You’ve probably been watching the riots in Los Angeles.

For about a week now, angry foreign nationals (mostly Mexican), angry legal residents originally from Mexico, and lunatic leftist white American Democrats have been blocking highways, hurtling bricks at police from overpasses, shooting off fireworks into crowds, and setting cars on fire.

Your eyes are lying to you. You don’t see that man waving a Mexican flag while he fires off a bottle rocket into a group of cops.

Why? Because they’re very angry that laws against illegal immigration are being enforced. And they’re doing more than “protesting” this — they’re actively targeting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers charged with carrying this out.

That’s the purpose of posting the known locations and identities of ICE officers on social media. They want them hurt or even killed.

Agitator Jack Quillin, who was arrested for posting the location of ICE raids live online, is pretending now that he’s sorry, undoubtedly in hopes that his punishment will be light. But you would be a fool if you believed people like this don’t hope to see cops and right-wingers dead.

Nothing to see here

I’ve been watching it all too, but it’s the response of California officials that has me fascinated.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) tells the press that there’s no violence that needs a police response. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D) claims there’s no violence or lawlessness in Los Angeles. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) says that the president sending in the National Guard is what caused the violence.

It all feels so familiar, and the reason why is because I grew up in a home that runs on the same deranged rules that modern American left-wing politics run on. For most of my life, I was under the spell of an important person in my life who behaved the way Gavin Newsom, Maxine Waters, and Karen Bass are behaving.

That person was my mother.

Mental derangement

My mother behaved that way because she had a mental derangement called a Cluster B personality disorder. You know this colloquially as clinical narcissism and clinical levels of emotional reactivity that comes out in screaming outbursts, lies, and blaming other people for what you yourself have done.

My weekly commentary show, “Disaffected,” has a thesis: Abuse that starts in the home between spouses, or from parent to child, grows and expands into our public politics.

The narcissistic, deranged mind of my mother (that’s the Cluster B personality) is the same kind of mind that we find in the political and cultural left. Yes, I’m saying that I believe many of these politicians, and their voters, are truly diagnose-ably personality disordered. Yes, I’m saying that this is just “child abuse” and “spousal abuse” scaled up to the public stage.

It’s not that it’s “like” domestic abuse; it is the very same thing.

The real ‘gaslighters’

Cause and effect are reversed. Your eyes are lying to you. You don’t see that man waving a Mexican flag while he fires off a bottle rocket into a group of cops. You’re not watching people throw bricks off highway overpasses. Do you understand? You’re crazy if you think you see that, and if it’s happening, people like you made the protesters get violent.

The proper term for these kinds of lies is “gaslighting.”

I know that you’re probably tired of hearing that, and you probably associate it with left-wing complaints. That’s a mistake. Gaslighting is real, and it is effective. It has worked on you many times in your life, I guarantee it.

The left simply reverses the truth — leftists hurt others, then claim to be victims. They lie and distort reality to make other people think that they are crazy, then the leftist accuses the person she bamboozled of “gaslighting” her!

‘Mommie Dearest’

I learned about it at home. If you’ve seen the movie “Mommie Dearest,” you have a good idea of what kind of childhood I had. We were poor, not rich, and we weren’t famous. But everything else was much the same.

Think back to the scene where Joan Crawford finds her 8-year-old daughter, Christina, playing make-believe in front of Joan’s mirror. Christina imitates her mother at press conferences, addressing her “wonderful fans.”

Joan’s ego is so bruised she starts screaming at her daughter and hacking her hair off. Joan yells, “You vain, spoiled child, trying to find ways to make people look at you. Why are you always looking at yourself in the mirror? Why are you doing that? Tell me!”

‘Look what you’re making me do’

Joan was projecting her own traits onto her daughter. My mother did the same. When she became frenzied with frustration, she would push me down onto my knees on the dining room floor, commanding me to “humble myself” while she hit me on the face and about the head. As her anger got to a peak of red-faced fury, she would shake me until my head bobbled and scream, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?”

RELATED: Had an abusive mother? Then you understand the left’s anti-Trump insanity

AllNikArt/Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

A longtime babysitter named Theresa was similarly afflicted. Theresa lived down the block, and a bunch of us kids went to her apartment after school to be watched until our parents got home from work. Theresa had a love-hate relationship with children. She liked them enough to babysit and provide us with hundreds of comic books to keep us entertained, but she would lose control when we got too loud.

Maybe we screamed too much playing tag; maybe our feet stepped into the flower bed. Theresa would call us into the living room. She did her hair like Alice the maid from “The Brady Bunch” and wore horn-rimmed glasses with double-knit polyester shorts.

Theresa would have us children sit on the floor before her as she perched on the couch. Looking us in the eye, she’d take the palm of her hands and slap her inner thighs until they turned black and blue.

“You’re working my nerves and making me do this!” she’d yell, slamming her own thighs. “LOOK WHAT YOU’RE MAKING ME DO!”

That’s what Gavin Newsom is doing.

Narcissistic reversal

“Thanks to our law enforcement officers and the majority of Angelenos who protested peacefully, this situation was winding down and was concentrated in just a few square blocks downtown,” Newsom said in a video posted on X. “But that’s not what Donald Trump wanted. He again chose escalation; he chose more force.”

Translation: WHY IS DONALD TRUMP MAKING THE RIOTERS BE VIOLENT?

That’s what they’re all doing, the Democrats and city leaders blaming Trump, the police, the National Guard, or ICE, for the criminal violence of street thugs.

This is called a “narcissistic reversal.” It’s what my mother did when she blamed me for “hurting” her while she was beating me. It’s what Theresa did when she told 7-year-olds they were forcing her to beat her legs black and blue. It’s what Newsom is doing when he claims that Trump enforcing the law is what’s making illegal aliens and Americans break the law.

The Bible knows this devilish trick. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”

A taste of home

These denials, these reversals of blame, are familiar to me because I was raised from birth in just the kind of environment you see out on the streets and in politicians’ podiums this week. Yes, I am saying that politicians on the left are, in my view, behaving exactly as you would expect from patients with borderline or narcissistic personality disorders (and antisocial PD/sociopathy, too).

It’s all out in the open now. Turn on your TV, open social media, and it’s like watching a screening of “Mommie Dearest” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but it’s all presented to you as if it were perfectly normal.

If you have felt for years that something is really psychologically off about the left, you were right. Maybe this essay has given you a framework that can help you understand what specifically that thing is that’s so “off.” I believe it’s Cluster B psychopathology. Domestic abuse has gone public and feral.

​Los angeles riots, Gavin newsom, Karen bass, Cluster b, Narcissism, Abuse, Culture, Mental health, Intervention 

President Donald Trump’s track record and repeated commitment to keeping the nation out of “endless wars” suggest that he does not have the interventionist reflex common to most of his predecessors.

Some lawmakers in Washington nevertheless appear uncertain amid the chatter about Iranian regime change, the recent buildup of U.S. forces in the region, the threat of an Iranian attack warranting American retaliation, and Trump’s recent remarks — “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

There is now a bipartisan effort underway to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to commit the United States to military actions without congressional approval.

Background

Israel launched an attack Thursday on Iran, hammering its nuclear facilities, taking out many of its air defense systems, and eliminating top Iranian military officials.

Iran responded to the apparent decapitation strike with missile and drone attacks, and the two nations have exchanged deadly fire in the days since, threatening to put President Donald Trump’s nuclear deal permanently out of reach.

Although the Trump administration initially stressed that the Israeli attacks were undertaken unilaterally and that the U.S. “was not involved” — a message the State Department recently emphasized in a directive to all of its embassies and consular ports — there are indications of foreknowledge and possibly even coordination on the part of Washington.

RELATED: Israel’s strategy now rests on one bomb — and it’s American

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Regardless of its previous involvement, the U.S. has helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles and drones and appears now to be preparing for another Middle Eastern engagement.

White House spokesman Alex Pfeiffer clarified Monday evening that American forces are not presently attacking Iran but are rather “maintaining their defensive posture.”

Echoes of 2003

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth indicated that over the weekend, he “directed the deployment of additional capabilities to the United Central Command Area of Responsibility.” The USS Nimitz — set to be decommissioned next year — is among the warships now headed to the Persian Gulf along with a number of refueling planes.

While bolstering America’s military presence in the region, Trump nevertheless expressed hope for a peaceful resolution on Monday.

‘Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign.’

Before leaving the G7 summit in Canada early to deal with the Iranian matter, Trump told reporters, “As I’ve been saying, I think a deal will be signed, or something will happen, but a deal will be signed, and I think Iran is foolish not to sign.”

The Wall Street Journal indicated that Iran is desperate for a deal, telling Washington and Jerusalem through intermediaries that it wants an end to the hostilities — something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly not presently interested in — and that it is ready to negotiate so long as the U.S. stays out of the fight.

“The Iranians know the U.S. is supporting Israel in its defense, and they are sure the U.S. is supporting Israel logistically,” an Arab official told the Journal. “But they want guarantees the U.S. won’t join the attacks.”

The president appeared less hopeful Monday night, writing, “Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

‘What we’re likely looking at is yet another nation-building exercise in the Middle East.’

The evacuation notice came a day after Netanyahu indicated that regime change “could certainly be the result” of the escalating conflict, which he framed as an “opportunity”; several hours after exiled Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo Monday that it was a “matter of time” before the Iranian regime was overthrown; and shortly after Netanyahu said Israel was “doing what we need to do” when asked about plans to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and other lawmakers on the Hill began speaking as though America’s direct involvement in the conflict was a forgone conclusion.

“Israel has formally requested a direct US intervention in its war against Iran,” Sohrab Ahmari, the Iranian American editor of Compact, noted in an essay on X. “What we’re likely looking at is yet another nation-building exercise in the Middle East — except on a much vaster and more complex scale than anything attempted in the post-9/11 wars. In other words: another decade or two wasted in the Middle East. If you don’t want that, pray for rapid de-escalation.”

On Monday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One he was looking for “an end. A real end. Not a ceasefire — an end.”

Another attempt to handcuff the president

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — whom Trump said earlier this year “SHOULD BE PRIMARIED” — tweeted Monday evening, “This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.”

RELATED: Trump fires off serious threat to Iran — and then leaves G7 forum early to return to White House

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“I’m introducing a bipartisan War Powers Resolution tomorrow to prohibit our involvement,” continued Massie. “I invite all members of Congress to cosponsor this resolution.”

Massie’s initial pitch drew commitments from numerous Democrats, including California Rep. Ro Khanna, who wrote, “Are you with the neocons who led us into Iraq or do you stand with the American people?”

Sen. Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in her most recent failed presidential bid, also took action Monday aimed at barring Trump from potentially embroiling the U.S. in a Middle Eastern conflict.

Kaine’s war powers resolution would require a debate and a vote prior to the use of military force against Iran.

“It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States,” Kaine said in a statement. “I am deeply concerned that the recent escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran could quickly pull the United States into another endless conflict.”

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) also introduced legislation with several other Democrats Monday that would prohibit the use of federal funds for any use of military force in or against Iran without specific congressional authorization, stating, “Another war in the Middle East could cost countless lives, waste trillions more dollars and lead to even more deaths, more conflict, and more displacement.”

Blaze News reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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​President donald trump, Iran, Israel, War, Congress, Authority, Ro khanna, Thomas massie, Intervention, Regime change, Tehran, Tel aviv, Jerusalem, Washington, Trump, Politics 

In 2003 Palo Alto, California, Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and cohorts founded a software company called Palantir. Now, these 20-odd years later, with stock prices reaching escape velocity and government and commercial contracts secured from Huntsville to Huntington, Palantir seems to have arrived in the pole position of the AI race.

With adamantine ties to the Trump administration and deep history with U.S. intelligence and military entities to boot, Palantir has emerged as a decisive force in the design and management of our immediate technological, domestic, and geopolitical futures.

Curious, then, that so many, including New York Times reporters, seem to believe that Palantir is merely another souped-up data hoarding and selling company like Google or Adobe.

The next-level efficiency, one imagines, will have radical implications for our rather inefficient lives.

It’s somewhat understandable, but the scales and scopes in play are unprecedented. To get a grasp on the scope of Palantir’s project, consider that every two days now humanity churns out the same amount of information that was accrued over the previous 5,000 years of civilization.

As then-Gartner senior vice president Peter Sondergaard put it more than a decade ago, “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”

Palantir spent the last 20 years building that analytics combustion engine. It arrives as a suite of AI products tailored to various markets and end users. The promise, as the era of Palantir proceeds and as AI-centered business and governance takes hold, is that decisions will be made with a near-complete grasp on the totality of real-time global information.

RELATED: Trump’s new allies: Tech billionaires are jumping on the MAGA train

The Washington Post/Getty Images

The tech stack

Famously seeded with CIA In-Q-Tel cash, Palantir started by addressing intelligence agency needs. In 2008, the Gotham software product, described as a tool for intelligence agencies to analyze complex datasets, went live. Gotham is said to integrate and analyze disparate datasets in real time to enable pattern recognition and threat detection. Joining the CIA, FBI, and presumably most other intelligence agencies in deploying Gotham are the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Defense.

Next up in the suite is Foundry, which is, again, an AI-based software solution but geared toward industry. It purportedly serves to centralize previously siloed data sources to effect maximum efficiency. Health care, finance, and manufacturing all took note and were quick to integrate Foundry. PG&E, Southern California, and Edison are all satisfied clients. So is the Wendy’s burger empire.

The next in line of these products, which we’ll see are integrated and reciprocal in their application to client needs, is Apollo, which is, according the Palantir website, “used to upgrade, monitor, and manage every instance of Palantir’s product in the cloud and at some of the world’s most regulated and controlled environments.” Among others, Morgan Stanley, Merck, Wejo, and Cisco are reportedly all using Apollo.

If none of this was impressive enough, if the near-total penetration into both business and government (U.S., at least) at foundational levels isn’t evident yet, consider the crown jewel of the Palantir catalog, which integrates all the others: Ontology.

“Ontology is an operational layer for the organization,” Palantir explains. “The Ontology sits on top of the digital assets integrated into the Palantir platform (datasets and models) and connects them to their real-world counterparts, ranging from physical assets like plants, equipment, and products to concepts like customer orders or financial transactions.”

Every aspect native to a company or organization — every minute of employee time, any expense, item of inventory, and conceptual guideline — is identified, located, and cross-linked wherever and however appropriate to maximize efficiency.

The next-level efficiency, one imagines, will have radical implications for our rather inefficient lives. Consider the DMV, the wait list, the tax prep: Anything that can be processed (assuming enough energy inputs for the computation) can be — ahead of schedule.

The C-suite

No backgrounder is complete without some consideration of a company’s founders. The intentions, implied or overt, from Peter Thiel and Alex Karp in particular are, in some ways, as ponderable as the company’s ultra-grade software products and market dominance.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp stated in his triumphal 2024 letter to shareholders: “Our results are not and will never be the ultimate measure of the value, broadly defined, of our business. We have grander and more idiosyncratic aims.” Karp goes on to quote both Augustine and Houellebecq as he addresses the company’s commitment first to America.

This doesn’t sound quite like the digital panopticon or the one-dimensionally malevolent elite mindset we were threatened with for the last 20 years. Despite their outsized roles and reputations, Thiel companies tend toward the relatively modest goals of reducing overall harm or risk. Reflecting the influence of Rene Girard’s theory that people rapidly spiral into hard-to-control and ultimately catastrophic one-upsmanship, the approach reflects a considerably more sophisticated point of view than Karl Rove’s infamously dismissive claim to be “history’s actors.”

“Initially, the rise of the digital security state was a neoconservative project,” Blaze Media editor at large James Poulos remarked on the dynamic. “But instead of overturning this Bush-era regime, the embedded Obama-Biden elite completed the neocon system. That’s how we got the Cheneys endorsing Kamala.”

In a series of explanatory posts on X made via the company’s Privacy and Ethics account and reposted on its webpage, Palantir elaborated: “We were the first company to establish a dedicated Privacy & Civil Liberties Engineering Team over a decade ago, and we have a longstanding Council of Advisors on Privacy & Civil Liberties comprised of leading experts and advocates. These functions sit at the heart of the company and help us to embody Palantir’s values both through providing rights-protective technologies and fostering a culture of responsibility around their development and use.”

It’s a far cry from early 2000s rhetoric and corporate policy, and so the issue becomes one of evaluation. Under pressure from the immensity of the data, the ongoing domestic and geopolitical instability manifesting in myriad forms, and particularly the bizarre love-hate interlocking economic mechanisms between the U.S. and China, many Americans are hungry to find a scapegoat.

Do we find ourselves, as Americans at least, with the advantage in this tense geopolitical moment? Or are we uncharacteristically behind in the contest for survival? An honest assessment of our shared responsibility for our national situation might lead away from scapegoating, toward a sense that we made our bed a while ago on technology and security and now we must lie in it.

​Palantir, Big tech, Alex karp, Peter thiel, Tech, Cia, Analytics, Department of defense, Ai, Return 

Although I would do so reluctantly — while holding a barf bag in one hand — if forced to vote in the next New York City mayoral election, I’d cast my ballot for Zohran Mamdani.

Yes, that Zohran Mamdani.

It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them. Let them live with the consequences.

A dire warning about this unappetizing candidate, a “Muslim lefty from the other side of Queens,” just appeared in the New York Post, which reports that Mamdani consorts with pro-Hamas rioters, adores Black Lives Matter, and recently said Bill de Blasio was “the best mayor of his lifetime.”

In a sane political environment, such a figure would be consigned to the loony bin. But in the present urban climate, voters find themselves grasping for the least ghastly option — if they bother voting at all.

And Mamdani, God help me, appears marginally less disgusting than Andrew Cuomo, who is now the front-runner.

Cuomo, who presided over the slow death of New York as governor, seems poised to take the helm of a city already in decay. In any race to the bottom, he’d win in a landslide. This is a man who groped and manhandled female staffers while parading his feminist credentials; who packed nursing homes with COVID patients, causing the deaths of thousands; who then lied about it repeatedly and shamelessly. He worked tirelessly to eliminate cash bail, unleashing a wave of criminality across the state.

And yet, somehow, Mamdani is supposed to be worse?

That former Mayor Mike Bloomberg — now a prolific funder of leftist candidates — is backing Cuomo only sharpens the stench of this whole affair. The staleness of the New York political class, its complete moral exhaustion, has never been more evident.

Still, I’ll give you another reason I prefer Mamdani: Sometimes collapse is a better catalyst than stagnation.

Cuomo would likely run the city into the ground — but slowly. He’d reward the usual Democratic parasites with patronage, keep street crime just under the boiling point, and exercise marginally more restraint when it comes to unwanted touching. He’d reassure the woke plutocrats and Wall Street donors that he won’t rock the boat too much. He knows the game and plays it well.

But the rot would fester.

RELATED: New 12-foot-tall statue of woman in Times Square meant to represent ‘cultural diversity’

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

New York would remain unsafe. Schools and other public institutions would stay in the grip of culturally radicalized unions. The courts would remain ideological tools of the left. Nothing would improve. The decline would just ooze along — business as usual.

Mamdani, by contrast, might deliver a spectacular crash.

If he’s as doctrinaire and deranged as his critics suggest, his administration could bring about real catastrophe with impressive speed. That kind of shock might finally push productive citizens to flee en masse and accelerate the corporate exodus already under way. Sometimes it takes a maniac to wake the slumbering.

This wouldn’t be the first time a disastrous mayor paved the way for genuine reform. In 1994, New Yorkers elected Rudy Giuliani after enduring the catastrophic tenure of David Dinkins. Giuliani cracked down on crime, brought investment back, and helped restore a semblance of order. But it took years of misrule to make that turnaround politically possible.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: That kind of change isn’t possible any more. Cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia are too far gone. Their voting blocs are locked into leftist fantasy. The idea of another Giuliani, a Richard Daley Sr., or even a Frank Rizzo showing up today seems laughable.

Maybe so. But if that’s true, then the voters are getting exactly what they asked for. It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them.

Let them live with the consequences.

Given the state of our urban politics, the choice now is between ideological lunatics and cynical reprobates. Mamdani may fast-forward the train wreck. Cuomo might slow it down. But either way, the crash is coming.

At least with Mamdani, we might finally reach bottom — and from there, maybe, begin again.

​Opinion & analysis, Andrew cuomo, Sexual harassment, Covid-19 tyranny, Nursing home deaths, Mask mandates, Lockdowns, New york city, Mayor, Eric adams, Bill di blasio, Zohran mamdani, Mike bloomberg, Rudy giuliani, David dinkins, Crime, Homelessness crisis, Business, Economy, Broken windows, Investment, Law and order, Richard daley, Frank rizzo, Corruption, Islam, Democratic party 

Many assume conservative principles belong to the past. They don’t. The debate over cryptocurrency regulation — including the House GOP’s Clarity Act — offers a chance to apply those principles to a 21st-century frontier.

Cryptocurrency and decentralized finance reflect core American values: free speech, free markets, and innovation from the ground up. Across the country, developers are building protocols that move money in microseconds, create new investment tools, and expand access to capital like never before.

With a Republican-led Congress considering landmark cryptocurrency legislation, we have a historic opportunity to apply time-tested conservative values to the cutting edge of financial innovation.

Blockchain technology provides a means to secure property rights in the digital era. The most transformative products likely haven’t even launched yet.

The potential benefits are massive. In 2024 alone, decentralized finance grew to more than $114 billion. Even more capital — billions of dollars — stands ready to enter the space through pension funds and institutional investors.

But that money won’t move without guardrails.

Institutional investors need transparency. That means audit requirements they can trust, legally accountable custodians, clear reporting on asset health, and safeguards against manipulation.

They also need legal certainty. Defined rules give investors confidence. Without them, they’ll stay away — or invest elsewhere.

That’s where Washington plays a role.

The Trump administration shifted U.S. regulatory policy toward digital assets, elevating crypto to a national priority through executive order. Now, with a Republican-led Congress weighing landmark crypto legislation, conservatives have a real opportunity.

This moment demands more than slogans. It calls for applying time-tested conservative principles — rule of law, market discipline, and individual liberty — to the future of finance.

Don’t be afraid

Some treat cryptocurrency as a threat. Fair enough — the collapse of FTX still casts a long shadow over the current debate in Congress.

Sam Bankman-Fried, a Democratic megadonor, didn’t just run a failed company. He ran a cautionary tale — a playbook for what lawmakers must never allow again.

The FTX scandal highlights two enduring conservative truths:

Human nature is flawed. Left unchecked, individuals will act out of greed and self-interest. Conservatives have never pretended otherwise — and that’s why we build systems of accountability.The rule of law matters. Pre-established standards prevent chaos. Waiting for disaster or making policy on the fly only magnifies the damage.

FTX didn’t collapse because of cryptocurrency. It failed because no one held Bankman-Fried accountable. He amassed influence through backroom politics and ran a tangled network of private firms without meaningful oversight. The result: billions vaporized and public trust shattered.

Thoughtful legislation can prevent the next meltdown — not by stifling innovation, but by setting clear, enforceable rules rooted in transparency, responsibility, and the rule of law.

A remedy with room to improve

The bill now before Congress offers a rare chance to get crypto regulation right.

It tackles the custodial vulnerabilities exposed by the FTX collapse and establishes a framework that allows digital asset projects to integrate into the broader financial system. Just as important, it does so under a unified set of rules.

The bill follows conservative logic. It exempts infrastructure providers — such as blockchain validators and payment processors — from regulatory burdens that don’t apply. These actors don’t make governance decisions, and the law should reflect that.

It also classifies participants based on their actions, rather than the extent of their political influence.

But the bill still needs one critical fix.

Lawmakers need to include decentralized autonomous organizations as eligible cryptocurrency issuers. These DAOs, the opposite of central banks, operate through user-led governance. Crypto users vote on the rules of the system they help create.

DAOs have become common in decentralized finance. Yet the current bill overlooks them. That omission could block the very groups driving innovation from entering the regulated space.

RELATED: Trump’s Bitcoin masterstroke puts America ahead in digital assets

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

If a project follows the rules, discloses information, and acts responsibly, it should qualify, regardless of how it governs itself. Whether the issuer is a DAO, a startup, or a traditional bank, one standard should apply.

That’s the conservative way: equal rules, fair enforcement, and space for innovation to thrive.

What if we get it wrong?

Leaving the bill unamended carries real risks:

Overreaching compliance rules could smother the best of American innovation — now and in the future.Narrow legal definitions might force decentralized finance into the hands of a few massive exchanges, recreating the same “too big to fail” system that burned taxpayers in 2008.Ongoing regulatory ambiguity could drive developers and infrastructure providers offshore, into the arms of authoritarian regimes eager to benefit from America’s hesitation.

The biggest danger? Watching capital and talent flee to countries that welcome decentralized commerce while the United States — its origin point — falls behind.

Decentralized finance leaders aren’t calling for lawlessness. They want smart policy.

Joe Sticco, co-founder of Cryptex and a White House Crypto Summit participant, put it this way: “In DeFi, it’s not about evading rules — it’s about building better ones.”

Sticco believes today’s innovators want a seat at the table. “We believe open financial systems can coexist with responsible oversight,” he told me. “We have to show up, we have to explain the tech, and we have to help shape the rules.”

Congress still has time to get this right. But the window is closing.

The path forward

Republicans now hold both chambers of Congress. That means the window to act is wide open.

This isn’t about growing government. It’s about setting the rules so innovation can thrive, fraud gets stopped, and people are held accountable. Here’s what that looks like:

Clear rules that apply fairly to both traditional companies and decentralized projects;Basic protections like audits, secure custody of funds, and anti-fraud measures;Freedom for developers to build new tools without unfair roadblocks;And clear standards for when crypto projects are considered stable enough to ease up on oversight.

With these fixes, the Clarity Act can do what no other crypto bill has: protect investors, promote innovation, and keep America in the lead.

We can build the future of finance right here — on American terms, with American values. But we have to act now.

​Opinion & analysis, Bitcoin, White house, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Congress, Regulation, Innovation, Rule of law, National interest, Sam bankman-fried, Democrats, Decentralized finance, Finance, Banks, Clarity act, Investments, Conservative, Principles, Markets 

Will Smith has made a shocking and mostly well-received return to hip-hop — but the music video for his song “Pretty Girls” has been mocked relentlessly — and BlazeTV contributor Shemeka Michelle isn’t planning to spare Smith’s feelings, either.

In the video, which features different women of all colors and sizes, Smith raps, “Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon / Alright, f**k it, I like women / There it is, truth about me.”

“I’m ’bout to do some investing / I spend it on you and your bestie / You and your twin on a jet-ski / I’ll change your life if you let me,” is another verse.

“To see this 56-year-old man dancing around saying he likes pretty girls,” Michelle tells BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock, “the video starts out with him on a therapist couch kind of admitting that he has this problem and this obsession, and I just don’t buy it.”

“So for me, I don’t like the song simply because it doesn’t seem authentic. If he had said, ‘I like pretty people,’ then I would feel like he was being a little bit more authentic, but just to act as if he has this obsession with women, and you know, he can’t help himself, it just felt forced to me,” she continues.

“Couldn’t he just be trying to speak it into existence,” Whitlock counters, saying it reminds him of another video.

“There’s a black dude at a church that’s screaming, ‘I like girls!’” Whitlock recalls. “He’s like rebuking his homosexuality. It’s one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen.”

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I’m a strong supporter of President Trump. I respect his drive to secure our borders, restore national sovereignty, and bring real vitality back to the American economy.

But the Department of Homeland Security’s latest move — limiting workplace enforcement and putting a stop to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on agricultural employers — cuts against the very heart of the America First agenda. It protects the same corporate giants that are bleeding rural communities dry.

If DHS and USDA want to fix agriculture, they need to stop hiding behind the word ‘farmer’ when they’re really talking about corporate middlemen.

Let’s not kid ourselves: This policy isn’t about helping “farmers.” It’s a gift to foreign-owned industrial agriculture giants like JBS and other multinationals that built their business models on cheap labor, government handouts, and total control over every link in the supply chain.

These are the corporations responsible for wiping out independent family farms across the country.

The Biden administration let Big Ag off the hook. Is Trump really about to follow suit?

Hiring legally and thriving

You don’t need to hire illegal workers to run a successful farm or ranch. In fact, some of the best in the business don’t.

Look at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. Or Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. Or Meriwether Farms out in Wyoming. These aren’t fantasy models. They’re real, thriving operations built on legal labor, strong local roots, and, when needed, carefully managed visa programs.

They don’t rely on mass illegal labor. They don’t need to.

What they do is create real jobs. They pay honest wages. They bring life back to rural towns.

Will Harris is the biggest employer in Bluffton — not because he cuts corners on labor, but because he heals the land, strengthens his community, and delivers food independence.

This is what Trump’s golden age of American farming should look like: self-reliance, real prosperity, and pride in a job well done.

A free pass for Big Ag

With this new policy, DHS basically gave corporate amnesty to the likes of Tyson, Smithfield, JBS, Cargill — you name it. These are companies that depend on cheap, illegal labor to keep their bloated, centralized model afloat.

We’ve been down this road before. Remember Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty? Legalization now, enforcement later — except “later” never came.

And now, we’re repeating the same mistake.

This policy protects a broken system built on:

Top-down corporate controlMassive consolidationDebt traps and labor abuseDe facto open bordersSlave-wage laborLegal loopholes for billion-dollar companies

What we’re left with is what journalist Christopher Leonard called “chickenization” — a corporate takeover of the food system that treats farmers like serfs and workers like machines.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s loyalty to these monopolies has already hollowed out towns, forced families off their land, and turned our food supply into a global pipeline where cartel-linked produce replaces homegrown independence.

This doesn’t serve America. It serves the bottom lines of a few mega-firms that like open borders and look the other way on enforcement.

And whether it admits it or not, this is how the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals get implemented — quietly, through broken farms, outsourced jobs, and illegal hires.

RELATED: Trump orders ICE to ramp up deportations in Dem-controlled cities following MAGA backlash over selective pause on raids

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

This isn’t just about agriculture. It’s about national security.

A nation that can’t feed itself without breaking its own laws isn’t sovereign. And one that lets multinationals run roughshod over the heartland while outsourcing production to places run by cartels is heading for trouble.

We can do better

If DHS and USDA want to fix agriculture, they need to stop hiding behind the word “farmer” when they’re really talking about corporate middlemen.

Trump has a chance to change course — one that truly puts Americans first. That means backing the producers who follow the law, hiring citizens or legal workers, and building food systems that support independence, not dependence.

Independent farmers and ranchers are ready to help. They’ve already shown what works: strong property rights, legal labor, fair water access, and a commitment to community.

This isn’t some policy wish list. It’s already happening.

And it’s winning.

Let’s not give our food, our land, or our future back to the monopolies that wrecked the past.

​Opinion & analysis, Illegal immigration, Department of homeland security, Usda, Big ag, Family farms, Agriculture, Immigration and customs enforcement, Mass deportations, Food and drug administration, Food prices, Grocery, Debt, Labor, Open borders, Ronald reagan, Amnesty, White oak pastures, Polyface farm, Meriwether farms, Jobs americans won’t do