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Japan transformed from an expansionist military power to a pacifist state within a decade after World War II, adopting a firmly non-nuclear posture after suffering atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet Japan possesses one of the most advanced civilian nuclear infrastructures in the world, technically capable of creating nuclear weapons.

As debates in the United States intensify over alliance commitments and burden-sharing, questions about the credibility of America’s extended deterrence are growing. If that credibility weakens, Japan may find itself increasingly alone in deterring China, North Korea, and Russia.

As Japan becomes more militarized, nuclear pacifism may begin to be replaced with nuclear realism.

Japan is already reinterpreting elements of its postwar restraint, evident in the modernization of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the acquisition of long-range counterstrike capabilities for “deterrence by punishment.” Will Japan do the same with nuclear weapons?

The nuclear threshold is near

Japan lacks nuclear warhead expertise, dedicated delivery systems, and secure nuclear testing infrastructure, but it does have the industrial, material, and financial resources to begin a nuclear weapons program.

Japan possesses full-scale nuclear fuel cycle facilities, accumulating over 45 metric tons of separated plutonium, enough to make thousands of nuclear weapons. Japan is projected to increase reliance on fast breeder reactors; these reactors produce more plutonium than they consume.

Japan is also building facilities that eliminate the need to outsource its spent fuel for reprocessing, allowing Japan to domestically produce separated plutonium. Some analysts estimate that Japan could develop a small nuclear arsenal within a year.

Despite Japan’s nuclear latency, it has not crossed the nuclear threshold. Other than public consensus and constitutional restraints, Japan is held back by technical and financial costs. Japan needs to develop nuclear weapons design expertise, delivery systems, and secure infrastructure, all financially and politically costly endeavors.

Furthermore, Japan’s civilian nuclear facilities operate under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. That makes it difficult to run a clandestine nuclear weapons program. While the costs are substantial, they are not prohibitive for a country with Japan’s industrial and technological capacity. Given its advanced nuclear power program and infrastructure and increasingly sophisticated military, Japan can develop the technical requirements for a nuclear weapons program in short order.

Hedging nuclear bets

Japan is a nuclear latent power, so the central issue is intent. Japan adopted what strategists call “insurance hedging,” entailing a cost-benefit analysis of U.S. extended deterrence to determine whether relying on U.S. nuclear weapons is worth the risk of Japan not having its own. Should U.S. extended deterrence fail or be perceived as too weak, Japan will claim insurance by developing nuclear weapons for its own protection.

Japan became an insurance hedger for two reasons: It wants the option to develop nuclear weapons and does not want to forgo U.S. extended deterrence. Japan relies on U.S. extended deterrence for security, but pursuing nuclear weapons could remove Japan from America’s nuclear umbrella.

RELATED: Trump’s Iran gamble: Peace Prize or Persian Gulf firestorm

Photo by Tajh Payne/US Navy via Getty Images

Insurance hedging allows Japan to stay within U.S. extended deterrence while preparing for the possibility of abandonment or failure by the United States. Nuclear latency serves as leverage. If U.S. security guarantees weaken, Japan would retain the ability to respond independently.

Nuclear latency was always the plan

Japan’s nuclear latency is not an accident. As early as the 1950s, Japan deliberately preserved nuclear latency while relying on the United States for deterrence. Japan understood the deterrence value of nuclear weapons, especially in a security environment surrounded by nuclear powers and potential nuclear powers.

For Japan, the United States would serve as its nuclear deterrent, which allowed Japan to maintain its pacifist posture. Nuclear pacifism is still dominant in Japanese strategic culture, but as Japan becomes more militarized, nuclear pacifism may begin to be replaced with nuclear realism.

If U.S. extended deterrence no longer offers Japan the protection it needs, and domestic consensus against nuclear weapons is resolved, Japan could shift in favor of nuclear weapons. To create the JSDF, Japan reinterpreted Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution; Article 9 is an explicit “Renunciation of War” mandating that Japan never maintain “war potential.” Japan once reinterpreted Article 9 to build the Self-Defense Forces. Reinterpreting nuclear pacifism would be far more controversial, but not unprecedented.

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

​Japan, Nuclear weapons, Nuclear power, Usa, China, Military buildup, Japan self defense forces, Pacifism, Nuclear deterrence, Opinion & analysis, National defense, Self-defense, War, Pacific ocean 

The combined bombing campaign that began in Iran Saturday morning, decapitating senior leadership and hammering military targets across the map, may look like a massive undertaking.

And it is — for Israel.

Iran looks like an existential threat.

It is — for Israel.

An invasion does not run on slogans. It runs on fuel.

For the United States, the existential threat sits elsewhere. Iran has financed and fueled anti-American violence for 47 years — from the 1979 hostage crisis to the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983, from Hezbollah and the Houthis to the IED pipeline that chewed up Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Trump on Saturday morning laid out a clean rationale for turning the mullahs’ war machine into mulch and ending, once and for all, Tehran’s nuclear obsession.

Still, the bigger strategic picture points east — to China.

Beijing’s global ambitions rise and fall on one commodity that keeps modern economies alive and modern militaries moving: oil. If you want to understand why pressure on Iran matters beyond the Middle East, start with the tankers.

Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for Taiwan by 2027. Call it an invasion timeline or call it a readiness deadline — the intent reads the same.

China has spent years preparing the battlefield: artificial islands to extend maritime control, relentless air and naval exercises that rehearse the encirclement of Taiwan, and a missile force built to hunt U.S. ships and push America back behind the horizon.

That missile layer — DF-21s and DF-26s — supports the bigger concept: anti-access/area denial. China wants to make U.S. intervention costly, slow, and uncertain. It wants American commanders staring at a clock they cannot beat.

Washington answered with its own doctrine and its own race against time. The U.S. built concepts like AirSea Battle doctrine and pushed Agile Combat Employment — a dispersed, resilient approach designed to survive missile salvos and keep aircraft flying. The Air Force started rehabilitating old Pacific airfields and expanding access across Guam, Saipan, and especially Tinian, because the next war in the Pacific will punish concentration.

Then Orange Man Bad made two moves in two months that hit Xi exactly where he lives. Not more nasty rhetoric on Truth Social or posturing. Logistics.

First, the United States seized Nicolás Maduro and dumped him in a Brooklyn jail. That operation did more than embarrass a dictator. It jolted the real-world flow of Venezuelan crude — and with it, a slice of China’s import stream that Beijing prefers to keep quiet, rebranded, and discounted. Analysts peg Venezuela’s contribution to China’s seaborne crude imports in the low single digits, roughly 3% to 5% depending on the year and the counting method. In Beijing’s world, even “small” percentages matter when the margin for error narrows.

Second, the joint strike campaign against Iran instantly put a hand on another lever: Iranian exports.

RELATED: Israeli officials say Khamenei is dead. Update: Trump confirms.

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

China buys the bulk of Iran’s shipped oil. Various trackers place Iranian barrels at roughly 10% to 15% of China’s seaborne crude imports in recent years. Tehran sells because it needs the cash. Beijing buys because it wants the discount. Trump’s move did not need to “block” every barrel to land the message. It only needed to introduce uncertainty, disruption, rerouting, insurance spikes, interdiction risk, and political friction. Oil markets react to fear faster than to facts.

Put the two together, and the math starts to hurt: a meaningful share of China’s oil — not symbolic, not academic — now sits under pressure from U.S. action in Venezuela and Iran.

That creates a Taiwan problem.

An invasion does not run on slogans. It runs on fuel. It runs on shipping. It runs on industrial output. It runs on a domestic economy that stays stable while the military gambles. Xi can build missiles all day long, but he cannot launch an island war on an economy gasping for discounted crude.

So yes, the current Iran campaign matters for the obvious reasons: international terrorism, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the nuclear program. Those are legitimate reasons for “Epic Fury.”

Trump’s larger play hits the supply lines that make China’s invasion timetable plausible.

In only two months, Trump has put Xi in the position of a man getting a testicular palpation from a recalcitrant physician in a hurry.

Do not distract him. He might clench.

I think Trump wrote a book about it, or he should. Call it “The Art of the Squeal.”

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Iran, China, Ayatollah ali khamenei, Dead, Xi jinping, Taiwan, Oil, Missiles, Missile defense, Venezuela, Nicolas maduro, Grand strategy 

On Sunday, February 22, 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin, who authorities say breached the secure perimeter of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort armed with a shotgun and a gas can, was reportedly shot and killed by the United States Secret Service. President Trump was not at his Florida residence at the time of the incident.

Christopher Rufo, BlazeTV co-host of “Rufo & Lomez,” has been surprised by the lack of public outrage about this third assassination attempt on President Trump.

“What I found so fascinating is that this story, which in any other time period in American history would be a huge national story [and] dominate headlines, seemed to pass through the news without much of a blip,” says Rufo.

But this story should be of interest to everyone, he argues, not only because “anyone who is attempting an assassination against the president of the United States represents a fundamental threat to the political order,” but also because there seems to be a strange and dangerous pattern at play.

Both Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot President Trump in the ear at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally back in July 2024, and Austin Martin have some striking similarities, Rufo suggests.

Both were “bookish, young, white men, glasses, had some trouble, you know, fitting into the kind of high school social order. … The reporting indicated that at least at some point in their recent past they were pro-Trump or pro-MAGA. Then they have, for whatever reason, some psychological break, and they end up trying to assassinate the president,” he explains.

“The evidence to me suggests that online radicalization is at least a significant part of this.”

But co-host Jonathan Keeperman thinks there’s another factor fueling the recent political violence: the “copycat effect.”

Once people “see someone doing something that is getting attention, the attention-seeking person then will just go copy that same behavior because what they actually want, what they’re actually after, is that kind of attention,” he says.

“And so by ignoring these people, by pushing them out of the headlines, we’re actually preventing more of this from happening in the future,” he suggests.

Keeperman also ponders the possibility that by trying to sleuth around and identify what’s fueling these acts of political violence we’re actually doing more harm than good.

“We’re in a fallen world with fallen people, and they’re lunatics, and they commit violence, and it’s terrible, and it’s tragic. But maybe, actually, our insistence that there’s something more to mine from this … or there’s some meaning beyond just the fact that they’re lunatics, is itself a kind of conspiratorial delusion that we’re enacting in order to make sense of what is otherwise insensible,” he posits.

But Rufo isn’t convinced that attention-seeking or unpredictable lunacy is the root of the political violence we’re seeing. To hear his counterargument, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rufo & Lomez?

To enjoy more of the news through the anthropological lens of Christopher Rufo and Lomez, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Rufo, Rufo & lomez, Chris rufo, Jonathan keeperman, Blazetv, Blaze media, Austin tucker martin, Thomas matthew crooks, Trump, Trump assassination attempt, Political violence 

President Donald Trump exchanged threats with remnants of the Iranian regime ahead of the second day of the joint U.S.-Israeli regime-change strikes on the West Asian nation.

Tehran, evidently keen to test Trump’s resolve despite losing most of its military and political leaders in Saturday’s assassinations, sought to make good on its tough talk with continued retaliatory strikes in the region, killing at least three Americans, at least nine Israelis, and multiple victims in neighboring Arab states.

‘We will hunt you down, and we will kill you.’

The U.S and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on Saturday, aerially assassinating Iran’s top brass — including the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the head of Iran’s foreign intelligence unit, and the regime’s adviser on the war with Israel — and destroying hundreds of “regime targets” including an Iranian Jamaran-class warship.

Following confirmation that their dictator, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial strikes, multitudes of Iranians gathered in Tehran’s Enghelab Square to mourn his demise while remaining elements of the regime vowed revenge.

Iran promptly responded with retaliatory strikes in Bahrain, Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, and Oman — in several cases targeting U.S. military assets.

Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for the Iranian military, stated, “God willing, we will give a lesson to the U.S. and Israel that they have not experienced in their history,” reported the Iranian state-linked Tasnim News Agency.

RELATED: Israeli officials say Khamenei is dead. Update: Trump confirms.

Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

Amidst more bluster from Iranian regimists who formed a transitional council to lead the country following Khamenei’s death, President Donald Trump noted on Truth Social shortly after midnight on Sunday, “Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before. THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”

Like Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made abundantly clear precisely what fate awaits those who’d target American forces: “We will hunt you down, and we will kill you.”

Iran — whose media alleged that over 200 people, including 145 children, were killed in the initial joint U.S.-Israel strikes — did not heed Trump’s warning.

On Sunday morning, the decapitated regime launched another wave of missile and drone attacks on Israel and American military assets, including the U.S. Fifth Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly claimed in a statement on Sunday that the Iranian military will continue to act “with power” and “frustrate the enemies as always.”

Pezeshkian reportedly also characterized the attacks “by the American-Zionist axis” as a “declaration of open war with Muslims, especially Shiites in the world.”

Amid the latest round of Iranian retaliation strikes, U.S. Central Command indicated that “as of 9:30 am ET, March 1, three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.”

‘These are painful days.’

“Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” CENTCOM noted further. “Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.”

After bombarding Tehran overnight, the Israeli Air Force announced late Sunday morning that it had “begun another wave of strikes in the heart of Tehran.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Our forces are now striking at the heart of Tehran with intensifying force, and this will only grow even stronger in the coming days. That said, these are painful days.”

The U.S. has similarly executed another round of strikes against Iran, reported CBS News.

Trump told CNBC on Sunday that the American operation in Iran is “moving along very well, very well — ahead of schedule.”

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​War, Regime change, Regime, Iran, Tehran, Khamenei, Arabian sea, Centcom, Foreign entanglements, Donald trump, Israel, Iranian, Politics 

The New Testament didn’t just shape Christian belief — it shaped early Christian life. And with it came a set of names that feel surprisingly modern and usable, even if most of them never made it into mainstream naming culture.

Here are 10 New Testament names worth a second look.

1. Phoebe

Romans 16:1-2

Phoebe was a deaconess in the early church and the trusted courier of Paul’s letter to the Romans — likely the first person to read and explain it.

Her name means “bright” or “radiant.” Familiar today, but often disconnected from its biblical roots.

Famous Phoebes: Phoebe Cates, Phoebe Waller-Bridge

2. Silas

Acts 15–18

Silas was a missionary companion of Paul, sharing imprisonment and persecution during the church’s earliest expansion.

Derived from Silvanus, meaning “wood” or “forest,” Silas is biblical without sounding overtly religious.

Famous Silases: Silas Robertson, Silas Marner (fictional)

3. Clement

Philippians 4:3

Mentioned briefly by Paul, Clement later becomes associated with Clement of Rome, one of the earliest Christian leaders outside Scripture.

The name means “gentle” or “merciful,” with strong early-church pedigree.

Famous Clements: Clement Attlee (British prime minister)

4. Justus

Acts 1:23; Colossians 4:11

Justus appears multiple times in the New Testament as a respected believer and associate of Paul.

Meaning “just” or “righteous,” the name is sturdy, Roman, and underused.

Famous Justuses: Justus von Liebig (chemist)

5. Junia

Romans 16:7

Junia is praised by Paul as “outstanding among the apostles,” making her one of the most intriguing figures in the early church.

Her name is Roman, elegant, and only recently rediscovered by modern readers.

Famous Junias: Mostly confined to antiquity

6. Aquila

Acts 18

Aquila, alongside his wife Priscilla, was a teacher and missionary who helped instruct Apollos.

The name means “eagle.” Strong, Roman, and distinctive.

Famous Aquilas: Aquila Kyros (composer)

7. Rhoda

Acts 12

Rhoda is the servant girl who famously forgets to open the door for Peter because she’s too excited about announcing his arrival.

Her name means “rose.” Brief appearance, lasting charm.

Famous Rhodas: Rhoda Janzen (author)

8. Apphia

Philemon

Apphia is greeted by Paul as a respected member of the church, likely a leader within her household.

Soft, domestic, and genuinely rare.

Famous Apphias: None — true deep cut

9. Tertius

Romans 16:22

Tertius is the scribe who physically wrote Paul’s letter to the Romans and signs the letter himself.

The name literally means “third.” Historically fascinating, practically bold.

Famous Tertii: Mostly confined to antiquity

10. Sosthenes (most uncommon)

Acts 18; 1 Corinthians 1:1

Sosthenes appears as a synagogue leader who later becomes a Christian associate of Paul.

The name means “of safe strength.” Impressive, ancient, and very much for the brave.

Famous Sosthenes: Almost exclusively ancient figures

See our list of 10 underrated Old Testament names here!

​Baby names, Abide, Lifestyle, Bible, Christianity, Faith, New testament 

According to an old African proverb, “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”

BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre is concerned this same dynamic is playing out among America’s younger generations today. Many young people feel scorned by policies and systems that favor older generations and immigrants while barring them from owning homes, starting families, and pursuing careers.

As housing prices skyrocket, wages remain flat, jobs get shipped overseas, and immigration transforms the workforce, political figures keep touting record stock-market levels as evidence of widespread economic success. But inflating asset values is far from the same thing as genuine national well-being.

If something doesn’t give soon, will our young folk lose hope in the system and start trying to destroy it?

On this episode of “The Auron MacIntyre Show,” Auron dives into this pressing question.

“The French Revolution was horrific, but it happened in part because the king really was making bad decisions. The Russian Revolution was an absolute nightmare, but it did happen because the czar was not doing a good job and was ignoring the needs of the people,” says Auron.

“The systems you’re operating have to benefit most of the people involved because if they don’t, there will eventually come a time where everyone either checks out or decides that they don’t want to play this game anymore,” he warns.

When this happens, the results usually end up being “much worse” than the original predicaments that caused them.

Right now, the younger generations are being given the same advice that made older generations financially successful: “Work harder,” “[increase] your skill set,” “[put] your time in,” and “[make] wise financial decisions.”

While this is still “good advice to the individual,” says Auron, it’s no longer applicable to the masses due to how policies have shifted over time.

“You can’t keep running the entire economy for Boomers and the laptop class. … There has to be a buy-in or eventually people will get violent or apathetic — and you can’t be angry or surprised when that ultimately happens,” he says.

“The affordability issue is going to be the issue. It just is. Like that and immigration are going to be one and two for probably the next 10 years at least, and so any Republican administration, any Trump administration, any (let’s hope) JD Vance administration — they’re going to have to address this problem,” Auron urges.

To hear more of Auron’s analysis, watch the video above.

Want more from Auron MacIntyre?

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

​The auron macintyre show, Auron macintyre, Affordability crisis, Stagnant wages, Housing market, Blazetv, Blaze media 

I did not arrive at this argument as a theorist or as a commentator looking for a clever angle. I arrived at it through the wreckage of 2020.

After I investigated the November 2020 election in Arizona and Nevada, the Department of Justice subpoenaed me. In February 2023, I spent six and a half hours testifying before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. That experience did not change my political outlook. It changed my sense of how exposed the country has become — and how unwilling key institutions have been to confront the exposure directly.

Do Americans still govern themselves, or do we merely perform self-government while hostile forces — foreign and domestic — shape outcomes behind a screen?

The debate returned with new urgency this week. The Washington Post reported Thursday that election integrity activists are urging the Trump administration to issue an executive order on elections. It’s about time. Executive action has become the only plausible instrument for a rapid national response, because the states have entrenched incentives to resist meaningful reform and foreign enemies have worked diligently to undermine and defeat us.

For anyone with eyes to see, war has come. It has not arrived in the form Americans expect when they hear the word. It does not always appear wearing uniforms, wielding declarations, or mobilizing divisions. It arrives through political warfare, cyber capabilities, influence operations, and domestic agitation. It arrives through a border that stops functioning, a culture that stops teaching civic loyalty, and an election system that produces outcomes a large share of the country considers illegitimate.

A global conflict now runs through the heart of America’s public life. Communist China and other hostile regimes mean the destruction of the United States, and they pursue that goal with patience, strategy, and resources.

Alongside that global conflict, a domestic conflict has hardened into something close to open civil war, with one side committed to sovereignty, law, and national continuity, and the other side increasingly willing to use institutional leverage, street agitation, and demographic transformation to break the existing order.

This domestic conflict matters for a practical reason: It makes free and fair elections difficult if not impossible to conduct in 2026 and 2028 absent radical steps to secure them.

Can America have a fair election in 2026?

Three fronts define the challenge. First, the United States must conduct elections that Americans can recognize as legitimate. Second, Immigration and Customs Enforcement must regain the ability to deport the millions of illegal aliens who entered the country during the Biden years, despite organized resistance. Third, foreign enemies must be denied the ability to wage war on America through cyber sabotage, influence operations, and electoral interference.

These fronts converge on one question: Do Americans still govern themselves, or do we merely perform self-government while hostile forces — foreign and domestic — shape outcomes behind a screen?

Start with elections, because everything else depends on them.

Self-government requires two things that cannot be faked. First, a border defines citizenship. Second, an election defines consent.

A republic cannot survive without both. Yet Americans now live under conditions that invite doubt about each: a border that failed catastrophically, and an election system that many citizens no longer trust.

Fair elections demand friction. They demand procedures that annoy activists and frustrate bureaucrats. They demand a system that ordinary citizens can understand. A voter should show identification, vote on a paper ballot, and watch that ballot be counted by human beings under observation by other human beings.

Perfection will never exist. The point is not perfection. The point is transparency, auditability, and public confidence grounded in procedures citizens can see and grasp.

For most of American history, paper ballots provided that confidence. Americans knew what happened in the counting room because the counting room did not function like a proprietary black box. Election modernizers sold the country a different idea: Computers make things fast, efficient, and secure. The experience of the last decade, culminating in 2020, has left that promise in ruins.

RELATED: ‘Dead on arrival’: Chuck Schumer says Dems will ‘go all out’ to defeat voter ID bill

Photo by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

A massive intelligence failure

Since November 2020, the corporate legacy media has insisted that the U.S. election system operates as “absolutely secure” and that widespread fraud does not exist. That claim collides with common sense.

The vast majority of Americans now vote through an election ecosystem built on machines, scanners, tabulators, centralized databases, and software layers that few officials can explain and fewer citizens can independently audit. This ecosystem does not eliminate fraud. It relocates fraud into places the public cannot easily see.

Electronic voting systems invite manipulation because they rely on computers. Computers obey code. Code gets written, altered, updated, patched, and maintained by people with incentives, biases, and vulnerabilities. Any system dependent on code and opaque tabulation invites distrust — and it invites actors with resources to exploit it.

Hardware alone raises the first national security issue. Election machines rely on electronic components manufactured in communist China or Taiwan. China is an enemy nation. A hostile regime’s manufacturing ecosystem should not sit inside critical infrastructure, and elections sit at the heart of critical infrastructure. When Americans hear that the parts driving their voting system originate in China, many react with disbelief. That reaction is rational.

Software raises a second issue. Major election technology has been developed, maintained, or designed across foreign jurisdictions — Venezuela, Canada, Serbia — with American developers in the mix. Even when parts of that reporting prove disputed or exaggerated in public debate, the broader fact remains: A modern electronic election system creates a sprawling supply chain of hardware and software dependencies that pushes election integrity far outside the direct control of any voter, precinct worker, or local official.

An enemy regime does not need to ‘flip votes’ to win. It can accomplish its goals by shredding trust, delegitimizing outcomes, and pushing Americans toward internal conflict.

Ownership and investment raise a third issue. The purchase and financing structures surrounding major election vendors have generated persistent public questions, including questions about foreign investment exposure and the presence of overseas investors with legal obligations to their own regimes. The press largely refused to investigate those questions in any serious way after 2020. Instead, it treated the questions themselves as illegitimate — which encouraged distrust rather than resolving it.

How did such systems enter American elections in the first place?

The answer points to intelligence and counterintelligence failure.

Modern warfare is not limited to bombs and bullets. Modern warfare includes political warfare, cyber operations, influence campaigns, and the exploitation of social fractures. Any hostile regime with the ability to damage American legitimacy has an interest in doing so. An enemy regime does not need to “flip votes” to win. It can accomplish its goals by shredding trust, delegitimizing outcomes, and pushing Americans toward internal conflict.

U.S. counterintelligence should treat election seasons as high-value windows for hostile activity, because elections present the most valuable target in American political life. Yet the United States behaved as if such threats belonged in the realm of conspiracy rather than standard national-security planning.

Warnings existed before 2020. HBO’s 2020 documentary “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections,” produced primarily in 2019 by Finnish computer programmer and documentarian Harri Hursti, laid out vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems.

The film included Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), each of whom criticized election technology and raised concerns about trust, auditability, and system integrity. The documentary’s premise focused on the fear that Russia would steal the election for Donald Trump. In other words, prominent Democrats publicly argued that electronic systems could not be trusted — right up until those arguments became politically inconvenient.

The documentary’s partisan framing does not matter. The underlying point does: A computer-based system can be manipulated, and the mere possibility of manipulation creates a legitimacy crisis for any contested outcome. A republic cannot function when half the country believes the outcome was engineered by an opaque system.

The ‘most secure election’ canard

So did the 2020 election turn on electronic manipulation?

Many Americans concluded that it did, and they did so because 2020 produced anomalies too glaring to ignore. Yet a thorough federal investigation never followed.

The federal government had rightful authority to investigate election-system vulnerabilities. The FBI could have pursued fraud and foreign interference. The DHS, through its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, treated election systems as critical infrastructure. Yet a week after the election — during a national outcry over procedures, chain of custody, observation access, and statistical anomalies — CISA Director Chris Krebs declared 2020 “the most secure election in American history.” Even granting him good faith, that claim outpaced what any official could responsibly know so soon.

Other institutions looked away. Attorney General Bill Barr declined to pursue serious claims. Trump’s White House lawyers and advisers, even those acting in good faith, lacked the expertise and institutional leverage needed to conduct a forensic inquiry across multiple states with complex systems. Many figures around Trump seemed unwilling to risk their careers or reputations on a fight that would trigger institutional retaliation. Conventional thinking did the rest: Americans struggle to imagine a national election stolen in plain sight, so they default to official assurances.

That vacuum created a predictable outcome: Private citizens stepped in.

Some acted from patriotic concern for the republic and a desire to find the truth. Others took advantage of the crisis. Some appeared to function as disinformation agents — whether knowingly or not — by flooding the public with claims so sensational that they discredited serious inquiry. The “satellite” stories and overseas melodrama that circulated after 2020 served that function. They distracted from real questions and gave the establishment an easy excuse to dismiss anyone demanding transparency as a crank.

RELATED: 3 debunked Democrat claims about the SAVE America Act

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Private efforts did surface real issues, and three of those deserve attention because they remain unresolved and because they point to reforms that do not depend on proving any single theory about 2020.

First, Americans learned how foreign-linked, opaque, computer-based voting systems had become standard. Citizens do not need a technical degree to grasp the problem. A system that depends on foreign supply chains, foreign-linked software development, and proprietary tabulation cannot command broad public trust. That fact alone constitutes a crisis for a republic.

Second, the 2020 election demonstrated how mail voting can be exploited at scale. Universal mail ballots moved through broken voter rolls, weak chain-of-custody practices, and uneven signature verification. COVID became an excuse for suspending or weakening procedures that existed for a reason: they protect legitimacy.

Clark County, Nevada, offers an example. Under normal settings, its signature-verification system rejected large numbers of ballots. Election officials reportedly lowered the resolution settings, contrary to accepted procedures, until nearly any signature could pass. That decision converted signature verification into a formality. Officials then treated this relaxation as a practical necessity. Citizens experienced it as a violation of the rules.

Third, private investigators in several states identified batches of paper ballots that did not match standard stock or standard folding patterns consistent with mailed ballots. Ballots that arrive flat, unfolded, and printed on different paper invite suspicion of outside mass printing. Even when officials insist on benign explanations, the failure to address the optics and the forensics with urgency undermines trust.

Taken together, these issues required an information campaign to persuade Americans that 2020 was conducted fairly. That campaign did not succeed. Large numbers of Americans believed the election was stolen or unfair. The Biden administration governed under a cloud of contested legitimacy, and the country absorbed four years of anger, cynicism, and institutional fracture.

That experience leads to a basic conclusion: An election system that requires a nationwide propaganda effort to sustain credibility is not a healthy system.

‘Too big to rig’

A common retort now surfaces: If the system was rigged in 2020, how could Trump possibly have won in 2024?

Two explanations fit what Americans saw.

First, a second theft risked systemic crisis. The country watched what happened after 2020. Many Americans believed the election had been stolen. They watched the anger. They watched the institutional crackdown. A repeat in 2024 could have produced a political breakdown that would have paralyzed governance across the country. Even actors with capacity to manipulate outcomes would have had to consider the consequences.

Americans should not have to live in a state of permanent suspicion, asking whether unseen forces fought over tabulation pipelines and database integrity.

Second, unprecedented monitoring and deterrence efforts likely raised the costs of misconduct. Trump predicted a victory “too big to rig.” That line became a strategy: Overwhelm the system with turnout, recruit and train observers, litigate in advance, pressure states for reforms, and limit the number of ballots floating through the mail. Even if 2020 did not turn on cyber manipulation, the mere perception that it might have done so forced new defensive measures in 2024.

Either way, the central point stands: Americans should not have to live in a state of permanent suspicion, asking whether unseen forces fought over tabulation pipelines and database integrity. A free people deserves an election system that does not invite that question.

The Constitution assumes a union of one people with a functioning constitutional order. That assumption is now strained. Progressive states increasingly treat federal authority as illegitimate on immigration and law enforcement. Elected officials in California, Illinois, New York, Washington, Oregon, and other states have signaled hostility toward the Trump government and toward the idea of enforcing border sovereignty. Those attitudes bleed into election administration, because election administration has become another front in political warfare.

Congress has taken partial steps. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, requiring proof of citizenship, and the Make Elections Great Again Act, mandating voter ID, move in the right direction. Yet those steps do not remove the core vulnerability: electronic voting systems and electronic tabulation.

A system without electronics removes entire classes of risk. It also restores something modern reformers discount: visible legitimacy.

RELATED: Running out the clock won’t save the majority

stuartmiles99 via iStock/Getty Images

A common-sense proposal

The country needs a clean national standard for federal elections: paper ballots, Election Day voting, transparent counting, and credible oversight.

Congress could impose such a standard. Congress likely will not, at least not in time for 2026. That reality pushes attention toward executive action.

One option is direct and blunt: The president should prohibit electronic voting machines and electronic tabulation in federal elections, invoking national security and foreign-interference risk.

President Trump already recognized the danger of foreign interference. Executive Order 13848, issued Sept. 12, 2018, declared a national emergency with respect to foreign interference in U.S. elections and authorized sanctions. That framework is triggered after an election. Americans learned in 2020 that post hoc remedies come too late. The country needs preventive action before the next vote.

A new executive order should declare that foreign supply-chain exposure and the risk of foreign cyber and influence operations make electronic voting systems unacceptable for federal elections. The goal is not to accuse every state of corruption. The goal is to remove the tool that makes corruption scalable and invisible.

A second executive action should mandate a uniform protocol for federal elections across the states:

Paper ballots, printed and secured under strict chain-of-custody rules.Photo identification for in-person voting.Voter rolls audited and cleaned to reflect real voters.Election Day voting as the norm.Absentee ballots limited to military voters and genuinely confined citizens.Counting conducted by humans under observation by credentialed observers.Transparent reporting at the precinct level in real time.Livestreamed counting wherever feasible to increase confidence and deter misconduct.

This system is not fancy. That’s part of its appeal. It replaces complexity with clarity. It makes manipulation difficult because manipulation requires people, presence, and risk.

Blue states will resist. Some on the left and right might scream about “states’ rights.” The very idea that states have rights has lingered far too long in American politics.

Election integrity cannot be separated from immigration enforcement. Both turn on the same principle: citizenship and sovereignty.

States do not have rights. Natural rights belong to citizens, not state governments. State governments hold delegated powers and duties. When state systems undermine citizens’ rights — including the right to participate in a credible election — the federal government has a duty to protect the constitutional order.

Article I, Section 4 assigns states authority over the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections, subject to congressional alteration. That clause presumes good-faith administration inside a stable union. It did not anticipate election systems dependent on foreign-linked technology, hostile supply chains, and opaque software. Remember: The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

A third, indispensable step must follow: federal oversight.

State election boards disqualified themselves in 2020 by treating citizen observation as illegitimate and by creating closed systems that blocked transparency. Americans watched officials cover windows during counting in Philadelphia. That image damaged confidence more than any argument could repair. When officials treat observation as an enemy, they signal that legitimacy is negotiable.

Federal oversight should include well-constituted teams of observers with legal authority to monitor chain of custody, ballot handling, and counting procedures. Those teams should include lawyers, trained observers, and experienced election administrators. Federalized law enforcement can provide security and enforce access rules.

One drastic but increasingly necessary option is the federalization of each state’s National Guard during federal elections, with a narrow and disciplined mission: secure facilities, protect chain of custody, enforce lawful observer access, and deter intimidation or obstruction by any side. The goal is not militarization. The goal is legitimacy in a period when legitimacy has become a target.

Critics will call this authoritarian. Critics will say it overrides federalism. Critics will claim it inflames tension. Those critics miss the current reality: The existing system inflames tension precisely because it generates doubt.

Paper ballots counted in public calm tension. Electronic systems managed behind bureaucratic walls inflame tension.

RELATED: ‘Prove it’ isn’t an insult. It’s a standard.

Photo by David Williams/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why this is absolutely necessary

Election integrity cannot be separated from immigration enforcement. Both turn on the same principle: citizenship and sovereignty.

Over four years, the Biden administration facilitated an invasion of the United States by an estimated 15 to 25 million illegal immigrants. Blue-state governors aided and abetted this effort through sanctuary policies and open defiance of federal enforcement. This was not a routine policy dispute. It was a deliberate attempt to transform the country politically and culturally. The strategy had a clear political logic: create a new demographic reality, then use that reality to entrench power.

No serious person doubts the long-term plan behind mass illegal migration: regularize the status, grant legal residency, and push toward citizenship. Even if that path takes time, the political intent is obvious. A massive new voting population would permanently alter the political balance of power in favor of open borders and against national continuity.

If the illegal immigrants are not made citizens, the next phase follows: turn deportation into a trigger for civil conflict. That conflict is already taking shape in the resistance to ICE operations. Activists and political officials treat immigration enforcement as illegitimate. They mobilize street pressure to block lawful federal action. They use the language of “human rights” to justify lawlessness.

In parallel, American culture has produced generations of citizens who no longer see themselves as heirs of a constitutional republic. Many now see themselves as political actors engaged in permanent struggle against “systems.” They do not treat citizenship as a loyalty. They treat it as a tool. When pop figures declare that no illegal immigrants exist on “stolen land,” they echo a narrative taught for decades: America is an illegitimate country that must be dismantled or reduced.

This ideology fuels the street-level insurrection now forming around immigration enforcement. Add professional agitators — Antifa networks, hard-left organizations, Islamist activist groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and communist organizations — and the result is predictable: chaos, intimidation, and violence in major cities.

Americans can argue about policy outcomes for the rest of their lives. They cannot argue forever about whether votes were counted honestly and still remain one country.

ICE faces a logistical reality. Deporting tens of millions requires manpower, detention capacity, transport capacity, and employer enforcement that makes illegal employment untenable. The current number of ICE agents cannot accomplish this alone. Even if the administration doubles agent capacity to 44,000, success depends on collapsing the job market for illegal labor. Without employer enforcement, millions of illegal immigrants will bet on survival in the underground economy until 2028, hoping for amnesty under the next Democrat administration.

This reality intersects with elections. A country cannot run a credible election while tens of millions of illegal immigrants remain embedded in communities — including key swing congressional districts — while activists and elected officials defy enforcement, and while the meaning of citizenship erodes. Election integrity becomes a secondary casualty of a deeper sovereignty crisis.

National security magnifies the urgency further.

At minimum, roughly 200,000 Chinese nationals entered the country during the Biden-era migration surge. The vast majority of them were military-age men. Some of these men have the appearance of members of a military force. Communist China has declared political warfare against the United States and has the capability to sabotage critical infrastructure, from power grids to water systems. If hostile operatives sit inside the country at scale, what stops them from targeting soft points in civil life: malls, theme parks, public events, transport nodes?

A nation cannot treat this as a hypothetical. America must treat this as an operational planning problem.

A lack of decisive action sends signals. It signals to illegal immigrants that they can wait out enforcement. It signals to the insurrectionist left that street violence will succeed. It signals to hostile states that the United States lacks the will to defend its own sovereignty.

In this environment, President Trump’s insight that elections may need to be “nationalized” deserves serious consideration.

RELATED: If Fulton County ran clean elections in Georgia, it should welcome sunlight

Yuri Gripas/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A final consideration

Communist China spends tens of billions annually on intelligence and influence operations inside the United States. It has declared a people’s war against the United States and has built a cyber force tied to the People’s Liberation Army that approaches 1 million personnel. It operates through partners and proxies — including cyber-capable regimes such as Iran — and it has relationships with authoritarian governments that have served as nodes in the election-technology ecosystem, including Venezuela.

Even if every component of the U.S. election system were designed and built inside the United States, electronic systems would still carry unacceptable vulnerabilities. Any networked system can be penetrated. Any tabulation system can be targeted. Any system that produces outcomes through proprietary code and opaque databases invites distrust — and provides adversaries with leverage.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has taken a keen interest in election vulnerability, including the ongoing investigation in Georgia. Her mandate includes preventing foreign intelligence services from influencing American elections. Her recommendations will matter. So will the willingness of the administration to act on the principle that legitimacy is not a public-relations problem. It is a national security problem.

America’s enemies wage political warfare to undermine confidence in the U.S. political system. America must respond with counter-political warfare and with reforms that deny adversaries their most useful tool: doubt.

This returns us to the war framing because the war framing describes the stakes without exaggeration.

The United States is not drifting through a normal partisan season. The United States is fighting for continuity as a sovereign republic. Foreign enemies want Americans to lose confidence in their own system. Domestic radicals want Americans to lose confidence in their own inheritance. Both sides benefit when elections produce outcomes that half the country cannot accept.

A republic cannot survive repeated legitimacy collapse.

The remedy is not complicated. It is common sense.

Paper ballots. Election Day, not week. Photo ID. Clean voter rolls. Human counting under observation. Transparent reporting that citizens can verify. Federal oversight strong enough to deter obstruction and fraud. An executive posture that treats election integrity as national defense, not as a procedural hobby left to 50 different bureaucracies.

Americans can argue about policy outcomes for the rest of their lives. They cannot argue forever about whether votes were counted honestly and still remain one country.

It is clear that our enemies engage in political warfare to undermine the confidence Americans have in our political system. We must wage a robust counter-political warfare campaign to thwart our enemies. This has not been a consideration of American policymakers in the past. No large-scale challenge such as the vulnerability of our voting system existed during the Cold War. This challenge exists now, and how America addresses it over the coming months may well decide the future of our republic. Let us pray that common sense prevails.

​Opinion & analysis, Elections, Election integrity, Save america act, Donald trump, 2020 election, Stolen election, Election fraud, China, Chinese communist party, Chinese influence, National security, Voting, Voting irregularities, Electronic voting machine, 2026 midterms, Intelligence, Political warfare, Illegal immigration, Illegal aliens voting, Invasion, Joe biden, Open borders, Mass deportations, Nationalization, Antifa, Democratic party 

Police in Huber Heights, Ohio, said an officer initiated a traffic stop Monday, but the driver fled on foot.

Police said the officer briefly lost sight of the suspect but quickly established a perimeter in the area.

Police told the station the suspect actually made it several apartments away before officers caught up to him and arrested him.

“As luck would have it, ‘Oscar the Grouch’ — as we’ve nicknamed our suspect — appeared at just the right place and the right time,” police added.

True enough. Police video shows an understandably freaked-out sanitation worker backing off and pointing at a just-opened trash bin behind a garbage truck.

The object of the worker’s shock was the suspect in question, and video shows him popping up and jumping out of the container — and then making a run for it.

RELATED: Stolen car goes airborne ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ style amid police chase — but occupants sure ain’t no Bo or Luke

Police said “thanks to the impressive athletic ability and swift response” of a second officer, the “suspect was safely apprehended.”

Police added that “the suspect was taken into custody without injury to anyone involved.”

WHIO-TV reported that the suspect has since been identified as 27-year-old Jonathan McMillan.

Police told the station the suspect actually made it several apartments away before officers caught up to him and arrested him.

WHIO said McMillan was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on obstructing official business and resisting arrest. The station added that he also had a warrant from Miami County.

As for the original traffic violation that sparked the cartoonish ordeal?

WHIO said police gave McMillan just a warning for it.

How’s that for a “Sesame Street” episode in the making?

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Arrest, Garbage truck, Huber heights, Ohio, Police, Trash can, Video, Trash container, Crime 

Can demons shape-shift to appear like aliens?

According to BlazeTV writer and producer Josh Jennings, yes. When he was a young teenager, he says, he was visited by an alien-like entity that terrified him so deeply that it took years for him to recover.

On this episode of “Strange Encounters” with BlazeTV host Rick Burgess, Josh shares his harrowing experience.

When he was 14 years old, Josh’s family moved into a “fixer-upper” he describes as having had “some strange stuff done in it.”

“The lower half had been a house; the upper part had been a boarding house. … And in one of the rooms upstairs, there was a room where there was all kinds of satanic imagery written on the walls,” he says.

Even though his parents kept the sinister room a secret from Josh and his siblings, “painted over” the dark symbolism, and “[prayed] for any demonic spirits to go away,” evil still had a foothold in the home.

For a time, life in the house seemed normal, but then one night when Josh was asleep in his room, the peaceful facade shattered.

“So I’m dreaming about baseball, and in my dream, somebody hits, like, a pop fly. And I hear the crack of the bat, and it instantly wakes me up and I’m fully alert,” he recounts.

“I’m looking at my window, and then something catches in the corner of my eye and I look up at my closet. And there, floating in the air, was a head. It was just a human head, except this thing was not human. It had very thin green skin, and it kind of had an inner glow. And it had short, cropped black hair, and when I looked at it, it bared its teeth at me.”

It’s been 27 years since this event occurred, and the sinister entity’s teeth are still the detail Josh remembers with the most clarity.

“Every tooth in its mouth was about an inch long, and it had, like, a pearly iridescence to it,” he recalls.

“This thing snarled at me, and it was between me and my door, so there was no way to get away from it. And so I did what any self-respecting 14-year-old boy would do, and I threw the covers over my head and turned my face to the wall and began just to pray, just to pray that God would make it go away. And when I eventually got the courage to look again, it was gone.”

But the alien-like entity isn’t even the wildest part of Josh’s story.

Later in life, he discovered that these types of encounters had been happening to people in his family for at least “two generations” before him. Both his parents and grandmother had experienced similar demonic run-ins that disrupted their sleep.

“That incident had a profound effect on my life,” says Josh, noting that he developed a “drinking problem that spanned about a decade” because it became so difficult to sleep at night.

“I would lie awake at night, afraid to close my eyes and afraid to open my eyes. So whichever state they were in, I was afraid to do the opposite of that,” he tells Rick.

A few years later, however, Josh had another supernatural encounter, but this time, he believes the entity was an angel that may have been protecting him from another demon-alien encounter.

To hear the story, 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.

​Strange encounters, Blazetv, Blaze media, Rick burgess, Strange encounters with rick burgess, Spiritual warfare, Demonic, Aliens, Ufos 

We had just come off a long hospital stay. My wife was exhausted, in enormous pain, and I was worn thin. Airports do not feel neutral when your life is measured in surgical cycles.

The terminal was under construction. Barriers had shifted. Signage was unclear. I did not know the layout.

A nation cannot remain free if its authority grows more comfortable correcting the harmless than confronting the dangerous.

I made a bad call.

Instead of threading a wheelchair and two carry-ons through a winding set of surprisingly empty nylon lanes, I released one barrier and moved us laterally toward what looked like the correct checkpoint.

No one stood behind us. No one was delayed. No one was endangered.

An agent met us there and, with visible seriousness, told me to return to the beginning and follow the empty maze properly.

At first I thought he was kidding. A beat later, I half expected him to channel the Soup Nazi: “No plane for you!”

Swearing under my breath, I turned the wheelchair around and pushed her back through vacant lanes, struggling to make all the 90-degree turns with her chair, two crutches, and two small carry-ons.

Security did not increase. Compliance did.

On another trip, in a different airport, TSA members approached us and said her shoes had triggered an alarm.

She wore ordinary flats with small bows on the toes. I picked them out myself.

Her feet are carbon fiber, encased in thin rubber shells. The pylons and mechanical joints above them are exposed. No flesh hides anything. Everything is visible. Everything is easily inspected with a glance and a handheld wand.

She dresses nicely to fly, but she wears a skirt for a reason. Years ago, TSA agents made her take her pants off so they could inspect her prosthetic legs.

Yes, that really happened.

So when her “shoes” set off an alarm, I was puzzled.

“What kind of alarm?” I asked.

“We can’t say.”

“What possible alarm can a double-amputee woman with clearly visible prosthetics and nice shoes cause?” I asked, with more than a little exasperation.

“We can’t say.”

They scanned her again — by hand, so thoroughly it might have spared us a doctor’s visit. Then they emptied her purse.

Every husband knows the territory of a purse. You do not rummage through it casually. You do not rearrange it without permission. It is not simply a bag. It is ordered space.

For Gracie, it held carefully packed medication, identification, medical notes, and personal items. It was not decorative. It was survival.

One by one, they removed those items and laid them out on a metal table under fluorescent lights.

She was already nervous. Another extended surgical session awaited her at the other end of that flight. She was in significant pain. Airports amplify vulnerability when your body has endured nearly a hundred operations.

She tried to remain composed.

Then she began to cry — quietly, the way people cry when exhaustion, pain, and exposure arrive at the same moment.

RELATED: Sometimes doing nothing is the hardest challenge of all

Devrimb / Getty Images

People noticed.

A woman nearby said, “This is unnecessary.”

A man shook his head. “C’mon!”

Another muttered, “This is ridiculous.”

Others shifted uncomfortably. They understood something: This might be permitted, but it was morally disproportionate.

The inspection continued without visible alarm or explanation. And no discretion. Only “policy.”

TSA Cares exists, and we have used it. But shifting discharge dates can make advance coordination impossible.

Years earlier, this same woman had sung twice for the president who created the TSA. She performed for wounded warriors at Walter Reed and at high-security inaugural events where real threats were assessed with seriousness and discretion.

None of the agents knew that. They did not need to.

Still … the irony landed.

An institution born in the aftermath of national trauma had become meticulous about procedure and careless about proportion.

Around the time this happened, I watched footage of thousands pouring across the southern border. Officials insisted the border was secure.

Standing there, watching a federal agent apply painstaking pressure to the purse of a woman in severe pain, I could not square the disparity.

The border has since tightened. Enforcement proved immediate — when leadership wanted it.

That raises the harder question: If enforcement can appear instantly when desired, why does it vanish when inconvenient?

Security matters. Borders matter. Authority matters.

Authority also requires judgment. Law-abiding citizens comply. Evildoers do not.

When enforcement concentrates on the people who already follow the rules and hesitates before the people who break them, something has gone very wrong.

RELATED: We don’t have to live this way

Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

It reminded me of classrooms where a teacher, unwilling to confront one disruptive student, punishes the entire class instead. Uniform enforcement feels strong, but it often masks administrative convenience. The compliant absorb the penalty. The disruptive test the edges.

Institutions can learn that habit too.

Anyone who remembers the movie “Airplane!” may recall the airport-security scene where officers violently interrogate a harmless elderly woman while an obvious threat walks straight through behind them.

The danger comes when parody starts to resemble policy.

A nation cannot remain free if its authority grows more comfortable correcting the harmless than confronting the dangerous.

When the maze is guarded more fiercely than the gate, trust begins to fracture. When power falls hardest on the obedient and lightest on the defiant, something deeper than inconvenience is at stake.

If we mistake ritual for security and compliance for justice, we will become a nation trained to submit. Maybe we already are.

We don’t have to live this way.

​Tsa, Regulations, Airports, Rules and regulations, Compliance, Opinion & analysis 

When Robert Duvall died earlier this month, Hollywood lost a legend. Christians lost something rarer: a fellow traveler who gave faith dignity on screen and never apologized for it.

That alone deserves a moment of silence.

‘Preaching is one of the great American art forms,’ he once said. ‘The rhythm, the cadence. And nobody knows about it except the preachers themselves.’

Duvall came from solid stock. His father was a Navy rear admiral; his mother practiced a quiet, practical faith — the kind that had her on her knees at 3 a.m. while her husband dodged U-boats. One morning she mentioned a dark feeling at breakfast. Later they learned that a German torpedo had narrowly missed his father’s ship that same night. For the young Duvall, faith was not a Sunday habit. It was the difference between his father walking through the door and a stranger delivering bad news in an envelope.

Crackling with the Spirit

He grew up moving between bases and coastlines, went to New York, and became an actor. He got good at it, then very good, then extraordinary. Boo Radley. Tom Hagen. Bill Kilgore. He built a filmography that made other actors seem industrious rather than indispensable. He disappeared so completely into characters that finding his way back felt beside the point.

Then came a search that changed everything.

In 1962, preparing for an off-Broadway role set in the rural South, Duvall traveled to Hughes, Arkansas. He wandered the streets, drank coffee in diners, listened to how people talked and moved. One Sunday morning, out of curiosity, he followed a crowd into a small white clapboard Pentecostal church.

What he found stopped him cold.

People were on their feet, singing at full volume — faces lit, clapping, shouting. Tambourines. Snare drums. Joy so physical, so unselfconscious, so utterly unashamed. Duvall, the measured craftsman and trained observer, wanted to join in. “The air crackled with the Spirit,” he would later say. He never forgot it.

Churchgoing

He filed the experience away. Career called. Decades passed. He made masterpieces. In 1983 he won an Oscar for “Tender Mercies,” playing a broken country singer stumbling toward grace — a role that resonated because broken men reaching for something better was the only story he ever really seemed drawn to tell.

Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, Duvall kept researching. He visited small churches across the heartland, listened to preachers, filled legal pads with notes. He took his idea to Hollywood and was told — politely at first, then less politely — that no one wanted to watch a movie about religion. The studios passed. Then passed again.

He was frustrated but not defeated.

He used his own money. Seven weeks of filming in Louisiana, casting real preachers and congregants because, as he put it, “true faith is something that’s hard to duplicate.” The result was “The Apostle” (1997), a portrait of a Pentecostal preacher named Sonny — genuinely called by God and genuinely capable of terrible things. A sinner and a servant. Broken and burning. It earned Duvall another Oscar nomination. More importantly, it earned something Hollywood rarely grants religious subjects: respect.

RELATED: James Van Der Beek’s message about finding God resurfaces after death: ‘I am worthy of God’s love’

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Living faith

Duvall held his own faith privately. Christian Science by background, contemplative by temperament, he kept his beliefs close and his explanations brief. That was typical for a man of his generation.

What was not typical was the depth of his hunger for the real thing — his insistence on portraying faith as actual, embodied, dangerous, alive.

“Preaching is one of the great American art forms,” he once said. “The rhythm, the cadence. And nobody knows about it except the preachers themselves.”

He knew. And he made sure the rest of us could see it.

Kin through Jesus

Near the end of his long struggle to get “The Apostle” made, Duvall visited six churches in a single Sunday in New York, finishing at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Standing in that packed sanctuary, surrounded by a vast choir, he sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Something broke open in him.

“We’re all kin through Jesus,” he thought — not a concept to analyze, but the living Christ present in the full-throated roar of a Sunday choir. He called it the greatest discovery he ever made.

Robert Duvall was no saint. Neither was Sonny. Neither are we, most of us. But he understood, with the bone-deep instinct of a great artist, that flawed people reaching toward something holy is not a contradiction but a confession.

He told that story beautifully. We should be grateful he bothered. One of America’s finest actors is gone. For 60 years, he proved that the truth about faith is more compelling than anything Hollywood tried to invent in its place.

​Culture, Hollywood, Robert duvall, Faith, Movies, The apostle, Christianity, Pentecostalism, Robert duvall: 1931-2026 

The Bible isn’t just the sacred source of Christian tradition — it’s also the ultimate baby-name book. While a handful of Old Testament names have stayed in steady rotation, scripture offers many others that are meaningful, dignified, and largely forgotten.

Here are 10 Old Testament names — ranked by modern familiarity — for parents who want something biblical, rooted, and just a little unexpected.

1. Amos

Book of Amos

A shepherd turned prophet, Amos delivered some of the Bible’s most direct warnings against corruption and moral complacency. His words still resonate: “Let justice roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24).

The name means “burden-bearer,” which sounds heavy until you realize that’s exactly the point. Short, serious, and literary, Amos feels timeless rather than trendy.

Famous Amoses: Amos Oz (novelist), Amos Lee (musician), Amos Alonzo Stagg (coach)

2. Asa

1 Kings 15; 2 Chronicles 14–16

Asa was a king of Judah remembered for religious reform and a sincere effort to remove idols. Scripture presents him as faithful, if imperfect.

Often translated as “healer” or “physician,” Asa is ancient, compact, and surprisingly modern to the ear.

Famous Asas: Asa Butterfield (actor), Asa Gray (botanist), Asa Hutchinson (former governor)

3. Boaz

Book of Ruth

Boaz is the upright kinsman-redeemer who marries Ruth and becomes the great-grandfather of King David. He’s portrayed as generous, attentive, and morally grounded.

The name likely means “strength.” Short, rugged, and unmistakably biblical, Boaz feels bold without being archaic.

Famous Boazes: Boaz Yakin (filmmaker), Boaz Mauda (musician)

4. Tamar

Genesis 38; Ruth 4

Tamar plays a complicated but central role in Genesis and becomes part of the lineage of King David. Her story is difficult but ultimately redemptive.

Her name means “palm tree,” a biblical symbol of resilience and endurance. Common globally, rare in the U.S.

Famous Tamars: Tamar Braxton, Tamar Novas

5. Jethro

Exodus 3; 18

Jethro was Moses’ father-in-law, a Midianite priest who famously advised Moses on delegation — saving him from burnout long before the term existed.

The name suggests abundance or overflow and carries undeniable presence. Memorable but not for the timid.

Famous Jethros: Jethro Tull (band), Jethro Burns (musician)

6. Elihu

Book of Job

Elihu is the youngest speaker in Job, stepping in when Job’s friends fall silent. He’s thoughtful, corrective, and framed as preparing the way for God’s response.

The name means “He is my God.” Distinctly biblical and rarely used today.

Famous Elihus: Elihu Root (statesman, Nobel Peace Prize laureate)

7. Obadiah

1 Kings 18; Book of Obadiah

Obadiah was a faithful official who hid prophets from Jezebel and also authored one of the Bible’s shortest prophetic books.

His name means “servant of the Lord.” Formal, weighty, and unapologetically biblical.

Famous Obadiahs: Obadiah Stane (“Iron Man,” fictional but familiar)

8. Jair

Numbers 32; Judges 10

Jair served as a judge of Israel for 22 years and is remembered more for stability than spectacle — a rarity in Judges.

The name means “he enlightens.” Short, strong, and unfamiliar without being difficult.

Famous Jairs: Jair Bolsonaro (political figure)

9. Zerah

Genesis 38; Numbers 26

Zerah was the twin son of Judah and Tamar, remembered for his unusual birth, marked by a scarlet thread. His name endured through Israel’s genealogies.

Meaning “rising” or “dawning,” Zerah is poetic, compact, and ancient.

Famous Zerahs: Zerah Colburn (19th-century mathematical prodigy)

10. Huldah (most uncommon)

2 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 34

Huldah was a prophetess consulted by King Josiah during a major religious reform — her authority unquestioned.

The name sounds ancient because it is. Deeply biblical, historically important, and virtually unused today.

Famous Huldahs: Huldah Pierce (American folk artist)

Come back tomorrow for our list of 10 underrated New Testament names!

​Baby names, Old testament, Abide, Lifestyle, Bible, Christianity, Faith 

Israeli officials claim that Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei was among those senior-ranking Iranian officials killed in Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israeli military strikes. While Iranian propagandists have suggested that the geriatric dictator is alive and kicking, President Donald Trump backed the Israeli account.

According to Axios, Reuters, and CNN, Israeli officials say that Khamenei — who reports previously indicated had been moved to a secure location outside the national capital of Tehran, where his compound was destroyed — is indeed dead.

‘We feel that that is a correct story.’

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, reportedly made the same boast to U.S. officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to state outright that Khamenei has been eliminated.

Netanyahu did note, however, that attacking forces “destroyed the compound of the tyrant,” that the ayatollah’s plan to destroy Israel “is no more,” and that “there are many signs that the tyrant himself is no more.”

The Israeli prime minister and the heads of Israel’s security establishment were allegedly provided with proof of the successful assassination, namely a photo of the dictator’s body.

RELATED: World leaders respond to regime-change strikes on Iran: ‘Peacekeeper is at it again’

The White House

Trump suggested in a phone interview with NBC News on Saturday that his administration believes the Iranian dictator is dead.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of people beyond, and we feel certain, we feel, we feel that that is a correct story,” said the president, adding that “the people that make all the decisions, most of them are gone.”

The Iranian state-linked Tasnim and Mehr news agencies have reportedly suggested that Khamenei is still alive — “steadfast and firm in commanding the field.”

The U.S. has yet to confirm one way or the other.

Blaze News has reached out to the White House as well as the Departments of State and War for comment.

The 86-year-old Shia radical, who has served as Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, has been antagonistic toward the U.S. and Israel, characterizing America as a “corrupt, oppressive” empire and prematurely insinuating that the American military might not be able to “get up again” after a conflict with Tehran.

Reports indicate that among the Iranian officials also believed dead are Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Javad Pourhossein, head of Iran’s foreign intelligence unit; Mohammad-Reza Bajestani, head of the security unit; Ali Kheirandish, head of the counterterrorism unit; Saeed Ehya Hamidi, adviser on the war with Israel; and at least three members of Iran’s Basij paramilitary forces.

This is a developing story.

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A video surfaced recently of a speaker at a Florida Education Association press conference encouraging students to walk out of school to protest federal law enforcement. Union officials have since attempted to distance themselves from the remarks, but the episode should not come as a surprise.

The FEA’s parent organization, the National Education Association, recently adopted a resolution at its annual conference explicitly supporting efforts to help students organize similar protests.

A handful of activists control workplace representation for thousands of employees who never asked for it.

The walkout controversy reveals a much deeper problem: teachers’ unions in Florida have abandoned their mission of representing workers and have become political organizations that put ideology ahead of students and the teachers they claim to represent.

What happens when a union is forced to hold a recertification election is even more revealing. Only five of the 125 union recertification votes held for employees in Florida’s K-12 schools between March 2025 and January 2026 secured the support of more than 50% of the vote. Under current law, unions that did not meet this standard won recertification anyway. Even when a majority of the workforce declined to participate, the outcome still conferred exclusive bargaining authority.

For instance, there are 2,034 instructional personnel eligible for the union in Santa Rosa County. Only 364, less than 18% of their total eligible membership, actually voted to recertify the union as the bargaining authority. In Gadsden County, it’s even worse, with only 15% of the 293 eligible instructional employees choosing to vote to recertify the union. And in Seminole County, 1,098 votes out of 4,407 possible, less than 25%, secured the union’s recertification.

The same trend is occurring at universities across Florida. At the University of South Florida, the United Faculty of Florida secured exclusive bargaining authority over 2,169 employees. How many voted for the union? Forty-one. That’s less than 2% of the workforce. At Florida A&M University, three votes out of 202 eligible voters certified a union to represent all graduate assistants.

This is a system in which a handful of activists control workplace representation for thousands of employees who never asked for it.

Here’s what makes this so consequential: Certified unions in Florida don’t just represent their members. They exercise “exclusive representation” and have sole legal authority to negotiate for every employee in the bargaining unit, whether those employees want union representation or not.

Workers who think their union isn’t serving their interests can’t negotiate directly with their employer. State law prohibits it. The union speaks for everyone, even if almost no one voted for the union.

If a union gets exclusive authority of a bargaining unit, it should be chosen by at least 50% of the employees. That’s the principle behind House Bill 995 and Senate Bill 1296, now moving through the Florida legislature.

The bills require unions to secure support from a majority of all eligible employees, not just those who happen to vote. Unions that maintain at least 60% dues-paying membership get automatically recertified. Those below that threshold would face an election to prove they represent the workers they claim to speak for.

Critics say this sets the bar too high. But consider what these unions control: negotiations over pay, benefits, working conditions, and grievance procedures. They file lawsuits in employees’ names. They consume taxpayer resources through collective bargaining and, in some cases, paid leave for union activities unrelated to contract negotiations.

Given that level of authority, shouldn’t we require genuine support from the people being governed?

The legislation includes other common-sense reforms. Right now, public employees can take paid time off for union activities that have nothing to do with collective bargaining — political campaigns, fundraising, lobbying. The proposed bills preserve paid leave for legitimate work like contract negotiations and grievances but require unpaid leave for political activities. Employees could still voluntarily pool their time off for colleagues doing union work. This protects taxpayers while preserving employees’ organizing rights.

RELATED: My school’s AI challenge raised a scary question: What do students need me for?

Andrei Apoev/Getty Images

Some will say these reforms are anti-union. They’re not. They’re pro-worker and pro-accountability. Unions with broad support have nothing to fear — they’ll be automatically recertified. Only unions that have lost the confidence of the workers they represent will face scrutiny.

The recent student walkouts show what happens when unions lose their way. Instead of focusing on teacher pay, classroom resources, or working conditions, the FEA pushed a partisan political protest that could saddle students with disciplinary consequences on their permanent records.

Teachers and families deserve better. They deserve unions that focus on delivering a world-class education, not unions that exploit their positions to advance political agendas with almost no accountability.

These bills restore democratic accountability to workplace representation. When a union speaks for Florida’s teachers and public employees, it should do so with legitimate support, not on the strength of three votes from a bargaining unit of 200.

That’s not asking too much. It should be the minimum standard for any organization claiming to represent working Floridians.

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

​Florida, Teachers unions, Fea, National education association, Democrats, Worker representation, Opinion & analysis, Collective bargaining, Public employee unions, Public schools, Anastasios kamoutsas, Families, Students, Accountability 

Your name is worth more than you think. Not to you, necessarily. But to a stranger sitting in Pyongyang, your name, your Social Security number, and your work history are worth a steady paycheck, a remote developer job, and a small contribution to a nuclear weapons program. Sleep well.

A Ukrainian man named Oleksandr Didenko just received five years in federal prison for running a website that sold stolen American identities to overseas workers — many of them North Korean — who used those identities to get hired at U.S. companies. Real jobs. Real salaries. Real access to corporate systems. All under names belonging to real Americans who had absolutely no idea any of it was happening.

The FTC receives well over 1 million identity theft reports each year, roughly one every 30 seconds.

Didenko’s site, called Upworksell, functioned like a marketplace. Need a convincing American identity to land a software engineering role? Browse the catalog. Over 870 stolen identities moved through that platform before the FBI shut it down in 2024. The North Koreans who bought or rented these identities then logged in remotely, did the work, collected the money, and sent the earnings back to a government that the entire world has financially isolated for very good reason.

The logistics were admirable, in a deeply unsettling way. Because the workers needed to appear physically present in the United States, Didenko paid ordinary Americans to host laptops in their homes across the country — from California to Tennessee to Virginia. Rooms filled with open laptops, each one a portal for a foreign worker pretending to be your neighbor. These are called laptop farms, a name that sounds like bad agricultural policy but describes something far more sinister and considerably more widespread.

This story stretches well beyond one man and one website. This was no isolated incident, but a single node in a vast and ongoing operation that’s a triple threat to corporate and government security teams. First, these workers violate American sanctions just by being employed. Second, while inside a company’s systems, they steal sensitive data. Third, they later use that stolen data to extort the very companies that unknowingly hired them. You get exploited three times, and you only find out after the fact, if you find out at all.

RELATED: Spam texts are surging. Here’s how to stop them on your phone.

Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Identity theft in America is not new. It is, in fact, frighteningly common. The Federal Trade Commission receives well over 1 million identity theft reports each year. That is roughly one report every 30 seconds, around the clock, every day of the year. The true number is almost certainly higher, because most victims never report it at all. More than one in five Americans have experienced identity theft at some point in their lives, and in 2025 alone, losses tied to identity fraud topped $12 billion. A significant chunk of that traced back to stolen Social Security numbers — the same numbers sitting in Didenko’s catalog, waiting for a buyer. Most victims spend months trying to unpick the damage done — disputing fraudulent accounts, correcting credit reports, convincing institutions that they are, in fact, themselves. It is exhausting and humiliating and entirely avoidable, except that it isn’t, because the information was taken without any action on their part.

What the North Korean scheme adds to this picture is scale, sophistication, and a foreign government pulling the strings. These aren’t opportunistic criminals skimming card numbers at a gas station. This is a workforce, clocking in, clocking out, and committing federal crimes on behalf of a sovereign nation. Last year, CrowdStrike, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity firms, reported a significant increase in North Korean infiltration of Western companies, particularly in technical and software roles. The regime has also been known to impersonate recruiters and investors to trick people into handing over computer access. The con adapts constantly.

What stays constant is the raw material. Your identity. Your name. Your history. Your professional credibility, built over years, gone in an afternoon. North Korea is not alone. Russia and China have been playing the same game — longer, in some cases, and with considerable expertise.

The uncomfortable truth is that the systems built to verify who people are — employment checks, identity verification platforms, hiring pipelines — were designed for a different threat. They are nowhere near equipped for this one. Companies hire remote developers every day without meeting them in person, without ever confirming that the face on a video call matches the name on the resume. That gap is glaring, well documented, and largely unaddressed. For operations like Didenko’s, it’s also the entire business model.

Didenko will serve his five years. But this is whack-a-mole on steroids. Somewhere, another version of this operation is already running. New identities, new platforms, new rooms full of humming laptops and methodical keystrokes. Your name is out there. Quite possibly already for sale. Someone, somewhere, is deciding whether it’s worth buying.

​Tech, Crime 

At this year’s World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, artificial intelligence dominated the conversation. And according to Justin Haskins, the global elite aren’t just discussing innovation — they’re focused on shaping AI with what he calls a “Davos core” before it becomes too powerful to control.

“I think the most important thing that came out of Davos is the importance of artificial intelligence. In panel after panel after panel, what are the elites talking about? What are they most concerned about? It’s clearly artificial intelligence,” Haskins tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“What they want to do is make sure that AI is designed with their values, so that as the world continues to adopt artificial intelligence over a long period of time and AI becomes more influential and powerful in our world, it’s with a Davos core, a Davos infrastructure,” he explains.

And while the artificial intelligence that we have now is concerning, the next stage of artificial intelligence is what Haskins finds even more concerning.

“Artificial general intelligence is the next stage of development, where AI becomes basically as smart as a human being,” Haskins says.

“And then once you hit that level, very shortly after that, most AI experts believe, you get artificial superintelligence — ASI — where now it is far more powerful than people. And at that point, it’s so powerful we can’t really control it or even fully know what it’s doing,” he continues.

Haskins explains there was also an entire panel at Davos dedicated to artificial intelligence and how to make sure AI is “sustainable and that it’s essentially woke” when it becomes more intelligent than humans.

And too many people are willing to use AI to write simple things like emails, and lawmakers are using it to help them make decisions — which Haskins finds the most terrifying about what AI means for the future.

“Lawmakers tell me — it’s very whispered and quiet. They don’t want people to know. But they use AI to help them make decisions all the time. Not just writing, but actually to help them, sort of tell them what to do because they’re not sure about an important thing,” Haskins explains.

“I hate that,” Stuckey interjects, shocked. “That’s even worse than giving them your brain. That’s giving them your conscience.”

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.

​Video, Upload, Video phone, Camera phone, Sharing, Free, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Davos, New world order, Artificial intelligence, Global elites, Woke ideology 

Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the biblical spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters,” recently received a deeply disturbing email from one of his listeners.

In the message, the man, now grown, reflects on a bone-chilling experience he had as an adolescent at a church youth camp. On the first night in his cabin, two fellow campers convinced him to play the “Bloody Mary” game — a children’s urban legend ritual where you stand in a darkened bathroom, face a mirror, and chant “bloody Mary” three times to supposedly summon a vengeful ghostly woman.

What he saw in the mirror haunts him to this day.

“After the second statement of bloody Mary, I chickened out. I stepped away from the mirror,” the email reads.

But one of the other campers, known as “Tim,” then attempted to grab him to force him to stay. As he reached out, Tim caught a glimpse of another mirror outside the bathroom where the trio were playing the game.

“He screamed in terror as we all dropped to the floor. Tim described a dark shadow in the shape of a person walking. The mirror was situated in a way that the reflection of anyone in the room would have been from the waist up. But Tim’s description was that of a full head-to-foot body walking and actually growing larger as if it were coming from a distance inside the mirror toward our room,” the writer continues, adding that he’s “never seen anyone as genuinely terrified as Tim.”

Right after this climactic moment, a youth pastor, making his evening rounds, knocked on the door to check on the campers. The boys told him about their horrifying experience, and he warned them: “Urban legends like these are not something to play around with. … These are often used by demons … as invitations to come in.”

“The youth pastor is correct,” says Rick.

“Playing around with some of this stuff may seem so innocent, just like this 6-7 thing,” but urban legends and viral internet memes are often darker than people realize, he warns.

He compares brushing off seeming trivialities like Bloody Mary games and the 6-7 slang phrase to parents shrugging their shoulders as their kid plays along the side of a busy road or messes around with knives or matches.

“These kinds of things we would never do, but sometimes when it comes to entertainment and the culture, it’s like we won’t take the same attitude,” he says.

“If we truly believe what the Bible says and that the spiritual realm is real and that we have a devil and we have Satan, the fallen angel Lucifer that is extremely powerful … and then the demons, which also operate with him … then why do we pretend that that is not dangerous?” he asks.

To hear more of Rick’s spiritual analysis and learn more about the dark trends our youth are entangled in, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

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​Strange encounters, Blazetv, Blaze media, Rick burgess, Rick burgess strange encounters, Spiritual warfare, Bloody mary, 6 7, 6 7 trend 

The latest joint U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran have been met in America with bipartisan praise and condemnation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of America’s most vociferous advocates for regime change in Iran, rushed to celebrate the “historic operation,” noting that he is “in awe of President Trump’s determination to be a man of peace but at the end of the day, evil’s worst nightmare.”

‘This is not “America First.”‘

Graham wrote in one of several emotion-laden commentaries, “My mind is racing with the thought that the murderous ayatollah’s regime in Iran will soon be no more. The biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years is upon us.”

Graham was hardly alone in his celebration of the regime-change strikes on the Shiite nation.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) provided a laundry list of reasons why this is a “vital mission of vengeance, and justice, and safety,” noting, “Iran has waged war against the U.S. for 47 years: the hostage crisis, the Beirut Marine barracks, Khobar Towers, roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed or maimed thousands of American soldiers, the attempted assassination of President Trump.”

RELATED: World leaders respond to regime-change strikes on Iran: ‘Peacekeeper is at it again’

Photo by Mahsa/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

“The butcher’s bill has finally come due for the ayatollahs,” added Cotton, who signaled appreciation in a separate post for Trump’s speech.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee with Cotton, thanked Trump for his “strong leadership,” and characterized Operation Epic Fury as both a demonstration of “peace through strength” and “AMERICA FIRST.”

Democrat Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) joined Graham and the other Republicans in lavishing praise on President Donald Trump for attacking Iran, stating, “President Trump has been willing to do what’s right and necessary to produce real peace in the region.”

“God bless the United States, our great military, and Israel,” continued the Democrat.

Several of Fetterman’s Democrat colleagues condemned the attacks and the president’s perceived circumvention of Congress, which retains the authority to declare war.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) claimed that “single-handedly starting another war with Iran is dangerous and illegal” and expressed doubt about whether “America first” meant another foreign entanglement.

Democrat Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) raised concerns about the constitutionality of the strikes, noting, “The Constitution is clear: the decision to take this nation to war rests with Congress, and launching large-scale military operations — particularly in the absence of an imminent threat to the United States — raises serious legal and constitutional concerns.”

Warner demanded that the administration “come forward with a clear legal justification, a defined end state, and a plan that avoids dragging the United States into yet another costly and unnecessary war.”

While Congress was not formally briefed on the strikes, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with and briefed the Gang of Eight, which includes the Democrat and Republican leaders from both the Senate and the House.

A spokesperson for Johnson confirmed to NOTUS that Johnson was notified. Sources also told NOTUS that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) were notified along with Sen. Warner, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), and Republican Rep. Rick Crawford (Ark.).

RELATED: Iran sparks regional war after retaliating against US military assets over ‘massive’ US-Israel strike

Photo by Stringer/Getty Images

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — who recently filed a Senate resolution with Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) that would block a war against Iran unless approved by Congress — was less restrained than Warner in his criticism of the president.

Kaine accused Trump of waging an “illegal war,” called the strikes a “colossal mistake,” and implored his colleagues to “go on the record about this dangerous, unnecessary, and idiotic action” and vote on his war powers resolution.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a critic of the president who has similarly attempted to prevent Trump from going to war with Iran without congressional approval, referred to the attacks as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.”

In a subsequent post on social media, Massie stated, “I am opposed to this War. This is not ‘America First.'”

“When Congress reconvenes, I will work with @RepRoKhanna to force a Congressional vote on war with Iran,” continued Massie. “The Constitution requires a vote, and your Representative needs to be on record as opposing or supporting this war.”

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​Foreign entangelement, Intervention, Regime change, Iran, Tehran, Thomas massie, Massie, Tim kaine, Democrat, Republican, Fetterman, Iranian, Strikes, Missile, Military, War, Donald trump, Politics 

The joint American and Israeli military operation launched against Iran on Saturday — dubbed Operation Epic Fury — has prompted mixed responses abroad.

While Russian officials were among the most critical of the strikes, several European leaders similarly condemned the American-Israeli initiative.

Amid reports of massive explosions in numerous Iranian cities as well as retaliatory attacks on American bases in the region and Israel, a spokesman for the British government stated, “We do not want to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict.”

The British spokesman — whose government previously blocked a request from President Donald Trump to use U.K. air bases during a preemptive attack on Iran —added that “Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and that is why we have continually supported efforts to reach a negotiated solution.”

‘Take all firm measures necessary to confront Iranian violations.’

Whereas the U.K. government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared less than enthusiastic about the strikes, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch expressed solidarity with the U.S. and Israel “as they take on the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its vile regime.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke critically of “Iran’s murderous regime and the Revolutionary Guards,” but claimed that the “developments in Iran are greatly concerning” and urged “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, to protect civilians, and to fully respect international law.”

Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs noted that it “is deeply alarmed by today’s strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran,” and echoed von der Leyen’s request that warring parties “exercise maximum restraint, protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

RELATED: Iran sparks regional war after retaliating against US military assets over ‘massive’ US-Israel strike

Aftermath of an Iran strike on the main headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Manama. Photo by Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images.

Some European leaders similarly expressed concern about escalation while signaling their opposition to the Iran regime, the health of which is now in doubt.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that “the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran carries grave consequences for international peace and security.”

Macron, presuming there is something left of Iran’s “Islamic regime,” suggested Tehran “now has no other option but to engage in good faith … negotiations to end its nuclear and ballistic programs.”

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign affairs minister, did not similarly balance his critical remarks about the strikes with criticism of Iran, suggesting instead that the initial strikes were unlawful.

“The attack is described by Israel as a pre-emptive strike, but it is not in accordance with international law. A pre-emptive attack would require the existence of an imminent threat,” said Eide.

Spain’s leftist prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, spoke scathingly of the strikes as well as of Iran’s retaliation, stating, “We reject the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order.”

“We likewise reject the actions of the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guard,” continued Sanchez. “We cannot afford another prolonged and devastating war in the Middle East.”

Russia, which recently held joint military exercises with Iran, went further in its condemnation of the strikes.

RELATED: U.S. and Israel launch ‘massive’ strikes against Iran: ‘We may have casualties’

Photo by Bedirhan Demirel/Anadolu via Getty Images

Mikhail Ulyanov, a Russian foreign services official, said in a statement shared by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, “The new aggression of Israel and the US against Iran is fraught with the danger of significant deterioration and destabilisation in the Middle East.”

Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, stated, “The peacekeeper is at it again.”

“The talks with Iran were just a cover. Everyone knew that. So who has more patience to wait for the enemy’s sorry end now?” continued Medvedev. “The US is just 249 years old. The Persian Empire was founded over 2500 years ago. Let’s see what happens in 100 years or so.”

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, the foreign minister of Cuba, an Iranian ally, referred to the attacks as “treacherous aggression,” adding, “These irresponsible actions undermine international peace and security, and constitute a clear transgression of International Law and the UN Charter.”

Communist China, which has in recent years developed a strong strategic partnership with Iran, was relatively quiet about the latest joint U.S.-Israeli strikes in West Asia. As of early Saturday morning, Beijing appears to have limited its public communications on the matter to words of caution to Chinese nationals in the region.

Saudi Arabia and other American strategic partners in the Middle East focused their ire on Iran.

The Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry called “on the international community to condemn these blatant attacks and to take all firm measures necessary to confront Iranian violations that undermine the security and stability of the region.”

Qatar echoed Saudi Arabia, calling the Iranian strikes a “flagrant violation of its national sovereignty, a direct infringement on its security and territorial integrity, and an unacceptable escalation that threatens the security and stability of the region.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney avoided criticizing the attacks, noting instead, “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.”

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​Geopolitics, Russia, Regime change, Iran, Donald trump, Europe, Qatar, Dubai, Foreign entanglement, Israel, Iran strikes, Attacks, War, Politics 

Once you burn your credibility, it’s hard to get back.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) deceived voters and concealed her true leftist agenda to win the governor’s mansion last year. Now she and her fellow Democrats are lying to Virginians about a new gerrymandered congressional district map they placed on the April 21 ballot as a constitutional amendment.

The new map ensures that most rural voters will be represented by people who live in Fairfax and were elected by voters in the DC suburbs.

It’s a naked attempt to make it impossible for Republicans to win election to Congress in most places in Virginia, and it’s why she was rewarded with the plum assignment of responding to President Trump’s State of the Union address this week.

The Virginia Supreme Court has already had one chance to stop the gerrymandering by upholding a judge’s ruling that Democrats cut legal corners to get the measure on the ballot. The justices, however, inexplicably chose to wait until the vote takes place.

I filed another lawsuit to bring new challenges, along with my Republican House colleague Morgan Griffith (Va.-9), the Republican National Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee. We won in circuit court, blocking the referendum again, so our Supreme Court will have another chance to do the right thing.

As we wait for a ruling, it’s important that people have the facts.

Spanberger masqueraded as a moderate in her campaign and won ceaseless praise from the media for her focus on “affordability.” But she dropped that as soon as she was sworn in and went right back to what she truly believes.

She returned Virginia to the multistate, radical environmental scheme that artificially raises electricity rates by $500 million every year. She’s currently considering a variety of tax increases proposed by Democrats in the Virginia legislature, including bumps in the sales and income tax, as well as taxes on everyday services like dog-walking and gym memberships. She has yet to rule out raising taxes on anything.

All of this is the opposite of what she ran on.

Now Spanberger and her Democrats have turned to stealing congressional seats. Naturally, they’re lying about that as well.

It’s nothing complicated. They’re taking Virginia’s current congressional district map, which produced six Democrats and five Republican members, and redrawing the lines to twist it into a 10-to-1 map in favor of Democrats.

Kamala Harris won here in the 2024 presidential race with less than 52% of the vote, but this map would award her party 91% of our congressional seats.

They’re assigning new federal representation to Virginians who didn’t ask for it, and there’s every likelihood that some of the lines were drawn to benefit specific Democrat politicians. One thing that’s certain is that no one was thinking of the well-being of voters when they hatched this plot.

As an example, take Fairfax County, vote-rich and dominated by Democrats in Northern Virginia outside Washington, D.C.

The new map carves Fairfax into five pieces and attaches them to districts that reach deep into Virginia’s rural regions. Picture the county as an octopus that has tentacles running throughout the state, and you’ll have an idea.

The configuration ensures that most rural voters will be represented by people who live in Fairfax and were elected by voters in the D.C. suburbs. It’s difficult to imagine what these groups might have in common geographically, culturally, or economically.

To top it off, just a few days ago, Democrats in the General Assembly decided they hadn’t cheated enough and twisted the screws even more to guarantee total victory in 10 of the 11 districts.

States usually redistrict following a census, but Democrats claim they must act now to balance Republican activities in other states. This excuse falls apart because most observers agree that Virginia’s new map is a particularly egregious example of partisan gerrymandering.

And Democrats lie when they talk about it.

RELATED: Democrats made Trump’s case for him Tuesday night

Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

The party that told us that Joe Biden was mentally sharp now wants us to think a 10-1 congressional map promotes “fair elections,” as the advertising claims.

Democrats were even dishonest in the ballot question they wrote, which says it will temporarily “restore fairness” — without explanation or context — to elections in Virginia until the regular redistricting occurs in 2030.

We shouldn’t let politicians select their own voters, and Virginians were wise enough to see this coming.

Just six years ago, a whopping 66% of voters approved a constitutional amendment creating an independent redistricting commission. Unable to resist the lure of unchecked power, Virginia Democrats are trying to trick voters into undoing that so they can burgle those congressional seats.

National Democrats are paying attention.

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has already sent $5 million to the campaign to support the new map and pledged to spend “whatever it takes” on top of that.

Democrats hilariously claim to be restoring fairness.

But a party powerful enough to ram this down everyone’s throat isn’t the victim of unfairness. It’s the cause of it.

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

​Virginia, Virginia democrats, Gerrymandering, Abigail spanberger, Democrats, Republicans, Gerrymander, Partisan, Opinion & analysis, 2026 midterms