This is a response, but not a rebuke, to Jed Babbin’s fine piece, which appeared Monday here at The American Spectator, discussing the legal questions surrounding the missile attacks on Venezuelan and Colombian drug boats attempting to deliver narcotics to poison our citizens. Babbin’s take wasn’t so much to pass judgment on the drug-boat sinkings as it was a shot at the Democrat lawmakers who last week put out a video that — arguably seditiously — implied President Trump was giving illegal orders in shooting up the narco-terrorists in those boats. (RELATED: Striking the Unknown) Trump’s orders for the boat strikes were made after Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared several organizations to be “foreign terrorist organizations.” The State Department designations included the hyper-violent gang known as Tren de Aragua as well as several drug cartels. At this point, we have to analyze the concept of due process of law. Everyone in U.S. custody is entitled to due process. Except, apparently, some terrorists. Terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — who are men such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged planner of the 9-11 attacks and al-Qaida small fry — have been ruled by the Supreme Court to be entitled to writs of habeas corpus (attempting to be released). The ruling didn’t include an allowance of full due process. Some have been released under habeas corpus and many have not. KSM, for example, was captured in 2003 and has been awaiting trial for 22 years. (The evidence against KSM was reportedly gained through torture and is thus inadmissible. A plea deal for KSM to avoid the death penalty was held invalid and is on the way to the Supreme Court.) So due process is limited to terrorists in U.S. custody who are inside the U.S. It doesn’t apply to the drug boats and their crews. What is the legal justification for summary executions of alleged drug smugglers? Neither the president nor Secretary of State Rubio has said. Several top military lawyers, including a top lawyer for the Marine Corps, Col. Paul Meagher, reportedly warned against the boat strikes. The UK government also reportedly stopped sharing intelligence which could lead to the boat strikes. On September 2, Trump said that, “Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.” But he didn’t, then or since, outline the legal justification for the boat strikes. We must have substantial intelligence information that the boats which were hit had drugs on them and that they were coming to the U.S. to off-load the drugs. But the public is ignorant of those facts. Although the boat strikes are popular among Americans, we don’t have any evidence supporting them. No boats have been seized and the people on them have been killed rather than arrested. The president could still go to congress and ask for another AUMF to authorize strikes against the drug boats and the facilities from which they are launched. He could, instead, arrest the boats and their crews and bring them back to the U.S. for trial. But he hasn’t. In other words, the orders passed down the military chain of command are presumed to be legal, and so far there is no showing otherwise — but there is also no defense offered to the presumption. I think Trump should seek that defense. I think he ought to ask Congress for a declaration of war against the Maduro regime in Venezuela, which is married to Cartel de los Soles, the trillion-dollar narco-terrorist operation managed by the Venezuelan military. It’s called Cartel de los Soles because officers of the Venezuelan military, the Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana (FANB), don’t have stars on their epaulets. They have suns. This week, the Trump administration proclaimed that Cartel de los Soles is a Foreign Terrorist Organization. It absolutely is that, and the designation is long past overdue. (RELATED: Maduro and American Mixed-Messaging) Narcotics trafficking is the stock in trade of the Maduro regime. It’s been described by retired CIA pro Gary Berntsen as the “Costco” of the international drug trade — processing, logistics, security, you name it, Caracas is the central hub of the criminal syndicate systematically poisoning the American people with narcotics. Much more so than the Mexican cartels, who are increasingly franchisees working for their Venezuelan masters. Berntsen’s name is one to know if you haven’t followed him before. He goes back a long way — his career at CIA spanned a quarter-century, and it involved the Northern Alliance takedown of the Taliban at Mazar-i-Sharif, investigating the East African embassy bombings, and lots of other stuff. Late last week, Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, who combined to write a book called Stolen Elections: The Takedown of Democracies Worldwide, which is generating a very significant amount of buzz, did a two-hour podcast interview with Lara Logan, which offered a chapter-and-verse indictment of Smartmatic, the Venezuelan company that has played a prominent role in fomenting election irregularities across the globe. Including in the Philippines, for example. It’s a compelling interview. Not much Berntsen and Pezzullo said in it hasn’t been offered elsewhere. And it informs what’s happening in the Caribbean Sea right now. Trump is taking down the Maduro regime in Venezuela because a small group of patriots stopped the 2024 election fraud. And they figured out how the 2020 election was rigged by voting machines owned by the Maduro regime. Venezuela = America’s rigged elections. — Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) November 23, 2025 This column is not going to delve too deeply into the mechanics of the voting machines vis-à-vis paper ballots. That drags the reader into a minefield; you can steal an election just as easily with paper ballots, particularly those that are mailed in, as you can with corrupted election software and electronic voting machines. (RELATED: SCOTUS Must Stop Mail-In Voting Madness) But the point is that it’s Venezuela. Smartmatic is a company explicitly founded to fix elections by the communist Chavez regime, and it operates globally. The Chavez regime was behind Black Lives Matter, it’s been behind the anti-fracking movement, and lots of other insurgent efforts to damage our culture, politics, and economics. (RELATED: US Intelligence Downplays Maduro Partnership With Tren De Aragua) And now that regime, which destroyed the oil and gas sector that used to power the most prosperous nation in Latin America, has turned to narcotics. (RELATED: Trump Squeezes Maduro’s Narco-State) Berntsen isn’t the only voice calling out the fact that Venezuela exported millions of its citizens up through the Central American corridor as a cover for the seeding of thousands of Tren de Aragua thugs who would seize control of the drug trade and vertically integrate it through Caracas. As well as establishing what Berntsen calls a criminal insurgency to destabilize our cities by the dozen. That insurgency continues, complete with Useful Idiots in sensible shoes direct from the Trader Joe’s parking lots acting as human shields, as ICE attempts to push criminal aliens out of the country. (RELATED: The Soros Footprint in Latin America) Tren de Aragua alone is a casus belli. It represents a hostile invasion of the United States of America with an aim toward killing our kids and destroying law and order in our population centers. That alone is worth war. If any of the election interference claims are proven, it’s a casus belli. A hostile regime in our hemisphere that steals an election from its own people, which the Maduro regime unquestionably has done multiple times and beyond any doubt did last year, is a threat to democracy greater than any of the others on the global stage. It would hardly be outside our precedent to take out such a regime. (RELATED: Maria Corina Machado Getting the Nobel Peace Prize Is Just Fine) And it has to be understood that the Maduro regime is not particularly Venezuelan, but rather a hybrid occupation government that rides on a backbone of some 15,000 Cuban military and intelligence officers who lustily suppress and immiserate the people of that nation for their own benefit. (RELATED: How Cuba Is Becoming Beijing’s Caribbean Outpost) Let’s put this to a vote. Let’s get a declaration of war — or, in the modern parlance, an authorization for the use of military force — against Caracas, and let’s have the strike group assembled in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela do its work and destroy this cancer in our hemisphere so that the elected government the Venezuelan voters chose last year can finally take office and dismantle the trillion-dollar criminal cartel which is poisoning democracy and life across the world. We’ll get a good measure of who’s actually for democracy with that vote, and who’s for narco-terrorism instead. READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Quick Things: A Bush Family Comeback? Not No. Hell No! ‘Don’t Give Up The Ship’? Seriously? The SNAP Reset, Too Long in Coming, Is a Happy Accident of the Schumer Shutdown

Joe got pulled over by a cop in Portage County, Wisconsin, and could have gotten off with a mere traffic ticket — or perhaps just a warning — but he was defiant, looking for trouble. If you’ve watched a lot of police body camera videos on YouTube (it’s a hobby of mine), you’ve become familiar with this scenario, the routine traffic stop that “escalates,” sometimes fatally. It often begins with a motorist’s refusal to give the officer a driver’s license, proceeding to the demand that the officer summon a supervisor, etc. Joe ended up in handcuffs in the back of a squad car, charged with assault and other crimes, adding to his already lengthy history of run-ins with the law. We are in a dangerous place, politically, when such contempt for authority is promoted by those who style themselves defenders of “Our Democracy.” What causes these unnecessary confrontations? In a word, equality — or, as I’ve previously pointed out, Equality, with a capital “E,” denoting the quasi-religious faith in Equality common among liberals. “All men are created equal,” as our Declaration of Independence famously proclaimed, and that simple five-word phrase has become the foundation of a dangerous cult, which threatens to wreck the very nation that the Declaration announced our ancestors’ intent to create. Equality, as conceived by liberals, is not merely a political ideal, but a moral principle, so that any sort of inequality is to them a sort of sin. If your bank balance is even a dollar more than your neighbor’s, this is oppression — your poor neighbor is being oppressed and exploited, and you should feel guilty about it. Sins against the cult of Equality are denounced as injustice, and once someone starts viewing the world through such warped lenses, they see injustice everywhere. The rich are oppressing the poor, whites are oppressing racial minorities, men are oppressing women, so on and so forth, and the liberal will never find an end to these alleged injustices that cry out for remediation. (RELATED: The Dangerous Cult of Income Equality) If you were fortunate enough to have studied political science under old-fashioned professors, as I did, you understand that the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence — “unalienable rights,” etc. — are somewhat self-contradictory. That is to say, equality and liberty are at odds with each other. People have different interests and different abilities, and, insofar as they have liberty to engage in what the Declaration calls “the pursuit of happiness,” their fortunes will vary greatly, so that they are not equal in terms of their income, wealth, and social status. To view this kind of naturally occurring inequality as proof of oppression is absurd, and yet it is on the basis of such a belief that liberals spend their lives crusading for what they think of as “social justice.” Permitted to advance unchecked, the Cult of Equality must ultimately destroy all established authority, all commerce and industry, and unleash bloody violence — e.g., the Khmer Rouge in “Year Zero” — before finally imposing absolute dictatorship. Of course, liberals deny any such intent, but the road to Hell is proverbially paved with good intentions, and liberals have become accustomed to not being confronted about their fanatical belief in Equality, by which so many evils may be justified. Given how common it is for children to be taught to revere Equality as an unquestionable good, even conservatives may hesitate to point out what’s wrong with this idea. It’s not politically popular to criticize Equality, or to defend any particular species of actual inequality, and so the liberal syllogism is permitted to avoid scrutiny of its basic premise. New York City is preparing to inaugurate a new mayor who campaigned on a platform of wild-eyed radicalism. Zohran Mamdani has promised to freeze rents, to build thousands of “affordable housing” units at taxpayer expense, and to impose punitive taxation on the rich. Critics have pointed out the practical obstacles to Mamdani’s agenda, but the real question is why a majority of voters in New York City have bought the “democratic socialist” hokum that Mamdani is peddling. However bad the status quo in New York may be, what is the basis for the apparent belief of most New Yorkers that extreme left-wing measures are the solution to their problems? Is it just a blind hatred of the rich? (RELATED: The Mamdani Model: More Socialist Mayors to Come) Hate can be a powerful force in politics, and the Cult of Equality justifies the kinds of hatred that Mamdani expresses, including his Hamas-style denunciations of Israel. Anyone can see that the Israelis are richer than their Palestinian neighbors and that, in terms of organized military power, Israel is vastly superior to any of its enemies. It is Israel’s success, contrasted to the failures of its neighbors, which has attracted the hatred of those like Mamdani who incite paranoia about a wicked Zionist conspiracy. (RELATED: The Anti-Colonial Shadow Over Mamdani’s Socialism) Let us return, now, to Joe and his traffic stop in Wisconsin. At the root of Joe’s confrontational defiance was his belief that he is equal to the cop — denying the police officer’s authority to order Joe to hand over his driver’s license. But it becomes impossible to enforce any law if the authority of duly-sworn officers is not recognized. We, as citizens, vote for legislatures that enact laws, and we elect local governments that hire police to enforce those laws. The Bill of Rights guarantees certain protections — habeas corpus, trial by jury, etc. — and with those guarantees in mind, a law-abiding citizen has no reason to fear the police, much less to take a defiant attitude toward the cop just doing his job. “You’ll have your day in court,” the supervising sergeant of the township police told Joe during the traffic stop that ended with Joe handcuffed in the back of the squad car. This was an adage among Americans for generations: “You’ll have your day in court,” meaning, basically, don’t argue with the cop, but take it up with the judge in whatever hearings or other court proceedings may follow. Some people, however, act as if police authority is an insult: “How dare this cop presume to boss me around?” To acquiesce with the officer’s orders would be to admit that the officer is in some way superior, and any kind of superiority is unacceptable to the Cult of Equality. Joe got a free ride to jail (not his first such ride) because he could not accept the reality of the officer’s lawful authority, and here, dear readers, you must excuse me for invoking a much higher authority. To put it bluntly, Joe needs Jesus, and so do we all. The eighth chapter of Matthew’s gospel tells how, in Capernaum, a Roman centurion appealed to Jesus, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented”: And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. Jesus “marvelled” at the centurion’s expression of what it means to be “a man under authority” and, having praised the centurion for his “great faith,” said the word that accomplished his request, so that the centurion’s “servant was healed in the selfsame hour.” These few verses are sufficient to inspire many lengthy sermons, but notice first that the centurion appealed for the healing of his own servant. A few years ago, when one of my sons was studying Hannibal’s invasion of Italy (218–204 B.C.), he remarked that historians now believe slaves constituted fully half of the population of the city of Rome at the time. Slavery was commonplace in the ancient world, and the fact that the Roman centurion had a servant was not remarkable. Second, notice how the centurion abases himself to Jesus: “Lord, I am not worthy.” At the time, Judea was under the imperial yoke of Rome, so that an officer of the legions could expect any of the conquered Jews to show respect toward him, but this centurion was so desperate for the healing power of Jesus that he confessed his own unworthiness even to have him “come under my roof.” It was this that led the centurion to describe himself as “a man under authority,” requesting Jesus just to “speak the word” that would heal his servant, eliciting the response: “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel…. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” Set aside, for the sake of argument about more secular matters, whether the reader believes in the miracles recorded in the Bible. The point is that Christians, who do so believe, are called to emulate the example of Jesus in complying with lawful authority. Even when He was betrayed, persecuted, and crucified, Jesus did not resist. He came to serve as an atoning sacrifice, in fulfillment of prophecy, and we who call ourselves Christians are commanded to take up the cross and follow Him. The police officer is “a man under authority.” Is that not apparent? Is further explanation needed? Why would Joe in Wisconsin, or anyone else, have a problem with the cop just doing his job? Isn’t such lawless defiance a predictable consequence of the Cult of Equality, which encourages fools to think there is no such thing as superior authority? When I was a boy attending Sunday School at the First Baptist Church of Lithia Springs, Georgia, obedience to authority was among the lessons most strenuously taught. It’s right there in the Ten Commandments: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land.” And this duty extended also to respecting civil authority, as the Apostle Paul admonished the early church in Rome: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” We may observe that Paul was counseling those early believers to comply with “the powers that be” at a time when Christians faced persecution by Roman authority. The duty of being “subject unto the higher powers” was not contingent on whether those powers were exercised by godly men, or whether Christians suffered wrongly under the “powers that be.” Faith that everything is “ordained of God” — even our own suffering — is an obligation for all Christians, because we have the promise that one day we will have “our day in court,” at the Final Judgment, when our plea will be entered by He who healed the centurion’s servant. The Cult of Equality is anti-Christian, both in the theological sense and in a practical sense. Paul warned the Ephesians to “put on the whole armour of God” in the struggle “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” In the very same chapter, however, Paul admonished children to obey their parents and servants to obey their masters. The Cult of Equality rejects traditional distinctions of authority, and the Christian church today faces no enemy more hostile than the atheistic radicalism of the Left. Real injustice and actual oppression are not so rare that they can be ignored, but the Cult of Equality conjures up imaginary victimhood — “heteronormative patriarchy,” “structural racism,” “systemic transphobia,” blah blah blah — to seduce its gullible followers into a delusional rage. Meanwhile, there are analogous delusions among the angry young men who heed a competing victimhood narrative (promoted by Nick Fuentes, among others), thinking themselves cheated out of what they deserve by Zionists and other enemies. It’s a crazy world we’re living in, where liberals claim that everybody is being oppressed by white men, while at the same time, some white men claim that they are the real victims of oppression. Back once again to that traffic stop in Wisconsin — Joe’s a white guy, and the officers arresting him were white, too. The last census found that Portage County is about 90 percent white, so there was no “racial injustice” involved in Joe getting manhandled into the back of a cop car. Joe nevertheless behaved like every BLM-inspired black suspect who decides to resist arrest because he believes his rights are being violated, turning a simple traffic stop or domestic disturbance case into a violent confrontation. Law enforcement officers risk their lives and, alas, too often lose their lives, because of the anti-police attitudes that have flourished in recent years. At the same time, calls to “defund the police” have endangered public safety, as has misguided leniency toward habitual criminals like Decarlos Brown. By undermining law enforcement, the Cult of Equality endangers those “unalienable rights” which, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted to secure. When governments fail to protect the property and lives of their citizens, the result may be catastrophic — riots, anarchy, civil war. Why do you think it is, after all, that anarchist vandals in places like Seattle and Portland have made “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards) their most common graffiti slogan? Nowhere is the Cult of Equality’s anti-law enforcement attitude more evident now than in the Left’s attempts to obstruct the Trump administration’s effort to apprehend and deport illegal aliens. Liberals have adopted such a radical egalitarian stance that they view any random foreigner as having an “equal right” to reside in the United States, no matter what the law says. Thus, the Salvadoran gangster Kilmar Garcia is described as a “Maryland man,” without regard either to his immigration status or the crimes he has committed since illegally crossing the border. Democrat politicians actively encourage attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents — calling them “Gestapo,” “Nazis,” “thugs,” etc. Why? Because somehow Democrats, in their maniacal devotion to the Cult of Equality, consider it unfair to enforce immigration law. (RELATED: The Geography of Defiance) We are in a dangerous place, politically, when such contempt for authority is promoted by those who style themselves defenders of “Our Democracy.” It’s not just idiots getting themselves arrested because they can’t cope with a simple traffic stop. It’s members of Congress indicted for obstructing ICE agents. America itself is at risk when lawmakers become lawbreakers, but this is where the fanatical belief in Equality leads, and destruction awaits if we do not reverse course. READ MORE from Robert Stacy McCain: Dots and Patterns: What History Can Teach Us Demons and Demonization The Historic Roots of Russiagate  

Temple University’s medical school sent an email this month to faculty and staff announcing that its DEI office, the Office of Health Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, will become the more vaguely named “Office of Strategic Partnership in Healthcare Education and Resources,” or “SPHERE.” The medical school made clear that this is just a rebrand for an office that will continue its equity-focused mission. Here’s the issue: The medical school made clear that this is just a rebrand for an office that will continue its equity-focused mission. “[T]he team’s core work” will not change, the medical school said in the email, which was obtained by the Center Square. “The education and training, community partnerships, student and trainee support, faculty development, and data-informed equity initiatives … [will] continue without interruption.” (RELATED: The Spectator P.M. Ep. 141: Illinois Medical School Caught Using Affirmative Action) Temple, which is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, added that neither “people” nor “partnerships” would be changing, and that “the same colleagues … will keep supporting you and your programs.” In fact, the email said that the new name actually reflected an “expanded” commitment to “advancing equity.” The office’s new name, the medical school said, “underscores our shared belief that equity is not a single office or initiative; it’s the environment we create together.” (RELATED: What on Earth Is Going on at the University of Wisconsin’s Medical School?) Temple University’s medical school represents just one example of how medical schools are continuing full-steam ahead with the DEI agenda, even as they make subtle tweaks to render their efforts less obvious. These schools are on alert because of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that affirmative action is illegal racial discrimination and because of President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits private universities that receive federal funding from pursuing DEI programs and policies. However, legal intervention against all schools that seek to continue their ideological commitment to “racial equity” is practically impossible, allowing them to carry on their efforts with only minor acts of subterfuge. (RELATED: Can an Executive Order Kill DEI?) Temple ranks among the medical schools most dedicated to racial equity. A flyer from its formerly named Office of Health Equity, Diversity & Inclusion read, “Our dedication to diversity has always been an essential part of our identity, mission and legacy. That’s why we’ve been ranked for many years as one of the top 10 U.S. medical schools for enrolling and graduating physicians from groups underrepresented in medicine.” It proudly advertised that “Approximately 20 percent of the total enrollment consists of students from groups underrepresented in medicine” — read: students who aren’t Asian or white. Temple has already been forced to downplay its ideological commitments. Last year, the medical school hosted a talk that was advertised as only open to staff members who identify as “Black, Indigenous, and people of color.” The school opened the talk to all staff members after Mark J. Perry, a senior fellow at Do No Harm, filed a federal civil rights complaint, but the talk, and its focus on “BIPOC” people, went on. Do No Harm is an organization that is “focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.” Earlier this year, Do No Harm published a report chronicling how medical schools have continued to practice affirmative action post-SFFA v. Harvard. The organization obtained demographic admissions data at 23 different medical schools pre- and post-SFFA. It found that, at 22 of the schools, admitted black applicants had lower average MCAT scores than admitted white and Asian applicants. In fact, at 13 of the schools, the average MCAT score of rejected white or Asian candidates was actually higher than the average score for accepted black candidates. While almost all medical schools in Do No Harm’s study demonstrated racially conscious policies, some schools were worse than others. One of the worst offenders was the University of Wisconsin’s medical school, at which black applicants are six times more likely to be admitted than Asian applicants. If you home in on those applicants who occupy the upper-middle range of MCAT scores, black applicants were 20 times more likely to be admitted than their Asian counterparts. (READ MORE: What on Earth Is Going on at the University of Wisconsin’s Medical School?) Just as Tulane’s DEI office is now ambiguously called “SPHERE,” so-called “holistic” admissions policies are often used to mask race-based decision-making. Ian Kingsbury, Do No Harm’s director of research, explained that much of the work of increasing racial diversity in medical schools operates under this moniker of “holistic admissions.” This usually encompasses downplaying GPAs and MCAT scores to take into account things like personality. Holistic admissions, Kingsbury therefore explained, “often represent a rebranding or workaround of affirmative action.” He pointed out that the University of California, Davis, medical school has been explicit about the fact that its “holistic” admissions policies are used to get around California’s ban on affirmative action. Temple University’s medical school says on the admissions page of its website that it “conducts an individualized holistic review of each complete application to decide whom to interview.” The medical school considers, it explains, “personal attributes of applicants,” “extracurricular activities,” and “community service activities” alongside things like grades and MCAT scores. Temple’s medical school also retains a long “diversity statement” on its website in which it says, in part, “We recognize that an environment enriched with persons from varied backgrounds working to address health disparity enhances scholarly work and the development of a culturally aware and responsive healthcare workforce.” Last month, a paper published on JAMA Network Open bemoaned falling enrollments of black and Hispanic students at medical schools post-SFFA and demanded “alternative strategies” to preserve racial diversity. The lead author on the paper is Dr. Natalie Florescu, who goes by “they.” She graduated this year from Temple University’s medical school. One of her co-authors is likewise affiliated with Temple. The declines in medical school diversity, she wrote, “threaten[] progress toward health care equity” and “highlight[] the need for alternative strategies to promote representation.” She presented only minimal evidence for how small declines in racial diversity in medical school enrollments supposedly threaten “health care equity.” She simply argued, “A diverse physician workforce is crucial for advancing health care equity and improving patient outcomes.” The possibility that better doctors might actually be more important for improving health care outcomes was left unexplored. She pointed to a few studies that have found better outcomes in patients who shared “gender identities” and “racial concordance” with their doctors. Florescu and co. were vague on their proposed strategies, but they did point to holistic admissions. Other strategies floated included considering “socioeconomic factors” and “geographic diversity” in admissions. The bureaucracies of many medical schools appear deeply committed to favoring their preferred racial groups in admissions decisions. Getting them to stop doing this, especially when they obscure their aims through tactics like renaming DEI offices and “holistic” admissions, will be a tall task. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Woman Who Gave Birth at 62 Via IVF Accused of Committing Fraud to Get More Children Gavin Newsom’s Very Good Year* Arrest of Newsom’s Ex-Chief of Staff Prompts Allegations of Misconduct Within the Governor’s Office

Rioters outside Park East synagogue in New York recently chanted genocidal screeds such as “There is only one solution: intifada revolution” and “we don’t want no two states, we want all of it.” But rather than unequivocally condemn the rabid antisemitism inherent in the protests, New York City’s mayor elect Zohran Mamdani’s office chose to not only tokenize synagogues as “sacred spaces,” but to then also condemn the synagogue and its event guest, Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that strives to get Jews to move to Israel, as “promot[ing] activities in violation of international law.” (RELATED: The New York Times Sets a New Low on Israel) As I have argued before, far before fungible, fair-weathered concepts of “international law” ever existed, Jews were the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, having sovereignty or pseudo-sovereignty there during: The Kingdom of Israel (1020 to 930 BCE); The northern Kingdom of Israel (930 BCE to 720 BCE); The southern Kingdom of Judah (930 BCE to 586 BCE); The Yehud under the Neo-Babylonian/Chaldean Empire (586 BCE-539 BCE); The Yehud Medinata under the Persian Achaemenid Empire (539 BCE to 332 BCE); The Hasmonean Dynasty under the Greek Seleucid Empire (164 BCE to 63 BCE) The Hasmonean Dynasty under the Roman Empire (63 BCE to 40 BCE); The Herodian Dynasty under the Roman Empire (37 BCE to 6 BCE); The First Jewish-Roman War (66 CE to 73 CE); The Palestinian Patriarchate under the Roman Empire (80 CE to 425 CE) Full independence from the Roman Empire as a result of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion (132 CE to 135 CE); and Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem under the Persian Sasanian Empire during the Jewish revolt against Heraclius (614-617 CE). Apparent in the above timeline is not only the millennia-old Jewish ties to the Land of Israel, but that the Jews regained control of it several times after losing it to colonizers: in 586 BCE under the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah (brokered with King Cyrus, who allowed the Jews to return following Persia’s defeat of the Babylonians), under the Hasmonean Dynasty (featured in the story of Hanukkah when the Jews defeated the Greeks), several times during the Roman Empire, during the Jewish revolt against Heraclius from 614-617 CE, and finally during the re-establishment of Israel in 1948. Mamdani slanders Jews and Judaism, as a yearning for the Jews to return to the Land of Israel is baked into Judaism itself. In the liturgy, Jews have prayed to return to the Land of Israel since Time Immemorial. Jews conclude the Passover Seder and the Yom Kippur service (“Neilah”) with the words “Next Year in Jerusalem.” The Grace After Meals pines for the restoration of Jerusalem. (RELATED: Israel, the Church, and the Unraveling of Conservative Unity) Psalm 137:1 states that during the Babylonian Captivity, “By the Rivers of Babylonian we sat and wept when we remembered Jerusalem.” Psalm 137:5 states, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its skill.” The Jews’ return to the land of Israel is predicted in the Hebrew Bible. According to Deuteronomy 30:1-5, When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. The Lord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. And Isaiah 11:11-12 states, And it shall come to pass that on that day, the Lord shall continue to apply His hand a second time to acquire the rest of His people, that will remain from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Sumeria and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. And He shall raise a banner to the nations, and He shall gather the lost of Israel, and the scattered ones of Judah He shall gather from the four corners of the earth. And Ezekiel 20:41-42 states, “With a pleasing savor I shall accept you when I take you out of the nations, and I shall gather you from the lands in which you were scattered, and I shall be hallowed through you before the eyes of the nations. And you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land that I lifted My hand to give to your forefathers.” Jeremiah 29:14 states that “And I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will return your captivity and gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will return you to the place whence I exiled you.” Jeremiah 31:17 states, “There is hope for your future, says the Lord, and your children will return to their border.” According to Wikipedia, Zion is mentioned 152 times in the Hebrew Bible and Jerusalem 669 times. Israel and Judah (as the names of land, in addition to the names of the biblical figures from whom they are named) are obviously in there, too. And if not because of all that, Mamdani should know that the Quran states that the land belongs to the Jews and that they will return to it. As the prophet Isaiah stated in Isaiah 62:1, “For the sake of Zion I will not be quiet, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still.” So let it be known that Mamdani defames Jews and Judaism by undermining the Jews’ inalienable right to live in (and return to) their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. READ MORE from Steve Postal: Will Trump Get Saudi Arabia to Join the Abraham Accords? Kazakhstan Joins the Abraham Accords. Will Others in Central Asia Follow? Peace a Pipedream As Palestinians Continue to Embrace Hamas

  After the Civil War ended, freedom came in name but not in practice for millions of formerly enslaved people. In Southern states, a new system quickly emerged to replace slavery: the Black Codes. These laws controlled where freedmen could live, how they worked, and what rights they had. The Black Codes exposed the South’s unwillingness to accept change and laid the groundwork for decades of racial segregation. For many African Americans, the end of slavery was just the beginning of a new kind of struggle.   A New System Map of the Confederate States and states/territories the Confederacy claimed. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The Black Codes were created immediately after the Civil War by Southern legislatures in 1865 and 1866, just months after the Confederacy surrendered. Their purpose was to combat the newly enacted 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution and to maintain white control in a world where slavery had just been outlawed. Mississippi and South Carolina were the first to pass them, and other former Confederate states followed. These laws varied by state but shared one goal: to limit the freedom of newly emancipated African Americans.   At their core, the Black Codes were an attempt to force freedmen back into a labor system that looked a lot like slavery. With the plantation economy reeling and the South needing workers, white lawmakers crafted policies that restricted mobility, access to land, and even basic civil rights. The codes were designed to ensure that Black people would remain poor, dependent, and under control.   In some states, African Americans couldn’t rent property outside of towns. In others, they were required to sign yearly labor contracts or face arrest. These laws accomplished their goal; for the next century, African Americans would be beholden to these laws, which returned them to an institution that many called “worse than slavery.”   Criminalizing Freedom African American “convicts” leased to build the railroad in Asheville, North Carolina. Source: Wikimedia Commons   One of the most disturbing features of the Black Codes was how they criminalized everyday life for freedmen. Vagrancy laws were at the heart of this system. In many Southern states, if a Black person was unemployed (meaning they were not employed by a white male), homeless, or simply “loitering,” they could be arrested and fined. But since most newly freed people had little or no money, they couldn’t pay the fines.   If freedmen could not pay their fines, they would be sentenced to jail time in the state penitentiary for a determined period of time. States would lease out prisoners—mostly Black men—to private companies or plantation owners, who would pay the state for their labor. It was a money-making scheme that functioned like slavery, just with a paper trail.   Male Prisoners at Parchman Penal Farm in Mississippi, c. 1911. Source: Mississippi Archives   The work was brutal, the treatment inhumane, and the system completely rigged. While slavery was inhumane, the post-emancipation treatment of freedmen as laborers was far more brutal. Employers had no incentive to protect the laborers because they didn’t own them—they were leased, disposable, and they had no monetary value to the business or plantation owner. The state made money, and white landowners got cheap labor.   The vagrancy laws were intentionally vague, giving sheriffs and judges enormous power to arrest freedmen for almost anything. Simply walking at night or not carrying proof of employment could land someone in jail. For many, emancipation quickly turned into slavery under a new name.   Controlling Freedmen Drinking fountain on the Halifax County Courthouse (North Carolina) in April 1938. Source: Library of Congress   The Black Codes didn’t just police labor—they controlled where Black people could live, when they could travel, and what jobs they could take. In many towns, local ordinances prevented African Americans from renting or buying property outside designated areas. These early residential restrictions were precursors to later housing segregation laws.   Some codes required freedmen to have written permission to be in a town after dark. Others mandated that Black workers could only take jobs as field hands, domestic servants, or manual laborers. Skilled trades and better-paying jobs were often off limits.   The intent was to prevent economic mobility, keep freedmen in positions of subordination, and ensure the racial hierarchy of the Antebellum Era continued during the Post-Civil War years. Southern whites feared the political and social consequences of a free Black population with access to wealth or property. The Black Codes enforced that fear through legal boundaries.   Freedmen who tried to move or find better opportunities were labeled as “vagrants” or even “runaways.” In a time when freed men and women were traversing the country in search of their loved ones who had been sold away during slavery, the vagrancy laws presented a problem in uniting families. Law enforcement, too, worked hand-in-hand with employers to track down and punish those who resisted. Though slavery was over in name, the restrictions on movement and employment made freedom conditional.   Restoring White Control Sharecropper tilling a field in Montgomery County, Alabama, in 1937. Source: Wikimedia Commons   At the heart of the Black Codes was a clear objective: rebuild the Southern economy to its former glory by exploiting black labor. Plantation owners had lost their enslaved workforce, but they still owned the land and needed a cheap workforce to ensure profits. The Black Codes gave them exactly what they needed, a legal route to exploit black labor for little to no wages.   Annual labor contracts were often required by law. If a Black worker left a job before the contract expired, they could be arrested and forced to return. Wages were low, conditions were harsh, and workers had almost no legal protection. The employer held all the power. Some laws even prohibited Black people from quitting without permission. In effect, these contracts bound them to the land just as slavery had. Landowners could also withhold pay until the end of the year, leaving workers with no income and no way to leave. Many were trapped in cycles of debt and dependency come harvest season.   Landowners often supplied workers with necessities, requiring the fees associated with their goods be repaid with interest come harvest season. Often, freedmen did not earn enough to pay back their debt, creating a higher rate the following year. This wasn’t a return to slavery, it was slavery’s evolution. The names had changed. The system hadn’t.   Congressional Action Political cartoon depicting Congress in a negative light for failing to enforce the 14th Amendment, c. 1867. Source: Library of Congress   The Black Codes didn’t go unnoticed. As word of their enforcement spread, Northern politicians made their feelings known. Many in the North had believed that the war’s end and the passage of the 13th Amendment would lead to real freedom. But the South’s swift creation of new restrictions proved the fight for freedom wasn’t over.   In response, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal law to define citizenship and guarantee equal protection under the law regardless of race. The 14th Amendment, which followed shortly after, granted citizenship to all people born within the borders of the United States. This amendment was retroactive, meaning it applied to those who were born prior to the passage of the amendment.   Radical Republicans pushed for stricter Reconstruction policies, taking control of Southern state governments and nullifying the Black Codes. For a brief moment, it seemed like the tide had turned. African Americans began voting, holding office, and opening freedmen’s schools. But that moment was short-lived. White Southerners resisted these changes, and once federal troops were withdrawn in 1877 following the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in a controversial election, Southern states introduced new laws, Jim Crow, that continued the same systems.   The Building Blocks of Jim Crow Poll Tax receipt for Mrs. Rosa Boyles, c. 1920. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The Black Codes set the blueprint for the next century of racial discrimination in the South. But the ideas and intentions behind the Black Codes carried over into the Jim Crow Era. Segregated schools, voter suppression laws, and bans on interracial marriage were rooted in the same ideology as before,  maintaining white supremacy.   Black Codes taught Southern lawmakers how to craft laws that sounded neutral but were designed to target Black people. They also showed local governments how to enforce inequality without ever mentioning race explicitly. The legacy of the Black Codes is long. Their influence can be seen in everything from housing discrimination to mass incarceration in today’s modern society. What began as a reaction to emancipation became a permanent feature of American law.   Defending Freedom Dr. Martin Luther King giving his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. Source: National Archives   The Black Codes revealed the harsh truth that freedom, once granted, still had to be defended. The end of slavery didn’t end racism. It didn’t create equality. Instead, it sparked a backlash that used legal tools to recreate the social order that had existed under slavery. For African Americans, the years following emancipation were not a celebration, they were a continued struggle.   The Black Codes proved how quickly freedom could be undermined if it wasn’t protected by law and enforced by power. They also exposed the limits of federal authority in guaranteeing civil rights. Without consistent enforcement, state and local governments could dismantle progress one law at a time. But in the face of these challenges, freedmen and women built communities, opened schools, founded churches, and organized for political power. The Black Codes may have been designed to crush that spirit, but they also inspired generations of resistance. From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement, the fight continued. The Black Codes remind us that slavery didn’t end with the passage of the 13th Amendment.

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As we previously reported, the U.S. military is drastically increasing its presence off the coast of Venezuela as President Trump continues to put pressure on Dictator Nicolas Maduro. More on that here: BREAKING: U.S. Military Shows MAJOR Force Near Venezuela as Trump Turns Up Pressure on Maduro But now, it turns out that there's even more going on here than what meets the eye... It's not only about Maduro and the drug cartels. It's about kicking Russia, China, and Iran out of the Western hemisphere, altogether! This clip from Fox News has more details: Backup here, if needed: BREAKING: It's been confirmed that the MASSIVE military buildup in our own hemisphere isn't JUST about Maduro and Venezuela "It's about getting Russia, China and Iran OUT of the western hemisphere." Now that's what I voted for "Should President Trump order strikes… pic.twitter.com/HHD2Hgq2JT — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 24, 2025 BREAKING: It's been confirmed that the MASSIVE military buildup in our own hemisphere isn't JUST about Maduro and Venezuela "It's about getting Russia, China and Iran OUT of the western hemisphere." Now that's what I voted for "Should President Trump order strikes against the Maduro regime...about 30% of all deployed American warships, including Gerald R. Ford, now on station." "There are over 200 tomahawk cruise missiles in theater, aboard destroyers, and U.S. Marines aboard the USS Iwo Jima." "Gen. Razin Caine arrived in Puerto Rico yesterday to meet the forces part of Operation Southern Spear."   For some additional context, Venezuela has asked for support from Russia, China, and Iran as he U.S. has continued to ramp up military presence in the region. A few weeks ago, The Washington Post reported: Amid a buildup of American forces in the Caribbean, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is reaching out to Russia, China and Iran to enhance its worn military capabilities and solicit assistance — requesting defensive radars, aircraft repairs and potentially missiles — according to internal U.S. government documents obtained by The Washington Post. The requests to Moscow were made in the form of a letter meant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and was intended to be delivered during a visit to the Russian capital by a senior aide this month. Maduro, according to the documents, also composed a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping seeking “expanded military cooperation” between their two countries to counter “the escalation between the U.S. and Venezuela.” In the letter, Maduro asked the Chinese government to expedite Chinese companies’ production of radar detection systems, presumably so Venezuela could enhance its capabilities. The documents say Transport Minister Ramón Celestino Velásquez also recently coordinated a shipment of military equipment and drones from Iran while planning a visit to that country. He told an Iranian official that Venezuela was in need of “passive detection equipment,” “GPS scramblers” and “almost certainly drones with 1,000 km [600 mile] range,” the documents state. “In the missive, Maduro emphasized the seriousness of perceived U.S. aggression in the Caribbean, framing U.S. military action against Venezuela as action against China due to their shared ideology,” the U.S. documents said. It’s unclear from the documents how Russia, China and Iran responded. What do you think? Would you support the U.S. military conducting operations to rid our side of the world from foreign influence?

Erika Kirk has responded to backlash over her hug with Vice President JD Vance that went viral. Last month, a hug between Erika Kirk and JD Vance went viral resulting in many users on X condemning Erika’s move. Take a look: There’s a lot of controversy over this hug between Erika Kirk and JD Vance. Imagine being outraged over a 2.5 second hug between friends? Help me understand. pic.twitter.com/FIuYGpqsh7 — brittany (@by__brittany) October 31, 2025 Here was some of the backlash: She said, “No one could ever replace my husband,” yet she sees JD Vance as having some similarities . Moments later, she hugs him like he is her husband right in front of JD Vance’s wife. Did Erika Kirk ever truly love her husband? pic.twitter.com/a6jMClcqx0 — KraatyNews (@KraatyN) November 1, 2025 J.D. Vance hugs Erika Kirk at a “Turning Point event “— fingers in hair, hands on hips — while also saying he hopes his wife sees Christianity his way. Grief, politics, faith: two worlds collide. Respect or optics gone off script? #Politics #Faith #Power What’s your take ? pic.twitter.com/UyoGpaKfd6 — TheRealestJaraya (@x_yxzs_z0) November 1, 2025 People reported on how Erika Kirk responded to the backlash: Erika Kirk said she doesn’t understand the fuss about her recent onstage hug with Vice President JD Vance. At an Oct. 29 Turning Point USA event seven weeks after the assassination of Erika’s husband, Charlie Kirk, the grieving widow took the stage as the new CEO of TPUSA. She paid tribute to her late husband before welcoming Vance to the stage to speak. “No one will ever replace my husband,” Erika, 37, told the crowd. “But I do see some similarities of my husband in JD— in Vice President JD Vance. I do. And that’s why I am so blessed to be able to introduce him tonight.” As the vice president, 41, walked out, he and Erika tightly embraced. Following the hug, Erika moved her hand to the back of JD’s head, and he rested his hands briefly on her waist. The greeting surprised many internet users, according to a flurry of viral posts on social media that analyzed their hand placements and debated whether the hug was appropriate for the situation, given Erika’s recent loss, as well as Vance’s marital status. “My love language is touch, if you will,” she told the crowd at the Desert Diamond Arena in Phoenix, where her husband’s sold-out memorial service was held two months earlier. “So I will give you a play-by-play: They just played the emotional video. I’m walking over, [JD] is walking over. I’m starting to cry,” Erika recounted. “He says, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And I say, ‘God bless you,’ and I touch the back of his head,” she continued. “Anyone whom I have hugged, that I have touched the back of your head when I hug you, I always say, ‘God bless you.’ ” Megyn responded with a laugh, saying, “They were acting like you touched the back of his ass!” Erika agreed, adding, “I feel like I wouldn’t get as much hate if I did that!” Our new app is here! Free, fun and full of exclusives. Scan to download now! Notably, just over a week later, Erika attended the swearing-in ceremony of the new U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, where she embraced Gor in a similar manner. Watch Erika explain the moment here: .@MrsErikaKirk addresses the uproar over the JD Vance hug: “Whoever is hating on a hug needs a hug themselves… I’m walking over, he’s walking over, I’m starting to cry, he says, ‘he’s so proud of you,’ and I say, ‘God bless you,’ and I touch the back of his head… If you want… pic.twitter.com/0PwB1SwNNS — The Megyn Kelly Show (@MegynKellyShow) November 24, 2025 Watch Erika Kirk’s full interview with Megyn Kelly below: