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President Donald Trump will unveil a significant investment in America’s agricultural industry, the White House confirmed on Monday.

Trump will be joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and members of Congress at a roundtable event on Monday to announce $12 billion in economic assistance to United States farmers.

‘Our farmers … will have the support they need to bridge the gap between Biden’s failures and the president’s successful policies taking effect.’

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Farmer Bridge Assistance program will receive up to $11 billion of the funds to provide one-time bridge payments to farmers of row crops, which include corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and cotton. These farmers have been impacted by market disruptions, including years of foreign trade actions and high inflation, a White House official noted.

The remaining $1 billion will be allocated toward crops not included in the FBA program, such as fruits, vegetables, and other specialty crops. However, the details of those allocations are still being evaluated based on market conditions.

At the earliest, farmers are reportedly set to begin receiving the funds in February.

A White House official stated that the program aims to provide farmers with certainty as they plan their crops for next year.

RELATED: Trump scores win for American farmers as China commits to ‘massive’ soybean purchases

President Donald Trump, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

“Farmers suffered for years under Joe Biden, who increased the United States’ trade deficit to over $1.2 trillion, raised input costs, pushed woke DEI agricultural policies, and more,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement provided to Blaze News.

“In contrast, President Trump is helping our agriculture industry by negotiating new trade deals to open new export markets for our farmers and boosting the farm safety net for the first time in a decade,” Kelly continued. “Today’s announcement reflects the president’s commitment to helping our farmers, who will have the support they need to bridge the gap between Biden’s failures and the president’s successful policies taking effect.”

RELATED: Trump ‘shuts off’ deadly fentanyl pipeline by securing ‘historic’ deal with China: Patel

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

China, the world’s largest soybean buyer, briefly boycotted American soybean farmers amid the ongoing trade war. In October, China agreed to resume purchases. Trump previously stated that China had plans to buy “tremendous amounts of soybeans and other farm products immediately.”

Last week, Rollins applauded Trump for reducing red tape for farmers.

“President Trump is cutting burdensome regulations and strengthening the farm safety net to ensure the future viability of American agriculture,” Rollins said. “Across the Trump administration, we are removing burdensome regulations that were strangling small businesses. For every new regulation, President Trump has eliminated a remarkable 48 — lifting a weighted blanket from the American economy.”

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​News, Farmers, Farming, Agriculture, Brooke rollins, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, American farmers, Farms, Scott bessent, Soybeans, Row crops, Corn, Wheat, Rice, Cotton, Crops, Politics 

Most Americans assume that once you buy your car, pay the sales tax, register it, and keep up with routine fees, you have met your financial obligations as a vehicle owner.

Unfortunately, that is far from reality in many parts of the country.

Yearly taxes based on fluctuating and often overestimated valuations create financial unpredictability that families cannot plan for.

The most glaring example right now is Virginia, where residents are dealing with a yearly tax system that feels less like responsible public policy and more like a state-sponsored shakedown.

Number crunch

A Virginia man recently opened his annual vehicle property tax bill to find a stunning total: some $4,500. He wasn’t being penalized for late fees, accidents, or violations. There were no repairs included. This wasn’t registration or insurance. It was simply a tax for owning vehicles he had already paid off.

The state assigns an assessed value to each vehicle, applies a rate of $2.35 per $100 of that value, and charges the owner every single month the vehicle remains titled in his name. This is just for owning the car. Nothing more.

What most people don’t realize is that the government is the one deciding what your vehicle is “worth” — not you, not the market, and definitely not an actual buyer.

Market markup

In states that impose yearly vehicle property taxes, the valuation is created by your local tax assessor or commissioner of the revenue. They rely on industry databases like NADA Guides, J.D. Power, and Black Book to determine a “fair market value,” even if that value has nothing to do with your vehicle’s real condition or current market demand.

That means your car’s official valuation can increase even as it ages, simply because the guidebooks reflect a national trend or a temporary spike in used car prices. The state then taxes you on that number, regardless of whether you could actually sell your car for it.

Owners can appeal these valuations, but anyone who has tried knows the process is frustrating and rarely successful. To dispute the number, you have to prove high mileage, major mechanical problems, or accident history — all while the county defends its valuation because those inflated numbers generate revenue. You can own a dented, high-mileage car and still get taxed as if it were pristine. That disconnect is part of what makes the system feel so unfair.

Doubly taxing

This entire setup creates a perpetual double-taxation model. When you buy a vehicle, you pay sales tax up front. Depending on the state, that can be significant. But in states like Virginia, you pay again every single year for as long as you own it. Registration fees, insurance requirements, state inspections, emissions testing, fuel taxes, and local add-on fees layer on top of that. For families with multiple drivers, or rural residents who depend on vehicles to get anywhere, these recurring charges become a major burden.

And now, the federal government wants to add another layer.

The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has introduced a proposal to impose new annual federal taxes on all registered vehicles: $200 per year for electric vehicles, $100 for hybrids, and $20 for every other passenger vehicle. These fees would apply indefinitely, regardless of driving habits, condition, income level, or vehicle necessity. The proposal is expected to raise around $7 billion per year, but even that only fills about one-third of the current shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.

What’s worse is that the same bill delivers an average tax cut of $278,000 over ten years to the top 0.1% of earners. Everyday Americans pay more to keep driving, while the wealthiest see the biggest benefits. This imbalance is fueling much of the outrage behind the current debate.

RELATED: Avoid these 9 car-rental rip-offs

Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images

Human cost

Historically, gas taxes funded the nation’s highway system because they acted as a logical user fee. The more you drive, the more fuel you buy, and the more you contribute to maintaining the infrastructure you actually use.

The problem is that gas taxes haven’t been adjusted for inflation since 1993. As vehicles have become more fuel-efficient, the revenue stream has fallen behind. Instead of modernizing the system or transitioning toward a fair mileage-based model tied to real road usage, policymakers have increasingly leaned on ownership-based taxes — the least fair approach of all.

The human cost of these policies rarely gets attention. For many Americans, a vehicle isn’t a luxury; it’s the only way to get to work, take kids to school, make doctor appointments, or care for elderly relatives. Yearly taxes based on fluctuating and often overestimated valuations create financial unpredictability that families cannot plan for. They also disproportionately hurt the same people who rely on older vehicles because they can’t afford new ones.

Return to fairness

There are far better solutions available. Policymakers could update fuel taxes to reflect inflation, adopt a realistic and privacy-protected mileage-based approach, streamline wasteful transportation spending, and prioritize projects that genuinely improve infrastructure safety and efficiency. All of these would create a transparent model where people contribute based on actual use, not on arbitrary valuations created in government offices.

Virginia’s situation has become a flash point because it reflects a national trend: Americans feel squeezed, and they are increasingly questioning why the government continues to charge them — year after year — for something they already own. Vehicle property taxation may look like easy revenue on paper, but it is deeply disconnected from economic reality and from what drivers need to stay mobile and financially stable.

Ending annual vehicle taxation isn’t a radical idea. It’s a return to fairness and common sense. When you’ve already paid sales tax, kept up with registrations, and followed every rule required to drive legally, the government should not be allowed to treat your car like a permanent ATM. The pushback we are seeing now is long overdue, and lawmakers would be wise to pay attention.

​Lifestyle, Car tax, Virginia, Align cars 

When Colorado high school senior Sophia Shumaker was offered the chance to paint a design of her choice on her senior parking spot at the school, Shumaker didn’t hesitate to include her religion.

“I originally wanted to choose the parable from Luke 15 of the shepherd and the 99 sheep, but then I kind of altered it to a backwards fish,” Shumaker tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“The backwards fish is kind of what people in the Bible used to draw in the dirt when they couldn’t really talk about religion and they wanted to know if the other people were Christians,” Shumaker explains.

“It was against the rules to do Christian imagery,” she adds.

“When she was told she couldn’t do the original design … she decided to do the backwards fish sort of in somewhat of a protest of not being able to do the original design,” First Liberty attorney Keisha Russell chimes in.

“They said just because of the religious imagery and the Bible verse, it probably wouldn’t get approved and stuff like that. And so, I didn’t want to go through all the hassle, and so I just changed the design completely to kind of symbolize my Christianity, but I don’t think they really knew what it was,” Shumaker says.

When Shumaker told her mother that she had to change her design because it promoted her religion, her mother decided to reach out to First Liberty — which had taken on a very similar case in the past.

“They said they would take our case, and then the news got involved, and then they sent the letter to my school, and within a couple days the case was over. And it got approved, and I got to repaint it,” Shumaker tells Stuckey.

“The other different thing about this case was that throughout the district, other seniors were allowed to put religious things on their parking spaces. So, now you have this sort of inconsistent policy being applied differently, which makes the case very difficult for the school district,” Russell chimes in.

“It’s harder for them to say, ‘Oh, we’re controlling this. This is just government speech,’ when clearly they’re not. And so, when we wrote the letter, we included all of that, and we just said, ‘Look, we’d like to resolve this amicably with a letter, but we are willing to sue you if you continue to violate her rights. And so, we’re asking you to change your policy and let Sophia paint what she wanted to paint,’” she continues.

After the news got involved, the school “relented,” and “not only did they let Sophia repaint her spot, but they changed their entire policy” and removed the religious restrictions, Russell explains.

“So, really, really great outcome in this case,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Free, Camera phone, Upload, Video, Video phone, Sharing, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Relatable podcast, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Christianity, Christian, Bible verse, First liberty, Colorado, Religious freedom, Constitutional rights 

Vice President JD Vance appears to have struck a nerve on the left and among foreigners with his recent comments about the fallout of mass migration. Rather than rebut Vance’s claims, liberals have instead attacked his family and called for their removal from the country.

“Mass migration is theft of the American Dream,” Vance wrote in an X post on Sunday that has received a great deal of attention from Indian media outlets. “It has always been this way, and every position paper, think tank piece, and economic study suggesting otherwise is paid for by the people getting rich off the old system.”

Accompanying the vice president’s comments was a video of a self-identified construction company owner in Louisiana discussing the positive impact of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

‘You have to send Usha, her Indian family, and your biracial kids back to India.’

“So we’ve had ICE and DHS down in Louisiana for about a week now,” said the 27-year-old entrepreneur who said his last name was Flores. “I’m seeing firsthand just the shockwave them boys are sending across this state. No immigrants want to go to work. None of ’em even want to ride in a truck like mine with a ladder rack on it — and it is so amazing. I’ve gotten more calls in the last week than I’ve gotten in the last three months.”

The entrepreneur suggested that the recent demand for citizen labor “just shows you how bad the problem is down here in Louisiana.”

RELATED: JD Vance is right to hope his wife becomes a Christian

Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Vance has repeatedly sounded the alarm about wage suppression and other consequences suffered by American-born citizens as a result of the mass migration enabled by previous administrations.

At an October Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi, Vance noted that “thanks in part to the Biden border invasion but also thanks in part to a lot of bad immigration policy, right now, we have let in too many immigrants into the United States of America.”

The Pew Research Center indicated that as of January 2025, there were 53.3 million immigrants living in the U.S. — the largest number ever recorded. Over 15% of all U.S. residents and 19% of the U.S. labor force were immigrants.

Vance noted that the evidence was “pretty clear” that many of the over one million migrants who legally enter the U.S. annually “are actually undercutting the wages of American workers” and that the H-1B visa has effectively allowed companies to pay a discount on what they would have paid an American citizen.

Like his statements in October, Vance’s Sunday remarks about the theft of the American dream enraged activists and interlopers.

Among those prickled by Vance’s remarks was Wajahat Ali, a former columnist at the Daily Beast and contributor to the New York Times, who recently suggested that it was futile to send antipathetic foreigners packing because they supposedly enjoy too strong a foothold in the U.S. owing to chain migration, miscegenation, and their fecundity.

Ali, responding to Vance’s “theft of the American Dream” post, wrote, “That means you have to send Usha, her Indian family, and your biracial kids back to India.”

“Let us know when [sic] buy the plane tickets,” continued the son of convicted fraudsters who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan. “You must lead by example.”

Usha Vance — a Yale Law School graduate who served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts — is, like her three children, an American citizen born in the United States. Additionally her immigrant parents aren’t a pair of low-skilled laborers who came to suppress working-class wages but are rather a high-skilled couple — a mechanical engineer father and a molecular biologist mother.

Whatever example would be set by removing Vance’s family members would have nothing to do with the point the vice president was making. Nevertheless others joined Ali in strategically lumping Vance’s U.S.-born family members in with the low-skilled foreign-born horde and/or calling for their removal from the country.

The popular U.K.-based X user @AdameMedia, for instance, wrote, “Your wife and children are stealing the American dream.”

Vance’s office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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​Usha vance, Jd vance, Vice president, India, Immigration, Remigration, Citizen, Wajahat ali, Leftism, Foreign, Deportation, Wage suppression, Politics 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has narrowly avoided a costly disaster.

When Meta bought the rights to more land in Bellevue, Washington, in 2020, it brought the company’s potential footprint in the area up to more than 3 million square feet. After five years of expansions, subleases, and plan changes, Zuckerberg’s company had to decide if it wanted to dive fully into the expansion it was offered or stay with what it had.

‘The way for Washingtonians to fight back is to build a bolder Washington.’

Newly released details about Meta’s plans in Bellevue’s Spring District now confirm that the tech company has avoided disaster by about a month. As reported by Downtown Bellevue, Meta is returning the rights for several blocks in the district to developer Wright Runstad & Co., which is considered turning the land into apartment buildings, instead of offices.

With Meta using only around 700,000 square feet of its current land leases, the relinquishment comes on the cusp of massive new corporate taxes that seem to be on the horizon from a state Democrat, who is openly socialist.

State Rep. Shaun Scott (D) hopes to counteract tax cuts by the Trump administration by issuing a new corporate payroll tax that will affect the largest companies in the state, including Amazon, Microsoft, and, of course, Meta.

Scott is a Democratic Socialist, according to a report by Axios, and is certainly living up to the “socialist” part of his title with the new 5% tax.

His proposal would tax private companies where employees earn more than $125,000 per year, with the new tax applying to salaries above that threshold. Any company with more than 50 employees, a payroll in excess of $7 million, and gross receipts over $5 million will also be taxed.

The tax would raise $5.5 billion over two years, according to Komo News.

RELATED: The price tag on Mark Zuckerberg’s bid for ‘superintelligence’ will blow your mind. Will the product?

Photographer: Allison Robbert/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The tax reportedly comes in direct response to money lost from the Republicans’ H.R.1, aka the Big Beautiful Bill Act, which claimed from the outset that it would “reduces taxes.”

Scott is, in effect, proving the bill to be true with his proposal.

“The way for Washingtonians to fight back is to build a bolder Washington: a Washington that defends the programs that people depend on, while the other Washington defunds them,” he said, according to the Olympian.

The bill would take effect on July 1, 2026.

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​Meta, Return, Socialist, Socialism, Taxes, Big beautiful bill, Washington state, Social media, Tech 

Sanctuary politicians have apparently been ignoring orders from Immigration and Customs Enforcement for months, effectively allowing criminal illegal aliens to be released back onto the streets — and the Department of Homeland Security is not happy about it.

The DHS reported on Monday in a press release that Democrat politicians have repeatedly defied ICE by ignoring arrest detainers.

‘We are calling on Governor Pritzker and his administration to stop this dangerous derangement and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliens in Illinois’ custody.’

The press release singled out Illinois and Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, one of the most vocal political opponents of ICE operations under President Trump.

The press release stated that 1,768 criminal illegal aliens have been released in Illinois alone since January 20, 2025.

RELATED: Sec. Noem fires back after Gov. Pritzker begs to pause ICE and CBP operations for Halloween

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

The crimes committed by these illegal aliens include homicide, assault, burglary, robbery, dangerous drug offenses, weapons offenses, and sexual offenses, according to the press release.

There are currently 4,015 aliens in Illinois’ custody, the majority of whom have committed crimes such as those listed above.

“Governor Pritzker and his fellow Illinois sanctuary politicians are releasing murderers, pedophiles, and kidnappers back into our neighborhoods and putting American lives at risk,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

“We are calling on Governor Pritzker and his administration to stop this dangerous derangement and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliens in Illinois’ custody,” McLaughlin continued. “It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans.”

In September, ICE demanded that leaders in sanctuary states like California, New York, and Illinois cooperate with the federal agency to keep criminals off the streets.

ICE also warned these states that it would “engage with the Department of Justice and other federal partners to pursue all appropriate measures to end their inadvisable and irresponsible obstruction of the apprehension and removal of criminal illegal aliens.”

Previously, Illinois and New York sent ICE responses that “underscored their refusal to honor ICE detainers.” California did not respond, according to ICE.

According to its website, ICE issues immigration detainers to law enforcement to ask them to hold suspects for up to 48 hours longer than their scheduled release.

ICE issues these arrest detainers after it has already established probable cause that suspects are removable, usually on account of convictions for other crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, burglaries and robberies, and drug and human trafficking.

ICE makes it clear that honoring arrest detainers helps guarantee safety for both the public and law enforcement officers: “When jails, prisons, or other confinement facilities agree to honor immigration detainers, ICE officers can take custody of removable aliens in a safe, controlled environment instead of at-large in the community.”

DHS’ Monday press release included nine mug shots of the “worst of the worst” criminals who had previously been released in Illinois after their detainer requests were ignored by state officials.

The criminal illegal aliens either are now in ICE custody or have been removed from the United States.

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​Politics, Ice, Criminal illegal aliens, Arrest detainers, Illinois, Trump, Trump administration, California, Jb pritzker, New york 

Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas has some interesting ideas on how law enforcement should be utilized.

Crockett was speaking on the “Grounded” podcast when she was asked about the presence of military vehicles in cities like Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

‘They are not trained to deal with civilians in that way.’

Host Jon Tester wanted to hear Crockett’s thoughts, asking the congresswoman if she thought it was good or bad to have military presence in those cities.

“I think it’s terrible,” the politician replied. “First of all, you know, I’m like, how is it that we have a government that is hostile towards its people? Because that’s what it is. I mean, we are in the midst of a hostile government takeover, and it is our government that is, like, bringing the hostility.”

Crockett prefaced her remarks, made in September but now going viral, by saying that she would need to go into “legal mode” to explain how agencies like ICE and the United States Armed Forces are being misused by the Trump administration.

It was during that portion of her statements that Crockett made the odd claim about how local law enforcement is supposed to operate:

“I want to be clear that, like, law enforcement isn’t to prevent crime. Law enforcement solves crime. OK? That is what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to solve crimes, not necessarily, um, prevent them from happening per se.”

RELATED: Jasmine Crockett claims Republicans ‘LOVE’ her

In addition to those views, Crockett claimed she does not believe the “average person” understands the different types of training that various law enforcement or military agencies undergo.

“So literally ICE is not trained to go out and do what they’re doing,” the 44-year-old stated.

However, not only do ICE’s Enforcement and Removal operations teams train for “arrest, detention, and removal of aliens,” but the American Immigration Lawyers Association even called ICE agents “among the most highly trained federal law enforcement officers in the United States” in 2018.

Moreover, the St. Louis native said she worried about the U.S. military’s “readiness” due to the Trump administration “not doing smart things” with its allies. She then cited “different training” and different missions as being the reasons why she believes ICE and the National Guard are being misused by Trump.

RELATED: Far-left Democrat spent thousands on luxury travel, including limousines and posh hotels, filings show

“Local law enforcement, whether it’s your local municipal police, your sheriff’s deputies, your state troopers, they are trained completely differently. They are the ones that are trained in investigatory work. They are the ones that are trained on how to testify in trial, how to pull a case together. Same thing with, like, your FBI, your DEA, and that kind of stuff,” Crockett went on.

The congresswoman then boldly claimed that those who signed up for the military do not have the training to deal with civilians.

“We are taking those that signed up for the service in whatever capacity, and we are now putting them on the streets and having them with guns. They are not trained to deal with civilians in that way. That is not what they are trained to do. Like, when you sign up for any military, you are a trained killer. You are trained for war, not for going and policing our streets. All right?”

Not only are civilian interactions common practice in training operations for U.S. military members, per official training documents, but the District of Columbia National Guard specifically trained for civilian interactions as recently as May 2024 under the Joe Biden administration.

The training noted the D.C. National Guard as having a long history of supporting operations in D.C. and that the training would help the entity “continue to support local law enforcement agencies in the metropolitan area.”

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​Dc, News, Chicago, Jasmine crockett, Democrats, National guard, Ice, Republicans, Trump, Politics 

President Donald Trump’s work to dismantle the administrative state has reached a tipping point that could have major implications for the future. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments that will determine President Trump’s firing power at federal agencies, specifically at the Federal Trade Commission.

On Monday, the court will hear arguments that will challenge a 90-year-old precedent from Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

A Supreme Court decision in President Trump’s favor could rewrite the bounds of presidential power over the administrative state.

The case before the court came after President Trump fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter over email in March. Trump did not cite any legal reasoning for Slaughter’s firing, even though Humphrey’s Executor states that an FTC commissioner may be fired only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

RELATED: Trump fires Biden Fed governor for possible ‘criminal conduct’ — but Lisa Cook is desperate to cling to power

Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images

Trump has also fired employees at the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Trump has been challenged on other high-profile firings in recent months, including those of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and a copyright official at the Library of Congress, Shira Perlmutter. They have both successfully avoided losing their positions thus far.

Though the FTC is likely to be treated differently because of the precedent, a Supreme Court decision in President Trump’s favor could rewrite the bounds of presidential power over the administrative state.

The court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority. Three of the justices were appointed during Trump’s first term.

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​Politics, President trump, Supreme court, Administrative state, Humphrey’s executor, Federal trade commission, Rebecca slaughter, Lisa cook, Shira perlmutter 

President Donald Trump torched Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on social media after her highly anticipated “60 Minutes” interview aired on Sunday.

For years, Greene was Trump’s biggest cheerleader in Congress, coming to bat for the president on nearly every political cause. Their unique alliance crumbled in November after Trump made a shocking move to withdraw his endorsement of Greene.

‘Her new views are those of a very dumb person.’

Greene maintained that the split was due to her demand for the unconditional release of the Epstein files, while other reports suggest she wanted to pursue higher office and Trump discouraged her from doing so, leaving the Georgia Republican jaded. Greene promptly announced that she was resigning from Congress and stepping down in January.

While Trump continues to harshly criticize his former ally, Greene has been making the rounds in various outlets with which she has been combative in the past. Her appearance on “60 Minutes” on CBS garnered even more backlash from Trump and his supporters.

RELATED: ‘Do I have to stay until I’m assassinated?’ Marjorie Taylor Greene lashes out over calls to finish her term

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

During the interview with host Lesley Stahl, Greene remarked on the increase in death threats against her and her family, saying they were “directly fueled by President Trump.”

Trump said the real reason Greene and the MAGA movement parted ways was because she was “jilted.”

“Too much work, not enough time, and her ideas are, NOW, really BAD – She sort of reminds me of a Rotten Apple!” Trump wrote in a Monday Truth Social post. “Marjorie is not AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a very dumb person.”

Greene’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene calls it quits after ‘traitor’ branding by Trump

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Trump described Greene as “a very poorly prepared Traitor, who in her confusion made many really stupid statements” to Stahl.

Trump went on to criticize the new ownership of the “60 Minutes” program and to demand an apology from “Trump hating” Stahl for her contentious interview with him during his first term, just before the 2020 presidential election.

“Stahl … still owes me an apology from when she attacked me on the show (with serious conviction!), that Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP FROM HELL was produced by Russia, not Hunter himself (TOTALLY PROVEN WRONG!),” Trump wrote.

“My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor,” Trump continued, referring to Greene, “it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air.”

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​Marjorie taylor greene, Traitor, Donald trump, Trump administration, White house, Congress, 60 minutes, Republican party, Georgia, Senate republicans, House republicans, Epstein files, Trump ally, Hunter biden laptop, Lesley stahl, Politics 

Remember when the Duke ruled movie Westerns … studio moguls Walt Disney, Sam Goldwyn and Cecil B. DeMille called the GOP home … and the Hays Code kept movies squeaky-clean?

Well, Hollywood took a left turn about 50 years ago and hasn’t looked back.

Both Mark Wahlberg, a star of deep Christian faith, and actor Zachary Levi are mulling production studios far from the Golden State.

Are we finally ready for a course correction?

Coming attractions

We’ve already seen rebel outfits like the Daily Wire, Breitbart News, and this site’s parent company produce feature films and TV shows from a non-progressive lens. Dude-bro podcasters Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz ignored the DNC talking points during the 2024 presidential election, with some suggesting their political chats played a role in President Donald Trump’s re-election.

Liberal late-night TV may be going the way of the eight-track tape, given current trends, while the right-leaning “Gutfeld!” outperforms Colbert and company.

That all may be dwarfed by what’s coming next.

David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump supporter Larry, now calls the shots at Paramount after a high-profile deal secured the purchase earlier this year. David Ellison isn’t MAGA, but he’s also not woke or eager to mock half the country.

One of his first deals with Paramount was to secure the rights to UFC events, hardly a coastal elite move. Next June, expect an MMA battle royale on the White House lawn to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday.

He also purchased the Free Press and named founder Bari Weiss the head of CBS News. Weiss’ company gave conservatives a fair shake and treated the news like … news, not progressive propaganda, under her management.

That suggests Ellison understands the culture wars and thinks appealing to the middle is a wise path forward. It explains why Paramount denounced a far-left celebrity push to boycott Israeli-themed films due to the nation’s so-called genocidal actions against Palestinians.

That’s more MAGA than Hollywood business as usual.

The right stuff

Plus, a November report from Variety shared several Paramount projects with a definitive Heartland appeal, from a “Top Gun” sequel to a “Taken” variation with a cowboy spin. And then there’s the much-publicized “Rush Hour 4” sequel, spurred on reportedly by none other than President Trump himself.

The one early flaw in Ellison’s plans? He allowed TV superstar Taylor Sheridan to flee Paramount for NBCUniversal. Sheridan’s red-state-friendly shows, from “Yellowstone” to “Landman,” have upended the TV landscape, and he’ll only grow stronger under his new deal.

Sheridan’s emergence is another reason for right-leaning optimism. Once again, the prolific creator isn’t conservative, per se, but he’s willing to tell stories today’s Hollywood wouldn’t touch. His male characters exude a rugged, old-school masculinity that is often missing in other parts of the TV landscape.

A Sheridan show sounds and looks different from most modern programs. A perfect case in point? Billy Bob Thornton’s character, a world-weary oil guru, eviscerates the green movement in “Landman” season one. Would a similar rant be heard on any broadcast show? HBO Max? Netflix?

Unlikely.

Zach attack

More intriguing signs abound. Both Mark Wahlberg, a star of deep Christian faith, and actor Zachary Levi are mulling production studios far from the Golden State. That’s more potential disruptions to the status quo, fed by storytellers who don’t pledge allegiance to the progressive flag.

Angel Studios, the successful TV company now making feature films, offers a fresh take on the standard Hollywood slate.

And then there’s the current first lady. Melania Trump is the focus of a new documentary film bowing next month. She’s using her Hollywood close-up to announce a new production company called Muse Films.

That’s following in the Obamas’ footsteps. The former first couple created Higher Ground Productions and partnered up with Netflix after leaving the White House. No matter where one stands on the Obama record, the couple knows cultural soft power matters.

So do the Trumps.

RELATED: Netflix buys Warner Bros. and HBO — here’s what it’ll control

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Retaking Hollywood

The real X factor may be AI run wild. Conservative artists don’t have the same access to cash that liberals possess. What if a savvy libertarian could create a film via AI, post it on YouTube or Rumble, and rock the culture without breaking the bank? How might that even the culture wars in ways the modern left can’t stop?

Conservatives still have a long, long way to go. Far-left auteur Aaron Sorkin revisits Jan. 6 in the upcoming “The Social Reckoning,” a movie sure to gin up Oscar buzz and endless fawning press coverage following its Oct. 2026 release. It is one of many projects that subscribe to a hard-left perspective.

Take this year’s “One Battle After Another,” a morally warped love letter to anti-government violence. It’s the odds-on favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar come March. Another Oscar darling is “No Other Choice,” director Park Chan-wook’s anti-capitalist screed.

Plus, the Hollywood press will cover most right-leaning entertainment projects in a negative light, hoping to keep pop culture firmly in the hands of progressives. Remember how reporters raged against “Sound of Freedom,” a film cheering efforts to stop child sex traffickers? That movie wasn’t conservative or faith-based, but some assumed it was one or both, and that was enough for media outlets to both pounce and seize on it.

And for every rebel documentary like “The Fall of Minneapolis,” “Am I Racist?” or “October 8,” there are dozens promoting hard-left agendas. The existing Tinseltown infrastructure nurtures and promotes left-leaning stories and storytellers.

That won’t be easy to duplicate, let alone compete against.

Team Ellison will face overwhelming pressure to reject right-leaning impulses from Democrat politicians, media platforms, and garden-variety progressives. It could end up easier for Ellison and company to go along with Hollywood’s liberal orthodoxy than to effect real change.

Or Ellison could see this moment as the perfect time to perform an ideological pivot. The days of ignoring, if not insulting, half the country no longer makes business sense. It’s show business, after all.

And at last that half of the country finally has some storytellers to call its own.

​Hollywood, Conservatives, Paramount, Melania trump, David ellison, Entertainment 

President Donald Trump has set about bringing the “golden age of America” into existence though appears keen also to strengthen Western civilization at large. Nations across the Atlantic have, however, proven reluctant to join the U.S. in rejecting the “false song of globalism” and in turning away the hordes of unassimilable migrants who threaten to transform their lands into places both unsafe and unrecognizable.

The Trump administration made abundantly clear in its newly released 33-page National Security Strategy that European allies now have a choice to make: lean into their strengths and former greatness, reassert their national identities, and reject the liberal policies that have led them to relative ruin or continue down the path to “civilizational erasure” without the United States of America holding their hands.

‘We want Europe to remain European.’

European officials and liberals on both sides of the Atlantic — including a former Obama official — have melted down over the document, attacking the Trump administration for daring to identify the threat and choice now facing Europe.

In civilizational terms

The administration has attempted on several occasions to give America’s European allies a helmet readjustment.

Vice President JD Vance, for instance, noted in a Feb. 14 speech at the Munich Security Conference in Europe that it is high time to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction.”

In addition to blasting the British and European political establishment for their ruinous mass migration polices, Vance expressed disappointment over their suppression of popular political movements, crackdown on free speech, and routine attacks on religious liberties.

RELATED: No more stiff upper lip: My fellow Brits are fed up with ‘diversity’

Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images

The State Department has similarly expressed concerns about the trends weakening Europe and the need for America’s friends across the Atlantic to buck up and get their affairs in order.

In a May essay shared on its Substack, the State Department suggested that the globalist liberal campaign to “usher in an era of unprecedented peace” in the wake of World War II “by overcoming the anchors of nationhood, culture, and tradition” was a colossal failure.

“This promise lies in tatters,” wrote Samuel Samson, a senior adviser for the State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. “What endures instead is an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself.”

“Our relationship is too important, our history too valuable, and the international stakes too high to allow this partnership to be undermined,” continued the essay. “Therefore, on both sides of the Atlantic, we must preserve the goods of our common culture, ensuring that Western civilization remains a source of virtue, freedom, and human flourishing for generations to come.”

Trump’s national security strategy

The 33-page National Security Strategy document released by the Trump administration on Friday signaled a continued break with the thinking of previous administrations on a number of matters, including on America’s special relationship with Europe, which the document suggested is conditional on Europe maintaining its values and culture.

In a section titled “Promoting European Greatness,” the document notes that Europe has lost significant share of global GDP over the past 35 years largely as the result of “national and transnational regulations,” “but this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”

“The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence,” continued the strategy document. “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

The Trump administration’s strategy document indicated that if certain NATO members continue down their present path, they might not only cease to be recognizably European but cease to remain “reliable allies.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau summarized on X that despite insisting upon transatlantic cooperation while wearing their NATO hats, “when these countries wear their EU hats, they pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to US interests and security — including censorship, economic suicide/climate fanaticism, open borders, disdain for national sovereignty/promotion of multilateral governance and taxation, support for Communist Cuba, etc etc. This inconsistency cannot continue.”

“Either the great nations of Europe are our partners in protecting the Western civilization that we inherited from them or they are not,” continued Landau. “But we cannot pretend that we are partners while those nations allow the EU’s unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative bureaucracy in Brussels to pursue policies of civilizational suicide.”

With the understanding that “Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States” and that the U.S. cannot “afford to write Europe off,” the Trump administration emphasized its support for “genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history,” and recommended its European allies get their acts together.

Backlash from the usual suspects

The strategy document was welcomed by many of those on both sides of the Atlantic who’ve read the writing on the wall and paid close attention to the various crises now destabilizing Europe.

British-American historian Niall Ferguson noted, for instance, “However unpalatable you may find this analysis, you will struggle to find evidence to the contrary. My better-informed British and European friends whisper it softly: ‘Maybe it’s true.'”

‘We must stop behaving as a friend.’

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R) wrote, “America is back to practicing a foreign policy rooted in strength, restraint, and national interest, not Wilsonian fantasy. The new National Security Strategy marks a clear return to a distinctly American tradition: Realism.”

Of course, those supportive of Europe’s current path condemned the document.

RELATED: ‘Begin repatriating’: German chancellor admits it’s time to give Syrian migrants the boot

Syrian rallygoers in Berlin. Photo by RALF HIRSCHBERGER/AFP via Getty Images

Valerie Hayer, a member of the European Parliament and president of the liberal political group Renew Europe, called the document “unacceptable and dangerous,” stating that the Trump administration “has no right to question what makes the European Union, its values, its democratic choices” and no right “to attempt to impose onto our territory the xenophobic and ultra-conservative vision of the MAGA networks.”

Hayer suggested further that the National Security Strategy served as confirmation that the “Trump administration is an enemy of Europe” and that “we must stop behaving as a friend toward it.”

Shashank Joshi, an editor at the Economist, echoed Hayer, saying it was “a radical, dangerous document” and suggesting the strategy was to “Make Europe White Again.”

Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who served as director of global engagement at the Obama White House, told the Independent that the plan was a “disastrously dumb, deeply damaging document for American diplomacy.”

“It only further fuels distrust and puts more distance between Washington and the allies we most desperately need to ensure our own security and prosperity,” added Bruen.

The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, was reportedly also prickled by the document, stating that “we see ourselves as being able to discuss and debate these matters entirely on our own in the future, and do not need outside advice.”

In Wadephul’s country, which had a birthrate of 1.35 children per woman last year, has in recent years, like other European nations, suffered an explosion in violent crime as a result of its admission of third-world migrants; has a capital city with apparent no-go zones where Jews and homosexuals cannot safely transit certain areas; and has sought to ban, vilify, disarm, debank, and criminalize the popular party that has attempted to turn things around.

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​Civilization, Civilizational, Europe, Britain, Free speech, Migration, Mass migration, Immigration, National security strategy, Strategy, Europeans, Eu, Nato, Donald trump, Politics 

A rampant repeat offender who reportedly was arrested a dozen times this year alone is accused of beating up a female doctor in a Chicago hospital parking garage elevator in an unprovoked attack.

According to a Sunday CWB Chicago report, prosecutors said 39-year-old Sean Popps followed a 42-year-old cardiologist into the elevator in the parking garage at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Streeterville campus just after 1:30 p.m. Nov. 2 and began repeatedly punching her in the head as she stumbled backward and covered her face with her hands.

Popps also was arrested seven times in 2024, again in almost every case mostly on or near the hospital grounds, the outlet said.

A Chicago police report said the victim suffered multiple bruises, scrapes, and hematomas to her face, head, arm, and hand, the outlet reported.

What’s more, officials said she had no prior contact with Popps and that the attack was completely unprovoked, according to CWB Chicago.

More from the outlet:

A Northwestern security officer instantly recognized Popps from surveillance video, citing “approximately 30 plus prior incidents at the hospital where [Popps] had to be removed,” a detention petition stated. Another Northwestern officer reported having “incidents with [Popps] approximately two times a day over the last 19 months.”

At the time of the attack, Popps was on pretrial release for allegedly trespassing at a Streeterville residential building in October and attempting to escape from the police station lockup afterward.

RELATED: Thugs on parole, probation thrown behind bars after allegedly repeating same crimes that got them in trouble previously

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

CWB Chicago reported that police have arrested Popps a dozen times this year — and in almost every case for allegedly trespassing or damaging property on or near the hospital.

Popps also was arrested seven times in 2024, again in almost every case mostly on or near the hospital grounds, the outlet said. He also was arrested at the hospital two times in 2020, twice in 2021, once in 2022, and once in 2023, CWB Chicago added.

Judge Anthony Calabrese ordered Popps detained on a charge of aggravated battery in a public place, the outlet said. Jail records indicate his next court date is Dec. 30 and he has no bond.

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​Repeat offender, Aggravated battery, Doctor, Hospital, Illinois, Arrest, Northwestern memorial hospital, Streeterville, Multiple arrests, Chicago, Crime 

A political artist says he is making a commentary on how social media platforms control what people see.

Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the moniker Beeple, created an exhibit called “Regular Animals” that featured some of the world’s most influential men as robotic dogs.

‘Zuckerberg and Elon, in particular, control a huge amount of how we see the world.’

Visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach saw realistic masks of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol on robotic dogs that defecate photos. Winkelmann also added two look-alikes of himself into the mix.

“The dogs are continuously taking pictures and ranking those pictures to find the most interesting ones,” Winkelmann explained on his X page. “When it comes time to poop they are reimagined using AI according to each dog’s personality / worldview.”

According to Page Six, onlookers — who called the exhibit “freaky” and “creepy” — saw the Zuckerberg dog produce photos that look like the Metaverse, while Musk’s were black and white.

Bezos’ robot reportedly did not make prints, but was included because Bezos is a person “who shapes how we see the world,” Winkelmann explained. “So he needed to be in the piece.”

RELATED: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are racing to enclose Earth in an orbital computer factory

The dogs — which are reminiscent of the film “Mars Attacks!” — are an attempt by Winkelmann to communicate that he parodied individuals who are controlling what the world sees.

“It used to be that we saw the world interpreted through the eyes of artists, but now Mark Zuckerberg and Elon, in particular, control a huge amount of how we see the world,” he told Page Six. “We see the world through their eyes because they control these very powerful algorithms that decide what we see. And so we wanted to kind of play with that idea.”

Beeple added, “You’re increasingly seeing the world through the eyes of AI and robotics,” noting that he thinks this will increasingly occur.

The 44-year-old artist does not seem to be against the capitalistic nature of those he criticizes, however, as his robodog-produced photos are allegedly being sold to private collectors for up to $100,000 each. The photo owners will allow them to travel with the exhibit, though.

This is not Winkelmann’s first foray into politics. His video shorts, for example, have focused on issues relating to power and communication.

RELATED: The price tag on Mark Zuckerberg’s bid for ‘superintelligence’ will blow your mind. Will the product?

On his website, the artist features pieces like “Transparent Machines,” which is meant to portray “conflicting concepts of transparency and privacy.”

Other clips include a music video for “Manifest Destiny” by Run the Jewels, a radical political rap group, as well as commentary on the housing market collapse of 2009.

Apart from the music video, the shorts compile vague imagery that serve as safe commentary representing widely popular viewpoints. This was reflected in an interview with Icon, in which Winkelmann said he is “not extreme” in his political views.

“To me, it’s very frustrating that we have such binary parties these days, because I’m very much in the middle.”

The artist also revealed he “voted for f**king [George W.] Bush twice, which seems dumb in retrospect,” he noted.

“I’m not sure [I’m] liberal, but it’s just crazy town on that other side,” he said of his politics.

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​Return, Art, Elon musk, Zuckerberg, Meta, X, Jeff bezos, Tech 

Here’s a message Baby Boomers need to hear: The America you were born into no longer exists.

A rising tide of young Americans are embracing socialism at a pace this country has never seen. Boomers often assume that it’s about handouts. It isn’t. Beneath the surface is a decades-long campaign so destructive to middle-class mobility that it threatens to push the nation toward civil conflict. The more you study it, the more coordinated it looks.

A people dependent upon ‘gimme gimme’ socialism is an easily managed population. A demoralized middle class keeps the ruling class secure.

In a way, it was.

Short-term profit-maximizing globalists on Wall Street teamed up with the K Street lobbying blob to drown Americans in cheap Chinese goods while saddling them with student debt, consumer debt, and medical debt.

Young people are being priced out of the American dream.

My urgent message to Boomers — especially those who want to keep influence: The kids are not all right.

The America your kids and grandkids know is not the America you knew. Most Boomers were born in the 1950s, when the country was booming — united by postwar optimism, American industrial strength, shared national institutions, Walter Cronkite on one television in every home, full-fat milkshakes, and Elvis shaking up the culture.

Today, we live in a golden age of technological revolution. We are making remarkable advances in space travel, tech, and medicine — increasingly led by the private sector and unapologetic capitalists. But on the basics — housing, health, education — we’re failing the next generation.

In 1955, the median homebuyer was in his late 20s. In 2025, it’s 56. A minimum-wage worker in the 1950s needed roughly seven years of pay to buy a modest home without a mortgage. Today, it’s around 27.

In 1955, a student could pay college tuition by working a few hours a day at minimum wage. Today, that same student would need to work about six hours a day. If a kid wants Yale or any Ivy League school, he would have to work 26.4 hours a day — an impossible figure that illustrates how detached elite education has become from reality.

Here’s a frightening divide: 93% of Boomers say political violence is never justified; 44% of Gen Z say it “sometimes” is.

Ninety-nine percent of kids are not out for blood, but 100% of them face a massive relative disadvantage. The upward mobility Boomers took for granted has been hollowed out by globalist and left-wing policies sold as progress but experienced as decline.

We spent trillions of American dollars on foreign wars, foreign infrastructure, and foreign elections. We borrowed recklessly. Now the dollar is frail. We allowed millions of illegal migrants to enter the country, fueling crime and pushing Americans out of jobs. Young households are buried in debt — not mortgage debt that builds equity, but consumer debt used to numb the anxiety left by a collapse in community and faith.

Here’s the truth: The populist right and the socialist left agree on the diagnosis. Listen to the first half of Bernie Sanders’ interview with Joe Rogan in June. For an hour, Bernie describes America’s economic troubles. Most people, right or left, would nod along.

Then comes the pivot: Socialism is the cure.

This is the left’s great deceit. Progressives’ proposed “solutions” hurt the very people they claim to help.

RELATED: We built abundance and lost the thing that matters

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Take restrictive zoning and rent regulations — blue-state staples designed to “create” affordable housing. In reality, they choke supply and drive rents higher. Or look at no-cash bail. The neighborhoods hit hardest by serially released offenders are the same minority communities progressives claim to champion. The examples pile up.

So why do left-wing billionaires back these ideas? Simple: Socialism, communism, and their logical end point — fascism — are excellent for entrenched oligarchs. A people dependent upon “gimme gimme” socialism is an easily managed population. A demoralized middle class keeps the ruling class secure.

There is another path.

We must reverse the policies that got us here. Strengthen education outcomes, lower health care costs, rebuild domestic supply chains, expand American energy generation, and restore competence to the workforce.

Boomers, if you don’t lead this shift, your influence will vanish before your next Social Security check arrives. Moderate Democrats already know the socialist tide is rising. They’re afraid to say it out loud.

The Gen Z and Millennial voting bloc will dominate the 2028 election. They are demanding change. Moderates — in both parties — are being replaced by extremists.

You have a choice: Allow yourselves to be absorbed into the socialist machine, or correct the mistakes of the last two decades, return power to citizens, and rebuild access to the American dream.

​Opinion & analysis, Socialism, Gen z, Millennials and socialism, Millennials, Bernie sanders, Democratic socialists of america, Zohran mamdani, Rent control, Rent freeze, Student loan debt, Personal debt, Household debt, Middle class, Zoning, Bail, Crime, Economy, Democrats, Republicans, Baby boomers, Boomers vs everyone else, Healthcare, Homeownership, Leftists, Billionaires, Elites, American dream 

Holidays are tough. It’s not fun to say it, and it feels like failing to admit it, but they are.

But why? Why are they tough? Why are the days that are supposed to be full of joy instead oddly stressful — and too often fraught with bickering, arguing, and disappointment?

We want things to go perfectly on the day that is supposed to go perfectly — and when they don’t, our disappointment lands harder than it would on a random Tuesday in March.

It seems inevitable, almost as if it’s another tradition. Someone snaps about something small, then someone takes offense to something else, and then there’s an argument or a fight or just a weird feeling in the air that wasn’t there before.

Too many cooks

It could be in the kitchen, especially when dinner is nearing. Mom, Grandma, and maybe a daughter or two are in there helping. A bystander pokes his or her head in and offers a “helpful” comment. One of the chefs responds with an eye-roll. A certain stifling quiet — not a good quiet — descends.

Or it could be at the dinner table: Someone lobs a political point knowing that it will rub another guest the wrong way, but he “needs to say something.” Then someone else feels compelled to answer, and another after that, until the whole thing cascades and suddenly the arguments are spilling over into dessert.

Moms are disappointed in their sons and daughters because they just want everybody to get along for one day when everyone is home. “Can you just not talk about that?” Dads are tired of having the same argument, so they zone out. Sons and daughters are mad because no one takes them seriously. They are in college and know more than they used to, but think they know more than they really do.

Family feud

These things happen in families. Not all, of course. Some excel at sweeping every irritation under the rug and maintaining a serene, passive surface at all times. A few are even perfect — or as close as anyone gets — and enjoy holidays filled with nothing but gladness. But most families, in one way or another, run into moments like the ones above or something close to them.

These points of conflict and stress are only a few of the familiar moments that surface when families gather for the holidays. There are countless other paths to confrontation, disappointment, or quiet unease. Sometimes the friction is subtle — simmering unnoticed for months — and it’s only during the holidays that anything finally bubbles up and over.

At bottom, our stress and disappointment come down to expectations, especially the impossible kind.

A holiday is supposed to matter more than an ordinary day. It’s supposed to be more enjoyable, more memorable, more special. That’s a crude way of putting it, but it’s the truth we all feel somewhere deep down, even if we would never say it out loud.

Moms want the meal to be flawless and everyone to get along. Dads want to relax. Kids home from wherever they have been want to share what they have learned and maybe earn a little more respect.

Perfect storm

We want things to go perfectly on the day that is supposed to go perfectly — and when they don’t, our disappointment lands harder than it would on a random Tuesday in March. Greater disappointment feels like a greater failure, and that casts a shadow over the day or at least over our memory of it.

Our expectations rise so high that disappointment becomes almost guaranteed.

That’s why the holidays are tough. It’s not that being around the people you love is hard or that it’s impossible to stay on your best behavior and avoid a spat with your sister or cousin. The holidays are tough because we want things to be the way they ought to be — the way we imagine they could be, the way we wish we could be. Admitting that the holidays are tough stings a little, because to acknowledge it feels like confessing a kind of failure.

I don’t know how to eliminate holiday disappointment entirely, but I do know the first step toward easing it: accepting that our holidays will never be perfect. Hopes run high, tensions run high, and something will inevitably go awry. We’re human. And that’s okay. Maybe our bar shouldn’t be so high. Maybe we ought to grade the day on a curve. Maybe a B- really is an A. Maybe we can forgive ourselves for not living inside a Hallmark movie.

Holidays aren’t perfect. Neither are we. And that’s okay.

​Men’s style, Lifestyle, Family, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Holidays, The root of the matter 

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office was recently forced to make a stunning admission before the U.S. Supreme Court. During oral arguments, Platkin’s team conceded that although the state issued a sweeping subpoena against a pregnancy center — First Choice Women’s Resource Centers — the office had no complaints against the organization.

That admission stripped away any pretense that the attorney general was protecting consumers. It revealed the real motive: a fishing expedition into constitutionally protected internal records and private donor information for no reason other than First Choice’s commitment to life-affirming support for women. Now the court must decide whether New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer can bully pro-life charities out of helping women and families.

When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.

What’s at stake is the work of pregnancy centers and charities nationwide that help women sustain their decision for life. These organizations provide the material and emotional resources mothers need to meet their own needs and the needs of their children.

Choosing life for an unborn child is never a one-time decision. It’s a daily commitment made amid financial, professional, emotional, or health-related pressures — and often in the face of serious challenges in securing food, clothing, housing, and other essentials. Women deserve support in every one of those areas so they can pursue their ambitions with their children. Pro-life Americans stand ready to offer that support. Platkin prefers abortion over help for moms.

Research shows that 60% of women who have had abortions would have preferred to choose life if they had more financial security or emotional support. Pregnancy centers and life-affirming organizations across the country confront this reality every day. Last year alone, they provided $452 million in support services, medical care, and material goods — all free of charge.

And the need keeps growing. Over the past two years, pregnancy centers increased their material assistance by 48% to ensure that women have what they need to thrive in pregnancy and early parenting. In 2024 alone, they served 1 million new clients.

When families face challenges beyond diapers and baby supplies, pregnancy centers rise to meet them. At Real Options Pregnancy Center in Texas, staff provided full Thanksgiving meals to local families. In Chicago, a center hosts an annual Christmas celebration so moms can put gifts under the tree. Across the country, community partners working with Her PLAN offer free car maintenance and help women escape trafficking and addiction, secure housing, and receive job training.

Every woman’s story is unique. Pregnancy centers recognize that dignity, which is why they collaborate with trusted community resources to provide comprehensive support tailored to each individual who walks through their doors.

This community network forms the pro-life safety net that Her PLAN strengthens through grassroots engagement and an online directory of vetted service providers across seven categories of care. For women with nowhere else to turn, this wraparound support provides stability, hope, and practical help.

RELATED: Leftist war on pro-life pregnancy centers faces Supreme Court reckoning

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Women who receive services from pregnancy centers report a 98% satisfaction rate. The real measure of success, however, is the women who later return to help others.

Courtney, once overwhelmed by two unexpected pregnancies, now works at the very center that supported her.

Jean Marie, who escaped human trafficking with the help of a New Hampshire pregnancy center, now runs a center in Vermont, using her experience to counsel vulnerable women.

In Northern Virginia, a maternity home helped Shawnte when she lost her job and housing. Today she works as a peer-recovery coach and credits the maternity home with giving her the strength not to abort “a child I knew I wanted, just because things got hard.”

These women — and countless others — were empowered by the pro-life safety net and now devote themselves to strengthening it for the next mother in crisis.

This is work that protects lives, stabilizes families, and strengthens communities. It deserves support, not intimidation from pro-abortion politicians. When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.

Helping women is not controversial. It is love in action.

​Supreme court, New jersey, Abortion, Pro life, Opinion & analysis, Constitution, First amendment, Clarence thomas, Matthew platkin, Subpoena, Mothers, Pregnancy, Pregnancy centers, Lawfare 

If you haven’t finished Christmas shopping yet, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has an excellent suggestion for you to avoid giving your little ones: a new book titled “Abortion Is Everything.”

The book was created by left-wing group Shout Your Abortion and is being marketed for 5-to-8-year-olds.

The back cover reads, “What is an abortion? With accessible, inclusive language, ‘Abortion Is Everything’ speaks directly to 5 to 8 year olds about what abortion is and why people have them. Abortion is a tool that helps human beings build the lives we imagine for ourselves, and the whole world around us has been shaped by abortion.”

Like Gonzales, BlazeTV contributor Grant Stinchfield is extremely disturbed.

“You see how selfish that is? Like, it’s not even funny. Like, ‘It shapes the world around [us] for the lives we imagine for ourselves,’ but not the child in the mother’s womb. It’s just so selfish. And why does a 5-to-8-year-old need to learn about any of this?” Stinchfield asks.

“It’s demonic,” Gonzales says.

“That’s child abuse. You want to teach a 5-year-old, a 5-year-old, ‘Well, you could have had a big brother or a sister, but Mommy decided to kill them instead. So, now you’re an only child.’ Like, what? That’s so damaging,” she says.

“Well, at least they’re being honest about the fact that they want to go after the kids,” BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden chimes in. “I mean, we’ve been saying it for years.”

“The fact that they’re going after the innocence of children disgusts me. … It’s evil, is what it is,” he adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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

​Sharing, Camera phone, Video, Video phone, Free, Upload, Youtube.com, Blazetv, The blaze, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Come and take it with sara gonzales, Children book abortion, Abortion, Pro life, Demonic, Shout your abortion, Abortion is everything book, Abortion is murder, Indoctrination 

Medicare is the second-largest program in the federal budget, topping $1 trillion last year. In 2023, it accounted for 14% of federal spending — a share projected to reach 18% by 2032. After years of ballooning costs, something is finally being done to slow the growth. A new Medicare pilot program, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model, borrows a successful private-sector tool: prior authorization. And that’s good news.

Medicare Part B premiums now sit at $185 per month — up 28% from five years ago and a staggering 76% since 2015. Last year, 12% of the 61 million Americans enrolled in Part B spent more than a tenth of their annual income on premiums. That burden is unsustainable.

In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care.

WISeR, set to launch in Ohio, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Arizona, and Oklahoma, will require prior approval for a short list of “low-value” services — procedures that research shows are frequently overused, costly, and sometimes harmful.

To some, the idea of Medicare reviewing certain treatments before covering them may sound like red tape. But when done correctly, prior authorization is not a barrier. It is a guardrail — one that protects patients, improves quality, and helps ensure that both tax dollars and premiums are spent appropriately.

The goal of WISeR is simple: Cut unnecessary treatments and shift resources toward more effective, evidence-based care. Critics warn about the possibility of delays or extra paperwork, and those concerns are worth monitoring. But they don’t negate prior authorization’s potential to make U.S. health care safer, more efficient, and more financially stable.

Prior authorization directly targets some of the most persistent problems in health care. Medicare spends billions each year on low-value services. A 2023 study identified just 47 such services that together cost Medicare more than $4 billion annually. Those are taxpayer dollars that could be put to better use.

The private insurance market shows the same pattern: unnecessary imaging, avoidable specialist referrals, and brand-name drugs chosen over generics all contribute to rising premiums. Prior authorization, when used properly, reins in this waste by ensuring coverage lines up with medical necessity and evidence-based best practices. Research from the University of Chicago shows that Medicare’s prior authorization rules for prescription drugs generate net savings even after administrative costs.

Consider one striking example. Medicare Part B covers wound-care products known as skin substitutes. But an Office of Inspector General report found that expenditures on these products skyrocketed over the past two years to more than $10 billion annually. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage plans — which rely heavily on prior authorization — spent only a fraction of that amount for the same treatments.

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More importantly, prior authorization helps promote evidence-based medicine. It curbs outdated clinical habits and reduces financial incentives to overtreat. Health plans consistently say that prior authorization aligns care with gold-standard clinical guidelines, particularly in areas prone to misuse.

Of course, the system must be designed responsibly. A well-functioning PA process should be transparent, fast, and grounded in strong clinical evidence. Decisions should be made in close coordination with the patient’s treating provider. The appeals process must be straightforward. And both public and private payers should be held accountable for improper denials or harmful delays.

When structured this way, prior authorization is far more efficient than the current “pay-and-chase” model, where Medicare pays first and tries to recover improper payments later.

Prior authorization already works in the private sector. It can work in Medicare.

Public and private payers have an obligation to steward the dollars they spend — whether those dollars come from taxpayers or premium-payers. In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care. When implemented wisely, prior authorization keeps coverage aligned with medical necessity, elevates the value of care, and helps deliver better outcomes at a sustainable cost.

​Opinion & analysis, Medicare, Government spending, Federal budget, Entitlements, Prior authorization, Reform, Wasteful spending, Wasteful and inappropriate service reduction model, Wiser, Ohio, Texas, Washington state, New jersey, Oklahoma, University of chicago, Inspector general, Private sector 

With the first year of the second Trump administration coming to a close, Present Donald Trump has articulated a new national security strategy that will “build upon” his substantial achievements thus far.

On Friday, the Trump administration published a document that lays out the National Security Strategy to put America first going forward.

‘In everything we do, we are putting America First.’

The 33-page document highlights President Trump’s successes and frames his time in office as a correction of failed policies from past administrations and conventional wisdom.

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Looking to the future, the document asks a simple question: what should the United States want?

It goes on to highlight the core tenets of what the Trump administration will work to achieve, including the “survival and safety” of U.S. citizens, control over our borders and freedom from “destructive propaganda and influence operations,” a strong military, economy, energy grid, and a “robust industrial base.”

The document goes into more detail and lists other wants of the country, but it also issues a reimagining of “soft power” entails: “‘Soft power’ that serves America’s true national interest is effective only if we believe in our country’s inherent greatness and decency.”

In our dealings with the world, the strategy reiterates its desire to control the Western Hemisphere without foreign incursions and to have unimpeded strategic access in the hemisphere, thus asserting a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.

In addition, the strategy highlights the desire to avoid “forever wars,” maintain primacy in the tech sector, and to restore a Europe, it says, that is in danger of “civilizational erasure” thanks to institutions which have “undermined political liberty and sovereignty.”

“We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

The strategy also highlighted that Europe’s principal alliance with the United States, NATO, is not guaranteed perpetually if the character of the nations change through rampant immigration from the third-world.

The document says it is “plausible” that certain NATO countries will be “non-European” in the next few decades, which could mean that they will view the United States and themselves differently than those who signed the charter.

Crucially, President Trump writes: “In everything we do, we are putting America first. … In the years ahead, we will continue to develop every dimension of our national strength–and we will make America safer, richer, freer, greater, and more powerful than ever before.”

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​Politics, Trump, President trump, National security strategy, United states, Western hemisphere, Western civilization, America, America first, Europe, Nato 

Comedian Joe Rogan praised Christianity as a faith that really “works,” calling biblical scripture “fascinating” during a recent interview.

Rogan also touched on what he thinks the resurrection of Jesus Christ would look like, a viewpoint that was met with criticism by host Jesse Michels.

‘You don’t think that He could return as artificial intelligence?’

On an episode of “American Alchemy,” Rogan cited the Bible when he spoke about how easily knowledge could become mysterious, conflated, or unbelievable when passed down through generations.

“We’ll tell everybody about the internet. We’ll tell everybody about airplanes. We’ll tell everybody about SpaceX; as much as you can remember, you’ll tell people, but you won’t know how it’s done. You won’t know what it is. And I think that’s how you get to, like, the Adam and Eve story,” he said.

After adding that he believes biblical stories are “recounting real truth,” the podcaster brought up a question he had clearly been pondering for a while: “Who’s Jesus?”

Rogan prefaced that many will disagree with his perspective, but then asked about the possibility that Jesus could be resurrected, in a sense, through artificial intelligence.

“Jesus is born out of a virgin mother. What’s more virgin than a computer?” Rogan began. “So if you’re going to get the most brilliant, loving, powerful person that gives us advice and can show us how to live to be in sync with God. Who better than artificial intelligence to do that? If Jesus does return, even if Jesus was a physical person in the past, you don’t think that He could return as artificial intelligence?”

The host, however, did not accept Rogan’s theory.

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First, though, Rogan clarified, indicting that he doesn’t believe artificial intelligence would actually be Jesus but instead that it would serve as the return of Jesus in terms of affect and capability.

“Artificial intelligence could absolutely return as Jesus. Not just return as Jesus, but return as Jesus with all the powers of Jesus,” Rogan said. “Like all the magic tricks, all the ability to bring people back from the dead, walk on water, levitation, water into wine.”

In response, Michels said Rogan’s description sounded like an unwanted “dystopian” future.

Still Rogan argued that the prerequisite for a Jesus-like being could come about due to the human need to improve.

“It’s only dystopian if you think that we’re a perfect organism that can’t be improved upon. And that’s not the case,” he rebutted. “That’s clearly not the case based on our actions, based on society as a whole, based on the overall state of the world. It’s not. We certainly can be improved upon.”

While the host accepted that perhaps humans could improve morally and ethically, he said that attempts at improving by means of a computer “seems destructive.”

RELATED: Joe Rogan says we’re at ‘step 7’ on the road to civil war. Is he right? Glenn Beck answers

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The conversation flowed smoothly into Rogan’s love of Christian scripture, with the 58-year-old saying how joyful his experience has been at his new church.

“The scripture, to me, is what’s interesting; it’s fascinating,” he said. “Christianity, at least, is the only thing I have experience with. It works. The people that are Christians, that go to this church that I go to, that I meet, that are Christian, they are the nicest f**king people you will ever meet.”

Rogan gave examples about the polite society he has found himself immersed in, hilariously citing the church parking lot as an example.

“Everybody lets you go in front of them. There’s no one honking in the church parking lot. It works,” he said.

What Rogan hammered home throughout the conversation was that he finds real truth in what he has read in the Bible. Still he isn’t sold on having predictions provided for him about the future; but he is certainly open to it. He described biblical stories positively as an “ancient relaying” of real history and events.

But about the book of Revelation, Rogan said of his pastor, “There’s no way that guy telling you that knows that. … He’s just a person. He’s a person like you or me that is like deeply involved in the scripture.”

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​Faith, Christianity, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Second coming, Christ, Jesus, Internet, Computers, Religion