Power metal godfathers Helloween were on the way to huge success in the 80s –but one member wanted out

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly set to pitch President Donald Trump on renewed plans to strike Iran, citing concerns over the country’s efforts to rebuild and expand its ballistic missile program, which was damaged during the Twelve-Day War earlier this year, according to an NBC News report.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declared on Saturday that Islamist Ideology was the greatest single threat to freedom and liberty — and warned that it was already beginning to take hold around the world and even in the United States. Gabbard spoke on Saturday at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, and she noted that where Islamist ideology was implemented, freedom and liberty quickly ceased to exist. WATCH: ? Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard warns that the greatest threat to freedom is Islamist ideology: “It is a political ideology that seeks to create a global caliphate that governs us here in America” She says it is already here and is happening in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/MDhQeB3nLH — Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) December 21, 2025 “There is a threat to our freedom that hasn’t been talked about enough,” she began. “And it is the greatest near and long term threat to both our freedom and our security, and that is the threat of islamist ideology. It is propagated by people who not only do not believe in freedom, their fundamental ideology is antithetical to the foundation that we find in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is that our Creator endowed upon is inalienable rights — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Gabbard noted that Charlie Kirk, prior to his death, had mentioned that threat often because he understood the gravity of the situation. Referencing the 9/11 terror attacks, Gabbard said they had proved just how far Islamists were willing to go. “It is a political ideology that seeks to create a global caliphate that governs us here in America,” she continued, adding, “And if you fail to comply, if you fail to adhere to this ideology, if you dare to exercise your God-given right to free speech, censorship is not what we face. They will use violence or any means that they deem as necessary to silence us.” Gabbard went on to describe how quickly the ideology had seeped into the culture in European nations: “As we approach Christmas, right now in Germany they are canceling Christmas markets because of this threat.” She then explained that understanding that rights came from God was what should make it clear just how grave a threat Islamist ideology is to freedom and liberty. A truly free society, she concluded, could not survive unless the people were willing to defend it against such threats.

'We are focused on keeping our riders safe'

'Please tread lightly'

Vice President JD Vance said Republicans have more important work to do than cancelling each other. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform, and I don’t really care if some people out there—I’m sure we’ll have the fake news media denounced me after this speech—but let me just say the best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie’s death that he himself refused to do in life,” Vance said at Turning Point USA’s America Fest conference, the first since the assassination of founder Charlie Kirk. Vance addressed infighting in the conservative movement following America Fest speeches where conservative leaders shot arrows at each other. Ben Shapiro, the first speaker after Charlie Kirk’s wife Erika, called right-wing pundits Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon “frauds and grifters.” In his speech, Carlson shot back, calling Shapiro “pompous.” “Calls to de-platform at a Charlie Kirk event?” Carlson said. “That’s hilarious.” Vance said he will fight alongside all conservatives. “When I say that I’m going to fight alongside of you, I mean, all of you, each and every one,” Vance said. “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests. He says, ‘Make America Great Again’ because every American is invited.” The conservative movement will build “by adding, by growing, not by tearing down,” Vance argued. “We’re building a better country right now, and you have a rightful place in the success of your nation and the success of this movement,” Vance said. “Charlie Kirk was a great builder, too,” he continued. “He understood that any family can have its disagreements, it’s tough conversations. We can learn and improve and treat one another better. We can love each other despite the disagreement, but winning demands teamwork, and I’m honored to be on Turning Point’s team. I’m honored to be on your team, and I will stay that way.” The only thing the Trump administration demands for Americans to be on their team is to be a great “patriot,” the vice president said. “Charlie invited all of us here for a reason, because he believed that each of us, all of us, had something worth saying, and he trusted all of you to make your own judgment, and we have far more important work to do, than canceling each other,” he said. The post Vance Addresses MAGA Infighting at AmericaFest appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The U.S. welfare system is broken, and the Minnesota scandal is a blaring warning to that reality. The failure of political leaders on many fronts bears some of the blame. But the main culprit is the massive federal welfare system that annually passes hundreds of billions of dollars down to states to dole out, with the philosophy that the more people on the rolls, the better. The structure of the U.S. welfare system creates incentives for states to expand the rolls—and little incentive for them to ensure that money is going to those who truly need it. As welfare rolls expand, programs receive more money. It’s a system based on the Democratic perspective that government should provide more support to more people. And the U.S. welfare system is massive. It consists of roughly 90 different programs that cost more than $1 trillion annually. Because the majority of U.S. welfare funding comes from the federal government, states have reason to expand their rolls and little financial incentive to protect against waste and fraud. And massive fraud is what happened in Minnesota. The state’s welfare scandals went like this: Nonprofits, or alleged nonprofits, claimed to be serving people in need. That enabled them to receive hundreds of millions in federal funding, or a mix of state and federal dollars. The scammers then took the money that was supposedly for the needy and pocketed it. Fraudsters used this playbook to steal money from a federal child nutrition program, a Medicaid housing program, and a federal program for children with autism, to the tune of billions of dollars. Over a few years—including the COVID-19 years when government spent not only like drunken sailors, but drunken sailors on uppers—the number of “people” these Minnesota “nonprofits” were serving skyrocketed, along with the taxpayer dollars they received to fund their “services.” Because the alleged rolls were growing for these programs, government provided more dollars. And the scammers made off like bandits. It’s not that the blue state of Minnesota and its politicians are happy about the fraud that occurred or that they cheer welfare scammers. But when the mindset is that growing welfare rolls are a sign of success, and that people are entitled to benefits—and when welfare funding flows readily—the ground is fertile for exploitation. Beyond the fraud and the unsustainable costs of the current U.S. welfare system, perhaps more tragically is that it fails to address the underlying causes of poverty. It is a system based on inputs rather than on promoting upward mobility. After 60 years of the war on poverty, taxpayers are spending an ever-increasing amount of money on welfare programs. Yet poverty—or more accurately, self-sufficiency—in the U.S. has remained flat. Government throws money at material poverty but fails to address deeper human needs that drive poverty, like lack of work and family breakdown. And sadly, the welfare system undermines or penalizes work and marriage, which are the greatest protectors against poverty. The scandal in Minnesota should be a wake-up call on multiple fronts. One of the urgent calls should be the need for welfare reform. There are many ways the system should be reformed—work requirements for able-bodied adults, getting rid of marriage penalties, and better prioritizing spending—but perhaps most relevant to the current scandal would be changing the funding structure and the way success is measured. First, to better protect against fraud, states should be required to fund more of the welfare system themselves. Passing down dollars from the federal government to states creates a lack of accountability and makes it easier for fraud to occur. But this isn’t the only change. After all, not all the money scammed away in Minnesota was federal funding. Programs should also be funded based on whether they promote upward mobility, not based on the number of people they serve. Welfare reform in 1996 restructured the largest cash assistance program at the time, in part, by ending the structure of more money for larger welfare rolls. Instead, states were provided a fixed funding stream and rewarded if they helped move people into work and off the roles. The 1996 reform worked to decrease poverty, even among some of the most vulnerable populations. More welfare programs should be designed like this. Another option would be a “pay for outcomes” structure, where programs are funded when they meet an agreed upon outcome: increasing graduation rates, boosting employment, raising participants’ income, etc. Rather than paying for inputs, a pay-for-outcomes model rewards a program after it proves itself. These are just a few recommendations. But they would be a good start toward turning the broken welfare system into what it should be—a system that helps people improve their lives. These reforms would also help make sure that what happened in Minnesota never, ever happens again. Originally published by Fox News The post Taxpayer Cash, Zero Accountability: Minnesota Fraud Proves Welfare Is Broken appeared first on The Daily Signal.

I don’t often argue with internet trends. Most of them exhaust themselves before they deserve the attention. But a certain kind of AI-generated nostalgia video has become too pervasive — and too seductive — to ignore.You’ve seen them. Soft-focus fragments of the 1970s and 1980s. Kids on bikes at dusk. Station wagons. Camaros. Shopping malls glowing gently from within. Fake wood paneling! Cathode ray tubes! Rotary phones! A past rendered as calm, legible, and safe. The message hums beneath the imagery: Wouldn’t it be nice to go back?Human nostalgia, as opposed to the AI-generated kind, eventually runs aground on grief, embarrassment, and the recognition that the past demanded something from us and took something in return. Eh ... not really, no. But I understand the appeal because, on certain exhausting days, it works on me too — just enough to make the present feel a little heavier by comparison.And I don’t like it. Not at all. And not because I’m hostile to memory.I was there, 3,000 years agoI was born in 1971. I lived in that world. I remember it pretty well.How well? One of my earliest, most vivid memories of television is not a cartoon or a sitcom. No, I’m a weirdo. It is the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, broadcast on PBS in black and white. I was 2 years old.I didn’t understand the words, but I sort of grasped the tone. The seriousness. The tension. The sense that something grave was unfolding in full view of the world. Even as a toddler, I vaguely understood that it mattered. The adults in ties and horn-rimmed glasses were yelling at each other. Somebody was in trouble. Before I knew anything at all, I knew: This was serious stuff.A little later, I remember gas lines. Long ones. Cars waiting for hours on an even or odd day while enterprising teenagers sold lemonade. It felt ordinary at the time, probably because I hadn’t the slightest idea what “ordinary” meant. Only later did it reveal itself as an early lesson in scarcity and frustration.The past did not hum along effortlessly. Sometimes — often — it stalled.Freedom wasn’t safetyI remember my parents watching election returns in 1976 on network television. I was bored to tears — literally — but I remember my father’s disappointment when Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. And mind you, Ford was terrible.This was not some cozy TV ritual. It was a loss of some kind, plainly felt. Big, important institutions did not project confidence. They produced arguments, resentment, and unease. It wasn’t long before people were talking seriously about an “era of limits.” All I knew was Dad and Mom were worried.I remember a summer birthday party in the early 1980s at a classmate’s house. It was hot, but she had an awesome pool. I also remember my lungs ached. That day, Southern California was under a first-stage smog alert. The air itself was hazardous. The past did not smell like nostalgia. It smelled like exhaust with lead and cigarette smoke.I don’t miss that. Not even a little bit.Yes, I remember riding bikes through neighborhoods with friends. I remember disappearing for entire days. I remember my parents calling my name when the streetlights came on. I remember spending long stretches at neighbors’ houses without supervision. I remember watching old movies on Saturdays with my pal Jimmy. I remember Tom Hatten. I remember listening to KISS and Genesis and Black Sabbath. That freedom existed. It mattered. It was fun. But it lived alongside fear, not in its absence.Innocence collides with realityI don’t remember the Adam Walsh murder specifically, but I very much remember the network television movie it inspired in 1983. That moment changed American childhood in ways people still underestimate. It sure scared the hell out of me. Innocence didn’t drift into supervision — it collided with horror. Helicopter parenting did not emerge from neurosis. It emerged from bona fide terror.And before all of that, my first encounter with death arrived without explanation. A cousin of mine died in 1977. She was 16 years old, riding on the back of a motorcycle with a man 11 years her senior. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. The funeral was closed casket. I was too young to know all the details. Almost 50 years on, I don’t want to know. The age difference alone suggests things the adults in my life chose not to discuss.Silence was how they handled it. Silence was not ignorance — it was restraint.RELATED: 1980s-inspired AI companion promises to watch and interrupt you: ‘You can see me? That’s so cool’ seamartini via iStock/Getty ImagesMemory is not withdrawalThis is what the warm and fuzzy AI nostalgia videos cannot possibly show. They have no room for recklessness that ends in funerals, or for freedom that edges into life-threatening danger, or for adults who withhold truth because telling it would damage rather than protect.What we often recall as freedom often presented itself as recklessness ... or worse.None of this negates the goodness of those years. I’m grateful for when I came of age. I don’t resent my childhood at all. It formed me. It taught me how fragile stability is and how much of adulthood consists of absorbing uncertainty without dissolving into it.That’s precisely why I reject the invitation to go back.The new AI nostalgia doesn’t ask us to remember. In reality, it wants us to withdraw. It offers a sweet lullaby for the nervous system. It replaces the true cost of living with the comfort of atmosphere and a cool soundtrack. It edits out the smog, the scarcity, the fear, the crime, and the death, leaving only a vibe shaped like memory.Here’s a gentler hallucination, it says. Stay awhile.The cost of living, then and nowThe problem, then, isn’t sentiment. The problem is abdication.So the temptation today isn’t to recover what was seemingly lost but rather to anesthetize an uncertain present. Those Instagram Reels don’t draw their power from people who remember that era clearly but from people who feel exhausted, surveilled, indebted, and hemmed in right now — and are looking for proof that life once felt more human.RELATED: Late California LPETTET via iStock/Getty ImagesAnd who could blame them? Maybe it was more human. But not in the way people today would like to believe. Human experience has never been especially sweet or gentle.Human nostalgia, as opposed to the AI-generated kind, eventually runs aground on grief, embarrassment, and the recognition that the past demanded something from us and took something in return. Synthetic nostalgia can never reach that reckoning. It loops endlessly, frictionless and consequence-free.I don’t want a past without a bill attached. I already paid the thing. Sometimes I think I’m paying it still.A warningAI nostalgia videos promise relief without effort, feeling without action, memory without judgment.That may be comforting, but it isn’t healthy, and it isn’t right.Truth is, adulthood rightly understood does not consist of finding the softest place to lie down. It means carrying forward what we’ve lived through, even when it complicates our fantasies.Certain experiences were great the first time, Lord knows, but I don’t want to relive the 1970s or ’80s. I want to live now, alert to danger, capable of gratitude without illusion, willing to bear the weight of memory rather than dissolve into it.Nostalgia has its place. But don’t be seduced by sedation.Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally on Substack.

Washington rarely admits when policy has failed. But earlier this month, the White House stepped back from more than a decade of regulations that drove car prices to record highs, limited consumer choice, and tried to force an industry to move faster than technology, infrastructure, or American families could manage. With the unveiling of the Freedom Means Affordable Cars proposal, President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy signaled a dramatic shift in national auto policy — one aimed at making car ownership attainable again for millions priced out of the market.The Biden-Buttigieg standards were projected to generate $14 billion in compliance fines between 2027 and 2032, costs manufacturers said would be passed directly to buyers.The timing is critical. New vehicle prices topped $50,000 this fall, while average monthly payments approached $750. Families are keeping cars longer than ever, pushing the average age of the U.S. fleet to record levels. As Washington pushed electric vehicles, consumers pushed back: EV demand stalled, rejection rates soared, and buyers continued to favor affordable gas and hybrid vehicles. That tension has been building for years, and the December 3 announcement marked the most direct challenge yet to the regulatory regime behind it.Trump’s proposal resets National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fuel-economy rules, reversing Biden-era targets that aimed to push the fleet toward roughly 50 mpg. Closing the 'back door'Under the new plan, Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards return to 34.5 mpg — levels last seen in the late 2000s — with future increases scaled back to what Congress originally envisioned. The administration projects up to $109 billion in savings over five years and roughly $1,000 off the average new car. Whether those figures hold, the philosophical shift is clear: ending what the White House calls a backdoor EV mandate.For years, automakers warned privately that the prior rules forced them to build vehicles customers didn’t want simply to avoid massive penalties. The Biden-Buttigieg standards were projected to generate $14 billion in compliance fines between 2027 and 2032, costs manufacturers said would be passed directly to buyers. Aligning federal rules with California’s stricter standards further nudged companies toward EVs even as demand weakened. CAFE was never meant to reshape the marketplace — but that is how it was being used.The consequences were stark. Billions were poured into EV-charging initiatives with little to show for it; $5 trillion was allocated, yet only 11 stations were built nationwide. California faced rolling blackouts with EVs still just 2.3% of vehicles on the road. Experts warned that even 10% EV adoption would strain the grid under current infrastructure. Meanwhile buyers who didn’t want EVs — still the majority — faced fewer choices and higher prices.Attracting investmentThe Trump reset aims to reverse course. Automakers quickly announced new domestic investments. Stellantis committed $13 billion to expand U.S. manufacturing, including Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler. Ford pledged $5 billion for American facilities, noting that 80% of its vehicles are already made domestically. General Motors announced $4 billion to bring production back from Mexico while retooling plants for broader consumer demand. Even the United Auto Workers offered support, citing increased U.S. jobs and domestic production.The plan also includes a tax change backed by the National Auto Dealers Association, allowing buyers to deduct interest on American-built vehicles. At a time when many families are locked out of the new-car market, the measure offers practical relief while encouraging domestic manufacturing.Less noticed — but equally important — was the Congressional Review Act action that eliminated California’s special emissions waivers. Signed in June 2025, those resolutions dismantled the structure that allowed California to dictate national vehicle policy, ending the EV mandate embedded in federal regulations and clearing the way for this shift.RELATED: Duffy threatens funding freeze for 3 states flouting English requirements for truck drivers Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesNot far enough?Some analysts argue the rollback doesn’t go far enough. As long as CAFE exists — at any target — it remains vulnerable to political swings. They contend emissions should be regulated directly through the EPA, leaving the market to determine the mix of gas, hybrid, and electric vehicles. This view is gaining traction among critics who say CAFE no longer reflects consumer demand or technological reality.Even Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio weighed in, calling the forced EV pivot “irrational policy” that benefits China. China controls roughly 80% of EV battery minerals and most related mining, while the U.S. holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Moreno’s argument is blunt: America weakened its own manufacturing base by adopting policies that played to China’s strengths.Sales data reinforces the point. EVs made up about 6% of new vehicle sales in November 2025, with rejection rates near 70% due to cost, charging gaps, range limits, insurance, and cold-weather performance. EVs still account for just 2.3% of vehicles on U.S. roads. The demand Washington expected never materialized.The new policy reflects those realities. It restores balance to an industry pushed into transformation without consumer support or infrastructure readiness. Automakers will still build EVs and hybrids and pursue new technologies — but consumers will decide the pace, not regulators.For the first time in years, drivers may again see affordability, variety, and genuine choice. Fuel-economy rules will remain contested, but the Freedom Means Affordable Cars plan marks the most significant shift in auto policy in over a decade.For millions of Americans priced out of the market, that change alone is long overdue.