June 13, 2025 — Today's Conservative Cartoon

The “Big, Beautiful Bill,” backed by President Donald Trump, fulfills one of Republicans’ most provocative promises: to tax universities with massive endowments. The tax would help reduce the United States deficit by taxing multibillion dollar institutions of privilege as if they were hedge funds with classrooms attached — which critics say institutions like Harvard are. The version of the bill passed by the House would institute hefty taxes on “net investment income” for universities with the largest endowments, topping out at 21% for colleges with endowments equivalent to more than $2 million per student. Colleges with endowments less than $500,000 per student wouldn’t be taxed, while those with endowments between $500,000 and $750,000 per student would be taxed 1.4%, with two other rates in between. But the language is not just designed to punish colleges that Republicans say have become liberal political organizations; it is written in a way that could benefit Americans by significantly increasing the slots available at high-level universities for citizens, rather than foreigners. The calculation of endowment per student counts only students from the United States. So, one of the ways colleges can avoid taxes is by ensuring that more of their slots go to Americans. If a college has a $1 billion endowment and 1,000 students, that works out to $1 million per student, which would fall under a 7% tax rate. But if half of those students are foreigners, the rate would actually be based on dividing $1 billion by 500 students, resulting in a $2 million figure — and a much higher tax rate. In some ways, the massive flow of foreigners to American colleges mirrors the surge in immigrants crossing the southern border. According to Open Doors, which tracks international scholarship, more than 1.1 million foreigners studied at American colleges in the 2023-24 school year, up 7% from the previous year. The number of foreign graduate students was at “an all-time high,” it said, at 500,000. Most of the students came from India and China, and the highest growth rate came from sub-Saharan Africa. The group said New York University had more than 27,000 international students, while Northeastern University had 21,000 and Columbia had 20,000. According to Reuters, 42% of students at Carnegie Mellon were foreign, while the rate was 39% at Northeastern and Columbia, and 34% at NYU. Universities say they prefer to admit foreign students because they are often wealthy people paying full tuition, and their progressive tuition model relies on charging high prices for some to subsidize financial aid for poor people. But Republicans say that makes it more difficult for Americans to gain admittance to American schools at all, and that colleges get preferential tax treatment and significant government funding on the premise that they are educating American taxpayers. Open Doors said that 55% of the foreign students pay for school using foreign money, typically from their family, while 41% are funded with money from the United States. In half of those cases, the money comes from the colleges, often through “federal government research grants disbursed to the student through the institution,” it said. Republicans also say using American universities to train and conduct research by foreigners poses national security concerns. A common way that people begin residing illegally in the country is by coming on a student visa, and then never leaving when it expires. Mohammad K. Dabous of Jordan, for example, was arrested for allegedly ramming a truck through the gates of the Quantico military base after overstaying a student visa. Giving foreigners, instead of Americans, a significant number of slots at elite institutions also leads to the argument that we need high immigration to staff the country with doctors and engineers, because there aren’t enough Americans with the necessary training. The percentage of foreign students at some universities has become so high that instead of the American way of life rubbing off on a few visitors, antisemitism and third-world blood feuds have become a part of a dominant culture. Columbia, with its sizable international population, was at the epicenter of anti-Israel and anti-Western unrest, with Muslim immigrants radicalizing privileged Western leftists. The “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which awaits passage by the Senate, would also overhaul how student loans are administered, forcing colleges to eat the costs of bad bets when students can’t pay their loans—in turn putting pressure on colleges to lower tuition, admit only qualified students, and deemphasize useless majors. Related: U.S. Diplomat Training Ground Let Antisemites Take Over Its Faculty, Lawsuit Says

Celebrities have always been the voice of reason when it comes to political issues abroad and at home, and Katy Perry is no exception.The pop star, who recently made headlines for feeling “battered and bruised” after being mocked for her flight to space, decided to take a stand on social media for the people of Mexico."Los Angeles has lived under three flags: Spain, Mexico, and the United States. That land has seen borders shift, power change hands, and yet the people, especially the brown and indigenous people, have always been there. Planting roots, building lives, raising families,” Perry said in a post on social media.“And now, in 2025 the descendants of those same communities are being hunted, like criminals in their own ancestral home,” the pop star added.“She talked about the original name of the city of Los Angeles to suggest that the protests were all justified,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”Perry also claimed Los Angeles was “founded by Mexican settlers in 1781” and that the city was built on “Mexican labor, Mexican history, and Mexican culture.”“That’s not what happened there, pudding,” Gray laughs. “That’s not history. What is history, of course, is that not only was Mexico Spanish territory for almost 400 years, but in the case of Texas, it was only ever Mexican territory for 15 years.”“In California, it was under 30 years of Mexican rule. Spain had it before that. Second, not only did we gain that territory through a very legitimate war, the way virtually every nation on this planet has gained the territory they have now, but they attacked us, repeatedly, across the Texas border, until President Polk finally said, ‘Okay let’s end this nonsense. Send the troops in,’” he continues.“And when that happened, we routed their military so completely that we pushed them all the way back past Mexico City, we drove all the way through their nation, and took their capital city. And then, of course, out of the goodness of our American hearts, we gave them back all the Mexican territory from Mexico City, all the way to the border, the current border, with the United States,” he says, adding, “and we threw in an extra $15 million for land on top of it. We didn’t have to do that.”Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

By Gloria Ogbonna On Thursday, Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) appeared on MSNBC’s The Beat to set the record straight regarding an incident that led to his forcible removal from a press conference in Los…

By Gloria Ogbonna The current narrative surrounding tariffs often paints them as an inflationary force that ultimately squeezes American consumers and businesses. However, recent economic data tells a…

By Blessing Nweke Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted Thursday of conspiring to murder her niece’s ex-husband, marking her second murder conspiracy conviction in Arizona in less than two months. A Maricopa…

[View Article at Source]By James Fite Much ink has already been spilled over how the big, beautiful bill would make permanent many parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But what of all the stuff that…

[View Article at Source]By Andrew Moran The Federal Reserve, one week before its June meeting, does not know what to do. For more episodes, click here.

“The more contracted that power is, the more easily it is destroyed. A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.” – Samuel Johnson, as quoted in James Boswell’s ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 3, p. 283 (April 14, 1778) The post The Editors’ Quote of the Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.