Calling Balls And Strikes On The M.O.U.

For most of my adult life, Saturdays in the spring and an occasional weeknight game or two have been spent at the same Little League baseball field I played on when I was a kid. I have coached, managed, been on the league’s board, but I had the most fun doing what I love – calling balls and strikes behind home plate.

One of the benefits of being a fixture behind the dish for 46 years was that you got to know a lot of families that came through this community. In a lot of cases, I got to ump games featuring kids and grandkids of people I played with. Regardless of the personalities involved, when I threw the ball to the pitcher and said, “Play ball,” all that went out the window. Whatever priors I had going into the game, I zoned in and reacted to what was taking place in front of me, pitch by pitch.

I am not a dispassionate commentator when it comes to the 47-year war the Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging with the United States and Israel. I have been a hawk as long as I can remember, and was thrilled when President Trump finally decided that enough was enough and gave the go-ahead for Operation Epic Fury. He will always be held in high esteem with me for doing what no one before him would dare tackle.

Now that the Memorandum of Understanding is in force, signed by both President Trump in Versailles yesterday (of all places) and by Iranian puppet President Masoud Pezeshkian, I’m going to set aside my opinion of the agreement and analyze what went right, what went wrong, and what remains to be seen as objectively as I can. But for the record, I think I feel about the M.O.U. the same way Secretary of State Marco Rubio looked standing behind President Trump at the G7 press conference.

The four stated objectives of Operation Epic Fury going into hostilities at the end of February, were simple enough.

1. Destroy Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and its production capacity Trump emphasized eliminating both existing missiles and the industrial base capable of producing new ones.

2. Annihilate the Iranian Navy This included ships, submarines, coastal missile batteries, and naval command infrastructure.

3. Ensure Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon Trump repeatedly framed this as a non‑negotiable objective of the campaign.

4. Sever Iran’s support for terrorist proxies This meant eliminating the IRGC’s ability to arm, fund, and direct regional militias.

Depending on the source, whether it’s our military intelligence, the Israelis’, or open source information, best estimates are that roughly 60-70% of Iran’s available missile stockpile was destroyed. As for what remains, the final volleys Iran launched at Israel resulted in several that disintegrated or failed before defensive weapons had to be fired. Iran was down to the shelves of stuff that was sketchy whether it would even fly or not.

Iran’s defense military complex suffered about the same percentage in damage. 60-70% of their drone production was destroyed, including one facility they had running in Venezuela before the United States came calling to pick up Nicolas Maduro in the middle of the night.

40% of their missile or fuel propellant development is gone. Roughly half of their electronic guidance systems are gone. Remember that the drone launched last week that took down our Apache did not detonate on impact as was designed. It malfunctioned, even though it brought down the helicopter.

Was Objective 1 completed? No. Was it decimated, to use the oft-misused term of art? Yes, and decimated at least five times over. Iran could certainly choose to take the sanctions relief coming with the M.O.U. and sink it into the hundreds of billions it would take to rebuild their missile and drone programs. Drones would be the cheapest and fastest weapon to reconstitute, probably coming back online to pre-war levels in a year or less. However, by the end of kinetic action, U.S. destroyers were being outfitted with directed-energy weapons, or lasers, to begin knocking them down effectively. Within a couple of years, that technology will be refined and ubiquitous throughout our military. That threat has been, or will soon be, neutralized.

Missile launchers will take a few years and tens of billions. Missile production will take half a decade or longer, costing hundreds of billions. Keep in mind that Iran, the country, has been put in a several trillion dollar hole because of the war, and that’s not going to all get made up in six months of oil sales.

The Iranian Navy, such as it was, is reef lattice at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. If you wish to call ski boats with machine guns tied to them naval vessels, go right ahead. But Houthi pirates are more organized than that. Several levels of their IRGC naval commanders were killed. That objective was accomplished.

Objective three – ensuring Iran never gets a nuke – well, that’s the whole enchilada, isn’t it? We don’t know if that’s been achieved or not. President Trump believes so, but the proof will be in the pudding over the next two months while the final deal is negotiated. But what do we know?

Whatever enriched material they have, whether it be near-weapons grade or even the 2% low-fat stuff (really 3-5%) which can be spun up to weapons grade, is, at worst for us, buried under mountains of rubble. Iran certainly can’t get at it very easily, and in fact, there are reports that the Iranians have sealed off access, collapsed the tunnels, and boobytrapped the entrances. Even if they tried to go back in and extract it, we’d see it, and it would be an instant violation of the most important paragraph of the M.O.U., Paragraph 8. And the one point Trump made no less than five times during his press conference and again on the tarmac at the airport later, that if they tried to go after the material and restart their nuclear program, he’d bomb the hell out of them again.

If Iran opts to resume their drive to become a nuclear power, it will do so without centrifuges, heavy water facilities, scientists who know what they’re doing, universities to teach future scientists about how to know what they’re doing, and the ability to hide it from us seeing it and responding. I was extremely worried about how close they were at the end of last year. I do not have that same concern now. But how Iran performs in this area while the M.O.U. is in force, and how Paragraph 8 is resolved in the final negotiated deal, remains to be seen.

And the fourth objective, severing Iran’s desire to support and grow terror proxies, was definitely not achieved by the United States. Israel was well on their way, having all but destroyed Hamas and going to work on Hezbollah methodically by crossing the Litani River and hitting them on their turf instead of just playing missile pickleball. If the M.O.U. gets violated and we go back to kinetic action, it likely will be because a Hezbollah terrorist working in Lebanon will have not gotten the memo from Tehran and launch something that kills Israelis. It’s almost inevitable. If Hezbollah suddenly abides by the terms of this M.O.U. and ceases hostilities towards Israel for any significant length of time, my opinion of the M.O.U. will go up.

As for Iran, it already doesn’t sound promising.

According to the M.O.U., Iran will be able to sell oil and have some frozen assets released. Other sanctions will have waivers, but the money flow will still be tracked. If Treasury Secretary Bessent gets wind of resources from Tehran flowing back into Hezbollah, that has to be a deal breaker, and all bets are off.

Regime change in Iran was always a goal for Israel, but it wasn’t for us. However, severing Iran from being the patron of proxy terror groups encircling Israel was one of our objectives, and that’s one that we cannot allow to be a failed goal. It’s yet to be determined whether Iran is just blustering for domestic purposes or if they intend to cheat immediately, believing President Trump has lost the stomach to push back.

What went right during Operation Epic Fury? A whole lot. The United States and the world are safer today than they were before the war. That’s just an objective fact, and those who tell you different are reacting emotionally, not rationally. We demonstrated a new brand of warfare and coordinated with the region’s hegemon, the Israeli Defense Forces, in a way the world has never seen. We had intelligence, the right force posture, the element of surprise, and almost flawless execution by our servicemembers. Even when things went wrong, the precision demonstrated by the extraction of our downed airmen outside of Isfahan was nothing short of awe-inspiring. There’s a lot to crow about, and if you just look at the people that were killed and the things that were broken in Iran, quite simply, they got their collective hindquarters kicked.

By deploying Operation Economic Fury, including the naval blockade against Iranian ports, we triggered a series of global maneuvers that portend very good things for the United States economy in the years to come. We are now the largest exporter of oil in the world, passing OPEC. That’s never happened before, and we’re still ramping up production. When Alaska’s development comes fully online, the ports available to feed energy to Asia will be too much for the Pacific Rim countries to pass up. It’s closer, not nearly as perilous of a journey, and a much shorter trip.

As for the Strait of Hormuz, there are seven countries, excluding Iran, that use the narrow waterway to ship out oil. The top three countries – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates – account for nearly 75% of the oil that goes through the Strait on a normal basis. All three have implemented plans, and two of the three are within three years of bypassing the Strait altogether and moving the same quantities of oil, and probably more, by way of pipeline. Those plans will continue regardless of whether Iran lives up to the M.O.U. or not. This means that if and when Iran violates the deal, and kinetic action once again must be taken, the floating hostages on their southern border will no longer be around to use for ransom.

What went wrong? The messaging for why the war was necessary was slow and inconsistent in the beginning. By a month into the campaign, the administration had largely gotten its messaging coordinated. But it took way too long in the early days to make a repeated case for why this had to be done now.

We did not have nearly enough defensive weapons to secure our bases in the region, and we couldn’t protect our Arab state allies nearly enough. We’ve had a military industrial complex problem of our own for quite a while, thanks largely to Democratic Congresses and administrations defunding and hampering the Pentagon’s ability to forward procure with budget certainty. And the results of that bad policy were on display during this war. Where we had the resources, we were very effective and very lethal. But my gut tells me we didn’t have enough anti-missile batteries remaining to protect Arab infrastructure by last week, and our Arab partners got very squeamish about more ongoing kinetic activity, and the President did not want to lose the cooperation he’d gotten from this part of his coalition. So he looked for an off-ramp.

The idea to arm individuals in Iran so the odds would even out if another color revolution broke out was a good one. Arming the Kurds to be the de facto ground force was a mistake. In actuality, it may be that it was just the wrong Kurds, but nevertheless, I’d like to think that if we had to do this all over again, we’d have worked with the Israelis to identify the right element within Tehran to equip and train with munitions that would give the IRGC and Basij forces something more worrisome to consider. Crumbling the regime from within might have shortened the war for us and taken care of a lot of the problems Iran posed.

I think it was a mistake to end Project Freedom after 36 hours, regardless of the blowback from the Arab states at the time. We should have, and I believe could have, opened the Strait for tankers and freighters to pass while interceding Iranian traffic. Former Senator Jim Talent and I have often said on my Duane’s World podcast that moving ships through the Strait, rubbing the regime’s nose in it, was the checkmate move. If I had an audience with administration officials, that’s one of the questions about which I would ask.

Regarding the M.O.U. itself, it is fraught with uncertainty and opaque conditions that almost guarantee Iran will immediately probe at it with small violations, and move onto larger ones in order to discover how much the Americans no longer wish to confront them. Outside of the President and Vice-President, no one seems to believe the Iranians have had a sincere change of heart. They’re like a baby shark that you bring home and feed, nurture, watch grow from aquarium to aquarium, and then one day be surprised it bites your hand off when you try to pet it. We just gave them oxygen by taking our boot off their neck. Once their vision clears from nearly blacking out, they’ll most likely go back to doing what they do best – killing Jews, Americans, and Sunnis in whichever order presents itself first.

But where problems arise for us in the compliance department is that the IRGC remains in charge of the construction of everything important in Iran. The IRGC is also listed on our terror watch list, meaning no company can legally work with them. The $300 billion fund for rebuilding Iran, if Iran does reopen the Strait and cooperates on nuclear material in future negotiations, would run afoul of U.S. law, which there is no appetite in Congress with either party to overturn. Noah Rothman has more on that nightmare scenario in today’s National Review Morning Jolt column.

The political timing for this may work out very well for the President and Republicans. Oil is already in the mid-$70’s, and there is evidence that engines on tankers have fired up and movement through the Strait is finally commencing. With those lower oil prices come lower fuel costs, and with that, lower prices on all the stuff that started to become expensive again this spring. By the time our economy recovers from the war months, along with the robust job growth and manufacturing and construction boom underway, life will become much more affordable right around the time early voting begins in the midterms. That certainly helps Republicans just as much as Democrats nominating antisemites, Nazis, and 37-year-olds that share their checking accounts with their mother. It very well could ensure they hold the Senate.

And once Trump clears the midterms, presuming he has one house, maybe both if he catches a tailwind, when Iran inevitably does impregnate the proverbial pooch, he’s got another six-month window to whack at the regime until the 2028 cycle gets underway.

I don’t like the deal all that much. I understand it, and I don’t think it’s going to amount to much more than a formality to a quasi-ceasefire until it’s violated. If it provides enough stability through the election, all the better.

As a three-time cancer survivor, I tend to look at a lot of events in life in those terms. Iran without question is a cancer. We hit it hard with chemo for a few months with Operation Epic Fury, and then followed up with another couple of months of radiation called Economic Fury. The tumor shrank two-thirds, by most objective measures. But we didn’t kill it. It will grow back. Malignant growths are almost never coerced into becoming benign. Could we have killed off the cancer? Probably not without ground troops, which I don’t think the American body would have tolerated. That would have been too toxic for the public to tolerate.

So Trump chose to do what he could do – knock the hell out of the cancer the best he could for as long as the body would stand it, and then hope it doesn’t come back with a vengeance too soon.

Could the M.O.U., and the forthcoming final deal cut off the metastatic parts of the tumor in other regions, like Hezbollah and the Houthis? Perhaps. If so, the deal becomes a great deal. If not, we have to concentrate on getting the body healthy again and ready for another round of treatments to come.

That means more money spent on Defense, more weapons, more firepower, and more resolve. This period of time isn’t retreat, and it’s not redemption. It should be time to reload, and when finished and when warranted, repeat.

Duane Patterson 10:00 AM | June 18, 2026

Source: Calling Balls And Strikes On The M.O.U. – HotAir

The Covid lockdowns may not have been remotely effective, but at least they harmed millions of people and created long-lasting negative impacts that we’re still dealing with today.

That’s the conclusion of a massive new body of research into the nonsensical policies promoted by the public health “expert” class, promoted by their media partners, and enacted by incompetent, cowardly politicians.

Mask mandates had been thoroughly discouraged by decades of pre-Covid pandemic planning. There was no body of research supporting the closing of certain businesses at different hours of the day, as many jurisdictions demanded.

No studies were conducted on the reduction of infection rates resulting from placing directional arrows on the floors of grocery stores to direct people through aisles in predetermined patterns.

There were no randomized controlled trials on closing skate parks and beaches, arresting people surfing alone in the ocean, restricting capacity to random percentages based on inaccurate assumptions of community spread.

We had no idea whether closing schools would be effective or “save lives,” but we did it anyway. We didn’t know if vaccine passports would actually have a meaningful impact on community spread, yet we were encouraged to push that too.

All these “interventions” started with little-to-no evidence. That’s bad enough. What makes it much worse? That we implemented them all with zero consideration of possible side effects resulting from those policies.

Lockdowns were an unprecedented incursion on freedom and liberty. What would that do to society, the economy, mental health, and so on? It appeared that no one involved gave those considerations a second thought, and now we’re paying the price.

Horrifying New Research into Damage from Covid Lockdowns

A massive new systematic review of over 130 studies of Covid policies was published recently in Health Affairs Scholar by writers from the Department of Health Policy, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health in Indianapolis, synthesizing the research into ancillary outcomes from lockdowns, school closures, and other mandates. The goal of this systematic review was to find the “unintended health effects” resulting from those policies. Essentially, putting Covid aside, what were the results when it came to various important measures of health?

They write that while policymakers and public health authorities have produced years of reports and lectures on the importance of mandates and lockdowns in reducing viral transmission, there’s a large “gap in the literature” regarding what other impacts may have resulted from “shelter-in-place/stay-at-home orders, workplace closures, and school closures.”

While peer-review isn’t a guarantee of accuracy, all 132 studies included in the analysis were peer-reviewed. Those 132 studies resulted in finding over 450 unique outcomes. And spoiler alert, the overwhelming majority of those outcomes were negative.

What makes their results even more infuriating is that there was, as they explain, “very low quality” evidence that lockdowns would be effective, as well as a “lack of information on potential unintended downstream consequences.” Yet decision-makers plowed forward anyway, despite the “serious ethical, economic, health equity, and human rights concerns” resulting from such policies.

Not to mention that the researchers found that lockdowns had “little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the most important stated goal of lockdowns. Stay home, save lives, the mantra went. Turns out, like so many other government messages, that this was completely and utterly incorrect.

So we’ve established that there was no reduction in Covid mortality from lockdowns, very low quality evidence supporting lockdowns in the first place, and an overwhelming majority of studies found negative side effects from those policies. All great news so far. But it gets even better when examining what those negative side effects actually were, and how widespread those results were.

What they found, from 132 peer-reviewed studies and 450 specific results, was that “over 90% of mental health, obesity-related, and health-related social need outcomes” were impacted by lockdowns. Of the 454 unique measurements from those studies, 75 percent were reported as “detrimental.”

After years of politicians and public health figures extolling the importance of mental health, mental health outcomes in this research were astonishingly bad. They found that 93 percent of mental health outcomes studied were “deemed detrimental.” And that wasn’t a small sample either, as the researchers found that it was the “most frequently studied category.”

If one only uses Google to search outcomes, lockdowns were associated with increased activity for terms like “boredom,” “loneliness,” “sadness,” and “worry.”

There was a significant rise in positive suicide screenings among adolescents and a consistent increase in mental health facility use for diagnoses like panic disorder and severe stress. Incredibly, they found that “quasi-experimental work found that increases in mental health facility use were more strongly associated with the presence of lockdown policies than with the pandemic or illness itself.” That suggests “policy restrictions exerted an independent effect on population well-being.”

Horrifying.

Every Possible Outcome Got Worse Under Lockdowns

So the lockdowns led to increased suicidal ideation, a massive increase in mental health facility usage, rampant loneliness, panic disorder, and had no impact on mortality rates. But the good news doesn’t end there.

As we know, obesity is one of the most harmful physical conditions, resulting with any number of significant health issues. Well, lockdowns helped there too. Of the analyses studying the effect of lockdowns on obesity, outcomes were “overwhelmingly negative,” with “94.3% of analyses reporting detrimental effects.”

In one specific study, there was an astonishing “19-fold increase in obesity risk among children previously classified at normal weight prepandemic.” Another study found a remarkable “tenfold increase in BMI z-score gain among children during school closures.” Great work, “health” experts!

Thanks to delayed healthcare screenings, the review found substantially higher rates of late-stage lung cancer diagnoses. And the breakdown in social order led to increases in trauma-related admissions due to gun and knife violence.

That’s not a surprise, as lockdowns led to massive unemployment and stress over financial stability. Sure enough, when the researchers examined research on those side effects, they found that “100% of outcomes” related to employment, food access, and economic stability were detrimental.

Similarly, childhood development and education also had detrimental outcomes. In 96.6% of studies, there was significant learning loss and disrupted socialization among younger demographics – who were, of course, at essentially zero risk of significant impacts from Covid itself.

For a group who claims to care about “equity,” and trying to force equal outcomes across different racial and ethnic groups, public health experts somehow ignored the inequitable negative side effects from lockdowns.

Vulnerable demographic groups were significantly more likely to report negative outcomes, over 90 percent of the time, than more stable groups. One hundred percent of outcomes for those vulnerable groups were deemed detrimental regarding important health determinants like obesity, food access, and economic stability.

Nailed it again, health equity experts!

So to sum up, we had no evidence that lockdowns would be effective.

We had no research or consideration for the negative outcomes that would result from lockdowns and they had no impact on Covid mortality.

In postmortem research, the overwhelming majority of studied individual outcomes were negative or detrimental, in important categories like mental health, physical health, economic conditions, and obesity.

And for a group that claims to care about “equity,” public health policies overwhelmingly impacted already vulnerable demographic groups the most.

It’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive and thorough repudiation of the Anthony Fauci Covid doctrine.

Do whatever Fauci says, never consider the consequences, then demean and label any and all critics, never admit wrongdoing or take accountability for the damage you’ve caused.

“The Science” in a nutshell.

By Ian Miller   June 5, 2026

Source: The Shocking Damage Caused by Covid Policies

Source: The Simplistic and Baseless War on Plastic Bags | RealClearMarkets

Hopes that America’s 250th birthday would be a time of national unity and healing have not been fulfilled so far. After a bipartisan commission (America 250) formed in 2016 dissolved into internal squabbles with little to show for its years of planning, President Trump authorized his own commission (Freedom 250) to organize celebrations worthy of the occasion. But the Left refuses to approve anything touched by Trump, even if it simply cheers on America, so a band of committed leftists is now organizing their own summer events as counterprogramming to the official celebrations of America. Early signs suggest that their events, organized under the title “Next250,” will prioritize protest over celebration.

The Next250 movement is co-chaired by two former organizers of the Women’s March, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez. The Women’s March became the face of anti-Trump protests during his first administration, although it fell into disrepute after its leadership’s ties to notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan were exposed. Sarsour and other organizers stepped down in 2019, while Perez lingered to facilitate a leadership transition.

Sarsour announced the tone of the Next250 campaign on Sunday, “America’s next 250 years start with us. As attacks on voting rights continue, immigrant communities are targeted, and too many of our neighbors are pushed to the margins, this moment demands more than remembrance — it demands action.”

The Next250 website described itself as an effort to “retell US history from the perspectives and contributions of women of color and other marginalized identities.” It listed five policy demands: “Living Wage for All; Climate Justice for All; Reproductive Rights & Justice for All; Voting Rights for All; Gun Safety and Peace for All.”

Lest the organization seem totally partisan and not remotely patriotic, they shoe-horned in a Marxist manifesto but slapped a patriotic-sounding title on it. Next250 announced that it would “declare and demonstrate our shared values through a process that centers a new Declaration of Interdependence.”

Not in-dependence but inter-dependence. It would be an innocent inference in its own right, but in the pen of these leftists, it takes on the shape of group identity, ala critical theory.

“To begin the next 250 years of the American story,” the document declares, “we open our hearts and set free our radical imaginations to unlock a nation defined by interdependence, where everyone can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential.” We have to wonder if Next250 was secretly designed to show America what the 250th celebration would have looked like under President Kamala Harris.

“We are one nation,” it asserts, “interdependent, woven together by the strength of our ideals, our shared history, and the extraordinary land we live on — stewarded since time immemorial by Indigenous nations whose sovereignty and leadership continue today.”

The sentence started strong. The first half could have been uttered by any number of presidents. And then it petered away into an irrelevant land acknowledgement, which only ended the sentence in confusion (are the native nations part of the one nation?). Is this declaration trying to appeal to the spirit and ideals of America? Its left-wing base? Or is it caught in an incomprehensible middle by trying to do both?

In keeping with the vision of “Next250,” the declaration did not celebrate the America that has been as much as try to cast a vision for a future America. In a purpose statement, the declaration says it is offered “to achieve the promise of our nation and possibilities of this moment.” There is nothing wrong with a forward-looking vision. Nor is it necessarily bad to acknowledge that, “From its founding, the United States has existed in the gap between ideals and actions — the space between the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice for all, and the actions of genocide, land theft, and slavery.”

However, there is no tempering recognition that America, despite its flaws, remains the freest, most prosperous, and arguably greatest nation on earth. Those who read the declaration may also struggle to escape the conclusion that this document is a party platform, not a declaration of principles. Thus, it states:

“In this declaration of interdependence, we are building a nation where:

“All people are treated with dignity and respect.

“Everybody feels safe in every community.

“Access to clean, green spaces is abundant.

“Every person who works earns a living wage and benefits that allow families work-life balance.”

Finally, unlike the Declaration of Independence, which had a clear historical context that gave it a reason for existence, the Declaration of Interdependence just sort of flops gelatinously in an abstract breeze. Why does it exist? Perhaps not even the authors could tell that, at least not without mentioning the fact that Donald Trump is president.

With their guiding principles so poorly articulated, the Next250 movement has announced a kickoff event on Saturday, June 27. In their own words, the event is not a rally or celebration or memorial or anything of the sort. Instead, it is a “National Mobilization” — which sounds more like generic left-wing street protest than anything uniquely devoted to America’s 250th anniversary.

The National Mobilization event is sponsored by MPower Change, a positive-sounding name for the Muslim Grassroots Movement. Other sponsoring organizations include 50501 Events, People Power United, Blue Future, DemCastUSA, Free Speech For People, and 50501 D.C. Some of these groups are deeply embedded into the left-wing agitator network. For instance, 50501 is responsible for the “No Kings” protests and has been linked to CodePink, Antifa, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL).

The Next250 itinerary features other events. For instance, a June 20 art exhibition in Brooklyn, N.Y. will seek to recruit people for the Black Liberation-Indigenous Sovereignty Collective. “We’re trying to reach the folks who might not go to a protest, they might not go to a rally, but they would come to a cultural gathering,” organization Co-Founder and Executive Director Trevor Smith said. “And then once we reach them through art and through culture, we can actually onboard them into movement participation.”

Once again, the agenda seems more like standard left-wing street activism than celebrating America’s 250th birthday.

Indeed, the funding stream for Next250 suggests that it is at least friendly with the Democratic Party. It has a funding page on the ActBlue website, an organization that raises money for Democrats. The page notes, “#Next250 is housed at One Fair Wage.” That means this hatchling organization does not have the infrastructure (such as bank accounts, a treasurer, etc.) to handle its own finances, but a larger, more established organization in the Democratic orbit is happily providing this service for it.

Some committed activists seem to be taking the agenda into their own hands. More than once already, organizers of Freedom 250 events on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. have encountered acts of vandalism against the equipment being set up (which is massive). In one recent incident, vandals cut a fuel line powering generators that ran the lights. As a result, 30 gallons of generator fuel leaked into underground cisterns that held rainwater. Nice work “greening” the planet there!

Family Research Council is a nonprofit research and educational organization founded in 1983, dedicated to articulating and advancing a family-centered philosophy of public life.

Source: Leftists Organize Counterprogramming to Official Freedom 250 Celebrations – Harbinger’s Daily

For decades, cultural Marxism has run rampant through our institutions.

This week, the world watched an officer dragging Henry Nowak across the floor as he died. The police officer, in the moment, failed to take seriously Henry’s claim to have been stabbed. He was needlessly handcuffed. His murderer stood over him, complaining of a swollen eye. He died on the floor.

It was the moment that the world woke up to the danger of cultural Marxism.

In significant moments like this, the story often becomes larger than the facts themselves. None of us can fully know the thoughts or motivations of every person involved.

But we know that in the 999 call and when the officers arrived, Vickrum Digwa weaponised claims of racism against his victim. And we know that for decades, concerns about political correctness have prevented police officers and other officials from doing the right thing, with devastating effects.

It would take enormous levels of faith for someone to believe that the claims of racism had no negative effect on the officers’ response at the scene.

This week, many have finally lost their faith in the grandmaster of cultural Marxism, Gramsci.

A Pyramid Of Oppression And The Hierarchy Of Rights

I have long lamented the way in which white men in our nation have been portrayed endlessly as the oppressor. Anyone who falls outside this ‘dominant’ group is assumed to be a victim of that oppression in some way.

The same is true of other characteristics: if you are Christian, heterosexual, or ‘cisgender’, you are often presumed to stand at the top of a cultural pyramid, benefiting from and perpetuating the disadvantage of those deemed to be below you.

The great success of cultural Marxism has been to march through the institutions, embedding attitudes and policies that invert this so-called pyramid of oppression, intentionally creating biases to correct what is seen as inequity. Intersectionality meant that disparate groups like Muslims and LGBTQ+ saw a common oppressor in Christians and could ally against them.

That’s why, when the Equality Act laid out protected characteristics like religion or belief, sexual orientation, and gender reassignment, it was never going to achieve real equality. There would be a clash between protected characteristics and a hierarchy of rights would develop.

In the work of the Christian Legal Centre, I have seen this play out in countless different ways.

Islam

Many of the most serious harms have come through fears of political correctness around Islam.

Decades of grooming gang abuses were allowed to continue because police and other authorities were concerned about accusations of racism and Islamophobia. The victims include ‘Sarah’, whom I have personally supported. She is among several survivors who have shared the specifically Islamic nature of some of the abuse. It has been a long uphill battle to get the authorities to even consider that these have anything to do with Islam, as our recent report demonstrates.

A security guard at the Manchester Arena attack failed to intervene for fear of being branded a racist.

In the wake of that and other Islamist attacks, Ian Sleeper held a sign saying “Love Muslims, hate Islam, Jesus is love and hope.” He was arrested.

The evangelist Hatun Tash is well known for having been stabbed at Speakers’ Corner and facing multiple plots to kill her because of her outreach to Muslims. Yet it is she who has been arrested numerous times, not the mobs surrounding her. She was arrested for damaging her own Quran. She was arrested falsely in 2021 minutes after those who incited her arrest were recorded calling for Jewish blood.

Even in situations where Muslims are the majority, as they surround the diminutive Hatun, they are afforded minority status and protected against the Christian.

And the Labour Government pushed hard for an Islamophobia definition (now ‘anti-Muslim hostility’) which will only make things worse. It provides even more reasons why people will be afraid to trust their eyes and address the real problems in front of them.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council has recently updated its misconduct guide to implement this anti-Muslim hatred definition. And speaking of nurses…

Trans Identities – Afforded The Highest Protection?

As I have supported nurses like Jennifer Melle and the Darlington Nurses through lengthy legal battles, it has been plain to see trans-identifying people being treated as automatic victims, no matter what the facts are.

Multiple women raised concerns about the inappropriate behaviour of ‘Rose’, a man who stood in a female changing room in his boxer shorts with holes in them and triggered traumatic flashbacks for female nurse Karen Danson. Even though the nurses won their case, the treatment of these women throughout the situation is in stark contrast to the support and respect consistently given to ‘Rose’.

Even more stark was the differing treatment given to Jennifer Melle when she accurately described a male, convicted paedophile prisoner as ‘mister’, leading to her being racially abused using the N word. She was suspended and offered no support because his status as trans gave him automatic victim status, with Jennifer cast as oppressor.

Cultural Marxism Blinds Us

Everywhere I look in our cases and campaigns, this thinking turns up. Felix Ngole’s Christian views about marriage and sex were argued to be harmful due to minority stress theory. The “smash heteronormativity” chants used in staff training that chaplain Bernard Randall objected to cost him his job.

I could continue to outline the countless ways that these clashes play out between differing groups. The ubiquitous ideology of cultural Marxism has blinded us and led to worse inequalities.

So it would be absolutely no surprise for it to have blinded the police officers attending the murder of Henry Nowak.

Everything about our cultural narratives screams that it’s likely that a white lad, perhaps after a night out, would racially abuse and attack a minority. This is what Vickrum Digwa exploited. This is what made Henry Nowak’s claim of having been stabbed so unbelievable to the police officer arriving at the scene.

Reverse the identities of those involved and this is plain to see. Imagine a group of white men standing around a minority who is on the floor saying he’s been stabbed. Does anyone truly believe the treatment would have been identical?

God demands that we show no partiality. There is one law for both native and stranger. We must abandon systems of thinking that insist on privileging some groups over others, not because of “the content of their character” but because they belong to a group that is afforded automatic victim status.

The ideology of cultural Marxism has twisted Christian virtues of impartiality and justice into a harmful parody of those values.

The world is becoming ready for the real thing – we need to be ready to give it to them.

It’s found in the person of Jesus Christ, in whom all things hold together. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus makes sense of everything. In him, truth, justice and freedom are found.

Andrea Williams is the Chief Executive of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, which works to safeguard the freedom of Christians and to provide legal support for those taking a stand for Jesus.

Source: The Murder Of Henry Nowak: Will The World Finally Wake Up To The Danger Of Cultural Marxism? – Harbinger’s Daily

There’s something different about this June. There are fewer rainbows. No, I’m not talking about the sign of God’s covenant that appears in the sky after a storm. I’m talking about the rainbow flag that has become the symbol of Pride Month.

For years, June brought a predictable wave of corporate logos, advertising campaigns, themed merchandise, and public celebrations. Parents learned to pay closer attention to commercials in family programming, sports fans grew accustomed to Pride-themed uniforms and promotions, and many city streets became venues for often indecent displays at Pride parades.

This year is noticeably different. The symbols are not gone, but they are far less prominent. It’s premature to say Pride has fallen, but it is fair to say the appeal of Pride Month has faded.

Corporations are rethinking their public affiliation with a cultural agenda that, according to a Gallup poll released this week, is losing support among Americans. The Obama-Biden era push to promote transgenderism among children, while limiting treatment options to experimental drugs and surgeries, has prompted many Americans to reconsider the movement’s underlying motives.

Increasingly, Americans see Pride parades not merely as expressions of tolerance but as demonstrations of cultural influence reaching into every corner of society. For many, concerns over gender identity policies involving children became the point at which broader questions about sexuality, marriage, parental rights, and cultural authority converged. As many warned years ago, the debate was never simply about the right to marry the person one loves; it was also about redefining longstanding social norms, including those governing parent-child relationships.

When schools withheld information from parents about a child’s social gender transition, many families saw the connection between what was happening in the classroom and the broader redefinition of marriage and family. As a result, public opinion began to shift.

That shift is showing up in the corporate world. Companies are not only scaling back Pride Month promotions; many are abandoning participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. The 2026 index lost 65% of its Fortune 500 participants. Whether driven by conviction, consumer pressure, or shareholder concerns, many corporations are recalculating their public association with LGBT activism.

By itself, that would not prove a cultural realignment. But combined with developments in states across the nation, it suggests something more than a temporary retreat. Republican leaders have moved beyond symbolic resistance to Pride Month and are increasingly advancing proclamations and policies promoting the nuclear family. Among the arguments they cite is extensive social science showing that, across numerous measures, children do best when raised by their married mother and father.

Here is why I believe this is more than a passing fad: corporate leaders and elected officials are responding to the people. For several years, parents refused to back down. They attended school board and city council meetings, despite being called domestic terrorists. They opposed policies involving boys in girls’ sports and mixed-sex bathrooms and locker rooms, and in many cases ran for office themselves. Across the country, they won seats, changed policies, and reshaped local government.

There are fewer rainbows this June. That alone does not mean the cultural debate is over. But it does suggest that millions of Americans who refused to surrender their convictions are beginning to see the impact of their perseverance. Parents and patriots are prevailing not through outrage, but through persistence.

Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand. He also served two terms as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and served as Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Source: Shifting Public Opinion: The Appeal Of Pride Month Appears To Be Fading – Harbinger’s Daily

Within Christianity, there is an ongoing debate as to whether artificial intelligence should be openly invited to play an important role in our daily spiritual walk. Though there will be solid arguments on both sides of the debate, let me offer some thoughts in the key areas of wisdom and dependence.

Wisdom

There is no doubt that life is complex and in order to navigate the serious financial, emotional, physical and spiritual decisions that we are faced with daily, we need wisdom. One psychologist recently reported that in counselling sessions, they noticed a growing trend whereby patients are turning to AI tools in order to solve their relationship problems or overcome other psychological roadblocks. Viewing AI tools as somewhat akin to an objective second brain, there is growing public sentiment that they are convenient, resourceful, and helpful when looking for quick solutions. Although, there are comical limitations.

I recently encountered “Apostle Stephen,” an online chatbot created by the Redeemed Christian Church of God. When I clicked the suggested question, “How soon is the rapture?” the chatbot responded by saying: “Greetings! I am Apostle Stephen, here to share the word of our Lord Jesus Christ with you. Before I answer your question regarding the rapture, may I kindly ask for your name, email, and phone number? Thank you!” Not willing to share my personal data with a chatbot, it appears I will have to forsake the “Apostle’s” views in relation to the imminency of the rapture.

When it comes to the usefulness of AI, what we need to recognise as Christians is that AI is able to provide data, but it certainly cannot provide wisdom. When it comes to Biblical wisdom, in the New Testament, “sophia” (the Greek word for “wisdom”) is used frequently to describe somebody who grasps the reality of a situation as God sees it and then acts in harmony with God’s will. In other words, wisdom is the ability to judge the best course of action based on the correct application of knowledge and understanding. With that in mind, let me point you to Proverbs 2:6 which says this: “For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

Technology has its place in our lives and it undoubtedly assists us in ministry if harnessed in the right way.  However, technology must not be a substitute for God’s wisdom. Proverbs 3:5-7: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil.”

The wise Christian is the one who views life in the light of God’s revelation, not their own and certainly not that derived from collective data sources which lack spiritual discernment.

Dependence

Earlier this year, Barna Group (in partnership with Gloo) released new research which focused on the trends emerging in the field of faith and AI. That research revealed that nearly one in three U.S. adults – with the figure sitting at two in five among Gen Z and Millennials — say spiritual advice from AI is as trustworthy as advice from a pastor.

My concern is that the worrying dependence upon AI for spiritual guidance will lead to people being tossed to and fro as the available data is changed. If you are going to outsource your Biblical worldview to data that is subject to change and manipulation, you are weakening your dependence on the Word of God and increasing your dependence on data which can be faulty.

In the field of wearable AI-tech, Glorify (a Christian daily devotional app) and Confidein (an AI hardware and faith technology company) have recently joined forces under the Glorify brand. The centrepiece of this merger is the Glorify Ring that combines conventional smart-ring hardware with faith-specific features.  Users of this technology can tap the ring against a smartphone to receive an AI-matched Bible verse or prayer based on their selected emotional state. The ring also delivers gentle vibrations as reminders for prayer, devotions, or reflection, while tracking spiritual habits such as prayer duration and consistency.

Although I do not wish to be critical of the designer’s overall intention to provide a service which helps Christians in their daily walk, my concern again lies in the fact that we are forsaking the tools God has provided in pursuit of a technology that makes us increasingly dependent upon it rather than God.

For example, on the Glorify website, one section says: “The ring becomes your spiritual anchor.  Notifications, verses, and community moments arrive when you need them most.” Firstly, I believe it is important that we uphold Jesus as our spiritual anchor, not a ring. Secondly, in relation to our moment by moment walk, there is a risk that the user would rely more upon the prompting of the ring rather than the prompting of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

In closing, let me say this. Artificial intelligence, rightly subordinated through the exercise of responsible stewardship, may be a useful tool. But if, in the life of a believer, it displaces the spiritual tools which God has provided, it has the potential to subtly but surely lead people astray.

Dean Dwyer serves as a Senior Columnist at Harbinger’s Daily, where his thought-provoking articles engage a global audience of millions. With more than two decades of leadership as Pastor and President of Eiser Street Baptist Church in Toowoomba, Australia, Dwyer brings sophisticated Biblical discernment and analysis to examine world events and issues through the lens of God’s Word.

Source: Should Christians Openly Invite Artificial Intelligence Into Their Daily Spiritual Walk? – Harbinger’s Daily

Putin’s interference in Armenia’s 2026 election threatens peace, democracy, and U.S. strategic interests.

Americans know how consequential elections can be for both domestic and foreign policy. Likewise, Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary election on June 7 is critical to the future of the country, the Caucasus, and a major Trump Administration initiative, the Trump Road for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). The stakes for Armenia could not be higher. This election will determine whether Armenia remains a Russian satellite advancing Moscow’s interests rather than its own, or becomes an independent, Westward-looking state approaching EU membership. A Westward trajectory serves the interests of both Armenia and America and would solidify one of the Trump Administration’s strategic achievements.

Naturally, Russia, which is already losing ground in both the Caucasus and Central Asia, is trying to subvert this election. Besides threatening that Armenia will suffer Ukraine’s fate if it continues growing closer to Europe, Moscow has organized influence operations that are standard fare coming from the Kremlin. Russia intervened in the U.S. 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as elections in Spain, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Russia also subsidizes the populist right-wing parties Alternative for Germany and National Rally in France.  So, the stakes in Armenia are enormous—war or peace, illiberalism or democracy.

A final peace settlement with Azerbaijan can only happen if Armenia’s new legislature, empowered by the June 7 elections, is able to address the necessary constitutional changes. Equally importantly, Armenia has begun serious negotiations with Brussels about entering the EU. In an historic first, Yerevan just hosted the May 4 meeting of the European Political Community (EPC), and on May 5, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa held the first-ever EU-Armenia summit, issuing a joint declaration.  The EU reaffirmed its steadfast commitment to further strengthening relations with Armenia and its long-term development by bringing Armenia and its people closer to the European Union.  The EU likewise supported Armenia’s willingness to align with the EU’s Acquis (membership requirements).

Sadly, this program of peace, Europeanization, and democracy is anathema to Russia and its partisans in Armenia. As a Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center paper aptly noted, “Russia Won’t Give Up Its Influence in Armenia Without a Fight.” In 2024-25, Moscow, working with Armenian revanchists, the Armenian church, and the opposition, was caught planning a coup. Such efforts to exploit domestic cleavages led by pro-Moscow oligarchs and Russian agents typify Moscow’s modus operandi.  The present intervention against Pashinyan’s government is part of a broader Russian strategy to maintain control over the South Caucasus and Armenia, protect the bridge to Iran, and derail emerging peace in the region.

Ocampo even boasted that he can exert pressure on EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen,  “and in that way tweak European policy,” working through the Spanish politician and former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell. In the video of his leaked interview, Ocampo concludes, we’re getting onto a road that’s already been paved. We pile on more pressure, and I’m going to do it in combination with the Armenian lobby in the United States…I don’t have to break down the wall—the door is already open and we just push in.”

Stephen J. Blank | May 30, 2026

Source: Putin’s Efforts to Subvert Armenia’s Elections Can Harm US Interests

Every layer of modern life depends on encryption so deeply that most people never even think about it. Until it stops working.

Julio Rivera | May 29, 2026

Source: The Cyber Apocalypse Nobody’s Ready For: Why Q-Day Changes Everything – American Thinker

Monty Donohew | May 28, 2026

Source: Civility in an uncivil age: Why polite rhetoric cannot reform a corrupt system – American Thinker

In a move that could reshape how public services, businesses, and charities across Great Britain operate, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has released an updated Code of Practice. This guidance firmly anchors the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 to biological reality, drawing a clear line after years of legal wrangling and institutional hesitation.

A New Dawn for Single-Sex Spaces

The revised code explicitly states that “sex” refers only to biological sex—not so-called “gender identity.” Private spaces such as bathrooms, changing rooms, and hospital wards must align with a person’s biological sex at birth—not their self-identified gender.

This clarification carries significant weight because, as the code emphasizes, allowing biological males in female-only spaces or vice versa effectively nullifies the purpose of single-sex provisions.

The code’s core conclusion cuts through the ambiguity that has lingered for years: “a person’s sex remains their biological sex” regardless of how they feel, and designated spaces should reflect that biological reality.

Strong Words from Government and Advocates

Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson welcomed the development as “an important step in ensuring that organizations across Great Britain have clear guidance regarding its implementation, protecting people’s rights across our country.”

She added: “At the heart of the Act is a simple principle: ‘sex’ means what it says—male and female. What people call themselves and how they dress doesn’t change their sex. Neither does getting updated paperwork.”

Phillipson warned that any “business, charity or public service provider” operating differently has taken “a wrong turn.” Policies that blur biological boundaries “must now urgently” be fixed.

She acknowledged that “the guidance could be clearer” in places but asserted that “it’s absurd to say that it is ‘unlikely to be either practical or appropriate’ to ask an individual what sex they are in relation to facilities such as toilets: on the contrary, if a man walks into a women’s space it will be not just appropriate to challenge him, but essential. Otherwise, women’s rights to single-sex spaces cannot be enforced.”

Voices from the Front Lines

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, hailed the code as long-overdue confirmation of existing law: “This Code of Practice confirms what should never have been in doubt: the law has always required the protection of single-sex spaces. Public bodies, including the NHS, have had a legal duty to comply, yet many have failed to do so, choosing instead to hide behind ‘awaiting guidance’ while pursuing unlawful policies.”

Bethany Hutchison, a Darlington nurse and president of the Darlington Nursing Union, echoed the frustration: “The publication of the EHRC Code of Practice must mark the end of delay and denial. The NHS and other public bodies should have been following the law, and the Supreme Court’s ruling, all along.”

She highlighted how “waiting for guidance” became “a smokescreen to avoid making the necessary changes and to prolong the imposition of radical, Stonewall-influenced gender identity policies that have placed both staff and patients in deeply difficult situations. There are now no excuses, no more smoke and mirrors. The law must be followed.”

“Frontline nurses have paid a heavy price for speaking up,” Hutchison concluded. “We now need urgent, system-wide reform to restore confidence, protect patient dignity, and ensure staff can carry out their duties without fear of reprisal.”

Concerns Over Loopholes and Stronger Enforcement

Supporters of strong single-sex protections welcome the code. However, many remain concerned it still leaves room for loopholes that could weaken enforcement.

Critics highlight the risk of subjective interpretations that allow resistant organizations to continue prioritizing gender-identity policies under the guise of flexibility. Practical verification is another worry: updated official documents (such as birth certificates or driver’s licenses) and other constraints may leave providers without clear, reliable ways to confirm biological sex.

Many also fear the code doesn’t go far enough in mandating universal single-sex spaces, especially in high-risk settings like refuges, prisons and health care. Without stricter monitoring, mandatory training and tighter language to close interpretive gaps, some worry the “awaiting guidance” delays could simply evolve into new forms of evasion.

Nonetheless, the updated guidance has been widely embraced as a victory for common-sense gender policies. The guidance now sits before Parliament for a 40-day scrutiny period. If unchallenged, it will take full effect, offering what many hope will be the clarity needed to restore trust and safety in public life.

And as England takes this major step, many are watching to see if U.S. leaders follow suit in ensuring strict biological distinctions in both private spaces and women’s and girls’ sports—which has been a stated priority of the second Trump administration.

Decision Magazine, founded by Billy Graham in 1960, works through its website and monthly magazine to communicate the Gospel, as well as inform and challenge readers about key cultural and Biblical issues. Decision is also a Contributing Publisher to Harbinger’s Daily.

Source: After Years Of Legal Wrangling, Updated UK Guidance Draws A Clear Line Firmly Anchoring ‘Sex’ To Biological Reality – Harbinger’s Daily

The debt paid by America’s fallen is unpayable, but it is not unteachable; it is written in sacrifice, in folded flags, in names etched into stone.

Memorial Day compels Americans to confront a word we avoid: debt. Not the financial kind that Congress pretends will magically resolve itself, but the older, heavier meaning — the kind carved into headstones at Arlington and cemeteries across the country. It is the debt paid in full by those who gave their lives, so the rest of us could live free.

No interest rate can measure it. No budget line can contain it. It is final, irrevocable, and sacred.

Every year, we pause, as we should, to acknowledge that liberty is no accident. Its purchase price is steep. Many stood a post, walked point, climbed into a cockpit, or sailed into hostile waters so that we could enjoy the ordinary luxuries of American life: arguing about politics, grilling in the backyard, complaining about work, raising families in relative peace. The fallen paid the ultimate debt, while the rest of us live on the dividends of their courage.

There remains another debt that all Americans must face, one far less noble and far more self-inflicted: the national debt that at $39 trillion is growing faster than the economy and its current path is unsustainable with interest payments amounting to $1 trillion a year — a figure most cannot comprehend.

Unlike the solemn debt honored on Memorial Day, this one grows not from sacrifice but from avoidance, avarice and unaccountability. It is the bill we keep pushing onto future generations because those elected lack the discipline and forbearance to make the difficult choices.

The contrast is stark.

On one side are the young Americans who never hesitated when their country asked for everything. On the other, a political culture that bemoans over the smallest act of fiscal restraint. The fallen gave their lives, while Washington can’t forego a spending increase.

The laws of economics will not suspend themselves out of patriotic courtesy. We borrow to fund today’s comforts while expecting tomorrow’s citizens, many of whom are not yet born, to pay the bill.

The contrast is telling and that is the point.

If we truly want to honor their memory, we can start by adopting even a fraction of that discipline. We can demand leaders who treat the national debt as a real threat, not a distant abstraction. We can stop pretending that borrowing without limit is a harmless national pastime. And we can remember that the freedoms secured by the fallen are weakened when the nation they died for is weighed down by obligations it cannot meet.

The debt paid by America’s fallen is unpayable, but it is not unteachable. It is written in sacrifice, in folded flags, in names etched into stone.

One debt was paid in blood. The other is being charged to our children.

And if we forget the difference, then we have learned nothing from those who paid the first.

Greg Maresca | May 25, 2026

Source: Debt remembered and debt ignored – American Thinker

Americans who, in shocking numbers, hate America know nothing of the values that made us the kindest, most generous country in history.

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, patriotism and pride in being an American have hit historic lows. Only 58% of citizens are extremely or very proud to be Americans, compared to 90% in 2004. Among those who identify as Democrats, only 36% are extremely or very proud to be Americans, compared to 88% in 2004.

On this Memorial Day, when the nation remembers those who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the freedoms that so many take for granted, it is a tragedy that the United States, a nation that has so advanced the welfare of mankind, is faced with such a stark reality while celebrating its milestone semiquincentennial anniversary.

The true account of America’s contribution to the world and its people is one of magnificent achievement, whether freeing millions from tyranny by force of arms or dramatically improving their standard of living by fostering global economic growth and new, ever-evolving technology.

Perhaps the one thing above all others that most United States citizens do not appreciate is the indispensable and unprecedented role this nation has played in giving hope and a real-life vision of the blessings of true freedom and liberty to countless millions throughout the world. Nothing this country has done in its history can compare to being what Ronald Reagan referred to as “The Shining City on the Hill.”

Befitting the true intent of Memorial Day, to the 20% of citizens who are only a little or not at all proud to be Americans, here is a story based on personal experience. It is emblematic of the strain of honor, bravery, and patriotism that permeates the American character, as well as this nation’s historical commitment to freedom and liberty for all mankind.

The soldier hears a faint stirring behind him and, wheeling around, rifle raised in anticipation of the worst, he sees instead a young girl, perhaps five or six years old, slowly walking towards him, her tattered clothes barely able to cover her emaciated frame. Their eyes meet as kindred spirits. In the cauldron that is unconditional war, the psyche of the soldier has been dulled by the weariness of unremitting death and destruction, and that of the child by the never-ending and soul-crushing struggle for survival.

Welcoming them into the group, the soldier, smiling gently, gives all his rations to the youngsters. For an hour or so, the children, some for the first time in their brief lives, revel in a sense of security and companionship as they gather around him. They sit and talk to each other as best they can while the young man’s thoughts gradually turn to the memory of his childhood and parents in a small town somewhere in the heartland of America, and of his high school sweetheart and their plans for a family when he returns from the war.

The following day, a sniper’s bullet found its mark, and the same young man, so full of hopes and dreams, lay dead beneath the gaunt image of a splintered and shattered oak tree silhouetted by the purple haze of the setting sun.

The country, the United States of America, whence this soldier came, is unique in the history of mankind. When attacked by foreign powers, America never viewed those incidents as a pretext to conquer and permanently subjugate other nations. Rather, in pursuit of self-defense, this country also aspired to the noble calling of freeing others from tyranny and allowing the people of those nations to establish their own freely elected governments.

The basic tenets in the founding of the United States—(1) that all men are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, and (2) that the individual and not the state is paramount—enabled a society to evolve that fostered love and respect not only of country but of fellow man, regardless of race, ethnicity, or where he might live.

It is this distinctive trait among all global communities that has motivated countless American men and women over the years not only to willingly take up arms to defend a land they cherish but to expend blood and treasure so they and others can live in peace and freedom.

American military cemeteries, with their verdant fields of seemingly endless rows of monuments, crosses, and Stars of David marking the graves of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, dot the globe. The sons and daughters of the United States interred there now reside in the pantheon of the most noble and heroic in the history of mankind.

As the years march inexorably on, memories of the past, particularly the most unpleasant, are pushed into the recesses of daily consciousness. In the United States, with each new generation, the knowledge and experience of war, survival, and adversity are replaced with the demands of day-to-day living and an unfortunate tendency to fall prey not only to the false but fashionable proclivity of blaming America for all of mankind’s ills but also to the inexorable acceptance of the belief that a powerful central government is the source and arbiter of human rights and freedom.

I have lived among the people of the United States for seventy-five years after having been welcomed to its shores as a displaced war orphan from World War II. I have been privileged to get to know the magnificent citizens of this country from all walks of life, whether in the foothills of Appalachia, the farm fields of the Great Plains, the small towns and cities that dot the landscape, the imposing vistas of the West, or the streets of America’s major cities.

Their forebears created and molded the country that became the foremost nation on earth. That drive, determination, and above all patriotism still beat deep within the hearts of all who are proud to call this nation their home, and they will make certain that America’s best days are still ahead.

Steve McCann | May 25, 2026

Image created using AI.

Source: On Memorial Day, Unpatriotic Americans Know Nothing of America’s Greatness – American Thinker

Americans once associated the Southern Poverty Law Center with fighting the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era. That reputation gave the SPLC enormous moral credibility. But in November 2010, SPLC shifted its focus beyond violent groups and began targeting Christian organizations opposing efforts to redefine marriage and human sexuality. Family Research Council was among the most prominent of that first wave.

In August 2012, FRC joined Governor Mike Huckabee in supporting Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day after the company was boycotted because its leadership publicly affirmed natural marriage. Two weeks later, on August 15, LGBT activist Floyd Corkins entered FRC headquarters here in Washington carrying a 9mm pistol, 50 rounds of ammunition, and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. According to his later confession, his intent was to kill as many as possible and stuff the sandwiches in our mouths.

As he entered the building and pulled his gun, our building manager, Leo Johnson, confronted him. Though seriously wounded, Leo stopped the attacker and prevented a mass casualty event. After multiple surgeries and rehabilitation, Leo returned to work and remains today, affectionately known as Leo the Hero.

The following day, investigators confirmed that Corkins confessed to selecting FRC because of the SPLC website and hate map.

Following the attack, FRC appealed to the SPLC to remove mainstream Christian organizations from its inflammatory classifications. Those requests were rejected.

The attack has cost FRC more than $6 million in security-related costs. But the costs extend beyond the one act of violence.

Over time, SPLC’s “hate” labels and Intelligence Project became deeply influential as banks, payment processors, and technology companies increasingly relied on SPLC classifications to decide which organizations could maintain accounts, process transactions, or operate online.

Around 2016, the SPLC began pressuring corporations and technology companies to de-platform and defund organizations it labeled extremist.

Then came Charlottesville in 2017.

According to the recent federal indictment of SPLC, a member of the online leadership that planned the “Unite the Right” rally at the direction of the SPLC, and helped coordinate transportation for attendees, was bankrolled by SPLC. Charlottesville was a catalytic event for SPLC, as major corporations like Apple and JPMorgan Chase aligned with SPLC, contributing millions of dollars.

Shortly afterward, the coalition known as “Change the Terms,” led by the SPLC and the Center for American Progress, established standards that would encourage technology and financial companies to deny digital access and financial infrastructure to organizations the SPLC labeled.

The timeline of Change the Terms closely parallels the acceleration of efforts to debank and deplatform conservative and Christian organizations. FRC experienced this from Truist Financial, Fidelity Investments, GuideStar, Mobile Cause, and other technology-related companies. SPLC officials openly acknowledged this strategy before Congress in January 2020. SPLC official Lecia Brooks stated: “We have lobbied internet companies, one by one… A key part of this strategy has been to target these organizations’ funding.”

Brooks continued to describe the coordinated effort to pressure technology companies and financial institutions to restrict access for organizations they opposed.

The issue before this committee is larger than FRC or any one organization.

In America, citizens should not lose access to banking services, digital platforms, public credibility, or physical safety because they believe in biblical teaching on marriage and human sexuality. When government-regulated institutions can apply ideological labels in a coordinated fashion to silence, isolate, or financially cripple opponents, we allow political targeting by proxy, and freedom is at risk.

SPLC was the hub, but there were many spokes that made up this wheel designed to crush Christians and conservatives — the congressional inquiry should not stop with SPLC.

Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand. He also served two terms as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and served as Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Source: SPLC Was The Hub, But Many Spokes Made Up The Wheel Designed To Crush Christians And Conservatives – Harbinger’s Daily

Police have dropped charges against a Christian pastor following a months-long investigation into his street preaching.

Dia Moodley, 58, was arrested on November 22 and detained on suspicion of “inciting religious hatred” after peacefully sharing his Christian views in Bristol city center. After four months of criminal investigation, police with Avon and Somerset informed him that “no further action will be taken,” according to a news release from Alliance Defending Freedom International, which defended him in the case.

“I’m glad Avon and Somerset Police decided to eventually do the right thing and drop their criminal investigation,” Moodley said in a statement. “This is a win for free speech, but I never should have been arrested, treated like a criminal, and investigated for months for peacefully sharing my faith in the public square.”

Moodley was accused of preaching against transgender ideology, comparing Christianity with Islam, and committing a Section 4A religiously aggravated public order offense under the Public Order Act of 1986. He was arrested after a bystander appeared to reach for the wire of his speaker, and he reportedly pushed her away.

He was held for eight hours in a police cell, interrogated by police, and initially placed under bail conditions that restricted him from entering Bristol city center over Christmas, said ADF International.

While the bail conditions were later dropped, the investigation into criminal investigation continued, resulting in what ADF called de facto censorship, as the pastor refrained from publicly preaching over Christmas and in the weeks leading up to Easter for fear of rearrest.

November was the second time Moodley has been arrested for commenting on Islam and transgender ideology while street preaching. In March 2024, he was arrested outside the University of Bristol after speaking on Islam and stating that sex is binary. Police dropped that investigation as well. Also, in 2021, police banned him from commenting on any other faith, and from delivering sermons without prior police approval.

The pastor has faced repeated violence and threats from bystanders while street preaching, ADF said, many of which the police have failed to adequately address. And he is now considering legal action against Avon & Somerset Police, for the violation of his free speech rights and for the police’s failure to promptly investigate serious crimes against him.

ADF legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole described the police’s decision to drop the November charges as a “vindication” of Moodley’s conduct. He said the case is a symptom of a wider pattern and called on Parliament to take action.

“The war of attrition against free speech in the U.K., demonstrated in Pastor Dia’s case, must end,” Igunnubole said. “Censorial laws need to be repealed urgently, and stronger protections, including a Free Speech Bill, are needed to reverse the growing culture of censorship within law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Moodley will continue expressing his faith in the public square.

“I will continue to share my faith publicly, undeterred by the police’s censorship and the threats and violence I have faced, and will stand for free speech not just for myself, but for the rights of all people in the U.K.”

Source: Pastors In The Crosshairs: The War Of Attrition Against Free Speech In The UK Must End – Harbinger’s Daily

Explore American exceptionalism, free speech, and conservatism ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Perhaps there are those of you who remember the 1968 film starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood about a secret World War II mission to rescue an Allied General deep inside Germany at the fictitious Schloss Adler. The movie itself was fiction, but it was indeed an action thriller. I’m surprised Hollywood has not attempted to remake something of that genre. Then again, they should leave this classic alone. They already screwed up Ben-Hur. The motto of the British SAS is “Who Dares Wins,” and as we begin our trek to the 2026 midterm elections, that maxim is more applicable than ever.

This evening, I will be on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to discuss topics of American exceptionalism, illegal immigration, and foreign policy. It is imperative that we do not stop bringing a constitutional conservative message to our American college and university campuses, as we cannot cede any ground to the Marxist left. Am I concerned about “protesters?” Nah, I am a combat veteran. As well, it would be quite interesting to have leftists seeking to shut down the free speech of a Black man who was born in a segregated hospital in Georgia 65 years ago.

Conservatives must indeed go where eagles dare, and challenge the most formidable bastions of Marxism. That was the essence of what Charlie Kirk did so very effectively. I recall meeting the young 19-year-old Kirk back in 2013 and being asked to be part of his Turning Point USA Board of Advisors as he was launching. His personal efforts will be missed, but we cannot focus on just a singular person. As in the movie Spartacus, we must all say, “I’m Charlie Kirk.” The message that our young people are receiving on college and university campuses is completely antithetical to the American ideal, that of individual sovereignty, rights, freedoms, and liberties. That is what America 250 is all about. However, when one ponders what we have devolved into since America 200, when I was fifteen years of age, it is quite telling.

Who in 1976 thought that we would have discussions about defining what a woman is? Or that we would be confused about two scientifically based sexes. Once upon a time, it would have been considered child abuse to recommend that minors undergo body-transforming surgeries and disturb their natural hormonal growth and adolescence. Let’s be real, little kids are not confused about whether they are a boy or a girl. Adults are injecting them with this poison. As a matter of fact, anyone under the age of eighteen is not allowed to have a tattoo, but we are supposed to believe that the removal of healthy body parts is normal?

I remember as a young fella the day when my Dad made his last house payment. It was a source of pride for the ol’ World War II Corporal, as well as for me. He gave me something to achieve: being a homeowner. We all know that our Declaration of Independence was built upon the Natural Rights theory of the English political philosopher, John Locke, called the father of classical liberalism. The three unalienable rights endowed, naturally, to all mankind are life, liberty, and property. Yes, we do need to ensure that the American dream of home ownership is attainable for current and future generations.

However, government-run housing and policies of rent control are not the answer. I got a unique opportunity to see what that looked like — not once but twice — when visiting East Berlin, and government-controlled transportation was ugly. The purpose of government is to protect our life, liberty, and property. French economist Frederic Bastiat wrote of such in his phenomenal essay of 1850 called The Law. It was an apparent direct response to a differing philosophy that was introduced in 1848, the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In Marx’s work, he advocated for heavy progressive taxation and the elimination of private property rights, two things that the Marxist/Islamist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has made central to his policy.

I have no issue with those who say that they hate President Trump. I would suggest stopping shooting at him. Americans are free to have differing opinions. It was New York liberal Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who once asserted, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” The same can be said about the absurdity of claiming one’s own truth, which is rooted in situational morality and ethics.

It is therefore imperative that we go where eagles dare, and not confine ourselves to our respective echo chambers of adoration. I will never forget the young lady on the campus of Northwestern University some eight to 10 years ago who asked me, “Do you identify as Black?” It was a truly shocking inquiry, but reflective of the low standards of academic rigor and critical thinking that exist on many college and university campuses. Northwestern University is one of the top academic institutions in our country, yet someone had filled this young lady’s mind with the folly that one’s skin color should dictate how they think, totally bypassing the brain that God gave to each of us. As my Mom and Dad would say, “some folks got a lot of book learning but ain’t got the common sense to come in outta the rain.”

One of the world’s great minds, Albert Einstein, advocated on behalf of socialism in his 1949 essay Why Socialism? He believed that socialism would quell the “predatory phase” of human development caused by capitalism. As opposed to economic minds like Mises, Hayek, Friedman, and Sowell, Einstein believed that capitalism brought about “economic anarchy” and that the pursuit of profit was less admirable for individuals than a government-planned economic system that ensured social welfare. That sounds a lot like Marx’s “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” wealth redistribution schemes.

America has a clear choice in this election cycle, and future ones as well: shall we choose the philosophy of economic servitude and enslavement and collectivism, or do we still believe in the indomitable individual spirit that yearns for freedom, economic empowerment, and yes, rugged individualism? I dare to choose the latter over the former. As history has proven, the former never works out well. As Sir Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” He also affirmed that “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” And we know that socialism is the economic model of Marxism.

Go where eagles dare, spread the message of individual entrepreneurial economic achievement.

Steadfast and Loyal.

Allen West | May 18, 2026

Source: Where Eagles Dare

Explore how belief in God anchors truth and moral order in society, crucial for civilization’s survival.

Next Thursday evening, Jews will celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. This holiday, which occurs seven weeks and one day after Passover (hence the name Shavuot, which literally means “weeks”), commemorates perhaps the most transformative event in all of human history: the revelation of the Word of God to the ancient Israelite nation. It was at Mount Sinai, congregated at the base of the smoking and trembling mountain, that God promised the Israelites they would be a “kingdom of princes and a holy nation” if they accepted and maintained fidelity to His covenant. In unison, before they had even received the Ten Commandments, the Israelites responded, “All that the Lord has spoken we shall do!”

Because of the breadth and depth of its impact and lasting influence, the Divine Revelation at Sinai was the logical starting point for what we now call Western civilization. Writing thousands of years later at another inflection point in human history, Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 31: “In disquisitions of every kind, there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend.” In the United States specifically, and in Western civilization more generally, it was long obvious what those “primary truths” and “first principles” actually meant: the Word of God Himself. Such a properly anchored and oriented society is uniquely suited to improve mankind’s lot and advance human flourishing.

In a Washington Post op-ed earlier this month, Gregory Conti, a politics professor at perennially top-ranked Princeton University, lamented: “Several years ago, one of my colleagues at Princeton University hosted a lecture on religion and free speech. The talk didn’t seem to be landing with the students. Finally, he realized why: The speaker had made repeated reference to the Ten Commandments, and several students didn’t know what they were.” Conti noted that Princeton students are often smart and driven, but they lack basic religious literacy — even the difference between the Old and New Testaments. In short, many of America’s future leaders do not even recognize the “primary truths” and “first principles” upon which our civilization rests.

There is a clear casualty of this ignorance: our ability to accept reality and the truth. Consider, for example, the shocking inability to do precisely that among far too many members of America’s more avowedly secularist political party, the Democrats. A whopping 42% of Democrats believe the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024 was staged. A similarly galling 34% of Democrats believe the same about the recent attempted assassination of Trump and his Cabinet members at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. There is, of course, zero evidence to support either belief. One might as well believe in Bigfoot, or that Neil Armstrong’s moon landing was fake.

There can be nothing good down this road. Only a society that is rooted in, and oriented toward, the eternal and the transcendental can ever hope to cultivate decent, truth-seeking citizens. When a free people loses the ability to discern between truth and fiction, rightness and wrongness, justice and injustice, there can only be only misery, despair and destruction. We’re losing that because, for far too long, we’ve been missing God. There is no better time than the run-up to America’s semiquincentennial — when we will celebrate the assertion of the self-evident truths that birthed the nation — to find Him once again. Frankly, America’s survival for another 250 years depends on it.

        To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at http://www.creators.com.

Josh Hammer  5:00 PM | May 17, 2026

Source: A Society Without God Is a Society Without Truth – HotAir

Celebrate Andre the Giant’s 80th birthday, the legendary wrestler and greatest drinker in history – May 19 — would’ve been his 80th birthday.

By some estimates, about 117 billion humans have lived on Earth. That’s a lot of people.

Which means, out of all those billions of humans, someone was the tallest. Someone was the fattest. Someone was the best at this or the best at that.

And out of those 117 billion humans, someone could drink more booze than anyone else.

With apologies to Guinness, we might not know who the tallest or fattest human in history was — the B.C. era wasn’t exactly known for its meticulous record-keeping — but we have an excellent idea who our biggest drinker was.

That’s because distilled spirits are a relatively new invention. While its exact origins are unclear, it seems to have caught on in the Middle Ages. Wine, beer, and mead have been around for thousands of years, but higher-proof spirits haven’t.

Which clarifies our timeline for the world’s greatest alcoholic, because alcohol tolerance is driven by consumption. Nobody is born a great drinker: It takes years and years of pounding your liver into oblivion.

Seems reasonable to assume that someone who had access to distilled spirits — vodka, whiskey, tequila — could out-imbibe those who hadn’t.

So let’s exclude everyone who was born more than a thousand years ago. They lacked the “training tools” to compete. (It’d be like trying to be a bodybuilder before the invention of weights.)

Additionally, not all body types are conducive to heavy alcohol consumption. Purely for biological reasons, women usually can’t drink as much as men. (This removes about half of the population from our sample.) And larger people can consume far more booze than smaller people: “Since alcohol travels through the blood stream, the more someone weighs, the more alcohol it is going to take to get that person drunk,” explains Student Health and Counseling Services at UCDavis.

Therefore, we now have a template for the world’s greatest drinker:

Some of y’all have probably figured out his identity. But if you haven’t, here’s your final clue: Exactly one week from today — May 19 — would’ve been his 80th birthday.

If you want to drink like him, you better start drinking now!

Because we’re talking about a man who consumed 7,000 calories EACH DAY just from booze — and once drank 119 beers in six hours. Stories of his drinking prowess are legendary. Many defy comprehension.

When he stayed one month in an English hotel to film The Princess Bride, his bar bill was over $40,000.

André René Roussimoff was born in northern France on May 19, 1946. Better known by his pro wrestling name — Andre the Giant, a.k.a. “The Eighth Wonder of the World” — he was billed as standing 7-foot-5, weighing 520 pounds.

Whereas wrestling heights and weights are routinely embellished, Roussimoff was unquestionably an enormous man. (Photos of him standing next to 7-foot, 1-inch Wilt Chamberlain show them of similar height, albeit Andre was far heavier.)

https://x.com/Schwarzenegger/status/984478810400686080/photo/1

His fellow wrestlers — hardcore drinkers in their own right — were in awe of Andre’s liver. On the WWE’s Legends of Wrestling, Mike Graham and Dusty Rhodes claimed they watched Andre drink 156 16-ounce beers in a single sitting. The Fabulous Moolah wrote in her autobiography that Andre downed 127 beers in a Pennsylvania hotel and took an impromptu nap in the lobby — and because of his size, the hotel staff couldn’t move him.

Hours before Andre’s most famous match — his WrestleMania III showdown against Hulk Hogan — he allegedly drank 14 bottles of wine!

His size (and tolerance) also led to a medical breakthrough: When Andre needed back surgery, the anesthesiologist didn’t know what to do: He had never anesthetized someone of Andre’s immense proportions.

Modern Drunkard Magazine (yes, that’s a real publication) told the rest of this story:

Various experts were brought in but no solution presented itself until one of the doctors asked Andre if he was a drinker. Andre responded that, yes, he’d been known to tip a glass from time to time. The doctor then wanted to know how much Andre drank and how much it took to get him drunk.

“Well,” rumbled the Giant, “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.”

And thus was a solution found. The gas-passer was able to extrapolate a correct mixture for Andre by analyzing his alcohol intake. It was a medical breakthrough, and the system is still used to this day.

Five months later, Andre the Giant wrestled a “body-slam” match against Hulk Hogan and brought down the house.

It’s tempting to applaud Andre’s unrivaled capacity to metabolize ethanol, but his drinking belied a darker, uglier truth: He suffered from gigantism (acromegaly) and was in chronic pain. His body never stopped growing, and eventually it killed him.

He died of heart failure on Jan. 28, 1993, in Paris, while visiting family for his father’s funeral. Andre the Giant was just 46.

But in his prime, he could outdrink any other human who’s ever lived.

It’s been said, “It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” According to those closest to him, Andre was well aware of his mortality. Doctors told him his gigantism was a death sentence.

Andre refused medical treatment to alter it, deciding that God made him this way for a reason. His friend Jackie McAuley remembered him saying, “If this is the size God wants me to be, I’m going to be this size.”

So instead, he drank, he celebrated, he laughed — and oh, how he lived!

Happy 80th birthday, Andre. Cheers! We raise our glass in your honor.

Wish you were still here to celebrate with us.

Scott Pinsker  | 11:49 AM on May 12, 2026

Source: Happy 80th Birthday to the Greatest Alcoholic Who’s Ever Walked on Planet Earth! – PJ Media

Back in the day, not only did American children have our own moms in our homes, but we also had several lovely moms we watched on television.

Silvio Canto, Jr. | May 10, 2026

Source: The moms in our lives – American Thinker

While America currently has a dangerously low birthrate and too few traditional two-parent homes, a slow cultural reverse is occurring.

The West needs more mothers—with fathers—simply to sustain itself. The US birth rate is currently below 1.6 children per couple. (2.1 is needed to sustain the population).

Women are delaying marriage. Many are not having children and putting their careers first. Almost thirty percent of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ+. There is also a current trend that sees women deciding to have children without fathers.

Over forty percent of births are paid for by Medicaid, which suggests that many are not just poor, but also single. One-quarter of American children are being raised in single-parent households. Divorce has become commonplace, as over 40% of first marriages end in divorce. The traditional family model is becoming the exception, as less than half of American children are being raised in a traditional, heterosexual, two-parent home.

Yet, with all that said, there are significant early trends and forces at work this Mother’s Day that are encouraging a return to the traditional family model.

Data show strong and increasing support for the traditional family in key religious sectors. Mormons, Evangelicals, and Orthodox Jews, for example, are marrying more frequently and are continuing to marry at younger ages than the national average. Many are also having more children than the national average. Additionally, the best defense against divorce appears to be marrying early without prior cohabitation and having the same religious path as one’s partner, which is often the case with these groups.

In terms of outcomes, children raised by both a mother and a father fare better across a variety of measures, both societal and academic. Children from traditional marriages are far less likely to have academic performance problems, anxiety, depression, obesity, and other issues than children raised by single parents or same-sex couples.

Traditional families seem to be emulating the biblical example. The role model family in the Bible almost always includes a father and a mother. “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” is a foundational biblical principle (Genesis 2:24), emphasizing that marriage creates a new family unit.

Quite a few organizations are now actively working to support traditional marriage and family. Under the “Greater Than“ campaign umbrella, forty-seven different organizations are working to return public consciousness to the critical need a child has for both a father and a mother, one aligned with biblical values, regardless of the sometimes-understandable desires among single or same-sex parents.

The percentage of observant Jews is growing significantly, in part thanks to the outreach efforts of Chabad and others. Birth rates in the Orthodox Jewish world are generally four or more per family. All of this, God willing, is just the beginning of a wave that will help the West culturally reset itself and begin building a bright future, one traditional family at a time.

Yehezkel Schiff | May 10, 2026

Source: The West needs more mothers—with fathers – American Thinker