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Clarkson says she and her two children, 9-year-old Remington and 11-year-old River, have been sharing some special moments together as they process the death of her ex-husband and children's father Brandon Blackstock. Continue reading…

Society has spent decades telling boys that masculinity is toxic, and now there’s a shortage of skilled tradesmen. The connection should be obvious.   Through his on-again, off-again tariff dance, President Donald Trump has made one thing clear: He wants more things built in America. He’s bragged about already securing more investment dollar commitments than former President Joe Biden did during his entire term. And he wants more.   Trump has long championed the rural communities devastated by factory shutdowns. It’s one reason that he has enjoyed such strong support in Middle America. In his speech at the Republican National Convention last year, now-Vice President J.D. Vance detailed the importance of remembering that America is both a “nation” and “our homeland.”  The hardworking people I grew up with “love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home,” he said. He continued, “This is the source of America’s greatness.”  This is why Trump and Vance are so determined to rejuvenate American industry. But there’s a major obstacle to accomplishing this—a shortage of skilled workers.   “For every five tradespeople that retire, two enter the workforce,” Mike Rowe, host of “Dirty Jobs,” wrote in 2024. “That’s a 5:2 ratio, and the math is simply not sustainable.”  It’s not for lack of opportunity. For instance, the Navy Industrial Submarine Base needs to hire 100,000 skilled tradesmen within the next decade. But the companies working there are struggling to find enough qualified employees.  One reason is that society has relentlessly pushed students toward college. Former President Ronald Reagan once said, “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” And the government has, dumping trillions of dollars into higher education over the decades.   Sure enough. College enrollment more than doubled from 1972 to 2022, growing from 9.2 million to 18.6 million. In 1972, around a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in college. In 2022, it was 39%.  This hasn’t just limited the potential pool of future welders and plumbers. It’s sent the message that those careers are second-rate. That they’re only for people who aren’t smart enough for college.   It’s a terrible and false message. It may not earn you a high SAT score, but understanding how wiring, pipes and parts work in the real world is a much-needed type of intelligence. Men working with their hands literally built the country.   There’s a more fundamental issue here, too. The skilled trades continue to be dominated by men. This isn’t the result of a patriarchal society but innate differences between men and women. Men are stronger than women. They’re more mechanically minded. They’re more interested in working with their hands. They’re more willing to do dangerous and dirty jobs, like building the Hoover Dam.   This doesn’t make men superior to women. It makes men and women different. Women have their own set of strengths, including better language and social skills. Modern feminists rarely praise pregnancy, but growing a baby inside of you is the closest thing human beings have to a superpower.   But society doesn’t nurture the unique strengths of boys. Most schools want little boys to act like little girls. Doctors prescribe Ritalin to boys who can’t sit still. Male students see their success in areas like mathematics and engineering dismissed as the result of systemic sexism, not their achievements. Compounding this problem is the growing number of boys living in homes without their fathers.   Little wonder so many men—and potential skilled tradesmen—have disengaged. The labor force participation rate for men 25-54 hit 98% in 1954. In November, it was under 90%.   Masculinity isn’t toxic. It’s what built this country. And rebuilding American industry requires celebrating masculinity, not attacking it.   COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post America Needs More Masculinity  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing that was supposed to focus on Minnesota’s massive fraud problems took a sharp political turn on Wednesday. Instead of pressing witnesses about billions of dollars in alleged fraud, one Democrat used her time to redirect attention toward crime statistics involving white men and Jan....

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is removing funding for its citizens to study in the United Kingdom. The reason is their concerns that they could be radicalized abroad. The UAE no longer includes British universities in the list of higher education institutions eligible for state scholarships. According to the Financial Times, this is because London […] The post Insane! UAE Does What the UK Won’t Do appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

A friend of mine once said he never got the whole Deadhead thing until he saw the Grateful Dead live. Anyone who is a true Grateful Dead head understands exactly what my friend was talking about. Seeing the Grateful Dead while Jerry Garcia was alive was akin to a religious experience. Seeing the Grateful Dead changed you. If it did not, you probably should not have been to the show in the first place. There are very few bands or artists that have ever had that strong an effect on their fans. I have seen hundreds of concerts in my The post 10 Awesome Grateful Dead Songs You May Not Know appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Society has spent decades telling boys that masculinity is toxic, and now there’s a shortage of skilled tradesmen. The connection should be obvious.   Through his on-again, off-again tariff dance, President Donald Trump has made one thing clear: He wants more things built in America. He’s bragged about already securing more investment dollar commitments than former President Joe Biden did during his entire term. And he wants more.   Trump has long championed the rural communities devastated by factory shutdowns. It’s one reason that he has enjoyed such strong support in Middle America. In his speech at the Republican National Convention last year, now-Vice President J.D. Vance detailed the importance of remembering that America is both a “nation” and “our homeland.”  The hardworking people I grew up with “love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home,” he said. He continued, “This is the source of America’s greatness.”  This is why Trump and Vance are so determined to rejuvenate American industry. But there’s a major obstacle to accomplishing this—a shortage of skilled workers.   “For every five tradespeople that retire, two enter the workforce,” Mike Rowe, host of “Dirty Jobs,” wrote in 2024. “That’s a 5:2 ratio, and the math is simply not sustainable.”  It’s not for lack of opportunity. For instance, the Navy Industrial Submarine Base needs to hire 100,000 skilled tradesmen within the next decade. But the companies working there are struggling to find enough qualified employees.  One reason is that society has relentlessly pushed students toward college. Former President Ronald Reagan once said, “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” And the government has, dumping trillions of dollars into higher education over the decades.   Sure enough. College enrollment more than doubled from 1972 to 2022, growing from 9.2 million to 18.6 million. In 1972, around a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in college. In 2022, it was 39%.  This hasn’t just limited the potential pool of future welders and plumbers. It’s sent the message that those careers are second-rate. That they’re only for people who aren’t smart enough for college.   It’s a terrible and false message. It may not earn you a high SAT score, but understanding how wiring, pipes and parts work in the real world is a much-needed type of intelligence. Men working with their hands literally built the country.   There’s a more fundamental issue here, too. The skilled trades continue to be dominated by men. This isn’t the result of a patriarchal society but innate differences between men and women. Men are stronger than women. They’re more mechanically minded. They’re more interested in working with their hands. They’re more willing to do dangerous and dirty jobs, like building the Hoover Dam.   This doesn’t make men superior to women. It makes men and women different. Women have their own set of strengths, including better language and social skills. Modern feminists rarely praise pregnancy, but growing a baby inside of you is the closest thing human beings have to a superpower.   But society doesn’t nurture the unique strengths of boys. Most schools want little boys to act like little girls. Doctors prescribe Ritalin to boys who can’t sit still. Male students see their success in areas like mathematics and engineering dismissed as the result of systemic sexism, not their achievements. Compounding this problem is the growing number of boys living in homes without their fathers.   Little wonder so many men—and potential skilled tradesmen—have disengaged. The labor force participation rate for men 25-54 hit 98% in 1954. In November, it was under 90%.   Masculinity isn’t toxic. It’s what built this country. And rebuilding American industry requires celebrating masculinity, not attacking it.   COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post America Needs More Masculinity  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Is the United States about to invade Greenland? If you listen to EU politicians and much of the U.S. legacy media, and actually take them seriously, then you might answer “yes.” President Donald Trump is going to unleash Delta Force to spirit away the prime minister before we nuke Nuuk (the capital of Greenland) and send in the Army to mop up survivors. If you’ve followed this issue from the beginning and have tried to accurately understand how the president operates, then you should conclude that this brouhaha is all about negotiating. You also may think that the U.S. is just pursuing a long-term policy more vigorously, and that our allies in Europe really need to chill. The issue of Greenland suddenly popped back up in the news recently, and I kid you not, because White House adviser Stephen Miller’s wife posted this on X. SOON pic.twitter.com/XU6VmZxph3— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) January 3, 2026 This sent the European elite straight to their oft-used fainting couches, which they had to stay firmly emplaced on when Trump himself weighed in and said he still aims to acquire Greenland. This has been his goal since 2019 and has been, off and on, a U.S. strategic aim since the 19th century. When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if Trump meant to use the military to acquire Greenland, she said that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option.” Was Katie Miller being a bit of a troll? Yes. Is Trump putting Denmark’s collective feet to the fire with his aggressive insistence? Yes. Here’s Austria’s Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn, the chairman of a committee to bring his country into NATO, saying that European countries should seize U.S. bases on the continent if the U.S. takes Greenland. NEW: If the U.S. annexes Greenland, we must confiscate all American bases in Europe, says Austria's NATO enlargement committee chairman Fehlinger."If you take Greenland, you have to leave". pic.twitter.com/FYzd3hATpY— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) January 7, 2026 Keep in mind, the U.S. has been practically begging NATO allies to spend more on their defense, so this is hardly a credible threat. It’s also strange to witness European belligerence on these issues when European countries continue to demand increased American involvement in Ukraine. For those less hysterical than the very serious Western elites who go into a tizzy any time President Donald Trump says something outside their bland, corporate, and respectfully conventional framework, it’s worth taking a step back and considering what’s really happening. Trump is basically using his well-worn tactics as a negotiator to secure a long-term goal of the U.S. He has made it plain from the beginning that he intends to buy Greenland from Denmark. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly communicated as much, assuring lawmakers that the administration’s intent was not to invade the sparsely populated, North American island owned by a NATO ally. I’d hazard to guess Trump’s reason for potentially using the military is because he virtually always says as much. It is an option, one that he would almost certainly never take. What he wants is to create maximum urgency on the part of a negotiating partner to get a deal done. And that’s what he’s done in the Greenland case. We are closer to acquiring the territory than any time since World War II despite Danish and European protests. And that’s a good thing. I’ve written about why Greenland is important for the interests of the American people as far as security, economics, and even to a certain extent national pride. Bringing the island territory fully into the American orbit is not just a pointless media stunt. It has real implications for U.S. strategy vis-à-vis major competitors like Russia and China, countries that have a keen desire to have access to and control of the Arctic. China has already made overtures to Greenland to control and mine its rare earths mineral deposits.  Is the current security arrangement enough to keep China out and America in? Maybe. But consider this, on top of the current tension it’s clear that there is a significant independence movement within Greenland. It’s very possible that the tiny population may go independent, enter the “market” so to speak, and seek out an arrangement with a rival of the United States. The issue can be seen in this joint statement issued by Denmark and a coalition of European countries. BREAKING: Joint statement by European countries on Greenland pic.twitter.com/9ODVJzIRAo— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) January 6, 2026 Denmark committed years ago to accepting any decision the people of Greenland make about their independence. If Greenland, with a population of around 56,000 people, decides to go independent they can do so theoretically without the Danes stopping it. And as of now, independence is quite popular. But Greenland is also highly dependent on Danish subsidies for its economy and welfare state. What’s to prevent Greenland from going independent and then selling itself to the highest bidder? At the moment, not much. And given how much pressure Trump is globally putting on U.S. rivals it makes sense that he’s essentially playing hardball to ensure that Greenland remains and becomes an even more integral part of U.S. national security. Trump was quite serious about the return of the Monroe Doctrine, or the “Donroe Doctrine” as he calls it. Nothing personal to the Danes, who have been good allies, or other European nations who’ve been, well, uneven allies. This is just how Trump does business, don’t take it personally. The post Europe Needs to Calm Down About Greenland appeared first on The Daily Signal.