Category: blaze media

As this story’s headline indicates, I’m not much of a cook.

I can do meatloaf in a pinch and can manage some roasted veggies — and I’ve even been known to create some of the best baked spicy chicken wings this side of … well, this side of my street. Maybe.

‘Let’s get to cookin’!’

That said, this Thanksgiving Day, do you have plans for all those leftovers that have predictably piled up after dinner is done? All of that turkey, stuffing, and, of course, cranberry sauce?

Sure, there are plenty of exotic recipes for leftovers out there that require a bit of effort — as well as ingredients that may not be so easy to procure if you don’t already have them on hand (especially amid crowded Black Friday shopping conditions). And who wants to exert even more effort after hours and hours of prep time and cooking time on this holiday?

Certainly not me — and I’m not even the one doing the Thanksgiving cooking. Ease and speed and comfort are the kings in this kitchen.

In an effort to help y’all think ahead, how about a trio of post-holiday sandwich ideas that can win the day and pare down the piles of food left in your fridge?

Thanksgiving leftover sliders

This entertaining fellow — his YouTube handle is @morehowtobbqright — presents on video what appears to be an easy recipe for sliders that even I’d be game to try. (He also calls them “samiches,” so you know they’re gonna be good.)

Our chef tells us, “Let’s get to cookin’!” and then shows us how.

Looks like you need a pack of King’s Hawaiian Savory Butter Rolls — but hey, maybe you can repurpose leftover dinner rolls from your T-Day feast too. He says you then place all the bottom roll halves on foil, pile up a bunch of American cheese slices, followed by leftover turkey pieces, then your leftover stuffing, then your leftover cranberry sauce — followed by, you guessed it, more of those American cheese slices — and then you pop the top halves of the rolls on top to crown your creation.

Our chef also instructs us to melt some butter and brush it on the top of the “samiches,” after which you wrap ’em all in foil and then bake them on a tray for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Then you uncover the sliders and bake them for 15 more minutes to brown the tops.

Thanksgiving leftover quesadillas

Believe it or not, even easier than the sliders.

Our chef — her YouTube handle is @MealsWithMaria — shows us in a less-than-30-second video how simple these quesadillas are to create.

Just warm some butter in a skillet over medium heat and add a tortilla. Then add leftover mashed potatoes, leftover sweet potatoes, shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and chunks of leftover turkey. Then you fry it all up until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is crispy.

Finally, for the last minute of heat, you add some leftover cranberry sauce on top and fold over the tortilla. She suggests slicing it in half and, if you want, dipping it in leftover gravy.

Thanksgiving leftover deluxe grilled cheese sandwiches

OK, now for the “deluxe” portion of our program.

Our YouTube guide — his handle is @Chef_Tyler — presents a snazzy grilled cheese sandwich recipe in his brief video. First, he suggests toasting your leftover bread in an oiled pan before assembling the stuff in the middle. (It also looks like he’s slicing part of a leftover hard-crusted loaf. This is already a mighty big cut above the grilled cheese I typically make.)

He then tells us to mix our leftover cranberries with mayo — to prevent things from getting soggy — and then spread the mixture on the toasted bread. (Oh, got any herbs on hand? They’re good for that cranberry-mayo spread too.)

Then you put your cheese on top of the spread — he recommends slices of aged cheddar or gouda, but anything will do. Then the leftover turkey chunks. The drier the better, believe it or not. (And don’t forget to heat the turkey in the pan before putting it on top of the cheese, as Chef Tyler says that will help the cheese melt faster.)

It appears you cook the sandwich on both sides until the crust is golden brown — natch — and then dip it in leftover gravy if you want.

Happy Thanksgiving — and the days after — one and all!

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​Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving leftovers, Recipes, Sandwiches, Non-cooks, Align, Food, Leftovers, Lifestyle 

President Donald Trump has spent the last decade producing some of America’s most iconic political moments. Some were divisive, some were historic, and many of them were hilarious.

Here are the top five Trump moments that make me thankful for his presidency.

5. Turn them OFF!

Trump had many memorable moments during his first presidential campaign, earning a reputation for being a totally candid and unapologetic candidate. Almost a decade ago at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump put his personality and political talent on full display, turning a technical hiccup into a chant with countless rallygoers.

The stage lights abruptly went off in the middle of his campaign speech, prompting Trump to quip that the venue “didn’t pay the electric bill,” sending applause and laughter through the audience. To Trump’s dismay, the lights quickly blared back on, and he began to shout, “No! Get those lights off!”

“Turn them off! They’re too bright! Turn them OFF!”

Trump later encouraged audience members to join him in chanting, “Turn off the lights!”

“That’s the way we have to negotiate for our country,” he added.

4. From the standpoint of water

During Hurricane Florence in September 2018, Trump posted a video in which he thanked first responders and all those involved in mitigating the pain inflicted by the natural disaster. Although this would have been a routine exercise in any other administration, the orator in chief delivered one of his most iconic Trump lines that never fails to make people chuckle.

While Trump has several memorable one-liners, this one was uniquely pre-approved and posted to a personal social media account.

“I just want to thank all of the incredible men and women who have done such a great job in helping with Florence,” Trump said. “This is a tough hurricane.”

“One of the wettest we’ve ever seen from the standpoint of water. Rarely have we had an experience like it, and it certainly is not good,” he added.

3. Trick or treat

Some of the most iconic Trump moments were entirely unscripted, and 2018 Halloween was no exception.

The White House was hosting the annual trick-or-treat festivities where the president and first lady Melania Trump hand out candy to kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes. One such trick-or-treater showed up in a Minion costume from the well-known “Despicable Me” films, which quickly proved to limit the child’s candy-collecting abilities.

The child’s costume seemingly obstructed his hands, but Trump didn’t want to deprive the Minion of his Halloween harvest. Instead, Trump opted to simply place the candy bar on top of the Minion’s head as onlookers erupted in laughter.

2. The N-word

Trump’s unprompted one-liners are usually the most controversial, but also the most entertaining. His speech to military brass at Quantico earlier this year was no exception, after Trump veered off script and produced one of the most viral moments so far in his second term.

“It was really a stupid person that … mentioned the word ‘nuclear,'” Trump said during the address.

“I moved a submarine or two … over to the coast of Russia, just to be careful, because we can’t let people throw around that word,” he continued.

“I call it the N-word,” Trump added. “There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.”

Campaigning as the peace president and working around the clock to end conflicts around the globe, his play on words was both in line with the administration’s agenda and with Trump’s comedic instincts.

1. ‘Because you’d be in jail’

One of Trump’s most iconic political feuds was with none other than failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The two sparred on a number of issues and exchanged many notable insults at each other, but few are as memorable as the October 9, 2016, presidential debate.

This mic drop speaks for itself.

“Last time, at the first debate, we had millions of people fact-checking, so I expect we’ll have millions more fact-checking because, you know, it’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Clinton said.

Trump picked up the mic and simply said, “Because you’d be in jail.”

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​Donald trump, White house, Halloween, Minion, Turn the lights off, Thanksgiving, Thankful, From the standpoint of water, Hurricane florence, Melania trump, Despicable me, Trick-or-treat, N-word, Nuclear, Quantico, Hillary clinton, 2016 campaign, 2016 presidential election, 2016 presidential debate, 2024 presidential election, Politics 

Christians are brutally persecuted the world over. According to the watchdog group Open Doors, over 380 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith, and over 4,476 were killed for their faith in 2024 alone.

While the top 10 worst countries for Christians are all in Africa, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent — Nigeria, for instance, saw over 300 Christian schoolchildren abducted during a raid by bandits on Friday — Christians are also subjected to violent attacks, discrimination, and state suppression in supposedly civilized Western nations.

’15 incidents featured satanic symbols or references.’

The U.S. and Canada have together, for instance, seen thousands of acts of hostility against churches in recent years.

Across the Atlantic, a British court handed a grieving father a criminal sentence last year for praying silently near the abortion clinic that killed his unborn son. In France, Christians were reportedly arrested at gunpoint for peacefully protesting the mockery of their faith during the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. In Spain, a maniac broke into a monastery in November 2024, savagely attacking several people and fatally bludgeoning a Franciscan monk. Farther afield, an Islamic terrorist stabbed an Assyrian bishop on April 15, 2024, in an Australian church.

The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, a Vienna-based watchdog group, recently revealed that violent attacks on Christians spiked in Europe and the U.K. last year.

The watchdog noted in its annual report that a total of 2,211 anti-Christian hate crimes were documented by European governments and civil society organizations in 2024.

OIDAC hinted that the actual number of hate crimes may be much higher, as surveys indicate they are grossly underreported. In Poland, for example, nearly 50% of Catholic priests surveyed indicated that they were met with aggression sometime in the past year, yet over 80% failed to report such incidents.

RELATED: ‘Mass slaughter’: Trump moves to help Nigerian Christians under attack

Photo by VALERY HACHE/AFP via Getty Images.

Nevertheless, OIDAC indicated that this reflects a general decrease over 2023 — a year when there were 2,444 reported hate crimes. The decrease is partly the result of a dip in recorded incidents in France but largely the result of “lower figures reported by U.K. police, which noted a change in methodology in its official report,” the report reads.

Of the 516 anti-Christian hate crimes independently recorded by OIDAC last year, the most frequent form of violence was vandalism, at 50% of reported incidents, followed by arson attacks, 15%; desecration, 13%; physical assaults, 7.5%; theft of religious objects, 5.5%; and threats, accounting for 4% of incidents. These figures do not account for burglaries at religious sites, of which there were nearly 900 additional recorded cases.

While reported anti-Christian hate crimes have generally decreased, the number of personal attacks — including assault, harassment, and threats — “rose from 232 in 2023 to 274 in 2024.”

The watchdog indicated on the basis of police and civil society data that the top five European nations most affected by anti-Christian hate crimes last year were, in descending order, France, Britain, Germany, Austria, and Spain.

Among the incidents highlighted in the worst-rated country, France, were the destruction of historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer by an arsonist on Sept. 2, 2024, and the March 11, 2024, vandalism of a church and desecration of the cemetery in the village Clermont-d’Excideuil, where “Isa will break the cross” and “Submit to Islam” were spray-painted on graves, the war memorial, and the church door.

Since many of the offenders have not been apprehended, the watchdog group could not say definitively what is driving this trend. However, among the 93 cases OIDAC documented wherein the perpetrators’ motives or affiliations could be established, “the most common were linked to radical Islamist ideology (35), radical left-wing ideology (19), radical right-wing ideology (7), and other political motives (11). Additionally, 15 incidents featured satanic symbols or references.”

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​Europe, Faith, Religion, Christianity, Christian, Catholic, European, France, Spain, Leftism, Islam, Terrorism, Crime, Politics 

The speed of tech is a formidable force, so we have paused to catch you up on the cutting-edge devices and gadgets you might want to bump to the top of your list if you’re hoping to speedrun Black Friday this year.

Best wearables to buy during Black Friday

Apple Watch Series 10 or 11

Apple Watch is one of the best-selling wearables on the planet, largely due to its customization options, iconic style, and wide range of fitness features. However, while Apple used to add fun new sensors and capabilities every year, newer Apple Watches have reached a point of innovation stagnation. Aside from battery life improvements, last year’s Series 10 has all the new features that landed on the Series 11, including high blood pressure detection and sleep score tracking, plus all the usual tricks like heart rate monitoring, ECG scans, blood oxygen levels, AFIB detection, and more.

There’s no telling how long the gadgets on your list will be on sale.

While I do recommend an Apple Watch for anyone in the Apple ecosystem, your money would be better spent on a Series 10, if you can find one. Otherwise, you’re looking at $399 MSRP or more for a Series 11.

The Series 11 looks great, but for your money, the Series 10 wins out.Photo courtesy of Apple

Pixel Watch 3 or 4

On the Android side, Pixel Watch has quickly become one of the best wearables available. With Fitbit integration, heart rate tracking, daily readiness scores, and a host of other features, Pixel Watch is the best that Android users can buy. As for which model deserves a spot on your wrist (or list), last year’s Pixel Watch 3 is where the device really started to hit its stride, while the newest Pixel Watch 4 for $349.99 adds quality-of-life improvements (40 hours of battery life per charge and a larger domed display) that further refine the experience. You’d be safe with either one of these under the tree this season.

The Pixel Watch 4: just like the 3, only better.Photo courtesy of Android

Oura Ring 4

For anyone who wants an ultra-sleek or unconventional wearable fitness tracker, Oura Ring 4 is easily the best ring the company has ever made. With a new slimmer design, it looks more like a piece of jewelry than a tech gadget. It comes in a range of sizes and finishes from $249 to $499, and it tracks everything you’d expect from a larger smartwatch, including heart rate data, sleep and rest, and stress levels. Although Oura Ring is great for men and women, its added female health features make it especially great for the lady in your life.

Oura Ring 4 hits new highs.Photo courtesy of Oura

One more thing: Speaking of Fitbit, it’s easy to recommend a Charge series fitness band or Versa watch to anyone looking to slim down in the New Year. However, hold off for now. Google recently confirmed that new devices are on the way soon, so only buy a Fitbit this week if you get a really good discount.

Try something totally new for Black Friday

For the more adventurous gift-giving type, a new product category is making waves in the tech space. From Apple to Google, Meta and more, everyone is trying their best to make augmented reality, virtual reality, and extended reality glasses, goggles, and headsets a thing. The category is still very young and OEMs are still trying to figure out exactly what users want, but if you’d like to try it out for yourself or with a loved one, here are a few devices to keep in mind.

Apple Vision Pro

Apple’s first foray into AR didn’t go so well. The first-generation Vision Pro was heavy, clunky, and very expensive. It didn’t sell in high numbers, either. However, that didn’t stop Apple from finally launching a sequel that hit shelves last month. With a much faster M5 chip and an improved dual-knit headband for comfort, the second-generation Vision Pro offers an immersive spatial computing experience that puts you directly inside your work, movies, and memories. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to wear an iPad on your face, this is the one to do it.

First was worst, second is best: the new Vision Pro.Photo courtesy of Apple

One more thing: Vision Pro is an impressive piece of tech, but keep in mind that developers have been slow to create apps for the headset. Nearly two years after the first version launched, several critical apps are still missing from the App Store, including YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify. At this point, there’s no telling if or when the platform will ever take off like iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac, so only pick this one up if you’re really curious about AR/VR/XR.

RELATED: Fooled by fake videos? Unsure what to trust? Here’s how to tell what’s real.

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Samsung Galaxy XR

Almost one full year ago, Google announced its glasses operating system called Android XR. Even then, the company hinted that the first Android XR device would come from Samsung, and after months of teases and unveils, it is finally here. Samsung Galaxy XR is Android’s first direct Apple Vision Pro competitor. Using the same concept — building a product that lets users dive directly into the action — Galaxy XR differentiates itself in several key ways. For starters, Gemini sits at the center of the user experience, helping users navigate the UI, pull up information, and learn more about whatever they see on their screens. The device itself is also lighter than Vision Pro, making it easier to wear for longer sessions. Android XR supports most apps already found on the Google Play Store, which means it does have access to YouTube, Netflix, and other entertainment apps, all ready to go.

Samsung’s Galaxy XR wants you scrolling past the Vision Pro.Photo courtesy of Samsung

One more thing: While Samsung Galaxy XR is an interesting alternative to Apple Vision Pro, its underlying software is brand-new. Developers will likely make tweaks and squash bugs as they flesh out the feature list for Android XR. It’s also worth noting that Google has a reputation for killing projects early if they don’t amass a large user base within the first several years. In other words, if the Samsung Galaxy XR isn’t a success, Android XR may get the axe sooner than later. No one has a crystal ball, though, so it’s hard to predict what will happen until a bit more time has passed.

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses (Gen 2)

Where Apple Vision and Samsung Galaxy XR are meant to be worn while sitting down in a controlled space, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses (Gen 2) are smart glasses that are meant to be worn with you out in the world. These don’t have displays, but they have built-in cameras controlled by an AI assistant that can see what you see and tell you about the world around you in real time. Ask it about the architecture of a building, capture high-quality videos and photos of memories as they happen in front of you, or play music through the built-in open-air speakers. If you ever wanted an AI assistant for your face, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses (Gen 2) are a good place to start.

Play it cool with the new Meta Glasses, and you might not get the wrong kind of stares.Photo courtesy of Ray-Ban/Meta

Let the deals begin!

The Black Friday deals have already started to roll out, and many of them will carry into Cyber Monday and the weeks leading up to Christmas. Still, there’s no telling how long the gadgets on your list will be on sale, so grab them sooner rather than later to make sure you have exactly what you want under the tree.

Happy Black Friday weekend and merry Christmas!

​Tech 

Nearly a dozen whistleblowers have accused an organ procurement organization of numerous offenses, including allegedly covering up an attempted organ recovery from a patient who showed signs of life.

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) sent a letter on November 19 to the New Jersey Sharing Network demanding documents and over 30 transcribed interviews with staff following the whistleblower claims.

‘Industry interests have tried to dismiss allegations in the past as hearsay, but, in this case, the call is coming from inside the house.’

The letter accused the organization of “several egregious actions and potential violations of federal and state statutes that raise serious concerns about whether [the Sharing Network] has fraudulently billed Medicare and should retain their tax-exempt status.”

The letter claimed that the Sharing Network skipped hundreds of patients on the wait list, harvested organs without appropriate consent, operated a fraudulent taxpayer-funded research program, potentially lied to Congress, and created a culture of fear and retaliation within the organization.

In one alleged instance where the Sharing Network ignored the proper sequence of the wait list, dozens of those skipped have since died, while several others have been removed because of worsening medical conditions.

Lawmakers expressed concern “that under the current Medicare reimbursement framework, OPOs are incentivized to allocate out of sequence in this manner to ensure reimbursement and can provide a quid pro quo to transplant hospitals.”

The whistleblowers’ most shocking allegation claimed that the Sharing Network attempted to “cover up” details involving a circulatory death case. Circulatory death occurs when there is an irreversible loss of circulatory and respiratory function.

RELATED: ‘Donor may still be alive’: How organ donation groups allegedly exploit grieving families to cash in on billions

Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

The lawmakers’ letter, which redacted the incident date, stated that the patient “reanimated” after the organ recovery process began. When the administrator on call contacted the Sharing Network about this, the organization allegedly told staff to proceed with the recovery despite the patient’s signs of life. The hospital ultimately intervened and stopped the recovery process.

The hospital did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

According to whistleblowers, the Sharing Network “deleted or otherwise manipulated” documents related to the case.

The OPO was also accused of discarding 100 pancreata in one day. The organs were reportedly processed for research. The committee expressed concern that the bulk discarding pointed to an effort to artificially boost Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services performance metrics by recovering more pancreata than needed, under the guise of performing so-called research.

“While organ research has driven remarkable innovations that improve and save lives, it is concerning that [the Sharing Network] is alleged to have taken advantage of a loophole in the current framework,” the letter read.

A senior Ways and Means staffer familiar with the investigation stated that Rep. Smith, if necessary, is prepared to use subpoena power to require the Sharing Network to produce the requested documents and to compel staff interviews.

“The allegations these brave whistleblowers have brought forward are some of the most disturbing we have seen in our ongoing investigation into organ procurement organizations,” read a statement from Smith provided to Blaze News. “Families place extraordinary trust in this system at the most painful moments of their lives, and what we have uncovered puts the integrity of America’s organ procurement system at stake. Every organization entrusted with this lifesaving work must meet the highest standards, and any refusal to do so is unacceptable.”

“If this OPO or any of its senior officials attempt to mislead Congress, destroy records, or obstruct our efforts to get the truth, subpoenas are on the table,” Smith continued. “Compliance is not optional. The Ways and Means Committee will not hesitate to use every tool at our disposal to protect patients, taxpayers, and the families who rely on a system that must be built on trust, as well as the brave whistleblowers who have come forward from retaliation.”

RELATED: Harvested alive: Organ donor wakes up on the table

Rep. Jason Smith. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Many individuals familiar with the organ donation industry have sought to bring more national attention to issues and abuses within the OPO networks.

Greg Segal, the founder and CEO of Organize, told Blaze News that this latest congressional investigation suggested that the Sharing Network’s “patient abuse is premeditated and systemic, rather than just accidents or one-offs.”

“This letter was informed by a dozen whistleblowers who shared documentation regarding specific abuses and potential crimes,” Segal said. “Industry interests have tried to dismiss allegations in the past as hearsay, but, in this case, the call is coming from inside the house. This is a watershed moment and, I believe, moves these investigations squarely into criminality and corruption, rather than just incompetence or bad federal policy.”

Jennifer Erickson, a senior fellow with the Federation of American Scientists, called it “a public health emergency.”

“The Ways and Means Committee documented shocking allegations of cover-ups at the highest levels of New Jersey Sharing Network, including the attempted harvesting of organs from a patient who was still alive,” she told Blaze News.

“This is a public health emergency, and just as the Trump administration recently moved to protect patients in Florida, I hope they now take immediate action to protect patients in New Jersey,” Erickson added, referring to steps taken by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to decertify a Miami-based OPO accused of Medicare fraud and lapses in patient safety.

HHS, CMS, the HHS Office of Inspector General, and the New Jersey attorney general were copied on the committee’s letter.

When asked if it could confirm receipt of the letter and whether there were any plans to investigate the allegations, the attorney general’s office stated, “As a general rule, the office doesn’t confirm or deny the existence of investigations.”

HHS told Blaze News that the Health Resources and Services Administration had received the letter and had directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network “to investigate these allegations.”

“As highlighted in the July 21 and September 18 HHS press releases, under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is restoring integrity and transparency to organ procurement and transplant policy by putting patients’ lives first,” HHS stated. “These reforms are essential to restoring trust, ensuring informed consent, and protecting the rights and dignity of prospective donors and their families.”

CMS informed Blaze News that it is collaborating closely with HHS to ensure that organ procurement organizations adhere to the highest standards. The agency emphasized its ongoing commitment to protecting patients, enhancing accountability, and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, adding that it will continue taking appropriate action to safeguard patients and the Medicare program.

The Sharing Network did not respond to a request for comment.

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​News, Organ procurement organizations, Organ procurement organization, Opos, Opo, New jersey, Jason smith, David schweikert, New jersey organ and tissue sharing network, Njto, Organ procurement, Organ donation, Greg segal, Jennifer erickson, Ways and means committee, Ways and means, Politics 

This Thanksgiving, consider the poor turkey. Is there any animal we consume with less gusto?

It has become something of annual tradition to denigrate the day’s traditional fare. Nearly 35% of Americans claim turkey is their least favorite part of the feast, according to one recent survey.

This vintage Better Homes and Gardens recipe is a bit of a cheat, as it does use turkey — although not in any form you’re likely to recognize

The internet just stokes the hatred. Every year the same tiresome “contrarian” opinions: “Stop pretending you like turkey. It’s no good on Thanksgiving, or any other day.”

Even celebrity chefs can’t resist punching down. “Turkey is wildly overrated,” says restaurateur David Chang.

“The only reason to cook the turkey is to get the gravy, and then you can just give the turkey away.”

We must admit that turkey-haters have a point. Yes, turkey meat can be dry and flavorless (although brining is a dependable way to avoid that). And yes, the tradition of eating turkey — and most Thanksgiving foods — was essentially created by advertising in the early 20th century. (College freshman home for fall break voice: “It’s all a scam by Big Cranberry!”)

While we’re content to stick with the standard flightless fowl, there were plenty of other contenders in the great battle for the Thanksgiving table. As a service, we provide the following recipes for anyone wanting to change it up.

1. Roast eel (1621)

Among the meats served at the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth would surely have been this vital freshwater food source. The 1622 promotional pamphlet for the Plymouth colony “Mourt’s Relation” describes how the Wampanoag native Tisquantum (better known as Squanto) taught the Pilgrims to catch the slippery, succulent treats.

Tisquantum went at noon to fish for Eels, at night he came home with as many as he could well lift in one hand, which our people were glad of, they were fat & sweet, he trod them out with his feet, and so caught them with his hands, without any other Instrument.

Here’s how they might have prepared it:

Ingredients

2 lbs cleaned freshwater eel Salt, splash of vinegar Sage or bay, butter

Instructions

Soak eel 30 minutes in salt water and vinegar.Dry; rub with salt and herbs.Split a roasting stick down the middle, coil eel around stick. Roast over open fire 20-25 min. Baste with butter.

2. Roast swan (17th-18th centuries)

Long a favorite of European royals (peasants were forbidden to hunt them), swan was plentiful in the New World and was most likely one of the waterfowl consumed at the first Thanksgiving.

Here’s a recipe from Hannah Woolley’s “The Queen-like Closet,” (1670) a cookbook that later colonists would have had in their kitchens:

To bake a Swan.
Scald it and take out the bones, and parboil it, then season it very well with Pepper, Salt and Ginger, then lard it, and put it in a deep Coffin of Rye Paste with store of Butter, close it and bake it very well, and when it is baked, fill up the Vent-hole with melted Butter, and so keep it; serve it in as you do the Beef-Pie.

For something more elaborate, here’s a preparation from the late 14th century cookbook “Le Menagier de Paris”:

Pluck like a chicken or goose, scald, or boil; spit, skewer in four places, and roast with all its feet and beak, and leave the head unplucked; and eat with yellow pepper.

Item, if you wish, it may be gilded.

Item, when you kill it, you should split its head down to the shoulders.

Item, sometimes they are skinned and reclothed.

RECLOTHED SWAN in its skin with all the feathers. Take it and split it between the shoulders, and cut it along the stomach: then take off the skin from the neck cut at the shoulders, holding the body by the feet; then put it on the spit, and skewer it and gild it. And when it is cooked, it must be reclothed in its skin, and let the neck be nice and straight or flat; and let it be eaten with yellow pepper.

3. Passenger pigeon pie (1700s)

Though extinct for more than a century, passenger pigeons were once as abundant as the kind you see fouling statues in urban parks. While we wouldn’t recommend eating those birds, Cornish game hen or squab make a decent substitute.

Mock-passenger pigeon pie:

Ingredients

2 Cornish game hens (substitute for extinct passenger pigeons)1 onion, quartered2 tbsp butter2 tbsp flour1-1½ cups chicken or turkey stockSalt and pepper, to taste1 tsp dried thymeDouble pie crust (bottom + top crust)

Instructions

1. Prepare the meat

Simmer game hens with the onion until fully cooked and tender.Remove hens; pick the meat from the bones.Place shredded meat in a bowl.

2. Make the gravy

Melt butter in a pan.Add flour and cook until lightly browned.Stir in stock to form a smooth gravy.Season with salt, pepper, and thyme.Simmer until slightly thickened.

3. Assemble the pie

Line a pie dish with bottom crust.Add shredded meat.Pour warm gravy over the meat.Cover with top crust and seal edges.Cut a small vent in the center.

4. Bake

Outdoor Dutch oven method (historical):

Preheat Dutch oven with coals above and below.Elevate pie pan inside the Dutch oven on metal hooks or a trivet.Bake ~10-20 minutes, checking frequently to avoid burning.

Modern oven method:

Bake at 375°F for 35-45 minutes, until crust is golden.

5. Serve. Let cool slightly before slicing.

4. Sautéed calf’s brains with mushrooms, sour cream, and dill

In 1904, railroad heir George Vanderbilt and his wife, Edith, hosted a lavish Thanksgiving at their Asheville estate, Biltmore. Turkey was on the menu — but so were calf’s brains. Here’s one preparation that guarantees a delicate, custardy mouthfeel:

Ingredients

1 lb brains (veal, pork, or lamb) Water for soaking Salt (for poaching water) 2 tbsp butter 1 cup sliced white mushrooms 2-3 tbsp sour cream 1-2 tbsp fresh dill, minced Toasted bread, for serving

Instructions

1. Prep the brains

Soak brains overnight in cold water to remove blood pockets. Drain. Poach gently in salted water (bare simmer) for 10-15 minutes until firm. Cool slightly, then peel off the thin outer membrane. Cut brains into bite-size pieces.

2. Cook the mushrooms

In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms and sauté until they release their juices and the butter turns lightly browned and nutty.

3. Add the brains

Add chopped brains to the skillet. Toss gently with the mushrooms and browned butter for 1-2 minutes.

4. Finish the sauce

Remove skillet from heat. Stir in sour cream to form a loose sauce. Add minced dill. Adjust salt if needed.

5. Serve. Spoon the mixture over warm toast. Serve immediately.

5. Celery au naturel (late 1800s-early 1900s)

Now the most unwanted vegetable on the crudite platter, this Bloody Mary garnish was a highly coveted status symbol of the Gilded Age (it was hard to grow). Everyone will want the recipe.

Ingredients

1 bunch crisp celery Cold water Ice cubes (optional) Salt (for serving, optional)

Instructions

1. Trim the celery

Cut off the root end. Remove tough outer stalks if desired. Trim leafy tops to a neat fan.

2. Refresh the stalks

Place celery in a bowl of cold water (add ice for extra crispness). Chill 15-30 minutes.

3. Present with appropriate ceremony

Stand stalks upright in a tall glass, vase, or celery jar. Arrange so the tops flare elegantly.

4. Serve. Place the celery in the center of the table. Offer a pinch dish of salt on the side.

Note: In the late 19th century, this was considered a showpiece delicacy. Your guests are encouraged to admire its beauty before eating it exactly as it is.

6. Turkey lime molded salad (1969)

This vintage Better Homes and Gardens recipe is a bit of a cheat, as it does use turkey — although not in any form you’re likely to recognize.

Ingredients

2 packages (3 oz each) lime-flavored gelatin ¼ tsp salt 2 cups boiling water ½ cup cold water 1 (7 oz) bottle ginger ale 2 cups diced cooked turkey 1 cup sour cream ¼ tsp ground ginger 1 (16 oz) can pears, drained and diced 6½-cup gelatin mold

Instructions

1. Make the gelatin base

Dissolve lime gelatin and salt in 2 cups boiling water. Add ginger ale and ½ cup cold water. Chill until partially set.

2. Prepare the turkey layer

Fold diced turkey into the partially set gelatin. Pour into a 6½-cup mold. Chill until almost firm.

3. Prepare the sour cream-pear layer

Beat sour cream, ground ginger, and ½–1 cup of the remaining unset gelatin until smooth. Chill until partially set. Fold in diced pears.

4. Add second layer

Spoon the pear-sour cream mixture over the firm turkey layer. Chill until completely set.

5. Unmold and serve

Dip mold briefly in warm water. Invert onto a serving platter. Lift mold carefully to reveal two layers.

​Thanksgiving, Lifestyle, Culture, Recipes 

“Every facet of the coffee industry, in fact, is rooted in racism. From the moment the whites viciously stole coffee from black and brown people to the present-day Karen sipping her morning cup of white supremacy, whites have been able to drink the fruits of our labor and our culture with impunity.”

What you just read is an actual quote from an article published in 2023 — back when literally everything was labeled racist by the woke mafia.

In this throwback Allie Beth Stuckey piece, we remember some of the most ridiculous things the critical race theory-obsessed left has used to label white people racists over the years. And sadly, coffee isn’t even close to the most absurd one on the list.

Picnics

A 2020 article from the Philadelphia Inquirer posited that “picnics” were racist because there was once a time when “Southern white people made lynchings a regular occurrence at picnics.”

If you are going to continue using the word “picnic,” then you need to make sure “that history is being talked about,” author Elizabeth Wellington wrote.

“That’s not what people think of when they’re thinking of going out to a park, laying a blanket down, and eating some sandwiches,” scoffed Allie.

Brain pairings (like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches)

Speaking of sandwiches, PB&Js are apparently the perfect metaphor for “implicit bias” against black males in America, according to a video released by the New York Times in 2016.

Social psychologist and management professor at the New York University Stern School of Business Dolly Chugh argued, “I somehow know that if you say peanut butter, I’m gonna say jelly. That’s an association that’s been ingrained in me. … In many forms of media, there’s an overrepresentation of black men and violent crime being paired together.”

Dairy

In 2022, a KFF Health News article reported that 28 civil rights and child advocacy groups — including one led by Al Sharpton — sent a letter to the USDA accusing the National School Lunch Program of “dietary racism.”

Their reasoning? Offering only cow’s milk, ignoring non-dairy alternatives, was racist because children of color apparently have higher rates of lactose intolerance.

Bicycling

A 2021 article from the Washington Post argued that American cycling is racist because a really long time ago, black people were excluded from bicycling clubs.

And then, of course, there’s the issue of racist white cops. “For black Southerners, the cost, dangers and white policing of cycling mobility combined with the weakening of its middle‑class status, meant that the popularity of the bicycle declined within the black community,” author Nathan Cardon wrote.

Equestrianism

If a piece of equipment doesn’t fit you properly, the designers are obviously racist against you. At least that’s the position the New York Times took in a front-page article from 2023 titled “Black equestrians want to be safe. But they can’t find helmets.”

In it, author McKenna Oxenden condemned racist manufacturers of equestrian equipment for not making helmets that accommodate certain black hairstyles, like dreadlocks.

“Is a helmet going to be safe if it’s like six inches off of your skull? No, it’s not. I don’t think it has anything to do with you being black,” Allie retorted.

Recreational running

In 2020, Medium published an article titled “Running is too white. It doesn’t need to be,” in which author Ryan Fan complained that America’s recreational running community is “too white.”

There was only one possible explanation for that, said Fan: systemic inaccessibility and exclusion. All those white runners just make people of color feel unsafe and unwelcome.

“We can do better. We have to,” he pleaded.

“Agree. I don’t like running, so running is too white. And it is because I am an ally that I choose not to,” Allie joked.

National parks

In 2020, ABC published a melodramatic article titled “America’s national parks face existential crisis over race.” In it, authors Stephanie Ebbs and Devin Dwyer reported that national park visitors were “overwhelmingly white” — 77% compared to 23% of non-whites.

The piece quoted then-Associate Director of the Sierra Club Joel Pannell, who fretted that this racial disparity in park visitors spelled doom for the country’s national parks (many of which have been going strong for over a century).

“If we don’t address this … then we’re going to risk losing everything,” he lamented.

“Not enough black people are going outside, so that’s the problem,” Allie mocked.

STD names

In 2022, NPR published an article titled “Critics say ‘monkeypox’ is a racist name. But it’s not going away anytime soon.” In the piece, author Bill Chappell quoted several critics upset about the name monkeypox, as it apparently stigmatizes the black and LGBTQ+ communities.

“There is a long history of referring to blacks as monkeys. Therefore, ‘monkeypox’ is racist and stigmatizes black people,” said global health advocate Ifeanyi Nsofor, ignoring the fact that the virus’ name was coined after it was originally discovered in lab monkeys in 1958.

Energy

Yes, energy — the stuff that powers the world — is “inherently racist,” suggested a 2022 article from Utility Dive.

Author Robert Walton reported that environmental justice advocates were up in arms because the U.S. energy sector is supposedly structurally racist due to historical policies like redlining and discriminatory infrastructure, which have disproportionately burdened low-income and communities of color with high costs and pollution.

Highways

In 2021, the Washington Times published a piece titled “When highways are racist,” in which author Cheryl Chumley lambasted Biden’s Department of Transportation for weaponizing civil rights laws to block a Houston highway project under the absurd pretext that infrastructure can be racist.

Ballet

A 2021 article from Marie Claire bemoaned the art of ballet as structurally white supremacist. Author Chloe Angyal argued that ballet — its aesthetics, history, and culture — is inherently racist because it reinforces a narrow, European ideal that marginalizes dancers of color.

“Ballet is not just white. It is white on purpose,” Angyal complained.

“There’s just not enough black people going up on their tiptoes,” Allie jeered.

Camping

Pitching a tent and roasting some marshmallows under the stars isn’t as innocent as it sounds, said Fast Company writer Elizabath Segran in a 2021 article called “The unbearable whiteness of camping.”

The monopoly white people apparently have on the outdoors all goes back to our colonial roots when colonizers took Indigenous land and turned it into “wilderness” for white recreation, she argued. Those mean ol’ white settlers romanticized themselves as “pioneers” while condemning Native people as “savages” for living out in nature, only to turn around and make nature an element of white culture.

Fast-forward a few hundred years and that same stigma still keeps non-whites from venturing outdoors. Patagonia jackets are too expensive; REI ads are too pale; and black people are apparently disproportionally targeted when they brave the elements.

Philosophy

Much of the genius that came from some of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment and German Idealist philosophy has bias baked into it, argued Aeon writer Avram Alpert in a 2021 piece titled “Philosophy’s systemic racism.” Ideas from the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel must be “decolonized,” meaning we must expose how their core logic secretly ranks non-Europeans as irrational “savages” who need white reason to evolve, then flip the script to affirm that people of color already have their own internal progress — no European “uplift” required.

Organized pantries

Those little spice jars with the labels and the matching containers for your pasta and rice? Yeah well, they’re racist, said Associate Professor of Marketing at Loyola University Jenna Drenten.

Dubbing the trend of having aesthetically pleasing cupboards “pantry porn,” Drenten wrote, “Cleanliness has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of ‘niceness’: nice people, with nice yards, in nice houses, make for nice neighbors. What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist, and sexist social structures.”

“So you hear that black people? This professor doesn’t think that you can organize your pantry; you need to make it messy in order to really be pro-black and anti-racist,” laughed Allie.

This throwback to the peak-woke era — when coffee was cultural theft and PB&J pairings were microaggressions — proves one thing: The fever has broken, but the receipts still make us laugh.

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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Is there any hope for this perpetually outraged leftist?

I’d like to think so. After all, I’ve written about opening your home to others — even perhaps strangers — on Thanksgiving. But Robert Jensen is a hard case.

Redistribute land and wealth? No wonder his fellow leftists would rather gorge on stuffing.

That’s because Jensen, who writes at AlterNet — the spiritual home of the fevered far left — wouldn’t be much fun at your Thanksgiving table. That’s because he says we need to “replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.”

Holiday haters

Jensen is one of those Thanksgiving haters. He’s been writing about this for years, popping up in November with dark sentiments about the “evils” of Thanksgiving.

But his irritation has grown exponentially in recent years, apparently because he hasn’t been able to convince his fellow leftists to give up their turkey and pumpkin pie. They’re just not feeling his “fast and atone” vibe. And who could blame them?

Some of them, in fact, have the unmitigated audacity to suggest that coming together on Thanksgiving can celebrate love and connection with family and friends.

But Jensen, who is more left than your garden-variety progressive, is just not having it.

“The moral response — that is, the response that would be consistent with the moral values around justice and equality that most of us claim to hold — would be a truth-and-reconciliation process that would not only correct the historical record but also redistribute land and wealth,” he wrote last year.

Redistribute land and wealth? No wonder his fellow leftists would rather gorge on stuffing. As much as they love to dream about wealth redistribution, they’re never referring to their own wealth, of course, and leftist struggle-sessions don’t really lend themselves to a festive atmosphere.

Last year, he wrote about how he teetered between these two (delightful!) choices:

We can go to the Thanksgiving gatherings put on by friends and family, determined to raise these issues and willing to take the risk of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics. Or we can refuse to go to such a gathering and make it known why we’re not attending, which means taking the risk of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics. … We must refuse to be polite when politeness means capitulation to lies.

Are you feeling sorry for Jensen’s family yet?

Imagine, if you will, slurping down your mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce to this rant: “In the white-supremacist and patriarchal society in which we live, operating within the parameters set by a greed-based capitalist system. … What political activity can we engage in to keep alive this kind of critique until a time when social conditions might make a truly progressive politics possible?”

Much to his family’s relief, Jensen ultimately chose to sit home by himself and contemplate additional dark thoughts involving “genocidal Europeans.”

But he’s mad that his people dare to define the holiday as an opportunity to rest, enjoy loved ones, and eat a delicious meal.

“We don’t define holidays individually — the idea of a holiday is rooted in its collective, shared meaning,” he wrote. “When the dominant culture defines a holiday in a certain fashion, one can’t pretend to redefine it in private.”

(I can think of a few things rooted in a collective, shared meaning that the left has redefined in private — and then tried to shove down our throats. But I digress.)

RELATED: This Truthsgiving, I’m thankful for European settlement

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Jensen reports that he also has the option of participating in a public event that resists Thanksgiving. However, on that topic, last year he confessed, “I’m not aware of (an anti-Thanksgiving event) happening in my community, and because of commitments to other political projects, I didn’t feel I could organize an effective event in time for this Thanksgiving Day.”

He’s been whining about this since at least 2017, so I’m not sure how he ran out of time to “organize an effective event.” Oh, that’s right: “Commitments to other political projects.”

Do these people ever unclench and be human, or is it always “political projects” time?

What Jensen’s missing

We all know that the Native peoples in America were not treated wonderfully as American history unfolded. But things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows before European arrivals, either. Tribes regularly warred against and slaughtered each other, taking and retaking territory and resources.

What Thanksgiving commemorates, however, is really something remarkable.

Consider this sequence of events:

In a village of the Wampanoag tribe, a young boy named Squanto grew up, was kidnapped by a European sea captain who sold him into slavery in Spain, and was eventually released due to some kindly monks. He made his way to England and onto a boat sailing back to the New World, where he found his village had been wiped out by some sort of disease.Shortly thereafter, the pilgrims — who’d been aiming for Manhattan island — were blown off course and ended up landing basically at that same abandoned village, finding land already cleared, food stores, and fresh water sources.A few months after their arrival, Squanto returned. He had learned English, so he was able to communicate with the Pilgrims, and he had been introduced to Christianity, so he understood them. He set out to help, teaching them to plant crops and helping them negotiate agreements with Chief Massasoit.Even with all the help, about half of the original Pilgrims died due to the harsh conditions. Leader William Bradford recognized Squanto, his skills, and his welcome were all a gift from God without which none of the Pilgrims might have survived.The Wampanoag also benefited from their relationship with the Pilgrims, which held off attacks by the Narragansett and others.

The inclination to celebrate that first fall harvest sprung from profound gratitude for the food, Squanto, and for God guiding them to the one point on the continent where they would encounter an English-speaking Native and build a peaceful and productive relationship.

Ninety Indians joined the 53 remaining Pilgrims for the three-day event, which included feasting and shooting games. And it is that history that informed President Lincoln’s decision, many years later, to institute the holiday of Thanksgiving. It honors the pivotal role of the first Pilgrims, the lifesaving role of the Wampanoag, and the societal benefit of a day devoted to gratitude.

So, Robert Jensen, I sincerely hope you might consider that if white Europeans and brown Natives could feast together, you might be able to sit with your family and enjoy some turkey and pie too.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

​God, Pilgrims, Robert jensen, Leftists, Squanto, First thanksgiving, Thanksgiving 

Before the NFL had three Thanksgiving games — or any games at all — the tradition was already under way in one part of the country.

The northeast is credited with creating the Thanksgiving game tradition. But, no, it wasn’t the New York Giants or the New York Jets that started it. Rather, the tradition began in the upscale setting of Princeton and Yale.

‘People in this area … are used to having football with their turkey.’

Back in 1876, the two schools played what is considered to be the first college football game on Nov. 30. Just 1,000 fans sat through a 2-0 Yale victory in Hoboken, New Jersey, that would start a tradition for the ages.

Over the next two decades, the annual game grew in popularity, with Princeton winning 6-0 in front of more than 50,000 fans in 1892, according to History. While this was the last time the schools met on Thanksgiving, the tradition was in full swing as colleges, high schools, and clubs played around 5,000 games on Thanksgiving Day throughout the 1890s.

Thanksgiving Pros

While most associate the start of the Thanksgiving tradition in the NFL with the Detroit Lions, there was more than a decade of games on the holiday before it became a fixture in the Motor City.

On Thanksgiving 1920, teams like the Akron Pros and the Dayton Triangles shut out the Canton Bulldogs and Detroit Heralds, 7-0 and 28-0, respectively. Even non-league teams like the Elyria Athletics and Chicago Boosters played that Thanksgiving.

In 1922, the Chicago Bears played their first of 17 consecutive Thanksgiving games. One of those games was against the Lions in 1934 after entrepreneur George A. Richards bought the Ohio Spartans for just under $8,000 and moved them to Detroit. In order to draw fans, he invited the champion Bears for the Thanksgiving game.

A record 26,000 fans watched the game at the University of Detroit Stadium, setting a record for a football game in Detroit. Even though the Bears won 19-16 — finishing with an undefeated season — it sparked a Lions tradition that continues to this day.

RELATED: Free speech and football: Why they matter and why you should be thankful for them

Photo by Jorge Lemus/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Lions and Cowboys and Cardinals, oh my!

Since the Lions became the Lions, they have hosted a Thanksgiving game every year — except between 1939 and 1944 during World War II.

The first televised game came in 1953 for the Green Bay Packers-Lions game, but fans would have to wait another 13 years for a second Thanksgiving game to come on the airwaves.

On November 24, 1966, the Dallas Cowboys became the second team to host a televised Turkey Day game. They beat the Cleveland Browns 26-14 at the Cotton Bowl in front of more than 80,000 fans that day.

The area was thirsty for the tradition to continue. Cowboys General Manager Tex Schramm remarked at the time that Texas football fans had become accustomed to the holiday game.

“People in this area, because of the Texas-Texas A&M game, are used to having football with their turkey,” he said.

For nearly a decade, the Cowboys hosted the second game. However, in 1975 the NFL wanted to showcase the St. Louis Cardinals’ highly-touted offense and gave the team a few years to show it off. They lost in 1975, 1976, and 1977 — including a loss to the Cowboys in ’76 — before the league asked the Cowboys if they wanted to take the tradition back for the 1978 game.

“I said only if we got it permanently,” Schramm told the Chicago Tribune in 1998, according to History. “It’s something you have to build as tradition. He said, ‘It’s yours forever.'”

RELATED: NFL player apologizes over backlash for doing Trump dance: ‘I did not mean to offend anyone’

Turducken and a third game

Late and great coach-turned-commentator John Madden has brought the football world so many things: Madden video games, hilarious telestrator segments, and, of course, his sideburns.

Another addition in his 85 years was bringing the joy of eating to the Thanksgiving Day broadcast.

Calling 22 straight Thanksgiving games starting in 1981, Madden’s three-bird roast was born in the lead-up to the 1996 broadcast, according to ESPN. Along with his annual Turkey Leg Award for player of the game that started in 1989, the turducken became an annual staple, with Madden explaining his complex process on how to cook, cut, and even eat the birds.

In 2002, he even tore the roast open with his bare hands to create a working diagram.

“It’s a deboned chicken stuffed in a deboned duck stuffed in a deboned turkey, with dressing between the chicken and the duck, and the duck and the turkey. So as you cut down that way, you go turkey, dressing, duck, dressing, chicken,” he instructed.

Unfortunately, Madden retired just a few years after the NFL expanded its Thanksgiving schedule to three games in 2006, which would have offered a lot more opportunities to spread his turducken joy.

Although no specific host team is used for the third game, players have recently carried on Madden’s tradition by eating turkey on the field after the game — or even just a carrot.

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There was a time when Thanksgiving pointed toward something higher than stampedes for electronics or a long weekend of football. At its root, Thanksgiving was a public reminder that faith, family, and country are inseparable — and that a free people must recognize the source of their blessings.

Long before Congress fixed the holiday to the end of November, colonies and early states observed floating days of thanksgiving, prayer, and fasting. These were civic acts as much as religious ones: moments when communities asked God to protect them from calamity and guide their families and their nation.

Grounded in gratitude

The Continental Congress issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in 1777, drafted by Samuel Adams. The delegates called on Americans to acknowledge God’s providence “with Gratitude” and to implore “such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of.”

Twelve years later, President George Washington proclaimed the first federal day of thanksgiving under the Constitution. He asked citizens to gather in public and private worship, to seek forgiveness for “national and other transgressions,” and to pray for the growth of “true religion and virtue.”

Our problems — social, fiscal, and moral — are immense. But they are not greater than the God our ancestors trusted.

Other presidents followed suit. During rising tensions with France in 1798, John Adams declared a national day of “solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” arguing that only a virtuous people could sustain liberty. The next year he called for another day of thanksgiving, urging citizens to set aside work, confess national sins, and recommit themselves to God.

For generations, this was the American understanding: national strength flowed from moral character, and moral character flowed from religious conviction.

The evolution of a holiday

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln — responding to years of lobbying by Sarah Josepha Hale — established the last Thursday in November as a permanent national Thanksgiving. Hale saw the holiday as a unifying civic ritual that strengthened families and reminded Americans of their shared heritage.

Calvin Coolidge echoed this tradition in 1924, observing that Thanksgiving revealed “the spiritual strength of the nation.” Even as technology transformed daily life, he insisted that the meaning of the day remain unchanged.

But as the country drifted from an agricultural rhythm and from public expressions of faith, the holiday’s original purpose faded. The deeper meaning — gratitude, repentance, unity — gave way to distraction.

When a nation forgets

Today, America marks Thanksgiving with a national character far removed from the one our forebears envisioned. The founders believed public acknowledgment of God’s authority anchored liberty. Modern institutions increasingly treat religious conviction as an obstacle.

Court rulings have redefined marriage, narrowed the space for religious conscience, and removed long-standing religious symbols from public grounds. Citizens have been fined, penalized, or jailed for refusing to violate their beliefs. The very freedoms early Americans prayed to preserve are now treated as negotiable.

At the same time, other pillars of national life — family stability, civic order, border security, self-government — erode under cultural and political pressure. As faith recedes, government fills the void. The founders warned that a people who lose their internal moral compass invite external control.

Former House Speaker Robert Winthrop (Whig-Mass.) put it plainly in 1849: A society will be governed “either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man.”

A lesson from history

The collapse of religious conviction in much of Europe created a vacuum quickly filled by ideologies hostile to Western values. America resisted this trend longer, but the rising influence of secularism and identity ideology pushes our society toward the same drift: a nation less confident in its heritage, less united by a common purpose.

Ronald Reagan saw the warning signs decades ago. In his 1989 farewell, he lamented that younger generations were no longer taught to love their country or understand why the Pilgrims came here. Patriotism, once absorbed through family, school, and culture, had been replaced by fashionable cynicism.

Thanksgiving offers the antidote Reagan urged: a return to gratitude, history, and shared purpose.

RELATED: Why we need God’s blessing more than ever

Photo by Barney Burstein/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

Thanksgiving was meant to be the clearest expression of a nation united by faith, family, and patriotism. It rooted liberty in gratitude and gratitude in God’s providence.

Reagan captured that spirit in 1986, writing that Thanksgiving “underscores our unshakable belief in God as the foundation of our Nation.” That conviction made possible the prosperity and freedom Americans inherited.

Today’s constitutional conservatives must lead in restoring that heritage — not by nostalgia, but by example. Families who teach gratitude, faith, and national purpose build the civic strength the founders believed essential.

A return to gratitude

Thanksgiving calls each of us to humility: to recognize that national renewal begins with personal renewal. Our problems — social, fiscal, and moral — are immense. But they are not greater than the God our ancestors trusted.

That confidence is the heart of Thanksgiving. It is why the Pilgrims prayed, why Congress proclaimed days of fasting and praise, why Lincoln unified the holiday, and why generations of Americans pause each November to give thanks.

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at Conservative Review in 2015.

​Opinion & analysis, Thanksgiving, America, American founding, George washington, John adams, Abraham lincoln, Sarah josepha hale, Calvin coolidge, Ronald reagan, Family, Faith, God, Gratitude, Holiday, Citizenship, Duty, Obligations, Patriotism, Repentance, Unity 

Thanksgiving is an annual reminder of our nation’s Christian roots and our godly heritage. Although Virginia proclaims that the first Thanksgiving was in Jamestown in 1619 — not in Plymouth in 1621 — the Plymouth one became the prototype of our annual celebrations.

George Washington was the first president under the Constitution to declare a national day of thanksgiving, and President Lincoln was the first to declare Thanksgiving an annual holiday.

‘It is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such further Blessings as they stand in Need of …’

However, Samuel Adams, with the help of two other continental congressmen, was the first to declare a National Day of Thanksgiving for America as an independent nation.

The time was the fall of 1777. Overall, it seemed that things were not going well for the United States. Americans lost the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, which Dr. Peter Lillback notes was our “first 9/11.”

George Washington saw that the Brandywine defeat meant the impending fall of Philadelphia, our nation’s capital at the time, into the hands of the British.

So Congress had to flee westward, first to Lancaster and then to York, Pennsylvania. Washington and his troops had to flee westward also. They ended up in a place called Valley Forge. The worst was yet to come with the brutal winter there.

Meanwhile, on October 7, 1777, there was a victory at Saratoga, New York. Samuel Adams of Boston, a key leader in American independence, saw that we as a nation could rejoice in this act of divine Providence. So — with the help of fellow Continental Congressmen Rev. John Witherspoon of New Jersey and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia — Samuel Adams wrote our country’s first thanksgiving declaration as an independent nation.

This is what they wrote in that First National Thanksgiving Proclamation, November 1, 1777: “It is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such further Blessings as they stand in Need of.”

As humans, as Christians, we should be grateful. They continue, “And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success.”

I think it’s fair to say that Adams, Witherspoon, and Lee were looking for the good news (the Saratoga victory) in a sea of bad news (American setbacks, the latest of which was the defeat at Brandywine).

They continue: “It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE.”

And what were the Americans to do during that day of Thanksgiving and praise? To confess “their manifold sins … that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole.”

RELATED: That we may all unite in rendering unto our Creator our sincere and humble thanks

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If someone prayed like this in Congress today, people might try to drive him out of town on a rail — like the leftist members of Congress who blew a gasket when California minister Jack Hibbs prayed in the name of Jesus in Congress in early 2024.

Writing on behalf of Congress, Adams, Witherspoon, and Lee continue: “To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE.”

They also prayed for God “to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People,” as well as the farmers, for success of the crops. They also asked for God’s help in the schools, which they note are “so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth ‘in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.’”

This prayer proclamation is no namby-pamby type of prayer such as we might hear from Congress these days. These are bold proclamations of faith, showing the pro-Christian side of the founding fathers that we rarely hear about these days.

This article is adapted from an essay originally published at Jerry Newcombe’s website.

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What if, this Thanksgiving, we offered a small tribute to global warming and the relative abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? An apparently scandalous idea. Global elites and their media partners insist that these forces promise catastrophe. Yet sound thinking demands the opposite conclusion.

Fifty years ago, the story was reversed. In the 1970s, major outlets warned of a coming ice age. Some scientists called for immediate action to stop the planet from plunging into widespread glaciation.

Abundance is not an accident. It reflects a climate far friendlier than the one our ancestors endured — and a modern economy powered by fuels that make global agriculture possible.

The fear of cold had at least a historical basis. Unlike today’s speculative climate models, past civilizations suffered through genuine cold-driven crises.

The Little Ice Age, from roughly 1300 to 1850, brought centuries of persistent chill. Historical accounts describe crops withering, growing seasons collapsing, and communities starving as food systems failed. The Thames froze solid. Frost fairs became a tradition because the cold was relentless. Entire regions fell into poverty and instability.

People living through those centuries would have welcomed the warmth we enjoy today.

Modern Americans rarely think about that history as they prepare Thanksgiving meals sourced from every climate zone on Earth. Our abundance depends on a long supply chain anchored in one fundamental reality: Plants grow best in warmth, not cold.

Warm periods fed civilizations

Warm eras have repeatedly aligned with human flourishing. During the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, farmers cultivated crops in regions that are too cold for them now. Warmer temperatures didn’t bring disaster; they supported prosperity.

The present is no exception. Earth has quietly greened since the late 20th century. Satellite data shows expanding vegetation, especially in arid regions. The drivers are straightforward: increased carbon dioxide and a slightly warmer global climate.

CO2 is not a toxin. It’s plant food — an essential input for photosynthesis. Higher concentrations allow crops to use water more efficiently and grow more robustly. This is one of the greatest environmental improvements of the past century, though you would never know it from the coverage.

RELATED: ‘Green Antoinettes’ live large, preach small

Julia Klueva via iStock/Getty Images

The other indispensable ingredient is modern fertilizer, made largely from natural gas. High-yield crops require nitrogen, and synthetic fertilizers supply it.

Energy-dense fuels — coal, oil, natural gas — power nearly every part of modern agriculture. Irrigation pumps, fertilizer plants, harvesters, delivery trucks, and refrigeration systems depend on them. Remove these fuels, and global food systems collapse. The return of famine would be swift.

A simple truth

Climate alarmists warn that warming will devastate global food security. Actual yields say otherwise. For 40 years, production of wheat, corn, rice, and other staples has climbed dramatically. Most food shortages today result from war or corrupt governance, not climate.

Earth’s climate has always shifted. Mega-droughts, severe floods, heat waves, and cold snaps have occurred throughout history. Treating every anomaly as evidence of imminent collapse ignores the long record of natural variability.

So as Americans gather around Thanksgiving tables, remember a simple truth: The feast depends on warmth, carbon dioxide, and the affordable energy that moves food from field to plate.

This abundance is not an accident. It reflects a climate far friendlier than the one our ancestors endured — and a modern economy powered by fuels that make global agriculture possible.

​Opinion & analysis, Thanksgiving, Global warming, Climate change, Climate change alarmism, Carbon dioxide, Food, Abundance, Scarcity, Cold, Human flourishing, Progress, History 

Extraterrestrial life boils down to three possibilities: pure myth, flesh-and-blood invaders from the stars, or spiritual entities slipping through cosmic rifts to toy with our souls.

There’s a growing body of belief in the latter — that UFOs and aliens are actually demonic entities masquerading as extraterrestrials in order to deceive humanity.

Presbyterian minister and “Cultish” contributor Colin Samul, who was an occult practitioner before his conversion to Christianity in 2005, falls into this body of belief. “My conclusion, and the conclusion of even a lot of secular researchers like Jacques Vallée, is that what we’re dealing with is not interplanetary but … interdimensional — that is, it’s coming from another realm into this realm,” he told Steve Deace in a fascinating interview about the undeniable connection between ufology and occultism.

“The spirit world that we see in scripture that interpenetrates with this realm fits exactly with what we observe in the [UFO/alien] phenomenon,” he said.

But long before he was a Christian and knew scripture well enough to make this claim, it was already clear to Samul that aliens and UFOs were spiritual in nature. As someone who was deep into New Age rituals, Eastern mysticism, and psychedelic experimentation, Samul could see firsthand that “the UFO subject is tightly bound to the New Age and the occult.”

“I mean, you cannot separate them,” he told Deace.

After his Christian conversion, Samul “put a plug” in his interest in all things extraterrestrial and focused exclusively on growing in his newfound faith. But 20 years and a seminary degree later, the topic re-emerged unexpectedly. In 2017, the New York Times published a bombshell front-page article titled “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program.” It revealed a secret Pentagon initiative (AATIP) that studied UFOs/UAPs for a decade — complete with leaked Navy videos of bizarre aerial encounters.

This mainstream coverage marked a pivotal modern watershed, elevating ufology to national security legitimacy for the first time in decades.

Samul, an ordained minister who used to practice contacting extraterrestrial beings, knew that he was exactly the kind of person who might speak into this national surge in interest in the otherworldly. He dove headfirst into UFO research and related communities but with Christian theology as his guiding light. He described it as being “an embedded reporter from a Christian perspective.”

A few years later, Samul found himself hosting and producing “Cultish’s” 10-part Alien Revelations series on UFOs, disclosure, and spiritual connections — a program Deace says is “an outstanding, must-listen-to” series.

In it, Samul argues that aliens and UFOs are really just “a pathway of initiation into the occult that uses this pop-level meme of space invaders to get people’s attention.” But it never stops at the belief that extraterrestrial life exists. The inevitable next question is: What can these otherworldly beings teach us? And that is precisely what occultism is at its core — the search for hidden knowledge via contacting unearthly realms.

While leading experts in the field of ufology often frame this pursuit of alien knowledge in scientific terms, their rhetoric almost always takes a turn toward the spiritual.

In Deace’s words, it “starts off very Star Trekian” but “ends up very occultic,” as the sciencey vernacular of whistleblowers and spokespeople eventually gives way to more ethereal terms, like “higher consciousness” and “summoning.”

The reason for this, says Samul, is because ufology at its core has “always been” about supernaturalism. That’s why the majority of UFO eyewitness accounts have religious undertones to them, with people reporting “conscious connections,” feeling like they were “one” with a craft, or experiencing “divine” energy emanating from a UFO. Further, people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs often return with alleged “psychic abilities,” believing they can telepathically receive messages from their abductors.

But the connection between ufology and occultism gets even weirder. Aleister Crowley — arguably the most famous occultist in modern history, a man who nicknamed himself “the Great Beast 666” and is widely dubbed “the wickedest man in the world” for his rituals of sex, drugs, and blood sacrifice — claimed to have contact with otherworldly beings. Once, he sketched a picture of one of these beings. Crowley’s drawing portrayed an entity named “Lam” as a bald, gray-skinned being with a large, elongated head, small slit eyes, no mouth, and a vaguely fetal form — eerily resembling modern “gray alien” tropes.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that Jack Parsons — Crowley’s devoted protégé and disciple — went on to become a rocket scientist who channeled his occult obsessions into pioneering solid rocket fuel and co-founding NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

Deace puts it in simple terms: “One of the most important advents of engineering in modern human history came from a disciple acolyte of arguably the most infamous occultist satanist in Western history.”

In 1947, Parsons and his fellow Crowley-pupil L. Ron Hubbard, who would go on to found the Church of Scientology, performed a months-long occult experiment called the Babalon Working. Through a series of sex magic rituals, the sinister duo claimed to “birth” the incarnate Thelemic goddess Babalon, who they believed was Marjorie Cameron — an occult artist and actress. When she returned home from the Babalon Working, where she was dubbed “the Scarlet Woman” — the human embodiment of the goddess Babalon – Cameron claimed a UFO was hovering over her house.

1947 also happens to be the same year the modern UFO era kicked off. Kenneth Arnold’s “flying saucer” sighting unleashed a frenzy of reports — over 800 in the U.S. alone — capped by the infamous Roswell crash.

Occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger, who worked with Cameron, claimed that Parsons and Hubbard’s Babalon Working “pierced the veil” of the cosmos, allowing UFOs to enter Earth’s realm. Even the Collins Elite — a secretive U.S. government group — viewed the uptick in UFOs as fallout from Parsons’ and Hubbard’s occult practices.

In other words, says Deace, the theory is that UFOs and aliens are “the culmination of several different fronts of occultic activity” that created “a successful ritual that … opened a door to some form of interdimensional portal.”

To hear more on this theory, watch the full interview above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace, Steve deace show, Blazetv, Blaze media, Extraterrestrial life, Aliens, Ufos, Uaps, Space aliens, Colin samul, Demons, Angels, Spiritual warfare, Christianity 

Every November, America pauses to thank its veterans. As Thanksgiving approaches — and as we mark Veterans and Military Families Month — it’s worth remembering that real gratitude does not begin in ceremonies. It begins in living rooms, workplaces, and communities willing to listen.

When I returned from Iraq, I believed my mission was complete. I had led soldiers through chaos during the invasion of Baghdad and made it home alive. What I didn’t expect was the second battle: reintegration. Purpose felt less defined. Connection felt harder to find. The uniform came off, but the transition demanded its own kind of discipline.

Service doesn’t end on the battlefield. It continues in the boardroom, the classroom, the town hall — and at the dinner table.

Like many veterans, I learned that coming home isn’t an ending. It’s a transfer of duty.

Service that spans generations

That duty is carried not just by veterans but by the families who stand behind them. A spouse manages a household while absorbing the worry that never quite fades. A child learns resilience from absence. A parent hopes each phone call means his son or daughter is one day closer to coming home — and able to stay.

My son is now a second lieutenant in the Army. Watching him begin his own journey reminds me that service does not stop at the edge of a battlefield. It moves through generations. Families carry it alongside us.

The meaning of gratitude

Thanksgiving offers a natural moment to reflect on gratitude — not the polite version, but the kind that demands something from us.

It demands employers who recognize leadership potential behind a résumé gap.

It demands communities willing to listen before advising.

It demands fellow veterans who know that strength includes accepting help, not just offering it.

Most of all, it demands that Americans see military families not as supporting characters but as central figures in the story of national resilience.

RELATED: Thankful for a capitalist Thanksgiving

skynesher via iStock/Getty Images

What we owe the next generation

The wars of the last two decades lasted longer than anyone expected. Their consequences will last even longer. We owe it to the next generation — including my son’s — to show that a nation’s strength is not measured only by how it deploys its forces, but by how it welcomes them back.

As we close Veterans and Military Families Month and gather around Thanksgiving tables, we can honor veterans in a simple but meaningful way: not by assuming we understand their experience, but by inviting them to share it. Not by thanking them once a year, but by offering them roles in which their judgment, discipline, and experience make a difference.

Service doesn’t end on the battlefield. It continues in the boardroom, the classroom, the town hall — and at the dinner table.

​Opinion & analysis, Thanksgiving, Military families, War, Veterans, Duty, Gratitude, Children, Spouses 

The suspect in custody after the shooting of two National Guard troops near the White House is an Afghan national who entered into the U.S. only four years ago, according to a CBS News report.

A massive law enforcement response followed the shooting in Washington, D.C. Initially the troops were reported as having died from their injuries, but the FBI later said they were hospitalized in critical condition.

‘The animal that shot the two National Guardsmen, with both being critically wounded, and now in two separate hospitals, is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price.’

Multiple law enforcement sources said the suspect was identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, according to CBS. He also reportedly entered the U.S. on a Biden administration program called Operation Allies Welcome after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Law enforcement sources told NBC News that he used a handgun in the attack.

Reporter Julio Rosas also confirmed the details.

A White House correspondent for NTD News said she and her cameraman witnessed the incident just before 2:15 p.m.

“National Guard shot near the White House. … I was in an Uber to work, with my cameraman, and heard multiple shots fired as we passed Farragut West,” Mari Otsu wrote on social media.

“A member of the National Guard fell while others rushed onto the scene,” she added, with a video included. “Area still on lockdown and Secret Service being deployed.”

President Donald Trump issued a statement about the incident from his Truth Social account.

“The animal that shot the two National Guardsmen, with both being critically wounded, and now in two separate hospitals, is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price,” he wrote. “God bless our Great National Guard, and all of our Military and Law Enforcement.”

RELATED: MS NOW reporter gets obliterated for unbelievable comment about shooting of National Guard

Photo by Drew ANGERER / AFP via Getty Images

Dept. of War Sec. Pete Hegseth said that 500 additional National Guard troops were going to be sent to D.C. in light of the shooting.

“This will only stiffen our resolve to ensure that we make Washington, D.C., safe and beautiful. The drop in crime has been historic. The increase in safety and security has been historic,” Hegseth said to reporters in the Dominican Republic.

“But if criminals want to conduct things like this, violence against America’s best, we will never back down,” he added. “President Trump will never back down. That’s why the American people elected him.”

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​National guard shooting, Suspect in dc shooting, Rahmanullah lakanwal, Dc troop shooting, Politics 

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said an FBI official threatened to open a criminal investigation on one of his staff over his persistent investigation and questioning on the Jan. 6 pipe bombs.

An FBI official threatened to open a criminal investigation on one of Massie’s staff “if we didn’t straighten up [and] play ball,” Massie told Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker in an interview broadcast on Matt Kibbe’s “Free the People” podcast and posted to X.

‘Even he understood that was not a good look. Probably illegal.’

“I’m going to say this here on camera because it’s important. … He said … ‘We’re going to investigate one of your staff for fraud,’” Massie quoted the unnamed FBI official as saying. “And he told another one of my staff this: ‘If you guys don’t straighten up, you know, if you want to play hardball, if this is how you want to play it’ or something like that, ‘this member of your staff is going to get criminally investigated for fraud’ — a very specific threat.”

Massie declined to identify the official he says levied the threat, but said he did complain about it to FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.

“I told Bongino, I said, ‘One of your guys is threatening my guys with an FBI investigation if we don’t do what you want.’ And he [Bongino] said, ‘I’ll take care of that.’ ’Cause even he understood that was not a good look. Probably illegal.”

Massie said he later received a “non-apology” text from the official that said, “‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.’”

“He didn’t apologize. He was unrepentant, let’s say, really.”

Massie has been the most aggressive member of Congress investigating the pipe bombs found behind the Capitol Hill Club at 12:43 p.m. on Jan. 6 and under a park bench on the southwest side of the Democratic National Committee building 22 minutes later. In the same interview with Baker, Massie also disclosed that recent Blaze News reporting has caused him to be “99% certain” that some U.S. Capitol Police officials had a role in the planting of the pipe bombs found on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I went from 90% certain that some Capitol Police were involved in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb to 95% certain, and now I’m at 99% certain after this new story that you put out this week,” Massie told Baker.

“I’m doing this on probability. The probability may even be higher than that.”

His comments reflect Blaze News’ recent reporting on a former Capitol Police officer who was an apparent forensic match to the bomb suspect, follow-up reporting on the manner in which the second device was discovered by plainclothes Capitol Police officers, and the stonewalling the congressman charges that he faced from Capitol Police in the course of his own investigation. Assistant Police Chief Ashan Benedict, whom Massie named as having specifically blocked his investigation, retired last week.

The Kentucky Republican also expressed frustration that FBI Director Kash Patel seems to have made little more progress than his predecessor, Director Christopher Wray. In an interview with Fox News earlier this month, as well as a follow-up with independent reporter Catherine Herridge, Patel promised that major developments are incoming, but was scant on details.

A CBS story published Tuesday cited three unidentified sources stating that the FBI had cleared the police officer who appeared to match a forensic gait analysis of the bomber, citing “an alibi: video of her playing with her puppies at the time the devices were placed.” Blaze News has sought to obtain independent confirmation of the FBI’s clearance based on the alibi.

Blaze News reported Nov. 8 on a forensic match to a former Capitol Police officer, based on a computer analysis of the hoodie-wearing alleged pipe bomber’s manner of walking compared to that of the person. The algorithm rated the person as a 94% match, while the intelligence analyst who ran the study for Blaze News put the match closer to 98%. The person has since denied any allegations, through her attorney.

FBI photos

Blaze News reported Nov. 18 that two Capitol Police counter-surveillance special agents sent out to look for more explosives after the discovery of the Capitol Hill Club device were seen on video going to the DNC building and to a nearby bush on the side of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building.

Independent video investigator Armitas discovered that the hoodie-wearing suspect identified in 2021 as the pipe bomber stopped at the bush along a sidewalk on the north side of the CBCI building at 7:47 p.m. Jan. 5. The suspect sat cross-legged at the shrub and appeared to rummage through a backpack before leaning into the bush as if attempting to place something underneath.

The bomb suspect then stood up and walked back to the DNC bench, where a pipe bomb was placed at 7:54 p.m., according to choppy video released by the FBI.

‘He had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.’

When Capitol Police dispatch warned of the Capitol Hill Club bomb at 12:43 p.m., two plainclothes Capitol Police special agents took a nearly six-minute drive to reach the Capitol Hill South Metro Station, one block from the Capitol Hill Club bomb scene. They then walked to the DNC building, passing the park bench the pipe bomb sat next to.

The agents continued walking until they reached an alley leading to the side of the CBCI building. Their movements were not captured on video because four Capitol Police security cameras that would have shown the DNC crime scene were turned away at key moments or pointed in another direction by default.

Massie’s office released video in July 2023 showing a man in dark clothing and a ball cap approaching a U.S. Secret Service SUV sitting in the driveway of the DNC building as part of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ security detail. Harris was inside the building when the pipe bomb was discovered.

Blaze News reported in January 2024 that this man was the plainclothes Capitol Police officer who discovered the pipe bomb under a bush at the foot of a park bench at the DNC building.

Following that story, Massie told Blaze News he was determined to interview the agents, but did not get much cooperation from Capitol Police. Massie referred to the agents as “man-bun guy” and “backpack guy” (the one who discovered the bomb).

‘Weirdest meeting’

The Capitol Police never made “backpack guy” available to the Massie, but on Jan. 30, 2024, they did eventually send his partner, accompanied by his commander, Benedict, to speak with the congressman in a meeting that was not recorded or transcribed.

“So they came over to my office, but not ‘backpack guy,’” Massie said. “’Man-bun guy’ came over, and he had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.”

Two congressional investigators sat in on the meeting alongside Benedict, the police officer, and Massie. The congressman later described the interview as the “weirdest meeting in the world.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said an FBI official threatened a criminal investigation of his staff if he didn’t “play ball” on the Jan. 6 pipe bomb investigation.Photo courtesy of Free the People

“In the conversation with the counter-surveillance officer in my office, Ashan Benedict would frequently interrupt the officer, answer before the officer could reply, or qualify the officer’s answers,” Massie told Blaze News. “There was an effort by our committee staff to get Benedict to sit for a transcribed interview, but he successfully evaded that effort.”

Massie said he still wants to interview the officer who actually found the bomb, as well as his partner and Benedict. “Those need to be transcribed interviews. They need to be sworn in. I feel very strongly about that,” he said. “But the reality is the FBI should be doing these things.”

Massie said that after he reposted the Blaze News article on the gait analysis, Bongino called him to complain about two early persons of interest mentioned in the piece.

One of those men, named in FBI reports as Person of Interest 3, lived directly next door to the Capitol Police officer who was the subject of the Nov. 8 Blaze News article. The FBI’s Special Operations Group conducted surveillance on Person of Interest 3 in Falls Church, Va., for two days in January 2021, but surveillance was suddenly canceled, before any law enforcement officer ever questioned the man.

Massie said Bongino told him, “‘That’s a dead lead. … We investigated that lead and … there’s nothing there. There’s no there there.’ So that’s why they quit looking at it. … At that point I said, ‘But you guys weren’t — you never did suspect him. The FBI never did suspect him. … His build doesn’t match. There’s no way it could be him. Your guys were looking for somebody else.’”

Whistleblower concerns

A current FBI supervisory special agent on Nov. 10 filed a whistleblower protected disclosure with Massie and U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), alleging the termination of surveillance at the Falls Church condominium complex was improper and cut off a suggestion by a surveillance team member that Person of Interest 3 be questioned face-to-face at his doorstep.

Person of Interest 3 and Person of Interest 2, his alleged houseguest on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, had not been questioned by the FBI when surveillance was terminated. Interviews took place six days later, according to FBI reports included in the whistleblower disclosure. An FBI agent pretending to be a Metro Transit police officer interviewed Person of Interest 3 over the phone, a congressional source told Blaze News.

The whistleblower’s “concern was that the investigation that went to Falls Church, Virginia, that got them to the doorstep of the person that [Blaze News] identified through gait analysis as possibly somebody that might have been the person in the hood,” Massie said.

“There were suggestions made to the people in charge of the investigation about how to follow up on those leads,” Massie said. “And it was just dropped after two days of surveillance. And he [the whistleblower] provided supporting documents to that effect.”

Capitol Police block off the intersection of 1st and C streets in response to discovery of a pipe bomb at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.U.S. Capitol Police

Massie said Bongino made reference to the FBI conducting a meeting to address the whistleblower disclosure. “He didn’t say, ‘We’re trying to find the whistleblower,’” Massie said. “But my Spidey sense went off, and I almost said to him in that moment, ‘You better not be trying to find the whistleblower, because law protects that individual.’ But I didn’t say it.”

Massie said he thought about this when recalling the threat he said his staff received from the FBI official.

“I have to tell all the listeners this because this is the context in which I’m worried for the whistleblower,” Massie said. “If they’re willing to retaliate against a congressional office, which has speech or debate immunity and a lot of other protections, they may be willing to retaliate against the whistleblower.”

The whistleblower’s attorney, Kurt Siuzdak, sent a letter to Massie and Loudermilk on Nov. 13, warning that if the FBI attempted to out the whistleblower, it would violate the supervisory agent’s protections under the law. Massie shared the letter on social media.

“Identifying the whistleblower serves only one purpose,” Siuzdak wrote, “which is to allow FBI management to retaliate.”

In a Nov. 13 post on X, Bongino accused Massie of throwing “BS bombs” and denied that the FBI sought to identify or retaliate against the Nov. 10 whistleblower. A Blaze News request to Bongino for further comment went unanswered.

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​January 6, Pipe bomb, Fbi, Fbi whistleblower, Thomas massie, Dan bongino, Matt kibbe, Capitol police, Dnc, Rnc, Capitol hill club, Congressional black caucus institute, Barry loudermilk, Politics 

Ashan M. Benedict, the assistant U.S. Capitol Police chief who a congressman alleges prevented two special agents involved in the discovery of a pipe bomb at the Democratic National Committee building from testifying before a U.S. House panel, has retired from the department, Blaze News has learned.

Rumors of Benedict’s retirement came one day after Blaze News published an investigation showing unexplained activity by the Capitol Police officers who discovered that bomb, who were overseen by Benedict. The announcement surprised some at the Capitol Police because his contract with the department was set to expire at the end of the month, on Dec. 1. Benedict came to the Capitol Police on Dec. 4, 2023, as assistant chief for protective and intelligence operations, which includes counter-surveillance teams. He later became assistant chief for standards and training operations.

‘They never looked for a third or fourth or fifth pipe bomb.’

Before he joined the USCP, Benedict was the DNC pipe-bomb incident commander for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In that post, he oversaw ATF’s response to the J6 pipe-bomb threat.

Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan distributed a bulletin Monday, Nov. 24, announcing Benedict’s retirement after less than two years with the USCP. Word had already circulated around the department on the Wednesday before that Benedict was leaving, two sources told Blaze News.

Word of Benedict’s retirement started percolating a day after Blaze News published an investigation showing the two USCP counter-surveillance agents who discovered the DNC bomb on Jan. 6, 2021, seemingly acting in a suspicious manner. The cops parked their car that afternoon and walked straight past a pipe bomb to another location, which Blaze News’ investigation discovered that the pipe-bomb suspect visited the night before. Then the officers returned to the DNC building, where one of them discovered the device.

Pipe-bomb suspect, construction worker, and police at a bush next to Congressional Black Caucus Institute.Photos by U.S. Capitol Police

“I went from 90% certain that some Capitol Police were involved in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb to 95% certain, and now I’m at 99% certain after this new story,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told Blaze News last week in an interview with Steve Baker broadcast on Matt Kibbe’s “Free the People” podcast and posted to X.

“I’m doing this on probability. The probability may even be higher than that.”

The officers were not seen searching any other areas for explosives in any of the extensive video available and reviewed by Blaze News, and they did not continue searching after the DNC device was found at 1:05 p.m. on Jan. 6.

The USCP has since confirmed that one of its agents found the pipe bomb near the DNC park bench, but there is no video showing that because key cameras were turned away from the DNC building at the time. The fact that the DNC bomb was discovered by plainclothes Capitol Police officers, and not merely a pair of passersby, was not made public until Blaze News broke that news in January 2024.

Following that story, Massie told Blaze News he was determined to interview the agents, but did not get much cooperation from Capitol Police. Massie referred to the agents as “man-bun guy” and “backpack guy” (the one who discovered the bomb). By this time, the agents were under Benedict’s command.

Key cameras that cover the Democratic National Committee building were turned away during bomb discovery and disposal.U.S. Capitol Police

The Capitol Police never made “backpack guy” available to Massie, but on Jan. 30, 2024, they did eventually send his partner, accompanied by Benedict, to speak with the congressman in a meeting that was not recorded or transcribed.

“So they came over to my office, but not ‘backpack guy,’” Massie said. “’Man-bun guy’ came over, and he had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.”

‘They just kind of wander off. Their job was done. They had found the second pipe bomb.’

Two congressional investigators sat in on the meeting alongside Benedict, the police officer, and Massie. “In the conversation with the counter-surveillance officer in my office, Ashan Benedict would frequently interrupt the officer, answer before the officer could reply, or qualify the officer’s answers,” Massie told Blaze News. “There was an effort by our committee staff to get Benedict to sit for a transcribed interview, but he successfully evaded that effort.”

Massie asked the agent who sent him and his partner to the DNC building, as opposed to some other high-visibility potential target.

“How did you know to go look there?” Massie said he asked. “And it wasn’t a real good answer, something like, ‘That was my sector’ or something. You know, ‘We’re assigned sectors, and that’s just the sector that I look in.’”

According to the January 2025 report of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, three two-man Capitol Police counter-surveillance teams were dispatched to look for other bombs after discovery of the Capitol Hill Club device.

Massie said he showed a video to the men, depicting the slow, nonchalant response from the Secret Service, Metropolitan Police Department, and Capitol Police to the discovery of a bomb that potentially could have killed them all.

‘He never told me about this other bush.’

“Look, there’s pedestrians still walking around, and this is allegedly a pipe bomb,” Massie said. “And that’s when his handler [Benedict] stepped in and said, ‘Well, you don’t want to alarm people when you have a lot of crowds. You know, when you find a bomb or something, you can’t yell, ‘Bomb!’ You gotta just play it cool.’”

Video showed there were no crowds near the DNC bomb site. Occasional pedestrian traffic continued on the sidewalk within feet of the bomb, and vehicle traffic was not immediately stopped on nearby streets. Commuter trains continued to rumble over the adjacent train trestle for 15 minutes after discovery of the bomb.

Massie said his next question “elicited the oddest body language I’ve ever seen in a meeting and no real answer.”

“Well, so then you obviously went looking for another pipe bomb, right?” Massie recalled. “You found two of them within 30 minutes. You must believe the whole place is riddled with them if you’re finding them this quickly.

“I actually knew part of the answer. I watched the video of where he went after,” Massie said. “They just kind of wander off. Their job was done. They had found the second pipe bomb. They never looked for a third or fourth or fifth pipe bomb, and they didn’t have an answer to me for why the search for pipe bombs was over once they found the second pipe bomb. No answer. Weirdest meeting in the world.”

Massie said he still wants to see the officer who actually found the bomb and interview him, his partner, and Benedict under oath for transcribed interviews. “Those need to be transcribed interviews. They need to be sworn in. I feel very strongly about that,” he said. “But the reality is the FBI should be doing these things.”

“How did they know exactly where to look, including the place [Congressional Black Caucus Institute bush] where the pipe bomber tried to place a bomb?” Massie asked. “It was police, it was Capitol Hill Police that found these bombs, and they got there. But … I hope they went and bought lottery tickets after finding these, after going to these two locations.

“But when you take them all together, and the fact that I got to interview these, it’s at least one of these guys [who discovered the bomb], and he never told me about this other bush,” Massie said. “He didn’t have answers for why they didn’t look for more bombs after they found the second one. And then we’ve got the ATF person in charge of the bomb stuff happening on Jan. 6 is now at Capitol Police handling the interview?”

Sources have said the two special agents, who are known to Blaze News, are still with the Capitol Police. The one who discovered the bomb is now the Capitol Police’s liaison to the FBI — the agency charged with investigating the pipe bombs. His partner, who accompanied Benedict to meet with Massie, still works in the intelligence section.

Benedict’s retirement is just the latest disclosure in two months of developments in the long-unsolved pipe-bomb case.

Questions and requests for comment sent to Benedict and the two officers were not returned in time for publication.

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​Politics, January 6, Pipe bomb 

Jason Whitlock, BlazeTV host of “Fearless,” and former Buccaneers quarterback Shaun King have put three high-profile quarterbacks on the operating table this year: Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence, and Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts.

The prognosis from disgruntled fans isn’t good. Jackson fails to ignite a stagnant offense and is injury-prone; Lawrence has an embarrassing completion rate, especially considering his $275M contract; and Hurts plays scared in the pocket, underutilizing his star receivers downfield.

King lays bare what’s really going on with each player.

Lamar Jackson

Despite the rumors that Jackson is on a permanent decline, King says he’s likely just struggling with hesitancy after a string of injuries.

Right now, it looks like he’s “unwilling to use his athleticism, which makes me think that he’s trying to guard against further injuring whatever his ailment is,” he tells Jason.

But given the superstar’s “track record of success” — two MVP awards, two 1,000-yard rushing seasons, and the best dual-threat stats in NFL history — we need to “give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“If this persists into next year, I think we can circle back around to this topic,” King concludes.

Trevor Lawrence

King is far less forgiving of the Jaguars’ quarterback.

“Has never been held accountable for his deficiencies. Incubated at Clemson. Not exposed to any of the criticism or ridicule. … Got the big contract way too early,” he condemns, accusing Lawrence of being a coach killer.

“He’s a very frenetically wired player, and I don’t think you can play that position if you can’t be calm when it’s chaotic,” he says.

King believes that Lawrence, who he argues is over-reliant on his raw talent, has never been properly coached. “Nobody’s held him accountable for some of the fundamental flaws he has, some of the bad decisions he makes — like, really holding his feet to the fire. … He’s never been faced with the threat of being benched for his deficiencies.”

If Lawrence gets a coach willing to “get after him,” we may yet see the QB rise to true stardom.

Jalen Hurts

“I think [Hurts] might be the most underappreciated player in the National Football League,” King says.

Unlike legends like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady — who were able to master their system under the same coaches for over a decade — Hurts has never had that kind of stability.

“Jalen Hurts has changed coordinators the last four years,” meaning he’s “[spent] every off season learning a new system as opposed to focusing on fixing some of [his] deficiencies,” King explains.

And despite this lack of continuity, he’s still one of the league’s most successful and celebrated quarterbacks.

“I don’t think he gets enough credit,” King says. “Is he a finished product? Absolutely no. I would love to see what Jalen Hurts could do from a development standpoint if Philly could finally give him continuity.”

To hear more of King’s analysis, watch the video above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Fearless, Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, Blazetv, Blaze media, Nfl, Jalen hurts, Lamar jackson, Trevor lawrence, National football league, Quarterback, Shaun king 

While law enforcement officials continue to investigate the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., at lease one reporter has already pounced to make disgraceful assumptions on the incident.

Ken Dilanian of MS NOW suggested that the shooter was animated by many of the grievances against the Trump administration’s policies that are popularized by the left.

‘You’re a heartless idiot and not a true journalist.’

“Of course, you know, there’s so much controversy happening in the United States right now with ICE, who are also wearing uniforms and wearing masks,” Dilanian said. “And so there’s … people walking around with uniforms in an American city. There are some Americans that might object to that. And so apparently this shooting has happened.”

Video of his comments were posted on social media, where they quickly went viral and he faced brutal criticism.

“Ken Dilanian will apologize for this. But here’s the thing: He won’t mean it,” Jon Podhoretz of Commentary magazine replied.

“This is bats**t crazy and you are an absolute disgrace. To say and post something like that shows a lack of well, anything that would be deemed good,” another detractor said.

“Time to look for Ken Dilanian’s misplaced soul and reunite them before he starts outlining how understandable it is to shoot National Guardsmen in the head because the left wants foreign voters flooding our streets and towns with need, crime and hatred,” another reply reads.

“This is disgusting,” another critic said.

“You’re a heartless idiot and not a true journalist. You probably jumped for joy at the news of these deaths and were all too happy to be the one talking about it, weren’t you? Tell the truth,” another response reads.

RELATED: ABC News journalist ripped to shreds over misleading claim linking Trump to trans shooter

The shooting of the troops led to a lockdown at the White House and conflicting reports about the state of the victims. They were initially reported to have died, but Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel later indicated that they were hospitalized in critical condition.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled against the lawfulness of the troops surge in D.C. but gave the administration 21 days to appeal the order.

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​Ken dilanian, Reporter hit by backlash, Dc troops shot, National guard troops shot, Politics 

Forms of government are not laboratory specimens. You cannot line them up like competing scientific theories, test them under controlled conditions, and then apply the “correct” model to every nation on earth.

The United States learned that lesson the hard way in places like Afghanistan. The George W. Bush vision of exporting liberal democracy across the world was delusional because cultures differ and human beings are not blank slates. People must be governed in ways that align with their nature and customs.

If conservatives wish to make the United States a republic again, they must begin by admitting what America has become.

Government forms have limits. They are not universal ideologies that can fit any situation, and when nations ignore those limits, they fail. America keeps expanding beyond what a republic can bear and refuses to admit it, with predictable consequences.

In its classical form, a republic rests on a set of virtuous citizens capable of self-government through shared beliefs, values, and customs. Citizenship is limited and precious. It conveys as many responsibilities as rights. Citizens do not gain the vote simply because they reside inside a border. They earn it through constant engagement with the body politic. They are soldiers, business owners, family men, and stalwart church members. They have shown both a willingness to sacrifice for society and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to it.

The phrase “self-governing” can mislead because it suggests isolated, autonomous individuals. That is not what classical thinkers meant. A republic needs the lightest touch of any governmental form because the community reinforces itself. Citizens hold each other to account.

From Aristotle to Machiavelli to the American founders, the assumption was the same: A republic requires a virtuous people bound by thick ties of identity and shared moral expectations. Formal authority exists, but most of the real enforcement happens through custom and communal pressure, with the civil magistrate stepping in only when necessary. A republic works only when its people possess enough virtue and cohesion to govern themselves.

That is why republics are rare. They have a strict limitation: scale.

Most successful republics in history have been compact city-states with contained populations capable of maintaining identity and virtue. Once a republic expands, it must incorporate people who do not share its customs or worldview. In “The Prince,” Machiavelli warns rulers who wish to expand that they should only conquer nations sharing similar religion, language, and heritage. That common ground allows the conquered population to assimilate.

Ruling peoples with radically different cultures is far more difficult because the subjects cannot easily accept the rule of a leader whose assumptions differ so dramatically from their own.

A country that does not share culture, religion, tradition, or heritage cannot function as a republic because the people lack the common ground necessary for self-rule. The gaps are too wide to be bridged by normal political debate. A stronger form of authority becomes necessary to bind disparate groups together.

This is why kingdoms and empires are far more common throughout history. Most populations do not possess the cohesion or virtue required for republican government and must instead be ruled by a king. Empires are simply multicultural kingdoms, held together by an emperor who forces cooperation among groups that otherwise could not form a single polity.

Even classical empires understood the need to respect the character of their diverse subjects. Wise rulers did not attempt to make every people act the same. They allowed local custom to continue as long as taxes were paid and troops supplied. Local leaders were often retained. Sometimes a local king stayed on his throne but only if he showed deference to the emperor. The multicultural empire required a much stronger hand, though wise emperors used that power sparingly.

This historical reality explains much about the behavior of modern liberal democracies. Many citizens wonder why their leaders insist on importing large numbers of foreigners despite popular opposition. Cheap labor and imported voters are part of the answer, but in the end, it comes down to the pursuit of raw power.

RELATED: Do you want Caesar? Because this is how you get Caesar

Blaze Media Illustration

Large-scale immigration introduces deep cultural differences that destabilize the political order, and the only way to manage that instability is more centralized authority. A liberal democracy that becomes too diverse must govern in the manner of an empire. Its leaders must exercise the level of authority required to hold multiple nations together under one state.

The fact is, multicultural societies trend toward authoritarianism. They must. The differences are too great to manage through ordinary civic persuasion. This dynamic intensifies when the state attempts to integrate its various peoples rather than allowing them to exist separately. By transforming their democracies into multiethnic empires, Western leaders acquire imperial levels of power while maintaining the appearance of popular rule.

No republic can survive the level of diversity now celebrated as a civic virtue.

If conservatives wish to make the United States a republic again, they must begin by admitting what America has become. The country has been transformed into a multicultural empire and is governed accordingly. It grants immense power to its ruling elite in the hope that it can manage the instability produced by extreme diversity.

A republic cannot endure under these conditions. America must end immigration, scale back its foreign ambitions, and cultivate a shared, virtuous culture. Without these steps, talk of republican revival is performative. The structure of a republic cannot survive the substance of an empire.

If Americans will not reclaim the unity that makes self-government possible, then they will be ruled, not represented. Republics are earned. Empires are endured.

​Opinion & analysis, Republic, Empire, Multiculturalism, Self-government, Decline, Liberty, Freedom, Duty, The prince, Machiavelli, Monarchy, King, Cheap labors, Wisdom, Immigration, America, Elite, Ruling class