Republicans are firing back after a group of six Democrat lawmakers created a video telling U.S. military members and the intelligence community they do not need to follow “illegal orders.”   “Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” the Democrats say in the video message. “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. … You must refuse illegal orders.”   Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin shared the video, which appears to be in reference to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations, on X Tuesday, telling the military and intelligence community, the “American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution. Don’t give up the ship.”   We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) November 18, 2025 In addition to Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., also appears in the video alongside Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire. All six Democrats formerly served in the U.S. Military or intelligence community.   “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution,” the elected leaders say. “We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant. But whether you’re serving in the CIA, the Army, our Navy, the Air Force—your vigilance is critical, and know that we have your back because now, more than ever, the American people need you.”   The video earned over five million views on X in less than 24 hours, and drew critique from the White House.   “Democrat lawmakers are now openly calling for insurrection,” Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, wrote on X.   Kelly then fired back at Miller, writing, “I got shot at serving our country in combat, and I was there when your boss sent a violent mob to attack the Capitol. I know the difference between defending our Constitution and an insurrection, even if you don’t.”   Crow also responded to Miller’s critique, calling the White House official “Snowflake Stephen.”   “The President is trampling on the Constitution,” Crow added. “Stop politicizing our troops. Stop illegal military strikes. Stop pitting our service members against the American people.”  Oh no, we triggered Snowflake Stephen!The President is trampling on the Constitution.Stop politicizing our troops.Stop illegal military strikes.Stop pitting our servicemembers against the American people. https://t.co/6r4AAy8l43— Rep. Jason Crow (@RepJasonCrow) November 18, 2025 Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called the Democrat’s video “Stage 4 [Trump Derangement Syndrome.”   John Frankman, a former Green Beret and outspoken conservative commentator, questioned the video following his own experience in the military.   “When I was a Special Forces Captain, I refused the unlawful order to receive an experimental shot and was forced out of the Army for it,” Frankman wrote on X, referring to the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for military members.   The famed Libs of TikTok X account shared the video, accusing the Democrats of “encouraging members of the military to commit treason and DEFY orders from [President Donald] Trump and Hegseth.”   The post Republicans Fire Back at Democrats Who Tell Military Members to ‘Refuse Illegal Orders’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The House is one step closer to considering Rep. Brandon Gill’s, R-Texas, major legislative overhaul of how illegal aliens are deported from the United States. A proposed bill called the Expedited Removal of Criminal Aliens Act has passed out of the House Judiciary Committee and now may go before the full House for a floor vote. The legislation would reform the Immigration and Nationality Act by giving law enforcement more authority to swiftly remove individuals who have entered the country unlawfully and have committed offenses against members of a vulnerable group or are a part of a criminal or terrorist organization.  Gill told The Daily Signal that “for far too long, Democrat leaders have allowed illegal aliens to get away with unspeakable crimes on our soil, turning a blind eye to the suffering American families who call this land home.” “It’s time to empower our brave men and women in law enforcement to get foreign bad actors out of our country quickly, before they have a chance to cause more pain,” Gill added. The legislation could be a boon to the Trump administration’s efforts to get illegal immigration under control. The administration has effectively shut down illegal immigration on the southern border, secured billions in additional funding for border security in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and is implementing mass deportations to enforce federal law. President Donald Trump has also designated major drug cartels and criminal organizations as foreign terrorist organizations in an effort to combat their activities in the United States. Gill’s legislation would give law enforcement more legal authority to quickly remove criminal illegal aliens whose removal can be tied up in court for years under the current system. It explicitly allows law enforcement to remove an illegal alien if they have committed a felony or misdemeanor against a member of a vulnerable group. The bill defines a vulnerable group as a child who is younger than 16, a pregnant woman, a person with severe mental or physical disability, or a person who is older than 65 years old. Expediting immigration enforcement comes at a time when the United States is still reeling after millions of illegal aliens entered the country during the Biden administration. Gill’s legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Barry Moore of Alabama, Wesley Hunt of Texas, Randy Fine of Florida, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Chip Roy of Texas, Troy Nehls of Texas, Michael Cloud of Texas, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Ben Cline of Virginia. Congress also passed the Laken Riley Act earlier this year, which strengthened penalties for illegal aliens charged with serious crimes. That legislation was named in honor of Laken Riley, an American nursing student who was killed by an illegal alien in Georgia while she was out jogging on February 22, 2024. The post House Advances Rep. Gill Legislation to Expedite Deportations appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice have a great opportunity to advance the cause of protecting children from exploitation, an opportunity that previous attorneys general—from both parties—have failed to grasp. In 2008, Congress unanimously enacted the PROTECT Our Children Act, requiring that the attorney general “create and implement a National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.” The law listed 19 comprehensive elements this strategy must include, such as long-range goals, measurable objectives and targets, budget priorities, a review of “the policies and work of the Department of Justice related to the prevention and investigation of child exploitation crimes,” interagency coordination plans, plans for reducing forensic lab backlogs, and a review of available data regarding domestic and international child pornography trafficking. The law required the attorney general to submit the initial strategy to Congress by Oct. 13, 2009, and “every second year thereafter.” Attorneys general of both parties have failed miserably to meet this obligation. Attorney General Eric Holder submitted the strategy in August 2010, ten months after it was due, and skipped it completely in 2011. Even after the Government Accountability Office criticized the Justice Department for failing to implement several provisions of the PROTECT Our Children Act, Holder failed to submit the strategy in 2013. Attorney General Loretta Lynch submitted the strategy due in October 2015, six months after it was due; Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed to submit it at all in 2017, as did Attorney General William Barr in 2019 and Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021. The Government Accountability Office issued another scathing report in 2022, observing that the Justice Department’s failures were “due in part to it not making the strategy a priority.” The law, for example, required the attorney general to designate a senior official as the strategy’s national coordinator. Instead, a string of nine temporary detailees had filled that position in the previous 13 years. The last strategy, submitted by Lynch in 2016, “did not fully include 12 of the 19 required elements established in law.” Garland submitted an updated strategy in 2023, only the third of the eight required since Congress enacted the PROTECT Our Children Act—and the only one that arrived on time. The deadline for the next one passed a month ago.  This is a miserable record of failure to address a growing crisis. The 2023 strategy described profound changes in the 15 years since Congress enacted the PROTECT Our Children Act, detailing how “modern technology is the perfect tool for sex offenders, giving them access to children… while concealing their identities and locations.” Today, the report said, “there are more victims and more offenders than ever before, and a seemingly endless stream of [child sexual abuse material] circulating online.” Just a year prior, the Government Accountability Office noted that “the strategy is not up-to-date on key technology advances that are making it more difficult to catch perpetrators.” Now, Bondi has an opportunity not only to meet her statutory obligation but to use an updated strategy to show that these past failures and deficiencies are being fixed. She also has another obligation. In 2018, Congress unanimously enacted a law to make the existing statute requiring restitution for child pornography victims more effective. An analysis published earlier this year by The Heritage Foundation showed that under the new law, the median amount of restitution ordered for child pornography victims has nearly tripled and the portion of defendants who avoid paying any restitution has plunged by two-thirds. The new law created the “Defined Monetary Assistance Victims Reserve,” funded by a special assessment on convicted offenders, to provide a one-time restitution if a victim chooses to avoid seeking restitution through litigation. The law also required the attorney general to submit to Congress a report “on the progress of the Department of Justice in implementing the [new restitution law]…includ[ing] an assessment of the funding levels for the Child Pornography Victims Reserve.” That report was due five years ago but has never been submitted. Combatting child exploitation is one of the increasingly rare issues that is not plagued by partisan or ideological division and rancor. The crisis is getting worse and, sadly, our leaders have failed to do what they are legally required to do to protect children. Bondi should seize the opportunity to correct this injustice. The post Attorney General Bondi: Seize the Opportunity to Fight Child Exploitation appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Advocates of transgender medical interventions euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” often seek to silence critics, rather than engaging in a debate on the science—and one of the authors of the Department of Health and Human Services’ report on the issue says he thinks he knows why. HHS published a review of the evidence regarding medical transition for minors in May, finding “extremely weak evidence” for any benefits from “gender-affirming care.” HHS sought peer review, submitting its report to medical professionals and pro-transgender health associations. Yet two of the three pro-transgender groups HHS approached refused to engage, and the remaining organization appeared not to have read the full report. The back-and-forth appears in a supplement to the final review, published Tuesday. “HHS offered the leading organizations advocating for these treatments an opportunity to have their experts participate in a rigorous peer-review process and point out whether the review might have made errors or omissions,” Leor Sapir, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and one of the review’s nine contributors, told The Daily Signal. “As the supplement clearly shows, no such errors or omissions could be identified.” “Perhaps that’s why advocates of these controversial drugs and surgeries prefer to silence critics and engage in smear campaigns,” he added. The HHS Review The HHS review, which President Donald Trump ordered in January, found that most children will grow out of gender dysphoria, the persistent and painful sense of identifying with the gender opposite one’s biological sex. The review notes that transgender medical interventions “carry risk of significant harms” including sterility, lower bone density, brain impacts, diseases, and more. It laments a lack of research into whether therapy, rather than drugs or surgeries, can manage gender dysphoria. The review does not present itself as a clinical practice guideline, but it makes the case that experimental “gender-affirming care” likely does more harm than good for minors. The APA Questions Methodology HHS reached out to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Endocrine Society—three organizations that support “gender-affirming care” and had publicly criticized the May review. The AAP and the Endocrine Society refused to participate, and while the reviewers thanked the APA for submitting a response, they thoroughly dismantled its arguments against the review. The APA faulted the review’s methodology, but the HHS reviewers noted that APA’s concerns had been addressed in Appendix 4 of the review, which laid out the methodology in great detail. Two non-HHS academics who specialize in methodology also found the HHS review’s practices sound and rigorous. The reviewers note that APA’s “unfounded criticism may have resulted from a failure to read core parts of the review.” The APA feedback also listed 16 studies “for review and consideration,” suggesting that the HHS review failed to consider them. On the contrary, HHS reviewers responded that 12 of the 16 studies had indeed been discussed in the review. Three of the remaining four studies do not pertain to youth outcomes or gender medicine, and the final study had not been published until after the review. Mistaken Assumptions APA faulted the HHS review for supposedly failing to examine “potential harms” to minors who do not undergo transgender medical interventions. The reviewers responded that the research showed “no credible evidence of benefits” from interventions compared with no interventions, and therefore “no credible evidence of harms from not providing” interventions. Furthermore, the reviewers noted that APA’s claim suggests there’s something inherently wrong with the normal process of puberty, an assumption reviewers reject. The Cass Review APA also claimed the HHS review failed to consider certain conclusions of the research published by Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician and former president of Britain’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, who conducted an extensive 2020 review. APA quoted a section of the Cass Review stating, “for some, the best outcome will be transition.” The HHS reviewers said APA had mischaracterized the Cass Review: “When properly understood in context, … the quote is best understood as one consideration in a more nuanced line of clinical reasoning.” The Cass Review found “weak” evidence for benefits from interventions, and that doctors are unable to determine which minors will persist in a transgender identity. “Any reasonable interpretation of the Cass Review’s statement that ‘for some, the best outcome will be transition,’ must grapple with its findings about lack of evidence for benefit and deep uncertainties about diagnosis,” the reviewers added. The State of Transgender ‘Medicine’ A St. Louis University professor, Johan C. Bester, lamented the state of gender medicine in his comment on the HHS review. He said doctors in the field “appear to have an a priori commitment” to medical interventions. “What came first was certainty that these treatments are beneficial and medically necessary. What came second was seeking for evidence that would justify this proposition after the fact. When no evidence was forthcoming, shifting justifications for treatment emerged.” Bester lamented that commitment to the interventions became a “litmus test” and a “matter of politics and activism.” Recent news underscores his observations. The final HHS report comes less than a month after transgender activist pressure led to the revocation of accreditation for a peer-reviewed course on the harms of “gender-affirming care.” Those activists cited the Southern Poverty Law Center, which compares groups of doctors who question “gender-affirming care” to chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. Transgender advocates will likely demonize the HHS’s final report, but this time they will do so after HHS gave pro-transgender critics the opportunity to respond—and after they largely failed to engage with the material. Estimated reading time: 5 minutes The post New HHS Report on Transgender ‘Care’ for Minors Reveals Why Activists Try to ‘Silence Critics,’ Contributor Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Heritage Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2026 Innovation Prizes, which provide a total of $1 million annually to conservative organizations pitching creative policy solutions. Each year since 2022, Heritage has recognized conservative nonprofits for projects involving education, outreach, communications, litigation, and research for ideas promoting self-governance in America. “America is one of the most critical turning points in her history,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said. “That’s why Heritage created the Innovation Prize. It’s about serving the movement and uniting conservatives—particularly outside the Beltway—to provide creative solutions to the most pressing problems facing the country.” Past recipients include the American College of Pediatricians, Alliance Defending Freedom, Forge Leadership Network, Napa Legal Institute, State Armor, and Center for Christian Virtue. In 2024, The College Fix, a nonprofit media outlet, received a $100,000 prize. John J. Miller, founder and executive director of The College Fix, told The Daily Signal that winning the Innovation Prize was “a blessing.” “It allowed The College Fix to create a video series that has educated the public about the role of a free press in a free society and helped us recruit new writers,” Miller said. “We had such a positive experience with making the episodes that we’ve now taken our proven model of working with young journalists in print media and expanded it into the visual media, as we work to build a talent pipeline that will get more conservatives into the professional media. We’re grateful to the Heritage Foundation for making it all possible.”  Adam Josefczyk, co-founder and president of Forge Leadership Network, aid of their winning a 2022 Prize: “The relationships at Heritage have been so powerful. What the prize represents in terms of their partnership, which has been so robust and encouraging, has changed the organization.” Click here to learn more about the 2026 Innovation Prizes and the process for applying. The post Heritage Foundation Opens Applications for $1 Million in Innovation Prizes appeared first on The Daily Signal.