Category: blaze media

I’m one of those people who likes to write in cafés. I like the atmosphere. And the people. And the smell of espresso machines.

Recently I was walking in a newly developed area of my hometown (Portland) and discovered a new coffee place.

I ordered the house-blend coffee. I took it to the cream-and-sugar counter and poured a little milk into it. Much to my horror, the milk curdled instantly.

It looked like an excellent writing spot. There were solid tables and comfortable chairs and a window you could look out when you weren’t typing.

That smell

But then I went to the counter, where I recognized the distinct smell of a certain kind of Pacific Northwest coffee.

It’s the smell of artisanal roasting, done on the premises. Or in some cases, a small roaster nearby who provides the café with elaborately packaged organic, roaster-to-retail, artisanal coffee beans.

In other words: left-wing coffee.

That’s right: left-wing coffee. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s now left-wing and right-wing coffee. And as you’d expect, left-wing coffee is terrible.

*******

Stumptown

The best example of left-wing coffee is Portland’s own Stumptown brand. Stumptown has spread all across the world and at one point was widely advertised as Alaska Airline’s exclusive in-flight brand.

And what does Stumptown taste like? It tastes like someone poured a little orange juice into your coffee. Or some other acidic, citrusy liquid. This gives it a weird, tangy taste initially. And then a bitter, sour aftertaste.

The important thing is: It’s bad. It tastes bad. But that isn’t surprising. That’s what the left does. It takes good things and makes them bad. Movies? Architecture? Your local library? The left can ruin almost anything.

Now you might say: But all artisanal coffee doesn’t taste the same! Ah, but it does! Even though each individual coffee roaster handcrafts his coffee in his own unique fashion, somehow, by some strange process, all the artisanal coffee tastes remarkably similar and equally awful.

Coffee curdle

My favorite experience to relate about left-wing coffee came when I visited a popular Portland café with a friend.

I’d been there many times, so I knew the coffee there was artisanally roasted and therefore barely drinkable. But the café was buzzing with people, and my friend liked it, and there were good seats available for people-watching. So here we were.

I ordered the house-blend coffee. I took it to the cream-and-sugar counter and poured a little milk into it. Much to my horror, the milk curdled instantly.

Alarmed, I took my cup back to the counter and explained to the barista guy (with a man bun) what had happened. He shrugged. “Yeah, it does that sometimes; it’s the acid in the coffee.”

I said, “Why is there acid in the coffee?”

“It’s just the type of bean,” he said. “Sorry about that. Maybe don’t put milk in it?”

*******

The reason these artisanal-roasted coffees are left-wing is because left-wing people drink it. And serve it. And roast it. And brag about it.

It is a trend that began in coastal cities during the “locally sourced,” “farm-to-table” craze. It continues to exist to this day in college towns and other progressive strongholds in the rest of the country.

Leftists always want to change things. Especially things that people already like. They changed sports (they added gambling). They changed sex (they added pornography). They changed marriage (they added no-fault divorce).

So now they changed coffee by adding citrusy, floral, nutmeg-flavored, acidic, rainforest-protecting coffee beans that taste bad.

But that’s what they do. Bad is good to leftists.

RELATED: Corporate America turned coffee shops into cubicles. A more human cafe culture is fighting back.

Hertiage Images/Getty Images

Where the girls are

A couple years ago, I met a young Texan living in Warsaw, Poland, who agreed with my assessment of the leftist coffee problem but insisted it was still worth it to patronize “artisanal roaster” cafés because those were the best places to meet trendy girls. He said this was the case all over Europe.

And he was right. Everywhere I went on that trip, I googled “artisanal roasters” to find cafés. And sure enough, that’s where the hipsters were, the trendoids, the pretentious expats, the people wearing “statement glasses.”

This is also the case in L.A., San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and all the other leftist strongholds. Which reveals an obvious truth: that most hipsters, most trendsetters, most influencers are, at heart, brainless conformists.

If everyone else is drinking the terrible coffee, they’ll drink it too.

Take the ‘hints’ — please

So if Stumptown is left-wing, what coffee is right-wing?

I would say that any coffee that tastes like coffee is right-wing. Especially if it’s good. Like McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons, Peet’s, or Starbucks.

If it doesn’t have words like “ethical” or “fair trade” or “locally sourced” and doesn’t have “hints” of lavender blossoms or “notes” of Scandinavian pine cones, it is probably right-wing.

If there are no drawings on the package of impoverished indigenous South American folks, suffering under the yoke of American capitalism, it is probably right-wing.

If the most descriptive thing it says on the packaging is “100% Arabica coffee,” it is probably right-wing, and it probably won’t curdle your milk.

Good to the last drop

My own favorite coffee shop in Portland is a quiet student café near Portland State University. It is an outlier in its coffee selection. It only serves ILLY brand coffee.

The ILLY company started in 1933. The original founder also invented this little thing called the ESPRESSO MACHINE. So I would guess he knew what he was doing.

Three generations later, ILLY is still one of the most loved and respected coffee companies in the world.

And guess what? ILLY doesn’t taste like anything except coffee. And it is delicious.

It is so good, I don’t even buy it to make at home. Because I don’t want to get used to it. I prefer to visit that one particular café once or twice a week to luxuriate in the perfect cup of coffee.

*******

The good news is, nobody is talking about Stumptown coffee anymore. Alaska Airlines has come to its senses and returned to ordinary coffee for in-flight customers.

And I’m guessing that even the trendiest young people will eventually abandon bad coffee. They have taste buds too.

But of course, leftists will continue to seek out new areas of Americana to mess with. Get ready for equitable corn flakes, nonbinary toothpaste, rainbow-infused gasoline for your car. At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past them.

​Lifestyle, Stumptown roasters, Coffee, Artisanal, Starbucks, Barista, Blake’s progress 

President Donald Trump and members of his administration have worked doggedly over the past year to broker a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.

While there have been multiple instances when an end to the bloodshed appeared within reach, Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin have both repeatedly thrown up obstacles to sealing the deal — in most cases over proposals regarding territorial concessions and security guarantees for Kyiv.

There are, however, others actors in the mix who appear content to stymie the U.S.-mediated peace negotiations.

English-language notes allegedly detailing a conference call held on Monday between Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and numerous other EU leaders revealed the extent of the contempt and distrust some European leaders have for the United States as it relates to Washington’s role in the peace talks.

According to the notes that were leaked to the German publication Der Spiegel, Macron suggested that there was a chance that the U.S. — a nation that has kept Ukraine viable with the help of hundreds of billions of dollars and top-notch armaments as well as by sanctioning its foe — might “betray” Ukraine.

“There is a chance that the U.S. will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees,” Macron reportedly said, adding that the territorial matter presents “a big danger” for Zelenskyy.

Macron was among the EU leaders who rejected Trump’s original 28-point peace plan last month and echoed an old complaint that certain proposals would require EU consent. His office has claimed that he “did not express himself in these words” as described in the notes but did not indicate how he had expressed himself.

RELATED: Zelenskyy’s hold on power uncertain as criminal charges reach his inner circle

Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Merz, whose nation is set to pass a new conscription scheme, reportedly said that Zelenskyy must be “very careful” in the talks ahead, noting that “they are playing games with both you and us.” Der Spiegel indicated that the “they” Merz referred to was likely Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been working on the peace negotiations.

Alexander Stubb — the Finnish president who complained in a recent interview that “all the conditions for a just peace we’ve talked so much about over the past four years are unlikely to be fulfilled” — reportedly said on the conference call, “We must not leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys,” again apparently referring to the U.S. representatives.

The notes for the call, which several participants confirmed to Der Spiegel had taken place, indicate that Rutte agreed, stating, “I agree with Alexander that we need to protect Volodymyr.”

While a spokesperson for Zelenskyy told Der Spiegel he did not want to comment on the content of the call, the Ukrainian president said in a statement on Thursday, “Ukraine is prepared for any possible developments, and of course we will work as constructively as possible with all partners to ensure that peace is achieved — and that it is, after all, a dignified peace. Only a dignified peace provides real security, and we fully understand that this requires — and will continue to require — the support of our partners.”

The White House did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

On Tuesday, Putin suggested European leaders were undermining the peace process, stating, “They don’t have a peace agenda; they’re on the side of the war,” reported the Associated Press.

The Russian president further accused the Europeans of introducing “demands that are absolutely unacceptable to Russia,” thereby “blocking the entire peace process.”

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​Europe, European, Zelenskyy, Zelensky, Macron, France, Germany, Ukraine, Merz, Russia, Kyiv, Donald trump, Witkoff, Peace, Peace deal, War, Politics 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) joined Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck to share his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Republicans’ proposed redistricting map. He also talked about his recent actions against the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

On Thursday, SCOTUS temporarily approved the GOP’s redistricting efforts in Texas for use in the upcoming midterm election. As a result, Republicans are likely to gain five additional seats in the U.S. House.

‘The Supreme Court beat down the lower court for violating that precedent.’

The Supreme Court’s latest decision overturned a lower court’s order, which would have required Texas to return to 2021 district lines.

Abbott joined “The Glenn Beck Program” on Friday morning to share his thoughts on the recent Supreme Court decision, calling it “huge news” for Republicans across the U.S.

“This is total vindication for the state of Texas, for the legislature,” Abbott told Beck.

The Texas governor explained that the map was redrawn to “fully” comply with the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedent as well as “truly represent the values of people of our state.”

Abbott accused the lower court of abandoning precedent previously established by SCOTUS.

“The Supreme Court beat down the lower court for violating that precedent,” he told Beck.

RELATED: Supreme Court allows Texas redistricting map for midterm elections; liberals dissent

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

During Friday morning’s interview, Abbott also discussed his effort to remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ tax-exempt status, citing the organization’s alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Abbott sent a letter to Secretary Scott Bessent earlier this week requesting that the Treasury Department open an investigation into the group and suspend its tax-exempt status.

“CAIR has historic connections to terrorism,” Abbott stated. “Here’s the bottom line: If CAIR doesn’t want to be labeled as a terrorist organization, if it wants to shed its early ties to terrorism, it needs to stop supporting those who are identified by the federal government as supporters of terrorism.”

“Because they support terrorists to this day, that is exactly why they deserve, for one, to be labeled a foreign organization, and, for another, why they should not be receiving the benefits of a 501(c)(3) organization,” he added.

RELATED: Islamist groups in Texas rake in $13M in taxpayer-funded grants amid Abbott’s battle against Sharia law

Greg Abbott. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

CAIR sent its own letter to Bessent the following day, claiming to debunk the governor’s accusations.

“Governor Abbott is afraid,” CAIR stated. “He knows that his proclamation targeting CAIR-Texas is unconstitutional, so now he is desperately trying to find another way to target our organization.”

“Unfortunately for Mr. Abbott, his lies about us are easily disprovable and the truth about him is clearly evident: He’s an Israel First politician who is obsessed with CAIR because our lawsuits have defeated his attempts to silence Texans critical of Israel three times in a row. We look forward to defeating him in court for a fourth time soon, God willing,” CAIR’s statement read.

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​News, Council on american-islamic relations, Council on american islamic relations, Cair, Greg abbott, Abbott, Texas, Glenn beck, Redistricting, Redistricting battle, Midterms, Midterm elections, Politics 

Following the tragic shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., last week, allegedly by an Afghan national, President Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against foreigners coming into our country. Now his administration is taking action with some important policy changes.

On Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced a major slash in the duration of work permit validity, according to the Washington Post.

‘It’s even more clear that USCIS must conduct more frequent vetting of aliens.’

Specifically the new policy affects asylum seekers by changing the work permit authorization period from five years to a mere 18 months.

“Reducing the maximum validity period for employment authorization will ensure that those seeking to work in the United States do not threaten public safety or promote harmful anti-American ideologies. After the attack on National Guard service members in our nation’s capital by an alien who was admitted into this country by the previous administration, it’s even more clear that USCIS must conduct more frequent vetting of aliens,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a Thursday press release.

RELATED: Suspect in Guardsmen shooting tied to Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome

Photo by MANUEL BALCE CENETA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

USCIS stated in the press release that these changes to maximum validity period for Employment Authorization Documents are part of a broader policy update to ensure more thorough screenings of foreigners.

Fwd.us, an immigration advocacy group, told the Washington Post that the move is expected to impact hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.

The group also estimated that around 1.4 million of the three million asylum seekers currently in the United States are working.

These policy changes come shortly after it was revealed that the suspected shooter is an Afghan national tied to the Biden-era migrant relocation program, Operation Allies Welcome.

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If anyone from a backward and unstable country could be vetted for anti-American hostility, it would have been someone like Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan national who allegedly shot two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., the day before Thanksgiving. He had been vetted by the CIA, worked with our military in Afghanistan, and was later approved for asylum alongside his wife and five children.

And still, he turned his gun on the very country that took him in. How many more reminders do we need before we shut off the spigot?

Tackling America’s economic challenges will be tricky. But an immigration shutoff is easy. Trump can — with the stroke of a pen — halt all entries that threaten national security.

In response to the attack, President Trump vowed to “permanently pause migration from all third world countries.” Many Americans hoped this meant fulfilling the pledge he made nearly a decade ago: “A total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

On Thanksgiving Day, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow announced a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every green card” holder from “every country of concern.” When pressed, Edlow pointed to the 19 countries listed in Trump’s June 4 proclamation, “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.”

That June order established two tiers of restrictions.

Full restriction: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen.

Partial restriction: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela.

This week, the White House announced its intention to pause all immigration from all 19 countries and freeze naturalization applications from nationals already here.

It’s a start. But it doesn’t address the larger reality: Even a total shutdown of these 19 countries barely dents the scale of Islamic-world migration into the United States.

By my calculations, these countries account for only 27% of Muslim-origin immigration in 2023 — and just 18% of our intake from the Islamic world over the past decade.

Ten of the 19 targeted countries are majority-Muslim. But there are 39 other majority-Muslim countries — most overwhelmingly Muslim — from which we admit well over 100,000 green-card recipients each year.

Here is the updated breakdown of immigration from all majority-Muslim countries in 2023 and over the prior 10 years:

Blaze Media

This is a numbers game. You simply cannot import roughly 175,000 Muslim migrants every year — not counting tens of thousands more on student and temporary visas — without replicating the social unraveling we have seen in Europe.

Trump’s expanded ban would block about 47,000 of these arrivals annually. But it leaves massive sending countries — Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Uzbekistan — effectively untouched.

Blaze Media

The problem with limiting the moratorium to these 10 Islamic countries (plus nine other hostile or unstable states) isn’t just numerical. It’s philosophical. The order implies that we are only concerned with countries that have poor diplomatic relations or inadequate data-sharing with the United States.

But the challenge of Islamic migration has never been solely about vetting. Most individuals who embrace Sharia supremacism, support suicide attacks, or reject Western norms are not sworn members of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah. The issue is ideological — a form of unreformed Islam that never passed through the Enlightenment and remains fundamentally incompatible with liberal Western society.

For decades, small-scale migration masked this reality. But we have admitted roughly 3 million Muslims since 9/11. They cluster, build Qatari-funded or Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated mosques, and reproduce the same ideological ecosystem from which they emigrated. High-volume flows reinforce the problem exponentially.

And contrary to the foreign-policy establishment’s assumptions, hostility does not only come from “enemy” states. In fact, migrants from “friendly” governments often pose greater risks. Regimes such as Egypt and Jordan suppress their own Islamist movements. Uzbekistan bans full beards. These governments contain radicalism at home — and we import the very people they fear.

We’ve seen the consequences repeatedly. A sampling:

Akayed Ullah, who arrived from Bangladesh in 2011, detonated a pipe bomb in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, declaring support for ISIS. Bangladesh now sends more than 18,000 immigrants annually.Sayfullo Saipov, who came from Uzbekistan in 2010 on a diversity visa, murdered eight people in a truck attack in Manhattan while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”Dilkhayot Kasimov, Abdurasul Juraboev, Abror Habibov, all Uzbeks, conspired to support ISIS, discussed attacking President Obama, and scouted U.S. military targets. We continue admitting over 5,000 Uzbeks per year through the Diversity Visa Lottery — a program Trump should end immediately.Muhammad Khair Alabid, a student from Egypt, plotted a Fourth of July vehicle-bomb attack in Cleveland.Mohamed Sabry Soliman, also from Egypt, firebombed a pro-Israel rally in Boulder in 2025, killing one and injuring 12. He and his family were admitted by the Biden administration and overstayed. We have issued more than 100,000 green cards to Egyptian nationals in the past decade.Muhammad El-Sayed, admitted from Jordan on a diversity visa, built an ISIS-linked terror cell in Minneapolis, scouting military bases and Jewish centers.Abdullah Muhammad Zain-ul-Abideen, a student visa-holder from Jordan, provided material support in the Garland, Texas, terrorist attack on the “Draw Muhammad” event.

RELATED: Wajahat Ali says quiet part out loud in attack on Trump’s re-migration plan: ‘Mistake that you made is you let us in’

Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for BAFTA

The most glaring case of false security is Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a Saudi military trainee brought here on an A-2 visa. In 2019, he murdered three American service members at Naval Air Station Pensacola. He was here because our government trusted Saudi vetting.

This is the pattern: Working with a regime is not the same as trusting its people. In many cases, these governments fear their own populations. Yet we continue importing those populations at scale.

For example: The United States and Israel prop up the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan precisely because its people are more radical than their rulers. Yet we have brought in over 72,000 Jordanians in the past decade. If those populations are too dangerous for their own government, why do we assume they are safe for ours?

When it comes to transformational immigration policy, there is no such thing as “lukewarm hell.” Trump should impose a full moratorium on all Islamic-majority countries and abolish the Diversity Visa Lottery entirely.

Tackling America’s economic challenges ahead of the midterms will be tricky. But an immigration shutoff is easy. Under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Trump can — with the stroke of a pen — halt all entries that threaten national security.

He has already done it for 19 countries. He has no reason not to finish the job.

​Opinion & analysis, Immigration, Islam, Donald trump, Immigration ban, Muslims, Citizenship, Green cards, Afghanistan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Muslim brotherhood, Jihad, Terrorism, Terrorists, Vetting, Immigration and customs enforcement, Immigration and nationality act, National security, America first, Diversity lottery, Visas, Visa overstays 

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appears keen to clutch pearls and hold President Donald Trump to a different standard than Walz did the previous president — especially after Trump called Walz “seriously retarded.”

Quick background

During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump leaned into his criticism of Somalia, the rampant fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community, and Somalia’s top spokeswoman in Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

‘This is on top of all the other vile comments.’

“Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have no, anything. They just run around killing each other. There’s no structure,” said the president.

Somalia is a Sunni Muslim nation on the easternmost part of Africa with a population of just over 19 million, a high rate of female genital mutilation, a GDP of $12.94 billion, and an adult literacy rate of 54%.

The country is a haven for crime and terrorism, ranking 34th out of 193 countries for criminality on the Global Organized Crime Index. With 10 being the most severe, Somalia scores 8.5 for human trafficking; 8 for human smuggling; 9.5 for extortion and protection racketeering; 9 for arms trafficking; 7 for financial crimes; and 7 for trade in counterfeit goods.

Trump appears to suspect that America imported some of Somalia’s chronic problems when accepting its refugees.

Following a report detailing instances of alleged and confirmed fraud perpetrated by numerous members of the Somali community in Minnesota, Trump announced on Nov. 21 that he was terminating the Temporary Protected Status designation for Somalia.

RELATED: DHS to increase operations in Twin Cities region as Somali fraud becomes unignorable

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars. Billions every year. Billions of dollars, and they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing,” continued Trump. “I don’t want them in our country; I’ll be honest with you. Some might say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country. I can say that about other countries too.”

Trump added, “We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know if people mind me saying that, but I’m saying it. We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”

“Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people that work,” Trump said, leaving no room for ambiguity.

“These are people who do nothing but complain.”

— (@)

Walz whines, gaslights

Walz made a big show on Thursday of denouncing Trump’s remarks and calling on others to do likewise.

“Donald Trump’s calling our Somali neighbors ‘garbage’ and the state of Minnesota a ‘hellhole’ is, I’m assuming, is unprecedented for a United States president,” said Walz, who has bent the truth to his benefit on numerous occasions.

The use of the term “garbage” by an American president in reference to a group of people is not unprecedented. In fact, Walz downplayed former President Joe Biden’s use of the term to describe nearly half the country just last year.

When stumping for then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in October 2024, Biden fixated on a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe about Puerto Rico during a humorous speech at a Trump rally in New York City — a rally that Walz had likened to a Nazi rally. Rather than brush off the joke, Biden apparently tried to outdo Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” smear.

“A speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something,” said Biden. “In my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

After Biden suggested that the over 77.3 million who would ultimately vote for Trump were “garbage,” Walz downplayed the remark when asked in a “CBS Mornings” interview whether that comment and others like it undercut the Democratic campaign’s “closing message of unity.”

“No, certainly not,” said Walz. “I think that the frustration we’ve seen since January 6, the frustration with Donald Trump’s rhetoric of division, it does fire passions.”

After suggesting on Thursday that Trump’s “garbage” remark was a first, Walz, a champion of racist DEI initiatives, said that “demonizing an entire group of people by their race and their ethnicity — a very group of people who contribute to the vitality, economic [sic], culture of this state is something I was hoping we’d never have to see. This is on top of all the other vile comments.”

The Democratic governor said that any officials in Minnesota who would not condemn Trump’s “vile attack” are “complicit in it.”

— (@)

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“Pop singer Karen Carpenter died this morning from complications of anorexia nervosa,” said the perfectly made-up anchorwoman on KTLA while I sat at the table eating my Raisin Bran.

It was one of those bright Southern California mornings in 1983. There’s something jarring about hearing awful news in a chipper tone of voice when the sun is out and a new day is starting. Of course I was sad to hear about Karen’s death; she was that nice lady with the prettiest voice in the world who sang “the Sesame Street song.”

I fear we’re watching a replay of what happened in the 1970s and ’80s, when anorexia nervosa spread rapidly through the culture.

Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad

A voice from God

It wasn’t until many years later that I felt a deeper sadness and loss when I contemplated Karen Carpenter’s death at 33. She had a voice from God that comes along once in a century if we’re lucky. We had all watched her slowly kill herself right there on television. Like most deeply troubled people, Karen denied that anything was wrong, even as she sat under the interview lights as a skeleton in a sweater.

We’re seeing the same thing today in our “stars,” but unlike the early 1980s, grown-up America seems to think it’s normal. Maybe even “empowered.”

“There are rumors, though, that you were suffering from the slimmer’s disease, from anorexia nervosa. Was that right?” a British interviewer said to Karen in 1981.

“No,” said Karen, rolling her eyes inside a face that looked like a moving skull, all jagged planes and bone surfaces shining through translucent skin.

No looking away

Two years later, Karen died on the floor of her mother’s upstairs closet in Downey, California, before she made it down for breakfast. Despite having recently been treated for anorexia and gaining back a modest amount of weight, the long-term damage Karen did to her heart and organs made them give out.

And everyone knew it would. Everyone talked about it. Most adults in that era had looked on with worried skepticism at the gaunt Twiggy when she became a top model in the 1960s. Everyone knew women on TV or at the office who dieted a little too hard. But America had never seen something as extreme as what happened to Karen Carpenter.

There was no looking away, no denying it. Karen stood on stage with Ella Fitzgerald for a TV special. She was barely able to stand up, and if she weighed 90 pounds, I’ll eat my hat. That velvet syrup voice was almost enough to distract from the approaching death, but not quite.

Do we even notice when our stars kill themselves in public today?

The Ozemporexia nervosa era

We’re entering our Ozemporexia nervosa era. As usual, few people are saying out loud what everyone already knows: People with troubled minds and troubled relationships to substances including food are taking the drugs to cover over, or to enhance, an eating disorder. The semaglutide injectable diabetes drugs work in part by chemically controlling appetite, so the primary reason these drugs are prescribed today is, of course, weight loss.

If you have turned on a computing device or entered a store within the past few months, you cannot avoid noticing the oversaturation of advertisements for the movie “Wicked: For Good.” This is the sequel to the movie “Wicked,” based on the long-running Broadway musical, itself based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel.

Maguire tells the story of the young Elphaba, the innocent green-skinned girl who would go on to terrorize Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire’s novel pioneered what has now become commonplace in our entertainment: recasting the evil, the sinister, and the villainous as misunderstood and traumatized wee harmless ones who are actually the heroes.

RELATED: Out-of-control Ozempic use means sad, saggy future for TL;DR generation

PHAS/Getty Images

Folie à deux

Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba, although her knife-edged cheekbones and six-inch acrylic talons are less witchy and more “Nosferatu.” The actress certainly seems to have the strange, self-absorbed charisma of a vampire, wasting away before our eyes even as she mesmerizes Hollywood into all manner of unnatural acts. Like casting her as Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

But it is in Erivo’s jarring relationship with fellow extreme ectomorph Ariana Grande — who co-stars as a young Glinda the Good — that we really sense the vampiric.

Like Erivo, Grande seems much frailer than she did just a few years ago. The two appear in public as if they were sewn together at the hip. In nearly every press interview for their “Wicked” movies, Erivo clicks her claws around Grande’s neck and head, fiddling with her jewelry in a creepily proprietary way. Or the two are holding hands as if they were waifs being introduced to grown-ups for the first time outside the orphanage.

Celebrities looking and acting weird. Big shock, right? This is Hollywood we’re talking about. The town is a magnet for dysfunctional people. Neglected, abused, and exploited children run for the big city lights so they can be beautiful, adored, and good enough in a way they could never be for their parents.

Eating disorders, addiction, and declining mental health all stem from these childhood circumstances, and they are worsened for those who choose fame as a means of “getting over” them.

The influence of anxiety

This is not to say that Erivo or Grande suffer from any of this or even that they use Ozempic. But their alarmingly thin bodies and their brittle, performative intimacy do not exist in a vacuum. While young people have been entranced by celebrity culture since the mid-20th century, the desperate absorption and imitation of every star’s psychiatric distress by ordinary American kids has never been as extreme as it is in 2025.

One can make a reasonable argument for using the semaglutide drugs to lose weight when one’s health is in jeopardy and other methods have not worked. Every patient has to run that calculation for herself and consider it with her doctor.

But I fear we are watching a replay of what happened in the 1970s and ’80s, when anorexia nervosa spread rapidly through the culture and clinicians noted that the intense public focus on Karen Carpenter’s illness seemed to accelerate the trend.

But this has a pharmaceutical assist that will give a “normal” brand name to what is just old-fashioned self-starvation.

All-ages contagion

British researcher Gerald Russell first described bulimia nervosa (binge eating, followed by purging, usually vomiting) in some of his anorexic patients in a paper published in the 1970s. He later shared his alarm that his paper, and the spread of terms and diagnostic language around the condition, may have caused it to spread among women in the Western population.

Russell was arguably correct, though he can’t be blamed for trying to help sufferers. Young women are especially vulnerable to trends and fads; they will do almost anything, no matter how potentially dangerous, to keep up with what their friends are doing. If Becca manages to keep her figure by discreetly puking up her lunch, why shouldn’t Caitlin?

Michelle Obama has recently displayed an alarming weight loss on a frame that didn’t have much to lose. On her Instagram she shared an behind-the-scenes image from her recent shoot with photographer Annie Leibovitiz.

At 61 years old, Obama is dressing in teen-style distressed jeans and clingy, skin-baring tops, showing off how her female curves are melting away.

Look at her face. Does this woman look healthy or happy?

No one left to notice

The problems that celebrities, normal young women, and some men and boys face about body image aren’t about a particular drug or a time-limited fashion trend. What we see today in Hollywood is not different from what we have always seen in the entertainment industry and among the kids and teens who consume it.

The problems begin at home — the home that no longer exists. Fatherlessness, divorce, and normalized neglectful, hands-off parenting have left today’s kids even more vulnerable to self destruction than those of my generation in the 1980s. And if you are old enough to remember what that was like, you remember plenty of screwed-up kids from screwed-up families.

It’s worse today because we’re pretending that it’s not wrong, that it’s not unhealthy. It has brand names and “rizz,” and besides, everyone is doing it. How can it be wrong?

In 1983, adults spoke about what happened to Karen Carpenter with alarm, and they said it out loud. Today, cool moms get glammed up along with their daughters in officially licensed Wicked(™) outfits and stand in line for tickets to watch the actresses perform “fun” while their minds and bodies decay.

Isn’t modernity wonderful?

​Celebrities, Karen carpenter, Anorexia, Ozempic, Semaglutide, Wicked, Cynthia erivo, Ariana grande, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Culture, Ozemporexia nervosa, Intervention 

Actor Simu Liu is begging Hollywood studios for more race-based casting — specifically, his race.

The Chinese-born, Canada-raised Liu recently took to social media to share a collage of screenshots of some of his fellow Asian actors lamenting how hard it is to land leading roles.

“Put some asians in literally anything right now,” Liu added as commentary. “The amount of backslide in our representation onscreen is f**king appalling.”

‘We’re fighting a deeply prejudiced system. And most days it SUCKS.’

White on rice

Citing Hollywood’s apparent fear that Asian-centric films are “risky,” Lui pointed out the success of movies like his 2022 Marvel debut, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” as well as 2018’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” which grossed $174 million in 2018 against a $30 million budget.

“No asian actor has ever lost a studio even close to 100 million dollars,” Liu ranted. “But a white dude will lose 200 million TWICE and roll right into the next tentpole lead. We’re fighting a deeply prejudiced system. And most days it SUCKS.”

RELATED: ‘The Acolyte’ star: Asians need a Tom Cruise of their own

Chinese checkers

Liu’s cries of systemic discrimination did not receive the eager welcome they might have just a few years ago.

On X, investigative journalist Robby Starbuck noted that the film industry in Liu’s native China largely employs Chinese actors.

“Almost none are White. Is that some kind of unfair prejudice too?” he asked. “No, it’s not.”

As Fandom Pulse reported, others mocked Liu’s apparent recycling of “woke talking points from 2018.”

Another reader stated, “Speaking as an asian: representation does not matter. Good stories matter. The right casting for the roles matter. Good acting matters.”

Asian persuasion

Back on Threads, however, Liu received a plethora of support from women who agreed that more Asian men should be in lead roles.

“The stories of Asians in the US go deep … the stories deserve to be told,” wrote Karen Johnstone.

While Jayne Nelson added, “I swear it’s slipping back to ‘third henchman from the left in a big fight scene’ and COME ON. It’s not the 1980s anymore.”

One of the actors cited in the original post Liu shared was “The Good Place” star Manny Jacinto, who complained about being cut out of a Tom Cruise movie in 2024.

“It’s up to us — Asian-Americans, people of color — to be that [for ourselves],” Jacinto said at the time. “We can’t wait for somebody else to do it. If we want bigger stories out there, we have to make them for ourselves.”

The other actors cited as making remarks were John Cho (“Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”), and Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost”).

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​Racism, Align, Hollywood, Asian, Production, Studios, Representation, Woke, Entertainment 

The 45-year-old male accused of slapping a New York University student’s backside and knocking her to the sidewalk while she was on her way to class earlier this week is a repeat sex offender who was paroled in September.

James Rizzo was arraigned late Wednesday night in Manhattan Criminal Court, WCBS-TV reported.

‘I let NYU security know to let students know that this man is going around doing this to other women.’

Rizzo — a Level 2 sex offender with 16 prior arrests and a history of violence against women— was paroled in September after serving time for sex abuse, the station said, citing the New York State Department of Corrections.

Police told WCBS that Rizzo kept on attacking women while he was out on parole.

RELATED: Illegal immigrant repeat offender arrested for rape — just days after his early release from jail for indecent exposure

The station said Rizzo appeared emotionless while pleading not guilty to three new assaults — all the victims women — at his arraignment. WCBS said the judge remanded Rizzo and that he is scheduled to appear in court again next week.

The station said the most recent alleged attack occurred Monday in Greenwich Village; surveillance video shows NYU student Amelia Lewis walking to class when the suspect slaps her backside and shoves her to the ground.

RELATED: Homelessness official melts down after board member objects to having ‘repeat sex offender’ who allegedly touched her inappropriately on their committee: ‘This is about equity!’

Lewis, 20, spoke about the incident on a Wednesday podcast, WCBS said.

“I wanted to report this, and after I did tell the cops I let NYU security know to let students know that this man is going around doing this to other women,” Lewis said, according to the station. “They also told me they were already aware of the man in the blue towel around his neck running around the city.”

Officials told the New York Daily News that Rizzo’s criminal history stretches back to the 1990s, when he stabbed a 74-year-old woman in the face during a burglary in Brooklyn.

The Daily News said Rizzo cut through a screen window at a home on East 83rd Street on June 13, 1997, and punched and stabbed his victim in the head before ransacking the residence. The paper, citing police, said a neighbor found the bloodied victim lying on the floor.

Cops arrested Rizzo and charged him with attempted murder, the Daily News said, adding that he ultimately pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to up to 54 months in prison.

More recently investigators told WABC that Rizzo randomly punched a 59-year-old woman on Mercer Street in December 2023. That same month, Rizzo was arrested for forcible touching when police said he groped a 33-year-old woman on Greene Street in Greenwich Village and asked, “Oh, you want more,” WABC-TV reported.

On Thanksgiving Day last week, Rizzo allegedly attacked 68-year-old Dianne Brazell from Houston as she was walking in Midtown Manhattan, WABC said, slamming her into glass.

“I have a laceration in my forehead that required six stitches,” Brazell said, according to WABC. “I have a bruise on my left leg from my knee to my ankle. I have a bruise on my left shoulder. I bit my tongue.”

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​Sex offender, New york university, College student, Slapping backside, New york city, James rizzo, Amelia lewis, Repeat offender, Arrest, Parole, Long criminal history, Violence against women, Crime 

“Peak oil” isn’t real. “Energy transition” isn’t happening. And the people claiming otherwise can’t even tell you the difference between a man and a woman.

Everything, everywhere, has become upside down. Wind on, wind off. Coal out, coal in. Up is down. Down is up. And the loudest activists insist we are seconds away from climate Armageddon unless we obey their every whim.

But whether anyone wakes up or not, the reality is the same: Fossil fuels will lead the energy future because no alternative can meet human need.

A political scientist calls this polarization. A driller and fracker like me would call it something else: BS.

Energy isn’t political. The world runs on it. And whether the professional hand-wringers like it or not, the world still needs us. So let me spill the beans.

Truth No. 1: The world needs more oil, and only we can deliver it

Under Joe Biden’s administration, oil and gas became the national punching bag. The Inflation Reduction Act jacked up federal royalties by a third. Banks and hedge funds blacklisted producers. Universities, churches, and even the pope lectured the industry.

Meanwhile, Ivy League dilettantes wrote policies so dumb they managed to create debt without decreasing emissions or improving the environment.

The same people who shriek “climate denialist” invented their own version of denial — blind faith in renewables and a refusal to acknowledge battery production’s ugly realities: strip mining, deforestation, acid rain, toxic sludge, heavy metals. All the things they accuse us of, they are doing at scale.

The irony is unbearable. And the truth they hate is simple: Without oil and gas, there wouldn’t be a tree or whale left alive.

Natural gas displaced coal and drove down atmospheric carbon dioxide. High-rate fracking kept lights on, raised life spans, and offered Sub-Saharan Africa its only shot at prosperity.

But the sniveling green fussbudgets? They don’t care about prosperity. They care about performance art. How exactly do they think humanity survives without fossil fuels? How do they think poor families can afford electricity under California-style economics and the onslaught of artificial intelligence?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told us the world ends in 2030. We’re halfway there. But Bill Gates now says we’re cool. So which is it?

Truth No. 2: Even ‘clean’ energy pollutes

I know fossil fuels pollute. So does every other energy source. Prospecting, drilling, producing, transporting, refining — yes, there is impact. That is Big Oil’s dirty truth.

But Big Shovel’s “clean energy” comes with its own filth: strip mines, solar dead zones, toxic smelting, and oceans of waste. Those industries just hide it better, with political cover from bought politicians and media stenographers who won’t touch the cons.

Humans need energy. Energy creates pollution. So the question isn’t whether we pollute.It’s how we keep 10.3 billion people alive in the next 50 years.

And right now? Renewables are a rich man’s game.

Africa proves it. Over 20% face hunger every day. Cheap, abundant energy could fix it. But activists want to force the people into windmills and solar panels whose components are dug out of slave-run mines.

Look at our southern border. Millions are pouring north not for “equity,” but because America has the best quality of life on Earth — which exists because we consume more energy than anyone.

Energy means survival, prosperity, and dignity for billions of people.

Truth No. 3: The haters suddenly need us again

Oil producers aren’t hated as much now — we’re just disliked. I’ll take it.

Even Silicon Valley is crawling back. Its AI data centers run on natural gas. Funny how the moral sermons stop the moment the servers start overheating.

Remember Engine No. 1, the ESG crusaders who infiltrated Exxon’s board to “transition” it? Four years later, they’re trying to take over Chevron … to buy natural gas.

Money talks. Ideology walks.

Truth No. 4: Oil is hurting, but opportunity is coming

Prices are descending. Layoffs are beginning. At $60 oil, we’re stuck in neutral. At $50, we hit reverse. And if we go down, so does steel — each horizontal well uses five miles of it.

But downturns create opportunities. Out-of-favor assets become bargains. And I’m betting on growth now, not later.

Because within a year, oil may flip into contango — where future prices rise above today’s. Why? No spare capacity, underinvestment, poor exploration results, the coming twilight of U.S. shale, and low reserves will finally move prices up.

Even with short-term builds of 2 to 4 million barrels per day, prices are holding. In real demand destruction, we’d be in the 40s. We’re not. Because the world still needs more oil.

RELATED: Bill Gates quietly retires climate terror as AI takes the throne

bymuratdeniz via iStock/Getty Images

China’s demand is climbing. India’s demand is just beginning. U.S. consumption is higher this year than in recent years. Europe is crawling back to coal, oil, and gas.

OPEC and the International Energy Agency — some of the greenest bureaucrats alive — both agree: The world will need 123 million barrels a day within 20 years. That’s up from around 105 million barrels today.

And don’t forget: Oil declines 5% per year if not replenished. You need over 5 million barrels per day just to stay even.

Truth No. 5: Reality always wins

In a world with rising demand and shrinking supply, something’s got to give. Maybe the ideologues will finally admit we need every energy source. Maybe the public will tire of being lectured by activists gluing themselves to asphalt. Maybe logic returns.

Maybe — just maybe — we stop treating oil like a villain and start treating it like civilization’s backbone.

But whether anyone wakes up or not, the reality is the same: Fossil fuels will lead the energy future because no alternative can meet human need.

You can deny reality. But reality won’t deny you.

​Opinion & analysis, Energy, Energy prices, Green energy, Fracking, Shale, Oil and gas, Oil and gas prices, Climate change, Bill gates, Opec, International energy agency, Whales, Trees, Prosperity, Economy, Economic growth, Supply and demand 

ChatGPT has dominated the AI space, bringing the first generative AI platform to market and earning the lion’s share of users that grows every month. However, despite its popularity and huge investments from partners like Microsoft, SoftBank, NVIDIA, and many more, its parent company, OpenAI, is bleeding money faster than it can make it, begging the question: What happens to the generative AI market when its pioneering leader bursts into flames?

A brief history of LLMs

OpenAI essentially kicked off the AI race as we know it. Launching three years ago on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT introduced the world to the power of large language models LLMs and generative AI, completely uncontested. There was nothing else like it.

OpenAI lost $11.5 billion in the last quarter and needs $207 billion to stay afloat.

At the time, Google’s DeepMind lab was still testing its Language Model for Dialogue Applications. You might even remember a story from early 2022 about Google engineer Blake Lemoine, who claimed that Google’s AI was so smart that it had a soul. He was later fired from Google for his comments, but the model he referenced was the same one that became Google Bard, which then became Gemini.

As for the other top names in the generative AI race, Meta launched Llama in February 2023, Anthropic introduced the world to Claude in March 2023, Elon Musk’s Grok hit the scene in November 2023, and there are many more beneath them.

Needless to say, OpenAI had a huge head start, becoming the market leader overnight and holding that position for months before the first competitor came along. On a competitive level, all major platforms have generally caught up to each other, but ChatGPT still leads with 800 million weekly active users, followed by Meta with one billion monthly active users, Gemini at 650 million monthly active users, Grok at 30.1 million monthly active users, and Claude with 30 million monthly active users.

Financial turmoil for OpenAI

Just because ChatGPT is the leading generative AI platform does not mean the company is in good shape. According to a November earnings report from Microsoft — a major early backer of OpenAI — the AI juggernaut lost $11.5 billion in the last quarter alone. To make matters even worse, a new report suggests that OpenAI has no path to profitability until at least 2030 or later, and it needs to raise $207 billion in the interim to stay afloat.

By all accounts, OpenAI is in serious financial trouble. It is bleeding money faster than it makes it, and unless something changes, the generative AI pioneer could be on the verge of a complete collapse. That is, unless one of these Hail Marys can save the company.

RELATED: GOD-TIER AI? Why there’s no easy exit from the human condition

Photo By David Zorrakino/Europa Press via Getty Images

The bid to save OpenAI

OpenAI is currently looking into several potential revenue streams to turn its financial woes around. There’s no telling which ones will pan out quite yet, but these are the options we know so far:

For-profit restructure

When OpenAI first emerged, it was a nonprofit company with the goal to improve humanity through generative AI. Fast-forward to October 2025 — OpenAI is now a for-profit organization with a separate nonprofit group called the OpenAI Foundation. While the move will allow OpenAI’s profit arm to increase its earning potential and raise vital capital, it also received a fair share of criticism, especially from Elon Musk, who filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for reneging on its original promise.

A record-breaking IPO

Another big perk of its new for-profit restructure, OpenAI now has the power to go public on the stock market. According to an exclusive report published by Reuters in late October, OpenAI is putting the puzzle pieces together for a record-breaking IPO that could be worth up to $1 trillion. Not only would the move make OpenAI a publicly traded company with stock options, it would also give it more access to capital and acquisitions to further bolster its products, services, and economic stability.

Ad monetization

Online ads are the lifeblood of many online websites and services, from Google to social media apps like Facebook to mainstream media and more. While AI platforms have largely stayed away from injecting ads into their results, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that he’s “open to accepting a transaction fee” for certain queries.

In his ideal ad model, OpenAI could potentially take a cut of any products or services that users look for and buy through ChatGPT. This structure is different from how Google operates, by letting companies pay to bring their products to the top of search results, even if the products they sell are poorly made. Altman believes that his structure is better for users and would foster greater trust in ChatGPT.

Government projects and deals

While Altman recently denied that he’s seeking a government bailout for OpenAI’s financial troubles, the company can still benefit from government deals and projects, the most recent one being Stargate. As a new initiative backed by some of the biggest players in the AI space, Stargate will give OpenAI access to greater computing power, training resources, and owned infrastructure to lower expenses and increase the speed of innovation as they work on future AI models.

If OpenAI fails …

While OpenAI has several monetization options on the table — and perhaps even more that we don’t know about yet — none of them are a magic bullet that’s guaranteed to work. The company could still collapse, which brings us to our question at the top of the article: What happens to the generative AI market if OpenAI fails?

In a world where OpenAI fizzles entirely, there are several other platforms that will likely fill the void. Google is the top contender, thanks to the huge progress it made with Gemini 3, but Meta, xAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and more will all want a piece.

That said, OpenAI isn’t the only AI platform struggling to make money. According to Harvard Business Review, the AI business model simply isn’t profitable, largely due to high maintenance costs, huge salaries for top AI talent, and a low-paying subscriber base. In order to keep the generative AI dream alive, companies will need a consistent flow of capital, a resource that’s more accessible for established companies with diverse product portfolios — like Google and Meta — while the new companies that only build LLMs (OpenAI and Claude) will continue to struggle.

At this stage in the AI race, there’s no doubt in my mind that the whole generative AI market is a big bubble waiting to burst. At the same time, AI products have been so fervently foisted on society that it all feels too big to fail. With huge initiatives like Stargate poised to beat China and other foreign nations to artificial general intelligence AGI, the AI race will continue, even if OpenAI no longer leads the charge. If I were a betting man, though, I would guess that someone important finds a way to keep Sam Altman’s brain child afloat one way or another, even as all signs point toward OpenAI spending itself out of business.

​Tech, Openai, Ai, Economy 

In an age when government grows with the regularity of the sunrise and the humility of a bonfire, Dan Mitchell’s “20 Theorems of Government” land not as abstractions but as reminders of truths America’s founders understood almost instinctively. The theorems, devised by the co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, capture the recurring failures of centralized authority and the virtues of free people operating in free markets.

These theorems are not predictions. They are explanations of what government always does when left unchecked and how society always suffers when the state’s reach exceeds the citizen’s grasp.

The problem is not the quality of the people in government. The problem is the nature of government itself.

Mitchell’s First Theorem, which describes how Washington actually functions, could be carved above every federal agency door. Politics rewards the spending of other people’s money for other people’s benefit. The entire system is designed to avoid accountability and to maximize political reward. Once you accept that incentives drive outcomes, the rest of the theorems follow naturally.

The Second and Third Theorems make this point bluntly. Any new program will grow, metastasize, and waste money. Centralization magnifies inefficiency because bureaucracies face no competition, no profit-and-loss constraint, and no personal consequences for failure. When the private sector gets something wrong, it pays for its mistake. When government gets something wrong, it demands a larger budget.

Theorems Four through Seven widen the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality. Good policy can be good politics, but incentives push politicians toward superficial fixes and short-term gratification. Even strong ideas rot inside bureaucratic execution. And the larger the government becomes, the more incompetent and unresponsive it grows. Bureaucrats answer to political pressure, not consumer choice, and the results are inevitable: waste, rigidity, and indifference.

The Eighth through 10th Theorems confront the moral dimension of government overreach. Politicians who obsess over inequality rarely seek to lift up the poor; they seek justification for more control. Crises — real or imaginary — become tools for expanding that control. And politics almost always overwhelms principle. This is not cynicism. It is observation backed by centuries of evidence.

Theorems 11 through 15 dismantle common misconceptions. Big business is not the same thing as free enterprise. In many cases, it is free enterprise’s most persistent enemy. Corporations often work hand in hand with government to protect themselves from competition. Meanwhile, anyone who opposes entitlement reform is endorsing massive, broad-based tax hikes, because arithmetic leaves no other option. You cannot fund European-style welfare states without European-style taxation. And history shows voters resist paying for the bloated government they claim to want.

RELATED: Free markets don’t need federal babysitters

Afry Harvy via iStock/Getty Images

This leads naturally to the 16th and 17th Theorems. Economic progress becomes a race between private innovation and public consumption. When government grows faster than the private sector can produce, stagnation follows. Worse, when dependency becomes a norm, the cultural foundations of liberty erode. A nation that forgets how to rely on itself cannot long remain free.

The final three theorems complete the picture. Climate policy becomes hypocrisy when elites demand sacrifice from others while refusing it themselves. Politicians operate under incentives that reward short-term benefit at long-term cost. And the fiscal results — from rising deficits to ever-multiplying promises — are exactly what those incentives predict.

Taken together, Mitchell’s 20 Theorems point to a conclusion Milton Friedman drew decades ago: The problem is not the quality of the people in government; the problem is the nature of government itself. A government that grows without limit will, eventually and inevitably, burden the citizens it claims to serve.

If Americans wish to preserve both prosperity and freedom, they will have to internalize these theorems as practical truths, not relics of libertarian theory. The path forward is not mysterious. Limit government. Unleash markets. These principles are old — and their urgency has never been greater.

​Opinion & analysis, Politics, Power, Centralization, Incentives, Government waste, Taxes, Spending, Debt, Waste fraud and abuse, Milton friedman, Welfare state, Europe, Politicians, Liberty, Self-government, Freedom, Big government, Policy, Tyranny, Free markets 

Remember when Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency started combing through federal spending with a fine-tooth comb and making commonsense cuts, and the Democrats had a tantrum of epic proportions?

That’s because they didn’t want the American people to know about all their little NGOs that intentionally “fund our destruction.” They didn’t want us to find out about the billions of dollars in Obamacare fraud, Glenn Beck says.

On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office published a report addressing fraud in the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Titled “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Preliminary Results from Ongoing Review Suggest Fraud Risks in the Advance Premium Tax Credit Persist,” the report reveals the following key findings:

GAO ran fake applicants through the system, and almost all of them still got approved for subsidized coverage, even when identity proofing failed up front and they submitted bogus documents.In 2023, there were over $21 billion in premium tax credits that the IRS couldn’t match to filed tax returns — meaning that money was likely issued to ineligible people or in the wrong amounts.In 2023, about 58,000 people listed were flagged as deceased who still appeared to have subsidies paid on their behalf, roughly $94 million in total.There were 29,000 instances of the same Social Security number used across multiple plans, including one extreme case where a single SSN was tied to more than 125 policies. From January to August 2024, CMS logged about 275,000 complaints from people saying they were enrolled or switched into plans without their consent.In 2018, CMS tested the system’s susceptibility to fraud and found numerous high-risk issues, yet has failed to make any changes or reassess since.

But don’t get upset yet, because the worst part comes next.

“These are the exact same findings the GAO had in 2015/2016. … It is literally word for word almost the same findings,” says Glenn’s chief researcher, Jason Buttrill.

Glenn is deeply disturbed by the GAO’s report.

“When a government becomes this incompetent and unaccountable, your country starts to completely fall apart,” he sighs.

“We see Democrats now rushing to the microphone to defend the perpetrators, the judges that are reversing verdicts to protect the people who stole from you. I contend that the people that are rushing to the microphones to defend it are the people who have been covering this up,” he speculates.

The people behind this fraud — whether they committed or overlooked it — should go to jail, he says, and anyone who disagrees is just “brainwashed.”

Although the country is suffering from “foreign invasion,” “internal strife,” and “financial collapse,” it is “internal corruption” that will be our ultimate downfall, he warns.

“Stop the fraud,” he pleads.

“Our country will not survive if we continue to normalize this stuff,” he adds.

To hear more of Glenn’s response to the GAO’s disturbing report, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Obamacare, Healthcare, Gao, Gao report, Doge, Government accountability office, Fraud, Waste fraud and abuse, Blazetv, Blaze media 

A California community is reeling after hearing the news that a local pastor was allegedly caught trying to meet a person he thought was a minor for sex.

James David Stockton, 54, was arrested on Saturday by Signal Hill police after an online citizen group called “Caught Fished” said it had documented inappropriate messages with the pastor.

‘He got into the nasty part that no pastor should be talking about.’

Stockton is the pastor at South Bay Church of God in Torrance. He ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2024, and before that he was a leader of the NAACP in Marion County.

The group provided some of the texts to KTTV-TV and said that Stockton knew the decoy was claiming to be 16 years old and in high school.

“What time you get out of school today?” read one text allegedly from Stockton.

“I promise to be gentle and make sure you are enjoying it,” read another.

The founder of the citizen group, named Antoine, said it got very explicit at that point.

“He got into the nasty part that no pastor should be talking about,” he told KTTV.

Stockton was defeated in his campaign by Rep. Randy Fine (R), who currently holds the office.

The church appears to have scrubbed a webpage indicating Stockton was their pastor, according to a KTTV-TV report.

“We don’t know anything, other than what we see on the video,” a member of the church said to KTTV. “But it was a shock to us, as everybody else.”

RELATED: Texas man pretended to be a minor online in order to track down sex offender and left him dead in a ditch, police say

The pastor was released on his own recognizance on Tuesday after pleading not guilty to a felony count of arranging to meet a minor for lewd purposes.

Stockton is due back in court on Dec. 12.

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​James david stockton, Caught fished, Online predator, Pastor minor sex, Crime 

Republican Matt Van Epps has won a special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District — a race the media immediately framed as “shockingly close,” a supposed omen of GOP collapse heading into next year’s midterms.

That is how the Independent described it. Nearly every major outlet followed the same script: Van Epps “squeaked through,” “barely won,” or “scraped by” against flaky Democrat Aftyn Behn — a candidate so culturally radical she publicly insists that men can give birth and openly sneered at the people and culture of the district she sought to represent.

The Tennessee race did not expose a Republican crisis so much as it exposed the cultural realignment reshaping the country.

The narrative writes itself: If a progressive activist who hates her own potential constituents nearly flipped a House seat in deep-red Tennessee, then “fascist” Donald Trump and the Republican Party must be in free fall.

The problem? None of that holds up.

Van Epps did not “squeeze through” anything. He won by nine points against an opponent backed by a tidal wave of out-of-state woke-capitalist money. Democrats outspent Republicans roughly 2-1. Even so, Van Epps secured a solid victory, not the “humiliating near-defeat” hallucinated by the Daily Beast and dutifully echoed across left-wing media.

Context also matters, and the press prefers to ignore it. In 2022, Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District was redrawn to pull in more of deep-blue Nashville. Van Epps’ predecessor, Rep. Mark Green, warned that packing more of the city’s electorate into the district would narrow future margins. That change did not stop Trump or Green from running up impressive totals in their home territory, but it guarantees a steeper climb for any Republican candidate.

Viewed in that light, a nine-point GOP win looks less like a crisis and more like a stable hold in a reshaped district.

Another reality the press downplays: Republicans carried their traditional coalition — small-town and rural voters, self-identified Christians, the suburban families who still vote their interests. GOP turnout operations clearly did their job in a midterm environment that does not exactly thrill Republican voters.

Urban support for Republicans, however, continues to erode, and that pattern now shows up nationwide. The notion that “wokeness is over” or that the left has moderated itself belongs to fantasy. More than 80% of Nashville voters lined up behind Behn, a candidate who often sounded like a woke caricature conjured by a far-right blogger. New York City voters backed Zohran Mamdani in overwhelming fashion. Seattle just elevated a Mamdani clone to the mayor’s office. Claims that woke politics melted away do not survive contact with the vote totals.

RELATED: Young, broke, and voting blue: 2025’s harsh lesson for the right

Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images

The role of upscale left-wing donors — woke capitalists — also deserves attention. These people do not operate as Marxists or socialists in any serious sense. They behave like cultural revolutionaries with money and influence, eager to use redistribution as a tool to reshape society. They have no problem talking about higher taxes on “the rich,” because the true cost lands on the working and middle classes through lower wages and higher prices. They bankroll candidates like Behn because they want a different country — one less anchored in the values of the people who actually live in places like Tennessee’s 7th.

The special election in Tennessee reflects the same class conflict now defining national politics. Cultural polarization keeps intensifying, and Tuesday’s special election showcased that reality in miniature.

“Affordability” only partially explains the anti-Trump, pro-left tilt in certain electorates. A far worse economy, with rampant inflation and rising medical and food costs, did not prevent the Biden administration from outperforming expectations in the midterms. Something deeper drives that trend.

The Tennessee race did not expose a Republican crisis so much as it exposed the cultural realignment reshaping the country. That shift will not simply fade away, no matter how often the media insists otherwise.

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Nearly five years after “live, active” pipe bombs were discovered at the RNC and DNC headquarters on January 6, 2021, a suspect is now in custody.

On Thursday, the DOJ announced that 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr. of Woodbridge, Virginia, has been arrested. Cole lives with his mother and other family members and works in the office of a bail bondsman, according to an FBI affidavit.

‘Today’s arrest happened because the Trump administration has made this case a priority.’

At a press conference alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, and others, D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro revealed that Cole was arrested for allegedly transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and attempted malicious destruction by means of explosive materials.

Citing the ongoing investigation, the officials shared few details about the sequence of events that led to Cole’s arrest, but they insisted that the evidence against Cole was not based on any “new tip,” just old-fashioned detective work.

“This wasn’t a new tip. It wasn’t some new evidence. It was the hard work of President Trump’s administration, Deputy Director Bongino, and Director Patel,” Bondi reiterated.

“Today’s arrest happened because the Trump administration has made this case a priority,” Bondi insisted.

“This is what it’s like when you work for a president who tells you to go get the bad guys and stop focusing on other extraneous things not related to law enforcement,” Bongino added.

Bondi further claimed that under the Biden administration, the evidence was “sitting there, collecting dust.” Such “total lack of movement” during the four years under Biden “undermined the public trust of our enforcement agencies,” she said.

Bongino did confirm that “forensic evidence” played a role in the arrest, but did not elaborate further. The officials declined to weigh in on a possible motive.

Patel indicated that Cole is believed to have “made [the] bombs,” and Bondi stated he was charged with “placing” them at the RNC and DNC on January 5, 2021.

The officials reiterated that further charges may be forthcoming and that the investigation is still in its early stages.

“We are the most transparent law enforcement operation in U.S. history, but we are also going to make sure accountability is delivered to its fullest extent,” Patel said. “And that happens in the courts of law, with our U.S. attorneys and our prosecutors. So we will divulge information when it is prudent and constitutionally permissible, while upholding the safeguards of this case, to make sure that the people that this individual intended to victimize get the accountability they deserve.”

“He will have his day in court.”

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The FBI affidavit dated Dec. 3 revealed more details about the evidence against Cole. Investigators were able to link materials used in the bombs — including galvanized pipes, end caps, wires, nine-volt battery connectors, and kitchen-style timers — as well as other items that may have been used during the construction process — such as wire nuts, safety glasses, and sandpaper — to purchases made by Cole.

A cell phone connected to Cole also pinged off of multiple cell towers near the RNC and DNC during the time the bombs were believed to have been placed, the affidavit said.

At 7:10 p.m. on January 5, a 2017 Nissan Sentra registered to Cole was likewise observed “less than one-half mile from the location where the individual who placed the devices was first observed on foot … at 7:34 p.m.” The alleged 7:10 p.m. observation of Cole’s vehicle came just five minutes before his cell phone “began to interact with Provider towers in the area,” 44 minutes before the DNC bomb was allegedly placed, and 66 minutes before the RNC bomb was allegedly placed, the affidavit indicated.

Cole’s height and use of eyeglasses also seem to correspond to the suspect spotted on surveillance footage, the affidavit claimed.

A Nov. 8 Blaze News investigation confirmed by several intelligence sources reported that a gait analysis of a former Capitol Police officer was a forensic match to the gait of the long-sought Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect. Today, the FBI announced that a Virginia resident, Brian Cole Jr., has been arrested in connection with the pipe-bomb incident. At this point, there is no indication that the individual matched through the gait analysis is a suspect or involved in the FBI’s investigation.

An attorney for the Capitol Police officer has since denied the allegations on her behalf, and CBS News reported that the FBI ruled out her involvement, citing three unidentified sources who said there was a video of her playing with her puppies at the time the device was planted.

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​Politics 

The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily approved the redistricting map in Texas for the midterm election over the dissent of the liberal justices.

The 5-3 partisan vote means Republicans will likely gain several seats from Texas. The decision blocks a lower court injunction just as politicians begin to qualify for elections in the state.

‘Congratulations to Texas for advancing the rule of law.’

The court has not yet issued a permanent decision on the lawsuit, claiming that the redistricting effort pushed by Republicans is discriminatory and unlawful.

Republicans hope the redrawn map will lead to five additional seats in the U.S. House, but Democrats have countered with their own redistricting effort, including one in California.

The Trump administration is suing against the new district map in California.

“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown previously wrote in the Texas case. “But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi praised the decision on social media.

“Federal courts have no right to interfere with a State’s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons,” she asserted.

“A federal district court ignored that principle two weeks ago, and the Supreme Court correctly stayed that overreaching decision tonight,” she added. “Congratulations to Texas for advancing the rule of law, my Solicitor General John Sauer, and our team of lawyers for their excellent brief supporting Texas in this important case.”

RELATED: Gov. Hochul says New York is jumping into redistricting feud between California and Texas

The redistricting effort in California was championed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who campaigned to push the proposition by characterizing it as a chance for Californians to push back against President Donald Trump.

The president accused them of rigging the election for the redistricting proposition, which passed easily.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump said at the time. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review.”

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While more and more revelations are being made about massive fraud schemes orchestrated by members of the Somali migrant community in Minnesota, at least one station is making a valiant effort to cover up the problem.

A KSTP-TV report looked at the economic impact of Somali immigrants in Minnesota after President Donald Trump issued a fiery statement accusing them of adding nothing to the economy.

‘It’s easy to “generate” $500 million in “income” when you steal over [$1 billion] from US taxpayers.’

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he said in response to criticism from Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Tuesday.

“These are people that do nothing but complain,” he added. “They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing. … When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

KSTP went to the community and got its reaction to the president’s comments.

“We’re a hardworking family. We’re working seven days a week,” said restaurant owner Abdishakur Elmi, who moved to the U.S. in the 1990s.

“Me and my dad, we work hard every single day,” added his son, Abdihakin Daud.

The report went on to claim that Somalis in Minnesota generate about $500 million in annual income and pay about $67 million in state and local taxes. He added that their economic impact to the state could be about $8 billion.

Many online found the stats to be deceiving or unpersuasive.

“So they only owe, what, $933,000,000.00 for the autism center fraud alone? Excellent propaganda point,” replied Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist.

“It’s easy to ‘generate’ $500 million in ‘income’ when you steal over [$1 billion] from U.S. taxpayers. The media isn’t doing its job here,” another user said.

“As several other people have pointed out, this implies that Somali immigrants in Minnesota are large net recipients of state & local public services,” another comment reads.

“It’s bizarre to see the media and politicians defending this massive Somali fraud ring. These criminals stole over a billion dollars of taxpayer money, diverting much of it to Democrat politicians and literal terrorists. That’s bad actually. Objectively so. Stop defending this!” another detractor said.

RELATED: Trump announces investigation into massive COVID fraud scheme by Somali community, accuses Walz of obstruction

“The whole debacle with the Somali fraud in Minnesota is pushing the media into a frenzy of news spinning to the point that they post information that is actually highly negative for the Somali community when you start analyzing it,” another user said.

A Blaze News request for comment to KSTP was not immediately answered.

Daud also told KSTP that they had received threatening calls at their restaurant.

“The guy was cussing my dad out. ‘Go back to your country. You’re a filthy Somali. You shouldn’t be in our state,'” Daud said.

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Most parents assume that when they send their children to college in the South, they’ll be marked safe from transgender ideology rearing its head in their classrooms.

However, it appears that they’ve assumed wrong.

Now a student at the University of Oklahoma has filed a discrimination report against a transgender instructor who failed her for referencing the Bible in an essay response to an article about gender stereotypes.

The student, Samantha Fulnecky, disagreed with the premise of the article but made sure her response worked well within the prompt’s guidelines — using the Bible to argue against the notion that there are multiple genders.

“Apparently the trans instructor didn’t like that very much and gave her a 0 as her grade,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

In her essay, Fulnecky wrote, “I strongly disagree with the idea from the article that encouraging acceptance of diverse gender expressions could improve students’ confidence. Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth.”

“My prayer for the world and specifically for American society and youth is that they would not believe the lies being spread from Satan that make them believe they are better off as another gender than what God made them,” she continued.

“My first reaction is why are you asking the students to write an essay about this in the first place? It seems to me like there are far better things that you could be teaching them rather than having them waste their precious time explaining something like ‘boys have penises and girls have vaginas,’” Gonzales comments.

“But then again, we are dealing with a mentally ill professor,” she continues, noting that when the New York Times covered the story, it conveniently left the part about the professor being transgender out.

“I find that part fascinating,” Gonzales comments.

The professor, who calls himself “Mel Curth,” responds, “I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but instead I am deducting points for you posting a reaction paper that does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”

“Additionally to call an entire group of people ‘demonic’ is highly offensive, especially a minoritized population,” he added.

“Seems to me like it’s entirely about her beliefs,” Gonzales comments, adding, “and the fact that she stood up for her, of course, Christian worldview.”

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The American consumer did not fall for accusations of “fascism” and “racism” against a controversial jeans ad featuring Sydney Sweeney, according to the company’s profit margins.

The American Eagle company raised its annual sales forecast after seeing higher holiday sales, and that resulted in its stock price surging by nearly 15% in early trading Thursday.

American Eagle said it expected holiday sales to increase between 8% and 9%.

That adds up to over a 139% increase in the stock price of the retailer since July when the jeans ad dropped.

Leftist commentators on TikTok and other platforms lambasted the video ad for including provocative scenes with the blonde, blue-eyed actress while she praised the quality of her jeans.

“Should we be surprised that a company whose name is literally American Eagle is making fascist propaganda like this? Probably not. But it’s still really shocking. Like, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman is talking about her good genes. Like, that is Nazi propaganda!” one user said.

“If you haven’t fully comprehended how bad it is, I need you to open your f**king eyeballs and listen. This is Nazi s**t, pure Nazi s**t! Saying that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl has good genes is Nazi s**t! Saying anybody has good genes is eugenics. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed? Nazi s**t!” another user said.

Many on the right mocked and ridiculed the overreaction, and it appears that the consumer was not repelled by the controversy.

American Eagle said it expected holiday sales to increase between 8% and 9%.

RELATED: American Eagle responds defiantly to woke scolds claiming Sweeney ad is Nazi propaganda

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Even President Donald Trump jumped into the debate and praised the ad after being told that she’s a registered Republican.

“She’s a registered Republican? Oh, now I love her ad. Is that right?” the president said to reporters at the White House in August.

“You’d be surprised at how many people are Republicans,” Trump added. “That’s one I wouldn’t have known, but I’m glad you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.”

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