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Sometime in the middle of last week, liberal news organizations noticed that President Donald Trump is a little behind on what may well be the only campaign promise they actually wanted him to keep: his promise to help the average American afford in-vitro fertilization treatments should she want to get pregnant. “The government is going to pay for [IVF], or we’re going to get — we’ll mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that,” Trump told prospective voters almost exactly a year ago. “We want to produce babies in this country, right?” At the time, that statement made pro-life Americans (myself included) do a double-take. Yes, we want to “produce babies in this country,” but not to the tune of 1.5 million tiny frozen humans, and certainly not at the risk of widespread trafficking of the infants who do make it to birth. The ends, as moralists and ethicists never tire of reminding us, do not justify the means. (READ MORE: Pedophiles Are Buying Children. Does Surrogacy Deserve More Scrutiny?) Then, in February, Trump signed an executive order requiring Vince Haley, the assistant director to the president for domestic policy, to submit a list of policy recommendations to make IVF cheaper for Americans within 90 days. It seemed the president was going to do what he promised. Those 90 days passed, and we heard nothing. (RELATED: Catholics Cannot Endorse the President’s IVF Mandate) Then the Washington Post reported last week that, per “two people with knowledge of internal discussions,” Trump has no plans “to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services.” (RELATED: Pedophiles Are Buying Children. Does Surrogacy Deserve More Scrutiny?) It’s not exactly an official statement, but it did elicit something like a sigh of relief — despite the fact that Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, added, in a rather vaguely worded statement, that “President Trump pledged to expand access to fertility treatments for Americans who are struggling to start families … The Administration is committed like none before it to using its authorities to deliver on this pledge.” It turns out that there are all sorts of problems with the original Trump promise. According to one senior official, mandating that insurance companies cover the treatment would require Congressional action; IVF would have to be considered an “essential health benefit,” and it’s a bit of a stretch to apply that label to the treatment. (RELATED: California Redefines ‘Infertility,’ Paves Way for More Abuses) Not only that, but IVF treatments are expensive — a single round could cost as much as $25,000. Were insurance companies forced to cover it, they’d have to raise insurance premiums, which would hardly be a popular move among those Americans paying onerously high prices for insurance coverage. Then there’s the fact that, despite what the IVF industry (an industry that’s expected to be worth $7.24 billion by 2030) wants you to believe, IVF isn’t the only answer to infertility. An approach broadly referred to as restorative reproductive medicine has recently been gaining popularity. It favors identifying the precise reason a woman may not be fertile and then addressing that reason, rather than simply injecting an embryo into a potentially hostile home and hoping for the best. NBC News reported just last week that this approach may well be part of the reason the Trump administration isn’t willing to go full steam ahead on its promise to make IVF affordable. After all, shortly after that February executive order, Republican congressmen introduced bills in both the House and Senate to expand access to these (usually) cheaper, less invasive, and more moral treatments. Just last month, associate editor at the Free Press, Madeline Kearns, highlighted her success story with an alternative fertility treatment called NaPro. She, like many other women, suffered from endometriosis and had been told that IVF was her only path to having children. That, as it turned out, wasn’t true. A compassionate (and less expensive) treatment of the underlying issue allowed her to conceive naturally. (If you haven’t read it yet, her story is a must-read for anyone suffering from infertility or who just wants to be better educated on the whole issue.) (READ MORE: ‘Three-Parent’ Human Experiment Becomes the Standard for a New IVF Treatment) The fact is, the Trump administration generally perceives itself to be pro-life — as well it should. When President Trump claims that he was the man who got Roe v. Wade overturned, he’s not being overly hyperbolic. The New York Times recently reported that his current administration has plans to burn some $9.7 million in contraceptives sitting in a Belgian warehouse originally intended for some of the “poorest countries in Africa” because those contraceptives have been flagged as abortifacient. That’s the kind of action we expect from a pro-life administration. Unfortunately, not everyone in the administration (Trump included) sees IVF as a pro-life issue. “Pro-life means pro-baby,” the argument seems to go, “and IVF produces more babies; therefore, it must be pro-life.” The problem is that IVF isn’t pro-life. It not only opens the door to some truly horrifying opportunities for child abuse, it almost always costs the lives of 7-8 tiny humans for every one human successfully implanted in a mother’s womb. It’s all well and good that the administration is weakly “signaling” that it might backtrack on its campaign promises to fund IVF. It should do more. READ MORE by Aubrey Harris: Jim Acosta Interviewed a Dead Teenager. Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? The Sydney Sweeney Ads Aren’t the Epitome of Conservatism The Death of Trans Clinics for Kids Is a Huge Victory

Conversion therapy is making a comeback. The old model, filled with electroshocks, public shaming, and fire-and-brimstone theatrics, died a deserved death. What’s emerging in its place looks very different. Modern practitioners work quietly. They ask questions instead of barking orders. They listen before they lean in with advice. Cultural authorities insist that every fleeting attraction must be embraced, celebrated, and built into permanent identity. This shift couldn’t come at a better time. Young men today face pressures their fathers never imagined. Online communities push identities like products. Social media algorithms feed confusion. Cultural authorities insist that every fleeting attraction must be embraced, celebrated, and built into permanent identity. The science behind sexual orientation is far less settled than activists claim. Large-scale genetic studies with hundreds of thousands of participants show the same pattern: DNA shapes sexual behavior but works alongside other powerful influences. Twin research tells an even more revealing story. Identical twins share identical genes, yet match in sexual orientation only half the time. If sexuality were purely biological, that number should be one hundred percent. These findings demolish the “born this way” narrative. No gay gene exists. But try telling this to the pride prophets and rainbow royalty who treat doubt as blasphemy and dissenters as heretics. (RELATED: LGBTQ Activists Aren’t Happy With Formerly Lesbian Celebrity’s Decision to Date a Man) A combustible mix of genetics, environment, early experiences, and culture shapes sexuality. Yet the loudest voices still preach biological determinism as if it were gospel. Many men who later seek conversion therapy carry disturbingly similar pasts. Childhood sexual abuse surfaces again and again. Very often at the hands of someone trusted — a family friend, coach, or relative. Such betrayals cut deep, twisting their sense of masculinity and reshaping the essence of desire. (RELATED: The Great Salad Scam) Others describe different but equally damaging patterns. Absent fathers created voids that boys desperately tried to fill. Overbearing mothers dominated households while masculine role models remained invisible. Normal boyhood needs for male mentorship and belonging got twisted into something else entirely. The internet amplified these vulnerabilities. Predatory adults lurk in forums where confused teenagers gather. They offer acceptance, understanding, and identity to boys who feel lost. What masquerades as support is actually grooming. These manipulators convince vulnerable youth that confusion equals permanent identity. (RELATED: Loneliness Is the New Oil) Modern culture makes questioning impossible. Victimhood has become sacred. Identity politics treats every label as immutable truth. When troubled young men express doubt about their attractions, they’re told to embrace them instead. The source of their confusion never gets examined. The pain behind their struggle gets ignored. Therapists who dare to explore these issues face professional suicide. Licensing boards threaten their careers. Colleagues shun them. Insurance companies won’t cover their work. The message is clear: help people accept unwanted attractions, or find another profession. This censorship protects a narrative that can’t survive honest examination. If sexuality were truly fixed, therapeutic exploration would be pointless. If it were genuinely biological, talking therapy couldn’t possibly change it. The desperate attempts to silence conversion therapy suggest something different. Free to Choose Legitimate practitioners don’t promise miraculous transformations. They offer something more valuable: choice. Men who feel trapped by unwanted desires can explore their origins. They can understand how childhood experiences shaped adult patterns. They can decide whether current attractions align with their values. Critics paint all conversion therapy as fraudulent torture. Some practitioners certainly deserve that characterization. Hucksters selling false hope cause real damage. But serious therapists working with motivated clients achieve different results. They offer space for genuine self-examination, free from predetermined outcomes. Meanwhile, the same activists who cheer gender fluidity treat sexuality as sacred ground. Essentially, untouchable, unquestionable, and fixed forever. They cheer biological males getting breast implants while condemning men who want their desires aligned with their beliefs. They fund hormone treatments for confused adolescents while trying to criminalize counselors helping adult men resist behaviors they no longer want. (RELATED: Gen Z: The Obergefell Generation) This contradiction reveals the underlying agenda. Progressive orthodoxy treats the body as infinitely malleable while insisting the mind stays permanently fixed. Gender can be changed at will, but sexual attractions remain carved in stone. This makes no scientific sense. Neuroscience research shows brains are constantly adapting throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows new neural pathways to form while unused connections wither. What people repeatedly think and do literally reshapes their minds. Desires can be strengthened through indulgence or weakened through redirection. Real conversion therapy works with these natural processes. Therapists help clients understand how their attractions developed. They explore alternative ways of meeting legitimate emotional needs. They support clients who choose to pursue different behavioral patterns. Change takes time. It demands sustained effort. It demands skilled guidance and clear-eyed expectations. Not everyone reaches the outcome they hope for, but many see real improvements in their quality of life. The men seeking this help aren’t caricatures of self-loathing. They’re thoughtful people wrestling with desires that clash with their deepest values. They deserve understanding, not scorn. The return of conversion therapy marks something bigger — a rebellion against identity politics dogma. Young men are realizing they don’t have to stamp every passing attraction as permanent. They’re discovering that confusion isn’t destiny, and that a man who once believed he was gay can decide, one day, to simply walk away. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: When South Park Was Funny — And Why It Isn’t Anymore Newsom’s War on Masculinity Comes Full Circle What’s Happening in Minnesota Should Alarm All Americans

The Department of Justice is continuing its fight against antisemitism on college campuses. In a letter to George Washington University, the Department of Justice has found that the university’s actions towards Jewish and Israeli students were “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitic harassment. In the letter, the DOJ offered GWU an opportunity to resolve the matter through a voluntary resolution, giving the university until Aug. 22 to communicate to the department if it was interested. (RELATED: Trump: Harvard ‘Deliberately Indifferent’ to Anti-Semitism, Risks Losing All Fed Money) The DOJ stated that agitators of the “antisemitic, disruptive protests” at GWU’s campus from April and May 2024 intended “to frighten, intimidate, and deny Jewish, Israeli, and American-Israeli students free and unfettered access to GWU’s educational environment.” DOJ also stated that it “found numerous incidents of Jewish students being harassed, abused, intimidated and assaulted by protesters.” As a result, Jewish students “were afraid to attend class, to be observed, or, worse, to be ‘caught’ and perhaps physically beaten on GWU’s campus.” The Jewish GWU student … was instructed by GWU’s assistant dean of students to leave, stating that the Jewish student was “antagonizing and provoking the crowd.” The DOJ also stated that one Jewish GWU student, who was “surrounded, harassed, threatened, and then ordered to leave the area immediately” by the protesters, was then instructed by GWU’s assistant dean of students to leave, stating that the Jewish student was “antagonizing and provoking the crowd.” Other students asserted that they were harassed and told to leave by the protesters. Protesters also surrounded another student with the intention of confining the student, and shouted racial slurs at this student, after the student held up an Israeli flag. Rather than intervene on the student’s behalf, a GWU Police Department officer told the student to leave for his own safety. A GWU Police Department officer told another Jewish student to leave after the student merely held up an Israeli flag and protesters responded by harassing him and screaming epithets like: “F[***] you, Zionist go die,” “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution,” “Hamas are freedom fighters,” and “Zionists go to hell!” (RELATED: Post-Identity Antisemitism: The New Obsession With Israel) GWU received no fewer than eight complaints alleging that the protestors were discriminating against students due to their being Jewish or Israeli. Based on its investigation, DOJ concluded that “GWU took no meaningful action and instead was deliberately indifferent to the hostile educational environment on its campus.” These findings follow a similar letter that the DOJ sent to UCLA, stating that UCLA was also “deliberately indifferent” to the hostile environment targeting Jewish and Israeli students caused by its protesters. UCLA had received at least 11 complaints stating that protesters during April and May 2024 discriminated against students because they were Jewish or Israeli, which included complaints alleging assault and being physically prevented from accessing parts of the campus. One complainant alleged that her Jewish friend was “pushed around, punched, and beaten with a stick” by encampment “marshals” on April 25. Another alleged that on the same day, a demonstrator perceived them to be Jewish and told them to “go back to Poland” with their “people.” DOJ’s findings show that UCLA took no meaningful action to eliminate the hostile environment caused by the protesters. The DOJ is seeking a $1 billion settlement with UCLA to resolve antisemitism and discrimination claims, after UCLA had settled with Jewish students for $6 million in July. As I reported in July, the DOJ sent a similar letter to Harvard University, finding that Harvard was also “deliberately indifferent” to the hostile environment that targeted its Jewish and Israeli students. (RELATED: Three Major Universities Face Congress Over Campus Antisemitism) The DOJ’s efforts are starting to produce results, as the agency is reaching settlements with universities. In July, the DOJ and Columbia University reached a $221 million settlement. The settlement includes $21 million to resolve antisemitic discrimination employment claims following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack, a review of Columbia’s Middle East studies, the establishment of a liaison for students on antisemitism issues, and a ban on demonstrations that take place inside university buildings and/or those that violate the school’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. Also in July, the DOJ reached a $50 million settlement with Brown University that in part addressed antisemitism on campus, which includes a survey to be administered by the end of the year that will “evaluate the campus climate for Brown students, including the climate for those with shared Jewish ancestry, and to evaluate social media harassment.” Brown also agreed to act as needed on any survey results and to inform the federal government of how it is implementing any reforms. Additionally, Brown agreed to keep a detailed spreadsheet of discrimination complaints and to share that with the federal government. After a long period of harassment and intimidation, Jewish and Israeli students are starting to reclaim their rightful place as equals on college campuses. Hopefully, the DOJ’s actions will help turn the tide against antisemitism on campuses. READ MORE from Steve Postal: Trump Brokers 11th Peace Deal. More to Come? Israel Should Annex Land in Gaza, Judea and Samaria Trump and Bibi Should Reject Snake Oil Peace With Genocidal Syria

NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has repeatedly refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” He was given a pass by a large share of liberal Democrats once he promised not to use it and counsel others not to either. Contrast this to how liberals reacted to the antisemitism of the white supremacists eight years earlier. On May 13, 2017, there was a demonstration of about 800 white supremacists that was part of the larger protest against the removal of statues honoring Confederate Civil War fighters. The white supremacists chanted: “We will not be replaced, Jews will not replace us.” Subsequently, they tried a few additional demonstrations nationally, all with much fewer participants, often dwarfed by counter anti-racist demonstrations. When President Trump said that there were good people on both sides, referring to the broader statues issue, it was seized on by liberals, claiming that he was being an apologist for the white supremacists. At the time, many liberal organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), were making every effort to associate anti-Jewish hatred with the right-wing. The Daily Beast reporter Jay Michaelson falsely claimed, “The vast majority of anti-Semitic attacks in this country are carried out by right-wing white supremacists.” The ADL source referenced highlighted the murders in Poway (CA) and Pittsburgh (PA). In its comprehensive report on antisemitic incidents, the ADL reported: “In 2018, 249 acts of anti-Semitism (13 percent of the total incidents) were attributable to known extremist groups or individuals inspired by extremist ideology.” However, it noted that putting up flyers in public places or making robocalls comprised 229 of these incidents. Thus, outside of the murders, virtually none of the assaults or direct harassments were perpetrated by white supremacists. This liberal approach became increasingly difficult to sustain when there was an upsurge in antisemitic acts over the next couple of years. In December 2019, there was unprecedented violence against orthodox Jews throughout the NYC metropolitan area: killings in Jersey City, knifings in Monsey, and the whack-a-Jew Hanukkah actions in Brooklyn. (RELATED: Schumer and the Democrats’ Antisemitism Problem) While it was white supremacists who chanted, “We will not be replaced by Jews,” it was individuals with informal ties to an anti-Jewish black nationalist sect that carried this out in Jersey City. They killed the owner and two customers inside a Jewish business that was at the center of a group of orthodox Jews who had been moving into the Jersey City community. After the murders, a trustee of the Jersey City public schools, Joan Terrell-Paige, wrote that Jews “brazenly came … wav[ing] bags of money. Resistance was met with more threats of WE WILL BRING DRUG DEALERS AND PROSTITUTES TO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO YOU.” Sympathizing with the murderers, she claimed, “Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message? Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the black communities of America?” When elected officials called for her resignation, Carolyn Oliver Fair, the executive director of the North Jersey Chapter of the Al Sharpton-led National Action Network, defiantly defended Terrell Page: “She said nothing wrong. Everything she said is the truth.” Even after the Monsey knifings by a black antisemite, de Blasio still saw Trump’s rhetoric as the driving force. Indeed, the ADL’s executive director, Jonathan Greenblatt, was unwilling to combat anti-Jewish beliefs within the black community when, in response to de Blasio’s proposal to increase police presence in afflicted Jewish neighborhoods, he worried about “the adverse consequences that ramped-up policing have often had on communities of color.” More so than a few years ago, antisemitic acts have become dominated by leftwing activists, often under the banner of “globalize the intifada.” The phrase energizes them to harass Jews both verbally and physically, everywhere they can. Typical was their May actions at the Brooklyn College Hillel, where I am a board member. They kept both members and daycare families that use the building trapped inside for 30 minutes until police belatedly cleared an exit. (RELATED: The Madman Cometh — And There’s Apparently No Stopping Him) The liberal reaction to the killings in D.C. and Boulder, Colorado, has stretched this liberal apologist narrative. New York Times columnist Masha Gessen argued that “violence that looks antisemitic may — even when it very effectively serves to scare a great many Jews — be something else.” Instead, it was politically driven. This, I would argue, helps rationalize Mamdani’s stance. Fortunately, a few Democrats have been very direct in their criticism of Mamdani. He has failed to condemn “blatantly antisemitic” rhetoric, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said in an interview with Jewish Insider. “You have to speak and act with moral clarity, and when supporters of yours say things that are blatantly antisemitic, you can’t leave room for that to just sit there,” Shapiro said in the interview. “You’ve got to condemn that.” Comptroller Brad Lander, representing the dominant wing of NYC Democrats, immediately pushed back. He said, “Josh Shapiro won’t help keep Jews safe in NYC or Pennsylvania by feeding Trump’s narrative about our Democratic nominee for mayor.” Even if something is true, it is out of bounds if it feeds a Trump narrative. This is one more example of how the deep animus towards Trump infects liberal thinking, and it should be rejected. READ MORE from Robert Cherry: The ‘BBB’ Brings Accountability to the Food Stamp Program — Not Catastrophe The Real Experience of Palestinians in the Middle East Are Sugary Sodas Going to Disappear Under RFK Jr.’s Healthy Food Campaign? Robert Cherry is an American Enterprise Institute affiliate and author of the forthcoming book, Arab Citizens of Israel: How Far Have They Come? (Wicked Son Press, Fall 2025).

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It’s almost unfathomable, but California’s Democratic lawmakers are going all in this session on a controversial bill that promises to provide more oversight of the state’s charter schools (especially non-classroom-based ones) — but is little more than a union-backed attempt to quash this one bright spot in California’s public-school landscape. It’s also putting Governor Gavin Newsom on the spot as he’s becoming the leading voice in the national anti-Trump resistance. Assembly Bill 84 is moving through the Legislature and is headed toward the Senate Appropriations Committee next week. As the Senate committee analysis explained, the bill: “(1) increases audit requirements and authorizer responsibilities; (2) revises the funding determination process to include additional financial reporting and a review of charter networks; (3) imposes restrictions on certain contracting practices … and (4) places new limits on the ability of small school districts to authorize NCB [non-classroom-based] charter schools.” If scandals are the reason, then the Legislature might take a look at the myriad scandals that have plagued traditional public schools recently. The sponsor, the California School Employees Association (CSEA), points to a charter-school scandal as justification for creating a costly bureaucracy to oversee these schools. But if scandals are the reason, then the Legislature might take a look at the myriad scandals that have plagued traditional public schools recently — including a whistleblower lawsuit, budget deficits, grand jury investigations, and you name it. I’m sure the bill has nothing to do with CSEA viewing charters as a threat. Charter school groups have no problem with oversight, but they see this as going too far. For example, AB 84 prohibits parents from spending funds from instructional accounts on programs “not provided by a credentialed employee of the local educational agency for the pupil.” As the Pacific Research Institute’s education scholar, Lance Izumi, explains, the Legislature is “using fiscal accountability as a fig-leaf issue to hide its real intentions — crippling California’s popular charter-school sector in order to bolster regular public schools that are seeing declines in both enrollment and student achievement.” It’s really a jobs-protection measure. Why would unions and the public-school establishment be so upset by charters when public schools are constitutionally guaranteed more than 40 percent (Proposition 98) of the state’s rather enormous general-fund budget? Two obvious reasons: Declining test scores and declining enrollments. (RELATED: Even Democrats Are Turning on the Party Over School Choice) As The Orange County Register explained regarding those test scores, “Despite a slight recent uptick, California public-school test scores are nothing short of shocking: Only 47 percent of students met the state English standards, while only 35.5 percent met the state’s math standards. Meanwhile, charter-school students significantly outperformed similar students in test results.” Those results are leading parents to seek out alternatives, especially after the COVID shutdowns — and the failure of public schools to rise to the challenge — reminded the public that sending kids to a traditional classroom isn’t always necessary. Also, demographics are playing a role, as there simply is a falling number of school-aged children as people have fewer kids, immigration slows, and many Californians move to other states. As usual, the main concern of the public schools is keeping the cash flowing — and that cash is tied to Average Daily Attendance (ADA) numbers. (RELATED: Liberals Aren’t Pretending Education Is Value-Neutral, and Neither Should We) Consider this data from the Public Policy Institute of California in June: “Enrollment fell in California’s public TK–12 schools in 2024-25 for the eighth consecutive year; roughly 5.8 million students are enrolled statewide, about 420,000 fewer than in 2014–15. This is despite the recent expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK); with TK excluded, the decline over the past decade is about 100,000 larger.” PPIC adds: “Over the longer term, fiscal pressures will continue to mount in districts with sustained declines, potentially curtailing student services and forcing difficult conversations about budget cuts and/or school closures.” These problems are particularly pronounced in urban school districts. Many suburban districts are growing. Those major urban areas have outsized political power, so lawmakers are trying to stanch the bleeding. Let’s not pretend this has anything to do with accountability and helping poor and special-needs kids who benefit from these alternatives the most. Charter schools are, in fact, public schools that use taxpayer dollars, so there’s nothing wrong with reasonable accountability measures. But who really thinks that new bureaucracies are the solution — especially in a state that’s overrun by bureaucracy and where state agencies are routinely plagued by incompetence and scandal? It’s not hard to understand what’s going on here. It is harder to understand why Democratic lawmakers want to put Newsom in this pickle. Public-opinion polls show charters’ continued popularity. The real test of popularity: their enrollments are increasing. State data reinforces that charters overall perform well academically. If Newsom is looking at running for president, he’d be running nationwide, where support for charters and educational choice would be even higher across the nation. If AB 84 goes to his desk, Newsom might be forced to choose between his union backers and public preferences. Newsom has a mixed record on charters, unlike his unabashedly pro-charter predecessor, Jerry Brown. Newsom has signed laws that have made it more difficult for charters to expand, but he has paid lip service to them as one educational choice. He has not embraced the most extreme proposals by the teachers’ unions. The governor also previously vetoed another union bill that promised charter accountability, but would have further limited them. Being optimistic, Newsom might certainly do a repeat performance with a veto of AB 84. We’ll see. (RELATED: School Choice Is Common Sense for Students) Perhaps the most succinct opposition to the legislation comes from former state Auditor Elaine Howle, as quoted in a Sacramento Bee advertisement running today: “Based on my 21 years of experience as California’s State Auditor, creating a new statewide watchdog … would likely cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to implement… A more cost-effective and sensible approach would be to strengthen existing oversight.” The ultimate question for the Legislature and Newsom: Are they serious about accountability, or are they just trying to quash the competition? READ MORE from Steven Greenhut: Wildfires As a Wake-Up Call California Tries Another Tack to Crush Ridesharing Dems Play Losing Hand on Sports Betting Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a 2026 presidential candidate for the Democratic Centre Party, succumbed on August 11 to wounds sustained on June 7 in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally. Uribe Turbay was shot three times by a 14-year-old while rallying supporters in the Colombian capital of Bogotá. The young man arrested for the murder is suspected by Colombian authorities to have been a hired killer, with another man arrested on July 5 accused of being the “mastermind.”. One police theory blames remnant factions of the Colombian Marxist terrorist group FARC. Many such groups have plagued the nation for decades. One such group, M-19, once counted among their members the current President Gustavo Petro.  In the Colombian Senate, Uribe Turbay often harped on his nemesis’s communist past. In 2019, his fellow Democratic Centre Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal accused the New York Times staff in Colombia of being sympathetic to the communist terrorists. The party has been the most vocal and outspoken critic of the current leftist government since it won in the 2022 election. Among the first to send their condolences from abroad was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio wrote on X that “the United States stands in solidarity with [Miguel Uribe Turbay’s] family, the Colombian people, both in mourning and demanding justice for those responsible.” Uribe Turbay’s Democratic Centre Party is a Christian democratic party that has been described by its opponents on the left as “far-right.” In truth, it is best understood as a mainstream right-wing populist party.  Uribe Turbay was elected to the Colombian Senate under its banner in 2022. He was the grandson of Julio César Turbay Ayala, who served as Colombia’s president from 1978 to 1982. Tragedy is not a new occurrence for the family. Uribe Turbay’s aunt, Diana Turbay, was kidnapped and murdered in 1990 by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar while serving as a journalist. Uribe Turbay received his undergraduate degree from Universidad de Los Andes before heading to the United States for a master’s in public administration from Harvard University. He leaves behind a wife and young child. The assassinated conservative’s bride announced his death on Instagram, closing by asking “God to show me the way to learn to live without you.” In contrast, President Petro delivered a single sentence of acknowledgement  on X, writing “my deepest condolences to the family of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, and to all Colombians.” The sentence was followed by 16 paragraphs touting Petro’s own achievements. In a post ostensibly serving to mourn the murder of one of his most vocal critics, Petro spoke of a supposed past “political genocide committed against the country’s left,” claimed to “have sought to establish a new paradigm” and added “[W]e have not persecuted any member of the opposition, nor will we.” In addition to a widow and toddler, Uribe Turbay’s death leaves the conservative movement in Colombia in rudderless disarray after the murder of their fastest rising star. He had been the top vote-getter on the Colombian right in 2022. His campaign, promising deregulation and a rejection of leftist social policy, led the polls to seize victory in Colombia’s presidential primaries and offer a chance to prevent leftist President Petro from securing a second term.  The last time it was in office, the Democratic Centre Party sparked controversy for working with the Florida Republican Party. Together, they urged Colombian-Americans to vote for President Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020. The Biden administration was subsequently accused of cooling relations with Colombia in response. President Gustavo Petro has faced off against President Trump several times, most recently resulting in the revocation of his visa to visit the United States. The murder of Petro’s most prominent critic exposes the decline in Colombian democracy and augurs bad tidings for the future of American-Colombian relations. READ MORE by Shiv Parihar: How Richard Nixon Became Cool Again Ilhan Omar’s Father Served a Communist-Islamist Regime Before Becoming a Refugee in Minnesota Superman Captures the Fall of 20th Century Liberalism  

from Sputnik News: This war is historically humane to civilians—unlike Ukraine’s ‘barbaric Russia’ media campaign, says Mikael Valtersson, a Swedish Armed Forces veteran. Since February 2022, Ukraine has focused on media campaigns to label the Russian army as barbaric, says Mikael Valtersson, a Swedish Armed Forces veteran. In reality, he adds, the conflict in Ukraine […]