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Foreign billionaires and well-funded nongovernmental organizations can use a gap in federal election law to pour money into state ballot-measure campaigns. Half the states have yet to ban the practice, and some of those that have acted still leave openings for foreign-linked spending.

Federal law flatly bars foreign nationals from contributing to political candidates. State ballot initiatives and referenda, however, are treated differently under the Federal Election Campaign Act. Unless state law says otherwise, foreign nationals can spend to influence those measures. Because ballot campaigns can rewrite state constitutions, alter election rules, redraw districts, and affect turnout in candidate races, that distinction is no small matter.

No foreign government, foreign national, or foreign interest should have a hand in deciding the laws Americans live under.

One of the best-known examples involves Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. Americans for Public Trust has documented hundreds of millions of dollars in Wyss giving to U.S. political nonprofits. The Honest Elections Project notes that the left-wing Sixteen Thirty Fund alone received $243 million from Wyss and spent more than $130 million on ballot issues in 25 states.

Those figures deserve one qualification. Nonprofit funds are commingled, so they do not prove that Wyss’ dollars paid for any particular ballot campaign. But money is fungible. The fact remains that current federal law permits an organization that receives enormous sums from a foreign national to spend heavily on domestic ballot measures.

Through that ballot-measure gap, the Honest Elections Project argues, foreign nationals can influence issues ranging from abortion and energy policy to redistricting and election law, while partisan groups can use ballot campaigns to help drive turnout in candidate races.

The legal history is clear. In Bluman v. FEC, a three-judge federal court upheld the federal ban on foreign nationals’ spending in candidate elections, and the Supreme Court summarily affirmed in 2012. But the district court also noted that the law does not bar foreign nationals from issue advocacy, including spending on ballot initiatives.

In a 2015 enforcement matter, FEC commissioners who voted to dismiss a complaint relied on that distinction. They wrote that the act “does not bar foreign nationals from issue advocacy” and that state and local ballot initiatives do not constitute an “election” under the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act.

RELATED: The danger of calling the left stupid

ALEX EDELMAN/AFP/Getty Images

The FEC is unlikely to solve the problem on its own. The commission’s website notes that election laws outside the financing of federal elections are generally beyond its jurisdiction. In the 2015 matter, the commissioners were even more explicit: “The Commission has no authority to otherwise interpose itself as arbiter of who can participate in state and local ballot initiatives.”

A later FEC case reinforced the same approach. In 2021, the commission voted 4-2 to dismiss allegations involving foreign-national donations to a Montana ballot initiative committee. That leaves Congress and the states to close the gap if they choose.

States are free, subject to constitutional limits, to restrict foreign funding of ballot initiatives and referenda. Twenty-five states now have full or partial bans on foreign-national or foreign-government funding of ballot-measure campaigns.

Some laws are broader than others. California law, for example, bars foreign governments, foreign principals, and foreign nationals from funding state and local ballot measures. But a domestic subsidiary of a foreign corporation is treated as a foreign principal only when the decision to spend is made by a foreign officer, director, or management employee who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident — a limitation very easy to evade.

Arkansas offers a broader model. Its law applies to persons who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents, foreign governments, foreign political parties, and entities organized under foreign law or based abroad. It also bars direct or indirect donations to ballot-measure committees and requires committees to certify that they have not knowingly accepted prohibited funds, according to Ballotpedia.

RELATED: States need to take election security into their own hands

CJ Gunther/Getty Images

Congress has moved as well. On July 13, the House passed the Stop Foreign Funds in Elections Act by voice vote. The bill would extend the federal foreign-national ban to state and local ballot initiatives, referenda, and recall elections. The Senate received the measure the next day and referred it to the Committee on Rules and Administration, where it remains.

“No foreign government, foreign national, or foreign interest should have a hand in deciding the laws Americans live under,” co-sponsor Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said in a statement after House passage. Ballotpedia likewise reported the measure’s passage and its referral to the Senate.

States need not wait for Congress. Lawmakers can review their own statutes and close gaps that permit foreign nationals or foreign-controlled entities to fund ballot campaigns. Citizens and members of the press can use Ballotpedia’s state-by-state chart to see which restrictions are already in place and which proposals remain pending.

Foreign funding of referenda and ballot initiatives gives people with no vote in the matter a legal avenue to spend heavily on the laws Americans live under. States should exercise their power to curb the practice, and the public should insist that they do so.

​Abortion, California law, Congress, Election laws, Fec, Federal law, Foreign money, Foreign nationals, Redistricting, Senate, State law, State lawmakers, Supreme court, Opinion & analysis 

The midterms could sway political power in the United States, if the Democrats gain control of the Senate and/or the House. To keep that from happening, it is good to remember just how much President Donald Trump and the Republicans have accomplished for America and specifically for Texas since taking power in 2025.

Texas is key to keeping the Senate in Republican control, with Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) facing off against state Rep. James Talarico (D) for the coveted seat currently held by longtime Sen. John Cornyn (R). Paxton defeated Cornyn in a primary runoff in May.

As the midterms draw near, it is important to remember all the wins that Republicans have secured for the American people.

Trump has delivered for Americans, including those in Texas, on the economy, jobs, agriculture, public safety, and fraud.

Americans have saved a total of $82 billion since the Working Families Tax Cuts bill was passed. This piece of legislation cut taxes for working families; eliminated taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security; and established Trump Accounts for children under 18. Due to these cost-saving measures, both weekly wages and household income are up from when Trump started his second term.

The economy received an additional boost thanks to $11.2 trillion in direct U.S. and foreign investments, some of which was used to create new jobs in Texas. Some of the top-name brands building new opportunities in the state include SpaceX, with a $16.8 billion Terafab facility that will create 3,000 new jobs; Meta’s new $10 billion data center that will create 4,300 jobs; and a $3.6 billion expansion of Toyota’s San Antonio plant that will add 2,000 jobs.

RELATED: Paxton hammers Talarico for going ‘missing’ from campaign trail — and Trump chimes in hilariously

L-R: Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images; John Anderson/The Austin Chronicle/Getty Images; Mandel NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

In addition to new business, Trump increased natural gas shipments and lowered energy costs through a loan to AEP Texas. He also signed an executive order to pause climate change restrictions while expanding fossil fuel production to give the people ample energy for homes, businesses, and technological endeavors like AI.

Trump specifically set out to help farmers with the Farmer Bridge Assistance program that doled out $12 billion in one-time relief payments while they waited for the tax cuts that came with the Working Families Tax Cuts bill. The bill also included a permanent 20% small business tax deduction and expanded export opportunities to send more American crops to foreign nations.

Public safety was also a huge boon for the Trump administration. After the first full year of his second term, all major crime metrics — including violent crimes such as murder, rape, and aggravated assault — dropped by 10% or more in Texas. Many of those metrics have fallen again in 2026.

This is in addition to 16 straight months with no border releases and 2.2 million self-deportations as of February. In 2025, America had net negative migration for the first time in 50 years.

Lastly, the Trump administration aggressively pursued fraudsters throughout Texas and elsewhere with an entire list of arrests, charges, and convictions ranging from Medicare fraud to Ponzi schemes and COVID-19 relief fraud.

Poll Watch/Blaze Media

The Texas race is close, with pollsters leaning toward Democrat James Talarico as the favorite over Republican Ken Paxton. For the latest Texas Senate seat updates — and to follow other important midterm races across the nation — check out Poll Watch, available to Blaze News, BlazeTV+, and Blaze Unlimited subscribers.

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​Ken paxton, Donald trump, Texas, Senate, Senate race, Politics 

For years, President Trump has called for Christopher Columbus to be returned to his place among the respected, great men who are part of this nation’s history.

And his speech just days before Columbus Day was the latest of his defiant pronouncements against those who hate America’s history.

‘We’re going to place it in a very special place of honor.’

On Friday, President Trump hosted a celebration of Christopher Columbus at the White House in the latest of his efforts to rehabilitate the 15th-century Italian explorer whose memory and legacy have been maligned in recent years by the woke left.

Trump, however, has long been a staunch supporter of Christopher Columbus and his legacy, even calling for the U.S. to “BRING BACK COLUMBUS DAY” four years ago. In April 2025, he posted on Truth Social that he would bring Columbus Day “back from the ashes” after the “Democrats did everything possible to destroy” him, including the destruction of his statues.

During his speech Friday, Trump echoed a number of these sentiments and made some important announcements in his efforts to rehabilitate Columbus Day.

“Christopher Columbus changed the future of humanity forever. And in this administration, we know that Christopher Columbus is — to us, he’s a hero. He’s a hero,” Trump said.

RELATED: Social studies teacher vandalizes Christopher Columbus statue

Trump told the story of Baltimore’s statue of Columbus, “made from the finest Italian marble,” which faced the city’s Little Italy.

“But on July 4, 2020, a hate-filled mob of radical left lunatics and Marxists, communists lashed chains around Columbus’ neck,” toppled the statue to the ground, and dumped the broken remains into Baltimore Harbor, he said.

“They want to tear down the history and heritage that makes us who we are, not only Columbus,” Trump reminded the audience at Friday’s event.

The fragments were quickly recovered by Italian-Americans, and a restored version of the statue, using the fragments of the destroyed statue from Baltimore, was placed outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House earlier this year. Trump said last month he placed it there “in Honor of the Italian American Community” — a common theme during Friday’s event as well.

President Trump indicated that there was another surprise — but he hadn’t seen it yet.

Trump introduced Brett Rugo during the speech and explained that Rugo had presented the White House with “a one-of-a-kind 19th-century statue of Christopher Columbus from Italy.”

He told the crowd that he had not seen the statue yet. He asked the audience what they thought of it, and many gave signs of approval.

Trump went on to explain the plans for the statue: “We’re going to be bringing Brett’s [statue] over to the Rose Garden, and we’re going to place it in a very special place of honor.”

“While I’m president of the United States, we’ll always honor and celebrate the immortal legends,” Trump said.

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​Christopher columbus, Communists, Donald trump, Marxists, Radical left, United states, White house, Politics 

The late-life radicalization of the Boomers is proving to be an ongoing catastrophe.

I am, of course, referring to liberal Boomers, not conservative ones. As far as I can tell, conservative Baby Boomers might be one of the most stable voting blocs in the country. Conservative Boomers today tend to vote for the same things they have always voted for and basically believe in the same American values they did in 2006 or 1986. Their stability is something we currently take for granted, and it will be missed one day.

The old people I remember from the 1980s and ’90s acted old. I don’t mean that as an insult.

Liberal Baby Boomers have taken a different path: a strange, late-life radicalization.

Gray panthers

Usually when we hear the word “radicalization,” we think of anarchists, Islamic terrorists, and other violent groups. With liberal Boomers, we aren’t dealing so much with a violent insurgency or rogue actors who want to bring society to its knees. We’re dealing with people who, in their old age, have too much time to read the news and get mad in fits of performative self-righteousness and who have decided that a good use of their twilight years is reliving some micro-version of the ’60s and ’70s.

Next time there is a No Kings rally or some other left-wing protest, drive by and take a look at who is there. You may be struck by the amount of gray hair. This isn’t a novel observation. Researchers studying the recent anti-Trump protest movement have noticed that many of the organizers are considerably older than the activists who usually come to mind when we think of political protest.

At first, that doesn’t seem strange at all. Of course retired people are going to show up. They have the free time.

But I’m interested in something beyond simple availability. Why do so many people who are approaching 70 or 80 seem determined to become political activists now? Why the signs, the marches, the constant outrage, the sense that retirement is finally their chance to join the resistance?

AARP anarchists

The obvious retort is that young people today are politically disengaged and somebody has to do it.

There may be some truth to that. But it still doesn’t explain why a certain kind of affluent liberal senior citizen now seems to fancy himself part of the vanguard of political action.

There is something historically upside down about it.

The old stereotype says that age brings caution. You accumulate responsibilities, watch political fashions come and go, and become a little less impressed by people promising to remake the world. Whether or not people literally become more conservative as they age, older generations have traditionally occupied that cultural role: They remind the young that most supposedly revolutionary ideas have been tried before and that smashing things is easier than rebuilding them.

The old are supposed to be the anchor. The young are supposed to be pulling at the chain.

So how did we end up with 70-year-olds trying to recapture the barricades?

RELATED: The future belongs to people who believe in one

Cheng Xin/Getty Images

Elder shortage

Maybe it’s because fewer of them have grandchildren than previous generations did. Maybe it’s the nature of technological society, which gives everyone access to a limitless supply of things to be angry about and has, for whatever reason, had a particularly strange effect on liberal Boomers. Maybe it’s because people are living longer and spending more years in retirement with more free time.

Or maybe it’s just something particular to the liberals of that generation. Maybe they want to relive their glory days.

Maybe they simply can’t bear to be old.

I’m not sure exactly what the answer is. It’s probably some combination of those things plus a few others. But what I do know is that it wasn’t like this when I was a kid.

The old people I remember from the 1980s and ’90s acted old. I don’t mean that as an insult. They weren’t desperately trying to keep up, prove they were hip, adopt the latest political vocabulary, or convince the rest of us that they were on the right side of history. They had older-generation attitudes. Sometimes those attitudes were wrong. Sometimes they were annoying. But they were recognizably the attitudes of people who had been around for a while.

What makes the current situation even stranger is that many of these newly radicalized liberal Boomers weren’t extreme leftists when they were younger. Plenty were basically centrists in the ’80s and ’90s. They had kids and jobs and mortgages and wanted their children to have a decent future. Those responsibilities tended to keep them somewhere near the middle, even if they considered themselves liberals.

Now the kids are gone, the mortgage is paid off, and some of them seem to have finally become the campus radicals they never quite managed to be at 22.

Are we going to see the same thing happen as Gen X ages? What about Millennials?

I hope not.

If we want future generations to inherit the same America we lived in, at some point we have to start acting our age.

​Lifestyle, Culture, Baby boomers, Maturity, No kings, Donald trump, Gen x, Millennials, Politics, Activism, The root of the matter 

Being a 16-year-old in high school is hard enough. It’s a different ball game entirely when you’re actively involved in politics. Sadly, for many young conservative teens across our country, the pressure to conform and abandon their beliefs comes not only from student bullies but from adults.

Ella Smith, 16, is a homeschooled student in southern Nevada who is also enrolled in her local high school choir in Clark County as an elective. She works part-time as a door knocker for Commit 100, a joint program coordinated by conservative nonprofit groups Turning Point Action and Citizens Alliance. Her job is simple: Find 100 registered Republicans unlikely to vote outside of presidential elections and get each of them to make a plan to vote, whether by mail or in person.

Can conservative students participate openly in their school communities without risking their reputations or physical safety?

Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk last September, hostility from students and teachers with differing viewpoints has escalated.

In mid-September, Ella was knocking on doors in Boulder City, Nevada, with her grandmother, who also canvasses for Commit 100. The next day as she walked through the hallways to go to choir, a school employee asked her to step into the front office and confronted her about her after-school activities. By the end of the conversation, she was left in tears.

According to the family, a school employee said she was speaking on behalf of the vice principal. She then allegedly accused Ella of going around town telling people how to vote and claiming to represent the school. The employee also said the school had received anonymous Ring camera footage of Ella door knocking and that she’d already watched the footage.

The school employee continued pressing these allegations in front of other faculty and students nearby, turning the confrontation into a public embarrassment. Ella described the exchange as “condescending and intimidating.” To make matters worse, other students and staff remained within earshot during the full length of the interaction.

A teenager should not have to choose between participating in civic life outside school and being treated with dignity inside it. Sadly, accounts from the past year from within Clark County suggest that principle is still in need of defending.

Ella’s mother, Mica Smith, later contacted the vice principal’s office directly. She wanted to understand why the school felt the need to pull her daughter aside over an after-school job.

The vice principal reached out days later and said she had reviewed the footage, found that Ella had done nothing wrong, and said the staff member who pulled her aside had acted inappropriately, leading to an apology.

Those acknowledgments matter, but a simple “sorry” is only the beginning of accountability. What corrective actions were taken? Why was an employee who wasn’t a teacher and had no authority to accuse or discipline a student so confident she could do both? What assurances do Ella and other conservative students involved in civic engagements have that it won’t happen again?

RELATED: The danger of calling the left stupid

ALEX EDELMAN/AFP/Getty Images

Ella’s family believes she was treated this way because of her work for a conservative cause. That motive hasn’t been independently established. However, no one needs to settle the question of motive to recognize how serious her account is, especially given what the school itself has admitted. This is especially true when you look at the state of our classrooms throughout the country and even in Clark County.

Sadly, Ella is not the only young conservative in the community reportedly describing hostility.

Around the same time, the secretary of the Turning Point-sponsored Club America chapter at Veterans Tribute Career and Technical Academy addressed the Clark County school board in late September. The student described repeated online and in-person harassment, bullying, and threats from other students over the club’s conservative beliefs.

Between student bullies and adults who single out conservative students, families deserve an answer to a basic question: Can conservative students participate openly in their school communities without risking their reputations or physical safety?

These don’t appear to be isolated incidents.

Last September, Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert announced that an unspecified number of teachers were removed from classrooms after posts were discovered on their personal social media profiles mocking and celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.

The district did not tell parents which teachers had been removed. Families shouldn’t have to wonder whether the people responsible for educating their children celebrated the killing of a man who went to college campuses to have peaceful conversations.

RELATED: Democrats have a political violence problem

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

These incidents are not limited to Nevada.

Last month, the University of Utah made headlines when it investigated two College Republicans for alleged doxxing. On the anniversary of Kirk’s assassination, the students shared photos online of a liberal student with a cake that read “Happy Kirkiversary.” The university ultimately dropped the case due to lack of evidence, and the Office of the Dean of Students emailed the two students and apologized for the inconvenience. But by then, the damage was done.

There was a time when a simple “sorry” and “we’re taking care of it” was enough for parents to let situations like these go. But over the last decade, censorship and intimidation have escalated on high school and college campuses across the country.

Expecting accountability from students and staff who misbehave is not a demand for ideological agreement. No one is asking them to bend a knee and convert. But in a functioning society, we shouldn’t have to demand tolerance and basic professionalism from the people running our schools.

There is an inspiring silver lining in all of these situations: the courage of young conservatives standing up for themselves and what they believe.

Ella has continued to knock on doors with her grandmother every day since the incident. Club America chapters are still popping up across the country by the hundreds, especially since Charlie Kirk’s death. And College Republicans aren’t backing down from continuing their meetings and activities.

Ella’s willingness to work, participate in her community, and stand by her convictions reflects the kind of patriotism and responsibility Americans should want to encourage in young people.

​Charlie kirk, College republicans, Doxxing, Young conservatives, Patriotism, High school students, Nevada, Clark county, Utah, Opinion & analysis 

One Democratic Senate candidate has tried so hard to appeal to working-class Texans that he has accidentally become a parody of himself — and one satirical video is capitalizing on that.

The parody begins with a man asking, “Want to know what’s gay?” and answering, “When Republicans shut down our factory.”

“I support immigrants, not because we want them, but because he wants them,” he said, pointing up to the sky.

The actor goes on to claim he is “all about the three P’s,” which are “PBR, pigskin, and protecting trans rights.”

“I went to college here, in this state, which is impressive because I could have gone somewhere much better. My daddy grew up on a farm, and I have visited that farm. This race isn’t about party. In fact, don’t even look into what political party I am,” he said.

“Do I believe every American should own a firearm? No,” he continued. “But I’m going to keep that to myself. My first name is one syllable, and my last name is just the teeniest bit ethnic. I’ve thought about it. I’ve prayed about it. And that’s why I’m running to be your next senator.”

“But not before I finish these ribs,” he added.

Comedian Davey Jackson is certain of who the politician is that the parody is targeting.

“My guy, James Talarico,” he tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales.

“He’s the worst,” Gonzales says. “And yet, he still has a chance here in this state.”

“He looks like Elf on the Shelf came to life and is walking around politicking,” Adam Johnson jokes. “That’s what it looks like.”

Gonzales also points out that while early voting begins next week in Texas, “Talarico has been mysteriously absent for 12 days.”

“Nobody knows where he is. His campaign said 12 days ago, ‘Oh, he has the flu,’” she continues.

“That puts you down for 12 days? You’re too f**king weak to be a senator then,” she adds, “Like, what, you’re going to have a cold and you’re going to miss like six votes?”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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

​Satirical video, Sara gonzales, James talarico, Trans rights, Texas, Blazetv show 

President Donald Trump recently renewed his criticism of the left’s immigration agenda, taking aim at mass amnesty. The Democratic Socialists of America are making the point for him, calling to “grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status.”

The White House Council of Economic Advisers released a new report last week estimating that the DSA’s immigration policies could cost Americans a whopping $440 billion to $613 billion over 10 years. And that’s not the worst of it.

‘The rule of law cannot co-exist with mass amnesty.’

According to the CEA, allowing mass amnesty could create $36 billion to $47 billion in estimated annual costs for just SNAP, Medicaid, and HUD housing vouchers.

The report argues that these costs would come from “turning the existing population of illegal aliens into legal residents eligible for federal social safety net programs.”

While DSA candidates like Melat Kiros believe “millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States right now should have an immediate pathway to citizenship,” American taxpayers should be asking the more important question: If mass amnesty could leave taxpayers with billions in new costs every year, what exactly does it solve?

It certainly does not solve the underlying problem. It changes the legal status of the people already here while leaving the incentives that attract more illegal immigration intact. We have been down this road before. Not to ruin the ending, but we somehow keep finding ourselves right back to where we started.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. The law created legalization programs for millions of illegal aliens while also establishing employer sanctions intended to discourage the hiring of unauthorized workers. About 2.7 million people ultimately received legal status under the law.

However, the bargain did not work. Due to IRCA’s eligibility cutoff, roughly 2 million were excluded from legalization, while an estimated 500,000 were eligible but never received legal status. According to the Migration Policy Institute, those who remained in unlawful status “became the nucleus of today’s large unauthorized population.”

The enforcement side also fell short. Weaknesses in employment verification and document fraud undermined employer sanctions. The problems IRCA was meant to address ultimately grew. The unauthorized population increased from an estimated 3.5 million in 1990 to 12.2 million by 2007.

Legalization changed the status of millions of people, but it did not prevent the country from having to deal with an even larger unauthorized population later. A growing population of illegal aliens brings larger costs for schools, health care, housing, and other public services.

RELATED: Republicans cannot serve two masters on immigration

Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images

The DSA platform does not just call for mass amnesty; members also want an end to ICE detention and deportations.

CEA estimates the “net cost to taxpayers of ending deportations and ICE detentions to be between $79 and $139 billion over 10 years.” The report argues that doing so would eliminate fiscal savings associated with current immigration enforcement.

Former Border Patrol agent and Texas Public Policy Foundation senior fellow Ammon Blair puts it plainly: “The rule of law cannot co-exist with mass amnesty.”

If amnesty paired with enforcement did not keep our country from ending up back here, why should taxpayers expect amnesty with less enforcement to work any better?

Mass amnesty is not an immigration solution. And it cannot prevent the next wave of illegal immigration.

American immigration policy sends a message around the world. If the United States repeatedly demonstrates that entering or remaining in the country illegally may eventually end in legal status, policymakers have to consider the incentive that amnesty creates for the next person deciding whether our immigration laws are worth obeying.

That is the problem with DSA’s socialist immigration promises. The slogans are simple, yet the consequences are anything but. Americans would be left paying billions in new costs while the DSA simultaneously calls for less immigration enforcement.

We cannot mistake an old idea for a new solution. History has shown us that mass amnesty is not the answer. Socialism has never been short on promises, but it is taxpayers who are always expected to foot the bill.

​Americans, Democratic socialists of america, Deportations, Ice detention, Illegal immigration, Mass amnesty, Medicaid, Melat kiros, Taxpayers, Opinion & analysis 

What happens when a society teaches people that they have no lasting purpose, then wonders why they feel hopeless?

I am spending time volunteering with Stranraer Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland. On Thursday, October 15, the church is hosting a free public talk on depression at 7 p.m. at the Millennium Centre. Depression deserves our attention because its effects reach beyond individuals into families, communities, and the life of nations.

The Christian still wrestles with sin and sorrow. Yet Christ is working in us. Our hope rests on His faithfulness, not on our ability to manufacture a cheerful mood.

I am also a professor at Arizona State University, where I see the importance of this question among students. The 2024-2025 Healthy Minds Study, based on responses from more than 84,000 students at 135 colleges and universities, found that 37% reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms, and 33% reported moderate to severe anxiety. Both measures had improved since 2022, but the burden remains enormous.

In Great Britain, the picture is troubling too. NHS England found a common mental health condition in 22.6% of adults ages 16-64 in 2023-2024, up from 18.9% in 2014. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, the figure was 25.8%. In Scotland, 2023-2024 data show that 10% of adults reported at least two symptoms of depression and 16% at least two symptoms of anxiety.

Some people seek relief through alcohol or drugs, but self-medication can become another prison. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism notes that alcohol may temporarily relieve anxiety even as heavy drinking and repeated withdrawal worsen it. The damage can spread outward: The United Kingdom recorded 9,809 alcohol-specific deaths in 2024, and victims in England and Wales believed offenders were under alcohol’s influence in 39% of violent incidents in 2023-2024.

Clinical depression is not simply unbelief. Faithful Christians suffer it, and medical treatment can help. My concern here is spiritual hopelessness: What account of life can sustain someone when pleasure fades and suffering remains?

The secular state can fund treatment and other necessary services, but it cannot supply redemption. No program can answer the question that comes before policy: Why should I have hope? If human beings are only material organisms, here briefly and then gone, what lasting meaning does suffering possess?

That does not mean every government intervention fails. It means government has limits. A list of recommended behaviors may help people manage a problem, but it cannot give them a reason to live or reconcile them to God. Our trouble reaches deeper than ignorance of the rules.

A culture that reduces human beings to appetite, chemistry, and consumption should not be surprised by a crisis of purpose. Physical pleasure and distraction cannot bear the weight of the human soul. An evening’s escape still leaves tomorrow’s question waiting.

RELATED: Where was God? Frank Turek asks the question after Charlie Kirk

Owen Anderson

Christianity begins somewhere else. Human beings are made in the image of God, and Christ redeems His people by His blood. Our lives therefore have meaning now, not merely after death.

Sometimes Christianity itself gets reduced to “when you die, you go to heaven and avoid hell,” as though everything before death were unimportant. That misses our present calling. Alienation from God has consequences now. Clinical depression is no verdict on anyone’s salvation, but spiritual despair can foreshadow the hopelessness of separation from God. Communion with Christ brings hope into the present.

First, our feelings do not define us. We cannot always explain why darkness settles over us, but we can bring God’s Word to bear on it. The psalmist asks his own troubled soul, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” (Psalm 42:5). Then he directs it: “Hope in God.” His sorrow is real, but it does not have the final word.

Second, Christianity offers grace rather than a ladder we climb to earn acceptance. Rules can identify wrongdoing, but they cannot free sinners from sin’s power. Islam’s five pillars, for example, prescribe religious duties, but Islam does not offer the Reformed Christian doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone. The distinction is not academic: Christian hope rests on what Christ has done, not on whether we can accumulate enough religious merit.

I find no comparable assurance in religions built around reincarnation. A cycle of death and rebirth governed by karma is not the Christian promise of reconciliation with God and resurrection. Christianity offers a destination, not an endless series of attempts to repair ourselves.

RELATED: What Chris Hansen knows about sin that modern culture forgets

Kelsey McNeal/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images

The Christian still wrestles with sin and sorrow. Yet Christ is working in us. Our hope rests on His faithfulness, not on our ability to manufacture a cheerful mood.

That hope also takes practical form in the church. We visit the lonely, listen to the grieving, pray with the discouraged, and help families bear burdens they cannot carry alone. The sufferer needs patient fellowship, not an accusation that sadness proves spiritual failure. The gospel gives us both a message to proclaim and neighbors to love.

Finally, Christian hope reaches beyond the individual. The Great Commission sends the church into the world because the nations belong within the scope of Christ’s saving purpose. History need not follow a straight upward line; setbacks do not cancel God’s promises. I believe Scripture points toward a day when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord” as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9).

That gives parents, students, and churches reason to labor faithfully even when today’s headlines seem to announce defeat.

Christians have hope to offer a hopeless world. We should bring it into the darkness. If you happen to be in the Stranraer area, join us October 15 at 7 p.m. And for a further resource on spiritual depression, listen to Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ series.

​Depression, Medication, Sorrow, Sin, Christians, Alcohol, Drugs, Mental health, Faith, Death, Christ, Great commission, Scripture, Opinion & analysis 

Artificial intelligence has already transformed the way Americans work and research.

But BlazeTV host Daniel Horowitz believes the public is being sold an inflated vision of artificial general intelligence — and pouring staggering resources into the wrong model to achieve it.

“I actually like AI,” Horowitz tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace. “And I believe for narrow tasks, edge computing, localized sovereign data … there’s a lot of good stuff being done.”

“My concern is, we’re misallocating resources away from the most useful, least painful, least consuming analogues of AI and using an all-of-government approach towards this AGI, which in my view is the least useful … most expensive, really unfeasible the way they’re trying to do it, and also problematic,” he explains.

“For the average person out there, like me, that only knows about AI doing that or asking ChatGPT questions, help them understand the distinction that you just drew in ways that would relate to their understanding of the technology,” Deace says.

“If you want an ‘ask me anything,’ what they did was get people addicted to it, and then they’re like, ‘OK, it doesn’t cost anything,’” Horowitz explains.

“But then it does. Actually, we’re going to have to build five hyperscales in every county, and this much power, and yada yada, and make everything else more expensive,” he says.

“So, now that’s an ROI thing,” he continues. “It’s not that there is no use to artificial general intelligence, right — this open-ended generative AI. It’s not that there’s no use to it. It’s that there is a question of an ROI in the way they’re going about doing it.”

“Is it accurate to say that you believe, therefore, we’re overselling this technology to the American people based on what you just told us?” Deace asks.

“We’re overselling the need and utility of centralized cloud hyperscale model for AI. In terms of deploying it in low latency, narrow at the edge, there’s things like the Iron Dome in Israel. You know, Israel has no hyperscale,” Horowitz replies.

“My core thesis is what they’re selling you on — again, and people could disagree with me, but my contention is that, just the opposite. Not only am I not opposed to it, I believe they are doing what government does in health care and many other sectors,” he continues.

“They’re misallocating resources towards a bubble and to Oracle’s grift of their 1970s technology of a centralized cloud in an impossible way that would perpetually have to scale in a way that either becomes obsolete or unfeasible,” he adds.

Horowitz goes on to explain that one of the only reasons this is being done is “a surveillance state.”

“Remember, China doesn’t have nearly as many of these because they built their surveillance state — in large part from these same companies, by the way — before AI. So, they already have it. They don’t need it,” he says.

And what Horowitz finds extremely concerning is that auto companies have just “won the rights to your texts when they get cycled through the car player.”

“They got all of it, and they won in court that they’re able to keep it,” he says.

“Your car, your home, your appliances. They would ideally want every step you make, every breath you take,” he adds.

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​Artificial intelligence, Daniel horowitz, Surveillance state, Steve deace, Ai, Blazetv show 

Humility is the necessary virtue.

Let me unpack that a little: Without humility, Saint Peter will not let you pass through the Pearly Gates.

Our culture has moved so far toward autonomy that we can barely imagine obedience as anything other than weakness.

And what is humility?

Like the old adage says, humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. If you study the lives of the saints — or, for that matter, almost any historically admirable person — you’ll recognize that humility is an immensely attractive quality.

Celebrity cleric

Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, America’s most famous Catholic bishop of the 20th century, had plenty to be proud of. Now on his way to sainthood, Sheen was a brilliant scholar, a gifted writer, and one of the most compelling communicators of his age. His radio broadcasts reached millions. His television program, “Life Is Worth Living,” drew audiences in the 1950s that rivaled the biggest entertainers in America.

Yet two episodes in Sheen’s life suggest that one of his greatest virtues was not eloquence at all. It was obedience.

The first came before almost anyone knew his name.

After his ordination in 1919, Sheen pursued advanced studies in Europe and distinguished himself at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He became the first American to win the prestigious Cardinal Mercier Prize and earned the university’s coveted agrégé degree. By the time he was 30, Oxford and Columbia reportedly wanted him to teach philosophy.

Then, in 1926, his bishop ordered him home to Peoria, Illinois — not to a university, but to St. Patrick’s, one of the city’s poorest parishes.

Sheen went.

He visited the sick, celebrated Mass, begged for parish funds, and preached. Nine months later, his bishop explained what had happened. People worried that Sheen’s European success had made him “high-hat,” too important to take orders. The parish assignment had been a test.

He passed.

Entertainer in exile

Soon Sheen was sent to teach at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., beginning the public career that would eventually make him famous.

Four decades later, obedience cost him far more.

By then, Sheen was a household name. His television audience reached into the tens of millions. But he had also clashed with New York’s powerful Cardinal Francis Spellman over money Sheen raised for the missions. Sheen appealed the dispute to Rome and prevailed. Spellman, according to accounts of the dispute, did not forget it.

In 1966, Sheen was sent to Rochester, New York. Many biographers have interpreted the transfer as a form of exile: One of the world’s most famous religious communicators suddenly found himself running a relatively modest diocese far from the center of American media.

His years there were difficult. Accustomed to packed auditoriums around the world, Sheen once gave a series of retreat talks in Rochester’s largest auditorium and drew a disappointing crowd.

“The whole world comes to hear Fulton Sheen, except his own diocese,” he reportedly told a fellow priest.

RELATED: Tens of thousands attend beatification of anti-communist TV star priest Fulton Sheen

Dick Lewis/New York Daily News/Getty Images

Right or wrong

It’s tempting to make the lesson here that Sheen’s superiors were right. They were not necessarily right at all. Spellman may have acted vindictively. Sheen himself made mistakes in Rochester. Authority can be petty, shortsighted, and simply wrong.

But that’s precisely why obedience — like its close friend, humility — is a virtue.

Obedience means little when the person in authority agrees with you. Its real test comes when you believe you are more talented, more informed, or more capable than the person giving the order — and perhaps you are.

Modern celebrity culture teaches almost the opposite. Discover your gift. Build your brand. Grow your platform. Maximize your reach. If an institution doesn’t recognize your genius, leave it. If a boss frustrates your calling, find another boss. If a church constrains your ministry, start your own.

That instinct is not always wrong. Institutions can become corrupt, and conscience has claims no human authority can erase. Obedience is not servility, nor does it require cooperating with evil.

But our culture has moved so far toward autonomy that we can barely imagine obedience as anything other than weakness.

Serving in silence

There is a particularly American — and, yes, Protestant — dimension to this. The Reformation elevated individual judgment against ecclesial authority, while the American experiment elevated independence and suspicion of hierarchy. Those impulses produced real goods. But untethered, they can also produce a Christianity in which everyone becomes his own pope, pastor, and doctrinal court of final appeal.

Catholicism proposes something harder: Your gifts are not entirely your own. Your vocation does not entitle you to the largest audience. You may be called to serve where no one applauds. You may even be badly deployed by legitimate authority.

Sheen, who had every reason to believe his voice belonged on the biggest stage available, accepted assignments beneath his stature and endured humiliations he did not deserve.

In 1979, near the end of Sheen’s life, Pope John Paul II embraced the frail priest in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and offered what may be the perfect summary of his legacy: “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are a loyal son of the Church.”

Not the most famous son. Not the most brilliant.

A loyal one.

In an age obsessed with building our platforms, Fulton Sheen leaves us with a harder question: Can we remain faithful when obedience costs us the audience we think we deserve?

​Cardinal francis spellman, Catholicism, Christianity, Entertainment, Fulton sheen, Protestantism, Blessed fulton sheen, Pope john paul ii, Faith 

For policymakers and citizens sick of decades wasted on failed globalist experiments, Marco Rubio’s nationalist speech in Athens on Wednesday was a huge gulp of fresh air. The alternative to collectivist one-world ideology can sound almost embarrassingly obvious: Nations should pursue their own interests, recover confidence in their inheritance, and cooperate from a position of strength rather than dissolution.

Rubio’s setting made the point for him. Speaking at the Pnyx beneath the Acropolis, he traced America’s inheritance through Athens, Rome, Christendom, medieval Europe, and England. He called for the West to recover the ambition, confidence, and national power it once took for granted. His speech made the civilizational case in deliberately grand terms.

Pretending the Eastern Romans never existed — or that they have nothing to tell us about who we really are — leaves us poorer, more arrogant, and less prepared for the trials ahead.

But his civilizational reset could have been stronger and surer. The great omission was the thousand-year span defined not by Athens, Rome, or even Jerusalem, but by Constantinople — capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and guardian of a Roman Christian civilization that survived long after the political West had collapsed.

Its final outposts fell only about three decades before Columbus reached the Americas. For perspective, 30 years ago the Unabomber was arrested, the first Motorola flip phone appeared, and IBM’s Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a reigning world chess champion in a game under standard tournament conditions.

That Byzantium received no real showing in Rubio’s address is hardly surprising. Despite its millennium-long life after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Empire has endured generations of Western neglect, condescension, and selective amnesia.

There are many reasons. One is that the modern West became preoccupied almost to obsession with its own political development — its revolutions, constitutions, ideological struggles, and repeated attempts to construct an order that could tame human nature without destroying liberty. Somewhere along the way, the East came to seem like the place where history had stalled.

“Byzantium” — no longer “really” Rome in Western eyes — became shorthand for decadence, intrigue, stagnation, and oriental despotism. The important action supposedly moved elsewhere: to the Latin West, where Europe would eventually beat back Islamic power at Tours, Lepanto, and Vienna and narrate the victories as its own civilizational story.

That is an impoverished self-understanding. Excising the Eastern Roman Empire deprives the West of some of the warnings it most needs as it flails through geopolitical waters that seem unprecedented, mostly because we have forgotten so much precedent.

The Eastern Romans spent centuries fighting for survival against great powers on their frontiers. Their long rivalry with Sasanian Persia culminated in a ruinous early-7th-century war that exhausted both empires. Almost immediately, Arab Muslim armies surged through territories Rome and Persia had fought over for generations. Centuries later, Latin Christians inflicted one of Byzantium’s worst wounds themselves when the Fourth Crusade diverted to Constantinople and sacked the city in 1204. The empire was restored in 1261, but it never recovered its former strength.

RELATED: Rubio celebrates Western exceptionalism, warns civilization is at an ‘inflection point’

Mark Schiefelbein/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

The point is not that the modern West owes Byzantium an apology, although some historical humility would be healthy. The point is that civilizations sometimes face grueling, protracted defense requiring a spiritual sobriety to match. Today the West is dangerously tempted by visions of global end-zone dancing — speedrunning the uncool parts of geopolitics in favor of a world-war blitz won by super-duper wonder-weapons.

Some Constantinopolitan emperors knew the temptation. Nikephoros II Phokas, the warrior-emperor who reigned from 963 to 969, won spectacular victories against Muslim powers and reportedly sought church recognition of soldiers killed in those campaigns as martyrs.

The church refused. Patriarch Polyeuctus invoked St. Basil’s Canon 13, which says that although killing in war had not traditionally been treated as murder, soldiers who shed blood should abstain from communion for three years because their hands were not clean. Whatever else one makes of the canon, the answer to Nikephoros was unmistakable: Military victory did not automatically confer holiness.

That is a useful warning against today’s temptation to treat defeating our enemies by whatever means we choose as the height of spiritual purity and moral heroism. It is also a reminder that strong, healthy, independent churches can serve as an irreplaceable counterweight to political rulers who begin to imagine themselves as spiritual authorities and their regimes as godlike powers before which citizens and foreigners alike must bow and scrape.

RELATED: The last knight of Europe rides again

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

And Polyeuctus’ victory points toward something still more important. Spiritual authority does not arise from the top-down power of worldly lawgivers. Holiness begins with people willing to make the difficult purification of their own hearts a lifelong athletic practice — the opposite of the performative, self-flattering spiritual box-checking Jesus decried in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.

The West would benefit from reordering its sociopolitical habits in that direction — not to weaken itself or retreat into inert obscurantism, but to recover clarity and responsibility at a time of immense division and instability.

Much of today’s turmoil arises from efforts to turn political might, now amplified by astonishing technology, into a new god and a new church with very old stripes. Rubio is right that the West must remember what it is. But Athens and Rome are not enough, and “Christendom” becomes dangerously abstract if we skip the civilization that carried Roman Christianity for a thousand years while the Western world was being remade.

Pretending the Eastern Romans never existed — or that they have nothing to tell us about who we really are — leaves us poorer, more arrogant, and less prepared for the trials ahead.

​Citizens, Confidence, Eastern roman empire, Greece, Marco rubio, Responsibility, Technology, Vienna, Western civilization, Christendom, Rome, Athens, Constantinople, Byzantium, Opinion & analysis 

Share the Arrows, Allie Beth Stuckey’s annual women’s conference, returned for a third year on Saturday in Dallas, Texas. The “Relatable” host built the event to encourage and strengthen Christian women seeking sound doctrine and sisterhood when the progressive culture takes aim.

As always, the lineup fit the purpose. Rosaria Butterfield, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Alisa Childers, and Costi Hinn, among other prominent names in the evangelical world, each took the stage, with Christian music duo Shane & Shane leading worship.

At 37 weeks pregnant with her fourth child, Stuckey closed the event with a powerful speech on the importance of clarity and courage — two words that undergird the entire Share the Arrows conference and her broader platform.

“Clarity comes from knowing God and His Word, and courage comes from trusting God and His Word,” she said.

While these concepts seem to go hand in hand, they’re not always working together as they should. And when they don’t, man gets himself in trouble, Stuckey warned.

The first example, she said, of how knowing God’s Word doesn’t always translate to trusting it goes all the way back to Genesis, when the serpent approached Eve in the garden.

Stuckey pointed out how Satan asked Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” Eve’s response was the correct answer: “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’

Satan responded with what Stuckey called a “half-truth”: “You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This was enough to convince Eve to disobey God’s command and convince her husband to do the same.

“Eve knew God’s words. Eve had the biblical knowledge. … She could repeat God’s words back to Satan even in a high-pressure moment,” said Stuckey.

What she lacked was “trust.”

“Because of that choice, because of the buying in to the confusion, there’s a distance from God,” she explained. “There’s difficulty with creation, and there’s dissonance between each other.”

The pattern of Eve’s sin — knowing the Word of God but not trusting it — is still playing out today, Stuckey warned. Christians are still confronted with that same question: “Did God really say …?” and Satan is still at the ready to answer with confusion — a “half-truth” that almost sounds biblical.

“The people in shady corners of Manhattan don’t sell knockoff Louis Vuittons by convincing you a Kroger bag is the real thing,” she analogized. “They give you something that looks really close to the real thing because that’s the only way you’ll buy it.”

Satan, too, she warned, is also a master of “counterfeits,” and if we don’t know and trust God, we’ll fall victim to his schemes.

“Ultimately, all believing of lies, all sin comes down to this: Who do you trust?” Stuckey said. “Satan is satisfied with having us puffed up with knowledge. He is OK with us having clarity. None of that matters if we do not trust God.”

She pointed out the epidemic in modern culture, especially when it comes to “progressive Christianity,” of people knowing what God’s Word says about gender, sex, marriage, and the sanctity of life but choosing to believe lies anyway.

“Bible knowledge is not enough if we do not trust God,” she reiterated.

Stuckey then pointed to the example of Jesus, who, like Eve, was tempted by Satan and responded by repeating God’s Word. However, He triumphed because He did what she failed to do: trust God.

“Jesus is the perfect embodiment of not just clarity but clarity and courage,” she said.

God, she urged the audience, is worthy of our courage to trust him. “This God who is love, who is kindness, who is righteousness, who is compassion, who has not spared his own son … if this God is for me … who in the world can be against me?” she asked.

“If this God is for me, then what He tells me to do, what He tells me to say, what He tells me is right, and what He tells me is wrong is for my good and is done in love. It’s not just enough to know that. … You have to trust it.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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​Allie beth stuckey, Share the arrows 

Americans shouldn’t wait until Sharia courts become widespread before deciding where they stand — and Brigitte Gabriel is doing everything in her power to help them see the threat before it’s too late.

Gabriel tells BlazeTV host Nick Freitas that she was shocked to relive her upbringing in Lebanon — where her home was attacked by Islamic extremists — on 9/11, when her daughter sat watching the towers fall on the news and asked her, “Mommy, why did they do this to us?”

“And I found myself, Nick,” she explains, “looking into my daughter’s eyes and repeating to her the exact same words my father said to me when I was a 10-year-old little girl, laying wounded in a hospital in Lebanon, hooked up to IVs on both arms, one blood bag in one arm, one IV in another, asking my father, ‘Why did they do this to us?’”

“And my father told me, ‘They hate us because they consider us infidels, and they want to kill us.’ Here we were two generations apart, two continents apart. I had to look into my daughter’s eyes and repeat to her the same words my father said to me,” she continues.

“That day I was reborn as an activist,” she adds, noting that this is why she started the Act for America foundation in 2002.

This foundation serves to “organize people in chapters nationwide to teach them how they can impact policy at their local level.”

Not only does the foundation now have over 5 million members nationwide, but it has successfully passed 300 bills at the federal and state level.

And the latest bill it is putting through Congress is the Preserving Our Constitution Act of 2026.

“It says no Sharia courts are allowed to operate in the United States. We are building the firewall to make sure that this does not happen,” Gabriel explains.

Freitas warns that this could easily become a problem for the U.S., as in the U.K. right now, there are 84 Sharia courts.

“Please understand that when Brigitte here is talking about Sharia courts in the United States, it is an inevitability unless you’re proactive,” Freitas says. “Because the moment they start going, and you haven’t prepared yourself for this, now all of a sudden, they win a couple of cases in court, and nobody wants to challenge them, and they start setting them up everywhere.”

However, Gabriel has some bad news.

“The Sharia courts are already operating in the United States,” she says. “The first Sharia court was established in Richardson, Texas, in 1991. Since then, we have documented 150 cases judged under Sharia law in the United States in 23 states.”

This is why in 2009, Gabriel got to work on the American Laws for American Courts bill, which says that “no law that is not compatible with the U.S. Constitution would be allowed to be practiced in an American courtroom.”

“We were able to pass that law in 13 states,” she explains.

“We’ve been fighting this battle for a long time,” she adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Americans, Lebanon, Sharia courts, Uk, Islamic extremists, 911, Islam, Nick freitas, Blazetv show, Brigitte gabriel 

Banned Books Week is baloney.

Not because nobody ever tries to suppress a book. People do. The lure of the ban hammer is strong.

We are staging arguments over banned books in a country where too many people barely read books.

But let’s be serious. A challenge is not a ban. A school-library dispute is not the Palmer raids. A parent objecting to what an 11-year-old reads is not Anthony Comstock resurrected.

Words should mean something.

The American Library Association has spent years blurring those distinctions, and every October around this time, we get the same little morality play: librarians as defenders of civilization, readers as brave dissidents, famous novels wrapped in the aura of forbidden fruit.

Last weekend at a Barnes and Noble in Southern California, I saw the display in person.

A table that had been marked “required reading” a few weeks prior was now the “read banned books” table. There sat “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” “The Catcher in the Rye,” and all the usual suspects. All for sale.

Some ban!

The ALA will object that it uses “ban” in a fairly narrow sense. A book need not disappear from American commerce to count as banned. Remove it from a school or library collection and the word applies.

That’s exactly the problem.

Removing a book from one institutional collection is not the same as suppressing it from public circulation. A restriction is not automatically a ban. Precision is not too much to ask from an organization supposedly devoted to books.

America has known censorship. Real censorship.

In 1926, H.L. Mencken deliberately sold a copy of the “Hatrack” issue of the American Mercury in Boston after the Watch and Ward Society targeted it as obscene. He got arrested.

He beat the charge.

The Postal Service also declared the issue un-mailable. Had that ruling stood, the government could have put his magazine out of business.

Woodrow Wilson’s government sent Eugene V. Debs to prison for an antiwar speech. Federal agents swept up radicals in the Palmer raids. In Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who distributed anti-draft leaflets.

RELATED: Don’t fall for the fake ‘banned books’ narrative

Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

That is what censorship looks like when the government means it.

Yes, school boards still do stupid things.

In 2013, a North Carolina board pulled Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” after one member said he could find “no literary value” in it. Nine days later, after national ridicule, the board reversed itself.

In 2010, a Riverside County, California, school district briefly pulled Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary because a parent objected to its definition of “oral sex.”

The dictionary came back too.

Somebody does something foolish. Somebody else objects. The fool backs down. That’s generally how freedom works.

And no, Ron DeSantis did not “ban books” in Florida. He signed laws governing what public schools may place in classrooms and school libraries.

Calling every restriction a ban is how you turn a policy dispute into a stupid morality play.

Azar Nafisi knows more about actual censorship than most Americans ever will. She lived under the Islamic Republic of Iran. In “Read Dangerously,” she writes about “literature as resistance” — literature resisting kings, tyrants, and “the tyrants within us.”

She asks how we confront an enemy without becoming like him or surrendering to him. Good question!

Reading dangerously under tyranny is one possible answer.

But at the risk of stating the obvious, America is not Iran.

And if we are going to use the word “dangerous,” let’s make it mean something.

A dangerous book is not simply one somebody objected to. It may be a book with such a rotten reputation that people condemn it without reading it. A book a publisher drops. A book a retailer refuses to carry. A book that goes out of print and can’t be had for love or money. A book people would rather summarize for you than let you judge for yourself.

Jean Raspail’s “The Camp of the Saints” will do.

First published in France in 1973, the novel imagines a flotilla of impoverished migrants sailing toward Europe. For decades, it has been reduced to a racist anti-immigrant tract.

I have read it. That is not what the book is principally about.

Raspail’s real villains are the politicians, journalists, clergy, and intellectuals who have lost the nerve to defend their own civilization.

For years, English copies were scarce and expensive. A new translation appeared last year. Amazon briefly pulled the physical edition. People complained. Amazon restored it.

That is a dangerous book because its reputation has done much of the work its critics should have done themselves.

RELATED: Jean Raspail’s notorious — and prophetic — novel returns to America

Pascal Parrot/Sygma/Sygma/Getty Images

So I say read Raspail and Julius Evola and Sam Francis. Read Nafisi and Ralph Ellison and Salman Rushdie.

Read authors who annoy your friends. Read writers your political allies dismiss. Read books with appalling reputations. Read the book everybody quotes and almost nobody seems to have opened.

Or don’t.

There is no virtue in reading a controversial book. Buying “Nineteen Eighty-Four” at Barnes and Noble does not make you Solzhenitsyn.

But please do not pretend.

Do not pretend a challenge is automatically a ban or that a book is unavailable when it is sitting on a table in front of you. Do not pretend reading a famous novel everyone can buy is an act of resistance.

We are staging arguments over banned books in a country where too many people barely read books.

Mencken praised the “gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries” and thereby proved “that doubt, after all, was safe.”

He was right.

Read dangerously, if you like. Just read.

​Censorship, Ron desantis, Amazon, Banned books, Camp of the saints, 1984, American library association, Post office, Reading, Azar nafisi, France, Europe, Opinion & analysis 

An athlete attending an event with the president will always drum up noise with liberal media, but it is fast becoming a circus that the pros are tired of fielding questions about.

Look no farther than Baltimore Ravens defensive back Marlon Humphrey, who answered a series of questions about a ride he took with President Donald Trump to a shipyard near Baltimore earlier this week.

‘I don’t really have any political beliefs.’

Ravens Ryan Eckley, Tyler Loop, Nick Moore, and Humphrey all met with the president on Tuesday before he announced plans to open a shipyard with Anduril Industries that could create over 3,000 jobs in the area.

After Humphrey posted a video of himself riding behind the president in a “very armored vehicle,” he faced questions from the media upon his return to team facilities.

“President Trump actually asked us if we wanted to ride with him, and I was not going to turn down a ride with the president,” Humphrey said of the video.

“That was quite the experience.”

The 30-year-old addressed more questions about his political views, but stated he “did not vote” in the last election, and likely has never voted, before claiming, “I don’t really have any political beliefs.”

Viewers on social media were irate about the football player’s answers and quickly labeled him a pawn of the administration.

“Look in the camera. Stand on it,” a Baltimore sports talk radio account wrote.

“He can’t even look up,” another claimed.

Others called Humphrey a “useful idiot” and a “political prop.”

Insults even came from Dallas Cowboys writer Clarence Hill Jr., who described Humphrey’s answers as a “clown show.”

However, a former wide receiver from those same Cowboys, Dez Bryant, called out the writer and asked why he was bothered by Humphrey’s comments.

“Why does it matter? I’m telling the world now..as soon as I see Trump.. I’m taking a photo with him,” Bryant wrote.

RELATED: Flock of Ravens swarm President Trump in Baltimore: ‘Do yall know this guy?’

“I hope he’s down to have a margarita,” the Texas native added.

During the same interview, Humphrey said that he planned to dedicate himself to learning more about politics for the upcoming election.

“I did try to vote this last time, but my absentee ballot didn’t come in,” he told reporters.

“I do plan on voting the next time around,” the star defensive player explained, before adding, “I am extremely uninformed on what laws are going on, to be honest.”

Simply put, Humphrey said he planned on making an informed decision on who to vote for based on where his beliefs line up with each party.

RELATED: Fans accuse Chicago Bears player of performing Muslim prayer during national anthem: ‘Is this respectful?’

Humphrey also spoke about the opportunities for the area itself — Sparrows Point, Maryland — and said that as an investor in local neighborhoods, he was glad there was an “opportunity to have a greater economy” come to the area.

“I believe in the area, and I’m pretty excited for the economy boom that could come from this,” he stated.

The interview closed with Humphrey being asked if he had seen any of the reactions to his presidential meeting on social media. The athlete immediately chose a positive route and said he hadn’t had the opportunity to react to any “love” he had received online.

“I am on social media at a max of about five minutes a day, so I was not able to interact with all the love I have received,” Humphrey said.

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​Nfl, Donald trump, Baltimore ravens, Football, Dez bryant, Marlon humphrey, Sports 

Sagebrush was starting to encroach on a field my father-in-law had painstakingly cleared over the years. So this week, I climbed onto his old tractor and did some mowing, unsupervised. In rural Montana, that hardly qualifies as news, but I’m putting it on my résumé.

First, it’s bigger than a riding mower, which makes it a large tractor in my estimation. Second, it’s old. I believe it was originally built to pull a chariot.

When you have spent years being the person others depend on, admitting you need help can catch in your throat.

I remember my father-in-law stopping at our Nashville home while hauling it west on a trailer. Ronald Reagan was president, and the tractor wasn’t new then.

For most of my adult life, we lived five miles from downtown Nashville. We didn’t have much tractor time, and I have always been intimidated by large machinery. That sounds pitiful coming from a guy who has visited Montana for decades and now lives here, but hear me out.

Public speaking frightens plenty of people. From the set of “The Today Show” to keynote speeches at conferences, it has never bothered me. Give me a microphone and a room full of strangers, and I’m comfortable.

But a tractor pulling a mower across ground so slanted that the cows need shorter legs on one side to keep from tipping over? I have questions.

Oh, did I mention rocks? Even with scarce rainfall, our rocks keep thriving and growing.

Fortunately, I have several neighbors I regularly call for help. Full disclosure: I rotate the calls, hoping none gets too accustomed to seeing my name and letting it go to voicemail. Sometimes I disguise my voice, but my Southern accent gives it away.

I’d love to swagger and say, “No problem.” But swagger won’t tell me which lever to pull, so I call someone who knows.

My father-in-law is in assisted living now. His competence with that tractor is legendary, but translating his instructions into something useful between my ears takes some doing. Sitting in that worn seat, I quickly discovered my confidence behind a microphone contributes remarkably little to my understanding of a tractor’s controls.

RELATED: Before you ask us to trust again

Stephanie Kuykendal/Bloomberg/Getty Images

So I FaceTime patient neighbors and ask a lot of questions.

Over the years, I have told countless medical professionals, plumbers, carpenters, and even tractor operators, “I’m a talker, an exceptional pianist, and a pretty good writer. That’s where my skill set stops. So explain it to me simply. Use crayons if necessary.”

One morning, after chasing a moose out of our hay barn, I called my college piano professor, who is thankfully still alive. I told him he hadn’t covered moose extraction in class.

He laughed. “You must have missed that day.”

Apparently, I missed several. And despite 40 years of caring for my wife, I’m still discovering gaps in my education that have nothing to do with tractors or moose. I know medications, insurance forms, hospital routines, and the particular sound that means something is wrong. Yet there are still calls to make and questions to ask, sometimes about things I think I should already understand.

Those calls can be harder to make than you would expect. When you have spent years being the person others depend on, admitting you need help can catch in your throat. You tell yourself you ought to know, manage, and figure it out. Meanwhile, the problem waits patiently for you to finish arguing with yourself.

In Montana, limits tend to announce themselves plainly. The ground is steep, the equipment is heavy, and the weather has no interest in your credentials. “I’m fine” can sound great right up until the tractor plows through a fence.

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Miguel Perfectti/Getty Images

The same reluctance follows us into hospital rooms and home to unpaid bills. We offer a cheerful “We’re doing fine” when what we need is someone to sit with a loved one for an afternoon or help make sense of the paperwork. You should see the emails I write to my CPA friend. Apparently, piano proficiency also has limited application to the tax code.

Earlier this year, I framed in a doorway. Last week, I spent some time with a chainsaw, a nerve-racking undertaking for a pianist and writer. This week, a tractor. I’m pleased to be learning new things, but I’m also learning to reach for the phone before determination and pride become an expensive lesson.

If you are the person everyone calls, consider whose number you need on speed dial. Tell them where you’re stuck. In my experience, plenty of people are willing to share what they know once I stop pretending I already know it.

Fortunately, I still have all my fingers as I reach for the phone again … and my neighbors are still answering.

​Sagebrush, Tractors, Montana, Assisted living, Competence, Education, Experience, Heavy equipment, Doing fine, Asking for help, Chainsaw, Opinion & analysis 

October is here again, so what the advertisers call “spooky season” is upon us. Stores are packed with Halloween candy and costumes, along with spiders and bats and skeletons (and they have been there since school started, but that’s a complaint for another day).

Last week, we talked about how too many Christians are fixating on what they perceive as the evil of Halloween — its emphasis on ghosts, witches, and death — without acknowledging that it sprang from both Christian and pagan roots and has been largely sanitized into a cultural holiday focused on costumes, candy, and neighborhood fun for children.

DON’T hit them over the head with a Bible. But don’t hide your faith either.

This has led to some (wrongly) judgmental attitudes, much of it springing from bad theology.

I ended that article with a promise that there is a better way to reclaim and redeem Halloween, because surely we Christians can do better than being the always-dark, candy-less house on the block.

Trick or tract?

Our highest calling, of course, is to love our neighbor. And Halloween brings those neighbors to our door, literally. What if we prayerfully and thoughtfully considered how we can bless those neighbors on this one day, with an eye to building relationships?

I am not talking about handing out Christian tracts instead of candy. Don’t be that person.

I am talking about eagerly seeking an opportunity to connect with at least one if not more families in your neighborhood with whom you can begin to build relationships. This, in fact, is why God has you where you live (see more on this here).

Let me tell you about what one family did for Halloween. They set up a tent in the driveway, hung lights from it, and under the tent placed their BBQ grill, on which they cooked hot dogs. A table held buns and condiments, a bowl of Halloween candy, and Jell-O shots for the adults. They publicized this on the neighborhood webpage a day or two before Halloween.

To be clear, they weren’t Christians seeking to love their neighbor. They were seeking to promote the father’s business. But how might we promote our Father’s business similarly?

Halloween hospitality

If you have access to one, a tent in the driveway with lights strung on it is very welcoming on a dark night!Grilling hot dogs was a pretty good idea — another might be a big crock-pot filled with chili, with paper cups and spoons for serving.A hot drink station with cocoa, cider, tea, etc.Freshly made pumpkin bread or oatmeal cookies in little treat bags as an alternative to commercial candy.Set out lawn chairs and invite people to sit down and rest for a moment — and if they do, introduce yourselves and get to know their family.Let your kids dress up and pass out the goodies (if you also allow your kids to trick-or-treat, one of you can hold down the fort while the other takes the kids around the neighborhood).Let people know a day or two ahead that you welcome them to come by and “sit a spell,” as the saying goes.

This will cost you time, effort, and money. But it is a ministry investment in the lives of precious people God has placed in your neighborhood. You can’t love them if you don’t make an effort to know them, and you can’t know them if you never even meet them.

And they will know you after this!

You could also just set out lawn chairs toward the end of the driveway where you will be able to actually see and converse with the adults as you pass out candy. Compliment the kids’ costumes. Ask the adults where they live in the neighborhood. They won’t linger long without a reason to stop at your house, but at least you’ll physically meet some of them. Since most parents don’t accompany their kids all the way up to the door, you at least have to get out where they are!

RELATED: Halloween isn’t opening a door to demons. Christians need to stop pretending it is.

Walter Leporati/Getty Images

A few do’s & don’ts

DO wear a costume. Bible costumes are fun. So are a lot of others. Don’t be anything that will scare children. Don’t be a witch. Don’t be the devil (duh).DON’T hand out Christian literature that talks about how evil Halloween is. In fact, you don’t have to hand out Christian literature at all. But if you do, hand it out with full-size candy bars.DO ask their name and where they live in the neighborhood. Discreetly record a voice message to yourself or write down names and information — the idea, after all, is to use Halloween to start building a relationship. See #6 below.DON’T exclude your kids from this opportunity. Recruit them to participate as fully as possible in your family blessing the neighborhood, whatever you end up doing.DON’T be a Halloween hider. What a sad message you send to your children by turning off all the lights to avoid the neighbors. God put you in your neighborhood. Unless you live somewhere with no trick-or-treaters, get out there and redeem the opportunity.DO follow up! Sometime in November, reach out to someone you met on Halloween and invite him or her over for coffee or to watch the big game or for a casual dinner. Your goal here is to become an authentic friend. As you get to know each other, don’t be afraid to ask for help on something, either — that’s what friends do.DON’T hit them over the head with a Bible. But don’t hide your faith, either. Practice transparent honesty and pray for the opportunity to discuss deeper things. Until then, BE the deeper thing.

Halloween is an opportunity for your family to bless others and begin forging relationships to lost people in need of Jesus. I would love to hear about your family’s experience redeeming this annual event by loving your neighbor!

Editor’s note: This article has been slightly expanded from Diane Schrader’s 2025 article on Halloween.

​Halloween, Christian living, Lifestyle, Neighborhood, Love thy neighbor, Trick or treating, Hospitality, Faith 

As the nephew of televangelist Benny Hinn, Costi Hinn grew up inside the prosperity gospel and Word of Faith world. In 2013, while preparing to preach on Jesus’ healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda, he studied a John MacArthur commentary, and the faith-healing formula he had believed and preached for years began to unravel. By 2017, he was publicly repudiating the prosperity gospel and embracing Reformed theology.

Today he is the teaching pastor of Shepherd’s House Bible Church in Chandler, Arizona, a Reformed church he helped plant in 2022, and founder and president of the online ministry For the Gospel.

At Allie Beth Stuckey’s third annual Share the Arrows — a women’s conference built to equip Christian women with sound doctrine and to stand with believers under cultural fire — Hinn became the first man to take a teaching slot at the event.

From the stage, Hinn spoke on the difference between a wife who is “the crown of her husband” from Proverbs 12:4 and the one who is contentious, as warned about in numerous verses from Proverbs.

“God has given you a divine calling. You have a responsibility, and it’s not to control everybody else and control every other outcome,” he said. “It is to first and foremost be under the submission that you’re called to be under Christ and to be self-controlled.”

A marriage, he warned, is often “the enemy’s number-one target” because so many other things — parenting, education, and politics — flow “downstream from the home.”

What determines the health of a home, he argued, is the state of the marriage.

“If you have an unhealthy marriage, the devil is going to wreak havoc in so many other areas of your life,” Hinn warned.

Much of a marriage’s health, Hinn said, rises or falls with the wife.

“The greatest benefactor of [a woman’s] ministry,” Hinn preached, “is actually not the world, not the school system, not the arenas” of the world; it’s her “husband.”

“An excellent wife — a woman of high character, of strength, and of valor, and of dignity — this woman, she is the crown of her husband.”

He contrasted this godly woman with the “contentious woman,” whom the book of Proverbs compares to the “continual dripping of rain” and “rottenness in [her husband’s] bones.”

Hinn listed multiple ways wives “drip” on their husbands, including sarcasm, condescension, public shaming, comparing him to other men, being controlling and demanding, and holding past mistakes against him, among others.

There are four truths, he said, every wife needs to know:

“Every wife is building or breaking her home.”“A contentious wife tears down her husband and her home.”“Contentiousness is a heart issue; it’s not a husband issue.”“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.”

Hinn concluded with a powerful reminder that the days are fleeting, but the ministry of wives and mothers is eternal.

“[The home] is your ministry. … God gave you it, and all He wanted you to do is to relish in it and enjoy it. Sit in the mess, and know that in the mess, that’s the ministry.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Allie beth stuckey, Share the arrows, Womanhood, Blazetv show 

Hollywood is overrun with copycats.

Remember how 1978’s “Halloween” scared the bell-bottom pants off us? Well, another studio copied that stalker formula with 1980’s “Friday the 13th.” The rest is — ka-ka-ka … ching-ching-ching — history.

Longtime liberals crossing party lines to oust an incompetent mayor and governor? if only we could import some of that common sense to the left coast.

If greed is good, then copycatting is even better.

That explains the marketing behind “Other Mommy.” Jessica Chastain stars as a mother who is targeted by an evil entity in the new horror flick. Apparently, said entity makes the actress adopt a massive, creepy smile to let us know something isn’t quite right with her.

And if you’ve seen “Smile” (2022) or “Smile 2” (2024), you know exactly the look. It’s one thing to make endless sequels. It’s another to steal the signature visual gimmick from another franchise. Maybe that’s why the studio behind “Other Mommy” hid it from critics prior to its Oct. 9 release date.

The reviews will likely be pretty scary …

‘Speech’ impediment

This should be a golden era for the Emmys. The trophy honoring the very best in TV programming has plenty to choose from, given the crush of new and existing platforms cranking out fresh product.

And while “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” are long since over, there are plenty of top-flight TV shows to savor.

Yet the Emmys telecast will be moving to Prime Video starting next year. Why?

Ratings. Or the lack thereof. A telecast that used to draw 20 million viewers now scrambles to draw 7 million for a given gala.

Now, Prime Video will showcase the best of the best, in between political screeds. Why, it’s almost like the dawn of politically mouthy celebs had something to do with the ratings free fall …

Outbreak … of TDS

It wasn’t too long ago that DNC mouthpiece Jimmy Kimmel held up a T-shirt with the slogan “Donald J. Trump is gonna kill you” on his show.

Now it’s Ana Navarro’s turn.

The “View” co-host spun news of a Russian-based plague outbreak to attack President Trump. That isn’t really shocking. “The View” could turn a discussion on Chia Pets into an anti-Trump jeremiad.

Navarro went the extra mile with her TDS moment. To be fair, she really attacked Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but he is tied directly to President Trump via the nomination process.

“There’s going to be crisis, there’s going to be health emergencies. And, you know, when I think of RFK Jr. heading HHS, I just say, girl, kiss your ass goodbye!”

Should be easy enough for Navarro, considering where her head already is …

RELATED: GRAVE ‘DIGGER’: Will Tom Cruise’s $100 million eco-flop bury Warner Bros.?

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Not ‘Messing’ around

Here’s the ultimate “man bites dog” story.

“Will & Grace” alum Debra Messing is such a dyed-in-the-wool progressive that she once threatened to doxx anyone who supported President Trump in Hollywood. The obvious context? Good luck finding work in this town, bub.

That was then, before the explosion of anti-Semitism across the globe and, sadly, within her industry.

To her genuine credit, Messing has been one of the loudest celebrity voices speaking up for the Jewish people in our post-Oct. 7 world. And she knows that the Democrat Party is shockingly hostile to her fellow Jews.

That explains her new endorsement — she is supporting the GOP’s Bruce Blakeman over Democrat incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul in New York’s gubernatorial contest.

“The decline in this city over the last four years has been so exponential and devastating. … Economically, socially, and on every level. And, obviously, we’ve lost so much business here. People are leaving the city.”

In acknowledging Messing’s support, Blakeman said the quiet part out loud.

“She is trying as hard as she can to save New York and make sure it’s safe for Jewish people to live in this community and to live in this state.”

She echoed the thoughts shared by fellow Jewish actor Michael Rapaport, who dropped his anti-Trump hysteria in recent years and now targets Big Apple Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D).

Longtime liberals crossing party lines to oust an incompetent mayor and governor? if only we could import some of that common sense to the left coast …

Sorkin’s status

Are you sure about that, Aaron?

Writer-director Aaron Sorkin continues the Facebook saga with “The Social Reckoning” this weekend. The film, continuing a story that began in 2010 with “The Social Network,” shreds Facebook for algorithms that hurt one and all.

He’s not necessarily wrong, but the film is actually an attack on President Trump and, more significantly, the January 6 riots.

Except it looks like audiences will be giving Sorkin his own “reckoning.” The film will be lucky to squeak past the $8 million mark this weekend.

“The Social Network” bowed with $22 million en route to a $96 million U.S. haul.

Sorkin is already eyeing a third film in the saga.

“If a good story comes along and it takes place at Facebook, sure.”

If the box office receipts are anything like the experts predict, he might have to start a GoFundMe campaign to get it off the ground. I know just the place to share it!

​January 6 riots, Prime video, Social reckoning, Anti-semitism, Debra messing, Jeff bezos, Emmy awards, Amazon, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Tv, Movies, Hollywood, Culture, Donald trump, Toto recall 

The war with Iran has exposed the value of energy abundance. When a major shipping route goes down, domestic supply and reliable infrastructure buy a country room to maneuver.

Before the conflict, roughly one-fifth of global petroleum liquids moved through the Strait of Hormuz. Its disruption became the largest oil-supply shock on record. The shock has been severe, but the United States entered it from a position few countries enjoy: record domestic production and a mature system of pipelines, refineries, ports, storage facilities, and export terminals.

The lesson from the Iran conflict is straightforward. Energy security requires abundant and diverse domestic supply, reliable supply chains, and infrastructure that can absorb a shock.

U.S. crude oil output is on track to set another annual record this year, according to the Energy Information Administration. Natural gas production has also reached record levels. That domestic cushion cannot insulate Americans from a global oil shock, but it can keep a bad situation from becoming worse.

The crisis also exposes the weakness of two familiar responses. Broad accusations of price-gouging are a poor substitute for understanding how energy markets work. Crude prices can jump immediately, and retail gasoline prices can follow as wholesalers and stations reprice the cost of replacement fuel, even though physical barrels still move through refineries, pipelines, terminals, and trucks.

A ban on U.S. crude exports would create a different problem. American producers often export lighter crude, while many domestic refineries are configured to process heavier grades. Disrupting that trade would not magically produce more gasoline. It could strand some domestic barrels, reduce the incentive to produce them, and weaken the same supply response that helps cushion global shocks.

Florida makes the larger point especially well. It is one of the nation’s biggest electricity consumers, and its energy system already depends on several sources.

More than 70% of Florida’s in-state electricity generation came from natural gas in 2025, while nuclear supplied more than one-tenth and renewables about 12%. Nearly all the natural gas Florida consumes arrives from the Gulf Coast through interstate pipelines. The state’s size and growth make energy resilience a practical necessity, not an abstraction. Florida’s energy profile is a case study in why diversity and infrastructure both count.

Florida also sits beside one of America’s largest strategic energy assets: the Gulf of America. The Gulf supplies about 14% of U.S. crude oil production and supports extensive offshore infrastructure, deepwater ports, processing facilities, and an experienced energy workforce.

That does not mean energy security begins and ends with drilling. Responsible offshore development in the Gulf should be part of the strategy, alongside expanded nuclear power, continued growth in renewables, stronger transmission and pipeline capacity, and the storage and port infrastructure needed to move energy when normal routes are disrupted.

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Frederic J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Every energy source carries environmental costs. Limiting domestic oil and gas production does not eliminate demand; it can move production to countries with weaker standards and worse oversight. The same problem is emerging with critical minerals. Solar panels, batteries, transmission systems, and advanced nuclear technology all require enormous quantities of mined and processed materials.

Environmental protection therefore belongs inside energy policy. Development should meet high standards, and a greater share of the economic value created by domestic production should support conservation and restoration. Producing more of what America needs at home also gives the country greater room to respond when foreign supplies are disrupted.

The lesson from the Iran conflict is straightforward. Energy security requires abundant and diverse domestic supply, reliable supply chains, and infrastructure that can absorb a shock. The United States should continue developing oil and natural gas in the Gulf while expanding nuclear and renewable power and maintaining strong environmental standards.

Global instability is an argument for investment, not retreat. America needs enough energy, infrastructure, and natural resources to meet its own needs and support its allies without treating the landscapes and wildlife that are also part of the national interest as expendable.

​Crude oil, Deepwater ports, Electricity, Environmental protection, Florida, Offshore production, Renewable energy, Solar panels, Gas prices, Infrastructure, Energy policy, Opinion & analysis