More than two months have passed since President Trump unveiled his Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict — arguably the most consequential Middle East peace initiative in decades.

Foreign policy insiders predicted failure. Yet since October 10, the plan has held through volatility and uncertainty, confounding critics of the president, Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel deserves a fulsome defense from everyone committed to law, order, and truth.

The plan has done more than reduce the fighting. It has underscored Israel’s actual aims from the start: Eliminate Hamas, free the hostages, and ensure that Gaza never again serves as a launchpad for mass murder — not destroy the Palestinian people.

Still, the “genocide” libel endures. It may be the most destructive falsehood leveled against Jews in modern history.

Less than three months after the October 7, 2023, terror attacks, South Africa — a country collapsing under corruption and poverty — accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. That case continues, with a final ruling unlikely before 2028.

Meanwhile the libel spreads. Radical activists, anti-Western NGOs captured by ideological agendas, pseudo-intellectual academics, and hollow institutions such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars push it relentlessly.

IAGS illustrates the problem. It requires nothing more than a $30 fee to join. The group has been flooded with frivolous “members,” including Adolf Hitler, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine, along with a host of non-experts. Yet major media outlets still treat its anti-Israel resolutions as credible, impartial assessments of genocide — the gravest crime in human history.

This campaign demands a serious response. Legal experts and clear-minded observers should dismantle the genocide libel once and for all. The arguments are so straightforward that only bad faith can obscure them.

After the October 7 massacre — which, proportionally, represented the loss of roughly 50,000 American lives — Israel acted in self-defense against an enemy openly committed to exterminating every Jew in the country. Calling Israel genocidal in this context is not simply wrong. It inverts reality and rewards Hamas.

Israel also facilitated massive humanitarian aid to Palestinians throughout the war — more than 2 million tons since the fighting began. That record alone destroys the claim of genocidal intent. No nation at war has ever delivered aid on that scale to a population governed by its enemy.

RELATED: Hamas floods the feeds to sway clueless Westerners

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Israeli forces have fought with precision to reduce civilian casualties while targeting Hamas operatives. The challenge has been immense. Hamas hides behind civilians, embeds fighters in hospitals and schools, and uses civilian infrastructure as shields. Even so, Israel repeatedly issued advance warnings of airstrikes and troop movements to limit harm. Genocidal regimes do the opposite: They hunt civilians and slaughter them deliberately. Gaza has seen none of that conduct from Israel.

The International Court of Justice should weigh these facts carefully when it rules in the South Africa-Israel case. Israel’s position is strong, which explains why radical actors want to rewrite the rules of genocide to fit their narrative.

The Genocide Convention remains a respected, almost sacred document. It should guide the final judgment. Attempts to stretch or dilute it through political lawfare threaten justice itself.

For now, Israel deserves a fulsome defense from everyone committed to law, order, and truth. The future of international law, counterterrorism strategy, and the conduct of modern warfare may hinge on how the world judges Israel’s actions. The stakes could not be higher.

​Trump, Gaza, Hamas, Benjamin netanyahu, Israel, Peace plan, Opinion & analysis, Israel-hamas war, Ceasefire israel hamas 

An estimated 80% of people hate their jobs. They fantasize about quitting in a blaze of glory, hurling their lanyards across the office like a frisbee, and riding off into the sunset to raise goats, bake sourdough, or at least remember what eight hours of sleep feels like.

Sean Carlton was one of them.

‘Nobody wakes up one morning ready to raise animals and turn them into food.’ Change begins with one thing you can actually change. Lower one bill. Learn one skill.

The difference is that he didn’t stay. Two years ago, he and his wife, Alexys, walked away from their corporate careers and bought an acre of land in West Virginia. The experience also prompted Carlton to write “Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You” — a book that reads like both a confession and a call to arms.

The Carltons didn’t step into a new job, but into a new way of being. They rolled the dice with no promise of a soft landing, and in doing so they exposed something uncomfortable: Many of us aren’t trapped by circumstance so much as by the stories we tell ourselves about what we are allowed to want.

Sean Carlton

Questioning ‘normal’

Carlton is no professional commentator or pundit. “Exit Farming” is a cri de coeur from the American cubicle.

So when asked what exactly he means by “systems that farm you,” he doesn’t reach for theory. He answers with the simplicity of a man who finally recognized the shape of his own confinement.

“Systems farm people by taking more from you than they give back while convincing you this arrangement is normal,” he says.

Work dictates your hours. Debt dictates your decisions. Health care dictates your fears. Even your phone becomes, in his words, “the delivery system for apps that track you, profile you, and sell what they learn.”

It might sound melodramatic. It isn’t. It’s simply Monday morning in America, with millions waking up already weary of the hours ahead.

Slow and steady

But Carlton insists the way out is rarely a dramatic jailbreak. It’s the slow, steady act of starving the system’s influence. You “bring one thing at a time back under your control.” Lower an expense. Learn a skill. Build a sliver of income that doesn’t depend on a single institution. These small shifts break the spell. Every small act of independence starves a machine that has grown used to feeding on your time, your attention, your identity, even your sanity.

Of course, independence comes with a price, and Carlton tallies it honestly and without self-pity. One of the most striking sections in the book addresses the loss of family once he stepped off the expected path. Not through screaming matches or slammed doors, but through slow erosion: “Phone calls got shorter. Conversations turned tense.”

Disapproval had less to do with the specifics of his life than the simple fact that he no longer fit the template.

When asked how Americans can balance honoring their families with refusing to, as he puts it, “participate in systems that drain your energy and compromise your values,” his answer is as clean as it is compelling: “If a relationship survives you making choices that improve your health, your time, or your stability, then it survives. If it falls apart the moment you stop living the way they prefer, then it was already conditional.”

It’s a hard truth, but Carlton refuses to dress it up. Long before any institution closes a door on us, we’ve already built the cell ourselves. The ancients understood this well: People cling to the comfort of captivity, obeying expectations set by those who would rather see them worn down than transformed.

RELATED: An artist and farmer cultivates creativity

Stacy Tabb

Work with consequences

There’s also a spiritual undercurrent to his critique of modern work culture. Carlton never lapses into sermonizing, but his diagnosis reads like a measured moral warning. Modern work “follows you home,” he notes. It takes evenings, weekends, and whatever fragments of peace remain. It erodes sleep, attention, and the mental steadiness that previous generations recognized as the bedrock of a healthy life.

Americans worship productivity with almost religious devotion, even though the devotion always seems to cost them more than they can spare. Two-thirds of the workforce is burned out, but the cult of busyness marches on. Another day, another dollar … but also another headache, another email chain, and another reminder that coffee can only do so much.

When asked whether “exit farming” is a return to older ideas of work and stewardship, he rejects romantic myth-making. “Exit farming isn’t about finding something spiritual,” he says. “It’s about doing work where the consequences are real.” If you don’t feed the animals, “they suffer and then they die.” If you don’t tend the crops exactly as needed, the season is lost before it begins. Nothing waits for permission. Nothing reschedules itself for your convenience. This realism is its own kind of grounding. And you don’t need a farm to reclaim it, but only work that doesn’t demand the erosion of dignity as its hidden price of admission.

Grow one thing

The final question in the book’s conversation is the one most Americans are actively wrestling with: What about those who feel trapped? Trapped between institutions they no longer trust and a life of greater self-reliance that feels too big, too frightening, too foreign?

Carlton’s reply is the opposite of theatrical bravado. “Nobody wakes up one morning ready to raise animals and turn them into food.” Change begins with one thing you can actually change. Lower one bill. Learn one skill. Grow one thing you eat often. Build one dependable relationship. Reduce one vulnerability. These are small, almost humble acts. But they mark the beginning of a life that no longer runs on someone else’s terms.

Over time, he says, these small adjustments stop being adjustments. They become a different kind of life, one that is sturdy enough to withstand the failures of the systems around it.

That’s the heart of “Exit Farming.” It isn’t about rejecting society or romanticizing hardship, but about reclaiming stability in a country where stability has become a cruel joke. It’s not about storming out in some “Office Space” fantasia with a baseball bat.

It’s about one couple choosing a different path and showing that others could do it too. Not through dramatic destruction, but through the refusal to be drained of the very things that make a life worth living — time, purpose, and peace.

​Align interview, Exit farming, Lifestyle, Sean carlton, Work, Homesteading 

An elementary school teacher has been placed on administrative leave after police said they found thousands of files containing child sex abuse material in his possession.

Pleasantview Elementary teacher Martin Waskowski was arrested on Wednesday in Vermont after Border Patrol agents identified him as a suspect at the Highland port of entry.

One device contained more than 12,000 files appearing to be child sex abuse material, according to a preliminary review.

Waskowski was re-entering the U.S. from Canada when he was nabbed in a records check by law enforcement, according to a federal complaint.

A search of his cell phone allegedly revealed images and videos of adult men committing sexual acts with prepubescent boys.

Michigan State Police then searched his home, where they confiscated computers, hard drives, and an iPad.

One device contained more than 12,000 files appearing to be child sex abuse material, according to a preliminary review.

Waskowski had been a teacher at the elementary school in Eastpointe for three years and had been a long-term substitute as well.

He allegedly confessed to police that he had collected the child sex abuse material for approximately 20 years, and said that he knew the behavior was wrong, had tried to stop, but had not sought treatment to stop.

He was charged with possession and transportation of child exploitation materials. He was released under supervision and location monitoring.

District officials said they put him on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

RELATED: 29-year-old man charged with 196 felonies related to possession of child sex abuse material

“Prior to this formal notification, the District had no knowledge of, nor had it received any allegations related to, this individual,” reads the statement from the district.

Waskowski is scheduled for a preliminary court hearing on Dec. 23.

Eastpointe is a suburb of Detroit, with about 34,000 residents.

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​Child sex abuse material, Elementary school teacher, Teachers with child porn, Crime, Martin waskowski 

Democrats deny what mountains of evidence have long shown: Terrorist groups traffic in illegal drugs.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) recently insisted, “There is no such thing as a narco-terrorist,” as he defended his opposition to the Trump administration’s war on narco-terrorism in the Caribbean. He accused the administration of trying “to make this look like it’s ISIS or Al-Qaeda,” ignoring that ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and similar groups have long run profitable drug operations with local and transnational cartels. These alliances increased revenue, financed attacks, fueled violence, and deepened existing conflicts.

Maduro’s narco-terrorist regime threatens regional stability and US national security. Trump’s war on narco-terrorism meets that threat head-on.

Narco-terrorism did not originate with the Trump administration. It was the subject of my 1990 book, which documented how governments around the world used the drug trade to fund and advance terrorist activity. For more than three decades, Washington looked away. That era has ended.

On November 16, the U.S. Treasury designated Venezuela’s Cártel de los Soles — run by Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and key figures in his illegitimate regime — along with Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, as foreign terrorist organizations. Treasury should have added Colombia’s National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, or ELN), a Marxist paramilitary and major drug-trafficking force that controls both sides of the border and works closely with Maduro.

When I began researching narco-terrorism in 1986, I assumed political groups across the spectrum could use terror and drug trafficking to advance their aims. The evidence showed otherwise. Marxist-Leninist and Islamist regimes, movements, and militias initiated, expanded, and ultimately dominated this trade.

Venezuela’s slide into narco-terrorism dates to 2005, when Hugo Chávez expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. After Chávez died in 2013, Maduro took control of both the government and the drug enterprise, tightening his partnership with Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, under the so-called Axis of Resistance. The goal is to counter U.S. influence in Latin America and the Middle East while enriching the regime.

Maduro’s alliance with Iran and Hezbollah runs deep. He offers sanctuary and support for their narcotics networks, money laundering, weapons pipelines, and terrorist smuggling throughout the region.

RELATED: Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal — a former three-star Venezuelan general under Chávez and Maduro and a former member of Cártel de los Soles — described the strategy bluntly in a letter to President Trump. “The purpose of this organization is to weaponize drugs against the United States,” he wrote. “The drugs that reached your cities through new routes were not accidents of corruption nor just the work of independent traffickers; they were deliberate policies coordinated by the Venezuelan regime against the United States.”

This collaboration, built over decades, helped millions of Americans fall into addiction and contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Maduro’s narco-terrorist regime threatens regional stability and U.S. national security. Trump’s war on narco-terrorism meets that threat head-on and is perfectly just.

​Venezuela, Drug trafficking, Cartels, Opinion & analysis, Narcoterrorists, War, U.s. navy, Nicolas maduro, Donald trump, Hugo chavez, Drug enforcement administration, Iran, Hezbollah, Marxists 

In another massive win for MAHA, a federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine within hours of birth.

“I try to thank God every day for RFK Jr. being in the position that he’s in as secretary of HHS. And today was one of many reasons why I am so grateful for his leadership,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

The birth dose will now only be recommended for infants whose mother has tested positive for hepatitis B.

However, the left is predictably freaking out.

“Contrary to the leftist hysteria that you undoubtedly are hearing on social media, they didn’t say you’re not allowed to give it to your baby. They didn’t say you should never give it to your baby. They simply suggested, instead of giving this to a minutes-old baby, you could just wait until the baby is 2 months old for the first dose,” Gonzales explains.

“That’s literally all that they are suggesting. … I feel like they should have gone further. So, it’s just funny to hear all of the leftist hysteria, like, ‘We want to vaccinate the babies when they’re seconds old. We don’t want to wait until they’re 2 months. Are you kidding? That’s a lifetime. We want to get them as soon as possible,’” she continues.

“It’s a weird cult. It’s cultish behavior,” she adds.

And Gonzales points out that it “seems very silly” when you realize that as a society, we’ve been OK with injecting “every minutes-old baby with a hepatitis B vaccine regardless of their exposure, risk, or anything like that.”

“Since 1991, they have had a universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for the first dose within 24 hours of birth,” she says, explaining that hepatitis B “spreads through contact with blood, semen, or other body fluids from an infected person.”

“Your risk [of] infection rises if you have sex without a condom with multiple sex partners or with someone who’s infected with hepatitis B; share needles during the use of drugs injected into a vein; are born male and have sex with men,” she explains.

“I don’t know about you guys — my babies are not going to, like, crazy drug orgies,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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

​Video, Free, Sharing, Video phone, Upload, Camera phone, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Hep b, Hepatitis b, Hep b vaccination, Maha, Make america great again, Make america healthy again, Rfk jr, Vaccine, Anti vaccine 

Growing up during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, I remember when socialism was a universal punch line. It stood for failure, repression, and economic ruin.

Not any more. Today, socialism is the ideological spearpoint of the left. Many young Americans now insist that socialism is the cure for the affordability crisis squeezing them. They believe it with a fervor that would have stunned earlier generations.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is final: Socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Now imagine that system fused with an all-seeing AI.

New polling from Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute’s Emerging Issues Center shows that a majority of likely voters ages 18 to 39 want a Democratic Socialist to win the White House in 2028.

Nearly 60% of young Americans say they support more government housing, a nationwide rent freeze, and government-run grocery stores in every town.

These numbers aren’t anomalies. They reflect a deeper reality: Many young Americans know little about socialism’s actual history, consequences, or track record — and they have been conditioned to believe it can fix the challenges in front of them.

One reason for that ignorance is uncomfortable but obvious. It’s not only the schools — it’s the parents. According to the polls, parents were the most influential voices shaping their children’s support for Democratic Socialism. More than half of respondents said their parents held a favorable view of it.

That alone explains a great deal. And unsurprisingly, more than half also said teachers and professors viewed Democratic Socialism favorably. After decades of ideological drift, even parents who grew up after the USSR’s collapse now believe socialism “might work.”

Based on my own experience teaching in public schools, that rings true. Most of my colleagues openly sympathized with the socialist cause and were hostile to free-market capitalism.

This didn’t happen by accident. It reflects a long march beginning in the Progressive Era. My own postgraduate experience at a prestigious teaching college felt less like preparation for the classroom and more like a Cultural Revolution struggle session — conformity required, dissent punished.

As the public education system drifted leftward, it taught generation after generation that socialism is benevolent and capitalism is predatory. The result is predictable. Many young people now see the free market as the enemy, not the mechanism that lifted billions out of poverty. Cronyism and the explosion of government power only blur the picture further.

Layer onto this the collapse of basic literacy and numeracy. When students can’t read well, struggle with math, and can’t write a coherent paragraph, they are more vulnerable to ideological manipulation — and more likely to lean on machines to think for them.

So it shouldn’t shock anyone that almost half of young Americans surveyed want an advanced AI system to create society’s laws, rules, and regulations. Nearly 40% want that AI system to determine human rights and control the world’s most powerful militaries.

RELATED: Almost half of Gen Z wants AI to run the government. You should be terrified.

Yurii Karvatskyi via iStock/Getty Images

How did this happen? Watch how many parents are glued to screens, outsourcing daily life to devices. Is it any wonder their children grow up thinking technology is omnipotent?

Parents should start with something simple: a family movie night featuring the “Terminator” franchise. Let the kids see where blind faith in machines tends to lead.

Better yet, teach them the truth about socialism. Teach them what it does to human beings. Share the books, documentaries, and testimonies exposing socialism’s century of famine, repression, forced labor, and mass murder — horrors still unfolding in Cuba and North Korea.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is final: socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Now imagine that system fused with an all-seeing AI — a surveillance state that Stalin could only dream of. The thought of an AI-run socialist regime is not dystopian fiction. It is what many young Americans say they want.

They should be careful what they wish for.

​Opinion & analysis, Socialism, Artificial intelligence, Heartland institute, Rasmussen reports, Poll, Gen z, Millennials, Total state, Totalitarianism, Education, Indoctrination, Progressive era