When Americans voted to re-elect President Donald Trump, one of the most common motivating factors was a desire to strengthen the nation’s borders and enforce existing immigration laws. After four years of the Biden administration’s open-borders policies, the impact of record levels of illegal immigration became impossible for individuals across the political spectrum to ignore. Among the most alarming consequences was the spike in illegal drugs and cartel-related violence pouring into the U.S. across its southern border. During his address at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, however, Trump declared that those days are coming to an end. As the Daily Wire reported: “Their members and leaders in the United States will be hunted down – I’m talking about MS-13, they’re hunting them down. We removed tens of thousands MS-13, Tren de Aragua – rooted out, arrested, and expelled from our soil like the savage monsters that they are,” Trump said. Criminal gangs from south of the U.S. border have gained increased influence in the United States in recent years. Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua’s rise in the United States coincided with an unprecedented illegal immigration crisis that surged into the U.S. during the Biden administration. .@POTUS: MS-13 and Tren de Aragua members in the United States “will be hunted down… rooted out, arrested and expelled from our soil like the savage monsters that they are.” pic.twitter.com/SXXvJyJV1x — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 22, 2025   His remarks came just days after the Trump administration took the bold step of designating certain Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations: BREAKING: U.S. State Department under President Trump has officially designated the following as Foreign Terrorist Organizations: – Tren de Aragua– MS-13– Sinaloa Cartel– Jalisco New Generation Cartel– United Cartels– Northeast Cartel– Gulf Cartel– Michoacán Family pic.twitter.com/ipPIL1r99P — America (@america) February 19, 2025   Trump signs order to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. pic.twitter.com/bupGDIgwHE — DramaAlert (@DramaAlert) January 21, 2025 That policy announcement came from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as Reuters reported: The United States on Wednesday designated Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and other drug cartels as global terrorist organizations, according to a Federal Register notice, a move that comes as President Donald Trump steps up immigration enforcement against alleged gang members in the U.S. The notice issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the groups pose a risk to U.S. national security, foreign policy and economic interests. Trump, a Republican, issued an executive order after taking office on January 20 that called on officials to evaluate whether any criminal cartels or transnational gangs should be designated as terrorism groups. Trump earlier this month delayed a move to impose steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada over what he said was insufficient cooperation to thwart illegal immigration and trafficking of illicit fentanyl. CNN reported this week that the CIA was using drones to carry out surveillance in Mexico. The covert operations had not been previously disclosed and Reuters was unable to verify the report. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that U.S. drone flights over Mexican territory were part of a collaboration with the U.S., adding that there was nothing illegal about it. Here’s a clip of Trump’s CPAC address:

No Black Sabbath, no heavy metal as we know it

The following article is a reprint from July 14, 2020. It’s still very current.   Mark Levin interviewed retired professor and author Dr. Thomas Sowell on Sunday during his thought-provoking Fox News show, Life, Liberty, and Levin. Libertarian economics scholar, Thomas Sowell said the claims of “systemic racism” and “oppression” remind him of the Goebbels […] The post Brilliant scholar Thomas Sowell warns of the “point of no return for this country” appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have cut tens of millions of dollars directed under former President Joe Biden to left-wing green groups. The Biden administration had awarded the funds through grants to a slew of environmental and activist groups. The grants totaled $77.1 million, but the EPA froze $67.4 million in payments yet to be made, according to the New York Post. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has welcomed DOGE officials into his agency to comb through spending programs and systems looking for waste, fraud, and abuse. The administrator touted the cuts to the environmental grants as another example of “wasteful spending end[ing] with the Trump Administration.” “We will make sure every penny spent by EPA goes towards protecting human health and the environment, and Powering the Great American Comeback,” he added. “I am proud to partner with DOGE to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability in our government.” Zeldin has spent much of his first weeks at the U.S. environmental regulator making cuts to the agency’s spending and reshaping its priorities to the Trump administration. The EPA head has been attempting to claw back $20 billion in “gold bars” that he says the Biden administration hurriedly shoveled out to allies and friends ahead of the former president leaving office. The EPA chief said last week that $2 billion of the $20 billion identified was directed to be paid out to Power Forward Communities, a green group linked to Stacey Abrams. “I made a commitment to members of Congress and to the American people to be a good steward of tax dollars and I’ve wasted no time in keeping my word. When we learned about the Biden Administration’s scheme to quickly park $20 billion outside the agency, we suspected that some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this,” Zeldin said in a statement. “As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been. It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023, was chosen to receive $2 billion. That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue,” he said.

In his short tenure in office, President Donald Trump has already taken swift action to eliminate radical gender ideology and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives from public institutions, including K-12 schools.  Trump has signed multiple executive orders that would eliminate federal funding to any school that continues to promote these dangerous ideologies. As a result, the president needs a strong leader at the helm to guide the Department of Education in fixing our nation’s schools.   That is exactly why he nominated Linda McMahon, who is the perfect choice to repair the damage done by the previous administration.  School districts led by left-wing activists will likely resist Trump’s orders to remove indoctrination from their classrooms. This is where McMahon will need to step in and make an example of these bad actors.  The parental advocacy group Parents Defending Education created a list of school districts likely to resist the orders that should already be priorities to investigate. These districts have notoriously drenched their curricula in DEI and gender ideology in an attempt to turn America’s youth into a new army of left-wing advocates.  One of the worst districts pushing political activism onto students is Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. The district recently created a committee to “explore instruction on gender identity in elementary school.”  The goal is to introduce gender ideology into the curriculum as early as the first grade. A district committee unanimously voted the proposal through. Students will be taught that “for some people, their sex assigned at birth and gender identity are the same, and for some people, their sex assigned at birth and gender identity are different.”  The district notably overhauled the admissions process to the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Thomas Jefferson was once one of the top ranked schools in the nation. Its ranking has now dropped to 14th after implementing a DEI-conscious admissions process in 2020 that deemphasizes merit and after watering down its curriculum to meet the resulting lower overall performance of its student body.   The district openly brags that it eliminated standardized testing from Thomas Jefferson and is now providing “a fixed number of additional points to students from economically-disadvantaged families, English-language learners, and students with Individualized Education Plans”—“points” that will give them an advantage in the admissions process.  Despite the once-revered school losing its prestige and providing a less robust education to its students, the district has shown no intention to reverse course.   Fairfax County Public Schools would be a perfect district for McMahon to investigate.  Another disastrous district to consider is Denver Public Schools in Colorado.   The district created a documentary titled “Reclaiming the Narrative: A Documentary About LGBTQ+ Youth” that is promoted on its website. The documentary follows 16 students within the district who identify as LGBTQ+.   The school system intends to “reframe and disrupt detrimental narratives with moments of joy and celebrations of intersectional identities” with the film.  The school district also created guidance known as the “LGBTQ+ Tool Kit” that instructs teachers to hide a student’s social “gender transition” from parents.   This so-called tool kit also states that the district integrates “LGBTQ+ topics” into “all content areas and in all grade levels.” Permission from parents is not required.  Denver Public Schools used taxpayer money to create this documentary promoting gender ideology and outright promotes indoctrinating students. These actions are blatantly against the president’s orders—and likely, most parents’ wishes—and deserve an investigation.  McMahon should also be aware of the Eau Claire Area School District in Wisconsin. The district had an infamous moment in 2022 when teachers were provided with absurd LGBTQ+ training where staff were told that “parents are not entitled to know their kids’ identities.”  This training included a “White Privilege Test” for teachers. They were considered to have white privilege if they answered in the affirmative to a certain number of questions.   One question posed the scenario, “If a police officer stops me, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.” Staff were also shown the “Genderbread Person,” which is a chart drawn like a gingerbread man used to teach that gender exists on a spectrum.   While these are just a few egregious school districts that promote gender ideology and DEI, thousands of school districts throughout the country have done the same and continue to do so.   The situation is so dire at this point that Parents Defending Education has a growing tally of school districts nationwide that McMahon and her team could use as starting points.  No school should use its platform as a public institution to indoctrinate children into adopting sinister, cult-like ideologies.   Trump made the correct decision in choosing to defund schools that continue to be bad actors, and McMahon is an excellent choice to carry out this agenda.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post School Districts Linda McMahon Must Investigate on Day One as Education Secretary  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Dancing Cheek to Cheek: Sunday Reflection

Recently I saw part of a movie trailer that I wish I hadn’t seen. As an avid though pretty selective moviegoer, I watch a lot of movie trailers. Therefore, many movie ads nudge their way into my social media feeds and start auto-playing, which is how I glimpsed a few seconds of the preview I wish I could unsee. 'Jesus Revolution' raised the bar for Christian movies, employing top-notch talent to tell a truly touching story about authentic Christian faith. I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say it was the kind of disgusting, depraved stuff that is entirely common in modern moviemaking. It was the latest jolting reminder that what passes for entertainment today is disproportionately profane. Now, I’m no prude when it comes to movies and TV. I’m not the type who thinks every movie must be "Pollyanna." But neither must every movie be "Goodfellas." Four-quadrant failure There’s a vast watchable spectrum between those two extremes. Hollywood loves to talk about the magic “four-quadrant” movie — the rare gem that appeals to young, old, male, and female (2022 blockbuster "Top Gun: Maverick" is a textbook example). The film industry may value this broad audience in theory, but in practice, Hollywood rarely attempts to reach it. Only four of last year's 25 top-grossing movies were rated R, but more R-rated movies were released (297) than PG (70) and PG-13 (125) movies combined. Clearly Hollywood leaves a vast amount of money on the table with its lopsided preference for, frankly, garbage. It's not simply a problem of portraying sex, profanity, and violence; it is rather the almost worshipful display of these elements without any moral or narrative value. Much of popular entertainment reveals a perverse obsession with the darkest side of human nature. Object to the sleaze, and you're reminded that it is in fact art, with industry awards to back it up. Of course, such criticism is not remotely new. "Hollywood as easy target" has been a Christian and conservative trope for decades — at least since the 1992 release of Michael Medved's seminal book on the subject, "Hollywood vs. America." Medved’s warning that Hollywood was mounting a blatant, concerted assault on traditional values was spot-on — and about 20 years ahead of its time. Sitting on the sidelines It’s easy to be against stuff. But what are we for? A cursory survey of the past century-plus of mainstream entertainment reveals the dispiriting answer: not much. It wasn't always this way, of course. Christians were at the forefront of the arts for much of the first 2,000 years of the faith. But the ascent of the movies happened largely without Christians, who became better known for decrying the product that Hollywood cranked out. In the 1920s and 30s, prominent Catholics and other conservatives spearheaded the first organized efforts to censor Hollywood movies. One wonders what difference they could have made behind the camera. Perhaps it's the nature of the art form to trend toward moral darkness, but the near-total abdication of the church from film production certainly didn’t help. The rise of 'faith-based' There have been scattered efforts by Christians to influence this powerful medium. The late evangelist Billy Graham created World Wide Pictures in the 1950s, which went on to make over 100 films. But most of those films struggled to find an audience outside churches. In the 1980s and 1990s, smaller, independent filmmakers — among them, my former film school professor Edward McDougal — attempted to blaze a trail in an industry that was indifferent and often hostile to Christianity. Alex and Stephen Kendrick's 2008 hit "Fireproof" earned enough at the box office to put faith-based films on Hollywood’s radar. More recently, Angel Studios has used its unique crowdfunding model to perform a successful end run around the traditional Hollywood system. Likewise, Dallas Jenkins’ "The Chosen" series has become such a phenomenon that it now draws fans to an annual event called “ChosenCon.” The Erwin brothers break through Then there are writer-director-producers Andrew and Jon Erwin, often credited on-screen as “the Erwin brothers.” With fellow filmmakers such as Jon Gunn (director of the terrific films "The Case for Christ" and "Ordinary Angels," among others) and Jenkins, they've formed a sort of Christian "fellowship of the Ring" — dedicated to storming the gates of Mordor/Hollywood. What's remarkable about the Erwin brothers is that their success has earned them a seat at the Hollywood table. It's a seat they seem intent on keeping, as they work within a system that has long neglected the Christian audience. Riding the momentum of their hit "I Can Only Imagine," the Erwins teamed with producing partners Kevin Downes and Tony Young to launch Kingdom Story Company in 2019. A distribution deal with Lionsgate soon followed. Kingdom Story Company’s 2023 film "Jesus Revolution" (co-directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle) raised the bar for Christian movies, employing top-notch talent to tell a truly touching story about authentic Christian faith. Kingdom’s latest film, "The Unbreakable Boy" (directed by Jon Gunn and starring Zachary Levi) hits theaters February 21. And Andrew Erwin recently announced that a sequel to "I Can Only Imagine" is in development. Betting the 'House' The brothers have also set their sights on more general audiences. In 2023, Jon Erwin started Wonder Project, which will produce films and TV shows that, while lacking explicitly Christian messages, aim for a family-friendly, broad appeal — you know, those "four-quadrant" pictures Hollywood claims to love. Wonder Project will release "Sarah’s Oil," which tells the true story of 11-year-old oil magnate Sarah Rector, later this year. Also in the works are a Wright brothers biopic and a Nate Bargatze comedy. But the Erwins' biggest test yet will come February 27. That's when Wonder Project releases "House of David," a big-budget, eight-episode TV series on Amazon Prime based on the biblical account of Israel’s King David. Produced and directed by Jon Erwin and Jon Gunn, it’s epic in scope and action. Is "House of David" good Christian entertainment? Yes — but it can also compete with anything secular entertainment has to offer. These guys aren’t just pretty good for Christian filmmakers. They’re good filmmakers, period. The Erwin brothers and their cohort have a unique opportunity to change the industry from within, but only if their work continues to reach a sizeable audience. That’s where we come in. I don’t want to just stand against things. I want to be for good things, which in this case means supporting like-minded storytellers who have a unique opportunity to nudge Hollywood in a new and better direction — one chiefly concerned with shining a light in the darkness.

ARGLE BARGLE RAR! Lefty ACCIDENTALLY Debunks Major Leftist LIE Throwing Hissy-Fit Over Trump and USPS