Exhausted.

Creepy.

Two events occurring in mid-May in France illustrated a paradox in the contemporary feminist movement, in both Europe and North America. The first was the conviction of the justly celebrated 76-year-old actor Gérard Depardieu on charges of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in Paris in 2021. (One of the women was a set director, the other an assistant producer.) Prudence, then, would seem to dictate that women … avoid dressing (or “un-dressing”) in public in particularly provocative ways. While the victims did not immediately report Depardieu’s offenses, the set designer was impelled to do so after Depardieu published an open letter in Le Figaro in October 2023 denying that he had ever abused a woman. The letter was presumably provoked by previous accusations of sexual assault by over a dozen women in the film industry, many of which referred to incidents too far back in time to be triable under French law. While Depardieu has challenged the verdict, the sheer existence of the previous accusations certainly gives his conviction an appearance of plausibility. But perhaps because the offenses of which he was convicted amounted to forms of “groping,” not violent assault (let alone rape), and also because of the actor’s ill health (diabetes, and a previous quadruple heart bypass), the court issued him an 18-month suspended sentence, rather than imprisonment. Nonetheless, his prosecution and conviction were widely celebrated by supporters of women’s rights, who denounced what they called endemic sexism and impunity for sex offenders in French cinema and French society. Demonstrators during the actor’s trial had waved placards with messages including, “Victims, we believe you; rapists, we see you” and “Touch one, you answer to all.” There can be no doubt that mistreatment of women by film executives has been a longstanding problem in the U.S., no less than in France. Starting early in the industry’s history, young actresses were widely reported to have had to perform on the “casting couch” to win a part. The most notorious recent practitioner of forceful sexual assault in the American industry is Harvey Weinstein. Depardieu’s offenses, needless to say, do not rise to Weinstein’s level. It is nonetheless heartening that he has been called to account — thus perhaps deterring others in his position from imitating his actions. But there is another recent event in France, illustrating a different aspect of the contemporary feminist movement, that stands in striking contrast to the reaction to Depardieu’s conviction. This is the response among self-proclaimed feminists to an edict issued by the organizers of the 12-day Cannes film festival (which began on May 13), probably the most prominent such event worldwide, forbidding attendees, for reasons of “decency,” to practice public nudity. In reaction, the New York Times ran a story by “fashion critic” Katharine K. Zarrella in its May 18 edition titled “The Indecency of the Cannes Red Carpet’s Indecency Rules.” In it Zarrella denounces the “Cannes power play” as tone-deaf at best and misogynistic at worst.” In support of her denunciation, she quotes “stylist” Karla Welch, said to serve numerous fashion models and actresses, as saying “it’s not up to a governing body to tell us how to be in the world. We [women] don’t need governing bodies governing our bodies.” And an executive at Paper magazine, a publication dedicated to fashion, popular culture, and the arts, laments that the Cannes rule shows how “women get crucified whatever they do.” Contrary to the fear expressed by another “fashion commentator” that the rule reflects “the rise of the right,” such that “everything is going more conservative,” even Zarrella acknowledges that “there has been something of a naked-dressing race to go viral at major events in recent years,” including the wearing of transparent or translucent outfits at the Met Gala (the prestigious annual fund-raiser of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) as well as fashion and cinema events. But she then quotes yet another defender of the new fashion in the name of feminism: “Women are empowered. And they don’t want to be told what they can and cannot do.” Let’s put these two events together. On one hand, the Depardieu verdict exemplifies a rising, and fully justified, movement of resistance to the mistreatment of women by men — whether at work, in colleges, or in various social settings. On the other hand, the question must be posed: if women don’t want to be abused or harassed by men, would it not be prudent for them to avoid dressing in a manner likely to arouse some of them to objectionable misbehavior? This doesn’t mean, of course, that scenes of nudity at Cannes or even at the Met are likely to generate a fashion for near-nakedness among the vast majority of women. (How many people even care what goes on at those locales?) But fashions do trickle down. (In fact, it has been commonplace in American high schools for decades for girls, during the warm months, to show up in the shortest of shorts, making it all the harder for guys to focus on the books. This is one reason why some highly successful charter schools, typically operating in lower-income areas, have instituted dress codes and even uniforms — formerly associated with ritzy private prep schools.) In Women’s Best Interest? But of even deeper concern, the sheer rhetoric of self-ownership employed by those “stylists” Zarrella quotes — which echoes, of course, the slogans of those who deny the legitimacy of any legal restrictions on abortion — indicates an unrealistic view of human society, and in particular of relations between the sexes. Since we are political animals by nature (as Aristotle famously observed), no human being is literally entitled to live without “rules” governing his or her conduct in society. Additionally, it is a fact of nature that men, as a class, are on the average larger and stronger than women (hence able — if freed from the governance of rules — to impose their will on them), but also that they are far more susceptible, on the average, to being tempted into acts of harassment, or worse, by the appearance of near-naked women than the other way around. Prudence, then, would seem to dictate that women, merely out of self-interest, avoid dressing (or “un-dressing”) in public in particularly provocative ways. But there is more to the issue than sheer calculation. Anyone who has spent time on a college campus in recent years is aware of how the sheer practice of dating (once called “courtship”)  among students has largely been replaced by a “hookup culture,” in which women (not men of course) are pressured into quick sexual activity, which may not result in any follow-up relationship, lest they be dismissed as “prudes.” It is women, far more than men, who find this system repugnant, yet often find it hard to escape, lest they wind up as social pariahs. In 1999, the young journalist (and recent college graduate) Wendy Shalit published a book titled A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. (A second edition appeared in 2014.) In it Shalit used the very language of “power” employed by today’s defenders of women’s right to walk around naked in public or otherwise comport themselves in ways that defy traditional notions of decency, but to an opposite end: for women to use their collective capacity to transform society — “socializing” or civilizing men as women had traditionally done in free societies by teaching them that true manliness entails respecting women rather than seeking to use them merely as instruments for sexual satisfaction. Given our current social situation, and especially the influence of antisocial media, this is a considerable project. But it is a truly feminist one that, to the degree it succeeds, will promote the happiness of both sexes and provide a ground for successful family-building of which America stands in such great need. READ MORE from David Schaefer: Is Religion Threatening American Democracy? The Personal Is Political for Foolish Tesla Owners The post Contemporary Feminism Endangers Women appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The 2012 acquisition of Star Wars by the Disney Corporation is primarily a dud, despite a return on investment of 12 billion dollars since the purchase. The backlash is from fans who are critical of Disney’s leadership in making poor-quality content by focusing on rehearsed story arcs and nostalgia rather than creating new original material. The one saving grace is the hit streaming show Andor on Disney+, heralded as the best Star Wars show and one of the best TV series of all time. Andor is a prequel-spinoff to the 2016 single Star Wars film Rogue One, which is a prequel in itself as it showed how rebel spies stole the Death Star plans for the Rebel Alliance and was a main plot point for the original movie A New Hope. Cassian Andor is the main protagonist, and we see how the revolution against the Empire is forming all around him as he transforms from a mercenary thief to a main revolutionary, as we see in Rogue One. (RELATED: Revenge of the Sith Puts Disney Star Wars to Shame) The show has 24 episodes, spans two seasons, and covers the backstory leading up to the events in the original Star Wars. The show’s creator and showrunner, Tony Gilroy, was initially brought in by Lucasfilm to help rewrite and reshoot scenes for Rogue One. Since then, he’s had free rein to open up a new lane in the saga that focuses on a revolution that “takes place in the kitchen, not in the dining room,” as he puts it. His film acclaim stems from writing the Jason Bourne film series and directing and writing the award-winning motion picture Michael Clayton. Tony Gilroy is not a Star Wars fan, but his experience writing action thrillers and acclaimed films has created a show in Andor for a more Star Wars-resilient audience that is helping regrow the franchise. Even though the show takes place in the Star Wars universe, the tone of the show is more focused on reality rather than the mystical aspects of a traditional Star Wars flick. There is no Jedi, Sith, or lightsaber, and the Force is essentially an out-of-date religion. There are no Skywalkers, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Emperor Palpatine looms in the background. The show is deemed Star Wars for adults and rightly so, as the purpose of the show is to plot the moral ambivalence of the rebels against the Empire, rather than have baby Yodas to sell toys. Andor succeeds where the other series failed. Shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett focus more on character fodder and cheap fan service than on developing a complex storyline featuring high stakes for the Rebel cells and the Imperials.  The show’s theme is more of a political thriller than a space adventure. Gilroy is a student of history and a fan of revolution, and uses Andor to further explore the ideas of fascism, political oppression, and media manipulation.  The show takes a deep dive into the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), which is similar to the KGB and carries out the Empire’s intelligence operations and law enforcement. The first season deals with the ISB hunting down Cassian Andor and his rebel unit under Axis (Luthen Rael) and dealing with the bureaucratic entanglement within the Empire’s politics. As season 2 speeds up, we see ISB officials, under the leadership of Director Krennic, use the planet of Ghorman to exploit its rare minerals for the Emperor’s energy program, which, in reality, is used to help power up the new Death Star. Thus, the Empire creates a counterinsurgency plan to spread anti-Ghorman propaganda and create a false flag operation to cause havoc on the planet in order to meet the Emperor’s demands. The political element has always been prevalent in Star Wars, referencing the Viet Cong and the Cold War. Tony Gilroy pays homage to George Lucas’s vision with scenes that are reminiscent of the Nazis 1942 Wannsee Conference or Putin’s Russia terror campaign in Ukraine.  Gilroy’s mastery is making events feel relevant. The Empire is terrifying and at its zenith of power, and we are introduced to rebel infighting between new factions such as the Maya Pei Brigade and the Ghorman Front. While the original trilogy uses moral binaries and delves into the hero archetype, Andor features rebel fighters who are righteously ambiguous and will make sacrifices for the greater good. If you are looking for a sci-fi comfort show with aliens, this is not the series for you. However, viewers love it as it has achieved an extraordinary feat in television history: five consecutive episodes with a 9.5 or higher rating on IMDB’s aggregate website. The last season also holds a remarkable 97 percent rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Tony Gilroy’s work for Star Wars and Lucasfilm over the last 10 years is nothing short of impressive, given how stale and out of touch the franchise had become. With Andor, we have a braver and bolder show, and as it turns out, it’s in a galaxy far, far away. And Disney’s redemption. READ MORE from Alex Adkins: Wisconsin Is Now an Authoritarian State It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp (Especially If You’re Andrew Tate) The Greatest President You Never Learned About The post <i>Andor</i> Is <i>Star Wars</i> at its Peak appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Portraits of a Mother: A Novella and Stories By Shūsaku Endō (tr. Van Gessel) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025, 224 pages, $18) A rocky, precipitous islet called Takahoko once sat in the mouth of Nagasaki Bay, before modern land reclamation projects absorbed it. The Dutch merchants referred to the site as Papenberg — “Papist’s Hill” — on account of the hundreds of missionaries and Japanese Christians executed there during the Great Martyrdom of Nagasaki. During that grim period of the Tokugawa shogunate, Catholic priests and indigenous Kirishitan converts who refused to apostatize, who could not bring themselves to tread impiously on an image of Christ or Mary known as a fumi-e, were branded “the enemies of the gods, of Japan, and of the Buddhas,” and were deported, tortured, beheaded, impaled on spears, crucified on bamboo crosses, burnt at the stake, sewn up in sacks and thrown onto bonfires, suspended upside-down over a pit, buried alive, or hurled into the sea. The latter of these methods was considered preferable, allowing as it did for no possibility of Christian burial or the reclamation of holy relics, and so it was that the martyrs of Nagasaki were taken to the Papenberg and tossed from the cliff into the sea, either singly or strung together like beads on a rosary. In Nagasaki, Edo, and other towns and cities through Tokugawa Japan, notice-boards featured posters offering rewards for the apprehension of Christians, and warning that “So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come te Japan; and let all know that the King of Spain himself, or the Christian’s God, or the Great God of all, if he violates this command, shall pay for it with his head.” Not all Japanese Christians were willing to pay such a price. Some of them went underground, becoming Kakure Kirishitan (隠れキリシタン), “Hidden Christians,” living in far-flung fishing villages and inaccessible mountain fastnesses, where they recited prayers that sounded like Buddhist chants, yet included certain Latin, Portuguese, and Spanish phrases taken from the Gospel. They venerated statues of the Virgin Mary cleverly disguised as the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon (Guanyin). If these Hidden Christians wished to keep crucifixes on their person or in their homes, they made sure to use umebori, paper crosses, that could be easily concealed, burnt, or swallowed in a pinch. If they desired to, say, display an icon of Saint John the Baptist, they would use clever allusions. A samurai in a kimono and topknot would not invite too much scrutiny, but the presence of tsubaki (camellia) flowers — traditional symbols of decapitation, since their blossoms drop off in their entirety instead of slowly wilting — provided a subtle reminder of the grisly fate of the Old Covenant’s last prophet. The victims of the Great Martyrdom of Nagasaki, the Great Martyrdom of Edo, and other clerics and Japanese Christians murdered for their faith over the course of the 17th century earned their place in the annals of Catholic history. As the Rev. Father Emmanuel Kenners, o.s.f., wrote in his 1862 account of the persecutions, The Japanese Martyrs, it was the Church alone “that could, and did, give to the world such heroic models of Japan as the Martyrs of Japan. Their victory was a proof of God’s Omnipotence, and her approval of their heroism is a proof of her heavenly origin, and that He who formed her will protect her to the end, and preserve her holy and undefiled on the earth, until the wreck of the world shall have brought time to a termination.” Yet what of the Kakure Kirishitan who submitted to the authorities, who reluctantly trod on the fumi-e, who were not heroic models who achieved eternal victory in death, but instead nursed their forbidden, syncretic faith in secret for century after century. (RELATED: Sede Vacante: China’s Provocations Against the Vatican) Shūsaku Endō’s Chronicling of Japan’s Hidden Christians It was the novelist Shūsaku Endō (1923-1996) who most movingly chronicled the plight and the struggle for survival of Japan’s Hidden Christians. Baptized as a Catholic at the age of 11 or 12 at the behest of his convert mother, Endō’s writings would be inextricably intertwined with his Christian faith. Frequently cast as a sort of Japanese Graham Greene, he might equally be considered a Japanese François Mauriac, Georges Bernanos, or Paul Claudel, French Catholic novelists whose works he studied while a student at the University of Lyon. Best known for his 1966 novel Chinmoku (Silence), a study of faith and apostasy adapted by Martin Scorsese in 2016, Endō returned to the theme of Christian persecution over and over again, in works like The Golden Country (1966), Iron Collar (1977), Kiku’s Prayer (1982), Sachiko (1982), and elsewhere. “Please bear in mind,” wrote Gregor von Rezzori in his marvelous novel An Ermine in Czernopol, “that no one with anything to say ever said anything about anybody but himself.” The reader is free to agree or disagree with this bold contention, but it is nevertheless the case that Shūsaku Endō’s best work was either autobiographical or semi-autobiographical in nature. In his 1968 short story “Shadows,” he described various “major rivers that have given shape to my life. I’ve written a number of different novels over the years by thrusting my hands into those rivers. I’ve plucked up objects that have been deposited at the bottom of my river, washed the dirt from them, and arranged them all together.” Back in February of 2020, the novelist’s descendants donated some 30,000 of his previously unseen manuscript pages to the Endō Shūsaku Literary Museum in Nagasaki. Much to the delight of the librarians there, the hoard included a draft novella entitled Kage ni Taishite, literally “Against the Shadow” or “Confronting the Shadow,” written in the spring of 1963. The work soon appeared in print in Japan, and five years later in English, as part of the collection Portraits of a Mother: A Novella and Stories, translated by Van Gessel and published by the Margellos World Republic of Letters series of the Yale University Press. In each of the autobiographical or semi-autobiographical stories included in Portraits of a Mother, we find Endō wrestling with his difficult childhood and tension-fraught relationship with his fervently Catholic mother. That Endō’s childhood was harrowing was par for the course when it comes to 20th-century Japanese writers — Natsume Sōseki, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, and Yukio Mishima all had a rough go of it early in life — but his boyhood was further complicated by his Christian faith. Born in Tokyo, Endō was raised in Dairen (Dalian), a city in the Kwantung Leased Territory of Manchuria. His parents divorced when he was 10, and he moved back to Japan, where he lived with his mother and aunt (who had both subsequently become Catholic) in Kobe. He was bullied on account of his faith and mocked as part of the “Amen crowd.” Caught in possession of a rosary at school, he was admonished by one of his teachers: “I have to wonder about a family living in this land blessed with an emperor that worships a god of foreigners.” Little wonder that Endō routinely likened Japan to a “mud-swamp” or “fen,” a place where Christianity would struggle to take root. At times, Christianity struggled to take root in Endō himself. He resented his mother’s insistence on attending daily mass, the two of them rising at 5:30 am each day to make their way to the nearby Catholic church. Gradually, he became, as he admitted in “Spring in Galilee,” “two different young men — one while I was at school and the other when I returned home.” While visiting the Holy Land, Endō found himself pondering Judas’s state of mind during the Last Supper. Sometimes during their lifetime, depending on their age, every Christian feels the way Judas felt. A young person feels as a young Judas might feel; an adolescent experiences what as adolescent Judas did; and now for me, a man past the age of forty, Judas’s feelings as he approached old age lurk in the hidden depths of my consciousness. Thus did Endō come to understand the experience of the Hidden Christians, particularly after his mother died alone, while he was out carousing with a bad influence of a friend. Haunted by the “shadows of agony [that] lingered on his mother’s pale forehead,” as he recalled in the rediscovered masterpiece “Confronting the Shadows,” he obsessively brooded over human failings, turning them over and over in his mind, like mud-caked artifacts plucked from the river of his life. “The humiliation and anxiety of a traitor does not simply evaporate,” he observed in “Mothers” (1969). “The relentless gaze of their martyred comrades and the missionaries who had guided them continued to torment them from afar. No matter how diligently they tried, they could not be rid of those accusing eyes. Their prayers are therefore unlike the awkwardly translated Catholic invocations of the present day; rather they are filled with faltering expressions of grief and phrases imploring forgiveness.” In one of the most famous passages in Silence, we are told how “Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.” In much the same way, it is easy to respect the glorious sacrifices of the Martyrs of Japan. It is more difficult, but equally necessary, to empathize with the apostates and the failures, the miserable and the corrupt. Shūsaku Endō was a writer of uncommon empathy. At the end of “Shadows,” an open letter to his unrelentingly judgmental childhood priest (subsequently defrocked for a relationship with a woman), Endō hauntingly described how his bitterness towards his former clerical adversary fell away when he happened to see him “in that restaurant at Shibuya, with a drizzling rain falling outside, [when] you quickly and inconspicuously crossed yourself after the waitress delivered your food. That’s all I really understand about you now.” It is precisely this sort of empathy, I think, that is needed in these perilous, tribalistic, and unforgiving times. Thankfully, Endō’s legacy has received a shot in the arm of late, owing in no small part to the 2016 adaptation of Silence, and the rediscovery of some of his lost works, a process which is ongoing. After “Confronting the Shadows” was found in the Endō archives, three more plays on Japanese Christian themes — Christian Feudal Lord Konishi Yukinaga: Iron Collar, The Woman I Left Behind, and Good People — have miraculously come to light. The Endō Shūsaku Literary Museum, where all these marvels are being exhumed, is located in the Sotome district in Nagasaki, where so many Christians were martyred, and so many Hidden Christians managed to conceal themselves. There, the visitor can find Endō’s bible, rosary, and the statue of Mary (heavily damaged by aerial bombs during the Second World War) that he inherited from his mother, and kept by his bedside all his life. The museum looks out over the Sea of Japan, where his Christian forebears were drowned, and towards the Gotō Islands, where the Kakure Kirishitan sought refuge. And near the water, on a plaque, are engraved Endō’s melancholy, yet subtly hopeful words: 人間が こんなに 哀しいのに 主よ 海があまりに 碧いのです Ningen ga konna ni kanashii no ni, shu yo, umi ga amari ni aoi no desu Humanity is so sad, O Lord, yet the sea is so blue An entire oeuvre, perhaps the greatest of the 20th century, embodied in 25 perfect characters. READ MORE from Matthew Omolesky: Sede Vacante: China’s Provocations Against the Vatican A Precious Cornerstone: Unearthing Lublin’s Lost Jewish District In Memoriam: Keith Edward Windschuttle, 1942-2025 The post Confronting the Shadows: Shūsaku Endō’s Rediscovered Masterpieces appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

This American woman is crying, not because she’s sad, “I'm infuriated” “I gotta get my family out of Colorado — The local Facebook group this morning, there's a post about Memorial Day and just wishing people a happy Memorial Day, thanking them for their service, thanking them… pic.twitter.com/0FwzPo3svT — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 26, […]

Why deny the murders when there is so much evidence? https://t.co/udJRxUCiFg — Lara Logan (@laralogan) May 26, 2025

The Democrat Mayor of Nashville, TN is now under investigation for allegedly “aiding and abetting” illegal immigrants. Two federal committees will be investigating Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s role in obstructing immigration authorities. Republican Rep. Andy Ogles announced the investigation: With the support of the House Judiciary Committee, I will be formally requesting all documents and communications from the Mayor’s office related to: – The amendment of Executive Order 30—an outrageous directive requiring Nashville employees and first responders to report all… pic.twitter.com/BGv8uocsTk — Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) May 26, 2025 With the support of the House Judiciary Committee, I will be formally requesting all documents and communications from the Mayor’s office related to: – The amendment of Executive Order 30—an outrageous directive requiring Nashville employees and first responders to report all communication with federal immigration authorities directly to the Mayor. – Any internal discussions or documents concerning ICE enforcement actions in Nashville or Davidson County. – All correspondence involving Metro employees and affiliated NGOs regarding the arrest or detention of criminal illegal aliens within the city or county. If you’re helping violent gangs destroy Tennessee by obstructing ICE—you belong behind bars. Stay tuned. WKRN has more: The Congressman, along with a gaggle of Tennessee elected officials at the state level and representatives from law enforcement agencies, announced the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees will look into the mayor, his conduct and whether or not the city used federal dollars “in criminal enterprise” related to immigration. “I will not back down. I will not relent. I will always stand with law enforcement,” Ogles said during a Memorial Day press conference inside the state capitol building. “I want my community, and I want my country back.” The investigation stems an ongoing escalation between community members and federal immigration authorities. Ogles called for an investigation into the mayor’s office after O’Connell criticized a “joint safety operation” conducted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials and troopers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol at the beginning of May. The operation ended with 196 people arrested, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that also claimed the Nashville mayor “stands by pro-illegal policies.” O’Connell’s criticism involved how members of the Metro Nashville Police Department have “been delivering safety to this community by reducing crime multiple years in a row,” and pointing out federal officials have “shown us no proof” that those arrested in the early May operation were people “with criminal histories or criminal intent.” “We don’t even know the names of who they’ve arrested, much less the charges,” O’Connell said earlier this month. “What we have seen is a violation of due process and the defiance of court orders.” As Rep. Ogles announced the investigation into Mayor O’Connell, protestors slammed on the windows of the Tennessee Capitol. People are slamming the windows of the TN Capitol in protest of ICE. We will take our country back. pic.twitter.com/uWdpCij5uD — Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) May 26, 2025 Crowd outside the Tennessee Capitol chanting “Deport Andy Ogles” ahead of the Congressman’s “Stop the Invasion” press conference where he’s expected to be joined by ICE officials. @WKRN pic.twitter.com/zLA34EfQMZ — Audrey Mayer (@audsmayer) May 26, 2025 Earlier this month, Nashville Mayor O’Connell instructed the police to refuse to cooperate with ICE on a massive raid. The Nashville Banner provided some background: Ogles offered little detail in the accusations against O’Connell, but was apparently condemning the mayor’s refusal to participate in or expend Metro Nashville Police Department resources on an early May raid of South Nashville, during which roughly 500 cars were stopped and nearly 200 people were arrested by ICE, with the help of the Tennessee Highway Patrol. While a handful of Tennessee law enforcement agencies have signed on to help ICE with enforcement in recent months, Nashville, at O’Connell’s direction, turned down a request to cooperate with ICE during this month’s actions. After community members questioned Metro’s involvement, O’Connell doubled down on opposing the sting, describing the operation as “people who do not share our values of safety and community” having the authority to “cause deep community harm.” O’Connell’s office did not respond to requests for comment Monday. When the Banner asked Ogles what law he believed O’Connell had violated, the congressman simply stated, “that’s why we’re going to have an investigation.” It’s high time for accountability. Mayor, governor, judge — I don’t care who you are — no one is above the law. pic.twitter.com/OeQeXMI3gG — Joab Yarkoni (@balaganazo) May 26, 2025 The American people are tired of authority figures siding with illegal criminals over the citizens they are meant to serve. This is awesome. Tennessee is tired of the mayor choosing illegals over citizens. — Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) May 26, 2025

One Republican Senator known for backing the President’s agenda who is generally beloved by MAGA supporters has broken ranks openly with President Trump. And the heat has come quick and hot against Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The issue isn’t cutting waste or DOGE — he’s all for that.  And it has nothing to do with the overall methodology of the President’s tariff strategy. The issue is the 1.5 Trillion that was initially discussed as a cost of the President’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’. If it had remained a $1.5 Trillion bill, Senator Johnson wouldn’t have balked.  But the 3.4 Trillion that it ultimately became before it left Speaker Johnson’s House was enough to have the Senator drawing red lines and swearing not to cross them. Here’s the key moment creating the dustup; an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union show with Jake Tapper in which he lays out his deficit issues with President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’: I fully support @POTUS and his efforts to clean up the enormous mess left by Biden. I pledged to do everything I can to stop mortgaging our children’s future, and I fully intend to make sure we are looking at the most relevant numbers in the Senate budget debate. pic.twitter.com/Gm9GOOtXRO — Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) May 25, 2025 Here’s the full screen version for that video for convenience: I fully support @POTUS and his efforts to clean up the enormous mess left by Biden. I pledged to do everything I can to stop mortgaging our children’s future, and I fully intend to make sure we are looking at the most relevant numbers in the Senate budget debate. pic.twitter.com/Gm9GOOtXRO — Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) May 25, 2025 Generally speaking, that’s a foundational argument in line with a conservative approach to small government and reigning in spending. What the friction really comes down to is whether or not it really is a $3-$4 Trillion dollar spending bill. Or, whether after certain dynamics are taken in to consideration it actually remains closer to that original $1.5 Trillion mark.  (More on how that works in a moment.) Senator Johnson has been questioned about the potential ire he is risking with President Trump for so openly rebuking the President’s massive spending bill, to which he retorted he was willing to risk it: GOP Senator Ron Johnson rips Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”: “I couldn’t care less if he’s upset. I’m concerned about my children and grandchildren. $37 trillion in debt and we’re going to add to it? There is no way I’m going to vote for this bill in its current form.” pic.twitter.com/uTFyi7JK8m — TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 23, 2025 Johnson said basically the same thing to Jake Tapper during that CNN appearance, adding that he wanted to see President Trump get serious about the deficit, according to a report in the Daily Mail: Republican senators are breaking ranks with Donald Trump over his ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ (BBB) branding it ‘not good for conservatives’ and vowing to vote against the proposed package amid concerns over the sky-rocketing national debt. Budget hawks within the GOP, led by MAGA hardliner Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, have pledged to hold up the bill in the upper chamber unless it is significantly downsized. Johnson warned that the legislation represented ‘our one big opportunity’ to address America’s looming debt crisis and ‘right now we’re blowing it.’ In a stern rebuke the senator told the All-In podcast on Saturday, if the bill passes in its current form, Republicans would be ‘really no better than Democrats .’ The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the BBB will add another $3.8 trillion to the national debt which currently stands at a monstrous $36 trillion – the interest payments alone now outpace defense spending as a proportion of GDP. Johnson told CNN’s State of the Union that he was willing to risk Trump’s wrath and leave the bill in limbo ‘until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.’ The heat has definitely ramped up against Sen. Johnson after his outspoken rebuke of the President’s landmark legislation. He quickly went from hardcore MAGA favorite, to showing up in lists alongside the likes of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell: RINO TRAITORS: These “Republicans” are blocking Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: Ron JohnsonSusan CollinsLisa MurkowskiMitch McConnellLindsey GrahamThom Tillis Backed by Trump, now backstabbing him. Bought by the swamp. Get rid of them all. — Trent Leisy (@realTrentLeisy) May 24, 2025 I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sen. Ron Johnson called a RINO before. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone arguing about CUTTING SPENDING called a RINO by Trump supporters. That’s generally the exact opposite of what happens when a conservative starts talking about cutting spending and doing something about the deficit. Here’s Sen. Johnson explaining his position during the 2025 State Republican Convention in Wisconsin: Republican leaders repeatedly say, “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” Right now, it doesn’t appear that they are willing to fix it. I am going to insist that we do. pic.twitter.com/dGTY5t8Xvh — Ron Johnson (@RonJohnsonWI) May 18, 2025 I have to say — that’s hard to argue with. Except… is he right?  Or is Speaker Johnson right in terms of the accounting methodology that determines how the bill is tallied up? Is it a $1.5 Trillion spending bill after all, more in line with House Speaker Johnson’s argument? According to Speaker Johnson, Senator Johnson is failing to take in to consideration something called “dynamic accounting” that factors in EXPECTED GROWTH that comes as a RESULT of certain spending. House Speaker Johnson argued that the bill isn’t nearly as negatively impactful on the deficit as the Congressional Budget Office made it out to be, for that reason, as reported in the New York Post: Republicans lack the necessary support in the Senate to get President Trump’s marquee One Big Beautiful Bill Act over the finish line in its current form, Sen. Ron Johnson warned. Johnson (R-Wis.) has been one of the most outspoken critics of the megabill’s impact on deficits alongside Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and has vowed to oppose it in its current shape, regardless of pressure from Trump. “We have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. If it becomes law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could add $3.1 trillion to the debt to the deficit over a 10-year period, according to an assessment from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) argued that the deficit impact has been “dramatically overstated” and praised the roughly $1.5 trillion in cuts included in the massive bill. “The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] has been panned because, as you said, they don’t do dynamic scoring,” the speaker told “State of the Union.” “They don’t account for the growth that will be fostered by all the policies.” (Emphasis added.) Honestly, I don’t know who is right on this — for all I know… Senator Ron Johnson is nailing this, and everyone else is hyped up because it’s REPUBLICANS doing the spending rather than Democrats. I promise… that would be a marked improvement.  But the point is supposed to be cutting government spending and drawing down on the deficit — exactly as Sen. Johnson is arguing. But it’s very possible that House Speaker Johnson’s nuanced approach to the “true” cost of the bill is very likely correct. Honestly, I hope so.  The problem is I haven’t seen a good case made for that. Saying it is one thing; explaining it succinctly so the American people understand the approach is another thing. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened on this issue. Here’s a longer clip of the segment creating all the controversy in case you want to dig in a little more on Sen. Johnson’s comments. I’ll say this: he doesn’t come across as a grandstander.  He comes across as the principled conservative that I appreciate. You be the judge: Ultimately, what is probably getting the most attention is his boldness in the position he’s taking. He’s not just saying “We need to work this out”.  It’s more like he’s saying the bill is immoral and wrong. In fact, that’s exactly what he said, as quoted in a story by The Independent: “It’s immoral. It’s wrong. It has to stop,” Johnson said. “This is our moment. We’ve witnessed an unprecedented level of increased spending.” “58% since 2019,” the senator continued. “This is our only chance to reset that to a reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending.” The debt increase fears were raised repeatedly by conservatives on the House Freedom Caucus before the bill’s final passage on Thursday. But every member of the caucus voted for the bill, save chairman Andy Harris, who voted “present”. Two other Republican members of the House, Warren Davidson (who was expelled from the Freedom Caucus last year) and Thomas Massie, voted against the bill. In essence, I have to say I agree with Senator Johnson. The problem is… he might be right on principle, and HOUSE SPEAKER Johnson might be right on the FACTS in terms of the “true” cost of the spending bill. Every time President Trump does something that seems wild or a little off from the principles of conservative small government, I end up eating crow. Over and over again he does something or says something almost off the cuff that sounds like it doesn’t fit with conservative principles — only to realize after some critical thinking… he’s nailing it, and he’s just thinking about it MORE than everyone else ever has. So… I don’t know.  But I wish I did. Where do you land on this?  Is Sen. Johnson a MAGA traitor? Or is he holding to the principled moorings of reality while the rest of us drift a little carelessly because we feel a little less panicked over big spending right now?