Category: blaze media

Monoculture is a concept describing a society in which everyone — or at least a large plurality — shares common interests. America once had one in spades. People stopped on the street to watch the “Seinfeld” finale being broadcast in Times Square. Over half of the entire country watched the final episode of “M.A.S.H.”

And, of course, there were sports. America’s two most popular sporting leagues, Major League Baseball and the National Football League, once dominated their respective halves of the year. At one time, almost 60% of American households watched World Series games.

But now that’s changing. And while determinists may argue that it was an inevitability that some sports may wax or wane in popularity, they did not have to. They are being killed.

It is difficult — even borderline impossible — to watch some teams’ games.

In the late 1950s, football teams had a problem. The NFL instituted a blackout policy, banning games from being broadcast if they did not sell enough stadium tickets ahead of time. This was done to aid teams from smaller cities, which depended upon revenue from ticket sales and could have potentially failed without that income.

But the Supreme Court ruled that the NFL — in determining which teams’ games could be broadcast — was running afoul of the law. So the league turned to Congress and President John F. Kennedy, who in 1961 passed and signed the Sports Broadcasting Act.

The SBA gave antitrust exemptions to the four major American sporting leagues — the NFL, MLB, the National Hockey League, and the National Basketball Association — when it came to the pooling of telecasting rights of their games

With their exemptions secured, the leagues proceeded to enforce strict exclusivity policies, giving the rights to the games to certain stations in certain circumstances. This system worked for a while, but it began to break down in the age of cable television, when certain games were essentially placed behind paywalls, a practice that has intensified in the streaming era.

This development has been a boon to the major leagues, which have made billions in sales of exclusive games. Amazon paid about $1 billion per year for “Thursday Night Football,” and MLB makes at least $800 million from its exclusives.

For the fans, however, it has been a disaster.

RELATED: Trump’s antitrust policy is working for everyday Americans

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Now, “Thursday Night Football” belongs to Amazon Prime when outside a local region. The same situation occurs with key Christmas Day games, which can be found on Netflix. ESPN likewise has exclusive rights, some of which are broadcast on YouTube and others on Netflix. Certain nationally broadcast games are not available on local TV.

MLB’s blackout policies have produced even more confusion for viewers. It is difficult — even borderline impossible — to watch some teams’ games. Atlanta Braves fans, for example, were in recent years instructed on how to watch their team’s games on Gray-owned broadcast stations, but Gray only hosted 15 games out of MLB’s 162-game season. Watching all 162 could cost hundreds of dollars.

Some MLB fans are even worse off. The state of Iowa, for example, is “blacked out” from viewership of six different nearby teams, leaving fans unable to watch a given game unless they have access to a specific package.

Obviously, viewers hate this. Polling has found that over 70% of sports fans want games to be broadcast for free locally, and the National Association of Broadcasters has called for Congress to consider changing the Sports Broadcasting Act.

While changes to the Kennedy-era law are overdue, there is reason to believe that the law as written does not allow the leagues to act as they have. The text of the law covers professional sporting leagues that engage in “sponsored telecasting of the games.” Telecasting is a specific form of transmission and arguably does not include broadcasts over the internet.

Some may point out that laws written in an older time can apply to newer technologies, but that’s not at issue here. The First Amendment, for example, covers speech said over television or the phone — but that is because it is still speech. If the SBA had covered only broadcasting, the leagues would potentially have an out. But it doesn’t.

The Trump administration is already taking action on this front. The Federal Communications Commission asked for comments on the state of sports broadcasting earlier this year, and the Department of Justice has opened an antitrust probe into both the NFL and MLB.

These investigations could end up being long-running and likely will require both Congress and the courts to act. Americans should urge all three branches of government to take action and cut through the broadcasting web to save the last element of America’s monoculture.

​Mlb, Nfl, Nba, Supreme court, Sports broadcasting act, Trump adminstration, Blackouts, Sports blackouts, Local tv markets, Opinion & analysis 

A recent viral essay from the New Yorker details the virtual market lock Google and other AI companies have quietly, some might say underhandedly, gained on the coveted and highly vulnerable K-8 public school population.

While we’re watching oil prices, the border invasion, and trying to feed our families, Big Tech is already fully insinuated into the school system — via long-standing, highly corrupt but technically legal arrangements between corporate-industrial capital and the U.S. Department of Education.

John Taylor Gatto, the legendary New York schoolteacher, best-selling author, and titan in the struggle for human dignity, once warned, “Schools were designed … to be instruments of the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce, through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.”

Lifelong customers are tough to create, unless you indoctrinate them.

He was correct, of course. And so the penetration of AI and Big Tech into public schools shouldn’t be a surprise. Rather, it is inevitable — as AI and Big Tech share many of these original ideas related to the management of human beings via cybernetics and technocracy. It’s almost as if the captive audience of young children was put into place to wait for the final insinuation of ultimate control through dumbing-down technology.

Consider the experience recounted in the New Yorker by writer Jessica Winter, a mother herself: “Students at my eleven-year-old daughter’s public middle school began receiving new Google Chromebooks, and that is when I heard the tap-tap of the cloven hooves approaching our doorstep. The Chromebooks, which the students use in every class and for homework, came pre-installed with an all-ages version of Gemini, a suite of A.I. tools. When my daughter, who is in sixth grade, begins writing an essay, she gets a prompt: ‘Help me write.’ If she is starting work on a slide-show presentation, the prompt is ‘Help me visualize.’”

Lifelong customers are tough to create, unless you indoctrinate them at the most vulnerable and malleable stages of their lives. As our expectations have fallen concerning our social arrangements, companies like Google or Anthropic, in partnership with, say, Microsoft, are building a long play. They’re capturing the brand allegiance, building familiarity, and establishing “relationships” early — investments that will extend throughout life.

“No single company has a monopoly on A.I. in K-8 education,” Winter observes. But Google, thanks to its Chromebook, is well on the way.

“A report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group noted that, by the last quarter of 2020, year-on-year sales of the device were up by 287%,” reports Winter. “In a national survey conducted by the Times last November, about 80% of K-12 teachers said that their districts use Chromebooks, which has created a vast captive market for Gemini and helped make A.I. in schools a near-universal prospect.”

RELATED: Commencement speaker praises AI and globalism — graduates crush her with boos

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Getty Images

One senses a strange respect for the business acumen of these market virtuosos. After all, it wasn’t long ago that their “progressive” bona fides and “good person” ethos were fully accredited by the country’s all-too-well-established elite institutions. Those old habits and expectations die hard. But today the emerging picture concerning AI-forward Big Tech and our children’s minds, to say nothing of our own dwindling capacities, still remains too “conspiratorial” for most of the mass media apparatus.

However gingerly, Winter tiptoes toward the truth. She flags a new MIT study that concludes “the integration of LLMs into learning environments may inadvertently contribute to cognitive atrophy.” But again: Winter notes the study’s timid authors “appended an FAQ to the paper with instructions on how to discuss its findings,” begging readers not to use “the words like ‘stupid,’ ‘dumb,’ ‘brain rot,’ ‘harm,’ ‘damage,’ ‘brain damage,’ ‘passivity,’ ‘trimming,’ and so on.”

Even if we didn’t have countless studies decrying the potential and proven deleterious effects of AI — on adults! — we should, and could if we wanted, simply sit back and apply Gatto’s observations and warnings to the manner in which tax schemes and kickbacks have deluged the classroom with digital technology that seems built more to impair than inspire.

It isn’t at all up for debate as to whether the U.S. education system was purposely built to serve the needs of industrial capital for docile and compliant workers. We could, I suppose, debate the ethics of that government-corporate merger. But it has long been in effect.

What may still be debatable is whether we, as a people — we American are still a coherent people, right? — wish to radically amplify the depth and scope of that docility. The perverse logic at work in the unified sectors of American education, finance, technology, and government is geared for deeply anti-human outcomes. And those fed into the gears at a young enough age will never know any better.

​Google, Classroom, Ai, Tech 

Recently, I wrote about my cancer diagnosis. In the aftermath of that ordeal, I finally scheduled something I had put off too long: a colonoscopy. It had been 11 years since my last one.

Part of that gap was due to neglect, I suppose. But much of it came from the reality of caregiving. Over the last six years alone, my wife and I have spent nearly 12 months in hospitals. The stretches at home often felt like military logistics.

And since we live about 60 miles from the nearest facility performing colonoscopies, scheduling one is not exactly like stopping by the barbershop.

Truthfully, I was nervous. Not panicked, but uneasy enough to want reassurance that this was one area of my body not planning an uprising. Once you hear the word “cancer,” your imagination suddenly takes on a full-time job.

When we learn to steward our bodies and hearts well, it often spills into our finances, our work, our relationships, and the way we carry responsibility itself.

So there I sat in the curtained pre-op area waiting for the doctor.

As I watched, the curtain beside me kept shifting while he searched for the opening. A hand appeared, disappeared, then the curtain moved again.

After decades of hospitals and surgeries with my wife, I’ve learned something important: If you lose your sense of humor in these places, the fluorescent lighting wins.

So when the doctor finally stepped through the curtain, I said to him in my best Roy D. Mercer impression:

“Look a here … if you’re havin’ a hard time finding the hole in the curtain, I’m a little concerned about you rootin’ around where you’re about to go.”

He burst out laughing and sheepishly assured me he knew exactly what he was doing. A few minutes later, they wheeled me toward the procedure room.

As we rolled through the doors, I gave the Mercer impression another go:

“Ahhright then … y’all gonna get to the bottom of this now. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

Then, just before they put me under, the doctor answered in his best Larry the Cable Guy voice:

“Let’s get ’er done!”

My last thought before going to sleep was: “How reassuring.”

Thankfully, the procedure went well. I’m good for several more years. I’ve seen moments like that one in hospital rooms, waiting areas, funeral homes, and around kitchen tables where exhausted families carried burdens they never imagined carrying.

Two weeks before the colonoscopy, I was playing the piano for the funeral of a beloved pastor here in Montana. The sanctuary was heavy with grief. Then, while adjusting my music, my sleeve caught the piano lid.

Apparently, the thing had been engineered by the same people who design bear traps. The lid slammed shut with a crack loud enough to wake the dead, which, considering the setting, felt especially unfortunate. The whole congregation jumped. Then, they laughed while I turned the color of a stop sign. And for just a few seconds, in the middle of grief, people breathed again. Not because suffering is funny, but because despair is heavy, and laughter gives weary people enough strength to pick the load back up.

RELATED: Life can be hard, but don’t forget to laugh

Anton Zacon/Getty Images

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing seriousness with rigidity. We became suspicious of humor in hard moments, as if laughter dishonors grief.

I don’t believe that. The older I get, the more I believe humor can be an act of stewardship rather than denial.

It’s not pretending things don’t hurt or making light of tragedy. Just refusing to surrender every corner of the heart to darkness.

Hospitals have a way of distilling what matters. Sitting in waiting rooms, hearing monitors beep through the night, or listening to the wheels of a gurney rattle down a hallway strips away much of the endless noise masquerading as importance in our culture.

You start remembering what matters.

A friend recently asked how I’m approaching decisions about my cancer treatment. My answer was simple: Stewardship will drive this decision. Thankfully, we caught my cancer early enough that I have options. That didn’t happen through panic. It happened through paying attention.

Caregivers are notorious for postponing their own health while tending to everyone else. I’ve certainly done my share of that over the years. But healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Screenings matter, rest is important, and laughter is essential from time to time.

Stewardship rarely stays confined to one corner of life. When we learn to steward our bodies and hearts well, it often spills into our finances, our work, our relationships, and the way we carry responsibility itself.

In a culture consumed with debt, rancor, fraud, and endless outrage, the problems can feel too large and tangled to fix.

But perhaps stewardship still begins the same way it always has: with individuals willing to accept responsibility for what’s right in front of them.

This include our health, families, work, and our other obligations.

Healthy cultures are built the same way healthy lives are: one act of stewardship at a time.

​Cancer, Cancer diagnosis, Cancer treatment, Caregiving, Stewardship, Individual responsibility, Humor, Opinion & analysis 

In her latest H-1B investigation, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales confronted the owner of Great America Technologies in Frisco/Plano, Texas, over suspected fraud. After trying for months to visit the business’ registered address, only to find an empty office suite where multiple H-1B employees are supposedly working, as well as a defunct phone number and website, Sara finally tracked down Nagarjuna Reddy Sakam at his personal residence.

She pressed him on the company’s multiple H-1B sponsorships according to USCIS data, the lack of visible evidence of business operations, and whether or not Nagarjuna was illegally running the business, which originally was registered under his wife’s name, before he obtained his green card.

When Sara demanded that he present her with the company’s public access files — a legal requirement for any American business sponsoring H-1B employees — Nagarjuna reacted defensively. The confrontation led to a heated back-and-forth that culminated in Nagarjuna threatening Sara with a lawsuit and Sara vowing to report his business to the authorities.

On this episode of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” Sara drops the latest bombshell on her investigations into Nagarjuna’s Great America Technologies, Inc.

She warns: “I hope that you’ve taken your blood pressure medication before watching this. If you haven’t, you can hit pause and go make sure that you do that, because this is really going to piss you off.”

– YouTube

Shortly after their confrontation, Sara discovered that 20 minutes after she left Nagarjuna’s residence at his request, he allegedly called 911 and tried to “file a complaint” on her forf questioning the legality of his business operations. The call resulted in “no legal action against [her].”

He then allegedly sent her a poorly worded “ChatGPT cease-and-desist letter,” accusing her of trespassing, invasive questioning, unlawfully recording him, and harassment and intimidation.

But that’s just the beginning of what Sara discovered.

During their viral confrontation, Nagarjuna repeatedly insisted that he was “paying taxes to the government.”

Sara found out, however, that Great America Technologies Inc. had taken out a significant PPP loan.

“[Nagarjuna] actually took an insane amount of money as a PPP loan handout that was forgiven,” she says, citing ProPublica data.

“[It] is a total, my friends, of $266,542 taken from us,” she adds.

Sara believes the numbers are suspicious.

“I’m just wondering why on earth a software consulting company with only remote workers and no one working in office would need to take out PPP loans for payroll,” she says skeptically. “Make that make sense, because this was a time when literally every technology company in the world was thriving and making more profits than they ever had because they were already set up to work remote.”

“Over $260,000 of our taxpayer money that I’m legally paying that you just had — poof — just forgiven. I’m wondering what was that money actually spent on,” Sara wonders.

“You want to file a lawsuit? Go ahead,” she challenges. “I would love the opportunity for discovery.”

Sara believes justice is coming for Nagarjuna.

“Harmeet Dhillon, the U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, who has been on this very issue, liked the video enough to repost it,” says Sara. “So you may get very familiar with her and her attorneys very soon.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Blazetv sara gonzales, Bombshell investigation, Great american technologies, Green card, H-1b fraud, H-1b visas, H1b investigation, Inc, Nagarjuna reddy sakam, Public access files, Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sponsorships 

Winn the barber ran a tidy, one-chair shop in an office park off Route 222. That meant a wait — especially since my mother usually brought my two younger brothers as well — but I didn’t mind.

Like Winn, who always wore a starched white coat and slicked his hair back with Brylcreem, I was a creature of habit, and I had a ritual for these bimonthly visits. I’d plop down into one of the vinyl-covered seats and catch up on the adventures of Archie Andrews and the rest of the Riverdale High gang.

In the 1970s, evangelical Christianity may not have been culturally dominant, but it was culturally permissible.

Normally, I stuck to more serious fare — “Batman,” “Daredevil,” maybe the odd “Sgt. Rock” if the spinner rack was looking particularly picked over. But Winn exclusively stocked his waiting room with Archie Comics.

Revival in Riverdale

Sophisticated cineastes will cry at “The Notebook” if they watch it on an airplane — something about the altitude. And something about Winn’s place — the fake wood paneling on the walls, the smell of Barbicide mingling with the eerie “easy listening” music wafting from a hidden speaker somewhere — lowered my critical defenses. I couldn’t get enough of these soothingly repetitive teenage misadventures.

Then, one afternoon I picked up an issue that seemed off. Entitled “Archie’s One Way,” the cover featured Archie and friends in his “jalopy” — comically overheating and leaking fluid everywhere — getting yelled at by a cop for ignoring the obvious street sign. “Do you know this is ONE WAY?”

So far, so good. Typical Archie setup. But instead of a wisecrack from Reggie or Jughead, we get Betty piping up from the back seat, arms raised in joyful celebration: “This is cool! The officer is WITNESSING to Archie!”

Huh.

A new creation

I opened the cover and read with a kind of dawning horror, like the lone survivor in a body snatchers movie. The art, the lettering, the bright colors were exactly the same, but somehow, when I wasn’t looking, the wholesome yet wholly secular teens I’d come to know and love had been swapped with evangelical Christian duplicates.

I had encountered one of the licensed line of Archie issues put out by Spire Christian Comics from 1973 to 1982.

The idea came from longtime Archie artist Al Hartley, who’d had a born-again experience in 1967 and thought Archie would make a great way to spread the gospel. Although he was Jewish, John Goldwater — who had created Archie along with partner Louis Silberkleit some 30 years earlier — agreed.

The regular Archie books continued unchanged. These proselytizing stories lived in their own lane, distributed through Christian bookstores and churches — although often making it out into the wider world, as I and other unsuspecting readers can confirm.

RELATED: The night of the gun was never-ending — until the day I surrendered to Christ

Old Man in Prayer by Workshop of Rembrandt van Rijn, circa 1629. Barney Burstein/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

‘Divorce Any Style’

The message wasn’t subtle: In that same issue, the gang ends up in what appears to be Riverdale’s never-before-seen version of Times Square, recoiling at marquees advertising movies like “Divorce Any Style” (rated X), “Crime Pays,” and “Sex Sex.”

In another, Betty helps an injured hippie classmate (a great kid, notes Archie, before she “got into the drug scene”) accept Christ into her heart after a bad car accident.

The idea of Archie Comics as Jack Chick tract seems strange now. But is it any stranger than the recent TV series “Riverdale,” the requisite “bold” and “subversive” take that turned its Anytown, U.S.A., into a hotbed of conspiracies, crime, and gothic melodrama?

What’s really strange to contemplate from today’s vantage point is that Archie’s conversion didn’t inspire any kind of national uproar. Granted, before the internet, it was much harder for outrage to spread; most people not in Spire’s audience probably didn’t know these comics existed.

But I think it was also something else.

Negative world

Writer Aaron Renn has described American culture as moving from a “Positive World,” in which Christianity carried social legitimacy, to a “Neutral World,” and now to a “Negative World,” where public Christian identity can carry reputational cost. However one draws the lines, the Archie–Spire experiment clearly belongs to an earlier era.

In the 1970s, evangelical Christianity may not have been culturally dominant, but it was culturally permissible. Just as even liberal Democrat Jimmy Carter could speak of committing adultery “in his heart” (in Playboy magazine, of all places) and still get elected, a mainstream publisher could allow its most recognizable teenager to kneel in prayer and trust that the sky would not fall.

The moment was not confined to Riverdale — or Protestantism. In the ’80s, Marvel produced comic book biographies of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa.

As late as the early ’90s, Marvel launched a joint venture with Christian publisher Thomas Nelson to publish the adventures of the Illuminator — a superhero with explicitly God-given powers — as well as adaptations of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and C.S. Lewis’ classic “The Screwtape Letters.” The imprint was shut down after only two years.

‘Nuff said?

In 2000, Marvel founder Stan Lee approached Episcopal priest Peter Wallace about creating comics based on a “biblical worldview” for his new online venture Stan Lee Media. In a 2023 article, Wallace recalled his pitch:

This approach would promote belief in God, the example of Christ’s life, the reality of supernatural conflict, strong moral values, and an altruistic lifestyle. Our stories would be fully compatible with the Bible and religious tradition, but without painting ourselves into a corner theologically. The goal of this approach — a goal that’s urgently needed today — is to open young minds to the reality of God, to build a strong case for faith and morality by example, without being preachy or dogmatic. It can help launch youth of all ages on a quest for truth and a personal relationship with God.

When SLM went bust along with many other first-wave internet start-ups, the idea was forgotten.

Also in 2023, Archie Comics introduced its first transgender character, more than a decade after Riverdale’s first gay student made the scene. The “queering” of Archie was probably inevitable; comic books, like movies and TV, have embraced 21st-century America’s religious zeal for “LGBTQ representation,” among other modish concerns loosely falling under the category “woke.”

But in his 85-year history, Archie Andrews has seen a lot of trends come and go — from the jitterbug and acid rock, to MTV and even crypto. As the “peak woke” of the Trump/Biden/Trump era recedes, we’re apparently seeing a bit of a religious revival among the young. Who’s to say our favorite red-headed, perpetual 16-year-old won’t get caught up in the spirit too?

​American culture, Archie comics, Christianity, Culture, Evangelicals, Lgbtq representation, Lifestyle, Marvel comics, Religious revival, Riverdale tv series, Spire christian comics, Transgender character, Woke, Faith 

I’m looking at new apartments this week here in Portland, Oregon. It’s time for an upgrade.

This has triggered a debate I often have with myself: If I’m going to move, why not leave dysfunctional, far-left Portland altogether?

Had I become so comfortable with the bad vibes of Portland that I would stay here indefinitely, out of inertia or laziness or not wanting to start over?

This is my chance to move to a different city. Or another state. Somewhere with fewer drug addicts and criminals roaming the streets and fewer democratic socialists roaming city hall.

I grew up in Portland. I have lived here off and on throughout my life. During my most productive years as a writer, I lived in bigger, more media-oriented cities, mainly New York and Los Angeles.

But I’ve always loved coming back to Oregon and assumed I would settle here when I retire. Portland always felt like my place. I love the tall trees, the gentle rain, the misty Oregon coast.

Free radicals

Unfortunately, over the last 15 years, Portland has become a hotbed of radicalism and political intolerance. So much so that it has affected my daily life.

I’ve always socialized with creative types. But in Portland, the artistic community is often more hysterical than the violent protesters in the street.

Once it became known I was conservative, I lost about 80% of my writer friends. And maybe half of my other friends. This social exclusion was especially bad during the years around #MeToo, and then COVID, and of course the constant presence of Trump derangement syndrome.

Un-friendzoned

The result is that living here has been like living on a desert island. I feel unwelcome at art events. I avoid literary parties and gallery openings.

One egregious example: I didn’t attend the celebration of life for one of my most important literary mentors, a beloved Portland poet who encouraged me as a young writer and helped advance my career.

I owed so much to this man, and I couldn’t go to his funeral!

RELATED: WACK JOB: My adventures in the mental health industrial complex

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Tiny bubbles

Recently, I saw a TikTok video by a woman whose family had moved from Seattle to Wyoming.

Her message was simple: “No matter how much you think you are aware of the bubble you live in, when you get out of these far-left cities, a whole new world opens up to you.”

This hit me hard. Had I become so comfortable with the bad vibes of Portland that I would stay here indefinitely, out of inertia or laziness or not wanting to start over?

My own private Idaho

One reason I’m reluctant to move to a red state is I’m not sure I would fit in.

Take for example, Boise, Idaho, the closest red city to Portland. I’ve visited there many times. It’s clean. There are no homeless. The people are super nice. It’s very “churchy” and family-oriented. There’s a large Mormon population.

But could I adapt to such a place? I’ve lived in liberal cities MY ENTIRE LIFE. I have never lived in a place like Boise. Would I find people who understand my sense of humor? People who like the obscure music I listen to? Or read the books I read?

Yes, the people of Boise would share my core values. But would they share my urban tastes?

Go east, young man

I had a Republican friend here in Portland who moved to Florida during Trump’s first term. At the time, that seemed like a drastic change.

For a couple of years, I emailed him every few months to ask how he was doing. He had settled right in. Florida was great. He loved it there.

As he grew more comfortable in Florida, I grew less comfortable in Portland. Now, in 2026, moving to Florida 10 years ago seems like a genius move. I am humbled by his foresight.

The great escape?

So what should I do? Be the latecomer, arriving in Tampa or Austin or Nashville a decade after all the smart people already moved there?

I guess it’s never too late. I could still escape.

But what about the tall trees, the gentle rain, and the misty coastline I love so much? What about my roots in the place where I grew up?

Robert E. Lee didn’t abandon his home state of Virginia in the face of a civil war. But Virginia was famous for its proud history and strong cultural heritage.

I’m from Portland, famous for people with orange hair who don’t know what gender they are.

Fall into the gap

I’ve always assumed Portland’s current political extremism would fade over time. Sooner or later, people would calm down and return to some form of normalcy.

But whenever I try to connect with my former liberal friends, I quickly learn that the derangement is stronger than ever.

So, should I stay or should I go?

These are the decisions we have to make during these difficult times — as we struggle to maintain our sense of ourselves and of where we came from.

​Blue states, Boise, Culture, Drug addicts, Lifestyle, Miami, Oregon, Political intolerance, Portland, Red states, Trump derangement syndrome, Wokeness, Blake’s progress 

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is back again with yet another video report on alleged H-1B fraud in her home state of Texas.

After multiple attempts to visit the listed address for Great America Technologies — a registered business in Plano, Texas, that sponsors multiple H-1B workers but has no signs of activity as well as a defunct phone number and website — Sara finally located the owner.

The confrontation led to fiery exchange.

– YouTube

“Let me give you the details on this company,” says Sara.

“In 2017 they formed this company with officers from Andhra Pradesh, India. They moved to Razor Boulevard allegedly in 2019, and in 2024, the previous owners, Laxmi Boggula and another gentleman, removed themselves as the directors and listed Nagarjuna Reddy Sakam as shareholder and director,” she explains.

“Now what we presume after doing some digging is that this new director, Nagarjuna … is actually the old director Laxmi’s husband. So it seems like we may be stumbling upon an H-1B/H-4 dependent situation where the woman opens the business and the H-1B visa worker actually runs it,” she continues.

In the next part of the video, Sara paid a visit to Nagarjuna’s personal residence.

After questioning him about the empty office and defunct phone number and website, Sara asked Nagarjuna to show her the business’ public access files and pressed him about the multiple H-1B employees he sponsors according to USCIS data.

This led to a heated back-and-forth exchange, in which Nagarjuna repeatedly denied that he employed as many H-1B workers as the USCIS database currently lists and claimed that the public access files were at a new business location in Frisco, Texas.

When Sara vowed to visit the site to obtain the files, Nagarjuna accused her of “creating nonsense.”

“Who the f**k are you come ask all these things?” he lashed out.

“Who the f**k are you to complain that I’m rooting out scam and fraud?” Sara fired back.

“Now I’m suspicious, because … if you’re doing something the right way, why would you care that I’m rooting out fraud?” she asked.

Sara then inquired about who was running the company before Nagarjuna received his green card and transferred the business to his name.

“Who was running the business at that time?” she asked.

“Me,” he said.

He then backtracked, “We [he and his wife] both are running [the business].”

“Well, you’re not allowed to do that. … How are you supposed to run that business and have a job that you’re actually being sponsored for on an H-1B?” Sara asked.

“You’re admitting that you were running a company that’s generating income. That’s against the H-1B rules,” she continued.

The contentious exchange ended with Nagarjuna threatening to file a lawsuit for being recorded without his permission and Sara vowing to report his business.

To see the footage, watch the video above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Blaze media, Blazetv, Great america technologies, Green card, H-1b fraud, H-1b visas, Nagarjuna reddy sakam, Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Texas, Unauthorized business activity, Uscis data 

Get a room, you two!

The collective fawning over Stephen Colbert’s CBS exit has reached a barf-bag level of nausea. And it’ll get worse up until his final May 21 telecast. But no one will top Pedro Pascal’s ode to the far-left host.

Say what you will about Pratt, but he’s hardly out of touch with his potential constituents. The former reality star’s home was wiped out by the Palisades Fire.

The star of “The Mandalorian and Grogu” visited “The Late Show” this week and demanded something special from Colbert.

A kiss.

Yes, a grown man planted a firm kiss on the lips of the soon-to-be-ex host. Now, Pascal hasn’t said anything about his sexual preferences to date. Colbert is a straight married man.

Make it make sense and/or, is this any way to market a movie?

The buss was a baffling blend of cringe and bizarre behavior. Much like “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” for that matter …

Troy boy

The most intriguing director in Hollywood is in damage-control mode, and his next movie doesn’t hit theaters until July 17.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is one of the year’s most anticipated films. And why not? All-star cast (Damon! Hathaway! Pattinson! Zendaya!), classic source material, and a director coming off the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer.”

The tickets practically sell themselves. So what’s the problem?

For starters, the project cast Lupita Nyong’o, a beautiful Oscar winner in a role that may be another example of DEI-style casting. She’ll play Helen of Troy in the film, a role previously played by Caucasian actors (Elizabeth Taylor, Diane Kruger, and Rossana Podestà). Race-blind casting is increasingly common, and it can be distracting in some historical projects.

Elliot Page, a trans performer, is also in the film, but the role in question is still unclear.

Those two casting choices have stirred a potentially woke attack against “The Odyssey,” sight unseen. And naturally, anyone who craves authentic film casting is immediately dubbed a racist by the legacy media.

Nolan already addressed another casting question, explaining that he hired rapper Travis Scott to play a bard in the film to honor how this story was passed on via oral poetry. That’s akin to rap, he argued.

Now, Nolan is prepping for a “60 Minutes” interview this weekend.

It’s not a shock to see actors and directors do press for a project, but that usually happens a week or two before the release date. Nolan’s oh-so-early press tour suggests culture war damage control is afoot …

RELATED: This underdog candidate’s app will expose the politicians to blame for LA’s shocking filth

Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Pratt fall

Whoopi Goldberg sunk to a new low this week, no small feat.

It seems like every episode of “The View” finds the Oscar-winner beclowning herself anew. This time, she slammed L.A. mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt in her de facto style — lots of meandering attacks but little substance.

That’s Whoopi being Whoopi. And honestly, not a big deal in our noisy media age.

This part of her commentary, though, deserves special attention:

I don’t know what qualifies as the right way to be a politician, but what I do know is they have to be the people who understand what people are going through. And if you don’t understand what people are going through, in the way they’re going through it, when you’re talking about communities, whole communities that have been burned out, whole groups, legacies that are gone.

Say what you will about Pratt, but he’s hardly out of touch with his potential constituents. The former reality star’s home was wiped out by the Palisades Fire, and he blames Mayor Karen Bass for the city’s incompetent response to the blaze. The home, like so many others, has not been rebuilt. Blame permit woes, insurance issues, and government bureaucracy on steroids.

It’s why the former reality-show star got into the race in the first place. To paraphrase the tagline for “Jaws IV,” “This time, it’s personal.” Tell that to Goldberg.

We’d say it’s her dumbest rant yet, but there’s always next week …

License to cast

Remember the countless stories saying so and so actor was the leading choice to play 007 in the next James Bond film?

Rumors. Clickbait. Nothing more.

Now, finally, Amazon (which now pulls the franchise’s strings) has announced the search for the next superspy has officially begun. That’s five years after Daniel Craig’s fifth and final Bond adventure, “No Time to Die.”

The good news? “Dune” director Denis Villeneuve will be behind the camera. A great choice, full stop.

The bad news?

The next few dozen stories on the next Bond will likely include more rumors, not fact. And to be certain, some internet troll will claim that Page is the front-runner for the iconic part. And the social media outrage machine will click into overdrive, ignoring the fact that no studio in its right mind would make such a move.

Bet on it.

​Elliot page, Palisades fires, Pedro pascal, Spencer pratt, Stephen colbert, The late show, The odyssey, Travis scott, Culture, Entertainment, Television, Movies, Toto recall 

Last year, I set out to tell a story that much of the media seemed determined to distort.

On June 8, 2024, Israeli special forces launched a daylight raid into the heart of Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Four hostages, Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were being held in civilian homes. The operation unfolded under heavy fire. Intelligence had to be near-perfect. One wrong move would mean death for everyone involved.

I documented the firsthand accounts of IDF soldiers on the ground, the grieving parents of a fallen hero, and the elite special operators who carried out one of the most daring hostage rescues in modern history — Operation Arnon.

Any sovereign nation subjected to such a vicious assault bears both a political and moral responsibility to bring its citizens home.

The mission succeeded. The four civilians, kidnapped on October 7, 2023, returned home alive. But not without cost. Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora was mortally wounded. The operation, originally known as Seeds of Summer, was renamed in his honor.

The heroes of Operation Arnon were buried under headlines focused solely on casualty counts or international criticism. While the world debates the operation’s justification, the firsthand accounts in my documentary “Operation Arnon” reveal its compelling operational necessity.

Operation Arnon was a proportionate and justified response to the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas and other allied terrorist organizations.

Any sovereign nation subjected to such a vicious assault bears both a political and moral responsibility to bring its citizens home. This “no man left behind” ethos is present in any nation that places value on the lives of its civilians and military personnel. Every life matters. Everyone comes home.

The recent combat search and rescue operation for the United States F-15E pilots epitomizes this dogma. On April 3, 2026, two U.S. pilots ejected from their damaged aircraft, landing into Iranian territory. U.S. joint forces immediately executed a CSAR, deploying over 150 aircraft, hundreds of U.S. troops and special operators, including Delta Force and Dev Gru, and CIA operatives.

The United States actions demonstrated the same unyielding commitment to the ethos that fueled Operation Arnon, an ironclad conviction that no sovereign nation can abandon its people to terrorists.

Yet Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for Human Rights, preferred to denounce the operation’s success, questioning its grounds for “distinction, proportionality, and precaution,” drawn from the conclusion that hundreds of civilians had been haphazardly slain as a result of the operation.

RELATED: Your enemies aren’t mentally ill. They apparently just want to kill you.

Blaze Media Illustration

The numbers of civilian deaths were reported by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, run by the Hamas government. The second “civilian” house has been confirmed to be owned by the Al-Jamal family, whose son, Abdullah Al-Jamal, was a Hamas operative and was complicit with the hostages being held in his house.

Article 34 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits hostage-taking in armed conflicts. Article 51 of the U.N. Charter affirms the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member state. This right, subject to necessity and proportionality, has been invoked in precedents such as the 1976 Israeli Operation Entebbe and supports targeted rescue operations.

Despite a long history of being held to a double standard by much of the international community, Israel continues to demonstrate what it means to value life. The U.N. General Assembly routinely passes more resolutions condemning Israel than against the rest of the world combined, including regimes like Syria, Iran, North Korea, and China.

In contrast, other nations conducting counterterrorism or rescue operations, such as U.S. and French strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, or broader military campaigns in urban areas, often face far less sustained international condemnation.

The heroic actions of every soldier who took part in Operation Arnon embody the enduring belief that freedom and human dignity are worth fighting for, even at the highest cost. That commitment remains a powerful reminder to the world that some principles are not negotiable.

​Idf, Hostage rescue, October 7, Operation arnon, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas attacks on israel, Un, Iran war, Middle east, Opinion & analysis 

Right now, massive AI data centers are gobbling up rural land, uprooting the farms and ranches that could guarantee America’s food sovereignty.

This Big Tech land-grab is often rationalized with a number of defenses: beating China in the AI race, creating rural jobs and economic growth, and advancing technology and national security.

But Daniel Horowitz insists that we’re being lied to.

“We’re being told that we need to gobble up all of our land — by the way, often with foreign investors — because somehow that is the only way to excel at artificial intelligence,” he says.

But “the surest way of achieving this dystopian nightmare of this techno-feudalism, where we own nothing, is to take the scarcest and most precious resource of land from its decentralized control of American households, homesteaders, ranchers, farmers, small businesses, and centralizing it behind the global tech moguls.”

On this episode of “Conservative Review,” Horowitz, alongside CEO of Fractal Web and AI software expert Michael Cation, dismantles the AI data center advocates’ three biggest arguments.

– YouTube

1. The China argument

According to the data center advocates, America must build massive, hyperscale data centers — and sacrifice rural land and power for them — to achieve AI dominance and beat China in the global race.

But Horowitz calls this a “false choice.”

They argue that this is “the only way of achieving dominance in AI, when in fact, you’re actually going to go backwards and misallocate resources away from what is an auspicious use of AI,” he says.

Further, in trying so hard to build these hyperscale data centers to beat China in the AI race, America is rezoning and handing over huge amounts of rural farmland and power infrastructure to massive corporate developers — many of them foreign-owned. Horowitz points to President Trump recently floating the idea of allowing China to invest $1 trillion in U.S. land and factories.

“We need that to beat China, but then somehow we’re just going to have China own more American infrastructure and land at a time where I thought we all wanted to ban that,” he says, calling it “hypocrisy.”

2. The rural jobs/economic growth argument

Another argument claims that building giant data centers in rural areas will bring thousands of construction and operational jobs, generate big tax revenue, attract more businesses, and deliver much-needed economic growth and prosperity to struggling small towns.

Horowitz condemns this argument as a scam, claiming that these massive centers will only deliver mostly temporary, low-quality construction work performed by imported or illegal labor, destroy productive farmland, spike local crime, and provide almost no lasting economic benefit to actual residents.

“Laramie County Planning Commission is planning an 800-unit man camp that could house up to 5,600 workers, which is more than most towns in Wyoming, and we all know who monopolizes those jobs: a bunch of illegal aliens,” he says.

Citing an article from Wyoming’s Cowboy State Daily outlet, he reads, “Man camps in similar locations have led to an increase in property crime, DUIs, drug crimes, and violent crimes.”

3. The advancing technology and national security argument

Another argument perpetuated by the data center advocates contends that massive, hyperscale data centers are essential for advancing cutting-edge AI technology and protecting national security because only these giant centralized facilities can provide the enormous computing power, massive data processing, and rapid innovation needed to stay ahead of rivals like China in critical areas like defense, intelligence, and technological superiority.

Again, Horowitz throws the red flag. He and Cation dispute this claim by arguing that giant centralized data centers are actually a national security liability and the wrong path for real technological progress.

“AI is not all about cloud-based LLMs for data centers. … With edge computing, you could actually do so much more on local servers, local devices,” says Horowitz.

He points to Israel’s Iron Dome as an example. It’s a highly effective defense system that relies on localized edge computing — fast, on-site AI processing in distributed batteries — rather than depending on giant, vulnerable centralized data centers.

If it did rely on massive data centers, it would “a huge security” risk, especially in Israel’s ongoing war with Iran, he argues.

Cation, an expert in computing infrastructure, drives home the national security point with this powerful rebuttal: “In the defense world … large data centers [are] called high-value targets. … The thing that can’t be destroyed are distributed systems.”

Together, they argue that the real future of secure and effective AI lies in edge computing, narrow AI, and fractal computing — decentralized systems that are faster, cheaper, more resilient, and far less vulnerable than massive, centralized data centers.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

​Ai, Ai data centers, Ai race, Ai race with china, Artificial intelligence, Blaze media, Blazetv, China, Conservative review, Daniel horowitz, Distributed systems, Hyperscale data centers, Technofeudalism, Conservative review with daniel horowitz 

A knife-wielding male hijacked a Chicago Transit Authority bus in the middle of the night earlier this week, but the wise bus operator used her experience and wits to pull off a daring escape.

Police said the suspect was aboard a southbound No. 53 CTA bus just before 2:40 a.m. Wednesday in the 2400 block of North Pulaski Road in the Belmont Gardens neighborhood when he pulled out a knife and demanded the bus not stop, WLS-TV reported.

‘She could see him through the mirror, what he was doing, jabbing with the knife, like he was going to stab her.’

The bus driver, a 57-year-old woman, tripped a silent alarm, the CTA told the station.

After a bus supervisor located the bus, the bus driver escaped out a window in the 900 block of North Clark Street, police told WLS.

The bus traveled about 6.5 miles after leaving its normal route, the station said.

The suspect got off the bus and ran into Washington Park, WLS said, adding that police took him into custody in the 100 block of East Chestnut Street just before 3:20 a.m.

The bus driver’s union leaders described what they saw on the bus’ surveillance video, the station said.

“She could see him through the mirror, what he was doing, jabbing with the knife like he was going to stab her, but only doing it in a motion where she could see through the mirror,” Michelle Townsend, second vice president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241, told WLS.

The station said it’s unclear what the suspect wanted.

Police said charges are pending, and no injuries were reported, WLS added.

RELATED: 7 females, 2 males accused of ganging up on, beating up train passenger in Chicago

Acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen said there was a 47% drop in serious crime across the transit system compared to last year, the station reported, adding that buses saw a 40% drop.

Leerhsen added to WLS that Chicago police officers’ hours patrolling the transit system have increased by 75% since December, especially during evening and overnight hours.

In March, Cook County Sheriff’s officers also began patrols, the station said.

WLS said the increased security comes after President Donald Trump threatened funding due to violent attacks in the CTA system — including one last November when Lawrence Reed allegedly set a woman on fire on the Blue Line.

The station added that violent crimes across the CTA system — including stations and platforms — “remain at a high level, with 779 violent crimes committed in a 12-month period between April of last year and this year.”

The CTA over the summer will launch a pilot program featuring violence interrupters and crisis intervention specialists who hope to help stop crime before it happens, WLS reported.

One person walking out of the Red Line’s Roosevelt station Wednesday weighed in on CTA safety, the station said: “It’s a traveling hotel. You know what I’m saying. It is dangerous.”

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​Crime thwarted, Chicago, Knife, Driver escapes, Arrest, Chicago transit authority, Bus hijacked, Crime 

Trump Mobile has finally begun shipping its phones just days after liberal pundits called the company a scam over its delays.

Earlier this week, left-wing media began claiming en masse that the phones may never be released because the company had changed its terms of service.

‘Phones that were preordered are starting to be delivered to customers this week.’

Trump Mobile took $100 deposits for smartphones last year, with the release slated for August 2025. About nine months later, media members pointed to the company’s terms and conditions, updated in April, which said it “does not guarantee that a Device will be produced or made available for purchase.”

“A preorder deposit provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale,” the terms stated, according to Fortune.

This sent liberals into a frenzy, with progressive Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) claiming customers “got scammed” while citing a Stephen Colbert video that said the phones may never come. Pundits from “The Daily Show” and Chris Cuomo shared similar sentiments about the phone’s delayed release.

On Thursday, however, Trump Mobile finally announced it would start shipping the T1 smartphone, a gold-colored device running on Android with a massive 512GB storage.

“Phones that were preordered are starting to be delivered to customers this week,” Trump Mobile CEO Pat O’Brien told Reuters.

RELATED: Democrat bill would force you to give Big Tech your ID just to use your phone — or the internet

O’Brien said the delays happened because his company had to work through multiple stages of development to ensure components were up to standard.

The phone is priced at $499, is branded with Trump messaging, and includes a Snapdragon 7-series processor, 12GB of RAM, a 6.78-inch display, a 5,000mAh battery, and a 50MP triple camera system.

Pundits would be better suited to critique the phone on its hardware, as GizChina described it as a “reskinned version of the Chinese-made Wingtech Revvl 7 Pro 5G.”

PC Mag rated that phone a 3 out of 5 in 2025.

The T1 was also compared to the HTC U24 Pro in terms of hardware, a Taiwanese-made phone from 2024.

Furthermore, Trump Mobile initially promoted the T1 as being “designed and built ⁠in the United States,” but CEO O’Brien said the first devices would be “assembled in the U.S.” with the aim to release a phone with most components being made domestically at some point.

RELATED: Trump’s FCC is finally clearing the path for landline upgrades

On its website, Trump Mobile boasts a $47.45 monthly plan in honor of the president, with unlimited calling, texting, and data.

With no contract, the company offers roadside assistance to subscribers, with the ability to bring one’s old phone over to the network; a Trump phone is not required.

The delay of around 280 days is not quite the longest in phone release history. Back in April 2011, the white iPhone 4 dropped after a 308-day pushback.

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​Mobile phone, Smartphones, Stephen colbert, Trump mobile, The daily show, Cell phone, Trump phone, T1, Tech 

It’s time to dismantle one of the most degraded sectors in American higher education: schools of education. The colleges responsible for training and certifying the majority of our nation’s teachers have become factories for mediocrity and indoctrination.

States have both the authority and obligation to replace these monolithic institutions by promoting better teacher-prep pathways that are already proving their worth across the nation.

As recent graduates of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, we believe that teachers must be more than competent technicians — they must deliberately form American citizens.

The declining value of schools of education is an opportunity for states to look elsewhere for teacher preparation.

Today, however, schools of education are the chief culprits in the growing disquiet among pundits and everyday Americans about the value of the traditional four-year college experience. Graduates with bachelor’s degrees in education are among the lowest earners of any college major. Even more alarmingly, recent research shows their degrees aren’t worth what they paid and are often financed with loans.

These schools are also failing to live up to their own promises. The National Council on Teacher Quality found in its most recent study that only one in eight teacher-prep programs dedicate “sufficient time” to covering fundamental math content; 28% of elementary programs “adequately address” all core components of reading instruction; and 3% require candidates to take courses in necessary science and social studies content.

Other research has further exposed education schools’ century-old dismissal of, and contempt for, rigorous academic content.

What are these institutions of higher learning teaching instead? American schools of education have long been infiltrated by the left’s “long march through the institutions” and serve as havens for neo-Marxist ideas.

At Stanford, we weren’t taught about the science of reading or what knowledge children should learn. Rather, we read Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” a radical polemic that rejects the teaching of received knowledge as oppressive and envisions schools as drivers of political activism.

This intellectual lineage explains why critical theory and its offshoots such as the 1619 Project, which is riddled with historical inaccuracies yet was taught in 4,500 classrooms in a single year, have become so dominant in American public education.

At our alma mater, the influential education professor Jo Boaler has led efforts, backed by debunked research, to remove algebra from California middle schools while simultaneously building a consulting enterprise that charges schools thousands of dollars to implement these same “reforms.”

RELATED: College professors want your child’s soul. Here’s how you can stop them.

Angela Lewis/Bloomberg/Getty Images

All of this points to a simple conclusion: Education schools will not be reformed from within. A machine built on a flawed foundation cannot be repaired by replacing a few parts. We should not expect universities to solve the problem. They are the problem. The declining value of schools of education is an opportunity for states to look elsewhere for teacher preparation.

States can improve the quality of teacher preparation and boost teacher effectiveness by promoting alternative teacher training programs that are already proving their worth. Prospective teachers should first earn a bachelor’s degree in the subject they will teach — history, biology, math, or literature — then enter a focused, apprenticeship-style training under veteran classroom teachers.

Across the country, a growing ecosystem of alternative programs is allowing individuals without education degrees to enter the teaching profession. To be most effective, such programs should emphasize clinical practice, a proven predictor of teacher effectiveness that is often missing from university teacher preparation. This approach also enables new educators to earn their credentials while working and earning a good wage.

Clinical practice means educators are trained not in the ideological vacuum of schools of education, but inside real classrooms, learning from real teachers, and working with real students. In this way, teachers are grounded in the practical knowledge and skills that impact students’ academic outcomes, not ideology.

Studies show that in the first few years of teaching, demonstrated effectiveness is a far better predictor of long-term quality than the pathway through which a teacher was certified — and that greater differences exist among teachers who trained in the same program than those who bypassed such programs entirely.

Teach for America corps members, who are generally young, non-education majors, on average produce stronger gains for students than their traditional counterparts. At worst, they are no less effective than those who spent four years in a typical teacher prep program. Even earning a master’s degree in education does not reliably produce better educators.

Florida, for example, has developed a teacher certification program for professionals with non-education bachelor’s degrees and an apprenticeship program for those with associate’s degrees. These programs feature high-quality, self-paced curriculum modules for participants.

Tennessee offers the Job-Embedded Practitioner Licensure Program, enabling new educators to bypass the traditional credentialing bureaucracy entirely and earn their license while serving as teachers of record.

Arizona provides an Alternate Teaching certificate that similarly emphasizes real-world preparation, including a requirement that candidates demonstrate proficiency in both the U.S. Constitution and the Arizona Constitution, ensuring that even non-traditional entrants receive a grounding in civics free from ideological overlay.

Any replacement for the failed ed-school model must form educators capable of passing along the blessings of liberty to future generations. It’s time to recover the true purpose of public education: pursuing truth, cultivating virtue, and forming citizens who are morally capable of sustaining a free republic.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

​Teacher training, Woke teachers, Dei, Lgbtq, 1619 project, Schools of education, School teachers, Stanford, Critical theory, Jo boaler, Opinion & analysis 

The Riverside Sheriff’s Office reassigned a school resource deputy as it investigated an arrest where he slammed a female student to the ground outside a California high school.

The officer was sent to address a physical fight between students on Tuesday at about 3:47 p.m. near the campus of Vista del Lago High School in Moreno Valley.

‘She was on the ground and, yes, she got rowdy, and he was just moving her around like a rag doll.’

An Instagram influencer told KTLA-TV that he heard about the incident and went to document the incident. He posted the video he captured of the rough arrest.

Police said the girl tried to pull away as the officer attempted to detain and handcuff her.

“Put your hands behind your back. Stop,” the deputy said to the girl. “Stop doing what you’re doing!”

The influencer, who didn’t want to be publicly identified, admitted that the girl was resisting arrest. He claimed that she was 14 years old, but it’s unclear whether that is accurate.

“She was on the ground and, yes, she got rowdy, and he was just moving her around like a rag doll,” he added.

The student was evaluated by paramedics and was eventually arrested on suspicion of battery and resisting arrest.

The Moreno Valley Unified School District released a statement to KTLA indicating that it had reached out to the family of the girl to offer support.

Many people online were very supportive of the officer’s actions.

“Thank you officers for your service. These feral, vile rabid citizens needs to learn law, order and swift justice!” said one user on the X platform.

“[I don’t] give a damn what sex or race. You play stupid games. You win stupid prizes,” another response reads.

“Act like animals get treated like an animal,” another user replied.

“Stop resisting arrest you dumbasses you won’t be roughed up. You got what you deserve,” another said. “I’m tired of hearing little pansy ass p***ies can’t handle it when they’re trying to resist screw you you got what you deserved.”

RELATED: Teen bragged in rap song about killing rapper, sheriff says, but cried ‘like a baby that lost his pacifier’ when charged with murder

“The Riverside Sheriff’s Office takes each use of force very seriously and makes every effort to de-escalate these situations whenever possible,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“As with all use-of-force incidents, a review will be conducted to ensure compliance with our policy and training standards,” they added.

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​Resisting arrest, High school student arrest, Student police brutality, Moreno valley school district, Politics 

There’s a conversation happening behind closed doors in Washington that should make every American pay attention, and it has nothing to do with EV mandates or fuel economy targets.

This time, it’s about war, capacity, and whether Detroit is about to be pulled into something far bigger than the auto business.

GM is expected to compete for a major Army contract to develop the next-generation infantry squad vehicle, a platform designed to replace the aging Humvee.

According to the Wall Street Journal, senior Pentagon officials have been quietly engaging with leadership from General Motors and Ford Motor Company, including CEOs Mary Barra and Jim Farley. The message is not subtle. The U.S. may need its automakers to help build the tools of modern warfare.

RELATED: Colorado’s speed-camera traps just got way more aggressive

Donato Fasano/Getty Images

Running on empty

This is a direct response to a growing problem that Washington can no longer ignore. Ongoing conflicts abroad have exposed a reality that’s uncomfortable but unavoidable. The United States does not currently have the industrial capacity to produce munitions, missiles, and advanced defense systems at the speed and scale modern warfare demands. Stockpiles are being drained faster than they can be replenished, and the traditional defense contractor base is under pressure.

While the Pentagon has dismissed these claims, the fact remains the U.S. military seems to be on the hunt for manufacturers. And when you need scale, speed, and manufacturing expertise, there’s one place you go: Detroit.

Let’s be honest about what this really means. This is not a routine government outreach effort. This is Washington signaling that America’s industrial base may need to shift priorities, and fast. The auto industry, which has spent the last decade being pushed toward electrification at enormous cost, is now being evaluated for something entirely different: its ability to support national defense on a large scale.

History of help

There is precedent for this, and it’s not ancient history. During World War II, American automakers famously halted civilian vehicle production and became the backbone of military manufacturing. Tanks, aircraft, trucks, engines, all of it rolled out of facilities that once built cars for Main Street. It was called the arsenal of democracy, and it worked.

The question now is whether history is about to repeat itself, not through mandates, at least not yet, but through “collaboration,” which in Washington terms often means something a lot closer to expectation than suggestion.

These discussions are still in the early stages, but don’t mistake “preliminary” for unimportant. Pentagon officials are asking hard questions. Can automakers pivot their production lines quickly? Do they have the workforce flexibility? Can their supply chains handle defense-grade manufacturing? And perhaps most importantly, what regulatory and contractual barriers stand in the way?

Companies like GE Aerospace and Oshkosh Corporation are already part of the broader conversation, bridging the gap between commercial manufacturing and defense production. Oshkosh Corporation in particular has long operated in both civilian and military spaces, producing tactical vehicles while maintaining a diversified portfolio. That kind of hybrid model may soon become more common if Washington gets its way.

Boon or boondoggle?

But this isn’t just about national security. It’s also about economics, and that’s where things get complicated.

Automakers are navigating one of the most challenging environments in decades. Sales growth has cooled. Profit margins are tightening. The cost of electrification has ballooned beyond early projections, putting enormous pressure on balance sheets. Billions have been spent chasing EV targets that consumers have been slower to adopt than expected.

In that context, defense contracts start to look less like a burden and more like an opportunity. Stable, long-term revenue backed by government funding has a certain appeal, especially when your core business is under strain.

That doesn’t mean this is an easy pivot. Building consumer vehicles and building military hardware are fundamentally different businesses. Defense manufacturing comes with layers of compliance, extensive testing requirements, and procurement cycles that can stretch for years. This isn’t about slapping a different badge on a pickup truck and calling it a day.

Factories would need to be retooled. Workers would need retraining. Entire supply chains would need to be adjusted to meet military specifications. And all of it would have to happen within a regulatory framework that is far more complex than anything the auto industry deals with today.

Factory flex

Still, if there’s one thing American manufacturers have proven, it’s that they can adapt under pressure. During the COVID-19 pandemic, both GM and Ford shifted production to build ventilators in partnership with medical companies. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fast, and it demonstrated something important. When pushed, this industry can move.

Now, the Pentagon is betting that same flexibility can be applied to defense production. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been explicit about the need for what he calls a “wartime footing” in manufacturing readiness. That phrase matters. It doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is entering a traditional war, but it does mean planning for sustained, high-volume production of military equipment.

And the financial scale behind that planning is enormous. The Pentagon’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget would be the largest in modern history, with significant allocations for munitions, drones, and next-generation battlefield technologies. That kind of spending demands one thing above all else: capacity. And right now, capacity is the bottleneck.

There’s also a strategic shift happening here that shouldn’t be ignored. For years, the U.S. has relied on a relatively small group of defense contractors to supply its military. Those companies are highly capable, but concentration creates vulnerability. Expanding the industrial base to include commercial manufacturers could increase resilience and reduce dependency on a limited number of suppliers.

Civilians sidelined?

That’s the upside. The downside is just as real.

What happens when civilian manufacturing capacity is redirected toward defense? What does that mean for vehicle production, pricing, and availability? And how does this reshape the long-term business models of companies that were already in the middle of a massive transition toward electrification?

These are not abstract questions. They are practical concerns with real economic consequences.

Timing is another factor that adds urgency to the conversation. These discussions reportedly began before recent escalations in global tensions, but the current geopolitical environment has only intensified the pressure.

Some automakers are already positioned to step into a larger role. General Motors, for example, operates a defense subsidiary that produces an infantry squad vehicle based on the Chevrolet Colorado platform. It’s a relatively small part of the business today, but it serves as proof of concept. Automotive technology can be adapted for military use, and it can be done efficiently.

Looking ahead, GM is expected to compete for a major Army contract to develop the next-generation infantry squad vehicle, a platform designed to replace the aging Humvee. This isn’t just a transport vehicle. It’s being envisioned as a mobile command center, a power hub, and a critical component of modern battlefield operations.

That kind of project sits squarely at the intersection of automotive engineering and defense innovation. It’s also a preview of what could become a much larger trend.

In the near term, expect more discussions, more feasibility studies, and more pressure from Washington. The Pentagon is clearly signaling that it wants industry to be ready, not just willing. Readiness is the key word. This is about preparation for a scenario where demand spikes and the current system can’t keep up.

In the longer term, this could fundamentally reshape how we think about American manufacturing. For decades, the auto industry has been driven by consumer demand, regulatory requirements, and technological innovation. Now, national security is entering the equation in a much more direct way.

Detroit has always been a symbol of American industrial strength. Now, Washington is looking at it as something more, a potential force multiplier in a world where manufacturing capacity is becoming a strategic asset.

​Ev mandates, Ford motor company, General motors, Modern warfare, National defense, National security, Lifestyle, Auto industry, Pentagon, Pete hesgeth, Cars 

Many Americans today feel like they’re being crushed by the weight of modern life.

“Right now, absolutely everything feels unstable — the economy, the culture, politics, wars breaking out, our families, prices climbing. Paychecks somehow or another feel smaller every single month. People are screaming at each other online,” Glenn Beck sighs.

Over time, this pressure begins to erode the human soul and sow seeds of anger and bitterness.

Glenn has experienced the effects of this himself, especially in his 20s and 30s.

“I got in this place to where I thought, you know, if I can just get ahead of the next disaster, or if I could just get the next promotion, if I could just get that raise, buy that house, afford that car, if I could just win the next argument, if I could just get people to see things what I want them to see, then maybe I’d feel OK,” he recounts. “No, no — those things would happen, and then I would feel more empty.”

Even though today Glenn is in a far more healthy place and no longer copes with “drugs and alcohol,” he admits that he still finds himself numbing in other ways, like “doomscrolling.”

“I think that’s where a lot of people are right now. … We are spiritually exhausted; we are emotionally way underwater; we are isolated,” he says.

He knows from personal experience, however, that trying to rigidly control everything is not the answer. Freedom, he says, is actually found when we finally realize that control is an illusion.

“We’ve tried to predict the future, fix the country, save our kids, survive the economy, hold our relationships together, and then somehow or another still sleep well at night. No wonder people are cracking,” he proclaims.

There’s only one way we survive this: “radical honesty.”

“And it starts with looking in the mirror and dropping the act that you’re in control,” Glenn says frankly.

He argues that when we attempt to control everything, we’re allowing fear to sit behind the steering wheel of our lives.

“We have to start saying, ‘Fear has been driving a lot of my decisions, and it’s got to stop,”’ he says.

No more blaming the media, politicians, or our parents for our own shortcomings. “Start telling the truth about you,” Glenn urges, acknowledging that this is “hard” but leads to “freedom.”

Once you see yourself clearly, the next step is to “surrender to the understanding that [you’re] not God” and thus have no control over anything external.

This doesn’t mean that we give up on the pursuit of what’s good and true; it just means we stop trying “to carry the entire weight of the world on [our] shoulders,” Glenn says.

The only thing we can and should try to control, he encourages, is our own behavior.

“Tell the truth. Make amends. Be dependable. Stay sober or soberminded. Love your family deeply. Spend every minute present with them. Admit when you’re wrong. Turn off the phone. Help the person in front of you. … Get your soul in order,” Glenn implores.

“A society only survives when enough ordinary people choose to live their lives with integrity while the world around them has lost its mind, and I think people deep down are starving for this right now.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

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

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Burnout, Blazetv, Blaze media, Digital age, Spiritual battle 

Tina Peters was sentenced to eight years in prison for allowing unauthorized access to voter machines during the 2020 presidential election, but she’s going be a free woman very soon.

The pro-Trump former county clerk has had her sentence commuted by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, over free speech concerns.

‘I have learned and grown during my time in prison, and going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.’

President Donald Trump had threatened Colorado officials with “harsh measures” unless Peters was released, but Polis said his decision had to do with defending free speech rights.

On Friday, Polis released a statement that said he granted clemency to 44 individuals, including the commutation of Peters’ sentence.

Her conviction will not be wiped away but will be granted parole beginning June 1.

She had been convicted on seven counts related to the presidential election, including attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and official misconduct.

Although she had been defiant during sentencing, she admitted in a later statement that she had “misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment.”

She added, “I have learned and grown during my time in prison, and going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.”

Polis said in a letter to Peters that he believed eight years was “an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first-time offender who committed nonviolent crimes.” He added that the judge who sentenced Peters placed too much emphasis on her political beliefs.

Democrats are furious at Polis and accused him of kowtowing to the president.

RELATED: FBI raids office in Fulton County after Trump vowed prosecutions for ‘rigged’ 2020 election

“Importantly, your application demonstrates taking responsibility for your crimes and a commitment to follow the law going forward,” Polis added in the letter to Peters.

But he made sure to emphasize that he was not pardoning her.

“She’s a convicted felon,” he added. “She deserves to be a convicted felon. She will remain a convicted felon.”

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​Tina peters, Rigged 2020 election, Colorado gov jared polis, 2020 commutation, Politics 

The American Bar Association has voted to end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at law schools after pressure from the Trump administration.

The rule required law schools to follow DEI policies in recruitment, admissions, and student programs, but it has been suspended since Feb. 2025 after President Donald Trump began a crackdown on DEI.

‘It’s time for the ABA’s monopoly to come to an end.’

On Friday, the ABA voted to eliminate the rule permanently.

David Brennen, an ABA council member and a former dean ⁠of the University of Kentucky College of Law, said he still supports DEI policies but voted to end them.

“I think it’s appropriate as an accrediting body that we eliminate that standard so we don’t inhibit the diversity of ideas out there in various types of legal education environments,” he said.

The change won’t be final until the ABA’s House of Delegates considers it and deliberates over possible revisions. Once that process is completed, the decision could be final as early as 2027.

In April 2025, the president directed U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to determine whether to suspend or terminate the ABA as the government’s accreditor based on what he called “unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements.”

Texas became the first state to decertify the ABA over its focus on DEI. Florida and Alabama have followed suit, and other Republican-controlled states are considering doing the same.

“The left-wing advocacy group known as the American Bar Association has long enjoyed exclusive authority to accredit law schools,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote on social media after Texas announced the decision in Sept. 2025.

RELATED: Texas Supreme Court moves to remove American Bar Association from law school accreditation

“It’s time for the ABA’s monopoly to come to an end,” he added. “I commend Texas for taking the lead and hope other states will soon follow.”

The ABA Standards Committee recommended repealing the rule in order to maintain ABA’s prominence in the national system of accreditation.

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​American bar association, Diversity equity inclusion, Dei policies in government, Law school accreditation, Politics 

Jack Osbourne made it clear that he has no desire to chat about politics with the paparazzi.

Osbourne was spotted at the Capitol with his mother, Sharon, on Friday as they honored his late father, Ozzy, who passed away in 2025. As he was about to leave, the 40-year old was approached by a reporter eager to get his take on current events.

‘Then be a politician, don’t be an entertainer.’

Osbourne immediately shut down the conversation

“You know what, I think celebrities just need to keep their mouth shut,” the Brit-American said.

‘Entertain the people’

In case it wasn’t clear, Osbourne put it more succinctly into an order of operations for celebrities: “Make entertainment, entertain the people, shut the f**k up.”

The Aussie reporter persisted, asking why Osbourne didn’t think he should use his platform to get across a “big opinion” that could “change hearts and minds.”

Osbourne’s simple response? If that’s what you want, “Be a politician, don’t be an entertainer.”

RELATED: Gene Simmons’ advice for celeb activists Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo: ‘Shut the f**k up’

Osbourne famiily, 2003. SGranitz/WireImage/Getty Images

Trump ‘Train’

Osbourne clearly takes after his cantankerous old man. While the elder Osbourne criticized the war in Iraq under the George W. Bush administration and spoke out against his native UK’s decision to leave the European Union, for the most part he focused on his showbiz career.

Even after the former Black Sabbath frontman asked the Trump campaign to stop using his song “Crazy Train” at rallies, the two remained on good terms, with the president leaving the family a condolence voicemail after the singer’s death last July.

The Osbournes told TMZ they were on Capitol Hill because Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz (R) had entered Ozzy Osbourne’s biography into the Congressional Record.

Spartz shared her “deepest sympathies” with the family last year, calling Ozzy a “true pioneer of heavy metal and an enduring symbol of the rebellious, freedom-loving spirit that resonates across our nation and throughout the world.”

RELATED: ‘Shut the f**k up!’ Actor Jamie Kennedy slams Hollywood’s hypocrisy over ICE

Osbourne family, 2002. Scott Gries/ImageDirect/Getty Images

Fed up

Along with ruling out a future in politics, Osbourne noted that he and his mother had a “beautiful day” in D.C.

He added, “It made us miss [my father]. He would have loved it. He would have been truly honored to be a part of this today.”

Osbourne is part of a growing trend of celebrities who want very little to do with politics. This includes rocker Gene Simmons, who had nearly exactly the same message as Osbourne in March when he told liberal celebrities to “‘shut the f**k up.”

In fact, actor Jamie Kennedy shared similar sentiments when speaking with Osbourne on his podcast in February, when he criticized woke celebrities for calling the United States fascist.

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​Align, Capitol hill, Celebrities, Gene simmons, Jack osbourne, Ozzy osbourne, Paparazzi, Politics, Sharon osbourne, Entertainment 

A bitter debate has erupted online after a food stamp beneficiary posted a video appreciative of a California aquarium’s policy allowing recipients in for free.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium on the central coast says on its website that it participates in the Museums for All program, which allows Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries free or reduced-fee access.

‘As someone who has been to the aquarium numerous times and seen the price go from $20 to $40 to now $65, this pisses me the f**k off.’

Many online were outraged about the program after finding out about it through the recipient’s video on social media.

“This welfare s**t is legalized theft f**king bulls**t. Been working my ass off on roofs and doing electrical work my money gets eaten up by groceries, housing, and vehicle cost and these people live free on our dimes. F**k this,” read one popular response.

“We make it WAY too attractive to be on welfare. You’d have to make at least 80K per year to be able to compete with everything people on welfare get for free for sitting on their asses,” said another user.

“We went last year. my family payed. I don’t think anyone else did. It was super crowded. I feel like the price is really $10 but I payed $400 for my family of 3 and about 37 other people,” read another reply.

“Why should they get more than those of us who pay taxes? What makes them deserve it more than us. I work 5 days a week and have to sit home most of the time because I can’t afford this stuff,” said another critic.

Others supported the program.

“I have zero issue with making Museums and Aquariums accessible to the poor,” read one popular post. “Being able to enrich the mind should not just be available to the wealthy this is why we also have Public Schools and Libraries.”

“It is offered so that children are able to share in educational experiences that their parents would be otherwise unable to afford. Are only children from middle, upper middle and wealth families entitled to educational opportunities?” asked another user.

And others attacked the critics of the program as being heartless.

“Do you realize how s***ty of a person you have to be, that you’re angry folks are going to the aquarium for free? You probably don’t, because you’re s***ty,” said one user.

“Poor people deserve fun and education, too, you f**king ghoul,” read another response.

RELATED: Able-bodied 38-year-old’s response to Trump SNAP restrictions goes viral: ‘Some bulls**t!’

About 1,600 museums participate in the Museums for All program across the entire nation, according to the program’s website.

“As someone who has been to the aquarium numerous times and seen the price go from $20 to $40 to now $65, this pisses me the f**k off,” responded one riled-up user. “I go to the aquarium and spend $65 so that ebt Maria and her bastard children can have unlimited free access.”

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​Museums for all program, Supplemental nutrition assistance program, Online debate, Welfare programs, Politics