Now that the longest government shutdown in history is over, it’s imperative that Washington lawmakers quickly prioritize pro-economic growth policies. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by recognizing that strong families are the backbone of a vibrant and prosperous economy. After all, every American family wants the same thing: the chance to work hard, provide for their children, and leave the next generation better off than the last. That promise—the American Dream—has always been rooted in two pillars: the dynamism of the free market and the strength of the family. When those two forces work together, our country flourishes. We’ve seen this in action. President Donald Trump’s Working Families Tax Cut Act simplified the tax code and lowered rates, freeing small businesses to hire, invest, and grow.  Over time, the economy is expected to continue growing. We are beginning to see positive signs that the economy is trending in the right direction. According to the latest figures, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 3.8% in the last quarter. Of course, many families continue feeling squeezed. The costs of child care, housing, and groceries are eating into paychecks. Many parents feel as if they are running faster only to stay in the same place. If we want a stronger economy tomorrow, we must strengthen families today. That means pairing the power of the free market with smart, pro-family policies. One of the most effective tools we have is the Child Tax Credit. Properly designed, the credit serves two important purposes: it offsets the rising costs of raising children, and it encourages families to remain in the workforce by rewarding their work. A stronger, fully work-linked Child Tax Credit would mean more money in parents’ pockets for essentials like child care and transportation—the very costs that often push families out of the labor force. In turn, our economy gains from higher workforce participation and a stronger middle class. Some worry that expanding the credit would distort the market. The truth is the opposite: families are the foundation of the market. Raising children is not a private luxury—it’s a public good. Tomorrow’s innovators, workers, and taxpayers are being raised around dinner tables today. If we do not account for the actual costs parents shoulder, we undermine the very system we rely on for growth. Beyond the Child Tax Credit, the path forward is clear: cut red tape that drives up family costs, ensure tax policy never penalizes marriage or child-rearing, and modernize workforce programs so parents can gain new skills without losing support. Each of these reforms strengthens families while reinforcing free-market principles. Washington lawmakers will have to prioritize addressing these issues as the latest government shutdown agreement provides funding until January 2026. This means that policymakers do not have a long runway to introduce, debate, and negotiate a bill to prevent another government shutdown. Lawmakers will naturally want to include their pet issue in these negotiations, but they would do well to remember that without strong families, the social fabric frays. Without a thriving workforce, the economy stagnates. But when free markets and families are both strong, America is unstoppable. The Working Families Tax Cut Act proved that bold reform could revive opportunity. Now we need to take the next step. Expanding the Child Tax Credit, cutting unnecessary regulations, and aligning policy with the realities of family life will ensure the American Dream for future generations. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post To Grow the Economy, Support Strong Families appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—President Donald Trump announced late Thursday his administration will “permanently pause” migration from all “Third World Countries,” after two National Guardsmen were shot near the White House by an Afghan national, killing one of them. West Virginia Army National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died Thursday from wounds sustained in Wednesday’s attack. She and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe were shot in the brutal attack allegedly carried out by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the country in September 2021 after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Wolfe remains in critical condition. “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country,” Trump wrote in a late Thursday Truth Social post. A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World,…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2025 Trump added that he would end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens who “undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.” Lakanwal — who had worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA — arrived in the U.S. in 2021 as part of the Biden administration’s “Operation Allies Welcome,” which resettled Afghans who had assisted American forces. He applied for asylum in 2024, and the Trump administration granted it in April 2025, according to Reuters. The suspect shouted “Allahu akbar!” before opening fire with a revolver, independent journalist Julio Rojas reported. As of December 2024, over 180,000 Afghans had been resettled in the country since the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, according to the State Department. “Hundreds of thousands of people poured into our Country totally unvetted and unchecked,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We will fix it, but will never forget what Crooked Joe Biden and his Thugs did to our Country!” Following the shooting, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the “processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals” would be paused “indefinitely.” USCIS also said Thursday it would conduct a full-scale reexamination of all green cards issued to people from 19 countries “of concern” at the president’s direction. The agency added in a subsequent statement that when vetting migrants from those countries, it will consider “negative, country specific factors,” including whether the country is able to “issue secure identity documents.” At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.— USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow (@USCISJoe) November 27, 2025 The White House referred Daily Caller News Foundation to Trump’s Truth Social posts. Originally published by Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Trump Vows to End Third World Migration After Fatal National Guard Shooting appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case against President Donald Trump has officially come to an end. Judge Scott McAfee agreed to dismiss the racketeering case on Wednesday after the prosecutor who inherited Willis’ troubled effort urged him to take it off “life support.” “The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over,” Trump’s lead Georgia defense counsel Steve Sadow said in a statement. “This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.” Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia (PACGA) Executive Director Peter Skanadlakis, who was tasked with finding Willis’ replacement after she was disqualified from prosecuting the case, took over on Nov. 14 after failing to find another attorney willing to do it. “As a former elected official who ran as both a Democrat and a Republican and now is the Executive Director of a non-partisan agency, this decision is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law,” Skanadlakis wrote Wednesday. BREAKING: Judge Scott McAfee agreed to dismiss Fani Willis' case against Trump and co-defendants at the request of the new prosecutor who took over. pic.twitter.com/T4pdrLbiFz— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) November 26, 2025 Skanadlakis explained the charges would be more appropriate for a federal case, like the one brought by special counsel Jack Smith, not a state case. Smith was forced to abandon his effort after Trump won the 2024 election. “Overt acts such as arranging a phone call, issuing a public statement, tweeting to the public to watch the Georgia Senate subcommittee hearings, texting someone to attend those hearings, or answering a 63-minute phone call without providing the context of that conversation, just to name a few examples, are not acts I would consider sufficient to sustain a RICO case,” Skandalakis wrote. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a ruling disqualifying Willis from the case in September. Defense attorneys moved to disqualify Willis in January 2024 for awarding her romantic partner, Nathan Wade, a “lucrative” contract to work on the case, claiming she improperly benefited when he took her on cruises and vacations. Willis falsely claimed she paid all the special prosecutors working on the case the same hourly rate, though contracts first reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation showed she paid Wade a higher rate than the state’s top racketeering expert. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation The post Fani Willis’ Case Against Trump Is Officially Over appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The current American political landscape overflows with sharp conflict and disdainful rhetoric. The norm for American political discourse has alarmingly mutated from spirited good-faith debate into no-holds-barred, personal, and unproductive quarrels. We have seen this unfortunate transformation transpire on the floors of Congress, forums on social media platforms, and even dinner tables at Thanksgiving. As political tension continues to escalate, it is critical to find common ground issues that can unite us and act as release valves for the deep political strains currently hampering American civic society.  Defending religious liberty for all is a timely political issue that can help restore and repair the severed tapestry of American political life. A comprehensive defense of religious liberty fosters civic virtues such as charity, restraint, and a willingness to accommodate differing viewpoints. The survival of our constitutional order depends on these civic virtues. In his book “American Covenant,” Yuval Levin discusses how the polity of republicanism requires a type of citizen for its sustainment. Republicanism offers its own “anthropology,” or the blueprint of the human person. Levin discusses how traits like selflessness, restraint, and accommodation mark the archetypal citizen needed to preserve a republican system of government. As Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Citizens that succumb to selfishness and the desire to dominate political opponents will find it near impossible to properly function in a system of ordered representation and the checks, balances, and compromises necessary for diverse peoples to live together.  The Founders also recognized both the necessity and rarity of civic virtues. James Madison argued in Federalist 51 that the reason why we need checks on governmental power is because men are not angels, neither are they naturally inclined to pursue such a status. At the same time, the Founders acknowledged that the law is a teacher and can shape the character of its constituents. That recognition motivated the Founders to draft a constitution that could channel human fallibility toward a system of government that promotes liberty and justice for all through the structure of federalism, separation of powers, and protection of individual rights. Among other virtue-encouraging constitutional provisions, few, if any, are more prominent than the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Protecting our first freedom of religious liberty, the free exercise clause is also a pedagogical instrument for promoting the anthropology of republicanism. For religious citizens, it clarifies that firmly held beliefs and civic accommodation are not mutually exclusive, thus promoting both forbearance and religious formation. One can believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ provide the only way for forgiveness of sins against God and restoration to fellowship with the Father, while still permitting those who disagree, such as Jews, Muslims, and others, to freely worship in their own ways, or to believe nothing at all. Our constitutional system allows Americans of different religious backgrounds to accommodate each other while, at the same time, strengthening their own religious beliefs, convictions, and practices. The free exercise clause shows that religious convictions are not in a zero-sum game with civic accommodation. Citizens can and should exercise fervor in faith, which may manifest in evangelistic efforts, while maintaining charity in civic relations with those of different religious stripes.  The free exercise clause provides wide latitude for Americans to hold and exercise religious beliefs. Subsequent statutes like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act reinforce this constitutional provision. This is because the government is not the proper institution to decide who is preaching truth and who is preaching heresy. As the Supreme Court declared in Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 728 (1871), “[t]he law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect.” The court’s declaration is not a constitutional mandate for a bland moral relativism, neither for a religious lukewarmness that believes all religions are correct. Instead, the denominationally neutral phrasing of the free exercise clause promotes both robust assertions of absolute truth and the emergence of numerous religious systems in American society.  Moreover, the free exercise clause and its statutory descendants invaluably protect an individual’s right of conscience and decisions to live out general religious convictions that emanate from the conscience. The experiences of the earliest American colonists demonstrate the need for protecting the religious liberty of all Americans because that is the antecedent to any and all exercises of freedom. The protection of religious liberty necessarily extends to the protection of the individual conscience, or “inner voice,” and beliefs about ultimate questions. The basis for protecting the conscience is the biblical concept that all people are created in the Imago Dei and are thus entitled to liberty in exercising their reason when considering life’s biggest questions. This is why the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom also affects areligious Americans. Even though they do not subscribe to any religion, areligious people also make decisions based on their conscience and contemplate deep questions about reality and human purpose. Were it not for the free exercise clause, the government would be able to mandate a specific religious viewpoint, and by extension, interfere in the inner conscience and place the intellectual freedom of all Americans at risk.   When the government tries to dictate to citizens what to think, that threatens the whole constellation of constitutional liberties. If the government was allowed to control citizens’ thoughts, there is no defense against a snowballing infringement of external constitutional rights, like the right to bear arms, receive a trial by jury, or by protected from cruel and unusual punishment. That is why the First Amendment is first among equals. When we prohibit the government from forcing beliefs onto citizens or censoring beliefs that conflict with the current prevailing orthodoxy, it sends the clear message that ordered liberty defines republicanism and requires a panoply of constitutional provisions to protect the individual and to safeguard this structure of government. It is with gratitude that we reflect on the Founders’ decision to amplify this message by way of enshrining religious liberty with the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.   We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Importance of Religious Liberty and the Anthropology of Republicanism appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Department of Education may soon be closing shop, but that doesn’t mean the Trump administration’s attempt to course-correct higher education in America is finished. Given that it is over a year since the American people elected President Donald Trump, it’s a good time to review how his administration has done on one of its most important tasks: cure elite institutions, higher education particularly, of the diversity, equity, and inclusion madness. Given how central these programs have become to elite universities, it’s no surprise they haven’t abandoned them without a fight. There is still a huge amount of work to be done. But several departments in the Trump administration have been relentless in trying to remove this destructive and illegal doctrine from our schools. Here are some of the most important steps Trump has taken so far. Executive Order on DEI The perhaps biggest blow to DEI in higher education came at nearly the moment Trump entered office when he signed a flurry of executive orders, including “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” It essentially repealed President Joe Biden’s Day One executive order that transformed the federal government into the primary enforcer of the “Great Awokening.” “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,” the order read. Mike Gonzalez at The Heritage Foundation called this and other similar orders the “policy equivalent of the Romans salting the Carthaginian fields after reducing their Mediterranean city-state enemy to ruins: Promoting racial preferences was after all the hallmark of the defeated and dispatched Biden administration.” The Trump executive order drastically changed how federal departments would do business, but most importantly in terms of higher education, it opened up the possibly to review the vast array of grants handed out to higher education that promoted DEI. DOGE and the Department of Education It was through the executive orders on DEI that the Department of Government Efficiency began to review grants being distributed to colleges and universities with an eye toward removing those that promoted the now-illegal DEI. This included $373 million at the Department of Education that had been funding 70 DEI training grants for teachers. One grant, according to the New York Post, was reportedly funding teachers to “engage in ongoing learning and self-reflection to confront their own biases and racism, and develop asset-based anti-racist mindsets.” While it’s certainly a huge and positive development that the Department of Education is shutting down, those keeping the light on inside have done an excellent job of continuing this work of removing bogus DEI grants. In February they canceled “18 grants totaling $226 million that were awarded under the Comprehensive Centers Program.” Among the things being funded by these grants was a “video instructing teachers to ‘flick that white man off your shoulder’ in order to resist the ‘settler patriarchy’ and the ‘white gaze.’” Instead of just running on autopilot, the Department of Education actively went about cutting off the arms of their own DEI octopus. Civil Rights Lawsuits Another way of going after DEI in higher education came from civil rights law. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, color, or national origin.” It was through this that the Department of Education and Department of Justice threatened colleges and universities with lawsuits and withholding of funds if they did not stop programs that discriminated based on race. For instance, the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights sent a so-called Dear Colleague letter to Harvard University, informing the school that the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard disallowing race-based affirmative action programs would be enforced. The letter indicated that programs that “may appear neutral on their face” but in fact facilitate racial discrimination would be subject to scrutiny. The Trump administration has used Title VI as a means to freeze hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to universities it says are in violation of the law. The State Department has recently jumped about this effort to remove DEI from higher education too. According to a report in The Guardian, the State Department released a memo on Nov. 17 seeking to exclude 38 universities from the Diplomacy Lab federal research program because they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices.” Civil Rights Lawsuits, Title IX Edition The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, led by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, has aggressively applied Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to root out another major component of the DEI revolution. The Department of Education has also been launching investigations of Title IX violations. DOJ has investigated schools from K-12 to university level for allowing men to infiltrate women’s sports and women’s spaces. “Title IX exists to protect women and girls in education. It is perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies,” Dhillon said in May. “This Division will aggressively defend women’s hard-fought rights to equal educational opportunities.” The University of Pennsylvania made a deal with the Trump administration to keep federal funding by saying that it would no longer allow men to compete in women’s sports. UPenn had previously allowed Lia Thomas, a man, to compete in women’s swimming. The school was also required to issue an apology to past female swimmers. The post Here Are 4 Ways Trump Has Successfully Pressured Higher Ed to Abandon DEI appeared first on The Daily Signal.