The post Indiana Lawmaker Weighs in on Redistricting Bill appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For too long, Washington has allowed a massive, unauthorized foreign guest-worker pipeline to operate outside the law, undercut American students, and expose our nation to significant economic and national-security risks. It’s called Optional Practical Training (OPT), an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program created by bureaucratic fiat in 1992 and radically expanded by the Obama administration.   And Congress never authorized a word of it.  That is why it is time—past time—for Congress to pass my legislation, H.R. 2315, the Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act, and finally shut this program down.  Optional Practical Training was designed to allow foreign students with F-1 visas to remain in the United States after completing their studies. But instead of a short transition period, the program has ballooned into a sprawling, de facto guest-worker system allowing foreign nationals—many of whom studied here for only a single year—to stay and work in STEM fields for up to three years. It now serves as a shadow substitute for the H-1B visa program, circumventing the very caps Congress put in place to protect American workers.  Advocates claim OPT fills workforce gaps. In reality, it helps create them. Employers are heavily incentivized to hire OPT workers because those workers are exempt from FICA and Medicare payroll taxes, generating a government-subsidized discount for Big Tech and Big Pharma.   According to independent analyses, this loophole costs the Social Security and Medicare trust funds roughly $4 billion every year. Meanwhile, American STEM graduates—who worked hard, paid taxes, and played by the rules—are pushed to the back of the hiring line.  The numbers tell the story. In 2024 alone, ICE authorized work permits for nearly 200,000 OPT participants, a 21% jump from the previous year, with tens of thousands more through the STEM extension.   The beneficiaries overwhelmingly come from countries like China and India—nations whose strategic interests do not always align with our own. And the federal government lacks even basic visibility into how many foreign graduates are actually working in sensitive American industries at any given moment. ICE itself has admitted its recordkeeping is inadequate.  This isn’t just an economic issue—it’s a national security one. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report warned that ICE has not evaluated OPT’s vulnerability to espionage or foreign interference. Yet the Department of Homeland Security continues expanding the list of OPT-eligible STEM fields to include artificial intelligence, telecommunications, semiconductor engineering, nuclear engineering, missile systems, reproductive biology, and critical infrastructure management—sectors our adversaries are actively targeting.  Why would we invite foreign students from strategic competitors to work inside America’s most sensitive research, technology, and defense sectors—often without meaningful oversight? Why would we maintain an unregulated guest-worker pipeline that Congress never approved? And why would we subsidize it with taxpayer dollars?  The answer is simple: We shouldn’t.  Small businesses in my great state of Arizona and all across the country—the backbone of the American economy—are the ones most harmed by this dysfunctional system. They cannot compete with multibillion-dollar corporations that reap tax advantages for hiring cheaper foreign labor.   Meanwhile, American graduates, especially in STEM fields, face an uphill battle securing good-paying jobs in industries their own tax dollars helped build.  The solution is equally simple: terminate OPT. Because the program was created unilaterally by the executive branch, it can be ended with the stroke of a pen. But to ensure it stays gone—and to prevent future administrations from resurrecting similar schemes—Congress must act.  The Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act permanently ends the OPT program and prohibits any future administration from recreating it without explicit authorization from Congress. It restores congressional authority over immigration policy, protects American workers, strengthens national security, and closes a tax loophole that drains billions from Social Security and Medicare.  President Donald Trump is fighting to restore the America First priorities that put our families, students, and workers first. Congress must do the same. The American people have been clear: They want an immigration system that serves them—not Big Tech, not multinational corporations, and not foreign adversaries.  It is time to end the largest unregulated guest-worker program in the country. It is time to protect American students and safeguard our critical industries. And it is time to pass H.R. 2315.  America’s future—and the security of its workforce—depends on it. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post It’s Time for Congress to End OPT and Put American Workers First appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The U.S. was one of the original founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, but one member of Congress says it is time for the U.S. to exit the “Cold War relic.”   “We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries,” according to Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has introduced a bill to remove the U.S. from NATO.  “NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over thirty years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars,” Massie said.   “Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against,” the Congressman continued. “America should not be the world’s security blanket—especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”   Specifically, the NATO Act, which Massie introduced Wednesday, would require the president to notify NATO that the U.S. is using the authority in Article 13 of the treaty to withdraw from NATO.   The bill draws the conclusion that the original purpose for NATO, to stand against the aggression of the Soviet Union, no longer aligns with U.S. national security interests, and further asserts that European members of NATO are capable of using their own economies and militaries to defend themselves.   Finally, the bill prevents U.S. tax dollars from funding NATO’s civil or military budget, or its Security Investment Program used for military equipment procurement.  Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.   Currently, NATO has 32 member countries, including the U.S.   President Donald Trump has applied increasing pressure on NATO counties to spend more of their own GDP on defense. Earlier this year, NATO members agreed to spend 3.5% of their GDP on defense and an additional 1.5% on civil preparedness, protection of infrastructure, and the like by 2035.  The introduction of Massie’s bill comes as the House passed the $900 billion NDAA, or the National Defense Authorization Act, on Wednesday. Included in the text of the more than 3,000-page bill that funds the Department of War are provisions that would make it more difficult for the administration to withdraw troops without Congress’ approval.   The Pentagon would not be allowed to reduce the number of active troops stationed in Europe below 76,000 for longer than a 45-day period unless it has certified to Congress that it is in the best interest of the United States and the decision has been reached after consultation with NATO allies.  The Senate is expected to pass the NDAA next week and Trump says he will sign the spending bill.   George Caldwell contributed to this report.  The post ‘Cold War Relic’: Congressman Introduces Bill To Pull US From NATO  appeared first on The Daily Signal.