Category: blaze media

A professor at the University of Washington was punished for having the audacity to poke fun at the school’s moral exhibitionism. Stuart Reges, a professor at UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, fought back and, on Friday, secured a decisive victory.

Reges ruffled feathers at the university where he has worked for decades by including a parodic land acknowledgment in his 2022 course syllabus.

‘The Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land.’

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the outfit that represented Reges, the university recommended in its “best practices” guide that instructors incorporate an “Indigenous Land Acknowledgment” in their course syllabi, providing the following as an example statement: “The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.”

In a December 2021 faculty email thread, one of Reges’ colleagues referred to an article that characterized land acknowledgments as “moral onanism.” Reges said in response that he was uncertain about the value of making such statements and noted that he might include a mock statement in his syllabus.

Sure enough, the professor included the following land acknowledgment on the syllabus of his winter 2022 computer science course: “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”

Administrators at UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering punished Stuart Reges over his failure to conform, which they claimed had caused a “disruption to instruction” but had in reality enraged only ideologically delicate members of the faculty and the school’s DEI student committee.

RELATED: ‘Enough white guys already’: The war on white men because of DEI in the working world exposed in damning report

Stuart Reges. Courtesy of Twinkle Don’t Blink

The director of UW’s computer science department, Magdalena Balazinska, ordered Reges to remove the statement because it was supposedly “offensive” and generated a “toxic environment.”

According to court documents, when Reges refused to remove his dissenting statement, Balazinska unilaterally removed it, then apologized to Reges’ students, detailing ways that they could file complaints against their professor.

‘Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted.’

In addition to inviting students to switch out of Reges’ computer programming course and into a “shadow” class section taught by a different professor, university administrators launched a years-long disciplinary investigation into Reges.

In July 2022, Reges sued Balazinska, then-UW President Ana Mari Cauce, and other school officials, accusing them of violating his First Amendment rights.

“University administrators turned me into a pariah on campus because I included a land acknowledgment that wasn’t sufficiently progressive for them,” Reges said at the time. “Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court.”

U.S. District Court Judge John Chun, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, dismissed Reges’ lawsuit last year, claiming that “the disruption caused by Plaintiff’s speech rendered it unprotected.”

Reges appealed and found a court that viewed his case differently.

In a 2-1 decision on Friday, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel disagreed with and reversed the Biden judge’s ruling, remanding the case for further proceedings.

Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, writing for the majority, noted, “Debate and disagreement are hallmarks of higher education. Student discomfort with a professor’s views can prompt discussion and disapproval. But this discomfort is not grounds for the university retaliating against the professor. We hold that the university’s actions toward the professor violated his First Amendment rights.”

Bress, an appointee of President Donald Trump, highlighted the long-standing debate over the value, factual basis, and political nature of land acknowledgments as well as Reges’ sense that they are part of “an agenda of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ that treats some groups of students as more deserving of recognition and welcome than others on account of their race or other immutable characteristic.”

While acknowledging the right of members of the UW community to speak out against Reges and his views, Bress stressed that “Reges has rights too. And here, we conclude that UW violated the First Amendment in taking adverse action against Reges based on his views on a matter of public concern.”

Will Creeley, the legal director of FIRE, said that the ruling “recognizes that sometimes, ‘exposure to views that distress and offend is a form of education unto itself.'”

“If you graduate from college without once being offended, you should ask for your money back,” added Creeley.

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

​Education, Woke, Land acknowledgment, Leftism, Indian, Native, Indigenous, Stuart reges, University of washington, Seattle, Coast, Revisionism, Free speech, First amendment, Politics 

A father fell asleep after bringing his toddler daughter into a hot tub with him in the middle of the night, and she drowned, police in Florida said.

Deputies and rescue personnel responded to a home on Nice Court in Kissimmee just after 3:30 a.m. Dec. 13 regarding an unresponsive child who appeared to have drowned in a hot tub, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said.

‘It’s very hard losing a niece this way, and then we have so much hurt for my brother because he’s just so distraught and tore up.’

A family from Washington, D.C., was staying at the residence, which was listed as an Airbnb, officials said.

The 20-month-old girl was transported to AdventHealth Celebration where she was pronounced dead shortly after 4:30 a.m., officials said.

Sheriff’s office detectives responded to the home to investigate the incident, officials said, and the father said he brought his daughter into the hot tub and fell asleep while holding her. The father reported waking up to find the child unresponsive in his arms while still in the hot tub, officials said. According to WUSA-TV, he said the child was face down when he awakened.

Following the investigation, detectives determined that the father — 33-year-old Reynard Tyrone Hough — was neglectful in the death of his daughter and arrested him on a charge of child neglect causing great bodily harm.

On Dec. 14, detectives added an additional charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child, officials said, adding that Hough was in custody at the Osceola County Jail.

Hough told detectives he was drinking that night, and police say alcohol likely contributed to him falling asleep, WESH-TV reported. Investigators told WUSA they saw various alcoholic drinks at the scene.

Hough also told detectives he ingested two different narcotics before getting into the hot tub with his daughter, WESH added.

RELATED: Dad visits ‘the Adult Shoppe’ while his kids sit in 125-degree car for almost an hour, cops say

“It’s very hard losing a niece this way, and then we have so much hurt for my brother because he’s just so distraught and tore up,” Angel Hough, the sister of Reynard Tyrone Hough, told WESH.

Capt. Kim Montes with the sheriff’s office added to WESH: “I feel bad for this mom and dad; they were devastated, and they had another 6-month-old child at the home. We do know that watching two small kids can be challenging.”

Hough appeared in court last Monday and was issued no bond, WESH noted.

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

​Drowning, Florida, Hot tub, Father and daughter, Toddler, Alcohol, Drugs, Arrest, Child neglect causing great bodily harm, Aggravated manslaughter, Crime 

A Utah man pretending to be a woman has learned his fate after pleading guilty last month to murdering his parents and assaulting his brother in June 2024.

On Friday, 30-year-old Mia Bailey, born Collin Troy Bailey, received two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life plus an additional consecutive sentence of up to five years after pleading guilty to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated assault in connection with the gruesome shooting.

‘I would do it again. I hate them.’

“If only I had gotten help, this would have been preventable,” Bailey said in a statement read by his attorney, Ryan Stout, according to the New York Post. The statement added that Bailey was “sincerely, deeply sorry” and that his newfound “religious beliefs as a Muslim” would make the death penalty an “appropriate … atonement” for the crime.

“It makes me want to die because I can’t live with myself.”

Bailey had previously asked permission to skip the sentencing hearing, claiming that the stress of it might lead to a nervous breakdown, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Judge Keith Barnes of the Fifth District Court of Utah denied that request.

On June 18, 2024, Bailey shot and killed his parents, 70-year-old Joseph Bailey and 69-year-old Gail Bailey, in their home in Washington City, Utah. Joseph Bailey was struck twice, and his wife was struck four times.

One of Mia Bailey’s brothers was also in the home at the time, barricaded inside a bedroom with his wife. Mia Bailey shot through the bedroom door but did not injure anyone inside, according to reports. The husband and wife then fled to a neighbor’s house to call police.

Following his arrest on June 19, Bailey allegedly told investigators: “I would do it again. I hate them.”

RELATED: Groomed for violence? The dark world of furries and transgenderism in America’s classrooms

Bill Oxford/Getty Images

Two of Bailey’s siblings spoke at the sentencing hearing, though whether either of them was the third victim in the attack is unclear.

“What’s best for us and what’s best for Mia is probably staying in prison for as long as possible,” Cory Bailey said.

Dustin Bailey went farther, noting that the family fully supports “LGBTQ rights,” but that the “powerful hormones” Mia Bailey had taken exacerbated his “psychiatric crisis.”

“Providing powerful hormones to a person in a psychiatric crisis without proper psychiatric safeguards is not affirming care. It is reckless. … It acted as an accelerant, intensifying instability, impairing judgment, and compounding risk. That failure harmed Mia, and it endangered our parents,” Dustin Bailey said.

In arguing for concurrent rather than consecutive sentences, attorney Ryan Stout noted that Mia Bailey had been diagnosed with several mental illnesses: autism, psychosis, schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD.

While Judge Barnes issued consecutive sentences, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will ultimately determine how much time Bailey serves.

Washington City is also the home of Tyler Robinson, the suspect accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk in September. Robinson’s alleged romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, reportedly identifies as transgender.

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

​Transgender, Murder, Mia bailey, Utah, Washington city, Crime 

Several forces are converging right now, and the result is a perfect storm of confusion, misinformation, apathy, and — most dangerously — runaway conspiracy thinking.

For a long time, I was consumed by true crime: real-life stories filled with mystery, fear, and emotional whiplash. I wasn’t alone. The genre became a full-blown cottage industry, complete with massive conferences, prestige documentaries, podcasts, and feature films.

The problem isn’t asking questions. It is speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.

At first, I saw little harm in it — especially when victims or family members were included in the storytelling. But once Hollywood began churning out sensationalized, “based on a true story” dramatizations of real-life horrors, something felt wrong.

Then I heard the victims’ loved ones speak out.

They described the pain these projects inflicted — how strangers dissected their trauma, speculated about their grief, and turned the worst moments of their lives into consumable entertainment. In some cases, families practically begged studios to stop profiting from their suffering. The pleas went unanswered.

There is little sign that Tinseltown plans to slow down. Personal tragedy is no longer treated as personal. We’ve crossed a line into a world where strangers don’t just demand access to these stories — they claim ownership of them.

That entitlement hardens quickly. It manifests as amateur investigations, armchair sleuthing, and the conviction that someone online can solve what professionals could not. Too often, that obsession mutates into wild conspiracy theories — narratives untethered from evidence that deepen the damage inflicted on real people already living with loss.

Fueling all of this is another force: social media addiction.

Millions of Americans live on their phones. Filters are gone. Boundaries between public and private have crumbled. Every tragedy becomes content. Every rumor becomes a reel. Every high-profile event risks turning into a true-crime nightmare, complete with TikTok theories and Instagram speculation.

Not all of it is malicious. But much of it is steeped in a moral carelessness that should unsettle us. And while content creators deserve scrutiny, they aren’t the only culprits. Plenty of us are liking, sharing, and amplifying the madness.

That dynamic reached a horrifying peak on September 10, when conservative and Christian commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

Almost immediately, conspiracy theories spread — many debunked within hours. In one case, a popular Christian apologist, a friend of Kirk who had been filming him speaking at Utah Valley University that day, was falsely accused of signaling the shooter through hand gestures. The claim was nonsense. It collapsed under minimal scrutiny.

No matter. The damage was done.

Other theories followed. Some insinuated betrayal by those closest to Kirk. Others implied inside involvement without evidence. Each claim compounded the grief of a family and community already reeling from an unspeakable loss.

The problem isn’t asking questions. It’s speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.

If someone is going to promote conspiracy theories, basic decency demands evidence. To date, none has been produced. And yet the claims persist — entertained, shared, and believed.

RELATED: ‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’

Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

I can’t entirely blame people for their skepticism. In 2016, I wrote a book called “Fault Line” warning that media bias carries real-world consequences. When trust erodes, people stop listening to official narratives altogether. Combine that with the government’s incoherent and often dishonest messaging during COVID, and the ground was primed for disbelief.

For years, progressives dismissed concerns about institutional credibility. Now we’re living with the consequences. A toxic cocktail of distrust, trauma, and algorithmic amplification has left many people — especially the young — drunk with suspicion and untethered from reality.

Add in social media saturation, obsession with true crime, collapsing trust in institutions, and the undeniable presence of evil in the world, and you have a generation raised inside a pressure cooker of dysfunction.

We need to cling to truth. We need to model discernment. We need to help people learn how to question responsibly — without tumbling into conspiracism — and how to rebuild boundaries that preserve perspective and humanity.

Truth-seeking should guide us, not digital frenzy or the dark impulses of the human soul. If we fail to make that distinction, the damage will only deepen.

We must be better.

​Opinion & analysis, Conspiracy theory, Charlie kirk, Truth, Lies, Question, Social media, Media bias, Conservatives, Tpusa, Am fest 

While the Trump administration continues to target illegal alien criminal offenders, gang members, and national security threats as the primary focus of its mass deportation initiative, it has recently begun zeroing in on two other groups: Somalis and Afghans.

Earlier this year, President Trump terminated Temporary Protected Status for Afghans, and in late November, he announced his intention to do the same for Somalis after reports of mass fraud were exposed in Minnesota’s Somali communities.

Mark Levin is overjoyed that the Trump administration is targeting these two groups. Both, he reminds us, are “Islamists,” meaning assimilation is impossible.

Islamists, he says, are people “who have no intention of having allegiance to our country [and] no intention of joining our culture.”

“Islamism is incompatible with Americanism. It’s incompatible with the Judeo-Christian system,” he says, noting that peaceful Muslims are not the same as Islamists.

Unfortunately, there are many people with platforms in our country who are spreading the narrative that America does not have a Judeo-Christian foundation, but these people are “on the Qatar payroll,” says Levin.

Combine this with the spreading false narrative bolstered by America-hating Democrats who want to import blue voters with the massive influx of Islamists, and we’ve got a situation that is “very diabolical,” he warns.

These immigrants are “not vetted” and are “from war-torn countries with terrorist activity,” and yet because a large portion of the nation doesn’t believe that America is built on principles incompatible with Islamism, there’s a massive fight to keep these immigrants here.

President Trump’s unapologetic efforts to stop this disastrous immigration are valiant, says Levin. “He’s done things that no other president in my mind would even think about doing — no more third-world entrance into this country until we get this figured out. That is genius. That is courageous.”

The left is, of course, framing him as a racist, xenophobic bigot, but none of that is true. President Trump simply understands the disastrous outcomes of welcoming people who come from economically failing, violence-ridden, regime-controlled countries into America.

“[Trump is] saying, ‘Look, I can’t fix that, but we’re not going to bring those people into this country,”’ says Levin.

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Mark Levin?

To enjoy more of “the Great One” — Mark Levin as you’ve never seen him before — subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Levintv, Mark levin, Blazetv, Blaze media, Illegal immigration, Somalians, Afghans, Tps, Revoked tps, Immigration reform, Mass deportations, Levin 

Several speakers at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest offered competing and ostensibly irreconcilable views of the way forward for the MAGA coalition, in some cases identifying one another as cowards, saboteurs, or worse.

In his speech closing out the conference in Phoenix, Vice President JD Vance emphasized that “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests.”

‘Do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends.’

Vance, the Republican front-runner going into 2028 whom TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk endorsed last week for president, faces mounting public pressure to throw Tucker Carlson under the bus over his criticism of Israel and perceived bigotry as well as to censure Nicholas Fuentes, the head of the so-called Groypers who has been particularly critical of the vice president.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” told the Washington Post, “The reasonable actors can see that JD is being a reasonable arbiter of this debate, and that’s a really important signal to send out — that Israel is our ally. They’re an important ally. They’re not our only concern, though.”

“I think JD understands the needs, wants, and concerns of young Americans as well, if not better than, any other leading politician in the country,” added Kolvet.

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Vance told the crowd of thousands gathered on Sunday.

“We have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”

The vice president underscored that the “America First movement” constitutes a big tent welcoming those who seek to make America “richer, stronger, safer, and prouder.”

In a recent interview with Sohrab Ahmari, the U.S. editor of UnHerd, Vance provided some insights into why he refused to denounce Carlson or waste any time discussing Fuentes.

“Tucker’s a friend of mine,” he told Ahmari. “And do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends, especially those who work in politics. You know this. Most people who know me know this. I’m [also] a very loyal person, and I am not going to get into the business of throwing friends under the bus.”

RELATED: Poll provides clear idea of who’s poised to sweep 2028 Republican presidential primary

Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

Vance noted further that “the idea that Tucker Carlson — who has one of the largest podcasts in the world, who has millions of listeners, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, who supported me in the 2024 election — the idea that his views are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement, is frankly absurd.”

As for Fuentes, Vance intimated that a condemnation of the 27-year-old host of “America First” podcast wasn’t worthwhile.

“[Fuentes’] influence within Donald Trump’s administration, and within a whole host of institutions on the right, is vastly overstated, and frankly, it’s overstated by people who want to avoid having a foreign-policy conversation about America’s relationship with Israel,” Vance said in the interview.

‘Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s**t.’

While the vice president maintains that Israel is an “important ally,” he indicated that he welcomes substantive disagreements with the Middle Eastern nation as well as debates at home about American foreign policy.

Vance told Ahmari that anti-Semitism and all forms of ethnic hatred “have no place in the conservative movement” but noted that “if you believe racism is bad, Fuentes should occupy one second of your focus, and the people with actual political power who worked so hard to discriminate against white men should occupy many hours of it.”

RELATED: DEI hustlers lash out after Trump official solicits discrimination complaints from white men

Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images

Although recognizing Fuentes as an apparent sideshow to an important conversation, Vance did make a point of telling Ahmari, “Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is [former Biden press secretary] Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s**t.”

On the theme of America First’s genuine spirit of inclusion, the vice president made clear in his AmericaFest speech that the Trump administration and the broader movement supporting it has “relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs.”

“In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white any more. And if you’re an Asian, you don’t have to talk around your skin color when you’re applying for college, because we judge people based on who they are, not on ethnicity and things they can’t control,” said Vance. “We don’t persecute you for being male, for being straight, for being gay, for being anything. The only thing that we demand is that you be a great American patriot.”

‘It is better to die a patriot than live a coward.’

In addition to risking offense with his acknowledgement that white Americans needn’t apologize for their pigmentation and with his refusal to betray a friend, Vance realized the fears articulated in recent years by liberals and anti-Christian activists by noting in his speech that “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation.”

For the benefit of those who might strategically misconstrue his meaning, Vance clarified that Americans don’t have to be Christian but that “Christianity is America’s creed,” despite the decades-long campaign by the left to remove Christianity from public life.

“That creed motivated our understanding of natural law and rights, our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak, and the belief in individual conscience,” continued the vice president. “Even our famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept.”

The vice president noted further that the “fruits of true Christianity” are good men like his murdered friend, Charlie Kirk.

“The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons,” said Vance. “And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asks them to do. Because so many of us recognize that it is better to die a patriot than live a coward.”

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

​Jd vance, Vance, Amfest, Americafest, Maga, America first, Dei, Diversity equity inclusion, Vice president, Election 2028, Republican, Conservative, Culture war, Christianity, Faith, Politics 

Over the course of a single day this month, a pattern repeated itself across the West. Two Muslims murdered at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Five Muslims were arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market in Germany. French authorities canceled a concert in Paris due to credible threats of an Islamist terror attack. Two Iowa National Guardsmen in Syria were murdered by an Islamist while we play footsie with an illegitimate regime.

None of this represents an anomaly. It represents the accumulated failure of a strategy best summarized as “invade the Muslim world, invite the Muslim world.”

This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.

That doctrine has produced neither peace abroad nor safety at home.

A contradiction the West refuses to resolve

Western governments spent the better part of a generation importing millions of migrants from unstable regions while simultaneously deploying their own soldiers to those same regions to manage sectarian civil wars.

The contradiction remains unresolved: We accept the risks of mass migration while risking our troops to contain the same ideologies overseas.

Islamist movements do not confine themselves to national borders. Whether Sunni or Shia, whether operating in Syria, Europe, or North America, the targets remain consistent: Jews, Christians, secular institutions, and Western civil society.

Yet our policy treats these threats as isolated incidents rather than the expression of a coherent ideology.

Strategic incoherence in Syria

Nowhere does this incoherence appear more starkly than in Syria.

On one hand, the Trump administration has moved toward normalizing relations with Syria’s new leadership. In June, President Trump signed an executive order terminating U.S. sanctions on Syria, including those on its central bank, in the name of reconstruction and investment. Last month, Syria’s new leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — a former al-Qaeda figure rebranded as a statesman — visited the White House, where Trump publicly praised developments under the new regime and said he was “very satisfied” with Syria’s direction.

At the same time, Trump floated the idea of establishing a permanent U.S. military base in Damascus to solidify America’s indefensible presence and support the new government.

This would be extraordinary. The United States would be embedding troops deeper into one of the most volatile theaters on earth, effectively placing American soldiers at the mercy of a regime whose leadership and allies only recently emerged from jihadist networks — including factions accused of massacring Christians and Druze.

Simultaneously, the White House pressures Israel to limit its defensive operations in southern Syria, including its buffer-zone strategy along the Golan Heights, even as Israeli forces do a far more effective job degrading jihadist threats without sacrificing their own soldiers.

The result is perverse: America risks lives to stabilize an Islamist-adjacent regime while restraining the one ally actually capable of enforcing order.

Wars abroad, chaos at home

The contradiction deepens when immigration policy enters the picture.

Despite Syria remaining one of the world’s most unstable countries, with no reliable vetting infrastructure, the United States continues admitting Syrian migrants while maintaining roughly 800 troops inside Syria with no clear mission, no defined end, and no defensible supply lines.

Worse, U.S. forces increasingly find themselves aligned with terrorist factions tied to al-Jolani’s coalition to manage rival Islamist groups — placing American soldiers in the same position they occupied in Afghanistan, where “allies” repeatedly turned on them.

That dynamic produced deadly ambushes then. It is happening again.

Qatar’s fingerprints all over

The common thread running through Syria, Gaza, immigration policy, and Islamist indulgence is Qatar.

Qatar (along with our NATO “ally,” Turkey) invested heavily in Sunni Islamist factions during Syria’s civil war and backed networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood for more than a decade. Qatar hosts Islamist leaders, bankrolls ideological infrastructure, and operates Al Jazeera, a media outlet that consistently amplifies anti-Western and anti-Israel narratives.

Yet Qatari preferences increasingly shape Western policy. We remain in Syria. We soften pressure on Islamist factions. We tolerate Muslim Brotherhood networks operating domestically. We allow Al Jazeera to function with broad access and influence inside the United States.

These choices do not occur in isolation. They align consistently with Qatari interests.

Unfettered immigration kills

Which brings us to the attack in Sydney that killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more, when two Muslim terrorists opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration — using weapons supposedly banned in a country that prides itself on gun control, but not border control.

The alleged attackers, Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, were a father-and-son pair of Pakistani origin. Sajid Akram entered Australia from Pakistan in 1998 on a student visa, converted it to a partner visa in 2001, and later received permanent residency through resident return visas.

In other words, this was not a transient or marginal figure. Akram was educated, had lived in Australia for more than 25 years, raised an Australian-born son, and still became radicalized enough to murder Jews in his adopted country.

Pakistan is one of the countries the Trump administration continues to treat as an ally, allowing large numbers of its nationals into the United States. Over the past decade, roughly 140,000 Pakistanis have received green cards, with tens of thousands more entering on student and work visas.

RELATED: Political Islam is playing the long game — America isn’t even playing

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

The same pattern appears elsewhere. In Germany, five terrorists arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market came from Morocco, Syria, and Egypt. In the U.S., we have issued green cards to approximately 38,000 Moroccans, more than 100,000 Egyptians, and over 28,000 Syrians.

This problem is not confined to ISIS or a handful of extremists in distant war zones. It is systemic. It explains why thousands took to the streets celebrating the Sydney massacre and why Islamist mobs now routinely surround synagogues in American cities, blocking worshippers and daring authorities to intervene.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter which Islamic country they hail from, how friendly that government may be to the West, or the tribal dynamics on the ground there. All of them, when they cluster in large numbers and form independent communities run by the Musim Brotherhood organizations, are incompatible with the West.

The problem is with Islam itself and the mass migration and Western subversion promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood through Qatari and Turkish gaslighting.

A choice we keep postponing

This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.

The West must decide whether it intends to defend its civilization or continue subsidizing its erosion — through mass migration without assimilation, foreign entanglements without strategy, and alliances that demand silence in exchange for access.

Rather than building up Syria, risking the lives of our troops, and continuing to appease our enemies in Qatar, why not pull out, let Israel serve as the regional security force, while we focus on closing our border to the religion of pieces?

Protecting the country requires clarity. That means ending immigration from jihadist incubators, dismantling Islamist networks operating domestically, withdrawing troops from unwinnable sectarian conflicts, and empowering allies who actually fight our enemies.

Anything less is not “compassion” or sound foreign policy. It is criminal negligence.

​Opinion & analysis, Immigration, Islam, Terrorism, Syria, Qatar, Turkey, Western civilization, The west, Submission, Sajid akram, Naveed akram, Australia, Hanukkah, Massacre, Jews, Anti-semitism, Germany, France, Mass deportations, Invasion, Al jazeera, Propaganda, Europe, Abu mohammed al-jolani, Doha forum, Muslim ban 

The world is vast and varied — different foods, cars, buildings, beliefs, and political systems wherever you go.

Yet somehow, laundromats are always exactly the same.

In an era of technologically dehumanizing isolation, I find myself seeing beauty in the most mundane moments of human connection or human commonality.

Universal, they stretch from the northern Atlantic to the southern Pacific. Where there are people and where there is civilization, there is laundry and there are laundromats.

Watching the washers

I remember waiting in a laundromat in northern France. It was right across the street from the Super-U. It was long and thin with tall windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It was late November, the low sun was warm on the seats next to the windows, our clothes turning back and forth behind the tightly sealed window facing us. The silence of the warm carpet, our winter coats unbuttoned though still on, as we waited for our clothes to finish before walking back to the apartment.

In Chicago, my laundromat had long rows of metal machines. They loaded from the top and took six quarters per cycle. You slipped the quarters in the little slots and only once all six were filled could you push the metal slider forward. A few seconds later, the machine would start.

There were boxes of overpriced dry laundry soap next to the front door and a few benches next to the bathrooms that were always occupied by people staring down at their phones. I would wait in the corner, leaning against a rumbling dryer, looking up from my phone only when someone got up to move their wet clothes from washer to dryer. I would see wrinkly shirts, knotted sweaters, socks, pants, and skirts as they shuffled their clothes to another metal machine.

When I lived in Jerusalem, I washed my clothes at a laundromat close to Kikar Tzion. It was usually quiet, though never entirely empty. There was always someone else there talking quietly on the phone, listening more than speaking. Sometimes in Hebrew, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in French. The walls were covered with posters and printouts with little tags with phone numbers that could be torn off and slipped into your pocket if you were interested in whatever they were selling.

Metal machine music

Last week, our washer broke. On Saturday night, I took three loads plus two kids out in a snowstorm to the laundromat to get the laundry done.

It was empty, with the exception of the guy at the front desk who greeted us kindly as we stumbled in knocking the snow off our boots on the long black carpet. There was a TV in the corner, a couple tables with chairs, long lines of big, silver machines, and a few teal seats that looked like they were made in 1982. The kids and I loaded up the machines, poured in the detergent we had brought from home, and began listening to the low hum as the clothes began to spin.

The sound is always the same in every laundromat. There’s never loud music on a stereo; if there’s a TV, it’s always muted or very quiet. Even the people waiting for their socks and underwear behave as if they’re in a library, talking in low voices by the rumbling machines and spinning heat.

RELATED: The A&W Drive-In in Cortland, New York, isn’t just a lunch spot — it’s a time machine

Jim Steinfeldt/Getty Images

On the scent

The smell too; it’s always the same. All laundry soap all over the world has that same detergent-y scent. Soft, flowery, and lightly chemical. Detergent in Italy and detergent in Israel may have different names from detergent in America or detergent in Iceland, but they all are basically the same. The world is big and there are so many people, but all their clothes smell the same.

At the laundromat, people wash their most intimate garments in public, together. They carry their laundry baskets in and wash the things they only show their significant others right next to the things that someone else only shows theirs.

We never acknowledge any of this, and this is why we all hurry to put our clothes in, or change our clothes over, when we are at the laundromat. We all have a secret to protect, and we are all stuck together, in public, with the spinning machines, the low hum of the heat, and the smell of chemical flowers.

Together alone

This is part of why we are all fairly quiet as well. It’s like we don’t actually want to acknowledge that anyone else is really there washing their clothes right alongside ours. We may make small talk, but we don’t say much.

Laundromats are almost something like holdovers from a more necessarily communal time. Waiting and watching the people sitting and their clothes spinning, I have thought about how all the women must have washed clothes down by the river, or wherever it was they did laundry, in the ancient days.

In an era of technologically dehumanizing isolation, I find myself seeing beauty in the most mundane moments of human connection or human commonality. The things we share even if we don’t dwell on them. The things we do together even if we are alone. The spinning machines, the private garments we want to keep to ourselves, the smell of the detergent, the quiet as we wait.

​Laundromat, Men’s style, Fatherhood, Lifestyle, The root of the matter 

Western nations are collapsing under the weight of mass migration, failed assimilation, demographic upheaval, and the growing alliance between Marxist and Islamist ideologies — a threat Charlie Kirk warned about with clarity long before his death.

“We don’t talk enough about Islam. … We don’t talk nearly enough about the hundreds of thousands of Muslims that we have voluntarily imported into our country that build mosques, implement Sharia law,” Kirk once said.

“You go to Minneapolis, you even go to Dallas, you go to New York, and it will metastasize. It will spread. You know why? Because the women of the West, they get cats. The women of Muslims, they have eight kids. Eventually, it doesn’t work very well,” he continued.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey couldn’t agree with Kirk more.

“I thought he was going to go in the direction of toxic empathy, because it’s toxic empathy that has made us say, ‘No, Christians are the bad ones. Muslims are the great ones. And we just need to accept, unfettered, anyone into our country,’” she tells her father and BlazeTV contributor Ron Simmons on “Relatable.”

And Simmons has noticed it in his own neighborhood.

“Even in the neighborhood that I live in, I walk a lot. … I will pass people that I know have immigrated here, you know, meet them, and they won’t even make eye contact. It’s just really strange,” Simmons tells his daughter.

“That’s not the America that I grew up in or believe in,” he adds.

“And that’s one thing, you know, we heard so much, especially the past few years: ‘Diversity is our strength. Diversity is our strength.’ Well, statistically, that’s not true,” Stuckey agrees.

“It can bring different perspectives and things like that, but at the end of the day, you have to say, ‘Okay, but this is what we have in common.’ But if you don’t have that, then diversity is a weakness,” she says.

“We are trying to force multiculturalism upon people without any shared underneath values,” she continues. “And that has worked zero places throughout history.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video phone, Video, Upload, Camera phone, Sharing, Free, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Charlie kirk, Islam, Islam and the west, Islam destroying the west, The islamification of america, Ron simmons, Toxic empathy 

On December 11, 18 child online safety bills took a significant step toward becoming law. The package — each bill addressing, in some way, the harms children face online — passed out of a House subcommittee on a mostly party-line vote. The legislative bundle is, overall, a somewhat milquetoast mix of meaningful wins and frustrating defeats for child safety advocates. Still, it represents real progress. For those who have long pushed for action, the ball has finally moved down the field.

The bills vary dramatically in scope. Some, like the Assessing Safety Tools for Parents and Minors Act, would simply mandate an analytical report on the efforts technology companies are making to protect children. Others, such as the App Store Accountability Act — which would require app stores to determine whether a user is a minor and, if so, prohibit downloads without parental consent — are far more consequential, fundamentally changing how app stores operate.

Advancing 18 bills signals that one of the longest-standing objections to action — whether social media actually harms children — has effectively collapsed.

There are also bittersweet elements. The most well-known and controversial bill, the Kids Online Safety Act, is included in the package — but in a significantly watered-down form. The original version, introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), passed the Senate with more than 90 votes. But House GOP leadership raised constitutional concerns, arguing that the bill placed undue pressure on social media companies to regulate speech.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), one of the bill’s most prominent opponents, warned that it would “empower dangerous people.” Other critics likened KOSA to the British Online Safety Act — a far more draconian law than its American counterpart. (The most recent Senate version of KOSA focuses on disabling addictive features and restricting minors’ access to dangerous content.)

These concerns forced substantial revisions. Most notably, the bill now includes a sweeping pre-emption clause barring states from regulating anything that “relates” to KOSA — effectively nullifying existing and future state-level efforts to protect children online.

Equally disappointing is what failed to make the cut.

Some excluded proposals were undeniably radical, such as the RESET Act, which would have barred minors from creating or maintaining social media accounts altogether. But another bill left behind — the App Store Freedom Act — was critical to restoring competition and accountability in the app ecosystem.

That legislation would have challenged the Apple-Google duopoly, which controls more than 90% of app store purchases in the United States. As long as those two companies dominate the marketplace, meaningful reform will remain elusive. Unsurprisingly, both firms opposed the bill, arguing that it would “endanger” children by allowing downloads from unvetted third-party stores.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), the bill’s sponsor, blasted that claim, noting that Apple has long permitted minors to download TikTok — a platform run by a Chinese company with well-documented national security concerns.

RELATED: Schools made boys the villain. The internet gave them a hero.

Image by Alexandr Muşuc via iStock / Getty Images

Despite its importance, the App Store Freedom Act was removed from the package. Even so, the remaining legislation still marks a major victory for those focused on protecting children online.

Here’s why.

First, advancing 18 bills signals that one of the longest-standing objections to action — whether social media actually harms children — has effectively collapsed.

For years, lawmakers debated whether digital platforms were the problem or whether other factors deserved the blame. A steady stream of studies, headlines, and internal leaks showing that social media companies knew their products damaged adolescent mental health helped put that question to rest.

Second, the breadth of the package ensures that something will happen. Even the weakest provisions — those requiring studies or reports — will energize advocates and help bring order to what remains a digital Wild West for children and families.

The legislative fight is far from over. The bills must still clear committee, pass the House, and survive the Senate. But momentum is clearly shifting toward reform.

It’s time to finish the fight.

​Congress, Online safety, Apple, Google, App store, App store accountability act, Opinion & analysis, Kids online safety act, Marsha blackburn 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the AmericaFest crowd in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday that key global allies are hoping to drag the United States into a war with Russia.

Gabbard explained that the “warmongers in the deep state” are blocking Russia and Ukraine from reaching a peace agreement, undermining President Donald Trump’s efforts.

‘We cannot allow this to happen.’

“Predictably, they use the same old tactics that they’ve always used. The deep state within the intelligence community weaponizes ‘intelligence’ to try to undermine progress,” she stated, motioning air quotes.

Gabbard said these deep-staters then leak that so-called “intelligence” to their friends in the “mainstream propaganda media” to propel a false narrative.

She went on to accuse the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of wanting to pull the U.S. into direct battle with Russia.

RELATED: Frustrated Trump calls for Ukrainian election after Zelenskyy seemingly torpedoes another peace opportunity

President Donald Trump. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“[Deep-staters] foment fear and hysteria as a way to justify the continuing of the war and their efforts to undermine President Trump’s efforts towards peace,” Gabbard said. “And do so in this case in order to try to pull the U.S. military into a direct conflict with Russia, which is ultimately what the EU and NATO want.”

“We cannot allow this to happen,” she declared.

— (@)

During her AmFest speech, Gabbard also warned about the threat of Islamist ideology.

“There’s a threat to our freedom that is not often talked about enough. And it is the greatest near- and long-term threat to both our freedom and our security, and that is the threat of Islamist ideology,” she said.

Gabbard’s comments prompted cheers and applause from the audience.

RELATED: European leaders gossip about US amid apparent efforts to torpedo Trump’s Russia-Ukraine peace deal: Report

President Donald Trump, DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

She argued that, at its core, Islam is a political ideology that seeks to implement a “global caliphate” that would destroy freedom through Sharia law.

“This is already underway in places like Houston. This is not something that may possibly happen; it is already happening here within our borders,” she continued. “Paterson, New Jersey, is proud to call themselves the first Muslim city.”

You can view Gabbard’s remarks about Islamist ideology beginning at the 6:50 mark in the below video:

RELATED: Secret Sharia ‘courts’ in Texas may be quietly overriding state law — Abbott calls for investigation

Gabbard added that Islamist ideology “is propagated by people who not only do not believe in freedom, their fundamental ideology is antithetical to the foundation that we find in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is that our Creator endowed upon us inalienable rights. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

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

​News, Russia, Ukraine, Russia ukraine war, Ukraine war, Russia war, Ukraine russia war, Nato, Eu, European union, North atlantic treaty organization, Tusli gabbard, Dni, Donald trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Islam, Islamist, Sharia law, Politics 

Modern Christianity often treats “niceness” as its highest virtue and “offending” as its worst. The American church is far too often shaped by this creed.

Yet the Gospels paint a far different picture of Jesus. He was loving, compassionate, and merciful, yes — but He was also unapologetically offensive when truth required it. When we avoid speaking hard truths for the sake of being liked or preserving a shallow sense of “peace,” we slip into spiritual complacency, apathy, and lukewarmness — all things Jesus rebuked.

Jesus never softened the truth to keep crowds happy.

The American church has developed an aversion to tackling tough cultural issues that are, at their core, purely biblical. Pastors often retreat in fear of angry emails, pushback from congregants, or worse, the loss of Sunday pew-warmers.

Last year, in my home state of South Dakota, an amendment allowing abortion up to nine months was on the ballot. A pastor of one of the state’s largest churches refused to address it, worried about being labeled the “abortion church.” He chose the path of cowardice instead of defending the innocent unborn.

At its core, this kind of timidity is rooted in the fear of man, disguised as a desire to “attract” people to the gospel. Numbers are prioritized over hearts, popularity over true discipleship.

What most pastors try so hard to avoid today, Jesus hit head on. Jesus offended — and offended often. His offense was never petty but was always purposeful. He never once flinched from boldly proclaiming truth because it might “offend” someone or ruffle feathers. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Jesus set the example: Truth will offend

The Pharisees were Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day, esteemed by many and considered high-class elites.

But Jesus didn’t care how lofty and noble these men appeared to be — He saw straight through their transgressing hearts, calling them offensive names like “hypocrites,” “blind fools,” “brood of vipers,” “serpents,” “children of hell,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “greedy and self-indulgent.” Naturally they were offended.

In Matthew 15:1-12 and Matthew 23, the disciples pulled Jesus aside after He offended the Pharisees by exposing their spiritual corruption. Jesus told these perceived religious zealots they honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him.

The disciples questioned, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15:12). Jesus’ backbone, as stiff as steel, responded, “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matthew 15:14). He didn’t have any time for nonsense.

Jesus didn’t just offend the Pharisees with truth; He offended His disciples too.

RELATED: The era of Christian loserdom is over

Christ driving money-changers from the Temple (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

In John 6, the disciples took offense at Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life. He challenged their religious assumptions and expectations about the Messiah as He proclaimed, “I am the living bread” (John 6:51), and symbolically called them to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (John 6:53).

Their offense shows their difficulty understanding the spiritual truths that transcended human understanding.

Jesus offends repeatedly all throughout the Gospel stories. When He claims He existed before Abraham as John 8:56-59 says, the Jewish leaders interpreted His teaching as blasphemy, which led them to try to stone Him. When one of the Pharisees invites Him to dinner in Luke 11:37-54, instead of a surface-level conversation about the weather, Jesus didn’t waste time and immediately unmasked their hypocrisy, legalism, and spiritual emptiness. In response, they began plotting against Jesus — not repenting and humbling themselves.

Jesus never softened the truth to keep crowds happy. He offended religious leaders, political authorities, and even His own followers when they opposed the kingdom of God. His love was inseparable from honesty.

If we claim to follow Him, we cannot avoid offending people. Jesus reminds us in the Gospel of John that if the world hates us to remember it hated Him first. Faithful discipleship means being willing to confront lies, challenge sin, and speak truth, even when it divides, disrupts, or costs us something — or everything.

Courageous truth-telling is a biblical virtue

The modern church often elevates “niceness” above righteousness and holiness. But Jesus wasn’t crucified for being nice — He was crucified because He spoke truth that offended people even though a week before they spread cloaks and branches, shouting “Hosanna” as He entered Jerusalem.

I recently read through the Gospels, noticing the countless times Jesus “offended” but for good reason. He never offended for the sake of it — but always because it was the outcome of teaching truth with conviction.

In Jesus’ hometown, people were both astonished and “offended” when Jesus taught in their synagogue as Matthew 13:54-57 recounts. Their familiarity led to their unbelief, and Jesus exposed the depth of their spiritual blindness. The people of Nazareth then tried to throw Jesus off a cliff. They were first impressed but then violently offended (Luke 4:16-30).

‘Modern religion focuses upon filling churches with people. The true gospel emphasizes filling people with God.’

Imagine congregants trying to throw a modern-day pastor off a cliff because he was too bold? Oh, to have more courageous pastors who righteously offend. Many would cower to the crowds or be taken to the side by their elder board demanding they tone it down, but not Jesus; He continued preaching truth at all costs.

Even up to His crucifixion and death on the cross, Jesus didn’t try to appease or reason with the people. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t use caveats. He was mission-focused on preaching the gospel that saves and leads to repentance. Not once did He try to people-please at the price of watering down sound doctrine.

Niceness avoids conflict, clarity, and offense — but Jesus didn’t. He embodied compassion and mercy, yet He also spoke hard, confrontational truths when necessary.

True Christlikeness means loving people enough to tell them what they need to hear — not what keeps us comfortable or well-liked.

Jesus didn’t offend to be cruel or to win an argument; He offended to reveal truth, to expose bondage, to free hearts, and to reveal God’s kingdom. His offense was holy, rooted in love, and aimed at transforming hearts and minds.

Fear of offending has paralyzed the church

A.W. Tozer wisely said, “Modern religion focuses upon filling churches with people. The true gospel emphasizes filling people with God.”

Many American pastors avoid addressing culturally explosive but biblically clear issues because they don’t want to offend. This silence stems from the fear of man — fear of losing members, donations, reputation, and influence.

The result is lukewarm churches that prioritize optics over obedience. Nothing is “wrong” with the church, but nothing is “right” with it either. People aren’t leaving convicted or repentant. They’re leaving feeling pretty good about themselves as they wallow in complacency.

Why does the American church continue to sit on the truth? True disciples follow Jesus until death.

No boats have been rocked, no hearts have been transformed, and no one has been truly discipled.

But the apostle Paul in Galatians 1:10 makes clear: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” You can only serve one master: God or the world.

When leaders refuse to speak on matters like abortion, sexuality, or sin because they might upset people, they are choosing self-preservation over faithfulness.

“If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it,” declared Charles Finney, a minister and leader during the Second Great Awakening.

Speaking truth in love: The cost of radical discipleship

John the Baptist offended people when he called them to repentance, criticized Herod for committing adultery, and condemned religious hypocrisy. He lost his head as a result. Paul offended people by preaching the Christ crucified and calling out legalism and man-made traditions. He was decapitated because of it. Elijah offended King Ahab and the prophets of Baal by confronting idolatry. Jezebel threatened to kill him. Amos offended the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom when he spoke out against wealth, corruption, and injustice in Israel. He faced rejection and threats.

These were all offenses they were willing to make because they lived for an audience of one.

So why does the American church continue to sit on the truth? True disciples follow Jesus until death.

Christian Nigerians right now are being slaughtered for their faith by the thousands, yet they continue gathering in droves to worship their King. Meanwhile American churches are sitting on the sidelines too worried about offending people to speak truth, rather than taking up our cross and truly following Christ.

As believers, we must be strong and courageous, with a truth-telling edge. We should not be harsh or abrasive but rather love people enough to say what’s hard.

If Jesus’ ministry provoked offense for the sake of truth, perhaps ours should too.

​Christianity, Christian, Jesus, American church, Church, Pastors, Bible, God, Offensive, Truth, Love, Faith 

Washington rarely admits when policy has failed. But earlier this month, the White House stepped back from more than a decade of regulations that drove car prices to record highs, limited consumer choice, and tried to force an industry to move faster than technology, infrastructure, or American families could manage.

With the unveiling of the Freedom Means Affordable Cars proposal, President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy signaled a dramatic shift in national auto policy — one aimed at making car ownership attainable again for millions priced out of the market.

The Biden-Buttigieg standards were projected to generate $14 billion in compliance fines between 2027 and 2032, costs manufacturers said would be passed directly to buyers.

The timing is critical. New vehicle prices topped $50,000 this fall, while average monthly payments approached $750. Families are keeping cars longer than ever, pushing the average age of the U.S. fleet to record levels. As Washington pushed electric vehicles, consumers pushed back: EV demand stalled, rejection rates soared, and buyers continued to favor affordable gas and hybrid vehicles. That tension has been building for years, and the December 3 announcement marked the most direct challenge yet to the regulatory regime behind it.

Trump’s proposal resets National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fuel-economy rules, reversing Biden-era targets that aimed to push the fleet toward roughly 50 mpg.

Closing the ‘back door’

Under the new plan, Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards return to 34.5 mpg — levels last seen in the late 2000s — with future increases scaled back to what Congress originally envisioned. The administration projects up to $109 billion in savings over five years and roughly $1,000 off the average new car. Whether those figures hold, the philosophical shift is clear: ending what the White House calls a backdoor EV mandate.

For years, automakers warned privately that the prior rules forced them to build vehicles customers didn’t want simply to avoid massive penalties. The Biden-Buttigieg standards were projected to generate $14 billion in compliance fines between 2027 and 2032, costs manufacturers said would be passed directly to buyers. Aligning federal rules with California’s stricter standards further nudged companies toward EVs even as demand weakened. CAFE was never meant to reshape the marketplace — but that is how it was being used.

The consequences were stark. Billions were poured into EV-charging initiatives with little to show for it; $5 trillion was allocated, yet only 11 stations were built nationwide. California faced rolling blackouts with EVs still just 2.3% of vehicles on the road. Experts warned that even 10% EV adoption would strain the grid under current infrastructure. Meanwhile buyers who didn’t want EVs — still the majority — faced fewer choices and higher prices.

Attracting investment

The Trump reset aims to reverse course. Automakers quickly announced new domestic investments. Stellantis committed $13 billion to expand U.S. manufacturing, including Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler. Ford pledged $5 billion for American facilities, noting that 80% of its vehicles are already made domestically. General Motors announced $4 billion to bring production back from Mexico while retooling plants for broader consumer demand. Even the United Auto Workers offered support, citing increased U.S. jobs and domestic production.

The plan also includes a tax change backed by the National Auto Dealers Association, allowing buyers to deduct interest on American-built vehicles. At a time when many families are locked out of the new-car market, the measure offers practical relief while encouraging domestic manufacturing.

Less noticed — but equally important — was the Congressional Review Act action that eliminated California’s special emissions waivers. Signed in June 2025, those resolutions dismantled the structure that allowed California to dictate national vehicle policy, ending the EV mandate embedded in federal regulations and clearing the way for this shift.

RELATED: Duffy threatens funding freeze for 3 states flouting English requirements for truck drivers

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Not far enough?

Some analysts argue the rollback doesn’t go far enough. As long as CAFE exists — at any target — it remains vulnerable to political swings. They contend emissions should be regulated directly through the EPA, leaving the market to determine the mix of gas, hybrid, and electric vehicles. This view is gaining traction among critics who say CAFE no longer reflects consumer demand or technological reality.

Even Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio weighed in, calling the forced EV pivot “irrational policy” that benefits China. China controls roughly 80% of EV battery minerals and most related mining, while the U.S. holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Moreno’s argument is blunt: America weakened its own manufacturing base by adopting policies that played to China’s strengths.

Sales data reinforces the point. EVs made up about 6% of new vehicle sales in November 2025, with rejection rates near 70% due to cost, charging gaps, range limits, insurance, and cold-weather performance. EVs still account for just 2.3% of vehicles on U.S. roads. The demand Washington expected never materialized.

The new policy reflects those realities. It restores balance to an industry pushed into transformation without consumer support or infrastructure readiness. Automakers will still build EVs and hybrids and pursue new technologies — but consumers will decide the pace, not regulators.

For the first time in years, drivers may again see affordability, variety, and genuine choice. Fuel-economy rules will remain contested, but the Freedom Means Affordable Cars plan marks the most significant shift in auto policy in over a decade.

For millions of Americans priced out of the market, that change alone is long overdue.

​Lifestyle, Auto industry, Ev mandate, Emissions standards, Align cars, Pete buttigieg, Sean duffy, Donald trump, Joe biden 

I don’t often argue with internet trends. Most of them exhaust themselves before they deserve the attention. But a certain kind of AI-generated nostalgia video has become too pervasive — and too seductive — to ignore.

You’ve seen them. Soft-focus fragments of the 1970s and 1980s. Kids on bikes at dusk. Station wagons. Camaros. Shopping malls glowing gently from within. Fake wood paneling! Cathode ray tubes! Rotary phones! A past rendered as calm, legible, and safe. The message hums beneath the imagery: Wouldn’t it be nice to go back?

Human nostalgia, as opposed to the AI-generated kind, eventually runs aground on grief, embarrassment, and the recognition that the past demanded something from us and took something in return.

Eh … not really, no. But I understand the appeal because, on certain exhausting days, it works on me too — just enough to make the present feel a little heavier by comparison.

And I don’t like it. Not at all. And not because I’m hostile to memory.

I was there, 3,000 years ago

I was born in 1971. I lived in that world. I remember it pretty well.

How well? One of my earliest, most vivid memories of television is not a cartoon or a sitcom. No, I’m a weirdo. It is the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, broadcast on PBS in black and white. I was 2 years old.

I didn’t understand the words, but I sort of grasped the tone. The seriousness. The tension. The sense that something grave was unfolding in full view of the world. Even as a toddler, I vaguely understood that it mattered. The adults in ties and horn-rimmed glasses were yelling at each other. Somebody was in trouble. Before I knew anything at all, I knew: This was serious stuff.

A little later, I remember gas lines. Long ones. Cars waiting for hours on an even or odd day while enterprising teenagers sold lemonade. It felt ordinary at the time, probably because I hadn’t the slightest idea what “ordinary” meant. Only later did it reveal itself as an early lesson in scarcity and frustration.

The past did not hum along effortlessly. Sometimes — often — it stalled.

Freedom wasn’t safety

I remember my parents watching election returns in 1976 on network television. I was bored to tears — literally — but I remember my father’s disappointment when Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. And mind you, Ford was terrible.

This was not some cozy TV ritual. It was a loss of some kind, plainly felt. Big, important institutions did not project confidence. They produced arguments, resentment, and unease. It wasn’t long before people were talking seriously about an “era of limits.” All I knew was Dad and Mom were worried.

I remember a summer birthday party in the early 1980s at a classmate’s house. It was hot, but she had an awesome pool. I also remember my lungs ached. That day, Southern California was under a first-stage smog alert. The air itself was hazardous. The past did not smell like nostalgia. It smelled like exhaust with lead and cigarette smoke.

I don’t miss that. Not even a little bit.

Yes, I remember riding bikes through neighborhoods with friends. I remember disappearing for entire days. I remember my parents calling my name when the streetlights came on. I remember spending long stretches at neighbors’ houses without supervision. I remember watching old movies on Saturdays with my pal Jimmy. I remember Tom Hatten. I remember listening to KISS and Genesis and Black Sabbath. That freedom existed. It mattered. It was fun. But it lived alongside fear, not in its absence.

Innocence collides with reality

I don’t remember the Adam Walsh murder specifically, but I very much remember the network television movie it inspired in 1983. That moment changed American childhood in ways people still underestimate. It sure scared the hell out of me. Innocence didn’t drift into supervision — it collided with horror. Helicopter parenting did not emerge from neurosis. It emerged from bona fide terror.

And before all of that, my first encounter with death arrived without explanation. A cousin of mine died in 1977. She was 16 years old, riding on the back of a motorcycle with a man 11 years her senior. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. The funeral was closed casket. I was too young to know all the details. Almost 50 years on, I don’t want to know. The age difference alone suggests things the adults in my life chose not to discuss.

Silence was how they handled it. Silence was not ignorance — it was restraint.

RELATED: 1980s-inspired AI companion promises to watch and interrupt you: ‘You can see me? That’s so cool’

seamartini via iStock/Getty Images

Memory is not withdrawal

This is what the warm and fuzzy AI nostalgia videos cannot possibly show. They have no room for recklessness that ends in funerals, or for freedom that edges into life-threatening danger, or for adults who withhold truth because telling it would damage rather than protect.

What we often recall as freedom often presented itself as recklessness … or worse.

None of this negates the goodness of those years. I’m grateful for when I came of age. I don’t resent my childhood at all. It formed me. It taught me how fragile stability is and how much of adulthood consists of absorbing uncertainty without dissolving into it.

That’s precisely why I reject the invitation to go back.

The new AI nostalgia doesn’t ask us to remember. In reality, it wants us to withdraw. It offers a sweet lullaby for the nervous system. It replaces the true cost of living with the comfort of atmosphere and a cool soundtrack. It edits out the smog, the scarcity, the fear, the crime, and the death, leaving only a vibe shaped like memory.

Here’s a gentler hallucination, it says. Stay awhile.

The cost of living, then and now

The problem, then, isn’t sentiment. The problem is abdication.

So the temptation today isn’t to recover what was seemingly lost but rather to anesthetize an uncertain present. Those Instagram Reels don’t draw their power from people who remember that era clearly but from people who feel exhausted, surveilled, indebted, and hemmed in right now — and are looking for proof that life once felt more human.

RELATED: Late California

LPETTET via iStock/Getty Images

And who could blame them? Maybe it was more human. But not in the way people today would like to believe. Human experience has never been especially sweet or gentle.

Human nostalgia, as opposed to the AI-generated kind, eventually runs aground on grief, embarrassment, and the recognition that the past demanded something from us and took something in return. Synthetic nostalgia can never reach that reckoning. It loops endlessly, frictionless and consequence-free.

I don’t want a past without a bill attached. I already paid the thing. Sometimes I think I’m paying it still.

A warning

AI nostalgia videos promise relief without effort, feeling without action, memory without judgment.

That may be comforting, but it isn’t healthy, and it isn’t right.

Truth is, adulthood rightly understood does not consist of finding the softest place to lie down. It means carrying forward what we’ve lived through, even when it complicates our fantasies.

Certain experiences were great the first time, Lord knows, but I don’t want to relive the 1970s or ’80s. I want to live now, alert to danger, capable of gratitude without illusion, willing to bear the weight of memory rather than dissolve into it.

Nostalgia has its place. But don’t be seduced by sedation.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally on Substack.

​Opinion & analysis, 1970s vs 2020s, 1980s vs 2020s, Nostalgia, Artificial intelligence, Ai slop, Ai video, Humanity, Watergate, Gerald ford, Los angeles, Smog, Adam walsh, Tom hatten, Gasoline, Cigarettes, Memory, Vibe shift, California 

In his address to the nation on Wednesday night, President Trump announced that he’s issuing a “warrior dividend” to approximately 1.45 million eligible U.S. military service members as a thank-you for their sacrifice and service. The one-time payment of $1,776 — a symbol of America’s founding — is set to arrive before Christmas.

Reactions to the announcement have been varied. Many service members and military families have welcomed the timely $1,776 bonus, with some veterans expressing cautious optimism. Critics, both on Capitol Hill and in media outlets, have raised concerns about the repurposing of congressional appropriations originally meant for military housing allowances.

Glenn Beck has mixed feelings too.

“I don’t like when the government hands out money, but … if anybody can use it, it’s the military,” he says.

“$1,700 is a huge amount for most people in the military. … We don’t do enough for our military, and so it’s the best kind of, I don’t know, stimulus package I’ve ever seen,” he adds.

Glenn’s co-host Stu Burguiere shares the sentiment that our military members are beyond deserving; however, he can’t ignore the fact that this is “money that we don’t actually have.”

“The argument is with tariffs that we have enough, but of course that pays only for a slight amount of our deficit,” he says.

The second issue Stu has is that according to the U.S. Constitution’s Appropriations Clause (Article I, Section 9), Congress has exclusive power over spending. Even one-time bonuses like the warrior dividend typically require explicit congressional authorization.

“Congress doesn’t even pay attention to [that clause] anymore. They don’t seem to care,” Glenn says.

However, there is another upside to these warrior dividends, he says. Besides the fact that they help America’s most deserving population, the money will also stimulate the economy.

“I can guarantee you, they’re going to get it, and they’re going to use it on their family for Christmas, which will stimulate the economy so much,” Glenn says.

To hear more of the conversation, 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, Trump, Trump address, Warrior dividend, Stimulus checks, National debt, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Google’s Gemini Deep Research tool just got an upgrade that gives it open access to your private emails in Gmail, documents in Drive, and conversations in Chat. The move has sparked a mix of confusion, curiosity, and outrage as users online question why Gemini should have the power to scour private files. At first glance, the story is enough to make your hackles stand up on end, but the truth is a little more convoluted than the mass invasion of privacy it seems to be.

Actually, Gemini has had access to your personal files since 2024! But you can stop it and sever the tie for good.

Google certainly has access to your content, and the company can even leverage it against you.

What is Gemini Deep Research?

Before we go any farther, let’s get a few things out of the way.

Google launched Gemini Deep Research back in December 2024 for Gemini Advanced subscribers (later renamed to Google AI Pro, as it stands today). The feature gave users the power to have Gemini research various topics online and pull together reports with detailed information and analysis, all with a simple command prompt. This was an early form of agentic AI, an AI tool that completes tasks all on its own like an assistant or an intern, freeing users to spend their time on other tasks.Fast-forward to November 2025. Gemini Deep Research just received an upgrade that gave it access to users’ private Gmail, Drive, and Chat data. So now, instead of simply searching the internet for deep research data, it can now pull information from your documents, too. Keep in mind that Deep Research only accesses your content if you enable this feature in a Gemini prompt. Otherwise, it will pull data strictly from the web.Although Gemini Deep Research was just given the ability to access users’ private documents in Google Workspace apps (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Meet) on request, Gemini’s core AI service has had access to personal documents since September 2024. Although Gemini Deep Research may be more thorough at scouring your files, Gemini has been able to scan through them (on request) since last year!

Is Google spying on your personal data?

Now that you know Gemini can see your files, you might wonder if Google is spying on your personal data. The answer is a little complicated.

According to Google’s privacy policy, “we use automated systems that analyze your content to provide you with things like customized search results, personalized ads, or other features tailored to how you use our services. And we analyze your content to help us detect abuse such as spam, malware, and illegal content. We also use algorithms to recognize patterns in data.”

The word “automated” is important here. While a real person at Google isn’t poring through your files in search of information, your content is automatically scanned by Google’s systems. In some cases, Google will even turn over your personal data in response to formal requests from law enforcement. In other words, Google can access your files whenever needed, but the company claims to stay out unless legally compelled.

As for Gemini, it collects a ton of data as well, including the content you create with Gemini, as well as the content you feed into the platform through connected apps, like Gmail, Drive, YouTube, Chrome, etc. If there’s any bit of good news, it’s that Google won’t use your content to train the LLMs that power Gemini or any other AI model in the Google ecosystem. This means that your private files can’t be fed into Gemini’s database and used to answer queries from other users.

RELATED: BEWARE: With these new web browsers, everything on your computer can be stolen with one click

Photo Credit: Bill Hinton via Getty Images

Looking at the facts as a whole, Google isn’t spying on users, per se, but the company certainly has access to your content, and it can even leverage it against you if any uploaded materials are complicit in a legal matter or if said material is deemed illegal itself.

How to disconnect Gemini from Google Drive, Gmail, and more

By most available evidence, Google isn’t using Gemini to scan your private data any more than the company already does for its ad network, services, and law requests. However, if you still want to cut Gemini off from endless supplies of personal information, here’s what you need to do:

In your web browser, head over to Gmail.Click on the Settings gear in the top right corner.From the popup menu, click “See all settings.”Now that you’re in the Settings page, scroll down to the section that says “Google Workspace smart features.” This is the setting that gives Gemini direct access to your content.Click on “Manage Workspace smart feature settings. Uncheck “Smart features in Google Workspace” and “Smart features in other Google products.”Save, and you’re all done.

Four quick steps will free you from Gemini’s prying eyes.Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

Now that you’ve disconnected Gemini from your content, you can do the same thing for all of Google’s apps and services with just a few clicks.

Go back to the Settings page in Gmail.Find “Smart features.”Uncheck the blue box, and you’re all set.

One check, total coverage.Screenshot by Zach Laidlaw

There’s only one way to get Google out of your data for good

Although you can keep Google’s apps, services, and Gemini out of your personal files, Google can still scan everything you throw into Drive, Gmail, and more. The best way to kick Google to the curb for good is to move your files out of Google’s ecosystem entirely.

The most private and secure way to save your data is to keep it on a local hard drive at home. This way, no cloud storage providers can access your content but you. There’s also a way to set up your own private cloud network so that you can still access your files remotely within your local hard drive, just as you do with Google Drive.

Otherwise, there are several cloud storage services that claim to be completely private. The leading option is Proton Drive (from the markers of the private email service Proton Mail). It leverages end-to-end, zero-access encryption to protect your data and stay out of your business. Another option is Sync.com, which uses end-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge authentication to keep your private files private.

Your data belongs to you, but unless your AI, cloud storage, and email providers have strict guidelines to protect your privacy, your data is open and accessible for all manner of reasons. Even worse, you agree to let them scan your content from the moment you create an account. This is why it’s a good idea to research the tools you use online, and always read the terms and conditions before you sign up. The integrity of your personal data and privacy depend on it.

​Tech 

Back in 2005, “The Case for Christ” author and Christian apologist Lee Strobel published a book called “The Case for Christmas: A Journalist Investigates the Identity of the Child in the Manger.”

In September this year, 20 years after its original publication, Strobel released an updated version of his Christmas book to include the latest scholarship, research, archaeological findings, and scientific insights that have emerged since.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn interviews Strobel about these fascinating new findings that change the way we read the Christmas story.

According to the most widely accepted narrative, Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem for the census, arrived at an inn, but were turned away by the innkeeper for lack of space, forcing Mary to give birth to Jesus in a separate stable or barn among animals, where she laid him in a manger.

But Strobel says there’s one Greek word that changes this narrative entirely, and that word is “kataluma.”

In the ancient manuscripts of the gospel of Luke, “kataluma” is the word used to describe the place where Mary and Joseph were turned away, but it doesn’t mean inn, according to most scholars.

It actually translates to “guest room.”

A typical house in first-century Bethlehem, Strobel explains, had “one large room broken down into two parts.”

“The larger part was a living area — that’s where people would live, eat, sleep — and then there was a couple of steps down to a smaller area where the animals were brought at night,” he explains.

However, because animals were often seen as beloved pets, sometimes they were allowed to come up into the main living area. A manger (a feeding trough) was therefore a common item in both the upper and lower spaces of the house.

Wealthier families also had a “kataluma” — a guest room — in their homes, used for hosting traveling family and friends.

The original scriptures say that Mary and Joseph were turned away from the “kataluma” because it was occupied. This means that the couple likely didn’t seek shelter at an inn at all but rather at a relative’s home.

It makes sense that the “kataluma” would have been full at this time because of all the people traveling into Bethlehem for the census. Mary and Joseph, Strobel explains, were likely told by their relatives that they could just stay and birth the baby in the main living area.

“And yes, there is a manger there. And yes, some of the animals may have come up the stairs because of the commotion,” he says, reiterating that animals and mangers were common in a home’s main living space.

“There probably was no inn,” he concludes.

But an imprecise translation for “kataluma” isn’t the only evidence for this new narrative.

Strobel explains that Luke uses the word “kataluma” only one other time in the book, and it clearly refers to a separate room in a family home. But he uses a different word — “pandocheion” — to refer to a traditional inn in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

“If he wanted to use the word ‘inn,’ he would have used ‘pandocheion,’ but he didn’t. He used ‘kataluma,’” he says.

Further, “in first-century Jewish culture, the value of hospitality was so high that it would have been impossible for an innkeeper to turn away a pregnant Jewish woman,” Strobel tells Glenn.

“It would have destroyed his business. … And we don’t even know there were any inns in Bethlehem. It was a small town — 500 people. It wasn’t on a main crossroads. There may or may not have even been an inn there in the first place,” he adds.

The revelation that Jesus was most likely born in a home rather than in a dirty barn “changes everything,” Glenn says.

But there are even more details that the traditional Christmas story gets wrong about Jesus’ birth, according to Strobel.

According to the standard narrative, Mary is on the verge of giving birth when she and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem, but this urgency, Strobel says, comes from “a book of fiction that was written in 200 A.D.”

The scriptures only tell us “that while they were in Bethlehem, she gave birth. Doesn’t say they’re in Bethlehem five minutes or five days or five months,” he explains.

To hear more incredible revelations from Strobel’s investigations into the authentic Christmas story, 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, Blazetv, Blaze media, Blaze podcasts, Lee strobel, Case for christ, Case for christmas, Christmas, Christmas story, Christianity, Mary and jesus 

The Democratic Party has been wandering the wilderness for years, somehow discovering new ways to alienate large portions of the country. And it still isn’t finished.

Rock bottom, it turns out, has a basement — and Texas has the keys.

Earlier this month, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D), a congresswoman who treats every disagreement like a full-contact sport, announced her Senate bid. Waiting for her in March is state Rep. James Talarico (D), a former teacher and pastor-in-training with a very different style.

Neither is good news. But from a Christian perspective, one is far worse.

Crockett is impossible to miss. She’s volume without thought, performance without a functioning pause button. Trump derangement syndrome has long since replaced reason, and nuance never survived the encounter. She seems to measure success by how many people she can irritate before lunch. Her politics are blunt, her tone brittle, her intellectual range roughly comparable to a Roomba. You always know where she stands because she’s standing on the table, yelling.

Talarico, by contrast, operates on an entirely different frequency. He lowers his voice, quotes scripture, and speaks with the gentle cadence of a youth pastor wrapping up a weekend retreat just before the acoustic guitar comes out. He talks about compassion, dignity, and the moral duty to protect the vulnerable. He wants to heal divides, soothe tensions, and “bring people together.”

If Crockett feels like a bar fight, Talarico feels like “Kumbaya” by candlelight with everyone instructed to hold hands.

And that is precisely the problem.

Crockett’s politics are abrasive but obvious. She makes no effort to hide what she believes or where she wants to take the country. There is something almost refreshing about her lack of disguise. You may not like the message, but it’s unmistakable. She offends openly and moves on.

But Talarico offends in a very different manner. He has mastered the art of wrapping progressive politics in pastoral language. What he offers is standard Democratic doctrine: sexual ideology backed by law, borders treated as optional, and a growing state taking over matters once settled by family, church, and conscience.

RELATED: ‘Progressive Christian’ turns Bible into a Planned Parenthood parable — but truth fires back

Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Talarico insists that faith and today’s Democratic Party can walk hand in hand. Perhaps this was plausible once, back when Democrats still shared a basic moral grammar with the rest of the country. In the 1990s, disagreement existed, but reality was still shared. Marriage meant something fixed. Biological sex wasn’t up for debate. Free speech had limits, but truth still mattered. You could argue policy without arguing over whether biology or basic reality still mattered.

That world is gone.

The modern Democratic project is built on ideas fundamentally at odds with Christian teaching: the self treated as sovereign, identity treated as sacred, desire elevated to authority, and socialism presented as the only workable future.

Sin is renamed “harm.” Redemption is replaced with affirmation. Judgment is reserved only for those who dissent. Christianity, meanwhile, insists on restraint, repentance, and allegiance to something beyond the individual.

Talarico tries to solve this puzzle by watering down Christianity until it feels more like a mood than a creed. He does this because he has no other choice. In today’s Democratic Party, a Christian who speaks plainly about restraint and repentance simply cannot survive. He is summoned, sidelined, and eventually expelled. To remain welcome, faith must be dumbed down and rendered harmless.

So Talarico treats Christianity like a buffet. He keeps the language of love and mercy, the parts that flatter modern sensibilities, and quietly discards the parts that demand obedience, self-denial, or radical honesty.

This is not faith guiding politics but politics reshaping faith.

And that is where the charge sticks. This is not a good-faith disagreement or a sincere wrestling with belief but a distortion carried out for political survival. If Talarico spoke the full truth of Christianity as it has been taught for centuries, he would be politically homeless by morning. Rather than risk that, he trims the gospel until it fits the party line.

This is where the real danger lies. He speaks like a shepherd but votes like an activist, borrowing Christianity’s authority to push policies that weaken what faith seeks to strengthen — specifically the nuclear family and ordered community.

Crockett does her damage loudly, like a bull in a china shop. Talarico, on the other hand, is more woodworm than wrecking ball, smiling as he eats through the beams.

There’s something faintly comic about watching Democrats embrace Talarico. This is a party that spent decades treating Christianity like a vestigial organ, now swooning over a Sunday-school version of Pete Buttigieg.

But there’s nothing funny about what the Texan stands for.

Talarico offers a faith that never says “no,” never draws lines, and never makes anyone uncomfortable except those stubborn enough to insist that limits must be imposed. Love is endlessly elastic. Compassion is permanently undefined. Everything bends; nothing breaks — except, eventually, the foundation.

Crockett, for all her theatrics, doesn’t pretend to share a Christian worldview. Talarico does. He doesn’t attack Christian beliefs outright. Instead he sands them down, slowly, patiently, until they no longer support much of anything.

For Texans, come March, both options are bad. This isn’t a choice so much as a coordinated assault: one, a knee to the groin, the other, a roundhouse to the ribs. Crockett does her damage loudly, like a bull in a china shop. Talarico, on the other hand, is more woodworm than wrecking ball, smiling as he eats through the beams.

Neither deserves trust. But only one dresses his agenda in sacred language.

Texas Democrats may think they are choosing between bedlam and bland reassurance. Christians should recognize the choice for what it is: between open hostility and sneaky subversion, between a politics that attacks faith from the outside and one that reshapes it from within.

Both are bad. But only one pretends to be good. And that, from a Christian point of view, makes all the difference.

​James talarico, Christianity, Christian, Texas, Campaign 2026, 2026 midterm election, 2026 midterms, Jasmine crockett, Faith 

I recently did something that I usually avoid. I stayed up too late and wandered into the digital sewer we politely call “the conversation.” X, feeds, clips, comments, rage-bait. I knew it would not end well, but I kept scrolling anyway. By the time I finally shut it off, it was clear that the despair and resentment social media produces are not a bug — they are the feature.

The world you see online is a world stripped of context and proportion. Everything is framed as an emergency, everything demands outrage, nothing asks for wisdom. Human suffering is turned into ammunition, children are turned into slogans, and hatred is dressed up as moral clarity. If you sit with it long enough, you begin to feel foolish for believing in decency at all.

God is not dead. He is not asleep. And the story is not finished, no matter how much the algorithm wants you to believe otherwise.

It made me think of a poem I had not thought about for some time.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” is often quoted for its opening lines about peace on earth and goodwill toward men. That is usually where people stop.

But Longfellow wrote the poem in the middle of the Civil War. His country was fractured, his own son a casualty of the fighting, and his wife killed in a tragic accident. The poem is an honest look into the mind of a man laid low.

In the early stanzas, Longfellow describes hearing church bells repeat the old promise of peace. Then reality intrudes, cannons thunder, violence drowns out the song. He writes that it felt “as if an earthquake rent the hearthstones of a continent.” That is what civil war feels like from the inside.

That line has stayed with me for a very long time.

We are not there yet, but the pressure is mounting. Anti-Semitism has returned openly, not whispered, but justified. The Jewish people — history’s most reliable early warning system — are being threatened again, and too many voices respond with silence, excuses, or applause. We swore we would never allow this again. Now it is happening all over the West.

At the same time, the world is edging toward wider conflict. Alliances are hardening, borders matter again. But this time, there is no obvious force capable of stabilizing the chaos. America is busy devouring itself. Europe is exhausted. The rest of the world is watching to see what happens next.

This is the part of the poem most people skip.

Longfellow does not rush to hope. He admits his despair. “There is no peace on earth,” he writes, “for hate is strong, and mocks the song.” Honesty is not weakness. Pretending everything is fine when it is not is how civilizations collapse quietly.

But the poem does not end there.

The final stanza matters because it follows despair instead of denying it. Longfellow writes:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

That is not cheap optimism promising a quick end to suffering. It is a conviction insisting that evil does not get the last word.

That distinction matters a lot right now.

RELATED: Culture’s great subversion machine has broken down at last

Blaze Media Illustration

Hope is not pretending the algorithm is wrong. It is recognizing that what trends is rarely what endures. The quiet courage that holds families together, the decency that stops violence when no camera is present, the faith that steadies people when institutions fail — those things do not go viral, but they do prevail. History does not turn on outrage. It turns on character.

Every civilization that survives a moment like this does so because enough people refuse to surrender their moral bearings. They do not deny the danger or excuse the evil. They do not outsource conscience to crowds or machines. They decide, quietly and stubbornly, to let their lives reflect the fact that truth still matters.

Longfellow had not yet seen the end of the war when he wrote that poem. He wrote it because despair was real and hope was necessary anyway. The bells did not silence the cannons overnight. But they reminded him — and us — that order is not an illusion and truth is not negotiable.

God is not dead. He is not asleep. And the story is not finished, no matter how much the algorithm wants you to believe otherwise.

​Social media, Christmas, Poem, Hope, Opinion & analysis, Henry wadsworth longfellow, Civil war, Civilization, Despair 

A Christmas or two ago, we arrived in Denver just after Thanksgiving for my wife’s long-awaited surgery — one of a series of complex procedures that could only be done at the teaching hospital there. The hospital was already dressed for the season, garlands hung and trees lit, but I barely noticed. All I could see was the next hurdle in a long medical journey.

After eight days in the ICU, Gracie was transferred to the neuro floor. I wanted her to feel something of Christmas, so I slipped out to a store and returned with a small tree, poinsettias, battery candles for the window, and stockings I hung by the nurses’ message board. A friend loaned me a keyboard, which I tucked into the corner. Music has steadied us through many storms, and I hoped it would do so again.

Christmas felt sharper there. Simpler. More honest. When life strips away what doesn’t matter, what does matter finally comes into view.

When the nurses wheeled her into that room, she entered a tiny Christmas world carved out of tile and fluorescent light. The cinnamon-scented broom was no match for the Montana pines behind our home, but it still brought a smile.

Gracie sometimes sang from her hospital bed as I played familiar carols. You’ll be relieved to know that when a staffer requested Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” I politely declined and stayed with the classics. Her song gets ample airplay as it is.

Learning the language of hospital life

I have been a caregiver for a long time. We have spent nearly every major holiday in a hospital, along with most minor ones — birthdays, anniversaries, and the days in between.

Hospitals, however harsh, have become familiar enough that they no longer disorient me. In the last three years alone, we spent nearly 11 months in that same Denver hospital over three difficult stretches. Over the decades, Gracie has been inpatient in 13 different hospitals. After that many years, you learn the rhythms, the noises, the hush, and the hidden grief of those hallways.

At night, before crossing the street to the extended-stay hotel where I lived during that long stretch, I often stopped at the grand piano in the massive lobby and played Christmas hymns. Patients and their families drifted nearby or stood quietly along the balcony with IV poles and wheelchairs. Their faces carried the loneliness, fear, and disbelief that appear when life tilts without warning. When I played “Silent Night,” you could see the change. Shoulders dropped. Eyes softened. A few wiped away tears.

We lived in Nashville for 35 years before moving to Montana, and the only time I felt a lump in my throat at that piano was when I played “Tennessee Christmas.” When I reached the line about Denver snow falling, it hit me harder than I expected. Being far from home — and yet exactly where we needed to be — settled heavily on me in that moment.

Spending Christmas Eve in a hospital is unlike any other day. For a few minutes that night, the music gave all of us a place to breathe. While I’ve grown somewhat used to that world, I could tell my impromptu audience had not. So I played for them.

Not home, but holy

Our youngest son flew in, and a close friend joined us for Christmas Eve. In that small room upstairs, we shared meals, prayed, and laughed through the kind of tears that form when joy and exhaustion sit side by side. It was not home, but it was holy.

On Christmas morning, we filled stockings, opened gifts, and played more music. To our surprise, that hospital Christmas became one of the most meaningful we’ve ever known. We have enjoyed plenty of postcard holidays in the Montana Rockies, with snowy woods and trees cut from behind our cabin. Yet none of those scenes compared to the quiet radiance of that hospital room.

RELATED: What we lose when we rush past pain

nathamag11 via iStock/Getty Images

Christmas felt sharper there. Simpler. More honest. When life strips away what doesn’t matter, what does matter finally comes into view.

God stepped into a harsh world, not a perfect one. The first Christmas came in conditions far cruder than ours, yet Heaven filled that stable. That is the story we remember every year: Emmanuel — God with us.

I thought of that as I looked up from the piano in the lobby, seeing the sadness on the faces around me and those watching from above. It brought to mind the crowds Jesus saw when Scripture says He was “moved with compassion” for the afflicted. Unlike me, He did not merely observe sorrow. He stepped into it. He came to bear it, redeem it, and ultimately remove it.

The light that still shines

That night reminded me that the holiness of Christmas is not found in perfect scenes but in God drawing near to people who are hurting. Being in a hospital on Christmas Eve was a fitting picture of how needy we truly are — and how miraculous it is that Christ entered our sorrow, suffering, and loneliness. Emmanuel means God with us, not in theory, but in the raw places where we feel most alone.

I left Denver with a truth I needed to keep close: Joy does not depend on scenery. Any place can become a sanctuary when Christ is worshipped — even a hospital room where monitors beep and nurses whisper through the night.

If you’re facing a season you never would have chosen, may this Christmas meet you with that same comfort. The promise of Emmanuel — God with us — has not changed.

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight,” Phillips Brooks wrote in 1868, steadying his people with the truth that Christ walks into dark streets as readily as bright ones.

​Opinion & analysis, Caregiving, Christmas, Hospital, Pain, Faith, Life and death, Surgery, Icu, Patients, Patience, Christmas carols