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One of personages repeatedly targeted for erasure in the American left’s violent iconoclasm in 2020 has at last found asylum on the White House grounds, thanks to President Donald Trump and some other unrelenting American patriots.

Toppling giants

Liberals appear to have no issue raising and keeping statues in public spaces so long as they are culturally, morally, and/or historically subversive.

Take, for example, the golden statue of a horned monster that was erected atop the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in January 2023.

The dehumanized figure — which Pakistani-born propagandist Shahzia Sikander purportedly designed to capture the “spirit” of the movement seeking to legalize abortion across the United States — was celebrated by radicals in and outside the courthouse. Claire Bishop, professor of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, excitedly told the New York Times, “Maybe she can help channel us back to reinstating Roe v. Wade.”

Another statue that liberal activists not only tolerated but celebrated was the ram-headed Baphomet statue the Satanic Temple installed at the Iowa Capitol along with a satanic altar ahead of Christmas that same year.

While evidently unperturbed by demonic imagery, liberal activists have evidenced an aversion in recent years to sculptures reminiscent of America’s proud past, noble beginnings, and Christian character.

‘These monuments matter.’

Amid the Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination campaign of 2020, radicals vandalized and/or toppled — in many cases through official actions — numerous statutes across the country, including those depicting Spanish missionary Junípero Serra and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.

Christopher Columbus — the Italian “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” who sailed under the Spanish flag and whose four transatlantic voyages set the stage for American civilization — was one of the 2020 iconoclasts’ most popular targets.

RELATED: Satan is real — whether his depraved fashion-world followers believe it or not

Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city’s Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, then toppled a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan — a destructive act brushed off by city officials.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the explorer, the cheering mob threw the remains into the harbor.

The incident took place just days after President Donald Trump, then in his first term, issued an executive order aimed at protecting such statues from destruction — an order where he stated that extremists’ “selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past.”

Stoop and build ’em up

Some Americans proved unwilling to let the tide wash away American history.

Tilghman Hemsley, a local painter, sculptor, and fisherman, hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family’s art studio. Hemsley’s son, Will, used scans of the recovered pieces to create a replica of the 13-foot statue.

The New York Times reported that the recreation project received $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded funds in October 2020 “to help repair and restore statues of iconic historical figures that have been damaged or vandalized, and to construct new ones, in an effort to revitalize public interest in American history in advance of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.”

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the Washington Post that he and his allies also chipped in, raising and spending over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United — the group that not only commissioned and owned the original statue but reportedly backed the reconstruction efforts — told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

RELATED: Blue-state city leans into battle against ACLU over archangel Michael statue honoring police

Will Hemsley. Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Basil Russo, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, had reportedly reached out to the Trump administration after Baltimore officials refused to install the replica in public.

‘In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero.’

“Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent,” Russo said in a statement.

“For over a century, Columbus’ legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country,” Russo continued. “Columbus Day itself emerged in the aftermath of the 1891 New Orleans lynching, when 11 Italian immigrants were killed by a mob of thousands, an event that prompted a national effort to promote the acceptance and assimilation of Italian Americans. This history remains central to why these monuments matter.”

Working in coordination with the Italian American Organizations United, the COPOMIAO gifted the statue to the White House.

On Sunday, the statue — which was reportedly transported to the White House by Tilghman and Will Hemsley along with Randsallstown resident Jeff Bayer — was installed on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.

Trump thanked the COPOMIAO in a letter on Sunday for its “incredible generosity in gifting the Federal Government a beautiful statue of Christopher Columbus,” noting that he is “truly honored that this magnificent statue will now sit on the grounds of the White House.”

The president said further that the statue will “stand as an eternal memorial to courage, adventure, and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the extraordinary pride of our wonderful Italian American community.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Times in a statement Sunday, “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he’s honored as such for generations to come.”

Tilghman Hemsley told the Baltimore Sun that the statue’s installation “was very climactic and it was very fulfilling.”

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​Iconoclasm, Iconoclast, Christopher columbus, Donald trump, White house, Statue, History, Deracination, Monuments, Historical, Black lives matter, Blm, Hemsley, Politics 

Val Kilmer would have wanted it this way, the late actor’s daughter claims.

Kilmer was originally cast in the film “As Deep as the Grave” in 2020 but grew too ill to participate in the production.

The actor’s battle with throat cancer saw him never make it to set, with the 65-year-old tragically passing in 2025.

However, that will not stop him from being in the movie.

‘It was very much designed around him.’

Writer and director Coerte Voorhees said that Kilmer was indeed the actor he had wanted to play the role of Father Fintan, a Native American Catholic priest.

“It was very much designed around him. It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest,” Voorhees said, per Variety. Kilmer is reportedly Cherokee, German, Irish, and Swedish.

“I was looking at a call sheet the other day, and we had him ready to shoot. He was just going through a really, really tough time medically, and he couldn’t do it,” the director recalled.

Now through a deal with Kilmer’s estate and cooperation from his family, the star of “The Doors” and “Batman Forever” will posthumously appear on screen again.

RELATED: Val Kilmer: Two movies to celebrate the late actor’s peculiar ‘Genius’

Kilmer’s family “kept saying how important they thought the movie was,” the director stated, and that Kilmer “really wanted to be a part of this.”

As such, Kilmer’s estate was allegedly compensated according to SAG Guidelines, People reported.

Website Greenslate states actors must be paid their typical rate for any time saved using an “employment-based digital replica” of the performer. Therefore, it is likely that Kilmer’s estate would be paid the actor’s going rate as if he were alive.

However, consent is not required for changes made to the production using AI, which of course limits actor control (or in this case, the estate’s) in terms of the final product.

Daughter Mercedes Kilmer has openly supported the use of her father’s likeness, Variety reported, claiming her father was a “deeply spiritual man” who connected with the film’s “story of discovery and enlightenment.”

RELATED: 50 Cent will open a film studio in the Deep South, not Hollywood, to create ‘stories that need to be told’

Val Kilmer 2004. Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images

“He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling,” Mercedes added. “This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.”

Kilmer’s son is also reportedly in favor of the AI representation of his father.

It is important to note that in 2022, Kilmer said he was “grateful” to work with tech company Sonantic, which recreated his voice for the “Top Gun: Maverick” sequel.

“A phrase we often hear is ‘having a creative voice.’ But I was struck by throat cancer. After getting treated, my voice as I knew it was taken away from me,” Kilmer said, per Men’s Health. “But now I can express myself again, I can bring these dreams to you, and show you this part of myself once more. A part that was never truly gone, just hiding away.”

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​Return, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Actor, Likeness, Estate, Hollywood, Ai actor, Tech 

While President Donald Trump tries to navigate high-stakes peace talks with Iran, Israel appears to have gone rogue.

Trump announced Monday morning that he would temporarily postpone strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure while the two powers continue peace talks. Trump categorized the negotiations as productive, saying they were a “great start for Iran to build itself back.”

This is not the first time Israel has launched strikes while the United States was mediating peace talks.

“We have had very, very strong talks,” Trump said. “We will see where they lead.”

Trump also said the negotiations would positively impact countries in the region, including Israel. Despite Trump’s attempts to find an off-ramp, Israel has continued conducting military ambitions in the region.

RELATED: ‘TOTAL RESOLUTION’: Trump orders temporary suspension amid Iran peace talks

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Mere minutes after Trump announced he ordered the Department of War to postpone strikes, Israel announced that it had launched a military campaign targeting Iran’s infrastructure.

The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed they struck several “Iranian terror regime headquarters” in Tehran as well as key military manufacturing facilities.

A senior Israeli official told Axios that they were aware of mediation efforts by several countries but that they were surprised by Trump’s remarks Monday, saying they “did not know things were moving that fast.”

When reached for comment about whether Trump had foreknowledge of the strikes, the White House directed Blaze News to Trump’s remarks to a press gaggle on Monday morning. The Department of War did not respond to a request for comment.

This is not the first time Israel has launched strikes while the United States was mediating peace talks.

RELATED: Trump’s hilarious response after intel reportedly tells him Iran’s new supreme leader might be gay

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Most recently, Israel struck Iranian power plants that prompted a series of retaliatory strikes that hit Qatari LNG gas fields last week. Trump took to Truth Social to claim that the United States had no foreknowledge of the Israeli strikes that led to military action against another American ally.

Additionally, Trump made Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologize to the Qatari prime minister in a trilateral phone call last September after Israel attacked Hamas leadership in Qatar, threatening ongoing peace talks.

Trump similarly claimed that Netanyahu approved the strikes without American foreknowledge, criticizing Israel for “unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace.”

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​Donald trump, Department of war, Benjamin netanyahu, Bibi netanyahu, Israel, Iran, Palestine, Ceasefire, Peace talks, Qatar, Iran war, Idf, Politics 

In a case stemming from a protest over a decade ago, the Supreme Court delivered a decision this week about qualified immunity.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in Zorn v. Linton that a Vermont state police sergeant is entitled to qualified immunity in a case brought by a protester following a dispute at the Vermont Capitol in 2015.

‘We reverse.’

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the majority reversed the decision of a lower court, which had sided against the police officer’s use of force in the case: “The Second Circuit held that Zorn was not entitled to qualified immunity.

“We reverse,” the SCOTUS opinion stated.

RELATED: The next big Supreme Court shift might not be abortion or guns

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The case revolves around a protest at the Vermont governor’s inauguration on January 8, 2015. Shela Linton, a protester participating in an organized sit-in at the state Capitol building to demand universal health care, “anticipated being forcibly removed.”

After some other protesters were removed by police officers, Sergeant Jacob Zorn approached Linton and attempted to get her to comply. When she resisted, Zorn unlinked her arms from the human chain the protesters had formed, “put [her arm] behind her back in a rear wristlock, and twisted her arm.”

Linton alleged that Zorn’s actions resulted in “physical and psychological injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder,” the opinion stated.

Officials enjoy qualified immunity “unless their conduct violates clearly established law,” the opinion said. The bar for finding an official in violation is quite high since it generally demands both a precedent in case law as well as a “high degree of specificity.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling argued that the lower court relied too heavily on a 2004 case, Amnesty America v. West Hartford, which itself arguably did not clearly establish that the specific use of force employed by Zorn violated the Constitution: “Reasonable officials would not ‘interpret [Amnesty America] to establish’ that using a routine wristlock to move a resistant protester after warning her, without more, violates the Constitution.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The dissenting opinion held that “the Second Circuit did not err in holding that Zorn is not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage. At the very least, the decision below was not so wrong as to warrant the ‘extraordinary remedy of a summary reversal.'”

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​Politics, Supreme court, Scotus, Vermont, Constitution, Second circuit court, Jacob zorn, Shela linton, Fourth amendment 

Despite his reported confession to placing explosive devices at two sites on Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, 2021, Brian Cole Jr.’s physical dimensions, gait, posture, and mannerisms are at stark odds with video clips of the hoodie-clad bomb suspect first released by the FBI more than five years ago.

A full analysis of the hoodie-wearing suspect has been complicated by poor video quality, a manipulated video frame rate, black-and-white images, and cropping of some of the original footage. A careful viewing of the substandard video, however, still reveals clues that don’t fit the allegations that Cole is the bomber.

‘Two eyewitnesses … described the gray hoodie suspect as a white male.’

Blaze News analyzed video of the hoodie suspect released by the FBI, photographs and video of Cole, and evidence culled from independent investigations. This analysis indicates stark physical differences between Cole and the hoodie suspect, including the manner of walking, body shape and features, eyesight, shoe size, neck length, and mannerisms.

Cole, 31, of Woodbridge, Va., won’t be back in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., until April 21 for a status hearing on the two explosives-related felony charges that have kept him behind bars since his Dec. 4 arrest. He awaits a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals on his challenge to the detention order that is keeping him behind bars until trial.

Brian Cole Jr. denied involvement in the pipe-bombs case for two hours in an FBI interrogation, then changed his story, the DOJ claims. FBI, Prince William County Police Department photos

The FBI says that after two hours denying involvement in the pipe-bomb case, Cole suddenly gave a detailed confession during a Dec. 4 interrogation. His defense team, however, retorted in an appeals court filing seeking his release from custody that their client “contests each of the government’s factual claims.”

The hoodie-clad suspect went to some length to conceal identity, including a COVID-style face mask and a ball cap, but tools — including forensic podiatry and gait analysis — can shed valuable light on the investigation.

One of the most glaring conflicts in the case is an eyewitnesses who described the hoodie suspect as being a white male. Cole is black.

At a January hearing of the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Remaining Questions Surrounding Jan. 6, Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said information received from the FBI leaves key questions unanswered.

“There are still critical details regarding this case that must be understood,” Loudermilk said at the opening of the first and only hearing since the subcommittee was impaneled in September 2025.

“The FBI operational updates note two eyewitnesses who described the gray hoodie suspect as a white male. Did this influence the FBI’s investigation?”

Blaze News examined the charges against Cole to see if his arrest and prosecution fit with the case history and facts developed by independent investigators. The list of conflicts, problems, contradictions, and lingering questions is extensive — and growing. This is Part 3 of our series. Part 1 was published Jan. 16, and Part 2 was published Feb. 6.

Autism disclosure a game-changer?

Among the most telling clues offered in Cole’s defense was the disclosure by his attorneys that he is afflicted with autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each condition manifests in unique ways that can aid in identifying an individual on video or explain seemingly odd behaviors like wiping a cell phone back to factory settings more than 940 times over a three-year period, as Cole did.

Motion-based intelligence becomes especially useful in a case like the Jan. 6 pipe bombs where a suspect tries to disguise appearance by wearing oversized clothing, covering the face with a scarf, gaiter, or mask, or wearing a ball cap or other type of head covering under the sweatshirt hood. Clues can still be culled from the evidence.

Gergely Hanczar, a London-based expert in gait analysis, says the human body betrays itself, providing clues even if a person is trying to disguise identity. “Your body is a snitch,” Hanczar wrote in a recent Substack column.

“Before a single word is spoken, bodies have already decided what they want,” wrote Hanczar, an expert in biometric identification using digital tools. “The dilation of a pupil, a micro-adjustment of posture, the involuntary synchrony of breath are signals no sensitivity training can rewrite.

The gait of pipe-bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. is starkly different from the hoodie-clad suspect sought by the FBI since January 2021.

“We are uncomfortable with movement-based intelligence probably because it exposes the primal reality of our hierarchies,” he wrote. “The body does not care about political correctness. It communicates a truth your lawyer would advise you to bury.”

Cole’s comportment and physical presence differ in many ways from the hoodie-clad suspect, from eyesight to manner of walking.

Cole does exhibit traits and mannerisms, however, that are consistent with those identified in research as common to individuals with autism spectrum disorder. A defense expert in the case provided an affidavit to the court in January stating that Cole suffers from autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

‘Criminals cannot hide their gait.’

According to the American Psychiatric Association, autism is a highly diverse neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests as “persistent social impairment, communication abnormalities, and restricted and repetitive behaviors.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of autism among children age 8 rose from 1 in 150 in the year 2000 to 1 in 31 in 2022.

The abnormalities found in autistic individuals were documented as far back as 1943 in a pioneering study by psychiatrist Dr. Leo Kanner, who profiled 11 children who displayed a “powerful desire for aloneness and sameness.” Kanner noted some of the children he profiled “were somewhat clumsy in gait and gross motor performances.”

Cole observed on body camera

There is ample video of the hoodie suspect on Capitol Police security cameras to use for comparisons. Police video of Cole at the scene of a 2024 Virginia traffic accident provides valuable clues about his physical demeanor that can be contrasted with the original suspect, a Blaze News analysis showed.

The 48-minute bodycam video, obtained by Blaze News under a Freedom of Information Act request, shows Cole interacting with a Prince William County Police Department officer and another driver. Cole’s vehicle rear-ended a pickup truck owned by a local church. The video has short segments that show Cole walking and standing.

The video shows that Cole walks with an outward foot angle, a stance sometimes referred to as a duck walk. The outward angle of his feet was also evident when he was standing and not in motion. An outward foot angle was not seen with the hoodie-clad bomb suspect in the footage that captured the masked bomber walking on Capitol Hill the evening of Jan. 5, 2021.

A relative told Blaze News that Cole has long had the outward foot angle in his walk.

Based on more than 20 minutes of video showing the hoodie suspect, that individual tends more to an inward foot angle, often referred to as being pigeon-toed. At several points during the walk around Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, the feet of the hoodie suspect cross over each other when their stride width is minimal. This is sometimes called “tightrope walking” or line walking.

The crossover of feet is especially noticeable in perhaps the most famous piece of video of the bomb suspect striding south on Rumsey Court before making a hard turn right toward the Capitol Hill Club. The hoodie suspect walked with a consistent, definitive right-leg drag — seen across more than 20 minutes of video.

These characteristics are not present in the limited amount of public video that shows Cole’s gait.

A 2024 research study of older children and adolescents with autism found that they had greater step width than the control subjects with no autism. Common traits in autistic individuals included shorter step length, increased cadence, and wider step width, according to the study, published in the journal Sports Medicine and Health Science.

The authors said the unusual gait patterns seen in autistic individuals were in part compensation for lower-extremity weakness.

‘I know him by his walk.’

“This unique gait pattern may represent a movement strategy used by the individuals with ASD to compensate for the weakness associated with their knee extensor muscles,” the study said. “Individuals with [autism spectrum disorder] who demonstrate these unique gait deviations may face reduced postural stability and an increased risk of fall-related injuries.”

“Risks related to muscular and coordination deficits may be exacerbated as movement difficulty increases (e.g., running, stepping stairs, carrying school bags),” the study said.

Cole appears to have a shorter stride than the hoodie suspect. The independent investigator known online as Armitas estimated the hoodie suspect’s stride (two consecutive steps) at 57 inches. Video and video stills of Cole at the 2024 accident scene show a fairly compact stride length compared to the hoodie suspect, he said.

Cole showed a pronounced lean of his head and neck, often to the left but sometimes to the right, both standing and walking, the video showed. The hoodie suspect shows no such posture on the FBI video. Cole tended to walk with his torso leaning forward, and he kept his arms close to his body while walking and standing, video showed.

He also exhibited a posture sometimes crudely referred to as “duck butt,” with a forward torso and a protrusion of the rear. A 2018 study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that children with autism showed a greater forward tilt of the pelvis throughout the gait cycle compared to a control group.

A 2025 study from Greece said motor impairments affect up to 80% of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The study, which reviewed findings from 17 research papers on autism and gait, said “individuals diagnosed with ASD generally demonstrate reduced coordination.”

Children with autism, the study said, tend to have “a less fluid and more effortful gait.”

‘Agents wondered if the injury could have accounted for the odd gait seen on security footage.’

Cole’s shoes appear much larger than the Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes worn by the hoodie-clad bomb suspect. In late December, Blaze News took measurements of the sidewalks and gutter pan along the Virginia street where Cole’s traffic accident occurred and of the sidewalk trod by the hoodie suspect outside the DNC building on Jan. 5. Based on those measurements, Cole’s feet are as large as size 12.5 — substantially larger than those of the hoodie suspect.

It appears that Cole’s feet are also disproportionately large for someone who stands 5 feet, 5 inches or 5 feet, 6 inches tall. The hoodie suspect’s feet, however, appear proportionate to that individual’s 5-foot, 7-inch frame.

Witnesses describe Cole’s walk

Two witnesses who have observed Cole’s gait over the span of at least a decade in his hometown told Blaze News that Cole’s walk is vastly different from that of the hoodie suspect.

Sunny Sandhu, owner of a 7-Eleven store on Minnieville Road in Woodbridge, not far from the Cole family home, said he has watched Cole come to and go from the store a “a minimum of two to three times per week” during at least a 13-year period.

After Cole’s arrest, Sandhu said he watched the FBI video of the hoodie suspect walking down an alley to place the second pipe bomb near the RNC.

“I go, ‘No way. The kid doesn’t walk like that,’” Sandhu said. “This kid has no confidence in his stride at all.”

Cole has a “goofy walk” that does not resemble the FBI’s bomb suspect, Sandhu said. “There’s no way.”

‘He was always very robotic and socially awkward.’

Cole was a consistent regular at the 7-Eleven, always asking for two Cokes and a pizza, Sandhu said.

“Every time he came in here, it was always the same thing, same routine,” Sandhu told Blaze News in an interview. “Always had his headphones on. Always made it the same order, bought two Cokes and a pizza.”

A law enforcement source who lives in the same area as the Cole family told Blaze News that he saw Cole on a regular basis out walking his little dog in the neighborhood. He described Cole’s demeanor as “awkward.”

“We were super surprised to hear he was the subject arrested for the Jan. 6 pipe bombs,” the source told Blaze News. “The immediate thought was: There is no way he had the mental ability to plan and prepare something like that. He was always very robotic and socially awkward around the neighborhood.

“My second thought was, seeing how he behaved around the neighborhood, how could he function in downtown D.C.?” the source said. “I had no doubt he was the wrong guy and complete doubt that the FBI did a proper investigation to identify him.”

A Blaze News reporter and an investigator who witnessed Cole walk into a February court hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said Cole’s gait appeared distinct from the hoodie suspect’s.

Eyesight appears different

In the Virginia bodycam video, Cole kept his phone about six to eight inches from his face, indicating a likely nearsighted condition.

The hoodie suspect, in contrast, held the cell phone in the lap while sitting on the park bench behind the DNC building. This was about two feet from the eyes, which could indicate that Cole’s eyesight is significantly different from the eyesight of the hoodie suspect.

History of gait analysis

The FBI and state and local law enforcement agencies have used gait analysis in a variety of investigations. In fact, the FBI used gait analysis early in the pipe-bombs case to help rule out a suspect, according to “Injustice,” a 2025 book by two Washington Post reporters.

The FBI’s investigation of who purchased the same Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers worn by the hoodie suspect led the bureau to a gym employee who lived in the area near the crime scenes.

“The person came under further scrutiny after he initially lied to agents about a leg injury, according to people familiar with the investigation,” wrote Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis. “Agents wondered if the injury could have accounted for the odd gait seen on security footage.”

The FBI later concluded that the man had no other possible ties to the case and ruled him out as a suspect, Davis and Leonnig wrote.

More recently, gait analysis was used on security footage in the February 1 disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.

Gait analysis has been used in criminal cases in the West as far back as the 1830s. In an 1837 case in London, burglary suspect Thomas Jackson, 36, was convicted based in part on a policeman’s testimony describing his gait, according to the 1840 Central Criminal Court Minutes of Evidence.

Patrolman George Cheney told the court that he arrested Jackson on March 1, 1837, charged with the burglary of Heath and Company. Security guard William Meagle detained Jackson after discovering him overnight on the main floor of the building.

Two police officers identified burglary suspect Thomas Jackson by his gait in this 1837 case in Great Britain.Central Criminal Court Minutes of Evidence

“I have not a doubt of his being the man — I know him by his walk,” Cheney said in court testimony. “When he was remanded, I had to take him backwards and forwards three or four times, and he had a limp in his walk, having had an accident, and I know his features.”

Police constable Philip Parish told the court that Jackson had a “bow leg.” Sergeant George Teakle said the suspect had suffered a broken leg. “I observed him rather limp on one side,” Teakle recounted. “I said, ‘You have had a broken leg.’ He said, ‘I have not.’”

Forensic gait analysis has been used in criminal cases in the U.K. much longer than in the United States. It is sub-specialty of forensic podiatry. Forensic podiatrist Michael Nirenberg described forensic podiatry as “the application of sound and researched podiatry knowledge and experience in forensic investigations, to show the association of an individual with the scene of a crime.”

Nirenberg has testified in several criminal trials, using gait analysis and footprint and footwear evidence to tie defendants to crime scenes.

His testimony was key to the conviction of an armed robbery suspect in Wayne County, Tenn., in January 2017. Three men robbed the Berrys One Stop convenience store. Detectives did not find any physical evidence such as fingerprints or DNA. One of them did notice something peculiar about one man on surveillance video: his walk.

FBI officials search Brian Cole Jr.’s 2017 Nissan Sentra for evidence in the Jan. 6 pipe-bombs case, in Woodbridge, Va., on Dec. 4, 2025.Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

Detective Dusty Malugen asked Nirenberg to compare the robbery surveillance video to video of a subject who came into the convenience store days before the crime. Nirenberg found a match by observing the men.

“You can see how he’s walking,” Nirenberg told the Journal & Courier newspaper. “His feet and knees are out-toed. You can see the way his head is positioned on his shoulders. His head hangs forward.”

Nirenberg’s analysis was presented to a local grand jury, which indicted a suspect. Confronted with the evidence, the man confessed to the robbery and rolled over on his two accomplices. All three were sent to prison.

Nirenberg assisted police and the FBI with gait analysis in the April 2016 murder of Missy Bevers, 45, a fitness instructor in Midlothian, Texas. That case remains unsolved.

AI and forensic gait analysis

The use of artificial intelligence to analyze the movements of individuals shown on surveillance video is an emerging method that claims up to near-perfect accuracy. Europe-based consultant Cursor Insight says its gait-recognition system achieved 98.3% accuracy using video of a single gait cycle, measuring only thigh and shank flexion angles of both legs.

Using other factors such as segment lengths and analyzing several gait cycles can increase accuracy to 99.9% or higher, the company reported in a 14-page case study.

The AI-powered gait analysis has advantages over biometrics such as facial recognition, which often fails when the subject is far away, covered in darkness, or wearing a face mask, the case study said.

“Our AI-powered gait-analysis technology can transform seemingly worthless video into reliable forensic evidence,” the case study said. “Even when facial recognition fails — we can identify individuals by analyzing body dimensions, body pose, and motion patterns such as walking or running.”

‘Cole contests each of the government’s factual claims.’

Nirenberg said gait analysis will become a more prominent part of criminal investigations.

“The admission of video evidence in criminal matters will continue to grow, and with it, those perpetrating crimes will increasingly take measures to conceal their identity,” he wrote in Criminal Justice magazine. “Even so, criminals cannot hide their gait. This is a significant fact for attorneys on both sides of a criminal case.”

A U.S. intelligence community source told Blaze News that gait recognition technology is much farther advanced in China.

“Gait recognition will eventually be used as the most important law enforcement tool in identifying criminal suspects from the increased proliferation of CCTV,” the source said. “The downside is that it will also be used by authoritarian governments in establishing their social credit scores — tracking jaywalkers in crowded cities and other such undesirable behaviors.”

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​Jan. 6 

The male accused of punching and knocking out a female crossing guard in the Philadelphia area last week ended up running from the law for four days and over 500 miles before his arrest in South Carolina.

Darby Borough Police on Friday announced the arrest of 27-year-old Rashiem Russell and said he is charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, stalking, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, and harassment.

‘He may have been upset with having to wait for her to cross children off of the school bus there.’

Cops say Russell — who stands 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 235 pounds — assaulted a school crossing guard last Monday in an incident caught on video.

The assault took place outside Walnut Street Elementary School in Darby Borough during dismissal around 3:30 p.m. as students looked on, WPVI-TV reported.

Police said the guard told detectives that Russell was driving aggressively as she helped students cross the street and that she ordered him to stop, the station noted.

Russell then parked his car, chased down the guard, and hit her, knocking her unconscious, WPVI reported, citing court records. The suspect then took off.

Darby Borough Police Chief Joe Gabe told WPVI in a previous story that it is believed the suspect may have been angry about waiting in traffic: “He may have been upset with having to wait for her to cross children off of the school bus there.”

Gabe added to the station that the suspect was yelling profanities as he drove through the intersection prior to the attack: “When he was approaching her, he was yelling more obscenities at her before he grabbed her and struck her in the face.”

RELATED: ‘Disgusting’: Thug caught on video punching female crossing guard in face, knocking her out as elementary schoolers watch

While WPVI and other news outlets say Russell is 29, authorities — including Darby Police — say he’s 27.

Philadelphia Police on Wednesday stopped Russell’s 2009 gold Nissan Altima; two females — but not Russell — were inside, the station said, citing court documents.

One female told detectives that Russell fled to South Carolina, WPVI reported.

“The information was credible. So at that point we started scouring what possible connections, family members he may have, and we determined there was a very close family member in the city of Darlington, South Carolina,” U.S. Marshals Supervisory Deputy Robert Clark said, according to the station.

Darlington is just over 530 miles from Darby Borough.

RELATED: 3 females dragged Philly crossing guard off bus when she tried to escape brutal beating, detective says; suspects arrested

Russell on Monday morning was still behind bars in the Florence County Jail, records show. He is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania, WPVI said.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Anthony Williams (D) had offered a $5,000 reward in the case, the station said: “As soon as the crime was solved, they showed and wanted their $5,000, and they will get their $5,000.”

The crossing guard suffered both physical and emotional injuries but is recovering, the station said. However, she has resigned from her position as a crossing guard and wants to remain anonymous, WPVI added.

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​Suspect arrested, Pennsylvania, Darby borough, Crossing guard, Elementary school, Male punches crossing guard, Rashiem russell, Aggravated assault charge, South carolina, Darlington, Crime 

We measure influence in the U.S. military by rank, command, sacrifice, and decorations. Another kind of influence never shows up in an evaluation report or an after-action review. It lives in barracks humor, in whiteboard scrawl, and in the jokes told seconds after a blast, when nobody knows what else to say.

For more than four decades, that language included Chuck Norris, who died Thursday at 86.

In a culture that trains people to suppress fear and keep vulnerability under lock and key, humor becomes one of the safest ways to admit the stress everyone carries.

To most Americans, Norris was a martial artist and action hero. To generations of service members, he also became the centerpiece of a strange, durable mythology. The Chuck Norris jokes — absurd, hyperbolic, endlessly recycled — turned into more than throwaway lines. They became part of the emotional vocabulary of military life.

My combat deployment was no exception. Chuck Norris jokes covered bathroom walls, T-barriers, and whiteboards. They showed up during rocket attacks, after sniper fire, and in the lulls between incoming mortar fire. In a world built on danger and uncertainty, those ridiculous one-liners delivered something surprisingly useful: familiarity, laughter, and a brief reminder of invincibility.

That mattered more than civilians might think.

Humor in combat rarely counts as trivial. It works as a pressure valve. It functions as resilience. In a culture that trains people to suppress fear and keep vulnerability under lock and key, humor becomes one of the safest ways to admit the stress everyone carries. A joke can cut the tension without breaking bearing.

The Norris myth worked because it exaggerated what warfighters hope to find in themselves and in each other: strength, competence, endurance, and an almost supernatural refusal to lose. “Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups. He pushes the Earth down.” The line was silly on purpose. The more impossible the joke, the better it mocked the impossible situations young Americans were asked to endure.

Over time, the jokes became a kind of oral tradition. They passed from senior NCOs to new enlisted troops, from one unit to the next, from one deployment cycle to another. Like much of military culture, they traveled informally. They still carried meaning. They created continuity between those who served before and those serving now.

RELATED: Here are some of the funniest ‘Chuck Norris facts’ memes fans have shared to honor his memory

Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

That’s how military culture often works. Doctrine and discipline matter, but shared rituals, symbols, and humor hold people together under pressure. The public tends to focus on the formal parts of service — uniforms, medals, salutes, speeches. The glue usually looks less official and more human.

It may sound odd to credit a pop-culture figure with shaping the inner life of the armed forces. Anyone who has deployed knows morale survives on unexpected things: coffee, music, dark humor, inside jokes, nicknames, and familiar reference points that make hardship feel survivable.

Chuck Norris became one of those reference points.

Warfare changes. Technology changes. The human side changes slower than people like to admit. Young Americans still deploy far from home. They still face fear, boredom, grief, and danger. They still need shared ways to absorb the psychological shock that comes with those experiences.

Whether the next generation inherits Chuck Norris jokes or builds a new mythology misses the larger point. Cultural touchstones endure because they give people a common language for courage. They turn anxiety into laughter. They remind troops that toughness isn’t only physical; sometimes toughness means smiling in the middle of chaos.

Norris did not shape strategy or write doctrine. But for a remarkable span of time, he held a small, steady place in the culture of the people who carried America’s wars.

That’s a real legacy.

Rest in peace, Chuck Norris.

​Opinion & analysis, Chuck norris, Memes, Jokes, Military, Mythology, Obituary, In memoriam, Combat, Deployment, Fear, Oral tradition, Armed forces, Philanthropy, Action hero, Culture, Entertainment, Movies 

A prolonged funding standoff in Washington is beginning to hit Americans where it hurts — at the airport. With the Department of Homeland Security still unfunded, tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration workers have gone weeks without pay.

The lack of pay is now contributing to long lines and staffing shortages across the country, and BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey’s father, Ron Simmons, argues that the Democrats are to blame.

“This is something that the Democrats are holding up. Any of you that are on spring break or coming off spring break while you’re listening to this, and you had these terrible long lines at some of your airports, then blame the Democrats,” Simmons says on “Relatable.”

“And if you live in a blue state, call your Democrat senator’s office. This is so crazy. They think they’re doing something to ICE, but what most people don’t know, this doesn’t even affect ICE or border security,” he says.

“Those were funded through the Big Beautiful Bill for the next three years. There’s $170 billion of funding already set aside for them. This, essentially, the biggest thing it hurts is TSA. Fifty thousand TSA employees have gone without a paycheck, at least one, and coming up on going without two paychecks,” he continues.

However, Simmons doesn’t believe the strain on TSA will last much longer.

“I do think they’re going to end up cutting a deal on this one pretty quickly because I’m sure the pain that some of these senators are feeling from their constituents is getting more than they want to bear,” he says.

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.

​Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Ron simmons, Tsa, Department of homeland security, Transportation security administration, Airport lines, Airport security, Democrats vs republicans 

On a recent episode of “The Drive with Lauren and Karl,” we ended up talking about two very different corners of car culture: a hyper-realistic driving simulator developed by our guest, automotive journalist Mike Harley, and the latest wave of Hollywood car movies built around classic, analog machines.

At first glance, those topics have nothing in common.

Traditional sims feel artificial, with exaggerated inputs and inconsistent feedback.

But taken together, they point to something bigger: Driving is splitting into two worlds. One is becoming more digital, more controlled, and more simulated. The other is maxing out on the emotional, physical experience that made people fall in love with cars in the first place.

A new kind of driving experience

Harley is co-founder of Idaho-based Marble Labs, the company behind new driving simulator XP1.

More than 10 years in the making, XP1 eschews the old-fashioned arcade mechanics in order to replicate real driving — how a car responds to steering input, braking, weight transfer, and grip. That may sound like what simulators have always promised, but most drivers know the difference immediately. Traditional sims feel artificial, with exaggerated inputs and inconsistent feedback.

XP1 is trying to change that.

Instead of force-feedback approximations, it uses a physics-based model designed to behave like an actual vehicle. The goal is simple: Make what you’ve learned behind the wheel of a real car carry over naturally into the simulation.

That has promising real-world applications. A teenage driver can practice without risk. A senior driver can regain confidence without the pressure of real traffic. An enthusiast can work on technique — braking, cornering, control — without paying for tires, fuel, or repairs.

And it doesn’t require a five-figure investment. Harley built it to run on a standard PC with a basic, affordable wheel-and-pedal setup.

That matters, because as driving becomes more expensive, more regulated, and in some cases less accessible, simulation starts to look less like a novelty and more like a practical tool.

The limits of going digital

But even as simulation improves, it highlights what can’t be replicated. You can model physics, recreate vehicle dynamics, and simulate environments.

What you can’t fully reproduce is emotion.

That came up repeatedly in our conversation when we shifted from simulators to real-world vehicles — especially performance cars. Automakers like Lamborghini and Porsche have already started pulling back from plans to go fully electric in certain segments, not because they can’t build fast EVs, but because something is missing.

Sound, vibration, feel. In other words, the mechanical connection between driver and machine.

A car that goes from zero to 60 in under two seconds is impressive. But if it does it silently, without drama, without feedback, many drivers — especially enthusiasts — find the experience incomplete.

RELATED: No new cars under $50K? Thank the government

NurPhoto/Getty Images

Hollywood still gets it

If you want to see where car culture still lives, look at what Hollywood is making.

Car correspondent Josh Hancock dropped by to show that studios get that driving is an emotional experience, not just a technical one. The upcoming reboot of “The Rockford Files” is reportedly looking at classic Pontiac Firebirds. The success of “F1” has already sparked a sequel. “Days of Thunder” is returning. New films like “Crime 101” are built around analog cars — Camaros, Challengers, V8 sedans — shot with practical effects, not just digital ones.

Filmmakers understand something the industry sometimes forgets: People don’t connect with cars purely because they are efficient. They connect with them because they feel something when they drive them.

And that’s something simulation, no matter how advanced, is still chasing.

Two paths forward

What’s emerging is not a replacement of one world by another, but a split.

On one side, driving becomes more digital:

simulators for training and practice; electric vehicles focused on efficiency and performance metrics; and increasing reliance on software and automation.

On the other side, driving remains physical:

internal combustion engines, especially in enthusiast segments; vehicles designed around feel, not just function; and cultural reinforcement through movies, media, and lifestyle.

These two paths can co-exist; in fact, they probably have to.

By reducing costs and expanding access to training, simulations can help drivers improve. But no amount of virtual sophistication can replace the reason people care about driving in the first place.

The bottom line

Technology is changing how we drive — and in some cases, whether we need to drive at all.

But it hasn’t changed why people care about cars.

The rise of advanced simulators like XP1 shows how far digital driving has come. The resurgence of analog car culture in movies shows how much of the experience still depends on something real.

You can listen to the full episode of “The Drive with Lauren and Karl” featuring Mike Harley below:

​The drive, Xp1, Driving simulator, Lifestyle, Culture, Tech, Hollywood, Muscle cars, Align cars 

More than willing to hold Americans’ ease of travel hostage, Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and his Democratic allies in the U.S. Senate initiated a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security last month, conditioning the passage of the FY2026 DHS appropriations bill on restrictions to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection operations.

This Democratic denial of funding that has survived over four votes on theme has manifested in long lines and headaches at airports across the country — especially at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which urged travelers on Monday morning to “arrive at least 4 hours early” on account of Transportation Security Administration staffing constraints and the correlated “longer than normal wait times at security checkpoints.”

‘We thought we would be safe enough.’

While advising passengers to allow at least four hours for security screenings, the airport presently recommends budgeting additional time for checked baggage.

According to the airport traffic rankings released last year by Airports Council International, Hartsfield-Jackson was the busiest in North America, boasting over 108 million passengers and 796,224 aircraft movements in 2024.

On Sunday, only four of the 18 TSA screening lanes were open at America’s busiest airport, reported CNN. The general boarding line was reportedly backed up past the atrium, wrapped around the baggage claim, and jutting out the door at the drop-off area.

The frustration and uncertainty were apparently too much for some would-be travelers to bear. Police reportedly had to escort one woman out after she suffered an apparent panic attack.

RELATED: ‘I messed up’: LaGuardia Airport shut down after deadly collision

Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images

“We thought we would be safe enough but … it’s just insane,” Oliver Wanner from Minnesota told CNN. Wanner arrived at the airport at 4 a.m. ET for a 7:30 a.m. flight — but still ended up trapped in the line.

Aaron David, a traveler who was attempting to collect his bags on Sunday, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the experience was “absolute insanity and chaos.”

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (D) announced on Sunday that help from Homeland Security Investigations and ICE was on the way, starting Monday morning.

The announcement came just days after President Donald Trump stated, “If the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!”

“According to federal officials, these personnel will be assigned to support operational needs directed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), including line management and crowd control within the domestic terminals,” said Dickens. “Federal officials have indicated that this deployment is not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities.”

“Our Administration remains hopeful the Federal Government can soon find a way to fully fund TSA and pay their employees to resume standard operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — and all airports we connect to,” added Dickens.

To “help ease the burden on TSA officers who continue to serve” despite Democrats pulling TSA funding, the city of Atlanta and the Hartsfield-Jackson airport have been providing TSA officers with meal vouchers, free parking, free public transit passes, and discounted food options at airport concession stands.

Despite the support measures, around 30%-40% of agents have called out in recent days, reported WSB-TV. While some workers are not showing up after going weeks without pay, others have reportedly just quit.

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​Atlanta, Lines, Waiting, Democrats, Department of homeland security, Ice, Donald trump, Schumer, Traveling, Travel, Airport, Airports, Dickens, Tsa, Flying, Politics 

Weeks into the Democrat shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, Trump finally threatened to take matters into his own hands in the Transportation Security Administration lines on Saturday. And Trump gave an update on Monday, signaling his continued intention to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at major airports.

On Monday, Trump announced that he would accept a slight change in policy for the ICE agents covering for TSA workers, all while taking some jabs at his political opponents.

‘I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc.’

“I am a BIG proponent of ICE wearing masks as they search for, and are forced to deal with, hardened criminals, many of whom were let into our Country by Sleepy Joe Biden and his wonderful ‘Border Czar,’ Kamala (she never even went to the Border!), through their absolutely INSANE Open Border Policy,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

RELATED: Trump threatens Democrats that he’ll fix TSA himself — and it involves ICE

Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images

However, he then added: “I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc.”

In the first year of the second Trump administration, opponents of ICE repeatedly called for the removal of face coverings for the ICE agents, arguing that masks allowed agents to act with relative impunity. Supporters of ICE argued that the masks were employed for the agents’ own safety.

Trump said on Saturday that the ICE agents would “do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country.”

Travelers have faced extremely long screening wait times as TSA workers continue to work without pay, if they show up at all. Many have been forced to get temporary jobs during the shutdown to make ends meet.

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​Politics, Tsa, Ice, Trump, Trump administration, Ice agents, Masks, Ice masks, Airports, Democrats, Republicans, Kamala harris, Joe biden, Security, Immigration 

President Donald Trump has now laid out a potential off-ramp to end the United States’ strikes against Iran.

Trump said Monday that the two countries have had “productive conversations” in recent days, hinting at a possible resolution to the conflict in the upcoming days or weeks. This announcement comes in the third week of the military operation, which would fit Trump’s predicted four- to six-week timeline to close the conflict.

‘POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES.’

“I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST,” Trump said in a Truth Social Post.

Trump also indicated that the United States would be scaling back key aspects of its military campaign while peace talks continue through the week.

RELATED: Joe Kent resigns from Trump admin, says Israel forced US into Iran conflict

Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

This de-escalation comes after Trump threatened Saturday to “hit and obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has constrained much of the world’s oil supply.

“BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAIN IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS,” Trump said.

Trump notably did not address Israel’s role in the conflict, raising questions about whether the ally may go rogue again.

Last week, Israel launched strikes against Iran’s gas fields, which prompted retaliatory strikes that hit a portion of Qatar’s liquid natural gas fields. Trump addressed the strikes in a Truth Social post Wednesday, saying that the United States had no foreknowledge of Israel’s strikes that notably led to military action against another American ally in the region.

This is not the first time Israel has complicated the United States’ attempts to broker peace in the region.

RELATED: Trump’s hilarious response after intel reportedly tells him Iran’s new supreme leader might be gay

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In the lead-up to Trump’s 20-point peace plan to resolve the war between Israel and Palestine, Israel launched strikes targeting senior Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar.

Trump said the decision was made entirely by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without American foreknowledge. Trump acknowledged and praised the deaths of Hamas leadership as a “worthy goal,” but criticized Israel for “unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace.”

Trump later made Netanyahu call and apologize to Qatar’s prime minister just 20 days after the strike that killed a Qatari security officer, violated the country’s sovereignty, and threatened peace talks.

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​Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iran war, Qatar, Power plants, Lng gas fields, Donald trump, Iran supreme leader, Truth social, Ceasefire, Department of war, Marco rubio, Pete hegseth, Benjamin netanyahu, Bibi netanyahu, Politics 

Two are dead and scores more are injured after a plane collided with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

When touching down on Runway 4 at approximately 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, an Air Canada Express CRJ-900 plane operated by regional partner Jazz Aviation struck a Port Authority Airport Rescue and Firefighting vehicle that was responding to a separate incident, said the airport.

‘That wasn’t good to watch.’

Jazz Aviation confirmed that flight 8646 was en route to LaGuardia from Montreal and carrying 72 passengers and four crew members.

Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said during a press conference early Monday morning that “initial numbers indicate that 41 passengers and crew were transported to the hospital as well as the [Airport Rescue] officers. At this time, we understand that 32 have been released, but there are also serious injuries.”

Garcia confirmed that the pilot and first officer of the Air Canada flight were killed in the collision. The sergeant and the officer who were inside the truck are in stable condition with no life-threatening injuries.

Air Canada said in a statement, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of two Jazz employees, and our deepest condolences go out to the entire Jazz community and their families.”

RELATED: One crash, one derailment — and Congress still can’t follow the data

Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Jack Cabot, a passenger on the ill-fated flight, said, “We went down for a regular landing. We came in pretty hard. We immediately hit something, and it was just chaos in there. About five seconds later, we had come to a stop, but in that short period, I mean, everybody was hunkered down and everybody was screaming pretty quickly,” reported Canadian state media.

“We didn’t have any directions because the pilot’s cabin had been kind of destroyed, so somebody said, ‘Let’s get the emergency exit and get the door and let’s all jump out,’ and that’s exactly what we did,” added Cabot.

In audio capturing LaGuardia tower communication in the moments leading up to the collision, a ground controller can be heard instructing the truck, “Just stop there. … Stop, stop, stop, Truck One, stop, stop, stop! Stop, Truck One! Stop!”

The two-man vehicle was headed to a United flight that had reported an issue with an odor, according to Garcia.

“Jazz 646, I see you collide with a vehicle, just hold position,” continues the controller. “I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.”

By that point, the cockpit was shorn off, with its occupants almost certainly dead.

An individual in the recording states, “That wasn’t good to watch.”

The controller who told the truck to stop responds, “Yeah, I know, I was here. I tried to reach out to ’em and stop ’em. We were dealing with an emergency earlier; I messed up.”

Garcia noted that where port authority rescue vehicles operating on the tarmac are concerned, “the procedure always is in deference to the control tower any time anyone is moving on any of our runways or taxiways,” and “they have to get clearance from the tower to move on our runways and our taxiways.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the collision.

LaGuardia, which warned travelers days earlier of “longer than usual wait times” at security checkpoints “due to staffing impacts from the federal funding lapse,” announced that the airport will remain closed until at least 2 p.m. on Monday — the first day of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ expected nationwide deployment to help with security lines at airports.

The New York Police Department announced Monday morning that all streets and highway exits into the airport have been closed until further notice.

According to Federal Aviation Administration data, LaGuardia was the 19th busiest American airport in 2024.

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​Aircraft, Airplane, Plane, Ntsb, Faa, Federal aviation, Aviation, Crash, Collision, Laguardia, New york, Nypd, Death, Port authority, Flying, Travel, Politics 

The wounds of Biden-era weaponization still ache. Many patriots still live with financial ruin, reputational damage, and cancellation campaigns stemming from the Biden-era Department of Justice. President Trump’s Department of Justice could do much more to make things right. It hasn’t.

Millions happily voted for Trump because he promised to de-weaponize government and restore election integrity. That mandate remains unfulfilled. He risks losing some of his strongest supporters, who may disengage on the country’s biggest fights — or sit out the midterms entirely — because they fear the cycle will repeat. We’re heading into another pivotal election season on a tilted field, without even fielding a full team.

Not everyone inside the Justice Department agrees with the president’s decision to issue these pardons — and that disagreement is showing up as deliberate drift.

Nothing illustrates this failure more clearly than the case of the 2020 contingent electors. To this day, some continue to face charges for assembling slates of electors contingent on ongoing fraud investigations or litigation in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Preparing contingent slates for congressional consideration has long existed in American politics. The attempt by the Biden administration and allied prosecutors to treat a bipartisan practice dating back more than a century as criminal conduct represents weaponization at its purest.

In November, I wrote about the president’s historic pardons for individuals charged in state court for offenses tied to the 2020 election. A presidential pardon touching state proceedings is unusual, but the reasoning was straightforward: Conduct tied to a federal election implicated constitutionally protected activity, and the state prosecutions functioned as a cat’s paw for a broader, coordinated campaign. President Trump made the right call — legally, prudentially, and politically. “Leave no MAGA behind” should apply most of all to the people who took the greatest risks and paid the steepest price.

What happened next — or, more to the point, what didn’t — turned “unusual” into “bizarre.”

After the president issued the pardons late on a Sunday night in November 2025, the Department of Justice went silent. Outside of comments from pardon attorney Ed Martin, the department has said virtually nothing. When reporters asked for comment, the department even referred Axios back to the White House. In Washington, that translates to “not our problem.”

It should be their problem.

RELATED: Trump’s pardons expose the left’s vast lawfare machine

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Silence is bad enough. Inaction is worse. The government should be moving aggressively to shut down the remaining state proceedings and use the pardons as a lever to defeat prosecutions that collide with federal authority and constitutional protections. We know that approach can work because it already did: Shortly after the pardons, Georgia dropped its charges against President Trump, explicitly citing the complications the pardons created.

The more uncomfortable truth is that not everyone inside the Justice Department agrees with the president’s decision to issue these pardons — and that disagreement is showing up as deliberate drift.

We’ve seen the same dynamic elsewhere: President Trump declares Biden’s autopen commutations null and void, yet the government continues releasing violent felons under those questionable pardons. Lawyers can disagree. They cannot refuse to execute the president’s lawful directives.

If the Justice Department can’t deliver even basic follow-through on the low-hanging fruit, it becomes hard to believe it will ever deliver the more challenging outcomes. Over a year into the Trump administration, we should be talking about real accountability for weaponized actors and real relief for the people they targeted.

The accountability train needs to get back on track. The first step is simple: The Department of Justice should do what the president publicly ordered it to do.

​Justice department, Donald trump, Pam bondi, Presidential pardons, Doj, Midterms, 2020 election, Opinion & analysis, Autopen, Pardons, Ed martin, Weaponized justice, Weaponization of government, Georgia, 2026 midterms 

By requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, the SAVE America Act reinforces a basic principle — that the right to vote in American elections is reserved solely and specifically for American citizens.

President Trump is right to prioritize the passage of this critical legislation, which is currently being debated in the U.S. Senate after earlier passing the House.

Indiana’s photo ID law treats everyone equally, without regard to race, color, or ethnicity. So does the SAVE America Act.

And nothing about this proposal should be controversial.

The nonsensical resistance to the SAVE America Act reminds me of similar opposition we faced in Indiana when — in 2005 — our legislature became the first in the nation to pass a law requiring that voters show photo IDs before casting ballots.

As Indiana’s secretary of state at the time, I championed the legislation from its inception. Once it passed, I was responsible for implementing it. And finally, I helped defend Indiana’s photo ID law over the course of four lawsuits — including one that wound up at the U.S. Supreme Court, where we prevailed in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.

My question to the foes of the SAVE America Act is the same one I posed to opponents of our photo ID law 20 years ago. Namely: What don’t you like about secure, trustworthy elections?

The photo ID law treats everyone equally, without regard to race, color, or ethnicity.

So does the SAVE America Act.

The photo ID law simply makes sure that voters are who they say they are.

The SAVE America Act simply makes sure that voters are U.S. citizens.

Few factors are more essential to the survival of American democracy than popular confidence among the people in the fairness of elections and the veracity of their outcomes.

The left claims to revere democracy. Leftists remind us of their deep affection for government of, by, and for the people every time they baselessly claim that we conservatives are out to destroy it based on our supposedly unquenchable jonesing for dictatorial authoritarian rule.

If the leftists love democracy as much as they say they do, then why aren’t they the loudest and most enthusiastic supporters of safeguards like photo ID requirements or the SAVE America Act?

RELATED: The SAVE Act is the hill voters will die on

Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images

Instead, they despise these common-sense measures.

To explain away their recalcitrance toward protecting the integrity of elections, critics say rules such as requiring photo IDs or proof of citizenship tend to disenfranchise certain voters — especially minority voters.

If they truly believe that certain demographic groups lack the necessary intelligence or resourcefulness to produce photo IDs or proof of citizenship — such as birth certificates or passports — then quite possibly they are racist to their core. And that’s reprehensible.

If they know better than that but are just plucking such concepts out of the air to rhetorically justify their stance, then they are disingenuous.

The charade should stop.

The Senate needs to pass the SAVE America Act now.

It’s a recipe for stronger election integrity, better standardization of rules nationwide, increased public confidence in elections, and better accountability for election officials.

“The people are demanding it,” President Trump recently said at a House GOP event. They’re right.

​Save america act, Democrats, Voter id, Democracy, Donald trump, Indiana voter id, Senate, Gop, Opinion & analysis 

A Brazilian state deputy put on blackface during a government proceeding in order to protest another member of the federal government.

Fabiana Bolsonaro, a state rep. of the São Paulo State Legislative Assembly, shocked attendees on Wednesday when she applied brown makeup not only to her face, but to her arms as well.

‘I want precisely to show that it’s useless to put on makeup.’

Now, lawmakers are now calling for the Liberal Party member’s removal and have filed an ethics complaint against her, according to Brazilian outlet Folha de S. Paulo.

However, Bolsonaro made it clear during her speech that her reason for putting the makeup on was to protest another member of government. Bolsonaro was protesting the appointment of Erika Hilton as chair of the Chamber of Deputies’ Women’s Rights Committee because Hilton — born Felipe Santos Silva — is a male who believes he is a woman.

Santos Silva is a federal deputy from Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party, which holds 14/513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives.

During Bolsonaro’s speech, the politician explained she was protesting the idea that one can become a woman simply by declaring so.

“I, being a white person who has lived everything that I lived as a white person, now at 32 years old, decide to put on makeup, to dress myself up as a black person, applying makeup and making only the outside appear [black]. … Have I become black?” she asked, according to a translation.

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“Am I black now?” she continued.

Bolsonaro put emphasis on the fact that she could not possibly have experienced what it is like to be black in Brazil simply by putting on makeup.

“I want precisely to show that it’s useless to put on makeup. It’s useless to pretend something,” Bolsonaro added. “I say to you as a woman: I am a woman. It does no good to dress up as a woman. I am not offending any transsexual. Quite the contrary, I am saying that I am a woman.”

The liberal also called out the accolades that Hilton has acquired since posing as woman, saying, “The Woman of the Year cannot be a transsexual. … Someone took her place to put a transsexual there.”

RELATED: Megyn Kelly reminds America: Jimmy Kimmel wore blackface — yet she was the one canceled

Photo by Mauricio Santana/Getty Images

Hilton has been named as Woman of the Year by Marie Claire Brasil, celebrated as a model for Sao Paulo Fashion Week, and given the label of having won the most votes of any woman in Brazil by British Vogue in 2020.

Bolsonaro remained respectful in her comments, however, saying that “transsexuals must be respected,” and claimed there is “an increase in the murder of transsexual people.”

She concluded, “I don’t want any trans person to go through prejudice, murder, or discrimination for being trans. But I also don’t want any trans to take my place.”

Bolsonaro, who is not related to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, changed her name in 2022 ahead of elections in support of the president, GB News reported. Her former name was Fabiana Barroso. At the same time, she changed her racial classification from white to mixed-race, the outlet stated.

Since the remarks last week, Hilton has requested electoral authorities to investigate Bolsonaro’s change of racial identification, based on Brazilian regulations introduced in 2021 that increased public funding for candidates who are black or female.

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​News, Brazil, Blackface, Transgender, Transgenderism, Transsexual, Liberal, Socialist, Politics 

Scripture is crystal clear about the dangers of false prophets. In the book of Matthew, they are described as deceptive figures who appear harmless as sheep but are inwardly destructive like ravenous wolves, often leading people astray through lies, false signs, or teachings that contradict God’s word.

But sometimes “false teacher” is a label used to defame and discredit a true teacher.

“It’s a real threat on one end, but then it’s also an accusation that is thrown around very loosely,” Zach Dasher said on a recent episode of “Unashamed with the Robertson Family.”

In this world of truly false teachers and those who have just been wrongly labeled one, how are Christians to know who to avoid and who to trust?

Dasher says there’s a simple “litmus test” we can use to help us navigate this common dilemma.

“The litmus test for me, and I think the litmus test in Scripture,” he says, revolves around how these teachers “treat the body [of Christ].”

He references Ezekiel 34:2-3: “Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.”

In this passage, God rebukes Israel’s leaders (the “shepherds”) for selfishness. Instead of caring for and feeding the people (the “sheep”), they are only feeding themselves — eating the best food, taking the wool for clothing, and slaughtering the fattest animals for their own benefit — while neglecting to provide for or protect the flock.

These same warnings about corrupt leadership echo throughout the Bible — from Isaiah to Jude.

A true shepherd, Dasher says, “eats last.”

“I think that’s the caveat. So when you are looking at ministry leaders and you’re looking at teachers and you’re looking at shepherds, look at their ministry. Look at the fruit of their life. Are they elevating themselves at the expense of the body? Are they using people?” he continues.

He gives the example of the “prosperity gospel” — the belief that tithing and donations result in divine blessings of material wealth, health, and success — as a truly heretical doctrine.

It’s not uncommon to see teachers of the prosperity gospel “go buy an airplane with [their congregations’] money,” he says.

“I mean, that is a shepherd feeding [himself].”

To hear more of the panel’s wisdom, watch the video above.

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​Unashamed, Unashamed with phil robertson, Jase robertson, Zach dasher, Blazetv, Blaze media, Christianity, False prophets, False teacher 

Last week I made the case for you that Paris Fashion Week, which just wrapped up on March 10, is yet another example of elitist satanic worship — the same brand of wickedness we see festering all throughout Hollywood and among other elite circles.

Now I’m going to prove it to you.

Official descriptions boast that Inferno is ‘not just a party’ but a ‘ritual.’

In my previous article, I awarded the gold medal for the most in-your-face demonic collection to French fashion label Matières Fécales — translation: Fecal Matter. Its Canadian founders, Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran, paraded a sequence of grotesque looks down the runway that included models distorted by nightmarish prosthetics and grisly surgical wounds; ensembles one would expect to see in a film about ghouls and grim reapers; and overtly satanic elements, like devil horns, fake blood, and cult-like theatrics.

The nonconforming, alien-esque duo attempted to justify their freak show by slapping a satire label on it. All the nauseating pageantry and horror were nothing more than a critique of elitist power and privilege, they said.

It’s a recycled narrative we have heard countless times from stars and public figures questioned about their dark spectacles. If the staleness of their defense wasn’t cause enough to reject it as a lie, then Matières Fécales’ partnership with Lewis G. Burton — the obese, transgender, intersex “Mother” of London’s queer underworld — certainly is.

He was one of the “models” chosen to don a look from the label’s Fall 2026 “Ready-to-Wear” collection — a hooded black floor-length robe resembling that of a satanic priest.

Victor Virgile/Getty Images

A far cry from the skeletal catwalkers we’re accustomed to seeing on high-fashion runways, Burton’s large figure, which he proudly uses to fight “fatphobia” and push “fat liberation,” is a core piece of his identity.

It is his stated intention not only to normalize but to glorify obesity and objective ugliness. In a 2019 interview with i-D magazine, Burton, a trained performance artist, said, “When I was first on stage being garish and grotesque, I was shoving my ugliness in people’s faces. I was saying: I feel repulsive because you made me feel repulsive, so now you have to look at it. Now I see it differently because I think I’m f**king beautiful! It’s a new extreme now. It’s about showing that beauty to the world.”

Joe Hale/Getty Images

Beyond the body: Burton’s activism and influence

But fatness is the least interesting layer of the onion that is Burton.

As a founding member of London Trans+ Pride — which he helped grow from just 1,500 people in 2019 to over 100,000 in 2025 — he remains one of the most visible faces of London’s trans activism.

He advocates radical positions for a number of LGBTQ+ issues, including faster and fully funded gender-affirming “care” for transgenders, access to puberty blockers for children, mandatory inclusion of trans people in single-sex spaces, and a ban on all nonconsensual surgeries on intersex children.

Like the majority of left-wing activists, however, Burton’s cries of oppression echo throughout multiple grievance movements. He has steered London Trans+ Pride toward aggressive intersectionality, most notably marching in solidarity with Palestine, which predictably (and paradoxically) includes condemnation of Islamophobia.

Marches, “visibility” events, and left-wing activism are almost unremarkable, though, when compared to Burton’s prominent role in London’s underground queer scene.

His traveling queer techno rave and performance art platform “Inferno” — inspired by Dante Alighieri’s epic poem about the nine levels of hell — is described as “seven layers” of “queer heaven,” where each circle explores new depths of perversion, varying in intensity from “gentle” rituals of chosen-family bonding to the darkest, most depraved circles of sweat-soaked techno, body horror performance, and explicit queer pornography.

Devoted to its hell theme, Inferno events are notorious for their red-drenched lighting, thick smoke, dark and shocking costumes, grotesque performances, and hedonistic indulgences.

One Inferno attendee described an event like this: “A dark warehouse illuminated by a sea of red textiles and clouds of smoke. … Inferno is a space where everyone can express themselves, whether it be through extravagant, tentacle-like costumes or full body paint.”

RELATED: Satan struts at Paris Fashion Week — here are the 3 most demonic designers

Victor Virgile/Getty Images

From hedonism to ritual: The spiritual dimension

But Inferno’s unmitigated paganism doesn’t stop with carnal pleasures. It embraces the spiritual, too.

Witchcraft language is woven into its DNA. Official descriptions boast that Inferno is “not just a party” but a “ritual.”

Additionally, Burton, who styles himself as the “mother” of the matriarchal “Inferno family,” appears to occupy a spiritual role in which he uses his music to cast what he calls spells.

“MOTHERS MILK is more than a music video — it’s a spell,” reads the YouTube description for his most recent song, which he regularly performs live before the dark, gyrating Inferno masses.

Burton’s spiritualism, however, extends beyond the dance floor. In addition to the grotesque, hellish aesthetics that dominate his Instagram account (view at your own risk), he regularly posts new moon rituals, guiding his followers through candle ceremonies and “cosmic resets” that he frames around themes of divine femininity and personal transformation.

In doing so, he positions himself not merely as a DJ or party host, but as a spiritual guide for the community that gathers under his influence.

This fusion of radical progressivism, New Age spirituality, and unapologetic darkness that Burton embodies is not merely a new pagan religion — it’s proof that evil operates in interconnected webs.

Webs of alignment and influence

I write this not to stir up hatred for Burton. I actually deeply pity him. When I see people this spiritually lost and psychologically ill, my first thought is always to wonder about where the original break occurred — what trauma, indoctrination, or misfortune sent them down such a dark path.

I write this to illustrate that when elites and public figures shove objective evil down our throats — like Matières Fécales’ demonic Paris Fashion Week collection — they are not being ironic or critical. They are showing us what team they play for.

Choosing Burton as a model was no gesture of inclusivity. It is alignment of values. And in fact, in 2019, Matières Fécales directed the music video for Burton’s song “Hermaphrodite.” They are embedded in the same sick circle.

And that alignment of values extends upward: from the governing bodies of Paris Fashion Week, which embrace the grotesqueness of the Matières Fécales label; to high-profile celebrities who attend the shows and wear the designs — Chappell Roan and Lady Gaga among those who have prominently supported the brand — and who publicly align with the broader community Burton represents; and ultimately to the influential figures and institutions that promote radical progressivism, deliberately unraveling society through the erosion of morality and the poisoning of institutions.

Normalizing the dark: An upside-down world

This is a dark web, and at the center is a worship of evil and the intention to normalize it and sell it to the masses as something that is actually good. Fatness is fabulous. Ugliness is beauty. Perversion is uniqueness. Depravity is liberation. Hedonism is self-expression. Darkness is an aesthetic. Witchcraft is misunderstood. Truth is subjective. Opposition is violence.

Satan is symbolic.

I do believe that many of these people, likely Burton himself, genuinely think that Satan is nothing more than a way to anger the cisgender white conservative oppressors — just a red-tinged aura to throw one’s rage behind.

I wish that were true. It would make the stakes a lot lower. But the truth is that the Satan they flirt with is not a symbol, a muse, or a vibe. He’s the very real and active root that feeds every dark idea, movement, and deed. He is also the mastermind behind the careful framing and packaging that makes objective evil palatable for the masses.

But what does it say about society when something as universally revolting as Fecal Matter or “Mother” Lewis G. Burton are hoisted up as trophies of progress on an elite stage? No one who retains control over his own mind can behold these things and genuinely approve.

To me it means that the primordial plan to engulf the world in darkness is reaching later phases. It reminds me of the scene in “The Fellowship of the Ring” where the trolls and other fell creatures have begun leaving their shadowed lands and are encroaching on peaceful borders. This breach is interpreted as a sign that the Enemy is growing strong and foreshadows the great battle to come.

Our great battle is drawing nearer, too. The signs are everywhere. You don’t even have to search for them. Just look to the streets, the classrooms, the halls of power — or the runways.

My hope, however, is that we don’t make the same mistake as Matières Fécales, Burton, and other embracers of darkness and reduce Satan to a symbol by directing our fury at people who are merely pawns in this cosmic game — forgetting that this has never been, and will never be, a battle of flesh and blood.

​Culture, Paris fashion week, Satanism, Satan, Christianity, Trans, Lgbtq, Lgbtq agenda, Faith 

Former Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has produced a slender, puzzling book. It glides past the central problems facing campuses — weak leadership, weak accountability, and ideological capture — and lingers instead on nostalgia and the “community of scholars.”

It also prompts a blunt question: Why do university presidents publicly dissemble? Not in the chest-thumping manner of a cable-news partisan, but in the lubricated, bureaucratic manner that says almost everything except what matters most.

Bollinger presents a university with virtually no blemishes — blameless, well-run, noble — and then points outward, toward Trump and the federal government, as the true threat.

Bollinger was recruited by W.W. Norton editor in chief Dan Gerstle to adapt lectures delivered in spring 2025 into a book. He aims to remind readers that the American university occupies a critical place in society. In the abstract, he’s right, and parts of the argument work.

As a constitutional law scholar, he also tries to weave the First Amendment into the university’s institutional identity, suggesting the two are inseparable. That claim needs more force than this book provides. The prose reads like speech material polished for print. The ambition outruns the substance.

But the real center of gravity arrives quickly: Bollinger casts the primary threat to higher education as “outsiders,” especially the federal government and, most of all, Donald Trump. Yes, it’s another Trump-as-villain entry in the culture wars, and likely the reason this book was rushed into print. Whatever Bollinger’s hygienic tone, this is hatchet work in a gentleman’s suit.

Bollinger is no detached man of letters offering serene judgment from above the fray. He remains a prominent operator inside elite academic and political networks. His calm posture functions less as neutrality than as insulation.

The book is divided into three parts: “The University,” “The First Amendment,” and “The Fifth Branch.” If the press is the “fourth branch” of government, Bollinger argues the university deserves branch status too.

I write often about the university’s high mythology — the version parents and alumni carry around because universities actively sell it. Bollinger indulges that mythology. His university is a place of serious minds, noble purpose, and largely blameless governance, with only the occasional “organized anarchy,” the predictable messiness of complex institutions.

He offers this earnest passage:

I challenge anyone to spend a day, a week, or more in any university — sitting in on classes, attending lectures, meeting with students, visiting a laboratory, being part of a seminar — and not come away deeply impressed, indeed invigorated, about the human potential to know and to grasp something of our existence.

Many readers will want to believe it. Bollinger counts on that desire.

And here’s where the trouble begins.

RELATED: How America’s universities embraced anti-American ‘blood and soil’

Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

The book’s best section is its opening chapter, which promises an insider’s look at how universities actually function. Bollinger divides the institution into multiple levels of analysis — individual, university, and system — in a way that will feel familiar to anyone trained in serious political science. The intent looks analytic. The presentation sounds authoritative.

Then he leaves out the single biggest operational reality on most campuses.

Bollinger describes academic affairs — faculty, curriculum, and the traditional governance story — and effectively ignores student affairs, often rebranded as “student success.” That omission is not a minor gap. It’s the whole fight.

Modern universities are not simply faculty-driven institutions with a few administrative appendages. They are sprawling managerial systems in which student affairs bureaucracies routinely outnumber faculty and operate as an ersatz ideological faculty through what they call the co-curriculum: workshops, trainings, mandatory seminars, “wellness” programming, diversity offices, identity centers, residence-life systems, conduct regimes, orientation pipelines, and retention machinery.

This is education by parallel authority.

Student affairs is frequently staffed, trained, and ideologically shaped by external nonprofits such as ACPA, NASPA, NADOHE, and NACADA. These groups do not simply offer best practices. They often function as ideological conduits, pushing “critical pedagogy” and “critical consciousness” as an institutional mission. One of them literally advertises the goal of “boldly transforming higher education.”

That transformation is not a side story. It is the story. It’s how the modern university moved from the “shared governance” myth to a bureaucratic reality where the faculty increasingly serves as a decorative legitimacy layer.

Bollinger never deals with it. Not directly. Not honestly. Not at all.

Contemporary scholarship has already documented how student affairs increasingly designs, delivers, and assesses structured educational experiences parallel to the faculty curriculum. The same bureaucracy often serves as a channel for activism infrastructure that has helped fuel campus chaos since 2020.

Student affairs is wholly under the control of the extremist left. Yet Bollinger presents a university with virtually no blemishes — blameless, well-run, noble — and then points outward, toward Trump and the federal government, as the true threat.

It’s hard not to conclude that the nostalgia is doing work. Bollinger affirms the version of the university that parents and alumni want to believe still exists: the citadel of learning devoted to truth, stewarded by wise leaders, occasionally messy but fundamentally righteous.

RELATED: How to muzzle the three-headed diversity monster

Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

That image now functions as cover.

It shields what many universities have become: money-making and idea-laundering operations that give lip service to the people paying the bills — parents, students, donors — while empowering internal bureaucracies that answer to their own ideological class.

Bollinger’s personal position makes this posture easier to spot. He belongs to the wealthy mandarin class that runs elite higher education. His Columbia compensation reportedly topped $5 million annually. Columbia’s assets were roughly $23.5 billion at the end of 2022.

He also guards his own record with careful selection.

While he was president of the University of Michigan, the school was involved in two affirmative action cases decided by the Supreme Court in 2003. Bollinger highlights the win (Grutter v. Bollinger) but gives scant attention to the loss (Gratz v. Bollinger). In places, his wording blurs them together in a way that can leave casual readers thinking Michigan prevailed across the board.

It didn’t. In Gratz, Michigan’s admissions policy violated the Equal Protection Clause. That case foreshadowed the eventual collapse of the broader regime in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard two decades later.

At Columbia, Bollinger helped lay the groundwork for the institution’s later disorder by expanding and empowering DEI bureaucracies in response to the 2020 “racial reckoning.” Many presidents issued pro forma statements they now quietly regret. Bollinger went further: He built and strengthened the permanent infrastructure.

My view is straightforward: Bollinger represents the ascent of the new mandarins — administrators who guard prerogatives, expand PR machinery, and grow their internal empires against faculty authority, all while presenting themselves as the guardians of scholarly life. He is the living, breathing antithesis of what the university and its presidents should be in the 21st century.

In “University: A Reckoning,” Bollinger wants readers to see a university that largely no longer exists. His lack of candor ensures that readers learn little about how universities actually function — and even less about why so many are failing.

​College campus, University: a reckoning, Columbia, Higher education, American universities, Lee bollinger, Radical left, Opinion & analysis, University of michigan, Diversity equity inclusion 

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey credits not only her parents but her faith-based education — from kindergarten through high school — with shaping her worldview and skill set.

“My dad always said that he would do whatever it took, however many hours he had to work, however many shifts he had to work, to make sure my brothers and I attended a Christian school,” Stuckey says.

“I went to the same Christian school from kindergarten through 12th grade. Was it perfect? No. I had some not so great teachers. The culture wasn’t always the best. The community wasn’t always the best,” she continues.

“I would not trade my education for anything. In addition to the Holy Spirit and my parents, my kindergarten through 12th grade education is responsible for instilling in me the word of God, the ability to memorize it, to defend it, to think logically, to reason, to read, to write, to argue,” she explains.

“That just goes to show how crucial it is to disciple your kids from an early age because what they learn now, they will keep with them as adults, even more than the things they learn as adults,” she adds.

Stuckey points out that after her viral Jubilee debate, she was asked by several people how she prepared herself to take on such a large number of liberals.

“Yes, it took a lot of practice and preparation and skill, experience. Yes, my parents in so many ways prepared me for that just by how they raised me. But also, 13 years of Christian education, a decade of Awana, eight years of youth group, decades of Sunday school,” she explains.

“You just can’t beat the evangelical upbringing when it comes to knowing the Bible. And I am so thankful for it. I use it every single day,” she adds.

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