You can’t handle the movies anymore



Americans are breathing a sigh of relief at the apparent end of woke lectures masquerading as movies. The last few that slipped through have been sent to the box office graveyard.

But another problem remains.

What gives a human life ultimate meaning? That is a question woke ideology cannot answer. It is also the question every civilization, and every soul, must face.

As John Wick taught us, bad choices lead to consequences. And after 15-plus years of woke education and pop culture, one consequence may be that American audiences can no longer handle a movie that wrestles seriously with the deepest questions of human life.

Permit me to explain why this trouble looms on the horizon like Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”

The woke agenda, with its oppression-studies degrees and DEI catechisms, has trained generations of students and audiences to think superficially. They are told suffering comes from “whiteness” and “heteronormativity,” and that if they elect enough democratic socialists, these problems will vanish and free stuff will rain down from heaven.

Spend enough time on a modern university campus, and you will see how often life’s deepest questions are flattened into identity categories.

Why do people suffer? Systems of oppression.

Why does life feel empty? Unjust structures prevent economic flourishing.

The standard DEI professor solves the problems of evil and meaning by reassuring one group of students that their hardships are caused by another group of students, and that each group can be identified by skin color and sexual preference.

The solution is always the same: Become an activist. Advocate for the marginalized. Restructure society. Stop whiteness.

Think of the Ralph Wiggum meme: “I’m helping.”

Movie after movie has thrown these inane answers at American audiences. Marvel has done more than most. It had a chance to get serious when Ultron sought a solution to the problem of evil. Instead, it simply got violent.

What was the franchise’s answer to evil? Some saccharine claim about the innate goodness of human beings when they are “free” under a nanny state of superheroes.

But those supposedly good humans are the same people who committed all the evil Ultron saw when he studied world history.

The Avengers are an existential nightmare, making one wonder whether each member of the team was meant to be a hero of the absurd after all.

RELATED: Give He-Man credit for mocking the unmockable

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These reflections made me wonder whether today’s audiences, ruined by DEI, could watch a movie like “Cool Hand Luke.”

The film would almost certainly never be made today. But even if it were, would anyone make it to the end? Better yet, would anyone understand what the movie asks us to confront?

Luke, played by Paul Newman, returns home from World War II to a life with no obvious purpose. In a drunken act of vandalism, he cuts the heads off parking meters and is sentenced to a southern prison camp.

The crime is almost beside the point. The movie is not really about criminal justice. It is asking an older question: What does a man do when he cannot find meaning?

Luke’s struggle is existential. He first fights the toughest prisoner, and his refusal to stay down becomes a declaration that he will not surrender his humanity. Later, when Luke wins at poker, the men call him “Cool Hand Luke.”

His coolness is defiance against a universe that appears silent. If nothing matters, why get upset?

The prison itself becomes a metaphor for human existence. The laws appear arbitrary. Luke tells another prisoner, “All I see is a lot of guys laying down a lot of rules and regulations.”

Then, Luke’s mother visits one last time as she is dying.

Their final conversation is painfully cold. He calls her “Arletta” rather than “Mother.” Neither expresses love. As she leaves, he simply says, “So long, Arletta. Take care.”

Harry Dean Stanton sings “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” as Luke walks back into the prison. The inability of sentimentalized religion to give Luke meaning becomes the movie’s second theme, after the helplessness of law.

Soon afterward, Luke receives word of his mother’s death. He sings a mocking song about the empty superstition of popular religion:

Get yourself a sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones, sitting on
A pedestal of abalone shell.
Going 90, it ain’t scary,
’Cause I got the Virgin Mary
Assurin’ me that I won’t go to hell.

Popular religion pours opium over the suffering of this life with empty sentimentality and promises of a better afterlife.

Neither law nor sentimental religion can quiet Luke’s soul. So he runs.

Captured once, he hears the famous line from the captain: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

After another escape attempt, the guards force him into a grotesque cycle of digging and filling the same hole.

“Luke, what’s your dirt doing in the boss’ hole?”

After Luke digs a grave-sized hole, another boss asks, “Luke, what’s your dirt doing on my yard? Put it back in that hole.”

This continues until his spirit finally breaks. He begs them to stop. He promises never to escape or back-sass again.

Yet he escapes once more.

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His final refuge is an empty church. There, Luke finally speaks honestly. He addresses God simply as, “Hey, Old Man.” He admits that he began strong but has grown tired. He wants answers. He wants someone to respond.

Silence.

“I guess you’re a pretty hard case too,” Luke concludes.

A fellow prisoner is sent in to persuade him to come out peacefully. Luke yells out the window, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” but he is shot and killed before he can finish.

The movie refuses every easy answer. The audience is meant to leave and wrestle with the problem of meaning.

Luke cannot be right about final emptiness. But where can we find meaning if neither law nor superficial popular religion can provide it?

That is precisely the sort of question our culture increasingly avoids.

The last 15 years have been a parade of DEI sermons and ideological mush. The worry is that Americans raised in this, educated in woke K-12 schools, and graduated into oppression-studies assumptions would not know how to contemplate existential meaning in a movie like “Cool Hand Luke.”

They would reduce the story to demographic categories. White prisoner. White guards. Southern prison. Oppression explained. Luke deserves what he got.

As a philosophy professor, I hope Americans have not lost the ability to appreciate stories that force us to confront the deepest questions. I hope they are not merely rejecting the stupidity of DEI but also rejecting superficial answers and longing for something deeper.

What gives a human life ultimate meaning? That is a question woke ideology cannot answer.

It is also the question every civilization, and every soul, must face.

'Pure evil': 16 children rescued from horrific conditions in Ohio home — parents and grandparents arrested



Police said that the parents and grandparents of 16 children subjected them to severe neglect and horrible living conditions described as "pure evil."

Police executed a search warrant on Tuesday at about 10 a.m. at the residence on Ohmer Street in Hamden, according to a press release from Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson.

'I can tell you this is pure evil. What we saw down here today is pure evil.'

Inside the home they found 16 children living in a 12-by-12-foot space, and they were surrounded by human feces.

The children ranged in age from a 1-year-old to an 18-year-old and included boys and girls. Two of the children were so injured, they were flown to level 1 trauma centers. Others were evaluated and treated at local hospitals.

"Most of the livestock was kept in better condition than the children," Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain said.

Police arrested the parents and grandparents, who were identified as Gary Siders Jr., Elizabeth Siders, Gary Siders Sr., and Christina Siders.

"The conditions these children lived in were horrific, and we are sickened by it. Fortunately, this tragic chapter has closed, but their recovery will take time," Cain added. "Our investigators will continue following the evidence wherever it leads."

The four suspects were all charged with 17 counts of endangering children, a second-degree felony.

Wilson said the children were "literally about to fall through the floor" and that many of them were unable to speak. The 18-year-old was unable to spell her name.

"I've been doing these types of cases for a long time. I've spent a big portion of my career dedicated to prosecuting these types of cases, and I can tell you this is pure evil. What we saw down here today is pure evil," Wilson said.

The home was described as having an area of only 1,300 square feet with a total of five rooms, and it was owned by a trust of a deceased women.

Investigators said that the Siders moved between various properties in Ohio since 2008 and avoided establishing government and medical records during that time.

"This case continues to reveal the unimaginable conditions these children were forced to endure," Wilson added Wednesday.

"Our focus remains on protecting these children, supporting their recovery, and ensuring everyone responsible is held fully accountable under Ohio law," he continued.

RELATED: Texas cops investigating odor at home believed someone died inside — they found 2 children living in horrific conditions

Investigators said the case did not appear to involve human trafficking, but was instead one of "prolonged and extreme interfamilial neglect and abuse."

The four suspects pleaded not guilty to the charges during a court hearing Wednesday, where they appeared via Zoom. A judge set cash bail for each at $300,000.

The Vinton County Prosecutor's Office may file further charges after more information is discovered. If convicted, the suspects could face up to 12 years in prison for each count, which would be 204 years.

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Why leftism as a mental illness is a ‘comforting fiction’



As the divide between the right and the left continues to deepen, BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre explains that Americans are writing off what they don’t understand about each other as a “form of mental illness.”

“This is understandable when it comes to horrific crime. Someone like a serial killer is so violent and twisted that it's hard for us to comprehend their actions, and there is certainly a fair amount of mental illness that plays a factor,” MacIntyre says. “But today people often use this explanation when it comes to political disagreements.”

“Abortion, hatred for Christians and white people, the mutilation of children to turn boys into girls — these beliefs are so horrible that they can only possibly be explained by a malfunctioning brain,” he continues. “Of course, that's not the only explanation.”


“The other option is that some people have a very different set of values that drive them to pursue goals that we view as evil. The average American would like to avoid this truth, because it comes with an unnerving conclusion: Your political enemies aren't crazy; they are sane people who hate you and want to hurt you,” he adds.

MacIntyre explains that believing that a radical leftist who wants to mutilate children is mentally ill “is far easier than addressing the alternative.”

“The idea that half of America is crazy because they don’t share your political views is obviously absurd," he says. "The truth is much darker. We’re at least two societies, with mutually exclusive understandings of morality and purpose, trapped in one country.”

“The theoretical neutrality of the liberal system allowed this drift to occur under the surface, but the differences have become too extreme to ignore. Both sides have their own internally consistent understanding of the world, but they’re entirely incompatible with each other,” he explains.

“One side is going to win and one side is going to lose, and the winning side is going to impose its way of life on the other. There is no way to avoid this reality,” he continues. “And obscuring the truth with comforting fictions about mental illness only ensures that you’ll be on the side that loses.”

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Inside the mind of a Catholic exorcist: Fr. Chad Ripperger talks shop with Shawn Ryan



Former U.S. Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan routinely has warriors on his podcast who have battled men using modern weaponry. Last week, he spoke to a warrior who battles demons using timeless weaponry: Christ's name, prayer, and the authority of his vocation.

Over the course of his four-hour conversation with Ryan, Fr. Chad Ripperger — a Thomistic philosopher, psychologist, and founder of the Doloran Fathers — shared insights drawn from years serving as a Catholic exorcist in the Archdiocese of Denver, as well as from his study of church history and Christian theology.

In addition to discussing potential signs of the Antichrist's imminence and the possibility that extraterrestrials might be the trappings of a demonic psy-op, Fr. Ripperger explained the different types of diabolic influence and described how the Church's major exorcism rite is carried out.

Varieties of diabolic influence

Fr. Ripperger — who stressed that he had "no intention of being an exorcist" and only does it out of obedience — identified several forms of diabolic influence, beginning with infestation, "where they infest houses or locations, inanimate objects, animals."

'The demon's not necessarily in the driver's seat all the time.'

The exorcist priest turned to Scripture for an example of animal infestation, referencing the ruination of pigs by the evil spirits cast out by Christ from the demoniac in Gergesa.

Fr. Ripperger suggested that infestations are often the localized byproduct of sin: "It's because somebody has done something particularly evil in a location and, as a result, the demons have gotten their foot in the door there."

Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

While occult activity can grease the way for an infestation, the exorcist said the sins demons tend to "gravitate toward the most — because they're easiest to get human beings to fall into — are the sins against the Sixth Commandment like fornication, masturbation, pornography, those types of things."

Another form of diabolic influence — "the primary way" and a universal challenge — is ordinary temptation, where demons plant notions "in our imaginations," skew perspectives, and manipulate emotions. Though relatively subtle, Fr. Ripperger noted that this form of influence can still be destructive, particularly within relationships and families.

Diabolic obsession is another variety in which demons "attack our interior faculties, specifically the imagination and emotions again — but unlike ordinary temptation, this is extraordinary, where it's very powerful and very strong," capturing the victim's attention and imagination and leaving them with a kind of spiritual "tunnel vision."

While someone experiencing diabolic obsession may initially have periods of lucidity, Fr. Ripperger said those moments of reprieve can diminish over time if the influence persists. Eventually the victim may capitulate and commit a grave sin at the demon's urging — or possibly even become possessed.

The priest described two kinds of diabolic possession. The first is "perfect possession, where the person has given themselves over to the demon entirely, and then the demon possesses the whole body, and the demon is manifested all the time."

According to Fr. Ripperger, this condition — outward signs of which include malice, mendacity, animus, and destructiveness — is rare. Individuals in such a state rarely seek out priests, since they are not desirous of liberation.

Partial possession, by contrast, refers to a temporary and localized possession of part of the body where "the demon's not necessarily in the driver's seat all the time."

The exorcism rite

When asked about the process of conducting an exorcism, Fr. Ripperger said the approach is structured, though the particulars vary depending on what is known about the individual, whether they have had prior encounters with dark forces, and what stage of diabolic influence they appear to be in.

"So in many cases, if the person who's possessed can tolerate it, we'll actually offer Mass so that the person can receive Holy Communion, which then weakens the demon significantly," he said, noting that confession is encouraged beforehand.

After Mass but before the exorcism ritual begins in earnest, a series of prayers are recited "to provide everybody protection that's in the room."

"So we do a series of prayers — binding prayers — which bind the demon from being able to do certain things, and then we'll actually start the formal ritual."

The Latin ritual typically begins with the Litany of the Saints. According to Fr. Ripperger, this serves as a kind of diagnostic tool because a demon's reaction to the names of certain saints can reveal clues about "the demon's particular sin" and how best to proceed.

From there, the exorcist alternates between "deprecatory and imprecatory prayer" — the former asking Christ for help and the latter commanding demons directly, ordering the evil spirits to consider specific truths that cause them pain.

The goal, Fr. Ripperger explained, is to allow the demon's pain "to build to where they finally give you what you need to know in order to get them out."

Canon law stipulates that "no one can perform exorcisms legitimately upon the possessed unless he has obtained special and express permission from the local ordinary."

Such permission is granted "only to a presbyter who has piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life."

The Catholic Church also requires that a suspected demoniac undergo "thorough examination including medical, psychological, and psychiatric testing" before being referred to an exorcist.

The Church distinguishes between minor exorcisms — used, for example, in baptismal preparation — and major exorcisms, the rite discussed by Fr. Ripperger, which may only be performed by a bishop or an authorized priest.

Fr. Ripperger told Ryan that "Protestants have a certain degree of efficacy [in exorcisms] by using Christ's name because it has a force of its own."

However, he suggested that certain types of possession require the authority of the Catholic Church and its clergy — authority that traces back to Christ's commissioning of the apostles.

Bad signs and end times

Asked where evil appears to be gaining ground in society, Fr. Ripperger said the forces of darkness have increasingly targeted good families — "families that historically led good lives, were raising their kids properly, very often very religious, doing the things that they're supposed to do."

The priest suggested this "full-blown attack" on previously resilient targets may indicate that demons are emboldened by a worsening moral climate — or that they "know their time is short," possibly because a divine "corrective" is approaching.

'That is not a reference to the Jewish temple.'

Ryan asked whether such developments might signal the approach of the end times.

While acknowledging that "we don't really have any certitude," Fr. Ripperger said several conditions traditionally associated with the Antichrist appear increasingly plausible.

Among them:

  • "A worldwide implosion of people's morality," in which "people just aren't following the laws of God or the natural law in any sense of the term";
  • The emergence of technological and institutional systems — such as unified global financial systems and digital currencies — capable of controlling populations on a mass scale; and
  • Internal crisis within the Catholic Church prior to a future renewal.

Fr. Ripperger also expressed skepticism about the idea that rebuilding a third Jewish temple in Jerusalem is a necessary precursor to the end times. He argued that the Church Fathers consistently held that such a temple would never be rebuilt and that the prophecy often cited in this context has been widely misunderstood.

RELATED: Understanding hell — Part I

Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

"The difficulty is people tend to misinterpret the Book of Daniel, which says when the abomination of desolation takes its seat in the temple," he said. "What they don't realize is that that is not a reference to the Jewish temple."

Instead, he suggested that the New Covenant superseded the Old Covenant and that the "holy place" referenced in such passages should be understood as the Catholic Church.

'It permanently robbed a person of the possibility of the beatific vision.'

Whatever the signs of the times, Fr. Ripperger emphasized that Christians must remain faithful.

It is critical, he said, that believers "follow Christ regardless of the personal cost."

Demonic psy-op

Former President Barack Obama claimed in an interview last month that aliens are "real."

Although Obama later walked back the remark, President Donald Trump announced he would nevertheless be "directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)."

Asked about UFOs and extraterrestrials, Fr. Ripperger suggested that some sightings could simply be government experiments — a suspicion reinforced by a 2025 Wall Street Journal report that found the Pentagon had at times disseminated false information about aliens to obscure sensitive weapons programs.

However, he noted that many accounts of alien abductions closely resemble descriptions of demonic encounters.

RELATED: What Shia LaBeouf's public struggle shows us about Christian redemption

Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

"If you strip the veneer of the alien aspect of it off, then in point of fact what you're dealing with is just — they're just demons," he said.

Fr. Ripperger added that some unidentified anomalous phenomena could also be what he called "diabolic mirage[s]" — supernatural illusions permitted by God in rare circumstances.

Abortion: Demonic empowerment

After Ryan brought up Baphomet — the goat-headed occult figure whose likeness the Satanic Temple adopted as its logo and displayed in a statue in the Iowa Capitol in 2023 — the conversation turned to abortion.

Ryan asked about the demonic interest in child sacrifice.

Fr. Ripperger said demons are empowered by abortion not only because it involves the killing of an innocent but because it denies the child the opportunity for baptism.

"We know of no other means of their salvation other than baptism. ... And so historically, the Church always considered abortion to be such a heinous crime because it permanently robbed a person of the possibility of the beatific vision. This is why the Church considered it so evil," he said.

Obtaining an abortion is an excommunicable offense in the Catholic Church.

The priest argued that demons "are so wed to" the widespread practice of abortion that they will "expend enormous amounts of energy protecting it" in order to prevent children "from ever seeing God."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, an estimated 1,038,000 abortions were executed in states without total bans in 2024. There were nearly 600,000 abortions in the first six months of 2025.

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Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘philosophy’ wasn’t deep — it was dirty



Anyone can search the currently available Epstein files and see what turns up. As a professor at Arizona State University, I searched for my own school. I did not expect to find so much ASU-related material.

One reason: ASU employed Lawrence Krauss, paying him a substantial salary to write books arguing that the universe created itself from nothing.

Epstein’s philosophy collapses under its own weight because it begins with a lie about God.

That claim is its own story. You will object, rightly: “But we can’t get something from nothing.” Krauss replies, “By ‘nothing’ I mean quantum foam.” And you respond, “Then the title misleads. You don’t mean nothing. You mean quantum foam.”

Krauss also became close with Jeffrey Epstein. In one exchange, Krauss wrote: “I really do love you deeply as a friend Jeffrey. I don’t think I know anyone else who so honestly cares about me, and I don’t think I can ever truly express how wonderful that feels. Thank you. The cruise was a great reset.” In other messages, they discuss science and religion.

That is what caught my attention. As I read Epstein’s comments about religion — and listened to his interview with Steve Bannon on similar themes — a picture began to form of how Epstein made sense of the world and, more chillingly, of himself.

How a monster sleeps

A question hangs over every moral horror: How does a moral monster live with himself? Even if we limit ourselves to the explicit immorality in the files — without speculating about coded language or hidden networks — how did he sleep at night? What silenced his conscience?

Several pieces fit together.

In the ASU-related material and in interviews, Epstein does what I have often seen among intellectuals: He retreats into abstraction. He speaks about the history of ideas, mathematics, and cutting-edge research in a way that floats above concrete people and particular moral obligations.

That retreat protects a self-image. He can pose as the enlightened patron of science, funding humanity’s progress. That image sits in grotesque contrast with the cruelty he inflicted on actual human beings.

Abstraction as a moral anesthetic

This pattern tracks with Paul Johnson’s thesis in “Intellectuals”: Intellectuals who talk about serving “humanity” often treat individuals in their orbit badly. Grand claims become a shield. The rhetoric of progress becomes moral insulation.

Think of the professor who preaches liberation while using DEI programs to impose racial essentialism and ideological coercion. He can tell himself he is helping “the marginalized” even as he harms colleagues and students in the real world.

Or consider the pop star who repeats slogans like “no one is illegal on stolen land.” The moral performance happens at the level of abstraction. The carelessness happens at the level of reality.

RELATED: Why Christians should care about politics

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Epstein’s ‘unknowable’ God

Epstein goes further by trying to dissolve moral accountability at the metaphysical level.

He argues that physicists once believed reality could be fully captured by mathematics. Now, he claims, we understand reality is irrational. Mathematics can only approximate what he calls “the limit,” but the limit itself remains unknowable. Some call that limit “God.”

But if God is unknowable, then God becomes irrelevant to our calculations about life and moral choice.

At one point, Epstein frames this as a male-female divide. The male mind, he says, runs on logic and mathematics. Reality, however, does not fit that paradigm. Reality is fundamentally irrational and accessed through feminine intuition. Ultimate reality, in his telling, is best understood as the divine female.

Humans, in Epstein’s view, are beasts with frontal lobes sophisticated enough to rationalize their impulses.

He may have believed he was elevating the feminine. The framework reads more like a metaphysical excuse: reason fails, therefore the standard fails.

The tension between reason and intuition is ancient. Epstein narrows “reason” to a single project: reducing the world to material causes through mathematics. When that project does not deliver what he wants, he does not abandon reductionism. He abandons reason.

Francis Schaeffer described this move in godless intellectual life: When autonomous reason cannot sustain itself, the thinker does not repent. He escapes into irrationality. Intuition becomes the alibi. Mystery becomes permission.

Religion as therapy, not truth

In conversation with Krauss, Epstein defends a kind of religion, but not biblical religion.

Krauss, echoing the New Atheists, treats religion as an evolutionary leftover — maybe useful in an earlier age, unnecessary for modern man. After all, modern man allegedly knows universes can create themselves out of nonexistence.

Epstein pushes back, but only to reduce religion to psychological management. Religion concerns the “inner world,” he suggests, while science and mathematics concern the outer world. We cannot ignore the inner world. Its purpose is peace. Anxiety and depression signal inner disorder; religion restores equilibrium. That, for Epstein, becomes religion’s function.

Not worship. Not truth. Not repentance. Peace.

That is New Age self-help with a faux religious vocabulary.

A Nietzschean pattern

Put the pieces together and a Nietzschean outline emerges.

Nietzsche described the dialectic between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Apollonian seeks order, reason, structure. Yet it can become sterile and suffocating. The Dionysian seeks raw experience — ecstasy, pleasure, intoxication, release. Dionysian revelry becomes not only indulgence but purgation: a controlled environment where darker impulses can be acted out so a man can return to ordinary life and call himself functional again.

God’s moral law is written on the heart. We are not left with "unknowable limits" as our excuse. We are without excuse.

Humans, on this view, are beasts with frontal lobes sophisticated enough to rationalize their impulses.

That is the worldview of the modern pagan: order and chaos, calculation and intoxication, “science” by day and ritualized transgression by night. Add Epstein’s skepticism about knowable truth and his reduction of religion to inner peace, and the method of self-justification comes into focus.

His reported fascination with longevity technologies and strange diets fits too. Death becomes the great enemy. It must be cheated — through science, mythic elixirs, or Silicon Valley innovation.

RELATED: America’s old cultic trick: Sex, salvation, and the return of polygamy

cglade via iStock/Getty Images

Temptation is not his alone

The unsettling part: These temptations are not unique to Epstein.

Many people oscillate between cold rationalism and irrational indulgence. Many treat morality as a social construct and religion as therapy. Many use abstractions to excuse what they would never defend in plain language.

That should drive self-examination, not mere disgust. Are we living inside the Apollonian-Dionysian loop, shifting between self-justifying “reason” and self-excusing “release”?

The lie at the center

Epstein’s philosophy collapses under its own weight because it begins with a lie about God.

God has not hidden Himself. Scripture teaches that His eternal power and divine nature are clearly revealed through creation. His moral law is written on the heart. We are not left with “unknowable limits” as our excuse. We are without excuse.

The claim that reality is fundamentally irrational is not a profound insight. It is an evasion. It is a way to suppress what is plain.

That is why Lawrence Krauss’ self-creating universe and Epstein’s divine female belong in the same category: idols. They exchange the truth for something else — something that grants permission.

Romans 1 describes the pattern of Epstein’s life: the darkened mind, the suppression of truth, the exchange of glory for self-justification, and the descent into sexual corruption. The cure is not oscillation between sterile rationalism and ecstatic purgation. The cure is redemption. The cure is communion with God restored.

We need Christ, who alone frees us from the pagan dialectic — ancient and modern — and grants eternal life, “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

Massie drops bombshell after review of unredacted Epstein files, helps put name to alleged co-conspirator



Roughly six weeks past the deadline to publish all of its files on child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department released over 3 million additional pages in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

While the documents provide new insights into Epstein, his degeneracy, and his international network of affluent allies, they are rife with redactions. Lawmakers have, however, been afforded the opportunity to review the unredacted files in person at the DOJ after giving 24 hours' notice.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who with Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) rushed to inspect the files at the first available opportunity in hopes of identifying "the men who Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women to," revealed on Monday that he came across "the names of at least six men that have been redacted that are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files."

'Give the DOJ a chance to say they made a mistake and over-redacted.'

While Massie indicated that it was prudent to identify the men from the House floor or in a committee hearing — where he would be protected from civil lawsuits over perceived defamation or libel — he told reporters that "at least one is a U.S. citizen, at least one is a foreigner, and the other three or four have names I'm not sure if they're foreign or U.S."

"One is pretty high up in a foreign government," added Massie.

Khanna, addressing reporters jointly with the Kentucky Republican, chimed in to note that "one of the others is a pretty prominent individual." The Democrat suggested there may be more questionably redacted names, stressing they had only scratched the surface with their two-hour review.

RELATED: 'Game's up, mate': Starmer refuses to resign over appointment of disgraced Epstein ally as US ambassador

Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

The Kentucky Republican noted, "I would like to give the DOJ a chance to say they made a mistake and over-redacted and let them unredact those men's names."

'It wasn't unredacted until tonight.'

The DOJ seized upon the opportunity to make some adjustments.

Massie noted later on Monday that the DOJ had unredacted both "an FBI file that LABELS two individuals as co-conspirators" and "a file that lists several men who might be implicated."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the DOJ unredacted former Victoria's Secret CEO Lex Wexner's name from a 2019 FBI document identifying him as a possible co-conspirator in Epstein's sex-trafficking case. He noted that Wexner's name appears "thousands of times" elsewhere in the Epstein files and stated, "DOJ is hiding nothing."

"This is significant because Kash Patel testified to Congress that FBI had no evidence of other sex traffickers," Massie said in response. "This is FBI’s own 2019 document listing Wexner as coconspirator in child sex trafficking. It wasn't unredacted until tonight."

The DOJ standards recommend against identifying unindicted co-conspirators unless they have been charged with the same conspiracy by way of unsealed criminal complaint or information. The document Massie referred to alleges that Wexner was a co-conspirator of Epstein.

Wexner stated in July 2019 that he had long since severed any connection with Epstein and "would not have continued to work with any individual capable of such egregious, sickening behavior as has been reported about him."

"When Mr. Epstein was my personal money manager, he was involved in many aspects of my financial life. But let me assure you that I was NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment," added Wexner.

Department of Justice

Blaze News has reached out to the Wexner Foundation for comment.

'They're trafficking girls all across the world.'

The Epstein Files Transparency Act permits the DOJ to redact portions of records that:

  • "contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy";
  • depict child pornography;
  • "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary";
  • "depict or contain images of death, physical abuse, or injury of any person"; or
  • "contain information specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive order."

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who also reviewed the documents on Monday, concluded that there are "lots of co-conspirators," reported CNN.

"I mean, it's disgusting," said Moskowitz. "There are lots of names, lots of co-conspirators, and they're trafficking girls all across the world."

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Hating ‘Hate’ Is The Left’s Laziest And Dumbest Virtue-Signal Yet

'Hate' is just another word for meanness, which is the opposite of niceness, which is the guiding ethic of the postmodern liberal mind.

Radical teen who plotted to kill Trump and lived with corpses of slain parents pleads guilty



After a Wisconsin teen failed to turn up to school for two weeks early last year, officers from the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department were asked to conduct a welfare check on his family home. When they arrived at the residence on Feb. 28, 2025, officers made a horrific discovery.

The teen, 18-year-old Nikita Casap, brutally murdered his mother, Tatiana Casap, and his stepfather, Donald Mayer, on Feb. 11, stuffed their bodies under blankets, and proceeded to live with their rotting corpses for weeks before fleeing the state.

Casap's parricide was evidently a means to an even darker end: financing an assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.

'As to why, specifically Trump, I think it's obvious.'

Casap, whose family was visited by the FBI in November 2023 regarding unspecified internet IP activity, pleaded guilty on Thursday to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, each of which carry a mandatory life sentence.

When asked by Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Ralph Ramirez whether he understood the implications of his guilty plea and whether he had in fact murdered his mother and stepfather, Casap said, "Yes, Your Honor," the New York Post reported.

RELATED: 'Julia,' son of wealthy Democrat donor, identified as suspect in Vance home attack

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

In exchange for Casap's guilty plea, prosecutors dropped various other charges against the murderer, including two counts of hiding a corpse and theft of property over $10,000.

Hours after the bodies of Casap's victims were discovered on Feb. 28, police in WaKeeney, Kansas, captured the teen, who had fled in his stepfather's SUV.

Officers found Mayer's .357 magnum revolver and multiple boxes of .357 magnum and .38 special ammunition in the car along with the victims' phones and wallets, jewelry, various electronic devices, and a large amount of American and European currency.

According to a federal search warrant, investigators found evidence indicating Casap was a nihilistic violent extremist — someone engaged "in criminal conduct within the United States and abroad, in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability."

In a March 10 interview with WSCO, one of Casap's classmates recalled that the killer told him that he had been in contact with a Russian via Telegram and was planning to assassinate Trump.

FBI agents found messages from Casap to a Telegram user with the handle "Angel of Death" discussing how to convert a drone into a long-range attack drone capable of avoiding detection and dropping an explosive, a Molotov cocktail, or poison. He also discussed how long he would have to hide before relocating to Ukraine.

Investigators also found a three-page document entitled "Accelerate the Collapse" in which Casap discussed murdering Trump in order to trigger a political revolution and America's collapse to "save the white race" from "Jewish controlled" politicians.

"As to why, specifically Trump, I think it's obvious," Casap wrote. "By getting rid of the president and perhaps the vice president, that is guaranteed to bring in some chaos. And not only that, but it will further bring into the public the idea that assassinations and accelerating the collapse are possible things to do."

The FBI apparently also found textual conversations indicating Casap was supportive of the teachings of the Order of the Nine Angles, a satanic pedophile cult known for anti-Semitism, hatred for Christianity, identitarianism, and admiration for Adolf Hitler and other loathsome historic figures.

Waukesha County District Attorney Lesli Boese reportedly told reporters that she will implore the judge to deny Casap any chance at parole, noting that the killer is "a danger to the community."

Casap is scheduled to be sentenced on March 5.

Federal charges have not yet been filed; however, an FBI affidavit notes that there is cause to believe Casap committed numerous federal crimes, including conspiracy to assassinate the president and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction utilizing interstate or foreign commerce.

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Exorcisms are exploding across America — but nobody wants to admit why



From Michigan to Melbourne, exorcisms are rising — an odd trend in an age when Christianity is supposedly retreating.

Odd, that is, if you accept the official story: that faith has faded, churches have emptied, and modern life has supposedly outgrown such concerns. Yet behind parish doors and rectory walls, priests report the opposite: more calls, cases, and urgency.

Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized.

The demonic, it seems, didn’t get the secular memo.

I began making inquiries recently, speaking with clergy who have dealt with what most people would rather joke about, pathologize, or turn into content. One name surfaced repeatedly: Fr. Michael Shadbolt, a veteran priest who had performed numerous exorcisms and spoke of them with measured calm. I reached out to him for insight. Instead, I received word that he had recently passed away.

Thankfully, there was another source, carrying decades of experience where spiritual and psychological care meet. Fr. Stephen Rossetti, an American Catholic priest and seasoned exorcist, spoke without qualification.

“Yes, requests for exorcisms are on the rise in the U.S. and in other countries as well,” he told me. “There may be many reasons for this, but one obvious one is the decline of the practice of the faith.”

That observation runs counter to the fashionable narrative. The usual explanation for the rise in exorcisms is framed as a paradox: Christianity declines, so belief in demons increases.

But that framing flatters modern assumptions. It treats belief as an all-or-nothing package. Either accept the creed or discard the lot. But human experience has never worked that way.

One doesn’t need to believe in God to believe in evil — it’s everywhere. A loved one consumed by addiction. The husband who revels in beating his wife. The wife who revels in beating her husband. The son who turns on parents with lethal force.

RELATED: Interview with an exorcist: 'God always takes the first step'

D-Keine/Getty Images

Evil doesn’t depend on belief to function. It advances through repetition, fixation, and the gradual loss of restraint. The language shifts with each generation, but the pattern remains. Every day, roughly 137 women and girls are killed worldwide in acts of femicide. Child sacrifice, usually relegated to ancient Peru or remote civilizations, still occurs in parts of Africa today. In the U.S., one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18.

No vocabulary of Pinkertonian progress dissolves these facts. Calling evil “trauma” or “dysfunction” may describe the damage left behind, but it doesn’t confront the force itself. Such language manages outcomes while leaving causes untouched.

The modern world prefers to believe that evil is a misunderstanding, a system failure, or a lack of education. History suggests otherwise. Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized. It thrives where it is renamed, rationalized, or treated as an embarrassing superstition.

Fr. Rossetti put it plainly, “Increasingly people are not protected by faith, and many are involved in occult practices, which are a clear opening to the demonic.”

That point is crucial. Militant atheism is seldom the starting point. The entry point is engagement with practices the Church has long warned against.

“We have a number of cases of people who drifted away from the faith and then got into the occult,” Rossetti explained. “After a few years, they found themselves afflicted by evil spirits.”

The remedy is clear. “The first thing we do is have them go to confession, start practicing the faith, and live a virtuous life,” he said. “All sin is an opening to evil in some way, and the worse the sins, the greater the opening.”

It is precisely for this reason, Rossetti continued, “that exorcisms are very effective.” However, he stressed, there’s no wand, no instant result. “Sometimes the process takes time. It is typically not one and done,” Rossetti said. After years of spell-casting, curse-making, and demon worship — often misidentified as “self-discovery” or “ancient wisdom” — it can take far longer to undo the damage.

He was explicit about the timeline. “It typically takes three to five years of exorcisms to liberate the person.” The process, he added, is one of conversion and purification.

“An exorcism is not magic,” he said.

The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.

What we are witnessing, then, is not the complete disappearance of belief but its fragmentation. Christianity retreats institutionally while belief itself goes feral. Old anchors are cut loose. New fixations rush in. The vacuum does not remain empty.

Look around. Astrology, once harmless nonsense, has become a personal operating system. It graduated from brainless fun to life-management software, complete with a $3 billion price tag. Tarot cards are sold as “self-care.” Witchcraft is rebranded as empowerment, paganism as wellness. Social media is saturated with spiritual freelancers promising protection, manifestation, and power — usually bundled with a payment link.

None of this is neutral, and none of it is consequence-free. Doors opened casually tend to stay open.

This is where the supposed paradox dissolves. Christianity isn’t retreating because belief vanished, but because belief lost its footing. Structure recedes, so superstition rises. When doctrine disappears, disorder follows. There is no neutrality — only exposure.

For those skeptical because of Hollywood portrayals, exorcism is not a medieval curiosity revived for effect, but a practical response to persistent realities. The Church isn’t inventing demons to stay relevant. Rather, it is reacting to what it actually sees — a culture defined by isolation, instability, and constant immersion in content that destroys self-control and sanity.

Fr. Rossetti was clear on the final point, one that many increasingly resist.

“It is critical to understand that Jesus is Lord and not Satan,” he said. “The big mistake people make today is thinking that Satan is so very powerful. He is not.”

Compared to Christ, “Satan is dust.” He has no authority unless it is surrendered.

Christian theology has never been ambiguous on this point. Satan is not a rival god, not an equal force locked in cosmic balance. He is a created being who rebelled, fell, and was expelled. His power is parasitic rather than inherent. He doesn’t rule a kingdom by right, but lurks in territory abandoned through disobedience and pride.

The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.

That, it seems, is the warning embedded in the rise of exorcisms. Not that evil has grown stronger, but that we have grown careless. We treated the spiritual realm as a curiosity, then a hobby, then a marketplace — and acted surprised when something followed us home.

Fr. Rossetti put it without hesitation: “Jesus is Lord and has smashed Satan’s kingdom.” The tragedy is that many live as though He hasn’t.

Glenn Beck: Brown University killer fits a chilling pattern of evil and self-destruction



On Dec. 13, Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente opened fire inside the Barus and Holley building at Brown University, where he killed students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and wounded nine others.

Valente then fled to Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is believed to have shot and killed Nuno Loureiro, an MIT nuclear science and engineering professor from Portugal. The suspect was finally found dead in New Hampshire after a manhunt that lasted for days.

While the motive is still being investigated, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck believes whatever it was, it may have had extremely sinister and demonic roots.

“Some students remember, they said he screamed out, 'Allahu Akbar.’ Apparently now, people are saying, ‘I think he was barking,’” Glenn explains.


“If you’re barking, that might be a sign of, the guy was completely out of his mind,” he continues, pointing out that the shooter also killed himself after taking several lives.

“What’s interesting to me is how many of these people are — they go and do something, and then they kill themselves,” Glenn says, relating it to Steve Deace’s movie “Nefarious.”

“In ‘Nefarious,’ Satan has possessed this guy. And once in a while, Satan lets him come out, and the guy’s like, ‘Help me, help me, please help me’ ... and then Satan takes control of him again. And what happens?” Glenn asks.

“He kills himself,” he answers.

“I think, unlike any time before in my lifetime, you can see this is evil. There is a force that seems to be sweeping the entire world. All of these people do these horrendous things, and then they shoot themselves. ... It’s almost as if evil is playing with these people, getting them to do all of this horrible, horrible stuff,” he continues.

After they’re finished, “Boom. They kill themselves. Because they’re just a meat puppet of evil, and they’re of no use to evil.”

“They’ve done their job,” Glenn adds.

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