While some reporters follow the facts wherever they lead, others start with a story they want to tell and work backwards from there.

And former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explains that it’s the latter more often than the public realizes — but BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has had it happen to her and is well aware.

In a recent interview with Sean Hannity, Leavitt described a common media tactic: A reporter develops a negative narrative about the Trump administration, finds loosely connected sources willing to validate it, and publishes the story even after receiving direct denials from people who were actually in the room.

“They, you know, believe they are arbiters of the truth and doing the country a great service, but they are clearly slanted and biased against the president,” she told Hannity.

“This is how fake news is manufactured, for your audience to understand,” she continued. “You’ll have a hack journalist who comes up with a narrative on their own that they think is true about the president or the White House, and they love the palace intrigue stories.”

Leavitt explained that “batting down fake stuff” was about 90% of her job.

“They’ll find a source who has no idea what they’re talking about, was not in the room, doesn’t even work at the White House, maybe worked on the campaign as a volunteer staffer for one day. And they’ll say, ‘A source close to President Trump told us this,’” she said.

“Like, who’s your source? Because I was in the room, so I’m a better source than them. And I’m telling you, this did not happen,” she added.

Leavitt went on to say that the reporters would then respond that they “really trust” that source and would “still write it” anyways.

“All they need is two sources,” she said. “One to say that happened. Another for them to call and say, ‘I heard this happened.’ And that person will say, ‘Yeah, that probably sounds right.’ And then the story’s written, and you can have the White House aggressively on the record pushing back, and they’ll still print.”

“That’s how things get written. They just seek to get a bad narrative, and they’ll find anyone who helps them push that narrative,” she added.

“I know it sounds crazy that they would just come up with a narrative and then try to approach people to corroborate that narrative that they just made up,” Gonzales says.

“Sounds crazy, but Karoline is 100% correct,” she adds.

Gonzales reveals that reporters have reached out to her with a political bias attempting to spin a story, revealing one recent text conversation she had with a reporter at Politico.

“No thanks, I’m going to pass on that,” she says. “I don’t need to engage with you, I know what this is. I always know what it is.”

“The mainstream media is trash,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​White house, Karoline leavitt, Donald trump, Mainstream media, Sara gonzales, Fake news, Blazetv show 

Visual Intelligence was introduced to iPhone with iOS 18, but unless you had the right phone or knew where to look, you probably didn’t even know it was there. Or what it does. This year, the feature makes the jump into the Camera app for easier access. Here’s how to find it and put it to use.

When Visual Intelligence launched in 2024, it was actually an iPhone 16 series exclusive. Within the next year, support trickled down to iPhone 15 to bring more users into the fold. Naturally, every new iPhone newer than that also received the feature, including the brand-new iPhone 18 Pro Max, which we reviewed here.

It’s a neat tool.

As the name implies, Visual Intelligence uses AI to help users decipher the world around them through the camera lens of an iPhone. With a photo, it can speak text out loud, like on a restaurant menu or inside a book; translate foreign languages you might come across while abroad; and use AI to understand objects. It’s a neat tool for those times you encounter something in public and you want to know more about it.

Previously to invoke Visual Intelligence, you had to either hold down the Camera Control button on the side of compatible iPhones or summon it with an icon hidden away in Control Center. Needless to say, it was easy to miss unless you knew exactly where to look. The latest iOS 27 update hopes to change that, as Visual Intelligence is now baked directly into the main Camera app.

RELATED: Not all new iPhones are worth it. This one blows them all away.

iPhone 18 Pro Max Models/Apple

Now when you open the Camera app, you’ll find a new “Siri” tab to the right of the main “Photo” screen. Swipe left to reveal a brand-new interface with the Siri logo in place of the on-screen camera button. Point your camera at an object, tap the button, and Siri will generate a response that pops down from the top of the display to explain what you’re looking at.

Alternatively, tap the comment box in the bottom left corner of the display to take a photo of the object in front of you and immediately launch into a chat thread about that object. Here, you can ask Siri questions about the object or, in my case, argue whether or not Siri actually got the object right. More on that in a second.

If you want to find similar objects for reference or to purchase, tap the photo with the magnifying glass on the bottom right corner of the screen, and Siri will launch a pop-out menu with results from connected apps, like Google, Amazon, Walmart, the Shop app, and TikTok.

Visual Intelligence Camera on iOS 27/Getty Images

Overall, Visual Intelligence is handy, but it’s not perfect. While I was snapping an image of my Google Nest Wi-Fi router, Siri mistook it first for an Apple HomePod and then a router made by another brand. It did eventually get it right, though, so that’s the important thing.

On the flip side, it immediately identified my Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple Magic Mouse. For whatever reason, it seems to understand Apple-branded products quite well.

Your mileage may vary.

Visual Intelligence is available in the Camera app on compatible devices running iOS 27. That means you’ll need to update to the latest software to access it this way. If you’re on iOS 26, you can still reach Visual Intelligence, but you’ll have to hold down the Camera Control on the side of your phone or bring it up in Control Center. If you don’t have a Camera Control button (with the exception of Apple iPhone 16e models), then your phone likely doesn’t have Visual Intelligence at all.

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​Artificial intelligence, Ios, Iphone, Tech 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained yet another Cumberland County, Maine, corrections officer.

Dannick Massamba-Bankela, who was detained on Tuesday, is the fifth noncitizen Cumberland County corrections officer detained by ICE since April 2025, highlighting a controversial hiring pattern in the jurisdiction. Previous arrests generated tension between Sheriff Kevin Joyce and the ICE office in Scarborough, Maine.

‘Illegal aliens have no place in our communities, especially in positions of law enforcement.’

Massamba-Bankela, who migrated from the Republic of the Congo, was ordered to report to Scarborough’s ICE processing facility on September 19. Protesters, who gather daily across the street from the ICE building, showered the detainee with support.

“It’s not his fault that the U.S. government delays forever in scheduling these asylum interviews,” Massamba-Bankela’s lawyer, Christina Corbaci, told Maine Public. “So what is a person supposed to do? He’s putting down ties. He’s moving forward with his life. He’s integrating into the community exactly like we ask immigrants to do, fully.”

As of Monday, Massamba-Bankela is being held at Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island, according to ICE’s detainee locator. The Congolese national was previously held at Massachusetts’ Plymouth County Correctional Facility, according to the Maine Wire.

The five detained corrections officers in Cumberland County hailed either from the Congo or Angola. Some entered the U.S. on tourist or student visas before claiming asylum. At least one, Angolan national Emanuel Ludovic Mbuangi Landila, illegally entered the country via the southern border in 2019, the Bangor Daily News reported, citing the Department of Homeland Security.

Sheriff Joyce claimed that the four officers detained prior to Massamba-Bankela displayed work authorization sufficient for their employment with Cumberland County. Massamba-Bankela’s lawyer told Maine Public that her client also possessed valid work authorization.

Work authorization does not override a visa overstay or legalize an alien’s presence in the country, according to ICE.

RELATED: Retiree radicalism: Behind the scenes with Maine’s anti-ICE activists

Benjamin Roberts/Blaze Media

The ICE facility in Scarborough is not a detention center. At least two of the affected corrections officers were processed by agents there and either transferred to permanent custody elsewhere or, in the case of illegal entrant Landila, released on bond.

Landila was detained on January 21, released on bond in February, and ultimately returned to his training program by April, according to the Portland Press Herald. He remains subject to removal pending a final asylum decision.

All five of the detained men were hired by Democrat Sheriff Kevin Joyce, who first took office in 2010. He is running for re-election.

“I guess if you’re not the card-carrying, you know, U.S. citizen, then you must be illegal. Because that’s what they told me is he’s illegal — and he’s definitely not a criminal,” Joyce said in January after Landila’s arrest. “So what part of him is illegal? I don’t know.”

“This was a show of force, a show of whatever they were trying to do with seven people,” Joyce said.

The Maine Criminal Justice Academy dropped English reading and writing tests as a requirement for certification in 2024, shortly before the county’s spate of noncitizen hiring.

After that requirement was cut, Joyce claimed to have hired over 20 immigrants as corrections officers in just one year.

RELATED: Mexican national accused of sexually assaulting woman on Mackinac Island

Getty Images

Though the county doesn’t sponsor visas, it also doesn’t screen for citizenship or legal status. The job posting states that applicants must be “authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S.,” but doesn’t inquire about green cards, an applicant’s right to remain in the country, or pending asylum/immigration decisions.

The Cumberland County jail faced a severe staffing shortage prior to its noncitizen hiring spree.

“Under President Trump and Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin, ICE is restoring law and order. Illegal aliens have no place in our communities, especially in positions of law enforcement,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Blaze News. “Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.”

Maine isn’t the only state that allows noncitizens to serve in the prison system. Texas employs about 1,600 foreign nationals in its prison system, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way to live the American dream,” the DHS said. “If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

Cumberland County, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, and Massamba-Bankela’s legal representative did not respond to requests for comment.

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​Department of homeland security, Detention center, Immigration, Maine, Politics, Immigration and customs enforcement 

“You see how this looks, right?”

That question captures Chris Hansen’s method. He takes a man who believed he was meeting a child for sex and forces him to look at his own conduct from the outside.

We do not merely lie to other people. We lie to ourselves. That is how ‘I knew it was wrong’ can coexist with ‘I did it anyway.’

For more than two decades, Hansen’s predator stings — from NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” to later investigations — have offered a grim case study in self-deception. The men know the conduct is wrong. They choose it anyway. Then, when Hansen arrives with the transcripts, they scramble to preserve the belief that they are good men.

In other words, Chris Hansen has given us a case study in sin.

The basic scenario is familiar. An adult begins communicating online with someone he believes is underage. The age is made explicit. The conversation becomes sexual. A meeting is arranged. The man drives to the house.

Then Hansen walks into the room.

“Have a seat. What are you doing here?”

Almost nobody simply says, “I came here because I wanted to have sex with a child.”

Instead, the explanations begin.

“I just came to talk.” “I was lonely.” “I wanted to make sure she was OK.” “I knew this was probably a setup.” Sometimes the man insists he intended to warn the supposed child about the dangers of talking to strangers online.

Then Hansen produces the chat logs.

He reads an explicit message in that grave, almost bureaucratic voice and asks, “What did you mean by that?” Everyone knows what it means. The point is that the words are no longer private. Hansen has dragged the man’s rationalizations into the open and placed them next to the evidence.

Now the story changes. Simple denial will not work, so the explanation becomes biography. He was lonely. He was depressed. He had a hard day. The goal is no longer to deny the conduct but to move the audience’s sympathy toward the man who chose it.

Hansen keeps returning to the same question: Does any of that make it acceptable to send sexual messages to someone who told you she was 13?

The excuses collapse one by one.

RELATED: Christians are missing the opportunity next door

Banderlog/Getty Images

Perhaps he missed the message stating the child’s age. Hansen points to the exchange in which the decoy asked whether the age was a problem and the man said it was not.

Perhaps he never intended to do anything sexual. Hansen reads the acts the man described in his own messages.

Perhaps he changed his mind on the drive over. Then why did he keep driving? Why did he knock on the door? Why did he bring condoms?

If he knew it was wrong, why did he still show up?

At some point, the rational answers run out. What remains is the answer many of the men cannot bear to say plainly: I wanted to do this.

Instead, they reach for the self-image they are desperate to protect. “I’m not a predator.” “I’m a good person.” “I just made one stupid mistake.”

The deception is not merely directed at Hansen. Much of it appears to be directed inward.

They are trying to preserve a portrait of themselves that the evidence no longer supports. Dorian Gray had the decency to keep his portrait hidden in the attic. Hansen puts the chat log on the kitchen table.

This is where Hansen becomes an accidental moral philosopher. He keeps asking a question human beings are remarkably good at avoiding: Why did you do what you did if you knew it was wrong?

The answer is frequently, “I don’t know.”

Philosophers have a name for part of this problem: weakness of the will, or akrasia. A person judges one course of action to be better and chooses another anyway.

Christianity goes farther. Sin is not merely rule-breaking. It disorders desire and corrupts our understanding of ourselves. Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful. Paul describes people as suppressing truths they do not want to face.

We do not merely lie to other people. We lie to ourselves.

That is how “I knew it was wrong” can coexist with “I did it anyway.” Fallen human beings do not merely fail to do the good they claim to know. They can learn to love what is evil while renaming it good. Milton gives Satan the line: “Evil, be thou my good.”

Some of the strangest Hansen encounters make the point even more sharply: The men recognize him.

They have watched the show. They know what happens. They have seen other men caught in precisely the same way. Yet they somehow never placed themselves in the same category.

Those guys were predators. I’m different.

Hansen sometimes asks whether they have children the same age as the decoy. Many do. What would they think if a grown man sent their child these messages? The moral judgment suddenly becomes easy — until Hansen turns it back on them.

That brings us to the problem with toxic empathy.

Compassion is a virtue. But compassion becomes morally destructive when it rearranges the categories of victim and perpetrator.

A man who drives to a house believing he is about to sexually exploit a child may indeed be lonely. He may have suffered. He may have psychological problems. Those facts can help explain him. They do not make him the victim of the encounter.

RELATED: The lion, the witch, and the worldview war

Gisela Schober/Getty Images

The child he intended to exploit is the victim.

Our culture increasingly prefers therapeutic questions: What happened to him? Why is he hurting? How did society fail him? Those can be legitimate questions. They become toxic when they displace the more basic moral question: What did he choose to do to someone else?

Hansen’s great contribution is remarkably simple. He puts the evidence on the table and asks the person to account for it.

In an interview with me, Hansen said he learned something from Mike Wallace: Sometimes the most powerful question is simply, “Explain.”

That is why the format has a moral force larger than the television sting itself. Explanation is where excuses either become clearer or finally run out.

For more than 20 years, Hansen’s subjects have demonstrated something Christianity has taught for 2,000 years. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Jeremiah admonishes, “and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Hansen’s kitchen table is not a confessional. But it is a place where self-deception has a hard time surviving the evidence.

​Chris hansen, Christianity, Toxic empathy, Sin, To catch a predator, Predators, Akrasia, Culture, Mike wallace, Dorian gray, Opinion & analysis 

Some of the major corporations that once wrapped themselves in the LGBT flag and embraced racist DEI initiatives have in recent years signaled a change in tack.

It appears that this may have been a pump fake — that normalcy advocates may have been premature in celebrating the apparent return to sanity at Ford Motor Company, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile.

‘Companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.’

The 1792 Exchange, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to educate lawmakers about the dangers of woke corporate policies, has been tracking various businesses’ DEI commitments, participation in the LGBTQ activist organization Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, and their nonbusiness activities — particularly those with an ideological bent.

For example, Ford signaled in 2024 that it would be undergoing some reform on the woke front.

Ford CEO Jim Farley noted in an August 2024 memo obtained by normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck that the automotive company would: focus on taking care of its customers and employees as opposed to “publicly commenting on the polarizing issues of the day”; end its participation in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index; and ensure that its policies and practices “drive business results.”

RELATED: Gay Atlantic writer whines to Bill Maher that LGBT extremism is blowing up support for homosexual ‘marriage’

Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images

The watchdog also highlighted how:

T-Mobile announced in a July 2025 letter to the Federal Communications Commission that it was dissolving its DEI roles and corresponding initiatives and instead partnering with “third party suppliers, community groups, and other organizations … to advance our core business objectives”;Target announced that it would cease participation in the Corporate Equality Index, “further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to [the company’s] roadmap for growth,” and end its DEI goals; andMolson Coors signaled in September 2024 that it would cease participation in the CEI and end DEI-based training programs and donations to divisive events.

Allen Mendenhall, a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation’s American Investor Initiative, told the Daily Signal in June that these changes were part of a broader “market correction and a cultural correction.”

“Businesses are increasingly rejecting pressure from activist investors and corporate bureaucracies in favor of listening to consumers and respecting longstanding moral and religious convictions,” continued Mendenhall. “Top-down cultural engineering is losing its grip.”

The 1792 Exchange pointed out a month ago that some of these supposedly reformed corporations haven’t lost their woke reflexes.

Target, for instance, was listed this year as a platinum sponsor of New York City Pride, a supposed “carnival-style celebration for LGBTQIA+ youth, their families, and allies.” The stated aim of this year’s parade was to “empower and educate queer youth with a variety of queer- and gender-affirming resources and activities.”

This included a political rally “to demand protections for trans and queer youth.”

This year, Target was also listed as a sponsor on numerous other LGBT activist events, including Jersey Pride, LA! Pride in Los Angeles; Utah Pride in Salt Lake City; Pride Houston 365 in Texas; and San Francisco Pride.

Through its Vizzy Hard Seltzer brand, Molson Coors was named a “silver sponsor” of Jersey Pride, a “diamond partner” of Miami Beach Pride, and a presenting sponsor of Denver Pride, where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement signage was visible in the parade.

T-Mobile is also still backing LGBT activist events. T-Mobile Fiber is listed both as a gold-level sponsor of Phoenix Pride’s Rainbows Festival and as a bronze-level sponsor of Capital City Pride in Des Moines, Iowa. Metro by T-Mobile is listed as a sponsor for this year’s Philly Pride 365.

Children appear to have been present at these events despite the heavy sexual themes and imagery.

Ford, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News by deadline.

The 1792 Exchange noted that “publicly traded companies have a fiduciary responsibility to create long-term value for shareholders while remaining consistent with their publicly stated commitments and corporate values. When engaging in charitable giving or corporate sponsorships, companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.”

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​Ford, Leftism, Lgbt, Molson coors, Pride parade, Robby starbuck, T-mobile, Target, Woke business, Politics 

After nearly two decades of convincing an entire generation that human connection works best as a door-to-door sales catalog, Silicon Valley has run into a small problem. Match Group, the digital giant that built an empire by turning romance into an endless loop of low-consequence choices, recently surveyed the cultural wreckage and decided it was time to sell us back the exact social structures it helped demolish.

The corporate headquarters in Dallas has relaunched Upward. Once a modest corner of the internet reserved for devout Christians, the platform is being repositioned as a refuge for anyone tired of standard app culture. Upward now features a “chivalry mode” that encourages men to send the first message, sets clear timelines for getting married, and includes explicit prompts for those willing to pay for dinner.

It’s cynical. It’s brilliant. It’s America.

The executives at Match Group call these users “next-gen traditionalists.” The Atlantic, observing the exact same shift with its usual mixture of mild anxiety and high-minded condescension, labeled the phenomenon a “regressive streak.” Beyond the elite media commentary, the commercial calculation is far simpler. The industry spent far too long marketing infinite option value to young adults, only to discover that the modern romance industry mostly produces desperate souls sitting alone in apartments, eating takeout, and endlessly scrolling their phones.

The writers at the Atlantic seem genuinely perplexed that a 25-year-old woman might want a husband who can change a flat tire and feels no deep emotional turmoil about picking up the check. In the cultural ecosystem of coastal media institutions, traditional social scripts are routinely framed as oppressive remnants of a primitive past. To the editorial board, a man offering to pay for a meal looks like an act of subtle subjugation. To a young woman who has spent three straight years negotiating ambiguous coffee dates with men who view basic adult commitment as a boundary violation, it looks like basic common sense.

The sickness and the cure

This corporate about-face marks a classic cycle of modern commerce. Silicon Valley gained dominance by fostering a problem, extracting massive financial value from the resulting confusion, and then inventing a brand-new product line to fix the damage. Tinder and its corporate siblings taught young Americans to view potential partners as temporary inventory. The result was a dramatic decline in marriage rates, plummeting birth rates, and widespread romantic exhaustion. Having successfully monetized the dissolution of traditional dating, the industry is now monetizing its restoration. It’s cynical. It’s brilliant. It’s America.

RELATED: These influencers can’t stop crying on camera — now they’re superstars

LanaStock/Getty Images

The cultural gatekeepers spent decades telling young people that structure was the enemy of authentic living. Every traditional expectation regarding how men and women interact was systematically dismantled in favor of complete, unscripted autonomy. But people do not thrive in spaces devoid of rules. When every social interaction requires a fresh, ground-up negotiation over roles, expectations, and intentions, the result is less freedom than total paralysis.

Young men were hit particularly hard by this rather perverse social experiment. For years, they received explicit instructions that traditional masculine initiative was predatory, overbearing, outdated, and dangerously toxic. Then they logged onto mainstream dating apps and found that women still overwhelmingly preferred men who took charge, planned dates, and made their intentions known. The culture demanded passive neutrality, while reality demanded action. By explicitly asking men to step up and pursue with clear purpose, Upward is merely acknowledging a reality that elite institutions spent decades trying to educate out of the population.

Normal is no mystery

The media class often treats traditional marriage as an ancient artifact that survived by accident. They view old-fashioned courtship as something that must be constantly explained away or neutralized with appropriate progressive caveats. What they fail to grasp is that traditional structures survived for centuries because they align perfectly with fundamental human desires. People want permanence. They want clear expectations. They want to build families with partners who consider commitment a virtue rather than a compromise.

When a massive tech company changes its business strategy to cater to old-fashioned rituals, it’s not running an ideological crusade. Silicon Valley responds strictly to consumer demand and revenue metrics. Match Group is shifting strategy because the infinite-choice model has run out of runway. The revolution promised endless novelty, but delivered misery on a massive scale.

Some young Americans are perhaps adopting traditional dating habits out of nostalgia for a time they never lived through. But most are adopting them because the alternative failed. The counterculture in America is no longer found in rejecting traditional norms, but in building a stable household, raising children, and expecting a partner to be there in the good times and the bad. The boardrooms of Big Tech have finally read the room, even if the writers at the Atlantic are still trying to understand why anyone would want a husband who not only books the dinner reservation but doesn’t insist on going Dutch.

​Tech, Dating, Apps, Christians, Chivalry 

Jenn Nizza is an ex-psychic medium who converted to Christianity over a decade ago. Her platform today heavily revolves around warning people against falling prey to mainstream occultism. That includes the obvious — divination, tarot cards, crystals, manifesting, and astrology — but it also includes things like subliminal messaging in Disney movies and Taylor Swift music.

For years, Nizza has warned that she believes the pop icon deliberately infuses her music with “New Age ideologies” and even performs “witchcraft on the stage.”

On this episode of “Relatable,” Nizza joins Allie Beth Stuckey again to warn Swifties that their beloved idol is on a mission to normalize witchcraft.

“[Taylor Swift] is a pop star that’s using her platform for the enemy. … She is being used as a vessel of destruction because she is promoting and glamorizing New Age and occult ideologies and practices like karma and especially numerology,” says Nizza, noting that Swift is “obsessed with the number 13” and even “makes decisions based on this number.”

The spiritual darkness surrounding Swift, she argues, has grown over time — which is precisely the point.

“She appeared as somebody so innocent and Christian-like in the beginning, and I really believe that’s how the enemy does this because then you get your gathering. … You get your platform. You get your followers, right?” says Nizza. “The Swifties came in, and then the darkness starts to come out, and that is to, of course, indoctrinate masses of people.”

She gives the example of Swift’s song “Invisible String” — a folk-pop love ballad about fate quietly tying her to a lover through small coincidences across years, as if an unseen thread had been pulling them together all along.

While perhaps trivial at first glance, Nizza explains that the invisible string theory originates from New Age occultism.

“The invisible string theory is the idea that there is an invisible string around one of your fingers and an invisible string around another person’s finger that is kind of like your twin flame, the person you’re meant to be with,” she says, noting that belief in this concept often leads people to “divorce” and other sins.

“It is a doctrine of demons, meaning a teaching of demons and not the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as an imaginary string around anybody’s finger,” she adds.

The invisible string and other New Age concepts, like zodiac signs and energy readings, Nizza argues, are all demonic because they’re predicated on the idea that “you are your own authority” and that “the universe will assist you in getting things you want.”

She explains that this paradigm is the opposite of Christianity, which puts Christ alone on the throne and calls people to be “accountable for [sin]” and seek “forgiveness.”

“There’s so much freedom in Christ … but in the New Age, what’s good is bad, and what’s bad is good. It’s backwards,” she says.

To hear Allie and Nizza unpack occultism hidden in other areas of culture, including children’s entertainment, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Allie beth stuckey, Jenn nizza, Taylor swift, Witchcraft, Blazetv show 

Governments have been handing out public work since men were laying stones on the Appian Way. And wherever government hands out money, people line up to get some.

Abraham Lincoln was said to have faced so many office-seekers and applicants for government favors that he finally complained, in his usual earthy fashion, that “there are too many pigs for the teats.”

The Democratic Socialists of America do not own the word ‘kindness.’

The pigs have multiplied.

During the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt dramatically expanded Washington’s role in the economy. His administration also strengthened organized labor. The Wagner Act of 1935 guaranteed workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, and unions became a central pillar of the Democrat coalition that dominated American politics for decades.

The same political pattern appeared again during the War on Poverty.

Michael Harrington’s 1962 book, “The Other America,” helped force poverty onto the national political agenda. Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty task force later brought Harrington to Washington as a consultant.

The federal government also needed a way to measure poverty. That measure was developed principally by Mollie Orshansky, an economist at the Social Security Administration, whose thresholds became the basis of the official federal poverty measure.

Then came the Great Society: Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance, housing programs, and a vast expansion of Washington’s responsibility over Americans’ lives and livelihoods.

The political argument over those programs has raged ever since. But one fact should not be controversial: Americans have transferred staggering amounts of wealth through government because they believe people in genuine need should be helped.

That is kindness on an industrial scale. And wherever kindness operates on an industrial scale, thieves notice.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion every year to fraud, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

That is not “waste” in the loose political sense. The GAO is estimating losses from deliberate fraud.

Look around the country. In Minnesota, the House Oversight Committee says at least $300 million was stolen through the Feeding Our Future child-nutrition scandal. The committee also says federal prosecutors estimate that fraud involving several high-risk Medicaid programs could total billions.

RELATED: The government would like to discuss your allowance

Erhui1979 / Getty Images

In New York, federal prosecutors charged 15 defendants in health care schemes involving more than $10.6 billion in fraudulent billings to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers.

Arizona’s Medicaid system was hit by another grotesque scheme aimed at programs serving Native Americans struggling with addiction. The state attorney general says losses from the wider scandal reached into the billions. In one recent federal case alone, an addiction-treatment operator was sentenced to 14 years after fraudulently billing Medicaid more than $69 million.

In California, Paul Richard Randall orchestrated a scheme that submitted nearly $270 million in false Medi-Cal claims for expensive medications that were often unnecessary or never provided. Medi-Cal actually paid about $179 million. Randall got 30 years in federal prison.

Across seven Southeastern states, the Justice Department this summer announced 17 cases involving more than $350 million in intended losses involving SNAP, housing benefits, Small Business Administration loans, and tax fraud.

This thieving from American kindness is nationwide.

The Trump administration has now made federal fraud a major target. This month, the government canceled Affordable Care Act policies covering roughly 760,000 people whose enrollments it says were fraudulent or otherwise ineligible. The administration projects about $2.2 billion in savings.

It turns out that industrial-scale redistribution creates industrial-scale opportunities for fraud.

The Biden-era immigration surge adds another political argument. The Congressional Budget Office estimates net immigration at roughly 1.5 million people in 2021, 2.8 million in 2022, 3.3 million in 2023, and 2.7 million in 2024. Much of that increase fell into the CBO’s “other foreign national” category, which includes people who entered without lawful status as well as others admitted under temporary authorities.

But illegal immigrants are generally barred from SNAP, nonemergency Medicaid, SSI, TANF, and most federal housing assistance. States can choose to spend their own taxpayers’ money anyway. California sure does, to the tune of $22 billion a year.

And immigration has a political consequence separate from voting. The census counts residents, not merely citizens, for congressional apportionment. Illegal aliens count in those population totals just like everyone else living in the country.

When Washington spends money on a colossal scale, responsibility becomes diffuse. A federal agency sends money to a state. The state sends it to a provider. The provider bills a program. A nonprofit administers another piece. Somewhere along that chain, the pigs find the teats.

Then everybody expresses shock.

RELATED: Can a $1.2 trillion giveaway become a fiscal bargain?

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Perhaps the 50 states should shoulder far more responsibility for caring for their own poor. Perhaps Washington should stop pretending that every human problem requires another federal funding stream.

The alternative is industrial-scale socialism accompanied by industrial-scale fraud.

Something else eventually gets stolen, too: trust. Every dollar stolen from Medicaid makes taxpayers more suspicious of Medicaid. Every fake food-benefit claim makes it harder to defend assistance for the family who actually needs groceries. Every crooked nonprofit feeds the suspicion that “compassion” has become a business model.

That may be the most destructive theft of all.

The Democratic Socialists of America do not own the word “kindness.” Neither does any political party. Americans who work, pay taxes, and agree to help their neighbors have every right to demand that their money reach the people it was intended to help.

And they have every right to be furious with the pigs at the teats who steal it.

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Cabaña Mexican Grill in Garden City, Kansas, temporarily closed last week as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted operations across the southwestern part of the state.

In a bilingual Facebook post featuring a Mexican flag, the restaurant said, “ICE is in our community, and fear is spreading through the families who work hard every day to keep businesses like ours running.”

Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do.

The post urged other businesses to stand with their employees: “People before profit. Community before business. Together.”

Kansas Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran responded by stressing coordination between federal agents and local law enforcement.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted to X. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”

Marshall said he was closely following events and had been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and local authorities “as ICE executes warrants in order to keep Kansans safe.”

Moran added that he had spoken with Mullin and stressed “the importance of DHS working with our local law enforcement to safely execute these warrants.”

He also relayed an assurance from Mullin that the warrants were “only for the purpose of arresting individuals who have been charged with criminal activities.”

Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton struck much the same note. He said immigration agents should focus on serious criminals, coordinate with local officials, and avoid leaving Kansas families afraid.

How strange that the Republicans and the Democrat should sound so similar, especially to voters who expect Republicans to offer an unapologetic defense of immigration enforcement.

Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on carrying out what he called “the largest deportation operation in American history.” More than 77 million Americans voted for him, and he carried Kansas by 16 points.

RELATED: Sanctuary cities’ get-out-of-jail fail

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Yet when federal immigration agents arrived in Southwest Kansas, the state’s two Republican senators did not lead with a defense of the administration’s enforcement authority. They led with concerns about coordination, local knowledge, and public safety — language strikingly similar to Hamilton’s.

That distinction is worth getting right.

ICE routinely works with state and local law enforcement, including through its 287(g) partnerships. Asking federal agents to communicate with sheriffs and police is not, by itself, a sanctuary policy, nor does local government possess a veto over federal immigration enforcement.

The real question is what Moran and Marshall believe ICE should be enforcing.

ICE is not merely a federal version of a local police department. Immigration enforcement is itself at the core of its mission. Removal does not depend in every case on a separate violent-crime conviction.

When Moran and Marshall say that ICE should be focusing on public safety or illegal aliens charged with criminal activity, what they seem to mean is that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens should receive enforcement amnesty. That’s madness.

I don’t think it is even worth pointing out to either Republican senator that it is illegal for illegal aliens to work under the table in the United States, and usually that implicates other crimes, including identity theft and document fraud.

Logic cannot prevail when we are hearing Democratic talking points from the mouths of Republicans. This is particularly troubling at a time when some Democrats, including Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), are openly calling to abolish the Department of Homeland Security.

RELATED: The mass-deportation promise is disappearing

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Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do, particularly in areas that have been transformed by mass immigration, both legal and illegal.

Comments responding to a KSN story included blunt reactions: “The businesses hiring them should be fined and arrested,” “Sounds like they need to stay closed if they can’t hire Americans,” and from one Western Kansas resident, “I voted for this!!!”

Those comments are not a scientific sample of Kansas opinion, obviously. They are, however, a reminder of the constituency Republican politicians helped create when they spent years promising tougher immigration enforcement and failed to deliver.

Now that enforcement has arrived in Southwest Kansas, voters can see clearly how their elected officials respond.

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