A liberal journalist goes to Cuba expecting to document Trump’s damage. The Cubans have other ideas.

Worth’s questions about American policy produced another revealing exchange. During nine days of travel, he had not met a single person who blamed Donald Trump or the United States for their situation. He sometimes reminded people about the blockade and asked whether conditions had worsened. Retired engineer Guillermo Almeida told him he saw no change since January. Venezuelan oil, he explained, had not been reaching ordinary Cubans anyway. Another man offered a concise explanation: “It seems to us that the real embargo is inside of Cuba.” Worth’s questions suggest he was trying to establish the consequences of Trump’s blockade. The Cubans’ answers kept taking him back to the consequences of their own government.

Worth acknowledged that the pandemic devastated tourism and reduced remittances from relatives abroad. Those developments made an already depleted state weaker. They do not explain six decades of political control, economic mismanagement, and repression. The Atlantic Council’s examination of Cuba’s state-run economy describes a failure years in the making.

Worth also visited a Catholic nursing home in Havana. Its residents included former government employees and military officers abandoned by the state and their families. One former soldier had fought in Angola and carried a tattoo of Che Guevara, acquired when he was eighteen. He had once believed in the revolution. Now he wanted its leaders gone. Even men who had served the revolutionary project were spending their final years in an institution run by the Church.

Worth’s final stop was Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago, where Fidel Castro’s ashes are kept. The grounds were immaculate. Soldiers in pressed uniforms performed a precise changing of the guard to patriotic music. Then a breeze carried the acrid smell of burning garbage across the cemetery.

The revolutionary shrine was pristine. The country it left behind was not.

There is an irony in Worth’s reporting. He went to an island celebrated by the American Left for its socialist achievements. He encountered a priest feeding the hungry, elderly women begging for survival, a nurse struggling without supplies, and citizens who had lost faith in their government. His reporting placed socialism’s celebrated promises beside the lives of the people who were supposed to benefit.

For Cuban-Americans, the contrast is deeply personal. Here in the United States, we take pride in our Cuban roots. We celebrate our heritage, culture, food, music, and the history our families carried with them. We did not leave Cuba because we were ashamed of being Cuban. We left because a political system made it impossible to live with freedom and dignity.

Worth encountered people on the island who had not lost their Cuban identity. They had lost hope in the country where they were born. Here, Cuban is a badge of honor. There, it has become a burden of birth.

Worth may not have set out to write an indictment of socialism. But his reporting brought him face to face with the distance between the socialist ideal celebrated abroad and the reality endured at home. Whether he has reconciled that contradiction is his question to answer. The journalist’s journey is the story. His tribulation is the confrontation between what he thought he knew and what he discovered.

By American Thinker – https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/11/the-tribulations-of-a-socialist-in-a-socialist-paradise/

On October 29, 2026, ICE announced the arrest of dozens of individuals in connection with alleged voter fraud and election-related offenses, including numerous cases of illegal aliens who admitted to unlawfully registering to vote or casting ballots. 

These arrests are not isolated. They form part of a broader Trump administration effort to restore law and order after the Biden-Harris administration recklessly left the southwest border wide open. Encounters surged to more than 7.2 million between January 2021 and early 2024higher than the population of 36 states, and known gotaways added roughly another 1.5 to 1.8 million, for a combined total of approximately 8.7 to 9 million.

This week’s release comes just days before Election Day on Tuesday, November 3, and the message from the Trump administration is unmistakable: illegal aliens will not be tolerated in American elections.

Acting ICE Director David J. Venturella said the arrests grew out of careful, methodical investigations run with federal, state and local partners. “American elections must be conducted in accordance with the law, and allegations of illegal voting deserve our undivided attention,” Venturella said. “When the facts support criminal charges, we pursue them. Every eligible voter deserves an election process that follows the law.”

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was direct in a statement: “The patriots of ICE have arrested dozens of non-citizens who illegally voted in American elections,” Mullin said. “Some of them have criminal histories that include assault with a dangerous weapon, domestic violence, drug trafficking, burglary, and driving under the influence. The Trump Administration will not allow illegal aliens to steal the votes of hardworking American citizens. American elections are for Americans only.”

The cases reflect the Trump administration’s continuing push to enforce election laws and remove illegal aliens from the voter rolls.

Juan Carlos Matute-Hernandez, a Honduran national unlawfully present in the United States, cast a ballot in a 2026 election and was arrested for driving offenses. Darwin Yoel Zelaya-Orellana, another Honduran national present without authorization, voted in a 2026 federal election and was previously convicted of a third-degree sex offense. Mai Tran, an illegal alien from Vietnam, voted in the 2024 federal election and carries convictions for fraud, drug possession, selling cocaine, burglary, larceny and illegal use of credit cards.

Phath Vorn, an unlawfully present alien from Cambodia, voted in a federal election as far back as 1992. He has convictions for assault with intent to murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and possession of a weapon. Jaimie Sosa-Sardina, an illegal from Cuba, voted in 2024. He has been convicted of selling cocaine, battery, and resisting an officer. Aden Hassan Aden, a criminal migrant from Somalia, voted in the 2020 federal election. He has convictions for domestic violence, drug possession, and larceny.

According to figures DHS provided exclusively to The Daily Wire, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has revoked or terminated the status of roughly 2.2 million non-citizens since President Trump’s second inauguration, nearly seven times the number the Biden administration processed in its final two years. “President Trump promised the American people that our immigration laws would be enforced, and these numbers reflect the scale of that commitment,” Mullin said. “Those who abuse or flagrantly disregard our immigration system are now on notice that these violations of law will not be tolerated or overlooked. Securing our border was only the beginning.” He added: “We are restoring integrity to the entire immigration system and putting the safety of our American citizens first.” Election integrity has been a parallel front.

These results form part of the broader record the White House detailed on October 20, 2026, in “How President Trump Ended the Border Invasion and Restored American Sovereignty”

The administration has revoked more than 300,000 foreign visas, including at least 4,000 tied to birth tourism and 6,000 from foreign students who committed crimes or have ties to terrorism. More than 700 visas from Chinese nationals have been revoked by President Trump’s Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force since it launched in August. It has also arrested more than 12,100 gang members, including more than 1,500 Tren de Aragua affiliates and nearly 2,000 MS-13 affiliates, along with more than 2,200 known or suspected terrorists, more than 2,000 of whom have already been removed. Drug overdoses have fallen by more than 40% from the Biden-era peak, a drop that tracks with the sharp reduction in illegal crossings and the disruption of the smuggling networks that move fentanyl and other narcotics into the country.

That same enforcement effort has reached the ballot box. The Justice Department charged 48 foreigners with election-related offenses as prosecutors stepped up cases. DHS has also warned secretaries of state about illegal registrations and directed ICE to pursue stricter penalties, including deportation, for illegal aliens who cast ballots.

For years the media and its political allies insisted illegal voting was a myth. ICE’s release this week is only the latest set of arrests this year involving non-citizens who registered or cast ballots. With named defendants, prior convictions, and admissions of casting unlawful ballots, it shows the states’ failure to supervise voter rolls and the media’s refusal to acknowledge it.

The Trump administration’s response is clear. Enforce the law, remove the offenders, and protect the vote of every American who followed the rules. Promises kept.

In their accounts of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, federal agencies have rewritten the story to leave out a hero, according to family members of a local SWAT team member whose shot incapacitated Thomas Crooks before a Secret Service sniper killed him.

Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi of the Adams Township Emergency Service Unit SWAT team is recognized in the “Final Report of Findings and Recommendations from the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of President Trump” as firing the shot, according to the New York Post.

But the outlet said federal agencies “erased” Zaliponi’s efforts.

In its report, the FBI glossed over the shot, which hit the would-be assassin’s gunstock and shattered it, “causing an explosion of shrapnel [which] smashed into Crooks’ right neck and jaw area.”

Zaliponi’s shot “set up the delayed but successful kill shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper,” the report on the July 2024 incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, said.

Zaliponi told the task force, “I knew I hit him… I have combat experience. His demeanor… there was that jerking motion…  he kind of jerked down to my left, his right. Then he slowly rolled like he just had no strength, whatever.”

Crooks did not fire again after being hit. The panel found that 10 seconds elapsed until a Secret Service sniper killed the would-be assassin.

“The shot neutralized Thomas Crooks,” Kim Geyer, Zaliponi’s mother-in-law, said. “It prevented a mass shooting. He saved a lot of lives that day.”

“Ask anyone who was there. There was over a 10-second pause, and it wasn’t until after that 10 seconds a Secret Service sniper took Thomas Crooks down,” she said, adding that local police “were thrown under the bus by the Secret Service and the FBI.”

“He was on the ground, and he was shooting up to Thomas Crooks,” Geyer said, adding that after Zaliponi fired, “Crooks rolled over, and he was stunned.”

But the federal agencies wanted no local heroes, she argued.

“As far as the FBI and the Secret Service go, nobody wanted to take this into account. They just wanted the narrative to be that Thomas Crooks was killed and the threat was eliminated. The Secret Service wanted the credit, that after massive security failures they got their act together and took this guy out,” Geyer said.

“There was no consideration that our local people, who weren’t there to protect the president, ended up being the ones that neutralized the threat,” she added.

Others have nevertheless honored Zaliponi.

“President Donald J. Trump’s life was saved by an armed American in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thanks to swift action by law enforcement officers like Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi, an even greater tragedy was prevented,” the National Rifle Association said in awarding Zaliponi its 2025 “Officer of the Year” award.

The sergeant’s actions also earned him the “In the Face of Danger Award,” which was presented by Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday last year, according to WTAE-TV.

“When gunfire suddenly erupted from the rooftop of a nearby building, Sgt. Zaliponi immediately recognized the threat. Without any hesitation, repositioning, or moving to cover, despite the extreme danger to his own life, he calmly shouldered his rifle,” Sunday told the crowd.

“In less than six seconds after the first shot was fired from 115 yards away, Sgt. Zaliponi acquired his target and fired a single accurate round, stopping the threat,” Sunday added.

By Western Journal – https://www.westernjournal.com/heroic-crack-shot-local-cop-sniper-saved-trumps-life-erased-news-embarrassed-feds-family/

President Donald J. Trump has argued that unnecessary regulations and outdated mortgage processes have made homeownership unaffordable for Americans and driven up closing costs. On Thursday, he signed an executive order designed to lower the costs of single-family homeownership and mortgages, remove unnecessary red tape, and expand access to the American dream of homeownership.

The order, called “Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People,” directs federal agencies to ease mortgage insurance rules and make refinancing cheaper.

Under the main provision, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director must direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to set up a pilot program for new mortgages. The companies will periodically check home values with automated models, identify borrowers who have built enough equity, and cancel their private mortgage insurance. The administration says the change will eliminate a large monthly expense for qualifying Americans. Servicers would have to notify eligible homeowners quickly and avoid unnecessary appraisals or paperwork.

Private mortgage insurance is required on most conventional loans with less than 20% down and can add $100 to several hundred dollars a month. This mandatory insurance often stays on for years even after the home has appreciated. FHFA Director Bill Pulte called the order “the greatest Housing Executive Order in History,” adding that “millions of Americans will save thousands and thousands of dollars.”

A separate section directs the FHFA director to expand the agency’s title insurance waiver pilot into a permanent nationwide program through both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On eligible refinances, the companies could accept an automated title review instead of traditional lender’s title insurance, with the savings passed to borrowers to reduce closing costs and monthly expenses.

The director is also told to consider wider eligibility, fewer geographic limits, and lower fees or documentation requirements on limited cash-out refinances.

The order also creates a Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation, co-chaired by the HUD secretary and the FHFA director. Within 180 days the group must recommend ways to increase the quality of and lower the cost of building a home by making it easier to use modern factory-built methods for homes that qualify for federal programs.

The secretaries of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs are directed to lower interest rates on the single-family loans their departments make directly, targeting rural and veteran borrowers.

Housing affordability remains strained, which is why the President has moved to act.

The average 30 year fixed rate mortgage stood at 7.32% on the day of the order, up from a low of roughly 2.65% in 2020, when Trump was previously in office. Over the same period, average home prices rose from roughly $475,000 to about $502,700. Pending sales, housing starts, and building permits have all weakened as high prices and rates above 7% slowed the market. The order arrived less than two weeks before midterm elections in which affordability has been a central issue.

Homeownership is a vital pillar of our great Nation and a fundamental piece of the economy. The Trump Administration is working to cut burdensome costs and red tape with the goal of making the American dream of homeownership more affordable and attainable for the American people.

The October 22 order builds on earlier steps the administration has described as dramatic action to decrease housing costs, including a January directive restricting large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, a plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities, a March order that cut some regulatory burdens on mortgage origination, and a crackdown on H-1B visa abuse that includes a $100,000 fee on new petitions and a rule barring non-permanent residents from FHA-backed mortgages.

Ex-FBI Director James Comey has been charged with federal crimes for actions he took in distributing national defense information to an individual not entitled to receive it, marking the third case filed by Department of Justice prosecutors against him. The charges were filed in federal district court in the District of Columbia.

The charges relate to information Comey and unnamed co-conspirators violating federal law in October 2016. The first count covers the unauthorized communication of information relating to national security, with the second count stating that “such information could be used to injure the United States and to the advantage of any foreign nation—knowingly and willfully communicated, delivered, transmitted, and caused that information to be communicated, delivered, and transmitted to a person not entitled to receive it.”

Reuters reported on the charges Wednesday and Comey had already commented on the matter. “Comey said in a video on Instagram that ‘they’re back ​again’ and ​referenced ⁠the Justice Department, but did not ​provide further details,” with the news outlet adding that attorneys representing Comey have already asked for the case to be dismissed.

The legal troubles for Comey continue. In May, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the “86 47” case goes beyond just an Instagram post. He told NBC Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, “The career assistant United States attorneys in North Carolina, the career FBI agents, the career Secret Service agents that investigated this case, didn’t just look at the Instagram post to walk away. That’s why you saw an indictment… notwithstanding the fact that it was last May that the post was made. So I am not permitted to get into the details of what the grand jury heard or found, as you know. But rest assured that it’s not just the Instagram post that leads somebody to get indicted.”

Personally, I want to know why 29 heavily armed FBI agents did not crash through the doors and windows of James Comey’s home. 

I want to know why there weren’t amphibious units in water sources near his house, ready to capture him if he tried to escape.

I want to know why he has been allowed to turn himself in over and over again, because I wasn’t given that opportunity.

I was subjected to a political raid that rivaled a bust of Pablo Escobar, or an active shooter.

I’m happy to see somebody as disgustingly corrupt as James Comey officially charged, but I want to know why there seems to be a double standard when it comes to how our federal law enforcement handles cases based on the political affiliation of their target.

To understand more about James Comey, you have to understand where he came from.

Former FBI Director James Comey had numerous ties to the corrupt Clinton political machine, and he still does. One connection is his brother, Peter. Peter Comey is an executive at DLA Piper, the law firm responsible for filing the Clinton Foundation’s taxes. James Comey holds the mortgage for his brother’s mansion, tying a direct financial connection between Comey and the Clinton Foundation while he was investigating Hillary. (via Big League Politics)

James Comey was appointed by Obama because he was a political insider with many dark connections to the Democrats. Obama trusted Comey not to target the establishment he was a part of.

The former president’s hunch was ultimately proven correct, as James Comey allowed numerous Democrat crimes to go unpunished during his three-year term leading the FBI.

James Comey has been connected to the Clinton criminal network for decades. In 1996, James Comey acted as the deputy special counsel for the Senate committee investigating the Whitewater scandal. The Senate was investigating shady real-estate loans authorized while Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. (via ABC News)

Many people connected to the Whitewater company were arrested and charged with over 40 crimes, yet the Clintons remained unscathed. James Comey acknowledged that Hillary Clinton obstructed the investigation and destroyed evidence, yet he decided not to prosecute due to lack of “intent”.

After observing the soft-handed approach Comey took investigating the Clintons, Obama appointed him in 2013. James Comey repeated his past, 23 years after the original Whitewater investigation. Again, he decided not to press charges — this time for Hillary’s mishandling of classified information, even after condemning her actions. The same phony “intent” excuse was used. (That’s how it works!)

James Comey was rewarded handsomely for enforcing a two-tiered justice system where the political elite live free from consequence.

After leaving the Department of Justice in 2005, Comey moved into the private sector to receive his rewards. He was hired as the General Counsel for Lockheed Martin — the largest recipient of contracts from the Department of Defense. Comey was paid over $6 million before leaving the corporation in 2010.

Immediately after Comey left Lockheed Martin, he became a partner of the Clinton Global Initiative and was awarded 17 contracts from the Hillary Clinton State Department.

James Comey left Lockheed Martin with newfound wealth and joined the board of directors of HSBC Holdings, a British bank. The bank is a long-time partner of the Clinton Foundation and rewarded Comey well until he was appointed by Barack Obama.

James Comey’s career highlights the incestuous pay-for-play relationship between major corporations and the political elite. Comey let the Clintons off for their crimes and was heavily rewarded by corporations who were, in turn, rewarded with government contracts and favorable policy. This is exactly the swamp that President Trump promised to drain, and removing Comey was the first major step.

James Comey is a traitor, and he belongs In a cell. Preferably right next to John Brennan.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is suspending a Biden-era program that allowed Chinese nationals to visit the Northern Mariana Islands without a visa, according to a federal notice filed Monday.

The program allowed prescreened Chinese travelers to visit the U.S. territory in the western Pacific for business or tourism, generally for up to 14 days. The suspension is set to take effect at 2 p.m. Eastern time on October 30, three days after the notice’s scheduled publication in the Federal Register.

Once the suspension takes effect, Chinese nationals seeking to visit the islands for business or pleasure will need a nonimmigrant visa unless another lawful exception applies, according to the notice. The change applies to new applicants and travelers who already have an active authorization under the program.

Chinese visitors who have already been admitted under the program and are legally in the Northern Mariana Islands when the suspension begins may remain for the rest of their authorized stay. They will need a visa for future visits, unless another exception applies.

DHS said it would review the program in consultation with the State and Interior departments. The notice does not give a date for completing that review.

Mullin’s decision follows an April 22 letter from Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Rick Scott (R-FL), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who urged him and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to end the program.

The senators argued that the policy encouraged birth tourism, by which foreign nationals travel to the United States to give birth so their children can obtain U.S. citizenship. The letter reads:

“We strongly urge the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to end the CNMI Economic Vitality and Security Travel Authorization Program — a benefit that should not be afforded to a recalcitrant country like Communist China. We further encourage, in alignment with previous Congressional requests, the termination of Hong Kong’s participation in the broader G-CNMI visa waiver program.

In its notice, DHS said the availability of visa-free travel may make it easier for people to travel to the islands to give birth. The department also said birth tourism could strain the territory’s medical resources.”

DHS cited security concerns, including the possibility that Chinese nationals could use the program to gather intelligence near U.S. military facilities. The department said more than 3,000 Chinese nationals entered the Northern Mariana Islands through the program in fiscal year 2025. Those travelers were vetted by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rather than a State Department consular officer, according to the notice.

DHS Markwayne Mullin Shuts Birth Tourism Loophole for ChineseThe department pointed to two cases involving Chinese nationals who were sentenced for smuggling other Chinese nationals from the Northern Mariana Islands to Guam. DHS said most of the people involved in the second case were later found in or near sensitive military installations. The incidents cited in the notice occurred before the travel authorization program was implemented.