Why I Changed My Mind About Marijuana

Liz reflects on how Alex Berenson’s research and book on the harms of marijuana changed her perspective on cannabis.

Anthony Fauci basks in media attention in unearthed diary entries: 'I am the most famous'

 Dr. Anthony Fauci raised eyebrows over the weekend for his recently released pandemic-era diary entries, some of which included reflections on his own newfound fame, his interactions with influential media figures and a picture of a prayer necklace featuring himself as a saint.

Released Saturday by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ahead of Fauci's scheduled testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week, the thousands of pages of diary entries recounted Fauci's daily reflections as he interacted with political leaders and became the public face of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

"I have said for years that Anthony Fauci cared more about his own image than the truth, and now his own diary proves it," Paul posted to X on Monday afternoon.

1/9 — My investigation uncovered that Anthony Fauci kept a diary.
What he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.

Today I'm releasing his entries from December 2019 through December 2022. ???? pic.twitter.com/58LvmeYkCN

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 25, 2026

Various entries show Fauci appeared to bask in the media attention and widespread adulation he was receiving during the early days of the pandemic.

"The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable person [sic] in the world," Fauci wrote in his diary on May 21, 2020, noting there had been a "very flattering" front-page article about him in The Washington Post.

"Press is going wild with me," he wrote on March 22, 2020. "Front page in Washington Post yesterday and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times today about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic."

"I am trying in several articles and on TV to clarify that the POTUS is tsalking [sic] about hope for therapies although there are no good data, while I must stick to the science and so fundamentally we are approaching this from different, but not conflicting standpoints."

On May 23, 2020, Fauci suggested that President Donald Trump and the White House were growing jealous of the attention he was receiving.

"Apparently the WH is very upset that I am being profiled and it looks like I am putting down the POTUS and becoming a star that outshines him. The press is playing into this as is the tweet storm. Very stressful!!" he wrote.

In other entries, Fauci also mentioned his interactions with various celebrities who fawned over him, such as Barbra Streisand, Julia Roberts and Steph Curry. In February 2021, he took note that comedian Kate McKinnon played him on "Saturday Night Live," and included a photo from X of a prayer necklace that depicted him as a saint and read: "Doctor Fauci, Patron Saint of Public Health."

Dr. Fauci Diary Entry of a Photo of a Prayer Medal Depicting Himself Reposted by the “Dr. Anthony Fauci Fan Club”

Is there anyone in the world who loves themselves more than Fauci? ???? pic.twitter.com/EeDvUWCJ6K

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 27, 2026

Fauci also made note of the many fans he was amassing, highlighting an article headlined "Fauci socks, Fauci doughnuts, Fauci fan art: The coronavirus expert attracts a cult following."

CRINGE: Dr. Fauci’s Diary He Kept During COVID Was Just Released

He saved clippings of articles that say “America is Thirsty” for him, pictures of donuts with his face on them and fawned over posts of people saying they “have a crush” on him.

He also bragged about his… pic.twitter.com/x2UryA5b62

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 27, 2026

The diary also revealed Fauci was highly attentive to media coverage of himself and exhibited unusually close relationships with left-leaning media figures such as CNN anchor Jake Tapper, whose Washington, D.C., home he visited for dinner.

Fauci wrote that Tapper had reached out to him privately to ensure that an interview he had done with CNN had not caused friction with the White House. When The Atlantic's Peter Nicholas suggested Fauci was "humiliated" when Tapper canceled an interview, he wrote: "F— you, Peter."

After Fauci's clash with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in 2021, CNN's Dana Bash texted him that he was "a better man" and relayed Wolf Blitzer's joke that no one would blame Fauci for telling Jordan to "go f— yourself." She later shared a Vanity Fair headline mocking Jordan.

Fauci's diary entries end in December 2022 as his reputation was waning with large swaths of the public, with his final entry reading: "It is clear (I have not been reporting it every day) that the far, extreme right and Qanon literally hate me."

Paul, a longtime Fauci critic who subpoenaed him to testify this week, highlighted other selections from Fauci's diary in an X thread, arguing that the private writings of the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases often differed from his public statements.

Regarding the origins of COVID-19 and discussions of the lab leak hypothesis, Paul highlighted an entry from Jan. 26, 2020, that showed the wet market theory was privately already discounted very early in the pandemic when Fauci wrote, "Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier."

Paul's X account has routinely trolled Fauci, with his pinned tweet as of Monday depicting Fauci's famous 2020 "InStyle" cover photo that showed him decked out in sunglasses and star-studded socks by the pool.

"See you in 2 days," Paul wrote Monday along with the photo.

Anthony Fauci basks in media attention in unearthed diary entries | Politics

The 'Red Jihad': How far-left and jihadist extremism are merging

 For nearly a quarter century, Western counterterrorism was built around the jihadist threat. That focus was understandable. September 11 changed the world, and the rise of al-Qaeda and ISIS forced the United States and its allies to build intelligence, law enforcement, and military systems capable of stopping large-scale attacks.

At the recent international conference on political terrorism, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that the threat environment has changed. Rubio argued that the West developed a dangerous blind spot toward far-Left terrorism. Bessent stated that “old ideological boundaries are now giving way to new operational alliances,” especially between international Marxism and radical Islamic movements that may not share the same ultimate vision but do share the same immediate enemy: free and self-governing societies.

That convergence is what I call the “Red Jihad.”

The Red Jihad is not a single organization. It is a cross-ideological threat coalition made up of actors who may identify as Marxist, anarchist, Islamist, Satanist, neo-Nazi or something even more obscure. They do not need to agree on what should replace the West. They only need to agree that the existing Western social order should be destabilized and ultimately destroyed.

This is why our current debate over “nihilistic violent extremism” is so important.

The FBI describes nihilistic violent extremists as individuals who engage in criminal conduct in furtherance of political, social or religious goals that grow out of hatred for society and a desire to bring about its collapse through chaos, destruction and social instability. These actors are often young, highly networked online and involved in communities such as 764, the Order of Nine Angles, Maniacs Murder Cult and related ecosystems.

Some researchers insist that these networks have no real ideology. They say the violence is merely “violence for violence’s sake,” driven by misanthropy, online status, notoriety, or sadism.

In my opinion, that description is woefully incomplete.

Belonging, notoriety and social status may explain why an individual joins a network. They do not tell us what the network teaches, rewards or seeks to accomplish. A young person may enter ISIS seeking purpose or brotherhood, yet no serious analyst would conclude that ISIS therefore has no ideology. A recruit may join a revolutionary movement for excitement or identity, but that does not erase the movement’s larger goals.

The 'Red Jihad': How far-left and jihadist extremism are merging

After 10 years of covering the trans madness, here's what I learned

 Sometimes you just have to write what you know and document what you've seen, heard, and metabolized to remind yourself that, no, you haven't gone crazy. 

Perhaps by spelling it all out and publishing it, the masses might begin to grasp the breadth and scope of a problem they’ve been led to believe is an overblown, remote issue. Tenacious journalist that I am, I'll provide ample receipts proving that the exact opposite is true.

Allow me to show you what life in the trans trench has been like for the past decade, with a combination of personal story and indisputable, brute facts. This is the tip of the iceberg, a mere fraction of the filth.

Probably eight years ago, I remember seeing for the first time a series of images that are burned into my memory. They say a picture says a thousand words, but in the trans trench, they are the beginning of a kind of trauma — the jarring introduction to a bestial type of Hell you never knew existed. Writing in Corinth with a front-row seat to all kinds of debauchery, the Apostle Paul noted in Romans 1 how wicked people “invent new ways of doing evil” (Romans 1:30). The trans scourge is that. On steroids, literally.

The first image I saw was a blue-haired, bare-chested girl who looked like she might be all of 14 years old. Scars were where her breasts used to be. She had the most tormented, vacant eyes.

It took me aback, and I gasped repeatedly. I stood up from my desk and walked away, feeling as though I'd been violated at a deep level, like a sledgehammer to the gut. I told a friend that it felt like I had involuntarily looked at sexually violent fetish porn featuring a minor child. That friend replied, “Brandon, that is exactly what you saw.”

The second image I saw was when I heard from someone who'd undergone a radial forearm phalloplasty and regretted it. She sent me a picture of her gutted forearm, the harvested tissue from which was used to make a fake penis. Another gut-punch.

Some weeks later, I stumbled upon Miami-based Irish gender surgeon Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher's Instagram account — some of us refer to her as the “butcher of Louth.” This surgeon was posing next to young people she'd operated on, including a girl who had previous self-harm scars. Around that same time, I remember seeing Canadian gender surgeon Giancarlo McEvenue posing with a Santa hat, holding up two medical waste buckets labeled “breast tissue.” I subsequently saw footage of him speaking at a Johnson & Johnson–sponsored discussion, boasting of his sordid profession. Calling this unmitigated depravity is the understatement of the century.

I also remember interviewing a regretful de-trans man who was castrated, and he told me how he ended up ejaculating blood. I was glad this interview was on the phone and not on a Zoom call because he would have seen me fall out of my chair.

Everyone has their own journey of falling down the gender rabbit hole, and when you find yourself in this particular trench, you soon start meeting all sorts of shocked and disoriented people, astonished that this is real life. It’s a freight train of unimaginable nightmares hurtling down the tracks at a high velocity, bulldozing people right and left.

Those of us who've been doing the hard work exposing the madness against an impenetrable mainstream media blockade can all tell you what it's like to learn about all the horrors, only to be gaslit with flat denials like “that's not happening.” Then you show concrete proof, and it becomes “well, it's only a few people,” and then maybe “why are you so obsessed with this small, strange issue?” The whole world is under a reality-denying spell, shrouded in pink and blue flags, and people are programmed with dismissive talking points if anyone suggests that something’s wrong. 

We, the trans (and queer) trench dwellers, have seen pedophilic elements of this movement in silicone pediatric penis packers — vile products aimed at girls as young as 4 so that they can “pack” their underwear to give the appearance of a male bulge. 

If that wasn't ghastly enough, we found out how academics and others in internet chat forums were behind the strategic rebranding of “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria” at meetings of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Thanks to the intrepid reporting of Reduxx, which spent several months investigating the Eunuch Archive, we learned that men on that site swap castration-themed written pornography involving the sexual torture of children whose puberty has been stunted. One user on that foul site described watching a trans surgery on a male as “arousing” to watch. These men say “eunuch” is a kind of “gender-diverse” person, by the way, and it's actually listed in WPATH’s official guidelines. 

The trench dwellers also know about the 2016 Dutch medical report that was part of the linchpin study underlying gender surgeries on youth. An 18-year-old in that study had been on puberty blockers, so his genitals hadn't matured, and surgeons used part of his bowel tissue to fashion a simulacrum of a female sex organ — a laparoscopic intestinal vaginoplasty. Complications followed: E. coli bacteria from his intestine spread through his body, and he died of sepsis. When this came to light, more people started paying attention, especially since Elon Musk had purchased Twitter by then, and photos of the man's maimed genital area were able to circulate freely online.

We’ve seen pink-haired queer surgeon Blair Peters speak in a podcast interview about using the peritoneum in similarly grotesque surgeries he does on minor boys. We’ve watched Democrat politicians walk out of the room when U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Florida) tried to show footage of that Peters interview during a House hearing. 

We've seen Jazz Jennings’ face contorted in excruciating pain after “bottom surgery,” and we later learned how his postoperative wound split open. We've seen a young woman with cerebral palsy bearing chest scars from “top surgery,” while croaking out sounds and flailing about in a wheelchair. 

Just when we think it can’t get worse — it always does — we stumble upon the story of Scarlet Blake, a transgender-identifying man who livestreamed himself killing a cat by skinning it and putting the animal in a blender. Blake murdered a human being a few months later, but the mass media broadly reported that he, the perpetrator, is a “woman.”   

We've seen all the boundary-breaking madness of garish drag queens reading to children in libraries. We can’t seem to forget this particular pervert that some of us call “rainbow monkey dildo man.”

We've seen the 11-year-old “drag kid” performer “Desmond Is Amazing” dance in a gay nightclub while patrons threw dollar bills at him. Elle Magazine platformed another young drag performer, an 8-year-old boy from Canada whose stage name is “Lactatia.”

Speaking of lactation, we’ve watched the disturbing capture of groups like La Leche League and the Centers for Disease Control endorse the feculent phenomenon of “chestfeeding” — trans-identifying males pretending to breastfeed babies. The NHS Trust in the UK even claimed that the drug-induced, hormone-addled discharge that such men secrete was as good as mother’s milk. In 2017, one such man who "chestfed" his daughter wrote in the Seattle alt newspaper The Stranger that the experience was sexually charged and that he “got off” on it, insisting readers not judge him. Yes, it’s as revolting as it sounds; they are using infants like prostitutes to satisfy their sick, twisted fetish. 

We've seen the FOIA'd progress report document showing how Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy altered a research protocol, lowering the age from 13 to 8 for the cross-sex hormone cohort inclusion criteria in an NIH-funded grant. 

We've watched in horror as a psychopathic man who savagely murdered a lesbian couple and their teen son was transferred into a women's prison, made easy by a state law that California Governor Gavin Newsom signed in 2020. We've heard bone-chilling stories of violent male offenders being housed with women elsewhere, too. We've seen a judge who nearly received a lifetime federal appointment — thank you, Senator Ossoff, for voting no — who had urged, against the recommendation of the Bureau of Prisons, that a man who had sexually abused a nine-year-old boy and distributed child sexual abuse material be incarcerated with women. All because of the magic word “trans.”

What I learned after 10 years of covering the trans madness

Men are using mail-ordered abortion pills to poison women. Why won't DOJ act?

 Look at the evidence.

In his address to the nation on election integrity, President Donald Trump declassified compelling evidence that America’s elections are vulnerable to manipulation, from noncitizens voting to foreign interference. The president argued that the evidence demands action by Congress to protect one of the most sacred rights of American citizens, the right to vote.

The principle applies elsewhere. When the evidence is clear, it demands action.

Compelling evidence of a different kind was presented this past week during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche. More proof was presented that unborn babies are losing their lives through the abortion drug mifepristone, and increasingly, the drug is being obtained through the mail by men who secretly administer it to the mothers of their unborn children.

Alabama Senator Katie Britt (R) recounted the story of Jona Affholder. After Jona refused to abort her baby, her boyfriend, Hassan-James Abbas, an Ohio medical resident, allegedly used his ex-wife’s identifying information to obtain abortion pills online to poison Jona and kill their unborn child. As Senator Britt observed, “Her story is one of many.”

The evidence supports Britt’s claim.

Last month, Army Captain Brandon Jones-Adams was convicted of secretly placing mifepristone into the drink of a junior enlisted soldier he had impregnated, causing the death of their unborn child.

These are not isolated crimes. They expose the deadly consequences of policies making abortion drugs easier to obtain through the mail with fewer safeguards and less accountability.

Why was this evidence presented during the Attorney General’s confirmation hearing? Because the Department of Justice has the authority to reverse one of the key policies making this possible.

Following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, the Biden administration sought to undermine the decision by expanding access to chemical abortion. It relaxed the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), removing the long-standing requirement for in-person dispensing and medical oversight.

But another obstacle remained: the Comstock Act, an 1873 federal law prohibiting the use of our mail system to send articles intended for abortion. Rather than enforce that law, the Biden Justice Department issued an opinion concluding that abortion drugs could be mailed unless the sender specifically intended an illegal abortion. In effect, the government said, “Presume lawful use and ask no questions.”

That DOJ opinion remains in effect today under the Trump administration. Unlike the FDA’s REMS policy, which is being challenged in court, the Justice Department can withdraw and replace that opinion without waiting for Congress or the courts.

The evidence also shows these cases are part of a much larger trend. Since Dobbs, abortions have increased by roughly 20% nationwide, with the abortion pill now accounting for approximately 65%.

The evidence demands action. If evidence of election vulnerabilities justifies action to protect the right to vote, then evidence that existing federal law is being ignored to the detriment of women, unborn children, and the laws of nearly half the states demands action as well. President Trump should direct the Department of Justice to review the Comstock Act, withdraw the Biden policy, and enforce the law as Congress enacted it.

If safeguarding the right to vote is fundamental, and it is, safeguarding the right to life is foundational.

The evidence is clear: Enforce the Comstock Act on abortion pills

State Dept: Cuba Set ‘Infiltrating American Universities as a Top Priority,’ Fueling Campus Unrest

 The State Department published an extensive report on Monday detailing how the Communist Party of Cuba has invested over half a century in the infiltration and destruction of American politics, accusing the communists of setting the infiltration of campuses as a “priority.”

State Dept: Cuba Set 'Infiltrating American Universities as a Top Priority,' Fueling Campus Unrest

The NAACP promotes the trans madness now?

 For generations, the NAACP stood as one of America's most important defenders of human dignity. It confronted segregation, fought racial injustice, and championed equal protection under the law, appealing to the nation's moral conscience and calling America to live up to its founding ideals.

That moral authority is being squandered.

The NAACP's recent defense of trans athletes competing in women's sports, articulated in its statement, “NAACP Stands with Transgender Athletes Following Supreme Court Ruling,” represents more than a policy disagreement. It reveals a profound identity crisis within an organization that once claimed to speak on behalf of black Americans and the cause of justice.

The civil rights movement did not succeed by accident. It succeeded because it rested on transcendent truths. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of natural law, God's justice, and the moral order of the universe. He did not argue that truth was subjective or that reality could be reconstructed according to personal preference. He appealed to eternal principles because he understood that rights are secure only when grounded in something higher than political power. That is the inheritance the NAACP is now spending down.

The issue here is not hatred, discrimination, or the worth of any individual — every person is created in the image of God and deserves dignity and respect. The question is narrower and harder: whether justice requires society to deny biological reality, and whether one group's claims should supersede the rights and opportunities of another.

There is a tragic irony in how far the answer has drifted from the movement's foundation. The civil rights movement was built upon objective realities — black Americans could not change the color of their skin, and they faced discrimination because of immutable characteristics. The trans movement, by contrast, asks society to affirm that biological sex itself is subjective, and that deeply held feelings should override objective realities. These are fundamentally different claims. To equate them is not only historically inaccurate but morally confusing — and it is exactly the kind of claim King's appeal to natural law was built to resist.

For decades, the NAACP rightly opposed arbitrary barriers that denied black Americans equal participation in society. Now it advocates policies that could deny female athletes fair competition and scholarship opportunities by allowing biological males to compete in women's sports. That is not a defense of equality; it is the replacement of one perceived injustice with another.

The NAACP's embrace of this ideology has left many black Christians and social conservatives wondering whether the organization still represents them at all. The black community remains overwhelmingly rooted in the church and has historically affirmed marriage, family, and the biblical understanding of male and female. Yet the NAACP increasingly aligns itself with the most progressive cultural movements while showing little interest in representing the convictions of millions of faithful black Americans.

Who, then, is the NAACP speaking for?

The organization that once challenged the cultural elites of its day now appears eager to gain their approval. Instead of standing on the transcendent principles that once made it formidable, it follows the latest ideological trend. Many Americans — black and white, Democrat and Republican, religious and secular — are increasingly uncomfortable with policies that force women and girls to sacrifice fairness in the name of inclusion.

The tragedy is not merely political. It is moral. The NAACP's support for trans ideology is part of a broader trend in American institutions: the substitution of feelings for facts, ideology for biology, and activism for wisdom. In seeking to be culturally relevant, they become morally unmoored — and justice cannot be sustained when truth itself becomes negotiable.

The black community does not need organizations that echo the latest cultural fashions. It needs leaders willing to defend truth, protect women and girls, strengthen families, and uphold the moral principles that have sustained our communities through generations of adversity. The future of civil rights depends not on abandoning reality but on recovering it.

As I have often argued through the R.I.S.E. Principles — Responsible Government, Individual Liberty and Fidelity, Strong Family Values, and Economic Empowerment — lasting justice requires moral clarity. Without truth there can be no justice. Without moral conviction there can be no genuine progress. And without a willingness to stand against the cultural currents of the day, even our most venerable institutions can lose their way.

The NAACP once helped America confront its moral failures. Today, many Americans are asking whether the organization has confronted its own.

The NAACP promotes the trans madness now?

Trump Is Righting Latin America

 

• In Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, a center-right businessman with a pro-security platform, took office, winning in late 2023 against leftist Luisa González. His successes netted him a re-election victory in 2025.
• In Panama, right-wing candidate José Raúl Mulino won in May 2024, focusing on security and the economy.
• In 2025, President Trump arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a swift, early-morning operation, accomplishing what previous administrations had promised. Maduro was arrested for rampant drug trafficking and terrorism. His successor has acquiesced to American diplomatic and business overtures while releasing political prisoners.
• In Bolivia, Christian right-wing contender Rodrigo Paz Pereira ended twenty years of communist rule under Evo “Evil” Morales. Whoever said that you cannot vote your way out of communism?
• In Chile, conservative Catholic José Antonio Kast won in late 2025 following a run-off, defeating a long-standing activist left-wing government which had sought to scrap Chile’s previous conservative reforms, including free market policies and school choice.
• Honduras: Nasry Asfura (right-wing National Party) won in late 2025, defeating a leftist incumbent's ally.
• Costa Rica: Laura Fernández Delgado (conservative/right-wing populist) won in February 2026. She campaigned aggressively on a pro-family platform, as well, denouncing the evils of abortion (just as Milei had done!)
• Peru: Keiko Fujimori, daughter of populist former President Alberto, just won in June 2026.
• In Colombia, another conservative Catholic, Abelardo de la Espriella, has replaced another left-wing narco-state-allied regime.

Look across Latin America today. The right is on the march, cleaning out the wreckage of socialism and communism. Free market reforms are ascending. Rejection of authoritarian regimes, recognition of the state of Israel, friendly concourse with the West, and en masse crackdowns on crime and corruption are redefining the region.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz offered a profound vision regarding the incredible political rightward shift washing across Latin America:

[I]f that happens, this would be the most consequential geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall, since America won the Cold War without firing a shot.

Trump Is Righting Latin America - American Thinker 

The Socialist wave isn’t about Trump — it’s the Democrat Party’s reality

 This year has seen socialists make their furthest inroads into “mainstream” American politics than any time since the early 20th century.

Even though this is clearly a phenomenon manifesting itself within the Democrat Party, more than a few media commentators have incorrectly attempted to tie this socialist red wave to President Donald Trump.

A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Trump Opened the Window for the DSA,” argued essentially that Trump is just so mean and awful, he’s caused so much derangement on the Left, that they decided to embrace communism to stop him.

“Both his genuine sins and his imagined ones handed the left permission to come unglued, pushing otherwise serious but mainstream left-leaning ideologues to adopt positions they would have laughed at a decade ago,” the authors argued. “The radical, dangerous and merely stupid are not only permissible but mandatory.”

Undergirding this argument is the absurd premise that to stop Democrats from becoming bloodthirsty communists we just have to be nicer to them — unlike that meanie Trump — and maybe give them what they want.

But this argument is bunk for several reasons, a significant one being the words of the insurgents who’ve been quite clear that their movement is only tangentially about the president.

Here’s a socialist victory party in New York City where the attendees shouted, “you’re next,” directed at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Not exactly someone likely to be sporting a MAGA hat.

When Melat Kiros, the newest socialist darling who won her House primary in Colorado was asked if she supported Jeffries she said, according to the New York Post, “I’m not supporting anyone for leadership who takes corporate PAC money. I’m dead serious about this issue. We have to start setting a standard now.”

It’s clear when you listen to what the socialists have to say they are directing their fire mainly at the Democratic Party establishment. They aren’t just about opposing Trump. They are about bringing about a socialist revolution, and obliterating Israel, of course.

The Democratic Party and its media allies can hardly be accused of going soft on Trump over the years. They’ve pretty much pulled out the stops to ruin him for over a decade. From accusing him of being a Manchurian candidate, to multiple impeachments, to nearly throwing him in jail, they’ve broken pretty much every political norm to crush the “bad, orange man.”

The Socialist wave isn’t about Trump — it’s about the Democrats

South Carolina passes bill to ban 'debanking' based on religious, political beliefs

 South Carolina has banned large financial institutions in the state from engaging in “debanking” amid allegations that some large banks have cut off financial services to individuals and organizations based on their political and religious beliefs.

South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed House Bill 5538, also known as the Guarantee Banking Act, into law Tuesday. The measure passed without opposition in the Republican-controlled South Carolina House of Representatives. Only two members of the Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate voted against it.

The legislation is scheduled to take effect at the start of the new year and prohibits financial institutions from taking actions that “discriminate in the provision of financial services to a person.”

It defines discrimination as “taking an adverse action against a customer” based on the customer’s “exercise of religion that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, federal law, or the Constitution or laws of this state, including all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief and affiliation.”

The law also defines discrimination as taking adverse action against a customer based on the customer’s “speech, expression, opinions, expressive activity, or association that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, federal law, or the Constitution or laws of this State, including the lawful preservation of privacy regarding those activities, such as declining to disclose contributions or political activity beyond what is required by applicable state and federal law.”

Banks with more than $100 billion in total assets, as well as credit card companies and payment processing platforms, are subject to the new law. Examples of prohibited adverse actions include closing checking and savings accounts or terminating access to money transfers, loans and credit cards.

South Carolina passes bill to ban 'debanking' | Business

EU turning a blind eye to arrests of Armenian church leaders, letter says

 The European Union has been accused of turning a blind eye to the Armenian government’s actions against the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Opposition leader Samvel Karapetyan, a businessman and Russian national who has been held in detention and is now under house arrest, instructed his legal representatives, Amsterdam & Partners LLP, to initiate legal action against the EU for its support for Armenia.

In a legal letter, the EU is accused of standing by Pashinyan’s government and presenting it as a democratic success story, despite ongoing concerns about its treatment of opposition figures and the Armenian Apostolic Church, which dates back to the fourth century.  

Tensions between church and state in the country have increased since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power in 2018. Relations deteriorated even more sharply following Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Several bishops have been arrested, while the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, has been barred from leaving the country. Critics have accused Pashinyan of acting like a Soviet-era dictator.

For his part, Pashinyan has said he is attempting to save the church from “anti-Christian” and “anti-state” elements. Senior church leaders have been accused of supporting the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government and of condoning calls for the assassination of government ministers.

In the letter, Karapetyan’s legal representatives questioned the validity of Armenia’s recent parliamentary election. Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia party received 23% of the vote, less than half the 49% achieved by Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party.

The election result has been challenged in the courts by Strong Armenia, although the party has said it has little faith in the independence of the courts.

Robert Amsterdam, managing partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP, said, “The European Union has not acted as a neutral observer. It has chosen to align itself with a government that has overseen widespread arrests, targeted its critics, attacked the Church and weakened democratic safeguards.

EU ignoring arrests of Armenian church leaders: letter | World

Irish teacher imprisoned 700 days for refusing to use trans pronouns released

 Irish teacher Enoch Burke has been released from prison on the orders of the High Court in Dublin, ending the latest chapter in a long-running legal dispute that has drawn worldwide attention. 

Burke, an Evangelical Christian and former teacher at Wilson's Hospital School in County Westmeath, was forcefully imprisoned for 700 days for refusing to use wrong-gender pronouns, which led to him being ordered not to return to work as an educator. 

He was suspended in August 2022 after a dispute arose with the school management over the introduction of a policy requiring that staff misgender students who choose to self-identify as the opposite sex. Burke objected on grounds of conscience.

The dispute escalated when he continued to return to the school grounds despite being suspended and courts injunctions later ordering him to stay away. 

Christian teacher Enoch Burke released from prison | World

Street evangelist to sue Texas city after police threaten arrest over religious speech

 A Texas-based street preacher who attorneys say was threatened with arrest for his evangelism outreach at a Fort Worth pride event is suing the police department.

David Grisham, a longtime evangelist, was cited by Fort Worth police in an incident captured on video at the Trinity Pride Fest in downtown Fort Worth on June 27. The now-viral video showed an unidentified female police officer threatening to arrest Grisham and another member of a street preaching team during the public event.

As the street preaching group continued to question police about the warning while they were moved to an area outside police barricades, the unidentified officer is heard telling them, “If someone is offended by your talking, then we have a problem. ... If they are offended by your speech, OK, I will write you a ticket, and we’ll go from there.”

Grisham was ultimately issued a citation for “unreasonable noise,” but no further explanation was provided. The city of Fort Worth website states that its “unreasonable noise” ordinance is “intended to apply to, but is not limited to” noise linked to animals or construction work.

In a statement shared Thursday, attorney CJ Grisham said the claim made by an unidentified Fort Worth police officer about “unreasonable noise” was “indefensible” because the city’s noise ordinance requires that officers must first measure the challenged noise using a decibel meter.

“This ordinance was not followed because no officer performed a decibel check,” said Grisham, who said he has no known familial or professional relation to the plaintiff. “Officers failed to follow the Fort Worth ordinance.”

Grisham further argued the city of Fort Worth’s noise ordinance is unlawful because it contradicts state law by making the city’s decibel level limit lower than the state’s.

“Mr. Grisham was exercising his right to express his views on matters of significant public concern. The Fort Worth Police Department responded, not by protecting his constitutional rights, but by threatening him with arrest and ultimately issuing a citation,” he said, adding the city must “immediately dismiss the citation and retract any related enforcement action.”

Street evangelist to sue Texas city after arrest threat | U.S.

Phil Johnson Chief of Wife Abusing and PDfile protecting ring Grace to You/Grace Community Church retires after 43 years, cites incurable cancer

 Less than a year after Pastor John MacArthur's death, the longtime head of his Grace to You ministry has announced he is retiring after more than four decades, citing an incurable cancer diagnosis and the need for a new generation of leadership.

Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You (GTY), said Wednesday that he will retire effective July 1 after 43 years with the California-based ministry.

"I've had a wonderful career at Grace to You for the past 43 years," Johnson wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. "I turned 73 on June 11. I have Multiple Myeloma, which is not curable and has diminished my energy level. I am busy enough with preaching engagements that sometimes involve travel."

Johnson said the ministry is entering a pivotal season following MacArthur's death and believes it is time for new leadership.

"And at this pivotal time in the ministry's history, GTY needs to be in the hands of leadership that will steer the ministry into the next generations of technology and strategy," he wrote. "So I'm retiring."

"I'm profoundly grateful for the amazing privilege I had to work alongside John MacArthur for more than 4 decades. I love Grace to You with all my heart, and nothing will ever change that."

Johnson did not announce a successor.

Grace to You, founded by MacArthur and affiliated with the California-based Grace Community Church, says its mission is to spread biblical teaching by "unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time" through radio, digital media and publishing.

MacArthur led the megachurch for more than half a century until his death last year. The Grace to You website contains an archive of MacArthur’s sermons dating back to 1969. Another project of Grace to You, the Study Bible, features “25,000 explanatory notes” from MacArthur on “virtually every passage based on the [English Standard Version] text” in addition to “more than 140 two-color maps, charts, timelines, and illustrations.” 

According to Grace Community Church’s official website, Johnson’s work isn't limited to the Grace to You ministry. Johnson has also edited most of MacArthur’s books and delivered sermons in his capacity as an ordained elder and pastor at Grace Community Church. He has founded multiple websites, including The Spurgeon Archive, The Hall of Church History and the Pyromaniacs. 

Johnson first revealed his Multiple Myeloma diagnosis in an X thread two years ago, which provided an update on his health following his hospitalization that spring. “My ‘catastrophic’ kidney malfunction turned out to be a sort of blessing in disguise,” he asserted at the time.

“In the hundreds of blood tests and a bone-marrow biopsy doctors ordered, they discovered I had Multiple Myeloma, a kind of blood cancer that lets the proteins in my blood attack other organs,” he explained. After discussing how he was prescribed a treatment, Johnson clarified that “Multiple Myeloma is not curable” while predicting that “This treatment should make it go into remission.”

Phil Johnson announces retirement from Grace to You | Church & Ministries

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Huge Controversy at Texas Church Over Hiring Pastor's Offender Son...

 

Same-sex marriage was sold on lies. The evidence is in.

 It’s been nearly 11 years since five Supreme Court justices swept away the multi-millennia understanding of the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage with their landmark Obergefell ruling.

At the time of the decision, I suggested that despite the ruling, the High Court had not really settled the issue. The years have borne that out. It was the Greek statesman Pericles who long ago suggested, "Time is the wisest counselor of all."  In this instance, its passage provides perspective, clarity and proof that many of the ills we warned about in the run-up to redefine marriage have been realized. When it comes to same-sex "marriage" over the years, it is time to admit we've been subjected to a litany of lies.

The late Barney Frank, who was considered a pioneering radical activist during his longtime tenure as a member of Congress, repeatedly stated that homosexual marriage wouldn't threaten other families.

"If you don't like same-sex marriage, don't get married to someone of the same sex," he said. "It is entirely an optional activity."

His quip belies the years of harassment my friend, baker Jack Phillips, has endured since he politely declined to design and bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. The badgering has consumed more than a decade of his life. He was vindicated by the United States Supreme Court, but that hasn't stopped other lawsuits or numerous threats on his life. Numerous other creative professionals have likewise been targeted and punished.

Then there are all the adoption agencies that have either closed or been similarly consumed by lawsuits because of their moral objections to placing children with same-sex couples. Obergefell didn't just redefine marriage. It redefined parentage itself.

When sexual norms are upended, anything and everything is possible. The push to normalize the sexual confusion of children and to allow the sexual mutilation of minors is rooted in the 2015 Obergefell ruling. The trans movement is a pernicious lie that has gripped the innocent and vulnerable. Fyodor Dostoevsky was right when he warned, "Men gradually become accustomed to anything."

I was in the courtroom for oral arguments back in 2015 when Obergefell was argued. Justice Scalia and Justice Alito zeroed in on the core issue when they argued that states can't allow same-sex marriage without discriminating against religious freedom, a constitutionally protected freedom for well over 200 years. Those two worldviews have repeatedly collided ever since.

Over the years of debate surrounding homosexual marriage, Rep. Frank and his fellow supporters made numerous related claims, such as suggesting the fight was simply over so-called marriage equality or hospital visitation rights. The latter could have been easily addressed legislatively without reinventing and reimagining the traditional definition of marriage.

A one-man, one-woman marriage is intended to help make us more selfless. Conversely, from the beginning, the pursuit of same-sex marriage has been a selfish endeavor. Advocates discount its impact on society. They want to force Jack to design and bake the cake. They want to legally compel an adoption agency to place a child with a homosexual couple, regardless of the agency's deeply held religious convictions. They want to put their desires ahead of anyone else's well-being, especially children's.

Another common lie served up regularly is that research shows there's "no difference" between same-sex marriage and natural-parented homes in the well-being outcomes for children. Yet Mark Regnerus, a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent years researching the kind of home where children are most likely to thrive. He's concluded that if the last 50 years of social science research has taught us anything, it's that children do best when raised by their own married mother and father. No other novel family form rivals this natural ideal.

Despite the absolute cultural disaster that Obergefell has wrought, far too many approach its latest anniversary with a shrug. It's a grave mistake. Like Roe v. Wade, a legal and moral wrong that made abortion the law of the land and took a half-century to right, we must continue to advocate and champion the fact that one-man, one-woman marriage is in everybody's best interest. As a Christian, I believe we must simultaneously advocate for laws reestablishing it and earnestly take responsibility for our own marriages. As always, our witness represents and reflects our best form of advocacy.

There are dire consequences when culture rewrites what God has established in stone. Politicians and radical activists may try to tinker with it under the guise of enlightenment and progress. But in the end, redefining and reimagining this essential institution will never eclipse what the Creator designed it to be from the beginning.

Same-sex marriage was sold on lies. The evidence is in.

Supreme Court says states can ban males from girls’ sports

 The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states have the authority to prohibit males who identify as females from participating in girls’ and women's sporting competitions, saying such policies do not violate Title IX civil rights antidiscrimination law. 

In a decision released Tuesday morning in the case of State of West Virginia v. B.P.J., the high court upheld West Virginia's Save Women's Sports Act of 2021.

The decision also upheld a similar law passed by Idaho known as the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, which was the focus of the case of Lindsay Hecox et al. v. Bradley Little, et al.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion, being joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito.

“The question before the Court is: Under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, may schools maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females?” wrote Kavanaugh.

“In other words, may schools determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes.”

Supreme Court says states can ban males from girls’ sports | Politics

Communists and Jihadists Won in NYC Because No One Voted

 The Mamdani backed candidates emerging from New York City include open Islamic terrorism supporters backed by Communists and Communists backed by supporters of Islamic terrorism.

How did it happen? As I wrote about Mamdani’s election victory, it amounted to low turnout from everyone except Islamists and leftists (plus the ranked choice vote rigging to give leftists an even bigger edge) and no competitive party elections so that the primary, with its super low-turnout, mostly consisting of leftists and the really well-informed, becomes the real election.

Communists and Jihadists Won in NYC Because No One Voted | Frontpage Mag

Is your favorite brand sponsoring child transitioning? These 568 companies are.

 If there’s one thing we can all take pride in this June, it’s that our pushback has been normalized.

In these last three years, the march to pull companies back to neutral has outperformed everyone’s expectations. But in this process of rolling back decades of corporate radicalism, one thing is clear: this isn’t over. No matter how much success Americans have, not every CEO will go quietly. When it comes to trans activism, some businesses are playing for keeps — and children are their number one targets. 

While an astonishing number of brands have walked away from the toxic Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and all of the extremism it represents, there are more than 550 companies that not only support the surgical mutilation of children — they’ll help pay for it. As part of the criteria for the once-coveted 100% score in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, businesses must agree to offer health benefits that cover the cost of gender transition-related procedures for employees and their children, a stunning concession for anyone witnessing the devastating heartbreak this movement has wrought.

Like most rational people, the 1792 Exchange is horrified that America’s corporate culture is willing to bankroll experimental “treatments” that have been disproven by science and lead to lifelong suffering, anguish, and regret. In a new campaign announced this week, they’ve decided to take on these companies publicly, demanding that they stop financing the permanent scarring, sterilization, and castration of children in the name of “gender-affirming care.”

In a letter obtained by The Washington Stand to all 568 businesses that scored highest under this section of HRC’s index, 1792 Exchange Executive Chairman and CEO Douglas Napier confronts the army of executives who are either unaware of their internal policies or who have proudly signed onto plans that irreversibly harm innocent children. “I am writing today to make you aware of information we have identified regarding your company’s employee healthcare benefits,” Napier explains. “This engagement is based on data from the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) annual Corporate Equality Index (CEI), released in February 2026.” 

Although a lot of these offenders are brands or businesses that aren’t household names, a surprising number of them are places most families wouldn’t have thought twice about frequenting (until now), including: Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Amazon, American Eagle, Chipotle Mexican Grill, CVS, Del Monte Foods, Disney, Dollar Tree, DoorDash, Etsy, General Mills, Giant Eagle, IKEA, Kroger, Kohl’s, Lands End, Lyft, Macy’s, Mattel, Nike, Panera, Papa John’s, Patagonia, Starbucks, Ulta Beauty, Victoria’s Secret, and Wendy’s.

Is your favorite brand sponsoring child transitioning?