Category: blaze media

A rampant repeat offender who reportedly was arrested a dozen times this year alone is accused of beating up a female doctor in a Chicago hospital parking garage elevator in an unprovoked attack.

According to a Sunday CWB Chicago report, prosecutors said 39-year-old Sean Popps followed a 42-year-old cardiologist into the elevator in the parking garage at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Streeterville campus just after 1:30 p.m. Nov. 2 and began repeatedly punching her in the head as she stumbled backward and covered her face with her hands.

Popps also was arrested seven times in 2024, again in almost every case mostly on or near the hospital grounds, the outlet said.

A Chicago police report said the victim suffered multiple bruises, scrapes, and hematomas to her face, head, arm, and hand, the outlet reported.

What’s more, officials said she had no prior contact with Popps and that the attack was completely unprovoked, according to CWB Chicago.

More from the outlet:

A Northwestern security officer instantly recognized Popps from surveillance video, citing “approximately 30 plus prior incidents at the hospital where [Popps] had to be removed,” a detention petition stated. Another Northwestern officer reported having “incidents with [Popps] approximately two times a day over the last 19 months.”

At the time of the attack, Popps was on pretrial release for allegedly trespassing at a Streeterville residential building in October and attempting to escape from the police station lockup afterward.

RELATED: Thugs on parole, probation thrown behind bars after allegedly repeating same crimes that got them in trouble previously

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

CWB Chicago reported that police have arrested Popps a dozen times this year — and in almost every case for allegedly trespassing or damaging property on or near the hospital.

Popps also was arrested seven times in 2024, again in almost every case mostly on or near the hospital grounds, the outlet said. He also was arrested at the hospital two times in 2020, twice in 2021, once in 2022, and once in 2023, CWB Chicago added.

Judge Anthony Calabrese ordered Popps detained on a charge of aggravated battery in a public place, the outlet said. Jail records indicate his next court date is Dec. 30 and he has no bond.

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​Repeat offender, Aggravated battery, Doctor, Hospital, Illinois, Arrest, Northwestern memorial hospital, Streeterville, Multiple arrests, Chicago, Crime 

A political artist says he is making a commentary on how social media platforms control what people see.

Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the moniker Beeple, created an exhibit called “Regular Animals” that featured some of the world’s most influential men as robotic dogs.

‘Zuckerberg and Elon, in particular, control a huge amount of how we see the world.’

Visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach saw realistic masks of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol on robotic dogs that defecate photos. Winkelmann also added two look-alikes of himself into the mix.

“The dogs are continuously taking pictures and ranking those pictures to find the most interesting ones,” Winkelmann explained on his X page. “When it comes time to poop they are reimagined using AI according to each dog’s personality / worldview.”

According to Page Six, onlookers — who called the exhibit “freaky” and “creepy” — saw the Zuckerberg dog produce photos that look like the Metaverse, while Musk’s were black and white.

Bezos’ robot reportedly did not make prints, but was included because Bezos is a person “who shapes how we see the world,” Winkelmann explained. “So he needed to be in the piece.”

RELATED: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are racing to enclose Earth in an orbital computer factory

The dogs — which are reminiscent of the film “Mars Attacks!” — are an attempt by Winkelmann to communicate that he parodied individuals who are controlling what the world sees.

“It used to be that we saw the world interpreted through the eyes of artists, but now Mark Zuckerberg and Elon, in particular, control a huge amount of how we see the world,” he told Page Six. “We see the world through their eyes because they control these very powerful algorithms that decide what we see. And so we wanted to kind of play with that idea.”

Beeple added, “You’re increasingly seeing the world through the eyes of AI and robotics,” noting that he thinks this will increasingly occur.

The 44-year-old artist does not seem to be against the capitalistic nature of those he criticizes, however, as his robodog-produced photos are allegedly being sold to private collectors for up to $100,000 each. The photo owners will allow them to travel with the exhibit, though.

This is not Winkelmann’s first foray into politics. His video shorts, for example, have focused on issues relating to power and communication.

RELATED: The price tag on Mark Zuckerberg’s bid for ‘superintelligence’ will blow your mind. Will the product?

On his website, the artist features pieces like “Transparent Machines,” which is meant to portray “conflicting concepts of transparency and privacy.”

Other clips include a music video for “Manifest Destiny” by Run the Jewels, a radical political rap group, as well as commentary on the housing market collapse of 2009.

Apart from the music video, the shorts compile vague imagery that serve as safe commentary representing widely popular viewpoints. This was reflected in an interview with Icon, in which Winkelmann said he is “not extreme” in his political views.

“To me, it’s very frustrating that we have such binary parties these days, because I’m very much in the middle.”

The artist also revealed he “voted for f**king [George W.] Bush twice, which seems dumb in retrospect,” he noted.

“I’m not sure [I’m] liberal, but it’s just crazy town on that other side,” he said of his politics.

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​Return, Art, Elon musk, Zuckerberg, Meta, X, Jeff bezos, Tech 

Here’s a message Baby Boomers need to hear: The America you were born into no longer exists.

A rising tide of young Americans are embracing socialism at a pace this country has never seen. Boomers often assume that it’s about handouts. It isn’t. Beneath the surface is a decades-long campaign so destructive to middle-class mobility that it threatens to push the nation toward civil conflict. The more you study it, the more coordinated it looks.

A people dependent upon ‘gimme gimme’ socialism is an easily managed population. A demoralized middle class keeps the ruling class secure.

In a way, it was.

Short-term profit-maximizing globalists on Wall Street teamed up with the K Street lobbying blob to drown Americans in cheap Chinese goods while saddling them with student debt, consumer debt, and medical debt.

Young people are being priced out of the American dream.

My urgent message to Boomers — especially those who want to keep influence: The kids are not all right.

The America your kids and grandkids know is not the America you knew. Most Boomers were born in the 1950s, when the country was booming — united by postwar optimism, American industrial strength, shared national institutions, Walter Cronkite on one television in every home, full-fat milkshakes, and Elvis shaking up the culture.

Today, we live in a golden age of technological revolution. We are making remarkable advances in space travel, tech, and medicine — increasingly led by the private sector and unapologetic capitalists. But on the basics — housing, health, education — we’re failing the next generation.

In 1955, the median homebuyer was in his late 20s. In 2025, it’s 56. A minimum-wage worker in the 1950s needed roughly seven years of pay to buy a modest home without a mortgage. Today, it’s around 27.

In 1955, a student could pay college tuition by working a few hours a day at minimum wage. Today, that same student would need to work about six hours a day. If a kid wants Yale or any Ivy League school, he would have to work 26.4 hours a day — an impossible figure that illustrates how detached elite education has become from reality.

Here’s a frightening divide: 93% of Boomers say political violence is never justified; 44% of Gen Z say it “sometimes” is.

Ninety-nine percent of kids are not out for blood, but 100% of them face a massive relative disadvantage. The upward mobility Boomers took for granted has been hollowed out by globalist and left-wing policies sold as progress but experienced as decline.

We spent trillions of American dollars on foreign wars, foreign infrastructure, and foreign elections. We borrowed recklessly. Now the dollar is frail. We allowed millions of illegal migrants to enter the country, fueling crime and pushing Americans out of jobs. Young households are buried in debt — not mortgage debt that builds equity, but consumer debt used to numb the anxiety left by a collapse in community and faith.

Here’s the truth: The populist right and the socialist left agree on the diagnosis. Listen to the first half of Bernie Sanders’ interview with Joe Rogan in June. For an hour, Bernie describes America’s economic troubles. Most people, right or left, would nod along.

Then comes the pivot: Socialism is the cure.

This is the left’s great deceit. Progressives’ proposed “solutions” hurt the very people they claim to help.

RELATED: We built abundance and lost the thing that matters

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Take restrictive zoning and rent regulations — blue-state staples designed to “create” affordable housing. In reality, they choke supply and drive rents higher. Or look at no-cash bail. The neighborhoods hit hardest by serially released offenders are the same minority communities progressives claim to champion. The examples pile up.

So why do left-wing billionaires back these ideas? Simple: Socialism, communism, and their logical end point — fascism — are excellent for entrenched oligarchs. A people dependent upon “gimme gimme” socialism is an easily managed population. A demoralized middle class keeps the ruling class secure.

There is another path.

We must reverse the policies that got us here. Strengthen education outcomes, lower health care costs, rebuild domestic supply chains, expand American energy generation, and restore competence to the workforce.

Boomers, if you don’t lead this shift, your influence will vanish before your next Social Security check arrives. Moderate Democrats already know the socialist tide is rising. They’re afraid to say it out loud.

The Gen Z and Millennial voting bloc will dominate the 2028 election. They are demanding change. Moderates — in both parties — are being replaced by extremists.

You have a choice: Allow yourselves to be absorbed into the socialist machine, or correct the mistakes of the last two decades, return power to citizens, and rebuild access to the American dream.

​Opinion & analysis, Socialism, Gen z, Millennials and socialism, Millennials, Bernie sanders, Democratic socialists of america, Zohran mamdani, Rent control, Rent freeze, Student loan debt, Personal debt, Household debt, Middle class, Zoning, Bail, Crime, Economy, Democrats, Republicans, Baby boomers, Boomers vs everyone else, Healthcare, Homeownership, Leftists, Billionaires, Elites, American dream 

Holidays are tough. It’s not fun to say it, and it feels like failing to admit it, but they are.

But why? Why are they tough? Why are the days that are supposed to be full of joy instead oddly stressful — and too often fraught with bickering, arguing, and disappointment?

We want things to go perfectly on the day that is supposed to go perfectly — and when they don’t, our disappointment lands harder than it would on a random Tuesday in March.

It seems inevitable, almost as if it’s another tradition. Someone snaps about something small, then someone takes offense to something else, and then there’s an argument or a fight or just a weird feeling in the air that wasn’t there before.

Too many cooks

It could be in the kitchen, especially when dinner is nearing. Mom, Grandma, and maybe a daughter or two are in there helping. A bystander pokes his or her head in and offers a “helpful” comment. One of the chefs responds with an eye-roll. A certain stifling quiet — not a good quiet — descends.

Or it could be at the dinner table: Someone lobs a political point knowing that it will rub another guest the wrong way, but he “needs to say something.” Then someone else feels compelled to answer, and another after that, until the whole thing cascades and suddenly the arguments are spilling over into dessert.

Moms are disappointed in their sons and daughters because they just want everybody to get along for one day when everyone is home. “Can you just not talk about that?” Dads are tired of having the same argument, so they zone out. Sons and daughters are mad because no one takes them seriously. They are in college and know more than they used to, but think they know more than they really do.

Family feud

These things happen in families. Not all, of course. Some excel at sweeping every irritation under the rug and maintaining a serene, passive surface at all times. A few are even perfect — or as close as anyone gets — and enjoy holidays filled with nothing but gladness. But most families, in one way or another, run into moments like the ones above or something close to them.

These points of conflict and stress are only a few of the familiar moments that surface when families gather for the holidays. There are countless other paths to confrontation, disappointment, or quiet unease. Sometimes the friction is subtle — simmering unnoticed for months — and it’s only during the holidays that anything finally bubbles up and over.

At bottom, our stress and disappointment come down to expectations, especially the impossible kind.

A holiday is supposed to matter more than an ordinary day. It’s supposed to be more enjoyable, more memorable, more special. That’s a crude way of putting it, but it’s the truth we all feel somewhere deep down, even if we would never say it out loud.

Moms want the meal to be flawless and everyone to get along. Dads want to relax. Kids home from wherever they have been want to share what they have learned and maybe earn a little more respect.

Perfect storm

We want things to go perfectly on the day that is supposed to go perfectly — and when they don’t, our disappointment lands harder than it would on a random Tuesday in March. Greater disappointment feels like a greater failure, and that casts a shadow over the day or at least over our memory of it.

Our expectations rise so high that disappointment becomes almost guaranteed.

That’s why the holidays are tough. It’s not that being around the people you love is hard or that it’s impossible to stay on your best behavior and avoid a spat with your sister or cousin. The holidays are tough because we want things to be the way they ought to be — the way we imagine they could be, the way we wish we could be. Admitting that the holidays are tough stings a little, because to acknowledge it feels like confessing a kind of failure.

I don’t know how to eliminate holiday disappointment entirely, but I do know the first step toward easing it: accepting that our holidays will never be perfect. Hopes run high, tensions run high, and something will inevitably go awry. We’re human. And that’s okay. Maybe our bar shouldn’t be so high. Maybe we ought to grade the day on a curve. Maybe a B- really is an A. Maybe we can forgive ourselves for not living inside a Hallmark movie.

Holidays aren’t perfect. Neither are we. And that’s okay.

​Men’s style, Lifestyle, Family, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Holidays, The root of the matter 

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office was recently forced to make a stunning admission before the U.S. Supreme Court. During oral arguments, Platkin’s team conceded that although the state issued a sweeping subpoena against a pregnancy center — First Choice Women’s Resource Centers — the office had no complaints against the organization.

That admission stripped away any pretense that the attorney general was protecting consumers. It revealed the real motive: a fishing expedition into constitutionally protected internal records and private donor information for no reason other than First Choice’s commitment to life-affirming support for women. Now the court must decide whether New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer can bully pro-life charities out of helping women and families.

When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.

What’s at stake is the work of pregnancy centers and charities nationwide that help women sustain their decision for life. These organizations provide the material and emotional resources mothers need to meet their own needs and the needs of their children.

Choosing life for an unborn child is never a one-time decision. It’s a daily commitment made amid financial, professional, emotional, or health-related pressures — and often in the face of serious challenges in securing food, clothing, housing, and other essentials. Women deserve support in every one of those areas so they can pursue their ambitions with their children. Pro-life Americans stand ready to offer that support. Platkin prefers abortion over help for moms.

Research shows that 60% of women who have had abortions would have preferred to choose life if they had more financial security or emotional support. Pregnancy centers and life-affirming organizations across the country confront this reality every day. Last year alone, they provided $452 million in support services, medical care, and material goods — all free of charge.

And the need keeps growing. Over the past two years, pregnancy centers increased their material assistance by 48% to ensure that women have what they need to thrive in pregnancy and early parenting. In 2024 alone, they served 1 million new clients.

When families face challenges beyond diapers and baby supplies, pregnancy centers rise to meet them. At Real Options Pregnancy Center in Texas, staff provided full Thanksgiving meals to local families. In Chicago, a center hosts an annual Christmas celebration so moms can put gifts under the tree. Across the country, community partners working with Her PLAN offer free car maintenance and help women escape trafficking and addiction, secure housing, and receive job training.

Every woman’s story is unique. Pregnancy centers recognize that dignity, which is why they collaborate with trusted community resources to provide comprehensive support tailored to each individual who walks through their doors.

This community network forms the pro-life safety net that Her PLAN strengthens through grassroots engagement and an online directory of vetted service providers across seven categories of care. For women with nowhere else to turn, this wraparound support provides stability, hope, and practical help.

RELATED: Leftist war on pro-life pregnancy centers faces Supreme Court reckoning

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Women who receive services from pregnancy centers report a 98% satisfaction rate. The real measure of success, however, is the women who later return to help others.

Courtney, once overwhelmed by two unexpected pregnancies, now works at the very center that supported her.

Jean Marie, who escaped human trafficking with the help of a New Hampshire pregnancy center, now runs a center in Vermont, using her experience to counsel vulnerable women.

In Northern Virginia, a maternity home helped Shawnte when she lost her job and housing. Today she works as a peer-recovery coach and credits the maternity home with giving her the strength not to abort “a child I knew I wanted, just because things got hard.”

These women — and countless others — were empowered by the pro-life safety net and now devote themselves to strengthening it for the next mother in crisis.

This is work that protects lives, stabilizes families, and strengthens communities. It deserves support, not intimidation from pro-abortion politicians. When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.

Helping women is not controversial. It is love in action.

​Supreme court, New jersey, Abortion, Pro life, Opinion & analysis, Constitution, First amendment, Clarence thomas, Matthew platkin, Subpoena, Mothers, Pregnancy, Pregnancy centers, Lawfare 

If you haven’t finished Christmas shopping yet, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has an excellent suggestion for you to avoid giving your little ones: a new book titled “Abortion Is Everything.”

The book was created by left-wing group Shout Your Abortion and is being marketed for 5-to-8-year-olds.

The back cover reads, “What is an abortion? With accessible, inclusive language, ‘Abortion Is Everything’ speaks directly to 5 to 8 year olds about what abortion is and why people have them. Abortion is a tool that helps human beings build the lives we imagine for ourselves, and the whole world around us has been shaped by abortion.”

Like Gonzales, BlazeTV contributor Grant Stinchfield is extremely disturbed.

“You see how selfish that is? Like, it’s not even funny. Like, ‘It shapes the world around [us] for the lives we imagine for ourselves,’ but not the child in the mother’s womb. It’s just so selfish. And why does a 5-to-8-year-old need to learn about any of this?” Stinchfield asks.

“It’s demonic,” Gonzales says.

“That’s child abuse. You want to teach a 5-year-old, a 5-year-old, ‘Well, you could have had a big brother or a sister, but Mommy decided to kill them instead. So, now you’re an only child.’ Like, what? That’s so damaging,” she says.

“Well, at least they’re being honest about the fact that they want to go after the kids,” BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden chimes in. “I mean, we’ve been saying it for years.”

“The fact that they’re going after the innocence of children disgusts me. … It’s evil, is what it is,” he adds.

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.

​Sharing, Camera phone, Video, Video phone, Free, Upload, Youtube.com, Blazetv, The blaze, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Come and take it with sara gonzales, Children book abortion, Abortion, Pro life, Demonic, Shout your abortion, Abortion is everything book, Abortion is murder, Indoctrination 

Medicare is the second-largest program in the federal budget, topping $1 trillion last year. In 2023, it accounted for 14% of federal spending — a share projected to reach 18% by 2032. After years of ballooning costs, something is finally being done to slow the growth. A new Medicare pilot program, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model, borrows a successful private-sector tool: prior authorization. And that’s good news.

Medicare Part B premiums now sit at $185 per month — up 28% from five years ago and a staggering 76% since 2015. Last year, 12% of the 61 million Americans enrolled in Part B spent more than a tenth of their annual income on premiums. That burden is unsustainable.

In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care.

WISeR, set to launch in Ohio, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Arizona, and Oklahoma, will require prior approval for a short list of “low-value” services — procedures that research shows are frequently overused, costly, and sometimes harmful.

To some, the idea of Medicare reviewing certain treatments before covering them may sound like red tape. But when done correctly, prior authorization is not a barrier. It is a guardrail — one that protects patients, improves quality, and helps ensure that both tax dollars and premiums are spent appropriately.

The goal of WISeR is simple: Cut unnecessary treatments and shift resources toward more effective, evidence-based care. Critics warn about the possibility of delays or extra paperwork, and those concerns are worth monitoring. But they don’t negate prior authorization’s potential to make U.S. health care safer, more efficient, and more financially stable.

Prior authorization directly targets some of the most persistent problems in health care. Medicare spends billions each year on low-value services. A 2023 study identified just 47 such services that together cost Medicare more than $4 billion annually. Those are taxpayer dollars that could be put to better use.

The private insurance market shows the same pattern: unnecessary imaging, avoidable specialist referrals, and brand-name drugs chosen over generics all contribute to rising premiums. Prior authorization, when used properly, reins in this waste by ensuring coverage lines up with medical necessity and evidence-based best practices. Research from the University of Chicago shows that Medicare’s prior authorization rules for prescription drugs generate net savings even after administrative costs.

Consider one striking example. Medicare Part B covers wound-care products known as skin substitutes. But an Office of Inspector General report found that expenditures on these products skyrocketed over the past two years to more than $10 billion annually. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage plans — which rely heavily on prior authorization — spent only a fraction of that amount for the same treatments.

RELATED: When a ‘too big to fail’ America meets a government too broke to bail it out

DNY59 via iStock/Getty Images

More importantly, prior authorization helps promote evidence-based medicine. It curbs outdated clinical habits and reduces financial incentives to overtreat. Health plans consistently say that prior authorization aligns care with gold-standard clinical guidelines, particularly in areas prone to misuse.

Of course, the system must be designed responsibly. A well-functioning PA process should be transparent, fast, and grounded in strong clinical evidence. Decisions should be made in close coordination with the patient’s treating provider. The appeals process must be straightforward. And both public and private payers should be held accountable for improper denials or harmful delays.

When structured this way, prior authorization is far more efficient than the current “pay-and-chase” model, where Medicare pays first and tries to recover improper payments later.

Prior authorization already works in the private sector. It can work in Medicare.

Public and private payers have an obligation to steward the dollars they spend — whether those dollars come from taxpayers or premium-payers. In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care. When implemented wisely, prior authorization keeps coverage aligned with medical necessity, elevates the value of care, and helps deliver better outcomes at a sustainable cost.

​Opinion & analysis, Medicare, Government spending, Federal budget, Entitlements, Prior authorization, Reform, Wasteful spending, Wasteful and inappropriate service reduction model, Wiser, Ohio, Texas, Washington state, New jersey, Oklahoma, University of chicago, Inspector general, Private sector 

With the first year of the second Trump administration coming to a close, Present Donald Trump has articulated a new national security strategy that will “build upon” his substantial achievements thus far.

On Friday, the Trump administration published a document that lays out the National Security Strategy to put America first going forward.

‘In everything we do, we are putting America First.’

The 33-page document highlights President Trump’s successes and frames his time in office as a correction of failed policies from past administrations and conventional wisdom.

RELATED: University of Minnesota faces backlash over project that seeks to cure the ‘Whiteness Pandemic’

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Looking to the future, the document asks a simple question: what should the United States want?

It goes on to highlight the core tenets of what the Trump administration will work to achieve, including the “survival and safety” of U.S. citizens, control over our borders and freedom from “destructive propaganda and influence operations,” a strong military, economy, energy grid, and a “robust industrial base.”

The document goes into more detail and lists other wants of the country, but it also issues a reimagining of “soft power” entails: “‘Soft power’ that serves America’s true national interest is effective only if we believe in our country’s inherent greatness and decency.”

In our dealings with the world, the strategy reiterates its desire to control the Western Hemisphere without foreign incursions and to have unimpeded strategic access in the hemisphere, thus asserting a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.

In addition, the strategy highlights the desire to avoid “forever wars,” maintain primacy in the tech sector, and to restore a Europe, it says, that is in danger of “civilizational erasure” thanks to institutions which have “undermined political liberty and sovereignty.”

“We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

The strategy also highlighted that Europe’s principal alliance with the United States, NATO, is not guaranteed perpetually if the character of the nations change through rampant immigration from the third-world.

The document says it is “plausible” that certain NATO countries will be “non-European” in the next few decades, which could mean that they will view the United States and themselves differently than those who signed the charter.

Crucially, President Trump writes: “In everything we do, we are putting America first. … In the years ahead, we will continue to develop every dimension of our national strength–and we will make America safer, richer, freer, greater, and more powerful than ever before.”

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​Politics, Trump, President trump, National security strategy, United states, Western hemisphere, Western civilization, America, America first, Europe, Nato 

Comedian Joe Rogan praised Christianity as a faith that really “works,” calling biblical scripture “fascinating” during a recent interview.

Rogan also touched on what he thinks the resurrection of Jesus Christ would look like, a viewpoint that was met with criticism by host Jesse Michels.

‘You don’t think that He could return as artificial intelligence?’

On an episode of “American Alchemy,” Rogan cited the Bible when he spoke about how easily knowledge could become mysterious, conflated, or unbelievable when passed down through generations.

“We’ll tell everybody about the internet. We’ll tell everybody about airplanes. We’ll tell everybody about SpaceX; as much as you can remember, you’ll tell people, but you won’t know how it’s done. You won’t know what it is. And I think that’s how you get to, like, the Adam and Eve story,” he said.

After adding that he believes biblical stories are “recounting real truth,” the podcaster brought up a question he had clearly been pondering for a while: “Who’s Jesus?”

Rogan prefaced that many will disagree with his perspective, but then asked about the possibility that Jesus could be resurrected, in a sense, through artificial intelligence.

“Jesus is born out of a virgin mother. What’s more virgin than a computer?” Rogan began. “So if you’re going to get the most brilliant, loving, powerful person that gives us advice and can show us how to live to be in sync with God. Who better than artificial intelligence to do that? If Jesus does return, even if Jesus was a physical person in the past, you don’t think that He could return as artificial intelligence?”

The host, however, did not accept Rogan’s theory.

RELATED: Joe Rogan, Christian? The podcaster opens up about his ongoing exploration of faith

First, though, Rogan clarified, indicting that he doesn’t believe artificial intelligence would actually be Jesus but instead that it would serve as the return of Jesus in terms of affect and capability.

“Artificial intelligence could absolutely return as Jesus. Not just return as Jesus, but return as Jesus with all the powers of Jesus,” Rogan said. “Like all the magic tricks, all the ability to bring people back from the dead, walk on water, levitation, water into wine.”

In response, Michels said Rogan’s description sounded like an unwanted “dystopian” future.

Still Rogan argued that the prerequisite for a Jesus-like being could come about due to the human need to improve.

“It’s only dystopian if you think that we’re a perfect organism that can’t be improved upon. And that’s not the case,” he rebutted. “That’s clearly not the case based on our actions, based on society as a whole, based on the overall state of the world. It’s not. We certainly can be improved upon.”

While the host accepted that perhaps humans could improve morally and ethically, he said that attempts at improving by means of a computer “seems destructive.”

RELATED: Joe Rogan says we’re at ‘step 7’ on the road to civil war. Is he right? Glenn Beck answers

Photo by AFP PHOTO/AFP via Getty Images

The conversation flowed smoothly into Rogan’s love of Christian scripture, with the 58-year-old saying how joyful his experience has been at his new church.

“The scripture, to me, is what’s interesting; it’s fascinating,” he said. “Christianity, at least, is the only thing I have experience with. It works. The people that are Christians, that go to this church that I go to, that I meet, that are Christian, they are the nicest f**king people you will ever meet.”

Rogan gave examples about the polite society he has found himself immersed in, hilariously citing the church parking lot as an example.

“Everybody lets you go in front of them. There’s no one honking in the church parking lot. It works,” he said.

What Rogan hammered home throughout the conversation was that he finds real truth in what he has read in the Bible. Still he isn’t sold on having predictions provided for him about the future; but he is certainly open to it. He described biblical stories positively as an “ancient relaying” of real history and events.

But about the book of Revelation, Rogan said of his pastor, “There’s no way that guy telling you that knows that. … He’s just a person. He’s a person like you or me that is like deeply involved in the scripture.”

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​Faith, Christianity, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Second coming, Christ, Jesus, Internet, Computers, Religion 

If you want to know how conservatives should think about media ownership policy, a good starting point is to head opposite the people who think that President Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr are “autocratic,” “fascist,” and engaged in “mob-style government.” Those are charges levied in recent comments from Free Press, a left-wing nonprofit opposing the proposed reforms to the FCC’s rules capping ownership of broadcast stations.

A strong conservative consensus exists in favor of reform or outright repeal of the ownership limits. Exhibit A is a letter signed by leaders of 18 conservative organizations, including Heritage Action, the Center for Renewing America, Americans for Prosperity, and Americans for Tax Reform. This represents a broad coalition from MAGA to the Reaganite right.

Reading the list of commentators reveals a ‘who’s who’ of the irrelevant and Trump-hating.

A few voices now feign uncertainty about where the White House or FCC will land. But conservatives don’t need a crystal ball. When every liberal and left-wing advocacy shop in Washington locks arms on one side of a policy debate, the right answer is almost always the opposite.

The liberal groups are not powerful in themselves — Democrat FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez has already sent strong signals that she opposes repeal, and in all events, her single vote cannot stop commission action as long as Republican appointees remain united. But the position of Gomez and her outside allies on the left on a controversial policy question should give any conservative pause — why would we agree with the other party?

When the commission last invited comment on this topic in August, TVTech reported, “a large number of filings from unions, consumer groups, civil rights groups, church groups, liberal organizations, free speech advocates and others have come out strongly opposed to any change to the current 39% ownership cap.” Indeed, reading the list of commentators reveals a “who’s who” of the irrelevant and Trump-hating.

The unions, for instance, include the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians and the News Guild. The Writers Guild of America, which also opposes the reforms, recently attacked President Trump for a supposed “un-American … unprecedented, authoritarian assault” on the First Amendment, complete with the line: “We don’t have a king, we have a president.” These are the advocates of maintaining the caps on media ownership by Nexstar, Sinclair, and others.

Another joint FCC filing included a laundry list of left-wing groups: United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Hispanic Federation, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network separately weighed in, warning that reform would be contrary to its mission of “economic justice, political empowerment, and fair representation in all aspects of public life.” The horror!

RELATED: The media just told you their 2026 strategy: ‘Lies, but better!’

Photo by Moor Studio/Getty Images

This isn’t the FCC’s first time down this path. When the first Trump administration floated reforms along these lines, 21 Senate Democrats and one independent (Bernie Sanders) sent a letter opposing any further flexibility under the caps. This has been liberal orthodoxy for decades.

Hollywood labor unions, left-wing pressure groups, Al Sharpton, Bernie Sanders — these are not normally reliable predictors of good policy. Broken clocks may still be right twice a day, but this is not one of those moments. Trump administration leaders should be deeply skeptical when they’re asked to be on the same side as all of these people.

​Unions, Bernie sanders, Broadcast rights, Sinclair, Nexstar, Opinion & analysis, First amendment, Federal communications commission, Fcc, Anna gomez, Democrats, The left, Monopoly, Al sharpton, Writers guild 

Border czar Tom Homan fired back at a heckler during a Turning Point USA conference at the University of Texas at El Paso on Thursday.

During the event, Homan spoke and answered questions from the audience, which numbered roughly 500.

‘I don’t want anybody hurt. I don’t want anybody to die — that includes officers and that includes aliens.’

He compared the border security under the Trump administration to that of the previous White House, describing the difference between them as “night and day.”

“There was 12,000 a day sometimes crossing the border illegally,” Homan said, referring to illegal crossings under the Biden administration. “You know what it was yesterday — 106 across 2,000 miles of border. And those 106, not a single one of those were released into the United States.”

The audience erupted in applause.

Homan debunked the legacy media’s narrative claiming that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is disproportionately arresting non-criminals. He stated that the most recent stats indicated that 64% of immigration arrests were of criminals.

RELATED: ‘He’s not that smart’: Homan lampoons Chicago mayor for pleading with UN to intervene against ICE

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

He slammed the media and immigration enforcement critics for labeling him the architect of “family separations.”

“It wasn’t done to punish. It was done in an attempt to save lives and stop sexual assaults, and maybe control the border,” Homan said.

“You are a racist!” a heckler shouted. “You are destroying the Constitution!”

The audience responded with boos and drowned out the heckler’s rant by chanting, “USA!”

Homan continued his speech unfazed by the disturbance, explaining that the Biden administration lost track of over 300,000 unaccompanied alien children and had not attempted to locate them. He reported that the Trump administration had already located 40,000 of those children.

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

Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images

“Every night [when] I go to bed, I pray for the safety and security of every Border Patrol agent, ICE agent, and I pray for everybody that we’re looking for,” Homan said. “I don’t want anybody hurt. I don’t want anybody to die — that includes officers and that includes aliens. … Call me what you want.”

“Traitor!” a heckler shouted back.

Homan replied by telling the heckler to “grow a backbone, put a Kevlar vest and a gun on your hip, and go secure this border!”

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​News, Tom homan, Homan, Border czar, Trump administration, Trump admin, Immigration crisis, Illegal immigration crisis, Immigration, Illegal immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Border, Border security, National security, Turning point usa, Tpusa, Politics 

On November 29 — Small Business Saturday — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani slapped a new caption on a five-month-old campaign video pledging to boost NYC’s small-business ecosystem with massive deregulation measures, leading some conservatives to applaud the socialist as more based than they originally thought.

In the clip, Mamdani vows to “make it faster, easier, and cheaper for small businesses to get started and stay open” by cutting fines and fees by 50%, expediting permits and applications, appointing a “Mom and Pop czar” to fight bureaucracy, and increasing funding for small business programs by 500%.

This kind of red-tape-slashing, deregulatory rhetoric is something you would normally hear from Republicans or maybe an old-school Democrat, but to hear it from a self-described socialist is truly an anomaly.

Or is it?

John Doyle, BlazeTV host of “The John Doyle Show,” says these conservatives praising Mamdani’s small-business plan have had the wool pulled over their eyes. Mamdani doesn’t care about small business; “he is simply rewarding his foreign base.”

For starters, the massive increase in small-business funding, Doyle reminds, is simply “redistribution of wealth from the whiter neighborhoods.”

“I’m quoting Mamdani, who wanted to raise taxes specifically on the whiter neighborhoods … to pay for these handouts,” he says.

But the more important issue is who these small-business perks are intended to benefit. It’s not native New Yorkers; it’s the foreigners who “elected him to office,” says Doyle.

In response to the people who foolishly think that Mamdani’s small-business plan reveals he’s maybe not the stark raving mad Marxist we thought he was, Doyle tweeted the following:

— (@)

Because NYC’s business marketplace is one of the most saturated and competitive in the nation, “who is moving to New York and starting businesses?” Doyle asks. “It’s obviously foreigners.”

Deregulation for Mamdani, he argues, isn’t about helping businesses; it’s about lowering the standards — “cleanliness standards, worker hygiene standards, temperature control, food safety standards, inspections, record-keeping” — to turn NYC into the kind of third-world slum his voter base came from.

“That is what is going on here,” he declares.

“You have to be 200 IQ enough to understand that in this instance, deregulation is actually Marxist in nature.”

To hear more of Doyle’s fiery take, watch the episode above.

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​The john doyle show, John doyle, Blazetv, Blaze media, Zohran mamdani, Nyc, Mamdani, Small businesses, Small business loans 

A political system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

RELATED: The real danger isn’t immigration — it’s the refusal to become American

Photo by AASHISH KIPHAYET/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

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​Islam, Political islam, Sharia law, Texas, Immigration, Opinion & analysis, Jihad 

Modern gender activists have convinced much of the world — and themselves — that transgenders are suffering from gender dysphoria and truly believe they were born in the wrong body.

However, there’s a dark underbelly to transgenderism that BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes is more likely the reason for the surge of gender transitions among young men and women today.

And it’s readily available on your children’s devices.

“I no longer believe that most people today who say that they’re the opposite sex have true gender dysphoria. I believe that gender dysphoria exists as it is defined, or was defined, in the DSM5,” Stuckey says.

“Today it is, I believe, mostly due to pornography,” she explains. “It is due to a sexual fetish that they have developed over time, that there is now a very real algorithmic pipeline via Pornhub and other porn sites that push young men to seek more and more exciting dopamine hits.”

“So the pornography changes from something that is simple to something that might be more erotic, more violent, more subversive, and it gets into not only like different kinds of sexual deviancy in addition to just pornography, homosexuality, but then gender bending and gender fluidity,” she continues.

This presents a major issue as pornography has been widely normalized over the years as almost a rite of passage for young boys — but it can have devastating effects on their impressionable minds.

“I believe that is what is motivating the majority of transgenderism among men today,” she says, “And I just want you to know that this is not nuance, that this doesn’t deserve more of our empathy, that these people don’t deserve to be allowed into any women’s spaces at all.”

“I want you to stare at it in the eyes as sexual depravity and perversion,” she continues, adding, “That doesn’t have anything to do with gender. It has do with sex. And I’m not talking about biological sex. I’m talking about sexual fetish and pornography.”

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.

​Free, Sharing, Video, Camera phone, Video phone, Upload, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Transgenderism, Mental illness, Dsm5, Lgbtq agenda, Trans radicals, Transgender, Pornography, Psychology 

Fr. Brendan Kilcoyne is one of the few priests in Ireland with the courage to say what others won’t.

Week after week, he tells the truth that the rest of public life tiptoes around: Ireland, like Britain and much of the West, is being reshaped by two forces at once — an aggressively secular culture that mocks belief, and a rising influx of people whose values come from religious traditions deeply at odds with Christianity.

This is the part the West refuses to face: A culture without God doesn’t stay neutral.

Both currents weaken what remains of Ireland’s Christian foundations. One breaks it down. The other builds something else in its place.

Kilcoyne doesn’t simply call for “legal immigration” — the safe line politicians repeat to sound reasonable — but he goes farther.

He calls for Christian-only immigration, not as a provocation but as a survival strategy for a civilization that once took the gospel for granted. In a country where faith once shaped the architecture of daily life, he argues that if people must come from abroad, they should be people who can carry that faith forward.

He’s right. It’s the only sane path left.

I know this to be true from experience. Ireland hosts thousands of Filipino workers, many of them nurses and care staff. They are some of the warmest people I have ever met. In many ways, they remind many Irish people of an older Ireland — devout, hardworking, grateful, family-centered.

My mother works closely with a Filipino woman in her home-nursing work. She describes her as one of the kindest souls she has ever known. This isn’t some abstract argument about cultural cohesion. Instead, it’s something I’ve watched play out in real life. Their Catholic faith shapes their character, their sense of duty, and their reverence for life. Wherever they go, they make the place stronger.

Contrast that with what just happened in the U.S.

Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old Army specialist, was shot and killed in Washington, D.C. The alleged gunman, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, came into the country after the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. One can’t pretend cases like this exist in a vacuum, any more than one can pretend the grooming-gang scandals in Britain came out of thin air.

These tragedies sit inside a larger pattern. The West has opened its doors to people with radically different expectations about women, law, authority, violence, and faith — and then acts stunned when those differences surface in the streets.

RELATED: Correcting the narrative: What the Bible actually says about immigration

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In America, Islam is on track to become the second-largest religion by 2040, outpacing Judaism and mainline Protestantism. That shift isn’t driven by conversion but by immigration patterns and birth rates.

Let that sink in. A country built on Christian memory and Christian morals is heading toward a religious landscape its founders would barely recognize. None of this is speculation. It’s demographic math.

This matters because religions aren’t interchangeable. They shape law, culture, expectations for public life, attitudes toward authority, dissent, forgiveness, and the value of the individual. A society shaped by the Sermon on the Mount will never think or function the same as one shaped by Islam’s foundational texts.

The two traditions couldn’t be farther apart.

One formed cultures around decency and love of neighbor. The other arose in an age of conquest, tribal loyalty, and rigid obedience. These differences aren’t cosmetic but civilizational. And with Christianity in the West losing its fighting spirit, it’s not hard to see which force will fill the vacuum. Islam is not a private spirituality, but a complete system of life — legal, social, political — built on the expectation that it will shape the society around it.

Again, this isn’t speculation. It’s written into its earliest texts and confirmed by its history, which raises the obvious question: What kind of West emerges when the religious balance tips this far?

Kilcoyne’s message isn’t aimed at Ireland alone. It applies to any nation whose culture was built on Christianity — meaning most of Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

A society can’t function without shared belief and shared boundaries. Christianity once provided both. It shaped civic standards, festivals, art, manners, and the meaning of freedom. Remove it, and the God-sized space is claimed by something else immediately, like nihilism, resentment, and ideologies far more savage and unforgiving.

While being Christian doesn’t automatically make people decent, it does mean they’re far more likely to share the values that hold a society together.

This is the part the West refuses to face: A culture without God doesn’t stay neutral. It slides into something far less humane. And a country that imports large numbers of people who follow a religion with no respect for Christian norms doesn’t stay stable. It absorbs that religion’s worldview whether it wants to or not.

If immigration is necessary — and in many aging nations it is — Kilcoyne asks why we wouldn’t welcome those whose faith strengthens, rather than weakens, the society they enter.

Why not bring in people who see children not as burdens but blessings, who honor marriage, who take charity seriously, who treat the elderly with care, who believe suffering has meaning, and who know the world is more than appetite and impulse?

These are the qualities that once made the West strong. And while being Christian doesn’t automatically make people decent, it does mean they’re far more likely to share the values that hold a society together.

Sarah Beckstrom is dead. A young woman who trusted her country, trusted its leaders, trusted the system that put her in uniform. If America had been more serious about value-based immigration — if it had prioritized people who share its creed and its cultural instincts — she might still be alive. Her death shouldn’t be treated as another tragic headline to scroll past.

If anything, let it mark the moment the country finally admits that immigration policy isn’t a paperwork issue but a question of national survival in the most literal sense. Let her death mean something.

Let it push America toward choosing people who lift the nation up — not those who drag it into the abyss.

​Brendan kilcoyne, Catholic, Christian, Christianity, God, Immigration, Sarah beckstrom, Faith 

Our new addition is finally finished — level floors, wide doors, and a space where my wife, Gracie, can move freely despite her severe disabilities. After years of improvising in tight quarters, we’re grateful to have a place that works for us, even if it’s not perfect.

The new part of the house went up during Trump’s second non-consecutive term; the original part went up during the second term of the only other president to do the same, Grover Cleveland. Joining the two is a bit like welding a Tesla to a horse-drawn buggy — functional, charming, and only slightly defiant of gravity.

When most of life leans, you can still make one crooked thing right.

During construction, the fridge in our tiny kitchen got bumped off the carefully placed shims and tilted just enough to drive me crazy. Admittedly, that’s not a long trip.

I ignored it for about a week but finally couldn’t stand it anymore. Leveling a refrigerator in a cabin built during the Cleveland administration isn’t simple. There are pulleys, levers, questions about physics, and — in my case — a call to the engineering department at Montana State. They were not amused. My neighbor Charles, who often “pity helps” me, wasn’t available. I can’t prove it, but I think he hung up and immediately burst into laughter.

So I did it myself.

I knew it would be a project — and once I started, it could not easily be interrupted by caregiving duties. But exasperation collided with need, and I got down on the floor (at a slant) and went to work. It went exactly as expected: mild swearing, a few tears, and then a small victory. When the bubble on the level finally drifted near the center, I declared success, remembering that old rancher’s saying: “Most things can be fixed with baling wire and bad language.”

It’s level — well, Montana level — but I’ll take it.

Much of what I’ve faced as a caregiver over 40 years can’t be fixed. But small victories, like leveling a refrigerator in a house built when bread was 3 cents and buffalo still outnumbered politicians, remind me that even when most of life leans, you can still make one crooked thing right.

Everyone has a version of that tilted refrigerator — something off-kilter you keep meaning to fix but never quite reach. It might be a strained relationship, a stack of bills, or a heart worn down by too much bad news. You can’t straighten the world, but you can steady what’s right in front of you.

When life feels unsettled, taking time to level something — even a small thing — matters more than we think. Sometimes that quiet act of setting one thing right gives us just enough footing to stand through the rest of it.

RELATED: When fathers fall, grace asks more of us

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Years ago, city officials talked about “broken-window” policing: Neglect one thing, and the whole neighborhood starts to crumble. The opposite is also true. Fix one small thing, and a bit of order comes back. Leveling even one ordinary object pushes back against the chaos.

Most caregiving must be repeated tomorrow, but every so often something stays fixed. A grab bar anchored in the right place. A ramp that finally fits the chair. The day may still be full of mess and pain, but that one thing won’t need doing again. It stands there quietly, reminding you that not everything leans. Some things still hold. And sometimes that’s enough to remind you that you still can too.

When I turn on the news, I see dysfunction I can’t do anything about. But when I fix dinner, my refrigerator no longer leans.

There’s an old Appalachian saying: “Fix what you can. The rest was never yours to mend.”

Level what you can. Let the rest lean.

​Opinion & analysis, Caregiving, Caregivers, House, Crooked, Homeownership, Fix, Donald trump, Grover cleveland, Family, Marriage 

Back in July, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, establishing Trump Accounts — a tax-free savings program that provides a $1,000 government deposit for every U.S. newborn from 2025 to 2028. Families are permitted to contribute up to $5,000 annually starting July 4, 2026. Funds are locked until age 18, when they become available for uses like education, a first home, or business startup.

The core idea behind the initiative is to revive the American dream for today’s young Americans, who have lower home ownership rates, more student debt, and less wealth at age 30 than their parents or grandparents did.

But is it really a good idea? Or is it just another form of socialist wealth redistribution that creates dependency rather than true opportunity?

On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn spoke with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s adviser Joseph Lavorgna.

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described these Trump Accounts as “the beginning of a shareholder economy” during a panel at the New York Times DealBook Summit in New York.

“That’s a little frightening because we’ve been warning against the stakeholder economy. How far down the road does Secretary Bessent think we were on the stakeholder if this is the beginning of a shareholder economy?” Glenn asks.

But Lavorgna says there’s nothing frightening about Bessent’s statement.

“What he meant by that was that the U.S. economy is one that thrives when you’ve got incentives to produce and work,” he says.

“The bill that the president signed … encourages capital formation and growth and the ability to invest in the future to teach, in many cases yet-to-be-born boys and girls, the power of compound interest in being a stakeholder in the capitalist system.”

“In other words, if you have a stake in the system, you don’t want to burn it down?” Glenn asks.

“Right. It’s essentially the American dream. It’s a way to build wealth creation,” Lavorgna confirms, praising Trump Accounts as “a great investment for the future.”

But Glenn has two major concerns.

One: The same idea was proposed to our founders, but they shut it down.

“This was proposed before, during the founding era. It was called Agrarian Justice, and Thomas Paine said, ‘We should give 15 pounds to everybody who turns 21,’ and that 15 pounds … would be, in today’s dollars, about $2,500 to $3,000,” says Glenn.

The founders, he explains, “rejected it” as “redistribution of wealth” and “not government’s role.”

But Lavorgna defends the idea. “That was over a couple hundred years ago, and the economy and the capitalist system has evolved significantly. This isn’t a redistribution of wealth; this is an investment in the future and people’s livelihoods.”

He also argues that the program is a tool for developing “financial literacy,” meaning American youth will be taught that “when they put money aside, that money will grow and do wondrous things through the power of compound interest.”

Glenn’s second counterargument is that we shouldn’t be beginning any new government programs when the national debt is already out of control.

“We’re $38 trillion in debt. I’m so torn on this because I really do understand people feel like they don’t have a stake; they’re never going to get ahead; they’re never going to get a house — all of this stuff that’s leading them to this lie of socialism,” he says.

“We have to do something. But again, I’m so concerned about opening up a can of worms here that just gets out of control again.”

But Lavorgna says Trump Accounts are “not consumption.” The money, he says, goes straight “back into the capitalist system” — sparking businesses, growing companies, and creating jobs and wealth.

“The only way that we are going to be able to deal with the debt situation is to grow and to grow fast,” he says.

To hear Glenn’s response, watch the full interview above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Scott bessent, Joseph lavorgna, Us treasury, Trump accounts, Capitalism, Wealth redistribution, Socialism, National debt 

Following the unrest that unfolded at a Turning Point USA event at the University of California, Berkeley, the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into those behind the disruption.

One of the alleged organizers of the recent protest, By Any Means Necessary, has been described as part of the ecosystem of the “anti-fascist” movement.

These educators are attempting to advance their political agenda through statewide governmental jobs and teachers’ union leadership positions.

Unfortunately, UC Berkeley is no stranger to left-wing protests turning violent.

In 2017, several far-left agitators were arrested at a conservative rally on the same campus. One of those individuals was BAMN member and middle school teacher Yvette Felarca, who had previously defended the use of militant violence in an interview. She had also been charged in 2016 with assault related to a previous counter-protest.

But Felarca is not an anomaly. Rather, she is one example of a fringe of aggressive, far-left revolutionaries who seek to corrupt the K-12 education ecosystem to advance their radical political ideology. Whether through ethnic studies curriculums, organizing “Teach-ins for Gaza” and anti-Israel activism, or alleged glorification of terrorism and endorsement of Antifa, activist teachers are leveraging the historical trust bestowed upon the education profession to foment an anti-Western, anti-American mindset in schools and the culture writ large.

Not surprisingly, the teachers’ unions play a role in funding, promoting, and protecting these activist educators.

In fact, the American Federation of Teachers came to Felarca’s aid in 2018 by passing a resolution in support of her and her lawsuit against Judicial Watch. The legal action was aimed at stopping the watchdog group from obtaining public records from the school district. But the lawsuit failed.

Yet this has not stopped Felarca and other BAMN members from continuing to advance a far-left ideology both inside and outside K-12 schools.

For example, in March, Oakland High School (Calif.) students, flanked by teachers who affiliate with BAMN, led a protest over immigration policies. In this instance, the influence of the teacher-activists is no secret. The student protesters publicly claimed they received help from the local BAMN chapter in organizing the event.

RELATED: The radical left is poisoning our schools — here’s how we fight back

skynesher/Getty Images Plus

Even though street activism can be the most visible form of ideological battle on the American culture, these educators are attempting to advance their political agenda through statewide government jobs and teachers’ union leadership positions.

The executive vice president of United Educators of San Francisco, for example, is currently running for state superintendent of public instruction. The San Francisco Unified teacher touts that under his leadership, the UESF “transformed into one of California’s strongest and most militant unions.” His site also states that he is an activist and “longtime organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation” — an organization known to be behind many of the anti-Israel and anti-ICE protests that have taken place across the country.

In Los Angeles, the Association of Raza Educators, the education wing of the radical group Union del Barrio, has a slate of individuals running for positions of leadership in United Teachers Los Angeles. Included on the roster is teacher Ron Gochez, who is no stranger to controversial comments and actions.

In fact, he was recently the subject of a DOJ probe over public statements he made toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Other ARE members have served on committees for the California Teachers Association, have been delegates to the NEA convention, and are engaged in groups such as Educators for Justice in Palestine and Queers for Palestine.

The system is being used as a tool to advance a radical left-wing political agenda.

But should ARE achieve its goal of taking over leadership of the union of one of the largest school districts in the country, it would be more status quo than anomaly.

In 2021, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz infamously proclaimed that “there is no such thing as learning loss.” She continued by stating that it was “OK that our babies may not have learned their times tables … they learned the difference between riot and a protest.”

Myart-Cruz said the quiet part out loud — the teachers’ unions and far-left educators value political activism over learning.

Yet parents, public officials, and even other teachers are either willfully blind or largely unaware of the influence that these nefarious actors have on education despite the increase in public-facing activism. The system is being used as a tool to advance a radical left-wing political agenda, and it comes with a very steep cost for American children.

The proof is already starting to rear its ugly head, as evidenced by a recent University of California, San Diego, report.

Regardless of one’s position on public schools or teachers’ unions, this issue will eventually impact all Americans if left unaddressed. It is time to put a stop to the “school to far-left activism” pipeline and return the institution to its primary charter — to teach children to read and do math.

​Radical left, Education takeover, Teachers unions, Education 

After the nearly unanimous passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month, many have wondered what other files and information have yet to be disclosed amid the heated controversy over the Epstein files.

A federal judge in Florida just ordered the release of grand jury documents from an old case against Epstein, defying past orders not to release them.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith argued that a recent law now takes precedence over the rules that prohibited past disclosure.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith has ordered the release of grand jury transcripts related to investigations from 2005 and 2007 involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

RELATED: Was the latest Epstein document dump just Trump’s 4D chess trap? Steve Deace answers.

Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

Grand jury proceedings are often conducted in private and there are higher standards to meet in order to disclose transcripts from them.

However, U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith, in his short decision to release the transcripts, argued that a recent law now takes precedence over the rules that prohibited past disclosure.

Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky), who spearheaded the effort for disclosure, posted the news of the ruling on X on Friday afternoon.

Massie highlighted the fact that the Epstein Files Transparency Act played a crucial role in the judge’s decision to override past decisions against disclosure.

The Act, being “later-enacted” and more “specific”, trumps the rules barring the release of the documents in the past.

Epstein was not convicted of any crimes as a result of this grand jury investigation..

Instead, he famously pleaded guilty to comparatively minor charges in 2008 under the U.S. Attorney at the time, Alex Acosta, who later became Trump’s Labor Secretary in his first term. Acosta subsequently resigned following scrutiny over the non-prosecution agreement in 2008.

It is not clear when the grand jury transcripts will be released or exactly how much new information will be disclosed.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law on November 19, gives the government 30 days to prepare and release all relevant records.

Those following the case can expect an update on the release of any remaining files by December 19.

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​Politics, Epstein, Epstein files, Trump, Trump administration, Rodney smith, Epstein files transparency act, Thomas massie, Florida, Jeffrey epstein 

One of the great beauties of America, says Mark Levin, is her lack of fixed social classes. With grit and determination, anyone from any background can rise in the ranks and become successful. That’s why America is the top country of origin for self-made millionaires and billionaires.

Now compare that to Marxist regimes, where the mantra is “you are what you are, and that’s where you’re going to stay.” Work ethic, intelligence, ambition don’t get you anywhere, unless, of course, you’re part of the government machine that crushes the people.

And yet the radical left and the neofascist right alike are pushing similar grievance politics that echo Marxist tactics — demanding more government to “fix” a rigged system. Progressives say, “If you’re a minority, the system is out to get you,” while “the neofascists [say] if you’re white, the system is out to get you,” says Levin, accusing both groups of “racializing” economics to the detriment of all.

“They want more and more government, which is the biggest problem we have,” he says.

But this push for more federal power is the folly of ideologues. “We conservatives are motivated by reality. … Our principles are based on knowledge and information and experience and reality — not a fanatical ideology,” says Levin.

“This ideology of Marxism and socialism, it’s been imposed on one society after another — imposed. And it’s a disastrous outcome in every case: poverty, often genocide, no civil liberties.”

But because the government holds all the power, the blame can’t be placed on the ruling class when everything inevitably goes to hell in a handbasket. Rather the people — powerless and crushed economically and in spirit — shoulder the blame.

But even though history lessons in failed socialism abound, still people like Robert Reich make capitalism the villain. Levin plays a clip of the former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton whining about McDonald’s high prices — the same complaint he made in 1994 — as proof that corporations are deliberately creating a permanent underclass.

Levin’s response is brutal and simple: “You were an idiot in 1994, and you’re an idiot today.” In the 31 years since Reich’s prophecy, millions of supposedly “left-behind” Americans started businesses, bought homes, and invested.

“Your life isn’t static. The economy is not static. Nothing is static. The fact is things keep turning along. Sometimes they go over a cliff; sometimes up to the stars,” says Levin, noting that his life has changed tremendously since 1994.

But if you really want to buy Reich’s argument that McDonald’s and “processed foods” are the problem, go ahead and ban them, he says.

Get rid of the Big Macs, the canned beans, the frozen pizzas, the mass-produced bread, the snacks — everything affordable and convenient. The result won’t be social justice; it’s “people starve to death,” says Levin.

The ideological war on private enterprise always ends up punishing the very people it claims to help — exactly the pattern Marxism has repeated from Moscow to Havana. America works, Levin concludes, precisely because we let people solve their own problems instead of letting utopian grifters in Washington or on social media tell them the system is rigged and only total government control can save them.

To hear more of his commentary, watch the video above.

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​Levintv, Mark levin, Blazetv, Blaze media, Neofascist right, Marxist left, Capitalism, Socialism, Robert reich