Facing down cancel culture: 4 courageous women who stand firm in their beliefs



When I was a child, I wanted to be so many things “when I grew up.” My choices ran the gamut of all the traditional options: police officer, professional football player, teacher, and doctor. News flash: I pursued none of those things.

Today, I now entertain the same conversations with my 10-year-old daughter. One day she wants to be a show director. Another day she wants to be a teacher. And another she wants to be a mom. Like my journey — and the journeys of most — the odds are that she will pursue a vocation yet to be mentioned (although I am rooting for the mom option somewhere along the way!).

Society provides some truly heroic women for our daughter to emulate.

Regardless, as her dad, I do not expend much effort worrying about what she chooses to do. Rather, I am most concerned with how she does it and whether she will exercise the values my wife and I are raising her to practice: courage, humility, hard work, honesty, generosity, empathy, selflessness, honor, and intellectual curiosity.

I often recycle the same advice my parents always gave me: Pick appropriate role models and emulate them. Unfortunately, the U.S. media is not interested in promoting women who exercise these values in the face of career consequences.

While her mom is the best example for her to follow, it is important to provide our daughter with examples from outside the home. Luckily, society provides some truly heroic women for her to emulate.

Michele Tafoya enjoyed as prestigious a career as anyone — male or female — in sports broadcasting. She holds a record four Emmys for sports reporting, and she was the only person nominated every year she was eligible. She worked five Super Bowls, and "Sunday Night Football" was the top-rated show during all 11 years of her tenure on it.

But in 2021, Tafoya used a guest-host appearance on “The View” to represent the beliefs of so many Americans who were silenced and canceled at that time. Amid her fellow hosts asking for talking points to be fed to their earpieces from their producer, Tafoya schooled them on critical race theory and race in America with the grace of a wide receiver and the power of a linebacker. At one point the crowd booed her, to which she responded, “Bring it on!”

Even before then, Tafoya knew she wanted to pursue something different. She had a lot to say, and she wanted a platform where she could share her conservative beliefs. So she told NBC the 2021 NFL season would be her last, and after 327 games from the sidelines, Super Bowl LVI would be her final big game.

For Tafoya, it had become less about the military veterans standing by her side for the national anthem and more about woke causes that did not align with her values. As she said at the time, “I couldn’t ignore that little voice any more after what we have all endured over the last four years.” Since then, she has been a champion of conservative causes across multiple networks and platforms, including her own podcast.

Thankfully, Tafoya has been a trailblazer for many women since. In 2022, Jennifer Sey, brand president for Levi’s and a 23-year veteran of the company, was ousted for her criticism of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In her own admirable move, the married mother of four and sole breadwinner in her household turned down a $1 million pay package so that she could share her story with public. “I walked out the door with an uncertain future but a clear sense of purpose,” Sey said. You can’t put a price on that.

Sey is now leading a movement of bravery with her clothing company, XX-XY Athletics, the first athletic brand that has stood up for women’s sports. What a novel idea! “This is who I am,” Sey said. “This is what I believe. Deal with it.” Let’s hope her efforts give young women the encouragement to live their values now, in the beginnings of their promising careers.

Every day the list of women gets longer. After being sidelined for sharing her opinion on ESPN’s COVID vaccination policy, Sage Steele left the network after 16 years to “exercise her First Amendment rights more freely.” Not long after, Disney-owned ESPN fired one of its other female rock stars, Samantha Ponder, for voicing an opinion that 70% of the country supports: Biological men should not compete in women’s sports.

Much is said about the glass ceiling. These courageous women not only broke through it but also laid a new foundation for the women who have followed them. There are countless other stories like theirs out there.

I still listen to every career my daughter dreams of and give her the encouragement that she can be anything she wants to be if she puts in the hard work. In a society where it is popular to “do as I say, not as I do,” when it comes to these women, I will tell my daughter to do both.

Andrew Tate’s Trojan horse: Would the right let in a ‘minor-attracted person’ too?



Judging by their embrace of Andrew Tate, it seems as though some conservative influencers in 2025 are ready to trade in their familiar “Christ is King” mantra for a new one: “Pimping ain’t easy.”

Benny Johnson is a popular conservative commentator with over 3 million followers on X and close to 3 million subscribers on YouTube. He caused a major controversy in right-wing circles after announcing he would have the man known as “Top G” on his show to discuss the sentencing phase of President Trump’s hush-money case. Johnson advertised his guest with an image of both men in black aviator shades with images of a crying liberal woman in their lenses.

American conservatism will die a well-deserved death if it becomes defined by its foes rather than its values.

The imagery was telling. Andrew Tate has described his webcam operation featuring over 75 women as “pimping” and bragged about getting “betas” from all over the world to send money to the women “working” for him. His appearance on Johnson’s show wasn’t going to be a hard-hitting interview about Tate’s own legal troubles, an update on his human trafficking case in Romania, or his past statements about controlling women.

Tate’s contribution to the show was essentially a series of comparisons he made between himself and President Trump, as well as complaints about conservatives “policing” right-wing bad boys. At one point, Alina Habba, one of Trump’s legal counselors, joined the show and gushed over Tate. She compared his legal travails to Trump’s and told Tate she sympathizes with him, admires him, and has his back.

I try to avoid therapeutic language, but Tate’s defenders conducted a master class in gaslighting. Instead of addressing the concerns conservatives have about Tate’s content and views, they made the issue about censorship and free speech. Johnson even tried to shield himself with the Bible, posting, “He who is without sin cast the first stone …”

I have no problem with media personalities speaking to guests with controversial views. I’m an ’80s baby who remembers when talk show hosts would invite provocateurs to explain their ideas and defend their positions in front of a hostile crowd. But there is a big difference between Phil Donahue interviewing a former Klansman to understand his views and fawning over him like an Exalted Cyclops groupie.

The pushback against Tate and his defenders isn’t about “cancel culture” or policing speech. It’s driven by the fact Tate promotes a lifestyle and worldview that are completely antithetical to what conservatives claim they value.

I highly doubt any conservative influencer would post an image promoting a drag queen who performs in front of kids or a pediatric surgeon who performs “gender-affirming” hysterectomies and then screech about free speech and censorship when fans criticize their decision. Likewise, no one would accept such a lapse in judgement with out-of-context scriptures.

Conservatives have a right to determine which ideas need to be debated publicly and which personalities should be promoted widely. Failure to use discernment when considering allies and co-belligerents always backfires.

I saw this firsthand in 2020 when Black Lives Matter turned a self-evidently true phrase into a movement that gave its leaders political power, cultural influence, and a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. Of all the victims of BLM’s obvious scam, the churches and pastors who hitched their wagon to anti-family Marxist lesbians were by far the most pitiful. My issue with them was not their naïveté. It was the fact that they thought they needed people with such anti-biblical views to deliver a message about the value of human life that could be pulled straight from the Bible.

Likewise, American conservatism will die a well-deserved death if it becomes defined by its foes rather than its values.

You can’t take a bold public stance against pornography one minute and celebrate OnlyFans “entrepreneurs” the next simply because they have “based” takes on politics. You can’t claim to care about rebuilding the family one day, then fawn all over people whose ideas will only create more broken homes. You can’t call out transgender ideology when it’s pushed by “impossible women” in public health roles but prop up men identifying as women on the right because they appear to be more convincing counterfeits or support the incoming president.

The litmus test for the right can’t be how much a person is hated by the left. You don’t have to be an expert on Andrew Tate’s legal issues to understand why conservatives shouldn’t want to see his ideas and views legitimized. If having the right enemies is all it takes to become a conservative media darling, a shrewd “minor-attracted person” could simply hide his pedophilia behind a manufactured persona characterized by standing up to the globalists trying to destroy Western civilization.

No serious political movement should be that easy to hoodwink, and no self-respecting person would want to be.

How the Liberal Elites Got Schooled

In Storming the Ivory Tower: How a Florida College Became Ground Zero in the Struggle to Take Back Our Campuses, Richard Corcoran poses a pivotal (and potentially generational) question: Is higher education in the United States of America at a tipping point?

The post How the Liberal Elites Got Schooled appeared first on .

Ignore The Transgender Mob’s Attempts To Weaponize Your Kindness

It is time for us to push the absurd transgender activist agenda out of our schools, bathrooms, and sports and roll forward.

‘I got canceled. Now here’s the script’: Leftist influencer grovels after past SLURS exposed



Leftist social media influencer Dean Withers committed the ultimate sin in the eyes of his comrades. That is, he said the “f-slur” and the N-word.

“Screenshots of me saying the f-slur in 2022 and the N-word in 2019 have been doing their rounds here on X,” Withers wrote in a tweet posted to X. “First I would like to confirm that both of these screenshots are 110% real.”

“I am putting this announcement out not only to hold myself accountable but hoping you guys will hold me accountable as well. Collectively, society should hold all accountable who hold harmful ideologies or use such language; regardless of follower count, political affiliation, or perceived ‘power,’” he continued.

Withers also took his apology to a recent podcast episode of “One Night with Steiny,” where Emily Wilson of “Emily Saves America” was also a guest.


“I’ve openly talked about how I have used slurs in my past, for you know, like a year, because I think that is a very important point for education,” Withers said. “The point is we can change the socialization of the youth. The point is that if I can benefit and change my perspective in my worldview to be more beneficial to those around me because of this education, so can other people.”

Wilson couldn’t contain her laughter and was called out by the podcast host for laughing.

“This has nothing to do with you, why I think it’s funny,” Wilson replied. “I’m sure you’re being sincere, it’s just like, I feel like I’ve seen so many of these apology videos, and it’s just so funny to me ‘cause it’s like, ‘OK, I got canceled. Now, here’s the script.’”

“You’re just bending the knee to these people that are trying to cancel you,” she added.

Wilson went on “Prime Time with Alex Stein” to discuss her viral moment with Alex Stein and Charleston White — and they couldn’t have agreed more with her response.

“He’s a weenie for that,” White says.

“You have no idea how bad it was off camera,” Wilson agrees. “I said ‘gay,’ and he was like, ‘Can we not allow her to, like, talk like this?’ And I’m like, 'Why are you behaving like this? You are a grown adult.'”

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'F*** them forever': Andrew Schulz's show canceled hours after Trump interview goes live



Ahead of the 2016 election, comedian Jimmy Fallon traded laughs with then-candidate Donald Trump on "The Tonight Show." Democratic boosters and other leftists condemned the host for "humanizing" the Republican.

Future "Jeopardy!" host Ken Jennings joined other middling media personalities in further insinuating that Fallon was racist-adjacent and courting white supremacists, while others called for the comedian's cancellation.

Unfortunately for comedian Andrew Schulz, it appears that intolerance has not dissipated over the past eight years.

Schulz revealed on the Wednesday episode of the "Flagrant" podcast that a New York venue canceled what would have been his special just hours after he hosted the once and possibly future Republican president.

'It's booked. It's ready to go. We're going on sale this week.'

According to Schulz, he was set to shoot his next comedy special at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. However, shortly after his massively popular interview with Trump went live, the venue notified him that it was canceling the gig.

"It was an awesome interview and everybody loved it, and then a day later, [producer] Dov [Mamann] was like, 'Oh by the way, the venue you're going to shoot your special in canceled your shows,'" said Schulz. "Within three hours."

"Flagrant" co-host Akaash Singh said, "After we interviewed him, before the episode comes out, he goes to the venue. Everybody leaves on Schulz's special team. All of them have to go to the venue to check it out. I assume everything is good."

"Yeah, so we've had these venues locked in for months now," replied Schulz. "It's not like, 'We might do it here.' It's booked. It's ready to go. We're going on sale this week. We had the entire production team come out for the — this is for the third time many of us are spotting the venue and looking and everything. We have the set design already curated. We're moving around seating plots, camera — it's ready to go."

"I don't know if it's the Trump interview," said Schulz. "But the day before it came out, we were ready to go and were going on sale this week. And three and a half hours afterwards, we get this email."

The podcast shared an image of an Oct. 9 email from the venue, which read:

First off, I want to thank you for thinking of BAM for Andrew Schulz's upcoming comedy show. We are always excited when promoters consider our space for their events. After some internal discussion with leadership, it was decided that BAM is not the right fit for this show at this time. That said, we really do appreciate you reaching out and we'd love to work with you on future events that might be a better match for BAM. Our door is always open for a chat about other shows you think might work well in our space. Thanks for considering us. Looking forward to potentially collaborating down the line!

Diane Max, former board chair for Planned Parenthood NYC and current Planned Parenthood Federation of America board member, is the chair of the venue's board of trustees. Planned Parenthood endorsed Kamala Harris once again in July.

"F*** them and f*** them forever," added Schulz.

Mamann, who emphasized the venue had previously been receptive to the content planned for Schulz's special, suggested this "felt personal."

After yelling "MAGA," Schulz joked that while his "vote was up for grabs," the board of the venue has pushed him in a particular direction.

Blaze News reached out to the Brooklyn Academy of Music but did not receive an immediate response.

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How Feminism Makes Everyone Transgender And What To Do About It

Contrary to propaganda messaging, our society is neither 'overfeminized' nor 'pro-woman.' It is deeply anti-woman.

Melania Trump reveals personal de-banking experience: Is your financial freedom at risk?



In a revealing Sunday interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, former first lady Melania Trump revealed some of the political backlash she has faced as the wife of embattled former President Donald Trump.

First lady Trump revealed that “the bank suddenly informed me they will not be able to do business with me anymore.” She also claimed that an “email distribution service provider just rapidly terminated my agreement.”

As Farage himself pointed out, 'This is serious political persecution at the very highest level of our system. If they can do it to me, they can do it to you, too.'

These instances of disenfranchising people may seem only to affect the individuals, but the practice of de-banking has broader consequences as well.

She also detailed an incident with a university involving a philanthropic effort. She was donating money to help foster students gain access to scholarships. The university initially accepted her donation but, upon learning her identity, refused to accept her contribution. In this incident, Melania said, “They didn’t want to do business with me because of political affiliation, my political beliefs.”

Organizations refusing to associate with individuals over political differences is not a one-off occurrence with the former first lady; rather, this shows how ubiquitous this practice has become in our current political climate.

For example, Alliance Defending Freedom’s Jay Hobbs described a disturbing trend among banks that shut down organizations that differ from them in political or religious belief. He detailed an incident involving Bank of America and Indigenous Advance Ministries, a “charity [that] serves widows and orphans in Uganda, helping to meet basic physical needs while striving to equip and strengthen Christians to share the Gospel with their fellow Ugandans.” Bank of America informed the charity that it no longer wished to associate with Indigenous Advance’s “business type” because it exceeded the “bank’s risk tolerance.” This caused many headaches and inconveniences for the organization, which was preparing for an upcoming trip to help the widows and orphans.

De-banking was brought to more people's attention when, in 2023, Nigel Farage, a figurehead of the U.K. Independence Party, claimed that his banks in the U.K. were closing his accounts. There is a great deal of evidence that his bank, Coutts, did intend to “exit” Farage as a customer, including some inside communications released in a dossier and obtained by Farage. These communications included statements about him, citing “significant reputational risks of being associated with him” and that his opinions were “at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.”

Apparently, Nigel Farage holds beliefs contrary to those deemed acceptable by the banks with which he freely associated. His bank closed his account simply because it was a “bad look” to continue this association. These incidents have many worrying consequences in our heated political climate. As Farage himself pointed out, “This is serious political persecution at the very highest level of our system. If they can do it to me, they can do it to you, too.”

De-banking is a serious issue that is becoming increasingly widespread. It affects political leaders and actors and trickles down to private citizens associated with political figures, their philanthropic efforts, and legitimate charities. This de-banking effort is a clear weaponization of legitimate banking practice for political and religious purposes, and organizations that engage in this behavior need to be held accountable if real politics are to continue.

'LFG!' Texas judge sets stage for Elon Musk to drag leftist Media Matters before a jury



Elon Musk's X Corp. filed a lawsuit against Media Matters for America on Nov. 20, 2023, accusing the leftist outfit of dishonestly and "maliciously" suggesting to major advertisers on the platform that its posts had appeared "beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content." The alleged purpose of Media Matters' concern-mongering campaign was to "drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp."

Media Matters, an organization founded by Democratic operative David Brock, attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed in an apparent effort to avoid a jury trial and the possibility of being financially wiped out of existence by having to compensate X Corp. for damages.

Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas denied Media Matters' request Thursday, just as he denied the leftist outfit's motion to prevent the lawsuit from moving to the discovery phase in April and rejected its desperate attempt to list Tesla as an interested party in the lawsuit.

Contrary to the suggestion by Media Matters, O'Connor indicated that X Corp. has indeed succeeded in stating a claim for the following three causes of action: tortious interference with existing contractual relations, business disparagement, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.

The case will now go to trial on April 7.

Musk, who has repeatedly claimed that Media Matters is "pure evil," responded to news of the dismissal on X, writing, "LFG!" — an acronym indicating his readiness to tangle with the so-called watchdog in court.

The case largely centers on a report Media Matters published on Nov. 16, 2023, titled, "As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content."

The article alleged:

[Elon Musk's] social media platform has been placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast) next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The company’s placements come after CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that brands are 'protected from the risk of being next to' toxic posts on the platform.

On Nov. 18, 2023, Musk tweeted, "The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company."

X Corp.'s original complaint noted that in November 2023 alone, Media Matters had published over 20 articles "disparaging both X Corp. and Elon Musk" — the latest campaign in an apparent years-long war against the platform to paint it as a "risky, unsafe platform for advertisers."

According to the lawsuit, in order to produce the desired result for its preferred narrative about X, Media Matters "manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X's largest advertisers' paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare."

Despite allegedly manipulating the algorithm, the complaint claimed Media Matters still was not left with its desired pairings of ads and content, so it:

resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted.

The lawsuit claimed that Media Matters hid its alleged manipulation from readers and advertisers alike.

'Media Matters stands behind its reporting.'

Most of the companies mentioned in the corresponding Media Matters report, including Apple, Comcast, Disney, IBM, and NBCUniversal, suspended their advertisers — a result the leftist outfit celebrated in updates to the article itself.

At the time of filing, Media Matters President Angelo Carusone vowed to defend his site, reported CNBC.

"This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X's critics into silence. Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court," Carusone said in a statement.

Media Matters filed a motion to dismiss in March, alleging lack of personal jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim. It did so unsuccessfully and will now likely face a jury.

CNBC indicated Friday that Media Matters had not responded to a request for comment.

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Smugged By Reality

In What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, comedian Bill Maher distills decades of political and cultural insight into a single volume with the goal of tackling the most important issues of our time while remedying any loss of "philosophical coherence" for longtime viewers of his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher.

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