Former President Barack Obama said over the weekend that aliens are “real,” though he admitted he “hasn’t seen them.” Obama confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life during an interview with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that aired on Saturday. At the beginning of a “lightning round” of questions, Cohen asked the president directly about the existence of aliens. “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in” Area 51, the former president said. “There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the President of the United States.” Obama also jokingly said that the question on extraterrestrial life was the first question he wanted answered when he became president. Saturday’s interview is not the first time Obama has spoken about issues related to extraterrestrials. In 2021, the former president confirmed the existence of UFOs, or unidentified flying objects. UFOs are commonly associated with aliens, though they could have more earthly explanations as well. “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” he said during an appearance on CBS’ “The Late Late Show with James Corden.” “We can’t explain how they move, their trajectory,” he said. “They did not have an easily explainable pattern. And so, I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is.” Obama also addressed the issue of aliens in 2021, though at the time he declined to say whether or not they exist. “When it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on air,” Obama said at the time. “Look, the truth is that when I came into office, I asked,” he continued. “I was like, ‘All right, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceships?’” “They did a little bit of research … and the answer was, ‘no,’” he said.

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty suggested on Sunday that Democrats’ fight against federal voter ID law is related to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the country under former President Joe Biden. Hagerty appeared on Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo to talk about Republicans’ efforts to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to enshrine voter ID into federal law. “The American public are broadly in support of showing voter ID. It’s a north of 80% issue for the American public. You’ve got to ask yourself, who are the Democrats in the Senate representing? Over 70% of Democrats want this, yet we won’t have a single Democrat that will support it. Why is that?” said Hagerty. The Tennessee Republican pointed to the Democratic push to pass HR-1, a federal overhaul of election law, in the first half of the Biden presidency. Under HR-1, the law would have created a workaround for people to avoid voter ID requirements in the dozens of states that have such laws. Democrats “tried to come in and change to do away with voter ID across the nation, to enlist 16-year-olds to vote, felons to vote, using taxpayer dollars to support campaigns and, frankly, to pay their own candidates,” said Hagerty. Voter ID requirements are an easy step to take to secure elections that do not unduly burden voters, and a federal law does not affect states’ constitutional duties to set the time, manner, and place of elections, Hagerty said. The Tennessee Republican then suggested that Democratic resistance to a national voter ID requirement is part of a strategy to bolster Democrats’ chances of winning elections through illegal voting. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but the reason that it’s not is because the Democrats under the Biden administration flooded this country with tens of millions of illegal aliens,” said Hagerty. “They want chaos in the elections. They want no voter ID. And so you’ve got to really ask yourselves, who do they represent and why are they trying to do this?” Today, exclusively on @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty @BillHagertyTN spoke about Democrats vowing to filibuster the GOP-Backed Voter ID Bill. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/2yy6vpvQb2 — SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) February 15, 2026 The push to pass the SAVE Act received a key promise of support recently from Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, giving the SAVE Act majority support in the Senate. Republicans are still far short of the 60-vote threshold to override a filibuster. Collins gave her support for the GOP election reform measure on the condition that Republicans do not strike down the filibuster to pass it. “I support the version of the SAVE America Act that recently passed the House,” Collins said in a statement to Maine Wire. “The law is clear that in this country only American citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections. In addition, having people provide an ID at the polls, just as they have to do before boarding an airplane, checking into a hotel, or buying an alcoholic beverage, is a simple reform that will improve the security of our federal elections and will help give people more confidence in the results.”

broken litigation model

An 8-year-old Maryland girl and her dad have made history with an album that’s the musical equivalent of sunshine. Aura V. and her father, whose recording name is Fyütch, won a Grammy this month for Best Children’s Music Album for their LP Harmony. The triumph makes Aura the youngest Grammy winner in the organization’s history, […] The post 8-Year-Old Maryland Girl Becomes Youngest Grammy Winner Ever with Daddy-Daughter Album appeared first on Good News Network.

Is Free Speech Really the Highest Value?

The Media Hall Monitors repeatedly tell us that CBS’s New editorial direction is Trump-adjacent and “MAGA-friendly.” This is, of course, a shameless exaggeration most recently belied by a weird Sunday Morning report that injected climate change into the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Watch as climate reporter David Schecter and glaciologist Eric Steig close out the report by speculating about what Washington might say upon returning to the Delaware River in 2026, before CBS beats you over the head again with a still image mourning President Trump’s repeal of the EPA endangerment finding. Further proof that the Media Hall Monitors' breathless incantations of CBS News being "MAGA-aligned" is absolute nonsense: a Sunday Morning item linking George Washington's crossing of the Delaware with climate change pic.twitter.com/DpOYkNEcIl — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 15, 2026 ERIC STEIG: You're breathing a little bit of the air that George Washington breathed. DAVID SCHECTER: Those bubbles contain carbon dioxide, a gas that helps regulate Earth's temperature. And for 800,000 years the carbon levels found in ice cores have gone up and down, but never above this line- not until around 1800, when they started to take off. What changed at that point to make that spike?  STEIG: We began burning fossil fuels, and we're doing it really fast. SCHECTER: Since the Industrial Revolution, which began around the time of the American Revolution, our cars, factories, and power plants have been burning oil and gas and emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide. That has led to warmer temperatures, which can intensify extreme floods, droughts and fires. STEIG: Seems to me it's good for people to understand things have changed, and will continue to change, and have an understanding of what to expect going forward. SCHECTER: So, it turns out, around the time Washington looked out on the icy Delaware, there were two important pictures coming into focus: One, the story of America; the other, the beginnings of climate change. And both continue to shape our world. I kind of like to think about George Washington showing back up in 2026 and saying- STEIG: What have you done? SCHECTER: Because it was pretty different! STEIG: Yeah. He would. You pluck somebody from that time period, they would see things having changed quite dramatically. This is the conclusion arrived at after about five minutes of very weakly linking Washington to climate change. The unspoken premise hanging over the report is, of course, that Washington would’ve not caught the British by surprise had the Delaware River not been iced at the time of the famous Christmas crossing: a weirdly-framed “what-if.” But Washington did not have the luxury of wondering what the Delaware River might look like two hundred and fifty years after crossing it. Washington did not have the luxury of speculating how climate change might affect his military strategy a quarter of a millenia after the fact.  No commander does, but this is the rhetorical duct tape and bailing wire with which CBS injects climate propaganda into our observance of America’s 250th birthday. For all the talk about editorial changes at CBS, there is still a long way to go. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Sunday Morning on February 15th, 2026: JANE PAULEY: 250 years ago George Washington made his daring crossing of the icy Delaware River, turning the tide of the Revolutionary War. But all these years later, would Washington even recognize the river he crossed? On this Presidents' Day weekend, environmental correspondent David Schecter has a tale of these United States- then and now. DAVID SCHECTER: Spend some time staring at the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, and you can't miss the ice. It's everywhere.  How did cold weather become part of the strategy of that night? ALEX ROBB: It does a lot to impede the crossing and endangers the whole operation, but it actually becomes our shield." SCHECTER: Alex Robb is an educator at Washington Crossing Historic Park outside Philadelphia, which marks the anniversary each year. Robb says at the end of 1776, after a string of losses, Washington's army was on the verge of collapse. But on Christmas, with ice forming in the Delaware River, the enemy assumed it was too dangerous for the Americans to cross. They were wrong. And the cold weather handed Washington the element of surprise. His victory at Trenton was a sign that the war could still be won. ROBB: Looking back, had the weather proven more mild, they most definitely would've encountered resistance outside Trenton. A few minutes can really make the difference between winning and losing a battle. SCHECTER: And a few degrees, too, probably. ROBB: And a few degrees. Absolutely. At the time, Americans were used to colder winters. We know that from things like Thomas Jefferson's meticulous, handwritten weather records. But since then, winter has gotten warmer.  JEN BRADY: Ever since Washington was here, there has been a steady increase. SCHECTER: Jen Brady is a data analyst at the science non-profit Climate Central. Their research shows that average winter temperatures in the Philadelphia area have gone up and down over the years. But overall, they are now 5.5 degrees warmer than they were in 1970. Today is cold and it's snowy, right. BRADY: It’s cold, yeah. SCHECTER: How can we say that things are changing when it looks like winter? BRADY: It will continue to snow. There will continue to be cold in cold places. But there will be less of it. SCHECTER: The best evidence of our changing climate comes from ice cores – long tubes of ice extracted out of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. Eric Steig is a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. ERIC STEIG: This piece contains 1776, and probably a little bit of 1775.  SCHECTER: Really? So this ice basically goes back to when Washington was around? STEIG: Yup. SCHECTER: Amazing. Inside ice cores are perfectly-preserved air bubbles. The deeper you drill, the older the bubbles.  STEIG: It's this sort of magical way of going back in time. It's a time machine. SCHECTER: The white dots are air bubbles. STEIG: Yeah. So, like, you're breathing a little bit of the air that George Washington breathed. SCHECTER: Those bubbles contain carbon dioxide, a gas that helps regulate Earth's temperature. And for 800,000 years the carbon levels found in ice cores have gone up and down, but never above this line- not until around 1800, when they started to take off. What changed at that point to make that spike?  STEIG: We began burning fossil fuels, and we're doing it really fast. SCHECTER: Since the Industrial Revolution, which began around the time of the American Revolution, our cars, factories, and power plants have been burning oil and gas and emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide. That has led to warmer temperatures, which can intensify extreme floods, droughts and fires. STEIG: Seems to me it's good for people to understand things have changed, and will continue to change, and have an understanding of what to expect going forward. SCHECTER: So, it turns out, around the time Washington looked out on the icy Delaware, there were two important pictures coming into focus: One, the story of America; the other, the beginnings of climate change. And both continue to shape our world. I kind of like to think about George Washington showing back up in 2026 and saying- STEIG: What have you done? SCHECTER: Because it was pretty different! STEIG: Yeah. He would. You pluck somebody from that time period, they would see things having changed quite dramatically.  

I have written for the Spectator for years. I value it. I read it. I defend it. It remains one of the few places where serious argument is still possible. Which is why Luke Lyman’s recent essay on “Christian nihilism” is so frustrating. It mistakes metaphor for diagnosis — and confusion for insight.Lyman opens with a disturbing scene: a protester in Minneapolis screaming at armed officers to shoot him. From this single episode, he extrapolates a sweeping claim — that America is drifting into a kind of “Christian nihilism,” a pseudo-religion that mimics Christianity’s language of sacrifice while stripping it of meaning.What we are witnessing is not Christianity curdled into violence, but the consequences of a culture in which Christian moral limits have collapsed.As Lyman writes:Violence serves a central role in Christianity: the hinge of history, the Crucifixion, is bloody. Christ endures the Cross to purify mankind, because he knows we crave purity. Revolutionary leaders have stolen this idea, given it a godless twist, and sold it to their followers to encourage them to sacrifice themselves for whatever cause demands it.That conclusion does not follow.A cultural templateThis is because Lyman treats Christianity as a cultural template — a set of symbols and emotional cues — rather than as a moral and metaphysical system with hard limits. Once you do that, anything that resembles sacrifice or martyrdom can be described as “Christian-adjacent.” But resemblance is not inheritance. Borrowed language does not imply borrowed belief.What Lyman is describing is not Christianity emptied of content. It is secular despair borrowing familiar moral imagery. There is nothing Christian about begging for death on camera. Christianity teaches endurance, restraint, and perseverance — not theatrical self-annihilation. It demands self-control and humility. The gospel was not written for livestreams.Lyman gestures toward Christian theology but never quite engages it. He suggests that Christianity centers on violence because the Crucifixion was bloody. That is like saying surgery centers on knives. The cross is not an endorsement of violence; it is a confrontation with it. Rome used crucifixion to terrorize and dominate. Christ faced that machinery of force and answered it with mercy. When Peter reached for the sword, Christ stopped him.RELATED: Why Christians should care about politics Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesInterrupting the cycleChristianity does not command others to die in God’s name. Christ gives Himself. He absorbs hatred rather than unleashing it. He prays for those driving the nails. That distinction matters. It reverses the logic of every revolutionary movement ever devised. One path runs on rage and always demands another victim. The other interrupts the cycle, insisting that no human life is expendable.Lyman claims that revolutionary violence is Christianity drained of belief — that figures like Mao or Frantz Fanon merely stole the cross and removed God. This misstates the relationship entirely. Revolutionary ideology does not distort Christianity; it rejects it outright. Christianity insists that every person bears the image of God. Revolutionary politics insists that some lives are disposable. These views do not occupy the same moral universe.Calling this phenomenon “Christian nihilism” only deepens the confusion. Nihilism denies meaning. Christianity proclaims it. What we are witnessing is not Christianity curdled into violence, but the consequences of a culture in which Christian moral limits have collapsed.Spiritual starvationLyman suggests that Americans secretly want Christianity but refuse the church. There is a grain of truth here. Human beings crave meaning, ritual, belonging, and redemption. But that longing does not turn protests into pseudo-liturgy. It indicates spiritual starvation. What Lyman treats as evidence of Christianity’s corruption is better understood as evidence of its absence.Minneapolis is not a city of warped martyrs. It is a city where public order has broken down and civic leadership has failed. Dressing that disorder in theological language may sound evocative, but it explains very little.When Lyman points to murals of George Floyd or grotesque memes about a murdered CEO and sees religious iconography, what he is really observing is a loss of proportion. To blame Christianity for that is to confuse the absence of moral limits with their cause.American Christianity is not driving mobs into the streets begging for bullets. Churches across the country are feeding families, running recovery programs, rebuilding marriages, and teaching repentance, forgiveness, discipline, and duty. Those are not the ingredients of nihilism. They are the antidote to it.

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