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Few people spend more time with kids than teachers. From the classroom to the playground, teachers have deep and intuitive insight into what their students' relationships are like with their parents, and many teachers can tell when parents are invested and truly care about their kids.In a Reddit forum, member @allsfairinwar posed the question: "Teachers of Reddit: What are some small, subtle ways you can tell a child’s parent really cares about them?"Teachers from all education levels shared their insight. From elementary teachers to high school teachers, these educators offered their firsthand experience with students that informed them about their relationship with parents at home. These are their most powerful observations. Hit It Bang Bang GIF by Eddie & Laura Burton Realty Group Giphy "When the parent stops and actually looks at their kid's art/work/listens about their day before heading home. I know everyone gets busy but damn don't shove the art your kid is proud of right in their bag without first looking at it. We do the same piece of art for a week. They spent 2 hours on that, spare 2 minutes to show them their effort is worth something to you." —@Worldly_Might_3183"When the child speaks, the adult listens. When the adult speaks, the child listens." —@homerbartbob"When the parents are familiar with the child’s friends and talk to their child’s friends, I know they’re listening to their child talk about their day at school. Or when parents let slip that they got a full recap of something I said or that happened at school. I know they are having conversations with their child at home, and paying attention." —@Pinkrivrdolphn Games GIF Giphy "When the kid is happy/quick to tell their parents about things. Not just serious or important things, but just random bullsh*t. Do I care about Minecraft? Not really. Do I care that my kid cares about Minecraft? Very much. Lay it on me kid. Spare no detail." —@IJourden"They let their kids fail and experience natural consequences. Good parents are preparing their children to be adults, and part of that is learning responsibility and accountability. Let your kids make mistakes and learn from them!" —@oboe_you_didnt"You can tell a lot about home life based on students behavior the week leading up to a break. If they are happy/excited/giddy/endearingly obnoxious I know they are going somewhere safe to someone who cares. The students who don’t have that are often increasingly anxious/angry/withdrawn/acting out." —@pulchritudinousprout Monsters Inc Hug GIF Giphy "The moment that a parent greets the child at the end of the day is very telling. Some parents clearly want to know all about their child's day and connect with them, some don't." —@Smug010"When I make positive contact home and the parent speaks glowingly about their own kid. It’s great to hear." —@outtodryclt"A few years back, I heard a parent ask their kid if they found someone to be kind to today. That made a real impact on me. Now I try to remind my own kids to 'find someone to be kind to' if I’m doing drop off and/or ask 'Who were you kind to today?' after school." —@AspiringFicWriter"When a student asks for help, they actually need the help. They are not doing it just to get your attention."—@Typical_Importance65 Dance Marathon Reaction GIF by Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Giphy "It doesn’t always mean everything is perfect at home, but a child who is well-groomed is always a good sign. That doesn’t always mean the most fashionable clothes or perfect hair, just that the child is clean, their clothes are clean and appropriate for the weather. Also when a child knows how to celebrate their own wins and isn’t afraid of making a mistake or being wrong- that shows that their parents have modeled good emotional regulation." —@itscornelectric"They get them services when they’re struggling. I work with kids with disabilities and the learning outcomes/experience of school (and by extension, the greater world) for kids who have their needs met is far different to those who don’t. The number of parents who respond to a teacher saying 'I think it might be worth John seeing an OT/a speech therapist/ getting his eyes checked' with something along the lines of 'f*ck you, what would you know?' Is astounding. The parents who make appointments, share information from specialists with the school, and are proactive about their children’s abilities or disabilities - their kids see such improvements." —@prison_industrial_co"They ask thoughtful questions. Even something that seems routine to adults like, 'How is/was your day?' I'm in elementary, and it's appropriate for kids to talk mostly about themselves. Kids who ask thoughtful questions are doing so because it's consistently modeled. It's also not very common (again, age appropriate egocentrism) so it stands out." —@mundane-mondays Read Book Club GIF Giphy "When you know they're being exposed to reading at home. Maybe they can read at a higher level or they're mastering their sight words. For students with learning disabilities, the kids are trying their hardest to read, using context clues, using pictures and making up a story, or even making different voices for characters. When I was in a low functioning Autistic support room, this one little boy couldn't form words, but he made noises is different voices and used dramatic face expressions on each page to represent characters talking." —@Mediocre-Bee-9262"Accountability. A good parent knows that their kids isn't perfect and if the kid does something wrong (like hitting or bullying other kids) they don't look for excuses, or for how the other kid provoked that behavior, but helps their kid understand why their behavior was hurtful." —@SadlyNotDannyDeVito

One of the most disappointing aspects of life is that, at some point, everyone close to you will eventually let you down or fall short of your expectations. Some have slip-ups and fall short of what you'd expect, and some consistently let you down your entire life.It can be deflating when people don’t show up when you need them, especially if you have been there for them. When you need people and they don’t show up, it feels like you’re carrying a burden that you can never get off your back. That’s why Mel Robbins’ two-word “Let them” theory is so powerful. It liberates you from constantly feeling controlled by those who let you down.What is the ‘Let them’ theory?Mel Robbins is a podcast host, author, motivational speaker, former lawyer, and author of The Let Them Theory. In the TikTok video below, she explains how allowing people to be themselves gives you the power to improve the things you can control, instead of suffering in the same cycle of expectations and disappointments. @melrobbins People can only meet you as far as they've met themselves... and a lot of them haven't done the work. Listen to The Let Them Theory, narrated by yours truly, only on @audible ? #melrobbins #letthem #letthemtheory People can only meet you as far as they've met themselves... and a lot of them haven't done the work. Listen to The Let Them Theory, narrated by yours truly, only on @Audible ? #melrobbins #letthem #letthemtheory The “Let them” practice begins by acknowledging that others are imperfect and we cannot change them. “People can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves. Most people haven't gone to therapy, they haven't looked at their issues, and frankly, they don't want to. Let them. Let your parents be less than what you deserved," she opens the video. "Let your family life be something that isn't a fairy tale. Try to remind yourself that they're just doing the best they can with the resources and the life experiences they have." Motivation expert Mel Robbins.Photo © Cody OLoughlin (PR Photo)While it can be hard to admit that some of the most important people in your life will never turn things around to your satisfaction, accepting that reality is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself. “But here's the important part,” Robbins continues. “Now that you know the 'Let them' theory, you get to choose what happens moving forward, because you're gonna focus on what you can control, which is what you say, what you do, what you value, and what energy you bring to the relationship.”Put simply: Now that you allow them to be who they are, you can act accordingly. You can stop carrying the weight of unmet expectations. What is the locus of control?Robbins’ theory is a simple way of understanding the locus of control psychological concept. The locus of control is the extent to which we believe we have control over our own lives. When our actions, thoughts, and feelings are contingent on events (and people) outside of our control, we have an external locus of control. The healthy thing is to revert that to an internal locus of control, where we believe we control the outcomes of our actions. Those with an internal locus of control tend to be less influenced by others, work hard to get what they want, and report being happier, and more independent. Motivation expert Mel Robbins.Photo via © Tony Luong (PR Photo)“The only person you can change is you,” Robbins says at the end of her video. "When you say ‘Let them,’ you see your family exactly as they are, perhaps for the very first time in your life. They're human. You have no control over what's happened. You have no control over who they are. You can only control what you do from this point forward. Accepting the reality of your situation doesn't mean you're surrendering to it. Instead, it's about reclaiming your power to shape your future.”Now that you’ve taken control of your future, what are you going to do with it?

A UPS worker might have been joking when he offered his “best advice ever” for homeowners, but it’s actually something that should be taken seriously. In a clip posted to his TikTok, the Arkansas-based driver (presumably named Austin), says: “Listen carefully because it’s going to be the best decision you make when going about this. Whenever you paint your house, whenever you build your house, and you go to buy numbers at Lowe’s or Walmart, or wherever you go to get your numbers, one trick you need to know—you get any color besides the one that your house is.” @austin_ups Best kept secret #homeowners #homes #ups #secrets #hacks #goodvibes #energy #fyp ♬ Spirit In The Sky - Deluxe Edition - Norman Greenbaum Sure, having hard to read or even completely absent home numbers presents not only a frustrating problem for those who make deliveries, but it can also be detrimental in times of emergencies.And if you don’t want to take Austin’s word for it, you can trust the several health care professionals and fellow drivers that agreed. “Can’t believe the number of houses without a number on it AT ALL. Not on the curb, not on the house, not on the mailbox.”“Delivery driver here. Make sure the numbers are larger than one inch on your mailbox. Especially if you live on a busy street and the speed limit is above 35mph. We can’t see those tiny numbers. Just sayin’.” “Listen, as a home health nurse, make sure SOMETHING even has numbers we can see.”“Our numbers are 9” tall. My husband is a paramedic. Ikyky.”“As a first responder please make your house number visible for emergency services!!!” “UPS, FedEx, Domino's and other delivery companies should all get together and make a serious but funny commercial about this very real issue.Back in 2021, an Amazon worker made a similar PSA, warning a home she had delivered to that “my dude…it’s unsafe, honestly,” to not have visible numbers. @_jesshuseman We just moved in and this happened today…she’s not wrong though. Guess I need to get some house numbers. #amazondelivery ♬ original sound - _jesshuseman Generally speaking, high contrast levels (black numbers against a white painted house, for example) work best, as well as having the numbers high enough to see and be visible on the curb.But Brick & Batten, an exterior design company, has a few other really helpful tips:The further the house, the larger the numbersBrick & Batten recommends 3” or larger for houses 0-69 feet away from the street, 4” or larger for houses 70-110 feet, 5” or larger for houses 111-132 feet, 6” or larger for houses 133-160 feet, 8” or larger for houses 161-300 feet, and 8” or larger for houses 301-385 feet, respectively.Choose long-lasting materialOpt for powder-coated numbers, and pleeeeeeaase replace the old, tired, rusty ones already falling off.Place numbers somewhere eye level or higherAnd in a location free from obstructions like overgrown foliage or seasonal decorations. Make it visible at nightPlace them near a light source, or install one.Jazz things up with a plaqueJust because they need to stand out, doesn’t mean it has to go against your house design. With a little attention to aesthetics, it can even become a bit of an accent piece. Making sure house numbers are visible is probably not on the top of anyone’s mind, but it’s little details like this that can really come back to bite us one way or another. So let’s make our lives—and the lives of our delivery drivers—better by following these simple tips.

Thanks to DHS, congressional Republicans can simultaneously cut spending and enforce immigration law. They should. And they can by reducing federal funds going to over 600 jurisdictions obstructing the enforcement of U.S. immigration law — so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions.” Lucre and leverage should come together. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security “issued a comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions including cities, counties, and states that are deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens.” Sadly, there are over 600 such jurisdictions — the Federation for American Immigration Reforms counts over 1,000. Almost all are blue: 16 states self-identified “as a State Sanctuary Jurisdiction;” all 16 voted for Harris in 2024 — throw in D.C. and Rhode Island (with a “court order requiring state sanctuary requirements”) and it’s 18 out of 18. The overwhelming slant also applies to cities and counties making the list. (RELATED: Sanctuary Cities: The Dangerous Illusion of Virtue) While DHS was releasing its law-breakers list, congressional Republicans are working on a budget proposal to cut spending and keep taxes low. One of the Republicans’ prime concerns is finding more spending cuts. DHS has given them a perfect opportunity to cut spending and enforce immigration law at the same time: reduce federal money within the parameters of budget reconciliation to sanctuary jurisdictions “deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens,” and then do so in Congress’s annual appropriations bills too. Individuals convicted of breaking federal laws can lose federal benefits. Federal employees who break federal laws can lose their federal benefits. Companies that contract with the federal government can lose their contracts and suffer penalties when they break federal laws. Why should jurisdictions that are willfully interfering with the enforcement of immigration law not be treated the same way? In what other areas would we allow jurisdictions to willfully break federal laws without losing federal benefits? Environmental laws?  Civil rights laws? None. So, why should the federal government be so indulgent with those jurisdictions that declare their intent to break immigration law? This need not be just a symbolic move. There is big money in federal payments going to states and local governments. According to the New York State Comptroller’s office, New York City relies on $7.4 billion in federal funding, 6.4 percent of its total budget. (RELATED: Sedition in Rochester, New York) Budget Benefits of Cutting Off the Spigot Sure, New York City is large, but remember, there are still over 600 others on the sanctuary jurisdiction list, too. And lots of federal money flows to states and municipalities: According to OMB’s Historical Tables, $1.1 trillion in federal grants is going to state and local governments in this fiscal year. Even without ending all their federal funding, a huge message could be sent to sanctuary jurisdictions. While such spending cuts would amount to well less than Washington’s full expenditures to states and municipalities, with over 600 sanctuary jurisdictions, and many big, blue states and cities, it could still mean significant savings. The collateral benefits would be substantial too. Because such savings would last only so long as sanctuary jurisdictions refused to comply with federal immigration enforcement, they could not be counted on to offset new spending or tax cuts. That means all would have to go to deficit reduction — a big demand from conservatives. Since essentially none of these sanctuary jurisdictions are red, reducing their federal funding should not divide Republicans. And since no Democrats are expected to vote for Republicans’ budget proposal (none did when it passed the House), cutting sanctuary jurisdictions’ funding would not hurt the vote total. As for sanctuary jurisdictions, some would instantly change their tune; Dallas, Texas, just did, even without the threat of losing federal funds. Flipping “sanctuary jurisdictions” to “law-enforcing jurisdictions” would remove big magnets for illegal immigrants to come to the U.S. It would also send another signal that those already here illegally should leave. (RELATED: Trump’s Plan to Pay Illegal Aliens to Self-Deport is Brilliant) Perhaps the only lesson that Harvard has taught is that going after the Left’s government funding is the only thing that gets their attention. By its own admission, for years, Harvard tolerated antisemitism on its campus; once the administration threatened its federal funding, suddenly Harvard paid attention rather than lip service. (RELATED: Harvard’s Sacred Cash Cows) The sanctuary jurisdictions are no different. Clearly, they want to battle the Trump administration in courts and run out the clock on his term. Going after their federal funding in budget bills, which will be signed into law, cuts right to the heart of the matter. And through their delaying tactics. Talk is cheap; none more so than sanctuary jurisdictions’ virtue-signaling. Congress can let the Left choose to put their money where their mouth is. If they refuse to listen to reason and follow the law, then they should be forced to listen to the law or lose money. As L.A. burns, conservatives should learn. # # # READ MORE from J.T. Young: Democrats’ Real Problem with Populism Time to Strategically Decouple From China The Left, Radical Left, and Democrats: Three Peas, One Pod J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing, and has over three decades of experience working in Congress, the Department of the Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company. The post Reduce Spending and Reduce Illegal Immigration appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The thoughts herein have been inspired by my Governor Gruesome Newsom, my Mayor Karen Bass Ackwards, the L.A. “Riots,” and Greta Thunberg. All Comedy Tonight. They don’t call the Los Angeles nonsense “Riots” for nothing. As Ralph Kramden would say: “You’re a riot, Alice. A regular riot. Zip-boom to the moon, Alice.” The only thing missing from the contemporary La-La-Land version of “The Honeymooners” is “Alice.” Instead, we have Maxine. A riot, a regular riot. Since I live here and am a more reliable reporter of news and facts than are the “legacy news sources” like ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post — not to mention the BBC — I share with you here what’s going on and its ramifications. In effect: Nothing. The LA ‘Riots’ In a Deep Blue city, populated heavily by Illegals from a particular continent besides North America, you are going to find communists, Marxists, and unemployed woke radicals who rely on society for free handouts so that they need not go to work but instead can be home all day to attend demonstrations. That’s Los Angeles, a city of four million or so. Many people here do go to work. For example, despite my post-lung transplant realities, I work 14-hour days daily, what with providing rabbinic counseling, teaching Torah and other Jewish and Judaic subjects four days weekly to hundreds each week, writing opinion columns, and other stuff. Others on my block practice law, medicine, work in factories, promote sales, and so much more. They and I… work for a living. In other L.A. neighborhoods, on other L.A. blocks, people earn their keep instead by sitting all day scrolling through TikTok, emailing and WhatsApping on their phones, and going to political demonstrations. Maniscalco does a wonderful stand-up set about people who spend their time going to demonstrations. How do they afford to live without going to work? Easy. They check their bank accounts to ensure that their weekly or monthly free stipends — their “Entitlements” — have been accurately and timely deposited into their accounts by the government. They are entitled. That pays their tariff. If they wake up with sniffles on a slow news day, they drop by the local hospital emergency room to fill up the chamber with minor ailments since “emergency” room for the “undocumented” basically is free and offers an opportunity to catch up with the local medical professionals. Emergency rooms are forbidden to refuse service based on the legality of a person’s residence or ability to pay. Under the law, they must care for anyone until they are sure the person is “stabilized.” At that point, private hospitals ambulance the stabilized to government-run public hospital emergency rooms, which must take it from there. And that is why, when you have a true medical emergency, you have to wait 13 hours in the emergency room until your case — inability to breathe, uncontrollable vomiting, heartbeat rates galloping wildly from 82 to 39 to 147 to 54 to 135 to 42 — finally merits its moment for attention, after the prior 41 “undocumented” patients have been seen for raspy throats, tickles in their throats, a bruise on their shins, and boredom. Against the background described herein, we now approach the current iteration of “L.A. Riots.” We have no Rodney King; the king has been dethroned. George Floyd? No more juicy Black Lives Matter stuff since that fraud was exposed as an ingenious media-fed Get Rich scam. These days, we feed our lust for media attention and our deep boredom with “Palestine” and whatever else we are fortunate enough to occupy our attention. It used to be “global warming.” Then, when the Earth was not heating up enough, it became “climate change.” However, Greta Thunberg has now signaled to the Woke that Climate is so “Been There, Done That.” “Climate Change” is out. So, instead, we now have “Famine in Palestine,” where United Nations officials tell us that 14,000 babies will die in two days — specifically, tomorrow and its morrow. And, rather than Global Warming, we have ICE. (RELATED: Gaza Doesn’t Need Greta. Greta Needs Gaza.) If there are 4 million people in L.A., and 400 at an anti-ICE (pro-melted-Waters) street event near a freeway, intent to obstruct, that preoccupies one-ten-thousandth (1 percent of 1 percent) of the population while the other 99.999 percent do not care. That is the L.A. Riots. Nevertheless, if someone sets fire to three Waymo cars, the images on TV of the lithium fires grab the media’s insatiable need for pictures of Armageddon. That’s all it takes. Suddenly, without even a single Prednisone capsule or tablet, we have media coverage on steroids. (RELATED: Los Angeles Isn’t What’s Burning. The Democrat Party Might Well Be.) Los Angeles loves a good fire. We had the truly devastating and hellish Pacific Palisades fires. We even had the Paradise Fires that literally evaporated a city. There were the Rodney King riots. Sometimes, a solid earthquake that exceeds 4.5 on the Richter scale. All kinds of stuff. And when those erupt, we always have Maxine Waters on the scene to blame Donald Trump and to urge the public to get into the faces of the pre-gubernatorial Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We also have Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. As for Newsom, we all know by now: always on scene to advance another homeless initiative, to advocate for the multi-billion-dollar train to nowhere that still has not seen a single train track laid, and yet — somehow — always enough time to get that fixative Bryllcreem head combing that gets his every skull hair slicked to perfection. And we have Mayor Karen Bass, who was in Africa when celebrities’ homes burned and who still cannot get the place rebuilt. Amid the chaos, which truly puts January 6 to shame, we have President Donald Trump, who remembers and learned lessons from the George Floyd Nonsense that disrupted his first presidency. This time, he is not waiting for the Democrat governor, like Minnesota’s Tim Walz of Floyd 2020, to do his job while the governor’s wife opens the windows every night to smell the delightful aromas of her state’s main city burning down while her husband fiddles. And America has changed very greatly these past five years since Floyd of the BLM. America has seen the devastation wrought by the Floyd scams that launched Walz’s career until he sank it on his own. Four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris got through to the thick-skulled. In this era, we want Trump, and we want ICE to find, catch, and throw out the Illegals. We have no stomach anymore for the whining about the poor targeted Illegals who come in from toxic and anti-American Middle Eastern societies that send us terrorists, and South American societies that send us their worst: terrorists, gang-rapists, murderers, and members of drug cartels. Americans now root for Tom Homan and ICE. We want the criminal Illegals caught and thrown out. And so we do not buy into the crazy Democrat Woke narrative that Trump is a Nazi when he sends in the National Guard and then the Marines. We cheer those moves. Send in the Marines. And help us get rid of those who came here illegally from the Halls of Montezuma. To prevent the appearance of a Banana Republic dictatorship or military junta, we avoid using our formal military — like the army, the navy, and the marines — to quell domestic uprisings. That, instead, is the role of the National Guard. Typically, a state governor commands his or her state’s National Guard, not the president of the United States. However, the president may do so, too. For that, we do not need a legal scholar or Obama judge to hand down national injunctions. Dwight Eisenhower — a president — federalized and called in the National Guard to protect the hard-earned civil rights of Black Americans threatened by racists who tried to bar them from entering college campuses. A decade later, President John Kennedy also called in the National Guard to protect Black civil rights. That was the right thing to do. And now Trump is doing the same. Perfectly legal. And the president certainly may have Marines on hand to protect federal facilities. The end result will be that the L.A. riots will benefit Trump’s image as a president who did it right. We have seen Baltimore and parts of Minnesota burn down. However, Trump will be remembered just as we remember how California Governor Ronald Reagan leveraged Berkeley unrest to bolster his national image. Those left-wing radicals inadvertently catapulted Reagan into bearing an image as someone believable as a president of the United States, not only a Hollywood actor. That’s the L.A. “riots.” The Greta Press Op And then there is the Greta Thunberg comedy on the high seas.  The fool — and she always has been a fool — pre-filmed a cry to humanity to rescue her from being “kidnapped” by Israel. The reality is that, except for imbeciles and numbskulls who populate the Ocasio-quality Woke, not a soul in the world bought her narrative that Israel had “kidnaped” her when they shut down her selfie boat canoe. She and her 11 attention-starved cohort had imagined they would “save Gaza” by sailing half the world to bring enough food to feed an Arab family of four. Israel indeed maintains a blockade of Gaza to stop Iran from smuggling missiles, rockets, and worse into Hamas’s hands. Israel is not going to relax its arms blockade so that Thunberg would pierce through to deliver a half-dozen egg salad sandwiches and some hummus to Hamas. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) peaceably stopped her selfie yacht, took her into Zionist custody, and made the spoiled child sit in after-school detention for an hour, compelling her to watch a video filmed by the Hamas murderers and rapists themselves as they raped Israeli women, cut off their breasts, put their babies into ovens, and executed real kidnapings. Hamas filmed it all, and Israel made Greta watch. It is doubtful that Greta’s views will change after what she saw. Perhaps the film will impel her, going forward, to advocate cutting off all women’s breasts except for hers and the baking of all children, except for her. No way to know. But it has been extraordinarily inspiring to watch Israel play the unprecedented role of the first adult in Greta Thunberg’s life ever to tell her “no.” For that alone, Israel may be deemed a “Light Unto the Nations.” And it is a thrill to see, in real-time, the end of her climate days. The world is now in a new climate. People are sick of her. Sick of paper straws. Sick of no-flow shower heads. They are sick of Greta Thunberg and her antics, and a morally corrupt mass media that makes her into a Mother Theresa. By now, a great many Americans would be delighted if someone — anyone — truly would kidnap her… and then just dump her freely into Gaza along with her egg salad sandwiches. It’s all a joke. Good for health and recovery. Riots in L.A., Greta on the high seas. Just a joke. Send in the Marines. READ MORE from Dov Fischer: Mr. Trump Ambushes the South African Genocide Apologist Bill Belichick, Crossing the Jordon, and My Morning Croissant On Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Subscribe to Rav Fischer’s YouTube channel here at bit.ly/3REFTbk  and follow him on X (Twitter) at @DovFischerRabbi to find his latest classes, interviews, speeches, and observations. To be invited to attend his three weekly Zoom classes, send a request to rabbi@yioc.org. The post Such a Joke: LA ‘Riots’ and the Brutal Zionist Kidnaping of Greta Thunberg and Her Hummus for Hamas appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It’s bad enough that Democrats like Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Congresswoman La Monica McIver of New Jersey, and Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark labor so mightily to show their love for violent illegal-alien criminals such as “Maryland dad” and MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego-Garcia and the child rapists and killers housed at the Garden State’s Delaney Hall Detention Center. Pushing unhinged causes is the daily duty of Democrat politicians. One might expect a bit more restraint among Democrat jurists. But amid Trump Derangement Syndrome, “Orange Man Bad” trumps judicial norms and even the basic assumption that those who interpret the law would not violate it. And yet judges, of all people, are behaving very badly, not just to stymie Trump but to shield some of America’s most dangerous, indeed deadly, illegal aliens. (RELATED: Dictatorship of Obama Judges) U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy has broken no law. However, his legal contortions begin to illustrate how far Democrat jurists will go to chest-feed the worst of the worst among violent illegal-alien criminals. Murphy ordered the federal government to reopen the cases of eight brutal illegal-alien criminals, whom President Donald J. Trump deported to South Sudan. Murphy wants these poor babies to enjoy access to telephones, free lawyers, and brand-new “reasonable fear” interviews in private — just in case something gives them the willies. Never mind that these thugs invaded America, committed additional violations, were convicted of these crimes, and then received final deportation orders — in some cases, decades ago. In fact, Enrique Arias Hierro was convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping, and second-degree homicide, among other crimes. He was still in America despite scoring a final deportation order on September 13, 1999, courtesy of the Clinton administration! (RELATED: South Africa’s Refugees Expose the Left) “I was in third grade when this Cuban murderer was ordered deported,” my valiant Fox News colleague Bill Melugin observed via X. “9/11 hadn’t happened yet. NSYNC & Backstreet Boys were dominating the airwaves. I was a Pokémon card dealer. We had just gotten dial-up Internet, I think.” Judge Murphy does not understand the phrase “reasonable fear.” That is what these fiends’ victims felt as they tormented them — or much worse: Jesus Muñoz-Gutierrez of Mexico was convicted of second-degree murder. Thongxay Nilakout of Laos was convicted of robbery and first-degree murder. Tuan Thanh Phan of Vietnam was convicted of second-degree assault and first-degree murder. Nyo Myint of Burma was convicted of aggravated assault and, per the Department of Homeland Security, “first-degree sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting.” Ghastly. “It is absurd that an activist judge is trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters who present a clear and present threat to the safety of the American people,” said Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin. These men all got heaping helpings of the blessed due process that Leftists demand for them, even though they marched into America and have less-than-zero right to be here. Murphy is giving them more than their fair share of due process. Why the hell is Murphy going the extra mile for these piles of human garbage? (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Hill They’ve Died On) That said, Murphy’s act is just a warm-up for the true misbehavior of his colleagues on the bench. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan expected Mexican illegal alien Eduardo Flores-Ruiz for an April 18 pre-trial hearing on his three criminal charges. (RELATED: Is Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan Above the Law?) “This was truly horrific. This guy was in court being prosecuted by a state prosecutor for domestic violence battery,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told my Fox News colleagues John Roberts and Sandra Smith. “He had beat up two people — a guy and a girl. He beat the guy — hit the guy — 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly, they both had to go to the hospital.” Flores-Ruiz’s rap sheet included charges of “strangulation and suffocation,” DHS’s McLaughlin explained. Judge Dugan learned that a team of FBI and ICE agents was poised to arrest Flores-Ruiz for illegally re-entering the U.S., subsequent to his deportation to Mexico (via Nogales, Arizona), on January 16, 2013. She stormed out of Courtroom 615 and accosted these officers in the public hallway. She told them to visit the chief judge before exercising their arrest warrant. According to a subsequent criminal complaint, “Witnesses uniformly reported that Judge Dugan was visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor.” Dugan returned to Courtroom 615. As the criminal complaint against Dugan states, she summoned Flores-Ruiz and his attorney. “Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge DUGAN then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” the document elaborates. “Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.” Flores-Ruiz dashed nearly the full length of the Milwaukee County Courthouse before FBI agents in hot pursuit grabbed him across Tenth Street on that rainy morning. No one is above the law pic.twitter.com/TSrQ4GNMdA — FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) April 26, 2025 Judge Dugan is in boiling water. She now faces federal charges for concealing an individual from arrest and obstructing the law. “Hannah Dugan should be barred from ever serving as a judge again,” Congressman Tom Tiffany (R – R-Wisc.) said via X. “A judge who puts criminal illegal aliens above victims has no place in our courts.” Most Americans would greet Dugan’s lawbreaking with shock. However, the correct response should be: “It’s been done.” Dugan’s misdeed was a copycat crime. Boston Municipal Court Judge Shelley Joseph pulled an almost identical stunt on April 2, 2018. That’s when Dominican illegal alien Jose Medina-Perez entered her courtroom to face narcotics charges. He was in America despite two previous deportations and an order to stay out until at least 2027. Former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling initially charged Judge Joseph in 2019, during the Trump 45 term. Lelling told WGBH that Judge Joseph needed “to confirm or deny that she intentionally conspired to help the defendant evade federal authorities.” He added: “A federal grand jury concluded that she did, and that would be a serious, politically-motivated abuse of her position.” Lelling indicted Judge Joseph and then-courtroom deputy Wesley MacGregor for obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said that Judge Joseph and MacGregor plotted to foil federal attempts to arrest Medina-Perez by telling an ICE agent to wait for the illegal alien in the courthouse lobby. Meanwhile, Judge Joseph let Medina-Perez and his attorney depart her chambers via a back staircase. MacGregor allegedly met Medina-Perez downstairs, opened the rear door, and let him scram while the duped ICE agent waited patiently upstairs, at the front of the building. It took immigration officials a month to nab Medina-Perez. Before Judge Joseph endured a federal trial for her lawbreaking, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice dropped the case and let her appear before a state panel. She was also freed to mount the bench and conduct trials. How convenient! Judge Joseph’s next stop: evaluation before the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. It will decide whether she committed “willful judicial misconduct.” As luck would have it, Judge Joseph’s MCJC proceeding began yesterday. While disgraced Judge Jose Luis “Joel” Cano deserves low marks for compliance, he rates five stars for hospitality. The average resort guest could only fantasize about the exquisite service that Christhian Ortega-Lopez, 23, savored under the roof of Cano, a magistrate in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. The Venezuelan illegal alien breached America’s frontier with Old Mexico on December 15, 2023. In his quieter moments, this suspected Tren de Aragua gangbanger illegally performed handyman duties for Cano’s wife, Nancy. When Ortega-Lopez told her that he had been evicted from his apartment, she welcomed him to the “casita” behind their Las Cruces residence. The Canos were exceptional hosts. They posed for photos with Ortega-Lopez in their home. They fed him at their dinner table. They included him in last year’s family Christmas celebration. Suspected Tren de Aragua terrorist Christhian Ortega-Lopez with then-Judge “Joel” Cano and his family in the home that they shared with him (U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico) But wait. There’s more. Authorities say that the couple’s daughter, April, supplied him with an array of guns and “allowed him to hold and sometimes shoot various firearms,” according to the U.S. Justice Department. Unfortunately for him, authorities noticed a social media post of “Ortega-Lopez in possession of multiple firearms at a shooting range in Las Cruces,” the DOJ noted. “It is unlawful for any illegal migrant to be in possession of a gun in the U.S.” — so states 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5). Christhian Ortega-Lopez illegally posed with a gun at a Las Cruces, New Mexico, shooting range (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Pursuing an anonymous tip, federal officials apprehended Ortega-Lopez at the Canos’ home on Feb. 28 as an illegal alien who possessed firearms. This triggered the Canos’ ultimate act of hospitality. As a May 1 DOJ press release explained: “Following Ortega-Lopez’s arrest, authorities allege that Jose Cano destroyed a cellphone belonging to Ortega-Lopez by smashing it with a hammer and discarding the remains, believing it contained incriminating photos and videos. Nancy Cano is accused of conspiring to delete Ortega-Lopez’s Facebook account to eliminate evidence.” Cano’s hammer must have missed some of Ortega-Lopez’s other phones. A federal-prosecution filing stated that “agents seized three cellphones that are associated with the Defendant on February 28, 2025.” Searching them discovered, among other things, “A conversation with an individual in which the other participant warns Defendant about sending photographs that may jeopardize him in the United States that also includes a request to get a grenade or two 38s. Subsequent to this conversation, there is a set of gruesome photographs of two brutal murder victims that includes mutilated bodies, decapitated heads and dismembered hands.” None of this alarmed U.S. Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez. During a March 14 detention hearing for Ortega-Lopez, Judge Martinez said of former Judge Cano, who resigned March 3: “I’ve met him before several times, and he’s got a B.S. meter … He knows when somebody is B.S.ing him.” Martinez added: “I don’t think he would just let anybody live in his property.” Evidently, Martinez’s very own, groundbreaking “B.S. Meter Test” was all he needed. As one federal pleading stated: “Judge Martinez found the Defendant was not a flight risk or danger to the community and ordered the Defendant be released.” Federal prosecutors’ B.S. meters went berserk. They appealed his decision, arguing that, if freed, Ortega-Lopez would ride like the wind. Martinez agreed, and Venezuelan handyman Cristhian Ortega‑Lopez now relaxes in the Doña Ana County Detention Center and awaits next steps. It would be bad enough if these judges stretched or shredded the law to spare, say, Kasper Juul Eriksen, the Danish Green Card holder who arrived legally in 2009 and married his high school sweetheart, American Savannah Hobart, in 2014. Alas, as they mourned the miscarriage of their first child, they forgot to file a form in 2015. ICE never mentioned this until the otherwise law-abiding, non-violent, legal immigrant went to Memphis last April 15 for his final, pre-citizenship interview. Instead, the father of four was arrested and dispatched to the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, where he awaits deportation. Sending Eriksen scrambling down a courthouse’s back staircase, steps ahead of ICE, would be wrong. But it would be far easier to fathom. What defies explanation are these and other Democrat-Left jurists who are so devoured by Trump hatred that they jeopardize their careers and very freedom to aid and comfort convicted illegal-alien human smugglers, wife beaters, child rapists, and murderers. READ MORE from Deroy Murdock: No More GOP Tax-Hike Talk! Silence Is Golden. The Dinosaur Media Lies Again Make Medicaid Great Again Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor. The post When Good Judges Go Bad appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

As Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin’s primary job is to ensure that America’s air is clean and its water safe. Since his confirmation in January, however, Zeldin’s focus has been on a massive forensic inquiry into the EPA’s role in one of the most egregious cases of partisan profligacy in memory — the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) created by Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. That the GGRF is a “slush fund” should be beyond dispute, as it seems to have been deliberately designed as such. The 2022 Biden climate bill sent $27 billion to the EPA to be dispensed to favored “green” groups with near-zero oversight. After Donald Trump’s election last November, Biden officials reportedly took the unprecedented step of planting “trigger clauses” in award contracts meant to Trump-proof the awards. Trump’s election then set off a deck-clearing frenzy within the Biden EPA that saw officials shoveling as much money out the door as possible before Trump’s inauguration. This process was colorfully described by a Biden official, caught in a hot-mic moment, as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.” This brazen raid on the treasury is now on pause, owing to a Zeldin freeze on $20 billion of the $27 billion in grants, a flurry of lawsuits, and a pending Supreme Court decision that may find the whole tawdry exercise unconstitutional. Whatever happens, taxpayers owe Zeldin a debt of gratitude for putting a spotlight on what he calls “programmatic waste, fraud, and abuse” in the name of “climate religion.” Zeldin’s characterization of the abuse as being “programmatic” is exactly right. To understand why, consider the process that dispensed the $20 billion that Zeldin has now frozen and is trying to claw back. After Biden signed his climate bill, the EPA money sat for more than a year as the agency and its intended recipients got their ducks in a row. It would be distributed in billion-dollar waves to the favored non-profits who would act as conduits to redistribute further to more favored non-profits. Many of the ultimate recipients were whole new entities that came into being for the purpose of receiving this bounty. They are called, tellingly enough, “purpose-built” entities. Some came into existence a month before the money was dispensed, some several months before. What they had in common was political connections. Charged with disbursing the $370 billion in climate funds was the Democrats’ all-purpose operative, John Podesta, Biden’s “climate czar.” His Center for American Progress championed the IRA, and Podesta received substantial consulting fees from IRA beneficiaries, among many other ties to the bill’s architects. GGRF’s largest stream of funds went through three non-profits that, in turn, acted as major conduits to a cluster of sub-awardees. These major conduits were Climate United, the Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities, which received $7 billion, $5 billion, and $2 billion, respectively. Their political connections were notable. (RELATED: The Green Grift: How Power Forward Communities’ $2 Billion Boondoggle Misses the Mark) For example, the Coalition for Green Capital’s Jahi Wise left the organization to become the GGRF administrator and oversaw the disbursement of $5 billion to his former employer. Wise reportedly recused himself from the award decision. Only in Washington would that qualify as an arms-length deal. The Coalition for Green Capital subsequently hired at least four Biden officials who played leading roles in the IRA climate caper. Biden’s “whole of government” climate policy architect, Cecilia Martinez, helped redistribute the $5 billion the coalition got from the EPA to downstream NGOs. Climate United Fund was formed in November 2023 — roughly four months before it landed $7 billion from the GGRF — and was run by Obama Office of Management and Budget advisor Beth Bafford. Other high-powered Climate United executives and board members included Biden Energy Department strategic advisor Phil Aroneanu and prominent Democratic activist Dolores Huerta. Power Forward Communities is a just-in-time partnership created for the climate bill largesse, bagging more than $2 billion. One of its key partners, Rewiring America, is an initiative of the “dark money” network, Arabella Advisors, and famously hired Democratic thought leader Stacey Abrams to “guide the organization” to “Inflation Reduction Act incentives.” Arabella’s hidden hand in the climate bill distributions stretches far beyond the EPA. Regarding waste, fraud, and abuse in the name of “climate justice,” the greenhouse gas slush funds may be the tip of an even bigger iceberg. For example, last week, Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright revealed a staggering $93 billion in loans, many “high-risk,” heaved overboard by Biden officials in the 76 days following Trump’s election and before his inauguration. Add that to the Biden Agriculture Department’s $20 billion “Climate-Smart” program, which Arabella principal Eric Kessler massaged in favor of his network, and the politically juiced climate slush funds approach $150 billion. To say nothing of the $60 billion sent to a “clean manufacturing program.” All told, the $370 billion climate bill’s spending schemes strain comprehension. But a clear public understanding of the scope and purpose of the bill was never the point. That’s why it was laughably called the Inflation Reduction Act. Peter Schweizer is the President of the Government Accountability Institute and author of Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. Follow him @PeterSchweizer. Seamus Bruner is Schweizer’s Vice President and Executive Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute. Bruner wrote Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life. Follow him @SeamusBruner. READ MORE: The US Won’t Follow Europe Off a ‘Green’ Cliff Germany’s Suicide Pact with Green Ideology The Green Grift: How Power Forward Communities’ $2 Billion Boondoggle Misses the Mark The post Biden EPA’s ‘Gold Bars Off the Titanic’ Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

There are few phrases in modern capitalist theology more sacred than “self-made.” It’s the secular equivalent of divine birth — proof that with enough belief, talent, and discipline, you too can ascend. More often than not, it’s also a lie. Scratch the surface, and “self-made” in today’s America almost always reveals itself as branding, not biography. A label slapped on lives propped up by connections, capital, and inherited advantage. It’s uniquely American: a mythology that disguises privilege as virtue and turns nepotism into a motivational poster. Guo and Swift aren’t flukes — they’re fixtures. Not outliers, but insiders from the start. Take Taylor Swift. An undeniably gifted performer, a shrewd operator, an artist who’s outlasted countless peers. But self-made? Not in any serious, structural sense. Swift didn’t rise from obscurity. She was born into upper-middle-class comfort — her father a Merrill Lynch stockbroker, her mother a former marketing executive. The family lived on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, but this wasn’t rustic poverty — it was branding gold. When it became clear Taylor had talent, the family moved to Nashville. Not on a whim, but with purpose. Her father transferred to the local Merrill Lynch office and bought a reported stake in Big Machine Records, the label that would sign her. That’s not hustle. That’s a boardroom maneuver in a country that mistakes closeness to capital for merit. She didn’t claw her way into a studio — she was walked through the door by a parent who had the money and the market savvy to engineer access. She wasn’t discovered in a diner. She was presented, then slowly molded into an American icon. The very idea of the “self-made” star dissolves under any serious scrutiny here. Every step was scaffolded. Every opportunity padded by safety nets invisible to the public but obvious to anyone who’s navigated the industry without them. She had early demo recordings, the best vocal coaches money could buy, and constant exposure to industry decision-makers. Her songs were good. Her work ethic was real. But what mattered just as much — if not more — was that the machine already saw her as marketable. Pretty, polite, blonde, and just edgy enough to sell rebellion in a safe wrapper. Her origin story has been airbrushed into a fairytale: small-town girl with a dream and a guitar. But the foundation was quietly laid from day one. Still, Forbes blessed her with the crown. World’s youngest self-made female billionaire. A woman who, as they love to phrase it, “built an empire on her own terms.” A rags-to-riches fairy tale, scrubbed of the fact that the “rags” were pressed Ralph Lauren and the riches were inevitable. Lucy Guo Tops Swift Now, Lucy Guo has unseated her. Another “self-made” billionaire, hailed for coding her way from Carnegie Mellon dropout to AI queenpin with a $1.2 billion stake in Scale AI. The media laps it up: her electric skateboard commute! Her Uber Eats addiction! Her Pokémon paraphernalia! Her bootcamp workouts and techno raves! A girlboss for the algorithmic age. But Guo, like Swift, is a product of a particular ecosystem — a Silicon Valley pipeline greased by access, venture capital, and Thiel Fellowships. She didn’t bootstrap her way out of poverty. She was born in Queens to immigrant parents, yes — but she attended elite schools, interned at Facebook, and landed in Peter Thiel’s orbit early on. From there, the path was paved. She became one of the youngest female founders backed by Thiel’s billion-dollar influence machine, co-founding Scale AI — a defense contractor masquerading as an AI darling, with military contracts and geopolitical ambitions baked in. Guo is not some lone coder who disrupted the system. She is the system — funded by ideologues with a very specific vision of who should inherit the future. Even her latest company, Passes, which promises to “make millionaires” of creators, has faced serious allegations of child exploitation. But that doesn’t puncture the myth — it enhances it. Even scandal becomes part of the somewhat sordid spectacle. A little chaos only adds edge. Because this is how American mythology functions now. It doesn’t shatter under scrutiny — it adapts. It folds slip-ups and shame into storylines. It recasts proximity to power as personal drive. It reframes access as effort. And once it’s been laundered through a few press cycles and a carefully staged persona, it’s sold to the public as “self-made.” Let me be very clear: The real problem isn’t Swift or Guo, who themselves appear to have had the requisite talent and drive to exploit opportunity. It’s the exclusive nature of their access to opportunity, and the deceit baked into the language surrounding them. “Self-made” now most often  means you were born into the right social milieu, spoke the right dialect of ambition, and capitalized on the machinery built by others. It is a myth designed to keep the rest of us compliant. If they made it, so can you. So why aren’t you trying harder? This is the dark genius of the term — it launders inherited advantage, buries nepotism under hashtags, and turns privilege into a personality trait. It keeps the working class docile, fed on fairytales of meritocracy, while the elite quietly pass power and capital among themselves, calling it disruption or progress. What is “self-made” in an era when industries are dominated by hedge funds, record deals come with equity swaps, and viral stardom is auctioned off by marketing teams? What is self-made when your every success is buoyed by exclusive networks, early capital, or algorithmic favoritism? The answer is simple: it is too often a fiction. A beautiful, sticky, morally seductive fiction. And one we’re now exporting as gospel truth. Guo and Swift aren’t flukes — they’re fixtures. Not outliers, but insiders from the start. The fantasy says they played the same game as you. They didn’t. They were born on third base, handed custom cleats, and told to sprint. Their stories aren’t proof the game is fair.  They’re proof that the tale we’ve been told — about them and countless other so-called self-made billionaires — is in most cases a falsehood. A story crafted not to inform, but to pacify. To keep the masses dreaming while the winners keep dealing from a stacked deck. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: Why Gen Z Is Giving Up on Sex, Love, and Each Other Joe Rogan, Bono, and the Church of the Self The post Taylor Swift a Self-Made Billionaire? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.