For those who spend far too much time on social media, there is no greater achievement than “going viral.” Not the bad kind of viral — with all the coughing and sores and two-weeks-to-slow-the-spread — but the kind that feeds that insatiable little narcissist inside each of our online personas.

Sometimes, these viral moments are predictable, but sometimes they come from the most seemingly innocuous expressions of obvious truth. A few weeks ago, I experienced just that, even making it into the hallowed “Today’s News” section on the hellscape that is X (formerly known as Twitter). The headline: “New Dad’s Post on Childless Parenting Advice Resonates Widely.” Mission accomplished! After all, who doesn’t dream of resonating widely?

What was this post? “Having a baby will make you realize how insanely hilarious it is when childless people give out parenting advice.”

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Generally, unsolicited advice is annoying, but when it’s coming from someone who has never had a child, and they’re lecturing you on how to do your job, it’s a whole other level of ridiculousness. I was never one to hand out unsolicited parenting advice either before or after having a baby, but it was only after having a baby that I realized — since parenthood triggers an onslaught of constant unsolicited advice from everyone you meet, everyday, forever — quite how absurd this particular social quirk is.

Before having children, I must admit that I had too many internal thoughts on the parenting of others. I’m not talking about the baseline requirements of parenting — feeding your child, clothing your child, and making sure your child doesn’t wander off into the woods to be eaten by wolves — since these fall into legal observations rather than parenting styles. No, I’m talking about the low-level judgments that slip from our consciousness without a moment’s hesitation before we have any idea what we’re talking about.

Outside of the aforementioned baseline, no one has the right to judge anyone else’s parenting, let alone someone who has never had children, and let alone shared in the form of an all-too-familiar passive aggressive “here’s an idea.” When my wife and I have been up since 4 in the morning, our baby has launched both breakfast, lunch, and dinner in every direction except his mouth; and we’ve battled the dreaded blowout while in traffic. The random childless stranger at the supermarket is simply not equipped to solve the problem demonstrated by their tiny and brief window into our lives.

And I challenge you to find a parent out there who disagrees.

But what I found really interesting about my post was the range of negative reactions (both online and offline) from people who didn’t have children. While most parents agreed — because it was obviously true — there were some who were clearly offended by the notion that childlessness is an indication of ignorance in the realm of raising children.

It’s not like this logic applies anywhere else, of course. Imagine hiring a penniless financial advisor, or a blind traffic warden, or pre-Ozempic Lizzo as your personal trainer. But when it comes to parenting, apparently everyone has some thoughts that we simply must take seriously.

There were some who liken parenting human children to owning a pet. I have a cat that I love almost as much as my wife, but the idea that taking care of a feline is the same as a human being is frankly insane. There are some who pretend that opposing illegal acts of abuse is the same as parenting, which enforces a depressingly low bar for what parenting means. And then there are some who think child-related workers (most notably teachers) are equipped to give parenting advice. Sorry, no.

Most teachers are undeniably wonderful people who have dedicated themselves to the betterment of our society by helping to mold the next generation, forming a crucial element of their students’ lives. But that’s not the same as parenting. Teaching is hard and tiring. But teachers get paid, teachers have a limited scope of expectations, and teachers get to go home at the end of the workday. Unless you’re a single mother or an illegal immigrant in a socialist country, no one is paying parents to be a parent.

Yes, teachers are responsible in the context of education and basic safety and classroom temperament, but parents are responsible for every element of their children’s lives, including their education. When a mom drops little Jimmy off at kindergarten, it’s not like she’s suddenly free of responsibility, and is therefore free to fly to Las Vegas for the afternoon and channel her inner Hunter Biden.

And there is no end of the day for parents. Even teachers with a difficult student are free of this burden when summer rolls around. When your “parenting” is for several hours a day for several months a year, it’s not parenting. It’s a job. Also, when there are potentially dozens of children in each classroom, a teacher’s advice might be more applicable to chimpanzee crowd control workers at your nearby zoo than the parenting of an individual child whose needs, desires, and personality is unique.

But in the end, a simple and tautological fact remains: no one but the parents are parents. No one else created the child, only the mother gave birth to the child, and the parents have a duty to be there for their child in every moment God gives them. That’s not a complaint — the responsibility of parenthood is the most awesome and magical experience imaginable — but it is the reality.

One particular comment by a childless kindergarten teacher really stood out to me, as she criticized poor parents and noted that children are “not property with which the parents can do as they please.” No human being can be property, of course, but children do belong to their parents. And as every parent will attest, anyone who comes within a thousand feet of interfering with my family — let alone taking any form of control — is in for a rude awakening.

And parents, unlike childless teachers, are used to rude awakenings. I was woken up at two in the morning by a baby who was not only kicking me in the face but laughing about it.

Childless-givers of unsolicited advice: You and I are not the same.

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But the idea that all politicians are virtuous, hardworking, honest, motivated by a good-faith belief in public service and examples of strong moral character? That’s just plain silly.

This reminds me of one scene in the British comedy “Blackadder” in which the title character (played by Rowan Atkinson) is helping his servant, Baldrick, apply to be a member of Parliament. When asked whether he has a criminal record, Baldrick replies “Absolutely not.” Blackadder’s response summaries the reality of the class of politicians, both in the somewhat-fictional comedic retelling of Britain in the late 18th century and today:

“Oh, come on, Baldrick, you’re going to be an MP for God’s sake! I’ll just put fraud and sexual deviancy.”

That is the unfortunate baseline for many politicians these days, and we’re kidding ourselves if we pretend otherwise.

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Take Graham Platner — the guy with a Nazi tattoo who went to a private boarding school before enlisting in the U.S. Marines, entering into abusive relationships with women, becoming a communist and then running for U.S. Senate — as an example.

During one media debate last week, I had the displeasure of having to scramble a few thousand brain cells while “discussing” with another guest whether or not Graham Platner is a worthy candidate. The case for their defense? Not only is Graham Platner a husband and a veteran — as if it is simply impossible for an individual husband and veteran to also be a Nazi-loving communist creep — but that Republicans are bad too!

What about Donald Trump? What about Pete Hegseth? What about Ken Paxton? Well, what about them?

First off, last time I checked, neither Donald Trump, nor Pete Hegseth, nor Ken Paxton were sporting a SS Totenkopf tattoo for years.

But even if we accept the insane premise that Trump, Hegseth and/or Paxton are just as bad as someone like Graham Platner...why is that relevant? I’m not the one pretending politicians are gleaming beacons of moral character. Meanwhile, I was also under the impression that Democrats are better than us. I was under the impression that Democrats have a higher standard of behavior than us. I was under the impression that Democrats care about moral character immeasurably more than us.

And this is where their whataboutism implodes like a dying star. On the one hand, they will argue that Republicans are unworthy of support because of their moral failings. On the other hand, they will argue that Democrats are worthy of support despite their moral failings because of the moral failings of Republicans.

So, moral failings matter, but they also don’t matter. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how Democrats can spend decades calling people like you and me a “Nazi” or a “fascist” or “just like Hitler” and then immediately fall over themselves to vote for the guy with a Nazi tattoo.

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Well, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, has an idea: Politely force pro-abortion activists to admit what they actually believe.

During a hearing on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act — federal legislation which prohibits the obstruction of so-called “reproductive health services” and/or places of worship — Gill held abortion advocate and policy researcher Jessica Waters’ feet to the fire on what she actually not-so-openly supports. How? By describing what these “reproductive health services” actually involve.

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After refusing to answer whether she supports “any limits on abortion,” Waters also agreed that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” while (as Gill noted) missing the absurd requirement that something that is a supposed moral imperative also be limited by rarity. Then the core of Gill’s success came when he asked Waters whether she has “a preferred method of abortion,” to which she finally responded, “I do not.” Gill then proceeded to outline the various forms of abortion — suction abortion, dilation and curettage, or dilation and evacuation — all while asking the visibly uncomfortable Waters whether she agrees that descriptions of these abortions “sound pretty gruesome.”

Here’s the thing: When abortion advocates are forced to face the reality of abortion — including using the word “abortion” — they wriggle and squirm and wrestle, because even they know the obvious evil that is at the heart of the brutal removal of a baby from his or her mother’s womb. If they truly believed that these “reproductive services” were mere medical procedures akin to the removal of a tumor or a cyst, then why do they rely on euphemisms at all?

Why don’t we hide behind euphemisms for other surgeries? When you have a rotten tooth removed, you don’t say that you’re going in for a dental service and start to sweat bullets when someone asks you what that means.

So why is abortion different? Well, because abortion is different. Abortion isn’t health care; it’s the murder of an unborn life, and the pro-abortion movement knows full well that if people saw what abortion actually involved, they’d be utterly repulsed. That is why they engage in rhetorical propaganda and repackage the entire subject to make it more palatable to the ignorant and the misguided.

And that is why advocates like Waters will fight tooth and nail to refuse to admit precisely what they spend their lives fighting for. Because when abortion is put under the spotlight in such a manner, all that remains is the truth. And the truth is, as Gill put it, gruesome.

So if you are a pro-life advocate wondering how to navigate a world in which the subject of abortion is quickly fading into political unimportance, remember that we have truth on our side, and all we need to do is help the world see the truth.

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Ironically, during his apparent quest for humanity, Bardem simultaneously failed to mention that Oscar-nominated Jafar Panahi has been the target of the Iranian regime, having been arrested on multiple occasions and even sentenced in absentia to a year in prison for criticizing the government.

But that doesn’t count, for some reason, and neither does the massacre of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens for daring to protest the regime. Because apparently, all that peace requires is for multimillionaires to stand on a stage in Los Angeles — thousands of miles from the conflict raging in the Middle East — and simply declare that war is bad.

Problem solved!

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The actual problem here, though — beyond the fact that the war in Gaza is over (for now) and that the war in Iran was started by Iran after murdering Americans and Israelis for almost 50 years — is the second part of Bardem’s declaration: Free Palestine. Why? Because it is impossible to have “no war” and “free Palestine.”

The obvious follow-up response to anyone who proclaims “Free Palestine” — apart from “Get a job” — is “Free Palestine from whom?” So let’s consider the two culprits. First, there’s the option Bardem obviously doesn’t consider: Free Palestine from Hamas. For those who have forgotten, Hamas is a brutal Islamist terrorist organization whose entire existence rests upon their genocidal obsession with eradicating (as their own charter puts it) the “warmongering Jews.” In the aftermath of the latest shaky ceasefire, they have immediately moved to reassert complete and ruthless control over the Gaza Strip and its citizens. So, how does Bardem suggest that we free Palestinians from Hamas without war when war is the only language Hamas understands? Muffin baskets?

Second, there’s the culprit who — according to Bardem — is to blame here: Free Palestine from Israel. But even if we ignore that Israel has not occupied the Gaza Strip in two decades, and its so-called “occupation” in sections of the West Bank is the result of multiple Arab attempts to destroy Israel and multiple Palestinian refusals to accept peace agreements, there’s another issue here: how do you “Free Palestine from Israel” without war when the Palestinians have rejected peace in favor of war time after time after time?

Things get even more complicated when we extend the borders of Palestine from the river to the sea, thereby encompassing the entirety of Israel. How does Bardem want to free Israel from Israel without war? By politely asking Israelis to march into the sea? Good luck with that one.

Of course, Javier Bardem is free to be as anti-Israel and as anti-war and as stupid as he wishes to be. But sooner or later, he’s going to have to accept the reality that his Israel-hating allies aren’t quite as anti-war as he thinks he is.

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In the aftermath of an ISIS-inspired attack in New York City, it wasn’t just CNN that became the target of widespread scorn. As CNN’s report of the would-be terrorist bombing focused on the weather and the alleged perpetrators, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was also lambasted for beginning his address by focusing on Islamophobia.

“On Saturday, a protest was held outside Gracie Mansion, where I live with my wife, Rama. Neither of us were home at the time. This was a vile protest rooted in white supremacy entitled, ‘Stop the Islamic takeover of New York City.’ I’m the first Muslim mayor of our city. Anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me,” Mamdani began in a brief speech, with this particular part going viral as if Mamdani’s focus had been on Islamophobia.

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Now, it’s true that whataboutism always emerges in the immediate aftermath of Islamic terrorism in a deliberate attempt to conflate antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry. But this wasn’t such an example. Following his viral comments, Mamdani continued:

“While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred. It does not belong only to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone. I will defend that right every day that I am mayor, even when those protesting say things that I abhor.”

This is the United States of America, and our First Amendment includes the freedoms of speech and assembly. Mamdani defended these freedoms while being well within his right to abhor the protest itself. In isolation, there was nothing wrong with what he said.

But there’s a deeper problem here that goes far beyond a scripted speech. A problem that relates to Dana Rubinstein’s argument for The New York Times is that Mamdani replicated the same strategy used when protesters chanted “death to the IDF,” “globalize the intifada,” or pro-Hamas bile outside New York synagogues.

When it comes to Islamophobia, Mamdani comes out guns blazing. When it comes to Islamic terrorism, however, his usual communications style is replaced with something reserved, edited, and controlled.

Why? Well, because Mamdani still wants to globalize the intifada, and his base — as shown by his administration appointments — demonstrates his continued embrace of radicals. Let alone his wife, whose social media activity contains a long list of pro-terrorism content, including liking a post that presented Hamas’s rape rampage of Oct. 7, 2023, as a New York Times hoax.

Even if you think Mamdani’s speech was sufficient as proof of his rejection of Islamic terrorism, only a fool would ignore what Mamdani has done and is still doing. For me, it’s going to take far more than one speech to convince me that Mamdani is not the same person he’s always been. After all, this is the same Mamdani who supposedly decried Islamic terrorism before immediately welcoming Mahmoud Khalil over for dinner. Mamdani was even “honored” to host Khalil, a Syrian-born activist and fomenter of Hamas propaganda on American college campuses who called the slaughter of Jews an unavoidable moment justified by Hamas’s “struggle.”

As long as Mamdani embraces the Mahmoud Khalils of the world behind closed doors, I’m not buying that Mamdani cares about the realities of Islamic terrorism.

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“Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home. Here’s what we know so far...”

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Remember: Someone employed by CNN actually sat down and wrote that and was happy enough to pass it up the chain to someone else (also employed by CNN) who read it, liked it and published it. After the predictable backlash, CNN hastily deleted the post hours later with the following explanation:

“A post regarding the two individuals arrested for throwing homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home failed to reflect the gravity of the incident thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting. It has therefore been deleted.”

The only real news here is that CNN had any editorial standards to begin with.

While it’s fun to tear into CNN for having to delete its own coverage, it’s also crucially important to understand why the original post — and even the follow-up post — was so deeply problematic. It’s not that a report on an attempted Islamic terrorist attack in New York City began with details of the “abnormally warm weather,” or even the vague nature of “throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home,” which thereby left readers free to assume, perhaps deliberately, that the bomb-throwers were part of the anti-Muslim protest and not targeting the protest.

No, the problem here is one that has been prevalent throughout the Western media for decades: a soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to Islamic terror, in which radical Muslims — hellbent on committing acts of murder, barbarity and carnage — don’t have complete agency over their decisions. It’s as if these “teenagers” — aged 18 and 19, making them legal adults — left Pennsylvania and had no choice but to start throwing homemade bombs!

Moreover, why is the focus of the report the experience of the perpetrators — with “their lives” changing “dramatically” as if they were mere spectators — rather than the focus being the would-be victims who narrowly escaped death?

Consider the response to a darkly satirical equivalent report following the attacks of Sept. 11, in which “19 men from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon boarded planes one September morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying a cross-country flight. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change.” Somehow, 2001 was a less insane time.

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After weeks of tensions, threats, and will-they-wont-theys, the United States and Israeli military finally kicked off their campaign to kneecap (or potentially eradicate) the despotic Islamist regime of Iran. Most of us have responded like sensible adults, patiently awaiting news (from the safety of our homes) of the war while praying for the safety of our service-members as they defend our freedom and values. And yet — as usual — there is the almost unified response from the small-and-whiny coalition of radical Islamists and/or pseudo-libertarian professional tweeters, who couldn’t be more outraged.

Cenk Uyghur praised Khamenei for dying “on his own two feet, instead of kneeling to Israel,” who “pushed us into this asinine war,” Dave Smith called President Trump a “traitor,” and Tucker Carlson called it “Israel’s war,” amidst an explosion of moronic declarations across social media that “I’m not going to die for Israel!”

As usual, the obsessive desire to tie this war — much in the same way as wars of the past — to the warmongering Jews who want your children to fight and die for them is sheer unadulterated nonsense.

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First, the American military is undoubtedly the finest and most awesome military force in the history of humanity, made up of the best-of-the-best who volunteer to serve our country. Does anyone seriously believe they’re desperate for a bunch of chubby keyboard warriors and their privileged children — some of whom even have cushy jobs in the Trump administration — to fight alongside them?

Second, does anyone seriously believe that Israel is simultaneously all-powerful that they can manipulate the United States into war, but waited decades to twist Donald Trump of all people into attacking Iran? Is Donald Trump that easily manipulated? Donald Trump, the man who has done what he wants, where he wants, when he wants for his entire life?

Lastly, and most importantly, we should also address an underlying argument that this war is somehow unjustified — as Rep. Ilhan Omar argued — as if Iran hasn’t been our enemy for almost 50 years. Yes, casualties from this campaign are both inevitable and tragic, as is the case with all combat casualties. But you will also notice that some of those who are particularly outraged by these casualties also couldn’t care less about the hundreds of casualties of Iran and its proxies before this war.

Let’s even set aside the apocalyptic carnage that would be brought upon the United States and its allies if — God forbid — Iran obtained nuclear weapon capabilities. It is undeniable that Iran’s proudly-declared “Death to America” policy has brought death to Americans since the Iranian revolution in 1979. Examples include the bombing of both the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 — killing hundreds of Americans — the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia — killing 19 Americans and wounding hundreds more — and the roadside bombing campaigns by Iran-backed insurgent groups in Iraq that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American troops.

The idea that Americans haven’t been impacted by Iran’s regime of terror is debunked solely by the attacks of October 7, 2023 by Iran-backed Hamas. Tucker Carlson may have described the attack as a “foreign tragedy” over which “some commentators” were being disproportionately emotional, but it was a “foreign tragedy” in which Americans were murdered and kidnapped.

Was their “foreign” status imposed by their tiny hats?

There are, of course, good reasons to oppose this war, but the idea that Iran poses no threat to the United States or its citizens is not one of them. Not only that, the argument that any and all military action against Iran is unquestionably unjustified is nothing but a disgusting expression of disrespect for every American citizen that has been wounded, brutalized, or murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Yes, according to these knuckle-draggers, Israel manipulated President Donald Trump (of all people) into launching a military assault on a country whose slogan just happens to be “Death to America” and is responsible for the death of hundreds, if not thousands, of American citizens since 1979.

Trump, the man who has spent his entire life doing precisely what he wants, where he wants, and when he wants, no matter the consequences, was manipulated by Israel into doing something he didn’t want to do?

How absurd.

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Not only that, but if Israel is so monumentally powerful in its talents of manipulation that they managed to drag Trump and the United States military into war ... why did they wait so long? After all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wanted to destroy the Iranian regime for his entire political career, but he waited until Trump’s second term — after his third election — to start calling the shots?

And why bother waiting for Trump’s second term when they had President Joe Biden — a corpse with a facelift who couldn’t remember his own name — in the White House for four years? Is Israel so all-powerful that they can treat Trump like a puppet, but so totally weak that they couldn’t get Biden to fire off a few missiles?

At its core, intentionally or otherwise, all of this is built on one thing: anti-Semitism. Yes, Jew-hatred is the motivation behind the patently ridiculous claim that the Jewish state of Israel is dragging Trump kicking and screaming into war.

This reminds me of a speech by the late Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, during a speech on anti-Semitism:

“It seems to me that if you actually ask, ‘What is anti-Semitism? What do anti-Semites believe?’ you will immediately see that the answer is a series of contradictions. Jews were hated in the 19th century because they were rich and because they were poor, because they were capitalists and because they were communists. Because they kept to themselves, and because they infiltrated everywhere.”

This same contradiction has returned, under the guise of anti-Zionism, in which Israel is both powerful and weak at precisely the same time.

By all means, oppose this war. There are plenty of valid reasons against it — including the support of Congress which, yet again, has been ignored — but if your argument is built on the premise that we Jews are dragging you and your children into yet another war? All you’ve done is recycle a centuries-old hate that is as nonsensical now as it was then.

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Why? Well, because she is, apparently, woke.

For those who just don’t get it, let me explain.

In the world of sports in which Alysa Liu is thriving, we (the big bad conservatives) simply don’t care about your politics if you are proudly representing our great nation — which Liu undoubtedly is — and you leave your politics at the door — which Liu undoubtedly did. We are celebrating Liu regardless of her politics, because her political beliefs are irrelevant when we’re busy watching the world’s premier sporting event.

This isn’t a debate stage; it’s a skating rink. They’re easy to tell apart, not least of all because one is covered in ice.

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This might sound shocking, but for us, politics isn’t primary. We don’t hungrily seek out a totalizing form of politics in which our beliefs are forcibly infused into every single element of our lives. That’s what the left does, which is precisely why they cannot possibly understand how we could possibly cheer on someone who is “woke.”

Consider perhaps the right’s most widely criticized person in sports in recent years: Colin Kaepernick. Despite what we were told, he wasn’t condemned because he is a Black quarterback (hardly an unusual attribute in the NFL), or even because of what he believed (no matter how absurdly ignorant or racist his views on modern-day America were). No, it’s because he dragged his politics into the world of football, leveraging his political beliefs to garner fame and fortune while his career started to circle the drain. Even if Liu and Kaepernick had exactly the same political beliefs, which they almost certainly do not, the crucial detail is that Liu didn’t show up to the Olympics wearing socks depicting police officers as pigs.

Moreover, let’s consider the response on the left if Alysa Liu was a dreaded MAGA supporter. Suddenly, she’d be the ultimate personification of evil, and we would be inundated with claims that skating was somehow institutionally racist, sexist and transphobic, with Liu’s presence at the Olympics alone making countless people feel just so unsafe.

Of course the people who would rather die than celebrate someone who voted for Trump could never understand how we could celebrate someone who didn’t. The right doesn’t care about your politics if you don’t force it down our throats when we want to enjoy sports. The left cares about nothing else.

And let’s not forget the red elephant in the room: Eileen Gu, the traitorous agent of the Chinese Communist Party who is competing on behalf of China despite being born and raised in the United States. She’s actively being celebrated by the same people who cannot believe that we — conservatives — are instead celebrating Alysa Liu, whose father escaped communist China after participating in the 1988 Tiananmen Square protests.

If politics is all that matters — as we are repeatedly told — then I’m going to spend my time cheering on the patriotic Americans representing us on the world stage, regardless of who they vote for. They’re what makes this country great, not some pseudo-celebrity who is bought and paid for by a bunch of evil communists.

It’s really that simple.

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One of the countless terrible things about the podcast manosphere that has infected our eardrums in recent years is the ridiculous pretense that the gaggle of knuckle-draggers who professionally masquerade as, like, really deep thinkers are in any way deserving of our respect as manly men who are manly for saying manly things that no-one else will say, because they’re not manly.

Whether it’s Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, or Amrou Fudl — the Sudanese-American propagandist who goes by Myron Gaines — we’re supposed to pretend this collection of anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-reason mouthpieces are somehow brave for maintaining their grift.

But among this crowd, there is undeniably no-one worse than Tucker Carlson, the man who has spent the last few years endlessly spreading anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish propaganda on behalf of Russia, Qatar, and the demons whispering into his ear at night, all while claiming that no-one is allowed to even talk about the Jews.

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The latest example? “Tucker Carlson ‘DETAINED’ in Israel,” Phillip Nieto’s headline declared for The Daily Mail. “Journalist ‘dragged into interrogation room’ as explosive interview sparks diplomatic firestorm.”

“Conservative podcasting titan Tucker Carlson said he and his staff were detained in Israel on Wednesday following an interview with Donald Trump’s ambassador to the country,” Nieto dribbled, before detailing Carlson’s account of the oh-so-traumatic events in which his passport was “confiscated,” and his colleague was “hauled” away.

Oh my goodness, how terrible…except it didn’t happen, with the Israeli government, U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and video footage (with Tucker Carlson appearing to even pose for photos with a security guard in a private security area) all debunking perhaps the most ridiculous headline of all time. The detention Carlson “exclusively told the Daily Mail”? It’s called passport control, meaning that every single one of us has been DETAINED at every international border we have ever crossed.

It’s obvious that Carlson planted this story — to a former employee of the outlet he founded, The Daily Caller, no less — to fuel his ongoing fever-dream that Israel is a combination of Voldemort, Thanos, and Judas. And it’s hardly surprising, given he — after arguing that anyone who has any interest in foreign policy is anti-American and doesn’t care about American citizens who die of fentanyl — immediately racked up air miles by flying (private, we must presume) to every country except America, including apparently every Muslim nation on the map, to drool over the same countries whose fundamental policy is “death to America.”

Because what’s more America First than that?!

The brutal reality is that this giggling lunatic with a relentless aversion to wearing socks — seriously, the man never wears socks — has cashed in any remaining shame he had left in exchange for midnight DMs from Vladimir Putin and the slave-owning terror-funding despots who run Qatar. In a normal world, Carlson’s self-flagellating performance at a Russian supermarket alone — where he pretended to not understand exchange rates while sniffing Russian bread like he’d been on a no-gluten diet for 30 years — should have ended his career, but somehow, he still has an audience.

What does that mean? Well, that an audience exists for Tucker Carlson, no matter how much he is willing to humiliate himself to get those juicy anti-Jewish clicks. And frankly, that’s more terrifying than anything he’ll ever put out on his show, including George Stephanopoulos’s sister.

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For several years, California Governor Gavin Newsom has been spending his time engaged in a bizarre shadow-boxing campaign against various right-wing boogeymen who — in the depths of his imagination — represent obstacles along his path to the White House. Whether it’s having to stare down the infamous poop map during his debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his horrendously awkward foray into the world of podcasting, or his entirely manufactured descent into online trash talking, there is no level of humiliation that will stand in Newsom’s way of destroying the country after destroying San Francisco and then California.

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Meanwhile, the strangest part of Newsom’s strategy is to be like Donald Trump, including his obsessive compulsion to post on social media like a deranged teenage girl with nothing to lose. One of many problems with this strategy? Trying to be like Trump is essentially a political Ring of Power that can only be wielded by its one creator, Trump himself, dooming all those who seek to wield it to lives of embarrassment.

If only Gavin Newsom was capable of experiencing embarrassment, or indeed any human emotion.

The latest absurd chapter in this saga? Newsom’s response to Ted Cruz’s accusation that the Californian Governor is “historically illiterate,” with Newsom shrieking: “Ted Cruz calling a dyslexic person illiterate is a new low, even for him.”

Setting aside whether or not Gavin Newsom is dyslexic — perhaps this explains why he didn’t even notice Trump calling him “Gavin Newscum?” — and the fact that Gavin Newsom’s inability to understand the meaning of “historical” being prepended to “illiterate” could indicate that he is indeed illiterate, Newsom’s big mistake here is that this strange embrace of identity politics doesn’t work if you’re trying to be like Trump while crying victim in such an obvious manner.

It just makes you seem…pathetic.

Not only that, self-prescribed victimhood might work on the extremes of the Left, but to the average American, it’s the ultimate electoral turn-off. Joe Biden couldn’t mask his mental collapse behind “but he has a stutter,” and Gavin Newsom’s attempt to hide behind sudden-onset-dyslexia is going to be just as unsuccessful.

At the root of it all, what Gavin Newsom — and his fellow psychopathic comrades — will never understand is that Donald Trump’s personality (whether you like him or not) is authentic, and the American voter can spot Newsom’s utterly inauthentic and clownish attempt at authenticity from a mile away. Trump might lie — as do all politicians — but when he pulls on a McDonald’s uniform, chats with members of our military, or fires off a tweet at 3 in the morning, we all know we’re getting the real Trump — spray-tanned warts and all.

Unfortunately for Gavin Newsom, there is no “real” Gavin Newsom. To paraphrase American Psycho: “There is an idea of a Gavin Newsom; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable…I am simply not there.”

And no matter how hard Gavin Newsom tries, he is simply not there.

Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist. You can find his work on Substack.

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In an ideal world, a truly just justice system is built upon a platform of absolute objectivity and absolute equality. But, since we clearly live in a world that is far from ideal, justice is routinely doled out by a Lady Justice whose blindfold has been replaced with blinkers, adjusted as needed by the political players in the shadows. Worse, the scales held aloft are weighed down by our society’s widespread and almost bloodthirsty desire for vengeance, in which justifiable calls for accountability skip the frustrating and yet entirely necessary step of due process.

A particularly uncomfortable example of this issue is the treatment of the so-called Epstein files, with a never-ending demand for the release of every single document collected by every single law enforcement agency that may have come within 1,000 miles of Jeffrey Epstein. This is not to say — of course — that a certain sprinkling of human filth throughout Epstein’s sordid orbit should escape justice. No, it is to say that due process still matters, and especially in the case where the mob demands justice, no matter the cost.

And right now, the mob is demanding justice, no matter the cost.

By releasing document after document, not only have victims been needlessly exposed without their consent, but we also risk applying guilt by association to anyone for the sole crime of simply being named in the files — a door that, once opened, cannot be closed. While it remains unquestionably true that many of those named in the files are, at the very least, examples of the immoral depravity that continues to fester in our society, is the casual reader of snippets of these files equipped to apply objective judgment within the confines of the law, and set aside judgment for those who do not meet this legal threshold?

No, they are not, and yet we are skipping over the very protections provided to all citizens — good and bad, moral and immoral — regardless of pesky things such as lack of evidence.

The fetishization of online sleuthery may have convinced your average internet user that they are a one-person investigation team capable of uncovering even the deepest conspiracy, but in reality, waterboarding ourselves with context-free documents — themselves dripping in innuendo, implication or irrelevance — does nothing to achieve true justice and does even less to protect the innocent.

Consider our society’s response during the MeToo era, in which accusations alone, along with associations with those accused, were sufficient to dole out mob justice. How many were incorrectly tarred and feathered when due process was sidelined in favor of rumor and one-sided assumptions that we should “believe all women”?

Our world is full of evil and wrongdoing, and we should certainly want justice to be served to those responsible for it. But justice applies both to the guilty and the innocent, with the guilty proven so in a court of law. Skipping the need for proof and instead combing through an endless stream of documents relating to Epstein in search of a cherry-picked perpetrator might yield some results...but at what cost?

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The Trump administration is officially backing down in Minneapolis and Minnesota, after White House border czar — and one of the few remaining public-facing grownups in Trump’s arsenal — Tom Homan announced that “Operation Metro Surge is ending.” While some levels of immigration enforcement — whether federal or state it remains unclear — will remain, and despite Homan’s claim of supposed enforcement victories, there’s only one way to describe this decision: a massive L for the Trump administration.

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In the immediate short-term, this decision is somewhat understandable, given that polling has indicated a collapse in public support when it comes to Trump’s most concrete and consistent policy: immigration and border control. Now, almost half of Americans “strongly disapprove of how Trump has handled border security and immigration,” with these numbers being just 38% last summer and 34% last April. Of course these sorts of poll numbers are going to set off alarm bells in the White House, with the reflex response being to simply run away from the problem, hoping that the poll numbers will slowly recover.

But that’s not how any of this works. Why? Well, if we are to reasonably assume that this implosion in public support for Trump’s immigration strategy was caused by the response to the deaths of two ICE protesters in Minneapolis, then we should understand the timeline here.

Operations in Minneapolis — and specifically Minnesota — only accelerated in the first place because the Trump administration and the influencer-obsessed Kristi Noem and her Department of Homeland Security hoped to cynically capitalize on the short-lived viral pseudo-investigation into allegedly fraudulent Somali daycare centers, as if we had suddenly uncovered completely unknown — and un-litigated — acts of fraud that could only be solved by an influx of immigration control officers.

But while such an influx was undeniably cynical — motivated by political hunger more than anything else — once the horse had bolted, the job had to be finished. By withdrawing now — cowering behind pathetic claims of victory — the Trump administration is doing one thing and one thing only: providing the radical Left with a blueprint to replicate in left-wing cities and states across the country.

The pattern here is clear: foment agitation and mob violence by comparing federal law enforcement officers to the Nazi secret police and illegal immigrants to Jews during the Holocaust, thereby driving enraged and unstable citizens into harm’s way by encouraging them to engage in violent protest and obstruction, and then leveraging the eventual and unfortunately inevitable deadly results as evidence that only further agitation and mob violence can vanquish the Nazi-esque ICE and their Hitler-esque overlords.

It worked in Minneapolis, so why wouldn’t it work elsewhere?

Again, none of this is to suggest that the administration’s decision to throw all of its eggs into the Minneapolis basket was a good — even entirely justifiable — move. But since we aren’t equipped with the ability to time travel, the administration was faced with just two remaining choices: finish the job, or run away.

This time, they ran away, and don’t think that other blue cities and states didn’t notice

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This week, some of our best and brightest journalists in the field of left-wing propaganda faced something even more terrifying than front-row seats to the Melania documentary followed by a meet-and-greet with Donald Trump himself: they were fired from their jobs, with The Washington Post announcing it would be laying off one-third of its workforce as part of its ridiculously selfish bid to stay afloat.

Now, if you were to look at other left-wing propaganda journalists who (for now) remain employed, you’d think this was the worst news in the world. “The Murder of The Washington Post,” wrote The Atlantic’s Ashley Parker, “Jeff Bezos Killed the Washington Post,” declared Slate’s Alex Kirshner, while MS NOW — formerly MSNBC — published Zeeshan Aleem’s opinion column titled: “The Washington Post bloodletting symbolizes our great media crisis.”

But these responses seem to exemplify the essence of calm compared to former employees who now find themselves jobless, including launching protests outside their former office chanting “Who makes the Post? We do!” while a former Ukraine correspondent tweeted, “I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I’m devastated.”

You think being a Ukrainian civilian is bad? Try being a journalist!

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Look, you should never mock an entire group of people for losing their job. Many of these now out-of-work journalists have families, bills, and mortgages. But here’s the thing: so do millions of Americans whom this very journalistic class didn’t give two damns about during, for example, the widespread loss of jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic or Joe Biden’s voluntary destruction of the economy. Because when millions of non-journalist Americans lose their jobs, it’s just an economic readjustment, or a statistical blip, or an opportunity for those dumb blue-collar knuckle-draggers to “learn to code.”

While I am sorry for those who just lost their job, my sympathy is not just limited by their collective disdain for other Americans who have faced far worse situations than being fired from a failing newspaper. No, it cuts to the heart of what is wrong with the elitism of the pseudo-intellectual journo-activist class itself, because these people actually think they have a right to a job, that no matter the fate of their employers, they have a God-given right to receive a paycheck for their services.

Sorry, that’s not how any of this works.

I’ve been fired before. Most of us have. This is America. People are fired all the time. Sometimes it’s because the company is struggling, sometimes it’s because of a malicious co-worker, sometimes it’s because your manager was an inept megalomaniac, and sometimes, people are fired because they’re not good at their job.

Adults respond to this by putting their nose to the grindstone and finding employment elsewhere. Children respond by having a tantrum for losing their allowance while blaming the owner of their former company for having the audacity to not drive their business into the ground.

Let alone employing the same journalists who brought us the gem-to-end-all-gems: “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48.”

I’m sorry you were fired, but it’s because you suck and you were making The Washington Post suck. Grow up.

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away — 2024 to be precise — the Democratic Party bypassed the most fundamental notions of democracy to instill Kamala Harris as their presidential candidate before attempting to force her upon the American people. Unsurprisingly, the American people responded with a resounding no, at least in part thanks to the sheer level of disingenuous cringe that surrounded her, much like a green fog surrounds a cartoon skunk.

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Now, most public figures with even the smallest scrap of shame would have accepted this defeat and gracefully retreated into obscurity. But, as we are seeing, this doesn’t include Kamala Harris, who is bizarrely attempting to relaunch herself as the savior of the Democratic Party in 2028. However, she faces the same problem of overwhelming cringe, with the latest laughable example being her attempt to leverage the youth. Because, you see, she’s super hip. Like, really.

“Madame Vice President, what’s going on with Kamala HQ?” the grinning Harris is asked, before delivering a definitely-not-scripted announcement of a “new Gen-Z led progressive content hub”:

“Well, I’m so glad you asked. I have good news! So, Kamala HQ is turning into Headquarters, and it’s where you can go online to get basically the latest of what’s going on, and also meet and revisit with some of our great courageous leaders, be they elected leaders, community leaders, civic leaders, faith leaders, young leaders. I’m really excited about it. So stay engaged, and I’ll see you out there. Thank you.”

Honestly, this is the best example of Steve Buscemi’s “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme I’ve ever seen…

Look, the problem at the center of this is twofold. First, it’s yet another example of the unbelievable pandering that politicians engage in every single time they’re looking to garner support from a certain category of person. They’ll suddenly scarf down collard greens, or change their accent, or randomly play Despacito on stage, all because they think we can be so cheaply bought. Sometimes, unfortunately, they’re right. And this video from Kamala Harris — who is a Boomer! — is yet another example, and at this point, she might as well dance the macarena and host a debate over which member of NSYNC is the most fetch.

But the second problem cuts to the heart of just how out of touch politicians like Kamala Harris have become. Gen-Z roughly includes those born between 1997 and 2012, meaning that — as of 2026 — they range from mid-teens to mid-twenties, growing up in a fully-online world made worse by the fact that many of their formative years were spent under government-imposed lockdown during which their social education was diluted through Zoom. Thanks to this level of online literacy, for all their faults, Gen-Z are a better judge of authenticity than any other generation, and can smell performative and manipulative nonsense from a mile away. This video is patronising to its core, and is precisely the reason so many young people despise politicians and politics.

In a cynical world, we might want Kamala Harris to keep this up, as bad news for the Democrats is good news for conservatives. But in a world where we want our political discourse to improve, and for the younger generations to become politically engaged, treating them like shallow and foolish children is bad for all of us.

After all, it’s hard to be Gen-Z led when your leader is not Gen-Z, not a Millennial, and not even Gen X, but a sixty-year old cackling maniac Boomer with a great skincare routine, wardrobe, and dentist who probably still uses AOL Messenger.

Read my Washington Examiner columns here.

This year, too many commentators — many of whom have about as much football knowledge as Tim Walz, who famously warned that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “could run a mean pick 6” — went into overdrive in their attempt to spark a backlash against halftime performer Bad Bunny.

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I’ll confess, I had no idea who Bad Bunny is. Honestly, I still don’t. For all I know, he’s a distant relation of Bugs Bunny, the Energizer Bunny or the Easter Bunny, but apparently he’s very popular, delivering a performance on Sunday that garnered millions of additional views for the NFL and sent the right-wing influencer class into a manic state.

Sure, it’s fine to think that the performance was good or bad, and it’s even fine to calmly critique obvious political messages within the performance, such as the conflation of “God Bless America” with the entire Western hemisphere, as if we share anything with Venezuela, Mexico or — heaven forfend — Canada. It’s also fine, by the way, to not care at all. But if your sole focus on Monday morning is not the game but the halftime show, I’m sorry, you’re not a serious person, and certainly not a sports fan.

And if Bad Bunny’s selection as halftime performer did send you into a social media fury, it’s important to understand that your expression of outrage only rewards the NFL for their decision.

The National Football League’s primary goal is to make professional football as profitable as possible, and the purpose of the halftime show is to expand their audience in order to expand their profit base. The NFL has absolutely nothing to gain from a halftime performance that appeals only to people who are already tuning in for the football, while the NFL has everything to gain from a halftime performance that appeals to people who couldn’t care less about whether the Patriots or the Seahawks even showed up to the game.

To be fair, one of them didn’t...

Then there’s the issue of marketing. It is in the NFL’s best interest to not only pick a performer who will bring in a new audience, but to navigate the tightrope of controversy to ensure that the reliable online outrage machine will provide them with millions of dollars of free advertising.

Time after time, controversy is intentionally manufactured in order to spark a predictable reaction, and Bad Bunny was no different. So, if you despise Bad Bunny and his performance, do you think making him and his performance go viral on social media hurt or helped the effort to convince the NFL to choose someone else?

No, in the future, if you want halftime performers that — for example — have a single English lyric, resist the temptation to flood the internet with your fury, because as long as it’s true that any attention is good attention, your fury is seen as nothing more than dollar signs for the NFL.

Read my syndicated columns with Creators here.

The people running our institutions don’t care about us, the media doesn’t tell us the truth, and an elite class treats ordinary hardworking Americans like they’re the problem.

This Substack community is here to say: no.

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“If you do with an award tonight, don’t use it as a political platform to make a political speech,” Ricky Gervais advised the audience at the Golden Globes award ceremony in 2020. “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.”

Excellent advice that has, unfortunately, been completely ignored by celebrities who have instead done the opposite, with the glitzy world of the entertainment elite engaging an endless display of the latest thing, applauding one another for their pathetic and shallow virtue signaling as they demonstrate to one another that they are on the right side of history.

Black Lives Matter, they declare, as they wear outfits inspired by the Ukrainian flag, or adorn themselves with red-handed badges — a decades-old image rooted in not only in bloodthirsty anti-Semitic assaults on Jews in Iraq during the Farhud, but the infamous image of a Palestinian who had just murdered two Israelis during the Second Intifada displaying his bloody hands to joyful mob — in supposed solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Now, it’s f*** ICE, and there’s no better example of the absurdity of this performative nonsense than Billie Eilish and her acceptance speech at this year’s Grammy, which went beyond their latest rallying cry of “f*** ICE” and deep into the world of anti-sovereignty propaganda.

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Wearing an “ICE OUT” pin — because if you’re not wearing a pin, do you even care about anything? — Eilish declared that “No-one is illegal on stolen land,” and that “I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting. Our voices really do matter, and the people matter.”

Except…Eilish obviously doesn’t believe this. Not at all. Immediately after the ceremony, she was chauffeured back to her multi-million dollar mansion which is surrounded by impenetrable security fences alongside her personal security detail. If she truly believed that her home was built on stolen land…could she not just give it back?

What about the fact that Eilish declared that “no-one is illegal on stolen land” while maintaining a multi-year restraining order against an obsessed fan who has been stalking her? Surely, on stolen land, he has every right to be as close as he wants to Eilish, right?

To demonstrate quite how laughable the latest crowd has become over their latest thing, consider this: would any one of them welcome an illegal immigrant of our choosing into their home (or even their neighborhood) based on the apparent fact that no-one is illegal on stolen land? Would they welcome, with open arms, a murderer? A rapist? A drug dealer? A human trafficker? An abuser of women and children?

No, of course they wouldn’t. They’d enforce the Martha’s Vineyard treatment, deporting them before you can say “ICE.” But — from positions of wealth and safety, deep within their mansions and behind their security — they think you should.

Billie Eilish, if you think “no-one is illegal on stolen land,” you can start by giving your home and your cash and your awards to a random Native American from whom it apparently was stolen. If not, shut up.

Read my Washington Examiner columns here.