The U.S. national debt has surpassed $40 trillion for the first time, marking a historic milestone in a borrowing buildup that has accumulated over generations, through wars, recessions, tax changes, and the expansion of major federal benefit programs under presidents of both parties.
The Treasury Department reported that total public debt outstanding reached about $40.047 trillion Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
The number is striking, but the more significant measure for economists is debt held by the public — money the federal government owes to investors and other entities outside the federal government.
That figure is approaching the size of the entire U.S. economy, with publicly held debt already exceeding 100% of gross domestic product, according to the Journal.
The $40 trillion figure represents the cumulative result of decades of federal borrowing rather than the policies of any single administration.
The United States has carried debt since its founding, when the young nation borrowed heavily to finance the Revolutionary War.
For much of American history, however, federal debt remained relatively modest compared with the size of the economy and often rose sharply during wars or economic emergencies before declining during periods of peace and economic growth.
That pattern changed substantially during the 20th century as the federal government took on broader responsibilities.
Social Security became a permanent part of the federal budget, Medicare was established in the 1960s, and the government’s role in healthcare, retirement benefits, national defense, and other areas continued to expand.
Major national emergencies produced additional surges.
Debt rose dramatically during World War II, and borrowing again accelerated during the financial crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic, when Congress approved trillions of dollars in emergency spending and economic assistance.
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The Journal noted that the federal government has run an annual deficit every year since 2001, meaning it has consistently spent more than it has collected in revenue and has had to borrow to cover the difference.
The result is that borrowing that once was heavily associated with wars and economic crises has become a persistent feature of the federal budget.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the government is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion this year.
A growing share of that borrowing reflects the cost of servicing debt accumulated in previous years.
Interest payments have become one of the largest expenses in the federal budget, with the cost rising as the government carries more debt and refinances older obligations at higher rates.
The fiscal pressures are increasingly visible in the bond market.
The yield on the 30-year Treasury recently reached roughly 5.3%, its highest level in nearly two decades, according to the Journal and Reuters.
Higher Treasury yields increase the government’s cost of issuing and refinancing debt and can also influence borrowing costs for households and businesses.
Still, investors continue to regard Treasury securities as among the world’s most important and liquid financial assets.
The United States also retains a major advantage from the dollar’s role as the world’s dominant reserve currency, which helps sustain demand for Treasury debt even as the government’s borrowing needs grow.
The long-term outlook, however, is becoming more challenging.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that if current laws remain in place, publicly held debt could rise to about 120% of GDP within a decade and roughly 175% within 30 years, according to the Journal.
Much of that projected increase is tied to the growing cost of Social Security, Medicare and other programs, as well as rising interest expenses.
The Trump administration is confronting those longstanding pressures while pursuing its own economic and fiscal priorities.
President Donald Trump has made reducing government waste, encouraging economic growth and strengthening federal finances among the administration’s goals.
The administration’s Department of Government Efficiency effort sought significant reductions in federal spending, while the administration has also pursued increased revenue through tariffs.
The New York Times reported that the administration has claimed more than $200 billion in DOGE-related savings, although the Government Accountability Office has raised questions about the reliability and transparency of some of those estimates.
Tariff policy has also produced substantial revenue, although the administration has faced legal challenges to some of the tariffs and the government is now issuing refunds to companies following court rulings.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has set a goal of reducing the federal deficit to 3% of GDP by 2028.
Bessent has also argued that some current fiscal pressures reflect circumstances that could change, while policies encouraging business investment could strengthen economic growth and eventually produce additional tax revenue.
In an interview with Newsmax cited by The New York Times, Bessent pointed to spending associated with the war in Iran and tariff refunds as factors affecting this year’s deficit.
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He also defended provisions allowing businesses to immediately deduct certain investments in factories and equipment, arguing that the policy could encourage investment and expand the economy’s productive capacity.
“That is a hit now to the deficit, but we are creating productive assets for future growth which will be paying taxes down the line,” Bessent said, according to The New York Times.
The administration’s fiscal policies are therefore being implemented against a debt burden that was already enormous before Trump returned to office.
Republican and Democrat administrations have contributed to the accumulation through different combinations of tax policy, military spending, domestic programs, economic stimulus, and emergency measures.
The biggest challenge for lawmakers is that the largest components of federal spending are difficult to change quickly.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national defense, and interest on the debt account for substantial portions of federal expenditures, while lawmakers from both parties have generally been reluctant to make sweeping changes to popular benefit programs or enact tax increases large enough to eliminate the deficit.
The aging U.S. population is expected to put additional pressure on Social Security and Medicare in coming decades.
At the same time, interest costs can continue rising even without new spending because the government must continually refinance existing debt.
For now, the size and liquidity of the Treasury market and the dollar’s global role continue to give the United States considerable financial advantages.
But the $40 trillion milestone illustrates the scale of the challenge confronting Washington.
The debt has been built over decades and across administrations of both parties.
Reducing its growth will ultimately require decisions about spending, taxes, economic growth and the government’s major benefit programs that extend well beyond any single presidency.
© 2026 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.
While far-left Twitch millionaire Hasan Piker built an enormous following attacking the United States, praising communist dictators, and declaring that America “deserved 9/11,” his younger brother was reportedly working on some of the nation’s most sensitive military aircraft.
Murat Piker, Hasan’s younger brother and frequent livestream companion, spent more than a decade working as an aerospace engineer at Boeing, according to a bombshell report from the Washington Free Beacon.
His projects reportedly included the new Air Force One, the E-6B Mercury nuclear command aircraft, airborne surveillance systems, military drones, satellites, and Boeing spacecraft.
According to Murat’s public LinkedIn profile, he worked for Boeing Defense & Space and helped lead the mechanical design and integration of next-generation satellite structures.
“I hold a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering from UCLA and possess active Security Clearances,” his profile states.
A person familiar with Murat’s employment history told the Free Beacon that he held a “top secret” security clearance.
That would have placed the brother of one of America’s loudest anti-American socialist influencers inside the heavily vetted world of classified defense contracting.
Murat also admitted during a recent interview with Rolling Stone that he performed some work on Boeing’s VC-25B program—the official designation for the next generation of Air Force One.
“I actually worked on VC-25B a little bit,” Murat said. Hasan quickly undercut him: “Yeah… on the toilet. Don’t let him act like he did anything cool.”
How do I know Hasan Piker’s brother worked on Air Force One? — Because Murat Piker bragged about it in an interview with Rolling Stone (which I know understandably very few people read)https://t.co/z8BWgoUaVO pic.twitter.com/2HmlgKQcTW
Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit
A video of the national anthem being played ahead of the Indiana Fever‘s recent meeting with the Atlanta Dream has been going viral this week.
The Fever came away with the win, but the on-field action has not really been the main topic of discussion in the days since.
Instead, a lot of it has centred around Sophie Cunningham being the only player to put her hand on her heart as the national anthem was playing.
In the clip which has been shared by multiple accounts on X/Twitter, Cunningham is standing slightly away from the rest of her teammates, none of whom have their hands raised.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta Dream squad are not believed to have taken to the court while the anthem was ongoing.
This has led to Cunningham receiving praise, while the WNBA has faced backlash.
One fan asked: “Why is the other team not on the court? What is wrong with the WNBA??”
A second fan tweeted: “Sophie Cunningham is the only good thing about the WNBA. Will support her but done with everything else.”
“God Bless her. No excuse for the others. Disgusting,” added another.
A fourth commented: “Sophie stood alone with hand on heart. That quiet move speaks loud.”
Another suggested: “Totally disrespectful. Let them go live over in Europe or anywhere else and let’s see how they feel then.”
“She’s Americas Sweetheart!! We stand behind you,” added a sixth while tagging Cunningham on X.
A seventh wrote: “Why won’t these people just leave the country for the one they respect? Shame on @WNBA.”
Josh Barker, Yahoo Sports
A beautiful public beach now looks like a dirty, hopeless slum.
Jungee Freiheit:
Ceuta has turned into a slum within a matter of days. Masses of migrants are living on the beach and building huts out of straw and cardboard. Our reporter Hinrich Rohbohm remains on the scene and is reporting.
And yes, people are angry.
Of course they are… if this were your hometown and a beach you’ve known and loved your entire life and it suddenly looks like a filthy slum, you’d be pissed too.
This is how many Americans feel when they look at the dilapidated neighborhoods in once-charming old US cities like Detroit, Chicago, Philly, and others.
But the anger that’s being aimed at the migrants, while totally understandable, should be aimed even harder at the people who invited them in.
Why have so many Western governments, including the United States, created conditions where millions of people believe migrating is worth the risk?
Right before this nightmare unfolded in Spain, they had launched a huge regularization program for illegals, which got over a million applications. Then Spain’s Supreme Court made it way harder for officials to quickly turn around and send back migrants who arrived by sea. Border-worker unions say they warned Madrid that the ruling was already being exploited everywhere, especially online. Social media lit up with rumors that the route into Ceuta had been opened. And now, after the nightmare unfolded, and it’s too late to do anything, Spain’s government now admits the ruling helped fuel the rush.
The real insanity here is creating policies that encourage people to leave their homes and cultures behind in search of some “new” life.
And now the people of Ceuta are left picking up the pieces (of trash).
A city of about 80,000 people can’t handle a sudden flood of tens of thousands of Africans without total chaos unfolding. Housing and bathrooms don’t magically appear. And this laughable idea of “integration” isn’t a magical fix either.
When tens of thousands of Africans suddenly show up, with totally different backgrounds, languages, and customs, while sleeping outside and wondering where their next meal is coming from, assimilating into local life probably isn’t at the top of their to-do list… and never will be.
And the people in power know that. They know perfectly well that their global “diversity” plan failed miserably, but they keep shoving it down the world’s collective throat.
The residents of Ceuta deserve borders their government will control, public spaces they can use, and some guarantee that their town won’t be overwhelmed whenever another rumor goes viral on TikTok or WhatsApp.
Even the migrants deserve something better than being lied to and lured by some fake fantasy of living in Europe… a place where they’re clearly not welcome.
Nobody wins here, except the globalist officials, who hide behind the migrants, hoping you won’t notice that they’re the ones to blame for this mess.
After more than 70,000 Moroccan migrants stormed the beaches at the end of July, thousands were left stranded in Ceuta. Now, they’ve turned the once-gorgeous beach into a shanty town, complete with cardboard houses, old blankets, tents, clothes strewn everywhere, and garbage all over the place, turning the shoreline into a ghetto in record time.
A beautiful public beach now looks like a dirty, hopeless slum.
Jungee Freiheit:
Ceuta has turned into a slum within a matter of days. Masses of migrants are living on the beach and building huts out of straw and cardboard. Our reporter Hinrich Rohbohm remains on the scene and is reporting.
And yes, people are angry.
Of course they are… if this were your hometown and a beach you’ve known and loved your entire life and it suddenly looks like a filthy slum, you’d be pissed too.
This is how many Americans feel when they look at the dilapidated neighborhoods in once-charming old US cities like Detroit, Chicago, Philly, and others.
But the anger that’s being aimed at the migrants, while totally understandable, should be aimed even harder at the people who invited them in.
Why have so many Western governments, including the United States, created conditions where millions of people believe migrating is worth the risk?
Right before this nightmare unfolded in Spain, they had launched a huge regularization program for illegals, which got over a million applications. Then Spain’s Supreme Court made it way harder for officials to quickly turn around and send back migrants who arrived by sea. Border-worker unions say they warned Madrid that the ruling was already being exploited everywhere, especially online. Social media lit up with rumors that the route into Ceuta had been opened. And now, after the nightmare unfolded, and it’s too late to do anything, Spain’s government now admits the ruling helped fuel the rush.
The real insanity here is creating policies that encourage people to leave their homes and cultures behind in search of some “new” life.
And now the people of Ceuta are left picking up the pieces (of trash).
A city of about 80,000 people can’t handle a sudden flood of tens of thousands of Africans without total chaos unfolding. Housing and bathrooms don’t magically appear. And this laughable idea of “integration” isn’t a magical fix either.
When tens of thousands of Africans suddenly show up, with totally different backgrounds, languages, and customs, while sleeping outside and wondering where their next meal is coming from, assimilating into local life probably isn’t at the top of their to-do list… and never will be.
And the people in power know that. They know perfectly well that their global “diversity” plan failed miserably, but they keep shoving it down the world’s collective throat.
The residents of Ceuta deserve borders their government will control, public spaces they can use, and some guarantee that their town won’t be overwhelmed whenever another rumor goes viral on TikTok or WhatsApp.
Even the migrants deserve something better than being lied to and lured by some fake fantasy of living in Europe… a place where they’re clearly not welcome.
Nobody wins here, except the globalist officials, who hide behind the migrants, hoping you won’t notice that they’re the ones to blame for this mess.
Revolver News
We are less than three months from the midterm elections, and for all the billions of dollars that will be spent convincing Americans otherwise, the choice facing voters is remarkably straightforward.
Do Americans want government guided by common sense? Or by crazy, woke ideas that have endlessly proven to make our lives worse? If they prefer the former, they can let Republicans continue driving American prosperity. If they prefer the latter, they can give Democrats the wheel.
The individual issues may change: crime, immigration, abortion, elections, education. But the throughline remains remarkably consistent. Vile ideas that would have once been confined to the lunatic fringe a decade ago have found eager champions in today’s Democratic Party.
As one example, look at Michigan.
Abdul el Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, proudly campaigned alongside left-wing internet commentator Hasan Piker. Piker is notorious for his anti-American rhetoric, including his infamous 2019 declaration that “America deserved 9/11.” Piker also praises America’s most ardent enemies, claiming Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong was a “great leader” and dressing in his trademark suit.
But el Sayed doesn’t need Piker to prove he’s incapable of representing the American people. His support for socialist healthcare, defunding the police, and abolishing Immigration and Customs But el Sayed doesn’t need Piker to prove he’s incapable of representing the American people. His support for socialist healthcare, defunding the police, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement is proof enough of his crazy ideology.
Rep. Mary Miller, Washington Examiner
Mike Pence spent most of his life and his political career selling America a very curated version of himself.
Mike sold us this deeply Christian, socially conservative, old-school persona, a man who believed in traditional marriage, traditional views on sex, and two genders.
Long after Pence was gone from Team Trump, he was still describing the trans movement as this “radical gender ideology. He openly opposed trans military service, he backed restrictions on gender-transition procedures for minors, and he insisted over and over that there are only two genders.
This was Mike Pence’s persona, and nothing could shake it.
Until the new story out of The Atlantic dropped… now, we’re all wondering if Mike Pence is the new leader of the trans revolution.
It all started with a trans CIA officer who goes by the name “Julia Curlee.” He went public with an extraordinary story about Mike Pence. According to Curlee, while Pence was part of the Trump admin, he would brief the VP every morning for about a year. He said Pence asked him to extend the assignment, and when that assignment finally ended, Pence invited him and his family to the White House.
Of course, it’s not weird that Pence would be polite and professional to a CIA officer. That’s not the remarkable part of this story. What makes it remarkable is how Curlee describes the relationship he had with Pence.
According to this transgender CIA officer, one of the most famously socially conservative politicians in America didn’t just tolerate him; he felt affirmed by him… more than anybody else ever had, apparently.
And boy oh boy, Pence really laid it on thick.
Curlee remembered the time Pence met his mother at the White House. He actually referred to Curlee as his “daughter.” Curlee told the Atlanic what that interaction meant to him and Pence.
And this is where MAGA readers are probably going to raise both eyebrows.
The Atlantic:
“No one has affirmed my gender identity quite like Mike Pence.” “Well,” he said, “I’m glad I passed the test.”
That is quite a testimonial for Mike Pence, whose entire reputation has been carefully built around traditional Christian conservatism.
Passing “tranny tests” doesn’t sound very traditional, does it?
And it’s not like Curlee was some quiet, wall-flower CIA transgender who was still in the closet.
Many years before the Pence relationship unfolded, Curlee was already writing about his transgender identity, the CIA, and the bigger movement.
And speaking of the CIA’s love of trannies, we’ll get into more of that later…
As for Curlee, when he began writing about his trans life, he did so secretly. Nobody knew his real name yet.
Back in 2017, Curlee wrote another essay for The Atlantic under the pseudonym “Jenny Hall.” Curlee confirmed in his new piece that he was Hall and that the earlier essay was about his experience transitioning while working at the CIA.
The Atlantic:
“I relish the idea that I’m ISIS’s nightmare: trans, gay, Jewish, CIA, and worst of all, female.”
The 2017 essay celebrated the CIA’s acceptance of transgender employees and pushed for other American institutions to do the same.
That makes Pence’s role in Curlee’s later story even more weird and disturbing.
Because while Curlee was fighting the trans war from one side, Pence was publicly standing firm on the other.
At least that’s what he told us he was doing.
Back in 2023, Pence was still making the conservative case against transgender service in the military.
Scripps News:
“I just believe that the introduction of transgender soldiers in the military has not contributed to our readiness and ultimately is a distraction.”
Mike Pence made it clear that he would ban transgender troops.
You can see why Curlee’s story lands differently than some story about two people from different backgrounds just getting along and working together professionally.
Public Pence was campaigning against what he called “radical gender ideology,” but private Pence was an ally to the radical trans revolution.
Mike Pence has been lying to somebody. Is it the MAGA movement or the trans? Our bet is that he’s been lying to MAGA the entire time.
But wait, there’s another twist…
After January 6, 2021, Pence invited his former “Daily Brief” staff back to the West Wing for a farewell photo.
Curlee says he became emotional and told Pence he’d never been prouder to have worked for him because of what he had done the previous week with the 2020 election. Pence thanked him and told him how much that meant to him.
For MAGA, that little detail lands with a big ol’ thud.
Because J6 is the moment when Pence’s relationship with Trump’s movement shattered into a million pieces.
Now, we have a transgender CIA official applauding Pence for certifying an election that at least half the country thought was a fraud.
And speaking of Trump, Curlee is very critical of Trump’s second term and says he’s hostile and exclusionary toward the trans movement. He says he left the CIA after nearly two decades in government service.
But he opens his departure story by saying his CIA colleagues were betting on how quickly Trump’s admin would fire him, then describes Trump’s declaration that the federal government would recognize only two genders as another ominous sign of what was coming.
There was just one problem with his dramatic setup…
Nobody had actually fired him yet.
Here’s how Curlee tells it in the Atlantic piece:
At the CIA, they’d started an office pool on when I’d be fired.
President Trump would be sworn in for his second term at noon; the smart money had me gone by 12:15. But the smart money hadn’t counted on Trump’s first pick to run intelligence for the National Security Council being shredded by an online mob on suspicion of disloyalty. There wasn’t yet anyone in place to fire me.
After taking the oath, Trump spoke at the Capitol. “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”
“Did he … ?” an NSA colleague asked. She glanced at me and looked away.
“Yeah,” I muttered. The good news: I was one of those two genders. The bad news: The administration would have views as to which one.
Trump’s return is a threat for him. His scientific “two-gender policy” is some kind of warning shot. Curlee is already bracing for the worst before anyone has even shown him the door.
But when Curlee looks back at Mike Pence, he gets all warm and fuzzy. You can already see where he draws the lines. The GOP establishment is clearly where Mr. Curlee feels more at home.
And that’s why the supposedly hard-line Christian conservative becoming one of the heroes in a transgender CIA officer’s personal story is very interesting indeed.
For MAGA, which already views Pence as the ultimate establishment traitor, that’s going to leave a mark.
Curlee’s story might also ring familiar for longtime Revolver readers.
Years ago, in one of our most viral pieces, we argued that the transgender movement had become one of the most aggressive and strangely influential forces inside left-wing institutions. We used a comparison to the Ottoman “janissaries,” the elite fighting force recruited from conquered Christian populations and converted into soldiers for the empire.
Our term for their modern cultural counterpart was memorable.
Here’s what we wrote at the time.
Revolver:
or those who didn’t grow up playing Age of Empires II, janissaries were the elite soldiers of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which conquered the entire Balkans and Near East during the 15th and 16th centuries. They fought and won the toughest battles for the last and greatest of the Islamic empires that waged war against Christian Europe.
Today, it’s common on Twitter or in comments sections to see people quip that the most elite, tip-of-the-spear troopers for modern leftism are America’s growing pool of transgender people. Or, as the pun goes, “trannissaries.”
Why is the transgender movement so “successful?” In no small part, it’s because of how fanatically committed its members are to defending and advancing their ascended fetish. Why is transvestite content so successful online? Because transsexual radicals make up a very disproportionate share of moderators and power users on sites like Reddit or Wikipedia, and will harass or ban all who stand against them. Why is drag queen story hour everywhere? Because it turns out there are a whole lot of creepy autogynephiles eagerly volunteering to hang out with young children.
[…]
The comparison between the janissaries of old and the trannissaries of today is even more robust than that, though, and makes for some revealing insights about the nature of both the modern regime and its favorite playthings.
Both are the converted children of conquered peoples.
The most famous trait of the Ottoman janissaries was their unusual method of recruitment. New janissaries were made through the *devshirme, *(literally “collecting”), in which Ottoman officials went into the provinces, took boys aged roughly 8-15 away from their families, and brought them back to Constantinople for training as soldiers. In a major twist, though, the boys recruited were not taken from Turkish families, or other Muslim groups. Instead, they were taken from the conquered Christian peoples of the empire: Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, and so on.
It’s an interesting piece that’s worth a read today:
Tranissaries: The Trans Movement’s Striking Parallels to a Dark and Forgotten Practice in the Ottoman Empire
As for Mr. Curlee’s story, and other transgenders around that time, it’s fair to note that the CIA wasn’t just “dealing with” them. They’d been openly recruiting them and promoting the CIA as this inclusive safe home for them.
It got so absurd, that around 2012, CIA recruiters were actually showing up at Pride events to talk about careers. The agency also had its own network for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender officers and allies.
But Curlee gives us an even more interesting detail about all of this “recruitment.”
In her 2017 Atlantic essay, she actually ended it by encouraging transgender kids to consider working for the CIA, and said they’re “always recruiting.”
And according to Curlee, the CIA used her articles on college campuses to recruit people.
The CIA has spent years marketing itself as a welcoming place for LGBT recruits.
And right in the middle of that world was one of the most supposedly “fire and brimstone” Christian conservatives in Washington.
Clearly, with all we know now, MAGA’s instincts about Pence were spot-on. He’s a phony. And now, thanks to this transgender CIA officer who spilled the beans, we have an even deeper and darker look behind Mike’s fake curtain.
Revolver News
The West’s selective hatred of Israel says less about Israel than it does about the values—and prejudices—of those who condemn it.
August 18, 2026
Israel dominates the daily news in this 2026 midterm election year—almost always in a boring, fatiguing, negative light. Tens of thousands of innocents may be slaughtered, ethnically cleansed, butchered, and tortured by the world’s dictators, yet an overwhelming and obsessive abhorrence is reserved for tiny, democratic Israel.
Such perverse asymmetry is strange, since, at least privately, most Americans would concede that of the 18 Middle Eastern nations, only Israel is a genuine consensual democracy.
As far as tolerance goes, in the entire region, only in Israel is it legal to criticize political or religious figures. Only there can one choose to adopt an openly gay or trans lifestyle. Only there can an apostate renounce one’s religion or urge others to do the same. And only there can Christians establish a new church almost anywhere they choose.
Some of Israel’s fiercest feminist critics who wear miniskirts and halter tops, some of its most severe gay opponents, and some of its more virulent trans adversaries would in all likelihood be summarily arrested in most Middle Eastern countries if they dared to speak, act, or wear clothes as they do in the West—except, of course, in democratic and free Israel.
In terms of protest, scream publicly in Tel Aviv, “I no longer believe in the Jewish faith, and I hate the current government of Israel”—and there is little chance of being arrested.
Chant the same publicly in any Muslim country in the Middle East—“I no longer believe in Islam, and I hate our current government”—and the loud critic would be either jailed or beaten by a street mob or worse.
The New, Old Hatred
On the Left—whether that is defined as the ossifying Democratic Party or the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America, or both—it is now a general rule that no candidate can win a primary election in a blue state if the candidate is on record supporting Israel.
In practice, no Jewish American can now be nominated on any national Democratic Party ticket.
Once extreme but now mainstream Democratic candidates, officeholders, and influencers, from Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and podcaster Hasan Piker, call for the virtual end of Israel as we currently know it. Most Democrat candidates prefer to be seen on the stump with the antisemitic, America-trashing Hasan Piker rather than with their own Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer.
On campuses, left-wing students, along with foreign student visitors from the Middle East, openly cheered on the Hamas massacre of 1,200 civilians and soldiers (including 46 Americans) on October 7, 2023.
Some 80 percent of the once pro-Israel Democrats now view Israel unfavorably. Their hatred explains why once strong nationwide support for Israel has fallen from about 80 percent to 60 percent.
On the extreme Right, not a day goes without podcasters Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, or Candace Owens charging Israel and its supporters with some nefarious conspiracies, from secretly directing U.S. policy in the Middle East and suppressing the Epstein files, to orchestrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk and having advanced knowledge of, or at least a hand in, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Now orphaned, but once hyper-MAGA, politicos like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, and Thomas Massie blame much of their own estrangement from the Trump administration and their now inert political careers on the influence of Jewish money and pro-Zionist Jews.
On examination, their accusations make no sense. But they do reveal a sudden recrudescence of a reductionist and ancient hatred.
Irrational, Unhinged Venom
Is America really a captive of Jewish influence?
Since its founding, Israel has contributed about $300 million, adjusted for inflation, to U.S. universities and nonprofits.
In contrast, the Gulf states alone have given more than $12 billion.
Our chief rival, a hostile China, has donated more than $6 billion. Yet somehow Israel is accused of buying and leveraging U.S. institutions.
Members and close associates of the Bush, Biden, and Trump families have partnered in lucrative investments with rich Gulf-state entities. Yet we hear that pro-Israel American lobbying groups like AIPAC—whose money comes exclusively from American citizens or residents—pose an existential threat to the U.S.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine War in February 2022, the U.S. has sent Ukraine nearly $200 billion in aggregate military and economic aid.
That sum is about 10 times the amount given to Israel in the same period, during which Israel was likewise at war. In that same timeframe, Israeli cities were targeted by more than 30,000 drones and missiles launched from terrorist entities in Iran, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Yemen.
Characteristic of the current revulsion toward Israel and its supporters, Jews especially, is a barrage of untrue, selective, and hypocritical charges.
Israel is accused of “genocide” for waging war against Gaza, from which the October 7 massacre was launched, and killing tens of thousands of civilians—according to Hamas’s manipulated figures.
What is conveniently left out of those numbers: 1) Israel counters that some 20,000 or more of the fatalities were Hamas fighters, with thousands more abettors; 2) the total death figures are supplied to Western authorities solely by Hamas, a designated terrorist organization or its prejudicial UN affiliates; 3) Hamas deliberately uses its own civilians as shields, both above ground and in its massive billion-dollar tunnel labyrinth, paid for by misappropriated aid funding from naive Western groups and a corrupt UN.
The tunnels’ entries and exits were located, by design, beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques. That choice was itself a damning indictment: Hamas expected Israel to be far more careful to avoid collateral damage to Gazan civilians than Hamas itself, which deliberately put them in the line of fire to save its own fighters.
Hamas’s logic was clear: the Israelis may spare us because they value Gazan lives more than we terrorists do, who use them as human shields.
Selective Venom
Hating Israel is a selective syndrome.
Israel’s critics conveniently ignore the genocidal efforts of Islamic terrorists in Nigeria who have killed thousands of innocents.
Did any of our protesting students cite the genocidal former Somali dictatorship of Siad Barre, which killed more than 200,000 fellow Muslim Somalis?
Do they remember the murder of 3,000 Americans on September 11 by the Islamists of al-Qaeda?
Did the protesters at Stanford, Harvard, or Columbia ever blast the Sudanese Islamic killers who butchered more than 60,000?
Unlike the IDF, Turkey, a fierce critic of Israel, never phoned or texted Kurdish civilian apartment dwellers or small villages during its urban anti-insurgent operations, urging them to evacuate before the terrorists hiding among them were targeted.
John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, has found that in urban combat operations the combatant-to-civilian fatality ratio in Gaza runs between 1:1 and 1:2—far lower than the 1:9 ratio used by the UN.
Scholars have noted that the U.S. bombing campaigns against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II—campaigns that by early 1945 were destroying the Axis wartime economies and shortening the war—as well as the bombing of urban areas in North Korea and Vietnam, killed far more civilians.
We should remember that more than 2,000 Gazan civilians enthusiastically joined the October 7 murderers, drawn by the gleeful news of easy opportunities to kill, rape, and steal from mostly unarmed Israeli women and children.
When Israeli hostages were bound and brought back to Gaza, even the Hamas terrorists had to protect their captives from Gazan civilian mobs who, in a bloodthirsty frenzy, tried to dismember them in the street.
Hypocrisies and Libels
Many other countries and peoples far better fit the left-wing/Islamist slur “settler colonialists” or “apartheidists” than do Israelis, who can claim that Jews have lived in their present-day homeland for at least 3,500 years.
In the parlance of the current Left, Arab Muslims “stole” their present homelands in the Middle East and North Africa from Romans and Greeks, who had predated them by some 800 years.
No one dares call President Xi of Communist China a “settler colonialist” for absorbing and colonizing Tibet after World War II.
Is China an “apartheid state” for putting a million Muslim Uyghurs in veritable concentration camps? What about Qatar? Should not such an “apartheid” nation be condemned on American campuses for ordering Christians to worship only in a few officially registered Christian churches, physically segregated and confined to a single, patrolled government enclave, Mesaimeer?
Who are the real apartheidists of Uganda—the hyper-rich Indian colonial overclass that chooses to cluster and segregate in upscale, separate neighborhoods, or the Ugandan majority who likely prefers they do?
No one accuses Zohran Mamdani (who promises to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal” if he sets foot in New York City) of being a late-arriving “settler colonialist” from Uganda, part of the “one-percenter” Indian community that somehow still controls 60–65 percent of that nation’s wealth.
As for the charge of “war criminal,” why does Mamdani not arrest any of Iran’s UN delegation who venture to New York, given that their government butchered more than 40,000 of its own citizens as recently as a few months ago? Does he define “war criminals” as Jews only?
Would Mamdani have arrested Rep. Ilhan Omar’s own late father, a former Somali colonel in the genocidal Siad Barre military? Remember, he fled to the United States to escape the revenge of his victims and to find sanctuary for his family in Minnesota.
As for “occupied lands” and “ethnic cleansing,” those charges better fit Azerbaijan, which just ethnically cleansed 150,000 Armenians. Does Harvard protest that atrocity, or Vladimir Putin’s rounding up of people from Russia’s own ethnic minority regions in Siberia to be wiped out and used as cannon fodder in Ukraine? Does Muslim Turkey get a pass for ethnically cleansing northern Cyprus of its ancient and indigenous Greek population and sending “settler colonialists” from Turkey to replace them?
Is tiny European Denmark a “colonialist” power for owning the underdeveloped, impoverished, vast, and far-distant North American territory of Greenland?
Are socialist Spain and its neo-communist prime minister Pedro Sánchez “settler colonialists” for retaining by force Spanish colonial enclaves on the Moroccan coast?
True and False Middle Eastern Friends
Survey the Middle East as allies—and weep.
One cannot find a single country that is more pro-American or pro-Western than Israel.
Iran has been a terrorist monstrosity for half a century; it has killed thousands of Americans with shaped charges in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Syria was run by a genocidal Assad-kleptocratic regime for decades.
Qatar hosts the rabid anti-American propaganda organ Al Jazeera that hosted all sorts of anti-American terrorists.
Fifteen of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian.
Our “ally” Turkey cannot be trusted with American weapons, still less with American nuclear weapons, for fear it will share our technology with Russia, Iran, or China.
American diplomats have been butchered in Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan.
We have waged war against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
The USS Cole was nearly sunk in Yemen, which continues to fire missiles at American ships.
Pakistan sheltered a mass murderer: Osama bin Laden.
And on and on.
The United States and Europe have suffered more than 200 major terrorist attacks from Muslim jihadists, both as immigrants and foreign residents, often with support from radical Islamists in the Middle East.
So it seems surreal to turn instead on our only time-tested ally, Israel. The new tolerance for hating Jews explains why they are now targets for more than 50 percent of all hate crimes reported in Mamdani’s New York. Armed guards now protect most synagogues in America from antisemitic terrorists, who turn out most often to be Muslim residents who, or whose forebears, originally stem from the Middle East.
American tourists were kidnapped in Egypt’s Sinai, while American oil-company employees were murdered in Algeria.
After 9/11, few American tourists felt safe in the Middle East. But none feared Israeli or Jewish terrorists.
The October 7 Hatred Surge
Three recent chapters in the long history of antisemitism remain inexplicable.
First, hatred of Jews and Israel peaked immediately after the greatest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust—weeks before Israel entered Gaza, and only after Hamas refused to surrender the masterminds of the slaughter or the 251 hostages. The Jewish crime, apparently, was being so easily murdered by Hamas.
The clearest sign of that Pavlovian hatred was the jubilation on the far Left and among Islamists—and the strange new alliance these seemingly disparate groups were already forming—over the ease with which so many mostly unarmed Jewish civilians had been butchered and the prospect of even more killing to follow.
The ghoulish celebrants were not concerned about mass murder, torture, or mutilation of the women, children, and elderly. Instead, they grew ecstatic at the prospect of still more medievalism and blood to come.
Hamas, the darling of American campuses and Muslim communities, issued Arabic-to-Hebrew phrase books to the invaders with instructions for the rapist-killers on how to say in Hebrew, “Take off your pants,” “Take off your clothes,” “Raise your hands and spread your legs.”
Second, none of the Israel-haters ever offers any alternative course that the Israelis should have taken to retrieve the hostages and punish the murderers.
Much less do they imagine what other nations might have done—the United States, France, or the United Kingdom—had terrorists conducted such a mass slaughter at numbers proportional to their far larger populations.
I doubt any other nation would have petitioned the beloved International Criminal Court to bring the Hamas killers to justice.
Its chief prosecutor, the Israel-hating Karim Khan, refused even to examine Israeli evidence and instead rushed to condemn Prime Minister Netanyahu as an international war criminal.
Perhaps Khan’s hatred of Israel was aimed at hiding the fact that the now-fired Khan was being accused by his own legal team of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. Who will police the police? Will Mayor Mamdani arrest the ICC predator if he lands at JFK Airport in New York City?
Third, when 6,000 Hamas terrorists and Gazan “civilians” invaded Israel, it was during an agreed-on peace. Indeed, take away October 7, and Israel would never have entered Gaza; indeed, even after the slaughter that took place on that day, Israeli officers dreaded walking into such a subterranean ambush. And prior to the mass murder, it was Israel, not the Muslim nation and adjacent Arab neighbor Egypt, that had supplied almost all of Gaza’s water, electricity, fuels, and telecommunications.
For years Israel had invited 20,000 Gazans to work inside Israel at two to three times the wages available in Gaza. Gaza itself had been “ethnically cleansed” of all Jews in 2005 by the Israeli government under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was generally considered a “hawk.” Any valuable infrastructure they left behind was immediately looted and destroyed. After the departure of all the Jews from Gaza, the grifting Hamas government shook down roughly $20 billion of the more than $40 billion in international aid given to the Palestinians in general.
Had Hamas simply sought to create a multiparty democracy, held regular elections, created a bill of rights, and adopted a Western economy, it would have garnered hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign investment. And its privileged seaside location could have made it the next tourist hub like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Oman.
Instead, the nihilist Hamas preferred to make Gaza an impoverished, violent, and pariah terrorist enclave, to rip off its own people, and to expose Gazan civilians to death on a regular basis to save its fighters’ skins and further its fanatical cause.
Hamas was never dedicated to bettering the daily lives of its own population, developing Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline or putting its enormous foreign aid to productive use. Instead, it had only a single homicidal agenda: to kill as many Jews as possible and to destroy the state of Israel.
Hating Israel while championing Hamas and its thousands of terrorist killers is a referendum not on Israel and its supporters, but a window into the mind of a sick, sick West—and an even sicker Middle East.
Considerate behavior demonstrates godly love and adds credibility to your witness.
When I was a young child, I loved to slurp my soup. I didn’t see any harm in it even though my parents constantly objected. Then one evening I ate with someone who slurped his soup. He was having a great time but I didn’t enjoy my meal very much. Then I realized that proper table manners are one way of showing consideration for others. It says, “I care about you and don’t want to do anything that might disrupt your enjoyment of this meal.”
On a more serious note, I know a couple who got an annulment on the grounds that the husband was rude to his wife. She claimed that his incessant burping proved that he didn’t really love her. The judge ruled in her favor, stating that if the husband truly loved her, he would have been more considerate. That’s a strange story but true, and it illustrates the point that love is not rude.
“Unbecomingly” in 1 Corinthians 13:5 includes any behavior that violates acceptable biblical or social standards. We could paraphrase it, “Love is considerate of others.” That would have been in stark contrast to the inconsiderate behavior of the Corinthians—many of whom were overindulging at their love feasts and getting drunk on the Communion wine (1 Cor. 11:20-22). Some women were overstepping bounds by removing their veils and usurping the role of men in the church (1 Cor. 11:3-16; 14:34-35). Both men and women were corrupting the worship services by trying to outdo one another’s spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:26).
Undoubtedly the Corinthians justified their rude behavior—just as we often justify ours. But rudeness betrays a lack of love and is always detrimental to effective ministry. For example, I’ve seen Christians behave so rudely toward non-Christians who smoke that they destroyed any opportunity to tell them about Christ.
Be aware of how you treat others—whether believers or unbelievers. Even the smallest of courtesies can make a profound impression.
Suggestions for Prayer
-Ask the Holy Spirit to monitor your behavior and convict you of any loveless actions. As He does, be sure to confess and forsake them.
John MacArthur, Grace Community Church
About 30 middle school students were publicly shot last week in North Korea for watching South Korean dramas.
About 30 middle school students were publicly shot last week in North Korea for watching South Korean dramas. The programs were stored on a USB stick smuggled across the border by North Korean defectors, according to South Korean media reports.
Although the South Korean media was unable to independently verify the report, an unofficial source from the South Korean Ministry of Unification told the Korea Joongang Daily that “North Korean authorities strictly control residents and punish them severely according to the three so-called ‘evil laws’.”
One of these laws is: “The Law of Rejection of Reactionary Ideology and Culture”, which prohibits the distribution of media from South Korea, the USA or Japan. However, it is unclear whether these restrictions apply to foreigners visiting the country, such as schoolchildren from Russia who plan to attend summer camps in North Korea.
Greg Scarlatio, director general of the North Korean Human Rights Commission, told Business Insider that “under the circumstances created as a result of the increased suppression of information from the outside world, these reports are certainly reasonable.”
* Channel 14 News contributed to this report
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 