There is little more beloved by the mainstream media than an opportunity to imply that conservatives are crazy, lying, desperate or all three. Last week, it got just such a chance when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a police and security agency investigation into Israel’s Oct. 27 legislative elections. “Netanyahu falsely claims voter fraud in Israeli election,” crowed MS NOW. The Washington Post: “Netanyahu alleges stolen election as he seeks political survival amid uncertainty.” The implication is clear: The Likud party failed to garner the 61 Knesset seats needed to secure a governing majority, so Mr. Netanyahu is making up a stolen election story in an attempt to hold on to power. No party amassed the required 61 seats. In the final election results, Likud garnered 27; former Israel Defense Forces chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party, 21; the Arab-Israeli party Ra’am, eight; and the Joint List, a coalition of Arab and Arab-led parties, 11. Leaders from the remaining parties won the other 53 positions in the 120-chair Knesset: Yashar secured 21 seats; Together, an alliance of Yesh Atid and Bennett 2026, took 12; the Joint List won 11; The Democrats and Ra’am each captured eight; Yisrael Beiteinu, Otzma Yehudit, and United Torah Judaism won seven each; and Shas and the Religious Zionism Party each took six. Nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra’am and the Joint List this year, according to Israel’s election committee. That is a 64% increase over the last election in 2022. This record-high turnout has caused concern. Last week, police arrested at least seven people in connection with an alleged vote-buying scheme said to favor Ra’am, led by Arab-Israeli dentist turned politician Mansour Abbas. Mr. Abbas has refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization.

In May, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority started an advertising campaign designed to encourage Metro riders to … pay for their bus and train rides. one thing the campaign fails to mention is that evading fares is illegal. This is not a small or shrinking problem on the system. The problem with the Fares Pay for Service campaign is that it presents paying your way and obeying the law as optional rather than something enforced by the apparatus of the state in the event that you are not prepared to be civic-minded. I am not sure that is a message we should be sending to the populace. Tolerance of habitual transgressions, irrespective of magnitude, leads any social system to eventual failure. No doubt the first step down that terrible road occurred when someone in authority concluded that perhaps it would be best if the police looked the other way when people committed what might be considered minor crimes. No doubt it became progressively easier to ignore most or all crime. Once you head down that road, however, whatever civilization you might be trying to build or maintain crumbles under the weight of those who have neither fear nor respect for the law. Encouraging good behavior is commendable, but sometimes it is more important to alert certain people that crimes of any kind will be punished. It is not fair to the psychological adolescents who make up much of the criminal class to send the message that some laws are enforced and some are not ? and for authorities to hope they can figure out which is which. Is fare evasion a crime? Yep. Should it be prosecuted? Every time. Lack of clarity regarding society’s commitment to faithfully following the law, wherever it might lead, is ultimately not good for anyone. Ask the French.

Federal excise tax: 18.4 cents, fixed nationally. State and local sales tax: Varies by region; the state rate is 2.25%, with local district taxes added on top, adding about 10 cents to 13 cents per gallon depending on the county. Underground storage tank fee: 2 cents. Cap-and-Trade program: Adds roughly 24 to 25 cents per gallon. Lower or eliminate some of the add-ons, and gas might be less expensive. Most people have heard that building more refineries would help lower prices, but environmentalists cite the cost and time required to build them as excuses for inaction. If I may be permitted some nostalgia, when I first started driving, the price of gas was 30 cents a gallon. You could fill up on pocket change. When I lived in Houston in 1969, there were “gas wars.” Stations undercut one another, hoping to attract enough customers to offset the low price. How low? I once bought regular gas at a Gulf station for 19 cents a gallon. Do not look for those days to return. The Arab oil embargo of 1973 sparked price hikes, and people were bummed when the cost exceeded $1 a gallon - though that threshold was not crossed nationally until the second oil shock of 1979, as many were when tickets to Broadway shows exceeded $10. Those were the days. In previous eras, someone would take the lead in solving a problem rather than using the problem to batter his or her political opponent, as politicians do today. If they solve the problem, they can no longer blame anyone for it. California’s high gas prices can be solved, as can the high gas prices of the rest of the nation. All we need is the right leadership. Does anyone know where to find it?

SAN FRANCISCO - If media interviews with voters are to be believed, some people - perhaps many - will cast their midterm votes based on the high price of gasoline. It is one thing to read about California’s high gas prices. It is quite another to fill up my 20-gallon rental car with regular gas costing more than $6 a gallon at most stations here in San Francisco. The cost of premium gas is close to $7. That means that if the tank is empty, the price is well over $100. With driving being the way most people get around this big state and with freeways eating up petrol, some people might think they need to apply for a loan every time the gas gauge gets low. Even The Washington Post acknowledges what most of its favored Democratic politicians will not. A front-page story in Saturday’s newspaper read: “Voters are angry about everyday costs, but lower prices are gone for good. Even if Democrats win control of Congress on Nov. 3, lawmakers can do little about prices that are uncomfortably high - and will stay that way even as the rate of inflation is expected to slow.” So much for all those campaign ads from Republicans and Democrats promising that if elected, they will lower prices on gasoline and food. President Trump claims that gas prices will fall after the elections and Iran is defeated in the ongoing war. That could be another empty campaign promise - or it might happen. In California, consider all the fees and taxes that raise the price of a gallon of gas to near-record highs. The price was only slightly higher during the Biden administration, when Democrats said it was the market, not the president, that determined prices. State excise tax: 63.4 cents, which increased from 61.2 cents on July 1, 2026, because of annual inflation adjustments.

With the Nov. 3 midterm election looming, Democrats are determined to dismantle any election safeguards aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting. This includes making sure voter registration rolls stay dirty. On Tuesday, Democratic congressional leaders and several Democratic groups filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for its directive to states to clean up their voter rolls by removing noncitizens. Democrats oppose cooperation between state officials and federal officials to share databases to ensure that voter eligibility is limited to U.S. citizens. They argue that it is a matter of states’ rights. Officials in Arlington County, Virginia, a Democratic stronghold, also filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Justice Department and other agencies. Their goal is to bar federal agents from coming anywhere near polling places, even to collar illegal alien criminals. Democrats are also sowing distrust about the validity of the election in case it goes against them. The Washington Post ran a front-page story Wednesday alleging that a group of “U.S. national security officials” has been advising state lawmakers that the Trump administration may try to interfere with the midterms. Democratic strategy appears to be threefold: Sow doubts about the elections in case Republicans win. Accuse anyone asking questions about election integrity in Democratic-run jurisdictions of being part of a Trump plan to subvert the process. Keep repeating the old chestnut about voter ID laws “suppressing the minority vote.” A fake company named Wedgewood Polling showed Democrats ahead in key races. Several media outlets took the bait, including The New York Times, MS NOW and The Hill. It is this kind of phenomenon that media critic and podcaster Stephen L. Miller calls “leftist media wish-casting.”

Democrats pioneered cashless bail, which has put numerous predators back on the streets. Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) congressional candidates favor abolishing police and prisons. law enforcement will presumably be handled by social workers and the Camp Fire Girls. On his first day in office President Biden killed the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have brought 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada. Then he did everything he could to limit offshore drilling. Although they want to get us all in electric cars, average retail electric rates are significantly higher in blue states like California (33.6 cents a kilowatt hour) than in red states such as Florida (15 cents a kilowatt hour). Democrats will send taxes soaring. Medicare for all, free childcare, preschool, college education and public transportation will require massive tax hikes. The CATO Institute estimates that nine of the proposals put forth by the DSA would cost between $71 trillion and $211 trillion over 10 years. Forget the tax billionaires bushwa. If you confiscated 100% of billionaires’ wealth, it would only fund the federal government for eight to nine months. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says we are looking at an array of new taxes to finance Democratic profligacy, including a 32% payroll tax and 25% income tax surtax. You will be riding those free public buses naked. If you like your health insurance, tough. Medicare for all means quality health care for none. Look at Britain and Canada. You will love long waiting periods to see a specialist and the rationing of services. It will be back to diversity, equity and inclusion ? “gender-affirming care” (aka, castration) guys who look like Yosemite Sam playing girls’ sports, pronoun police, public school indoctrination and the war on Christians and Jews.

Suppose you saw someone you love in a car heading for the edge of a cliff, going 90 miles an hour. The driver ignores your repeated warnings to stop. He is so angry that he will not brake despite looming disaster. There is a man tied up in the backseat who the driver blames for all of his problems, including the price of gas, the housing market and data centers. He is willing to wreck the car and possibly kill himself to punish the prisoner. Talk about road rage. That is what this election is about. The America we love is in that car. The cliff is this year’s election. Middle class voters are behind the wheel. At the bottom are the politicians who would wreck us with open borders, soft-on-crime policies, new taxes and an anti-energy agenda. The latest Rasmussen poll shows that 67% of Democrats favor amnesty for illegal aliens. State Rep. James Tallarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, said in a 2019 post that illegal aliens were his “constituents too.” “Undocumented Americans are folks who work in our businesses, learn in our schools and contribute to our communities ? but lack citizenship documentation,” the Lone Star Pollyanna laments. They are also the folks who soak up welfare, engage in fraud, join street gangs, murder our sons and rape our daughters. emocrats have an incentive to bring in as many illegal immigrants as possible, assuming they will vote for the party that let them in. Under President Biden, the illegal immigrant population of the United States almost doubled. Democrats want to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which apprehends the worst of the worst. The activist sheep are currently bleating about a Dominican gang member shot in New York earlier this month. He had been arrested multiple times for everything from armed robbery to drug dealing since he came here illegally in 2022.

Under co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, the government has systematically dismantled independent civil society. Churches, clergy and religious organizations have faced harassment, surveillance, restrictions and loss of legal recognition. China’s governance model offers authoritarian governments an example of how technology and regulation can further weaken independent institutions without necessarily eliminating them. Why should Americans care? Because churches in Cuba and Nicaragua are more than places of worship. They are networks of trust, humanitarian assistance, leadership and community resilience. They distribute food and medicine, mobilize volunteers and preserve moral authority outside government control. In a future Cuban transition toward freedom, these networks could help rebuild civic responsibility, social trust and democratic institutions. Weakening them would damage the human infrastructure necessary for national recovery. Washington should therefore treat religious freedom as an essential component of its strategy to counter China’s expanding influence in the Western Hemisphere. Congress and the administration should investigate surveillance technologies that could facilitate repression, strengthen independent documentation of religious freedom violations, support secure communications for vulnerable civil society organizations and protect faith-based humanitarian networks. These policies must rest on credible evidence, not assumptions that every Chinese investment is sinister or that Beijing directs every authoritarian abuse. The strategic challenge is broader than espionage. It is about whether China’s growing influence helps authoritarian governments control the remaining institutions that their citizens still trust. Protecting those institutions is an American strategic interest. Freedom of religion is not peripheral to a free society. It is one of the places where freedom begins.

China has developed a sophisticated model for controlling precisely those institutions. Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party has pursued policies designed to subordinate religious practice to state authority. Through its policy of “sinicization,” Beijing uses regulation, surveillance and political pressure to bring religious institutions into conformity with CCP priorities. China did not invent religious persecution in Cuba or Nicaragua. Both governments have long histories of suppressing independent religious organizations. Nor is there established public evidence that Beijing directs religious persecution in either country. Still, China offers something potentially more dangerous: a modern authoritarian model combining technology, surveillance and bureaucratic control to make repression more systematic and effective. Consider Cuba. For decades, its State Security apparatus has monitored religious leaders, independent journalists and civic organizations through informants, intimidation and surveillance. Pastors and worshippers have experienced harassment, detention and restrictions on religious activities. Today, traditional repression can be reinforced by increasingly powerful digital technologies. Chinese companies, including Huawei, have helped develop Cuba’s telecommunications infrastructure. This does not prove that Chinese technology is being used to persecute religious believers. Nor do the CSIS findings establish that suspected intelligence facilities monitor churches. Nevertheless, the combination of sophisticated surveillance capabilities and authoritarian governance deserves serious scrutiny. My organization’s research into Cuba’s security apparatus has examined the relationships among police, parapolice organizations and political surveillance. Modern technology could transform repression from reactive to preventive, allowing authorities to identify relationships and communications before citizens can organize.

China’s growing intelligence presence in Cuba, just 90 miles from American shores, should alarm every American. Yet the danger extends beyond military surveillance and intercepted communications. Beijing’s expanding influence raises another troubling question: Could China’s authoritarian model help the regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua become more effective at curtailing religious freedom? Recent findings make this question increasingly urgent. In June, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, published satellite imagery findings showing significant developments at suspected intelligence facilities in Cuba. At Bejucal, near Havana, researchers identified a newly completed array of 32 antennas capable of intercepting and locating radio transmissions. CSIS concluded that the facility had very likely begun operating. The findings build on CSIS research identifying four Cuban sites that may support Chinese signals intelligence activities: Bejucal, Wajay, Calabazar and El Salao, near Santiago de Cuba. Although public evidence does not establish Chinese involvement at every facility, these developments raise serious national security concerns. They also highlight a broader danger: the convergence of authoritarian governments, advanced surveillance capabilities and increasingly close cooperation with Beijing. I have worked for decades with churches and religious leaders throughout Latin America. Through Outreach Aid to the Americas, I have witnessed faith communities feed hungry families, distribute medicine, respond to disasters and sustain people living under oppressive governments. That experience has taught me something important: When citizens lose confidence in government and other institutions, they often continue to trust their churches. Authoritarian governments understand this.