It’s time to say a bunch of stuff that’s going to get me in trouble in the too-online sphere right now; people on the Left who live in mansions, who hate capitalism, and also people on the Woke Right, the New Left, who also live in mansions, who also hate capitalism but like to pretend that they like capitalism. Here we go. I’m going to defend private property and free markets and basic common sense, because these are the things that allow you to succeed economically in life. It is good to make more money by providing people with better goods and services. It is good to be fiscally responsible. It is good to make smart decisions about your money. Most Americans know all that stuff. But a lot of Americans are being lied to these days. They’re being told a bunch of garbage that makes their lives actively worse. And increasingly — particularly if they are young and too online — Americans believe those things. The Left and the Woke Right are going to get angry when I say you shouldn’t spend too much money eating at a restaurant if you’re unable to pay your rent. They’ll say that I’m saying that because I don’t care about people. (You see, it’s better to be poorer and also keep eating at Wolfgang’s Steakhouse.) They will get angry when I say that Amazon makes your life better and cheaper. They’ll say it’s better to yell at Amazon, try to shut down their business, and tax them more because “Jeff Bezos is bald and rich and has a yacht!” or something similar. They’ll get angry when I say that billionaires aren’t inherently bad because they’re billionaires, and that instead, genuinely immoral people are bad and moral people are good. Tax returns have nothing at all to do with any of that. The billionaires are typically billionaires, not because they are stealing from the poor — spoiler alert: the poor don’t have much money to take — but because they make a lot of people’s lives better. They make goods and services for cheaper. So get ready. Here comes the blowback. It comes every time I talk about this stuff. Remember that time I said young people who couldn’t afford to live in New York City might think about moving if policies don’t change because it’s more productive to search outside of New York City and find some success than to sit there in your expensive apartment with your two roommates and pizza? People got super-duper mad. Remember that time I said that Social Security needs to kick in later in life — especially for people who are currently 40 and under — because people are now living 20 years longer, and then Social Security kicks in, which is really expensive and is bankrupting the country? And also that when you hit retirement age, sure, you can retire, especially if you’re working a backbreaking job, but you should continue to do productive things in your community because it’s good for you on both a mental and spiritual level? People got super-mad again. Well, here’s the thing. I don’t really give a crap about how people feel about reality. And here is the reality: the only way your life gets more affordable is 1: You make more money; 2: Your expenses get lower, and 3: Products and services get more plentiful and better and cheaper. All of these rely on free markets and common sense. When Americans don’t feel good about the economy in general, they tend to think that things are “unfair.” “Unfair” is just a substitute for “I don’t feel good about things.” This is human nature. It applies to us. It applies to our children. Whenever something happens that my kids don’t like, it’s unfair, right? They deserved something, and it didn’t happen. It’s possible for two things to be true: The economy is not doing what it should be doing right now, and there are problems in the economy; regulatory problems, subsidy problems, market distortions, etc. But generally speaking, the economic system in this country is mostly fair. It is fair because you have property rights in this country. You have the equal rule of law in this country, as opposed to the vast majority of other countries around the Earth and in all of human history. Politicians love lying to you. It is their favorite thing to do because the way that you win votes is by appealing to the lizard part of the brain, the part that says, “A bad thing happened and it’s unfair. It’s the system,” as opposed to, “A bad thing happened. Life is full of bad things.” How do you solve poverty? The answer for most politicians is to yell at rich people and pretend the rich people got rich by causing poverty, which is untrue. Poverty is the natural state of all mankind; for all of human history, everyone was poor. The question is not why there are poor people and rich people; the question is why even the poor people in the United States are, by any historical marker, very, very rich. That is the real question. We now live in a world where, if you give basic financial advice, like “Move elsewhere if you can’t get a job in your area,” if you say things that reflect reality, people get mad, especially if there is a group of people telling them they don’t need to live in the world of reality. Is Jeff Bezos the bad guy? Amazon directly employs 1.6 million people globally. People who use Amazon to sell products account for another 2 million jobs. Elon Musk’s global workforce consists of 150,000 people. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has 70,000 employees. The notion that you kill private property and modern finance and somehow the economy gets better is absolute stupidity. But it is part and parcel of a lie that is being sold to you; that if only you had more power to centralize government, if you gave more power to Bernie Sanders or Tucker Carlson or people who want control over the economy, they would bring you back to some placid, agrarian past in which you can fish in the evening and write poetry in the morning. It’s just trash. It’s stupid, and it does not comport with reality. And as I’ve been saying for decades: in the end, reality always wins.

After uncovering a billion-dollar fraud scheme in Ohio, Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak testified on Capitol Hill this week, expecting bipartisan concern, but Democrats didn’t offer it.  Rosiak testified before the Senate Small Business Committee on Wednesday during a hearing dominated by Republican lawmakers. The only Democrat in attendance was Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), whose presence was required as the minority ranking member.  Rosiak later quipped, “The hearing room may as well have been a learing center with the number of Democrats who showed up today,” referencing a misspelled sign outside a suspected fraudulent daycare in Minnesota.  In his opening statement, Markey argued that the Trump administration’s recent anti-fraud initiatives have disproportionately targeted blue states, completely ignoring the fact that Rosiak just uncovered $1 billion in alleged Medicaid fraud in a red state. Markey declined to question Rosiak or any of the Republican witnesses, instead focusing his remarks on criticizing President Donald Trump. “I agree we should be doing more to prevent fraud,” said Markey. “But we should also be focusing on the Trump-sized hole in the American people’s pockets. We should address rising gas prices, electricity costs, healthcare premiums, food prices, but instead the instances of fraud that congressional Republicans and this administration choose to focus on are solely to secure political points demonizing communities of color and attacking blue states.”  Markey also chose not to comment on testimony from Faye Bernstein, a compliance specialist for the Minnesota Department of Human Services and a self-described lifelong Democrat. Bernstein testified that she began questioning members of her own party after raising fraud concerns and being “labeled a racist.”  On Thursday, Rosiak participated in an anti-fraud roundtable hosted by the Republican Study Committee.  Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) kicked off the meeting praising Rosiak “for doing absolutely phenomenal work, uncovering a massive fraud scheme.” He added that the most amazing part was that Rosiak did it all through publicly available data. The committee discussed increasing data transparency to allow greater public access.  Asked by The Daily Wire where the responsibility for fraud oversight should fall between Congress and investigative journalists, Gill said lawmakers should focus on using “the power of the purse” to ensure taxpayer dollars are not improperly distributed in the first place. Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) echoed that criticism, arguing that Congress is a system with warped incentives.  “We measure effectiveness too often by how much money goes out the door, as opposed to, is it going to where it was intended and is it accomplishing what it was supposed to accomplish.” Rosiak’s investigation focused in part on Ohio’s rapidly expanding home healthcare industry. Rosiak found that Ohio spent roughly $1 billion on home healthcare services in 2024 alone, much of it through loosely monitored Medicaid programs that allow relatives to receive taxpayer funding for providing in-home “personal services” such as cooking, cleaning, and companionship. His investigation uncovered entire office buildings filled with Medicaid-billing home health companies, many run by individuals with little or no healthcare background, and in some cases histories of fraud, unpaid debts, or criminal convictions. Rosiak partly blames weak certification standards for the problem, as the program requires a licensed professional to certify that a patient needs assistance around the house. “It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt a state,” Rosiak said.

Los Angeles Republican mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt revealed that his political role model is “Jesus Christ” — and that the modern politician with whom he most identified was former President Barack Obama. Pratt, during an interview with CNN’s Elex Michaelson, discussed everything from why he decided to run for mayor in the first place and what led him to become a Republican to his plan to manage the homelessness crisis — and he got candid about political comparisons and role models. WATCH: “Who is your political role model?” Michaelson asked the question directly. Without a second’s hesitation, Pratt replied, “Jesus Christ.” “Okay, I mean —” Michaelson tried to reframe the question. “He was a politician, you know, he had to go in and —” Pratt defended his response. Michaelson tried a different tack: “Are there any modern politicians that you’re especially studying or drawn to that —” “No, no, no,” Pratt was insistent. “I am not a politician. I don’t want to be a politician. I want to be a fighter for the people.” “But you’ve mentioned, though, that —” Michaelson pressed again, and Pratt interrupted. “Obama, yeah,” he said. “I’m most similar to Obama. And I know ‘The View’ ladies said that I don’t have a law degree, so I’m gonna work on that online in the next — before November — I probably can get one, and do the Baby Bar.” Pratt argued that he was most similar to Obama because he viewed the former president as first and foremost a community advocate — and that was also how he thought of himself. The former MTV reality star — in the mayoral race because of the fallout from the deadly Palisades fire that took his home — also explained during that same interview how he had come to be a Republican in a town teeming with young liberals. It was all about his own personal safety, he said, explaining that when he’d been on MTV’s “The Hills,” his personal security team had advised him to get a firearm for his own protection. He and his wife, Heidi Montag, had done so and had learned in the process that Republicans were the ones supporting their right to do that.

The release of the long-awaited 2024 election autopsy report threw Democrats into a nosedive on Thursday, with liberals questioning the veracity of the document and calling on the DNC’s top official to resign.   Buried inside the report were some brutal admissions about former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic brand, and the party’s growing disconnect from average Americans. The autopsy painted a picture of a party unable to listen to all voters, consumed by identity politics and led by a candidate — Kamala Harris — who failed to connect with young men, Latino men, irregular voters, rural voters, and working-class Americans. “We either adapt to the changing conditions of the arena, or history will leave us behind,” the report stated.  Notably, the autopsy made no mention of former President Joe Biden’s advanced age or the lingering distrust voters felt following his disastrous debate performance. Plus, the document repeatedly undercuts itself in real time with editor notes and annotations like “No evidence provided,” “Analysis not supported,” and “Contradicts public reporting.” “An autopsy is a medical procedure you do over a corpse, and now it sounds like we need a malpractice attorney because we couldn’t even do the autopsy correctly,” Congressman Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said on CNN. “We lost the last election, it wasn’t close, ok? But the fact that we can’t even tell people why, we’re too afraid to tell them the truth…they saw that we got killed in the election, we lost every swing state.” BRUTAL Democrat Jared Moskowitz: “We lost the last election, it wasn’t close, ok? But the fact that we can’t even tell people why, we’re too afraid to tell them the truth…they saw that we got killed in the election, we lost every swing state.” pic.twitter.com/8O7znh1vEw — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 21, 2026 The document repeatedly suggests Democrats leaned way too heavily on “Trump bad” messaging while failing to give voters a compelling reason to vote for Harris.  “The national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and [a] half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch,” the report said. “The idea Trump’s negatives were ‘baked in’ is a major failure of analysis and reality …”  For months, Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chairman, resisted releasing the nearly 200-page report but relented under immense pressure — with deep reservations.  “When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced,” Martin said. “After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction.”  Tommy Vietor, the liberal cohost of “Pod Save America,” said Martin’s handling of the ordeal “raises more questions about his judgment, candor, and ability to lead the DNC.”  “Ken Martin should resign,” David Hogg, who unsuccessfully ran for DNC Vice Chair, said on X.  My initial thoughts on the DNC autopsy release pic.twitter.com/gQNTYGAc5d — David Hogg

It’s 1963 again, according to Democrats. We’re all living in the neo-Jim Crow era, and if you’re silent, you’re complicit. At least that’s what the Left, Hollywood, and woke women are trying to tell you. Race is all they seem to care about these days. “The View” host Sunny Hostin is telling folks that black athletes should boycott scholarships at Southern public universities to fight redistricting. Former Squad member Ayanna Pressley is demanding reparations, again, for the nefarious chattel enslavement of black Americans that no living person in this country participated in. And Democratic leaders and white ladies are squawking about Jim Crow and demanding a color-20/20 vision society. Who’s going to tell them that it’s the Left that is acting racist and making it worse for the very people they claim to champion? All of these partisan power punches in the name of “helping” consistently end up hurting. This latest SEC boycott scheme would hurt young black athletes most of all. Reparations are tired and ineffective, and Democrats have spent the better part of the last century figuring out new ways to keep them on the plantation. It is time they get out of the way. Hostin and her View co-hosts could barely contain their glee over House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the NAACP’s plan to have black athletes boycott scholarships at Southern public universities in states like Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, which could inflict “economic damage and economic harm” on the South over redistricting. Cloudy Hostin proudly calls for these athletic protests as an effective civil rights tool. I call it rich, bored women playing revolutionary on someone else’s dime. And someone else’s future. Young black athletes are disproportionately the ones who land these scholarships and NIL deals in revenue sports. For many, it’s the only realistic ladder to a degree and a shot at a professional career. Walking away means lost education, lost earnings, lost exposure, and lost dreams. The same people who spent years telling kids the system was rigged against them are now telling them to burn their own escape hatch because the table-talkers didn’t get their way. Hostin, whose own family owned slaves, is urging black men to sacrifice their futures so she can feel morally superior on television. Slow clap for the girls. Meanwhile, they’re hoping you don’t look too closely at the Tennessee redistricting situation they’re clutching their pearls over because the new Republican-drawn maps could result in the first woman of color being elected to Congress in the state. All performative. Except the SEC and universities know better than to play along. Life-changing opportunities aren’t poker chips for D.C. politicians and daytime TV hosts to gamble with. Athletes have agents, families, futures to protect, and real games to win. Then there’s Ayanna Pressley, still out there yelling into the wind about how every bit of prosperity “we” enjoy was built on black backs, so reparations are in order! Poor thing is trying to stay relevant. Unfortunately, race-baiting alone doesn’t move the needle for Democrats anymore. To stay relevant, she’d need to go full communist and start endorsing terrorism. Handing large lump sums of cash to people does not grow wealth over time. It’s a one-time transfer that gets spent, divided, or litigated into oblivion. Who pays? Who receives? Newsflash — nobody alive today was a slave owner or chattel slave in the American South. Many black Americans owned slaves. Many white Americans did not. Reparations are deeply unpopular, economically illiterate, and socially poisonous, but figures like her and California Governor Gavin Newsom care not about practicality. They care about virtue-signaling. Black families are struggling on multiple fronts that have nothing to do with 1865. Around 64% of black children live in single-parent homes. Abortion rates in black communities are 4-5 times higher than white women. Poverty and welfare dependency persist in patterns that track with family structure and culture. Not distant history. The welfare state that exploded after LBJ’s Great Society correlated directly with the breakdown of two-parent households that had been rising for decades prior. What started as a political project to lock in votes has become a generational handicap. Useful idiots like Pressley keep the cycle alive by blaming everything on ghosts instead of asking what actually moves the needle today: strong families, education, work, and personal responsibility. Though to be fair, this is the same brain trust that produced Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who recently surveyed the crack pipes and mental illness slathered amid her streets and concluded that what these people really needed was a government dental plan. Ingenious. What would actually solve problems? Color-blind standards. Merit. The same principles that animated Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party are still alive today. As Wesley Hunt recently reiterated: get elected because you’re good, not because you check a box. History is not as complicated as the revisionists pretend. The Republican Party was founded in opposition to the expansion of slavery. The vast majority of votes to pass the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments came from Republicans. The first black members of Congress were Republicans. Lincoln wanted to free black Americans and let them stand on their own, not keep them tethered to government favor. As Dinesh D’Souza’s Death of a Nation explains, the Democrat Party’s long history of racial control, from slavery and Jim Crow to the political machines that replaced them, did not magically flip in the 1960s. The strategy simply evolved. Instead of poll taxes and literacy tests, we now see the Democrat Party offering dependency and grievance. Their goal is the same as it always has been: keep a reliable voting bloc on the urban plantation. Republicans have consistently argued for the same thing from Lincoln forward: individual liberty, equal protection under the law, and the chance to rise or fall on your own merits. Democrats have spent the modern era perfecting the opposite: identity as destiny, government as savior, and anyone who objects labeled a racist bigot. We are not living in Jim Crow. We are living with race problems stoked by Barack Obama and the institutional Left that followed. They inject identity into everything, normalize viewing political opponents as existential threats, and act shocked when the temperature boils over. “The View,” the NAACP, and Hakeem Jeffries need to stop treating young black athletes like disposable pawns in their theater, Ayanna Pressley can retire or radicalize into full communism (that’s her only path forward), and the Left can leave the SEC alone. Leave athletes alone. Let people compete, achieve, and live as individuals instead of avatars in someone else’s grievance campaign. The hamster wheel of identity politics has run long enough. Time to get off. Besides, who needs to run anymore anyway? We have GLP-1s.