One of the things I always warn folks against in politics is the belief that anything that happens is eternal — that the change is eternal and there will never be another loss in the future. I’m old enough to remember when George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 and secured the Congress of the United States, that there were Republicans who thought the Republican Party would never lose again. It was the initiation of a brand-new era. Then, of course, by 2006 Democrats had taken the Congress, and by 2008 the presidency. I’m also old enough to remember when, in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s 2012 victory, Democrats proclaimed they would never lose again. They had a brand-new, undefeatable coalition that would just continue to grow and Republicans would be in the minority forever. Within four years, however, Republicans had taken the presidency with Donald Trump. Now I hear Republicans who sound triumphalist about the idea that Democrats can never win again, will never take power again. They say all the trends are against the Democrats. That’s true, the trends are against Democrats right now and that’s a good thing. We see population movement from north to south, from blue states to red states, knowing electoral votes will follow. We see the Democrats failing to find any sort of leadership class in the aftermath of the Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders octogenarian triumvirate. However, politics change quickly. Things happen.  And there are warning signs on the horizon. The biggest one is that President Trump’s popularity is not transferable to every single other Republican candidate. You cannot just take President Trump, stamp him on a thing, and then hope that thing is going to be a winner. That is not how it works. Barack Obama tried the same thing. It didn’t work with him either.  Every politician has to build their own coalition. Every politician has to have their own group of people who follow them for their own personal reasons. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show So this bizarre idea that everyone in politics seems to have, both on the Right and the Left — that you can take a very popular politician and then smear that popularity over the bread of normie politicians and expect it to taste exactly the same — that is not how it works.  This is precisely why President Trump’s administration must be successful. President Trump is doing very important work on everything from getting rid of DEI to completely restructuring education in the country to changing how we spend to eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. On foreign policy, he’s restoring a sense of American military power and deterrence. He’s actually doing peace through strength. And he’s looking with fresh eyes at difficult situations like the Middle East. These are very important things that President Trump is doing. And that means no mistakes. “No mistakes” should be the byword inside the Trump administration. And the warning signs are there. Pretending they are not is simply whistling past the graveyard. I know Republicans are all very happy and we want to tell ourselves that President Trump won an extraordinarily broad-ranging victory in his race against Kamala Harris. The truth is that the 2024 election result was actually far closer than people would like to acknowledge. And that is not a rip on President Trump by any measure. It was a narrow win and that means if a few votes shift, suddenly things are different. And that could happen. Pretending that it can’t happen is a fool’s errand. In the end, President Trump won 77.3 million votes. And Kamala Harris, a horrendous candidate running on the back of a dead candidate, won 75 million votes. President Trump won 49.8% of the vote and Kamala Harris won 48.3% of the vote. That is a solid electoral victory but it’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a giant blowout, which is why I’m saying Republicans need to be careful. We are starting to see some early indicators of the fact that a Democratic electorate could revive itself. One of those warning signs came courtesy of this special election shocker in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which went for President Trump last year by 16 points. Democrats flipped the state Senate seat in Pennsylvania — a seat that the GOP had occupied for literally decades. The reality is that in special election races, it’s very hard to generalize from those races because they tend to have lower turnout. And so what you get is opposition turning out at a higher rate and the home party turnout coming in at a low rate, believing that there’s not going to be any sort of competitive election. But as The Wall Street Journal points out, Republicans might want to take the surprise loss in MAGA country as a warning. That is not wrong. It’s also true because on Thursday, Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), President Trump’s excellent nominee for the U.N. ambassador, had her nomination withdrawn by President Trump. It wasn’t because he doesn’t like Elise Stefanik — he thinks that she’s terrific. He is doing it because the margin in the Congress of the United States is simply too narrow. President Trump had made a bunch of moves to take representatives from particular districts and put them in his Cabinet, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. That was going to include Elise Stefanik. There are three or four different congresspeople who’ve been pulled into the administration, leaving their districts open for an election. President Trump is basically signaling here that the House of Representatives is on a knife’s edge and you can’t pull good congresspeople from their districts to serve in other aspects of the executive branch for fear the GOP might lose the district. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) put out a statement saying he would immediately invite Elise Stefanik to return to the leadership table, adding, “It is well known Republicans have a razor-thin House majority, and Elise’s agreement to withdraw her nomination will allow us to keep one of the toughest, most resolute members of our Conference in place to help drive forward President Trump’s America First policies.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Stefanik’s withdrawal was just a result of the political realities they’re grappling with in the House, that every vote counts. For this, you can thank some congresspeople like Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who reliably votes “No” on every contentious vote in the House of Representatives, meaning that the majority shrinks by one every single time. There is also concern in other districts where there really should not be any concern. In Florida’s sixth Congressional District, which is Mike Waltz’ old seat, there is now a special election and it’s really competitive. Democrats are pouring money into that particular race, which is far too close right now. This should not be a competitive district. I expect that Republicans will hold the seat. But the fact that it’s even competitive signals that any sort of overweening confidence among Republicans is misguided. We have to act like every possession matters. We can’t act like we’re up 30 points when in reality we’re up two and there are just a couple of minutes left in the ballgame. None of us should be overconfident.

'I don’t like to work'

'The Framers created a President independent from the Legislative Branch'

'I’m very happy that he’s invited me to be his personal trainer'

In the wake of Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., withdrawing from consideration to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Republican leadership in the House is welcoming Stefanik back into the fold to help the narrow GOP majority push through important legislation. President Donald Trump withdrew Stefanik’s nomination Wednesday, saying he wanted to ensure that Republicans’ already razor-thin majority in Congress wouldn’t be reduced by Stefanik leaving her upstate New York district. “With a very tight majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “The people love Elise and, with her, we have nothing to worry about come Election Day.” He added, “Elise will stay in Congress, rejoin the House Leadership Team, and continue to fight for our amazing American People. Speaker Johnson is thrilled! I look forward to the day when Elise is able to join my Administration in the future.” House Speaker Mike Johnson was quick to follow Trump’s lead, writing on X, “I will invite her to return to the leadership table immediately.” Elise Stefanik is truly a great leader and a devoted patriot. Today’s selfless decision shows America what those of us who work with her already know. She is deeply devoted to her country and fully committed to see President Trump’s agenda succeed in Congress. It is well known…— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) March 27, 2025 But it’s unclear exactly where Stefanik will fit in the GOP leadership. Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., is already serving as GOP Conference chair—the position that Stefanik vacated upon initially accepting the nomination to be U.N. ambassador. Elise has been a vital part of our Conference. I am glad the Speaker is bringing her to the leadership table. Her work ethic and commitment will help us deliver President Trump and the American people’s agenda. https://t.co/PxNKp4RCYX— Chairwoman Lisa McClain (@RepLisaMcClain) March 27, 2025 McClain thanked Stefanik on X for returning to Congress, writing, “I am glad the Speaker is bringing her to the leadership table. Her work ethic and commitment will help us deliver President Trump and the American people’s agenda.” Leadership has not publicly made a decision on what Stefanik’s role will be. GOP House leadership offices contacted by The Daily Signal did not provide additional comment. Speaking to Fox News, Stefanik indicated that she withdrew in order to assist House Republicans in passing a budget reconciliation bill. WATCH my interview with @kayleighmcenany on tonight’s @seanhannity ? pic.twitter.com/dFchfkDCxK— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) March 28, 2025 “This is about stepping up as a team. And I am doing that as a leader to ensure that we can take hold of this mandate and deliver these historic results, that we can pass this [budget] reconciliation bill,” she said. Asked what role she would be assuming within leadership, Stefanik did not go into specifics, but said she would “continue speaking out.” “[I] just look forward to sharing my voice as I always have, being one of the top fighters and top allies on behalf of President Trump,” she said. The post Forgoing UN, Stefanik to Resume Role in House GOP Leadership, but in What Capacity? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On Friday, the Trump administration took another step toward reining in wasteful government spending and narrowing Washington’s role in K-12 education. The Department of Education announced that it would be modifying the liquidation period for states to spend remaining COVID-19 “relief” dollars, giving them until close of business on March 28 to obligate any remaining funds, rather than until March 2026—a lengthy extension previously granted by the Biden administration.  Background to the COVID-19 ‘Relief’ Spending In 2020, Congress appropriated an unprecedented $189.5 billion in temporary funding for K-12 schools to defray pandemic-related costs. School districts originally had until Sept. 30, 2024, to obligate the last of those funds—the largest ($122 billion) tranche known as the American Rescue Plan—designating how they would spend the remaining money nearly five years after the pandemic began. The original liquidation deadline for that money was Jan. 28, 2025.   But on his way out the door, President Joe Biden extended the liquidation deadline all the way through March 2026, six years after the pandemic began. The Trump administration has now modified that liquidation period to close on March 31, 2025, giving states until close of business on Monday to submit reimbursements or liquidation requests for their remaining state allocations. The updated liquidation timeline affects ARP-ESSER funds for K-12 schools, ARP-EANS funds for private schools, and ARP-HCY funds for school wraparound services. In a press statement, the Department of Education noted:  COVID is over. States and school districts can no longer claim they are spending their emergency pandemic funds on ‘COVID relief.’ The Biden Administration extended the deadline for spending the money far beyond the intended purpose of the funds, and it is past time for the money to be returned to the Treasury as savings.  Indeed, half a decade on from the pandemic, schools should not still be contemplating how to spend the windfall Congress appropriated as a temporary measure, ostensibly designed to mitigate learning loss. As parents are all now painfully aware, the COVID-19 slush fund did not help students maintain their day-to-day classroom experience, support academic excellence, or ensure children were learning to read and do math on pace. Teachers unions’ continual push to keep schools closed long after experts knew it was safe to reopen them, long after Europe and other industrialized nations had done so, did immense harm to student learning. More spending from Washington wasn’t going to reverse the damage.  The money also had no chance at hedging against learning loss because updating school HVAC systems doesn’t teach kids phonics. With this unprecedented infusion of cash, schools upgraded their infrastructure, spending six times as much on building maintenance as they did on tutoring to prevent learning loss.  What’s more, they made permanent staffing decisions with temporary COVID-19 relief dollars. As Chalkbeat senior national education reporter Kalyn Belsha documents:  … half of all COVID relief dollars schools spent that year, or just under $25 billion, were spent on staff salaries and benefits. A good chunk of that went toward paying new social workers and school nurses, which schools added to their ranks in droves with the aid. COVID-19 Money Accelerated Washington’s Education Spending Spree, With Little Impact Washington has been on an education spending spree for decades. Throughout the 20th century, inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending increased on average 3.5% per year, every year. Education spending on a per-pupil basis has more than tripled in real terms since 1965, increasing from $5,053 during the 1963-64 school year—the year before the War on Poverty launched—to $18,614 during the 2020-21 school year. The $190 billion appropriated as part of COVID-19 “relief” was two-and-a-half times the Department of Education’s annual budget and was the largest infusion of cash into K-12 education in history.  That schools made permanent new staffing hires with temporary COVID-10 dollars is part of a counterproductive and ongoing trend in K-12 education. Since 1950, public schools have added personnel at a rate nearly four times the rate of growth in student enrollment. During the 1949-50 academic year, 70% of school personnel were classroom teachers. By 2008, that figure had dropped to just 50% meaning the teacher to nonteacher ratio was down to 1-to-1. Teachers make up just 47.5% of school staff today. From 1950 to 2019, while the number of students increased 100%, the number of teachers increased 243% and the number of administrators and all other staff increased 709%.  The clearest evidence that the COVID-19 bonus cash didn’t help students was the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results, which were heartbreaking. Reading outcomes for fourth and eighth graders fell an average of two points, declining further from what had already been historic lows in 2022. Reading scores declined in 48 out of 50 states. Disadvantaged students—the exact children decades of federal largesse was designed to help—fared the worst.   As the Trump administration rightly brings this chapter of the education spending spree to a close, states will be able to submit specific requests for exceptions. But five years on from COVID-19, the time has come to turn the page on superfluous spending and return that money to American taxpayers. It’s long past time. The post Trump Administration Halts ‘COVID-19’ Education Spending Spree, Sends Savings to Treasury appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The American Federation of Government Employees is the tip of the deep state spear, taking President Trump to court as he tries to rein in the federal bureaucracy. AFGE promised yet another lawsuit Thursday, shortly after Trump signed an executive order removing the privilege of collective bargaining from a host of federal employees. “AFGE is preparing immediate legal action and will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. He framed the executive order as “a disgraceful and retaliatory attack on the rights of hundreds of thousands of patriotic American civil servants … simply because they are members of a union that stands up to his harmful policies.” Sorry, AFGE, but not everything is about you. Trump’s order does not mention the union. Rather, it merely strips the privilege of collective bargaining from federal agencies that Trump has determined “to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” Trump has the right to make such a determination according to 5 USC 7103. The president extended this determination to numerous federal agencies and subdivisions, including the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, State, and Veterans Affairs. The Office of Personnel Management released guidance to those agencies, saying they are “no longer required to collectively bargain with federal unions.” According to Government Executive, the order will remove collective bargaining privileges from roughly 67% of the entire federal workforce and for 75% of workers already in a union. No Effect on Unionization Rights While AFGE and its allies in the legacy media may lament the loss of collective bargaining privileges, Rachel Grezsler, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, explained that federal workers enjoy many other labor protections that this order does not affect. “He did not take away the right of any federal employee to belong to a union,” she said of Trump. He merely stripped employees’ ability “to negotiate collective bargaining agreements in ways that tie the hands of management, in ways most Americans would say harm the agency’s ability to get things done.” Federal workers still have different venues in which they can appeal adverse employment decisions, Grezsler noted. They can rely upon the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “The law and regulations already provide enormous protections for federal workers,” she explained. “It’s just that the union was one more step of protection. That union can still be there and still provide advice when they go to MSPB, they just can’t bargain over things that, I think, ordinary Americans would say, ‘This is silly. Why are they bargaining over this and why are we paying them to bargain over this instead of doing their jobs?'” What Do the Unions Bargain For? Federal law prohibits public-sector unions from engaging in strikes and from bargaining over pay and benefits (though most Americans would interpret perks like working from home as a benefit), but only conditions of employment. That allows unions to bargain over federal workplace minutiae. Rep. Virginia Foxx, N.C., noted that federal workers have used collective bargaining to demand “the addition of 14 inches in the height of cubicle desk panels; designated smoking areas on an otherwise tobacco-free campus; and federal employees’ right to wear shorts, sweatpants, and spandex at work.”  Worse, federal workers can receive taxpayer funds for hours doing work for the union, rather than their actual jobs. The federal government once kept an accounting of this pay, termed “official time,” but the Office of Personnel Management stopped publishing reports on it under President Joe Biden. Grezsler said the union collective bargaining contributes to a poor work culture in the federal government. She pointed to results from the annual federal employees survey, which asked workers whether “poor performers who cannot or will not improve are dealt with.”  In 2016, only 29% of federal employees agreed that poor performers face consequences. While that improved alongside accountability reforms under the first Trump administration, Biden-era responses show that nearly 60% of federal employees said poor performers faced no consequences. Grezsler said the Office of Personnel Management stopped asking the poor performance question early into Biden’s term. “There’s no accountability, basically,” she added. Even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who supercharged the administrative state through his New Deal programs, opposed unions in the federal government. “The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations,” Roosevelt wrote in a 1937 letter. “The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.” Any negotiation with a public employee union would constitute a loss of the people’s authority, the founder of the New Deal said. While the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 prevents some of the worst union excesses, public-sector unions demonstrated Roosevelt’s point in the lead-up to President Trump’s inauguration this year. Federal agencies altered collective bargaining agreements with unions, enshrining work-from-home policies into the agreements ahead of Trump, who had promised to force employees to work in the office. America’s largest unions aren’t just left-leaning, they directly contribute funds to Democrats—and they funnel cash to the left-wing activist groups that staffed and advised the Biden administration (the influence campaign I describe in my book “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government”). AFGE has filed lawsuits to halt DOGE access to federal data, to block policies making it easier to fire federal bureaucrats, and to reinstate fired federal workers. The federal union will likely follow through on its threat, and the Trump administration may ask judges to sanction the lawyers who continue to file these lawsuits. The post Deep State Union Gears Up to Sue After Trump Weakens Its Ability to Undermine National Security appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Funniest DEI Scam

Democrats just scored a shocking win in Lancaster, Pennsylvania’s state Senate special election. This is a seat in a district that President Trump carried by 15 points in November. A deep-red district. A “safe” seat. And yet we lost. Let me say something few in politics have the courage to admit: I got this one wrong. We cannot afford to sit out the mail-in game and hope for a red wave to appear by magic on Election Day. I want to make sure every patriot understands exactly what happened — and what it means for the future of freedom in Pennsylvania and across the country. Citizens Alliance offered to activate the PA CHASE program to protect the 36th Senate District seat. We were prepared to mobilize ballot chasers, execute our mail-in voting strategy, and ensure that Republican turnout matched the intensity of the left. But we were told it wouldn’t be necessary. GOP insiders said the special election would be “a cakewalk.” Consultants assured us that the Republican candidate would cruise to victory by double digits. They were wrong. And I was wrong to believe them. Let’s be very clear about why this happened. The Democrats crushed us in mail-in voting. Democrat mail-in votes totaled 8,869, while Republican mail-in votes lagged at 3,547. That means that the GOP candidate earned just 28.5% of the mail-in vote. Our internal modeling for Pennsylvania has been consistent and accurate: To win statewide or in swing districts, Republicans must hit 33% of the mail-in vote. In 2024, President Trump got 34.5% of the mail-in vote, thanks in part to our PA CHASE efforts. But in this race, we came up short. The proof is right in front of us. The rules in Pennsylvania give Democrats a 50-day head start on voting. They use every one of those days to chase ballots, engage low-propensity voters, and dominate the mail-in process. Republicans have been asleep at the wheel. Do I like mail-in voting? No. I believe in one day of voting with ID. But that’s not the system we have. And until it changes, we must compete under the rules in place. We cannot afford to sit out the mail-in game and hope for a red wave to appear by magic on Election Day. That’s a losing strategy, and the Lancaster loss is proof. Democrats are building momentum, infrastructure, and habits that will carry them through every cycle unless we match them with precision and resolve. The good news? We know how to fix it. We officially relaunched the PA CHASE program for 2025. Our mission is clear: Knock on 500,000 doors every year and deliver victories at every level of government. We've built the data models. We’ve trained the teams. We’ve proven it works. But we need more patriots to step up. We can’t let complacency cost us any more seats. Let Lancaster County serve as a wake-up call. If Republicans don’t get serious about mail-in voting, we will keep losing seats that should be safely in our column. We will keep watching the Democrats run laps around us while we pretend it’s still 2004. I’ll take the hit for this one. I should have pushed harder. I should have raised the funds and targeted this critical special election despite the naysayers. That won’t happen again. The path forward is clear. Fight fire with fire. Chase every ballot. Win.

Vice President JD Vance made the case for annexation on a trip to Greenland along with his wife, Usha Vance, and a U.S. delegation. The vice president told the residents of Greenland that they were being neglected by Denmark and would do far better if they joined the U.S. President Donald Trump has made it a goal of his second term to annex Greenland, which would increase the square mileage of the U.S. by more than a fifth. 'We're the only nation on earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security.' Vance visited the U.S. military base at Pituffik to make his remarks in front of members of the military. He made the case that Russia and China both have plans for Greenland and that the country would be better off staking its future with the United States. "Yes, the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination," said Vance. "We hope that they choose to partner with the United States, because we're the only nation on earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security, because their security is very much our security, as these brave Americans show. .@VP: "Yes, the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination. We hope that they choose to partner with the United States because we're the only nation on Earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security because their security is very much our… pic.twitter.com/PREoVdiGIy— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 28, 2025 He went on to say that Greenland's security in the face of foreign ambitions put global peace under threat. "As they expand their ambitions, we can't just bury our head in the sand — or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow — and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large landmass. We know that they are," Vance said. "They've taken steps to put Greenland in ridiculous debt traps to invest and exploit the resources here," he added. "And we know that they're sending a lot of military resources here. Yes, over the medium term, the United States will meet that challenge." .@VP: "We can't just bury our head in the sand — or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow — and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large landmass. We know that they are." pic.twitter.com/2qzgOhL2pQ— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 28, 2025 After bringing a message of gratitude from Trump, Vance also personally thanked the service members at the base. "From the bottom of my heart, it is incredible to be a vice president who has served — to know the sacrifice that comes along with it and to see that there are still incredible young Americans willing to put on the uniform and serve this country," he added. .@VP: "It is incredible to be a Vice President who has served -- To know the sacrifice that comes along with it and to see that there are still incredible young Americans willing to put on the uniform and serve this country. You make America a better place and you make an honor… pic.twitter.com/CEerZI6IRB— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 28, 2025 "You make America a better place, and you make it an honor to serve as your vice president," he concluded.Democrats pounced on the trip to criticize the Trump administration. "What the hell is JD Vance doing in Greenland? They don’t want him there. We don’t need him there," wrote Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell of California. "Why won’t he go to Greensboro or Green Bay to see how much Trump’s tariff tax is costing people?"Others have noted that a large majority of Greenland residents, of which there are only about 56,000, are opposed to the U.S. annexation proposal. A group of residents in favor of annexation spoke to the New York Post, but many of them did so anonymously after receiving death threats. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!