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If Friedrich Hayek taught us to inquire about who should decide and Abraham Lincoln taught us to ask to what end, then the question of immigration compels us toward a third and inescapable question: Where is the line drawn?

The principles of subsidiarity and federalism demand that matters should be resolved at the lowest level of authority competent to manage them. Much of what the national government has usurped would be more wisely and justly managed by the states, local communities, families, and institutions of civil society.

A nation that treats its laws as optional, its borders as permeable, and its citizenship as devoid of meaning invites the very chaos that destroys liberty.

The Constitution itself was framed to embody this division of powers, preserving the vitality of local self-government against the dangers of centralized tyranny.

Yet subsidiarity is not an absolute doctrine, nor is federalism morally sovereign. America’s founders never regarded federalism as an end in itself, but as an instrument ordered toward justice, liberty, and the common good.

When the claims of federalism or local autonomy come into conflict with the equal dignity of the human person, federalism must yield. This is the profound teaching of the Civil War. That great conflict established beyond doubt that there are moral limits that no level of government — federal, state, or local — may transgress, even under the guise of divided sovereignty. The principle of human equality proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence sets a boundary that no appeal to states’ rights or local preference can override.

Before 1861, the defenders of slavery advanced an argument we hear echoing in our own day: that each state must be free to decide for itself the very foundations of republican government. The Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford lent its sanction to this view regarding slavery. But Lincoln repudiated it utterly.

He understood that the rights of man do not vary according to geography or popular vote. The self-evident truth that all men are created equal declares that no majority, no state legislature, no municipal council may lawfully decree some men unfit for liberty on grounds that deny their humanity. To enslave a man is to violate his natural rights; to nullify federal authority in matters essential to national existence is to dissolve the Union that secures those rights.

Lincoln did not abolish federalism — he preserved it by subordinating it to the higher law of nature. Federalism endures insofar as it is grounded in moral truth and serves to perpetuate a regime dedicated to equal natural rights.

This distinction becomes decisive when we turn to immigration. It concerns not merely internal policy but the very nature of the American political community: who may enter, under what conditions, and by whose authority.

The power over naturalization and the regulation of foreign entry are among the essential attributes of sovereignty, which the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) has expressly delegated to the federal government. Borders define the “We the People” whose consent forms the government. A people that cannot control its own borders or decide who can become a citizen cannot long govern itself justly or preserve equality under law, our regime’s moral foundation.

The federal government exists not to confer human dignity (which is inherent in every person) but to secure it among the specific members of the polity. Human dignity demands that no one be enslaved or deprived of life and liberty without due process; it does not entail an unqualified right to enter any political community or claim automatic citizenship.

The right to migrate is not the same as the right to enter any country of one’s choosing. Conflating the two dissolves the distinction between universal natural rights and the particular rights of citizens, a distinction the founders carefully preserved.

RELATED: Civil war chatter rises when Democrats fear losing power for good

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The real question for us is not merely whether authority is federal or local, but whether policy is directed toward justice, human dignity, and the nation’s common good. Lincoln saw that democracy unbounded by moral limits becomes incoherent and self-destructive. A nation that treats its laws as optional, its borders as permeable, and its citizenship as devoid of meaning invites the very chaos that destroys liberty.

Federalism is a means to the end of justice; it is not a refuge from moral duty. Local communities may not, under color of autonomy (sanctuary cities), nullify the Union’s authority over matters essential to its preservation — any more than Southern states could nullify the Fugitive Slave Clause or obstruct the enforcement of laws necessary to national integrity.

These acts of interposition — driven by radical professional activists and their followers in cities like Minneapolis — echo the nullification and secession doctrines Lincoln condemned as fatal to the republic. In his 1861 Annual Message to Congress, he accurately described the true nature of such “principles”: “rebellion thus sugarcoated” that has “been drugging the public mind.”

The lesson of Lincoln and the founders is unchanging: Decentralization without moral anchors descends into anarchy; centralization without moral purpose hardens into despotism. True statesmanship orders power toward the permanent truths enunciated by the Declaration of Independence. Only then can the American experiment endure as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people — and dedicated to the Declaration’s proposition “that all men are created equal.”

Editor’s note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.

​Opinion & analysis, Abraham lincoln, Federalism, Immigration crisis, Immigration and customs enforcement, Mass deportations, Ice raids, Subsidiarity, Union, Anarchy, Rebellion, Civil war, Declaration of independence, Natural rights, Equal rights 

On a recent appearance on Fox News, Dave Landau poked fun at Bad Bunny — the Super Bowl’s halftime show performer of choice.

“What this comes down to is, you look at somebody like Bad Bunny, or you look at somebody like Trevor Noah. They don’t actually have the ability to talk trash in their own countries, so they come to America, make a great living, living the American dream, insulting our country, because they know in their homeland they would be killed for doing the very same thing,” Landau said to host Greg Gutfeld.

Media Matters caught on to Landau’s error — which is that Bad Bunny’s home country is the United States — and put him on blast.

But Landau isn’t concerned with their ire.

“They put out this so people would let me know that Puerto Rico is a territory ’cause I clearly would have no idea of such things,” he tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

Now, he tells Gonzales that he’s receiving death threats because “Media Matters is a horrible company.”

“Talk about how you are funded by George Soros. Do that, Media Matters. Keep complaining about white billionaires, too, to tell your people that white billionaires are a problem when you’re funded by white billionaires,” he says.

“Where did you think that Bad Bunny was from?” Gonzales asks.

“I thought Colombia,” Landau responds. “Here’s why. I don’t care. Even when I was here, I think it’s very obvious that I wasn’t actually watching the news. I was just trying to find stories. All I knew about Bad Bunny was they said he didn’t speak English. And the left, that is, was worried that ICE was going to take him at the Super Bowl because he’s an illegal.”

“That’s all I heard from the left,” he explains.

“Turns out he’s from Puerto Rico,” he says.

“God, you’re racist,” Gonzales jokes.

“Exactly. I’m a monster,” he adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Free, Upload, Video, Sharing, Camera phone, Video phone, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Bad bunny, Superbowl 60, Greg gutfeld, Fox news, Liberal media, Media matters, Dave landau, Comedian, Comedy 

A study published Monday in the Milbank Quarterly, an esteemed peer-reviewed health policy journal, indicated that ultra-processed foods “share key engineering strategies adopted from the tobacco industry, such as dose optimization and hedonic manipulation.”

While the overlap in approach and fallout is striking, it’s also unsurprising given the industries’ entanglements. After all, tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris acquired food companies such as Kraft, General Foods, and Nabisco in decades past.

‘Not simply natural products but highly engineered delivery systems.’

UPFs are defined by the NOVA food classification system as “industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch), or synthesized in laboratories from food substrates or other organic sources (flavor enhancers, colors, and several food additives used to make the product hyper-palatable).”

Grocery stores are replete with UPFs, which include store-bought biscuits; frozen desserts, chocolate, and candies; soda and other carbonated soft drinks; prepackaged meat and vegetables; frozen pizzas; fish sticks and chicken nuggets; packaged breads; instant noodles; chocolate milk; breakfast cereals; and sweetened juices.

Numerous studies have linked UPFs to serious health conditions.

A massive peer-reviewed 2024 study published in the BMJ, the British Medical Association’s esteemed journal, for instance, found evidence pointing to “direct associations between greater exposure to ultra-processed foods and higher risks of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease-related mortality, common mental disorder outcomes, overweight and obesity, and type 2 diabetes.”

RELATED: ‘A giant step back’: Liberals rage against red meat after new food pyramid guidelines release

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images

In the new study published this week, researchers from Harvard University, Duke University, and the University of Michigan noted that like cigarettes, UPFS “are not simply natural products but highly engineered delivery systems designed specifically to maximize biological and psychological reinforcement and habitual overuse.”

The researchers identified a number of commonalities between ultra-processed foods and beverages, which apparently now dominate the supply across much of the globe, and ultra-processed cigarettes.

The primary reinforcer in ultra-processed cigarettes is nicotine, which is optimized for rapid delivery. UPFs also have primary reinforcers optimized for rapid delivery, namely refined carbohydrates and added fats.

Just as the nicotine dose in ultra-processed cigarettes is standardized — 1% to 2% by weight — “to balance reward and aversion,” the researchers noted that refined carbohydrates and fats are precisely calibrated in UPFs to “maximize hedonic impact.”

“On a biological level, carbohydrates and fats activate separate gut-brain reward pathways. Refined carbohydrates stimulate dopamine release via the vagus nerve, whereas fats do so through intestinal lipid sensing and cholecystokinin signaling,” said the study. “When consumed together, their effects are supra-additive: the mesolimbic dopamine response can rise to 300% above baseline, compared with 120% to 150% for fat alone.”

“This makes UPFs with high levels of refined carbohydrates and added fats some of the most potently rewarding substances in the modern diet,” added the study.

In both ultra-processed cigarettes and food, the reinforcers are reportedly rapidly absorbed or digested; the reward is short-lived, leading to a desire for more; flavorants and sweeteners are added to processed ingredient bases to amplify appeal; risks of use abound.

The researchers noted further that both the tobacco and food industries have also worked diligently in their marketing to “create the illusion of reduced harm while preserving their core addictive properties.”

“Many UPFs share more characteristics with cigarettes than with minimally processed fruits or vegetables and therefore warrant regulation commensurate with the significant public-health risks they pose,” said the paper.

The researchers indicated that their analysis demonstrates “how UPFs meet established addiction-science benchmarks, particularly when viewed through parallels with tobacco.”

The apparent aim of such scholarship is to provide the “basis for policies that constrain manufacturers, restrict marketing, and prioritize structural interventions.”

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​Health, Ultraprocessed foods, Upfs, Food, Poison, Diet, Eating, Lifestyle, Cigarettes, Big tobacco, Obesity, Politics 

Although it received scant media attention, the FBI foiled a plot by members of the pro-Palestinian Turtle Island Liberation Front to bomb Southern California businesses on New Year’s Eve.

Most Americans have probably never heard of the term “Turtle Island,” a name said to be used by some indigenous communities to describe North America. “Turtle Island” proponents view the United States as a nation founded on stolen land and express solidarity with a host of anti-American positions and groups — most notably pro-Palestinian activists who support dismantling “colonizing” and “oppressive” power structures.

These ideas are being promoted by organizations that pressure school administrators to implement anti-American educational material.

TILF’s attempted terror attack shows the natural ends of the group’s subversive ideology: hatred, division, and violence. And unfortunately, teachers who view their role as agents of social change are now disseminating these ideas through the country’s K-12 schools in an effort to turn America’s students into child soldiers on the front lines of the country’s culture war.

Curricula such as liberated ethnic studies — a benign-sounding program that encourages students to view the world through an oppressor/oppressed lens and to treat their peers accordingly — is one such vector. Turtle Island is frequently cited in school curricula in the form of land acknowledgements, as well as in school meetings and school board notices on how to “support teachers of color.” The phrase also appears in lesson plans on “the social construction of race” that seek the “inclusion of Black and Latino studies in the public school curriculum.”

In 2021, a whistleblower provided Defending Education with photographs of a classroom at Los Angeles Unified School District’s Alexander Hamilton High School, where posters included “in 2020, make Israel Palestine again and make America Turtle Island again,” “F**k the Police,” and “F**k Amerikka, this is native land.” While those responsible ultimately removed the material under pressure, it is certain that those materials would have remained if not for withering public pressure.

Unsurprisingly, professors promote these ideas in college courses nationwide.

At the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, students can take a course called “Critical Indigenous Theory,” in which “indigenous” is described as a “comparative, interdisciplinary, and global project that exceeds the material conditions of Turtle Island …” One of the required readings for that class is “Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine.”

The University of Texas offers at least five courses with explicit land acknowledgements to Turtle Island, while at the University of California, Irvine, a doctoral candidate wrote a 300-page dissertation on the development of liberation schools on Turtle Island.

While examples abound of academics forcing radical ideas on impressionable university students, it is particularly galling for this to take place in the nation’s taxpayer-funded universities.

It is important to recognize that these ideas aren’t occurring organically. They are being promoted by organizations that pressure school administrators to implement anti-American educational material.

Consider the Great Schools Partnership, which provides professional development to K-12 school districts. The GSP’s self-proclaimed goal is “redesigning” public education with anti-American propaganda, including a 2020 blog post that preached about the need to “Decolonize Education” on “Turtle Island” while smearing Christopher Columbus.

There’s also the Zinn Education Project, a so-called history program coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, which refers to Turtle Island in its abortion advocacy.

One of the most concerning examples of Turtle Island’s negative influence is through its connection to Teach Palestine, an organization corrupting K-12 education with anti-Israel propaganda. Teach Palestine’s sixth-grade lesson plans emphasize the need to “talk about Palestine and Turtle Island in the same breath.”

RELATED: Why are we playing by the rules with people who follow no rules at all?

Photo by Joshua Lott/Washington Post via Getty Images

Through incendiary rhetoric about the perceived injustices indigenous people suffer, Teach Palestine actively encourages students to believe that their country and its history are inherently evil. While the organization doesn’t explicitly endorse violence, its partisan framing, one-sided view of history, and portrayal of Israel and the United States as oppressive colonizers could lead some, like the suspected TILF bombers, to justify violent resistance.

We’re already seeing the effects of this brainwashing destabilizing America.

Anti-Israel protests erupted on college campuses in the wake of the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, resulting in Jewish students across the country being violently attacked by their peers. Many of the 18- to 21-year-olds complicit in these riots seemed to genuinely believe they had the moral high ground and that they were “liberating” their campuses from “oppressive” power structures.

Their skewed logic and hatred are the inevitable result of forcing anti-American ideological frameworks on young students, rather than encouraging pupils to think critically for themselves or teaching the basics of history, science, and mathematics — areas where American students are increasingly falling behind.

Without critical thinking and basic education, future leaders and voters become frighteningly easy to pressure into despising their country — and into treating violence as a legitimate answer.

The fact that 2026 nearly started with a Turtle Island-inspired bombing should be a wake-up call for our leaders to address this crisis in the months ahead.

​Education, Dei, Turtle island, Pro-palestine, Land acknowledgement, Critical theory, Great schools partnerships, October 7, Opinion & analysis, Leftism, Critical race theory in classrooms, Public schools, Colleges and universities, Anti-semitism, Diversity equity inclusion, Anti-american propaganda 

On Friday, January 30, the U.S. Department of Justice released a massive trove of over 3 million pages of documents, along with roughly 180,000 images and 2,000 videos, related to investigations into Jeffrey Epstein.

This third file dump — the largest to date — has drawn intense attention due to its massive scope and the unverified but sensational claims linked to high-profile figures, including President Trump, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew, among others.

On a recent episode of “Relatable,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey shared her three biggest takeaways.

Allie first delivers an important preface: “Some of the files do mention prominent figures. … They have not been tied to any wrongdoing, any substantiated criminal activity in connection with this case. It is important to note that a mention of a famous individual does not necessarily mean that they were involved in Epstein’s nefarious activities,” she says, noting that much of what is currently going viral is “uncorroborated tips” from anonymous sources, many of which have been deemed “not credible” by the FBI.

That said, there are still plenty of lessons we can take away from the information we were given.

Lesson #1: “Notice the nature of sin.”

“Sin makes you stupid. Lust, envy, selfish ambition — they all have a way of arresting our thinking. And Satan does his most effective work by overplaying the benefits of sin in our minds and downplaying its eventual consequences,” she says.

“These powerful people in science, medicine, business, finance, and politics all got caught up in Epstein’s web, and they were enticed by this promise of connection and greater power and maybe unfettered pleasure in a lot of cases.”

“Some of them probably didn’t intend to be involved in a criminal enterprise,” says Allie, “but little by little and small justification by small justification, they found themselves connected to an evil person, and, in some cases, they themselves started practicing evil things.”

Lesson #2: “Recalibrate our definition of success.”

Allie cautions against chasing wealth, power, and fame, as they can be a slippery slope into “ruin and destruction.” Sometimes when we’re denied by man — a promotion, invitation, or endorsement that would have given us a boost — there’s a good chance that it ends up being “God’s protection” over us.

She points to Jesus’ admonition in Matthew 19:24: “Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” as well as Paul’s warning in 1 Timothy 6:9-10: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pieced themselves with many pangs.”

“The seeking of wealth and power for the sake of wealth and power has a way of crowding out godly affections and replacing those affections with idolatry,” she summarizes.

“So we should thank the Lord for what he gives and what he takes away, knowing that his glory and our holiness is ultimately his goal. So we recalibrate the definition of success.”

Lesson #3: “Be grateful for a Christian civilization.”

“There are Jeffrey Epsteins throughout history across a wide variety of cultures. In fact, in many non-Western nations today, child marriage or raping underage girls is not seen as perverse. It’s not seen as criminal,” says Allie. “The reason the West and the United States has a general consensus around the evil of pedophilia is because of Christianity.”

In the ancient world, she explains, children were often aborted, left outside to die, killed after birth, or forced into labor or prostitution.

“They didn’t possess the physical strength that was lauded by Rome, and they didn’t possess the full intellect or the logos that was lauded by Greece, so they were treated as kind of subhuman,” says Allie. “And it wasn’t until Christians introduced the world to the imago dei and preached this radical message of equality before our creator that slowly but surely the world changed how it saw children — not as animals but as these vulnerable people in need of extra protection.”

“The revulsion to Jeffrey Epstein and his ilk, whose actions are incredibly common throughout history, is actually evidence of the vestiges of the Christian conscience that forged the West and inspired the words that we read in the Declaration of Independence.”

To hear more, watch the full episode above.

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To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Epstein, Jeffery epstein, Epstein files, Epstein documents, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Gary Cooper never played obnoxious, overbearing characters. He played men who weighed their words and meant them. In a trade of display, he mastered stillness. His screen presence was immense, but acting was only one part of his story — a story that led, in the end, to God.

Born Frank James Cooper in 1901, he was shaped by Montana ranch life and the reserve of English boarding schools. Before studios dressed him in costumes, life dressed him in discipline. He could ride, shoot, and stand his ground. These weren’t skills for the screen so much as habits of character.

‘I am not afraid,’ he said — and meant it. Of all the famous lines he spoke on screen, none carried the force of those four words.

His rise came just as Hollywood grew fond of show and swagger. The 1930s and 1940s rewarded fast talkers and flashing smiles. Actors like James Cagney, who barked and lunged through gangster films, or Errol Flynn, who fenced, flirted, and filled the frame with movement. Even romantic leads like Clark Gable leaned on charm and chatter. Movies prized motion. Dialogue came in bursts.

Quiet authority

Cooper worked the other way. In “High Noon,” while other Western heroes would ride out guns blazing, his marshal waits. He listens. He walks the town. He watches the situation unfold before choosing when to act.

In “Sergeant York,” his courage comes with doubt, which is why it feels believable. Alvin York begins as a hard-drinking farm boy with a taste for trouble. Faith interrupts his life, forcing him to wrestle with Scripture and conscience at the same time. When war comes, he goes only after weighing the cost. He fights to protect others and to return home to build a life.

Where others faced the camera with frantic talk and expansive gestures, Cooper stripped things down to presence and timing — long pauses; spare looks. His characters hesitated when others hurried.

Today, that strong, quiet type survives mostly as a memory. Clint Eastwood is still with us. But age has pushed him to the margins, and Hollywood no longer revolves around figures like him. The figure Cooper made famous is now more likely to be mocked than admired. His characters would be called rigid or out of date, even emotionally vacant.

Ease and appetite

That judgment says more about the present than it does about him. Cooper showed that a man proves himself not by how loudly he speaks, but by what he is willing to carry. He also learned that responsibility, without something higher to live for and answer to, becomes empty and isolating.

Although Cooper was raised Episcopalian, faith didn’t shape his early adult life. Religion was part of the scenery, not the script. Hollywood rewarded ease and appetite, and Cooper followed the flow. He drank too much. He leaned into a long pattern of adultery. Fame made temptation easy, and he rarely refused it.

His wife, Veronica “Rocky” Balfe, was a committed Catholic, as was their daughter, Maria. Their marriage entered rough water, and Cooper knew exactly why. Guilt was no longer abstract. In 1953, during a trip to Rome, he met Pope Pius XII at the Vatican. The meeting didn’t convert him on the spot, but it unsettled him. Faith stopped being a background habit and became a serious concern. He began to ask whether the life he had built could support the way he was living. The answer was no.

Back in America, Cooper grew close to Father Harold Ford, a priest the family called “Father Tough Stuff.” The nickname fit. Ford was unimpressed by movie stardom. He spoke of duty, devotion, and sacrifice, setting aside the celebrity and addressing the soul.

RELATED: Malcolm Muggeridge: Fashionable idealist turned sage against the machine

Washington Post/Getty Images

The strength of surrender

Cooper listened. What began as a conversation became routine. He started to pray. He returned to confession. He accepted limits where he had lived by impulse. In 1959, he formally entered the Catholic Church. There was no announcement tour. Faith entered his days quietly, through prayer and self-control.

When cancer arrived, belief stopped being optional and became essential. As illness closed in, the habits he had learned rose to the surface. He spoke of God’s will without panic and of the future without fear. There was no display in it, only resolve — the kind of courage that comes from faith in something higher. “I am not afraid,” he said — and meant it. Of all the famous lines he spoke on screen, none carried the force of those four words.

Cooper died on May 13, 1961, at the age of 60. He was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Southampton, New York, beneath a plain stone marker. His path wasn’t easy, but it reached a clear end. What began in excess finished in order.

For Christians, Cooper leaves behind a simple lesson. Faith shows itself in what a person does. You keep your word. You stay when leaving would be easier. Belief appears in conduct long before it appears in language.

He failed, corrected himself, and tried again. After running hard in the pursuit of pleasure, he stopped, knelt down, and looked upward. He defined himself by what he accepted and what he refused. Cooper is gone, but the example remains — a timely lesson from a timeless actor.

​Faith, Abide, Christianity, Lifestyle, Conversion, Converts, Gary cooper 

In my more cynical moments, I’ve suspected that Valentine’s Day owes its longevity less to romance than to a choreographed alliance between the greeting card, chocolate, and lingerie industries. The day has been thoroughly commercialized, and many men, myself included over the years, have approached it with well-intended but often ham-fisted earnestness.

Still beneath the marketing and the eye rolls, Valentine’s Day has come to serve as a pause for many couples. A moment, however imperfectly executed, to tend the fire of intimacy. Over time, lasting loves tend to look at it less as a performance and more as a reminder, a deliberate effort to say, “You matter to me,” even when the words come out crooked.

Common things are seldom viewed as precious. Only a deep bond leaves one person willing to shoulder what the other no longer can.

For family caregivers, however, Valentine’s Day carries a different weight altogether.

In my writing, I often focus on the broader applications of the lessons caregiving teaches. Sometimes though, it’s important to speak directly to a particular group. This is one of those times.

I’m talking about couples where one person is carrying more than their share of the relationship. Not because of indifference or neglect, but because the other, though still alive, is unable to do so. Dementia, disability, illness, injury, or unrelenting pain has shifted the balance. The love remains, but the weight cannot be borne evenly.

Holidays already do this to families. Christmas and Thanksgiving often force a reckoning with decline and loss. Valentine’s Day pierces a little deeper. It is intimate by design. And when one person must carry the relationship alone, the sadness can feel sharper, more personal, and harder to explain.

Caregiving requires reframing. Not denial or pretending. Not putting on a happy face. Reframing means stepping back far enough to see the relationship writ large, not merely through the narrow lens of present limitations. It means recognizing that the ache itself testifies to something rare.

Common things are seldom viewed as precious. Only an uncommon love produces this kind of sorrow. Only a deep bond leaves one person willing to shoulder what the other no longer can.

Over the years, I’ve offered a suggestion that sometimes catches people off guard. “It is OK for caregivers to buy their own Valentine’s Day card.”

Choose the one your husband or wife would have picked for you if they could. At this point in your life together, you already know the words. You’ve learned them through years of shared history, private humor, ordinary sacrifice, and quiet fidelity. Find the card that says what your spouse would have said, and mail it to yourself. Not as an exercise in self-pity, but as a tribute to the love you share.

I remember the first time I mentioned this on the air many years ago. When I finished, I glanced through the studio glass and saw tears filling my producer’s eyes. He was caught in a hard place, married to someone struggling with alcoholism. It is a chronic impairment, one that quietly turns a spouse into a caregiver, though few people think to call it that. He understood immediately what I meant. Not the card itself, but the recognition of love still present when reciprocity has gone missing.

Fix your spouse’s favorite meal, even if you have to help them eat it. Set the table, even if there is only one place setting that feels fully present. Play the song you once danced to or hummed together through the years.

Pining over what is no longer possible can undo a caregiver. But choosing instead to rest in the magnitude of a love that inspires such devotion can steady you. That choice does not eliminate the tears. Nothing in this life will, and that is not a bad thing.

Some things are heartbreaking because they are too beautiful for our hearts to contain this side of heaven. “Sadness” is too small a word for that kind of ache.

Near the end of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” C.S. Lewis gives Lucy a moment of language-defying clarity when she catches a glimpse of Aslan’s country. Struggling to explain what she feels, all she can say is, “It would break your heart.” When someone asks whether she means that it is sad, Lucy answers, “No,” because what she has seen is not tragic at all. It is simply too glorious for her heart to hold.

PULL: The people carrying addiction’s weight rarely get seen

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

This is where scripture speaks with quiet authority. The Christian promise is not that God will make all new things, discarding what was. The promise is that He will make all things new. The love you lived, the faithfulness you showed, the care you gave, none of it is wasted.

So this coming Valentine’s Day, if you find yourself in a hospital room, an assisted-living facility, a nursing home, or at your own kitchen table with only one place setting that feels fully occupied, allow the tears to come. Read the card your spouse would have sent. Eat the meal you would have shared. Listen to the music that once marked your life together.

And set another card on the table, the one you would choose for the person who changed your life so profoundly that you now carry the love entrusted to you when he or she no longer can.

Remember this as well. There is one who loves you both more fiercely than our hearts can understand. He sees every tear. He keeps account of every sacrifice. And He will indeed make all things new.

As scripture reminds us, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

​Valentine’s day, Caretakers, Love, Caregiving, Holidays, Life together, Opinion & analysis, Caregivers, Faith, Endurance, Perseverance 

What millions of Americans are about to witness as they sit down for wings, football, and cold beers “might be the most political Super Bowl ever,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere warns on “Stu Does America.”

An article from the Associated Press explained that “the NFL is facing pressure ahead of Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots to take a more explicit stance against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.”

“More than 184,000 people have signed a petition calling on the league to denounce the potential presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Super Bowl, which is being held at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area. The liberal group MoveOn plans to deliver the petition to the NFL’s New York City headquarters on Tuesday,” it continued.

“Anway, no plans for ICE immigration enforcement at the Super Bowl, sources say. So, once again, this is a totally manufactured controversy,” Stu comments.

And the Super Bowl’s half-time performer, Bad Bunny, has been very vocally anti-ICE — which Roger Goodell was questioned about in a recent press conference.

“Bad Bunny made a pretty clear anti-ICE statement at the Grammys last night. What are you expecting in terms of political statement, whether that’s from Bad Bunny or Green Day or any of the other performers?” a reporter asked Goodell.

“Listen, Bad Bunny is, and I think that was demonstrated last night, one of the great artists in the world. And that’s one of the reasons we chose him. But the other reason is, he understood the platform he was on and that this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that,” Goodell responded.

“I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance,” he added.

“It’s such a funny thing to watch theoretically serious people have a serious conversation about someone named Bad Bunny. It’s just such a strange world we live in,” Stu laughs, before pointing out that at the Grammys, Bad Bunny used the win to protest ICE.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out,” Bad Bunny said as he accepted the award for best musica urbana album.

The beloved alternative band Green Day is also performing at the Super Bowl — and Stu believes they’ll be political as well.

“Their opinions might be dumb, but they really think they’re important,” Stu says. “So, I will be shocked if at the very least we don’t have anti-ICE pins or something like that, but probably more than that from Green Day.”

Want more from Stu?

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​Video, Free, Sharing, Video phone, Camera phone, Upload, Youtube.com, Stu does america, Stu burguiere, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Super bowl 60, Super bowl political, Ice, Bad bunny, Green day, Bad bunny ice, Bad bunny grammys, Green day politics, American idiot 

General Motors’ fourth-quarter earnings were widely framed as a show of confidence in an electric future. The company absorbed billions in losses and reaffirmed its strategy, and analysts largely applauded its resolve.

Beneath the optimistic headlines, however, was a less reassuring reality: The all-electric transition is proving significantly more expensive, more fragile, and more politically exposed than automakers originally promised.

What stands out most is GM’s refusal to abandon the all-electric narrative, even after acknowledging the scale of the financial setback.

EV shock

In the report, released January 27, GM disclosed $7.1 billion in EV-related losses tied primarily to reshaping its electric-vehicle production plans. While much of the charge is non-cash, it represents real losses on capital GM invested in EV plans that are now being abandoned or restructured.

These figures are not a minor course correction. They are an acknowledgment that even the industry’s most experienced players misjudged the pace, cost, and risk of electrification.

The disclosure followed Ford’s admission that its EV push has resulted in roughly $20 billion in losses. The contrast between the two companies is not the size of the miscalculation but the response. Ford has slowed timelines and reset expectations. General Motors, under CEO Mary Barra, has chosen to absorb the hit and continue forward.

According to GM, roughly $6 billion stems from changes to its EV manufacturing strategy, including canceled supplier contracts and unused equipment originally intended for electric-vehicle production.

Another $1.1 billion reflects the restructuring of its China joint venture. Combined with an October 2025 filing tied to abandoned EV plans, GM has now recognized approximately $7.6 billion tied to its EV strategy in 2025 alone.

Full speed ahead?

Despite those numbers, coverage of GM’s earnings leaned positive. Reports emphasized the company’s balance-sheet strength, its ability to manage the charges, and its position as a leading EV seller in the United States. In that framing, the financial setback was treated as a painful but manageable step toward an inevitable electric future.

CEO Mary Barra reinforced that narrative, saying she has no regrets about GM’s EV strategy, which remains the automaker’s “north star.” She cited regulatory changes in 2025 as more disruptive than tariffs and argued that GM’s rapid production reorganization limited the damage.

That explanation is telling. It underscores how policy-driven the EV transition has become, with automakers increasingly responding to regulations, incentives, and geopolitical shifts rather than consumer demand alone.

Facing facts

While GM’s long-term direction may remain the same, what has changed is the implicit acknowledgment that the transition will take longer and cost more than originally forecast, particularly as incentives fade and infrastructure gaps remain unresolved.

That tension is visible in the sales data. GM’s fourth-quarter EV sales fell 43% year over year, totaling just 25,219 vehicles. That decline complicates claims that the financial hit reflects only temporary turbulence. It points instead to continued consumer hesitation driven by price, charging access, and concerns over long-term ownership costs.

The full-year picture is more mixed. GM’s EV sales for 2025 rose 48% to 169,887 vehicles, making it the second-largest EV seller in the U.S. behind Tesla. Those figures support claims of progress, but they also highlight how uneven adoption remains — often buoyed by incentives and fleet purchases rather than steady, organic demand.

China adds another layer of uncertainty. Once expected to anchor global EV growth, the market has become far less predictable due to regulatory shifts, fierce local competition, and rising geopolitical tension. GM’s decision to restructure its joint venture there reflects a broader reassessment of international exposure, not simply EV headwinds.

RELATED: Test drive: 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack Plus

Stellantis

Stand by your plan

What stands out most is GM’s refusal to abandon the all-electric narrative, even after acknowledging the scale of the financial setback. Barra has argued that adoption will accelerate as charging infrastructure improves. That may prove true, but it assumes infrastructure expansion will continue without the level of government support that initially fueled growth — and that consumers will remain patient as prices stay high and technology continues to evolve.

From an industry standpoint, GM’s experience is less about failure than timing. Automakers were pushed — politically and culturally — to commit early and publicly to electrification. Those that hesitated were criticized. Now, the cost of being first is coming into focus. Retooling factories, securing battery supply chains, retraining workers, and complying with shifting regulations require enormous capital, and those investments do not disappear when demand softens.

There is also a credibility question. When executives express no regrets after multibillion-dollar setbacks, investors and consumers are justified in asking whether earlier forecasts were grounded in market realities — or shaped more by political alignment than consumer readiness.

Cautionary tale

GM’s experience should also serve as a cautionary tale for policymakers. Mandates and incentives can accelerate innovation, but they cannot force consumer acceptance on a fixed timetable. The EV transition will happen, but not on command and not without detours.

For General Motors, the challenge now is alignment. The company has the scale, engineering talent, and brand equity to compete in an electrified future. What it cannot afford is a prolonged mismatch between production plans and real-world demand. The $7 billion reckoning is more than an accounting event. It is a reminder that the road to an all-electric future is longer, bumpier, and far more expensive than advertised.

Consumers are watching closely. They are not rejecting electric vehicles outright — but they are demanding better value, better infrastructure, and more honest timelines. If those signals are ignored, this reckoning may be only the beginning.

​Auto industry, Lifestyle, Evs, Mary barra, General motors, Align cars 

Nothing confuses a sports fan’s heart like finding out his favorite TV character supports the other team. Or worse — when it turns that out a lecturing, woke celebrity is on the same side.

For the big game in Santa Clara, California, on Sunday, two big names have already been tapped for the start of the event.

‘I have officially declared Super Bowl Sunday as “New England Patriots Appreciation Day.”‘

Singer Jon Bon Jovi was called on to introduce the New England Patriots before the game. He has supported the team since his favorite coaches went from the New York Giants to New England in the 1990s, according to Yahoo. Meanwhile, actor Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Jurassic World”) will introduce the Seattle Seahawks. Pratt grew up a Seahawks fan after moving to Seattle around the age of 6.

Here is where the rest of the singers, actors, and politicians stand so that fans know exactly who to embrace and who to disavow.

New England Patriots

It should come as no surprise that Boston natives Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are huge Patriots fans, but Mark Wahlberg is too. “Marky” Mark has not only voiced his support for the team but appeared in an episode of HBO’s “Entourage” alongside legendary quarterback Tom Brady in 2009.

Celebrity reporter Maria Menounos is well known for wearing Patriots outfits over the years and has even appeared in photos with the team’s ownership group.

Noted superhero actor Chris Evans reportedly loves the Patriots, while Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler and iconic English musician Elton John round off the celebrity list, per CBS Sports.

RELATED: Olympic boxer Imane Khelif admits to having male genes, but sends message to Trump: ‘I’m not trans’

Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images

On the politics side, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (D) is cheering for the Pats, obviously, but so is Maine Governor Janet Mills (D).

“I have officially declared Super Bowl Sunday as ‘New England Patriots Appreciation Day’ throughout the State of Maine. Go Pats!” Mills wrote on X.

Democrat Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee has shown plenty of support for the Patriots over the years, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, from New Hampshire, recently declared her support for the Patriots too.

Seattle Seahawks

According to Yahoo! Sports, actors Rainn Wilson (“The Office”) and Will Ferrell (“Old School,” “Anchorman”) are big Seahawks fans. Wilson was born in Seattle, while Ferrell has dropped in on Seahawks team meetings.

On the musical side, “Baby Got Back” rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot is an avid Seahawks fan, while rapper Macklemore could also be considered a die-hard.

USA Today listed singer Ariana Grande as a fan, too; she sang the national anthem in Seattle in 2014.

All-time “Jeopardy!” champion turned host Ken Jennings also flies a Seahawks flag, claiming that being a fan of the team “made me a better person.”

“Walking Dead” fan favorite Jeffrey Dean Morgan has shown that his true colors include fluorescent green, vehemently supporting the team over the years. Morgan was born in Seattle.

FEATURED: Olympic ski jumpers may be injecting their penises with acid to jump farther

Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson (D) is a shoe-in for Seahawks support, but few may expect that some Virginia politicians are sneaking around supporting the Seahawks at the same time.

State senator and former NFL player Aaron Rouse and Virginia Speaker of the House Don Scott, both Democrats, admitted to rooting for the Seahawks on Sunday.

Local reporter Tyler Englander seemingly caught the politicians by surprise on Friday morning and acquired both their predictions.

Interestingly enough, Rouse never played for the Seahawks. He was born in Norfolk, Virginia, played college ball at Virginia Tech, and was a pro player for the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants.

For those wondering who President Trump has sided with, he recently told reporters, “I can’t say that. But they are really two good teams.”

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​Fearless, Celebrities, Athletes, Super bowl, Football, Fans, Super bowl lx, New england, Seattle, Sports 

When HBO debuted “Euphoria” in 2019, it was hyped as the ne plus ultra of the ever-popular “the shocking and terrible things kids these days are up to” genre.

Accurate or not, viewers responded. By the time season two of “Euphoria” ended three years ago, it was HBO’s second-most-watched show since 2004, right behind “Game of Thrones.”

Hey there, kids! Here are all the worst things you can do. We’ve made a list. And then we built a TV show around it!

And last month, the trailer for season three — which debuts in April — got 100 million views in two days.

I had been wondering what all the fuss is about. In my day, we had “Less Than Zero,” “Kids,” and “River’s Edge.” Teenagers in those movies gave each other AIDS, prostituted themselves for drugs, shoplifted, and even murdered out of boredom.

Did “Euphoria” really try to out-extreme that?

Even if it did, I suspected that “Euphoria” might be the last gasp of the “terrible teens trauma” genre,” as real-life teenagers are apparently moving in the opposite direction.

Gen Z is taking drugs less, is having sex less, and is generally less licentious than previous generations. It appears that the classic forms of teenage defiance and debauchery have become so routine and overdone that the kids have rebelled against the rebellion.

Into the void

With this in mind, I began the first season of “Euphoria.” I can’t say I was impressed. “Euphoria” was not good. But it was shocking.

What I thought was going to be a glimpse into the lives of contemporary teenagers was instead a pornographic recovery story in which the main character — a teenage trans substance abuser — never manages to get clean and sober.

But that’s not the notable part. The notable part is the porn.

Take the early scene where a 50-ish pervert dad matches with the trans teen on a dating app and meets him in a dark, filthy hotel room. The teen shows up, the adult says creepy things to him, and then … well, you get to see it all in graphic detail, from multiple angles.

Is that a glimpse into the lives of contemporary teens? Or is it an assault on the senses, a forced introduction — for me, anyway — into a disturbingly specific genre of smut?

The whole show is like that. Scene after scene of activities, characters, and conversations you really, really, really don’t want to see.

I kept waiting for the appearance of a single semi-sympathetic character in the show. Someone I cared about even a tiny bit. There were no such characters.

Another thing I really didn’t want to see: an overweight, not-so-bright 16-year-old girl, setting up a pay website where she can take half-naked videos of her butt in order to extract money from creepy old men.

One of her first customers is a pathetic fat guy who wants to be humiliated. She mocks him as he squeals like a pig. Nothing is left to the imagination, as if the show wants to debase the viewer as well.

Gen Z to the rescue

This, I assume, is why current teenagers are rebelling against the ritualized degeneracy of our times.

Because this idea that it’s fun and exciting to be a prostitute/drug addict/rapist/psychopath has been crammed down their throats by the creepy, perverted “entertainment” industry for as long as they’ve been alive. And they’re sick of it. And I don’t blame them.

“Euphoria” was one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen. Ultimately, it is just an episodic catalogue of every soul-destroying activity a teenager might indulge in.

Hey there, kids! Here are all the worst things you can do. We’ve made a list. And then we built a TV show around it!

That list would include: OnlyFans. Sexual abuse. Psychopaths beating people half to death. Drug dealers. Extortion. All manner of rape. Psych ward imprisonment. Guys with face tattoos force-feeding fentanyl to teenage girls from the edge of their knives.

The show did give me new sympathy for today’s young women, subjected as they are to certain crude digital courtship rituals. Never before have I been induced to look at so many male members, in all their depressing variety.

RELATED: Why does Hollywood have to make everything gay?

John Shearer/Theo Wargo/Rosediana Ciaravolo/Getty Images

All things considered

But enough about my opinions of “Euphoria.” What did that bastion of propriety and moral certitude National Public Radio think? Let’s start with the headline of an article from 2022: “HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ is more than a parent’s worst nightmare. It’s a creative triumph.”

I would be curious in what way it is “a creative triumph.” It’s badly written. None of the characters seems remotely human. It uses all the cinematic techniques of a bad horror film.

NPR continues: “Creator/executive producer Sam Levinson has built a storytelling style that transcends the titillation of its surface-level story, finding new ways to stitch together the tales of characters seemingly trapped in a web of tragedies and missteps.”

The storytelling is perfunctory. The characters are paper-thin. And as usual, the most evil people on earth are white male high school athletes.

More from NPR: “That daring, creative vision only deepens now, as the show’s long-delayed second season takes flight on HBO.”

The only thing that deepens when you watch “Euphoria” is your gag reflex.

And finally:

That “Euphoria” somehow manages to make you keep caring about often-unlikeable folks on such brutal and dark journeys, is a testament to the uniquely creative voice distilled in each episode. It is thrilling, daring, disquieting and compelling — a triumph at a time when truly unique storytelling remains unsettlingly rare.

Wait, wait, don’t tell me

It’s amazing that we’ve reached a point in our society where NPR is promoting and advocating for what once would have been universally understood as the sexual exploitation of minors.

That’s really what “Euphoria” is. It even tells on itself during a scene in which a 10-year-old boy sneaks into his father’s office and watches a video from his father’s porn collection.

We get a shot from behind the boy, so that we’re effectively invited to watch the video with him.

In this way, we get to participate in the destruction of the child’s innocence. Which, I guess, is the whole point of this show.

NPR’s praise and support for this television show are utterly damning. Thank God NPR has been defunded. Now put them all in jail for being part of this wicked demoralization project. “Euphoria” is an assault on our senses, our morals, and the innocence of our children.

​Culture, Entertainment, Euphoria, Hbo, Movies, Exploitation, Blake’s progress 

On Sept. 30, 2023, shots rang out after a football game in Georgia, WSB-TV reported.

Emmanuel Dorsey — just 14 years old — was killed outside the Griffin-Spalding game, the station said.

‘Jurors are just fed up.’

The suspect was 17-year-old Kaomarion Kendrick.

Arrest warrants stated that Kendrick had a gun with him at the game, WXIA-TV reported, adding that when the game was over, a fight broke out between “two rival cliques.”

During that fight, officers said Kendrick pulled out the gun, after which Dorsey and others fled, WXIA said, adding that warrants indicate Dorsey was shot in the neck and face.

The documents also note that while both teens were not gang members, the two groups they were hanging around were rival gangs, WXIA noted.

RELATED: ‘Hellhounds coming for you’: Loved ones of grandmother murdered in carjacking blast her ‘demon’ teen killer at his sentencing

Kaomarion KendrickImage source: Spalding County (Ga.) Sheriff’s Office

WSB said Kendrick spent eight days on the run before being captured in Henry County.

Officials said at the time of his arrest that Kendrick was armed with a Glock handgun modified with a full-auto switch, WXIA said.

WSB reported that a Spalding County jury last week convicted Kendrick of a long list of charges, including felony murder and three counts of violation of the RICO Act.

With that, Kendrick was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — followed by another 85 years, WSB said.

RELATED: Teen Islam convert, an ISIS backer, carried out deadly stabbing after kid mocked his faith: Police

A WAGA-TV video report about Kendrick’s sentence indicated that prosecutors depicted him as a “stone-cold killer,” “unrepentant,” and “unremorseful, even at trial.”

David Studdard, acting district attorney, told WAGA that “jurors are just fed up” with the deadly violence and “hear this over and over and over, and they’ve just had it with this kind of thing.”

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Fake constitutionalism is increasingly becoming a problem in America. There is a marked tendency among public officials, political commentators, and media figures to invoke bogus constitutional principles or bogus interpretations of genuine constitutional principles. They do this mainly to shift blame to their political opponents or to shield the otherwise unacceptable behavior of their political allies.

Fake constitutionalism undermines constitutional government by spreading misconceptions about what our Constitution means.

The First Amendment certainly protects a reporter’s right to publish information. But it does not protect unlawful activity in pursuit of information.

Regrettably the First Amendment has become one of the most fruitful areas in which fake constitutionalism thrives. It is now commonplace for Americans — even constitutional lawyers — to make inflated claims about the protections afforded by the First Amendment, extending its scope far beyond the safeguards America’s founders had in mind when they debated and wrote this essential provision of our Constitution.

The most recent case in point is the misplaced outrage over the supposed violations of the First Amendment involved in the arrest of Don Lemon.

Lemon, formerly of CNN, was taken into custody on Jan. 30 for his part in disrupting a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lemon accompanied and filmed protesters who stormed the service to express their disapproval of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis. (An elder of the church is reportedly an ICE agent.) The Department of Justice has charged a number of the disruptors, including Lemon, with violating the FACE Act and conspiracy to deprive others of their civil rights — in this case, their right to gather and worship God in peace in their own church.

In his statement to the media, Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, characterized his client’s arrest and the filing of federal charges against Lemon as an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.”

“Don has been a journalist for 30 years,” Lowell continued, “and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.” Arguments to this effect have also been made by countless journalists and commentators incensed by the idea that a journalist might be held to account for his unlawful behavior.

Contrary to Lowell, the First Amendment does not afford any protection to journalism as an activity or to journalists as a class. Instead it protects certain more narrowly defined activities, namely speech and publication. This is evident from the language the framers of the amendment chose to express their meaning: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

RELATED: Unsealed indictment against Don Lemon cites his own comments on livestream from ‘takeover’ at church

Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images

The scope of the First Amendment’s protection is also indicated by the early controversies over its meaning, most notably the debates over the Sedition Act of 1798. Celebrated American statesmen and jurists like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison condemned the act, while others of equal stature, such as Alexander Hamilton and Supreme Court Justice James Iredell, defended it.

The argument concerned the extent to which the government could punish certain kinds of publications. No one at the time, however, suggested that the First Amendment protected otherwise unlawful acts done in the pursuit of publishing information.

The narrow — and reasonable — original understanding of the First Amendment is also evident in the works of the great early American legal commentators such as Justice Joseph Story. In his celebrated “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” Story wrote:

It is plain … that the language of [the First Amendment] imports no more, than that every man shall have a right to speak, write, and print his opinions upon any subject whatever, without any prior restraint, so always, that he does not injure any other person in his rights, person, or property, or reputation; and so always, that he does not thereby disturb the public peace.

As Story’s remarks make clear, even the right to speak and publish is limited by certain principles necessary to a just public order and the protection of other essential rights. Even more to the present purpose is Story’s argument that the First Amendment protects only the right to speak and publish — that is, rights that belong to every man, not just to journalists.

Rejecting this traditional understanding of the First Amendment and accepting the Abbe Lowell version would lead to ridiculous and unacceptable consequences. It would mean that professional journalists must be treated as a privileged class and must be allowed to break the law in the pursuit of a story.

But practically nobody thinks this should be the case, and it is certainly not how the law operates in its ordinary course.

If a reporter is speeding at 100 miles per hour through a town to get to the scene of an important story, he will be stopped by the police and charged with violating the speed limit and reckless driving. If this reporter were to cause an accident and kill someone, he would be charged with negligent homicide or manslaughter — and the fact that he committed the crime in connection with his desire to engage in activities that the First Amendment protects would be totally irrelevant to his defense.

The First Amendment certainly protects a reporter’s right to publish information. It does not, however, protect unlawful activity undertaken in pursuit of information, which is often protected by principles of privacy and ownership recognized in law.

Lemon and the protesters are guilty of the same misconduct, and the First Amendment is of no help to either.

It is undoubtedly a news event when a potential candidate for public office meets with advisers at his home to decide whether to launch a campaign. But this would not give someone like Don Lemon the right to barge into the home over the objections of those who live there and “cover” the event. He would be guilty of trespassing or home invasion and liable to legal punishment.

This example points to the inadequacy of the arguments made by those who have condemned the disruption of the church service but claimed that Lemon, as a journalist, should not be among those charged.

Such defenders seem to think that the other disruptors did something unlawful but that Lemon was merely there to report on the event. But his relevant actions were the same as those of the others involved. They came into the church uninvited during a service at which the worshipers had been peacefully conducting their own business — and in fact exercising a constitutional right clearly stated in the First Amendment. This disruption, of which Lemon was a part, prevented the congregants from carrying on the activities they had a right to pursue.

Charging the other protesters but not Lemon would treat him as a member of a privileged class that has a right to break the law.

This would introduce an unacceptable incoherence into our constitutional law. To the extent that the protesters wanted to make a political point, they also held views protected by the First Amendment. They erred, however, in choosing an unlawful method by which to make their complaints heard — just as Lemon erred in the method by which he tried to get his story.

Lemon and the protesters are guilty of the same misconduct, and the First Amendment is of no help to either.

Suppose a case in which the legal and constitutional issues are the same, but the actors’ political identities are different. Suppose, for example, a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, outraged by federal civil rights enforcement, decides to disrupt the service at a predominantly African-American church, of which a federal civil rights lawyer is a member.

Suppose further that the Klan brings along a sympathetic reporter and storms the church, shouting insults, while the reporter films the whole shameful episode. Would any decent American think this action was a legitimate form of First Amendment-protected “protest”? Or that the reporter who tagged along should be immune to the charges that would properly be filed against the other participants?

Of course not.

RELATED: When worship is interrupted, neutrality is no longer an option

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Recall further Justice Story’s observation that the First Amendment’s protection of the right to speak and publish belongs to “every man.” This is a key principle affirmed by the Supreme Court in modern times. The great liberal Justice William Brennan, on more than one occasion, remarked that the First Amendment protects all Americans equally, not just the members of the professional, credentialed press. A blogger or a concerned citizen who circulates a newsletter has all the same First Amendment rights as someone who works for the New York Times or CNN.

This point is essential to further clarifying the unacceptable consequences that would result if we accepted the First Amendment defense of Don Lemon’s role in the Minnesota church disruption.

Because the amendment protects all Americans, and not only professional journalists, defending Lemon’s conduct as an activity protected by the First Amendment would mean that everybody could break the law and then claim to be engaged in “reporting.” Any concerned citizen with a recording device or a pad of paper could walk into a neighbor’s home, a local church, or, for that matter, the offices of CNN and then claim First Amendment immunity for disrupting the lives of other Americans pursuing legitimate activities.

No sensible person would embrace such a chaotic standard, which is certainly not required by the First Amendment.

Justice Story observed in his account of the First Amendment that “the exercise of a right is essentially different from an abuse of it. The one is no legitimate inference from the other.”

Story continued, “Common sense here promulgates the broad doctrine: so exercise your freedom, as not to infringe the rights of others, or the public peace and safety.” This is the way the founders thought about the rights they enshrined in the Constitution, and it is the only way to think about them that is consistent with a decent public order in which the rights of all are safe.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

​Don lemon, First amendment, Cities church, Constitution, Journalism, Face act, Opinion & analysis, Reporting, Freedom of speech, Free exercise, Religion, Leftism, Arrested 

Christians are being told by anti-ICE pastors like Ben Cremer that putting America first is unbiblical, that enforcing borders violates Scripture, and that letting Christian beliefs inform public policy is “Christian nationalism.”

And according to BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey, none of that is true.

“We hear a lot from people like Ben Cremer that putting your country first is wrong, or allowing your Christian conservative views to inform how you vote, that that’s wrong,” Stuckey explains.

And eight months ago, Cremer posted, “Myth #1: Immigrants are a drain on our country.”

“What I’m most interested in is not that he’s saying that that’s a myth, but his response to that,” she comments, before reading Cremer’s response.

“The Bible never defines a person’s worth by their economic output. In fact, it warns us not to favor the rich over the poor (James 2:1-7). God’s kingdom is built not on cost-benefit analysis but on belovedness. The call to welcome the stranger (Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10:19) is rooted in who God is — not in what the stranger can offer us,” Cremer wrote.

“He is conflating the kingdom of God with America. … We’re not talking about God’s kingdom. We’re talking about the United States. So, actually, in him saying that Christian nationalists are trying to enforce some theocracy by allowing the law to be informed by what we believe, he is actually the one that is conflating our spiritual obligation to the poor in the spiritual kingdom of heaven with America here today,” Stuckey responds.

Stuckey also points out that the government was instituted by God, pointing to Romans 13:2-4, which explains that “rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad,” and that the authority figure is “God’s servant for your good.”

“It was his idea. Law and law enforcement were God’s idea. Now, this right here is why it is so important to elect politicians that define good and evil how God defines them,” Stuckey says.

Cremer has also written in a post on his Instagram that “Christian Nationalism looks like hearing God say ‘I will pour out my spirit on all people’ in Acts 2 where all nations, languages, and tribes were present then protesting by saying ‘America first!’”

“There’s an irony in this accusation. Progressives, as I noted earlier, consistently conflate America and the church, which is the very thing they accuse Christian nationalists of doing,” Stuckey says.

“The truth is, hot take, we do not see the importance of ethnic diversity within nations or local churches anywhere in Scripture,” she continues. “Nowhere.”

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The Pentagon’s recent decision to downgrade China as America’s primary threat arrives at a strange moment. As officials refine their rhetoric in Washington, Chinese operatives continue to map the nation’s nervous system: power grids, water plants, phone networks, hospitals, and railways.

It’s a sustained and serious threat, and it receives far less attention than it should.

Over the past decade, Chinese hackers have siphoned off personal data from tens of millions of Americans. Medical files, financial records, home addresses — all collected, catalogued, and stored. That alone should have forced a national reckoning. Instead, it passed through the news cycle and was quickly forgotten.

Attribution takes months, while damage compounds each day.

Yet data theft is only the tip of the iceberg. The deeper issue is placement. These intrusions bypass the marketplace for secrets to exploit their military application, learning how our systems work and where they fail. Which switches feed electricity to entire cities. Which valves deliver clean water to millions of homes. Which servers keep emergency rooms alive. Which signals move trains and manage traffic. China has built a strategic database that confers massive leverage.

And lest we think only our machines and infrastructure are at risk, there’s also a biological dimension, one that could eclipse every national security threat since Pearl Harbor. Chinese-linked research laboratories operating on American soil pose a risk that few have fully assessed. Cyberattacks leave traces. Biological threats move differently. A lab accident or deliberate release could devastate crops, overwhelm health care facilities, and unleash panic long before a cause is identified. For those who think this is exaggerated, 2025 alone saw multiple cases of Chinese nationals caught attempting to bring dangerous biological materials into America.

Disease can be even harder to trace, track, and cordon off than viruses online. A fungus in Iowa cornfields looks like blight. A respiratory illness appears to be a bad flu season. Ambiguity chews up precious time. Attribution takes months, while damage compounds each day. Farmers lose harvests without knowing they are under attack. Hospitals overflow with what only seems natural. Supply chains creak. Prices rise. And the central question — was this intentional? — remains an unsolved puzzle, delaying or paralyzing any coordinated response.

RELATED: Another secret Chinese biolab found on US soil?

Aaron Hawkins/Getty Images

This is a conflict without uniforms or airstrikes. No invasions, nor any other moment when peace visibly becomes war, give us the tipoff. In its place, a steady erosion, deniable and extremely effective.

The timing could hardly be worse. America is more divided than it has been in generations. The left despises the right, and the right returns the favor. Such division is fertile ground for hostile actors. Disorder takes hold where common ground has disappeared.

In a divided country, mixed messaging carries real risks. Yet America’s approach to China has become strangely contradictory. Officials warn allies about the risks of economic dependence on Beijing. Those warnings are sensible; strategic reliance carries costs. But downgrading China’s threat at home while cautioning others abroad creates confusion. Are the warnings sincere or symbolic? This is a vital question that requires a clear, concrete answer. Without it, fatalism and a false sense of security quickly set in.

America may no longer rank China as its top threat, but the country’s Communist Party would gladly see its chief rival brought to its knees. And in the modern age, that doesn’t require armies. A blackout can plunge millions into darkness without a single soldier crossing a border. A telecommunications failure can paralyze emergency services. A poisoned water system can force evacuations and put tens of thousands of lives at risk. A hospital network crash can replace treatment with trauma. A pathogen released in farm country can wipe out an entire season’s yield, kill livestock, and leave farmers on the edge of ruin.

Each episode chips away at government capacity without crossing the line that would trigger traditional retaliation.

To be clear, a steady stream of individually minor incidents have already accumulated, testing the edges, building the dataset. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 showed how a single breach could ignite fuel shortages and consumer panic. Now imagine disruptions across several sectors at once. Not criminal mischief, but coordinated pressure from a sophisticated state actor with cyber reach and biological presence inside American borders.

The answer is neither despair nor denial but preparation. America must develop critical infrastructure through sustained investment, tighter cooperation between public and private sectors, a trained workforce, and systems designed to absorb shocks. It must also establish firm oversight of biological research, especially when foreign entities are involved, and build early-warning networks for agricultural and health threats.

It’s a question of priorities. Civilian life shouldn’t be our weakest link. Power grids, water systems, hospitals, food supply, and transportation deserve the same strategic focus as aircraft carriers and missile shields. Infrastructure security, including biosecurity, shouldn’t be a political football or a budget afterthought. It should be the base that supports everything else.

The issue isn’t whether China poses a serious threat. The answer couldn’t be clearer. The issue is whether America will act before vague vulnerabilities become lurid disasters. There is still time to secure essential systems and reduce exposure across all domains. But the clock is ticking, and Beijing is plotting. America remains a superpower. It still stands tall, but China is working toward a moment when only one giant casts a shadow.

​Tech 

No matter how innocent a video game may seem, there’s usually some political agenda hidden for your kids to find — and Minecraft is no different.

“Minecraft just announced ‘Lessons in Good Trouble’ … DLC downloadable content for Black History Month,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales explains. “And so they said that they wanted to inspire their young players to change the world.”

In a post on X, the company wrote, “Want to change the world IRL? Start in Minecraft. In the free Good Trouble DLC, explore global civil rights movements, meet change-makers, and learn how to stand up, speak out, and build a better world.”

“You just don’t have to inject politics. Like, I’m not asking for my player to wear a MAGA hat. I’m just saying, like, can we just have one escape for our kids that is not taken over by left-wing indoctrinators? Can we just have one outlet?” Gonzales asks.

In the trailer for the game, Minecraft shows players walking with civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks and holding up protest signs.

The Good Trouble game has eight lessons that include India’s independence movement, U.S. civil rights, women’s suffrage, Black Lives Matter, South Africa and apartheid, working toward quality education for girls, understanding the identity of Martin Luther King Jr., and a lesson called “The I in Identity.”

“The I in Identity” includes key terms like race, ethnicity, gender, and social construct.

“Remember they said it’s free actually. They knew no one’s going to pay for this s**t, it’s not actually something we care to make money off of. We’re just trying to indoctrinate them,” Gonzales says.

And it’s not just Minecraft.

“Roblox is terrible. Don’t let your kids on it … they’re doing it within the game … they are now having virtual anti-ICE protests in Roblox,” Gonzales says, pointing out that last summer, Roblox was heavily pushing protests where the protesters were carrying Mexican flags.

“You can’t teach your kid patriotism anymore. You got to teach them how to riot in the streets,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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A California-based, unmarried Chinese couple is under scrutiny for allegedly running a massive surrogacy fraud operation that deceived potentially dozens of American women and placed 21 young children in questionable circumstances.

Guojun Xuan, 65, and his partner, Silvia Zhang, 38, were arrested on suspicion of child abuse in May, then released on bond pending further investigation, NBC News reported. Their brief arrests were sparked by hospital staff’s reports of child abuse after their 2-month-old son sustained traumatic head injuries.

‘What you did — and what you continue to do by staying silent — is foul, reckless, and cruel.’

Video evidence obtained by the Arcadia Police Department allegedly revealed that the children in Xuan and Zhang’s care “were subjected to physical and emotional abuse” by nannies, abuse that authorities suspected the couple knew “was occurring and let … happen.” The footage allegedly showed a 56-year-old nanny violently shaking and striking the 2-month-old child.

Authorities found 15 children in Xuan and Zhang’s nine-bedroom home and another six children staying with the couple’s friends. The 21 children, who ranged from 2 months to 13 years old, were placed and remain in foster care.

It is unclear how many children were born through surrogacy. The couple is believed to have one child together naturally, and Xuan is believed to be the biological father of a 13-year-old daughter.

Surrogate mothers claimed they were told the couple had either no children or only one child and were seeking surrogates after failed in vitro fertilization attempts. They also alleged that they were not made aware that Xuan and Zhang controlled the surrogacy agency representing them.

RELATED: The sad truth behind Meghan Trainor’s surrogacy story

Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang’s home. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Surrogates told the Wall Street Journal in August that they had been in contact with federal agents, who informed them they were investigating whether the couple was selling children.

“We never sell our babies,” Zhang told the WSJ. “We take care of them very well.”

Several surrogate mothers are fighting for custody of the children they carried for the couple. Xuan and Zhang have filed lawsuits against at least two surrogates who ended contact with them before giving birth last fall, claiming a breach of contract.

Kayla Elliott, a surrogate mother, told NBC News in July that she was led to believe she was helping a couple struggling to conceive and was unaware that they had many other children. Elliott is fighting to obtain custody of the child, telling NewsNation that she suspects “there’s some type of trafficking going on.”

Tronderrica James, 30, another surrogate, filed a lawsuit against the couple, arguing that they gave misleading and false information about their intentions.

James stated that she was contacted by an individual named Jasmine in 2023, who described the couple as “longing for their miracle baby,” according to court documents. Jasmine allegedly claimed the couple could not speak with James directly because of “a language barrier.”

In an email to Xuan and Zhang, James wrote, “You gambled with my life. You gambled with the life of a child. You misled me, misrepresented your role, and may have broken multiple state and federal laws in the process — and you still haven’t had the decency to provide a single truthful explanation.”

“What you did — and what you continue to do by staying silent — is foul, reckless, and cruel,” James stated.

Xuan and Zhang reportedly remain under investigation. No criminal charges have been filed.

In the past six months, the couple has had another five babies born to surrogate mothers, the New York Post reported.

RELATED: ’50 high-quality sons’: Chinese men are siring US citizen ‘mega-families’ via surrogacy: Report

Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images

Xuan and Zhang have denied any wrongdoing, claiming that they just wanted to have a large family.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office told Blaze News that the matter remains under review by the Arcadia Police Department.

The FBI declined comment.

Xuan, Zhang, James, and the Arcadia Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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Last week, Democrats flipped a formerly red county blue in a special election in Texas Senate District 9, which covers part of Fort Worth and the neighboring suburbs of Keller and North Richland Hills. Taylor Rehmet, a young machinist with no political experience, beat Republican Leigh Wambsganss by more than 14 points.

Political commentator Bill King flagged the scale of the shift. He noted that Republican Kelly Hancock won the seat by 20 points in 2022 and that Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the district by 17 points in 2024. A loss like this should worry Republicans heading into the midterms later this year.

In Texas and other red states, Republicans need to meet voters where they live.

So, what happened?

Some Republicans blame turnout. They argue the county hasn’t turned left; Democrats simply showed up and Republicans stayed home. On that theory, the result reflects motivation, not the district’s real preferences.

That explanation doesn’t hold.

A Republican candidate has the same opportunity to motivate voters as a Democrat. In a district with a large conservative majority, the Republican should enjoy a built-in advantage. She needs only a fraction of her base to turn out. The Democrat needs near-perfect performance from his side.

King also argues the result fits a broader trend. He says the numbers match polling over the last year and signal growing negativity toward Texas’ Republican leadership. Low turnout didn’t create the result so much as reveal it.

Rehmet’s win still doesn’t guarantee Democrats will take over Texas. But it does show a tactic that keeps working: Democrats run as generic moderates, keep the party label in the background, and dare Republicans to make the race about cultural signaling instead of daily life.

As writer Bill Scher noted in Washington Monthly, Rehmet didn’t “wrap himself in a Democratic flag.” Much like his counterparts in Virginia and New Jersey, he leaned on military service and blue-collar credibility. That presentation persuaded enough voters.

RELATED: This is what happens when a state elects a ‘moderate’ Democrat

Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

That strategy works in the short term. It doesn’t last.

If and when he’s seated, Rehmet will vote as a Democrat. He will support open borders, softer law enforcement, higher spending, expanded abortion access, and the full suite of progressive social priorities. At best, he will block conservative reforms. At worst, he will push the same policies that Texans have seen wreck other places.

Voters in Tarrant County will learn the hard way what “affordability” talk usually delivers under Democratic rule: higher taxes, fewer opportunities, rising crime, and sanctimonious lectures about “reproductive rights,” all while public services strain under the load.

So, what does this election signal?

More Democrats will copy the Rehmet template. They will present themselves as normal, moderate, and practical. They will try to bait Republicans into fighting on secondary culture-war terrain instead of hammering a concrete agenda on costs, housing, and public safety. Wambsganss fell into that trap.

RELATED: Democrats are running as Bush-era Republicans — and winning

Photo by Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In Texas and other red states, Republicans need to meet voters where they live. Prices keep climbing, and housing tops the list. I live in this part of the state and see the pressure every day.

Massive in-migration from other states (particularly California and Illinois), along with continued inflows from abroad (especially from South Asia), has driven up prices and changed the character of communities fast. Many newcomers are decent people. The economic effect still hits hard: higher rents, higher home prices, heavier traffic, and more strain on schools, roads, and emergency services. Property taxes keep rising to cover it.

Republicans should say that plainly, then offer an agenda that meets the moment. They should outline feasible steps to lower costs, expand housing supply where it makes sense, reduce regulatory friction, and protect public safety.

They should also draw the contrast without flailing: Democratic governance has turned too many prosperous places into expensive, dysfunctional messes. Texans don’t need to import that model.

Voters in red states also need to stop falling for the same performance. Democrats haven’t changed. They’ve changed the packaging.

They will do to the Lone Star State what they did to the Golden State. They will do to Dallas-Forth Worth what their allies have done to New York City. Texans should treat this moment as a warning, not a fluke: Stay alert, see through the ruse, and vote like it matters — because it does.

​Texas, Texas senate district 9, Texas senate, Gop, Democrats, Tarrant county, Taylor rehmet, Affordability, Opinion & analysis, 2026 midterms, Republicans, Donald trump 

Police are trying to determine how a mother of four children was found dismembered in the basement of a public housing building after she went out for a night on the town.

Michelle Montgomery, 39, left her home in Brooklyn on Saturday to have fun with her friends, according to Anthony Echevarria, who is described as her life partner and father of the youngest of the four children.

‘We will get justice. … I promise that.’

Montgomery’s sister said she got a strange call from the woman at about 10 p.m. that evening. She said she heard music in the background, but the call cut off after only one second. She wasn’t sure if her sister had intended to call her.

About an hour later, Montgomery posted a video on TikTok of herself dancing with two people at a local restaurant.

The next morning at about 9:30 a.m., a janitor at the Boriqunen Public Houses in Bushwick discovered her remains in the trash disposal area. WABC-TV reported that New York City Housing Authority workers found a trash bag that was suspiciously heavy in the basement.

When they looked inside, they found human remains in pieces.

Neighbors who lived in the building said they were shocked, and one reported hearing the workers screaming after making the discovery.

A medical examiner has not yet released the cause of death for Montgomery.

Echevarria told WABC that the family is devastated by the loss and the manner in which the woman’s remains were found.

“I wasn’t believing it at first. It was hard. I mean, I broke down because I couldn’t, I still can’t believe it. Still,” he said.

“So extreme. Like, I don’t even know how she ended up over there in a building, nevertheless in a (expletive) garbage bag. Mad extreme,” he continued.

RELATED: California couple ran over man until he was pinned under truck wheel, then pepper-sprayed him, police say

A close friend of Montgomery’s looked at the last video she posted and said she didn’t recognize the people Montgomery was dancing with.

Echevarria said she had been an exceptional mother to their children and had provided for their every need.

“We will get justice,” he added. “I promise that.”

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Until Saturday night, Texas Senate District 9 had been represented by a Republican for over 30 years. In 2022, Kelly Hancock won the seat by 20 points. Last November, Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the district by 17 points. So when Hancock stepped down to accept the appointment as controller, Republicans had little reason to think the seat would be in jeopardy.

But on Saturday, Democrat Taylor Rehmet trounced his Republican opponent by over 14 points — a 31-point swing since the 2024 election. The results have sent shock waves through the Texas Republican establishment.

For the last two decades, Republican leaders have governed the state to satisfy their base — pandering to the issues important to those voters and ignoring what most Texans wanted.

Some Republican pundits have discounted the results because it was a special election with a very low turnout. It is certainly true that the turnout in Saturday’s election was much lower than last November (15% versus 64%). But the results are consistent with polling over the last year, signaling that Texans have been turning increasingly negative on the Republican leadership of the state.

Over the last year, the University of Texas Polling Project has conducted seven polls asking voters whether they approved or disapproved of the job various state leaders were doing. Trump and all statewide Republican leaders began the year with positive approval ratings. By the end of the year, all were in negative territory. The average move downward was 24 points.

The crosstabs in the polls show that the groups who have turned most negative are independents, Latinos, and young people. Of course, there is considerable overlap between these because Latinos and young people eschew both parties at higher rates than other groups. Nonetheless, the moves within these groups in 2025 were breathtaking.

Even more startling is that Trump’s approval rating with Republicans dropped by 17 points (from 88% to 71%) — and this was before the debacle that has played out in Minnesota or his threat to invade Greenland. One political operative I spoke with, who closely followed the Tarrant County race, estimated that 15%-20% of Republicans voted for the Democrat candidate.

RELATED: Conservatives can’t barbecue their way through national collapse

Blaze Media Illustration

I think the poll’s questions on what issues Texas voters are most concerned about are telling. The issues garnering the most response were “political corruption/leadership” (18%), inflation (16%), and the economy (14%). Another 67% said they were very concerned about the cost of health care. Two-thirds of Texans believe that Trump’s tariffs are leading to higher prices. Texans also disapprove of state leaders’ handling of abortion (-17), regulation of marijuana/THC (-20), and public education (-23).

Let me tell you what was not on the list at all: the danger that Sharia law would take over the state.

For the last two decades, Republican leaders have governed the state to satisfy their base — pandering to the issues important to those voters and ignoring what most Texans wanted. That was largely because independents, even though they frequently disagreed with the positions state leaders were taking, found Democrat candidates even farther outside their comfort zone.

But the Tarrant County results and the polling trends over the last year suggest Republican leaders may have gone so far that independents now view Democrats as the lesser of the two evils.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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