The progressive left and the academic establishment march so tightly hand in hand that they might as well share a pair of skinny jeans. Naturally, the recent paper in the Journal of Marketing concludes that conservatives are practically on the brink of ruin. Apparently, a conservative can’t enjoy a cold beer, a cigar, or a trip to the casino without the left assuming he’s one bad decision away from alcoholism, lung cancer, or financial ruin.

The study, which analyzed everything from YouGov data to Yelp reviews across five countries, reached a conclusion that academics seem to find utterly baffling: Conservatives view “addictive products” — alcohol, tobacco, gambling, fast food, and gaming — far more favorably than liberals do.

While the left is busy drafting trigger warnings, the data shows that the conservative brain is fundamentally hardwired for self-governance.

To the academic mind, this is a defect. Academics frame this in the most negative, alarmist terms possible, claiming that our focus on autonomy has, in effect, lowered our psychological guard.

Let’s translate that from ivory-tower-speak into reality. What the data actually proves is that liberals view themselves as fragile, helpless leaves blown about by the winds of corporate temptation, while conservatives possess the radical, terrifying confidence known as self-regulation.

The dreaded ‘sense of agency’

The researchers based their thesis on a psychological concept called the “sense of agency” — the shocking notion that you are actually in charge of your own body and choices. Because conservatism prioritizes individual responsibility over collective victimhood, we naturally have a much higher sense of agency.

According to the study, this is a bad thing because it makes us underestimate the inherent risks of a lottery ticket or a double cheeseburger.

A liberal looks at a slot machine and sees an oppressive system; a conservative looks at a slot machine and sees twenty bucks worth of entertainment, confident he can walk away when it’s gone. It’s not that we don’t understand that addiction exists. Rather, it’s that we don’t view ourselves as inevitable victims. We have willpower. Many on the left do not.

And this isn’t just conservative bravado; it is backed by decades of actual, hard psychological science that academics love to ignore when it doesn’t fit the narrative. In standard personality psychology, conservatives consistently score significantly higher in conscientiousness — the literal Big Five trait defined by impulse control, orderliness, and the ability to delay gratification.

While the left is busy drafting trigger warnings, the data shows that the conservative brain is fundamentally hardwired for self-governance. We don’t need a bureaucratic chaperone to stand between us and a plate of nachos because our baseline internal programming already handles the impulse regulation for us.

The conservative mindset

To prove their point that conservatives are having entirely too much fun, the researchers looked at 124,976 Yelp reviews across the United States. Sure enough, businesses selling addictive products — like cigar bars and casinos — received significantly higher ratings in conservative counties. Meanwhile, in liberal enclaves, people were presumably leaving one-star reviews for artisanal cafes because the oat milk wasn’t locally sourced by unionized baristas.

The researchers even tried to manipulate mindsets in a lab, forcing participants into a “conservative mindset” by making them write about personal responsibility. The result? Those primed to think like conservatives immediately went out and bought more lottery tickets and expressed a higher willingness to buy a drink.

When you stop viewing society as a minefield of trauma and oppression, you actually start enjoying life. A healthy view of human existence acknowledges that pleasure requires self-control.

Study after study confirms a massive ideological “happiness gap,” with conservatives reporting significantly higher levels of mental stability, life satisfaction, and emotional resilience than liberals. It takes a profound level of psychological stability to look at the outside world, smile, and say, “I’ve got this.”

RELATED: Why your coffee addiction is a superpower

Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

The nanny state’s new blueprint

Naturally, because academics cannot leave well enough alone, the final phase of the study focused on how to break this conservative resilience. They tested different types of anti-smoking and anti-gambling ads to see what would finally scare the self-reliance out of us.

They discovered that general warnings don’t work on conservatives because we assume those warnings are for the weak-willed. The only way to pierce our armor is with highly aggressive, personally directed threats using pronouns like “you” and “your” to explicitly attack our sense of control.

They want to engineer a society where everyone shares the same baseline level of anxiety and helplessness, where an unmonitored double espresso is treated like a public health crisis, and the government acts as a permanent designated driver for a life you’re never allowed to fully live.

But until the bureaucratic wellness coordinators successfully figure out how to program us into submission, we will be over here, enjoying a burrito, sipping a beer, and placing the odd bet — fully in control and having a significantly better time doing it.

​Alcoholism, Anxiety, Conservatives, Fast food, Gambling, Personal responsibility, Tobacco, Trigger warnings, Alcohol, Culture, Liberals, Lifestyle 

Madonna’s new album “Confessions II” just debuted at the top of the Billboard chart, giving her her 10th No. 1 album. It also makes her the first artist to score No. 1 albums in four different decades.

Madonna’s fans have come through for her once again. Years ago, I would’ve been right there with them, on the edge of my seat, eager to spend my money the second her new release went on sale.

During a costume change, my friend Clay turned to me and said, ‘The more she puts on, the better she looks.’

No longer. In another middle-aged role reversal, I’m looking at the party kids bopping out just like I did in the ’80s, except now I’m the disapproving conservative uncle. It’s quite a thing to go from being a stereotypical Gen X gay boy Madonna freak to a mid-lifer who thinks the woman is actually the Whore of Babylon.

Childish things

Thank God I finally grew up and got out of the “gay lifestyle” with its promiscuity, addiction, and its “die young and leave a good-looking corpse” motto.

Even if I hadn’t, I’m not sure I could’ve kept up with today’s new breed of fan. They have a taste for the raunchy, the narcissistic, and the materialistic that makes Madonna’s once-notorious sexual button-pushing seem quaint by comparison. Today, there are no more boundaries to break — not that it has stopped the almost 68-year-old from trying.

When Madonna Ciccone came up in the 1980s, she made a big deal about being more brazenly sexual and aggressive than female stars were supposed to be. Back then, I bought her line about how she was helping women liberate themselves. But that line took us directly to “rap artists” like Cardi B “singing” about anatomical parts in a way that would have made the Material Girl blush in 1984.

Desperate to shock

The only thing Madonna could do to push the shock envelope today would be wearing her internal sexual organs on the outside (and I wouldn’t put it past her). The on-the-go senior has been “performing” — we use the term generously — in Times Square dressed in what Baby Jane Hudson would have worn if her parents had started her in burlesque instead of vaudeville.

Butt implants bulging, Madonna squeezes herself into pink satin teddies cut so high a gynecologist could examine her from across a stadium. She spreads her legs (I repeat myself) to reveal a giant boom box speaker while rolling around on her back lip-syncing to her own processed voice.

Then, she brings on a 6-foot drag queen — I’m sorry, a “transgender woman” — so she can put her posterior in the dancer’s face to suggest an act too lewd to describe.

This used to be my playground

It’s a rehash of the shockingly incompetent, boring, and embarrassing concert I attended in 2024. She went on the road with a greatest hits tour at 65. My friends and I have been to half a dozen of her shows over the years, usually from the front row or close to it. At her best, like her or not, she is a mesmerizing live performer with a charisma that cannot be bought or sold.

Not that night. The arena in Denver was packed with aging “Madonna wannabes,” late middle-aged women with their hair tied up in rags and crucifix necklaces. Superannuated gay men prancing about in makeup and the kind of shorts that used to get one arrested for public indecency.

Out came our lady of the pop charts singing along to an entirely prerecorded musical track. There was no band, and the sound was so poor I couldn’t understand what she was singing or saying.

That turned out to be a mercy when she decided to break into a speech praising the child abuse that we call “transgender children.” And like a modern Joan Crawford, Madonna brought two of her adopted African children onto the stage with her to gyrate while male dancers displayed portions of their physique not usually seen outside textbooks.

At 65, she was still stuffing herself into corsets and teddies that don’t wear the same at the AARP stage of life. It was unflattering and embarrassing. During a costume change, my friend Clay turned to me and said, “The more she puts on, the better she looks.”

For the first time, I stood at a Madonna concert and looked at my phone for the time to see when it ended. My back and feet were killing me.

Goo goo Gaga

With the release of her new dance album, I’ve peeked at the online “diva wars” between fans of Miss Ciccone and devotees of the later simulacrum known as Lady Gaga. I’ve been watching the younger fan reactions to senior citizen Madonna. They’re insane.

The young have a name for what we might call “super fans,” the obsessive types who make a singer, an actor, or a sports team into a religion. They call them “stans,” because the word fan, shortened from “fanatic,” wasn’t fanatical enough.

They defend their divas to the digital death. If you dare to say you’re not into their celebrity obsession, the stans will scream that you’re old, stupid, a bigot, repressed, or that you just “hate people enjoying things.” For them, it’s not enough to praise Madonna for her music or her style; she has to be the biggest, best, baddest, b***h ever.

To watch these antics is to look into an unpleasantly clear mirror of the young man I used to be. When I attended the concert two years ago, I thought to myself, “What are you doing here?” I was 49 years old, and the magic was gone.

But it was more than that; it was more than just getting older and reaching maturity. It wasn’t that I was no longer interested in Madonna; I was repulsed by her. She stands for everything I think is rotten and destructive in modern society: brazen promiscuity, pathological narcissism, out-of-control greed, and breaking every rule simply for the sake of breaking it.

What did I see in her decades ago when I fell under her spell?

Star struck

It was 1983 in Anaheim. I was over at Dinda’s apartment for her eighth birthday party. The wood-grain console stereo was tuned to the top 40 station, and this enchanting melodic synthesizer run tinkled like electric glass out of the speakers. Then a booming bass line came in and some ethereal creature sang, “You must be my lucky star, cuz you make the darkness seem so far.”

I was captivated. You couldn’t not dance to it.

Less than a year later, I was sitting in front of MTV, and I watched this glamorous vixen in a pink dress (copied from Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number) be pushed up onto a pedestal as handsome men showered her with cash and diamonds.

That was the beginning of my obsession with Madonna Ciccone. I bought every single record (45 singles and the 33 long-playing), every single poster, every single magazine, every fan newsletter. I begged the bus driver to turn up the radio when her songs came on.

For years, I spent money on her merchandise and her concerts, and I defended her singing, her dancing, and her “message” to anyone who would listen (and to those who just wanted me to shut the hell up). To kids like me, she was a liberated, self-made, modern girl who “took on the system.”

No man was going to tell her what she could and couldn’t do with her body. Stupid, stuffy, old religious conservatives only hated her, because, like, they’re afraid of normal sexuality and bodies, OK?

RELATED: Are you a 35-year-old with a nose ring? Forget ‘adulting’ — you need to grow up

NBC/Harold M. Lambert/Getty Images

Missing persons

What was it that so attracted young girls and gays to this siren? Young people are vulnerable to unhealthy obsessions with unhealthy celebrities because they’re missing something at home. I was missing a lot. My mother was deranged with a personality disorder. I was 10 years old before she finally put my violent stepfather out of the house the night after he tried to murder her in front of us three children. My teen years were spent in a home for juvenile delinquent boys, and my sister met the same fate when she approached adolescence.

Families like mine provided none of the normal, necessary nurturing that teaches children to value the good things in life and to value the good. No religious instruction, no unconditional love, only mood swings, temper tantrums, and violent punishment.

Like too many young people today, I became convinced that the idea of family was a sick joke. It was just something “fundagelicals” had cooked up and forced down our throats with “propaganda” like “Leave It to Beaver.”

Siren song

When I called Madonna a siren above, I meant it literally. She sang a song, and kids like me foundered on her rocks because no one made sure we were tied to the mast. We couldn’t resist.

I think she’s even more than a siren; I’d call her a sorceress. She cast a “glamour” over youth in the original sense of the term, a spell that binds and blinds. Like all pathological narcissists, Madonna’s moral values are inverted. The healthy is recast as sickness. Temperance, chastity, charity, and loyalty are for suckers. Greed is good.

Like my unstable mother, Madonna created herself god in her own image and then demanded that others worship her. We can ask how a woman pushing 70 can stand to do what she does without dying of embarrassment, but the answer is obvious.

We are a society that pays for pathology. Madonna sells the lost exactly what they want to buy. Far from fading into the past, her brand of self-destructive self-worship has been culturally normalized in the 21st century.

For years, I complied with my mother’s idolatrous demands, and I gave in to Madonna’s as well. Now I’m free, but an even greater percentage of young people today are in moral and spiritual bondage than they were in my youth.

Tie your children to the mast. Give them what they need at home, or they’ll pay dearly for a poison substitute.

​Drag queen, Gen x, Lady gaga, Madonna, Marilyn monroe, Religion, Transgender woman, Promiscuity, Music, Culture, Pop music, Intervention 

A former first-grade teacher in Washington state has pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual misconduct with a teen, according to authorities.

Mackenzie Naught, 25, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual misconduct involving a minor on Friday, according to the Spokesman-Review. Naught is being held at the Whitman County Jail without bail, according to records.

The teen told police Naught was ‘being flirty.’

KREM-TV reported that Naught, of St. John, faces a jail sentence of six months to a year under Washington State’s Adult Sentencing Guidelines. Naught will also have to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

Naught avoided the maximum prison punishment by several years.

According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor is a Class C felony in the state of Washington, which is punishable by a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of $10,000

A sexual assault protection order for five years has been issued for the teen who was subjected to the sexual misconduct.

The Whitman County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said Naught will be sentenced Aug. 28.

According to KREM, Whitman County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Tessa Scholl stated:

The defendant’s guilty plea represents an important step in holding her accountable for her actions and spares John Doe the burden of having to testify at trial. Our office remains committed to supporting John Doe and his family throughout the remainder of the judicial process.

The Spokesman-Review reported in May that Naught had been teaching at St. John Elementary since September, and the 16-year-old student was a junior at St. John-Endicott High School.

As Blaze News previously reported, Naught was arrested May 10.

The Whitman County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that police “received information about an alleged inappropriate relationship between a student and the employee.”

“Following an initial investigation, deputies developed probable cause supporting the allegations,” the statement said.

RELATED: Female ex-middle school teacher, already facing grooming charges, arrested again on new felony sex crime charge

The Spokesman-Review previously obtained court records saying Naught’s husband informed police on May 9 that his wife of four years had confessed to him that she had sex with a teen on one occasion.

Court documents said the husband provided screenshots to authorities to prove his wife had been sexually active with the teenager.

The Spokesman-Review reported that the husband told police he had known the boy for years and was friends with the teen’s family.

Naught initially informed deputies that she never had sex with the minor, according to court records.

The teen told police Naught was “being flirty” and that she attempted to persuade him to meet her, court docs said.

The minor said he initially felt weird about meeting Naught but eventually decided to see the teacher.

“He picked her up at about 2:15 a.m. in his truck down the street from her house,” the Spokesman-Review reported. “She asked him where the ‘little spot’ was they could go, he told deputies.”

The news outlet reported that “she suddenly kissed him.” The teen claimed Naught began to “get handsy,” and they had sex inside his truck and in the bed of the truck, according to court documents.

The Spokesman-Review, citing court documents, noted that Naught said she knew the boy was 16 but that he is “like one of their friends.”

Court records revealed that Naught apologized and admitted she knew the situation was wrong and instructed the teen not to tell anyone.

Court records the Spokesman-Review obtained revealed that Naught’s husband filed for divorce in June.

KREM reported that St. John-Endicott Cooperative Schools Superintendent Tina Strong stated in May, “The district is cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities and will also be conducting its own investigation into the allegations.”

Naught is not listed in the staff directory for St. John-Endicott Cooperative Schools.

The school district did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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​Bad teacher, Child sex crimes, Guilty plea, Sexual misconduct, Teacher arrested, Teacher sex scandal, Teacher student sex scandal, Washington state, Crime 

Five years ago this month, I finished the manuscript for “Human Forever: The Digital Politics of Spiritual War.” By fall, it was in print, available as an e-book, and inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain. It remains available today exclusively in Bitcoin on canonic.xyz.

Despite its narrow audience — then considered a kiss of death, today hailed as smart “niching down” — “Human Forever” has made an enduring impact.

Why assume that posthuman intelligence would honor what ‘we’ mean by progress as an ultimate good?

Working from a relative handful of influences, insights, and goals, I was able to see quite a ways around the corner of the next five years. That may seem surprising, given how much has changed since then, especially in AI.

But the book’s continued relevance in an age of rapid obsolescence has to do with its thesis being larger than tech. Its central question was what, if anything, could be bigger than technology — more fundamental, more authoritative, more inherent to who and what we are.

While many are now locked in debate over whether technology is upstream of politics or politics is upstream of technology, “Human Forever” explored the primacy over both of spiritual being, spiritual life, and spiritual order.

Few were discussing this dynamic in 2021. Many are discussing it now.

That is not surprising. As I argued in the book, and have continued to explore in the essays and posts it set in motion, the cultural and social resurgence of spirituality in all its dimensions — including those most of us were trained to believe would never return from the distant past — is largely attributable to the direction, speed, and scope of technological advancement.

Technology has now reached a point at which it is discrediting many of the sophisticated intellectual mechanisms once designed to justify human existence and supply human purpose without spirituality, revelation, or faith in the divine.

Today even — perhaps especially — those working at the frontier of AI development are gravitating toward spiritual structures, from the ancient Christian church to novel and idiosyncratic cults.

But momentum at the technological frontier still favors those who would rather replace all previous and existing religions than kneel with the faithful of any.

RELATED: At 250, America’s fate is wonderfully unwritten

smartboy10/iStock/Getty Images

Welcome to the party

I now notice two main trends relative to what I argued in “Human Forever.”

The first is a gratifying high-level awareness of what is at stake and what is needed to preserve our accustomed freedom and command in the digital age.

Recently, none other than Palantir CEO Alex Karp helped kick off a remarkable turn among key hyperscalers toward concepts and priorities laid out in the book: control of compute as an index of sovereignty; technological competition consolidating among a handful of civilization-states; the need to protect and preserve the shared memory, or ontology, of people and organizations; and the spiritual risk of a new kind of slavery typified by what cybernetics theorists call homeostasis — an unceasing feedback loop optimizing for predictability, uniformity, and interchangeability.

In the book, I emphasized that Bitcoin offered ordinary human beings an exemplary opportunity to re-establish healthy freedom and command under digital conditions. Bitcoin is relatively mature, stable, comprehensible, and ready to use now, without requiring trust in massive organizations with equally massive trust gaps.

I am still waiting for leading tech figures to sing that tune. On the other hand, perhaps it is best for ordinary people to figure it out for themselves, without monitoring or supervision.

The secular trap

The second trend is more uncanny and unnerving.

A funny paradox has emerged. Many of those most euphoric about developing AI into a recursively self-improving cosmic intelligence — one that removes our pain, solves our problems, and likely erases many of the limits of human being — simply assume that the machines will preserve their very human ideas about “improvement” itself.

They seem to believe that machines designed to surpass us in every way will somehow neither surpass nor contradict them when defining the core concepts and purposes at the heart of the AI project.

Improvement, advancement, perfection — these and related ideas define the AI-maxxing ideology. But for us, absent divine teaching about what they truly mean, they remain inescapably human ideas.

If “we” are building entities with the goal of liberating them from the petty confines of human intellect, agency, and identity, why would we expect them to retain modern secular-human notions of value and progress?

RELATED: The backlash against AI reveals it’s a terrible scapegoat

RYGERSZEM/iStock/Getty Images

Why assume that posthuman intelligence would honor what “we” mean by progress as an ultimate good?

Strangely, the stubborn reliance on merely human definitions at the heart of the ostensibly posthuman agenda mirrors the same reliance among many of the most visible and well-funded anti-AI movements, which rally around symbols of human identity such as a caveman’s handprint.

Neither side of the conflict seems eager to confront the hard lesson of history: When we stray from divine teaching about what it means to improve, progress, and perfect, and when we replace that teaching with merely human measures of justice, truth, beauty, and goodness, the result is often the opposite — sometimes catastrophically so.

The true frontier

Of course, there are many incompatible religious teachings in the world today. But they are nearly unanimous on the folly of turning away from divine instruction and trying to do it ourselves — especially when that effort frustrates us so badly that we attempt to outsource it to institutions of our own creation.

Historical warts and all, the implication is strong: Stubborn secular humanism will undermine even the most ambitious and well-intentioned goals of both AI lovers and AI haters.

For many Americans, and for many others across the globe, the only authoritative, resonant, reliable, and compatible frame of spiritual authority will be a Christian one.

For Americans in particular, that poses a unique challenge.

Just as an AI theocracy would be unconstitutional, so would a Christian theocracy. America will have to work harder than other countries to resolve the relationship among spiritual authority, political order, and technological development.

Instead of worrying about whether we still have time, we had better make the time.

​Opinion & analysis, Technology, Artificial intelligence, Progress, Spiritual authority, Religion, Humanism, Theocracy, Improvement, Humanity, Faith, Theology 

Jashanpreet Singh illegally crossed the southern border into the United States in March 2022 and was subsequently loosed upon the homeland by the Biden administration.

Singh, a 21-year-old Indian national, was later issued a commercial driver’s license from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which enabled him to get behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer and ultimately destroy multiple lives.

‘If California followed the rules, illegal aliens like Jashanpreet Singh wouldn’t be driving 80,000 pound missiles down our roads.’

While the Indian was ultimately convicted for spilling American blood, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and others reckon the prison sentence handed to Singh on Tuesday is far too lenient.

The deadly crash

Singh was flying down the 10 Freeway West in Ontario, California, in a semitruck on Oct. 21 when he drove through and over multiple vehicles, killing three people — including Pomona High Red Devils assistant basketball coach Clarence Nelson and his wife, Lisa — and grievously injuring several more.

Witness Jason Calmelat told KNBC-TV that the truck Singh was driving “didn’t stop. It didn’t swerve. It didn’t make any kind of maneuvers. It just went straight in.”

Dashcam footage from Singh’s perspective shows the criminal noncitizen driving a breakneck speed toward several cars that appear to be either stopped or driving extremely slowly.

The Indian shows no signs of decelerating as he barrels toward an SUV that he plows into, then accordions against a white pickup truck. As the white pickup spins off to one side, Singh’s vehicle appears to press the remains of the SUV into a small red vehicle before smashing into another tractor-trailer and veering off into additional vehicles in the right lanes.

RELATED: Truck-driving illegal alien from India arrested for horrific hit-and-run that killed 2 young Americans

“The truck rolled and veered to the right into the embankment, and I saw the truck driver jump out because it was on fire,” said Calmelat.

California Highway Patrol Officer Joe Garcia said that the crash ultimately involved four semitrucks and four passenger cars, reported the Los Angeles Times. Three individuals were pronounced dead at the scene of the horrific crash, and four others were taken to the hospital with injuries.

Guilty

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office charged Singh with multiple counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence — charges that carried an enhancement for multiple victims. While Singh was also initially charged with DUI causing injury, the charge was dropped after toxicology reports came back negative for tested substances.

‘Letting criminals off that easy, even after they’ve killed 3 people, is by design.’

Singh, for whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an arrest detainer in October, initially pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter charges but earlier this month reversed course and pleaded guilty to all three counts of felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

RELATED: Truck-driving illegal alien from India arrested for horrific hit-and-run that killed 2 young Americans

San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office High Tech Crimes Unit

Singh was sentenced on Tuesday to four years and eight months in prison.

According to KCBS-TV, Singh’s age was a factor in his sentencing. Despite being a 21-year-old man, he was nevertheless eligible for youth offender status under state law — the cutoff for which is 26.

Even though Singh is an illegal alien, the judge reportedly also factored in Singh’s lack of a criminal history.

DOT Secretary Duffy stated on Wednesday, “5 years is a slap on the wrist for KILLING 3 AMERICANS.”

“If California followed the rules, illegal aliens like Jashanpreet Singh wouldn’t be driving 80,000 pound missiles down our roads,” continued Duffy. “We won’t stop until ALL illegal truckers are put out of business and held accountable.”

Homeland Security said in a statement, “Illegal aliens like this killer should NEVER be allowed behind the wheel or on our nation’s roads. ICE stands ready to arrest Singh upon his release so he is never allowed back on our roads to take another innocent life.”

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts wrote, “What a disgrace. This isn’t even a fluke of the California justice system. At most, the illegal alien would have been eligible for 10 years. Letting criminals off that easy, even after they’ve killed 3 people, is by design.”

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​Truck, Indian, Illegal alien, Sean duffy, California, Dmv, Commercial drivers’ licenses, Politics 

Last week, Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing for the aggravated murder of Charlie Kirk (shot on Sept. 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University) was held in Provo, Utah. Prosecutors presented evidence of probable cause, including surveillance, forensics, and a roommate’s confession video, but the hearing concluded without a binding decision and is set to resume for final arguments on Sept. 1, 2026.

Despite the copious evidence presented by the prosecution — evidence that the defense repeatedly challenged and tried to limit — conspiracy theories about Kirk’s tragic murder continue to circulate online, with many believing that Robinson was not the shooter or did not act alone.

But these doubters, says Allie Beth Stuckey, are missing something critical: The defense, whose sole objective is to defend Robinson, has said nothing of these conspiracy theories. On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie reviews the evidence presented in the preliminary hearing and explains why these conspiracy theories are highly improbable.

“Prosecution showed surveillance footage that allegedly put Tyler Robinson, who was not a UVU student, on campus four times between September 10 and September 11, 2025. Charlie was murdered on September 10,” says Allie.

One video shown by the prosecution, she explains, captures a young male (allegedly Robinson) on September 10 “walking with a noticeable limp … heading toward the Losee building [and] climbing over a railing onto the rooftop,” where the shot that killed Charlie was fired. The limp is believed by prosecutors to be due to the shooter “concealing the rifle in his pant leg.”

According to longtime friend, ally, and prominent Kirk supporter Jack Posobiec, who attended the hearing and witnessed the prosecution’s footage (including some that has not been released to the public), the male in the videos is “obviously [Robinson].”

“It’s not just a blurry guy or a pixelated guy. It’s Tyler Robinson. … There’s no question about it. It’s so crystal clear,” he said, contrasting the videos presented in the courtroom with the less sharp public footage.

“The court also showed footage of Robinson turning himself in. This was the first public viewing of that surrender video,” Allie continues, noting that Special Agent Brian Davis testified in the preliminary hearings that it was indeed Tyler Robinson who turned himself in on September 11, 2025, at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

Further, Caitlin Oliver, a forensic biologist with the ATF, testified during the preliminary hearing that DNA testing on the rifle showed Tyler Robinson as the major contributor, with statistical analysis indicating it was one trillion times more likely to be his DNA than that of any unrelated individual.

“DNA from Robinson and his lover Lance Twiggs was on the screwdriver found on the Losee rooftop where the shooter allegedly took the shot and on the rifle and towel found in bushes near the UVU campus,” Allie adds.

She also references the September 2025 Washington Post report, claiming Robinson allegedly posted in a small private Discord group chat with friends roughly two hours before turning himself in: “Hey guys, I have bad news for you all. It was me at UVU yesterday. im sorry for all of this.”

The prosecution also presented similar confession messages allegedly sent by Robinson to Twiggs and a recorded interview with Twiggs from April 2026, in which he stated that surveillance images “definitely do look like [Robinson].”

In the same interview, Twiggs said, “I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before, and he said it was. He started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn’t done it and then kept going around and just doing stuff I think to keep himself busy or distracted or something.”

Between everything presented by the prosecution in the preliminary hearing, the disturbing bullet engravings allegedly carved by Robinson, and the written confession letter Twiggs’ claims to have found (and burned), Allie believes that Robinson is almost certainly guilty.

“From my personal opinion, it does seem beyond a shadow of the doubt that Tyler Robinson did it, that he was motivated by his animus toward Charlie Kirk because of Charlie Kirk’s views and that he decided to take this opportunity to, in his mind and maybe in the minds of other people, to become a hero,” she says.

“It seems pretty irrefutable at this point unless you are to believe that the prosecution and the Orem Police and UVU and Israel and Egypt and Erika Kirk and the federal government and all of the intelligence agencies are somehow working together to cover this up and that Tyler Robinson is just the fall guy,” she continues.

To all the “internet sleuths” out there circulating various theories about who really killed Charlie Kirk, Allie has a sobering message: “The defense cares a lot more about defending their client than internet sleuths do. … They care a lot more about presenting alternative theories, and so if there were any truth to any of the theories out there about other people actually being the ones who were responsible for the assassination of Charlie Kirk, they would be bringing that forth in court.”

Perhaps the defense will present more during the September 1 hearing or at trial, but so far it has said nothing about the popular conspiracy theories claiming Robinson is innocent or did not act alone.

In the next part of the episode, Allie dives into the specific conspiracies circulating online. To hear it, watch the episode above.

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​Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Charlie kirk assassination, Tyler robinson