A Democratic lawmaker admitted to texting with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing, seeking his advice on how to question President Donald Trump’s so-called “fixer,” Michael Cohen.

Cohen has claimed that Trump tried to conceal a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels to hide an alleged extramarital affair. Trump has denied these claims, stating that the funds were sent directly to Cohen, his then-personal attorney, for legal expenses. Cohen testified against the president in the case led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), in which Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump has filed an appeal seeking to reverse the criminal conviction.

‘During the hearing, Congresswoman Plaskett received texts from staff, constituents and the public at large offering advice, support and in some cases partisan vitriol, including from Epstein.’

Documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee revealed that a member of Congress, whose name was redacted, had been exchanging text messages with Epstein during a February 2019 hearing where lawmakers heard testimony from Cohen.

Epstein’s messages to the lawmaker appeared to indicate that he was watching the hearing live. Although the name of the congressperson was redacted from the committee’s documents, the timing of the messages indicated that the convicted sex predator was texting Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Washington Post reported.

Plaskett’s office released a statement on Friday, admitting that she had been texting with Epstein.

Plaskett reportedly sent a message to Epstein before the hearing. When the hearing began and the live feed started, Epstein complimented the delegate’s outfit.

RELATED: Trump felony conviction in doubt? President files appeal to clear his name

Stacey Plaskett. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“Are you chewing,” read Epstein’s message to the lawmaker moments after the camera cut to Plaskett, who was seen moving her mouth in a chewing motion.

“Not any more,” Plaskett responded, according to the documents. “Chewing interior of my mouth. Bad habit from middle school.”

“Cohen brought up RONA – keeper of the secrets,” Epstein wrote at 11:24 a.m. His message seemed to reference Rhona Graff, Trump’s former executive assistant and former vice president of the Trump Organization, although Plaskett did not immediately grasp the reference.

“RONA??” the lawmaker replied.

“Quick I’m up next is that an acronym,” Plaskett asked, appearing to indicate that it would soon be her turn to question Cohen.

RELATED: Sorry, liberals — the Epstein emails don’t nail Trump

Michael Cohen. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

At 12:25 p.m., Epstein suggested the lawmaker ask Cohen about other individuals close to Trump.

“Hes (sic) opened the door to questions re who are the other henchmen at trump org,” he wrote.

When it was Plaskett’s turn to question Cohen, she inquired about Trump’s associates, as Epstein had recommended.

“During the hearing, Congresswoman Plaskett received texts from staff, constituents and the public at large offering advice, support and in some cases partisan vitriol, including from Epstein,” the statement from Plaskett’s office read. “As a former prosecutor she welcomes information that helps her get at the truth and took on the GOP that was trying to bury the truth. The congresswoman has previously made clear her long record combating sexual assault and human trafficking, her disgust over Epstein’s deviant behavior and her support for his victims.”

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​News, Jeffery epstein, Epstein, Donald trump, Trump, Michael cohen, Stacey plaskett, Politics 

Say what you will about Russell Crowe, but he has never been a run-of-the-mill actor.

At his best, he surrenders to the role. This is an artist capable of channeling the full range of human contradictions. From the haunted integrity of “The Insider” to the brute nobility of “Gladiator,” Crowe once seemed to contain both sinner and saint, pugilist and philosopher.

In a time when truly commanding leading men are all but extinct, Crowe remains — carrying the weight, the wit, and the weathered grace of a bygone breed.

Then, sometime after “A Beautiful Mind,” the light dimmed. The roles got smaller, the scandals bigger.

There were still flashes of brilliance — “American Gangster” with Denzel Washington, “The Nice Guys” with Ryan Gosling — proof that Crowe could still command attention when the script was worth it. But for every film that landed, two missed the mark: clumsy thrillers, lazy comedies, and a string of forgettable parts that left him without anchor or aim. His career drifted between prestige and paycheck, part self-sabotage, part Hollywood forgetting its own.

Exploring the abyss

But now the grizzled sexagenarian returns with “Nuremberg” — not as a comeback cliché, but as a reminder that the finest actors are explorers of the human abyss. And Crowe, to his credit, has never been afraid to go deep.

In James Vanderbilt’s new film, the combative Kiwi plays Hermann Goering, the Nazi Reichsmarschall standing trial for his part in history’s darkest chapter. The movie centers on Goering’s psychological chess match with U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who becomes both fascinated and repulsed by the man before him. Goering, with his vanity, intelligence, and theatrical self-pity, is a criminal rehearsing for immortality.

The film unfolds as a dark study of guilt and self-deception. Kelley, played with that familiar, hollow-eyed tension of Rami Malek, sets out to dissect the anatomy of evil through Goering’s mind. Yet the deeper he digs, the more he feels the ground give way beneath him — the line between witness and accomplice blurring with every exchange.

Disturbingly human

Crowe’s Goering is not the slobbering villain of old war films. He’s disturbingly human, even likeable. He jokes, he reasons, he charms. He’s a man who knows how to disarm his enemy by appearing civil — and therein lies the horror. It’s a performance steeped in Hannah Arendt’s famous concept of the “banality of evil”: the idea that great atrocities are rarely committed by psychopathic monsters but by ordinary people made monstrous — individuals who justify cruelty through bureaucracy, obedience, or ideology.

Arendt wrote those words after watching Adolf Eichmann, another Nazi functionary, defend his role in the Holocaust. She was struck not by his madness but his mildness — his desire to be seen as merely following orders. Crowe’s Goering embodies that same terrifying normalcy. He doesn’t see himself as a villain at all, but as a patriot — wronged, misunderstood, and unfairly judged. It’s his charm, not his cruelty, that unsettles.

The brilliance of Crowe’s performance is that he resists caricature. He reminds us that evil doesn’t always wear jackboots. Sometimes it smiles, smokes, and quotes Shakespeare. It’s the kind of role only a mature actor can pull off — one who has met his own demons and understands that evil seldom announces itself.

It is also, perhaps, the perfect role for a man who has spent decades wrestling with his own legend. Crowe was once Hollywood’s golden boy — rugged, brooding, every inch the leading man — but the climb was steep and the fall steeper. Fame, like empire, demands endless victories, and Crowe, ever restless, grew weary of the war.

RELATED: Father-Son Movie Bucket List

Getty Images

A bygone breed

With “Nuremberg,” he hasn’t returned to chase stardom but to confront something larger — the unease that hides beneath every civilized surface. Goering, after all, was no brute. He was cultured, eloquent, even magnetic — proof that wisdom offers no wall against wickedness. And in a time when truly commanding leading men are all but extinct, Crowe remains — carrying the weight, the wit, and the weathered grace of a bygone breed.

At one point in the film, Goering throws America’s own hypocrisies back at Kelley: the atomic bomb, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the collective punishment of nations. It’s a rhetorical trick, but it lands. Crowe delivers those lines with the oily confidence of a man who knows that moral purity is a myth and that self-righteousness is often evil’s most convenient disguise.

The film may not be perfect. Its pacing lags at times, and its historical framing flirts with melodrama. But Crowe’s performance cuts through the pretense like a scalpel. There’s even a dark humor in how he toys with his captors — the court jester of genocide, smirking as the world tries to comprehend him.

Crowe’s Goering is, in the end, a mirror. Not just for the psychiatrist across the table, but for us all. The machinery of horror is rarely built by fanatics, but by functionaries convinced they’re simply doing their jobs.

Crowe’s performance reminds us why acting, when done with conviction, can still rattle the soul. His Goering is maddening and mesmeric. He captures the human talent for self-delusion, the ease with which conscience can be out-argued by ambition or fear. “Nuremberg” refuses to let the audience look away. It reminds us that every civilization carries the seed of its own undoing and every human heart holds a shadow it would rather not confront.

Russell Crowe is back, tipped for another Oscar — and in an age when Hollywood produces so few films worthy of our time or our money, I, for one, hope he gets it.

​Culture, Entertainment, Nuremberg, Russell crowe, Rami malek, Wwii, Nazis, Movie review, Hollywood, Review 

Almost every civilization has, at one point or another, practiced child sacrifice. In our rebellion against God and rejection of Jesus Christ, modern America is no exception.

While we may not burn our children like the Canaanites, cut out their hearts like the Aztecs, or drown them like the Gauls, we most certainly sacrifice our children in acts of worship to benefit ourselves.

We cannot afford to overlook the severity of this sin or its stench before the one true and living God.

Take the example of Stevie Nicks, the singer-songwriter best known for her years with Fleetwood Mac. Nicks boasted about the benefits of her past abortion in a recent video posted on social media and described as a “must watch” by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In recalling her past abortion, Nicks was not filled with regret or shame, but with a sober admission that murdering her own pre-born baby was worthwhile for allowing her to continue her music career.

“Fleetwood Mac is three years in, and it’s big, and we’re going into our third album,” Nicks recounted.

“It would have destroyed Fleetwood Mac,” she said of her baby.

“I would have, like, tried my best to get through, you know, being in the studio every single day expecting a child,” Nicks continued.

“It would have been a nightmare scenario for me to live through.”

RELATED: Fleetwood Mac’s real breakup story: Death before motherhood

— (@)

Rather than making Nicks seem sympathetic in her decision to have an abortion, the video posted by the Center for Reproductive Rights made her look callous. The organization plainly acknowledged that “access to abortion made her life, her art, and her voice possible.”

Nicks admitted to murdering her baby in exchange for career success: She took the life of her own child for the specific reason of pursuing stardom in the music world.

In other words, she committed child sacrifice.

In the same way that past civilizations sacrificed their children to enable abundant harvests, victory over their enemies, or improved rainfalls, Americans sacrifice our children to enable success in our careers, more financial freedom, or fewer inconvenient responsibilities.

But unlike other civilizations, we do not murder our children in the name of any specific false god or demonic entity. Instead we serve ourselves as our own gods — murdering our babies as an act of devotion in the cult of our own autonomy.

We cannot afford to overlook the severity of this sin or its stench before the one true and living God.

Rather than speaking clearly on abortion as child sacrifice, many pro-life organizations over the past few decades have not only downplayed the distinctly spiritual nature of the abortion holocaust, but have insisted that many of its perpetrators are themselves victims.

In speaking about abortion — even writing laws against abortion — many pro-life leaders emphasize the small minority of cases in which women are compelled with threat of life and limb into having abortions.

But in the vast majority of cases, women who have abortions are active participants or even willful initiators, not passive victims compelled into abortions they do not want.

Stevie Nicks is a perfect example. By her own admission, nobody forced her into having an abortion. Nicks willfully chose her music career over the life of her child, and several decades later, she would clearly make the same decision once more.

The notion that all women are categorical second victims of abortion downplays the moral agency women have as image-bearers of God and obscures the justice due to pre-born babies as true victims of abortion.

By defending the legal ability of women to willfully murder their own children, pro-life organizations sorrowfully allow the abortion holocaust to continue, even in conservative states that misleadingly claim to ban abortion.

RELATED: Why defunding Planned Parenthood is a distraction from the real fight

— (@)

Just like men, women are ultimately responsible for their own actions. Just like men, women will one day stand in judgment before God and provide an account for those actions.

Stevie Nicks may publicly boast about her abortion today, but when she stands before a perfectly holy God, she will no longer boast in her decision. And unless she turns from her sins and trusts in Jesus Christ for salvation, she will bear the penalty of her decision for all of eternity.

When pro-life organizations insist that women can only be victims of abortion — and oppose laws that would criminalize abortion for all parties willfully involved — they fail to deter women from committing sin that destroys both their babies and their very own eternal souls.

That is why we must simply make murdering anyone illegal for everyone.

The exact same laws that protect born people from murder must protect pre-born people as well, or else we are denying the truth that pre-born babies are image-bearers of God worthy of equal protection under our laws.

The existing laws against murder deter the vast majority of murders from happening in the first place. If we extend those same laws to apply from fertilization — without loopholes allowing women to enjoy special murder privileges over their pre-born babies — we will deter the vast majority of abortions as well.

God judges nations that commit child sacrifice. America is well on its way to joining the Canaanites, the Aztecs, and the Gauls in the history of nations that murder their own children and are brought to their knees by the God who cannot endure such rebellion forever.

If we want our nation to continue, we must protect all image-bearers of God from murder, criminalizing the unjustified taking of human life for everyone willfully involved.

Rather than rebelling against God, our nation must turn in repentance and faith toward Jesus Christ — abandoning the works of death and once more bowing the knee to the only one who offers everlasting life.

​Stevie nicks, Abortion, Christianity, Christian, Image of god, Fleetwood mac 

A Louisiana middle school boy is facing 10 felony counts for using AI to create fake nude photos of female classmates and sharing them with other students, according to multiple reports. However, one alleged female victim has been expelled following her reported reaction to the scandal.

On Aug. 26, detectives with the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation into reports that male students had shared fake nude photos of female classmates at the Sixth Ward Middle School in Choctaw.

‘What’s going on here, I’ll be quite frank, is nothing more than disgusting.’

Benjamin Comeaux, an attorney representing the alleged female victim, said the images used real photos of the girls, including selfies, with AI-generated nude bodies, the Washington Post reported.

Comeaux said administrators reported the incident to the school resource officer, according to the Post.

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the incident “led to an altercation on a school bus involving one of the male students and one of the female students.”

Comeaux said during a bus ride, several boys shared AI-made nude images of a 13-year-old girl, and the girl in question struck one of the students sharing the images, the Post reported.

However, school administrators expelled the 13-year-old girl over the physical altercation.

Meanwhile, police said that a male suspect on Sept. 15 was charged with 10 counts of unlawful dissemination of images created by artificial intelligence.

The sheriff’s office noted that the investigation is ongoing, and there is a possibility of additional arrests and charges.

Sheriff Craig Webre noted that the female student involved in the alleged bus fight will not face criminal charges “given the totality of the circumstances.”

Webre added that the investigation involves technology and social media platforms, which could take several weeks and even months to “attain and investigate digital evidence.”

RELATED: ‘A great deal of concern’: High school student calls for AI regulations after fake nude images of her shared online

The alarming incident was brought back to life during a fiery Nov. 5 school board meeting during which attorneys for the expelled female student slammed school administrators.

According to WWL-TV, an attorney said, “She had enough, what is she supposed to do?”

“She reported it to the people who are supposed to protect her, but she was victimized, and finally she tried to knock the phone out of his hand and swat at him,” the same attorney added.

One attorney also noted, “This was not a random act of violence … this was a reasonable response to what this kid endured, and there were so many options less than expulsion that could’ve been done. Had she not been a victim, we’re not here, and none of this happens.”

Her representatives also warned, “You are setting a dangerous precedent by doing anything other than putting her back in school,” according to WWL.

Matthew Ory, one of the attorneys representing the female student, declared, “What’s going on here, I’ll be quite frank, is nothing more than disgusting. Her image was taken by artificial intelligence and manipulated and manufactured to be child pornography.”

School board member Valerie Bourgeois pushed back by saying, “Yes, she is a victim, I agree with that, but if she had not hit the young man, we wouldn’t be here today, it wouldn’t have come to an expulsion hearing.”

Tina Babin, another school board member, added, “I found the video on the bus to be sickening, the whole thing, everything about it, but the fact that this child went through this all day long does weigh heavy on me.”

Lafourche Parish Public Schools Superintendent Jarod Martin explained, “Sometimes in life, we can be both victims and perpetrators. Sometimes in life, horrible things happen to us, and we get angry and do things.”

Ultimately, the school board allowed the girl to return to school, but she will be on probation until January.

Attorneys for the girl’s family, Greg Miller and Morgyn Young, told WWL that they intend to file a lawsuit.

“Nobody took any action to confiscate cell phones, to put an end to this,” Miller claimed. “It’s pure negligence on the part of the school board.”

Martin defended the district in a statement that read:

Any and all allegations of criminal misconduct on our campuses are immediately reported to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office. After reviewing this case, the evidence suggests that the school did, in fact, follow all of our protocols and procedures for reporting such instances.

Sheriff Webre warned, “While the ability to alter images has been available for decades, the rise of AI has made it easier for anyone to alter or create such images with little to no training or experience.”

Webre also said, “This incident highlights a serious concern that all parents should address with their children.”

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​Ai, Ai abuse, Ai nudes, Artificial intelligence, Cybercrime, Deepfake scandal, Revenge porn, School scandal, Tech crime, True crime, Crime, Middle schoolers, Louisiana, Arrest, Felony charges 

Now is a good time for religion in America.

President Trump has established the White House Religious Liberty Commission, led by a diverse group of religious leaders and scholars, including Mary Margaret Bush, Napa Legal’s own former executive director. The commission is identifying some of the nation’s most pressing religious liberty issues and developing plans for action.

Lawmakers should take advantage of the moment to enact durable protections that will outlast any administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court, too, has protected religious liberty in several crucial cases. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the court held that it is unconstitutional to exclude religious schools from generally available government funding programs. In Kennedy v. Bremerton, it found that coach Joseph Kennedy’s postgame prayers did not violate the First Amendment. This year brought additional victories in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the court upheld parents’ rights to opt their children out of LGBT content in elementary school classes, and Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin, where a unanimous court prevented state officials from favoring some religions over others.

These encouraging developments might tempt Americans to believe that the battle for nationwide religious freedom has already been won.

Yet even with such powerful forces defending religious liberty at the federal level, state laws affecting religious organizations remain critical for ensuring that everyday Americans do not suffer persecution for their firmly held religious beliefs.

Consider what just happened in Washington state.

In 2025, Catholic priests there faced an impossible choice between obeying their faith and complying with state law. A new Washington state statute required clergy to report instances of abuse or neglect they heard during confession, despite the Church’s centuries-old sacramental seal. The law singled out priests while giving others, like lawyers, a pass, and it carried the threat of jail time and fines.

Thankfully, a federal court blocked the law before it could take effect, ruling in Etienne v. Ferguson that the state could not force clergy to violate the sacred seal of confession.

But that case never should have been necessary. Washington’s law reflected the same pattern Napa Legal’s research has uncovered repeatedly: When state laws are weak or hostile to faith-based organizations, those organizations are left vulnerable even when the federal government and Supreme Court appear friendly to religion.

This month, the Napa Legal Institute released the third edition of the Faith and Freedom Index, an analysis of state laws across the country that either help or hinder religious organizations. Whether national politics seem to favor or oppose religious liberty, state laws remain central to its long-term health.

The states with the top overall scores were:

AlabamaKansasIndianaTexasMississippi

The five lowest scores went to:

MichiganWashingtonMassachusettsWest VirginiaMaryland

What distinguishes the states at the top of the list from those at the bottom? Several types of laws come into play. For example, the index’s highest performing states have built frameworks that proactively safeguard religious organizations. Their laws provide broad protections for religious exercise and create environments where ministries can thrive.

By contrast, it’s no coincidence that Washington state ranks near the bottom. The same state that passed one of the most intrusive laws in recent memory also reflects on the Index a legal system that makes it far too easy for governments to intrude on matters of faith.

That is why it is important to strike while the iron is hot. When the federal government is friendly to religious liberty, that is precisely the time to act. Political conditions can change quickly, but good laws endure. Lawmakers should take advantage of the moment to enact durable protections that will outlast any administration.

RELATED: Why Trump’s religious liberty agenda terrifies the left

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

There are many reasons why state laws remain decisive. First, state statutes can still contradict clear federal precedent. After the Supreme Court struck down Wisconsin’s discriminatory law in Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin, a similar law remained in effect in New York. Religious organizations there had to continue the litigation even after the Supreme Court had essentially decided the issue.

It is also not enough for states to rely solely on constitutional protections or a Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

These safeguards are vital but not sufficient. When a religious organization’s hiring or service conflicts with state “nondiscrimination” laws, it should not have to spend years in court to prove its right to operate according to its beliefs. States can and should pass clear exemptions that prevent such conflicts from ever arising.

Finally, state tax and regulatory codes can have a major impact on whether faith-based organizations thrive. Many religious nonprofits are treated like for-profit corporations, subject to tax regimes and administrative filings, fees, and audits that make it hard for them to operate. States should look closely at such laws and remove unnecessary burdens that divert precious time and resources away from ministry and service.

No matter who sits in the White House or on the Supreme Court, state laws remain a foundation of religious liberty. The Faith and Freedom Index remains an important tool to protect and foster the work of religious organizations and religious liberty in general.

Voters should consider how laws in their states burden religion when they cast their votes. Policymakers should pay close attention to laws that may seem tedious but can make or break the needed work of religious organizations. And our government leaders should work to enact laws that foster religious liberty, so that religion can serve its proper role in contributing to the common good.

​Religious liberty, Religious freedom, Christianity, Christian, Christian persecution, Faith