In the wake of U.S. Supreme Court victories in favor of Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop who had been targeted because he refused to bake a custom cake for a gay wedding, and high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who was fired for going against a school order not to kneel in prayer on the field after a game, you would figure (incorrectly) that the culture warriors might be rethinking their far-left positions on social issues. No, instead, they are turning it up “to 11.” In this case, a Virginia real estate broker is potentially facing the end of his career, and, like Phillips and Kennedy, he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. And, as you will see, he wasn’t. It’s the case of Wilson Fauber, the next victim of the “Culture War.” As a Realtor, he is a career-long member of the National Association of Realtors, and that organization proprietarily controls access to the Multiple Listing Service that a member like Wilson uses to show his clients all the available listings of properties for sale and where he lists their properties. Just in the past month, he has lost his membership, and the association has labeled him a “discriminator” until he undergoes “sensitivity training” administered by the Virginia Association of Realtors. One wonders how this all came about. Was it like Masterpiece Cakeshop, where he declined to serve a gay couple? No. Was it like Coach Kennedy, where he had been warned by his bosses that his public display of religion could result in his dismissal? No. So, what did Fauber do to bring this on? Nothing. That’s not a typo. He did nothing. There is not one allegation that he discriminated against a buyer or seller regarding property, that he denied anyone his services, or that he even said anything discriminatory. What he did was post a quote from the Bible to his personal social media account … eight years before allegations were made against him. To be fair, the Bible passage he posted (reposted, technically speaking, as it was first posted by the Rev. Franklin Graham) was Leviticus 20:13, which does take a harsh view of “men laying with other men as with a woman” (which was apparently happening back then, too). But the post was only seen by his friends, and that was back in 2015. When Fauber ran for Staunton City Council in 2022, his opponents found this post and made it central into their campaign against him. He lost. So, case closed? Not at all. The post was eventually brought to the attention of—anonymously, of course—the National Association of Realtors as a violation of the organization’s “hate speech” prohibitions. Under “Standards and Practices,” the organization prohibits Realtors (a trademarked word only applicable to members) from “using harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on protected classes.” The prohibition was updated in 2021 to “apply to all activities, including personal, off-the-clock time.” You read that correctly. The infraction occurred six years before the policy was ever put into place. So, Fauber “violated” a policy that didn’t exist at the time. To be called a Realtor, you have to be a member of the National Association of Realtors. And in order to stay in that exclusive club (which you pay to be a member of), you subject yourself to the scrutiny of its ethics board. While Fauber’s attorneys from the Founding Freedoms Law Center are preparing for the next step in his legal battle against the Virginia Association of Realtors (which administered the sanction based on the national association’s guidelines), we are left to consider the “suppression” ripples that each instance like this causes. Despite the eventual victories in court of people like Phillips and Kennedy, how many businesses compromised their beliefs rather than get targeted like Masterpiece Cakeshop? How many coaches or teachers decided not to try to be an example of humility to the young people that were in their charge, lest they get fired like the coach? How many parents decided not to speak out at their school board meetings because the former attorney general of the United States might have started a dossier on them and the FBI might have investigated them as domestic terrorists? You don’t even need to have done anything illegal or immoral to face firing or cancellation. In fact, you may have even done something entirely moral and stood up for your principles. But for the Left, it’s no longer a Culture War. It’s become a Culture Jihad. The post When the Culture War Becomes the Culture Jihad appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Top congressional Republicans are picking up the pieces in the wake of the House Budget Committee’s rejection Friday of leadership’s budget proposals. If one thing’s clear, it’s that leadership will have to seek a compromise with fiscal hard-liners. On Friday, the House Budget Committee voted against advancing the budget package with Republican fiscal hawks—specifically, Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma—joining all committee Democrats in voting it down. The vote was 21 against advancing the budget and 16 in favor. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., switched his vote from yes to no at the last moment. The Lancaster, Pa.-based news site LancasterOnline.com reported that “Smucker said he flipped his vote for procedural reasons. Doing so ensures he can call for another vote on the more than 1,100-page legislation at a later date. House rules require that a motion to reconsider must be introduced by a member from the prevailing side of the vote—in this case, someone who voted against the bill.” In response to the failure to pass the budget through the committee, the panel’s leadership stated that they would move to reconvene on Sunday.  “I am confident we will get to a good place this weekend and have the votes to pass it out of committee Sunday evening,” budget chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said in a statement. A statement from Budget Committee Chairman @RepArrington: pic.twitter.com/FUzTaOiPxq— House Budget GOP (@HouseBudgetGOP) May 16, 2025 Satisfying holdouts will take some concessions—namely, more aggressive reforms to benefits programs such as Medicaid. On Thursday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., told The Daily Signal that “everything is on the table” when asked if he would consider implementing Medicaid work requirements sooner than the bill currently calls for in order to satisfy holdouts. Norman said in a statement after the vote, “My biggest priority in Congress is to STOP the bloated bureaucracy’s spending. Today, the budget committee marked up the One Big Beautiful bill that includes making President [Donald] Trump’s tax cuts permanent. That is INCREDIBLE!!” Read my official statement on today's @HouseBudgetGOP markup ?? pic.twitter.com/bcfKoBP9WY— Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) May 16, 2025 He continued, “However, this bill is not serious about necessary reforms. It delays work requirements for able-bodied adults until 2029. It does nothing to combat Obamacare’s unfair Medicaid expansion that provides more federal funding for able-bodied adults than the truly disabled, pregnant mothers, and children the program was originally intended for.” Norman and other fiscal hawks are seeking to implement proposed Medicaid “engagement requirements” immediately and limit the federal government’s matching of federal payments to Medicaid expansion enrollees. “In addition to Medicaid reform, Biden’s ‘Green New Scam’ tax credits MUST be repealed. We’ll be working through the weekend to keep pushing for stronger reforms. No more SMOKE & MIRRORS.” Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kan., told reporters, “I expect the next step is to work on addressing some of the concerns raised by the Republicans who voted no. These particularly include that the deficit reduction is not enough and that what deficit reduction there is included is so heavily weighted to the end of the 10-year window.” Friday’s vote against the budget package was a reminder of disagreements within the GOP that House leadership will have to contend with in order to pass Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Johnson has repeatedly said that Memorial Day, May 26, would make for a good deadline for passage, while major stakeholders such as House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have suggested Independence Day, July 4. Two natural incentives for accelerating the budgetary process are the expiration of Trump’s first-term 2017 tax cuts and the eventual running up against the federal government’s current debt limit. Jacob Adams contributed to this report. The post Republicans Scramble to Regroup After Budget Bill Setback appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Well THAT Escalated Quickly

Boston Cream Puffs: Who on Wu's Staff Bit Who?

Vice President JD Vance warned radio and podcast host Glenn Beck that Americans should be concerned about anti-free speech moves abroad, predicting significant “friction” between America and other nations. Vance told Beck that America and Europe often have great influence upon one another, making censorship efforts in Europe a threat to the United States. “The kind of social media censorship that we've seen in Western Europe, it will and in some ways, it already has made its way to the United States. That was the story of the Biden administration silencing people on social media,” he said on the Thursday edition of the Glenn Beck Program.  [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 

An Ohio state legislator has reportedly drafted a bill that would make it illegal for colleges to host football games before 3:30 p.m., except for special circumstances.Republican state Rep. Tex Fischer is looking to ban the earlier kickoffs particularly because Ohio State is frequently booked on Fox's "Big Noon Saturday." 'I said it would be a crime for FOX to put Ohio State vs Texas at noon. Promises made, promises kept!'The bill, shared by Fischer through an account called the Rooster, explained that "no college football game" in Ohio would start before 3:30 p.m. unless one team is from a state university and both teams are ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll.If a game does start earlier than the prescribed time without the stated provisions, a $10 million fine from Ohio's attorney general would be handed down to either the host team's football conference or the television network, "whichever party scheduled the earlier start time."RELATED: 'A lot of people say it's not happening!' A definitive list of men who have dominated women's sports Ohio Stadium prior to the Ohio State Spring Game, April 12, 2025 in Columbus, Ohio. Photo by Ben Jackson/Getty ImagesAccording to USA Today, the earlier games are generally an annoyance to traveling fans and regular attendees who are forced to get up earlier and have their tailgating time cut into.Blaze News asked Fischer if he thought the earlier start times cut into tax revenue surrounding merchandise or liquor sales and if the tailgating time was a hot-button issue for him. Fischer's office did not immediately reply to Blaze News' request for comment.The Buckeyes have played 35 games in the noon time slot since 2019, when Fox began broadcasting the Big Ten conference games. The conference typically has allowed Fox to schedule more high-profile games in the earlier time slot without having to compete with the popular 3:30 slot dominated by CBS and ESPN.Now that Ohio State is the defending national champion, the bill hopes to change the likelihood of more early games, especially considering their schedule included seven in the past season.Fischer boasted about the bill's text in his accompanying post: "A few weeks ago, I said it would be a crime for FOX to put Ohio State vs Texas at noon. Promises made, promises kept!"RELATED: 26 NCAA softball players baptized together before going head-to-head in Conference USA tournament — (@) Another caveat was carved out for rivalry games, which includes Ohio State vs. Michigan, which has a traditional start time of noon."Division (B) of this section does not apply if an earlier start time of a college football game between two teams is a college football tradition," the proposed legislation read."For this purpose, a 'college football tradition' is a start time of a game between the teams of two institutions whose football teams have competed against each other at least fifty times and the start time has been the same for at least ninety-five per cent of those games."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary motion on Friday to pause deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 based on the lack of due process given to migrants. The 7-2 ruling was issued unsigned, but Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly dissented from the majority. Alito dissented on the basis that the court had 'no authority to issue any relief' so early in the litigation process. The lawsuit was filed by a group of Venezuelans from North Texas who were accused by the government of being gang members and thereby eligible for deportation without due process.The court rejected a motion from the Trump administration to allow them to continue the deportation proceedings, and ruled that the government had not given the migrants the due process to challenge the deportations. The ruling cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, where the administration said they had no power to return the man, despite admitting that his deportation was due to a clerical error. The Supreme Court said that “the detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty," given that the Trump administration had been “unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador.”Alito dissented on the basis that the court had "no authority to issue any relief" so early in the litigation process. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union argue that the detained migrants were not notified by the government in a language that they understand and were not notified of their rights, nor given enough time to exercise their rights. The Supreme Court had unanimously ruled in April that migrants needed to be allowed due process to challenge deportation proceedings. RELATED: Trump lashes out at Supreme Court for blocking deportations Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images Defenders of the use of the 1798 law say that the scale of the millions of deportations needed to alleviate the immigration crisis is so great that due process cannot be granted to each migrant to be deported. Critics of the administration say due process is necessary to protect against mistaken deportations, as well as to allow suspects to challenge the designation and prove their innocence. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Great Starbucks Barista Revolt of 2025 Enters Its Third Week, Because of a DRESS CODE

Verizon Hangs Up on DEI, and Twitter Users Dial In with Hilarious Hot Takes

Earlier today, Epic Games announced that they are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to bring Darth Vader's voice back to life in Fortnite using the late James Earl Jones' voice ((with consent by his estate).