Bryan W. White

Pete Buttigieg claims that the Electoral College “makes no sense” and should be abolished because it is a remnant of “some very arcane, parochial politics in the 1770s.” IN FACT, the Electoral College is a safeguard against mobocracy, which the authors of the Constitution rejected because it allows the majority to easily violate the rights of the minority. Here are the specifics: • Early during the convention at which the U.S. Constitution was written, James Madison, the father of the Constitution and primary author of the Bill of Rights, declared that the new government they were creating must provide “more effectually for the security of private rights and the steady dispensation of Justice.” • He then stressed that violations of these ideals “had more perhaps than any thing else, produced this convention.” • Madison then singled out “democracy” as the cause of those abuses and pointed out that all societies are “divided into different Sects, Factions, and interests,” and “where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger.” • Continuing, he stated that this is “verified by the histories of every country” and is the cause of slavery, “the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” • Thus, Madison emphasized that it was the duty of the Convention to “frame a republican system” of government that would better “guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” • Elaborating on that point, Madison stated that the “only defense against the inconveniencies of democracy consistent with the democratic form of government” is to “divide the community into so great a number of interests and parties, that in the first place a majority will not be likely at the same moment to have a common interest separate from that of the whole or of the minority; and in the second place, that in case they should have such an interest, they may not be apt to unite in the pursuit of it.” • Other delegates to the Convention concurred, like Edmund Randolph of Virginia, who observed “that the general object was to provide a cure for the evils under which the U.S. labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” • For the purpose of curbing such evils, Madison and the other framers of the Constitution developed a system of checks and balances on the powers of the government that they formed, such as the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the Constitutional amendment process, the Bill of Rights, and the Electoral College. • The Electoral College was designed to prevent heavily populated areas from dominating the election for president. As shown in the electoral precinct map from Washington State University professor Ryne Rohla, the vast majority of America’s communities voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet Hillary Clinton’s popular vote count was higher, mainly due to support in big cities. • In essays explaining the Constitution’s protections against mob rule and government power, Madison wrote, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” • Those principles produced the U.S. Constitution, which is the world’s longest-standing written constitution and an exemplar for many other countries that have copied its provisions into their constitutions. Hyperlinks to the sources of all the facts above are available at justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n…

IN FACT, broad climate-related measures of environmental and societal well-being have stayed level or improved for the past 40–200 years, and fossil fuels provide massive benefits to mankind. Here are the specifics: • Contrary to a 1989 UN prediction that global warming “will be destructive to natural systems” like “plant” life, a 2025 paper in the journal Remote Sensing Applications found a “striking global greening trend, with a significant portion of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface showing increases in vegetation cover over the past four decades.” • Likewise, a study published by the journal Nature Climate Change in 2016 found “a persistent and widespread increase” in “greening” or plant growth “over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area” from 1982 to 2014, “whereas less than 4% of the globe” had less greening over this period. • Contrary to a 1989 EPA prediction that “global warming” may cause “20 percent of the earth’s species” to go extinct before the year 2000, a prominent scholarly journal published a study in 2025 which found that “extinctions related to climate change have not significantly increased over the last approximately 200 years,” and extinctions have not “been accelerating in recent decades, but instead have declined in the largest group of animals and in plants.” • Contrary to a 1989 UN prediction that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000,” a study published by the journal Nature Climate Change in 2016 found that the net amount of land area on Earth grew by about 22,400 square miles from 1985 to 2015, and the net amount of coastal land area grew by about 5,200 square miles. • Contrary to a 1989 UN prediction that global warming will “disrupt agriculture” and “adversely” affect “food supplies,” the average daily food supply per person increased by 10% from 2000 to 2023, with gains of 7% in Africa, 22% in China, and 11% in Latin America and the Caribbean. • Contrary to a 1989 UN prediction that “rainfall patterns would likely be substantially altered” from global warming “by the year 2020” and cause “water shortages in some areas,” a study published in 2022 by a prestigious scholarly journal found that measures of rainfall “do not show any substantial changes at the global scale in at least the last 120 years,” and there is “a statistically significant decline of the percentage of land area affected by drought conditions” from 1950–2020. • Contrary to a 1992 prediction by Al Gore that “about 10 million people in Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of sustenance because of the rising sea level, due to global warming, in the next few decades,” the population of Bangladesh has grown by 42% since then. • Contrary to a 1992 prediction by Al Gore that “up to 60% of the present population of Florida may have to be relocated” “not long after” the “next few decades” due to global warming,” the coastal population of Florida has grown by 67% since then. • Contrary to a 1995 New York Times prediction that “most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States would be gone in 25 years” due to global warming, none of them have disappeared. • Contrary to a 2004 prediction by a Harvard professor that “we expect more and more intense tropical hurricanes and cyclones” “as the world warms,” global hurricane frequency and intensity have been roughly level for as far back as data extend (1979). • Contrary to a 2007 NASA prediction that the “Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012,” summer Arctic sea ice has remained roughly level since then and was higher in 2026 than 2007. • Contrary to a 2008 Newsweek prediction that “global warming” could cause “starvation due to drought,” the portion of the world’s population that was undernourished decreased from 13% in 2001 to 9% in 2022. • Fossil fuels provide 78% of all energy in the U.S. and roughly 82% of all energy in the world. • This energy vastly improves standards of living and helps people accomplish tasks like transportation, heating and cooling homes, farming, cooking, manufacturing, and communicating. • To manually generate the average amount of energy used by each person in the U.S. would require 197 people working nonstop around the clock. • Fossil fuels are the most economical source of energy, and a diverse array of scholarly publications document that affordable energy is “essential for public health and economic prosperity,” while high energy prices drive up hunger, drive down wages, stoke unemployment, and harm people in a wide variety of other ways. • While ignoring all of these facts, Guterres alleges that addressing “the climate crisis” is a “fight for our lives and our children’s future” and that “developed countries” must pay “at least $300 billion a year” to stop it. Hyperlinks to the sources of all the facts above are available at justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n…

Sunny Hostin claims that an illegal alien who killed a nurse in a drunk driving incident is “not illegal” but “undocumented.” IN FACT, “undocumented” is a deceptive term used to obscure the reality of people violating immigration laws. Here are the specifics: • Per a 2014 article in a Journal of Legal Writing, “the term ‘illegal alien’” appears 14 times in federal laws, 10 times in federal regulations, and in 57 U.S. Supreme Court opinions, but “some self-appointed language regulators” in the media “now decree that writers who wish to remain members of polite society must not use ‘illegal alien’” but other phrases like “undocumented immigrant.” • The article further explains that “most people know what ‘illegal alien’ means,” but purveyors of “word games” are trying to “change the political narrative” by using phrases like “undocumented worker,” which “conjures the image” of someone “who forgets to bring his social-security card on his first day of work.” • Likewise, Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage explains that words like “undocumented” are “needless euphemisms” that “should be avoided” because they “strongly” suggest “unaccounted for,” which can “obscure” the fact that these people are “present in a country in violation of the immigration laws (hence ‘illegal’).” • Certain people allege it is incorrect to use the term “illegal alien” because “undocumented presence in the U.S. is not a criminal offense,” but Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage refutes this argument by noting that “it is wrong to equate illegality with criminality, since many illegal acts are not criminal.” • In addition to being an attorney, Hostin is a “multi-platform journalist,” and journalism guidelines disparage the use of jargon and call for unambiguous language that plainly conveys reality. Hyperlinks to the sources of all the facts above are available at justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n…