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To honor his brothers and sisters in arms this Veterans Day, Captain Mike Bouchard, who just announced his congressional candidacy, pledges to protect American interests, especially right here at home.

Bouchard — a 32-year-old Michigan Army National Guard captain and the son of longtime Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard — learned firsthand the importance of an America First foreign policy after he witnessed a dramatic change at the U.S. southern border immediately after Joe Biden took office in 2021, when Bouchard was still full-time active duty in the Army. Within days, President Biden closed major immigration checkpoints, unleashing what Bouchard described as a “manufactured” immigration crisis.

‘They were scared of an overwhelming US response.’

What’s worse, drug cartels have developed sophisticated capabilities that “rival some of the stuff we have,” Bouchard told Blaze News. “We need to step up our game to combat them. Because if we don’t, we’re opening ourselves up to a lot of unsavory things.”

Bouchard also noted that U.S. military strength was undermined during the Biden administration by woke infiltration. “We had a week-long training canceled to have briefings. One of the briefings was a transgender Navy Seal who was brought in to teach us about empathy,” he recalled.

Now that Trump is back, Bouchard says American military might has been restored.

Bouchard has just returned from a nine-month deployment to Iraq and was overseas when hostilities between Israel and Iran erupted in June. He claims that he and all the other American servicemen and women stationed in the Middle East were not directly targeted at that time because of our military’s “lethality” under Trump.

“They were scared of an overwhelming U.S. response,” he said.

RELATED: Son of popular Michigan sheriff urged to run for Congress as a Republican

Photo given to Blaze News

Even though the world seems to respect American military power once again, Bouchard noted that radicals in America are no longer abiding by American values and are instead resorting to “political violence” to settle differences.

Bouchard claimed the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which occurred while Bouchard was still in Iraq, convinced him that he had to jump into the political fray and begin a run for Congress as soon as he returned home.

“I didn’t make the final decision to do this until the day I got home. I got home. I thought about it. … I prayed on it. I did some research. This is the right time,” he explained.

Bouchard is now running as a Republican for the 10th district in Michigan, a seat currently occupied by Republican Rep. John James, who is running for governor. Should Bouchard win, he says he will be able to continue serving military members, veterans, and all military families through legislative action.

Bouchard worries about veteran unemployment and alarming rates of suicide. He also wants to prioritize addressing veteran homelessness, child care, and medical care. “Veterans Affairs is a massive bureaucracy, but what we can do is put in systems and processes to make it more efficient,” he said.

No matter what happens in his 2026 congressional race, Bouchard indicated to Blaze News that he will never forget or abandon his “friends” in uniform, especially his fellow paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne Division.

“They have some of the best men and women in the world. I mean, when you jump out of airplanes for a living, it tests your mettle. It tests your character,” he said.

“The people who stay there you can trust in any circumstance.”

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​America first, Charlie kirk, Congress, Donald trump, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Joe biden, John james, Michigan, Mike bouchard, Sheriff bouchard, Politics, Veterans day 

President Donald Trump on Thursday called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi an “evil woman” when asked to comment on her retirement announcement.

“I’m glad she’s retiring,” Trump said as he took reporter questions in the Oval Office.

“I think she did the country a great service by retiring,” he continued. “I think she was a tremendous liability for the country. I thought she was an evil woman who did a poor job, who cost the country a lot in damages and in reputation. I thought she was terrible.”

However, not all conservatives gave Pelosi the same exit treatment.

“I will praise Nancy Pelosi. She had an incredible career for her party. I served under her speakership in my first term of Congress, and I’m very impressed at her ability to get things done. I wish we could get things done for our party like Nancy Pelosi was able to deliver for her party,” Marjorie Taylor Greene shockingly said in an interview on CNN.

“She was on ‘The View’ the other day too,” BlazeTV co-host Jeff Fisher says on “Pat Gray Unleashed.” “Yeah, she’s been making the rounds.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a post on social media that the reason why MTG has changed her tune on opposition like Pelosi is because Trump told her she could not be the Republican nominee for Georgia Senate.

“She was gearing up for that statewide race, and Trump told her no,” AOC said in the social media video post. “The White House and Trump-land shut down Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal ambitions to run for Senate, and she has been on a revenge tour ever since.”

“So we’re believing AOC on this,” “Pat Gray Unleashed” executive producer Keith Malinak comments.

“I mean, it adds up,” host Pat Gray says. “That definitely checks out.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday regarding President Donald Trump’s authority to impose reciprocal and fentanyl-related tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Given the skepticism expressed by liberal and conservative justices alike, there is cause to suspect that things may not go in the president’s favor.

Trump has since underscored in a series of posts on Truth Social that a loss for his administration in this case would prove to be a “catastrophe” for the economy and national security.

Skepticism on the high court

One day prior to the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in the consolidated cases Trump v. V.O.S. Selections and Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the president noted that the outcome of the case could mean “LIFE OR DEATH for our Country. With a Victory, we have tremendous, but fair, Financial and National Security. Without it, we are virtually defenseless against other Countries who have, for years, taken advantage of us.”

‘The US Supreme Court was given the wrong numbers.’

While Justice Samuel Alito appeared sympathetic to some of the government’s arguments, his conservative colleagues didn’t come across as entirely convinced.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, for instance, joined his liberal colleagues last week in trying to poke holes in U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s defense of Trump’s tariffs, suggesting that the danger of too liberal a reading of the IEEPA in the president’s favor risks creating “a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.”

RELATED: Trump’s SHOCKING 25% truck tariff: A matter of national security?

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts, like some of the other justices on the high court, took issue with the absence of the word “tariffs” in the IEEPA, which empowers the president to regulate imports of “property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest” during a declared national emergency.

“You have a claimed source in IEEPA that had never before been used to justify tariffs. No one has argued that it does until this — this particular case,” said Robert.

Roberts, whose note on the unprecedented nature of the interpretation was also raised by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, added that tariffs amount to an “imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress.”

Concern in the White House

Trump, no doubt aware of how the oral arguments went, has emphasized in the days since what is at risk.

Hours after indicating that any money left over from his proposed $2,000 tariff dividend for American citizens “will be used to SUBSTANTIALLY PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT,” Trump suggested on Monday that the cost of the Supreme Court’s invalidation of his tariffs — which Barrett said would likely be “a mess” — could be far higher than previously suggested.

Trump noted in a Truth Social post on Monday, “The ‘Pay Back’ Numbers being quoted by the Radical Left Lunatics, who would love to see us lose on Tariffs because of how bad it would be for our Country, are much higher than those being stated by our Fake Opposition — Opposition mainly from Foreign Countries that would do anything to be allowed to charge us Tariffs without retribution.”

‘Possibly non-sustainable!’

“The actual Number we would have to pay back in Tariff Revenue and Investments would be in excess of $2 Trillion Dollars, and that, in itself, would be a National Security catastrophe,” added the president.

In a subsequent post, Trump wrote, “The U.S. Supreme Court was given the wrong numbers. The ‘unwind’ in the event of a negative decision on Tariffs, would be, including investments made, to be made, and return of funds, in excess of 3 Trillion Dollars.”

As all revenues from tariffs, including new and pre-existing ones, through September of this year had raised between $174 and $195 billion, Trump’s allusion to a figure over $3 trillion appears to refer to the potential tariff revenue lost over the next decade.

According to a recent Tax Foundation report, Trump’s tariffs “will raise $2.4 trillion in revenue over the next decade on a conventional basis and reduce US GDP by 0.6 percent, all before foreign retaliation.” Other estimates put potential revenue as high as $3 trillion.

The Congressional Budget Office released an estimate in August indicating that “increases in tariffs implemented during the period from January 6, 2025, to August 19 will decrease primary deficits (which exclude net outlays for interest) by $3.3 trillion if the higher tariffs persist for the 2025-2035 period.”

Trump suggested further that the loss of tariff revenue and return of funds “would truly become an insurmountable National Security Event, and devastating to the future of our Country — Possibly non-sustainable!”

U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer told “Mornings with Maria” last week that the reciprocal tariffs at issue have netted over $100 billion but less than $200 billion and noted further that if they are invalidated, specific plaintiffs might receive a refund, but it remains unclear what will happen to the remainder.

“As for the rest of it … I’ll hand that file to the secretary of the treasury,” said Greer.

“You’ll have all these importers and importing interests who are going to want that money back, and so, you know, we’ll have to figure out — probably with the court — what kind of a schedule might look like and what the rights are of these parties and what rights the government has to that money.”

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​Donald trump, President, Tariff, Supreme court, Scotus, Court, Decision, Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Ieepa, Politics 

A protestant pastor is not backing down from his claim that he can have multiple wives.

Rich Tidwell, a pastor in Canton, Missouri, has sparked an online debate about the acceptance of polygamy in Christianity and whether or not it is biblically justifiable.

‘I have two beautiful wives.’

To the expected amount of backlash, Tidwell recently made an announcement on his Instagram page that his second wife is expecting his eighth child.

“I have two beautiful wives,” Tidwell wrote in a long entry. “We’re thrilled for what the Lord has done for our family,” he added, citing Bible passage Luke 18:29.

The pastor wrote about his justifications in an article called “Plural marriage,” labeling the practice as polygyny, which refers to one man being married to multiple women.

“In 2019, I discovered the surprising fact that God not only never prohibited polygyny throughout the entire biblical narrative (as He did with polyandry or homosexuality), He divinely ordained it in several cases,” Tidwell claimed.

He then cited more passages.

RELATED: Church-hopping: Confessions of an itinerant worshipper

Exodus 21:10 regulates but does not prohibit the practice, Tidwell claimed, when it says, “If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.”

Tidwell also noted 2 Chronicles 24:2-3, which mentions that “Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he became the father of sons and daughters,” as well as 2 Samuel 12:7-8:

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.”

The pastor continued with more citations and said that if God explicitly gave men more than one wife at any time in history, “Then it was not and is not sin.”

For those who argued that polygyny is not the original design for mankind, Tidwell countered, “Neither is death, nor clothing, nor eating meat.”

RELATED: This crisis in churches is real. Will Christians fight back?

— (@)

In an article titled “Should polygamist families be welcome at church?” Tidwell shared a letter he wrote to an Anglican church in Missouri requesting to attend its worship services; he was soundly denied.

A priest replied, saying the bishop, clergy, and parish council “unanimously decided against” the family’s participation.

“On multiple levels, polygamy is forbidden in our convictions, interpretation of Scripture, and the Canons and Constitution of the [Anglican Church of North America],” the unknown representative wrote, citing the following: “Canon II.7: Of Christian Marriage, which defines marriage as a lifelong union of one man and one woman.”

“These convictions are non-negotiable,” the letter said. “If you ever repent and become functionally and theologically monogamous, you are welcome to participate.”

Tidwell is a pastor at the nondenominational Ormond Church in Canton, Missouri, according to Protestia.

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​Lifestyle, Align, Christianity, Missouri, Polygamy, Protestant, Faith 

As Republicans attempt to redraw districts to gain a cushion in their razor-thin majority in Congress ahead of the midterms next year, an unexpected setback in a reliably red state raises the stakes.

A redistricting case in Utah has potentially thrown a wrench in the nationwide redistricting battle.

‘Turns out, she was orchestrating it from the start.’

The AP reported that Judge Dianna Gibson has ordered the Utah congressional districts to be redrawn in conformity with a 2018 ballot initiative known as Proposition 4, which in effect could grant Democrats a seat in the House.

Proposition 4’s map was drawn by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, the plaintiffs of the redistricting case. That map largely keeps Salt Lake City intact in one district rather than breaking it apart, creating a reliably blue voter base that could flip one of the state’s four congressional seats to the Democrats.

Gibson rejected S.B. 200, a congressional map that was enacted by Republican lawmakers and that maintained four seats, on the grounds that it did not meet the rules against gerrymandering.

RELATED: Gov. Gavin Newsom threatens to redistrict California after Texas GOP drops new district map proposal

Photo by Matt Archer/Getty Images

Gibson’s decision was reportedly handed down just a few minutes before the clock struck midnight on Monday.

Republican Utah state Rep. Candice Pierucci called the redrawn map a “clear example of judicial activism.”

Pierucci added, “The Judge drove the entire process, set aggressive deadlines and refused an extension for map drawing by the legislature. We moved 104 lawmakers under those deadlines and she herself couldn’t be bothered to issue the decision before a quarter to midnight. We followed her direction every step of the way — turns out, she was orchestrating it from the start.”

All four Utah congressional seats are currently occupied by Republicans, and Republicans currently have a slim majority in the U.S. House, holding 219 seats to Democrats’ 213. Three seats are vacant following two deaths and one resignation.

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​Politics, Redistricting, Utah, Better boundaries, Redistricting fight, Candice pierucci, Dianna gibson, Judge dianna gibson, Congressional redistricting, Congressional map, 2026 midterms, Midterms 

Our economic realities as Americans are tied directly to energy. But those of us working outside the energy industry must be forgiven for not noticing that in 2022, China began construction on an experimental thorium reactor that requires no water, generates substantially less toxic byproduct, purports and appears be vastly safer than all other reactor designs, and all but eliminates the possibility of meltdown. American citizens should be forgiven for not noticing because in 2022, as you recall, we were suffocating in the various tendrils of psychological operations and captured government.

And when China operationalized the reactor and proved the design, firing it up last month, pulling a positive yield of uranium, Americans were again distracted. Our industries are still captured, corrupted, or sidelined. Our government is still dysfunctional, and it appears we are now, in some very official sense, losing the energy arms race.

Clickbait headlines have suggested that China outright stole the reactor design. The truth is probably even worse.

The Chinese reactor works. It delivers cheap, abundant, safe, clean energy. Congress is silent. Portions of our mainstream media only serve corporate (often energy sector-tied) interests, so they aren’t going to sound the alarm.

Here’s the kicker regarding the United States’ second-place status in this energy battle: Americans funded the entirety of the original research for the thorium reactor in the 1960s at Oak Ridge Nuclear Laboratory. This raises major questions about past, present, and future for the energy and tech sectors.

Of the successful test of the thorium reactor in China, the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics stated in a press release, “This marks the first time international experimental data has been obtained after thorium was introduced into a molten salt reactor, making it the only operational molten salt reactor in the world to have successfully incorporated thorium fuel.”

Clickbait headlines have suggested that China outright stole the reactor design. The truth is probably even worse. If you take blood pressure medication, be forewarned: There is malfeasance here, for sure, but the technology wasn’t stolen from either American corporations or Oak Ridge Laboratory. Oak Ridge Laboratory, in concert with the U.S. government, evidently declassified much of the pertinent research, according to researcher Kirk Sorensen.

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

CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Sorensen runs the website https://energyfromthorium.com, where portions of the material, now in the public domain, were published. Meanwhile, private American research into what turns out to be a highly feasible and safe energy source has been, at best, scattered and underfunded. What’s more, the stultifying (false?) dialectic between environmentalism and first-world living standards has muddied the waters for decades.

Oak Ridge Labs partnered with the Shanghai Applied Physics Institute back in 2015. American research was just simply handed to the Chinese. Meanwhile, we have considerable energy issues in America: prices jumping 10%-20% per year in many states and services often approaching third-world standards in terms of reliability and transparency. We have the highly unstable and contentious AI industry building data centers at a heady pace and signaling orders of magnitude more energy demand in short order. Lastly, we have a contingent of right-aligned Americans squaring up to take on the potential re-industrialization of the country — automobiles, pharmaceuticals, microprocessors, and steel manufacture at all levels could and probably must be re-shored if we as a nation are ever to right the ship.

None of this happens without abundant, cheap energy.

Since the early 2000s, concerns over dwindling cheap oil have confused the public and stymied good-faith efforts to manage the infrastructure, source, and delivery problems that our grand techno-American plans seem to require. Elon Musk’s grandfather, Joshua N. Halderman, was involved with M. King Hubbert in the original Technocracy Inc. endeavor, which signaled early alarms about exponential growth meeting finite oil capacity. Elon is a big fan of solar, but one wonders if perhaps now he’d be better off investigating thorium … if American industry and government can get out of his way, of course.

​Tech, Culture, Power, Energy, China 

When General George S. Patton served as military governor of postwar Bavaria, he startled the press by comparing Germans who voted for the Nazis to Americans who voted for Republicans or Democrats. Eighty years later, that comparison, once deemed outrageous, makes more sense than most care to admit.

Today’s Democratic Party has become a profoundly destructive force. Its leaders incite violence, wink at assassination attempts, and encourage riots to block the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants — including criminal offenders — the Biden White House imported as future Democratic voters.

As a European historian whose own family fled the Nazis, I recognize the pattern. The difference today is that Democrats enjoy advantages the German totalitarians never had.

In Virginia, Democrats just elected an inexperienced attorney general who once wished death upon a Republican leader and his children. Jay “Two Bullets” Jones, a man with no serious professional experience and a long public record of hate-filled rhetoric, is now the state’s top law enforcement officer. His victory didn’t trouble Virginia’s Democratic establishment. Democrats defended him, celebrated him, and made clear they see nothing disqualifying about open derangement when it serves the cause.

Parallels in power

The point isn’t that the Democratic Party is identical to Hitler’s regime. It’s that its tactics — the deceit, manipulation, and contempt for constitutional limits — echo the methods the Nazis used to dismantle Weimar Germany from within.

As a European historian whose own family fled the Nazis, I recognize the pattern. The difference today is that Democrats enjoy advantages the German totalitarians never had. Even at the height of economic collapse, no more than one-third of German voters supported Hitler’s party. In America, at least half the electorate — and possibly more — backs a party that celebrates political violence, erases gender distinctions, tears down monuments, degrades men, and promotes the mutilation of confused children in the name of “affirmation.”

Many of the Democrats’ most reliable constituencies — college-educated women, black voters, and recent immigrants — embrace the movement’s nihilism without the desperation that once drove Germans to extremism. Their loyalty is ideological, not circumstantial, and that makes the threat more enduring.

How the right lost its nerve

The totalitarian Democrats’ rise owes as much to their ruthlessness as to the right’s failure to resist it. For years, the so-called conservative establishment — especially the Murdoch media — has preached “common ground” and “dialogue.” Its members have treated the left as a legitimate partner even as it dismantled every shared institution. They’ve assured us, wrongly, that the Democratic Party was about to collapse. Their naïve optimism left Republicans unprepared for last week’s electoral debacle.

RELATED: Accountability or bust: Trump’s second term test

Credit: Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

A serious conservative movement would treat the Democrats not as rivals but as a subversive force bent on domination. They control the mainstream media, public education, entertainment, and the bureaucracy. The task is not to appease them but to weaken their grip. That means defunding their institutions, shrinking the administrative state, and cutting federal money to the states and cities run by radical leftists — Virginia, California, New Jersey, Minnesota among them. Washington should stop subsidizing those who despise the nation it governs.

The vapid notion that “we all want the same things for our children” only empowers those who plainly do not. They want to rule, not reconcile.

What must be done

Conservatives must demand fair, transparent elections conducted in designated polling places on Election Day under bipartisan supervision. Voter identification should be federally required — a safeguard, not a surrender of state authority, which has long been diluted anyway.

And before Senate Democrats move to end the filibuster to cement their control, President Trump and his allies should act first. Forget “comity.” The GOP cannot afford another cycle of deference to rules their opponents ignore.

The moment demands moral clarity, not compromise. The Democratic Party is not merely misguided — it has become an organized threat to constitutional government and civil peace. Treating it as anything less will only hasten the day when America wakes to find itself a one-party state.

​Left wing violence, Domocrats, Totalitarian, Censorship, Opinion & analysis, Elections, Jay jones, Political violence, George patton, Virginia, Nazi germany, Filibuster 

The Senate Republicans officially passed their funding bill to reopen the government Monday night, with the help of Democrat defectors. The legislation is now in the House, where members are expected to vote to finally reopen the government sometime Wednesday.

Over 40 days into the record-long government shutdown, eight Senate Democrats voted to pass the same clean continuing resolution that has been on the table since day one. The funding bill was passed in a 60-40 vote, with Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Angus King (I) of Maine, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada voting with 52 Republicans to reopen the government.

House Democrats are already whipping members to vote against reopening the government.

With just enough Democrats defecting to pass the GOP resolution, many of their fellow Democrats expressed disapproval for the “pathetic” deal they negotiated.

The main reason Democrats shut down the government in the first place was to force Republicans’ hand on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that are expiring at the end of the year. One record-breaking shutdown later, all Democrats have to show for it is a pinky promise from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) that there will be a floor vote on the subsidies, which was offered to Democrats on day one of the shutdown.

RELATED: ‘Pathetic’ Senate Democrats cave, advancing key shutdown vote and prompting intraparty uproar: ‘It’s a surrender’

Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Republicans offered Democrats one minor concession Sunday night ahead of the filibuster vote: to reverse some firings made via reduction-in-force notices. Republicans agreed to reverse all RIFs issued during the shutdown and to refrain from issuing any more until the continuing resolution expires on January 30.

In total, this deal affects only about 4,200 employees of the roughly 150,000 federal workers who have been laid off since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.

RELATED: Democrat senator makes stunning admission about Obamacare failures

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

The bill is now headed over to the House, where votes are expected to resume Wednesday afternoon after the House has been out of session for over 50 days. During a Monday press conference, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) publicly urged all members to return to Washington, D.C., as soon as possible to begin voting.

House Democrats are already whipping members to vote against reopening the government, arguing that the continuing resolution “fails to address” their health care concerns. Despite their ongoing opposition, the funding bill needs only a simple majority and is expected to pass the House.

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​Chuck schumer, John thune, Mike johnson, Donald trump, Government shutdown, Democrat shutdown, Senate democrats, Senate republicans, Democrat defectors, Dick durbin, Maggie hassan, Tim kaine, Jacky rosen, Jeanne shaheen, John fetterman, Angus king, Catherine cortez masto, Affordable care act, Aca subsidies, Obamacare, Rifs, Reduction in force, Federal firings, Politics 

ESPN’s reign as the king of sports media may be nearing its end.

BlazeTV contributor Paul Burkhardt is among those who believe this to be true, explaining that the network is “very vulnerable” as competitors like Netflix and Amazon prepare to make a “power play” that could permanently reshape the sports broadcasting landscape.

“I don’t think a lot of people are realizing — and I’ve been on this and been studying this now for probably about a year and a half — I believe ESPN is very vulnerable right now,” Burkhardt tells BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock and the rest of the panel on “Fearless.”

“And it’s the worst time for this to happen, because I think Netflix and Amazon are in a position to make the ultimate power play over the next, say, two to five years. They’ve already started to dabble into the games. They already have the leagues with them to some varying degree,” he continues.

“I think there’s a takedown about ready to happen, and I’m in line to watch it,” he adds.

Burkhardt believes that “Netflix and Amazon are ready to pounce.”

“I think that ESPN could be drunk on its success. ESPN has always had an overinflated sense of itself, particularly the on-air talent, because ESPN had such a monopoly on sports coverage that anybody you put on there was going to have the feeling of having a following,” Whitlock agrees.

“I don’t think Stephen A. Smith has a sincere following. I think he’s been forced down our throats on ESPN, but no one thinks Stephen A. Smith is talented. No one thinks he’s that informed or that insightful about sports,” he continues.

“It’s kind of reflective of the whole mentality of Hollywood and the leftist deal. … If they decide this person’s important; if they want to put Joe Biden in as president even though he’s half dead; if they decide, ‘Hey, no one likes Hillary Clinton, but we’re going to run her for president,’” he adds.

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Law enforcement in Alexandria, Louisiana, responded to the 1800 block of Henry Street just after 7:30 a.m. Saturday for a reported home invasion, the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office said. Alexandria is about 200 miles northwest of New Orleans.

Officials said a black male identified as 33-year-old Davante Deundra Thomas of Alexandria allegedly kicked down the door of the residence armed with a handgun and fired at the homeowner.

‘People have a right to protect themselves.’

But the homeowner also had a gun — and wasted no time using it.

Officials said the homeowner returned fire, striking Thomas.

After deputies arrived, Thomas was found dead inside the home with the gun still in his hand, officials said.

Sheriff’s detectives and the Crime Scene Unit responded and began their investigation and processed the scene for evidence, officials said.

The sheriff’s office said no arrests have been made.

Officials said the investigation is still active and ongoing, and all those with any information about the incident should contact detectives at 318-473-6727 or the sheriff’s office at 318-473-6700.

Commenters reacting to the shooting were a bit mixed in their opinions. Most seemed completely behind the homeowner who returned fire — but others believed there was more to the story:

“Turns out the more you F around the more you find out,” one commenter said.”Welp, he won’t do that again!!!” another user noted.”This is a good opportunity to teach your kids about what happens if you go breaking into houses,” another commenter wrote.”People have a right to protect themselves,” another user said.”Crazy thing is people don’t realize how many homeowners actually have weapons in their homes just for this reason,” another commenter observed.”Naw, we aren’t getting the entire story here,” another user countered. “Don’t pass judgement without all the facts.””This just doesn’t sound right to me, either,” another commenter stated. “Something [is] not adding up.”

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​2nd amend., Alexandria, Armed intruder, Break-in, Crime thwarted, Door kicked down, Fatal shooting, Gun rights, Guns, Home invasion, Homeowner shoots intruder, Intruder opens fire, Louisiana, Rapides parish sheriff’s office, Self-defense, Crime 

The Alternative for Germany party has spent over a decade sounding the alarm about the fallout of mass migration in Europe. For its efforts, the German political establishment has sought to ban, vilify, disarm, debank, and criminalize the party and its members.

Now that imported crime has become too much to bear — such that Berlin is once again a dangerous place for Jews and homosexuals — and the AFD has become too popular to ignore, a leading German official has joined the chorus of those seeking to repatriate so-called asylum seekers from Syria.

‘41.8% of all people suspected of crimes in Germany last year — a year that saw a nearly 6% increase in year-over-year violent crimes — were foreign nationals.’

Chancellor Friedrich Merz — whose center-right coalition consisting of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union parties is neck and neck in the polls with the AFD — struck a new tone last week, suggesting that the bulk of the over one million Syrians who flooded into the country over the past decade should hit the road.

Merz suggested further that he’ll work with Syria’s terrorist president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to help facilitate the return, reported Politico.

“The civil war in Syria is over,” said Merz. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, which means we can begin repatriating people.”

The chancellor noted further that the Syrians temporarily dwelling in Europe have a responsibility to rebuild their war-torn nation.

“Without these people, reconstruction will not be possible,” said Merz. “Those in Germany who then refuse to return to the country can, of course, be deported in the near future.”

RELATED: Orbán emphasizes to Trump that Hungary survives today as Christian ‘island of difference in a liberal ocean’

Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images

Marc Bernhard, an AFD lawmaker, recently told PBS’ “Frontline” that of the 1 to 1.2 million Syrians now in Germany, “Most of them don’t have jobs. Most of them are not well integrated. That’s exactly the issue.”

Fewer than 290,000 Syrian nationals were reportedly employed in Germany last year.

So-called asylum seekers from Syria receive over $500 a month under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act as well as other benefits, including housing support, dental care, and health insurance.

‘These people must return to their homeland.’

In addition to draining citizen resources, Syrians in Germany are also grossly over-represented in crime statistics.

Mass migration to Germany from the Middle East has coincided in recent years with a massive spike in rape and other violent crimes.

A government-commissioned study revealed in early 2018 that there was a 10.4% increase in violent crime at the height of the immigration crisis. Deutsche Welle reported that 90% of this violent crime increase was attributable to immigrants, predominantly males between the ages of 14 and 30.

Foreign nationals have continued to commit an alarming number of crimes in the years since. Federal police crime statistics indicate that 41.8% of all people suspected of crimes in Germany last year — a year that saw a nearly 6% increase in year-over-year violent crimes — were foreign nationals.

The top five nationalities of non-German suspects in 2024 were: Syrian, 114,889 suspects; Turkish, 93,253 suspects; Ukrainian, 55,669 suspects; Romanian, 65,041 suspects; and Afghani, 49,427 suspects.

The imported crime problem became so bad last year that Olaf Scholz, the former German chancellor who long championed predecessor Angela Merkel’s open-borders policies, acknowledged that criminal noncitizens should be deported.

Speaking a month after an Afghan migrant butchered a police officer at an anti-jihad demonstration in Mannheim, Germany, Scholz said, “It outrages me when someone who has found protection here commits the most serious of crimes.”

“Such criminals should be deported, even if they come from Syria or Afghanistan,” added Scholz.

Just weeks after Scholz dared upset the open-borders leftists in the Bundestag, a 26-year-old Syrian migrant butchered three people — two men ages 56 and 67 and a 56-year-old woman — and left another six grievously wounded at a Christian music festival in Solingen.

The situation has deteriorated further in the months since, prompting Scholz’s successor and other German establishmentarians to echo the AFD’s calls for action; however, they appear unwilling to fully embrace mass deportations. Instead, they are reportedly entertaining the prospect of deportation of criminal Syrian nationals.

Merz indicated last week that he would speak to al-Sharaa about deporting Syrians convicted of crimes back to their homeland.

The AFD clearly isn’t interested in such half-measures.

“We say quite clearly: Syrians must now have their protected status revoked because the reason for their fleeing no longer applies,” AFD co-leader Alice Weidel said two days after German authorities arrested a Syrian man suspected of preparing a jihadist attack in Berlin. “These people must return to their homeland.”

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​Friedrich merz, Afd, Germany, German, Berlin, Syrian, Migrants, Migrant, Terrorism, Europe, Leftism, Merkel, Deportation, Remigration, Repatriation, Politics 

When Washington shuts down, it doesn’t just stall politics — it shakes the lives of America’s veterans. At the outset of the government shutdown last month, a veteran named James called VetComm in tears. His question was simple but heartbreaking: “Will I still get paid next week? Because I can’t afford groceries if I don’t.”

James served his country with honor. Yet he worried about feeding his family because Democrats in Washington insist on prioritizing illegal immigrants over the very men and women who defended this nation.

Enough is enough. Stop putting illegal immigrants ahead of the heroes who built and defended this country.

I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for veterans like James — those who bled for this country, only to watch so-called representatives in Washington bend over backward for people who entered it illegally. With this latest government shutdown, Democrats have again slammed the door on veterans while rolling out the red carpet for illegal aliens.

A manufactured crisis

For over a month, Democrats held the entire nation hostage, demanding a $1.5 trillion, poison-pill-stuffed funding bill that includes “free health care” for illegal aliens while programs for veterans teeter on the brink. It’s not just reckless — it’s cruel. These are the same priorities that helped drive a 19% spike in veteran homelessness while illegal migrants got luxury hotel rooms on the taxpayer’s dime.

As the shutdown ends, the facts are clear. The House passed a clean continuing resolution to keep the lights on, maintain VA funding, and avoid chaos. But Senate Democrats — led by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York — rejected it, choosing to plunge the country into an unnecessary shutdown to appease their left-wing base.

The Democrats’ alternative was loaded with giveaways: subsidies for illegal immigrants’ doctor visits, hospital stays, and “health care rights,” while hundreds of thousands of veterans remain stuck on VA wait lists — some dying before they’re seen.

Staggering hypocrisy

Schumer once said avoiding a shutdown “is very good news for the country, for our veterans … all of whom would have felt the sting.” More recently, he warned that “a shutdown would mean chaos and pain and needless heartache for the American people.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared, “It is not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want.” Jeffries said shutdowns are “about the harm.”

Those very same politicians ended up leading one — weaponizing activist wish lists and pet projects against the GOP and the nation.

RELATED: Disabled vets denied dignity as VA claim backlog becomes unbearable

Johnrob via iStock/Getty Images

This pattern of betrayal isn’t new. Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the VA was caught reimbursing health care for illegal immigrants and their families, draining resources from veterans. I’ve seen it firsthand in San Diego — hotels packed with migrants while homeless veterans sleep on sidewalks, dodging needles and despair.

Over 10 million illegal crossings have occurred under the Biden administration’s watch. The result: big money for migrants, broken promises for veterans. The audacity to continue putting invaders ahead of patriots is shocking — and unforgivable.

The real human cost

Everyone knows a shutdown hurts troops, veterans, and families. Yet Democrats embraced it anyway, in service to radical ideology over national duty. Americans overwhelmingly oppose this madness.

Enough is enough. Stop putting illegal immigrants ahead of the heroes who built and defended this country. It’s time to restore sanity and start prioritizing America again.

At VetComm, we see the toll every day. The sleepless nights. The panic over missed paychecks. The spiraling PTSD and anxiety triggered by uncertainty. Veterans have already given everything; they shouldn’t have to fight their own government for stability and dignity.

Our mission is simple: Stand in the gap for those who stood for us. We help veterans understand their rights, claim the benefits they earned, and remember that their service still matters. A shutdown tests that mission — but it also steels our resolve.

Because while Washington bickers, we will keep fighting for every veteran, every day, not just Veterans Day.

​Opinion & analysis, Veterans, Veterans day, Shutdown, Democrats, Illegal immigration, Illegal aliens, Healthcare, Health insurance, Benefits for illegal aliens, Benefits, Congress, Budget, Continuing resolution, Chuck schumer, Hakeem jeffries, Alexandria ocasio-cortez 

For years, Americans have been told a comforting lie: Anyone can do anything, be anything, and succeed at anything, regardless of limits or differences. But ideological fantasies collapse on the battlefield, where physics, endurance, and human limits matter more than slogans.

After years of social experimentation, the military is rediscovering a basic truth: Equality of opportunity makes the force stronger, while equality of outcome weakens it. The return to gender-neutral standards announced last month by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth marks a long-overdue step toward restoring merit, discipline, and respect across the ranks.

Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.

For most of our history, the armed forces held one clear principle: Anyone, male or female, could serve in any position if they met the same standard. The promise was simple and fair — the uniform didn’t care about sex or gender, only performance.

That began to change in 2015, when the Army opened all-male combat units to women. At the time, the Pentagon promised no dilution of standards. But in 2018, when the new gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test was introduced, 84% of female soldiers failed. Instead of maintaining expectations, the Army rewrote them.

By 2022, the ACFT 4.0 came with gender-based scoring — a quiet admission that standards had become negotiable. The result: Combat units staffed with soldiers unable to meet the physical requirements of their jobs. That puts missions, morale, and lives at risk.

Worse, it undermines respect for women who do meet the standard. When the bar moves, doubt replaces trust. Hardworking female soldiers — the ones who earned their places — are forced to prove themselves twice: once in training and again in the eyes of their peers.

Diversity by design, weakness by consequence

In 2021, U.S. Special Operations Command declared that “diversity is an operational imperative.” But this new “imperative” wasn’t about the real diversity already found across the military — people from every background, race, and income level serving side by side. It was about engineering statistical parity, even in elite combat units where performance alone must decide who stays and who goes.

That mindset has consequences. Combat units can’t afford ideological experiments. The job is to close with and destroy the enemy — not to serve as laboratories for social theory. Lowering standards in the name of inclusion doesn’t just weaken readiness; it puts soldiers in unnecessary danger.

And no woman who trains to fight wants pity disguised as progress. The women who seek out elite units don’t ask for special treatment — they ask for the same chance to prove themselves by the same rules. When standards drop, those women lose too.

Strength in truth

Gender-neutral standards don’t discriminate. They recognize that men and women are different and that most people — men included — simply can’t meet the demands of combat. That’s not “oppression.” It’s just reality.

Women who pass those standards have demonstrated extraordinary strength, skill, and resolve. They deserve admiration, not suspicion. And those who don’t — along with the vast majority of men who don’t — can still serve honorably in the hundreds of vital roles that keep America’s military functioning.

RELATED: How America lost its warrior spirit when it feminized its academies

Photo by Kevin Carter

A sex-neutral standard is an act of fairness, not exclusion. It’s a recognition that excellence demands truth, not ideology — that merit, not identity, keeps soldiers alive and wins wars.

Restoring purpose

The military’s duty is national defense, not social engineering. Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.

Reaffirming one standard for all isn’t an attack on women — it’s a defense of every soldier’s dignity. It calls each person to rise to the challenge, to serve according to one’s God-given abilities, and to be judged by results.

If we want a stronger force — and a stronger nation — we must stop confusing fairness with fantasy. Let’s demand standards worthy of the uniform, and let every soldier, male or female, earn respect the same way: by meeting them.

​Military, Women, Recruits, Fitness, Opinion & analysis, Woke military, Pete hegseth, Standards, Department of war, Gender-neutral, Women in combat, Army combat fitness test 

I have been church-hopping since the summer of 2020. This means that a lot of “concerned evangelicals” have felt justified in asking, “What are you searching for?”

That first summer, I claimed to be searching for holy ground. However, I already knew that this was wherever a saint steps — wherever God speaks to us and we listen in prayer.

We had spent a wonderful evening with an elderly Latter-day Saints couple who found us hitchhiking, then brought us home to ‘show us some literature.’

I have never been searching for anything as much as I have been interested to see what it is that others claim to have found. It thrills me to see that it is all pretty much the same, in minor degrees. Some pastors are more boring than others. Everyone makes claims about the “other” churches in town. Everyone has their rituals, their deeds, the words that are not works. And very few are curious about the others.

“Seek and ye shall find,” they murmur among themselves in the territory of their home church, patting one another on the back because they somehow found truth without seeking it. Why aren’t the others seeking it? They’d be here among them if they sought — if they loved the truth as they loved the Bible.

Not all. Only the majority. Maybe not even that many — only a few loud ones.

I, too, among them, also vocal, a little charismatic, a little opinionated, forgetting what it means to seek before you find.

The world is not our home

Now I have dragged my husband in on the game of flirting with the appearance of universalism. And yet we are no more universalist than Paul or St. Francis of Assisi or C.S. Lewis. We are curious, alive, and nonplussed by the promissory comforts of the world. This world is not our home, and neither is a single building.

And yet, if you seek, ye shall find. It matters not that my intentions were no different from those of an atheist — to attend, to observe, to write. I am relating to the woman at the front of the church who is not Catholic but is hired to sign the sermon and songs for the deaf attendees, thus hearing every word of the priest and chorus more thoroughly than any of the parishioners and finding that her job has morphed into a spiritual awakening.

I am finding community, kindred spirits, truth outside my understanding of it, and a narrow path. I am becoming less curious as a larger passion consumes my heart and soul.

We intended to attend Mass while on our honeymoon — something difficult to do when you have no agency over where you will be day to day, as hitchhikers reliant upon the goodwill of strangers and public transit. We joked about putting up a cardboard sign, our thumbs in the air, “TAKE US TO CHURCH.” Maybe someday.

Instead we went where we could.

RELATED: The USA Rail Pass: Across America by train

A.M. Hickman

A church for widows

The first place was an Anglican church in Newfoundland that seemed to be run by little old ladies — 30 of them, to be precise, scattered in the pews, in the choir, and at the altar. There were only five men, all of them seated. This did not bode well, we thought.

But it was truly a church for widows, a church that was doing its very best to remain active, putting on plays and picnics even though there were no young people or children. The Spirit was there with those little old ladies. It was comforting them, pushing them forward even though they had lost much. It was reminding them of all that awaited them in paradise. And they were ready.

They gave us cookies and greeted us with forgetful, motherly smiles, as if we were not mere strangers but apparitions of heavenly promises. We were their reminder to keep hoping, and they were our nudge toward charity. We sat, we witnessed, and we listened.

Seventh-day supper

After that we found different Catholic churches to pray in, which somehow always seemed to be far away when Sunday came around. There was a large one — a shrine — on the border of Quebec, Labrador, and Newfoundland, then another a little farther into Quebec, in an Inuit village. This one hearkened to the traditions of these people, too. How beautiful, I remember thinking, the way the Church uses each people’s specific culture and history to express the truth.

Then we walked by a window that sported “Seventh-day Adventist” in a French-Canadian Maine town. It was a Thursday, and we had already determined to stay in town for a French-Acadian Mass on Sunday.

“Let’s go there,” I told my husband. “It might be a little frustrating, but it’ll be a good experience for you.”

He agreed, and so we brought ourselves and our backpacks there Saturday morning. The church was new — it looked more like a Main Street business because of its location and the large windows. There were only six or so people inside.

“Can we join you all?” I asked. “No, I am not Seventh-day Adventist, but I’ve attended many services because my family keeps Sabbath on Saturday.”

We put our bags in front of a pile of unopened boxes of “The Great Controversy,” and they handed us a booklet on Romans and two pens. The room was ugly, like a warehouse, except for the lace curtains in the windows.

For the next two hours, we “studied the Bible,” mostly discussing how wonderful Jesus is and what it means to pray — how often we should pray and what makes prayer sincere — and how all Protestant churches are basically Catholic because they acknowledge the authority of Rome and the pope to change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

The church service was bland, hard to follow. I tatted a lace bookmark to try to keep awake. The speaker was likeable, but he droned on about a Bible story, not really recounting it accurately. I don’t think that was the point of his speaking, though — they were simply allowing him a moment to speak, because he was a man and the church had few members and needed participation from everyone in order to keep the spirit alive.

They did not give us cookies, but something better — a meal of various bean and rice dishes. There was fresh homemade hummus, too.

Nine out of Ten

As we ate, everyone continued to ramble on about how awful it was that other churches didn’t care to follow all of the Ten Commandments.

“Evangelicals want the Ten Commandments in schools, and yet they do not want them in their churches.”

“If children came home from school and refused to do their homework on Saturday, most Christian parents would not be happy.”

“There’s a church in town that has the Ten Commandments hanging on the outside of their building,” the pastor began.

So I talked to them about it and asked them why they don’t care about the fourth commandment. Oh, boy! The pastor said he’d get back to me, and let me tell you, oh boy, oh boy, that he finally decided that he could piecemeal a bunch of verses today and how he thinks he can prove that Jesus wants us to keep all the commandments now except that one.

That night the pastor let us stay in his house, and as he showed us all his proof for Saturday Sabbath and how the Catholic Church has duped nearly all mainstream churches, Andy finally confessed, “I am a Roman Catholic, and I believe the Church had the authority to change the Sabbath to distinguish us from the Jewish faith.”

The man started. Then he said, “Well, I think Jesus will save Catholics, too, even though they are only keeping nine of 10 of God’s commandments. But they will be judged for disregarding the Sabbath Day.”

We were friends now.

Answered prayers

In the middle of Maine, we attended one other church. All the days leading up to it were edifying. We had spent a wonderful evening with an elderly Latter-day Saints couple who found us hitchhiking, then brought us home to “show us some literature.” It was not the “Book of Mormon.” They handed us a glass of orange juice and a box of raisins and played old 1960s and 1970s love songs for us, then told us their love story — of how they had a temple wedding in Switzerland; of their 14 children, 88 grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren.

After we played a game of cards, they brought us to our destination, where we stayed with a Quaker-esque hippie Christian family. This family brought us to their church the next day.

It was as if God was answering our longing for Mass. Although the church was small and non-denominational, it felt how an early church might feel or how a Catholic service might feel if it were in someone’s home. They prayed and sang some of the songs you’d hear in a Catholic church, along with songs from an Assemblies of God or Baptist-type non-denominational church. They said the Apostles’ Creed together and took communion as a Catholic church does, with everyone coming up front and receiving it in long lines from the pastor.

The sermon was sound — like a homily — and did not feel as scattered with pieces of scripture as many non-denominational church services are. We were spellbound. If it weren’t for how modern everyone seemed to be dressed, I would have thought we had been transported to an era before the Reformation.

Shared roots

After it was over, I asked the pastor if their church had any Catholic influence.

He laughed and said no, that if there were ex-Catholic members, they would probably oppose these traditional Orthodox inclusions. No, these were things he had included because from his studies and experiences, he had come to believe that there was a lot that Protestantism lost when it spurned tradition and ritualism, and he was slowly trying to incorporate it back into church. “It’s in our roots, too.”

I talked to his wife and told her about my Living Room Academy (she had heard of it) and how it was partially inspired by my travels in woke circles when I realized that many lesbians and liberal women were doing a better job of being women and passing on beauty and skills than Christian women. Her eyes opened wide. “You’re right.” I’ve heard that since we left, she has decided to open her own iteration of the Living Room Academy for the girls in their church.

What I loved about their church was that they didn’t seem to be stuck in their bubble. Their church wasn’t really their “home” as much as it was them trying to find out what home means by looking to the past and looking to paradise. They seem to be doing a very good job at making it work — their church was filled with children, happy-looking teenagers, and a diversity of fashion from very beautiful dresses to jeans with frilly purses. There seemed to be room for expression of faith.

Coming home

After that we finally made it to a Mass in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. And I must admit, it kind of felt like coming home.

I hadn’t realized how much I had come to love attending Catholic churches with my husband. There are still many questions I have had to sort through about the Church and whether or not I can in good conscience submit myself to its authority. However, being there, surrounded by the beauty of the type that God requested when He detailed the temple He wanted from the Jews, feels like being at home … in paradise.

Everything else feels so earth-like, so business-minded and corporate and mechanical. Even though the “music” of mainstream churches claims to have more life in the show, there’s nothing quite like the chorus in a cathedral. And while you might get a good sermon in a Protestant church, you’re not going to hear near as much scripture read as is read at Mass.

Most Protestants would complain if they had to sit through half of what is read — they want a Bible verse that corroborates a sermon. Meanwhile, you might get about 15 minutes of rich preaching at a Mass — the rest is pure scripture.

It’s almost a hobby now — I will certainly never stop church-hopping, comparing and pondering. I want our children to have these experiences. So many wonderful conversations have sprung up between my husband and me because of these visits, and we are finding ourselves growing more spiritually aligned because of it.

And so I will continue to exhort anyone of any faith: Visit the churches around you, no matter their denomination. Every church has something to offer you and will give you an opportunity to practice humility and charity.

Editor’s note: A version of this essay earlier appeared on the Polite Company Substack.

​Faith, Abide, Seventh-day adventist, Christianity, Catholicism, Evangelicals, Lifestyle, Hitchhiking, Marriage, Church hopping, Culture, Church-hopping 

Imagine spending four years studying to become an engineer or computer scientist, believing a STEM degree would guarantee success, only to graduate jobless.

That isn’t a hypothetical. It’s the reality facing thousands of young Americans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, graduates in physics, computer engineering, and computer science now face some of the highest unemployment rates of any field.

American workers have lost out on jobs given to visa holders and have been forced to work for lower wages, creating a race to the bottom for companies to treat workers as widgets.

America’s flawed H-1B visa system is a major reason why. Established under the Immigration Act of 1990, the H-1B program was intended to let companies hire exceptional foreign specialists only when no qualified Americans were available.

It no longer serves that purpose. Today the H-1B has become the nation’s largest temporary work visa program, with nearly 600,000 foreign workers and 50,000 participating companies. In 2022, the 30 biggest H-1B employers hired more than 34,000 new visa workers while cutting roughly 85,000 existing jobs.

Companies claim they can’t find American STEM talent, yet the numbers tell a different story. In 2023, roughly 134,000 Americans and green card holders earned computer science degrees. That same year, the federal government issued work permits to 110,000 foreign guest workers in computer-related jobs.

In some STEM fields, up to half of new American graduates can’t find work. Tens of thousands of qualified workers remain unemployed while their government floods the market with cheaper, compliant labor.

How companies game the system

The law requires H-1B workers to be paid the same as Americans, but reality tells another story. In 2019, 60% of H-1B positions paid below the median wage for comparable U.S. workers. The visa lottery treats low-paying jobs and high-paying jobs the same, incentivizing companies to pursue cheap labor.

Even the statutory cap on H-1B visas doesn’t stop abuse. A loophole known as Optional Practical Training lets foreign students work in the United States for up to a year after graduation, or three years if they hold a STEM degree.

OPT isn’t authorized by law. It has no cap, no wage floor, and no accountability. Worse, it acts as a corporate subsidy because employers don’t pay payroll taxes on any of the half million foreign workers now in the country under this program.

Time for a real fix

Even the architects of the H-1B system admit it’s broken. Former Connecticut Rep. Bruce Morrison, a Democrat who helped design the visa in 1990, told “60 Minutes” in 2017 that “the H-1B has been hijacked as the main highway to bring people from abroad and displace Americans.”

To build on that effort, I’ve reintroduced the American Tech Workforce Act, which attacks the problem on three fronts.

RELATED: Trump admin announces major H-1B visa abuse investigation, but critics want more

Photo by Andrew Harnik / Contributor via Getty Images

First, it raises the wage floor. Companies that truly need foreign specialists should pay them the same as top American workers, ending the incentive to undercut domestic wages.

Second, it closes the OPT loophole. Foreign students shouldn’t have a back door to replace American graduates. The jobs belong to the people who earned them here.

Finally, my bill would shut down staffing scams. Third-party agencies flood the H-1B lottery with low-quality applications to drive down wages. My bill blocks those schemes and creates a true marketplace where visas go to the highest bidders — boosting both fairness and economic value.

According to the Institute for Progress, these reforms would strengthen the economy by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.

Putting Americans first

The current system rewards corporate exploitation and punishes American ambition. Workers lose jobs, wages stagnate, and graduates who followed every rule are told to wait in line behind foreign contractors. Discrimination based on national origin is already illegal, yet Washington’s visa policies effectively endorse it.

President Trump’s executive order, combined with the American Tech Workforce Act, offers a rare opportunity to restore sanity to the system. We can defend innovation while defending American workers — the people who built this country and still drive its future.

The next generation deserves more than broken promises and outsourced dreams. They deserve a fair shot to work, build, and thrive in the nation they call home.

​H-1b visas, India, Tech workers, Opinion & analysis, Immigration, Congress, Maga, America first, Jim banks, Scams, Bruce morrison, Stem, Temporary worker, Federal reserve, Economy, American students, Immigration act of 1990, Unemployment, Jobs, American tech workforce act 

Young men are inheriting a spiritually starving society, where they’re being sold a future of cheap pleasures, hollow heroes, and never-ending screen time.

It’s a lot of noise, and it will rob the youth of all purpose.

But Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck has some advice.

“If there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, seek those things. Don’t admire them. Don’t nod at them. Seek them. Hunt them. Chase them. Build your life around those things,” Glenn explains.

“A man who will do that, a boy, a young man who will do that, will become different, noticeably different. He will stop letting the culture feed him garbage. He stops applauding the trivial. He stops laughing at the obscene or cheering for the cruel. He will become a curator of real, lasting beauty in an age that has forgotten what beauty even looks like.”

“When other men are chasing down or holding up cynicism, this man holds up hope. When everyone around him is chasing dopamine, he chooses discipline. When others will blame their circumstance, he’ll take responsibility for his own action. When the world worships the shallow, he goes and searches for the deep.”

“You become what you seek. If you seek trash, you become trash. You seek virtue, you become a man of virtue. You seek excellence, and your life will begin to shine, not loudly, but steadily like the steel glow of a blade being forged.”

The world, Glenn says, already has a never-ending supply of “angry,” “addicted,” and “distracted” boys.

What it needs now, he explains, are men.

“Whole men. Clear-eyed men. Men whose souls are anchored to something higher than the algorithms trying to own them,” he says. “Build a life worthy of admiration. Forget about the applause. Fill your mind with words that make you wiser.”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

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

​Free, Video, Video phone, Upload, Camera phone, Sharing, Youtube.com, The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Spirituality, Spiritual warfare, Virtue, Men vs boys, Andrew tate, Masculinity, Manosphere 

America suffers from more than political unrest. We are in a spiritual drought — a values famine so deep that even the conservative movement, once grounded in virtue, now splinters under the weight of ego and bitterness. Too many voices compete for authority on the right, but too few echo the one voice that matters: God’s.

This isn’t about pundits or personalities. It’s about the soul of our movement and the substance of our faith. Somewhere along the way, many conservatives forgot a truth written plainly in Scripture: It is Christian to love and support the Jewish people.

If we can’t love our spiritual cousins — the people through whom our faith was born — what are we even defending? What good is a ‘Christian’ movement that forgets the Christian part?

When Jesus was asked which commandment was greatest, He didn’t hedge: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40).

Two commandments. No asterisks, no exemptions for those who worship differently or descend from another people. Jesus didn’t love selectively. He loved sacrificially.

The roots of the faith — and the movement

Conservatism, at its best, has always drawn strength from virtue — faith, family, freedom, and responsibility. Yet we’re watching parts of the movement trade virtue for venom. Courage has been confused with cruelty, boldness with bitterness, and orthodoxy with outrage.

That confusion has allowed an old poison to re-emerge: open hostility toward Jews and Israel. It comes disguised in respectable terms like “nationalism,” “authentic Christianity,” or “anti-globalism.” But strip away the labels and you find something that bears no resemblance to Christ.

Scripture leaves no doubt: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). That was God’s covenant with Abraham — the father of Israel and of faith itself. You cannot claim to follow the God of Abraham while despising Abraham’s descendants.

Christian Zionism isn’t a modern political fad. It’s the natural outflow of biblical belief. The early church didn’t view itself apart from Israel; it saw itself grafted into the same vine. “Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches,” Paul wrote. “If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you” (Romans 11:18).

Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died under a sign that read “King of the Jews.” The apostles were Jewish. The first believers were Jewish. The Old Testament — the foundation of Christian morality — was written by Jews. To despise the Jewish people is to despise the very tree that bore the Savior.

Love commands courage

Christ’s command in John 13:34 is unmistakable: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” If we can’t love our spiritual cousins — the people through whom our faith was born — what are we even defending? What good is a “Christian” movement that forgets the Christian part?

The world starves for grace. Our culture feasts on outrage, cynicism, and suspicion. The church’s mission — and the conservative movement’s moral responsibility — is not to mirror that chaos but to model something better.

We talk about “saving America,” but no nation can be saved if it forgets how to love its neighbor. America’s founders drew moral strength from Scripture because they understood that the deepest revolutions begin not in politics but in the human heart.

Jesus didn’t build walls between people — He built bridges to their hearts. He dined with tax collectors, healed Roman soldiers, and forgave His executioners. He chose compassion over contempt.

When He met the Samaritan woman at the well, He didn’t belittle her faith — He offered her living water. When Christ told the parable of the Good Samaritan, He made the hero an outsider despised by His own people. Love, He showed us, knows no boundary.

If Jesus could forgive the people who nailed Him to a cross, surely we can love the people through whom God gave us His Son.

Truth without love is just noise

Love does not mean silence. The same Jesus who preached mercy also overturned the tables of corruption. Scripture commands believers to “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).

Today a dangerous strain cloaks hatred in holiness. It mistakes cruelty for conviction and turns “truth-telling” into a license to dehumanize. But righteousness without love is rebellion, not faith.

Standing against that spirit isn’t weakness. It’s obedience. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for pride and hypocrisy, warning that “many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord,’ … Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:22–23). Faith without love is empty. Theology without mercy is just noise.

A call back to first principles

We are not only in a culture war; we are in a crisis of the soul. Civility has been replaced by performance. Grace by grudges. Authenticity by algorithms. Too many of our debates aim to win arguments rather than save souls.

Differences are inevitable. Divisions are a choice. We can disagree passionately and still love deeply. That is the mark of maturity — and the essence of Christianity. “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” Jesus asked in Matthew 5:46. Real love begins where comfort ends.

RELATED: This crisis in churches is real. Will Christians fight back?

Photo by John Greim/Contributor via Getty Images

The conservative movement must decide: Will we reflect Christ or merely invoke His name when it’s convenient? Will we unite around truth or fracture around pride? Anti-Jewish rhetoric isn’t just politically foolish — it’s spiritually corrosive.

It isn’t “based.” It’s blasphemous.

Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” What we need now are not louder voices but larger hearts. Not more outrage, but more grace. Not more warriors in the comments section, but more witnesses in the world.

It’s time to return to first principles: Love God. Love your neighbor. Those two commandments are enough to heal a movement — and maybe even a nation.

The next time someone claims to speak for Christianity while spewing hate, open your Bible. The truth is written in red.

Jesus didn’t call us to divide. He called us to love. And love, real love, always points back to the cross — and to the people through whom God brought the Savior of the world.

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The public feud between the president of the United States and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel led to Kimmel’s wife distancing from pro-Trump family members.

Molly McNearney is a writer on the show and is Kimmel’s wife. She made the comments while a guest on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast.

‘It hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man.’

McNearney said that she felt family members who supported Trump were a personal insult to her.

“I personalize everything now. When I see these terrible stories every day, I’m immediately mad at certain aunts, uncles, cousins who put him in power. And it’s really hard,” she said.

She also said she had “sympathy” for relatives who are “deliberately being misinformed every day,” but added that “it hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man.”

McNearney said she had tried to persuade her relatives against voting for Trump.

“I’ve definitely pulled in closer with the family that I feel more aligned with. And I hate that this has happened,” she said.

“Part of me goes, ‘Don’t let politics get in the way.’ But to me, this isn’t politics. It’s truly values. And we just were not aligned anymore,” she continued.

She added, “To me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family.”

RELATED: Warren faces continuing backlash over outlandish response to Kimmel controversy

She also recalled the moment she and her husband went home to tell their children that Kimmel’s show had been canceled.

“Our daughter immediately burst into tears. And she said, ‘I’ll sell my Labubus,'” McNearney recalled.

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A progressive talk radio show host posted a photograph of herself kissing the sneakers of Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, and the online response was not very supportive.

Stephanie Miller posted the photographs on social media Sunday.

‘If you’re a human being who kisses the feet of another human being, you are an embarrassment to the human race.’

“Why, yes I DID kiss the sneakers of @JasmineForUS and I DO worship the ground she walks on! And she was LOVELY about it!” she added with a laughing emoji.

Many saw the bizarre interaction as an analogy for Democrats worshipping their politicians.

“If you’re a human being who kisses the feet of another human being, you are an embarrassment to the human race. Radio host Stephanie Miller, you’re disgusting. Y’all know Jasmine Crockett’s feet STANK!!” another account said.

“Politicians represent us. They are not to be ‘worshipped.’ And the fact that she allowed it, tells you a lot,” another detractor wrote.

“This is the type of thing only boomer liberal white women think is cool. Everyone else thinks you’re weird as s**t,” another response reads.

The images went viral after being highlighted by the popular “Libs of TikTok” account.

“CRINGE: Leftist radio host Stephanie Miller kissed the feet of Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett. These people are mental,” the account wrote.

RELATED: Jasmine Crockett calls Trump a ‘piece of s**t’ during rant at left-wing rally

Crockett has recently said that she is thinking about seeking an even higher office because it would be “karma” against Republicans redistricting in Texas.

“Because if you want to take my seat of 766,000 away, I feel like there has to be some karma in that to where I take your seat that is for 30 million away,” she said. “So we are, you know, the primary is the primary. That’s cool, but you got to win the general. So we are doing some testing here shortly to see if I can expand the electorate.”

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The mainstream media has yet again been caught in a lie about an illegal immigrant, this time by falsely accusing ICE of targeting a day care and traumatizing children.

“Parents want answers after feds arrest day care teacher — ‘It has destroyed us,’ one headline from the Chicago Sun-Times reads. Another reads, “Chicago mayor condemns ICE arrest of daycare teacher in front of children: ‘shocked the conscience.’”

“Was that dramatic enough?” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales asks. “I mean, that sounds really, really dramatic. That sounds terrible,” she continues, before playing a clip of the arrest — which showed the day care teacher resisting while being led outside of the day care and then calming down.

“It turns out,” Gonzales explains, “this woman — not such a good person. … An illegal alien from Colombia, Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano.”

“So, she was here because the Biden administration released her into the United States. And last month, apparently, she reportedly paid for human smugglers to illegally bring her 17-year-old and 16-year-old children into the United States via the southern border,” she continues.

“Not sure if she knew this before — certainly she knows it now — that facilitating human smuggling is actually a crime. It’s not a good thing to enrich the coyotes’ pockets to bring a 16- and 17-year-old on a dangerous journey where there are lots of rapes and crimes that occur along the way,” she adds.

However, while the mainstream media has claimed that ICE targeted the day care specifically to drag the illegal immigrant out, the Department of Homeland Security is telling a much different story.

“ICE law enforcement did NOT target a day care. Officers attempted to conduct a targeted traffic stop of this female illegal alien from Colombia. Officers attempted to pull over this vehicle, which was registered to a female illegal alien, with sirens and emergency lights, but the male driver refused to pull the vehicle over,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

“Law enforcement pursued the vehicle before the assailant sped into a shopping plaza where he and the female passenger fled the vehicle. They ran into a day care and attempted to barricade themselves inside the day care — recklessly endangering the children inside. The illegal alien female was arrested inside a vestibule, not in the school,” she added.

“I personally think that that ire could just be turned onto the illegal and her cohort, who decided to run into the day care to seek refuge when they weren’t already there. They were completely endangering children, bringing all of these children into this situation that they didn’t have to,” Gonzales comments.

“If you want to be mad at someone for that situation,” she continues, “maybe be mad at the illegal who put the day care in that situation in the first place. But that would require critical thinking. The Democrats don’t have that. The mainstream media certainly doesn’t have that.”

“The American people are just done with this,” she adds.

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