The New York Times recently published an article attempting to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, through the lens of prosecutors who lost their jobs following President Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office. The piece depicts these lawyers as martyrs in a political purge, forced to leave behind diplomas and personal items as though they were casualties of injustice.

Yet this framing fundamentally ignores the real devastation that flowed from the government’s handling of January 6: families destroyed, children traumatized, and ordinary Americans subjected to years of aggressive and politicized prosecution.

Prosecutors were not martyrs. They were the instruments of a system that made martyrs out of ordinary citizens.

Those of us who have worked directly with these families have seen firsthand the long-term impact of the Department of Justice’s unprecedented approach. History cannot be rewritten to cast prosecutors as victims while erasing the lives they targeted from public memory.

The forgotten victims

The most overlooked victims of January 6 have been the children of defendants. These young people endured traumatic government raids that remain etched into their memories. Many remember predawn operations when flash-bang devices exploded inside their homes.

They recall doors being battered down, glass shattering, and heavily armed agents entering their bedrooms. They watched their mothers cry, attempting to hold families together as fathers were taken away in handcuffs. In certain cases, both parents were removed, leaving children to wonder if they would ever see their families whole again.

This was not a foreign dictatorship. It happened in the United States. These tactics, carried out against families who posed no threat, inflicted deep and lasting harm on innocent children. Yet the prosecutors who initiated these cases are now presented as political casualties.

That is an inversion of reality. They were not martyrs. They were the instruments of a system that made martyrs out of ordinary citizens.

The tragedy of Matthew Perna

The case of Matthew Perna illustrates the human toll of this prosecutorial overreach. Perna entered the Capitol, recorded video, and left without committing violence or destruction. Nevertheless, prosecutors pursued severe charges against him, including the application of a “terrorism enhancement” that would have drastically increased his sentence. Media outlets amplified the narrative, branding him as a threat to the nation.

The weight of this combined persecution proved too much for Perna. Before sentencing, he took his own life. His story exposes both the cruelty of the government’s approach and the complicity of media institutions that reinforced it. Today, prosecutors involved in such cases seek sympathy for their professional losses, while families like Matthew’s continue to grieve irreparable personal losses.

An egregious double standard

The broader context highlights a political double standard. Democrats describe January 6 as one of the darkest days in American history. Yet the riots of 2020 — federal courthouses attacked, businesses destroyed, police assaulted, communities set ablaze — are routinely called “mostly peaceful.”

The murder of retired police captain David Dorn, killed on livestream while defending his community, generated little lasting outrage. Entire cities endured months of chaos, but few faced consequences comparable to the sweeping prosecutions unleashed against January 6 participants. Where were the terrorism enhancements then? Where were the years-long investigations, the solitary confinement, the relentless media coverage?

The truth is straightforward: Unrest associated with the political left is minimized or excused. Protests involving Trump supporters are magnified into terrorism. This inconsistency erodes public trust in equal justice under the law.

A critical course correction

Against this backdrop, the decisions by Attorney General Pam Bondi and special prosecutor Ed Martin should be recognized for what they are: efforts to restore fairness to a corrupt system. Bondi took decisive action to remove prosecutors who had shown an inability to separate justice from politics.

Martin, who himself witnessed the events of January 6, understood that Americans cannot be criminalized simply for supporting a particular political movement. His leadership in ending the ongoing persecution of defendants brought accountability to those who had turned prosecutions into a political weapon.

The New York Times calls this a “purge.” A more accurate description is a course correction — an attempt to re-establish integrity in the Department of Justice and reaffirm that justice must not serve partisan ends.

The true victims of January 6 were not federal prosecutors. They were the more than 1,500 Americans caught in the dragnet of politicized charges. They were the families left bankrupt and broken. They were the children who still wake with nightmares of flash-bangs and broken doors. They were people like Matthew Perna, who lost hope under the crushing weight of unjust treatment.

They were also President Trump, the first lady, their son Barron, and allies who endured years of politicized investigations, predawn raids, tanks in neighborhoods, and heavily armed SWAT teams at their doors. These were the consequences of a government determined to use its vast powers not against criminals, but against political opponents.

Setting history straight

We must ensure that these truths are not forgotten. We cannot allow prosecutors to rewrite history by presenting themselves as martyrs. We cannot permit the suffering of families, the cries of children separated from their parents, or the suicide of Matthew Perna to be erased from public consciousness.

RELATED: Exclusive: Justice for victim’s severe injuries is elusive after he was shot point-blank by police on Jan. 6

Photo by Suspended Image via Getty Images

Justice in America must return to its foundational principle: fairness for all citizens, regardless of political affiliation. Until that principle is restored, we must continue to speak out and to stand with those whose lives were devastated by the misuse of government power.

This is not about revenge. It is about truth. It is not about politics. It is about families. And it is not about power. It is about ensuring that no American child ever again experiences the terror of waking to flash-bangs, shattered doors, and the loss of their parents over politics.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Jan 6, January 6, January 6 victims, January 6th capitol riot, Jan 6 riot, Truth about jan 6, Pardons, Matthew perna, Department of justice, Justice department, Weaponized justice, Prosecutors, Victims 

Peter Thiel might be the biggest head-scratcher in Silicon Valley. He’s a billionaire, a Trump-Vance-supporting Republican, a married gay man, a transhumanism enthusiast, and … drum roll … a “Christian.”

He’s publicly declared that Christianity is true and that Christ is the best role model; he’s deeply involved in various Christian organizations; and yet he’s openly admitted his affinity for transhumanism, believing that the future of humanity is a world where man conquers mortality by fusing with technology. It’s a twisted, human-centric version of the transformed, glorified body Christians are promised after death, says BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey.

Recently Thiel has been in the headlines for his seminars on the Antichrist, which are a bizarre blend of theology and his controversial views on technology and transhumanism. In short, Thiel speculates that Revelation’s beast will be deeply connected to artificial intelligence. Whether a human leveraging AI for control, a pseudo-human system, or an AI-driven global order, Thiel is confident that artificial intelligence will play a key role in the end times.

And he’s not the first to suggest this. The idea that AI and the Antichrist are irrevocably connected — and maybe even synonymous — is a theory that has gained traction in recent years. When you think about it, the proposition isn’t all that crazy. AI’s capacity for global control, deception, economic dominance through digital systems, and false promises of salvation uncannily mirrors Revelation’s description of the Antichrist’s deceptive, totalitarian rule.

Despite Thiel’s theological waywardness, is there merit to his Antichrist warnings? Should we take him seriously?

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey dove into Thiel’s Antichrist theory on a recent episode of “Relatable.” Her conclusion? It’s complicated.

In an interview with New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat on the “Interesting Times” podcast, Thiel described the Antichrist as “a potential systemic threat rather than a literal individual, suggesting it could manifest as a one-world totalitarian state that promises peace and safety but suppresses freedom,” says Allie.

He explained that the Antichrist might weaponize fearmongering about technology’s dangers, like rogue AI, to trick people into accepting a powerful, centralized (likely AI-enabled) authority. In other words, he (or it) would convince the globe that the only way to avoid technology-induced apocalyptic scenarios and ensure safety and peace for all is to consolidate power, including technological power, under a global regime.

But some have noticed a strange incongruence. Thiel co-founded Palantir Technologies, which develops and produces the very types of technology he claims the Antichrist could wield against humanity.

Douthat called him out on this contradiction in their interview. “You’re an investor in AI; you’re deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance, in technologies of warfare, and so on, right? And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to sort of impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that you are building,” he said.

Another glaring contradiction is Thiel’s support for transhumanism — the merging of man and machine to achieve immortality. This is, again, the very type of technology he warns could be monopolized and weaponized by the Antichrist.

What gives?

When Allie heard Thiel’s Antichrist theory, her red flag immediately went up. Thiel’s prediction seems to suggest that because the Antichrist will promote “technological stagnation” in order to gather power to himself, the best way to prevent such a scenario is to continue investing and advancing technology — even merging with it.

“It is interesting and maybe questionable that someone who makes a lot of money through technology would say that stopping technological innovation is actually going to, you know, usher in the Antichrist,” she says.

But more importantly, does Thiel’s prediction square with scripture’s accounts of the Antichrist?

The Bible outlines the Antichrist as a “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2) who will exercise authority over “every tribe and people and language and nation” (Revelation 13) and eventually declare himself God. He is the evil harbinger of Christ’s second coming.

“So the debate that Peter Thiel is wading into is what is the means by which this person will be able to convince so many people that he is powerful and needs to have all this authority,” says Allie.

“Is it possible that this person uses the threat and the fear of AI-powered Armageddon to gain his power? I would say that is possible. … But is he some kind of metaphor for technological stagnation or climate change or whatever it is? No. [The Antichrist] is an actual man,” she explains.

“I do think it’s interesting that Peter Thiel is talking about something like this. I would recommend that he and every single person get right with God.”

To hear more on Thiel’s Antichrist theories and Allie’s thorough analysis, 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.

​Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Blazetv, Blaze media, Peter thiel, Antichrist, End times, Revelation, Christianity 

Geo-engineering — the various processes by which the weather is intentionally altered — is a growing concern, not just here in America but across the globe. Many wonder if practices like cloud seeding, where silver iodide or dry ice is dispersed into clouds to induce precipitation, or solar radiation management, where aluminum oxides or sulfates are injected into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and reduce global temperatures, risks meddling with cosmic forces we can’t even begin to fully realize.

“Geo-engineering really scares me because it seems like we’re starting to play God,” says Glenn Beck.

Even more worrisome is the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has historically been minimally involved in geo-engineering, leaving it up to private companies and researchers to experiment with delicate weather patterns that potentially impact the entire globe. Far more concerned with imposing strict regulations that stifle economic growth but do little to actually protect the environment, the EPA has largely ignored the growing list of consequences of geo-engineering – like acid rain, ozone depletion, and ecosystem disruption.

But that’s all changing under Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin — a man Glenn says is “killing it.” He is taking charge of the agency in ways we’ve never seen before. Unlike former EPA chiefs, who had limited engagement with geo-engineering, Zeldin has prioritized transparency by launching new online resources to address public concerns about geo-engineering and contrails, while actively investigating private activities of geo-engineering companies.

“I agree with your concern just with the idea of playing God,” he told Glenn on a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“It’s not like [geo-engineering] is thoroughly studied,” “approved,” “trusted,” or “vetted,” he says.

The vast majority of geo-engineering practices, he explains, are spearheaded by “people who just want to do it on their own,” so they lobby for “someone to hand over a billion dollars” so they can “go dump a whole bunch of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.”

“No, that doesn’t sound good; it doesn’t sound right; and it shouldn’t happen,” says Zeldin.

Glenn remembers fearmongering about “global cooling” when he was a child. “There were these scientists that said, ‘We need to dump coal ash on the polar caps because that will attract the heat and stop the impending ice age that was coming,”’ he recounts. “Can you imagine if we had done that? What a stupid idea.”

Today, however, global warming is what the majority of “experts” fret about, and that’s what geo-engineering primarily aims to mitigate.

Except global warming — at least the assumption that the planet is catapulting towards combustion — has been proven overblown. Zeldin reflects on how countless predictions about the planet’s demise have failed to come true. “Six years ago, AOC was saying that in 12 years the planet was going to end. … Six years later, obviously that’s not going to happen,” he says.

The days of writing policy based on the doomsday predictions of “experts” are over under Zeldin’s EPA. The Obama administration’s Endangerment Finding that declared greenhouse gases a threat to public health, resulting in over $1 trillion spent on rigid and economically disastrous climate regulations under the Clean Air Act, is the shameful past Zeldin is moving away from.

“When you’re talking about trillions of dollars of federal policy coming out, it should be something decided by Congress. There should be a debate and a vote of the elected representatives of the American people instead of some bureaucrat at some agency deciding to oppose trillions of dollars of regulation on their own,” he tells Glenn.

“In that 2009 Endangerment Finding, there were a whole bunch of different references to interpreting how the law doesn’t prevent [agencies] from doing something, so therefore, they must be allowed to do it. That’s not how I’m going to operate,” he vows. “I will just follow the plain reading, the plain text of the law, and if Congress wants to change the law, then we’ll follow whatever that change is. That is our job.”

To hear more about what the EPA is doing under Zeldin’s leadership, watch the full interview above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck podcast, Glenn beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Lee zeldin, Epa, Geoengineering, Cloud seeding, Solar radiation management, The glenn beck program