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In his opening salvo, the esteemed Scott Yenor righteously scrutinizes the travesty of single-sex education at the Virginia Military Institute. Yenor lays bare the deleterious effects that forced sex integration has had on honor, cohesion, and the society into which graduates of the school march. What he emphasizes less, however, is how the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Virginia fundamentally changed the nature of VMI’s military character and the essential path to reclaiming same-sex spaces for military officer formation.

The key part of Yenor’s essay is his call to create new institutions like VMI — schools that would force a legal and cultural reckoning over sex in education and the military. It’s a persuasive argument because red-state governors already hold the power to act. They can challenge entrenched institutions and build new ones that reflect their citizens’ values.

The modern obsession with sex equality may be the clearest example of how civilian ideology corrupts military formation.

A governor such as West Virginia’s could establish a military academy with full higher-education credentials and an attached ROTC program to train future officers. Its character must be ironclad — steeped in discipline, animated by a warrior ethos, and set apart from the civilian world its graduates would swear to defend.

While offering a four-year degree is necessary to attract those with talent who are willing and able to lead and thrive, this status must not infringe on the mission of the next VMI. This new academy must seek to minimize the distinction between the academic and military spaces to the greatest extent possible. This does not mean that cadets should take exams in body armor, but rather that their college experience should produce elite warrior leaders.

Every class, extracurricular, and academy event should directly relate to the military profession. This would almost certainly mean smaller course offerings, fewer Division I athletics, and fewer civilian professors without military experience. Above all, like VMI, West Point, and the Naval Academy, a student hierarchy (or chain of command) must be the definitive experience of academy life.

The cost of integration

The modern obsession with sex equality may be the clearest example of how civilian ideology corrupts military formation. As Yenor argues, new military academies must be all-male to restore the ideal of masculine virtue and preserve the integrity of a space insulated from the social fashions and ideologies of civilian life.

Male-only environments aren’t just valuable for education — they’re indispensable for building effective military units. The case for single-sex academies rests on a simple truth: Men must train as they fight, and the continuity between those two worlds determines whether they win.

Scholarship from the 1990s first identified how gender integration erodes cohesion and readiness within combat formations. Subsequent physiological studies reinforced the point, finding that women experience higher injury rates and markedly greater attrition in strenuous training environments. Such outcomes in the formative stages of a soldier’s career have profound implications for the design of academies that are meant to cultivate endurance, resilience, and mutual reliance.

The operational record echoes these concerns. The U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s “Women in ARSOF” report revealed deep dissatisfaction among operators, with nearly 4 in 5 saying that integration undermined effectiveness. More conclusively, a 2015 Marine Corps study demonstrated that all-male units outperformed mixed-gender counterparts in speed, lethality, and cohesion.

These findings matter for academies, for they are the crucibles where young men forge the habits of trust and shared hardship that define combat units. If integrated units struggle to match the performance of male-only formations, then academies designed on an integrated model risk instilling the very fissures that later compromise unit effectiveness on the battlefield.

Passing the Ginsburg test

Much of this effort can be accomplished outside of Washington, D.C., but that does not obviate the need for the federal government to adopt policies that will protect male-only military spaces from inevitable legal challenges.

Sec. Pete Hegseth could direct the Department of War to issue a new regulation barring women from ground combat roles. Because their prior exclusion was rooted in departmental rulemaking rather than congressional statute, Hegseth would have authority to act at the direction of the president.

Without decisive national direction, any new academy would stand vulnerable to the same scrutiny that undid VMI’s traditions.

Congress could intervene to block or codify such a policy, but absent legislative action, executive authority would control. Even a layman’s reading of U.S. v. Virginia reveals that such bold policy action is a necessary precondition to building the kind of alternate institutions Yenor identifies as necessary to rebuild sex-segregated education in the military.

Under the heightened “exceedingly persuasive justification” standard, Virginia had to convince the Supreme Court that excluding women from VMI was both essential and well-founded. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed. She pointed to the military’s decades-long inclusion of women in federal service academies as proof that VMI’s male-only model lacked a factual basis. In her view, Virginia’s justifications were speculative and failed the constitutional test she applied.

RELATED: Female veteran says Pete Hegseth is RIGHT about women in the military

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The real lesson of U.S. v. Virginia isn’t that single-sex military education is unconstitutional. It’s that such institutions can survive only when their structure aligns with national policy. Ginsburg’s reasoning hinged on the fact that by 1996, women already served in the academies and the armed forces, making VMI’s stance seem outdated. For new male-only academies to endure, they must rise alongside a broader policy shift that treats sex-segregated combat preparation not as exclusion, but as essential to military effectiveness.

Yenor is right that cultural renewal will require state leaders who are willing to build institutions that resist prevailing orthodoxies. Yet even more important is the recognition that law follows policy. Without decisive national direction, any new academy would stand vulnerable to the same scrutiny that undid VMI’s traditions.

The path forward, then, lies in building academies with an unambiguous martial ethos, supported by federal policies that make male-only formation not only culturally defensible but also constitutionally secure. Only then can the United States produce the kind of warrior men upon whom its survival ultimately depends.

Editor’s note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.

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Chick-fil-A was once again ranked as the number-one fast-food restaurant in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. It’s the 11th consecutive year the chicken chain has held the top spot.

But it’s not just CFA’s food and service that have made it one of the most popular chains in America. It’s something much more nuanced.

Chick-fil-A didn’t set out with a customer-first strategy and later decide to care about people.

Unlike most other organizations in the industry, Chick-fil-A has discovered an authentic way to integrate business strategy and corporate culture. It’s often said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I’ve found that this statement is only half true. Culture is undoubtedly powerful. It shapes mindsets, decisions, and environments. However, it doesn’t negate the need for strategy.

For true, lasting success, culture and strategy need to feed off each other. When they’re disconnected, the result is often imbalance, misalignment, and, ultimately, mission drift. A business can be healthy yet lack purpose, or have a clear purpose yet operate in an unhealthy way.

Thriving organizations — the ones that stand the test of time — are those that harmonize who they are (their culture) with what they do and how they do it (their strategy). This integration is essential for missionally driven leadership.

Let’s go back to Chick-fil-A.

The company is built on biblical values, honors the Sabbath, fosters servant-hearted leadership, and champions hospitality. These values are operational standards. They guide how team members respond to guests with “my pleasure,” how conflict is resolved, and even how franchise partners are selected.

Chick-fil-A didn’t set out with a customer-first strategy and later decide to care about people. It cared about people first, and from that foundation, the strategy naturally emerged. That distinction matters.

RELATED: Here are 5 Christian companies that join Chick-fil-A in publicly proclaiming their Bible-based views

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When core values shape strategic direction, execution becomes more consistent and more resilient, especially in the face of disruption.

And yet culture alone is not enough. Without strategy, culture easily becomes sentimental, a fond memory of “how things used to be” without the structure needed to drive meaningful outcomes. Leaders must be vigilant in asking: Is our culture shaping what we pursue, how we define success, and how we evolve in the face of change?

The return-to-office debate provides a timely example of how strategy and culture must interact.

In June 2025, Ford Motor Company announced it would require white-collar employees to return to the office four days per week. CEO Jim Farley framed the decision as a step toward a “more dynamic company,” one that fosters in-person creativity and collaboration. That’s a strategic choice, but one rooted in a specific cultural aspiration.

Across industries, leaders are weighing similar decisions. Do we bring everyone back? Stay remote? Create a hybrid solution?

While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, the wrong approach is to follow trends blindly or make decisions out of fear. The right starting point is culture. What kind of culture are we trying to build? What rhythms cultivate collaboration and mentorship? Do our physical and digital environments reinforce the values we profess or erode them?

For some organizations, RTO policies can rekindle a sense of belonging and a shared mission. For others, flexibility and trust are core values best expressed through remote autonomy. The key is less about whether employees sit at a shared desk and more about whether the strategy supports the cultivation of a shared identity.

In my work with CEOs and business owners, I’ve witnessed a key dynamic among healthy organizations: They let culture shape strategy, and they let strategy reinforce culture. It’s a two-way street.

Right now, culture matters more than ever in attracting and retaining talent, sparking innovation, and uniting multigenerational teams around a shared purpose. That’s why everything from hiring practices and customer service to key performance indicators and product development must reflect and reinforce the values a company holds dear.

It’s one thing to say we value integrity; it’s another to weave it into how we sell, serve, and lead.

So what does this look like in practice?

First, leaders must examine whether their strategic priorities truly align with the values they profess. If your organization touts that people matter most, does your strategy show it through investments in employee development, customer care, and sustainable work rhythms?

Next, consider what kind of culture your current strategy is creating, whether intentional or not. Every strategy has cultural side effects. Sometimes, a relentless drive for performance without margin produces a culture of fear and burnout.

Then, consider your internal language. Do your people have a shared understanding of what terms like “excellence,” “service,” or “innovation” mean within your unique context? Without clarity, even good intentions can lead to confusion or misalignment.

Finally, reflect on leadership behavior. Are you and your leaders embodying both the values and the strategic vision? Employees learn far more from what their leaders model than what they say. When leaders walk in alignment with both strategy and culture, they build trust, and trust builds momentum.

So yes, culture may eat strategy for breakfast, but only when the two sit at the same table, aligned, accountable, and advancing together.

The real secret behind Chick-fil-A’s dominance? Culture and strategy are on the same menu.

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Harvard sociologist Christina Cross is on a mission to downplay the importance of a two-parent home in black families — while claiming that instead of a stable family structure, they simply need more government aid.

“It is true that when black children grow up with both parents, they tend to experience advantages, and they do tend to have improved outcomes. It is also true, unfortunately, that they still lag behind their white peers in the same family structure,” Cross said in an interview with journalist Michelle Martin on PBS.

“And my findings indicate that much of that has to do with these wide gaps in economic resources. And so if we really want to turn the tide, we need to be thinking about how to bolster family resources instead of making cuts to key social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP,” she continued.

“We could be thinking about ways to help families to stay afloat during these challenging times by increasing that amount of aid,” she added.

In another clip, Martin points out that “black two-parent families are almost invisible in academic literature even though they make up nearly half of black families today.”

“Because we haven’t focused on black two-parent families, we haven’t known how drastic the opportunity gaps are for this group compared to their white peers. It has allowed us to believe for so long that the two-parent family is the great equalizer, which has actually shown up in the way that we craft policy,” Cross explained.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock and BlazeTV contributor Delano Squires are not even close to being on the same page as Cross.

“Christina Cross wrote about the quote-unquote ‘myth’ of the two-parent family about six years ago in the New York Times. So I’m familiar with her work, and she’s one of, you know, she’s the type of scholar who connects marriage to white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy,” Squires explains.

“So again, it’s this idea that marriage is an oppressive institution, that it’s rooted in whiteness and that it doesn’t benefit black families as much as it does white families, which obviously is completely false, but this is the type of thing that you get nowadays,” he continues.

“The next thing you know, she’s talking about more government funding for TANF and SNAP, which has nothing to do with two married two-parent families because the median household income for black married couples under the age of 65 is $122,000,” he adds.

This, Squires explains, is “higher than the median income overall for every other racial group including Asians.”

“So she starts by saying, ‘Look at black two-parent families’ and then by the time she’s finished with you, she’s talking about more government welfare programs,” he says, adding, “which almost exclusively are for unmarried women with children.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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

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Taylor Swift has long been lauded as a girl next door, the sweet, innocent, perfect role model for your young daughters — but after her latest album, BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is asking moms everywhere to reconsider their stance on the pop star.

“Okay, moms,” Stuckey begins. “Your daughters should not be listening to Taylor Swift. They should not be. She is not a role model. And it actually baffles me that there are Christian moms who will say, ‘Well, she’s better than Chapell Roan’ or ‘she’s better than Bad Bunny’ or ‘she’s better than, I don’t know, Selena Gomez.’”

“Y’all, the bar is in hell, if that is our standard. The bar could not be lower if we are deciding on the righteousness of our kids’ entertainment choices based on the most degenerate stuff out there. That is not how Christians should be thinking,” she explains.

Back when Swift was a teenager, Stuckey recalls listening to her.

“We were in the same life stage. She was talking about this, you know, silly, superficial stuff. She was talking about teenage romance. She was not talking about opening up her thighs to someone who is not a husband. Okay? And that is literally what she is singing about,” Stuckey says.

“There is zero reason for you to allow your daughter to be listening to or going to the concert of Taylor Swift,” she adds.

Stuckey then quotes Song of Solomon 2:7, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”

“I think it’s so important to make sure to do everything that we can to keep our daughters, to keep our kids on the right track spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Like, I think about the mistake that I made when I was a teenager and reading smut. … It wasn’t, like, explicit ‘Fifty Shades of Gray,’ but a lot of innuendo, a lot of, like, hot and heavy implication about what was going on behind closed doors,” Stuckey explains.

“That kind of ‘Twilight’ stuff I should not have been reading as a 16-, 17-year-old alone in my room because it creates in you a desire that cannot be fulfilled in a holy way. And purposely consuming content that creates in you, whether you’re an adult, but especially as a teenager, that creates in you a desire, a longing that may be natural, but cannot be fulfilled in a way that is honoring to God is not good,” she continues.

“And we as parents are called to steward our children,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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“Angelo.” With no surname necessary, the mere mention put Washington’s late-Cold War intelligence establishment on edge. Their tormentor was but a thirtysomething staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Contrarily, to the Cold Warriors sacrificing their all to defend the nation from communist subversion and nuclear missile threats, that single name, like a messenger from heaven, brought comfort and joy.

Angelo Codevilla, who died in 2021, knew and understood that the country that took him in as a boy would preserve itself and its founding principles by having the most capable intelligence and counterintelligence services the world had ever seen. “Most capable” didn’t mean the largest, or the most lavishly funded, or supplied with the most high-tech gear. It meant having the most creative, most principled, most virtuous, and wisest people doing the job.

Angelo was his own man. He stood true to his principles, never feared burning bridges, and often anticipated enjoying the flames.

Angelo watched the U.S. intelligence apparatus deteriorate. Visiting CIA headquarters over the years, he passed the stone inscription that the late and great CIA Director Allen Dulles placed as what he intended as a permanent greeting: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” — the Gospel according to John.

In the last year of his life, Angelo saw the videos of CIA corridors festooned with mind-numbing murals and telescreens promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. To Angelo, who spoke Latin, DEI meant “of God.” A new god, a false one, possesses the American intelligence community today.

The evolution to this point was entirely predictable, and Angelo foresaw it early. He had the most remarkable track record of any American. Close to a half-century ago, on the newly formed Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Angelo called out the CIA, not for its cult of secrecy, but for its cult of untruthfulness.

A relentless force

Angelo arrived at the Senate in 1977, just as George H.W. Bush left his 11-month stint as CIA director and as the liberal Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) wrapped up sensational hearings and reports about the intelligence community.

Angelo’s committee work and intellectual rigor were so distinguished that President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential transition team chose him to be part of its intelligence and diplomatic section. He had built a rapport with Reagan’s campaign manager, the distinguished Office of Strategic Services veteran William J. Casey. Casey had done the unthinkable during World War II by proposing, then running, operations behind German lines after D-Day to open the invasion route for Allied American, French, and British Empire forces to march to Berlin.

Rapport and mutual respect grew to deep trust when Casey ran the CIA. Angelo became Bill Casey’s man in the Senate. But Angelo Codevilla was never the CIA’s man. To him, the CIA was just a bureaucracy that performed a necessary function. He believed that the bureaucracy was performing its function poorly and going in the wrong direction. No bureaucracy, he believed, was sacred. Certainly, none should ever be permanent.

Angelo wasn’t even Bill Casey’s man. He was his own man. He stood true to his principles, never feared burning bridges, and often anticipated enjoying the flames.

Angelo trusted and admired President Reagan for the good in him and for his ideals. He worked closely in a fraternal and trusting relationship with Reagan’s national security adviser, Judge William Clark. Casey brought the Senate staffer Angelo to private White House meetings with President Reagan.

Angelo found himself in the curious situation — or, knowing him, he created the situation — of serving on the Senate committee whose job was to oversee the CIA while also working with the CIA director himself to get ahold of the dysfunctional and demoralized bureaucracy. The CIA wasn’t being truthful with Congress, and it wasn’t being truthful with Casey either.

It wasn’t a matter of the CIA’s being secretive. Angelo had all the necessary clearances. It was a matter of being truthful. This bothered Angelo immensely. So did incompetence. And so did ideological blinders. Angelo was never in awe of the CIA or the FBI, though he did say once, 33 years ago, that the FBI merited some of his esteem. That was then.

That year, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, he wrote a monumental work, “Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century,” on what a successful intelligence community should look like, how it should act, and why. The CIA was far, far behind the curve, looking backward instead of forward. “The major elements of U.S. intelligence will have to be rethought and rebuilt,” he said.

Of course, they were not rethought or rebuilt until after their hand was forced — after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Even then, the rethinking and rebuilding were done entirely wrong. Instead of the eternal standards of philosophical soundness and professional excellence that Angelo laid out in 1991, the U.S. intelligence system treated its bureaucratic instincts as sacrosanct, taking critical theory as its lodestar, and glowering establishmentarians cemented the new order.

The CIA leveraged its network of mid- to late-career bureaucrats — the “Old Boys” — to manage perceptions by leaking to the press, helping write or actually writing the popular histories, dominating the academic studies of intelligence, and credentialing those who would play well with others.

Angelo understood strategy the way others pretended to.

Angelo had his own exceptional network, however. He played five-dimensional chess in his sleep. He knew all about bureaucratic warfare and subversion both as a scholar and a practitioner. He knew exactly whom to call, when, and what to say.

Certain senators dreaded him. So did select high-ranking CIA and FBI officials.

He had a bipartisan spleen. On the Senate Intelligence Committee, Codevilla gleefully terrorized Republicans and Democrats alike with pointed, relentless inquiries that exposed intellectual inconsistencies and sheer sloppiness. He forced analysts and policymakers alike to address inconvenient facts as facts. They hated him for it, but many of them admitted he was right in private.

Angelo was known for his broad smile of iron teeth long before Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko (or a KGB officer assigned to the pliant Washington Post reporter Dusko Doder, who related it to the American audience) came up with the term to describe Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

“Iron teeth” applied to Angelo far better than it did to the Soviet leader. Codevilla’s militant joviality while pummeling Washington’s morally corrupt and weak-minded power elite flummoxed both friends and enemies. Hit hardest were the victims of Codevilla’s intellectual inquisitions. They could never quite tell whether the iron smile was a signal of genuine joy in shepherding one lost in a sea of laziness and prejudice toward logical reasoning or whether the smile was a precursor to a deadly verbal salvo — until it was too late.

Allen DullesBettmann via Getty Images

Challenging the Old Boys’ club

Angelo was a perceptive talent-spotter. He sized you up quickly. He would go out of his way to help those whom he deemed earnest. He reveled in discussions of facts, reason, and philosophy. One didn’t have to agree with him to be his friend. But if you were out, you were out permanently. He despised what he called “dishonest treachery.”

Treachery is part of the intelligence profession. It has to be. Angelo studied treachery and respected it. Dishonest treachery, to Angelo, was treachery executed in a morally wrong way and for morally wrong reasons. The world is treacherous. People are treacherous. To navigate treachery for a cause larger than oneself, one had to understand treachery, expect it, and deal with it on its own terms.

Born in Italy during the collapse of Mussolini’s fascist regime during World War II, Angelo always focused on the fundamentals. He always referred to the classics. He was the only member of the Senate Intelligence Committee staff, and perhaps the only person on earth, who read and studied the intelligence community’s entire super-secret annual budget, line by line — a pile of papers two feet high — year after year.

Angelo had a fear-inducing way of questioning intelligence leaders. He would say, “I asked Aristotle’s simple questions of officials throughout the Intelligence Community: What is the purpose of this activity? Why do you do this rather than something else? Do you do this for the sake of that, or vice versa? By what criteria do you judge your products good or bad?”

“I was astounded,” he remarked, “at how little thought had been given to decisions that affected thousands of careers, billions of dollars, and the nation’s very future. All too often, the answers to my questions were ‘We’ve always done it this way,’ and ‘How insulting for you to ask!’”

Angelo understood strategy the way others pretended to.

He was offending the agency or the bureau. Not the missions. The mission is never first in a permanent bureaucracy.

Angelo played five-dimensional chess in his sleep. He knew all about bureaucratic warfare and subversion both as a scholar and a practitioner.

Reasoned arguments were not part of the debate. The custom, then as now, was to attack the questioner and defend the bureaucracy. Decades before DEI and LGBTQ+, the FBI had its own informal acronym for its personnel: “DEB,” or “Don’t Embarrass the Bureau.”

“The attack is usually three-pronged,” Angelo explained when unpacking bureaucratic argumentative tactics. “First, this person must be revealing classified information. Second, this person does not know the whole story, and we who do know it are forbidden from commenting, except to say ‘You’re wrong.’ Third, this person’s demeaning tone precludes a rational explanation of some admittedly valid points.”

“So, in practice, three points boil down to one: Leave the field of intelligence for the Old Boys.”

The Old Boys would retire or die out, having mentored a new set of Old Boys, or New Genders, or whatever the flavor of the month may be, but the goal would be the same: Silence honest discussion about intelligence, counterintelligence, and whatever has become of “national security.”

Making truth-telling politically incorrect, and therefore wrong or immoral — and thus evil and professionally destructive — remains a defense tactic for intelligence agency bureaucrats. Angelo decried political correctness very early as it came into vogue. As it was killed off in favor of a more virulent strain, wokeness, he continued his crusade against it.

The Old Boys’ networks that he called out from the 1970s became, or were already part of, what he would later define as “the ruling class.”

‘Why? What for?’ And other inconvenient questions

Before the pale riders of cultural Marxism penetrated the intelligence community, Angelo was hammering away at the sheer aimlessness of American intelligence collection and analysis, most of which he saw as existing for its own sake.

After World War II and the bipartisan consensus about containment of communism, defining American national interests was easy: Take the fight to the communists, who were strategically mobilized to tear apart our country and our culture by any means necessary, both ideologically and physically. By defining national interests, even broadly, America can define the scope of its foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security services.

Even the beginning faced deep flaws, plus tensions about growing globalism. That mission was poorly understood and became diluted over time, with priorities left up to “experts” from the Washington establishment and the Ivy League, further distorted by critical theorists of the Frankfurt School variety. Reagan temporarily disrupted that trend, but his monumental mission to bring down the USSR itself required immense intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities.

The end of the Soviet Union allowed anyone with eyes to see that the intelligence establishment had become, as Codevilla had warned from his Senate staff perch, a huge intelligence-industrial complex that existed more for itself than for the national interest, whatever that national interest had become.

Codevilla became one of the first serious people after the Cold War to question why the United States was pouring so many resources into technologies to spy on everything possible around the world. Surveying America’s colossal human- and technological-intelligence might in 1992, he asked, “What for?”

Then, he crystallized the obvious but inconvenient facts. “To what does all of this amount? The activities to which we loosely refer as the U.S. technical collection system [were] never planned according to any single purpose, nor are they administered by a single organization,” he said. Some congressional oversight “sometimes prod[s] the system toward coherence. Yet coherence is elusive, because coordination is ex post facto to budgetary planning.”

Angelo’s unwelcome observation went unheeded, with Osama bin Laden proving the point with his ingeniously simple attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and all the Saudi and Qatari funding behind them. The al-Qaeda leader was but the most famous of a parade of “known wolves.” A bright and aggressive CIA man in Sudan tried to arrange bin Laden’s capture or elimination before he carried out the acts of terror he was openly planning, but he found little support up the intelligence chain and zero at the top of the CIA and in the Clinton White House. So bin Laden was allowed to remain free to attack.

Angelo had a bipartisan spleen. He gleefully terrorized Republicans and Democrats alike with pointed, relentless inquiries that exposed intellectual inconsistencies and sheer sloppiness.

It took a madman in a cave to force the United States to drop everything and try to add coherence to American intelligence. When that coherence came, it arrived in the hurried form of a huge centralized security apparat with near-limitless capabilities: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an überpowerful post that, in the wrong hands, would build coherence by abusing power and politicizing the apparat, resulting, by the time of Codevilla’s death, in a largely incoherent intelligence politburo, a rogue state deeply embedded within a state, whose modus operandi became guided by a revived Comintern’s critical theory and wokeness.

“Intelligence concerns human activities, and human beings, unlike God, go to great lengths to disguise their work. So perhaps the most serious charge that can be made against the fruits of U.S. intelligence concerns not the collectors but another set of people: the counterintelligence officers who should have guarded the integrity of the collectors’ work,” Angelo wrote in “Informing Statecraft.” American counterintelligence failed to do so, and Codevilla is one of the very few scholars to explain why.

Weaponized language

Angelo carefully studied language and the weaponization of words and grammar. He disdained wishy-washy intelligence products full of caveats, euphemisms, and that terrible passive voice.

He embraced the ancient treasure of virtue. Here I speak of virtue in the Aristotelian, Hebraic, and Christian senses. Niccolò Machiavelli changed the public understanding of virtue, influencing philosophers of liberalism in subsequent centuries. He taught how to change language to trick the reader to agree with the opposite of the original definition and intent and to reason, with easy logic, that evil was a virtue.

This was the most subversive aspect of Machiavelli’s writings. Subversion is an operational part of intelligence, though seldom adequately practiced by the CIA abroad or identified and combatted by the FBI to protect our constitutional republic at home (though competently waged against the American public).

Most readers of Machiavelli rely on translations. Angelo grew frustrated with some of those translations, even those by the finest scholars. Raised in an Italian-speaking home, he read Machiavelli in its original form and discovered that, especially in the case of the Florentine’s most important work, “The Prince,” the translators had “cleaned up” the Florentine evil genius’ imprecise uses of words, his often poor grammar, double meaning, or doublespeak, and indeed his bad use of pronouns. The cleanups improved the flow and readability of the translations and arguably corrected Machiavelli’s sloppy mistakes.

Angelo found that Machiavelli’s mistakes were purposeful, intended to convey or obscure meaning. So he set out to re-translate “The Prince,” in a literal but what he called an “inelegant” translation, and packed it with footnotes to explain the calculated plays on words and puns to distort language and understanding.

RELATED: Trump must clean house at DEI-crazy CIA

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Machiavelli was all about power for power’s sake — not for higher ideals, as Allen Dulles or Bill Casey later sought. It was power politics simply. Angelo explained how the mistranslators of Machiavelli, inadvertently or otherwise, taught people to dispense with goodness and all forms of higher purpose, to break down human relationships and society for the purposes of power.

Machiavelli twisted the meaning of virtue into a “tool for wretchedness,” suggesting that evil may be praiseworthy, twisting the concepts of evil and good. “The Prince,” Angelo said, marked the center of gravity from the standpoint of the sovereign: “Do I do virtuous things that don’t keep me #1, or do I do evil things and stay on top?” It refers to no higher purpose than that.

And so Angelo foresaw, whether translating Machiavelli or writing on — and acting for — intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security, that the machinery created to defend our constitutional republic has been perverted to seek and preserve power for power’s sake. The CIA as a bureaucracy, the FBI as a bureaucracy, Old Boys’ networks against citizens, the ruling class, political correctness, wokeness, critical theory, and cultural Marxism are all effectively automatons stockpiling power for their own sake.

Subversion

Treachery had a love child called subversion. Few mainstream American studies of intelligence or counterintelligence over the past six decades or so devote much attention to subversion — how both to defend ourselves and our society against it and to utilize it against our enemies. Codevilla treated subversion as a natural human behavior. He devoted a whole chapter to it in “Informing Statecraft.”

He also made a study of one of the 20th century’s most notorious subversives, the Italian Comintern man Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci adopted the gradualist, cultural-Marxist approach to revolution, combining the evils of Marxism with the evils of Machiavelli and a dash of Mussolini to give us an early strain of critical theory.

Angelo embraced the ancient treasure of virtue in the Aristotelian, Hebraic, and Christian senses.

Few besides Gramsci knew and applied Machiavelli as well as Angelo. Gramsci did it to subvert and destroy Western civilization. Codevilla understood and explained Machiavelli in a bid to save civilization and its moral foundations and to save its chief protector, at least then: the United States of America.

Angelo also understood Gramsci’s kindred spirits at the Germany-based Frankfurt School, another Comintern enterprise, which was rooted at Columbia University and fanned out through the Ivy League and West Coast universities. The Frankfurt School populated the OSS Research and Analysis Branch during World War II and infiltrated the early CIA’s intelligence directorate and its analytical products with a cultural-Marxist worldview. It penetrated the FBI after Robert Mueller’s centralization and indiscriminate mass hires following 9/11, which is quite likely why President Barack Obama asked Congress to extend Mueller’s statutory 10-year term limit as director for another two years, making the then-cognitively-impaired Mueller the second-longest-reigning FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover.

This wreaked damage that the rest of us are only beginning to understand as we watch the rot of critical theory permeate the Intelligence Community, just as it has our military and educational systems.

Angelo called it early. In a work on political warfare that he wrote in 2006 titled “Political Warfare: Means for Achieving Political Ends,” he noted that as dangerous as the enemy spies are who steal secrets, they merely steal secrets. Alger Hiss was a valuable Soviet spy, but his greatest value to the Soviet enemy was something else by far: a major controlled agent of influence and recruiter for Moscow within the Democrat and diplomatic establishments.

Worse than the spies who steal secrets and the controlled agents of influence, Angelo warned, were the subversive, uncontrolled fellow travelers, the so-called innocents and useful idiots who followed and mainstreamed the work of controlled agents — the men who designed the sellout to Stalin at Yalta, for example.

Since World War II, United States foreign policy succeeded despite, not because of, its giant intelligence-industrial apparat, Codevilla argued in his 1992 book. “Informing Statecraft” is so fundamental, and its principles and guidance so timeless, that it remains among the most important and informative volumes on both statecraft and intelligence more than three decades later. A future president should require all his intelligence, national security, and foreign-policy appointees to master the book.

American intelligence and counterintelligence understand little of this in terms of performing their missions that the public has entrusted to them. Nor does Congress, which makes the laws.

Nor do the courts, which interpret them. Nor do all but a very few of the nation’s schools. And so Angelo Codevilla’s approach to intelligence laid the foundations for his studies of America’s national character and of the ruling class.

Enduring character

To Angelo, America’s superpower status was an exception to its exceptionalism, an anomaly brought about by its defeat of fascism and its brief but squandered victory in the Cold War over the Soviet Union and communism. The post-Soviet world, he reasoned, was the time for America to return to its founding roots.

Nations have character. Their governments affect society, the moral order, and family. In a vicious circle, politics make or break all. America’s founders were all men of character. They spoke openly of virtue, not in the twisted Machiavellian sense, but in its real essence.

A coherent and strategic foreign policy was a core element of the American Revolution, the founding of the American constitutional republic, and the growth of the United States and the American dream to become a superpower. The greatest successes occurred when American intelligence, like the federal government itself, was very limited and very small and when U.S. strategic goals were simple and understandable to the average citizen who could support them.

Times are different, but the principle remains. The United States needs a strong foreign secret-intelligence service to collect and analyze information on issues vital to its national interests to inform a president and his administration. It needs a similar service to conduct activities covertly that diplomats and the military cannot or should not do. It needs a robust counterintelligence service to neutralize foreign spying and influence against us and a moderate security service to defend against violent or subversive internal threats to the Constitution.

Sheer size bears no relation to strength and robustness. As the world’s sole superpower, the United States built a Leviathan government that created a new ruling class through a form of bureaucracy and corporatism that linked political power and wealth. It attacked family, religious belief, and personal character. Surveying history, and stressing the profound America chronicled by Alexis de Tocqueville, Angelo in 1997 recognized the culture wars under way that ultimately begat today’s critical theory of wokeness.

How could America keep the peace in the world if it wasn’t even at peace with itself? Angelo naturally wrote a book about it: “To Make and Keep Peace,” subtitled “Among Ourselves and with All Nations.” Much earlier, with Paul Seabury, he wrote one of the most important modern textbooks of peace’s opposite, titled “War: Ends and Means.” And then, he provided a collection of essays during the Global War on Terrorism titled “No Victory, No Peace,” which observed, in what would mark the early part of a forever war, “The Bush Administration has not achieved peace because it has not sought victory.” That was back in 2005.

Photo by MIKE SARGENT/AFP via Getty Images

Angelo constantly asked the annoying question, “Why go to war if you don’t intend to win?”

A common thread bound all his works on conflict, defense, intelligence, peace, and treachery. That thread was about keeping America first, a solid and reasoned approach without the politicized jingoism, and tempered by a firm grounding in America’s founding principles and the Western moral tradition.

As time went by, after Reagan’s successful strategy brought down the Soviet Union and the military-industrial and intelligence-industrial complexes mushroomed to what they are today, Angelo focused extensively on the elites who run American politics and policy and the uniparty that became known as the Swamp and the permanent ruling class.

As an aside, perhaps Angelo’s most impactful legacy, more than 40 years ago, was to build up a leader in the U.S. Senate to push for a space-based weapons system to shoot down incoming ballistic nuclear missiles. This effort involved constant coordination with the Reagan White House. A Soviet active-measures campaign aimed at weak and treacherous politicians and other elites kept Congress from providing the funds to build and deploy that revolutionary, workable system.

The prospect of an American strategic missile-defense system wrecked the Soviets’ nuclear war calculus and, with Reagan’s own nuclear modernization, tricked the Kremlin into bankrupting the USSR with needless new weapons programs that Reagan planned to negotiate away. However, Congress never funded a functional space-based missile defense, and to this day, America remains completely vulnerable to a strategic nuclear missile attack.

The ruling class, as personified by President George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, never tried to understand the nature of the jihadist enemy. Angelo called them out for it at the time. Unlike in domestic politics, where they worked tirelessly to keep themselves in power, he observed, they never sought to win abroad.

Angelo Codevilla flew with the high and mighty, not because he craved being among them but because he knew he had to be.

The same was true for the permanent class within the military and intelligence communities. Indeed, by the 2000s, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had completely removed the word “victory” from its annual 400-page “Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.”

On learning this during dinner with friends, Angelo grew incensed but was not at all surprised, switching the conversation to pose the question, “Why have a military if our leaders say nothing of victory?”

This need for an endlessly growing spy machine resulted more through the incrementalism of American interventionism and forever wars than through a grand design for a giant foreign and domestic spy apparat, or so we’d like to think, but the result was the same. A grandly designed spy apparat would have been more logical and effective than the one we have.

Angelo Codevilla flew with the high and mighty, not because he craved being among them but because he knew he had to be.

Even in Washington, he always took the time to mentor young people to become the next generation of diplomats, spies, and national security leaders.

He taught, among remarkable colleagues, at Boston University during the years when BU President John Silber was on the cusp of transforming the middling school into a top-flight institution with a world-class national security and international diplomacy program — a transformation that died with Silber and swirled down the loo of intellectual mediocrity, wokeness, and the scam of critical-race-theory corruption. Still, Boston University’s very woke Pardee School of Global Studies, of which Angelo was never on the faculty because the school didn’t exist at the time, proudly claims him as a professor emeritus.

Bureaucracies in need of replacement

Government bureaucracies are just bureaucracies. When they atrophy and abuse the public trust, they should be abolished. In an orderly way, their essential functions can be transferred to another bureaucracy that can do the job, or, better yet, they can be culled to create a new bureaucracy to last for as long as it faithfully executes its intended purpose.

Angelo agreed that we don’t need the FBI and CIA as they are. But that doesn’t mean that America doesn’t need strong foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and even internal security agencies to defend the country and its interests from foreign adversaries. Bureaucracies come and go. And just as the FBI and the CIA came from parts of the distant past, Angelo argued in his later years that it was time for them to go in favor of something better.

Replacements would have to be designed according to the priorities of America’s mission in the world, which he saw as driven by the American people’s priorities for the central government to serve them, with their consent as the governed, and not for the ruling class to serve itself. The people determine their needs, the elected officials determine strategies and policies to fulfill those needs, and then the officials design and authorize the intelligence apparatus necessary to execute those strategies and policies.

And this is where Angelo labored his last. For years, he had referred to the America seen by Tocqueville — its mission, its place in the world, its relations with foreign countries, and its securing its own defense. His last work, published posthumously in 2022, drew lessons in statecraft from an intellectual and political giant and near-forgotten contemporary of Tocqueville, President John Quincy Adams.

Although America had leading political families such as the Adamses even when Tocqueville made his observations, there was no ruling class. America’s founders fought relentlessly to avoid the emergence of a national class of elites, even though several states in the federation had their own dominant political or economic families and clans. But there was no massive, permanent central government with a constellation of companies with business models of milking the taxpayers’ udders. There was no interstate ruling class.

The superficiality of popular American history almost passes over John Quincy Adams, viewing him as the son of a founding father and a one-term president during a period of undistinguished one-termers.

In “America’s Rise and Fall Among Nations: Lessons in Statecraft from John Quincy Adams,” Codevilla described a true American foreign policy, one as consistent with the vision of the founding fathers as with present-day America First nationalism. Adams was the brilliant but practically forgotten 19th-century secretary of state and president who, as a 5-year-old, had been brought by his parents, John and Abigail Adams, to watch the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.

John Quincy Adams effectively founded U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy. He authored the Monroe Doctrine to preserve the independence of the new American republics from Mexico to South America and to keep European powers out of the region.

RELATED: The CIA’s greatest failure: Intelligence

Photo by asbe via Getty Images

In studying Adams’ extraordinary experiences as diplomat, secretary of state, president, and statesman, Codevilla showed America’s successes in determining its own national interests in geopolitics by limiting them, reducing the need for a global, expeditionary military and a centralized, European-style security state to prop up, among other things, a ruling class.

He celebrated John Quincy Adams’ principles and achievements — among them, ghostwriting the extraordinarily successful Monroe Doctrine as secretary of state — and tracked American foreign policy and geostrategy from Adams’ time to the present, uncovering a consistency of principles regardless of international circumstances.

Application of those principles is associated directly with America’s rise. Abandonment of them, over time, tracks with America’s relative decline. Revival of them, Codevilla would argue, would be cause for optimism.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind and was adapted from “Fighting Enemies Foreign and Domestic: The Legacy of Angelo Codevilla” (Encounter Books).

​Opinion & analysis, Angelo codevilla, Intelligence community, Cia, Truth, Deep state, Senate intelligence committee, Ruling class, Allen dulles, Cold war, Soviet union, Global war on terrorism, 9/11, Victory, Peace, Saudi arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq war, National security, National defense, Weekend long read 

For decades, Bill Maher has mocked religion with missionary zeal. He built his career sneering at scripture, scorning believers, and branding Christianity a fairy tale for fools.

Few men have done more to cement their place as America’s most committed unbeliever. And to his credit, Maher has never hidden his contempt. Week after week on “Real Time,” he lampooned pastors, derided prayer, and preached his own brand of secular gospel — cheap, cynical, and completely godless.

If even he can recognize evil when he sees it, what excuse remains for those who claim to serve God?

That’s what makes his latest remarks so shocking.

On a recent episode of his show, Maher did something few in the modern West dare to do: He defended Christianity. He spoke not with irony, but with indignation, condemning the genocide of Christians in Nigeria. If this were any other group, he argued, it would be on every front page — and he’s right.

“The fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar — it’s pretty amazing,” Maher said. “If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble.”

“I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches. … These are the Islamists, Boko Haram,” he continued. “This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.”

The fact that it takes an atheist to say what many Christian leaders have not and Western journalists will not is a sobering sign of our decay.

While Maher’s words are rare, the blood he described is not. Just a few weeks ago, armed insurgents stormed the Christian community of Wagga Mongoro in Adamawa State in the dead of night. Four were killed, many more wounded. Homes, shops, and a church were set ablaze.

Earlier in August, coordinated assaults swept through farming villages in Benue State. Nine Christians murdered in five days. In June, over 200 butchered in a single weekend — parents, priests, and children alike.

Across Nigeria, Christians are being hunted for their belief. The perpetrators — Boko Haram, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, and radicalized Fulani militias — share one mission: to wipe out Christianity and impose Islamist rule.

It’s nothing less than a slow, systematic genocide.

Under former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, this campaign flourished. Militants gained ground while soldiers stood aside. Entire villages vanished. Churches became tombs. What the world calls “unrest” is, in truth, organized extermination. It’s “genocide” by every definition.

Since 2009, more than 50,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Nigeria. Churches reduced to rubble. Priests hacked to death at the altar. Worshippers gunned down mid-prayer. These are not isolated horrors but rather part of a single, unbroken chain of persecution.

Yet in the West, this bloodshed barely registers. If thousands of Muslims, Jews, or atheists were annihilated, it would dominate headlines for months, and rightly so. But when Christians die, the press looks away.

And silence, in this case, is complicity.

RELATED: Atheist offers ironic cure for America’s woes

OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT/AFP via Getty Images

Over the past decade, the United States has poured over $7.8 billion in aid into Nigeria — funds meant for peace and progress. Yet the country’s most vulnerable, the rural faithful, are left defenseless. The Nigerian government shrugs, Western governments continue to provide funding, and the media remains silent. It’s easier to ignore a massacre than to admit moral failure.

Aid without accountability is blood money. Every dollar sent to Abuja should demand justice — protection for Christian villages, prosecution of terrorists, and dismantling of jihadist networks. Anything less is an endorsement of evil.

Nigeria is not alone. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ISIS-linked rebels have killed thousands. In Burkina Faso, pastors are executed and churches incinerated. In Mozambique, Christian towns have been erased from the map. Across Africa, a perverse pattern repeats — the union of radicalism and Western indifference, and the victims are nearly always Christian.

But Nigeria stands apart. It is Africa’s most populous nation, its economic and political heart. If it falls, the shock will reverberate across the continent.

So I ask, where is the outrage? Where are the protests, the headlines, the hashtags?

The same media class that rushes to champion every self-proclaimed victim of oppression falls curiously silent when the oppressed are believers. The same outlets that preach “diversity” intentionally turn blind eyes to the destruction of a faith followed by 2.6 billion souls. The hypocrisy would be laughable if it weren’t so lethal.

The modern left has grown so morally inverted that an atheist must now defend the faithful. Bill Maher’s rebuke should pierce the conscience of every journalist, pastor, and policymaker who claims to care about justice.

If even he can recognize evil when he sees it, what excuse remains for those who claim to serve God?

For years, Western leaders, particularly those on the left, have droned on about defending the weak and giving voice to the voiceless. But when the victims are Christian — often barefoot widows in burned-out villages clutching starving children — matters of justice don’t seem to matter. What could be weaker than that? What could be more deserving of compassion?

Nigeria now stands at a crossroads — and so does the West.

The issue isn’t whether Christianity can survive persecution — it always has. The question is whether nations built upon its moral foundation still believe in the values they inherited.

Because when an atheist must defend the faith, it isn’t just Christianity under siege. It’s the very conscience of the civilized world.

​Bill maher, Christianity, Nigeria, Christian genocide, Africa, Christians, Faith 

My martial arts training kicked in as I noticed someone walking up behind me at a busy intersection in Aurora, Colorado, not exactly America’s safest city, and I was not in the best part of town. I shifted slightly to see her and kept her in view while we waited for the light to change.

She was young, Gen Z perhaps, heavily tattooed, with the kind of piercings that make me wince and wonder how she ever gets through TSA with that much metal. Jewelry swayed from her nose and ears as she stood beside me at the crosswalk. It was a long wait for the light, and let’s be honest, when someone looks that rough, it’s easy to tense up — especially these days. With headlines full of random violence and senseless attacks, wariness can feel like common sense.

In an age of combat and argument, the most radical engagement may be quiet compassion.

Overhead, a bald eagle circled the hospital towers where my wife had been staying for nearly five months. I lifted my phone for a picture. She noticed and said quietly, “That’s cool.”

Quoting John Denver, I replied, “I know he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly. This morning, I don’t think we’re poor, are we?”

She smiled, sadly, almost as if it were forced. “I needed that … given what I’m carrying.”

The light changed, and we stepped into the crosswalk together. I asked the only question that mattered: “What are you carrying?”

She told me about her ex, abusive, threatening, promising to show up at her house. Fear shadowed every word. I asked if she’d filed an order of protection. She said she was in the process, but her voice carried little confidence. Then I asked if she had a firearm. In an instant, fear gave way to shame. She dropped her eyes and admitted she couldn’t own one because of a past conviction.

On the other side of the intersection, I offered her specific guidance that she could implement right away, practical steps to increase her safety and protect herself. But as I spoke, it became clear that the deeper issue wasn’t just logistics. I didn’t get the sense she believed she mattered.

So I looked at her and said, “Do you understand that your safety matters? That you are worth protecting?”

Her eyes said she didn’t believe it. So I told her again, this time as a fact, not a question: “You are worth protecting.” Tears welled up.

Then I asked if I could pray with her. She nodded tearfully, and right there, on the sidewalk of a busy Aurora street, we bowed our heads.

I can’t count how many people prayed for my wife and me that morning or throughout our long journey. But I can count the number praying for that young woman on a street corner in Aurora. And it wasn’t just me. We have a Savior who “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25).

That’s all it took. Not a debate. Not an argument. Just seeing her, giving her steps to take, praying for her, and offering her what she could not yet tell herself.

It was an unusual encounter, but crossings like this will only become more frequent, because a generation is struggling with anxiety, depression, and despair at levels we’ve never seen before. According to the Springtide Research Institute (2022), 55% of Gen Z report being moderately to extremely anxious, and 47% say they are moderately or extremely depressed.

RELATED: Reckless hate cannot win: Christ has already broken it

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Some of them may look odd to us. They may dye their hair in garish tones, pierce their bodies, or cover themselves in ink. But Henry David Thoreau’s line remains true: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Some of us just wear our wounds differently. Blood is still red. Wounds still hurt. And scars still speak louder than arguments.

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, many people — young people especially — are rushing to the debate stage, eager for verbal combat. Strong voices still have a space in the public square. But not every meaningful moment requires a microphone or a mastery of apologetics.

That morning in Aurora, I wasn’t looking to change anyone’s politics. I was simply a caregiver, walking to the hospital to sit with my wife after decades of surgeries. Yet a brief exchange at a crosswalk became a chance to remind someone that her life mattered. She never knew what I carried. She didn’t need to. She benefited because I stopped to care. What began as caution in a rough neighborhood turned into an encounter that spoke directly to another human being’s heartache.

A generation is struggling. Those of us of a certain age may not know their world very well. But our scars can speak. It costs little and requires no training to be kind to a wounded soul.

We only need to be ready at a moment’s notice “to comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). In an age of combat and argument, that may be the most radical engagement of all.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Loneliness, Loneliness epidemic, Hope in christ, Gospel, Prayer, Prayer in the streets, Revival 

For more than two decades, California’s electric vehicle drivers enjoyed a privilege that millions of traditional commuters envied: the ability to glide into the carpool lane while driving solo.

That perk, created under the state’s Clean Air Vehicle program, was meant to reward early adopters of electric cars and hybrids while encouraging the broader public to embrace cleaner transportation. But after September 30, that advantage comes to an end.

When the program launched in 2001, the idea was to kick-start adoption of a new technology, not to create a permanent class of special drivers.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed it stopped accepting new applications for Clean Air Vehicle decals on August 29, and existing decals will no longer be valid beginning October 1.

Fuel me once

That means a Tesla, Chevy Bolt, or Toyota Prius Prime with a single driver will be treated the same as a gas-powered sedan in traffic. Use the high-occupancy vehicle lane alone, and you risk a ticket of up to $490.

The reason behind this abrupt shift is not state policy but federal law. The Clean Air Vehicle program was last authorized through the 2015 federal transportation law, which included a sunset clause requiring Congress to extend it. That extension never happened. Without Washington’s approval, California cannot legally continue granting carpool lane access to EV drivers.

This has sparked frustration among both state officials and drivers who had come to view the privilege as a key reason to purchase an electric vehicle. Since the program’s inception in 2001, California has issued more than 1.2 million decals, with about 512,000 still valid this summer. The scale of adoption made California a national model for incentivizing EV use. For many, skipping bumper-to-bumper traffic was just as important as lower fuel costs or environmental benefits.

Grumblin’ Gavin

Governor Gavin Newsom (D) sharply criticized the lapse, blaming congressional inaction. His office warned that revoking EV access to HOV lanes will worsen traffic congestion and increase air pollution.

California already struggles with air quality, hosting five of the nation’s 10 smoggiest cities, according to the American Lung Association. State officials argue that taking incentives away from EVs could discourage adoption at a time when they want more drivers behind the wheel of battery-powered cars.

But the politics of EV incentives have shifted dramatically in recent years. Bipartisan support has fractured, and federal priorities have moved away from programs like California’s Clean Air Vehicle initiative. Under President Donald Trump, environmental waivers that California used to set its own strict emissions standards were revoked.

He also signed an executive order halting federal EV incentives, such as the $7,500 tax credit, and moved to eliminate the state’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate. More recently, his administration backed several resolutions overturning California’s regulations, including its 2035 ban on new gas-powered cars.

RELATED: Can the Fuel Emissions Freedom Act save America’s auto industry from California?

Kevin Carter/Yana Paskova/Getty Images

EV does it

California, for its part, has doubled down on electrification. Electric vehicles accounted for 25% of new car sales in 2024, the highest in the nation. The state now has more EV chargers than gas stations, and its climate policies require automakers to meet aggressive EV sales quotas if they want to continue selling gasoline-powered models. To bridge the gap, state lawmakers passed legislation in 2024 to extend the Clean Air Vehicle program until 2027. But because federal approval was necessary, that effort has now hit a wall.

The loss of carpool lane access raises serious questions about the balance between incentives and mandates. Many Californians purchased EVs with the expectation of long-term access to HOV lanes, and for commuters in areas like Los Angeles or the Bay Area, the time savings are significant. Taking that away could undermine consumer confidence in state-backed incentives. If benefits can vanish overnight, will drivers think twice before making the leap to an electric car, especially with prices still higher than many gasoline vehicles?

There’s also the issue of traffic itself. With over half a million cars losing carpool access at once, HOV lanes may open up — but the general flow of traffic could get worse. California has long promoted these lanes as a way to reduce congestion and emissions. Yet now, drivers who purchased EVs expecting relief from gridlock will be back in the same stop-and-go conditions as everyone else.

Fair fare

Some critics argue that carpool incentives were always meant to be temporary. When the program launched in 2001, the idea was to kick-start adoption of a new technology, not to create a permanent class of special drivers. EV sales are now far higher than expected when the program began, and some transportation analysts suggest that the incentives have already served their purpose. In their view, it’s time to reassess whether carpool perks are fair, especially as EVs become mainstream.

Still, the political framing remains contentious. California officials see the lapse as part of a broader pattern of federal resistance to their climate policies. They argue that while EVs have become more popular, the fight against pollution requires every possible tool, including access incentives. Without federal cooperation, the state faces limits on how far it can go.

Tolled off

Drivers, meanwhile, are caught in the middle. A Tesla owner who counted on the decal as part of their daily commute could soon be facing hundreds of dollars in fines. Discounts on toll programs, such as those tied to FasTrak Clean Air Vehicle tags, will also vanish unless drivers meet normal occupancy rules.

This moment highlights a broader tension in the transition to electric vehicles: the clash between ambitious state-level initiatives and shifting federal policy. California wants to lead the nation in electrification, but it cannot do so entirely on its own.

As EV adoption accelerates, the question becomes whether incentives should keep pace — or whether it’s time for the market to stand on its own.

For now, the result is clear. Starting in October, California’s EV drivers will no longer be able to rely on their clean-air decals to speed through traffic. Instead, they’ll have to join the same lanes as everyone else, while the larger policy debates play out in Washington and Sacramento.

What happens next will depend on how lawmakers balance environmental goals, commuter realities, and political priorities. But one thing is certain: The end of California’s Clean Air Vehicle program marks a turning point in how America incentivizes electric cars. For drivers, it’s a reminder that government programs can change overnight — and the road ahead may be more complicated than expected.

​Gavin newsom, Clean air vehicle, Hov lanes, Ev carpool, Ev mandate, California, Tesla, Auto industry, Lifestyle, Align cars 

On a recent special episode of “The Steve Deace Show,” Steve, a devout evangelical, interviewed former Protestant pastor turned Catholic apologist Keith Nester about his decision to convert to Catholicism.

In this fascinating and educational interview, Steve and Keith dive headfirst into the turbulent waters of the core issues that separate Catholics and Protestants with openness and sincerity.

The son of a United Methodist pastor, Keith gave his heart to Jesus at church camp when he was just 11 years old. Catholicism wasn’t even something on his radar until his young adulthood, when he got the opportunity to serve as a youth pastor at a small church in Iowa. The youth program started with just 12 children, but two years later, it had grown to 250. Many of these children’s parents then began coming to the church, and the congregation exploded.

Most of these new congregants, however, were Catholics. “They were coming over to our church going, ‘This is the greatest thing ever. I’ve never seen anything like it before. We’re learning about Jesus here,”’ says Keith.

This engrained the idea that Catholics “don’t know anything about the Bible” into his mind as he began his ministry as a Protestant pastor.

But this mindset started to unravel soon after he met a graphic designer who was an on-fire-for-Jesus Catholic. The two quickly began trying to convert each other. Keith, who at the time was in seminary school, consulted his Bible professor to give him the information he needed to “defeat this Catholic.”

“She just said to me, ‘Well, we believe that because we’re Protestants,”’ says Keith, who was forced to go on his own “wild goose chase” looking for the “silver bullet” that would prove his Catholic friend wrong.

But after years and years of searching, he never found it. It wasn’t long before he felt the Lord calling him to convert to Catholicism, but he was resistant — not because he didn’t fully believe in Catholic doctrine but because he had built a life as a Protestant youth pastor. His wife, who converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, and his children were devoted to the Protestant church.

For years, Keith dodged the calling he felt God had put on his heart. “Life got pretty dark. Things went kind of crazy for me,” he admits.

In 2015 the Methodist Church, which Keith had been part of since his childhood, began unraveling. Heated debates over same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ+ people started to fray the edges of the denomination. Keith, committed to scripture, found himself in heated arguments with other Methodists, who contended that scripture could be interpreted in different ways.

“I started to think, okay, well, if I can’t argue from scripture alone, from tradition, then I have to argue from authority, right?” he recalls.

“That got turned back on me pretty hardcore. I even had someone say to me, ‘Well, if you believe in all this church authority stuff, why aren’t you a Catholic?”’

This sent Keith back to the dusty Catholic apologetics books his old friend had given him years prior. “Through a series of just deep dives into things and … semi-mystical experiences, where I just had things that happened to me experientially around things related to the Catholic faith, I became convinced that the Catholic Church was what it claimed to be: the one true church … the church that Jesus Christ started,” he tells Steve.

But there was still the issue of his family and established career as a Protestant minister. One night Keith cried out to Jesus: “If you want me to become Catholic, I will do it. But you’ve got to make a way.”

“And I’m not kidding around, Steve, from the crucifix, He spoke to me and He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. You don’t need me to make a way, you just need me.’ And I realized in that moment that there He was in the Eucharist and that there He was with me, and He was calling me to lay it all on the line for Him,” he recounts. “I had never felt something more strongly when it comes to my faith in all my life.”

He went home that night and told his wife, and the next day he told the senior pastor at his church. “It was tough … but I knew in my heart that this is what it meant for me to follow the Lord,” Keith admits.

In the second half of the interview, Keith and Steve dive into the individual issues that distinguish Catholicism from Protestantism: the authority of the Catholic Church versus sola scriptura, the role of Scripture and tradition, the veneration of Mary and saints, and the nature of church unity and historical continuity.

To hear their compelling and heartfelt discussion on the core differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, tune in to the full interview above.

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Nearly 6,500 women from across the country gathered in Allen, Texas, Saturday for Allie Beth Stuckey’s second annual Share the Arrows conference — a powerful event uniting faith, encouragement, and sisterhood to empower women to stand boldly in the truth of the gospel.

Worship and opening

The event began with a soul-stirring worship session led by Francesca Battistelli, who performed moving renditions of “In Christ Alone” and “Is He Worthy?” Following worship, a lineup of dynamic speakers took the stage to address critical topics impacting women: motherhood, marriage, health, and navigating today’s toxic cultural landscape armed with God’s word.

Alisa Childers: Discernment in a deceptive age

Christian author, speaker, and apologist Alisa Childers opened with a compelling message on discernment amid widespread deception, particularly from “progressive Christianity,” which she said often cloaks demonic ideologies in modernized faith.

Using the analogy of Queen Anne’s lace and poison hemlock – two plants nearly identical in appearance but vastly different in nature – she urged women to distinguish God’s truth from Satan’s lies, which echo the age-old question, “Did God really say that?”

Whether addressing gender, sexuality, abortion, or marriage, Childers emphasized testing all things against Scripture – not fleeting emotions. “Discernment is when you employ knowledge and wisdom to test all things against the Word of God,” she said.0

But in order to live out that discernment, we must first conquer our fear of man. “Give me one woman who fears God more than anything else, and you will find an unstoppable force for Christ,” Childers encouraged.

Abbie Halberstadt and Hillary Morgan Ferrer: The calling of motherhood

In the second session, Allie sat down for a candid conversation with Christian author and homeschooling mother of 10 Abbie Halberstadt and Mama Bear Apologetics founder Hillary Morgan Ferrer about motherhood’s multifaceted challenges, including discipleship, gender, sexuality, technology, and relationships.

Halberstadt drew from her extensive parenting experience, while Ferrer, whose health-related infertility prevents her from having children, shared insights from her research on equipping parents to counter cultural lies with biblical truth.

The panel emphasized that all women – regardless of age, marital status, or fertility – are called to be mothers in some capacity. “All of us are called to a form of motherhood,” Allie encouraged. Whether that’s through having biological children, adoption, or mentorship, the panel urged women of all walks of life to reject the culture’s lies that being a mother is burdensome, and instead to embrace their God-given maternal calling.

Katy Faust: Championing children’s rights

Katy Faust, founder of Them Before Us, then delivered a fiery speech on protecting children from a culture that places their wellbeing on the altar of adult desire.

Addressing issues like divorce, same-sex marriage, and reproductive technologies that create motherless or fatherless environments, Faust highlighted the statistical truth that children thrive best with their married biological parents. “It is very difficult for children to answer the question ‘who am I?’ if they can’t answer ‘whose am I?’” she said.

Faust called for personal sacrifice – forgoing practices like surrogacy or egg/sperm donation – and relentless advocacy for policies that protect children, a fight she believes could “save our nation.”

Shawna Holman and Taylor Dukes: Stewarding health as a temple

Allie was joined on stage next by Shawna Holman, founder of the blog A Little Less Toxic, and Taylor Dukes, a medicine nurse practitioner, for a raw discussion on holistic health. Both women, having overcome severe health challenges – Holman’s chronic illnesses and Dukes’ brain tumor – shared how their journeys led them to advocate for non-toxic living.

They emphasized that Christians must steward their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit through mindful nutrition, exercise, sleep, and hormone balance. Holman advised, “Do what you can with what you’re able and as it makes sense for you,” while Dukes encouraged returning to “how God created us to live” in a fast-paced digital age.

Jinger Vuolo: Forging a personal faith

Jinger Vuolo shared her story of breaking free from the people-pleasing tendencies rooted in her upbringing on TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, which chronicled her Christian fundamentalist family in Arkansas. In her 2023 memoir, “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear,” she describes moving beyond the “cult-like” and fear-based beliefs of her childhood.

With grace and compassion, Jinger has skillfully threaded the needle, forging a personal faith distinct from the one she was raised in, while still honoring her parents as scripture encourages. She warned that seeking human approval “often stops us from having genuine relationships,” inspiring women to pursue authentic faith and connections.

A unified call to action

The Share the Arrows conference wove together a tapestry of faith, resilience, and truth, empowering women to stand firm in their God-given roles. From Childers’ call to discernment and Faust’s advocacy for children to Halberstadt and Ferrer’s redefinition of motherhood, Holman and Dukes’ focus on holistic health, and Vuolo’s journey to authentic faith, the event equipped attendees to confront cultural lies with Biblical wisdom. As these women united in Texas, they left inspired to live boldly for Christ, embracing their callings as mothers, stewards, and warriors for truth in a world that desperately needs their light.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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A New York man made a bone-chilling on-air television confession to killing his parents and burying them in their backyard.

Last month, 53-year-old Lorenz Kraus reportedly emailed a two-page statement to news outlets regarding a shocking admission.

‘After he died, my mother put her head on his chest — and she was there for a few hours, then I finished her.’

Stone Grissom, WRGB-TV’s news director, told the Times-Union that he promised Kraus to publish his statement on WRGB’s news site if he came to the station for an interview.

“I called him to verify who he was,” Grissom said. “On the phone, he told me he buried his parents in his yard. When I asked if he killed them, he said, ‘I plead the Fifth.'”

Kraus reportedly arrived at the news station within an hour.

Grissom admitted there were major concerns of “inviting someone suspected of a double murder into our station.”

Grissom noted that he personally frisked Kraus upon his arrival and that a plainclothes police officer was in the news station’s secured front lobby.

Greg Floyd — a broadcaster since 1979 — had only 10 minutes to prepare for the eyebrow-raising interview.

During the jarring 31-minute sit-down, Kraus described the deaths of his aging parents as mercy killings to stop their suffering from multiple maladies.

Floyd asked Kraus, “So did you kill your parents as a mercy killing to put them out of their misery?”

Kraus avoided the question.

‘What was I supposed to do with this money?’

After Floyd pressed Kraus about what he did to his parents, Kraus responded, “I buried them in their property.”

Kraus said his parents died around August 2017.

Floyd asked Kraus if his parents asked him to take their lives, and Kraus responded, “Implicitly, but not explicitly.”

Kraus added during the interview, “I did my duty to my parents. My concern for their misery was paramount.”

Kraus did not mention if his parents had terminal illnesses.

In the stunning on-camera confession, Floyd pushed Kraus on whether he murdered his parents — 92-year-old Franz Kraus and 83-year-old Theresia Kraus.

Floyd — a six-time Emmy award-winning broadcaster — asked Kraus, “They knew that this was it for them, that they were perishing at your hand?”

Kraus replied, “Yes. And it was so quick.”

Kraus said he was “shocked” at how his father “died surprisingly quickly.”

Kraus confessed he strangled his parents to death. He admitted that he killed his father first by strangling him with his hands.

“After he died, my mother put her head on his chest — and she was there for a few hours, then I finished her,” Kraus stated.

Kraus confessed that he killed his mother by strangling her with a rope.

When asked what was going through his head as he killed his parents, Kraus said, “Not thoughts — action, make sure it’s done, not fool around, not make a mistake. But you know, the police would say what an incompetent idiot I am.”

Kraus said it took him two or three days to decide to bury his parents in the backyard of their property in Albany.

RELATED: How a butt-dialed voicemail may have exposed chilling cover-up of missing flight attendant’s murder

Kraus also is accused of stealing his parents’ Social Security payments after they died.

Floyd asked Kraus if he knew there were financial benefits to killing his parents.

Kraus claimed the “government is pissed because I took the Social Security money and gave it to people in the Philippines.”

Kraus said his parents’ murders were “not a kill-for-money case.”

Floyd fired back, “Some would call that blood money.”

Kraus responded, “What was I supposed to do with this money?”

Video posted online by WRGB shows police arresting Kraus in the station’s parking lot on Sept. 25, just moments after he left the television studio.

Albany County District Attorney Lee C. Kindlon on Monday announced that Kraus has been charged with murder in the first degree, two counts of murder in the second degree, two counts of concealment of a human corpse, grand larceny in the second degree, and identity theft in the first degree.

‘Cadaver dogs picked up on a scent, and a subsequent excavation in the backyard turned up the couple’s bodies.’

A public defender entered a not guilty plea during a Monday court appearance.

Kraus is being detained without bail at the Albany County Correctional Facility.

Floyd interviewed Kraus a second time from jail. However, Kraus’ public defender allegedly shut down the interview.

According to Floyd, after six or seven questions, the public defender said, “That’s it, you’re walking out of here right now.”

The Associated Press reported that Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol — who represented Kraus at a hearing last Friday — said she would be investigating how the interview came about because “if the media was essentially an agent of police in this matter, that could raise questions about whether (Kraus’) comments in the interview would be legally admissible at trial.”

Kraus’ parents were never reported missing, and soon “federal agents started investigating suspicious Social Security payments in their names,” WJLA-TV reported.

The indictment accused Kraus of assuming the identity of his father and stealing funds from the family’s estate “in excess of $50,000” sometime between Aug. 30, 2017, and May 27, 2025.

On Sept. 23, 2025, “Cadaver dogs picked up on a scent, and a subsequent excavation in the backyard turned up the couple’s bodies,” Albany authorities stated.

Kraus is scheduled to return to court Oct. 28, WRGB reported.

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​Murder, True crime, Lorenz kraus, Lorenz kraus confession, On air confession, Lorenz kraus video, New york crime, Crime, Son accused of killing parents, Blood money, Son and parents 

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, urgent questions arise about the role Christianity should play in public life.

In recent months, the unapologetic, personal Christian witness of public officials — and their open collaboration with pastors, priests, and other faith leaders — has drawn new attention. For me, these moments have been deeply moving and inspiring.

The founders were clear: Free institutions depend on moral citizens, and morality is nurtured by religion.

For many in the mainstream media, however, this has been profoundly unsettling, prompting warnings that the nation is sliding toward a form of “Christian nationalism.”

Are they right?

The question may be something of a red herring, but it’s worth addressing. Faith has always shaped American life. The founders never intended to build a secular vacuum; they expected religion to cultivate the virtues that a free people need. At the same time, they knew that belief cannot be imposed. True liberty demands space for religion to flourish — and restraint against coercion.

Living authentically as believers in public life is not the same as enforcing religion on others. The former honors conscience and its freedom while allowing faith to enrich society; the latter distorts faith and undermines pluralism.

Charlie Kirk’s memorial service last month highlighted the power of Christian witness in public life. His widow, Erika, speaking through grief, declared, “I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.” Her words reminded a nation mired in resentment that Christianity’s strength lies in free, authentic witness. Much has been made of President Trump’s off-message remark, “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”

But rather than dwell on it, we should note that he later suggested Erika’s example might move him toward forgiveness — a sign of the quiet influence of authentic faith.

Other public officials like Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary Marco Rubio spoke from the heart and leaned on their Christian faith.

It’s here that we must remain careful: If religious witness is perceived as a partisan tool, its power is weakened. The church’s mission is not political victory but the salvation of souls, offered freely to hearts and minds.

RELATED: Charlie Kirk’s legacy exposes a corrosive lie — and now it’s time to choose

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Christianity’s very public witness in our nation extends beyond Charlie’s memorial. The members of the presidential Religious Liberty Commission include influential evangelical and Catholic leaders as well as a prominent Jewish rabbi. They have spoken openly about their beliefs and their conviction that faith will heal many of our nation’s divisions.

At the Commission’s third hearing held last week, testimony highlighted ongoing pressures faced by people of faith working to educate our nation’s youth. Catholic Fr. Robert Sirico described relentless targeting by state officials of Sacred Heart Academy, a private, Catholic parochial school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sirico deftly clarified the line between faith and power during Q&A: “I’m not advocating the creation of a theocracy. I’m very happy to have a cultural competition of ideas.”

Sirico’s words remind us that resisting coercion is not the same as desiring the control of the public square; it is the defense of the right to live one’s faith fully and contribute accordingly.

Contrast this with the temptation of adherents of Christian nationalism to weaponize the faith for worldly power and control. Such ideologies blur the necessary distinction between the spiritual and temporal, collapsing them into one.

When that happens, both church and state are diminished. Christ himself made this clear when He told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

Professor Russell Hittinger, executive director of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, has observed that Jesus’ words set apart the heavenly and temporal orders. To confuse them, Hittinger warned, not only misrepresents the mission of the church but also humiliates it because the gospel cannot be reduced to the ambitions of civil power.

Rejecting such ideologies, of course, does not mean ignoring hostility toward Christianity. Believers today are often dismissed as intolerant or branded as bigots.

Yet, the founders were clear: Free institutions depend on moral citizens, and morality is nurtured by religion.

George Washington called religion and morality “indispensable supports” of political prosperity. John Adams warned that the Constitution was made for a “moral and religious people” and is inadequate for any other. At the same time, they recognized that belief must never be forced.

This is why religious pluralism and freedom matter so deeply. The Catholic Church affirmed this in “Dignitatis Humanae,” the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious liberty. It teaches that safeguarding religious freedom benefits both individuals and the Church, while respecting the God-given free will of every person.

America’s constitutional commitment to religious liberty reflects this wisdom, ensuring that Christianity and other faiths can flourish.

The divisions before us are real — but not irreparable. As the nation looks to its semiquincentennial, Christians should reflect on how faith has shaped civic life and be confident that it can help us confront today’s challenges. At the same time, we must resist the temptation to wield political power to impose Christianity.

We are called instead to live our faith visibly, guide others toward justice and mercy, and bear witness to truth through example, persuasion, and love — not through coercion or abuse of authority.

​Catholic, Christianity, Founding fathers, Christian nationalism, First amendment, Religious freedom, Faith 

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that could reshape counseling freedom across America. The law at issue is one of several so-called “conversion therapy bans” that restrict what therapists may say to their clients.

The Ruth Institute calls them what they are: “Must Stay Gay” laws.

The fight for counseling freedom isn’t about forcing anyone to change. It’s about defending every person’s right to seek help aligned with their own beliefs and goals.

These laws silence counselors and harm families, especially young people struggling with trauma, anxiety, and sexual confusion. The question before the court is simple: Does the First Amendment allow a state to dictate which viewpoints a licensed therapist may express?

A strong signal from the court

The central issue in Chiles is viewpoint discrimination. Colorado’s law allows therapists to affirm a child’s same-sex attraction or gender confusion — but forbids them from helping a client resist or change those feelings.

Justice Samuel Alito captured the absurdity in one hypothetical, which I paraphrase (the whole argument is here):

An adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist; he feels uneasy and guilty about feeling attracted to other boys. He asks the therapist to help him feel better as a gay man. Colorado law permits this. Another adolescent male goes to a licensed therapist and asks him to help him feel less attracted to other boys. Colorado law forbids this.

That’s government picking sides in a moral debate, not equality under the law.

When pressed, Colorado’s attorney stumbled badly. Alito then asked whether “medical consensus” has ever been wrong. She hesitated, and he reminded her of Buck v. Bell, the notorious 1927 decision that upheld forced sterilization based on “progressive” science. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed the common progressive opinion at the time: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

In closing, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney James Campbell, who represents therapist Kaley Chiles, delivered the knockout line:

The state of Colorado allows a 12-year-old girl to seek counseling to affirm her so-called gender identity as a boy without parental consent — but forbids her, even with her parents, from seeking help to accept herself as female.

That’s blatant viewpoint discrimination. On this point, the justices seemed receptive.

Junk science and the ‘born this way’ myth

The state also claimed that no one has ever changed their sexual attractions — a claim as false as it is arrogant. One counterexample disproves it, and there are thousands. Our amicus brief cites studies and testimonies from men and women who experienced real change, often through talk therapy.

Colorado’s attorney dug herself in deeper, asserting that all theories linking abuse or family dynamics to sexual identity have been “debunked.” They haven’t. The research she relies on doesn’t distinguish between minors and adults, licensed and unlicensed therapists, or talk therapy and coercive “aversion” practices.

That’s ideology, not science. And the justices noticed.

RELATED: Christian counselors fight for freedom of speech before the Supreme Court

Photo by Sakorn Sukkasemsakorn via Getty Images

The state’s lawyer also leaned on the claim that being gay is innate and immutable. She presented no evidence for that assertion, only the assumption that it must be true. But twin and genetic studies contradict it. Many people once identified as LGBT and no longer do. They exist, they matter, and they expose the lie behind the “born this way” narrative.

What comes next

The court offered no hints about how it will rule on the immutability question. But the justices heard enough to know that Colorado’s law enforces one approved orthodoxy and punishes dissent. That’s unconstitutional — and morally indefensible.

The fight for counseling freedom isn’t about forcing anyone to change. It’s about defending every person’s right to seek help aligned with their own beliefs and goals.

Here at the Ruth Institute, we’ll keep pressing the truth: “Must Stay Gay” is not OK.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Lgbtq, Conversion therapy, Supreme court, Scotus, Stay gay, Must stay gay, Christian therapists, Christian counselors, First amendment, Freedom of speech 

When considering the issues of low birth rates and population decline, it’s essential to differentiate between those who are pro-life and those who are pro-natalist.

While both have concluded that people around the world should have more children, their reasoning is almost diametrically opposed to each other.

Defining terms

Pro-lifers, often informed by Christian morality, believe in the dignity and value of each human life. They value the virtues of the nuclear family, believing it brings out the best in parents and their children. Their commitment to life and family means they vigorously oppose all forms of abortion and, by extension, in-vitro fertilization, surrogate parenting, and divorce.

In the pro-life view, lower birth rates are largely the result of cultural and moral decadence, which can be reversed only through a full reformation of social values and institutions.

By contrast, pro-natalists tend to be strict utilitarians, arguing for more children for primarily economic and political reasons. They worry about the public pensions going unsupported, schools emptying, and whole political systems collapsing due to depopulation. They fear a technological regression, a contraction in the markets, and even a revival of provincialism (or de-globalization) in a world with fewer people.

Unlike pro-lifers, they have no problems with employing artificial means of reproduction, legalizing abortion, and allowing any adult, regardless of background, to adopt and raise children for whatever reasons. In the minds of most pro-natalists, depopulation can be averted through twisting the right dials of social policy and letting go of the traditional expectations around parenting.

‘No future is more likely than that people worldwide choose to have too few children to replace their own generation.’

Put more crudely, pro-lifers tend to be conservative and pro-natalists tend to be non-conservatives (which would include libertarians and moderates in addition to progressives).

Then, of course, there are the anti-natalists (usually on the political and cultural left), who believe overpopulation is a problem and oppose having more children. They believe a lower population will improve the environment and the quality of the life for those lucky enough to be alive.

‘After the Spike’

Understanding these distinctions is key to understanding the latest best-selling book on depopulation, “After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People” by economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso. This is a book by pro-natalists written explicitly for anti-natalists.

As such, the two writers end up spending more time on what they are not arguing (i.e., pro-life claims about morality and culture) than what they are actually arguing (i.e., the pro-natalist concerns about depopulation).

Not only does this approach shut out a large group of potentially sympathetic readers wanting to know more about the issue, but it also fatally undermines their main argument for stabilizing the population. Even though they use the language of anti-natalists and speak to their concerns, it’s doubtful they would even persuade the target audience since their claims are so qualified and open.

However, this is not necessarily the fault Spears and Geruso, but the presuppositions of utilitarianism itself, which prove to be wholly inadequate for addressing the challenge of depopulation.

Math over meaning

These problems begin early in the book. As the book’s title suggests, the writers mainly frame depopulation as a simple math problem. They explain how the world population will peak or “spike” in the coming decades and then swiftly drop over the course of a few generations right afterward.

Their “big claim” in the first two chapters is expressed in clinical terms: “No future is more likely than that people worldwide choose to have too few children to replace their own generation. Over the long run, this would cause population decline.”

Somehow proving this “big claim” takes up nearly a fifth of the whole book. Perhaps they do not want to be confused with Bible-thumping pro-lifers who lack their credentials and supposedly rarely bother with hard numbers. That said, pro-lifers would not deny the claim that depopulation is imminent — birth rates are below replacement, so yes, deaths will outnumber births and result in depopulation — but the anti-natalist crowd evidently struggles to accept this basic fact.

If so, this popular denial might be an interesting potential factor in depopulation to explore further, but the writers never go there. Instead, they review the usual anti-natalist arguments made in favor of depopulation: It’s better for the planet; it’s better for women; and it’s better for conserving resources.

In most cases, debunking these claims is as simple as looking at available social science data. It turns out that the world is cleaner, more equitable, and in less danger of running out of natural resources now with a larger population than it was in the recent past with a smaller population.

RELATED: Trump’s baby bonus won’t work — but we already know the real solution

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Again, this point is fairly easy to grasp, but not if a person casts human beings as irredeemable parasites. Spears and Geruso thus spend much of their time showing that human beings can generate new ideas and do useful things. Yes, a person represents another mouth to feed, but he or she also represents another set of hands who can produce food or anything else.

This means that humanity can clean up their messes, come up with systems that better support women and minorities, and find better ways to extract and use natural resources.

It follows that without these extra people, many innovations would never materialize, social progress would likely stagnate or go backward, and there would be too few workers to support today’s high standard of living. To illustrate how bad conditions could become, the writers bring up the fact that “small towns hardly ever have a great Ethiopian place and a great Indian place and a great Korean place. But big cities often do.”

If the prospect of ghost towns, lonely elderly people dying in squalor, and a full-scale devolution into a pre-industrial age fails to raise any alarms, then maybe the loss of one’s favorite greasy spoon will do it.

Values without roots

Although Dean and Geruso carefully avoid moral questions throughout the book — it’s taken for granted that abortion is good, modern feminism has zero downsides, and human-caused climate change is a critical matter — they make their one moral claim in favor of having children in the most generic tautology they can muster: “More good is better.”

In other words, a bigger overall population means a bigger number of worthwhile lives. But what makes a life worthwhile? True to utilitarian philosophy, it’s all about material comforts and basic necessities.

For those who argue that this makes an insufficient distinction about the moral worth (or worthlessness) of each life and the surrounding context in which a life is lived, they will have to settle for the writers’ quantifications and graphs.

Once Spears and Geruso establish that people are good and that depopulation is bad, they move on to possible solutions. Unfortunately, nothing seems to work. Compelling people to have children (as Romania did under Nicolae Ceausescu) or offering money and additional maternity leave (as the Swedish government has done) have done little to fix the sliding birth rates.

The main problem seems to be that women will have fewer children if the opportunity costs of parenting are too high. As the writers declare in their inimitable prosaic style, “Spending time on parenting means giving up something. Because the world has improved around us, that ‘something’ is better than it used to be.” When men and women find fulfillment in their careers and self-indulgence, they have less interest in sacrificing this for the sake of having children.

While this assertion aligns with their value-neutral utilitarian premises, Spears and Caruso are completely uninterested in countries that still have high birth rates, like those in sub-Saharan Africa.

‘Change needs vision and values and commitments before detailed plans matter at all.’

Would it offend their readers to suggest that these countries have high birth rates because there are relatively few opportunity costs that exist because these countries are less developed? Is there something to be said about traditional gender roles and the high regard given to parenthood and children in these cultures? What about the religious practices of these places?

For unspecified reasons, these obvious questions about population trends are scrupulously ignored.

Where science fails

Instead, the writers insist that there is no solution to the depopulation bomb set to go off after the spike: “No one has such a solution. The challenge is still too new.” For the time being, people need to be made aware of the difficulties that await them and consider ways they can organize and effect change.

In other words, it’s a weak ending to a weak argument in favor of a weak position. But even this could be forgiven if the book overall were interesting, but it isn’t. By avoiding moral questions, ignoring cultural factors, and rejecting all speculation, “After the Spike” is boring, basic, and dry.

Still, Spears and Geruso perform an important service by demonstrating the limits of pro-natalism. While it’s perfectly reasonable to be worried about the global birth dearth and to try to use the scientific method to fix this problem, the formation of families and communities is a fundamentally human matter that largely transcends the scope of the sciences.

Although graphs can illustrate the superficial reality of declining populations, it will take the humanities disciplines to understand and effectively address this reality on a deeper level. Moreover, it will require letting go of progressive priorities and returning to certain beliefs and practices that made parenthood in the past more appealing than it is now.

This may be hard pill for pro-natalists to swallow, but as Spears and Geruso themselves conclude, “Change needs vision and values and commitments before detailed plans matter at all.”

This “vision and values” just happen to be pro-life — not pro-natalist.

​Pro-life, Pro-natalism, Family, Birth rate, Birth rate decline 

President Donald Trump is implementing a temporary solution to minimize the pain inflicted on American servicemen during the Democrat-induced government shutdown.

Trump announced Saturday that he has identified funds for Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to use to ensure American troops don’t miss a paycheck on Oct. 15. This action comes after the Senate reached a stalemate, sending lawmakers home until votes resume Tuesday.

‘I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE.’

With no end to the shutdown in sight, Trump decided to take matters into his own hands.

“Chuck Schumer recently said, ‘Every day gets better’ during their Radical Left Shutdown,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday. “I DISAGREE! If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th.”

RELATED: White House deploys nuclear option amid Democrat-induced shutdown stalemate

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“That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th,” Trump added. “We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS.”

Democrats allowed government funding to lapse past the Sept. 30 deadline, refusing to pass the Republican-led continuing resolution. Although spending fights have turned partisan in the past, Republicans simply proposed a clean 90-page CR that kept funding levels at the same rates that Democrats voted for in the past. Their bill had no partisan line items, with the only anomaly being a bipartisan boost in security funding for politicians following Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

On the other hand, Democrats proposed a $1.5 trillion funding bill that is chock-full of ideological provisions aimed at reversing the legislative accomplishments Republicans secured with the One Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats have also attempted to make the spending fight about renegotiating Obama-era health care subsidies, although they don’t expire until the end of the year.

RELATED: White House dares Democrats with nuclear response to looming shutdown

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

“I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,” Trump said. “The Radical Left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

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​Donald trump, Truth social, Pete hegseth, Military, American military, Us servicemen, Department of war, Secretary of war, Commander in chief, Government shutdown, Schumer shutdown, Chuck schumer, Hakeem jeffries, Continuing resolution, Senate democrats, Senate republicans, Congress, Aca subsidies, Politics 

With Beijing preparing to seize Taiwan and Washington bleeding resources in Ukraine, Americans are asking the question no one in the Pentagon wants to answer: Is the U.S. military ready for World War III? The truth is worse than most people realize.

We’re not even close.

America deserves a military led by warriors, not bureaucrats. The time for excuses is over.

Under the last three Democratic presidents, the armed forces have been systematically weakened. Bill Clinton lowered physical fitness standards to shoehorn women into combat roles. Barack Obama elevated Marxist generals who smuggled diversity, equity, and inclusion into the ranks under the banner of “modernization.” Joe Biden went further, purging the unvaccinated, fixating on gender ideology and climate change, and leaving supply chains dangerously dependent on foreign — often Chinese — manufacturers.

The result is a hollowed-out military that struggles to meet recruitment goals, maintain readiness, or inspire confidence. War Secretary Pete Hegseth has begun the long process of repair — firing the worst woke officers, reinstating real fitness standards, and banning DEI.

But the rot runs deeper. Unless we reform the institutions that produce our officers, we’ll fail at the most important mission of all: restoring the warrior spirit.

Academies in decline

As a West Point graduate, I know the academies’ first duty is to forge warrior-leaders. Everything else is secondary. Yet West Point Superintendent Steven Gilland has traded that mission for racial quotas and “whiteness” seminars that divide cadets and undermine cohesion. The dean even tried to install Biden’s “disinformation czar” as “distinguished chair” of the Social Studies Department — until the Trump administration intervened.

The rot extends across all five service academies. At the Merchant Marine Academy, former Superintendent Joanna Nunan persecuted Christians and promoted transgender ideology until Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy fired her in June.

Civilian faculty have made matters worse. At the Air Force Academy alone, nearly 200 professors push progressive politics in uniform. One mocked her students as “White Boy 1, 2, 3.” Another championed critical race theory and insisted America was “racist from the beginning.” This isn’t military education. It’s Berkeley activism in uniform. And it’s driving away the next generation of patriots.

The Marxist march through the ranks

ROTC programs, which produce most of the Army’s officers, have followed the same Marxist path. Cadets can now major in grievance studies at universities like Wisconsin-Madison, then enter the officer corps unprepared for actual war-fighting. That’s not how you beat China.

Postgraduate institutions such as the Naval and Army War Colleges, Air University, and the National Defense University have become bureaucratic echo chambers for climate activism and social justice rhetoric. Their accrediting agencies enforce DEI mandates and even filed briefs opposing the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based admissions. Civilian faculty dominate the classrooms, feeding officers a steady diet of leftist ideology and contempt for the commander in chief.

RELATED: Memo to Hegseth: Our military’s problem isn’t only fitness. It’s bad education.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

This didn’t happen overnight. It’s the product of cultural Marxism’s “long march through the institutions,” a decades-long campaign to hollow out American strength from within. From boot camp to the War College, officers now absorb ideology instead of discipline. The price of that indoctrination will be paid in blood if war comes.

Reclaiming the warrior ethos

The tide is beginning to turn. For the first time in decades, the left is on defense. President Trump has given the military a mandate to purge Marxism and restore its fighting spirit. Patriots across the country are watching — and acting.

Through RestoreTheMilitary.com, we’ve outlined a blueprint to rebuild the force: Fire ideological officers, overhaul the National Defense Authorization Act, remove civilian faculty from service academies, ban DEI, reward war-fighters who risk their lives, and end our dependence on foreign supply chains.

The message to Congress couldn’t be clearer: Do your duty — or step aside. America deserves a military led by warriors, not bureaucrats. The time for excuses is over.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, West point, Woke west point, Dei, Dein in military, Military, Woke agenda, Diversity equity inclusion, Pete hegseth, National defense university, National defense, Deep state, Cultural marxism, Long march, Sean duffy, Joanna nunan, Steven gilland, Rotc, Bill clinton, Barack obama, Joe biden, Department of war, National defense authorization act 

The American trucking industry is facing numerous underreported challenges that directly impact national security, supply chain integrity, and road safety, among other critical issues that were exacerbated by the Biden administration’s open-border crisis.

While the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation, under the leadership of Secretary Sean Duffy, has already moved to address some of the many challenges related to the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses, often referred to as CDLs, the American public remains largely unaware of the extent of those looming dangers from years of insufficient oversight in this area.

‘One third of the fleet hauling our freight in this country is not controlled by American citizens.’

The non-domiciled driver takeover

Bill Skinner, the president of Skinner Transfer Corp., a mid-size carrier that has been operating for 93 years, shed light on a portion of that reality in a September 22 X post, where he described a recent collision involving Werner Enterprises, a major American trucking company.

Skinner claimed that a Werner driver with a non-domiciled CDL ran into one of his trucks on the I-80 in Ohio.

“[The] Werner driver decided to change lanes, did it too early,” Skinner told Blaze News. “Luckily, minor damage to our truck.”

Skinner’s driver claimed that the Werner driver required a translator app to communicate, in violation of the English language proficiency requirement for commercial operators. However, the Ohio State Highway Patrol claimed the driver “was able to effectively communicate.”

“On September 17, 2025, the Ohio State Highway Patrol investigated a non-injury crash involving a licensed commercial driver, who stated he attempted to make a lane change due to signage while approaching a construction zone,” the Highway Patrol told Blaze News. “The driver was able to effectively communicate in English with troopers during the investigation and was cited for an improper lane change after striking the mirror of another commercial vehicle. Following the investigation, the driver was released and allowed to continue operating his vehicle.”

“The Patrol remains committed to ensuring safety on Ohio’s roadways through thorough crash investigations and enforcement of traffic laws,” the Highway Patrol added.

When asked for clarification about whether the driver needed a translator app, the Highway Patrol replied, “No translator was used during our interaction with the driver.”

Werner Enterprises declined Blaze News’ request for comment for this story.

RELATED: Hidden phones, earpieces: Five non-English speakers arrested for alleged CDL cheating scheme

Image source: Bill Skinner

‘Ghost’ companies dodge consequences

Skinner stated that the accident involving the Werner driver represents only a fraction of a much larger issue facing smaller and mid-size American trucking companies like his own.

Skinner explained that he has “multiple” ongoing insurance claims from other trucking companies whose drivers have caused accidents. He noted that many of the claims involve “ghost” trucking companies that are “set up in America from people overseas.” The majority of incidents occur on private property, such as truck stops or shipper and receiver loading docks, which often means law enforcement does not respond to mediate the situation.

‘Foreign nationals, especially from India, Uzbekistan, Moldova, they run at rates that are far less than what an American man would drive a truck for.’

When asked about what recourse his company can take to recoup damages by ghost companies, Skinner responded, “Just document what we have and hope and pray somebody has integrity.” However, he noted that “very rarely” occurs.

“We end up just eating the cost,” Skinner said of accidents involving ghost companies, which he noticed began popping up around 2016 and exploded in 2022. “They’re outside of their insurance range. … You can’t track any of these people down, and you never get a payment from the insurance company.”

Skinner stated that he has seen instances where a carrier that claimed up to 50 or 60 trucks listed its address as a strip mall gas station located at the edge of Los Angeles. Similarly, ghost trucking companies have reportedly taken over many truck stops, using them as terminals for their operations. Skinner found one instance where nearly 40 trucking companies were registered at the same address.

RELATED: American trucking at a crossroads: Deadly crash involving illegal alien exposes true cost of Biden’s border invasion

Photo by GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images

Those ghost companies typically exclusively pay their drivers on a 1099 model instead of a W-2, allowing employees to evade state and federal income taxes more easily, Skinner said. He stated that one refugee who attended his truck driving school refused to work for his carrier company because it is a W-2 employer.

Skinner told the refugee that he was still required by law to pay taxes on his income even as a 1099 worker.

“The gentleman looked right at me and says, ‘We know the program. We do not pay income taxes to state or federal governments anywhere. We’ll pay sales tax, but no income tax.’ I said, ‘What happens when they catch up to you?’ [He responded,] ‘The governments take four to six years to catch up to us, and by then, we’re either gone or we’ve changed our identity. … This is the program we’ve used for the last 20 years,'” Skinner told Blaze News, recounting his conversation with the refugee. “This whole non-domiciled CDL thing, it’s tax evasion; it’s insurance fraud. Freight theft is huge with all this, double [and] triple brokering, supply chain issues. This thing has got so many tentacles.”

The saturation of non-domiciled CDLs is just one of the many issues facing the American trucking industry. Skinner noted that the September accident was not the first time a non-domiciled driver had struck one of his trucks.

Non-domiciled CDLs are licenses issued by a state to a driver who is not a resident of that state. These licenses are intended for American citizens and foreign nationals who are lawfully present in the U.S. However, varying state requirements and inadequate oversight have created opportunities for the exploitation of regulatory gaps and widespread fraud, especially during the open-border crisis.

‘I stumbled upon 500 or so non-domiciled CDLs, and 10% of them probably are “no name given.”’

Smaller American trucking companies are struggling to meet the competitive rates of larger carriers that are hiring “very inexpensive” noncitizen labor, Skinner said. He noted that it is an “unfair playing field” for smaller companies.

Skinner told Blaze News that he wants Americans to know that “one third of the fleet hauling our freight in this country is not controlled by American citizens.”

“This is a national security risk and a safety risk,” he declared, adding that he “firmly believe[s] that India and China are trying to disrupt our freight network.”

Nameless drivers and regulatory loopholes

Danielle Chaffin, a trucking professional, uncovered further concerning issues with CDL issuance, finding that numerous states have provided licenses to drivers who failed to provide their full legal names.

Chaffin discovered CDLs that, instead of displaying the drivers’ legal names, read, “NO NAME GIVEN,” or various acronyms indicating a similar lack of information, including “FNU” for “first name unknown,” “LNU” for “last name unknown,” “NGN” for “no given name,” and “UNK” for “unknown.”

In some situations, these generic placeholders are added when a foreign national’s name does not conform to U.S. naming conventions. However, Chaffin argued that within the trucking industry, these placeholders amount to deliberate fraud, noting that there were examples of licenses belonging to individuals who did have a full legal name, but it was not used. Most of the licenses she discovered were issued in California.

“I stumbled upon 500 or so non-domiciled CDLs, and 10% of them probably are ‘no name given,'” Chaffin, who has been tracking the situation since June, told Blaze News.

RELATED: ‘Imminent hazard’: Trump administration shuts licensing loophole after illegal alien trucker allegedly causes fatal crash

Image source: Danielle Chaffin

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) verified Chaffin’s findings last month when he shared an image of a CDL issued by New York that read, “NO NAME GIVEN.”

Even more concerning, the omitted names went beyond just commercial drivers. Chaffin also uncovered 91 instances since January in which a USDOT number, which companies are required to obtain to operate commercial vehicles involved in interstate commerce, was issued to individuals with no given name.

“They will file the trucking companies with that name, ‘no name given,’ but then as soon as it’s approved, they’ll go back in and update the contact to the full legal name,” Chaffin said.

When asked why carriers would do this, she speculated that the companies might be trying to skirt the matching rules within the DOT’s technology, exploiting a potential loophole in the department’s system.

‘We truly have a broken system.’

Chaffin explained that ghost, also known as chameleon or reincarnating, carriers will register for multiple USDOT numbers. Then, when the company receives penalties, faces high insurance premiums, is subject to a pending investigation or lawsuit, or earns a negative safety score, it switches to a different USDOT number to continue its operations and avoid any consequences.

“When they file for the new [trucking company], they use ‘no name given’ because it doesn’t match with the previous company,” Chaffin said.

“They’ll switch the numbers out on the truck,” she continued. “Same trucking company, just a new name and number.”

— (@)

The high cost

These issues only begin to highlight the extent of the system’s faults, raising concerns about road safety for everyday Americans and posing a significant national security threat.

“All of the non-domiciled CDLs are foreign nationals,” Chaffin told Blaze News. “The greatest threat in what we’re seeing now is taking the jobs and pay away from the American worker. Foreign nationals, especially from India, Uzbekistan, Moldova, they run at rates that are far less than what an American man would drive a truck for.”

She stated that legacy, family-owned American trucking companies that have been around for decades have been forced into bankruptcy.

Chaffin highlighted another issue with the increase in foreign-operated trucking companies.

“The rings of trucking companies and the technology that they use, most of it is based overseas,” she said. “They have their technology, their data centers — none of that happens in the U.S. And so, they have all of our logistics data, trucks, where they are, what’s on the trucks, what the driver’s doing, all of the infrastructure, where things are going, at what time, when it’s being picked up, when it’s being delivered.”

“We truly have a broken system,” she added.

Chaffin credited Duffy for listening to the concerns of those within America’s trucking industry.

The DOT secretary announced emergency action in September to drastically limit the eligibility requirement for non-domiciled CDLs. The DOT found numerous instances where non-domiciled CDLs were improperly issued, including to foreign nationals with expired work authorization.

“Truckers keep America running. While the country sleeps, truckers grind through the night to help keep shelves stocked, families fed, and businesses humming. It’s a job that requires grit and dedication. But for too long Washington, D.C., has made work harder for truckers. That ends today. Thanks to President Trump, we’re getting Washington out of your trucks and your business,” Duffy stated.

Blaze News reached out to the state-level DOTs in California, Utah, and New York regarding the no-name CDLs. The Utah DOT did not respond, and the New York and California DOTs deferred comment to their respective Department of Motor Vehicles.

The New York DMV stated that the license shared by the Oklahoma governor was “issued in accordance with all proper procedures, including verification of the individual’s identity through federally issued documentation.”

“The individual has lawful status in the United States through a federal employment authorization and was issued a license consistent with federal guidelines,” the DMV’s statement continued. “This document was not issued under the Green Light Law. It is not uncommon for individuals from other countries to have only one name. Procedures for that are clearly spelled out in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy manual, and it is important to note that federal documents also include a ‘no name given’ notation.”

The California DMV did not respond to a request for comment.

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​News, American trucking industry, American trucking, Trucking, Trucking industry, Department of transportation, Dot, Sean duffy, Bill skinner, Skinner transfer corp, Werner enterprises, Werner, California, New york, Danielle chaffin, Cdls, Cdl, Commercial driver’s licenses, Commercial driver’s license, Usdot number, Usdot, Kevin stitt, Ghost companies, Ghost carriers, Ghost trucking companies, Chameleon carriers, Chameleon trucking companies, Politics 

A “gigantic mental health catastrophe” began in 2012, and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes that overprotecting children in the real world — by not letting them out to play and develop independence — and under-protecting them online is to blame.

Especially now that around every corner is an app fighting for your child’s attention.

“We have all kinds of documents, leaks, docu reports that came out in lawsuits where we hear them talking about all the harm they’re causing and all the things they’re doing to cause addiction. These platforms are designed to grab our kids’ attention and never let go because if they let go, it’s going to go to their competitor,” Haidt tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Podcast.”

“So I think now that the case is pretty much closed, the argument that ‘Oh well, we just don’t know, we need to gather more information,’ you know, that was the tobacco industry playbook decades ago,” he explains.

Haidt calls it an “evil industry,” with TikTok, Meta, and Snapchat “harming children at an industrial scale.”

“We’re not just talking like a few hundred kids. We’re talking literally tens of millions are harmed and thousands are dead. So I do think that this is having a very pernicious effect on society, on children,” he says.

And it’s not only affecting their attention spans.

“They need to make lots of mistakes and learn from them. And then especially during puberty … when the brain is changing very, very fast. It’s rewiring from the child to the adult form. And so if in puberty, kids are not out there having adventures and flirting and getting embarrassed and getting in arguments … if they’re not out there having real world experience, it’s going to prevent the neurons from wiring up in a healthy adult way,” Haidt explains.

“In terms of what they’re going to be like in 30 years, here’s what we can say with some confidence just because these are the way the trends are. They’re going to be more anxious and more fragile,” he continues.

“We never let them grow thick skin. We never let them have those toughening experiences,” he adds.

But that’s not the biggest issue these children will face.

“The biggest one I think is the destruction of the human capacity to pay attention. Young people, they find it very difficult to pay attention to anything for more than 10 or 15 minutes. They find it difficult to watch movies,” Haidt says.

“They find it difficult to read a book, and they’re reading much, much less. Can you imagine Western civilization if we lose books? If it’s all just TikTok?” he asks, noting that while attention span might be the most common, it will also affect demographics.

“The frequency of sex and marriage was already falling with the Millennials. It’s falling much faster with Gen Z. Boys raised on porn who have very poor social skills and play a lot of video games and don’t have really much practice flirting,” Haidt tells Glenn.

“And that’s just on the boy side. The girls especially are more anxious and fragile, which is also a bad sign for marriage,” he adds.

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While history suggests that religious zeal often follows and quickly fades after events like the assassination of Charlie Kirk, prophetic visions from more than 400 years ago shine a light on our current situation and offer hope for a sustained faith revival.

Through an Ecuadorian nun, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, the Virgin Mary — under the title “Our Lady of Good Success” — reputedly foretold with staggering precision the ominous religious landscape of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, an immense loss of faith and practice — a mass apostasy — would be followed by a religious restoration.

Mother Mariana’s tale offers wisdom: God has an eternal devotion to us. He is always working, especially when the times are bleakest, and He will triumph.

Born to a Spanish noble family in 1563, Mother Mariana accompanied her religious aunt, Maria, to Quito, Ecuador, at a young age. At 15 years old, Mariana made her vows and joined the Conceptionist Order, of which she would later serve as abbess. Throughout her pious life, she had visions of our Lord, the Virgin Mary, angels, and various saints.

One evening in 1582, while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, Mother Mariana reportedly witnessed a crucified Christ bearing inscriptions related to God’s punishments for the late 20th century due to heresy, blasphemy, and impurity. During the encounter, the Blessed Mother asked the nun — who had been “judged blameless” — whether she would “sacrifice” herself for those sinners, which the nun accepted.

Mother Mariana’s mystic visions spanned decades, and they “tortured” her because of a predicted loss of innocence and modesty by children and women in the decades we are now living in. In these visions, the Virgin Mary consistently expressed her deep sorrow for the “children of these times” — because Satan “will reign” and faith would decay.

She prophesied that heresy would flourish in our times; vocations would be lacking, accompanied by rampant “sexual impropriety”; priests would scandalize the faithful; and the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, marriage, and extreme unction, would be attacked, robbed of meaning, or forgotten. Many “frivolous souls” would be lost in the mayhem.

Despite the numerous grave warnings, the Blessed Mother also offered consolation and encouragement, telling Mother Mariana about the “merciful love of my Son” for the faithful during this period, prophesying the “happy beginning of the complete restoration.”

To spread devotion, Our Lady of Good Success instructed Mother Mariana to commission a statue, which had been “miraculously completed” by the archangels in January 1611, according to legend.

Mother Mariana died at the age of 72 on January 16, 1635. In the ensuing years, the local diocese approved and promoted the apparitions — which are now a worldwide devotion after awareness accelerated due to the accuracy of the predictions. In 1790, Father Manuel Sousa Pereira catalogued the religious nun’s life in “The Admirable Life of Madre Mariana de Jesus Torres,” and in 1986, the Archdiocese of Quito officially opened her cause for canonization.

The accuracy of the prophecies was borne out by the sexual revolution and anti-traditional posture of the 1960s, millions of children dying from abortion, and the clerical sexual abuse scandal, to name a few. From these spewed a myriad of social pathologies that have plagued not only the Catholic Church’s standing as a moral stalwart, but civilization at large. The proof has been, sadly, evident.

Vocations did collapse — as well as widespread religious practice and prayer. Marriage has declined, along with baptisms and the other sacraments. There has been a glaring lack of knowledge about the Eucharist — the source and summit of Christian life. When the basic tenets of faith are misunderstood or ignored entirely, a mass apostasy is inevitable and has taken place in the West, which has affected all Christian denominations.

Consequences beyond the Church

The decline in American religiosity raises even broader concerns for everyone. Religiously unaffiliated residents are less civically engaged than those active in their faith lives and less charitable in terms of monetary donations. As apostasy spreads, civic associations have likewise closed, providing fewer opportunities for neighbors to commune and engage in society.

It is no coincidence, then, that a bevy of social ills are emerging from the lack of social cohesion since the early 2000s, which Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam recognized in his book, “Bowling Alone.” Since then, Americans have experienced a precipitous rise in anxiety and depression, particularly among younger demographics, leading to a pervasive “happiness crisis.” It is no wonder that people are generally despondent or searching for answers.

Increasingly, we are isolated from God, our neighbors, and ourselves.

A ‘Great Awakening’

But in Christ’s parable of the prodigal son, the titular son returned to his father after hitting rock bottom. After the strife of the 20th and early 21st centuries, is a renewal — or “restoration” as Our Lady of Good Success allegedly proclaimed — a possibility? And did we collectively have to hit our lowest point to come back to our senses and God?

The seeds for a 21st-century “Great Awakening” are not entirely improbable. Within the past year, members of Gen Z have flocked to religion more than previous generations, and the rise in religious “nones” — or the unaffiliated — has slowed. U.S. politicians have urged a “spiritual reawakening” and have expressed a desire to “bring God back” into the public square. The Trump administration established the Religious Liberty Commission to reacquaint Americans with “our Nation’s superb experiment in religious freedom in order to preserve it against emerging threats.”

While challenges remain and thousands of churches are set to close, Kirk’s death could be a spark for a surge in religious practice in a nation that has, for the past few decades, jettisoned faith. After all, an overwhelming majority of Americans still believe in God, so there may be a willing audience.

For the faithful, we not only have encouraging signs of a revival, but promises in Scripture. Christ promises to the apostles, and us, that the “gates of the netherworld shall not prevail” against the church. Ultimately, heaven will win — and hell will lose. In the end, God will restore creation, wiping every tear from our eyes, and establish a new heaven and new earth.

RELATED: Charlie Kirk sparks viral Christian revival: ‘I’m going to go take his seat for him’

Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images

Although the apparitions of Our Lady of Good Success have so far proven true, Mother Mariana’s tale offers wisdom: God has an eternal devotion to us. He is always working, especially when the times are bleakest, and He will triumph.

With the recent increase in religious attendance, clamor for God, and discussion of a spiritual renewal in the weeks following Kirk’s death, perhaps a potential “restoration” of sorts — even if short-lived — may be looming on the near horizon. The data and cultural shift should fill us with hope and strengthen our hearts to welcome the influx of weary and inflamed souls longing for peace, meaning, and God.

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

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Prophecy, Prophecy fulfilled, Sexual revolution, Revivial, Mary, Mother mary, Catholic, Catholicism, Quito, Equador, Charlie kirk assassination, Mariana de jesus torres, Nun, Scandal, Priests, Abuse, Miracles, Canonization, Sainthood, Marriage and family, Faith 

For decades, the government’s dietary guidelines have dictated what Americans eat, and surprise, surprise — we’re sicker than ever.

Today, 60% of the American population have at least one chronic disease, and roughly 85% of the nation’s $5.3 trillion annual health care spending goes toward treating chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease, and cancer.

We know that the number-one factor in chronic disease is poor diet, and yet the government has long pushed the very highly processed foods that make us sick, while promoting pharmaceutical drugs as the magic answer.

For example, it’s not uncommon to hear the government debate how to lower insulin prices.

“You can just eliminate the need for insulin by just getting people off the one macronutrient that causes blood sugar to spike, and that is carbohydrate,” investigative science journalist Nina Teicholz told BlazeTV host Nicole Shanahan on a recent episode of “Back to the People.”

“The current thinking is: Don’t restrain yourself — eat the cake, eat the bread, but then you have to cover it with insulin. How about just don’t eat the bread, don’t eat the cake, and reverse your condition?” she asks.

Nina expresses frustration that such a simple fix — one that would save us “almost a billion dollars a day” and “reverse other chronic conditions” — has been so impossible to push in the public square.

“Nobody discusses this. It’s like a taboo subject,” she laments.

Nicole agrees. “No, we have a president [Joe Biden] and a senator, Bernie Sanders, standing together hugging one another, talking about reducing the cost of drugs. … There’s not a single politician out there that is charting a path for people to get off of drug reliance.”

The duo reflect back on the disappointing White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health hosted by the Biden-Harris administration in 2022, which Nicole helped raise funding for.

Sugar — perhaps the biggest contributor to chronic diseases — wasn’t even mentioned.

“What came out of that [conference] was a huge amount of investment in the fake-food sector. It was fake protein, fake seafood, more fake meats, fake dairy, fake eggs. Those are ultra-processed foods that replace natural whole foods,” says Nina.

The other result of the conference was “a total doubling down on the dietary guidelines, which have been shown to not work.”

Nicole was hopeful that the 2018 Farm Bill, which governs agricultural and food programs, including farm subsidies, crop insurance, nutrition assistance (like SNAP), and rural development, would “[support] farmers who are producing really great, clean food,” but sadly, the Farm Bill has “made virtually no progress” when it comes to health.

“If anything … it’s added protections to the agrochemical businesses,” she laments.

Further, “SNAP has grown so enormously and without any restrictions or caps on how SNAP is spent. Soda remains the largest single item that consumers purchase with their SNAP benefits.”

Why is the government so resistant to moving toward the simple adjustments that would reverse chronic diseases? As Nicole and Nina see it, it’s obvious: “Pretty much every member of Congress is supported by the pharmaceutical industry.”

“They make profits when people are unhealthy, not healthy,” Nina says frankly.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the full interview above.

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