President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to spend almost $200 million on programs aimed at countering China’s growing influence in Central America. According to a congressional notification obtained by The Associated Press, the State Department could oversee $175.8 million in an effort to replace aging undersea telecommunications cables in the Caribbean and Central America. The project is intended to prevent China from expanding its influence in the region through telecommunications infrastructure, benefiting projects in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Haiti. According to the congressional notification, the program would fund “the installation of strategically selected undersea cable infrastructure” and help foreign governments partner with private-sector cable installers. Policymakers and experts alike believe the administration’s efforts are crucial to America’s national security. A State Department official, who spoke anonymously, told PBS that China’s economic activities in the Western Hemisphere pose risks to U.S. national security and economic prosperity. When asked if this is an adequate move from the administration, Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., told the Daily Signal that despite countries like Venezuela and Colombia reestablishing relations with the United States under the Trump administration, “it is clear that the Chinese are abandoning things,” and “we have to make it clear that the Western Hemisphere belongs to America.” Last week, Fine took part in the first congressional delegation to visit Venezuela in over a decade. Steve Yates, a former White House national security adviser and current national security policy expert at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal that “this kind of Chinese influence from the Western Hemisphere is essential because undersea cables carry the vast majority of data traffic,” and because China’s control “creates persistent intelligence, surveillance, and disruption risks on America’s southern approaches.” “Chinese influence is already significant in ports, telecommunications equipment, space tracking facilities, and select digital projects across the region,” Yates continued. “This cable initiative is a timely step to prevent further entrenchment before the costs of remediation rise.” This is a practical way to implement the 2025 National Security Strategy’s mandate to deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to own or control strategically vital assets in the hemisphere, he added. The project aligns with the Federal Communications Commission’s June 2026 rules that tighten security standards, restrict Chinese equipment, and accelerate the deployment of trusted submarine cables. Yates added that this effort to reduce Chinese leverage around the Panama Canal supports the disruption of the China-origin fentanyl networks that rely on vulnerable regional infrastructure. A Broader Strategy This effort comes as part of a broader strategy to curb China’s influence across vulnerable corners of the globe. According to another internal department document obtained by The Associated Press, the State Department is considering spending nearly $500 million more on initiatives designed to counter China throughout the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Asia. “The United States must respond to the [Chinese Communist Party’s] growing economic, technological, and diplomatic leverage around the world, which undermines our national interests,” the document states. In a statement to PBS News, a senior U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the administration plans to increase funding to counter China but declined to discuss specific projects. The official added that many proposals remain under discussion.

One of Aesop’s best-known and most-beloved fables is the story of “The Dog and the Shadow,” which goes like this: “It happened that a Dog had got a piece of meat and was carrying it home in his mouth to eat it in peace. Now on his way home he had to cross a plank lying across a running brook. As he crossed, he looked down and saw his own shadow reflected in the water beneath. Thinking it was another dog with another piece of meat, he made up his mind to have that also. So he made a snap at the shadow in the water, but as he opened his mouth the piece of meat fell out, dropped into the water and was never seen more. “Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” I’ve been thinking a great deal about the fable this week, after reading that Julie Masino, the CEO of Cracker Barrel, has decided to step down from her position. According to an announcement made by the company, Masino will leave her executive role on Aug. 10 and will stay on with the company as an adviser until Oct. 9.     Masino, you may recall, was the CEO who, last year, introduced the new, stripped-down Cracker Barrel logo as part of a much larger, $700 million “transformation plan.” I’m not entirely sure why it cost almost three-quarters of a billion dollars to remove the beloved “Old Timer” from the logo, but then, they didn’t ask me. Maybe they should have. If they’d asked me, I might have told them that they were making a huge mistake. I might have warned them that their customer base would revolt. I might have told them that the backlash on social media and their consumers’ response would be overwhelming. I might have suggested that they ensure the rest of their house was in order and be certain that they were doing everything they could to make the company successful, both for its customers and its shareholders, before they started messing around with their decades-old, most identifiable, beloved public image. I might have told them to slow down, that they were—wittingly or unwittingly—walking into a political minefield. But again, they didn’t ask me. And as it turns out, they didn’t ask those customers and shareholders either. To be fair, the logo, in and of itself, wasn’t that big a deal. But, as I noted here last year just after the logo story exploded: “There’s a reason I put those four words—’in and of itself’—in italics. In and of itself, the logo does not matter. In a vacuum, it’s irrelevant. But we don’t exist in a vacuum, and major corporate rebranding efforts signified by logo redesign rarely, if ever, occur ‘in and of themselves.’ In most cases, such rebranding efforts are indicative of a change in thinking among corporate executives.” This was true at Bud Light, of course. And Target. And Harley-Davidson. And countless other companies whose executives thought they could get involved in political or cultural issues, largely in opposition to the desires and beliefs of their customers, only to find that those customers reacted poorly to their changes—and that their shareholders reacted poorly to their customers’ unhappiness. It was true at Cracker Barrel as well. As Robby Starbuck—my colleague at The Heritage Foundation’s Free Enterprise Initiative—demonstrated, Cracker Barrel’s executives and directors had long been pushing the company into political spaces and into associations with left-wing political organizations, including the aggressively pro-trans pressure group, the Human Rights Campaign. Against this background, the logo change and the transformation plan in general were perceived as an attempt to make the company appear less redneck-y, less associated with “backward” rural America. Unsurprisingly, Cracker Barrel’s customers reacted poorly, and then, in turn, so did the shareholders. Activist investor Sardar Biglari (Biglari Capital, ~3% stake) launched a proxy fight in September 2025, calling management “worse than mediocre” and accusing it of betraying “the Company’s heritage” and undermining “investor confidence.” Surprisingly, both major proxy advisory firms—Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis—broke with management and took Biglari’s side, recommending that shareholders vote to remove board member Gilbert Dávila (the chairman of the compensation committee and a marketing/diversity specialist who’d been on the board since 2020), explicitly citing his role in shaping the disastrous rebrand strategy. Interestingly, ISS said that Masino’s responsibility was “no less than Dávila’s” but recommended keeping her, for fear that her removal would be destabilizing. The shareholder vote on Nov. 20, 2025, produced something of a mixed bag of results. Dávila did, indeed, lose his board seat, but Masino survived. More troublingly, in a move seemingly intended to enhance director and executive entrenchment rather than advance accountability, the board simultaneously adopted new bylaws designed to limit Biglari’s ability to launch future proxy fights. Biglari and the rest of the company’s shareholders were understandably upset. Cracker Barrel’s market value fell from $2.0 billion (Aug. 7, 2023, when Masino was appointed CEO-elect) to $667.8 million (Nov. 12, 2025), a decline of roughly 67%. Biglari’s proxy filing called this “massive shareholder value destruction,” perhaps understating the case. Cracker Barrel shares were down nearly 50% year-to-date as of March 2026, putting the company on pace for its worst annual performance since 1999. Its fiscal Q4 2025 results were brutal: Revenue was down 3%, and net income was down 63%. In the grand scheme of things, it’s unlikely that the logo change—in and of itself—was the cause of this shareholder destruction. But it was a big part of it. The company’s executive team and directors weren’t happy with what they had. They saw something murky and mysterious that caught their collective eye and fooled them into wanting more. Not content to be mere fiduciary agents for their shareholders’ interests, they wanted to be advocates or allies or enlightened thinkers or … whatever. They dropped what they had in pursuit of something better, something ill-defined and ethereal but still enticing. Shareholders paid the price for their foolishness. Finally, Julie Masino is paying it as well.

Every child is looking for someone to become. The only question is where he will find that person.  For generations, American schools helped with that quest by introducing students to heroes—men and women whose courage, perseverance, and devotion to principle shaped the nation.  George Washington’s voluntary resignation of his military commission after the Revolutionary War was more than a historical milestone. It was a lesson in restraint and republican virtue. And Abraham Lincoln’s determination to preserve the Union illustrated leadership under almost unimaginable pressure.  They were not perfect—no human being is—but they were worthy of admiration.  But that distinction is increasingly being lost.  Too often, history classes have become exercises in deconstruction rather than inspiration. Instead of asking what made an extraordinary person admirable, students are taught to search for the flaw that supposedly invalidates everything else.  The result is not historical sophistication but cynicism.  In 2021, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to rename 44 schools, including ones bearing the names of Washington and Lincoln. The committee responsible for the recommendations did not consult historians, and some of its judgments were based on factual errors. One committee member reportedly dismissed the need for expert input by asking what the point would be of bringing in historians.  Although the decision was later reversed, the impulse behind it has become all too common. A historical figure who failed to satisfy every shifting moral standard of the present is too often treated as someone whom children should no longer be encouraged to honor.  Of course, historical honesty matters. Washington made serious mistakes as a military commander, such as those at the Battles of Long Island and Fort Washington in 1776, which cost soldiers their lives and freedom. Lincoln made decisions, such as suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War, that remain open to criticism. Great men and women of history were capable of error, inconsistency, and failure.  But there is a profound difference between acknowledging imperfections and reducing an entire life to them.  Imagine teaching children about Babe Ruth while discussing only the times he struck out.  No one would consider that a complete account of his career. It would produce a distorted picture of one of baseball’s greatest players.  The same is true of any historical figure.  The purpose of studying heroes is not to canonize them. It is to show young people that flawed human beings can nevertheless display extraordinary courage, integrity, and self-sacrifice.  And children need those examples.  A 2022 study published in the medical journal Cureus found that having role models, mentors, and heroes as an adolescent was linked to academic performance, confidence, and behavior.  In other words, admiration is not trivial. It helps shape ambition and behavior.  Children imitate what they esteem.  And when schools fail to provide them with heroes, someone else will fill the vacuum.  American children today spend countless hours consuming content on YouTube, TikTok, and other social media platforms. In the absence of worthy historical role models, it is hardly surprising that many increasingly look to internet personalities for cues about how to think, behave, and live.  There is of course nothing inherently wrong with admiring an athlete, entertainer, or internet personality. Some are admirable people.  But fame is not the same as greatness.  Nor should we confuse visibility with virtue. The ability to attract attention does not qualify someone to guide the moral imagination of a child.  That is why schools should teach the lives of Washington, Lincoln, and countless others—not as spotless legends but as the stories of complete human beings, placing their faults in context without allowing those faults to erase their virtues.  That is not an argument for hiding uncomfortable truths. It is an argument for perspective.  A mature understanding of history recognizes that a person can be wrong in one area and admirable in another. It can acknowledge injustice without denying achievement and identify moral failure without pretending that nothing noble remains.  Indeed, the imperfections of historical heroes can make their virtues more accessible.  Children do not need mythical figures who never struggled, doubted, or failed. They need examples of people who faced weakness, adversity, and temptation yet still chose duty over convenience and courage over comfort.  Theodore Roosevelt observed, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”  Heroes show children what such work looks like.  They teach that courage is a choice, that integrity often carries a cost, and that one person can alter the course of history.  Children cannot aspire to virtues they are never shown. And if we stop introducing them to people worth admiring, we should not be surprised when they struggle to find anyone worth becoming. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal. 

CNN’s Brian Stelter sent out his “Reliable Sources” email on July 28 with the chirpy headline “Surprise: PBS and NPR are still alive and kicking.” Why on Earth would that be a surprise? Depriving these liberal networks of taxpayer money wasn’t a death sentence. In last year’s debate over defunding, PBS and NPR executives routinely claimed federal funding was a tiny fraction of their budget—and that cutting them off would have a horrible result. How does that make sense? Then again, PBS and NPR executives also claimed they weren’t biased, which was preposterous. NPR’s “Public Editor” Kelly McBride explained: “The entire public media network, including every member station across the country as well as PBS and NPR, runs on about $3.2 billion a year. The federal grants represented about 16 percent of that total.” That’s not a tiny fraction. One year after President Donald Trump signed the bill to defund them, Stelter happily reported: “Station executives credit a burst of philanthropy caused by the GOP’s funding cut.” He then touted a “terrific story” on the state of so-called public broadcasting by NPR media reporter David Folkenflik. A surge in donations, he admitted, “would appear to confirm the position of some conservative critics who say people who value public media can pay for it themselves.” What these reporters have failed to explain is that the surge in what NPR calls “rage-giving” came from the left. Folkenflik used the word “conservative” five times to describe their opponents, but never used any words like “liberal” or “left” to describe the ardent supporters now surging their money into the system. No conservatives were allowed to make any criticisms of NPR. It was all fluff. In April, he reported Connie Ballmer—wife of Steve Ballmer, one of the Microsoft founders—contributed $80 million to NPR, and another anonymous donor added $33 million. They like NPR exactly as it is, and NPR and PBS never moved a whisker closer to the center as the Republicans held hearings and prepared to defund them. This entire aftermath could have been predicted. The result is exactly what conservatives argued, that it was unjust to take our money to put on relentlessly biased programs and that liberals should be the ones to pay for their liberal-pleasing propaganda. PBS and NPR also please the Left by the stories they smother. The “public” networks haven’t reported on their airwaves about the Anthony Fauci diary entries released by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. They were completely supportive of all of the Fauci-ordered lockdowns on schools, businesses, churches and even family holiday gatherings. In 2020, NPR also notoriously proclaimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a “pure distraction,” not a news story. In the years afterward, as other liberal media outlets admitted the laptop was authentic and newsworthy, NPR adamantly refused to bend. On July 18, NPR aired a softball interview by weekend anchor Scott Simon under this empathetic headline: “Hunter Biden shares his painful road to recovery and fight against political scrutiny.” “Public” broadcasting is a powerful communications tool for the Left, with hundreds of affiliates in large cities and rural communities, pumping out narratives nationwide about how everything Trump and his conservative supporters are pushing is toxic, even “un-American.” These networks hope the funding cutoff is temporary. Whenever Democrats get back in control, they will reopen the spigot, signaling what we all know: “public broadcasting” is Democrat Radio and Democrat TV. COPYRIGHT CREATORS.COM 2026 We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump has held campaign-style events in 17 states, most of them key swing states, in preparation for the 2026 midterm elections. While most presidents have a minimal presence in midterm elections, chief of staff Susie Wiles said in December that Trump would keep a presidential-style campaign schedule for 2026.  “Typically in the midterms, it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House. You localize the election and you keep the federal officials out of it,” Wiles said. “We’re actually going to turn that on its head and put him on the ballot, because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”  As a result, Trump has made multiple visits per month to key states where he has touted economic wins, such as investments in domestic manufacturing, baby bonus accounts, and tax cuts from the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” Many of the states are home to toss-up congressional races critical to maintaining the already slim Republican House majority. “President Trump is hitting the road with unmatched energy to build enthusiasm because he understands what’s at stake this November,” Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters told the Daily Signal. “President Trump is taking charge and delivering the America First message directly to voters, and when they are presented with the facts, voters will reject the Socialists’ radical agenda and elect Republicans up and down the ballot.” Trump addressed three events in Florida this year, where Republicans have the chance to flip several blue seats after the Legislature successfully redrew the state’s congressional maps. The seats include the 9th District; the 22nd District, as Democrat Lois Frankel decided to run in the 23rd District; and the 14th District, currently represented by Democrat Kathy Castor.  Trump has also visited twice each of the swing states Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Georgia is home to a key Senate race, where Republican Rep. Mike Collins is taking on Democrat incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democrat Senate incumbents. Michigan features three key House races and one Senate race, where Bernie Sanders-backed candidate Abdul El-Sayed is expected to win the Democratic nomination next Tuesday. The House races in Michigan could determine which party will control the House, Mitchell said.  “You’ve got the seventh district with Tom Barrett in the Lansing area,” he said. “That’s a very very close seat, one of the closest in the nation. Then you’ve got John James, who’s running for governor, who represents the 10th district, which is Macomb County primarily, and a little bit of Oakland County in the Detroit suburban area.” “On the west side of the state, there’s Bill Huizinga, who’s in the 4th congressional district, and he could get into trouble if this becomes a sort of wave election,” Mitchell continued.  Pennsylvania has four tossup districts currently represented by Republicans: the 1st Congressional District represented by Brian Fitzpatrick; the 7th district represented by Ryan Mackenzie; the 8th district represented by Rob Bresnahan, and the 10th represented by Scott Perry.  Trump visited Pennsylvania to energize his base, said Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling, which is based in Pennsylvania. “Trump’s visits to Pennsylvania are a way to try to fire up the base to get the GOP electorate tuned in to the election because it’s only a short three months away, to make sure they’re galvanized and ready to turn out,” he told the Daily Signal. Lee said polls have found an excitement gap between Democrat and Republican voters. Even though economic data suggests the country is on strong footing, people are still feeling the pain of inflation, Lee said.  “They’re not saving as much money as they had been in the past,” he said, “so there’s a lot of apathy, particularly among former Trump supporters, and we’re seeing that because in our polling, Republicans don’t seem to be as committed to vote for Republican candidates, whether it’s for a governor, for a U.S. Senate race, or for congressional races.”  Trump has made one trip each to Kentucky; Ohio; Texas; North Carolina; Iowa; Tennessee; Nevada; Arizona; New York; Wisconsin; Connecticut; North Dakota; and South Dakota.