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

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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).

‘Sparkle Beach Ken’ Is Too Kind To Gavin Newsom

The California governor correctly figures that if he stays on offense, his own dismal record will be ignored — even if that offense is odd.

We turned tragedy into sport



Several forces are converging right now, and the result is a perfect storm of confusion, misinformation, apathy, and — most dangerously — runaway conspiracy thinking.

For a long time, I was consumed by true crime: real-life stories filled with mystery, fear, and emotional whiplash. I wasn’t alone. The genre became a full-blown cottage industry, complete with massive conferences, prestige documentaries, podcasts, and feature films.

The problem isn’t asking questions. It is speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.

At first, I saw little harm in it — especially when victims or family members were included in the storytelling. But once Hollywood began churning out sensationalized, “based on a true story” dramatizations of real-life horrors, something felt wrong.

Then I heard the victims’ loved ones speak out.

They described the pain these projects inflicted — how strangers dissected their trauma, speculated about their grief, and turned the worst moments of their lives into consumable entertainment. In some cases, families practically begged studios to stop profiting from their suffering. The pleas went unanswered.

There is little sign that Tinseltown plans to slow down. Personal tragedy is no longer treated as personal. We’ve crossed a line into a world where strangers don’t just demand access to these stories — they claim ownership of them.

That entitlement hardens quickly. It manifests as amateur investigations, armchair sleuthing, and the conviction that someone online can solve what professionals could not. Too often, that obsession mutates into wild conspiracy theories — narratives untethered from evidence that deepen the damage inflicted on real people already living with loss.

Fueling all of this is another force: social media addiction.

Millions of Americans live on their phones. Filters are gone. Boundaries between public and private have crumbled. Every tragedy becomes content. Every rumor becomes a reel. Every high-profile event risks turning into a true-crime nightmare, complete with TikTok theories and Instagram speculation.

Not all of it is malicious. But much of it is steeped in a moral carelessness that should unsettle us. And while content creators deserve scrutiny, they aren’t the only culprits. Plenty of us are liking, sharing, and amplifying the madness.

That dynamic reached a horrifying peak on September 10, when conservative and Christian commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

Almost immediately, conspiracy theories spread — many debunked within hours. In one case, a popular Christian apologist, a friend of Kirk who had been filming him speaking at Utah Valley University that day, was falsely accused of signaling the shooter through hand gestures. The claim was nonsense. It collapsed under minimal scrutiny.

No matter. The damage was done.

Other theories followed. Some insinuated betrayal by those closest to Kirk. Others implied inside involvement without evidence. Each claim compounded the grief of a family and community already reeling from an unspeakable loss.

The problem isn’t asking questions. It’s speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.

If someone is going to promote conspiracy theories, basic decency demands evidence. To date, none has been produced. And yet the claims persist — entertained, shared, and believed.

RELATED: ‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’

Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

I can’t entirely blame people for their skepticism. In 2016, I wrote a book called “Fault Line” warning that media bias carries real-world consequences. When trust erodes, people stop listening to official narratives altogether. Combine that with the government’s incoherent and often dishonest messaging during COVID, and the ground was primed for disbelief.

For years, progressives dismissed concerns about institutional credibility. Now we’re living with the consequences. A toxic cocktail of distrust, trauma, and algorithmic amplification has left many people — especially the young — drunk with suspicion and untethered from reality.

Add in social media saturation, obsession with true crime, collapsing trust in institutions, and the undeniable presence of evil in the world, and you have a generation raised inside a pressure cooker of dysfunction.

We need to cling to truth. We need to model discernment. We need to help people learn how to question responsibly — without tumbling into conspiracism — and how to rebuild boundaries that preserve perspective and humanity.

Truth-seeking should guide us, not digital frenzy or the dark impulses of the human soul. If we fail to make that distinction, the damage will only deepen.

We must be better.

The media just told you their 2026 strategy: ‘Lies, but better!’



Let me explain what the New York Times just did to the Washington Post over Thanksgiving weekend. The Post tried to turn Secretary of War Pete Hegseth into a war criminal for blowing up maritime drug runners. But the attack didn’t gain traction — partly because Republicans are getting better at starving these narratives of oxygen.

So the New York Times read the room, climbed to the top rope, and elbow-dropped its own ideological ally to prevent serious blowback against the propaganda press. The Times wasn’t defending truth. It was defending future lies. The ability to run effective psyops in 2026 was on the line. And when the Times pretends to be an ombudsman, the calculus is always political.

You think sweating out one red-state special election against a hellish candidate who despises her own constituents is bad? Wait until November 2026.

Don’t kid yourself: No ethical journalism happened here. The Times simply concluded, “We will sell no psyop before its time.” They weren’t going to let DataRepublican or Steve Baker rack up millions of views muckraking the Post’s latest collapsing narrative. So the Gray Lady hit the panic button and aborted the mission.

What should we learn from this? The temptation on the right will be to ask why the corporate left-wing press broke ranks on the eve of maybe flipping a Tennessee district Donald Trump won by 22 points to a Democrat who is on tape saying she hates her own city and its constituents.

But that question misses a foundational truth I repeat constantly on my show: Worldview is destiny. And outside the biblical worldview, every worldview boils down to a will to power.

With that hermeneutic, you can see exactly what the Times leaders are doing. They’re thinking far past Tennessee. They’re signaling that they have an entire arsenal of new lies ready to deploy to steal the midterms. It’s that Don Draper meme — hands outstretched, smirking: “Lies … but better!”

Remember: The godless do not have limiting principles. Why wouldn’t they lie if lying helps them capture power? It doesn’t matter whether it’s godless atheism, godless occultism, or godless Islam. Where the one true God is absent, the father of lies dances to a raucous tune. Hell has denominations, too.

But in the biblical worldview, the hallmark of everything is repentance, redemption, and restoration. You know a tree by its fruit. So if you want to discern whether something reflects the kingdom of God or the spirit of the age, the first question isn’t “do I like this person?” or “is this how I would do it?” The first question is: Does it produce repentance, redemption, and restoration?

Look at the Charlie Kirk memorial. Several people spoke whom no one expected to have deep, serious thoughts about Christianity. Yet the event unmistakably pointed people toward repentance, redemption, and restoration. That’s the kingdom of God. Don’t focus on the proxy on the outside. Focus on what God is doing on the inside. That’s the through-line from Genesis to Revelation.

The spirit of the age rejects all of it. It is will to power, front to back. Which means you cannot analyze the opposition the same way you analyze our side.

RELATED: How GOP leadership can turn a midterm gift into a total disaster

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Sure, Republicans won that Tennessee special election by nine points. But they lost the Nashville precinct — the same place the Democrat said she hated. That’s how cults behave. And that’s why political messaging on the right must account for the environment normie voters live in — the tension between two very different kingdoms vying for their attention.

The normie voter either doesn’t know about those kingdoms or doesn’t care. He just wants what he wants: an economy that boosts his bottom line and border and anti-crime policies that keep him safe. Voters want elections to be about them.

That’s why Hegseth taking out foreign drug traffickers instinctively sounds like a pretty good deal — something even the New York Times could grasp, if only for tactical reasons.

So here’s the math going forward: Leftists can lie all they want — and sometimes lie badly, as we just saw — but the GOP will still lose if it fails to fix the economy and security.

You think sweating out one red-state special election against a hellish candidate who despises her own constituents is bad? Wait until November 2026. With better lies behind her and normie voters feeling betrayed by lukewarm people in power, she — and people like her — will absolutely win.

Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention



Under his authority as commander in chief, the president can blow up pretty much anybody on Earth whom he deems a national security threat. He does not need permission from Congress, the media, or a panel of self-appointed commentators. The missile strikes on drug-running vessels operated by a designated terrorist group are lawful, routine, and predictable. What made the episode explosive was that it enraged exactly the faction that always reacts this way: the political left.

Impeachment is the only real consequence available to the administration’s critics, and after two failed efforts, that prospect does not keep President Trump awake at night. Republican control of the House makes even a symbolic attempt unlikely.

It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict ‘experts’ who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with.

So the disloyal opposition defaults to its remaining weapon: information warfare. Media outlets, activist networks, and hostile bureaucrats have been carpet-bombing the information space with false claims designed to sow dissension among the ranks and mislead the public.

The country needs a president who can act decisively in defense of national security, without media gatekeepers, rogue judges, or partisan lawmakers running armchair military campaigns from the sidelines. The “Seditious Six” tried to undermine the president’s authority and cast doubt on lawful orders. The Washington Post attempted to turn that fiction into fact by quoting anonymous sources with unverifiable claims.

The central allegation is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The Post framed it this way: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody.’”

The headline amplified the accusation: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”

A “spoken directive” means no record. The quote is a paraphrase. Nothing indicates that the source actually heard the Hegseth say those words. This is an anonymous, secondhand characterization of an alleged statement — precisely the sort of raw material the Post loves to inflate into scandal.

Even if the words had been spoken, the context would determine legality. If a commander asks, “How big a bomb do we drop on the enemy location?” and the answer is, “Use one big enough to kill everybody,” that exchange would not be criminal. It is a description of the force required to neutralize a hostile asset.

If these anonymous sources truly believed the secretary issued an illegal order, they were obligated to report it through the chain of command. Their silence speaks louder than any paraphrase. The most plausible explanation is that someone misunderstood — or deliberately distorted — an aggressive statement by Hegseth and nothing more.

The United States targets terrorists. The implication behind the Post’s story is that survivors remained after the first strike and that either the secretary or JSOC ordered a second engagement to kill them. No evidence supports that claim. No one outside the direct participants knows what the surveillance picture showed or what tactical conditions existed immediately after the first blast.

RELATED: White House names names in new ‘media bias tracker’ in wake of ‘seditious’ Democrat video

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Trump stated publicly that Hegseth told him no order was given to kill survivors. The fact that U.S. forces recovered two survivors from the submersible drug vessel undercuts the Post’s narrative even more. Pete Hegseth is far more credible than Alex Horton and the newsroom that elevated this rumor.

— (@)

It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict “experts” who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with. They insist that the presence of wounded combatants instantly transforms a hostile platform into a protected site and that destroying the vessel itself becomes a war crime. Even the New York Times — no friend of the administration — punctured that claim:

According to five U.S. officials … Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile failed to accomplish all of those things … and his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.

The mobs demanding Hegseth’s scalp will be disappointed. The voters who supported this administration expected firm action against terrorist cartels and open-ocean drug networks. Another hostile vessel was reduced to an oil slick, and most Americans see that as a success.

‘Chatbot Jesus’ is a digital fake — and churches are falling for it



Artificial intelligence now offers “Chatbot Jesus,” personalized prayers, AI-generated sermons, and even virtual pastors charging monthly fees. Some see these tools as a lifeline for shrinking congregations. Others claim they offer new ways to evangelize.

The church must speak plainly: We are not called to relevance. We are called to righteousness. Scripture commands believers to “test all things; hold fast what is good.”

People are not abandoning faith because the church lacks modern technology. They are leaving because they are starving for truth in an age of deception.

Technology itself is neither holy nor wicked. The printing press, radio, livestreaming, and Bible apps have all served ministry. AI that organizes calendars, translates languages, or answers simple questions is just another tool.

Crossing a biblical line

Trouble begins when technology imitates divinity. An app that invites people to “talk with Jesus” steps into territory Scripture reserves for the living God alone. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice” (John 10:27). Only the Lord speaks with the authority of Matthew 24:35: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

No chatbot can make that claim.

The danger becomes obvious when apps offer simulated “conversations” with Judas or Satan. God forbids consulting spirits, mediums, or conjured voices (Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:10-12). Why would the church encourage digital re-creations of what Scripture calls an abomination?

Convenience or relevance cannot override explicit biblical commands.

You can’t outsource the Holy Spirit

Some pastors now admit they use AI to help write sermons. Others market “avatar” versions of themselves. But ministry has never centered on polished prose. It has always centered on God’s power — His breath, His Spirit, His Word.

Paul wrote, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4).

You cannot automate the power of God. You cannot outsource the voice of the Holy Spirit. You cannot download anointing.

A sermon is not literary content to be refined by software. It must be birthed in prayer, wrestled through in Scripture, and delivered in obedience. As Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). That includes preaching.

Tech won’t save us

Axios reported that up to 15,000 churches may close this year and that 29% of Americans now claim no religion. That trend calls for actual spiritual renewal, not AI simulations of Jesus.

People are not abandoning faith because the church lacks modern technology. They are leaving because they are starving for truth in an age of deception. The early church grew because believers “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship … and fear came upon every soul” (Acts 2:42-43). They witnessed repentance, signs, wonders, and transformation — none of which machines can produce.

True revival begins where the early church began: holiness, unity, prayer, obedience, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

A distortion of Christ

False voices proclaiming truth are not new. The only novelty is that they are now automated. The central danger of “AI spirituality” is doctrinal corruption. What sources shape these chatbots? What ideology trains them? If systems learn from shallow teaching or progressive theology divorced from Scripture, they will preach a distorted Christ.

When AI “hallucinates” — and all current systems do — it can hand users outright lies.

Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets … you will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-16). Paul warned that if anyone preaches "any other gospel … let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). From Genesis onward, the devil has counterfeited God’s voice. AI can and will preach an "other gospel" if it draws from anything other than Scripture.

RELATED: God-tier AI? Why there’s no easy exit from the human condition

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Believers must remain discerning. “Do not be deceived” (1 Corinthians 15:33). “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8). Those who build their faith on machine-generated counsel risk building a house on sand rather than the Rock (Matthew 7:24-27).

A servant, not a shepherd

Tools can organize schedules and streamline communication. They can assist brainstorming. But preaching, prayer, prophecy, discipleship, deliverance, and counsel belong to the life of the Spirit — not the cold logic of machines.

Technology must remain a servant. It must never become a shepherd. Only the good shepherd, Jesus Christ, leads His people.

Jesus said, “I am the door of the sheep,” “I am the good shepherd,” and “I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10). No AI pastor and no “Chatbot Jesus” can claim any of that.

Revival will not come from faster processors or stronger large language models. It will come when God’s people “humble themselves," pray, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways (2 Chronicles 7:14).

The world does not need a digital imitation of Jesus. It needs the real Jesus — the one who, as Hebrews 13:8 tells us, “is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Hamas floods the feeds to sway clueless Westerners



As President Donald Trump toured Israel and the region celebrating his newly brokered Gaza ceasefire agreement last month, several Israeli families received unexpected video calls from their loved ones still held captive in Gaza.

After more than two years without information, many suddenly found themselves staring at the faces they feared they might never see again. “I love you! I can’t wait to see you already!” cried one shocked mother.

In a post-truth environment, Hamas has learned how to set the terms of debate, frame Israeli actions, and pressure global institutions.

Behind each hostage stood a Hamas militant in a green headband and full face covering. Before release, the militant gave a command in broken Hebrew: “Post this on social media. Put this in the news.”

It was a scene both surreal and deliberate. For Hamas, the call was not simply a gesture ahead of a ceasefire. It was the final stroke in a propaganda campaign the group has refined into a core battlefield strategy.

Across the war, Hamas moved far beyond the low-tech, grainy videos of earlier terror groups, like al-Qaeda 25 years ago. Borrowing lessons from Russia, China, Iran, and ISIS, it adopted a multi-platform media operation built on drone footage, high-definition body cameras, Telegram networks, curated databases, and a constellation of Instagram influencers.

The goal was simple: Demoralize Israelis, energize supporters, and sway public opinion abroad — especially in the United States and Europe, where diplomatic pressure could yield concessions no battlefield victory could deliver.

Instagram combatants

Influencers became frontline assets. Saleh Aljafarawi, a 27-year-old Instagram personality, chronicled rubble tours and took selfie videos with children and activists, overlaying them with music to evoke sympathy. His content racked up millions of views.

Motaz Azaiza, another influencer, surged to more than 16 million Instagram followers while documenting scenes on the ground and conducting street interviews. A graphic video credited to him — viewed more than 100 million times and widely disputed — showed what appeared to be bleeding toddlers pulled from wreckage.

Hamas-aligned Telegram channels such as Gaza Now and Al Aqsa TV amplified their posts around the clock. Western media outlets often ran these images uncritically, including allegedly starving children later shown to have congenital conditions unrelated to the conflict.

But the visual blitz was only one part of the strategy. Hamas understood that controlling the premises of the debate mattered as much as controlling the images. That is why organizations such as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs relied heavily on casualty numbers supplied by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. Those tallies — widely framed as disproportionately civilian — drove international diplomatic pressure on Israel and fueled student protests across American campuses.

‘Broadcast the images’

A recently declassified memo from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar revealed the strategic logic behind the group’s media doctrine. Mixed among military instructions were orders to create “heart-breaking scenes of shocking devastation,” including directives for “stepping on soldiers’ heads” and “slaughtering people by knife.” Body-camera footage from the Oct. 7 massacre reflected that intent.

To execute the strategy, Sinwar empowered a spokesman known as Abu Obaidah, who was killed in an Israel Defense Forces strike last year. Under his direction, Hamas expanded its propaganda arm from roughly 400 operatives during the 2014 conflict to more than 1,500. Every battalion and brigade gained its own deputy commander for propaganda, each trained in field filming, livestreaming, and rapid editing inside decentralized “war rooms.”

One category of production featured Israeli hostages forced to deliver scripted messages from tunnel captivity, urging Israelis to protest their government. These videos were released with trilingual subtitles and high-end visual effects. They accelerated domestic pressure inside Israel to accept a deal on terms favorable to Hamas.

During the January 2025 exchange, Hamas choreographed the release events with precision. Operatives filmed every moment with high-definition lenses as hostages were paraded before Red Cross representatives and instructed to wave to crowds. Slogans appeared in Arabic, Hebrew, and English — some tailored to Israeli politics (“we are the day after”), others crafted for Western activists (“Palestine — the victory of the oppressed”).

Iran funds roughly $480 million annually in state propaganda efforts through its IRIB broadcaster. It is reasonable to assume Hamas directs a significant share of its estimated $2 billion budget into communications.

RELATED: The genocide that isn’t: How Hamas turned lies into global outrage

Photo by ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images

Perception shapes policy

The investment has paid off. A Quinnipiac poll found that half of Americans — and 77% of Democratic voters — believe Israel committed a “genocide” in Gaza. A Cygnal survey shows Israel at -21 net favorability among voters younger than 55. Younger Americans, who consume more social media, are almost three times more likely than older voters to view Hamas favorably.

Substance remains another story. A majority of Americans — 56% — oppose or remain ambivalent toward the two-state plan frequently cited by foreign governments and activist groups.

But perception is shaping policy. Hamas has become a dominant force in the narrative battle, feeding imagery, statistics, and talking points directly into Western media ecosystems. In a post-truth environment, the group has learned how to set the terms of debate, frame Israeli actions, and pressure global institutions.

Israel and its allies cannot afford to treat communications as an afterthought. Effective messaging is a force multiplier — not a cosmetic accessory. It frames the battlefield, shapes public opinion, and constrains diplomatic options.

The war showed that Hamas understands this. It is time its opponents understood it too.

America is now playing by Corkins’ rules — unless we stop it



Floyd Lee Corkins. That name should ring louder than it does.

In 2012, Corkins stormed into the Family Research Council’s Washington, D.C., offices armed and intent on mass murder. A security guard stopped him before he could carry out a massacre. He became the first person convicted of domestic terrorism in the District of Columbia.

Corkins came once. His successors will come again. ... The question is what we’re prepared to do about it.

Yet you probably don’t recall him right away. Why not? Probably because the propaganda leaflets against Chick-fil-A and Christians found in his car tied back to groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center — and the press played down the obvious connection. They helped bury what Corkins meant to announce in blood: that political rhetoric backed by violence was the new normal.

I’ve long warned that when legitimate authorities fail to punish evil, someone eventually decides to take matters into his own hands. Corkins is the left’s demonic version of that. His case teaches a simple lesson: If you’re going to call conservatives Hitler, sooner or later someone will start acting on the metaphor.

That same logic drove the 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball practice, where a Bernie Sanders supporter nearly assassinated a swath of House Republicans. Rhetoric became ammunition. Talking points became bullets.

Fast-forward to 2025. The demons are autographing their shell casings. They want everyone to know exactly who wants us dead. And the corporate left-wing press winks and nods along.

Enter Jimmy Kimmel, a late-night host with fewer viewers than Glenn Beck can pull in an impromptu X Spaces session.

Kimmel should have been irrelevant years ago. But his network kept him on the air. Why? Not because he draws ratings or ad revenue — he doesn’t. He survives because of affinity advertising: the corporate and philanthropic subsidy system that props up “the right people” no matter how much red ink their shows spill. Pfizer, Disney, the Soros family — they all bankroll the propaganda they want in circulation, audience or no.

As the Joker explained while burning an enormous pile of cash, “It’s not about the money. It’s about sending a message.”

That’s why Kimmel could stand on stage and smear conservatives, even after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and still be untouchable. His words carry the same function as Corkins’ bullets: intimidation dressed up as entertainment.

RELATED: Violence gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back

Blaze Media Illustration

The danger isn’t just one unfunny comedian. It’s the ecosystem that shields him. Advertisers and networks subsidize the message, the media excuses it, and the extremists absorb it as permission. That’s how rhetoric becomes carnage.

We face two choices. We can enforce the law, punish violent actors and those who materially enable them, and protect the marketplace of ideas. Or we can accept the Corkins rules: a culture where calling people Hitler is step one and shooting them is step two.

The notion that we can run in place like Mike Pence, emasculating ourselves for the sake of “proper tone” or one last bow to decorum, is a funeral march. Some may find comfort in that tune, but I will not bind my children’s future to it.

Corkins came once. His successors will come again. Kimmel’s sponsors and allies want you to think this is inevitable. It isn’t. The question is what we’re prepared to do about it.

What if Johnny Carson turned MLK’s murder into a punch line?



What if, in 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Johnny Carson opened “The Tonight Show” with jibes about how one of King’s own supporters had pulled the trigger? What if he followed with a gag suggesting that President Lyndon Johnson didn’t care much about losing a friend? Or how maybe we need to keep up the pressure on conservatives who think free speech includes engaging those who disagree with them in civil dialogue?

Does anyone believe NBC executives would have shrugged and said, “Let Johnny talk — free speech, you know”? Does anyone think Carson’s 12 million nightly viewers would have treated it as harmless banter and tuned in the next night with curiosity about what he might say next?

Jimmy Kimmel needs to ‘grow a pair,’ take his lumps, and find another venue.

When the members of the first Congress wrote the First Amendment, enshrining freedom of speech, they did it within the context of the words of John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

St. Paul puts it this way: “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say — but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’ — but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12).

Sadly, I was included in an email from a dear relative who chided anyone who did not protest Jimmy Kimmel’s firing, citing the First Amendment. My relative felt very strongly about this. In his own words, if you didn't loudly defend Kimmel, you needed to “grow a pair.”

My wife and I had just finished watching the entire eight-hour-long, beautiful, uplifting, and spirit-filled memorial service for Charlie Kirk. Before I went to sleep, I decided to clear out my email inbox for the day. Unfortunately, I opened the email from my relative (thinking it was just the usual newsy missive) and read his thoughts.

He had written his opinions before the service, so I am not sure if he would have sent the same message; he made it clear that what happened to Charlie was certainly serious and evil.

No buts about it

My relative used words I had heard before from those who want to virtue signal, while also insisting that doing bad things is not acceptable. It was a variation of this: Yes, what happened to Charlie Kirk was wrong, terrible! But ...

If you hear people on the left — or even people who consider themselves rational, reasonable people “in the middle” who like to play the both-sides-are-wrong card — you need to push back. Comparing the temporary suspension of a mediocre, inconsequential talent like Kimmel to the assassination of a beautiful, influential man like Kirk — well, they are not in the same arena.

Since I was the only one on the email thread who knew Charlie personally (we had been colleagues at Salem Radio), I felt my comments would carry more weight.

I highlighted the Martin Luther King Jr.–Carson comparison and then focused on the “free speech” aspect from a purely business standpoint.

Jimmy Kimmel loses tens of millions of dollars for the network annually. It's been said that his viewership was so low that if you posted a video on X of your cat playing the piano, you could attract more viewers than Kimmel gets on any given night.

Moreover, the claim that Kimmel was denied his First Amendment rights is simply untrue. Kimmel remains free to say whatever he wants anywhere else. For example, when Tucker Carlson (who had the hottest show on Fox, making millions for the network) was canceled for speaking the truth politically, he launched his own “network.”

The funny thing is (no, not jokes from Kimmel’s opening monologues), unsuccessful shows hosted by people with varying degrees of talent get canceled all the time in the world of television. If that were not so, we would all be subjected to the 59th season of “My Mother the Car,”starring Jerry Van Dyke.

RELATED: I experienced Jimmy Kimmel’s lies firsthand. His suspension is justice.

Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation

Lackluster shows are replaced by something for which the viewing public actually cares to tune in. The public had clearly tuned out of Kimmel’s show a long time ago.

What Jimmy Kimmel needs to do is “grow a pair,” take his lumps, and find another venue. Nevertheless, Kimmel has (viola!) returned after all, because I suppose the network figures it still hasn’t lost enough money — or influence.

Prove Him wrong

Young Charlie Kirk paid the ultimate price for standing against the obvious evil he saw in plain sight. And in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, many more, unfortunately, may join him.

My relative closed out his email challenging those of us who didn't agree with him to respond à la Charlie: “Prove me wrong,” he wrote.

I closed my email response to him in a way I think the humble Charlie Kirk might have done: “Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me'” (John 14:6).

“Prove Him wrong.”

Violence gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back



Last week, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel told a big lie on national television. He claimed Charlie Kirk had been assassinated by a conservative MAGA supporter. This wasn’t a bad joke — it was a deliberate attempt to cover for left-wing violence and deceive millions of people.

After a campaign pressuring advertisers and affiliates, ABC suspended Kimmel, saying he wouldn’t immediately return to the air. Progressives screamed about “cancel culture” and circulated petitions, apparently more concerned about a millionaire losing his low-rated show than about a murdered father.

The right, paralyzed by fear of bad press, has given the left a free pass. That timidity has only encouraged more bloodshed.

Then came the threats. Violent warnings poured into ABC affiliates, culminating in a leftist shooting up a station in Sacramento. Shortly afterward, ABC announced that Kimmel would return to the air. The lesson for the left was simple: Violence and terrorism work.

The Trump moment

When Donald Trump was shot on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, the entire world held its breath. His supporters didn’t flee; they froze, waiting to see if their leader had been killed. If a leftist assassin had succeeded, civil war was on the table. Then Trump stood and raised a defiant fist, and the nation exhaled. Not only because he had survived, but because the darkest path had been narrowly avoided.

That moment should have been a turning point. Trump entered office with energy, issuing a flurry of executive orders. But he never confronted the left-wing groups and the institutions that had normalized violence. He wanted a stable economy and secure borders, but left-wing radicals continued to act as if they had a special right to political violence. By letting them get away with assassination attempts and street terror, Trump ensured that another wave was inevitable.

Excuses and celebrations

After Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, some progressives mouthed words about lowering the temperature. Almost all of them hedged by smearing the victim or blaming “both sides.” Meanwhile, a disturbingly large faction openly celebrated the murder. Their message was clear: They would never abandon violence as long as it kept paying dividends.

Even Kimmel’s brief firing — for telling a malicious lie that threatened ABC’s broadcast license — was more than they could tolerate. For perspective: When an unknown addict overdosed while in police custody, the left torched American cities for months. In contrast, a prominent conservative was assassinated, and the only cost extracted from the left was one failing talk show host and some TikTok blabbermouths losing their jobs. Even that tiny price triggered outrage.

Violence pays

When FCC Chair Brendan Carr flagged Kimmel’s violation, progressives shrieked about “fascism” and “the end of free speech.” The irony was grotesque: Kirk had just been killed for exercising his free speech.

Meanwhile, major Democrats piled on. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) smeared Kirk’s character before he was buried. Keith Olbermann threatened to kill CNN commentator Scott Jennings before issuing a flimsy apology. Left-wing influencers rushed to declare allegiance to Antifa, a group with a long record of violence. Whatever pretense of unity had existed collapsed in less than 24 hours.

Soon threats flooded ABC affiliates. One man — a former teachers’ union lawyer! — even sprayed bullets into a station window. That was enough for Sinclair Media, ABC’s largest affiliate group, to pull a planned Kirk tribute and restore late-night programming. ABC then confirmed that Kimmel himself would return in that slot. The terrorists had won.

A partial retreat

Credit where due: After another wave of pressure, Sinclair and Nexstar, another major affiliate group, refused to air Kimmel until he apologized. Together they represent about 70 of ABC’s 250 affiliates, including major markets such as Washington, Seattle, and Portland. That is significant — but still insufficient.

Reports indicate that Kimmel could have resolved the issue early simply by apologizing. He refused. He bet that his Hollywood allies and violent extremists would clear a path for his return. He was right.

RELATED: I experienced Jimmy Kimmel’s lies firsthand. His suspension is justice.

Photo by Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images

Incentives matter

Every parent knows what happens if you don’t punish bad behavior: It repeats and often escalates. The same holds true in politics. When the left sees it can assault conservative speakers, burn cities, threaten opponents, shoot presidents, assassinate leaders, and face no serious consequences, it learns the obvious lesson: Violence works.

The right, paralyzed by fear of bad press, has given the left a free pass. That timidity has only encouraged more bloodshed.

Now Trump has signed an executive order declaring Antifa a terrorist organization. JD Vance and Stephen Miller have pledged to dismantle the networks funding leftist extremism. That is overdue but necessary. If justice is not swift and severe, the killings will continue — because the killers believe they are entitled to keep winning.