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The Trump administration has delivered numerous wins on the “Make America Health Again” front. For example, it took steps to remove damaging fluoride drug products for children from the market; canceled mRNA vaccine development contracts; and took meaningful steps toward eliminating harmful synthetic dyes and other additives from the food supply.

Some of those in the MAHA movement accustomed to winning were shocked to learn this week that President Donald Trump is pushing for an increase in the production of controversial glyphosate-based herbicides.

Trump suggested in an executive order on Wednesday that “glyphosate-based herbicides are a cornerstone of this Nation’s agricultural productivity and rural economy” and that diminished access to such weed-killers would “result in economic losses for growers and make it untenable for them to meet growing food and feed demands.”

‘The Chemical Lobby is controlling Washington.’

Characterizing production of glyphosate-based herbicides as “central to American economic and national security,” Trump invoked the Defense Production Act of 1950 and tasked Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins with “ensuring a continued and adequate supply.”

The president’s order also provides legal immunity to those American manufacturers ordered to produce glyphosate-related herbicides.

Glyphosate, first registered for use in America in 1974, is one of the most widely used pesticides in the country. Like various other official bodies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claims that “there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label” and that it “is unlikely to be a human carcinogen.”

RELATED: The Supreme Court can protect families or protect corporate cover-ups

Photo by: Bill Barksdale/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Many remain skeptical of the ubiquitous herbicide and its impact on human health, not least because of its classification by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The report released in May by Trump’s MAHA Commission noted that “a selection of research studies on a herbicide (glyphosate) have noted a range of possible health effects, ranging from reproductive and developmental disorders as well as [sic] cancers, live inflammation and metabolic disturbances.”

A 2023 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, which was referenced in the MAHA report, suggested that childhood exposure to glyphosate and its degradation product, aminomethylphosphonic acid, “may increase risk of liver and cardiometabolic disorders in early adulthood, which could lead to more serious diseases later in life.”

A 2019 study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ found an association between the risk of autism spectrum disorder and prenatal exposure to glyphosate. The researchers noted that their findings “suggest that an offspring’s risk of autism spectrum disorder increases following prenatal exposure to ambient pesticides within 2000 m of their mother’s residence during pregnancy, compared with offspring of women from the same agricultural region without such exposure.”

A long-term study published last year in the journal Environmental Health found that low doses of the herbicide caused various kinds of cancers in rats. The researchers noted that their findings not only “support the IARC conclusion that there is ‘sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity [of glyphosate] in experimental animals,” but are “consistent also with the epidemiological evidence showing increases in incidence of multiple malignancies in humans exposed to glyphosate and GBHs.”

Zen Honeycutt, a MAHA activist who serves as executive director of Moms Across America, told the Defender, “The implications of this executive order are irreversible.”

“Not only has Trump gone back on his word to go after pesticides, destroying the delicate trust that was being built by the MAHA movement with the government, but he paved the path for glyphosate to continue destroying farmland, fertility, and our families’ health for generations to come,” added Honeycutt.

Toxicologist Alexandra Munoz tweeted, “The executive branch has just endorsed a carcinogen and enshrined it. This is outrageous and unacceptable.”

Vani Hari, a critic of the food industry who founded Food Babe, wrote, “EVERY PRESIDENT since glyphosate was invented has increased the amount of glyphosate being sprayed on our farm land. The Chemical Lobby is controlling Washington, no matter who is in charge & this is why I hate politics.”

Trump’s executive order was issued the day after Bayer, the company that acquired the glyphosate-carrying product Roundup from Monsanto, announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement to resolve thousands of American lawsuits alleging that the agrochemical giant neglected to warn people that Roundup could cause cancer.

Bayer noted that “the settlement agreements do not contain any admission of liability or wrongdoing.”

Bill Anderson, CEO of Bayer, added in a statement: “The proposed class settlement agreement, together with the Supreme Court case, provides an essential path out of the litigation uncertainty and enables us to devote our full attention to furthering the innovations that lie at the core of our mission: Health for all, Hunger for none.”

Bayer gave $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration committee fund.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended Trump’s glyphosate initiative, telling CNBC in a statement on Thursday, “Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply.”

“We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it,” continued Kennedy. “When hostile actors control critical inputs, they weaken our security. By expanding domestic production, we close that gap and protect American families.”

Kennedy previously called glyphosate a “poison.” He also helped Dewayne Johnson, a former school groundskeeper, in his legal battle against Monsanto. A jury found that Roundup caused Johnson’s cancer and that Monsanto neglected to properly warn the public about the risks in its marketing.

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​Glyphosate, Herbicide, Pesticide, Chemical, Cancer, Carcinogen, Maha, Make american healthy again, Health, Regulatory, Big agriculture, Politics 

Zohran Mamdani has wasted no time turning religious language into shocking political branding. This month, he invoked Muhammad while defending Democrats’ mass-migration posture. He also became the first New York City mayor to skip the installation of a Catholic archbishop.

Public officials can practice any faith. They can speak openly about it. The line gets crossed when government starts treating one religion as a protected political category — especially through the criminal code.

To overthrow liberal democracy, the far left needs Islam’s numbers, while Islam needs the far left’s organization.

That line is about to be obliterated in Virginia.

A Bangladesh-born Democrat state senator, Saddam Azlan Salim, introduced SB624, a bill aimed at writing a formal definition of “Islamophobia” into Virginia’s assault and battery laws. The bill would single out Islam for special treatment. No other religion would receive the same statutory carve-out.

The bill defines Islamophobia as “malicious prejudice or hatred directed toward Islam or Muslims.” The definition applies “regardless of whether the victim is actually a practitioner of Islam, provided that the perpetrator targeted such victim based on a perceived adherence to such faith.”

Is it Islamophobic to walk a dog or eat bacon or spread the gospel in the presence of a devout Muslim? If not, why not? And do we really want to test it?

People use Islamophobia as a cudgel to silence legitimate criticism of doctrine, immigration policy, and jihadism at home and abroad. A vague, politically loaded term does not belong in criminal law. It invites selective enforcement. It chills speech. It hands politicians a ready-made pretext to jail dissenters.

Call it what it is: one more step toward a blasphemy-style speech regime, enforced by the state.

In a world in which leftists — and even some conservatives — believe “hate speech isn’t free speech,” Salim’s bill should set off alarm bells for any civil liberties group that claims to defend the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.

And yet the American Civil Liberties Union has remained resolutely silent.

The ACLU’s “Religious Liberty” page claims it exists “to safeguard the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty by ensuring that laws and governmental practices neither promote religion nor interfere with its free exercise.”

Given that Islam commands the erasure any kind of secular and sectarian division, you’d think the ACLU’s rabid dogs would be on guard against its encroachment.

Instead, the ACLU maintains a page dedicated to opposing “anti-Muslim discrimination,” while boasting of its opposition to a Jewish charter school in Oklahoma.

RELATED: Free speech in Britain is worse than you think

Photo by Lab Ky Mo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The “red-green alliance” between domestic communists and Muslim invaders is the greatest threat currently facing Western countries today.

In a talk at Oxford University’s Student Union, Peter Thiel laid out the stark choice between the West continuing to flounder under the illusion that clean energy policies would drive global prosperity and the Islamic worldview, which prioritizes domination.

To overthrow liberal democracy, the far left needs Islam’s numbers, while Islam needs the far left’s organization. They have a common enemy — conservatives defending the countries their ancestors built for them — but without that enemy, these groups should actually despise each other.

The same day Mamdani invoked the name of the warlord Muhammad in the cause of open borders, the ACLU’s Instagram page shared a post about how hard it is to be “a queer teen in Idaho!” (Strangely enough, no mention about how hard it is to be a queer teen in any of the more than 50 countries that have been enslaved by Islam.)

This year we will mark the 10th anniversary of the Pulse Night Club shooting, when Omar Mateen — a Muslim Democrat — murdered 49 gay people and wounded 50 more. But in the ACLU’s response, the organization refused to mention Mateen’s name and indeed warned that his massacre of sexual minorities fit a “more politically convenient narrative fed by anti-Muslim fear and hate.”

What a reassuring thing to say to all the affected families in Orlando!

The ACLU is not an organization that subscribes to any kind of moral code. At best, it is a drive-by lawsuit factory. At worst, it is a legal arm of terrorists that openly welcomes foreign donations, which undermines American sovereignty. All the ACLU cares about is power — which, come to think of it, is something the group truly has in common with jihadists.

​Opinion & analysis, First amendment, Free speech, Virginia, Aclu, Religious freedom, Freedom of religion, Free exercise, American civil liberties union, Muhammad, Blasphemy, Hate crimes, Saddam azlan salim, Islamophobia, Law and order, Sharia law, Religious liberty 

I remember, as a boy, seeing strange, old-fashioned advertisements in the backs of comic books. These were the same ones that were printed on the little comic strips you found inside Bazooka bubble gum.

The advertisement was a three-panel cartoon: 1) A muscle-bound bully kicks sand on a skinny guy and his girl at the beach. 2) The humiliated skinny guy goes home and kicks a chair. 3) The skinny guy buys an exercise device, gets muscles, and then beats up the bully.

Like Charles Atlas before him, 20-year-old Clavicular has become a worldwide brand by embodying a new approach to male physical attractiveness.

That’s a popular story. So popular it never goes away. You see it in movies to this day. Man starts out weak. Gets humiliated. Isolates himself and works to improve. And ultimately returns and prevails over his enemies.

It’s a male fantasy. It’s the daydream of every 12-year-old boy. It’s the ultimate form of street justice.

And it almost never happens in real life. Even as a child, I understood that. But it was still a satisfying story. So much so that you could sell stuff with it. Especially to gullible boys.

In this way, Charles Atlas, the inventor of these cartoons and the seller of various body-building regimens, became a rich man.

But even with my child mind, I could tell it was a trick. Because 1) you’re pretty much stuck with the muscles you have. And 2) normal people don’t really care that much about muscles.

Gimme Shelter

By the time I was a teenager, the Charles Atlas era was over. By the late 1970s, male role models were people like Mick Jagger. Or movie stars like Jack Nicholson. These guys weren’t weighed down with muscles.

Even tough guys like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were much stronger mentally than they were physically. These guys weren’t going to manhandle you with sheer strength. They were going to outsmart you.

The only interesting celebrity of my generation who was somewhat muscular might be Henry Rollins. Though he never had the steroid-infused definition of a true bodybuilder. Besides which, Rollins’ persona was never about being a strongman. It was more of a Nietzschean mental toughness. He was a “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” kind of guy.

And of course Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to mind. But in his case, he was a funny and talented actor. His muscles got him into the film business, where he really shone. Before that, most people regarded him as a freak. I know I did.

RELATED: ‘Looksmaxxing’ and the war on male self-improvement

Chris Delmas/Getty Images

The muscle-man always rings twice

Now, however, the ghost of Charles Atlas has returned. Young men are thinking about their muscles again. And it’s been going on for a while now.

It started with the “you just gotta lift” movement among young men. HR harassing you at work? Women won’t give you the time of day? Media portrays you as weak and ineffectual. You just gotta lift.

This began back in the 20-teens. Maybe the rise of Trump encouraged it. Guys feeling like they could be guys again. Or maybe in the face of decreasing prospects, guys were trying to hold on to their self-esteem.

Steroids and other medications might have added to the trend. Steroids continue to be popular with young males — both for sports and general appearance.

And then there’s the “going to the gym” trend. Both sexes participate in this. Some go to work out, others to socialize and mingle. It has become a place to make friends and find romance. And naturally, big muscles are big clout at the gym.

Enter the looksmaxxers

Now, after a decade of growing physique consciousness, a new generation has burst onto the scene. They call themselves looksmaxxers. And their point man is an internet streamer named Clavicular.

Like Charles Atlas before him, 20-year-old Clavicular has become a worldwide brand by embodying a new approach to male physical attractiveness.

He uses every means at his disposal: cosmetic, chemical, surgical, whatever it takes. There’s an entire science (or maybe pseudo-science) dedicated to this goal. Some aspects of which — “bonesmashing,” for instance—are quite alarming to contemplate.

Clavicular wasn’t the first to think of this. There is a whole community of looksmaxxers that he studied and learned from.

But like Charles Atlas before him, he has the charisma and business savvy to bring his movement to a larger public. At present, he is literally one of the most popular influencers in the world.

When he visits nightclubs or college campuses, Clavicular is mobbed by admirers and detractors. He believes that being (or appearing to be) tall, handsome, and muscular will literally change your life. Watching people mob him in public, it’s hard to disagree.

The beautiful and the damned

Young male conservatives have embraced Clavicular as their own. He has avoided any direct political alliances, but you can hear in his casual conversation echoes of the manosphere and contemporary conservative youth culture.

There are a lot of theories about the rise of looksmaxxing. Some believe it is the inevitable reaction to women reaching new heights in politics, business, media, and entertainment, while at the same time, men have lost ground.

Clavicular has said as much: In a world where the dating market has become increasingly exclusionary to all but the highest-status men, your average guy has to max out any advantage he has and enhance those advantages by any means necessary.

The great inversion

Like it or not, this is where we are. We’ve inverted traditional gender roles. Women, with their increasing access to status and power, are becoming more like men. And men, seeing their own possibilities diminished, are forced to exaggerate their physical attractiveness, like women.

It’s an interesting social experiment. But will the long-term effects be good for society? I kind of doubt it.

For the moment, Clavicular is affecting culture in ways that go beyond being good-looking or having big muscles. He has become a leader and spokesman for a whole generation of young men. Where he ultimately takes them remains to be seen.

​Charles atlas, Looksmaxxing, Clavicular, Lifestyle, Men and women, Dating, Physical fitness, Blake’s progress 

Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D) released a new Senate campaign ad — and it’s about as vulgar as they come.

The ad features several Prairie State residents saying “F**k Trump; vote Juliana,” before Stratton says, “They said it, not me. I’m Juliana Stratton, and I’m proud to have lived my whole life on the South Side of Chicago. I’m not scared of a wannabe dictator. I’m running for Senate to stand up to Donald Trump. I’ll abolish ICE and hold Trump accountable for the crimes he’s committed.”

Stratton then concludes the ad by saying, “Just like they said, f**k Trump,” which is followed by a chorus of residents continuing to say “f*** Trump”

“This Juliana Stratton, the lieutenant governor for J.B. Pritzker, the lieutenant governor for the state of Illinois — she’s running for the Senate, and her campaign seems to be based on bashing Donald Trump in the most profane way possible,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock says on “Jason Whitlock Harmony.”

“It just seems bizarre. This woman is 60 years old. She’s got four kids,” he adds.

“I got secondhand embarrassment from looking at this, simply because this is a black woman, you know?” BlazeTV contributor Shemeka Michelle chimes in.

“I don’t think women have elevated the conversation at all, and I don’t think black women have elevated the political conversation. This was silly. What they brought is more delusion into the conversation,” she says.

“How can you be from the South Side of Chicago and make your focus Donald Trump?” she asks, noting that most of the shootings in Chicago take place on the South Side.

“It’s crazy because I see so many people from Chicago excited that ICE is there. Like I saw them complaining that the illegal immigrants had taken over community centers, that their children weren’t allowed to play in community centers any more,” she explains.

“So either she’s not listening to the people going out to vote, or she just doesn’t care. This is about her just trying to elevate her political platform, because your people don’t want illegal immigrants there,” she adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Free, Sharing, Camera phone, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Jason whitlock harmony, Fearless with jason whitlock, Fearless, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze media, Blaze podcast network, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Jb pritzker, Chicago illinois, Shemeka michelle, Jason whitlock, Juliana stratton, Democrats, Democratic party 

In his 1539 tour de force “The Institutes of the Christian Religion,” John Calvin wrote:

And it becomes us to remember that Satan has his miracles, which, although they are tricks rather than true wonders, are still such as to delude the ignorant and unwary.

That warning feels timely when Scripture is invoked not to illuminate truth, but to sanctify the spirit of the age.

American Christians increasingly encounter Scripture filtered through political frameworks that recast its central doctrines in therapeutic or ideological terms.

Pro-choice Jesus?

Texas Democrat state Rep. James Talarico recently argued on Joe Rogan’s podcast that the Bible affirms a woman’s right to abortion. His reasoning centers on the story of Mary in Luke 1. According to Talarico, before the Incarnation, God sought Mary’s consent. From that, he concludes that “creation has to be done with consent” and that forcing a woman to carry a child is inconsistent with the life and ministry of Jesus.

Specifically, Talarico asserted that the Bible — the inerrant and infallible word of God and the most important moral road map ever given to humanity — supports a woman’s right to kill her unborn child. On Rogan’s show, he grounded that claim in the story of Mary:

Before God comes over Mary, and we have the Incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent. … The angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says … let it be done. … To me that is an affirmation … that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create. … It has to be done with freedom. … And to me that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus.

This is a remarkable interpretation, because it is not what Luke says.

Assent vs. consent

In Luke 1:26-38, Gabriel does not ask Mary a question or seek her permission. Across major English translations and historic Christian traditions alike, the text records no request for consent — only a declaration of what God will do. Gabriel announces: “Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”

The only question in the entire exchange is Mary’s — after she is told what will happen: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” Gabriel replies by pointing to God’s power: “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Mary then responds, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

That is assent — humble submission to God’s revealed will — not consent in the modern, contractual sense. Assent is agreement; consent is permission. Mary was not asked for permission. She freely expressed obedience to what had been declared.

Throughout Scripture, when God acts to fulfill His redemptive purposes, He does not canvass human preferences. In Job 1, when Satan is permitted to test Job’s faith, God does not first consult Job. On the road to Damascus, the risen Christ does not ask Saul whether he is open to a career change. He confronts him, humbles him, and commissions him.

God’s sovereignty is not contingent upon human authorization.

Projecting politics

To read Luke 1 as a divine appeal for permission is to project modern autonomy backward into an ancient text. It is eisegesis dressed up as compassion. It reshapes the Incarnation — the central miracle of Christianity — into an endorsement of procedural self-determination. That move says more about contemporary politics than it does about first-century Judea.

Talarico is right about one thing: The conception of a child is a holy matter. But holiness in Scripture is not synonymous with personal autonomy. Holiness is what belongs to God and reflects His purposes.

Christians have historically distinguished between God’s unique act of creation ex nihilo and human procreation within creation. A child conceived by a man and a woman bears the image of God. That image is not a private possession to be revoked; it is a gift.

To ground abortion rights in the Annunciation is therefore doubly strained. First, because the text does not describe a request for consent. Second, because the child at the center of the story is not an abstraction but the incarnate Son of God — the clearest possible affirmation that life in the womb is not disposable.

RELATED: Is Trump targeting Talarico? Colbert’s lie exposed

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty Images

God’s justice, not class warfare

Talarico also invokes Mary’s Magnificat — her song in Luke 1:46-55 — emphasizing its language about scattering the proud and sending the rich away empty. This has long been read in some quarters as evidence that Jesus’ mission was primarily political: a revolutionary program of economic leveling.

Yet the Gospels resist that reduction. Jesus speaks often about wealth, but His warnings concern idolatry of the heart, not the mere possession of resources. In parable after parable, wealthy figures appear without blanket condemnation. The dividing line is not income but allegiance — whether one serves God or mammon.

The Magnificat celebrates God’s justice, not class warfare. It announces the reversal of human pride before divine authority. To turn it into a manifesto for contemporary policy debates is to flatten its theological depth.

There is a broader concern here than one legislator or one podcast appearance.

American Christians increasingly encounter Scripture filtered through political frameworks that recast its central doctrines in therapeutic or ideological terms. Words like “justice,” “freedom,” and “consent” are imported into passages that were written to reveal God’s character and His plan of redemption, not to ratify modern slogans.

When believers lack grounding in the text itself, such reinterpretations can sound persuasive. They appeal to familiar moral intuitions and baptize contemporary assumptions with biblical language.

But the authority of Scripture rests not in its adaptability to the spirit of the age, but in its resistance to it. When politics begins rewriting the Annunciation, Christians should recognize the warning signs.

False prophets

Jesus Himself warned of such distortions: “And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect” (Mark 13:21-22).

The danger is not always open hostility to the faith. It is the subtle refashioning of Christ in our own image.

The Annunciation is not a lesson in personal sovereignty. It is a revelation of divine initiative. God acts; Mary receives. Her greatness lies not in negotiating terms, but in faithful obedience: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”

That posture — humility before God’s word — is increasingly countercultural. It does not flatter our sense of autonomy. It does not place human choice at the center of the story.

Yet Christianity has always insisted that salvation begins with surrender, not self-assertion.

To know the Bible

James Talarico may fade from public attention. The temptation to refashion Scripture in the image of prevailing politics will not. The greater danger is not that politicians cite the Bible inaccurately. It is that Christians cease to know it well enough to recognize the difference.

A nation unfamiliar with its founding documents is vulnerable to distortion. A church unfamiliar with its Scriptures is vulnerable to something worse.

The more believers read, wrestle with, and internalize the Bible, the less susceptible they will be to interpretations that trade theological substance for cultural applause.

The Incarnation does not endorse a “gospel of consent.” It proclaims a sovereign God who enters history for the salvation of His people — and a young woman who responds not with negotiation, but with trust.

​James talarico, Abortion, Mary, Christianity, Bible, Scripture, Pro-life, Magnificat, Annunciation, Lifestyle, Culture, Faith 

President Donald Trump showered the United States men’s hockey team with praise Sunday for its historic victory at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

The men’s hockey team took home the gold for the first time in 46 years after Jack Hughes scored the winning goal over Canada in overtime. It was the first American gold-medal effort in men’s Olympic hockey since the “Miracle on Ice” squad improbably won it all in 1980. Trump himself hosted that iconic team at the White House in December.

‘I’m so proud to be American.’

“Congratulations to our great U.S.A. Ice Hockey team,” Trump said in a Truth Social Post. “THEY WON THE GOLD. WOW!”

“LOTS OF WINNING!!!” Trump added.

RELATED: ‘It’s the greatest country in the world’: USA hockey’s Quinn Hughes praises America after epic win

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

A teary-eyed Hughes patriotically praised the United States moments after the historic win, saying how proud he is to be an American.

“This is all about our country right now,” Hughes said. “I love the U.S.A. I love my teammates. It’s unbelievable.”

He added that “the U.S.A. hockey brotherhood is so strong, and we had so much support from ex-players. I’m so proud to be American today.”

RELATED: NBC apologizes for calling female skier ‘she’

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

“Unreal game by our team,” Hughes also noted. “Just a ballsy, gutsy win. That’s American hockey right there. That’s a great Canadian team, but we’re U.S.A. We’re so proud to be Americans. Tonight was all for the country.”

Hughes’ brother Quinn scored an overtime goal to beat Sweden 2-1 Wednesday, which advanced the U.S. men’s hockey team to the semifinals. Quinn Hughes remarked after the contest, “I love the U.S., and it’s the greatest country in the world. So [I’m] happy to represent it here with these guys.”

Adding to the theatrics, the U.S. women’s hockey team also won Olympic gold, also beating Canada in the finals — and also in overtime — by a 2-1 score Thursday.

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​Sports, Donald trump, Trump, United states olympic hockey team, Gold medal, Winter olympics, Politics 

President Trump will deliver the first State of the Union of his second term on Tuesday, an address that lands near the 250th anniversary of a nation built on freedom and enterprise. He will likely highlight ending foreign conflicts, restoring border security, reasserting American strength, and advancing his legislative agenda. He will point to economic gains — growth returning, inflation easing, energy prices falling, tax relief delivered, and markets responding. He will argue that the Trump economy is putting Americans back in charge of their own prosperity.

But one success story may not make the headlines: Under pro-investment, pro-competition policies, America’s wireless market has delivered lower prices, better service, and more choice — without mandates, price controls, or government-run networks.

Wireless shows free markets still work when Washington lets them.

Since Trump took office, wireless prices are down 4%. The White House even lists it as Win No. 132 in “365 Wins in 365 Days.” Backed by Bureau of Labor Statistics data, wireless plans and smartphones cost less in real dollars today than they did decades ago — while delivering hundreds of times faster speeds and vastly more data.

Twenty years ago, wireless networks mostly carried voice calls. Today they power work, school, health care, navigation, banking, entertainment, and small business. A wireless subscription also takes a declining share of the household budget.

That didn’t happen by accident. Competition, private investment, and smart policy drove it.

Better service, more choice, lower cost

Plans now deliver more data, faster speeds, and wider coverage than most people imagined 20 years ago. What once required a wired connection at home now works almost anywhere.

Fixed wireless access has helped drive that shift — home internet delivered over wireless networks. Nearly 15 million households now use wireless service instead of a fixed line, giving families a new, often cheaper alternative.

Americans also benefit from real choice. Most people are covered by three or more national wireless networks, each offering multiple brands, including lower-cost and prepaid options for families, seniors, students, and budget-conscious users. Dozens of smaller carriers and resellers add even more price competition. Companies need to earn customers’ business.

Wireless saves families real money

Wireless doesn’t just connect people — it cuts costs.

Parents save time and fuel by working remotely. Seniors can use telehealth instead of driving long distances. Students can learn from anywhere. Small businesses can reach customers without expensive storefronts or phone systems.

No other essential service — housing, health care, food, or energy — has improved this much while becoming more affordable. Wireless quietly delivers more value every year.

America leads because America invests

None of this works without investment. U.S. wireless companies invest about $30 billion a year to build and upgrade networks. Per person, that’s nearly double what Europe invests.

As a result, the United States leads the world in wireless performance, coverage, and innovation. That leadership didn’t come from government-run networks or price controls. It came from letting companies compete, invest, and take risks.

President Trump’s first-term spectrum auction raised a record $90 billion and helped fuel today’s 5G networks. Now FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is moving quickly toward another auction to free up more airwaves — the raw material wireless networks need to grow.

The spectrum bottleneck is real

Wireless runs on spectrum, and America is running tight.

Large blocks of valuable spectrum remain locked up by federal agencies, even when lightly used. Other countries — China, South Korea, and Japan — have moved faster to free spectrum for commercial use.

More spectrum means better service, more competition, and lower costs. Without it, growth slows and prices rise. That makes unlocking spectrum a national priority.

RELATED: Phones and drones expose the cracks in America’s defenses

dikushin/Getty Images

The hidden fee on your phone bill

Another problem stays mostly invisible to consumers.

The Universal Service Fund is meant to support rural connectivity and essential communications. But instead of being funded broadly, it gets tacked onto phone bills, often as a separate line item. Seniors and working families pay about $9 a month without ever voting on it.

Meanwhile, the biggest users of America’s networks — massive internet platforms — pay little or nothing into the system. They generate enormous traffic, earn billions, and rely on wireless infrastructure built by others.

President Trump has argued that Big Tech should pay its own way when it comes to energy-hungry AI data centers. The same principle should apply here. If you benefit from the network, you should help pay for it.

The bottom line

Wireless shows free markets still work when Washington lets them. Competition pushed prices down. Private investment built world-leading networks. Smart spectrum policy unlocked innovation.

Now policymakers face a choice: Protect what’s working, or burden it with bureaucracy and political favoritism. Free up more spectrum. Preserve real competition. End Big Tech’s free ride on infrastructure funded by American consumers.

If President Trump wants a model of American strength and market-driven success in his State of the Union, he doesn’t have to look far. It’s already in the hands of nearly every American holding a cell phone.

​Smartphones, Wireless networks, Spectrum, Free market, Data, Wireless data, Affordability, Internet, Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, State of the union, Fcc, Brendan carr 

After 35 years, it appears that Disney Gay Days — the annual LGBTQ+ event where participants, their families, friends, and allies visit the Walt Disney World parks and wear red shirts for visibility — are on their last legs.

The group that organizes the event recently announced that shifting hotel agreements and the loss of key sponsors forced it to cancel the 2026 celebration. Although organizers are encouraging gay fans to visit the parks on the usual dates and wear themed attire, the coordinated celebration appears to be on its way to history’s ash heap.

Some people, particularly in Christian outlets, are claiming that boycotts are behind the sponsorship losses that led to the 2026 pause of the organized Gay Days events at Disney, but BlazeTV Auron MacIntyre disagrees.

“Evangelical Christians tried to cancel Gay Days with an on-again-off-again boycott for decades. What finally wounded the LGBTQ leviathan wasn’t conservative activism. It was cultural apathy,” he says.

“I remember the first wave of evangelical pushback as Disney began signaling support for homosexual lifestyles in the 1990s,” says Auron.

But it was a “strangely inconsistent boycott,” he says.

“One year, the Southern Baptist Convention urged members to avoid Disney. The next year, churches were showing up to the Night of Joy, Disney’s Christian music festival.”

As a result of this “sloppy, intermittent resistance,” Disney “leaned in harder” to its pro-homosexuality agenda, moving “from park celebrations and employee benefits” to “progressive messaging” in its cinematography.

“’The Little Mermaid’ became black, gay couples were kissing in ‘Star Wars,’ and diverse girlbosses dominated Marvel. As acceptance of gay marriage shifted from taboo to required corporate orthodoxy, Disney replaced entertainment with propaganda,” says Auron.

Thus the fading of Gay Days had nothing to do with either Christian resistance or a rolling back of support from Disney.

Auron says that “apathy” is why Gay Days “suddenly [fell] apart.”

“Apathy doesn’t mean that Americans suddenly disapproved of Disney’s agenda sadly. It just means that normal people stopped granting it the honor of a fight,” he explains.

“Many families quit watching new releases, not as part of a coordinated boycott, but because the product became preachy, weird, and dull. Others kept their subscriptions but tuned out of the messaging and rolled their eyes. Either way, the ritualized drama lost its electricity.”

“Corporate sponsors,” says Auron, “follow attention, and attention follows the next outrage.”

“A movement built on being shocking can’t survive once it becomes background noise.”

So what’s the lesson here?

Citing Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” Auron says, rulers must “leave opponents alone or crush them entirely. A complacent enemy might grumble, but they avoid taking risks; a crushed enemy can’t retaliate. The most dangerous enemy is one that has suffered a minor bloodying. He gains the motivation to fight and keeps the means to harm.”

“Conservatives gave the LGBTQ movement exactly that minor bloodying — outrage finger-wagging, but never any real consequences,” he explains.

The “LGBTQ leviathan” responsible for Disney Gay Days, he argues, “didn’t lose because the right defeated it; it lost because it exhausted its own cultural energy.”

“The lesson here is pretty simple,” says Auron. “If the right fights, it must pick battles carefully and commit fully to winning them. … If you fight, you must crush the enemy’s capacity to operate; otherwise, you invigorate his cause while draining your own. Clumsy half measures feed your foe, and you end up hoping he defeats himself.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​The auron macintyre show, Auron macintyre, Disney, Disney gay days, Disney lgbtq, Blazetv, Blaze media, Blaze podcasts 

Researchers of all stripes continue to pore through the third tranche of DOJ Epstein files. While fact and fiction will continue to be sorted out, so far we’ve got wholesale sex trafficking, political blackmail, global market manipulation, rape, child rape, treason, and espionage suspicions hitting the public-opinion dial somewhere between certain and strongly presumed.

All that’s left in much doubt for the public seems to involve questions of murder, cannibalism, and genuine devil worship. Incredible times in which we live.

As would be unsurprising for someone at or near the nerve center of the biggest and most villainous plots around world domination, Epstein’s doings indicate an undeniable and critically important pattern of tech-related funding, scheming, conspiracy, and crime. Sorting out good apples from bad in this sensitive and super-powerful area will surely require nerves of steel — perhaps a steel stomach as well.

Many are counter-conspiracy tactics adopted during and after Barack Obama’s second term.

Epstein was visiting Santa Fe Institute, dining with Big Tech CEOS. He was into biotech, Bitcoin, security software, eugenics, embryology. The files suggest he was funding scientific studies related to his personal interests. Surfacing too is a pattern around electronic and pharmaceutical means of mind control.

Nightmare machines

There is no shortage of speculation about what may have gone down on the island and at Zorro Ranch. But the ad hoc online community tracking the DOJ drop and searching for patterns has yet to make any definitive, verifiable links between these mind control technologies and Epstein’s own operations.

The latest tranche of Epstein files does contain extensive documents that highlight, in part, government knowledge of mind-control technologies. One example making the rounds on X concerns DOJ file number EFTA00262811. The post states, “Buried in the Epstein document dump is a massive file detailing ‘directed energy and mind control technology’ used on people without consent.”

These materials are addressed beginning on page 10 of the file, which runs to hundreds of pages. The document, seemingly from a local branch of the federal government in Australia, contains a series of papers describing exchanges, sales material, and technical information related to EMF technologies. These papers make associations with government use on unsuspecting victims in a variety of countries.

RELATED: ‘Smoking Gun’: Yale prof nearly blown up by Unabomber defends his Epstein emails

Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Don’t get carried away

However, an analytical concern arises around the daily emergence of dark fact and darker implication: In our conditions of politically sanctioned cognitive and psychological warfare, institutional corruption, and spiritual combat, what can we make of the disparity between the various sources that compose the millions of files in the Epstein files disclosure?

We know it’s bad. We would do well to bring every aspect to light. We do well also not to conflate overwhelming evidence with certainty. Nor confuse confidential and anonymous tips with those more immediately conclusive pieces of evidence such as financial records.

Among the contents of this third installment of Epstein files, we have call records from confidential informants and snail-mail tips ostensibly but not always obviously related to Epstein’s machinations. These types of materials are found alongside strategically redacted government and corporate correspondence. There are photos, videos, emails from movie stars, CEOs, royalty, top scientists. It’s truly enormous in scale.

However, X, where most of this controversy is being hashed out, is also being flooded with very fake “Epstein” emails, video clips, and photos. Some users deploy the fake artifacts to spin the narrative farther into darkness. Others are probably grabbing clickbait cash. Some portion of the traffic should likely be classified as narrative control, spin, counter-intelligence, obfuscation, narrative well-poisoning. Many are counter-conspiracy tactics adopted during and after Barack Obama’s second term.

As one might expect, former White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs chief and Harvard law scholar Cass Sunstein appears to be prevalent in the Epstein files too. Top Obama lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler is on record with Epstein setting meets between Cass and Jeffrey. Are these emails more real than anonymous tips? Quite a tangled web, indeed. Sunstein’s famous paper suggesting institutional-level “nudging” to secure centralized control of the proverbial narrative was called “Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas.”

You’ve been gamed

The X post questioning the placement of documents detailing devices and practices of EMF-based mind control tech does the narrative of work of associating this epochal Epstein-files reveal with the very technologies we use on a day-to-day basis. The provenance, importance, or utility of the document within the context of the Epstein-verse isn’t at all clear. Nonetheless, it can’t be written off.

At this point, should we be even be surprised? Not really. Consider first what we know about the engineering circa 2008 that went into phone-based social media tech. Studies on blue light, gamification, attention capture, and the revelations of the Vegas casino phenomena were all brought to bear on the telephonic device in your pocket or hand right now.

What we have is more than enough for a sane society to throw many hundreds of tech executives and scientists under investigation immediately. Of course, we find ourselves in both political, judicial, and financial deadlock at the moment, with a new war poised to steal the spotlight. So what, if anything, will actually be done about the Epstein-centered corruption?

​Tech 

There’s a strange new infantilizing phenomenon taking over social media, and BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is disturbed to say the least.

“There are these conferences where these women who treat their dolls as toddlers feed them, change their diaper, take them out,” Stuckey says on “Relatable.”

“It’s true,” she continues, explaining that they put them “in strollers, and they take videos of them going on vacation with them.”

“There is this whole influencer who shows her day-in-the-life where she’s turning on the lights, and she’s like waking up her children, and they’re dolls. It’s very, very, very sad. Very sad. Like, we need better hobbies. We need better ways to spend our time,” she continues.

However, that’s not even the worst of it.

“Now we also have adults using dolls to be progressive activists. And there’s a lot of crossover here between Disney adults, adult doll people, and these left-wing activists. And I think that the through line is actually what we call ‘misplaced mothering,’” Stuckey explains.

Misplaced mothering, Stuckey says, is “when your motherhood instinct is not channeled in the right healthy direction toward a child, whether it’s your child or a child that you’re volunteering to take care of, it manifests itself in really ugly and bitter and weird ways.”

One Instagram user who goes by “backintimeag” has been posing her American Girl dolls in the world, taking photos, and posting them with political messages.

“Kirsten will be happy when ICE gets the f**k out of Minnesota,” one American Girl doll photo says.

“Kirsten is churning butter. OK? She doesn’t care about ICE. I guarantee you, Kirsten and her parents would have supported deporting illegal immigrants,” Stuckey says.

The user posted another photo of the American Girl doll Josephine, who is supposed to be from Mexico, with the text, “ICE needs to get the f**k out of my country.”

“ICE is not in your country,” Stuckey says.

Another influencer who goes by “AGTV4LIFE” on Instagram posted a video of American Girl dolls all dressed up, complete with signs, to protest Trump and “fascism.”

“She’s got one in a wheelchair that says, ‘Resist fascism’ … she’s creating these little protest signs. They’re at a No Kings protest. You’ve got way too much time on your hands. OK, we need a job, girly. We need a hobby. We need to go to church,” Stuckey comments.

“We also have doll ICE agents. Oh my goodness. It’s too much. … We’re laughing, but think about what has to be going on spiritually for a person to spend their time doing this,” she says.

“So there’s something simultaneously happening here. On the one hand, you’ve got the infantilizing of adults who use dolls and do a bunch of kids’ stuff … I’m not saying going to Disney as an adult is always bad, but the obsession is weird,” she continues.

“There’s this infantilization of adults going on. This extended adolescence that I think arrests the development that you need to actually be a productive and well-developed healthy mentally person,” she adds.

However, something even more insidious is going on than just the infantilization of adults.

“At the same time, there’s an adultification of children stuff. We see that here,” Stuckey says.

“It’s the conflation and the confusion of adolescence and childhood and adulthood that is making this very disturbing combination. OK? And I’m not really sure exactly what the answer is except, I mean, definitely find God,” she adds.

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Subscribe to Allie Beth Stuckey’s channel on YouTube for FREE access to more of her upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture and politics from a Christian, millennial perspective.

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The United States Secret Service fatally shot a man outside of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort early Sunday morning.

The USSS shot and killed the man, who was in his early 20s, after he unlawfully entered the secure perimeter at the president’s Florida resort around 1:30 a.m., according to the Secret Service.

The man, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, was seen carrying what appeared to a shotgun and a fuel can by the north gate of the property, the Secret Service said.

RELATED: FBI forced to release damning docs revealing chilling new details on Trump’s would-be assassin

Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images

The Secret Service said its agents and a deputy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office confronted the man, and shots were fired by law enforcement; neither the agents nor the deputy were injured.

Notably, Trump was not at his resort in West Palm Beach at the time of the incident; he’s in Washington, D.C.

This is breaking news; updates may be added.

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​Donald trump, Fatal shooting, Fbi, Mar-a-lago, Palm beach county sheriff’s office, Politics, Secret service, Shotgun, Usss, West palm beach 

Police said a 49-year-old staff member at a Florida high school initially acted in self-defense amid a physical fight with a female student on a bus earlier this week — but cops added that the staffer soon took things well over the line.

According to a report from the Palm Beach School District Police, the incident occurred Tuesday at William T. Dwyer High School around 2:50 p.m., which is around dismissal time, WPBF-TV reported.

‘Ms. Smith has been removed from our campus and will not return, pending the outcome of an investigation.’

A school bus driver requested the removal of an unruly student on the bus, the station said.

Shaundra Smith, a school district employee, responded and boarded the bus to speak with the student, the station said.

A short time later, WPBF said Smith asked for additional staff support and two police officers to board the bus to remove the student.

An officer observed Smith and the student throwing punches at each other, the station said, adding that officers and school administrators grabbed the student to separate her from Smith.

WPBF, citing the police report, said Smith got on a bus seat and punched the student in the face as police were restraining the student’s arms.

The station said an officer told Smith to stop, but Smith allegedly punched the student two more times.

WPBF said the officer eventually pulled Smith away from the student.

The police report notes the female student suffered cuts to the inside of her lip and a scrape on her left collarbone, the station said.

RELATED: Viral video: High schooler physically attacks teacher in front of other students — then cop gives kid brutal wake-up call

More from WPBF:

The police report acknowledged that Smith’s initial actions were in self-defense, but devolved into intentional and unnecessary infliction of physical injury to the student once the student was restrained.

Smith was arrested Tuesday and charged with child abuse without great bodily harm, the station said.

The Palm Beach County School District provided WPBF with a message that school Principal Corey Brooks sent to concerned parties about the incident:

William T. Dwyer High School families and staff,This message is to inform you that Shaundra Smith, a non-instructional staff member, was recently arrested for an incident that occurred on a school bus on campus yesterday during dismissal. Ms. Smith was charged with cruelty toward a child (abuse without great bodily harm).Ms. Smith has been removed from our campus and will not return, pending the outcome of an investigation.The safety and well-being of our students is our absolute highest priority. Any conduct that threatens the safety and well-being of our students is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. The School District holds all employees to the highest standards of conduct and is committed to a safe learning environment for all students. We always expect every staff member to meet the professional and ethical standards necessary to provide the best possible educational experience.Please understand that, as this is an ongoing investigation, I cannot share additional details at this time. If you have any information relevant to this case, please contact School Police at 561-434-8700, attention Lt. Wagner.Thank you for your continued support of William T. Dwyer High School.”

Smith during a court hearing Wednesday was ordered to have no contact with the student, the student’s family, or Palm Beach County School District property, the station said.

Smith was released from the Palm Beach County Jail on $10,000 bond, WPBF added.

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​Florida, Palm beach, High school, Fight, Student, Punch in face, Arrest, Child abuse, Palm beach school district, School bus, Crime 

Republicans spent the 2024 campaign blaming “Bidenflation” on runaway spending and debt-driven inflation. A year into Trump’s second term, the top-line numbers look uncomfortably familiar. Even the New York Times has noticed: “For Mr. Trump, the result is a set of annual government expenses that do not appear radically different on paper compared with what he inherited in January 2025.” Sadly, yes.

The rallying cry against “Bidenflation” was probably the most prolific indictment of the last Democrat president, at least next to the canard of the “Biden border invasion.” Implicit in that allegation was a recognition that the record-high debt payments fueling a size of government that dwarfed the Obama-era leviathan (which spawned the Tea Party) were responsible for the great unaffordability crisis.

Our policies try to help consumers afford unaffordable prices by fueling more debt — which makes life more unaffordable.

The opening weeks of this administration, roughly this time last year, were dominated by Republican officials heralding Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. Red states began forming their own DOGE committees, and every Republican clamored to have his name attached to the spending-cutting club. Someone even launched a meme coin named after DOGE.

A year later, nearly the entire debt and spending level of Biden’s final year has been codified by all but the most conservative members of Congress. The body politic barely noticed until the New York Times mentioned it this week. Trump and GOP leaders no longer talk about debt service as a driver of inflation. Worse, some deny inflation even exists.

More disconcerting: No real movement on the right even recognizes the severity of the unaffordability crisis or the record deficits still fueling it. The same way many forget Trump’s COVID spending helped catalyze the worst affordability crisis in modern American life, they have conveniently forgotten their own campaign rallies against Biden and Harris.

Like his first term, the president proposed a budget for FY 2026 that aimed to downsize bureaucracies and agencies Reagan conservatives never believed should exist. Congress writes the budget, but the president still has a veto pen. He also commands the party that controls both houses, however narrow those majorities.

Yet rather than fight for even modest spending cuts, the president worked the phones to pressure conservatives into breaking campaign promises and codifying a budget that enshrined roughly $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending, on top of mandatory spending on interest and entitlements that rises every year.

RELATED: The debt bomb is ticking, and DC spent the blast shield

Artoleshko / Getty Images

Whereas the president’s budget promised to cut the Department of Housing and Urban Development nearly in half, the appropriations bill he ultimately supported increased HUD’s budget by 9%. He also supports a new housing bill that would expand HUD’s “affordable housing” programs further. He promised to trim the departments of Agriculture and Commerce by 23% and 16%, yet wound up increasing their budgets by 2% and 7% respectively. Labor, HHS, and the Small Business Administration were slated for 28%-38% cuts under his proposed budget, yet the FY 2026 bill he lobbied for and signed kept their record budgets roughly the same.

Ironically, every agency his base hates is now flush with cash and fully funded for the remainder of the fiscal year — except the Department of Homeland Security, which faces an indefinite lapse in appropriations.

Gross debt has increased by $2.6 trillion since Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025. What happened to the concern about debt-driven inflation that the right raised relentlessly when Biden spent at these levels? Does elephant dung taste better than donkey manure? What gives?

On this trajectory, by 2030 at the latest, the public share of our debt will surpass its all-time high of 106%. That level came at the height of World War II, when debt at least aimed at victory and production. Today’s debt is unproductive. The government goes into debt to juice up private debt to produce fake things like data centers — or worse, self-perpetuating dependency. Today’s spending programs, and even the Trump tax cuts (as opposed to his first-term tax bill), do not produce more goods. They induce more demand for the same goods. In the long run, that’s inflationary.

RELATED: Washington printed promises. Gold called the bluff.

Alfexe / Getty Images

Our policies try to help consumers afford unaffordable prices by fueling more debt — which makes life more unaffordable.

Remember: We’re at the peak of the debt mountain while still sitting in the valley of an impending unemployment crisis. As the economy worsens, spending on food stamps, Medicaid, and unemployment will compound the cycle of debt, inflation, unaffordability, and dependency.

It gets worse. By reinstating earmarks, Republicans countermanded the one major spending success of the past decade forged by the Tea Party. The full-funding bill for FY 2026 that Trump signed contained $15.5 billion in earmarks.

Earmarks themselves don’t drive inflation, but they create a legislative dynamic where members get bought off to vote for the leviathan spending that does. The omnibus contained 8,471 earmarks for just 535 members. It becomes nearly impossible to muster opposition when personal favors designed to ingratiate lawmakers to local interests ride along in the same bills.

No surprise, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wound up with nearly $500 million in earmarks, the most of any member. As ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, she helped spearhead this uniparty budget that kept the status quo.

Some GOP apologists will scoff at the idea of dealing with inflation and demand we focus on other issues. They might pretend fiscal conservatism was never real.

Fine. But the next time Democrats take office, shut your mouths about spending and inflation. And don’t campaign on bringing it down.

​Inflation, Bidenflation, Trump, Economy, Affordability crisis, Gop, Republicans, Democrats, Covid, Congress, Opinion & analysis 

Last year, I lived for nearly five months in an extended-stay hotel across from a major teaching hospital in Aurora, Colorado.

It was my third extended stay there in three years. In total, I have spent more than 10 months in that community during my wife’s hospitalizations.

Disorder becomes permanent when citizens treat it as background noise.

That is long enough to know the difference between an exception and a pattern.

A sign at the city limits reads, “Welcome to Aurora — America’s City.”

At first, it seemed ironic. By the time I left, it read like an indictment.

Near the hospital, everyday life felt needlessly strained.

The grocery store lines were enormous. Entire banks of self-checkout lanes sat dark. Staffed lanes were closed, allegedly because of staffing shortages. This store belongs to one of the largest grocery chains in the country.

Resources were not the issue. Priorities were.

Basic necessities sat locked behind glass: detergent, deodorant, toothpaste. To buy them, I had to find a manager and request access.

Two armed police officers stood near the checkout lanes.

Then I reached for a bag.

Colorado charges for shopping bags. Fine. Charge for them. But none were available. I stood there with paid-for groceries and no way to carry them, scanning for an employee who could authorize the privilege of buying one.

Charge for the bag if you must. But if you charge for it, make it obtainable.

I speak Spanish well and know a few phrases in several other languages. While useful in Aurora, requesting una bolsa did not make one appear any faster.

Outside, carts sat scattered across the parking lot. Trash gathered along the curbs. Panhandlers approached vehicles at the entrance. Customers moved quickly, eyes down.

The hotel where I stayed was a national chain: key-card entry, corporate standards. The staff were decent, hardworking people. They were not hired to enforce the law. Yet I watched them physically confront individuals who slipped into the building and helped themselves to the breakfast buffet without apology and without fear of consequence.

RELATED: I came to the US legally. What we have now isn’t immigration — it’s chaos.

nzphotonz / Getty Images

When behavior is brazen, it signals confidence that no one will stop it.

Walking across the street to the hospital, I passed men and women sprawled on sidewalks, drug paraphernalia near bus stops, people shouting into empty air. While living there, I heard more gunfire than I hear during hunting season where I live in Montana.

Live somewhere for 10 months, and you start to feel the pulse of a place. It is a community living inside lowered expectations.

Standards rarely collapse in a single moment. They erode when enough people decide they are optional. At what point did we accept that this was simply how modern American cities function?

If Aurora is “America’s City,” then we no longer agree on what America means.

Years ago, my wife and I launched a prosthetic limb outreach in Ghana. I have seen clinics there operate with greater cleanliness and clearer systems than the community surrounding one of America’s premier teaching hospitals.

That is not meant to be an insult to Ghana. It is a warning to us.

Compassion and order are not enemies.

A society can care for the vulnerable and still insist on standards. In fact, it must. Compassion without structure becomes chaos, and chaos harms the very people it claims to protect.

Government exists to protect life and property. That is not partisan. It is foundational.

The reflexive answer to visible disorder is often another funding package. But public officials are not spending their own money. They are allocating earnings entrusted to them by citizens who expect order in return. When outcomes deteriorate while budgets expand, the issue is not funding. It is stewardship.

For more than 40 years, I have navigated surgeons, pain specialists, prosthetists, and hospital systems while advocating for someone who cannot afford substandard care. In those settings, standards are measurable, not merely aspirational.

One does not respect what one does not inspect. When professionals know their work will be reviewed, outcomes improve. When oversight weakens, so do results.

When an area becomes known for disorder, the mystery is not the criminals. It is the complying silence surrounding those charged with enforcing law and order. Those entrusted with authority must themselves be examined.

Advocacy is rarely glamorous or lucrative. It is repetitive, exacting, and sometimes unwelcome. But when the advocate steps away, small failures compound, and the vulnerable suffer more.

RELATED: ‘Phase one’ was quality control. ‘Phase two’ needs to be quantity control.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

A healthy society requires the same vigilance from its citizens.

Unenforced borders invite unlawful crossings. Unenforced laws embolden lawlessness. Unenforced standards always open the door to mediocrity and worse.

This is not complicated. It just requires will.

As I walked past those police officers, groceries in the bags I finally managed to buy, I said plainly, “We don’t have to live this way.”

They shrugged. They did not argue.

A deserter was once brought before Alexander the Great for judgment. Asked his name, the soldier nervously replied, “Alexander.”

The general paused.

“Either change your conduct,” he said, “or change your name.”

Names imply standards. So do cities.

If a city claims to be “America’s City,” its conduct should reflect it.

We should expect more — of ourselves, of our communities, of our elected officials, and of our courts.

America is not a nation of voiceless citizens. If standards are collapsing, enough of us have abdicated oversight and responsibility.

Disorder becomes permanent when citizens treat it as background noise.

The first act of resolve is refusing to call dysfunction normal.

We do not need another commission. We need resolve.

We don’t have to live this way.

​Colorado, Aurora colorado, Urban decline, American cities, America’s city, Opinion & analysis, Trust, Law and order 

Democratic Texas state Representative and current Senate candidate James Talarico has made a practice of using his “Christian” faith and background as a Presbyterian seminarian to push progressive causes, such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun control, among others.

Earlier this week, in an interview with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show,” Talarico perpetuated an argument he’s presented multiple times, namely that the “religious right” mistakenly hyper-focuses on “abortion and gay marriage” — two issues, he argued, “that aren’t mentioned in the Bible” and “that Jesus never talked about.”

“Jesus gave us two commandments: Love God and love neighbor. And there was no exception to that second commandment. Love thy neighbor regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation or immigration status or religious affiliation. And it’s why I have fought so hard for the separation of church and state,” the Texas Democrat added.

BlazeTV host Steve Deace joins the host of conservative Christian voices denouncing Talarico as a false teacher, but his criticism goes far beyond relegating the progressive Christian to the realm of heretics.

“James Talarico is going to be Legion,” says Deace.

He explains the biblical pattern of Christian revival, which he believes is happening in the United States right now, regardless of whether or not America survives as a free nation.

First comes the sifting, he says, where God separates true believers from fake or lukewarm ones. Next is “the implementation of a new structure,” where God builds fresh ways of doing church outside of old, dead institutions. The final step is “mobilization.” Once His true followers are sifted and organized, God sends them out on mission to spread the gospel and make disciples locally and globally.

This revival process, Deace explains, has been repeating itself since the formation of the early Christian church.

However, the enemy has his own counterfeit pattern: First, shame people into hiding their faith, convincing them that it’s meant to be “private” between them and God. Then, push the lie of “secularization” — the idea that “there’s a neutral space where no one rules and no one is worshiped and no such space exists, ever has existed, or ever will,” says Deace. And finally, “replace” the faith altogether with an evil religion imposed by the state.

“We’re entering into this third stage now,” Deace warns.

James Talarico, whom Deace calls “an object and a vessel of malevolence,” is “not deceived; he’s the deceiver,” he says. “He is who Paul would have said in Acts, ‘You are a son of the devil.’ He knows what he is doing.”

To stay on the straight and narrow and avoid being duped by people like Talarico, Deace gives a piece of advice: “If sin and repentance and redemption are nowhere in their message, it doesn’t matter what else they say. … That is not the gospel. It is not. It’s a husk. Jesus called it a whitewashed tomb. The heart and soul of the gospel, the battle that was waged over your soul, and it is now being waged over your heart and mind, is because of sin, repentance, and redemption.”

“Guess what was completely and totally missing from James Talarico’s message? Sin, repentance, and redemption. So guess what you just heard none of from James Talarico? The gospel.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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​Steve deace, Steve deace show, Blazetv, Blaze media, Deace, Talarico, James talarico, Progressive christianity, Heresy, False teacher, Stephen colbert 

Eight years ago this month, Norma McCorvey died in a Texas nursing home, far from the cameras and courtrooms that once made her the most famous anonymous woman in America. There were no placards, no protests, no press.

She may be gone, but her name endures. The world knew her as “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff whose case redrew the legal landscape and reshaped the conscience of a nation.

Her story reflects a familiar pattern: individuals raised to symbolic status, then discarded once the moment passes.

Her beginnings weren’t marked by power, but by poverty and disorder. Born in rural Louisiana and raised in Texas, she grew up in a home shaped by absence and anger. Her father left early. Her mother battled alcoholism. Punishment was common; tenderness was rare. By adolescence, she had run away, fallen into petty crime, and entered state custody. Order came through institutions rather than through a steady home. Survival, not stability, shaped her youth.

Adulthood brought little relief. She married at 16 and left soon after. Her first child was taken and adopted by her mother. A second was placed for adoption. By 21, she was pregnant again — alone and impoverished, with few options and little guidance.

Alone and impoverished

Texas law allowed almost no abortions. Friends suggested that she claim rape to qualify. The claim failed. Through a chain of referrals, she met two young attorneys seeking a pregnant woman willing to challenge the statute. She agreed. She wanted an abortion. Instead, she became the primary figure in a legal battle she neither directed nor fully understood.

The case moved slowly. She never attended the hearings. She gave birth and placed the baby for adoption. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1973, she wasn’t celebrating. She later said the decision meant little to her at the time. The country changed. Her circumstances did not.

Yet the ruling transformed American life. Abortion became both a protected right and a permanent point of conflict. Clinics multiplied. Protest lines formed. The decision that bore her pseudonym ushered in a legal order under which millions of unborn children would be terminated. In the first half of last year alone, even after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, nearly 600,000 abortions occurred, averaging more than 3,000 each day. The scale is sobering.

An unexpected turn

In the years that followed, McCorvey worked around abortion clinics and publicly supported abortion rights. She spoke for the cause and lived within its orbit, lifted and used by larger forces.

Public relevance did not bring private peace. Her personal life remained unsettled. Addiction, loneliness, and fractured relationships followed her into middle age.

Then, in the mid-1990s, an unexpected turn.

While working at a Dallas clinic, she encountered pro-life volunteers who spoke with steady kindness. They addressed her not as a symbol but as a person. Conversation replaced confrontation. One day, she paused before a poster showing fetal development. The image stayed with her.

Soon after, she left her job.

RELATED: Bernard Nathanson: Abortion architect who found mercy in Christ

Sydney Morning Herald/Antonio Ribiero/Getty Images

Won by love

In 1995, she was baptized into evangelical Christianity in a backyard swimming pool. In her 1997 memoir “Won by Love,” McCorvey described the experience as a turning point, one that reshaped both her public advocacy and her private life.

Three years later, she entered the Catholic Church, a decision widely covered at the time by both secular and religious press. Her public stance changed. She described her role in Roe v. Wade as the greatest mistake of her life. She marched, protested, and testified, urging Americans to reconsider what the nation had embraced.

Her conversion drew admiration from some and skepticism from others. In a 2020 documentary, “AKA Jane Roe,” previously recorded interviews surfaced in which McCorvey suggested that financial incentives had influenced aspects of her pro-life advocacy.

The claims reignited debate over the sincerity of her conversion. Friends and clergy who knew her well disputed that account, describing a woman who prayed daily and took her faith seriously. The tensions remain unresolved. Human lives rarely fit neat narratives.

What remains clear is that her life traced a restless search for belonging and forgiveness. She was not a simple figure. At times blunt and belligerent, at others wounded and weary, she carried deep contradictions. She stood at the center of a historic decision, often seeming invisible within it.

Familiar terrain

Her story reflects a familiar pattern: individuals raised to symbolic status, then discarded once the moment passes. She served as a standard-bearer and later a cautionary tale — celebrated, contested, and set aside. Rarely was she treated as a person.

For Christians, this terrain is not unfamiliar. Scripture offers no flawless heroes, only flawed men and women redirected by grace. David fell. Peter denied. Paul persecuted. Grace did not erase their past; it changed their course.

No honest telling can minimize the consequences of Roe v. Wade. The decision reshaped law, medicine, and family life. McCorvey’s participation in that moment remains a grave part of her legacy.

Yet Christian faith insists that no life lies beyond redemption. The gospel does not deny sin; it denies that sin has the final word.

In her later years, friends described a woman quieter and gentler, less concerned with public approval and more attentive to eternity. She spoke of regret. She spoke as someone who looked back on what she had represented and felt the weight of it.

Eight years on, Norma McCorvey’s life resists easy telling. History will continue to debate her. Movements will continue to claim her. In the end, judgment belongs to God, who sees what no one else can.

​Faith, Norma mccorvey, Roe v. wade, Jane roe, Abortion, Pro-life, Lifestyle, Christianity, Converts 

Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado complimented the U.S. Senate campaign of Texas Democrat James Talarico — and even delivered a humorous jab at his opponent, Democrat U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Boebert appeared alongside Talarico on “Real Time with Bill Maher” Friday, talking about everything from faith to Talarico’s infamously pulled Stephen Colbert interview. Boebert also extended a compliment to the congressman, noting that his Senate candidacy has been impressive and joked about giving him a leg up ahead of the primary against Crockett.

‘My concern is not for my campaign, it’s for the Constitution.’

“I do want to congratulate you on the success so far in your campaign,” Boebert told Talarico before adding, “Maybe I should endorse Jasmine Crockett so you could do a little better!”

Talarico, Maher, and the crowd laughed in response.

RELATED: Crockett hits back, says Colbert is full of it: ‘They just didn’t want to air it

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Boebert also set the record straight in the aftermath of Talarico’s interview with Colbert, noting that Crockett’s analysis — that the federal government had nothing to do with the decision to pull the interview — was correct.

“It wasn’t President Trump that canceled your segment,” Boebert said. “This is one area where Miss Crockett is correct. This was a decision by the network. They didn’t want to have her on, possibly. They didn’t want to have that equal time.”

Boebert added, “But I also think that the way it was aired — I mean you got over five million views. You raised 2.5 million dollars in 24 hours, so it was a pretty big success for you.”

RELATED: Stephen Colbert melts down after CBS pulls interview with Democrat just months before his show ends

Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images

Talarico and Boebert also sparred over the pulled Colbert interview, with the Texas Democrat claiming it was a top-down order from President Donald Trump.

“My concern is not for my campaign, it’s for the Constitution,” Talarico said.

“Right, but it wasn’t the president who said ‘Do not allow this to air …'” Boebert replied. “It was equal share time. It was already in the rules. And that network said, ‘We do not want to have the equal share. We don’t want to fulfill that part of the rule.'”

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​Donald trump, Lauren boebert, James talarico, Jasmine crockett, Stephen colbert, Bill maher, Texas primary, Texas democrat primary, 2026 primary, Senate primary, Politics 

Liberal leadership often leads to higher gas prices and higher profit margins for oil merchants, a digging expert is saying.

With oil prices once again dropping, it may surprise many to know that while Democrats traditionally are harsher on the oil industry, they actually end up making those companies more money, while the average American’s pocket gets lighter.

‘The left always is looking to punish.’

Dan Doyle, president of fracking company Reliance Well Services, said that when pipelines and other drilling technology are limited by Democrats, it is the consumer who suffers.

“Profitability is a little bit better under Democrats than Republicans,” Doyle told Return in an exclusive interview. “Trump is very tough on oil prices, you know, because he’s using them this time to get gas prices lower. So he’s really pressuring to bring those oil prices down.”

President Biden shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline his first day in office was just one example of Democrat-led moves that increased the cost of daily living for Americans, Doyle explained.

“You shut the pipelines down, it just makes it more expensive. Now you’re bringing it over the roads,” he asserted. “Now you’re putting this stuff over the road or in train cars.”

Doyle referred to the Lac-Mégantic train disaster in Canada in 2013, when a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and killed 47 people in an explosion.

Comparing that to pipeline safety, Doyle said, “There could be a leak, but let me tell you, if there’s a leak, you know it immediately and it gets cleaned up.”

RELATED: America won’t beat China without Alaska

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Doyle asked readers to simply check out the oil prices under Democrat leadership versus Republican.

“Under Obama back in [2013-2014] and, I believe, later, oil was routinely at $100. So you take CPI and you adjust it for inflation. … That’s twice what it is right now.”

Doyle was actually estimating conservatively. According to data from the Energy Information Association, a government agency, the price per barrel was $98.99 under Obama in January 2012; when adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index inflation calculator, that equates to $142 per barrel in January 2026.

Under President Trump, oil prices have never gone over $73.15 (January 2025), whereas the previous three presidents have peaked at far higher prices. President George W. Bush had prices skyrocket to $128.08 in July 2008. President Obama’s top price was $108.80 in April 2011, while President Biden’s peak price was in June 2022 at $113.77.

As of November 2025, the U.S. crude oil purchase price was just $58.13.

“People that are a bit marginalized or either struggling, you know, two jobs, three jobs, they don’t need to be paying these artificially or politically — not necessarily artificially, but politically — [inflated] costly bills.”

RELATED: Inside China’s plan to beat the US at big tech forever

Photo courtesy Dan Doyle

Doyle spoke at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, for then-candidate Vice President JD Vance in 2024. During that speech, the oil entrepreneur argued against claims that his industry is causing environmental damage and spoke on the “war on fracking” that started under President Obama’s administration.

Doyle explained that this was the start of the “punishment” his industry has received under Democratic Party rule. Doyle laughed about that punishment in his interview with Return, but got very serious when it came to who actually suffers.

“The left always is looking to punish. … They care more about punishing with the pricing, and all that ends up doing, really, is driving the price up for the consumer, whereas, you know, the people at the top are just taking a little bit of a hit on their profit margin. So it’s actually tougher for the oil billionaires under Republicans.”

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​Return, Oil, Gas, Gas pipelines, Fracking, Trains, Obama, Republicans, Democrats, Tech 

In less than two weeks, two deadly shootings — both allegedly by transgender-identifying biological males. One was a school rampage in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, that killed eight people, and the other a targeted family attack during a youth hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where two of the alleged shooter’s family members were left dead.

BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere wonders if we’re dealing with a “trans shooter epidemic.”

“We’ve done this story … over and over and over and over and over and over and over again,” he says.

It’s usually one of two scenarios, he says: “You have some person who’s a crazy sort of leftist that winds up getting into the trans ideology world” and becomes “very defensive of it to a violent extent, like we saw with the Charlie Kirk situation,” or “you have a situation where the person is just a crazy leftist and starts going out and killing people because of their mass confusion in their life.”

But what’s the root cause of this kind of violence?

On this episode of “Stu Does America,” Stu dives into a study that might provide some insight into that question.

“Obviously, all [transgender-identifying] people are not murdering others. We do, though, see a disproportionate amount of people who are involved in this ideology … that are involved in violent acts,” he says, citing trans-identifying biological female Audrey Hale, who killed six children and three adults at an elementary school in Nashville in March 2023, and Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk, who was romantically involved with a transgender-identifying male.

Stu wonders why of all the “fancy letters” in the LGBTQIA2+ alphabet, it is transgender-identifying individuals who seem more prone to violence.

The answer may lie, at least partially, in how different sexual identities answer the question: “Is disagreement violence?”

Stu cites a study from PsychFORM, which examined how transgender-identifying respondents answered that question compared to gay-identifying respondents.

“About 15% to 18% of gay people say, ‘Yeah, you know, any disagreement, I see as violence.’ … The number for trans people is 100%. 100% of trans people in this poll said that disagreement equals violence,” Stu exclaims.

The study also tested another question: “Is reasoned disagreement permissible?”

According to the chart, roughly 18% of gay-identifying respondents answered no, compared to over 90% of trans-identifying respondents.

“If you’re looking for an explanation to understand what’s going on in that realm when it comes to violence and trans people, look no farther than that chart,” says Stu.

Want more from Stu?

To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Stu does america, Stu burguiere, Trans shooters, Transgenderism, Trans violence, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Rural health care in America faces a host of chronic challenges: high costs, limited access, and aging infrastructure. For millions of families across the heartland, these problems aren’t abstract — they determine whether patients can see a doctor, reach a hospital, or receive timely care close to home.

By expanding flexibility, encouraging innovation, and meeting rural communities where they are, policymakers have begun to confront the unique realities of rural health care.

More than 60 million Americans — nearly one in five — live in rural areas where patients routinely travel long distances only to find fewer doctors, hospitals, and clinics available to serve them.

Under-resourced communities face over-sized health challenges. Nowhere is this more evident than in rural America, where higher rates of chronic disease, premature mortality, and addiction persist compared to the rest of the country.

In recent months, the Trump administration and Congress have advanced a set of reforms — largely overlooked in the national debate — that directly address long-standing disparities and structural weaknesses in rural health care, and they could meaningfully strengthen care delivery in these communities, improve health, and save lives.

The most significant of these efforts is the Rural Health Transformation Program, established last year in President Trump and the Republican Congress’ signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This $50 billion program represents the largest investment ever dedicated specifically to rural health, far exceeding the scale of prior grant programs. States that receive awards can use these resources to modernize and stabilize their rural health systems.

The program allows states to invest in innovative care models tailored to rural realities — whether expanding outpatient capacity, strengthening the health care workforce, or upgrading aging facilities. Instead of imposing a one-size-fits-all approach, the program gives states the flexibility to design reforms that reflect local needs and constraints.

Although media attention has shifted elsewhere, the White House and congressional leaders should continue to emphasize the long-term importance of this investment. The program addresses a foundational weakness in America’s health system and delivers tangible support to rural communities that have too often been left behind.

As part of the recently enacted FY 2026 appropriations legislation, Congress also extended Medicare telehealth flexibilities through December 31, 2027, delaying a return to statutory barriers that once limited access to telehealth services. Telehealth allows patients to connect with specialists, receive mental health services, and manage chronic diseases without traveling hours for an appointment.

In communities facing persistent provider shortages, telehealth has become not a convenience but a lifeline — a bridge over miles of empty road, connecting rural patients to care that would otherwise remain out of reach.

The FY 2026 appropriations legislation also reauthorized the Acute Hospital Care at Home initiative, which allows eligible patients to receive hospital-level care in their own homes. This approach reduces costs, eases pressure on rural hospitals with limited capacity, and improves patient satisfaction. For small hospitals struggling to keep beds staffed and doors open, Acute Hospital Care at Home offers a practical way to deliver high-quality care while preserving local access.

RELATED: Trump’s economic numbers look good so far, but you wouldn’t know from reading the news

Douglas Rissing / Getty Images

Finally, although Congress has not yet enacted it into law, lawmakers are working to reauthorize the Rural Health Care Services Outreach Program. This program supports community-based efforts to expand access to care, strengthen coordination among providers, and address persistent service gaps. Its grants help rural health systems collaborate across institutions and tailor solutions for populations that too often fall through the cracks.

Taken together, these reforms do not promise a quick cure — but they do offer a realistic treatment plan. They don’t strengthen rural health care because it’s easy; they make it easier because rural health care must be strong. While these efforts will not eliminate every challenge rural communities face, they are designed to deliver tangible improvements that deserve recognition.

By expanding flexibility, encouraging innovation, and meeting rural communities where they are, policymakers have begun to confront the unique realities of rural health care. Yet as the news cycle moves on, these achievements risk being overlooked. Policymakers in both Congress and the executive branch should resist the urge to rush to the next challenge and instead highlight the significance of these steps in the right direction.

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

​Rural heathcare, One big beautiful bill, Healthcare, Healthcare costs, Rural america, Rural americans, Rural hospitals, Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Health and human services