German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius lamented the failure of the joint 100 billion euro France-Germany project to build a next-generation European fighter jet — noting his disappointment at an outcome that “hurts a lot.” Pistorius affirmed that Berlin is assessing alternate
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The US must finish the job.
Steven Spielberg this week will drop “Disclosure Day,” his long-awaited engagement-bait alien movie. On cue, the internet is abuzz — with soyfacing and fangirling, dunking and slop farming, chin-stroking and opining, opining, opining. Somehow, therefore, more, but also dramatically less, needs to be said.
I was early to the disclosure discourse. Five years ago, as the topic began to heat up in earnest, I tried to get ahead of the conversation by focusing on the religious dimension. Back then, that wasn’t center stage. The alien thing was still mostly Joe Rogan- and "X-Files"-coded, disclosure a cause célèbre for freedom-minded individualists sure that the evil secret government was hiding the TRUTH that only heroically skeptical intellectual rebels could force to come to light.
In the coming age, many — even believers — will be deceived.
To me, that felt incomplete. At best. The American experience with “alien encounters,” I underscored, had always been depicted and acculturated religiously — not just as a matter of “having a religious experience,” good or bad, but of actual theology.
Its manifestation as popular culture belied not secular origins but spiritual ones: When your religious belief is that “organized religion” is bad and the only authority you can really trust is your own, you’ll see what’s at stake in the alien debate as the ultimate nature of the universe, one where perhaps everything we thought we ever knew about God and our relation to Him could be completely debunked.
The desire to overthrow the authority or even the existence of the unbroken Christian church, that is, doesn’t stem fundamentally from secular principles. It actually stems from a desire to actualize a much different, ostensibly higher or ultimate, spiritual order.
Among usThat is why in 2021 I emphasized that aliens are so often interpreted as proof that Christianity is not the truth that will save us — that the Christian era is over, Christianity is defunct, a new religion is not only “needed now” but has arrived, whether we like it or not. “The invaders are here,” I summed up the claim, “and they impose on us the responsibility of accepting a new age from which there is no turning back. Humans are but one organism, a weak and inferior one, whose only hope of salvation is in satisfying whatever it is the aliens herald and demand.”
I went on to push back on this master narrative by way of Father (perhaps soon to be Saint) Seraphim Rose. He got ahead of the disclosure discourse decades ago, citing key scholars who showed the overwhelming pattern among “alien encounters” is of experiences impossible to distinguish from encounters over the millennia with spiritual entities — specifically fallen angels. Demons, in other words.
“Aliens,” Rose explained, do not behave like angels, who appear as holy messengers cautioning people at once to not be afraid. Instead, like demons, they zoom around at will, produce terrifying illusions, and violate and persecute victims in their bodies and minds.
Nevertheless, as anyone knows who grew up in the spiritual anarchy of the 1980s — where the lines blurred dangerously between “progressive” Christianity, New Age cults, and straight-up demonic occultism — there was already back then a huge and growing swath of alien believers who nursed a kind of syncretism with Christianity or some kind of “biblical” religion.
That was what troubled Rose the most. Today, many people speak of the Antichrist and the apocalypse, topics very close to Christ’s warning that in the coming age, many — even believers — will be deceived that He has returned or the end is nigh.
RELATED: It’s not easy being pope — Leo's big new tech encyclical proves it
ANDREAS SOLARO/Getty Images
Yes, millions of people may now be catching up to what counted as the frontier of the disclosure debate in 2021. X is full of eager, Spielberg-fueled arguments over whether aliens are compatible with Christianity, with both sides producing scripture, doctrine, lore, and receipts in the now-familiar style of the “global public square,” where every question is debated until it has been pulverized.
Even alien-skeptical Christians, or those aligned with Michael S. Heiser-style caution, can find serious authorities noting that the cosmos exceeds human comprehension. The existence of other rational created beings somewhere in that vastness cannot simply be ruled out.
But that is precisely the point. Some matters are best left to God. The human mind can crack them open with curiosity, only to find itself wandering a vast mental labyrinth — and once there, easy prey for delusion, pride, and disbelief.
Take, for one example making the rounds today, the question of whether He has perfect knowledge of all possible counterfactuals — a question that first made the rounds centuries ago thanks to Luis de Molina, a Jesuit theologian who touched off a furious and protracted round of discourse and debate, an effusion of energy that might well have been better spent in other ways.
What other ways? Well, here is where the new frontier of the disclosure debate appears.
Haunted hallsIn theaters right now is a film called “Backrooms.” It’s close to being the opposite of “Disclosure Day,” at least in the sense that “Backrooms” is about the danger, and ultimately the tragic horror, of today’s deepening temptation to understand on our own terms the things that confuse and weaken us the most — things of our own flawed and falsely independent mental constructs.
Today the foremost of these false realities — what the ancient monks called logismoi — is the creepy combination of depression and pride that makes people curious to know “for themselves” what is really good and what is really evil.
Rather than trusting God on this matter or trusting God to sort it out and seeking refuge in humble self-denial of what even secular medicine calls the call of the void, we are all being carried along on a massive wave of belief that we somehow must subject all things to intellectual processing in order for us to function.
Increasingly, we treat human beings as if our only real function is intellectual processing. Everything becomes reducible to intelligence, or optimized as an operation of intelligence. Intelligence becomes the only thing that matters because it is treated as the only thing that truly exists. Everything else — the body, the soul, love, worship, suffering, memory, family, place — becomes merely an expression or construct of intelligence.
Under this view, nothing remains for us to do except intellectualize everything. We keep refining thought, language, and computation until we produce an intelligence so pure and complete that it no longer needs the rest of the human person at all, except perhaps for a time as fuel.
RELATED: ‘Backrooms’ is horror for a self-justifying age
A24
This insane belief has become compelling because it fits the modern mind. It is becoming a new “organized religion,” even among people who most loudly hate organized religion. We entered the current stage of technological development already convinced that spiritual truth could be uncovered, created, or replaced through endless discourse: talking, writing, printing, disseminating, propagandizing, discussing, debating, and filling the world with more and more words.
Eventually, we looked around and saw only language. Not merely spoken language, but language as thought itself. Reality had been swallowed by interpretation. And once everything became words, it was only a matter of time before we mistook the processing of words for the fullness of being human.
In 1962, Beat Generation drug hellion William S. Burroughs, author of “Junkie” and “Queer,” wrote that language is a virus from outer space — in other words, an alien. Any Christian must know that, in reality, the Word, the Logos, is the opposite of a deadly xenomorph. But severed from the divine Word, the merely human word swiftly becomes something alien, monstrous, devouring. (“Time to leave the Word-God behind,” Burroughs wrote in his final doped-up years.)
That is why the frontier of the disclosure debate now expands from the recognition that being sucked into the disclosure debate, by the “Disclosure Day” debate and all the alien debates, is a labyrinth with a minotaur inside our own delusional creation. This is the not-too-cryptic message of “Backrooms,” a message most strongly conveyed in the film by what’s also the cure for our servile and self-destructive yapocracy: silence. Holy silence.
A California homeowner was visiting with his neighbors when he heard gunshots and screaming coming from his house and rushed back to find a shocking threat.
Riverside County Sheriff's deputies were called to the residence on Heron Way in San Jacinto on Friday just before 10:30 p.m. on reports of gunshots being fired.
'His goal was to get his daughter out safely, regardless of what happened to him.'
They found a man with gunshot injuries and declared him dead at the scene, according to the Los Angeles Times. They identified the deceased male as 45-year-old Ismael Martinez.
The father of the home told them that he had rushed to the house after his wife said a home intruder was firing a gun. The homeowner armed himself with a gun from his garage and exchanged gunfire with Martinez.
Martinez was struck, but no other injuries were reported.
A police investigation found that Martinez assaulted his 52-year-old girlfriend with a knife before running off to attack the family at the Heron Way home. The woman was found inside a vehicle and transported to a hospital for treatment. She was reported to be in stable condition.
Police said there was no evidence that Martinez or his girlfriend had any connection with the residents of the home he allegedly invaded.
A neighbor named Frankie Aguilar said the husband and wife of the family had been at his home when the incident unfolded. He said the wife had gone back to her house to charge up her phone when she found the armed intruder.
"When she was screaming, he was shooting at her with a shotgun," Aguilar said.
Aguilar added that his neighbor's teenage daughter was also in the home during the shooting and home invasion.
"His goal was to get his daughter out safely, regardless of what happened to him," another neighbor named Robert Dorame said to KTLA-TV.
"I'm shattered for them because they're good people," he added.
Police said the shooting would be referred to the Riverside County District Attorney's Office for review.
Neighbors said they believed the homeowner had acted in self-defense. A friend of the family has opened a GoFundMe donation account to help them deal with the costs associated with the incident.
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The U.S. men's national soccer team opens its FIFA World Cup campaign against Paraguay on Friday. The much-mooted event stands out for one reason among many; tickets are still on sale for the contest in Los Angeles.
The post Tough Sell: Tickets Still on Sale for U.S. Opening Match at FIFA World Cup in L.A. appeared first on Breitbart.
Belgium's Prime Minister Bart De Wever on Tuesday urged European leaders to come together and develop a strategy to counter China's economic domination plans — noting "we are so afraid that we don't even dare" to name Beijing's unfair trading practices for what they are.
The post Belgium PM De Wever: E.U. Leaders Afraid of China, Must Fight Unfair Trade appeared first on Breitbart.
Last Friday, the stock market had an abysmal day, losing well over $1 trillion. It was the worst single-day drop of 2026 for the S&P 500 and the worst day in over a year for the Nasdaq, which fell over 4%.
This sudden and dramatic dip surprised many because it occurred immediately after a jobs report revealed that May saw the addition of 172,000 new jobs — over twice the amount that experts forecasted. Unemployment also stayed the same at 4.3%
The report showed that “by every plain English measure, Americans are working; things are good,” says Glenn Beck.
“So why did the market panic on news that you and I would call encouraging?” he asks.
On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn unpacks “the whole game” that is the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s addiction to cheap money.
“For two years, Wall Street has been betting on one thing above all else ... but it’s not [AI],” he begins.
“It's the Federal Reserve about to make money cheap again, and they love cheap money.”
Wall Street, Glenn explains, was expecting the government to slash interest rates soon. But when the job market came in strong, those hopes were suddenly dashed.
“Have you ever leaned on a door that you thought was closed or unlocked, and you fell through? It was kind of like that on Friday,” he analogizes.
On top of that, the AI trade was already experiencing a backslide.
Wall Street, having had high hopes for AI growth, discovered just days before the stock market plummet that Broadcom (a prominent AI chip maker) did not raise its future predictions as many had anticipated — even though Google’s parent company had just announced it was raising a massive $85 billion to buy more AI chips and build data centers.
As a result, its stock dropped significantly, and it brought several other tech/AI stocks down with it.
“So understand what actually happened here,” says Glenn. “It wasn't the good news that scared everybody Friday. It was the truth that the Fed is not riding in to rescue the overpriced stocks, and maybe, just maybe, the AI miracle has a price tag attached to it that somebody should check before buying stock.”
This is tough news to stomach, he admits.
“That 401k or pension that you're counting on rides on the market, and days like Friday took a big bite out of it. Also, you want a mortgage on the house. The 10-year is now above 4.5%. The rates are punishing,” Glenn sighs.
“It's going to stay that way. Your grocery bill, your gas, your rent. Inflation is at 3.8% means they're not coming down soon, and a Fed that has to say ‘tough on the price inflation’ and is going to — that means it's going to be tough for a while,” he continues.
But there’s a silver lining we can’t ignore.
“America's strength ... has never come from cheap money or get-rich-quick fevers. It never has. Pain always comes from that — always,” Glenn declares.
“Where America has always rallied, done well, and fixed herself is when people who make things, fix things, grow things, show up and are encouraged to do what they do best.”
Glenn urges his listeners to stop “[hanging their] hope on the Fed or on Washington or the next shiny thing the market is chasing.”
“Get out from under your debt wherever and however you can; build something that doesn't depend on a rate cut; strengthen your family and the people around you,” he implores.
“The real security was never something that was printed on a building on Constitution Avenue. It was built in your home with your hands and with your character.”
To hear more, watch the video above.
Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
It has been a pitiful few weeks for the United States Senate, which means senators are now pretending they saved Immigration and Customs Enforcement, fought for the SAVE Act, and still care about victims of government weaponization.
None of that is true.
Do not buy the celebratory social media posts from Senate Republicans. Get to work electing new ones instead.
This is a geriatric form of professional wrestling kayfabe. But instead of heroic wrestlers in tights, the actors are young communications staffers tweeting victory on behalf of their bosses while those bosses fly home.
Before we unpack what happened, we should understand how we got here. To his credit, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) recently summarized the problem well: “We made a huge mistake by not funding ICE and CBP in January. We NEVER should have funded the Democrats’ thousands of earmarks without funding ALL of homeland security. It is time to fund ICE and CBP NOW!”
It was a mistake, except that it was intentional. Still, Scott acknowledged the major point his colleagues would rather hide. Forthrightness in the Senate is rare, so we should welcome it when it appears.
The story begins in January, after two protesters were killed obstructing ICE. In the media-driven hysteria that followed, Congress did something unusual: It split off the Department of Homeland Security from the funding package that covered other agencies.
At the urging of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and top Democrat appropriator Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), Republicans caved and agreed to put DHS in a stand-alone funding posture. In congressional funding terms, that means danger.
For decades, government funding has largely moved through omnibus and minibus bills that force lawmakers into take-it-or-leave-it votes. Members may dislike parts of the package, but they swallow the whole thing to avoid shutting down large portions of the government. When DHS stands alone, Democrats have a much easier time voting no.
In February, DHS funding shut down. Airport lines grew. Employees went without pay. DHS changed secretaries. Democrats continued blasting ICE, deportations remained low, and the Trump administration retreated on parts of the deportation agenda.
In other words, Democrats gained concessions while holding DHS funding hostage.
Then, in April, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) began negotiating with the hostage-takers in earnest. They offered another major concession: separate ICE and Customs and Border Protection from DHS, making ICE and CBP a stand-alone within a stand-alone. For funding purposes, it is hard to imagine a worse fate.
RELATED: Polarization may be the cure — and the clarity — America needs
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Congress funded the rest of DHS, ending a roughly 76-day shutdown. Politicians breathed a sigh of relief because airline lobbyists would stop pestering them about long lines at airports. ICE and CBP, meanwhile, would have to be funded through another mechanism: reconciliation.
Reconciliation funding creates operational problems that normal appropriations do not. That deserves more attention, though it falls deep into the procedural weeds. The key point is that ICE and CBP were isolated, weakened, and pushed onto a more perilous path.
As part of ending the shutdown for every part of DHS except ICE and CBP, President Trump demanded a reconciliation bill funding those agencies by June 1.
Negotiations began, then quickly collapsed after the May announcement of an Anti-Weaponization Fund that would compensate victims of government persecution. Republican senators revolted and learned the lesson Democrats had just taught them: ICE and CBP could be used as hostages.
They threatened to withhold ICE and CBP funding unless Trump agreed to kill the fund. Ultimately, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche did just that.
Despite acting as hostage-takers, Republican senators also used the reconciliation process to posture on the SAVE Act, which had no chance of passing through that mechanism. The SAVE Act, which is popular across party lines, includes voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a leading opponent of the Anti-Weaponization Fund but a proponent of his own right to recover damages for weaponization against himself, introduced a meaningless amendment on the SAVE Act. Knowing most voters do not understand Senate procedure, he styled the move as a valiant attempt to pass election integrity legislation.
“Mr. President,” Graham posted, “I was honored to lead the charge to pass the SAVE America Act, one of the most consequential pieces of legislation you and your team have created.”
RELATED: Trump’s anti-weaponization fund puts GOP cowards on trial
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
This was insincere and unserious. The SAVE Act has no chance unless the talking filibuster is enforced. Everyone on the Senate floor knew that. But Graham maintains Trump’s endorsement in his upcoming primary, so perhaps it will not matter. We may be stuck with him even after Trump leaves the stage.
Much of the swamp remains undrained.
This whole drawn-out charade should be remembered for two reasons.
First, Senate Republicans crossed the Rubicon and went where Democrats had already gone: They held ICE hostage. Worse, they held ICE hostage to force the Trump administration to scuttle the Anti-Weaponization Fund. That is a double betrayal of the base: threaten immigration enforcement to hurt victims of government persecution.
Second, Senate Republicans helped create the most perilous funding path for ICE and CBP moving forward: complete isolation. With ICE and CBP now handled outside the normal appropriations process, they will face another shutdown unless this strategy is reversed. As soon as Democrats have enough votes, they will try to defund both agencies.
Do not buy the celebratory social media posts from Senate Republicans. Get to work electing new ones instead.
Tuesday on CNN's "The Source," Rep. Ro Khanna (D) said voters gave Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner a "chance at redemption" with his win in the state's Democratic primary election.
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