Category: blaze media

You may have noticed that corporate America’s enthusiasm for Pride Month has waned.

But business leaders aren’t the only ones pulling back from public celebration of “Pride.” Many ordinary people are retreating from full-on support for the demands of the LGBT lobby.

Our Leaving Pride Behind campaign amplifies the powerful testimonies of men and women who have walked away from homosexual behavior and identity.

Most importantly, many people who once identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or transgender have abandoned that identity. In some cases, they have completely reinterpreted their own past behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and political commitments. These brave men and women have left Pride behind.

Over the rainbow

If you’ve sensed that Pride-themed advertising has declined since 2023, you’re not wrong. A new survey finds that 43% of Fortune 1,000 companies are dialing back their external support for Pride Month in 2025. Social media feeds, once filled with rainbow branding, are strikingly subdued this year. No embarrassing displays by nonbinary “influencers” trying to sell beer. No doubt, the business community is responding to the views of the broader public.

A recent survey revealed that nearly 60% of Americans now prefer corporations to stay neutral on political and social issues.

At the same time, many Americans are questioning the goals and tactics of LGBT activism. People are starting to realize the cost of this ideology, particularly when it conflicts with faith, family, and biological reality. People are repelled by the sight of parents losing custody of their children for failing to “affirm” the child’s “gender identity.” Ordinary folk are cheering when J.K. Rowling takes down trans activists online.

‘Obergefell’ remorse

And people also intuit that redefining marriage in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case opened the door to transgenderism in the schools, drag queen story hours, and much more. As a result, the public is rethinking its commitments to policies such as genderless marriage. Gallup polling shows public support for same-sex marriage has dipped from 71% in 2022 to 68% in 2025. Among Republicans, the drop is even more dramatic — from 55% to just 41% over the past three years.

Even more interesting and significant is the group of people that we at the Ruth Institute refer to as those who have “left Pride behind.” Some in the public refer to this group of people as “ex-gays.” We hesitate to use this terminology, because most of them do not refer to themselves in this way. They might refer to themselves as “once gay.” They might call themselves “overcomers” or “people who have journeyed away from an LGBT identity.”

Many of them do not accept the term “gay” as an identity label in the first place. At most, they regard the term “gay” or “same-sex attracted” as a description of an attribute, which may or may not be permanent. For many people, “gay” is emphatically not an identity. So they certainly do not want to call themselves “ex-gay.”

Stories of transformation

That is why we at the Ruth Institute refer to them as people who have left Pride behind. Our Leaving Pride Behind campaign amplifies the powerful testimonies of men and women who have walked away from homosexual behavior and identity. These interviews include stories of transformation, healing, and faith. They challenge the destructive ideology that sexual orientation or gender identity is permanent and must be celebrated through political activism.

These brave men and women have left Pride behind, not just metaphorically, but literally. They’ve humbled themselves enough to say, “I was on the wrong path. I am willing to take responsibility for myself, my choices, and the totality of my life.” They risk the ridicule and censure of people they thought were their friends.

Amazingly, many of the people who have left Pride behind have also left other baggage. They have had bad things done to them. They’ve left blame behind. They’ve done things for which they are deeply sorry and ashamed. They’ve left toxic shame behind. They’ve done the best they could in deeply trying and confusing situations. They’ve left excuse-making behind.

In short, they have peace in their lives.

Evading the evidence

The LGBT political establishment thinks these people don’t exist. According to the “official voice” of the LGBT community, no one can change sexual orientation. People who say they have changed are either kidding themselves and will surely revert to their natural gay selves any minute, or they weren’t really gay in the first place.

That is a cop-out, evading the evidence rather than confronting it. This attitude is also deeply disrespectful. If corporate America can leave Pride behind, so can once-gay individuals. Personally, I have the utmost respect for those who have chosen to leave Pride behind.

I invite you to visit the Ruth Institute’s YouTube channel. Get acquainted with the stories of those who have left Pride behind. Are they all lying or kidding themselves? Decide for yourself. I’m convinced that these are brave and honest individuals who have earned my respect.

​Pride month, Ex-gay, Conversion therapy, Ruth institute, Jennifer roback morse, Faith, Lgbt, Catholicism, Christianity, Abide, Countering ‘pride’ 

Neera Tanden, a prominent fixture in the Democratic establishment who served as director of the Biden White House Domestic Policy Council, appeared before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday for hours-long, closed-door testimony concerning Biden’s cognitive decline while in office, its cover-up, and its alleged exploitation behind the scenes.

Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Tanden, a former Hillary Clinton aide, stuck with the narrative that Biden was mentally fit during his tenure, her opening statement showed. She also suggested that the controversial use of the autopen — a machine used to affix Biden’s signature to a myriad of documents, which critics suspect was abused by unelected individuals to advance radical agendas and to circumvent the will of the American people — was above-board.

Tanden’s spin notwithstanding, congressional investigators appear to have made headway on Tuesday thanks in part to some poetic justice.

Shield withdrawn

Despite protest from President Donald Trump and warnings from numerous critics about setting an undesirable precedent, Biden waived executive privilege in October 2021 and directed the National Archives to furnish congressional partisans with Trump-era White House records pertaining to the Jan. 6 protest at the U.S. Capitol.

Biden’s counsel noted in a letter that asserting executive privilege was “not in the best interests of the United States.”

University of Virginia School of Law professor Saikrishna Prakash, among the legal scholars at the time who understood this move could come back to bite Biden and his advisers, told the Associated Press, “Every time a president does something controversial, it becomes a building block for future presidents.”

Trump stacked on this building block this week in the interest of helping along the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the autopen scandal.

RELATED: Oversight Project over target: Dems seethe as facade of autopen presidency comes crashing down

Photo by Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images

Gary Lawkowski, deputy counsel to Trump, noted in a letter Tuesday — which echoed the letter previously penned by Biden’s counsel in 2021 — that in light of the “unique and extraordinary nature of the matters under investigation, President Trump has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest, and therefore is not justified, with respect to particular subjects within the purview of the House Oversight Committee.”

After highlighting Tanden’s assessment of Biden’s mental fitness and her knowledge of who exercised executive powers during his tenure, Lawkowski stressed:

The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress. Evidence that aides to former President Biden concealed information regarding his fitness to exercise the powers of the President — and may have unconstitutionally exercised those powers themselves to aid in their concealment — implicates both Congress’ constitutional and legislative powers.

Blaze News reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Deprived of the shield of executive privilege and thus required to provide lawmakers with “unrestricted testimony,” Tanden headed into what she later referred to as a “thorough process.”

— (@)

Tanden’s admission

The Oversight Project, a government watchdog, revealed in early March that Biden’s signature on numerous pardons, executive orders, and other documents of national consequence was likely machine-generated.

The watchdog group also highlighted possible evidence that the autopen was used on some of these documents without Biden’s knowledge and while he was absent.

Around the time of the Oversight Project’s initial reporting on the autopen, former White House stenographer Mike McCormick told Blaze News that he felt Tanden was a person who could have potentially taken advantage of her position in the White House with regard to the autopen.

RELATED: Don’t let the Biden autopen scandal become just another lame hearing

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

McCormick, who neither worked in the White House with Biden after 2017 nor personally met Tanden, said she was often praised by the former president as a “super aggressive, very progressive” operative.

“She would be the person,” the stenographer continued. “If she came into his White House knowing that [Biden] was debilitated, would she be the kind of person who would take advantage of that? I think she would.”

While it remains unclear whether Tanden misused the autopen, McCormick was right on the money regarding her use of it.

After noting that she did not believe that the committee’s investigation was a “worthy subject of oversight,” Tanden told lawmakers in her opening statement that when serving as Biden’s staff secretary, she was “responsible for handling the flow of documents to and from the president” and was “authorized to direct that autopen signatures be affixed to certain categories of documents.”

McCormick was contacted for comment after news of the White House counsel’s letter to Tanden broke. McCormick explained that Tanden’s placement in the White House by Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff from 2021 to 2023, was a grave mistake.

“[Klain’s] decision to put Neera Tanden, an operative’s operative, in charge the staff secretary’s office is an extraordinary red flag that must be thoroughly investigated,” McCormick told Blaze News.

‘I think the American people want to know.’

When Ed Martin, the Department of Justice pardon attorney and director of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, announced his investigation last month into the questionable “autopen” pardons issued in the final days of the Biden White House, he indicated that a whistleblower had identified three people who controlled access to the autopen.

“They were making money off of it,” Martin said.

Martin did not name the three suspects outright and made no reference to Tanden. He did, however, identify several “gatekeepers” who were “dominant characters in the White House,” one of whom was Klain, whose office repeatedly hosted George Soros’ son Alexander Soros and who returned to the fold last year amid Biden’s debate preparation.

RELATED: Ed Martin floats names of ‘gatekeepers’ in Biden autopen controversy; Trump accuses exploiters of ‘TREASON’

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Tanden told congressional investigators on Tuesday that as of May 2023, she no longer had “any responsibilities in connection with the use of the autopen.”

Tanden further suggested that she had “no experience in the White House that would provide any reason to question [Biden’s] command as president,” adding that “he was in charge.”

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the Oversight Committee, told the Washington Examiner that Tanden was “very forthcoming” and that the committee now has “a lot better understanding of how things worked in the Biden administration.”

Next steps

Prior to the transcribed interview on Tuesday, Comer told reporters that Tanden’s was the “first of many interviews with people that we believe were involved in the autopen scandal in the Biden administration. We have a lot of questions to ask each witness.”

The transcripts will be released once all of the interviews are completed.

“I think the American people want to know. I think there is a huge level of curiosity in the press corps with respect to who was actually calling the shots in the Biden administration,” said Comer.

Former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and former Idaho Solicitor General Theodore Wold underscored the gravity of the matter in his testimony last week before the the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, noting that the “U.S. Constitution vests the executive power in a single person: the president.”

Whether signing an executive order, issuing a pardon, or taking any other action permitted him by the Constitution, “the president’s signature is itself the protection of democratic principles. When the president signs, he communicates his assent and endorsement of the action he takes,” said Wold.

Wold noted that in numerous instances where the autopen was used, there was no indication “that anyone other than staff were making these decisions.”

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​Autopen, Neera tanden, Tanden, White house, Biden white house, Oversight committee, Oversight project, Coup, Democracy, Donald trump, Executive privilege, Politics 

First we were told that unelected federal judges could dictate all policy, law, and appropriations. Now the excuse for inaction is the Senate parliamentarian.

Left-wing protesters chant “no kings,” but nearly every major Trump-era domestic policy was blocked by a court. Nearly 200 actions on immigration, personnel, spending, and transgender issues were halted or overturned by the judiciary. Today, the good provisions in an otherwise lackluster reconciliation bill are being gutted — not by Congress, not by voters, but by a Senate staffer.

Republicans now hide behind the parliamentarian to justify a bill that hikes the deficit, preserves green energy handouts, and leaves the welfare state untouched.

If Republicans refuse to overrule the courts, the parliamentarian, or anyone else standing in the way, what’s the plan? What’s the point of winning elections if Democrats, judges, and bureaucrats still call the shots? Do they really expect to get 60 Senate votes?

Over the past week, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a long list of provisions violate the Byrd Rule and can’t be included in the reconciliation bill. Among them:

Financial Cuts:

Require states with high food stamp overpayments to share in the cost (reduced from $128 billion to just $41 billion).Cut $6.4 billion from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Cut $1.4 billion in Federal Reserve staff wages.Cut $293 million from the Office of Financial Research.Eliminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ($771 million).Cut Pentagon funding if the department misses spending deadlines.Ban food stamps for illegal aliens.

Policy Measures:

Repeal green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act.Overturn EPA tailpipe emission rules.Vacate certain court injunctions when plaintiffs don’t post bond.Bar funding for sanctuary cities.Allow states to arrest illegal aliens.Require congressional approval of major federal regulations (modified REINS Act).

Republicans now hide behind MacDonough to justify a bill that hikes the deficit, preserves green energy handouts, and leaves the welfare state untouched.

The Byrd Rule has become an excuse to flush the conservative priorities and pass a mess. And let’s not kid ourselves — the parliamentarian had no objection to provisions that punish states for regulating AI. Under the Senate version of the bill, states can still regulate AI and data centers, but if they do, they lose access to BEAD broadband funding.

The good stuff in this bill may have been bait — added just to lure conservatives into voting yes, knowing full well the parliamentarian would knock it out. That’s why conservatives must pressure President Trump to do what Senate Republicans won’t: overrule MacDonough.

RELATED: Split the Big Beautiful Bill Act, seal the border … and give Trump a real win

Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Let’s get something straight: The Senate parliamentarian does not make the rules. The presiding officer does — and the majority party controls the chair. The office of parliamentarian didn’t even exist until 1935. The parliamentarian sits below the presiding officer on the rostrum, not above him. Her advice is just that — advice.

The Congressional Research Service puts it plainly: “As a staff official, neither parliamentarian is empowered to make decisions that are binding on the House or Senate. The parliamentarians and their deputies/assistants only offer advice that the presiding Representative or Senator may accept or reject.”

JD Vance, as president of the Senate, can overrule MacDonough at any time. Here’s how: When Democrats raise a point of order against a GOP-backed provision, MacDonough may say it violates the Byrd Rule and must be stripped. But the presiding officer — Vance or his designee — can simply say no. That provision stays in the bill. The Senate then proceeds under the reconciliation process and passes the whole thing with a simple majority.

Trump can make this happen. He can threaten to send Vance to the chair if Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) refuses to play ball. Thune can demand MacDonough’s firing — just as Trent Lott did in 2001 when the parliamentarian ruled against Republican priorities.

Trump is right to be frustrated. On Tuesday, he demanded that Congress cancel the July 4 recess and finish the job. But he also needs to make it clear that he won’t accept a watered-down deal. He must draw red lines around immigration and the Green New Deal. The American people didn’t elect Elizabeth MacDonough. They elected Trump.

And no unelected staffer has the right to overturn the will of 77 million voters.

​Opinion & analysis, One big beautiful bill, Big beautiful bill, Donald trump, Jd vance, Senate, Parliamentarian, Rules, Byrd rule, Budget reconciliation, Judicial overreach, Mass deportations, Green new deal, Green energy, Subsidies, Congress, Elizabeth macdonough, John thune, Food stamps, Illegal immigration, Court orders, Nationwide injunction, Border crisis, Trent lott, Congressional research service, Mandate 

Capitol Hill Republicans are in a bind. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is barreling toward a vote, and it keeps getting worse — this time, because of the Senate parliamentarian.

Representatives and senators alike are angry. The bill they were pushing forward was carefully crafted to win with slim majorities in both chambers, and now a lot of the commonsense cuts conservative members were excited for are gone. Here’s the problem, though: Nobody can do anything about it.

The mood on Capitol Hill is tense and unpredictable. At stake: funding for Trump’s border enforcement, immigration crackdown, tax cuts, and other key priorities.

Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has had a field day stripping important Republican provisions from the bill. Among them: a $6.4 billion cut that eliminated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; a $1.4 billion cut to Federal Reserve employees’ salaries; a $771 million cost-saving measure transferring the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission; a move to reassert Senate supervision on the largest executive regulations; and a move to demand states that make habitual food stamp overpayments (average overpayments outnumber underpayments by a ratio of more than 6.5 to 1) pay a portion of the cost. That last measure, just one of many more cuts by the parliamentarian, was estimated to save $12.8 billion a year.

MacDonough has so much power because the only way you can avoid the filibuster and pass something like this bill through the Senate with a simple 51-vote majority is through the reconciliation process, meaning it must have a specific impact on the federal budget.

How does shaving billions of dollars off federal expenses not impact the budget? MacDonough explained that she stripped those provisions because they were more policy-focused than budgetary. Or, she looked into Republicans’ hearts and divined their secret intentions. Between MacDonough and the Democrats’ army of federal judges, there seems to be a lot of divining going around these days.

Republicans have ample reason to be furious. A lot of these measures were important to getting fiscal hawks on board with the bill, and now they’re gone.

Conservatives have complained loudly about where we find ourselves now, saying Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and his team didn’t argue their points well enough.

They’ve also pointed out that the parliamentarian, who was first appointed to her post by the late Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), is an employee of the Senate and not a constitutional office, serving as simply an adviser on the proper process. That means the chamber’s presiding officer, the vice president, can overrule her, as vice presidents have done as recently as 1975.

Reid himself ignored his hire in 2013 when he nuked the filibuster for federal judgeships — lowering the required votes to 51 — and opened the floodgates to the kind of activist confirmations the White House is currently grappling with.

Four years later, in 2017, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) followed suit, ignoring MacDonough’s protests to expand Reid’s “nuclear option” to include Supreme Court nominees.

In the end, neither Thune nor his more conservative colleagues made a persuasive case. Their arguments may have needed work, but the failure wasn’t theirs alone. Everyone shares the blame.

Calls to fire or overrule the Senate parliamentarian amount to little more than a shiny distraction. Politically, it’s a nonstarter. Republican senators like John Curtis of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Mitch McConnell won’t back blowing up the filibuster.

It’s not that no one tried. The parliamentarian rejected the provisions, and too many Senate Republicans refuse to use the nuclear option to push through this next test of filibuster limits.

That leaves Republicans with no real path forward — and no time to waste. Complaining doesn’t move votes. “You go to war with the Senate you have,” a White House official involved in the negotiations told the Beltway Brief.

The mood on Capitol Hill is tense and unpredictable. At stake: funding for Trump’s border enforcement, immigration crackdown, tax cuts, and other key priorities.

Some Republicans want to scrap the deal and start over. But everyone knows that’s not a real option. The clock keeps ticking. And with each passing day, the odds of success shrink.

Blaze News: Republican senator might be open to defect to Democrats

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​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

Global policymakers and consumers are weary of Big Tech monopolies. While excessive consolidation of power leads to privacy violations, price gouging, and stifling innovation, it poses a unique threat to free speech.

Trump administration antitrust enforcers understood that threat. As Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater observed, when a handful of companies control the flow of information, “someone can be disappeared from the internet quite easily.”

Digital free speech shouldn’t depend on the shifting preferences of Apple executives or Google policy teams.

Conservatives increasingly see Big Tech’s ability to distort and manipulate public discourse as a downstream effect of its market dominance. In the case of the mobile internet, it takes only two companies — Apple and Google — to control the smartphone experience of nearly every American.

Congress is beginning to respond. Two recently introduced bills would take on Apple and Google’s app store choke points directly. The Open App Markets Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and the App Store Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), aim to empower users by giving them the option to download apps from sources outside of Apple and Google’s proprietary platforms, including alternative marketplaces.

Why do these technical details matter for speech? Because Apple and Google’s gatekeeper power has already been abused to silence dissent.

In 2021, Parler — a social media app popular on the right — was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores for allegedly having “inadequate” content moderation policies. The timing followed reports that the platform was used to coordinate the January 6 Capitol riot. Virtually overnight, Parler went from one of the fastest growing apps in the world to a ghost town. Internet consumers move quickly, and the app’s months in Big Tech’s doghouse became a death sentence. Parler never recovered.

Parler wasn’t an isolated case. Years earlier, Google banned Gab, another free speech-oriented platform, while Apple never allowed it to launch in the first place. Google also initially refused to approve President Trump’s Truth Social due to concerns over its moderation policies. And abroad, Apple has bowed to authoritarian regimes — removing apps used by dissidents in China and Russia at the request of those governments.

RELATED: Upgrade to a dumbphone

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The problem runs deeper than censorship. Apple and Google have used their dominance to dictate the design and speech choices of developers. App makers are often forbidden from communicating key information to users — such as the availability of cheaper subscription pricing outside of Apple and Google’s walled gardens.

The scope of their power is staggering. Roughly 91% of Americans own a smartphone. More than 99% of those devices run on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android operating systems. And 88% of the time spent on those phones is inside apps — not on web browsers.

Without real guardrails, that bottleneck becomes a single point of failure. It’s a choke point ready to be exploited by governments, activist groups, or corporations that want to control speech.

Some openly defend the current system precisely because it allows Apple and Google to keep disfavored apps off the market. Even before Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X), Apple and Google pressured the company to increase moderation. After Musk’s takeover, activist organizations lobbied Apple and Google to ban X altogether if Musk didn’t reinstate stricter content rules.

An open app ecosystem benefits everyone. Conservatives celebrating Big Tech’s apparent political shifts should remember how easily those loyalties change. Liberals worried about “tech bro” influence should support guardrails that limit partisan manipulation — regardless of who holds power.

Digital free speech shouldn’t depend on the shifting preferences of Apple executives or Google policy teams. Congress must act to restore balance and ensure pluralism. The Open App Markets Act and the App Store Freedom Act offer real, durable solutions. They deserve bipartisan support.

​Opinion & analysis, Big tech, Big tech censorship, App stores, Google, Apple, Monopoly, Gail slater, Information, Marsha blackburn, Open app markets act, Richard blumenthal, App store freedom act, Kat cammack, Congress, Gab, Parler, January 6 

With the battle between Israel and Iran moving from decades of proxy warring to an all-out crisis, world leaders have been waiting, watching, and nervously pondering what happens next.

And as the political implications cause deep concern, some of the theological issues implicit in the discussion have moved from percolating and bubbling under the surface to outright erupting.

There’s undoubtedly something special about Israel and the Hebrew people, through whom Jesus came.

The age-old biblical questions surrounding modern-day Israel and its relevance to prophecy sit at the core of these heated debates, as Christians ponder the modern Jewish state’s connection to the Old Testament, prophecy, and how those sentiments impact contemporary Christians’ views on how the U.S. and other nations should respond to the current crisis.

This theo-political skirmish burst onto the main stage after a verbal showdown between Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The two now-infamously clashed, in part, over how Christians should respond to the Israel-Iran war.

The Cruz-Carlson spat intensified when Cruz proclaimed that he was taught in church that “those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed” and that support for modern Israel is a biblical command.

“Biblically, we are commanded to support Israel,” Cruz clarified after Carlson pushed back and questioned whether believers are truly commanded to “support the government of Israel.” When Cruz didn’t back down, Carlson demanded that the congressman “define Israel.”

The wick of an ever-smoldering theological debate was immediately lit on social media, with people on all sides pouring gasoline on the resulting flames.

RELATED: How Tucker Carlson vs. Ted Cruz exposed a critical biblical question on Israel

Kayla Bartkowski / Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

Ultimately, the main question centers on whether God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 is speaking about the Jewish people or the nation of Israel — and whether Christianity is the ultimate continuation of that pledge.

“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing,’” reads Genesis 12:1-2. Verse 3 continues: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’”

Cruz’s critics match up this passage with the apostle Paul’s words in Galatians 3:16, “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed,’ meaning one person, who is Christ.”

Thus, some interpreters see Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, while others still see the state of Israel as biblically significant.

Truth in tension

But I’ve often been left wondering: Why can’t both be true?

As we assess these scriptures and consider whether modern-day Israel deserves unfettered support due to prophetic sentiments, we must confront two different realities. First, Israel is unlike any other nation in human history. Its formation, disappearance, and re-emergence raise important questions. It’s a special nation composed of people through whom God has chosen to accomplish His will and offer salvation to all mankind.

Second, humans are prone to sin, and no nation run by mere mortals should be supported unconditionally without accountability. The entirety of the Bible is a testament not only to God’s truth and goodness but also to the pitfalls of man’s folly — even great men like David, Solomon, and Peter.

Ironically, it’s possible that both Cruz and Carlson are speaking kernels of truth or at least asking important questions we must ponder.

History meets prophecy

To first address Cruz, we must pull back and reflect on the stunning facts surrounding modern-day Israel’s existence.

When I was writing my book “Armageddon Code,” an exploration of various Christian beliefs about the end times, Israel’s contemporary existence truly struck me, particularly when I read the prophet Ezekiel’s words in Ezekiel 38, which was likely written during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people in the sixth century B.C.

The prophet foresaw a future time when the Jewish people, who had been driven out and scattered, would come back to their homeland. For nearly 1,900 years after the Second Temple’s destruction in the year 70, the Jewish people were dispersed and persecuted; the idea there would ever again be a Jewish state seemed folly to most.

But the Bible boldly predicted its re-emergence. Ezekiel 37 speaks of a valley of dry bones — imagery invoking skeletal remains coming back together, with tendons, skin, and flesh re-growing. This visualization is said to be Israel as it is restored to the land, with the Lord proclaiming in verse 12: “My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”

For nearly 20 centuries, these words seemed almost implausible — until the Holocaust and its aftermath left the Jewish people around the world reeling and seeking refuge. Remarkably, on May 14, 1948, the modern state of Israel was born.

To deny the prophetic significance is true folly, as no other people group in history has seen its land disappear from the map only to re-emerge nearly two millennia later — all while events lined up with what a prophet penned more than 2,000 years before.

There’s undoubtedly something special about Israel and the Hebrew people, through whom Jesus came. Any student of prophecy knows that the geographic area is key to still-to-be-fulfilled events, and the book of Revelation highlights its involvement in the end times.

Defending freedom — with wisdom

Beyond theological considerations, Israel is one of the main bastions of sanity in the Middle East, a place where freedom reigns. The Jewish state is a key American ally. That’s why constant pledges to wipe it off the face of the earth by political foes like Iran should spark deep concern.

This doesn’t mean America must co-sign each and every Israeli action, nor does it require that Americans participate in Israel’s conflicts. People and nations sin, and Israeli malfeasance — if and when it occurs, just like America’s — must be called to account.

Moreover, from a purely nationalistic position, there are times when “America First” means steering clear of international crises. Past military debacles and quagmires should be overwhelmingly pertinent testaments to our need for caution.

But there are also times when “America First” means intervening to protect American interests. Poor past decisions and wars don’t render every conflict unworthy; such a posture could leave the U.S. in a perilous place.

RELATED: A Christian case for America first

There’s no world in which a nuclear Iran is good for anyone, and burying our heads in the sand while pretending it’s not happening is begging for terror.

So yes: Modern-day Israel holds prophetic significance and meaning. It’s a good, solid, and biblical posture to defend the Jewish people.

But even if you deny the biblical foundation of this argument, it’s morally expedient for our nation to help a friend ward off fiendish foes — enemies that also seek America’s destruction.

Still, such deterrence should always be done in a prayerful, political balance that ensures we truly weigh our engagement against truth, goodness, and American interests. As is the case in all things, discernment is key.

​America first, Israel, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Iran, Prophet ezekiel, Faith 

New York state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for the mayoral election in New York City on Tuesday night.

Despite being behind in almost every poll, Mamdani beat former New York governor and second-place nominee Andrew Cuomo by around seven points. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander came in third.

Mamdani’s election platform included endorsing “LGBTQIA+ protections,” “city-owned grocery stores,” and “Trump-proofing” New York City. Mamdani is also a Democratic Socialist and has worked on the campaigns of fellow socialists.

‘In the words of Nelson Mandela …’

Mamdani took to his X account after his victory and thanked his voters, quoting late activist and first president of South Africa Nelson Mandela.

“In the words of Nelson Mandela: it always seems impossible until it’s done,” Mamdani wrote. “My friends, it is done. And you are the ones who did it. I am honored to be your Democratic nominee for the Mayor of New York City,” the new Democratic candidate added.

During his acceptance speech, Mamdani told supporters, “Above all, our democracy has been attacked from within … and when we no longer believe in our democracy, it only becomes easier for people like Donald Trump to convince us of his worth.”

RELATED: Chain-snatching migrant moped gangs are having their dreams crushed by NYC mayor — but he won’t mention it

Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images

Governor Cuomo conceded just after 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time, saying Mamdani “touched young people, and inspired them, and moved them, and got them to come out and vote.”

“He really ran a highly impactful campaign,” Cuomo told supporters. “I applaud him sincerely for his effort.”

Cuomo served as governor for more than 10 years and was leading almost every major poll by double digits coming into the primary. On Election Day, the New York Times reported that of the 10 most recent polls conducted in June, Cuomo led nine of them, with his biggest lead at +19.

One poll from Public Policy Polling had Mamdani at +5, however.

Just days before the primary, Mamdani’s office told the New York Post he had received a car-bomb threat, despite not owning a car. Mamdani had allegedly received four voicemails in the last few months calling for his or his family’s death, with the latest reportedly calling him a “terrorist piece of s**t.”

Mamdani had blamed the right wing for a threatening message in which the caller said he was going to have the candidate “wash his European feet.”

RELATED: NYC comptroller locks arms with man to prevent ICE arrest: ‘Show me your warrant!’

Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

New York City Comptroller Lander made his own last-minute headlines last week as well. Lander was arrested by federal agents after locking arms with a man facing deportation.

The comptroller yelled, “Show me your warrant! Show me your badge!” as agents attempted to pry him away from a man who had just left a Manhattan courtroom.

In a statement to Blaze News, Dept. of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Lander was arrested for “impeding a federal officer.”

Lander had claimed he was “not obstructing” and was simply “standing right here in the hallway.”

New York investigative reporter Oren Levy reacted to Mamdani’s victory, telling Blaze News, “Mamdani’s win tells you everything about where this city is heading — off a cliff.”

Levy continued, “He’s anti-Israel, a socialist, wants to replace cops with social workers … basically a checklist for the far-left agenda.”

Mamdani recently struggled to answer questions from reporters over criticisms that he supported the phrase “globalize the intifada.” After about 20 seconds trying to find his words, Mamdani told reporters that as mayor, he would do his best to eliminate anti-Semitism in New York City.

Reporter Levy has covered issues like crime and illegal immigration from the mayor’s office in the past few years and predicted “more crime” and “more chaos” under a potential Mamdani rule.

“It’s not over,” Levy added. “November’s coming. Let’s see if New Yorkers wake up by then.”

Mamdani still has to face off against Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder who won the Republican primary unopposed, and Mayor Eric Adams, who announced in April that he will run as an independent in November’s election.

“Our city needs independent leadership that understands working people,” Adams wrote on X.

Adams has been mayor of New York City since January 1, 2022.

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What’s an acceptable level of online child sexual abuse, blackmail, and sextortion? How many teen suicides must happen before someone acts? Most parents would say the answer is obvious: zero.

Apple doesn’t seem to agree. Despite serving as the constant digital companion for millions of American kids, the company has done nothing to rein in the iMessage app — a tool that now functions as an unregulated playground for child predators. Apple has shrugged off the problem while iMessage becomes the wild west of child exploitation: unchecked, unreported, and deadly.

It’s long past time for Apple to confront the truth: Its inaction empowers predators. And that makes the company complicit and accountable.

You wouldn’t leave a toddler alone by the pool. You wouldn’t hand your 9-year-old the keys to a pickup. And when you drive that truck, you don’t let your kid ride on the hood. But every day, parents hand their children a device that could be just as dangerous: the iPhone.

That device follows them everywhere — to school, to bed, into the darkest corners of the internet. The threat doesn’t just come from YouTube or TikTok. It’s baked into iMessage itself — the default communication tool on every iPhone, the one parents use to text their kids.

Unlike social media platforms or games, iMessage gives parents almost no tools to limit its use or increase safety. No meaningful restrictions. No guardrails. No accountability.

Criminals understand this — and they take full advantage. They generate fake nude images of boys and send them via iMessage. Then, they threaten to release the images to the victims’ classmates and followers unless they pay up. It’s extortion. It’s emotional torture. And it often ends in tragedy.

This isn’t rare. It’s growing. Online child-sexual abuse and interaction are spreading fast — and Apple refuses to act.

The statistics are outrageous:

More than one in five children ages 9 to 12 have reported some type of sexual interaction online with someone they believed to be an adult;More than half (54%) of 18- to 20-year-olds experienced “online sexual harms during childhood”;There has been an 80% increase in online grooming crimes in just the past four years;In 2024, the public reported more than 5,000 sextortion cases — and 34% involved iMessage.In just the first three months of this year, 38% of the more than 2,000 reported cases included sextortion attempts via iMessage.

Why do predators prefer iMessage over apps like WhatsApp or Snapchat? According to law enforcement and online safety experts, iMessage offers “an appealing venue” for grooming — a place where predators can build trust with your child. They identify victims on public platforms, then move the conversation to iMessage, where no safety guardrails exist.

RELATED: Is your child being exposed to pedophiles in the metaverse?

ljubaphoto via iStock/Getty Images

And children trust it. That familiar blue bubble? Apple teaches them it means the message came from a “trusted source.” Not just another text — another iPhone.

Apple claims to offer a “communication safety” feature that blurs nude images sent to kids through iMessage. But here’s the catch: The alert lets the child view the image anyway. That’s not a safety feature. That’s a fig leaf.

Apple knows exactly what iMessage enables — a criminal playground for sextortion, child sexual abuse, and worse. But Apple doesn’t act. Why? Because it doesn’t have to. The company sees no urgent economic risk. Today, 88% of American teens own iPhones. This fall, 25% are expected to upgrade to iPhone 17 — up from 22% last year.

The numbers tell the rest of the story.

In 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified more than 20 million cases of suspected online child sexual exploitation — much of it sextortion. Instagram reported 3.3 million. WhatsApp logged more than 1.8 million. Snapchat topped 1.1 million.

Apple reported 250.

No level of child sexual exploitation is acceptable. Not one instance. Content providers and app developers across the industry have taken steps to protect children. Apple, by contrast, has shrugged. Its silence is willful. Its inaction is a choice.

It’s long past time for Apple to confront the truth: Its inaction empowers predators. And that makes the company complicit and accountable — economically, legally, and morally.

​Opinion & analysis, Apple, Iphone, Child exploitation, Child sex abuse, Imessage, National center for missing and exploited children, Monopoly, Youtube, Tiktok, Child predators, Deepfakes, Grooming, Sextortion 

Rumors that Barack and Michelle Obama are on the brink of divorce have been circulating since early this year. Sparked by Michelle’s absence from high-profile events, most notably Jimmy Carter’s funeral and President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the gossip soon turned from whispers into frenzied chatter when suspicions that Barack was having an affair with Jennifer Aniston began to spread.

The couple has denied the rumors, reaffirming their commitment through affectionate social media posts and Michelle’s appearance on the “Work in Progress” podcast with Sophia Bush.

For a while, the rumors quieted down, but Michelle’s recent comments on the “Las Culturistas” podcast on June 18 have caused them to surge again.

On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn and co-host Stu Burguiere addressed this latest development that’s reignited divorce speculation.

Michelle corrected Matt Rogers, one of the hosts on “Las Culturistas,” when he called her “Mrs. Obama.”

“We cannot have a real conversation if you’re saying ‘Mrs. Obama.’ That’s too many syllables,” she said, adding that she’s been trying to get people to call her Michelle since she was the first lady. “Like, I am not that position. I am Michelle.”

“I’m always trying to break down that wall to say, we’re just all here, you know? And the first thing to do is, like, let’s drop that title. That’s a little heavy. You know, that kind of changes the dynamic, so I’m Michelle,” she explained.

Glenn reads between the lines and suggests that it seems like she’s saying, “I don’t like to remember that I’m married.”

“Wouldn’t that be a problem if you were married to Michelle Obama?” he asks.

On the same day, Michelle said something else that hinted all isn’t well between her and Barack. On her own podcast, “IMO,” which she hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, she told guest Angie Martinez, “I’m so glad I didn’t have a boy because he would’ve been a Barack Obama.”

“I don’t think these are rumors anymore,” Glenn says.

“Do you actually believe that Barack Obama is having an affair with Jennifer Aniston?” Stu asks.

“Yeah, I think there’s a good chance of that,” says Glenn, adding that he estimates a “50% chance” the infidelity is true. However, he’s 90% sure there are relationship problems of some sort going on.

“I’m not there … but I can read the tea leaves,” he says.

To hear more of Glenn and Stu’s speculation about what is going on behind closed doors at the Obama residence, watch the episode above.

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Connecticut police said they visited the home of a retired detective at least four times to try to find the missing woman, but the “mountains” of trash kept them from finding her body.

Mary Notarangelo, 73, was reported missing in July 2024, and police tried to look for her at her home at Glastonbury but encountered piles of trash that impended their investigation.

‘There was no path whatsoever. The only way to move from room to room was by climbing over the garbage.’

Police said they visited the home looking for Notarangelo three times in July and once in November. In one incident they tried to send in a drone, but it got caught in cobwebs and became disabled.

It wasn’t until February 24 that workers using a small excavator found Notarangelo’s skeletal remains.

Notarangelo‘s body was found inside the front door under what was described as “multiple feet” of garbage, clothing, and blankets.

Police said the mountains of garbage sometimes reached 6 feet high. They saw dead birds inside of cages and a mouse infestation. They also found one cat in the home.

RELATED: Wife looking for Christmas decorations found ‘mummified’ body of her husband in ‘hoarder home’ after he went missing for 8 months

“There was no path whatsoever. The only way to move from room to room was by climbing over the garbage,” said Officer Anthony Longo.

The friend who called police had told investigators that Notarangelo had told him via text that she had abdominal cramps, vomiting, and had fallen down in June.

The state medical examiner’s office said that they could not make a determination on the cause of the woman’s death because of the advanced decomposition of her remains.

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History offers a grim pattern: A tyrant rises, slaughters the innocent, and the world watches — then regrets. From the ruins of cities and graves of millions comes the same old lesson, relearned too late: Free nations must stand together or perish apart.

In the fifth century, Attila the Hun terrorized Europe. Theodosius II, the Eastern Roman emperor, bought peace by paying Attila 2,100 pounds of gold annually. The Western emperor, Valentinian III, stayed silent — happy to remain out of range. But Attila didn’t stop. He turned west, burned cities, demanded Valentinian’s sister in marriage, and claimed half the empire. Rome tried appeasement again. Gold flowed. But the hunger of predators cannot be satisfied with treasure.

History has handed us one last chance to learn its lesson. Let’s not waste it.

Modern history offers another warning. Adolf Hitler spelled out his genocidal vision in “Mein Kampf.” He made no secret of his plan to build a racially pure Volksgemeinschaft by eliminating “inferior” peoples. Yet, the world did nothing.

When Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland, Europe’s powers stood by. When he absorbed Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, they did nothing. When he threatened Czechoslovakia, the world convened — not to confront him but to appease him. The result was the Munich Agreement, signed in the name of peace, but it delivered only conquest. Six million Jews died. Tens of millions more followed. Once again, the world failed to act until it was far too late.

The refrain “never again” echoed across continents. But history’s warning now blares once more — from Tehran.

On February 11, 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran was born. That August, it declared Al-Quds Day, with crowds chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” The regime announced its goal: global domination under a single theocratic rule. Nonbelievers would be crushed. Sound familiar?

The alarms have only grown louder. In 1979, Iran seized 66 Americans at the U.S. embassy and held 52 of them hostage for over a year. In 1981, Iran’s Islamic Revolution inspired the assassination of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat. In 1982, it supported the Syrian uprising that spawned Hamas. In 1983, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. By the 1990s, Iran backed Ansar Allah — the group now called the Houthis.

Iran built a terrorist Hydra of proxies, encircling Israel with armed fanatics. And the world did what it always does: It looked away.

Even the United States bent the knee. The Reagan administration traded arms for hostages. Obama gave Iran billions in sanctions relief under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — an appeasement deal in all but name, dressed up as diplomacy. In return, Iran advanced its nuclear program while promising not to use it. A familiar bargain: Leave us alone, won’t you? Please?

RELATED: When American men answered the call of civilization

Illustration by Ed Vebell/Getty Images

Then came October 7, 2023. Hamas terrorists — financed by unfrozen Iranian assets — slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis. They raped. They kidnapped. They filmed their atrocities. And still, Iran marched forward, building nuclear capacity for a “final solution.”

Enough.

President Donald Trump saw the danger. Intelligence revealed that Iran was weeks away from building a bomb. He acted.

Eight U.S. B-2 bombers carrying bunker-buster warheads struck Iran’s nuclear sites — Natanz, Isfahan, Fordow, and others. Trump announced to the American people that the regime’s key nuclear enrichment facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.”

Trump did what history demands. He refused to sacrifice nine million Israelis while the world held meetings. He didn’t wait for Tehran to strike first. He acted to stop a second holocaust before it could begin.

This is the difference between a predator’s barbarism and a statesman’s vision. Trump offers peace through strength — as opposed to allowing predators to plunder, rape, and murder their way to barbaric “prosperity.” Trump’s prosperity emerges from shared interest. He champions a commonwealth built on commerce, not conquest.

History has handed us one last chance to learn its lesson. Let’s not waste it.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Iran, Israel, War, Adolf hitler, Nazi germany, Holocaust, World war ii, Attila the hun, Conquest, Appeasement, Roman empire, Hamas, October 7 terror attack 

The former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said that the Democratic Party is in a “really depressing” state without a message and without a leader.

Patti Solis Doyle made the comments in an interview with journalist Mark Halperin on his podcast that aired Friday. Solis Doyle ran Clinton’s failed bid for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

‘When you lose, the party that loses gets … attacked and criticized, and they’re the stupidest people that ever walked the planet, and ‘How could you have missed that?’ That’s what’s happening with the Democrats right now.’

“Right now we’re leaderless, we’re messageless, we’re agendaless, we don’t have any alternative ideas to the president and the Republicans right now. So, you know, I’m concerned, to say the least,” she said.

Solis Doyle went on to say that former President Joe Biden was not leading the party at all.

“You know, if your party holds the White House, the leader of the party is president,” she said. “If your party doesn’t hold the White House, the leader of the party is the last, you know, president of that party. So right now for us, that’s Joe Biden, but he has completely — you know, he’s off the radar completely.”

She also said that she was happy she wasn’t involved with the party because of the political in-fighting.

“It sounds really depressing, what’s going on at the party,” she added. “I mean, overall, when you lose, the party that loses gets, as you know — as I know, personally — attacked and criticized, and they’re the stupidest people that ever walked the planet, and ‘How could you have missed that?’ That’s what’s happening with the Democrats right now. They’re getting attacked from all sides.”

RELATED: Megyn Kelly forces Jake Tapper to face brutal facts about his complicity in Biden health debacle

Photo by BRYAN DOZIER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

A poll in May found that Democrats were extremely pessimistic about the future of their party. Only about one-third of Democrats polled by the Associated Press said they were very optimistic or somewhat optimistic about the future of the party.

Solis Doyle was praised as the first Hispanic woman to manage a presidential campaign. Her parents are originally from Mexico.

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Last week, the Los Angeles Dodgers faced an opponent that didn’t come bearing bats. According to the team’s official X account, it was Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The Dodgers claimed the ICE agents were attempting to access Dodger Stadium but were denied entry. However, there’s one major problem with the story — ICE denies that there were any agents there.

“What happened was, it was Customs and Border Protection, specifically Border Patrol, and of course people were saying, ‘Well, how could you tell?’” Blaze Media national correspondent Julio Rosas tells BlazeTV host Jill Savage and Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson on “Blaze News I The Mandate.”

Rosas explains that in the photos and videos of Border Patrol’s arrival at the stadium, they’re clearly wearing vests that say “Border Patrol” and “Police” on them.

“Los Angeles in particular, but the country as a whole,” he says, “they are just hypersensitive and hypervigilant.”

Recently, there was an issue with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, where in order to calm people down, they had to release a statement explaining that their unmarked units were not ICE.

“The problem is that this has been stoked for a very long time, and Democrats and the media have been very irresponsible in their reporting on operations. So when there’s any hint of any sort of a perceived—real or not—immigration enforcement, people right now are primed to just overreact,” Rosas says.

“It just shows how crazy people have become over this when the whole reason why we’re in this mess in the first place, primarily, is that we had an open border for four years, and the administration is trying to get a handle on this very massive problem,” he adds.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and two other Republicans signed a letter to an immigrant rights nonprofit asking for information linking them to the Los Angeles ICE riots.

Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Los Angeles spiraled into days of violence and vandalism and led to National Guard and U.S. Marine troops being sent out to provide security.

‘This raises concerns that CHIRLA may be using federal funds to support violent criminal activity that impedes the enforcement of federal immigration law.’

In the wake of the rioting, some independent investigators began to link the rioting with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization closely aligned with Democrats.

On Tuesday, House Republicans sent a letter to CHIRLA requesting information documenting where the money was spent in order to determine whether taxpayer funds had been used to fuel the violent riots, according to the New York Post.

The letter said that CHIRLA had received nearly $1 million in taxpayer-funded grants during the Biden-Harris administration.

“This raises concerns that CHIRLA may be using federal funds to support violent criminal activity that impedes the enforcement of federal immigration law,” the letter reads. “As part of our constitutional oversight responsibilities, we request your voluntary cooperation with our oversight of this matter.”

A spokesperson for CHIRLA had previously admitted that the group had organized a press event against ICE ahead of the protests, and had organized “legal observers” to immigration courts and detention centers, but denied any involvement in the protests.

“We have not participated, coordinated, or been part of the protests being registered in Los Angeles other than the press conference and rally cited above,” the spokesperson said.

RELATED: Video shows SoCal vice mayor reportedly issue ICE resistance challenge to violent street gangs: Where are ‘all the cholos’?

Independent investigation from DataRepublican found that CHIRLA had obtained $34 million from California, an amount that had skyrocketed from the $12 million the group had received the year prior.

The judiciary committee gave CHIRLA until July 8 to comply with the request.

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Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont (I) tried to make his case against campaign contributions on the right in front of Joe Rogan, but the popular podcaster shut him down quickly.

Sanders made his pitch against large campaign contributions made by tech billionaire Elon Musk while being interviewed by Rogan on his show.

‘I think that’s probably the worst decision that the Supreme Court has ever made.’

Sanders got Rogan to agree that the U.S. has a “corrupt campaign finance system” and then went on to assail the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“What it says is, ‘You’re a billionaire. You have now the constitutional right because your money is your freedom of expression,’ right?” Sanders explained.

“So you don’t like Bernie Sanders. You can put millions or hundreds of millions of dollars into a campaign and express your view about how terrible Bernie Sanders is, and you can buy that election, right?” he added. “That’s your constitutional right.”

“Right,” Rogan said.

“I think that’s probably the worst decision that the Supreme Court has ever made. So what is the result of that decision?” Sanders said.

RELATED: Bernie Sanders’ aide lashes out at women of ‘The View’ for segment calling him sexist

“The result of that decision, let’s take us to where we are today, is that Elon Musk, and I know Elon was on your show,” Sanders continued, “… He spent $270 million to elect Trump as president. I think that’s absurd, that any one person …”

“What’s the most someone donated towards the Harris campaign?” Rogan interjected.

“They spent a lot of money on Harris as well,” replied Sanders.

“They spent $1.5 billion just over the course of a couple of months,” Rogan responded.

“You got it!” Sanders said.

“I’m not here to say it’s just a Republican — that’s my point here.”

Rogan went on to ridicule the powers that would try to defeat any campaign financing reform, which delighted Sanders.

A video clip of the debate went viral on social media, with one post garnering more than 1.4 million views in a few hours.

Rogan has previously said that he was a supporter of Bernie Sanders as president, but he dropped a surprise endorsement for Trump in the last days before the 2024 election.

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Progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — and even some Republicans, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — are calling President Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities unconstitutional because he didn’t get congressional approval. They point to Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which grants Congress the sole power to declare war, and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires congressional authorization for prolonged or substantial military actions unless responding to an imminent attack, as evidence that his actions were unjustified.

AOC and Democratic Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) have even gone so far as to claim that the strikes are an impeachable offense.

To get clarity on the issue, Glenn Beck brought in Gabriel Noronha, president of Polaris National Security and former State Department special adviser for Iran.

“Did the president need to have congressional permission before striking Iran over the weekend?” Glenn asks.

“No, he did not,” is Noronha’s candid answer.

“It would have been nice to have. It strengthens the president’s hand when he does have congressional authorization for the use of military force. But the Constitution grants him the powers as commander in chief to take all necessary actions, especially in a limited fashion like he just did,” he explains.

Glenn agrees, adding, “They never said anything about ISIS when he went after ISIS and shut them down, right? … Why all of a sudden is this one so different than all of the limited strikes we have seen from all of the presidents recently?”

Noronha reiterates Glenn’s frustration, pointing to “Libya 2011” as well as “ISIS 2014-15,” where “more intense” versions of the “the same scenario” played out, but “Democrats didn’t say anything” about needing congressional approval.

Why the sudden pearl-clutching?

“The reason here,” says Noronha, “is because they want to find something to attack President Trump for, but there’s nothing on the policy because [the strikes] went so well, so they’re going onto the legal crutch just because they don’t have anything else.”

Ironically, Congress has had multiple opportunities to prevent presidents from attacking Iran. Noronha, who was “in Congress for four years,” says he witnessed at least “a dozen” attempts to “strip the president of the ability to attack Iran,” and every single time, they failed.

“They always said, ‘No, we want the president to have the ability to strike Iran if and when it’s necessary,”’ he tells Glenn.

But when it comes to Donald Trump specifically, there’s always been a double standard.

“Congress is so radicalized now,” says Glenn. “They’re marching in the streets with people who are burning our cities to the ground.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the video above.

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House Democrats unanimously voted against a resolution Tuesday formally condemning the destructive anti-ICE riots that took place in Los Angeles, California.

The resolution narrowly passed the House, with 217 Republicans voting in the affirmative while 206 Democrats voted in the negative. The riots protesting ICE deportations in Southern California involved rocks being hurdled at law enforcement and attendees waving foreign flags.

‘Peaceful protests are a constitutional right, but vandalism, looting, violence, and other crimes are not.’

Even as multiple cars burned in a news clip, one anchor described the riots as “relatively peaceful” and “relatively calm,” reminding many viewers of the “fiery but mostly peaceful” BLM riots of 2020, according to CNN.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took issue with the resolution, saying he “will not be lectured by extreme MAGA Republicans about questions of law and order.” He also disagreed with the classification, saying there was “unrest” but refusing to acknowledge that it was a riot.

RELATED: Republican senator makes a stunning admission: ‘I can’t be somebody that I’m not’

Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Notably, the resolution “recognizes the right to assemble and protest peacefully” and “condemns unequivocally the violence perpetrated against Federal, State, and local law enforcement.” Despite claiming to hold the same values outlined in the resolution, Jeffries and his 205 colleagues voted against the resolution.

RELATED: Republicans clash with Democratic lawmakers defending violent anti-ICE rioters

Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

California Republican Rep. Young Kim spearheaded the resolution, emphasizing the distinction between peaceful protests and outright chaos and lawlessness.

“Peaceful protests are a constitutional right, but vandalism, looting, violence, and other crimes are not,” Kim said. “Protecting public safety shouldn’t be controversial, which is why I am leading the California Republican delegation in a resolution to support law and order as we continue to see unrest.”

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The vice mayor of a small city in Los Angeles County may be regretting her apparent taunting challenge to gang members to organize resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation operations after the feds reportedly opened an investigation about the post.

Cynthia Gonzalez reportedly posted a video of herself asking gang members in Los Angeles why they haven’t stepped up to defend their turf against federal agents as the feud between local officials and the Trump administration continues.

‘You guys tag everything up, claiming hood, and now that your hood’s being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain’t a peep out of you!’

“Not for nothing, but I want to know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles,” said Gonzalez in a video posted on social media by Bill Melugin of Fox News.

“Cholos” refers to Hispanics, primarily Mexican-Americans, who are gang members. She went on to call out specific gangs of the area by name, including Florencia 13, which is connected to the Mexican Mafia.

“18th Street, Florencia, where is the leadership at? Because you guys are all about territory, ‘This is 18th Street,’ and, ‘This is Florencia.’ You guys tag everything up, claiming hood, and now that your hood’s being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain’t a peep out of you!” she continued.

“It’s everybody else who’s not about the gang life that’s out there protesting and speaking up. We’re out there, like, fighting our turf! Protecting our turf, protecting our people! And like where you at?” she added.

“Bien calladitos!” she repeats, which is Spanish for “very quiet!”

RELATED: LA Dodgers say they blocked ICE agents at stadium after campaign to pressure team to condemn deportations

Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

“Dude, they’re running amok all up on your streets! On your streets and in your city! And [look], when the big gangs, the guns come in, nothing but like quiet, and we’re out here, the regular ones that have never been jumped in, out here, calling things out, trying to organize people, trying to do the thing!” Gonzalez continued.

“So don’t be trying to claim no block, no nothing, if you’re not showing up right now, trying to like help out and organize. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you once they’re gone!” she added.

She reportedly later deleted the video.

Melugin said that federal sources told him FBI agents had visited her home, and an investigation was opened into the video. The FBI told Fox it could not confirm or deny the investigation.

He also said he reached out to Gonzales and the city of Cudahy but received no response.

Although Cudahy is a small town by area, which is just above one square mile, it has among the highest density ratios in the U.S. because of its 22,800 residents.

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the man the mainstream media labeled a “Maryland father” despite the fact that he entered the U.S. illegally and exhibits signs of MS-13 gang affiliation — might be released from criminal custody. In April, after the Supreme Court upheld an order by a federal judge, Garcia was returned to the U.S. from a Salvadoran prison, but he was soon hit with human trafficking charges and detained.

Now, another lower court judge has intervened. Tennessee Judge Barbara D. Holmes has ordered Garcia’s release from criminal custody until his trial arrives. The hearing to discuss the conditions of his release is scheduled for tomorrow.

“Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Abrego’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable to other persons or the community,” Holmes announced.

“He was extradited back to the United States to stand trial for human trafficking in Tennessee, so there’s that,” scoffs Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

She then plays the bodycam footage of Garcia being pulled over by Tennessee Highway Patrol in 2022, which captures Garcia’s large vehicle with eight passengers inside. This footage is being used by prosecutors in his human smuggling trial to support allegations that he was transporting illegal immigrants.

But there’s more evidence that suggests Garcia poses a threat to the community. Sara plays an audio clip of Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, recounting his history of domestic abuse.

“I kept trying to get to the door basement to try to open the door, and then, like, he pushed me,” Sura said, adding that she called 911 but had to ask a neighbor for “help” since it was taking police a long time to respond.

“When [Garcia] heard me [call for help], like, he grabbed me from my hair and then he slapped me, and then the neighbor, like, he didn’t know what to do. … I have pictures of the evidence, like all the bruises,” she added, noting that the abuse was not a one-time incident.

“He would just wake up and, like, hit me, and then last Saturday … before I went to my daughter’s birthday party, he slammed me three times. … My sister called the police because he hit me in front of my sister,” she said.

Besides the reality that Garcia is an “illegal human trafficker domestic abuser,” he’s “a really good guy,” says Sara sarcastically.

BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden predicts that if Garcia is released, “he’ll either flee and they won’t be able to find him, or he’ll go on and do something within his own character,” likely “something violent.”

“If criminals know that they’re going to go away for a long time, they go on a crime spree. I mean we’ve seen it over and over and over again,” he adds.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the video above.

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The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration could restart deportations of illegal aliens to countries not their own. While this decision will speed up the mass deportation process, there remains a need for detention facilities.

To help satisfy this need, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) tasked state leaders with identifying places for a new facility. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier evidently had a good spot in mind.

Last week, Uthmeier made a public pitch in favor of “Alligator Alcatraz” — “an old, virtually abandoned airport facility” in the Everglades that could serve as “the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.”

The state attorney general noted that the 39-square-mile area, which “is completely surrounded by the Everglades,” presents an “efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out and there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons — nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”

Uthmeier confirmed Monday that Alligator Alcatraz is a go.

The Department of Homeland Security told Blaze News that the Florida Division of Emergency Management will build a facility on the location that will house up to 5,000 beds for illegal aliens.

RELATED: Illegal alien suspected of wielding weed whacker at ICE agents is called a ‘father’ and ‘victim’ by local outlet

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Florida law enforcement officers who capture under the 287(G) program — a program delegating specific immigration enforcement authority to state and local officers under the Immigration and Nationality Act — can dump detainees off at Alligator Alcatraz. ICE will similarly be able to transfer aliens to the Florida facility under 287(g) authority.

The DHS anticipates that the facility will be functional in a matter of days, initially with 500 to 1,000 beds, but ultimately 5,000 beds by early July, following expansions in several 500-bed increments.

Authorities might ultimately build hardened structures on the site, but for the time being, Alligator Alcatraz will largely be a tented destination.

While illegal aliens sweat it out in the soft-sided structures, Florida Division of Emergency Management workers will be housed in old Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers that have apparently been renovated.

‘I’m proud to help support President Trump and Secretary Noem in their mission to fix our illegal immigration problem once and for all.’

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to Blaze News. “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”

RELATED: Judge orders release of Kilmar Garcia — but DHS vows that ‘he will never go free on American soil’

Image (left): Department of Homeland Security; Photo (right): Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Noem noted further that the new facilities “will in large part be funded by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden Administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens, including at the Roosevelt Hotel that served as a Tren de Aragua base of operations that was used to shelter Laken Riley’s killer.”

According to the DHS, the approximate cost of running the facility will be $245 per bed per day and an annual cost of $450 million. Florida will initially foot the bill but later receive reimbursement from FEMA, which has roughly $625 million in Shelter and Services Program funds available for this effort.

“I’m proud to help support President Trump and Secretary Noem in their mission to fix our illegal immigration problem once and for all,” stated Uthmeier. “Alligator Alcatraz and other Florida facilities will do just that.”

Hundreds of protesters traveled to the site of the future detention facility on Sunday to protest its construction, reported WGCU-TV. Their concerns largely appeared to be tied up with the potential environmental impact of the facility on supposedly “sacred” land.

Illegal immigrant advocates have similarly criticized the proposed facility albeit for difference reasons.

For instance, Mark Fleming, the associate director of federal litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told the New York Times that the move amounted to an “independent, unaccountable detention system.”

“The fact that the administration and its allies would even consider such a huge temporary facility,” said Fleming, “on such a short timeline, with no obvious plan for how to adequately staff medical and other necessary services, in the middle of the Florida summer heat is demonstrative of their callous disregard for the health and safety of the human beings they intend to imprison there.”

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