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Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Daily Wire: 2026 Socialist Agenda Features 'Fat Genocide' And Abolishing The Family
NEW YORK, Sept. 12 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary:
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The 2026 Socialist Agenda Features 'Fat Genocide' And Abolishing The Family
By Aidan Grogan, Stu Smith
Daily Wire
The Chicago meeting was a radical mix of wild policies and self-destructive ideology.
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Over Labor Day weekend, X caught fire with clips from the 2026 Socialism conference, hosted by the radical-Left Haymarket Books in Chicago.
More than 3,000 socialists descended on Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in the South Loop to participate in the four-day event featuring radical activists
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, Sept. 12 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary:
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The 2026 Socialist Agenda Features 'Fat Genocide' And Abolishing The Family
By Aidan Grogan, Stu Smith
Daily Wire
The Chicago meeting was a radical mix of wild policies and self-destructive ideology.
-
Over Labor Day weekend, X caught fire with clips from the 2026 Socialism conference, hosted by the radical-Left Haymarket Books in Chicago.
More than 3,000 socialists descended on Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in the South Loop to participate in the four-day event featuring radical activistsand authors such as Angela Davis, Sophie Lewis, and Hasan Piker.
City Journal's Stu Smith has highlighted some of the conference's most controversial livestreamed moments: a Health Fascism panel that described GLP-1s as a "fat genocide" and being "dysgenic" as aspirational; abortion activists presenting Piker with a "Satan's School of Gay Communism" hat; Weather Underground alumni Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in attendance; and professors from Columbia, CUNY, NYU, and the University of Illinois, Chicago promoting radical activism.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Daily Wire (https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-2026-socialist-agenda-features-fat-genocide-and-abolishing-the-family)
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Aidan Grogan is an associate editor at the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, a senior contributor with Young Voices, and a history Ph.D. candidate at Liberty University. Stu Smith is an investigative analyst at City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/the-2026-socialist-agenda-features-fat-genocide-and-abolishing-the-family
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: Beijing Legislates Mandatory Medical Insurance
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary:
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Beijing Legislates Mandatory Medical Insurance
09.11.2026 | Christopher Nye | Charles Sun
Executive Summary:
* A new Healthcare Security Law mandates enrollment in Resident Basic Medical Insurance (RBMI) for uninsured citizens. This legal obligation shifts the burden of funding healthcare from strained government fiscal resources onto the public. Total Chinese government health expenditure is already lower than that of comparable countries, standing at 3.4 percent of GDP in 2023.
* The mandate is in part
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary:
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Beijing Legislates Mandatory Medical Insurance
09.11.2026 | Christopher Nye | Charles Sun
Executive Summary:
* A new Healthcare Security Law mandates enrollment in Resident Basic Medical Insurance (RBMI) for uninsured citizens. This legal obligation shifts the burden of funding healthcare from strained government fiscal resources onto the public. Total Chinese government health expenditure is already lower than that of comparable countries, standing at 3.4 percent of GDP in 2023.
* The mandate is in parta response to falling enrollment, which declined for seven consecutive years between 2019 and 2025, shedding roughly 83 million people. Over the same period, the individual contribution standard rose 60 percent, while the fiscal subsidy standard rose only 35 percent.
* Statutory measures task tax authorities with collecting insurance premia and require that enrollees be brought into a social credit management system as an enforcement mechanism.
* Although the law specifies a resident's obligation to enroll, it offers no concrete provision for the enrollee's rights. Authority to determine the fiscal subsidy standard, the benefit standard, and the date on which benefits begin has all been devolved to provincial-level departments. Given the strain on fiscal resources, some provinces may cut RBMI benefits further.
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On August 28, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the Healthcare Security Law, effective January 1, 2027 (Xinhua, August 28). The law governs an extensive healthcare system and a fund that covers 1.3 billion enrollees and raised nearly renminbi (RMB) 3.6 trillion ($500 billion) last year (National Healthcare Security Administration [NHSA], July 16). Article 11 of this law--the first dedicated national statute in the field of healthcare security--states that all citizens "shall" enroll in Resident Basic Medical Insurance (RBMI) should they not enjoy other state medical security. The People's Republic of China (PRC) already spends little on healthcare as compared to peer countries, and this law offers avenues for further cuts.
The new law likely extends an enrollment mandate to address shrinking sources of medical insurance funding. Earlier normative documents on RBMI all held to the principle of voluntary enrollment. In the Healthcare Security Law (Draft for Comment), released by the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) in 2021, the corresponding language read that persons were "to enroll in RBMI in accordance with law" (NHSA, June 15, 2021). The 2010 Social Insurance Law likewise applied compulsory enrollment only to Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), using for RBMI the formula that "the state establishes and improves" the system (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, December 29, 2018). This shift reflects the state's unwillingness to commit more public fiscal resources, transferring the funding burden onto ordinary residents, even though the people insured under this scheme generally occupy a weak position in society.
Resident Insurance Is Losing Its Contributors
RBMI enrollment has declined year-over-year since 2019. A policy brief released in August by Duke Kunshan University notes that enrollment decreased from 1.025 billion in 2019 to 942 million in 2025, a cumulative decline of more than 80 million people (Zuo et al., 2026).[1] As of the end of May 2026, RBMI enrollment had dropped further to 933 million. In the same period, UEBMI enrollment reached 386 million, up more than 7 million. The NHSA describes this divergence as the "continued optimization of the enrollment structure" and reports the enrollment rate "consolidated" at 95 percent (NHSA, July 9).
Researchers attribute the wave of withdrawals to the design of the contribution mechanism. Between 2019 and 2025 the individual contribution standard rose 60 percent, while the fiscal subsidy standard rose only 35 percent (NHSA, May 13, 2019; Xinhua, December 19, 2025). RBMI charges a fixed sum-per-head, which weighs more heavily on the poorest enrollees. For the bottom 20 percent of rural households by income, the premium has climbed from about 1.2 percent of per capita disposable income in 2003 to 7.4 percent in 2024 (Zuo et al., 2026).[2] Coverage is calculated by calendar year, and the premium must be paid each autumn (Hunan Healthcare Security Administration, September 29, 2025). Given how limited rural pensions are for the elderly, and given that their other income often arrives irregularly, a premium that must be settled in a single payment frequently presents difficulties.[3]
Limited fiscal subsidies and a low reimbursement ratio count among the reasons for insurance withdrawal. Governments supply somewhat more than 60 percent of RBMI funding--a modest sum when measured against the standards of the budget it comes from. Calculated on 942 million enrollees at the end of 2025 and the 2026 subsidy standard of RMB 724 ($101), total fiscal subsidies come to about RMB 680 billion ($94.6 billion), under 0.5 percent of the country's official gross domestic product (GDP) (National Bureau of Statistics, January 20; NHSA, March 15, July 16). By way of comparison, total Chinese government health expenditure stood at 3.4 percent of GDP in 2023. This is below both the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member average of 7.98 percent and comparable economies such as Brazil (4.3 percent), Russia (4.9 percent), and South Africa (5.5 percent) (World Bank, accessed on September 1). Chinese household out-of-pocket health spending meanwhile accounted for 32.2 percent of national health expenditure, far above the OECD member average of 13.4 percent and the highest among the countries just named, against 26.2 percent in Brazil, 28.4 percent in Russia, and 6.7 percent in South Africa (World Bank, accessed on September 1).
Tax Collection and Credit Records Supply Enforcement Capability
The law undertakes a degree of institutional preparation to ensure that compulsory enrollment takes effect in practice. First, Article 20 provides that "tax authorities shall collect basic medical insurance premiums, including maternity insurance premiums, in accordance with regulations". This arrangement predates the law, as seen in the Plan for Reform of the State and Local Tax Collection and Administration System, issued by the General Offices of the Central Committee and the State Council in July 2018 (Xinhua, July 20, 2018). In practice, however, RBMI premiums are paid mainly through front-end channels such as community agents, Alipay, and WeChat, so enrollees do not always know that the tax authorities are the real collector behind them and remain unaware of that authority. Tax authorities command data interfaces across many dimensions, and putting RBMI collection in their hands completes the organizational preparation for severe measures such as compulsory deduction in the future.
Efforts also include the use of an enrollee's social credit record to apply pressure. Article 44 requires healthcare security administrative departments to establish a credit management system covering designated medical institutions and their staff, employers, enrollees, and others. The law stops there, neither specifying what conduct will be entered as an adverse record, nor stating what cost an adverse record will impose on the household concerned. This drafting approach follows a tradition in Chinese legislation: Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once said that "the provisions of laws may be somewhat coarse at first, and be perfected step by step" (Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 1994).[4] "Better coarse than fine" subsequently became the common name for this legislative style, and its effect is to leave administrative organs room to maneuver, at the expense of the public's legitimate expectations.
The social credit system in the PRC is embedded in a nationwide framework. A 2016 State Council guiding opinion directed departments to place restrictions on individuals who have the capacity to carry out their obligations but refuse to do so. These restrictions include leaving the country, purchasing real estate, boarding aircraft, taking high-grade trains and seat classes, traveling on holiday, and staying in graded hotels; and guide financial institutions to raise their lending rates and property insurance premium rates, or restrict the provision of loans, sponsorship, underwriting, and insurance (China Law Translate, May 30, 2016). A further 2025 opinion from the General Offices of the Central Committee and the State Council carried this system forward, adding lists of seriously untrustworthy entities in real estate, the Internet, human resources, and medium- and long-term energy contracts (Xinhua, March 31, 2025). No provision at present links these punishments directly to unpaid medical insurance premiums, leaving possible compulsory force to the future implementation stage. From the standpoint of Chinese legislators, room reserved for discipline will always stand some chance of being used.[5]
Law Specifies Citizen Duties and Leaves Entitlements Undefined
The obligation to contribute is uniform and clear nationwide, but the entitlements enrollees enjoy are not. Article 4 of the law provides that "citizens have the right and the obligation to participate in basic medical insurance in accordance with law, and enjoy the corresponding medical security benefits as prescribed". The sentence does not explain what the benefits actually are, with RBMI premiums and reimbursement ratios uncertain. Individual contributions are affected by the strength of fiscal subsidies, but how much will be subsidized each year cannot be foreseen, and Article 11 provides only that the standards for individual contributions and government subsidies are determined by the healthcare security and finance departments of the province or pooling area in accordance with state regulations. The reimbursement ratio, which determines how much an individual must spend to see a doctor, likewise fluctuates each year, with Article 13 providing only that benefit standards are determined by the healthcare security and finance departments of the province or pooling area in accordance with state regulations. As a result, the two most critical details of entitlement are left unspecified by the law and consigned instead to subordinate norms, determined annually by each locality.
The date on which enrollees in basic medical insurance begin to enjoy its benefits follows the same pattern. Article 13 provides that this date "shall be determined by the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government in accordance with state regulations". This furnishes the statutory basis for the waiting-period regime introduced from 2025, which sets a fixed three-month waiting period for those who enroll late or who have lapsed, and for households that have lapsed continuously for more than four years, a cumulative waiting period of at least six months.[6] The moment of payment is fixed by the concentrated enrollment period each autumn, and the moment of reimbursement is fixed by provincial rules. For a household that misses the concentrated enrollment period, more than three months will separate the two even after the premium is paid in arrears.
The data reflect which way local discretion has tilted. Between 2019 and 2025, fiscal subsidies grew more slowly than individual contributions, lifting the individual share of per capita funding from 32.5 percent to 36.4 percent. Provinces at present hold the discretion to set benefit standards on their own, while bearing a proportionate share of the subsidy cost (Ministry of Finance, January 12, 2022). As local fiscal resources contract, those local decision-makers are required to set subsidies amid a shrinking budget, facing an incentive to further narrow RBMI entitlements (People's Daily, August 28).
Stratified Insurance System Reflects a Deeper Inequity in the Party-State
The Healthcare Security Law does not resolve the inequity that has long marked the medical insurance system. The official interpretation of the draft promises to "strengthen the coordination of [UEBMI] and [RBMI], and promote fairness and unity" (The National People's Congress, August 25). The two funds, however, differ enormously in scale. UEBMI covers working and retired people attached to employers, funded by contributions from employees and employers jointly, and in 2025 raised RMB 2.47 trillion ($344 billion) across 389 million enrollees, or about RMB 6,353 ($884) in resources per person. RBMI covers everyone else, chiefly farmers, non-employed urban residents, students, and flexibly employed people, and in 2025 raised RMB 1.12 trillion ($156 billion) across 942 million enrollees, or about RMB 1,190 ($165) in resources per person (NHSA, July 16).
The institutional design of UEBMI makes any reform that seeks to narrow its distance from RBMI difficult to advance. About a quarter of the UEBMI fund flows directly into individual accounts. Of the 2025 total revenue for the UEBMI fund, with maternity insurance included, individual account revenue was RMB 639 billion ($89 billion), 26 percent of the total (NHSA, July 16). Cumulative balances in these accounts are substantial, having reached RMB 1.45 trillion ($200 billion) by the end of 2024 (NHSA, July 14, 2025). Zheng Gongcheng, president of the China Association of Social Security, has written that UEBMI "sets up privatized, fully funded individual accounts, which greatly weaken the mutual-aid function of the system" (Zheng and Fu, 2026).[7] The existence of individual accounts makes it hard for enrollees to tolerate transferring funds originally credited to those accounts into the public pool, and even adjustments internal to the UEBMI system have previously met strong protest from workers, especially urban retirees (Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2023).
The stratified structure of the medical insurance system can be seen as a microcosm of the Party-state. Two systems, two sources of funding, and a line drawn according to whether a person has a work unit: Articles 11 and 13 together sketch a system in which the welfare a citizen obtains depends on their social position, which is largely determined by the urban-rural divide. The same holds across other fields of social welfare. In pensions, resident basic old-age insurance likewise provides broad coverage at a low level, but has large disparities with other systems. Calculated from official statistical data, the average monthly basic pension in 2023 for staff of government organs and public institutions, for enterprise employees, and for urban and rural residents came to roughly RMB 6,350 ($900), RMB 3,260 ($460), and RMB 220 ($30) respectively (Zheng and Fu, 2026).[8] To preserve the vested interests of those inside the system, the Chinese Communist Party is unlikely to fundamentally change this state of affairs.
Conclusion
The new Healthcare Security Law can only delay resolving the deep problems within the medical insurance system. Facing overall funding pressure, policymakers have turned enrollment in insurance into an obligation for citizens, with the burden spread disproportionately among the lower and middle strata of society. The funds this approach can raise are nevertheless limited, and as the general population continues to age, rising medical demand will consume insurance funds faster. In the future, the Party-state will quite possibly cut the real benefits of RBMI further, since the system will otherwise be difficult to sustain.
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Christopher Nye is a Non-Resident Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He previously served as a Professor and directed a university think tank in China. He holds a Ph.D. in Law and specializes in Chinese legal institutions, elite politics, U.S.-China technology competition, and local governance.
Charles Sun is a China-focused policy analyst specializing in technology governance and the political economy of elite-state relations. He is a Yale Sinovation Fellow at the Yale School of Management and was a visiting fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/beijing-legislates-mandatory-medical-insurance/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary: Twenty-Five Years After 9/11 - A Morning I Shall Never Forget
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Sept. 11, 2026, by Ludovic Hood, senior fellow at the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East:
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Twenty-Five Years after 9/11: A Morning I Shall Never Forget
At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I was standing on the platform at Canal Street in lower Manhattan, awaiting the downtown express train. A loud boom sounded through the tunnels, causing other straphangers to look up quizzically before returning to
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Sept. 11, 2026, by Ludovic Hood, senior fellow at the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East:
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Twenty-Five Years after 9/11: A Morning I Shall Never Forget
At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I was standing on the platform at Canal Street in lower Manhattan, awaiting the downtown express train. A loud boom sounded through the tunnels, causing other straphangers to look up quizzically before returning totheir newspapers. I later realized the noise was American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower.
At about 8:55 a.m., I walked up and out of the Wall Street subway station. High above me, papers fluttered in the clear sky. I initially thought it was a publicity stunt associated with an initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange.
At 9:03 a.m., I stepped out of my usual bagel shop and looked west. At that moment, I heard a loud roar and then saw a flash of orange on an airplane, United Airlines Flight 175, right before it crashed into the upper floors of the South Tower. Seconds later, scores of people came running toward me, and I stepped back into the shop.
By 9:15 a.m., I was standing about a block away from the World Trade Center, looking up at the two towers. The impact sites were so high up that it was hard to comprehend the size of the fires. People around me speculated that radar issues caused two Cessnas to fly into the towers. More grimly, others talked about people jumping out of the North Tower.
By about 9:30 a.m., I grew concerned that I couldn't reach my brother on his cell phone. He typically used the World Trade Center subway stop to commute to his office nearby. Nearly all cell networks were overloaded.
At about 9:42 a.m., people around me said the Pentagon had been hit and that other New York City sites might be under attack. I started to walk to my office on Exchange Place.
By 9:58 a.m., I was in my 34th-floor office at 20 Exchange Place. My brother, with whom I had finally spoken, came out of the elevator and joined me in the common area.
At 9:59 a.m., a colleague yelled, "The tower's collapsing!" We ran to the window. Thirty stories beneath us, a massive cloud of dust rushed toward the foot of the building and then raced up toward us. Within seconds, it reached our floor, and the blue sky disappeared.
At about 10:20 a.m., we walked out of the building into the gently swirling dust. Someone in the lobby had ripped up a shirt, and we covered our faces with the strips of cloth. My brother and I started to walk toward the South Street Seaport.
At 10:28 a.m., we heard a distant roar and, after a minute, the dust around us became more intense. The North Tower had collapsed.
My brother and I then spent the next hour or so walking up the side of the FDR Drive. We were too spooked to head back into the heart of downtown, given reports of additional attacks. I recall bumming cigarettes from strangers along the way--our hands were shaking.
My main recollection from that day and the days that followed is a sense of both sadness and togetherness. I had lived in Manhattan for much of the prior decade--I loved the city. The murder of 3,000 people was unfathomable. At the same time, New York City residents and commuters had a common bond--you felt the solidarity everywhere in those early weeks.
The nihilistic ideology that led to the September 11 attacks persists. It has killed thousands of people in suicide bombings, terrorist attacks, and wars in countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. America exhausted itself trying to fight it. Some Middle Eastern governments understand the dire threat this ideology poses, but it feels like many Western politicians do not or will not, out of fear of being offensive. I look at the foreign policy priorities of New York City's mayor and the United Kingdom's new prime minister, for example, and I can only shake my head in disbelief.
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Ludovic Hood is a senior fellow with Hudson Institute's Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. His research focuses on US Middle East policy, Gulf regional security, Israel, the Arab states, Iran, and Lebanon.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/twenty-five-years-after-911-morning-i-shall-never-forget-ludovic-hood
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues InfluenceWatch Wrapup on Sept. 11, 2026
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following InfluenceWatch wrap up on Sept. 11, 2026:
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InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers' funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.
The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested parties research
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following InfluenceWatch wrap up on Sept. 11, 2026:
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InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers' funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.
The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested parties researchto use in reporting on significant topics that are often overlooked by the American public.
CRC is pleased to present some of the most significant additions to InfluenceWatch in the past week:
* Justice Committee is a left-of-center organization that has promoted defunding the New York City Police Department (NYPD). One of their projects, "CopWatch," is an initiative inspired by the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement to monitor law enforcement activity. Justice Committee's executive director, Loyda Colon, has previously worked as a coordinator for the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Audre Lorde Project.
* United Way of Greater Atlanta is a local chapter of the United Way Worldwide that provides funding and other support for communities within the Atlanta metropolitan area. Ayesha Khanna, the executive director of Tides Center as of August 2026, was previously the COO of United Way of Greater Atlanta. Major funders of the United Way of Greater Atlanta in recent years have included the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, the Coca-Cola Foundation, and the main United Way Worldwide.
* Women Employed is a left-of-center feminist advocacy organization that supports increased government-driven education and employment policies for women and low-income workers. As of 2026 it is a member of the National Committee on Pay Equity coalition, whose other members include the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, the NAACP, and the United Auto Workers. Women Employed has received funding from SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana, the National Partnership for Women and Families, the Chicago Foundation for Women, and the Joyce Foundation.
* Alaska Just Transition Collective is a network of local environmentalist and other activist groups that support left-of-center climate policies within the state. Its member organizations include Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, the Alaska Center, and the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition. As of 2026, the Collective is fiscally sponsored by the Native Movement, and it is a member organization of the New Economy Coalition.
* Rising Organizers is a community organizing group that provides training and consulting services for left-of-center activists. It is fiscally sponsored by the Social Good Fund whose other projects include the Climate Disobedience Center, the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the Jewish Climate Action Network, and the PeoplesHub. Rising Organizers' co-founder and executive director Elyssa Feder was a campaign organizer for former President Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign, and also previously worked for J Street, Priorities USA, and EMILY's List.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/influencewatch-friday-09-11-2026/
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute Issues Commentary: New Jersey's Sanctuary State Repeats a Deadly Pre-9/11 Mistake
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following commentary:
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New Jersey's Sanctuary State Repeats a Deadly Pre-9/11 Mistake
Matthew T. Rooney Michael John Donohue September 11, 2026
It has been a quarter of a century since the Twin Towers fell and 749 New Jerseyans were murdered by bloodthirsty terrorists. And as a nation, we have been asking ourselves to remember the lessons of 9/11. We must never forget.
Unfortunately, when it comes to immigration, it turns out that the lessons of 9/11 have not been forgotten. Rather, they have callously been set aside
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following commentary:
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New Jersey's Sanctuary State Repeats a Deadly Pre-9/11 Mistake
Matthew T. Rooney Michael John Donohue September 11, 2026
It has been a quarter of a century since the Twin Towers fell and 749 New Jerseyans were murdered by bloodthirsty terrorists. And as a nation, we have been asking ourselves to remember the lessons of 9/11. We must never forget.
Unfortunately, when it comes to immigration, it turns out that the lessons of 9/11 have not been forgotten. Rather, they have callously been set asideby some leaders who would rather gain the support of the far left of the political spectrum--a political base that supports open borders, the obstruction of immigration enforcement, and defunding the police. This, sadly, has certainly been the outcome in New Jersey.
Among the most important lessons we learned from the terrorist attacks on 9/11 is that cooperation between local and federal law enforcement agents is critical to identifying and stopping would-be terrorists. This is especially so when it comes to immigration. The 9/11 Commission, chaired by former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, specifically cited an intelligence culture in which "the information flow withered" as a primary reason why authorities failed to thwart the largest terror attack in American history. Government-imposed restrictions--notably the infamous 1995 memo issued by Clinton-era Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick--played a decisive and ultimately deadly role in the lead-up to disaster.
The history is chilling. In August 2001, the FBI was actively hunting future 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, an al-Qaeda operative known to have entered the United States. Incredibly, confusion surrounding the government's intelligence-law enforcement "wall" kept experienced criminal agents from fully joining the hunt. One furious FBI agent practically predicted the disaster on August 29, 2001, mere days before the attacks: "someday someone will die and, wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective."
Thirteen days later, al-Mihdhar was among the monsters who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and murdered 184 innocent souls at the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission later concluded that officials were confused about what they could share. Seasoned criminal investigators were consequently "excluded from the search" precisely when their expert assistance could have helped avert thousands of deaths and years of ensuing conflict.
In New Jersey, however, these lessons were not important enough to outweigh the bigger policy objective: open borders. Seventeen years after the September 11th attacks, New Jersey became a "sanctuary state." The 2018 Attorney General directive barred cooperation with ICE, but its impact went beyond undermining immigration enforcement, compromising our voter rolls, and exacerbating housing costs; it also erected an information wall between New Jersey law enforcement and federal authorities. The state then doubled down on this madness by signing legislation codifying sanctuary statehood earlier this year.
Indeed, twenty-five years after 9/11, New Jersey policymakers have deliberately erected new barriers to cooperation with federal immigration agents, gambling that history won't repeat itself. That's not enlightened policymaking. It's tempting fate.
How long before a non-citizen with designs as grand and evil as the 9/11 hijackers is released from a New Jersey jail, moves unnoticed by federal authorities, and kills more of our citizens? It is only a matter of time with the reckless sanctuary statehood "information wall" in place.
Thankfully, the inevitable is avoidable if Trenton snaps out of its woke daydream, prioritizes public safety and common sense, and ends sanctuary statehood before it's too late.
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Matthew T. Rooney, Executive Director, America First New Jersey
Michael John Donohue, Chair of AFPI-New Jersey
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/new-jerseys-sanctuary-state-repeats-a-deadly-pre-9-11-mistake
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute Issues Commentary to Washington Examiner: Congress Hijacked Your 9/11 Security Fee and Left You Stuck at the Gate
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary:
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Congress hijacked your 9/11 security fee and left you stuck at the gate
Chad Wolf
September 11, 2026
This article was co-authored by Thomas K. Plofchan, III
Originally published by Washington Examiner
Today, we commemorate the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, and reflect on the worst day in modern American history. In the aftermath of that tragedy, we experienced something that is rare to find today: bipartisanship on Capitol Hill.
Barely two months after 9/11, Congress created
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary:
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Congress hijacked your 9/11 security fee and left you stuck at the gate
Chad Wolf
September 11, 2026
This article was co-authored by Thomas K. Plofchan, III
Originally published by Washington Examiner
Today, we commemorate the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, and reflect on the worst day in modern American history. In the aftermath of that tragedy, we experienced something that is rare to find today: bipartisanship on Capitol Hill.
Barely two months after 9/11, Congress createdthe Transportation Security Administration, building on a bipartisan consensus that airport security was too important to leave to chance.
Fast forward to the spring of this year, and the contrast could not be starker -- with our domestic aviation security paying the price.
For more than two months, travelers waited in multi-hour lines at TSA Checkpoints around the country, missing flights, family events, and business meetings. Not because of a threat. Not because of weather. Because of partisan politics.
To read the full article, click here (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/4721135/911-security-fee-diversion-tsa-delays/).
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Chad F. Wolf serves as Chair, Homeland Security & Immigration Policy, and Chair, Western Hemisphere Initiative. Prior to joining AFPI, Wolf served as Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the third-largest federal department in the U.S. Government.
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/congress-hijacked-your-9-11-security-fee-and-left-you-stuck-at-the-gate
[Category: ThinkTank]
45 Organizations Urge House Democratic Leadership to Call a Vote on Cuba War Powers Resolution
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (TNSida) -- The Center for Economic and Policy Research issued the following news release:
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45 Organizations Urge House Democratic Leadership to Call a Vote on Cuba War Powers Resolution
WASHINGTON, DC -- A coalition of 45 faith, peace, labor, health, and political organizations is calling on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and committee Ranking Members Gregory Meeks and Jim McGovern to immediately announce plans to call a vote on Rep. Nydia Velazquez's Cuba War Powers Resolution (H.Con.Res. 106). In a letter sent this week, the groups call on the House to vote
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (TNSida) -- The Center for Economic and Policy Research issued the following news release:
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45 Organizations Urge House Democratic Leadership to Call a Vote on Cuba War Powers Resolution
WASHINGTON, DC -- A coalition of 45 faith, peace, labor, health, and political organizations is calling on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and committee Ranking Members Gregory Meeks and Jim McGovern to immediately announce plans to call a vote on Rep. Nydia Velazquez's Cuba War Powers Resolution (H.Con.Res. 106). In a letter sent this week, the groups call on the House to voteto end the de facto US oil blockade on Cuba, which they argue amounts to hostilities that Congress has not authorized.
"Cuba is suffering through a man-made economic and humanitarian catastrophe, caused in significant part by deliberate policy choices of the United States," the organizations wrote.
The privileged resolution -- which can be called for a vote without Speaker Johnson's approval -- directs the president to remove US Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Cuba absent congressional authorization. The signatories, who include the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Church World Service, Demand Progress, Just Foreign Policy, Indivisible, the Latin America Working Group, Pax Christi USA, Peace Action, RootsAction, United Church of Christ, Win Without War, and dozens of others, argue that the de facto oil blockade in place since January 2026 meets the definition of hostilities under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
The letter describes a humanitarian emergency on the island that grows worse by the day. Already, six nationwide power grid collapses have occurred in the past year, leaving more than nine million people without power for periods lasting more than 20 hours, and with transportation stranded, inadequate water and food, and the health system forced to ration care. Cuba's infant mortality rate has increased by 148 percent under sanctions imposed by Trump, meaning 1,800 babies have died since 2018 who otherwise would have lived.
On August 6, a panel of UN experts warned that the humanitarian fallout of the sanctions escalation is becoming a full-blown crisis, threatening Cubans' rights to health, food, development, and to life itself.
The letter follows a Senate vote on April 28 to end US hostilities against Cuba -- sponsored by Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and Adam Schiff (D-CA) -- which was defeated on a procedural motion in a 51-to-47 vote, despite the support of Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rand Paul (R-KY). The letter notes that those 47 senators voted to affirm that this blockade, imposed without a single shot fired, nevertheless constitutes an act of hostility under the War Powers Act. The letter deems this vote to be "one of the most important stands Congress has taken against U.S. economic sanctions toward Cuba in over six decades," and calls on the House to "take a similarly forceful action at this crucial moment."
The letter notes that under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, "the President may not introduce U.S. forces into hostilities, or situations where hostilities are imminent, without congressional authorization," stating that "a de facto fuel blockade enforced by military assets meets the definition of hostilities." It cites the UN Charter, which treats a blockade as a use of armed force, and the UN General Assembly's official "Definition of Aggression," which also identifies a blockade as an act of aggression. The signatories observe finally that the "deliberate deprivation of fuel to a civilian population also violates the 4th Geneva Convention's prohibition on collective punishment of civilians, and is therefore a war crime under this treaty, which the United States, along with all other UN member countries, has ratified."
The signatories call for urgent action, concluding that this "moment calls for decisive leadership that enables our communities to engage in the political process and try to shape the outcomes of policies being waged in our name."
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INFODOC: https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/CSO_Cuba_House_WPR_letter_FINAL_090926.pdf
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Original text here: https://cepr.net/newsroom/45-organizations-urge-house-democratic-leadership-to-call-a-vote-on-cuba-war-powers-resolution/
[Category: ThinkTank]
