Scrutiny over Minnesota's leadership, including failed Democratic vice presidential candidate and current Gov. Tim Walz, has been mounting after massive Somali fraud schemes have been exposed in recent weeks. To add to those investigations, the Department of Justice is suing Minneapolis Public Schools for alleged racial discrimination.

The lawsuit, filed on December 9 and spearheaded by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, accuses Minneapolis Public Schools of discrimination on the basis of race and sex.

'A committed focus on reducing inequitable practices and behaviors in our learning places and spaces as well as supporting educators, specifically educators of color, in navigating and disrupting our District as a predominantly white institution.'

According to the lawsuit, the active collective bargaining agreement apparently provides for discriminatory treatment in favor of "underrepresented" teachers, resulting in allegedly discriminatory hirings, firings, and benefits, despite claims to the contrary by the defendants in the case.

Regarding Black Men Teach, the third-party organization included in the CBA, the DOJ says that the discriminatory practices are made "even more manifest" since "women, whites, Asians, and others need not apply."

RELATED: 'Beachhead of criminality': Trump admin urges Walz to resign in light of 'ghost students' fraud scheme

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

The collective bargaining agreement had other highly questionable sections as well. Notably, it promoted the creation of an Anti-Bias Anti-Racist Educator Development and Advisory Council, which explicitly states that it has "a committed focus on reducing inequitable practices and behaviors in our learning places and spaces as well as supporting educators, specifically educators of color, in navigating and disrupting our District as a predominantly white institution."

"Employers may not provide more favorable terms and conditions of employment based on an employee’s race and sex," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a press release. "The Department of Justice will vigorously pursue employers who deny their employees equal opportunities and benefits by classifying and limiting them based on their race, color, national origin, or sex."

"Discrimination is unacceptable in all forms, especially when it comes to hiring decisions,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said. "Our public education system in Minnesota and across the country must be a bastion of merit and equal opportunity — not DEI."

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At a moment when elite universities are under intense scrutiny for how they handle speech, protest, and ideological conformity, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber has entered the debate with a defense of the status quo. His new book, “Terms of Respect,” argues that the crisis of free speech on campus has been overstated and that colleges are, in fact, getting it mostly right. The argument is polished, earnest, and in crucial places, deeply evasive.

I have no particular affection for Eisgruber. Still doubt deserves a hearing. In that spirit of restrained generosity, I read “Terms of Respect” with real interest. Would he distinguish himself from the failed presidencies of Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, and Minouche Shafik? Would he say something candid, new, or clarifying about free speech on campus?

Justice Louis Brandeis famously argued that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Eisgruber seems to disagree.

The book is, as expected, careful, lawyerly, and saturated with constitutional doctrine. Eisgruber is a serious scholar and writes like one. His prose is sober, the tone measured, the citations abundant. He spends considerable time walking the reader through legal history before arriving at his central claim: that colleges are not failing at free speech nearly as badly as critics allege. The real problem, he argues, is a broader “civic crisis” afflicting American society.

Free speech, Eisgruber insists, must be understood alongside equality, civility, and respect. Truly constructive speech, he claims, must be both “uncensored and regulated.” Colleges, in his telling, deserve higher marks than they receive.

So far, so plausible.

Then comes chapter four, page 65.

There Eisgruber repeats the long-debunked “very fine people on both sides” libel regarding President Donald Trump’s remarks after the 2017 Charlottesville rally. He cites a New York Times article by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman and reproduces the claim without qualification.

This is not a trivial slip. The full transcript of Trump’s remarks has been publicly available for years. Eisgruber is a constitutional lawyer and university president. He could have made his point without repeating a known falsehood. But apparently the fruit was just too juicy to leave unharvested, so he ventures into the dark land of “lying for justice.”

Why?

The most charitable explanation is tribal comfort. Eisgruber knows that no one within his ideological circle will challenge him for repeating the lie. The same insularity that led Ivy presidents to offer evasive, lawyerly, and absurd testimony before Congress is at work here. Inside the tribe, bureaucratic language suffices. Outside it, in the sunlight, the hubris falls easily to the nemesis of scrutiny.

And Eisgruber is only getting warmed up.

Does he tell the whole truth?

The most consequential failure of “Terms of Respect” is not what Eisgruber says but what he refuses to confront.

Absent from the book is any serious reckoning with the July 4, 2020, Princeton faculty letter — a document signed by roughly 350 professors accusing the university of “rampant” racism and demanding sweeping institutional changes. Among those demands was the creation of a faculty-run “racism tribunal.”

As the Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf observed at the time, such a tribunal is inherently incompatible with academic freedom — the very subject of Eisgruber’s book. Friedersdorf contacted signatories and asked them to cite a single instance of “rampant racism” at Princeton over the preceding 15 years. Not one could.

Nevertheless on September 2, 2020, Eisgruber responded by largely capitulating. He validated the accusations, adopted the rhetoric, and opened the gates to the DEI regime now entrenched at Princeton. This was not principled leadership. It was submission under moral intimidation — a textbook example of what psychologists describe as “virtuous victimhood,” a confidence game designed to extract resources by moral threat.

Yet Eisgruber treats this episode as if it never occurred.

That silence is not accidental. It is bureaucratic self-protection.

As literary agent Susan Rabiner has noted, the distinction between lying and withholding the truth is merely technical. Any attempt to cause others to believe something one knows to be untrue is a lie. Eisgruber’s omission of the defining crisis of his presidency is a classic case of lying by omission.

Criticism for thee, not for me

Returning to “Terms of Respect,” we find that Eisgruber does not much care for criticism — especially when it comes from outside the academy. External critics, in his telling, are almost invariably “right-wing.”

He traces this lineage back to William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale” (1951), dismissing it as a “diatribe” that inspired generations of conservative “muckrakers.” He names Campus Reform and the College Fix as exemplars of an “odious strand of pseudojournalism” that ridicules faculty, disproportionately targets women and minorities, and undermines free discourse.

The irony is difficult to miss. Eisgruber decries ridicule while deploying precisely the tactics Saul Alinsky championed in “Rules for Radicals”: personalize, polarize, and delegitimize. He offers exactly one example of this supposed intimidation — nearly a decade old.

Meanwhile he waves away the pervasive ideological capture of higher education as a “myth.”

It is no myth. The evidence is supplied daily by the institutions themselves. Eisgruber either does not know what is happening on his own campus, does not care, or counts himself an ally of the coterie of extremist dullards populating the Princeton bureaucracy now enforcing these programs.

Posturing above the fray

Throughout the book, Eisgruber adopts a posture of measured balance — “on the one hand, on the other.” But the pose does not hold. He speaks the language of civility while excusing coercion. He invokes academic freedom while ignoring its most serious internal threats. He treats accurate reporting on campus excesses as “ugly media frenzies” rather than sunlight.

Justice Louis Brandeis famously argued that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Eisgruber seems to disagree.

In the epilogue, his agenda becomes clearer. Vague invocations of the “shocking rise of white nationalism,” “heartless treatment of undocumented children,” and “anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry” appear, unmoored from specifics and immune to scrutiny. Criticism of his policies is transmuted into moral threat.

RELATED: From accommodation to absurdity on campus

Photo by Kalpak Pathak/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Does this sanctimony disqualify Eisgruber from expressing it? Of course not. But neither does his status shield his arguments from judgment — especially when they rely on half-truths and conspicuous omissions.

The bureaucrat unmasked

In the end, “Terms of Respect” reveals less about free speech than about its author. Eisgruber is not a radical. He is something more familiar: the consummate bureaucrat — fluent in moral rhetoric, insulated from consequence, and committed above all to preserving the system that empowers him.

He resembles the warden of Shawshank Prison, assuring Andy Dufresne that appeals are pointless while maintaining the fiction of order as the institution decays around him.

Instead of “Terms of Respect,” higher education needs more Brandeisian sunlight — and yes, more of the “ugly media frenzies” that unsettle administrators who prefer darkness to accountability.

If that discomfort troubles the wardens of Shawshank University, so be it.

The Chicago Bears are looking for a new stadium and that may end up leading them out of Chicago.

In fact, they could leave the state of Illinois all together.

'Suggesting the Bears would move to Indiana is a startling slap in the face.'

Kevin Warren, Bears president and CEO, says the Bears need a new stadium because the current Soldier Field is now more than 100 years old. For several years, different ideas for nearby new or domed stadiums have been proposed, but the city has not signaled it would fund a project that would cost billions of dollars.

Some estimates, in fact, say a new stadium would cost $2 billion alone — with many more billions required for surrounding infrastructure, roads, and entertainment.

In September, Warren penned a letter saying that Arlington Heights, a suburb of Chicago, "is the only site" that meets the required standards to build a new facility and "elevated gameday experience."

While the organization said it was willing to contribute $2 billion to the move, Warren also wrote that the Bears would continue to look elsewhere for appropriate building sites, "including Northwest Indiana."

The governor's office responded to the letter in a statement to WGN-TV, effectively saying that a private business like the Bears needs to pay for its own infrastructure.

"Suggesting the Bears would move to Indiana is a startling slap in the face to all the beloved and loyal fans who have been rallying around the team during this strong season," said Matt Hill, spokesperson for Gov. JB Pritzker (D). "The governor's a Bears fan who has always wanted them to stay in Chicago. He has also said that ultimately they are a private business."

RELATED: Illinois governor signs law to counter Trump administration's 'depravity' — DHS fires back immediately

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) was less harsh in his wording while also dismissing any idea that the Bears could move out of state.

"I'm going to keep a straight face here: The Bears belong in the city of Chicago," the mayor said. "I've said repeatedly the door is open for conversations. ... I firmly believe [the Bears'] best position is in the city of Chicago."

The village of Arlington Heights also issued a statement, saying that after hearing about a possible move to Northwest Indiana, village leaders remained confident that their area is "the best option for their new stadium and entertainment district."

The leaders added, "However, we understand their need to explore any and all viable locations as part of their due diligence process. Due to restrictive legislation in Illinois, this exploration now includes moving to Indiana."

While the lack of public funding for the Bears may be heartbreaking for fans, the rejection of tax dollars being injected into sports franchises has been an increasing trend in recent years.

RELATED: 'We're still on the air, Tim': Hockey announcer's hot mic sexual remarks result in suspension

Photo by Jerry Driendl/Getty Images

In 2024, voters in Missouri rejected a proposed sales tax measure that would have funded new stadiums for both the Kansas City Chiefs (NFL) and the Kansas City Royals (MLB).

The Chiefs were asking for $500 million from taxpayers while forking over $300 million of its own funds. The Royals needed $2 billion for a sports district and were asking to split the bill 50/50. But voters rejected the calls for funding, according to Sports Illustrated.

In 2023, the Arizona Coyotes (NHL) asked for $200 million of a $2.1 billion plan to be paid by residents. The entertainment centrum would have included a new arena, two hotels, a 3,500-person theater, and up to 1,995 residential units. According to ESPN, the vote failed with 56% saying "no," and the Coyotes moved their team to Utah.

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The FBI never intended to reinstate Special Agent Steve Friend and is guilty of “gross misconduct” for violating “nearly every significant term” of a whistleblower settlement agreement signed by the Department of Justice in August, his attorney says — including failure to pay nearly $425,000 in back salary, pension, annual leave, and other benefits..

Attorney Kurt Siuzdak of Madison, Conn., filed a protected whistleblower disclosure Wednesday with U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), alleging multiple breaches of contract and bad faith. The complaint also alleges vindictiveness, citing how Friend’s firing was leaked to the New York Post a day before Friend himself was notified by FBI Director Kash Patel.

‘May God have mercy on your soul.’

“The FBI and its executive leadership have committed gross misconduct by immediately breaching the settlement agreement that was approved by the FBI and signed by the senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General Vance D. Day,” Siuzdak wrote.

“Despite leaking to the press, Mr. Friend was fired for ‘veiled threats,’” Siuzdak said. “However, the fact is that since signing the settlement agreement on August 26, 2025, the FBI has breached the agreement and refused to abide by any terms of its settlement agreement with Mr. Friend.”

Friend was summoned to the FBI’s Daytona Beach Resident Agency on Saturday, Dec. 13, and was handed a termination letter signed by Patel.

Friend spent the previous five days at the Daytona office without any assigned duties, without a restored security clearance, service weapon, current credentials, or a bureau cell phone, Siuzdak said. The FBI also assigned someone to guard Friend while he was in the building, Siuzdak said.

Left: Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend at the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing in May 2023. Right: Friend and former Special Agent Kyle Seraphin at the premiere of the film “Police State” at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.Photos courtesy of Steve Friend

“The FBI took no action to reinstate until 74 days after the settlement agreement’s deadline had passed,” Siuzdak said. “Then, Mr. Kash Patel personally terminated Mr. Friend five days later …”

In the termination letter, Patel accused Friend of “unprofessional conduct and poor judgment” for his social media activity, including appearances on various podcasts offering opinions on FBI operations and slamming Patel and other senior leaders.

Patel drew specific attention to Friend’s Dec. 5 appearance on “The Kyle Seraphin Show,” hosted by the former FBI special agent from Texas.

Pipe-bomb patsy?

The men discussed the ongoing controversy over the bureau’s handling of the Jan. 6 pipe bombs case and the Dec. 4 arrest of Brian J. Cole Jr. as the alleged bomber. Cole was charged in federal court with planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee building and near the Republican National Committee building on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.

Both men expressed the view that Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, Va., is not the pipe bomber. The FBI arrested the wrong person to cover up alleged law enforcement involvement in the placing of the pipe bombs, they said. They noted that Cole is likely autistic and operates on the level of a 16-year-old, according to his grandmother.

“Whatever the motivation is, if you’re doing another put-up job on this guy — I think we spelled out a pretty compelling case that this probably ain’t the guy — then may God have mercy on your soul,” Friend said.

The alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber (left) stops and sits down at a bush next to the Congressional Black Caucus Institute the night of Jan. 5, 2021. A Capitol Police counter-surveillance officer (right) peers at something under the same bush just minutes before he discovered the pipe bomb at the nearby Democratic National Committee building on Jan. 6. U.S. Capitol Police CCTV

“I’m going to end with this. I’m going to bring out my inner [Emperor] Commodus,” Friend said. “You better pray to Gaia or Vishnu or whatever your maker is that @RealSteveFriend is never in a position to be an instrument of God’s wrath. Because I will be merciful.”

“I won’t give you a trial and a hanging,” Friend said. “I’ll allow you to breathe every breath that your body will have for the rest of its natural life inside of a box. And then when it ultimately fades to black, that’s when real wrath begins.”

‘Kash Patel should be more concerned with his agency arresting the actual perpetrator of the January 6th pipe bombs.’

The firing was leaked in advance to Caitlin Doornbos of the New York Post, who sent Friend a text at 7:05 p.m. Eastern Dec. 12. In it, she made reference to the whistleblower advocacy group Empower Oversight dismissing Friend as a client on Dec. 5 — and suggested his latest podcast comments could cost him his job.

“I am writing a piece about them [Empower] firing you following the ‘wrath of God’ comments you made on Kyle Seraphin’s podcast that were apparently about FBI Director Kash Patel,” Doornbos wrote, according to a copy of the text obtained by Blaze News. “I have reporting that suggests these comments may also have put your employment with the FBI in jeopardy, and I’m wondering if you would like to respond?”

In an emailed letter, Empower told Friend it was terminating its legal representation because he did not abide by the firm's advice not to speak about the FBI on social media. Empower founder Jason Foster and President Tristan Leavitt told Friend, “We are aware that, contrary to our previous advice, you once again commented publicly on FBI matters today, risking further adverse administrative action by the FBI.”

Empower is “no longer willing or able to expend further time and resources representing your interests or providing counsel moving forward,” read the letter, provided to Blaze News by Friend, who said he waived attorney-client privilege.

The Post story on Friend’s firing was published the next day, less than two hours after Friend reported to the Daytona office to be given his termination letter.

‘Deranged rant’

The story described Friend’s Dec. 5 podcast commentary as a “deranged rant,” “hot rhetoric,” an “outburst,” and “disturbing remarks.” The discussion about Cole being an alleged patsy to hide possible government involvement in placing the pipe bombs was described as a “bogus cover-up.” Friend’s ongoing social media commentary amounted to “bashing the FBI and weighing in on conspiracy theories.”

Friend said because the FBI was in breach of the settlement agreement, he did not consider himself an employee when making podcast appearances in recent months. “I always issued a qualifier that I was speaking on my own behalf and not a representative of any government entity,” he said. “It was a joke with the audience. I called myself a hobbyist podcaster.”

The remarks made on the Seraphin show were not intended as a threat, Friend said. He defended the comments in a statement to Blaze News.

“I stand by my remarks,” Friend said. “It isn’t a threat to say that public servants who willfully rob American citizens of their God-given liberty in order to advance their careers or earn positive media attention deserve to go to jail.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino at a Dec. 4 press conference to announce the arrest of Brian J.Cole Jr. in the Jan. 6 pipe-bombs case. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The termination “was clearly an effort by the FBI director to besmirch my reputation to distract from his failures,” Friend said. “Kash Patel should be more concerned with his agency arresting the actual perpetrator of the January 6 pipe bombs than retaliating against me for pointing out they didn’t.”

Friend was first suspended from his job as a special agent in the Daytona Beach Resident Agency on Sept. 19, 2022, under President Joe Biden’s FBI director, Christopher Wray. He had previously lodged complaints with supervisors that the FBI’s plans to use SWAT teams to arrest a misdemeanor Jan. 6 suspect presented serious issues. He refused to take part.

‘The FBI had no real intent to reinstate Mr. Friend.’

“I expressed that I have an oath of office,” Friend said during an interview at his Florida home in October 2022. “And while I’m aware that an arrest warrant is a legal order from a judge, I have an oath to protect the Constitution.”

Friend said he was troubled when he was reassigned from investigating sexual trafficking of minors and young adults to working on the Joint Terrorism Task Force doing Jan. 6 casework. The Bureau broke with normal case management protocols by opening what ended up being nearly 1,600 criminal cases stemming from the protests and rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“They’ve chosen to open hundreds of cases and then spread them around the country,” Friend said in 2023. “That gives the impression that domestic terrorism is a nationwide threat, when really, the numbers the FBI is touting stem from one incident on one day.”

Friend resigned from the FBI in February 2023, a day before he was set to give transcribed testimony to the Republican-led U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. On May 18, 2023, he was among three FBI whistleblowers who testified before the select subcommittee about the retaliation against whistleblowers by the FBI for lawful, protected disclosures they made to Congress.

Relationship sours

Initially, Friend was part of an ad hoc group of Patel supporters who regularly communicated with the “Government Gangsters” author and co-host of “Kash’s Corner” on Epoch TV. The group ramped up activity after Patel was announced as President Donald Trump’s choice for FBI director in November 2024.

The group also included Seraphin, then-suspended Special Agent Garret O’Boyle, and George Hill, retired FBI national security intelligence supervisor, and others. After gaining Senate confirmation in February, Patel sent the men a text that read, “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Patel planned to bring O’Boyle and Friend into the bureau with him, Friend said, but that never happened. As Patel was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he credited the group with helping put him across the finish line, according to a text message obtained by Blaze News.

After his nomination was announced by President Trump on Nov. 30, 2024, O’Boyle sent congratulations along with the statement, “Thank you, Kash, for what you’ve done for us.” Patel responded, “Thank you guys, you made this happen.”

“Thank you guys for your relentless friendship and mission love,” Patel wrote in a January text. “You guys made this possible.”

After the February Senate confirmation vote, Friend texted Patel, “Congratulations Director.” Patel responded, “Thank you guys. … Now we all go to work.”

A group of whistleblowers formed an ad hoc group to advise Kash Patel as he prepared for confirmation hearings to become FBI director. The men are now at great odds.Images courtesy of Steve Friend and Kyle Seraphin

As 2025 wore on and the bureau had not publicly announced plans to settle with O’Boyle and other suspended FBI whistleblowers, or offer any of the men a job, the men began criticizing their former ally Patel and his new deputy director, Dan Bongino.

Friend said Bongino offered to hire him in March. Friend said he talked about some kind of staff position, either as an agent or a special government employee.

Friend texted Bongino a reply on March 4, “Thank you for this opportunity. I’m honored to support you. Count me in.” Bongino wrote, “Excellent. I will be in touch.” That was the last Friend ever heard about it, he said.

On Aug. 21, Patel announced that the FBI had reached settlement agreements with 10 whistleblowers represented by Empower Oversight. The announcement caught some of the whistleblowers, who said they had not yet agreed to anything, off guard.

Friend signed his settlement agreement on Aug. 26. It was also signed by DOJ senior legal counsel Vance Day.

‘I couldn’t have done this without you.’

Friend said under the agreement, he is owed $450,000 in back pay and $61,431 in reimbursement for medical coverage. The FBI was required to reinstate him by Sept. 19. By that date, the FBI was to pay the back salary and insurance reimbursement, cancel his indefinite suspension, reinstate Friend’s security clearance, and “rescind and expunge employee’s removal and all related records concerning misconduct or poor performance,” the agreement said.

Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend speaks at a Collier County Republicans event in Naples, Fla.Photo courtesy of Steve Friend

Three days before it fired Friend as a client, Empower received some updates from the FBI. Friend began receiving deposits on Oct. 9, which the FBI said were salary. Friend says he had no idea what the payments were for, that he never received a pay/leave statement, and that he could not access his Employee Personal Page at the FBI National Finance Center. The FBI told Empower that Friend’s access to pay statements was restored Dec. 2.

The FBI further said it was processing paperwork to enroll Friend in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. As for the back pay and reimbursement, the FBI said, “Backpay calculations are pending for all employees.” None of the whistleblowers have thus far been paid their back salary.

During his five days in the Daytona office, Friend was assigned an FBI vehicle but was refused an FBI gas card, he said. Regulations prohibit personal use of FBI vehicles, so without any job duties, Friend parked the vehicle at his house.

“The vehicle served only to block his driveway and as a reminder that the FBI had no real intent to reinstate Mr. Friend,” Siuzdak wrote.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

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An illegal alien truck driver, accused of causing a fatal crash, was reportedly released from custody after authorities failed to follow up with a case for prosecution.

'How many more Americans have to be killed before Democrat politicians start to put the public's safety ahead of politics?'

Kamalpreet Singh, an Indian national who illegally entered the U.S. in 2023, is accused of causing a deadly multi-vehicle wreck on a Washington freeway on December 11.

The Department of Homeland Security stated that the Biden administration released Singh into the country despite his illegal entry. He obtained his commercial driver's license in California, according to Fox News.

Singh allegedly rear-ended a Mazda driven by Robert Pearson, a 29-year-old American. The Mazda was pushed into a Peterbilt truck, causing the car to catch fire, Fox News reported.

Pearson died at the scene. Singh and the driver of the Peterbilt were not injured.

The semitruck driver reportedly spent just one day in King County jail before being released after posting $100,000 bond. The news outlet claimed that the bond money was returned to Singh after the arresting authority, the Washington State Patrol, failed to pursue a case for prosecution.

A WSP spokesperson told Blaze News, "In the course of our investigations, we have found [an] additional detail and needed to withdraw the original complaint so we can refile in the near future with that additional detail included. The case remains under active investigation."

RELATED: Border Patrol nabs 49 illegal aliens with commercial driver’s licenses

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a detainer against Singh, it was not honored due to the state's sanctuary policies.

"These demented and dangerous sanctuary policies have deadly consequences," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. "Robert Pearson would still be alive today if the Biden administration hadn't released this illegal alien into our country. How many more Americans have to be killed before Democrat politicians start to put the public's safety ahead of politics?"

The DHS noted several recent crashes allegedly caused by illegal aliens.

RELATED: Illegal alien bus driver who can't speak English allegedly kills American while 'distracted by a video on his phone'

Photo by: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The department stated that Washington also ignored ICE's detainer against truck driver Juan Hernandez-Santos, despite the criminal illegal alien being accused of causing a multi-vehicle pileup on December 4.

Rajinder Kumar, an illegal alien from India, was charged with criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment after allegedly causing a crash in Oregon that resulted in the deaths of two people.

DHS also highlighted a detainer against Harjinder Singh, an illegal alien from India who was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide, and Partap Singh, who allegedly caused a crash in California that left a 5-year-old with critical and life-altering injuries.

Kamalpreet Singh, Harjinder Singh, and Partap Singh are not believed to be related to one another.

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A professor at the University of Washington was punished for having the audacity to poke fun at the school's moral exhibitionism. Stuart Reges, a professor at UW's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, fought back and, on Friday, secured a decisive victory.

Reges ruffled feathers at the university where he has worked for decades by including a parodic land acknowledgment in his 2022 course syllabus.

'The Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land.'

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the outfit that represented Reges, the university recommended in its "best practices" guide that instructors incorporate an "Indigenous Land Acknowledgment" in their course syllabi, providing the following as an example statement: "The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations."

In a December 2021 faculty email thread, one of Reges' colleagues referred to an article that characterized land acknowledgments as "moral onanism." Reges said in response that he was uncertain about the value of making such statements and noted that he might include a mock statement in his syllabus.

Sure enough, the professor included the following land acknowledgment on the syllabus of his winter 2022 computer science course: "I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington."

Administrators at UW's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering punished Stuart Reges over his failure to conform, which they claimed had caused a "disruption to instruction" but had in reality enraged only ideologically delicate members of the faculty and the school's DEI student committee.

RELATED: 'Enough white guys already': The war on white men because of DEI in the working world exposed in damning report

Stuart Reges. Courtesy of Twinkle Don't Blink

The director of UW's computer science department, Magdalena Balazinska, ordered Reges to remove the statement because it was supposedly "offensive" and generated a "toxic environment."

According to court documents, when Reges refused to remove his dissenting statement, Balazinska unilaterally removed it, then apologized to Reges' students, detailing ways that they could file complaints against their professor.

'Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted.'

In addition to inviting students to switch out of Reges' computer programming course and into a "shadow" class section taught by a different professor, university administrators launched a years-long disciplinary investigation into Reges.

In July 2022, Reges sued Balazinska, then-UW President Ana Mari Cauce, and other school officials, accusing them of violating his First Amendment rights.

"University administrators turned me into a pariah on campus because I included a land acknowledgment that wasn’t sufficiently progressive for them," Reges said at the time. "Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court."

U.S. District Court Judge John Chun, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, dismissed Reges' lawsuit last year, claiming that "the disruption caused by Plaintiff's speech rendered it unprotected."

Reges appealed and found a court that viewed his case differently.

In a 2-1 decision on Friday, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel disagreed with and reversed the Biden judge's ruling, remanding the case for further proceedings.

Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, writing for the majority, noted, "Debate and disagreement are hallmarks of higher education. Student discomfort with a professor's views can prompt discussion and disapproval. But this discomfort is not grounds for the university retaliating against the professor. We hold that the university's actions toward the professor violated his First Amendment rights."

Bress, an appointee of President Donald Trump, highlighted the long-standing debate over the value, factual basis, and political nature of land acknowledgments as well as Reges' sense that they are part of "an agenda of 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' that treats some groups of students as more deserving of recognition and welcome than others on account of their race or other immutable characteristic."

While acknowledging the right of members of the UW community to speak out against Reges and his views, Bress stressed that "Reges has rights too. And here, we conclude that UW violated the First Amendment in taking adverse action against Reges based on his views on a matter of public concern."

Will Creeley, the legal director of FIRE, said that the ruling "recognizes that sometimes, 'exposure to views that distress and offend is a form of education unto itself.'"

"If you graduate from college without once being offended, you should ask for your money back," added Creeley.

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The Department of Homeland Security is running an end-of-year Christmas special to further incentivize illegal aliens to self-deport.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the department will be tripling the cash incentives from $1,000 to $3,000, urging illegal aliens to leave the country on their own. Illegal aliens who choose to self-deport through the CBP Home App will receive this bonus through the end of the year and may be eligible to re-enter the country legally in the future.

'We'll buy your ticket.'

"Well, it's home for the holidays season," Noem said on "Fox & Friends" Monday.

"Not only are we returning those kiddos back to their families that Biden lost, we also are saying that if you voluntarily want to go home now to your country, if you're in this United States of America illegally, we will give you $3,000 through the holidays to send you home," Noem added.

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Photo by ALEX BRANDON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, an estimated 1.9 million migrants have self-deported and another 622,000 have been removed by law enforcement. Noem is looking to boost those numbers, noting that illegal aliens who self-deport may have a future path to legal residency unlike migrants who are deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other law enforcement agencies.

"We'll buy your ticket, give you $3,000 to go home, and that includes people that have not been detained, maybe have interacted with us, are detained and don't have criminal charges against them," Noem said. "Raise your hand! We'll help you get home. We'll facilitate it, and you might get the chance to come back to this country the right way someday."

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Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images

"If you wait until we interdict you and detain you and arrest you and have to deport you ourselves, you'll never get the chance to come back."

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Earlier this month, Fulton County made a major admission in the ongoing election integrity cases surrounding the 2020 election. While it won't change anything, the moment may help set the record straight about one of the most questioned elections in United States history.

In a December 9 Georgia State Elections Board hearing, a representative of Fulton County admitted that hundreds of thousands of votes were uncertified. The admission came in response to a March 2022 challenge brought by local election integrity activist David Cross.

'When the law demands three signatures on tabulator tapes and the county fails to follow the rules, those 315,000 votes are, by definition, uncertified.'

Cross alleged that Fulton County violated Georgia statute in the handling of advanced voting in the lead-up to the November 2020 election. Specifically he claimed that election officials failed to sign off on vote tabulation tapes, a crucial step in the certification process.

Cross claimed that his group paid nearly $16,000 in open records requests and received "over 77 megabytes of records" representing more than 315,000 votes.

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Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Cross also claimed to have found polls opened at "impossibly late hours" and other issues with the polls that he said represent "catastrophic breaks in chain of custody and certification."

The activist emphasized that seeking redress in this case is above partisan politics: "This is not partisan. This is statutory. This is the law. When the law demands three signatures on tabulator tapes and the county fails to follow the rules, those 315,000 votes are, by definition, uncertified."

Ann Brumbaugh, an attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, admitted to the Georgia State Elections Board during the hearing: "I have not seen the tapes myself, but we do not dispute that the tapes were not signed. It was a violation of the rule."

Noting that the training, facility, and leadership have all been changed since the 2020 election, Brumbaugh added, "We don't dispute the allegation from the 2020 election."

During the hearing, Cross asked that Fulton County be sanctioned by the state elections board, that the county "publicly acknowledge their violations," and for the state to decertify the 2020 advanced voting results.

Cross stressed that this was not a matter of score-settling "but instead to place an indelible and permanent asterisk on the record and finally force accountability."

According to results reported at the time, Joe Biden won the state of Georgia and its 16 electoral votes by just under 12,000 and defeated Donald Trump in the Electoral College, 306-232.

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Several forces are converging right now, and the result is a perfect storm of confusion, misinformation, apathy, and — most dangerously — runaway conspiracy thinking.

For a long time, I was consumed by true crime: real-life stories filled with mystery, fear, and emotional whiplash. I wasn’t alone. The genre became a full-blown cottage industry, complete with massive conferences, prestige documentaries, podcasts, and feature films.

The problem isn’t asking questions. It is speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.

At first, I saw little harm in it — especially when victims or family members were included in the storytelling. But once Hollywood began churning out sensationalized, “based on a true story” dramatizations of real-life horrors, something felt wrong.

Then I heard the victims’ loved ones speak out.

They described the pain these projects inflicted — how strangers dissected their trauma, speculated about their grief, and turned the worst moments of their lives into consumable entertainment. In some cases, families practically begged studios to stop profiting from their suffering. The pleas went unanswered.

There is little sign that Tinseltown plans to slow down. Personal tragedy is no longer treated as personal. We’ve crossed a line into a world where strangers don’t just demand access to these stories — they claim ownership of them.

That entitlement hardens quickly. It manifests as amateur investigations, armchair sleuthing, and the conviction that someone online can solve what professionals could not. Too often, that obsession mutates into wild conspiracy theories — narratives untethered from evidence that deepen the damage inflicted on real people already living with loss.

Fueling all of this is another force: social media addiction.

Millions of Americans live on their phones. Filters are gone. Boundaries between public and private have crumbled. Every tragedy becomes content. Every rumor becomes a reel. Every high-profile event risks turning into a true-crime nightmare, complete with TikTok theories and Instagram speculation.

Not all of it is malicious. But much of it is steeped in a moral carelessness that should unsettle us. And while content creators deserve scrutiny, they aren’t the only culprits. Plenty of us are liking, sharing, and amplifying the madness.

That dynamic reached a horrifying peak on September 10, when conservative and Christian commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

Almost immediately, conspiracy theories spread — many debunked within hours. In one case, a popular Christian apologist, a friend of Kirk who had been filming him speaking at Utah Valley University that day, was falsely accused of signaling the shooter through hand gestures. The claim was nonsense. It collapsed under minimal scrutiny.

No matter. The damage was done.

Other theories followed. Some insinuated betrayal by those closest to Kirk. Others implied inside involvement without evidence. Each claim compounded the grief of a family and community already reeling from an unspeakable loss.

The problem isn’t asking questions. It’s speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.

If someone is going to promote conspiracy theories, basic decency demands evidence. To date, none has been produced. And yet the claims persist — entertained, shared, and believed.

RELATED: ‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’

Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

I can’t entirely blame people for their skepticism. In 2016, I wrote a book called “Fault Line” warning that media bias carries real-world consequences. When trust erodes, people stop listening to official narratives altogether. Combine that with the government’s incoherent and often dishonest messaging during COVID, and the ground was primed for disbelief.

For years, progressives dismissed concerns about institutional credibility. Now we’re living with the consequences. A toxic cocktail of distrust, trauma, and algorithmic amplification has left many people — especially the young — drunk with suspicion and untethered from reality.

Add in social media saturation, obsession with true crime, collapsing trust in institutions, and the undeniable presence of evil in the world, and you have a generation raised inside a pressure cooker of dysfunction.

We need to cling to truth. We need to model discernment. We need to help people learn how to question responsibly — without tumbling into conspiracism — and how to rebuild boundaries that preserve perspective and humanity.

Truth-seeking should guide us, not digital frenzy or the dark impulses of the human soul. If we fail to make that distinction, the damage will only deepen.

We must be better.

While the Trump administration continues to target illegal alien criminal offenders, gang members, and national security threats as the primary focus of its mass deportation initiative, it has recently begun zeroing in on two other groups: Somalis and Afghans.

Earlier this year, President Trump terminated Temporary Protected Status for Afghans, and in late November, he announced his intention to do the same for Somalis after reports of mass fraud were exposed in Minnesota’s Somali communities.

Mark Levin is overjoyed that the Trump administration is targeting these two groups. Both, he reminds us, are “Islamists,” meaning assimilation is impossible.

Islamists, he says, are people “who have no intention of having allegiance to our country [and] no intention of joining our culture.”

“Islamism is incompatible with Americanism. It's incompatible with the Judeo-Christian system,” he says, noting that peaceful Muslims are not the same as Islamists.

Unfortunately, there are many people with platforms in our country who are spreading the narrative that America does not have a Judeo-Christian foundation, but these people are “on the Qatar payroll,” says Levin.

Combine this with the spreading false narrative bolstered by America-hating Democrats who want to import blue voters with the massive influx of Islamists, and we’ve got a situation that is “very diabolical,” he warns.

These immigrants are “not vetted” and are “from war-torn countries with terrorist activity,” and yet because a large portion of the nation doesn’t believe that America is built on principles incompatible with Islamism, there’s a massive fight to keep these immigrants here.

President Trump’s unapologetic efforts to stop this disastrous immigration are valiant, says Levin. “He's done things that no other president in my mind would even think about doing — no more third-world entrance into this country until we get this figured out. That is genius. That is courageous.”

The left is, of course, framing him as a racist, xenophobic bigot, but none of that is true. President Trump simply understands the disastrous outcomes of welcoming people who come from economically failing, violence-ridden, regime-controlled countries into America.

“[Trump is] saying, ‘Look, I can't fix that, but we're not going to bring those people into this country,”’ says Levin.

To hear more, watch the video above.

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A Utah man pretending to be a woman has learned his fate after pleading guilty last month to murdering his parents and assaulting his brother in June 2024.

On Friday, 30-year-old Mia Bailey, born Collin Troy Bailey, received two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life plus an additional consecutive sentence of up to five years after pleading guilty to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated assault in connection with the gruesome shooting.

'I would do it again. I hate them.'

"If only I had gotten help, this would have been preventable," Bailey said in a statement read by his attorney, Ryan Stout, according to the New York Post. The statement added that Bailey was "sincerely, deeply sorry" and that his newfound "religious beliefs as a Muslim" would make the death penalty an "appropriate ... atonement" for the crime.

"It makes me want to die because I can’t live with myself."

Bailey had previously asked permission to skip the sentencing hearing, claiming that the stress of it might lead to a nervous breakdown, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Judge Keith Barnes of the Fifth District Court of Utah denied that request.

On June 18, 2024, Bailey shot and killed his parents, 70-year-old Joseph Bailey and 69-year-old Gail Bailey, in their home in Washington City, Utah. Joseph Bailey was struck twice, and his wife was struck four times.

One of Mia Bailey's brothers was also in the home at the time, barricaded inside a bedroom with his wife. Mia Bailey shot through the bedroom door but did not injure anyone inside, according to reports. The husband and wife then fled to a neighbor's house to call police.

Following his arrest on June 19, Bailey allegedly told investigators: "I would do it again. I hate them."

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Bill Oxford/Getty Images

Two of Bailey's siblings spoke at the sentencing hearing, though whether either of them was the third victim in the attack is unclear.

"What’s best for us and what’s best for Mia is probably staying in prison for as long as possible," Cory Bailey said.

Dustin Bailey went farther, noting that the family fully supports "LGBTQ rights," but that the "powerful hormones" Mia Bailey had taken exacerbated his "psychiatric crisis."

"Providing powerful hormones to a person in a psychiatric crisis without proper psychiatric safeguards is not affirming care. It is reckless. ... It acted as an accelerant, intensifying instability, impairing judgment, and compounding risk. That failure harmed Mia, and it endangered our parents," Dustin Bailey said.

In arguing for concurrent rather than consecutive sentences, attorney Ryan Stout noted that Mia Bailey had been diagnosed with several mental illnesses: autism, psychosis, schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD.

While Judge Barnes issued consecutive sentences, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will ultimately determine how much time Bailey serves.

Washington City is also the home of Tyler Robinson, the suspect accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk in September. Robinson's alleged romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, reportedly identifies as transgender.

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A father fell asleep after bringing his toddler daughter into a hot tub with him in the middle of the night, and she drowned, police in Florida said.

Deputies and rescue personnel responded to a home on Nice Court in Kissimmee just after 3:30 a.m. Dec. 13 regarding an unresponsive child who appeared to have drowned in a hot tub, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said.

'It's very hard losing a niece this way, and then we have so much hurt for my brother because he's just so distraught and tore up.'

A family from Washington, D.C., was staying at the residence, which was listed as an Airbnb, officials said.

The 20-month-old girl was transported to AdventHealth Celebration where she was pronounced dead shortly after 4:30 a.m., officials said.

Sheriff's office detectives responded to the home to investigate the incident, officials said, and the father said he brought his daughter into the hot tub and fell asleep while holding her. The father reported waking up to find the child unresponsive in his arms while still in the hot tub, officials said. According to WUSA-TV, he said the child was face down when he awakened.

Following the investigation, detectives determined that the father — 33-year-old Reynard Tyrone Hough — was neglectful in the death of his daughter and arrested him on a charge of child neglect causing great bodily harm.

On Dec. 14, detectives added an additional charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child, officials said, adding that Hough was in custody at the Osceola County Jail.

Hough told detectives he was drinking that night, and police say alcohol likely contributed to him falling asleep, WESH-TV reported. Investigators told WUSA they saw various alcoholic drinks at the scene.

Hough also told detectives he ingested two different narcotics before getting into the hot tub with his daughter, WESH added.

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"It's very hard losing a niece this way, and then we have so much hurt for my brother because he's just so distraught and tore up," Angel Hough, the sister of Reynard Tyrone Hough, told WESH.

Capt. Kim Montes with the sheriff's office added to WESH: "I feel bad for this mom and dad; they were devastated, and they had another 6-month-old child at the home. We do know that watching two small kids can be challenging."

Hough appeared in court last Monday and was issued no bond, WESH noted.

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Several speakers at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest offered competing and ostensibly irreconcilable views of the way forward for the MAGA coalition, in some cases identifying one another as cowards, saboteurs, or worse.

In his speech closing out the conference in Phoenix, Vice President JD Vance emphasized that "President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests."

'Do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends.'

Vance, the Republican front-runner going into 2028 whom TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk endorsed last week for president, faces mounting public pressure to throw Tucker Carlson under the bus over his criticism of Israel and perceived bigotry as well as to censure Nicholas Fuentes, the head of the so-called Groypers who has been particularly critical of the vice president.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of "The Charlie Kirk Show," told the Washington Post, "The reasonable actors can see that JD is being a reasonable arbiter of this debate, and that’s a really important signal to send out — that Israel is our ally. They're an important ally. They're not our only concern, though."

"I think JD understands the needs, wants, and concerns of young Americans as well, if not better than, any other leading politician in the country," added Kolvet.

"I didn't bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform," Vance told the crowd of thousands gathered on Sunday.

"We have far more important work to do than canceling each other."

The vice president underscored that the "America First movement" constitutes a big tent welcoming those who seek to make America "richer, stronger, safer, and prouder."

In a recent interview with Sohrab Ahmari, the U.S. editor of UnHerd, Vance provided some insights into why he refused to denounce Carlson or waste any time discussing Fuentes.

"Tucker's a friend of mine," he told Ahmari. "And do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends, especially those who work in politics. You know this. Most people who know me know this. I’m [also] a very loyal person, and I am not going to get into the business of throwing friends under the bus."

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Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

Vance noted further that "the idea that Tucker Carlson — who has one of the largest podcasts in the world, who has millions of listeners, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, who supported me in the 2024 election — the idea that his views are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement, is frankly absurd."

As for Fuentes, Vance intimated that a condemnation of the 27-year-old host of "America First" podcast wasn't worthwhile.

"[Fuentes'] influence within Donald Trump's administration, and within a whole host of institutions on the right, is vastly overstated, and frankly, it's overstated by people who want to avoid having a foreign-policy conversation about America's relationship with Israel," Vance said in the interview.

'Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s**t.'

While the vice president maintains that Israel is an "important ally," he indicated that he welcomes substantive disagreements with the Middle Eastern nation as well as debates at home about American foreign policy.

Vance told Ahmari that anti-Semitism and all forms of ethnic hatred "have no place in the conservative movement" but noted that "if you believe racism is bad, Fuentes should occupy one second of your focus, and the people with actual political power who worked so hard to discriminate against white men should occupy many hours of it."

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Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images

Although recognizing Fuentes as an apparent sideshow to an important conversation, Vance did make a point of telling Ahmari, "Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is [former Biden press secretary] Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s**t."

On the theme of America First's genuine spirit of inclusion, the vice president made clear in his AmericaFest speech that the Trump administration and the broader movement supporting it has "relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs."

"In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white any more. And if you're an Asian, you don't have to talk around your skin color when you're applying for college, because we judge people based on who they are, not on ethnicity and things they can't control," said Vance. "We don't persecute you for being male, for being straight, for being gay, for being anything. The only thing that we demand is that you be a great American patriot."

'It is better to die a patriot than live a coward.'

In addition to risking offense with his acknowledgement that white Americans needn't apologize for their pigmentation and with his refusal to betray a friend, Vance realized the fears articulated in recent years by liberals and anti-Christian activists by noting in his speech that "the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation."

For the benefit of those who might strategically misconstrue his meaning, Vance clarified that Americans don't have to be Christian but that "Christianity is America's creed," despite the decades-long campaign by the left to remove Christianity from public life.

"That creed motivated our understanding of natural law and rights, our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak, and the belief in individual conscience," continued the vice president. "Even our famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept."

The vice president noted further that the "fruits of true Christianity" are good men like his murdered friend, Charlie Kirk.

"The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons," said Vance. "And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that's what God asks them to do. Because so many of us recognize that it is better to die a patriot than live a coward."

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Over the course of a single day this month, a pattern repeated itself across the West. Two Muslims murdered at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Five Muslims were arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market in Germany. French authorities canceled a concert in Paris due to credible threats of an Islamist terror attack. Two Iowa National Guardsmen in Syria were murdered by an Islamist while we play footsie with an illegitimate regime.

None of this represents an anomaly. It represents the accumulated failure of a strategy best summarized as “invade the Muslim world, invite the Muslim world.”

This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.

That doctrine has produced neither peace abroad nor safety at home.

A contradiction the West refuses to resolve

Western governments spent the better part of a generation importing millions of migrants from unstable regions while simultaneously deploying their own soldiers to those same regions to manage sectarian civil wars.

The contradiction remains unresolved: We accept the risks of mass migration while risking our troops to contain the same ideologies overseas.

Islamist movements do not confine themselves to national borders. Whether Sunni or Shia, whether operating in Syria, Europe, or North America, the targets remain consistent: Jews, Christians, secular institutions, and Western civil society.

Yet our policy treats these threats as isolated incidents rather than the expression of a coherent ideology.

Strategic incoherence in Syria

Nowhere does this incoherence appear more starkly than in Syria.

On one hand, the Trump administration has moved toward normalizing relations with Syria’s new leadership. In June, President Trump signed an executive order terminating U.S. sanctions on Syria, including those on its central bank, in the name of reconstruction and investment. Last month, Syria’s new leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — a former al-Qaeda figure rebranded as a statesman — visited the White House, where Trump publicly praised developments under the new regime and said he was “very satisfied” with Syria’s direction.

At the same time, Trump floated the idea of establishing a permanent U.S. military base in Damascus to solidify America’s indefensible presence and support the new government.

This would be extraordinary. The United States would be embedding troops deeper into one of the most volatile theaters on earth, effectively placing American soldiers at the mercy of a regime whose leadership and allies only recently emerged from jihadist networks — including factions accused of massacring Christians and Druze.

Simultaneously, the White House pressures Israel to limit its defensive operations in southern Syria, including its buffer-zone strategy along the Golan Heights, even as Israeli forces do a far more effective job degrading jihadist threats without sacrificing their own soldiers.

The result is perverse: America risks lives to stabilize an Islamist-adjacent regime while restraining the one ally actually capable of enforcing order.

Wars abroad, chaos at home

The contradiction deepens when immigration policy enters the picture.

Despite Syria remaining one of the world’s most unstable countries, with no reliable vetting infrastructure, the United States continues admitting Syrian migrants while maintaining roughly 800 troops inside Syria with no clear mission, no defined end, and no defensible supply lines.

Worse, U.S. forces increasingly find themselves aligned with terrorist factions tied to al-Jolani’s coalition to manage rival Islamist groups — placing American soldiers in the same position they occupied in Afghanistan, where “allies” repeatedly turned on them.

That dynamic produced deadly ambushes then. It is happening again.

Qatar’s fingerprints all over

The common thread running through Syria, Gaza, immigration policy, and Islamist indulgence is Qatar.

Qatar (along with our NATO “ally,” Turkey) invested heavily in Sunni Islamist factions during Syria’s civil war and backed networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood for more than a decade. Qatar hosts Islamist leaders, bankrolls ideological infrastructure, and operates Al Jazeera, a media outlet that consistently amplifies anti-Western and anti-Israel narratives.

Yet Qatari preferences increasingly shape Western policy. We remain in Syria. We soften pressure on Islamist factions. We tolerate Muslim Brotherhood networks operating domestically. We allow Al Jazeera to function with broad access and influence inside the United States.

These choices do not occur in isolation. They align consistently with Qatari interests.

Unfettered immigration kills

Which brings us to the attack in Sydney that killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more, when two Muslim terrorists opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration — using weapons supposedly banned in a country that prides itself on gun control, but not border control.

The alleged attackers, Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, were a father-and-son pair of Pakistani origin. Sajid Akram entered Australia from Pakistan in 1998 on a student visa, converted it to a partner visa in 2001, and later received permanent residency through resident return visas.

In other words, this was not a transient or marginal figure. Akram was educated, had lived in Australia for more than 25 years, raised an Australian-born son, and still became radicalized enough to murder Jews in his adopted country.

Pakistan is one of the countries the Trump administration continues to treat as an ally, allowing large numbers of its nationals into the United States. Over the past decade, roughly 140,000 Pakistanis have received green cards, with tens of thousands more entering on student and work visas.

RELATED: Political Islam is playing the long game — America isn’t even playing

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

The same pattern appears elsewhere. In Germany, five terrorists arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market came from Morocco, Syria, and Egypt. In the U.S., we have issued green cards to approximately 38,000 Moroccans, more than 100,000 Egyptians, and over 28,000 Syrians.

This problem is not confined to ISIS or a handful of extremists in distant war zones. It is systemic. It explains why thousands took to the streets celebrating the Sydney massacre and why Islamist mobs now routinely surround synagogues in American cities, blocking worshippers and daring authorities to intervene.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter which Islamic country they hail from, how friendly that government may be to the West, or the tribal dynamics on the ground there. All of them, when they cluster in large numbers and form independent communities run by the Musim Brotherhood organizations, are incompatible with the West.

The problem is with Islam itself and the mass migration and Western subversion promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood through Qatari and Turkish gaslighting.

A choice we keep postponing

This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.

The West must decide whether it intends to defend its civilization or continue subsidizing its erosion — through mass migration without assimilation, foreign entanglements without strategy, and alliances that demand silence in exchange for access.

Rather than building up Syria, risking the lives of our troops, and continuing to appease our enemies in Qatar, why not pull out, let Israel serve as the regional security force, while we focus on closing our border to the religion of pieces?

Protecting the country requires clarity. That means ending immigration from jihadist incubators, dismantling Islamist networks operating domestically, withdrawing troops from unwinnable sectarian conflicts, and empowering allies who actually fight our enemies.

Anything less is not “compassion” or sound foreign policy. It is criminal negligence.

The world is vast and varied — different foods, cars, buildings, beliefs, and political systems wherever you go.

Yet somehow, laundromats are always exactly the same.

In an era of technologically dehumanizing isolation, I find myself seeing beauty in the most mundane moments of human connection or human commonality.

Universal, they stretch from the northern Atlantic to the southern Pacific. Where there are people and where there is civilization, there is laundry and there are laundromats.

Watching the washers

I remember waiting in a laundromat in northern France. It was right across the street from the Super-U. It was long and thin with tall windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It was late November, the low sun was warm on the seats next to the windows, our clothes turning back and forth behind the tightly sealed window facing us. The silence of the warm carpet, our winter coats unbuttoned though still on, as we waited for our clothes to finish before walking back to the apartment.

In Chicago, my laundromat had long rows of metal machines. They loaded from the top and took six quarters per cycle. You slipped the quarters in the little slots and only once all six were filled could you push the metal slider forward. A few seconds later, the machine would start.

There were boxes of overpriced dry laundry soap next to the front door and a few benches next to the bathrooms that were always occupied by people staring down at their phones. I would wait in the corner, leaning against a rumbling dryer, looking up from my phone only when someone got up to move their wet clothes from washer to dryer. I would see wrinkly shirts, knotted sweaters, socks, pants, and skirts as they shuffled their clothes to another metal machine.

When I lived in Jerusalem, I washed my clothes at a laundromat close to Kikar Tzion. It was usually quiet, though never entirely empty. There was always someone else there talking quietly on the phone, listening more than speaking. Sometimes in Hebrew, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in French. The walls were covered with posters and printouts with little tags with phone numbers that could be torn off and slipped into your pocket if you were interested in whatever they were selling.

Metal machine music

Last week, our washer broke. On Saturday night, I took three loads plus two kids out in a snowstorm to the laundromat to get the laundry done.

It was empty, with the exception of the guy at the front desk who greeted us kindly as we stumbled in knocking the snow off our boots on the long black carpet. There was a TV in the corner, a couple tables with chairs, long lines of big, silver machines, and a few teal seats that looked like they were made in 1982. The kids and I loaded up the machines, poured in the detergent we had brought from home, and began listening to the low hum as the clothes began to spin.

The sound is always the same in every laundromat. There’s never loud music on a stereo; if there's a TV, it’s always muted or very quiet. Even the people waiting for their socks and underwear behave as if they're in a library, talking in low voices by the rumbling machines and spinning heat.

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Jim Steinfeldt/Getty Images

On the scent

The smell too; it’s always the same. All laundry soap all over the world has that same detergent-y scent. Soft, flowery, and lightly chemical. Detergent in Italy and detergent in Israel may have different names from detergent in America or detergent in Iceland, but they all are basically the same. The world is big and there are so many people, but all their clothes smell the same.

At the laundromat, people wash their most intimate garments in public, together. They carry their laundry baskets in and wash the things they only show their significant others right next to the things that someone else only shows theirs.

We never acknowledge any of this, and this is why we all hurry to put our clothes in, or change our clothes over, when we are at the laundromat. We all have a secret to protect, and we are all stuck together, in public, with the spinning machines, the low hum of the heat, and the smell of chemical flowers.

Together alone

This is part of why we are all fairly quiet as well. It’s like we don’t actually want to acknowledge that anyone else is really there washing their clothes right alongside ours. We may make small talk, but we don’t say much.

Laundromats are almost something like holdovers from a more necessarily communal time. Waiting and watching the people sitting and their clothes spinning, I have thought about how all the women must have washed clothes down by the river, or wherever it was they did laundry, in the ancient days.

In an era of technologically dehumanizing isolation, I find myself seeing beauty in the most mundane moments of human connection or human commonality. The things we share even if we don’t dwell on them. The things we do together even if we are alone. The spinning machines, the private garments we want to keep to ourselves, the smell of the detergent, the quiet as we wait.

Western nations are collapsing under the weight of mass migration, failed assimilation, demographic upheaval, and the growing alliance between Marxist and Islamist ideologies — a threat Charlie Kirk warned about with clarity long before his death.

“We don’t talk enough about Islam. ... We don’t talk nearly enough about the hundreds of thousands of Muslims that we have voluntarily imported into our country that build mosques, implement Sharia law,” Kirk once said.

“You go to Minneapolis, you even go to Dallas, you go to New York, and it will metastasize. It will spread. You know why? Because the women of the West, they get cats. The women of Muslims, they have eight kids. Eventually, it doesn’t work very well,” he continued.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey couldn’t agree with Kirk more.

“I thought he was going to go in the direction of toxic empathy, because it’s toxic empathy that has made us say, ‘No, Christians are the bad ones. Muslims are the great ones. And we just need to accept, unfettered, anyone into our country,’” she tells her father and BlazeTV contributor Ron Simmons on “Relatable.”

And Simmons has noticed it in his own neighborhood.

“Even in the neighborhood that I live in, I walk a lot. ... I will pass people that I know have immigrated here, you know, meet them, and they won’t even make eye contact. It’s just really strange,” Simmons tells his daughter.

“That’s not the America that I grew up in or believe in,” he adds.

“And that’s one thing, you know, we heard so much, especially the past few years: ‘Diversity is our strength. Diversity is our strength.’ Well, statistically, that’s not true,” Stuckey agrees.

“It can bring different perspectives and things like that, but at the end of the day, you have to say, ‘Okay, but this is what we have in common.’ But if you don’t have that, then diversity is a weakness,” she says.

“We are trying to force multiculturalism upon people without any shared underneath values,” she continues. “And that has worked zero places throughout history.”

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.

On December 11, 18 child online safety bills took a significant step toward becoming law. The package — each bill addressing, in some way, the harms children face online — passed out of a House subcommittee on a mostly party-line vote. The legislative bundle is, overall, a somewhat milquetoast mix of meaningful wins and frustrating defeats for child safety advocates. Still, it represents real progress. For those who have long pushed for action, the ball has finally moved down the field.

The bills vary dramatically in scope. Some, like the Assessing Safety Tools for Parents and Minors Act, would simply mandate an analytical report on the efforts technology companies are making to protect children. Others, such as the App Store Accountability Act — which would require app stores to determine whether a user is a minor and, if so, prohibit downloads without parental consent — are far more consequential, fundamentally changing how app stores operate.

Advancing 18 bills signals that one of the longest-standing objections to action — whether social media actually harms children — has effectively collapsed.

There are also bittersweet elements. The most well-known and controversial bill, the Kids Online Safety Act, is included in the package — but in a significantly watered-down form. The original version, introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), passed the Senate with more than 90 votes. But House GOP leadership raised constitutional concerns, arguing that the bill placed undue pressure on social media companies to regulate speech.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), one of the bill’s most prominent opponents, warned that it would “empower dangerous people.” Other critics likened KOSA to the British Online Safety Act — a far more draconian law than its American counterpart. (The most recent Senate version of KOSA focuses on disabling addictive features and restricting minors’ access to dangerous content.)

These concerns forced substantial revisions. Most notably, the bill now includes a sweeping pre-emption clause barring states from regulating anything that “relates” to KOSA — effectively nullifying existing and future state-level efforts to protect children online.

Equally disappointing is what failed to make the cut.

Some excluded proposals were undeniably radical, such as the RESET Act, which would have barred minors from creating or maintaining social media accounts altogether. But another bill left behind — the App Store Freedom Act — was critical to restoring competition and accountability in the app ecosystem.

That legislation would have challenged the Apple-Google duopoly, which controls more than 90% of app store purchases in the United States. As long as those two companies dominate the marketplace, meaningful reform will remain elusive. Unsurprisingly, both firms opposed the bill, arguing that it would “endanger” children by allowing downloads from unvetted third-party stores.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), the bill’s sponsor, blasted that claim, noting that Apple has long permitted minors to download TikTok — a platform run by a Chinese company with well-documented national security concerns.

RELATED: Schools made boys the villain. The internet gave them a hero.

Image by Alexandr Muşuc via iStock / Getty Images

Despite its importance, the App Store Freedom Act was removed from the package. Even so, the remaining legislation still marks a major victory for those focused on protecting children online.

Here’s why.

First, advancing 18 bills signals that one of the longest-standing objections to action — whether social media actually harms children — has effectively collapsed.

For years, lawmakers debated whether digital platforms were the problem or whether other factors deserved the blame. A steady stream of studies, headlines, and internal leaks showing that social media companies knew their products damaged adolescent mental health helped put that question to rest.

Second, the breadth of the package ensures that something will happen. Even the weakest provisions — those requiring studies or reports — will energize advocates and help bring order to what remains a digital Wild West for children and families.

The legislative fight is far from over. The bills must still clear committee, pass the House, and survive the Senate. But momentum is clearly shifting toward reform.

It’s time to finish the fight.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the AmericaFest crowd in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday that key global allies are hoping to drag the United States into a war with Russia.

Gabbard explained that the "warmongers in the deep state" are blocking Russia and Ukraine from reaching a peace agreement, undermining President Donald Trump's efforts.

'We cannot allow this to happen.'

"Predictably, they use the same old tactics that they've always used. The deep state within the intelligence community weaponizes 'intelligence' to try to undermine progress," she stated, motioning air quotes.

Gabbard said these deep-staters then leak that so-called "intelligence" to their friends in the "mainstream propaganda media" to propel a false narrative.

She went on to accuse the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of wanting to pull the U.S. into direct battle with Russia.

RELATED: Frustrated Trump calls for Ukrainian election after Zelenskyy seemingly torpedoes another peace opportunity

President Donald Trump. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

"[Deep-staters] foment fear and hysteria as a way to justify the continuing of the war and their efforts to undermine President Trump's efforts towards peace," Gabbard said. "And do so specifically in this case in order to try to pull the U.S. military into a direct conflict with Russia, which is ultimately what the EU and NATO want."

"We cannot allow this to happen," she declared.

— (@)

During her AmFest speech, Gabbard also warned about the threat of Islamist ideology.

"There's a threat to our freedom that is not often talked about enough. And it is the greatest near- and long-term threat to both our freedom and our security, and that is the threat of Islamist ideology," she said.

Gabbard's comments prompted cheers and applause from the audience.

RELATED: European leaders gossip about US amid apparent efforts to torpedo Trump's Russia-Ukraine peace deal: Report

President Donald Trump, DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

She argued that at its core, Islam is a political ideology that seeks to implement a "global caliphate" that would destroy freedom through Sharia law.

"This is already under way in places like Houston. This is not something that may possibly happen; it is already happening here within our borders," she continued. "Paterson, New Jersey, is proud to call themselves the first Muslim city."

You can view Gabbard's remarks about Islamist ideology beginning at the 6:50 mark in the below video:

RELATED: Secret Sharia ‘courts’ in Texas may be quietly overriding state law — Abbott calls for investigation

Gabbard added that Islamist ideology "is propagated by people who not only do not believe in freedom, their fundamental ideology is antithetical to the foundation that we find in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is that our Creator endowed upon us inalienable rights. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

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Modern Christianity often treats “niceness” as its highest virtue and “offending” as its worst. The American church is far too often shaped by this creed.

Yet the Gospels paint a far different picture of Jesus. He was loving, compassionate, and merciful, yes — but He was also unapologetically offensive when truth required it. When we avoid speaking hard truths for the sake of being liked or preserving a shallow sense of “peace,” we slip into spiritual complacency, apathy, and lukewarmness — all things Jesus rebuked.

Jesus never softened the truth to keep crowds happy.

The American church has developed an aversion to tackling tough cultural issues that are, at their core, purely biblical. Pastors often retreat in fear of angry emails, pushback from congregants, or worse, the loss of Sunday pew-warmers.

Last year, in my home state of South Dakota, an amendment allowing abortion up to nine months was on the ballot. A pastor of one of the state’s largest churches refused to address it, worried about being labeled the “abortion church.” He chose the path of cowardice instead of defending the innocent unborn.

At its core, this kind of timidity is rooted in the fear of man, disguised as a desire to “attract” people to the gospel. Numbers are prioritized over hearts, popularity over true discipleship.

What most pastors try so hard to avoid today, Jesus hit head on. Jesus offended — and offended often. His offense was never petty but was always purposeful. He never once flinched from boldly proclaiming truth because it might “offend” someone or ruffle feathers. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Jesus set the example: Truth will offend

The Pharisees were Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day, esteemed by many and considered high-class elites.

But Jesus didn’t care how lofty and noble these men appeared to be — He saw straight through their transgressing hearts, calling them offensive names like “hypocrites,” “blind fools,” “brood of vipers,” “serpents,” “children of hell,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “greedy and self-indulgent.” Naturally they were offended.

In Matthew 15:1-12 and Matthew 23, the disciples pulled Jesus aside after He offended the Pharisees by exposing their spiritual corruption. Jesus told these perceived religious zealots they honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him.

The disciples questioned, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15:12). Jesus’ backbone, as stiff as steel, responded, “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matthew 15:14). He didn’t have any time for nonsense.

Jesus didn’t just offend the Pharisees with truth; He offended His disciples too.

RELATED: The era of Christian loserdom is over

Christ driving money-changers from the Temple (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

In John 6, the disciples took offense at Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life. He challenged their religious assumptions and expectations about the Messiah as He proclaimed, “I am the living bread” (John 6:51), and symbolically called them to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (John 6:53).

Their offense shows their difficulty understanding the spiritual truths that transcended human understanding.

Jesus offends repeatedly all throughout the Gospel stories. When He claims He existed before Abraham as John 8:56-59 says, the Jewish leaders interpreted His teaching as blasphemy, which led them to try to stone Him. When one of the Pharisees invites Him to dinner in Luke 11:37-54, instead of a surface-level conversation about the weather, Jesus didn't waste time and immediately unmasked their hypocrisy, legalism, and spiritual emptiness. In response, they began plotting against Jesus — not repenting and humbling themselves.

Jesus never softened the truth to keep crowds happy. He offended religious leaders, political authorities, and even His own followers when they opposed the kingdom of God. His love was inseparable from honesty.

If we claim to follow Him, we cannot avoid offending people. Jesus reminds us in the Gospel of John that if the world hates us to remember it hated Him first. Faithful discipleship means being willing to confront lies, challenge sin, and speak truth, even when it divides, disrupts, or costs us something — or everything.

Courageous truth-telling is a biblical virtue

The modern church often elevates “niceness” above righteousness and holiness. But Jesus wasn’t crucified for being nice — He was crucified because He spoke truth that offended people even though a week before they spread cloaks and branches, shouting "Hosanna" as He entered Jerusalem.

I recently read through the Gospels, noticing the countless times Jesus “offended” but for good reason. He never offended for the sake of it — but always because it was the outcome of teaching truth with conviction.

In Jesus’ hometown, people were both astonished and “offended” when Jesus taught in their synagogue as Matthew 13:54-57 recounts. Their familiarity led to their unbelief, and Jesus exposed the depth of their spiritual blindness. The people of Nazareth then tried to throw Jesus off a cliff. They were first impressed but then violently offended (Luke 4:16-30).

'Modern religion focuses upon filling churches with people. The true gospel emphasizes filling people with God.'

Imagine congregants trying to throw a modern-day pastor off a cliff because he was too bold? Oh, to have more courageous pastors who righteously offend. Many would cower to the crowds or be taken to the side by their elder board demanding they tone it down, but not Jesus; He continued preaching truth at all costs.

Even up to His crucifixion and death on the cross, Jesus didn’t try to appease or reason with the people. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t use caveats. He was mission-focused on preaching the gospel that saves and leads to repentance. Not once did He try to people-please at the price of watering down sound doctrine.

Niceness avoids conflict, clarity, and offense — but Jesus didn’t. He embodied compassion and mercy, yet He also spoke hard, confrontational truths when necessary.

True Christlikeness means loving people enough to tell them what they need to hear — not what keeps us comfortable or well-liked.

Jesus didn’t offend to be cruel or to win an argument; He offended to reveal truth, to expose bondage, to free hearts, and to reveal God’s kingdom. His offense was holy, rooted in love, and aimed at transforming hearts and minds.

Fear of offending has paralyzed the church

A.W. Tozer wisely said, "Modern religion focuses upon filling churches with people. The true gospel emphasizes filling people with God.”

Many American pastors avoid addressing culturally explosive but biblically clear issues because they don’t want to offend. This silence stems from the fear of man — fear of losing members, donations, reputation, and influence.

The result is lukewarm churches that prioritize optics over obedience. Nothing is “wrong” with the church, but nothing is “right” with it either. People aren’t leaving convicted or repentant. They’re leaving feeling pretty good about themselves as they wallow in complacency.

Why does the American church continue to sit on the truth? True disciples follow Jesus until death.

No boats have been rocked, no hearts have been transformed, and no one has been truly discipled.

But the apostle Paul in Galatians 1:10 makes clear: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” You can only serve one master: God or the world.

When leaders refuse to speak on matters like abortion, sexuality, or sin because they might upset people, they are choosing self-preservation over faithfulness.

“If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it,” declared Charles Finney, a minister and leader during the Second Great Awakening.

Speaking truth in love: The cost of radical discipleship

John the Baptist offended people when he called them to repentance, criticized Herod for committing adultery, and condemned religious hypocrisy. He lost his head as a result. Paul offended people by preaching the Christ crucified and calling out legalism and man-made traditions. He was decapitated because of it. Elijah offended King Ahab and the prophets of Baal by confronting idolatry. Jezebel threatened to kill him. Amos offended the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom when he spoke out against wealth, corruption, and injustice in Israel. He faced rejection and threats.

These were all offenses they were willing to make because they lived for an audience of one.

So why does the American church continue to sit on the truth? True disciples follow Jesus until death.

Christian Nigerians right now are being slaughtered for their faith by the thousands, yet they continue gathering in droves to worship their King. Meanwhile American churches are sitting on the sidelines too worried about offending people to speak truth, rather than taking up our cross and truly following Christ.

As believers, we must be strong and courageous, with a truth-telling edge. We should not be harsh or abrasive but rather love people enough to say what’s hard.

If Jesus’ ministry provoked offense for the sake of truth, perhaps ours should too.

Washington rarely admits when policy has failed. But earlier this month, the White House stepped back from more than a decade of regulations that drove car prices to record highs, limited consumer choice, and tried to force an industry to move faster than technology, infrastructure, or American families could manage.

With the unveiling of the Freedom Means Affordable Cars proposal, President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy signaled a dramatic shift in national auto policy — one aimed at making car ownership attainable again for millions priced out of the market.

The Biden-Buttigieg standards were projected to generate $14 billion in compliance fines between 2027 and 2032, costs manufacturers said would be passed directly to buyers.

The timing is critical. New vehicle prices topped $50,000 this fall, while average monthly payments approached $750. Families are keeping cars longer than ever, pushing the average age of the U.S. fleet to record levels. As Washington pushed electric vehicles, consumers pushed back: EV demand stalled, rejection rates soared, and buyers continued to favor affordable gas and hybrid vehicles. That tension has been building for years, and the December 3 announcement marked the most direct challenge yet to the regulatory regime behind it.

Trump’s proposal resets National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fuel-economy rules, reversing Biden-era targets that aimed to push the fleet toward roughly 50 mpg.

Closing the 'back door'

Under the new plan, Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards return to 34.5 mpg — levels last seen in the late 2000s — with future increases scaled back to what Congress originally envisioned. The administration projects up to $109 billion in savings over five years and roughly $1,000 off the average new car. Whether those figures hold, the philosophical shift is clear: ending what the White House calls a backdoor EV mandate.

For years, automakers warned privately that the prior rules forced them to build vehicles customers didn’t want simply to avoid massive penalties. The Biden-Buttigieg standards were projected to generate $14 billion in compliance fines between 2027 and 2032, costs manufacturers said would be passed directly to buyers. Aligning federal rules with California’s stricter standards further nudged companies toward EVs even as demand weakened. CAFE was never meant to reshape the marketplace — but that is how it was being used.

The consequences were stark. Billions were poured into EV-charging initiatives with little to show for it; $5 trillion was allocated, yet only 11 stations were built nationwide. California faced rolling blackouts with EVs still just 2.3% of vehicles on the road. Experts warned that even 10% EV adoption would strain the grid under current infrastructure. Meanwhile buyers who didn’t want EVs — still the majority — faced fewer choices and higher prices.

Attracting investment

The Trump reset aims to reverse course. Automakers quickly announced new domestic investments. Stellantis committed $13 billion to expand U.S. manufacturing, including Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler. Ford pledged $5 billion for American facilities, noting that 80% of its vehicles are already made domestically. General Motors announced $4 billion to bring production back from Mexico while retooling plants for broader consumer demand. Even the United Auto Workers offered support, citing increased U.S. jobs and domestic production.

The plan also includes a tax change backed by the National Auto Dealers Association, allowing buyers to deduct interest on American-built vehicles. At a time when many families are locked out of the new-car market, the measure offers practical relief while encouraging domestic manufacturing.

Less noticed — but equally important — was the Congressional Review Act action that eliminated California’s special emissions waivers. Signed in June 2025, those resolutions dismantled the structure that allowed California to dictate national vehicle policy, ending the EV mandate embedded in federal regulations and clearing the way for this shift.

RELATED: Duffy threatens funding freeze for 3 states flouting English requirements for truck drivers

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Not far enough?

Some analysts argue the rollback doesn’t go far enough. As long as CAFE exists — at any target — it remains vulnerable to political swings. They contend emissions should be regulated directly through the EPA, leaving the market to determine the mix of gas, hybrid, and electric vehicles. This view is gaining traction among critics who say CAFE no longer reflects consumer demand or technological reality.

Even Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio weighed in, calling the forced EV pivot “irrational policy” that benefits China. China controls roughly 80% of EV battery minerals and most related mining, while the U.S. holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Moreno’s argument is blunt: America weakened its own manufacturing base by adopting policies that played to China’s strengths.

Sales data reinforces the point. EVs made up about 6% of new vehicle sales in November 2025, with rejection rates near 70% due to cost, charging gaps, range limits, insurance, and cold-weather performance. EVs still account for just 2.3% of vehicles on U.S. roads. The demand Washington expected never materialized.

The new policy reflects those realities. It restores balance to an industry pushed into transformation without consumer support or infrastructure readiness. Automakers will still build EVs and hybrids and pursue new technologies — but consumers will decide the pace, not regulators.

For the first time in years, drivers may again see affordability, variety, and genuine choice. Fuel-economy rules will remain contested, but the Freedom Means Affordable Cars plan marks the most significant shift in auto policy in over a decade.

For millions of Americans priced out of the market, that change alone is long overdue.