Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has released more than 1,100 pages of “Tony’s Diary” — Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal record from the COVID era — ahead of Fauci’s testimony Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Amid entries on virus origins, case counts, and infighting with the Trump White House, the name of one particular “pretty woman” recurs with striking regularity: Julia Roberts.

‘She … said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous.’

Fauci wrote her name at least seven times across the released pages.

On May 13, 2020, Fauci wrote up an Instagram Live arranged by the ONE Campaign. Roberts, he said, put her hands over her mouth when he appeared on screen and gasped, “Oh my God. It’s Dr. Fauci; he is here,” before telling him he was her personal hero.

A clip of their conversation shows Roberts describing Fauci as “maybe the coolest man on the planet” and a “true north, I think, for a lot of people.”

He was a little starstruck himself. “She was absolutely fabulous,” Fauci wrote of Roberts.

The two went on to discuss COVID-19’s toll on the developing world. He described her as “totally down to earth” and closed the entry with, “Great experience!!”

RELATED: Diaries expose Fauci obsessing over his own fame during height of COVID as millions died

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

In an entry dated October 14, 2020, that otherwise concerns a case surge across 30-plus states and a dispute with Dr. Scott Atlas over herd immunity, Fauci wedged in: “A FEW DAYS AGO, Julia Roberts sent me [a] beautiful flower arrangement. I emailed her my thanks.”

On February 10, 2021, Fauci wrote about Roberts presenting him amfAR’s Award of Courage virtually from her California breakfast room. “When my image came up on the screen she gasped and said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous and excused herself to go into the kitchen and get a glass of water,” he wrote.

He also called her “charming, natural, fun, and amazingly beautiful.”

RELATED: Fauci diary bombshells: Glenn Beck dives into wildest lines from his just-released entries

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee obtained Fauci’s diary as part of its ongoing investigation into COVID-19 and federally funded gain-of-function research. Fauci declined to testify voluntarily this time, so the committee subpoenaed him for the Wednesday hearing.

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​Julia roberts, Anthony fauci, Rand paul, Politics 

Earlier this month, San Francisco’s Hamilton Society held a debate on a question that would have sounded absurd not long ago: Does America need a Caesar?

Older Americans may scoff. Younger politically engaged Americans are less likely to. Many came of age after 9/11 amid corruption, institutional drift, and visible decline. Even a presidency that has slowed the Biden-era collapse has not repaired the deeper sense that the system no longer works.

America needs a path out of cybernetic collapse that does not end in machine rule or technologically enhanced autocracy.

From that premise, the temptation follows: If everything is broken, perhaps history’s oldest emergency remedy deserves a second look.

But one does not simply “have a Caesar.” Critics who dismiss the whole discussion as live-action role-playing or strongman wish-casting have a point. A generation trained to think and talk rather than act will naturally produce elaborate theories of action it has never practiced.

The Hamilton Society debate captured that tension. The motion that America needs a Caesar failed, 56% to 44%, though the pro-Caesar side gained five points after the arguments. I had agreed to argue against the motion before a scheduling conflict kept me away.

Nervous breakdown

That case is easy enough to make today. America does not need a Caesar right now. The disturbing question is whether conditions could change until it does.

The danger lies in those two little words: right now.

Right now, America is entering a period of radical uncertainty, driven in part by artificial intelligence. My feed is filling with nervous remarks from people working at the edge of the AI industry. Their concern confirms two things: Our near-term future remains unwritten, and our capacity to make plans is beginning to break down.

The threat is not only a race toward recursively self-improving intelligence. It is also the recursive destruction of our ability to understand what is happening while our political order comes apart.

RELATED: The path to America-first AI

yunping liang/iStock/Getty Images

The federal government faces a brutal dilemma. Its legitimacy depends partly on maintaining American strategic dominance. As AI advances, can Washington preserve that dominance without claiming the most powerful systems for itself and using them at its discretion?

Maintaining such an edge would not mean controlling only today’s strongest models. It would mean controlling tomorrow’s, then the next day’s, forever. The ultimate AI weapon is not one machine. It is the power to weaponize anything at any scale, from the planetary to the personal.

The technocratic answer is more cybernetics: tighter governance through self-improving systems of monitoring, prediction, and control. But we should be preparing for cybernetics itself to fail under the pressure of the moment.

Diminishing options

When a system can no longer govern itself, societies reach for familiar exits.

One is withdrawal: Head for the hills, build resilient communities, and live beyond the failing machinery. Some people should do exactly that. But if escape becomes a mass impulse, it stops being resilience and becomes flight. Poorly prepared internal refugees would remain trapped inside the same collapsing country.

A second option is spiritual authority. In periods of corruption, societies often turn to their holiest figures. America, however, is ill-equipped for that solution. Our churches are divided, many religious leaders suffer their own crisis of trust, and our constitutional order does not provide for theocracy.

That leaves the third option: one man entrusted with enough power to impose order on the people and, now, their machines. A ruler believed strong enough to bear the burden of writing a new law for a broken society.

In other words: Caesar.

What would have to happen before Americans not only wanted such a figure but believed they needed him? A broad majority would have to conclude that without one, the country would collapse and Americans would cease to be recognizably American.

RELATED: The question of the AI age: How much humanism is too much?

Moor Studio/iStock/Getty Images

The failure of the American experiment would leave us unable to agree on what regime should replace it. We might not even know what sort of people we had become. Under those conditions, an all-powerful AI could offer to decide for us.

If the choice appeared to be submission to the machine or submission to a man who promised to preserve both our humanity and our national identity, Caesar would suddenly look pretty attractive.

A civilization, if we can keep it

Here is the catch: Every historical Caesar has been pagan or Christian, and Christian Caesars ruled empires. America has imperial features, but it is not the kind of civilization likely to produce a Christian emperor. The Christian model for the ruler of one nation is the king, not the Caesar who governs many peoples.

That leaves the more plausible American outcome: a pagan Caesar.

Few Americans worship the classical gods. Politically, however, pagan gods were the gods of the regime — powers embodied by the city, the state, and ultimately the ruler. Caesar did not merely govern beneath them. He could become one of them.

Artificial intelligence now offers a lone ruler something no ancient emperor possessed: the prospect of near-divine control over information, movement, behavior, and even human cognition. AI could restore the oldest pagan political dream — the “gods of the city” made operational.

That is the point of departure for “Pagan.ai,” my essay in the new issue of Frontier.

America needs a path out of cybernetic collapse that does not end in civil anarchy or cyber theocracy. If we don’t like the Caesar we may someday believe we need, we should begin now to repair the conditions that would make him possible.

The best way to avoid Caesar is not to mock the question. It is to build a country that never has to ask it.

​Opinion & analysis, Artificial intelligence, Tyranny, Liberty, American founding, Machines, Pagan 

Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was absent from the team’s practice Monday after his son was arrested for allegedly shooting his mother at their Virginia home.

Police responded to reports of a shooting at an Ashburn residence just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday when they found 57-year-old Mia Bieniemy shot several times, according to the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office.

‘We have to go through an entire investigation to determine where everybody was, what they did, what prompted it, and how it all transpired.’

Elijah Zion Bieniemy, 27, was arrested in connection with the shooting and charged with malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and discharge of a firearm inside a dwelling, CBS News reported. He was being held without bond at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center, the news network added.

The victim was transported to a hospital for treatment of serious injuries.

The sheriff’s office confirmed to CBS News that Mia Bieniemy called 911 to report the shooting.

“I’ll just say she was shot multiple times, and we have to go through an entire investigation to determine where everybody was, what they did, what prompted it, and how it all transpired,” Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman told WJLA-TV. “We’re conducting that investigation right now.”

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid addressed the incident with reporters after practice Monday.

“Our hearts go out to Eric Bieniemy and his family, thoughts and prayers are with them,” he said.

“I can’t get into details on it, but things happen sometimes, and Eric will work through it. He’s got a great support group here as a family, as needed. And then we’ll just let time take care of it from there,” Reid added. “Mia is stable, which is a plus, and so is Eric Junior, and that’s all important.”

Reid went on to call Mia Bieniemy a “saint” and a “special person.”

RELATED: Toxicology completed for 3 dead Chiefs fans found dead in Kansas City; fentanyl and cocaine reportedly found

Eric Bieniemy served as Kansas City’s offensive coordinator from 2018 to 2022. He spent the 2023 season as the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders, the 2024 season as the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator for the UCLA Bruins, and the 2025 season as the running backs coach for the Chicago Bears, CBS News said.

The suspect is scheduled in court on Aug. 31.

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​Crime, Eric bieniemy, Football, Kansas city chiefs, Nfl, Shooting 

There is an old Army saying that sometimes the leader is simply the person who “remembers where the jeep is parked.”

Lately, I have wondered whether American journalism remembers at all.

Journalism is not finished when the reporter has sought the truth. It is finished when the public can see the truth clearly enough to act on it.

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, the nation’s premier access participants gathered for their annual prom. Evening wear is nice, but it does make searching for a parked jeep more difficult.

Watching them, I kept thinking about access: who receives it, why they receive it, and what they owe the people who cannot enter those rooms.

I have spent 40 years in rooms where vague answers could cost someone dearly. Journalists occupy rooms where vague answers can cost a country dearly.

Over those four decades, I have accompanied my wife through scores of surgeries, intensive care units, and more medical conversations than I can count. At times, Gracie was intubated, sedated, and unable to speak for herself.

I was not in those rooms to express my worldview, impress physicians, or cultivate relationships. I was there to communicate her history, understand the plan, and ask the next question.

The physicians knew medicine. I knew Gracie. Good care required both.

Journalists occupy a similar position.

They enter the Oval Office, travel aboard Air Force One, and question people whose decisions affect millions. They are there because ordinary citizens cannot enter those rooms themselves.

That access is borrowed authority.

RELATED: Holy cow, the climate crowd is full of bull

Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Caregiving taught me that access fulfills its purpose only when it produces clarity for everyone affected, both inside and outside the room.

Reporters are not there to advance their careers, protect relationships, reward politicians they admire, or spar with those they dislike. They represent the whole country, including people they may neither understand nor respect.

Let the truth have its say, and let the chips fall where they may.

Caregivers quickly learn that vague language has consequences. I never allowed an important medical conversation to end with, “We will wait and see.”

My response was always, “Wait how long?”

An answer without a timetable is often not an answer.

Journalists should apply the same discipline.

For years, President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas maintained that the border was secure while insisting that meaningful action required new legislation and more spending.

The question is not whether reporters agreed with them. The question is whether the public received clarity.

What did “secure” mean? What evidence supported the claim? What authority did the administration already possess? What required congressional action? What would success look like, and when would the public know whether it had been achieved?

If the administration were mistaken, the public deserved to know how such a grave error persisted. If officials knew the claim was false, the public deserved to know that too.

Either possibility demanded relentless questioning.

Instead, too many reporters received the statement, recorded it, and moved on.

That is stenography masquerading as accountability.

The same standard must apply in every direction. When Donald Trump filibusters, changes the subject, or wanders away from a question, conservative journalists who like him personally or support his policies should bring him back.

“Mr. President, that did not answer the question.”

Then ask it again.

That isn’t “hostility.” It’s basic stewardship.

RELATED: The new kid in the waiting room

coldsnowstorm/iStock/Getty Images

I am friends with many of my wife’s medical providers. Friendship may make a conversation warmer. It never makes the questions less necessary.

Reporters may like the people they cover. They may admire them, agree with them, or enjoy being welcomed into the room. None of that changes the assignment.

The goal is fidelity to the public.

Most journalists would say they sincerely seek the truth. I believe many do. But sincerity is not the final measure. An entire unit may sincerely search for the jeep, but until someone can say where it is, the unit still cannot move.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is over. The evening wear is back in the closet.

Now tell the country where the jeep is parked.

Journalism is not finished when the reporter has sought the truth. It is finished when the public can see the truth clearly enough to act on it.

Journalists, however, have little incentive to change while audiences reward performance, partisanship, and evasion with their time and attention. Most of us will never enter the Oval Office or travel aboard Air Force One, but we can decide whom we trust to enter those rooms on our behalf.

Access is not a prize. It is borrowed authority. Those entrusted with it owe the public clarity, and the public must demand it.

Otherwise, we will get another porous border, another visibly diminished president eating ice cream, and another roomful of smiling reporters assuring us that there is nothing to see.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Caregivers, Journalism, Joe biden, Alejandro mayorkas, Immigration crisis, White house correspondents’ dinner, Health care 

Immigration remains one of the defining questions of American politics because it forces a nation to answer fundamental questions about itself. Who belongs, who may enter, and what obligations do newcomers assume?

America is undeniably a nation shaped by immigrants. Yet acknowledging that history does not require abandoning the principles that made immigration successful in the first place. The United States became a destination because those who came entered a constitutional republic with laws, institutions, and a distinct civic culture.

The first obligation of any immigration system is control of the border. Enforcement cannot depend upon which political party occupies the White House.

A serious immigration policy begins with a simple proposition: Immigration should strengthen the country.

America faces demographic challenges, an aging population, and increasing pressure on entitlement programs. Productive immigrants who enter legally, work, pay taxes, and contribute to economic growth can help ease those burdens.

At the same time, immigration policy exists primarily to benefit American citizens, not employers seeking cheaper labor. Large inflows of low-skill labor can place downward pressure on wages and strain public resources.

America is not simply an economy or a geographic territory. It is a constitutional nation built upon individual liberty, equal justice under law, religious freedom, private property, free speech, and limited government.

Recent elections in several American communities have also highlighted another reality often ignored in immigration debates. Immigration does not merely affect labor markets or public finances. Over time, it reshapes the electorate itself.

RELATED: Mamdani’s one-word border answer said it all

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The growing political influence of Muslim candidates in some local and state elections demonstrates how demographic change eventually becomes political change. In a constitutional republic, every citizen possesses the same right to vote, participate, and seek office regardless of religion. The relevant question is not faith, but whether elected officials support equal rights, constitutional government, and the civic norms that hold a diverse nation together.

The first obligation of any immigration system is control of the border. Enforcement cannot depend upon which political party occupies the White House.

Immigration succeeds when it serves the national interest. America should welcome those who enter legally, contribute productively, respect the Constitution, and seek to become part of the American nation.

​Opinion & analysis, Immigration, Nationalism, Assimilation, Citizenship, America first, Civics, Border control, Demographics 

When BlazeTV’s Liz Wheeler isn’t traveling for speaking engagements, writing books, or hosting “The Liz Wheeler Show,” she can usually be found hanging out with her family — which just grew!

On July 27, the glowing mom posted on X that she and her husband were just hours away from welcoming their third child into the world.

“By the time you see this video, I will have given birth to my third child,” she excitedly revealed, displaying her baby bump.

Liz then shared that she is having a third daughter.

“I grew up with sisters — lots of sisters — and I know that it is such a wonderful gift for my girls … to have sisters,” she beamed.

Her husband fully shares her excitement.

“My husband is such a wonderful girl dad. … He teaches them how to garden, how to build fish tanks, how to wrestle, how to read, and he also always has time to play house with them because they’re little girls, and they’re obsessed with baby dolls. And he loves the cards they make him that are covered with pink heart stickers, and he loves to twirl them in their pretty dresses,” Liz gushed.

“Pray for us if you will as we begin life as a family of five.”

To her fans and followers, Liz promised that she has not left them high and dry for the next 12 weeks while she’s on maternity leave.

“I filmed stuff ahead of time for you … and man, we have some good ones. I’ve actually been dying to tell you about some of them,” she laughed.

“The second thing is we are launching a clips channel … I know a lot of you request not just the full-length episodes but the shorter videos, but we can’t do that on our regular channel without getting penalized in the algorithm,” she continued, noting that the new clips channel is already up and running and ready for subscribers.

While Liz steps away to bond with her newest daughter, her pre-filmed episodes and new clips channel will keep fans covered until she returns.

Here’s to Liz, her husband, and their three precious girls!

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Liz wheeler, Blazetv show 

Cambodia under Pol Pot. The Soviet Union under Stalin. Nazi Germany under Hitler.

According to actress Jameela Jamil, none of them compares with the evil that is … Britain.

‘They are Thanos. Britain is Thanos. They owe 43 trillion to India. We colonized the world.’

A statement this stupid could only come from an entitled celebrity on a podcast. Check, and check.

‘Good’ riddance

Jamil recently appeared on something called “Yestergays” (nope, no idea either — sounds thrilling) to humblebrag about her career when she decided to engage in some good old-fashioned Brit-bashing. Discussing her role on the NBC sitcom “The Good Place” — in which she played a shallow British-Pakistani socialite — the London-born actress said that she had to make her character intentionally unlikable because of her home country’s historical record.

Proving that a person can be so dense that light bends around them, Jamil said: “But I just had to make her more of a bitch … because Americans think British people are so sweet, which is crazy because British people are truly the most evil people in history.”

Great — just what I needed, a history lesson from the star of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.”

Normally I wouldn’t waste the skin on my fingers typing a response. Ill-informed, attention-seeking actors are a dime a dozen. But as a freeborn Englishman — proud to share a heritage with Thomas Paine and John Milton — I was stunned. I had to take time out from my busy schedule of torturing animals and punching children in the face just to gather my thoughts.

Raj-podge

It takes a special kind of dumb to dismantle centuries of British history from the brutal, oppressive trenches of a Los Angeles podcast studio. One can only admire the sacrifices Ms. Jamil makes daily — enduring the tyranny of hot yoga and air-conditioned trailers, bravely fighting the British Raj one iced chai latte at a time.

Because, as we are all meant to believe these days, before the British showed up, the world was a peaceful utopia. The Ottomans specialized in consent-based border expansions, the Kingdom of Dahomey was merely hosting neighborhood barbecues, and India’s Thuggee cult was running a roadside assistance program. History was a serene, harmonious folk festival until a white man in London decided to chart the high seas and ruin it for everyone.

Any serious historian knows that to truly understand the past, you must contend with economics, politics, religion, personalities, geography, and pure chance. Or you can try Jamil’s considerably simpler method of reducing a sprawling, centuries-long empire to an intergalactic purple despot in a Marvel movie:

“They are Thanos. Britain is Thanos. They owe 43 trillion to India. We colonized the world.”

Shrillionaire

$43 trillion? Believe it or not, Jamil didn’t do that back-of-the-envelope calculation herself.

No, she’s parroting a theory revived by Marxist economist Utsa Patnaik. The idea that British rule created a “drain of wealth” from India is more than a century old; Indian nationalists such as Dadabhai Naoroji were making versions of the argument during the Victorian era.

Patnaik’s contribution was to exhume the disputed theory and attach a suitably comic-book-size number to it: $45 trillion.

That figure is not an accounting of money or treasure Britain can be shown to have carried away. Patnaik arrives at it by treating India’s colonial export surpluses as uncompensated transfers and compounding their estimated value at 5% over generations. In other words, the $45 trillion is less an amount found in a ledger than the hypothetical present-day value of money her theory assumes was stolen in the first place.

Economic historians have criticized the drain theory for decades. The argument also assumes that wealth remaining in India would automatically have been invested productively there — something impossible to prove and contradicted by much of the historical record.

RELATED: New UK law makes sex-selective abortion easier than ever

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Jamil’s world

In Jamil’s world, centuries of complex history are reduced to an image of Dick Dastardly twirling his mustache and making off with bags marked with dollar signs. No, we did not ransack India. Long before the high tide of empire, England was already a wealthy, highly productive nation. According to historians Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta, as early as the 16th century — long before the East India Company ever set foot in Bengal — England’s GDP per capita was so high that India would not match it until the late 1990s.

And when we were there, we laid thousands of miles of railway track and roadways, constructed deep-water ports in Bombay and Madras, established irrigation systems, and introduced representative governance.

We also helped outlaw barbaric practices like sati (widow burning) and introduced municipal sanitation as the bedrock of a hygienic civilization — not to mention the billions in development capital and financial assistance Britain has pumped into the country since.

We left nearly 80 years ago, and India is now a space-faring global economic superpower — so if people are still defecating in the street, that’s on you, literally. It’s like everything else we left behind: We built the framework, but it’s up to you what you actually do with it.

Passage from India

And while Ms. Jamil treats history as a one-way moral ledger in which Britain holds a monopoly on human suffering, she turns a blind eye to the present. According to the Global Slavery Index, over 11 million people in India today live in modern slavery — trapped in forced labor, debt bondage, and forced child marriage.

Britain is evil? If that’s true, somebody needs to tell the nearly 1 million Indian nationals who migrated to the U.K. between June 2020 and June 2025. Not to mention the roughly 880,000 Indian-born residents already living in Britain before the post-pandemic migration surge.

Of course, it would be wrong to single out poor Jamil. She’s hardly the first celebrity descendant of immigrants to slam the country that allowed her family to flourish. Jamil is simply singing from the hymn sheet of the church of identity politics, doing the bidding of what Deirdre McCloskey terms “the clerisy,” our modern opinion-forming priestly class — worshipping the holy trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Hate the sin, not the sinner. Jamil is merely reciting the liturgy of modern secular religion. Strip away the histrionics, makeup, and logic-free platitudes, and you’re left with a recycled godless version of Calvinist predestination — where systemic racism is original sin and inherited guilt becomes a lifelong sentence with no possibility of atonement.

​Britain, Dadabhai naoroji, Deirdre mccloskey, Diversity equity inclusion, Global slavery index, Jameela jamil, East india company, Marxism, Wealth drain, Immigration, India, Entertainment, Letter from the uk 

Federal law enforcement under the Trump administration is working diligently to keep dangerous foreign elements out of the country and to ensure that dangerous homegrown elements stay off American streets.

Aiding in this effort, which has coincided with a historic drop in border crossings and murders, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Del Rio port of entry earlier this month nabbed a man wanted in Texas in connection with a brutal crime against a child.

‘This arrest highlights the critical role CBP plays in protecting the most vulnerable among us.’

On July 15, CBP officers on the Del Rio International Bridge flagged a vehicle driven by 58-year-old Juan Manuel Gomez, an American citizen, for secondary inspection.

Officers ran Gomez’s biometrics through law enforcement databases and discovered that he had an outstanding felony warrant for aggravated sexual assault of a child, which had been issued by the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office in Del Rio.

The Del Rio Police Department took custody of the alleged sex offender and sent him on his way to the Val Verde Correctional Facility.

Liliana Flores, port director for Del Rio Port of Entry, said in a statement to Blaze News, “This arrest highlights the critical role CBP plays in protecting the most vulnerable among us.”

RELATED: Democrat crashes out AGAIN, threatens ICE with ‘day of reckoning’ for catching suspected terrorist

Kevin Carter/Getty Images

“The apprehension of individuals wanted for heinous crimes, such as the sexual assault of a child, underscores our dedication to public safety and our collaborative efforts with law enforcement partners to protect our communities,” added Flores.

In addition to nabbing suspected citizen criminals like Gomez, CBP has also intercepted over 5,648 criminal noncitizens so far this fiscal year, 75 of whom had previous convictions for sexual offenses.

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​Crime, Customs and border protection, Texas, Politics 

Liberal pop star Katy Perry lashed out at the White House for using one of her songs in a social media post celebrating the lethality of the U.S. military.

Perry said she did not condone the use of her song in a post on the X platform.

‘My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.’

“I am deeply appalled and angry to see ‘Firework’ used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes,” she wrote on Saturday.

“I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it. I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments,” she added. “To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.”

The nine-second video appears to show unclassified videos from the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran with Perry’s lyrics in the background.

“Iran has been warned,” the caption on the video reads.

While Perry can object to the use of her songs, she has zero recourse to stop it. Perry sold the rights to her music catalog to Litmus Music in 2023 for a reported sum of $225 million. The “Firework” song was included in that sale.

RELATED: ‘Disgusting and inhumane’: Pop singer furious that her song was used by White House ‘to incite violence’

Perry has been open about her liberal political opinions in the past and has recently acknowledged dating the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare,” Perry concluded.

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​Katy perry, Social media, Tiktok, Us military, White house, Politics 

Kathryn Krick is the head pastor of Five-Fold Church in Los Angeles. As a self-proclaimed apostle, she has built a large social media following through viral videos of her deliverance ministry.

Many clips of Krick’s “deliverances” capture events that are often described as shocking, including people convulsing, screaming, shaking, and falling to the ground. In some cases, demons supposedly speak through the person being delivered, using alternate voices and admitting defeat. Testimonies include claims of instant freedom from mental health struggles, suicidal thoughts, addictions, and eating disorders, among others.

But BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey isn’t convinced Krick’s ministry is as honest as it claims to be. On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie dives into Krick’s complicated background and the “three main distinctives” of her ministry that concern her: Krick’s “self-proclaimed title of apostle,” “her theatrical exorcisms and healings,” and “her guaranteeing spiritual blessings for financial donations.”

Background

After first pursuing careers in acting and electronic dance, Krick was launched into deliverance ministry when she attended a “healing, anointing, and impartation conference in L.A. led by Tanzanian minister [and] self-proclaimed prophet GeorDavie,” who Allie says “built a following around claims of miraculous healings, deliverance from demons, while also cultivating a lavish lifestyle, a very successful business empire, and an extensive media presence in Tanzania.”

Apparently during that conference, GeorDavie “called Krick out from the crowd by name, delivered a personal prophecy to her telling her that she had been chosen to become an apostle of Jesus Christ who would reach the nations and through whom God would perform many miracles,” Allie recounts.

Krick then embarked on her apostolic journey, claiming GeorDavie as “her spiritual father.” Even though the charismatic preacher has been “accused of sexual misconduct, with multiple women alleging that he propositioned them for sex, according to Christian Post,” Krick, Allie says, fiercely defends him, telling anyone who criticizes or questions him, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Even though her ministry started small, viral social media posts of her performing “miracles” has allowed her church to grow into a mega-congregation and her social media following to swell to “2.5 million followers.”

Apostolic calling

Because “the apostles were personally chosen by Christ,” Allie believes the age of the apostles is over. The idea that God has restored the offices of apostle and prophet to lead the current church, however, comes from a movement called the “New Apostolic Reformation.”

“This is the belief that in order to have any sort of revival, in order to be legitimate Christianity … we must have modern-day apostles and prophets that are basically self-appointed [to] lead us into that revival. It must look, according to this loosely associated group of people, like Kathryn Krick,” Allie explains.

She notes that the New Apostolic Reformation treats the “biblical cannon [as] a limitation on what we must be and do,” which is why she rejects it and the ministries that flow from it.

Theatrical ‘deliverances’

While Allie believes that Christ delivers believers from death, Satan, and sin, she is highly skeptical of “deliverance ministries” that promise freedom from demonic spirits, sin strongholds, and other ailments.

“Typically, deliverance ministries are predicated on the idea that it must be convulsion; it must be seizing; it must be this kind of theatrical … performance,” she says.

Allie then plays several viral clips of Krick’s “deliverances.” In the first, a woman supposedly possessed by a demonic spirit convulses and falls to the ground, screaming, “No, she is mine!” as Krick commands the spirit to leave. In the second, Krick, counting down from three, commands all evil spirits to detach from a man, who flops around on the stage, even after the “deliverance” is over. A third clip captures her blowing into a microphone, flailing her arms at a crowd of people who seem to be dramatically blown back as she passes.

“Also, we see the same people being delivered over and over again in her videos. She has actually been exposed for ‘healing’ the same people repeatedly,” Allie adds, citing an article that “compiled these different examples of the same people in different events being exorcised.”

She then plays several Krick videos that seem to feature the same people supposedly being delivered from demons over and over again. “I guess you could say they were exorcised of a demon and then the next night they were, you know, already possessed again. … We don’t see examples of that kind of thing happening in Scripture,” Allie says, speculating that these repeaters are actually people who have been “tapped to continue to come back to these events to make it seem extremely sensational.”

Seed sowing

Another issue Allie takes with Krick’s ministry is her encouragement to “sow seeds of faith” or, in other words, “to give money to her ministry with the expectation that doing so will release God’s blessings.”

“Seed faith teaching is part of the broader prosperity gospel, which teaches that God intends believers to experience health and material wealth in this life, and actually that is a guarantee of having the right kind of faith and sufficient faith in God — even though that is the opposite of what Jesus teaches over and over again, the opposite of the experience of the disciples and the apostles,” Allie explains.

“Krick teaches that while we can pray for deliverance, it may not come unless that financial seed is sown, unless you are donating to her ministry,” she adds.

She then plays a video of Krick giving her seed-sowing spiel.

“If you were delivered today, I encourage you to sow a special seed to seal this deliverance, as it says in Psalms that every covenant there is a sacrifice and when every covenant’s made. So, there’s a new covenant of freedom that God’s made with you today, so sow this seed,” she says in the clip.

In another video, Krick speaks to a mother whose young son is writhing on the ground supposedly due to a demonic attack. Krick tells her, “God is going to free him completely. … Sometimes it’s not just about commanding the demons, but there’s other keys that need to be unlocked, and one of them is to sow seeds.”

When the mother reveals that she’s been tithing 10% of her wages, Krick responds with, “God’s saying more because 10% is what’s God’s, so now we need to sow specifically for his deliverance.”

“And even when God puts on your heart to even sow a seed right now online or something, you know, like, right now, this is what God wants you to do,” she added.

“She needs to give more than 10% of her tithe in order for her son to be healed, and some deliverance is more complicated than the others. Chapter and verse. … Where do you see that?” Allie asks skeptically.

“These people who are teaching false things, they are betting that you don’t read your own Bible. They are betting upon your ignorance. They are using their supposed apostolic authority to make you ignorant of what the word of God says so that you continue to go to them as your only source of truth and healing.”

To hear more of Allie’s in-depth breakdown, check out the full episode above. 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.

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