Drive through our country’s heartland — past golden fields, cattle-speckled hills, and humming dairies — and you’ll see the soul of America at work. But look closer, and a bitter truth emerges: The hands harvesting our crops and milking our cows are too often foreign-born laborers here illegally or on a costly visa program.

In my state, the Idaho Dairymen’s Association admits a staggering 70% or more of dairy workers are using phony documents — illegal labor propping up Idaho’s top commodity and our country’s No. 3 milk-producing state.

Today, we’re fed a line that Americans have gone lazy, addicted to cubicles or city lights. Nonsense.

We’re told Americans won’t do these jobs. Really? From the 1880s through the 1940s, Americans built these very industries. So what changed? It’s not the workers. It’s the bosses who stopped believing in them.

American grit built our farms

Idaho’s dairies, ranches, and construction sites can thrive with American grit — if employers stop making excuses and start making offers.

Go back to the late 19th century, when Idaho’s Snake River Valley was raw desert. Local settlers — farmers, laborers, families — dug canals, built dams, and turned dust into fields of potatoes and alfalfa, as historian Mark Fiege shows in his 1999 book “Irrigated Eden.” These weren’t hired foreigners; they were Americans, mostly Western settlers, whose sweat and cooperation built an agricultural empire through the Depression and wartime into the 1940s.

Those were hard years. Yet, these people showed up, sleeves rolled, ready to work. They weren’t too soft for the sun on their necks or the ache of a long day.

Employers abandoned American workers

Today, we’re fed a line that Americans have gone lazy, addicted to cubicles or city lights. Nonsense. Some yes, but fewer than imagined. The problem isn’t our people; it’s an industry that’s forgotten how to call them home.

Don’t tell me Americans won’t work. Plenty of us still hunger for the kind of labor that smells of earth and steel — jobs that build calluses and communities. Idaho’s fields offer purpose: the roar of a tractor, the precision of robotic milkers, the quiet triumph of a harvest under wide skies.

Vice President JD Vance nailed it when he sarcastically gave in to the notion that deporting tens of millions of illegal aliens will send us back to 1960 — when homes apparently couldn’t be built without illegal labor. Absurd! The same goes for agriculture.

RELATED: Glyphosate 101: What you need to know about America’s most popular pesticide

Anton Skripachev via iStock/Getty Images

These aren’t dead-end gigs; they’re the backbone of our nation. But employers need to stop acting like foreign workers are the only option. If you are one of these employers who show up to the town parade waving Old Glory, singing Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” — if you claim to be America First — then hire Americans first. Anything less is just talk.

Illegal workers cost more

Here’s where the elites squirm. As state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen (R-Idaho) noted during a House debate, Idaho employers often admit that foreign labor isn’t even cheaper. Visas, travel, lodging, meals, and transportation add up — often rivaling what an American might earn in salary and benefits. Yet, they claim no amount of money will lure American workers.

Have they tried? Really tried? Take those bloated costs — every dime spent on foreign logistics — and pour them into wages, health plans, or housing for locals. Build training programs to teach kids how to run today’s high-tech rigs. If tech giants can sell college grads on coding in Silicon Valley, Idaho’s dairies can sell our youth on feeding America.

It’s not rocket science. It’s will.

The same elites twist unemployment numbers to prop up their narrative. They cite low jobless rates to argue that no one’s left to hire. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics excludes a key group: able-bodied men ages 25 to 54 who’ve dropped out of the workforce entirely. They’re not working, not looking, and not counted. That forgotten group alone includes an estimated seven million Americans.

Make American farming great again

Picture this: billboards across Idaho showing a young farmer steering a drone-guided planter, grinning like he owns the future. Community colleges partnering with ranchers to train veterans and high schoolers. County fairs where dairies hand out scholarships — not just milk samples. That’s not fantasy. That’s strategy. Businesses that want loyalty don’t wait for workers to show up — they go find them.

Right now, 70% of dairy workers rely on falsified papers. That’s not a workforce. It’s a failure of imagination. Legal, local labor builds trust, strengthens communities, and proves we take sovereignty seriously.

Idaho can lead the way. America’s watching.

Employers, quit hiding behind old excuses. Redirect your budgets, roll out campaigns, and watch Americans answer the call. Lawmakers, reduce or eliminate regulations that incentivize foreign labor.

Neighbors, cheer these jobs as the honorable work they are. Picture our fields alive with Americans, dairies humming with citizens who know this land as home.

That’s not just Idaho’s future, it’s America’s. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. All it takes is the guts to try.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Farmers, Farming, Agriculture, Idaho, Build back better, Illegal immigration, Jobs, Jobs americans won’t do, Mass deportations, Costs 

Just down the road from my house, a pastor was crucified in his bed — crown of thorns and all.

That’s not the start of a horror movie. It’s the real story of Pastor William Schonemann of New River Bible Chapel in Arizona. His murder in May received almost no media coverage until last week, when the suspect not only confessed to the killing but admitted he had plans to assassinate four more pastors in Arizona — and others across the country.

As a pastor who lives not far from where this happened, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was I on his list?

If the killer had cited Christian teachings while attacking a Planned Parenthood activist or drag performer, Los Angeles would be on fire and the Palestinian flag would fly from city hall.

The motive? The suspect claimed to be on a divine mission to “purify Israel” of anyone who teaches that Jesus is the Son of God. His logic was as deranged as it was deadly: You can’t kill the Son of God — so Jesus isn’t the Son of God. Therefore, anyone who says otherwise must die. He targeted pastors who preach that God forgives repentant sinners through Christ.

In other words, he hunted Christians.

This wasn’t an isolated attack. Just last week, a deacon in Michigan stopped a would-be shooter from opening fire inside a church. Whether through violence or through the daily pressure campaign of soft totalitarianism from elected leftists — who impose radical gender and social ideology — Christians face growing persecution in America.

RELATED: Nigerian Christians face latest massacre by militant Muslims

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So here’s the question: Will these attacks on Christians be prosecuted as hate crimes?

U.S. law defines a hate crime as violence motivated by bias against a protected class. Religion qualifies. A man confesses to murdering a pastor because he preached the gospel. That’s not just homicide — it’s a textbook hate crime.

Crickets instead of courage

So where’s the outrage?

The answer is simple. We’ve allowed a media and university culture to take root that treats Christianity not just as wrong — but as evil. Christians, they insist, stand in the way of liberation, especially sexual liberation. The man who murdered Pastor Schonemann didn’t need a gender studies degree to absorb the worldview pushed by most public universities and entertainment platforms.

LGBTQ centers, DEI bureaucracies, and entire academic departments teach students that Christianity is repressive, outdated, and harmful. Professors tell them Christians cannot be victims of oppression because Christians are the majority. We must be decolonized, dismantled, or disappeared.

Curriculum has consequences.

Most people never enroll in Gender Studies 401, but they absorb the ideology from those who do. Graduates of these programs run media outlets, direct Netflix specials, and draft corporate policy. So when Amazon Prime pushes queer identity as liberation, the implied message is clear: Christian morality is the enemy. And when that message gets repeated often enough, unstable people act on it.

A chilling double standard

Now imagine the reverse. Had the victim belonged to a different religion — particularly one deemed “marginalized” or “indigenous” — CNN would run wall-to-wall coverage. MSNBC hosts would cry on air about America’s hatred. The Justice Department would announce investigations before the body cooled.

If the killer had cited Christian teachings while attacking a Planned Parenthood activist or drag performer, Los Angeles would be on fire and the Palestinian flag would fly from city hall.

But Pastor Schonemann preached Christ crucified. And so, the outrage is muted.

Time to act

Calling out this double standard matters, but it’s not enough. Pointing fingers at leftist hypocrisy only gets us so far. It’s time for action.

First, Christians must expose the incoherence of the ideologies used to justify this persecution. These movements promise justice but cannot define it. They claim to liberate, yet they demand conformity and submission. As a philosophy professor, I’ve challenged my own university’s faculty to debate these ideas. So far, silence. But shining light on the hollowness of their worldview creates space for the truth — and for grace.

Second, Christians must stop funding the institutions that despise us. Public universities are not neutral. They’ve become temples of anti-Christian dogma. Professors hide behind “academic freedom,” but the Constitution does not require taxpayers to bankroll propaganda. We must say: “No more. I won’t pay you to teach my child to hate the truth.”

After the murder, Pastor Schonemann’s son noted that the media seemed more interested in the killer than in his father’s life and witness. He’s right. And when the media finally does speak, don’t be surprised if it’s to ask: “Why do Christians deserve this?”

Universities are not neutral

Years ago, I sat on a panel at Harvard Law School. It was just before the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. One panelist — an Ivy League professor of some renown — smiled and said, “Christians like to be persecuted, so let them be.” The audience applauded. No one flinched.

It’s time for Christian parents to wake up. The age of the “neutral” university has ended. Our children are not just being taught to tolerate different views — they are being indoctrinated to hate what is true, good, and beautiful. They are told in no uncertain terms: Christianity is the problem.

Until we demand equal protection under the law — and stop funding our own cultural executioners — the attacks will continue.

The killer in Arizona refused dialogue. He chose violence to silence the truth. Ask yourself: How different is that from the message preached by DEI activists and gender ideologues who say we must either conform or disappear?

They’ve told us exactly what they believe. It’s time we take them at their word.

​Opinion & analysis, Christian persecution, Arizona pastor, Arizona pastor crucified, Crucifixion, William schonemann, Murder, Persecution, Anti-christian, Universities, Ivy league, Obergefell v. hodges, Crime 

American cattle rancher Shad Sullivan is sounding the alarm on the “war on beef” that the elites are waging against the American people, and Blaze media co-founder Glenn Beck is right there with him.

“This is all coming from elites,” Glenn tells Sullivan. “85% of elites and super elites — super elites are ones that went to Ivy League colleges and have a doctorate. Just the elite are making $150,000 a year, they’ve gone to college, have one postgraduate degree, and they’re involved in the companies or countries.”

“They just did a poll on those people. Eighty-plus percent say that Americans should not be allowed to eat beef or meat of any kind,” he continues.

“We have to remember what Klaus Schwab said in 2023 at Davos. He said, ‘You will enjoy meat as a treat, but not for sustenance,’” Sullivan agrees. “And we know beef is really the only animal that can provide total and 100% sustenance to human life.”

“These elite that you talk about, I hearken back to my dad. He’s gone now, but he was a self-made rancher. Started with nothing,” he continues. “I said, ‘Dad, what are we going to do?’ And he says, ‘Son, we’ll never change America until they sit in the dark, cold and hungry.’”

“And that’s the truth. And he came from a place of suffering, so he understood that,” he adds, noting that the elites will never understand the kind of suffering that makes them grow.

“I think about somebody on the side of the road with a flat tire. Those elites couldn’t even change a flat tire. They couldn’t do the most simple things that require real life, and here they are, demanding and dictating how we’re going to produce and consume, not only in America, but across the world,” Sullivan explains.

However, there is one thing that keeps the elites from all-out rule over the American people.

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