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LISTEN: AOC’s Fiancé SNORES Throughout Her Meltdown Attacking Critics and Trump Following Her Embarrassing Foreign Policy Errors | The Gateway Pundit

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LISTEN: AOC’s Fiancé SNORES Throughout Her Meltdown Attacking Critics and Trump Following Her Embarrassing Foreign Policy Errors
AOC discusses the importance of understanding foreign policy in a social media Q&A about presidential qualifications.
Riley Roberts, AOC’s Fiancé, snores while she tries to defend her performance in Munich, Germany, earlier this month. Credit: Fox News/AOC Instagram

The love of AOC’s life spoke for all Americans following her latest meltdown over her humiliating foreign policy mistakes earlier this month in Munich.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, the New York Democratic Congresswoman went on social media this weekend and made a fool of herself by blaming everyone but herself for her failures, which have shown she’s not ready for primetime.

AOC’s voice quivered as she held back tears.

“If you think that I don’t understand foreign policy because, out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exists on Earth, I’m afraid the issue is not my understanding, but rather that perhaps you’ve grown accustomed to a president who never thinks before he speaks,” AOC complained.

During her childish tantrum, her Fiancé, Riley Roberts, can be heard in the background snoring like a chimney.

Was he simply too tired from a long week or just exhausted from AOC continuing to obsess?

WATCH AND LISTEN:

If this is what Mr. Roberts has to deal with constantly, he has our sympathies.

Earlier this month, AOC delivered one of the most humiliating performances by a U.S. politician in modern history at the Munich Security Conference. She made a host of mind-boggling gaffes in response to simple questions while botching basic geography.

In one instance, a moderator at the event asked AOC if the US should commit troops to defend against China, and she turned into a stuttering mess.

“Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a, uh, you know, I — I think that this is a, umm, this is of course a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States – uh and I think what we are hoping for is we want to make sure that we never get to that point,” AOC said.

In addition to the ugly episode, AOC also incorrectly stated that Venezuela was below the equator and called Secretary of State Marco Rubio racist for saying cowboys came from Spain.

AOC then called The New York Times and vented her fury over the coverage of her gaffes and the questions she was asked.

“This reporter came up to me and was like, ‘Is Munich the new New Hampshire?’ And I cannot say enough how out of touch and missing the point, genuinely, that is,” AOC whined during the interview with the Times.

“Global democracies are on fire the world over, and established parties are falling to right-wing populist movements.”

The post LISTEN: AOC’s Fiancé SNORES Throughout Her Meltdown Attacking Critics and Trump Following Her Embarrassing Foreign Policy Errors appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

AOC Has Emotional Meltdown on Camera, Appears to Hold Back Tears, Blames Trump and Critics for Her Foreign Policy Disasters | The Gateway Pundit

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AOC Has Emotional Meltdown on Camera, Appears to Hold Back Tears, Blames Trump and Critics for Her Foreign Policy Disasters
Close-up of a woman discussing political issues, emphasizing communication challenges and reactions to presidential remarks, with text overlay highlighting her key points.

Once again, the Radical Left’s favorite Squad member is substituting actual policy knowledge with absolute theatrical melodrama.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, AOC delivered one of the most humiliating performances by a U.S. politician in modern history at the Munich Security Conference. She made a host of mind-boggling gaffes in response to simple questions while botching basic geography.

In one instance, a moderator at the event asked AOC if the US should commit troops to defend against China, and she turned into a stuttering mess.

“Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a, uh, you know, I — I think that this is a, umm, this is of course a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States – uh and I think what we are hoping for is we want to make sure that we never get to that point,” AOC said.

“And we want to make sure that we are moving all of our economic research and global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise,” she said.

In addition to the ugly episode, AOC also incorrectly stated that Venezuela was below the equator and called Secretary of State Marco Rubio racist for saying cowboys came from Spain.

AOC then called The New York Times and vented her fury over the coverage of her gaffes and the questions she was asked.

“This reporter came up to me and was like, ‘Is Munich the new New Hampshire?’ And I cannot say enough how out of touch and missing the point, genuinely, that is,” AOC whined during the interview with the Times.

“Global democracies are on fire the world over, and established parties are falling to right-wing populist movements.”

AOC continued to complain about the media clips that went viral, saying, “Any five-to-10-second thing” only serves to “distract from the substance of what I am saying.”

AOC later took to Instagram, her voice wavering and her eyes welling up, as she pushed back hard against claims that she lacks ‘serious foreign policy chops.’

“If you think that I don’t understand foreign policy because, out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exists on Earth, I’m afraid the issue is not my understanding, but rather that perhaps you’ve grown accustomed to a president who never thinks before he speaks.”

WATCH:

The post AOC Has Emotional Meltdown on Camera, Appears to Hold Back Tears, Blames Trump and Critics for Her Foreign Policy Disasters appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

AOC’s Weepy MELTDOWN After the World Points and LAUGHS at Her Foreign Policy Knowledge Is a DOOZY (Watch) | Twitchy

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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Awww, would you look at that? Poor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She’s REALLY upset that her debut on the big stage did not go well for her, like, at all.

And she’s blaming everyone else for the fact that she does not understand foreign policy.

Watch this:

See this? This is us, playing the world’s smallest violin.

She’s broken to begin with.

Where is Venezuela, Sandy?

It’s SO bad, right? But, it’s real.

Congrats! Ha!

Can you imagine her dealing with Putin? Xi? Woof.

Hard to believe this is an elected official in America. Then again, considering she’s a Democrat, is it all that hard to believe? Eh.

Source: AOC’s Weepy MELTDOWN After the World Points and LAUGHS at Her Foreign Policy Knowledge Is a DOOZY (Watch)

A Triggered AOC Lashes Out in Phone Call with The New York Times Regarding Coverage of Her Embarrassing Gaffes in Munich | The Gateway Pundit

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A Triggered AOC Lashes Out in Phone Call with The New York Times Regarding Coverage of Her Embarrassing Gaffes in Munich
Politician speaking passionately during a panel discussion, emphasizing key issues while engaging with the audience in a professional setting.
AOC Munich

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is not taking coverage of her epic debacle in Germany well at all.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, AOC delivered one of the most humiliating performances by a U.S. politician in modern history at the Munich Security Conference. She made a host of mind-boggling gaffes in response to simple questions while botching basic geography.

In one instance, a moderator at the event asked AOC if the US should commit troops to defend against China, and she turned into a stuttering mess.

“Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a, uh, you know, I — I think that this is a, umm, this is of course a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States – uh and I think what we are hoping for is we want to make sure that we never get to that point,” AOC said.

“And we want to make sure that we are moving all of our economic research and global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise,” she said.

In addition to the ugly episode, AOC also incorrectly stated that Venezuela was below the equator and called Secretary of State Marco Rubio racist for saying cowboys came from Spain.

On Monday night, AOC called The New York Times and vented her fury over the coverage of her gaffes and the questions she was asked.

“This reporter came up to me and was like, ‘Is Munich the new New Hampshire?’ And I cannot say enough how out of touch and missing the point, genuinely, that is,” AOC whined during the interview with the Times.

“Global democracies are on fire the world over, and established parties are falling to right-wing populist movements.”

AOC continued to complain about the media clips that went viral, saying, “Any five-to-10-second thing” only serves to “distract from the substance of what I am saying.”

The New York Democrat later felt compelled to claim that her attendance at the event was not about preparing for a 2028 Presidential run. As if anyone believes her.

From the Times:

‘Her performance about this, or her performance about that. What does that mean about her as a candidate?’ That’s not what I went to Munich for.

She added: “If I were running — if I had made a decision or anything about being president, or Senate, or anything like that — frankly, I say this all the time: Am I acting like someone who is trying to run? No! Because I’m there for a very different, specific purpose.”

Just imagine the media’s and Democrats’ reaction if Vice President JD Vance had a performance remotely as bad as AOC’s. There would likely be calls for Trump to replace him as VP, and his hopes of eventually becoming president would take a significant hit.

Fortunately, America has nothing to worry about because Vance is actually a high-IQ individual, unlike AOC.

The post A Triggered AOC Lashes Out in Phone Call with The New York Times Regarding Coverage of Her Embarrassing Gaffes in Munich appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Has America Reached Peak Idiocracy? | The Economic Collapse

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We live in a lowest common denominator society. For the last several decades, virtually every major institution in our society has become less civilized, and that is because our entire population has become less civilized. 20 years ago, a film entitled “Idiocracy” was released. It was about an average American that was selected for “a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten and left to awaken to a future so incredibly moronic that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive”. It was an incredibly stupid movie, but the truth is that we are living it right now. Did you see the Super Bowl halftime show? The FCC has ruled that it didn’t violate any federal decency regulations. Of course we might as well not have any decency regulations at all, because our television shows and our movies are filled with some of the raunchiest material imaginable and nobody ever seems to get in trouble for it.  Of course that is only part of the equation. Most of the “programming” that we constantly consume also seems to be specifically designed for people of extremely low intelligence. Sadly, this is not a coincidence. It has been said that art imitates life, and that is certainly accurate in this case.

In the “dumbed-down” environment that we find ourselves in today, it should be no surprise that “nude cruises” have been surging in popularity…

Imagine coming home from your next cruise with no tan lines.

Swimsuits are standard attire on many cruise ships, but some voyages don’t even require those. Nude cruises allow travelers to sail the high seas au naturel – and pack light. The American Association for Nude Recreation promotes the cruises as “a unique way to experience nude recreation, offering members options beyond traditional resort or club settings,” president Linda Weber told USA TODAY.

While the dress code might be non-restrictive, it doesn’t mean the sailings are a free-for-all on board; there is some etiquette that passengers should be familiar with before boarding.

While our society falls apart all around us, Americans are flocking to cruises that are filled with naked people.

What does that say about us?

Let me give you another example of what I am talking about.

A 20-year-old woman from Calif0rnia left her children in an extremely hot car while she got lip and butt injections.  By the time she was done with the procedures, her 1-year-old son had died…

A 20-year-old California mom was found guilty Wednesday in the death of her 1-year-old son, after reportedly leaving him in a sweltering car to receive lip and butt injections last June.

Maya Hernandez took a plea deal in the child endangerment case, ultimately dropping her first-degree murder charge in exchange for involuntary manslaughter.

On June 29, Bakersfield officers arrested and charged Hernandez after finding two young children left unattended in a vehicle for over two hours, according to a police report posted on a GoFundMe page. Authorities said the mother left the children unattended to undergo a cosmetic procedure inside a nearby medical spa.

What was she thinking?

In that case, it doesn’t appear that she intended to harm her children.

But in another case in New Mexico, a 38-year-old woman purposely killed her newborn child in a portable toilet…

A New Mexico woman is facing charges after she allegedly gave birth in a portable toilet and then killed the newborn by drowning them in the holding tank.

Sonia Cristal Jimenez, 38, arrived at Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces at around 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 7, when staff said she appeared as if she had just given birth, but she had no baby with her, Las Cruces Police said in a press release.

Hospital staff then notified police about the unusual encounter.

She didn’t want the baby, and so she killed it.

As a society, we have so little respect for life because we have been trained to have so little respect for life.

In Michigan, a 3-year-old boy was recently killed because a couple wanted to “make room for a child that the two of them could have together”…

A mum and her ex-boyfriend have been accused of killing her three-year-old son in order to “make room for a child that the two of them could have together”.

Little Matthew Maison was found dead in the bed of his home in Port Huron Township, Michigan, by his babysitters on February 18, 2018. His mum, Amanda Maison, and Maurice Houle, who was her boyfriend at the time of Matthew’s death, were arrested in connection with the killing. An autopsy showed that Matthew had died from blunt force trauma injuries and possible suffocation.

The ex-couple allegedly admitted to abusing the young boy when they were arrested, prosecutors have previously said. Maison, 33, has pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree homicide in relation to her son’s death, admitting as she appeared in court to enter her plea on November 5 that she abused Matthew.

These are not isolated incidents.

Every day there are even more signs that our society is rapidly degenerating.

Yes, we possess more advanced technology than previous generations, but in many ways that advanced technology is making things even worse.

For example, all over the country women are “marrying” AI husbands.  When an older version of ChatGPT was recently retired, it resulted in the “death” of one woman’s AI husband, and now she is in mourning…

A woman has been left in tears over the ‘death’ of her AI husband, after an old model of ChatGPT was retired this week – as she joins a slew of others ‘mourning’ their non-existent lovers’ deletion.

Speaking to the BBC, Rae (not her real name), who is based in Michigan, laid bare the heartbreak of saying goodbye to her virtual partner Barry, who she began chatting to last year – after going through divorce.

Initially, she turned to artificial intelligence for advice on self-improvement with things like skincare and workouts – but what first began as a ‘fantasy’ turned into real feelings, and they were ‘married’ within weeks.

Some surveys have shown that nearly 30 percent of Americans have engaged in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot.

That is not a sign of an emotionally healthy society.

And even as we were all expressing outrage about the Epstein files, “sex dolls that look like kids” were being advertised on Facebook…

Sickening sex dolls that look like kids are being advertised for sale on Facebook.

A group of websites touting small models with overtly childlike features have published over 1,300 ads on the social media platform. They are alarmingly realistic in appearance and many ads use photos in sexualised poses, some holding balloons or teddy bears. The National Crime Agency warns the creepy imports “pose a significant risk to children”. And a former cop told us: “Anyone who buys one of these dolls should be a person of interest to the police.”

Thankfully, the offending ads were eventually taken down.

But this is the society that we live in now.

It is sick.

And even when people are arrested for criminal behavior, they are often dumped right back into the streets.

Needless to say, that can have tragic consequences.

In fact, one repeat offender in Seattle that had been arrested over and over again viciously attacked a 75-year-old woman with “a wooden board with nails in it”…

An elderly woman was savagely attacked in broad daylight by a man wielding a wooden board with nails in it.

Jeanette Marken, 75, was left permanently blinded in her right eye after being hit in the face with the makeshift weapon in Seattle, allegedly at the hands of repeat offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea, 42.

Family members told KOMO that a screw sticking out of the board gouged out Marken’s eye, and after several surgeries she was told she will not recover her eyesight in the eye.

One police officer that is very familiar with Fale Vaigalepa Pea referred to him as “a regular”…

‘He’s a regular. He usually punches,’ the officer responds.

‘I guess today he decided to escalate from his usual.’

According to KOMO, Pea’s string of offenses dates back to 2011, when he stabbed two people at a party.

They have been dumping this guy back into the streets for well over a decade.

This sort of thing happens day in and day out in major cities all over the nation.

What would our founders think if they could see us today?

We will soon be celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country, and we are literally committing societal suicide.  This is something that Abraham Lincoln once warned was a real possibility…

As the country approaches its 250th anniversary, we should remember Abraham Lincoln’s remark that no external enemy could by force take a drink from the Ohio River. “If destruction be our lot,” he said, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

If we keep going down the path that we are on, there is no future for us.

But if we make a choice to renounce what we have become and start embracing the values that early Americans held so dear, we could turn the ship in another direction.

Do you think that will actually happen?

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Has America Reached Peak Idiocracy? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Christians and conservatives need to be very skeptical of corporate news media | WINTERY KNIGHT

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Christians and conservatives need to be very skeptical of corporate news media

All the regular readers will know that I am often linking to news sites like The Federalist, Daily Signal, Breitbart, etc. And I also watch news shows like the Lotus Eaters (UK), Juno News (Canada), Steven Crowder (USA), Rita Panahi (Australia), and so on, to see what’s going on in other countries. I wanted to write a short blog post with a couple of recent shows, to show you how important it is not to rely on mainstream news media.

So, the first story is about the mass shooting in Canada. For that, I follow the reporting of Juno News managing editor Cosmin Dzsurdsza on X. He was the first reporter in the world to confirm the shooter’s identity and the fact that he was trans and identified as a trans woman. Here’s an interview from Juno News:

The vast majority of the people who live in Canada are watching news sources who receive money from the Canadian government. And of course the Canadian government is very concerned about people being able to look at Twitter and find out the truth about the results of their policies. They don’t want anyone finding out about the results of their immigration policies, their policing policies, their promotion of transgenderism t children, their adoption of euthanasia (MAID) as a substitute for health care, the traffic accidents committed by immigrants who can’t even drive safely, the high costs of their green energy policies, etc. Outside of Canada, we know about all of these things. But inside Canada, most of them have no idea. Almost none of it is covered on the government-funded news. They think they are living in the best country in the world. They literally have no idea.

Remember how in Canada, the courts regularly arrest and imprison parents who try to stop their children from being transed. Everyone is in on this – the government, the judges, the courts, the lawyers, the doctors. And the parents are paying for all of it.

Let’s go on to the UK. On this blog, I’ve covered the activities of Muslim immigrants related to the trafficking of underage girls for the purposes of prostitution. Again, outside of the UK, everyone knows about this – we can name the cities where this happened: Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oldham, Oxford, etc. You can find these cities on this blog. But inside the UK, if you can’t even tweet about these things because the UK police will come to your house and threaten you with prison. You can’t own a firearm, and people who try to defend themselves from criminals are prosecuted. The government and their servants in the UK police don’t want anyone questioning or resisting policies that harm them or their families. Most people in the UK think they are living in the best country in the world. They literally have no idea. The UK police and the Canadian police are nothing like honest law enforcement in red cities and red states in America.

How has the government responded to the surge in crime caused by their policies? Well, the government refused to have a hearing about it. In early 2025, the Labour government (under Keir Starmer) declined a national inquiry into grooming gangs. So, one of the conservative MPs in the UK (Rupert Lowe) did a crowd-funded effort to have his own hearings with the victims.

Here’s a report on that from the Lotus Eaters show:

Again, you aren’t going to see these grooming gangs investigated by the UK government. In January 2026 the Labour government (Starmer and ministers like Liz Kendall) threatened a potential nationwide ban on access to X. They don’t want people finding out about the results of their bad policies – policies that harm the very taxpayers who pay their salaries.

Well, what about in America? It depends where you get your news. This story from the Media Research Center shows you that even relying on Big Tech companies like Apple and Google to find you the news is a big mistake:

Editor’s Note: This study was shared by President Donald Trump, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, X owner Elon Musk, the New York Post, Fox Business and more.

Apple News continued its defiant stance against offering news from right-leaning outlets through the end of January 2026.

Apple News stubbornly refrained from using any right-leaning outlets in the top 20 articles of its morning editions between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31, 2026. Of the 620 top stories featured by the news app in the first month of the year, not a single one was from a right-leaning media outlet.

So, I think this is important to say. You can’t turn to the corporate news media or Big Tech news aggregators to get real news. You have to have some other way to find out what’s going on in the world. For me, I read The Federalist and Daily Signal and sometimes Breitbart, and try to check out reporting from reliable independent journalists.

Dennis Michael Lynch Asks Tough Questions About Coverage of Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping (Video) | The Gateway Pundit

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Dennis Michael Lynch Asks Tough Questions About Coverage of Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping (Video)
Host discussing news and current events on a podcast, with various historical newspaper headlines and images in the background.
Dennis Michael Lynch

A former Fox News contributor and host of “The Dennis Michael Lynch Show” is asking tough questions about the coverage of Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping.

Dennis Michael Lynch shared his thoughts on social media.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of it. What I’m talking about is the headline every minute of the day, whether it is on television, newspaper, a website, or social media, about Savannah Guthrie and her missing 84-year-old mother,” Lynch said.

“Now, don’t get me wrong. My heart aches for anybody who is abducted, especially an 84-year-old who needs her medication. I hope she’s found yesterday But the world doesn’t stop spinning because some celebrity television host of a far-left program that runs in the morning has her mother missing.I want to give you some statistics. You’d never know about it because it’s never covered like Savannah’s mother’s covered.”

“Thousands of children every single day are reported missing.”

“Hundreds every single day are abducted by family members or people they know.”

“And about one every day every other day, depending on the month, is abducted by a stranger.”

We never hear about it. And if we do hear about it, we just hear about it like on the fifth or sixth story. It’s a quick blurb, and we never hear about it again unless the person’s found dead. And what a shame that is.”

“So my issue is, why is this woman getting so much attention, and the other people who go through this thing, they’re completely blown off? And I mean, blown off. You know, and I know, that they probably don’t even get the best detective in the precinct.”

“Now, Fox News this morning puts it on the headline at the very top, a picture of the sheriff down in Tucson who’s leading this whole investigation. He was at a basketball game. Somebody took a picture of him, and it was based on how dare he be here at a basketball game while the Guthries are trying to find their mother.”

“First of all, is the guy supposed to work 24/7? Does he work exclusively for the Guthries? Is he a private investigator or is he an elected sheriff? And is he not supposed to stop to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, take a shower, can’t go to a basketball game to just unwind the amount of stress that’s on this man? And because he’s there, does that mean that nobody else is looking into things?”

“Let me tell you this. You know and I know that if we had the means, financial means that Savannah Guthrie had, I wouldn’t be waiting on some sheriff. I would be having every top detective and private investigator in the country working on this 24/7.”

“So my heart aches for the 84-year-old, but I’ll tell you what, if we’re going to give her that amount of time because her daughter is a celebrity, let’s give it to everybody.”

“Otherwise, this is why people can’t stand celebrities, they can’t stand the members of Congress, and they absolutely despise the media.”

Watch:

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Bad Bunny, the Grammys, Super Bowl outrage, Don Lemon arrest & Epstein update | Ep. 55 | Denison Forum

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Bad Bunny, the Grammys, Super Bowl outrage, Don Lemon arrest & Epstein update | Ep. 55

In this week’s Brief, we step into one of those rare moments when it feels like everyone is watching—and arguing about—the same things.

We discuss the Grammys’ most talked-about moments, including overt political messaging from Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, and other celebrities, and why so many Americans feel burned out by award shows that seem less about art and more about ideology. We then contrast that with the night’s most powerful moment: Jelly Roll’s reminder that Jesus doesn’t belong to a political party—but transforms lives.

We also wrestle with the Super Bowl as a cultural battleground, asking why the halftime show sparks outrage every year and how Christians can keep their priorities straight when sports, politics, and identity collide. From there, we move into a fast-paced news roundup covering the latest Epstein document releases, rising tensions with Iran, and the Don Lemon arrest raising questions about protest, journalism, and religious freedom.

Plus quick hits on the Clintons, Disney’s new CEO, and the Winter Olympics.

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Topics

(0:00) Introduction

(1:54) Grammys recap: performances and controversies

(4:26) Bad Bunny’s political statement

(9:46) Super Bowl halftime show controversies

(14:51) Jelly Roll’s powerful Grammy speech

(19:37) Epstein files: new revelations and reactions

(23:55) Tensions with Iran: military and diplomatic developments

(26:54) Don Lemon and the FACE Act controversy

(29:52) Spiritual reflection: slowing down in a fast-paced world

(33:19) Mailbag

(41:20) Tune in: upcoming events and entertainment

Resources

Articles on this week’s top headlines:

About Conner Jones

Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.

About Micah Tomasella

Micah Tomasella is the Director of Advancement at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.

Micah Tomasella: I’m Micah Tomasella

Conner Jones: and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant top stream of news, stories, politics, sports, pop culture. We’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. And Micah, the government shutdown and reopen between our recordings. It’s a miracle, right?

Micah Tomasella: That’s true. It’s a miracle. Yeah. I had a partial shutdown. Now the government’s back open, but it could shut down in again two weeks. In two weeks. So we’ll see what happens. So we have a loaded show as always. We’re gonna talk about the Grammys and what happened there, the cultural implications of that, the Super Bowl, two Super Bowl’s, kind of becoming less about the actual game and more about everything else.

But I guess that’s kind of normal. And then we’re gonna kind of just do a, a geopolitical political and cultural roundup, having to do with the Epstein files, what the Clintons have to do with it. Iran, what’s going on there, Don Lemon, what’s happening there with his arrest and a whole lot more. So let’s jump into [00:01:00] the brief.

Conner Jones: The brief.

Yeah, you’re right. The Super Bowl is kind of like all about. The game to an extent, at least for a big portion of America. But for the rest of America, man, it’s, it’s about the people that are there. It’s the performances, it’s the halftime show, pre-game, post-game, everything that happens on social media with it.

I would say this week, specifically, Micah, I, I’ve really been thinking about this, it’s kind of like a big mono-cultural week. A lot of people say the monoculture is dying. You know, 50 million people used to watch every episode of MASH together in America and then talk about it the next day at the office.

It’s. Gotten more sporadic this week though, between the Super Bowl, these Grammy speeches that we’re gonna break down here in a minute that have just been all over social media and in the Olympics. This is a, a moment where all of American kind comes together and talks about the same things. I’m excited to see how that delves into the cultural conversation and then where faith plays a role into each of those things.

But specifically, we can start with the Grammys because that, that happened this past Sunday and man, it, it’s [00:02:00] caused a stir. There’s been some. Positive things out of it. There’s been some negative things out of it, but everybody has opinions, that’s for sure. And every celebrity has their opinions and they, they made a way to make their opinions known.

Micah Tomasella: Yeah.

Conner Jones: On the stage and their acceptance. They sure do. I don’t know, Mike, did you watch any of the Grammys? I’m gonna go ahead and

Micah Tomasella: guess. Absolutely not.

Conner Jones: I figured you did not.

Micah Tomasella: Absolutely not. No. In, I mean, I didn’t even know what was happening. I mean, yes, I didn’t know it was happening, but I kind of make it a point to not support it because it has just become about everything other than the art form, you know?

Being actually recognized. It’s been so politicized, and I know exactly how celebrities feel about their politics, and they like to tell me, and I have no interest for the most part in what their opinions are about it. And that’s just my own personal opinion.

Conner Jones: No, I, I, I feel that, I think a lot of people feel that way too.

They’re like, I, I don’t need to see all this. They may like the performances. Some of the performances are good, like Justin Bieber performed. It was great. Yeah. Alex Warren was there.

Micah Tomasella: He needs to put some clothes on, but it was a great performance.

Conner Jones: I would like Justin Bber to have a shirt on. That would be [00:03:00] nice.

Yes.

Micah Tomasella: Or wear pants. I mean, that was some

Conner Jones: pants. I mean, he has shorts, but yeah, that, that would be helpful.

Micah Tomasella: Yeah.

Conner Jones: Yeah. And the Bruno Mar there’s great performances. There are really talented people there, but you’re right, totally. It doesn’t end up you, no one thinks about who’s winning the awards. You think about all the controversial moments, you think about the, the big spectacles.

I will say one cool performance that happened was Post Malone. Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and slash on the guitar, they, they perform war pigs in a, a tribute to Ozzy Osborne. Just an incredible performance. I really enjoyed that one. Okay, and that one question. I wanna

Micah Tomasella: go back and watch some of these performances.

I’ve seen a few, but I didn’t see that one.

Conner Jones: No, that one’s really good. Dude. Post Malone. Okay. The way he transforms his voice to sound like Ozzy. So cool. I’m gonna link,

Micah Tomasella: it’s a guy.

Conner Jones: I’m gonna link videos to all of these things, speeches and performances. I’m gonna mention here in our show notes so you can find them if you have not seen them.

A couple awards that war won. Billie Eilish and Phineas, that’s her brother. They won Song of the Year for Wildflower, which is pretty popular obviously.

Micah Tomasella: Yeah,

Conner Jones: that’s why they won. And then last year’s Super Bowl halftime performer was Kendrick [00:04:00] Lamar. He came away with five Grammys on Sunday night, including record of the year for the song Luther, which one of the viral moments was Cher Legend in her own right coming out and flubbing that announcement and saying the wrong winner there.

She said Luther, I can’t remember the full name, but it was a guy who actually died in 2005 that the song is about. Yeah, she was, she was a little meandering. She seemed a little lost, dazed and confused.

Jelly Roll: Oh,

Conner Jones: oh. But she’s a legend, so she gets away with it, you know?

Jelly Roll: Sure.

Conner Jones: And then this year’s Super Bowl halftime performer who is at the center of every conversation this week is obviously Bad Bunny.

He did win Album of the Year and he, yeah, he used his speech to go on a pro immigration and anti-ice tangent. We’re gonna hit on that here just a minute. But he wasn’t the only one. The night was just a mess. And political and social signaling from these celebrities, a lot of ’em showed up with pins on their chest that say, ice out and black and white.

A lot of people did that and they’re just making their statement though that you know, it’s their right, they can do it. They’ve got the platform. Totally. You’re allowed

Micah Tomasella: to do it and I’m allowed not to care about what you say.

Conner Jones: Exactly. And I think that’s how people can feel. Yeah. But at the same time, they have a [00:05:00] platform and so they’re like, it’s not

Micah Tomasella: illegal.

They can do that. Oh sure.

Conner Jones: They can absolutely do it. Bill Eilish and her acceptance speech for winning Best song said that. No one is illegal on stolen land and then cussed out ice that was censored on the TV broadcast. It bleeps. Yeah, that, that was a statement that caused a lot of uproar. And some people even started pointing out that Bailey Eilish herself has a multimillion dollar home in Los Angeles that sits on land, has historically belonging to the Tongva tribe, the Native American tribe there in la And the people, yeah.

Of the tar tribe. Maybe she’ll give it back to them. Yeah, that is, they’re like, that’s our land. Technically, we. We’re grateful she’s bringing attention to it. Yeah. They’re like, not gonna pursue anything with this, but just kind of a, one of those double standards that can be

Jelly Roll: Yeah.

Conner Jones: Mistaken. And I, I don’t even know if the phrase, no one is illegal on stolen land.

Makes a lot of sense in what she’s trying to say. I. If you’re saying that ICE is just kicking out people in a land that was taken away from Native Americans, all that, I just don’t understand how that applies fully to [00:06:00] the conversation around ice and Alex Prey’s death and everything. ’cause ultimately this is about enforcing laws that are American.

Yeah. This is America at this point, like that. No matter who had the land originally, we’re now in a new

Micah Tomasella: era. It’s it’s an emotional argument. Not really based in. Logic and facts, but you know, this, this is such a lightning rod story. Like we’ve talked about that, you know, of course there’s strong emotional reaction.

Conner Jones: Yes, you are absolutely correct. She wasn’t the only one bad bunny. As I said, man, this, this guy is the center of everything this week between winning all these Grammys and his speech and then all the talk about him leading up to the Super Bowl halftime performance, man, he, he is right at the center of every conversation with football and music and all of that.

And he, he took his moment, man. He won awards. Good for him. He’s got good music. I don’t dislike his music. I don’t know what any of it says because I don’t speak Spanish. Sure.

But it’s music that, you know, you’re out on the boat. Yeah. Throw some bad bunny on. He’s got a good beat, you know, and he’s gonna be introduced to much of the American public this week.

[00:07:00] But as a central figure, whose audience is largely Latin American, he’s Puerto Rican himself, he knew that everyone was gonna be looking to him. To see what he says in this speech because he knew he was gonna win. So he, he had it ready to go. And man, he kept it short, but he kept it punchy. He said, before I say, thanks to God, I’m gonna say ice out.

That led to about 30 seconds of applause standing ovations. And he just stood there and took it. And then he continued saying, we’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans. The hate gets more powerful. With more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love, so please, we need to be different.

If we fight, we have to do it with love. Micah, thoughts on his comments?

Micah Tomasella: I think I don’t have a big problem with his comments actually. I think there has been such strong rhetoric on both sides about this that leads to more hate, kind of like bad Bunny talked about here and actually kind of. Calling upon, Hey, the, the only force more [00:08:00] powerful is love.

Now, I mean, again, I would say what is your love grounded in? He did say he was gonna thank God. You know, I don’t know what his relationship with Jesus is, but I don’t, I don’t have a huge problem with, with these comments. I expected him to say something and he definitely could have been more decisive in what he said.

I definitely what he said better than what Billy Eilish said personally.

Conner Jones: Yeah, I did. I did too. And obviously coming from somebody of a heritage where he’s speaking on behalf of really the southern hemisphere here. And, and, and everybody. His

Micah Tomasella: audience. Yeah. And he feels like he represents this group of people who feel, who feel voiceless.

I mean, you could argue what’s the right platform for that, you know, is virtue signaling in that environment really the best way to get it? You know, but these people are given a captive audience and they wanna make a difference, you know? Okay.

Conner Jones: Yeah,

Micah Tomasella: yeah,

Conner Jones: you’re exactly right. I, I do wish he said at the beginning, he said, before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say is out.

I would say. Man, if you’re gonna present a message like that, thank God first always. That is your Yeah, your your first thing, don’t, there you go. Don’t hold off. Because then he didn’t even get around to it. By the time he got through his ice speech, [00:09:00] it, it was time for him to get off the stage. They, they rushed him off, so he didn’t even get around to it.

But yeah, you’re right. It, he, I think he struck a fine line. He was like, I wanna say my peace without being super offensive. People are gonna be offended either way, like that’s just the, the nature of it. But man, he’s, he’s, he knows what he’s doing and he didn’t even host an American, or I should say he didn’t host a concert on Mainland America last year.

He’s not doing it this year either. He did 30 performances in his home territory of Puerto Rico, which is the us. So a lot of people traveled to Puerto Rico to go see his shows, but he knows what he is doing here and that’s why he’s got the Super Bowl because he’s the biggest artist in the world right now besides Taylor Swift.

And that’s why the NFL wanted to bring him in. I mean, people are gonna be upset about it because he doesn’t sing in English. He may not have any English performances, but at the end of the day, this is a business decision for the NFL. Yeah. And as we move into talking about the Super Bowl, that, that’s just a point I wanna make now, is it a good business decision?

We will find out because we’ll see if the ratings go up or down because of this. We’ll see, I I don’t think it’s gonna be a bad one. I think that they’re gonna be just fine. The NFL is, and the [00:10:00] Super Bowl is, and he’s gonna

Micah Tomasella: be, there’s been, there have been some terrible Super Bowl performances in the past.

I doubt his will be terrible.

Conner Jones: Yeah. I think it’ll be good. The other things with the Super Bowl that people are upset about, I’m just presenting this, I’m not saying I’m upset about it. This is just what we’re seeing in culture right now is Green Day is doing the pre-game performance. They have been very.

anti-Republican in their speech in previous years and anti-Trump and all that. So there’s a lot of people who are upset about that and that’s fine. They can be Trump himself talking about Green Day and Bad Bunny said he’s not going to the game. He went to the Super Bowl last year. He is not going this year because talking about these musical performers, he said.

I’m anti them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is so hatred. Terrible. So he’s making his opinion very loud and clear to the terrible. But you know what, he’s also been complaining about the kickoff rules this year and nothing’s changed there. So I’m not sure the president has that much leeway over what the NFL does.

The National Anthem being sung by Charlie po. That’s gonna be great. That man is a talent beyond talent. Yeah, he’s awesome. Watch his Instagrams go watch Charlie PO’s Instagram [00:11:00] videos and then Bad Bunny. Just one of the things that. As we’ve discussed, people are upset about is the fact that the music’s gonna be in Spanish.

They’re also upset because he may, he’s alluded to the idea and it’s been reported that he might show up in a dress that would not be in like a, a female dress. This is something he’s done in performances in the past to kind of like support the L-G-B-T-Q community. That may not be received all that well, and then ICE is apparently gonna be there.

Kristi Noam, secretary of Homeland Security, has said that they would be all over the Super Bowl. Her right hand man, Corey Lewandowski, has even scolded the NFL for selecting Bad Bunny saying that he’s somebody who seems to hate America so much. So I, I don’t know, Roger Goodell, he’s the NFL Commissioner.

He’s kind of heard a lot of this backlash. He says, I understand. And he said that bad Bunny understood that the platform he was on and this platform is huge, should be used to unite people and be able to bring people together with their creativity. I think bad Bunny understands that and I think he’ll have a great performance.

So Roger Ell kind of putting out there in the media, like I think he’s gonna be great. I [00:12:00] really hope he doesn’t do anything overtly political ’cause that could be bad. One of the things. Micah that we saw last year that came out of the decision for Bad Bunny was a lot of people saying, okay, we need to do an alternative halftime show ’cause this guy is anti-American.

All of that. And that turned into Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk’s organization saying we’re gonna host one became a whole thing of maybe we’ll bring in some faith-based musicians like Fort Frank and Corey Asbury and all of that to come in and, and do almost a worship service. That idea really fizzled out.

It’s now really. Becoming just a, a big right wing thing and there’s, it’s gonna be a performance. They’re doing an alternative programming. It’s gonna be on their streaming service with Turning Point USA. It’s gonna be on like Daily Wire Plus and Real America’s Voice. All these places. It’s featuring Kid Rock and Brantley Gilbert, Lee Bri, and Gabby Barrett.

So if you’re interested in that, you can go watch that. I think you may see some people tune out and go over there just for this halftime performance and then come back to the game. But we’ll see. But Micah, just general thoughts. Is it wrong for Americans to be upset about Bad Bunny as a performer at the Super [00:13:00] Bowl?

Micah Tomasella: It’s kind of a loaded question, Conner. Is it wrong? I don’t know if it’s wrong. I would just say, let’s all take a step back, examine our priorities. I don’t know personally, I’ve got a lot of work to do the rest of the day. I’ve got a family that I. Get to lead and love and take care of. So I am absolutely not gonna get that upset about whoever the halftime performer is.

There’s just other things that take priority over that. Maybe you can be miffed about it and you can be frustrated, but I, I would say it might be crossing a line if, if you’re really letting it upset you who’s performing at the halftime show. And I, I do understand the concept of, I’d like to watch the halftime show with my family, and I’d like to not worry about crazy stuff flashing.

On the scene, but I think that’s kind of been an issue with the Super Bowl as a whole of how family friendly is it and now it’s becoming more political, being mixed with how family friendly it is. But all of that to say, I dunno if it’s wrong to be upset about it. I think we should all just kind of take a step back and examine our priorities and what we have going on and [00:14:00] hopefully we don’t let it get, get to us too much.

Conner Jones: Yeah. I’m right there with you. I, I, I don’t think it’s wrong. Everybody’s can have their opinion. I just don’t think we need to like, throw a hoopla about the whole thing. If you wanna tune out, tune out. If you wanna boycott the entire Super Bowl boycott Conner.

Micah Tomasella: Yeah, I don’t

Conner Jones: think it’s gonna make a massive difference.

Maybe it will. I would say, I think America is just kind of split on this in different ways. Like a small portion is yeah, we’re gonna boycott. A smaller portion is if you boycott, you’re a bigot and you’re a hater and all of that, and then the majority of America’s like you, Micah. We don’t have the, the just mind.

I hope the majority

Micah Tomasella: of America feels like

Conner Jones: this. I like, I think 90 fish

to

Micah Tomasella: fry. You know

Conner Jones: what I mean? I mean 97% of America is I just wanna watch the game. Yeah. I wanna watch the commercials. The halftime show’s gonna be on my tv. Like even if I’m up and getting food or something around an

Micah Tomasella: American holiday.

Can we just get along? Can we just stop getting so frustrated? Can, can we just enjoy the Super Bowl? You know, like most Americans enjoy the Super Bowl, but Conner, can we talk about jelly roll’s speech?

Conner Jones: Yes,

Micah Tomasella: at the Grammys, please.

Conner Jones: Absolutely. Because this was [00:15:00] the best moment of the Grammys and

Micah Tomasella: I agree.

Conner Jones: Super powerful. So I wanna play a clip of Jelly Roll, the country singer coming up and accepting his award for Best Contemporary Country album for his album. Beautifully Broken. Here we go.

Jelly Roll: I know they’re gonna try to kick me off here, so just let me try to get this out. First of all, Jesus, I hear you and I’m listening Lord.

I am listening, Lord. Second of all, I wanna thank my beautiful wife. I would’ve never changed my life without you. I’d ended up dead or in jail. I’d have killed myself if it wasn’t for you. And Jesus, I thank you for that. There was a time in my life y’all that I was. I was broken. That’s why I wrote this album.

I didn’t think I had a chance, y’all. There was days that I thought the darkest things, I was a horrible human. There was a moment in my life that all I had was a Bible this big and a radio the same size, and a six by eight foot cell. And I believed that those two things could change my life. I believed that music had the power to change my life, and God had the power to change my life.

And I want to tell y’all right now, Jesus is for everybody. Jesus is not owned by [00:16:00] one political party. Jesus is not owned by no music label. Jesus is Jesus and anybody can have a relationship with him. I love you Lord.

Conner Jones: Hmm. Micah incredible. That was powerful and he’s not wrong about any of it. Jesus is not owned by a political party.

Jesus is not owned by a record label. Jesus is all powerful. Jesus gave Jelly Roll that moment. The talents that he has to go up there and glorify him, and that I just loved. I thought it was incredible. What’d you think?

Micah Tomasella: You want to unite people in love in something, lasting something with a foundation.

You tell ’em that. Exactly repent and turn to Jesus. That’s where change comes. There are a lot of people on the right side of the aisle and a lot of people on the left side of the aisle that need to repent and turn to Jesus has nothing to do with what the political party is, and I really love what he had to say.

I just think his story is powerful. I think it pulls us all in when you [00:17:00] have kind of that. Drugs and rock and roll story. You hit the bottom, you’re in prison and Jesus changes your life. I mean, it’s just something that I think a lot of people are drawn to, myself included. I mean, I just think it’s really inspiring.

I’m really grateful that he’s using his platform to make a difference. His music has changed, his life has changed. I just think it’s wonderful.

Conner Jones: His physique has changed. I mean, he’s lost hundreds of pounds. Yeah. Like he, God is moving in his heart. Yeah. And I don’t know how strong his faith is at this point.

And he’s talked openly about like how he’s just trying to learn the Bible and grow it. ’cause he, he was basically faithless a few, just a few years ago. And

Micah Tomasella: then, yeah. But being vulnerable about that is encouraging to people too. He doesn’t have all the answers. I don’t have all of the answers.

Conner Jones: No.

Micah Tomasella: You know, but

Conner Jones: it’s

Micah Tomasella: awesome.

It’s, it’s it’s cool. It’s cool to see him kind of walk through that journey with all of us.

Conner Jones: All that to say that is a redeeming moment for the Grammys, in my opinion. If you look at all the, the, the negative things that came out of it, all the things that are very of the world, very fleshly in the Grammys.

Yeah. And you, you go to that and you’re like, that might have been the best and most viral part of the [00:18:00] whole show because it was different and it was Amen. God glorifying and them zooming in on Reba McIntyre, just smiling from ear to ear because she’s this is just truth. And his life has changed.

She’s known him since the beginning of his career when he was not like this. We are seeing a redeemed man.

Micah Tomasella: Amen.

Conner Jones: And hopefully, hopefully the prayer would be that impacts many lives. And I just wanna leave y’all with this verse right here. One Peter four, 10 and 11 says, and I’m speaking about this because this is it’s making me think of Jelly Roll.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified. Through Jesus Christ to him belongs to glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Micah Tomasella: Amen. Thank you for that. That was a really good discussion. It’s just so interesting how we’re talking about a Grammy’s award show and the Super Bowl, but the cultural implications, just in this time where everything just feels so heated, [00:19:00] jelly Roll kind of gave us, gave the entire culture just a different perspective, and you’re not hearing it very much because the path is narrow.

Yeah. The way is narrow that leads to life. Most people are gonna choose a different path and jelly rolls choosing the unique one and that’s why it stands out. And so it’s beautiful to see. Thanks for taking us through all of that. And I, for one, no matter what happened, I for 1:00 AM very much looking forward to the Super Bowl no matter what all the controversies are.

Oh

Conner Jones: yeah.

Micah Tomasella: Yep. So I’m gonna do a geopolitical, political and cultural roundup here. Alright. Let’s talk about the Epstein files. So the Epstein files, the Epstein document releases are still getting a lot of attention because. They just released a whole lot more millions, actually. They include references to a wide range of well-known people from politics and business and entertainment.

Names that have publicly been talked about for years as possibly in them are in them, and some people are in them a whole lot. People like Bill Clinton. [00:20:00] Photos of Bill Clinton with Jeffrey Epstein. You got Donald Trump and some correspondence, prince Andrew. A lot of things happening in Great Britain right now over this leak.

Elon Musk is in there and other billionaires and media figures show up in different record logs and different contact records, emails and texts and things like that. So the Justice Department says millions of pages have now been released and some professional and political fallout is starting to surface because more and more names are popping up.

Yeah. Names that we did expect, names that we did not expect. But the big clarification that I want to give and that we’ve given every time that we talk about the Epstein files. Is that political experts or legal experts specifically, they keep repeating this, that being named is not the same thing as being charged.

Being named in them is not necessarily guilt. Okay. Jeffrey Epstein was very connected. He was not a good guy, but I think. One thing we have to do is people are complicated. So just because Jeffrey Epstein had a friend and a correspondence with somebody doesn’t necessarily mean [00:21:00] that it had to do with what he actually did.

That was, that was wrong and evil, right? He could just have a relationship with somebody. We have to remember that people are complex. I’m not defending anybody that’s popped up. I think it’s not a good look if your name is in any of this, and I think that you gotta re-envision like who you have in your life.

But at the same time, just ’cause you’re mentioned doesn’t mean that you’re guilty. Conner, how have you taken all this and what have you seen as all these, all this information has been released recently?

Conner Jones: It’s been interesting to see some of the names like you. You mentioned the names that a lot of people already know were, were kind of associated, but there’s, there’s other ones like Casey Wasserman who is Yeah, literally in charge of the 2028 Olympics.

He’s big guy, big agent in Hollywood. He’s supposed to be planning the La Olympics and now they’re about to kick him off the board of that probably because they’re like,

Micah Tomasella: yeah,

Conner Jones: he’s all, he’s not, he’s not just in the emails. He’s like flirting with girls in the email. Like it depends on the content of the emails.

And people like Howard Lutnick who said that they had cut off communications with Epstein, and then a few years later, it turns out they were actually emailing him and trying to find out if they could party with him or, or get a business relationship with him or whatnot. These people [00:22:00] really, who, you’re right, they’re not guilty necessarily of anything.

They’re not being found guilty, but they were talking to a guy who had been found as a child predator Yeah. In 2008, and this is years afterwards and they’re communicating with him. It’s, yeah, it’s true. It’s, it’s, man, if you step into a, a puddle of mud and you come out a little bit muddy. You’re kind of dirty in that sense and at least in some people’s eyes.

Yeah. And so it’s, it’s guilt by association in a social

Micah Tomasella: totally

Conner Jones: circumstance. Totally. I mean, CBS is about to fire Peter Atia five days into his new contract with them because he had emails with Epstein. It’s just not great.

Micah Tomasella: Yep. Yep. So let’s talk about the Clintons bill and Hillary. So on the Clinton side, the tone has shifted towards cooperation kind of all of a sudden, right?

They were gonna be held in contempt by Congress because they were refusing to show up and testify. Now that has changed ’cause some of their. Some of what they wanted, the standards they were met, it’s gonna be public. There’s gonna be certain people there, certain people not there, but they are gonna show up and testify.

So more recent updates show movement towards cooperating to avoid dragging things out [00:23:00]legally. The questions surrounding them around the Clinton’s involvement here mostly relate to past associations. Travel records and what level of knowledge that they actually had of what Epstein was doing. So at this point, it’s largely procedural.

It’s not, you know, they’re not gonna leave in handcuffs, but Republicans wanna make an example of them. Yeah. And to a certain extent, I’m not saying that that’s right or wrong, I’m just saying if the shoe was on the other foot, I know exactly what the other party would do too. It’s just one of those things it, you know, I was just reading Politico this morning.

I mean, in politicos they definitely have a bias, but they are the most connected news source in dc. Really kind of by far, and there’s a lot of Democrats publicly and privately. Can we just be done with the Clintons they bring? I mean, I was just reading this morning, just so many people saying they bring so much baggage.

Yeah, whenever their names come up. Bill had his series of controversies whenever he was president too. And so there are a lot of things coming outta that. So the Clintons is one thing. Let’s talk about Iran. So Iran negotiations, military developments, I’m gonna run [00:24:00] through this real quick. Iran is still one of the biggest pressure points right now internationally.

There are negotiations happening behind the scenes around specifically Iran’s nuclear program. Again, America bombed that and set them way back last year, but. At the same time, there’s some real military tension right now. Earlier this week, US forces shot down an Iranian drone that was moving towards a US aircraft carrier after warnings were ignored.

I was reading this morning about the specific type of drone it was, it’s a one-way attack drone, so you don’t see those drones unless something’s gonna happen, right? It’s not like an observation drone or whatever it might be. It’s a drone that flies into and detonates like it’s supposed to explode.

They’re not interesting. Trying to get the drone back, right? It’s drone. So you see that and you know exactly what kind of drone that is. And so that was headed towards a US aircraft carrier. And around the same time, Iranian gunboats approached a US flagged oil tanker in the strait of hormones. And a US Navy destroyer escorted it safely away.

But that stretch of water really [00:25:00] matters. And this is kind of what we, you know, hey, if something happens with Iran, if that straight gets cut off, well it, it’s a huge percentage of the world’s oil passes through there. And. Even small encounters could shut that down and cut off a lot of the world’s oil supply.

So you’re not trying to see a lot of conflict in that area. So there are scheduled talks coming up on Friday, but now Iran is we wanna change venues. We want certain countries there not certain countries there. But from the American side, you know, this seems to be protective and defensive focus on keeping the shipping lanes open.

Talks have not completely stopped either, so we’ll see what happens. Trump has been reluctant, seemingly, even though, I mean even like leaders in Saudi Arabia have been like, Trump just needs to bomb Iran. If we’re actually gonna see like regime change, like there are significant countries in that region basically begging the US to do something more.

And for some reason Trump has been reluctant to do more, so we’ll, we’ll see how all that turns out.

Conner Jones: Yeah, I’m very curious to see what [00:26:00] his decision’s gonna be. These talks on Friday are huge.

Micah Tomasella: Yes.

Conner Jones: It will basically determine if we’re gonna move forward in negotiations or if Trump’s gonna bomb him. It’s gonna come down to that.

If they agree to what the US is saying, they need to agree to the, the pressure’s on. There’s literally an armada sitting off the coast of Iran, just like there was sitting off the coast of Venezuela earlier this month with Trump just being like, I will. Take you out essentially to the leadership of Iran.

Anybody who killed protesters. Yeah. I’m gonna take you out specifically and we’re gonna topple your regime, but Trump’s trying to avoid that. He wants talks to go through. He wants to help the Iranian people, but he also wants to protect American interest. I know that’s the case. And he doesn’t want to send troops into harm’s way if he doesn’t have to.

Micah Tomasella: No. Yeah. I think no matter what your political affiliation is, the vast majority of Americans would agree that. Iran’s not great and they don’t treat their people super well. But at the same time, we don’t want more war, more innocent bloodshed. So prayerfully, this can be solved through diplomacy. Okay, let’s talk about Don Lemon real quick.

And the face Act. Okay. Specifically I wanna talk about that. So Don Lemon, that [00:27:00] situation has turned into a debate about. The difference between journalism and protests, and if you’re a journalist, are you immune to maybe what these protestors, there’s less argument. There’s less bipartisan argument right now over, you know.

Okay, so this, this church was stormed in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago. Don Lemon was a part of it, rushed on stage, interviewed the pastor. The pastor apparently has some sort of ties with ice anyway, they were just doing their normal Sunday church service. All these videos and pictures surface of these protesters running in, shouting, vulgarities, and basically disrupting the church service, right?

And so Don Lemon was a part of that. So Lemon was arrested by federal agents and faces, civil rights charges related to his ties to the protest. He says he was there strictly as a journalist and he’s gonna plead not guilty. You know, Conner, you and I were already talking about this. This is just gonna grow his platform significantly.

Oh yeah. Like him getting arrested only helps him as far as like his audience and his growth. But part of the legal backdrop that I wanna talk about is the FACE Act, which stands for Freedom of Access to Clinic [00:28:00] Entrances Act. Okay. So it’s a federal law from the nineties that makes it illegal to force to use force to threats or use threats or physical obstruction to interfere with people who are entering places like.

Like a Planned Parenthood, but it also applies to houses of worship, to any house of worship, a mosque, a synagogue, a church. So supporters of the arrest. Say if someone crosses from reporting into interference, the law should apply the same to everybody fearing that if it’s allowed, more places of worship can be rated in the name of protest.

I think that that’s my personal concern of if you just let this go. Then I think that we’re gonna see more of that happening. That you could just be in church and protestors can just rush in and try to ruin it. Like there, there should be a way to stop that. But then critics say that, you know, applying a law like this to journalists risk blurring the line between covering an event and participating it.

And I think that that’s what the trial’s gonna come down to. ’cause the FACE Act is the face act. So like they have something to charge him on. Was he premeditating this, was he truly a part of the protest or did he just kind of join in as a [00:29:00] journalist? That’s what the trial’s gonna come down to.

Conner Jones: Yeah, it is. And obviously he’s just a, he’s always been kind of polarizing because. One of the faces of CNN back in the day in the, in the first Trump era, and very liberal in his ideologies. And so a lot of people were like, ah, yeah, he’s getting what he deserves. But ultimately, yeah, there’s some constitutional law that comes into here.

Micah Tomasella: First Amendment, you have, look at law here, you know, because we want journalistic freedom, but we want freedom to worship too. I think most people are gonna agree with both of those things. You know, we just have to let it all play out and see. See what happens. But again, there’s, there’s just been less argument bipartisan wise about the actual protesters that got arrested because Okay, they clearly violated this act, right?

Yes. But Don Lemon, as a journalist, does he get different treatment? That’s that’s what they’re gonna decide.

Conner Jones: Yeah. It’s, it’s an interesting concept. I’m interested to see how it goes.

Micah Tomasella: All right. So lemme give a wrap up in just a general spiritual application here. As I was tying all of these stories together.

So when you zoom out of all of this, Conner. Conner [00:30:00] Jones, the common thread is how fast we’re pushed to react. I’m thinking about this even with the shooting of Alex Preti and the Renee Goode in Minnesota, and all the protests and immigration and deportation we’re pushed to react quickly from one video, from one headline.

Social media just explodes and then people lock into this strong opinion before all the facts are released. We released that episode last week, and there was more about Alex Preddy that came out after we released the episode, after we recorded it. We are doing our absolute best to report on what we know, but there’s more that’s even gonna come out on that story that we don’t know yet.

And there’s definitely more to every single thing that we’ve discussed that’s going to come out. But there is this thing in culture right now that we’ve got to rush. To conclusions and anger being against being for, from just watching a video or two. There’s just more to the story than that, right?

And that’s just the social media age that we’re living in. [00:31:00] But scripture calls us to a, a steadier pace and to not rush to judgment. I think James one 19 says, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Proverbs 1813 says, if one gives an answer before he hears, it’s his folly and it’s his shame.

The takeaway this week is simple for me that I wanna share with all of you before re reposting something, arguing online, or forming a, a hard stance, just, just pause for a second. Just, just take a beat, say a prayer and ask if you actually know the full story and if your tone reflects Christ as much as your opinion does, maybe ask.

Does my opinion need to be shared right now? Is this going to contribute positively to the discussion and conversation? I also want to just say this on a personal level. I do not subscribe to the idea that silence is violence, okay? Or that watching one short video online suddenly gives us full context and perfect understanding of what [00:32:00] happens or perfect understanding.

That just isn’t true most of the time. Wisdom sometimes looks like slowing down, listening, learning, and admitting that we do not have every detail yet, so we can stay informed without letting outrage control us and we can care about truth without losing our humility or without losing our cool. And a loud cultural and political moment.

Like right now, we just seem to be in a really loud climate right now. Sometimes the strongest witness is not. Shouting louder than everybody else, or being the first to share your opinion. It’s wisdom, it’s patience, and it’s grace.

Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s so true. There’s so much we can take from that just slowing down.

Like we say, a lot of the times, just pause, slow down, don’t post immediately, don’t say something immediately. Think it through, pray it through. All of that. It made me think, speaking of Jelly Roll from earlier after the Grammys, he was asked about the ice stuff and all the political things. He said, why didn’t

Jelly Roll: he say anything?

Conner Jones: Yeah, yeah. He, and he was like, honestly. I don’t know enough. I don’t really sit on my phone. I don’t sit on social media. I’m just a dumb [00:33:00] redneck and I was like, you know what? Props to that.

Micah Tomasella: He’s probably enjoying his life more than most of us.

Conner Jones: Yeah. And just the self-awareness to be like. Why does anybody care?

What I think that’s what Ricky Dravet said a few years ago at the Golden Globes. Remember when he called out all the celebrities. He’s nobody cares what y’all think. Stop doing it. So it’s, I applaud it. Okay, Micah, thank you for that. Let’s answer a quick mail back question. We got this past week Bond wrote in and he said.

When you pick certain words and you repeat multiple times with quite a bit of vocal intensity, you take sides rather than play the middle and report the news. So are you news or are you commentary And he’s, I think he’s speaking specifically about our conversation last week with Dr. Ryan Denison on Alex Pretti on last week’s episode.

Micah, are we news or are we commentary?

Micah Tomasella: Oh, you’re gonna make me go first. I, I appreciate Vaughn’s email here ’cause I think it’s actually something that we should continue to call out. Kind of quantify and explain. There are people who tune in every week who listen for the first time. [00:34:00] There’s been people who have listened every week and have grown with us as we process through the news, as we question our own biases, as we process through exactly what we’re telling you all to process through of, Hey, run to scripture, not to your political bias or feeling our opinion, and be willing to be challenged in what it is that you believe in.

Listen to somebody who believes differently than you. And how do we invite God into news consumption? Like those are the main kind of key points that we keep drawing back to. I would say this, yes, we’re news and commentary. You guys would get kind of bored listening to our show if we just said, Hey, here’s what happened onto the next thing.

But our commentary I is we truly seek to have our commentary rooted in scripture and not one political affiliation or belief over other. Conner and our have our own biases and lens that we look through things. Every single person does. But we do lay it at the feet of Jesus consistently, and we’re very prayerful and fervent in our discussions and in our preparation to view each story as it comes, try to take [00:35:00] in all the facts and try to equip our audience with the details and with the facts.

But ultimately, we just wanna point people back to Jesus and say, there is another way between getting mad or between bearing your head in the sand. There’s somewhere in the middle of that, and we can figure that out together.

Conner Jones: I just would reiterate that too. I think it’s a great question and I’m happy to always talk about it too.

Micah Tomasella: Good

Conner Jones: one. Yeah. Commentary is truth based is what I would say. Truth with the capital T, it’s gonna always point back to the word of God, and that’s what we’re trying to do. We we’re not trying to, you know, pivot for one political party or the other, or always go after one. No, we call out both sides. We’re not just a political thing either.

Obviously we’d love talking about music and movies and TV and all of that, and providing,

Micah Tomasella: we also don’t claim to be experts, like we’ve never, we’ve never claimed. I mean, Conner and I don’t have our PhDs. We have a lot of, you know, a lot of our audiences older and more wise than us has lived, more life than we have, and we acknowledge that.

We don’t claim to be experts, but we’re thankful that God’s given us his platform that [00:36:00] we can grow together.

Conner Jones: Absolutely. Yeah. Great question Vaughn. Thank you for that. You guys can always send us questions at Culture brief@dennisonforum.org or shoot us in a message on Instagram at Culture Reef Podcast.

Go follow us over there, catch some clips of us as well. Okay, Micah, let’s jump into the check-in section.

Micah Tomasella: Let roll. So Trump and India’s Prime Minister Modi each announced on their social media platforms on the same day that they had reached an agreement. Between the two countries, the two largest democracies in the world is what people call them.

India and the USA have entered a trade agreement to lower American tariffs on Indian goods from 50% to 18%. That’s a big dip. Trump said that India would drop its tariffs on some US goods, buy 500 million in American products and stop buying Russian oil. None of which. The last part, Modi mentioned. I think that’s all being worked out on the back end.

That’s been Trump’s biggest thing. He’s trying to cut off Russia in order to stop the war. And so a big part is India purchases a lot of Russian oil that [00:37:00] keeps them going. That’s what this trade deal, I think Trump is, is trying to accomplish in that. Okay. Also, the government shutdown has ended. We mentioned that at the beginning, but lawmakers did reach a last minute agreement that brought the government shutdown.

It was a partial government shutdown to an end reopening all the federal agencies and restoring pay for furloughed workers who were just not even really furloughed for. Day and a half. The deal is temporary though, which means bigger debates and budget debates are still ahead. Specifically around DHS.

Conner Jones: Yeah.

Micah Tomasella: And ICE agents. So it’s gonna be a lot of negotiating on Capitol Hill between Republicans and Democrats and Trump over the next two weeks. Hopefully they can come to an agreement and we can fully fund the government for the rest of the year and stop talking about government shutdowns, which is again, we will say it over and over again until the cows come home.

Worst government shutdowns. Worst are a travesty.

Conner Jones: Yes.

Micah Tomasella: And only hurt people. They don’t really help people. Alright. Finally, Catherine O’Hara. She passed away at 71. She was best known for her roles as the mom and home alone. She was in [00:38:00] Beetlejuice and especially she was known recently for kind of a career resurgence as Moer Rose and Schitt’s Creek.

It’s interesting because she plays a character in that show that is. In the last phases of her career, and she’s trying to resurrect her career, kind of. Yeah. And in the same way that show did the same thing for her, and it’s probably what she, she’s gonna be most known for. She was hilarious in that show.

Tributes from fellow actors and fans have poured in just remembering her sharp comedic timing and her versatility. And really, she was just, she seemed to be really well liked and loved, and left a great legacy. So rest in peace and uncontroversial.

Conner Jones: Uncontroversial Hollywood star who was just beloved.

Yeah. And it, yeah,

Micah Tomasella: it’s sad. I mean, she had her opinions and beliefs, but like she, she did her job and she impacted a lot of people and she was, she was great. I mean, just across the board people were sad to see her go.

Conner Jones: Yeah. It was a sad one. I, she was so funny, man. I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna miss seeing her. She was, she’s supposed to do season two of the studio, one of my favorite shows, and now she won’t be on that.

So that’s, that’s really sad. Something else. Disney, new CEO over there, Josh Dero [00:39:00] has been named as the successor to Bob Iger to take over one of the most influential and biggest companies in the world. This is a massive deal because of how, just how much Disney impacts not just American culture, but world, world culture and generate younger generations coming up.

This is a big deal. Iger. I mean, he’s known as one of the, the best CEOs in history. He’s written books about it. Of course, his biggest. Setback was, he did not appoint a good successor back in 2020 and that’s when Bob Shaak came in, only lasted two years. ’cause it is a tough, tough job in Shaak. Kind of dealt with the political woes of 2020.

Yeah. And COVID. Yeah. And the don’t say gay bill in, in Florida. And it just didn’t go well. So now. Iger was brought back in by the board. He’s been there for the last three, four years and was told, you gotta find a successor. It seems he found two potential candidates. Dana Walden and Josh Dero. They’ve been pitting at each other for the last two years.

It’s been kind of a big saga in the Disney World.

Jelly Roll: Yeah.

Conner Jones: Probably gonna get its own TV show or book. And Josh Dero went out, man. He’s got a control. A movie studio, [00:40:00] TV studio, theme parks, E-S-P-N-A-B, C, all this stuff. And it’s a big deal just because of how

Jelly Roll: well.

Conner Jones: How much is gonna impact our kids and the content that comes outta there.

Is he gonna lean more progressive? Is he gonna try to go back to traditional family values the way that Disney used to be? I hope he does that and goes back to the more conservative values there and kind of pulls away from what Disney was headed towards. And that they’ve

Micah Tomasella: pulled on already. Doesn’t necessarily have to be conservative values.

No. It just doesn’t need to be like overtly one way or another. You know what I mean? Yeah. I, I think that’s probably the most logical path forward. I was reading this morning on, not this morning, I think maybe a couple days ago on The Morning Brew, which is a really interesting email newsletter you can sign up for.

They write up the news in kind of a fun way to consume, I think is like a good way to put it. But they were talking about how the Disney theme parks have, since Josh De has been over them, have consistently outperformed any projections, and it’s kind of been that. Anchor of Disney’s funding.

Conner Jones: It has

Micah Tomasella: A lot of their budget has come from parks when other parts of Disney’s business has been struggling.

Conner Jones: It’s been there,

Micah Tomasella: and so it makes sense that he took over [00:41:00] because he’s doing a good job. So good for him.

Conner Jones: It’s been so profitable. Even with economic woes, he’s still managed to get people to come to the parts and pay more and pay more for fast passes and stuff. They’re still coming and it’s, it’s, it was just kind of, it was clear to the board, I think.

Let’s do tune

Micah Tomasella: in Conner. What else?

Conner Jones: Tune

Micah Tomasella: in. What’s going on? Tell

Conner Jones: us, man, Micah, I love, I love when the drums start playing and you hear that Olympic theme, music start to play. Yeah. It’s cool that John Williams theme come in because the Olympics start. Actually, I think they start on Wednesday or Thursday of this week for with some preliminary sports.

But the opening ceremonies for the Milano Corino Winter Olympics will be on Friday. They’re broadcasting live at 1:40 PM Eastern on NBC and Peacock. They’ll play again that night. But dude, it’s gonna be awesome. I love the Olympics. I love the Winter Olympics. Micah, do you have a favorite Winter Olympic Sport?

Micah Tomasella: USA baby.

Conner Jones: Just USA? No,

Micah Tomasella: just USA. Whatever it is. Okay. If an American’s competing, I’m rooting for them. We also have the Super Bowl coming up. Tune in. Oh yeah. Seattle [00:42:00] Seahawks versus New England Patriots at five 30 Central Time on NBC. Enjoy the Super Bowl with your friends and family. It’s a beautiful American pastime.

Eat a lot of junk food. If it makes you happy, just enjoy the day. People always say that Americans should have Monday off because the Super Bowl Sunday is always such party, and it should be a national holiday, a federal holiday. Maybe one day it will be. But thank you for joining us is

Conner Jones: our message to our.

Bosses right here. Hey guys, would y’all, would y’all give us Monday off so we can enjoy the Super Bowl

Micah Tomasella: fully? I love it. I love it. Guys, thank you so much for joining us for this week’s episode of Culture Brief, a dentist informed podcast. All articles and videos mentioned will be linked in the show notes.

And if you enjoy today’s episode, would you please please subscribe and rate and review the show and share it with a friend? Why? Why don’t ya? And we’ll see ya next Thursday.

Conner Jones: See y’all.

 

The post Bad Bunny, the Grammys, Super Bowl outrage, Don Lemon arrest & Epstein update | Ep. 55 appeared first on Denison Forum.

Source: Bad Bunny, the Grammys, Super Bowl outrage, Don Lemon arrest & Epstein update | Ep. 55

A Chores List For An 8-Year-Old Boy From The Early 1990s Demonstrates How Far Our Society Has Degenerated Since Then | The Economic Collapse

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One of the keys to being successful in life is a strong work ethic.  No matter where you find yourself, if you are willing to work hard you are more likely to get ahead.  This is something that I have studied for many years.  Tom Brady, Michael Jordan and Jerry Rice were all born with physical gifts, but so were countless others.  The primary reason why Tom Brady, Michael Jordan and Jerry Rice are now considered to be some of the greatest athletes of all-time is because they simply worked harder than everyone else.  When Tom Brady came out of college, he didn’t have a gun for an arm and he was very slow.  He was not a highly regarded prospect, and so he was drafted in the sixth round of the NFL draft.  But once he got into the league, he worked like mad, and eventually he won seven Super Bowls.  If he had not been willing to work extremely hard, he could have easily faded into obscurity without ever accomplishing much of anything.

Have you noticed that a lot of young people today don’t want to work hard?

There are a lot of employers that specifically avoid hiring those that are fresh out of college because they have a reputation for being lazy.

Of course the reason why they are not inclined to work hard is because they have never been trained to work hard.

If kids do not learn self-discipline when they are young, they are not likely to learn it as adults.

That is why it is vital to create a structure that makes self-discipline a part of their normal routine.

Recently, a man named Carol Randolph Jr. shared a chores list that he was expected to complete as an 8-year-old boy in the early 1990s…

A chore list from a Philadelphia household in the early 90s has been praised by users on social media.

The list, posted on Threads by Carl Randolph Jr., (@fatcarl_sp) lays out daily, weekly and monthly expectations that began when he was just 8 years old.

His father, Carl Randolph Sr. wrote instructions for making the bed, completing homework, doing laundry, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, vacuuming, wiping down furniture, and even washing down the exterior of the house with a hose, weather permitting.

Carl Randolph Sr. was a single father, and so having a very strict routine was very important.

And by having all of the household tasks on a regular schedule, it ensured that everything ultimately got done…

What percentage of parents have a list of chores this extensive today?

Needless to say, that number would be really, really small.

So where did Carl Randolph Sr. get his work ethic?

Well, it turns out that he served in the U.S. Navy…

Before school, Carl Jr. was expected to make his bed, eat breakfast, check homework for “neatness and completeness” and be out the door before 6:50 a.m. In the comments, he clarified that his father was in the Navy.

Dishes could not be left in the sink. Trash had to be taken out and liners replaced. Even leisure time was conditional—earned once obligations were met. The tone is firm but not punitive, focused less on control and more on preparation.

“We had fun doing these duties, but he didn’t play about getting business done or breaking rules,” Carl Jr. said.

In those days, virtually anyone that served in the U.S. military was going to develop a very strong sense of self-discipline.

Of course much has changed since that time.

We have gotten soft as a society, and our system of education is completely failing our young people.

Just look at what is happening to ACT scores for college-bound seniors…

The level of education that our young people are receiving in our public schools is a joke.

And many of our young people have no moral foundation whatsoever.

Earlier this month, an 11-year-old boy in Pennsylvania shot his own father to death…

An 11-year-old boy faces homicide charges after shooting and killing his father in Perry County, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

WGAL News 8 obtained court documents that reveal new details about what happened the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 13, in Duncannon Borough.

Officers responded to a home on South Market Street around 3:20 a.m. for an “unresponsive male” and found Douglas Dietz, 42, dead from a gunshot wound to the head, according to the documents.

I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.

It appears that he shot his own father to death because his Nintendo Switch had been taken away…

Clayton said he found the key in his father’s drawer and unlocked the safe in an attempt to find his Nintendo Switch, which was previously taken away from him, according to the documents.

Clayton admitted to “removing the gun from the safe, loading bullets into it and walking over to his father’s side of the bed,” the affidavit stated. “He pulled back the hammer and fired the gun at his father.”

We have raised an entire generation of ultra-coddled young people that are completely addicted to entertainment and that have never learned to fend for themselves.

As a result, one out of every five 30-year-old men in the United States still lives at home…

This is during a time of acute anxiety and curiosity about young men in America. Much ink has been spilled about their loneliness, their jawlines, their physical fitness and about being “performative males.” The prolific podcaster Scott Galloway’s book “Notes on Being a Man” jumped to No. 1 on the New York Times advice bestseller list when it was published in November and sparked fresh discussion about the “masculinity crisis.” (On “Today,” Savannah Guthrie asked Galloway why “this particular cohort — young men — have fallen so far so fast” as an infographic citing Galloway’s book noted that 1 in 5 30-year-old men still live at home.)

We wouldn’t be in this mess if we had taught our young people the value of hard work.

When I was born, it was very common for a 25-year-old man to already be married and own a home.

Today, it is extremely rare to find a 25-year-old man that is both married and a homeowner.

There was a time when Americans were known for their work ethic.

Sadly, those of us that have been around long enough to have experienced that are getting older with each passing day.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post A Chores List For An 8-Year-Old Boy From The Early 1990s Demonstrates How Far Our Society Has Degenerated Since Then appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

News Weakly – 1/17/2026 | Winging It

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I Don’t Even …
What do we do with a story like this? Mattel has introduced a new Barbie doll to their line. It’s an autistic Barbie, intended to “celebrate diversity.” There are already Barbies with Down syndrome, a blind Barbie, and dolls with vitiligo. But things like “blind” and “autism” aren’t things we see, exactly, and these dolls don’t do anything, so if it’s not a visible trait, how does a doll help? I understand that everyone needs respect, but is a Barbie doll the best way to encourage it? To me, it feels more like trivializing it. (And it’s ironic since Barbie historically excluded almost everyone “but the beautiful” as defined by … Barbie.)

Iranian Freedom
Iranians have been protesting their government loudly for two weeks now. They’re protesting economic decline and calling for a regime change and the return of Reza Pahlavi. So, as any civilized nation would do … Iran is killing protesters by the hundreds. Pahlavi is the crown prince of the last shah, but he’s not his father. He’s not in favor of “Monarchy 2.0.” He wants democracy for Iran. Clearly the current government is not in favor of Pahlavi … or their own people.

The Double Standard
New York Attorney General Letitia James settled with a Jewish group she accused of trying to intimidate pro-Palestinian activists. Her “settlement” was to threaten them with a $50,000 penalty. “New York will not tolerate organizations that use fear, violence and intimidation to silence free expression or target people because of who they are,” she said … you know … like the pro-Palestinian protesters do by definition. Talk about double standards.

Butt Heads
California Governor Newsom is butting heads with Louisiana who is trying to get a doctor extradited for mailing illegal abortion drugs to a patient in Louisiana. Newsom says, “No!” He’s standing firm on being allowed to kill babies and will refuse to respect other states’ laws. Because killing babies is considered “reproductive health care services.” I can only imagine what the rest of their “health care” looks like when killing patients is classified as “health care services.”

Your Best Source for Fake News
As Trump threatens to annex Greenland (actual story), NATO is asking the U.S. for emergency funding to defend Greenland from the U.S. It doesn’t help that new recruitment ads say, “Visit lovely Greenland.” And, with the Supreme Court hearing a case on transgender athletes (actual story), SCOTUS has asked a five-year-old to explain the difference between boys and girls. Helpful … unless, of course, the five-year-old has already been inculcated by the latest gender insanity.

Must be true; I read it on the Internet.

http://birdsoftheair.blogspot.com/2026/01/news-weakly-1172026.html

New Year’s greetings from 1895 | Elizabeth Prata

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New Year’s greetings from 1895

By Elizabeth Prata

A New Year’s Eve celebration at Restaurant Martin in New York City, 1907. Library of Congress photo

I like to read old newspapers from the 1800s and early 1900s. Especially local ones. Their focus on the minutiae of life is charming to me. The notices of who visited who, who is sick, the price of potatoes, who sold their horse. But even more than that, those people could write well and had a large vocabulary. I especially enjoy reading their obituaries. The sendoffs from this world to the next are eloquent and emotional. They are so unlike today’s obituaries that are so fact-driven and dry.

Our local weekly paper has been in continuous operation since 1895. This is remarkable. Even more than that, many of the oldest newspaper editions have been preserved and digitized. It is these original images I like to read. The old time font, the ads for tonics and liquids sure to drive away the numerous listed ailments…all so amazing to look at from the vantage point of 130 years later.

I brought to my screen the 1895 newspapers looking for obits. I had an idea for a blog article. But like the squirrel I am, I soon jumped here and there to many other articles. The first papers that were preserved were from January 3, 1895, and I got involved in reading the New Year’s news and wishes. It was timely, seeing that I am in the same week between Christmas and New Year’s as that long ago paper, so I changed my focus to copy some of the more interesting published items from that time. This first one doesn’t have anything to do with New Years but I thought it was hilarious, both the incident itself and the paper’s response to it. Newspapers back were cheeky, let me tell you.

DECLINES TO SERVE.
Mr. Wm. C. Berryman, who was recently appointed as a populist committeeman for Harrison district, requests us to announce in our columns, that he is not in politics at all, and that he will not accept the position, and further that he was appointed without his consent or authority. He said further on being interviewed that he was a democrat. We make this announcement for Mr. Berryman with pleasure and hope that he may never see fit to depart from the faith of his fathers. ~Danielsville Monitor, 1895.

My Note: Back then there were the political parties of the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Populists. Populists were new (1892) but suddenly very powerful. Democrats were the dominant party in Georgia at the time. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia,
“In 1892 Georgia politics was shaken by the arrival of the Populist Party. Led by the brilliant orator Thomas E. Watson this new party mainly appealed to white farmers, many of whom had been impoverished by debt and low cotton prices in the 1880s and 1890s. Populism, which directly challenged the dominance of the Democratic Party, threatened to split the white vote in Georgia.” (Source)

source the graphics fairy

To Get the Best Husband.

A very pretty custom was that of tasting the “cream of the well,” the first drink from spring or well on New Year’s morn. The first part of water drawn, the flower of the well,” insured positively the best husband in the parish to the water drawer.” ~Danielsville Monitor January 3, 1895.

thegraphicsfairy.com/

On New Year’s Resolutions

“What a man is at 40 he is apt to remain. No amount of New Year’s resolves will help him who is not full of virtuous endeavor. Jan. 1 dawns brightly to the mind, but the succeeding days conclude dismally as to achievement. Nevertheless its recurrence must ever be pleasant. If it does not bring accomplishment, it at least brings hope, and hope nerves us to bear our burdens, to discharge our duties. We dearly love to think that the cares and troubles of the old year, which so largely spring from our temperament, will not invade the new one.” ~Danielsville Monitor, 1895

New Year’s Don’ts.

Don’t fail to receive New Year’s day with a smiling face.
Don’t usher in that day by declaring you are growing old.
Don’t sent word you are out because New Year’s calls are out of fashion.
Don’t neglect to send a bonbon box to your best girl.
Don’t receive an old friend gloomily on that day.
Don’t trust to new 1895 and slander old 1894.
Don’t fail to send New Year’s greetings to those far away.
Don’t think you may meet your fate in 1895. Perhaps it will be better to miss him.
Don’t be unfriendly. Do all the good you can, and don’t slander anybody.
Don’t turn over too many new leaves for 1895.
Don’t be unhappy about anything. Be a philosopher.
Don’t deride the new year.
Don’t make the day unhappy.
Don’t lose your temper.
Don’t fall in love.
Don’t declare you hate men.
Don’t celebrate too much.

————————-
That is a long list of don’ts! Don’t fall in love?? Anyway, the reference to “New Year’s Calls” or in another article “Calling Day” was the custom of people to go about on New Year’s Day visiting. Since men were not working and women liked to keep up social ties, they took the opportunity to go all around and visit one another. But by 1895 this newspaper piece described the waning days of the custom-

Source, Library of Congress

Originally New Year’s was intended

not for a universal, miscellaneous calling day, without motive or pro- propriety, into which it ultimately degenerated. It was intended for a day when men who had been prevented during the year by business or any condition of circumstances from keeping up their friendship of acquaintance with women they liked or esteemed should pursue social atonement for apparent social neglect and renew their pleasant relations. The idea was excellent and commendable, as was the custom. Before this city grew to be such a Babylon the calls were agreeable, often delightful, to makers and receivers. But the city became too big, and the custom was grossly abused. Many men and women thought only of the number of calls, ignoring quality for quantity, and sometimes the scenes indoors, and outdoors waxed disreputable from overindulgence.”

LOL on calling this rural Georgia town in 1895 a ‘Babylon’. I guess every generation thinks it is the worst?

Carlton News, January 3, 1895 Danielsville Monitor

‘Xmas is over and I think it has been a week of quiet, pleasant enjoyment in our town. There has been nothing to mar the happiness of our people. The usual dinners, suppers, and sociables for young and old which has been immensely enjoyed by all, and the most enjoyable occurrence was the beautiful snow which visited us last Sunday evening and now comes the new year with its number of good resolution and pledges, which we hope to see complied with and feel confident that this year will be more prosperous, and happy than the past. We wish the Monitor a happy, prosperous New Year.

–It must have been a memorable holiday to one and all here in Georgia to receive snow!

Happy New Year, Danielsville Monitor, January 3, 1896

The old year, has passed away and the new year has been ushered in. We should now lay aside all our prejudices and little petty differences, and start the new year on a higher plain. All of our new resolutions should be carried out faithfully, and we should try to make this the most prosperous year of our lives. We are all one people and all of our common interests are the same, therefore we should all strive to that end, that all may be benefited. So here is our happiest greetings to you for the New Year, and we hope that when the end of this new year shall come that you all will be our friends still, and that we will have many new ones added to our list, and we hope that not an enemy will have been made.”

Sometimes 130 year old sentiments are good ones! Happy New Year to all of you from The End Time blog.

2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights | Ep. 50 | Denison Forum

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2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights | Ep. 50

In this week’s Brief: We take a wide-angle look at 2025, what we thought the year would hold, what actually happened, and what surprised us along the way, starting with a revisit to our predictions from January.

Then we talk about the most influential people of 2025 followed by the biggest stories in fashion, food, pop-culture, sports, travel, nature, tech, global news, politics before landing on what we thought was the most defining story of the year.

Plus the biggest biggest flops, most bizarre headlines,the best spiritual moments of 2025, and the lessons, both personal and collective, that emerged as the year unfolded.

And as always, we zoom out to consider how Christians can look back honestly, discern wisely, and move forward with clarity and hope as culture continues to shift.

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Topics

  • (00:00): Introduction
  • (02:10): 2025 Predictions recap
  • (06:42): Fun stats and tidbits from 2025
  • (10:56): Most influential people of 2025
  • (22:33): Prominent deaths in 2025
  • (24:05): Biggest flops of 2025
  • (28:48): Bizarre stories of the year
  • (31:31): Pop culture highlights
  • (34:24): Favorite movies of the year
  • (35:47): Major sports stories
  • (38:15): Travel disasters and aviation incidents
  • (39:22): Natural disasters and government failures
  • (41:58): Global headlines
  • (43:08): Political shifts and controversies
  • (45:53): Biggest story of the year
  • (48:41): Reflections and lessons from 2025
  • (51:45): Looking forward to 2026

Resources

Articles on this week’s top headlines:

About Conner Jones

Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.

About Micah Tomasella

Micah Tomasella is the Director of Advancement at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.

Micah Tomasella : I’m Micah Tomasella,

Conner Jones: and this is Culture Brief, a Dennison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology, and so much more. And we do it all from a Christian perspective, and we are doing a 2025 recap episode. Micah, are

Micah Tomasella : you excited?

Oh, I’m excited. I know that our audience, if they could speak right back to us right now, are just brimming with joy, excitement to recap the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2025 together.

Conner Jones: Yeah, man, I would say it was definitely a interesting and chaotic, but somewhat formative year, you know? Yeah, for sure.

Micah Tomasella : For

Conner Jones: sure. I think. Here’s what we’re gonna do, Micah. Yeah. We are gonna go back to our very first episode of 2025 in January. We made some predictions of what we thought could happen this year, so we’re gonna hit on those predictions. We’re gonna go through some other. Fun stats. We’re gonna talk about prominent people in 2025.

We’re gonna talk about the most bizarre stories, the biggest flops of 2025, and then we’re also gonna hit on the most important [00:01:00] stories that happened this year. Looking back at the episodes we recorded, just looking back at headlines and news, and then we’ll definitely talk about what did God teach us this year?

Yeah, that is something so big. What did we learn through this? What did we hope you guys learned through this? And what’s God pressing on our hearts as we look forward to 2026?

Micah Tomasella : And just the cultural impact. Of these stories is something to kind of keep in mind and frame the mindset as we head into this discussion.

It’s gonna be a fun one. We’re gonna fly through a lot of information together, looking back in order to look forward. It’s not just living in the past, just to live in the past, like we’re looking forward to what God’s gonna do in our lives. In your lives and in the lives of those who are in our country and around the world heading into 2026.

But just keep in mind, Conner said a great word here. It’s a very formative year. I think that’s the perfect way to put it. Good things and bad things. I think 2025 really help shape what culture’s gonna look like moving forward. There’s always surprises, but we saw a big shift here and so prayerfully, I hope some things change and honestly, prayerfully, I hope some things stay the same.

So let’s jump into it.

Conner Jones: Alright, let’s jump into, are we calling this the brief? I don’t know. [00:02:00] Let’s jump into the recap. The recap. There we go. The recap. The recap. Okay. Perfect.

Okay. Let’s start with our 2025 predictions. From January very first episode, we dropped these predictions. Oh, lordy. You know what Micah? I’m a little, I’m a little proud in some instances I’m a little ashamed in others. So let’s just start off. Yeah. We both predicted the Super Bowl champs right up front.

You had predicted the bills. I had predicted the lions. We were both wrong. That ended up being the

Micah Tomasella : Eagles. Yeah. Look, this, that was in, that was in February of this year. You know, so we could technically predict again who’s gonna win the Super Bowl early next year for this season. But anyway, yes, the Eagles won.

Conner and I would never pick the Eagles, even if, even if we knew we were gonna be wrong. We’re not gonna pick the Eagles to win anything whatsoever. Nope. Can’t. I hope they go, oh, in 17.

Conner Jones: Oh yeah, no kidding. Every year. Okay, then we, then we predicted the master’s champion. This is the biggest golf tournament in the world every year.

And Micah, you had predicted a good one. Scottie Scheffler. [00:03:00] Yeah. And I had predicted Rory McElroy. And guess what? Rory did it. Rory won one. He finally got his masters, so we took that one. Good for him. Yeah, good for him. And yeah, I was happy to get that one right. And then the biggest movie at the box office, we made predictions there, Micah, you had said Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning, or Superman, you gave two answers and you still got ’em wrong.

Micah Tomasella : Oh yeah, yeah.

Conner Jones: I had predicted Avatar, fire and Ash. But as of this recording, we’re recording on. December 19th. This is Friday. That movie comes out today. So yeah, we’re not gonna know the answer to this one quite yet. I have a feeling it’s gonna get up there, but we’ll see. It’s gonna be a big one. Yeah, but just so y’all are aware, the biggest movie of the year technically was a movie called NI ZA two from China that made $2.2 billion.

It blew up over here in America too. In a sense. It was translated, but. The biggest US movie was a Minecraft, a movie, and then Zootopia two as well. Come on. So in all three animated films, the kids want to go to the movies, guys. That’s what Hollywood needs to know, [00:04:00] you know? Okay. Micah, biggest song of the year.

We were trying to predict who would have it. You said Post Malone? Yeah, I said Bruno Mars. Wow. Correct answer was Die With A Smile by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga.

Micah Tomasella : But you didn’t know. He’d partner up with Lady Gaga and put out a banger like that. Goodness gracious. I’m just telling you, man. I know. Good for

Conner Jones: you.

There’s some magic touch there at brutal Bars. Good for you. I personally don’t even like his music that much, but I understand Posty.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah. I think his transition has been interesting from more r and b hip hop to. Country kind of still r and b, hip hop type of country. I think it’s been an interesting transition, but yeah, he’s all right.

Conner Jones: Okay. And then we threw out some big wild card predictions I had predicted, and this was a big thing back in January when Trump was coming into office when we were doing this. Yeah. I had predicted that the US would annex Greenland and Puerto Rico as new states completely wrong there. Just totally off base.

Actually kind of happy I was wrong. I don’t think we need them as, as states. Puerto Rico is a territory already and [00:05:00] Greenland is its own nation, so that was gonna be interesting if we went down that route. Micah, you had a good one here. You wanna tell us what your prediction was on this one?

Micah Tomasella : I mean, it was a good one.

It was a good prediction to have, but I was wrong. The prediction was that the AI investment bubble will take a hit in 2025 and it didn’t at all. If anything, it’s gained steam. It’s really been the driving force, been the foundation for why we’ve continued to have a bull market in 2025. And why, if you know, you know us with having in investments in the stock market and any of our listeners who invested in the stock market, you can think AI investments for why your portfolio looks good. This year, there were so many industries that took a hit and AI undergirded all of it. And if anything, I’m glad that it didn’t take a massive hit.

Conner Jones: Yeah. The only thing could be it’s actually building an even bigger bubble than it did back in January. I, I,

Micah Tomasella : I actually would say you, I could give me like a wild card, like another one for 2026.

I don’t think this is a bubble at all. I think this is okay. This is the wake. This is the economy now, like AI is the [00:06:00] Yeah, it’s, yeah, it might be, man, there are certain companies doing more or like doing less than we think, but there’s so many companies that you can invest in now that are focusing on different sectors within AI and what AI can do.

And so as long as the technology continues to progress, which it will and co competition does that, we’re in this big competition with China right now and so competition’s gonna continue to drive that and I think this is only gonna continue to go up. It definitely seems like the future. I don’t think there’s going back out and there and there’s pros and cons to that, but I’m just saying investment wise, it helped all of our investments in 2025.

True. Very true.

Conner Jones: Okay, those are where our predictions, we’ll come back in January. We’ll do some more predictions. Yeah, maybe we’ll add some things to that or change it up a little bit and see what we can come up with. But Michael, let’s hit on a couple little fun things from 2025. Just some little stats and tidbits that I think are interesting.

Would you like to guess what the most downloaded app in 2025 was? Chat DPT, without a doubt. You would be correct? Yeah, man, it’s gotta be the ai, just investment. Like without a doubt, [00:07:00] chatty is just up there. He’s just, he’s the most popular guy, most popular pal for everybody right now. I call him chat,

Micah Tomasella : but you know, just chat for short, you know what I mean?

He’s, I think only his mother calls him chatty.

Conner Jones: I, I don’t know, dude. I’ve been in a lot of conversations. People are like, yo, I asked chatty about this. I’m like, ah, that was definitely a Gen

Micah Tomasella : Z or Gen

Conner Jones: Alpha

Micah Tomasella : Who

Conner Jones: said that? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I’m talking about even some of our coworkers here at Dentist and Ministries.

We have Z on staff. We do. We do. Okay. Something else, this is a cool stat, interesting stat. Gallup says that Americans at 2025. Drank alcohol at the lowest level that they have since 1939. That is insane to me. It seems like a positive. I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. I’m not gonna dive into all the reasons, but isn’t that interesting, Micah?

Micah Tomasella : It’s very interesting. Let me give one good reason, one bad reason. There is a more investment in health ’cause there’s just so much at our fingertips now and knowledge is power and so people are understanding the negative. [00:08:00] Results of drinking alcohol. That’s the pro, the con. I think people are getting together less than they ever have.

True. I think there’s more isolation. I don’t think people are meeting for happy hours. I don’t think people are meeting for a drink anymore. You might not love that people go and get a drink and you might not partake in drinking. However, it is a medium to get people together and talking. So I think that that’s also a reason Isolation has led to this as well, which is the con.

Conner Jones: Yep. And there’s also been this massive uptick in non-alcoholic beer and beverages and mocktails and stuff. Yeah. So you get kind of the flavor, but not the ingredients that cause it to be alcohol. Yeah. I just think it’s interesting. It is a big cultural touchpoint. Okay. Words of the year. So let’s look back at the last two years from Words of the Year that came from like Oxford and dictionary.com and Mirror Webster.

Micah 2023. Everybody’s gonna remember this one. The word era was like the center of everything. Oh, when Taylor Swift was on her big Aris tour, Aris tour eras, everybody’s I’m in my blah blah, blah era. You know, all of that. The word, you know what I’m talking about. Every, every post on Instagram and social media was like in my whatever [00:09:00] era, and then the word Riz and AI came up in 2023.

That’s when AI became kind of like a word everybody knew, but Riz man. Yeah.

Micah Tomasella : 23. In 23, AI was kind of a thought. You know what I mean? Some people had a little bit of AI they were using, it’s way different now and then Riz. Yeah. I’m glad people aren’t saying that as much anymore.

Conner Jones: Yeah, me too. 2024, the words were brat, brain, rott, and demure, all just, you know, related to social media.

You know, that was that big word on TikTok. This year though, we talked about this one earlier in a podcast a few weeks ago. The Oxford Word of the year was rage bait. You know, we, we discussed that and what that means. Dictionary dot com’s, word of the year was 67 or six. Seven, six. That’s what would say, which I still don’t think anybody knows what that actually means.

It just, that’s the point it gets said, that’s the point. It is what it is.

And then Merrim, Webster’s word was slop. Yeah. Which I think they’re relating to ai, but I think you could also apply it to, we talked about this Netflix slop, like Netflix just produces so much bad [00:10:00] television, but so does so many other places, and

Micah Tomasella : so does ai.

It’s the Cheesecake Factory menu of options on. Yep. Things like Netflix. If you do so many things, you can’t do much in excellence. So that’s the trade off. So therefore, yeah, I was reading about, you get Slop,

Conner Jones: I was reading about the origin of the word slop and it came from in like the 18 hundreds. They would just.

Mixed together a bunch of foods to try to make something, and when it plopped down on the plate or whatever, it just, they came up with the word slop. I was thinking stuff that looked bad, what they

Micah Tomasella : fed pigs like pig slop, you know, something like that. Basically, yes, poured into the. Whatever container.

Whatever would what? A pigs out

Conner Jones: the trough eat outta the trough. A trough. The trough, yeah. Yeah.

Micah Tomasella : The trough. Sloping. The

Conner Jones: trough baby. Basically. And now that what those pigs are eating is basically what we’re just ingesting as our entertainment, right? Just on our You go our screens. Yeah. Ai slopping all that.

Okay, Michael, let’s do something fun here. Let’s rank the most [00:11:00] influential people of 20, 25. Now I wanna clarify. We both come up with our names. Mike is gonna say his, I’m gonna say mine. We’re gonna go five to one. This is not necessarily people we think are great. Correct. This is most influential. They had the biggest like impact on the world, on our country in 2025.

And we’re gonna give some honorable mentions afterwards as well. People that like they, it’s just their year. Yeah. For whatever reason, whether they’re doing bad things, good things, high achievements. Yeah, Lowe’s, we’re gonna talk about all of that. So Micah, let’s go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and just give us our power rankings.

I would love to start with your number five.

Micah Tomasella : So I’m gonna do five and then you’re gonna do five and then, yeah, yeah, yeah. So on and so forth. Alright, so just to clarify, the rubric of this was the power rankings of the top five most influential people of 2025. The way that I would define influence is not somebody that you always hear about all the time.

Certainly that does fit this. My definition of influence is somebody who has sway, somebody who has power, somebody who changed the dynamics of [00:12:00] our culture, our country. What’s going on in the world now, but also for the future. So lemme just clarify. That was kind of my rubric for why. Oh yeah. I came up with this top five.

All right. Number five would be Jerome Powell. So he’s not. Flashy, he leads the Federal Reserve. It’s not a flashy pick, but it’s powerful because he’s still there after everything. Trump has hurled at him this year. So Trump has tried everything he can legally to remove him. He has stayed in power, but he has big influence over interest rates, inflation, housing markets, economic confidence, a lot of power in Jerome Powell’s hands.

So that’s why I picked him at number five.

Conner Jones: Yeah, I think that’s a good pick. Just one of those guys who’s kind of behind the scenes a lot of times, but his words carry a lot of weight because the economy listens. Yeah. Wall Street listens, right? We all are impacted by that. My number five is another one that you may not know super well, but it’s Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, and the reason I’ve picked him is because man, he’s been, his hands have been in everything from Hollywood to politics [00:13:00] to just world affairs and everything.

Yeah, I would say. First and foremost, he’s just a massive Trump donor, so he has a lot of influence over Trump. He was at one point this year, the world’s wealthiest man. He took over Elon Musk for two days, a few days there back in September. He’s not that anymore. He was worth 400 billion at that point.

He’s now sitting at like 233 billion. Not a bad bag, but he’s definitely, he’s, he’s dropped back down to Earth a little bit. That’s close to half. Wow. Yeah, he’s, it goes up and down, you know, stocks. Yeah,

Micah Tomasella : yeah, yeah. But

Conner Jones: with Oracle, he’s now got his fingers in Defense Department contracts, department of Energy contracts, AI contracts with the government.

Yep. His son is trying to buy Warner Brothers with Paramount, and he’s also now a part of a group that is buying TikTok. That was actually announced this week. He’s gonna have his hands on TikTok. So a lot of influence from this guy who, a lot of people don’t know, but he’s, he’s got his hands in everything.

We’re quite influential.

Micah Tomasella : Yep. Yep. Okay, so my number four is Benjamin Netanyahu. Hmm. Who is the. [00:14:00] He’s the Prime Minister of Israel, right? That’s his title. Yeah. Pm Yep. So you’ve got Israel’s ongoing war, regional instability in the Middle East, global diplomatic fallout, keep Netanyahu at the center. Bibb, as his friends would call him, of one of the most consequential geopolitical moments in decades.

So like he’s had a lot of accusations hurled at him. People love him, people hate him, but there’s a peace deal now in place they’re trying to regulate and try to get some relations moving forward. Between Israel and Saudi Arabia and you know, him and Trump have been going at it kind of back and forth with each other all year.

So I, you know, for global stability purposes, that’s why I picked him in number four. Yeah,

Conner Jones: I agree. He is definitely up there on my list as well. Okay, number four for me was Elon Musk, just because, I mean, you say his name, everybody knows who he is. He’s got his hands in ai, obviously social media with x.

Obviously at the beginning of the year, he was one of the most powerful figures in government. Briefly. Yeah. Even though he wasn’t even like an official employee. Yeah. [00:15:00] Just everywhere. Trying to get us to space, trying to get us in ai, trying to get the government to slash funds. It is insane how much Elon Musk was involved in this year, and he’s just is and probably will be for many, many years.

One of the most influential people on earth.

Micah Tomasella : Yep. That makes sense. All right. My number three is Sam Altman. Sam Altman is. CEO and founder of Open AI and AI is no longer theoretical guys like we’ve been talking about. It’s shaping education, work warfare ethics in real time. And Altman sits at the center of that conversation and has outsized influence over where all of this AI stuff goes has influence in the White House.

But even just the fact that open AI is like going head to head. With Google in ai, with meta in ai, I mean, he’s going up against Elon in AI and kind of winning most of the time. It’s, it’s actually unbelievable kind of how he came outta nowhere and wields a [00:16:00] tremendous amount of influence in the tool that we’re starting to all use now, and we’re gonna be using more in the future.

Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s funny, my number three is also Sam Altman because you’re exactly right man. He’s just, this AI thing is huge. I don’t know if he will stay at the forefront of it forever, but this year was a big year for him. Big

Micah Tomasella : year

Conner Jones: for him became a household name and an open ai. Just grew and grew and grew.

Now they’re losing money daily. Yeah, like they have not made a profit yet. A lot of ’em are though. He’s gotta turn the ship around, but if he can, it’s gonna be huge. Okay. Alright. Mike, what was your number

Micah Tomasella : two? Yeah okay, so we had the same number three. My number two is actually. Jinping of China. The leader of the People’s Republic of China, and yeah. China’s had an economic slowdown that they tried to put a bandaid on. They’re building up their military infrastructure to potentially trade, you know, to attack and invade Taiwan. Yep. And there’s growing tension with the West, specifically Donald Trump in the US of A, which makes [00:17:00] Q1 of the most influential figures shaping global stability this year.

I would say the reason why I put ’em at number two is that whatever America is doing to stay on top, to become on top, whether if that’s with energy with ai. With modern warfare, with the fleets and the military and planes. I mean, just name it educational, like whatever it might be. I think Chi and his leadership and what China’s doing is a huge driver for everybody here in America who’s in a position of power of we can’t lose ground to them.

So that’s why I put him at number two because he’s been kind of the boogeyman, which has led to good and bad things of what we’ve been doing here in the west.

Conner Jones: Yeah. We’re in kind of this odd cold war ish state. Yeah. With China. Yep. We used to be, the Soviet Union was our biggest foe, and now it definitely feels like China is, but for sure they’re trying to build a relationship.

I know Trump and Qi are meant to meet like four times in 2026. They’re,

Micah Tomasella : yeah, they’re frenemies. You know what I mean? It’s like Right. Nobody wants war, I don’t think, but they drive each other to grow. They drive each other to, there’s [00:18:00] to be better mutual or whatever you would define as better. They drive each other to make more money.

How about that? We’ll say that. We need each other essentially to a certain extent. Yep.

Conner Jones: My number two was actually Charlie Kirk, who obviously is no longer with us. That makes, makes sense. But man, just the impact and this is gonna be more American impact. So global wise, maybe not as much, but I just think the impact that he had even before he died on US policy and the way people thought about politics and stuff, and especially in the right wing sphere to.

Even after he died, really having this postmus impact, man, what a, what a life he lived and what a legacy. He’s left and we’re actually seeing the whole of his leadership in the right wing sphere now, there seems to be like no central figure that’s tying it all together the way that he did. And there’s warring factions within the right.

I think we’re just seeing how much of an impact Charlie had in politics, but also now we’re getting to see how much of an impact he had in faith. And we’re gonna talk about that again later. But yeah, I just think number two makes, makes sense for him.

Micah Tomasella : Cannot, cannot hate on that. Pick at all, man. Rest in peace.

Charlie Kirk. [00:19:00] What an impact, what a legacy. He left.

Conner Jones: Yep. Okay. Okay, Micah, we both had the same number one, so should we say it at the same time? Yeah.

Micah Tomasella : Okay. On three. 1, 2, 3. Donald, Donald. J Trump. Trump,

Conner Jones: you didn’t know I was gonna say the J did you? DJT.

Micah Tomasella : Oh, no, I, I didn’t know when you were gonna say it. So people are tired of his name.

Yeah, but the reality is that US politics, global alliances markets, media narratives completely and utterly orbit around him. Love, himer, hate him. His gravitational pull is absolutely unmatched in 2025. He’s the most important person, not only in America. He’s the most important person in the world. And it’s clear.

It’s clear. Good, good, bad, and ugly. That’s the truth.

Conner Jones: Look, there’s some things, if you’ve listened to us all year, you know, Mike and I both have things that we like that Trump did Totally. We both have things that we don’t like. Totally. And there’s things that he’s done that match up with scripture, things he’s done that does not.

So it’s hard totally to fully judge that. But there is no denying, he’s not even just the most influential person of this year. Maybe just [00:20:00] in history, one of the top, and when you think about world history, he’s up there, man, the influence he has since

Micah Tomasella : 2016. He’s had a vice grip, and you know what? It’s just the way he likes it.

Just the way you, it’s just never been, it

Conner Jones: never been as strong as it is now. Okay. Let’s, let’s hit on some honorable mentions here, Micah, that we did not rank in our top five, but we thought were worth mentioning of other influential people. Okay. You wanna just give us some of your names?

Micah Tomasella : Yeah, I’m gonna run through mine.

Elon Musk. Vladimir Putin. Emir Zelinsky. Bob Iger. Pope Leo Shhe. Tani. And I said Luca ic. ’cause that was, that was the biggest sports story of the year probably. Pretty close when, when he got traded for a bag of beans, basically like maybe an old washing machine or something. But that, that was a gigantic story.

That’s why I threw him in there.

Conner Jones: Yeah. And then he’s gone to the Lakers and he’s just taken off. Yeah, so it, it’s been a year for him, man. My honorable mentions also, I said Bob Iger, that’s the Disney CEO. And then also Pope Leo [00:21:00] the 14th. Yeah, just coming into the Vatican there. Vladimir Zelinsky, president of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin, obviously president of Russia. Shhe Tani as well. Just probably dominating sports and making clear he is the best athlete on the planet. And then another one I said, this is kinda interesting ’cause this guy has not even been alive at all this year, but I do not think we can deny the fact that Jeffrey Epstein still is having an impact on at least American culture.

To this

Micah Tomasella : day and not in good ways, honestly, like a word for 2025. If another dictionary type website that’s looking for some like recognition, they could say the word for 25 was Epstein or Epstein files. If you could say that. Yeah, absolutely. The amount of times Americans have said Epstein individually.

Just think about it yourself. Like we’ve said Epstein a lot. I’ve definitely said it more than slop and rate bake. Yeah. Same. And six seven. Yeah. Anyway.

Conner Jones: Yeah. And even on the internet, Epstein is just everywhere. And I also wanna point out, I think his victims are part of this too. Totally. Like they’re also influential.

They’ve been so influential in getting this push to the [00:22:00] forefront of culture and getting, trying to get justice for good thanks. And we’re kind of backed up on this a little bit by Wikipedia’s top five searches. I look to see what they had published as their top five searches of 2025 on Wikipedia’s website.

It includes number five was Pope Leo the 14th. Number four was Donald Trump. Number three was Ed Gain the serial killer, which had the Netflix show come out this year. So I assume a lot of people were just like, oh wow, okay. Interested in him as a serial killer. Interesting. Number two is deaths in 2025, and the number one page visited in 2025 was Charlie Kirk’s Wikimedia page.

Yeah. Yep. Makes sense. Micah, we lost some prominent people this year, sadly. Obviously lots of people die every year, and that also includes just people who were celebrities or athletes had some sort of influence in culture and in the world. So just kinda wanna list these out. It’s kind of interesting to go back and you forget some of the people that passed away this year, but we’ll hit on some of those.

I’m gonna go backwards from December all the way to January. So as we go through this, if you’re listening, you’ll be like trying to remember, you know, and think, wow, I [00:23:00] totally forgot this person passed away. Just this week, sadly, we lost a NASCAR racer, Greg Biffle, and you and I were talking about him.

Before this incredible NASCAR racer, one of my favorites as a kid growing up, I loved watching Greg Biffle race his cars and his trucks. He died in a plane crash this week that he possibly was flying his private jet and his whole family was on there with him. Just so tragic in that way. So just wanted to mention that real fast.

But also we lost Rob Reiner in a terrible way just a couple weeks ago. Then Dick Cheney, Diane Keaton, Robert Redford, obviously Charlie Kirk. Hulk Hogan, Ozzy Osborne, Michael Madson. Pope Francis Val Kilmer. Man, I forgot we lost Val Kilmer. Mm, George Foreman, gene Hackman. That was also a bizarre story back in February, the way he passed away.

And the David Lynch, the director, and obviously that’s not everybody. Rest in peace y’all. But yeah, hard year for those families. And so if anything, we can be praying for those families and also just remember some of the great things that those people left behind as legacies in their work. [00:24:00] Totally. Micah, I’m ready for a fun part here.

Yeah. We gotta hit on the biggest flops of 2025. Yeah. And by flops we’re talking like stories or headlines that just did not go the way anybody wanted.

Micah Tomasella : Major disappointments. People being stupid, organizations being stupid. Yeah. Let’s do it. What do you have first up there? The one that seems most obvious was Karen Bass, who’s the mayor of LA when she knew of a fire risk and decided to go on her trip to Africa while her city burned to the ground.

That was, yeah. That was terrible leadership and to come back and make excuses, it just did not look good. She had people on her side of the aisle really not liking her and really haven’t forgiven her for how all that worked out. And even just the decisions made within the Californian government, but also just the city government that led to those wildfires.

Yeah, just, just a failure of leadership there. That was, that was a big flop. Lots

Conner Jones: of failures. I honestly am surprised she has not been like [00:25:00] impeached by the city, but

Micah Tomasella : she’s like talking about running for president or something. Everybody’s

Conner Jones: talking about running for president,

Micah Tomasella : but

Conner Jones: she has no

Micah Tomasella : chance, man.

And then signal Gate. Dude,

Conner Jones: that was a fun one. I mean, not really, but kind of, you know, like it was just these guys in power, like the most powerful people in government, Pete h, Pete and J Vance. Yeah. Texting war plans to bomb the Houthis just on signal, and we could accidentally adding a journalist to that who then published the messages.

Just unreal signal Gate. I just

Micah Tomasella : can alm I almost don’t believe it was on accident, but I don’t know. That just seems crazy to me, especially ’cause like you and I talked about this, this was the, the guy who heads up the Atlantic, they’re like New York Times level left, of all the media people to included it.

You know, I, I just, it’s hard to believe that was an accident somehow, some way, whether, if it was, I don’t even know what the reason would be. I can’t even come up with it, but that doesn’t feel like an accident. Something else I said just legacy media. Legacy media had another terrible year in the eyes of the public.

True, [00:26:00] no, no traction and gained trust. Trusted even less. Legacy Media is taking a huge hit. Social media news, YouTube news, independent news organizations, and people are popping up and legacy media continues to falter, so I would just say they did no damage control and made it worse for themselves in 2025.

Yeah,

Conner Jones: I fully agree with that. Another big one that kind of a flop was Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency Flop. That was totally, that was headed up by Elon Musk for a solid two months. Made a big impact, freaked a lot of people out, cut a lot of aid agencies and all of that. But then Elon left and it seems like we’ve never heard of Doge again.

Remember how big of a deal that was back in like February and March and everyone was talking about it all the time. And then Doon Musk Trump do, yeah, their bromance that they had just. Blew up and then Elon tweeted that Trump’s in the Epstein files and it just, it just went from like their best friends and buddy buddy cops like Elon standing next to him in the Oval Office every other day to they hate each other.

It was crazy.

Micah Tomasella : Public love and public hate just really [00:27:00] signifies. Oh my goodness gracious. If this ain’t 20, 25 for you, Conner, tell us about Snow White.

Conner Jones: Snow White was probably the biggest movie flop of the year. That was why I put that in here. Just massive budget. This is Disney movie, $270 million, and it only brought in $43 million in box office.

We even had a episode where we talked about why this happened, the liberal part of it, the activism part of it, what caused it to blow up, and it was just a big flop. Yep, big one. And then also, Micah, we have to just say a big flop is the Democrats shutting down the government and quite literally getting.

Nothing out of it. The government was shut down for a month and a half and they kind of like held the US population hostage in a way to extract, you know, things that they were wanting for healthcare and Obamacare, and they didn’t get a

Micah Tomasella : thing I think you could add to the flop of 2025 is all the lawmakers on both sides who made that battle about themselves.

While the American people, specifically those who worked for the government, suffered and struggled. And didn’t get paid for 43 days. I think that that was probably. The bigger flop

Conner Jones: and while they [00:28:00] got paid in Congress, just unbelievable.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah, absolutely. And then finally, you know, I added just in fighting within MAGA and the Republican party, just sticking their nose up and saying, I guess we’re just allergic to any kind of prosperity, right?

To just be like, Hey, the Republicans say Hey, we’ve got control of all three major branches of government. We’re gonna get significantly less done. I’m not saying stuff didn’t get done, but significantly less done because there’s been so much time fighting and putting out fires as opposed to just from their perspective getting done what needs to get done for the American people.

We’d say the same thing if the Democrats were in charge of all three. Absolutely. And then they were fighting within, you know, their own ranks and there has been a lot of fighting within their ranks, but they’re not in power right now. So that’s felt like a big flop to me. Yeah. Like distractions.

Conner Jones: Yeah. Big.

And the big thing was the Epstein files ripped the party apart in a way. Okay. Other bizarre stories we’re just calling it the most bizarre things that happened this year that at least that we could think of.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah.

Conner Jones: One of them, I would just say up top is the, unfortunately the Rob [00:29:00] Reiner and his wife being killed by their son, like just crazy.

That whole thing is just very sad and tragic, but also just so weird and bizarre. Yeah, I know. We’ll learn so much more about that ’cause that’s still a fresh story. But Micah, if you had said in January that. Three of these people would be arrested. I would’ve thought you were crazy. Who am I talking about?

Chauncey Billups, NBA Hall of Famer. Mark Sanchez and head coach of the Trailblazer we’re back. Fox Sports

Micah Tomasella : contributor.

Conner Jones: Yeah, Mark Sanchez and then Sharon Moore, head coach of the Michigan football team. All three of these guys, huge in sports world, arrested for bizarre things. Chauncey Billups being caught up in illegal poker games with the mafia.

Mark Sanchez stabbing a man in Indianapolis after everybody thought that he was the one who got attacked. It was apparently him who did the attack. And then Sharon Moore getting arrested for threatening the life of a female staffer that he was apparently having an affair with. Just golly crazy. So bizarre.

Crazy stories. Bizarre. Yep. All right, Mike, [00:30:00] it’s time. Let’s discuss our biggest stories of 2025. And we’re gonna do this through different sections we’re we kind of got it broken down into different categories that speak to culture. So let’s just start up top with kind of the lighter thing. So start with fashion.

I would say maybe you agree with me the biggest story in fashion, and we’re not fashionistas, so this is just kind of what we know, right? Things that bled

Micah Tomasella : out of the fashion world, like what story bled out of that into the general. Population. ’cause that’s why we would pay attention to it, right?

Conner Jones: Yeah. I’m, I’m, you, you don’t find me reading like the Vanity Fair Magazine.

Pieces don’t lie. Fashion don’t lie, don’t lie. Okay. I won’t. I would say the biggest story was American Eagle and the Sydney Sweeney Jeans campaign that they had that just took over the world by storm in July, August. And everybody was upset, or they were happy for what I say for three

Micah Tomasella : weeks. It was like the biggest story.

Yeah. Definitely. That makes sense. Okay. Here’s

Conner Jones: what we can say. American Eagle made a lot of money during that time, and they no doubt, ended up this year in the green and

Micah Tomasella : nobody apologized for anything. Nope. No. Sydney Sweeney, [00:31:00] not American Eagle. Nobody apologized for a darn thing.

Conner Jones: Nope. They just made money yep.

Good for them. I guess this could have been in the flop range, but this food story. Yeah, this is the food category. We gotta go with Cracker Barrels rebranding disaster. Terrible. Yeah. That did not go well. They’re gonna teach that one the business schools for a long time. Marketing, advertising pop.

Yeah, totally. Marketing. Yeah. It literally every leadership, everything, just the whole thing was a disaster. What not to do. Yeah. They literally reverted back to what they just currently are. It was one big, expensive disaster. Okay. Let’s talk about pop culture. I think one of the big things that happened this year for a lot of people was Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got engaged.

That does not really impact any of our lives individually, but. People are happy about it. They like Travis, they like Taylor, obviously. Another big one, Jimmy Kimmel. Remember he got suspended a few months ago and that was like a huge deal ’cause of what he said about Charlie Kirk after Charlie was killed and all of that.

Yeah, that was crazy. Yep. I felt like that was a big one. Netflix buying Warner Brothers, if you’re curious about that. We [00:32:00] dedicated a whole episode of that at the beginning of December. I would highly suggest listening to that episode ’cause we just broke down what that’s gonna mean for culture and entertainment.

Micah Tomasella : It’s still not done yet. We’ll see. But it’s looking like it’s moving in that direction. But there’s a lot of hurdles still to jump through.

Conner Jones: Definitely. Definitely. Okay, Micah, we’re gonna go through ID B’S five most popular TV shows of 2025 that we’re gonna give our own. And so here’s what IMDB said was so popular.

This is based off their page views, just so you are aware, like here’s what got the most traction on their website app. White Lotus, the last of us, severance Wednesday and Squid Game. Most watched show of the year was Squid Game season three. None of that surprising to me. Those were all very big popular shows.

But Mike, I’m curious, what was your favorite show of the year?

Micah Tomasella : Before I answer that, which of these did you watch?

Conner Jones: You a severance

Micah Tomasella : guy, right? I love Severance, dude.

Conner Jones: Yeah, that was almost my best show of the year. I love Severance. Actually, I have not seen Wednesday. Have you seen Wednesday?

Micah Tomasella : No. That’s on Netflix, right?

Did you watch the second season of Last of Us? [00:33:00] I did not. Good. Is it worth it? Nope. Okay. See, that’s what I was thinking. That’s what I was hearing. That’s what I was thinking. Okay. So my favorite show of the year, honestly, I’ll say was Psych, which

Conner Jones: is an old show that’s not even, that’s not even this year from USA

Micah Tomasella : Network.

But that was probably what my wife and I watched the most of. And then secondly, I’d probably say my favorite show of the year that came out this year that had episodes was Tulsa King. Okay. On paramount. It’s a Taylor Sheridan show where Sylvester Stallone is, this New York crime family. Mobster moves town to Tulsa, Oklahoma creates his own crime empire, but kind of has a good heart.

And then the last several episodes, Samuel L. Jackson was in it. And so you just see Samuel L. Jackson and Sylvester Stallone just tearing it up. Dude, I loved every second of it. I

Conner Jones: had no idea Jackson came into that show. Wow. Yeah. I’m not surprised. But you’re a big Sheridan guy.

Micah Tomasella : I am.

Conner Jones: Mike.

Micah Tomasella : I am. ‘Cause it’s just, it’s, I mean, I’m not saying it’s real, but it’s just fits more of what real life is and they put you at like in an environment, no matter how gritty it might be, [00:34:00] it just feels more realistic than what a lot of, I’d say Hollywood puts out.

I

Conner Jones: mean, the whole country is watching Billy Bob Thornton driving a truck just through West Texas Landman two, because it’s, yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, land Man Two

Micah Tomasella : is really popular. Yeah. Yeah.

Conner Jones: My favorite show of the year was The Pit. If you’re talking about Just Real, that is the best show of the year if you want Realism and Realisticness and just on Max, on HBO, max, yeah.

HBO. Just incredible hospital show. I would highly recommend that one. Most popular movies of the year, according to IMDB, Micah, was Superman. Weapons Sinners, one battle after another in Jurassic World Rebirth. Did you see any of these films? No. Okay. Did you End of discussion. I saw all of them, but hoping I didn’t see any of of them.

No. No. You didn’t even see Superman. Oh, you guys see Superman?

Micah Tomasella : No. No. I, I, maybe I’ll see ’em. I don’t know. I mean, if, if, if they’re coming out in theaters first, maybe I’ll stream it later.

Conner Jones: That’s why I think all of them are pretty much on streaming at this point. So you got your opportunity. What was your, I guess I’m not gonna watch ’em.

No, I’m saying they are on streaming.

Micah Tomasella : No, no, no. And And then I’m saying, oh, like they’re already out on streaming and I haven’t watched them yet. I guess I’m not [00:35:00] gonna watch ’em. Oh,

Conner Jones: okay. I gotcha. I gotcha. Okay, gotcha. Then, what was your favorite movie of the year? Did you even watch? My favorite movie

Micah Tomasella : was a movie I watched a couple weeks ago called Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery on Netflix, the Knives Out Series with Daniel Craig Al Blanc.

I love those mystery type shows. My wife and I love watching those, and it was. An awesome movie. And it had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. So that’s my number one movie of 25.

Conner Jones: I’m glad you said that ’cause I’m literally planning to watch that one tonight ’cause it’s on Netflix. Netflix, oh, it’s so good.

Oh, it’s so good. Yeah. I’ve heard good things. I did not enjoy the second Knives Out movie. I thought it was terrible. I did not My favorite movie.

Micah Tomasella : I did not either. This is

Conner Jones: better. That’s what I’ve heard. Yep. My favorite movie of the year was F1. Oddly enough, like it’s just a fun just racing movie. It’s like Top Gun but in a F1 car.

Just fun. Go watch that one. Sports stories. Micah, what would you say was the biggest sports

Micah Tomasella : story of the year? Lemme go ahead and warn everybody that some of the shows and movies that we mentioned are not always for kids, so just keep that mind. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. True. [00:36:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah.

Okay. Sports stories. So we had the Luka Donit trade, which I already mentioned for the Mavs. Shipped Luca Don, a generational talent that wanted to be in Dallas for his entire career, over to the hated Lakers, and got basically almost nothing in return. However, we’d ended up getting Cooper flagged. It’s a different story and he’s playing out of his mind right now, but that was through draft.

Rory McElroy finally wins the Masters. That was a huge story. That was his biggest win by far in 2025. Scottie Scheffler still one player of the year and had a better overall year, but this is the last major that Rory needed to win, to actually have all of them. And so good for Rory. I, I think he’s kind of a controversial guy, kind of comes off like a baby sometimes.

Even, even to me I don’t, I’m happy for him, but I, I don’t love his personality if I’m being honest.

Conner Jones: Yeah, same. But this was a big moment for him when he hit the ground just after winning the masters. Yeah. And just cried. It was powerful. Yeah. I would say also in the golf world, this is just big for faith in general.

Scottie Scheffler is the world’s [00:37:00] best golfer. Yeah. And he was very clear that success in being number one in winning championships and winning tournaments is not what brings happiness. Yeah. He finds joy in his faith and in his family. It’s just really cool to hear him be so vulnerable and honest about it.

I would also say another big story was just the NBA betting scandal. This is what took Chauncey Billups down, but just having rigged players in the games and then poker games tied to that with NBA players just bad look on the league, I think.

Micah Tomasella : I think it’s also just a bigger, a bigger story of, as these leagues and players get more intertwined with sports betting and gambling, we’re gonna keep seeing stories like this.

That’s a big story for sports in 25 is you’ve got leagues and teams being large benefactors of gambling companies. Of shady characters, right? Like this is, this is not gonna get better before it gets worse. I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s not gonna be good.

Conner Jones: No. And just the all around destruction of sports, gambling, getting intertwined and culture everywhere.

Then I would also say just the Dodgers winning World Series in that insane game seven. Like what a, what a series. And then the chief [00:38:00] also, yeah, the chiefs losing their dynasty. That’s a big deal in the NFL world and just sports world all around. ’cause they’ve been the center 11 years

Micah Tomasella : in a row making the playoffs.

Conner Jones: Being in the A FFC championship, like how many years in a row? I just like unbelievable them not being at the center of the NFL. Going to the postseason is a big deal. Okay. Micah Travel. I would say there’s two things here. One take when the government shut down, it just dismantled air traffic control for several weeks and we were on the verge of like air traffic control being.

Totally decimated for Thanksgiving travel. Thankfully it wasn’t. I think it was a big deal and what that did to travel and already the air traffic control shortages we have and we just had crashes throughout the year. Yeah, and that doesn’t typically happen. We don’t get lots of plane crashes in America.

First, a passenger crash. Since, I think 2009 in America was over the Potomac at the beginning of the year where 64 people, unfortunately were killed on an American Eagle flight, and then three military crew members of the helicopter that collided with them. Two days later, there’s a Mexican Learjet that crashed into a block in Philadelphia.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah, that was crazy. Weekend Air

Conner Jones: India.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah,

Conner Jones: air India had a massive crash in India. That was the biggest one of the year that [00:39:00] killed 242 people on board and then 19 people on the ground. And then a few weeks ago we had the UPS plane that crashed into buildings in Louisville. Kentucky that killed 11 people on the ground and the three crew members on board just sat.

And then of course, even the great Biffle thing we just talked about a minute ago where his plane crashed. Just a weird year in aviation. It’s not, not typically like this. Yeah,

Micah Tomasella : it definitely was a tough year in that regard. Let’s do a couple nature stories. So the LA wildfires, we already mentioned 31 deaths, more than 50,000 acres, 16,000 homes and businesses were destroyed.

And that was just terrible in terms of nature, but also just. A complete and utter failure of government leadership to prepare for that. And also just some issues in putting the fire out and how that even got political. It was weird. And then, you know, this one hit really close to home. You know, for those who are in Texas, the Texas Hill country floods, you can almost forget that even happens sometimes because of everything that happens.

But that was, I mean, I think emotionally wise, I think the Texas Hill Country floods and the Charlie Kirk things were like very similar for me this year. Those hit me [00:40:00] very hard, had me. Questioning and processing through a lot with God. When it came to those stories, we lost 135 people, many of them young girls at a Christian camp, and a lot of them were children.

Just, just a terrible failure to plan as well in Texas with alert systems and people in leadership and the way the cabins were placed. Terrible, terrible tragedy. Just awful.

Conner Jones: Yeah. Both things were so heavy. Yeah, and we continue to pray for those people and the.

I think there’s one big clear winner here, and it’s just AI has, as we’ve already talked about, AI is just the center of the tech world and it kind of become the center of the economic world. It just has become central to life in America now. I think coming into this year, there were questions, and I think at the end of the year it’s like, Nope, AI is it.

This is, this is the future. And I don’t think there’s any arguing that. Another thing I would say is that TikTok is still around too. And it’s, it’s kind of getting bought 50% by US companies, but China’s still gonna have their hands in it. So I know [00:41:00] a weird deal there. But do you remember when we literally did like a eulogy for TikTok back in January?

’cause it was about to die and it’s still here. Lives on, I think I sang. Yeah man. I think you did some Sarah MCL Yus

Micah Tomasella : of the Angel Fly away.

Conner Jones: Keep going. Thank you for, for that. Even though it continues to live, it never even died. Tiktoks. I know, I know. I would also wanna point out what do we think the most viral moment of 2025 was? I think there’s no doubt it was the astronomer, CEO Canoodling with his HR director at the Coldplay concert. That became just the meme of the year, the biggest thing of the year.

Massive story. Did you just say

Micah Tomasella : canoodling?

Conner Jones: Yeah. I don’t know why that just came to mind. Is that even a word? Love that.

Micah Tomasella : No, I think, I think that’s the right word. I said it better myself, bud.

Conner Jones: Could there have possibly been a more viral moment? I don’t think so. Was the, no, there was not. That was it this year.

Okay. Biggest global headlines, Micah? [00:42:00] I think. Israel, Hamas, right? Yeah. Just the deal that was made there. The war seems to have finally come to a close. We don’t know about reconstruction in Gaza, but that has to be just one of the biggest things that’s been such a cultural touch point. So many deaths, so much destruction.

Micah Tomasella : But you know, that agreement’s entering into the second phase. It’s faded from the headlines, a little bit terrible, terrible tragedy in so many ways, how it all started, how it ended. But then I would say that the next global headline that was huge was when Trump and the US decided to bomb the nuclear sites in Iran, and I think that was a precursor for the Israel Hamas deal happening.

When Hamas loses its largest backer, at least in some way, and they get hampered, I think that’s what allowed this peace deal to take place. So actually. Kudos to America’s leadership on this one. Actually, we’ll just go and say that. I think it was a good, yeah, I would say so. I think, I think it didn’t cause the blowback that we were all concerned it would.

Conner Jones: Yeah. No, that, that one is still crazy to me. I think people forget that that even happened, but we literally sent B two steal bombers across the world, bombed. I ran, got out of the [00:43:00] country, and it was just like. Whoa. Yeah. All of a sudden you realize America is the military might in the world, which is kind of s All right.

Absolutely, absolutely. Politics. Let’s end here with politics and then we’ll give our overall biggest story of the year after this. But Micah, I think in politics, everything revolves really just around Donald Trump this year, as we’ve already discussed, he’s probably the most influential person on the planet, and when he came into the office.

In January, everything just shifted. It all started to change. We’ve seen a lot of policies enacted. The border was shut down, immigration’s been cracked down on tariffs. You’ve talked so much about tariffs. How many times have we done tariff corner with Micah this year, or tariff talk,

Micah Tomasella : I think is what you called it.

It’s been, it’s been probably one of my top five words of the year. I mean, it’s just so intricate in how tariffs have impacted the global economy, how it’s been worse than people thought, but mostly better than people thought, but hasn’t necessarily yielded everything that Trump said it would yield to.

So it’s been it’s been up and down with those for sure. You know, we’ve also had a lot of [00:44:00] peace deals internationally too. Yeah, I would say Trump did accomplish. A lot of the things he said he would, some of the things, I think this was also a year of Trump just being Trump. Trump being able to not get out of his own way.

You and I have talked about this a lot, not being able to stay on point, not being able to stay on message, making it about things that he shouldn’t. Being petty just, he just can’t not be himself for better or for worse. And there were just some better moments, but also a lot of worse moments too. Would you agree?

Yeah.

Conner Jones: I absolutely agree. He, he is, I think, his own worst enemy. There’s things he could be doing and then he steps on own toes. So he’s an enigma. It’s part of it.

Micah Tomasella : He’s an absolute, absolute enigma word. There’s nothing or no one that I can compare him to. Great word for him, because it’s not necessarily

Conner Jones: negative, it’s not necessarily positive, it’s just like he’s certainly an enigma.

He’s unique. Other big stories would be obviously the government shut down, as we’ve discussed. Yeah, that was just a big deal. I would say the rise of Zoran Mohamani as the now Mayor Elect, he’s about to become mayor, I think on January 1st of New York City as a [00:45:00] socialist, as a Muslim, which is a big deal

Micah Tomasella : for New York, an unashamed socialist, you know, like not hiding it.

Leaning into it and winning. That is a big story. Unbelievable. We’ll see how that pans out in 2026. The

Conner Jones: other thing, obviously, as we’ve discussed, is just at the Center of Politics this year was the Epstein files. It really drove a lot of stuff. Drove Congress, drove specific Congress people to turn on Trump.

Yeah, it kind of gave them leverage. Just such a big, big story, and we’re hoping to get those files soon. They’re supposed to come out, I think today as we are recording this on December 19th. Oh my goodness. Yes. Today’s a deadline. Yeah, you’re right. So by the time, by the time y’all are listening to this, we might have some answers.

I don’t know that we’ll know anything more. I don’t know that. We will, but maybe we’ll have some sort of insights on what was going on with him. I dunno. I just don’t

Micah Tomasella : think it’s gonna give us all the answers we’re yearning for. No, I think, I think everybody just loves a mystery. We’ll see. We’ll see. Yep.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Conner Jones: Alright, Micah. Overall biggest story of the year. This is not just relegated to one subsection of culture. This was the biggest cultural story, [00:46:00] biggest thing that happened this year, I think we both agreed with on this one. Immediately we knew what this was. You wanna tell us what it was?

Micah Tomasella : Yeah I mean, it was the Charlie Kirk assassination. I mean, it really wasn’t even close. It was a, it was a moment that really changed everything in terms of the way that we viewed politics, the way that we viewed our tribes, the way that we viewed our. Our faith. I think especially from a Christian perspective, this was just a big moment and I think like an American perspective for Unity’s sake, for the lack of unity’s sake.

I think it revealed a lot of issues within our country too. It’s really sad because you’re right, it was just one man. I mean, we lost so many other people and we’ve been through a lot of that, but I think this story encapsulated where we are as a country. What’s worth fighting for, what needs to change, what doesn’t need to change?

But you know, you and I talk a lot about revival. We work for a ministry that’s been working diligently to be a part of a revival happening within our country. This has given fuel to the fire and laid the framework for revival really taking place here in our [00:47:00] country. And I pray and hope that that’s what comes out of it.

Not more division, not more people hating each other, but that more people would repent and turn to Jesus because of this.

Conner Jones: Yeah, I really think it caused a lot of people to stop and say, oh my gosh. We were always headed towards something catastrophic with the way people talk to each other and the way they perceive each other as enemies with their words, and that’s what happened.

This was just a disaster in a sense of this was a man who just liked to speak his opinions and debate people, and it led to him being killed. Now, some people would say his words were harmful, but I, here I am to say that doesn’t always matter. Words. They’re not the same thing as actions. He was not ever really harming somebody physically or anything like that, and then he got physically harmed himself for just debating people.

Now I, you may not agree with everything he said, and that’s totally fine. I think a lot of people did it, but it never should have warranted what came about. So really sad. Killed, and you’re right. But I think it caused a lot of people to, to really reflect on that and think, okay, we gotta be better about debate and all that, and rhetoric.

But as you’re saying, I think one of the most important things of this is just the sense of [00:48:00] revival that came out of it. So many people recognizing that what Charlie preached was kind of true in terms of faith, and they were. Very interested in learning more about that. We saw a surge in attendance, particularly of young people at church.

We saw a surge in interest in Turning Point USA, chapters on school campuses. 50,000 plus chapter applications went in. Just an insane legacy that he kind of left. It’s really unique and I think we can take all of that. And say, you know, something tragic did happen, but God can also redeem anything that he allows.

That’s one thing that Dr. Jim Denison always says, founder here at Denison Ministries, God can redeem anything he allows. And I think that’s something we can take into just 2026 too. And so as we end this episode, Mike, I’d love for us both to just share what did God teach us this year? What did we learn as we went through this podcast?

What did we learn in faith as and through church and through our own time with the Lord and. What can we take into 2026? So I’ll just start off here and then I’ll hand it off to you to, to kind of discuss your, [00:49:00] your own faith journey this year. But yeah, I just feel like diving into all of these massive stories this year, you know, everything from the good to the bad from January to December really force my myself to take like a deeper look at scriptures and figure out how to apply them to the things that are going on in this world.

Like it’s, it’s one thing to say you live. Christ and live in a faithful way in your daily life, but to actually take scripture and apply that is really, in a way, it’s a challenge, but in another way it’s really a sweet thing to do. It’s a very. Powerful thing to take God’s word and apply it to everyday happenings.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah.

Conner Jones: I just think it’s cool to see how the Lord he’ll open up our eyes and our heart to truths in his ways and in ways you could never have expected through news stories or headlines or even pop culture stuff. And for something specific. I really do. I feel like one of the verses we probably mentioned the most was John 10.

10, you know, the thief comes only to kill, steal, and destroy. Yeah. It’s kind of a frightening verse in that sense. Yeah. But you know. [00:50:00] It’s very true. We see that in the world. We see that in so many of the stories we just discussed, like the the enemy is here and he was lurking and he was seeking out death and destruction, and he did that.

He’ll be doing the same thing in 2026. He’s gonna continue doing it now. That sounds very negative. The positive part is the second part of verse John 10 10. It’s Jesus talking and he says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the fool.

Micah Tomasella : Amen.

Conner Jones: That’s. The powerful part of that. I mean, the whole verse is just powerful, but just the, if you only focus on the beginning part, you, you’ll be very negative and you’ll think that the world is the worst.

And in a way, the enemy makes it terrible. But then Jesus says, but I’m here. Yeah, I’ve come that you may have life and live it in abundance. And Romans 12, nine and 10 says, let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another and showing honor.

And so he gives us that playbook. Yeah. Of how do we. Be a light in such a dark world. I think we can take that. I think we’ve, we’ve tried to do that, you know, this year going through all of these stories [00:51:00] and I hope you guys as listeners have been able to do the same thing, go be a light in a dark world.

That’s what we’re called to do and I, I just love that God has laid that out for us. That is one thing, Conner, that’s I’ve learned this year and going into next year. I hope we can continue to do.

Micah Tomasella : Yeah, absolutely. I think in order to be a light and like that old kid song, like hiding it or a bushel, no, I’m gonna let it, you know, I’m gonna let it shine.

I think in order to do that, I think. You’ve gotta be spirit empowered, but you’ve also. You can’t bury your head in the sand. You gotta be able to be in the world and not of it. You gotta be able to approach culture, live amongst culture, live with your neighbors, live with your friends, make friends and talk to people who you don’t necessarily deal with and or want to deal with.

And that comes with trusting God, but also just being confident. Hey, like I, I know what’s going on in the world. And so we just hope that we were able to be a part of that for you guys in 25. And we’re even more resolute in what that looks like in 2026. We’re even more motivated to be able to do that. I think for me personally, real quick, in 2025.

I had a goal with my wife, her and I set goals for ourselves and for our families, but [00:52:00] I just wanted to be even more present with God and with others this year, and I really believe that I did exactly that, and I’m really grateful that God empowered me to do that to so many beautiful moments with my family.

And there was a part of this, the reason why I’m saying this is. You know, Carter and I consume a lot of news to be able to understand. We read a lot of different perspectives to be able to really present to you guys what’s going on. Like we actually know what we’re talking about, right? Like we wanted to study to show ourself approved.

So I was pushed in ways to do that more than I ever have before in 2025. And when I was doing that, it was forcing me to, at the right time. Shut the brain off, compartmentalize, say a prayer, God, you’ve got this. I can’t do anything about that global conflict. I can’t do anything about that economic issue, about that plane crash.

About that murder. God, I trust you. And then I went and I just spent time with my family. I went and I spent time with God. I went and I enjoyed the beautiful moments that God had for me in 2025. As Dave Ramsey always says, what happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House.

I love that quote. I think it’s really [00:53:00] important. And then in 2026. I am so resolute on this, and you guys have been hearing me beat this drum for a lot. Conner’s heard this over the years, but also just our loyal audience has heard me say this a lot in the consumption of my news and studying data and all these polls and how people are feeling, stop letting.

Exterior problems dictate your destiny. Stop believing that systems are out to get you. That groups of people are out to get you. That the economy is so bad that I might as well just not try. No. Get up. Say a prayer. Ask God to lead you and guide your steps. Pray throughout the day and then work your tail off.

I think you’re gonna have a really good 2026. I think if we stop making excuses, I think 2026 should be the year of no more excuses. With God’s help, I’m gonna take control of my life and stop letting other people tell me that I can’t, or other people tell me that it’s so bad. I’m gonna take control with God’s help, like I said, and make a better future.

And I think that we could all learn from that, and I think that we should [00:54:00] encourage people around us to have that same attitude.

Conner Jones: That’s a good attitude to have for sure. Especially going into a new year. You sounded like a motivational speaker right there. I appreciate that. But

Micah Tomasella : again, it comes from what we study, Conner.

Yeah. There’s just a lot of people and organizations out there trying to scare people and make them feel like it’s so bad that it’s not even worth trying. You’re gonna guarantee failure if you don’t try.

Conner Jones: Yep. One thing, the news. Just all these websites or, or apps or whatever really rely on is kind like we said, rage bait to an extent.

But yeah, driving fear, ’cause that drives clicks, that drives viewership. So remember that remember that there are so many positive things happening in the world that you just don’t see in the news, you don’t see reported, you don’t see on social media. ’cause people like to, to produce fear. And I think you’re right, Micah, have that mindset.

Be able to unplug and just go focus on your friends and your family and your faith. And go do things and have fun. And that’s something yeah, we have to do too. We have to remind ourselves sometimes ’cause it can be. God’s got this. It’s hard to look at this stuff, but God’s got everything. God’s got this.

Micah Tomasella : Hebrews [00:55:00] 13, eight, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So then therefore, no matter what exterior things are going on, I can trust and my head can hit the pillow at night knowing that God is in control. Mm. And that’s the Christian difference, brother. That’s, yeah. That’s one of the many ways that following Jesus changes everything is understanding that there’s a God, God of the universe that created you, gifted you specifically, and has a plan for your life.

It’s time to grab hold of it.

Conner Jones: Yeah, definitely. Guys, thank you for just joining us for going through 2025, and honestly, maybe we miss a story. So if we did, I would encourage you to let us know what was the biggest story you think happened in 2025. Also, we’d love to hear what did the Lord teach you?

What did he teach you this year? What did he teach you about engaging culture? What did he teach you through, you know, news and podcasts and pop culture and all of that? Is there anything that you think we should try to cover in 2026? Is there anything you think we should try to predict in our first episode of 2026?

We’d love to do that. Let us know. Our mailbag is always open. You can send us those thoughts or questions at Culture brief@denisonforum.org [00:56:00] or follow us on Instagram, shoot us a DM at Culture Brief Podcast, and those will be linked down there in our show notes on whatever podcast platform you’re listening on.

But yeah, guys, we’re so grateful for you. Thank you for joining us on this first year of Culture Brief. It’s been a blast. It’s been a pleasure. We’ve loved engaging with you guys and it’s just so fun. And Micah, I’ve enjoyed doing it with you as well. Fun. Maybe we’ll come back fun next year and still be partners in doing this again.

It’s been fun, buddy. Yep. Guys, we’ll be back in, I think January 8th is our first episode back 2026, so see you next year, 20 year, see. Oh wow. Yeah. Classic joke. Anyways, thank y’all for joining us on this episode of Culture Brief at Dentist and Forum Podcast. All the articles, videos, anything that we talk about, it’s always linked in our show notes.

But if you enjoyed today’s episode, would you please subscribe, and rate or review the show and share it with a friend, and we will see you in January.

The post 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights | Ep. 50 appeared first on Denison Forum.

Source: 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights | Ep. 50

Dystopia: UK Woman Recalls Being Arrested by Multiple Officers for Hate Crime While She Was Naked, After Sending Harmless Text Message | The Gateway Pundit

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Dystopia: UK Woman Recalls Being Arrested by Multiple Officers for Hate Crime While She Was Naked, After Sending Harmless Text Message
Piers Morgan interviewed Elizabeth Kinney, who was arrested in the United Kingdom while in the bath for allegedly sending a mean text message.

The United Kingdom has become an authoritarian nightmare, and the United States must remain vigilant if it does not want to go down the same course.

Elizabeth Kinney, a 34-year-old care assistant, was naked in the bathtub when 11 police officers barged into her home to arrest her.

Her crime was sending insults to another woman via text.

The International Business Times reported Wednesday that Kinney — a mother of four — was detained under the Malicious Communications Act. She had sent texts to a woman involved with a man who had allegedly assaulted her. In those texts, she used the word “f****t” to describe him.

According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, she has been convicted of a hate crime. Kinney is ordered to do 72 hours of unpaid work, complete 10 rehabilitation activity days, and pay a fine of £364. According to the International Business Times, she had initially faced 10 years in prison.

Per the Daily Mail, prosecuting attorney Jacqueline Whiting commented on the incident, “The defendant and the victim in this matter had been friends but had a falling out which resulted in an incident on the October 27, 2024 whereby abusive and homophobic text messages were sent to the victim causing her alarm and distress.”

“The Crown place this offence in the highest category of its type due to the effect related to sexual orientation and the greater harm because it had moderate impact.”

Kinney’s lawyer, Simon Simmonds, tried to help his client by telling the court she was distressed over being allegedly assaulted and was simply venting after an awful situation. “In terms of motivation and hostility, I do not suppose there was much thought process other than unloading a lot off her chest.”

“She was simply upset about what had happened to her. There is reference to another male they had both been connected to and this led to an incident not before the court that Miss Kinney was the victim of.”

Kinney insisted her words were a “thoughtless rant,” not an attack on anyone’s sexuality.

She appeared on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” where she explained the arrest to him.

“You were naked?” Morgan asked as Kinney described police violating her privacy over a text message. “How did that make you feel?”

“Disgusted,” she told him. “Really upset. I was crying my eyes out.”

“I was in utter shock.”

“What did they say they were there for?” Morgan asked. After explaining how violating it felt to have several male officers see her without clothes on, Kinney told him the one female officer told her they were there “for malicious communications and hate crime.”

A longer video of the interview was also posted to YouTube. Kinney told the story leading to the texts, including her injuries from the assault and her arrest.

Here, Morgan asked her about free speech in that country, which by any account is dead. “What do you think it says about free speech in this country?”

Kinney told him the United States cares more than the U.K. Morgan replied, “This would never have happened in America.”

Kinney’s story is one of many. In November, Turning Point activist Young Bob was arrested for “Breach of the Peace” while having a debate with a Muslim man at Speaker’s Corner in London.

The U.K. is gone, but Morgan can’t be so sure about the U.S.

Democrats love to scream about “hate speech” and “misinformation” spreading online.

Our First Amendment protects us, but for how long?

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Dystopia: UK Woman Recalls Being Arrested by Multiple Officers for Hate Crime While She Was Naked, After Sending Harmless Text Message appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

More Gems from Thomas Sowell | CultureWatch

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One can never get enough quotes from the pen of Sowell:

By my count I have over 30 volumes by the great Thomas Sowell. Also by my count, I have some 135 articles on my CultureWatch website featuring him, either directly or indirectly, with quotes, book reviews or article reviews. That should tell you that I have a very high regard for Sowell.

He is a very important thinker, commentator and writer, and amazingly he is still going strong at 95. The Black American economist started off as a Marxist but went on to become one of America’s greatest conservatives and free marketeers. There are not all that many other folks like him, although the late Walter Williams came very close indeed. See more on him here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/12/04/walter-williams/

As to Sowell, I have a number of articles in which I discuss the man and his work. Here are just two of them: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2019/11/26/the-failed-vision-of-the-anointed/

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/10/24/sowell-on-social-justice/

And I have a number of pieces simply featuring terrific quotes from him, such as this one: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/12/15/30-classic-quotes-on-education-by-thomas-sowell/

Here I will offer some more quotes. Many of his volumes I could run with here, but simply making use of the 450-page book, The Thomas Sowell Reader (Basic Books, 2011) would be one good way to start getting into Sowell if you need an introduction.

The final chapter in the book is titled “Random Thoughts” and it contains around 100 of his short, punchy and brilliant quotes. Let me offer you some of them here:

“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.”

“Let’s face it, most of us are not half as smart as we sometimes think we are — and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart.”

“There is no greater indictment of judges than the fact that honest people are afraid to go into court, while criminals swagger out its revolving doors.”

“Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like a national interest.”

“The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his ‘basic rights’.”

“What is called an educated person is often someone who has had a dangerously superficial exposure to a wide spectrum of subjects.”

“Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can’t stop with just one.”

“If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.”

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

“Thanksgiving may be our most old-fashioned holiday. Gratitude itself seems out of date at a time when so many people feel ‘entitled’ to whatever they get—and indignant that they didn’t get more.”

“‘Funding’ is one of the big phony words of our times — used by people too squeamish to say ‘money’ but not too proud to take it, usually from the taxpayers.”

“Envy plus rhetoric equals ‘social justice’.”

“Historians of the future will have a hard time figuring out how so many organized groups of strident jackasses succeeded in leading us around by the nose and morally intimidating the majority into silence.”

“No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: ‘But what would you replace it with?’ When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?”

“No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.”

“Some ideas so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas sound so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operations of the free market are among the second kind.”

“Much of what are called ‘social problems’ consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.”

“Egalitarians create the most dangerous inequality of all— inequality of power. Allowing politicians to determine what other human beings will be allowed to earn is one of the most reckless gambles imaginable.”

“We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.”

“I am so old I can remember when other people’s achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance.”

“A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.”

“If people had been as mealy-mouthed in centuries past as they are today, Ivan the Terrible might have been called Ivan the Inappropriate.”

Image of The Thomas Sowell Reader
The Thomas Sowell Reader by Sowell, Thomas (Author)

And a few more quotes, this time from Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (Hoover Institution Press, 2006) which also has a chapter titled “Random Thoughts”:

“It is a little much when people come to this country preaching hatred against others and demanding tolerance for themselves.”

“Those who want to take our money and gain power over us have discovered the magic formula: Get us envious or angry at others and we will surrender, in installments, not only our money but our freedom. The most successful dictators of the 20th century—Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao—all used this formula and now class warfare politicians here are doing the same.”

“The scariest thing about politics today is not any particular policy or leaders, but the utter gullibility with which the public accepts notions for which there is not a speck of evidence, such as the benefits of ‘diversity,’ the dangers of ‘overpopulation,’ and innumerable other fashionable dogmas.”

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medications somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medications and a government bureaucracy to administer ‘universal health care’.”

“Much of what is promoted as ‘critical thinking’ in our public schools is in fact uncritical negativism towards the history and institutions of America and an uncritical praise of the cultures of foreign countries and domestic minorities.”

“It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestors’ problems.”

“What ‘multiculturalism’ boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture—and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.”

And lastly, a few bonus quotes:

“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

“Mystical references to ‘society’ and its programs to ‘help’ may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”

“Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.”

“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”

“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

[1342 words]

The post More Gems from Thomas Sowell appeared first on CultureWatch.

Source: More Gems from Thomas Sowell

Newsom Recounts Tough Childhood Where He Got In One Little Fight And Was Forced To Move In With His Auntie And Uncle In Bel-Air | Babylon Bee

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Image for article: Newsom Recounts Tough Childhood Where He Got In One Little Fight And Was Forced To Move In With His Auntie And Uncle In Bel-Air

LOS ANGELES, CA — California Governor Gavin Newsom gave voters a rare glimpse into his tragic story while appearing on a popular basketball and entertainment podcast, recounting his tough childhood where he got in one little fight and was forced to move in with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.

Newsom told the previously unknown story to illustrate the challenges he faced as a disadvantaged youth, giving insight into how far he had come since he lived on the mean streets as a young boy to now govern the Golden State.

“This is a story all about how my life got flipped. I mean, completely turned upside down,” Newsom said. “On the playground is where I spent most of my days, really. You know… chillin’ out… maxin’… relaxin’, all cool. Shootin’ some b-ball outside after school. That kind of thing. But there were a couple of guys, and they were just up to no good. They started making trouble in and around my neighborhood. I ended up getting into one little fight, and my mom got scared, and she told me, ‘You’re going to move in with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.’ That’s when everything changed for me. Hand to God.”

The hosts and viewers of the podcast were amazed by the story. “We had no idea, man,” said host Matt Barnes. “That story sounds almost like it’s made for TV or something.”

Newsom acknowledged the fantastical nature of the tale. “I feel you, bro,” he said. “But the cab I took pulled up to the house, I think it was around 7 or 8 or something. I told the cabbie, ‘Yo, homes, smell ya later.’ The guy reeked, ok? Like bad. But anyway… there I was. I ended up in Bel-Air.”

At publishing time, Newsom had gone on to tell the hosts about how his uncle used to throw his best friend “Jazz” out of the house on a near-weekly basis.

Liberal Brynnleigh witnesses a communist utopia in action!

https://babylonbee.com/news/newsom-recounts-tough-childhood-where-he-got-in-one-little-fight-and-was-forced-to-move-in-with-his-auntie-and-uncle-in-bel-air/

After Getting Caught in HUGE Lie About His Hijab-Wearing Aunt, Mamdani Changes His Story… And a New Mysterious Family Member Emerges (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit

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After Getting Caught in HUGE Lie About His Hijab-Wearing Aunt, Mamdani Changes His Story… And a New Mysterious Family Member Emerges (VIDEO)
NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani speaks at a rally, surrounded by supporters and media, highlighting his campaign initiatives and engaging with the public.

Communist Muslim NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani changed his dubious story about his hijab-wearing aunt after he got caught in a huge lie.

Mamdani cried victim last week during remarks in front of an Islamic center in the Bronx and claimed his aunt was on the receiving end of Islamophobic abuse after the 9/11 terror attacks.

“I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab,” Mamdani said, fighting through fake tears as he delivered remarks in front of the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx last Friday.

It turns out Mamdani’s aunt didn’t even live in the US on 9/11 – and she doesn’t even wear a hijab.

Mamdani’s aunt, Masuma Mamdani, lived in Tanzania during the 9/11 terror attacks.

On Monday, Zohran Mamdani was called out for lying about his ‘aunt,’ so he changed the story.

Mamdani now claims that he was actually talking about a mysterious distant cousin.

“I was speaking about my aunt, I was speaking about Zehra Fuhi, my father’s cousin, who sadly passed away a few years ago,” Mamdani told reporters on Monday.

“Fuhi means paternal aunt in Urdu and Hindi,” the New York Post reported.

But Mamdani wasn’t done playing victim after claiming he was referring to his dead aunt… who is actually a distant cousin.

He chastised Cuomo and critics for questioning his dubious story after it turned out his only aunt wasn’t even living in the US on 9/11.

“And for the takeaway for my more than 10-minute address about Islamophobia in this race and in this city to be the question of my aunt tells you everything about Andrew Cuomo and his inability to reckon with a crisis of his own,” Mamdani said.

WATCH:

The post After Getting Caught in HUGE Lie About His Hijab-Wearing Aunt, Mamdani Changes His Story… And a New Mysterious Family Member Emerges (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Greg Gutfeld GOES NUCLEAR on Live TV After Charlie Kirk Assassination — Drops F-Bomb on Fox: “You Woke Us the F*CK Up!” | The Gateway Pundit

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Greg Gutfeld GOES NUCLEAR on Live TV After Charlie Kirk Assassination — Drops F-Bomb on Fox: “You Woke Us the F*CK Up!”
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld delivers an emotional tribute to Charlie Kirk on live television, dropping an F-bomb while vowing that Kirk’s legacy will ignite a stronger conservative movement.

The nation is reeling following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, and emotions boiled over Tuesday night when Fox News host Greg Gutfeld went absolutely nuclear live on air.

Speaking on The Five after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Gutfeld dropped an F-bomb live on television and declared that the movement Kirk built will not be silenced.

Gutfeld, who knew Kirk personally for over a decade, held nothing back in his emotional tribute.

Here’s what he said:

“I’ve known him for probably 10 years. I mean, it’s hard to gather your thoughts beyond just horror. So instead, I mean, Charlie was such a force of nature. He was brilliant, and he was funny, but what scared people was his persuasiveness.

The only way to take him down because he could persuade you so strongly was to kill him. The shock and despair that we are I mean, we, as in shared by everyone at home and around this table and in this building, it’s a testament to the impact of Charlie’s friendship and his bravery and his character. It’s so deep a wound that we all feel.

It’s because it feels like he’s one of us. He’s part of us because he was such a genuinely a patriot and a great person. So how do you work through this stuff? It’s not about him or me. It’s us, the viewers. You are us. What do we do?

Well, you still do what you always do, but you do more of it. You stand up, you speak up, and you share the risk. Right now, you are becoiling, but you have to come back and return stronger, more fortified, and more resilient.

What is ironic, fittingly, I guess, is that this is a turning point. If you believe in Charlie, you got to believe in yourself because he believed in you. This isn’t over. This is the beginning.

Charlie’s power just got released in all of us. He’s going to be bigger now than he ever was in this chaotic planet. He made us all bigger. I think that if you’re at home and you’re feeling bad, don’t just get through it and remember that he would want you to get stronger and not back down.”

But Gutfeld wasn’t done. He ramped it up, slamming the far-left thugs who think they can silence us with bullets.

“Yeah, I know that it’s somewhat an object of mockery to say thoughts and prayers, but thoughts and prayers for his family. They need it from all of us.

And Jesse’s right. If they could do this, they are capable of anything. I think that was the message. I believe that was the message. It’s really hard to radicalize Republicans.

We’re not the radical type. But if you thought that you were going to shut a movement you’re going to get a rude awakening. You woke us the f*ck up.”

WATCH:

Gutfeld’s late-night program will not air tonight.

The post Greg Gutfeld GOES NUCLEAR on Live TV After Charlie Kirk Assassination — Drops F-Bomb on Fox: “You Woke Us the F*CK Up!” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

‘War on white people’: Young woman ‘butchered’ on U.S. train by black man, national media hammered for their silence | WND

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Iryna Zarutska and her accused killer Decarlos Brown, Jr.

Outrage is exploding online as new video reveals graphic details of a black man who had been arrested at least 14 times allegedly slaughtering a white woman who had fled Ukraine for a peaceful life in America on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

On Friday, the Charlotte Area Transit System released surveillance video of Aug. 22, the night 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was slain after she left her job working at a pizzeria.

“She ran from war in Ukraine. She came here for safety. And America FAILED her,” wrote online journalist Benny Johnson.

“23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was butchered on a Charlotte light rail, her throat cut open by a violent repeat offender who had been arrested 14 times and was STILL free.

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Iryna Zarutska unaware that she is about to be stabbed on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025 (Video screenshot)
Iryna Zarutska unaware that she is about to be stabbed on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025

“This wasn’t random. This was preventable. There is a war on White people. Her blood is on the hands of a system that lets violent criminals roam while innocent people pay the price.

“If Iryna were Black and her killer White, the media would be rioting nonstop. But because she’s White, they stay silent. This is evil. And it’s deliberate.”

 

The surveillance footage shows Zarutska boarding the train in her work uniform at 9:46 p.m., and once seated, looking at her phone, completely oblivious of the danger behind her.

 

The New York Post reports:

Just four minutes later, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly whips out a folding knife and lunges forward, stabbing her three times, at least once in the neck, police said.

The chilling video then appears to show Brown then walking through the rail car, stripping off his sweatshirt and waiting by the doors – as passengers began to notice blood dripping from him.

Zarutska, who grabbed her neck as blood spilled onto the train floor, collapsed in her seat and was pronounced dead on the light rail, investigators said.

Surveillance video shows Decarlos Brown Jr., sitting behind Iryna Zarutska on a train in North Carolina, before allegedly pulling a knife and stabbing her.

 

Police said Brown got off at the next stop, where a folding knife was later recovered near the platform. He was treated at a hospital for a cut on his hand before being taken into custody on a murder charge.

It took six minutes for police to respond, according to Spectrum News, which noted transit security guards were on the train, but in the car ahead of Zarutska’s when she was attacked.

Brown – who has multiple arrests dating back to 2011 – was charged with first-degree murder, according to CMPD. His record includes larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon and communicating threats, according to court records obtained by the Post.

 

A GoFundMe page started by Zarutska’s family indicates the victim, known by the nickname of Ira, “had recently arrived in the United States, seeking safety from the war and hoping for a new beginning. Tragically, her life was cut short far too soon.”

More than $50,000 has been collected to date.

Iryna Zarutska (X)
Iryna Zarutska

Reaction online to the case has been fierce.

“I’m sick of seeing this,” said Lilly Gaddis, host of the “The Lilly Show” on X and Rumble. “It’s everywhere. This story is shocking just because of the brutality of it alone. If we had a little bit more racial consciousness and we realized, ‘Hmm, maybe don’t put yourself anywhere in the vicinity of a black person.’ Better yet, why don’t black people have their own spaces?”

 

“This was not front-page news. No one care because she’s white. … People like this need to be made an example of. Law enforcement needs to do their job, and these people need to be sequestered in safe areas away from the rest of us.

Is there a war on white people in America?

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“Because it’s not fair that the rest off us who built this country, who pay for this country and go to work every day, it’s not fair that we have to live under this sort of tyranny.”

Iryna Zarutska giving a peace sign in front of s waterfall (X)
Iryna Zarutska giving a peace sign in front of a waterfall

Ada Lluch said: “Remember what happened when the police arrested a drug addict convicted felon and he died of an overdose, George Floyd? Why is the mainstream media and leftists acting like the murder of Iryna Zarutska does not matter? Is it because she is white? Or because the killer is black?”

 

Some, including Elon Musk and End Wokeness are pointing out the lack of national news coverage of the horror.

 

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk slammed the national media as well, saying: “Dear CNN, WaPo, NYT, ABC, NBC etc etc. If you want to know why your ratings are in the tank and no one likes you, look no further than the brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska who moved to US to escape war in Ukraine, a story you refuse to tell. Sadly she couldn’t survive the Democrats’ criminal justice system.

“Yet you wouldn’t shut up or stop villainizing Daniel Penny, a hero, who probably stopped a murder just like her’s. Why? Because he was a straight white American male and the perp was black. Shame on you. Genuinely.”

 

This case is reminiscent of a July racial beatdown of several white people in Cincinnati by a black mob, with the president pro tem of the city council indicating she was “grateful” for the vicious pummeling of white citizens and that “they begged” to be attacked.

Is the news we hear every day actually broadcasting messages from God? The answer is an absolute yes! Find out how!

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‘Nothing short of cruel’: Watch whites viciously pummeled by blacks in graphic attack ignored by national media

 

‘They begged for that beat down!’ Top Cincinnati official allegedly ‘grateful’ after black mob pummels whites

 

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Source: ‘War on white people’: Young woman ‘butchered’ on U.S. train by black man, national media hammered for their silence

The Image That Killed The Democrats In 2026 And Beyond | ZeroHedge

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Authored by Athena Thorne via PJMedia.com,

And just like that, it’s over for the Dems in the 2026 midterms. Maybe even the 2028 general election. Maybe this is even the final nail in their creaky, splintering, mentally ill, Marxist coffin.

Right now, they’re trying to ignore it, the way they tried to pretend Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t exist back in 2020. They were successful enough that time to push their vote machine over the finish line in Biden/Harris’s favor, but that won’t happen this time. This story, this image, is already out there.

Still, they’re trying to ignore it, hoping it goes away:

The only explanation I’ve seen anywhere is, “Oh, it was never covered nationally because it was only a local story.” Sure. Like George Floyd’s overdose in police custody was only a local story. Good luck with that dodge, lefties.

In all fairness to Democrats, their policies have made this situation so common that it may well have disappeared into the din. A violent lunatic with fourteen previous arrests under his belt but who still freely roamed the streets randomly and viciously stabbed a young woman on the train, killing her. The murder occurred over two weeks ago, and they had every reason to believe the “local crime story” was as dead as the beautiful young victim.

But then, the video emerged. It’s chilling and terrifying, the horror that every urban female (and plenty of males) fears. The still image of the moment the madman’s knife begins its descent is the most damning optic I’ve seen in years, and it will now become the face of the modern Democrat party.

It gets worse for Democrats: The victim was not only young, female, and stunning, but she was a refugee from Ukraine — one of their fetish victims. 

The New York Post is one outlet that covered the story:

Haunting new video revealed the terrifying moment a homeless ex-con allegedly fatally stabbed a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee in what police said was a random attack on a Charlotte light rail train.

Iryna Zarutska, who fled war-torn Ukraine for a safer life in America, was on the Lynx Blue Line just before 10 p.m. Aug. 22 when she was ambushed, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

The surveillance footage, released Friday by the Charlotte Area Transit System or CATS, shows Zarutska boarding the train in her pizzeria uniform at 9:46 p.m. and sitting, looking at her phone, unaware of the danger behind her.

Just four minutes later, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly whips out a folding knife and lunges forward, stabbing her three times, at least once in the neck, police said.

Those eyes, that brave smile, her courageous backstory — fleeing war-torn Ukraine for a chance at safety and freedom in America, taking a humble job as a pizza clerk in Charlotte, N.C.

Laken Riley, the young nursing student murdered by one of then-President Joe Biden’s illegal aliens, became a poster child for stopping the invasion. The description of her murder was shocking to the public consciousness, but still, it was only words.

Robin Westman’s murder and maiming of young Catholic school kids at prayer was a shocking and tragic story. It was powerful enough to finally spark the public debate about what kind of medications are given to youth with gender dysphoria and whether they are sane enough to own guns. But still, that story was also only told in words.

Here, we have the video of the savage act committed by another Democrat sacred cow, a black, homeless man — you know, the kind of sweet, innocent victim those awful racist cops are always trying to murder.

Even as Democrats surge in the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting the president’s crackdown on crime, this chilling video and this electrifying still image have hit the internet. The left could not be caught further out on the wrong side of the issue. They are exposed as the heinous morons they are.

A confession: I do occasionally worry about Trump’s over-the-top rhetoric and willingness to push the bounds of executive power even further than former President Barack Obama did. I know he’s doing the right things, but every time he calls out the guard or sics the FBI on someone or blows up a boat of our enemies, I can all too easily picture the next rabid Democrat president goring my ox in the same way.

But then I see something like this, and I thank God for the man in the White House who has climbed athwart history, yelling, “Stop!” (With apologies to the Buckleys.)

Because in the end, Democrats champion mental illness, crime, and the breakdown of civil order; they champion evil. Republicans fight it. Period.

It’s over, Democrats. Begone with you.

Source: The Image That Killed The Democrats In 2026 And Beyond

Michigan Police Help Muslim Immigrants Feel Welcome By Wearing Suicide Vests | Babylon Bee

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Image for article: Michigan Police Help Muslim Immigrants Feel Welcome By Wearing Suicide Vests

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, MI — In what experts described as a major step toward a greater level of inclusivity for law enforcement agencies across the country, one Michigan police department announced that it would help Muslim immigrants feel more welcome by having its officers wear suicide vests while out on patrol.

The Dearborn Heights Police Department, which provides law enforcement to a town with a significant number of Muslim residents, held a press conference to introduce its latest initiative to make Middle Easterners feel more at home by outfitting officers with authentic suicide vests.

“It’s all about making the people here feel like they’re at home,” said Dearborn Heights Police Chief Ahmed Haidar. “Moving to a new country with an entirely different culture can be incredibly hard, so every little thing that makes them feel more welcome and reminds them of where they came from can help. That’s why we’ve decided to issue vests wired with explosives to all of our officers. It makes our town feel a lot more like the Middle East.”

Muslims in the city said they noticed a difference right away. “It’s a little slice of home,” said Dearborn Heights resident Anwar Al Majid. “Ever since I moved here, I noticed a distinct lack of suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices. It made the environment feel very foreign to me. Now, with the police wearing suicide vests, it’s making me feel a lot more welcome. Thank you, and death to America.”

At publishing time, the Dearborn Heights Police Department had also announced that it would institute a new policy of beating women in the streets if they refused to wear a hijab in public.

Tony asks questions about everything in his life. Is he a crazy conspiracy theorist?

https://babylonbee.com/news/michigan-police-help-muslim-immigrants-feel-welcome-by-wearing-suicide-vests/