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’d like to talk about our two cold wars, the one that we won against Russia and the one that we’re de facto in against China. They’re very different. And I would argue that the 45-year Cold War with Russia was much easier to win, despite their 7,000 nukes, than it will be with China for a variety of reasons that we should all be aware of. No. 1, Russia was Russia, kind of a pariah state. It was isolated from the so-called free world. Europe was Europe, and Asia and the United States had guardrails against it. There were no students de facto from Russia in the United States. None. Statistically, almost none. There was no conduit for espionage or the expropriation of American scientific and engineering knowledge out of our Ph.D. programs, MBA programs, you name it. There was very little espionage by students. There were very few Russian nationals in the United States. We just didn’t let them in. There was no American investor class in Russia. Remember how controversial Armand Hammer was? He was the head of Occidental Petroleum. He had the pencil monopoly in Russia. His parents had been living in Russia. They had been pro-communist, at least his father, as I recall. And then they’d gone back to the United States. He’d grown up part of his youth in Russia. He spoke fluent Russian. And he was our de facto business liaison with the communist government. Every time there was a JFK or Nixon or Johnson administration, and they wanted a back channel, they called up Armand Hammer. I don’t know quite what his sympathies were, but he was about the only one, and he was a pariah. People were angry at him. Take the example with China today. It’s much different. And funny, there was a sense that Russia had very bad propaganda. People thought that Russians were crude. They thought they were cruel, that nobody liked them in the Third World when they came in. Even today in Hollywood, have you noticed that almost every villain in every movie is a Russian? He has that kind of guttural Russian accent. He’s got a shaved head. He has a tattoo when he takes off his shirt. He’s covered with tattoos. There’s the three-bar Orthodox cross. It’s a very cruel caricature, but we don’t do that with China. And remember that we thought we were going to be blown up by Russia. They had 7,000 nuclear weapons. They had the mother of all bombs. I think it was a 50- or 100-megaton bomb they dropped. It was all over our childhood in school. That propaganda wasn’t propaganda. Actually, it was the truth. I can remember having to do drills. So, we were clear who the enemy was and what they were capable of. China is very different. They were an ally of ours in World War II. But unlike Russia, that we did not include in the Marshall Plan, and we stopped Lend-Lease right after, we had a much more empathetic view. China was deindustrialized. It didn’t really have a chance. It hadn’t made a deal with Hitler as the Russians did. It had been preyed upon by Japan. And so, there had been American missionaries, not colonialists or imperialists. We never had an imperial project in China. But it was sort of a goodwill. It wasn’t even lost during the Korean War. We had this good feeling about China, and there are 300,000 students. People in the administration, I don’t know why, are thinking of having 600,000. If you have 1% engaged in active espionage, that would mean you would have 3,000 students who are actively trying to glean information in labs, in research projects, in joint endeavors with American academics, sending that home. Almost every student who leaves the United States and goes home to China is interrogated by the intelligence arms of the People’s Liberation Army. It’s nothing—the Russians had no such clout. There were almost no, as I said, no Russians here. Three to 5 million people are foreign-born from China. I think 3 million of them who are in the United States are not U.S. citizens. They’re residents. That would be unheard of in the Cold War with Russia. I don’t know how much investment there is, but it seems like every American capitalist has made a fortune in China. People have suggested it might be trillions of dollars over the last 40 years. I’m not saying they have dual loyalties, but there’s an insidious idea that China’s not really an enemy because of the massive amount of money that has been invested there. And that means, put the Chinese students, the Chinese residents, the foreign investment, and our history of empathy with China—it’s very, very hard to tell people that China is an existential enemy in the way that Russia was. And we all know that they played the DEI, woke propaganda card. Especially, we saw that with COVID. It wasn’t just that we were supposed to believe that crazy idea that a sick pangolin or a bat 100 miles away gave the world COVID when the Wuhan lab was right there, a level 4 lab with American expertise, instrumentation, and some money provided by whom? Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak, and others, Francis Collins, perhaps. And so, what I’m getting at is, every time that we tried to criticize the corruption of the World Health Organization or China, they came back and said, here you go again. You’re racist. You’re racist. This is the Yellow Peril all over again. This is the Rape of Nanking, your style. It was almost as if they had studied the DEI mosaic in the United States, and they had tapped into it in a way that the Russians couldn’t. They were lily-white, guttural-speaking enemies on the Hollywood big screen. And the result of that is, as we speak today, can you imagine if there were Russian bio labs? One was about 10 miles from here. I used to work there in high school at the packing house. It was used later by this operative of the Chinese Communist Party. There was one in Las Vegas. There may be more. Can you imagine if the Russians bought farmland next to U.S. high-security military bases? We would have never allowed that to happen. We would have never funded a Russian lab. So, there are so many different ways that China has infiltrated the cultural, social, economic, political life, the military life of the United States, that they are much more insidious, much more powerful. And of course, they have 1.4 billion people. The Soviet Union at its height, I think, had 240 million. So, they are a much more formidable enemy, and they’re much more adept at knowing where we are strong and especially where we are weak. 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. The post China’s Quiet Infiltration of America appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“I learned a long time ago, keep your d— mouth shut if you want to stay in show business,” said the great Dolly Parton. Do you know where she stands on immigration enforcement, veganism, or Gaza? Me neither.  Uninformed virtue signaling is a staple of the U.S. entertainment industry. Freeing Tibet, global warming, masking and vaccines, all had their day. Now, the performers have collectively agreed to honor the First Woke Commandment: You Shall Have No Borders. The woke swarm has collectively decided that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal sub-agency charged with enforcing immigration law, should not enforce immigration law. In practice, this means that the U.S. should admit anyone who wants to come here, and that we should not expel them under any circumstances once they are in. That used to be a radical, ultra-Left, or even anarchist view. Paid athletes and performers now pretend ICE agents are unsanctioned storm troopers in President Donald Trump’s private army, rather than federal agents carrying out valid law enforcement to the best of their ability–in the teeth of deliberate, organized disruption by paid activists. You’d think that creative artists would be more imaginative, but comparisons to Nazi Germany are their usual go-to. At last September’s Emmy awards, which are for television shows I don’t watch, Hannah Einbinder of HBO’s “Hacks” skillfully mixed sports with domestic and foreign policy by saying “go Birds, f— ICE, and free Palestine.” Einbinder, who is Jewish, wants to boycott Israel, to persuade them to–I think–allow Hamas to rearm and continue their benevolent rule in Gaza. Einbinder’s co-star Jean Smart sported a “Be Good” badge, a reference to Minneapolis resident Renee Good who was killed last month while obstructing federal agents in an organized campaign. Smart, Mark Rufalo, Wanda Sykes, and other actors wore the same badge. None of them, as far as I know, ever wore a badge in memory of an American killed by an illegal alien. At the recent Grammy music awards, a musician called Bad Bunny said “ICE out” and rambled about love. Two of my favorite singers, Carole King and Joni Mitchell, sported anti-ICE badges. Yet I won’t be burning my vinyl of “Tapestry or Court and Spark,” just like I didn’t burn Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Carry On” because Neil took his music off Spotify in 2022 when Joe Rogan critiqued Covid vaccine mandates. I expect musicians to let their freak flags fly. But I bought their product and I’ll keep it. Someone named Shaboozey also sported an anti-ICE badge. I won’t burn his album either, because I don’t have it, and also I don’t think the medium he uses to publish his music is flammable. Justin Bieber did not wear a badge on the boxer shorts he wore to perform, nor was an anti-ICE message part of his body-encompassing tattoo collection. Probably an oversight. Performers Billie Eilish, SZA, and Kehlani reportedly took precious award-stage time to criticize ICE. Eilish reassured us that “no one is illegal on stolen land,” though she seems intent on keeping people off hers. Last weekend, Mr. Bunny presented the half-time show at the Superbowl. Though not wearing a dress, he presented a message about Latin American solidarity to whatever portion of the audience was fluent in both Spanish and mumbling. “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” summarized the Jumbotron in English. How profound. In the sports world, we now have the winter Olympics. The temptation for our athletes to signal virtue as well as talent is strong. Team USA changed the name of their hospitality house from Ice House to Winter House. Did they imagine Italians confused it with a detention center? The gist seems to be to equate enforcing federal immigration laws with “hate and fear” and law-breaking activism with “peace and love.” Some athletes want to represent only part of America. This summer, we’ll endure the FIFA World Cup of soccer. Gary Lineker, a retired player and long-time television commentator from England, sold his podcast to Netflix and will want to be in the USA to cover the games. Lineker is a leftist who dislikes our president. He favors mass migration, and in 2023 compared the former Conservative government’s attempt to stem asylum fraud as “immeasurably cruel,” likening the home secretary’s choice of language to–wait for it–Germany in the 1930s. Back in 2018, journalist Laura Ingraham asked basketball star LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” and stop talking politics. She caught hell for it but coined a neat catchphrase. So Gary, if you shut up and dribble, you are welcome to come to America to talk about soccer. I doubt President Trump knows who you are, and I don’t think he’s a big footie fan so you should be under his radar. And to Team USA, please just shut up and slip, slide, and jump. The less you say, the more we’ll marvel at your talent. As for the acting, music, and entertainment crowd, we’ll never be that lucky. They are so used to speaking the words of great writers that they arrogate profundity to their own opinions. The post Shut Up and Slide, Team USA appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It’s hard to wrap your head around the massive news President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Thursday. Trump and Zeldin estimated that the EPA will save taxpayers over $1.3 trillion by eliminating the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which served as the bedrock for a host of greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles in model years 2012 to 2027. The Clean Air Act of 1970 directed the EPA to regulate “any air pollutant” that could “endanger public health or welfare.” In 2006, Massachusetts and eleven other states sued the agency, demanding that it regulate greenhouse gas emissions on the theory that the emissions contribute to climate change and therefore endanger public health. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA must consider “whether greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change,” and the Obama administration issued the Endangerment Finding in 2009. Trump and Zeldin gave two strong reasons for reversing course on the finding. The Climate Data They noted that the climate alarmist predictions of harm from the burning of fossil fuels “did not materialize.” “Using the same types of models utilized by the previous administrations and climate change zealots, EPA now finds that even if the U.S. were to eliminate all GHG emissions from all vehicles, there would be no material impact on global climate indicators through 2100,” the agency’s press release notes. Indeed, various studies have shown that the burning of fossil fuels does not pose the existential threat that alarmists have repeatedly claimed. Climate models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change significantly overestimated warming trends, in part because they neglect to consider natural factors that play substantial roles in climate variability. Contrary to alarmist claims, climate change is not making hurricanes worse. Historical records of major river systems reveal patterns of variability, rather than consistent trends linked to human emissions. Furthermore, moderate warming and elevated carbon emissions can yield net benefits, such as reducing cold-related mortality and extending growing seasons. The Endangerment Finding Was Illegal Trump and Zeldin also weighed the legal foundation of the Endangerment Finding and found it wanting. Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act “does not provide statutory authority for EPA to prescribe motor vehicle and engine emission standards in the manner previously utilized, including for the purpose of addressing global climate change,” the press release argues. “A policy decision of this magnitude, which carries sweeping economic and policy consequences, lies solely with Congress.” A Huge Blow to the Climate Industrial Complex Climate activists have long used the federal bureaucracy to push their agenda, often circumventing Congress. As I describe in “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” climate alarmist groups fed staff and ideas into the Biden administration, pulling the levers of power while the president was asleep at the wheel. President Biden and VP Harris have repeatedly bragged about the "Inflation Reduction Act" as an historic investment in climate initiatives. The Biden-Harris administration has seen green activist groups infiltrate the federal government, using the bureaucracy as a revolving… pic.twitter.com/cUZJsVqBsG— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 21, 2024 The EPA is often ground zero for this grift. Climate groups would sue the EPA, claiming that it did not regulate enough of the economy. EPA staff, who largely supported the regulation, would settle the lawsuits, agreeing to implement the alarmist policy and pay the activist group in a settlement. Under Biden, the EPA managed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion fund administered through CitiBank as part of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The EPA rushed $20 billion to eight nonprofit groups after Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Zeldin has fought to claw back some of this money, and he confronted left-leaning journalists for repeatedly claiming that he had no evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse. A Win for Affordability Democrats talk a great deal about “affordability,” but they seem not to be concerned about how regulating oil and gas makes travel, electricity, and goods and services more expensive. According to the Energy Information Administration, 60% of American energy comes from fossil fuels, with 18.6% coming from nuclear energy and another 21.4% from wind, hydropower, and solar. As the federal government drops restrictions on the largest sources of energy in the country, that won’t just make it cheaper for you to fill up your gas tank—it will also decrease the cost of transporting goods and services, and it will decrease the cost of energy production, in general. Meanwhile, fewer government handouts for “clean energy” companies also means one less driver of inflation. The market will adjust for more companies to meet consumer demand, and if solar and wind truly are the way of the future, they should be able to compete on a level playing field. President Trump’s all-of-the-above energy strategy will likely make Americans wealthier, and give us more options for how to spend our money. Repealing the Endangerment Finding will spread positive ripple effects throughout the economy, and I, for one, am excited about what the future holds. The post MONUMENTAL: Trump Admin Unleashes American Energy by Rejecting Obama-Era Endangerment Finding appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Justice Department is missing out on collecting $10 billion from convicted criminals to go to crime victims, according to federal prosecutors.  Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, led a letter with four other Republican senators telling Attorney General Pam Bondi that “there appears to be billions of dollars right at the DOJ’s finger tips that could be collected.”   Congress created the Crime Victims Fund in 1984 as a resource for survivors of crime. The fund is intended to be self-sustaining through collecting criminal penalties and fines from federal convictions. The theory, as noted in the senators’ letter, was “criminals, not innocent taxpayers, will pick up the tab for the havoc they force on victim’s lives.”   The senators’ primary concern is the 2024 United States Attorneys’ Annual Statistical Report, the most recent published, noting that $10 billion in outstanding fines remained uncollected.   The Government Accountability Office opened an inquiry into the fund after senators found in 2024 that the Biden administration was using money collected from criminal penalties to offset more than $1 billion in spending rather than directing it to the victims fund, according to the letter. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General also opened a review into the fund.  “In addition to holding criminals accountable, the collection of outstanding fines and penalties would allow DOJ to provide critical resources to support victims and survivors of crime nationwide, as these funds are statutorily required to be deposited into the CVF, with very limited exceptions,” the senators state.   Joining Grassley in the letter were Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine; Joni Ernst of Iowa; and Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho.   Grassley launched oversight efforts of the Crime Victims Fund in 2023, and the fund’s balance increased from $1 billion to $3.5 billion.   “While the CVF balance sits at $3.5 billion and appears trending in the right direction, DOJ still has a lot of work to do,” the senators say in the letter. “Specifically, there appears to be billions of dollars in outstanding criminal fines and penalties that are available for deposit into the CVF that DOJ has yet to collect.”  “According to reports, victim advocacy groups have been in search of additional funds to help shore up the CVF and to stave off potential cuts to the services they provide in our hometowns,” the letter states. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to inquiries for this story.   The senators gave a deadline of Feb. 25 to respond with “rolling updates” on the status of collecting criminal fines.   The post GOP Lawmakers Want to Know Why DOJ Hasn’t Collected $10 Billion for Crime Victims appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Border Patrol agents in California have arrested 23 individuals in a human smuggling bust, according to Customs and Border Protection.   Four of the individuals arrested are believed to be human smugglers, and 19 are Mexican nationals, the agency reported.   Border Patrol agents spotted a vehicle on Jan. 31 in the El Centro Sector of the U.S. border with Mexico, which they believed was being used for smuggling activity.  An investigation led agents to an apartment complex in Seeley, California, about 100 miles east of San Diego, where they saw individuals being transferred between vehicles.   Seven individuals attempted to flee the scene when agents approached, but officials pursued them. In addition to the 23 arrests, federal agents seized six vehicles that are connected to the investigation.   “El Centro Sector was the most secure section of the entirety of the 2,000-mile Southwest Border for fiscal [year] 2025, a fact that this transnational criminal organization must have overlooked,” acting Chief Patrol Agent Joseph A. Remenar says.   “Our agents are dedicated to ensuring that El Centro Sector retains this level of security moving forward, as evidenced by this noteworthy interdiction,” he said. “This criminal organization found out the hard way that El Centro is not a conducive environment to conduct their illicit activities.”  The 23 individuals CBP apprehended in Seeley, California, Jan. 31. (CBP) Those arrested face federal prosecution, according to the agency.   Encounters with illegal aliens at the southern border have declined significantly over the past 12 months.  CBP agents reported encountering 4,633 illegal aliens in the El Centro Sector in fiscal year 2025, down from over 17,000 in 2024 and over 50,000 in 2023.  Since returning to office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has taken a number of actions to discourage illegal immigration, including reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, ending the “catch and release” policy, installing more border walls, and launching a large-scale deportation operation across the U.S.   The post EXCLUSIVE: Border Patrol Stops Large Human Smuggling Attempt in California   appeared first on The Daily Signal.