Americans Appear to Be Doing Jobs We Were Told They Wouldn't Do - Reliance on Foreign Labor Down in Texas

RedState 

For decades, we have been told that America needs foreign labor to "do the jobs Americans won't do." For Democrats and the left, that usually translates to illegal immigrants. But in the wake of President Donald Trump's closing of the southern border and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, it turns out that there are plenty of jobs that Americans are willing to do, and a new survey seems to be bearing that out in at least one state. 

The new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank in Texas shows that many companies in the Lone Star State are reducing their dependence on foreign labor. The survey, taken between February 10 and 18, shows a 20 percent decrease in “workers from a different country." That 20 percent is up from just two percent in February 2024. Within the last year, only 13 percent of companies had increased their reliance on foreign labor, down from 41 percent in February of 2024. However, there is still plenty of work to be done to reduce the dependence on foreign labor, as 68 percent of companies said they showed no change either way. The problem is that there are still many loopholes that allow construction companies to hire illegal immigrants without much risk, including hiring subcontractors and staffing agencies, who will mistakenly claim their workers are legally allowed to work.

However, the flip side of this good employment news is that many companies actually demand that the government supply them with cheap foreign labor so they can get around a labor market that is increasingly favorable to Americans' ability to bargain for benefits, and also to avoid investing in any new or more productive techniques or technology. Now, homebuilders in Texas are pitting President Donald Trump's illegal immigration crackdown, including raids on job sites, against his goal of putting the purchase of a new home more within reach for many Americans, and they are doing it by warning Trump that the GOP could lose many of the inroads made with Hispanic voters. 

Johnny Vasquez is an executive officer of the Rio Grande Valley Builders Association. He pointed to Hidalgo County, which went red for Trump in 2024, as one of the gains Republicans might lose. He stated bluntly, “For me and for our association, we need workers, whether they’re American or not. We just need workers.” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson answered, saying:

“There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump’s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration’s commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws."

She added, “We see our priorities reflected in an agenda focused on higher wages, lower costs, and more opportunity."

Many reports say that Trump's America First policies are increasing pay for all Texans, including Hispanic Americans. A December 2025 report from The Birmingham Group stated:

The current labor shortage is driving unprecedented wage increases across commercial projects. Construction firms report difficulty filling critical positions, with some markets experiencing job opening-to-candidate ratios exceeding 3:1. This imbalance has created a seller’s market for skilled workers, enabling significant salary negotiations and competitive pay packages.

One of the biggest deterrents to illegal immigration is cracking down on those who hire them. So, the question for Johnny Vasquez might be: Are you saying there is a correlation between Hidalgo County going red and whether you hire Americans or illegal immigrants? 

Like anywhere else in the U.S., with the possible exception of blue states, the less foreign labor there is, the more jobs there are for American workers. That is what will keep Texas and other states red.

Mass Psychosis And Left-Wing Groupthink

Mass Psychosis And Left-Wing Groupthink

Real truth doesn’t need a shield from questions — only mass psychosis does.

Jim Davis for American Thinker

In the warped universe of today’s Social Justice Warriors, Trump is Hitler. Racism is baked into our DNA and lurking around every corner, Nazis are hiding under every bed, white supremacists run the show in our major institutions, and any inconvenient facts that punch holes in this nonsense just prove how sneaky and deep-rooted the evil really is.

The more they scream it from the rooftops, the more it solidifies as “truth” in their echo chambers. Their sealed-off media bubble keeps the illusion alive, sucking believers into an endless loop where everything gets twisted to fit the narrative, no matter how absurd.

Playing the race card, or defining anyone who disagrees with their lifestyles as a “bigot” or a “homophobe,” is their first and only line of defense. It’s all framed to protect their sacred cows — gender as a pick-your-own adventure, identity politics as the ultimate power play, systemic racism as the original sin, CRT as gospel, science bent to political whims, Modern Monetary Theory as economic voodoo, and the rest of their pet theories.

These aren’t up for debate or real-world testing; they’re handed down as unquestionable truths. “Believe the science,” they said. “The vaccines are safe and effective,” they said. But here’s the kicker: a lot of this junk is actually checkable against hard evidence, if you know where to look — and it crumbles under scrutiny — yet the true believers won’t let facts get in the way.

Just the other day, Glenn Beck was chatting with Buck Sexton about his new book, Manufacturing Delusion, which digs into how propaganda and brainwashing tricks have cranked out obedient sheep throughout history.

Sexton tipped his hat to Joost Meerloo, a Dutch-American M.D. and psychoanalyst, for laying the groundwork. I stumbled onto Meerloo myself about 30 years ago, when researching a term paper for a political science class.

In Meerloo’s 1961 classic, The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing, he laid out how mass delusions can be engineered on purpose:

If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside corrective, and can hypnotize the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be instilled.

We saw the inducement of mass psychosis shifting into overdrive during the 2020 campaign with “Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation.” Then we saw it again during the COVID pandemic, when experimental mRNA vaccines were described in the same glowing terms as the polio vaccine, which saw 16 years of rigorous clinical trials before limited distribution.

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At the same time, COVID restrictions on mass gatherings — and Joe Biden’s understandable choice to campaign from his basement in Delaware, since the elderly are high risk — induced a mass psychosis that believed he was just as mentally competent as he was in the 1990s. And we saw yet another inducement of mass psychosis with the anti-Trump Lawfare of 2024.

It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots: the war on free speech isn’t some side hustle.

Mass psychosis is a house of cards. It can’t handle a stiff breeze of challenge — it needs a fortress of censorship protecting it. Expose these delusions to just a few sniper shots from critics, who are well-armed with the facts, and the contradictions pile up until the whole house of cards collapses. (And you can rely on a few key essays of mine to provide those facts.)

Once it’s lodged in the collective skull, the psychosis turns defensive, like a cornered animal. It’s been said that “It’s easier to fool someone, than to convince him that he’s been fooled,” but Meerloo nailed it:

Delusions, carefully implanted, are difficult to correct … The mass delusion that gives him feelings of belonging and omnipotence is dearer to him than personal awareness and understanding.

That’s why these mass psychosis hysterias so often slide straight into authoritarian thuggery. Shut down independent thought, gut the forums for real debate, and watch anxiety skyrocket — then the frightened herd of sheeple begs for a strongman to impose “order.” Any outfit peddling stability looks golden, even if they’re the arsonists who started the fire.

In a few critical months in 1917, Soviet leftists ostensibly offered stability, prosperity, and a rebirth of national pride in the chaos of post-revolutionary Russia. Then Hitler stepped into the politics of the inflation-wracked Weimar Republic, offering the same promise. It just keeps happening, and their history is a cautionary tale for America and the West in 2026.

Look at modern politics — it’s this same vicious cycle on repeat: sow chaos, then swoop in with vows of “normalcy,” from the very same left-wing clown car that created the disaster with its toxic narratives.

Sure, humans are champs at kidding themselves, but these groupthink psychoses aren’t bulletproof. They start cracking when ideas flow freely — more questions, more pushback, more rival info streams, and more Democrats being asked tough questions. You may have noticed that they avoid interviews where they’ll be asked tough questions. They always get interviewed by Axios, CNN, MSDNC, or Daily Beast, rather than Daily Wire, Newsmax, or American Thinker.

It’s no coincidence that this is the polar opposite of the gatekeeping game. Stifle dissent, slap “misinformation” labels on it with left-wing “fact checking,” or just purge it from the conversation, and your belief bubble stays intact instead of getting stress-tested.

Gad Saad calls this the Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome — the knee-jerk denial of plain reality for feel-good fairy tales. In his book, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, Saad puts it straight:

There is no ‘black mind’ or ‘white mind,’ no ‘white male way of knowing.’ There is only one truth, and we find it through the scientific method.

Both sides of the aisle hurl “you’re delusional” accusations at each other’s conspiracy theories. In a limited sense, yeah, both might have a point — but only if the conspiracy theories were equally debunkable. Spoiler Alert: they’re not. A psychosis that withers under contradiction is worlds apart from one that’s rigged, so that every scrap of data, even the data that screams “this is wrong,” gets spin-doctored as confirmation. And the left-wing propaganda bureaus that were once known as “news media” and “public schools” are working full-time to rig this mass psychosis.

Meerloo dropped this gem way back in 1961, and it’s still spot-on:

We must fight man’s growing fear of thinking for himself … Governments may be overthrown not only by physical violence, but also by mental violence — by conditioning, regimentation, and prohibition of dissent.

A healthy free society hangs not on forcing consensus, but on vigorously defending the right to disagree without being shamed. Real truth doesn’t need a shield from questions — only mass psychosis does.

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W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

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Ukraine (EU) Strikes Russian Oil Pumping Station that Transmits Oil into Hungary and Slovakia

Conservative Treehouse 

The Ukraine military, technically and non-pretendingly accepted as the EU military, has targeted a key oil pumping station in Russia that feeds into the westerly directed oil supply.  However, if you stand back from the western media, what you will notice from this attack is not the target in Russia, but the customers at the end of the pipeline in Europe, mainly Hungary and Slovakia.

[…] Through local stations, including infrastructure around Kaleykino, oil from Tatarstan and neighboring regions feeds into the main pipeline, which runs through the Samara region and continues westward toward Belarus and further to countries in Eastern and Central Europe. […] There were also earlier reports that Ukrainian forces carried out several attacks on Druzhba pipeline infrastructure inside Russia, which at times disrupted Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. {source}

So, what’s going on here?

Well, with the anniversary of the Russian Federation beginning the war into Ukraine, the Europeans who now control the military operations inside Ukraine are targeting European countries who do not align with their bloodlust, specifically Hungary and Slovakia.

Both Hungary and Slovakia are land locked countries without easy access seaports. Because of their geographic locations, they rely on Russian oil and gas for their energy needs.  Hungary and Slovakia have not wanted to expand the war against Russia.  The EU is demanding Hungary and Slovakia agree to expanded war.

The European ‘coalition of the willing’ is now targeting key Russian infrastructure that supplies energy products to European countries who are not in compliance with the EU dictates of war.

Putin says threats to energy pipelines sabotage peace process with Ukraine.

In his televised speech, the Russian president also accused Ukraine of threatening Russian energy ⁠pipelines with ⁠the help of Western intelligence agencies. He claimed these attacks were aimed to sabotage the peace process.

Putin ⁠also stressed it ⁠was vital for Russia ⁠to strengthen the defence of energy ‌infrastructure and other strategic sectors. {source}

This is why Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Hungary and Slovakia last week.

Essentially, now we see European leaders attacking their own European “allies” through the use of Ukraine.  If you do not support the continued bloodlust, you are an enemy of the EU collective hive mind.

A picture is worth a thousand words….

EU Schedules Permanent Ban on Russian Import Oil for Three Days After Hungarian Election

I guess we can put this in the open admission file surrounding the all-out effort by the European Union to defeat Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

According to a leaked document received by Reuters, the European Union is scheduled to permanently ban all EU nations from importing Russian oil.  They have scheduled the ban to trigger on April 15th, three days after the Hungarian election.

BRUSSELS, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The European Commission will submit a legal proposal to permanently ban Russian oil imports on April 15, three days after Hungary’s parliamentary election, according to EU officials and a document seen by Reuters.

Two EU officials told Reuters the timing was designed to prevent the oil ban becoming a major factor in Hungary’s election campaign. Hungary and Slovakia, still reliant on Russian oil imports, are strongly opposed to any ban.

In the April 12 election, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his nationalist Fidesz party are facing the biggest challenge to their hold on power in 16 years.

The EU has already imposed sanctions on imports of seaborne Russian oil. But it wants to enshrine a full phase-out of Russian oil in legislation that would remain in place, even if a peace deal in the Ukraine war led to the EU lifting sanctions.

The Commission plans to propose the Russian oil ban on April 15, according to a draft agenda seen by Reuters.

Asked about the matter, a Commission spokesperson told Reuters the EU executive’s agendas were provisional and that it did not have a confirmed timeline for submitting the proposal. (read more)

Panama Has Taken Back Control Over Both Entrances to the Panama Canal – Cancelled Chinese Contracts

The highest court in Panama has nulled the ‘Chinese’ contract for the operation of both entrance ports on the Panama Canal.  The Panamanian government took back control and assigned operations to APM Terminals, a subsidiary of the Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk.

The state takeover comes after a 14-month long saga begun by President Trump who reasserted American interests in the hemisphere and rejected the concept of allowing China to have strategic control over such vital North American infrastructure.

President Trump did not mince words in December of 2024 when he said, “[The Panama Canal] was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama,” Trump concluded. “If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”  Marco Rubio was then dispatched as an intermediary in Feb 2025.

Then, last month, Panama’s Supreme Court struck down the law approving the concession contract for Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of CK Hutchison (China/Hong Kong). The court ruling also invalidated an extension granted in 2021, stripping the port operations of any current legal standing.  Now, Panama has taken over.

(MSM) – The government of Panama has seized control of two ports on either end of the Panama Canal from a Hong Kong conglomerate following a recent ruling by the country’s Supreme Court.

Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison said on Tuesday that Panama’s government had “made direct physical entry into the terminals at Balboa and Cristobal” and assumed “administrative and operational control” over the two ports on the Panama Canal.

The company said the “unlawful” takeover reflects the culmination of a campaign by the Panamanian state against its subsidiary, Panama Ports, following the Supreme Court ruling last month.

According to a government decree, the Panama Maritime Authority has been authorised to occupy the ports for “reasons of urgent social interest”, according to The Associated Press (AP) news agency. (read more)

VIA AP:

[…] Panama’s government announced days ago that it will guarantee the continuity of port operations and job stability, and that APM Terminals, a subsidiary of the Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk, would temporarily assume the administration of the terminals while a new contract is awarded.

Meanwhile, CK Hutchison Holdings started arbitration proceedings against Panama under the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce. It’s unclear what the impact of the proceedings would be and how long they could take. It also threatened to sue APM Terminals, if it operates the concession. The Danish group responded that it’s not a party to the legal proceedings.

A PPC spokesperson told local media last week that the company was seeking an agreement with the Panamanian government to continue operating. (more)

U.S Court of Appeals – DC Circuit – Rules IRS Can Share Information with DHS for Immigration Enforcement

A win for President Trump and the Dept of Homeland Security.  The DC Court of Appeals has ruled against the plaintiff argument seeking to block the IRS (Treasury Secretary Bessent) from sharing cross-reference information with the Dept of Homeland Security (Secretary Noem).

Bottom line, the IRS can share data with DHS to identify status of illegal aliens.

“The only issue that we decide is whether, on the sparse record before us, Appellants have met their heavy burden to make a clear showing that they are entitled to the preliminary injunctive relief sought. For the reasons indicated, we conclude that Appellants have not.”

[SEE Ruling Here]