Category: blaze media

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore appears eager to paint a rosy picture of his state and to downplay the severity of its crime problem. President Donald Trump simply isn’t buying what the Democrat is selling.

The president announced on Aug. 11 that he was federalizing the Washington Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the National Guard in order to “re-establish law, order, and public safety” to the national capital.

FBI statistics show that Baltimore has ‘the fifth-most instances of violent crime on a per capita basis, [and the] fourth-highest murder rate.’

Despite complaints from Democrats and other leftists, the initiative has been tremendously successful. In the first week, D.C. saw a 19% drop in property crimes and a 17% drop in violent crimes when compared with the previous week. The city also enjoyed at least 10 days without a murder.

Trump indicated at the outset that he has a mind to similarly bring law and order to other crime-ridden cities, including Baltimore, a city of fewer than 570,000 people, which has a 1 rating on Neighborhood Scout’s crime index where 100 is safest. Trump’s threat of a life-saving federal intervention did not sit well with Moore.

Less than two weeks after offering a knee-jerk critique of the president’s deployment of the National Guard, Moore suggested in an Aug. 21 letter to Trump that his state and the city of Baltimore are making progress where crime is concerned, citing a supposed 20% drop in homicides statewide since he took office two and a half years ago and a 22% year-over-year decrease in Baltimore homicides in the first six months of 2025.

Moore suggested that Baltimore was “on track to have the lowest number of homicides” since the city began officially keeping crime statistics, then invited Trump to attend a “public safety walk” in September.

RELATED: The numbers hold terrible news for the Democrats’ future

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The Democratic governor followed up his letter with an interview on Sunday with CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” where he vowed not to authorize the Maryland National Guard to be utilized for Trump’s law and order initiative; characterized the deployment of the National Guard as “unconstitutional”; and claimed that Trump was both “living in this blissful ignorance” and engaging in “1980s scare tactics” on the crime issue.

Baltimore’s Democrat mayor, Brandon Scott, has similarly suggested that Trump is pushing a false narrative about the crime problem in Maryland, stating, “When it comes to public safety in Baltimore, [Trump] should turn off the right-wing propaganda and look at the facts. Baltimore is the safest it’s been in over 50 years.”

‘Stop talking and get to work, Wes.’

Despite signaling an aversion to federal troops in Baltimore and suggesting things have improved in his city, Mayor Scott has called for “additional resources for Baltimore’s ATF, DEA, and FBI field offices.”

Moore did not argue with talking head Margaret Brennan when she acknowledged that FBI statistics show that Baltimore has “the fifth-most instances of violent crime on a per capita basis, [and the] fourth-highest murder rate,” but he rejected Trump’s strategy in D.C. as a possible remedy, calling it “purely performative.”

Trump punched back on Sunday, writing on Truth Social, “Governor Wes Moore of Maryland has asked, in a rather nasty and provocative tone, that I ‘walk the streets of Maryland’ with him. I assume he is talking about out of control, crime ridden, Baltimore? As President, I would much prefer that he clean up this Crime disaster before I go there for a ‘walk.'”

“Wes Moore’s record on Crime is a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing. But if Wes Moore needs help, like Gavin Newscum did in L.A., I will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime,” continued Trump. “After only one week, there is NO CRIME AND NO MURDER IN DC! When it is like that in Baltimore, I will proudly ‘walk the streets’ with the failing, because of Crime, Governor of Maryland. P.S. Baltimore is ranked the 4th WORST CITY IN THE NATION IN CRIME & MURDER.”

“Stop talking and get to work, Wes. I’ll then see you on the streets!” added the president.

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

​Maryland, Crime, Criminal, Donald trump, President, Trump, Wes moore, Baltimore, Democrat, Politics 

A court document obtained by Blaze News reveals that a final hearing date has been set, ordering the appearance of Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) in a petition for injunction for protection against dating violence filed by the reigning Miss United States, Lindsey Langston. The hearing is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, September 5, 2025, at the Columbia County Courthouse in Lake City, Florida.

Blaze News reported on August 5, 2025, that Ms. Langston alleged that she was the victim of revenge-porn threats by Mills following the breakup of their three-year relationship in February of this year.

‘I can send him a few videos of you as well.’

The original court hearing in this case was held via Zoom video conference on August 18, but was cut short at the request of Langston’s counsel, Bobi J. Frank, who explained to the court that they could not possibly present their case for a restraining order against Mills in the “17 minutes” of time allotted.

In that initial hearing, Florida Circuit Judge Fred Koberlein Jr. responded by asking both Frank and Mills’ attorney how much time they each would need to present their arguments and witnesses. Both parties asked for 45 minutes each. The judge then instructed the parties to present to the court mutually agreed-upon dates — at the earliest possible time — for a final hearing.

RELATED: Panicking? Cory Mills allegedly harasses Miss United States to try to kill bombshell story

Tom Williamson/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

The basis for Langston’s petition stems from a series of text messages she allegedly received from the congressman, in which he threatened to send photos and videos of the two having sex during their relationship to any current or future romantic partner Langston might have.

In one such text message shared with Blaze News, Mills threatened Langston, “I can send him a few videos of you as well,” and said, “Oh, I still have them.”

In other messages, Mills seemed to also threaten violence against any potential Langston suitors, saying, “[You] may want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy.”

Langston made an effort to fully understand the intentions conveyed by Mills’ texts, asking, “So I can be with you, be alone, or be scared that you’ll hurt whoever is in my life in the future?” Mills replied, “Take it how you want,” one screenshot revealed.

Langston shared with Blaze News her concerns about these threatening text messages. “Am I gonna wake up one day to videos of us having sex on social media?” she wondered. “Because I know he has them, and he’s put it in writing.”

On July 14, Langston filed a report with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office about Mills’ alleged threats of releasing revenge porn against her. She then spoke with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement a week later.

Sexual extortion, under Florida statute, is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison, 15 years of probation, and a $10,000 fine.

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

​Cory mills, Lindsey langston, Miss united states, Politics 

Following a trade deal involving a tariff reduction from the original 25%, down to 15% last month, President Trump is meeting with the newly elected president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung. The meeting will focus on trade and defense strategies, but Trump raised a different concern that will now likely color the conversation.

President Trump warned of apparent political instability in South Korea on Monday morning ahead of their meeting, even suggesting that it might be impossible to do business with the long-standing ally.

‘I cannot contain my outrage at the Lee Jae Myung administration’s ruthless political persecution and retaliation against the opposition, spearheaded by the special prosecution.’

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday morning. “I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”

Lee, who won the presidency in June to replace the conservative party’s stand-in candidate, has prioritized the economy in his short tenure. The ex-president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who fashioned himself as a Trumpian figure during his presidency to foster a connection with Trump, has been in jail since July 10.

RELATED: South Korea’s January 6: Is the deep state to blame?

Photo by David Mareuil/Anadolu via Getty Images

According to the French outlet Le Monde, Lee’s party recently conducted raids on the former party’s headquarters, including arresting the ex-first lady Kim Keon Hee. She was arrested on charges of corruption and stock manipulation on August 12. The raid was conducted on August 13 to collect evidence of election interference.

Opposition leader Song Eon-seog reportedly slammed the raid as “nothing short of gangster behavior.” “I cannot contain my outrage at the Lee Jae Myung administration’s ruthless political persecution and retaliation against the opposition, spearheaded by the special prosecution,” Song said in a news briefing.

President Lee headlined a dinner with local Korean Americans in Washington on Sunday night following his arrival. He is scheduled to depart on August 26.

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

​Politics, South korea, Trump, Trump administration, Lee jae myung, Tariffs, Economy, Yoon suk yeol, Kim keon hee 

MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran national credibly accused of human trafficking, domestic abuse, and posing a danger to the community — was deported back to his home country earlier this year, where he was housed in a prison for terrorists.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.), and Maxine Dexter (Ore.) were among the Democrats who complained about the MS-13 associate’s ouster and imprisonment and demanded his return.

‘Remember that I am free, and I was able to be reunited with my family.’

Democrats technically got what they wanted, but Garcia’s story did not ultimately play out as they may have hoped.

Garcia was brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges over his involvement in an alleged multistate human trafficking operation, then temporarily held at the Putnam County Jail in Tennessee.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Sean Hecker, told WZTV-TV on Friday that Garcia was free, “presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law.”

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Blaze News that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has cut short the MS-13 associate’s time with his family.

RELATED: Last week for John Oliver? Barmy Brit fears Trump will put him on ICE

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to Blaze News, “Today, ICE law enforcement arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia and are processing him for deportation.”

“President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator, to terrorize American citizens any longer,” added Noem.

Before surrendering to ICE in Baltimore on Monday, Garcia told supporters, “Brothers and sisters, my name is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and I want you to remember this: Remember that I am free, and I was able to be reunited with my family.”

Immigration officials reportedly offered to send Garcia packing to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty to the human smuggling charges. Since he apparently chose not to take the deal, he will apparently be deported to Uganda.

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

​Illegal alien, Ms-13, Terrorist, Gang, Gangster, Kilmar abrego garcia, Garcia, Ice, Deportation, Deport, Noem, Politics 

Earlier this year, Loudoun County Public Schools suspended two boys who attend Stone Bridge High School because of their interactions with a female student who chooses to use the boys’ locker room, as she identifies as male.

The school launched a Title IX investigation into the male students after they were recorded on video asking why there was a girl in the boys’ locker room. The girl was the one recording, which is a violation of district policy.

Nevertheless, the boys were determined to be responsible for sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination.

A third boy was also initially singled out by the male-identifying girl, but because he’s Muslim, he was let off for having a “religious objection,” despite the other two boys being Christian.

“This is just shocking, shocking behavior from a school system that’s supposed to be looking out for students as opposed to driving this liberal left agenda,” Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in an interview on “The John Fredericks Show.”

“So the Muslim gets the religious objection,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments, disturbed. “The Christians, or I don’t know, just boys who feel uncomfortable and are allowed to feel uncomfortable, they don’t get a pass.”

“I do believe that there will be the full force, the full weight of Donald Trump’s presidency leveled against this school, and rightfully so,” she continues, adding, “but, I mean, it’s crazy that this is happening in 2025, even to boys.”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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

​Camera phone, Video phone, Video, Upload, Sharing, Free, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Loudoun county public schools, Trans male, Trans in bathroom, Transgender bathroom, Transgender locker room, Lgbtq agenda, Glenn youngkin 

“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” President Trump declared last week in a Truth Social post.

Later that Monday, he promised an executive order “to end mail-in ballots because they are corrupt. You know that we are the only country in the world, I believe — I may be wrong — but just about the only country in the world that uses them because of what’s happened: massive fraud all over the place.”

Mail-in voting reopens the door to the fraud and vote-buying America worked so hard to eliminate a century ago.

Trump has remained consistent; even before the 2020 election, he warned: “There is a lot of dishonesty going along with mail-in voting.”

Europe rejects mail-in voting

Trump doesn’t need to hedge about voting rules abroad. Poland was the only other country that considered conducting its 2020 presidential election by mail during the pandemic, but it also abandoned the attempt.

Countries don’t use the kind of mass mail-in voting now used in eight states, where all registered voters receive ballots automatically and then mail them back. That system differs from absentee ballots, which require a request and traditionally demand a reason, such as being out of town on Election Day.

The United States doesn’t just stand out for its use of mail-in ballots — it’s also distinct for its unusually broad use of absentee ballots. Of 47 European countries, 35 — including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden — ban absentee voting for citizens living in the country. Ten others — including England, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain — allow it only if voters pick up their ballots in person and present photo ID.

Six of those restrict absentee ballots to the military or hospitalized voters, and they require verification from the military or hospital itself. The United States, by contrast, lets anyone claim he will be out of town and receive a ballot by mail.

England once followed rules similar to America’s. But in 2004, officials uncovered a massive fraud in Birmingham City Council races. Six winning Labour candidates had acquired about 40,000 fraudulent absentee votes, mainly from Muslim neighborhoods. England responded by ending the mailing of absentee ballots and requiring in-person pickup with photo ID.

France once had similarly loose rules. But in 1975, authorities exposed large-scale fraud on the island of Corsica, where dead people “voted” in the hundreds of thousands and widespread vote-buying flourished. France responded by banning absentee voting altogether.

From bipartisan to rampant

Concerns over absentee ballots once united both Democrats and Republicans. “Absentee ballots are the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That warning doesn’t come from Trump but from the bipartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, led by Democrat President Jimmy Carter and Republican Secretary of State James Baker III.

Voters across the spectrum still share those worries. A Rasmussen poll at the end of last year found that 59% of likely voters believe mail-in voting makes cheating easier. Majorities of black, Hispanic, and white voters agreed, along with both young and old. Only Democrats, liberals, graduate-school alumni, and those earning more than $200,000 disagreed. Earlier surveys saw similar results.

Even the New York Times once raised alarms. In 2012, the paper warned that the increased use of absentee ballots “will probably result in more uncounted votes, and it increases the potential for fraud.” But these days, that same newspaper insists voter-fraud claims for absentee ballots are “baseless” and “without evidence.”

RELATED: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ right again? FBI reveals MASSIVE alleged Chinese voter fraud plot

Photo by Element5 Digital/Getty Images

American history reinforces these concerns. Between 1888 and 1950, widespread vote-buying led states to adopt the secret ballot. Once voters could no longer prove to buyers how they had voted, the payments stopped. As one state after another started using secret ballots, turnout immediately fell by 8% to 12%, according to my research with the late Larry Kenny at the University of Florida — evidence of just how rampant the practice had been.

The Carter-Baker commission also highlighted how absentee voting enables coercion.

Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote-buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.

The problem is that both the buyer and seller have an incentive to hide the purchase.

The risks are real

Recent cases confirm the risks. Earlier this year, prosecutors indicted six Texans for harvesting ballots and buying votes by collecting absentee ballots. Absentee voting lets sellers prove how they voted, and ballot harvesting lets buyers ensure that the votes count — guaranteeing they get what they paid for.

Just this month, investigators in Hamtramck, Michigan, opened a fraud case after surveillance video showed a city council candidate’s aide stuffing three stacks of ballots into a drop box. The candidate had won by only a few dozen votes.

Mail-in voting reopens the door to the fraud and vote-buying America worked so hard to eliminate a century ago. That’s why countries such as Norway and Mexico prohibit absentee ballots for citizens voting domestically. Americans deserve the same safeguard — a voting system they can trust.

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

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Voting fraud, Mail-in ballots, Voter fraud, Vote buying, Absentee ballots, Great britain, Poland, France, Jimmy carter, James baker, Polling, Commission on federal election reform, Carter-baker commission, China, Ballot box 

If you’re old enough, you remember Clark Griswold — Chevy Chase’s bumbling but optimistic dad in “National Lampoon’s Vacation” — dragging his family across the country to reach Wally World. After a trail of disasters, Clark got his family to the gates, only to find the theme park closed. Undeterred, he improvised, fought back (in his slapstick way), and refused to give up on his promise to deliver joy.

Fast-forward to today. Warning: This article includes spoilers.

‘Nobody 2’ isn’t really about bullets and bloodshed. It’s about fathers who refuse to quit.

In “Nobody 2,” we meet Hutch (Bob Odenkirk), a far cry from Clark Griswold. Think “Vacation” meets “John Wick.” Hutch is a quiet father under siege by a world that won’t leave him alone. He struggles to shield his family not only from criminals but also from the toll the fight takes on his time and soul.

So Hutch does what Clark did: He plans a family trip, hoping to reclaim some peace. Instead, everything explodes — literally. A sadistic crime boss, a brutal syndicate, and one gut-wrenching moment when a security guard strikes his daughter. Hutch erupts, not for revenge, but to protect the people he loves most.

Fathers against a hostile culture

That arc — from Clark’s comedy of errors to Hutch’s bloody brawls — tells us something about our culture. In 1983, dads were goofs trying to make memories. In 2025, they’re embattled guardians. The father who simply wants to provide and protect finds himself waging war against a culture that derides family, treats children as disposable or designable, and mocks traditional marriage as oppressive.

The threats aren’t just cinematic. Fathers fight mountains of bills, debt, and cultural poison pumped daily into their children’s minds — DEI’s racial grievance, the LGBTQ+ lobby’s sex radicalism, and a constant drumbeat that undermines fatherhood itself.

Men are told they’re helpless. But they’re not. A father’s job is to lead his family toward the good life, armed with truth and love.

The ‘nobody’ every man

Hutch is called a “nobody” because that’s how the world sees him — the quiet everyman doing his duty, not chasing glory. But that’s exactly what makes him extraordinary. He embodies what fathers have always wanted: the best for their children and the enduring love of their wives.

The emotional heart of the film comes when Hutch tells his father, “I just want my son to be a better man than I am.” That is fatherhood distilled. We know our limits, we know our failures, and we want our sons to rise higher.

RELATED: The new ‘Karate Kid’ just kicked grievance culture in the teeth

Photo by Joe Maher/Getty Images

And here’s the twist feminists won’t like. The final villain — a shriveled old woman who embodies bitter family-hatred — isn’t defeated by Hutch. She’s finished off by his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen). Far from sidelined, she stands as his partner, the helper he needs to secure a future for their children.

Better men

It’s all metaphor, maybe allegory. “Nobody 2” isn’t really about bullets and bloodshed. It’s about fathers who refuse to quit. Men who insist that their families are worth everything. Husbands who know their sons can and must be better men.

The Griswolds made us laugh four decades ago. Hutch forces us to face what’s at stake today for fathers.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Fathers, Fatherhood, War on fathers, Chevy chase, Chevy chase griswold, Nobody, Nobody 2, Bob odenkirk, Family, Duty, National lampoon, Vacation, Movies 

Former FBI Director James Comey has just shared a creepy story about not only feeling deeply connected to Taylor Swift’s music, but attending multiple Taylor Swift concerts when the star was even younger than she is now.

“Taylor Swift has grown up with my family and provided us a soundtrack, really, as we’ve grown ourselves and learned and adapted and dealt with adversity and celebration. She had songs for all of it. I suspect that’s something that millions of Americans have also experienced in their families,” Comey said in the very strange video.

“I think that’s because Taylor Swift produces great art, but also because she models something. At every stage of her career, she’s shown a certain way of being that resonated with my kids and also felt right to me as a parent. And she’s still doing that as a grown-up,” he continued.

Comey went on to claim that he also struggles to “stand up to bullies without letting their meanness infect me and change me.” He then referenced California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new social media strategy, which is mocking “Donald Trump and his all-caps megalomania and his absurdity.”

“I got to be honest, it also leaves me with a strange feeling at times because I don’t want us to become like Trump and his followers. There are far more decent, honest, kind people in America than there are mean jerks,” Comey said, before bringing it back to Taylor Swift.

After attending his second Taylor Swift concert in Hartford, Connecticut, 14 years ago, “she sang a song about this topic, asking, ‘Why you got to be so mean.’” He finished the odd video by quoting the song.

BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler is in shock.

“It would almost be better if you thought, ‘Wow, he is just a loser who’s having verbal diarrhea, and that’s what he’s saying.’ No, no, look at his eyes in that video. He actually pre-wrote this and was reading it,” she says.

“Comey is a 50-year-old man at the time. Like, what a creeper to be a drooling fanboy over a young girl,” she continues, adding, “And yet he seems proud of this? We knew he was a weirdo and a corrupt criminal, but did you also know that he was a disgusting creep? Well, now you do.”

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Upload, Video, Camera phone, Video phone, Free, Sharing, Youtube.com, The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Taylor swift, Swifties, James comey taylor swift, James comey, Fbi, Gavin newsom, President donald trump, Truth social 

The world is on the verge of a technological revolution unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Artificial intelligence is a defining force that will shape military power, economic growth, the future of medicine, surveillance, and the global balance of freedom versus authoritarianism — and whoever leads in AI will set the rules for the 21st century.

The stakes could not be higher. And yet while America debates regulations and climate policy, China is already racing ahead, fueled by energy abundance.

Energy abundance must be understood as a core national policy imperative — not just as a side issue for environmental debates.

When people talk about China’s strategy in the AI race, they usually point to state subsidies and investments. China’s command-economy structure allows the Chinese Communist Party to control the direction of the country’s production. For example, in recent years, the CCP has poured billions of dollars into quantum computing.

China’s energy edge

But another, more important story is at play: China is powering its AI push with a historic surge in energy production.

China has been constructing new coal plants at a staggering speed, accounting for 95% of new coal plants built worldwide in 2023. China just recently broke ground on what is being dubbed the “world’s largest hydropower dam.” These and other energy projects have resulted in massive growth in energy production in China in the past few decades. In fact, production climbed from 1,356 terawatt hours in 2000 to an incredible 10,073 terawatt hours in 2024.

Beijing understands what too many American policymakers ignore: Modern economies and advanced AI models are energy monsters. Training cutting-edge systems requires millions of kilowatt hours of power. Keeping AI running at scale demands a resilient and reliable grid.

China isn’t wringing its hands about carbon targets or ESG metrics. It’s doing what great powers do when they intend to dominate: They make sure nothing — especially energy scarcity — stands in their way.

America’s self-inflicted weakness

Meanwhile, in America, most of our leaders have embraced climate alarmism over common sense. We’ve strangled coal, stalled nuclear, and made it nearly impossible to build new power infrastructure. Subsidized green schemes may win applause at Davos, but they don’t keep the lights on. And they certainly can’t fuel the data centers that AI requires.

The demand for energy from the AI industry shows no sign of slowing. Developers are already bypassing traditional utilities to build their own power plants, a sign of just how immense the pressure on the grid has become. That demand is also driving up energy costs for everyday citizens who now compete with data centers for electricity.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has even spoken of plans to spend “trillions” on new data center construction. Morgan Stanley projects that global investment in AI-related infrastructure could reach $3 trillion by 2028.

Already, grid instability is a growing problem. Blackouts, brownouts, and soaring electricity prices are becoming a feature of American life. Now imagine layering the immense demand of AI on top of a fragile system designed to appease activists rather than strengthen a nation.

In the AI age, a weak grid equals a weak country. And weakness is something that authoritarian rivals like Beijing are counting on.

Time to hit the accelerator

Donald Trump has already done a tremendous amount of work to reorient America toward energy dominance. In the first days of his administration, he released detailed plans explicitly focused on “unleashing American energy,” signaling that the message is being taken seriously at the highest levels.

Over the past several months, Trump has signed numerous executive orders to bolster domestic energy production and end subsidies for unreliable energy sources. Most recently, the Environmental Protection Agency has moved to rescind the Endangerment Finding — a potentially massive blow to the climate agenda that has hamstrung energy production in the United States since the Obama administration.

These steps deserve a lot of credit and support. However, for America to remain competitive in the AI race, we must not only continue this momentum but ramp it up wherever possible. Energy abundance must be understood as a core national policy imperative — not just as a side issue for environmental debates.

RELATED: MAGA meets the machine: Trump goes all in on AI

Photo by Grafissimo via Getty Images

Silicon Valley cannot out-innovate a blackout. However, Americans can’t code their way around an empty power plant. If China has both the AI models and the energy muscle to run them, while America ties itself in regulatory knots, the future belongs to China.

Liberty on the line

This is about more than technology. This is about the world we want to live in. An authoritarian China, armed with both AI supremacy and energy dominance, would have the power to bend the global order toward censorship, surveillance, and control.

If we want America to lead the future of artificial intelligence, then we must act now. The AI race cannot be won by Silicon Valley alone. It will be won only if America moves full speed ahead with abundant domestic energy production, climate realism, and universal access to affordable and reliable energy for all.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Ai, Ai race, A.i., A.i.race, China, China ai, China artificial intelligence, Nuclear power, Energy, America first, Artificial intelligence, Chatgpt, Grok, Deepseek ai, Department of energy, National security, National defense, Coal, Abundance, Quantum computing, Power grid, Terawatts, Climate change alarmism 

Cracker Barrel is facing outrage over the decision to redesign the company’s iconic logo and the appearance of the chain’s restaurants. It has also surfaced that the beloved national restaurant chain has been aligning with woke organizations for years, according to reports.

As Blaze News reported in June 2023, Cracker Barrel faced boycotts over celebrating Pride Month. Cracker Barrel received backlash for proudly announcing that the restaurant chain with southern comfort food was vowing to push DEI initiatives with an LGBTQ+ alliance.

‘Cracker Barrel didn’t just lose its logo. It lost its soul.’

The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store previously shared a social media post featuring a photo of a rainbow-colored version of the chain’s iconic rocking chair sitting on the porch. The photo had the caption: “We are excited to celebrate Pride Month with our employees and guests. Everyone is always welcome at our table (and our rainbow rocker). Happy Pride!”

The Tennessee-based restaurant touts the company’s “Business Resource Groups,” which “allow employees to come together with common interests, perspectives, and experiences around topics such as race, ethnicity, gender identity, and other special interests, space to be a community.”

Cracker Barrel highlights several special interest groups within the organization, including:

LGBTQ+ Alliance: “Supporting Home Office and Field employees to bring their whole selves to work while strengthening Cracker Barrel’s relationship to the LGBTQ+ community.”Be Bold: “The mission of Be Bold is to cultivate and develop Black Leaders within the Cracker Barrel organization utilizing allyship, mentorship, and education to create a path to continued excellence as well as a vibrant and diverse community.”HOLA: “HOLA’s mission is to promote Hispanic and Latino culture through hiring, developing, and retaining talent within Cracker Barrel. To create a culture of inclusivity and awareness through community outreach.”Women’s Connect: “Our mission & goal is to inspire the women of Cracker Barrel by empowering, educating and engaging to achieve the strategic initiatives of Cracker Barrel.”

RELATED: Ford becomes latest company to reject DEI initiatives — Human Rights Campaign resorts to name-calling after slew of losses

Anti-DEI crusader Robby Starbuck revealed Cracker Barrel’s ties with left-leaning organizations.

Starbuck claimed that Cracker Barrel had sponsored Human Rights Campaign events for 10 years.

Starbuck wrote on the X social media platform, “They even brought an HRC representative to their Tennessee HQ to do a pronoun and transgenderism training.”

The Human Rights Campaign is described as being the “nation’s largest LGBT-interest activist organization” and having a “leading role in Democratic Party politics and left-leaning activism” by InfluenceWatch — an organization that provides “accurate descriptions of all of the various influencers of public policy issues.”

“Cracker Barrel worked with a group called Conexión Américas as part of their DEI efforts,” Starbuck asserted. “This group helps illegal immigrants, providing them with lawyers, and the executive director opposes President Trump’s deportations.”

Starbuck continued, “Cracker Barrel sponsored the Out & Equal LGBTQ Workplace Advocate Conference and presented a workshop on how Cracker Barrel has made progress supporting LGBTQ+ causes.”

Starbuck noted that Cracker Barrel won the 2018 award for top LGBT employee resource group from Out & Equal.

Starbuck accused the Southern-style restaurant chain of creating a “special ‘diverse’ suppliers program focused on increasing ‘diversity’ among suppliers.”

Starbuck highlighted that Cracker Barrel partnered with Nashville Pride and River City Pride.

RELATED: Woke Air Force Academy trains cadets on microaggressions, ‘inclusive climate,’ and rejects words like ‘terrorist,’ ‘mom,’ and ‘dad’

Blaze News previously reported that the company hired three marketing agencies to “help with its redesign as part of a $700 million larger transformation plan.”

Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck stated, “Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino said on Good Morning America this week that people are thrilled about the [restaurant’s] rebrand. I think she’s lying.”

“Woke ideology has changed our country in countless ways, some of which we may never get back. But Cracker Barrel has always represented the one thing I think so many Americans currently crave: NOSTALGIA,” Beck added. “You go to Cracker Barrel for the rocking chairs outside, the meals that taste like grandma’s home cooking, and the simple game of Chinese checkers on the table.”

“‘Rebrand’ all of that to something more modern, something more inclusive, and something that erases those feelings, and you’re ‘rebranding’ the SOLE reason why anyone goes there to begin with,” Beck concluded.

Blaze Media contributor Carol Roth said, “Cracker Barrel’s stock is down double digits over investors[‘] concerns that its new rebrand, including changing its logo and remodeling its dining rooms, will alienate loyal customers. This is just the latest example in a long list of companies who don’t understand their core, loyal customers.”

A post on X with more than 28,000 likes stated, “Cracker Barrel didn’t just lose its logo. It lost its soul.”

A spokesperson for Cracker Barrel told Fox News, “Our values haven’t changed, and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel haven’t changed.”

“And Uncle Herschel remains front and center in our restaurants and on our menu,” the spokesperson said of the face of the restaurant chain. “He is the face of ‘the Herschel Way,’ the foundation of how our 70,000-plus employees provide the country hospitality for which we are known.”

“Cracker Barrel has been a destination for comfort and community for more than half a century, and this fifth evolution of the brand’s logo, which works across digital platforms as well as billboards and roadside signs, is a call-back to the original and rooted even more in the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all back in 1969,” Cracker Barrel said.

Cracker Barrel said it “has not participated in the Human Rights Campaign Index or had any affiliation with HRC in several years.”

Cracker Barrel did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Blaze News.

Recent boycotts relating to the current culture wars have been directed at Bud Light, Target, and Chick-fil-A.

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

​Go woke go broke, Woke, Wokeness, Boycott, Conservative boycott, Culture war, Culture wars, Lgbtq, News 

We can’t lose John Oliver too!

Liberals are still reeling over Stephen Colbert’s slow-motion cancellation over at CBS’ “The Late Show.” The gnashing of teeth may keep dentists busy for months.

Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The “Aviator” alum is at the top of his game. We also hear he’s a pretty good actor — when he’s not honing his cradle-snatching craft.

Now, the host of “Last Week Tonight” warns that Herr Trump could pluck him off the street at any given moment, ICE-style. Oliver is an immigrant, after all, as he told broadcasting newbie Monica Lewinsky on her “Reclaiming” podcast. (Yeah, that Monica Lewinsky.)

“With all these stories going on, it brings something out of you. Like, it’s there, that anxiety that I thought I’d moved past that day that I got my citizenship.”

Oliver is a legal U.S. citizen, despite his snooty accent. So he has nothing to fear save HBO realizing its investment in his low-rated show may not be the wisest decision moving forward …

Friendship ended with JD

Ron Howard is scared too.

The Oscar winner is 71, and his once white-hot career has cooled. His “Solo: A Star Wars Story” under-performed in 2018. Recent films like “Thirteen Lives” got little attention. His latest project, “Eden,” hits select theaters this weekend after a stint on the proverbial shelf.

The buzz factor? Zero point zero, despite the presence of a certain jeans spokesperson.

Worst of all for the former Opie Cunningham? His name will forever be attached to the next Hitler, Vice President JD Vance.

Howard directed “Hillbilly Elegy,” the 2019 film version of Vance’s best-selling autobiography. For that, Howard must be punished. So the director is doing it before anyone else can.

He told Vulture that he doesn’t think about the film anymore. That’s a good start, Ronny, but keep going!

He acknowledges that critics roasted it, while audiences dug it, hinting at a cultural divide at play. Wait … that isn’t helping.

Howard also lashed out at Vance, saying he “wouldn’t have expected his rhetoric to be as divisive as it sometimes is. By the way, I’m not following him or listening to every word.”

Well done, sir. Bravo!

Phew. Damage control accomplished …

Lost in ‘found’

Wait. I thought we were done with found-footage films.

Blame 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project” for sparking a run of cheap horror movies told through the eyes of amateur filmmakers. Shaky cameras. Improvised dialogue. Increasingly crazy reasons for not dropping the camera and running like heck.

Yeah, that trend needed to die. And it did. Mostly.

We recently saw “Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project.” The indie horror comedy didn’t technically use that format, but the film within a film sure did. And, wouldn’t you know it, it proved both funny and spooky.

Now, a true-blue found-footage feature is hitting theaters at month’s end.

“The Workout” follows an Army Ranger (Peter Jae) and his pregnant wife (Galadriel Stineman), filming an exercise video. A mob hit kills the wife, leaving her widower on a mission to film his revenge on those who snuffed out his beloved bride. His unborn child somehow survived the attack, and the revenge footage will show the kid how its late mother’s killers were brought to justice.

Not a bad elevator pitch, but we’re pretty much done with those shaky camera scenes at this point, no? If “The Workout” makes a dent at the box office, it could be “Found Footage: The Sequel” heading our way …

Forever young(ish)

Here’s an idea for a new Hollywood trend: self-awareness boot camp. No $50 smoothies, no herbalist-led cleanses, no past-life regression. Just someone to do for them what life does to the rest of us for free: smack some sense into them.

The first client? Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The “Aviator” alum is at the top of his game. We also hear he’s a pretty good actor — when he’s not honing his cradle-snatching craft.

Yes, everybody knows DiCaprio for his penchant for dating much younger woman. Everybody, perhaps, except the 50-year-old star himself.

Recently, director Paul Thomas Anderson asked him one simple question: “If you didn’t know how old you are, how old are you right now?”

“32,” the actor said.

Cue the social media memes. This one sums it up nicely: “Even in his mind, he’s still older than his girlfriends.”

​Hollywood, Leonardo dicaprio, John oliver, Ice, Culture, Entertainment, Toto recall 

In 2011, a Detroit Lions linebacker sacked Tim Tebow and chose to celebrate by mocking Tebow’s famed kneeling prayer pose. Later in the game, another Lions player did the same, using his touchdown celebration to make fun of Tebow’s prayer pose.

At the time, the media didn’t scold the Lions. Instead, they chided Christians for being “too easily offended.” The Lions players pretended that they weren’t making fun of God, despite the fact that they were making jokes intended to humiliate Christians.

Sports have always been about excellence and virtue, values that don’t align with DEI and leftist ideologies.

That season was a difficult year for Tebow.

While he scored the coveted role of starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos, he also became one of the most ridiculed professional athletes. Jake Plummer, a former Broncos quarterback, said that he would “rather not have to hear” about Tebow’s faith. Broncos chief of football operations John Elway was also icy and unwelcoming toward the young, new quarterback.

At the time, many sports commentators and football fans went out of their way to make fun of Tebow’s faith. It was constantly used against him through memes and disingenuous critiques of his athletic abilities. Even “Saturday Night Live” aired a skit in which Jesus appeared in the Broncos’ locker room, making fun of the saying that “Jesus was helping Tebow win games.”

Major media outlets were silent, and any defense of Tebow typically was met with an eye-rolling allegation of “not being able to take a joke.”

Tebow effect

In the years after Tebow, there was a quiet uncertainty as to how Christian athletes would be received for openly expressing their faith.

But nearly 15 years after he became ESPN’s favorite joke, it’s now clear that Tebow blazed a trail for a new generation of expressive Christian athletes.

Earlier this month, for example, Justin Fields, the new quarterback for the New York Jets, said that he is “low-key addicted to getting into [his] Bible.” New England Patriots running back TreVeyon Henderson said that “God calls me to work as heartily as for Him, not to please men.” And several players for the Arizona State Sun Devils football team were recently baptized and started attending a team Bible study together, openly expressing their faith in interviews.

These are just a few of the countless examples of football players following in Tebow’s footsteps, publicly embracing their Christian faith. Call it the “Tebow effect.”

RELATED: Paint fades, prayer endures in the NFL

Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

This “Tebow effect” comes despite the NFL’s decision to embrace wokeism.

The NFL has heavily promoted LGBTQ Pride nights, celebrated transgender cheerleaders, and, infamously, painted “End Racism” in field end zones when the BLM movement swept the nation.

The NFL’s woke agenda felt particularly suspicious in the years following the Tebow controversy. In fact, it felt as if Christian fans were intentionally being alienated from the sport. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the NFL experienced significant ratings hits when players kneeled during the national anthem and when the league virtue-signaled during the pandemic and at the height of the BLM mania.

Woke reversal

But seeing professional athletes openly express their Christian faith helps mend the wounds of wokeism. It allows viewers to build relationships with players through the joy of shared faith. Even better, to see athletes profess their Christian faith makes them feel more authentic, proving they’re not just cogs in a corporate conglomerate.

Fortunately, football players aren’t the only athletes to publicly embrace their Christian faith.

Sports are a reflection of God’s gifts, built through the dedication and reverence encouraged through the Bible.

The Savannah Bananas, an exhibition baseball team, have become a cultural phenomenon as they continuously sell out MLB ballparks across the country. And as the team’s popularity rapidly expands, players have never shied away from their Christian faith.

Players paint crosses on their cheeks and write Bible verses on their bats and helmets, and many members are actively involved in a team-wide Bible study. Their Christian faith has encouraged them to create a family-friendly experience, where children aren’t exposed to unsavory content for mature audiences.

This year, the Texas Rangers stood up to MLB when they decided to be the only team not hosting a Pride night. Although they are only one team among dozens, this bold act represents a shift away from liberal, anti-Christian messaging.

Christian vindication

Sports have always been about excellence and virtue, values that don’t align with DEI and leftist ideologies. Sports are a reflection of God’s gifts, built through the dedication and reverence encouraged through the Bible.

It makes sense, then, that many athletes have turned to a life of Christ instead of a life of “co-exist” and “tolerance” bumper stickers.

Tebow helped blaze the trail that made this possible, and fortunately, he has found quiet vindication.

After he and his wife welcomed their first daughter, he posted a video of her lying across his chest while he worked on his laptop. It was a humbling moment, one familiar to new dads. It also showed that, despite having endured so much ridicule for his faith, Tebow gets to rejoice in the joys of family and grace.

As it turns out, the joke wasn’t on Tebow — it was on those who thought Christian faith could be mocked into silence.

​Nfl, Prayer, Tim tebow, Christianity, Christians, Christian athletes, Woke, Faith 

Do you spend too much time in your car?

Your local state authorities think you do — and they’re quietly pushing through laws that will give them the power to do something about it.

Don’t want to pay a mileage tax? Don’t drive. Need to commute to a job 40 miles away? That’s your problem. Visit family out of state too often? Expect to pay a premium.

Meet Massachusetts Senate Bill S.2246. Introduced by state Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem, it sets the stage for a future where the government tracks and potentially limits how many miles you drive each year. This isn’t a fringe proposal — it’s working its way through the legislature right now, and similar ideas are being tested in other states across the country.

Is this really about emissions — or is it about power and control?

What’s in the bill?

The Massachusetts legislation proposes the creation of a new government entity that would track vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, and implement policies to reduce them over time. While the bill doesn’t yet impose mileage caps, it does instruct state agencies to create a “reasonable pathway” to cut how much people drive annually.

Translation: A government-mandated limit on personal travel is no longer hypothetical — it’s being drafted right now.

Bill S.2246 also outlines coordination with automakers and the use of vehicle inspection data to monitor individual mileage. It even suggests changes to urban planning, encouraging the development of walkable neighborhoods and fewer parking options, all with the goal of getting you out of your car — whether you want to or not.

This bill didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s modeled on similar policies in places like Colorado and Minnesota, where pilot programs are already testing new ways to tax drivers based on how far they travel.

The new war on drivers

While Massachusetts leads this particular charge, it’s far from alone. A number of states are exploring ways to replace traditional gas taxes with per-mile taxes. They claim it’s about addressing the rise of electric vehicles and declining fuel tax revenue. But behind that talking point is a broader plan to monitor and manage how people use their personal vehicles.

States to watch include:

Minnesota: Testing mileage-based taxes and creating policies to “reduce vehicle use”;Colorado: Committed to reducing VMT through state-level planning;Oregon: A pioneer in per-mile taxation with the OReGO program;New York and New Jersey: Both states are implementing congestion pricing in urban zones — a foot in the door for broader travel-based taxation; andCalifornia and Washington: Actively developing road usage charges and congestion pricing models. Their VMT tax is well into the planning stages.

“Pilot project.” Sounds like an innocent trial run, doesn’t it? But pilot projects have a way of becoming law — slowly, quietly, and without voter input.

RELATED: A Look at Oregon’s Program to Tax Drivers by the Mile

Image source: KTVL-TV

Moving violations

Supporters say these measures are about managing traffic or protecting the environment. But let’s be honest: This is about expanding state authority into private life.

It’s not just taxation. It’s surveillance. Think about it: If a government agency has the authority to track your mileage, it has the authority to restrict it. Combine that with modern vehicles equipped with GPS, connected services, and remote data-sharing, and we’re talking about a future where the state doesn’t just monitor your driving — it can penalize it.

Don’t want to pay a mileage tax? Don’t drive. Need to commute to a job 40 miles away? That’s your problem. Visit family out of state too often? Expect to pay a premium. This is a direct attack on working Americans, rural residents, and anyone who depends on their vehicle for daily life.

It’s no coincidence that many of these policies target personal liberty while funneling more money into government-approved programs — public transit, bike lanes, and urban planning initiatives that don’t serve the vast majority of residents.

Tax by another name

What’s being proposed isn’t a substitute for the gas tax. It’s an additional layer of taxation — one that disproportionately affects low-income Americans, small-business owners, and people who live outside city centers. People who can’t hop on a bus or ride a bike to work will end up paying the most.

It also opens the door to data collection on a scale we’ve never seen before. Once the government starts tracking your mileage, what’s next? Will your insurance rates be tied to state mileage thresholds? Will “excessive driving” be taxed as a form of noncompliance?

Creeping regulation

We’ve seen this approach before — quietly introduce “pilot” programs, sell them as innovative or necessary, and then expand them into mandates. It’s the same strategy used with toll lanes, emissions testing, and now digital IDs and connected vehicles.

The Massachusetts’ bill is especially troubling because the state has a reputation for pushing back on centralized control. It was one of the first states to pass a right-to-repair law and strengthen data privacy for consumers. But even in that context, this legislation is moving forward — slowly, with little attention, and under the radar of most residents.

The goal is simple: Shift transportation from a private activity to a regulated service. If that doesn’t concern you, it should.

What can you do?

Freedom of movement is a basic American right. If lawmakers are going to put a price tag on it — or worse, limit it — then every citizen should be aware and vocal.

Now is the time to contact your legislators and let them know you oppose mileage tracking and per-mile taxation.

Many of these programs are pushed by consulting firms and vendors who profit from tracking infrastructure. As I always say, follow the money.

These kinds of authoritarian initiatives don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat. And once government control over your mobility is normalized, it won’t stop at driving. The same logic can be applied to where you shop, when you travel, or how often you leave your home.

What’s happening in Massachusetts is a test case. If this legislation moves forward, expect a wave of similar bills in other states — all claiming to modernize transportation while actually expanding government power over your everyday life.

Personal vehicles represent more than just transportation. They’re a symbol of independence, flexibility, and the freedom to move as you choose. That freedom is under attack — not with a bang, but with quiet legislation buried in statehouse committees.

Watch closely. Push back early. Because once this kind of control is codified into law, it doesn’t go away easily. We need to get in front of these laws before it’s too late.

​Mileage tax, Lifestyle, Consumer news, State government, Surveillance, Privacy, Align cars 

One of the greatest public health issues facing the youngest generations in America is the pandemic of the online exploitation and abuse of children.

We’ve all heard stories about how this happens. They are tragic and yet preventable. A Rhode Island man, for example, was recently indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly communicating with a minor female on several social media platforms, enticing her to send him photographs of herself, and meeting with her to “engage in illicit sexual activity.” And a New York man was indicted for allegedly luring two 11-year-old boys through Snapchat before meeting them in person and sexually assaulting them.

We can’t continue to fight a raging forest fire with a squirt gun.

Parents often have a false sense of security, thinking that these things can’t possibly happen to their children.

But the numbers tell a different story.

Industrial scale

In 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 20.5 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation containing more than 62.9 million images or videos of children as young as infants and toddlers to its CyberTipline and reported a 192% increase in online enticement cases since 2023.

Another disturbing trend is that NCMEC’s CyberTipline received more than 1,300 reports with a nexus to a violent online group — an increase of more than 200% since 2023.

Younger and younger children are being targeted “on an industrial scale” by internet groomers, with a threefold increase in imagery showing 7- to 10-year-olds. The FBI has warned that global financial sextortion is one of the fastest-growing crimes targeting children, minor boys in particular. Young people (10-16 years old) who accessed or shared sexual content or images of cyberbullying or violence had up to a 50% higher risk for thoughts of suicide.

Social media experts are also warning about the impact of social media on youth mental health. Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called it the “defining public health challenge of our times.” Even teens (48%) report that social media sites have a mostly negative effect on their peers.

These numbers demand wholesale and urgent changes.

Time to act

First and foremost, Big Tech must be held responsible and accountable to put the safety of youth over profits. Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord combined spent $30 million on lobbying in 2023. Big Tech companies made $11 billion in ad revenue from minor children in 2022, according to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Big Tech does not want accountability, so our elected officials must ramp up efforts to win the war Big Tech is waging against our children.

RELATED: How Big Tech hijacked the classroom — and our kids are paying the price

gguy44/iStock/Getty Images Plus

We can’t continue to fight a raging forest fire with a squirt gun. The advent of AI is only escalating exponentially online crimes against children. Congress must take bold action to pass solutions like the Kids Online Safety Act, which requires social media companies to provide safeguards and tools for minors and parents and to enable the strongest safety settings by default. It also creates a duty of care for online platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to children.

Congress must also consider sunsetting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which Big Tech has used for decades as its liability shield to avoid legal accountability for harms happening to children.

Leadership required

The battle for our children ultimately starts at the top.

President Trump has both the challenge and opportunity through the presidential appointment process, directives, policies, a robust legislative agenda, and the signing and implementation of the Children’s Internet Safety Presidential Pledge to fight this war on all fronts to make the internet safe for children and families for the first time in history. Over 80 organizations and survivor leaders joined my organization, Enough Is Enough, in calling on the president to prioritize the prevention of the online exploitation of youth.

President Trump recently signed the bipartisan-supported Take It Down Act into law, requiring websites to remove intimate images published without someone’s consent, including AI-generated deepfake pornography, within 48 hours of notification. Many parents whose children were victims of sextortion fought for this solution to help protect children from being victims of this horrific crime.

An entire generation will be lost if online threats to children are not mitigated now.

These same parents, along with many anti-exploitation organizations, recently joined forces to fight against Big Tech efforts to thwart state-level online child protection laws by the U.S. Congress’ ill-intentioned 10-year AI moratorium provision in the budget bill.

Thankfully, it was removed this time. But Big Tech will not stop trying to evade accountability for protecting our children.

Golden digital age

Parents are the first and last line of defense for their children’s safety online. Enough Is Enough provides current educational information, parent-designed curriculums, and video tutorials designed to educate, equip, and empower parents and caregivers about how to better protect their children in the digital world.

However, parents cannot do this alone. There are shared responsibilities between the public, corporate America, government, and faith communities.

We have the tools, the technology, and the ability to make the internet safer for our children. We have multiple bipartisan bills in Congress moving forward. We have a take-action president who makes the impossible possible. But do we have the will?

An entire generation will be lost if online threats to children are not mitigated now.

The golden age of America is not possible unless it includes a golden digital age that prioritizes safeguarding the innocence and dignity of America’s future: our children.

​Protect children, Online exploitation, Technology, Social media, Screen addiction, Big tech, Tech 

In the intensive care unit, the room went still except for the hum of the monitors and the shallow rise and fall of my wife’s chest. She lay pale from anesthesia, her body marked by decades of procedures.

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” I knew what I believed — or thought I did — until reality landed its blow. The light of Christ still shone, but in that moment it felt blinding as I strained to process what was right before me.

Headlines trumpet confusion as wisdom, cruelty as strength, and lies as truth. God’s light exposes all of it.

Christian, what do you believe?

That question often barges in under fluorescent lights at zero-dark-thirty, in the antiseptic air of another hospital ward. I have carried it for four decades. The answers I had given in calmer moments felt almost foreign. What felt solid now seemed strange in the glare of suffering — like when our surgeon told Gracie to shield her eyes before flipping on the switch during early rounds.

Light can blind — at first

The light can be startling — even blinding. Nathan’s words to David were blunt: “Thou art the man” (2 Samuel 12:7, KJV). In an instant, the light of God’s truth flooded David’s soul. He wasn’t confused by darkness — he was undone by holiness.

That first rush of light leaves us blinking, unsure of our next step. I’ve watched how often believers steady one another in those moments. Many recall stumbling in the dark, but fewer notice how many flounder in the light.

Paul did. On the road to Damascus, he was blinded by Christ’s light. For three days, he couldn’t see, eat, or drink — helpless until another believer, Ananias, prayed over him. Paul didn’t start his ministry standing tall; he began flat on the ground, unable to move without help.

Step from a dark room into sudden brightness, or bask in sunlight only to move into shade, and your eyes scramble to adjust. The same happens when God’s word exposes what we’d rather not see or illuminates what we can’t easily process. As C.S. Lewis once said of the sun, “By it, I see everything else.”

But learning to live in the light takes time. Lewis captured that same disorientation in “The Last Battle,” when Eustace stepped unwittingly into Aslan’s country through a terrifying portal. What lay ahead looked strange and even jarring, though it opened to something unimaginably wonderful. But as friends came alongside him, his fear gave way to awe.

The beauty hadn’t changed; only his ability to stand in it had.

The man in Mark 8 felt this too. When Jesus touched his eyes, he blinked into daylight and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” He knew the light was real, but the world inside it looked strange. He needed another touch before he could see clearly.

Are we willing to be light?

Our culture knows the disorientation but refuses the cure. Headlines trumpet confusion as wisdom, cruelty as strength, and lies as truth. God’s light exposes all of it. Which is why we must ask: Christian, what do we believe?

And am I willing to live as light in a world stumbling in darkness? Am I willing to be Nathan, speaking truth that wounds in order to heal — first to myself and then to others? Am I willing to be like Ananias, walking toward a Saul who once hated the faith and offering the touch that restores his sight?

What I’ve seen is that Christ’s call doesn’t stop with stepping into the light; it presses us to keep walking in it — and to carry it to others.

The psalmist wrote, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Not a floodlight for the road — just a lamp for the next step. Step by step, not sprinting.

RELATED: When the soul flatlines, call a ‘Code Grace’

Marco VDM via iStock/Getty Images

Some, like Paul, even knew ahead of time what he would suffer. Yet God gave grace — and even a glimpse of glory. The vision didn’t erase the hardship but rather reshaped how Paul endured it.

The famed hymn writer Fanny Crosby understood this better than most. Blinded as a baby, she said, “When I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.”

Until then, Christ’s call remains: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” A lamp doesn’t hide under a basket. A beacon shines so that others can find safety.

A call to stand firm

On this four-decade journey as a caregiver, I must preach to myself daily: “Stop floundering in the light!” Take a breath. Stand firm on the ground it reveals.

And once I’ve found my footing — usually with another steadying me — I’m called to help the next person who’s still blinking in the brightness.

​Opinion & analysis, Religion, Faith, Hospital, Caregivers, Caregiving, Apostle paul, Damascus, Jesus christ, Light, Christians, Truth, Recovery, Surgery, Suffering, C.s. lewis, Fanny crosby, Blindness 

The stark economic reality of the health care system in America is that every single institution that touches our health — from hospitals to pharma to insurance companies — will make more money if you are sick and less money if you are healthy.

“So, chronic diseases … the system profits off treating those as separate things that you do things to for long periods of time. Chronic disease management. So not actually healing it, but managing it,” Dr. Casey Means tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“And so, because that’s built into the deep finances of the largest and fast-growing industry in the United States, which is the health care industry, there is no incentive for people to back up and look at all of the things going on and say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe we’re looking at this wrong,’” she continues.

This is why Means regards the health care system with very little trust.

“As we’ve started medicalizing these chronic diseases which are primarily based in diet and lifestyle, and many of which didn’t even exist 75 years ago, at the same time we’ve been asked to ‘trust the science,’” Means says.

“These diseases have exploded in their rates and are going up every single year as we spend more money on them,” she adds.

What our health care system has done well, Means says, are “acute issues.”

“Things that are immediately going to kill you, like an infection or a trauma surgery or something like that that you need to have,” she says.

“But what the health care system has done — has asked us to take our trust on its success in acute issues and apply it to chronic issues, issues that last for a long time that need to be treated for life,” she explains.

“And so essentially, the system is asking us to not ask questions and to trust blindly,” she says, adding, “because of the trust they engendered from acute issues.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Video phone, Camera phone, Video, Free, Upload, Sharing, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Casey means, Rfk jr, Make america healthy again, Healthcare system, Chronic disease epidemic, The blaze, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blazetv, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Dr casey means 

Consciousness is the ultimate wonder and the deepest mystery — even for the devout. Not dark matter or quantum mechanics, but the fact that you are reading these words, that there is something it feels like to be you.

Believers may affirm that God made man in His image, and I agree, yet the question remains: Why should dust, shaped by divine hands, open its eyes and know itself? Why breathe into us not only life, but the inner life — the hidden sanctuary where thought, memory, and prayer rise and take flight?

The mystery matter can’t master

Scientists can catalogue every neuron. They can trace every chemical cascade and chart every flicker of electricity racing through the brain. They can build diagrams so precise you could almost mistake them for the thing itself.

Yet none of it explains the one detail that matters most — that there is an inside.

That matter, when shaped in a certain way, suddenly gazes back at the universe and says, “I am.” Perception isn’t just the processing of inputs. It’s the lived immediacy of them: the taste of coffee, the ache of loss, the terror before a fall. These are realities experienced, not merely computed.

Some argue this is a puzzle that can be solved. All we need is more funding, more computational power, and more time, the argument goes.

What nonsense.

Disdain and disbelief cannot erase the fact that to be aware is to stand in a place where the finite brushes the infinite.

The answer, it turns out, has been staring at us all along. Consciousness isn’t an accident of biology. It’s a fundamental part of reality, present before the first atom came to be. Matter doesn’t simply wake up by chance. It’s animated by something older, deeper, and impossible to quantify.

Call it spirit. Call it soul. Call it God.

The Dawkins delusion

For the Richard Dawkinses of this world — those allergic to religion — “God” sounds like a convenient escape hatch, a quick patch over the gaps in our understanding.

Yet the theological view is anything but a shortcut. It doesn’t merely declare, “God made man and switched on the lights.” It suggests that the light itself — the act of knowing — is the purpose. Awareness is the link between dust and divinity, binding the created to the Creator.

In other words, consciousness is no evolutionary afterthought but the central drama of existence, the stage on which heaven and earth meet within the human soul.

RELATED: Richard Dawkins’ atheism collides with reality

francescoch/iStock/Getty Images Plus

This changes everything.

If awareness is fundamental, then the mind is not just an observer of the universe. It is a participant in it, a co-creator. The inner life becomes more than a collection of survival tricks honed by natural selection. It becomes the very arena in which the material and the divine meet.

Every moment of thought, every flicker of self-recognition, is a point of contact with something infinite.

That idea unsettles people because it shifts responsibility onto each conscious being. If awareness is a sacred link — which it is — then how we use it carries weight beyond anything science can quantify. The ethics of thought, intention, and attention move to the center. A life squandered in distraction or cruelty becomes much more than a personal failure.

In this view, it becomes the misuse of something unimaginably rare.

The sacred spark

Even our most advanced machines make the contrast clear.

They can mimic conversation, create art, and solve problems at rapid speeds, yet they remain completely vacant. There is no inner witness, no “I” behind the code. Their outputs may dazzle, but no one is there to be moved, to care, to suffer, or to rejoice. Set beside a single conscious breath, a single human glance, the difference is profound. And perhaps that’s the point. Consciousness is not about speed or efficiency. It is about relationship — between mind and world, self and other, creature and Creator.

For centuries, Christian mystics have spoken of the soul as a mirror made to catch and reflect the light of God.

Teresa of Ávila wrote of the “interior castle” with its deepest chamber reserved for union with Christ. John of the Cross spoke of stripping away every lesser light until only God’s radiance remained. The German theologian Meister Eckhart called it the “spark of the soul,” a place untouched by sin where God’s presence burns brightest.

In their eyes, consciousness isn’t a random flicker of awareness. It’s the faculty by which the creature knows the Creator, the meeting place of heaven and earth within the human heart.

We are alive because He willed it, aware because He designed our awareness, and we are lit from within by His light.

Modern science has given us remarkable tools to study the mechanisms of the mind, but the mechanism is not the mystery. The circuitry is not the song. You can dismantle a radio and never hear the music that once flowed through it. Likewise, you can map the brain and never touch the consciousness that animates it.

That gap — the chasm between matter in motion and the breath of being — is where the divine dwells.

Conscious by creation

We live in an age that prefers to compress the mystery into whatever measurements our tools can take. It’s the spirit of 2025, an era when meaning is traded for metrics and a culture drifting toward nihilism mistakes data for doctrine.

But we must let the mystery magnify us and let it widen our grasp of what it means to be alive. Consciousness is a bridge between two eternities — the dust God shaped us from and the divinity that calls us home. To stand in the middle is to bear the weight of the world and feel the pull of the world that awaits.

Atheists will no doubt roll their eyes, but the reality remains: Disdain and disbelief cannot erase the fact that to be aware is to stand in a place where the finite brushes the infinite.

We are not bystanders in God’s creation. We move through it as participants, shaping its story as it shapes us. We are alive because He willed it, aware because He designed our awareness, and we are lit from within by His light.

Every thought, every act of attention, every choice is a line in the ongoing dialogue between Creator and created, a conversation that will echo into eternity.

​Atheism, Richard dawkins, God, Christianity, Consciousness, Mystery, Faith 

Well before America’s founders drafted the Constitution, they understood that they had a national security problem rooted in economic and technological gaps.

Colonial America supplied Britain with raw materials, and the motherland traded us finished goods. That was tolerable then, despite its one-sided nature.

The intellectual property framework the founders designed democratized invention and creativity — and rewarded merit.

Then, Great Britain crossed the Rubicon. It unilaterally levied taxes on the colonies with the Sugar Act, which colonial resistance caused to be repealed. The Stamp Act of 1765 also imposed taxes without colonial consent. Then the taxes and regulations of the Townshend Acts further stirred colonial anger.

Revolutionary sentiments brewed, with public protests resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770 and the “tea parties” in 1773 and 1774. Finally, combat broke out at Lexington and Concord in 1775.

Britain had the economic and military advantage over the largely agricultural colonies, which suffered chronic shortages of guns, gunpowder, blankets, and shoes.

Flourish by design

For America to survive as an independent nation, the model had to change. It needed to promote rapid economic and technological advancement. It needed a policy that coupled economic liberty with property rights.

The founders set a course for achieving what Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution calls “the progress of science and useful arts.” This was done “by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

The intellectual property framework the founders designed democratized invention and creativity — and rewarded merit. The Constitution was crafted to secure and enable an individual’s rights, including patent rights to the property someone created.

The founders understood that the ownership right would help unleash human flourishing. They had learned this from the Bible, the legacy of the Reformation, and great minds such as Edward Coke, William Blackstone, and John Locke.

Biblical basis

Property rights incentivized creative endeavors, which is precisely what the framers sought to do.

The biblical framework for invention and creativity flows from foundational truths. He who created the universe (e.g., Genesis 1:1, Job 38, Psalm 8:1-5) also claims ownership of His creation (e.g., Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 24:1, Isaiah 64:8).

RELATED: The American principle: There can be no blessings without God in our lives

joebelanger/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Moreover, God not only creates and owns, but He communicates those attributes to human beings, the creature who bears His image and is charged with stewardship of the lower creation (e.g., Genesis 1:26-30, Psalm 8:6-8, Micah 4:4). The founders applied this combination of creativity and ownership as the formula for maximizing human flourishing.

This resulted in America growing from a vulnerable agrarian society to the world’s premier industrial economy. By the 20th century, the United States led the world in economic and technological strength.

Our golden age

The golden age of American patenting started in 1836, when Congress established a dedicated U.S. Patent Office.

When someone produced a novel invention, he was awarded a patent. Applicants could appeal patent denials to impartial chief examiners — and they could obtain review in a federal court. A patent had a 14-year term from the date it was issued. Economic historian Zorina Khan notes in “The Democratization of Invention” that a seven-year extension could be provided to ensure “reasonable remuneration for the time, ingenuity, and expense bestowed” in developing and bringing an invention to market.

This system embodied the founders’ vision, implementing the biblical model of human creativity incentivized by secure ownership. This creativity-ownership combination has clearly stimulated mass flourishing in America, where we have experienced wealth creation and prosperity in vast measure.

Today, we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence, knowing what the founders did not: The American experiment turned out quite well.

Yet keen observers are less sanguine about our future.

Creative comeback

In recent years, the federal government has undermined the successful intellectual property model the founders gave us.

For example, a cardinal rule of the patent process was maintaining the confidentiality of inventions for which a patent was sought but not yet granted. But then the Clinton administration and Congress began publishing U.S. patents that were still being examined. Cutting-edge American technology was being transferred to Japan and China before an inventor’s exclusive legal rights had been secured at home.

RELATED: China’s greatest export isn’t steel — it’s industrial theft

MF3d/Getty Images Plus

The 2011 America Invents Act wiped out several useful elements of the Patent Act. It established the quasi-judicial Patent Trial and Appeal Board, before which anyone can challenge and more easily invalidate issued patents. Today, the PTAB destroys value and wealth in newly created property, the very inventions that promise American leadership in the most cutting-edge technologies.

The United States is now falling behind in global technological leadership — but we must out-innovate foreign competitors, particularly China.

America must relink ownership with creativity to incentivize creativity through reliable, enforceable property rights. Secure IP rights coupled with economic freedom are pro-growth policy, just as much as the right tax policies.

To re-establish America’s technological and economic prowess, we must return to God’s design — that which the founders adopted with world-changing success.

​Bible, God-given rights, Intellectual property, Intellectual property rights, Ip rights, Opinion & analysis, Patents, Innovation, Taxes, Regulations, Inventions, Industry, Economy, Economic growth, Japan, China, Rights, Invention, America invents act, Congress 

Have you ever considered the eerie link between naming alcohol a “spirit” and the potent brew’s ability to unleash spiritual chaos in one’s life?

If you haven’t, Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of “Strange Encounters” — a biblical podcast on the supernatural — suggests contemplating this chilling tie because it’s true: Alcohol abuse is indeed a gateway to the demonic.

In this episode, Rick addresses a letter sent by one of his podcast listeners who was vulnerable enough to share his struggles with alcoholism and the harrowing spiritual battles that ensued as a result.

Although the anonymous writer grew up abstaining from alcohol due to his Southern Baptist roots and a family history of alcoholism, he fell into alcohol’s trap later in life.

“I became depressed, and I began to lean on alcohol to help me,” Rick reads from the letter.

While his drinking began slowly — “a glass of wine here or there” — it eventually evolved into “an almost around-the-clock habit.”

“As the habit grew, I noticed strange changes in my surroundings. I began to hear things. I began to see things and finally communicate with things that no one other than myself could see. The first thing that got my attention was I remember walking by a mirror and catching a glimpse of myself. Except it wasn’t me. It was an unrecognizable monster-like creature,” he writes.

While he describes his reflection as “terrifying,” it wasn’t enough for him to stop drinking. In fact, things got worse. One day, in a drunken stupor, he decided to drive all the way to the beach house in Florida that his family rented for vacations.

“All the way down, I began to notice something in the car with me. The only way I know to describe it was sort of a cloud. … At no time ever during our previous stays in that home was I ever afraid. This time was different. I saw a cloud everywhere I went in the home. I felt as though there was someone or something horrible in the house with me,” Rick reads from the letter.

Thoroughly terrified, the man called his family and told them about his predicament. They agreed to get him help. He drove home the following day, but the sinister cloud followed him back. The day before he was to leave for treatment, the cloud “began to move around the room” and even “grew bigger.” “I got the sense that it was angry with me,” he writes, noting that his family witnessed him speaking with the entity “in a language that was unknown to anyone in the room.”

The following day, the cloud followed him to the treatment center, where he was “left alone in a cinder-block room to detox.”

“Nothing around me was familiar other than the cloud. I didn’t know what to do other than cry and begin to pray. I have no idea how long I cried out. When I finally was able to compose myself, I heard as clear as a bell, ‘Are you ready to listen to me now?”’ the letter reads.

He knew in the moment that the voice came from God. He was rescued in his lowest moment and is now sharing his story to warn others to “never go near this poison.”

“Wow,” says Rick after reading the letter.

“Doing anything that alters your mind — this is something the demonic forces are so hoping that we will do,” he warns.

That’s why Paul instructs us in Ephesians 5:18 to “not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery” but “instead, be filled with the Spirit.” Peter conveys a similar message about sobriety and spiritual alertness in 1 Peter 5:8, which says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Rick, acknowledging his history with alcohol and binge drinking, confesses, “I can honestly say that most of the wicked things that I did or participated in could be tied directly to allowing my mind to be altered in some way.”

Allowing oneself to be cognitively compromised with alcohol or drugs is “an invitation: ‘Come on in, I can easily be manipulated,”’ he cautions.

To hear more of Rick’s commentary, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Strange encounters, Rick burgess, Blazetv, Blaze media, Alcoholism, Spiritual warfare, Angels, Demons, The supernatural 

“It’s all about Jesus.”

That simple message is a central truth of the Christian faith, yet this powerful proclamation recently ignited a bizarre flurry of angst and a wild brouhaha on social media.

For too long we’ve tolerated and fostered a blatant cancel culture that seeks to punish anyone with whom we disagree.

Of course, it wasn’t so much the Christ-centric message that ruffled feathers as it was the messenger. See, an absurd online drama kicked off after Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson shared an X post from conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

The message, which simply read, “It’s all about Jesus,” wasn’t political or caustic. It was merely a biblical assertion that Jackson likely saw and, in turn, chose to repost to inspire his followers in their faith, as he regularly publishes Christian messages. But some people were so incensed that Jackson would dare post any sentiment from the likes of Kirk that they took to social media platforms to air their grievances.

The reactions ranged from obnoxious to unhinged, but all of them had one thing in common: They each, to some degree, illustrated why President Donald Trump defied all odds to win a second term.

Americans are tired of the cancel culture, word-policing nonsense that became all too routine in recent years. And they’re finally voting, behaving, and speaking in ways that show just how much they’d like to return to a world where political diversity isn’t treated like a deadly toxin.

These citizens want to be free to speak up against bizarre social trends without the fear of cancellation — a tool too many progressives have used to effectively shut down free speech. Or, like Jackson, these Americans simply want the freedom to speak the truth without retribution.

Trump, a boisterous businessman-turned-politician, has somehow become the unlikely hero paving the way for such sanity.

Of course, not everyone is on board with common sense, as evidenced by some of the reactions to Jackson’s social media post. Certain people, it seems, simply can’t help themselves, believing their feelings and emotions trump all else.

RELATED: How the liberal media’s crusade against Christianity just backfired

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“[I’m] very aware that lamar jackson [sic] probably has zero idea who charlie kirk [sic] is and is solely [retweeting because it] talks about his faith,” one frustrated social media user wrote. “But it still [sic] wild to see your favorite players [sic] name right above the second spawn of satan himself.”

Other posts across X were similar, with people clutching their pearls over the idea that a popular football star would have the nerve to share a faithful message from one of their cultural and political opponents. The response was big enough to spark some media headlines.

One outlet alleged Jackson was “sacked online,” and Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, openly called the response a “liberal meltdown.” Chaos aside, Kirk also used the opportunity to praise the NFL star for what he called “courage and conviction” — a purported refusal to apologize even amid intense anger from some fans.

After all, Jackson could have cowered, apologized, or even removed the post. But he chose to leave it up and left the festering debate to simmer on its own.

As for Kirk, he not only praised Jackson, but he affirmed during a “Fox & Friends” interview his belief that Christ is the most essential element in life.

“I just want to say to Lamar … you are more than welcome in this big movement that we are building,” Kirk said. “You could be a Democrat; you could be on the left. I don’t care. Jesus is honestly the most important thing.”

Ultimately, this is the right posture. We can spend all day fighting about politics, culture, and the toughest issues of the day — and sometimes that’s warranted, appropriate, and even a bit fun to do. But the most pressing and essential issue is Christ and where each human heart stands on the Almighty.

The inability to tolerate diverse ideas has come to infect — and ruin — almost every facet of our society.

Whether Jackson knew who Kirk is or whether he agrees with Kirk’s politics aren’t the primary issues. At its core, the message that “it’s all about Jesus” is timeless and worthy of sharing. The NFL player just wanted to drive it home, yet critics found themselves needlessly looking for a fight.

“Who cares what the naysayers say?” Kirk continued in his “Fox & Friends” interview. “[Jackson’s] standing firm for what matters most, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

That’s a wonderful, valid point, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked amid the silliness spewing from keyboard warriors who have paper-thin skin and an inability to look beyond their own political proclivities.

Tragically, the inability to tolerate diverse ideas has come to infect — and ruin — almost every facet of our society. At some point, we collectively became so emotionally unhinged that we found ourselves essentially allergic to anyone with opposing ideals.

Some people have become so deeply entrenched in this derangement that they’re unwilling or even emotionally unable to spend time with friends and family members due to differing political views. We now live in an insane, upside-down world in which media outlets churn out articles with headlines like “How to survive political talk at Thanksgiving dinner” and “10 ways to de-escalate political discussions with friends.”

It’s absolute nonsense.

Here’s how we survive political talk: We approach it like rational adults who live in a society that values free speech and expression. This isn’t complicated. Yet for too long we’ve tolerated and fostered a blatant cancel culture that seeks to punish anyone with whom we disagree.

Along the way, we’ve allowed people to become so coddled and protected in their bubbles that they can’t even handle someone like Jackson sharing a pertinent message from a figure they dislike.

If progressives can’t figure out how to coexist with conservatives and people of differing views — and if they insist on canceling or fleeing from their ideological opponents — they’re only going to continue to alienate voters and lose big. People are tired of being silenced and shamed, and the Jackson debacle is only the latest example of progressives’ child-like demeanor.

​Charlie kirk, Christianity, Christians, Donald trump, Jesus christ, Lamar jackson, Leftists, Liberals, Nfl, Progressives, Faith