The Trump administration’s recent deployment of National Guard troops and federal resources to major U.S. cities reflects a growing majority of Americans who are fed up with inaction on public safety. After years of unchecked violence and open-air drug use, many see these moves not as overreach but as long overdue.
Fueling much of this primordial decay is a Fentanyl epidemic, which is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. Meanwhile, other rampant street drugs like meth and bath salts are inducing or worsening levels of psychosis, unlike anything in history. The result has been broken people, broken homes, broken cities, and unspeakable violence. Tents and waste sprawl across once beautiful urban centers while needles litter children’s playgrounds, and women avoid pumping their own gas after dark.
The United States’ rate of violent crime, such as rape, robbery, and assault, is nearly three times higher than Europe’s. And the homicide rate? That’s seven times higher. Worse still, an alarming number of these crimes are perpetrated by repeat offenders. Our criminal justice system is failing to carry out the duties of its most basic requirement: to protect the public from career criminals. A quick glance at any morning paper on any given day in any city across America will tell the story.
In Charlotte, NC, Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska survived war only to be brutally stabbed to death on a train by a career criminal who never should have been free. The video of this horrific tragedy plays back in our nightmares over and again. We have seen enough.
The Cicero Institute’s new national poll puts numbers to this sadness and frustration:
82% support life in prison or the death penalty for aggravated murder, even when mental illness is involved.
63% want lenient judges removed from the bench.
75% support electronically monitoring transient sex offenders.
60% want automatic federal investigations into states that repeatedly release violent criminals, something the White House is already looking into.
But nothing captures the stakes more vividly than the testimonies of those who have to live with the consequences of failed policy. Stephen Federico, father of 22-year-old Logan Federico, gave emotional testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee in Charlotte. He recounted how his daughter was “executed … on her knees begging for her life … begging for her hero, her father. Me. And I could not protect her.” He did not lean on political ideology. He called out a broken system that allowed a man with at least 39 arrests and 25 felonies to remain on the streets, serving little time despite a decade of violent and property crime. “There is only one thing that would have kept my daughter alive,” he said. “Putting a career criminal in prison.”
And if you think it ends there, it doesn’t.
In Kentucky, the anguish of one father has come to embody a nation’s rage. Years after his six-year-old little boy was stabbed to death by a man deemed “criminally insane,” that man was granted parole “good behavior.” Dean Tipton has vowed that if the system will not deliver justice for his son, he will. His words are not a threat born of malice, but of despair. Thankfully, proactive law enforcement officials in Florida picked up the murderer on a parole violation, sparing Mr. Tipton further trauma.
But Americans should not have to wait for a technicality to get violent predators off the street. The voice of America is saying, “Enough.”
While we face rising crime, record overdose deaths, and exploding homelessness, bickering and posturing dominate from the local to the federal level by those who are content with the status quo of death, disease, and despair. The average family does not care about partisan brinkmanship. They care about being safe in their own neighborhoods.
In Athens, GA, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was dragged off her morning jog, beaten, and murdered by an illegal alien who had already been arrested in the U.S. and released back onto our streets. This was not an accident or a tragedy of circumstance. It was the predictable result of a government that refuses to protect its citizens, releasing violent men again and again until they finally kill one of our daughters. Riley’s blood, like Iryna’s and Logan’s, cries out against a broken system that values ideology and excuses over human life.
Yet instead of focusing on these failures, Leftists consumed by political theater are eager to offer aid to our enemy rather than save our cities from this terror. America is not asking for cruelty but for safety. Voters are not asking the government to shrug at addiction or mental illness. They want public spaces reclaimed for families and small businesses, not surrendered to chaos.
That is what the poll numbers capture: a public demand for strong consequences that bring peace to our streets. People want dangerous offenders confined and controlled, drug dealers punished, transient sex offenders tracked, and public spaces cleared of disorder.
The new federal deployments mark a turning point. From state houses to our national capital, citizens are signaling to their elected officials that the duty of government is to protect them. And if current leaders cannot find the gumption to deliver security and justice, they should resign and make way for those who will.
Americans have seen enough. The public’s patience has expired. They are eager to support leaders who will match words with courageous action.
Stefani E. Buhajla is a pollster, political strategist, and Sr. Director of Communications at the Cicero Institute.
Don’t you want to live in a crime-free utopia? Wouldn’t allowing the government to track our every move, solve all our problems? Local authorities seem to think so, and they have the perfect tool to usher in mass surveillance in your city: Flock cameras. Flock Safety is one of the main manufacturers of Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) that have been quietly taking over cities and have already infiltrated nearly every state. These cameras monitor cars and even pedestrians constantly, logging minute details about every vehicle that passes, storing the data in Flock’s database, and feeding it into an AI platform with the capability of stitching together elaborate travel patterns. No court-issued warrant is required – not even public consent – creating massive privacy concerns for residents who often don’t know they are being watched until these cameras have saturated their community.
According to Flock’s own website, they cover 49 states, over 5,000 communities, partner with more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies, and read upwards of 20 billion license plates per month. Though law enforcement agencies are one of the primary users of these devices stated to reduce crime, cities, businesses, and even HOAs are also deploying them in residential areas.
You might think, “We don’t have these in our town.” But sometimes these cameras show up without public approval…
A new report from McKinsey & Company, the “Global Energy Perspective,” lays bare what many of us – dismissed as “climate deniers” – have been asserting all along: Coal, oil and natural gas will continue to be the dominant sources of global energy well past 2050.
The McKinsey outlook for 2025 sharply adjusts prior projections. Last year, the management consultant’s models had coal demand falling 40% by 2035. Today, McKinsey projects an uptick of 1% over the same period. The dramatic reversal is driven by record commissioning of coal-fired power plants in China, unexpected increases in global electricity use, and the lack of viable alternatives for industries like steel, chemicals and heavy manufacturing.
The report states that the three fossil fuels will still supply up to 55% of global energy in 2050, a forecast that looks low to me. Today’s share for hydrocarbons is more than 60% for electricity generation and more than 80% for primary energy consumption.
In any case, McKinsey’s report confirms what seasoned energy analysts and pragmatic policymakers have long maintained: The energy transition will not be swift, simple, or governed solely by climate targets. In fact, this energy transition will not happen at all without large scale deployment of nuclear, geothermal or other technological innovations that prove practical.
In places such as India, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the top energy priorities are access, affordability and reliability, which together add up to national security. Planners are acutely aware of a trap: Sole reliance on weather-dependent power risks blackouts, industrial disruption, economic decline and civil unrest.
That is why many developing nations are embracing a dual track: continued investment in conventional generation (coal, gas, nuclear) while developing alternative technologies. McKinsey says this in consultancy lingo: “Countries and regions will follow distinct trajectories based on local economic conditions, resource endowment, and the realities facing particular industries.”
In countries like India, Indonesia and Nigeria, the scale of electrification and industrial expansion is enormous. These countries cannot afford to wait decades for perfect solutions. They need “reliable and good enough for now.” That means conventional fuels will be retained.
McKinsey’s analysis also underscores what physics and engineering dictate: Intermittent and weather-dependent sources, such as wind and solar, require vast land areas, backup batteries and generation and power-grid investments, none of which come cheaply nor quickly.
The technologies of wind and solar branded as renewable should instead be called economy killers. They make for expensive and unstable electrical systems that have brought energy-rich nations like Germany to their knees. After spending billions of dollars on unreliable wind turbines and solar panels and demolishing nuclear plants and coal plants, the country is struggling with high prices and economic stagnation.
The Germans now have a word for their self-inflicted crisis: Dunkelflaute. It means “dark doldrums”—a period of cold, sunless, windless days when their “green” grid fails. During a Dunkelflaute in November 2024, fossil fuels were called on to provide 70% of Germany’s electricity.
If “renewables” were truly capable, planners would shut down fossil fuel generation. But that is not the case. While wind and solar are pursued in some places, coal and natural gas remain much sought-after fuels. In the first half of 2025 alone, China commissioned about 21 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired capacity, which is more than any other country and the largest increase since 2016.
Further, China has approved construction of 25 GW of new coal plants in the first half of 2025. As of July, China’s mainland has nearly 1,200 coal plants, far outstripping the rest of the world.
McKinsey points to a dramatic surge in electricity demand driven by data centers, which is estimated to be about 17 % annually from 2022 to 2030 in the 38 OECD countries. This kind of growth in electricity use simply cannot be met by wind and solar.
When analysts, journalists and engineers point out these realities, they’re branded as “shills” for the fossil fuel industry. However, it is not public relations to point out the physics and economics that make up the math for meeting the world’s energy needs. Dismissing such facts is to deny that reliable energy remains the bedrock of modern civilization.
The cost of foolish “green” policies is being paid in lost jobs, ruined businesses, disrupted lives and impoverishment that could have been avoided by wiser choices.
For those who have repeated energy realities for years, the vindication is bittersweet. The satisfaction of being right is tempered by the knowledge that many have suffered because reality has been ignored.
Vijay Jayaraj is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation andScience and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Va. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
Two months ago, Arizona’s monopoly utilities and their political allies were patting themselves on the back about the expansion and development of a couple of new natural gas projects that they claim will help the Grand Canyon state keep up with growing energy demand.
On the surface, an announcement of new projects like the Transwestern Expansion should have been great news for Arizona ratepayers. Our state is in desperate need of more reliable, dispatchable power; especially after years of reckless green new deal investments that have raised costs and reduced reliability.
But sadly, it turns out that SRP’s enthusiasm for gas isn’t about expanding baseload power on the grid after all. The new gas capacity is instead being used to replace existing coal power generation that SRP has pledged to shut down in Arizona. All to meet ridiculous self-imposed carbon reduction goals and climate commitments that should have been junked a long time ago…
In today’s U.S. Senate, the filibuster has become both a symbol of obstruction and a tool of partisan power. To filibuster is to talk—or threaten to talk—long enough to stall or block legislation. The Constitution itself says nothing about this practice. It merely grants each chamber the power to determine its own rules. Over time, the Senate chose to allow unlimited debate, which can only be ended by invoking cloture—a supermajority vote of 60 senators.
The practical effect is that a minority of just 41 senators can stop the majority from acting. This turns the Founders’ concept of majority rule upside down.
Thomas Jefferson made the principle clear:
“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis—the law of the greater part—is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal right; to consider the will of the society announced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons of importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learned.”
Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers, warned of the same danger:
“To give a minority a negative upon the majority…is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser number.… The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or something approaching towards it…has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.”
Those who defend the filibuster argue that removing it would allow whichever party holds power to impose its will unchecked. That concern is not unfounded—but it points to a deeper problem, one the Founders themselves addressed. If Americans no longer elect leaders bound by conscience and virtue, no rule or procedure can save the republic.
Benjamin Franklin warned that:
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
And John Adams echoed:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The lesson is timeless: the strength of our institutions depends not on clever procedural devices but on the character of those who serve within them. The filibuster may have evolved into a Senate tradition, but it stands at odds with the Founders’ first principle of republican government—majority rule among a moral and self-governing people.
If we wish to preserve that republic, we should restore the rule of the majority—and the virtue on which it was meant to rest.
America is a country founded on the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For almost 250 years, these rights, freedoms, and values have shaped our nation into the world’s foremost superpower, a beacon of light and liberty to millions of onlookers, and extremely prosperous and generous.
None of these rights could have been sustained, passed down, or protected without the men and women who have served in the branches of our military for more than two centuries.
This week, we again honor the service and sacrifice of all those who have answered the call of duty to defend and preserve the United States of America for future generations. Since 1775, when the Continental Army was formed in our nation’s war for independence against England, over 40 million individuals are believed to have served in our military. Currently, there are more than two million men and women who serve either on active duty or in the reserve components. Each one of these people understood the gravity of their decision, and many have—and continue to say—they would serve again if given the opportunity.
While the vast majority of jobs in this country require a ‘clock in and clock out’ mindset, service to America in uniform requires an incredible degree of love, devotion, and a recognition of sacrifice. People serving in the military love this country and her citizens, and they will do anything to defend the Constitution and ideals that have made her the greatest in world history. They are devoted to country above self, understanding they are engaged in a higher purpose they may not comprehend in this life. And they recognize they will be called to sacrifice for the good of the nation. This sacrifice is observed in several ways, including lengthy deployments, injuries and psychological issues, and even death. When a man or woman volunteers for service to the United States military, they do so knowing they may be called upon to give their lives for the cause of freedom.
The level of love, devotion, and willingness to sacrifice from members of the military is very unique to the United States. Many countries around the world coerce individuals to serve and die in war. Other nations do not have the luxury of established militaries, inviting unrest within their borders. However, the American military is the most powerful in the world, keeping countless threats at bay, and comprised of individuals who voluntarily choose to serve in the defense of their country. Even during periods of our nation’s history when there was a military draft, those who stepped forward had a superior understanding of the nature of the dangers facing the world and the United States and were willing to do whatever it took to eradicate the evils around them. This is why the history books call those who fought in World War Two, “The Greatest Generation.” Perhaps Claudia Pemberton, an author and member of the Military Writers Society of America, put it best, when she said, “America without her soldiers would be like God without his angels.”
It’s easy to live in a country such as ours and take what we have for granted because we enjoy so much around us. But these freedoms and values did not simply appear, and they are not guaranteed to last. There is definitely a complacency that has crept in our communities and exponentially grown throughout the years and generations. Our children are not being raised in a country that appreciates or values our veterans and their service as it once has or ought.
We must, however, recognize that these liberties and our way of life did not appear out of nowhere, and that it has not been easy to retain our freedoms. Millions have fought and served under our flag to ensure that American liberty is passed from generation to generation. They do so without expectation of thanks or praise, but these reactions to their service cannot become secondhand or muted. On the contrary, we should redouble our efforts to honor and celebrate our veterans and what they have done to defend our great nation.
Thus, the importance of Veterans Day cannot be overstated. It is not just another special date on the calendar we can take for granted. It is a day when our nation must rally together in unity to help kindle appreciation for our military veterans in the next generation. President Abraham Lincoln correctly noted, “Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.” If we are to keep the flame of the United States of America burning for another 250 years, Veterans Day must be cherished by all Americans. Thank you to all the men and women who have served in the United States military. Your service and heroism is greatly appreciated.
Warren Petersen is the President of the Arizona State Senate and represents Legislative District 14.
