Red Flag Over Philadelphia: China’s Communist Regime Honored in the Cradle of American Liberty
On September 30, the Chinese communist flag was raised over the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The flag was raised by Philadelphia’s Office of Immigrant Affairs to commemorate the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, in what was advertised as a harmless gesture of goodwill honoring the Chinese immigrant community.Â
Not surprisingly, the move drew sharp criticism, including from Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), who pointed out that the flag is not merely a national symbol, but represents China’s oppressive totalitarian regime, which not only broadly persecutes and oppresses its own citizens, but is America’s avowed enemy besides.Â
The flag-raising ceremony, which has been done at least twice in the recent past, was approved by the Philadelphia Honors Diversity Flag Raising Program, which was established in 2018. According to Philadelphia City Solicitor Renee Garcia, speaking with Newsweek, “In accordance with First Amendment precedent, the City of Philadelphia’s flag-raising policy applies objective, viewpoint-neutral criteria, specifically, a foreign nation’s flag may be raised if the country maintains a Consulate or Embassy in the United States or is recognized by the U.S. Department of State. The People’s Republic of China meets both criteria.”Â
Congressman Moolenaar, by contrast, said, “Raising the flag of the People’s Republic of China over Philadelphia is a disgrace to our nation’s founding values and flies in the face of all the courageous dissidents and human rights advocates who tirelessly work to bring freedom to the Chinese people.” And Rushan Abbas, advocate for China’s oppressed Uighurs, said that “Philadelphia, the birthplace of the U.S. Constitution, should not be used as a platform for authoritarian propaganda.”
Alas, these are the kinds of needless moral dilemmas that arise when we continue to allow our political and industrial leaders to have it both ways: to benefit economically from continued engagement with communist China, even as that regime continues to turn our own resources against us and works to subvert and destroy us. With the deadliest regime in human history there can be no middle ground. — Steve Bonta
Reports of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party: Ignored by the Major Media
Since its establishment in January of 2023, the U.S. House Select Committee on the CCP has issued many reports warning of the communist regime’s all-out war against the United States. The CCP’s agents have penetrated virtually all our institutions: colleges, universities, research facilities, corporations, Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Tech. From flooding our streets with fentanyl to buying up farmland, to setting up CCP “police stations” in our cities, the CCP is pursuing “Unrestricted Warfare” against us 24/7, day in and day out. But our politicians don’t seem to care. Ditto for the Fake News media, which rant incessantly about the supposed “threat to our democracy” posed by “right-wing extremism” but refuse to tell the American public about the genuine, imminent dangers from Communist China. In case you haven’t availed yourself of the Select Committee’s reports, we have provided links below to a dozen of their offerings.
House China Committee Raises Alarm over PRC Influence on the Panama Canal
Moolenaar, Scott Demand Answers from SEC and PCAOB on Chinese Companies’ Access to U.S. Markets
CCP on Campus: Moolenaar Demands Universities End Joint Programs Tied to Chinese Tech Theft
Moolenaar Subpoenas Wall Street’s Dimon, Moynihan for Backing Chinese Military Tech Giant
Moolenaar, Lawmakers Seek Answers After USDA Approves Chinese Genetically Engineered Soybeans
Hearing: The CCP’s Role in the Fentanyl Crisis
You may sign up for the Committee’s newsletter here so that you do not miss any of their important reports.Â
— William F. Jasper
Murdoch Family Succession Feud Ends With Lachlan Murdoch in Control of Fox, WSJ, News Corp.
The long-running Murdoch family succession feud came to a close in a Reno, Nevada, courtroom last month. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 94, successfully fought off challenges from three of his children — Prudence, Elizabeth, and James — to name his eldest son, Lachlan, as his successor. Rupert had long signaled Lachlan, 54, as his choice for successor, saying that the other children were too liberal. Lachlan, he said, would be the “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world.” Of course, Rupert Murdoch’s definition of conservative is open to challenge. (See here, here, here, and here.) Among the elder Murdoch’s many misadventures was his obsession with “cracking the China market,” which he appears to have abandoned after dumping a reported $2 billion into failed media efforts there. Many of those efforts were promoted to him by his third wife, Wendi Deng, who bears all the marks of a CCP “honeypot.” Deng, who is 37 years Murdoch’s junior, was born into a CCP family in China. Her given name Deng Wen’ge means “Cultural Revolution.” She came to the United States on a student visa, staying with Jake and Joyce Cherry, who had met her in China. She was soon having an affair with Jake, who dumped his wife to marry Deng. But months after marrying Jake to get a green card, she dumped him to have a “relationship” with another man. So it has gone with Wendi Deng, the glamorous, high-society woman, who includes Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner among her circle of friends. Her reported affairs with Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair appear to have been the last straws for Rupert. They divorced in 2013 after 14 years of marriage. They had two children together, daughters Grace and Chloe, who are included as non-voting members of the Murdoch family trust that controls the media empire.Â
Has Rupert exchanged a Chinese honeypot for a Russian honeypot, albeit one a little closer to his age? His current wife, Elena Zhukova, 67, a biologist in the former Soviet Union, came to the United States in 1991. Interestingly, Zhukova and her daughter, Dasha Zhukova, have been close with Wendi Deng. — William F. Jasper
Swiss Voters Adopt Digital-ID Scheme
In a nationwide referendum on Sunday, Swiss voters narrowly adopted a digital-ID proposal put forth by the nation’s federal government.
The proposal, formally titled the “Federal Act on Electronic Proof of Identity and Other Electronic Evidence (E-ID Act, BGEID),” passed with 50.39 percent of the popular vote. Notably, a large majority of cantons (the Swiss equivalent to states in the United States) voted against the proposal. Since the referendum did not involve a constitutional amendment, however, the proposal did not require a majority of cantons to pass.
The now-approved measure creates a government-managed digital-identification system, which is optional, at least for now. Swiss citizens may continue to use the country’s existing national ID card.
Any digital ID poses a fundamental threat to individual freedom and privacy, and would massively increase government’s ability to track citizens’ every movement. Furthermore, digital IDs are part of the United Nations’ totalitarian Agenda 2030 plan to impose central planning on a global scale, and the UN and Bill Gates are working to implement a “digital public infrastructure.”
Despite the measure passing, Sunday’s referendum result was significantly narrower than expected. The proposal passed the Federal Assembly by wide margins — 170-25 in the National Council (lower house) and 43-1 in the Council of States (upper house) — with only members of the conservative Swiss People’s Party and two minor affiliated parties objecting.
Although opponents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on the legislation, polling suggested that nearly three-fifths of voters would support it. Ultimately, the measure barely passed, and was rejected by majorities in most cantons. Swiss media and analysts saw the narrow passage as resulting from high turnout by conservative opponents of the measure.
Sunday’s referendum illustrates the dangers of democracy, specifically of the tyranny of the majority.
The U.S. Founding Fathers recognized the dangers of democracy, and instead created the U.S. federal government as a constitutional republic. For example, James Madison wrote in The Federalist, No. 10, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
The word “democracy” is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence or Constitution — and this is intentional. In contrast, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution requires each state to have “a Republican Form of Government.”
As in other Western countries, individual freedom, self-government, and national sovereignty are under attack in Switzerland, and the country is sliding toward socialism and European integration. The solution is for the Swiss electorate to relearn and recommit to the principles that made Switzerland great in the first place — Christianity, limited government, self-governance, and national sovereignty — and boldly defend and inform others about those principles. Now, more than ever, is this needed — because tomorrow could be too late.
The above is part of an article by Peter Rykowski. To see the entire article at TheNewAmerican.com, click here.
Texas Supreme Court Rules Against ABA Accreditation
In a small victory for a republican form of government, the Supreme Court of Texas has preliminarily approved amendments to state bar rules that end the American Bar Association’s (ABA) monopoly on law-school accreditation.
Reason reports:
On September 26, 2025, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a momentous order. The Justices likely signaled that the ABA will no longer have the “final say” on accreditation.
[Quoting from the opinion:] After further consideration of the matter, including review of the many helpful comments received, the Court is of the tentative opinion that the ABA should no longer have the final say on whether a law school’s graduates are eligible to sit for the Texas bar exam and become licensed to practice law in Texas.
Bloomberg Law explains what will change under the amendments, and when they will go into effect:
Instead, the Texas Supreme Court would have power to approve law schools…. Eligible schools would “satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria (such as bar exam passage rate) using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA,” the preliminary order said.
The court “does not anticipate immediate changes to the current list of approved law schools,” it said. The public can weigh in until Dec. 1 and the amendments would take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
As The New American has previously reported, and as Republican politicians and “mainstream” conservative organizations are increasingly pointing out, the ABA holds a strong bias against conservative and traditionalist principles. In March, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would no longer follow the ABA’s ratings process for federal judicial nominees.
More importantly, this decision is a small step toward pushing back against the ABA’s outsized influence over state judicial systems — one that undermines a republican form of government.
In addition to the inherent problem of giving a nongovernmental organization such enormous power, the ABA’s influence also undermines republicanism in favor of technocracy (“rule by technical experts”). For example, unelected ABA-affiliated lawyers often dominate state judicial nominating commissions. The New American has previously reported about such commissions:
During the 20th century, a new method for selecting judges — albeit one just as repugnant to republican government — grew in popularity: judicial “merit selection,” also called the “Missouri Plan” after the state that first adopted it in 1940. Under this method, judicial nominating commissions, usually composed of unelected lawyers, select a handful of judicial nominees. The state governor must choose one of the pre-selected nominees, and cannot consider alternatives. Although its supporters claim it leads to more qualified judges, judicial merit selection is a major example of technocracy, since unelected “experts,” rather than elected representatives, make important decisions under this system. Furthermore, judges appointed under this system lean toward the left when compared to those appointed under other systems. For example, in a 2009 law-review paper, Professor Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt University argued that, because of “the powerful role it accords lawyers and, in particular, state bar associations,” merit selection “may simply move the politics of judicial selection into closer alignment with the ideological preferences of the bar,” which leans left. And in an in-depth 2017 study, Fitzpatrick found that states using merit selection or nonpartisan elections had judiciaries “skewed to the left” compared to “the public at large in those states.”
Hopefully, the Texas Supreme Court’s decision is only a first step toward reining in the ABA’s power over state judicial systems.
— Peter Rykowski
Carbon Footprint Hypocrisy: Obama’s and Steven Spielberg’s $250 Million Superyacht
Climate Emergency! Net Zero. Melting Icecaps. Sustainable Development. Carbon Footprint. 15-Minute Cities. Etc., etc. You know that the “climate change” panic is all fake because the biggest promoters of the narrative that we all must sacrifice and lower our standards of living and energy usage are themselves living large and lavishly splurging on every imaginable luxury. Latest example: Barack and Michelle Obama basking in the Italian sun aboard Steven Spielberg’s $250 million superyacht, The Seven Seas. The 357-foot luxury barge is longer than a football field and boasts a pool, spa, and helipad among its amenities. The Obamas and Spielberg have been among the loudest screechy voices among the elites demanding that the rest of us sacrifice “to save the Earth” from global warming — while they live like royalty. Nothing new here; the hypocrisy of the elites is par for the course. See here, here, and here. — William F. Jasper
Purdue Study: Transition to Electric Homes, Vehicles Will Cost Households Thousands
Last month, a Purdue University study found that “replacing fossil-fueled appliances and vehicles with electric alternatives … can raise electricity demand beyond the safe limits of electrical infrastructure.” The study, which was published in Cell Reports Sustainability on September 16, continued, “This [electrification] can increase the risk of blackouts or may require grid reinforcement that is often slow and expensive.”
How expensive? “Accommodating electrification of all housing and personal vehicles is estimated to require 600 GW of distribution grid reinforcement nationally, at a cost of $350-$790 billion, or $2,800-$6,400 per household,” the study estimated.
Imagine that! Up to $6,400 per household so that the United States could “emit about half the greenhouse gas pollution than it does today,” according to the study, which reveals its bias by outrageously referring to “greenhouse gas” (which is primarily CO2 — the gas of life) as “pollution.”
However, the cost of grid reinforcement could be cut by more than two-thirds via “demand-side management,” the study claims. How so? “Software could reduce peak aggregate demand by coordinating the operation of water heaters, electric vehicles, and heat pumps. For example, heat pumps could preheat homes in anticipation of aggregate demand peaks, or electric vehicles could interleave their charging with heat pump operation.”
That is how the Purdue study describes how we can move to electric homes and vehicles without overwhelming the power grid during peak usage. Here at The New American, we prefer more direct language: The bureaucrats will tell us how much electricity we can use for charging our cars, heating our homes, etc., and when we can use it. — Gary BenoitÂ
Humphrey’s Executor: Momentous Decision Underpinning the “Fourth Branch” of Government
In 1935, the Supreme Court decided Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a case that forever altered the constitutional architecture of our Republic. At issue was whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt could remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), William E. Humphrey, simply because he disagreed with Humphrey’s policies.
Humphrey sued for his salary, but died while the case was pending. His executor carried on the lawsuit, and the case reached the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the Court sided against the president. With this ruling, the Court announced that Congress could create “independent” agencies whose officers were beyond the president’s removal power.
In one stroke, the Court severed executive accountability from executive authority. Worse still, the justices created a new category of government power — “quasi-legislative” and “quasi-judicial” — and bestowed it upon unelected bureaucrats. No such category exists in the Constitution. There is legislative power, judicial power, and executive power — nothing more, nothing less. But from that day forward, the fiction of “independent” agencies metastasized into what Justice Robert Jackson would later call “a headless fourth branch of the Government.”
The decision in 1935 was not merely a small departure; it was a wholesale reversal of precedent. Less than a decade earlier, in Myers v. United States (1926), Chief Justice (and former President) William Howard Taft had written for the Court that the president’s removal power was absolute when it came to executive officers. Taft explained:
The vesting of the executive power in the President was essentially a grant of the power to execute the laws. The President alone and unaided could not execute the laws. He must execute them by the assistance of subordinates. This view of the Constitution is not new and was entertained by the founders of our Government.
The logic was unassailable: If the president is responsible for enforcing the law, he must have the power to remove those acting in his name.
The consequences of Humphrey’s Executor were immediate and dire. Independent agencies multiplied and metastasized, each claiming insulation from presidential control. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) all trace their legitimacy to the poisoned tree of Humphrey’s Executor.
These agencies churn out regulations with the force of law. They send armed agents to enforce those rules. And when citizens resist, they drag them before administrative law judges employed by the very same agencies. In other words, they legislate, they prosecute, and they adjudicate. That is tyranny incarnate.
In recent years, the Court has begun to chip at the edges of Humphrey’s Executor. In Morrison v. Olson (1988), it upheld a for-cause removal restriction for an independent counsel. In Seila Law v. CFPB (2020), it struck down a for-cause removal protection for the single director of the CFPB, holding that such a structure violated the separation of powers. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, confined Humphrey’s to “multimember expert agencies that do not wield substantial executive power.” In Collins v. Yellen (2021), the Court reaffirmed the president’s removal authority over the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The trajectory is clear: Humphrey’s Executor is no longer untouchable. The Court has already admitted, in effect, that the doctrine cannot stand as written.
The 1935 travesty of Humphrey’s Executor has never been more vulnerable than it is today. This December, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Trump v. Slaughter, a case that strikes at the rotten heart of that precedent and gives the justices a golden opportunity to rip it out root and branch. The facts are simple: President Trump removed Rebecca Slaughter from her post at the FTC without citing “cause.” She sued, hiding behind the tattered shield of Humphrey’s Executor. A lower court dutifully marched in lockstep with that 1935 decision and ordered her reinstated. The government appealed, and now the case rests in the hands of a Supreme Court.
For 90 years, Humphrey’s Executor has served as the cornerstone of the unconstitutional “fourth branch.” It is long past time for that cornerstone to be demolished.Â
— Joe Wolverton II, J.D.
Justice Thomas Criticizes SCOTUS Precedents Doctrine
During a September 25 appearance at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas declared that legal precedents are not “gospel,” challenging the unconstitutional stare decisis overreach of judicial supremacy that activist judges have used to enforce unconstitutional rulings. Thomas emphasized that flawed precedents must be overturned to restore true constitutional governance, not precedent that violates adherence to the Constitution.
Thomas’ long-standing critique of judicial precedents echoes his 2022 concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, and challenges the precedents such as those set by the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling on same-sex “marriage” and Humphrey’s Executor v. United States ruling on executive power. Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion in Dobbs that stare decisis should not bind the Court to unconstitutional precedent, writing:
After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated.
The federal courts have strayed far from the Founding Fathers’ vision of a judicial branch co-equal and independent of the legislative and executive branches of government.Â
The concept of “judicial supremacy,” the idea that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is constitutional, is itself unconstitutional, and opposes the intent of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson warned an overruling judiciary would make “the constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.”Â
The judicial branch’s intended purpose is to interpret laws in individual cases, not dictate binding precedent on the co-equal executive and legislative branches. Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, No. 78:
Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.
Americans must rally behind Thomas’ call to overturn unconstitutional precedents, and urge Congress to assert its Article III powers to limit the federal judiciary and restore the Founders’ vision of a constitutional republic with three coequal branches of government. Furthermore, the states should exercise their sovereign authority and nullify unconstitutional court rulings.Â
— David DeRidder
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