How many Americans could pass the new citizenship exam?

  1. Name two important ideas from the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution

  2. Why is the Electoral College important?

  3. The Nation’s first motto was “E Pluribus Unum.” What does that mean?

  4. Why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War?

  5. Why do U.S. representatives serve shorter terms than U.S. senators

Would-be U.S. citizens will face a much harder exam on civics and history, reports Ariana Baio in The Independent.

Until now, applicants had to answer six of 10 questions correctly from a test bank of 100 questions before the exam. For example, they might be asked to name one First Amendment right, know that the Constitution is “the supreme law of the land,” pick November as the month of presidential elections, identify George Washington as the first president or name one Indian tribe.

Now they’ll have to get 12 of 20 questions correct out of a test bank of 128 questions. There are fewer one-word answers.

The old version included: Who did the U.S. fight in World War II?

The new version: Why did the U.S. fight in World War II?

The new exam resembles a more challenging version released late in 2020, just before Trump’s first term ended. The Biden administration scrapped that test, saying it created too high a barrier for citizenship.

I wonder how the average American would do on the new exam. In fact, I’m not sure most Americans could pass the old one.

Possible answers to the questions above:

  1. Equality. Liberty. Social contract. Natural rights. Limited government. Self-government.

  2. It decides who is elected president. It provides a compromise between the popular election of the president and congressional selection

  3. Out of many, one. We all become one

  4. To force the Iraqi military from Kuwait.

  5. To more closely follow public opinion.

Citizenship should require more than memorizing facts and slogans, argues Santiago Vidal Calvo in City Journal. The higher standards should start with “higher expectations — expanding basic civics and English requirements for permanent residency and certain work visas that have a path to citizenship,” he writes.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is also “changing how it evaluates the “good moral character” requirement for green-card applicants, he writes. As in the Canadian and Australian points-based systems, U.S. immigration officers can now “prioritize applicants with in-demand skill sets, advanced education, English proficiency, and a clear commitment to American civic values.”
“We should encourage newcomers to embrace an American identity,” Calvo writes. “This might include a brief course on U.S. history and civic responsibilities as an application requirement for green cards. We might ask naturalization applicants to write a short essay explaining what America means to them.”

He notes that “three-quarters of naturalized U.S. citizens say they are very proud to be American, compared with 69 percent of native-born Americans.”

Tyler Cowen makes a pitch for admitting high-ability immigrants from China, India and Russia. They’re eager to be Americans — and very good in math.

Well it sure took them long enough……

Kash Patel’s FBI Cuts All Ties to Southern Poverty Law Center

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The FBI has confirmed that it severed all ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left activist group that puts conservatives and Christians on a “hate map” along with Ku Klux Klan chapters. The “hate map” has inspired at least one terrorist attack against a conservative organization.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” FBI Director Kash Patel told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday. “Their so-called hate map has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence.”

“That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership,” Patel added.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

The FBI confirmed that it has no intelligence products from the SPLC and does not engage in contact or information sharing with the SPLC.

The statement comes days after Patel told Fox News Digital that the FBI had severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish nonprofit that opposes antisemitism but also leans left and condemns critics of transgender ideology.

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Why is Bondi’s DOJ Defending the Biden-Cornyn Gun Back Door Registration Scheme?

In a stunning betrayal of gun owners, Attorney General Pam Bondi recently ordered the Department of Justice to continue defending Joe Biden’s “Engaged in the Business” rule — a backdoor gun registration scheme.

And now there’s a new twist: a federal judge in the Northern District of Alabama just ruled that the ATF overstepped its authority with major parts of this rule, and issued a permanent injunction protecting the named plaintiffs and their members from enforcement.

Despite this rebuke, though, Bondi’s DOJ is pressing forward with defending the rule — even after President Trump ordered a full review of Biden’s gun control agenda earlier this year. This is nothing less than a deliberate attempt to kneecap Trump’s pro-gun agenda.

What the Court Did

The court declared multiple provisions of the ATF’s rule unlawful, including:

  • The claim that there’s no minimum number of guns or sales required to be “in the business.”
  • The presumption of “profit intent” even when no profit is shown.
  • The attack on the “personal collection” safe harbor, excluding firearms kept for self-defense.
  • Presumptions that reselling or advertising firearms automatically makes someone a dealer.

These provisions have now been permanently blocked against enforcement for the named plaintiffs. But here’s the catch: the rest of the country is still exposed. Unless the rule is struck down entirely, millions of gun owners remain at risk of being treated like criminals for private sales.

Cornyn’s BSCA Opened the Door for This

Make no mistake: this entire scheme is the spawn of John Cornyn’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, drafted with anti-gun Democrat Chris Murphy. Cornyn handed Biden the legislative keys to create a backdoor registry — and Bondi is keeping it alive.

Pam Bondi has a long history of selling out gun owners. She supported red flag laws in Florida, refused to stop anti-gun ordinances, and repeatedly sided with the political elite over grassroots conservatives. Now, as Attorney General, she’s siding with Biden over Trump, fighting in court to preserve Biden’s gun control legacy.

President Trump must get control of his own AG and force her to follow his pro-gun agenda.

The Fight in the Courts

There is hope, however. In the Fifth Circuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gun Owners of America are suing to stop this same rule. Texas Gun Rights and the National Association for Gun Rights filed a hard-hitting amicus brief in support.

A preliminary injunction is currently protecting gun owners in Texas and several other states. But if Bondi’s DOJ succeeds in salvaging the Biden-Cornyn rule, that protection could vanish, putting every gun owner back in the crosshairs.

As every gun owner knows: registration is the first step to confiscation.

 

Chris McNutt is president of Texas Gun Rights. 

ENEMY ORGANIZATIONAL CHART:

The Supreme Court has grated certiorari and will consider overturning a Hawaii law that imposes strict regulations on where people can carry guns.

The Trump administration had urged the justices to take the case, arguing the law violates the court’s 2022 ruling that found people have a right to carry firearms in public under the Second Amendment.

The Hawaii law bans guns on private property unless the owner has specifically allowed them.

24-1046 WOLFORD, JASON, ET AL. V. LOPEZ, ATT’Y GEN. OF HI

Wolford v. Lopez

Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred in holding that Hawaii may presumptively prohibit the carry of handguns by licensed concealed carry permit holders on private property open to the public unless the property owner affirmatively gives express permission to the handgun carrier.

Original Intent: What the Founders Had to Say About Guns
The very idea of American freedom hinges on the right to keep and bear arms.

The US Constitution took effect March 4, 1789 – and the Bill of Rights a while later on December 15, 1791. Among other freedoms, this included the Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. But now it’s 2025, more than 230 years removed from that great work of America’s Founding Fathers. So where do our gun rights stand – and what would those men think if they could see us today?

The Birth of Gun Control Meant Death to Liberty

In 1934 – more than 140 years after the Bill of Rights and nearly a century after the last remaining Founding Father, James Madison, died in 1836 – the nation’s first successful gun control bill became law. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, and he led a trifecta in the Swamp that included a supermajority in the Senate and a large majority in the House. The gun control that they passed regulated, for the first time, various types of firearms differently. Even with the majorities necessary to bulldoze the minority opposition, they knew an outright ban wouldn’t fly. So, instead, they passed a bill technically regulating the sale and taxation of certain types of arms – and, in practice, pricing out most Americans from owning them.

Three decades later, Democrats once again held both houses of Congress and the presidency. And, once again, they capitalized on a series of crises to justify further restricting the right to keep and bear arms. With the Gun Control Act of 1968, we got the establishment of prohibited persons – entire groups of people who would be stripped of the right to be armed. Guns could no longer be bought and sold commercially without going through a federally licensed dealer, in person.

In 1993, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and the background check as a way to weed out prohibited persons. This was followed quickly by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which made certain semi-automatic firearms illegal for anyone, though it expired in 2004. Democrats have been trying ever since to pass another ban – this time, without a sunset clause.

Every gun control law passed in this nation’s history – and the time between them seems to shrink with each one – brings us farther from the Founders’ vision of liberty. Yes, in the last few years, Supreme Court rulings, executive actions, and the spread of the constitutional carry movement through the states all seemed to push back on this slow march to disarmament. But freedom today doesn’t mean what it did to the Founders. They envisioned something quite different, and nothing paints a better picture of that vision than their own words.

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He must really be handing out the $$ to both sides as I can’t figure out why he hasn’t been taken care of for so long

BLUF: Donald Trump suggested RICO charges against George Soros and his son Alex, a favorite chum of Democrats, for their funding of violent protests in the United States. It certainly seems to be past time for serious investigation into and accountability for Soros’s funding of dangerous Marxist revolution.

Soros Poured $80M Into Pro-Terror Groups, Says Non-Profit Watchdog

Insidious leftist billionaire George Soros donated no less than $80 million to pro-terror groups in less than a decade, according to a new report.

In his 1987 book, The Alchemy of Finance, Soros wrote, “I have always harboured an exaggerated view of my self-importance. To put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes, or, even better, like Einstein.” Unfortunately, he transfers his god complex and massive wealth into trying to reshape our world into a globalist Marxist oligarchy.

Capitol Research Center (CRC), a watchdog of non-profits, released a report Sept. 17 stating that George and Alex Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) lavished more than $80 million on groups with ties to terrorism or extremist violence since 2016.

The evidence is stark: Open Society has sent millions of dollars into U.S.-based organizations that engage in “direct actions” that the FBI defines as domestic terrorism.

These groups include the Center for Third World Organizing and its militant partner Ruckus Society, which trained activists in property destruction and sabotage during the 2020 riots, and the Sunrise Movement, which endorsed the Antifa-linked Stop Cop City campaign, in which activists currently face over 40 domestic terrorism charges and 60 racketeering indictments.

At the same time, Open Society awarded $18 million to the Movement for Black Lives, a group that co-authored a radical guide that glorifies Hamas’s October 7 massacre and instructs activists in the use of false IDs, blockades, and economic disruption.

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Antifa Defence Fund Shuts Down After Trump’s Terrorist Designation

Democrats love to scream that Antifa cannot be designated a terrorist organization because it is a noble idea rather than an organized movement. That is bosh, and a fund that raises money for Antifa just tacitly admitted as much.

The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund has suddenly suspended its operations and indicated that, while it presently operates within the United States, it is going to move operations overseas, asserting the president and his administration are “fascists.” But the great point that ought to be hammered home is that Antifa must be a specific, organized movement with a detailed funding structure, or the fund would not suddenly be in panic over the president’s designation of the group as a terrorist entity.

Below is the current message on the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund’s website under the “Donate & Support” tab:

In September 2025, United States president Donald Trump issued an edict declaring “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization. As a precaution, we have shut down the donation infrastructure for The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund to protect our donors and recipients.

We are presently exploring our options for re-establishing the Defence Fund’s infrastructure in a country not currently governed by fascists and we hope to have good news about that shortly. Please stay tuned.

So who funds the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund? It is an interesting question, and one worthy of further investigation. Donald Trump promised that his administration would be investigating the funding sources for Antifa and other leftist radical organizations. The FBI and Treasury Department are in fact already investigating, and it would certainly be worthwhile to dig deeper into this fund.

Significantly, Marxist, leftist billionaire George Soros has donated at least $80 million to pro-terror groups since 2016. It would hardly be surprising if he and his Democrat-loving son Alex had given money to Antifa.

Speaking of which, what is the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund? Below is the jargon-laced description from the fund’s website:

We saw a need for a standing fund that could be used to provide immediate support to anti-fascists and anti-racists anywhere in the world, whenever they found themselves in a difficult situation as a result of their stand against hate.

Modelled on the defence fund run by the Anti-Racist Action Network in the late 1990s/early 2000s, The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund accepts proposals for support from anyone (by contacting Antifa International).

The page vaguely mentioned a “crew of individuals and groups” who have donated above $20 or €20 or £15, who make decisions about where the money goes.

The fund’s homepage currently promotes an individual identified as Big Tex who has been charged in Texas with multiple crimes, including resisting arrest. The fund claims he was targetted because he protected attendees at a drag event from “transphobes.” The homepage also refers to ICE officers as “Gestapo agents” and describes the July 4 ambush on an officer at the Alvarado ICE facility, for which nearly a dozen individuals were charged with attempted murder, as a “poignant” “protest” against a “violent, colonialist tradition.” The organization openly admitted to contributing to the attempted murderers’ defense fund.

All the fund is proving is that Trump was 100% right to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.

I wish the Trump administration would be more consistent in pro-RKBA moves like this.

DOJ Sues LA Sheriff Over Gun Permit Delays, Says 2A Violation Scope ‘Staggering’

The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, alleging deliberate foot-dragging by the department in processing applications for California concealed carry licenses.

If this is the first high-profile move fulfilling the mission of the DOJ’s “Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force” announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi in April, it’s a major offensive. The nine-page federal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, does not mince words.

“The scope of this constitutional violation is staggering,” the complaint says. “Between January 2024 and March 2025, Defendants received 3,982 applications for new concealed carry licenses. Of these, they approved exactly two—a mere 0.05% approval rate that cannot be explained by legitimate disqualifying factors alone. This is not bureaucratic inefficiency; it is systematic obstruction of constitutional rights.”

The complaint, submitted by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, Acting U.S. Attorney Bilal A. Essayli for the Central District of California and other DOJ officials in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, declares, “The mechanics of this obstruction are equally damning. Defendants force applicants to wait an average of 281 days—over nine months—just to begin processing their applications, with some waiting as long as 1,030 days (nearly three years). The median delay is 372 days. These delays far exceed California’s own statutory requirement that licensing authorities provide initial determinations within 90 days, demonstrating Defendants’ flagrant disregard for both state law and constitutional obligations.”

Named as defendants are the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Robert Luna, in his official capacity. The department did not immediately offer a response.

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Federal Judge: Biden ATF Rule on Firearms Sales Cannot Be Used Against NRA Members

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Corey L. Maze “permanently [blocked] federal authorities from enforcing multiple provisions of the ATF’s [‘engaged in the business’ rule],” according to Rocket City Now.

Maze’s ruling applies to two plaintiffs — “Don Butler of Talladega and David Glidewell of Ragland” — and to members of the NRA.

ATF’s engaged in the business rule became final on April 10, 2024. The rule is designed to expand the occurrences of point-of-sale background checks by counting certain private sales as business sales, thereby requiring the transfer to be handled via a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check.

As the rule prepared to be finalized, Breitbart News noted that then-ATF director Steven Dettelbach could not could not define a precise threshold for when private citizens are considered “engaged in the business” of selling guns. The ambiguity put law-abiding gun owners on edge, as they could not ascertain when they might be in violation of the rule and when they might not.

A lawsuit, Butler v. Garland, resulted, later to be augmented to Butler v. Bondi.

In the case, “Plaintiffs argue that Congress requires a person buy or sell multiple firearms before he can be deemed to be engaged the firearms’ business, and ATF exceeded its authority by roping in persons who sell or offer to sell only one firearm.”

Maze agreed with the plaintiffs, noting that the “ATF exceeded its authority when it interpreted the [the Gun Control Act of 1968] to possibly prohibit a single purchase or sale or a single offer to purchase or sell a firearm.”

Maze pointed to case law, summarizing: “Congress decided that a person is not engaged in the business of dealing in firearms unless he deals firearms ‘as a regular course of trade or business’… Regular means repeated or often. So regular business requires more than one firearm transaction involving a single firearm. Because the Final Rule says single transactions involving one firearm may be prohibited in some cases, it exceeds ATF’s statutory authority.”

He continued to examine phrases in the ATF’s final engaged in the business rule, showing again and again how the “ATF exceeded its authority,” ruling: “The court will enter a separate order that PERMANENTLY ENJOINS the Department of Justice, ATF, Acting ATF Director Daniel Driscoll, and Attorney General Pamela Bondi from enforcing these aspects of the ‘Engaged in the Business’ Final Rule against Plaintiffs Don Butler, David Glidewell, and any member of the NRA.”