I must admit, I liked the new “Sense and Sensibility.” It received a 78% rating from critics and an 89% rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. But the reviews I read missed the very thing that drew me to the movie: a truth that tugs deeply at the human heart. Perhaps unintentionally, this adaptation points us toward it.

Those familiar with the star-studded 1995 version, featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, and Alan Rickman, will find a different tone here. The film opens with Marianne watching a caterpillar crawl across her finger. The image foreshadows a question: How does a caterpillar become a butterfly? It must cease to be what it was to become something more beautiful.

The 21st-century American dating scene is morally repulsive and existentially empty. Many remain trapped in sensations and appearances, unable to find reality.

The title describes the tension between sense and sensibility. What happens when we follow our feelings without questioning appearances? And what do we miss if we are always sensible and careful? A few details of the story help make the point.

Elinor, the older sister, practices self-discipline and urges Marianne to do likewise. Marianne insists that sincerity requires following her passions wherever they lead. That difference shapes how each sister seeks love.

After their father dies, the family estate passes to his son from an earlier marriage. His dying wish was that the son care for his stepmother and half-sisters. Instead, the son and his wife offer little help. Their greed leaves the women without the dowries that might help them marry and with few means of establishing an independent life.

As they prepare to leave their home, Elinor meets Edward, her sister-in-law’s brother. His moral character contrasts with his sister’s miserliness. Edward and Elinor are plainly compatible, yet something prevents him from proposing.

The family moves in with kind, if sometimes annoying, distant relatives. Marianne meets two men: Colonel Brandon, reserved and controlled, and Willoughby, dashing and passionate. She mistakes Brandon’s reserve for a lack of feeling and finds Willoughby irresistible. But Willoughby, too, leaves without proposing.

In London, the truth emerges. Willoughby intends to marry a wealthy woman. Edward, meanwhile, had been promised to Lucy Steele when they were young. Though Lucy has lost her fortune, Edward refuses to abandon his commitment. His mother disinherits him, giving his inheritance to his younger brother. Elinor bears the news with dutiful resolve.

RELATED: The most dangerous evil can look remarkably like good

Amanda Cassingham-Bardwell/Getty Images

Marianne’s broken heart, meanwhile, brings her to despair. During a serious illness, she says she willed herself to die. Colonel Brandon reveals Willoughby’s earlier cruelty: He seduced Eliza, the widow of Brandon’s brother and a woman Brandon had once loved, impregnated her, and abandoned her. Both Eliza and her unborn child died. Then comes the scene that made this movie an A+ for me — one the 1995 version omitted.

Willoughby visits Marianne during her illness. Brandon arrives, seizes him, drags him outside, and challenges him to a duel. Willoughby aims to kill but misses. Brandon, a trained soldier who could have killed him, fires into the air. It is an act of mercy, and passion governed by moral conviction rather than appetite. Willoughby flees, defeated.

This display of passion stirs Marianne’s heart. She begins to look past appearances and recognize Brandon’s moral character. He offers the reality of what she had wanted all along.

Here is the point, and perhaps why so many young women are drawn to this movie without knowing quite why: We long to love and be loved. The film calls us to consider love in its purest form. The good characters do not need to fornicate with multiple partners to discover whom they prefer. The villain does that. It is an indictment of contemporary culture.

When we love someone, our happiness becomes bound up with that person’s happiness. We are not atomistic individuals pursuing only our own ends. Our longing to love and be loved also leaves us vulnerable to sorrow. That is why the question of whom we love, and why, cannot be answered by feeling alone.

RELATED: Why does God allow the wicked to win elections?

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But the story does not end there. Like all art, it symbolically points to something higher. In this sense, it is a Christian movie. It points to the Bridegroom’s love for his Bride. Christ loves his Bride and suffers for her redemption. His Bride has been seduced by Satan, who hides the worst reality behind the most attractive appearances. Christ lays down his life for her. Where Willoughby’s passions consume others, the love of the Bridegroom gives itself away. This is the difference between the attractive appearance of love and its reality.

Brandon likewise risks death to confront a Lucifer-like character. His willingness to face death reveals the love that wins Marianne’s heart. Unlike the 1995 film, this version does not end with weddings. Marianne’s final conversation with Brandon shows her learning to love what is real, not merely what appears attractive. Elinor finally expresses her love for Edward. The caterpillar has become a butterfly. The Bridegroom’s love is what makes the butterfly beautiful.

Young women, I believe, long for this love. Yet the 21st-century American dating scene is morally repulsive and existentially empty. Many have not learned Marianne’s lesson. They remain trapped in sensations and appearances, unable to find reality.

All human love will fail us. But this movie points us to Christ the Bridegroom, who saves his Bride. The story of human history ends with a marriage and a butterfly.

​Emma thompson, Human heart, Modern dating, Cinema, Opinion & analysis, Movies, Sense and sensibility, Literature, Marriage, Men and women 

Is America a melting pot — or are we becoming a nation of competing cultures with little holding them together?

Former NFL star Chad Brown believes America’s diversity is its strength. But BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock isn’t convinced, arguing that demographic milestones mean little if newcomers don’t embrace the country’s founding values.

Whitlock warns that America is importing people from cultures with vastly different values, including Somalia.

“Look, Somalia, you can go read books about it. The country where these people immigrate, it’s a very corrupt culture. It’s a very violent culture. And they don’t share our worldview,” he tells Brown.

“And there are things happening in Minnesota from the quality ‘learing’ centers and the corruption or whatever that seem to be a direct reflection of like, well, that’s the kind of thing that goes on in Somalia,” he continues, adding that he questions whether societies around the world successfully accommodate people with vastly different religious worldviews.

“When this country, in my view, was at its best, it was more predominantly Christian. Now we’ve invited in every religion under the world, and they’re getting into political office. They’re getting in positions of power in corporate America,” he says.

Whitlock argues that some immigrants aren’t interested in assimilating into American culture but instead want to re-create their home countries here.

“They want to set up Little Somalia right there in Minnesota, and they want it to be just like Somalia but just with all the freedoms of America,” he tells Brown.

“There’s virtually no interest in assimilation,” he says, noting that some view it as “selling out to the white man.”

“That’s where I grow concerned about the rapid pace of immigration and demographic changes, and there is zero focus on assimilating into America. And there’s really focus on trying to prove just how terrible America has been and how people, everybody’s owed something,” he adds.

Brown pushes back, arguing that immigrants “try to form their own communities” rather than assimilate “for a sense of safety.”

“They are not accepted into the wider community. So it’s easier initially to make their own communities,” he tells Whitlock.

“America is a melting pot. It is the greatest experiment in the history of governance in our planet,” he continues.

“We don’t want a cookie-cutter culture,” he says.

“I do,” Whitlock fires back.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Chad brown, Assimilation, Diversity, America, Immigration, Blazetv show 

The 2026 midterm elections brought a new wave of “Christian” voices into Congress. James Talarico in Texas, Adam Hamilton in Kansas, and Sarah Trone Garriott in Iowa were among the Democrats who campaigned on a message rooted in faith, compassion, and the biblical command to “Love thy neighbor.”

Invoking the words of Christ does not automatically confer His authority upon a political platform.

The Good Samaritan did not petition Rome to pay for the wounded man’s care. He opened his own purse.

Christian compassion is not optional. Jesus commanded it. But the tendency to equate biblical love with socialist policies requires closer examination. Before deciding what government should do in the name of love, we must understand what Jesus meant when He commanded it.

‘A new commandment’

On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus gathered with His disciples and gave them a new commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

Those words followed an extraordinary demonstration of humility: Jesus, their Lord and teacher, knelt to wash His disciples’ feet. The one deserving of service became the servant. His example established that true love demands something of the person offering it.

Later, Jesus made that sacrifice unmistakable: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Within hours, He would demonstrate those words upon the cross.

Christ’s definition of love is neither sentimental nor politically convenient. It demands personal sacrifice, obedience, and fidelity to truth. In John 14:15, He declared, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

Love and obedience

Love and obedience are inseparable. Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan did not merely express concern for suffering. He interrupted his journey, spent his resources, and assumed responsibility for a stranger. His mercy crossed cultural boundaries and required self-denial. It reflected the very love Christ commanded of His disciples.

There is a profound difference between sacrificing what belongs to you and claiming moral virtue by redistributing what belongs to someone else. Christ commanded His followers to give of themselves, not to outsource their obedience to the state.

Yet socialism can offer a counterfeit of Christian love, promising compassion through government power while relieving the individual of personal sacrifice. It is easy to appear generous when the responsibility of sacrifice is placed on someone else.

The Good Samaritan did not petition Rome to pay for the wounded man’s care. He opened his own purse. Biblical charity begins with a willing heart and an open hand. Socialism replaces both with political coercion, letting people congratulate themselves on compassion they delegate rather than demonstrate.

History’s warning

History provides sobering reasons to distinguish compassionate government promises from their lived-out consequences.

The Soviet Union promised equality through central planning, forced collectivization, and repression. Millions suffered under policies that subordinated individual lives to state objectives. Chronic shortages and stagnation eventually exposed the system’s failures.

Venezuela’s experiment with extensive state intervention, nationalization, and price controls, compounded by oil dependence and economic mismanagement, contributed to devastating shortages, inflation, and mass emigration.

Cuba’s state-dominated economy has struggled with persistent shortages and limited productivity. Its government also imposed severe restrictions on religious institutions.

China, the communist regime, was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution because the collective was treated as more important than the individual. Socialism does not solve class inequality; it simply replaces one hierarchy with another — party officials and connected elites above ordinary citizens.

Eroding boundaries

Some will argue that America is not embracing full-scale socialism, only borrowing certain policies while retaining the safeguards of a constitutional republic. But democracy is not an automatic safeguard against government overreach. Elections determine who exercises political power; constitutional limits determine how far that power can reach.

The danger is not that every government program inevitably leads to communism. It is that each expansion of state authority deserves scrutiny, particularly when it transfers decisions from citizens and independent institutions to political officials. A government does not have to become authoritarian overnight to gradually erode the boundaries that keep its power in check.

History reminds us that the promises of government are no guarantee of its results. It can promise equality while establishing a privileged ruling class. It can promise collective security while depriving citizens of the independence necessary to build their own futures.

That is why compassion cannot be measured merely by political intentions.

Can families afford necessities, pursue opportunity, and build financial security? Can communities flourish, civil liberties survive, and voluntary institutions operate independently? Can churches worship freely, teach Scripture, and serve their neighbors without government coercion?

These are not peripheral concerns. They are essential questions when evaluating policies advanced in the name of government money like grants, tax hikes, and universal health care.

RELATED: The most dangerous evil can look remarkably like good

Amanda Cassingham-Bardwell/Getty Images

Essential questions

In my November 1 article, “America doesn’t need a Jesus made in our political image,” I examined how James Talarico’s interpretation of Scripture concerning Mary and abortion raises serious questions about allowing political commitments to govern biblical interpretation.

Christians must apply that question consistently, regardless of which party invokes the Bible. Communicators must remain free to examine these claims publicly and defend biblical teaching without political intimidation.

Jesus did not merely promise love. He demonstrated it through the ultimate sacrifice.

Political leaders invoking His name should be prepared to defend both their interpretation of Scripture and the real-world consequences of their proposals.

Love is not measured by the generosity of a government’s promises, but by whether our neighbors are genuinely helped. Christ commanded us to love one another, not to surrender our judgment to anyone who claims to govern in His name.

​Social media, Christian living, James talarico, Virgin mary, Abortion, Texas, Midterms, Lifestyle, Socialism, Cuba, China, Soviet union, Bible, Faith 

Bill Gates is roiling the internet again with fresh remarks on the fresh hell that awaits us all because we just won’t listen… to him.

In a sense, Gates is right to complain. He gets to see a lot more under the hood of global tech than regular people anywhere in the world. Undoubtedly, there is a ton of complacency or worse in the normie culture right now.

Gates is right to worry that the public won’t snap to attention unless the fabric of their lived reality splits right before their very eyes.

Many of us feel too powerless, too ignorant, too busy, or just too depressed to bother trying to keep up with the main source of public information about the transformations happening out of plain sight. Gates is right to worry that the public won’t snap to attention unless the fabric of their lived reality splits right before their very eyes.

Unfortunately, Gates doesn’t make the greatest messenger. That’s especially true in our long moment when everyone basically agrees on what’s going on, and disagreement — which switches back and forth depending on which “team” seems to be in power — is restricted to whether what’s happening is a good thing or a bad thing.

People with the inside scoop and their hands on the levers of power can and do flip messages as easily as zonked-out citizoids flip between TV channels or social media clips.

Gates has fallen prey to the flip side of the old joke that “if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” It feels so wrong to say Gates is right that even when he is right, he seems wrong.

This unfortunate state of affairs is on stark display in his latest interview, where he sat down with CBS News podcast host Tony Dokoupil. The topic, a familiar one to Gates-heads, was the planetary risk of climate ch— excuse me, of artificial intelligence.

RELATED: Sorry, Bill Gates. We’re sitting out this apocalypse.

BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images

In the sequence that went viral this week, Gates emphasized that elites preparing to deal with cascading cyberattacks are more or less resigned to the fact that the world’s ordinary people will probably resist any kind of sweeping security-enhancing social restructuring until hackers finally make the pillars of their everyday life shake and crumble.

“If you have a big cyber attack that causes a lot of problems,” he said, “then people will say, OK, they were right. The people who were talking about that were right. So it may be that we have to suffer a few of the negatives before we’ll respond as fully as we should.”

“Fortunately,” he went on, keeping it vague, “those aren’t civilization-ending. They’re bad —”

At which point Dokoupil interjected, immediately getting very, very specific. “If you hack Fidelity or Vanguard,” he suggested, “and much of the world’s trillion-dollar retirement nest egg, that would be a pretty big event.”

Ya think? That’s quite the random example.

“Well,” Gates agreed, “you could create uncertainty in cases like that.” He went on to affirm the wisdom of “being ready” and “trying to make sure we do the things” that might “avoid any negative incidents. But” — yes, there’s a but — “assuming we fall short of that, then when some of the negatives start to emerge, you have very concrete ideas in place, so people say, okay, you’re right, we don’t want that to happen again.”

RELATED: Don’t be fooled by Bernie Sanders — tech won the midterms

Tom Baker/Getty Images

But Bill, Dokoupil might have jumped in, you’re giving me nothing but vague. I’m the one giving concrete suggestions about how to nuke the world reserve of funds ostensibly guaranteed to ensure young people don’t have to provide decades of retirement and end-of-life support to the last generation born at population replacement levels. You’re just talking about “the things” and “the negatives.” What concrete suggestions do you actually have?

Instead, Dokoupil concluded, “what it’s going to take for us as a country and a world to tackle this is not just a 12-page essay from Bill Gates. It could be a catastrophe.”

To which Gates responded: “That’s fair.”

Neither man would state the obvious: Draining the world’s retirement accounts would throw the economic and financial life of the Western world into a tailspin with only one possible way out — a coordinated international switch-flip to mandatory welfare-for-all: universal basic income denominated in a magical new kind of digital-credits currency.

It was left for the beleaguered viewer to understand.

​Artificial intelligence, Bill gates, Cbs news, Climate change, Digital currency, Tony dokoupil, Universal basic income, Opinion & analysis 

With the exception of his children’s series “The Chronicles of Narnia,” C.S. Lewis is best remembered for his nonfiction works of Christian thought, especially “Mere Christianity,” “The Screwtape Letters,” and “The Problem of Pain.” But BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre believes the world-renowned apologist was also a master of the novel.

On this episode of “The Auron MacIntyre Show,” he is joined by British commentator and C.S. Lewis enthusiast Nick Dixon to dive into what they believe is Lewis’ “most underrated masterpiece”: “Till We Have Faces.”

The novel, which is a retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, has sometimes been called Lewis’ “most pagan book,” but MacIntyre and Dixon contend the opposite, arguing the story mirrors Lewis’ own conversion.

“Lewis, you know, thought about writing this book originally as an atheist and siding with kind of the screed against the gods — you know, the logic, the reason how you’re a victim,” MacIntyre explains.

He argues that by the time Lewis finally wrote it, late in life and long after his own conversion, he had come to see himself as “the author of [his] own woes” — and the novel reflects that.

In the novel, Orual and her beloved younger half-sister, Psyche, are raised by the Fox, a Greek tutor who scoffs at the gods and champions pure reason. When Psyche is offered as a sacrifice to a mountain god and claims to be living happily in his invisible palace, Orual, unable to see it, refuses to believe her and destroys her sister’s happiness.

Orual evolves from a woman raging at the gods over her own “victimhood” to recognizing that she was actually “the victimizer” all along, MacIntyre says.

“I think this is one of his most Christian books, because even though he’s telling this pagan myth … this kind of repentance, this touch of the divine is something that is so analogous to his own kind of experience in life when encountering and converting to Christianity,” he adds.

“It redeems the character [Orual] in a way that I don’t think you’d see in a Greek myth, right?” he continues. “Like I don’t think you’d see this kind of repentance and understanding and coming to reconciliation with the gods.”

Dixon agrees. Even though in the book “Christ isn’t named as such … it’s clear that it is a Christian conversion story,” he says.

Calling himself “obsessed with these biographical readings” of “Till We Have Faces,” Dixon retells the story of Sept. 19, 1931 — the night J.R.R. Tolkien convinced Lewis that “Christianity is the one true myth,” a turning point that soon ended his years-long journey from atheism to Christianity.

“I think that’s kind of mirrored by the end of this book — the way that they’ve been messing around with paganism until there’s this synthesis at the end, and the Fox realizes he was wrong, and Orual realizes she’s been wrong, and Psyche, I suppose, has been vindicated really as the kind of Christlike figure,” he says.

To hear the full conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Auron MacIntyre?

To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist’s commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Auron macintyre, Cs lewis, Blazetv show 

Derek Chauvin did not kill George Floyd.

This is the argument TJ Harker makes in his new book, “American Scapegoat,” debuting Dec. 1 and available for purchase alongside other Passage Press books via Blaze Media’s store. Harker, a former federal prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney, laid out the case in granular detail during an interview with Blaze News.

‘I ate too many drugs.’

Harker gave background that many Americans likely never heard during the media frenzy surrounding Floyd’s death.

On May 25, 2020, Floyd left Cup Foods, the convenience store where he passed a fake $20 bill off as legitimate, and consumed drugs in a car with ex-girlfriend Shawanda Hill and drug dealer Morries Hall, according to the defense. Employees called the police.

Officers arrived and called for an ambulance, but emergency medical services and the fire department were abnormally late despite an immediate call to dispatch.

“The two more experienced officers, Chauvin and Officer Tou Thao, knew that EMS, the fire department, with their superior training, was only a half-mile away, due west on 38th Street,” Harker said. “They should have arrived within two to three minutes of being dispatched. The problem was that they weren’t dispatched for nine minutes after Thao made the Code 3 call.”

“Code 3 is the highest level,” he said. “It means lights and sirens, get here right away. And he made that call about three minutes after George Floyd was on the ground. So the officers were expecting the ambulance to arrive and provide whatever medical treatment Floyd needed. They weren’t equipped to provide it themselves.”

Hennepin County and Minnesota’s Emergency Communications Network did not respond to requests for comment.

At 6’4″, Floyd was a hulking man, towering over all of the responding officers. He struggled as officers tried to put him in the squad car, saying he couldn’t breathe, so they took him back out into the open.

As they restrained Floyd in anticipation of imminent medical service, a hostile crowd began to form. They began screaming at the officers and later threatened them.

Harker says that given the circumstances, the officers acted as best they could to secure both Floyd’s safety and their own.

“They handled it extraordinarily well,” Harker said. “No matter how you evaluate the officers’ conduct, what you come back with is that they did everything very, very well, despite being surrounded by a hostile audience.”

“There were five officers on scene: Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, Alexander Kueng, Derek Chauvin, and a park police officer across the street, Peter Chang,” he said. “All five believed the use of force was reasonable.”

“They didn’t use any strikes,” he said. “No punches, no kicks. They didn’t tackle the man. They didn’t use pepper spray or mace, a Taser, or a baton. It’s hard to imagine how officers could have used less force, short of letting George Floyd go and writing an apology letter.”

RELATED: From Cuba with love: Florida is investigating DSA’s alleged funding by America’s adversaries

Whitlock: Veneration of George Floyd is racist and must be stopped John Lamparski/Getty Images

Floyd was eventually taken away by emergency medical services to a secondary location, which is common when hostile mobs are crowding a scene, Harker said. By the time they began treatment, Floyd didn’t have a pulse.

National media quickly declared that Derek Chauvin had killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. The medical evidence that emerged in the days and weeks after his death painted a completely different picture.

A Hennepin County jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter on April 20, 2021. He was sentenced to over 22 years in prison.

Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker performed Floyd’s autopsy.

“In a murder case, the medical examiner is both a fact witness and an expert witness,” Harker said. “He’s the only one who conducted the autopsy. And Dr. Baker is very experienced: more than 3,000 autopsies, the youngest-ever president of the National Association of Medical Examiners.”

“From the very beginning — within 24 hours of George Floyd’s death — he was telling prosecutors there was no evidence of asphyxiation,” he said. “This is in prosecutors’ memos to file, which are a red flag. Memos to file are what prosecutors write when they realize the future might look back and second-guess their decisions.”

“There was no evidence of petechiae, no bruising to the neck muscles, no bruising to the back,” Harker said. “No damage to the laryngeal structures. None. Not a little bit. There were lots of bruises on George Floyd. None of them were where the prosecutors needed them to be.”

Floyd Autopsy A memorandum about a meeting between Hennepin County prosecutors and Dr. Andrew Baker on May 26, 2020

In spite of the evidence, Harker said, prosecutors made death-by-asphyxiation the bedrock of their case against Chauvin. Anything less was insufficient for their purposes and the mob’s: the scapegoating of Derek Chauvin as a heinous white murderer during the zenith of America’s Black Lives Matter movement.

“Prosecutors had to tie the death to Derek Chauvin’s left knee,” he explained to Blaze News. “But crushing someone’s windpipe leaves an incredible amount of physical evidence, and there wasn’t any. So they went with what’s called a blood choke: compressing the carotid artery, which takes a lot less pressure.”

“They stuck with that theory for the next 10 months,” he said. “They called Donald Williams, an eyewitness and MMA specialist, early in the trial, on the first day of testimony, and he testified on direct examination to exactly that.”

Williams had been part of the mob jeering at and threatening first responders, including Chauvin.

“The fundamental problem is that George Floyd, like all homo sapiens, has two carotid arteries, not one,” Harker said. “And prosecutors did not realize this until cross-examination, when, after 15 or 20 minutes of awkward questions, the defense attorney realized the state’s witness was saying Derek Chauvin choked out George Floyd by putting his left knee on Floyd’s right carotid artery.”

“Everybody sort of stops at that moment,” he said. “You could hear a pin drop. I’m speculating, but I imagine the prosecutors went home that night and googled whether you can kill somebody by leaning on one carotid artery. And the answer is no. I kid you not, I’ve never seen a 180 at trial like this.”

“By the end, they shifted to positional asphyxia — the very theory they had ruled out back on May 26, 2020,” he said. “They started the prosecution by saying George Floyd did not die from positional asphyxia and ended it in closing argument by saying the only thing he died from was positional asphyxia. And they had 11 opinion witnesses testify, every one of whom had to contradict the medical examiner.”

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office told Blaze News that it stands behind its analysis

“The Medical Examiner’s Office stands behind the findings of the original death investigation, including the manner and cause of death certified on Mr. Floyd’s death certificate, and autopsy report which was made public by order of the Fourth District Court,” a spokesperson said.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

RELATED: The GOP’s old dogs had better learn some new tricks

Passenger in George Floyd’s car tells his side of the story, recalls horror of Floyd’s final moments Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images

However, according to Harker, Floyd had a history of drug abuse and had overdosed previously, a fact that was conveniently swept under the rug because it didn’t fit with what the trial-by-media had already decided. Harker said prosecutors needed to ride public perception to win their case.

“In March 2020, George Floyd got pills containing an opiate and a stimulant, overdosed, and spent five days in the hospital, where doctors saved his life,” Harker said. “After that, he got clean. And the physiological literature is crystal clear: If you’re an addict, you get clean and then start using again, your tolerance is gone.”

“On May 25, 2020, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension took Floyd’s Mercedes SUV and Squad 320 back to the BCA,” he said. “An agent searched them and put evidence tape on the doors. And there the vehicles sat until late 2020 and early 2021.”

Harker said that this was an almost unheard-of oversight in a criminal trial. What was found in that squad car would go on to radically alter the defense’s case and the revealed facts of Floyd’s death.

“In January 2021, just weeks before trial, Eric Nelson, Derek Chauvin’s attorney, asked to search the squad car,” he said. “And what they found is some of the most damning evidence in the case: partially dissolved speedballs containing methamphetamine and fentanyl with George Floyd’s saliva and DNA.”

Floyd, according to Harker and the defense, had likely consumed fentanyl twice: once in the car where he sat after passing the counterfeit bill and a second time in the back of the squad car.

If Floyd did consume fentanyl or speedball in the police vehicle, the timing of his overdose would line up exactly with his eventual death.

“That proves George Floyd ingested fentanyl not once but twice that day, and that the second time was closer to his death,” he said. “The body-cam footage is timestamped. We know when he chewed the pills and spit out the residue on the backseat. It was about five minutes before he died — and peak respiratory depression from fentanyl hits about five minutes after you take it.”

Separate paragraphs from a memorandum about a meeting between Hennepin County prosecutors and Dr. Andrew Baker on June 1, 2020

Harker said that “the prosecution’s breathing expert,” pulmonologist Dr. Martin Tobin, “was adamant that Floyd took the fentanyl too early for it to matter. The defense attorney asked whether he knew partially consumed pills had been found in the back of Squad 320. He didn’t. Then he was asked: If those pills were in Floyd’s mouth around 8:18, when would peak respiratory depression hit?”

According to Harker, Dr. Tobin responded: “About five minutes later.”

This claim did come out at trial, but a stunning reversal later swept it away.

“There’s a moment when George Floyd is on the ground, talking,” Harker said. “He’s not responding to the officers’ questions because they aren’t asking him any. And he says, ‘I ate too many drugs.'”

Harker claimed that BCA Senior Special Agent James Reyerson testified that Floyd had indeed said, “I ate too many drugs,” before later testifying that Floyd said something else.

“On cross-examination, the defense played that portion of the video and asked [Reyerson] what George Floyd said. His answer: ‘I ate too many drugs.’ The prosecution said, ‘No further questions,'” Harker said.

“Then the judge called a 10-minute break,” he said. “I can’t tell you what happened during that break, but anyone with a brain can draw reasonable inferences. Because when they came back, the prosecutors asked to re-call [Reyerson] to the stand. And the court allowed it, which was a mistake.”

What follows is one of the most seemingly blatant examples of witness-coaching in U.S. history, Harker claimed.

When back on the stand, prosecutors asked Reyerson if he had “rewatched the video and changed his view,” Harker said.

“He said yes. His new testimony was not ‘I ate too many drugs,’ but ‘I ain’t do no drugs.’ Which was preposterous. Laughable. It strongly indicates that prosecutors coached him to change his testimony.”

“I’ve listened to that audio hundreds of times,” Harker said. “The syllable count matches ‘I ate too many drugs.’ And ‘I ain’t do no drugs’ is a denial — a response to a question. Nobody is talking to him in the minutes before. He’s narrating his sensations, the way we all do: I drank too much. I ate too much.”

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety directed Blaze News to the case file and court record when reached for comment. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension did not respond to requests for comment.

RELATED: 7 questions the right can’t dodge after the midterm rout

Democrats wear African kente cloths, take a knee for George Floyd before introducing police reform legislation Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

When asked why the prosecution even bothered with the dog-and-pony show if Chauvin’s conviction was all but a foregone conclusion, Harker pointed to the past.

“The Soviets could execute anyone they wanted, and they did,” Harker said. “But they still held show trials because a trial carries an imprimatur of legitimacy. So it’s no coincidence that they corrupted the criminal justice system. It’s a necessary part of it. They have to wear the criminal justice system as a skin suit to advance this agenda.”

“And Derek Chauvin has to be innocent for this political agenda to work,” he said. “If he’s guilty, people of regular moral conscience would say, ‘The system malfunctioned; let’s fix it.’ But if you can get everyone to agree with the lie that he’s guilty, when it’s obvious that he’s not, you’re making everybody complicit in the lie. That is how you overthrow the prevailing political order.”

“There’s a reason the word ‘scapegoat’ is in the title,” he said, referring to his new book. “Other than Derek Chauvin, there’s nobody for whom the logic of speaking the truth makes sense.”

When asked whether anything could be done for Chauvin, Harker did not give a hopeful answer.

“Chauvin was convicted at the state level, then pleaded guilty to the federal charges under a deal where the federal sentence runs concurrently with the state sentence,” Harker said. “He ended up in federal prison. So if the president were to pardon him, he would be pardoned only on the federal charges. The president can’t pardon state charges. The governor can, and Governor Walz is not going to pardon Derek Chauvin. He’d be sent to state prison. He would have to be pardoned at both levels or get a new trial.”

Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges in 2021 and is currently incarcerated at FCI Big Spring in Texas. Another inmate stabbed him 22 times at FCI Tucson in 2023.

“His direct appeal rights are exhausted,” he said. “Now his attorney, Greg Joseph, who’s doing yeoman’s work, has filed for post-conviction relief. In most murder cases, the question is: Who did it? In this case, there was no crime. There was the unfortunate death of a man in police custody, and we know how he died.”

Ultimately, it’s up to public perception and that post-conviction relief to turn the tide for Chauvin, Harker said.

Joseph did not respond to request for comment.

Harker himself has taken a big risk in publicly defending one of the most hated men in America. When asked about the smear campaigns and reprisals likely headed his way, he said those consequences are a small sacrifice compared with what others have endured.

“My middle son is an aficionado of Normandy,” Harker said. “We’ve got that poster everybody knows, the men storming the beach. And I thought to myself, ‘My God, TJ. Look at those men in that landing craft. Look what they did. You can’t just stand up and tell the truth?’

“That’s all I’m doing. Nobody’s asking you to take a bullet at Normandy,” he said. “They did ask other people to do that. So that’s why I did it.”

“American Scapegoat” releases Dec. 1 and can be purchased alongside other Passage Press books via Blaze Media’s store.

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​George floyd, Politics, Derek chauvin 

As progressives continue their anti-American crusade, BlazeTV host Nick Freitas fears America is hurtling toward a governance catastrophe that may culminate in violence.

“We are moving very, very quickly toward a high-level constitutional crisis in this country that is going to be increasingly difficult to resolve peacefully,” he tells Hillsdale College politics professor Kevin Slack.

The political left, he explains, has moved to shocking extremes.

“Many years ago, I could look at people on the left that I might have fundamentally disagreed with on tax policy, but I didn’t think I was talking to people who fundamentally hated my country,” he says, “and I don’t think that’s the case any more.”

“I honestly cannot find a single elected Democrat — and I served for 10 years in a state legislature … that would organize a country in a way that I would want to live in it, and that’s a little bit terrifying,” he adds.

To illustrate, he points to longtime Democrat political strategist James Carville, whom Freitas describes as a “moderate establishment Democrat.”

“James Carville said, ‘If we ever get power again, we need to make D.C. a state, Puerto Rico a state, and we need to stack the Supreme Court with four more justices,’ which we all know will be four more Ketanji Brown Jacksons,” he explains.

If Carville’s vision were ever to come to fruition, Freitas says, “the Constitution will literally mean whatever progressives say it means.”

He asks Slack, “Does the Constitution — in its current construction — provide us with the necessary means to be able to fight against that, or are we at a point right now where we’re going to have to look at extraconstitutional measures in order to protect the republic?”

Slack credits President Donald Trump with successfully pushing back “against the bureaucracy,” but he argues the problem runs deeper: A country needs “certain rules to the game that everybody respects,” and Americans no longer share them.

Slack blames two things for that breakdown: an immigration policy that he says lets Democrats “import the next electorate,” and an education establishment that has taught Americans since the late 1960s that their country is a “racist colonial evil power.”

Slack reads from what he describes as an early-1970s National Education Association document: “Thus all white individuals in our society are racist. Even if a white American is totally free from all conscious racial prejudices, he remains a racist, for he receives benefits distributed by a white racist society through its institutions. Our institutional and cultural processes are so arranged as to automatically benefit whites just because they are white.”

“If that’s what your teachers are learning and promulgating, you have fundamentally divided the citizenry,” he tells Freitas.

While there’s been a “reckoning” with this ideology, especially among younger Americans, Slack argues that the country must still “overcome the divisions that exist between town and country.”

Slack believes that if the country can “return to the older constitutional understanding,” “change education,” and impose a “moratorium on … legal immigration,” Americans can recover the sense that “we are in this together.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms. Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com.

​Constitutional crisis, James carville, National education association, Nick freitas, Political polarization, Blazetv show 

Dinesh D’Souza has spent much of his career defending Christianity against its critics. But there was one argument he wasn’t entirely comfortable making: that the Bible could be trusted as history.

The conservative author and filmmaker says his exposure to biblical higher criticism in college left him with the impression that Scripture contained a mixture of historical fact, legend, and error. He accepted that its human authors were divinely inspired, but assumed they might have gotten some of the history wrong.

‘In this kind of latter secular age that we live in, God has sort of decided to start speaking a second language.’

“I sort of had this view of the Bible in which you couldn’t defend the Bible like line by line,” D’Souza recalled during a recent appearance on the “Daily Dose of Wisdom” podcast, where he discussed his new book, “The Stones Cry Out: Biblical Archaeology, Prophecy, and the Last Days.”

Then, during a visit to Israel in 2022, he encountered archaeological evidence that made him reconsider.

The missing argument

D’Souza was no newcomer to Christian apologetics. His 2007 best-seller “What’s So Great About Christianity” challenged prominent atheists on questions of science, philosophy, evolution, and the existence of God.

In a 2007 interview with theologian Albert Mohler, he recalled how the intellectual atmosphere at Dartmouth had shaken his childhood faith.

“I really couldn’t defend my faith, so I found myself drifting away,” he said.

He eventually regained his confidence in Christianity and spent several years debating its critics. But the historical reliability of the Bible remained something of a blind spot.

In Israel, D’Souza encountered archaeological evidence for events he knew from Scripture, including the Assyrian invasion of Israel and the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. More surprising were the discoveries involving minor biblical figures, some mentioned only in passing.

“I was a little startled by all this,” he said.

He decided to investigate further, spending the next several years studying biblical archaeology. The result was “The Stones Cry Out,” published in October.

RELATED: The ancient ‘throne of Satan’ that inspired Hitler returns in 2027

Library of Congress/Wolfgang Kaheler/Getty Images

Two men from Jeremiah

Consider the case of Jehucal, son of Shelemiah, and Gedaliah, son of Pashhur.

Unless you have spent considerable time with the book of Jeremiah, those names probably mean nothing to you. They were officials serving King Zedekiah during the final days of the kingdom of Judah.

Jeremiah had been warning that Jerusalem would fall to the Babylonians. His preaching infuriated the king’s officials, who accused the prophet of undermining the city’s defenders. In Jeremiah 38, the two men join other officials in persuading Zedekiah to let them silence him.

They lower Jeremiah into a cistern, where he sinks into the mud. Another court official eventually persuades the king to rescue him. Jehucal and Gedaliah then disappear from the story.

More than 2,500 years later, their names turned up again. In 2005, archaeologists excavating Jerusalem discovered a clay seal impression bearing the name Jehucal, son of Shelemiah. Three years later, they found another bearing the name Gedaliah, son of Pashhur.

The discoveries are documented in a 2024 study published in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

The small clay objects, known as bullae, were used to seal documents. The documents themselves have long since disappeared, but the hardened clay preserved the names impressed upon them.

“Suddenly these two, you could call them biblical extras, jump into the pages of history via the pathway of archaeology,” D’Souza said.

The seals do not tell us whether the two men actually persecuted Jeremiah or helped throw him into the cistern. But they provide independent evidence that men bearing those names lived in Jerusalem during the period described in the biblical account.

D’Souza finds the specificity remarkable. If Jeremiah was composed centuries after the events it describes, how would its author have known the names of two relatively insignificant officials?

Earlier written sources or surviving traditions could account for that knowledge. The seals cannot establish when the book was written. Still, they give D’Souza reason to question assumptions he once accepted about the Bible’s historical reliability.

The quiet language of the dirt

Not every biblical event has left such tangible evidence. D’Souza acknowledges that archaeological evidence for the Exodus remains scarce, while scholars continue to disagree about the locations and dates of other biblical events.

But he argues that the accumulation of discoveries — inscriptions, seals, buildings, records of ancient rulers — makes it increasingly difficult to dismiss the Bible’s historical narratives as legend.

He has even come to see archaeology as a kind of divine accommodation to the modern skeptical mind.

“In this kind of latter secular age that we live in, God has sort of decided to start speaking a second language,” he said. “Not just the thunderous language of revelation, but the quiet language of the dirt.”

​Biblical archaeology, Biblical prophecy, Christian apologetics, Defending christianity, Dinesh dsouza, The stones cry out, Book of jeremiah, Christian living, Apologetics, Christianity, Israel, Books, Bible, Faith 

“She needs to go to rehab.”

The physical therapist had enlisted the head nurse, hospital administrators, and a social worker. Their expressions suggested a “come to Jesus” meeting.

Rehab is important. Surgery is often required. But sometimes we need to pull up a chair, see the empty space, and spend time respecting what was lost.

My wife, Gracie, had broken her femur. Her spine bent her forward nearly 50 degrees, compromising her balance. After surgery in Billings, we returned to our rural hospital.

The fracture also delayed a back surgery we had spent years planning. A team in Denver representing 30 disciplines had developed a plan: repair her spine, get her upright, adjust her prosthetic legs, and then begin rehabilitation. Everyone agreed the fracture needed to heal first. But across the conference table, the committee remained focused on her femur.

“She needs to go to rehab.”

Have you ever been too tired to argue? With a sigh, I simply asked, “Rehab her to what?”

The nurse stepped away to call the surgeon who had repaired Gracie’s femur. She returned with a different expression. I knew the surgeon would back my play, but I was too tired even to say, “I told you so.”

To their credit, the conversation quickly changed. The team stepped up, and together we prepared Gracie for Denver.

Months later, after the spinal surgery in Denver, she lay intubated and unconscious in the ICU. Her surgical team wanted her completely still. She was flat for the first time in decades.

An ICU attending physician bustled in with residents in tow. “We’ve got to get her up and get her to rehab as quickly as possible.”

Again with rehab. The conversation exhausted me the first time.

“Her legs are across the street in my hotel room,” I sighed. “Shall I get them?”

Have you ever seen those videos where tractor-trailers lock down their brakes? His eyes darted between me and my unconscious wife, then settled on the empty space where he expected legs.

“We’ll just let her surgeon and physical therapists handle that,” he stammered. He quickly left.

Over 40 years, I’ve interacted with hundreds of medical professionals. Some enter with questions. Others arrive with conclusions. Caregivers need to be prepared for both.

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IHumnoi/Getty Images

Advanced degrees can intimidate us. But we know her goals, her fears, and what happened the last time someone tried something similar. I’ve never performed surgery. I assisted on one, but don’t tell anybody. Yet I have stopped surgeons and asked them to think through a problem with me. Their expertise mattered. So did my perspective.

More than 35 years ago, following Gracie’s first amputation, she floundered. She had spent years trying to save her right leg. Now it was gone. She lay waiting for a temporary prosthesis. A high achiever who needed goals, she didn’t know where to go next. Neither did I.

Her orthopedic surgeon had treated her since her wreck. She trusted him. At 28, I put on a coat and tie and requested a meeting with this serious, respected physician.

I told him she looked to him for leadership. She needed direction and a coach. “Can you do this, or do I need to get someone else?” I spoke slowly so my nerves wouldn’t betray me.

I later learned he viewed the amputation as a failure. Gracie didn’t. I’ve often wondered whether his feelings contributed to his distance after surgery.

He looked at me and nodded. “Yes, I can.”

He pulled up a chair in her room and talked with her for an hour. Afterward, I saw clarity in her eyes and demeanor. He had treated the patient. For that hour, he spent time with the person. I will always be grateful to him for that.

RELATED: We argue about what a woman is. What about a gentleman?

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

Standing nervously in front of him, I didn’t feel courageous. Sometimes you simply love someone more than you fear confrontation.

It was my responsibility to recognize the need and enlist help. I didn’t have to supply every answer. Four decades of this have taught me that my wife has a Savior, and I’m not that Savior. But I am her advocate.

The chart matters. With nearly 100 surgeries behind her, Gracie’s is substantial. I help people understand the woman whose name is on that chart.

I’ve discovered that principle reaches far beyond hospitals. Pastors, relatives, friends: We can all bustle into a room carrying an answer to a question we haven’t asked. Some wield ministry. Others offer it. Some make pronouncements. Others sit in the sorrow.

I’ve done my share of pronouncing. Remembering its impact on Gracie should slow me down. To my embarrassment, it doesn’t always.

That ICU physician assumed the patient had legs. How often do we make similar assumptions about the heart? We offer instructions that presume strength, confidence, or hope without asking what suffering stole. We may even insist on rehab without thinking it through.

Rehab is important. Surgery is often required. But sometimes we need to pull up a chair, see the empty space, and spend time respecting what was lost.

​Physical therapy, Emotional support, Caregiving, Caregivers, Surgery, Amputation, Hospital, Coach, Surgeon, Opinion & analysis