Category: blaze media

Full disclosure: We were a sports family, extraordinaire. Football, ballet, gymnastics.

But then one child turned out to be immensely talented at another very consuming, very expensive Olympic sport. We upended our whole family to help her pursue this dream. As in, we moved to another state for her training, and Dad stayed behind to support the effort (i.e., pay the bills). For several years, we did not even live together as a family.

It almost broke us.

Why do we worship sports?

Most people seem to love sports, or at least, a sport. More watching than participating, of course — that’s why most of us don’t look like athletes. But we do love the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” to quote the old (I guess ancient, actually) ABC TV program “Wide World of Sports.”

Plus, nobody does human interest stories better than sports journalists. They’re absolute masters of the tearjerker backstory: How the plucky little high school basketball player overcame rickets after his grandma died and became LeBron James. (Not LeBron James’ story, but I’m sure somewhere in there he may have been plucky.) Anyway, that kind of feel-good-now-I’m-rooting-for-him type of story.

Giving up unrushed family time is far too high a price to pay for the fleeting glory (or not) of a championship.

But you know the stories we don’t hear? The my-parents-divorced-after-living-apart-for-training stories.

There were a lot of those at the Olympic training center where my daughter trained. Or the non-prodigy-child-got-into-trouble-in-a-desperate-bid-for-attention story. Or the we-bankrupted-our-family-no-college-money-now story. We saw all of these play out in families around us.

For every heartwarming Olympic or NFL or Master’s tournament story, there are thousands of child sports stories that don’t end with a medal, ring, title, or even a scholarship. But they do end in damaged families, fractured relationships, debt, and regret. Of all the people who “gave up everything” to train — only a tiny fraction get a big reward.

Here’s the thing: Even the “big winners” pay this steep price, and in most cases, it’s not worth it. Let me explain.

It’s a zero-sum game

You can’t give up huge chunks of your family life to the demanding taskmaster of organized kids’ sports without consequences. You can’t give up huge chunks of your family life for any reason without consequences. But in America today, organized sports are hijacking a healthy family dynamic.

Christian families in particular should have a higher goal for family life than endless shuttling to kids’ activities. But the endless shuttling hurts any family.

Let’s examine what everyone gives up when your child plays a sport, especially club team sports or extremely time-intensive individual sports.

The casualty, dead on arrival, is this: unrushed family time. And I submit for your consideration that giving up unrushed family time is far too high a price to pay for the fleeting glory (or not) of a championship or even a scholarship.

Why? Because what starts as an innocent once-a-week activity never gets less time-consuming (or less expensive). The demands only grow. Eventually, your family’s entire schedule — your whole family life — revolves around the coach’s requirements, not yours. Or the coaches’ requirements if you have more than one kid involved.

And if you have one kid involved, you have to make sure the others get “equal time” in another sport or activity. It’s only fair, right?

I’ve watched many parents go off in different directions every weekend, dad taking daughter to her weekend volleyball tournament, mom taking son to baseball practice and games. They reunite in exhaustion late Sunday night, only to start the week’s practice schedule all over again.

But this setup — catering to multiple children’s sports and activities — will eat up the fleeting time you have with your children and spit out nothing of value.

Even if one of them goes on to become an Olympic gold medalist, the cost will have been too high because, as I’ve written before, children are best served when they spend the bulk of their time with the people who love them the most: their family.

What is a family for?

Everyday family life at home is where faith is taught and demonstrated, where character is developed, where relationships are strengthened, where children are raised to become people who love God and others.

We need family time for all this to happen. Unhurried family dinners. Regular church attendance together. Time exploring the natural world together, minus screens. Taking the kids to visit a nursing home or to serve at a soup kitchen. Spontaneous weekend road trips to visit the grandparents, the cousins, the forest, or the beach. Long conversations about anything and everything.

As Christians, we are raising children to be people who love God and others. Children’s sports activities offer nothing toward this goal. What they do tend to emphasize, however, is the self. If my family’s life is mostly focused on my sport practices, games, and goals, I am learning that it really is all about me, despite what my parents say.

Actions speak much louder than words.

Individual sports, where there is no team component, are probably even worse because the focus is on one child individually. But make no mistake: Your kids don’t need to be on a sports team to learn teamwork. God put them on a team already, and it’s your family.

That is the team that will permanently suffer if other sports and activities are allowed to dominate your family life.

If your children are currently in a demanding sport, you know that “team family” is not getting quality time together — or maybe any time together. When’s the last time you all sat down to eat dinner together without having to rush off? When’s the last time you had an unhurried, deep conversation?

The church issue is not the only issue

Club sports, in particular, seem to delight in scheduling practices and games in such a way that there is rarely an untouched weekend. I’ve watched countless families drop off the radar at church because tournaments and games are scheduled not only all day Saturday but on Sunday as well, often involving travel that eats up the whole weekend.

About a year ago, a pastor in Texas posted about this phenomenon on X and how their family took a stand against Sunday sports participation, which caused his daughter some grief. While I admire parents who push back against sports being the most important thing on their schedule, I can’t help but think there’s a lot more to discipling your children than showing up at church on Sunday.

In other words, it’s not enough to just draw a boundary around Sunday.

Discipleship takes time. Years, in fact, which is why God designed little people to begin life in families that show them the way, day in and day out, through loving and secure relationships with — again — the people who love them the most. Time goes by quickly — and it’s something you never get back.

Every minute you spend focusing on a child’s sport is a minute you are not spending focusing on something more valuable. You cannot center your family life around a child’s sport or activity and not skew their view of him/herself and his/her relationship to your family and to the world. The message sent is really that it’s all about you, kid.

This may be, in part, what’s to blame for a generation of extraordinarily entitled young people. If your parents were not much more to you than chauffeurs to your every practice and activity (and the wallets to pay for it), you probably have an overinflated view of your own importance.

I’m not saying that every former child/teen athlete is insufferably self-centered, although a lot of them are. But I am saying they are not the people they could have been with mindfully attentive parenting instead of abandonment to a sport.

Was it all worth it?

Does the Olympic gold medal make up for a childhood spent training apart from your family?

The child who wins the medal surely thinks it’s worth it because that child has been trained, as noted, to consider his/her pursuit the most important thing. But it wasn’t.

Our culture absolutely glorifies this — the medal winner, the NFL Draft pick, the title holder. Every once in a while, there’s a story that highlights the sacrifices made to achieve the medal or title, and those sacrifices are always framed as noble.

But sacrificing the precious little time you have with your children on the altar of pursuing sports (or any other) excellence is not noble. It is tragic. Sending your child to train somewhere away from you is the ultimate tragic choice.

Christian parents: I beg you to prioritize better than we did.

A few final thoughts

Sports offer some benefits, to be sure. If they can be incorporated into your child’s life in a way that doesn’t suck up other more valuable pursuits, great.

In retrospect, which is all I have at this point, I wish we’d enrolled the whole family in martial arts together. That would have provided a “life sport” that we could have done together as a family.

Yeah, we have a lot of regret. We can’t get back the years our family was split up to accommodate a training regimen. We can’t have the conversations we would have had, the meals we would have enjoyed together, the trips we might have taken, or the opportunities to serve others together that we could have experienced.

So I implore you to prayerfully consider your extremely limited family time, choosing to use it for God’s glory instead of your child’s. This is, after all, why God put children in families — so they can grow in secure and loving guidance. They need you more than they need anything else while they’re under your roof.

For us, our time with our kids is, even now, by far our favorite time. We just wish we had used it better for them, for us, and for the Lord we love.

​Family, Sports, Youth sports, Christianity, Christians, Faith 

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up to this text message from my friend: “Telepathy Tapes on Spotify. YOU MUST LISTEN.”

It’s not the first time a hyped friend or family member has told me I have to listen to this podcast, watch that video, or read some article. Most of the time, the content people send me is good, but it’s not mind-bending.

This time it was.

I started listening to episode one in the background, intending to get some chores done while I half-listened. It took all of five minutes for me to become completely and totally engrossed. No chores were completed that day.

Episode one opens with this: “For decades, a very specific group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening in their homes and classrooms, and nobody has believed them; nobody has listened to them, but on this podcast, we do.”

While that “we” captures an entire host of cinematographers and scientists, the two main pillars in the show are Ky Dickens, an established documentarian and the host of the series, and the doctor who inspired the podcast, Diane Hennacy Powell, a John Hopkins-trained psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and researcher and former Harvard Medical School faculty member.

Her studies on telepathy, however, have often alienated her from those institutions. At one point, Dr. Powell was even fined and her medical license temporarily revoked for publishing her research. Sadly, in today’s world, that makes me more likely to take an interest in her work. Doctors willing to suffer scrutiny and even outright rejection to get the facts — especially the ones that are incompatible with the political narrative or that don’t fit nicely into the rigid box of Western medicine — are doctors who have my attention.

It’s another phenomenon the scientific community likes to dance around because no one can prove how it’s happening.

Dickens explains early in episode one that studies in extrasensory perception — telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and the like — are dismissed by the scientific community because to entertain such concepts requires challenging science’s fiercely guarded modus operandi: materialism, the godless worldview that argues physical matter and the interaction between it are all there is.

The framework contends that if something can’t be explained by physics, then it isn’t real.

As a Christian, I’ve always known this paradigm is fundamentally flawed, void of hope, and deeply arrogant. To witness two non-Christians (and one a medical doctor) boldly rebuff this doctrine and embrace phenomena in the name of truth-seeking, regardless of consequences to their careers and reputations, was as compelling as the research itself.

As I mentioned earlier, the duo explore purported telepathic abilities in a niche population: Non-speaking autistic individuals who face significant motor challenges. Let me paint a picture of what that can look like.

Neurotypicals (people who do not have a cognitive disability) often use phrases like they’re not “all there” to describe these individuals. Historically, doctors have assumed they are unintelligent, have intellectual disabilities, and/or are incapable of typical cognition. Back when I taught high school English, these kids were placed in the “Life Skills” classroom, where they were fed, cleaned, and constantly attended to. The little education they received involved skills you might teach a toddler. On the rare occasion we saw them, they were often making strange, incomprehensible noises, acting in ways that would be considered inappropriate, or staring off into some void.

Now imagine that this population is taught to communicate using letter boards or typing devices.

That is who this podcast centers around.

They’re called “spellers.” And I confess, before I listened to this series, if you’d asked me what a nonverbal autistic person with serious motor challenges would say if taught to communicate, my answer would not have been the most optimistic.

This podcast has been a stern rebuking of sorts. Once they’ve been taught to communicate, all the participants featured in the podcast reveal that they aren’t just “all there” — they’re ultra there. Some are geniuses, others poets. Many are brimming with wisdom that feels like it came from Solomon himself. Most speak of a great cosmic love, claim to access non-earthly realms, purport an afterlife, and exhibit supernatural gifts.

In short, Dr. Powell encountered this fringe group in her studies on savants — that is, people who can do miraculous things, like perform calculus equations, expertly play the piano, or speak eight languages, without ever having been taught. It’s another phenomenon the scientific community likes to dance around because no one can prove how it’s happening.

During these studies, Dr. Powell began receiving emails from parents all over the world claiming their children could read their minds or others’ minds with perfect accuracy. This led to studies in which she tested these claims.

Her conclusion? It’s all true — there are mind readers living among us.

In 2008, she published her work in a book titled “The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena.” Years later, Dickens stumbled upon it, was shocked by the information she read, and, after developing a relationship with Dr. Powell, produced a documentary-like podcast called “The Telepathy Tapes,” in which she recreated and expanded Dr. Powell’s original experiments on these remarkable people.

After practically bingeing the entire series and reading through feedback from listeners, something has been bothering me: There seems to be a lack of Christian perspective on “The Telepathy Tapes.” I’ve seen lots of commentary from universalists, spiritualists, and New Agers but literally none from Christians. It could be that the podcast is still gaining traction and hasn’t reached many believers yet, or perhaps Christians are talking about it in circles I’m not privy to.

In either case, “The Telepathy Tapes” demand a Christian response, as the findings and stories outlined in the series can only be described as spiritual. Even more, I think the podcast’s popularity signals a turning of cultural tides toward a re-mystified view of the world, as materialism has failed to offer hope or provide answers to humanity’s most pressing questions.

Christians should be waiting at that juncture with answers.

Miracles on tape

The first half of “The Telepathy Tapes” is devoted almost entirely to experimentation. Dickens conducts a series of tests aimed at assessing non-speakers’ alleged telepathic gifts. Experiments are filmed, and every measure is taken to ensure that cheating is an impossibility. Screens, mirrors, and windows are covered; blindfolds are used; child and parent are often tested in separate spaces so they have zero contact.

From every angle, the experiments certainly seem bulletproof. Video footage of many of the tests can be accessed on thetelepathytapes.com. And yes, I’ve watched them. Either there’s a bunch of very normal-looking families out there using their nonspeaking autistic children to perform reality-warping magic tricks, or psychic phenomena are indeed happening.

Here’s just one example of a test Dickens’ team conducted. A nonverbal autistic college student named Akhil sits across the room facing in the opposite direction from his mother, the person he has mentally merged with. Dickens, using a random word generator, shows his mother a strange, unfamiliar term, ensuring the entire time that it remains out of Akhil’s sight. Using his communication device, he then types the word exactly as his mother is seeing it. He does this again and again, with 100% accuracy. He then moves on to other tests that involve identifying book pages, abstract images, and four-digit numbers his mother views. He never misses a single question.

Akhil is one of several non-speakers the team runs through these kinds of experiments. Every speller they test exhibits the same remarkable ability.

In the second half of the series, Dickens’ team travels around the world, meeting with parents, teachers, non-speakers, and other scientists in the field of ESP. Believe it or not, this part of “The Telepathy Tapes” is even more fascinating than the first.

‘My job on Earth is to make all the Earth hear that God is love.’

The stories these families, teachers, and non-speakers tell are paradigm-shifting.

A former teacher reflects on a non-speaking student she had years ago. One time, when she was grocery shopping, she grabbed a few of his favorite snacks to bring to him the next day at school. Before she ever mentioned the treats, which were locked in her car, he had drawn a picture of every single item she had purchased.

In another incredible anecdote, a mother describes a dream she had when her nonverbal autistic son was young. In the dream, she sees him standing before her, but he speaks and moves normally, free of his earthly restrictions. He presents her with an ace of spades card and urges her to wake up. The next morning, he hands her an ace of spades card, mirroring his action in the dream. She discovers he intentionally entered her dream intending to communicate with her. They begin regularly meeting, speaking, and writing music together via lucid dreaming.

Other fascinating stories include a girl who knows the exact details of the strange event that caused her teacher to be late to school, a boy who places his hand on books and absorbs all the information inside without cracking them open, and a 10-year-old girl who types cryptic warnings before national tragedies occur.

However, in the last few episodes, the podcast takes a hard spiritual turn when Dickens and her research team encounter phenomena and hear stories that don’t just challenge the West’s materialist paradigm but shatter it completely.

The most powerful story by far in the podcast is equal parts tragic and beautiful.

One of the boys featured in “The Telepathy Tapes” dies suddenly from a seizure. Many of his autistic non-speaking friends, however, separately reported that he knew his time was up and had telepathically said his goodbyes to them in the days leading up to his death. At his funeral, these children, using their communication devices, all reported that angels filled the room.

The most powerful line in the podcast comes from a young man named Houston, whose mother believed for the first 17 years of his life that he was practically brain-dead. Once he becomes a speller, his mother discovers he is not only incredibly intelligent but also deeply spiritual.

At one point in the podcast, he types this: “My job on Earth is to make all the Earth hear that God is love. So great is love that no one will have any need to fear when they sink into its depths. … When you’ve seen what I’ve seen, there is no doubt.”

Almost all non-speakers, at least the ones featured in this podcast, speak of God in similar ways, regularly encounter angels, interact with spirits of people who have died, and know information they have no way of accessing. More than one child in the series referred to non-speakers as “light workers.”

Other spiritual strangeness includes a pediatric speech pathologist who sees a body of light hovering above her 4-year-old nonverbal autistic patient, a child savant who speaks numerous languages claiming “God” and “the gods” taught her how to do it, a 7-year-old boy whose very first typed sentence is “God is a good gift giver,” and a boy who hears the specific prayers of a man he’s never seen or met.

One peculiar trait most of these spellers have in common is that their verbiage and syntax are strange and poetic.

One teacher featured in “The Telepathy Tapes,” who’s worked with hundreds of these nonverbal autistic children in the U.S., describes their communication like this: “They have a way of speaking, a style of speaking, that is not of this earth. It’s not English grammar; there’s a lightness to it; there’s often love infused with it; there’s wisdom in there.”

Dickens, after reading hundreds of messages from these gifted people, corroborates this notion when she says they communicate like they’re “from the time of the Torah.”

At this point, the research team has no choice but to contend with the flip side of the materialist worldview: Spiritualism, the idea that reality involves a physical and a non-physical dimension, which interact with each other.

At one point, Dickens asks, “Are we consciousness? Are we an illusion or hologram? Are we spirit? Are we light?” Her skeptical cameraman Michael waxed less poetic when, following a series of miraculous demonstrations, he asks, “Do I have to believe in God now?”

While no one in the podcast emerges from the research with their materialist worldview intact, no one arrives at, or even considers, Christianity either. Their new paradigm, while differing slightly from person to person, is predicated on the belief that consciousness is the foundation of the universe and the source of everything that exists.

What’s disheartening to me is that they’re describing Genesis 1:1.

A great “consciousness” did indeed exist before everything else and is the source of all things. His name is Yahweh. I Am Who I Am. But they can’t make that final leap to the divine, similar to how Big Bang theorists believe in an explosion of light and matter but can’t see they’re reiterating the creation story.

Even still, it’s encouraging to see people who have long rejected the divine open their hearts to the possibility that there is something greater than humanity out there. Perhaps believing in telepathy will be the genesis of a spiritual journey that eventually leads to God.

Prophecy, tongues, and telepathy

As for these non-speakers and their miraculous abilities, my first thought was how unbelievably tragic to be cognitively capable (perhaps excessively so) and deeply spiritual but unable to share that with those around you.

Imagine you encounter angels, write music in your dreams, and have the soul of a poet, but your body betrays you, and so your gifts are invisible to your family, who talk to you like you’re 2 years old, if they talk to you at all. Can you fathom the excruciation?

While the non-speakers featured in “The Telepathy Tapes” are fortunate enough to have families who put them in spelling programs that give them a voice, the truth is that the majority of non-speaking autistic people are never taught to communicate, and so they spend their lives muzzled — their potential shut up in a vault nobody can see. I pray this podcast reaches the families of non-speakers and becomes a doorway to a brighter future for them.

My second thought was: What’s really going on with these people? If they are indeed communicating telepathically, seeing into the spirit realm, and exhibiting other supernatural gifts — and it certainly seems that they are — where did they get these abilities, and why do they have them?

I think the 7-year-old boy I mentioned above whose first sentence was “God is a good gift giver” said the answer. These seem to be gifts from God.

Many of them, we see in scripture. What scientists call precognition — the ability to perceive future events — the Bible calls prophecy. What ESP calls clairvoyance — the ability to perceive information about people, events, or objects beyond the range of normal sensory perception — overlaps significantly with the spiritual gift of “words of knowledge.” Encounters with angelic beings are well documented throughout scripture, as is the gift of godly wisdom, which, as I mentioned, many of these non-speakers appear to have.

Telepathy, however, is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, unless we’re talking about the omniscient triune God who obviously has access to our thoughts. However, telepathy does share some characteristics of the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues, of which there are two types.

The first type, called “tongues of men,” involves the ability to suddenly speak in a foreign language for the purpose of spreading the gospel. The second type is called “tongues of angels” and involves private prayer spoken in a supernatural language understood only by God. Both are a type of communication that is atypical and not accessible to everyone.

Telepathy is also an atypical mode of communication with specific purposes that is not universally accessible. Similar to tongues of men, telepathy allows non-speakers to communicate with neurotypicals where communication has been impossible. Similar to tongues of angels, non-speakers report that telepathy is their primary mode of communication with other non-speakers, meaning their conversations are private and not accessible to others.

While it is undoubtedly distinct from speaking in tongues, I can’t help but wonder if telepathy could also be a God-given gift of communication, specifically designed for those who have been tragically barred from connecting with the world via speaking. Might it be a bridge to community for people who were made for relationship but struggle to access it?

I don’t know the answers to those questions. I only know that anything that crosses my path must be evaluated by the truth of God’s word. We know from scripture that spiritual gifts are real; we know the Bible is full of strange occurrences; we know God designed all people to exist in relationship with others; and we know He is close to the brokenhearted.

I don’t think it’s far-fetched to speculate that He’s made a way for non-speakers where there was none. God is in the business of way-making. He did it for Noah before the flood, for the Israelites when he parted the Red Sea, for David when he faced Goliath, and, most importantly, for humanity through the sacrifice of Jesus.

People see the cracks in the West’s materialist paradigm and are interested in what powers are blinking through those fissures.

Who’s to say He’s not making a way for this vulnerable population that has been robbed of something so precious as their voice?

That’s not to say, however, that all non-speaking autistic people with these gifts are using them for kingdom work or have personal relationships with Jesus Christ. Some spellers featured in the podcast communicate spiritual ideas that diametrically oppose scripture.

For example, one girl claims that all religions have different names for the same God. Several non-speakers championed the pantheistic or New Age philosophy that the foundation of the cosmos is an impersonal consciousness, free of divine authority — we’re all just beautiful consciousnesses connected to this great universal power, kind of like Eywa in the “Avatar” movies.

These are demonic ideas. So what are we to make of these spellers and their gifts?

Again, I don’t have answers, just conjectures. It seems to me that these non-speakers have at least partial access to the spirit realm — almost as if their consciousness resides somewhere between Earth and the spiritual dimension. Their spiritual messages vary from absolutely true (God is a good gift giver) to absolutely false (Buddha = God), but that makes sense when you consider that the spirit realm is inhabited by both angelic and demonic beings. Some of these heretical ideas must be coming from the demonic beings.

Exceptional as these non-speakers are, they are still human and thus caught up in the spiritual warfare that impacts us all. Their vantage point is just different.

A re-mystified world

Even though Ky Dickens, Dr. Powell, and the vast majority of people involved in “The Telepathy Tapes” land somewhere in the realm of metaphysics or spiritualism — neither of which lead to ultimate truth — I still say the series is a win for God’s kingdom.

The fact that this podcast was produced and is rapidly gaining popularity means that people see the cracks in the West’s materialist paradigm and are interested in what powers are blinking through those fissures. It means people can’t help but be discontented with finality and hope for something infinite. It means we are becoming more human again — sloughing off our robotic “science explains everything” Enlightenment thinking and adopting a more humble approach that doesn’t assume we are the greatest thing in the universe.

This is progress.

For Christians, however, “The Telepathy Tapes” is a reminder that the Bible, while sufficient for our earthly lives, only gives us a small window into our magnificent Creator. In Exodus, He says that no one can gaze upon His face and live. In Isaiah, we are reminded that His ways and thoughts are different from ours. In Job, we are told that no man can fathom the mysteries of God or understand His limitlessness. In Romans, we are warned against even attempting to comprehend His judgments, for no man can know the mind of the Lord.

The book of John concludes with this powerful line: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

Bottom line: We have been given merely a taste of our Lord.

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of how much we don’t know. Similar to materialists, Christians also have their worldview rocked when phenomena aren’t easily explained by scripture. We, too, can make the mistake of dismissing something as impossible simply because our doctrine doesn’t explain it. But this makes God in our image. We like things to make sense.

But God has told us that we will never make perfect sense of Him, at least on this side of heaven.

“The Telepathy Tapes,” while strange and paradigm-shifting, has strengthened my faith by reminding me that I don’t have to, nor am I meant to, understand everything about God or His spoken cosmos. No mystery or phenomenon challenges His goodness.

​Autism, Christianity, Diane hennacy powell, God, Ky dickens, Telepathy, Telepathy tapes, Faith 

President Donald Trump’s crusade against DEI advocacy and “woke” social philosophy is not only rhetorical — it’s reshaping our institutional culture.

This reversal follows years of aggressive momentum in the opposite direction. Diversity officers flooded campuses and corporate offices, enforcing a rigid ideological orthodoxy. Student activists didn’t just protest disfavored speakers; they blocked them from speaking altogether. Meanwhile, employees at major media outlets and tech companies pressured their bosses to align with their own political demands, often through coordinated campaigns of public shaming and internal revolt.

If we take the time to understand history, we can prepare ourselves for some highly potent threats.

In recent months, the DEI juggernaut has improbably slowed and nearly ground to a halt. Various organizations have announced changes in policies or reductions in the number of positions devoted to woke initiatives.

Most notable, perhaps, was Meta’s announcement that it would stop throttling political content and engaging in censorious fact-checking practices.

The reversal is viscerally shocking because the major platforms had become comfortable using censorship tactics, silencing anyone who dared to deviate from the approved narrative — even banning Trump.

Why the sudden change?

One explanation for the rapid change is that Trump’s decisive victory in the 2024 presidential election gave permission to various elites to discern a new consensus in the broader society.

I believe there is something more significant than some kind of radar telling executives that the woke movement somehow overreached. Certainly, it is the case that social movements go too far and have to consolidate their gains before further advance. But there is something different here that everyone should consider.

The great management thinker Peter Drucker’s first book was called “The End of Economic Man.” One of the key insights from his book was in recognizing similarities between fascist and communist approaches to controlling a society. Both evolved single-party structures that ran parallel to already existing government and corporate (even if state-owned) institutions. That means that while a police force or factory or school would have a hierarchy of leadership, there would be another chain of authority that was political accompanying it. The parallel party authority had the responsibility of ensuring that the prerogatives of policing or producing or educating never won out over the political imperatives.

Whether we are talking about Nazis or Soviet communists, the same dynamic was operative.

Anyone aware of those powerful forces and realities that existed in Germany, Russia, and in other places should be able to readily see that the various philosophies (race, gender, anti-Israel, climate, etc.) uniting under the banner of woke have been cohering into a similar kind of movement in the United States. With gathering momentum, they constructed parallel powers within American institutions.

Those wielding the woke authority have been pushing hard to make their priorities the strongest and most undeniable in any organization. It was the same for Nazi or communist ideology. This is true even in some American churches where Black Lives Matter and Pride flags often seem to have displaced the cross and the Bible almost entirely.

This argument doesn’t rely on comparisons to Nazis or totalitarians for shock value. I’m not trying to score an easy win through historical name-calling. Instead, I offer a straightforward observation: Powerful movements in the 20th century gained influence by capturing institutions. Today, we’re witnessing similar strategies from modern social movements.

If we want to avoid building a society where ideological activists dictate how every institution operates, we must stop enabling their rise and expansion.

Thanks, Elon

Some American elites — perhaps most notably Elon Musk, who took real social and professional risks — seem to have recognized the threat. Whether they act out of principle, instinct, or self-preservation, they’ve begun to push back.

This doesn’t mean CEOs will start waging open war against the woke movement. But we are seeing a quiet deflation. The cultural balloon has started to lose air. Enough people remember the mistakes of the last century to help steer us away from the edge of the woke cliff.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz once remarked of the political battle of ideas and initiatives, “It’s never over.” That’s true. Even if the woke alliance suffers setbacks, there is little doubt that some other event or some other charismatic figure will manage to infuse life into something earlier believed to be moribund.

But the good thing is that if we take the time to understand history, we can prepare ourselves for some highly potent threats because we know what human beings have done before and can perhaps inoculate ourselves against intellectual viruses with particularly destructive impact.

​Dei policies, Dei, Donald trump, Woke, Woke culture, Opinion & analysis, Elon musk, Peter drucker 

When Dr. Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center and the attorney litigating against green card holder and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, was invited on CNN, the panel — composed of Jake Tapper, Margaret Hoover, and her husband, John Avlon — had every intention of humiliating him.

However, they were the ones who were put to shame in the interview.

Mark Levin plays the clip.

Goldfeder compared Harvard potentially losing its tax-exemption status for refusing to comply with the Trump administration’s demands to address anti-Semitism and DEI policies on campus to Bob Jones University losing its tax-exemption status in 1983 for its prohibition on interracial dating and marriage among students.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has already held that a charitable organization, including specifically a university, can lose its tax-exempt status if they are violating fundamental policy,” said Goldfeder, referencing the 1983 case.

“The reality here is that elite universities are undermining confidence in the entire sector. Jewish students are being harassed and assaulted, and elite university administrators have done nothing to stop it, including at Harvard,” he continued, adding that “financial incentives seem to be the only lever that we can pull to stop the racist and anti-Semitic conduct on their campuses.”

Avlon, smug and hostile, then fired back, “You’re comparing Harvard University to Bob Jones University, which lost its tax-exempt status because it forbid interracial dating? I just want to be clear that’s your official position, right?”

When Goldfeder said yes, Avlon mocked, “Super, that’s gonna go down real well. Sounds really equivalent.”

“Why would you cut scientific funding? Why would you cut medical funding?” he spat.

Goldfeder’s response was simple brilliance: “Harvard has $53 billion in its endowment. … Dip into your endowment or stop discriminating. … If you want to keep discriminating, you have plenty of money that you raised over the years, and anything that the U.S. cuts off, I’m sure Qatar will fill right in.”

Goldfeder’s point, Mark Levin explains, is that “if you’re so worried about hospitals and research, why don’t you use some of your 53 friggin’ billion dollars and do something about it? Why are Mr. and Mrs. America — almost none of whom go to Harvard … subsidizing the highest of the Ivy League colleges,” especially when it promotes dangerous anti-Semitism and racist DEI policies on its campus?

“All they have to do is stop with this DEI, which is racist … and stop the anti-Semitism! Is this really so hard?” Levin asks.

He also points out that Avlon “wouldn’t have that stupid smirk on his face” if, instead of Jewish students, it was black students being harassed on campus.

“You have Jewish kids on campus who are being violently threatened, who are being harmed, in some cases running for their safety. That is very serious. If we had black kids on campus running for their safety, locking themselves in libraries, locking themselves in dorm rooms … you’d be hearing very different stories than you hear from this guy with a smirk on his face,” he condemns.

“That guy Avlon is a disgrace. His wife’s sitting there like a bobblehead, and Jake Tapper — he’s a disgrace too. … No group, minority or majority, should be treated the way the Jews are being treated on these college campuses. Period.”

To see Dr. Goldfeder’s CNN segment and hear more of Levin’s commentary, watch the clip above.

Want more from Mark Levin?

To enjoy more of “the Great One” — Mark Levin as you’ve never seen him before — subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Mark levin, Levintv, Harvard, Anti-semitism, Ivy league, Ivy league anti semitism, Jake tapper, Cnn, Harvard endowment, Blazetv, Blaze media, John avlon 

People are finally noticing that there aren’t as many children as there used to be.

Because demography is destiny when it comes to the future — as opposed to, say, climate science or fortune cookies — even people who don’t like children are alarmed. In case you’ve not heard, times have changed. We’ve gone from worrying about a population bomb to fretting about a population bust. The fertility rate is tanking.

We know what happened — we just don’t want to admit it: Our society lost faith in God.

The math is simple: We need every woman to bear at least 2.1 children to maintain a steady population, or about two children to replace every man and woman alive. The 0.1 accounts for the sad fact that some children don’t live to see adulthood.

Let this sink in: I said every woman, not some women. Every. Single. Woman.

Of course, there have always been childless women. But other women have always made up the difference. We must be blunt: Our distaste for reality is acute. For every woman who does not bear children, there must be two women who have three or another who has four. You might not like the math, but too bad.

I know this is an unpopular message. Just mention the facts, and feminists clutch copies of “The Handmaid’s Tale” to their breasts.

So how bad is it? Here are the numbers: Last year, the fertility rate in the United States dropped to 1.62 children per woman. But in the global race to zero, we’re a laggard.

By comparison, here are a few other nations:

The United Kingdom: 1.53
Hungary: 1.5
Switzerland: 1.44
Greece: 1.34
Chile: 1.17
China: 1.02
Singapore: 0.97
South Korea: 0.75

While it is true that the global population continues to rise, that’s because people are taking longer to die. And despite the best efforts of Bryan Johnson and Ray Kurzweil (a couple of “don’t die” techno-utopians), the death rate is still 100%. This means that the global population, when it finally begins to do gown, will drop like a rock.

For some people, this is great news. They don’t like kids anyway, and they’re not too sure about the rest of us. But the implications are bad for everything from social welfare to technological innovation to even personal happiness.

We’ve been fooling ourselves. Social Security and your retirement savings are not replacements for children (i.e., the original retirement plan). Young adults with children to feed do most of the consuming and innovating in any economy. And with fewer children, we’re likely to experience economic stagnation and decline for the foreseeable future.

There are naysayers — there always are. In this case, techno-utopians assure us that AI and robots will fill the gaps. But Elon Musk (of all people) isn’t so sanguine. And while he is doing his part (with 14 children), no one would call him “Dad of the Year.” He scatters his seed like Genghis Khan. His children will have the best of everything, I’m sure, but what they won’t have is a father in the home. Honest sociologists and psychologists (not easy to find) say this is one of the most important factors when raising healthy children, a fact people don’t like to admit.

So what do we do?

Recently, the Trump administration
floated the idea of a $5,000 incentive for every baby born. Really? Back in 2017, a Department of Agriculture study estimated that raising a child to the age of 17 would cost a whopping $233,610. While that number is absurd in its own right, no one denies that children are expensive.

The U.S. is not the first to try to incentivize childbearing. Some countries, such as Hungary and South Korea, have been doing it for a while.

The question is: Does it work? But as you noticed from the fertility rate numbers above, no. The incentives have barely moved the needle in those countries.

But why doesn’t it work? People desperate for answers wonder what is responsible for the declining birth rates. Sperm counts? Something in the air?

While environmental toxins do contribute to infertility, the real culprit is modernity itself. It is the most powerful sterilization drug ever invented. In our thoroughly modern “have it your way” world, people aren’t even getting married — let alone having children. It’s the same everywhere. In fact, it’s even more the case in the Orient than in the Occident. Turns out, China did not need that “one-child” policy. They finally eliminated it, but modernity cemented it.

Let’s get real. People don’t have children for the money, and declining fertility can’t be explained away by falling sperm counts. We know what happened — we just don’t want to admit it.

Our society lost faith in God.

Secularists know this, but it makes them uneasy. In 2011, sociologist Eric Kaufmann wrote the book “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century.” The book has barely received a modest four-star rating on Amazon. Not because he isn’t right — but precisely because he is.

Kaufmann’s message is clear: Even in the modern world, religious people have children — and lots of them. Because of their high fertility rates, the future belongs to them.

Religious people have a lot of children because they believe that life has meaning and purpose and that the sacrifices required to bring new life into the world are worth it. In the modern world, with its emphasis on markets and quantifiable things, religious faith is dismissed as nothing more than a matter of personal taste. But if you ask people of devout faith, they would never say it like that, because religious faith isn’t concerned with personal preferences but with reality itself.

The faithful don’t believe in their religions because they’re “fulfilling.” They believe in them because they think they’re true.

Christianity doesn’t have a corner on the pro-natal market, but it does have a long and illustrious history of encouraging childbearing and raising children in the faith. Recently, liberal churches have equivocated on this, and some are downright hostile to traditional forms of family life.

But those churches are dying. It won’t be long before they’re nothing more than cautionary tales.

I’m honored to serve a church in one of America’s most liberal states. Despite this, our church has many large and growing families. I estimate the fertility rate in my congregation to be approximately four children per woman. Some women, of course, have more than four children. Fathers in my congregation take an active role in not only providing for their children, but raising them as well.

My church is not isolated. When I travel, I see the same phenomenon playing out in churches across the country. Churches are growing, those that believe children are a heritage from the Lord.

Our churches, of course, aren’t heaven on earth, and we don’t live in epistemic bubbles. My wife and I come from families made up largely of academics and artists, so we’re accustomed to “alternative lifestyles.” In fact, we have many childless relatives who are bitter, lonely, and oddly self-righteous. They think they can gin up the purpose of their lives out of their own desires. But they’re failing — clearly.

The future doesn’t belong to them, and, frankly, they don’t care. Progressives don’t live for tomorrow. They live for the present moment. Religious people, on the other hand — the traditionally religious — live for the future.

If demography is destiny, we will indeed inherit the earth.

​Donald trump, Baby bonus, Fertility, Birth rate, Christianity, Christians, Religious, Children, Faith 

Renowned Christian author Lee Strobel said Americans’ interest in a “realm beyond that which we can see and touch” drove him to write his latest book — an exploration of the supernatural.

Strobel, who recently released “Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World,” said data showing the majority of Americans believe in these biblical topics led him to want to go deeper.

‘It’s not fraud, it’s not fakery. There are documented cases.’

“It told me that this is a bridge where we can connect with people who may be far from God and yet have an interest in the supernatural,” he told me and actress Jen Lilley on our new
“Into the Supernatural” podcast. “It may be an entryway for them to really learn about what the Bible does teach about the world beyond our physical realm.”

Strobel continued, “Being an evangelist, that was always my desire.”

But the author, who called it an “adventure” to have the chance to dive into these topics over the past few years, said some Christians are hesitant to fully embrace each sentiment.

With that in mind, Strobel was careful to choose cases with a great deal of corroboration to help bring these issues to light. Near-death experiences are just one arena where he was fascinated to see powerful evidence that something supernatural had unfolded.

“You begin to see documented cases of near-death experiences where people see or hear things that would have been impossible for them to see or hear if they hadn’t had an authentic out-of-body experience after their clinical death,” Strobel said. “It just reinforces what scripture tells us about the supernatural realm, and I think it gives us more courage.”

Strobel shared one such story about a woman who was clinically dead in a hospital and who claimed to have had her spirit separate from her body.

She said she traveled to the ceiling during the experience and could see her body being resuscitated.

“When she was ultimately revived, she said, ‘Oh, by the way, on the ceiling fan here in the emergency room, on the upper part of the blade … is a red sticker,'” he recounted. “And she couldn’t have seen it. Nobody could see it from the room because it’s on the upper part of the blade of the ceiling. So they got a ladder, and they went up, and, sure enough, there’s the red sticker that she only could have seen from her perspective of her spirit floating near the ceiling of the emergency room.”

Strobel encountered other examples like this, which he included in the book.

Issues like this are getting increasing attention in culture as faith seems to be making a resurgence. And Strobel said he’s noticing something else — that for the first time in history, “People are doing scientific inquiries into miracles” in an attempt to prove their existence.

“In other words, they’re testing them scientifically and with documentation in a way that I don’t think has been done that much in the past,” Strobel said. “And we’re seeing cases of documented miracles that are really waking up people to the fact that this is not wishful thinking, it’s not … the placebo effect, it’s not fraud, it’s not fakery. There are documented cases.”

He also cited the case of medical healing surrounding a blind woman whose husband prayed for her one night, imploring the Lord to heal her vision.

“He says, ‘Lord, I know you can heal blindness. I know you can do it. And Lord, I pray you do it tonight. I pray you do it right now,'” Strobel recounted. “And she opened her eyes to perfect eyesight, and which has remained fine for 47 years so far.”

Medically documented stories like this have Strobel convinced “something is going on” — something he believes is truly miraculous.

“And I think this is kind of opening people’s eyes to the fact that these aren’t just stories that you hear at Sunday school or whatever,” he said. “But you dig down into many of these stories and you find substance, and you find people with eyewitnesses who have no motive to deceive. You have medical records and so forth.”

This article originally appeared on CBN’s Faithwire.

​Lee strobel, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Supernatural, Miracles, Demons, Faith 

Does the Democratic Party have a monopoly on Christ?

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), a pastor and progressive Democrat, recently implied as much. In fact, Warnock suggested that his political views are not only aligned with scripture, but they are synonymous with the teachings of Jesus Christ. And for anyone who disagrees with him, such as Republicans, he believes they’re not only wrong — but they’re abusing Jesus.

Warnock said on “The View”:

I think Jesus is the biggest victim of identity theft in this country. I don’t know who this Jesus is they’re talking about. The Jesus I know was born in a barrio called Bethlehem, raised in a ghetto called Nazareth. He was an immigrant, smuggled into Egypt.

In another interview on MSNBC, Warnock spewed the same message. He said Jesus is a “victim of identity theft” — suggesting that Republicans are the perpetrator — and implied Republicans are acting in cruel, anti-Christian ways when they cut government funding.

Jesus, the progressive?

Warnock’s message is dangerous. It is the theological equivalence of gerrymandering: He is redrawing moral and theological boundaries so that only his side can claim righteousness.

Even worse, Warnock is using his definition of righteousness to divide between the sheep and the goats, replacing Christ’s teachings with progressive policies. In his telling, only progressive policies are truly Christlike, while conservative policies are anti-Christian.

Warnock wants to baptize progressive politics, call it righteousness, and condemn his opponents into outer darkness.

Warnock describes himself as a “Matthew 25 Christian,” referring to Jesus’ famous teaching that Democrats love to weaponize against conservative Christians, to emphasize the Democratic Party’s supposed concern for the poor and marginalized. It sounds noble. But who is opposed to caring for the needs of the poor, victimized, and marginalized? Certainly not conservative Christians. It’s what Christians have done for 2,000 years!

The truth is that conservative Christians disagree on the means. They do not believe a large, centralized, power-hungry government is the best way to achieve this goal. Yet, Warnock talks as if anyone who doesn’t support his preferred legislation is abandoning Christ.

In recasting his policy preferences as the only legitimate Christian action, Warnock condemns himself with the exact kind of holier-than-thou spiritual arrogance that he accuses others of.

Especially troubling is the fact that Warnock, a pastor of a historic church, would frame his political opponents as morally and spiritually compromised — and opponents of Christ Himself — rather than acknowledging the legitimate policy disagreements among his fellow Christian brothers and sisters.

It should go without saying: If you oppose government “solutions,” that does not mean you oppose Christ.

Jesus healed the sick, cared for the poor, and gave hope to the marginalized. He did that because He is God — not because He is a government bureaucrat.

Warnock, guilty as charged

Not only is Warnock engaging in a rhetorical game to shame Christians for policy disagreements, but he is reducing the Gospel to progressive social policy.

It’s not prophetic boldness, though it resonates with his base. It’s dishonest spiritual gatekeeping.

The irony is palpable: Warnock accuses his opponents of stealing Jesus’ “identity” and weaponizing Christianity, while he does exactly that. He uses Christ as a partisan mascot to gain moral leverage over his political opponents.

This game isn’t new for Warnock. Ever since he entered politics, he has leveraged his Christian faith to advance the Democratic Party’s agenda.

Warnock is very concerned about the victim, poor, and marginalized. But what about unborn children? Warnock, of course, boasts about being a “pro-choice pastor,” and he cannot name a single abortion restriction that he endorses. This example alone proves the hollowness of Warnock’s browbeating. If he were truly concerned about every marginalized person — those who do not have “power” or a “voice” — certainly he would advocate for the protection of every unborn life, each of which is formed in God’s image and has neither power nor a voice.

Now, Warnock is using his political leverage to oppose immigration policies that, despite critics, aren’t unbiblical. Christ never said that America has a moral and spiritual obligation to welcome with open arms every migrant who desires to live here.

The Kingdom of God is not of this world. But Warnock wants to baptize progressive politics, call it righteousness, and condemn his opponents into outer darkness.

It isn’t Christianity. It’s pure political and spiritual manipulation.

Christians must reject Warnock’s attempt to conflate his progressive gospel with the good news that Jesus preached. Christ seeks not political conformity but repentance and disciples.

The Son of God doesn’t take marching orders from the Democratic Party. He is Lord, and He won’t be used.

​Raphael warnock, Jesus, Christ, Jesus christ, Christianity, Christians, Republicans, Faith 

America’s postwar generosity rebuilt shattered nations, only to see those nations build economic empires on the ruins of our own industries. What began as Christian charity — opening our markets after World War II with outstretched hands to both friends and former enemies — has been repaid with decades of calculated exploitation.

President Donald Trump’s April 2025 plan to implement “reciprocal tariffs” marks a necessary return to the biblical principles of stewardship, sovereignty, and justice.

Christians must reject the guilt-shaming rhetoric that demands national self-destruction as the price of global participation.

Christians should support these tariffs because they represent a biblical application of proper stewardship and sovereignty rather than mere economic protectionism. These measures align with three foundational scriptural principles: God’s establishment of nations with boundaries, government’s divine mandate to protect citizens, and the biblical command to pursue economic justice.

The tariffs are not simply political policy but God’s design for ordered societies in action.

God established nations with boundaries and purpose

The globalist vision of borderless governance contradicts God’s design. Scripture teaches that nations are His idea, not man’s invention. Acts 17:26 declares that God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”

Nations, with their distinct boundaries and responsibilities, reflect divine wisdom. When America reasserts control over its economy through reciprocal tariffs, it exercises biblical stewardship by honoring the Lord’s created order rather than surrendering to economic predators who weaponize “free trade” against American families. These tariffs represent a return to God’s intended design for nations — each with responsibility to govern its affairs justly and protect what has been entrusted to its care.

The April 2, 2025, National Emergency declaration to address trade imbalances is not an act of isolation but of proper stewardship.

President Trump’s implementation of a baseline 10% tariff on all imports — with higher rates for countries exploiting trade relationships — represents a restoration of boundaries that scripture affirms as necessary and good.

Government’s God-ordained responsibility to protect citizens

Romans 13:1-4 reminds us that government is “God’s servant for your good” and “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” This divine mandate establishes government’s responsibility to protect its citizens from economic exploitation — not to enrich foreign nations at the expense of its own people but to safeguard what is good within its borders.

The White House’s own data reveals the cost of abandoning this God-ordained duty: between $225 billion and $600 billion lost annually to counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets.

Meanwhile, American companies pay over $200 billion yearly in value-added taxes to foreign governments while receiving no reciprocal treatment. When President Trump imposes reciprocal tariffs, he fulfills government’s biblical purpose as protector of those under its authority.

When a persistent $1.2 trillion trade deficit hollows out our manufacturing base and displaces American workers, government has not only the right but the duty to act. Tariffs are a tool to restore order and protect American families from economic exploitation. They fulfill government’s God-ordained mandate to “bear the sword” for the sake of good — protecting the vulnerable from predatory trade practices.

Economic sovereignty as biblical justice

Isaiah 1:17 commands God’s people to “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression.” This biblical mandate for justice forms the third pillar of our thesis: Tariffs represent economic righteousness in action.

For decades, unbalanced trade has operated as systematic oppression against American workers. The statistics are sobering: U.S. manufacturing output has fallen from 28.4% of global output in 2001 to just 17.4% in 2023. Since 1997, America has lost approximately 5 million manufacturing jobs, one of the largest losses in our history.

This is not theoretical — it is personal.

Each statistic represents individuals, families, communities, and churches devastated by the outsourcing of American industry. When foreign nations impose 50% tariffs on American apples while their apples enter our markets duty-free, this is not free trade — it is theft masquerading as commerce.

President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs seek to correct this injustice. By implementing the “golden rule” of trade — treat us as we treat you — these measures restore the dignity of honest labor and uphold the biblical principle that “the worker is worthy of his wages” (1 Timothy 5:18).

Rejecting false guilt in service of true compassion

Modern globalism demands that America relinquish its sovereignty under the banner of compassion. But true biblical compassion never requires surrendering the well-being of those entrusted to our care. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors — not to abandon them to economic ruin in service to abstract ideology, namely globalism.

The facts reveal the truth: America has one of the world’s lowest average tariff rates at 3.3%, while our trading partners impose significantly higher rates.

Brazil: 11.2% China: 7.5 %The European Union: 5% India: 17%Vietnam: 9.4%

Moreover, many countries ban certain U.S. products from entering their markets at all but encounter no barriers in sending their own products here; other countries put massive tariffs on certain U.S. products to tip the scales in their favor.

We have been practicing unilateral economic disarmament while others wage economic warfare against us.

Defending American industries is not selfish — it is stewardship. When a nation secures the well-being of its citizens, it becomes better positioned to bless others through genuine charity, aid, and moral leadership. Christians must reject the guilt-shaming rhetoric that demands national self-destruction as the price of global participation.

A biblical path forward: strength through sovereignty

President Trump’s “Reciprocal Tariffs” policy echoes Proverbs 31:8-9: “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” These measures give voice to communities silenced by decades of economic abandonment.

The evidence suggests tariffs work. Studies show that previous tariffs during the first Trump administration strengthened the U.S. economy, led to significant reshoring in manufacturing, and had minimal effects on prices — contrary to the apocalyptic warnings of globalist prophets.

Most importantly, these policies recognize that a strong, sovereign America — one that honors its workers, defends its industries, and respects God’s design for nations — is better positioned to be a beacon of freedom and faith to the world.

Conclusion

In an age when national sovereignty is scorned and biblical wisdom is rejected, Christians must recover the courage to think scripturally about economic stewardship. President Trump’s tariffs are not merely economic policy; they represent a righteous stand against exploitation and a reaffirmation of God’s design for ordered societies.

If we care about justice, if we believe in the protection of families, and if we honor the authority and order that God has established, then we must support efforts that secure America’s economic integrity.

This is the heart of our argument: Tariffs represent proper biblical stewardship, not mere protectionism. They honor God’s establishment of nations with boundaries, they fulfill government’s divine mandate to protect its own citizens, and they execute the biblical command to pursue economic justice.

Proper stewardship requires boundaries. Leadership demands the courage to stand when the world demands submission. The people of God must remain unwavering, committed first to truth, and willing to defend the good of the nation God has entrusted to our care.

The path to true prosperity lies not in surrendering our sovereignty but in exercising it according to biblical principles. That is the heart of these tariffs — not isolation, but righteous independence under God’s sovereignty.

This article is adapted from an essay originally published at Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center.

​Donald trump, Christianity, Christians, Bible, Tariffs, Trump tariffs, Globalism, Faith 

Note: The product recommendations that Align publishes are meant solely to inform and edify our subscribers; unless explicitly labeled as such, they are neither paid promotions or endorsements.

Strolling the grocery store today can be like entering a mental war zone — especially when I have to step outside the fresh produce periphery and into the processed food interior. There, reading ominously extensive ingredient labels often finds me leaving without the item I wanted.

I’m not a nutritionist or “health expert.” I’m a filmmaker and a mother simply trying to make sensible, healthy purchases in a culture that seems determined to dose us with chemicals at every turn. And yet sometimes I wonder if I’m on the verge of becoming Julianne Moore’s character in “Safe.”

You have to be very, very strong and diligent to stay the course, for yourself and your family. But it pays off.

To make it easier, I created the Solarium, which curates trusted, third-party-tested foods, clothing, beauty products, and more — all free of seed oils, sulfates, phthalates, parabens, plastics, fluoride, retardants, endocrine disruptors, synthetic fragrances, artificial coloring, alcohols, carcinogens, and other harmful additives.

Here are some of the products we’ve been enjoying lately.

Organic dried mango from Magone’s

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Pungao Vital Nectar

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Sport Drink

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Kindred Harvest teas

Organic, whole-leaf tea without micro-plastics, glue, or heavy metals; blended, tested, and packed in the USA. Comes in black, green, hibiscus, and more.

Raw Royal Jelly

Bees are magical creatures: In addition to honey, they give us royal jelly, which encourages muscle and bone growth, boosts stamina, libido, and fertility, and helps prevent cancer. Take 10% off with promo code TheSolarium.

Masa Chips

Masa Chips use 3 simple ingredients: organic corn, 100% grass-fed beef tallow, and sea salt. So simple yet so hard to find chips made without seed oils, pesticides, or preservatives.

Jake Steaks

Grass-fed and -finished beef direct from the farmers to your front door. The cows are raised and finished on a variety of native grass. They are entirely pasture fed — zero corn or grain. Let Jake know the Solarium sent you.

Honey from Busy Bee Candle Co.

Busy Bee’s “use the whole animal” mentality means it doesn’t stop at clean, purifying beeswax candles; it also sells raw, untreated wildflower honey. Just as beeswax makes the perfect candles, honey is the perfect sugar — packed with incredible health benefits. Take 15% off with promo code TheSolarium.

Greco Gum

If you are going to chew gum, chew a natural, plastic-free gum that simultaneously builds your jaw muscles, assists digestion, and potentially prevents oral cancer. 100% crystallized resin, made by nature in Chios, Greece. First-time customers take 10% off with promo code TheSolarium.

Vera Salt

Hand-harvested, natural spring salt from Spain. Not processed or bleached, leaving its mineral content — potassium, magnesium, and calcium — intact.

Oliva Dorado

Olives farmed, harvested, cold-pressed, and bottled on-site at a single estate in northern Spain to create a 100% authentic extra virgin olive oil. No synthetic pesticides or chemical fertilizer ever used.

Kraut Krackers

A nutrient-packed cracker made from wild-fermented sauerkraut, dehydrated at low temperature. All from four simple ingredients: organic purple cabbage, organic red beet, organic golden flax seeds, and pink Himalayan salt. Made in the USA.

​Jessica solce, The solarium, Health, Nutritition, Additive free, Microplastics, Lifestyle, Royal jelly, Salt, Tea, Provisions 

Many Americans of Generation X and older will recall the red, white, and blue American Freedom Train that was a centerpiece of America’s glorious bicentennial celebration in 1976. But few know that the Freedom Train — pulled by a steam locomotive and filled with American historical artifacts — was the brainchild of none other than John Wayne. As we fast approach the 250th anniversary of American independence, it’s time to get Wayne’s American Freedom Train back on the tracks as part of the quarter-millennium celebration.

Ross Rowland, who spearheaded the American Freedom Train effort as a young man, recently told me how Wayne came to have the idea. Rowland had run away from home in the 1950s and fortuitously ended up working as a groundskeeper for Wayne. The Duke befriended Rowland and eventually convinced him to return home. Rowland, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been railroad men, had success on Wall Street and then commemorated the centennial of the 1869 “golden spike” — the completion of the transcontinental railroad — by having a steam train travel from New York City to Salt Lake City.

There’s still a chance to make the quarter-millennium anniversary a spectacular, unifying event like the bicentennial was a half-century ago.

Wayne joined Rowland for the final leg of that journey (and arranged to have “True Grit” premiere in Salt Lake City the night before). As they rode in an open-air train car, observing the large crowds as they passed, Rowland says Wayne told him something to the effect of, “You know, Ross, we’ve got America’s 200th birthday coming up. We should do this for that.” And they did. Rowland handled most of the planning and execution, Wayne got support from Bing Crosby and others in Hollywood, and President Richard Nixon agreed to let the train carry artifacts usually housed at the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, and National Archives.

The American Freedom Train was a tremendous success. During the bicentennial period, it traveled to all 48 contiguous states, stopped 138 times, and had an average of more than 50,000 visitors board at each stop. Riding along a moving walkway, visitors saw such artifacts as Paul Revere’s saddlebags, President George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, the actual Louisiana Purchase document, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Babe Ruth’s bat, John F. Kennedy’s handwritten copy of his inaugural address, and other artifacts, enough to fill 12 display cars.

The American Freedom Train, perhaps more than anything else, tied the national and local bicentennial celebrations together. John Warner, who headed up the congressionally created American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, said the train was “the most visible” of the bicentennial offerings and was able to “sew together” various festivities. President Ford said it “brought the story of America to the people.”

During the recent period of peak wokeness — from around 2020 to 2024 — it looked like the nation’s 250th anniversary risked becoming more of a condemnation than a celebration of American history. President Donald Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris largely ensured that the occasion would be a celebration. Yet there is a very real danger that this milestone anniversary — perhaps the best chance in 50 years to reset how Americans view our nation’s founding — might barely register with the public, making it a massive lost opportunity.

Planning for the quarter-millennium is woefully far behind where planning was at this stage for the bicentennial. The official planning entity, created by Congress during the Obama administration, is useless and focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. President Trump wisely created Task Force 250 to fill this void, but it faces a severe shortage of time.

Fortunately, the American Freedom Train could hit the tracks in the first half of 2026. Rob Gardner, president of the American Steam Railroad, told me the “sister engine” of a locomotive that pulled the train during the bicentennial is being restored and will be ready for action. All that’s really needed is for President Trump to authorize the use of federal artifacts at the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, and National Archives, consistent with his recent executive order telling the Smithsonian to stop denigrating America and instead “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.” Everything else would quickly fall into place.

There’s still a chance to make the quarter-millennium anniversary a spectacular and unifying event like the bicentennial was a half-century ago. Reprising the American Freedom Train is a big part of that. Let’s bring back John Wayne’s rolling tribute to America’s finest.

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

​Opinion & analysis, America, Declaration of independence, Bicentennial, Semiquincentennial, America at 250, Birthday, John wayne, Freedom train, Richard nixon, John warner, Bing crosby, Kamala harris, Donald trump, Executive order, Smithsonian, Realclearpolitics.com, History, Ross rowland 

Education doesn’t begin in the classroom. It starts at the kitchen table — often after a family prayer — where parents pass down common sense and values through everyday conversations.

That’s why the stakes were so high last week when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor. At the heart of the case lies a core American principle that conservatives defend: the God-given right of parents to raise and educate their children free from government interference.

A parent’s most important job is raising his child. We cannot outsource this responsibility to institutions that reject our values.

During the hearing, even Justice Elena Kagan — no ally of conservatives — acknowledged that “some nonreligious parents might not be ‘thrilled’” with the storybooks Montgomery County selected for young children. The books? “Pride Puppy!” “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” and “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope.” These titles feature references to underwear, leather, lip rings, and drag performers.

We’ve come a long way from “Little House on the Prairie.”

This raises a fundamental question: Why is parental authority suddenly up for debate?

Regardless of how the court rules, don’t expect this to end. For the left, the fight isn’t just political — it’s spiritual. As Rod Dreher writes in “Live Not by Lies”:

Christians today must understand that, fundamentally, they aren’t resisting a different politics but rather what is effectively a rival religion.

While the rest of the country argues, Florida leads.

As a father of three school-age children, I see daily how policy decisions affect our kids’ future. In Florida, parental rights don’t just get lip service — they shape law. They stand at the center of our education policy.

Thanks to the leadership of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr., Florida ranks number one in the nation for education freedom. Our state approaches education with an unapologetic commitment to faith, family, and freedom.

The 2024-2025 “Focus on Florida’s Future” plan reflects that commitment. It raises teacher salaries, strengthens school safety, and invests a record $28.4 billion in K-12 education — all while expanding school choice.

Over the past year, Florida delivered:

House Bill 931, which established a statewide school chaplain program, ensuring students can access faith-based counseling with parental consent.
House Bill 1291, which strengthened teacher training programs by banning political indoctrination and reaffirming the goal of teaching facts, not ideology.
An expanded Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, which gives more military families and students with disabilities the freedom to choose the education that fits them best.

Florida also continued its leadership in protecting Jewish schools, allocating $20 million for security upgrades, $3.5 million for transportation, and $7 million for Holocaust education centers.

Florida stands as a model. But the rest of the country must join the fight.

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned in “Battle for the American Mind,” the left has waged a strategic campaign to capture public schools. He explains how classical Christian education once taught wisdom through history and the great books. Today, that has been replaced by activist ideology. Physical education gave way to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Geology became gender theory. Civics became critical race theory.

This fight extends far beyond education. At stake is the authority of the American family.

Will we allow the state to replace parents as the primary moral guide for children?

If the Supreme Court upholds the current approach, no limiting principle will remain to stop the erosion of parental rights. We would do well to remember the court’s own words in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925): “The child is not the mere creature of the state.”

A parent’s most important job is raising his child. We cannot hand off that duty to institutions hostile to our beliefs. Parental rights are not negotiable — they’re foundational. They serve as the first line of defense for a free and morally grounded society.

It’s time to bring education back home. Back to the kitchen table. Back to prayer. Back to the people who love children most — their parents.

​Mahmoud v taylor, Parental choice, Florida, Supreme court, Education freedom, Books, Children, Lgbtq agenda, First amendment, Pride puppy, Uncle bobby’s wedding, Born ready, Little house on the prairie, Manny diaz, Pete hegseth, Rod dreher, Opinion & analysis 

Some basketball fans and critics like to argue that LeBron James is the true GOAT of men’s basketball.

Jason Whitlock, however, disputes this, claiming that while James is “a top five, top 10” NBA player, he doesn’t come close to legends like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or Tim Duncan. The hype that’s long surrounded LeBron, he contends, has been driven by the media rather than by genuine success — particularly during LeBron’s seven years with the Los Angeles Lakers.

“LeBron’s early years in Cleveland, his four years in Miami, his return to Cleveland, all of that — great,” Jason caveats. However, he adds, “These seven years in Los Angeles have been a psyop, a mirage, a narrative, a script that’s been played out. … The media has lied to us about what’s been going on with LeBron James the entire time he’s been in LA.”

He compares James’ LA career to the newly released movie “Sinners,” which “critics are overrating,” even though “anybody with a brain” knows it’s “a ripoff of ‘From Dusk Till Dawn.’”

Similarly, LeBron’s time with the Lakers has been marked by media hype and “a lot of failure.” Shannon Sharpe’s role in maintaining the phony LeBron narrative, especially with his funny catchphrase “Lakers in 5,” and the fact that the Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs in five games by the Minnesota Timberwolves on April 30, 2025, underscore his argument that the media’s narrative has outpaced LeBron’s actual success.

“This man has exited the first round of the playoffs multiple times while a Los Angeles Laker,” says Jason. With the exception of LeBron’s 2020 “bubble title” — a championship won in the NBA’s fanless, COVID-era Orlando quarantine bubble — his career with the Lakers has been “an abject failure.”

LeBron’s focus on boosting stats to chase Michael Jordan’s legacy, coupled with poor decisions like hiring rookie coach J.J. Redick, has contributed to his less than stellar record, according to Jason. After the Lakers’ 2025 playoff exit, he warns that LeBron’s overhyped narrative may hurt his legacy, teeing critics up to rank him below Kobe Bryant.

Whitlock extends his media critique by comparing LeBron to Shedeur Sanders, a football player hyped as a star by his father, Deion Sanders, and the media but whose draft slide sparked ridicule.

LeBron’s over-inflated legacy is “no different than what Deion and Shedeur did in Colorado. All that hype,” and now Shedeur “could get cut by the Cleveland Browns, could end up in Canada in all of this reaching to prove to everybody that Shedeur Sanders is … one of the greatest things to ever happen in college football,” says Jason.

“Now Shedeur is a laughingstock. He’s having to go on a PR campaign to try to rehabilitate his tarnished reputation.”

Jason believes LeBron’s media-driven hype risks a similar fall, leaving his LA legacy as more illusion than greatness.

To hear more of Jason’s analysis, watch the episode above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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

​Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, Lebron james, Shedeur sanders, La lakers, La, Los angeles, Blazetv, Blaze media, Fearless 

Jennifer Sey is an ex-gymnast, but she spent years swimming against the tide.

The former national champion once blew the whistle on abuse within the sport, a position she says drew plenty of internal fire. Powerful gymnastic voices dubbed her a “grifter and a liar,” Sey recalls to Align, long before the general public learned of horrifying cases like convicted predator Larry Nassar.

‘I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that.’

She recalls receiving threatening voicemails at work from the head of USA Gymnastics, too.

“The sporting community really attacked me, teammates [did, too] … even the head of Gymnastics Australia tried to take me down,” Sey recalls of abuses chronicled in her memoir, “Chalked Up.”

The experience “strengthened my resolve,” she says.

From Levis exec to ‘radical’

Jennifer Sey

Years later, Sey sat in a comfortable position as a Levi’s executive when another injustice forced her to speak out. She watched with alarm as leaders kept kids locked out of school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That stance eventually forced her exit from Levi’s corporate team and branded her a radical in the eyes of some pandemic hardliners. Years later, Sey’s position has been more than vindicated. Legacy media outlets confirm the damage done to students who couldn’t participate in school during the pandemic.

The cost of quarantine

Except she’s not willing to forgive and forget. She’s the driving force behind an upcoming documentary “Generation COVID,” focused on the innocents caught in the bureaucratic crossfire.

The film lets children share what they endured during the pandemic. Suicide attempts. Lost collegiate scholarships. Drug overdoses. Scholastic declines. Weight gain. Loneliness.

“It’s heartbreaking and devastating,” she says of those on-camera revelations. “I can’t tell you how many of the interviews I ended up crying and needed to collect myself.”

Sey’s children suffered, too.

“It’s why we moved to Colorado from San Francisco,” she says, recalling how one of her children went from being a boisterous kid to one who was “distant and lethargic.”

“I want him to establish a love of learning … it broke my heart,” she says.

Rewriting history

She’s furious to see some who helped shutter schools attempt to rewrite history on the subject, like Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

“They’re such liars … it’s all so well-documented,” she says. “How do they have the gall to lie about their role?”

“Nobody was fighting for the children,” she adds.

“Generation COVID” features sizable input from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now the Director of the National Institutes of Health. The film also eschews partisan politics, featuring voices across the political spectrum with a focus on the facts.

“It’s not at all meant to be political but document what happened and hear from the kids directly,” he says.

Distributor wanted

The film still needs a distributor, a complication that plays into our political divide.

“Right-wing conservative platforms talked about COVID for a while, but it’s played out. Mainstream left-leaning platforms aren’t ready for this … it puts us in a difficult spot,” she says.

The film’s message may be more relevant than many realize. She name-checks bird flu woes and housing “migrants” in public schools as examples of modern-day school concerns.

“The ‘Closed Schools’ [approach] is now a tool in the tool box. We close them at the bat of an eye,” she says. “There’s a portion of the left and the community that says if we just did it better and locked down harder, it would have worked out better.”

Sey acknowledges one political fallout from the lockdowns — a higher number of young voters flocked to President Donald Trump in the last election. She says one of the young men featured in “Generation COVID” “will not forgive and forget” how the lockdowns impacted his life, including extreme weight gain and the possible loss of a football scholarship.

He’s not alone.

“I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that,” she says.

Built for the fight

Sey isn’t done fighting. Last year, she created the XX-XY Athletics brand, dedicated to defending women’s sports. The case of trans swimmer Lia Thomas versus Riley Gaines made national headlines in recent years and epitomizes Sey’s battle.

She’s pleased by President Trump’s executive orders protecting women’s sports but understands more work needs to be done. Consider the recent case of Natalie Daniels, a five-time marathon winner and mom who got kicked out of her running club on the dawn of the Boston Marathon for speaking out against trans women in women’s sports.

“She’s the kindest, sweetest, most gentle human,” Sey says of Daniels, who was targeted by activists who Sey says tried to track her whereabouts during the imbroglio. “It’s a reminder of how far we have to go … she was bullied to the point of almost retracting her comments.”

“That’s what we’re up against. I’m not gonna let an unhinged, screaming minority intimidate me,” she says. “Eighty percent of Americans agree [with me].”

Few fights are harder than what Sey already endured as a young athlete.

“The physical pain and suffering inflicted on me, eating 300 calories and working out eight hours a day … call me any names you want, I can take it,” she says. “Nothing will ever be that hard.”

​Jennifer sey, Generation covid, Lockdown, Pandemic, School closures, Dr. jay bhattacharya, Interview 

Earlier this week, Steve Deace was in Washington, D.C., at the White House to commemorate President Trump’s first 100 days in office. During his visit, he interviewed a number of key insiders, including Ronald Vitiello, Customs and Border Protection senior adviser; Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency; and Kaelan Dorr, White House deputy communications director.

However, there was another interview he did that wasn’t in the books.

“When you’re having lunch in the White House mess hall, you never know who you’re going to run into,” says Steve.

Like Superman, for example.

“Being the Superman slappy that I am, I had to carve out time for Dean Cain,” says Steve.

“Why are you here — other than, you know, the future of the country is at stake?” he asked candidly.

Cain explained that he was in D.C. for a film he’s working on called “End the Wait,” which raises awareness about the need for kidney donors.

“We want to partner somehow with the government to say, ‘You can save thousands upon thousands of lives,'” he told Steve.

On the subject of films, Steve then brought up the latest movie he saw, “The Accountant 2,” starring Ben Affleck.

“Here’s the plot of the movie: They are cracking a human trafficking ring of a network of drug runners and corporations who claim they really care about illegal aliens but are really just using them for human traffickers and to smuggle drugs into the country,” he explained. “At the end of it, I looked at my wife, and I said, ‘That is not a script that would have been filmed 10 years ago.’”

“There has been some major vibe shift here. Do you sense it as well?” he asked.

“Oh, tremendously!” was Cain’s answer.

“Gavin O’Connor, who directed that, is a friend of mine, a great director, and he’s got a good edge to him. It feels like a real truth that’s going on. Yeah, the vibes shift is clear,” he added.

He went on to list several of the factors playing into the cultural shift, including “Elon purchasing X and reviving free speech,” the exposing of “the prior administration and things they were doing,” and real talk with “podcasters like Joe Rogan.”

“People are waking up,” Cain continued. “They don’t control the media anymore, so the real messages are getting out.”

To hear more of Steve and Dean Cain’s conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace, Steve deace show, Dean cain, Superman, White house, Trump 100 days, Frist 100 days, Illegal immigration, End the wait, Blazetv, Blaze media 

The mountain of lies about Ukraine is beginning to crumble under the weight of the truth. The media-crafted façade of Ukraine as a beacon of democracy — and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the Winston Churchill of our time — is disintegrating. February’s disgraceful Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the Ukrainian dictator revealed Zelenskyy’s true character.

After Trump made it clear that Ukraine would never join NATO, Zelenskyy responded with open defiance, vowing NATO membership would happen anyway. His message was clear: The war must go on — regardless of the cost to his people. From the beginning, NATO expansion into Ukraine has been the root provocation behind Russia’s so-called “special military operation.”

The United States and NATO have waged a proxy war against Russia and for globalism.

This week, Zelenskyy removed any lingering doubt about his intent. He outright rejected President Trump’s peace proposal, effectively sabotaging any meaningful negotiation.

An illegitimate president

Retired Col. Douglas Macgregor recognized Zelenskyy’s role as a puppet early in the war — stunning mainstream media. He sees Zelenskyy as the “globalist enemy within” — undermining any chance for peace. To achieve the most direct path to peace, Macgregor has urged Trump to immediately stop all military and financial aid to Ukraine, dump Zelenskyy, and pull out all American personnel — in or out of uniform.

Zelenskyy’s term expired last May, but he canceled presidential elections to remain in power. Donald Trump has called out Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections” — and that’s not even the half of it.

Zelenskyy has shut down all nongovernment-controlled media, banned opposition parties, jailed dissidents, and reportedly had critics kidnapped, tortured, or killed. He’s ordered thugs to snatch thousands of men off the streets and shove them into the trenches. He’s outlawed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, jailing its priests. Meanwhile, his government and military remain riddled with neo-Nazis — a fact the media refuses to address.

Zelenskyy also uses Ukrainian lawfare to lock up members of his own party when they speak out against his corruption.

Dissent silenced

Oleksandr Dubinsky was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament as a member of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party. He is the only MP to speak out against the criminal regime. Dubinsky states, “I’m currently fighting a politically motivated case, filed by Zelensky’s [sic] regime, to silence my criticism of his corruption, as well as the corruption of Soros-backed NGOs and the Bidens’ connections to Burisma.” In November 2023, Dubinsky was arrested, charged with treason, and thrown into prison, where he remains awaiting trial. From his prison cell, Dubinsky has called for Zelenskyy’s impeachment and announced his intention to run for president — assuming elections are ever allowed again.

In a Kyiv courtroom in February, Dubinsky exposed the SBU, Zelenskyy’s secret police, for their brutal arrest, imprisonment, torture, and murder of American independent journalist Gonzalo Lira — whose only crime was criticizing both the Zelenskyy and Biden regimes.

In a remarkable prison interview, Norwegian scholar Glenn Diesen spoke with Dubinsky — who knows Zelenskyy well. In 2019, both men were allies when Zelenskyy ran as a peace candidate promising normalized relations with Russia. But Dubinsky broke ranks once Zelenskyy aligned with globalist interests, collaborated with the neo-Nazis, and embraced full-on corruption and criminality.

Dubinsky provides a deep insight into Zelenskyy’s motives and exactly who is pulling his strings. “Zelenskyy is the product of the efforts of globalist and liberal elites who saw the war in Ukraine as a tool to consolidate their own power,” Dubinsky said. “Ukraine has become the last stronghold of globalism and Zelenskyy is its figurehead.”

This war has never been about Ukraine. The United States and NATO have waged a proxy war against Russia and for globalism. The ultimate objective of the international globalists — and American neoconservatives — is to destroy and break up Russia. Dubinsky contends there is “no goal of securing Ukraine’s victory. The only objective is to prolong the war.” And their immediate goal? To “undermine President Trump’s peace initiatives.”

Thirty years ago, George Soros conjured up the sinister strategy of sacrificing European Slavs to fight a proxy war with Russia. “The combination of manpower from Eastern Europe with the technical capabilities of NATO,” he wrote, “reduce the risk of body bags for NATO countries.” In Ukraine, the globalists found Zelenskyy, who, for 30 pieces of silver, has obliged, filling NATO body bags with his countrymen.

Before entering politics, Zelenskyy’s day job was as a comedic television actor. Dubinsky, well-versed in Zelenskyy’s theatrics, noted that his Oval Office appearance in February — including his costume choice — was “a deliberate performance designed to sabotage negotiations.” Mission accomplished.

A neocon’s dream

The globalists and neocons set a trap. Trump walked into it — and now, he must walk back out.

I still believe Trump sincerely wants to disengage from Ukraine and bring peace. But if he allows American military and financial support of the Zelenskyy dictatorship to continue, any peace will be impossible. Since his inauguration, the president has talked about peace in Ukraine but has maintained the Biden status quo. That’s not going to cut it now.

Trump won because he was the peace candidate with a revolutionary anti-war, anti-globalist pledge: “There must … be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars.” This was a bombshell. But as the initial shock of Trump’s victory has worn off and the commitment to dismantle the neocon establishment has not been acted upon, the “globalist neocon establishment” has regrouped and is back on the attack.

In Europe, Zelenskyy and his globalist masters in the European Union and NATO openly defy Trump, calling for a prolonged war and NATO membership for Ukraine. Here at home, neoconservatives at all levels of the military-industrial-congressional complex — and their mainstream media — openly undermine him.

In April, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee to report on the status of the war. In a profoundly dishonest presentation, Cavoli made a case for prolonging the war and avoiding a negotiated settlement.

Cavoli’s remarks were an inspiration to Zelenskyy and a slap in the face to Trump. The fact that he could defy and insult his commander in chief with total impunity reveals just how deeply entrenched the neocon power structure remains.

Dictator, thief, and globalist puppet

To save Ukraine — and his presidency — Trump must break free from the neocons and globalists once and for all and stop all aid to Ukraine.

People are beginning to understand who Zelenskyy really is. My previous essays made clear that he is a dictator and a thief. Now, we know that he is also a globalist puppet sabotaging peace in Ukraine. Three strikes, and you’re out.

​Opinion & analysis, Volodymyr zelenskyy, Ukraine war, Donald trump, Peace talks, Russia-ukraine war, Corruption, Nato, Tyranny, Elections, Democracy, Neo-nazis, Media bias, Oleksander dubinsky, Fraud, Neocons, War, Globalism 

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs would likely lead to higher rates of inflation. He made this claim on April 16 before an audience at the Economic Club of Chicago. This somewhat gratuitous statement must be examined in light of sound economic theory: Do tariffs actually cause inflation or not?

Classic economics defines three primary sources of government funding: taxation, debt, and inflation. To tax is to levy fees on income, sales, property, and other activities to raise revenue for expenditures. Second, borrowing enables governments to finance operations through future tax revenues. Lastly, expansionary monetary policy may increase the money supply relative to the output of goods and services, raising prices and reducing the currency’s value. As Milton Friedman famously argued, this phenomenon is known as inflation.

Whether one agrees with Trump’s tariff strategy or not, it represents a deliberate effort to defend America, defend domestic industries, and improve labor conditions for Americans.

The Fed has three means of fulfilling its dual mandate:

Changing the target short-term overnight rate.
Setting reserve requirements.
Open market operations.

While changes to interest rates and reserve requirements influence borrowing and liquidity, the most potent tool recently has been the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchases in the open market. These purchases are financed with previously nonexistent money, described in Latin as ex nihilo — or “out of nothing.” When the Fed expands its balance sheet in this way without a corresponding increase in the production of goods and services, the result is inflation.

The expanding money supply

In February 2020, the U.S. money supply stood at $4.1 trillion. By March, the COVID-19 pandemic had spread rapidly across the world. In a whirlwind of uncertainty, many businesses shut their doors, millions were laid off, and the U.S. economy fell into recession.

As a counter-cyclical measure, the Federal Reserve expanded the money supply from $4.1 trillion to $8.97 trillion in about two years. Consequently, U.S. inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, surged from 1.4% in January 2021 to 9.1% by June 2022 on an annualized basis. After several months of elevated inflation, the CPI began to decline as the Federal Reserve reduced its balance sheet by $2.24 trillion, bringing it down to $6.73 trillion as of mid-April 2025. America has a monetary problem.

Ballooning national debt

From a fiscal perspective, the U.S. national debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in its then-205-year history at the end of President Ronald Reagan’s first year in office in 1981. The deficit expanded significantly during the Reagan years as the administration pursued tax cuts, strengthened Cold War defense spending, and battled inflation. By the close of the Clinton administration, the national debt had grown to $5.68 trillion. President Clinton achieved a budget surplus in his final year, driven largely by spending reforms and the post-Cold War reduction in defense outlays.

Government spending rose dramatically during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, particularly through the 2008 financial crisis, bringing the debt to $19.6 trillion by the end of Obama’s tenure.

Under President Trump, the debt increased further, reaching $26.95 trillion — largely due to emergency spending during the COVID-19 crisis. The debt expanded by another 85% during the first term of President Trump and the term of President Biden, ultimately reaching $36.3 trillion as Biden left office. Notably, nearly $9.5 trillion was added during the Biden administration, despite strong economic growth of 5.7% for his first calendar year in office.

Rebutting tariff-spurred inflation

This historical context in both fiscal and monetary policy reveals the flaw in Powell’s assertion. He warned that if the Trump administration continues to impose tariffs on key imports and the economy slows or contracts, the result could be inflation — or worse, stagflation.

What Powell described, however, is not technically inflation — at least according to economists like Milton Friedman. Inflation, historically, is driven primarily by an increase in the money supply, not by fiscal policy or trade regulations. While tariffs and taxes can lead to higher prices, these increases are typically offset by a slowing economy or quickly reversed when such measures are lifted.

Trump’s strategy

President Trump’s interests in strengthening the U.S. economy and reinforcing the nation’s global leadership are on target. His push for tax reform, regulatory rollback, and more balanced federal spending reflects a prudent economic approach. Simultaneously, his administration continues to enforce border security and uphold a foreign policy centered on peace through strength.

The United States must also respond decisively to China’s economic behavior. This includes addressing:

Violations of World Trade Organization rules.
Chinese firms listed on U.S. exchanges that fail to meet U.S. “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.”
Intellectual property theft.
Currency manipulation, which artificially boosts Chinese exports and disadvantages U.S. manufacturers.

If the current tariff policy generates hundreds of billions in tax revenue, the U.S. economy may still achieve robust growth by year-end. The potential drag from tariffs could be counterbalanced by the stimulative effects of lower taxes, deregulation, and more disciplined federal spending.

A firm response

While a more traditional free-market approach would be preferred — centered on stable monetary policy, tax cuts, deregulation, and devolving power to the states — it is evident that China’s aggressive trade and military posture demands a firm response. Whether one agrees with Trump’s tariff strategy or not, it represents a deliberate effort to defend America, defend domestic industries, and improve labor conditions for American workers.

Ultimately, history reveals that tariffs do not inherently cause inflation and should not alone justify restrictive monetary policy. Nor should tariff policy spark the uncertainty and instability that exist in today’s global economy, especially with allies that have stood with America through thick and thin, helping us build the freest and most prosperous global economy in the history of the world.

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

​Opinion & analysis 

Suddenly, artificial intelligence is everywhere — generating art, writing essays, analyzing medical data. It’s flooding newsfeeds, powering apps, and slipping into everyday life. And yet, despite all the buzz, far too many Americans — especially conservatives — still treat AI like a novelty, a passing tech fad, or a toy for Silicon Valley elites.

Treating AI like the latest pet rock tech trend is not only naïve — it’s dangerous.

The AI shift is happening now, and it’s coming for white-collar jobs that once seemed untouchable.

AI isn’t just another innovation like email, smartphones, or social media. It has the potential to restructure society itself — including how we work, what we believe, and even who gets to speak — and it’s doing it at a speed we’ve never seen before.

The stakes are enormous. The pace is breakneck. And still, far too many people are asleep at the wheel.

AI isn’t just ‘another tool’

We’ve heard it a hundred times: “Every generation freaks out about new technology.” The Luddites smashed looms. People said cars would ruin cities. Parents panicked over television and video games. These remarks are intended to dismiss genuine concerns of emerging technology as irrational fears.

But AI is not just a faster loom or a fancier phone — it’s something entirely different. It’s not just doing tasks faster; it’s replacing the need for human thought in critical areas. AI systems can now write news articles, craft legal briefs, diagnose medical issues, and generate code — simultaneously, at scale, around the clock.

And unlike past tech milestones, AI is advancing at an exponential speed. Just compare ChatGPT’s leap from version 3 to 4 in less than a year — or how DeepSeek and Claude now outperform humans on elite exams. The regulatory, cultural, and ethical guardrails simply can’t keep up. We’re not riding the wave of progress — we’re getting swept underneath it.

AI is shockingly intelligent already

Skeptics like to say AI is just a glorified autocomplete engine — a chatbot guessing the next word in a sentence. But that’s like calling a rocket “just a fuel tank with fire.” It misses the point.

The truth is, modern AI already rivals — and often exceeds — human performance in several specific domains. Systems like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini demonstrate IQs that place them well above average human intelligence, according to ongoing tests from organizations like Tracking AI. And these systems improve with every iteration, often learning faster than we can predict or regulate.

Even if AI never becomes “sentient,” it doesn’t have to. Its current form is already capable of replacing jobs, overseeing supply chain logistics, and even shaping culture.

AI will disrupt society — fast

Some compare the unfolding age of AI as just another society-improving invention and innovation: Jobs will be lost, others will be created — and we’ll all adapt. But those previous transformations took decades to unfold. The car took nearly 50 years to become ubiquitous. The internet needed about 25 years to transform communication and commerce. These shifts, though massive, were gradual enough to give society time to adapt and respond.

AI is not affording us that luxury. The AI shift is happening now, and it’s coming for white-collar jobs that once seemed untouchable.

Reports published by the World Economic Forum and Goldman Sachs suggest job disruption to hundreds of millions globally in the next several years. Not factory jobs — rather, knowledge work. AI already edits videos, writes advertising copy, designs graphics, and manages customer service.

This isn’t about horses and buggies. This is about entire industries shedding their human workforces in months, not years. Journalism, education, finance, and law are all in the crosshairs. And if we don’t confront this disruption now, we’ll be left scrambling when the disruption hits our own communities.

AI will become inescapable

You may think AI doesn’t affect you. Maybe you never plan on using it to write emails or generate art. But you won’t stay disconnected from it for long. AI will soon be baked into everything.

Your phone, your bank, your doctor, your child’s education — all will rely on AI. Personal AI assistants will become standard, just like Google Maps and Siri. Policymakers will use AI to draft and analyze legislation. Doctors will use AI to diagnose ailments and prescribe treatment. Teachers will use AI to develop lesson plans (if all these examples aren’t happening already). Algorithms will increasingly dictate what media you consume, what news stories you see, even what products you buy.

We went from dial-up to internet dependency in less than 15 years. We’ll be just as dependent on AI in less than half that time. And once that dependency sets in, turning back becomes nearly impossible.

AI will be manipulated

Some still think of AI as a neutral calculator. Just give it the data, and it’ll give you the truth. But AI doesn’t run on math alone — it runs on values, and programmers, corporations, and governments set those values.

Google’s Gemini model was caught rewriting history to fit progressive narratives — generating images of black Nazis and erasing white historical figures in an overcorrection for the sake of “diversity.” China’s DeepSeek AI refuses to acknowledge the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Uyghur genocide, parroting Chinese Communist Party talking points by design.

Imagine AI tools with political bias embedded in your child’s tutor, your news aggregator, or your doctor’s medical assistant. Imagine relying on a system that subtly steers you toward certain beliefs — not by banning ideas but by never letting you see them in the first place.

We’ve seen what happened when environmental social governance and diversity, equity, and inclusion transformed how corporations operated — prioritizing subjective political agendas over the demands of consumers. Now, imagine those same ideological filters hardcoded into the very infrastructure that powers our society of the near future. Our society could become dependent on a system designed to coerce each of us without knowing it’s happening.

Our liberty problem

AI is not just a technological challenge. It’s a cultural, economic, and moral one. It’s about who controls what you see, what you’re allowed to say, and how you live your life. If conservatives don’t get serious about AI now — before it becomes genuinely ubiquitous — we may lose the ability to shape the future at all.

This is not about banning AI or halting progress. It’s about ensuring that as this technology transforms the world, it doesn’t quietly erase our freedom along the way. Conservatives cannot afford to sit back and dismiss these technological developments. We need to be active participants in shaping AI’s ethical and political boundaries, ensuring that liberty, transparency, and individual autonomy are protected at every stage of this transformation.

The stakes are clear. The timeline is short. And the time to make our voices heard is right now.

​Opinion & analysis, Artificial intelligence, Grok, Chatgpt, Open ai, World economic forum, Goldman sachs, Unemployment, Liberty, Surveillance, Globalism, Disruption, Economy, Deepseek ai, Luddites, Big tech, Big government 

With his Blue Origin space cadettes safely back on terra firma, Jeff Bezos has turned his attention to a more earthly concern: shaking up the auto industry.

Bezos-backed EV company Slate Auto unveiled its stripped-down, $20,000 answer to Tesla’s pricey Cybertruck in Long Beach on Thursday.

Like the iconic Model T, the Truck is affordable, customizable, and American-made.

The compact, two-seat pickup is the key to the tech mogul’s latest ambitious plan: to make EVs affordable for the average American. Priced at $27,500 before a $7,500 federal tax credit, it’s designed to undercut competitors like Tesla’s Cybertruck, which starts at a whopping $82,235.

The problem? That very same EV tax credit may soon be on President Trump’s chopping block.

Can Slate Auto’s bid succeed? Here’s why this truck is a potential game-changer — in spite of the hurdles it faces.

Crank windows, no screen

True to its no-frills name, the Truck is a master class in simplicity. The base model comes with crank windows, no infotainment screen, and unpainted plastic body panels.

Want music? There’s a phone mount and an optional Bluetooth speaker.

The Truck is a throwback to the days when vehicles were about function, not flash. With a 150-mile range from a 52.7-kWh battery (or 240 miles with an optional upgrade), it’s built for practicality, boasting a 1,400-pound payload and 1,000-pound towing capacity.

Plus, it can transform into a five-seat SUV with a conversion kit, offering versatility that’s rare at this price point.

The Truck may be a direct challenge to Elon Musk’s EV dominance, but it also seems to have taken its cues from another automative visionary: Henry Ford.

To a T

Like the iconic Model T, the Truck is affordable, customizable, and American-made.

Slate assembles the cars in Indiana, then bypasses dealerships — and avoids the usual markups — with its direct-to-consumer sales model. The “We Built It, You Make It” ethos encourages owners to personalize with accessories, from color wraps to speakers, potentially boosting Slate’s profits through high-margin add-ons.

With $111 million raised in 2023 and backing from heavyweights like L.A. Dodgers owner Mark Walter, Slate has the financial muscle to see this through.

Credit pulled?

But here’s the catch: That $20,000 price hinges on a federal EV tax credit that may vanish under Trump’s policies. Without it, the Truck’s cost creeps into the $30,000 range, especially if consumers opt for upgrades like power windows or a paint job.

Many potential buyers — think retirees or young workers — may not qualify for the credit anyway, as it’s income-based. Add to that the EV market’s cooling demand, with Cox Automotive noting average EV prices at $59,205, and Slate faces a tough road.

Competing against established players like Ford’s $26,995 Maverick, Slate must prove its reliability as a startup, a challenge that sank Fisker and Lordstown Motors.

So will Slate’s Truck succeed or fail? It’s a brilliant concept for budget-conscious buyers craving a simple, American-made EV. But without tax incentives and with a volatile market, Slate’s success will depend on flawless execution and consumer trust.

For now, Bezos has thrown down the gauntlet, and you can bet Musk is paying attention.

Prime opportunity

Slate isn’t Bezos’ first turn into the EV lane. In 2019, Amazon invested $700 million in EV startup Rivian, pledging to buy some 100,000 delivery vans by 2030. So far, that deal has been more about sustainability PR than the bottom line. While Rivian claims to be inching toward profitability, the company continues to operate at a loss.

Trump is the only threat to Slate’s ability to compete on price. Soon after the Truck’s launch, Tesla announced plans for an even cheaper entry-level EV. The vehicle — likely a more basic version of the 2025 Model Y SUV — is expected to start production in June.

Here’s an idea: Why not go with a name consumers already know and love? “Amazon launches EV pickup truck.” These cars will sell themselves — especially if you throw in free insurance for Prime members.

​Align cars, Lauren fix 

A federal judge issued a scathing ruling against the Trump administration for an executive order issued against the Perkins Coie law firm that she claimed violated the Constitution in numerous ways.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said Friday that the order violated three separate amendments to the Constitution and ordered that it be permanently blocked.

‘Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.’

Perkins Coie is known for its involvement in the Trump dossier debacle, where dubious documents were collected in an attempt to substantiate accusations against President Donald Trump that he was colluding with the Russian government.

Howell said in the 102-page ruling that Trump’s order against the firm violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth amendments.

“Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution, which requires that the government respond to dissenting or unpopular speech or ideas with ‘tolerance, not coercion,'” she wrote.

She compared Trump to a character from Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, who famously says, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” and explained that the order was in the same direction as totalitarianism.

“Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power,” she explained.

Howell had previously issued a temporary ruling against parts of the order and criticized the administration for violating the First Amendment.

“Regardless of whether the president dislikes the firm’s clients, dislikes the litigation positions the law firm takes in vigorous representation of those clients, or dislikes the results Perkins Coie achieved for its clients,” Howell wrote, “issuing an executive order targeting the firm based on the president’s dislike of the political positions of the firm’s clients or the firm’s litigation positions is retaliatory and runs head-on into the role of First Amendment protection.”

Howell was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

“I am sure that many in the legal profession are watching in horror at what Perkins Coie is going through here,” Howell said in the previous ruling.

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​Trump vs perkins coie, Perkins coie, Judge beryl howell, Judge howell vs trump, Politics 

A viral video showing a Pennsylvania woman defecating on the hood of another person’s car led to her arrest on Thursday.

The graphic video was captured by a bystander who posted it to Instagram. Prospect Park police investigated the video and identified the woman as 44-year-old Christina Solometo of Ridley Park.

The police chief lamented that the news coverage had given the city a bad reputation.

The incident occurred on 4th Street and Madison Avenue in Prospect Park on Tuesday. Police said the woman’s actions were the result of road rage after one person cut another person off in traffic. The owner of the car didn’t report the incident to police.

Solometo was charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, harassment, and depositing waste on a highway.

She was recorded yelling at a reporter, “I have a sickness!” as she was being place into a police cruiser.

Solometo’s family told WCAU-TV that there was more to the story and only said that they were seeking legal representation.

The police chief, David Madonna, lamented that the news coverage had given the city a bad reputation.

“I know it’s being joked on a lot. There’s all kinds of puns and innuendos online, but bottom line: We are treating it seriously. It can’t happen in this community. No town wants this to happen in their town,” said Madonna. “The recognition a town gets over this kind of thing, it’s really unwelcome. We don’t want this.”

He said that news agencies across the globe had contacted them for a comment about the case.

Solometo was also recorded laughing while in police custody, and she flashed a broad grin in her booking photo.

Video of the incident with some parts blurred out can be viewed on the Fox digital news report on YouTube.

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​Viral video defecation, Road rage defecation, Prospect park defecation, Crime, Christina solometo