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Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia passed away on Wednesday at the age of 75 after battling esophageal cancer, according to a statement released by his family.

Connolly, who dedicated his life to public service, passed away peacefully in his Virginia home surrounded by his family, the statement said. Connolly spent 14 years on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and 17 years as a member of Congress.

‘We were fortunate to share Gerry with Northern Virginia for nearly 40 years because that was his joy, his purpose, and his passion.’

RELATED: Trump pressures House Republican holdouts as reconciliation talks intensify

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“Gerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better,” Connolly’s family said in a statement. “He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless. He always stood up for what is right and just. He was a skilled statesman on the international stage, an accomplished legislator in Congress, a visionary executive on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a fierce defender of democracy, an environmental champion, and a mentor to so many.”

“But more important than his accomplishments in elected office, Gerry lived by the ethos of ‘bloom where you are planted,'” the statement reads. “From the Silver Line to the Oakton Library, Mosaic District to the Cross County Trail and beyond, his legacy now colors our region.”

Connolly eventually rose to ranking member in the House Oversight Committee but announced last month that he would be stepping down after his cancer returned. Connolly had been elected to the position in December against Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York despite his diagnosis.

Democrats and Republicans alike mourned Connolly’s passing, remembering the friendships he had on both sides of the aisle.

RELATED: Senate unanimously codifies Trump’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ policy

Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images

“I’m deeply saddened by the passing of Ranking Member Gerry Connolly,” House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “He was a dedicated public servant who represented Virginia’s 11th Congressional District with honor and integrity. We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time.”

“We were fortunate to share Gerry with Northern Virginia for nearly 40 years because that was his joy, his purpose and his passion,” the family statement continued. “His absence will leave a hole in our hearts, but we are proud that his life’s work will endure for future generations.”

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Let’s stop pretending the government can fix the health care system it wrecked — by wrecking it even more.

For years, Americans have endured rising health care costs, shrinking access, and mounting frustration. Now, senators from
both parties, the Federal Trade Commission, and several states want to blame pharmacy benefit managers. Before they do, it’s worth asking: Who actually caused this mess?

It wasn’t PBMs. It was Washington, D.C.

I’ve spent decades studying health care and economic systems. Central planning always fails. Yet here we go again — federal regulators scapegoating private players for a system government distorted over generations.

PBMs aren’t flawless, but they’re not the villains. They emerged as one of the few market-based responses to a government-created crisis. They operate within a system twisted by 80 years of policy failures — starting with World War II wage controls that incentivized employer-sponsored insurance. That led to the third-party payer model, which removed patients from pricing decisions.

Layer on Medicare, Medicaid, and a blizzard of mandates, and the result is clear: Government made sure health care would never again resemble a functioning market.

If we’re serious about fixing health care, we must stop repeating the failed policies that broke it in the first place.

PBMs didn’t invent this system. They were born into it. Congress established Medicare Part D, which subsidized prescription drugs without fixing the underlying distortions. PBMs stepped in to negotiate with manufacturers, manage formularies, push generics, and introduce cost controls into an otherwise bloated and opaque drug market.

They’re not perfect. But they didn’t start the fire. Government did.

Here’s the kicker: PBMs work better than almost anything else in the health care system.

University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan recently published research for the National Bureau of Economic Research showing PBMs create $145 billion in net annual value. Even after accounting for their costs, PBMs lower drug prices, help patients stick to medications, reduce hospitalizations, and cut non-drug health costs by about $40 billion each year. They also drive pharmaceutical innovation — improving uptake of new treatments and adding another $13 billion annually in future drug development.

Now compare that to the government’s record. Medicaid and Medicare leak hundreds of billions through improper payments, bloated administration, and price manipulation. Mulligan doesn’t put a figure on the waste, but other studies estimate government health care inefficiencies cost more than $1 trillion every year.

Still, no one talks about that. Instead, the FTC is grandstanding, blaming PBMs for prices the government made uncontrollable in the first place.

Washington’s real problem? It keeps designing a health care system around bureaucrats instead of patients. PBMs aren’t the issue. Bureaucracy is. The solution isn’t more scapegoating — it’s restoring freedom and responsibility to the people who use and deliver care.

RELATED: Congress must resist Big Pharma’s scheme to dismantle drug cost watchdogs

zhuweiyi49 via iStock/Getty Images

That’s why we need unlimited health savings accounts, especially for low-income Americans on Medicaid. Don’t micromanage their health care. Give them
agency. Pair it with work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients — not to punish them, but to promote responsibility and reduce dependency, while still supporting those in genuine need.

The result: smarter decisions, stronger competition, lower costs, and fewer true middlemen — starting with the federal regulators and compliance officers who helped create this mess.

In a real market, PBMs will sink or swim based on value. If they deliver, they’ll thrive. If not, they’ll fail — and be replaced. That’s the beauty of market discipline. And right now, PBMs are one of the only players in health care remotely subject to it.

This assault on PBMs isn’t about health care. It’s about power. Regulators and politicians want a scapegoat for a system they helped break.

But facts still matter. PBMs reduce costs, improve access, and drive innovation. Government programs promise the same — and deliver the opposite.

If we’re serious about fixing health care, we must stop repeating the failed policies that broke it in the first place. Scrap the mandates, cut the bureaucracy, and shift power back to patients and providers. Real reform means transparency, personal responsibility, and the freedom to choose what’s best — not what Washington prescribes.

​Opinion & analysis, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacy benefit managers, Federal trade commission, Ftc, Pbm, Regulation, Health care, Medicare part d, National bureau of economic research, University of chicago, Drug cost, Hospitals, Innovation 

Republican lawmakers from every faction threaten to derail President Trump’s agenda if they don’t get what they want. Some raise valid concerns. Others don’t. But all of them want more. It’s a familiar scene in Washington: a president forced to spend political capital appeasing members of Congress who didn’t — and could not possibly — win a national mandate in 2024.

When it’s time to vote, most of them will likely fall in line, take the win, and move on. But if they choose brinksmanship instead — if they blow up the president’s agenda over narrow demands — then there will be hell to pay.

The White House is ready to vote — and ready to put every holdout on the record.

The holdouts span the ideological spectrum. From blue states, the so-called SALT Caucus is fighting for higher caps on federal deductions for state and local taxes — benefits aimed at wealthy constituents. From red states, the fiscal hawks are demanding deeper spending cuts, Medicaid reforms, and full repeal of what’s left of Obamacare.

You will notice not one of these fights aligns with the core message of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Deregulation and rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse” always make the list, and Trump emphasized them again during Tuesday’s visit to Capitol Hill. But the driving message of rally after rally was clear: Secure the border, deport dangerous criminals, and cement the gains of his first term.

Even so, the current budget deal includes major wins for every faction at the table. The SALT deduction cap would now reportedly increase by 400% for those making under $500,000 — a more generous proposal than many in the SALT Caucus ever seriously pushed and one they finally seem willing to accept Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, the threat they’ve consistently floated — that rejecting the deal means they’ll get an even better deal later — is nonsense. If they kill reconciliation, the Trump tax cuts from 2017 will expire. Their wealthy constituents will see a tax hike, even with SALT caps disappearing.

That’s not leverage. That’s surrender.

Then there’s the spending side. Congress hasn’t enacted a major discretionary spending cut since 1997, when the deal trimmed $138 billion. This legislation would slash more than $1.5 trillion. That figure doesn’t even account for new tariff revenue flowing steadily into the treasury. It’s a serious cut that checks the box on many of the early demands from fiscal conservatives.

That doesn’t mean their stand for more has come to naught. The speaker of the House has promised to move up work requirements for able-bodied adult Medicaid users in response to House Freedom Caucus demands. He’s also reportedly quickened the timeline for phasing out some of President Joe Biden’s green energy corporate handouts. There’s no chance we would have a bill this strong without the hard work of the Freedom Caucus.

No wonder Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought — arguably the most trusted voice on the fiscal right — is enthusiastically selling the deal in D.C. He sees the value.

And that’s not even counting immigration.

The reconciliation bill includes funding for immigration enforcement — critical dollars for Border Patrol and ICE. If Republicans want to see real deportation numbers that match the president’s campaign promises, this is how it happens. No amount of bluster or floor speeches will get it done without the budget to back it up.

This bill gives the administration the resources to ramp up removals of violent and criminal illegal aliens. It’s a concrete step toward restoring law and order at the border. If Republicans blow it now in pursuit of a perfect bill, they risk squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset the country’s trajectory.

Some hesitation is understandable. Many worry this may be the only shot before the midterms — and historically, the party in the White House takes a beating. But this cycle isn’t following the usual script.

Democrats have boxed themselves in by amplifying the very issues that alienated voters in the first place. And the 2026 map looks nothing like 2018. This isn’t a moment to play defense. It’s a moment to deliver.

Look closer at 2018 for a minute. In that election, 25 Republican House members were defending districts Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, compared to only 12 Democrats defending districts Trump had won. Now jump to 2026, and only three Republicans are defending seats Kamala Harris won in ’24. Meanwhile, 13 Democrats are set to defend Trump ’24 districts.

Trump’s new working-class coalition wants real results — measurable changes that help their bottom lines. That means no taxes on tips. No taxes on overtime. And yes, it also means delivering on promises Republicans have already voted for: serious immigration enforcement, permanent tax cuts, deregulation, and a renewed push for American energy dominance.

This is how you build a durable majority. By showing people — not just telling
them — that you can fight and win on their behalf.

Total victory doesn’t come in one vote. Democrats spent over a decade reshaping the country piece by piece, gaining real speed in 2008. Republicans should take the same long view. With only a three-vote margin in the House and a narrowly divided Senate, demanding perfection at the expense of progress is a losing strategy.

The budget deal on the table reflects national priorities. It’s backed by a president who won a national mandate — and it requires a national perspective. The time for slicing off niche concessions is over. The White House is ready to vote — and ready to put every holdout on the record.

Inside the Beltway, Republicans and conservatives increasingly view this deal as a smart, hard-fought win. Everyone understands that different factions have different priorities. But in the real world, those interests often need to be triangulated to achieve meaningful compromise.

The votes are coming. If certain Republicans decide to sabotage the president’s agenda over narrow demands, we’ll find out soon enough. But they shouldn’t expect applause.

Not from a base that came to Washington to win.

Blaze News: Trump pressures House Republican holdouts as reconciliation talks intensify

Blaze News: Majority of voters say economy ‘STRONG’ for the first time in nearly 4 years, now with Trump in charge

Blaze News: Hillary Clinton lets truth slip about illegal aliens and low US birth rates

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In a viral video, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) decided to clap back at critics who accuse him of only hiring black people by claiming that black people are “the most generous people on the planet.”

“Some detractors that will push back on me and say, ‘You know the only thing that the mayor talks about is the hiring of black people.’ No, what I’m saying is when you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet,” Johnson said in an interview.

“So business and economic neighborhood development, the mayor is a black woman. Department of planning development is a black woman. Infrastructure deputy mayor is a black woman. Chief operations officer is a black man. Budget director is a black woman. Senior adviser is a black man,” he continued.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock of “Jason Whitlock Harmony” is not only unimpressed with Johnson’s statements, but worries this will only make things worse for black people.

“This kind of conversation and talk, very problematic, and sets the stage for white bigots, white nationalists, to get into office, to get into positions of power,” Whitlock says.

BlazeTV contributor Delano Squires is “not surprised.”

“This is Brandon Johnson’s MO. He makes Lori Lightfoot look like a fairly reasonable public executive, because if there ever was a person who personified racial idolatry, I think it’s Brandon Johnson,” Squires tells Whitlock and BlazeTV contributor Shemeka Michelle.

“It seems to be the main thing that he likes to talk about, so I’m not surprised that he did this,” Squires continues, adding, “It’s not good coming from a public executive, and it’s the type of thing that casts doubt on the competency of the people that he hires.”

Squires also notes that in the interview, Johnson didn’t name any of his hires. Rather, he simply described them by the color of their skin.

“Which, again, goes to show you the depth of his thinking. But it’s the type of thing that’ll call into question their qualifications, because people will say, ‘Oh, all Mayor Johnson wants is somebody who has the right skin color,’” he explains.

“This is not the way you lead a city, and it’s not the way you lead a city in 21st-century America. This reminds me of how, maybe, you know, the old Irish or Italian politicians might have talked in the turn of the century when this sort of racial patronage was much more common,” he continues.

“This is the type of thing that can lead to a serious sort of backlash that I don’t think is good for anyone,” he adds.

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.

​Sharing, Video phone, Upload, Free, Video, Camera phone, Youtube.com, Jason whitlock harmony, Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, The blaze, Fearless, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Brandon johnson, Chicago mayor, Racism, Anti racism, Racial idolatry, Shemeka michelle, Delano squires, Dei 

Hi, I’m Lauren Fix, longtime automotive journalist and a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Welcome back to “Quick Fix,” where I answer car-related questions you submit to me.

Today’s question comes from Danny in Wiley, Texas.

Hi, Lauren.

Three years ago, I moved my family from Southern California to northeast Dallas suburbs. And we couldn’t be happier. We left California in California and haven’t looked back.

That said, it was recently time for my insurance renewal, and I had been with AAA — a primary California insurance provider who also services Texas — for 20-plus years.

They were raising our rates by nearly 50%. We were two drivers with two vehicles and zero tickets or accidents.

Yes, our rates were climbing from $4,000 to $6,000 annually, WTF. This has never happened before.

And then we bought a new car and decided we would keep the other two, and they quoted me $9,500, nearly $10,000 a year. Whoa, we had a double take. I spent two hours on the phone with AAA, and in the end, they landed on “our rates have just increased.”

Is this really the case, or is it BS?

Note: We have since moved to State Farm, gotten better coverage, and all three vehicles are paying about $4,500 annually. What do you think?

A lot of us feel your pain, Danny. I think we can narrow the rate hike down to a few culprits, from data mining to disaster — but the important thing is you shopped around for a better deal.

Let’s check it out in the video below:

Got a car-related question? Email me at getquickfix@pm.me.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio
testified Tuesday before his former colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the State Department’s fiscal year 2026 budget request. Democratic senators seized upon the opportunity to attack Rubio and the Trump administration, characterizing the government’s foreign policy as regressive, oppressive, and isolationist.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), in particular, complained about the house-cleaning executed at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the cancellation of radical foreigners’ student visas, the deportation of criminal noncitizens, and the admission of white refugees from South Africa.

Rubio coolly dismantled Democrats’ critiques and drove home the message that mature foreign policy “requires a balancing of interests”; that the U.S. is not withdrawing from the world but engaging in a way that “makes America stronger, safer, and more prosperous”; and that he does not answer to meddlesome federal judges when it comes to foreign policy engagements abroad.

Van Hollen,
fresh off trying to bring a Salvadoran MS-13 affiliate accused of domestic abuse and human trafficking back into the U.S., told Rubio, “Like the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s, your campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy.”

RELATED: Liberals rage after Trump welcomes white refugees to US: ‘Farce and a sham’

Newly arrived South Africans wait to hear welcome statements from U.S. government officials near Washington Dulles International Airport. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“I have to tell you directly and personally,” continued Van Hollen, “that I regret voting for you for secretary of state.”

Rubio immediately made Van Hollen regret his closing statement, replying, “First of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job.”

The secretary of state then explained why the Democrat was off the mark about the changes at USAID — Van Hollen suggested cuts at the agency have already led to deaths in Sudan — and other actions taken by the administration in recent months.

“I’m very proud of the work we’ve done over at the USAID,” said Rubio. “For example, I don’t regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don’t know how that makes us stronger or more prosperous as a nation.”

‘The evidence is going to be clear in the days to come.’

“I could go on and on,” continued Rubio, running down a list of other wasteful USAID grants and programs eliminated under his leadership.

Rubio then addressed
a matter near and dear to Van Hollen’s heart: the deportation of suspected terrorist gang members to El Salvador.

RELATED:
Dems’ favorite MS-13 associate ran human trafficking operations, says ex-boss

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

“We deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with,” said Rubio. “And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gangbanger, and … the evidence is going to be clear in the days to come.”

‘The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.’

Rubio was referring to MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national the Trump administration deported on March 15.

Van Hollen is chief among the Democrats who have tried to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite his initial illegal entry into the homeland, his failure to appear for hearings on traffic violations, the domestic abuse allegations lodged against him, his links to a terrorist gang, his identification by two immigration courts as a danger to the community, and his alleged history of human trafficking.

Last month, Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and
shared an intimate moment over drinks.

— (@)

Van Hollen, enraged by the margarita comment, tried to interject, but Committee Chairman James Risch (R-Idaho) cleared Rubio to continue setting the Democrat straight, this time about the separation of powers.

“The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy. No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them. And if I do reach to that foreign partner and talk to them, I am under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch,” said Rubio. “Just like a judge cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister of Russia, they cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador.”

‘If you’re coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa.’

Rubio’s issue with the judiciary is not hypothetical. An Obama judge
ordered the Trump administration on April 4 to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

“If I started sharing with courts or the media my conversations with foreign leaders and all of their details, no foreign leader would talk to me again, and we would break trust with them,” added Rubio. “Diplomacy doesn’t work that way.”

The secretary of state also addressed Van Hollen’s concerns about terminating radical foreigners’ student visas, stressing that visas are a privilege, not a right, and that “if you’re coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to revoke it.”

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

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​Christopher van hollen, Van hollen, Marco rubio, State department, Secretary of state, El salvador, Courts, Judges, Senate, Hearing, Politics 

Scott Adams, the creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip, revealed the tragic news that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Adams noted that it is the same type of cancer that has stricken former President Joe Biden.

During a livestream video podcast on Monday, Adams announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and that he doesn’t think he has very long to live.

‘Make sure you’ve said your goodbyes and done all the things you need to do.’

“So my life expectancy is maybe this summer,” Adams said. “I expect to be checking out from this domain sometime this summer.”

The 67-year-old cartoonist stated on a recent episode of “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” “Some of you have already guessed, so this won’t surprise you all. But I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has.”

Adams noted that he had been suffering from cancer for “longer” than Biden has had it and added: “Well, longer than he’s admitted having it.”

He revealed that the cancer has metastasized to his bones.

‘Intolerable’ suffering

Adams explained how he has been using a walker for months due to a tumor near his spine. Adams admitted that he is in near-constant pain, describing the situation as “intolerable.” He pointed out that he doesn’t “have good days.”

“Every day is a nightmare, and evening is even worse,” he said.

RELATED: Scott Adams nails the hypocrisy of the left: ‘The thing about being liberal is that it’s a great idea — until somebody comes for YOUR stuff’

Adams said it was important that he knows how long he has to live, so he can put his “affairs together” and “make sure you’ve said your goodbyes and done all the things you need to do.”

Adams added, “So if you had to pick a way to die, this one’s really painful, like really, really painful. But it’s also kind of good that it gives you enough time while your brain is still working to wrap things up.”

Compassion for Biden

Adams explained that he didn’t share his cancer diagnosis earlier because he did not want people to think of him differently.

Adams previously offered his solicitude to Biden over his cancer diagnosis.

“I’d like to extend my respect and compassion and sympathy for the ex-president and his family, because they’re going to be going through an especially tough time,” Adams stated.

The 82-year-old Biden revealed on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.

His cancer reportedly has a Gleason score of 9, which is a high-grade cancer that may need more aggressive treatment.

A Biden spokesperson said, “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.”

The cancer was allegedly discovered on Friday after Biden had experienced “increasing urinary symptoms.”

Questionable timing

BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler questioned the timing of the announcement of Biden’s cancer diagnosis.

“It seems almost impossible that he didn’t know he had it until the past month,” she said on a recent episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

RELATED: Scott Adams says Amazon indie book publishing ‘banned’ him ‘for life’ for a ridiculous reason. Then things get downright comical.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump offered well-wishes to Biden and his family.

“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

James Poulos recently interviewed Adams on BlazeTV’s “Zero Hour” to get his take on a wide variety of topics.

RELATED: USA Today will stop running ‘Dilbert’ cartoon after racial comments by creator Scott Adams

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Just as commonsense, reality-based reforms gain momentum nationwide, Colorado lawmakers have raced in the opposite direction — pushing transgender legislation that defies reason, conscience, and the Constitution.

For Coloradans who still believe in parental rights and free speech, the state’s rapid slide into a legal and cultural dystopia feels less like policymaking and more like a hostile takeover.

This agenda is not about tolerance. Its advocates want dominion over our children, our families, our language, and our wallets.

Transgender activists dominate both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly and occupy the governor’s mansion. Whatever agenda they set — no matter how extreme — they have the votes to pass. And this session, they delivered. Some proposals were so radical that even California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) refused to sign similar measures.

Too extreme for California

Lawmakers passed two sweeping bills. HB1312 effectively criminalizes dissent, while HB1309 compels taxpayers and private insurers to fund transgender medical procedures.

And if that weren’t enough, the state now boasts a “trans continental pipeline” — designed to attract minors and adults from other states seeking gender transitions.

HB1312 drew national attention for its blatant assault on speech and parental rights. The bill bans “deadnaming” and “misgendering,” even in private settings. Parents who decline to affirm their child’s gender identity could face accusations of abuse and risk losing custody. Schools and businesses must adopt ideologically driven language, regardless of biological fact — or face lawsuits for discrimination.

When critics raised legitimate concerns about the erosion of parental rights, supporters responded by comparing parental rights groups to the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.

Facing growing national backlash, some transgender advocacy groups quietly expressed concern over the bill’s visibility. Lawmakers responded with superficial amendments, hoping to defuse opposition. The changes amounted to political theater — and nothing more.

RELATED: Red-state rot: How GOP governors are handing power to the left

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Lawmakers removed the explicit bans on “deadnaming” and “misgendering” from HB131, but they didn’t abandon the agenda. Instead, they embedded new “rights” into the bill’s anti-discrimination section, including the right to use a “chosen name” and self-selected pronouns. In effect, the bill still prohibits deadnaming and misgendering — just under different language.

In practice, this means that if a public school student adopts a new name or pronouns, and a parent declines to affirm that change, the state could treat the parent as discriminatory. That refusal could trigger a state investigation. If authorities deem the parent abusive, the child could be removed from the home.

Amendments or not, HB1312 remains a dangerous overreach — an overt attempt to impose radical gender ideology through state power. It violates core constitutional protections and intrudes on the most basic parental rights.

HB1309, though less publicized, poses an equally serious threat. It mandates that health insurance plans — and by extension, taxpayers — fund any transgender medical intervention imaginable, from puberty blockers to hormones to surgeries. Yet according to a recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services, these procedures can cause lasting physical and psychological harm.

Gov. Jared Polis (D) has already signed HB1312 into law. It’s only a matter of time before he signs HB1309.

Building the transgender ‘pipeline’

Colorado’s so-called “trans continental pipeline” became official last year. Marketed as a sanctuary from “unsafe situations and political climates,” the program funnels transgender individuals into the state through an organized four-step relocation plan. Activists behind the pipeline once operated covertly on Tinder, the dating platform. Now they run a public website promoting the service.

The pipeline offers applicants help with moving, housing, employment, and access to hormone replacement therapy — all under the banner of “care.” Organizers boast that Colorado ranks among 14 states offering what they call the nation’s “best legal protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.”

In reality, Colorado’s legislature and governor have fully aligned themselves with radical activists bent on transforming the state into a haven for gender ideology — at the expense of free speech, parental authority, and basic biological reality.

This agenda is not about tolerance. It’s about control. Its advocates want dominion over our children, our families, our language, and our wallets.

Silence is no longer an option. Americans of goodwill must reject the bullying tactics of transgender ideologues and stand firm for truth, for parental rights, and for the future of their communities.

​Opinion & analysis, Transgenderism, Colorado, Jared polis, Deadnaming, Misgendering, Transitioning, Trans continental pipeline, Sanctuary policies, Democrats, Gavin newsom, Child removal, Surgeries on minors, Health insurance 

I’ve watched the gospel-centered movement sweep through evangelicalism over the past two decades. It began with good intentions to help Christians be “salt of the earth,” but it’s become a trap that convinced Christians to abandon the public square, shrinking the gospel to a private, individualized experience that neglects our duty to engage the world.

In other words, the salt has lost its saltiness.

How can its saltiness be restored? That’s what this essay is about.

A real-world example of what’s at stake

To give a live example, Colorado’s monstrous bill HB1312 was signed into law last week. The bill criminalizes “deadnaming” and “misgendering” someone who claims a transgender identity.

This bill is state-supported child abuse. And we cannot ignore the fact that this bill passed the legislature along party lines, with every Republican voting against it and nearly every Democrat voting for it.

Courageous pastors like Chase Davis and Chris Goble led the charge against this bill, pleading with larger and more powerful Colorado-based Christian organizations to wield their influence to prevent the bill’s passage. Some of them reluctantly complied after being publicly shamed for their cowardice.

Jesus clearly asserted His authority and power as the animating force of the Great Commission.

The downstream effects of this bill would make sharing the gospel illegal, since the gospel requires preaching God’s law, repentance of any/all sin, and explicit faith in Christ for salvation. If a Christian pastor or parent told a child to repent of embracing transgender identity, that would be a criminal act that could even lead to the state forcibly removing the child from the home.

I have a friend with a conservative Christian family in Colorado, and they chillingly shrugged at the bill, saying, “This doesn’t affect us.” That’s the trap I’m talking about: “If it doesn’t affect me personally, then I need not be concerned about it.”

But what about our duty to uphold truth and justice in the public square? What about our duty to be salt of the earth and light of the world?

This attitude is loser theology, which I’ve criticized many times (see here, here, here, and here). Loser theology privatizes the Christian faith to mere “heart religion,” while blinding us to our public duty to stand for truth. It convinces us to “keep quiet, stay safe, and let the world burn.”

The global scope of the gospel

The gospel is a public declaration of Christ’s victory over all the earth. The Great Commission opens with Jesus announcing He has all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, we (Christians) must disciple every nation on earth by preaching repentance of sins and obedience to God’s commands (Matthew 28:18-20). Similarly, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

The apostle Paul echoes this in Acts 17:30-31: “[God] commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.”

Jesus’ authority is absolute: He has all authority in heaven and on earth.

Our mandate is global: Disciple all nations, being salt of the earth and light of the world.

Our message is twofold: (1) Repent of sins and believe in Christ for salvation, and (2) obey Jesus’ teaching.

Thus, preaching the gospel is not limited to inviting people to become Christians. It also requires telling the world that God commands them to repent and obey Christ because judgment is coming. In preaching the gospel, we are heralds of Christ’s victory, whereby the victor dictates the terms of peace.

But in modern times, the gospel has been reduced to a privatized religion, and we’ve abandoned our public duty. How did we get here?

The narrow gospel of the gospel-centered movement

About 20 years ago, the gospel-centered movement emerged to refocus Christians on the core of the gospel. The goal seemed noble enough. But since then it has become a marketing strategy in which “gospel-centered” was slapped on every Bible study, book, church planting network, and conference to make conservative Christians trust it.

The problem was not centering on the gospel. The problem was this definition of the gospel. This definition was too narrow, limiting it to individual conversion and private faith. It stripped away the gospel’s public mandate to assert Christ’s lordship over nations.

This shift had consequences.

Christians began abandoning their duty to be ambassadors for Christ, salt of the earth, and light of the world (2 Corinthians 5:20; Matthew 5:13-16). Once “gospel-centered” became a badge of trust, leftists co-opted it, labeling unbiblical ideas as “gospel issues.” Then, the term was twisted to mean, “The left wins now, and we’ll win in heaven.”

Even worse, it suggested God wants us to surrender our prophetic voice in the public square because getting stepped on for Jesus keeps us humble. This mindset convinced Christians that being passive in the face of evil is somehow an expression of gospel faithfulness and that asserting Christianity in public is “grasping for power.” Thus, abandoning the public square became a “gospel issue.”

My journey through the gospel-centered maze

Years ago, I did a Bible study written by Tim Keller on the book of Galatians that rocked my world.

Before that study, I thought the gospel meant repenting, believing in Jesus, receiving salvation, living in obedience to God, and calling others to do the same. But that study suggested my desire to obey might be legalistic pharisee-ism.

Since I wanted myself and others to obey God, was I being a self-righteous pharisee?

Keller’s study also warned about “heart idols,” quoting John Calvin’s line that the heart is an idol factory. Anything and everything could be a potential idol: power, approval, comfort, control, success, marriage, children — everything. This sent me on an inward quest, paranoid that any strong desire was evidence of idolatry.

The movement’s rhetoric was amplified by powerful outlets that saturated evangelicalism like the Gospel Coalition. The “gospel-centered” buzzphrase was everywhere.

This gospel-centered craze led to absurdities, like these:

“The heart of the gospel is the cross, and the cross is all about giving up power.” — Tim Keller“We must repent of the way that we have prized the powerful over the powerless.” — Russell Moore“To be like Christ, we must lay down our need to dominate, to wield power over others, and embrace the humility of serving as He served.” — Beth Moore

These lines sounded profound, but notice the false dichotomy: You can either have power, or you can be humble — but you can’t have both.

Ironically, these champions of powerlessness are three of the most powerful voices that have shaped evangelicalism over the past 20 years. Besides, as noted above, Jesus clearly asserted His authority and power as the animating force of the Great Commission.

5 rotten fruits of the gospel-centered movement

It took me a while to untangle the good from the bad of the gospel-centered movement.

As I did, I noticed these five trends of the gospel-centered movement:

Equating humility with self-loathing: Humility was twisted into self-hatred. Of course, Christians must learn to hate their own sin and love what is good (Romans 12:9). Humility is not self-hatred, it is an accurate self-assessment according to God’s holy standard (Romans 12:3). Similarly, confidence was equated with arrogance. Thus, to be a humble Christian, you must be insecure and hate yourself.Antinomianism: The gospel-centered movement veered into antinomianism, using “gospel” to negate morality, especially on issues like sexuality. Obedience to God’s law was considered legalism.Unwillingness to oppose worldly ideologies: Christians became reluctant to oppose ideologies like LGBTQ activism or feminism, fearing they’d seem judgmental. Apathy about other people’s sins was considered a mark of humility and a badge of virtue.Left-leaning politics: The movement tilted center-left, and its adherents often viewed leftists as their primary mission field. One of the go-to evangelistic tactics to reach these leftist unbelievers was sneering at conservatives to their right, branding them “culture warriors” and “fundamentalists.” Throwing shade at conservative Christians was how they showed their leftist unbelieving friends they were the “good guys” and the “kind of Christian you can trust.”Smugness: Gospel-centered Christians grew smug, but it was carefully hidden beneath a cloak of false humility. They were smug because they were the ones who truly “got” the gospel, leading them to become the self-appointed gatekeepers of the gospel, making sure to keep the fundamentalists safely on the margins.

I felt this personally. When I got angry about sin, I worried I was a pharisee. When I felt guilty for being a pharisee, I thought, “OK, now I’m getting the gospel!”

The more I shrugged at wickedness, the more I felt humble and Christ-like. If other Christians publicly opposed evil, I saw them as arrogant “elder brother” Christians and fundamentalists.

As this played out over the years, the same, tired talking points got recycled again and again. If someone said, “Christians should speak truth and call people to repentance,” a gospel-gatekeeper would respond, “Sounds like you’re grasping for power! The cross is about laying it down.” If someone warned about cultural decline, someone would respond, “True power is losing! We show Jesus’ kingdom by being the best losers.”

This mindset turned losing into a status marker for evangelical elites, silencing the church’s prophetic voice. The result is a weak church that doesn’t have the nerve to speak truth in public.

In 2025, the American church is weak. We have little influence and power in society. We’re over-coddled, clueless, gullible, and arrogant about it. Our weakness feeds a persecution fetish that is an invitation for disaster. We can no longer afford to be silent.

Conclusion: The global gospel

In Acts 1:8, Jesus promises, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses … to the end of the earth.” The scope is global, the mandate is public, and the power is divine. We’re not called to get stepped on for Jesus but to proclaim His lordship over every nation.

Tech pioneer Marc Andreessen is not a Christian, but evangelical Christians can learn a thing or two from this statement of his: “The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you.”

He’s right. If we have the will to act with courage, Christians can reshape the world for the glory of God.

The society we leave our children will depend on one thing: Do we have the will to assert Christ’s supremacy? Our enemies have plenty of will. Do we?

Therefore, it’s good for Christians to gain power and to wield it for godly purposes — not just political power, though we must pursue that, but influence in every sphere.

The gospel-centered movement, for all its initial promise, has led us into a trap that we need to find our way out of. It’s narrowed the gospel, privatized our faith, and convinced us that losing is godly.

But Jesus calls us to be salt and light, to disciple nations, and to proclaim His lordship with boldness. The future of our culture — and the legacy we leave our children — depends on it.

Let’s stop coasting on the fumes of Christendom and start fighting the good fight for the glory of God.

This essay was adapted from an article published at Michael Clary’s Substack.

​Colorado, Lgbtq agenda, Trans rights, Christianity, Christians, Jesus, God, Gospel, Faith 

As children, most of us were fascinated by storybooks featuring magic. Few kids didn’t fantasize about being able to move objects with their minds or see the future or cast spells that would make their parents blind to a messy room.

It’s probably a power fantasy for young people making their way through a world that seems unfair. Wouldn’t it be great to speak an incantation and make the adults have to obey you?

‘Sesame Street’ depicted American kids — Asian, Latino, white, black — doing kid things together. And most of my childhood experiences were like that.

But that’s not what magic really is, I’ve learned these past five or 10 years.

Magic words

Magic is real, and spells work. But they’re not “supernatural.” Real magic is words and how we deploy them, when we speak them, who we speak them to, and who we never say them in front of.

Magic is the ability to use mere words to hijack another person’s mind and convince him of falsehoods or compel him to act against his own interest or safety, often happily.

You can see it in the history of the word “glamour.” Today, the term means the kind of beauty or charisma that we expect from rich and famous people. We say of them, of their clothes, of their preternatural good looks, that they are “glamorous.”

But the word started out meaning a specific type of magical spell. This is going to surprise you — the word “glamour” came from old Scots, and it’s a corruption of the word “grammar.”

Yes, it means that people recognized that words are magic, words have power. In the 1600s, you might be said to be suffering under a glamour, a spell cast on you to make you believe an ugly person was beautiful or a simpleton was a genius.

Under a spell

In 2025, we are living in an age of universal magical spells, all from words. We are suffering under a particularly powerful glamour. So powerful is this spell that even people who know it exists will deny that it exists. They will often attack you and say you have malicious intentions if you point to the magical spell.

That spell is white guilt. It’s no use saying “uh-uh” in your mind or objecting and calling your correspondent a “racist” for pointing this out. The spell is real, it has deranged us, and everyone — every single person without exception — knows it. Since at least the 1960s, Americans have become convinced of the following:

All misfortune experienced by black people is the result of white racial hatred.Every “system” — from school to employment to the IRS — is “systemically racist.”White people are born with a white-specific original sin called “racism.” White people are born racists, cannot help but be racists, can never not be racists, and must atone publicly and pathetically for their “racism” for the rest of their lives.White people alive today must pay for the sins of other dead white people, even those unrelated to them, who may have owned slaves.The only reason black America has such appalling rates of illiteracy, crime, fatherlessness, and antisocial, violent behavior is because of white racism.

All of that is a lie.

State savior complex

With the introduction of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Program, black well-being has plunged on every measure. As Sam Jacobs writes in “Black America Before LBJ: How the Welfare State Inadvertently Helped Ruin Black Communities”:

The biggest problem resulting from the Great Society is the breakdown of the black family. This is a sensitive subject, but one that must be broached to fully understand the devastating impact that the Great Society has had on the black community in the United States.

In 1965, when the Great Society began in earnest following the massive electoral landslide reelection of LBJ, the out-of-wedlock birthrate among the black community was 21 percent. By 2017, this figure had risen to a whopping 77 percent.

All you need to do is look at FBI statistics to see that black Americans, just 13% of the population, commit the majority of violent crimes. “Disparate impact” indeed.

The hate u give

Open racial hatred of whites by blacks has become normal in America, with the help of white Democrats and liberals who applaud the rudeness and physical aggression against other whites.

The glamour has infantilized black people to the point where they genuinely believe they’re being treated with “racism” if they’re expected to obey the same social and legal codes the rest of us are.

Open social media and you are flooded with videos of black people melting down and screaming at store employees, shouting obscenities in restaurants, or pummeling the daylights out of white peers in public school. It’s not just confirmation bias; everyone sees it, and everyone knows it.

Diss not, lest you be dissed

The last time I had to ask young black men to move their car — they had parked in a travel lane, blocking the egress of a line of drivers — they sprang from their vehicle and threatened to show me what “bitches” like me got for dissing them.

The glamour has a built-in mechanism to keep itself in force: telling the truth about bad black behavior only seems to strengthen the spell. Try pointing out behavior from a black person that wouldn’t be tolerated from a white person, and you’ll have both whites and blacks tell you that your very observation itself is racist. It’s literally lunatic; there is no talking to this calcified mindset.

Making a killing

But it is getting harder to deny that we have a problem with black bad behavior and white enabling. On April 2, 2025, 17-year-old black teen Karmelo Anthony allegedly killed 17-year-old white teen Austin Metcalf. Anthony admitted what he did on the spot to the cops. He claimed Metcalf had put his hands on him, but it’s obvious that Anthony felt “dissed” when Metcalf correctly told him he was seated in someone else’s spot.

The very next day, the slain boy’s white father went on local television telling the world he forgave the killer and then went on several tirades against sympathetic onlookers, accusing them of making the killing into a race issue.

Well, it very likely was a race issue.

Soon after, the alleged killer’s family had the gall to hold a press conference about the fundraiser they launched to help their poor, misunderstood, knife-wielding son. Through their new spokesman, Dominique Alexander — a convicted felon whose charges include forgery, theft, assault, and shaking and hitting a 2-year-old — the family accused the Metcalfs of “racism.”

Yes. The family of the boy who allegedly knifed a teen to death in cold blood stood in front of cameras and implied that he and his family had it coming. It was more astonishingly brazen than the October 13, 1995, spectacle of black “Oprah Winfrey Show” audience members cheering as a jury acquitted O.J. Simpson of the murder of his ex-wife and her friend.

N-word salad

A month after the killing of Austin Metcalf, the internet went berserk over a video depicting white Minnesota mother Shiloh Hendrix calling a young Somali immigrant “the N-word” (term used under duress; the magical glamour around that word has made it imprudent to utter it even as reported speech). Hendrix claimed the boy was rifling through her baby bag and stealing.

It’s worth noting that the original incident was not caught on camera. The footage we saw was taken immediately afterward. It came from the phone of the child’s 30-year-old uncle Sharmake Beyle Omar, also a Somali immigrant.

It’s also of interest that Omar had recently been indicted, but not convicted, for a sex crime involving minors. No, you won’t find mention of that in American media, specifically because the man is black and Somali, and we can’t acknowledge that brown people can ever do bad.

While shooting the video, Omar makes his intention clear: to ruin Hendrix’s life by getting her to admit to the slur and to repeat it for his camera. He presses her until she does both.

Diminishing returns

No, this was not a nice way for Hendrix to respond; in fact, it was quite rude. But so is stealing. Rude or not, Ms. Hendrix did not hit a child, harm a child, or do anything even near the level of violence of, say, plunging a dagger into someone’s heart because he asked you to move seats.

But she did mount a fundraiser to help with moving expenses because, naturally, she lost her job and was being targeted for violence locally after having her name plastered over the internet.

This made people — mainly white people — insanely angry. White people are supposed to pay and pay and pay, with no limit, for even the mildest transgression against a “person of color.” And by the way, no, there is no good evidence to support outrage-boosting claims that the child in question was 5 years old (he looked closer to 10) or that he was “autistic.”

You wouldn’t know it from the hysterical, over-the-top condemnations from white people online.

Both sides now

Online commentators, black and white, rich and poor, anonymous and famous, went berserk. They acted as if Ms. Hendrix’s verbal bad behavior was worse than physical violence. They equivocated with statements like this:

Black racists crowdfunded for Karmelo Anthony.
White racists crowdfunded for Shiloh Hendrix.
BOTH are WRONG.

Both are wrong, wrong in the same way, wrong to the same degree. Calling a child the “N-word” is as horrible and bad as killing a white boy who asked you to move your seat. And no, you’re not allowed to be frustrated and verbally slip when an unsupervised (where were his parents?) child starts stealing your diapers and purse items. Just as bad as killing, see?

This is madness. It can only be explained by the magical spell, the glamour, that has us as firmly entranced as the spell that put Briar Rose’s palace to sleep for 100 years in “Sleeping Beauty.”

Our deification of black people, our endless excusing of a large portion that is antisocial or criminal, and our extreme punishment of white people who notice it and say “stop doing that to me” is indistinguishable from clinical insanity. It is not normal, it is not proportionate, and it is absolutely not moral.

Black people are full humans beings, just like white people. That means they are capable of being as good, or as bad, as any other human being. They do not deserve special passes to get away with illegal or antisocial behavior.

White people are not to blame for their behavior. We are all responsible for our own behavior. Along with rights come obligations, but there is a contingent of Americans today — black and white — who seem to want to exempt black people from any obligations.

‘Street’ smart

I hated writing this piece. I never thought I would have even contemplated things like this. My generation grew up on 1970s “Sesame Street,” when it taught true color blindness as part of life.

It wasn’t heavy-handed, didactic, or preachy. The show simply depicted American kids — Asian, Latino, white, black — doing kid things together. And most of my childhood experiences were like that. My friends had different skin colors, native languages, and home cultures. But they were just my friends.

Everything has changed. To even write something like this will, itself, bring accusations of “racism” and “white supremacy.” That’s the glamour, the spell.

It’s a lie. And it’s a lie we had better stop telling soon or there really will be the race war that hysterical leftists seem determined to conjure.

​Josh slocum, Racism, White guilt, Shiloh hendrix, Austin metcalf, Karmelo anthony, Culture, Sesame street, Intervention 

Cleveland-Cliffs, America’s fourth-largest steel producer, stunned West Virginia earlier this month by shelving plans to reopen a shuttered steel mill as an electrical transformer plant.

The project would have restored 600 of the 1,000 jobs lost when the company idled the mill in February. Instead, the cancellation marked just one of several disappointing announcements since March, all driven by the company’s ongoing financial problems. In total, Cleveland-Cliffs plans to idle six facilities across Pennsylvania and the Midwest.

If the choice is between watching Cleveland-Cliffs and US Steel collapse or breathing new life into one through foreign direct investment, Trump won’t hesitate.

And who suffers most? Steelworkers and their families — the people left out of the headlines.

I’ve tracked the steel industry’s decline for decades, first as the lone free-market conservative senior adviser at the Alliance for American Manufacturing, and later through various economic roles in Washington, D.C. Cleveland-Cliffs’ troubles are just the latest symptoms of a chronically ailing American steel sector, burdened by nearly a dozen deeply rooted problems that won’t be solved quickly.

Steelmakers now face skyrocketing costs for raw materials, energy, and labor. At the same time, they compete against a global glut of cheap steel, particularly from Chinese companies that flood markets and drive down prices. Geopolitical tensions, supply shortages, and transportation choke points only add to the chaos. The result: an industry pushed to the brink — and workers left behind.

Some steel companies are taking creative steps to survive. In December 2023, U.S. Steel announced a proposed sale to Japanese rival Nippon Steel. CEO David Burritt had warned just three months earlier that without a strong buyer, he would likely shut down the Mon Valley Works plant near Pittsburgh — an iconic facility employing more than 3,000 workers — and move company headquarters from the “Steel City” to Arkansas.

Nippon Steel emerged as the most financially viable bidder, outpacing Cleveland-Cliffs, which remains weighed down by persistent losses. Despite this, the Biden administration blocked the deal. President Trump initially opposed the sale but has since indicated a willingness to approve it.

For years, I’ve advocated better trade policies — especially deregulation and aggressive action against China. As a former commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, I pushed to crack down on China’s intellectual property theft and ongoing geo-economic abuses. Trump’s trade agenda gives the United States its best shot in decades to protect jobs from Chinese exploitation and reopen long-shuttered paths to profitable domestic manufacturing.

RELATED: Can Trump revive American steel?

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

On the home front, Trump’s 10-to-1 deregulation initiative — eliminating 10 old rules for every new one — could transform the business landscape. He’s already eyeing 44 regulations that manufacturers want repealed. What critics call a “tariff war” with China is really just Washington’s overdue reckoning with decades of failure to hold Beijing accountable.

These policy reforms won’t take effect overnight. And manufacturers like U.S. Steel can’t afford to wait while neglect and decay continue. Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid offers a direct infusion of capital that could revive this historic company and inject new life into a battered industry.

Look at what Nippon’s latest offer — now exceeding $20 billion — includes:

A $1.3 billion commitment to upgrade and modernize two U.S. Steel plants.
Guarantees to retain the full U.S. Steel workforce and honor existing union contracts.
A $5,000 bonus for every U.S. Steel employee once the deal closes.

President Trump understands business and negotiation. His priority — rightly — focuses on revitalizing American industry and creating jobs that put affordable groceries, including now-cheaper eggs, back on the tables of steelworkers.

If the choice is between watching Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel collapse or breathing new life into one through foreign direct investment, Trump won’t hesitate. He’ll choose growth — and he’ll be right to do so.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Tariffs, Trade, China, Steel, Aluminum, Manufacturing, Cleveland-cliffs, Us steel, Jobs, Middle class, Mon valley works, Globalization, Nippon steel, Deregulation 

On May 16, House Bill 3441 passed the Texas House and is now pending in the Senate.

“All that this means is if you are going to advertise in this state for your vaccine, then you are going to be held responsible. … If your vaccine harms these people, you’re going to be held liable. You don’t get immunity here in the state of Texas,” says Sara Gonzales of “Come and Take It.”

If it passes the Senate and is signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott (R), and Sara suspects it will be, it’s a step toward COVID-19 accountability, which we’ve seen very little of thus far.

The bill’s importance comes to life in “Follow the Silenced,” a documentary Sara urges everyone to watch.

“If you want to know why this new bill that was passed by the Texas House is so important, go check out this documentary,”’ she says.

The recently released film follows people who trusted the “experts” in medicine and the government during the COVID-19 pandemic and paid for it with horrific vaccine injuries that range from being “permanently disabled” to “not here on this earth any more.”

Sara plays some of the most disturbing clips from the film.

1. Ernesto Ramirez Jr., 16

Ernesto Ramirez is “a father who will never kiss his son again, never hug his son again, never be able to tell his son I love you ever again,” laments Sara.

Ramirez, not wanting to see his 16-year-old son Jr. get sick, took him in to be vaccinated. He died from myocarditis five days after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

“When I got to the hospital, they just acted like nothing. They just said, ‘Oh, your son’s dead,’ like it meant nothing,” says a sobbing Ramirez.

Myocarditis was a known side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine, but it was downplayed as a rare and mild condition that could be solved with a quick scan and some ibuprofen.

“There is no such thing as mild myocarditis,” says Sara. “I spoke to one of the most world-renowned, most published cardiac doctors in the world, Peter McCullough. … I asked him, ‘Is there such a thing as mild myocarditis?’ He said, ‘Absolutely not. … There’s no mild anything when it comes to damaging the heart.”’

Further, “Children were not prone to any sort of long-term, devastating effects from [COVID-19],” and yet the vaccine, which was a far greater risk to children’s health, was pushed on them anyway.

2. Maddie DeGary, 12

Maddie DeGary was a normal, healthy 12-year-old when her parents enrolled her in Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trial for adolescents.

After her first booster shot, Maddie started experiencing strange symptoms, like “electrical shocks going through her body” and “ice cold, swollen” fingers. This eventually developed into frequent fainting spells and trouble breathing.

Horrifying video footage from the documentary shows Maddie passing out, gasping for air, and sobbing, as her dad screams in the background.

“Her parents trusted the experts and trusted the government, and her life now will never be the same,” says Sara.

3. Houston Methodist Hospital whistleblower Jennifer Bridges

Jennifer Bridges was an intensive care unit nurse who was fired from Houston Methodist Hospital for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Following her firing, she became a prominent figure speaking out against the mandate, arguing that it violated personal choice and wasn’t safe.

“20-, 30-year-old people — perfectly healthy, no comorbidities, very active — were coming in, and they’ve got a blood clot in each leg, one in each side of the lung, covered in [deep vein thromboses] or [pulmonary embolisms] and blood clots. That doesn’t happen,” she says. “Then you look at their chart, and there’s no reason for this to happen, but when you go to their vaccine history, sure enough, you’d see, oh, they took the shot a week ago.”

Video footage shows medical staff examining enormous blood clots they had removed from one of these patients.

“I would just really strongly encourage you guys to go watch this documentary,” says Sara. “Bring your kleenex; bring your tissues with you. It’s gut-wrenching, but it’s just so important that everyone hears these people’s stories so we make sure that this never happens again.”

To see the clips from “Follow the Silenced” and hear more of Sara’s commentary, watch the clip above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Comes and take it, Sara gonzales, Blazetv, Blaze media, Covic vaccine, Vaccine injuries, Covid pandemic, Covid 19, Texas hb3441, Come and take it 

A Santa Monica store owner defended his boutique shoe business and his life from two men who were allegedly trying to rob him, according to California police.

The Santa Monica Police Department said police were called to the “Sole & Laces” store on the famed Third Street Promenade at about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday over the incident, according to the Los Angeles Times.

‘He took care of things and defended himself and his store, and his life, and his family by using his gun.’

John Alle, the manager of the property, said that the shoe store owner was carrying out a sale with a customer after regular business hours when the attempted robbery began.

A second man, who allegedly knew the customer involved in the sale, barged into the store through the back door and used a “chemical irritant” to try to disable the owner.

After a scuffle between the two, the owner retrieved his gun and shot the alleged robber.

The wounded assailant later died from his injuries at a local hospital, according to police. The store owner had a legal permit to carry the gun.

Police also arrested Karen Melikyan, the customer who had arranged the meeting with the owner, on suspicion that he had been involved in planning the attempted robbery. He was charged with homicide, conspiracy, and armed robbery.

Alle said the owner was shaken up by the incident.

“He took care of things and defended himself and his store, and his life, and his family by using his gun,” Alle said to KCAL-TV.

RELATED: Security video shows deputy walk in on four thugs committing armed robbery at 7-Eleven in California

Santa Monica circa 2021. Photo by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Alle went on to say that the business conditions in Santa Monica are dire.

“A lot of retailers have just given up,” he explained. “If they report the crimes and the theft, they’ll lose their insurance.”

Police said the shop owner is cooperating with their investigation, which is ongoing. He has not been arrested, and he was not injured in the incident.

A post from the store’s social media account referred to the shop as “the best sneaker spot from the bay to L.A.”

Scenes from the store can be viewed on the video news report from KCAL on YouTube.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Santa monica crime, Attempted robbery thwarted, Second amendment california, Armed self-defense, Crime 

When I visited in Europe earlier this month, a massive blackout had just struck Spain and Portugal — the largest in either country’s history. Sixty million people across the Iberian Peninsula and parts of southern France lost power and communication for 12 hours. It was a total system collapse. And if America doesn’t wake up, we’re heading for the same fate.

This wasn’t just some fluke or freak weather event. It was a disaster years in the making, baked into the very structure of Spain and Portugal’s energy policies — policies championed by radical environmentalists and now echoed by the Democratic Party here at home.

Over-reliance on wind and solar leads to blackouts and economic chaos and puts us at the mercy of our adversaries.

Spain and Portugal are the poster children of Europe’s so-called green energy revolution. Just before the blackout, Spain’s energy infrastructure was a mixture of up to 78% solar and wind, with only 11% nuclear and 3% natural gas. Spain gutted its base-load energy sources — nuclear, hydro, and gas — in favor of wind turbines and solar panels. The result was an electrical grid as flimsy as a house of cards.

Predictably, the U.S. media ran interference. Reuters insisted that the blackout wasn’t the fault of renewable energy but instead blamed the “management of renewables.” That’s like saying a building collapse isn’t the fault of bad materials, just bad architecture. Either way, it still falls down.

Set up to fail

“Renewable” power sources are unreliable by nature. Solar doesn’t work when the sun doesn’t shine. Wind turbines don’t spin when the air is still. And when these systems fail — and they inevitably do — you need consistent, dispatchable backup. Spain doesn’t have that. In the name of “saving the planet,” the Spanish government heavily taxed nuclear plants until they became unprofitable, then shut them down altogether.

As Spanish economist Daniel Lacalle put it: “The blackout in Spain was not caused by a cyberattack but by the worst possible attack — that of politicians against their citizens.”

And yet, not far away, parts of southern France that were affected by the same blackout recovered quickly. Why? Because France has wisely kept its nuclear power intact. In fact, nuclear power provides 70% of France’s electricity. Say what you want about the French, but they got that part right.

What happened in Spain and Portugal is not a European problem — it’s a cautionary tale. It’s a flashing red warning light for the United States. The Democrats’ Green New Deal playbook reads exactly like Europe’s: Phase out fossil fuels, demonize nuclear power, and vastly expand wind and solar — all while pretending this won’t destabilize our grid.

Look at California. In 2022, the state experienced rolling blackouts during a heat wave after years of shutting down nuclear and natural gas plants. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) had to scramble to bring those “dirty” plants back just to keep the lights on.

Even back in 2017, the U.S. Department of Energy warned that over-reliance on renewables threatens grid stability. But the Biden administration ignored it and dove headlong into the disastrous waters of green energy.

AI’s imminent energy demand

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently told Congress that artificial intelligence is expected to consume up to 99% of our total electricity generation in the near future. Think about that — 99%. Add to that the left’s obsession with mandating electric vehicles, and the demand on our already fragile grid becomes unsustainable.

Try running all of that — AI data centers, EV charging stations, and the basic needs of 330 million people — on wind and sunshine. It’s impossible. Until someone invents a clean, infinite power source that works 24/7, we need nuclear, natural gas, and yes, maybe even coal.

This isn’t the first time a green energy fantasy has ended in blackouts. In 2016, 1.7 million Australians lost power due to wind farm fluctuations. In 2017, Germany’s trillion-dollar experiment with renewables nearly collapsed its grid. In 2019, more than a million Brits lost power after a lightning strike overwhelmed their renewables-heavy system.

These aren’t isolated events. This is a pattern. When energy policy is driven by ideology instead of engineering, people suffer.

Here’s a dirty little secret the climate cult doesn’t want you to know: Renewables lack something critical called inertia. Traditional base-load sources like nuclear and gas provide the physical inertia needed to keep a grid stable. Without it, a minor disruption — like a cloudy day or a sudden drop in wind — can trigger a cascading blackout.

Worse, restarting a power grid after a blackout — what’s called a “black start” — is significantly more challenging with renewables. Nuclear and natural gas plants can do it. Wind and solar can’t.

While it doesn’t appear that this was a cyberattack, it easily could have been. Renewable-heavy grids rely on inverters to convert DC to AC — and those inverters are vulnerable. Major flaws have already been discovered that could allow hackers to remotely sabotage the voltage and crash the grid. The more we rely on renewables, the more we invite foreign actors like China and Russia to exploit those vulnerabilities.

Save the grid!

So what’s the takeaway from the Spain-Portugal blackout?

First, we need to stop demonizing nuclear energy. Spain still plans to shut down all of its nuclear plants by 2035 — even after this catastrophe. That’s insane. Nuclear is safe, is clean, and provides the base-load power and inertia a modern grid needs.

Second, we must preserve and expand our natural gas infrastructure. When renewables fail — and they will — gas is the only backup that can be scaled quickly and affordably.

Third, we need to fortify our power grid against cyber threats. If our electricity goes down, everything else follows — banking, transportation, communication, water. We’re talking about national survival.

Green energy has a role in the future. But it’s not the savior the left wants it to be. Over-reliance on wind and solar leads to blackouts and economic chaos and puts us at the mercy of our adversaries.

The blackout in Spain and Portugal should be a wake-up call. If Democrats turn our grid into their ideological jungle gym, the lights will go out — literally. We can’t afford to play roulette with our power supply.

America’s energy strategy must be based on reliability, security, and reality — not political fantasy. If we fail to recognize that, we’ll soon be the ones stuck in elevators, stranded on trains, and left in the dark.

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As the murder case proceeds against Rodney Hinton Jr., the Ohio father accused of murdering a recently retired sheriff’s deputy on May 2 — just one day after Hinton Jr.’s son was fatally shot by police — a disturbing undercurrent is gaining momentum.

Not unlike the support that’s poured in for teenager Karmelo Anthony — charged with murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in Frisco, Texas, last month — some supporters of Hinton Jr. are calling him a “hero” and a “saint” and even “Father of The Year.”

‘He is holding his head high in the courtroom while surrounded by cops because he feels good about what he did. He defended his son in the only way he knew how.’

Authorities said Hinton Jr. was at the Cincinnati police station May 2 to view police bodycam video showing the fatal police shooting of his son, Ryan Hinton, which took place the day before. A detective testified that Hinton Jr. was emotional after viewing the video and later on May 2 drove his car into retired Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson, who was helping direct traffic near a University of Cincinnati graduation.

Henderson died as a result of his injuries, and authorities charged Hinton Jr. with murder, contending his alleged act was in retaliation for the police-involved shooting death of his son. Hinton Jr., who remains in jail, has pleaded not guilty — and his attorney said it will be by reason of insanity. Hinton Jr.’s trial will proceed later this year or in early 2026, and the prosecution will seek the death penalty.

Yet, despite what Hinton Jr. is accused of, he has gained quite a few fans.

In an X post that’s been viewed four million times, the user wrote, “Eye for an eye” above a video showing Hinton Jr. walking out of a courtroom with his head tilted back and his chin jutting forward. “A father’s revenge. Keep ya head up!”

RELATED: Blaze News original: ‘Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period’: Karmelo Anthony defenders go viral

Another X post — which uses a similar video showing supporters of Hinton Jr. waving to him in court and the defendant reacting with a look of defiant satisfaction — declares that, “No matter what happens to Rodney Hinton Jr. he immortalized forever!!” The post has been viewed more than 350,000 times.

Other notable reactions:

“Rodney Hinton Jr. did his duty,” another X user said.”Rodney Hinton is a hero,” another X user said. “This is exactly the energy we should have for these state sanctioned killers when they come after one of our own.””All I’m saying is this. If a cop killed my son … I’m airing out the precinct,” another X user said. “Rodney Hinton Jr. is a saint and a hero.””Rodney Hinton’s actions … make complete sense as the reaction of a parent witnessing state violence dolled [sic] out by actors who will never be held responsible,” another X user said. “I’d go so far as to say he’s totally justified.”

But all of the aforementioned cheering for Hinton Jr. are relative blips on the radar compared to the opinions below supporting him. Check them out for yourself:

Longtime cultural critic and writer Touré says Hinton Jr. ‘got an eye for an eye’ — and ‘as a Black father, I respect him’

Longtime cultural critic and writer Touré penned the following on Instagram about Hinton Jr.: “So many times Black folks have lost our children to cops and imagined some way of getting back at police. I’ve envisioned cathartic violence in my mind’s eye as a response to a police killing, but I could never do it. But Hinton did. He got an eye for an eye. He is holding his head high in the courtroom while surrounded by cops because he feels good about what he did. He defended his son in the only way he knew how. I’m not saying whether he was right or wrong; I’m saying he did what millions of us have thought of doing after another police murder of a Black teenager. I could never do what he did, but as a Black father, I respect him.”

Touré also posted a separate video in which he dramatically declares that Hinton Jr. “is a lot like” Luigi Mangione:

They both committed political assassinations. They both un-alived specific people as a way of protesting a system. They both committed violent homicides yet received wild outpourings of respect. They both made powerful statements about America by protesting a system that they feel was oppressing them. They both felt destroyed and despondent after an American system betrayed them. They both lost the will to live and discover the power that you have and the things that you can do when you no longer care about your own life. They both inspire people to say, “I hear his message. I respect his feelings. I respect his pain.” These are both revenge on the system … where they have selected a specific individual to stand in for the entirety of the system. And you would expect the average person to say, “Wow! Violence is wrong!” But in both these situations people are saying, “I understand why he was violent.” Don’t hyper-focus on people who have committed violent crimes here; focus on the systems that have pushed them to feel like, “We are so oppressed by you that we need to do something violent to get your attention.”

TikTok user posts jarring short video about the killing of deputy Henderson: ‘RIP to that officer. But to everyone saying that he’s innocent? He fit the description.’

A TikTok user posted a short, stop-you-in-your-tracks video that’s garnered nearly 240,000 views in which he opines about the violent death of deputy Henderson: “And I’mma say this in the most respectful — but I’mma be honest — way that I can. RIP to that officer. But to everyone saying that he’s innocent? He fit the description.”

The TikTok user offered a written caption for his video, saying that “I mean this with all respect: rest in peace to that officer, prayers to his family, but I’m giving them every line they give us.” Presumably, the video creator means that police say the same thing about black people they arrest — that they “fit the description.”

The clip attracted more than 1,300 comments — and while some questioned the TikTok user’s take, others couldn’t have agreed more with him. “Guilty by association. That’s what they say about us,” one commenter wrote back. Another responded by saying, “I honestly think this is genius. If cops get treated how they treat people, there is gonna be a lot of change!!!”

‘Black folks are getting on alert, like, ”Hey man … I got to defend myself by all means … defend my family by all means [and] crash out for my family by all means,”‘ activist warns

Readers of Blaze News might recognize activist Tariq Nasheed, as he authored several viral X posts last month supporting murder suspect Karmelo Anthony. In one of them, Nasheed said, “If Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in using lethal self-defense… And Daniel Penny was justified in using lethal self-defense…. Then Karmelo Anthony was justified in using self-defense against alleged bullies who instigated an altercation, correct?”

More recently, Nasheed weighed in on the Hinton Jr. controversy for the 256,000 subscribers to his Tariq Radio program on YouTube. He explained during a recent episode — “Did This Father Take Justice in His Own Hands?” — what he believes is the reason behind Hinton Jr.’s alleged actions:

People are tired of racial injustice, and people are just … crashing out, like, “We’re just going to fight back,” which is inevitable. There’s only so far you can push people. There’s only so far you can just … keep creating a system of non-justice. That’s why we keep seeing these cases where black folks are fighting back — Karmelo Anthony — just so many other cases. Black folks are fighting back, and these white supremacists are getting more degenerate, just like the white woman who was … cursing out that special-needs black kid and all of these other white supremacists supporting her. So black folks are getting on alert, like, “Hey, man … I got to defend myself by all means and defend my family by all means, or I have to crash out for my family by all means.” So that’s … the paradigm shift that white supremacy has pushed people into, unfortunately. So what the … white supremacists are trying to do with this case in Cincinnati, where this brother immediately got his lick back after his son got offed by a suspected race soldier. [Police] don’t want that to become contagious, so they got to start getting into psychological warfare through optics. That’s why [police were] surrounding this guy [in court] and being intimidating. That’s for black people nationwide watching to say, … “Hey, don’t try to play with us. We’re going to come down on you hard.” But … people ain’t really afraid of that, you know? So the thing is, it’s a symbolic message of collective punishment, them doing all of that surrounding the suspect and being intimidating. That reinforces that if one black person retaliates, the full weight of white-dominant law enforcement institutions will respond collectively and aggressively — not on the individual, not just on him, but … on the whole group.

‘What Rodney Hinton did? That’s gonna make the next cop think,’ angry TikTok user says in viral video

An angry TikTok user noted in a viral video with over 440,000 views that “what Rodney Hinton did? That’s gonna make the next cop think.” He also appears to argue that rules imposed upon police officers aren’t going to stop them from killing black people — but violence against police in the “streets” may get the attention of law enforcement.

The user’s video attracted more than 4,400 comments — and the majority of them agree with the video creator’s sentiments. One commenter wrote, “It ends right now. No more turning the cheek.” Another wrote that “what [Hinton Jr.] did was right, so now [police] all should fear and hold their partners accountable.”

Viral video creator backs Hinton Jr. — and tells law enforcement: ‘You took his son. He took one of yours.’

A TikTok user created a video that’s gone viral (360,000 views) in which he backs Hinton Jr. and tells law enforcement, “You took his son. He took one of yours.”

The video creator adds that there is such a thing as a “justifiable crash out. This is one of those things. And an unfortunate reality is, in a case like this, look, they’re not gonna tell you the name of the person who actually did it, right? You’re not gonna be able to get your hands on that person. So you know what’s gonna happen now? In order for you to even live with yourself, you gotta get somebody.”

His video attracted over 2,500 comments: One replied, “Let them quake in their boots, wondering who’s next like we have to do.” Another answered, “Revenge is one of my favorite things. I stand with Rodney Hinton.”

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In the months since being appointed health and human services secretary, RFK Jr. has wasted no time tackling the modern-day disease epidemic — especially when it comes to children.

“38% of our youth now are diabetic or pre-diabetic. That was zero when I was a kid. If anybody thinks that we did gold-standard medicine in this country, from these institutions, look at our children. They’re the sickest children in the world,” RFK said in a recent congressional hearing.

“Congressman DeLauro,” he continued, “you say that you’ve worked for 20 years on getting food dye out. Give me credit. I got it out in 100 days. I’ll give you credit, all right, so let’s work together and do something that we all believe in, which is have healthy kids in our country, for God’s sake.”

Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson and BlazeTV host Hilary Kennedy couldn’t agree more with RFK Jr. ‘s point.

“You and I both have kids,” Kennedy tells Peterson. “How can lawmakers like Rosa DeLauro pretend to have been crusading for children’s health when America’s youth have become visibly less healthy? It’s undeniable.”

Peterson points out that one of the reasons lawmakers have left children behind is that they “don’t have money behind them.”

“All these other interests do not care about the health of children,” Peterson says. “So RFK is very refreshing to see him at work.”

And RFK’s work couldn’t come at a better time, as in places like Utah, there’s an unexpected addiction plaguing Americans.

“It’s not drugs; it’s not alcohol. It’s soft drinks,” Kennedy explains. “And it’s because a lot of people that live in Utah happen to be Mormon, and they don’t drink alcohol. So they drink a lot of soda, and they have these concoctions they call ‘dirty sodas.’”

“You could drink ten of them and still drive home; there’s not any repercussions, other than now, we’re noticing that there is a rise in diabetes and other health conditions in these areas where soda is being consumed in such large quantities,” she continues.

“It’s just another example of why we need the MAHA movement to educate people,” she adds.

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered a review of the “catastrophic” Afghanistan withdrawal under the Biden administration, during which 13 U.S. service members were killed in a terror bombing.

Critics have accused President Joe Biden of mishandling the withdrawal so egregiously that it allowed the suicide bomber to take more than a dozen U.S. lives, as well as those of 170 Afghans, in August 2021. The bomber struck the Abbey Gate at the the Kabul International Airport.

‘The Department of Defense has an obligation, both to the American people and to the warfighters who sacrificed their youth in Afghanistan, to get to the facts.’

On Tuesday, Hegseth said a review of the incident was necessary to assure that those responsible for the deaths of service members were taken to task.

“President Trump and I have formally pledged full transparency for what transpired during our military withdrawal from Afghanistan,” read a statement from Hegseth. “The Department of Defense has an obligation, both to the American people and to the warfighters who sacrificed their youth in Afghanistan, to get to the facts. This remains an important step toward regaining faith and trust with the American people and all those who wear the uniform and is prudent based on the number of casualties and equipment lost during the execution of this withdrawal operation.

RELATED: CNN confirms suicide bomber who killed 13 US troops at Kabul airport was released from Bagram prison just days before

Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Photo by MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES via Getty Images

Biden praised the operation in 2021 and called it a success despite the large number of deaths, including those of U.S. service members.

“We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. No nation has ever done anything like it in all of history,” said Biden.

“The bottom line: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” he added. “And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to getting them out if they want to come out.”

Hegseth went on to say the department has been reviewing the “catastrophic event” for three months and concluded that a comprehensive review was necessary.

“To meet this imperative, I am directing the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs (ATSD-PA) and senior advisor, Sean Parnell, to convene a special review panel (SP) for the department who will thoroughly examine previous investigations, to include but not limited to, findings of fact, sources, witnesses, and analyze the decision-making that led to one of America’s darkest and deadliest international moments,” he added.

“This team will ensure ACCOUNTABILITY to the American people and the warfighters of our great nation,” Hegseth concluded.

Here’s more about the disastrous withdrawal:

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National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya hosted his first staff town hall on Monday.

The event, held on the NIH’s main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, was packed with nearly 500 attendees and even more individuals tuning in online to watch Bhattacharya answer some of the 1,200 submitted questions, Science reported.

‘If it’s true that we sponsored research that caused the pandemic, and if you look at polls of the American people, that’s what most people believe.’

Yet when Bhattacharya attempted to answer a question about the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, many staffers fled the room in apparent protest.

Ahead of his response, Bhattacharya noted that some of those attending the event would likely disagree with his perspective.

“It’s possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings. And it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research,” Bhattacharya told the crowd.

He appeared to pause as dozens of NIH staffers stood up and left the room.

“It’s nice to have free speech. You’re welcome, you guys,” he said, apparently addressing the protesters.

Some attendees who remained responded with applause.

Bhattacharya continued, “If it’s true that we sponsored research that caused the pandemic, and if you look at polls of the American people, that’s what most people believe. And I’ve looked at the scientific evidence I believe in.”

“What we have to do is make sure that we do not engage in research that’s posing any risk to any human populations,” he added.

RELATED: Vindictive researcher at high-security NIH lab risked deadly outbreak over petty dispute with coworker: Bhattacharya

National Institutes of Health Director Jayanta Bhattacharya, U.S. President Donald Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Anything else?

A Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s minority staff report drafted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) claimed that President Donald Trump’s administration had “effectively” slashed the NIH’s budget by $2.7 billion in the first three months of the year.

“Trump’s war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer,” Sanders said. “The American people do not want us to slash cancer research in order to give more tax breaks for billionaires.”

The Department of Health and Human Services has labeled Sanders’ claims as “unequivocally false.”

“The report released by his office today is a politically motivated distortion that undermines the thousands of dedicated public health professionals across HHS, who remain steadfast in their commitment to delivering results for the American people,” HHS stated.

RELATED: Trump’s NIH closes Fauci’s apparent puppy-torture lab after 40 years of sadistic experiments

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Over the weekend, the Indiana Fever faced off against the Chicago Sky to kick off the 2025 WNBA season.

In the third quarter, Fever superstar Caitlin Clark slapped longtime rival Angel Reese’s arm, resulting in a flagrant foul. An angered Reese immediately lashed out and received a technical foul for verbal taunting.

After the game, both Clark and Reese downplayed the spat, but critics and fans everywhere aren’t ready to move on, claiming Reese’s hatred for Clark is more serious than either athlete is willing to admit.

Following the match, Fox Sports commentator and former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III took to X and posted:

— (@)

“This has been so obvious since they met in the national championship game where Angel Reese started trolling [Clark] right after the game,” says Jason Whitlock. “Caitlin Clark has never done anything to Angel Reese other than make her famous.”

Reese, he wrote in his recent column, “embodies the ‘fatigue’ pervasive throughout American culture” — cultivated via her “entitled, bitter, racist, and profitable brand.”

The result? Nobody wants to work with her — and the proof lies in the WNBA off-season.

During the off-season, the Indiana Fever secured Stephanie White — “one of the most accomplished coaches in the WNBA” — as the team’s head coach. On top of that, the team “basically got whatever free agent player they wanted” and “put a super team around Caitlin Clark” that includes DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard, and Sophie Cunningham, among others.

Compare that to the Chicago Sky’s off-season. The team hired first-time head coach Tyler Marsh and had far fewer exciting draft picks and transfers.

Jason translates: “People want to play with Caitlin Clark,” and “people don’t want to play with Angel Reese.”

This isn’t speculation, he says.

“People that played with her at Maryland and LSU did not enjoy their experience,” he explains, pointing to Hailey Van Lith as an example. “The year she played with Angel Reese in college was the most difficult of her career, and she moved on and hit the portal again just to get away from Angel Reese.”

“This angry black woman that has some talent — she’s a great rebounder, a great defender — could be an effective player in the WNBA, but she’s so toxic, she’s so angry, she’s so bitter, she’s so selfish, no one wants to play with her,” says Jason.

To hear more of his commentary, watch the episode above.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of a Maine Republican state representative whose voting privileges were shut down after she posted a photograph of a transgender athlete on social media.

Democrats took away Rep. Laurel Libby’s vote in the statehouse after the post she published in February showed the biologically male athlete competing as a male and then as a female.

‘The Supreme Court has affirmed what should NEVER have been in question — that no state legislature has the power to silence an elected official simply for speaking truthfully about issues that matter.’

The highest court in the land ruled 7-2 in favor of an emergency appeal from Libby to allow her to regain her voting privileges without apologizing to the athlete. The justices offered no explanation for the decision.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the ruling.

Libby’s post pointed out that the athlete had placed fifth in boys’ pole vaulting but “propelled his school’s girls’ team to win the overall state championship” only one year later.

“The Maine Principals’ Association’s blatant disregard for federal rules means that deserving, BIOLOGICAL girls, have titles ripped away from them. This is outrageous, and unfair to the many female athletes who work every single day to succeed in their respective sports,” Libby wrote.

Trans allies used a centuries-old rule in the statehouse to remove Libby’s right to debate as well as to vote. They said that Libby needed to apologize to the transgender athlete to regain her privileges.

RELATED: Protests against Maine governor intensify after public feud with Trump over trans athletes

The Maine state Capitol building. Photo by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Justice Jackson said she dissented on the basis that the court was incentivizing the abuse of emergency relief grants and that it would lead to more misuse in the future.

Libby praised the ruling as a victory for free speech.

“This is a victory not just for my constituents, but for the Constitution itself. The Supreme Court has affirmed what should NEVER have been in question — that no state legislature has the power to silence an elected official simply for speaking truthfully about issues that matter.”

Others defended Libby on the same reasoning.

“FIRE supports Rep. Laurel Libby’s appeal of her censure by the Maine Legislature, which prevents her from voting or speaking on the floor of the state’s House of Representatives,” read a statement from the civil rights group. “Maine’s Democratic majority banned Rep. Libby from the floor because they didn’t like her First Amendment-protected social media post on trans teens in female sports — a matter of intense public debate.”

President Donald Trump had publicly confronted Maine’s Democrat governor in March over the state’s refusal to comply with his executive order against transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports.

“You better comply — because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding,” Trump said to Gov. Janet Mills.

“I’ll see you in court,” she responded.

“Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one,” he replied.

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