Jelly rolls are meant to make people happy, not spout political messaging.

This might be why platinum-selling singer Jason DeFord, aka Jelly Roll, did not handle the backlash to his partisan jokes very well.

'The American dream should be for everybody.'

Tears of a clown

Jelly Roll finished his week as the guest host of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on Thursday, with a near-20-minute monologue addressing the blowback from his jokes about President Donald Trump's weight.

While DeFord's jokes did not approach the realm of egregious — although he remarked that the president likely couldn't see his penis — he was seemingly unprepared for the responses a spot on the obviously liberal talk show would garner.

Jelly Roll spent most of his time trying to convince the audience he is neither liberal nor conservative.

"Just because I watched a fight on TV doesn't mean I support everything this administration does," he said, referring to the UFC event at the White House. "Just like hosting Jimmy Kimmel's show doesn't mean I have all of Jimmy Kimmel's politics. Sure, I lean left on some things, but like most folks, I'm pretty down the middle. I am a Christian. I am a country music singer. I'm a farmer. I'm a bow hunter."

Then DeFord made fun of the comrades on staff at Kimmel, describing them as "communist Antifa friends" and the most talented group of "Chihuahua-hugging, oat-milk latte-loving lefties on God's green Earth."

It was from there that the 41-year-old made an impassioned and tear-filled speech about loving thy neighbor, with the message that dignity and compassion are not partisan issues. However, Jelly Roll's bottom line came across as supportive of illegal immigration.

"Pain and healing knows no partisanship," Jelly Roll said. "Hurting hearts are more important than poll numbers, and there are no boundaries or borders for broken families."

After claiming "the American dream should be for everybody," the singer appealed to Jesus' teachings for how to treat a "neighbor."

"There wasn't an asterisk after neighbor. There wasn't a political party exemption. It did not require us to know what country you were born in. There wasn't a sentence afterward that said, 'Unless you're afraid of them.' It just said, 'Love your neighbor.'"

RELATED: Jimmy Kimmel has a plan to get Stephen Colbert back on late-night TV

Fair shake

In front of an awfully partisan audience, Jelly Roll felt the need to explain away the handshake he exchanged with the president at a UFC event in 2024.

The musician said he would "always" shake the POTUS' hand when asked, noting that his father would have been "disappointed" had he not.

"I'm proud that I was able to shake the president of the United States' hand. I'm also proud that I live in a country where I can make jokes about him," the country artist added.

But Jelly Roll made sure to reiterate to Kimmel's studio audience that he disagrees with the president more often than he agrees.

"Taking a picture with a political figure or anybody else for that matter doesn't mean you agree or disagree with their policies or politics. More often than not I f**king don't."

RELATED: HEAD CASE: Kathy Griffin whines she's real 'victim' of tacky Trump decapitation stunt

Randy Holmes/Disney/Getty Images

Both sides now

The emotional diatribe culminated in the Tennessee native describing his appreciation for free speech and, despite making his liberal leanings obvious, his disdain for both political parties.

"[I support] the same freedom of speech that both sides of the aisle claim they want until they hear something they don't want to hear," he added.

He then placed blame on "politicians and algorithms" for convincing the public that the "person across the street" is the reason life is hard, before adding:

"Our leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing an absolute s**t job of trying to bring us together, y'all."

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Longtime White House correspondent Maggie Haberman of the New York Times angered President Donald Trump after her report on events commemorating the 9/11 attacks.

Haberman, who has previously interviewed the president many times, reported that Trump refused to attend the World Trade Center event for 9/11 because he would not be given the opportunity to give a speech.

'She’s been falsely writing about me for years — She’s a stalker, and should be forced to turn over any and all money that she’s made through her fake reporting on me.'

The president forcefully denied the report and then excoriated Haberman in a screed on Truth Social Monday.

"Maggot Hagerman, the Fake Reporter from The Failing New York Times, an unattractive person both inside and out, and who knows less about me than most reporters on the beat (She’s a SCAMMER!)," he wrote, "made up a story that on September 11th, I’m not going to the World Trade Center, in New York City, because they won’t let me make a speech, and I’m going to the Pentagon in D.C., because I’m a featured speaker."

The president went on to say he preferred not to give a speech at the event.

"I never even thought of what Maggot made up," he continued.

"Maggot Hagerman is a PHONY, and The New York Times knows it!"

He threatened to sue her as well as the New York Times and accused her of falsely reporting on the Russian hoax.

"If she were ever forced to reveal her 'sources,' you will find out they either don’t exist, or didn’t say what she reported. She’s been falsely writing about me for years — She’s a stalker, and should be forced to turn over any and all money that she’s made through her fake reporting on me," he concluded.

CNN's Jake Tapper took exception to the insults against Haberman and defended her on social media.

"I’m not going to repost the filth the president wrote about Maggie Haberman, but suffice it to say she’s a great person, beautiful inside and out, an incredible mom and wife and colleague, and an amazing journalist. The president’s comments are disgusting and beneath the office," he wrote in one post.

RELATED: NY woman who allegedly thanked Allah for 9/11 schemed to BOMB state Capitol

"We should never get used to this deterioration in our expectations for how a president should behave. Never," he added in another.

Haberman responded to the president's insults in an interview on MS NOW.

"We went to the White House. We were quite transparent with them about what we were reporting, including the part about that part of the reason why he was not going to New York was because he did want to speak, and the White House did not say anything, pushing back on what we were reporting," she said.

"And then 24 hours later, the president started attacking the piece," she added. "You know, so readers can make their own assessment about a denial that comes a day later."

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Numerous Americans have died horrifically after foreigners were issued commercial driver's licenses and took to the roads in what U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has characterized as "80,000 pound missiles."

To neutralize these threats, the Trump administration has cracked down on unqualified drivers and taken off the road those commercial truck drivers who can't speak English; purged thousands of unqualified training schools from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration registry; and barred DACA recipients, asylum-seekers, refugees, TPS holders, and other noncitizens from obtaining, renewing, upgrading, or transferring non-domiciled CDL licenses.

'Congress must now do its part.'

Expanding on this campaign to keep American roads safe, the DOT announced on Monday that it has executed the emergency closure of over 110 commercial driver-training schools linked to thousands of drivers who failed English language proficiency tests.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration checked the records of over 5,000 CDL holders who failed the ELP requirements against records in the Training Provider Registry to determine which schools were certifying these failed assimilators. The agency ultimately identified over 110 entry-level driver training providers that must now cease all operations.

The FMCSA also launched nearly 400 investigations into training schools in 40 states. Investigators found "serious cases of non-compliance," resulting in hundreds of additional proposed removals from the Training Provider Registry.

According to the DOT, drivers certified by the over 160 training schools that were served with notices of proposed removal are linked to 239 commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities.

"To fully root out the scourge of fraud, hold criminals accountable, and restore safety, we need the support of federal law enforcement," Duffy said in a statement. "I am so grateful for President Trump raising the alarm on this issue, and to Vice President Vance for leading the charge to crack down on fraud nationwide. From states failing to follow the law to shady training schools and illicit companies, together we will tackle every link in the chain."

The DOT is hardly alone in this campaign to spare Americans from incompetent foreign truckers.

RELATED: Massachusetts fought the rule that would have kept Pennsylvania trooper's alleged killer off the road

Homeland Security Investigations is working with the DOT and FMCSA on a criminal investigation initiative focused on "CDL fraud, unauthorized employment, identity-document fraud, financial crime, money laundering, labor exploitation, and potential links to human smuggling, drug trafficking, and cartel activity."

Starting Monday, HSI conducted a surge at over 200 driving schools and targeted CDL-related businesses, schools, carriers, and employers.

"Criminals who exploit our nation’s transportation systems through fraud and deception are not only breaking the law — they are putting the safety and security of the American public at risk," said HSI acting Executive Associate Director John Condon. "HSI will bring the full weight of our investigative authorities, financial expertise, and global law enforcement capabilities to this historic, whole-of-government effort."

Enforcement and Removal Operations will participate in the surge this week, which will focus on Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin. ERO officers will work with FMCSA-certified inspectors to "conduct commercial vehicle enforcement activity and inspection checkpoints at separate locations."

The Justice Department, which is also involved, announced on Monday the formation of Joint Task Force Crossroads of America — an interagency task force committed to enhancing roadway safety in part by deterring illegal trucking practices and holding offenders accountable.

Vice President JD Vance emphasized the importance of cracking down on fraud in the trucking industry, telling reporters on Monday that fraudulent CDLs in recent years not only made American streets and highways "a lot less safe" but were "bad for people's jobs" and undercut American wages.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association lauded this interagency initiative.

President Todd Spencer said in a statement given to Blaze News, "OOIDA and professional truck drivers across America commend Secretary Duffy and [FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs] for taking concrete actions to crack down on fraudulent training operations and restore rigorous English language proficiency enforcement."

Spencer added, "Congress must now do its part and pass Dalilah’s Law to ensure CDL mills remain closed and English language proficiency enforcement is permanently made the law of the land."

H.R. 5688, Dalilah's Law, would ban states from issuing commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens and limit issuance to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and holders of specific work visas. The legislation would also require the revocation of any existing ineligible CDLs.

The proposed law takes its name from Dalilah Coleman, a little girl injured in a car accident allegedly caused by an illegal alien from India who obtained a commercial driver's license from Gov. Gavin Newsom's Department of Motor Vehicles.

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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals in dissenting from a stay that lets President Donald Trump continue White House ballroom construction.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the lawsuit to halt construction, claiming the president did not have the power to unilaterally build the ballroom.

'We have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury.'

The trust was able to obtain an injunction against the building from the D.C. District Court, but the ruling Monday allows the president to continue construction.

"Today, we do not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project. We conclude only that, based on the submissions before us, the government is likely to prevail in showing that the Trust lacks ... standing to challenge the project in federal court," read the majority decision.

Roberts had previously allowed construction to continue while the rest of the court considered the full issue, but he joined the liberal justices in the dissent Monday.

"Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year. That construction is likely unlawful," Roberts wrote.

The trust claimed a preservationist member who lives in Washington suffered "professional and personal injuries" while walking by the White House. However, the majority said the government could "likely" show that such distaste would not be enough for the trust to have standing.

"To the contrary, we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury," the court said.

RELATED: Trump team mocks outrage of 'unhinged leftists' as construction of ballroom begins

The trust had argued that the president needed the "express authority of Congress" before ordering construction on federal land in Washington, D.C.

The Trump administration argued that the construction was necessary in part because of threats of political violence and the lack of sufficient security at venues available for political events.

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If it seems like more conversations today than ever before go nowhere, that’s because it’s true. And according to Frank Turek, this is happening because Americans are increasingly operating from entirely different understandings of reality itself.

In his new book, "The War on Reality," Turek and co-author Phoenix Hayes tackle what they see as a growing assault on truth, reason, and common sense.

And BlazeTV host Nick Freitas is no stranger to this attack either.

“Once upon a time, you kind of understood how to respond to things. If you were arguing about tax policy or you were arguing about abortion or whatnot, you just went through the process,” Freitas tells Turek.

“You looked at the facts. You looked at the evidence. And both of you could do that and you could come to different conclusions and maybe share different perspectives,” he says.

“But more and more people are finding themselves in arguments and debates where they’re like, ‘I don’t even understand where this person is coming from. It’s like we don’t even share the same reality,’” he adds.

“So much of reality is under attack,” Turek agrees. “I mean, just in the past, say, 10 years, Nick, notice we’ve had people say to us after 5,000 years of human history that what we thought was reality suddenly isn’t.”

“That there are an infinite number of genders. That, you know, men can get pregnant. That math is racist … that reason and logic are tools of oppression,” he says, explaining that even “pulling baby parts out of mothers” is now called “health care.”

“The war on reality is everywhere,” he adds.

And the inability to agree on what reality is has reached the point of violence more than once. Most notable, however, was the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

“When people are confronted with logic that they can’t answer, they emote, and sometimes they even get violent. Our mutual friend Charlie Kirk was a victim of that. Here we had a trans person or a person involved in a trans relationship emoting to a point where he didn’t think Charlie Kirk should live any more,” Turek says.

“He tars him as a fascist, because we all know, Nick, that a fascist tactic is to hand your opponent the microphone and say, ‘Please give me your case. Make your case and we’ll have a discussion,’” he adds.

Freitas points out that this is why “defining one’s terms” has never been more important or, unfortunately, more difficult.

“Defining one’s terms is absolutely critical because otherwise you end up talking around each other, and emotions get involved, and people have different perspectives or they understand words differently,” he says.

“Because when you say the ‘war on reality,’ OK, define your terms. What’s reality?” he asks.

“First of all, truth corresponds to reality, and reality is the sum of all truths. And the only one that knows all of reality is, of course, God, because he’s omniscient,” Turek says.

“We know some of reality but not all of reality. Now, you can deny reality, you can fight against reality, but ultimately reality is going to win. Reality is undefeated,” he continues, noting that within his book is the argument that “reality does not have pronouns.”

“There’s not my reality and your reality,” he explains. “You may perceive reality different than me, but there’s a reality out there independent of both of us. Maybe you’re closer to it than I am. OK, fine. That’s what we call a disagreement.”

“Secondly, there’s not my gravity or your gravity. There’s not my math or your math. There’s not my laws of logic or your laws of logic. There’s not my law of morality that says, ‘Thou shalt not murder,’ but you have a different law that says it’s OK to murder,” he continues.

“These are all fixed in reality based on the nature of God,” he adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

Republican candidate Mike Rogers lobbed a heavy rhetorical attack against Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed in their high-profile battle to win one of two Senate seats for Michigan.

The political ad includes several instances during the campaign where El-Sayed referred to sexual themes, including one widely ridiculed online.

'She's like, "Damn I have to sleep with him." ... I mean, I guess she's pregnant, so I guess something's happening.'

"We've decided he's just weird!" said Fox News host Laura Ingraham in the opening clip of the political ad.

"Are you circumcised?" El-Sayed asks in a clip taken from a debate with Jesse Watters of Fox News over sex-rejection surgeries for minors.

In another clip, El-Sayed appears to think about the sexual relationship between Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, asking, "What do you think is going through Usha's head when he talks?"

"She's like, 'Damn I have to sleep with him,'" he jokes.

"I mean, I guess she's pregnant, so I guess something's happening," he laughs.

In another widely mocked incident, El-Sayed says he's shocked that practically every other video on his Instagram account is from an OnlyFans model.

"And, like, the things that I actually look at on Instagram," he says. "Every third video that scrolls on its own is going to be some OnlyFans model."

Many noted that the algorithm on Instagram is tailored to the interests and views associated with the user of the account, suggesting El-Sayed may be getting OnlyFans videos because he's looking at OnlyFans content on the app.

"Abdul, Michigan's not going for that," says Fox News' Jesse Watters at the end of the video. "That is sick stuff."

RELATED: 'He's full of s**t': Trump RIPS INTO Abdul El-Sayed after his narrow victory

"Conman Abdul El-Sayed — too extreme, and too weird for Michigan," wrote Rogers on social media with the ad.

El-Sayed is the first Muslim to be nominated to run for a U.S. Senate seat. El-Sayed beating Rogers in November is pivotal for Democrats' hopes of retaking the Senate.

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Loud hums, pollution, and electricity costs may be the price to pay for having a data center nearby.

According to the president, though, not having one might be worse.

'If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.'

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Monday morning to address the growing resistance to putting massive buildings filled with computer processors in American towns and cities.

Some polls, like Politico's from January, have shown that data centers struggle to garner majority appeal to voters on either side of the aisle.

While just 45% of Trump voters supported the idea of a data center three miles from their home in that survey, the president had a more hard-line approach to the issue.

"The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor," Trump posted as a "truth."

He further explained that if communities want to be "successful and rich," with lower taxes and more jobs, they should "let Data Reign."

The president then warned that not accepting data centers would only result in foreign prosperity.

"The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can't believe it is happening!" Trump concluded.

RELATED: This super-popular wearable is new, improved — and flawed

Later on Monday, Vice President JD Vance was asked about Trump's remarks about how "Americans should get on board" with wanting more data centers.

"What the president said about data centers is they're an important part of the AI economy," Vance replied.

"But when people build them, they have to build the power plants along with the data centers. I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utilities and higher electricity for the people on the ground," Vance continued.

Vance was referring to the president's demand from February that tech companies provide whatever power their campuses or data centers require.

"They can build their own power plants as part of their factory so that no one's prices will go up, and in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community, and very substantially down," the president stated at the time. "This is a unique strategy never used in this country before."

The pledge was almost immediately agreed to by Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI.

RELATED: 'Americans deserve answers': Hawley opens Flock investigation with damning new evidence

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

"If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out," Vance added on Monday. "And if that is happening, I don't think the data centers are that controversial. It's when the utility bills get so much higher, that's when it's a real problem."

People surveyed back in January said they saw new job opportunities as the main benefit of having a nearby data center at 37%. At the same time, 29% said rising electricity costs were the primary drawback.

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The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has become a national true-crime spectacle. The Massachusetts mother who strangled her three young children with exercise bands in 2023 pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis, while prosecution argued the killings were premeditated and sought first-degree murder convictions.

With arguments complete, the jury has been deliberating since last Thursday with no verdict yet.

While BlazeTV host Rick Burgess is horrified by the tragic fates of Clancy’s three children, he is also deeply disturbed by the number of women who continue to support Clancy and advocate for her acquittal. On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick highlights a dark shift in the maternal instinct — a shift he sees as demonic.

“I can't help but think to myself that this — not depression but this psychosis — it feels pretty new,” says Rick. “Women have been having babies for a long, long time.”

“Now we've gone to the point that we're almost willing to say a mom should not be held accountable for methodically and just horrifyingly killing one child after another, even catching one that tried to run,” he continues, calling it “evil.”

While Rick acknowledges that new mothers certainly need help and support, he refuses to co-sign on the idea that the lack thereof absolves someone of killing her children.

“This husband maybe wasn't supportive. You can be frustrated with doctors ... but holding her up as a poster child for postpartum moms and their struggles, I think, is going way too far with this,” he says.

The support Clancy is receiving from women — many of them mothers — indicates a "ugly shift,” he argues.

“There was a time when the maternal instinct of a woman would immediately pour out to the murdered children, not the clearly disturbed mother,” says Rick.

“That’s a shift, and I think it’s an ugly shift, and it’s one that should gravely concern us.”

What’s behind this, he contends, is undoubtedly spiritual. He highlights a warning from the late evangelical pastor John MacArthur: “MacArthur said, ‘Unfortunately, we're in a time now where people don't even want the church to feed their mind. They want the church to feed their emotions.'”

But when emotions rule, we become “a lawless society,” says Rick.

“You can and should, no problem, have compassion for Lindsay Clancy, OK? But you also can demand justice for the three children she [allegedly] murdered. It's not one or the other,” he notes.

“We can't live in a civilized society when the way I feel about something trumps what the law calls for … and we're already there to a degree.”

This devolution into lawlessness, he warns, reeks of demonic influence.

“For us to empathize with Lindsay Clancy more than we empathize with the children that were [allegedly] murdered” is “exactly what the dark forces of the spiritual realm” are gunning for, says Rick, “and that’s a dangerous road to be on.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

They’ve delivered the newspaper their entire lives, but they’ve never actually read it. Naturally, they’re now in charge of it.

On September 7, BlazeTV is heading to the tiny desert town of "Dusty Bluffs" with a brand-new original comedy series from the creators of "Agua Donkeys." The series follows MP and Jer, two lifelong paperboys who have pretty much everything they want: a newspaper route, plenty of time to hang out, and a comfortable routine they have absolutely no interest in changing.

That routine gets turned upside down when the editor of the Dusty Bluffs Gazette suddenly skips town, putting the only jobs MP and Jer have ever wanted in jeopardy. Rather than accept that their days slinging papers might be over, the boys decide to take matters into their own hands and run the newspaper themselves.

Welcome to Dusty Bluffs

Armed with overconfidence and an impressive ability to misunderstand almost everything happening around them, MP and Jer find themselves navigating a job they know virtually nothing about.

But "Dusty Bluffs" is about more than the boys’ unlikely career move. The series builds its comedy around the eccentric residents of their tiny desert town, awkward conversations, and everyday situations that have a tendency to become much more complicated whenever MP and Jer are involved.

The premiere wastes little time introducing that world. As the boys make their way around town, even the most ridiculous encounters are treated with complete sincerity. MP and Jer’s understanding of what’s happening is often very different from reality, but their unwavering confidence rarely seems to suffer as a result.

Now responsible for covering the people and stories of Dusty Bluffs, MP and Jer are about to become much more involved in their hometown than they ever intended.

A different kind of BlazeTV original

Dusty Bluffs is part of BlazeTV’s growing lineup of original programming, giving subscribers even more to watch alongside the shows, personalities, and commentary they already know.

It’s also a chance to do something a little unexpected. With Dusty Bluffs, BlazeTV is bringing subscribers an original scripted comedy built around memorable characters, a bizarre little town, and a sense of humor all its own.

For current subscribers, Dusty Bluffs is included with their BlazeTV subscription. For everyone else, the premiere offers another reason to see what’s new on the platform.

Don’t miss the premiere of Dusty Bluffs September 7, exclusively on BlazeTV. Subscribe today to unlock Dusty Bluffs, plus original series, exclusive shows, and more available to BlazeTV subscribers.

A Democrat running for Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District is in hot water for seemingly hiding her connections to George Soros-funded political groups.

Rebecca Cooke told voters she is a working-class outsider who worked as a waitress and entrepreneur, but she delayed the release of the financial disclosures about the money she got from Soros groups.

'Radical Rebecca Cooke is a paid political operative for far-left liberals and wants to push their socialist agenda.'

Cooke released the information two days after winning the Aug. 11 Democratic primary, after applying for an extension with the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives in April.

The disclosure indicated that from January 1, 2025, to July 14, 2026, she received at least $5,000 from two left-wing organizations funded by the George Soros Open Society organization: the Third Way and the Pipeline Fund.

Cooke is not required to release the exact amount she received, but only to indicate a range of the value of the money.

A spokesperson for the Third Way told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the organization had paid Cooke $30,000 for "a project focused on elevating the voices and concerns of working-class Americans that have too often been missing from the rooms where decisions are made."

A spokesperson for the Pipeline Fund would confirm only that Cooke worked for the organization.

"We can confirm Rebecca Cooke worked as a contractor for the Pipeline Fund in 2025 to help advance our mission of building a reflective democracy where working-class people, women, people of color, and other underrepresented communities are fully supported to run for office and advance the needs of their communities," the spokesperson said to the Sentinel.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Zach Bannon blasted Cooke in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"Radical Rebecca Cooke is a paid political operative for far-left liberals and wants to push their socialist agenda. Commie Cooke may fit in at [a] Soros-funded consulting firm, but she is far too extreme to represent Western Wisconsin," he said.

Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden (Wis.) also vehemently criticized Cooke for hiding the financial information from voters.

RELATED: Soros-backed DA vows to 'blow up' White House ballroom, calls Trump a 'pain in the a**'

"For months, Democrats and Republicans across the 3rd District called on Cooke to release her financial disclosures. She had every opportunity to be transparent with voters. Instead, she chose to keep them hidden until after the primary," he said in a news release.

Cooke said in a statement to the Journal Sentinel that the disclosure proved her claims about being a working-class American.

"I’ve always worn multiple hats to make ends meet and, in addition to waitressing, I worked on two projects related to getting more working-class people to run for office and conducted research for an organization about how to better connect with working-class voters," read an email from Cooke.

"There are unique challenges to running for office as a working-class person with an hourly wage job and a full-time campaign schedule," she added. "For example, I’m one of the thousands of people in this district who can’t afford health insurance. I’ve been proud to help make it easier for the next generation of working-class leaders to step up and take our fight to Washington, D.C."

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ESPN once devoted more than five consecutive hours of prime-time programming to diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality.

The network became so woke that it went from being the most trusted name in sports to pulling a broadcaster off the air for having a name that sounded racist.

'We're watching.'

That's a true story.

A network's nadir

In 2017, a part-time sportscaster was set to announce the William & Mary-Virginia football game at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia. The only problem was his name was Robert Lee, and that was too close to Confederate General Robert E. Lee for ESPN, even though Lee is Asian.

The broadcaster was reassigned to cover a different game that day.

Still, the ESPN snowball was nowhere near critical mass. The next month, ESPN reporter Jemele Hill called President Trump a "white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself [with] white supremacists."

When the George Floyd era came around, it ushered in unquantifiable amounts of diversity programming at the network, culminating in the "Time for Change" broadcast that time certainly forgot. From 8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on June 24, 2020, ESPN aired segments with Black Lives Matters founders, essays about "white privilege," and race-based poetry readings.

In an effort to clear-cut any nonbelievers, the network pulled hosts Rachel Nichols and Sage Steele off the air in 2021 for daring to raise questions over topics like diversity and vaccines. In 2022, ESPN took a side in the transgender-athlete debate and celebrated Lia Thomas for beating women in swimming.

By 2023, ESPN seemed primed to bottom out, never to regain the respect of men who flicked it on after work or boys who watch "SportsCenter" on repeat during a sick day.

As the network took leaps to becoming a laughingstock, it seemingly had no choice but to force a pendulum swing. So its leaders turned to none other than a former NFL punter who retired young and had been making waves.

Pat McAfee embodied the opposite of what ESPN preached for years: an offbeat, edgy, small-town personality with the right amount of charm. Most of all, he was doing big numbers, and that's exactly what the network needed.

With millions of subscribers and hundreds of thousands of live viewers, ESPN pulled up to McAfee's house with a dump truck full of money: $85 million over five years, to be exact.

A contract that big may tighten the intellectual belt for some, but not McAfee. He wasted no time pushing the envelope.

Before his new show even aired, he was making jokes about sex offenders.

RELATED: Cam Newton blows the lid off the NFL, claims players, coaches, and execs faked their COVID-19 vaccination

Lauren Leigh Bacho/Getty Images

Paging 'Mr. Pfizer'

"I think Nassar was in on the design team actually," McAfee said in response to some college football uniforms. Larry Nassar was convicted of sex crimes against young female athletes on the USA Gymnastics team.

Why comment on the tautness of a team's pants? Why not? Reset.

McAfee's show aired in September 2023 and got off to a blazing start. But it didn't take long for friend of the show and NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers to start making his weekly appearances, something he had done since 2020.

That marked the end of McAfee's tenure as a noncontroversial host, just a month into his new ESPN show.

The quarterback dropped back and threw a bomb on ESPN airwaves, calling fellow NFL player Travis Kelce "Mr. Pfizer" for promoting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Rodgers wasn't pulled off the air, censored, or reprimanded by McAfee; the host let him go off. In fact, he let him go off for months as he criticized the NFL and the federal government, while acting as Rodgers' sounding board in his years-long feud with TV host Jimmy Kimmel.

McAfee endured constant criticisms at the time. Chief among them were claims that ESPN had wasted its money on him and his contract was tantamount to spending almost $100 million to platform conspiracy theories.

This didn't stop the podcaster. McAfee turned a negative into a positive and became the go-to source for mainstream controversial content in the sports world, whether he liked it or not.

RELATED: Joe Rogan & Shane Gillis say we're never going back — and young men should listen

Working out

When McAfee was told his success as an informal presenter was based on him being white, he didn't let the accusations paint him into a corner. In fact, he broke the wall down of what he was allowed to say.

"There's one white bitch for the Indiana team who is a superstar," McAfee said, ironically as an ESPN disclaimer scrolled by at the bottom of the screen.

McAfee explained that he was actually praising WNBA star Caitlin Clark, but that didn't matter; the media wanted a scalp. The former player apologized, said what he meant, and moved on. They were expecting a collapse, but when the pressure mounted, McAfee refused to fold.

When LeBron James and Stephen A. Smith nearly came to blows, McAfee hosted James in a way no other outlet would. He didn't ask for an apology or a prepared statement; he simply said, "We're watching."

Indeed McAfee and company watched when James likened Smith to Taylor Swift. They listened to James describe Smith as eating ice cream in his "tighty-whities" at home. The most popular NBA player in a generation was trash-talking with the boys, and it was airing on ESPN. No network apology-broadcast followed.

The formula hasn't changed, either. Rolling through 2026, McAfee is still having Rodgers on to trash Anthony Fauci and reprimand his haters, but he does so in front of live college football audience.

No matter how many people call McAfee a conspiracy-theory pusher or a "threat" to journalism, he has persevered, using a philosophy he only recently published: "If I seen young me, what would I tell him now? Just breathe; it’ll all work out. Somehow it'll all work out."

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A board-certified ob-gyn has joined the chorus of mothers praising and defending Lindsay Clancy online, posting a video telling the mother who allegedly murdered her three children that she didn’t “know what else [Clancy] could have done.”

“Hi, Lindsay. I’m Dr. Sterling. I don’t even know if you’re allowed to watch videos like this. If someone can show it to you, I don’t know. But I want you to know that I believe you,” Dr. Noa Sterling said in the video posted to social media.

“From my perspective as an ob-gyn, I believe that you were over-functioning throughout your entire postpartum period. I am blown away by how hard you were working to get better while also working as a mom,” she continued.

“I’ve got three kids. I know how much work it is even when you are mentally well. It’s so hard to take care of three kids. ... Hindsight’s 2020, but I don’t know what else you could have done,” she added.

“‘I don’t know what else you could have done other than [allegedly] murdering your three children?’” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments in disbelief.

“One of the things is not [allegedly] murdering your three children. That’s one of the things that she could have done is not [allegedly] kill her kids,” he adds.

Sterling went on to say that Clancy has “galvanized us women in a really powerful way.”

“And I’m not quite ready to tell my story yet. When I eventually do, it’s going to be because you came first, and you showed all of us that we can be honest and can be real about what we experience as mothers,” she said.

“Thank you for [allegedly] killing your kids?” Gray asks, shocked.

“So she’s galvanized a movement to murder children?” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in, adding, “She says she’s a mother of three. If I’m her kids, I know I’m changing the locks is what I’m doing.”

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With the start of the NFL season barely a week away, fans are clamoring for news about their team's starting quarterback or star receiver.

Instead, viewers are getting what is likely to feel like another puzzling, unnecessary confirmation about the upcoming season.

'The only thing more powerful than hate is love.'

It's been a decade since former San Francisco 49ers quarterback turned activist Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, causing nationwide controversy.

Kaepernick's argument that the United States "oppresses black people" had a monstrous effect on the league, pushing the NFL into activism from seemingly every angle.

The death of George Floyd and the 2020 Summer of Love riots inspired more political messaging in the NFL — in its stadiums, on player equipment, and in front offices.

Now, the NFL has confirmed it will continue its league-wide platitudes for yet another season, specifically confirming its social justice messaging will remain on fields and player helmets.

"We are continuing with both the end zone stencils and helmet decals this season," an NFL spokeswoman told Front Office Sports.

This program typically manifests in messages like "End Racism."

RELATED: Al Michaels divides NFL fans with Trump jab during 'Thursday Night Football': 'Read the news'

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

According to the report, the NFL will also carry over its use of the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing," colloquially known as the black national anthem, before the Super Bowl and other events. It has been used in season openers since 2020, as well.

Also reportedly returning is the NFL's partnership with rapper Jay-Z's Roc Nation, the company behind the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show fiasco with singer Bad Bunny.

The Puerto Rican artist's performance this year had him deliver just one line in English, while angering fans with progressive messaging like, "The only thing more powerful than hate is love."

The NFL will still champion the phrase "Inspire Change" as its main social justice initiative promoting the following pillars: education, economic advancement, community-police relations, and criminal justice reform, which focuses on "key reforms" to the system like "pre-trial detention."

RELATED: Enes Kanter Freedom responds to WNBA owner comparing his protest to shooting someone

Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images

Other programs that aren't going anywhere are the NFL's "My Cause My Cleats" initiative that allows players, coaches, and staff to wear custom cleats to showcase causes or nonprofits on their shoes. The cleats are typically worn during games and later auctioned off for charity.

Also returning is the NFL's support for historically black colleges and universities.

Troy Vincent Sr., NFL executive vice president of football operations, simply says on the NFL website that the league works with HBCUs to "provide opportunities to students and administrators from these great institutions."

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Let’s get real about something far too many professing Christians have wrongly decided is OK. We’re talking about people who think obedience to Christ doesn’t require participation in the local church.

In a few Christian women’s groups I’m in online, I’ve seen so many casually mentioning how they don’t have a church, or aren’t particularly interested in looking for one, or blatantly reject the idea that it’s needed at all. Comments like:

To remove yourself from the reach of elders, correction, and communal responsibility is, bluntly put, to refuse Christ’s ordained means of grace.

I don’t have to be part of a church. I can watch a service online from my sofa, I can worship or read the Bible whenever I want, and I can gather with other Christians anywhere, anytime. I don’t need to be “pastored.”

This woman is way off base, because a lone Christian is much more easily misled than someone who’s following Christ’s command to connect with a local body of believers.

To clarify, we’re not talking about the capital C “Church” — the global body of believers throughout history. Every authentic Christian joins THAT Church the moment they turn to Christ. No, we’re talking about the LOCAL church — designed by God to offer what the global Church cannot.

Question: What is a local church?

Answer: A group of Christians who live near each other who voluntarily band together to worship God, study His Word, love and serve each other, and submit to the group’s chosen leaders, which should include biblically qualified elders who are able to teach and disciple the flock, as well as qualified deacons to help in practical ways.

All of this is scriptural, as we’ll point out below, but first a quick word about what constitutes a “local group.”

Americans, especially in larger cities, are used to driving a distance to get to a preferred church. I’m not going to argue with that, but I am going to make a plea that the closer you are to your church, the more you can invest your time and energy in it — and the more it can invest in you.

If you are now searching for a church home, I strongly encourage you to start with the congregations closest to you and work your way out from there till you find a biblically sound body you and your family can join.

Not a building

Of course, the local church is not a building. You can have church in a school auditorium, at the local park — anywhere your group is allowed to assemble.

What makes such a group a “local church” is not location, but congregation — a group of Christians in the area who choose to commit to each other, whether they own a meeting space or not.

In fact, a pretty robust argument could be made that owning a facility is an impediment, or at least a distraction, to the church’s mission to shepherd the flock and serve the community.

I love stained glass windows, whether they’re in pretty little country churches or enormous European cathedrals. But those facilities require upkeep, costing money and time that could be directed to other endeavors and needs, especially if the church building sits unused most of the week!

What the local church is for

The Bible provides an excellent roadmap for the local church’s marching orders, because Christ did not establish a disembodied, leaderless, commitment-free Christianity. When believers detach themselves from the local church, in fact, they are not protecting their faith; they are redefining it on their own terms.

So what exactly are we to do?

We are to act more like the early church! Familiarize yourself with what our first brothers and sisters in Christ were doing. You can’t go far wrong using that as a template.

But here’s a helpful checklist of how we are to interact with our local church:

1. Meet regularly

First Corinthians 14 details how to conduct an orderly worship service, including phrases like “when you assemble.” Paul’s assumption is that believers are regularly meeting together, and such meetings are referenced often throughout the New Testament.

"And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near" (Hebrews 10:24-25).

2. Worship together, pray together, learn the Word together

Just like the early church:

"And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers" (Acts 2:42).

3. Submit to church leaders (elders/pastors, deacons)

The New Testament knows nothing of a Christian who answers to no one. Christ commands believers to submit to church leadership (Hebrews 13:17) and establishes church discipline, not to shame or punish but to restore (Matthew 18:15-20).

This is one the sofa-churchers miss every time.

Elders/pastors are biblically charged with shepherding the flock (Acts 14:23) — the flock being whatever local church they are leading. But how can they shepherd someone they don’t know, who’s not there?

In Acts 6, the apostles told the believers to select men “from among you” to serve as leaders (leaders often referred to as deacons). This was only possible because the local congregation knew its men and was therefore qualified to help choose leadership.

These commands are not optional, situational, or suspended when church life becomes difficult. To remove yourself from the reach of elders, correction, and communal responsibility is, bluntly put, to refuse Christ’s ordained means of grace. You cannot claim Christ as Savior while functionally rejecting Him as Lord, and the moment a believer declares, “I don’t need the church,” she has placed herself as the final authority over her own discipleship and rejected membership in the Bride of Christ.

Further, if you’re not committed to a congregation, you don’t have a Christian leader (shepherd) keeping watch over you (sheep). That is dangerous territory for any of us and surely a big part of the reason God created us to be in churches.

4. Love each other, become a family to each other, hold each other accountable

Commitment to a sound biblical church offers much more than a healthy leader-congregant relationship. It also offers by far the best way to fulfill the numerous biblical instructions regarding one another. (And they are numerous, as I explained here.) Tim Challies says:

Many of these commands can either only be carried out or can best be carried out in local contexts. You may be able to bear my burdens from a thousand miles away, but those who are closer are much more able. And so membership answers this question: Who are the people I am especially called to love? Or who am I primarily meant to serve with the gifts God has given me? It narrows the answer from the entire global church to one specific congregation. To become a member of a church is to say that these are the people God has most explicitly called me to love, serve, and pray for. These people are my “one another.”

Yes! Your local church is where you find your “one another” and where they find you. It’s also where you find “one anothers” who are not like you. Local church gives you an opportunity to love and serve singles if you’re not single, older saints if you’re younger, families if you don’t have kids, and vice versa.

This is ground zero for one of those “greatest commands” of Jesus, to love one another.

5. Observe the Lord’s Supper together; witness baptisms of new believers

The ordinances are generally undertaken in church, and they are to be part of a believer’s life. Baptism can take place anywhere there is water and a believer willing to conduct the baptism, but bringing this under the authority of the church protects the meaning and purpose of baptism through clear teaching on the subject. Likewise with the Lord’s Supper — good teaching in the church clarifies who should and should not be participating.

6. Serve the community near the church, meeting physical and spiritual needs

There is power in numbers, when you’re trying to make an impact for Christ in your community. This doesn’t mean you don’t individually love your neighbor, share the gospel, etc., but it does mean that when you uncover a need that you as an individual can’t fill — well, that’s a need you take back to your church.

Similarly, churches are often notified or aware of needs before individuals are. Serving the community as part of your local church is a powerful witness.

Give me that old time (marketplace of) religion

Another comment to consider from one of my ladies’ online groups:

Sometimes it is hard to find a modern church that fits one’s personal beliefs and convictions. In those cases, I’d say try to find a friend group made of Christians and have a Bible study or just meet up to talk and encourage one another in Christ.

“Try to find a friend group made of Christians.” Hmmm ... if only we had institutions DESIGNED to bring Christians together in fellowship.

And assuming you find something like that (outside of church), “just meet up to talk and encourage one another” is a big bowl of weak sauce compared to the robust spiritual experience the local church offers and demands.

But I want to address her opening comment, because that’s a huge part of the problem with the sofa-churchers: they’re looking for a church that “fits their personal beliefs and convictions.”

America’s consumer mentality — and our relative abundance of churches — play a role in this mindset. Many have left a church, or not found another one, not because they can’t find something doctrinally sound, but because they’re focused entirely on their own tastes, preferences, and comforts.

Thanks in part to our robust freedom of religion, America is home to more than 300,000 Protestant congregations alone. That’s more than 6,000 churches per state, although the Bible Belt areas tend to have more than, say, godless Seattle (I was born there; I can say that).

So we Americans are quick to jump from church to church because it’s pretty easy to find a new one. And we can pick and choose features most appealing to us.

That, however, is where a lot of us go wrong. We choose a church with a consumer mindset, ticking off the features that “fit” our family. The music’s great! They have lots of middle schoolers! There’s a Saturday night service!

Beloved, that stuff is not the focus when looking for a church. We all need a church that prioritizes:

• doctrinally sound biblical teaching (not just on Sunday mornings);
• small groups for Bible study, prayer, community, and accountability; and
• outreach to the lost (locally and on the mission field, ideally).

You found a church? Here’s what’s next:

1. Commit for the long haul. Approach your church with a “lifetime” rather than a “trial period” mindset.
2. Prioritize presence. Make regular attendance the baseline — not an optional extra for when the schedule is clear.
3. Listen with a soft heart. Treat the Sunday sermon as a direct message from God; read the passage before you arrive.
4. Go deeper than Sunday. Seek out a small home group (sometimes called a community group or life group) that studies, prays, serves, and eats together — that’s the best way to build community.
5. Get busy. Identify specific ways to serve this body you’ve joined.
6. Make your church better. Look for ways your church is serving the community, and come alongside. Or bring ideas for outreach back to your church!

Because — ultimately — you DO need a church. And there’s a church out there that needs you. So get off the sofa and go find your part of the Body.

The newest parish in the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth has taken the name of a Christian martyr whose remains went unclaimed in his own homeland.

Muslim terrorists pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in Libya tracked down and abducted 21 Christian construction workers in early 2015. Twenty of the men were Coptic Orthodox, and the 21st was Matthew Ayariga, a migrant worker from Ghana.

'Those who sought to silence the name of Jesus instead gave the world witnesses who proclaimed Him without words and unto death.'

Given the option of death or renouncing Christ, all 21 men kept the faith and were beheaded, some while praying, on a beach in western Libya on Feb. 15, 2015.

In the corresponding ISIS video titled "A Message Signed in Blood to the Nation of the Cross," Ayariga and the other martyrs are marched onto a beach, forced onto their knees, then slaughtered. While the martyrs' blood flowed into the Mediterranean, one terrorist states, "We will conquer Rome."

While there is some uncertainty about whether Ayariga was a Christian before meeting the 20 Copts, there is no question about the Ghanaian's conviction in his final moments.

Ayariga was reportedly asked, "Do you reject Christ?" Referencing his fellow captives, he apparently responded, "Their God is my God."

The leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, canonized the martyrs as saints in 2015.

Years after noting that the martyrs' "blood is not only the 'seed of Christians,' but also ... a seed that will bear rich fruit for Christian unity," Pope Francis recognized the 21 as saints, adding them to the Roman Martyrology.

RELATED: Texas pastor issues two challenges for men today: 'Putting it into action bears fruit'

Bishop Michael Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth announced on Friday the establishment of the diocese's 93rd parish: Saint Matthew Ayariga Catholic Church in Arlington.

Olson noted that this parish, which will largely serve the Ghanaian Catholic community in North Texas, is the first Catholic parish anywhere in the world to be established under the patronage of Saint Matthew Ayariga.

"His response in the face of certain death was heroic," said the bishop. "The words attributed to Matthew at that moment when he was asked about his faith have borne witness to Christ throughout the world: 'Their God is my God.'"

The Texas bishop emphasized that the Muslim terrorists' beheading video greatly backfired.

"The video images of that terrible day were intended by the murderers to inspire fear among Christians," said the bishop. "Instead, the steadfast faith of the martyrs has become a testimony to the victory of Christ. Those who sought to silence the name of Jesus instead gave the world witnesses who proclaimed Him without words and unto death."

Bishop Olson further emphasized that Ayariga's martyrdom demonstrates that "in Christ there is much more that we hold in common than anything that divides us."

"The hatred of Christ and His Gospel drove the members of ISIS to persecute and murder these men in an effort to extinguish the light of Christ. Where hatred foments separation among people, Christ brings forth communion. Where violence seeks to erase a man’s identity, the Church remembers his name," continued the bishop. "Where death boasts to have the final word, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ declares otherwise. 'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it' (John 1:5)."

The dedication Mass for the new parish located at 1400 South Cooper Street, Arlington, is scheduled for Jan. 29, 2027.

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The Biden FBI targeted adherents of what it dubbed "traditionalist Catholicism" and suggested in a widely distributed internal assessment that certain Catholic beliefs were linked to violent extremism and criminal activity.

Although a whistleblower exposed the bureau's abuse of counterterrorism tools to smear Catholics and adherents of the Society of St. Pius X in 2023, some in the Biden FBI continued on with the project, according to a new report from the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group.

'History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure.'

"The Richmond Memo was a clear abuse of power, targeting conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government who lacked necessary oversight," said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. in a statement released Thursday. "No more."

The investigation

The FBI's assessment smearing members of a Catholic sect and certain Catholics with socially conservative views as potential extremists was the outgrowth of a Richmond field office investigation into an individual identified as "Target 1" in the new report but revealed to be Xavier Louis Lopez through the footnotes.

Lopez was on the FBI's radar due to his alleged "violent and racially motivated ideology" posts online, assault of police officers, and espousal of "violent, racial views" in state prison following a felony vandalism conviction.

After his release from state prison in June 2021, Lopez — who last year was sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for illegally possessing Molotov cocktails — began attending a chapel affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X, a group that the Vatican declared schismatic in July.

According to the new DOJ report, in November 2022, the FBI reached out twice to the priest who oversaw the chapel and grilled him about Lopez's religiosity, political beliefs, and involvement in the chapel. After the priest finally signaled that he could not "violate" the relationship he had with the people of his church and said, "I don't want to be involved," the FBI launched an investigation into the priest and his chapel.

RELATED: The Justice Department finally has a grown-up in charge

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Upon discovering that the priest's uncle was himself a priest ordained by the late British Bishop Richard Williamson, the leader of an SSPX breakaway group who was convicted in Germany of Holocaust denial, the FBI expanded its investigation to the uncle.

The FBI ramped up its surveillance of the two SSPX priests, tracking their movements and scrutinizing credit card details. The uncle's phone was even searched at Boston Logan International Airport to determine his "level of contact with his nephew, Priest 1," said the report.

Days after the Boston Field Office surveilled the uncle and a travel companion, former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin leaked the internal assessment — commonly referred to as the Richmond Catholic Memo.

The memo

In late 2022, FBI intelligence analysts cooked up a memo about the supposed "increasing intersection of rad-trad (radical-traditional) Catholics and DVEs [domestic violent extremists]" despite acknowledging elsewhere that there was insufficient evidence to point to any such increase.

At the time, analysts could identify only two potentially relevant cases elsewhere in the nation — one of which concerned a dead subject in Oregon and the other pertaining to an SSPX-linked subject who moved to Wisconsin. That was evidently enough for the FBI bad actors to presume there must a pattern and to create a document suggesting as much.

The Richmond Catholic Memo was developed partly on the basis of information from the Portland field office, which was apparently heavily reliant on an Anti-Defamation League "dossier"; a proposed paragraph from the Milwaukee field office; the Richmond field office's investigation into the two priests; and intelligence from a foreign law enforcement agency.

The FBI analysts also relied on several politically biased sources including the Atlantic, Salon, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Around this time, the FBI built a presentation titled "Traditionalist Catholicism Overview," in which agents identified various core beliefs supposedly held by potentially extremist Catholics and SSPX members — including support for the Traditional Latin Mass, isolationism, conservative family values, and "hardline positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, [and] interreligious dialogue," according to documents included in the DOJ report.

Justice Department

In this particular presentation, the FBI suggested that "radical-traditionalist Catholicism" was not limited to sects that have rejected the authority and/or legitimacy of the pope but included some "Canonically Regular" groups formally approved by the Vatican and "in full communion with mainline Catholic Church."

Despite vague definitions, a dearth of evidence, and a reliance on biased sources, the FBI's Richmond Catholic Memo confidently asserted:

FBI Richmond assesses the increasingly observed interest of [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists] in [radical-traditionalist Catholic] ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development. FBI Richmond makes this assessment with high confidence based on FBI investigations, local law enforcement agency reporting, and liaison reporting, with varying degrees of corroboration and access.

The memo, which is dated Jan. 23, 2023, also concern-mongered about the supposed threat posed by traditionalist Catholics ahead of the 2024 election and suggested that legislation and judicial decisions related to abortion, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBT "protections" might serve as "catalyzing events."

Justice Department

Shameless

The DOJ report released Thursday highlighted the bureau's various attempts at damage control after Seraphin leaked the memo to the public on Feb. 8, 2023, including the decision by FBI leadership to delete the memo from its files. However, this deletion was not immediate — and staff continued to work on the project.

Citing correspondence between FBI intelligence analysts, the DOJ report noted that the memo remained accessible for weeks and was accessed by "19 intelligence analysts from 13 field offices, along with four agents and two task force officers from two field offices, three senior intelligence analysts from three different field offices, and a Chief Division Counsel from another field office."

Not only was it accessed after the deletion order, but "one of the original drafters" of the memo "continued workshopping it," said the new DOJ report.

In an internal FBI email dated March 17, 2023, an intelligence analyst said that the analyst "spent today tinkering with" the domain perspective and had made "major changes."

RELATED: Why Christian nationalists can still be conservatives

Justice Department

The individuals behind the memo at the Richmond field office, at least one of whom continued to work on the project despite public outrage, received little discipline under the previous administration.

The FBI's Inspection Division reviewed the creation and approval process behind the memo and concluded both that it "erroneously equated the ideology of domestic terrorism (DT) subjects who self-identified as ‘Radical Traditional Catholic’ ('RTC') with [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist] ideology, without sufficient support" and that the memo "failed to consider the potential bias and credibility of open-source information" upon which it relied, the DOJ report said.

The Inspection Division also determined that the drafters of the memo demonstrated a lack of "professional judgment and failed to adhere to FBI standards," the report added.

Following these findings, the leadership of the Richmond field office said in July 2023 that the "people involved didn't deserve this" and blasted the whistleblower as "cowardly." The drafters of the memo and others involved ultimately "received positive feedback in their performance reviews," the new DOJ report said.

Accountability

The DOJ did not mince words in the conclusion to its report: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is entrusted with the solemn responsibility of protecting the First Amendment rights of all Americans. History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office to uphold that responsibility."

The Trump Justice Department has made abundantly clear that those responsible for this weaponization of law enforcement against Catholic Americans have met some consequence.

"This Department of Justice will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity," said Attorney General Todd Blanche. "The individuals who developed the Richmond Domain Perspective are no longer with the Department, and our working group’s efforts to investigate weaponization under the previous administration will continue."

After firing multiple employees tied to the memo in June, FBI Director Kash Patel underscored that "this FBI will never infringe on religious freedom."

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If they can’t get Trump, they’ll go after the people around him. That’s the conclusion Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is drawing as he examines the media firestorm surrounding Natalie Harp — the Trump aide nicknamed the “human printer.”

Harp hasn’t done anything controversial outside of being a loyal aide, but that didn’t stop Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) from setting off a firestorm by mocking her in a speech.

“And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings,” Ossoff said, pausing for the crowd’s laughter.

“He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar,” he added.

“Notice how the crowd goes wild when he mentions Natalie Harp?” Glenn asks.

“He didn’t say affair. He didn’t say mistress. He didn’t say anything a fact-checker could grade. He just said her first name and said it, you know, the way you’d say something about a man’s girlfriend,” he says.

“Seventy-two hours later, Slate was running a headline asking whether the president of the United States is sleeping with his executive assistant,” he continues. “The Daily Beast published her private letters. CNN counted her tweets from five years ago. The Guardian ran two separate pieces. The New Republic, a writer there who once ran Obama’s social media accounts explained that she’s a danger to the republic.”

“The Washington Post flew a reporter to Nicaragua to interview her estranged brother who is, and I am not making this up, an actual Sandinista. Che Guevara books on the bookshelf, an FSLN flag on the wall, and that’s who they use as a character witness against her,” he adds.

Harp had stage-2 bone cancer in her mid-20s and has said publicly that “doctors offered her opioids and disability, do not resuscitate paperwork,” and a “conversation about dying with dignity.”

However, because of the left’s attack on her, Snopes has had to publish a fact-check on whether or not her cancer was real.

“They went after whether she was sick or not,” Glenn says, disgusted.

“She’s not a security threat. She’s not a scandal ... and she’s being taken apart on national television for the crime of standing too close because they can’t get him,” he adds.

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As an AP U.S. History student nearly 40 years ago, one of the more vexatious essay questions my classmates and I had to tackle was whether the War of 1812 was a matter of “national honor” or “national interest.”

As I recall, we went round and round for days before settling on national honor.

National honor can serve the national interest. National vanity does not.

Honor is often a dumb reason to go to war.

Often — but not always! In reality, the war was fought for honor and interest. The British were impressing American sailors, interfering with American commerce, and treating the sovereignty of the young republic as something they could disregard when convenient.

National honor and national interest were entangled.

Donald Trump is very big on national honor. He wants America respected. He hates the idea that foreign governments might laugh at us, exploit us, rip us off, or conclude that the United States is too weak or timid to defend its interests.

There is much to be said for that instinct.

The problem is that Trump sometimes confuses national honor with national interest. And sometimes he confuses both with national vanity.

Which brings me to Lake America.

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.” The order gives the United States no additional territory or water rights. It opens no market, lowers no tariff, strengthens no alliance, and makes no American safer.

It does, however, annoy Canada.

This is where the War of 1812 becomes more than an old high school essay question.

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One assumption behind the American invasion of Canada was that it would be easy. Thomas Jefferson famously predicted that acquiring Canada would be “a mere matter of marching.” Not quite.

We surrendered Detroit, lost at Queenston Heights, and repeatedly failed to conquer Canada. Oh, and of course, there was the not insignificant matter of the Brits burning down Washington, D.C., in 1814 as retaliation for our burning and looting of York (modern-day Toronto) the year prior.

Americans had looked at the disparity in power and concluded that the disparity settled the question.

There is an echo of that mistake today.

My friend Kurt Schlichter captured the attitude neatly last week in a Townhall column headlined “It’s Always Cute When Canada Thinks It Matters.”

Schlichter is right about the imbalance of power. Canada is vastly weaker than the United States. It neglected its military while sheltering beneath the American security umbrella, and its economy depends much more on our market than ours depends on Canada.

But “Canada is weaker than we are” and “Canada doesn’t matter” are very different propositions.

My old teacher Angelo Codevilla had a useful maxim: “What is nearest is dearest.”

Writing about Mexico in 2009, Codevilla argued that geography had joined our countries together “whether anybody likes it or not.” Events close to home bear more directly on American peace and prosperity than events halfway around the world. “Canada’s position is analogous,” he added.

Canada matters not because we owe Canadians special deference. It matters because geography says it does.

We share more than 5,000 miles of border, the Great Lakes, continental defense, energy systems, supply chains, waterways, pipelines, railroads, and deeply integrated economies.

An America First foreign policy should understand this instinctively.

That does not require being nice to Canada. If Ottawa is free-riding on defense, demand more. If Canadian protectionism hurts American farmers or manufacturers, fight it. If pressure produces better terms for Americans, squeeze away.

The question is what American interest the pressure serves.

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Trump has spent much of his second term calling Canada “the 51st state,” referring to ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau,” dismissing the border as artificial, and threatening or imposing economic pressure on our northern neighbor. Canada’s navy is barely a coast guard!

Canada did not respond by becoming more accommodating. It became more Canadian.

At the beginning of 2025, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives appeared headed for a crushing victory. Trudeau was finished, and the Liberals were exhausted and deeply unpopular.

Then Trump changed the question.

Instead of asking whether they had finally had enough of the Liberals, Canadian voters increasingly asked who was best equipped to deal with Donald Trump.

That was a much better question for Mark Carney.

Trump did not single-handedly cost Poilievre the prime ministership. Carney was a strong candidate in his own right, and Poilievre had weaknesses of his own.

But the reversal was extraordinary. The Liberals came back to win bigly. Poilievre lost his own seat even as Conservatives won a record 8.1 million votes.

Trump helped turn a Liberal Party on its heels into a government with a political incentive to resist the United States.

That should interest an America First president, shouldn’t it?

I do not especially care whether Canadians believe their national honor has been wounded. I care whether wounding it makes them more or less likely to do what is advantageous to us.

Foreign policy is not therapy. We do not need to validate Canadian feelings or pretend Canada and the United States are equals in power.

But statesmanship requires understanding how other people are likely to behave.

Tell 40 million Canadians often enough that their country is a joke, their sovereignty is optional, and their border is imaginary, and some sizable fraction will become willing to pay a price to tell you no.

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That may be foolish of them. It’s also predictable.

The United States can hurt Canada much more than Canada can hurt us. Of course we can.

But the measure of foreign policy is not whether you can hurt the other fellow. It is whether hurting him gets you something you want.

Tariffs might. Pressure on Canadian defense spending might. Hard bargaining over trade, energy, manufacturing, critical minerals, or Arctic security might.

What does Lake America get us? No land. No water. No money. No security. No concessions. Just the satisfaction of reminding Canada that we are bigger than Canada. Big whoop.

Nearly 40 years ago, my classmates and I decided the War of 1812 was chiefly about national honor.

I’m less interested today in settling that old argument than in remembering the question.

National honor can serve the national interest. National vanity does not.

Kids are different these days. Kids are spoiled these days.

It sounds like something an old curmudgeon might say, but sometimes the old curmudgeons are right, aren’t they?

Loving children doesn't require arranging the world around them. In fact, doing so can hamstring the very people we're trying to help.

There have always been rich people who could spoil their children. But for most of human history, ordinary people simply didn’t have enough money to do much spoiling with things. They lived modestly, and their children did too.

Kids didn’t have bedrooms and closets overflowing with toys. They might have a doll, a wooden train, a ball, a bat, a top, and a few other things. Read old memoirs and accounts of childhood, and you encounter children delighted by things that would barely register as presents today — an orange in a Christmas stocking, for instance.

Imagine giving the average American kid in 2026 an orange for Christmas and expecting excitement.

Spoils of abundance

Mass abundance changed all that. We can now spoil our children with things on a scale our ancestors could hardly have imagined. But I think we spoil them in another, more consequential way too.

We spoil them with importance.

Spoiling children with things is a problem everybody understands, even if plenty of us do it anyway. We know that buying children whatever they want whenever they want it can produce ungrateful, entitled adults.

But we talk much less about what happens when we organize family life around children — their preferences, their feelings, their schedules, their entertainment, their happiness. We don't merely give children too much. We make too much of them.

There are many ways to describe this kind of spoiling, but the simplest is that we teach children to believe the world revolves around them. A child who learns that lesson fails to learn humility, flexibility, self-awareness, and the ability to accommodate other people. He grows up with a distorted view of how the world works and what his place in it is.

This has been happening for at least a generation or two, and I think we've all seen the results in our degrading culture, even if we don't always recognize the cause.

The explosion in material spoiling is easy enough to explain: mass abundance. But what explains this other kind?

Lonely islanders

As usual, there isn't one answer. The rise of “gentle parenting” is part of it. So is the cultural change that followed the social revolutions of the 1960s, when adults increasingly began looking to “the youth” rather than expecting the young to learn from their elders. Another part is parents abdicating their roles as leaders, teachers, and disciplinarians because they would rather be their children's friends.

But there is another explanation that interests me more: Families got smaller.

The connection between smaller families and spoiled children is pretty straightforward. The fewer children you have, the more time and attention you can devote to each one. That sounds wonderful, of course. All good parents want more time with their kids.

But smaller families don't just give parents more time. They give parents more bandwidth to accommodate every preference, negotiate every disagreement, indulge every mood, and bend over backward in ways that aren't necessarily good for a child.

If you have one child, that child naturally becomes the center of your world. And why wouldn't he? We love our children. Of course they're central to our lives.

But there is a difference between three, four, five, or six children being the center of a family's world and one child being the center of it.

When all of a family's attention, energy, money, patience, anxiety, and ambition can be concentrated on one child, it's much easier for that child to conclude that his importance within the family reflects his importance everywhere else.

A large family naturally limits how much the household can revolve around any one child. And that may be one of its greatest virtues.

Thank you for sharing

When parents have more children, they are forced to divide their time and attention. They cannot endlessly negotiate every dispute or accommodate every preference. They can't always have infinite patience, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes Dad has to be the judge and make a ruling. Sometimes your brother gets his way. Sometimes your sister gets the front seat. Sometimes somebody else gets the last piece. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes you have to share. Sometimes the family is doing something you don't particularly want to do, and you're doing it anyway because you're part of the family.

That's life.

A house full of siblings teaches lessons that parents can otherwise spend enormous amounts of effort trying to manufacture. You learn that other people have needs and desires too. You learn to negotiate, compete, compromise, forgive, wait, lose, and get over things. Most importantly, you learn that you are loved enormously without being the most important person in the room.

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Love and limits

Having more children places natural limits on our ability to spoil them as much as we might instinctively want to. In doing so, it can make us better parents and our children better prepared for the world.

Because the desire to spoil our children is perfectly natural. We want to give them everything. We want them to be happy. We want to enjoy our time with them. We want them to know how deeply they are loved.

Those are good impulses. But good impulses can manifest themselves in unhealthy ways. Loving children doesn't require arranging the world around them. In fact, doing so can hamstring the very people we're trying to help.

At the end of the day, our job is the same job parents have had throughout history: to raise children who become moral, functioning, upright, hardworking, well-adjusted adults capable of forming families and raising good children of their own.

Our children should know that they are loved beyond measure. They should also know that the world does not revolve around them.

Teaching them both may be one of the most loving things a parent can do.

A Florida HVAC technician was fired and arrested after he allegedly was caught on video violently abusing a small dog while on the job.

The Sanford Police Department said it was alerted on Wednesday to an "incident that took place where an HVAC technician who was working inside a resident’s home intentionally kicked the homeowner’s dog."

'May God watch over their sweet fur baby and bring healing and comfort to their family.'

Police said the suspect — identified as 43-year-old Richardson Noel — was caught on video allegedly abusing the animal by a dog treat dispenser that doubles as a motion-activated camera.

The footage shows a man entering the home shortly before 11:30 a.m. last Monday as a 12-year-old Chihuahua named Boomer barks at him, according to People magazine.

Seconds after entering the house, the disturbing video appears to show the man violently kicking the small dog and sending the animal airborne.

Ryan Menzies, the dog's owner, told WESH-TV that the incident occurred while he and his girlfriend were at work; she received a motion alert from the dispenser's app.

Menzies said his girlfriend sent him a video of the alleged animal abuse.

"I was standing in the parking garage at work, and I said out loud, 'Oh, my God,' and almost started crying," Menzies recalled. "And then anger took over, because I knew I had to get home."

"She looked back in the video, and that's when she called me back and said, 'You need to get home now. He kicked the dog. ...'" Menzies told WKMG-TV. "She started crying when she first saw it and then immediately went to her supervisor and said, 'I need to leave.'"

According to Menzies, the brutal kick knocked the senior dog unconscious and triggered a seizure.

"He gave a 100-pound kick to an animal that's five pounds," Menzies said. "So [Boomer] flipped over, slid along the floor, and was unconscious for over a minute, after which he woke up and had a seizure for five minutes."

WESH said that during the 65-second video, Noel can be seen returning twice — first moving the dog's head around with his boot and then turning him over. The station said Boomer remained limp for the remainder of the recording.

Menzies said Boomer and the couple's other Chihuahua were secured in another room, but it was unclear how the dog got out.

According to Menzies, the veterinarian said Boomer had no broken bones but warned that the animal could have internal bruising.

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Police said Noel turned himself in to authorities Thursday.

Noel, of Broward County, is charged with aggravated animal cruelty.

Citing jail records, WESH reported that Noel's bond was set at $8,000, and he was released from jail Thursday night after posting bond.

Sanford Police Chief Cecil Smith stated, "It is deeply disturbing that someone entrusted with entering a person's home to complete a service would violate that trust by viciously injuring a defenseless animal. The video is difficult to watch and shows the callousness of this individual."

According to the arrest report, Noel was on a service call for his employer, ElDante HVAC Services, LLC, at the time of the incident.

The company announced that Noel has been fired and issued an apology on its website:

First and foremost, we offer our deepest and most sincere apologies for the incident involving one of our technicians. As pet parents ourselves, we fully understand the emotional gravity of witnessing a beloved dog being subjected to physical harm. We are truly sorry for the distress and pain this incident has caused.

While the technician has shared that he has had negative experiences with dogs in the past, his actions are absolutely not justified. The behavior he displayed was completely unacceptable and does not reflect the values, standards, principles, or professionalism that we hold our company and our team to.

We have taken this matter extremely seriously. The technician’s employment was terminated immediately after we reviewed the circumstances and the available evidence. Criminal charges have also been pursued, and we are cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities regarding this matter.

When we first became aware of the incident, we immediately questioned the technician about what had occurred. In his initial account, he stated that the dog had attempted to bite him twice. After reviewing the recorded evidence later that same day, we determined that his account did not accurately reflect what had occurred. This further confirmed our decision to terminate his employment that same evening.

We also want to emphasize that we have a strict company policy that no technician is permitted to enter a property when unattended pets or minors are present. In this situation, the technician failed to follow our established safety protocol and proceeded on his own rather than contacting his supervisor for guidance. This was a serious violation of our company policy.

We have personally extended our sincerest apologies to the tenants and offered our assistance in any way we can during this difficult time. We sincerely hope their beloved dog makes a full and speedy recovery.

May God watch over their sweet fur baby and bring healing and comfort to their family. Our thoughts and prayers remain with them during this difficult time.

WESH reported that ElDante HVAC Services, LLC did not respond when asked if the company would pay for Boomer's veterinary bills.

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