One of the most consequential developments of 2025 has received far less scrutiny than it deserves: the steady surrender of executive authority to an unelected judiciary.

President Trump was elected to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, yet his administration increasingly behaves as if federal judges hold final authority over every major policy decision — including those squarely within the president’s constitutional and statutory powers.

Judicial supremacy thrives on abdication. It advances because presidents comply, lawmakers defer, and voters are told this arrangement is normal.

By backing down whenever district courts issue sweeping injunctions, the administration is reinforcing a dangerous precedent: that no executive action is legitimate until the judiciary permits it. That assumption has no basis in the Constitution, but it is rapidly becoming the governing norm.

The problem became unmistakable when federal judges began granting standing to abstract plaintiffs challenging Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to protect ICE agents under attack. Many assumed such cases would collapse on appeal. Instead, the Supreme Court last week declined to lift an injunction blocking the Guard’s deployment in Illinois, signaling that the judiciary now claims authority to second-guess core commander-in-chief decisions.

Over the dissent of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch, the court allowed the Seventh Circuit’s decision to stand. That ruling held that violent attacks on ICE agents in Chicago did not amount to a “danger of rebellion” sufficient to justify Guard deployment and did not “significantly impede” the execution of federal immigration law.

That conclusion alone should alarm anyone who still believes in separation of powers.

No individual plaintiff alleged personal injury by a Guardsman. No constitutional rights were violated. The plaintiff was the state of Illinois itself, objecting to a political determination made by the president under statutory authority granted by Congress. Courts are not empowered to adjudicate such abstract disputes over executive judgment.

Even if judges disagree with the president’s assessment of the threat environment, their opinion carries no greater constitutional weight than his. The commander in chief is charged with executing the laws and protecting federal personnel. Courts are not.

If judges can decide who has standing, define the scope of their own authority, and then determine the limits of executive power, constitutional separation of powers collapses entirely. What remains is not judicial review but judicial supremacy.

And that is precisely what we are witnessing.

Courts now routinely insert themselves into immigration enforcement, national security decisions, tariff policy, federal grants, personnel disputes, and even the content of government websites. The unelected, life-tenured branch increasingly functions as a super-legislature and shadow executive, vetoing or mandating policy at will.

Cemile Bingol via iStock/Getty Images

What, then, remains for the people acting through elections?

If judges control immigration, spending, enforcement priorities, and foreign policy, why bother holding congressional or presidential elections at all? The Constitution’s framers never intended courts to serve as the ultimate policymakers. They were designed to be the weakest branch, confined to resolving concrete cases involving actual injuries.

Trump’s defenders often argue that patience and compliance will eventually produce favorable rulings. That belief is not only naïve — it is destructive.

For every narrow win Trump secures on appeal, the so-called institutionalist bloc on the court — Chief Justice John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — uses it to justify adverse outcomes elsewhere. Worse, because lower courts enjoin nearly every significant action, the administration rarely reaches the Supreme Court on clean constitutional grounds. The damage is done long before review occurs.

Consider the clearest example of all: the power of the purse.

Congress passed a budget reconciliation bill explicitly defunding Planned Parenthood. The bill cleared both chambers and was signed into law. Under the Constitution, appropriations decisions belong exclusively to Congress.

Yet multiple federal judges have enjoined that provision, effectively ordering the executive branch to continue sending taxpayer dollars to abortion providers in defiance of enacted law. Courts have not merely interpreted the statute; they have overridden it.

That raises an unavoidable question: Does the president have a duty to enforce the laws of Congress — or to obey judicial demands that contradict them?

Continuing to fund Planned Parenthood after Congress prohibited it is not neutrality. It is executive acquiescence to judicial nullification of legislative power.

The same pattern appears elsewhere.

Security clearances fall squarely within executive authority, yet the first Muslim federal judge recently attempted to block the president from denying clearance to a politically connected lawyer. Immigration, long recognized as a sovereign prerogative, has been transformed by courts into a maze of invented rights for noncitizens — including a supposed First Amendment right to remain in the country while promoting Hamas.

States fare no better. When West Virginia sought to ban artificial dyes from its food supply, an Obama-appointed federal judge intervened. When states enact laws complementing federal immigration enforcement, courts strike them down. But sanctuary laws that obstruct federal authority often receive judicial protection.

Heads, illegal aliens win. Tails, the people lose.

Moor Studio via iStock/Getty Images

What we are witnessing is adverse possession — squatter’s rights — of constitutional power. As Congress passes fewer laws and the executive hesitates to assert its authority, courts eagerly fill the vacuum. In 2025, Congress enacted fewer laws than in any year since at least 1989. Meanwhile, judges effectively “passed” nationwide policies affecting millions of Americans.

This did not happen overnight. Judicial supremacy thrives on abdication. It advances because presidents comply, lawmakers defer, and voters are told this arrangement is normal.

It is not.

Trump cannot comply his way out of this crisis. No president can. A system in which courts claim final authority over every function of government is incompatible with republican self-rule.

The Constitution does not enforce itself. Separation of powers exists only if each branch is willing to defend its role.

Right now, the presidency is failing that test.

How data centers could spark the next populist revolt

Everyone keeps promising that artificial intelligence will deliver wonders beyond imagination — medical breakthroughs, massive productivity gains, boundless prosperity. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But one outcome is already clear: If data centers keep driving up Americans’ electricity bills, AI will quickly become a political liability.

Across the country, data center expansion has already helped push electricity prices up 13% over the past year, and voters are starting to push back.

Handled correctly, AI can strengthen America. Handled poorly — by letting data centers overwhelm the grid and drive families toward energy poverty — it will accelerate decline.

In recent months, plans for massive new data centers in Virginia, Maryland, Texas, and Arizona have stalled or collapsed under local backlash. Ordinary Americans have packed town halls and flooded city councils, demanding protection from corporate projects that devour land, drain water supplies, and strain already fragile power grids.

These communities are not rejecting technology. They are rejecting exploitation. As one local official in Chandler, Arizona, told a developer bluntly, “If you can’t show me what’s in it for Chandler, then we’re not having a conversation.”

The problem runs deeper than zoning fights or aesthetics. America’s monopoly utility model shields data centers from the true cost of the strain they impose on the grid. When a facility requires new substations, transmission lines, or transformers — or when its relentless demand drives up electricity prices — utilities spread those costs across every household and small business in the service area.

That arrangement socializes the costs of Big Tech’s growth while privatizing the gains. It also breeds populist anger.

A better approach sits within reach: neighborhood battery programs that put communities first.

Whole-home battery systems continue to gain traction. Rooftop solar panels, small generators, or off-peak grid power can recharge them. Batteries store electricity when it’s cheap and abundant, then release it when demand spikes or outages hit. They protect families from blackouts, lower monthly utility bills, and sometimes allow homeowners to sell power back to the grid.

One policy shift should become non-negotiable: Approval for new data centers should hinge on funding neighborhood battery programs in the communities they impact.

In practice, that requirement would push tech companies to help install home battery systems in nearby neighborhoods, delivering backup power, grid stability, and real relief on electric bills. These distributed batteries would form a flexible, local energy reserve — absorbing peak demand instead of worsening it.

Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Most importantly, this model reverses the flow of benefits. Working families would no longer subsidize Big Tech’s expansion while receiving nothing in return. Communities would share directly in the upside.

Access to local land, water, and electricity should come with obligations. Companies that consume enormous public resources should invest in the people who live alongside them — not leave residents stranded when the grid buckles.

Politicians who ignore this gathering backlash risk sleepwalking into a revolt. The choice is straightforward: Build an energy system that serves citizens who keep the country running, or face their fury when they realize they have been sacrificed for someone else’s high-tech gold rush.

Handled correctly, AI can strengthen America. Handled poorly — by letting data centers overwhelm the grid and drive families toward energy poverty — it will accelerate decline.

We still have time to choose. Let’s choose wisely.

Trump broke decorum. The media broke the truth — again.

Recently, Paul du Quenoy published a necessary piece at Chronicles putting President Trump’s remark after the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner in proper context. In a Truth Social post that went viral, Trump quipped that Rob Reiner had died of “Trump derangement syndrome,” while also offering condolences and praying that the deceased would “rest in peace.”

The media response was instant and hysterical. As du Quenoy notes, legacy outlets erupted in moral outrage, eager to condemn Trump as uniquely depraved. He highlights one of the ugliest examples: a sermon from David Remnick in the thoroughly politicized New Yorker, denouncing Trump as a “degraded” human being.

Trump’s remark was ill judged. The media’s response was dishonest. Only one of those failures is being treated as a permanent moral indictment.

Du Quenoy asks: Where was this moral sensitivity when figures on the left trafficked in venom — or worse — after the assassination of Charlie Kirk?

The answer, of course, is nowhere.

This double standard defines our media culture. When rhetorical excess comes from the left, it is ignored, excused, or rationalized. When it comes from the right — especially from Trump — it is proof of moral disqualification. Etiquette is enforced selectively, always against the same targets. From the BBC to the Los Angeles Times, outlets had no difficulty canonizing Reiner while casting Trump as a cartoon villain.

A fair point must be made: Trump should not have said what he did. A president should observe certain proprieties, and Trump violates them all too often. I supported his policies and voted for him repeatedly, but that does not require defending every avoidable verbal misfire. This one was a mistake.

What deserves closer scrutiny, however, is the media’s attempt to weaponize that mistake. In outlets like People magazine, Trump’s comment was contrasted with Reiner’s allegedly noble reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Reiner, we are told, expressed “horror.” Trump, by contrast, showed cruelty.

This framing collapses under minimal honesty.

After seeing this contrast repeated again and again, I searched for Reiner’s public statements — not about Kirk, but about Trump. What emerges is not a portrait of an angelic figure suddenly besmirched. For years, Reiner unleashed a steady stream of invective against Trump: “mentally unfit,” “con man,” “fascist,” “lying buffoon,” along with a great many four-letter flourishes unprintable here. He pushed the Trump-Russia hoax long after it had been exposed as fantasy. His political obsession was not subtle, incidental, or private.

Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Yet this entire record has been scrubbed from the story. Media profiles dwell on Reiner’s filmmaking career and his role as a loving father while erasing his lifelong activism and venom toward Trump. The reason is simple: The people telling the story agree with Reiner’s politics and share his hatred of Trump. Presenting Trump’s animus as unprovoked is not journalism. It is narrative laundering.

The comparison with Charlie Kirk’s murder is equally dishonest. Kirk, to my knowledge, never publicly attacked Reiner. There was no shared history, no prolonged feud. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) put it plainly: Trump should have said nothing after Reiner’s death, even if Reiner was obsessed with him. Still, pretending that Trump’s reaction should mirror Reiner’s response to Kirk ignores reality. The relationships were not the same.

Nor should Reiner be recast as a purely apolitical figure whose ideology can be set aside for the sake of a tidy morality play. He embraced his identity as a committed leftist as openly as he embraced his Hollywood career. The media’s erasure of that fact mirrors older myths, such as the claim that the “Hollywood Ten” were merely innocent artists with no communist affiliations. You can oppose blacklisting without lying about politics. The left never resists the temptation to lie.

So once again, we are presented with a familiar fable: a gentle, virtuous man smeared by a deranged tyrant for no reason at all. It is nonsense — but useful nonsense. It allows the media to posture as arbiters of decency while ignoring their own complicity in coarsening public life.

Trump’s remark was ill judged. The media’s response was dishonest. Only one of those failures is being treated as a permanent moral indictment — and that tells you everything you need to know.

All truckers want in 2026 is safe roads

As Americans ring in the new year with family and friends, it’s worth remembering a simple fact: A truck driver delivered nearly everything carrying us into 2026.

From champagne and party hats to the presents under our Christmas trees — and the everyday goods that keep businesses running — truck drivers power the economy year in and year out. They work long hours, spend weeks away from loved ones, and keep freight moving through nights, weekends, and holidays. As the calendar turns, truckers ask for just one thing in 2026: safe roads.

A safe trucking industry depends on qualified drivers, safe equipment, and a system that rewards compliance while swiftly removing bad actors.

For too long, America’s highways have grown more dangerous — not because of professional truck drivers, who rank among the most highly trained and regulated workers in the country, but because of systemic failures that allow illegal, unqualified, and unsafe operators to put lives at risk.

The trucking industry has sounded the alarm, and this White House has listened. By cracking down on fraudulent commercial driver’s license mills, addressing the risks posed by illegal drivers, and taking meaningful steps to combat the surge in cargo theft, the Trump administration has restored accountability to the transportation system and made clear that safety — not shortcuts — is the priority.

Consider CDL mills. These sham operations churn out licenses without proper training, undermining professionalism and putting unqualified drivers behind the wheel of 80,000-pound vehicles. Shutting them down isn’t about limiting opportunity. It’s about ensuring that every driver on the road has earned the right to be there. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s decision to remove thousands of suspect training providers from the federal registry sent a clear message: If you cut corners on safety, you won’t be tolerated.

The same principle applies to basic qualifications. Truck drivers must be able to speak English, read road signs, understand safety rules, and follow the law. Weak state verification standards and lax oversight have allowed illegal operators onto American highways. That is unacceptable.

A commercial driver’s license is not just a credential — it is a promise to the public. When that promise is broken, the consequences can be deadly. Fatal crashes this year in Florida and California show exactly what’s at stake when illegal and unqualified drivers remain behind the wheel.

We are encouraged that the administration has acted quickly to prevent future tragedies by holding states accountable and removing unqualified drivers from the road.

Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

At the same time, law-abiding motor carriers and drivers face another growing threat: cargo theft. What was once an occasional crime has become a nationwide epidemic driven by organized criminal networks. Thieves exploit technology, impersonate legitimate carriers, and target supply chains with increasing sophistication. The result is billions in losses — roughly $18 million per day — and heightened risk for drivers, along with disruptions that raise costs for consumers, especially during the holidays.

Truck drivers should not have to worry about being targeted simply for doing their jobs. That’s why the industry welcomes legislation to elevate cargo theft as a federal priority and improve coordination among law enforcement agencies. Protecting freight isn’t just about economics. It’s about protecting the men and women behind the wheel.

These challenges share a common thread: Safety needs to be enforced consistently, comprehensively, and without exception. A safe trucking industry depends on qualified drivers, safe equipment, and a system that rewards compliance while swiftly removing bad actors.

Professional truck drivers take pride in their work. They train hard, follow the rules, and understand that every mile carries responsibility. They don’t want special treatment — just a level playing field and a government that takes safety as seriously as they do. Today, they have a White House that does.

Let’s ensure that America’s highways remain worthy of the 3.5 million professionals who keep them moving — this year and every year.

Republicans are letting Democrats lie about affordability

Midterm elections go one of two ways. They are either a validation of the sitting president or a repudiation. Historically, they have almost always been a repudiation.

The 2026 midterms are shaping up to be no different — a firm rebuke to Donald Trump. That’s obviously bad for him. Congress will spend two straight years investigating and likely impeaching him.

If President Trump’s supporters don’t show up, Republican defeat is guaranteed.

But the bigger danger is to America. Democrat control of Congress will jeopardize Republicans’ efforts to restore an economy of opportunity for all. Worse, Democrats will lay the groundwork for recapturing the White House in 2028, at which point they will implement the most anti-opportunity agenda in American history. We’re talking welfare for all, funded by crippling tax hikes and a federal takeover of a once-free economy.

Can Donald Trump turn the midterms around? Only if he, his fellow Republicans, and their allies on the right make immediate changes. If they do, they could stem the losses in November — and maybe even defy the odds to expand their majorities in the House and Senate.

First and foremost: They need to realize that midterms hinge on turnout.

The reason midterms are usually a presidential repudiation is that voters from the other party are more motivated. They feel greater anger and intensity, and they show up. The president’s supporters, meanwhile, usually think they did their job when they elected their man. Why bother showing up again?

If President Trump’s supporters don’t show up, Republican defeat is guaranteed. The most urgent need, therefore, is to invest in a massive get-out-the-vote operation. The GOP needs one the likes of which it has never seen.

But such an effort also needs a message — something that resonates with voters and spurs them to action. That’s the second area where change is required. Because right now, Republicans don’t have any meaningful message at all.

The left certainly does. Democrat politicians, their allies in the media, and their associated army of activists and nonprofits have rallied around a single word: affordability. They’re tricking voters into thinking that all the inflation and financial pain that Joe Biden caused is really the fault of Donald Trump. The call to action writes itself: If voters want to make ends meet, their only hope is to vote the GOP out.

This message works, but only because Republicans are letting it work. They are largely silent in the face of Democrat attacks. Worse, in the president’s case, he is calling affordability a “hoax.” For voters who supported him because of Joe Biden’s inflation, nothing could be worse. It’s tantamount to saying their problems don’t matter.

Republicans must reclaim the economic high ground. They need to relentlessly hammer the point that Joe Biden’s enormous failures will take time to fix. They need to point to the relief they’ve given, especially the tax cuts the president signed in July. Most importantly, they need to lay out a unified agenda that speaks to Americans’ deep concerns, convincing voters that the GOP will, in fact, make life more affordable.

Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Crafting that agenda is as much the work of policy wonks as it is public relations. Republicans and their allies should be relentlessly message-testing and focus-grouping to discover not only what policies Americans want, but how to sell the policies that Americans need — in health care, housing, and beyond. This can be done without compromising conservative principles. In fact, it is essential if those principles are to have a path to becoming policies.

There’s one more message the GOP needs. It’s not enough to make a positive case for Republicans' own priorities. They need to remind Americans of the danger posed by Democrats relentlessly.

This isn’t hard. The return of crippling inflation. The collapse of our borders once again. Higher taxes on the middle class. Republicans have a simple case to make: If voters want all of America to look more like crime-ridden, welfare-defrauding, utterly unaffordable big blue cities, they should vote for Democrats.

Republicans needed these messages yesterday. They needed a turnout operation that was already delivering these messages to the base and undecided voters alike. If they and their allies don’t get their act together before the start of the year, the midterm elections will indeed be a repudiation of Donald Trump. Worse, they’ll put America’s future at risk. The clock is ticking.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Do not pass the plow: The danger of declaring a golden age without repentance

I live in Montana. Driving in snow is simply part of life here.

When the storm is heavy and the road is bad, you do not pass the snowplow. You go at its speed. You let it clear the way. Trying to rush past does not make the road safer or the journey faster. It only increases the risk.

Does God wink at sin in order to bless a nation — or does Scripture teach the opposite?

I have watched people try anyway. Confidence surges, patience thins, and effort begins to feel like wisdom. Some get away with it. Some do not. Either way, the plow keeps moving — unhurried and unmoved by urgency.

The rush to declare victory

As we approach a new year, I find myself thinking about that lesson while listening to Christians talk about the future of our country.

Some are already calling 2026 a coming “golden age of America.” Others argue that Christian nationalism offers the corrective path forward — that the nation must reclaim explicitly Christian leadership, laws, and identity. Christians, they say, must take the reins.

Christians should care deeply about their culture. Scripture calls us to be salt and light. Many believers already serve faithfully in the highest offices of the state, and we should encourage and equip more to do so. The question is not whether Christians should serve, but what posture we bring with us when we do.

Scripture is remarkably clear about order. In 2 Chronicles, healing and restoration are promised only after God’s people humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from their ways. The sequence is not optional. Humbling comes before healing.

So why does the language of a coming golden age seem so detached from the language of repentance?

There is no denying that our culture has lost moral traction. Christians are not imagining the collapse. And more than 60 million abortions since 1973 are not a statistic a nation simply absorbs and leaves behind. Scripture never treats the shedding of innocent blood lightly.

Outrage is easy. Obedience is harder.

When sin is not merely tolerated but established as policy, what is the response of the people of God?

Outrage may be understandable. Indignation is certainly warranted. Resistance, in some form, may be necessary. But resistance to what — and by what means?

Scripture tells us plainly that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. We say we believe that. The question is whether we act like it. If the battle is spiritual, why do so many of our responses rely almost entirely on human strength, political leverage, and cultural power?

If we are not fighting flesh and blood, why would we expect victory through our own understanding rather than by seeking God’s? And how can we presume upon His wisdom while bypassing the very repentance Scripture says must come first?

Where is the snowplow in this moment?

Prosperity is often treated as evidence of God’s blessing, but Scripture never makes that equation automatic. Drug cartels are prosperous. Entire industries built on sexual exploitation generate staggering wealth. So the question is not whether something flourishes, but why.

Does prosperity always signal God’s approval — or can it also reflect restraint removed, a people being given over to what they insist on pursuing? If abundance alone proves blessing, how do we account for how easily sin thrives?

Invoking God does not obligate Him

We frequently say, “God bless America,” but what do we mean when we invoke God’s name publicly? In 2013, a sitting U.S. president closed a speech to Planned Parenthood by saying, “God bless Planned Parenthood, and God bless America.”

That raises a serious question for Christians. When a national leader invokes God’s blessing in that way, does the language function merely as personal sentiment, or as representative speech? And more importantly, can those appeals be reconciled biblically? Can the same God who condemns the shedding of innocent blood be invoked to bless both its defenders and the nation at large without contradiction?

Does God wink at sin in order to bless a nation — or does Scripture teach the opposite?

This question is not aimed at unbelievers, who feel no obligation to repent. It is aimed squarely at the church.

Throughout Scripture, when God’s people finally grasped the weight of their sin, the response was not triumphal language or claims of destiny. It was confession. Leaders did not announce renewal. They acknowledged guilt. Only then did rebuilding begin.

So why does so much talk of a coming golden age contain so little talk of repentance?

The passages often cited to support Christian political dominance proclaim Christ’s authority. That authority is not in dispute. What is less often examined is how Christ exercises it. Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world. The early church did not secure influence through force or control, but through obedience, suffering, prayer, and faithful witness.

And through that path, it changed the world.

Conservatism is not holiness. Holiness runs deeper than alignment, platforms, or policy wins. Scripture places the deepest problem of any nation not in its laws, but in the human heart. Legislation may restrain behavior, but it cannot regenerate souls. That work belongs to the gospel.

Photo by: Philippe Lissac/Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

God is not in a hurry

As a caregiver, I have learned the hard way that effort is not the same as health. When the pressure is high and the outcome uncertain, urgency can feel responsible. Control can masquerade as diligence.

But we do not get credit for effort if it lands us in a ditch. Trying to pass the plow does not create progress. It creates wreckage.

God is not rushed. He moves at His pace, not ours.

Repentance is not the abandonment of influence; it is the only ground on which influence survives.

If God is who He says He is, what wisdom is there in rushing ahead of Him?

Which leaves a final question for the people of God: Are we asking the Lord to bless what we refuse to repent of?

Scripture’s order has not changed. Humility precedes healing. Repentance comes before restoration. And when we declare a golden age without repentance, we should not be surprised if what we have built turns out to be a golden calf.

If parental rights can be bypassed in Alabama, no state is safe

Millions of Americans fled deep-blue states like California and New York because they believed the rules were different elsewhere. They moved to places like Alabama to escape lockdowns, mandates, and ideological capture of public institutions. They believed red states meant red lines.

That belief is proving dangerously naïve.

If red states cannot enforce their own parental rights laws, then the red-state refuge is a myth.

Alabama is one of the most conservative states in the country. It has a Republican supermajority and some of the strongest parental rights laws on the books: bans on gender-transition procedures for minors, curriculum transparency requirements, legal definitions of male and female, protections for girls’ sports, and a rare requirement that parents must opt in before schools provide any mental health services, including discussions of suicide or bullying.

And yet those protections are now being quietly hollowed out — not by legislators, but by bureaucratic subversion.

The footnote loophole

The Alabama State Department of Education is undermining parental consent by inserting exceptions into the fine print of a required opt-in form distributed after a new parental consent law took effect Oct. 1.

The law itself is unambiguous. Parents must provide prior written consent before schools offer mental health services, including discussions related to suicide or bullying. But the department claims in the footnotes that mental health-related conversations may still occur “as appropriate” in other school settings — and that these interactions do not require parental permission.

The ALSDE has stated that “instruction, advisement, and occasional interventions are not subject to opt-in requirements, as these are regular duties of school counselors and other educators.”

That language does more than stretch the statute. It appears designed to bypass it entirely. When schools engage minors in discussions with clear psychological or therapeutic implications — trauma, gender identity, suicidal ideation — without parental consent, they move into legally and constitutionally questionable territory.

Same playbook, new label

Parents have seen this before. During COVID, mandates were imposed first and justified later. Dissent was sidelined. Authority flowed downward, not outward.

Now the same model is being applied to school-based mental health. Whether embedded in social-emotional learning, “student wellness,” or character education, the result is the same: psychological interventions delivered by school employees, not licensed physicians, without parental oversight.

This is not a gray area. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children. When school systems create end runs around opt-in requirements — especially on matters involving suicide or gender ideology — they invite serious legal and civil rights challenges.

No state is immune

This is not an Alabama anomaly.

Illinois now mandates mental health screenings for public school students, with no opt-in. Mississippi is rolling out a statewide “youth wellness platform.” Tennessee is placing mental health clinicians in every public school through a $250 million trust fund. Ohio is expanding school-based health centers that embed mental health treatment directly on campus.

These programs erase the line between education and health care. They normalize a system in which children’s emotions are monitored, recorded, and interpreted by the state without parental consent. That is state-sponsored emotional profiling.

Who decides what helps?

This debate is not about whether children need support. It is about who decides what support looks like — and who has the authority to provide it.

Parents possess a fundamental right to make decisions about their children’s mental and physical health. The Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor reaffirmed that when schools impose ideologically loaded services or content without notice or opt-out, they burden parental rights and religious liberty.

Photo by Luis Soto/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Alabama’s counseling framework includes DEI-driven language encouraging students to “identify individual differences” and “describe and respect differences among individuals.” In practice, that language provides a vehicle for embedding gender ideology and values-based content into guidance lessons.

When that content is paired with school-based interventions, the issue is no longer education. It is ideological formation funded by taxpayers and imposed without consent.

Alabama’s warning

If this can happen in Alabama — arguably the most pro-parental-rights state in the country — then no state is safe.

Agencies should not be allowed to bury statutes in footnotes, reinterpret laws by memo, or use therapeutic language to bypass parental authority. These are not technical disagreements. They are unconstitutional and demand legal pushback.

If red states cannot enforce their own parental rights laws, then the red-state refuge is a myth.

Strong laws matter, but enforcement matters more. Parents must demand both.

Preparedness isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition.

A certain smug comfort belongs to people who have never stood between a riot line and a camera, never smelled accelerant on the wind, never watched their phones lose signal while fire chewed through an entire neighborhood. They talk about “heated rhetoric” and “charged atmospheres” as if danger were theoretical. For women reporters on the ground, it isn’t.

The front line is not a metaphor. It is a place. And it is getting more dangerous by the year.

This is not a gadget story. It is a survival story.

I have covered Antifa riots where the mob knew my name before I reached the sidewalk. I have been screamed at, followed, and threatened by people who publicly denounce violence while privately practicing it. I have watched law enforcement stand down under progressive policies that place the comfort of agitators above the safety of citizens. And I have learned, the hard way, that when cities become unlivable, women pay first.

The left loves to talk about “lived experience.” Here is mine: Democrat governance has made America’s major cities objectively less safe, and being a female independent journalist in them now requires the mindset of a survivalist.

That became brutally clear during the Los Angeles wildfires of 2025.

I was there when the sky turned orange and evacuation orders contradicted one another. Cell towers failed. Emergency lines were overwhelmed. Friends and family lost homes — not hypothetically, not statistically, but completely. In that chaos, the only reason I was able to coordinate help, locate people, and call for assistance was a satellite phone. While 911 systems collapsed, that device worked. No signal dependency. No excuses.

That is not a gadget story. It is a survival story.

The same lesson repeats itself elsewhere. In Washington, D.C., shootings now occur in places that once felt immune — near offices, events, and corridors of power. I was at Butler. I have been steps away from moments that could have gone very differently. Anyone insisting that “these things don’t happen here” is either lying or sheltered by privilege.

When whistleblowers reach out to me, they do not do it over casual cell calls. They use secure satellite communications, because they understand something our leaders prefer not to acknowledge: privacy is safety. Satellite phones are resistant to interception, independent of fragile infrastructure, and immune to spam and shutdowns. When people have something dangerous to say, they choose tools that help keep them alive.

This is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition.

People have died hiking because there was no signal. Boaters have vanished because help could not be reached. Hurricanes do not care about ideology. Fires do not check voter registration. Yet one party consistently opposes disaster preparedness, energy independence, and resilient infrastructure — while demanding blind trust in systems that fail precisely when they are needed most.

Preparedness is not extremism. It is common sense.

Redundancy in communication is not political. Neither are solar-powered backups or hardened devices. Nor is concern about electromagnetic vulnerabilities when our lives run through centralized, fragile networks. Thinking ahead does not make you radical. It makes you female in a country that keeps telling women to be brave while stripping away the tools that make bravery survivable.

And yes, it matters who builds those tools.

If I am calling for help, I want American customer service — American voices, American-owned companies. Safety should not come with a foreign accent and a hold button. Trust is part of security.

This is why satellite phones, solar chargers, emergency kits, and hardened cases are no longer niche products. They are rational responses to an increasingly unstable political and physical environment. They are also meaningful gifts — because nothing says you care like giving someone a way to come home alive.

Photo by Jay L Clendenin/Getty Images

Which brings us to 2026.

Around President Trump, TPUSA events, or Republican members of Congress, the threat environment is asymmetric. The left has normalized political violence while denying it exists. Media figures excuse it. Politicians minimize it. Prosecutors decline to prosecute it. And women journalists who refuse to conform are expected to absorb the consequences quietly.

I won’t.

The question voters should ask heading into the midterms is not which party sounds kinder on cable news. It is which party acknowledges reality — and equips Americans, especially women, to survive it.

One side treats chaos as a political tool. The other treats safety as the foundation of freedom.

I know which one kept me connected when the fires closed in. I know which one refuses to pretend riots are “mostly peaceful.” And I know which one understands that strong borders, strong policing, resilient infrastructure, and personal preparedness are not luxuries in dangerous times.

The front line is expanding. It runs through our cities, our forests, our streets, and our inboxes. Women are already on it — whether policymakers realize it or not.

The only question left is whether America will choose leaders who take our safety seriously or continue sacrificing us to ideology.

Because the danger is real. And pretending otherwise is the most reckless policy of all.

America First energy policy is paying off at the pump

When it comes to gas prices, what a difference one administration can make. After peaking above $5 a gallon under President Biden, prices at the pump are now at their lowest levels in more than four years — and still falling. Today, the national average for regular gas sits at about $2.85, and a growing number of stations are dipping below $2. That’s a real Christmas gift for working families, one that makes a meaningful difference.

Falling gas prices bring immediate relief to households worried about affordability while also easing pressure across the broader economy. Compared with this time last year, Americans are saving a collective $400 million per week at the pump, according to GasBuddy.

Cheaper fuel deserves celebration, but there is more work to be done to lock in these gains and drive prices even lower.

Most people associate the One Big Beautiful Bill Act primarily with tax cuts. But it may prove to be one of the most consequential pro-energy laws passed in years. Lower gas prices do not happen by accident. They are the result of deliberate policy choices — specifically, President Trump’s reversal of the anti-energy agenda pursued by the Biden administration.

That agenda, driven by radical environmental activists, sought to force a rapid transition away from oil and gas regardless of cost. It relied on higher taxes, blocked infrastructure projects, restricted leasing, and constrained production. Taken together, those policies drove up prices and fueled inflation that hit working families hardest.

On day one, President Trump moved quickly to unwind many of those decisions, issuing nearly half a dozen energy-focused executive orders that restored certainty for producers. That early action was followed by his signature legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which combined broad-based tax relief with policies designed to restore American energy dominance.

The bill reduces production costs by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s misguided fee increase on oil and gas produced on federal lands. It cuts that fee by 25%, making domestic production more attractive and more affordable for drillers.

Just as important, the OBBBA restores predictability to federal leasing. The law mandates nearly 40 offshore oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of America, Alaska, and other regions. It also establishes quarterly onshore lease sales and biannual offshore sales, giving the private sector long-term certainty. Under President Biden, leasing all but ground to a halt, with fewer leases issued than at any point since the 1960s — crippling the pipeline of future energy projects.

The bill also repeals or tightens a range of Green New Deal-style tax credits that heavily subsidized renewables at the expense of oil and gas. Those credits masked the true costs of renewable projects and distorted electricity markets, contributing to grid instability and higher energy prices.

Justin Hamel/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The bottom line is simple: The OBBBA encourages more oil and gas production at lower cost. Over the next decade, that means a steadier supply of crude ready to be refined into affordable gasoline.

Still, Congress and the administration should not take their foot off the gas. Cheaper fuel deserves celebration, but there is more work to be done to lock in these gains and drive prices even lower.

At the top of the list is permitting reform. Energy projects routinely take longer to permit than to build. Environmental reviews intended to inform decisions have morphed into open-ended processes that stretch on for years. Even approved projects can be tied up indefinitely by duplicative reviews and serial lawsuits from activist groups. The result is uncertainty that discourages investment and delays infrastructure Americans depend on every day.

America First energy dominance is working, and families are saving real money because of it. The House has already passed several pro-energy permitting reforms, but meaningful engagement with the Senate will be required to deliver a comprehensive overhaul to the president’s desk. Without permitting reform, the full benefits of the OBBBA’s energy provisions will remain unrealized.

The lesson is clear: Energy dominance follows when government gets out of the way. If permitting reform advances next year, producers will gain the certainty and speed they need to deliver reliable, affordable energy to consumers. In 2026, Congress should finish the job.

DOGE didn’t die — it moved to the states

The media and conservative pundits may have buried the Department of Government Efficiency, but they have yet to carve a date of death on its tombstone. While DOGE in Washington may have appeared to insiders as a vanity project, voters saw it as a mandate — one that Republicans at the federal level have largely set aside in favor of politics as usual.

But activists have not forgotten. In red states across the country, they are still demanding accountability. And in Idaho, that pressure is finally producing results.

If Idaho can succeed and follow Florida’s lead, there is no serious reason other red states cannot do the same — unless they are prepared to admit they never intended to keep their promises.

For what appears to be the first time, state legislators serving on Idaho’s DOGE Task Force concluded their 2025 work with a meeting that departed from months of cautious, procedural discussion. Members asked harder questions, voiced long-simmering frustrations, and issued a recommendation that could reshape the state’s fiscal future: urging the full legislature to consider repealing Medicaid expansion, a costly policy that has drained taxpayers of millions.

Red states can’t stall forever

Idaho may not be Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ DOGE-style reforms have produced consistent wins for fiscal sanity and limited government. But it is doing more than other red states, such as North Dakota, where a DOGE committee stacked with Democrats predictably ignored the voters’ mandate.

The Idaho meeting exposed growing dissatisfaction with the task force’s approach. Over the summer and fall, the committee — charged with identifying inefficiencies — repeatedly deferred to state agencies for suggestions on cuts. Unsurprisingly those agencies offered little beyond cosmetic changes.

Idaho state Rep. Heather Scott (R-LD2, Blanchard) gave voice to that frustration. “What is the goal of this committee?” she asked, pressing colleagues to offer recommendations that actually matter. “Twenty thousand here, 50,000 there, or removing old code is not meaningful efficiency,” Scott said. Repealing Medicaid expansion, she argued, would be one of the “best decisions” the state could make.

Nibbling at the edges

Scott’s experience on the Idaho task force stands in stark contrast to the early federal DOGE efforts, which moved aggressively to slash U.S. Agency for International Development’s workforce, freeze fraudulent payments, and cancel billions in corrupt contracts. By comparison, Idaho’s task force had mostly nibbled at the edges. This recommendation marked its first serious step toward substantive reform.

Another revealing moment came from co-chairman state Sen. Todd Lakey (R-Nampa), who read a letter from a small-business owner offering health insurance to employees. Workers routinely request schedules capped at 20 to 28 hours per week to preserve Medicaid expansion benefits — even though full-time work would require only a modest contribution toward employer-provided coverage.

The result is a perverse incentive structure: businesses struggle to find full-time workers while taxpayers subsidize underemployment. The government fuels workforce shortages through welfare, then spends more taxpayer dollars trying to fix the shortages it created. This welfare-workforce vortex is the opposite of efficiency, and it is spreading nationwide.

The meeting’s most explosive moment came from state Rep. Josh Tanner (R-Eagle), who described Idaho’s Medicaid reimbursement structure as resembling “money laundering.”

Citing analysis from the Paragon Health Institute, Tanner explained how provider assessment fees allow states to inflate Medicaid spending to draw down larger federal matching funds, cycling the money back through enhanced payments. Paragon has described these arrangements as “legalized money laundering” — schemes that shift costs to federal taxpayers while enriching connected providers or funding unrelated priorities.

Nationally supplemental payments now exceed $110 billion annually, siphoning hundreds of billions from taxpayers over a decade.

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

DOGE’s second life

My sources tell me that hospital lobbyists went into panic mode after the meeting, urgently contacting Capitol officials to contain the fallout from Tanner’s remarks.

For the first time, the task force aired real frustrations, documented real harms, and named real abuses. That alone offers reason for cautious optimism.

Idaho now has committed conservatives in positions of influence. With the task force’s recommendation to revisit Medicaid expansion heading to the legislature, the state has an opportunity to govern as it campaigns — preserving liberty, restoring accountability, and expanding opportunity.

If Idaho can succeed and follow Florida’s lead, there is no serious reason other red states cannot do the same — unless they are prepared to admit they never intended to keep their promises in the first place.