Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 14
September 9, 2025
Big Pharma’s lists of nasty side effects in TV commercials? They’re about to get longer
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes remarks at an event announcing the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Commission, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that brings back a regulation on pharmaceutical companies requiring them to list ALL the side effects of their drugs during advertisements on TV, social media and elsewhere.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained outside the White House:
“The President just signed an executive order that’s an historic change in the way that pharmaceutical advertising is done on television,” says @SecKennedy.
Watch him explain the historic order: pic.twitter.com/e2VJwUFv3M
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 9, 2025
With Honor Flights, patriotism is alive and well
Sometimes one gets the impression that in modern America, patriotism isn’t really cool. But this past weekend, I got to see that among many Americans today, patriotism is alive and well.
I was in the Fort Lauderdale airport on Saturday night, waiting for hours for the return of a delayed flight that was a part of Honor Flights. The flight was coming in from D.C. with about 72 veterans, plus their “guardians” – their assistants to help them throughout the day.
In the terminal, there were hundreds of men, women and children of all sorts of backgrounds, waiting for the return of the heroes. It was a festive atmosphere with a DJ/MC on hand to keep our spirits up as we waited. The conga line dancing of the little children from the American Heritage Girls troop made the wait memorable.
When the Honor Flight veterans were just about to arrive, Franco Sorino, the DJ/MC said, “Our humble heroes are getting the reception they never got.”
Since 2005, Honor Flights aims to thank veterans – particularly those who have served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War – by bringing them for a one-day trip to Washington, D.C. to see the key memorials.
The organization’s website says, “Our mission is one of gratitude. For their service, sacrifice, and selflessness. Join us as we proudly celebrate America’s Veterans with a day of honor in our nation’s capital.”
Ryan Paton, the co-founder of the Florida chapter of Honor Flights, told me that all of this is at no expense to the veterans, but rather is covered by charity.
The website also states, “Transporting approximately 22,500 veterans annually, Honor Flight Network has flown over 300,000 veterans to Washington, D.C., since its inception.” Honor Flights go out from 138 cities throughout the country.
I went to the airport as a part of a group from our church in order to greet an Honor Flight passenger, Joe Radler, who often attends our church. For this piece, I asked him for a statement.
He wrote me, “I was in Vietnam in 1970 and ’71. I was 20 years old. My return home was not welcomed. While I was changing planes in St. Louis, I was cursed at and spat at. I couldn’t wait to get out of my uniform. It made me feel hated. The Honor Flight brought back a lot of memories. It was overwhelming, full of pride and love. It let me know that America truly cares for us veterans. The welcome home at the airport was over the top. I felt so much love being a veteran. Thank you for being there.”
An attendee of an earlier Honor Flight, also a Vietnam veteran, told of how he came to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (the wall) and found a few key names of buddies he had lost. He broke down and came to grip with feelings he had bottled up for more than 50 years and then became revitalized.
On Saturday, while waiting at the airport, I spoke with another Vietnam vet. Sam told me that, like other veterans from that war, he did not return to a hero’s welcome. But he thought to himself, “Well, at least I made it back home.” He was there spending his Saturday night to cheer on other veterans (total strangers to him) in their welcome home.
One of the aspects of the Honor Flight that really touched Sam and his fellow veterans was the “mail call” – a regular feature of the Honor Flights. Unbeknownst to the veterans, prior to this day, friends and loved ones of the veterans wrote letters of encouragement. These were gathered up and distributed on the flights to the individual servicepersons. Sam said, “That blew us away. There was not a single dry eye,” as they read these letters.
Freedom is not free. We enjoy religious, political and economic freedom because of the blood of those who served.
In the American experience, our founders said our rights come from God. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said last week that our rights come from the government.
But that’s not what the framers said. The Declaration of Independence states that the Creator has “endowed” us with the rights we enjoy – not the state.
Love of God and love of country (when in the right) go hand in hand. To paraphrase George Washington in his Farewell Address, you have no right to call yourself a “patriot” if you subvert two key “pillars of human happiness.” Which were? “Religion and morality.”
Those who served our country when they were called should be treated like heroes. They didn’t start the wars. They simply obeyed their country when called up to do so. It’s wonderful to see every day Americans enthusiastically honor those who have served their country, that we might be free.
Leftists in Britain and America have no respect for free speech
The fight for freedom of speech knows no borders. That became abundantly clear this past week in Great Britain and in Congress.
Graham Linehan, a comedian and producer known for the U.K. sitcom “Father Ted,” penned three X posts in April criticizing transgenderism while he was in Arizona.
When he flew to London’s Heathrow Airport on Sept. 1, this Irish citizen was met by five armed police officers, who arrested him on suspicion of inciting violence.
Released on bail, he was told “not to go on Twitter.”
One of his posts said: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” Not nice, but is posting it a criminal act worthy of arrest?
Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom’s Reform UK party, told the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 3, 2025, that Mr. Linehan’s arrest should worry everyone.
“He’s an Irish citizen,” Mr. Farage said. “This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like.
“At what point did we become North Korea? Well, I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport.”
So, how did Time magazine handle this shocking turn of events?
Their headline: “British Lawmaker Nigel Farage Called a ‘Putin-Loving Free Speech Impostor’ and ‘Trump Sycophant’ in Congress.”
Instead of concentrating on Mr. Farage’s testimony, the story centered on the attack on Mr. Farage by Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat.
Mr. Raskin was a leader of the Jan. 6 Committee, which suppressed defense witnesses and edited videos to create false impressions about the U.S. Capitol riot in 2021. He also led the second impeachment effort against Mr. Trump and was issued a pardon by outgoing President Biden. Mr. Raskin is a piece of work.
Not to be outdone, Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat, left no doubt as to his party’s contempt for America’s founding principles during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing the same day. Responding to a State Department nominee’s comment about the United States being founded on the principle that rights come from God, not the government, Kaine said this:
“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator – that’s what the Iranian government believes,” Kaine said.
“It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shariah law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
Perhaps Mr. Kaine forgot that another son of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Another Virginian, James Madison, was the primary author of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, with the First Amendment’s protections of the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, and the press.
In 1785, Madison wrote, “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent. … to the claims of Civil Society.”
What sets America apart from the bloody, atheist uprising in revolutionary France and subsequent communist and socialist revolutions, is the idea that rights come from God, not man. No government can create them, but it must protect them to be legitimate.
Getting back to Mr. Raskin, he railed against the Trump administration for defunding public broadcasting, a tax-supported subsidiary of the Democratic Party.
“There is a free speech crisis in America today, but there’s no free speech crisis in Britain,” Mr. Raskin claimed.
He couldn’t be more wrong.
In the United States, a healthy, free speech backlash is growing against woke suppression of the truth about American history, COVID-19, climate hysteria, election rigging, and the LGBTQ movement’s many absurd demands, especially with regard to transgenderism.
Democrats and their sycophantic media are losing their hold on the public. The party’s approval rating is now well below 30%.
Meanwhile, in merry old England and Scotland, Christians are being arrested for silently praying at abortion clinics and evangelizing at LGBTQ pride parades. Officials ruthlessly suppress news about immigrant “grooming gangs” that have raped thousands of young girls in England.
Negative comments about illegal immigration or transgenderism can trigger arrests.
It’s probably only because she’s a celebrity that Britain’s “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling has not been marched away in handcuffs over her bold social media posts explaining why transgenderism is fraudulent and dangerous.
Mr. Farage’s Reform UK is outshining the wimpy Conservatives and is ahead in the polls. In the next election, this third force may well replace Prime Minister Keir Starma’s repressive Labor regime.
As Mr. Linehan’s arrest richly illustrates, it’s time for the U.K. to have an American-style revolution, this time with ballots instead of muskets.
This column was first published at the Washington Times.
With Trump ally pushing for tariffs on outsourcing, foreign media are freaking out
Peter Navarro, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturingWhen Trump adviser Peter Navarro recently raised the idea of tariffs on outsourcing, India’s media immediately jumped in to attack it. The Hindustan Times mocked Americans for cheering it on, implying they didn’t understand the complexities of trade. To sound more authoritative, the paper leaned on the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), quoting lines that painted tariffs on services as impossible for anyone who “really understands” global economics.
“Demands aside, it is actually tough to realistically tariff services. The International Chamber of Commerce notes that applying tariffs to services would not just be impractical, but it would also lead to legal, operational and economic risks … there is no clear moment when a service ‘enters’ a country, no global classification system comparable to the Harmonized System for goods and no consistent method to assess what should be taxed.”
The argument was dressed up to sound technical, but at its core it was propaganda. What is called “services exports” is not abstract trade, it is America’s jobs, America’s economy and America’s data. These are jobs that once belonged to Americans but have been siphoned overseas for the sake of corporate profit.
Unlike manufacturing, which requires massive investment in plants and machinery, these are positions that can be filled anywhere there is a computer and an internet connection. Americans have those tools. Businesses have them. There is no excuse for shipping this work abroad other than squeezing a wider profit margin. And while India defends outsourcing as untouchable, the truth is that it has become a massive chokehold on American workers, draining opportunity from families and communities across this country.
Thus, what India’s media organizations call “services exports” are not harmless numbers on a trade balance sheet; they represent real jobs, wages and data that should remain in America.
The Indian lobby behind the message
India has a long history of using global business chambers and trade groups to push its agenda.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) frequently align with ICC India. CII has been a powerful force in shaping trade and industrial policy across sectors, while NASSCOM represents India’s IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries.
CII: Lobbying for issues related to outsourcing and work visas in the U.S.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and NASSCOM coordinate closely with ICC India to promote India as the “back office of the world.” NASSCOM itself has emphasized that in 2023, 89% of enterprises preferred outsourcing digital services to India, reflecting that country’s global dominance in service exports.
Indian influence inside the ICC has been longstanding. Indian lobby arms craft the talking points, the ICC provides the “global” stamp of legitimacy and Indian media outlets blast it out as fact.
ICC’s outsourcing playbook and India’s advantage
The International Chamber of Commerce has not only defended outsourcing in theory, but actively promoted it in practice. In 2018, the ICC released its Global Outsourcing Guide, a manual to help companies expand their outsourcing arrangements. The guide, produced by ICC’s Commission on Commercial Law and Practice, encouraged businesses to view outsourcing as a tool for “sound governance” and “proper risk management.” Its real purpose, however, was to neutralize the hesitation companies were beginning to show in the face of growing regulatory scrutiny.
Claim that tariffs on services would hurt U.S. competitiveness: false and insulting
The article “Trump’s Tariffs On IT Outsourcing: A High Cost Gamble” frames tariffs as reckless and “suicidal.” But when you dig into the arguments, it becomes clear that what’s really being defended is not American workers, but India’s outsourcing industry and the corporations invested in it.
“On the surface, it might seem like a win for American tech jobs, but reality shows it could backfire badly.” The claim that tariffs would hurt America more than India ignores reality. India’s IT sector is disproportionately dependent on the U.S., with more than 60% of its service exports flowing to American clients. If tariffs or restrictions were applied, India would feel the pain first and hardest. Suggesting the U.S. has more to lose flips the facts upside-down.
“Outsourcing is not about cheap labor, it’s about scale and speed.” This is one of the article’s most insulting claims. It suggests that Americans cannot deliver innovation or efficiency without Indian outsourcing. The reality is the opposite. The United States is still the world’s leader in technology, software and innovation. Framing outsourcing as essential for “scale and speed” is propaganda designed to undermine confidence in American workers and protect corporate profit models built on offshoring.
The wage gap makes this truth plain. The average salary for a U.S. IT professional is about $106,000 per year, compared to just $12,000 annually for an Indian IT worker. That disparity ends the argument in its tracks; this isn’t about innovation, it’s about cost-cutting at the expense of American jobs.
“Tariffs would hurt U.S. giants like Microsoft, Google and Accenture.” Of course they would, because these companies are among the biggest beneficiaries of outsourcing and have deep contracts and partnerships with India’s government and IT service providers. Their bottom line depends on cheap offshore labor, not on protecting American jobs. The fact that these firms would suffer is not proof that tariffs are bad policy; it’s proof they’ve tied themselves to a system that undermines U.S. workers.
But what that article doesn’t say is that these companies are not neutral bystanders. They are some of the largest offshoring entities in the world, with deep contracts, partnerships and investments tied to the Indian government. They gain from India’s outsourcing industry and would lose just as much if tariffs cut into its profits. Their defense of outsourcing is a defense of their own margins – not of American competitiveness.
“Any broad tariff on services is a tax on U.S. competitiveness.” That quote, attributed to an unnamed economist, is a perfect example of spin. What it really means is that tariffs would force companies to bring back costs they’ve been dodging by offshoring. Competitiveness should be measured by the strength of America’s workforce and economy, not by how much profit multinationals can squeeze out of cheap labor abroad.
“Policies that look worker friendly can do more harm than good.” This line exposes the heart of the argument, wherein protecting American workers is framed as a bad idea. That is exactly what India’s lobby wants Americans to believe, that fighting outsourcing will backfire. But history shows the opposite, that when America defends its labor force, its economy grows stronger, not weaker.
“Navarro’s advice should be taken as suicidal.” Labeling tariff discussions “suicidal” is fearmongering. What’s truly reckless is allowing the outsourcing pipeline to continue unchecked, draining jobs, data and capital out of the U.S. economy. The only players for which it’s remotely “suicidal” are the corporations dependent on India’s IT sector.
The real takeaway
This Indian “news” article does not present balanced analysis. Its talking points – that outsourcing is essential for “innovation,” that tariffs would cripple America and that defending workers is dangerous – are precisely the narratives pushed by Indian trade lobbies like CII and NASSCOM, echoed by global chambers like the ICC and amplified by corporate beneficiaries of cheap offshore labor.
Pushing false narratives: America cannot penalize outsourcing
The claim that tariffs on services are impractical has already been disproven. Governments tax and regulate digital flows every day. In the U.S., more than 30 states impose sales taxes on digital goods and services, enforced after the Supreme Court’s South Dakota v. Wayfair ruling. If states can track Netflix subscriptions, cloud services and app sales, then Washington, D.C. can track outsourced IT contracts and penalize them.
The United States has a long record of using the tax code to shape corporate behavior and that history makes clear that offshoring can be penalized. In 1976, Congress enacted Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, which tied tax credits to companies that kept operations in U.S. territories. The goal was to reward firms that invested at home rather than sending profits and jobs elsewhere.
These same systems could be adapted to monitor and regulate services imports. Moreover, the United States can implement excise-style taxes on imported digital services, offshoring penalties in the tax code, procurement restrictions requiring domestic sourcing and visa reforms to cut off the labor pipelines behind outsourcing.
Data is the choke point
The European Union has already provided a working model of enforcement. Through its Digital Services Act (DSA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe has imposed strict rules requiring accountability for how data flows across borders. These frameworks have led to multi-billion-dollar fines against companies mishandling data.
If the United States adopted a similar U.S.-Digital Services Act requiring all citizen and business data to remain within U.S. jurisdiction, outsourcing contracts would be subject to audit. Companies transferring data abroad without authorization could face civil fines, license revocations and contract bans.
Since India’s outsourcing engine relies heavily on handling foreign data cheaply offshore, if America enacted data localization rules, an estimated 80% of India’s IT exports could be disrupted. This demonstrates that data sovereignty, not tariffs alone, may be the most powerful enforcement tool against rampant outsourcing.
India’s service exports depend on U.S. demand
Long before the latest debate over tariffs on outsourcing, experts were already warning about how deeply India depends on the U.S. market for its services. Economist Devashish Mitra noted that while the U.S. accounts for about 20% of India’s manufacturing exports, it buys more than 60% of India’s service exports. The gap is enormous, roughly $86 billion in goods versus $186 billion in services flowing to the American market.
That imbalance is where America’s real leverage lies. Tariffs on goods may sting, but restrictions on services would strike at the very center of India’s economic engine. In 2023-24, India’s IT services exports alone were worth more than $150 billion, helping drive total services exports to $341.11 billion. Keeping that flow alive is essential to India’s growth model. That is why Indian media, trade lobbies and groups like the ICC work in concert to push one message above all: Outsourcing must remain off-limits to tariffs or restrictions.
India will defend its service-export engine at any cost
With India’s outsourcing sector being its most lucrative export generator when U.S. voices begin challenging it, India responds with more than false economic narratives; it plays offense through politics and cultural identity. On Sept. 2, 2025, the HinduPACT’s American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD) issued a formal demand for the dismissal of Peter Navarro from his post as director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, accusing him of “promoting Hindu hate” for referencing caste. AHAD called Navarro’s comments “reckless provocation that endangers the dignity of over a billion Hindus” and warned it “threatens the foundational relationship between the two largest democracies.”
This is more than cultural/religious defense; it is an attempt to deploy brute political leverage. When policy discussions shift toward restricting visas or outsourcing, India’s machinery often paints American critics as discriminatory or insensitive – indeed it has a long history of doing so. Figures like White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have drawn headlines in India, standing accused of “cheating on immigration” and even igniting “H-1B visa tension” by tying skilled-worker programs to trade disputes.
The bottom line
When Indian media or commentators claim America “can’t tariff outsourcing,” it is not offering analysis, it is echoing straight-up propaganda. Indeed, that line comes from a decades-long lobbying machine linking India’s corporate associations, global chambers like the International Chamber of Commerce, and media outlets working in sync to shield India’s export model from scrutiny.
By repeating these talking points, outlets such as Hindustan Times spread the perception that America is powerless to stop outsourcing. The intent is clear: Convince Americans that the loss of jobs and data to overseas contractors is permanent and therefore untouchable.
The truth, however, is very different. America has the tools to act. Ending tax breaks that reward companies for sending work offshore, tightening procurement rules to ensure federal contracts stay domestic, creating a U.S. version of the Digital Services Act to keep American data at home and restricting the visa channels that fuel outsourcing are all concrete, immediately workable options.
Indeed, these are not distant ideas, they are proven policy levers. India’s lobbying machine insists outsourcing is beyond America’s reach precisely because it knows that once the United States chooses to act, the foundation of India’s service-export economy will be directly threatened. The only question is whether U.S. leaders will fight for the American worker or keep protecting India’s profits.
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The Minneapolis massacre and the left’s war on God
The victims who were killed and wounded in the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis were the latest casualties in the left’s war on God.
From the beginning, the left knew it had to destroy religion or turn it into something unrecognizable to triumph. The French Revolution tried to replace Christianity with a Goddess of Reason. Karl Marx called religion “the opium of the people.” The Bolsheviks did their best to purge religion from Russian life. Antonio Gramsci, the father of cultural Marxism, said communism would never succeed as long as faith and family stood in the way.
Adolf Hitler privately dismissed Christianity as a Jewish invention, which he planned to replace after the war with a race-based creed.
The war on religion is crucial to advancing the Democrats’ agenda. Their response to the Annunciation school shooting is instructive. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, an uberliberal, sneered: “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying.”
Former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki posted on X: “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayer does not end school shootings.” Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, responded: “Literally no one thinks prayer is a substitute for action. We pray because our hearts are broken and we believe that God is listening.”
Instead of praying, Democrats want us to get behind the latest push for gun control, thus paying homage to one of their gods.
The killer, 23-year-old Robert Westman – a man who thought he was a woman – was filled with rage. That he hated Catholics is unsurprising. The left has a special animus for Catholicism for its defense of traditional values.
He hated Jews, who introduced humanity to the idea of one, universal God. He also hated President Trump, who has done so much to revitalize public expressions of faith.
Minneapolis was in many ways a replay of the 2023 Covenant School shootings in Nashville, Tennessee. For two years, the Nashville police refused to release the manifesto of the transgender shooter there, 28-year-old Audrey/Aiden Hale. On March 27, 2023, Hale killed six people at the school she once attended.
In the 1999 Columbine, Colorado, massacre, the killers asked one of their victims whether she believed in God. When she said she did, they shot her.
The war on religion rages in public education. The left’s weapons include sexuality education, LGBTQ indoctrination, attacks on women’s sports and privacy, normalizing pornography and obscenities such as Drag Queen Story Hour. That’s why teachers unions and school boards go ballistic when challenged by parents.
Liberals use anti-discrimination laws to punish people of faith. Same-sex couples have targeted Christian florists and bakers, forcing them to choose between their conscience and their livelihood. Big Tech censors conservative Christians. The mainstream media misrepresent their views. Hollywood vilifies them. Having recently discovered that Orthodox Jews tend to be politically conservative, it has added them to its list of villains.
The left demands absolute loyalty. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said evangelicals were “a very important problem” because they “refuse to write on paper that the law of the republic is superior to the law of God.” If you’re not willing to worship the state, you are the problem.
Focus on the Family President Jim Daly observed in 2021: “It’s obvious to many of us that left-leaning thought leaders in our country’s power centers – educational faculty, political leaders, business leaders and sports organizations – are attempting to ensure that religious expression does not challenge the state’s ideological narratives.”
Hate is the left’s driving force.
There is a scene in the 1993 movie “Tombstone” where Wyatt Earp asks Doc Holliday what makes a man like the sadistic killer Johnny Ringo. Holliday replies: “A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.” Earp: “What does he want?” Holiday: “Revenge.” Earp: “For what?” Holliday: “Being born.”
Westman said he “learned to hate what life is.”
Transgender killers want revenge for being born in what they think is the wrong body. The left wants revenge on God for creating a world at odds with its ideology, one where the laws of nature are immutable and inequality is a natural part of existence.
That great big hole in the middle of liberals – where their heart should be – continues to grow.
This column was first published at the Washington Times.
‘Disturbing trend’: Threats to parental rights now under DOJ investigation
(Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks)There are a lot of threats to the rights of parents to raise their own children these days. Some schools have been caught forcing children into various religious ideologies, without parental permission.
Others, including several in Colorado, have been caught secretly campaigning for children enrolled in their classes to claim to be transgenders, and portray themselves in class as such.
Now those types of cases are going to be under federal review.
Breaking: DOJ memo directs Civil Rights Division to I.D. threats to parental rights in schools https://t.co/x6KZVcogfw
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) September 9, 2025
It is Just the News that revealed a new DOJ memo has directed the Civil Rights Division to work with various law enforcement partners to “identify threats to parental rights and freed speech” in schools.
“Recent years have seen a disturbing trend in which state and local authorities have brought radical gender and racial ideology into our public schools while suppressing dissenting viewpoints. Worse still, they have ignored, dismissed, and even retaliated against concerned parents who speak out against these morally and factually bankrupt ideologies and in defense of their own children,” charged Attorney General Pam Bondi.
She explained the First Amendment guarantees the right of every citizen to speak freely, assemble peaceably, and petition the government for redress of grievances – including at public school board meetings.
Political ideologies, bureaucratic convenience and such do not overcome those rights.
The report said she specifically cited forced indoctrination that schools impose on children when they refuse to exempt them from teachings that violate their religious beliefs.
‘Lawlessness and violence’: Zarutska wasn’t the first to be attacked on Charlotte public transportation system
Iryna Zarutska looks up in horror after being stabbed on a Charlotte, North Carolina, commuter train on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025(The Center Square) – Public safety aspects, and the safety and security budgets of the Charlotte Area Transit System are under review by the state auditor in North Carolina.
First-term Republican Auditor Dave Boliek said Tuesday “recent lawlessness and violence” prompted his office to act. The Aug. 22 murder of Iryna Zarutska fueled the concerns and has drawn national attention.
Boliek said notifications have already been sent to Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, leadership of the Metropolitan Transit Commission that oversees CATS, and the leadership of CATS.
Zarutska, 22, was killed as she sat in a passenger seat of the Lynx Blue Line light-rail train about 10 p.m. near the East/West station of Camden Road.
Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, was arrested for the 15th time since 2011. The previous charges include assault, armed robbery and felony larceny. He served time for the robbery.
Boliek said a 64-year-old veteran was attacked on a CATS bus in March, becoming paralyzed from the neck down as a result of his injuries. In August, a 57-year-old veteran was hospitalized after being attacked by multiple people on a CATS bus.
“One of the most basic duties a government owes the people is public safety,” Boliek said. “The recent lawlessness and violence that have taken place on Charlotte’s public transportation raise serious questions about the security measures in place. We will investigate CATS and examine its public safety contracts and operations.”
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WATCH: Family of girl stabbed on Charlotte train say they’ll bury her in U.S. because ‘she loved America’
Iryna ZarutskaThe family of Iryna Zarutska told the Ukrainian Embassy they would bury her daughter in the U.S. because “she loved America,” a federal prosecutor announced on Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors charged DeCarlos Brown on Tuesday with one count of committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system over the fatal stabbing of Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Aug. 22. Russ Ferguson, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, revealed during a press conference that her family decided to bury their daughter, a Ukrainian refugee, in the country that she loved.
“After Iryna’s death, the Embassy in Ukraine called and said ‘we’ll help you bring her home.’ And her family said no. They said, ‘she loved America. We’re gonna bury her here.’ So I think we can give her an America to be proud of, as [Special Agent with the FBI in North Carolina James] Barnacle said, something here is broken and we’re here to fix it,” Ferguson said.
WATCH:
Security footage from the light rail train showed Zarutska sit down in her work uniform directly in front of Brown. Moments later, Brown stabbed Zarutska three times and at least once in the neck.
Zarutska moved to the U.S. with her family in August 2022 to flee Russia’s invasion of her country and “quickly embraced her new life in the United States,” according to her obituary. She emigrated with her mother and two siblings. She will be remembered for her “kindness, her creativity, and the lasting impression she left on everyone she met,” her obituary said.
Officers with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) responded to an emergency call at around 9:55 p.m. and located Zarutska on the train, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). They also discovered the pocketknife used in the murder and other items.
“This brutal attack on an innocent woman simply trying to get to her destination is an attack on the American way of life,” Ferguson said. ““Of course, crimes like this affect the victim the most—Iryna deserves justice, and we will bring justice to her and her family. But crimes like this also affect everyone who relies on mass transportation to get to and from work and go about their daily lives, and federal charges are necessary to protect the public and ensure confidence in our transportation systems.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Zarutska’s death is a result of “soft-on-crime policies that put criminals before innocent people.” FBI Director Kash Patel stated that this type of violence “was a disgraceful act that should never happen in America.”
Brown faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or death, the DOJ said.
Democrat D.A. pushed racial equity as crime spiked before horrific slaughter of Iryna Zarutska
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WATCH: Karoline Leavitt shreds news media on Iryna Zarutska murder by career criminal
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Democrat D.A. pushed racial equity as crime spiked before horrific slaughter of Iryna Zarutska
Democrat Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer MerriweatherCrime in Charlotte, North Carolina, spiked under a left-leaning district attorney before the August stabbing death of a woman on a public train thrust the city into the national spotlight.
Violent crime in Charlotte was 13% higher in 2024 than in 2018, despite decreases after a COVID-19-era crime surge, according to FBI data that records homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Left-wing officials such as Democratic Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, who has focused on promoting racial equity in the justice system, are now under renewed scrutiny since the Aug. 22 arrest of a mentally ill suspect with a lengthy criminal history in the murder of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska.
This Fatal Stabbing Video Is Worse Than You Think… pic.twitter.com/5s5p73VZTk
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 8, 2025
Surveillance camera footage released on Friday showed Zaruska boarding a light rail train in Charlotte at night, sitting in front of a hooded man — identified as Decarlos Brown — who stood up and raised his arm to stab her three times. Brown had been arrested 14 other times, racking up charges since 2011 that included felony larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and communicating threats, the New York Post reported.
The August stabbing reflects the larger problem of violent crime under left-leaning officials in Mecklenburg County who have prioritized addressing supposed racial bias in the justice system.
After Merriweather took office in 2017, violent crime rose to an all-time high in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the height of anti-police advocacy tied to the Black Lives Matter movement, according to WCNC Charlotte.
The district attorney’s office announced in 2019 that he had started a “Diversity and Inclusion Team” made up of assistant district attorneys and legal assistants, teaching prosecutors to look at trials “through an equity lens.” The team also planned to build connections to Race Matters for Juvenile Justice, an organization working “to reduce disproportionality and disparate outcomes for children and families of color” in criminal justice, according to its website.
Merriweather has also pushed racial bias training for his prosecutors, leading to “actual changes in the courtroom, where prosecutors are now commonly observed explicitly raising issues of race in jury selection,” according to his campaign website.
In 2022, Merriweather noted a 20% decrease in his county’s use of a “habitual felon” law that enhances punishments for repeat offenders, saying it reflects the “thoughtfulness” of his approach, Bolts Magazine reported. “When people talk about me being reformed minded, I take that as a compliment,” he told North Carolina Lawyers Weekly in 2023.
North Carolina’s now-defunct Task Force on Racial Equity in the Criminal Justice System, created in June 2020, commended Merriweather’s office as a model for the rest of the state, his campaign website says. The state later passed multiple reform laws based on the task force’s recommendations, including one banning or restricting criminal penalties for numerous local ordinances.
Merriweather’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
The left-wing MacArthur Foundation also awarded $2 million in 2016 to Mecklenburg County for its “Safety and Justice Challenge,” a nationwide program aimed at reducing “over-incarceration” and racial disparities, according to the foundation’s website. Merriweather’s office was one of several local agencies involved in the partnership.
The county decreased its incarceration rate from 741 per 100,000 residents in 2012 to 489 in 2020, according to the Vera Institute. The MacArthur Foundation then gave the county a $228,000 “capstone award” in 2023 to continue its “progress,” its website says.
The MacArthur Foundation did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
As of 2024, Charlotte’s violent crime rate was 5% higher than in 2019 and 13% higher than in 2018, according to data that local police reported to the FBI. The percentage decreased in 2021 and 2022, remained the same in 2023 and rose by 3% in 2024.
Zaruska’s murder has prompted both Merriweather and Democratic Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles — who faces a primary election against four challengers on Tuesday — to advocate for tougher approaches to crime. “We need a bipartisan solution to address repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their actions and those who cannot get treatment for their mental illness and are allowed to be on the streets,” Lyles said in a Monday statement. She also announced increased police patrols across Charlotte’s transit system.
The mayor’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Merriweather said after the killing that courts can make it hard for prosecutors to lock up the mentally ill, Axios reported. A judge released Brown from custody on a “written promise to appear” in January after he was arrested for allegedly misusing the 911 system, according to WSOC-TV. Brown was diagnosed with schizophrenia and allegedly called 911 to say that a substance was controlling when he talked, walked and ate.
He also touted his support for the Pretrial Integrity Act, a 2023 state law that he said addresses repeat offenders by transferring pretrial detention authority from magistrates to judges in various cases, Axios reported. Merriweather also suggested considering tighter punishments for fare evasion after transit officials reported that Brown may have boarded the train without paying.
Lyles initially responded to Zaruska’s murder in August by arguing that “We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health” and encouraging members of the public to have compassion toward mentally ill criminals as they would cancer patients.
The Democratic mayor, who took office in 2017, signed a proclamation in June 2020 declaring racism a “public health crisis” and arguing that “criminal justice practices have caused deep disparities, harm and mistrust.”
The White House chimed in to conservatives’ criticism of Charlotte’s leadership, calling Zaruska’s murder a failure of “woke policies” in a Monday statement. The White House pointed to the MacArthur Foundation program and other initiatives as evidence that soft-on-crime policies set the stage for Zaruska to die at the hands of a repeat offender.
“There are evil people. We have to be able to handle that,” President Donald Trump said Monday in response to the murder. “If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country.”
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WATCH: Karoline Leavitt briefs news media on Iryna Zarutska murder by career criminal
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‘Next man up’: Freedom Caucus adjusts to members leaving
The House Freedom Caucus—the conservative faction of the House which is always the loudest in demanding spending cuts and uncompromising Republican legislation—is set to lose almost half a dozen members seeking statewide office in their home states. Here’s how they’re adapting.
So far, three Freedom Caucus members are running for governor back home in 2026: Reps. Andy Biggs in Arizona, Byron Donalds in Florida, and Ralph Norman in South Carolina. Also, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas is running for state attorney general, and Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., recently launched a run for elevation to the Senate.
But multiple Freedom Caucus members argued to The Daily Signal that this changing of the guard will not slow down the caucus’ mission in Congress after ten years of policy fights in their push for more fiscally and socially conservative legislation.
“Look, obviously, the faces will change, but I believe that we’re going to recruit even more members now that they see that—and I say it tongue-in-cheek—that obviously, to be the governor of Florida you have to have been in the House Freedom Caucus,” the caucus’ chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told The Daily Signal Thursday.
Donalds is running to succeed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a founding member of the caucus.
Harris added that Freedom Caucus members leaving for their home states will “enhance recruitment into the caucus and it will show that if you stand up for principals here in Washington, you actually get rewarded with higher political office.”
But caucus members also have acknowledged that the loss of a half dozen members will be felt and that others will have to step up to the plate.
“You know the phrase, the next man up, the next woman up? We’re going to have to step up. I don’t know who that is,” said Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, Thursday. “We’ve got some freshmen, you heard it already, who are really great conservatives. They’re going to have to find their voice.”
Self brought up the example of Chip Roy, one of the caucus’ most prominent fighters, who has spent years the Texas political scene, and has brought a wealth of experience to the caucus as a former employee of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, as well as Lonestar State Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.
Roy was among the most vocal members in demanding that the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill include substantial spending cuts, Medicaid reform, and phase-outs of green energy subsidies.
“How do you replace Chip Roy, his experience in the Senate as a chief of staff, now as a member of the House? How do you replace that? A lawyer, a constitutional lawyer. How do you replace that?” Self asked in a rhetorical tone.
He added, “We’re going to have to find a way to replace the policy guy that also has the depth of knowledge of Chip Roy. You’re just going to have to do it. I don’t know the answer to it, but it’s the next man up, the next woman up.”
Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., a freshman in the freedom caucus, acknowledging that “we’re going to miss those guys,” told The Daily Signal that new members will have to step up.
“I am thankful that there are folks that have come in that have joined, new members,” said Mark Harris, adding:
“Nick Begich is from Alaska, he is a solid individual. Sheri Biggs has come in from South Carolina and is part of the Freedom Caucus. Brandon Gill, from Texas, had a tough primary as well that he got through in ‘24 and got elected. He joined the Freedom Caucus along with myself and others.”
In particular, the North Carolina representative mentioned his bittersweet feelings over the departure of Norman for the South Carolina governor race.
He mentioned how “conservative leaders” in North Carolina had told him when he was elected that “when you get there [to Congress], you need to connect with Ralph Norman and that Ralph would probably make a great mentor for you.”
“Ralph and his wife Elaine have become great friends as well, and we’re going to miss the leadership that they brought,” Mark Harris said.
But Norman is not sweating his departure.
“I will increase the number of Freedom Caucus members in South Carolina and around the country,” Norman said bluntly when asked if the departures of lawmakers would change the caucus’ work. “I’ll go anywhere to recruit people.”
For Norman, running for governor is part of the same mission he’s been on for nearly a decade in Congress.
“People will come [to South Carolina] because it’s a great state,” said Norman, adding:
“We need to keep [South Carolina] great. And we’re at the pivotal point, and my services are needed in South Carolina more so than in Congress. I’ve served in Congress for eight years. We’ve done a great job with conservatism, with bending the curve toward less government, less taxes, less regulations. In South Carolina, if we don’t have that, we’ll become like California … which is just a cesspool of drugs, crimes, and you name it.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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