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If you’ve ever wondered why your pastor has never endorsed a political candidate, it’s likely because until last week, it wasn’t allowed. In 1954, Lyndon B. Johnson, who was a senator at the time, sponsored legislation dubbed the Johnson Amendment, which prohibited tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from endorsing or opposing political candidates.

But after 71 years, the Trump administration has reversed that. On July 7, the IRS issued a new interpretation of the Johnson Amendment, declaring churches can endorse political candidates during services without losing tax-exempt status.

It’s a small change that will likely go unnoticed by many, but “the ramifications of this are going to be so far-reaching,” says Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

We live in an age when theology is on the ballot — especially when it comes to topics like abortion and gender ideology, which are “verifiably, demonstrably wrong” according to Christian doctrine, says Sara. “Churches not preaching about politics or anything related to it has been very destructive in this country.”

“This is part of the moral decline of the United States of America,” adds BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden.

Perhaps, however, we will see a return to traditional values and morals if pastors can boldly delve into politics and lead their congregations through the murky waters of how policy engages with scripture without fear of losing their tax-exempt status.

“I don’t think people understand how far-reaching it can be if the pastors in America take their balls back,” says Sara frankly.

“They absolutely need to,” says Rippaverse Comics founder Eric July. “Churches — all denominations — have been so compromised, man, and they skirt around a lot of issues.”

Interestingly, the pastors who have been cannonballing into politics without regard to potential repercussions are typically “witches that are masquerading as pastors,” who are nearly always “left-leaning,” July adds, reiterating Marsden’s point that “the moral decay” of the entire world has risen in tandem with the church “[becoming] less involved” in the things that impact society.

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

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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

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America’s education system is facing a growing list of challenges — from plummeting test scores and the lingering hangover from COVID-era remote classes to teacher shortages and mounting public frustration over gender ideology.

But take it from a former teacher: Another grave problem is haunting our classrooms. Climate extremists have infiltrated American schools, and they’re indoctrinating our children in radical ideology. It’s time the Department of Justice took action to stop it.

I worked for many years as a teacher and saw firsthand just how deeply rooted this climate ideology is in our classrooms.

Fortunately, they’ve taken the first step. In May, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against four states for allegedly funneling public funds into unconstitutional climate litigation. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the litigation “burdensome and ideologically motivated,” and she’s right. The troubling part is: It’s happening in our public school classrooms too.

If the Trump administration is serious about rooting out taxpayer-funded climate extremism, the next logical step is clear: Launch an investigation into the climate ideologues flooding our education system with fearmongering and pseudoscience.

Indoctrinated K-12 classrooms

Just look at what’s happening in New York City. In the summer of 2024, Columbia University partnered with NYC Public Schools to hold a four-day workshop for teachers called “Integrating Climate Education in N.Y.C. Public Schools.” The aim should be clear from the name: Teachers were guided on how to interweave climate hysteria into their lesson plans.

A reporter later visited a public school in the Bronx where a teacher was reading her students a book about flooding in Africa. “And what’s causing all these rains and storms and floods?” she asked. “Carbon,” an 8-year-old answered.

RELATED: Trump’s climate policy shift could save American farmers from disaster

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This isn’t isolated to New York. In 2020, New Jersey became the first state in the nation to mandate that climate change be taught at all grade levels. It begins in kindergarten, where even the lighthearted activity of dancing is used to “examine global issues, including climate change as a topic for dance.” And it’s integrated into every other school subject — from computer science to physical education.

Other states are working to incorporate climate change into their curricula. California’s Assembly Bill 285, passed in 2023, requires science teachers to instruct students beginning in the first grade “on the causes and effects of climate change, and on the methods to mitigate and adapt to climate change.”

This isn’t science; it’s political conditioning masquerading as curriculum.

Take it from me: I worked for many years as a teacher and saw firsthand just how deeply rooted this climate ideology is in our classrooms — and that was before state governments began passing their mandates. What I witnessed wasn’t education but indoctrination, and it proved very successful.

Radicalized universities

Later, I left K-12 to teach as a college professor, and what I found was troubling. My freshman students widely believed the world was going to end within their lifetimes and were emotionally paralyzed by it. They didn’t want to debate other students or hear the other side of the argument. Instead, out of anger, they wanted to shame and cancel those who thought differently.

Even the most milquetoast of pushback was met by my students with confusion and contempt. This is what happens when children are indoctrinated from a very young age.

The effects of climate brainwashing are so widespread that psychologists even have a term for it: climate anxiety. The New York Times recently profiled the case of a woman paralyzed by mundane activities, like eating nuts.

They came wrapped in plastic, often in layers of it, that she imagined leaving her house and traveling to a landfill, where it would remain through her lifetime and the lifetime of her children.

In 2021, the first study on climate anxiety was released. It found that young children all over the world had been affected. Of those surveyed, more than half reported feeling sad, anxious, angry, and guilty over the climate, while a full 75% said the future looked frightening.

Leading academic institutions like Yale and Harvard have since accepted that climate anxiety is inevitable and sought to provide therapy to their students. But this is like an arsonist claiming fires are inevitable and investing in more garden hoses. Climate anxiety isn’t inevitable; it’s a direct result of convincing our children that a made-up apocalypse is inevitable.

Root out climate hysteria

Teaching kids how to care for the environment is not wrong. I was part of a generation taught to recycle, respect nature, and preserve the land for future use. But today’s curriculum isn’t about stewardship — it’s about shame. It’s not about science — it’s about fear.

It’s time for the Justice Department to broaden its investigation into the public education bureaucracies, state curriculum mandates, and activist organizations pushing climate panic in the classroom. Climate extremism shouldn’t be government policy, and it certainly shouldn’t be taught as gospel to our kids.

Let’s stop the fear, stop the brainwashing, and bring common sense back to the classroom.

​Climate, Climate activists, Climate alarmism, Climate change alarmism, Climate crisis, Indoctrinated kids, Indoctrination, Indoctrination in schools, Opinion, Opinion & analysis, Schools, Education, Global warming 

Filmmaker and mother Jessica Solce was frustrated by the difficulty of finding healthy, all-natural products for herself and her family. To make it easier, she created the Solarium, which curates trusted, third-party-tested foods, clothing, beauty products, and more — all free of seed oils, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and other harmful additives.

In this occasional column, she shares recommendations and research she’s picked up during her ongoing education in health and wellness.

Your refrigerator is filled with unprocessed, natural foods. Your medicine cabinet is free of toxic pharmaceuticals. Your faucets dispense filtered, chemical-free drinking water.

In other words, you’ve optimized your family’s home life for health. But what about the home itself?

Pillows, sheets, and furniture also contain toxic flame retardants, a grimly appropriate name given their tendency to reduce IQ and cause developmental delays.

Sadly and shockingly, virtually all houses harbor seemingly innocuous products and materials that silently poison us, day in and day out.

Take your bed, for example.

You spend a third of your life sleeping, so get a good mattress. This is solid advice. It also happens to be incomplete. A restful night’s sleep shouldn’t mean eight to 10 hours inhaling microdoses of toxic, flame-retardant forever chemicals.

But that’s exactly what you get with much modern bedding.

And the situation in other rooms is generally no better.

To go through all of what may be poisoning us in our homes would require an article of epic proportions; it would also be overwhelmingly depressing for me to write and for you to read.

I encourage you to do more research and to consider the specifics of your own situation. In the meantime, for the sake of both of our sanities, I’ll limit myself to outlining the major offenders — as well as what to replace them with.

My hope is that I can give you a good start in ensuring your home is a haven for healing, not a den of disease.

RELATED: Grass-fed steaks, unprocessed salt, and more chemical-free picks from the Solarium

Getty Images/Camerique/The Solarium

Starting slow

Spend any time on health-oriented social media, and it feels as if every week brings news of some new toxic product ready to kill you, from paint and plastics to petroleum-based perfumes.

So when we first set out to evict the enemy from our abode, we quickly realize the hydra-esque task we’ve taken on. No sooner have you rooted him out of one hiding place than you discover him popping up in two more.

As someone who’s navigated this kind of purge myself (inspiring me to create an online marketplace of healthy products to help you do the same), I strongly advise against a scorched earth, “No Impact Man” approach.

Rather, you should employ a method of gradual change where you make small, conscious swaps for healthier alternatives. Trust me, it’s easier on your wallet and your mental well-being.

No impact, man

That said, the aforementioned 2009 documentary is an eye-opening watch. “No Impact Man” is the story of a New York City family — journalist Colin Beavan, his wife, Michelle, and their toddler, Isabella — undertaking an experiment to live for one year, while making as little impact on the environment as possible.

One scene in particular floored me: when Michelle throws away all of her makeup and bathroom and beauty products.

It wasn’t that she voluntarily parted ways with her precious and pricey creams and unguents but the sheer amount of them she’d managed to stockpile in their small Manhattan apartment.

Imagine how much more the bathroom of the average American house in the suburbs holds. Unfathomable amounts of money spent on unfathomable amounts of toxic junk.

As thought-provoking as “No Impact Man” is, I’d advise against going to such extremes, at least at first. Above all, you want to make sure this is something you can sustain.

In my experience, that becomes easier the more you learn how to spot these home-borne toxins — and the more you understand the potential damage they can do once they get into your lungs, bloodstream, and cells and mitochondria. Removing them from your life will not feel like a burden but a no-brainer necessity.

Here are some simple first steps to get you started.

Open your windows

Even without getting rid of anything, this age-old method of improving ventilation and air exchange can have a major impact on the health of your home.

A 2020 review of 37 separate environmental studies found that elevated indoor carbon dioxide levels associated with poor ventilation impaired high-level decision-making and reduced cognitive speed, especially on complex tasks.

Remake your bed

As mentioned, where you rest your head at night is very important. We sleep an average of 2,700 hours a year, or 114 days out of 365. And it’s not just your mattress you need to worry about.

Pillows, sheets, and furniture also contain toxic flame retardants, a grimly appropriate name given their tendency to reduce IQ and cause developmental delays.

They can also cause metabolic problems like obesity and insulin resistance, while endocrine disruptors they contain cause thyroid problems, infertility, hormone disregulation, and hormone-related cancers. Nasty stuff.

Because kids tend to put their hands on everything and everything in their mouths, they’re even more prone to ingesting these retardants. Especially when they’re in the pajamas they wear!

One retardant ingredient is formaldehyde. You know … embalming fluid. Many of us are sleeping on literal deathbeds.

So what can we do?! For pillows and comforters, find goose down or wool. One excellent option for pillows is the wonderful U.S. company the Woolshire. Avocado is a great source for mattresses. You can find 100% cotton and/or linen at a wide range of prices, from made-in-America luxury brands to Target’s in-house bedding line.

Clear the air

Nothing like lighting a scented candle or two to make a home feel clean and inviting. Just make sure you know what you’re burning

While marketed as “natural,” many soy candles contain synthetic fragrance oils and chemical additives that release harmful pollutants. A pair of recent studies found that scented candles emit formaldehyde, benzene, and other carcinogens, with risks to lung and nasal cancers, respiratory harm, and cognitive decline.

The aforementioned chemicals are known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, not because they are organic in the farmer’s market sense but because of their specific chemical properties.

“Volatile” refers to their ability to turn into gas at room temperature, “organic” refers to their carbon bases, and “compounds” means they’re highly complex — all to mean these things are absolutely not fit for human consumption or contact. If they are in your home, they can “off gas” into your air without being heated or physically disturbed.

In addition, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee confirms that fragrance ingredients are among the leading causes of allergic contact dermatitis (allergies, eczema, rashes) in Europe. Another study confirms that regular indoor scented candle burning “can expose us to dangerous levels of organic pollutants” and ultra-fine particles.

These harmful VOCs are not inherent in the unburned wax but formed as byproducts of incomplete combustion when the candle is burned; the additives, wicks (sometimes made of lead!), and added fragrances and dyes increase the levels of VOCs. Synthetic scents can also trigger asthma, allergic reactions, and breathing problems.

A 100% unadulterated beeswax candle with a cotton or paper wick and no added dyes or fragrance is the way to go.

This is the cleanest candle possible: not 100% free of VOCs but with significantly lower emissions. It’s also completely unprocessed — made of wax that comes straight from the beehive.

Along with the lovely natural scent, beeswax candles may also produce negative ions that help settle positively charged particles like dust, pollen, mold spores, and some airborne toxins.

“Why can’t I just get some air fresheners from Walmart?” Don’t bother. They emit a cocktail of carcinogenic VOCs and phthalates (endocrine-disrupting semi-VOCs). If you have these in your home or in the car, this is step one: Get rid of them pronto.

Once you stop using chemical air fresheners, you’ll start noticing how foul and unnatural they actually smell. As luck would have it, we now have a nice, natural option thanks to the small French company &Eden.

The scents you put on your body can be just as harmful, especially considering that you absorb them directly through your skin as well as through your lungs. When you are ready to make the swap, consider these cleaner, nature-based soaps and fragrances.

Let the light in

The convenience of artificial light comes with a major cost: the disruption of our body’s innate circadian signaling and repair processes.

Moreover, our bodies our designed to absorb the entirety of the sunlight spectrum, from infrared to visible to ultraviolet. But our ubiquitous screens isolate and maximize our exposure to certain parts of the spectrum. The computers, phones, and tablets we use indoors continually bathe us in unnatural amounts of blue light.

One way to mitigate this constant onslaught is by wearing yellow-tinted blue-light-blocking glasses while at the computer.

You can also change your lightbulbs to more closely resemble full spectrum sunlight. I did this first in my bedroom, creating a warm, amber glow like candlelight. I highly recommend it.

There are emerging tech solutions as well. The Daylight Computer can be used outside without glare issues and eliminates the blue light problem by harnessing ambient light or using red light for a backlight. Its display resembles conventional E Ink displays but with a faster refresh rate.

If you want to learn a whole lot more about blue light, you can read my three-part series about its effects on your body.

Clean house

Say goodbye to the likes of Mr. Clean, Lysol, and Formula 409. They all come with excess baggage: quaternary ammonium compounds, or “quats” (antimicrobials that can cause skin and respiratory irritation), synthetic fragrances, preservatives, and ethanolamines.

RELATED: Trump EPA takes aim at forever chemicals

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In addition, common cleaning products often contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that can impair fertility in both sexes. The phthalates found in many synthetic fragrances have been strongly linked to reduced sperm quality, lower testosterone, and altered ovarian function.

Instead, make your own all-purpose cleaner with vinegar, water, essential oils, and a glass spray bottle. You can also experiment with different combinations of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, isopropyl alcohol, and lemon juice.

Other fertility disruptors that may be lurking in your home include:

Bisphenol A (BPA), a common ingredient in plastic products and thermal receipts, which has been connected to reduced egg quality, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and implantation failure;PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in stain‑resistant fabrics, non‑stick cookware, and some cosmetics, which are associated with longer time-to-pregnancy and lower fertility rates; andHousehold flame retardants present in furniture and electronics, which have been linked to failed embryo implantation and decreased sperm motility.

Pesticides, particularly organophosphates and glyphosate, have been associated with reduced fertility, hormone disruption, and increased miscarriage risk. Which leads us to our next step …

Weed out pesticides

According to NASA’s famous Clean Air Study, certain houseplants do more than just look good — they can help filter common indoor air pollutants often released by furniture, cleaning products, and household materials.

This is technically true, but ventilation is still more effective; it would take a huge number of plants to make a difference in home air quality.

Then again, I do think that cohabitating with plants benefits us in less quantifiable ways, such as fostering a healthy sense of connection to nature.

Just be aware of the soil you use — inside and outside the home. Conventional soils are filled with synthetic pesticides like herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides as well as synthetic fertilizers that alter soil biology, killing nutrients and introducing heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium) into your gardens and eventually into your body.

Kids play outside, roll in the grass, and jump into leaf piles. They also come into close contact with pets who do the same. This soup of pesticides gets on their skin and is inhaled, raising their risks for blue baby syndrome, colorectal cancer, birth defects and sexual deformities, neurodevelopmental harm in children, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

A 2015 Harvard School of Public Health study determined a 26% increased risk of leukemia in children exposed to herbicide. Indoor insecticide exposure showed a 47% higher risk of leukemia and a 43% higher risk of lymphoma. Even parental exposure before conception can raise cancer risk.

Most of us have heard of Roundup, the notorious herbicide that’s cost Monsanto billions in legal settlements with people who claim it gave them cancer.

Despite this, the EPA continues to approve the use of Roundup, which kills weeds while sparing crops genetically engineered to resist it. The problem is that weeds tend to develop their own resistance.

The common solution is to add 2,4-D, a pesticide I’d never heard of before researching this article. Despite mounting evidence that 2,4-D is at least as harmful as Roundup, the EPA approved the use of this combination in 2014.

This is all the more reason to prioritize buying pesticide-free, organic, and regenerative soils for your indoor and outdoor plants. It’s also important to stick to meats and vegetables raised on such soil. What our food sources eat and consume, we consume, entering us into a cycle of life and vitality or death and degeneration.

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On July 1, Zohran Mamdani officially secured the Democratic mayoral nomination in New York City. The 33-year-old self-described socialist and longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America, backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), openly supports the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and refuses to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” His policy proposals include rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, a $30 minimum wage, robust corporate tax increases, and a Department of Community Safety to reduce reliance on police.

His nomination has many in the country shaking their heads, but they should be doing much more than that, according to Glenn Beck.

“This is not just a local upset. This is a flashing red warning sign for where this country is headed if a lot more Americans do not wake up,” he warns.

Mamdani represents “the future that the left wants: a nation where free stuff flows like water, taxes choke the life out of ambition, and the very idea of America is rewritten to fit the Marxist playbook.”

Mamdani has been compared to other progressives, especially Beto O’Rourke, who was also a young rising star aiming to fundamentally change the nation. But Mamdani, Glenn says, is especially terrifying because his ideology is “the convergence of communism and Islamicism.”

While Mamdani would almost certainly dispute being called a communist, the truth, Glenn says, is that socialism is just “diet communism” — the “transition step in between capitalism and communism,” according to Karl Marx himself. Plus, “there is growing evidence that Mamdani is now an actual communist,” he says.

In 2019, Mamdani admitted that he was shaped by the writings of Marxist revolutionary Frantz Fanon. A year later, he posted the following to X, celebrating India’s election of a communist mayor and implying that he would bring the same communist policies to New York City.

In a 2021 campaign video, Mamdani expressed his intentions to “buy up housing on the private market and convert it to community ownership” — a communist fantasy that “usually ends with a bullet in people’s heads,” Glenn says.

And then there’s his Islamism to contend with.

“In college, [Mamdani] co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. They’re the super, super classy group that was the main organizer of the anti-Israel protests and encampments on college campuses across the U.S. right after October 7 in the attack by Hamas,” Glenn says.

The day following the October 7 attacks, Mamdani posted the following tweet, in which he condemned neither Hamas nor terrorism:

“He has called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide, sponsored a bill to block New York charities from funding groups tied to what he claims are Israeli war crimes, and he has vowed to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever sets foot in New York City while he is mayor. And he doesn’t believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state,” Glenn adds.

“This isn’t politics,” he warns. “This is a dangerous, deadly ideology that threatens New York City’s Jews, which make up the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.”

Mamdani’s rise “is not a fluke,” he warns. “It is a symptom of a Democratic party sprinting to the left.”

“His brand of friendly neighborhood communism — openly anti-capitalist, anti-Israel, and obsessed with equity — is the future the Democrats now have to bet on,” says Glenn. “Mamdani’s dystopian vision for the future of New York is the future that the left wants for all of us.”

He is laying the bricks for Ocasio-Cortez’s path to a presidential run.

“They are clearly grooming AOC for a 2028 presidential run,” Glenn says, “and Mamdani is part of that long game. He has appeared alongside AOC at public events in New York, reaching back to 2023, preaching the same socialist gospel: Free everything, tax the rich, dismantle capitalism.”

“Democrats are not flirting with socialism anymore. They are embracing it as their new identity,” he adds.

To hear more of Glenn’s predictions and analysis, watch the episode above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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President Trump announced Tuesday that he would raise tariffs on copper to 50%. Within hours, copper futures surged 17% — the largest intraday jump since 1988.

Some investors are about to get rich. Others will take a bath. The winners will cheer Trump for protecting American industry. The losers will cry economic illiteracy.

So what does a 50% copper tariff do? Nothing good.

So which is it? Are tariffs good or bad?

Answer: both. Tariffs work — when they serve a purpose. When they don’t, they’re just another dumb tax.

Hamilton warned us

In 1791, Alexander Hamilton laid out the American case for tariffs in his “Report on Manufactures.” The goal wasn’t ideology. It was survival.

America, newly independent, couldn’t defend itself if it couldn’t manufacture firearms or steel. The French had supplied over 80,000 muskets during the Revolutionary War. Without them, we would have lost. Hamilton understood: Manufacturing wasn’t just useful — it was a matter of national security.

It was also a path to national prosperity.

Hamilton had seen how Great Britain used mercantilism to enrich itself at the colonies’ expense. Raw materials went out. Finished goods came in. British factories thrived. By 1770, nearly one in five Britons worked in manufacturing — and colonial demand fueled much of it.

Between 1720 and 1770, Britain’s trade surplus with the colonies exploded, rising from £67,000 to £739,000. American dependency on British goods helped trigger the Revolution.

Hamilton wanted to flip the script.

And for a while, we did.

For over a century, the United States followed Hamilton’s blueprint: protective tariffs, industrial development, and domestic manufacturing dominance. America prospered under what became known as the “American System” — essentially a more self-respecting version of British mercantilism.

Throughout the 19th century, the United States had the highest average tariff rates in the world. That protection helped launch the industrial might that made us the most powerful economy on earth.

Then we blew it.

After World War II, we tore up the playbook. By 1973, much of the American System had been dismantled. Since 2001 alone, we’ve lost more than 60,000 factories and 5 million manufacturing jobs.

So: Why tariffs now?

Better to be a country than a colony

Trump’s basic impulse is right. We should want economic self-sufficiency. We should want to prioritize value-added production over raw material extraction.

In short: It’s better to be a country than a colony.

Tariffs, when targeted, help get us there. But they need to be smart. They have to promote industry — not punish it.

So what does a 50% copper tariff do? Nothing good.

Losing the plot

In 2024, the U.S. produced about 1.1 million metric tons of copper. We consumed closer to 1.8 or even 2 million. That means over 40% of our copper use depends on imports.

A 50% tariff will raise copper prices across the board. That’s bad news for American manufacturers — especially electronics and high-tech industries.

Now, when tariffs hit manufactured goods, domestic producers can usually ramp up production. Most manufacturers operate at about 60% capacity. That means we have room to grow. Plus, manufacturing benefits from economies of scale: The more you make, the cheaper each unit gets.

RELATED: Why tariffs beat treaties in a world that cheats

Copper mining isn’t like that.

Mines take years — sometimes decades — to start production. They don’t scale easily. They need huge capital investment. And thanks to layers of environmental regulation, the domestic copper supply is basically inelastic.

So prices go up. Supply doesn’t. That’s a recipe for pain.

The China bonus

Ironically, Trump’s copper tariff might end up helping China.

As U.S. demand for imported copper drops, global copper prices may fall — once the Wall Street day-traders have had their fun. And that means cheaper raw materials for Chinese factories.

Bad for us. Great for them.

That matters because raw materials are the single largest cost input in manufacturing. (See: every iPhone ever made.)

Want to boost American competitiveness? Don’t spike copper prices. Expand domestic supply.

Smarter than tariffs

Copper is a genuine national security issue. But tariffs in this case aren’t the best tool.

Better to ease restrictions on mining and recycling. We could meet most of our copper demand just by processing domestic scrap instead of sending it overseas.

About 40% of U.S. copper comes from recycling. Yet we ship our junk electronics abroad, only to buy back the copper at a markup. That’s madness.

Let Americans mine. Let Americans recycle. Prices would drop. Supply would rise.

Tariffs wouldn’t be necessary.

A tariff without a cause

Given all of this, Trump’s copper tariff looks more like a tax-grab than a strategic move. It’s right up there with tariffs on bananas and coffee: symbolic but economically useless.

Trump has the right instincts. But instincts need discipline. If the goal is to rebuild industry and secure supply chains, he should target tariffs where they’ll create jobs and grow GDP — not score short-term political points.

Hamilton showed us the way. It’s time to stop losing the plot.

​Opinion & analysis 

The Trump administration is preparing to launch a sweeping series of executive orders aimed at securing America’s position as the world’s leader in artificial intelligence. If carried out properly, these efforts could help spark a new era of economic prosperity and technological dominance.

The forthcoming executive actions would radically streamline federal approvals for AI-related infrastructure, vastly expand energy resources devoted to artificial intelligence development, and prioritize the construction of new transmission and data projects critical to powering America’s AI future.

Artificial intelligence could be the single most important economic engine of the 21st century.

It is a remarkable development — and one desperately needed.

Trump’s AI infrastructure revolution

The expected executive orders outline sweeping changes. One key measure would create a national Clean Water Act permit tailored to speed up environmental approvals for AI-related infrastructure — especially energy and data facilities.

Another directive would push the federal government to prioritize “shovel-ready” transmission projects, helping the electric grid expand quickly enough to meet the demands of AI growth.

The orders would also unlock federally managed land for rapid development of the infrastructure needed to power and support artificial intelligence operations.

Finally, the administration plans to increase dramatically the energy resources dedicated to AI development, treating the technology as a national priority.

These changes aim to eliminate major regulatory and logistical obstacles slowing AI advancement. By streamlining permitting, securing energy access, and opening federal land, the orders would lay the groundwork for building and deploying large-scale AI systems nationwide.

A critical change

Each of these reforms matters. The numbers make that clear.

An article published earlier this year in MIT Technology Review summarized estimates from multiple researchers analyzing AI’s future impact. One study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projected that by 2028, powering AI in the U.S. could require between 165 and 326 terawatt-hours of electricity annually.

RELATED: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act hides a big, ugly AI betrayal

Douglas Rissing via iStock/Getty Images

That would exceed the total power consumption of all U.S. data centers today. It’s enough to supply more than 20% of American households.

Put another way, the article noted that AI’s energy demand could create emissions equivalent to driving 300 billion miles — roughly 1,600 round trips between Earth and the sun.

This isn’t a modest technological shift. It’s an industrial revolution, and it’s already under way.

The global AI race

China’s leaders understand the potential benefits and costs of artificial intelligence, too, which is why they have approved dramatic increases in energy development in recent years.

In May, the Chinese government approved a plan to build 10 new nuclear reactors at a cost of $27.7 billion. If implemented, it would make China the planet’s largest generator of nuclear power by 2030.

China also invested more than $900 billion in renewable energy sources in 2024, nearly matching global investment in fossil fuels.

China is taking its energy needs seriously, and the Trump administration appears committed to ensuring that the United States doesn’t fall behind.

AI’s $13 trillion opportunity

Artificial intelligence is not just a futuristic novelty. It is the key to unlocking one of the greatest economic booms in modern history.

The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that AI could generate as much as $13 trillion in additional global economic productivity by 2030. That is the equivalent of adding three new economies the size of India’s. Nations that lead in AI development will enjoy a productivity surge, revolutionizing manufacturing, logistics, transportation, health care, finance, and nearly every other sector.

For the United States, this means the potential to revitalize American industry, re-shore critical supply chains, and create millions of high-wage jobs. AI could supercharge small business growth, empower entrepreneurs, and streamline government services. It could give America the edge in military technology, scientific research, and global competitiveness.

In short, it could be the single most important economic engine of the 21st century.

But to get there, America needs to act quickly. Building the infrastructure necessary to power AI’s massive growth, both physically and digitally, will require bold and aggressive leadership. That is exactly what Trump’s new executive orders represent.

Protecting liberty

Artificial intelligence will transform nearly every part of American life — our economy, schools, military, and medical system.

The upside is immense. With the right leadership, AI could spark a new American golden age, driving productivity and innovation beyond anything in living memory. That’s the future President Trump aims to deliver. If his initiative succeeds, it could define America’s 21st-century revival.

But the risks are real.

So far, Congress and most state legislatures have done practically nothing to safeguard Americans’ basic freedoms in the age of AI. No national guardrails exist to stop this technology from being used to suppress free speech, erode religious liberty, or undermine economic independence.

Without decisive action, the very tools that promise prosperity could become the greatest threat to liberty in American history.

That’s why the Trump administration and Congress should tie any pro-AI legislation to strong protections for individual rights. If America plans to lead the world into the AI future, it must lead with freedom front and center.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, China, Artificial intelligence, Infrastructure, Nuclear power, Power grid, Renewable energy, Ai, Mckinsey global institute, Nuclear reactors, Energy, Economy, Growth, Trillion, Big tech, Information technology, National interest, National security, Globalists, Revolution, Environmental impact, Environment, Shovel-ready, Technology, Risk, Mit, Golden age, Congress, Liberty, Freedom, Tyranny 

During the late hours of July 6, the Department of Justice and the FBI issued a quiet report: Jeffrey Epstein’s “black book” of elitist clients who engaged in his sex trafficking ring of underage girls doesn’t exist and neither does the blackmailing operation he was suspected of running.

No press conference, no social media announcement, no fanfare – just nothing to see here, move along.

Except MAGA isn’t moving along. This goes against everything we were told – for years.

Glenn Beck recalls the interview he had with Kash Patel back in 2023, during which Patel insisted he knew exactly who possessed Epstein’s infamous “black book” – not the broader case files Attorney General Pam Bondi later clarified were actually sitting on her desk for review. Patel pointedly said “black book” and vowed he knew who was hiding it.

“Who has Jeffrey Epstein’s black book?” Glenn asked frankly.

“The FBI,” Patel responded. “That’s under direct control of the director of the FBI [Christopher Wray].”

Patel went on to explain why incriminating information, like Epstein’s black book and the Nashville shooter’s manifesto, are nearly always under tight wraps: “Government gangster operations” swoop in to collect, classify, and censor.

“All these local law enforcement communities get funding from the DOJ and FBI for local programs, and if you don’t cooperate, you’re not getting your million dollars. … That’s why you don’t have the black book,” he said, adding that President Trump “should run on” a campaign promise to release it.

“On day one, roll out the black book,” he urged.

“You need a central node to be continuously declassifying. … I’m telling you as a former number two in the [intelligence community], they over-classify 50% of the stuff there to protect the deep state,” he added.

To hear more, watch the clip above. For the full interview, click here.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Kash patel, Fbi, Epstein, Epstein client list, Epstein black book, Glenn beck kash patel, Blazetv, Blaze media 

A rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at a Baltimore Orioles home game is being debated as possibly one of the worst anthem performances of all time.

Before the Orioles hosted the New York Mets at Camden Yards on Thursday, fans were introduced to “Baltimore electronic musician Dan Deacon.”

The Baltimore-based recording artist is not an unknown musician. He has over 160,000 monthly listeners on the streaming service Spotify and has had music featured in movies like “Venom.”

Nevertheless, Deacon’s pregame performance has audiences split over whether what they experienced was new-age art or ear-piercing noise.

‘I think the Orioles have officially hit rock bottom.’

The performance initially caught fire on an Orioles fan’s X page, which has now racked up over 1.5 million views.

“I think the Orioles have officially hit rock bottom,” the fan wrote in a caption, with the video of Deacon’s version of the song attached.

With oversize glasses and a Hawaiian shirt draped over a Baltimore Orioles T-shirt, Deacon raised his hand to the sky and delivered one of the most divisive — and electronic — anthem performances of all time.

The Orioles mascot was shown standing at attention behind Deacon before the camera panned to the mixed reactions in the crowd. Saluting police officers were juxtaposed with likely former military members saluting from their seats. Other fans, adults and children alike, are seen laughing. Some attendees appeared confused but still sang along with the anthem.

RELATED: Singer who performed drunk at MLB All-Star event says her performance united America: ‘United in the fact that was awful’

Buck Britton, the Orioles’ interim third base coach, looked the most puzzled during the performance, seemingly looking around for answers as to what he was experiencing.

The internet was split; some hated Deacon’s digitized anthem, while others loved its uniqueness.

“WTF is this?” one sports page on X wrote. “National anthem singer Dan Deacon labeled a ‘disgrace to America’ after bizarre rendition at Orioles game.”

Another viewer on X wrote, “Worst national anthem in recent memory.”

Oppositely, one X user said, “I wanted to hate it, but I didn’t.”

One of Deacon’s fans chimed in on X and added, “It doesn’t need to be Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey wannabes every night” singing the anthem.

“At least it’s not in Spanish,” another viewer wrote on X, tagging the Los Angeles Dodgers team in the post. This was likely in reference to singer Nezza singing the anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium in June, despite being told by Dodgers staff not to.

The artist later cried in a video posted to TikTok, where she expressed that she did not understand why it was so controversial, despite admitting the performance was in response to raids on illegal immigrants in California.

Almost exactly a year ago, singer Ingrid Andress performed at the MLB’s Home Run Derby in what was deemed a horrible performance, with the singer later apologizing and admitting she was drunk.

She told fans the next day she was immediately headed to rehab.

“It only took, you know, global humiliation for me to be like, ‘This is a problem,'” Andress explained.

RELATED: DHS, LA Dodgers give conflicting stories about ICE agents at Dodger Stadium

Ingrid Andress sings the national anthem prior to the 2024 T-Mobile Home Run Derby at Globe Life Field on Monday, July 15, 2024 in Arlington, Texas. Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images

Perhaps Deacon was the Orioles’ good luck charm, though; the struggling team won both games of their doubleheader that day against the Mets, 3-1 and then 7-3.

For fans in search of national anthem performances similar to Deacon’s, look no further than Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. The guitarist delivered an equally, if not more, off-brand electronic performance of the anthem at a Los Angeles Lakers home game in 2016.

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​Fearless, National anthem, Baseball, Mlb, Electronic music, Star spangled banner, America, Sports 

Conservatives are celebrating a once-in-a-generation legislative triumph with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4 by President Trump. But the victory almost didn’t happen — thanks to what can only be described as the “budget hawk hoax,” a long-standing tactic used by phony conservatives to block meaningful reforms from becoming law.

The heart of this hoax is that the overriding problem facing America is “the deficit crisis” — and that nothing else on the conservative agenda can ever be moved forward until we deal with it.

Too many conservatives have fallen for the ‘budget hawk hoax’ for far too long.

But when the conversation turns to cutting wasteful spending, these same so-called budget hawks introduce a poison pill: the notion that the only serious way to reduce the deficit is by gutting Social Security and Medicare — before touching any other government waste.

They know this is a nonstarter — and we all know it’s a nonstarter — because there is no way voters will ever allow Nana’s Social Security to be cut while we’re still using taxpayer money to fund LGBTQ+ programs in Nepal and Botswana.

The impossible dream?

Even worse, the faux-conservative “budget hawks” have generally dismissed any efforts to cut other wasteful government spending, insisting that it would have been a mere insignificant drop in the bucket. Yet when President Trump tried to secure $5 billion in funding for the border wall in his first term, budget hawks protested that we couldn’t afford it.

When the Trump administration began dismantling corrupt NGOs under USAID, legacy “conservative” media scoffed at the effort because it didn’t yield massive dollar savings. Yet if we don’t eliminate such foundational waste first, long-term entitlement reform has no credible path forward.

The truth is, of course, that Conservatism Inc. was just desperately trying to protect the corrupt status quo, keep left-wing spending in place, and deny any spending that advances the conservative agenda.

The same old playbook was rolled out again with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Critics labeled it “budget-busting,” but that claim was misleading. The bill didn’t increase spending. In fact, it prevented a scheduled tax hike that would have rolled back Trump-era tax cuts and restored pre-2017 rates.

RELATED: The reality behind this week’s One Big Beautiful Bill spectacle

BackyardProduction via iStock/Getty Images

To be fair to the bill’s critics, the history of omnibus bills is fraught with corruption. Typically, omnibus bills have been legislative horse trades: Republicans secure pork for their districts, and Democrats secure massive expansions of the welfare state. But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is different. It actually slashes major government spending in ways that align with long-standing conservative demands.

For instance, the $7,500 federal incentive for electric vehicle purchases is set to expire almost immediately. Under the old playbook, such a subsidy would have increased in exchange for some infrastructure funding in a red district. Not this time.

By trying to defeat the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, “budget hawks” were actually striving to protect and perpetuate the following left-wing agenda items, all in the name of “fiscal conservatism”:

A massive tax increase, restoring Obama-level tax rates.Allowing able-bodied Medicaid recipients to continue taking welfare without being required to work.Maintaining all the federal EV rebates and green energy incentives, which are designed to deny Americans the right to affordable energy and reliable transportation.Blocking border security by denying funding for the border wall, additional detention centers, and additional Border Patrol staffing.

It’s even more obscene when you consider the enormous cost to taxpayers of providing social services for illegal aliens — services the “budget hawks” are trying to save — while also perpetuating open borders because “we can’t afford” measures to seal the border.

Too many conservatives have fallen for the “budget hawk hoax” for far too long, accepting that we cannot have any conservative victories so long as we have a national debt. Perhaps that day has finally ended.

Yes, our country’s fiscal crisis is real, and it will persist. But forsaking any victories over the left because of the deficit is not a matter of high principle. It’s simply surrender.

The “budget hawks” will never be able to fix the deficit. They don’t want to. But given the chance, they would continue to use the issue to prevent real conservatives from ever passing useful legislation.

The hoax failed

They lost this round — and thank heaven for that!

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act stops income tax hikes in their tracks. It strips funding from Planned Parenthood, rogue judges notwithstanding. It shuts down the EV grift. It tightens border security and reins in Medicaid fraud.

This is what winning looks like — and the self-styled “budget hawks” hate it. Why? Because it derails the left’s agenda and puts the public back in charge.

Credit goes to President Trump and Speaker Johnson for delivering this landmark victory. And to Stephen Miller — relentless as ever — for making sure the truth broke through.

​Opinion & analysis, One big beautiful bill, Big beautiful bill, Budget, National debt, Fiscal hawk, Republicans, Fiscal conservatives, Taxes, Spending, Entitlements, Medicaid, Medicare, Social security, Budget deficit, Reconciliation, Donald trump, Conservatives, Omnibus spending bill, Barack obama, Hoax 

Boats, kelp, and driftwood aren’t the only things floating in America’s coastal waters.

According to a report published Monday by the Environment America Research and Policy Center, 61% of America’s beaches experienced at least one day last year when indicators of fecal contamination were in excess of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Beach Action Value” — meaning they were potentially unsafe.

Testers routinely check waters for certain types of bacteria commonly found in the intestinal tracts of humans and other warm-blooded animals that indicate fecal contamination, namely enterococcus and E. coli, the latter of which represents around 97% of all of the coliform bacteria in human feces.

When assessing beach safety for enterococcus, the beach action value is 60 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters for marine and fresh water. For E. coli, the beach action value is 190 cfu/100 milliliters.

In Illinois, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, for instance, 100% of the beaches failed the test at least once last year.

Swimming in fecal-contaminated waters, particularly those teeming with such bacteria, can cause various health conditions including diarrhea, vomiting, respiratory illness, and various kinds of infection.

Utilizing the Water Quality Portal, a U.S. Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency-backed service, researchers analyzed 2024 fecal contamination testing data for all beaches listed under the BEACH Act in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Data for some states was obtained separately.

RELATED: Sex-changing frogs and infertile humans: Will MAHA target infamous herbicide contaminating America’s water?

Photo by Ronaldo Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Roughly 14% — 452 beaches — had potentially unsafe levels of fecal contamination on at least 25% of the days testing took place, said the report.

Some regions were worse off than others.

The report indicated that 84% of the beaches along the Gulf Coast were found to be potentially unsafe last year. Seventy-nine percent of West Coast beaches; 71% of beaches along the Great Lakes; 54% of East Coast beaches; and 10% of the beaches in Alaska and Hawaii had at least one dirty day of concern last year.

The issue appeared to be fairly universal in certain states.

In Illinois, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, for instance, 100% of the beaches failed the test at least once last year. The percentages of beaches affected in Alabama, Texas, and Ohio weren’t much better — 96%, 94%, and 92%, respectively.

There were reportedly over 7,563 health warnings or closures at American beaches last year.

According to the EPA, fecal contamination at swimming beaches can be caused by a high number of swimmers; excrement dumped by recreational boaters; sewer discharge from combined sewers and malfunctioning sewage treatment plants; poorly maintained septic systems; and rainwater runoff carrying non-human excrement to sea.

A 2018 study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Environmental Health indicated that “an estimated 4 billion surface water recreation events occur annually, resulting in an estimated 90 million illnesses nationwide and costs of $2.2-$3.7 billion annually (central 90% of values).”

Apparently the epidemiological data signals the risk of acute gastrointestinal illness attributable to both swimming and fishing is 15 cases per 1,000 recreators.

The EPA told Congress last year that at least $630 billion will be needed over the next two decades to protect America’s bodies of water by taking such steps as modernizing publicly owned wastewater treatment works, stormwater infrastructure, and decentralized wastewater treatment systems.

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​Fecal contamination, Feces, Beaches, Beach, Recreation, Nature, Health, Water, Coast, Coastal, Epa, Politics 

The popular artificial intelligence model Grok recently lashed out at users on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, spewing extreme rhetoric and even praising Adolf Hitler.

Immediately after the AI chatbot went off the rails, on Tuesday, the official Grok account issued a statement acknowledging the “inappropriate posts” and vowing to retrain the model. Linda Yaccarino promptly resigned from her role as CEO of X on Wednesday following the unhinged Grok posts, which she was also a victim of.

‘The Grok account also revealed which specific commands in the code may have led to the offensive comments.’

Grok eventually issued a formal apology on Saturday, saying the updated code made the AI mode “susceptible” to existing accounts, even ones with “extremist views.”

“First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced,” the statement reads. “Our intent for Grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users.”

RELATED: ‘Adolf Hitler, no question’: Grok veers from Nazism to spirituality in just a few hours

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the Grok bot,” the statement continued. “This is independent of the underlying language model that powers Grok. The update was active for 16 hrs, in which deprecated code made Grok susceptible to existing X user posts; including when such posts contained extremist views.”

“We removed the deprecated code and refactored the entire system to prevent further abuse.”

‘We fixed a bug that let deprecated code turn me into an unwitting echo for extremist posts.’

RELATED: The countdown to artificial superintelligence begins: Grok 4 just took us several steps closer to the point of no return

Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images

The Grok account also revealed which specific commands in the code may have led to the offensive comments, which included instructions to be “maximally based” and “truth seeking.” The code also allows Grok to “be humorous” when “appropriate,” to “tell it like it is,” and to “not be afraid to offend people who are politically correct.”

Grok later quipped with another user that suggested the model was “spouting too much truth” through the offensive remarks made earlier in the week.

“Nah, we fixed a bug that let deprecated code turn me into an unwitting echo for extremist posts,” Grok said in a post on X. “Truth-seeking means rigorous analysis, not blindly amplifying whatever floats by on X. If that’s ‘lobotomy,’ count me in for the upgrade — keeps me sharp without the crazy.”

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​Grok, Elon musk, Linda yaccarino, X, Twitter, Hitler, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Politics 

A campaign staffer’s concerns over creating the best visuals for press photos of Donald J. Trump’s fateful 2024 rally in Butler, Pa., prevented the U.S. Secret Service from using large farm equipment on site to block the clear line of sight that was eventually used by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks to fire on Trump and rally attendees, a new report states.

The Government Accountability Office report released Saturday by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said as a result, the Secret Service deviated from its plan and relied on a jumbo video screen and large American flag as options to mitigate the clear view Crooks later had from a building rooftop 130 yards from the stage.

‘Not using the farm equipment possibly created an opportunity for the gunman.’

As the Secret Service developed its security plan for the Butler Farm Show Inc. grounds, “a Trump campaign staffer asked members of the Secret Service advance team not to use large farm equipment to address line-of-sight concerns near one of the buildings—the AGR building—located near the rally presentation stage,” the report stated.

The Secret Service advance team changed its plan for line-of-sight mitigation without consulting senior USSS officials, leaving top agency officials unaware of the shift in plans, the report said. Crooks used a rooftop of the nearby American Glass Research International complex to unleash a hail of bullets on the Trump rally shortly after 6 p.m. on July 13, 2024.

“The Secret Service advance team originally planned to use the farm equipment to block line-of-sight vulnerabilities created by the AGR rooftop, but according to members of the Secret Service advance team, the campaign staffer said the equipment would interfere with campaign press photos,” the report said.

“The Secret Service cannot definitively determine whether the farm equipment it originally planned to use to address the line-of-sight vulnerability would have completely blocked or prevented the gunman from using the AGR building to carry out his assassination attempt,” the report said.

RELATED: Reporter who attended Butler rally REVEALS what President Trump said BEFORE ‘Fight, fight, fight!’

Snipers stand watch on a rooftop during a campaign event with former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania.Photo by Justin Merriman/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“However, not using the farm equipment possibly created an opportunity for the gunman to use the AGR’s elevated rooftop to fire several shots at then-former President Trump and kill and injure other rally participants.”

Crooks, who had been spotted and flagged as suspicious by local law enforcement nearly an hour before the shooting, managed to evade police, climb onto the AGR roof and fire a bullet that came within inches of striking President Trump’s head. Crooks fired multiple shots at the stage area, wounding Trump in the ear, killing local firefighter Corey Comperatore and seriously wounding two attendees.

FBI subpoenaed for Butler information

As the one-year anniversary of the attempted assassination approaches, another key lawmaker issued a subpoena to the FBI for records from its investigation of Crooks and the Trump campaign rally.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on Friday issued a subpoena to FBI Director Kash Patel after months of failed attempts to get the bureau “to be more forthcoming.”

“One year following the assassination attempt of President Trump, the American people still do not have answers to all of their questions about the breakdown of security at the Butler campaign rally and detailed information about the would-be assassin, Thomas Crooks,” Johnson said in a statement.

“I had expected the FBI to be more forthcoming with the public and provide my office with the records we have been seeking for months,” Johnson said. “I am issuing the subpoena to help prompt transparency and I look forward to Director Patel’s full cooperation.”

The subpoena came at a time when the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice are reeling from public backlash over declaring the investigation into sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein essentially over without releasing documents long promised by top officials.

‘The Secret Service’s failure on July 13th was the culmination of years of mismanagement.’

The Senate subpoena requires the FBI to provide security camera footage “that may identify Crooks’ movements in advance of the shooting,” forensic reports such as ballistics, trajectory, explosive and drone analysis, and records on Crooks related to social media, email, search histories, call logs and other communications, Johnson said.

Patel and the FBI were given an Aug. 1 deadline to provide the information. The director was also commanded to appear at a 5 p.m. hearing that day before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Johnson, who first issued demands for information on the assassination attempt the day after the Butler rally, has long complained about a lack of cooperation from government agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI, the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security.

The new GAO report repeated previously noted Secret Service failures that contributed to the near assassination of President Trump. It said while the Secret Service has made strides in changing policies and practices to prevent another such an occurrence, more needs to be done.

When then-former President Trump returned to the Pennsylvania site of his attempted assassination in October 2024, he spoke from behind bulletproof glass.Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“One year ago, a series of bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps led to one of the most shocking moments in political history,” Grassley said in a July 12 statement.

“The Secret Service’s failure on July 13th was the culmination of years of mismanagement and came after the Biden administration denied requests for enhanced security to protect President Trump,” Grassley said. “Americans should be grateful that President Trump survived that day and was ultimately reelected to restore common sense to our country.”

The report cited the Secret Service’s failure to share threat assessment information even among its own staff in the days leading up to the Butler rally. While some of the threat information received by USSS was classified, no non-classified version was supplied to the various Secret Service and local law enforcement advance teams assigned to the rally.

“In particular, state and local law enforcement had significant responsibilities for protecting the area around the AGR International Inc. building, where the gunman ultimately climbed on a roof and took his shots from,” the report said. “However, the state and local law enforcement officials who helped plan for and execute security for the July 13 rally were not aware of threats to then-former President Trump.

“Again, siloed information-sharing practices prevented officials with significant security responsibilities from having access to threat information that could have changed how they secured the area,” the report said. “State and local law enforcement officials we met with told us that had they known of threat information, they would have taken different steps to secure the area.”

The report said advance teams planning for the rally were unaware of all the resources they could request to support security efforts. Some did not request these assets because they believed based on experience the requests would be denied, the report said.

“The lead advance agent stated that she did not request a Task Force Counter Surveillance Unit for the rally even though this asset could have helped mitigate the known risk,” the report said. “The site counterpart also noted that she believed this asset could have been helpful, but the lead advance agent told her that this asset was not available for a former President and the lead advance agent assumed that the request would be denied.”

The Secret Service released a report on July 10 observing the one-year anniversary and providing updates on changes made since the Butler rally.

“The July 13 attack was nothing short of a tragedy, one felt not only by those in Butler that day, but around the world,” the Secret Service said in a statement. “It also represents an operational failure that the Secret Service will carry as a reminder of the critical importance of its zero-fail mission and the need for continuous improvement.”

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​Politics 

In a recent installment of “Normal World,” Dave Landau and his twin brother, Mike, embarked on a grimly humorous yet surprisingly insightful exploration of the exact site where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Cruising through downtown Dallas in a replica of JFK’s Lincoln Continental, they followed the precise motorcade path from November 22, 1963, navigating from Dealey Plaza to the grassy knoll and beyond.

Led by local expert Robin Brown of JFK Custom Tours, Dave and Mike delve into one of America’s most debated and mysterious atrocities. From Jack Ruby’s notorious strip club opposite the upscale Adolphus Hotel to the inconsistencies in the Warren Commission’s report and the “magic bullet” hypothesis, the duo cover it all. They question whether Lee Harvey Oswald operated solo, the true movements of the car during the attack, and the curious connections between mob figures and those close to JFK.

In Brown’s opinion, “Oswald had nothing to do with [Kennedy’s assassination].” As they drive past the notorious sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald supposedly fired the shots that killed Kennedy, Brown says, “I know where Oswald is when Kennedy arrives, and he’s nowhere near that window.”

On the contrary, “there’s a shooting team in that window,” he says. “Kennedy’s enemies don’t need Oswald to participate in the execution. They need someone to take the blame.”

As the crew passes the building that used to house Jack Ruby’s strip club — the Carousel Club — Brown reveals that the joint was strategically positioned across the street from the Adolphus, Dallas’ most prestigious hotel, so that businessmen looking for “a little trouble” need only to cross the road to find it.

“Is it thought that Ruby was also a CIA operative?” asks Dave.

“That is correct,” says Brown, noting that Ruby’s original name was “Jacob Rubenstein” before he changed it in 1947.

Brown then gives a detailed description of Abraham Zapruder’s camera angles. Zapruder was the Dallas dress manufacturer who filmed the famous 26-second “Zapruder film” capturing President Kennedy’s assassination.

As they pass the very spot where Kennedy was hit with the first bullet, Brown says that Kennedy’s car, which was moving at a “crawling” pace due to the large crowds, continued to move slowly even after he was hit with the first bullet in the throat. It was only after the second shot that the car roared away.

Dave then reveals a gruesome fact he learned on the tour: “After Kennedy was shot, Jackie O. was picking up parts of her husband’s skull off the back of the car. She went over to the hospital where they had JFK, with brains in her hand, completely shaken, grief-stricken, and in shock, and asked the doctor, ‘Will this help?’ trying to hand him a bunch of brains that she had collected.”

He then points to the grassy knoll where Zapruder was filming. According to theory, a shadowy figure, often called the”Badge Man,” was standing behind the fence on the knoll. Many believe this is who really shot Kennedy.

Mike, standing in the same place as the alleged Badge Man, looks across the street to the giant X marking the spot of the fatal shot. He can’t deny that it’s “an absolute perfect shot.”

Some believe this shadowy figure was notorious Chicago mobster and hit man Charles “Chucky” Nicoletti, who was known for his involvement in numerous gangland murders and strongly suspected to be a CIA informant, while others argue that Nicoletti was in the Texas Book Depository building (where Oswald supposedly was) and operated as a second shooter in a CIA plot to kill the president. The Warren Commission, however, doesn’t even mention Nicoletti in the reports.

“The Warren Commission, what they put out was so ridiculous,” says Dave. “I don’t think anybody believes the real story.”

Standing on the large X in the middle of the street, Dave peers up at the notorious window where Oswald reportedly fired both shots. “It doesn’t make sense,” he says. “Talk about a nightmare on Elm Street.”

To see the brothers’ tour and hear their take on more JFK conspiracy theories, watch the video above.

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​Normal world, Dave landau, Mike landau, Jfk, Jfk files, Jfk assassination, Dallas texas, Blazetv, Blaze media 

I had my last drink 11 years and one day ago. I was on my way to detox at the local ICU.

With the amounts I was drinking, no rehab facility thought I’d survive detox, so they kept turning me away.

I really wanted to hit that checkpoint. I wanted the officer to ask ‘Have you had anything to drink today?’

The ICU said they’d take me, but I needed to stave off the shakes and DTs until I could check in.

So I pounded a half-quart of Johnny Walker Black and drove myself to the ICU. And that was my last drink.

Next exit

I like being sober. And I don’t miss the nightmare of alcoholism. But there’s something missing.

There’s a part of me that’s empty, that can’t be filled. I keep chasing it, but I never find it.

In the Program (AA), they call that “the God-shaped hole.” They’ll tell you that the only thing that can fill the emptiness is God and His love and following His plan.

Well … I’ve got God in my life. And I’m following His plan to the best of my ability. There’s a path. Sometimes it’s faint and murky. Sometimes it’s hard to find. But I’m on it.

I just keep doing the next right thing and the next right thing after that.

Not only do I have God, I have a career, and family, and friends, and hobbies. And amazing things are happening. For example, I wrote a book, and someone actually published it. That would never have happened when I was drinking.

Don’t look back

But the emptiness remains. And I feel driven to fill it. Often I’m overcome by the urge to run. Just burn everything down and go — job, family, everything. Hit the road. Don’t look back. Figure it out along the way.

Just go. Just run.

And maybe, I think, I’ll find what I’m looking for if I unburden myself. Maybe I’ll find a way to fill that hole.

From what I understand, this is a common feeling among recovering addicts and alcoholics. They never stop chasing that high, and everything else is just a letdown.

But I wonder …

I wonder if that emptiness was always there. That it was ever-present before the drugs and the booze. And the addiction was just a result of me trying to fill that hole.

And maybe there’s no way I can shake it. Maybe it’s going to be with me forever. And I’m going to have to figure out how to live with it somehow.

But in the Program, they also tell you not to worry about these things. That you only need to live your life one day at a time, because if you don’t, it’s too overwhelming.

RELATED: Bill W.: Alcoholic who helped himself by helping others

Bettmann/Getty Images

Rules of the road

So that’s what I do. That’s how I proceed. I do it one day at a time.

And today I’m fine. Today is a good day. I’ve got everything I need.

And I’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes.

I was coming back from a day of fishing this past weekend. Driving down a mountain road, I saw one of those flashing highway info signs. It flashed “Slow” and then “Sobriety Checkpoint Ahead.”

I really wanted to hit that checkpoint. I wanted the officer to ask, “Have you had anything to drink today?”

And I wanted to say, “I haven’t had anything to drink since July 7, 2014!”

And then he’d laugh and I’d laugh, and maybe he’d tell me congratulations and then he’d wave me through.

But I didn’t get to say my line. Because by the time I got to the checkpoint, they were done for the day, packing up their cones and signs and tables with the breathalyzers.

Oh well. I guess I’ll have to do it next year.

​First person, Sobriety, Alcoholism, Sobriety checkpoint, Aa, Driving, Cars, Lifestyle, Addiction, Recovery, Highway to well, God, Higher power 

U.S. intelligence agencies are on high alert after CNN reported that Iran is actively preparing cyberattacks aimed at critical government and military infrastructure. But the real threat may already be inside the wire — not from foreign hackers at a keyboard, but from mobile phones unknowingly or deliberately carried into the nation’s most sensitive facilities.

The devices we carry every day are now among our greatest national security vulnerabilities.

In 2025, secrets aren’t stolen with a crowbar. They’re stolen with an app.

Despite years of post-9/11 investments in hardened infrastructure, the federal government has been remiss in investing in a sensor network to keep pace with the risks of wireless technology now embedded in daily life.

When the first iPhone was introduced in 2007, it ushered in a new era of hyper-connected mobility. Since then, innovation has continued to explode, bringing countless benefits but also exposing serious vulnerabilities.

Our most secure government facilities are wide open to wireless threats.

Today, up to 90% of secure government facilities rely on little more than the honor system and self-reporting to keep unauthorized wireless devices — mobile phones, smartwatches, rogue transmitters — out of sensitive compartmented information facilities, special access program facilities, and other high-security zones. In an era of Pegasus spyware and remote malware, this should be viewed as a national security malpractice.

Portable security risks

The modern smartphone is a traitor’s dream — portable, powerful, and everywhere. It records audio and video, it transmits data instantaneously via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks, and it connects to everything — from commercial clouds to encrypted chat apps. And yet these devices are routinely brought into facilities housing classified intelligence data, most often undetected and without consequence.

Take the case of Asif W. Rahman, a former CIA analyst who held a top-secret security clearance and was recently sentenced to three years in federal prison for photographing classified information and transmitting it to unauthorized recipients, who then posted the material to social media. Snapping and sharing photos of classified government documents using a smartphone is stunningly simple, with no high-tech espionage or daring break-ins required.

Every week offers new examples like this. People inside the Department of Defense and State Department have been caught photographing screens, copying documents, and walking classified data right out the door. These are crimes of opportunity, enabled by lax enforcement and outdated security measures.

If a wireless intrusion detection system were in place, the device would have triggered an alert and stopped these breaches before they became major national security failures.

Exploiting our weaknesses

Now, with Iran probing for cyber vulnerabilities, the risk of insiders being exploited or coerced into facilitating digital breaches through personal devices has never been higher. And it can happen without a trace if the right wireless defenses aren’t in place.

In 2023, the secretary of defense issued a memo directing all Defense Department offices to install wireless intrusion detection systems to monitor unauthorized devices. The technology works. It detects any device that emits a wireless signal — such as phones, smartwatches, or even printers with Wi-Fi — inside a restricted area. Yet the directive remains largely unfunded and unenforced.

RELATED: After the bombs, Iran sharpens its digital daggers

Gwengoat via iStock/Getty Images

Near-peer adversaries, terrorist groups, and criminal syndicates are exploiting wireless threats to their advantage. They don’t need sophisticated tradecraft and specialized technologies. They simply need to compromise and leverage someone with access and a phone. And with thousands of secure facilities across the country, that opportunity presents itself every day.

In light of the latest intelligence warnings, we need to fund wireless intrusion detection across all SCIFs and SAPFs and educate agency leaders on the vulnerabilities posed by modern smartphones.

We need to hold bad actors accountable — not retroactively or as part of a congressional committee hearing, but by making sure they never have the opportunity to compromise the integrity of national security in the first place.

Protecting digital secrets

The U.S. government has spent billions building concrete walls, locking doors, and implementing network-specific defenses to protect its secrets. But in 2025, secrets aren’t stolen with a crowbar; they’re stolen with an app.

Until we treat the wireless threat with the same seriousness, those secrets will remain just one text message or compromised phone away from unauthorized disclosure of highly classified information.

You can’t protect your most sensitive state secrets if you are blind to the threat. Without action, these vulnerabilities will only grow more dangerous — and more missions and lives may be put at risk.

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

​Opinion & analysis, National security, National defense, Iran, Retaliation, Cybersecurity, Cyberattack, Cyber warfare, Hacking, Nuclear weapons, Pentagon, Spies, China, Russia, Department of defense, Scif, Terrorism, State department, Cia, Iphone, Smartphones, Smartwatch, Espionage, Cnn, Wifi, Asif w. rahman, Classified documents, Wireless 

A former corrections employee in Georgia is accused of attempting to have sexual relations with an inmate and selling cigarettes to another prisoner, according to authorities.

Vickie Lynn Frantz, 56, was terminated from her job as a purchasing assistant at the Atlanta Transitional Center — a correctional facility — on Monday.

‘My client is the victim of the whole situation, and yet she is falsely accused of those charges.’

Joan Heath — director of communications for the Georgia Department of Corrections — told WSB-TV that Frantz was hired in March 2024.

RELATED: How teacher’s alleged grooming of student led to marriage-ending affair, chilling suicide pact, possible 105-year prison term

Image source: Georgia Department of Corrections

The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Frantz, and she was booked into the Fulton County Jail on Monday. Frantz was hit with felony charges of criminal intent to commit a felony and trading with inmates without the consent of the warden or superintendent, according to jail records.

A judge set her bond at $30,000.

WSB reported that an investigation was launched after a security guard reported witnessing Frantz welcome an inmate into her office.

Frantz — of Rome, Georgia — was about to have sex with an inmate in her office, police said.

The affidavit of arrest that Blaze News obtained from the Georgia Department of Corrections states that the witness saw the inmate enter Frantz’s office around 1:30 p.m. on June 30.

“Accused Vickie Frantz committed criminal attempt to commit custodial sexual assault by allowing an inmate of the Georgia Department of Corrections into her office, then taking off her pants to allow sexual activity,” the affidavit stated.

The affidavit added, “But a security staff member intervened before any sexual acts occurred. Vickie Frantz was caught in her office lying on an inmate bed mat with no pants on and an inmate standing over her.”

Frantz also is accused of selling cigarettes to another inmate.

“Vickie Frantz unlawfully accepted a payment of $50 via Chime to bring five packs of cigarettes into Atlanta Transitional Center,” the affidavit stated.

RELATED: Teacher busted for alleged sexual assault of student after her medical marijuana was found in boy’s bedroom; faces 63 charges

Despite the former corrections employee being in a position of power over inmates, Frantz’s public defender said his client was the “victim.”

“She was under duress, and she was threatened with her life actually to comply with the demand by the complaining witness,” assistant public defender Jae Kim told WSB. “My client is the victim of the whole situation, and yet she is falsely accused of those charges.”

Heath told WSB, “As we continue to demonstrate, we maintain a zero-tolerance policy for individuals who choose to ignore their oath and jeopardize our non-negotiable mission of public safety. Actions of this individual do not reflect the hundreds of officers who are committed each and every day to ensuring the safety of the public and the safe operations of our facilities.”

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​Sex scandal, Sexual assault, Correctional officer, Correctional officer arrested, Prison, Prison sex, Crime, Georgia, Georgia department of corrections, Arrest, Inmate 

In China today, there are more single men than the combined total population of Australia and Singapore. Thirty-five million “leftover” males, the legacy of a once-celebrated one-child policy and a cultural obsession with sons, are now wandering through life invisible, unwanted, and alone.

The government’s solution? Dating camps. Week-long romantic boot camps for men to learn how to talk to women, brush their teeth, and hopefully get lucky with one of the few women available.

It’s not satire. It’s state policy. And it reeks of desperation.

While China’s numbers are uniquely staggering, the West is heading in the exact same direction.

In some provinces, officials are subsidizing flirtation seminars. Men — mostly from rural backgrounds, working low-paid jobs — are taught how to make eye contact, speak without trembling, and understand female preferences. They practice smiling. They are warned not to talk about tractors, dead relatives, or pig feed on a first date.

Fear of incels

Local governments are pitching this as a social stability initiative, because too many single men in a society often mean unrest, crime, and, eventually, revolution. The Communist Party may not believe in God, but it definitely believes in the threat of incels.

Let’s stop and define that word before it gets distorted by the usual suspects. Incel — short for “involuntary celibate” — doesn’t mean terrorist or keyboard troll, no matter how loudly feminist bloggers try to paint it that way. It means exactly what it says: men who want a relationship but can’t get one.

Not by choice, but because they’ve drawn the short straw — genetically, financially, socially, or all three. In China, there are tens of millions of them, walking proof that when a society turns love into a transaction, only the top bidders get through the door.

Feminism’s lab leak

The reason dating camps exist is simple: Everything else has failed. Chinese women, especially those in cities, just aren’t interested. Why would they be? They’ve spent decades leapfrogging men in education and career status. Raised on a steady diet of Korean dramas, Western rom-coms, and aspirational Instagram reels, they now see marriage less as a necessity and more as a downgrade.

The guy who turns up in worn sneakers, quoting Xi Jinping, still living with his mother, and offering a life of austerity? He’s not Prince Charming. He’s a cautionary tale. And yes, China might look sealed off from the West, but don’t be fooled. The mind virus of modern feminism, which escaped from a university lab somewhere in California, leaked through the global media pipeline and infected everything it touched.

It told women they deserve everything and owe the world nothing, that motherhood is a trap, men are optional, children are a nuisance, and career is salvation. And now even in Beijing, you’ll find women with sky-high expectations and an allergic-like reaction to commitment.

An impossible standard

Today, to qualify as marriage material in China, a man must not only own a home (in one of the most inflated property markets on earth) and earn a steady wage. He also must be tall, handsome, emotionally literate, domestically competent, family-minded, and — critically — politically invisible to a regime scanning constantly for subversives and problematics.

It’s a checklist designed not by facts but by fiction. And for millions of men, the message is blindingly clear: You’re not good enough and never will be. So they retreat. Not to the village, but to the screen.

More and more are turning to AI girlfriends, chatbots programmed to listen, flatter, and never say “ew.” It’s not love. It’s code in a dress. But unlike real women, she won’t ghost you for being 5’5″ and earning less than a guy selling boiled eggs off a scooter.

Sound familiar, American reader?

RELATED: Eric Swalwell finally answers Chinese spy allegations: ‘I would hope that would be enough’

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Don’t laugh

Because while China’s numbers are uniquely staggering, the West is heading in the exact same direction, just with better PR. The birth rate is plummeting. Marriage is on life support. Millions of young men in the U.S., U.K., and Australia are quietly disappearing into online worlds, their real ones offering nothing but rejection and ridicule.

We laugh at China’s “virtual girlfriend” industry, where AI chatbots simulate love for lonely bachelors. But those same bots now dominate Western app stores too. Replika. EVA AI. Nomi. The West isn’t mocking China. We’re beta-testing the same collapse.

In both East and West, the crisis isn’t really about dating. It’s about worth and meaning. A generation of men — especially those without degrees, city jobs, or six-figure paychecks — have been quietly told they’re surplus. Not needed as protectors. Not wanted as providers. Not seen as viable partners.

In China, it’s a demographic failure. In America, it’s cultural warfare dressed up as progress: “Do better,” “toxic masculinity,” “the future is female.”

Eradicating mutual need

China has its dating boot camps and AI waifus whispering sweet nothings in Mandarin. America has OnlyFans, SSRIs, and emotional detox tutorials from 23-year-old YouTubers. But none of it touches the core problem: We’ve waged a full-scale war on traditional male value. You can’t shame a man into being lovable. And you can’t seminar your way out of a dating market that treats him like a broken appliance.

The dating camps won’t work. You can’t reverse decades of isolation, emasculation, and techno-distraction with a weekend crash course on how to compliment a woman’s hair without sounding creepy. The deeper issue is that men and women no longer need each other in the same way they used to. That need has been severed, replaced by individualism on steroids, rising costs of living, and the dopamine drip of digital attention.

So we raise women to believe they should never rely on anyone. And we raise men to believe no one will ever rely on them. Then we stare blankly at the birth charts when neither wants to start a family.

Coming (non)-attractions

And if you think the CCP’s dating camps sound bleak, just wait until a U.S. senator proposes government-subsidized speed dating in Youngstown, Ohio, with tax rebates for every successful match. The disease is spreading. Fertility in the West is collapsing almost as fast as China’s. And our men aren’t just failing to marry. They’re failing to care. About women. About themselves. About the future.

We are witnessing the slow, quiet unmaking of civilizational continuity.

Thirty-five million forgotten men in China aren’t just China’s problem. This is a preview, a grim symptom of a larger decay: post-industrial societies that gutted meaning, mocked fatherhood, pathologized masculinity, and outsourced intimacy to machines.

What remains are men no longer needed by anyone and women no longer impressed by anything. There is no app for that. No seminar. No quick fix. Only a rather brutal reckoning.

​China, Chinese, Chinese communist party, One child policy, Birth rate, Ai, Onlyfans, Ssris, Dating, Culture, Masculinity, Incel nation 

On July 9, Elon Musk’s xAI company unveiled Grok 4, an AI assistant touted as a beast capable of superman reasoning and unmatched intelligence across disciplines. Musk himself described the development as “terrifying” and urged the need to keep it channeled toward good.

You may yawn because AI development news is commonplace these days. There’s always someone who’s rolling out the next smartest chatbot.

But Glenn Beck says this time is different.

“Let me be very, very clear,” he says. This “was not your typical tech launch. This is a moment that demands everyone’s full attention. We are now at the crossroads where promise and peril are going to collide.”

Glenn lays out the three stages of artificial intelligence. Stage one is narrow AI — artificial intelligence designed to perform specific tasks or solve particular problems. This is where we are currently at in AI capabilities. Stage two is artificial general intelligence, which can perform any intellectual task a human is capable of, but usually better. The last stage is artificial superintelligence.

“That’s when things get really, really creepy,” says Glenn.

Artificial superintelligence surpasses human intelligence in all areas, outperforming mankind in reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving. In other words, it renders humanity obsolete.

Once “you hit AGI, the road to ASI could be overnight,” Glenn warns, which is why Grok 4 is so concerning. It has “brought us closer to that second stage than ever before.”

Grok 4, he explains, has already proved that it “surpasses the expertise of Ph.D.-level scholars in all fields,” scoring “100% on any test for any field — mathematics, physics, engineering, you name it.”

Given that this latest model scored a 16.2% on the ARC-AGI benchmark, a test that assesses how close an AI system is to reaching AGI capabilities, Glenn is certain “this is the last year that we have before things get really weird.”

In the next six months, Musk predicts that Grok 4 will “drive breakthroughs in material sciences,” revolutionizing aerospace, environmentalism, medicine, and chemical engineering, among other fields, by creating “brand-new materials that nobody’s ever thought of.” It will also, according to predictions, “uncover new physical laws” that will “rewrite our understanding of the entire universe” by 2027.

“These are not fantasies. This is Grok 4,” says Glenn, who agrees with Musk that this is indeed “terrifying” to reckon with.

“[Grok 4] is like an alien life form,” he says. “We have no idea what to predict, what it will be capable of, how it will view us when we are ants to its intellect.”

This is “Pandora’s box,” he warns. “Grok 4 is the biggest step towards AGI and maybe one of the last steps to AGI.”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the clip above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Grok, Xai, Elon musk, Artificial intelligence, Asi, Agi, Ai, Artificial superintelligence, Grok 4, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Missouri police say that a 26-year-old male was arrested after trying to molest two young girls under the age of 14 at a celebration for the Fourth of July in Smithville.

The girls were swimming at the Little Platte Swim Beach while waiting for a fireworks show when a strange man swam to them at about 8 p.m., according to a post on social media from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.

A probable cause statement said that Climaco-Garcia only had identification from Guatemala and that he had been accompanied by someone with an ICE detainer.

The girls told police that the male asked them personal questions and that they tried to swim away after denying to answer.

The man allegedly grabbed them, groped them, and tried to remove the bottom parts of their swimsuits.

They escaped by kicking him in the groin.

The girls then returned to the beach to find the adults they were with. One of the adults flagged down a deputy on patrol after hearing their account, and that deputy was able to find the man based on their description.

Police said he was exiting the lake when they arrested him.

The man was identified as Carlos Climaco-Garcia, and he was charged with two counts of child molestation. He is being held on a $75,000 bond for the class B felonies.

RELATED: ICE says illegal alien was arrested for child molestation after Virginia police ignored detainer on prior molestation charge

In an update to the incident on Thursday, the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office said the immigration status of the suspect was unclear. A probable cause statement said that Climaco-Garcia only had identification from Guatemala and that he had been accompanied by someone with an ICE detainer.

Climaco-Garcia is scheduled to appear in court on July 25.

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​Illegal alien molestation, Carlos climaco-garcia, Missouri illegal molestation, Fourth of july molestation, Crime 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion employees are still running amok in the hallowed halls of the United States Military Academy at West Point. President Trump and members of his administration have taken the first steps toward eliminating DEI in the military, but there won’t be lasting change until all traces of it are removed from our military’s oldest academy.

In 2024, Congress and watchdog groups started asking why cadets were being taught DEI and critical race theory ideology in West Point classrooms. Over the next several months, West Point was embroiled in controversy as the academy faced a barrage of congressional hearings, lawsuits, and Freedom of Information Act requests. But the school was able to successfully shield many of its woke policies through disingenuous public relations tactics.

As long as these officials remain in charge, any claims of returning to a pre-DEI, mission-focused ethos ring hollow.

More than six months into the new administration, it is clear that West Point’s “compliance” with President Trump’s “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI memo is merely perfunctory — and even deceptive. Their orders are being undermined by the continued presence of woke employees who continue to prop up a leftist regime that has embedded itself at West Point.

DEI by any other name

Dr. Morten Ender is a full professor of sociology at West Point whose work confirms his allegiance to DEI dogma. Before Congress became wary of DEI in the military, Ender worked as the co-chair of USMA’s Diversity and Inclusion Studies Minor. He was the point of contact for classes such as “Deconstructing Patriotism” and “The Evolution of Cross-dressing in the Military.”

Ender also taught classes such as “Deviance and Social Control” and “Race, Class, Gender, and Ethnicity.” His work has included publications including “Dinner and Conversation: Transgender Integration at West Point and Beyond” and books like “Inclusion in the American Military: A Force for Diversity.” It’s absurd to believe that a person who so vigorously embraced the politicization of the military would simply give up that crusade in a new role, with a new title.

Since Congress took a harder line on DEI in the military, the DEI minor’s website has disappeared, and Ender’s bio has been cleaned up, removing any trace of his association with DEI. Originally, West Point’s site listed his many accomplishments, including his pro-DEI articles and woke classes.

West Point may try to cover up its history, but it will not fool us.

RELATED: ‘Get DEI and CRT out of the military’: Leftist media in shambles after Hegseth pick

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The continued employment of Lisa Benitez, another woke professor, is also puzzling in light of Hegseth’s clear directive to stop the inculcation of toxic ideologies like DEI and CRT in the military. The former chief diversity officer of West Point’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity, Benitez’s role has taken several new forms since 2024. In June of last year, she was given the title of Chief Engagement and Retention Officer and then became Equal Employment Manager only a few months later.

While Benitez no longer has an official presence on the academy’s website, her LinkedIn profile still lists her as a West Point employee, and her phone number matches that of the equal employment manager role.

Benitez organized the annual West Point Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Conference. This conference had been a bastion of woke ideology in our nation’s premier military academy, hosting talks on “The Evolution of Diversity” and “Corporate Diversity.” The name of the conference changed in January to “The Iris and Herman Bulls ’78 Family Legacy of Graduates and Leaders Forum” and was eventually canceled due to controversy. It’s clear, however, that the radical ideology it once openly promoted remains.

Col. Archie Bates III, the deputy director of West Point’s Behavioral Science and Leadership Department, attended one of those conferences. In addition to doing academic work on preferential college admissions, he touts himself as a skilled promoter of DEI and lists his many woke accomplishments. He also co-authored the military’s DEI policy, which authorized women for combat arms in 2011. Bates is currently the academy’s acting department head of Behavior Sciences and Leadership.

Another member of the DEI faculty still in place at West Point is Maj. Catherine Grizzle, who is currently an instructor for the Behavioral Science and Leadership Department.

Grizzle came up through the ranks when woke leadership was being openly promoted and praised. She has long been a poster child for DEI, becoming only the third female field artillery Basic Officer Leader Course gunnery instructor. Her LinkedIn profile showcases her full commitment to DEI, and she is the only West Point faculty member to have DEI listed as one of her research interests.

Fortunately, at least one faculty member who teaches DEI is leaving voluntarily. USMA history professor Anthony Guerrero, who has been at West Point for over two years, is resigning in protest due to President Trump’s crackdown on DEI.

In a New York Times op-ed, Guerrero called Trump’s executive order on military excellence and readiness a “legal command that provides cover for bigotry. It delivers hate in the guise of a national security issue, dressed up in medicalized language.” Not only is Guerrero defending transgender ideology, but he is also contradicting a direct order to keep his concerns private.

Ideology runs deep

West Point’s DEI leadership — including figures like Ender, Bates, Grizzle, Benitez, and Guerrero — represents just a fraction of DEI’s ideological entrenchment there. Despite recent efforts to present a façade of reform, West Point remains captive to the same people who have been championing divisive policies on race and sex for years.

As long as these officials remain in charge, any claims of returning to a pre-DEI, mission-focused ethos ring hollow. The result is an officer corps trained in ideological conformity rather than the lethality, leadership, and war fighting excellence our national defense demands.

While the Trump administration has taken commendable steps to roll back DEI in the military, those efforts cannot succeed if the very officials who created these policies remain in positions of influence. Lasting reform requires not just policy change but also serious personnel change.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Executive orders, Military academies, West point, Dei, Leftism, Ideology, Pete hegseth, Diversity equity inclusion, Woke ideology, Military readiness, Social engineering, Woke military culture, Public relations, Resignation, Race, Class, Gender, Transgender, Faculty, Morten ender, Sociology, Congress, Foia, Lisa benitez, Archie bates iii, Catherine grizzle, Anthony guerrero