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Many Christians are confused by Jesus’ first miracle documented in the book of John, where he turns water into wine at a wedding at his mother’s request. If Christians are called to refrain from getting drunk, then why would He make more wine, increasing the possibility of drunkenness?

Is this not a contradiction?

Jase and Al Robertson and Zach Dasher, BlazeTV hosts of “Unashamed,” addressed this common question on a recent episode.

“Alcohol is never said to be bad in the Bible … but getting drunk is always bad,” says Jase.

To explain God’s command against drunkenness, he points to Ephesians 5:18, which says, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” He also cites Galatians 5:22, which lists “self control” – the opposite of drunkenness – as one of the fruits of the Spirit.

However, these verses, while certainly true, “have nothing to do with John 2,” says Jase.

When He turns water into wine, “Jesus is revealing a picture of who He is and what He’s going to do.”

“Jesus turning water into wine is directly connected to the new wine that Jesus says He’s bringing. … So it’s no accident that He’s doing this miracle, making new wine at a wedding ceremony, right? Because we’re the bride of Christ. There’s all kinds of imagery here that’s being played out,” Zach explains.

The wedding party, Jase adds, is also reflective of the reality that “we’re participating in the greatest party of all parties in Jesus.”

Further, in John 2, Jesus is, for the first time in His ministry, showing that miraculous change can only be done through Him. By turning water into wine with a mere thought – an act none but God Himself could accomplish – Jesus is “giving you a picture [of]: If you want to know how to change something, I’m your guy,” says Jase.

Al then brings up another point: The passage is also about Mary’s faith.

“I mean His mom believed in Him enough [that] she said, ‘Do something about this wine situation.’ I mean, that blows me away that she had enough faith in who He was in the moment to think He could do something, which He did,” he says.

John 2, says Jase, is a passage where many Christians, especially new ones, go off in the weeds debating what the text is saying about alcohol, when in reality, the story is about who Jesus is and what He came to do.

That said, it’s still important to abide by God’s command against drunkenness.

People who have a history of alcohol abuse probably “shouldn’t touch it at all,” Zach advises.

“Also, I mean, I wouldn’t have a drink around somebody that I knew had an issue with it,” he adds.

“The more you get to know this Jesus and what He is really not only offering you but what He’s given you … it becomes not the ‘do’ and ‘don’t do,’ but this is who I live for,” says Al.

To hear more of the panel’s conversation, watch the episode above.

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​Unashamed, Unashamed with phil robertson, Robertsons, Jase robertson, Al robertson, Zach dasher, Blazetv, Blaze media, Jesus first miracle, Water into wine, Alcohol, Alcoholism 

The media’s newest attempt to villainize Christianity proves why such attacks rarely — if ever — succeed. And in this case, the attempted smear revealed more about the attacker than the attacked.

Enter CNN and Idaho pastor Doug Wilson.

It’s an uncomfortable truth for the gatekeepers of power. In this battle, conviction, honesty, and truth win.

CNN recently profiled Wilson and spotlighted his views on gender roles, sexual morality, and politics, cherry-picking his most provocative answers and stripping them of nuance.

But how CNN framed Wilson’s ideas revealed the true motive for the profile: He’s a “Christian nationalist” with “controversial views,” and —gasp! — his influence is growing, therefore we must tar and feather him. The profile even went to great lengths to connect Wilson to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who praises Wilson and attended a Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches in Tennessee. Wilson co-founded the CREC, which recently planted a new church in Washington, D.C.

Reaction to the profile was dramatic and predictable.

But in trying to portray Wilson — and, by extension, conservative Christians — as dangerous, CNN accidentally exposed something far more telling: the fragility of the progressive worldview.

Moral amnesia

CNN didn’t profile Wilson by accident.

The network specifically targeted him because he represents so much of what it opposes. And he is perfect for the role: the unapologetic patriarch who stands against the sexual revolution, envisions a Christian world, and refuses to bend his knee to the latest secular creed. The point of the profile wasn’t to better understand Wilson or his theology, but to sound a warning that his worldview is a threat to the anti-God secularism that progressivism serves.

Here’s the irony: The framing and subsequent outrage assumes that Wilson’s views are some bizarre novelty. But they’re not.

RELATED: Doug Wilson’s CNN interview exposes the left’s religious

For most of history, Wilson’s views would be considered unremarkable.

A Christian who desires the entire world to know Christ and to follow Him? Of course. A Christian who preaches biblical sexual ethics? Wouldn’t expect anything less. A Christian who affirms a traditional view of the family? It’s exactly what you expect.

Whether or not you agree with Wilson, his views are hardly alien to America or Christianity.

This interview demonstrates the collision between the moral memory of the past and the progressive sensibilities of the present. Progressivism has moved the goal posts so far in such a short amount of time that views our recent ancestors held are now treated as existential threats.

Clarity wins

But why Wilson? And why now?

You don’t need to agree with him to see what’s happening here: The elite view Wilson and other Christians like him as a threat, so they give him a spotlight to “expose” him.

The implied question underneath the interview is: How can someone possibly believe this stuff?!

And that’s why this interview is fascinating.

On one hand, progressives, the legacy media, and those entrenched in power look down upon Wilson for having “backward” and “outdated” views, which they would describe as a “threat to democracy.” But there sits CNN reporter Pamela Brown across from Wilson asking her loaded questions — precisely because Americans are no longer buying what the left is selling.

You know this is true not because of what Wilson said but how he said it.

Wilson spoke with clarity — no flinching, PR-friendly slogans, or euphemisms. He didn’t try to hide his views but spoke plainly. It’s proof that progressivism is lacking answers, running out of influence, and grasping at villains because it can’t defend its own failing moral vision.

Utopia’s lies

The progressive project isn’t collapsing because Christians like Wilson are attacking it (though he is). It’s collapsing because people are seeing it for what it is.

For decades, the left promised liberation, enlightenment, and progress. People were told that if they abandoned the “oppression” of Christianity, rejected the “old” moral codes, and embraced the “right side of history,” life would be utopia.

RELATED: The left’s new anti-Christian smear backfires

DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

But the fruit of the progressive project speaks for itself. Instead of flourishing, Americans were handed confusion, division, and despair.

The evidence is everywhere.

The loneliness epidemic. The crises of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The breakdown of community. The sense that all of the “freedom” that progress promised has only left us less happy, less rooted, and less sure of who we are.

This is why Christianity is a threat to the progressive project. Christians speak with conviction about God, family, and moral order. It offers an alternative to the chaos of “progress,” and the left cannot tolerate a rival vision for the good life.

Except, this one actually works — because it is true.

Progress on trial

CNN thought it was shining a spotlight on a fringe figure with alleged influence over the government. It was an attempt to fearmonger about “Christian nationalism.”

But what is actually illuminated is the abject failure of the leftist worldview. The progressive narrative that dominated our culture for generations hasn’t delivered on any of its promises. Instead, it has made our culture sick and eroded what is true and good. The progressive utopia, it turns out, is hell.

That’s why this interview matters in a way CNN doesn’t understand.

You don’t have to agree with Wilson’s theology, tone, or methods. But he and other Christians have something the left doesn’t: a coherent moral vision that doesn’t shift with the cultural winds, one that doesn’t seek to uproot good in service of evil.

It’s an uncomfortable truth for the gatekeepers of power. In this battle, conviction, honesty, and truth win. And in this case, it’s why the attacker ends up attacked. The more they smear faithful Christians as extremists, the more obvious it becomes that progressivism has nothing good to offer — no map, no anchor, and no hope.

CNN tried to put Wilson on trial, but the real defendant was secular progressivism. And the verdict isn’t just “guilty” — it’s “failed beyond repair.”

​Doug wilson, Pete hegseth, Crec, Christianity, Christian, Christian nationalism, Progressivism, Liberalism, The left, Legacy media, Media bias, Cnn, Faith 

A former sixth-grade teacher in Ohio has pleaded guilty to 21 felony counts of child sex crimes against an underage girl and now faces up to 15 years in prison.

Stefanie Erin Kellenberger, 40, recently pleaded guilty to four counts of third-degree felony sexual battery and 17 counts of third-degree felony unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, according to Richland County Common Pleas Court records.

‘This news may be unsettling, especially for families with children in our schools.’

According to the Mansfield News Journal, Richland County Common Pleas Judge Brent Robinson said, “You had been a teacher. She had been a student. But at the time these occurred, you were not her teacher, and she was not your student.”

State prosecutors informed the court that there was “no use of force” in Kellenberger’s sexual abuse.

“Consent was never an issue in this case,” James Mayer III, Kellenberger’s defense attorney, stated. “It’s an age thing.”

Mayer reportedly pointed out that his client had no legal issues before this case.

Bryan Dove, an assistant prosecutor for Richland County, alleged that Kellenberger began grooming the girl when she was just 13 years old and that the child sex abuse began when the victim turned 14.

“The relationship continued until the age of consent,” Dove told the judge.

Ohio law declares that 16 years old is the age of consent.

RELATED: Married ex-teacher escapes jail sentence after accused of sharing explicit videos with student, inviting teen to have sex

Kellenberger allegedly sexually abused the girl at her home in Shelby, according to the New York Post. Prosecutors claimed Kellenberger committed child sexual abuse between February 2020 and October 2021, the Richland Source said.

The victim allegedly asked that Kellenberger serve three years in prison, but the judge reportedly said that the sentence was too lenient for the severity of the crimes.

The Post said prosecutors presented Kellenberger with two options: 12 years flat prison time or 15 years with the possibility of judicial release after 10 years.

The disgraced teacher reportedly chose the second option when she pleaded guilty, court documents show.

Kellenberger also must register as a Tier 3 sex offender, court papers said. She was ordered to have no contact with minors and forfeit her teaching license forever.

Dove noted, “The victim is relieved to not have to testify. That’s why we entered into this agreement with the defendant.”

RELATED: Ex-teacher pleads guilty to sex with 11-year-old at ‘play dates,’ blamed boy for advances, sent him hundreds of dollars: Cops

Photo by Five Buck Photos via iStock / Getty Images Plus

Kellenberger was a sixth-grade English and language arts teacher at Shelby City Schools at the time of her crimes.

Shelby City Schools Superintendent Michael Browning sent a letter to parents in October 2024 regarding the accusations against Kellenberger.

“As a follow-up to the communication sent on March 4, 2024, I have been informed that the staff member placed on administrative leave following serious allegations has been arrested, and criminal charges have been brought against them,” Browning stated, according to a separate story by the Richland Source. “This news may be unsettling, especially for families with children in our schools.”

Browning added that “we have been in touch with the district’s legal counsel and are awaiting further guidance. As shared previously, the staff member was immediately placed on leave and has had no contact with students or staff since the investigation began.”

The Mansfield News Journal in a separate story reported that Kellenberger resigned in October 2024 “due to personal reasons.”

Superintendent Browning said at the time, “She is no longer an employee. We’re going to move on.”

Kellenberger’s photo was still visible on the Shelby City Schools website on Friday morning.

Kellenberger is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 6, according to court records.

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​Teacher arrested, Bad teacher, Teacher sex scandal, Teacher student sex scandal, Grooming, Crime, Ohio, Guilty plea, Child sex abuse, Jail time 

Today, atheism and materialism — ideologies that reject the notion of a spiritual dimension and emphasize the primacy of physical matter — are on the decline. Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of Americans believe in the supernatural in some capacity.

But sadly, this openness has led many astray. A significant percentage of people who consider themselves spiritual reject the biblical reality of angels, demons, heaven, hell, and the triune God. Instead of scripture, they consult Ouiji boards, tarot cards, and mediums, all of which have exploded in recent years, and adopt popular New Age spiritualist practices, which are merely gateways to occultism.

But what’s the truth about the unseen realm? What’s really going on behind a miracle or an act of heinous evil? And why are people suddenly so interested in knowing the answers to these kinds of questions?

To explore these queries, Glenn Beck interviewed award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and Christian apologist Lee Strobel, who dove deep into this subject in his new book, “Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World.”

While many lost souls are seeking answers in all the wrong places, Lee is nonetheless heartened by the fact that so many people, especially youth, haven’t grown cold in their pursuit of truth. “I love the engagement that I get with young people — their curiosity, their questions, their sincerity. It’s a real sincere quest,” he tells Glenn.

Neither he nor Glenn is surprised that there’s been an uptick in interest in the supernatural. For one, how does one explain miraculous healings, unmitigated evil, and phenomena? Second, with what modern science has uncovered in the fields of cosmology, physics, and biochemistry, among others, it’s hard to reckon with our universe without entertaining the idea of divinity.

“It makes more sense logically and rationally today to believe in God than I think any time in history,” says Lee.

For example, we now have hundreds of accounts of individuals who have clinically died and then been resuscitated. They return to consciousness with jaw-dropping stories that indicate “their spirit, their soul, their consciousness separates from their body and continues to live on,” says Lee.

But instead of believing in the eternal soul destined for one of two places, many will adopt the erroneous belief that ghosts haunt the earthly realm, unable to pass into a neutral afterlife. Glenn and Lee, however, reject the notion of lingering spirits of the dead. What people call ghosts, they call “demonic apparitions,” which certainly haunt and prowl the earth.

Lee tells several harrowing stories of demon-possessed people with supernatural abilities, like levitation, super strength, and spell casting.

He warns against two pitfalls when it comes to demons: “deny that they exist” or “see a demon under every bush.”

On the flip side, angels are another commonly misunderstood supernatural being. Many misguided spiritualists “believe that angels are relatives,” says Glenn, but they’re as deluded as those who believe in ghosts. While seeing dead relatives, especially on one’s death bed, is a common phenomenon, those are not angels people are seeing, as the Bible describes angels as being distinct from human beings.

“People on their deathbed will have a pre-death vision of what’s to come, and often there are dead relatives who they will see,” says Lee, citing Acts chapter 7 as evidence that this phenomenon is biblical. Again, he shares several incredible stories of people who have had astounding visions before their death, many of which revealed information impossible for them to know.

Glenn also shares his own father’s strange deathbed experience and his daughter’s childhood encounters with angels.

Angels, Lee explains, are “a separate creation of God.”

“They are spirit. There’s lots of them — millions. … It says in the book of Hebrews in the Bible that they are there to serve God but also to serve His people,” he says, sharing a story about an angel who visited him when he was 12 years old.

The duo dive into several other subjects, including end times, the possibility of guardian angels assigned to individual people, the dangers of AI and technology, spiritual awakening in the Middle East, and several others. To hear the full conversation, watch the episode above.

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​The glenn beck podcast, Blazetv, Blaze media, Glenn beck, Lee strobel, Angels and demons, Spiritual warfare, Near death visions, Angels, Demons, Ghosts, Miracles, Unseen realm 

I take a weekly walk in Sleepy Hollow, New York, through its historic cemetery, where many captains of industry rest. William Rockefeller lies in a grand mausoleum. So do Walter Chrysler, Leona Helmsley, and Elizabeth Arden. Andrew Carnegie’s grave is marked only by a simple Celtic cross.

Washington Irving is buried there, too, in a sprawling family plot on a hill just behind the Old Dutch Church he made famous in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

In the present, our responsibility is to live with honor, blessing and serving those we know and influence today.

But among the monuments to those who built billion-dollar corporations or wrote legendary tales, you’ll also find the graves of “ordinary folks” — men and women of humble means and obscure backgrounds. Walking among these modest headstones, you begin to see the nobility in even a simple life well lived.

One headstone I saw recently brought that home — and made me think about the left’s ongoing push for “reparations.”

Repayment for injustice

On the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, I came across the grave of a man who died in 1912. That August morning in 1945, an estimated 70,000 people perished when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city — a calculated gamble to end World War II quickly.

In the years before the bombing, Japanese Americans — U.S. citizens — were herded into internment camps. Many likely had close relatives and friends who died in Hiroshima that day. In 1988, the federal government agreed to pay monetary reparations to surviving internees.

The Conversation, a website that claims to blend “academic rigor” with “journalistic flair,” offers a comparison between reparations for Japanese Americans and those sought for African Americans. One logistical distinction, the site notes, is that the injustice against the Japanese occurred over a defined period — from 1942, when internment began, to 1945, when the war ended.

The tombstone that started the gears turning in my head along that cemetery walk had an interesting dedication carved into it. A man named John C.L. Hamilton shared the gravesite with his wife, who died a few years after he did, but for his part, the inscription read:

Photo by Albin Sadar

JOHN C.L. HAMILTON
1842–1912
Soldier and Patriot
He Served His Country with Valor
and Distinction During the
Tragic Years of Our Civil War

Many other Civil War veterans reside in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and, standing prominently among them, is a fitting monument:

Photo by Albin Sadar

PATRIA CARIOR QUAM VITA.
[Country Dearer Than Life]
OUR
UNION SOLDIERS.

While Freedom’s name
is understood,
They shall delight the
wise and good;
They dared to set their
country free,
And gave her laws
equality.

Another notable person who has found her final resting place in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is Amanda Foster, who passed away at the age of 97. She used her freedom helping others through the Underground Railroad:

Photo by Albin Sadar

(By the way, if you would like to watch a short but fun 2-1/2-minute “video tour” of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I made one about eight years ago.)

Moving on and moving up

Many men and women — black and white — pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to rid the young nation of slavery. If the United States ever pursued true reparations based on an honest review of historical records, the line of claimants who lost family and treasure — black and white — would stretch long.

Punishment for those who engaged in the slave trade or owned slaves ended long ago. The best way to close that dark chapter is not to blame or “correct” the past, but to leave those people and events where they belong — in history.

In the present, our responsibility is to live with honor, blessing and serving those we know and influence today.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.

​Opinion & analysis, History, Reparations, Slavery, Civil war, Washington irving, Sleepy hollow, Cemetery, New york, Andrew carnegie, Rockefellers, Leona helmsley, Walter chrysler, Industrialists, Capitalism, Leftism, Japanese internment, Honor 

Many people are familiar with the doll named “Annabelle” through the three movies that are part of the “Conjuring” universe.

In a disturbing recent development, the doll is now touring the country, and anyone who purchases a ticket can take pictures with it, talk to it, and touch its case. Technically, touching is against the rules, but videos show people making contact with the case while taking pictures.

A demon — a spiritual being with a will and intelligence — has attached itself to this object, and its intentions are malevolent.

To explain how dangerous this is, I must first provide important background. Like other cases Ed and Lorraine Warren were involved in that are part of the movie franchise, the “Annabelle” films have little in common with the actual events surrounding the doll.

The real-life case, as recorded in “The Demonologist,” a book about the Warrens, involved a 25-year-old nurse residing in Connecticut who was given a Raggedy Ann doll as a birthday gift by her mother. The nurse shared an apartment with a female roommate who was also a nurse. Not long after the doll’s arrival, it began to mysteriously change locations around the apartment. The women then began finding short messages written on pieces of paper, including “Help us.” They also once found three drops of blood on the doll’s chest.

Perplexed by what was happening, the women sought out a psychic medium to try to find answers. The medium informed them that the doll was inhabited by the spirit of a deceased 7-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins, who had died near the apartment building. Feeling sympathy for Annabelle’s plight, they gave her permission to stay with them and inhabit the doll.

Not surprisingly, these details turned out to be lies.

Things escalated when the boyfriend of Annabelle’s owner was attacked one night in the doll’s presence with seven claw-like slashes across his chest. Alarmed at this violence, the women contacted an Episcopal priest, and the case was referred to Ed and Lorraine, who interviewed the nurses.

All the evidence pointed to demonic activity, and the Warrens contacted a second Episcopal priest and asked him to come and bless the apartment. Following the blessing, the nurse asked the Warrens to take the doll with them to ensure there wouldn’t be any further problems.

This, however, would not be the end of the attacks associated with the doll. The Warrens maintained that three different people who belittled the doll in their home were either killed or seriously injured in vehicle accidents the same day they made their comments.

Tragically, the main organizer of the current “Devil’s on the Run” tour displaying the doll, Dan Rivera, died suddenly in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 13. He was only 54 years old and had just presented to a group of ticket-holders the day before.

Some of the reasons the tour organizers have given for exhibiting the doll include educating the public, keeping the Warrens’ legacy alive, and funding a new museum where the doll can reside.

Although well intentioned, this tour is exceptionally irresponsible.

RELATED: Inside the thriving online market for ‘haunted’ dolls

shaunl/Getty Images Plus

There were good reasons, as we’ve seen, that Ed Warren placed that famous sign on the doll’s storage cabinet: “Warning, positively do not open.” If the stories of those who made light of the doll are true, what might happen to scores or hundreds of other people now engaging in similar behavior?

Although the tour operators believe they’re providing an educational experience, it’s clear from photos and videos that many attenders are there to make jokes, take selfies with the doll, and generally frolic in front of it.

At the time of this writing, Dan Rivera’s autopsy results are still pending, and the coroner has said the cause of death was “nothing suspicious.”

Perhaps the autopsy will reveal that Rivera had a chronic condition of some kind that led to his untimely death. I don’t wish to demean his memory, but given that this doll, which has allegedly killed or severely injured people in the past, was being transported around the country and made into a carnival-like spectacle, one has to wonder if his death was more than a coincidence.

Notably, the Warrens’ grandson, paranormal investigator Chris McKinnell, said the following prior to Rivera’s death: “They’re claiming this [tour] is what my grandparents would have wanted. It’s not. My grandfather’s warning still stands: ‘Positively do not open.’ If they keep doing this without understanding what they’re handling, someone is going to get seriously hurt.”

Unfortunately, the situation has taken an even greater turn for the worse.

Just a few days ago, a comedian named Matt Rife announced on Instagram that he and a YouTuber named Elton Castee had purchased the Warrens’ home and are now the “legal guardians and caretakers of all 750 haunted artifacts and items in the Warren Museum, including the Annabelle doll.” They don’t legally own the artifacts, which remain the property of the Warrens’ daughter and son-in-law, but the items will be under their control for “at least the next five years,” according to Rife.

Horrifically, the two intend to turn the home into a kind of paranormal Airbnb.

“You are going to be able to soon book a night or a weekend and stay at the Warrens’ house and investigate the house … as well as the museum and all the artifacts inside of it,” Rife said.

In an interview with a Connecticut news program, Castee added that the house will be supplied with a complete collection of ghost-hunting equipment, so that guests can try to make contact with any spirits dwelling there.

Non-Christians who interact with these objects are placing themselves in harm’s way and have no defense from demonic attacks.

I hope no harm will come to anyone involved in this tour or the conversion of the Warrens’ home to an attraction for paranormal thrill-seekers. I’m sad to say, however, that it’s highly likely that misfortune will strike again.

Rife and Castee, and the organizers of the Annabelle tour, are under the impression that with the correct precautions, people can safely interact with items that have demonic attachments. They believe that if someone sprays himself with holy water, makes the sign of the cross, and employs other rituals, that these will offer protection from demons looking for opportunities to destroy human lives.

From a biblical perspective, this approach is misguided.

It’s not holy water or rituals that protect a person from the attacks of Satan, but the fact that through regeneration the person has been delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:12-13; Ephesians 6:11-13). Because Christians have become children of the King, they gain his divine protection and can call upon his authority to drive away the enemy (Luke 10:19; Ephesians 6:11-13; James 4:7).

Non-Christians who interact with these objects are placing themselves in harm’s way and have no defense from demonic attacks. Even Christians can invite trouble into their lives if they’re not cautious — and most Christians have no business dealing with these kinds of items. They should never be sought out for the sake of entertainment.

Many in the paranormal community describe the Annabelle doll as having “negative energy.” This suggests the doll is something like a radioactive object that can contaminate a person. But this is a mischaracterization.

In reality, a demon — a spiritual being with a will and intelligence — has attached itself to this object, and its intentions are malevolent. And, yes, the demon can afflict people who come into contact with the doll.

This makes it much more dangerous than something merely giving off negative vibes.

I fear that what lies ahead for many non-believers who interact with the doll and other items collected by the Warrens is the fate of the sons of Sceva, recorded in the book of Acts. Although they weren’t Christians, they attempted to use the name of Jesus, “whom Paul preaches,” to cast a demon out of a possessed person. But the demon replied to them: “‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?’ Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding” (Acts 19:13-16).

​Demons, Satan, Spiritual warfare, Annabelle doll, Haunted dolls, Matt rife, Faith 

Congress just killed the rules that are making cars ugly.

For 50 years, D.C.’s fuel economy mandates forced automakers into cookie-cutter designs, turning every single SUV and crossover into the same boring blob or potato.

Not anymore. It’s time to make cars beautiful again. MCBA. OK, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue like “MAGA.” But thanks to President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are gone.

Or rather, they’re no longer enforceable, which means car designers can make cars creative again. They can make them cool again. They can build cars you want. Beautiful cars are often defined by their elegant designs, unique silhouettes, their emotional appeal, the way it makes you feel inside when you drive it, and you smile and say, “This is so freaking cool.”

Here are my top five cars they should be using for inspiration.

1. The Mercedes Benz SL Gullwing

Some of the most beautiful cars ever built started with the Mercedes SL Gullwing. It’s a spectacular vehicle with style to spare. It was produced from 1954 to 1957 and, of course, is known for its gullwing doors.

2. The Aston Martin DB5

This U.K. speedster is all about beauty. James Bond made it famous, but even without 007, its elegant proportions, flowing lines, and distinctive curves give it a license to thrill, setting a high standard for automotive aesthetics. It’s a reminder of a lost age of sophistication and luxury in car design.

3. Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder

This Ferrari’s beautiful design is the brainchild of the legendary Sergio Scaglietti. But you may associate more with a certain trio of truant teens from an ’80s cinema classic. That’s right, this is the car that Ferris Bueller and friends took for a joyride throughout Chicago. The movie was a great showcase for the car — even when smashing it through a plate glass window.

4. Lamborghini Miura

This Marcello Candini-engineered Lamborghini was the first high-performance production car to feature a rear mid-engine layout, which has since become a standard in sports car design. Very influential — and gorgeous to boot.

5. Talbot-Lago T150 CSS Teardrop Coupe

Long before we worried about emissions, coach-builders were creating masterpieces of automotive design. The one that really melts my heart is the 1937 Telbo Lago T150 CSS Teardrop Coupe, which just sold to a collector for $13.4 million — making it the most valuable French car ever sold at auction. A true piece of art.

If you’re in the car business, it probably means you love cars like this. But when it comes to emulating their style, designers have always had to pull back.

Those days are over — so let’s get to work making some beautiful cars.

Now, yes, my list is subjective and incomplete. There are many other inspiring vehicles, including the Porsche 911, the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, the Bugatti Chiron, the Jaguar E-Type, and, of course, the Ford Mustang.

What are your favorites? Put them in the comments below.

​Align cars 

America is in the middle of a brain health crisis. It’s draining our families, our future, and our faith. Depression, anxiety, suicide, addiction, Alzheimer’s, and obesity aren’t just rising — they’re exploding. Government systems are overwhelmed. Schools are under-resourced. Millions are silently suffering.

But I believe there’s a powerful and overlooked solution hiding in plain sight: the church.

We are not just bodies with thoughts. We are eternal souls made in the image of God.

Faith communities are uniquely positioned to lead a mental health revival — not just as spiritual centers but as healing hubs for the whole person. They are already rooted in the places where people gather, search for meaning, and long for hope. And true healing isn’t just medical. It’s biological, psychological, social, and spiritual. We call this the Whole-4 Approach.

At Amen Clinics, we’ve studied nearly 300,000 brain scans over several decades. What we’ve discovered flips the entire mental health conversation: Most psychiatric problems are not “mental” at all. They’re brain health issues that steal people’s minds and joy. But you can’t heal a brain in isolation. You need food, movement, connection, truth, and purpose.

That’s why churches matter so much.

Faith communities do what government can’t. They mobilize volunteers, offer accountability, build small groups, and provide purpose, and they can — and have — done so regularly to serve their communities. Most importantly, they help heal all four circles at once.

It starts with biology. Your brain controls every decision you make. If your brain isn’t working right, nothing else will either. In our church-based programs, we’ve seen people lose weight, lower blood pressure, reverse diabetes, and heal anxiety just by learning brain-healthy habits. When churches start asking, “Is this good for the brain?” lives change. When people learn how to sleep healthily, exercise, and eat well, they transform their moods and behaviors for the better.

But biology is only part of it. The psychological dimension matters, too.

Scripture tells us to “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5) because our thoughts shape our lives. We help people eliminate the automatic negative thoughts and replace them with truth. In supportive faith communities, people find tools to handle trauma, grief, and anxiety. Healing the mind isn’t just about praying passionately. It’s about retraining thought patterns, confronting lies, and practicing gratitude.

Faith offers meaning. Neuroscience provides tools. Together, they’re powerful.

RELATED: Mental health poll finds regular churchgoers and Republicans doing far better than Democrats

Evgeny Gromov/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Then there’s the social aspect of the brain, perhaps the most visibly broken in our culture. The Bible reminds us that “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), yet we live in the loneliest generation in history. Kids socialize through screens instead of conversations. Adults are more isolated and divided. Weekly services, small groups, and prayer circles are not just nice ideas. They’re prescriptions in disguise.

Real connection improves mood, lowers stress, and strengthens resilience. When houses of worship prioritize relationships, healing flourishes.

Finally, we must talk about the spiritual circle. We are not just bodies with thoughts. We are eternal souls made in the image of God. Without purpose, the brain withers. Without identity, the heart breaks. But churches can rewrite that script by speaking life, identity, and hope into people, anchoring souls in truth.

The truth is that we’re not just facing a mental health crisis. We’re facing a Whole-4 crisis. Houses of worship are already designed to address all four domains at once.

But too often, we preach about heaven while serving food that sends people there early. We urge people to have hope but ignore their trauma, blood sugar, or insomnia. That’s not ministry. That’s neglect.

Imagine if every church became a brain health center. What if pastors were trained not only in scripture but in the basics of neuroplasticity and emotional regulation? What if Bible studies included conversations about food, sleep, forgiveness, and connection? What if the church reclaimed its calling — not just to save souls but to heal minds and bodies too?

This isn’t hypothetical. We’ve already seen it happen.

In one of our first programs — the Daniel Plan, which I created with Pastor Rick Warren, Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr. Mehmet Oz — 15,000 people joined a six-week brain and body challenge. Over the next year, they lost a combined 250,000 pounds. Blood pressure improved. Diabetes reversed. Marriages healed. One man even said, “It’s odd to say in church, but my sex life is better.”

Why? Because when the brain works better, life works better.

Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Now, we have the knowledge. We have the tools. What we need is the will.

Faith communities, your moment is now. Reclaim your role as healers. Make it impossible for someone to walk through your doors without encountering truth, love, and a clear path to healing.

The brain can change. The mind can heal. The soul can awaken. And it can all begin in the house of God.

​Mental health, Christianity, Christians, Church, Mental health crisis, Faith 

“Don’t eat your seed corn.” Every farmer gets it. Every American with common sense gets it. The only people who don’t? The people who run corporate America.

A farmer keeps part of this year’s crop for planting next year. He could sell it now and pocket more cash — but then there’s nothing to plant, nothing to harvest, nothing to live on later. That’s obvious to anyone who works the land.

Capitalism creates wealth. But when wealth is extracted at the expense of the product, the people, and the future — that’s not capitalism. That’s predatory ransacking.

But in today’s boardrooms, the rule is reversed. Short-term profit is all that matters. Strip the future bare, cash out, and leave the mess for someone else to clean up.

The rewards for this corporate vandalism are massive: fat bonuses, stock windfalls, golden parachutes. The damage — lost jobs, gutted industries, shoddy products — is someone else’s problem.

And the fastest way to pull it off? Slash costs to the bone. Ship jobs overseas. Push out the people who know the business best. Wreck customer service. Kill innovation. Downgrade quality until the product barely passes as the same thing you used to make.

Private equity and corporate strategists have a new trick for squeezing customers dry: “revenue mining.” That means cross-selling, upselling, jacking up prices, and hiding the real costs in creative contracts.

At first, it works. Existing customers tend to stick around — inertia keeps them from bolting right away. But each gimmick drives off a slice of loyal business. Combine that with lower service quality and cheaper products, and the exodus accelerates. Before long, the company is stuck with an overpriced product, lousy service, and no easy way to attract new customers.

I’ve watched this play out in my own life. My exterminator. My alarm company. My HVAC service. All wrecked by the same formula. The local phone number? Redirected to a call center overseas — if I can navigate the phone tree. The people I used to know? Gone. The contract? Suddenly much more expensive.

The service I get for my trouble? Less than before. And when the tech finally arrives, all he says is, “Things are much different now.” They might wring one more payment out of me, but I’m already shopping for a local outfit that treats me like a customer instead of prey.

In short, they ate their seed corn. They got one fat harvest out of me, then pushed me straight into the arms of their competition — for good.

At least my dentist is still a one-man shop who owns his own business. But even dentistry is under siege. Private equity-backed dental chains are giving dentistry a bad name, pushing unnecessary procedures just to meet revenue targets.

A USA Today investigation titled “Dentists under pressure to drill ‘healthy teeth’ for profit” uncovered one such example:

Dental Express was part of North American Dental Group, a chain backed by private-equity investors. At least a year earlier, the company had told dentists like Griesmer to meet aggressive revenue targets or risk being kicked out of the chain. Those targets ratcheted up pressure to find problems that might not even exist.

In my professional career, I have seen too many examples of the same pattern: private equity buying and destroying great businesses that had loyal customer bases. To be fair, I have also seen examples of private equity groups buying a business, embracing its product, and continuing to provide good service. I wish it weren’t the exception, though.

More often, private equity groups treat the acquisition as a mine: extract the capital through dividends and existing customers while accruing significant debt. In fact, the funds used to purchase the business are often borrowed and never even repaid.

Dig until empty, leave a crater, and move on.

An X user put it perfectly:

Some private equity is genuinely investing in the business to grow a solid business. This is good, full stop.

Some private equity buys up dying businesses, breaks them up, sells off the valuable bits and sometimes lets the worthless bits go through bankruptcy, taking advantage of bankruptcy laws to profit. This is good, actually, as it recycles the resources of dying businesses into good businesses.

The third type of private equity buys good businesses that are doing OK or even doing well. Then they sell off all the assets, load the company up on as much debt as they can, pay themselves giant dividends, and then take advantage of the same bankruptcy laws to discharge all the debt so they never have to pay it back. This is really bad.

This isn’t just happening to small companies. It’s hitting America’s industrial backbone.

I’ve written before about how Carlos Tavares, the former CEO of Stellantis (corporate parent of Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep), awarded himself a $39 million compensation package for making short-term decisions that briefly maximized profit before revenue and sales collapsed, leaving dealers with overpriced, outdated inventory. He made off with the profits, then left behind a hollow pipeline for the dealers truly committed to Stellantis.

RELATED: Private equity’s losing streak is coming for your 401(k)

Greenseas via iStock/Getty Images

I also covered Boeing’s disastrous $43 billion stock buyback binge. The short-term boost to its share price came at the expense of critical investment in its products — and has cost the aerospace giant $35 billion since 2019. To plug the hole, Boeing had to raise another $15 billion in capital and push back the already overdue launch of the 777, citing “negligent engineering.”

That phrase used to be unthinkable in the aerospace industry. Boeing made it possible by gutting its engineering and technical staff to feed Wall Street.

The consequences keep coming. This month, United Airlines grounded much of its fleet after a failure in its proprietary “Unimatic” flight system. The airline claims it doesn’t know what caused the failure.

But I have a strong suspicion.

In recent years, United has aggressively outsourced its technical operations to contractors using foreign labor — often H-1B visa workers — at lower cost. One subcontractor, Vista Applied Solutions Group, boasts that it helps clients “increase productivity” while achieving “considerable cost savings.”

That’s great — until the system fails and planes can’t fly. United may have saved on salaries. The short-term reduction in salary expense has eaten United’s seed corn, leaving the company with a technology system that can’t keep its planes in the air.

It is imperative for those of us who defend capitalism to also repudiate those engaged in practices that give it a bad name. Capitalism creates wealth. But when wealth is extracted at the expense of the product, the people, and the future — that’s not capitalism. That’s predatory ransacking.

And it deserves our scorn.

​Opinion & analysis, Business, Corporate america, Private equity, Local business, Conglomerate, Capitalism, Seed corn, Prices, Costs, Loyalty, Growth, Profits, Dental, Hvac, Customer service, Carlos tavares, Stellantis, Boeing, Buyback, Stocks, Wall street, United airlines, Negligent engineering 

Battles are escalating regarding America’s sister-city agreements with China. Critics express concerns about national security, while advocates of sister cities argue that the program fosters relationships that promote world peace.

There are over 100 “friendship” or “sister” city partnerships between the U.S. and China, according to a 2023 membership directory from Sister Cities International. Only Mexico and Japan have more sister-city agreements with the U.S.

‘We are being overwhelmed by China on our own soil, so this is indeed an emergency.’

Sister Cities International, a nonprofit, was founded by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 as part of his People-to-People program, which he believed was crucial for “helping build the solid structure of world peace.”

“If we are going to take advantage of the assumption that all people want peace, then the problem is for people to get together and to leap governments — if necessary to evade governments — to work out not one method but thousands of methods by which people can gradually learn a little bit more of each other,” Eisenhower stated during the People-to-People Conference in 1956.

During a 1961 speech at the World Conference on Local Governments, Eisenhower stated that 150 U.S. communities had already “established regular communication with their counterparts in more than 40 countries of the free world.”

The sister-city program gained rapid momentum, but the first U.S.-China relationships were not formed until 1979. Although the program was created to promote global harmony, its expansion to communist nations has raised concerns in recent years amid increasing tensions with the CCP.

RELATED: China’s back door into our military? US recruiters use CCP-controlled messaging app to target Chinese nationals

Beijing City Promotion and Beijing-New York Sister City Concert, in New York on June 24, 2024. Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua via Getty Images

Some politicians and China experts believe sister cities are one of the Chinese Communist Party’s many soft-power propaganda methods.

Gordon Chang, a Gatestone Institute senior fellow, told Blaze News, “China uses every point of contact to infiltrate, influence, corrupt, and take down our society. The sister-city relationships seem innocuous, but there is nothing innocent in anything the Communist Party does. Nothing.”

“I would like to see President Trump use his emergency powers to prohibit these sister-city tie-ups,” he added. “We are being overwhelmed by China on our own soil, so this is indeed an emergency.”

One of the most notable spying cases in recent years can be connected to the United States’ sister-city program. Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang — a suspected Chinese spy who infiltrated political circles, allegedly assisted Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) re-election campaign, and even reportedly formed romantic relationships with two mayors — attended the 2014 Sister Cities International conference in Washington, D.C. As a volunteer in the office of former Fremont, California, Mayor Bill Harrison, Fang reportedly coordinated discussions to establish a sister-city relationship between Fremont and a city in China.

Arkansas and Texas draw a line

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed House Bill 1352 into law in April, broadening a previous 2021 law prohibiting higher education institutions from hosting Confucius Institutes. The latest legislation extended that ban to “similar institutes related to the People’s Republic of China, including without limitation a Chinese cultural center.”

The bill also barred municipalities from having sister-city partnerships with a “prohibited foreign party.” The legislation aimed to force Little Rock to end its relationship with Changchun, China, an agreement formed in 1994.

However, instead of complying with the new law, the Little Rock Board of Directors is trying to circumvent it by changing the partnership from a “sister city” to a “friendship city.”

According to Sister Cities International, friendship cities are “less formal.”

“In some cities, ‘friendship city’ is often used as a first stage in the relationship, and after it is strengthened and the partners are sure they want a long-term relationship they will become ‘sister cities,'” Sister Cities International’s website reads.

Sam Dubke, Sanders’ director of communications, told Blaze News, “Governor Sanders has been clear Arkansas cities are prohibited from having sister cities in Communist China. The City of Little Rock’s rebrand does not make their sister city agreement legal, and Governor Sanders will enforce Arkansas law.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) in June signed similar legislation prohibiting sister-city agreements with any “foreign adversary,” including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

The legislation is slated to take effect in September, and it will potentially impact relationships in Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio.

Fort Worth City Councilman Michael Crain, who lived in Beijing for eight years, has already opposed the governor’s ban, calling the city’s partnership with Guiyang “really just a beautiful relationship across the board, because people understand people on a one-to-one exchange.”

“Our city council and mayor sanctioned this relationship 15 years ago,” Crain told WFAA-TV in May. “Their government is also involved because that’s how you do the exchanges, but I think as you unpack it, this is about understanding other cultures, how they operate, and how we operate. That, in essence, we’re a global society.”

While Texas and Arkansas seek to clamp down on sister-city agreements over potential CCP influence in the U.S., a city in Iowa recently opted to renew its partnership with China despite warnings from its Republican governor.

Davenport Mayor Mike Matson announced in April that the city had signed an agreement to extend its sister-city status with Langfang, China, for another five years, even with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R) expressing concerns last year that China has “grown significantly more aggressive on the world stage, constantly looking for any opening to assert themselves at the expense of our country.”

‘The history of the program demonstrates that all of China’s partnerships aim to deliver asymmetric returns to China.’

Federal-level action

Building on these state-level efforts, federal lawmakers are taking action to address the issue at a national scale. In response to the growing threat from China, Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) in April introduced the Sister City Transparency Act, which aims to take a closer look at these relationships. If passed, the legislation would direct the comptroller general to conduct oversight of sister-city agreements with countries “with significant public sector corruption,” including China and Russia.

Earlier this month, Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) introduced the Washington Sister Cities Act to prohibit the U.S. Capitol from having a sister-city relationship with “foreign adversarial regimes,” including the CCP.

A press release from Stefanik’s office noted that the “primary focus” of the legislation is to force Washington, D.C., to end its partnership with Beijing, which was established over 40 years ago. Stefanik argued that the CCP has “weaponized” the sister-city agreements “to advance their malign disinformation campaign,” ultimately forming a “pathway to spy on our government.”

Moolenaar called D.C.’s relationship with Beijing “troubling,” citing China’s “worsening human rights conditions.”

RELATED: University of Michigan now under fire after Chinese scholars allegedly smuggle bio-weapon

Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images

China’s united front strategy

The CCP’s management of its sister-city partnerships has been tied to its United Front Work Department.

According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the CCP’s UFWD is responsible for coordinating influence operations to “neutralize sources of potential opposition” to its policies and authority. A 2018 report from the commission explains that the department “mostly focuses on the management of potential opposition groups inside China, but it also has an important foreign influence mission.”

“To carry out its influence activities abroad, the UFWD directs ‘overseas Chinese work,’ which seeks to co-opt ethnic Chinese individuals and communities living outside China, while a number of other key affiliated organizations guided by China’s broader United Front strategy conduct influence operations targeting foreign actors and states,” the report reads.

The commission goes on to state, “It is precisely the nature of United Front work to seek influence through connections that are difficult to [publicly] prove and to gain influence that is interwoven with sensitive issues such as ethnic, political, and national identity, making those who seek to identify the negative effects of such influence vulnerable to accusations of prejudice.”

Nathan Picarsic, senior fellow focusing on China at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, elaborated on how China manages its sister-city relationships.

“Sister-city relationships are framed as mutually beneficial artifacts of people-to-people diplomacy,” Picarsic told Blaze News. “But as is the case with most of China’s international engagements, sister-city ties with a Chinese city trace back to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party’s centralized vision for global influence.”

“The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which is an organ of China’s United Front, manages formal sister-city relationships,” he continued. “And the history of the program demonstrates that all of China’s partnerships aim to deliver asymmetric returns to China: whether that was inbound investment and technology access in the 1990s or subnational influence to subvert national security concerns in the current moment. China looks to use sister cities as a way to cultivate friendly voices and to localize China’s arguments on a global basis.”

Sister Cities International did not respond to a request for comment.

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​News, Sister cities, Sister city, Us-china, U.s., United states, China, Chinese communist party, Ccp, People’s republic of china, Prc, U.s.-china, National security, Foreign policy, Dwight d. eisenhower, Eisenhower, People-to-people, Gordon chang, Arkansas, Sarah huckabee sanders, Texas, Greg abbott, Little rock, Kim reynolds, Iowa, Marsha blackburn, Thom tillis, Sister cities international, Elise stefanik, John moolenaar, Washington, D.c., United front, United front work department, Politics 

On August 13, pop icon Taylor Swift appeared on the “New Heights” podcast, hosted by her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason Kelce, marking her first-ever podcast interview. During the over-two-hour episode, Swift dropped a bombshell that shook the world: She’s releasing another album. “The Life of a Showgirl,” set to drop on October 3, 2025, will be Swift’s 12th studio album.

The episode shattered viewership records, amassing over 13 million views on YouTube within 24 hours and even temporarily crashing during the livestream due to overwhelming audience numbers.

It’s safe to say that the Swiftie army is fired up.

But what about the faction of Swift’s fandom who are self-professed Christians? Should they be salivating at the thought of another album?

Last year, in one of her most viral episodes to date, Allie Beth Stuckey interviewed Jenn Nizza, an ex-psychic, about her journey from witchcraft to life in Jesus. During the episode, Nizza warned Christian Swifties: Her music is rife with demonic ideologies.

“Taylor Swift presents as this Christian-looking innocent girl years ago, and then you see the darkness boldly, blatantly,” said Nizza.

“This is strategic, I believe, on behalf of the enemy to rope people in, and then it’s like, ‘Now I’m going to hit you with my agendas because you’re already a cult follower.”’

Swift’s music, she warned, “boldly promotes New Age ideologies” — specifically the notion of karma and the invisible string theory.

While most are familiar with karma — the ancient Hindu belief that actions shape fate, specifically reincarnation — many have never heard of the invisible string theory.

It’s akin to the New Age concepts of “twin flames” or “soulmates,” where two people are predestined by the universe to be romantic partners, even if one or both are married, Nizza explained, calling it one of many “doctrines of demons.”

She also accused Swift of “doing witchcraft on the stage” during performances and infusing songs and music videos with anti-Christian propaganda. Nizza gave the example of the music video for Swift’s popular 2019 song “You Need to Calm Down,” which featured a group of cartoonish protesters holding signs with messages like “Adam + Eve not Adam + Steve” and “Homosexuality is a sin.”

It was clearly meant to mock Christians and paint them as “hillbillies,” said Nizza, advising Christians to “steer clear” of music that unapologetically mocks their faith.

To catch the full interview, watch the video above.

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.

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Leslie Manookian, now the president and founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund, was at the top of her career on Wall Street when she decided to leave it all behind for something more meaningful.

“I would say a big breakthrough moment for me was when the CEO, the CFO, the head of investor relations, and the head of R&D of one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world came into our office to reassure us about their stock,” Manookian tells BlazeTV host Nicole Shanahan.

“Their stock was plummeting in the stock market. It was down 25% or 30%. And they were going and visiting with their biggest investors to reassure them that their new blockbuster drug was OK,” she explains.

“The problem was that rumors were trickling out from their phase three trials, which is the last phase of clinical trials that a drug goes through before it can apply for licensure from the FDA, that this drug was killing people,” she says.

Manookian tells Shanahan that when the CEO brought up this issue in a meeting, he looked at her across the table and said, “A few people have died. It’s very, very rare.”

“And he said without missing a beat, ‘The bad news is the FDA is going to make us put a black box warning on our packaging. The good news is we still think we can do seven billion in peak sales,’” she recalls.

“What was the drug for?” Shanahan asks.

“Let’s just say it’s a household name,” she answers. “Everybody knows this company at this point in time, and it was about 25 years ago.”

That led Manookian to leave her career behind to focus on health freedom.

“The reason I started Health Freedom Defense Fund was because going way back, I’d been in the Health Freedom space for 25 years now, or 20 years at that point. And as soon as 2020 opened, I was absolutely certain as much as I could be that what was happening was some kind of an operation in order to mandate vaccines and lockdowns and all these other things,” she tells Shanahan.

“It was a perfect script given everything they’d put in place for over 20 years to facilitate an authoritarian response to a so-called public health emergency,” she continues, adding, “And so I founded Health Freedom Defense Fund, because I wanted to be able to fight back.”

Now, the successful nonprofit seeks to rectify health injustice through education, advocacy, and legal challenges to unjust mandates, laws, and policies that undermine our health freedoms and human rights.

“You don’t wear a mask on an airplane because of Health Freedom Defense Fund,” Manookian explains. “We’re the organization that challenged and defeated the federal travel mask mandate in 2022.”

Want more from Nicole Shanahan?

To enjoy more of Nicole’s compelling blend of empathy, curiosity, and enlightenment, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Upload, Video phone, Sharing, Free, Video, Camera phone, Youtube.com, Back to the people podcast, Back to the people with nicole shanahan, Back to the people, Nicole shanahan, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Leslie manookian, Health freedom defense fund, Health freedom, Vaccine mandates, Pharmaceutical, Big pharma 

President Donald Trump said the reason Russia invaded Ukraine under President Biden instead of himself is obvious.

Trump had a historic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss the possibility of peace with Ukraine. In a press conference after their discussion, Putin confirmed Trump’s long-held claim that he would not have started a war with the Ukraine if Trump was in the Oval Office at the time, in early 2022.

Speaking with Fox News’ Sean Hannity soon after, Trump said he knew exactly why that invasion happened under President Biden, and not under his watch.

‘He said your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.’

Hannity brought up Putin’s statement, and asked if the Russian leader gave specific reasons as to why he made the remark.

“He did,” Trump began. “I know the reason, it’s gross incompetence. We have a border that is totally close now and people come in, but they come in legally.”

Trump revealed that not only did Putin say that if he had won the 2020 presidential election “we wouldn’t have had a war,” but also that Trump was cheated out of an election victory, as well.

RELATED: ‘There’s no deal until there’s a deal’: Trump says Alaska meeting with Putin was ‘extremely productive’

The POTUS said that Putin pinpointed mail-in voting as the apparatus Democrats used to rig the election.

“He said your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting. He said mail-in voting, every election, he said no country has mail-in voting. It is impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections,” Trump recalled, claiming that Putin said he won the presidency “by so much.”

The 47th president explained that Putin also complimented the quick turnaround the United States has had since Biden left office, and that the U.S. is “hot as a pistol.”

“A year ago he thought [the country] was dead,” Trump relayed.

Trump also referred to the 2020 election as a “tragedy” because Biden taking office actually produced “something that was unthinkable.”

RELATED: VIDEO: LA Mayor Karen Bass has deranged meltdown over ICE operation near Newsom’s anti-Trump presser

Photo by Contributor/Getty Images

“He drove China and Russia together. That’s not good,” Trump continued. To counter this, the president said he wants to make sure America and Russia can work together.

Fox News White House correspondent Edward Lawrence reported that a significant chunk of the meeting was actually based on making business deals between Russia and the United States. This included talks about rare-Earth minerals that are in contested locations, and therefore could end up being shared by Russia and the U.S. in a future trade deal.

After rating the meeting with Putin a “10 out of 10,” Trump said there were two “pretty significant items” that could be reached between the Russians and Ukrainians.

Hannity presented possible concessions that he felt Ukraine likely needed to make in order for Russia to accept peace, which included “land swaps,” meaning “there will be more Russian territory than there had been,” as well as “security measures” for Ukraine that will not rely on NATO.

Trump replied that those points were in fact negotiated, and were also “largely” agreed upon.

“Now it is really up to President Zelenskyy to get it done,” Trump added, saying that he wanted to attend a meeting between the two foreign leaders out of necessity, not desire.

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​News, Trump, Zelensky, Russia, Ukraine, Putin, Zelenskyy, Alaska, Peace talks, Politics 

What passes for intellectual heft at the Atlantic is any criticism of President Donald Trump. In the Atlantic’s pages and its digital fare, you can read the now-discredited musings of David Frum, who helped bring us the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the inane foreign policy arguments of Max Boot; the interventionist prescriptions of Anne Applebaum; and now, the democracy promotion of political science professor Brian Klaas, who, in a recent article, blames President Trump for killing “American democracy promotion.”

If Klaas is correct, that is one more reason that Americans need to thank President Trump.

Klaas’ first priority is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights.

One would have thought that the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq would have humbled our nation’s democracy promoters — but they haven’t. One would have thought that the failed foreign policy of Jimmy Carter would have humbled those who wish to make “human rights” the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy — but it didn’t. One would have thought that the chaos facilitated by the so-called “Arab Spring” would engender prudence and introspection among the democracy promoters — but it is not so.

Professor Klaas wants the world to become democratic and for U.S. foreign policy to lead the effort in bringing the globe to the promised land.

Rewriting history

The Trump administration, Klaas writes, has “turn[ed] against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion.”

Perhaps Klaas has never read George Washington’s Farewell Address, in which he counseled his countrymen to conduct foreign policy based solely on the nation’s interests. Or perhaps he missed John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address, in which he cautioned against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and reminded his listeners that America is the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own.

Perhaps Klaas believes that Wilsonianism is a “long-standing” American tradition, but in reality, it is mostly limited to starry-eyed liberal internationalists and neoconservatives.

Klaas mentions the “democracy boom” under President Bill Clinton, which was nothing more than a temporary consequence of America’s victory in the Cold War. Yet Klaas thinks it was the beginning of “shifting international norms” where freedom and democracy triumphed in “the ideological battle against rival models of governance” and “had become an inexorable force.”

Here, Klaas is likely referring to Francis Fukuyama’s discredited theory of the “end of history.” We have since discovered, however, that history didn’t die and that democracy is fragile, especially in places and among civilizations that have little democratic experience.

Fukuyama was wrong, but Samuel Huntington was right when he wrote about the coming “clash of civilizations.” One wonders if Klaas has read Huntington or Toynbee — or Spengler for that matter. Or, even more recently, Robert Kaplan’s “The Tragic Mind.”

Authoritarianism disguised as ‘democratic’

Klaas criticizes Trump for praising dictators, but President Woodrow Wilson praised Lenin and President Franklin Roosevelt praised Stalin. Klaas says that Trump is indifferent to democracy and human rights. No, Trump simply refuses to make them the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, which is a “long-standing” tradition that stretches back long before Wilson to our founding fathers.

However, neither Wilson nor FDR wanted America to right every wrong in the world, as Klaas does. Klaas wants his “human rights” and democracy agenda “backed by weapons.” He laments that authoritarian regimes no longer need to fear the “condemnation” and the “bombs” of the American president.

Klaas’ leftism is revealed when he condemns the United States for helping to replace Mossaddegh with the pro-American shah of Iran, overthrowing the Marxist regime of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, helping to overthrow Allende in Chile, and cozying up to other authoritarian regimes.

RELATED: Vance makes one thing abundantly clear ahead of Trump’s big ceasefire meeting with Putin

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The professor also might want to read Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards” to learn that sometimes doing these things is in America’s national interests. Klaas’ leftism jumps off the page when he refers to the illegal aliens removed by the Trump administration — many with criminal records — as “foreign pilgrims.”

Some of those “foreign pilgrims” raped and killed Americans. But Klaas’ first priority is not America or its citizens; it is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights. He is anti-Trump precisely because Trump’s foreign policy is America First. Let’s hope Klaas’ style of democracy promotion is dead.

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

​Opinion & analysis, America first, National interest, National security, National honor, Democracy, Empire, Donald trump, Jeane kirkpatrick, Dictatorship, Liberty, Culture, Geopolitics, Globalism, Marxism, Progressivism, Foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, Woodrow wilson, Founding fathers, Oswald spengler, Franklin delano roosevelt, End of history, Francis fukuyama, Robert kaplan, Samuel huntington, Arnold toynbee, Salvador allende, Chile, Authoritarian, John quincy adams, George washington, Jimmy carter, Brian klaas, Afghanistan 

The president of the Utah Senate, J. Stuart Adams (R), is embroiled in controversy after he put in motion legislation that ultimately became law and that appeared to benefit a member of his family. Though Adams has denied wrongdoing, some Republican allies have expressed misgivings about the origins of the law and the appearance of impropriety, while others are staunchly defending Adams and the new policy.

The case

In February 2024, Adams and 19 of his state Senate colleagues voted to pass S.B. 213, which made some criminal justice modifications. A few weeks later, Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed it into law.

Within six months, that law was mentioned in the sentencing hearing for a criminal defendant who was later identified as Adams’ step-granddaughter. The details of her case are disturbing.

When the defendant was an 18-year-old high school student, she “had sexual intercourse” as well as oral sex with a 13-year-old boy on two consecutive days in April 2023, charging documents said. According to the victim, “the Defendant was aware that he was 13 years old at the time.”

‘But for the age of one of the participants.’

Originally charged with four first-degree felonies regarding child rape and sodomy of a child, the defendant later pled guilty to aggravated assault, a second-degree felony, and three counts of sexual battery, a Class A misdemeanor. Speaking through tears, she told the court at her sentencing hearing on September 18, “What I did was horrible and I won’t be able to take that back, and so I’m very sorry to the victim and his family, and I take full responsibility of what I did.”

During that hearing, the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney — all women — each made reference to S.B. 213, which no longer compels adult offenders still in high school at the time they had “unlawful adolescent sexual activity” to register as sex offenders, so long as there was no force or coercion involved. All three also noted that the law was intended to apply to future cases only, not retroactively, even as they were openly discussing it in reference to this case.

“You saw the legislative change, just adding that if you’re in high school, 18 and in high school … the legislative intent was someone in her situation would not have to register as a sex offender, and it would be a third-degree felony under the adolescent sexual activity,” said defense attorney Cara Tangaro, who was also directly involved in crafting the relevant provision in S.B. 213.

“The state has taken into a lot of things in consideration of this plea agreement and negotiations, especially the legislative intent behind the changing of the law,” added Davis County prosecutor Tamara Basquez. “… No matter what, the law at the time was that an 18-year-old is responsible, and there are consequences for criminal actions.”

“I think both counsel recognize that this is a challenging case, and I think that’s reflected in some part in the plea deal that was reached here,” noted Judge Rita Cornish. “The fact that this is a challenging case, I think, is reflected in the fact that the legislature has addressed this in a prospective way rather than a retroactive one … and had to grapple with that.”

The judge confirmed during the proceedings that the defendant did not have to register as a sex offender. “She would not be required. So Group A sex offender conditions, to the extent that that grouping includes registration, she is exempted from it,” Cornish clarified.

No one with the defendant’s name is currently listed on the Utah sex offender registry.

RELATED: Utah requires app stores to verify ages in trailblazing child safety law

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Cornish went on to say that while the victim “was legally incapable of giving consent to sex, period, full stop,” he and the defendant were members of the same “friend group” and that the victim “engaged in the activity willingly but not with consent” on account of his age.

The judge further characterized the defendant as “immature,” perhaps “too immature to understand the gravity of her actions,” and noted that an expert who evaluated the defendant determined that her risk of re-offending was “in the very low range.”

Judge Cornish then seemingly attempted to summarize the full context of the situation but instead ended up reiterating the purpose of statutory rape laws in the first place: “What I’m faced with here, in my view, is that I had two young people both in school that engaged in what would’ve otherwise been consensual sexual activity but for the age of one of the participants.”

President Adams and his wife, Susan, submitted a letter to the court, the judge also said, presumably on behalf of the defendant.

The defendant was sentenced to time served of 420 days of home confinement plus four years of probation, a $1,500 fine, and 120 hours of community service. She spent eight days in jail after her initial arrest in April 2023.

‘It didn’t NEED to be retroactive to have retroactive effect.’

The victim’s mother, who did not appear at the sentencing hearing, indicated that the sentence was a miscarriage of justice. “I feel like [the 18-year-old] just got special treatment … and nobody was going to say anything about it,” she told the Salt Lake Tribune.

Basquez stated at the hearing that the victim’s family believed more jail time was appropriate in this case.

They understand that eight days for a young individual in jail is difficult, but to them, looking at the overall crime, even though she was released on home confinement, they kept seeing things being whittled away, that she was still allowed to go out and do activities with her family and different things like that, that they felt like that’s not appropriate consequences for the conduct and the consequences that the victim has had now, because those consequences are very, very severe and he will have that going on. He’s had it this entire time, and it will be longer.

Basquez reiterated the psychological trauma that the victim has relived since the sexual incidents with the defendant, though the judge doubted whether the ongoing trauma was the result of the incidents or of the legal process that ensued.

“I don’t know that I’m going to get any more clarity on that,” Cornish said with resignation.

According to the charging documents, the victim told the defendant the day after their second encounter that he “was stressed out about what had happened and he didn’t go to school.”

Both the defendant and victim have shown symptoms of suicidal ideation, the attorneys suggested at the hearing.

The Davis County Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Tangaro told the Salt Lake Tribune that, despite her involvement with the legislation, it “was not retroactive and did not directly affect this client’s case.”

Political fallout

Sen. Adams and other supporters of S.B. 213 have been under fire ever since the Tribune published a report on August 2, claiming in the headline that “Utah’s Senate president prompted law change that helped a teen charged with child rape.”

Adams admitted to the outlet that he was “surprised by the severity of the charges” in the case but denied any involvement in pushing the legislation along. “I did not request the legislation and did not intervene or give input on the drafting of the bill,” he said.

‘We can debate intentions, tactics, and who knew what and when, but that the bill was branded with leadership influence is a given.’

Sen. John Johnson (R-North Ogden), who also voted for the bill and who took to social media to defend Adams, told Blaze News that Adams was the last to vote on the bill and that he otherwise “removed” himself completely from the legislative process.

“I didn’t know this was attached to his relative at all,” Johnson said. “He never put any pressure at all on people. I looked at the bill itself, and I just felt like that the judge should have a choice in the matter. Simple as that.”

The Tribune noted that Utah legislators took up the bill “based on an initial suggestion from” Adams, who conveyed his step-granddaughter’s situation to Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore (R-Cottonwood Heights). Cullimore acknowledged to the outlet that Adams asked him to look into the issue, and Cullimore did ultimately sponsor S.B. 213 in the state Senate.

When Blaze News asked Cullimore whether he would have sponsored the legislation if not for the case involving Adams’ family member, Cullimore replied that the bill addressed a “disparity” in the law brought to lawmakers’ attention through “a real-world example.”

“Like many legislative ideas, this one came from a real-world example that exposed a potential problem in existing law. That’s not unusual — in a citizen legislature, personal experiences, constituent stories, and observed injustices often bring problems to light,” Cullimore told Blaze News.

“I believe the current policy is fair, proportionate, and consistent with other legislative actions Utah has taken to treat high school students who are 18 the same as their 17-year-old peers for certain non-violent offenses,” he continued.

“This was always about the broader policy, not a single defendant.”

Others emphasized that S.B. 213 did not apply to the case involving Adams’ step-granddaughter since it did not apply retroactively. But even with a prospective stipulation in the law, it still has impacted the case, as Robert Gehrke, who wrote the Tribune article, said in an X response to Johnson.

“It wasn’t retroactive but it is standard practice when a law is changed to benefit the defendant, to apply that to the defendant’s case. It didn’t NEED to be retroactive to have retroactive effect,” Gehrke argued.

A source familiar with the matter likewise told Blaze News, “The court transcript discloses that the new law was taken into consideration in plea negotiations. The senator simply cannot say it had no impact on the outcome of his family member’s case.”

Kim Coleman, a former Utah state representative, added, “It is well understood that when a member of the leadership team is the sponsor, it is by definition and self-evidently ‘a leadership bill.’ There are unspoken implications of that. It doesn’t mean everyone falls in line, and leadership bills can struggle and fail, but one cannot claim there was no political influence when leadership carries it. We can debate intentions, tactics, and who knew what and when, but that the bill was branded with leadership influence is a given.”

RELATED: LGBT activists find devious way to hoist their colors despite flag bans in Salt Lake City, Boise

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Even in his statements to the Tribune, Adams appeared to try to create distance between himself and his step-granddaughter’s case, describing it as “the case I was made aware of involving the high school senior.” When asked about the peculiarity of this description, Johnson hesitated to speak for Adams but said he could “certainly understand his frame of mind.”

“I wouldn’t be eager to point the finger at my granddaughter,” Johnson told Blaze News. “I think I would try to keep that particular thing out.”

‘It simply provides prosecutors and the courts an avenue for 18-year-old high school students to be treated the same as their 17-year-old classmates.’

It is unclear whether the relevant provision in S.B. 213 has yet affected any other case in Utah.

Blaze News reached out to Adams for comment, but staff at his office said they would need more time to reply to our questions due to unforeseen circumstances unrelated to this issue. Blaze News will update this article if and when his office provides a statement.

A possible repeal

Though state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee (R-Clearfield) sponsored S.B. 213 on the floor of the Utah House last year, she now says that she was not fully informed about every aspect of the bill and that she regrets sponsoring it because of the provision related to high school students who have sexual relationships with adolescents.

“All of my other work in the criminal justice space underscores that if I had known that the proposed language was intended to potentially lower the penalty for the crime of rape of a child, I would have held or amended the bill to remove that section,” Lisonbee told the Tribune.

She also pledged to “immediately add a repeal of that language” to an open bill file. Sources told Blaze News that Lisonbee intends to file that repeal next week. However, Gov. Cox would need to add it to the agenda for the legislature to consider it during the special session.

Lisonbee and Cox’s office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

RELATED: Utah judge, fire chief defendant — both accused of child sex crimes — allegedly discussed pedo fantasies, had sex

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Sen. Johnson indicated to Blaze News that he would consider voting to repeal but that he would have to see the bill first.

“I would certainly entertain the new bill. I don’t know what the new bill would look like. If it was a strict repeal, I think … that that’s certainly something we should debate. I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.

Majority Leader Cullimore said he would also consider reviewing possible repeal legislation but nevertheless stands by the current law as is.

“The provision does not change the age of consent, does not apply to cases involving force, coercion, or aggravated sexual assault, and does not excuse criminal conduct. It simply provides prosecutors and the courts an avenue for 18-year-old high school students to be treated the same as their 17-year-old classmates in very narrow, non-coercive circumstances, rather than being subjected to penalties designed for predatory adults decades older,” Cullimore told Blaze News.

“The core question here is whether we believe a student’s birthdate should be the deciding factor between a third-degree felony and a first-degree felony with a 25-years-to-life sentence. I don’t believe that makes sense, and I think most Utahns — once they know the facts — agree.”

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Georgia police are investigating the shooting death of a woman whose body was found in a storage unit behind a shopping plaza in southwest Atlanta.

Police said they responded to a call about a woman found dead on Wednesday morning at the Campbellton Plaza at about 11:30 a.m. They are investigating her death as a homicide.

‘He said, “There’s a dead body back there, there’s a dead body back there.”‘

A police homicide unit canvassed the area searching for security cameras that might have captured evidence about the incident.

A man who was at the plaza when the body was discovered spoke to WXIA-TV about what he witnessed. He said he was cleaning up trash when he heard a man screaming.

“I poke my head around the truck and see him crouched down on the ground, knees to his head, just screaming,” said the man, who did not want to be identified. “He said, ‘There’s a dead body back there, there’s a dead body back there.'”

RELATED: 17-year-old girl brutally mauled by pack of dogs — her mom says she was unrecognizable

Witnesses said the woman had been seen walking around the plaza for many months and had been living inside the storage unit. WXIA said a mattress as well as other personal belongings could be seen inside of the space.

Some of the witnesses said the victim had moved to the area recently from Indiana.

The Fulton County Medical Examiner is expected to release her identity if they can determine it.

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Non-straight activists have filed numerous lawsuits in hopes of blocking the implementation of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14168, which made it the policy of the United States to recognize the biological reality and immutability of the two sexes and to protect women from “gender ideology extremism.”

A murderous foreign national recently added his complaint to the pile.

Oscar Contreras Aguilar was one of 11 members and associates of the terrorist gang Mara Salvatrucha, otherwise known as MS-13, indicted on June 22, 2018, in the Eastern District of Virginia in connection with the savage murders of two teen boys, ages 14 and 17. WTTG-TV reported at the time that 10 of the 11 MS-13 thugs were illegal aliens.

Aguilar further complained that thanks to Trump, prison guards are identifying him as a man, using the appropriate pronouns … and leaving him ‘crying a lot.’

The remains of the victims, who were reported missing in the summer of 2016, were found buried in Holmes Run Park in Fairfax County.

The MS-13 terrorists killed the older victim, figuring him for a member of a rival gang. When they subsequently killed the younger victim, whom they believed was cooperating with law enforcement, the terrorists reportedly filmed their butchery, which was carried out with multiple weapons including a kitchen knife and a machete.

Aguilar was initially charged with conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering and conspiracy to kidnap, then later slapped with two additional charges: capital murder in aid of racketeering and kidnapping resulting in death.

RELATED: White House anticipates ‘ultimate victory’ against child sex-change regime despite Letitia James-led lawsuit

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Now a few years into his 252-month sentence, Aguilar is suing Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and William Marshall, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The 27-year-old MS-13 terrorist, now a transvestite who calls himself Fendii G. Skyy, seeks to prevent the implementation of the president’s Jan. 20 executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

Trump’s order rejected gender ideology; prohibited the use of federal funds to promote transgenderism or sex change procedures; and instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure “that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.”

In his prisoner complaint filed on July 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Aguilar makes a long list of demands, including a “preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining defendants from enforcing and/or implementing Trump’s executive order No. 14168 as to plaintiff; declaratory relief stating Trump’s executive order No. 14168 is discriminatory and persecutes transgender people; and [sic] order striking down Trump’s executive order No. 14168 as discriminatory and unconstitutional; preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining defendants and BOP from discontinuing plaintiff’s gender-affirming care”; an injunction against prison guards using his proper male pronouns; and an order requiring prison officials to let him to continue to wear women’s underwear and cosmetics.

The complaint indicates that Aguilar, who has been in federal custody since 2017 and is now supposedly suicidal, has been receiving cross-sex medical interventions since July 2024 and currently receives testosterone blockers and estrogen. However, the complaint suggested that as a direct result of Trump’s executive order, Aguilar is set to be cut off of the hormone-altering drugs.

RELATED: Democrat anchor-baby congresswoman admits the truth: ‘I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American’

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Aguilar further complained that thanks to Trump, prison guards are identifying him as a man, using the appropriate pronouns, subjecting him to the same treatment as other male prisoners, and leaving him “crying a lot.”

While now trying to play the victim, Aguilar has willingly played the villain in many a story.

Reduxx reported that Aguilar admitted to the FBI that he became a member of the Park View clique after committing multiple murders in El Salvador on behalf of MS-13. In the case of 14-year-old Sergio Triminio — the boy founded buried in Fairfax County — it was Aguilar who ordered the murder.

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School is back in session in Texas, and this year, things look a little different. The Lone Star State has made several “aggressive” amendments to its educational policies going into the 2025-2026 school year.

“Pretty jaw dropping, frankly, when you look at the changes,” says Stu Burguiere, BlazeTV host of “Stu Does America.”

In this episode, Stu dives into four new Texas education laws that are certain to radically impact the school year.

Personal electronic devices: OUT

The use of personal electronic devices, including cell phones, smartwatches, tablets, and similar gadgets, during the school day has been banned statewide in all public K–12 schools.

“I am 100% behind this effort. I think it’s crazy that there’s another thought or option, frankly, when it comes to this. We all know how distracting phones are to adults, let alone kids, who are trying to get through a school day,” says Stu.

But it’s not just distraction from school work that House Bill 1481 will target. Stu, citing Jonathan Haidt’s must-read book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” reminds that smartphones, and the social media it gives kids access to, is directly linked to increased rates of anxiety and depression.

“It’s not gonna solve every problem at school, right? There’s problems at school that existed long before cell phones were there. I do think it’s going to make a major difference for a lot of people,” says Stu.

DEI and LGBTQ+ madness: OUT

Senate Bill 12 banned DEI programs in K–12 public schools, prohibiting schools from having DEI offices, trainings, or programs that consider or focus on race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or similar characteristics. It also restricts schools from incorporating DEI into hiring decisions, policies, or classroom instruction, and forbids DEI-based student clubs unless parentally consented.

“There’s a lot of things to do at school, lot of things to learn about,” says Stu.

“You don’t need to add in the fact that skin color is actually the most important thing in the world and actually you should hate everybody who’s white and whatever else they’re teaching in these schools.”

Ten Commandments: IN

Senate Bill 10 mandates that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public elementary and secondary school classrooms. The poster must be durable or framed and at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, featuring the specific version of the Ten Commandments outlined in the legislation.

“This goes back to the founding of the country. … Never was there a design by our founders to say religion can never be intertwined with any state institution. That’s not the way it worked,” says Stu, reminding people that during America’s founding, the Continental Congress regularly began its sessions with prayer.

“[Christianity] is something that was — is — very central to the founding of this country.”

Prayer in school: IN

Senate Bill 11 allows Texas school districts to adopt policies permitting a daily period for students and staff to pray or read religious texts, such as the Bible. Participation requires written consent from students or their parents, which can be revoked at any time. The law stipulates that prayer periods cannot replace instructional time and prohibits using loudspeakers, intercoms, or any official school-wide announcement system to broadcast prayers or other religious activities.

Stu warns that lefties will almost certainly spread the narrative that Texas is “forcing kids to pray,” but the truth is this new law merely “allows them to pray.”

To hear more changes coming to Texas schools, watch the episode above.

Want more from Stu?

To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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Andrew Beck makes a cogent case at the American Mind for why the United States, like other countries, requires cultural and moral cohesion to protect its nationhood and to act with a unified will on behalf of the common good. Beck correctly notes that the U.S. started out as a country with a well-defined collective identity. If we look back at America’s beginnings, we discover John Jay in Federalist 2 defining this original American identity in a memorable observation:

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

At the time this was written, the newly formed American nation-state was composed overwhelmingly of Northern European Protestants; its legal institutions were largely British.

The homogeneity that the U.S. possessed at the time of its founding, and for at least several generations afterward, was perhaps an irreplaceable strength.

Its shared culture was shaped by, among other things, reading and revering the King James Bible. Among the professional class, the Bible’s authority was supplemented by that of Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” Shakespeare’s tragedies, and (to some extent) classical texts like Plutarch’s “Lives.”

Protestant theologians went a bit farther in their reading and would have also studied John Calvin’s “Institutes,” the works of St. Augustine, and perhaps some of Plato’s dialogues. Political thinkers back then might also have pondered John Locke, Montesquieu, Polybius, and a few other influential political theorists.

In early America, a shared understanding of civic virtue, social manners, and community arose from revering the same classics as well as holding similar religious beliefs and being, in most cases, “descended from the same ancestors.”

Even in Federalist 10 and Federalist 51, when James Madison addressed the possibility of the American polity becoming an extended republic, he did not recommend any modern concept of diversity or disagree with Jay’s judgment about America’s strengths. He was simply explaining how a country that consisted of mercantile and agrarian sectors could be held together by a “common passion of interest.” Madison’s novel theory posited that a representative government could filter the popular will in such a way as to coordinate overlapping interests.

The homogeneity that the U.S. possessed at the time of its founding, and for at least several generations afterward, was perhaps an irreplaceable strength. This strength may have been at work even when the country faced the ravages of civil war, which it survived because — as Lincoln observed — however calamitous their differences, both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same deity.

Cohesion without coercion

In my view, these sorts of inherited, culturally sustained bonds of unity furnish the ideal conditions for a collective political identity. This unity was there at the beginning of the American republic and did not depend for its creation on coercion by the state or military forces. The shared heritage that was obvious to John Jay bespoke a deeper unity than the one imposed on German Americans during World War I (and, a fortiori, Japanese Americans during World War II). Perhaps Andrew Beck and I view this chapter of our national history quite differently.

Although European nation-states were formed partly by coercing those who resisted them into accepting a centralized form of sovereignty, such political entities were able to establish themselves by drawing on an already developed national consciousness. Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, etc. all identified with some kind of national history and culture even before they accepted or were forced to accept a unified national government. Force was not the main factor that generated unity in historic nation-states.

RELATED: Loyalty to the United States is non-negotiable for Congress members

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German Americans in the early 20th century already had a sense of being American but were bullied with the help of government inducements into giving up their ancestral heritage. This took place after the Wilson administration managed to push the U.S. into World War I.

In my part of Pennsylvania, where German Pietist farmers settled, intimidation achieved its intended effect. Churches and other buildings had their German inscriptions effaced. The teaching and use of the German language ceased. Even schools like Linden Hall in nearby Lititz that were founded by German sects stopped offering German courses and have not revived them to this day.

I won’t get into the already widely known and horrendous treatment of the Nisei, or second-generation Japanese, after Pearl Harbor. I will say only that it may have exceeded in awfulness what was done to German Americans 25 years earlier. As should be obvious, Norwegians, Swedes, and many other ethnic minorities became Americanized without the tactics applied to German and Japanese Americans. This happened through a natural process of assimilation.

By now, the national unity that Andrew Beck properly values seems to have been mostly lost. I wonder whether the “America First” politics of the MAGA movement can recover it in any meaningful way. Once the American republic lost its original ethnic and religious unity, its leaders and intellectuals were obliged to turn to other ideas to hold American citizens together. In my youth, American public education still emphasized civic patriotism and a state-sponsored pantheon of national heroes.

Unity through civic patriotism persisted until radicalized minorities began to vent their hate on ‘Amerika.’

That unifying effort succeeded for several generations, particularly since it was reinforced by a civil religion with recognizably Protestant cultural elements. This way of assimilating hyphenated Americans served well in two world wars and at least during part of the Cold War. It was the American public philosophy when I was growing up in the 1950s. An understanding of Americanness that did not depend on shared ethnicity may have worked well at the time because other unifying factors were at play.

Most of the population remained Euro-American and had some Christian affiliation. Deeper cultural bonds united (for example) an Italian American and a Swedish American than those existing between either and a third-world Muslim.

RELATED: America’s ‘melting pot’ was never more than a convenient myth — here’s why

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This unity through civic patriotism persisted until radicalized minorities began to vent their hate on “Amerika.” Since these irate “dissenters” proceeded to take over the mainstream media, education at all levels, and public administration, the older methods of assimilation and of producing a unified American identity became less effective.

One might apply to this changed American identity a criticism that’s been leveled at the efforts of the present German regime to assimilate third-world Muslim immigrants. Into what, exactly, can one assimilate foreign residents when public administrators, educators, and the culture industry have taught the indigenous population to hate their country?

Unhyphenated

Earlier attempts at generating unity, however, also ran into headwinds eventually. Non-Protestants, starting with a growing Catholic population, objected to attending “Protestant” public schools and seeing their religious and cultural traditions marginalized. Later the Jewish left and anti-Catholic Southern Baptists called for a more thorough secularization of the public square in the name of separating church and state, furthering pluralism — or whatever other excuse they could find for making the United States less of what it had been before.

By now our ruling class and various influencers are trying to separate whatever they intend to make of this country from its Western roots. The still widely influential Anti-Defamation League, in a pamphlet last year titled “The New Primer on White Supremacy,” explains quite straightforwardly that the designation “Western” is really a “code word” for white racism.

Indeed, according to the ADL, a racist, xenophobic taint also attaches to “Euro-American identity.” Such descriptive terms, according to this pamphlet, are used by those who oppose large-scale Muslim immigration into Europe and emphatically reject the LGBTQ agenda.

Another now-endangered vehicle of American assimilation is the melting-pot concept, which still has many adherents in our conservative establishment. The August 1 edition of the New York Post highlighted the heavily attended Muslim funeral of a slain Bangladeshi police officer in New York City.

“This most New York story,” we were informed on the Post’s front page, was intended as a celebration of the pluralism and diversity that the paper’s editors see as proof of the American melting pot at work. By now, according to this message, ethnically and racially diverse groups are coming to see themselves and each other as unhyphenated Americans.

Unfortunately, the same city with a multicultural sense of who we are is about to elect as mayor a vocally anti-Western woke Muslim — repeating something that Londoners already did when they elected Sadiq Khan and that Minneapolis will likely do if it chooses Omar Fateh as its next mayor. The slain police officer, Didarul Islam, lost his life to a crazed black killer whom CNN, out of its anti-white derangement syndrome, described as “possibly white.”

By now, the melting-pot view of assimilation and the stress on civic patriotism, which I regard as the best substitutes for an older American cultural identity, have given way to a woke dead end.

Unless we can move beyond this divisive concept, it won’t be possible to return to less fracturing views of American identity. Targeting white male Christian heterosexuals as victimizers does not seem to be a satisfactory way of bringing together this country’s legal population. Unfortunately, large demographics, particularly college-educated women, have different ideas about what the managerial state should be imposing on the rest of us.

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

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Conservative commentator Benny Johnson was skeptical of Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s background, so he not only took it upon himself to look into it — but put together an entire documentary exposing the truth behind the notorious “code switcher.”

Crockett, while representing a district in Dallas, is actually from a well-off neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.

“There are some parts of St. Louis that are actually some of the nicest neighborhoods you’ve ever seen in your life. … They’re gorgeous and beautiful and leafy and manicured, and the people wave on their way to their HOA meetings on their beautiful pristine lawns,” Johnson tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“In fact, inside of that exact area is where Jasmine Crockett went to school, a place called Mary Institute [and St. Louis Country] Day School,” he explains.

According to Johnson, it’s “the best school in the entire state of Missouri.”

“It’s so elite that the test scores leaving that school are some of the highest in the entire nation. That’s where Jasmine Crockett went to high school. It costs $35,000 per year. There’s a private lacrosse field as well as a sunken, grassy Wimbledon court,” he says.

After high school, Crockett went to Rhodes College outside Memphis, Tennessee, which costs $75,000 a year, before going to the University of Houston Law School.

“If you total it all together, it’s very close to a million dollars’ worth of higher — not only higher, the highest levels of education you can possibly get,” Johnson says.

Johnson has a name for what he views as a Democrat phenomenon that Crockett is participating in.

“This isn’t rare. This is normal in the Democrat Party,” he says. “It’s called working-class stolen valor. It’s practiced by the elites inside of the Democrat Party.”

“Whether you’re Zohran Mamdani, Kamala Harris, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Jasmine Crockett, you are embarrassed that you come from wealth and privilege. You have to make up stories, fantastical stories, in order to try and prove that you have some type of bona fides with the working class, of which — and the welfare class, of which you are constantly trying to appease and pander to,” Johnson explains.

“Kamala Harris said she worked the fries at McDonald’s,” he laughs. “Give me a break. Everyone knows that it’s all farcical, it’s all fake, it’s all fraudulent. And the American public sees through it.”

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