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.

On this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler dive into how President Donald Trump’s newly revealed national security strategy statement takes Europe to task. They also ask the question, “Will Western civilization in Europe be around in 100 years?” Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.  Jack Fowler: We’ll talk about Europe. And we’ll start off with [President] Donald Trump’s latest national security strategy statement. I’m looking at today’s New York Post, which has an article on it.  And here’s what the statement says: “We want Europe to remain European, regain its civilizational self-confidence and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation,” reads the Trump-signed document that was posted online yesterday from the day we’re speaking.   “We will oppose elite-driven anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.”   The report says, “We reject the disastrous climate change and net zero ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States and subsidize our adversaries.” There’s much more to this report. Victor, what are your thoughts on this?  Victor Davis Hanson: Well, I read the report, and everybody’s angry about it because it didn’t have the usual boilerplate, “The United States is going to partner with our European allies and strengthen NATO, our role of the U.N. is essential, we need to increase our foreign aid to get the message about democracy abroad to our brothers in Africa and Asia, and we’re working with our partners” and that kind of stuff.   The last one was the most controversial because we were lecturing Europe. They said, “Now they’re letting us just go our own way.”  No, they didn’t. They said, “We just can’t defend you anymore because we just pay the bulk. We’re the most generous of the NATO allies, and we’re the most distant from where the problems are. And we keep telling you that your GDP is declining radically as a percentage of the world’s economy. Your fertility rate’s down to 1.4. You’re aging.  “You’ve got millions of these antithetical immigrants coming in that hate your culture. They’re going to be dominant majorities in 30 or 40 years.  And you have to rearm, but we can’t we just can’t beg you anymore. You don’t do it.   “So, we’re trying to suggest you follow our model because we made the same mistakes that you do. Get back to natural gas and oil and nuclear and hydro development and get competitive. Open up your economies. Your capitalists, not socialists.   “Close your borders, encourage family formation and two or three children, and rearm, rearm. And if you can do that, we would like you to be an equal partner, not a higher lien or a client.”   And that’s got everybody angry. But that was the message. It was more of a message that I read that they wanted to be a partner with a strong Europe, and they were tired of being the patron and they were the client. And that’s why they’re angry now suddenly.   The subtext, Jack, was everything that we outline that’s wrong with Europe is known to Europeans. And there’s probably a majority of Europeans in the 30 EU nations that now, I mean, the NATO nations, 31, who say to themselves, “We know what the problem is. We don’t produce energy we could. We’re spending too much on electricity. Our businesses are not competitive. We can’t assimilate these people. They hate us. They hate Christianity.  “We’re over-regulated and socialized and we’ve got to get people more independent and we’ve got to spend more defense.” And that group is probably 53% or 54%. And the people who run the institutions and the government say we’re not going let them speak. They’re Nazis, they’re racists.  In England, you said they’re canceling trial by jury in many cases. They delayed the local elections. They said, “No, we’re not going to have local elections,” because they know that the Labour Party will be wiped out.   And in Germany, the Alternative for Deutschland has some radicals, it has some extremists, but it represents 40% of the people. And if you keep demonizing it as Nazis, you’re only going to make it bigger.   France, [President Emmanuel] Macron has no popular support. And Spain is a lunatic country now, the government. But most of the others are starting to become more conservative, and the ones I mentioned have conservative oppositions that are growing in strength. And so, Europe knows now what it has to do with just a question of how obstructive will be this post-war left-wing utopian order. And they’re going to do anything.   They’re going to fine Elon Musk, what was it, $170 million? $140 million just because he won’t censor speech?    Fowler:  Yeah, I think it’s $140 million.   Hanson: They’re going to delay elections. They’re going to do anything they can. And what Trump is saying is that if you do all that, we’re not going to be your friend anymore. So, let’s hope they don’t. Fowler: One of the end games for Europe, Victor, is the assimilation. Let’s say you’re Germany and you had the moxie somehow to take all the Syrians and other illegals who came in thanks to [former German Chancellor] Angela Merkel and throw them out of the country, get rid of them. You still have a country with a [low] fertility rate. So, it’s just a death wish. It’s a death spiral.   I certainly advocate, personally, Europe getting rid of people that will not assimilate into Western civilization. The larger issue is: Is there going to be a Western civilization in 100 years if people just have an inability or refusal to reproduce? Hanson: Well, there’s just three choices. Can people who were born in Europe have 2.1 children? Better to have three. And number two, will the 50, 60, 70 million people that are in there, will they acculturate and become European?  And right now, it looks like answer number one is no, they’re not going to harm their lifestyle, when they have full benefits for everything, by having to stay up at night with little babies and change diapers. And number two, the Islamic community feels that—they say this all the time—they can do with the womb what they couldn’t do with arms.  So, they’re going to keep having three or four children and they’re not going to assimilate.  And given that, three, what is the plan? What is the plan? And the plan is Europe is going to go back to what, 1100, 1200 AD when you have independent fiefdoms or you’re to have an Islamic Al-Andalus in like Spain, a whole enclave and a Dearborn, Michigan the size of a country? I don’t know.  But I’ll tell you one thing, listen to Ilhan Omar when she says Somaliland is only for Somalis. There’s one big difference between Islam and Christianity. And the historian Tom Holland mentioned that a lot in his writings. He’s a great historian.  In the Christian world, you can be an apostate. You can be an atheist. You can be agnostic. You can be a deist. Christianity is tolerant for that. They try to save your soul, but they understand there will be a kingdom outside of Christianity as long as Christianity is not threatened by it. That’s a free choice. That’s why the Founders did not require a national [religion].  That’s not true of an Islamic country where you have a Muslim dominant population.   If you say, I am a Pakistani, I am a Saudi, I am a Syrian, I’m an Iraqi, I am a Gazan, and I don’t like Islam. I’m not going to be a Muslim. You’re not going to have an easy life. That’s not going to be tolerated.   Maybe in Egypt you can say you’re a Coptic, but even there the Coptics are shrinking and leaving. You can say I’m a Christian in Bethlehem, but you’re mostly going to Israel or Europe, the United States, to survive.   Fowler: Yeah, if you convert to Christianity in Bangladesh or Pakistan, you’re going to become a martyr. These things are just not tolerated. Where am I going to go to mass in Saudi Arabia? Where’s the Catholic Church? Hanson: And the weirdest thing is the alliance between the Left and Islam. The Left will say Christian fanatics are destroying the country. And then they’ll look at fanatic Islamists and they’ll say, “Don’t engage in Islamophobia.”   Because they feel that they share a hatred of the West. The Left hates the West. So does Islam. And then you get into the Orwellian situations when they start to bond. And you see them, and I could see gay students at Stanford protesting for Hamas next to radical Islamist students, and it didn’t look very congenial, believe me. If anybody with pink hair and a nose ring and a Pride shirt thinks that they’re going to go to Gaza and help out, good luck. You’ll be hanging from a crane.   We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Victor Davis Hanson: Trump Calls Out Europe in New National Security Strategy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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. We’re having a big discussion in this country about immigration, both legal and illegal, and one of the themes has been whether a person came legally or illegally, what was their attitude about the country they came to, and did they show appreciation or gratitude? And that could be defined as obeying our laws or professing a love for this country, aside from showing gratitude by becoming legal. And this came up in a variety of context. We had a great number of licenses here in California, 17,000, that were issued to people who were illegally in the United States, and they weren’t even residents of California. We had a lot of drunk driving incidents and violence, murders from people who came across the border. In the south, we had people on campus from the Middle East who were overtly expressing support for Hamas, Hezbollah, antisemitic sloganeering. And most importantly, in Minnesota, during the COVID-19 years, the Somali community got a billion dollars or multibillion-dollar grants—we don’t really know the depth of this scandal—supposedly to supply food and meals, and even in some cases, health services to indigent people or people who were impacted negatively by COVID-19 and apparently, under the nose of Gov. Tim Walz, under the nose of Attorney General Keith Ellison, under the nose of the point person for the Somali community, Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman. This fraud went on and on and on. And it was only due to a federal attorney who uncovered it because it was a matter of—much of it was a federal matter because the funds came from Washington, and there have been indictments and they’re still occurring. But what’s interesting is nobody in the Somali community who was a political representative or supposedly told us what a great community that this was ever bothered to see what they were actually doing. There were a variety of state and local laws that were violated, but there were no prosecutions. Walz cannot explain why the feds had to step in and why he never even investigated this until the media and the Trump administration drew his attention to it. Keith Ellison allegedly has talked about expecting campaign contributions from the Somali community in some kind of quid pro quo fashion. Ilhan Omar’s on a video where she points to one of the restaurants in question, allegedly for serving these fraudulent—I shouldn’t say serving, not even serving the meals at all. But this opened a larger question. If you were an immigrant and you came to the United States from a war-torn, impoverished, and dangerous place, like Somalia, shouldn’t you express gratitude? Ilhan Omar came here, to take one example, and she’s the most prominent example of this controversy right now. She came here at 13 and she was given every benefit of being a U.S. resident and then a U.S. citizen. She was given a generous scholarship to go to college. She was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. She was elected to Congress. I think she’s a four-term congresswoman. She insisted, even though she was an American citizen, to wear the traditional Somali hijab, even though there was a rule in the House, an old rule, that people don’t wear headwear or gear or hats inside the Capitol chambers when Congress is in session. They made a special exception just for her. But I mention this because she has a long line of indiscretions, and they form a pattern. She said that the United States was a trashy country. She said that the dictatorship in America, i.e., the Trump administration, was not much different from the one that she left in Somalia. She said that Charlie Kirk, right after his death, was a scholastic terrorist. I don’t know if that means a random terrorist or just an incidental terrorist or habitual terrorist, but that was a terrible thing to say right after his death. She also said that it’s the Benjamins, baby, when she was making the argument that, as she put it, we in the Congress don’t have to have an allegiance to a foreign country and implying that Jewish members put Israel ahead of the United States. And so, she’s been part of “the squad” and she’s had to apologize for some of her antisemitic rhetoric. She’s expressed overt criticism of the country that befriended her and allowed her to be educated at mostly at public cost, to be a representative of Congress, to write a book with a major New York publisher. She’s also, she put on one of her financial disclosures that she almost had a zero net worth. Now, after her marriage to Tim Mynett, who seems to have made quite a lot of money through his association with politicians, she now says that her, in her financial disclosure, that their net worth may be as great as $30 million. There’s also an accusation that, allegedly, allegedly, that she may have formalistically married her brother to ease his citizenship application, and then that marriage was legal and then it was dissolved as she married again. And we don’t know if that’s true, but one thing we do know, it’s true, she’s never said under oath, “I didn’t do that. I did not do that. I swear under oath that I never married my brother. And this is the proof.” So, at least we don’t have a testimony of that. She may have said it informally, but I don’t think in a court of law she said that. My point is that, in this greater discussion about the fraud that goes on in Minnesota and our worry about immigrants on campus, behind the wheel of a semi-truck, administering a fraudulent food program, coming across the southern border, and then committing acts of violence, maybe, just maybe, we should ask of our immigrants a little gratitude, that they left and voted with their feet to come to the United States. And in this whole nexus, Ilhan Omar stands out as a person for two reasons. As an immigrant example, this country has lavished no more benefits on anyone than her. Every imaginable opportunity was extended to her, and yet, in reciprocity for that, she’s attacked the president of the United States, she suggested that the country was trashy, she said that Charlie Kirk was a terrorist, she said 9/11—she said something happened on that day, something happened. No, not something happened, 3,000 Americans were murdered. And now she’s mysteriously a multimillionaire. And we still don’t know how the entire story of how citizenship was attained, from her brother and whether, as some people charge, she actually married him, which would be immigration fraud. And so, Ilhan Omar is an example of what’s wrong with legal and illegal immigration, that we allow people from countries that are, I don’t want to use the word “Third World,” but are in chaos, in tumult, they come as refugees, they’re extended every benefit, and very soon they realize that their advance or their success politically hinges on the degree to which they express themselves as victims or as hard leftist or as ingrates. And she’s done all of that. And it’s no surprise that she’s very prominent among the hard-left politicians, and she’s a quite wealthy woman. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post COVID-19-Era Grants Show How Identity Politics Can Shield Corruption appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The worst thing that has ever happened to the Capitol Building? “Air conditioning,” says Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. Burchett joined ”The Signal Sitdown” at the Republican Study Committee’s new media row to discuss how a group he calls the “war pimps” came to dominate Washington—and what he’s doing to try to stop them. Installing air conditioning in the Capitol, Burchett said, gave members of Congress the wrong impression: “These guys think they need to be year round,” he said, “I do more work when I’m at home, brother. This is a show up here.” Burchett explained that “a war pimp is somebody who profits off war and or that enjoys war because it furthers their career.” And this advancement is not only political, but financial. Members of Congress like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have often been criticized for trading stocks while going about their work on Capitol Hill drafting and passing legislation that will have large economic impacts, leading to massive returns. Perhaps nowhere is this behavior better demonstrated than with members of Congress who are charged with appropriating defense funds while being invested in defense companies. A report published by Sludge in September 2024 found that “more than 50 members of Congress own stock in defense contractors whose profits are soaring from giant Pentagon budgets and supplemental weapons packages.” The analysis found that the two defense companies members of Congress were most invested in, in 2023, were Honeywell and RTX (formerly Raytheon). Honeywell is known for its sensors and missile guiding technology, which is used by the Israelis. RTX, meanwhile, makes missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome. It’s not just the war in Gaza or aid to Israel, however. The war pimps don’t care what war it is, they just want their cut. “Look at Ukraine,” Burchett told The Daily Signal. “Under Biden, we gave Ukraine our missile defense system … then you turn around and you have to replenish our missile defense system, which is a multi-billion dollar no bid contract.” “Members of Congress own stock in that missile defense company, and apparently some of them bought it as soon as a couple of weeks before the president officially made that announcement,” Burchett continued. “So you’re in that dadgum committee and you get that information, you buy stock in it.” Burchett, however, said he is trying to end the practice on Capitol Hill with a bill that would ban members of Congress from owning or trading individual stocks. “Congress is infinitely broken and we are crooked as a dog’s leg.” The post GOP Congressman Exposes Practice That Makes Congress ‘Crooked As a Dog’s Leg’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Regulations from Obamacare and under the Biden administration not only increased the cost of health care, they’ve also making it more difficult to advance artificial intelligence and other technology in medicine, experts told a House panel Wednesday.  The regulations amount to “layers of permission” for health data, said Dr. Ziad Obermeyer, Blue Cross of California Distinguished Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley.  “When I started this work, it was so difficult to get the data that we needed here in the United States that I ended up doing this research in Sweden,” Obermeyer said at a joint hearing of two House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees. “That process took 10 years, but it was still faster than doing it here, despite European data regulations.” “The major culprit here is the many layers of permissions and approvals required to touch health data,” Obermeyer continued.  During the hearing, Rep. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., asked Obermeyer, “If artificial intelligence becomes significantly integrated into medical practice, what impact should we expect on the health care workforce?” Obermeyer said it would change the nature of work, but wouldn’t have the negative impact some anticipate.  “What we’ve learned from the history of automation and technology adoption is that it doesn’t necessarily eliminate jobs—it actually changes the nature of those jobs,” he said. “So, doctors will start to need to interact with these tools and learn from them. And I think they’ll start to augment the capabilities of especially nurses, community health workers, and others who can now have access to cutting edge technology applied to the data from patients to help them make better decisions.” Donalds asked, “Do you think that the Affordable Care Act’s regulatory framework allows for this type of internal innovation in the health care system?” Obermeyer said he couldn’t speak directly to Obamacare, but could talk about regulation more broadly.  “I think right now there are not very strong incentives for a lot of health systems to adopt this AI technology,” he said. “I think the access program that was recently announced from [the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services] is a good start in that direction by incentivizing preventive care, augmented by technology.” He said AI technology could “drives lower costs” and “detects the kinds of fraud, waste and abuse that you mentioned earlier.” The two panels were the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs and the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, asked Chris Jacobs, founder of Juniper Research Group, about the Affordable Care Act. “Obamacare was sold to the American people as a program that would drive down premiums,” he said. “I think the number that was thrown out by President Obama at the time was $2,500. Has that promise come to fruition?” Premiums on individual health insurance policies on the Affordable Care Act more than doubled in the law’s first four years, Jacobs said.  “That’s primarily because of the regulatory mandates that the law imposed,” Jacobs told the House panel. “And prices have continued, premiums have continued to increase substantially, and they continue to increase substantially, more so on the exchanges than for employer sponsored coverage.” Gill followed, “So you would say that Obamacare didn’t slow the growth of premiums in any meaningful way?” Jacobs said, “If anything, quite the contrary.” The post How Obama, Biden Regulations Slowed Technology Growth in Health Care appeared first on The Daily Signal.