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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case Mahmoud v. Taylor, concerning Maryland parents’ right to shield their children from LGBT propaganda in elementary school classrooms.

Unlike liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the high court’s conservative-leaning justices appeared receptive to the argument that Montgomery County Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, violated the Constitution when it found a way around Maryland law to prevent parents from opting their children out of mandatory readings of LGBT propaganda.

The court’s ruling in the case is expected by June.

Background

MCPS approved over 20 works of LGBT propaganda for inclusion as instructional materials in its English language arts curriculum in late 2022.

There was no mistaking the propagandistic nature of these works, which included at the outset:

“Pride Puppy,” a book approved for pre-K students that tasks 3- and 4-year-old students with searching for items they might find at a non-straight parade — including transvestite activists, underwear, leather, “intersex flag,” and feathers;
activist and former chair of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Board Jodie Patterson’s “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope,” a work of propaganda that seeks to normalize child sex transitions that the district approved for K-5 students;
“My Rainbow,” a story about a mother’s efforts to groom her transvestic son;
“Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about a little girl’s peripheral involvement in her uncle’s gay “wedding”; and
“Intersection Allies: We Make Room for All,” touted as “a smooth, gleeful entry into intersectional feminism.”

The district was initially willing to let parents opt their children out of lessons incorporating the LGBT propaganda and to provide notice when such works were read, as required by state law. However, MCPS ultimately decided to deny parents the option in March 2023.

It appears the district figured it could get away with mandating the propaganda on account of a sleight of hand. State law requires opt-outs for sex education units of health classes. Since the books were instead introduced as part of the English curriculum, they are apparently not subject to the opt-out provision.

‘They’re not asking you to change that at all.’

Christian and Muslim parents who wanted the option not to have their kids subjected to content that stood in direct conflict with their religious beliefs took the district to court on May 24, 2023. Represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, they argued that the district’s policy violated their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

After lesser courts refused to order MCPS to let kids opt out, the case made its way to the Supreme Court.

A sympathetic court

The conservative justices on the high court appeared to think the parents’ position reasonable, the district’s reasoning questionable, and the LGBT propaganda inappropriate for young children.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh told Alan Schoenfeld, who represented the school board, that the parents are not asking the district “to change what’s taught in the classroom. They’re not asking you to change that at all.”

Kavanaugh clarified that “they’re only seeking to be able to walk out so that they don’t have — so the parents don’t have their children exposed to these things that are contrary to their own beliefs.”

Justice Samuel Alito appeared to be of a similar mind, saying, “The plaintiffs here are not asking the school to change its curriculum. They’re just saying, ‘Look, we want out.’ Why isn’t that feasible? What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?”

‘It’s a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don’t agree with.’

Justice Clarence Thomas was keen to know whether the consumption of the LGBT propaganda was voluntary or compelled, asking “why the record shows that the children are more than merely exposed to these sorts of things in the storybooks.”

Eric Baxter, who argued on behalf of the parents and serves as vice president at Becket, emphasized to Justice Thomas that “teachers are required to use the books”; that the school board made clear “that every student would be taught from the inclusivity storybooks”; and that plaintiffs’ alternatives to sending their kids to these mandatory readings were “criminal fines or penalties or the expense of private school.”

Justice Alito acknowledged that the books were ideological in nature and in conflict with the parents’ views, noting that in the case of “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” the “book has a clear message, and a lot of people think it’s a good message, and maybe it is a good message, but it’s a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don’t agree with.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested that certain statements from board members hint at a hostility toward parents’ sincerely held religious beliefs.

“We have some statements from board members suggesting the students were … parroting their parents’ dogma, suggesting that some parents might be promoting hate, and suggesting that it was unfortunate that they were taking a view endorsed by white supremacists and xenophobes,” said Gorsuch.

Schoenfeld claimed that the statements in which officials suggested parents were bigots “have been taken out of context” and that the record did not indicate they motivated the board to “adopt a policy that discriminates against people on the basis of religion.”

‘The Supreme Court, I predict, will stand with parents.’

When discussing whether it constitutes a burden to be exposed to this sort of instruction, Justice John Roberts suggested that unlike older students, younger children subjected to the LGBT propaganda are likely to naturally affirm what’s being taught or presented in the books.

Judging from their questions to Baxter and Schoenfeld, the conservative justices appear to think that the district should simply accommodate religious parents.

Reactions

After going before the high court, Baxter said in a statement, “In this country, we’ve always trusted families to decide when their kids are ready for sensitive topics. Children shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, Pride parades, and gender transitions without their parents’ permission. Today, we fought for common sense and parents’ right to guide the upbringing of their children.”

Billy Moges, director of the Kids First parental advocacy group that sued over the books, said, “Schools should be working with parents, not against us. We are our children’s primary teachers, not obstacles to be avoided. Today, we asked the court to remind Montgomery County — and the entire nation — of this fundamental truth.”

“The Mahmoud case argued in the Supreme Court today is quite simple. Montgomery County school officials want to expose young children to progressive sexual ideology against their parents’ wishes,” said legal scholar Robert George, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. “The parents want to be able to opt their kids out of this propagandizing. The Supreme Court, I predict, will stand with parents — probably 6-3 (maybe even 7-2). It will be another victory for Becket, the public interest religious liberty law firm representing the parents.”

Some activists are upset over the prospect of the high court once again upholding parental rights.

PEN America, a left-leaning organization that filed an amicus brief in support of the district, for instance, claimed in a statement that granting opt-outs for parents would “stigmatize LGBTQ students and families, who would watch their peers leave classrooms when books that include LGBTQ characters or themes are used.”

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​Supreme court, Scotus, Parental rights, Education, Indoctrination, Lgbt, Propaganda, Classroom, Mahmoud v taylor, Mahmoud, Alito, Clarence thomas, Gorsuch, Politics 

President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it would either fire or reassign 455 employees in an effort to eliminate the Biden administration’s woke programs.

The EPA notified 280 employees that they would be terminated in a “reduction in force,” Axios reported. Another 175 staffers responsible for “statutory functions” will be reassigned.

‘Getting people back in the office is a priority now.’

Those impacted held “environmental justice” and diversity, equity, and inclusion roles in the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, Office of Inclusive Excellence, and its regional offices.

An EPA spokesperson told Axios, “EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency.”

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has accused the former administration of throwing away $20 billion in taxpayer funds on environmental justice initiatives.

“No matter how hard some try to circle the wagons to defend lighting billions of YOUR tax dollars on fire to be misspent in a $20 BILLION Green Slush Fund, I will not compromise on my ZERO tolerance policy against ANY waste and abuse!” he wrote in a Monday post on social media.

During a Monday press conference, Zeldin addressed efforts to streamline the agency and save taxpayer funds.

“When we came in, we inherited an operation that, for the most part, people weren’t even here in the office. COVID-era remote work is over,” he stated. “When I came in, I had asked the team, ‘How much have employees been coming in since January of 2024?’ And the answer is that on Mondays and Fridays, it averaged five to eight percent. The record high attendance was 37%.”

“Getting people back in the office is a priority now,” Zeldin declared, adding that returning workers to the office would allow the agency to make informed decisions about its real estate footprint.

Zeldin’s EPA has already saved American taxpayers roughly $18 million by removing employees from the Ronald Reagan Building and consolidating its office space in Washington, D.C.

The EPA administrator has focused much of his attention this week on addressing the sewage flowing over the border from Mexico into California.

On Tuesday, Zeldin toured a San Diego County plant that treats the sewage from the polluted Tijuana River. He stated that the EPA plans to present Mexico with a list of actions to resolve the issue.

“This is not a U.S.-side answer. I wish that we could resolve this all on our own,” Zeldin told KXTV. “There’s a lot of needs on the Mexican side.”

He said that he spoke with Mexican officials about “chemical treatment” and “diverting 10 million gallons per day from the Tijuana River to the dam.”

“We want both sides to sit down and go project by project to talk about the timeline of everything and make sure that every single project is operating on the tightest timeline possible,” he added.

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​News, Environmental protection agency, Epa, Lee zeldin, Government waste, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Politics 

A Ring camera caught the moment when a helpless suburban Chicago couple in front of their own home obediently handed over their valuables — and even their clothing — to armed robbers who rushed them Monday night.

Greg Poulos and Angie Beltsos were walking to their front porch in Glenview around 10 p.m. after dinner in the city when a car pulled up, WBBM-TV reported.

‘I was always taught by my father just give whatever they want, give what they want, and your life is far more valuable.’

Police said three males approached them, pulled out guns, and demanded their belongings, the station said.

Beltsos told WBBM she saw one male “running at us pointing a gun, screaming at us to give him everything.”

The couple did just that.

Video shows one of the robbers telling them to “give me all that s**t,” and Poulos and Beltsos immediately tossed their cell phones and keys to the ground; Beltsos also gave up her purse, the station said.

“You got it. You got it. Here, take it. Take it. Take everything. Take everything. Take everything. Take everything. Take everything. Here, you can have it. Honest to God, guys,” Poulos was heard on the clip telling the robbers, WBBM reported.

“I started throwing shoes and coats,” Beltsos noted to the station in the aftermath; video shows them both removing their jackets for the crooks.

Poulos told WBBM, “I was always taught by my father just give whatever they want, give what they want, and your life is far more valuable.”

The nightmare didn’t end there, however.

Video doesn’t show that the crooks soon “had us lie down on our stomachs, and pointing guns at us, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, is this how it’s going to end today?'” Beltsos recounted to the station, adding that “for a moment, they were standing there, and they ran off.”

Police told WBBM the robbers sped out of the neighborhood in a Jaguar SUV, which was later found abandoned and empty in Chicago.

You can view a video report here about the incident.

“People have become much more brazen, and they need to be held accountable,” Beltsos added to the station.

Glenview police told WBBM they’re talking to other local police departments in an attempt to identify the robbers.

The village of Glenview is about 40 minutes northwest of Chicago and is “one of the best places to live in Illinois,” according to Niche. It’s also a haven for retirees and boasts “a lot of restaurants, coffee shops, and parks” as well as “highly rated” public schools, Niche adds.

Poulos told the station that people nowadays have “to be vigilant and keep their head on a swivel.”

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​Couple, Illinois, Glenview, Armed robbery, Surveillance video, Home camera, Doorbell camera, Suburban chicago, Ring camera, Crime 

The Supreme Court of the United States sent shock waves throughout America when the justices sided with Democrats over the weekend, blocking the Trump administration from deporting MS-13 gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.

Only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas stood their ground, disagreeing with the rest of the judges.

“I want to be very careful with my words here,” Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” begins. “I don’t expect Supreme Court judges to make their decisions based on any sort of loyalty that they have for the president.”

“But it does feel like the opposite is happening and they’ve got it out for him for whatever reason. We definitely know Amy Coney Barrett does, just based off of her reaction whenever she sees him. It’s like a visceral reaction that she has,” Gonzales continues.

Alito and Thomas claimed there was no hearing, no lower-court ruling, no opportunity for the government to respond, and no explanation provided. Alito also put his colleagues on blast for violating the court’s own rule 23.3, which requires seeking relief in lower courts first.

“All of them agreed that the highest executive in the entire country should not have the ability to remove illegal criminals from our country. That’s wild to me,” Gonzales says.

“Didn’t it strike you as a gross undermining of the judicial system, but more so, giving rights to illegal immigrants that Americans have in lower court? Your right to be innocent until proven guilty is an American right,” BlazeTV contributor Jaco Booyens says in agreement.

“That’s not a right for some Australian that ends up here or a kid from Guatemala. You don’t have a First, Second, Third Amendment. You don’t have these rights. You’re not a citizen,” he adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Video phone, Free, Video, Camera phone, Upload, Sharing, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Supreme court, Amy coney barret, Justice alito, Donald trump, Ms-13 gang members, Immigration crisis, Illegal immigration 

After Donald Trump’s inauguration, Joe Biden disappeared from the scene for a while. Most assumed he would bow out of politics completely and spend his days puttering around his Rehoboth Beach retreat.

But apparently he’s still got a little gas left in the tank — literally.

On April 15 at the 2025 national Conference of Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago, Biden delivered his first speech since leaving the White House. In it, he defended Social Security, condemned President Trump for making cuts to the program, and claimed the damage to Social Security is “breathtaking.”

But that’s not all he did. Rick Burgess of “The Rick Burgess Show” plays the most cringeworthy clips from the speech.

The blundering began immediately. Before his walk-out song was finished playing, Biden launched into his speech. The video shows him yammering away while the music completely drowns out his voice.

“He’s not just saying, ‘Hey, good to be here.’ He goes into the speech,” laughs Rick.

“Completely oblivious,” sighs Greg Burgess.

Once the music was cut and people could actually hear him, Biden told a story about Scranton, Pennsylvania, claiming that when he was a child, he’d “never seen hardly any black people in Scranton” but that changed in the fourth grade when he saw “colored kids on a bus.”

Rick suspects that this story was not on the teleprompter.

Biden went on to stumble through a few lines about the Americans with Disabilities Act before the most embarrassing moment perhaps in his career happened.

Mid-speech, a noise that can only be described as a farting sound suddenly rang out over the microphone. There are a lot of theories about it. Some claim a chair scooting off camera was responsible for the sound; others believe a troll added the noise before circulating the video; and then there are those who believe that Biden indeed farted during his speech.

The panel watches several versions of the clip, including the one aired by ABC News, and the sound is almost undeniable.

Regardless of the truth, Rick, Greg, and Calvin Wilburn can’t help but howl in laughter.

“I tried a little cheek sneak there and it had a little more volume than I thought,” Rick mocks.

To see the footage and hear more of the panel’s hilarious commentary, watch the clip above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

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​The rick burgess show, Rick burgess, Joe biden, Sleepy joe, Biden fart, Blazetv, Blaze media 

My interest in former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn began on Oct. 6, 2022 — the third day of the first Oath Keepers trial at the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington, D.C.

Shortly after a recess and before the jury returned to the courtroom, lead prosecutor and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler approached the lectern. He informed U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that Jonathon Moseley — a recently disbarred attorney — had threatened to release two confidential FBI documents known as “302s.”

Much of what Dunn described in his FBI interviews, congressional testimony, court appearances, and even his book and media tour simply didn’t happen.

Form FD-302 consists of written notes and recollections recorded by an FBI special agent following an interview. In this instance, Nestler referred to two 302s based on separate interviews with Officer Dunn. The FBI conducted the first interview in May 2021 and the second in August 2021.

Nestler stated that both forms remained sealed by the court and were labeled either “sensitive” or “highly sensitive.” Moseley, however, argued that the documents could now be released publicly because the House Select Committee on January 6 had introduced them as part of its proceedings.

What I saw looked like a pre-orchestrated performance between Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler and Judge Amit Mehta — the first of several such moments I witnessed during that trial. Mehta appeared furious at the idea that Moseley believed he could release something still under his seal.

I watched the exchange unfold from the media room on the first floor of the district courthouse. That room received live audio and video feeds from the courtroom upstairs, where the trial was taking place. On a typical day during the nine-week trial, 20 to 30 journalists gathered there to cover proceedings. It was the only place in the courthouse where we could use laptops and other electronic devices, which were banned in the courtroom itself.

Most reporters spent their time compiling notes for end-of-day write-ups. But a small group of us tweeted the proceedings in real time.

After Nestler informed the judge of Moseley’s threat to release the FBI 302s, Mehta responded in a way I had never seen before.

He turned his attention to the journalists in the media room and instructed us to “tweet out” a message directly to Moseley: If he released the 302s — or any other documents still protected under court seal — Mehta would hold him in contempt of court.

“He’ll find out,” the judge said.

What was in there?

The media room burst into laughter at Judge Mehta’s directive that we do his bidding and relay his warning. Within seconds, keyboards clattered as journalists rushed to compose their own versions of the judge’s threat, broadcasting it across social media.

Each day of the trial, I took my place in the back right corner of the media room. I was a newcomer among a group of seasoned courtroom reporters — an outsider observing the insiders. During the first two weeks, the courthouse remained under a COVID-19 masking mandate. From my seat, I could let my mask dangle from one ear without attracting much attention — or the disapproval of my more dutiful colleagues.

That vantage point also gave me a clear view of the room. I could watch what the other reporters were typing, observe their screens, and monitor how they shaped the narrative.

While they laughed and tweeted Mehta’s warning to Moseley, I kept my focus elsewhere. One question consumed my thoughts: What is in those two 302s?

What exactly did those two FBI forms contain that the prosecution — and the judge — didn’t want the jury or the American public to see?

One clue had already surfaced on social media. It came from Dunn’s May 18, 2021, FBI interview, cited in a pretrial motion filed by Stewart Rhodes’ attorney, Edward Tarpley. A footnote on page 12 of the filing quoted the following excerpt:

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn informed all protestors they needed to leave and told the Oath Keepers that the protestors were fighting officers. The Oath Keepers advised Dunn they would help keep the protestors from the lower west terrace area. Dunn advised he allowed them to stand in front of him to help keep the protestors from getting down the stairs. Dunn left this area when he was relieved by USCP riot officers.
— FBI Interview of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, May 18, 2021, page 2, publicly disclosed by the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

This account — Dunn’s own description of his encounter with four Oath Keepers at the top of a Capitol staircase near the Rotunda — appeared to support their claim that they had helped de-escalate a volatile situation. Rather than confronting the officer, the Oath Keepers allegedly positioned themselves between Dunn and a more aggressive crowd, attempting to prevent further escalation.

I had to get my hands on those 302s — and eventually, I did.

Inventions and evasions

The second 302, based on Officer Harry Dunn’s August 16, 2021, interview with the FBI, told a very different story from the first. In that follow-up, Dunn completely reversed his account. He now claimed he never gave the four Oath Keepers permission to assist him at the top of the staircase. Instead, he described the interaction as hostile, saying they tried to force their way past him.

Dunn also invented a second encounter — this one taking place a floor below, in the crypt. In that version, he said another group, also wearing militia-style gear resembling the Oath Keepers’, attempted to position themselves between him and a more aggressive crowd of protesters.

The contrast between the two interviews raised more questions than answers.

Although I’ve never publicly released the two 302s, both proved invaluable. They offered critical details — and pointed me toward what to watch for once Congress finally granted journalists access to the long-promised 41,000 hours of Capitol CCTV footage from January 6.

Drawing from that surveillance footage, D.C. Metropolitan Police body-worn cameras, and other open-source videos released during various January 6 trials, Blaze Media has been able to confirm a troubling pattern: Much of what Harry Dunn described in his FBI interviews, congressional testimony, court appearances, and even his book and media tour simply didn’t happen.

Two weeks before the October 2023 release of his book, “Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer’s Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th,” Dunn agreed to meet with me for an off-the-record conversation. We spent four hours together at the U.S. Capitol Arboretum.

Because the meeting was off the record, I can’t disclose anything Dunn said. But I came prepared with some frank and direct points of my own. By then, I had already spent days in the Capitol CCTV viewing room, combing through surveillance footage we would later call “A Day in the Life of Harry Dunn.” I had also read an advance copy of his book.

To say the video evidence and his personal narrative about January 6 don’t match is putting it mildly. It’s the understatement of the century.

I shared with Dunn several specific examples where the video evidence directly contradicted his claims of heroism and derring-do on January 6. Eventually, he asked how I planned to write his story.

“Harry, the media, Congress, even the president — they’ve made you a national hero,” I told him. “But I can make you a real hero if you give me the names of those who pushed you to change your story about the Oath Keepers in that second FBI interview.”

After that, I walked him to his car. He said he’d think about it.

But he never gave me those names.

​January 6, Harry dunn, Fbi, Oath keepers, Trial, Capitol police, Amit mehta, Federal court, Jeffrey nestler, Jonathon moseley, Opinion & analysis 

A new report from the Daily Wire reveals that Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott had a hand in making Colony Ridge, the controversial Texas development area, a designated Opportunity Zone after rubbing elbows with a Colony Ridge executive.

The Opportunity Zone program, created early in President Donald Trump’s first term, helps encourage private funding for low-income areas by offering enticing tax incentives to investors. Five years after an initial investment in an Opportunity Zone, a portion of the capital gains earned on the investment can be exempted from taxes. After 10 years, all capital gains are tax-exempt, the Daily Wire explained.

According to documents acquired by the Daily Wire through public information requests, Abbott sent a letter to then-Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin on March 21, 2018, asking the Treasury Department to consider designating the census tract that includes Colony Ridge an Opportunity Zone.

On April 6, 2018, Abbott sent a second letter on the topic, and by April 10, he had sent a third letter.

‘There is no evidence to suggest Abbott was aware of the Colony Ridge business model.’

By happenstance, William “Trey” Harris, a co-owner of Colony Ridge, and state Sen. Brandon Creighton (R) had attended a luncheon at the governor’s mansion on April 4, about two weeks after Abbott’s first letter and just two days before his second letter.

Harris and Abbott have not commented on the conversation during that luncheon, and Creighton could only recall to the Daily Wire discussions about “the history of the grounds” of the mansion and “the property and the home itself.”

However, by July 2018, the IRS had approved the Colony Ridge census tract to be considered an Opportunity Zone, just a couple of weeks after Trey Harris made his first direct donation — a cool $100,000 or so — to Abbott’s campaign coffers. His wife, Celeste Harris, had already donated a similar amount on March 19, two days before Abbott sent the first letter.

Trey Harris made multiple appearances at the governor’s mansion in 2018. He attended a “summer kickoff fiesta” in May as well as a reception in December.

All told, Mr. and Mrs. Harris contributed approximately $1.5 million to Abbott between 2018 and 2022, good enough to make Trey Harris Abbott’s 15th highest individual donor, the Daily Wire said.

Despite these connections, Abbott denied that Harris alone prompted him to advocate on behalf of the Colony Ridge-area census tract. Other individuals likewise hoped for the Opportunity Zone tag, spokesman Andrew Mahaleris told the Daily Wire.

Moreover, the Opportunity Zone designation “did not create” the problems at the Colony Ridge development, Mahaleris added. “Governor Abbott is ensuring safety there and across the state,” he continued. “Governor Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to investigate any potential environmental issues in Colony Ridge, whether it be air, water, or land.”

The Daily Wire noted that “there is no evidence to suggest Abbott was aware of the Colony Ridge business model, which openly targets immigrant populations.” Still, the development has highlighted its Opportunity Zone designation — brought about in part by Abbott — in multiple ad campaigns.

A Colony Ridge representative declined a request for comment from the Daily Wire.

‘He’s a politician; it is what it is. He’s got to cover his butt first.’

Dubbed “the world’s largest trailer park,” Colony Ridge has made national headlines in recent years after residents — many of whom are in the U.S. illegally — began complaining about inadequate infrastructure, fetid water, crumbling roads, and rampant crime, as Blaze News previously reported.

In February, federal law enforcement agents raided the area, nabbing 118 individuals who were either suspected or convicted of heinous crimes, including murder and child sexual abuse. Many of the arrestees were also illegal aliens.

At the time, Abbott celebrated news of the raid, claiming he and border czar Tom Homan had been planning it “for months.”

Spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris indicated to the Daily Wire that Abbott will continue to help federal, state, and local officers enforce the law in Colony Ridge.

“These teams will coordinate with Homeland Security agencies to track down the thousands of illegal immigrants with active warrants across Texas and deport them from our country,” Mahaleris said.

Abbott has attempted to distance himself from Colony Ridge, and Trey Harris has since apparently withdrawn his financial support.

“He’s a politician; it is what it is. He’s got to cover his butt first,” Harris told the New York Times in 2023. “But don’t expect a million dollars next year. It ain’t happening again, brother.”

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​Colony ridge, Trey harris, Greg abbott, Illegal aliens, Opportunity zones, Brandon creighton, Politics 

Three close allies of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — each with years of experience and long working relationships with Hegseth himself — were abruptly and unceremoniously fired. Pentagon officials accused them of leaking to the press, but the story doesn’t track.

The deep state theory doesn’t hold. The turf war theory feels incomplete. And the leak theory has holes you could drive a troop carrier through.

Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary, all lost their jobs and were escorted out of the building within days of each other. All three held high-level positions. All three stood firmly in Hegseth’s corner.

Then, on Tuesday morning, Hegseth returned to familiar ground — his old seat at Fox News — to brand them as leakers. He told viewers his loyalty lies not with former aides but with the mission: securing the nation and carrying out the president’s agenda.

That explanation raised more questions than it answered.

I don’t know much about Carroll’s personal circle, but plenty of credible people vouch for Caldwell and Selnick. Caldwell, in particular, has a reputation for integrity. Just about everyone I’ve spoken with insists he’s no leaker.

Yes, Caldwell’s name surfaced during an internal leak investigation at Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative policy initiative. Investigators found that he was one of only a few people who had access to information that later ended up in the press. But no evidence ever proved he leaked anything.

Here’s the funny part: No one ever confiscated Caldwell’s personal phone. Staffers aren’t allowed to bring personal devices into secure areas — but still, if this were a serious investigation, one reportedly headed for possible referral to the Justice Department, you’d expect them to take that basic step. The fact that they didn’t only fuels suspicion that something else is going on.

And that “something else” probably isn’t what many in MAGA world initially assumed. The first theory on the right was that this was a deep-state purge targeting Hegseth’s inner circle — especially those urging caution on Iran.

Yes, Caldwell has taken a dovish stance. But as several Pentagon veterans told Beltway Brief, that’s not how the national security establishment usually operates when it wants to push someone out. Its members act methodically, carefully, and with bureaucratic precision.

This, by contrast, was fast. And sloppy. Which makes it all the more suspicious.

This mess increasingly looks like an internal power play. If Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, launched a turf war against longtime allies, as some sources suggest, then it’s odd to see Hegseth so animated about it — publicly repeating and defending the accusations in interviews. His remarks on Fox News make it clear he’s fully bought in to the leak narrative.

That’s a turn. Back when Hegseth ran the Koch-backed Concerned Veterans for America, his main problem wasn’t internal leaks — it was his hawkish foreign policy clashing with the network’s more restrained posture. It’s entirely possible that the current dust-up stems from Hegseth himself. Still, he hired these people.

So the deep state theory doesn’t hold. The turf war theory feels incomplete. And the leak theory has holes you could drive a troop carrier through.

What’s left? An administration trying to manage the largest bureaucracy in the world with limited executive experience — and the consequences are starting to show. People are angry. And unless someone inside the Pentagon offers real answers, that anger won’t fade any time soon.

Tucker Carlson: The Dan Caldwell interview

Fox & Friends: The Pete Hegseth interview

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​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

Democrats have centered their opposition to the Trump administration’s deportation of foreign gangsters under the Alien Enemies Act on the case of MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national sent packing on March 15.

The tale they have attempted to tell with the assistance of willing elements of the liberal media is one of an innocent “Maryland man” traduced — an immigrant wrongfully detained, wrongfully deported, and wrongfully imprisoned in his home country.

While this narrative has already collapsed under the weight of numerous troubling facts about Abrego Garcia — his illegal entry into the U.S.; his admitted failure to appear for hearings on traffic violations; the domestic abuse allegations lodged against him; his affiliation with a terrorist gang; and the determination by two courts that he poses a danger to the community — it appears there is yet more dirt on the supposed innocent whom Democrats seek to bring back into the United States.

According to court and Homeland Security Department intelligence documents reviewed by Just the News, the vehicle Abrego Garcia was driving when pulled over by police in 2022 was owned by a human trafficker.

‘Vehicle is used by HSI Baltimore target in human smuggling/trafficking operation.’

The Tennessee Star revealed in a damning report last week that Tennessee Highway Patrol pulled Abrego Garcia over in late 2022 for driving erratically and discovered that he was transporting seven passengers from Texas to Maryland.

The THP officer realized that the Salvadoran national, who did not have a valid driver’s license at the time, was on a terrorist watch list but not on a deportation list. One of Abrego Garcia’s passengers also was apparently on a terrorist watch list.

The officer, concerned that the MS-13 associate was engaged in human trafficking — his suspicion piqued by the passengers’ lack of luggage — notified the Biden FBI, which instructed him to take pictures of Abrego Garcia and his passengers, then to release them.

At the time, DHS intelligence created a record of the encounter.

Documents reviewed by Just the News indicate that the black 2001 Chevrolet Suburban that Abrego Garcia was driving had been flagged by the Homeland Security Investigations Baltimore field office as belonging to a suspected human trafficker.

“Vehicle is used by HSI Baltimore target in human smuggling/trafficking operation. Vehicle makes trips to southern border to pick up noncitizens,” said the record.

The DHS identified the owner of the SUV that Abrego Garcia was driving as Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes — an illegal alien from Mexico who Abrego Garcia told a state trooper was his boss.

Hernandez Reyes pleaded guilty on June 4, 2020, to smuggling illegal aliens.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi indicated that Hernandez Reyes was pulled over on Dec. 4, 2019, in a white minivan he had rented, which was carrying seven illegal aliens — including three who were previously deported or removed from the U.S. — from Houston, Texas, to different locations around the country.

Abrego Garcia’s alleged boss was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and three years of supervised release. Following his prison sentence, he was scheduled for removal proceedings.

It appears the illegal alien whom Democrats are desperate to return to the U.S. may have picked up where his alleged boss left off.

Despite Abrego Garcia’s record, Democrats continue to throw their support behind him.

Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled last week at taxpayers’ expense to El Salvador, where he demanded Abrego Garcia’s release from the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center and shared an intimate moment with the Salvadoran national over drinks.

On Monday, Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.), and Maxine Dexter (Ore.) followed in Van Hollen’s footsteps but were denied a similar opportunity to dine with the MS-13 associate. Before returning to the U.S., they impotently demanded that President Donald Trump “bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home now.”

Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg rushed to defend the MS-13 associate on Sunday, telling Trump’s former chief of staff Reince Priebus, “This was not an MS-13 gang member, and you damn well know that. He was not.”

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s daughter recently appeared to liken Abrego Garcia to Jesus Christ and suggested that “this administration would have already taken [Jesus] and removed him from this country without due process.”

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​Kilmar abrego garcia, Abrego garcia, Ms-13, Terrorism, Gang, El salvador, Deportation, Alien enemies act, Illegal alien, Deport, Illegal immigration, Politics 

I never talk to liberals.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration. I do talk to liberals. I know extended family members who are liberals. I go to the store, and I am sure some of the people I talk with are liberals.

I genuinely forget that there are people who still believe in ‘the wage gap.’ It’s insane.

But I don’t talk politics with liberals. I don’t work with liberals. I don’t suffer under a deranged HR regime whose raison d’être is making sure no employee even considers thinking some politically subversive thought that may, God forbid, go against prevailing liberal orthodoxy.

A quiet place

I live in a nice little town on Lake Michigan and it’s about 50% liberal, but they aren’t really so crazy or kooky. They are fine. People in this area of the state are pretty polite, so these liberals are just other people on the street. They aren’t in my face. I don’t live my life under a liberal framework, muzzling my every thought so I don’t offend the people around me.

I’ve been on the right almost my entire adult life. I don’t have a secret political identity that I need to guard so that I am not socially ostracized or left without a job. My kids are homeschooled, so we aren’t forced to interface with the general population or current brainwashing program of a public school. I’m just not really around liberals that much. I spend my days basking enjoyably in the conservative discourse. It’s very nice.

I live and work in the conservative world. All the debates I am involved with are intra-conservative ones. All the intellectual work I do in my mind is under the presumption of a conservative worldview. All the critique I feel or find myself discussing with others is critique of our own side. They are questions we are working out together so that we can be stronger. Intellectual teamwork. The liberals are just “the other side” or “those people over there,” and I don’t really devote any of my time considering what they are doing.

Picking my battles

I have to say my isolation from liberals has a positive impact on my mental health. It’s not only because I don’t have to deal with navigating the ever-changing labyrinth that is the progressive code of right and wrong. It’s because all my professional and personal efforts go toward helping strengthen our side. I don’t waste any intellectual firepower engaging with lost causes. It’s enriching to know your work builds.

While it’s very nice and I would never trade my position with anyone, I am certainly not champing at the bit to swim in the waters of modern liberalism. I am aware that I have some emotional blind spots due to my professional isolation from liberals.

Reality checks

Sometimes I forget just how insane things are over there. I genuinely forget that there are people who still believe in “the wage gap.” It’s insane. Every once in a while I will wade into the waters or hear a story, and it smacks me in the face.

“Wait, are you kidding me? These people really believe this? They really do?”

“Oh yeah, they do.”

I forget just how widespread the insane delusions are over there. I lose sight of just how deep the far-left creep has penetrated.

Of course I know it intellectually, but I don’t feel it. I can tell that sometimes in the back of my mind, I am referring to my conservative Democrat parents of 2003 and thinking they are somehow representative of anyone over there in the current era. But I know it’s delusional. In reality, my conservative parents of 2003 are more like staunch social conservatives of 2025.

This is what happens when you are far away from something. When you are isolated, you forget how things really are. It’s related to the same impulse we have to forget the bad memories but remember the good ones. I know that I suffer from this forgetfulness due to my glorious distance from the hysterical liberal framework.

Belly of the beast

I realize that my distance from liberals has softened my emotional response to them somewhere in my mind. I often find myself thinking about them — the opposition — in purely intellectual terms. I think of them earning a C- in class rather than a big, fat F. Or maybe they are like some distant tribe in the Amazon rainforest with strange and disturbing ways that aren’t compatible with our civilization. I enjoy the comfort of intellectual distance.

But then I inevitably have a wretched face-to-face encounter with 2025 liberalism, and my calm, zen-like attitude evaporates. I feel a surge of emotions; suddenly I’m disgusted, irritated, and angry. This is what people deal with every single day at work and every single day on the street. No wonder people are so angry all the time. I would be too.

I don’t even know how perpetually angry I would be if I had to deal with degenerating 2025 liberalism all the time.

It’s really interesting how distance obfuscates truth. How my isolation from liberals is great for my general outlook yet also threatens to delude me into a softer emotional response. I’m not eager to surround myself with liberals, trying to convince people who have no desire to be convinced. I’m going to stay right here in the heart of the right, working to make our side stronger. But maybe every once in a while I need to venture out into the belly of the beast just to remind myself how bad things really are and how miserable it must be to be a liberal in 2025.

“There but for the grace of God go I.”

​Men’s style, O.w. root, Politics, Lifestyle, Liberals, Hr, The root of the matter 

Brother, can you spare $300 million?

Vin Diesel wants to make an 11th “Fast & Furious” movie, but the Universal suits think he’s high on his NOS supply.

‘This is very, you know, it’s very white, this movie.’

The blockbuster franchise is running on fumes, creatively and financially. Did you see the ninth installment where they drove into space? Plus, “Fast X” made just $146 million stateside. It performed dramatically better overseas. These films don’t come cheap, and “Fast X” proved to be one of the most expensive films ever made.

That film ended with a cliffhanger, and Diesel went to social media to beg for closure.

“Universal… Please tell the best fans in the world, when the next movie is coming out. Please.” Diesel posted on Instagram.

You shouldn’t treat family this way …

The dork side

Disney is having trouble making “Star Wars” movies. Yes, the Mouse House scooped the saga up from George Lucas in 2012 for a cool $4 billion, but the studio hasn’t released a “Star Wars” film since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.”

If you’ve seen that film, you can stop rolling your eyes.

Now, we have firm news about a new installment coming our way. The project is called “Star Wars: Starfighter,” and it features Ryan Gosling and director Shawn Levy (“Deadpool & Wolverine”).

Imagine having all the resources at Disney’s disposal, and that’s the title you settle on? The Force remains weak with this studio …

60 candles (and still kvetching)

She. Just. Won’t. Stop.

Molly Ringwald spent the 1980s capturing teen angst, courtesy of great John Hughes films like “Pretty in Pink,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “The Breakfast Club.”

She turned on those films in recent years, blasting them as unwoke and problematic.

The horror, the horror.

She did it again recently when “The Breakfast Club” cast reunited for an emotional moment at the C2E2 pop culture convention in Chicago.

Her castmates reminisced about the movie and their talented director. Ringwald played the woke card again during the appearance, when they were asked about a possible sequel or remake.

I believe in making movies that are inspired by other movies but build on it and represent what’s going on today. This is very, you know, it’s very white, this movie. You don’t see a lot of different ethnicities. We don’t talk about gender. None of that. And I feel like that really doesn’t represent our world today.

Sure, “The Breakfast Club” endures, but imagine a 2025 version where the characters spend detention debating inclusion and gender roles …

Kimmel’s scream therapy

So that’s why “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” gave up on comedy.

The show’s far-left host opened up about life under Trump 2.0, revealing a mind that can’t process why voters rejected a party pushing a dementia-addled candidate.

The Rolling Stone chat pulled back the Oz-like curtain behind his ABC talk show and its true purpose.

Laughter didn’t even make the final cut. Says the not-so-funnyman:

A year ago, I would’ve said I’m hoping to show people who aren’t paying attention to the news what’s actually going on and hoping to change things that way. Obviously, that didn’t have enough impact before the election, so now I see myself more as a place to scream.

To be fair, screaming is better than crying, although Kimmel did cry post-Election Day …

Clooney’s civic doody

“The Simpsons” remains a meme-lover’s dream. One favorite? “Stop, he’s already dead,” a phrase uttered to ask someone to stop what they’re doing. The job is already done.

Cue George Clooney.

He’s still doing a victory lap for putting down President Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign. The actor’s oh-so-public letter in the New York Times last year suggested what we all knew at that point. Biden was too mentally compromised to continue his campaign.

“Well, I don’t know if it was brave. … It was a civic duty,” the actor told “journalist” Jake Tapper, who personally helped cover up Biden’s brain fog before co-authoring a tell-all book on the subject.

The truth-to-power Clooney went on.

“When I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I thought that was time,” he said.

Except he didn’t.

Clooney saw Biden’s decline up close at a June fundraiser. He waited until after the June 27 presidential debate and Biden’s crashing poll numbers to crank out that infamous op-ed.

Some civic duty.

​Hollywood, Entertainment, Culture, Vin diesel, Molly ringwald, George clooney, Star wars, Movies, Jimmy kimmel, Joe biden, Toto recall 

Pope Francis’ passing has rattled the world, but it was who he was believed to be when he was alive that Liz Wheeler of “The Liz Wheeler Show” is focused on.

“The hallmark of his papacy, in my opinion, was confusion for the faithful, due partially to his Argentine liberation theology, or his theology that was informed by his experiences in very close relationship with Argentine liberation theology,” she says, noting that “he simultaneously denied” being part of the theology, which is a Marxist view.

“It’s also worth noting that Pope Francis differed significantly from his predecessors — his two immediate predecessors, Pope Benedict and Pope St. John Paul II — because Pope Francis did not seem to understand the power of the media,” she continues.

“He never seemed to push back when the media misinterpreted what he said, and that happened often, by the way,” she adds, explaining that most of the time he spoke in Italian or Spanish, which allowed what he said publicly to be interpreted by the American media.

“How it was translated by either international or American media was often incongruent. It was often reported inaccurately, what Pope Francis actually said, and the media, of course, we know, has a bias not only politically but theologically, spiritually, religiously,” Wheeler explains.

“And so, the media often portrayed Pope Francis as saying things that he didn’t say, because it’s what the media wanted him to say,” she adds.

While the media made the pope out to lean left, Wheeler notes that, actually, he was “against gender ideology.”

“And he was very clear about marriage being between one man and one woman,” she says.

However, the pope elevated priests like Father James Martin, who is advocating for changes to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, because he’s “an LGBTQIA+ lobbyist.”

“That’s confusing to me; that’s confusing to the faithful,” Wheeler says.

Pope Francis also once described abortion as “hiring a hit man to resolve a problem.”

“You cannot stand for life more strongly than that, and yet, at the same time, he stated that the church ‘cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods,’” Wheeler says. “He instead suggested a broader focus on social justice issues, and I find that to be confusing.”

“How can you acknowledge that abortion is murder? How can you acknowledge that an unborn child is a human person, with as much right to life as you, that this unborn person with a right to life is made in the image and likeness of our creator, and then dismiss it as just, like, one of many social justice issues?” she continues.

“One of the roles of the pope is supposed to be to speak with moral clarity. There should be no misinterpretation possible when a pope is speaking, especially one of the hot-button issues that is kind of rife with confusion in the first place,” she adds.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video phone, Free, Video, Camera phone, Upload, Sharing, Youtube.com, The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Pope francis, Pope francis death, Pope francis legacy, Lgbtqia, Liberal agenda, Marxism 

No program has done more to drive up health care costs and balloon inflationary debt than Medicaid. Yet the same Republicans who railed against “Bidenflation” on the campaign trail now draw a red line against even modest reductions in Medicaid’s explosive growth — reforms that would merely return spending to projections made at the start of Joe Biden’s presidency.

A dozen House Republicans sent a letter to Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), warning they would oppose any reconciliation bill that trims Medicaid. “We cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations,” wrote Reps. David Valadao (Calif.), Don Bacon (Neb.), Jeff Van Drew (N.J.), Rob Bresnahan (Pa.), Juan Ciscomani (Ariz.), Jen Kiggans (Va.), Young Kim (Calif.), Rob Wittman (Va.), Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.) and Jeff Hurd (Colo.).

Over the next decade, the program will cost $8.6 trillion under current projections. The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal share to reach $1 trillion annually by 2034.

These lukewarm Republicans object to the House’s reconciliation framework, which directs Guthrie’s committee to identify roughly $80 billion in annual savings — most of which would come from Medicaid. Trump already agreed in principle to these reductions in discussions with the House Freedom Caucus. The plan would save about $1.5 trillion over a decade.

Still, neither President Trump nor Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has shown any appetite for rolling back the Obamacare Medicaid expansion — or the pandemic-era expansion that added yet another category of able-bodied adult males to the eligibility rolls.

So what are these Republicans really opposing? Even work requirements for able-bodied adults. They hide behind mealy-mouthed language, but the message is clear: they won’t support basic accountability measures for a program draining the federal budget at record speed.

Naturally, the RINOs fall back on the same tired line about supporting “targeted reforms to improve program integrity, reduce improper payments, and modernize delivery systems.” This vague bureaucratic jargon helped create today’s bloated Medicaid system — with worse health outcomes to show for it.

In practice, Medicaid drives inflation across the economy and accelerates health care cost growth. Despite the staggering spending, the program has produced little beyond declining life expectancy and growing numbers of doctors refusing to accept Medicaid patients. It’s the health care equivalent of the Department of Education — massive funding, dismal results.

At the end of the Clinton administration, Medicaid enrollment stood at 34.5 million, with annual costs of $117 billion. Today, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program, enrollment has soared to 80 million. In fiscal 2023, total Medicaid spending hit $880 billion. The federal government paid $606 billion (69%), while states covered the remaining $274 billion (31%).

In most states, Medicaid ranks as either the top or second-highest budget item.

The fiscal outlook is even worse. In fiscal year 2025, the federal government alone is projected to spend $656 billion on Medicaid. Over the next decade, the program will cost $8.6 trillion under current projections. The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal share to reach $1 trillion annually by 2034.

This is unsustainable — and yet both parties continue to treat reform as political poison.

If Social Security, Medicare, the military, and the VA remain off-limits — as both parties insist — then Medicaid is the only major program left where Congress can find real savings. Anyone who claims to care about federal spending while blocking Medicaid reform is lying.

And let’s be clear: No one is proposing actual cuts to Medicaid.

The House reconciliation plan simply reins in projected growth, returning it to the levels the Congressional Budget Office forecast in 2021. That’s not austerity — it’s basic fiscal sanity. Under Biden, annual Medicaid costs ballooned by more than $100 billion in just a few years.

Paul Winfree, Trump’s former director of budget policy, noted that in 2024, federal Medicaid spending ran 23% higher than early Biden-era projections. Obamacare spending exceeded projections by 129%. In contrast, Medicare spending rose just 4%.

If Congress held Medicaid growth to the same rate as Medicare, the “savings” would exceed what the Freedom Caucus is currently demanding. That’s not a cut — it’s common sense.

At the very least, Trump should insist on strict work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving Medicaid. According to the Foundation for Government Accountability, more than 60% of able-bodied adult enrollees report no earned income.

That’s indefensible.

Trump has pushed the Freedom Caucus hard to support the reconciliation bill. He owes it to the public to apply just as much pressure on the GOP moderates shielding Medicaid from even modest reforms.

It’s time to overhaul our entire approach to Medicaid. The program keeps growing, yet more doctors refuse to accept it, thanks to low reimbursement rates. Meanwhile, managed care companies rake in billions.

Take Molina Healthcare. Nearly all its revenue comes from government contracts, mostly Medicaid managed care. Its CEO, Joseph Zubretsky, is the highest-paid insurance executive in the country. That’s not health care — that’s grift.

Congress should repeal Obamacare and allow for real choice and competition in the insurance market. With that freedom, the government could directly subsidize health savings accounts for people in need — so they can buy private plans without the stigma, delays, and denial of care that plague Medicaid managed care.

We should also expect modest contributions from most enrollees — just as Medicare does. Exempt the truly destitute, of course. But the idea that anyone just below the income threshold should pay nothing, while those just above it face crushing Obamacare premiums, defies fairness and common sense.

Most Medicaid recipients own smartphones and cars. Many spend hundreds on repairs without government help. No one expects them to cover major medical bills. But asking for a small monthly premium isn’t cruel — it’s responsible.

Earlier this month, Trump rightly noted that in 1870, tariffs funded nearly the entire federal government. But back then, the U.S. didn’t have a welfare state.

If Trump wants to revive 19th-century fiscal discipline, he must let go of this bizarre loyalty to a Medicaid system that mostly enriches managed care executives — and leaves taxpayers and patients holding the bag.

​Medicaid, Entitlement reform, Congress, Brett guthrie, Congressional budget office, Donald trump, Obamacare, House freedom caucus, Molina healthcare, Reconciliation bill, Mike johnson, Opinion & analysis 

For as often as the phrase “Christ is King” trends on social media, it seems like a growing number of self-professing Christians have forgotten that it was sin — not skin — that kept Jesus on the cross.

Millions of Americans gathered this past Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apart from that ultimate sign of self-sacrifice, we would still be in bondage to sin and face the penalty for indulging it — spiritual death and eternal separation from God. That’s because, according to the Bible, we are all born in sin and remain spiritually dead unless we turn from our sin and place our hope and trust in Christ.

No argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Messages circulating on X often sound wildly different, but many follow the same script. On any given day, you’ll find someone — often claiming to be Christian — warning that a specific group poses a unique threat to the American way of life.

Some wrap their claims in the pseudo-academic language of “race realism” and genetic determinism. Others frame it as cultural criticism. But the message stays the same: Those people over there are the real problem.

Years ago, I noticed this pattern in how some black progressives invoked slavery and Jim Crow to argue that “whiteness” itself is an inherently evil force driving racism.

Today, a growing number of white conservatives fire back with crime statistics, claiming black Americans are inherently violent.

Meanwhile, a rainbow coalition of agitators — including Hispanics and Asians — spends its time urging followers to “notice” Jewish control of everything from pornography to U.S. foreign policy.

Different faces, same poison.

Ethnic and political tribalism has convinced many Americans that moral decay is always someone else’s fault. It’s not our problem. It’s their problem.

They chase any story or video that reinforces their worldview and dismiss anything that challenges it. A white police officer involved in a fatal shooting of a black man becomes proof that policing itself is systemically racist. A black teenager who commits a crime becomes a symbol of supposed racial dysfunction — not an individual but a statistic.

Many in this mindset obsess over IQ scores and genetic theories. But no argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Christ’s death on the cross should convict every one of us to examine our own hearts. The moment you start measuring your worth by someone else’s failure, you’re already losing the moral battle. Comparative righteousness is a foolish and dangerous game.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 illustrates the danger of self-righteousness. Pharisees prided themselves on strict adherence to the law, so it’s no surprise that the one in Jesus’ story thanked God for his supposed moral superiority. He fasted, tithed, and avoided obvious sins. He was especially grateful not to be like the tax collector — a judgment that, on the surface, seemed justified.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Jesus shocked the crowd with the conclusion: It was the tax collector — not the outwardly religious Pharisee — who went home justified. He drove the point home with a final line that still cuts: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The world would look very different — better, even — if more people, especially Christians, followed the example of the tax collector instead of the Pharisee.

Every person, family, and community carries its own burdens. Certain sins may show up more often in some groups than others, but that only looks like moral deficiency when we stop measuring ourselves against God and start judging others as the standard.

That’s why I advocate an “inside-out” approach to social commentary. I focus first on the issues that are common, pressing, and personal. Telling hard truths is difficult enough. It’s even harder when the messenger comes off as an outsider taking shots rather than someone who cares enough to speak from within.

Conservatives have every right to criticize America’s cultural collapse — but they should think twice before using China’s Xi Jinping to deliver the message. And if even Vivek Ramaswamy can’t offer light criticism without backlash, maybe it’s not just the left that has a problem hearing the truth.

The inside-out approach beats the alternative. It forces us to confront our own flaws instead of obsessing over everyone else’s. The outside-in method puts the sins of others under a microscope, while hiding the mirror that would show our own.

That’s why I don’t understand black pastors in neighborhoods torn apart by gang violence who spend their sermons denouncing “white supremacy” or DEI. Those things may be worth discussing — but they’re not why kids are dying in their streets.

Likewise, a white pastor in Wyoming would do much more good addressing his state’s sky-high suicide rate — often involving firearms — than speculating on how rap music and absent fathers are ruining black teenagers in Chicago.

Nothing’s wrong with offering honest insights about what plagues other communities. Tribalism shouldn’t stop us from grieving or rejoicing with people who don’t look like us. But the problem comes when we frame both vice and virtue in ethnic terms.

The apostle Paul didn’t tailor his warnings about idolatry, greed, lust, or murder based on ethnicity. His message was universal because the human condition is universal.

That’s why Christians must always remember: Jesus died for our sin, not our skin.

​Opinion & analysis, Racism, Christianity, Easter, Resurrection, Redemption, Jesus christ, Social media, Crime, Suicide, Sin, Whiteness, Tribalism, Pharisees 

A mother said she and her 7-year-old daughter encountered a naked male with his genitals exposed in a female locker room at a north Kansas City YMCA earlier this month, WDAF-TV reported.

The mother told the station that she and her daughter had just finished swimming lessons, where she estimates hundreds of children were present, and had entered the women’s locker room to change.

‘This is an issue of somebody showing their body parts to my child in a room where she should be safe from such things.’

The mother added to WDAF that she soon heard a man’s voice — and that as she and her little girl were leaving a stall, they saw a naked man with his genitals exposed.

When the concerned mom asked the male what he was doing in a female-only space, the mother recalled to the station that the male replied with something to the effect of, “Honey, I’m a woman.”

The mother and her daughter sprinted out of the locker room, WDAF said.

The mother — who spoke to the station Monday — added to WDAF that she and her daughter weren’t the only ones who witnessed the incident.

Angela Bush — a YMCA member — told the station that “my 11-year-old does use that locker room, especially after we go to the pool. In there, you either have to use the closed-off showers or try to change as quickly as possible. It’s definitely shocking and something we’ll be looking out for a little bit more.”

The YMCA of Greater Kansas City, the North Kansas City Police Department, and the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office have launched investigations, WDAF said.

The YMCA offered the following statement, the station said:

The YMCA of Greater Kansas City is aware of a reported incident in the locker room at the North Kansas City YMCA on April 12, 2025. We continue to investigate the incident and are unable to provide further details at this time. We also are cooperating with the North Kansas City Police Department as they conduct their investigation. The safety and well-being of all of our members is a priority, and we take this concern seriously.

We follow all state and local laws, and individuals are allowed to use the locker room or restroom that they identify with. At the North Kansas City YMCA, we also have four private universal changing rooms available, separate from the larger shared locker rooms, for anyone who prefers the privacy they offer.

To ensure all Y members’ standards of privacy are respected and safety is prioritized when using any of our shared locker rooms, members are asked to wear a towel, wrap or other clothes at all times, which is communicated to members when they join in our Member Handbook.

The North Kansas City Police Department confirmed that it’s investigating a report of an April 12 indecent exposure at the YMCA but did not share further details, WDAF said.

The mother — who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her family — added to the station that it’s not an issue of gender identity: “This is not a case of transitional status. This is an issue of somebody showing their body parts to my child in a room where she should be safe from such things.”

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​Crime, Police, Kansas city, Ymca, Lgbtq, Transgender, Female locker room, Male in female locker room, Naked male, Genitals exposed, 7-year-old girl, Mother and daughter, Politics 

The mass deportation plans of the Trump administration have once again been stymied by a federal judge issuing a temporary restraining order.

This time, it was U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney of Denver, Colorado, who said Tuesday that President Donald Trump may be improperly invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to facilitate the deportation of illegal aliens.

‘The proclamation makes no finding that satisfies these definitional demands. Thus, to the extent the proclamation relies on the act’s ‘invasion’ and ‘incursion’ provisions to justify its removal powers, it does so improperly.’

The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that those tagged for removal from the U.S. needed to be given the opportunity to fight the deportation proceedings in court.

Sweeney prohibited the government from deporting the two Venezuelan plaintiffs in the case, as well as 100 others detained at a facility in Aurora that would be sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador for terrorists. She also ordered the administration to give detainees at least 21 days of notice.

Both of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit deny that they are members of Tren de Aragua, a vicious gang that Trump labeled as a terrorist group in order to invoke the 1798 law.

Sweeney opined that the ACLU’s legal challenge to the removals under the Alien Enemies Act would likely be successful based on other successful lawsuits against the Trump administration.

She also found the wartime declaration by the president against an “invasion” from Tren de Aragua to be dubious in nature.

“These words, fundamentally, demand military and wartime action,” Sweeney ruled. “The proclamation makes no finding that satisfies these definitional demands. Thus, to the extent the proclamation relies on the act’s ‘invasion’ and ‘incursion’ provisions to justify its removal powers, it does so improperly.”

Earlier in April, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump could continue deportation proceedings under the 1798 law but also unanimously found that those subject to deportation had a right to defend themselves against the orders.

Vice President JD Vance has argued on social media that due process was too laborious for the government to undertake while millions of illegal aliens still resided in the U.S.

Judge Sweeney was appointed to the court by former President Joe Biden.

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lost a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times after the outlet blamed her for the horrible 2011 shooting targeting a Democratic congresswoman.

Palin mounted the lawsuit against the Times after they published a 2017 editorial that falsely linked a political ad created by her PAC with several congressional districts under gun crosshairs, with the horrendous mass shooting at a Gabby Giffords public event.

‘Please keep fighting for integrity in media. I’ll keep asking the press to quit making things up.’

The crazed gunman was identified as Jared Lee Loughner, who had been diagnosed with mental illness and had become obsessed with then-congresswoman Giffords long before the political ad was circulated.

The connection was dubious, and the Times was immediately assailed by critics online, many of whom were on the left, before issuing a correction. Palin filed her lawsuit later that month.

The lawsuit was initially tossed out by a Clinton-appointed judge in 2017, but was revived by an appellate court. That same judge then dismissed the lawsuit in 2022 because no jury would find the Times had acted with malice, according to the judge.

An appellate court allowed Palin a third time to take the Times to court, but on Tuesday, a jury agreed that the high standard of malice had not been met.

The jury only deliberated for two hours before delivering the verdict.

Palin asked her supporters to continue fighting in a statement on social media.

“We didn’t prevail in federal court against the New York Times. But please keep fighting for integrity in media. I’ll keep asking the press to quit making things up,” she wrote.

“Meanwhile … I get to go home to the 5 best kids a mom could ever hope for & a quiver full of perfect grandbabies,” she added.

Giffords retired from Congress in 2012 and became a gun control advocate before undergoing years of rehabilitation from the injuries she received. Her husband, Mark Kelly, became a U.S. senator for Arizona.

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On April 18, the White House publicly endorsed the COVID lab leak theory. The government’s official COVID website was also redirected to a new page titled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19,” which contends that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and was leaked by accident.

The revamped site criticizes Anthony Fauci, David Morens, Andrew Cuomo, the WHO, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Biden administration, among others, for actively promoting false information and covering up the truth.

It cites five points to support the lab leak claim:

1. “The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.”

2. “Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.”

3. “Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels.”

4. “Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.”

5. “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.”

After years of the Biden administration and his loyal media allies promoting a lie, it’s refreshing to see the government proclaim the truth.

But while Glenn Beck sees the website as “an amazing thing,” the information on it isn’t exactly news.

“Most of this stuff we had within six or eight months of the actual outbreak,” he says.

The real question is: “Who’s going to jail over this?”

The other question is: Why doesn’t the legacy media seem interested in correcting the narrative?

“Millions of people died here. You’d think that it would be something [the media] would focus on and draw a lot of attention to and continue to kind of beat the drum until someone was held responsible, and they don’t seem to have any interest in that,” says co-host Stu Burguiere, noting that most of these outlets “have run an op-ed” about the lab leak theory and called it good.

“If we make a mistake, we correct it because it drives us crazy that we made the mistake, and I don’t want anybody to believe that I’m standing behind something that is wrong and a lie,” says Glenn.

The legacy media clearly doesn’t have the same convictions.

“They knowingly lied” about COVID, Joe Biden’s cognitive state, and Russiagate, and yet, “There’s no consequence.”

“They’re not going to lose any advertisers. The New York Times hasn’t lost any real money because of this. Their people just continue to watch,” says Glenn.

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

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​The glenn beck podcast, Glenn beck, Lab leak, Lab leak theory, Covid 19, Pandemic, Wuhan, Anthony fauci, Blazetv, Blaze media, Donald trump, The glenn beck program 

Harvard University announced a lawsuit against the actions of the Trump administration after billions of dollars’ worth of federal funding to the university was cut.

The administration accused Harvard officials of not doing enough to protect their Jewish students in light of pro-Hamas protests that often resulted in threats, intimidation, and sometimes even violence. The university argued that the cut of $2.2 billion in federal funds amounted to a violation of the First Amendment.

‘Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.’

A letter from Harvard University President Alan Garber denied the allegations but admitted that the university had room for improvement.

“The government has cited the university’s response to anti-Semitism as a justification for its unlawful action. As a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising anti-Semitism,” wrote Garber. “To address it effectively requires understanding, intention, and vigilance. Harvard takes that work seriously. We will continue to fight hate with the urgency it demands as we fully comply with our obligations under the law. That is not only our legal responsibility. It is our moral imperative.”

The lawsuit said that the actions of the administration threatened Harvard’s independence while putting at risk “critical lifesaving and pathbreaking research” at the campus.

The administration had issued a list of demands to the university, and when they refused to comply, the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism pulled billions in multiyear grants.

“The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end,” read a statement from Harrison Fields, a spokersperson for the White House. “Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.”

The university argues in the lawsuit that there’s no connection between fighting anti-Semitism and cutting funding to the university.

“The government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between anti-Semitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” the lawsuit states.

President Donald Trump has also threatened to strip the university’s tax-exempt status.

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The Department of State revealed on Tuesday the Trump administration’s plans to slash the agency’s bloat.

Internal documents obtained by the Free Press revealed that the State Department will close 132 agency offices — a 17% reduction. The office terminations also reportedly involve eliminating 700 positions, including civil service and foreign service employees.

‘In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition.’

The news outlet reported that the offices earmarked for closure include those dedicated to advancing human rights, democracy overseas, and thwarting extremism and war crimes.

The State Departmen’s new shake-up will consolidate 137 offices by transferring them to other parts of the agency.

The plans consider terminating the agency’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Rachel Cauley, a White House budget office spokesperson, told the Free Press that “nobody is really sure what” the office does.

“When I ask them, they seem to not really be sure what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s an office that was created several years ago to look at Afghanistan [issues] and to avoid conflict areas. But we already have other offices within the department that do that,” Cauley said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly coordinating with the Department of Government Efficiency to restructure the federal agency.

— (@)

A senior State Department official told the Free Press that the agency’s undersecretaries have also been instructed to present plans to reduce their staff by 15%. While it is unclear how many staffers will be impacted by the directive, the outlet noted that six of the offices employ thousands of individuals.

A second senior State Department official told the news outlet that the cuts will not require Congress’ approval. The source claimed that by July 1, the U.S. Agency for International Development would “cease[] to exist.”

In addition to eliminating and consolidating hundreds of offices, the State Department is opening a post, the Bureau of Emerging Threats, dedicated to monitoring cyber threats, the second official told the Free Press.

“We’re trying to streamline the organization, to centralize functions that should be centralized, and to focus on the big things that support our America First diplomacy out in the field,” the official said.

Rubio told the Free Press, “In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition.”

“That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the department into the 21st century,” he added.

“This approach will empower the department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies,” Rubio continued. “Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist.”

Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state under President Donald Trump’s first administration, told the news outlet that he supports overhauling the agency.

“The State Department is desperately in need of significant reorganization, and there’s much efficiency that can be gained there,” Pompeo said.

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