A recurring theme throughout Scripture is that those who are not following the Lord, who are, in fact, in open rebellion against him, will nevertheless claim to be his standard bearers in the hopes of harnessing his power for their cause. We see it in 1 Samuel 4-5 when disobedient Israel decides to carry the Ark of the Covenant into battle, believing its presence will guarantee their victory. We see it in Jeremiah 7 when the Israelites are sure that the Lord is on their side, despite their idol worship, because they possess the temple. We see it in Acts 19 when seven men who know nothing of Christ try to cast out demons in his name and are left naked, bloody, and fleeing for their lives. And we see it today in the Senate candidacy of James Talarico, the Democrats’ great white hope for convincing Texas voters that they, too, are representing Jesus in the public square. The significant electoral advantage Republicans enjoy with Christians — colloquially known as the “God Gap” — has been an acknowledged problem for the Left since the 1990s. But after years of being broadly antagonistic toward faith, including removing references to God from their party platform and from the Pledge of Allegiance during caucus meetings, Democrats are suddenly realizing they may find more success if they don’t alienate every voter who ever darkened the door of a church. To some degree, the most successful Democrats have always done this. Bill Clinton regularly trotted out his born-again bona fides. Barack Obama, too, referenced his church membership to allay concerns that he was hostile toward religion. And, of course, black candidates like Raphael Warnock not only use the language of faith to win votes, they use actual pulpits in Sunday services. But Talarico, a member of the liberal mainline Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is doing something different. And it has the legacy media cheering. Vox reports that he is “reclaim[ing] Christianity from the Right” by teaching Democrats a “better way to talk about faith.” MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) says that his “unapologetic embrace of his Christian faith sets him apart from other rising Democratic stars.” And the New York Times crows that he “poses a new kind of threat to Republicans” through his “matter-of-fact critique of how faith has come to be expressed in the American church.” What they mean by all of this is that Talarico is doing more than the time-honored tactic of simply claiming Christian identity to woo faith-friendly voters. He’s out on the campaign trail teaching doctrine. False doctrine. In one heavily political sermon, Talarico appealed to a heretical Gnostic text, the Gospel of Thomas, to claim that Jesus is a “radical feminist” and Christianity is a “feminist religion.” He has described God as “nonbinary” to explain his support for providing transgender surgeries and puberty blockers to children. On the Joe Rogan Experience, he cited Luke 1, in which the Angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will conceive the Messiah, to defend policy proposals like up-to-birth abortion, infanticide for babies who survive abortion, and opening abortion clinics in federal buildings. “I say all this in the context of abortion,” Talarico told Rogan, “because before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent … so to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create.” He added that Genesis 2:7 (“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”) — means that “life starts when you take your first breath.” For someone who claims the mantle of Christ for his candidacy, Talarico shows remarkably little loyalty to him. On Ezra Klein, he endorsed universalism, saying, “I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages.” In fact, Talarico doesn’t seem to view Jesus as a savior at all. During his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he told the audience one need not even be a Christian to get into Heaven. “Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I are going to be saved,” he said. “By feeding the hungry, by healing the sick … Nothing about going to church … nothing about even being a Christian.” Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Scripture will instantly spot how grossly Talarico distorts God’s word. The problem is, in a country where fewer than half of Americans can identify the four gospels, most don’t have that passing familiarity and can be easily duped. Whether it be John Cornyn or Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent in this race will certainly try to poke holes in his religious assertions, as will conservative pundits. But if it is only other politicos warning against him, the impression onlookers will very likely have is that these are simply political disagreements. That would be disastrous for the spiritual education of a public increasingly interested in Christianity. Because it is not political arguments he is making, but theological ones. And that is why the most public rebukes of Talarico must come from pastors. The Bible gives clear commands in passages like Titus 1:9-11, Ephesians 5:11, and Jude 3 that shepherds must oppose false teachers and expose their errors to protect the flock. It also offers plenty of examples to follow. From Jeremiah publicly condemning the false prophet Hananiah in the temple courtyard for making the people “trust in a lie,” to the Apostle Paul sarcastically calling out the Judaizers, to Jesus himself ferociously reproving the Pharisees, Scripture gives us picture after picture of watchmen on the walls sounding the alarm against false teaching. The need for that alarm is no less just because the false teaching happens to occur in the context of an election. Many high-profile conservative pastors have shown little reticence in calling out President Donald Trump for misusing Scripture on occasion, and they are right to do so. They are often less eager to “punch left” for fear of being seen as too political. Yet the Left’s most sacredly held social positions — abortion on demand, sexual perversion as a protected identity — are in direct conflict with a text that tells us God knew us in the womb and calls it an abomination for a man to pretend to be a woman. It is not that the American church is becoming too political; it is that our policies have become so immoral that the church cannot stay silent. Left-wing actors twisting Scripture out of all recognition to give spiritual legitimacy to their positions is a growing problem that shepherds will have to contend with in order to faithfully discharge their duties, no matter how Talarico’s race turns out. Just last month, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said that he vetoed a bill to protect children from transgender procedures because he’s a Christian and he’s following Christ’s command to love his neighbor. In July, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) invoked Matthew 25 in a floor speech opposing the budget bill. Even the agitators who invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, profanely screaming in the faces of crying children about their white privilege, claimed they were following the model of Christ in turning over tables in the temple. Before his death last year, John MacArthur, one of the foremost preachers of our era, did not hesitate to confront California Governor Gavin Newsom when he misused Scripture to defend his policies. In 2022, when Newsom began rolling out billboards that cited Matthew 25 to promote abortion, MacArthur issued an open letter: Almighty God says in His Word, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Scripture also teaches that it is the chief duty of any civic leader to reward those who do well and to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1–7). You have not only failed in that responsibility; you routinely turn it on its head, rewarding evildoers and punishing the righteous… In mid-September, you revealed to the entire nation how thoroughly rebellious against God you are when you sponsored billboards across America promoting the slaughter of children, whom He creates in the womb (Psalm 139:13–16; Isaiah 45:9–12). You further compounded the wickedness of that murderous campaign with a reprehensible act of gross blasphemy, quoting the very words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 as if you could somehow twist His meaning and arrogate His name in favor of butchering unborn infants. You used the name and the words of Christ to promote the credo of Molech (Leviticus 20:1–5). It would be hard to imagine a greater sacrilege. Charles Spurgeon didn’t hesitate either. In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were making inroads by selling the British working class on their theories. Though these were in the political realm, they crossed over into the religious. Thus Spurgeon, the most famous preacher of that era, felt duty-bound to address them, warning that embracing socialism would leave “all society shattered, and men wandering like monster icebergs on the sea, dashing against each other, and being at last utterly destroyed.” He then added a point, highlighting that the religious and the political often overlap: “Those who love the Church of God feel heavy at heart because the teachers of the people cause them to err. Even from a national point of view, men of foresight see cause for grave concern.” Much more than any other Western nation, America is still broadly Christian, if not always in individual devotion, at least in cultural allegiance. The silver lining of moments like this, when false doctrine is being spread from such high places, is that it offers preachers of the truth an opportunity to gain new hearers. I cannot remember a time when Christianity was being discussed and debated so broadly. The problem is, too much of that talk is not profitable and requires a sound teacher to offer a rebuttal. And pastors should be jealous of their territory, over which Caesar holds no authority or intimidation. If the wolf is a senator rather than a seminarian, you still confront and expel the wolf. If you don’t, don’t be surprised when it devours a few of your sheep.

Nine defendants in the anti-ICE Prairieland Detention Center riot last Independence Day in Texas were convicted in federal court on Friday. The defendants were convicted on a range of charges including rioting, “providing material support to terrorists,” “conspiracy to use and carry an explosive,” and “using and carrying an explosive” in the North Texas Antifa Cell attack that left a local police officer shot in the neck. In a statement, FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock described the incident as a “coordinated attack” on the facility where illegal immigrants were being held before deportation from the United States. Two individuals were also convicted of “conspiracy to conceal documents.” According to the Department of Justice, Benjamin Song was considered the attack’s “leader,” who gave out firearms and recruited people for the effort. Song was convicted of attempted murder of federal officers for the “unlawful attempt to kill with malice aforethought the Alvarado Police Officer” and for unlawful discharging of a firearm in “the attempted murder of two correctional officers and an Alvarado Police Officer,” as he was the one who shot the officer in the neck. Song successfully fled the scene but was arrested on July 15, 2025, while law enforcement arrested most of the other individuals involved “shortly after,” the DOJ said. Song could face up to life behind bars, with a minimum of 20 years, according to a Department of Justice press release. Seven of the individuals could get 10-60 years in prison, and Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada could be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. “These guilty verdicts and convictions rightly reflect the vicious, armed attack that these Antifa cell members planned and executed against law enforcement and detention center officers on the night of July 4 last year,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said in a statement. “Their terrorist acts, attempted murder, vandalism, and explosives launched at a detention facility were a far cry from some peaceful protest or First Amendment expression. Because of the prompt action of first responders that night and tenacious work of our law enforcement partners in tandem with the prosecutors in my office, sixteen people have been brought to justice for these violent acts and their attempts to conceal them. We will continue in this mission to hold others accountable who perpetrate such violence and fund these ANTIFA groups in the Northern District of Texas.” Notably, the attackers used “monikers” in group chats to plan the riot. The attackers also used fireworks and committed acts of vandalism, including spray-painting “F*ck You Pigs” on a building.

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show. * * * For years, American elites have told us a simple story about religion and reason: religious people are the crazy ones. They are irrational, superstitious, emotionally needy, clinging to old myths in an age of science and sophistication. The serious people, we are told, are the secular people. The smart people have moved on. The enlightened people know better. Faith is for the weak, the backward, the unthinking. Religion is a crutch. Orthodoxy is neurosis. Church is for the people who cannot handle reality. It is one of the most enduring prejudices in modern public life. And it is one of the most revealing. Because when you look at the actual data, the picture is not merely more complicated than the stereotype. It is, in a very important way, the opposite of the stereotype. According to survey data from the Pew American Trends Panel, the least crazy people in the country are conservative Christians who go to church weekly. The craziest people in the country are liberals who do not go to church. That is not the story we have been told for the last hundred years. It is certainly not the story we were told during the New Atheist moment, when public intellectuals and their admirers assured us that religion was the great enemy of reason, sanity, and civilization. But the numbers point in another direction. Asked whether a doctor or health care provider had ever told them they had a mental health condition, the highest rates came from liberals with no religious attendance. The lowest rates came from conservatives who attended weekly religious services. One can quibble around the edges. One can offer caveats, and there are caveats. But one cannot escape the central fact: the people most committed to regular religious practice appear, by this measure, to be the least crazy, and the people most detached from religion appear to be the most crazy. That does not prove every theological claim. It does not mean every churchgoer is mentally well or every secular person is mentally unwell. It does not justify cruelty toward people who struggle. But it does demolish a civilizational assumption that has shaped elite culture for generations. What we were told, over and over again, is that religious people are crazy. They are illogical. They are irrational. They believe in “sky daddy” and other cartoon versions of religion invented by people who have no intention of grappling with what believers actually believe. The secularists do not want to deal with the substance of faith, because that would require argument. It is easier to sneer. Easier to reduce millennia of theology, metaphysics, and moral reasoning to a punchline. Easier to dismiss the churchgoing neighbor as simple-minded than to answer him. And yet the data say the opposite. The religious people are the sanest people. The irreligious people are the craziest people. That reversal matters for reasons beyond partisanship. It suggests that faith and reason do not stand in opposition after all. In fact, the Christian tradition has always insisted on precisely the opposite. The Gospel of Saint John begins not with sentimentality, not with anti-rational emotionalism, but with a profound metaphysical claim: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word, the Logos, is not merely speech. It is divine logic, divine reason, the intelligible order of reality itself. That is why Christianity, properly understood, has never been a rebellion against reason. It has been a fulfillment of reason. Faith and reason go together. God is not the negation of logic. God is the source of logic. Orthodoxy is not a retreat from reality, it is an attempt to live in right relation to reality. And perhaps that helps explain why the most orthodox believers are often the least crazy. A serious religious life imposes moral structure. It disciplines desire. It situates suffering within a larger frame of meaning. It teaches that man is not the measure of all things and that appetite is not destiny. It offers ritual, continuity, accountability, community, repentance, forgiveness, obligation, inheritance, transcendence. In a lonely, fragmented, hyper-individualistic culture, those are not small things. They are stabilizing things. By contrast, a secular culture that severs itself from transcendence does not become neutral. It does not become merely rational. It often becomes disordered. If there is no higher truth, then the self becomes sovereign. If the self becomes sovereign, then every desire demands validation. If every desire demands validation, then limits feel like oppression. And if there are no limits, no sacred order, no given nature, no created purpose, then the person is left not liberated but untethered. That is not sanity. That is confusion with better branding. None of this means Christians should gloat. It is fine to dunk on the libs a little, but only if it is a loving dunk, one intended to bring them over rather than merely humiliate them. The deeper point here is not mockery. It is vindication. A great many people fell away from religion because they thought religion was for stupid people, for weak people, for crazy people. They assumed smart people had outgrown God. They assumed sanity belonged to the secular. That just is not true. Actually, the opposite appears to be true. The people most rooted in orthodox belief and weekly worship are often the least crazy people in the country. And the people who have spent decades mocking them from the commanding heights of culture are, by this measure at least, faring much worse. The choir does need preaching sometimes. But this argument is not only for the choir. It is for the many people who have absorbed the modern prejudice against religion without ever seriously examining it. It is for those who have been told that faith is irrational, that church is for fools, that belief is a form of neurosis. The data do not merely complicate that prejudice. They shatter it. Maybe the real madness is not believing in God. Maybe the real madness is building a culture on the assumption that man can remain sane after cutting himself off from truth, order, and the divine logic of the universe.

WASHINGTON—Planes have been grounded at all three Washington, D.C.-area airports after a strong chemical smell forced workers to evacuate the region’s air traffic control center. Flights were abruptly grounded at Reagan National, Dulles, and Baltimore-Washington International Airports late Friday, and inbound flights were diverted, causing major delays at one of the nation’s largest air travel hubs. It is unclear what caused the smell, or how long the airports will remain locked down. Flights were also grounded at Richmond International Airport.

When the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” captivated Hollywood with its portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Daily Wire sent me to the West Bank to see the story up close. The film, which won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, follows Palestinian activist Basel Adra and portrays the residents of Masafer Yatta as victims of what the filmmakers describe as forced displacement by Israel. During his Oscar acceptance speech, Adra accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing. Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images) “‘No Other Land’ reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,” Adra said. But is that true? I set out to Masafer Yatta in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, to investigate these claims, which went largely unchallenged on Hollywood’s biggest stage. In “No Other Lie,” I revisit the story told in Adra’s film by traveling to the same villages and speaking with Israeli officials, Arab residents, Jewish farmers, and policy experts. According to those interviewed, the history of the area — and the dispute over the land — is far more complex than the film suggests. WATCH ‘NO OTHER LIE’ NOW ON THE DAILY WIRE I spoke with Naomi Kahn, director of international affairs at the Israeli policy organization Regavim, who explained that the land featured in the documentary has a long and complicated history stretching back to the Ottoman Empire, when it was mostly uninhabited public land. According to Kahn, the area later became strategically important for the Israeli military after Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979 with Egypt and gave up the Sinai Peninsula, which had previously been used for military training exercises. “They looked for areas that were strategically important to hold on to, but also were empty and useless,” Kahn said. “And they identified this entire band of desert cliffs that were uninhabited.” Kahn said the area was eventually designated as an Israel Defense Forces training zone. She also addressed claims that Palestinians are unable to build homes in the area, saying construction is regulated through permits. “Everyone can build where it’s legal,” she said. “If you build without a permit, you can’t build.” She pointed to the territorial divisions established under the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian Authority control over large portions of the West Bank in Areas A and B, while Area C remains under Israeli jurisdiction. “Almost 70% of the territory already under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction is empty,” Kahn claimed. “Instead of building there, they’re building here.” In “No Other Land,” one resident claims his family has lived in the Masafer Yatta area since the 1830s. But historical aerial imagery and findings from Israeli courts show that the hills of Masafer Yatta had no permanent villages for decades, with aerial photographs of the area dating back to 1945. The Israeli High Court case over the land dispute, which lasted over two decades, ultimately ruled that the petitioners failed to prove permanent residence in the area before it was designated a military firing zone in 1980. The ruling also noted that several of the residents involved in the case maintained permanent homes in the nearby Palestinian city of Yatta. As my crew and I traveled deeper into the desert terrain, we encountered foreign activists who had traveled to the area and who locals say often provoke confrontations between Jews and Arabs. “They come all the time when it’s nice outside,” local Jewish farmer Bezalel Talia said. “From England, from Australia, South Africa, America.” I met several activists who acknowledged traveling to the area from the United States and Europe. Residents told me they believe the presence of international activists armed with cameras is meant to artificially create incidents that can push a one-sided narrative in the media. (The Daily Wire/Yisroel Teitelbaum) “They’re not really fighting the fight that you know,” Talia said. “You have Arabs that only live here because the Palestinian government told them. So they live there in the cave and sometimes Europeans, Basel and his Oscar friends just [come] to have a nice picture, Like Instagram models.” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee discussed the historical and biblical significance of Judea and Samaria. Huckabee said the region has been central to Jewish history for thousands of years, noting that Judea was the heart of the ancient Jewish kingdom and the seat of the Jewish capital under King David more than 3,000 years ago. “The consistency has always been that there has been a Jewish presence and a Jewish connection to the land, historically and biblically,” he said. When asked why such a small piece of land receives so much global attention, Huckabee argued that the focus is often less about geography and more about opposition to the existence of a Jewish state. “I don’t know that they care about the land,” Huckabee said. “They are offended that there is a Jewish tradition, that there is a Jewish people, and that there is a Jewish homeland.” I also visited the ancient Jewish city of Susya, where archaeological remains highlight the long history of Jewish life in the region. Standing inside a 1,600-year-old synagogue, Kahn said the site demonstrates the deep historical connection between Jews and Judea. “This is a synagogue, a Jewish place of worship, 1,600 years old,” Kahn said. “This is essentially proof positive of the Jewish presence in Judea for thousands of years.” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (The Daily Wire/Yisroel Teitelbaum) On the final day of filming, I traveled to Hebron — the first capital of King David more than 3,000 years ago — where tensions between Jewish and Palestinian communities remain high. There, I spoke with Yishai Fleischer, the international spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hebron, who addressed the frequent accusations of settler violence. “There is settler violence because if you push Jews around, they’re going to push back. This is the Middle East,” he said. “But it is far, far, far less than has been reported and is being touted as the truth; it’s not the truth.” A recent report by Regavim also challenged the widely reported narrative of widespread settler violence, arguing that the campaign accusing Jewish residents of escalating violence relies on misleading data and politically motivated sources. Analyzing 10 years of incident reports compiled by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the report found that roughly 98% of the incidents categorized as “settler violence” did not involve Jewish civilians at all, but were instead clashes with Israeli security forces or other unrelated incidents. I also asked Caroline Glick, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ decision to award “No Other Land” the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Glick said the film presents a misleading narrative about Israel. “This sort of giving the most prestigious awards in Hollywood to people who just created a completely fictitious narrative about something deeply important to billions of people throughout the world,” Glick said. The fight over Masafer Yatta is not only about land or law, but also about narrative. While “No Other Land” won Hollywood’s highest honor, “No Other Lie” asks whether the Academy will look more carefully at the stories it chooses to reward.