From One Fake Left-wing Hysteria to the Next

 by Victor Davis Hanson

The decade-old age of fables like Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, or the pangolin/bat cause of COVID is not over; it is just hitting midstream.

For much of April, amid stock downturns, in the classical paranoid style, we were assured by the Wall Street Journal news reporters and the liberal press that Trump had either a) guaranteed an inevitable recession, b) engineered a losing trade war he likely regretted, c) crashed the stock market, d) lost his once majority favorability ratings, e) mostly had a failed first 100 days, or f) all of the above.

Some of us thought these diagnoses and prognoses were absurd. How in mediis rebus, during a radical counterrevolution never quite seen before, could anyone issue such bleak predictions? Would these same observers have said the U.S. was doomed to lose World War II after the bleak first five months of mostly failure in the Pacific, or North Africa, after the utter U.S. army disaster at the Kasserine Pass?

When the Biden administration compiled two consecutive quarters of negative GDP—the supposedly classic definition of a recession—most of these same pundits assured us that the data was meaningless and irrelevant. The same left-wing media throng insisted Biden was in his cognitive prime until hours before he abdicated from the ticket under pressure. They swore to us that Robert Mueller’s “walls were closing in” on Donald Trump, who would legitimately go to jail, buried by 93 lawfare indictments.

As for their polls showing that Trump was all but through after three months in office, almost all of them were not just off in the 2016 presidential race, but again in 2020. And given the chronic temptation to warp polls to create Democratic momentum and fundraising, they rigged their polls yet again in 2024—even when they knew in disgrace that they were ruining their brand. A former Harris campaign official just admitted that internal polls never showed Harris ahead—even as the majority of polls predicted her victory.

So why would anyone believe any of these people? Take the now-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Its recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll assured us that 45 percent of the public gave Trump an F for his first 100 days, with only 42 percent expressing approval of his job so far.

But this is the same bunch that also assured us in its final authoritative 2024 election poll, on the very eve before the voting, that Kamala Harris would win the race by 4 points—a lead proverbially “outside the margin of error.” (The next day, she lost the popular vote by 1.5 percent or 2,284,952 votes and the Electoral College by 312-226). The public broadcasting polling partnership was off 5.5 points, perhaps suggesting that it wished to aid the Harris campaign more than either adhering to professional and ethical norms or fearing to lose what little was left of its reputation.

As soon as the Washington Post and the New York Times issued their dismal Trump bias polls, observers quickly pointed out they had, by intent, vastly underpolled those who voted for Trump in 2024. In contrast, the polls with the best 2024 records had Trump’s 100-day approval ratings near even or positive: Rasmussen was 50-49%, and the joint national surveys by Insider Advantage and Trafalgar Group had Trump up at 100 days, 46-44%.

As far as the supposed economic and stock meltdown, the March and April monthly economic reports showed that job growth was not only impressive but well above market expectations, with special emphasis on permanent rather than part-time jobs, even as the number of federal workers went down.

News of massive, multi-trillion-dollar investments and relocations to the U.S. continues. Far from having all the pressure levers in the tariff standoffs, China is starting to realize that the U.S. market is still the center of the world, while its own autocratic party dictatorship—again contrary to pundits’ warnings—is far more vulnerable to rising popular dissent than is a constitutional republic like the U.S.

Inflation in March and April either did not increase or, in fact, declined. Corporate profits were solid. Energy costs went down. Now that we have actually passed Trump’s first 100 days, where is the crashed stock market that supposedly signaled the recession on our doorstep?

The Standard & Poor 500 is back at the level of March 10, roughly where it was before the hysteria—and 12 percent up from a year ago. By May 2, both the Dow and S&P indices showed the longest continued gains in over 20 years. The Dow is now about where it was in September and October before the election—at levels that had not so long ago made investors giddy.

The media-academy nexus is also in hysterics over Trump’s threats of suspending federal funding to higher education unless it makes reforms consistent with Supreme Court decisions and Department of Education guidelines.

Many of us have warned campuses that it would be wiser to compromise, given the public would soon learn of what they had been doing for decades—and would be unpleasantly surprised. After all, private, multibillion-dollar endowed elite campuses took billions of dollars in easy federal money—despite endemic anti-Semitism, flagrant flaunting of U.S. civil rights laws and court decisions by continuing to use racial and gender biases, lucrative but unsavory financial partnerships with illiberal regimes of the Middle East and communist China, spiraling annual tuition costs exceeding the annual rate of inflation, 40-60 percent surcharges and overhead gouging of federal grants, and nonexistence of First Amendment protections for visiting speakers and lecturers, and on and on.

No matter. As soon as Harvard vowed that it would rally its elite brethren campuses against the administration, news predictably began to leak about the culpability and exposure of the real Harvard. Why did it only now and so suddenly rush to end its sister-campus relationship with the terrorist-supporting Birzeit University on the West Bank, or why now replace directors of its radical Center for Middle Eastern Studies program—in a fashion it never had previously dared even after the massacres of October 7?

Then, news of a joint China-Harvard program abroad suddenly surfaced. Allegedly, Harvard had aided members of what some have called a Chinese “paramilitary organization,” despite that group previously being sanctioned for its role in the Chinese state violence conducted against the Uyghurs—a fact that apparently did not surface publicly or perhaps even particularly bother any of the usually hypersensitive and quick-to-demonstrate Harvard students and faculty.

Shortly thereafter, a comprehensive Harvard in-house anti-Semitism report surfaced, documenting in detail the routine harassment of and threats to Harvard Jewish students. In truth, even if it wished to, Harvard now could not control its out-of-control and institutionalized anti-Semitism. It is a bane that Harvard has systematically ignored. It permeates the entire campus and is deeply embedded in the university’s Middle East Studies DEI architecture and recruitment of illiberal foreign students from dictatorial regimes.

The Harvard Law Review (currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s civil rights division) just bestowed a $65,000 fellowship to law student Ibrahim Bhramar. What did Bhramar do to earn such Harvard lucre?

Apparently, he was rewarded either for or despite attacking a Harvard Business School Jewish student during one of the recent anti-Israel campus protests, racking up misdemeanor criminal charges in the process. The prosecutor had noted that Bhramar had conducted “a hands-on assault and battery…and actual interpersonal violence” against the student. Rewarding an anti-Semitic attacker with $65,000 says it all. In 2024, hundreds of Harvard students and faculty disrupted their own graduation, commencing with walkouts and shouts of “free Palestine.”

In sum, despite the Harvard hysteria, it quietly knows what it has been doing, what the stakes are should it lose $2-9 billion in ongoing taxpayer support, and why it would not like full disclosure to the public of both its many excesses and lapses. So, if it is smart, Harvard will likely quietly seek a compromise with the Trump administration.

Finally, we are watching a full Democratic/left-wing meltdown.

Its puerile anti-Trump antics have gone from the clownish to the obscene and violent.

What is the point of disrupting a presidential congressional address by screaming and cane shaking, or of a silly 25-hour pseudo-filibuster? Who believes that smutty sh*t and f*ck congressional videos, or foul-mouthed threats to Trump and Elon Musk (e.g., “dipsh*t,” a**hole”) will win over Independents?

What is the strategic logic behind Democratic governors and senators threatening to cause havoc at Republican officials’ town halls, or to ignite “mass protests” and “disruptions,” so that “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace”?

Does anyone believe that yet a third impeachment of Trump will ensure a Democratic midterm victory?

Or is the correct left-wing playbook to champion a motley array of assassins, spousal abusers, and gang members? Is it wiser then to either laud or ignore attacks on Tesla dealers, owners, and chargers, or wink and nod at blatantly anti-Semitic demonstrations and protests?

Is there anything taboo for the hysterical left?

Yes—it cannot offer the country a simple “Democratic Contract for America”—listing its own solutions to the nation’s existential crises.

There is not a single Democratic blueprint of how to address a $2 trillion budget deficit, $3 billion in daily interest payments, $37 trillion of national debt, or a $1.2 trillion annual trade deficit.

There is no post-Biden corrective agenda to deal with his legacy of 12 million recent illegal aliens, added to the existing 20 million current unlawful immigrants.

Not a single Democratic senator, representative, or party official has put forth any plan to end the Biden-era conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Nor will they even discuss the challenge of biological males wrecking women’s sporting events, institutionalized campus anti-Semitism, or unlawful race-based chauvinism.

On all these matters, the Democrats and their leftist supporters have offered no counter-proposals, no alternate agendas, and no unique solutions to the nation’s problems—other than boring, profanity-ridden venom and tired performance-art buffoonery.

Reliance on warped polls, untrustworthy and biased reporting, and media sensationalism will not help such poverty of thought and character.

Obscene, hysterical, and clueless is no way to appeal to Americans, Democrats.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/05/from-one-fake-left-wing-hysteria-to-the-next/

Trump’s Three Steps to Economic Growth

 Readers of this paper know better than anyone: Wall Street has experienced historic success over the last four decades. Since 1980, the S&P 500 has increased more than 5,500%. Our capital markets are the envy of the world, and President Trump intends to strengthen them further.

The president recognizes the critical role Wall Street plays in financing the American dream. But it’s Main Street’s turn to share in the prosperity. This is the guiding ethos of his bold economic agenda.

He wants to ensure working families aren’t left behind in the next era of economic growth—as many were in the last. In the first 100 days of his presidency, we have laid the groundwork to rebalance global trade, restore America’s industrial base, and build an economy that allows Wall Street and Main Street to rise together.

To understand the urgency of this economic rebalancing, it’s critical to understand why it is necessary in the first place. The early 2000s represented the high-water mark of neoliberalism—the “end of history” in which despotism would give way to democracy and free trade.

Not coincidentally, this period also marked China’s rise in global commerce after joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. Economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson identified the “China Shock” in a 2016 paper on the uneven effects of trade liberalization: 3.7 million Americans lost their jobs. Offshoring production to China accounted for 59.3% of U.S. manufacturing job losses, and most of these workers entered long-term unemployment.

Proponents of this wrecking-ball policy argued for making up its losses through wealth redistribution—as if a handout could heal the families and communities shattered by outsourcing. In the ultimate show of condescension, some academics labeled this the “compensate the losers” strategy. It failed miserably.

Even though the price of consumer goods declined, the cost of living increased as housing, education and medical-insurance costs soared. Millions of Americans experienced an absolute decline in real income. Every leading politician ignored the national rupture caused by globalization, until Donald Trump.

How do you reunite a country divided by trade? How do you ensure all Americans can succeed going forward, while enhancing national security? These questions are top of mind for the new administration. Our economic agenda seeks to answer them.

Mr. Trump intends to usher in the most prosperous decade in American history—but not at the cost of the spiritual degradation of the working class. The administration has charted a new course for the economy—one that strengthens both the shop floor and the trading floor. We are doing so in three steps:

First, renegotiating global trade. Tariffs are an effective tool for balancing international commerce. They reduce trade barriers in other countries, opening more markets to American producers while also bringing back thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Economic security is national security. The Covid pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in our supply chain and the risk of relying on other countries for critical manufacturing. Tariffs can increase our industrial capacity and strengthen our national security by reshoring supply. They can also raise substantial revenue.

Second, making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and adopting the president’s new tax priorities: no tax on tips, overtime and Social Security. Mr. Trump’s tax reforms will improve the quality of life for Americans harmed by reckless trade policies. Advancing these reforms and making the 2017 tax cuts permanent will provide individuals and businesses with certainty and build economic momentum.

Workers and small businesses benefited most from Mr. Trump’s first-term pro-growth tax agenda. The bottom 50% of households saw their net worth increase faster than the top 10%. The administration is now working closely with Congress to ensure those measures don’t expire at the end of 2025. The Council of Economic Advisers estimates that failing to extend the Trump tax cuts would cost a median-income family with two children more than $4,000 in take-home pay.

This year’s tax bill will restore 100% expensing for equipment and expand that incentive to new factory construction to accelerate reindustrialization. The president’s proposed deduction for auto loans on U.S.-made cars will spur more production, jobs and tax relief.

Third, deregulating the economy. America must build again—not only homes and factories but also semiconductors, power plants, artificial-intelligence data centers and other technologies of the future. Reawakening our industrial capacity is key to raising employment and wages among the working and middle classes and the only way to compete with China for technological and military supremacy.

For America to build, government needs to get out of the way. That’s why this administration embraces an ambitious deregulation agenda. Removing harmful regulations will allay the national debt and result in savings for individuals and businesses. Mr. Trump has already saved the average family of four $2,100 simply by repealing Biden-era regulations. In addition to helping Americans save, we want to enhance their access to capital by easing undue compliance burdens on community and other small banks, which play a crucial role on Main Street by providing loans for cars and homes.

Part and parcel of the deregulation agenda is establishing energy dominance. Energy will fuel our manufacturing renaissance. The president has declared a national energy emergency, opened 1.53 million acres in Alaska for energy development, and lifted the Biden administration’s pause on liquefied natural gas terminals. The average price of gasoline is 50 cents lower than a year ago.

Critics of the Trump economic agenda attack individual policies in isolation. This cherry-picking tactic ignores how these policies are interconnected. Trade, tax cuts and deregulation aren’t stand-alone measures but interlocking parts of an engine designed to drive economic growth and domestic manufacturing.

Tax cuts and cost savings from deregulation raise real incomes for families and businesses. Tariffs provide income-tax relief and create incentives for reindustrialization. Deregulation complements tariffs by encouraging investments in energy and manufacturing.

The engine is already starting. For the second month in a row, Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report beat expectations, with 177,000 jobs added in April. More than half a million private-sector jobs have been added since January. Add to this falling inflation and the first decline in consumer prices since Covid.

This is just the cylinder firing. The American people should expect to hear the engine humming during the second half of 2025. With all pistons moving, we’ll see more jobs, more manufacturing, more growth, a more robust national defense, higher wages, lower taxes, less-burdensome regulation, cheaper energy, less national debt and less dependence on China—all while maintaining a strong dollar.

This is how we restore the working class, re-establish the U.S. as an industrial powerhouse, and right the wrongs of lopsided trade policies. This is how we pave the way for Wall Street’s next 40-year run while making sure Main Street runs alongside it. This is how we make America great again for all Americans.

Scott Bessent is U.S. Treasury secretary.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-three-steps-to-economic-growth-tariffs-trade-tax-cuts-deregulation-7804053a

(None Dare Call It) Treason of the Judiciary

 Thursday, April 24, was a day like any other day – the sun came up, the sun went down, and Donald Trump was hit with at least three nationwide injunctions by federal district court judges.

That’s just the way it goes if you are a president who wants to take back America from the entrenched left-wing bureaucracy and restore common sense to government before it is too late.

The danger of the bureaucracy was predicted by Julien Benda in his 1927 book “The Treason of the Clerks,” which warned of the danger of the intellectual class adopting political passions that had previously been the sole domain of the masses. We see this most distinctly today in the federal bureaucracy, which I dare say has the greatest concentration of degree-holders from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia (and the like) of any sector in the nation, other than the incestuous universities themselves.

The treason that Benda described was the loss of independence of thought and dispassionate reason by intellectuals, and the accompanying subservience of intellect to political passions. During Trump’s first term, I wrote a column describing the danger that Benda had foreseen:

Benda wrote at the beginning of the age of mass communication, and yet he already saw that “political passions have attained a universality never before known. … Thanks to the progress of communication and, still more, to the group spirit, it is clear that the holders of the same political hatred now form a compact impassioned mass, every individual of which feels himself in touch with the infinite number of others, whereas a century ago such people were comparatively out of touch with each other and hated in a ‘scattered’ way” …

It seems that we are now living out Benda’s worst nightmare — an age of manipulation of the masses by those who think they know better — whether you call them the “deep state,” the “opposition party,” “the national elite,” “the entrenched bureaucracy,” or just “the establishment.”

And for the past 10 years, they have turned their hatred on Donald Trump. Without rhyme or reason, they fight him on every reform and arm themselves with invented scandal and fake news.

Now, in Trump’s second term, we see that the bureaucracy has a close ally in the judiciary – not one judge, but multitudes that aim to preserve the status quo of liberal governance. If that wasn’t clear before April 24, there was no room for doubt after the day was filled with one court ruling after another telling Trump to “stand back and stand by” rather than to exercise his lawful power as president.

Here’s what tumbled out of the judicial branch that day:

– A federal district court judge in California blocked Trump’s executive order that would have denied federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities that limit or forbid cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

– A Washington, D.C., judge blocked the Trump administration from following through on the president’s executive order requiring that voters in federal elections show proof of citizenship when registering.

– A district judge in New Hampshire blocked efforts to defund public schools that utilize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Not to be outdone, judges in Maryland and Washington, D.C., essentially issued the same order, giving added protection to one of the least popular programs ever shoved down the throat of American citizens.

At the time, those were the latest of more than a dozen nationwide injunctions issued by unelected federal judges who appeared more interested in preserving and protecting left-wing shibboleths than the Constitution.

Also in courts across the nation that week were attempts by judges to reject Trump’s authority as commander in chief to ban transgender participation in the military, to deny Trump the right to strip security clearances from law firms that he says put national security interests second to political partisanship, and stop the administration’s efforts to eliminate federal news services such as Voice of America that engage in anti-American propaganda.

Those are all in addition to the several injunctions issued relative to Trump’s promised reform of the immigration system to expedite deportation of illegal immigrants, especially those who have a criminal history or are members of international gangs.

If that seems normal, it isn’t. There were only six nationwide injunctions during the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, and only 12 during the Obama presidency. That increased to 14 under President Biden, which was surpassed by President Trump in the first nine weeks of his second term when 15 such injunctions were issued. Of course, Trump should be accustomed to such judicial abuse. In his first term, there were 64 injunctions against his policies, a staggering 92.2% issued by Democrat-appointed judges. Julien Benda would have clearly recognized the “political passions” that had supplanted the disinterested intellectual rigor we once expected of our judges.

Yet because of our habituated respect for the separation of powers, none dare call it the treason of the judiciary.

That of course is a reference to the 1960s tract “None Dare Call It Treason” by John A. Stormer. Stormer took on the country’s intellectual elites, blaming them for working against the interests of the nation by tolerating or quietly promoting communism. The left-wing elites of the day laughed it off as another right-wing conspiracy theory, but as time has passed it’s become clear that there was indeed a long-range effort to corrupt our institutions with Communism 101 – reducing social acceptance of religion, turning education into indoctrination, and infiltrating government with the intelligentsia that thinks American values are outdated.

Now, at long last, we can see the fruit of the corrupt tree sprouting in our court system, where judges help illegal immigrants escape through the back door of the courtroom, where other judges demand the return of deported gang members or halt the deportation of antisemitic radicals, and where every effort to put America first is ruled unconstitutional.

Fighting back against the overreach of the judiciary must be Donald Trump’s No. 1 priority as he seeks to restore sanity to the federal government. Because the most important principle of constitutional law that is being decided in the next few months is whether the president is truly the chief executive or whether he serves at the pleasure of left-wing judges who put political passion ahead of national interests.

In the ultimate irony, the case must be decided by nine men and women in black robes, the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fate of the nation’s future hinges on whether they will seek justice impartially or be swayed by partisan rancor.

Unfortunately, it’s an open question.

Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His book “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA and on X/Gettr @HeartlandDiary.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/05/05/none_dare_call_it_treason_of_the_judiciary__152746.html

Google has launched new film and TV production wing, Business Insider reports

 Google has launched a new film and TV production initiative to scout projects it could fund or co-produce, Business Insider reported, a move that could help it capitalize on an industry reeling from rising production costs and potential U.S. tariffs.

The initiative, called "100 Zeros", is a multi-year partnership with Range Media Partners, a talent firm and production company known for its work on films including "A Complete Unknown" and "Longlegs", according to the report on Monday.

Alphabet-owned Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is looking to boost the visibility and adoption of its newer offerings including AI and spatial computing tools that blend the physical and virtual worlds through the initiative, which backed the marketing of indie horror film "Cuckoo" last year, the report said.

100 Zeros is among the producers for "Cuckoo", according to entertainment-focused social platform Letterboxd.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The reported move comes as Hollywood grapples with higher costs after twin strikes in 2023 by actors and writers, as well as the threat of U.S. tariffs on foreign-made films.

Google already has a partnership with Range Media — it announced last month the companies would work together over the next 18 months to commission films about AI. The first two films from the venture — called "Sweetwater" and "LUCID" — are set to release later this year.

Using Hollywood’s cultural clout could also help the tech giant in the AI race as it rushes to drive up adoption of its services such as Gemini, which competes with the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The company, however, is not looking at YouTube as a primary distribution platform for 100 Zeros’ work, Business Insider reported, adding the goal instead was to sell projects to traditional studios and streamers such as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX).

YouTube had ventured into original programming in 2016 with the launch of "YouTube Originals". The project was shuttered in 2022 as it pivoted back to its core focus on user-generated videos and ramped up its TikTok-style short-form offering, Shorts.

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/google-has-launched-new-film-and-tv-production-wing-business-insider-reports-4022571

Israel Unleashes Massive Strikes On Yemen With 30 Jets, After Ben Gurion Airport Attack

 In the wake of the unprecedented Sunday direct hit on Israel's Ben Gurion international airport by a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis of Yemen, Israeli leadership has vowed to hit back hard. "The attack on Ben Gurion Airport has removed all restrictions from our perspective," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has stated. He emphasized, "Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold" - amid an emergency meeting of Israel's security cabinet. Al Jazeera and regional media say that response has come on Monday. There are reports that 30 Israeli jets are bombing Yemen's main port, along with US military assistance:

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem has reported that Houthi-affiliated media has said a total of nine sites have been hit in Hodeidah.

Israeli media has reported both at least 30 Israeli fighter jets were involved in strikes on Yemen, which come a day after the Houthis attacked the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, with a missile landing near the facility.

A senior US official has said the raids were being carried out in coordination with the US. Al Jazeera could not immediately confirm that information

Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said late Sunday the Israeli army was preparing for a wide-scale military response, also as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called out Iran for giving support to the Ansarallah movement (Houthis). 

"We, along with the entire world, are under threat from the Houthis. We will not tolerate it and will take very strong retaliatory action against them," Netanyahu told Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, who is currently in Israel on an official visit.

A readout continued, "We will always remember that they acted under the orders and with the support of their patron — Iran." The prime minister stated further, "We will do what needs to be done to deliver a proper warning to Iran that we cannot tolerate such acts."

Stilframes from social media via Times of Israel

Over the weekend Netanyahu also posted to X a prior warning from President Trump which stated, "Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!"

Crucially, Israeli media reports citing military officials confirmed that the US-supplied THAAD missile as well as the Arrow defense system failed to intercept the inbound ballistic missile. Israel's defenses tend to be most effective for the type of shorter-range missiles launched by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Social media images showed the missile impact on the airport grounds Sunday...

At least six bystanders were injured - some hit be debris ejected from the site - but none of them seriously. The projectile hit beside a road near a Terminal 3 parking lot, and opened a diameter in the ground of tens of meters wide as well as tens of meters deep.

Netanyahu is under pressure to respond in a big way. For many months the Houthis have already been firing heavy missiles on Israel, but they typically fall harmlessly into the open desert, or are shot down by Israeli defenses.

Israel has at times sent fighter jets to bombard Yemeni cities in the recent past, including the vital port of Hodeidah, but this along with the more sustained American-led campaign has done nothing to deter the Shia fighters. The Houthis have vowed to keep up their blockade of Red Sea shipping, and attacks on Israel, until the occupation of Gaza ends.

Until now, Israel has let the United States lead the way in terms of retaliation against the Houthis; however, it could be preparing to join the US-led anti-Houthi coalition on a more permanent basis in the Red Sea theatre. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-mulls-full-war-yemen-puts-iran-notice-following-ben-gurion-airport-strike

What Do We Know About the Causes of Autism?

 The latest surveillance data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show a steep rise in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), extending a years-long trend of increasing diagnoses.

While greater awareness and improved diagnostic criteria have likely played a role, other potential contributing factors remain unclear and questions persist about what’s truly driving this phenomenon.

These new surveillance data came on the heels of an April 10 announcement by US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who set a September deadline to determine the cause of what he called an “autism epidemic.” 

“By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures,” Kennedy said.

However, many scientists who have spent their careers studying ASD are deeply skeptical that a definitive answer could be found in just a few months — if at all.

What Do the Latest Data Show?

The CDC regularly compiles data on ASD prevalence through the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. The findings are considered to be among the most reliable snapshots of autism rates in children. The CDC’s most recent data from the 2022 ADDM surveillance cycle are based on 393,353 8-year-olds across 16 US sites.

The CDC report shows that ASD affects 1 in 31 children (32.2 per 1000), up from 1 in 36 in 2020 and 1 in 150 in 2000. ASD continues to be more common in boys than girls (ratio 3.4:1).

ASD prevalence was higher among Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, and Hispanic children than White children, continuing a pattern first observed in 2020.

Children born in 2018 were more likely to be diagnosed by age 48 months compared with those born in 2014, suggesting increased early identification consistent with historical patterns.

Why Is ASD Prevalence Rising? 

The CDC’s latest findings have prompted renewed scrutiny over why ASD prevalence continues to rise.

CDC investigators noted several factors that may be driving the increase, including broader diagnostic criteria, greater awareness among parents and pediatricians, and improved access to specialized services.

Together, these shifts mean children who may have been overlooked in previous decades are now being identified.

Kennedy has long expressed concern about environmental toxins and their potential role in ASD. At an April 16 press conference, he claimed that such toxins disrupt neurodevelopment and are behind the rising caseload. He described autism as “a preventable disease” and pledged to identify the environmental culprit by September.

“We’re going to follow the science no matter what it says,” Kennedy said. “And we will have some of the answers by September.”

In a statement, the International Society for Autism Research said referring to the condition as a “preventable disease” is “out of touch with contemporary, evidence-based understanding of autism.”

“Based on current autism research, we know that there are many causes of autism, and virtually all of these occur prenatally,” the statement continued. “In other words, you are born with autism.” 

Genes, Environment, or Both?

A robust body of evidence points to a substantial genetic component in ASD etiology. Studies of twins dating back to the 1970s have consistently shown that the vast majority of ASD is due to genetics, said Alexander Kolevzon, MD, clinical director of the Seaver Autism Center at Mount Sinai in New York City.

“With advances in genetic technology and analytic methods, hundreds of specific genetic changes have now been identified and are commonly accepted to cause autism. Yet the same twin studies show that if one identical twin has ASD, the other may not about 10% of the time, leaving room for some environmental influence,” Kolevzon told Medscape Medical News.

“Environmental effects may be acting through epigenetic mechanisms where certain factors, as of yet unidentified, influence the expression of genes. However, despite being an active area of study, no widespread environmental effects have been reliably established to date,” he added.

When it comes to environmental contributors, a substantial amount of research has focused on exposures during the prenatal period — a critical window for neurodevelopment.

For example, a 2019 JAMA Pediatrics population-based cohort study of 132,256 births showed that maternal exposure to nitric oxide during pregnancy was associated with increased risk for ASD in offspring.

Investigators leading a 2022 study of 294,937 mother-child pairs found that exposure to particulate matter 2.5 in the first two gestational trimesters were associated with increased ASD risk in children. In addition, a 2022 study from France showed prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides was linked to an increase in autistic traits among 11-year-old children.

Maternal metabolic conditions may also play a role. In April 2025, a meta-analysis of 202 studies including more than 56 million mother-child pairs showed that children born to mothers with gestational diabetes were 25% more likely to be diagnosed with autism. Researchers have also linked ASD risk to preterm birth and advanced parental age.

It’s thought that these exposures likely act as modifiers — influencing gene expression, immune activation, or neuronal development — rather than standalone causes.

Gut-Brain Link?

An emerging area of autism research involves the gut microbiome and whether gut dysbiosis contributes to ASD risk.

“There have been several studies showing that there is gut dysbiosis in autism, and that it correlates with autism symptoms,” Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, PhD, professor, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, told Medscape Medical News.

“However, we know that any behavioral differences must be via gut microbiome/metabolite interactions with the human nervous system,” she said.

In an April 2025 study published in Nature Communications, Aziz-Zadeh’s team was the first to identify links between gut microbial tryptophan metabolites, ASD symptoms, and brain activity in individuals with autism, particularly in brain regions associated with interoceptive processing. This points to a “mechanistic model by which gut metabolites may impact autism,” she said.

“It’s possible that addressing gut imbalances (via diet, probiotics, prebiotics, fecal transplants) may be helpful. However, we still don’t know if there is a critical age where this may need to happen (prenatal, early life). There is still a lot of work to be done to answer this question,” she said.

In another recent study, microbiota transfer therapy led to significant improvements in gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, autism-related symptoms, and gut microbiota in children with ASD.

The effects of the initial treatment on both gut microbiota and GI symptoms were maintained at the 2-year follow-up, with continued improvement in autism-like behaviors, the researchers reported.

A Realistic Deadline? 

When Kennedy declared a September deadline for identifying the cause of autism, reaction was swift. Advocacy organizations, professional societies, and many research scientists expressed skepticism regarding the feasibility of such a deadline, noting that complexity argues against finding a single cause.

“The odds of identifying a single factor that causes autism, whether genetic or environmental, is zero,” said Kolevzon.

The 5-month timeline Kennedy set “gives people a false sense of hope” and risks politicizing science, the Autism Society of America said in a statement. “The Autism Society of America finds the administration’s claim that ‘we will know what has caused the Autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures’ — to be harmful, misleading, and unrealistic.” 

Aziz-Zadeh said that 60%-90% of the causes of autism are likely due to genetic factors. “However, since that number isn’t 100%, there are also contributing environmental factors — what those might be, we still don’t know — and likely there isn’t a single one,” he said.

In a letter signed by more than 130 scientists, the newly formed Coalition of Autism Scientists rejected Kennedy’s “false narrative” about the incidence and causes of ASD.

“We are unified in our commitment to conduct the highest quality research and build mutual respect and trust with the public. This trust is seriously threatened by the Secretary’s interpretation of the rising prevalence rates and his plans to carry out a study that will deliver findings within a few months on an environmental toxin that causes autism,” the statement said.

An ASD Registry? 

Equally concerning to many in the autism community was a recent announcement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about plans to establish a “new disease registry” focused on ASD that would collect federal and private health data for upcoming autism studies. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, made the announcement during a presentation to the Council of Councils on April 21.

However, HHS walked back that plan 3 days later, following an outcry from the autism community. HHS spokeswoman Vianca N. Rodriguez Feliciano told Medscape Medical News that the agency is not creating an autism registry but is developing a “real-world data platform” linking existing datasets “that maintains the highest standards of security and patient privacy while supporting research into autism and other areas such as chronic diseases.”

NIH is also investing $50 million to launch a comprehensive research effort aimed at understanding the causes of ASD and improving treatments by leveraging large-scale data resources and fostering cross-sector collaboration, Feliciano added.

Feliciano did not respond to follow-up questions from Medscape Medical News to clarify whether the data platform would include patient identifying information or such data sources as pharmacies, private insurers, and personal wearable sensors, as noted by Bhattacharya during his presentation.

Autism Speaks, an advocacy group, said that research should not focus solely on the causes of autism. “We also need to invest in studies that lead to real improvements in people’s lives — like better healthcare, education, job opportunities, and support at every stage of life for autistic people and their families,” the group said in a statement.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/what-do-we-know-about-causes-autism-2025a1000aug