Category: blaze media

A counter-protester lit what police said was an explosive device during a protest Saturday against Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City. The counter-protester also was caught on video uttering “Allahu Akbar” as police were arresting him.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Sunday announced that the device was real — not a hoax device or smoke bomb, WNYW reported.

‘Based on preliminary examination and X-ray imaging, the devices, which were a bit smaller than a football, appear to be a jar wrapped in black tape, importantly, with nuts, bolts, and screws along with a hobby fuse that could be lit.’

“It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death,” Tisch said on X.

A second deployed device was still being analyzed Sunday.

The initial protest, called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City,” was led by Jake Lang; police called Lang a “far-right provocateur.” The protest outside Gracie Mansion — the mayor’s residence — drew a counter-protest dubbed “Run The Nazis Out Of NYC.”

Fistfights erupted between the two sides, the New York Times reported.

Tisch stated during a press conference following the altercation that counter-protester Emir Balat, 18, “lit and threw an ignited device.”

“Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke as it traveled through the air before it struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers,” Tisch said.

RELATED: Mamdani walks back popular progressive campaign promise to pedestrians

One of the devices deployed at Saturday’s dueling protests in New York City. Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images

Balat then ran to retrieve a similar device from another man — identified as 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi — lit the device, ran toward the protest, and dropped it, WNYW-TV reported.

Balat and Kayumi were arrested at the scene Saturday and were in custody in connection with the devices, police told the station. It isn’t clear if the device that was determined to be an explosive was the one that was thrown or the one that was dropped.

“Based on preliminary examination and X-ray imaging, the devices, which were a bit smaller than a football, appear to be a jar wrapped in black tape, importantly, with nuts, bolts, and screws along with a hobby fuse that could be lit,” Tisch added.

A video circulated online showed a male hurling one of the devices reportedly into the crowd of anti-Mamdani protesters. A separate clip showed NYPD officers arresting the same male, who repeatedly uttered “Allahu Akbar.”

RELATED: Austin’s ‘Property of Allah’ shooter is immigration failure made flesh

Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images

No explosions or injuries were reported.

Lang described the incident as a direct threat to his life: “Americans Christians WILL NOT be intimidated by ISLAMIC TERROR ATTACKS!!!. Last night after the attempted assassination on my life with a F**KING NAILBOMB in NYC.”

However, Mamdani’s press secretary Joe Calvello had a different take in a statement to WNYW in an earlier story: “The ‘Crusade Against Islamification’ gathering held outside Gracie Mansion today by Jake Lang, a vile white supremacist, was despicable and Islamaphobic.”

On Sunday, Mamdani released a statement also condemning Lang as a “white supremacist” and claiming his protest was “rooted in bigotry and racism.”

“Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are,” Mamdani also wrote.

While the mayor condemned the use of an explosive device, he did not acknowledge that police said it was carried out by a counter-protester. Not to mention that the suspect repeatedly uttered “Allahu Akbar” during his arrest.

“What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” Mamdani said of the deployment of the explosive device.

Article III Project’s Mike Davis slammed Mamdani for failing to “condemn” the “Islamists” police arrested.

“Has your wife praised the terrorists yet? Are you sad the bombs didn’t detonate? Resign,” Davis stated.

“The Trump Justice Department must bring federal terrorism and related charges. There is no chance justice will get delivered by the Islamic Caliphate of New York,” Davis added.

Journalist Nick Sortor in a social media post reacted as follows: “In Mamdani’s New York City, Islamists throwing BOMBS at Pro-Christian protestors while screaming ‘ALLAHU AKHBAR’ is apparently NOT considered terrorism. 9/11 was forgotten awfully quickly.”

Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) blamed the violence on “a serious radicalization problem on both the far left and the far right.”

“No one should be surprised,” Adams wrote in a post on social media. “After years of hateful rhetoric and incitement, attempts to justify attacks on Jews in Israel, praise for violence like the killing of a CEO, and chants about ‘globalizing the intifada’ and ‘Death to America,’ words have now escalated into violence on the streets of New York City, with explosives being thrown.”

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​News, Jake lang, New york city, Nyc, New york, Islam, Pro-islam, Pro-muslim, Muslim, Zohran mamdani, Protest, Counter-protesters, Gracie mansion, Jessica tisch, Crime, Politics, Explosive device, Allahu akbar 

A California woman — dubbed the “party mom” by local authorities — has been convicted on dozens of charges related to hosting alcohol-fueled parties for young teens. The district attorney’s office determined that the mother “endangered” teens and “coordinated” sexual assaults during boozy parties involving her 15-year-old son.

On Wednesday, a jury convicted 51-year-old Shannon O’Connor of 48 charges — including two felony charges of sexual penetration — stemming from hosting parties for teens that included alcohol and sexual conduct, the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office stated in a news release titled, “Party mom convicted: Faces long prison term.”

‘This defendant not only didn’t protect these children, she endangered their safety, coordinated their sexual assaults, and she tried to get them not to tell.’

The Mercury News reported, “The sexual penetration convictions were the most serious, as prosecutors argued that O’Connor sexually assaulted the two girls by enabling them to become so intoxicated they could not legally consent.”

KTVU-TV reported, “After the verdicts were read, the parent of one of the victims called O’Connor a ‘predator,’ a ‘stalker,’ a ‘groomer,’ and a ‘harasser,’ who was ‘very good at what she did.'”

O’Connor could face more than 30 years in prison, according to the Mercury News. Plus, she must register as a sex offender. Her sentencing is scheduled for March 26 in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

The district attorney’s office said in the statement that O’Connor, also known as Shannon Bruga, hosted “drunken parties for young teenagers where she bought alcohol and egged on sex acts — some with teens too drunk to consent.”

The announcement noted that O’Connor purchased vodka and whiskey for the teenagers and even provided them with condoms.

The DA said O’Connor “discouraged the teens from telling their parents or police about the parties or calling for help when one of the victims passed out in their own vomit.”

The district attorney’s office pointed out that the children at these boozy parties were “mostly 14- and 15-year-olds.”

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said, “This defendant not only didn’t protect these children, she endangered their safety, coordinated their sexual assaults, and she tried to get them not to tell.”

Rosen added, “These brave kids came forward to tell the truth about what happened and to put a stop to it.”

RELATED: Teens testify they saw mayor having sex with 16-year-old boy during boozy pool party at her home. Now verdict is in.

As Blaze News reported in October 2021, O’Connor organized secret parties for teens, purchased “copious amounts of alcohol” for the underage attendees, and even encouraged them to have sex.

An investigator for the DA’s office said in court records that O’Connor “supplied excessive amounts of alcohol to her son and his minor friends to the point where minors would vomit, be unable to stand, and fall unconscious,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Mercury News previously reported that the parties took place at O’Connor’s $4.7 million home in Los Gatos.

The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office said in October 2021 that the “child abuse charges outline a long line of O’Connor’s drunken and destructive house parties for young teens lasting from 2020 to earlier this year.”

O’Connor warned the teens to keep the boozy parties secret, according to authorities.

“She would warn the teens not to disclose the parties, or she could go to jail,” the DA’s office stated.

What’s more, the DA’s office said O’Connor even “handed an underage teenager a condom and pushed him into a room with an intoxicated minor.”

“During a New Year’s Eve party at her home with about five 14-year-olds, the defendant watched and laughed as a drunk teen sexually battered a young girl in bed,” the DA stated.

The DA’s office said O’Connor also “brought one drunk teen into a bedroom at her home where an intoxicated 14-year-old girl was lying in the bed.”

After the underage girl allegedly was sexually assaulted, the juvenile female asked O’Connor: “Why did you leave me in there with him?”

The DA’s office revealed that O’Connor also used the Snapchat social media platform or text messaged teens to “leave their homes in the middle of the night” to “drink at her home.”

“In another case, she let a minor drive her SUV in the Los Gatos High School parking lot while two other teens held on to the back,” the DA’s statement reads. “One fell off and was knocked unconscious.”

The Mercury News reported in October 2021 that O’Connor was “apparently known as ‘the cool mom’ since the older son was in middle school and had raised eyebrows among some parents for her chumminess with her sons’ friends.”

Citing prosecutors, Fox News previously reported that O’Connor pressured teen girls to engage in sexual acts with boys — including her then-15-year-old son.

“If the girls did not consent, the 47-year-old mom would allegedly pull them aside for ‘a private conversation’ until they each went into a room with a boy,” according to Fox News.

The Washington Post, citing court documents, reported in 2021 that “when O’Connor suspected one teen was telling outsiders about her secret parties, she threatened to spread rumors about the girl and persuaded other teens to harass her.”

Court documents also state that the girl “suffered mental and emotional turmoil,” including panic attacks, and subsequently needed to sleep in her parents’ bedroom.

In October 2021, O’Connor was arrested at her home in Ada County, Idaho. O’Connor was extradited to the Santa Clara County Jail.

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​Shannon o’connor, Shannon o’connor update, Shannon o’connor case, Party mom, Child sex crimes, Bad moms, Sexual assault, California, California crimes, Crime 

Looking for a present for a young child? Amid the cultural maelstrom of 21st-century America, there’s a gift that’s better than anything in the toy aisle.

Nothing will have a bigger lifelong impact than instilling a young person with an intense love of reading. And since March is National Reading Month, there’s no better time to start.

While the brain candy of colorful screens is a child magnet, there are ways parents can compete with such allure.

You may have seen this bumper sticker: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” That may be true for some children, but in most homes, a mother or father is a child’s first and best teacher.

Blessed with encouragement

I was blessed with a mom who was both a caring parent and a teacher — a reading specialist. With her encouragement, I absorbed the basics of reading before kindergarten, and for the rest of my academic endeavors, I consistently read years ahead of my grade level.

My aversion to math meant that whatever learning successes I achieved in my young life were rooted in my ability to read quickly and retain the information.

Although these skills were a crucial component of my success in college and graduate school, this reading proficiency dramatically assisted me in law school, where I consistently ranked in the top tier of my class.

Those pondering a career in law may be deterred when they learn that most successful law students read at least two hours of dry material for every hour of class time. That means a law student may spend 40 hours a week reading court opinions written decades or even centuries earlier, packed with terse legalese. Reading well really matters if you want to be a lawyer or most other careers.

Brain-candy blues

While the brain candy of colorful screens is a child magnet, there are ways parents can compete with such allure. One that worked for me was the permission to stay up past my normal bedtime if I was reading in bed. I plowed through several books a month using that laudable loophole.

Parental encouragement like this is worth the effort. Studies show early readers do far better in their later academic endeavors. They also become better writers. Whether writing in cursive or typing on phones, writing well opens doors that nothing else can.

The downward trend line of Americans reading is as obvious as a tuba in an elevator. The more exposure to watching videos a young child has, the lower the chance of success in future learning endeavors. Worse yet, some studies suggest that poor reading skills make it more likely that kids will engage in other behaviors parents fear, like teen pregnancy, delinquency, and addiction.

RELATED: How the laptop revolution destroyed public education

Blaze Media illustration

Chatbot challenge

AI makes the matter worse. AI engagement often doesn’t require typing or reading. Push a button and ask the chatbot a question, and you’ll hear some kind of answer. Whether it’s correct or not, you’ll likely have to do some — ahem — deeper reading.

Parents need workable solutions that don’t feel like making a child take the one bite of cold broccoli he’s been rebuffing all dinner long. That’s why, when my children were younger, we set aside times when the family sat together reading silently, each of us enjoying our own selected book. Even 40 minutes of this twice a week will move your child far ahead of most peers.

Our kids also enrolled in a reading challenge. After finishing several books over a few weeks, they were invited to an event where they skated with a few local NHL hockey players on the big-league rink. I still remember their wide eyes peering up at those elite athletes. It was clear that this incentive made those hours with books worth even more than the stories they read.

Book ’em

Parents can offer similar rewards. Trips to the library end with ice cream. Older kids can read aloud to the preschooler down the block. The family applauds after three-minute book reports at dinner.

Our family discussed books all the time. We recommended books to one another and then shared the insights we gained. To this day, we refer to key moments from novels we all read and how those insights apply to something in our lives.

How to get there? It starts with showing children that there’s something a screen simply can’t offer, like the electric thrill of a world built entirely from their own imagination. When a boy reads a story, every dragon is his dragon, scaled in colors he chooses, breathing fire that smells exactly how he imagined dragon fire should smell. A girl reading of a magic castle can determine how dark the shadows around it appear. And the face of the explorer inside is hers.

No director, no animator, no algorithm decides what wonder looks like — the child does. That creative power is genuine adventure, the kind that stretches young minds in ways passive viewing never can. A video delivers a finished world; a book hands a child the raw materials to build one.

The best gifts don’t come wrapped in paper or require a charging cord. They come with dog-eared pages, late bedtimes, and kids who never quite stop reading. That’s the gift. Just children, books, and a world they built themselves.

​Reading, Education, Parenthood, Lifestyle, Books, Screen police 

God’s command to honor your mother and father comes naturally to some people but can feel extremely difficult — or even impossible — for others, especially if they grew up in an abusive home.

But the fifth commandment isn’t caveated by any exceptions for dishonorable, difficult, or abusive parents. God requires us to honor our parents unconditionally.

For the person who seeks to uphold God’s commandments but comes from an abusive home, what does that look like? Is God requiring them to endlessly endure torment?

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” BlazeTV host Rick Burgess addresses this difficult scenario.

After Rick published his book “Men Don’t Run in the Rain: A Son’s Reflections on Life, Faith, and an Iconic Father,” he started receiving feedback from people who couldn’t relate to his positive relationship with his father. They came from backgrounds where abuse, cruelty, or severe mental health issues were rampant in the home.

“I cannot keep allowing [my abusive mother] into my life. … I’m much better off when we do not have a relationship,” one “Strange Encounters” listener wrote in an email to Rick.

“I want to do right by God, so I’d love a little bit of wisdom on how to move on with my life respectively and continue to be right with God,” he added.

Rick, expressing deep sympathy to those who grew up in difficult homes, says that people often mistakenly equate God’s command to honor our parents to a lifelong prison sentence where they are not permitted to distance themselves from the toxicity.

“When the Bible says to honor your mother and father, it does not mean that if your mother and father were bad people or treated you poorly, that you’re just supposed to disregard that or that somehow that’s OK because they’re your mother and father,” he corrects.

Honoring our parents, Rick explains, is less about our parents and more about our own freedom and spiritual health.

“What Scripture is talking about is not how they lived their life. It’s talking about how you, me — their children — how we live our life. It’s calling us to a high standard. It’s calling us to not repeat the mistakes that they made,” he says, encouraging people from toxic homes to “[break] that generational cycle.”

“[Demons] love bitterness, and they love to manipulate you through it. Unresolved anger, this kind of stuff, it’s damaging you. It’s not doing anything to the people you’re upset with,” he continues.

It is entirely possible, Rick argues, to physically and emotionally distance ourselves — maybe even cut off contact altogether — from our parents and still honor them simply by living honorable lives.

“We live our lives in a way that brings honor to them, whether they deserve it or not,” he says.

“I’ve got people even in my own family … where, honestly, my life and even theirs is a lot healthier if we just don’t interact very much,” Rick admits.

“But what I have done is, I have no bitterness toward this family member. … I have forgiven for anything that they did that hurt me, and I’ve asked them to forgive me for anything I’ve done that hurt them. But that doesn’t mean that we hang out all the time because it’s just not healthy, and that’s OK.”

To those who want to uphold God’s command to honor their parents but feel that distance is the best path, Rick’s advice is simple: “Get rid of the bitterness. … Get rid of the anger, and offer them complete forgiveness, but you’re under no obligation to continue to be manipulated by people.”

To hear more, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Strange encounters, Strange encounters with rick burgess, Rick burgess, Abuse, Abusive parents, Blazetv, Blaze media, Fifth commandment, Bible, Christianity 

Late last month, Elon Musk’s X.com launched a landmark legal challenge against a $140 million fine issued by the European Commission last December under the Digital Services Act, an EU censorship law. The case was filed at the General Court of the EU, which hears high-stakes challenges to EU regulatory and enforcement actions.

The commission claims the fine, the first to be issued under the DSA, was for alleged transparency and procedural breaches, which X denies. But the real reason the company was targeted is clear: X is a free-speech platform, and Elon Musk refuses to implement online censorship in the EU and around the world.

This case is the first-ever challenge to Europe’s bid to become a global censor. The outcome matters deeply for the free-speech rights of billions of people around the world.

This case, which ADF International proudly supports, underscores the grave threat the DSA poses to free speech. The law, which took effect in 2024, requires “very large online platforms” — such as X, Meta, and Google — that operate in or are accessible from the EU and have more than 45 million monthly users to remove so-called illegal content.

“Illegal content” takes its meaning from a host of speech-restrictive laws across EU countries, including Germany’s ban on insulting a politician. The law also requires platforms to “mitigate” so-called “systemic risks,” such as “negative effects” on “civic discourse,” “electoral processes,” and “gender-based violence.”

Codes of conduct have also been added to the legislation regarding “disinformation,” “hate speech,” and guidelines on electoral processes and the protection of minors, resulting in 153 pages of additional regulations that were never voted on. Platforms face massive fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover for noncompliance with the DSA and can even be suspended in the EU.

The vague terms used in the legislation and codes of conduct are extremely broad and lack precise legal definitions, meaning they are ideal tools for the commission to censor disfavored views. And the commission’s reach extends far beyond Europe.

A recent report from the House Judiciary Committee showed that Big Tech platforms face immense pressure from the commission to set their global content moderation rules to censorial DSA standards. This means the EU law is censoring speech not just in Europe, but also in the United States and around the whole world.

The case of Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen demonstrates what DSA censorship will look like in practice. After six years of criminal prosecution, Päivi is awaiting a verdict from the Supreme Court of Finland for tweeting a Bible verse. She was prosecuted under the “War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity” section of Finland’s criminal code. Under the DSA, censorial laws like this will become the global baseline.

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) and turned it into a free-speech platform, Brussels has been clear about its hostility toward the platform. Former European Commissioner Thierry Breton issued a stark warning in 2023, stating: “You can run but you can’t hide. … Fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA. … Our teams will be ready for enforcement.” Former commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourová added: “Twitter has attracted a lot of attention, and its actions and compliance with EU law will be scrutinized vigorously and urgently.”

RELATED: Out of order: Courts shouldn’t rule based on ‘trust us’ science

Nadzeya Haroshka/Getty Images

It’s clear why the commission gave X.com the first-ever DSA fine last December. It was sending a message to all Big Tech platforms about what will happen to platforms that refuse to accept censorship.

That is what makes X.com’s legal challenge so important — the company is fighting for the right of citizens around the world to freely express their views online. In this case, the social media giant is challenging the centralized powers given to the commission by the DSA, which it argues violate its right to due process and are contrary to the rule of law.

The commission is able to set the rules for content moderation, set up the infrastructure, launch investigations, and issue penalties under the DSA, all with no meaningful oversight. If this is allowed to stand, the EU will have the unchallenged ability to police the global public square, with dire consequences for online free speech.

Now the court has an opportunity to hold the commission to account. An oral hearing is expected in the case, potentially by the end of 2026, and the subsequent ruling will affect how all Big Tech platforms are moderated by the DSA. X.com is arguing for the fine to be withdrawn, and if the basis for the fine is found not to be compliant with other EU laws, specific provisions in the legislation could be annulled.

This case is the first-ever challenge of the commission’s bid to become a global censor. The outcome matters deeply for the free-speech rights of billions of people around the world.

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

​X, Elon musk, Eu, Free speech, Free speech laws, Social media, European commission, Dsa, Content moderation, Opinion & analysis, Censorship, Lawsuit, Brussels, Illegal content, Dissent 

Mary Clarke grew up in Beverly Hills, surrounded by mink coats and parties hosted by Hollywood stars. She died in a ten-by-ten concrete room inside a Mexican prison.

In between, she raised seven children, survived two marriages, ran a business, and eventually walked away from comfort to live among violent criminals and forgotten men. If her life unsettles your assumptions about what holiness looks like, it should.

The institutional Church, for its part, did not immediately know what to do with a twice-divorced woman living inside a men’s prison and calling herself a nun.

She was born in 1926 to Irish immigrant parents who had clawed their way into California comfort without losing their faith or their social conscience. Her father built a successful business and moved the family to Beverly Hills, but he made sure his daughter understood that glamour was not the point. Mary absorbed the lesson, even if it took several decades and two divorces before she fully acted on it.

Broken promises

Her personal life was, to put it charitably, complicated. She married at 19 and watched the union fail due to gambling debts and broken promises. She married again and eventually found herself running her father’s company and managing what looked, from the outside, like a well-ordered life. It wasn’t enough. She hadn’t failed at life. She had excelled at a version of it that no longer satisfied her.

The turning point came in 1965, when she crossed the border into Tijuana with a priest and walked into La Mesa prison. What she saw there — the overcrowding, the degradation, the absence of basic dignity — did not strike her as someone else’s problem. She drove back to California and could not stop thinking about the faces she had seen.

So she went back. Then again. And again.

Each time she loaded her car with medicine, food, and clothing. Eventually the prison visits stopped being a charity project and became the center of her life. Beverly Hills was no longer home. It was the detour.

Heroic or insane

By 1977 her children were grown, her second marriage was over, and she made a decision that most people around her considered either heroic or insane. She sold or gave away nearly everything she owned, sewed herself a simple habit, took private vows, and moved into a concrete room inside one of the most feared prisons in Mexico, with nothing but a cot, a Bible, and a Spanish dictionary.

La Mesa was not a rehabilitation center in any optimistic sense. Drug traffickers ran the economy. Poorer prisoners slept on bare floors. Violence arrived without warning or apology. Into this world entered a middle-aged American woman with no official authority, no institutional backing, and an apparently unshakable conviction that every man in that prison still bore the image of God — however obscured it might be by crime, cruelty, or despair.

She walked into riots. She stepped between armed men. She spoke calmly into chaos. And more often than seemed statistically reasonable, people put their weapons down. She coaxed dentists to offer free clinics, persuaded bakers to donate bread, and reportedly sourced secondhand toilets from junkyards so that prisoners might have something the rest of the world takes for granted. She sat with the dying, prayed with guards, and confronted judges who handed lighter sentences to the wealthy than to the poor.

RELATED: Norma McCorvey: Reluctant Jane Roe who answered to higher judge

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The weight of years

The institutional Church, for its part, did not immediately know what to do with a twice-divorced woman living inside a men’s prison and calling herself a nun. For years she lacked formal status and could not even receive Holy Communion. She carried on anyway.

Eventually church leaders recognized the depth of her vocation. Bishop Posadas of Tijuana and Bishop Maher of San Diego both blessed her work, and she was received as an auxiliary Mercedarian, an order with a historic mission to prisoners. She later founded her own community, the Eudist Servants of the 11th Hour, specifically for older women called to serve after raising families or finishing careers.

That last detail matters. She was not looking for women who had not yet lived. She wanted the ones who had — women who carried the weight of years, of mistakes, of choices made and unmade — and she asked them a simple question: What now? It lands differently when you are old enough to realize that time is not infinite.

Mother Antonia Brenner died on October 17, 2013, at age 86. By conventional Catholic measures, she was a complicated figure: divorced twice, lacking formal vows for years, living far outside the expected parameters of religious life.

By any other measure, she spent three decades feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned — the precise works the gospel names without ambiguity.

She was fond of saying she had never met a prisoner not worth everything she could give.

The record suggests she meant it.

​Faith, Lifestyle, Christianity, Converts, Mother antonia, Mother antonia brenner, Mary clarke, The prison angel, Mexico, Eudist servants of the 11th hour 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the late supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, did not die of old age. The United States killed him, and that fact matters.

Iran’s regime has advertised its project for decades: repression at home, terror abroad, and “Death to America” as a rallying cry. It has crushed dissidents, jailed and killed its own people, and waged proxy war across the region — all while murdering Americans and targeting U.S. interests. Western “countermeasures” rarely stopped the bleeding. At best they slowed Tehran down. At worst, they bought the regime time, money, and legitimacy.

Much of Europe is already governed by technocratic managers, and the spirited element of the people is being shoved to the margins. That arrangement can’t last.

The predictable scolding began almost immediately. As soon as the joint operation was launched, leaders of some of America’s most important European allies — the United Kingdom, France, and Germany — urged restraint and appealed to “international law.” Even figures associated with Alternative for Germany, an anti-immigration party on the right, echoed that posture. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for “de-escalation” and an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, and she convened commissioners for internal deliberations.

Iran may sit far from Europe’s coastlines, but its damage doesn’t. For decades, Tehran’s destabilization has pushed drugs, terrorism, and illegal migration across borders and into Europe. The regime has executed protesters, imprisoned dissidents, funded terror proxies, and even helped fuel a war on Europe’s own continent.

Western Europe’s governing class answers that threat with a familiar reflex: convene international bodies, issue statements, and restart negotiations that have already failed. That approach has produced little more than delay. European leaders and institutions have not mounted a serious response to Iran’s campaign. In many cases, they have not mounted much of any response at all.

This procedural faith sounds alien to MAGA ears. What’s easy to forget is that it’s also alien to Europe’s own history.

Operation Epic Fury has exposed something deeper than policy disagreement. It has exposed Europe’s postwar loss of thymos.

Plato used thymos to describe “spiritedness” — the part of the soul that burns with courage, indignation, and honor. In modern terms, it’s courage disciplined by moral judgment. It isn’t frenzy or bloodlust. Properly ordered, it’s the moral force that refuses humiliation, resists the inversion of good and evil, and defends what is sacred.

Europe’s warriors of old endured lives marked by hardship: hunger, plague, invasion, civil war, and exile. Their spirits pressed deep into theology, philosophy, science, exploration, and statecraft, expanding the frontier of human knowledge. The European peoples, formed in principalities, kingdoms, and states, took control of their destiny, much as President Trump has implored the Iranian people to do.

RELATED: Do they hate Trump — or do they just hate America?

Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

European warriors made plenty of strategic blunders throughout their history, but they realized that building up forces was the key to fighting the powerful and obtaining power. At one time, nearly all of Europe underestimated Napoleon, but they did not assume that conferences alone would restrain him. Coalitions eventually formed because countering a powerful threat required a decisive response, and the Congress of Vienna only mattered because armies first checked imperial ambition.

Europe learned through blood that force underwrites order. Today, however, its leaders often speak as if procedural appeals alone can substitute for resolve.

The European Union has become an institution that manages, regulates, and adjudicates — not one that protects nations or Western civilization as a whole. The peace in postwar Europe depends on American security guarantees and nuclear deterrence rather than on institutions like the EU and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

This project’s main “success” is the coordinated dissemination of the belief that technocratic governance is a sufficient framework to sustain civilization. The decline of civil society across Europe, however, and the responses of some of its leaders to U.S. military action in Iran indicate the spurious nature of that belief.

Europe’s thymos has been effectively sedated by procedure and managed decline, but President Trump may be on his way to reviving it.

International law is not self-enforcing, and the international system depends upon sovereign states willing to act. Absent enforcement, resolutions accumulate into a paper fortification. The Islamic Republic has endured decades of censure from international bodies while expanding its influence and repressing its citizens. The U.N. Human Rights Council, for instance, puts its faith in strongly worded letters that have failed to achieve any positive outcome for Europe.

By contrast, America’s Operation Epic Fury rests upon a simple premise: Regimes that kill Americans, arm proxies, launder narcotics revenue, and pursue nuclear capability cannot be indefinitely managed by elegantly crafted communiqués.

Crucially, the U.S. strikes are targeting the ideological Islamist infrastructure in Iran, a problem that Europe has struggled to confront within its own borders.

In parts of Western Europe, the rise of leftist and Islamist coalitions is undeniable. In the U.K. and elsewhere, such demographic realities are almost certainly why the ayatollah’s death is being mourned instead of being celebrated. Last weekend, after news of Khamenei’s death broke, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn joined hundreds of pro-Iran protesters in London carrying banners of the ayatollah.

Europe’s decision to throw open its doors to mass migration in 2015 signaled more than a policy preference. It revealed a self-conception: Europe increasingly sees itself as an economic zone, not a civilization with borders and obligations. In that worldview, spirited self-preservation becomes morally suspect. A continent that won’t defend itself can’t credibly lecture America about saving others — or help America do it.

Americans shouldn’t expect allies to endorse every U.S. action without question. Friendship doesn’t require cheerleading. It does require moral seriousness. Europe’s leaders shouldn’t treat righteous indignation at injustice as “extremism,” and they shouldn’t confuse decisive action with warmongering or reckless escalation.

A civilization that suppresses thymos will not endure. Much of Europe is already governed by technocratic managers, and the spirited element of the people is being shoved to the margins. That arrangement can’t last.

RELATED: ‘Boots on the ground’ would turn Iran into Iraq on steroids

Photo by Scott Peterson/Getty Images

Under President Trump, the United States retains, however imperfectly, a measure of civilizational confidence. We still believe that sovereignty, national defense, and the protection of citizens are legitimate goods. Europe’s thymos has been effectively sedated by procedure and managed decline, but President Trump may be on his way to reviving it.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte voiced support for the strikes on Iran, declaring that key allies stand “all for one, one for all” amid our adversary’s widening missile retaliation. Such language hints at a remembered instinct — an older European reflex of solidarity not as bureaucratic coordination but as shared resolve and the will to act. There are also glimmers of hope in last Sunday’s E3 statement, in which Britain, France, and Germany said they were ready to take steps to defend their interests in the region.

Operation Epic Fury will be debated for years to come in the language of strategy and geopolitics. But beneath those arguments lies a more enduring question about the character of civilizations: Do they still believe that evil should be confronted? Do they still possess the spirited confidence that is required when words have failed?

Europe’s history is not one of defaulting to procedure. It is a civilizational resolve formed through centuries of trial. The same continent that produced parliaments and cathedrals also produced men willing to stand at Vienna’s gates and refuse surrender. Its Christianity did not preach passivity before tyranny. It taught that love may demand resistance.

Praising Athens’ war against Sparta, Pericles famously said:

For we are lovers of the beautiful in our tastes and our strength lies, in our opinion, not in deliberation and discussion, but that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection. And they are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger.

Europe must choose whether it will regain its strength or allow the civilization it built to disappear forever.

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

​Iran, Trump, Operation epic fury, Europe, Eu, Afd, Thymos, Maga, Western civilization, European decline, Pericles, Opinion & analysis, Nato, France, Germany, Iran war 

When BlazeTV host Steve Deace was asked to be part of the America Reads the Bible initiative, his answer was an emphatic yes.

For those who aren’t aware, America Reads the Bible is a week-long event where national leaders from every sphere of influence will read the entire Bible aloud continuously from Genesis to Revelation at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., from April 18-25, to reignite America’s spiritual foundation, foster national renewal and unity through God’s Word, and celebrate the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary of freedom.

Americans across the nation are invited to attend in person or tune in via livestream as Candace Cameron Bure, Patricia Heaton, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), evangelist Franklin Graham, Steve Deace, and many others read the sacred Word of God aloud over our nation.

On a recent episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace sat down with the fearless leader behind America Reads the Bible, Bunni Pounds, to explain the vision behind this historic event.

Bunni tells Steve that the idea for America Reads the Bible sprouted after she had “an encounter with the Lord” when she was visiting the Museum of the Bible.

“I had this thought after writing a book on Nehemiah that’s going to be coming out in May: We need an Ezra moment in this country because we have a leadership crisis.”

In the book of Nehemiah, Ezra, a Jewish scribe and priest, publicly read God’s law aloud to the returned exiles, sparking revival, repentance, and renewed commitment to God, which then enabled Nehemiah to lead the people in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls.

America Reads the Bible aims to bring that same storyline here to America.

“We need people to rise up, and if we don’t know Scripture, if we don’t go to God every day, depending on him for our wisdom and our life, Steve, we’re in trouble as a nation,” Bunni says.

“And so I thought, wouldn’t it be awesome if our national leaders from all spheres of influence, all demographics and denominations, would humble themselves and say, ‘You know, we are high-performing leaders in this country, but we love Jesus, we know we need Scripture every day just to make it, and we’re going to call the American people back to daily Bible reading and discipleship for the well-being of our country.”’

Two and a half years later, Bunni’s vision has become a reality. In just a few short weeks, America Reads the Bible will begin, and the Word of God will be broadcast all over the nation.

“Come to D.C. Bring your kids, grandkids. Be a part of our opening celebration, and you can experience the whole museum. The Dead Sea Scrolls are there while we’re there as well,” Bunni says, noting that tickets can be purchased on the website.

For those who are unable to attend in person, she encourages using the livestream option.

“Livestream in your churches, in your communities, in your family room,” Bunni urges. “Some of you have never listened or read the Bible all the way through. Maybe you’re supposed to take off work and just sit under the reading of Scripture by our national leaders all week — but mobilize, mobilize, mobilize!”

To hear more about the event, watch the interview above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

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​Steve deace, Steve deace show, Blazetv, Blaze media, America reads the bible, Bunni pounds, Spiritual crisis 

Airline etiquette has been on the decline for years, and people have doubted that air travel could ever again be a pleasant experience. However, a large airline has updated its policies, and many say that change could be a good start.

United Airlines updated its contract of carriage document late last month to include a section about audio and video content that will ensure a more peaceful — and quieter — travel experience.

‘I think we need to pack our manners whenever we go on an airplane, whenever we travel.’

United Airlines now notes in its “Refusal of Transport” section that the airline may refuse transport or permanently ban passengers who refuse to wear headphones while listening to audio and video content on a plane.

“We’ve always encouraged customers to use headphones when listening to audio content — and our Wi-Fi rules already remind customers to use headphones,” United spokesman Josh Freed said in an email to the Washington Post.

RELATED: Private jet linked to ‘top anti-ICE / anti-Trump’ lawyers crashes, resulting in 6 fatalities

“It seemed like a good time to make that even clearer by adding it to the contract of carriage,” Freed added.

When asked about the new policy, Florida-based etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore said, “It’s about time.”

“I think we need to pack our manners whenever we go on an airplane, whenever we travel. And the violators of this, ironically, are parents — parents who don’t put earbuds in their children’s ears or headsets” on them.

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​Politics, United airlines, Headphones, Contract of carriage, Airlines, Air travel, Air travel etiquette, Jacqueline whitmore, Passengers 

Last month marked five years since Rush Limbaugh’s death. Tributes still appear on schedule. Clips circulate. Familiar phrases — “talent on loan from God,” “doctor of democracy,” “half my brain tied behind my back” — resurface. Every so often his opening theme slides into a feed, and people pause longer than they expect.

That reaction says something.

Rush can’t be replaced because the habits that made him possible have largely disappeared.

When life felt unsteady, Rush stayed fixed.

For millions of Americans, his voice arrived at the same hour each afternoon as institutions shifted, headlines fractured, and the culture argued with itself. Agreement was never universal. But steadiness was.

The music still plays. Rush does not.

Five years later, the absence still feels different — in a way modern media can’t quite explain.

When talk show legend Johnny Carson retired in 1992, late-night TV didn’t disappear. It divided. Some viewers followed Jay Leno, who succeeded Carson at NBC. Others moved to CBS with David Letterman. Then the format split again, louder and more elaborate with each successor.

Late-night evolved. It never recovered the King of Late Night’s reach.

By today’s standards, Carson looks almost minimalist: a desk, a band, conversation allowed to breathe. Parents ended evenings there after the kids went to bed. The show closed the day not through spectacle but familiarity.

Rush occupied a different hour but understood his medium just as completely.

As broadcasting technology advanced and competitors added panels, simulcasts, and digital bells and whistles, Rush’s formula barely changed. Behind the golden EIB microphone sat one prepared voice, a “stack of stuff,” and three hours shaped not by focus groups but conviction.

Some days funny. Some days angry. Always patriotic. Sometimes wounded or reflective — even nostalgic.

Listeners heard it when Rush entered rehab in 2003. They heard it again when he announced his cancer diagnosis in 2020. They followed professional triumphs and personal failures, marriages that ended, and later the unexpected joy when he met Kathryn Rogers and married her in 2010. They heard the frustration and adaptation that followed the loss of his hearing.

The humanity never weakened the authority. It reinforced it.

Rush spoke from belief, and listeners found him.

He often said he never set out to build a network of hundreds of stations or reach millions of listeners. His goal was simpler: Be the best broadcaster he could be. Not an alternative. Not a counterpoint. The best at articulating what made America exceptional — and at exposing ideas that threatened it.

The audience followed.

For many people, the show unfolded alongside responsibilities that never paused for politics. For years — through hospital visits, surgical waiting rooms, doctor’s appointments, and pharmacy runs with my wife — Rush kept me company more hours than almost anyone outside my family.

He didn’t interrupt my life. He traveled alongside it.

That relationship is difficult to recreate because modern media now works in reverse. Voices don’t wait to be found; they chase attention. Commentary arrives instantly, tailored to preference and consumed in fragments measured in seconds.

Everyone now broadcasts. No one gathers.

Earlier media required commitment. If you missed Carson, you missed him. When “Seinfeld” was new, millions tuned in at the same hour because there wasn’t an alternative. The next morning’s conversations assumed a shared experience. Rush worked the same way. If you tuned away, the broadcast kept going.

Today almost nothing is truly missed. Everything can be replayed, clipped, streamed, or summarized. Convenience replaced anticipation. Access replaced commitment.

We gained availability and lost presence.

After Rush, commentary didn’t decline. It multiplied. Humor migrated here, outrage there, analysis somewhere else — across podcasts, streaming platforms, and social media personalities.

But coherence thinned.

Audiences scattered into niches large enough to sustain influence but too fragmented to create shared trust. Rush succeeded during one of the last eras when millions practiced the discipline of listening together long enough for familiarity to become confidence.

RELATED: We don’t have to live this way

Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

For conservatives especially, that steadiness mattered. As cultural institutions treated them with ridicule or dismissal, Rush spoke directly to listeners who felt talked about rather than spoken to.

He didn’t echo what people wanted to hear. He anchored them in what needed to be said. He didn’t flatter them. He reasoned with them. He laughed with them. Sometimes he challenged them.

Recognition replaced alienation.

Five years later, the lingering absence shows what was actually lost.

We didn’t lose commentary, Lord knows. We lost a shared reference point.

Rush can’t be replaced because the habits that made him possible have largely disappeared. Shared listening gave way to individualized feeds. Discipline yielded to distraction. Voices rise quickly now, but few endure long enough to be tested.

The spinning never stopped. We just lost the fixed point.

The question five years later isn’t who replaces Rush Limbaugh. He’s irreplaceable. The question is whether a culture trained to scroll still possesses the discipline to listen long enough for trust to form again.

Because Rush was never simply something Americans heard. He was something they chose.

​Rush limbaugh, Talk radio, Conservatives, Americans, King of late night, Opinion & analysis, Johnny carson, David letterman, Jay leno, Media 

Following the striking total lunar eclipse — commonly called a blood moon — that turned the moon a vivid copper red in the early hours of March 3, and amid the escalating U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran, discussions of biblical end times prophecies are surging once again.

Given that blood moons occur roughly every 2-2.5 years, conflict involving Israel in the Middle East has persisted for decades, and the fact that Scripture clearly states that no one except God knows when Jesus will return, this kind of hysteria frustrates Jase Robertson.

“I believe the Bible — that only the Lord knows,” he says, reminding us that even Jesus himself doesn’t know the exact date of his return (Matthew 24:36).

But despite Scripture’s clarity that nobody knows when Christ will return, many professing Christians are nonetheless tempted to make grand predictions about the end of the world — sometimes down to exact day and hour.

Jase says these people are asking the wrong kinds of questions. On this episode of “Unashamed,” dives into the two wrong questions Christians should never ask about the end times — and the two right ones they should focus on instead.

The first “wrong question,” he says, is “when is it going to happen?”

“Wrong question,” he repeats, citing 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, which reads, “Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

The second “wrong question” is “where are we going?”

“Wrong question,” Jase says again, reading from 1 Thessalonians 4, which shifts the focus away from location and gives Christians the only assurance they need: They will be “with the Lord.”

There are only two questions Christ-followers should be asking about the end times, says Jase.

The first is: If you do live to see the return of Christ, “who are you with?”

“This is one that’s answered. … [You’re] with Him!” he exclaims.

The second good question is: “For how long?”

“Forever,” says Jase, citing 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which promises that “we will be with the Lord forever.”

“The Bible is about who you’re with — not where you’re going and not when it’s going to happen.”

Want more from the Robertsons?

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​Unashamed, Phil robertson, Jase robertsons, Robertson family, Robertsons, Blazetv, Blaze media, End times, Blood moon, Middle east conflict 

President Donald Trump on Saturday morning announced that Iran has stopped its attacks on neighboring countries, but he cautioned that Iran will continue to be “hit very hard” by the U.S. and Israel.

‘It is the first time that Iran has ever lost, in thousands of years, to surrounding Middle Eastern Countries.’

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also released a statement Saturday declaring that Iran no longer will attack neighboring countries unless it is attacked first.

“I should apologize to the neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran, on my own behalf,” Pezeshkian said. “From now on, they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked by those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy.”

Pezeshkian dismissed Trump’s calls for Tehran, Iran’s capital, to surrender unconditionally.

“That’s a dream that they should take to their grave,” he stated.

Pezeshkian’s latest comments came after Iran reportedly launched multiple attacks on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman.

RELATED: Dozens of Democrats side with Iran over Trump

Masoud Pezeshkian. Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Trump responded to Pezeshkian’s announcement in a post on social media, suggesting that the Iranian president’s apology was a direct result of the “relentless U.S. and Israeli attack.”

“Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack,” Trump wrote. “They were looking to take over and rule the Middle East.”

Trump also wrote that “it is the first time that Iran has ever lost, in thousands of years, to surrounding Middle Eastern Countries. Iran is no longer the ‘Bully of the Middle East,’ they are, instead, ‘THE LOSER OF THE MIDDLE EAST,’ and will be for many decades until they surrender or, more likely, completely collapse!”

The president warned that Iran would “be hit very hard” on Saturday.

In addition, Trump said: “Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.”

RELATED: State Department launches urgent push to evacuate Americans from Middle East

Donald Trump. Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images

The president made remarks about the Iran conflict while attending the Shield of the Americas Summit in Doral, Florida, on Saturday.

Trump stated that the U.S. is “doing very well in Iran,” noting that 42 of Iran’s navy ships had been eliminated in three days. He also said Iran’s air force and telecommunications had been destroyed.

“They’re bad people,” Trump said. “When you look at October 7th, and beyond October 7th, look at all the killing that they’ve done over the years — for 47 years.”

Trump concluded that the strikes against Iran “had to be done.”

The Associated Press reported that “pillars of flame” were seen late Saturday above an oil storage facility in Tehran, and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “many surprises.” The AP added that Iranian state media confirmed the strike and blamed “an attack from the U.S. and the Zionist regime.”

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​News, Trump, Donald trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Iran, Israel, Masoud pezeshkian, Iran strikes, Politics 

Police said a 47-year-old male — who was on parole and had 131 prior arrests on his record — was charged for setting a homeless man on fire while the victim was sleeping in New York City’s Penn Station, the New York Daily News reported.

Officers with the Amtrak Police Department arrested Damon Johnson on Tuesday and charged him with attempted murder and assault for the previous day’s attack, which left a 37-year-old man with second-degree burns on his arm and back, police told the Daily News.

‘Begins wailing and convulsing and scrambled to his feet with his jacket on fire.’

Johnson pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court where he was ordered held without bail, the paper said.

Amtrak police also arrested a 33-year-old female Wednesday and charged her with assault in connection with the attack, police told the Daily News.

However, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the female, the paper said, adding that police sources indicated that while she was with Johnson at the time the fire was started, it’s unclear if she committed a crime at the scene.

RELATED: Horror in Ohio home: Male accused of raping, beating pregnant woman over course of 2 days. But that isn’t the half of it.

The Daily News, citing police, said the victim was sleeping near a West 33rd Street entrance to Penn Station’s Amtrak rotunda near Eighth Avenue when three people approached him — and one of them set fire to the man’s clothes around 8:30 p.m.

During Johnson’s arraignment, Callum Mullan — a prosecutor with the DA’s office — described video of the attack, which he said shows Johnson leaning over the victim, who moments later “begins wailing and convulsing and scrambled to his feet with his jacket on fire,” the paper said.

After the attack, the three men fled into the station, the Daily News said.

First responders extinguished the flames and rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell’s burn unit, the paper said.

Mullan added that Johnson at the time of the attack was on parole for a 2018 robbery, in which he slashed a student’s face before taking cash from his pockets, the Daily News reported. Mullan said the victim needed more than 100 stitches, according to the paper.

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​Homeless man, Homeless victim, Set on fire, Attempted murder, Repeat offender, Penn station, New york city, New york city police department, Nypd, Parolee, Train station, Sleeping victim, Crime 

Where would Hollywood be without “creative differences”? It’s like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card with no feelings hurt. At least none that we can see.

Director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) just left the “Ocean’s 11” prequel over that oh-so-Tinsel Town excuse. But why? No, really, why?

‘Is California overregulated?’ Kimmel asked, presumably a setup for the Democrat to counter his critics.

The film is set to star Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper, and it’s got money-making IP written all over it. What’s not to love, at least from a director’s point of view?

We may never know. But nothing will stop Hollywood when it’s time to prequel-ize a hit franchise. And we can always drown our sorrows in “Ocean’s 14,” starring most of the saga’s original cast. Phew …

Hassle’s back?

“The View” hosts ganged up on right-leaning Meghan McCain until she couldn’t take it any longer. That was all the way back in 2021, and the show has been conservative-free ever since. Sorry, anti-Trumper Alyssa Farah Griffin doesn’t remotely count.

This week, the show’s previous token conservative made a rousing comeback. Elisabeth Hasselbeck rejoined the show briefly while Griffin is out on maternity leave. But the show she left in 2013 doesn’t resemble the current version.

Crazy is now the order of the day, the week, and the month. So when Hasselbeck shared a few obvious observations, it didn’t go over well. She noted that Sunny Hostin cheered on President Barack Obama’s Libya bombing but blasted President Donald Trump for the current Iran campaign.

The back-and-forth proved so heated that the far-Left Variety suggested that Hasselbeck come back to the show full-time. It came with a catch, natch. The scribe wants her pro-Trump views to be rebuffed by her fellow “View” hosts.

If leftists need Whoopi and Co. to have their ideological backs, the Democrats are in worse shape than we feared …

RELATED: DB Sweeney: ‘Protector’ star finds Hollywood longevity without selling his soul

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images | Magenta Light Studios

Keister-kissing Kimmel

No one throws softballs quite like Jimmy Kimmel. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is the safest of spaces for the AOCs of the world to push their talking points without a hint of, well, journalism.

Yet Gavin Newsom just flunked that test.

The California governor joined Kimmel to promote his new book, “Sure, I Grew Up Rich, but … Squirrel!” when he admitted an inconvenient truth: The Golden State is drowning in regulations.

“Is California overregulated?” Kimmel asked, presumably a setup for the Democrat to counter his critics.

Except Newsom said “yes” in so many words.

He described those “well-meaning laws” that have handcuffed Californians and sent residents fleeing the state. Except Newsom has a plan, one that apparently hasn’t been introduced to the state he governs yet. Any day now, Captain Vocal Fry. It’s called the “Abundance Agenda,” and it’s exactly the word salad we expected from Newsom.

Maybe the next time he visits Kimmel, he’ll stumble upon a better answer. Or Kimmel will realize Newsom is the 2028 version of Kamala Harris. Keep him in bubble wrap until Election Day …

Catfight

This might be the dumbest reason ever not to vote for an actor. Jessie Buckley’s heart-wrenching turn in “Hamnet” earned her raves and, more recently, a Best Actress nomination.

And she stands a solid chance of winning, or at least she did until she lost the all-important “cat” vote.

The Irish Times published a Pulitzer-level think piece suggesting the actress’ anti-cat comments could hurt her Oscar chances.

Laugh all you want, but is that argument any worse than others we’re hearing this Oscar season? Take Timothee Chalamet, the uber-talented star of “Marty Supreme.” He too is Oscar-nominated, but the word around Hollywood is that the actor is too “arrogant.” His celebrity “swagger” is a problem that could cost him votes.

Maybe the bigger problem is easier to spot. He’s a straight white male actor, and that doesn’t check off a single diversity box.

Better luck next year, kid …

Crack record

Billy Idol could be the worst drug counselor ever. The 1980s rocker, the star of the new documentary “Billy Idol Should Be Dead,” confessed that he kicked his heroin habit with a peculiar medication.

Crack.

He told Bill Maher on the comic’s “Club Random” podcast about his unique path toward sobriety. Sort of.

“Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else. I started smoking crack to get off heroin. … It worked. It worked.”

Maybe Keith Richards should have tried that long ago.

​Entertainment, Culture, The view, Sunny hostin, Joy behar, Ocean’s 11, Movies, Timothee chalamet, Lee isaac chung, Toto recall 

More and more car dealers are breaking what was once an industry taboo: selling salvage-title vehicles — cars insurance companies have already written off as total losses.

That change, which Karl Brauer and I discuss on the latest episode of “The Drive with Lauren and Karl,” reflects a simple reality: Affordable used cars are getting harder to find.

Alan compares flood damage to a long-term electrical disease inside a vehicle.

Used-car prices remain elevated, and inventory is still tight. Dealers looking for lower-cost vehicles to put on their lots are exploring options they once avoided — including vehicles that insurers have already declared totaled.

Lower prices may sound appealing to buyers struggling with high car costs. But the real question is whether those savings are worth the risk.

To unpack that risk, we brought in our friend automotive broadcaster Alan Taylor, who hosted “The Drive” for years before handing the microphone to Karl and me. Alan used to own a salvage yard before his broadcasting career, giving him firsthand experience buying, repairing, and reselling damaged vehicles.

During the episode, we were ribbing Alan about his new Liquid Carbon Series Mustang GTD, but the conversation quickly turned serious when the topic shifted to salvage vehicles — a business he knows firsthand from years running a wrecking yard.

Why salvage cars are entering the retail market

The driving force is affordability.

When used vehicles become expensive, buyers start searching for cheaper alternatives. Salvage-title vehicles often sell for significantly less than comparable clean-title cars.

For dealers, that means inventory that can be priced lower. For buyers, it can look like an opportunity.

But the lower price exists for a reason.

A salvage title means the vehicle was declared a total loss by an insurance company. That can happen after a crash, flood damage, theft recovery, or another major incident. Once a title is branded salvage, that designation stays with the vehicle permanently.

The problem for buyers is simple: The title tells you something serious happened — but it does not always explain how serious the damage actually was.

RELATED: Affordable cars still exist — but Americans can’t buy them

Bloomberg/Getty Images

The biggest danger: Flood cars

During the conversation, Karl and Alan both warned that some salvage vehicles carry risks that never truly go away.

Flood-damaged cars are the most notorious example.

Water can infiltrate wiring harnesses, electronic modules, sensors, and interior components. A vehicle might appear normal after repairs, but corrosion inside the electrical system can trigger problems months or years later.

Alan compares flood damage to a long-term electrical disease inside a vehicle — something that may not show up immediately but can slowly spread through the car’s electronics over time.

Those failures can be expensive. Replacing electronic modules, wiring harnesses, or sensor systems in modern vehicles can easily cost thousands of dollars, quickly erasing whatever savings a buyer thought they gained by choosing a salvage car.

A vehicle may pass a test drive today but develop costly electrical problems months later.

Modern cars make salvage repairs riskier

Those risks are greater today than they were decades ago.

Modern vehicles rely on dozens of electronic control units, sensors, and processors to operate everything from safety systems to driver-assistance technology. When those systems are damaged, repairs become far more complicated.

According to Alan, “Anything after 2019 has got so many processors, sensors, and wires” he can sum up the repair process in one word: “Nightmare.”

Older vehicles were largely mechanical. Modern vehicles are heavily electronic, and electrical damage can affect systems throughout the car.

That complexity makes hidden problems far more likely.

Not every salvage car is a disaster

At the same time, not every salvage vehicle should be automatically dismissed.

Sometimes a car receives a salvage title for reasons that do not involve catastrophic damage. Theft-recovery vehicles are one example. If an insurer pays the owner after a stolen vehicle disappears, the title can still be branded salvage even if the car is later recovered with relatively minor damage.

Alan saw this firsthand at his salvage yard.

“I used to sell 100 cars a month,” he says. “But I would sell them damaged to people, and then I had a body shop, and we’d fix it at the building next door.”

Those buyers understood exactly what they were purchasing and often ended up with affordable transportation after repairs.

Alan notes that the key difference between a good salvage purchase and a bad one is simple: knowing exactly what damage occurred and how the repairs were done.

Most retail buyers, however, do not have that level of visibility.

Knowing the damage matters

Karl offers a good example from his own garage.

One of his cars carries a salvage title, but he knows exactly how the damage occurred:

“I got T-boned in a parking lot.”

Because he witnessed the accident and understands the repair history, evaluating the risk is far easier.

Most used-car buyers do not have that advantage.

That uncertainty is what makes salvage vehicles risky purchases.

How buyers can protect themselves

For consumers considering a salvage-title vehicle, research is essential.

Before buying, experts recommend:

Running a vehicle history reportSearching the VIN online for accident photosHaving the car inspected by a trusted mechanicConfirming what repairs were performed and by whom

Without that information, the buyer is relying largely on trust.

And with modern vehicles packed with electronics, hidden damage can quickly turn a cheap purchase into an expensive repair bill.

The bottom line for drivers

Salvage-title vehicles exist in a gray area.

Some are repaired correctly and provide affordable transportation. Others hide structural or electrical damage that will lead to long-term reliability problems.

The lower price reflects that uncertainty.

For buyers who understand the risks and investigate the vehicle’s history carefully, a salvage car can occasionally make sense. But for most consumers shopping for dependable daily transportation, a clean-title vehicle with a documented history remains the safer choice.

To sum it up, the rule is simple: If you don’t know exactly why a car has a salvage title, you probably shouldn’t buy it.

Listen to the full episode of “The Drive with Lauren and Karl” (featuring Alan Taylor) below:

​Drive with lauren fix and karl brauer, Lifestyle, Auto industry, Align cars, Alan taylor, Salvage title, Mustang gtd 

Every year, Congress flirts with a government shutdown, driven by partisan squabbling and political showmanship. It’s an avoidable cycle that harms taxpayers, disrupts businesses, and creates uncertainty for the public — without producing meaningful policy outcomes. Shutdowns have become a costly ritual Washington should abandon.

Last year’s record 43-day shutdown brought large parts of government to a standstill. Flights were canceled. Permits stalled. Military personnel and civilian federal workers went without paychecks. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the lapse caused as much as $14 billion in permanent GDP loss — about the size of Kosovo’s entire economy.

Supporters of shutdown brinkmanship claim deadlines create leverage to force policy changes. In practice, shutdowns harden positions instead of producing compromise.

Now Democrats are holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been closed for over a month. This partial shutdown is hitting TSA workers and other essential homeland security personnel.

Nobody wins in a shutdown.

The good news: Congress has tools to stop this nonsense for good. Last year, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) reintroduced the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act. The bill would keep the government operating temporarily at current funding levels while negotiations continue on longer-term deals. It would also bar members of Congress from spending taxpayer dollars on travel, taking recess, or considering most non-spending legislation until they finish the budget.

Shutdowns don’t save money. Agencies burn time and resources preparing contingency plans, restarting operations, and cleaning up the mess. Workers ultimately receive back pay after funding is restored. Taxpayers foot the bill for Washington’s dysfunction.

Financial markets and businesses also pay a price. Companies that depend on permits, contracts, or federal data releases face delays that disrupt investment decisions. Entrepreneurs seeking approvals may postpone hiring or expansion. Credit rating agencies have warned repeatedly that shutdown brinkmanship undermines confidence in America’s governance — an unnecessary risk for the world’s largest economy.

The politics make reform urgent. Nearly all government funding is set to expire just weeks before Election Day, a pressure point at the height of campaign season. Recent history shows how easily the minority party can see strategic advantage in prolonging a lapse to reinforce a narrative of chaos and dysfunction heading into the midterms.

RELATED: Bidenflation? Trumpflation? Try unipartyflation

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Americans expect disagreement in a democracy. They also expect basic governance to continue. Shutdowns signal that politicians will use essential functions as bargaining chips. That deepens cynicism about institutions and reinforces the belief that Washington prizes partisan victories over practical solutions.

Supporters of shutdown brinkmanship claim deadlines create leverage to force policy changes. Last year, Democrats tried to use a shutdown threat to extend temporary, expensive tax credits to subsidize Obamacare. In other cases, Republicans tried to use shutdowns to force a repeal of Obamacare. Neither strategy worked. In practice, shutdowns harden positions instead of producing compromise.

Ideally, Congress would pass the 12 regular appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1. It hasn’t done that in nearly 30 years, largely because the process has become a political weapon.

Avoiding shutdowns doesn’t mean abandoning fiscal discipline. It means recognizing that responsible governing requires stability alongside vigorous debate. Congress can fight over spending levels, taxes, and policy priorities without threatening the continuity of government operations.

Washington should end the brinkmanship, reopen the government, and adopt reforms that keep shutdown threats from holding the country hostage again.

​Opinion & analysis, Government shutdown, Brinkmanship, Republicans, Democrats, Economy, Fiscal discipline, Obamacare, Subsidies, Appropriations, Compromise, Paychecks, Tsa, Immigration and customs enforcement, Department of homeland security, Prevent government shutdowns act, Jodey arrington, James lankford 

Farming with lasers will make you healthier — here’s how.

An attachment, powered by artificial intelligence, could save farmers from a seemingly ever-present headache, while producing a higher yield than ever before.

‘[This] is now the cheapest way to control weeds in the vegetable fields.’

This laser farming technique uses powerful 240-watt lasers, high-resolution cameras, Nvidia processors, and nearly two dozen simple LED lights.

The operation is called “laser weeding,” and it comes from company Carbon Robotics, which has developed technology to destroy weeds with lasers while keeping crops intact, seemingly eliminating the need for pesticides that contain harmful chemicals.

“Optimal thermal energy destroys the meristem, stopping regrowth and returning weeds to organic biomass,” the company says on its website.

The machine looks almost like a UFO when in action, with lights flashing and little puffs of smoke coming off the ground. The “LaserWeeder” is slowly pulled over the crops and targets weeds — using AI programming to identify them — and takes them out with a laser.

RELATED: Ultra-processed food manufacturers ran the Big Tobacco playbook to addict consumers: Study

United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently promoted the technique on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” telling the host that one farmer he interviewed in Texas had dropped her costs from $1,500 per acre (to pay for pesticides and labor) to $300 per acre.

“It’s a million-dollar machine, which sounds like a lot, but you got 8,000 acres and you’re paying $1,500 an acre per growing season,” Kennedy explained.

“[This] is now the cheapest way to control weeds in the vegetable fields. … It kills the weeds at every stage of their life,” he continued. “It identifies their species and kills them instantly, all the way down through their root system by exploding them with this laser.”

Kennedy went further and said for farmers who are using the machine, they’ve seen a “30% increase in productivity” on the farm.

“It’s a million-dollar machine, but it pays back,” he reiterated.

RELATED: The media’s ‘confusion’ over RFK Jr.’s diet guidelines is either fake — or just stupid

Rogan asked a few simple questions about the machinery, including whether it would impact food and if it could be used for bugs.

The answers to those questions were “no” and “yes,” respectively.

“They can do it for bugs too. … They identify them and zap them,” Kennedy claimed, while adding there is no “impact” on the food.

According to Carbon Robotics, the machinery lowers weed control costs by 80% per year and kills 99% of weeds that grow around carrots, herbs, onions, and leafy greens.

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BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey won’t say the name of the alleged transgender Canadian shooter who last month took the lives of his mother, his stepbrother, five young children, and a teacher — but she does want to focus on his father.

“The biological father of this Canadian shooter, his name is Justin Van Rootselaar. He publicly released a statement to express his deep sorrow and to clarify his complete estrangement from the child,” Stuckey explains.

In a statement from the father, he claimed that he distanced himself from his son, telling CBC that he was “estranged” and “not a part of his life.”

“In the statement, he emphasized that he had no involvement in his kid’s life or the upbringing. Apparently, he says the mother had refused his participation from the start. We don’t know, you know, we don’t know if that’s true, if it was really the mother’s fault or not. Unfortunately, the mother is now dead,” Stuckey comments.

The father also did not call his son by his preferred female pronouns.

“What he’s trying to say is, ‘This is not my fault. I was not involved in this at all.’ And I understand his desire to do that, but actually it was his absence, I believe, that contributed to this. It was his absence that created probably this kind of instability,” Stuckey says.

“Like, kids need more involvement from both parents, not less. He clearly didn’t have this strong male role model that he needed in his life. And I’m not saying that is always the antidote. That’s not always the thing that is going to prevent a guy, a young man, from going down this path, but it certainly doesn’t help,” she continues. “It certainly doesn’t help when you don’t have a father in the home.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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.

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This time one year ago, David Hogg served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he was openly touting Jasmine Crockett as the Democrats’ 2028 presidential nominee.

For real.

The other side is energized — and it is learning how to package its agenda in forms that look familiar enough to pass at a glance.

What a difference a year makes! Hogg was ousted from the DNC in June, and this week, Crockett’s U.S. Senate hopes sank like an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean.

Crockett built a national brand on performance: the nails, the lashes, the dialect, the whole routine. Private-school résumé, public “hood rat” persona. The problem wasn’t that Democrats objected to the routine. The problem was that it didn’t translate statewide.

Even though one in four Democratic primary voters are black, Crockett’s two-term House persona couldn’t carry her in a Senate primary among white voters living paycheck to paycheck. The scam had run its course.

Of course, modern Democratic politics rarely punishes grifters or scammers. It simply swaps in a new scam with better packaging.

Enter James Talarico, a name most Americans didn’t know a few weeks ago. He went on Stephen Colbert last month and played martyr about the Trump administration supposedly trying to censor an interview. Then — boom! — more than two million Democratic primary voters showed up and handed Texas’ Democratic U.S. Senate nomination to a straight white male.

That result doesn’t happen unless Talarico brings dark magic to the table.

He runs as part of “Team Jesus” — while speaking with forked tongue, of course.

That label provides a “permission structure” (read: scam) for Democratic primary voters who want a candidate who looks less like a cultural provocation and more like a “values” figure without changing the party’s underlying agenda. Democrats used a similar move nationally: Wrap the ticket in “normal” imagery — the old ball coach who wears flannel — and dare critics to object.

In Talarico’s case, the permission structure goes deeper because it touches theology. He offers a version of Christianity tailored for the normie voter — Christian language used to sell progressive policy as moral inevitability.

That’s why the stakes aren’t limited to one Senate race. If the left can redefine Christianity in public, it can neutralize one of the last institutions that resists its broader project. Talarico’s pitch attempts to do exactly that by presenting positions on abortion and gender ideology as not merely acceptable to Christians but practically demanded by God — who, in case you haven’t heard, is nonbinary.

RELATED: ‘Wake the hell up’: Glenn Beck warns Texans after primary election results

Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Talarico may still lose in November. But remember: Beto O’Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by less than three points in 2018. National Democrats will treat this race as winnable and amplify it accordingly. The messaging will be exported far beyond Texas.

So here’s the question for the American church: Are you prepared to confront this?

A statewide campaign can become a delivery system for doctrinal confusion. Many churches, even in red states, insist they don’t want to “get political.” That instinct can become an excuse for silence when clarity is required.

More than 1.2 million Texans voted for a candidate whose brand centers on a theological message that would have sounded unthinkable less than a generation ago. So maybe the more urgent question isn’t whether the church is prepared. It’s whether the church even cares.

One more question, because the turnout itself should concern conservatives.

In a red state, with a major GOP Senate primary featuring an entrenched incumbent, a well-known attorney general, and a sitting congressman, how did that race draw fewer voters than the Democrats’ contest between the phony preacher and the fake hood rat?

Yes, that happened.

If nothing else, it should serve as a warning: The other side is energized — and it is learning how to package its agenda in forms that look familiar enough to pass at a glance.

​James talarico, Ken paxton, John cornyn, Democrats, Texas, Texas primary, Senate race, Gop, Opinion & analysis, 2026 midterms 

Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters,” often encourages his audience to engage in what he calls “spiritual housecleaning” — that is, ridding your life of both objects and activities that would give demons a foothold to torment you. Whether it’s watching horror movies, participating in Halloween festivities, or adorning your home with items associated with occult practices, Rick pulls no punches about the importance of “cleaning out” your life so that it not only glorifies God but also doesn’t give Satan’s forces a reason to linger.

But what happens when the darkness you’re trying to rid yourself of doesn’t look like a book of crystal magic, a subscription to a pornography site, or a gruesome Halloween display? What happens when that evil exists inside another person?

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick addresses a question many people are asking right now: Is narcissism a personality disorder or a symptom of a demon stronghold?

Rick first acknowledges that in our current day, people are far too quick to label someone a narcissist out of dislike.

“I think that’s reckless,” he says, “but [narcissism] does exist, and these people are real.”

But are demons really the reason these people are so difficult to deal with? Or are they just suffering from extreme psychological challenges?

Rick’s answer is layered.

“I don’t think everybody who is a narcissist is truly under demonic possession or oppression,” he says, acknowledging that some really “do need psychological help.”

That said, he does believe that genuine narcissists are “opening themselves up to demonic oppression or possession.”

A true narcissist, he explains, “does not have the ability to be part of a really close relationship with anyone,” because they are only seeking relationships “that fit their own interest.” They are people who “cannot handle criticism” and are “arrogant” and full of “pride,” he says.

All of these traits stand in stark contrast to how Scripture calls believers to be — lowly in spirit and humble, walking in honesty and righteousness toward others.

“This is where we’re starting to get into the spiritual,” says Rick.

“[Narcissists] love manipulation. They love deception. That’s demonic. They have a carefully crafted smoke screen to keep you confused, and their main goal in all of this is control,” he explains.

They also “love a world of conflict and chaos” and “feed on conflict.”

Scripture, Rick says, tells us very clearly that Satan and his demonic legions operate in similar ways — deceiving and manipulating us, sowing chaos in our lives, and destroying our relationships.

What is the believer to do, then, when faced with a narcissist? Should he uproot the person from his life, like one would trash an ouija board, for example?

With human beings, it’s not so simple, says Rick.

For the Christian in this situation, he says it’s important to “pray for discernment,” “pray for protection against [the narcissist],” “pray that God would break that spiritual stronghold,” and “use the authority that you’ve been given.”

To hear Rick’s full biblical breakdown, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, 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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