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You wouldn’t expect interfaith marriage to cause controversy in 2025. In the professional class, shared religion ranks well below shared ambition. The modern couple’s creed is compatibility — career, education, politics, lifestyle.

So when JD Vance — a Catholic convert who once moved easily through the meritocratic elite — said he hoped his wife might one day share his faith, it struck many as strange, even retrograde. But that’s only because he meant it. Vance shows what happens when someone in our secular meritocracy takes faith seriously — when belief stops being a cultural accessory and becomes a claim on the soul.

Where Hinduism says you are born to your station, Christianity says you are born again. Where one sanctifies hierarchy, the other sanctifies humility.

Keep it mind that Vance’s language was hardly that of a wild-eyed zealot.

Do I hope, eventually, that she is somehow moved by the same thing I was moved in, by church? Yeah, honestly, I do wish that, because I believe in the Christian gospel. … But if she doesn’t, then God says everybody has free will and so that doesn’t cause a problem for me.

Yet that ordinary expression of devotion triggered extraordinary backlash. The Hindu American Foundation accused Vance of implying that his wife’s faith was “not enough,” while a Hindu-American professor and author suggested that his remarks were somehow suggestive of “these larger politics of anti-immigration, anti-migrants, replacement theory and white Christian nationalism.”

But the controversy sidestepped the real issue: Vance dared to suggest that Christianity was true.

Usha Vance was raised in Southern California by Hindu immigrant parents, part of the Telugu Brahmin community from Andhra Pradesh. Her family background emphasizes scholarly achievement as much as Hindu tradition. Yet she herself — even while acknowledging and respecting her heritage — comes across as culturally Hindu but not deeply religious. In her words:

My parents are Hindu … and that’s one of the things that made them such good parents.

She and Vance agreed that their children would be raised Catholic; she often attends Mass with the family but remains Hindu by identity.

The credentialed caste

When Vance and Usha met at Yale Law School — the quintessential temple of American meritocracy — they were both first and foremost striving “elite” Americans: she from a high-achieving immigrant-Brahmin background, he a white working-class “deplorable” turned law student turned best-selling author. In that arena, nothing except success mattered.

Unlike Christianity, which erects an inconvenient standard that challenges worldly success, Hinduism (at least in its cultural shape) aligns neatly with the American worship of credentials and achievement. The traditional Indian caste system is less flexible but analogous to America’s unspoken caste system of education, networks, and privilege.

JD Vance began near the bottom of America’s merit hierarchy, where the elite track was something aspirational — a ladder to be climbed. For Usha, raised by highly educated immigrant parents (her father is a professor of aerospace engineering; her mother teaches molecular biology), it was a natural progression — a path expected and prepared for from childhood. But both shared the same fundamental assumption: that the track itself was worth striving for.

Born again

Christianity’s radical proposition — that worth is inherent and not earned, inherited, or compiled — challenges this assumption in a way that Usha’s native religion does not. Hinduism, in its cultural form, may not command conversion, but its social logic is deeply gradated. Whereas Christianity says, “You are born again; status is no barrier,” the caste-and-credential structure says: status defines you from birth, and mobility is uncertain.

Christianity’s radical proposition — that worth is inherent and not earned, inherited or compiled — challenges this assumption in a way Usha’s native religion does not. Hinduism (in its cultural form) may not command conversion, but its social logic is deeply gradated. Whereas Christianity says, “You are born again; status is no barrier,” the caste/credential structure says that status defines you from birth and mobility is uncertain.

Birth as moral destiny

Hinduism, to the uninitiated, is often sold as incense and enlightenment — a smiling guru on a yoga mat quoting Rumi out of context. But beneath the linen and lotus flowers lies one of the oldest and most enduring social hierarchies on earth.

While Hinduism contains many schools of thought and not every community treats caste the same way, in much of Indian cultural Hinduism, the caste hierarchy has been deeply embedded and justified through ideas of karma, dharma, and rebirth.

In lived experience, the caste system functions like spiritual software running the faith’s social order: You are born ranked, your worth preloaded. Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra — and for those left off the list, the Dalits, the “untouchables.” A Dalit doctor may save a Brahmin’s life yet still not be welcome at his dinner table.

Caste is theology in action — the idea that birth itself is moral destiny. It tells the poor they earned their poverty, the oppressed that they deserve it, and the powerful that they were born benevolent. It turns suffering into a kind of divine bookkeeping, where pain is a balance due and injustice merely interest accrued. Once suffering is justified, compassion becomes optional. Why help the beggar if he’s merely working off last life’s bad karma?

RELATED: Slate goes low, attacks Vance’s wife with race-based insult

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Grace against gradation

Christianity, particularly Catholicism, stands as the great heresy against that logic. Where Hinduism says you are born to your station, Christianity says you are born again. Where one sanctifies hierarchy, the other sanctifies humility. The Church’s saints were lepers, paupers, slaves — not because they were unlucky in the reincarnation lottery, but because God works through what the world despises.

That reversal is radical. It upends the whole karmic calculus. In Catholicism, your worth is inherent, not inherited or earned.

That’s what draws men like JD Vance to the Church. The incense and Latin are beautiful, but it’s the promise of undeserved mercy that matters — that the son of a drug addict from Ohio can kneel beside a trust-fund heir, both equally fallen and equally forgiven. That is Catholicism’s great equalizer: every soul on its knees, bowing not to someone higher on the ladder, but to what stands above every rung and rank.

Sanctified servitude

Vance’s faith, like his politics, offends the meritocrats because it dismantles their favorite fiction — that purity and privilege share a pedigree. Hinduism built that fiction into its bones; America has simply rebranded it. We call it “achievement.” You see it in Silicon Valley’s spiritual tourism — billionaires chanting mantras between board meetings, preaching mindfulness while outsourcing misery. Caste has gone corporate. The modern Brahmin doesn’t bless your crops; he manages your data.

There’s dark comedy in watching America’s tech elite flirt with the same faith that once sanctified servitude. From Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg’s pilgrimages to the Indian ashram Kainchi Dham — founded by the late guru Neem Karoli Baba — to the adaptation of Vipassana meditation as the ultimate productivity hack, the fascination is real.

Yes, the Hindu American Foundation describes caste as “one of the most complicated and misunderstood concepts” and denies that it is intrinsic to Hinduism. And the former tech exec drawn to Indian culture as the peak of “progressive, enlightened thinking” may be inclined to take them at their word.

But the actual Indians toiling in Silicon Valley have a different experience. Dalit tech workers report widespread discrimination from those in higher castes, to the extent that California lawmakers passed the nation’s first anti-caste discrimination bill in 2023. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) subsequently vetoed it.

The scandal of Christianity

When Vance expressed hope that his wife might share his faith, critics saw coercion. But Catholicism teaches the opposite: that redemption can’t be inherited or imposed. You can’t inherit salvation the way you inherit caste or credentials. You have to choose it.

That’s the scandal of Christianity and also its comedy. In a world obsessed with genetics, code, and status, it says the drunk can stumble into heaven as long as he repents before he throws up. Try pitching that in Silicon Valley or New Delhi and see how far you get before being escorted back to reality.

That’s why my fiancée squirms when Western progressives romanticize Hinduism as a tolerant, mystical faith. You can admire the temples and still condemn the theology that built them. Her rejection isn’t of India or its culture, but of the cruelty embedded in its cosmology.

She still lights candles for her ancestors, still loves the poetry of her heritage, but she refuses to bow to its hierarchy. In a world that worships status, she has chosen dignity instead. And in that quiet defiance lies a truth older than any temple or text: Faith, real faith, doesn’t chain you to the past — it sets you free from it.

​J.d. vance, Usha vance, Hinduism, Caste system, Yale, Karma, Catholicism, Christianity, Conversion, Lifestyle, Faith 

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent sustained serious injuries to his face on Monday during an immigration raid in Houston, the Department of Homeland Security reported on Thursday.

According to a DHS press release, Walter Leonel Perez Rodriguez, 33, was arrested during a Monday encounter with ICE agents in Houston.

‘This young officer’s life has forever been altered as a result of the continued hyper-politicization of routine law enforcement activities and spread of misinformation by the media, NGOs, and other groups opposed to immigration enforcement.’

During the encounter, Rodriguez is “alleged to have resisted arrest and physically assaulted an ICE officer with a metal coffee cup.”

The ICE officer sustained severe burns and a “deep gash” to his face that required 13 stitches.

RELATED: Illegal alien learns his fate after a Wisconsin judge allegedly helped him evade ICE

ice.gov

“This young officer’s life has forever been altered as a result of the continued hyper-politicization of routine law enforcement activities and spread of misinformation by the media, NGOs, and other groups opposed to immigration enforcement in this country,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said in a statement.

“By focusing on our officers and spreading false propaganda about how we accomplish our mission, they are emboldening dangerous illegal aliens like this child predator to physically resist arrest. This insanity has to stop before anyone else gets hurt,” Bradford added.

Rodriguez, a Salvadoran national, has a long criminal record prior to his recent arrest and charges.

The Department of Homeland Security stated Rodriguez illegally entered the U.S. “at least three times” and faced deportation in 2013 and 2020.

In addition to the immigration offenses, Rodriguez, a “pedophile and criminal illegal alien,” was convicted of sexually assaulting a child, child fondling, and “multiple” DUIs, according to the DHS.

“Anyone who lays a hand on our ICE officer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote on X.

Now in custody, Rodriguez was referred for prosecution on charges of illegal re-entry and assaulting a federal officer.

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​Politics, Ice, Ice agent, Houston, Bret bradford, Walter leonel perez rodriguez, El salvador, Illegal alien, Child predator, Assault, Dhs, Department of homeland security 

A co-star from “The Cosby Show” says there should be nuance when talking about Bill Cosby’s career.

Cosby’s iconic family sitcom aired from September 1984 to April 1992 and is frequently mentioned among the greatest shows of all time, including in TV Guide’s top 50 shows list of 2002.

With Cosby since being accused of a plethora of sex crimes, networks pulled his show from the air and seemingly kept it off following an overturned conviction and release from prison in 2021.

Now, one of his former castmates is saying it’s time to separate Cosby’s personal life from his creative works.

‘Black people pushed through the door, and now we’re getting all colors.’

Appearing on an episode of actor Jamie Kennedy’s “Hate to Break It to Ya” podcast, a former child actor and Disney star came to the defense of the 88-year-old’s show, on which she starred.

“Separate the creator from the creation,” Raven-Symoné said. The actress played Olivia Kendall on “The Cosby Show.”

“That’s just where I live because the creation changed America, changed television,” she said of Cosby’s family-oriented program.

Quoth the Raven

The 39-year-old, whose full name is Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman-Maday, has had a long and successful career appearing in countless sitcoms, while shining as a young adult in the Disney kid classic “That’s So Raven,” which had 100 episodes in the mid-2000s.

At the same time, Symoné did not excuse Cosby’s alleged crimes on the podcast.

RELATED: Disney star gives bizarre take on Florida’s parental rights bill: ‘Should be a Don’t Say Straight bill’

Photo By: Art Murphy/NBC) via Getty Images

After host Kennedy noted how many black people Cosby had provided jobs to, Symoné jumped in:

“He also has been accused of some horrific things,” she added, before reiterating, “And that does not excuse, but that’s his personal [life]. So personally, keep that there, and then business-wise, know what he did there as well. Like you said, both can live, and I think our culture is right to — don’t do wrong. Don’t do wrong personally. You just can’t do wrong.”

Color commentary

Kennedy and Symoné went back and forth on how great diversity is, with Symoné saying “thank goodness” to the idea of diversity being “protected” in the entertainment industry.

“Black people pushed through the door, and now we’re getting all colors, all types, all backgrounds, and it’s protected — thank goodness — now. So, it’s mandatory in a way,” she explained.

Kennedy agreed that diversity is a strength, pulling from his own experience living near “the hood” in Philadelphia.

RELATED: ‘I will move’: Barbra Streisand claims yet again she will leave the United States if Donald Trump is elected

Photo by Anna Webber/Getty Images for Teen Vogue

You don’t say

The former “View” pundit has never been shy about broadcasting her opinions.

Before the 2016 election, Symoné said she would leave the country if Donald Trump became president.

“I’m going to move to Canada with my entire family. I already have my ticket,” she said to then-cohost Whoopi Goldberg.

In 2022, she colloquially called for a “Don’t Say Straight” bill to be drafted in Florida in response to a law that Democrats dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The term was born out of a misunderstanding of Florida law that barred teachers in the state from teaching about gender and sexuality with certain age groups.

Symoné is a lesbian and hosts a podcast with her wife, Miranda Maday. This is where Symoné reflected on commentary she made in 2014 when she said she was sick of being labeled.

“I don’t want to be labeled gay,” she said at the time, per ABC News. “I want to be labeled a human who loves humans.”

She added, “I’m tired of being labeled — I’m an American. I’m not an African-American. I’m an American.”

Symoné clarified in 2024 that she obviously knows where her ancestry lies and said that people had accused her of not considering herself black.

“When I am in another country, they don’t say, ‘Hey, look at that African-American over there.’ They say, ‘That’s an American,’ plain and simple.”

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​Align, Television, Tv, Cosby, Bill cosby, Black, Sitcom, Entertainment 

A humble, decades-old folate compound — used not to fight cancer but to ease the side effects of chemotherapy — has become the latest flashpoint in America’s health wars.

On September 10, the Trump administration announced that the FDA would move toward approving leucovorin for children with cerebral folate deficiency, a rare metabolic disorder linked to autism in some cases. Supporters hailed it as long-overdue recognition of promising small studies; critics called it another example of the MAHA agenda politicizing science.

While bureaucrats and scientists bicker, families with real skin in the game tirelessly run their own experiments and share their results, hoping the science will eventually catch up.

The debate since has been fierce, with professional groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics advising against the off-label use of leucovorin for autism, warning that the evidence remains preliminary — while prominent physicians call for larger, biomarker-guided trials to confirm what early studies suggest.

A parent’s love

All parties insist their motives are pure, but this latest skirmish is a reminder of how tangled those motives can be. What drives the people and institutions pushing medical science forward is often a sincere desire to help people, yes — mixed in with ambition, rivalry, financial interest, and the unspoken urge to be the one who’s right.

But there’s another force at work here, deeper and simpler, and it tends to override all the rest: a parent’s love for a child.

This is the same love that kept the parents of children with cystic fibrosis pushing to understand a condition doctors considered hopeless, or that led a Hollywood father to resurrect a forgotten epilepsy therapy to help his son. And now it’s the force animating hundreds of parents who believe a decades-old folate compound has literally given their autistic children a voice.

While bureaucrats and scientists bicker, families with real skin in the game tirelessly run their own experiments and share their results, hoping the science will eventually catch up.

Even before the FDA signaled approval of leucovorin for cerebral folate deficiency — a rare metabolic disorder with links to autism — parents have been sharing reports of progress with the drug on Reddit forums and in Facebook groups to share anecdotal reports of progress. A few families have also told their stories in clinic-produced or news-segment videos.

A treatment’s hope

Leucovorin, also called folinic acid, is a bioactive form of folate. It’s been used for decades to “rescue” patients from high-dose chemotherapy. In autism, it’s being repurposed to bypass what some researchers call a “folate transport blockade.”

Up to 70% of autistic children in certain studies test positive for folate receptor alpha autoantibodies — immune proteins that prevent folate from reaching the brain. The result: cerebral folate deficiency. High-dose folinic acid appears to restore that supply, sometimes with striking behavioral effects.

Dr. Richard Frye, a pediatric neurologist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, led one of the first controlled trials in 2016. His team found improved verbal communication in FRAA-positive children treated with leucovorin. Later case studies described language bursts, better eye contact, and calmer affect.

RELATED: Tylenol fights autism claims, slams proposed FDA warning label as ‘unsupported’ by science

Photo by ISSAM AHMED/AFP via Getty Images

From ‘no words’ to the Pledge of Allegiance

The parents themselves provide more affecting testimony. Carolyn Connor’s son Mason was 1 when she realized something was amiss: “He wasn’t talking. No language. No words.”

When their pediatrician downplayed this lag in development as typical in boys, she and her husband began doing their own research, which led them to Frye. Three days after starting leucovorin, Mason spoke his first words.

Now 6, he continues to take the medication, and continues to thrive.

Beth Ann Kersse’s daughter was diagnosed with autism at age 3. “In her vocabulary she had about three or four words,” Kersse said in a video uploaded by Washington, D.C.-based Potomac Psychiatry.

“But she didn’t call me ‘Mom.’ She kind of would point at me,” she added.

That’s when Kersse and her husband began exploring leucovorin. Two years later, Kersse describes her almost 5-year-old daughter’s transformation as “incredible.”

“The other day she stood up and put her hand over her heart, and she recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and we were just like, OK … I didn’t know we knew that. … She’s able to have a full conversation; she can tell us how she’s feeling.”

Late last month, Nebraska pediatrician Dr. Phil Boucher posted a case study detailing how a 3.5-year-old autistic girl responded to leucovin treatment, citing texts from her mother reporting that she was “blown away” by the changes she observed:

She is starting to consistently look at people when they call her name. … She’s becoming more interested in her little sister. … She also has started taking some of the baby dolls that we have and has been covering them up with a blanket, giving them a kiss, and saying, “Night night.”

As Boucher is careful to point out, anecdotal success stories like these don’t prove the drug works. But to those experiencing the improvement firsthand, they’re a promising sign that a simple, inexpensive vitamin derivative can do what years of therapy can’t.

And if this promise does indeed bear fruit, leucovorin treatment will be the latest of many homegrown revolutions in medical care spearheaded by determined mothers and fathers unwilling to wait for consensus.

​Autism, Leucovorin, Fda, Lifestyle, Mothers, Rfk jr, Tylenol, Medicine, Make america healthy again 

Jamie Dimon has been running JPMorgan Chase for nearly two decades. The business press still hails him as the man who steered the bank through the 2008 financial crisis.

I’m less impressed. It’s easy to look steady at the helm when you’re floating on a $29 trillion sea of taxpayer bailouts.

This is what half a century of bipartisan corruption produces: a crony capitalist system that privatizes profit, socializes loss, and lets the rest of us drown.

Yes, Dimon saw the 2008 crash coming and made some smart adjustments ahead of the collapse. Credit where it’s due — barely. But once the dust settled, JPMorgan rewarded itself handsomely for surviving the storm.

JP Morgan said yesterday that its earnings “fell short” of their potential last year — but it still felt able to hand its investment bankers a 22 per cent increase in their bonuses.

Kicking off what could be a stormy reporting season, America’s second-largest bank paid them $9.3bn, compared with $7.7bn in 2008. Total pay for its 222,315 employees came in at $26.9bn — 18 per cent from $22.7bn the year before — largely because of a sharp increase in bonuses paid throughout the bank. The announced sparked outrage among critics who described the figures as “obscene.”

“Obscene” doesn’t begin to cover it.

So when Dimon made headlines a couple of weeks ago with his “cockroaches” comment, I didn’t rush to celebrate another round of supposed insight.

“When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned of this one,” Dimon told analysts, referring to the bankruptcies of subprime auto lender Tricolor and auto-parts maker First Brands.

Dimon’s metaphor was awkward enough — he mentioned two cockroaches while warning about seeing just one. But worse, he got caught by the same kind of subprime rot that tanked the global economy in 2008.

“Dimon said that JPMorgan is reviewing its controls after the Tricolor bankruptcy and said the $170 million loss is ‘not our finest moment.’”

No kidding. His “cockroach detector” still doesn’t work.

Now Dimon is back in the headlines again for another round of supposed “foresight.”

“JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned in an interview that the stock market could be in line for a significant correction within the next few years amid heightened uncertainty. Dimon told the BBC that there is an elevated risk of a stock market correction in the next six months to two years, saying, ‘I am far more worried about that than others.’”

Glad to meet you, Mr. Dimon. Some of us have been worried for decades.

RELATED: America’s debt denial has gone global

Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Back in 1989, when my high-school history teacher asked the class to name America’s biggest problem, I said “the federal debt.” Not just because debt is bad, but because Washington was pretending deficits didn’t matter — and voters let them.

Nearly 40 years later, nothing has changed. The numbers are bigger. The lies are the same. Ignore a problem long enough, and it grows until it devours you.

Our economy isn’t a Mr. Potato Head toy, where government spending sits neatly apart from everything else. It’s one big pile of money — and the federal government keeps shoveling from the productive side to the wasteful side.

Every dollar borrowed for political vanity projects is a dollar you can’t use to start a business or buy a home. As the federal machine consumes more and more of the pool, it’s not the elites who get crowded out. It’s everyone else.

Poor people’s home mortgages are down 46%. Rich people’s art-collection loans are up 30%.

This is what half a century of bipartisan corruption produces: a crony capitalist system that privatizes profit, socializes loss, and lets the rest of us drown.

Look at Walmart. The company pulls tens of billions of taxpayer dollars a year through the SNAP program — the same program many of its employees rely on to eat because Walmart won’t pay them enough to live.

Independent research confirms it: Thousands of Walmart workers depend on Medicaid and food stamps.

Big government lets big business pocket our tax money on both ends — profits in private, losses in public. Even their labor costs get offloaded to us.

So when politicians wail about a “government shutdown” disrupting SNAP payments, remember who they’re really worried about. It’s not the families at the grocery store. It’s the corporations cashing in.

RELATED: Trump admin blames Senate Democrats for SNAP debacle: ‘The well has run dry’

Photo by Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A system this warped can’t last. You can call America the greatest nation in history if you like, but greatness doesn’t square with more than $38 trillion in government debt and record levels of personal debt.

Household debt, credit-card debt, mortgage debt — all at historic highs. Nearly a quarter of Americans are buying food on layaway. And 42% have zero emergency savings.

Meanwhile, Washington keeps inflating Wall Street’s floaties.

Main Street drowns while Big Government keeps Big Business comfortably above the surface.

Jamie Dimon thinks he’s just spotted the first cockroach. But the infestation started long ago — right inside the marble halls of Washington, D.C.

And if no one finally fumigates the place, the rot will force-condemn the entire country.

​Opinion & analysis, Jamie dimon, Jpmorgan chase, Bailouts, 2008 banking crisis, Great recession, Cockroach infestation, Global economy, Wall street, Main street, Free markets, Capitalism, Crony capitalism, National debt, Mortgages, Credit card debt, Grocery prices, Inflation, Affordability crisis 

An Oklahoma teenager was facing 78 years in prison for 10 charges related to rape, but he was allowed to walk free after being granted youthful offender status.

Jesse Butler, 18, was instead sentenced to community service as well as counseling. He also will not have to register as a sex offender.

‘The laws are there, but what do you do when they don’t follow them? Does this sound like justice?’

Butler was charged with rape, attempted rape, sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy, and assault in relation to rapes committed against two fellow students that he was dating, according to court documents.

At the time of his arrest, he was 17 years old.

Police said they found video on his phone of him choking one of the victims. The other victim was reportedly choked unconscious and nearly died.

He initially pleaded not guilty but agreed to plead no contest in a deal with the district attorney that changed his status to a youthful offender.

Members of the Stillwater community who were shocked by the sentencing protested on Wednesday at the Payne County Courthouse.

“The justice system here in Stillwater has allowed a violent sex offender to walk free. Not only is he currently free and loose on the streets. He’s a virtual student at Stillwater Public Schools as a senior, and after he finishes having the slap on the wrist, he doesn’t even have to register as a sex offender,” Tori Grey said at the protest.

“I want him to get what he deserves. He needs to be prosecuted,” said Stillwater High School student Tristan Turner.

RELATED: Man who raped his 2 stepdaughters on prison visits was accidentally released twice, then murdered by another victim’s brother

Oklahoma state Rep. Justin Humphrey (R) said on News Nation’s “Banfield” that the development was “corrupt.”

“How in the world did this judge get to this?” he asked.

“The laws are there, but what do you do when they don’t follow them? Does this sound like justice?” he continued.

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​Jesse butler, Rape charges, Youthful offender status, Crime, Stillwater oklahoma 

America needs more farmers, ranchers, and private landholders — not more data centers and chatbots. Yet the federal government is now prioritizing artificial intelligence over agriculture, offering vast tracts of public land to Big Tech while family farms and ranches vanish and grocery bills soar.

Conservatives have long warned that excessive federal land ownership, especially in the West, threatens liberty and prosperity. The Trump administration shares that concern but has taken a wrong turn by fast-tracking AI infrastructure on government property.

If the nation needs a new Manhattan Project, it should be for food security, not AI slop.

Instead of devolving control to the states or private citizens, it’s empowering an industry that already consumes massive resources and delivers little tangible value to ordinary Americans. And this is on top of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s execrable plan to build 15-minute cities and “affordable housing.”

In July, President Trump signed an executive order titled Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure as part of its AI Action Plan. The order streamlines permits, grants financial incentives, and opens federal properties — from Superfund sites to military bases — to AI-related development. The Department of Energy quickly identified four initial sites: Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, Idaho National Laboratory, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Last month, the list expanded to include five Air Force bases — Arnold (Tennessee), Davis-Monthan (Arizona), Edwards (California), Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (New Jersey), and Robins (Georgia) — totaling over 3,000 acres for lease to private developers at fair market value.

Locating AI facilities on military property is preferable to disrupting residential or agricultural communities, but the favoritism shown to Big Tech raises an obvious question: Is this the best use of public land? And will anchoring these bubble companies on federal property make them “too big to fail,” just like the banks and mortgage lenders before the 2008 crash?

President Trump has acknowledged the shortage of affordable meat as a national crisis. If any industry deserves federal support, it’s America’s independent farmers and ranchers. Yet while Washington clears land for billion-dollar data centers, small producers are disappearing. In the past five years, the U.S. has lost roughly 141,000 family farms and 150,000 cattle operations. The national cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951. Since 1982, America has lost more than half a million farms — nearly a quarter of its total.

Multiple pressures — rising input costs, droughts, and inflation — have crippled family farms that can’t compete with corporate conglomerates. But federal land policy also plays a role. The government’s stranglehold on Western lands limits grazing rights, water access, and expansion opportunities. If Washington suddenly wants to sell or lease public land, why not prioritize ranchers who need it for feed and forage?

The Conservation Reserve Program compounds the problem. The 2018 Farm Bill extension locked up to 30 million acres of land — five million in Wyoming and Montana alone — under the guise of conservation. Wealthy absentee owners exploit the program by briefly “farming” land to qualify it as cropland, then retiring it into CRP to collect taxpayer payments. More than half of CRP acreage is owned by non-farmers, some earning over $200 per acre while the land sits idle.

RELATED: AI isn’t feeding you

Photo by Brian Kaiser/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Those acres could support hundreds of cattle per section or produce millions of tons of hay. Instead, they create artificial shortages that drive up feed costs. During the post-COVID inflation spike, hay prices spiked 40%, hitting $250 per ton this year. Even now, inflated prices cost ranchers six figures a year in extra expenses in a business that operates on thin margins.

If the nation needs a new Manhattan Project, it should be for food security, not AI slop. Free up federal lands and idle CRP acreage for productive use. Help ranchers grow herds and lower food prices instead of subsidizing a speculative industry already bloated with venture capital and hype.

At present, every dollar of revenue at OpenAI costs roughly $7.77 to generate — a debt spiral that invites the next taxpayer bailout. By granting these firms privileged access to public land, the government risks creating another class of untouchable corporate wards, as it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two decades ago.

AI won’t feed Americans. It won’t fix supply chains. It won’t lower grocery bills. Until these companies can put real food on real tables, federal land should serve the purpose God intended — to sustain the people who live and work upon it.

​Opinion & analysis, Big tech, Artificial intelligence, Ai slop, Federal land, Donald trump, Data centers, Farmland, Family farms, Ranchers, Cattle, Property rights, Trump administration, Ai action plan, Executive order, Arnold air force base, Davis-monthan air force base, Edwards air force base, Robins air force base, Idaho national laboratory, Oak ridge reservation, Paducah kentucky, Joint base mcguire-dix-lakehurst, Private developers, Conservation reserve program, Grocery prices, Inflation, Farm bill, Taxpayer money 

New NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s celebratory speech raised alarm bells not just for Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck and BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere, but shockingly for liberals like Van Jones of CNN as well.

“I think the Mamdani that we saw on the campaign trail, who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing, was not present in that speech,” Jones said on CNN.

“And I think that Mamdani is the one you need to hear from tonight. There are a lot of people trying to figure out, can I get on this train with him or not? Is he going to include me? Or is he going to be more of a class warrior even in office?” Jones continued.

“I think he missed a chance tonight to open up and bring more people into the tent. I think his tone was sharp. I think he was using the microphone in a way that he was almost yelling. … I felt like there’s a little bit of a character switch here, where the warm, open, embracing guy that’s close to working people was not on stage tonight, and there was some other voice on stage,” he added.

“Huh, it’s almost like a mask has come off,” Glenn comments, unsurprised, before playing clips of Mamdani’s mask-off speech.

“So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up,” Mamdani yelled at the cheering crowd.

“We will hold bad landlords to account, because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks,” he continued.

“We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed. New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” he added.

“A very angry immigrant whose own mother says he doesn’t identify as an American,” Glenn comments, before playing more of Mamdani’s speech.

“As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us,” he continued, still yelling.

“And if we embrace this brave new course rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it’s the city that gave rise to him. If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power,” he added.

Glenn points out that capitalism is what allowed Trump to accumulate power, which means that Mamdani is saying they must dismantle capitalism.

“What he’s saying here is we have to now dismantle that system of capitalism because that’s what gave him power,” Glenn says.

“It’s going to be interesting to watch New York City over the next four years. Very, very interesting,” he adds.

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For most of human history, people could only dream of having ready access to all the world’s knowledge. Books were highly prized rarities, literacy was uncommon, and news could take weeks or months to arrive. The idea that the sum of human experience could fit into a little box in everyone’s pocket once sounded utopian — a paradise of informed, free citizens.

Instead, when handed access to everything, most people went looking for someone to tell them what to think.

The information age isn’t a utopia or a nightmare — it’s a permanent revolution. And it’s only getting wilder from here.

Humans are social creatures, political animals, as Aristotle observed. We crave belonging more than truth. We need a story about our place in the social order, status to pursue, and a circle to protect. Our minds aren’t wired to handle thousands of relationships. Dunbar’s number — about 150 — marks the natural limit of our social world. Online, we can connect with millions, but our capacity to process that much humanity collapses. We stop seeing people as people.

The same is true of information. In theory, access to all knowledge should make us wiser. In practice, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. Facts alone don’t illuminate anything without context, and the flood is too vast for anyone to master.

So people specialize. Like workers on an assembly line, each focuses on one task and trusts others to handle the rest. Expertise becomes a kind of currency, and every expert becomes a gatekeeper, a choke point through which understanding must pass.

Manufacturing consent

Control over that flow of information is control over perception itself. From the birth of mass media, political actors understood this. In “Public Opinion” (1922), journalist Walter Lippmann argued that elites must guide the public toward the “right” decisions because ordinary citizens couldn’t process the flood of modern information. Governments — including our own — and corporations eagerly agreed, building propaganda systems to shape consent.

Mass communication democratized information but kept control in a few hands. Printing presses, radio networks, television studios, and movie production required massive capital. The means of communication were concentrated in a small elite that decided what counted as “truth.” These media barons and their favored experts built a system in which opinion was managed from the top down. The gatekeepers defined what the public got to see, hear, and believe.

For decades, political and media elites relied on this system to shape public sentiment. Academics, think-tank analysts, and professional commentators framed policy for the masses. People felt informed while repeating narratives crafted by others. The monopoly on expert opinion kept both left- and right-wing elites secure.

RELATED: Conservatives turn their fire on each other after Charlie Kirk’s assassination

Blaze Media Illustration

Then came the internet, which shattered the old paradigm and plunged our system into chaos. Anyone with a microphone and a laptop could broadcast to the world. Legacy media cut costs, and now its anchors sit in home offices on the same streaming platforms as the amateurs they used to mock. The line between credentialed gatekeeper and average guy with an opinion has all but disappeared.

The result? Panic.

Mutating information war

Liberal elites were horrified to see Donald Trump, JD Vance, and countless populists bypass their filters and speak directly to millions of people. Podcasts hosted by comedians or outsiders broke through censorship walls. Conservative leaders cheered — until their own control started slipping. As legacy conservative networks fractured and independent creators rose, the movement’s “approved experts” lost their monopoly too.

Now both sides are scrambling to rebuild the gates. The establishment insists that chaos proves we need “trustworthy experts.” But the expert class discredited itself, and the internet made gatekeeping technologically impossible. The average citizen may not always discern truth from falsehood, but the public no longer trust those who claim to decide it for them.

The information war isn’t ending. It’s mutating. Every collapse of authority spawns a new order, and every new order fights to become the next gatekeeper. Unless governments impose hard censorship, as Europe has begun to do, the chaos will continue. The information age isn’t a utopia or a nightmare — it’s a permanent revolution. And it’s only getting wilder from here.

​Opinion & analysis, Gatekeeping, Public opinion, Walter lippmann, Manufacturing consent, Dunbar’s number, Books, Information, Information warfare, Experts, Media bias, Control, Propaganda, Internet censorship 

A 19-year-old student is facing five charges after being identified as the person who flipped a Turning Point USA display table at the University of Iowa campus.

A TPUSA social media account posted video of the altercation where a smiling student walks up to the display table of hot chocolate and then overturns it before walking away. The TPUSA members then cheerfully begin to clean up the mess on the video.

‘While the outcome of these investigations are considered confidential, discipline is based on the severity of the violation.’

Authorities identified the suspect as Justin Pham Calhoon and booked him into the Johnson County Jail on Wednesday.

TPUSA reported that Calhoon was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct, fifth-degree criminal mischief, and two counts of third-degree harassment.

A university spokesperson confirmed the arrest to the College Fix.

“All Iowa students are expected to follow the Code of Student Life, which sets standards for student behavior and conduct,” Chris Brewer wrote. “While the outcome of these investigations are considered confidential, discipline is based on the severity of the violation.”

Cabot Phillips, an editor at the Daily Wire, then posted a video appearing to show the same person overturning a table before his event at the university.

“This same student literally did the exact same thing last week ahead of my event there,” he posted on social media.

RELATED: Church vandalized ahead of Turning Point USA event — message calls speaker the Antichrist

That incident is from Oct. 25, according to the University of Iowa Department of Public Safety.

The student wore a dress in the second video, leading many to believe Calhoon identified as transgender.

Calhoon has no prior criminal history aside from a traffic violation.

A Blaze News request for comment to Turning Point USA was not immediately answered.

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A female was caught on video tossing a cup of scalding coffee on a McDonald’s manager in Michigan earlier this week — and the manager suffered burns as a result, MLive reported.

The incident took place Tuesday morning at a McDonald’s at 3700 Dixie Highway in Buena Vista Township, the outlet said. Buena Vista Township is a few miles east of Saginaw.

‘F**k you, b***h! Catch that hot-a** coffee!’

Buena Vista Township Police Detective Russ Pahssen told MLive that the female manager called 911 saying an angry customer assaulted her.

More from MLive:

The customer had placed an online order and sought a refund for two sandwiches, Pahssen said. Another patron recorded the last two minutes of the interaction at the restaurant’s front counter.

The manager handed the customer a coffee and tried pacifying her, while the customer claimed she had been there for more than an hour, the footage shows. The conversation reaching an impasse, the manager told the customer to have a great day and turned to walk away.

The female customer removed the lid from the coffee cup, threw the contents at the manager, and yelled, “F**k you, bitch! Catch that hot-ass coffee!” as she exited the restaurant, according to video of the encounter without redacted audio.

The video also shows the McDonald’s manager screaming after the coffee hits her body.

Pahssen told MLive the manager suffered minor burns; the outlet noted that the coffee burned her back and left arm.

Pahssen shared video of the assault on Facebook and asked the public to help identify the assailant, the outlet said.

“I must have gotten about 100 tips,” Pahssen noted to MLive. “Within about two minutes, we had her identified.”

The following is video of the encounter with redacted audio; the coffee toss takes place toward the end of the clip just after the 1:45 mark:

However, Pahssen said officers weren’t able to locate the 48-year-old suspect, MLive reported, adding that police have submitted paperwork to the Saginaw County Prosecutor’s Office, requesting she be charged with felonious assault.

Investigators did not name the woman Thursday because she had not been arraigned on any criminal charges, WJRT-TV reported.

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The Islamic plan to take over the U.S. is well under way, and it has been long before NYC’s new Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, took office.

“Zohran Mamdani winning is a huge victory for radical Islamists everywhere, honestly, because it’s legitimizing the fact that Muslims can just, they’re just going to take over America,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“And what they’re going to do is, they’re going to do it right before your very eyes. And what they know is that there are a bunch of white people who live here who are too scared to say the things that they’re actually thinking,” she continues, before playing an older clip of an Islamic man preaching to a crowd in New York City.

“We’re done hiding. We’re done. We’re done being tortured and hurt and judged. This is the correct religion. This is the religion that all of humanity needs to be a part of, Islam. And we will not stop until it enters every home,” he boomed into the microphone.

“There is no God worthy of worship except Allah,” he added.

And in another clip, Muslim Brotherhood leaders detail their plan to conquer the West.

“Seven hundred years of our trial to conquer Europe by force failed. They did something wrong, very wrong. They tried for many years to conquer Europe through wars, only wars,” one Muslim Brotherhood leader was recorded saying on a Zoom call.

In another clip, a man named Dr. Mudar Zahran explains what’s going on as “the soft Islamic conquest of the West.”

“What we couldn’t do in the last, say, 20 years now, the West is doing it for us for free, and even paying for it,” he added.

“They’re laughing in our faces,” Gonzales says.

“They are planning a takeover openly, and nobody wants to talk about it,” she adds.

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A Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in Jan. 2023 successfully sued a former school administrator she accused of ignoring warning signs.

Abigail Zwerner was shot once in the hand and the chest in her first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. She was hospitalized for two weeks, and the boy’s mother was later convicted on gun charges.

‘A gun changes everything. You stop and you investigate. … You get to the bottom of it to know whether that gun is real and on campus so you can deal with it. But that’s not what happened.’

Zwerner’s civil lawsuit accused former assistant principal Ebony Parker of ignoring several warnings, including one from Zwerner herself. The teacher told Parker that the student had been in a “violent mood” and threatened to beat another child.

Another teacher reportedly told Parker that students had reported the boy as having a gun in his backpack.

On Thursday, the jury awarded Zwerner $10 million in damages.

Parker did not reportedly react when the verdict was read.

“I remember just three years ago, almost to this day, hearing for the first time Abby’s story and thinking that this could have been prevented,” one of Zwerner’s attorneys said outside the courthouse. “So now to hear from a jury of her peers that they agree that this tragedy could have been prevented.”

Zwerner’s attorney, Kevin Biniazan, argued in court that the report of a gun should have stopped everything at the school.

“A gun changes everything. You stop and you investigate,” Biniazan said. “You get to the bottom of it to know whether that gun is real and on campus so you can deal with it. But that’s not what happened.”

He added, “What number do you arrive at for somebody who didn’t want this and it’s been inserted into her life like a bullet fragment against her spine?”

The family of the student released a statement saying he was suffering from an “acute disability.” The child was never charged, on account of his young age. His grandfather said in an interview that he thought the attention on the case was racially motivated.

RELATED: Grandfather of 6-year-old boy who shot teacher says news coverage is racially motivated

Zwerner testified at the trial about her recollections from the shooting.

“I thought I had died,” she said. “I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven. But then it all got black, and so I then thought I wasn’t going there.”

The mother of the student, Deja Taylor, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for federal firearm and drugs charges, as well as two years for child neglect. Parker has also been criminally charged with eight counts of felony child abuse with disregard for life — one count for every bullet in the gun.

Interest on the award starts as of June 1, 2024.

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The man caught on video throwing a sandwich at a federal agent during President Donald Trump’s anti-crime surge in Washington, D.C., was cleared of the charge against him.

Attorneys for Sean Charles Dunn argued that his sandwich attack was an act of protest protected by the First Amendment and a “harmless gesture.”

‘F**k you! You f**king fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!’

On Thursday, 12 jurors agreed with the defense. All of the jurors, including the foreperson, declined an interview request, according to the Associated Press.

The Department of Justice initially sought a felony assault indictment, but that was rejected by a grand jury. A lesser charge of misdemeanor assault was filed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

“F**k you! You f**king fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn yelled at the officers before the sandwich attack, according to charging documents.

He ran away from the officers but was later arrested.

Customs and Border Patrol Agent Gregory Lairmore testified in court that he felt the impact of the sandwich “through his ballistic vest” and it had “exploded all over” him. He added that he “could smell the onions and mustard” on his uniform and that the mustard stained his shirt.

Defense attorneys undermined the stain account and questioned Lairmore about jokes his fellow officers made about the attack.

Dunn had worked as an international affairs specialist in the criminal division of the U.S. Justice Department but was fired shortly after the arrest.

The man’s Subway sandwich toss was taken up by many on the left as a symbol of their opposition to Trump’s anti-crime policies.

RELATED: Pam Bondi reveals stunning new details about DC leftist suspected in sandwich attack

Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

Dunn thanked everyone who supported his cause in a speech outside the courthouse with his attorneys standing behind him.

“I am so happy that justice prevails in spite of everything happening. And that night I believe that I was protecting the rights of immigrants,” Dunn said.

“Every life matters, no matter where you came from,” he added. “No matter how you got here, no matter how you identify. You have the right to live a life that is free!”

In August, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) admitted that the surge in federal law enforcement contributed to lowering the crime rate, but other Democrats assailed her for giving any credit to Trump’s policies.

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Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has filed a major lawsuit against Indianapolis Public Schools over their alleged effort to thwart the enforcement of federal immigration law and their corresponding violations of state immigration law, stating, “No public institution in Indiana has the right to pick and choose which laws to follow.”

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Marion County, requests an injunction against IPS’ “sanctuary” policies, citing a 2017 resolution passed by the school board that prohibits IPS employees from assisting immigration enforcement efforts “unless legally required and authorized to do so by the Superintendent”; from collecting any information regarding a student or parent’s immigration status; and from providing any information regarding a student’s immigration status.

‘Sanctuary policies are bad in any context, but they are especially troubling in our schools.’

“When a school district refuses to cooperate with ICE, it doesn’t just break the law — it endangers students, protects criminal aliens, and sends a dangerous message to every government body in this state: that compliance is optional,” Rokita said. “Not on my watch.”

Rokita told Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on Thursday that amid its apparent campaign to thwart federal law enforcement efforts, the school district had even frustrated the attempt by an illegal alien to self-deport.

An illegal alien from Honduras decided earlier this year to voluntarily deport so that he could one day apply to return to the U.S. legally, Rokita claimed. On Jan. 8, the day of his family’s planned departure, one of his children went to school against his wishes.

RELATED: Masked anti-ICE agitators are in for a rude awakening as new DHS policy goes into effect

Photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images

Rokita told Beck that when the father went to retrieve his son from school to ensure that his family could depart the U.S. together, “the school obstructed him and then obstructed ICE from assisting as well.”

“I can believe that there are schools this out of control, but not so out of control that they block a dad from picking up his own son,” Beck said.

The state AG indicated that in the time since, his office has uncovered a “whole string of policies” that the IPS has in place that serve to keep ICE agents from doing their jobs.

— (@)

The America First Policy Institute, which has worked with Rokita’s office in developing the legal strategy for tackling rogue institutions and agencies, noted that the lawsuit is filed under Indiana Code chapter 5-2-18.2, which bars state and local entities from interfering with the enforcement of federal immigration law.

Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief legal affairs officer at AFPI, told Beck that several of IPS’ policies directly violate the law, not only frustrating law enforcement efforts but putting vulnerable kids at risk of trafficking and exploitation by making them virtually invisible to the authorities.

“Sanctuary policies are bad in any context, but they are especially troubling in our schools. Schools across the country are vulnerable to infiltration by criminal illegal aliens — it’s happened in many other states — and it is essential that ICE be able to take action when that occurs to help keep our kids safe,” Rokita noted in a statement. “That’s why my office, with the assistance of AFPI, is suing IPS to enforce compliance with state law and protect Hoosier schoolchildren.”

— (@)

“Attorney General Rokita is showing exactly the kind of leadership America needs,” O’Neill said in a statement. “When state attorneys general act boldly to enforce cooperation with federal immigration law, they help protect families, uphold the rule of law, and stop the political gamesmanship that endangers our communities.”

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Sergeant Derek Rogers, a 22-year veteran of the Canadian military who played trombone for the Canadian Central Command Band, took his wife of 20 years on a trip to Maine in 2002. It was the last trip they would take together because a pair of siblings of Sioux descent savagely beat Rogers to death while he was taking a stroll on the beach near the cottage his family rented.

On Tuesday, radicals in Bangor, Maine, elected one of Rogers’ killers, Angela Walker, to city council.

‘That’s my past.’

The 2,231 voters who cast ballots for Walker and the leftist group that endorsed her, Food and Medicine, were evidently willing to give her a pass for her history of violence and deception.

After all, it’s public record that Walker killed Rogers — a soldier known for his charity and devotion to the Salvation Army — participating in his bludgeoning and lethal force-feeding by sand, according to investigators. It’s also a matter of public record that she attempted to blame the killing on an innocent woman named Aimee Pelletier, who investigators later determined had not been at the scene.

Walker and her brother, Benjamin Humphrey, were originally charged with murder following the discovery of Rogers’ body by a fisherman on July 31, 2002.

When Humphrey pleaded guilty to manslaughter the following year, the victim’s sister, Lorna Simard, said, “I don’t feel that any plea bargain is justice,” reported the Associated Press.

Simard was ultimately denied the full measure of justice twice as Walker also managed to strike a plea deal.

RELATED: Candidate arrested for allegedly breaking into GOP rival’s Ohio home — just days before Election Day

Staff photo by Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

Walker pleaded guilty in 2003 to perjury as well as to killing Rogers in exchange for a reduced charge of manslaughter.

Robert Crowley, then-justice of the Maine Superior Court, reportedly sentenced Walker to 10 years in prison and gave her a five-year suspended sentence for committing perjury.

While Walker claimed that Rogers prompted her violent reaction by allegedly calling her a “squaw” — a claim Rogers’ family suggested was utter nonsense — Crowley emphasized the victim’s innocence, noting, “He didn’t do anything to contribute to his death, yet he lost his life.”

During her successful political campaign, Walker told the Bangor Daily News, “One of the big reasons that I want to run is because I feel like, with my lived experience and the work that I’ve done in a few different agencies in the area, that I can bring concerns of community members to City Council.”

The same perjurer who apparently helped stuff sand down a soldier’s throat until he died added that she hopes to “be the voice for people that can’t speak up or don’t speak up.”

As for Rogers’ horrific slaying, Walker said, “That’s my past. I don’t live there anymore, and I’m a different person.”

Former Bangor City Council chairwoman Sarah Nichols was among those who endorsed Walker, claiming “Angela has achieved positive results in her own recovery and has played a key role in projects that connect many people to crucial resources, supporting their recovery success.”

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An effort to restrict drag shows from performing sexually in front of children on public property was upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales praised the ruling as the vice president of the Texas Family Project, an organization that was involved in crafting the language of the bill.

‘To be clear, Texas children will not be sexually indoctrinated on our watch.’

“Texas Family Project has worked tirelessly to expose the ‘all-ages’ drag shows happening across the state because we knew no one would believe that scantily clad grown men were performing strip-club routines in front of young children unless we showed them directly,” she wrote in a statement to Blaze News.

“We worked with legislators to craft language that would hold up on appeal, and we are so thrilled with today’s long-awaited outcome,” she added. “To be clear, Texas children will not be sexually indoctrinated on our watch.

The ban had been blocked by a lower-court judge, but two of the three judges on the appeals panel ruled to restore the ban while the case proceeds through the court process.

The judges disagreed whether the performances were protected free speech under the First Amendment.

“We have genuine doubt … that pulsing prosthetic breasts in front of people, putting prosthetic breasts in people’s faces, and being spanked by audience members are actually constitutionally protected — especially in the presence of minors,” wrote Judge Kurt Engelhardt, joined by Judge Leslie Southwick.

Judge James Dennis partially dissented from the ruling.

“Drag — a costumed, choreographed, and frequently parodic performance that speaks in the idiom of gender — plainly participates in that protected tradition,” wrote Dennis. “The majority’s effort to collapse an entire art form into a few salacious acts turns these principles on their head.”

The ruling directs the lower court to review the case in light of a Supreme Court ruling on social media, but allows the ban to stay in place while the process plays out.

RELATED: Revolting discoveries from ‘all-ages’ Texas Pride festivals parents NEED to see

The Texas Family Project also released a statement about the ruling on social media.

“Texas law that prevents children from attending sexually explicit drag shows is now in effect!” read the statement. “We have worked for years exposing these events all over the state and the hard work has paid off! Thank you for your continued support of our mission.”

Judge Engelhardt was appointed by President Donald Trump, while Southwick was appointed by former President George W. Bush. Judge Dennis was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

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The illegal alien whom a Wisconsin judge allegedly helped to evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement received his sentence for a criminal conviction following months in custody.

On Wednesday, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, was sentenced to time served and will be deported after being arrested by federal officials in Milwaukee in April.

Prosecutors claim Dugan escorted Eduardo and his lawyer out of the courtroom through a back door.

He pled guilty on September 4 to re-entering the United States, WTMJ reported.

U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper handed down the sentence at a hearing on Wednesday following a plea deal including a promise to never return to the United States.

RELATED: Masked anti-ICE agitators are in for a rude awakening as new DHS policy goes into effect

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

According to the AP, Judge Pepper told Flores-Ruiz: “I very much hope you can find a way to make a living back home rather than coming back here.”

Flores-Ruiz will remain in custody until his deportation.

Flores-Ruiz’s attorney, Martin Pruhs, told the AP that his client was awaiting deportation in “the near future” but declined to provide further comment.

The full story, however, started more than seven months ago.

In March, ICE agents were alerted that Flores-Ruiz was due in court for three counts of battery. At a court appearance the following month in connection with the battery charges, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan allegedly interfered with federal ICE agents who were attempting to arrest Flores-Ruiz at the conclusion of his hearing.

Prosecutors claim Dugan escorted Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer out of the courtroom through a back door on April 18. Flores-Ruiz was able to flee the agents on foot before his apprehension.

The following week, FBI Director Kash Patel announced Dugan’s arrest for obstruction, saying, in part, “Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot, and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.”

Dugan was indicted in May, and U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman denied a motion to dismiss the charges against her in August.

“There is no basis for granting immunity simply because some of the allegations in the indictment describe conduct that could be considered ‘part of a judge’s job,’” Adelman wrote in the order, according to WTMJ.

Dugan’s trial is scheduled for December 15.

Flores-Ruiz pled no contest to one count of battery in October. He was sentenced to time served in that case as well.

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Democratic lawmakers in the Illinois legislature have passed a bill that would legalize doctor-assisted suicide across the state.

The bill now awaiting Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature, SB 1950, originally started out as a measure concerning sanitary food preparation. The bill was, however, hollowed out then repurposed. Instead of keeping consumers healthy, the language was changed to expedite death — authorizing a qualified patient with a terminal disease to demand that their doctor prescribe a lethal dose of medication, thereby ending “the patient’s life in a peaceful manner.”

Catholic leaders in the state are among the bill’s loudest critics.

‘Now, they can prescribe death.’

In May, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, wrote, “I have to ask why, in a time when growing understanding of the deteriorating mental health of the U.S. population — and particularly among our youth — caused the country to create the 988 mental health crisis line, we would want to take this step to normalize suicide as a solution to life’s challenges.”

Cupich stressed that the Illinois legislature should explore options that instead “honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness.”

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield stated after legislators ignored Cupich’s counsel and passed the bill in a 30-27 vote on Friday, “It is quite fitting that the forces of the culture of death in the Illinois General Assembly passed physician-assisted suicide on October 31 — a day that, culturally, has become synonymous with glorifying death and evil.”

RELATED: The total state will kill you for being old

Blaze Media Illustration

“It’s also ironic that these pro-death legislators did it under the cloud of darkness at 2:54 a.m. Make no mistake: killing oneself is not dying with dignity. Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death,” the bishop continued. “Physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities.”

The Illinois Catholic Conference warned on Wednesday that the legalization of assisted suicide in Illinois will put the “state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences.”

The dangers and fallout of legalized assisted suicide are hardly hypothetical.

North of the border, Canada is weeks away from publishing its sixth annual report on so-called medical assistance in dying. While the official numbers have yet to be released accounting for all MAID deaths in 2024 nationwide, provincial data appear to indicate another year-over-year increase in state-facilitated slayings.

The federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed the Medical Assistance in Dying Act in 2016, legalizing euthanasia nationwide. Originally, applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” causing “enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable” to them.

The state-facilitated suicide program has since been grossly liberalized such that the country’s eugenicist-founded health care system can now effectively execute those struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic woes, PTSD, and other survivable issues.

In its first year, MAID offed 1,108 Canadians. That number tripled the following year, and by 2021, the number had climbed to over 10,000 assisted-suicide deaths in a single year.

The Canadian think tank Cardus revealed last year that “MAiD in Canada is no longer unusual or rare. Federal predictions about the expected frequency of MAiD have significantly underestimated the numbers of Canadians who are dying by this means.”

As of 2022, MAID was tied with cerebrovascular diseases as the fifth leading cause of death in the country. The following year, state-facilitated suicide claimed the lives of 15,343 individuals, accounting for 4.7% of all deaths in the country.

‘Feeling like a burden can play on a patient’s decision to request and receive a MAiD death.’

Authorities in Nova Scotia, a province of just over 1 million souls, indicated to Blaze News that it saw a drop in completed MAID slayings last year. Whereas there were 380 slayings in 2023, there were allegedly only 169 in 2024, with 286 active cases and 71 recorded natural deaths prior to MAID.

This appears to be the exception, not the rule.

The nation’s more populous provinces have alternatively seen continued increases in MAID slayings.

British Columbia’s 2024 euthanasia data, for instance, indicate that there were 3,000 state-facilitated suicides in the province last year. While most of the victims were over the age of 65, 1.5% of those slain were between the ages of 18 and 45 and individuals who were not dying. In fact, among the conditions cited as reasons and/or contributing reasons for MAID were “frailty,” dementia, mental disorders, and unstated neurological conditions.

The Euthanasia Prevent Coalition noted that MAID deaths in B.C. were up over 8% from the previous year and accounted for 6.7% of all deaths in the province last year.

Alberta, a province of just over 5 million souls, recorded 1,117 deaths in 2024, representing a year-over-year increase of 14.3% and making its total MAID kill count 5,646 victims since 2016.

Data obtained by the MAiD in Canada Substack indicate that in 2024, Ontario had 4,957 deaths, representing an increase of 6.8% and making its grand total 23,333 victims since 2016.

Quebec reportedly had 6,058 MAID deaths last year, representing an increase of 6.4% and making its grand total over 26,000 victims since 2016. In addition to the growing number of deaths, there is apparently a growing cohort of doctors willing to dish out lethal doses in Quebec. A recent government report indicated that over 2,000 physicians were involved in the slayings, representing an 11% increase over the previous year.

Rebecca Vachon, health program director at Cardus, told Blaze News that “based on current reporting from the most populous provinces, we expect to see more than 16,500 ‘medical assistance in dying’ or euthanasia deaths in 2024, which is an increase from the 15,343 deaths reported in 2023. This will likely result in MAiD deaths constituting 5% of total deaths in Canada that year, which, as Cardus discussed in a report released last fall, is a far cry from the expectations set by the courts that MAiD would be for exceptional cases only.”

RELATED: ‘Stone-cold communism’: Canadian government seizes hospice center when staff refuses to allow euthanasia

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Canadian government released a report in 2020 indicating that the previous year, MAID resulted in a net cost reduction of over $86 million for provincial governments. The report additionally noted that further liberalization of the MAID program under Bill C-7, which was passed in March 2021, would result in an additional $62 million reduction in costs.

When asked whether MAID is being championed in part as a way to cut costs for Canada’s immigration-strained health care system, Vachon told Blaze News, “Regardless of intentions, the pressure that feeling like a burden can play on a patient’s decision to request and receive a MAiD death should not be understated.”

“For instance, Canadian MAiD providers report that almost 50% of the patients they helped die in 2023 reported feeling they were a burden on others — up 10% from the previous year,” Vachon said.

‘Illinois should be a state that offers compassion, care, and hope — not death — as the answer to human suffering.’

Polls conducted by Cardus in partnership with the Angus Reid Institute found that 62% of Canadians fear that those who are financially or socially vulnerable may consider state-facilitated suicide because of difficulties accessing adequate care, Vachon indicated.

The fear is justified given that 42% of all MAID deaths from 2019 to 2023 involved people who required disability supports. Of those victims, over 1,017 never received those supports.

“Canadians deserve care that alleviates their suffering and prevents it from becoming ‘unbearable,'” Vachon said.

Blaze News has reached out for comment to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office as well as to the leaders of the New Democratic Party and Conservative Party, Don Davies and Pierre Poilievre.

While the slope has been greased in Canada and in states such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and Washington, there’s still hope that Pritzker may reconsider, especially after he noted on Monday, “It was something that I didn’t expect and didn’t know it was going to be voted on, so we’re examining it even now.”

Rather than sign the bill, the Illinois Catholic Conference has implored Pritzker to “expand and improve on palliative care programs that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms.”

Bishop Paprocki noted, “Pray for Gov. Pritzker to reject this legislation. Illinois should be a state that offers compassion, care, and hope — not death — as the answer to human suffering.”

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​Maid, Assisted suicide, Assisted dying, Death, Euthanasia, Health, Healthcare, Health care, State facilitated suicide, Statism, Culture of death, Illinois, Canada, Provincial, Chicago, Hospital, Politics 

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes was supposed to be explosive. It wasn’t.

Far from normalizing Fuentes or advancing his strange brand of “right-wing” politics, the two-hour conversation exposed him as a shallow, aggrieved figure without the intellect or maturity to lead anything. Carlson didn’t destroy Fuentes with debate. He did something worse: He made him boring.

Fuentes built his notoriety as a young “influencer” who mixes nationalism with online provocation. He’s outspokenly racist, anti-Semitic, and obsessed with pushing the limits of shock. And he’s managed to attract a following among disaffected young men — the “Groypers.”

Fuentes’ interview marks his peak — and his decline. Once the outrage fades, he’ll return to obscurity.

In recent years, Fuentes has tried to rebrand himself as something somewhat more serious. He talks about immigration breaking working families, foreign wars enriching elites, and a culture that mocks masculinity. Those themes resonate because they tap real frustrations that many Americans share.

But Fuentes offers no coherent moral or political vision. Others — better read, more disciplined, and far less toxic — make similar arguments with insight and integrity. The late Charlie Kirk, for example, famously wanted nothing to do with Fuentes and his followers for precisely that reason.

The grudge-filled path

Carlson’s interview focused less on ideas than on Fuentes’ grievances. He recounted his early days as a libertarian campaigning for Ted Cruz in 2015, his shift to Trumpism, and his viral rise after a debate with a leftist opponent. Soon he was clashing with prominent conservatives, especially the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro.

According to Fuentes, Shapiro and his allies sabotaged his career and drove him into exile on the “dark web.” At no point does Fuentes wonder whether Shapiro recognized instability and immaturity in him — or simply concluded that he wasn’t worth the investment.

Like many in his Gen Z cohort, Fuentes mistakes online engagement for substance. Without outrage, he has nothing. He’s poorly educated, reads little, and shrugs off legitimate criticism. The result is a young man trapped in perpetual adolescence, angry that the world won’t take him seriously.

Carlson’s indulgence

Carlson tries to humanize Fuentes, appealing to Christian charity and the value of learning from failure. But Fuentes clings to his score-settling. His list of enemies includes not just Shapiro but Charlie Kirk, Joe Kent, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — and even Carlson himself, though he gets a temporary reprieve for offering the platform.

Carlson also attempts to rationalize Fuentes’ anti-Semitism, giving him space to “clarify.” Fuentes insists he doesn’t hate Jews personally — he just opposes Judaism as a “force against Western civilization.” He repeats conspiracy theories about Jewish control of institutions and denies the Holocaust.

Carlson pushes back, but only mildly. Both men protest that they “don’t hate Jews” and have Jewish friends, as if that were exculpatory. It isn’t. The exchange casts neither in a good light.

Empty provocateurs

The rest of the interview dissolves into incoherence. Fuentes casually praises Joseph Stalin, of all people, before the conversation fizzles. Carlson’s attempt to recast Fuentes as a misunderstood outsider backfires. The result is a portrait of a man whose only real claim to relevance is being disliked — and even that feels undeserved.

Carlson’s indulgence of fringe figures is becoming a pattern. Andrew Tate. Darryl Cooper. Now Fuentes. Each enjoys a sizeable online following built on provocation and grievance. And each, when pressed, collapses into self-pity and incoherence. These men are charlatans and grifters who don’t challenge the establishment; they merely rehearse falsehoods and conspiracy theories to raise their profiles among mostly lonely, disaffected young men.

RELATED: Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and the war for the conservative soul

Photo by NurPhoto via Getty Images

The decline of two brands

Fuentes’ interview marks his peak — and his decline. Once the outrage fades, he’ll return to obscurity, remembered mostly as a cautionary tale about what happens when empty charisma meets unearned confidence.

Carlson, meanwhile, risks following him down that path. His willingness to platform attention-seekers may boost short-term clicks, but it erodes long-term credibility. Each indulgence costs him a little more trust.

The tragedy isn’t just Fuentes’ wasted potential. It’s the spectacle of one of the right’s most talented communicators lending his megaphone to a man who long ago proved himself unworthy of it.

​Nick fuentes, Tucker carlson, Groypers, Charlie kirk, Opinion & analysis, Anti-semitism, First amendment, America first, Gen z, Loneliness, Young men, Andrew tate, Daryl cooper