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Many of our strongest voices have decried a new tribalism. They call out those who spurn the emphasis on merit that has driven Western civilizational success and who choose identity in a victimized race or ethnicity as the criterion to drive promotion and empowerment. Speaking in academic jargon understandable to few and of interest to even fewer, the thought that has prepared the ground for this change escaped broad notice for decades. “What do you get when you cross a mafioso with a Deconstructionist?” went the droll riddle. The answer: “An offer that you can’t understand.” It seemed even to the few in the mainstream of America who knew what deconstructionism was that it was an exotic flower fueled by the hot air of a few professors speaking only to each other — nothing to worry about. But the faculty lounges and lecture halls turned out to be like the Wuhan lab. The mind virus that had been formulated in the English department was spliced onto New Left Marxist ideology and suddenly, the influenza of communism had turned into the COVID of intersectional wokeism. What was at first an arcane nihilistic approach to literary criticism metastasized into a political movement to deconstruct the whole of Western civilization. The old Marxism could never overcome the empiricism that drove the free West. Melding medieval rationalism with a disciplined observation of the actual world we live in and with a cultural commitment to seek best practices from wherever they may be found, the West built an economy that has created more wealth and lifted more people from poverty than all of previous human history. Simultaneously, it embraced constitutional governments and political freedom, and the politics and economics formed an unbeatable organic synergy. In place of that, Marxism offered a medieval system of a priori truths that brooked no dissent and sought no correction from a world that steadfastly refused to reward its true believers with the workers’ paradise its dogma promised. The system survived only because of its scientific development of political repression on an unparalleled scale. But even that failed. By the end of the ’80s, the whole system seemed to be on its last legs, having failed the test of history. But the mind virus released from the English and politics departments turned things around. It did not try to do the impossible — it could not help Marxism make a better society than the free West. Instead, virus-like, it tried to undermine the West from within. Knowing that the biblical foundation of the West teaches that all human power must subject itself to moral guidance, the mutant Marxist strain has gotten past the system’s defenses by mimicking morality. But once inside the defenses, it turned into a toxic quasi-moralism that blinds the disease carrier to the historical evidence of the West’s centuries-long march of moral advancement. It does so by freezing history’s flow, preaching that all evident flaws are permanent and irredeemably damning. All it sees of American history is slavery, racism, and xenophobia. Therefore, it can only be cured by destroying it. When a society is damned, then there is no need to look at its motion, at the development of lives, at the process by which individuals find out what works and learn to choose it. We are back in the Middle Ages once more, except this time, there is no deep religious belief in redemption, but only of endless quest for a penance that cannot be achieved, even after the required surrender of every benefit as an unearned and undeserved privilege. The West has thrived on achievement, the result of applying empirical standards that point out where change for the good can be found. But the static truth of the dogma of Marxism 2.0 offers no way forward. Woke intersectionalism filters out as irrelevant everything except that which is immutable about us — our race, sex, and ethnicity. (That it has also embraced the trans belief that sex is mutable is a contradiction of the sort that the dialecticians of Marxism love to embrace as a sacramental mystery.) The woke virus is now widespread, doing its best to break down Western civilization into a constant war of groups exclusively identified by inherited and unchangeable traits. It is this new cultural acceptance of this identitarianism that critics call a new tribalism. The main line of our Western tradition teaches abstract ideas grounded in communities, in real people. And by and large, the criticism is well-considered and powerful. To take a good example of such a critic, the remarkable Victor Davis Hanson (may he have a speedy and complete recovery!), his eloquent defense of the inductive method in thinking and of Western freedom in economics and politics is powerful and effective. When he lights into tribalists, he is always attacking those who devalue merit and substitute irrelevant considerations that have nothing to do with getting the best person to do the job or any similar practical achievement. Therefore, best not to quibble with the word “tribalism.” But the natural connections of family and tribe do have a necessary role. When our Western civilization has been most successful, it has honored the role of the family. We have a recent example of civilizational failure in the catastrophic damage to the black family that resulted from the Great Society’s incentivizing unwed births. It is no secret that the left has always felt that government technocrats can run lives better without the messy old family in its way. Empiricism says otherwise, but when we are deducing from dogmatic premises, to embrace reality is to be a heretic. The family is something that does not change. One does not choose one’s parents, and absent adoption or the willingness to mess around with the unborn, we do not get to choose our children either. This is part of our humanity. Much of life is not chosen. In religious terms, to go deeply, and in a way embraced by Washington and Lincoln, there is an active Providence in the world that is greater than we are. But in the tradition that comes from Jerusalem, that overarching Providence does not preclude freedom — it is freedom’s condition. By knowing and accepting what we cannot change, we are free to focus on what we can. Biblical Providence embraces our freedom, at the very least, to turn away from evil and choose good and to embrace the possibility of redemption as the key to a good life. Genesis shows us that we can think of a tribe in the best way — but it requires commitment and extended effort. A group of brothers — Jacob’s 12 sons who erred grievously and then redeemed themselves — find the way in which their own small identities form a subsidiary but absolutely essential part in a larger identity — that of the whole people. They would continue to play a role as a counterbalance to the overcentralizing tendencies of powerful monarchs. They also played a negative role which would on occasion reduce the the national union to chaos. Many eloquent voices at America’s founding embraced the biblical model. One example is from former Harvard president Samuel Langdon, who campaigned from the pulpit for the Constitution’s adoption in the summer of 1788. In a sermon titled “The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States,” Langdon stated that “instead of the 12 tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen States of the American union.” He said that the tribal governments in ancient Israel attended to their local affairs and maintained the peace much as the Constitution reserved the rights of the states to do under the delegated authority of the national government. In the struggle in America today, though, the tribal is even more relevant. In an essay written more than three decades ago, Kentucky native Wendell Berry reflected on the ever-deepening divide in American life between those who seek a larger and more powerful government and those who seek with equal fervor the freedom of individuals to pursue their own happiness. There seems to be no compromise between these two positions, each of which is passionately held by millions of Americans. But deeper thought and reflection on our own lived experience reveal a mediating reality. Berry writes: The indispensable form that can intervene between public and private interests is that of community. The concerns of public and private, republic and citizen, necessary as they are, are not adequate for the shaping of human life. Community alone, as principle and as fact, can raise the standards of local health (ecological, economic, social, and spiritual) without which the other two interests will destroy each other. Community is rooted in place, in the affections of families and friends, things which technocrats devalue and mock. We can see, if we embrace the empirical outlook, just how true Berry’s last sentence here is. We hear day after day from those who set before us the horrific image of impending civil war to underscore the gravity of the conflicts dividing our civilization and our nation. Berry’s argument rests on a truth we can all see. The beliefs in governmental primacy and of individual primacy are abstractions. Abstractions are powerful but they have significant shortcomings. Their power is attested to by their fervent advocates, many of whom are willing to go to war rather than compromise their allegiance to them. And where lies that strength, there lies weakness — the brittleness of people whose ideas that are not constantly submitted to the test of beneficial application in the real world. Stuck in abstractions cut loose from actual life, the ideologues refuse to imagine anything real or true beyond their limited grasp. The main line of our Western tradition teaches abstract ideas grounded in communities, in real people. Real people in real life know they need both firm principles and the test of those principles in the wondrous real world. If we have the humility to accept the test of reality, we can have confidence that our principles are not merely an intoxicated brew distilled from our own ego. Nature requires our acceptance and our respect. That respect is meant to carry over into our ideas and principles, keeping us from turning into messianic tyrants. Our genetics, our kin, are given to us as gifts. Without them, all our great structures of government and society topple and fall. But ideas and principles that respect and honor their divine origin in the families and natural associations of people bound together by land and history can bring us to a new order of the ages, as our Founders put it — age-old and ever new. Both the immovable given in our lives and freedom are gifts of God. The tribe and the nation as a whole each have their place in the integrated whole — a nation under God. Our triumph, our redemption, requires we embrace both, with heartfelt gratitude to their Giver. READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: The Lemon Test 2.0 The Worship of Death The Bonds of Affection  

I worry at times, writing this column, that I may sound like a broken record, harping on immigration issues and the Catholic Church’s teachings on the subject ad nauseum. But America’s Catholic bishops clearly have no such qualms; indeed, it seems as though their excellencies issue some new (often whiny) immigration missive every other week, horrifically misrepresenting the Church’s age-old teachings on matters of national sovereignty, borders, and the moral responsibilities that immigrants and refugees owe to their host nations. Well, last week was one of those weeks. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on Friday published a statement authored by Bishop Brendan Cahill of the Diocese of Victoria in Texas, complaining of President Donald Trump’s plan to increase detention housing capacity for arrested illegal aliens. “These plans are deeply troubling,” the bishop wrote, making veiled references to the mass internment of Japanese nationals during World War II. “The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American. Whatever their immigration status, these are human beings created in the image and likeness of God, and this is a moral inflection point for our country,” he continued. “We implore the Administration and Congress to lead with right reason, abandon this misuse of taxpayer funds, and to instead pursue a more just approach to immigration enforcement that truly respects human dignity, the sanctity of families, and religious liberty.” What might a more just approach be in Cahill’s mind, I wonder? What might be a better use of those taxpayer funds? Perhaps funneling tens of millions of dollars per annum into the USCCB’s coffers (see here, here, and here) while the bishops and their cronies distribute cellphones and pre-loaded debit cards to newly-arrived illegal aliens at the southern border, before shuttling the unvetted arrivals further into the U.S. How many young American women could have been spared rape and brutal murder had the USCCB refused the thirty pieces of silver the previous administration offered? Mass detention centers of the sort that Cahill is moaning about could be rendered unnecessary if the deportation process were to be streamlined. Holding tens of thousands of foreigners at a time would not be necessary if they were to be quickly processed through the immigration courts, ushered onto planes, and shuttled back to wherever they came from in the first place. Instead, a veritable army of NGOs has besieged the nation’s Article III courts with lawsuits, which are almost invariably decided by left-wing activists put on the bench by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Injunctions and restraining orders are issued and murderers, rapists, child molesters, human traffickers, wife-beaters, drug dealers, gang members, and fraudsters are kept from being shipped back to their landfills of origin, necessitating further detainment and, thus, the Trump administration’s rapid expansion of detention capacity. However, those refugees have an obligation, the Church further instructs, to respect the laws and customs of the nation offering refuge and to assimilate. While I am unaware of any such lawsuit formally joined by the USCCB or its “Catholic” satellite organizations, the bishops have been active participants in the wave of anti-immigration enforcement activism presently afflicting a portion of the nation’s population. (For a few examples, please see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) When activist provocateur Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed in Minneapolis last month after striking an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent with her SUV, Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis was quick to issue a statement, while the Jesuits’ America magazine published an essay implicitly accusing ICE of racist practices and policies. When an illegal alien assaulted 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley, attempted to rape her, and bashed her head in with a rock, no bishops issued any statements. When 37-year-old mother-of-five Rachel Morin was raped, beaten to death, and then raped again, no bishops issued any statements. When two illegal alien adult men sexually assaulted and strangled 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray to death — you guessed it, silence from the U.S. bishops. The Catholic Church has very clear teachings on the subjects of immigration, treatment of refugees, borders, national sovereignty, and cultural heritage and homogeneity. Nations who can afford to, the Church instructs, ought to welcome refugees, those who are fleeing genuine persecution, war, or severe disasters. Climate change, an impoverished economy, or being hunted down by a rival gang do not really qualify as life-threatening humanitarian crises, sorry. However, those refugees have an obligation, the Church further instructs, to respect the laws and customs of the nation offering refuge and to assimilate, as far as is reasonable. This commandment has been broken time and time again by those who wantonly trample the first American law that they encounter and continue — whether for months, years, or even decades — to evade law enforcement, unlawfully take jobs and houses that right-wise belong to their American hosts, and even prey upon welfare programs paid for by American taxpayers and meant to support Americans. The bishops mention none of these responsibilities. Instead, they treat the United States like a free hotel and complain when the government spends millions of dollars providing beds for criminals. Meanwhile, they and their allies denounce just American laws and, in their efforts to prevent the deportation of illegal immigrants, help create the very demand for expanded detention centers they deplore. When it comes to immigration policy, the U.S. bishops might do well to read Cardinal Robert Sarah’s The Power of Silence. READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Be a Modern-Day St. Valentine Catholics Blast Notre Dame’s Promotion of Abortion Activist Are America’s Bishops Cowardly — or Just Greedy?

On October 7th 1571, two great fleets collided off the coast of western Greece in one of history’s greatest naval battles –and one of the most consequential for the history of what we once were pleased to call “Western Civilization.” As part of its ongoing campaign to claim Europe for Islam, the Ottoman Empire assembled a huge fleet of war galleys, intending to wrest control of the Adriatic Sea — and ultimately, the entire Mediterranean — from the several Christian powers, notably Venice and Spain. To counter this threat, Pope Pius V called into existence the “Holy League,” a coalition based upon the combined naval resources of Venice and Spain. Under the leadership of Don John of Austria, the illegitimate half-brother of King Phillip II of Spain, the fleet of the Holy League won a resounding victory, known to history as the Battle of Lepanto. In terms of numbers involved, and casualties, Lepanto was one of the greatest naval battles in all of history. The opposing fleets combined numbered some 130,000 men and nearly 500 ships. The Holy League lost in the neighborhood of 10,000 killed, the Ottomans perhaps two or three times as many, with corresponding massive losses of ships. World War One’s great clash of fleets, the Battle of Jutland, featured half the number of ships and fewer than 10,000 killed. But was Lepanto decisive in any meaningful sense? The simple answer would be “not so much.” It would take another century of warfare before the threat to Christian Europe from the Muslim Ottoman Empire would be irrevocably broken at 1683’s Battle of Vienna. Even then, the struggle continued for many years before the threat receded altogether with the steady decline of the Ottoman Empire. Still, Lepanto made a genuine difference, serving as a much-needed moral victory for long-beleaguered Christianity — instead of constantly losing ground against the Ottoman threat, Europe could take heart in the demonstration that victory was possible and that the inevitability of decline could be averted. It was a win for hope and for belief in the future of European civilization. Much good would flow from this, including, far from incidentally, our own place in the world. One struggles to equate either J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio with Pope Pius V, but their messages at successive Munich Security Conferences, taken together, offer a clarion call for unity in the face of a genuinely civilizational threat, one comparable in every way to the one stymied at Lepanto. In 2025 Vance bluntly called attention to Europe’s apparent unwillingness to stand up for the values that had made European civilization a model for the modern world. Just days ago, more gently, but still firmly, Rubio delivered much the same message. Rubio’s speech is so richly nuanced and yet so powerful that it defies reduction to a few lines of summary. And it is so important that it deserves to be read in full — it’s not a five minute read, but every minute rewards the thoughtful reader. At its heart, however, lies very much the same message delivered by Vance the year before. The time has come to stand up for our shared civilization, not some watered-down globalist simulacrum thereof. The time has come to uphold once more the values of our shared heritage. The time has come to rearm ourselves once again, not simply by pledging to some arbitrary GDP percentage of military spending, but by returning to that which we once found worth fighting for. More, we must be honest with ourselves about the threat we face, and here is where it behooves us to recall the situation in Christian Europe on the eve of Lepanto. Then Christianity was divided against itself, not simply nation versus nation, Protestant versus Catholic, or sect versus sect, but very nearly a rampant tribalism that defied finding any common purpose against the looming Ottoman threat. Much the same is true today, perhaps even more so. Our statesmen are right to be concerned about China, for Xi and his minions genuinely pose a civilizational threat. They make no bones about wanting to replace us as the world’s forthcoming leading civilization, and they don’t mean to be gentle about it. Ask Jimmy Lai, and ask the anonymous thousands upon thousands who have shared his fate. So by all means let’s continue to press our European allies to build up their defenses, to become worthy military partners once again. We might also pause to consider the thugocracy that is Putin’s Russia. One can choose not to worry about the military threat posed by Russia, one can dismiss it as “Italy with nukes,” one can assume that it’s only a matter of time before it implodes, but one shouldn’t dismiss its capacity for great mischief whichever way it goes. In particular, we should beware of Russia’s increasingly evident role as a pawn of the Chinese regime, not an equal partner but rather a client state like North Korea. Putin might resist the comparison with Kim Jong-un, but we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or fail to recognize the obvious implications. Still, we deceive ourselves if we focus too much on Russia or China. We deceive ourselves all the more by concluding that, by “pivoting” to the Chinese threat, we assure our future security. Instead we must finally accept that radical Islam, in all its varied yet ultimately unitary manifestations, represents the most important and insidious threat to our way of life. Furthermore, we need to finally face up to the fact that the greatest enabler of radical Islam is the flaccid tyranny of our own secular left. How so, you might ask? The mullahs of Iran have been rocked back on their heels, and Arab leaders show every day their most transactional face — Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are, in the popular phrase, “open for business.” Surely we’ve entered a phase in which the Islamist threat can be regarded as contained, something aggravating rather than existential. After Operation Midnight Hammer where are radical Islam’s nukes? Where are the ships that rival the U.S. Navy in numbers and increasingly in capability? We’re not done, however, with the mullahs and their pawns, nor has the transactionalism of Arab elites erased the fact that the so-called “Arab street” remains deeply radicalized. The same might be said of Turkey, where Erdogan has sown the seeds of a radical Islam that grows more powerful by the day. Across north Africa ISIS and others grow more powerful and more urgent in their pursuit of a caliphate — ask Nigeria’s Christians. And nukes? Let’s not forget Pakistan, a begetter and enabler of all manner of Islamist mischief. But the main threat from radical Islam is even more powerful, not least because it’s the most insidious. The nations of western Europe, the chief targets of both Vance’s and Rubio’s messages, have been overrun by successive waves of Islamic immigration, an invasion that surpasses the worst we experienced under Biden. The secular leftists and the weak-willed moderates who’ve dominated European politics for decades have consistently refused to acknowledge what this means, clinging instead to the same “diversity is our strength” fantasies that poison so much of our own political discourse. We witnessed the direct effects of this during the tidal wave of pro-Hamas demonstrations that followed the October 7th, 2023 massacres. European capitals were flooded by massive crowds, both Muslim immigrants and home-grown radicals, all rejoicing in the murder of innocent Jews, all clamoring for the destruction of both the “little Satan,” that is, Israel, and the “great Satan,” the United States. The political elites had no meaningful response, in some cases because they actively sympathized, in others from fear of being called “Islamophobic.” The underlying fear in many instances was simply that those in authority were actively afraid of confronting the problem their immigration policies had invited. The story of the British government’s feckless response to a decades-long rape gang crisis tells the tale. Not only did the “good Muslims” within their several communities fail to forthrightly condemn this monstrous behavior, but secular leftist governments recoiled from the reaction a public crackdown might have provoked. The attacks on Christian churches in France tell a similar tale, and not just in France. After all, in this country each year brings a further escalation in attacks on churches and synagogues. So by all means let’s continue to press our European allies to build up their defenses, to become worthy military partners once again. Let’s applaud Elbridge Colby’s call, also at Munich, for very specific steps to expand NATO capabilities in the face of Russian threats, so that we can shift our military and naval focus to the Indo-Pacific. These are good and necessary measures, each and every one, necessary, but far from sufficient. Above all, however, we should heed Marco Rubio’s larger message, namely that our civilization itself hangs in the balance, and, contra Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s muddled mendacity, it is a civilization worth defending and more, worth celebrating and promoting once again. We can hope that others, both here and in Europe, will harken to his call. We may not prevail in one decisive battle, since the danger presents itself across the world and very much inside our own societies. Our Lepanto won’t come on a single afternoon, and we can’t assure victory by simply spending 5 percent of our GDP on planes, tanks, ships, or even drones and “discombobulators.” We can’t claim victory in a single missile strike or special forces raid. But we can’t win if we don’t fight, and our Lepanto moment has come. READ MORE from James H. McGee: American Lives: Frozen Moments, Lasting Sorrow Time to Stand With the People of Iran The New York Times Keeps Getting It Wrong on Nigeria James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk finds the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian backed Venezuelan terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.  

Some years back as closing time crept up about half-a-dozen of us were still hanging out at the local dive. An unyielding feminist bartender ruled the roost. She had a notoriously low tolerance for shots at her “ism” whether cheap or dead accurate. Only one other woman, just as wary of patriarchal domination, was on hand. A lone man unknown to us sat at the end. Brazenly hazarding strange waters, he told this joke: “A couple of cave men were sitting around drinking cactus juice after dinner. One says to the other: “My wife’s back there doing the dishes, I’m thinking of teaching her to talk; how much harm could it do?” Our eyes darted back and forth. Mr. T would have pitied the fool who laughed right away. When the victims of male oppression busted loose first, yuks aloud were granted the full nod. Screwing around idly on YouTube I came across an exchange between Louisiana Senator John Kennedy (R) and George Washington University Professor of Law Mary Ann Franks. As lawyers before a Senate panel go, not to mention lots of others, she was different. When the senator read from the lady’s published history of hostile invective the jurist neither hemmed nor hawed. The author owned the words without hesitation or qualification. You’ve got to give it to her, she doesn’t back down. That’s as rare inside the beltway as a well-heeled left-wanker’s kid in a public school. So, just what was said that interested the senator? “When the Supreme Court says that there is a constitutional right to armed self-defense in public, it openly embraces a culture that privileges white men’s ability to terrorize and kill those that they perceive as threats,” certainly got my attention. Then there’s: “By simultaneously expanding white men’s right to kill and constricting women’s right not to die this Supreme Court has turned the constitution into a homicide pact.” Kennedy rounded citations off nicely with: “The majority of Americans hate women more than they love anything, including democracy.” Aren’t “the majority of Americans” women? Somebody should have asked the professor why, with this expanded “right to kill,” other demographics outpace white men so widely doing the killing? Is she telling us the patriarchy has grown timid exercising its rights? Is it possible that an academic with Frank’s substantial credentials — degrees from Loyola, Harvard, Oxford — is unacquainted with the demography of homicide stats? Or, is it that actual homicide isn’t what really bothers the good prof? Isn’t the elephant in the ideological room an elitist establishment that gushingly memorializes victims checking the right boxes — whatever behaviors impinged their demise — while turning its back on those — less proactive in self destruction — checking the wrong ones? Are any of the people seething to “bring it all down” even coarsely familiar with the statist crimes of the 20th century? We are confronted here with the use of the word “homicide” in a polemical and abstract sense. Is it crude to ask that if Emmett Till gets a movie, should Joseph Fournier — who was “William” Horton’s victim — or Irina Zarutska get one? What about an accounting of victims, across racial lines that post-date, by better than a half century, the era of lynching? The numbers would not bring comfort to those making a living off white supremacist narratives. Is asking that question controversial? Is it characterizable as “supremacist”? When confronted with statements like Franks’ above, and others like it by highly credentialed people, is it rationally avoidable? A sizable ideological faction, controlling much of the academic landscape, clings to ideas that ignore reality in pursuit of their goals. In doing so, they often harm the very cause they claim to defend. Those they call the “proletariat” were never the naïve masses they imagine—far from it. Around the same time that the communication revolution revealed the vast capabilities and insights of ordinary people, the gilded professoriate turned against them with surprising ferocity. Meanwhile, we are left uncertain whether YouTubers on college campuses are pranking viewers or not. How can students enter college ignorant of the sides in the world wars, the locations of oceans, or even the capital of the United States? Using what remains of conventional media propaganda prowess to maintain a misleading account of goings on is a desperate ploy. It’s one thing to be naturally dull and sub-competent. Letting ideology overwhelm perception is less forgivable. The guiltiest parties are in the informing and pedagogical classes. A more elaborate description of what Franks’ means is in her article “Speaking of Women: Feminism and Free Speech“: If protecting radical, dissenting, provocative, unpopular speech truly were at the heart of the First Amendment, then it would be women’s speech, especially women’s speech that displeases or defies men, that would preoccupy free speech doctrine and practice. Throughout history, women’s speech challenging the power and authority of men has been prohibited, regulated, and punished, from a four-thousand-year-old Sumerian law declaring that “a woman who speaks out of turn to a man will have her teeth smashed by a burnt brick” to the burning of women at the stake for “spells” and blasphemy to the vicious backlash against women who speak out against sexual abuse. In 2017, Desiree Fairooz, a member of the women’s activist group Code Pink, was arrested and convicted for disorderly conduct for laughing during the confirmation hearing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions; in 2020, art teacher Sheila Buck was arrested and physically dragged away from a public street by Tulsa police for wearing a t-shirt that read “I Can’t Breathe” before a Trump rally; multiple women who have made or publicized high-profile #MeToo allegations have been sued for defamation. King Ur-Nammu, going by the thrust of Franksian diatribe, might have qualified as a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. In groping for examples 40 centuries after his reign, this lady of the law comes off mighty weak. Arresting anyone for wearing an “I can’t breathe” T-shirt is impossible to justify under the first amendment. The $700,000 Sheila Buck was later awarded for this injustice is a bit more palatable, however, than having her teeth smashed in. Few readers would wonder why Franks omits the reversal of Desiree Fairooz’s conviction. In any event, comparing these two cases to the horrors of ancient Sumerian penalties and burning people at the stake — (weren’t they mostly men?) — ought to bring some second thoughts to the administration at George Washington University. Franks has a valid point about politicizing school curricula. So do people that don’t think math is racist, classical history and literature are irrelevant, science is a species of patriarchal strongarming, and other kooky contempt for all that maintains and advances Western Civilization. Education is inevitably political. It’s usually a top priority after every coup d’etat or revolution. Anyone who pushes too hard on a historic-cultural pendulum had better watch out for the back swing. That does not preclude the present administration. Did Franks notice what happened to Scott Adams when he suggested race separation? Did she not notice what didn’t happen to Brittney Cooper suggesting white people should be “taken out”? Nearly anytime anything is said that sounds untoward about Franks’ “oppressed,” by a person of prominence, uproar and consequences follow. Anything the other way around, no matter how extreme, is likely to be overlooked. Any worthwhile treatment of how the “sides” might maul the first amendment should recognize the fragile sensitivities of “both.” The fact is, there are more than two sides. When neither of the ones considered legit can take as well they give, irresponsible fakes are doing the legitimizing. It is certainly problematic when an administration uses its powers to censor and control academic curricula. It is also a worthwhile question whether or not what preceded this interference was adequate, biased or even altogether misleading. The number of students and alums today ignorant of the horrors brought on by the Bolshevik Revolution, Mao’s People’s Republic and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge amounts to a perilous scandal. Reading the annals batters the senses of any sensate observer. After you’re done subtracting mass murder on epic scales from necessary context … well … American slavery no longer stands alone in the annals of moral depravity. Are any of the people seething to “bring it all down” even coarsely familiar with the statist crimes of the 20th century? Whether they are women, men, or new and improved categories, none seem capable of recognizing what always follows radical transformation by enlightened actors with the clutches of state power. Only the deaf, blind, or comatose can’t hear or read women in 21st century America. Shutting up men, whatever their status, to turn up female volume is a path back to the Stone Age. READ MORE from Tim Hartnett: Why Western Accomplishment Provokes Outrage What They Get Wrong About ‘What We Get Wrong’ Trashing the Culture  

The Jeffrey Epstein files have erupted across headlines, drawing celebrities, billionaires, and politicians into public scrutiny. Prince Andrew’s arrest this past week renewed focus on the narrative of perverted, powerful men going through Epstein for sexual pleasure. It also adds pressure on U.S. authorities to consider charges against other figures connected to the infamous procurer. Cable news repeatedly frames the story as “trafficking of children,” though the media largely showcases then-teenage girls swept into Epstein’s orbit rather than the prepubescent kids that the phrase suggests. Coverage rightly centers women who claim Epstein and his circle preyed upon them, which is a necessary step toward reaching the truth. However, it is crucial to remember that benevolence did not inspire the media spectacle we see on TV today. It reflects a broader cultural drama that sells, where women leverage exposure to confront powerful men. These women are often giving interviews and statements as willing participants, yet they are caught in a larger social and moral battlefield that both cable and independent outlets profit from: women hating men, and men hating women. Division generates the horse race mentality that keeps viewers engaged. Headlines highlighting conflict between men and women drive clicks, ratings, and subscriptions because, well, everyone is either a man or a woman. It is easy to pick a team. High-profile careers are already faltering. Hollywood figures and business leaders linked to Epstein have lost positions or influence without legal conviction as the industry moves toward self-preservation, reflecting a sway of public opinion and social pressure. This begins to echo the impact of #MeToo post-2017, which saw at least 201 powerful men lose their jobs or major roles, according to the New York Times. In the reshuffling that followed, women assumed leadership in a substantial share of case — 54 of the 124 men replaced — highlighting both the gains and the tensions created by cultural upheaval. Today, Epstein carries a near-mythical weight as a symbol of hidden depravity and elite privilege. Epstein’s crimes with young women were grotesque. Whether technically legal in certain jurisdictions or not, or even if these young girls were banging on Epstein’s door to make a quick buck, no reasonable man would want his daughter involved in such things. Sexual exploitation, grooming, and coercion violate moral norms and inflict lasting harm. Media coverage emphasizes “the survivors,” a term of feminist empowerment coined to replace the word “victim.” Talking heads flatten the complexity of this issue into a moral play, casting men solely as predators and women solely as arbiters of justice. In his known network, the media poses Epstein as the final boss. Political context complicates perception. In 2016, President Donald Trump faced several public allegations of sexual misconduct, yet Epstein did not surface in political discourse, despite his earlier arrest. Cultural awareness of elite trafficking networks was treated as a conspiracy theory or a meme. Today, Epstein carries a near-mythical weight as a symbol of hidden depravity and elite privilege. Public fascination presents him like a single apex predator, though evidence suggests he functioned within a broader system of exploitation. Cultural dynamics intensify the hysteria. Modern feminism promotes exposure and accountability, framing men as default oppressors. Men face social pressure to display passivity even when assertiveness will serve them best. Societal messages urge women to emulate male assertiveness. These pressures invert natural roles and foster gender antagonism: men constrained by expectations meant to tame inherent behaviors that helped propagate civilization for centuries, and women navigating power in ways that sometimes perpetuate conflict. Participation by women in Epstein’s network, whether willing or coerced by circumstance, illustrates how individuals become instruments in cultural and social warfare. Whatever the truth of the Epstein saga may be, a deeper truth remains: men and women depend on each other. Societies flourish when sexes complement each other rather than compete for dominance. Civilization would die if either sex went extinct. The Epstein files dramatize misconduct and expose power imbalances while revealing how gender conflict, magnified by media spectacle and financial incentives, undermines cooperation. Women and men are each other’s greatest weakness, which can only be transformed into strength through mutual respect, empathy, and recognition that collaboration — rather than conquest — is the foundation of lasting society. READ MORE from Julianna Frieman: How COVID Created the 15 Second Generation Suing Social Media Won’t Save the Children — But It Could Silence Everyone Why Has Nancy Guthrie’s Case Become America’s Only Story? Julianna Frieman is a writer who covers culture, technology, and civilization. She has an M.A. in Communications (Digital Strategy) from the University of Florida and a B.A. in Political Science from UNC Charlotte. Her work has been published by the Daily Caller, The American Spectator, and The Federalist. Follow her on X at @juliannafrieman. Find her on Substack at juliannafrieman.substack.com.  

Nothing beats a cold beer straight from the tap, but there are pouring errors that can ruin your brew. We spoke to an expert to find out what to look out for.

from PressForTruth: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit: Fox News on Friday obtained internal FBI emails proving that the Biden White House coordinated with the Justice Department to raid Mar-a-Lago. Biden’s FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and seized boxes of records from Trump’s Florida estate. More than 3 dozen machine-gun-toting agents descended on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, […]

Whether through pressure exerted on social media platforms or through armed raids carried out against pro-life Americans, former President Joe Biden and his administration oversaw an alarming increase in the suppression and censorship of religious—chiefly Christian—expressions and actions in the public square. At the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) International Christian Media Convention on Thursday, Christian journalists, broadcasters, and policy experts gathered to discuss where religious censorship stands today, now that President Donald Trump has returned to the White House. “Censorship, as we know, is the trademark trait of authoritarian regimes throughout history, which is very telling that the Biden administration crossed that Rubicon in many ways and sent us down that slippery slope,” National Review columnist Caroline Downey told moderator Tyler O’Neil, a senior editor at The Daily Signal. “For progressive administrations,” Downey added, “discrediting speech that threatens the ruling class is essential. And what is the most threatening kind of speech is mock or ridicule.” Babylon Bee, Big Tech, and Fight Over Free Speech Downey pointed to the example of the Babylon Bee, a conservative and Christian-themed satire news website, which has been repeatedly censored on social media for satirical posts critical of transgenderism, mainstream media outlets, and Democratic Party policies. She noted that the censorship of the Babylon Bee was a key factor in prompting tech billionaire Elon Musk to purchase Twitter (now called X) and usher in a “renaissance of free discourse on a major social media platform.” While Downey expressed her gratitude to Musk for restoring freedom of speech on X, she added that she found it “harrowing” that freedom of speech was protected only by “a benevolent billionaire,” asking, “How do you depend on those types of people to make sure that we have free conversation?” Press Freedom Clashes With Religious Freedom A more recent example Downey highlighted was that of former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who last month participated in an anti-immigration enforcement protest which disrupted services in City Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Downey suggested that Lemon behaved as though his First Amendment right to freedom of the press “trumped those worshippers’ freedom of religion.” She continued, “I think what that shows is a flippancy toward people of faith, that they somehow … don’t apply under the protections of the First Amendment. But beyond that, I think it does show that there is a double standard when in politics, when it comes to religious people.” Cancellation Replaces Deplatforming The Daily Signal’s president and executive editor, Rob Bluey, agreed with Downey that the censorship of Christian media seems to be easing, thanks to individuals like Musk, Trump, and his administration, but cautioned that there is still “a lot of work to do because, on a daily basis, conservative media, Christian media are facing these challenges of censorship.” Today, Bluey said, the threat is “cancellation.” He noted that a video series The Daily Signal had produced on gender ideology had been flagged by YouTube as “hate speech.” Bluey explained, “The big tech firms that exist today, their leadership is most decidedly not Christian and do not particularly like people of faith and I think exercise these terms of service rules they’ve written into their platforms to censor the content that we experienced.” How Marriage and Gender Became the Media Flashpoint Family Research Council President Tony Perkins pointed to gender ideology and marriage as a key media battlefield between Christians and progressives. Perkins recounted that he used to make frequent guest appearances on corporate media news programs but became persona non grata after then-President Barack Obama endorsed same-sex marriage in 2012. "Liberals champion free speech and actually want to have an open debate. Leftists are the ones who say what you and I believe is misinformation, hateful, bigoted—let's silence that."@DailySignal's @Tyler2ONeil shares takeaways from today's @NRBConvention panel on censorship. pic.twitter.com/mPR64iPZc1— Tony Perkins (@tperkins) February 19, 2026 “All of a sudden, the networks began to drop anyone who had a biblical view of marriage between a man and a woman, that was really the pivotal point, was on human sexuality and marriage. It later became gender, but the starting point was the redefinition of marriage,” Perkins observed. He noted that even supposedly conservative media outlets like Fox News would not present a biblical perspective on marriage and sexuality. “It’s fundamental as a society, if we drop the idea of marriage and we capitulate to the Left’s redefinition of marriage, we have no future.” Parents Push Back—and the Resistance Grows Perkins recalled that the tide began turning against gender ideology thanks to parents, who made national headlines showing up to school board meetings and protesting progressive practices like critical race theory and transgender bathroom policies. “That was the tipping point. It was moms and dads who said, ‘Enough of this, because you’re taking my children and you’re indoctrinating them, and you’re jeopardizing their future and leading them down a destructive path.’ So thank God for parents who had the backbone to stand up,” he emphasized. Once parents began drawing attention to the issue, Perkins said, politicians began taking notice, in turn inspiring men and women of faith to step “into the political arena at every level: school board level, city council level, state legislature, and now in Congress. So yes, the resistance to censorship is becoming intense. Now it’s stepped back a little bit.” However, Perkins also warned that American Christians ought not grow complacent. He pointed out that organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which he said “has been the junkyard dog of the Left, forever labeling people hate groups so that it gives the media legitimacy to knock them off,” have substantial monetary reserves and are “probably not going to go away anytime soon.” ‘Now Is Not the Time to Be Silent’ The Left’s censorship regime, Perkins averred, is evidence that the Left fears the message shared by Christian media. He urged fellow Christians “not to shrink back, not to be complacent, thinking that all problems are solved, but to charge forward and retake many of these institutions that have been the agents of censorship. … Now is not the time to shrink back. Now is not the time to be silent. Now is the time to take the hill.” We cannot silence into being careful men. Courage is so contagious. If social media captions can throttle conservative ideologies, good morals, Bible verses and the mention of Jesus, we must use this time to push forward. Wonderful panel this morning with @Tyler2ONeil… pic.twitter.com/Bd7lBYSxzG— Alexis Wilkins (@AlexisWilkins) February 19, 2026 Alexis Wilkins, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project, agreed. “This cannot be a generation of careful men. There is great concern that there are too many careful men,” she said, encouraging Christians to “address these problems—especially problems that arise in people censoring faith—with conviction, instead of cowardice, and credibility.” While Wilkins acknowledged that Christians are called to treat others with charity and grace, she added that “we are not required to take a step back if someone challenges the values that we hold or the safety that we want to provide for our children, for the freedom to believe in Jesus in public spaces and private spaces, as we’ve seen during the Biden administration.” Originally published by The Washington Stand. The post The Next Front in the Censorship War Against Christians appeared first on The Daily Signal.