When Washington shuts down, it doesn’t just stall politics — it shakes the lives of America’s veterans. At the outset of the government shutdown last month, a veteran named James called VetComm in tears. His question was simple but heartbreaking: “Will I still get paid next week? Because I can’t afford groceries if I don’t.”

James served his country with honor. Yet he worried about feeding his family because Democrats in Washington insist on prioritizing illegal immigrants over the very men and women who defended this nation.

Enough is enough. Stop putting illegal immigrants ahead of the heroes who built and defended this country.

I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for veterans like James — those who bled for this country, only to watch so-called representatives in Washington bend over backward for people who entered it illegally. With this latest government shutdown, Democrats have again slammed the door on veterans while rolling out the red carpet for illegal aliens.

A manufactured crisis

For over a month, Democrats held the entire nation hostage, demanding a $1.5 trillion, poison-pill-stuffed funding bill that includes “free health care” for illegal aliens while programs for veterans teeter on the brink. It’s not just reckless — it’s cruel. These are the same priorities that helped drive a 19% spike in veteran homelessness while illegal migrants got luxury hotel rooms on the taxpayer’s dime.

As the shutdown ends, the facts are clear. The House passed a clean continuing resolution to keep the lights on, maintain VA funding, and avoid chaos. But Senate Democrats — led by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York — rejected it, choosing to plunge the country into an unnecessary shutdown to appease their left-wing base.

The Democrats’ alternative was loaded with giveaways: subsidies for illegal immigrants’ doctor visits, hospital stays, and “health care rights,” while hundreds of thousands of veterans remain stuck on VA wait lists — some dying before they’re seen.

Staggering hypocrisy

Schumer once said avoiding a shutdown “is very good news for the country, for our veterans … all of whom would have felt the sting.” More recently, he warned that “a shutdown would mean chaos and pain and needless heartache for the American people.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared, “It is not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want.” Jeffries said shutdowns are “about the harm.”

Those very same politicians ended up leading one — weaponizing activist wish lists and pet projects against the GOP and the nation.

RELATED: Disabled vets denied dignity as VA claim backlog becomes unbearable

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This pattern of betrayal isn’t new. Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the VA was caught reimbursing health care for illegal immigrants and their families, draining resources from veterans. I’ve seen it firsthand in San Diego — hotels packed with migrants while homeless veterans sleep on sidewalks, dodging needles and despair.

Over 10 million illegal crossings have occurred under the Biden administration’s watch. The result: big money for migrants, broken promises for veterans. The audacity to continue putting invaders ahead of patriots is shocking — and unforgivable.

The real human cost

Everyone knows a shutdown hurts troops, veterans, and families. Yet Democrats embraced it anyway, in service to radical ideology over national duty. Americans overwhelmingly oppose this madness.

Enough is enough. Stop putting illegal immigrants ahead of the heroes who built and defended this country. It’s time to restore sanity and start prioritizing America again.

At VetComm, we see the toll every day. The sleepless nights. The panic over missed paychecks. The spiraling PTSD and anxiety triggered by uncertainty. Veterans have already given everything; they shouldn’t have to fight their own government for stability and dignity.

Our mission is simple: Stand in the gap for those who stood for us. We help veterans understand their rights, claim the benefits they earned, and remember that their service still matters. A shutdown tests that mission — but it also steels our resolve.

Because while Washington bickers, we will keep fighting for every veteran, every day, not just Veterans Day.

​Opinion & analysis, Veterans, Veterans day, Shutdown, Democrats, Illegal immigration, Illegal aliens, Healthcare, Health insurance, Benefits for illegal aliens, Benefits, Congress, Budget, Continuing resolution, Chuck schumer, Hakeem jeffries, Alexandria ocasio-cortez 

The Alternative for Germany party has spent over a decade sounding the alarm about the fallout of mass migration in Europe. For its efforts, the German political establishment has sought to ban, vilify, disarm, debank, and criminalize the party and its members.

Now that imported crime has become too much to bear — such that Berlin is once again a dangerous place for Jews and homosexuals — and the AFD has become too popular to ignore, a leading German official has joined the chorus of those seeking to repatriate so-called asylum seekers from Syria.

‘41.8% of all people suspected of crimes in Germany last year — a year that saw a nearly 6% increase in year-over-year violent crimes — were foreign nationals.’

Chancellor Friedrich Merz — whose center-right coalition consisting of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union parties is neck and neck in the polls with the AFD — struck a new tone last week, suggesting that the bulk of the over one million Syrians who flooded into the country over the past decade should hit the road.

Merz suggested further that he’ll work with Syria’s terrorist president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to help facilitate the return, reported Politico.

“The civil war in Syria is over,” said Merz. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, which means we can begin repatriating people.”

The chancellor noted further that the Syrians temporarily dwelling in Europe have a responsibility to rebuild their war-torn nation.

“Without these people, reconstruction will not be possible,” said Merz. “Those in Germany who then refuse to return to the country can, of course, be deported in the near future.”

RELATED: Orbán emphasizes to Trump that Hungary survives today as Christian ‘island of difference in a liberal ocean’

Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images

Marc Bernhard, an AFD lawmaker, recently told PBS’ “Frontline” that of the 1 to 1.2 million Syrians now in Germany, “Most of them don’t have jobs. Most of them are not well integrated. That’s exactly the issue.”

Fewer than 290,000 Syrian nationals were reportedly employed in Germany last year.

So-called asylum seekers from Syria receive over $500 a month under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act as well as other benefits, including housing support, dental care, and health insurance.

‘These people must return to their homeland.’

In addition to draining citizen resources, Syrians in Germany are also grossly over-represented in crime statistics.

Mass migration to Germany from the Middle East has coincided in recent years with a massive spike in rape and other violent crimes.

A government-commissioned study revealed in early 2018 that there was a 10.4% increase in violent crime at the height of the immigration crisis. Deutsche Welle reported that 90% of this violent crime increase was attributable to immigrants, predominantly males between the ages of 14 and 30.

Foreign nationals have continued to commit an alarming number of crimes in the years since. Federal police crime statistics indicate that 41.8% of all people suspected of crimes in Germany last year — a year that saw a nearly 6% increase in year-over-year violent crimes — were foreign nationals.

The top five nationalities of non-German suspects in 2024 were: Syrian, 114,889 suspects; Turkish, 93,253 suspects; Ukrainian, 55,669 suspects; Romanian, 65,041 suspects; and Afghani, 49,427 suspects.

The imported crime problem became so bad last year that Olaf Scholz, the former German chancellor who long championed predecessor Angela Merkel’s open-borders policies, acknowledged that criminal noncitizens should be deported.

Speaking a month after an Afghan migrant butchered a police officer at an anti-jihad demonstration in Mannheim, Germany, Scholz said, “It outrages me when someone who has found protection here commits the most serious of crimes.”

“Such criminals should be deported, even if they come from Syria or Afghanistan,” added Scholz.

Just weeks after Scholz dared upset the open-borders leftists in the Bundestag, a 26-year-old Syrian migrant butchered three people — two men ages 56 and 67 and a 56-year-old woman — and left another six grievously wounded at a Christian music festival in Solingen.

The situation has deteriorated further in the months since, prompting Scholz’s successor and other German establishmentarians to echo the AFD’s calls for action; however, they appear unwilling to fully embrace mass deportations. Instead, they are reportedly entertaining the prospect of deportation of criminal Syrian nationals.

Merz indicated last week that he would speak to al-Sharaa about deporting Syrians convicted of crimes back to their homeland.

The AFD clearly isn’t interested in such half-measures.

“We say quite clearly: Syrians must now have their protected status revoked because the reason for their fleeing no longer applies,” AFD co-leader Alice Weidel said two days after German authorities arrested a Syrian man suspected of preparing a jihadist attack in Berlin. “These people must return to their homeland.”

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​Friedrich merz, Afd, Germany, German, Berlin, Syrian, Migrants, Migrant, Terrorism, Europe, Leftism, Merkel, Deportation, Remigration, Repatriation, Politics 

For years, Americans have been told a comforting lie: Anyone can do anything, be anything, and succeed at anything, regardless of limits or differences. But ideological fantasies collapse on the battlefield, where physics, endurance, and human limits matter more than slogans.

After years of social experimentation, the military is rediscovering a basic truth: Equality of opportunity makes the force stronger, while equality of outcome weakens it. The return to gender-neutral standards announced last month by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth marks a long-overdue step toward restoring merit, discipline, and respect across the ranks.

Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.

For most of our history, the armed forces held one clear principle: Anyone, male or female, could serve in any position if they met the same standard. The promise was simple and fair — the uniform didn’t care about sex or gender, only performance.

That began to change in 2015, when the Army opened all-male combat units to women. At the time, the Pentagon promised no dilution of standards. But in 2018, when the new gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test was introduced, 84% of female soldiers failed. Instead of maintaining expectations, the Army rewrote them.

By 2022, the ACFT 4.0 came with gender-based scoring — a quiet admission that standards had become negotiable. The result: Combat units staffed with soldiers unable to meet the physical requirements of their jobs. That puts missions, morale, and lives at risk.

Worse, it undermines respect for women who do meet the standard. When the bar moves, doubt replaces trust. Hardworking female soldiers — the ones who earned their places — are forced to prove themselves twice: once in training and again in the eyes of their peers.

Diversity by design, weakness by consequence

In 2021, U.S. Special Operations Command declared that “diversity is an operational imperative.” But this new “imperative” wasn’t about the real diversity already found across the military — people from every background, race, and income level serving side by side. It was about engineering statistical parity, even in elite combat units where performance alone must decide who stays and who goes.

That mindset has consequences. Combat units can’t afford ideological experiments. The job is to close with and destroy the enemy — not to serve as laboratories for social theory. Lowering standards in the name of inclusion doesn’t just weaken readiness; it puts soldiers in unnecessary danger.

And no woman who trains to fight wants pity disguised as progress. The women who seek out elite units don’t ask for special treatment — they ask for the same chance to prove themselves by the same rules. When standards drop, those women lose too.

Strength in truth

Gender-neutral standards don’t discriminate. They recognize that men and women are different and that most people — men included — simply can’t meet the demands of combat. That’s not “oppression.” It’s just reality.

Women who pass those standards have demonstrated extraordinary strength, skill, and resolve. They deserve admiration, not suspicion. And those who don’t — along with the vast majority of men who don’t — can still serve honorably in the hundreds of vital roles that keep America’s military functioning.

RELATED: How America lost its warrior spirit when it feminized its academies

Photo by Kevin Carter

A sex-neutral standard is an act of fairness, not exclusion. It’s a recognition that excellence demands truth, not ideology — that merit, not identity, keeps soldiers alive and wins wars.

Restoring purpose

The military’s duty is national defense, not social engineering. Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.

Reaffirming one standard for all isn’t an attack on women — it’s a defense of every soldier’s dignity. It calls each person to rise to the challenge, to serve according to one’s God-given abilities, and to be judged by results.

If we want a stronger force — and a stronger nation — we must stop confusing fairness with fantasy. Let’s demand standards worthy of the uniform, and let every soldier, male or female, earn respect the same way: by meeting them.

​Military, Women, Recruits, Fitness, Opinion & analysis, Woke military, Pete hegseth, Standards, Department of war, Gender-neutral, Women in combat, Army combat fitness test