Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I think you’re all aware—you who are religious or maybe secular—you’re all aware of a force in the universe that what comes around goes around. Or in classical mythology and Greek and Roman studies, there was the goddess Nemesis that pays back hubris or arrogance. I think in Eastern philosophy and religion the term is “karma.” And in the New Testament it is: ”Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.” But there is something innate to the human condition that you should not go in one direction in excess because there’s a force in the universe that corrects us and brings us back to the middle, what we call in classical terms the golden mean. Nothing too much. Know yourself. But we have watched for the last five years a corruption of the American judicial system by four prosecutors: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia, who is trying to magnify a phone call that President Donald Trump made to the registrars into some type of RICO corruptive act. And it was not. And that case has been dropped. We saw District Attorney Alvin Bragg in Manhattan try to bootstrap a federal offense—that the federal prosecutors did not want to prosecute—on a nondisclosure form and claim it was a campaign donation. We saw former special counsel Jack Smith with the records. And that was asymmetrical because at the same time they were investigating former President Joe Biden for essentially the same crime and let him off. And then we had New York Attorney General Letitia James on the real estate deal where she created, kind of, new laws that had never existed before on minor details about forms on real estate applications, about a loan to the Deutsche Bank that didn’t—they were happy. But my point is this: They have exceeded what the Greeks called “hubris.” They were arrogant. They were overweening. They were self-righteous. They kept bragging, in the case of James or Willis, as political animals, “We’re going to do this. We’re going to get Trump.” And then these forces in the universe said, “This is wrong and we’re going to correct it.” And what do we find out now? Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor, before he left his tenure, he went to the Covington law firm. That’s former Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm, by the way. And he asked and received $140,000 of free legal services. Did he pay taxes on that? That’s above the gift tax. I don’t know. But if any of you decide that you’re going to get a gift of either services or materials or cash for $140,000 and you don’t pay taxes, you’re in big trouble. Fani Willis, well, she was removed from the case, as you know, with her paramour—that she did not disclose—Nathan Wade, whom she made her lead prosecutor. They went on junkets. They didn’t record their expenses. Half of them, perhaps, came from Nathan Wade’s wages that were inflated by Fani Willis. She wouldn’t turn over subpoenaed records. The court forced her to pay a fine of $54,000. They took her, as I said, off the case. Now she’s facing an investigative inquiry by the Georgia legislator. She’s in big trouble. And then we get to Letitia James. She was the most confident and kept giving us soapbox lectures about, “No one is above the law.” It turns out that for years she was fudging on her real estate investments in an illegal fashion. But because Nemesis always deals in irony, some of the forms that she exaggerated on or lied about were the same things that she alleged that Donald Trump had done on his forms. But clearly, Donald Trump had a much better case, so far, that he didn’t do that. She said an apartment unit had fewer rooms than it did. She said that her principal residence was in Virginia when, in fact, she was the New York district attorney, by statute she must live in New York those five years. The house that she purchased she’s not living in now. She listed her father as her husband. What am I getting at? She’s committing the same type of fraud that she’s alleging Donald Trump did. I’ll just finish with, remember Stacey Abrams? She was the one that denied she lost the 2018 gubernatorial race. She lost by 50,000 votes. She lost it again to Brian Kemp in 2022 by even more, a greater margin. She had a PAC or some kind of nonprofit, it had a hundred dollars in it. Then suddenly, when Biden’s on his way out of office, almost $2 billion go under her direction. And now we’re learning that she was giving millions of dollars away, bought a beautiful home, and suddenly went from bankruptcy and owing the IRS and not paying her taxes in 2016—she’s a millionaire. That’s going to be investigated. Bottom line: Be very careful. Tread softly. Listen to the sages of the ages. Listen to your secular and your Scripture. And no one is above the law. And all of these people felt that they were above the law. And that invisible hand of Nemesis, or God, or karma struck them down. And it’s a good lesson for all of us. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Rogue Prosecutors’ Fate: What Goes Around Comes Around appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Democrats can’t even do socialism right. America’s two highest-profile socialists once had real Marxist street cred. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was a young barista who steamed her way into public service. Bernie Sanders is a U.S. senator from Vermont with a vaudeville-grade Brooklyn accent. Endearingly rumpled, he appeared to embody the phrase “living paycheck to paycheck.” These two joined forces early. Their Grandpa-and-Granddaughter-of-Government-Overreach shtick was almost touching in an old-timey way—much like flipping through faded photos of Truman-era coal miners, sipping soup from lunch-pail Thermoses. They’ve come a long way, baby! Now known simply by her initials, like FDR and JFK, the Gotham congresswoman recently was spotted flying first class on Jet Blue to a “Fighting Oligarchy” rally in Las Vegas. Another passenger, named Tracy, told The New York Post: “AOC is fighting the system one first-class mimosa at a time.” There was a time when Sanders denounced “millionaires and billionaires.” But then his own rising net worth and burgeoning real-estate portfolio forced him to whittle that slogan down to just “billionaires.” During a 2020 debate, former New York City mayor and then-presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg quipped: “The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses.” AOC once berated elite transportation’s gold standard: “For real, how many private jets do these CEOs need?” she demanded to know in 2023. “It is insatiable. It is unacceptable.” AOC recently fled that position swiftly enough to break the sound barrier. Defiling Earth Day 2025, she and Sanders were caught this week traversing the American West on a private jet. Their Bombardier Challenger 604 reportedly cost $15,400 per hour to operate. This staggering sum would devour three months of a median-wage worker’s $59,228 annual salary.   Extravagance aside, “Private jets emit an estimated 10 to 20 times more CO2 per passenger than commercial flights,” Terra Watts of Yahoo Entertainment observed. “In one five-hour private flight, a Bombardier Challenger can produce over 25 metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of what the average American emits in an entire year.” Sanders seems sanguine about generating more than his fair share of so-called “carbon pollution.” His Friends of Bernie Sanders campaign committee torched $221,723 on private-jet trips in 2025’s first quarter alone. Fox News Digital published Federal Election Commission records that show Sanders spending $1,902,855.79 on such flights during his 2020 presidential bid. Even stalwart Democrats hate watching these limousine liberals become private-jet proletarians. One appalled strategist told The Hill: “If you’re going to make climate your brand, you better live it. The optics here are a nightmare.”  Regardless, these social-justice warriors still hammer the uber-wealthy. Fighting Oligarchy’s website excoriates “corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country.” The site boasts that it’s “Paid for by friends of Bernie Sanders (not the billionaires).” Sanders said on April 15: “We will not accept a rigged economy, where working people struggle while billionaires become richer.” On April 12, Joan Baez serenaded Sanders and AOC. “Ain’t gonna let those lousy billionaires turn me around!” she sang before an impressive crowd of some 36,000 in Los Angeles. But this is just atmospherics compared with the fattest slice of flimflam in Democrats’ “Fighting Oligarchy” crusade. If AOC, Sanders, and the Left really want to torpedo oligarchs, they can start by returning each and every donation from these multibillionaires, whose net worth Forbes has certified. For its part, OpenSecrets.org tabulated their contributions to liberal super PACS and outside groups in the 2024 election: Michael Bloomberg ($105 billion net worth; $45,636,784 in left-wing political gifts) Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings ($5.2 billion; $9,298,669) LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman ($2.4 billion; $24,885,600) Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz ($17 billion; $50,000,000) Hyatt hotels heir and Gov. JB Pritzker, D-Ill. ($3.7 billion; $11,501,250) Until the Democrat Left refunds its own billionaires’ political dollars and pledges never to accept another dime from these plutocrats, the “Fighting Oligarchy” juggernaut will prove as enduring as a private jet’s contrails. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. ? The post Fighting Oligarchy Tour Devolves Into Fueling Hypocrisy Express appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A Judeo-Christian law firm will finally get its day in court after Michigan’s Democrat attorney general targeted it when launching a “Hate Crimes Unit” in 2019. Attorney General Dana Nessel and then-Michigan Department of Civil Rights Executive Director Agustin Arbulu announced the Hate Crimes Unit in 2019, which would “fight against hate crimes and the many hate groups … in our state.” The announcement referenced the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which brands mainstream conservative and Christian groups “hate groups,” putting them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. The law firm American Freedom Law Center, which the SPLC brands an “anti-Muslim hate group” for its claims that traditional Islam supports jihad, filed a lawsuit challenging what the law firm called the state’s “Orwellian” violation of its First Amendment rights, and after initial proceedings, the case has been delayed since 2021. “The U.S. Constitution does not permit the Michigan attorney general and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights to weaponize their government offices to target political opponents,” American Freedom Law Center Co-Founder and Senior Counsel Robert Muise told The Daily Signal on Friday. He stood by earlier comments calling the Hate Crimes Unit Orwellian. In 2019, when he filed the lawsuit, Muise summarized Nessel’s policy this way: “‘We’re going to keep files on you.’ It’s Orwellian. It’s Big Brother. It’s the thought police.” American Freedom Law Center’s Lawsuit Delayed The American Freedom Law Center brought three claims against Nessel and Arbulu: violation of free speech rights under the First Amendment, violation of expressive association rights under the First Amendment, and violation of equal protection as guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment. (James White, the current director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, has replaced Arbulu as the defendant representing the department.) The case proceeded in 2019, leading to depositions and discovery until both the center and the defendants filed dueling motions for “summary judgment”—asking the court to resolve the case in their favor—in January 2021. The case remained in limbo for four years, delayed in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until March. “On March 3, 2025, I filed a notice with the court, as I have done several other times, informing the court that our motion for summary judgment has been pending for four years and is ripe for a decision,” Muise told The Daily Signal. “In response, the court finally granted a hearing, which is scheduled for June 2.” “As we demonstrated in our court filings, the defendants’ official endorsement of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups constitutes a concrete and particular reputational injury to my organization, the American Freedom Law Center, which is one of the many conservative groups wrongly targeted by the largely discredited SPLC,” the attorney said. “It is our hope that the court will grant our motion and stop this government attack of individuals and organizations based on their political and religious views.” “This type of lawfare, which is engaged in by the Left, has to stop,” Muise added. The SPLC ‘Hate’ Accusation As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy in the 1980s and publishes a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The SPLC claims this map reveals the “infrastructure of white supremacy.” The map includes parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty, groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform that want immigration laws enforced, religious freedom law firms like Alliance Defending Freedom, and conservative Christian think tanks like the Family Research Council. Last year, the SPLC added an LGBTQ group, Gays Against Groomers, to its list of “anti-LGBTQ hate groups,” the same classification it uses to describe the Family Research Council. The SPLC has faced a torrent of criticism for these classifications. It has publicly apologized to former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and celebrated neurosurgeon Ben Carson after branding him an extremist for his views on marriage. It has paid $3 million to a Muslim reformer it branded an “anti-Islamic extremist.” In 2019, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal, a former employee called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam” that allowed the SPLC to scare donors into ponying up cash by exaggerating hate. In 2007, SPLC spokesman Mark Potok said his organization aims to “destroy” the groups on the “hate map.” “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them,” Potok declared in Michigan that year. In 2012, a terrorist targeted the Family Research Council’s office in Washington, D.C., planning to shoot everyone in the building. A brave staffer foiled his attempt, and he later confessed to using the SPLC’s map to find his target. The Dustin Inman Society, a Georgia-based immigration group that sued the SPLC for branding it an “anti-immigrant hate group,” sued the SPLC for defamation, and that case has moved forward into the discovery process. Telling Admissions The Hate Crimes Unit launched an investigation into at least one organization the SPLC branded a “hate group,” namely Church Militant, a conservative Catholic website. Church Militant ultimately shut down amid an unrelated defamation lawsuit. The American Freedom Law Center’s 2021 motion for summary judgment lists many key statements from Nessel that highlight why the legal group claims the Hate Crimes Unit announcement harmed its reputation and singled it out for government surveillance. Testifying to the Michigan House Judiciary Committee in February 2019, Nessel said, “We also have now a Hate Crimes Unit to combat the exponential rise in hate crimes against members of our minority communities, as well as tackling the 28 identifiable hate groups that are currently operating in Michigan.” In response to a question about the source of the information about “hate groups,” Nessel admitted that it came from the SPLC. “That information was received from the Southern Poverty Law Center, and they do a detailed analysis on that,” Nessel said. “I think a lot of it has to do with when you have some sort of organized group—and part of the reason for that group’s existence has to do with some sort of animosity against minority community members.” “So, if you have a group that speaks out, whether it’s through their postings on the internet or whether it’s in public appearances, and the seeming purpose of the group or large part of the purpose of the group has to do with disparaging members of minority communities, I think the SPLC frequently connotes that to be a hate group and then they do a further assessment, I believe, to see if they think that group is a threat of any manner,” she added. “And I think a lot of that has to do with whether there’s stockpiling of weapons or threats of violence or things of that nature.” AFLC v Nessel Summary JudgmentDownload The SPLC does define a hate group in terms of attacking or maligning “an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” but its “hate group” accusations do not imply engagement in criminal conduct or any “actual unlawful action,” according to the SPLC’s website. Contrary to Nessel’s suggestion, organizations do not have to have stockpiled weapons or have made any threats of violence to end up on the “hate map.” Her suggestion does reveal, however, that the SPLC accusation carries connotations that arguably harm the reputations of its targets. The American Freedom Law Center asked the attorney general whether she would make a public announcement disavowing the SPLC’s claim that the organization is a hate group. “No, because the Hate Crimes Unit does not investigate hate groups, and the Hate Crimes Unit hasn’t researched or investigated the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of plaintiff as a hate group,” Nessel replied. “Consequently, I cannot say whether plaintiff is a hate group or whether the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation is correct.” The American Freedom Law Center claims that Nessel’s endorsement of the SPLC accusation harms its reputation and unlawfully discriminates against the organization. “When I get phone calls and people reaching out to me trying to understand what this is all about and donors who are fearful about being exposed as a result of this, you can bet your bottom dollar that AFLC has been damaged and that damage continues because at no time has the attorney general or the [civil rights department] apologized and retracted any statement by anyone on their behalf,” American Freedom Law Center’s other co-founder, David Yerushalmi, testified in the case. Neither the attorney general’s office nor the SPLC responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment. The post ORWELLIAN: Conservative Group Targeted by Michigan AG’s ‘Hate Crimes Unit’ Gets Day in Court After 4-Year Delay appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Numerous prominent Democrats are blindly rallying to the defense of a Wisconsin judge arrested Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant avoid arrest. FBI personnel arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee on Friday morning after she allegedly helped an illegal immigrant accused of violent crimes slip away from federal immigration authorities on April 18. Numerous congressional Democrats quickly put out statements rallying around Dugan on Friday, just one week after Democrat Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and other Democrats flew to El Salvador to conduct a welfare check on the deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 gang member. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up to Dugan’s courthouse on April 18 to apprehend Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal immigrant accused of domestic abuse who was scheduled for a hearing with the judge that day, according to the unsealed complaint. As Flores-Ruiz’s alleged victims sat in the courtroom, Dugan allegedly became visibly angry and took Flores-Ruiz into her chambers, instructing him to leave the building from a private exit after learning that ICE personnel were on the premises. Shortly after the news of Dugan’s arrest broke, and in some cases before details of the allegations against her even became clear, elected Democrats rallied to her defense. “In the United States, we have a system of checks and balances and separations of power for damn good reasons. The President’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power,” Democrat Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin said in a statement. “Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a Democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by. By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line. While details of this exact case remain minimal, this action fits into the deeply concerning pattern of this President’s lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress’ checks on his power.” Democrat Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers also released a statement, suggesting that Dugan’s arrest is an example of the Trump administration using “dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level.” Democrat Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar conceded that there are still details coming to light, but she nevertheless believes Dugan’s arrest to be “a grave step and undermines our system of checks and balances” and a “drastic move that threatens the rule of law.” Van Hollen, back in the U.S. after his taxpayer-funded excursion to El Salvador, weighed in on the Dugan situation, saying that “this is what fascism looks like.” “This Administration’s willingness to weaponize federal law enforcement is shocking and this arrest has all the hallmarks of overreach,” Democrat Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore said in a Friday statement. “Federal law enforcement coming into a community and arresting a judge is a serious matter and would require a high legal bar. I will be following this case closely and facts will come out, however, I am very alarmed at the increasingly lawless actions of the Trump Administration, and in particular ICE, who have been defying courts and acting with disregard for the Constitution.” Other than Van Hollen’s visit and the allegations against Dugan, there have been multiple other alleged instances of Democrats or government officials intervening to protect illegal immigrants—including some with violent criminal records—from federal immigration enforcement. For example, a former New Mexico judge and his wife were arrested Thursday for allegedly harboring an illegal immigrant gang member in their home, while Democrats in multiple states and jurisdictions have tried to prevent local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities. Despite pushback from Democrats and certain corners of the press, the Donald Trump administration is forging ahead with its hardline immigration agenda. Trump told the Daily Caller that he is pleased with the rate of deportations so far on Tuesday, and the administration has so far deported tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, according to NBC News. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Democrats Rally to Blindly Defend Judge Accused of Aiding Fugitive Illegal Immigrant appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A new study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health and other major universities has put a damper on the claim that obstetrician-gynecologists (OB-GYNs) are systematically fleeing pro-life states or ones with more liberal abortion laws. To the contrary, the cohort study measured data collected from Jan. 1, 2018, to Sept. 30, 2024. It concluded that the number of OB-GYNs in pro-life states actually increased at a faster rate than in pro-abortion states in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. That case overturned 1973’s Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion regulation to the purview of individual states and to Congress.  Based on data from more than 60,000 OB-GYNs, the report, released Monday, determined that the number of the women’s heath doctors actually increased by 8.3% in states where abortion was banned compared with 7.7% in states where abortion was protected after the Dobbs decision. Overall, the study held that as of 2024, “the number of OB-GYNs did not significantly change across policy environments [states with varying abortion laws].” According to the report, there are 14 states that ban abortions in almost all circumstances, and six states that have enforced bans on abortion after six to 12 weeks of gestation. The study’s findings are less surprising when one considers the fact that most OB-GYNs do not regularly conduct abortions. A Guttmacher Institute survey found that only 7% of OB-GYNs provided at least one abortion in 2013 and 2014.  “Given the media reports, we expected to find some indication of a systemic migration,” Becky Staiger, a co-author of the report explained. “We searched in many different ways. At the end of the day, we let the data do the talking, and we determined that, at least at this point—two years after Dobbs—we weren’t seeing any evidence,” Staiger said.  The study concluded that for the measured cohort, “there were no significant differences in trends in OB-GYNs’ practice locations across states with different abortion-related policy environments after the Dobbs decision.”  Indeed, the study’s authors went on to note that “[t]he only statistically significant difference suggested that the share of physicians who are OB-GYNs decreased less in threatened states than in protected ones, opposite to the expected finding if OB-GYNs were leaving states where abortion is threatened.”  Reacting to the study, Dr. Christina Francis, the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said she was heartened by the findings. “I certainly was very encouraged, actually, to see this study published and published in JAMA [The Journal of the American Medical Association], when certainly the outcome of the study goes against the popular narrative right now,” Francis told The Daily Signal. “This is actually exactly what scientific inquiry is supposed to be,” she continued. JAMA is one of the most cited medical journals in the U.S. Francis was not surprised by the findings of the study, having worked in the OB-GYN field for two decades and never having to use induced abortion to care for her patients during that time. “I practice in Indiana, where we have one of those laws and literally, the direction we got from my hospital was, ‘nothing changes’ when our law went into effect. We continue to take care of patients exactly how we always have,” she explained. The physician said she hoped the study would improve dialogue on the issue. “My hope is that this will help start honest conversations, and again, because we know that the vast majority of OB-GYNs don’t do induced abortions, therefore, their practice doesn’t need to change when a pro-life law goes into effect,” Francis said. The post New Study Debunks Claim About OB-GYNs Fleeing Pro-Life States appeared first on The Daily Signal.