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Though the search is entering its 17th day for “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie’s kidnapped mother, Nancy Guthrie, Spencer Coursen, founder and CEO of the Coursen Security Group and author of “The Safety Trap,” believes that officials are dealing with amateurs.

“What we do know is that she’s missing. What we do know is that there has been no proof of life. And after that, we really cannot verify much more because of the information flow,” Coursen tells Stu.

“But until there is proof of life, a lot of what we are seeing should be treated more as noise and less as signal,” he adds.

And in the recent door-camera video footage released of the alleged kidnappers, Coursen tells Stu that it looks like “amateur hour.”

“Professional kidnappers control communication. They control their environment. Amateurs engage in chaos. And what I am seeing looks more and more like that of chaos than that of control,” Coursen explains.

Stu points out that at one point in the recently released footage, it appears the kidnappers are “trying to block the ring cam with plants.”

“Exactly. If you’re a professional, you have done research and planning up until that point, and then you either know that there’s a Ring camera or a Nest camera or Google camera or some kind of security deterrent, and you either go in the back door where there isn’t one, or you walk up with a spray can,” he says.

“What you don’t do is walk up and go, ‘Oh, camera. Oh, what do I do?’” he continues.

“Professionals conduct an orchestra. Amateurs bang drums.”

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A former teacher found guilty of grooming and sexually abusing two students — including a teen who impregnated her — has learned her fate.

Julie Rizzitello — who had taught at Wall High School in New Jersey — was sentenced last week for her child sex crimes against two students.

‘This is the psychological impact. This is the devastation.’

Rizzitello, 37, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison for “separately engaging in numerous sexual acts with two of her students over the course of several years,” the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said in a Thursday statement.

In addition, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Jill G. O’Malley said Rizzitello must be on parole supervision for life, must register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, must permanently forfeit her teaching position, and is barred from contact with her victims.

“These crimes were not isolated incidents constituting moments of poor judgment; they were textbook cases of grooming, involving a defendant who repeatedly leveraged tactics of isolation, manipulation, and control for the sake of her own selfish purposes,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said of Rizzitello.

Santiago continued, “The egregious nature of the conduct was further compounded by the plain fact that the emotional and psychological harm she inflicted came at the expense of two of the very same young minds she had been entrusted to develop and nurture.”

Wall Township Police Chief Sean O’Halloran added, “I want to commend the courage of those who came forward to report these crimes. It is never easy to speak up, especially when the offender is someone in a position of trust.”

As Blaze News reported in September, Rizzitello pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual assault. She was was arrested at her Brick Township home on July 3, 2024.

Authorities noted that Rizzitello met one victim when he was a freshman, and the other victim was a junior. Prosecutors said Rizzitello initially spent time with the students alone and developed a “friendly relationship” before it escalated into “sexual activity” that lasted for several months.

The prosecutor’s office stated, “The sexual acts with both victims took place largely in three locations: in Rizzitello’s Brick home, in a vehicle at a Wall Township parking lot, and at the Belmar bagel shop owned by Rizzitello’s family, where each victim was employed, at her suggestion.”

Investigators revealed that Rizzitello urged both victims to “delete evidence of the crimes from their personal electronic devices.”

The Asbury Park Press reported that Rizzitello told one victim she was “unable to get pregnant when she had unprotected sex with him in his family’s home on his birthday in January 2018, when Rizzitello was 29,” according to a court report the judge read during the sentencing hearing.

Judge O’Malley told the courtroom, “Weeks passed, and she wanted him to come over her house, and she wanted to get a pregnancy test. Turns out she was pregnant. And she believed it was his baby.”

O’Malley stated, “She got an abortion. And he knew this because she told him the doctor told her she was eight weeks pregnant, which aligned with them having sex on his birthday.”

The judge said the victim had been Rizzitello’s student.

O’Malley told Rizzitello, “So now not only does he have to deal with the fact that he was groomed throughout his entire high school years, that he was preyed upon by his teacher, someone he believed he loved and trusted, that he was sexually abused by this teacher, and now he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that this individual had an abortion he wasn’t comfortable with.”

“This is the psychological impact,” the judge declared. “This is the devastation.”

RELATED: Teacher of the year arrested for alleged child sex crimes — then she’s arrested on similar charges just days later

Citing criminal complaints, the Asbury Park Press reported that Rizzitello sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student multiple times between Nov. 23, 2017, and Jan. 21, 2018.

The second victim was over the age of 18 when sexually abused by Rizzitello. However, New Jersey law prohibits teachers from having sex with students who are younger than 22 years old and who haven’t received high school diplomas.

According to the Coast Star and the Ocean Star, one of the victims submitted a statement that was read during the hearing.

“I still think about how this woman was the one person I trusted with every detail in my life. … She is actually a sexual predator. At one point, I thought I was a special part of her life,” the victim wrote.

The victim said Rizzitello knew she “could control” him.

“I wish it had not happened this way. I wish it had not happened at all,” the victim said.

According to the Coast Star and the Ocean Star, Rizzitello told the judge, “What I’ve done is inexcusable; I know that.”

“I hurt my children, my family, and my friends, people who trusted me. I would do absolutely anything in the world to change my choices,” Rizzitello said in court.

According to the Asbury Park Press, Rizzitello is married with two children — ages 4 and 6.

Rizzitello’s attorney, Mitch Ansell, had asked the judge for a five-year sentence because she has no prior criminal record and because of how her prison stint would affect her children.

“We are left now with two children who are going to be without their mom, and it’s her own doing,” Ansell said, according to the Coast Star and the Ocean Star.

Ansell added, “These children didn’t ask for this, and they have to bear this incredible responsibility at a very, very young age.”

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​Teacher arrested, Teacher sex scandal, Teacher student sex scandal, New jersey, New jersey crime, Julie rizzitello, Crime 

A week after a trans-identifying man went on a rampage in Western Canada, killing six children and two adults, another man who masqueraded as a woman allegedly took aim at innocents — this time at a local skating rink in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Families, students, and supporters flocked to the Dennis M. Lynch Arena on Monday afternoon to watch a boys’ high school hockey game between the Blackstone Valley School and Coventry-Johnson co-op teams.

‘Do not wonder why we Go BERSERK.’

Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien noted that “what should have been a joyful occasion” was “instead marked by violence and fear.”

A man dressed as a woman and believed to have been in the possession of multiple weapons fatally shot two people and left another three victims in critical condition. At least two of the victims are reportedly children.

Coventry Public Schools revealed on Monday evening that all of its students present at the incident “have been accounted for and are safe.” Providence Country Day School and St. Raphael Academy also indicated their students were safe.

Arena footage shows players rushing off the ice and fans taking cover as roughly 13 gunshots ring out. The Providence Journal noted that 11 seconds after the first series of shots, a final shot can be heard.

RELATED: Alleged shooter ‘in a dress’ behind Canadian school massacre was trans-identifying man

Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images

Police responding to a report of an active shooter around 2:30 p.m. were on the scene within a minute and a half; however, the blood-letting had apparently already come to an end. Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves indicated that “a Good Samaritan stepped in and interjected in this scene, and that’s probably what led to a swift end of this tragic event.”

The “Good Samaritan” apparently tried to “subdue” the shooter, who police said died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) expressed gratitude for the first responders “who rushed to assist, as well as the good Samaritan who confronted and tried to disarm the shooter.”

Goncalves identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, 56, and indicated that “he does go by the name of Roberta, also uses the last name of Esposito.” The chief noted further that while his motive is presently unclear, “this was a targeted event” and “looked like it was a family dispute.”

A distraught woman who did not provide her name told WCVB-TV while exiting the PPD station that her father was the shooter.

“He shot my family, and he’s dead now,” said the unidentified woman, adding that the shooter “has mental health issues.”

Court records reviewed by WPRI-TV reportedly show that Dorgan complained in 2020 to the North Providence Police Department that in the wake of his sex-rejection surgery, his father-in-law was trying to kick him out of the family house where Dorgan had lived for seven years.

While the father-in-law was initially charged with intimidation of witnesses and victims of crimes and obstruction of the judicial system, the charges were later dismissed.

The same year, Dorgan accused his mother of assaulting him and acting in a “violent, threatening, or tumultuous manner.” Although his mother was charged with simple assault and battery and disorderly conduct, the case was similarly dismissed.

RELATED: Transhumanism is coming to destroy the human soul

Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Image

Around the time of Dorgan’s dispute with his father-in-law and mother, Dorgan’s then-wife, Rhonda Dorgan, filed for divorce.

While she initially cited “gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic + personality disorder traits” as the grounds for the divorce, WPRI indicates his ex-wife replaced those reasons with “irreconcilable differences, which have caused the immediate breakdown of the marriage.”

An apparently Rhode Island-based user on X who went by “Roberta Dorgano” posted on May 9, 2019, “Transwoman, 6 kids: wife — not thrilled.”

In a recent post, the user who the New York Post suggested was Robert Dorgan, noted, “I have a beloved RHONDA.”

In response to a Feb. 14 assertion by actor Kevin Sorbo that trans-identifying Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) “is a man,” the X user wrote, “Keep bashing us. but do not wonder why we Go BERSERK.”

Dorgan appears to be the latest addition to a growing list of recent trans-identifying mass shooters and would-be mass shooters.

A trans-identifying man murdered six kids and two adults in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Feb. 10.A trans-identifying man shot up a Catholic church full of children in Minneapolis on Aug. 27, 2025, killing two children and injuring 30.A male-identifying woman planned to shoot up an elementary school and a high school in Maryland in April 2024 but was stopped in time by police — then later convicted.A trans-identifying teen stalked the halls of a school in Perry, Iowa, on Jan. 4, 2024, ultimately murdering a child and an adult and wounding several others.A trans-identifying woman stormed into a Presbyterian school in Nashville on March 27, 2023, murdering three children and three adults.

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​Trans killers, Transvestite, Transgender, Trans shooter, Pawtucket, Rhode island, Mass shooting, Murder, Gender ideology, Tumbler ridge, Robert dorgan, Politics 

Here we go again.

Another expensive lesson in what happens when political ambition outruns engineering reality — this time playing out in the dead of winter in Burlington, Vermont.

Electric buses may perform adequately in mild environments, but expecting them to replace diesel buses in northern states with long, cold winters ignores basic physics.

Electric buses unveiled with great fanfare as symbols of progress and climate virtue are now sitting idle in the snow, while the supposedly outdated diesel fleet does the actual work of moving people. Taxpayers paid millions for these vehicles, and right now, they can’t do the job they were purchased to do.

Green Mountain Transit added five new electric buses to its fleet last year, announcing the move in the warmth of summer. Officials praised the decision as a major step toward Burlington’s net-zero energy goals and reduced carbon emissions. The buses were billed as modern, clean, and capable, each equipped with a 520-kilowatt-hour battery and a theoretical range of up to 258 miles on a single charge.

So much for theory. This year’s harsh winter has delivered a lesson in reality.

Out cold

Less than a year after entering service, all five electric buses were pulled from operation following a battery recall by manufacturer New Flyer Industries. The recall cited a potential fire hazard and prompted a software update that significantly restricted how the buses could be charged. Under the revised settings, the buses are no longer allowed to charge when battery temperatures fall below 41 degrees Fahrenheit, and charging capacity is capped at 75%.

Those restrictions created an immediate operational problem. Green Mountain Transit’s garage does not have the fire-mitigation equipment required to store or charge electric buses indoors under the recall conditions. As a result, the buses have been forced to remain outdoors, exposed to Vermont’s winter temperatures. With ambient temperatures frequently below the charging threshold, the buses cannot be charged safely and therefore cannot be used.

Perverse incentives

While Green Mountain Transit general manager Clayton Clark noted that the charging restriction is software-based and could theoretically be resolved sooner, no such remedy has yet been implemented; replacement batteries will not be installed for 18 to 24 months. Clark said GMT is seeking a financial remedy from the manufacturer and has not ruled out litigation.

The problem is compounded by how the buses were acquired in the first place, explained Clark. Federal transit grants from 2020 through 2024 prioritized low- or zero-emission vehicles, with requests for diesel buses often denied. To remain competitive for funding, Green Mountain Transit pursued electric buses, which are approximately 90% funded through federal grants and Volkswagen settlement money. Canceling the electric-bus grant would mean forfeiting those funds entirely, without the option to redirect them toward diesel replacements.

The price tag for this experiment? A cool $8 million.

Stretched thin

The five recalled buses represent about 10% of Green Mountain Transit’s fleet. With all of them sidelined, Clark said the system is now “literally down to our last bus,” forcing occasional service cancellations. Replacement buses cannot be ordered quickly; new transit vehicles require multi-year lead times and federal approvals. In the meantime, the diesel buses that were slated for retirement are being run harder than ever to keep service operating.

This is not a story about careless drivers or mismanagement by local transit employees. It is about a policy framework that rewards electrification on paper while leaving transit agencies exposed when technology, climate, and infrastructure fail to align.

Electric buses may perform adequately in mild environments, but expecting them to replace diesel buses in northern states with long, cold winters ignores basic physics. Batteries lose efficiency in cold weather. Charging becomes slower and more fragile. Range drops. Reliability suffers.

RELATED: This city bought 300 Chinese electric buses — then found out China can turn them off at will

Photo by Guo Haipeng/VCG via Getty Images

Win diesel

By comparison, a conventional diesel bus typically has nearly three times the range and can be refueled in minutes rather than hours. Once fueled, it can return immediately to service and run hundreds of additional miles without interruption. That is not ideology. It is an operational fact. Public transit systems exist to provide reliable service — especially in harsh conditions — not to serve as test beds for political signaling.

Supporters of these programs frame them as necessary sacrifices in the fight against climate change, but the cost-benefit analysis rarely receives serious scrutiny. The emissions reductions claimed at the local level are negligible in a global context, while the financial burden on taxpayers is real and long-lasting. Millions of dollars have been spent on buses that are currently unusable, and residents are left paying for both the electric fleet and the diesel backup required to keep the system functioning.

What makes this situation particularly troubling is how familiar it has become. Cold-weather failures of electric buses have been reported repeatedly across northern regions, yet each new purchase is announced as if the technology has suddenly overcome its limitations. The lessons of previous winters are ignored, only to be relearned at significant public expense.

In the middle of winter, Burlington’s transit system depends on the very diesel buses officials were eager to replace, while millions of dollars’ worth of electric buses sit frozen and unused. When temperatures drop, physics doesn’t negotiate. And this winter in Burlington, the only buses that work are the ones officials tried to phase out.

​Green mountain transit, Electric buses, New flyer, Public transportation, Winter, Lifestyle, Ev mandate, Align cars 

A man described as a “dumb crook” by police allegedly claimed that a dog chased him into a van, but surveillance video showed that he was trying to steal items inside.

Dean Young, 26, can be heard screaming from inside the van on the surveillance video from the Hialeah neighborhood on Wednesday.

‘I think it’s funny. It’s a dumb crook. I guess now he’s watching the news and inside the jail.’

Young began screaming and kicking at the doors after the owner of the van locked the doors.

“Help me! I’m inside!” the man yells. “I can’t breathe!”

The owner of the van decided to wait until police arrived out of safety concerns, according to homeowner Nercy Toledo.

“There were machetes inside the truck, and he could’ve just come out and hurt anybody, so they left him in there,” she explained.

Young tried to tell police that he was handing out business cards and was chased into the van by a dog, but surveillance video obtained by WTVJ-TV showed him sneaking up to the van after exiting his car.

“I think it’s funny. It’s a dumb crook. I guess now he’s watching the news and inside the jail,” Toledo added.

RELATED: 19-year-old drove for 22 hours straight to kidnap 2 underage girls he met on Roblox game, police say

Young faces burglary and criminal mischief charges.

He was given a bond of $1,500 but will remain in jail.

“The Hialeah Police Department was really happy ’cause this is incredible. This is the best arrest they’ve ever made, they told me,” Toledo told WSVN-TV.

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America’s 250th anniversary is defined by one undeniable fact: Both sides of the aisle are in open revolt against elites. Nothing would make the founders more proud. They created this country through their own act of rebellion against an out-of-touch ruling class. But it’s far from clear whether today’s elites will be fully defeated — or if the country is doomed to suffer under another self-serving class.

Only one of these revolts will ultimately be good for the American people — and the wrong one has the momentum.

On the right, at least, the revolt has been under way for a decade. Before 2016, Republican voters had repeatedly backed go-along-to-get-along politicians — the Romneys, McCains, and Bushes of the world. In return, they got mountains of debt and deficit spending, multiple unwinnable wars, and massive expansions in the size and power of government. Rather than clean up the country’s messes, the GOP elite made them worse.

Out of sheer frustration, Republicans turned against their ruling class, throwing their support behind Donald Trump. He has since demolished the GOP establishment. While the Trump revolution is still under way in policy, on the political front, it’s over. The old Republican elite is never coming back.

Then there’s the open revolt on the left. Like the frustrated Republicans of a decade ago, today’s Democrats are furious at their elected officials for the lack of change. But whereas the right is fighting to return quintessential American values to the fore, these leftists want to ditch those values altogether. Their vision can be summed up in one word: socialism.

Hence the stunning victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City, the rising star of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Congress, and socialist candidates in congressional primaries. And hence the deluge of socialist activists coming out of college campuses. They’re sick and tired of Democrat elites who don’t do anything with their power. They’re determined to seize that power for themselves.

Say this for the current anti-elite moment: It’s beautifully American. Both the right and left are breathing new life into our national ideal of sovereignty, which holds that the people are ultimately in control. It’s good to remind ourselves — and our would-be rulers — that we the people are still in charge.

But not all revolts are created equal. Despite their superficial similarity, the Republican and Democrat visions are diametrically opposed and fundamentally incompatible. At the end of the day, the right is trying to permanently give power back to the people. The left, on the other hand, is setting the stage to create a permanent — and much worse — ruling class.

The difference between these two revolts is clear in the kinds of policies they back. On the right, Republicans from Donald Trump down are fighting to gut unelected bureaucracies, give families the funding to choose their children’s education, and slash red tape to unleash small businesses and job creation. Their immigration crackdown is also rooted in sovereignty, rolling back the blatant attempts to prop up ruling class power by bringing in foreign voters. On issue after issue, Republicans are taking power from elites and giving it to the people.

RELATED: We escaped King George. Why do we bow to King Judge?

Photo by Pierce Archive LLC/Buyenlarge via Getty Images

The socialist wave is rushing in the opposite direction. Today’s leftists want government control over every facet of the economy, vast expansions of the welfare state, and unprecedented power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. As history attests, socialism creates a ruling class that runs roughshod over everyone else, since absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Only one of these revolts will ultimately be good for the American people — and the wrong one has the momentum. Democratic socialists are surging in local, state, and national elections, while Republicans are doubting themselves instead of doubling down on their agenda.

Republicans are also wondering if their revolt can survive once Trump leaves office. But they should be working to ensure that it does, rallying around leaders who will keep taking the fight to our would-be overlords. In this time of revolt, there’s no guarantee of who will win. But the same was true 250 years ago, at America’s birth. The battle then was very much between the revolutionaries who stood for the people and those who stood for the elites. The founders led their fellow Americans to cast off the shackles of that ruling class. Now Republicans must rally the people once again to ensure another 250 years of sovereignty and national success.

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

​Democrats, Republicans, Trump, Midterms, Ruling class, Elites, Gop, America 250, Socialism, Opinion & analysis 

Seven recently uncovered pages from Richard Nixon’s 1975 grand jury testimony indicate that the former president was undone by a coup d’état contrived by the deep state, a theory previously argued by Tucker Carlson and Roger Stone.

In June 1975, Nixon testified before the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and a couple of members of a federal grand jury. A portion of Nixon’s 297-page transcribed testimony was previously sealed, considered too incendiary to share with the rest of the grand jury. While most of the transcript was released by the National Archives in 2011, a seven-page segment remained withheld.

‘The answer fills an important gap in the record of the Nixon era — and carries significance for our own.’

Last week, the New York Times published a guest op-ed from reporter James Rosen detailing the contents of those seven pages for the first time.

The newly uncovered portions of Nixon’s testimony revealed that he became aware in December 1971 that Navy Yeoman Charles Radford had secretly copied roughly 5,000 classified National Security Council documents, including documents nabbed from the briefcase of Henry Kissinger, who was then national security adviser. Radford then shared those documents with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

Kissinger went on to become Nixon’s secretary of state in 1973.

“Yoeman Radford was Kissinger’s top notetaker. He had been with Kissinger on his secret trip to Paris when we were trying to end the war. He had been on all of those trips and had been the notetaker and knew what Kissinger had said and what the other side had said,” Nixon testified.

He stated that Radford “broke down” when he was given a polygraph.

“He cried … and virtually admitted his guilt,” Nixon said.

“The reason that we couldn’t prosecute and wouldn’t was that if we did, he then would expose and could expose these highly confidential exchanges we were having to bring the war in Vietnam to a conclusion,” Nixon explained.

RELATED: Biden FBI’s Arctic Frost surveillance of lawmakers could cost the government, thanks to ‘real teeth’ measure in funding bill

Photo by the White House Photo Office/PhotoQuest/Getty Images

Nixon believed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed his foreign policy, including his goal of ending the Vietnam War, and Radford’s spying might undermine and sabotage these policies.

Nixon’s testimony revealed that he had initially wanted to pursue charges against those involved in the spying efforts, but ultimately chose not to publicize the incident to protect sensitive operations and the military’s reputation.

He called it a “can of worms” that was not worth opening, urging prosecutors not to probe the affair deeply. Prosecutors agreed.

“The Joint Chiefs’ spying formed only one prong of the campaign against Nixon, the most spied-on president in modern times,” Rosen wrote. “The answer fills an important gap in the record of the Nixon era — and carries significance for our own. The classified portion of the grand jury transcript, obtained by Times Opinion, bears directly on allegations by President Trump and his supporters about the existence of what was once called the permanent bureaucracy, better known today as the ‘deep state.'”

The pages unearthed by Rosen support previous claims from Carlson and Stone that Nixon was the target of a successful coup attempt from deep-state actors.

RELATED: Watergate was amateur hour compared to Arctic Frost

Photo by Bettmann / Contributor /Getty Images

“He was the most popular president, by votes, which is the only way we can measure, in his re-election campaign. And two years later, he’s gone, undone by a naval intel officer, the number two guy at the FBI, and a bunch of CIA employees,” Carlson stated during an April 2024 appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

During an August 2024 episode of “The Tucker Carlson Show,” he said, “In retrospect, it looks very much like a kind of coup against a sitting and enormously popular president.”

Stone previously wrote two books discussing the coup against Nixon, “Nixon’s Secrets” in 2014 and “Tricky Dick” in 2017.

“Basically, [what] you have here is the deep state, which Nixon’s testimony now proves exists, spying on Richard Nixon for the same reasons that they spied on Donald Trump. For the same reasons they invented the Russian collusion hoax as their rationale for the FISA warrants to spy on Trump and his aides,” Stone stated during a Sunday episode of his podcast, “The Roger Stone Show.”

Stone referred to the takedown of Nixon as a “government-engineered coup d’état.”

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​News, Tucker carlson, Roger stone, Richard nixon, Nixon, Cia, Fbi, Watergate, Charles radford, Henry kissinger, Deep state, Coup, Politics 

Not that long ago, people who struggled to accept their biological gender were diagnosed with a mental health disorder called gender dysphoria. But radical tolerance pushed by the left has ushered us into an age where transgenderism is so embraced, and even popularized, that advocacy for it continues even as transgender-perpetrated violence increases.

On February 10, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a biological male who identified as a woman, allegedly carried out a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, killing eight people — including his mother, stepbrother, five students, and a teacher — before dying by suicide. The mass shooting is one of the deadliest in Canadian history.

The mainstream media, however, has consistently portrayed Van Rootselaar as a woman with mental health issues, seemingly aligning with the transgender movement’s emphasis on gender-affirming language and self-identification.

But BlazeTV host Rick Burgess argues that mental illness isn’t the full picture.

“A[n alleged] mass killer that then takes their own life — that is a calling card of demonic activity,” he says.

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick delves into the spiritual dimensions of the atrocity, arguing that what society calls “mental illness” in such cases may actually stem from demonic oppression fueled by cultural confusion over God’s design for gender.

“On this podcast, we do not believe that all mental health is demonic. There’s no doubt that the human brain is a piece of our fallen bodies, like everything else, and it can be sick,” Rick says.

“However, there’s also a clear indication that many times we label demonic activity as mental illness when it’s not,” he adds.

Much of the violence we’re seeing from trans-identifying individuals, he says, falls into that category: demonic oppression repackaged as mental illness.

The LGBTQ+ movement that insists gender is a broad spectrum instead of the male/female dichotomy created by God is creating an environment that is both “chaotic and confusing.”

“And what lives in those two worlds?” Rick asks. “Demonic activity. No question.”

“We’re just pretending something, and it’s costing people their lives — and I’m including the people who are struggling with this,” he adds. “They become dangerous to other people and dangerous to themselves.”

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

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​Rick burgess, Strange encounters, Strange encounters with rick burgess, Spiritual warfare, Canada mass shooting, Transgender violence, Transgenderism, Tumbler ridge shooting, Jesse van rootselaar, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Anyone who has been a teenager for more than five minutes can probably reach the same conclusion after watching the flood of videos recently posted to social media. Many of the kids streaming out of school to take part in anti-ICE protests look less like committed activists and more like students thrilled to be out of class. You can see it written all over their faces.

Perhaps the plan is to destroy the current system before deciding what the new one should be.

But students who simply want to ditch class are not the ones coordinating nationwide demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Most young people are not deeply invested in politics, if they are interested at all. Large-scale, coordinated walkouts don’t materialize organically.

Unfortunately, perception often becomes reality. Videos of tens of thousands of students leaving school buildings across the country are invaluable propaganda for left-wing activists seeking to foment cultural and political upheaval. This is not hyperbole. It comes directly from the far-left nonprofit organizations helping to organize, train, and mobilize K-12 students.

One such group is the Sunrise Movement, a far-left climate organization that has increasingly expanded beyond environmental activism. Originally focused on promoting a Green New Deal, the group recently announced it was pivoting toward “fighting Trump.” To accomplish this shift, Sunrise appears intent on eliminating opposition to its ideology by any means necessary. The organization has openly bragged about harassing hotel staff and guests for allegedly hosting ICE agents.

Central to Sunrise’s strategy is recruiting young people and embedding itself in K-12 schools. The organization sponsors clubs nationwide, which are then described as “student-led.” Unsurprisingly, these same clubs often organize walkouts centered on climate activism and anti-Trump messaging.

These protests are not meant to be one-off events. According to training materials obtained by Defending Education, Sunrise calls for monthly “direct actions” designed to “disrupt business as usual” and advance a so-called political revolution. The group’s 25-page guidebook — riddled with tired Marxist clichés — explicitly urges minors to engage in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions-style actions against businesses deemed to be “propping up ICE.”

The issue, in other words, is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.

Sunrise’s materials offer little clarity about what this revolution will actually achieve; perhaps the plan is to destroy the current system before deciding what the new one should be.

RELATED: When parents pay twice to escape public schools, the verdict is in

id-work / Getty Images

But these acts of “civil disobedience” have become less about expressions of student voices and more about spectacles of class-skipping that benefit activists who openly call for dismantling the very system that allows these protests to occur.

In 2018, Robert Pondiscio warned schools that refusing to enforce discipline for the Parkland gun-control walkouts would make them “regret it down the road.” If students are permitted to disrupt learning for one political cause, he argued, schools would have to refrain from punishing disruptions for any cause that follows.

Eight years later, that warning looks prescient. Parents, activists, and even school officials now routinely encourage or excuse walkouts tied to the cause of the month. Meanwhile, the activist groups behind these demonstrations are targeting businesses and institutions that fail to conform to prescribed political views. History suggests that once a movement normalizes coercion, its circle of targets inevitably expands.

It is time for parents, administrators, and school board members to put an end to mass student walkouts before they become a permanent feature of a school system that is already failing far too many children. Roughly 70% of American students are not proficient in core academic subjects. Schools cannot afford to treat instructional time as expendable.

Students absolutely retain their First Amendment rights. But they also have a civic responsibility to become educated citizens. Real, lasting change comes from knowledge, discipline, and understanding — not from performative outrage and adults who confuse activism with education.

​School walkouts, Sunrise movement, Ice protest, Ice, Immigration and customs enforcement, Students, Robert pondiscio, Boycott divestment and sanctions, Opinion & analysis 

A man who allegedly claimed to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was arrested after he assaulted workers at a McDonald’s restaurant in Southern California.

Joshua Cobb, 44, walked into the La Jolla McDonald’s on Nobel Drive on Thursday at about noon and put the manager in a headlock, according to a press release from the San Diego Police Department.

‘Why do you think I’m willing to take two punches in the motherf**king face with some illegal immigrants while I make an arrest for Immigration and Customs Enforcement?’

The manager was described as a Hispanic male by Lt. Cesar Jimenez, who said that Cobb accused him of being an illegal alien.

Cobb led the man outside the restaurant while claiming he was being arrested, but the other workers came to his aid and forced Cobb to release him.

Police were able to identify and arrest Cobb, according to Jimenez, who was charged with impersonating an officer as well as battery.

The manager, Daniel Martinez, spoke to KGTV-TV and described what happened.

“He grabbed me from the back, grabbed my neck, like, really hard,” Martinez said. “So when that happened, all my co-workers jumped on him, and he let go, but after that, he just punched me on the side.”

The employees at the McDonald’s said they didn’t believe the man was an ICE officer because he frequented the fast food place, would only order sodas, and would leave a mess.

“Why do you think your 911 phone calls aren’t f**king working?” said the man police identified as Cobb. “Why do you think I’m willing to take two punches in the motherf**king face with some illegal immigrants while I make an arrest for Immigration and Customs Enforcement?”

RELATED: Church worker pretended to be ICE agent to extort $500 from massage therapist, police say

Jimenez also addressed the videos circulating online about the incident.

“There are several videos of this incident circulating online,” he said. “We understand how concerning this can be for members of our community. We want to assure residents that impersonating a law enforcement officer is a crime and the San Diego Police Department takes any reports of this nature very seriously.”

Martinez said he was not hurt during the attack.

“At that moment, my first reaction was just to protect my crew because I’m in charge of all of them,” the manager said.

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A judge sided with the city of Philadelphia in its lawsuit to restore slavery exhibits that were removed in January to a presidential home site.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” which led to some exhibits at national monuments being taken down.

‘We encourage the City of Philadelphia to focus on getting their jobless rates down and ending their reckless cashless bail policy instead of filing frivolous lawsuits in the hopes of demeaning our brave Founding Fathers.’

The city of Philadelphia objected to the removal of slavery information from exhibits at the President’s House exhibit, where Presidents George Washington and John Adams once lived. The site is operated by the National Park Service.

The lawsuit cited a previous agreement with the NPS that said “communication and consultation” standards must be met between the parties for changes to the site.

On Monday, Senior Judge Cynthia M. Rufe ruled that the exhibits must be restored to their original state before the day of removal. She began the ruling with a quote from George Orwell’s “1984.”

The lawsuit listed the National Park Service as a defendant, as well as Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior, and National Park Service Acting Director Jessica Bowron.

“I strongly opposed the Trump administration’s decision to remove these exhibits, and I welcome the federal court’s ruling that they must be restored. … I will continue fighting to ensure these exhibits are fully restored and accessible to the public,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.) said about the ruling.

A spokesperson for the NPS lambasted the city after the lawsuit was filed.

“All federal agencies are to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values. Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking appropriate action in accordance with the Order,” reads the statement from the spokesperson.

“We encourage the City of Philadelphia to focus on getting their jobless rates down and ending their reckless cashless bail policy instead of filing frivolous lawsuits in the hopes of demeaning our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world — the United States of America,” the statement continues.

RELATED: Actress Pam Grier gets demolished online for spewing nonsense claim about racial lynchings in Ohio on ‘The View’

Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia executive director Paul Steinke told CBS News that the removal was a “terrible day for American history.”

“The decision to do this appears to be made because the President’s House Site memorialized the nine enslaved individuals that were held there against their will by President Washington and his wife, Martha,” he said, “and this is the only federal historic site that commemorates the history of slavery in America.”

Rufe was appointed to the court by former President George W. Bush in 2002.

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​Judge versus trump, National park service, Restoring truth and sanity to american history, Presidents house in philadelphia, Politics 

Elon Musk pledged in September to help fund murals in remembrance of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian woman who was randomly murdered on a public train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

One such mural has appeared in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of the Remember Iryna memorial project, led by Elizabeth Trykin. The mural measures 147 feet wide and 20 feet tall and is located near the intersection at Charleston and Las Vegas Boulevards.

‘Evil doesn’t see policy. Evil doesn’t see left or right. Evil doesn’t see any of that. Evil is just evil.’

“The project has completed over 20 large-scale murals across multiple U.S. cities, now in Las Vegas, with many more installations under way. More than 900 artists have reached out to us to participate,” Trykin said in a statement to KLAS-TV.

Musk joined in the effort after it was proposed by Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe, who also gave $500,000 of his own money. Many on the right have decried the lack of coverage for the brutal murder and aired suspicions that a political bias was to blame.

“I will contribute $1M,” Musk said at the time.

A spokesperson for McCabe later confirmed to the New York Post that McCabe and Musk both made good on their financial pledges.

Graffiti artist Gear Duran, who painted the Vegas mural, says it’s not meant to be a partisan political statement.

“I think it’s, like, unfortunate that everybody has to make things politicized and divisive and all that stuff,” Duran said.

“What we really need is just to be able to come together and stop politicizing everything so much as far as, like, the demise of someone losing their life like that,” he added. “It’s like, why does that got to be political? It’s like, that’s just evil.”

RELATED: New butterfly species named in honor of Ukrainian woman brutally murdered on Charlotte light rail

Decarlos Brown, 34, was charged with Zarutska’s murder and could face the death penalty if he’s found guilty. The horrific attack was captured on surveillance video from the public transit system.

“Evil doesn’t see policy. Evil doesn’t see left or right. Evil doesn’t see any of that. Evil is just evil,” Duran continued. “I’m here trying to combat that, to bring awareness with this mural, just to bring some positivity and light to what happened.”

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​Zarutska murder, Elon musk pays for murals, Media blackout on zarutska, Politics, Iryna zarutska mural 

A prominent Catholic leader took on criticism against Western culture from Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and exposed its Marxist underpinnings.

Bishop Robert Barron posted a video to the X platform where he first applauded Sec. of State Marco Rubio on his speech defending Western culture at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

‘Your argument is, well, because cultures always change? Well, that’s a banality!’

“He was talking about the shared culture of Europe and America. He referenced gothic cathedrals and Dante and Shakespeare and even the Beatles,” Barron said.

“And his point was, we gotta get beyond just our political differences and find our sources in the great culture that unites us,” he added. “Then he took a further step that was very much in line with Pope Benedict XVI and Christopher Dawson, namely that culture is grounded in ‘cult’ — at the root of all culture is something like religion. And so he wasn’t afraid to reference the Christian faith as a key element in giving rise to the shared culture of Europe and America.”

Barron then turned his attention to Ocasio-Cortez, who tried to respond to Rubio’s speech by belittling the idea of a Western culture at all.

“I think it’s also important to note how thin that foundation is. … And so, the response that we have to have is, again, it’s material. It’s class-based. It’s common interest,” the congresswoman said.

“I was very struck by her answer. I thought it was very illuminating,” Barron responded.

“She said, ‘Oh, you know, this appeal to culture, it’s so ‘thin’ because culture is ephemeral. It’s always changing, and so we shouldn’t pay attention to the culture. We should just pay attention to the material foundations in the class struggle,'” he added.

“Well, all of that, everybody, is right out of the Marxist playbook,” Barron chuckled.

RELATED: AOC flaunts her historical illiteracy in ‘cowboys’ critique of Rubio’s speech in Munich

Photo by Andres Kudacki/Getty Images

“First of all, that Western culture, as Rubio invoked it, is ‘thin’? The culture that gave us all those great figures, that gave us the rule of law, that gave us respect for the rights of the individual, that gave us our democratic political system, that gave us the university system, that’s thin?” he asked rhetorically.

“And your argument is, well, because cultures always change? Well, that’s a banality!” Barron added.

“I mean, of course cultures are alive. They change and evolve. It doesn’t mean for a second we can’t identify the key elements within a culture that gives it its character. But also this, to characterize culture as ‘thin’ is a Marxist move,” he explained.

“Marx said that culture is simply an epiphenomenal superstructure on top of the economic substructure, and don’t be distracted therefore by ‘the culture.’ That’s just protecting the economics at bottom,” Barron added. “Well, again, listen to her. ‘Let’s pay attention to material conditions and to class struggle.’ Again, that’s the Marxist playbook.”

He went on to warn that Marxism is gaining popularity among politicians and cited New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and his comments about collectivism.

“What’s worrying me, everybody, is the extent to which political leadership on the left in America is becoming unapologetically Marxist,” Barron continued.

“Might I encourage followers of Mayor Mamdani and AOC: Talk to some of them — they’re still alive, some of them — the people that fled Marxist tyranny in Europe. People laboring under it to this day in Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, et cetera.”

RELATED: Socialist Minneapolis councilwoman calls Trump a ‘domestic terrorist’ — and proposes rental assistance over ICE surge

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

He went on to point out that religion was the first target of Marxism.

“It concerns me not just as someone who follows politics but as a bishop of the Catholic Church. Marx himself said the first critique is a critique of religion. And his political adepts followed him. The first thing the Marxist tyrannies went after in most cases was religion,” he continued.

“I am getting a little concerned that in some of these leading figures in our own politics, a Marxist philosophy is taking hold. As a religious leader, this is concerning me quite a bit,” Barron added.

“Take a look, everybody. Attend to the language. In a way, they’re telling us who they are and what they’re for. And I think that should be very concerning to everybody,” he concluded. “God bless you.”

Barron is the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota.

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He may be a serial killer who wants to wear his victim’s skin, but “The Silence of the Lambs” sicko Buffalo Bill is no transphobe.

At least according to Ted Levine, who portrayed the troubled womenswear enthusiast — real name Jame Gumb — in 1991 Best Picture winner “The Silence of the Lambs.”

‘We all know more, and I’m a lot wiser about transgender issues.’

“There are certain aspects of the movie that don’t hold up too well,” the actor recently told the Hollywood Reporter. “We all know more, and I’m a lot wiser about transgender issues. There are some lines in that script and movie that are unfortunate.”

He added, “It’s unfortunate that the film vilified that, and it’s f**king wrong. And you can quote me on that.”

Basket case

At the same time, the 68-year-old Hollywood vet denied that his character was ever meant to be understood as transgender in the first place.

RELATED: ‘I wasn’t invited to those parties’: Kelsey Grammer mocks woke Hollywood hypocrisy

“I didn’t play him as being gay or trans. I think he was just a f**ked-up heterosexual man. That’s what I was doing,” Levine insisted.

Sick puppy

This interpretation was backed up by “Lambs” producer Edward Saxon.

“We were really loyal to the book,” Saxon said. “As we made the film, there was just no question in our minds that Buffalo Bill was a completely aberrant personality — that he wasn’t gay or trans. He was sick.”

Any connection to transgenderism was an oversight by the production, the producer explained.

“We missed it. From my point of view, we weren’t sensitive enough to the legacy of a lot of stereotypes and their ability to harm.”

Saxon said that given the fact those involved in the movie had “friends and family who were gay,” they thought it would be clear that Buffalo Bill is simply “incredibly sick,” not practicing some form of homosexuality.

RELATED: B is for butthead: Raunchy rapper threatens ‘bear mace’ for ICE agents

Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic

‘It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.’

Skin in the game

Levine’s remarks came as the actor reflected on the 35th anniversary of his breakout role — and the staying power of a certain famous line.

“Pain in the ass, but it’s OK. Kind of put me on the map,” Levine laughed, “But [the annoyance recently] is less so. The edges have worn off. It’s not a big deal. It’s fine.”

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​Align, Silence of the lambs, Buffalo bill, Transgenderism, Woke, Gender, Entertainment 

Reporter Steve Cortes’ new documentary, “China’s College Takeover,” takes on the influx of Chinese nationals infiltrating American colleges and universities — which BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales notes is yet another form of immigration that needs to be put under the microscope.

“The issue of immigration is something that, once you see the issue, once you see the real problems, you can’t unsee it. It’s peeling back the layers of an onion, and it just gets worse and worse and worse,” Gonzales says.

“We are kind of the laughingstock of the globe at this point. … All of these other countries are just like, ‘Hey, hey, we’re just going to utilize and abuse their system, and we’re just going to take over,’” she adds.

“I’m sure there are times when some of the party bosses at the CCP’s buildings in Beijing just laugh to themselves. They cannot believe how willingly the United States will act as a victim, will volunteer for victimhood at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party,” Cortes agrees.

“And in this case, I think it’s absolutely outrageous that our most selective universities, our top flagship public schools across the United States are inundated with foreign students,” he says.

What Cortes finds “particularly awful” is the CCP “sending its princelings … over here so that we can educate our enemies so that many of them can spy on us and commit espionage.”

“We know that’s happening. There have been charges and convictions already. And then take those skills that they learned at some of our top schools like University of Illinois and go back to Beijing so they can make our adversary more powerful, more wealthy, and better able to continue to take advantage of the United States,” Cortes says.

“So, I’m trying to expose this, as you are, and say, ‘Enough.’ Of course, illegal immigration is a scourge to this country, but even the way we’re tolerating legal migration, including the student issue, is just inexcusable, and I think it needs to be exposed,” he adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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

​Camera phone, Video phone, Video, Sharing, Free, Upload, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Illegal immigration, Chinas college takeover, Steve cortes, American colleges, Ccp, Chinese communist party, Spies, Espionage 

Millions of modern Westerners are chained up in self-imposed terrors that prevent them from living in the real world. We’re terrified of “expired” food. We consult the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website while we peer at our digital meat thermometers to make sure we hit the government-approved specific temperature that reassures us that we won’t kill our families.

You can just cook things. Do you know that? Really. You can do the same things, with the same basic tools, that humans have been doing for countless tens of thousands of years before programmable stoves, digital scales, and tenth-of-a-degree meat thermometers came along. The only thing stopping you is unnecessary fear.

There is no reason to be reliant on complicated devices and prissy little scales in order to make bread. How do you think Laura Ingalls managed it?

It’s not just cooking that’s fallen prey to modern hysteria either. Alleged adults in the 2020s are skittish about checking the oil in their car or topping up the antifreeze (if they even think it’s “safe” to do without professional supervision).

Food for thought

But I can only focus on one thing in this piece, and that’s going to be food. Between the time I was a kid learning to cook in the ’80s and today, adult Americans have retreated into a mental padded cell where they quake with overblown fears about food technique and food safety.

I come from the Before Times, a land where children walked a mile each way to school, a land where kids could ride their bikes anywhere in town as long as they were home by dark. Now we have a new traffic jam at 3 p.m. around public schools. It’s not normal. It’s also not sane, necessary, or proportionate. Today only one in 10 children walk to school. Read that again. If that sounds normal, you’re the person I’m writing for.

I was taught to use a stove for simple meals by the time I was 8. Today? Fourteen-year-olds on average have never even made a box of macaroni and cheese on the stove top. A few years later, they become 25-year-olds who complain about the cost of eating because they think — yes, really — that DoorDash is the normal way to get supper.

I’m with soup-id

I knew something was happening to adult minds back in 1991 in the staff room of Perkins Family Restaurant in Camillus, New York. It was 2 p.m., and I was struggling to stay awake for an all-hands meeting on food safety (I worked the overnight shift).

District manager Phil was telling us about the dangers of poultry and salmonella. You have to know there was no raw poultry in the kitchen of this restaurant ever. Every chicken product we served had been pre-cooked, which means that any salmonella had already been killed. We merely reheated plastic-bagged refrigerated food from a factory.

Phil opened a bag of fully cooked chicken and dumpling soup and poured it into the steam table. Whipping out a thermometer, he stuck it into the next pot, which already had the same soup brought to serving temperature.

“This pot is not hot enough, and if we don’t keep it up to temperature, we risk giving our guests salmonella poisoning,” he said.

I bit my hand to stop myself from responding.

In case you don’t know why this is wrong: Once poultry has been fully cooked, all salmonella gets killed. It does not “regenerate” if the temperature falls. Sure, other microbes might get a foothold, but this guy really did believe that letting chicken cool off a few degrees would magically re-salmonellize it. I wonder if he believed the old tale about how raw meat spontaneously generates flies.

RELATED: How I stopped hating guns — and embraced self-reliance

Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The d’oy of cooking

As a longtime home cook, I’ve watched cookery become hystericized over the past four decades. As fewer parents cooked themselves, and as even fewer of them taught their children, I watched recipes get dumbed down. What would have taken a paragraph to explain to a person in 1985 now required 15 numbered steps: “Pour water into clear container. Bending down, use your eye to see if it hits the line that says ‘one cup.’ Then carefully pick up the cup, and tilt it so that the water falls out into the bowl. This is called ‘pouring.’”

I only slightly exaggerate. About 15 years ago, I looked up a recipe for chicken paprikash and made the mistake of reading the comments. This is a pretty accurate reconstruction:

“I made this recipe exactly as the author described, but she never told me that there were BONES in the chicken. I was appalled! I actually served my family chicken with bones inside it, and I was so embarrassed. My kids wouldn’t eat it. You should WARN PEOPLE.”

No, I don’t think this commenter was a troll. I’ve seen enough in real life to know there are millions of Americans walking around so disconnected from basic household tasks that they literally do not know that meat always comes with bones and that bones are normal.

Getting medieval

Last week, I got inspired to start baking again. That inspiration came from a YouTube channel I recommend called “Medieval Way.” The British guy behind it takes you through the simple, manual, methods of raising bread, stewing meat, and preserving foods that people did from muscle memory and common sense. And wouldn’t you know, their foodways (which were the foodways for all of us for thousands of years before the late 19th century) produce more nutritious meals than most of us eat today.

It’s a myth, and a damned scurrilous one, that a noticeable number of people died all the time in “the old days” from food poisoning because they didn’t have refrigerators or meat thermometers or the CDC. Pardon my frankness, but all humans who lived before us weren’t stupid.

I decided I was going to resume sourdough baking from natural leaven, no commercial yeast. But I also decided I wasn’t going to buy any special equipment like scales or filtered water or any of that. And I wasn’t going to measure anything.

I want to master my craft with my hands and heart and eyes. There is no reason to be reliant on complicated devices and prissy little scales in order to make bread. How do you think Laura Ingalls managed it? She learned how dough felt in the hand and gauged proper hydration and texture through feel and experience. I can too. So can you.

Maybe my project will inspire you. Here’s what I did. Don’t expect precise measurements or special tips: Get in there with your hands and learn it yourself.

For the starter

Stoneground organic whole rye flour. I’m not a hippie leftist; it’s just true that stone-ground flours without pesticides are nutritionally superior and give better results for this. Rye works faster than white flour.Water. I’m lucky enough to live on clean well water without chlorine. If you have city water, pour out a jug and set it on the counter to let the chlorine evaporate. That chemical will inhibit the bacteria and yeast you want to grow.

I put some flour in a bowl. Then I put some water in. Then I stirred it. Then I set it on the counter under a towel. Every day, I dumped half out and added back water and flour to give the nascent yeast new starch to grow on.

After a week, I wasn’t seeing much. I was on the verge of throwing it out and starting again when I lifted the towel and saw this:

Josh Slocum

That’s a thriving, frothing stew of natural yeast and accompanying bacteria that will leaven your loaf and give you a flavor you can’t get from commercial bread. It costs literally pennies and time.

For the bread

I put some all-purpose flour (again, organic, so no chemical traces to interfere) in a bowl. I added some lukewarm water. Then I dumped some of the starter in. How much? I don’t know. Maybe half a cup?

I mixed it all together and kneaded it just a few times until everything was incorporated. Tip: You don’t have to knead your dough at all if you’re willing to be patient. If you set a sourdough loaf to ferment in a room of about 60 degrees with a loose cover and wait 24 hours, the bacteria and yeast will do everything for you, and it’s better than hand kneading.

Here’s the loaf 12 hours later:

Josh Slocum

It’s only risen about 20% to 30% in size so far, but that’s because sourdough is slower than commercial yeast, and my house is on the cool side. I’m going to put it in the oven with just the oven light on to speed it up.

How long will it take to double in size? I don’t know. It might do so by 24 hours, or it might take 36 hours. The longer the fermentation, the more digestible the bread, the better the texture, and the better the flavor. Sooner or later, it will fully rise, and I’ll pop it in a preheated, covered dutch oven at 500 degrees, and I’ll get a beautiful loaf with that crisp, glass-shattering crust.

My hope is that you’ll find something — bread, cakes, roast meats, whatever you like — and just cook it. Put down your cookbook. Turn off the phone. Stop looking for a “foolproof” recipe for bolognese sauce. Stop watching step-by-step videos.

Learn it in your hands and in your mind. Even most “mistakes” in cooking aren’t fatal to the meal. We don’t have to be slaves to expert directions. None of this is arcane knowledge beyond mere 21st-century mortals. Peasants who lived quite literally on one penny a day turned out two or three meals a day for their families without any of the gee-gaws and expert hand-holding that we moderns have become dependent upon.

Just go cook things!

​Lifestyle, Cooking, How-to, Sourdough, Baking, Food safety, Intervention 

Investigators searching for Nancy Guthrie said they have a new lead relating to the suspect seen in a terrifying doorbell video last week.

Pima County (Ariz.) Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News that investigators believe the suspect’s clothing and face mask were purchased at Walmart, and they are trying to identify each brand.

The FBI previously described the individual in the surveillance video as a male with an average build who is about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, the news network added.

The news network said it first reported that the suspect’s backpack — identified as a black Ozark Trail Hiker — was sold exclusively at Walmart.

CBS News added that it’s not yet known if the items were purchased online or in an Arizona store — or somewhere else. Investigators have spent several days reviewing surveillance video at local Walmarts, the sheriff also told the news network.

Authorities believe Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie — was abducted from her Tucson home in the middle of the night, CBS News said, adding that she has been missing since Feb. 1.

Nanos called the backpack one of the most promising leads in the case, the news network reported.

More from CBS News:

Walmart has provided records of all Ozark Trail Hiker online and in-store purchases over the past several months, including sales beyond the Tucson area, to investigators, Nanos told CBS News.

CBS News has reached out to Walmart corporate offices but a spokesperson declined to comment.

Investigators believe the face mask the suspect wore is black but appears lighter on the video footage due to Nest camera’s infrared technology.

The FBI previously described the individual in the surveillance video as a male with an average build who is about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, the news network added.

RELATED: How the FBI actually got the Google Nest footage of Nancy Guthrie’s alleged kidnapper

More from CBS News:

Investigators have also collected other DNA evidence from Nancy Guthrie’s property as part of the ongoing investigation, but the results have not led to a suspect, according to Nanos.

Multiple law enforcement agencies spent hours Friday evening searching a residence less than two miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home.

Nanos told CBS affiliate KOLD that the activity was the result of following up on “a lead that led to a search warrant and no arrest.” Authorities did not release other details on what led them there or what, if anything, may have been found.

The FBI on Tuesday released video and images from a security camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door; an FBI press release said the man was armed.

A post on the X platform from FBI Director Kash Patel stated that authorities had been working “to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to a variety of factors — including the removal of recording devices. The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems.”

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — whose name has been bandied about as a possible 2028 presidential contender — took issue over the weekend with some of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference.

Rather than successfully critique anything Rubio said on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez instead exposed more of her historical illiteracy.

Rubio’s speech

Vice President JD Vance enraged a crowd of European officials last year at the Munich Security Conference by calling out their suppression of popular political movements and ideas, crackdown on religious liberties, and ruinous mass migration policies.

While pointed, Vance’s criticism of Europe’s censorious and self-destructive ways was constructive and imbued with the hope that Western nations across the Atlantic might return to the values they once shared in common with the United States.

‘Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to “Western culture.”‘

In a less-scathing sequel to Vance’s speech, Rubio discussed on Feb. 14 the deep civilizational bonds that he figures the U.S. and Europe still share, the opportunity for concerted renewal, and the way forward to a “new century of prosperity.”

“We are part of one civilization — Western civilization,” said Rubio. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

Rubio noted further that the U.S., under President Donald Trump, has embarked on the “task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past.”

“While we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe,” added the secretary.

Whereas Europeans couldn’t stomach Vance’s speech on-theme last year, the audience gave Rubio a standing ovation following his speech on Saturday.

Bucking the revisionism

While Europeans were receptive to the secretary’s discussion of civilizational inheritance and common responsibility, Ocasio-Cortez apparently had trouble with one of Rubio’s passing remarks.

During a softball interview at the Technical University of Berlin on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez cited Rubio’s speech as evidence of the “ascent of the right even in places like Munich.”

“Marco Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to ‘Western culture,'” said the congresswoman, employing scare quotes in reference to Western culture.

RELATED: ‘Qualm your t*ts’: Ocasio-Cortez makes embarrassing mistake while defending Don Lemon — and the ridicule is hilarious

Cornado sets out on his expedition for Quivira in 1540. Getty Images.

“My favorite part,” continued Ocasio-Cortez, “was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain. I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slaves — enslaved peoples — would like to have a word on that.”

In his speech, Rubio stated:

Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns names all across the Mississippi Valley. Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos — the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West — these were born in Spain. And our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.

Ocasio-Cortez’s critics were quick to point out that horses and cowboy culture were, as Rubio suggested, a European export to North America — including to New Spain, which ultimately became the home of Ocasio-Cortez’s would-be fact-checking, Spanish-speaking Mexicans.

‘Your IQ is lower than the temp in my freezer.’

While ancient horses once roamed North America, they apparently went extinct around 10,000 years ago. The species hitherto unknown to the native population was, however, reintroduced to the continent by Spaniards and other Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer sailing under the Spanish flag, imported the first horses the continent had seen in thousands of years on his second voyage to the New World in 1493. Twenty-six years later — and after decades of Europeans breeding horses in the Caribbean, where Ocasio-Cortez’s family hails from originally — the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés brought 16 horses to what is now Mexico.

With continued European exploration and expansion, horses were ultimately bred and spread across the continent, and mastered by European settlers and Indians alike. The corresponding horseman culture also didn’t appear ex nihilo.

Although it also references the Irish “Cau-boys” of the High Middle Ages, Fort Worth’s Sid Richardson Museum notes in its relevant overview that “cowboy culture in the American West can be traced to the Spanish tradition of the vaquero.”

“Derived from the word vaca (Spanish for cow), the vaqueros would become renowned for their skills and adaptability as Spain expanded their North American empire westward from what is now Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to the Franciscan missions in California by the late 1700s,” noted History.com.

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck responded to Ocasio-Cortez, writing, “Yeah literally every culture learned the cowboy trade from Spanish vaqueros. I’m sorry that your IQ is lower than the temp in my freezer.”

John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at the Federalist, quipped, “Just wait till she finds out where Mexicans came from.”

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​Munich speech, Munich security conference, Marco rubio, Rubio, Jd vance, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Aoc, Retard, Retardation, History, Illiteracy, Leftism, Vaqueros, Cowboy, Spanish, Horse, Horses, Politics 

The “deep state” — the hidden network of unelected bureaucrats, intelligence officials, military leaders, and other insiders who secretly control government policy regardless of who is elected — has long been written off as a conspiracy theory.

But BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says seven recently declassified documents from Richard Nixon’s 1975 grand jury testimony are evidence that the deep state doesn’t just exist — it’s been forcefully active for decades.

On this episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” Liz interviews Newsmax chief Washington correspondent James Rosen about the bombshell he helped bring to light.

Rosen, author of the 2008 book “The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate,” has been digging into this story for over 30 years. He explains that the seven newly unsealed pages from Nixon’s secret 1975 grand jury testimony finally confirm one of the most explosive (and deliberately buried) scandals of the Nixon era: the Moorer-Radford espionage affair.

Back in 1971, top military leaders felt ignored by President Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger. They were upset that big foreign-policy decisions were being made without them.

In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff launched a secret spying operation inside the White House. They used a young Navy yeoman named Charles Radford to steal thousands of top-secret documents.

“He took a copy of every document that came across his vision. What he couldn’t copy, he memorized. He dove through waste baskets and burn bags. He literally rifled the briefcases of Henry Kissinger while he slept on overnight flights,” says Rosen.

“It’s estimated that this yeoman stole 5,000 classified documents from the National Security Council over a year’s time, 1970 to ’71, in wartime, and delivered those documents to the Joint Chiefs of Staff through the admirals,” he adds.

When these ultra-sensitive documents Radford had stolen started appearing in newspaper columns just days after high-level meetings, Nixon’s “plumbers” — which Rosen describes as a White House “special investigative unit” — quickly traced the leaks back to Radford and the Pentagon spy ring.

The White House was stunned to discover that the U.S. military had been running an espionage operation against its own commander in chief during wartime.

“[The Senate Armed Services Committee] held classified closed-door hearings, but everybody involved had good reason to want to let the matter drop, and ultimately nothing was done,” says Rosen.

For starters, Nixon didn’t want to publicly “vilify” the military during the Vietnam era, when returning veterans were already facing widespread scorn and being labeled “baby killers,” Rosen explains. Further, Attorney General John Mitchell reminded Nixon of his own administration’s secret operations, making a full-blown scandal risky for everyone.

So the affair was hushed up. Radford and the involved admirals were quietly reassigned to remote posts; the Pentagon liaison office was dissolved; and no charges were filed. Brief classified Senate hearings in 1974 fizzled out amid the Watergate storm.

Rosen, who first detailed this from Nixon’s 1971 White House tapes in his 2002 Atlantic article “Nixon and the Chiefs,” says these seven newly declassified pages from Nixon’s 1975 grand jury testimony add the former president’s own sworn account of the betrayal.

It shows unelected military leaders actively undermining an elected president over policy disagreements — proof, he argues, that the deep state isn’t a modern myth but a decades-old “beast.”

Check out the full eye-opening interview above.

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.

​The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, James rosen, Nixon, Watergate, Blazetv, Blaze media, Deep state 

A partial shutdown of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security entered its third day Monday, leaving thousands of Transportation Security Administration agents and other essential workers without pay as they continue performing critical duties at airports nationwide.

The funding lapse, which began early Saturday, stems from a breakdown in negotiations between congressional Democrats and Republicans over proposed restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

‘This is getting very old, and we’re hoping this is not going to become the new normal.’

Even WPRI in Rhode Island noted Democrats’ role in the shutdown: “The Department of Homeland Security officially shut down on Saturday after Democrats refused to fund it. They want new restrictions on ICE agents following the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.”

The shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have intensified tensions surrounding immigration enforcement. Democrats have insisted on new limits on DHS funding, while Republicans have accused them of holding up critical funding to secure policy concessions.

RELATED: Government shutdown looms after Democrats tank key DHS vote

TSA screeners, deemed essential personnel, are required to report for duty despite the funding lapse.

Reporting from T.F. Green International Airport in Rhode Island, WPRI’s Sophia Szabo said TSA agents are still recovering from a 43-day government shutdown last year.

“That’s a long time to work without a paycheck,” Szabo said, noting lawmakers have roughly two weeks to reach a deal before another missed pay period.

The impact on workers is mounting.

“This is getting very old, and we’re hoping this is not going to become the new normal, but it does seem that it’s going in that direction,” a union representative for TSA agents in New England said. “A lot of the officers are very anxious because we’re in the middle of winter, and now we’re going to have to choose between paying for heat and paying for food and rent if the checks don’t come through in the next couple of weeks. Because in two weeks, in the next pay period, we’re only going to have half a check, and so choices are going to have to be made — and we shouldn’t be put in this position again.”

RELATED: ‘We do not support ICE’: Speedway gas station sparks backlash after booting Border Patrol boss

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Szabo added that staffing shortages have worsened since the previous shutdown.

“According to a union representing TSA agents across New England, there has been a significant shortage of these agents since that last shutdown, and they’re already struggling to recruit more,” she reported.

The shutdown affects agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service.

Congress is currently in recess until Feb. 23, leaving a narrow window to resolve the impasse before broader operational impacts emerge.

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​Politics, Dhs, Government shutdown, No pay, Tsa, Tsa agents, Airport, Democrats