Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Friday that he is concerned about what he described as growing Islamic influence in the United States.
He cited recent controversies involving public displays of Muslim prayer near sites connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"It's unconscionable," Roy said on "Finnerty," referring to reports of Muslim prayer rugs displayed at a 9/11 memorial in New York.
"Twenty-five years has passed. And during that time, we have admitted
into the United States 5 million people from majority Muslim countries.
Islam is on the march, all in concert with their memorandum from the
Muslim Brotherhood."
"Six hundred organizations fully funded, CAIR [Council on
American-Islamic Relations], Muslim Brotherhood organized to advance
Islam into the United States," Roy said.
"And it's not just Dearborn [Michigan]. ... It's happening in Texas.
It's happening in Houston. It's happening in Dallas-Fort Worth. There
are 330 mosques in Texas."
His comments follow controversy over a Ramadan fast-breaking meal held March 4 at a New York Fire Department site.
During the event, prayer mats were placed in the lobby near a memorial honoring 343 firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks.
The images drew criticism from some who said the setting was inappropriate given the memorial's significance.
Roy cited the incident as part of a broader concern.
"This is a real war, and you can't win a war that you do not
acknowledge exists," he said. "They are trying to wage jihad against our
way of life, and we've got to stand up against it."
Asked about CAIR labeling his congressional caucus a hate group, Roy rejected the characterization.
"I'm not surprised that CAIR would do that," he said. "We know what
CAIR is up to. We know the organizations that are trying to advance
this, and they are waging jihad against the West."
Roy also linked the issue to his campaign to become Texas attorney general.
"We're going to open up every one of the books for those 600
organizations," he said, "and we're going to take their charters away if
they're going to continue this."
It’s frequently observed around
Washington that Capitol Hill is the closest thing available to adults to
“permanent” college. Within its insular campus, everybody knows
everybody, they work hard and play hard, and the latter includes
perpetual last-minute-cramming for that end-of-term final or
all-nighters to make the term paper deadline. Only for Congress these
deadlines are whatever the legislative or policy priority of the moment
happens to be.
This is why you never get a deal until said deadline
arrives (e.g., budget-process timelines, or the end of the fiscal year,
or some other legal- or process-imposed date). Politicians posture and
thereby procrastinate until a painful prospect gets their attention.
The
pain in this case was the prospect of the Senate losing its Easter
recess. Back to the college analogy, Congress also operates not unlike
an academic calendar – it takes “breaks” throughout the year – the
aforementioned Easter recess, 4th of July recess, August recess, a fall
break around Veterans Day, and a Christmas/New Year’s recess (or
adjournment if at the end of the two-year congressional term).
Now
to some degree, members of Congress are proverbially damned if they do
or don’t, which is tritely, but more or less accurately, summed up in a
couple of other contradictory shop-worn saws: “at least the country is
safe when Congress is gone” and “Congress only works three days a week.”
So
with all this said, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, on Thursday
night, chose to make the Easter recess an off-ramp for his caucus. Amid
the DHS shutdown, the intraparty feuding over the SAVE America Act, and
the incessant Democrat and media defeatism over Iran, he chose to punt
the whole mess to the House.
But Speaker Mike Johnson
(LA-02) is having none of it. On Friday, he announced that he's working
to round up the votes to pass a 60-day DHS funding extension, including
all of Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border
Protection (CBP), which the Senate version passed late Thursday night
does not, and that would again send the legislation back to the Senate.
Thune is claiming victory Friday as the Senate bill makes
no so-called reforms to ICE or CBP - demands by the Democrats through
the course of the shutdown.
But Johnson could score his own victory as well – whether or not he successfully secures the votes for his 60-day extension.
What
Johnson has done has reinforced President Trump’s long-time mantra
(going back to his first term and re-iterated again this week): the
filibuster needs to go.
Along with many others, I’ve
written about the SAVE America Act and the filibuster’s implications for
it. The rules don’t change per piece of (non-budget) legislation, and everyone following that debate is acutely aware that Senate legislation effectively requires 60 votes to pass.
Johnson,
by rejecting the Senate bill, is effectively saying to Thune, and the
whole Senate: find 60 votes, or change your rules.
As I
said, whether or not Johnson’s new proposal passes or not is irrelevant -
to do anything, Thune has to fix his Senate problem.
“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” Johnson said. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government.”
But
to do any of these “basic functions” in the Senate right now takes
these 60 votes to end debate (or “invoke cloture” in Senate parlance),
which is purely a product of Senate rules – rules that are hamstringing
it on ALL legislation, not just DHS funding and the SAVE America Act.
The Senate is requiring a supermajority to pass supermajority-supported
legislation!
Thune’s off-ramp has led him right back into the filibuster
brick wall. He got his recess, but when he gets back to town, he’s
likely to be greeted by President Trump in full New York-developer mode,
presenting him with a sledgehammer and hard hat, maybe even shouting
some words from another great Republican: “tear down this wall!”
After
getting him and his colleagues their two weeks off, Thune’s problems
will still be waiting for him when he returns. Johnson has made sure of
it. And by that point, most Americans may very well consider it high
time the job gets done – and some Senate “filibuster” a pathetically
weak excuse – that even after getting their vacation, they still can’t
do their work.
This week, there was a flurry of news reports concerning the race for governor in New York.
In
my previous column on this race, I wrote on Bruce Blakeman,
the Nassau
County Executive.
I ended the late December 2025 column with:
Blakeman needs to raise money, big time. In 2025, he did
very well, but that was as the sitting County Executive who was favored
to win re-election in that county. Now, he is the underdog, and Blakeman
himself is not independently wealthy enough to fund his own campaign.
Well, guess what? So far, Bruce Blakeman hasn’t raised the money he needs to win.
Reportedly, Blakeman has only raised $1.6 million cash in the almost four months since he announced for governor (he announced in December of 2025). Further, records show this total is
“buoyed by more than $1.1 million in transfers from the Nassau County
GOP since January.” Blakeman has also “registered for the state’s public
matching fund program, which could unlock up to $3.5 million for his
campaign if he meets certain fundraising thresholds. But Democrats have
questioned whether a paperwork snafu could keep him from qualifying for
the funds.”
Meanwhile, Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul has not released her latest numbers, but she has $20.2 million in her campaign account, while the New York state Democratic Committee has another $13 million on hand.
Blakeman,
as I described in my earlier column, had surprisingly jumped into the
Republican gubernatorial race to challenge the (then) heavily-favored
Republican candidate, Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21). This prompted
Stefanik to unexpectantly drop out of the race. Stefanik did so
primarily because she now faced a potentially tough primary race, which,
although she would be favored to win, would certainly bleed her
campaign war chest and drive up her negatives. Then, assuming she won
the nomination, Stefanik would still be the underdog in Democrat-leaning
New York, facing an incumbent with far more money.
But here is the important part – when Stefanik dropped out of the race in December of 2025, she was sitting on a campaign kitty of over $12 million, according to Axios.
Going
back to the previous race for governor, the (then) Republican nominee,
Rep. Lee Zeldin of NY's 1st district, in March of 2022 had
over $4.2 million in the bank. And he lost that race in the general
election by six points, although doing far better than what was
expected.
Let me be blunt – there is no excuse for Blakeman’s inability to raise funds for this race.
I have worked on four statewide political races and volunteered for numerous others. During my schooling, I also attended the American University’s Campaign Management Institute,
which was all about managing a political campaign. So, I can tell you
with certainty that when a credible candidate announces a campaign for a
significant public office, it is expected that he already has a
credible plan to fundraise a credible amount to run for that office.
Often, this plan is written out, with a list of names as potential
donors, and a short biography of them that leads to a suggested amount
for the donations. When the candidate gets into the race, all he then
has to do is to implement that plan.
In 1996, when I attended the Campaign Management Institute, I and my three teammates – you all know one of my teammates, this guy – were required to write out a full campaign plan, with a section detailing our planned fundraising.
Bruce Blakeman should have done the same. However, either he didn’t
bother planning to raise the money, or he had a plan, but it wasn’t a
credible plan that could actually raise that money. And what makes this
inexcusable is that he is a County Executive, which is a prominent
elected position in the state, so he knew what was expected of him.
Regardless, he still jumped into a race without the ability to raise the
necessary funding, and then he pushed out another candidate who already
had shown the ability to raise that money.
My good buddy Cameron,
who is a major Elise Stefanik fan, was very upset when this happened.
And considering what has since occurred, I can’t blame him.
So
now, the GOP finds itself in a deep hole, facing a governor who can
swamp the Republican Party's effort with her own millions.
What’s
sad here is that there is a major opening to oust Gov. Hochul in the
Empire State. Blakeman’s own polling – which he just released to spark
his own fundraising – demonstrates that Hochul is not a solid re-election bet. Even the public polling that has
Hochul more firmly ahead still has her only barely winning a majority
of the vote, and that is against a candidate who is largely unknown
across the state. This is because Hochul is an arch leftist, without
charisma, who has totally mismanaged the Empire State, as my RedState
colleague Sister Toldjah recently reported.
And the Democrat incumbent faces the added weakness of NYC Mayor
Zohran Mamdani, who needs her to implement his big spending plans,
meaning she either assists him to raise taxes, or refuses to do so and
antagonizes him and his fellow communist Democrats.
It would be nice if the GOP had a candidate who could take advantage of these weaknesses, wouldn’t it?
For most of my life, Westerners have been harangued by feminists over our having a "rape culture."
It's
always annoyed me a bit because, while rapes obviously do happen, my
own experience is that rape is considered one of the most heinous
crimes, comparable with murder. Most people I know would happily applaud
a father who killed his daughter's rapist.
But when confronted with an actual "rape culture," liberals bend over
backwards to excuse the rapists, hide the crimes, and embrace the
culture that quite openly treats its own (and our) women like cattle.
Rape
apology is baked into Islam itself. The lax attitudes about rape are
not something that has arisen despite Islamic teachers; they exist
BECAUSE of Islamic teachings.
Liberals accuse us of
"Islamophobia" when we point out these basic facts, but not even they
seem to really believe what they are saying. They know about the
unimaginably high rate of rape among Muslims; that's why they go to
extraordinary lengths to hide that they occur.
By now, we all know about the so-called "grooming gangs" in Britain, but the problem exists throughout Europe,
and for all I know, right here in the US. We know they cover up rapes
and sexual crimes by "gender diverse" kids in schools. What else are
they covering up?
A report in the
German media has claimed that a youth centre did not report a girl's
alleged rape to authorities due to concerns that 'Muslim boys are
already under enough police scrutiny.'
The claims emerged regarding the handling of serious allegations at the Wutzkyallee youth centre in Neukölln, Berlin.
German
outlet Bild reported that a sworn affidavit from employees at the
neighboring facility, MaDonna, confirmed suspicions that authorities
failed to report alleged rapists due to concerns over scrutiny of Muslim
boys. The claims have been denied.
The affidavit is said to
detail the case of a 16-year-old Turkish-Kurdish schoolgirl who was
allegedly raped by an Arab boy and subsequently sexually assaulted by
eight others in a secluded area of the youth centre.
The document has been submitted to both the Senate and district politicians.
It indicates that the alleged perpetrators filmed the assaults and used the footage to blackmail the victim.
Additionally, the group reportedly attempted to persuade the victim's younger sister to meet with them.
In
the affidavit, it was stated: 'In this context, we informed the social
services coordinator that a report must be filed. The social services
coordinator refrained from doing so, as she feared it would marginalize
the perpetrators.
A
left-wing German politician who was raped by three migrant men in
January in the city of Mannheim has admitted that she lied about their
nationalities and falsely claimed they had spoken German because she was
afraid of encouraging racism.
Breitbart News reported
that Selin Gören, a spokeswoman for the left-wing youth movement Solid,
was attacked by three men in a play area late one January night while
she was working as a refugee activist. She went to report the sexual
assault to police immediately after the attack, but omitted details
about the ethnicity of the men, and also failed to mention that they
were speaking Arabic or Farsi.
She told police her attackers were speaking German and had also robbed her, but 12 hours later went back to tell the truth.
Gören
explained in an interview with Spiegel magazine that she had initially
lied because she did not want to create "more hatred against migrants in
Germany," given the large anti-refugee protests that gripped the
country following the mass attacks against women in Cologne and other
cities that have been linked to migrants.
Spain is not the only European nation betraying the child victims of migrant rapists
In
Sweden, an Eritrean asylum seeker raped a 16 year old girl. But a judge
blocked his deportation after deciding the rape was “too brief.”
Then,
of course, there is the Pakistani-Muslim rape gang scandal and the
British state’s sacrifice of thousands of little white girls at the
hands of migrant monsters.
European girls are being raped,
tortured, and murdered by illegal pedophiles, while those in power
placate those predators for votes and political capital.
We are being sacrificed for the sake of “diversity.”
The
embrace of Islam in the West has inevitably led to an embrace of a
genuine rape culture. Islam, or at least the "South Asian" version of
it, embraces rape as normal and even as a tactic to force women to
convert.
While Congress is working out
ways to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the core principles of
the SAVE America Act are next. With the Democratic Party’s
intransigence, there’s talk of including some of these provisions in a
future reconciliation package, which will also fund ICE and Border
Patrol—frontline officers are getting paid, but the civilian support
staff is not right now. The issue surrounding voter ID is over: everyone
supports it.
Overall, the Save Act has a 71 percent approval rating from a Harvard
poll. On voter ID specifically, it holds similar approval figures
across the board. It’s been that way since the Obama administration.
It’s a popular policy that some Democrats have labeled Jim Crow 2.0.
Well, in North Carolina, years of litigation have been settled on that
state’s voter ID law, and it’s not good for Democrats. Oh, and this
ruling was handed down by an Obama-appointed judge
A
federal judge has upheld North Carolina’s voter identification law
nearly two years after holding a trial in a lawsuit challenging the ID
requirement. The same judge had blocked the law from taking effect for
the 2020 election cycle.
Her initial ruling against voter ID helped delay implementation of the ID law until 2023.
State
lawmakers approved the ID law in 2018 after voters approved a state
constitutional amendment enshrining voter ID in North Carolina’s
governing document.
“Finally. After seven years, we can put to
rest any doubt that our state’s Voter I.D. law is constitutional,” state
Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said in a prepared statement
Thursday. “This is a monumental win for the citizens of North Carolina
and election integrity efforts.”
“[It is important that this
Court begins by recognizing what this case is, and what it is not,” US
District Judge Loretta Biggs in her 134-page order Thursday. “This case
is not about whether North Carolina law will require that voters show
photo identification when they go to the polls. That question was
settled on November 6, 2018, when approximately 55% of North Carolina’s
registered voters enshrined a photo voter identification requirement in
the State Constitution.”
Game over.
Democrats have fought this in the court of public
opinion, and they have lost. Now, the real courts have ruled, and have
established precedent that these laws are constitutional.
A subcommittee of the House Committee on Ethics found 25 counts of
misconducts were proven true against Representative Sheila
Cherfilus-McCormick.
In an hours-long meeting on Thursday, prolonging well past midnight,
the committee found all but two of the counts levied against
Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) to be proven “by clear and convincing
evidence,” according to a press release from the chairman of the ethics
committee.
The violations, listed in the December Statement of Alleged
Violations (SAV), center upon financial misconduct, especially dealing
with alleged illicitly funneled funds to her campaign. In a report by
the Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics, transmitted to the
ethics committee, the nature of the alleged violations are stated, which
include Cherfilus-McCormick possibly having “dispensed special favors
or privileges to friends in connection with her congressional office’s
requests for community project funding.”
The two counts that were not proven dealt with money laundering
through a foreign company and a “Lack of Candor and Diligence in Ethics
Investigations.”
In November, Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted
by a Florida grand jury for allegedly stealing $5 million in Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds for her 2021 congressional
campaign. According to the indictment, her and her brother collected $5
million overpayment from FEMA for their family’s healthcare company,
which she had served as CEO.
The representative denied the allegations, and in a response to the
SAV, she had asked for the proceedings to be stayed until the criminal
indictment is resolved, noting the committee proceedings involve
“allegations that overlap substantially with an ongoing federal criminal
investigation.”
“To not do so, would risk compromising Representative
Cherfilus-McCormick’s constitutional rights in the criminal
proceedings,” the response stated.
The press release states that the appropriate sanction, if any, will
be decided after the House’s April recess, which could be expulsion from
the House.
“I look forward to proving my innocence. Until then, my focus remains
where it belongs: showing up for the great people of Florida’s 20th District who sent me to Washington to fight for them,” Cherfilus-McCormick said in a Friday statement, news outlets reported.
Cable news watchers are waking up to a
plain truth: CNN’s audience has cratered. Once a must-watch for
Americans seeking mainstream coverage, CNN now finds itself mired in a
ratings slump that conservative media observers say is proof that
viewers are tired of a partisan podium dressed up as news.
While
CNN flounders, competitors that court everyday Americans are reaping the
benefit; Fox News continues to dominate primetime and capture the
lion’s share of the live TV audience. The numbers show a stark
marketplace verdict — viewers vote with their remotes, and they are
choosing outlets that reflect their values and concerns rather than
preach to them.
Part of the narrative about falling linear numbers
is technical: Nielsen’s shift to “Big Data + Panel” changed how
viewership is counted, and networks are trying to blame methodology
rather than their own content choices. That’s a convenient talking point
for executives who should be asking why their product repels the
average American, not why the scoreboard looks different.
Instead
of facing the music, CNN’s answer has been to double down on rebrands
and digital paywalls, launching new streaming tiers and “All Access”
products to paper over the collapse of their cable business. Executives
and corporate parent boards are betting big on subscriptions to bail
them out, but you can’t buy credibility back once you’ve lost it with
viewers who feel talked down to every night.
Voices like Megyn
Kelly and Jesse Kelly are blunt about what the real problem is:
sanctimony, predictable left-wing cheerleading, and a newsroom tone that
feels like a moral lecture rather than honest reporting. Hardworking
Americans don’t want their news handed to them by a soapbox of opinion
disguised as journalism; they want facts, balance, and respect — and
when networks ignore that, viewers walk.
Advertisers and corporate
partners should take note: audiences are fleeing anything that smells
like partisan clickbait or cultural posturing, and markets reward trust
and relevance. If CNN wants to stop the bleeding, it will require real
accountability, a return to fair coverage, and less newsroom
virtue-signaling — otherwise the ratings collapse will be remembered as
the price of abandoning the public for a political faction.
Rob Schmitt’s back-and-forth with Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim
put on display something the American people already know: the Cuba
question is not a polite academic debate but a battle over whether the
United States will stand for freedom or kowtow to regimes that crush it.
Grim’s insistence on casting U.S. pressure as reckless overlooks
decades of Communist brutality on the island and the genuine yearning of
ordinary Cubans for liberty. As Schmitt pressed, this is about strategy
and results — not about scoring woke points for journalism elites who
romanticize dictatorships.
Ryan Grim’s reporting in Drop Site News
claims that senior officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
have misled President Trump about supposed high-level talks with Havana
— and that, in reality, no substantive negotiations have been taking
place. That allegation, if true, exposes dangerous information games
inside the Beltway where politics and personal agendas can trump
straightforward diplomacy. Americans deserve clarity: are talks being
pursued to open doors for ordinary Cubans, or are they being manipulated
to manufacture pretexts for policy failures?
What cannot be
disputed is the administration’s decisive move to choke off the regime’s
lifelines: on January 29, 2026, the president signed an executive order
creating a process to impose tariffs on countries that sell or provide
oil to Cuba. This was not an impulsive threat but a strategic lever to
starve an illegitimate government of the resources it uses to prop up
oppression and fund malign activity. For patriotic Americans who demand
results, using economic power to pressure tyrants is both smart and
morally defensible.
The consequences have been immediate and
stark: Mexico has at least temporarily suspended oil shipments to Cuba,
and Havana is grappling with severe energy shortages that the regime
itself admits are jeopardizing basic services. When our diplomatic and
economic tools produce tangible pressure on a communist kleptocracy,
critics rush to play the humanitarian card while glossing over how the
regime has long misallocated resources and prioritized repression over
people. If that pressure speeds the day when Cubans can reclaim their
nation, then it is pressure worth applying.
Practical fallout has
not been abstract: Cuba warned international carriers it could not
refuel flights because jet fuel was unavailable at multiple airports,
forcing airlines to suspend services and stranding tourism dollars that
the regime clings to. The blackouts and grounded flights aren’t pleasant
— they’re consequences of a regime that chose repression over reform
for decades, and of an international system that has too often indulged
its patronage networks. Journalists like Grim treat these developments
as evidence that the United States has gone too far, but they too often
ignore that engagement without leverage simply allows authoritarianism
to persist.
Now the island is experiencing rolling blackouts and
even full-grid collapses, with official Cuban sources noting weeks
without critical fuel supplies and emergency measures to protect
hospitals and water systems. This is precisely why American resolve
matters: a regime that runs on coercion and corruption should not be
bailed out by nations unwilling to stand for democratic norms. The
alternative is endless, costly appeasement that leaves the people of
Cuba trapped under the same tyrannical apparatus that robbed them of
freedom for generations.
Make no mistake: patriots should demand a
humane and strategic endgame that liberates the Cuban people, not one
that rewards dictators. If Secretary Rubio and others are holding firm
because they recognize the stakes of normalization without
accountability, that deserves respect rather than sneers from
left-leaning reporters who prefer optics over outcomes. The real
question for Ryan Grim and his allies is whether they stand with tyrants
who enrich themselves and wreck nations, or with the brave Cubans who
risk everything for the simple right to speak, worship, and work freely.
America
should double down on pressure while supporting clear, targeted
humanitarian channels that get relief to people, not to party
apparatchiks. Rob Schmitt was right to press these points on air — this
isn’t a time for sentimentalism, it’s a time for strategy, courage, and a
commitment to liberty. Hard power paired with principled diplomacy made
America a beacon of freedom; we should apply it now to help free our
neighbors in Cuba from the same failed ideology that has destroyed so
many lives.
The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Friday that
would finance most of the Department of Homeland Security but withhold
funds from ICE, as a weeks-long partial government shutdown caused
widespread disruptions at airports.
Senate Democrats blocked DHS funding last month, as they pressed to
rein in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown after federal
agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
The funding shortfall has left tens of thousands of Transportation
Security Administration employees working without pay, prompting some
airport security officers to call in sick or resign.
As the standoff in Congress persisted, President Donald Trump said on
Thursday he would take executive action to pay 50,000 airport security
workers in an effort to address staff shortages that have snarled travel
around the country.
The Senate bill would fund DHS components such as TSA and the U.S.
Coast Guard but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
and part of Customs and Border Protection.
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives could vote on the bill as early as Friday.
"This agreement funds TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA, CISA, strengthens
security at the border and ports of entry, and keeps America safe,"
Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
"Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump's rogue and
deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms," he
added.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations
Committee, said Democrats had damaged Congress' annual funding process,
weakened national security, and set "a precedent that they may one day
come to regret."
"Democrats remained intransigent and unreasonable with their list of demands," she said in a statement.
