In 1955, a British historian named C. Northcote Parkinson published a short, sardonic essay in The Economist about why government departments keep growing regardless of how much work they actually have. It was meant as satire.

The idea was this: work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Seventy years later, I’d say this observation has never been more relevant.

I can confirm it, personally. Not in some abstract, applies-to-everyone sense. I mean it in the specific sense that the day I give myself eight hours to do four hours of work is, reliably, the day that takes eight hours or more.

I am a freelance writer who works mostly from home and coffee shops. Nobody tells me when to stop. And remote work, for all its obvious advantages, has a hidden cost: the flexibility is the trap.

Perhaps, in an office, it’s easier. In an office, you have signals. Colleagues put on their coats. The building empties. The commute home functions as a hard boundary between work and the rest of the day.

When you work remotely, none of that exists. The day just continues. There is always one more thing to read, one more sentence to tighten, one more tab to open. Work finds the space you give it.

The counterintuitive thing is that remote workers often tell themselves the opposite. All that flexibility, the thinking goes, means I can be more efficient. I can fit work around my life rather than the other way around. And this is partly true — but only if you impose some structure on it. Without the structure, you don’t work less. You just work differently, and you work more, but not necessarily better.

I have about three hours a day of writing that is actually worth anything before quality slips. The remaining hours are not wasted — there is research, correspondence, editing — but they are not the core work. They are fill. And without a hard stop, fill expands.

Here’s how to give work less room: 

Set a hard stop — and set it before you start

Most advice about hard stops gets the timing wrong. People say: pick a time to stop. And they mean it as something you decide during the day — at three in the afternoon you resolve to wrap up by six. But by three in the afternoon, Parkinson’s Law is already running. You have committed the time. Work has expanded to fill it.

The hard stop has to be decided before you open the laptop. Not as a calendar event you might reschedule, but as a genuine boundary — the end of the working day is already fixed, and the only question is what gets done before it arrives.

The blocks don’t need to be elaborate. They need to be specific: this task, this window, this end point. When the block is over, you move on — whether the task feels finished or not. Most of the time, it is. And if it isn’t, you know exactly how much more it actually needs.

Parkinson’s Law is not a productivity hack. It is a description of something that happens on its own when you are not paying attention. Work fills the space you give it. It always has.

The only move as far as I can see is to make the space smaller.

Mal James

Mal James is a writer at Space Daily covering self-development, productivity, relationships, and the psychology of work. He is also an entrepreneur and former teacher, and brings both perspectives into his writing on the Mind & Meaning pillar. Mal’s pieces focus on the practical — how people change behavior, build better habits, and navigate the parts of life that don’t come with instructions.

For liars, truth is relative.

J.B. Shurk | May 29, 2026

We are living through an age that has abandoned the dedicated pursuit of truth.  Our politicians and news personalities talk about “the narrative.”  Our academies teach young minds to accept “expert opinion.”  Our philosophers argue that truth is “subjective.”  Social theorists argue that truth is an “illusion” that powerful people use to control others.  

Whenever I hear Democrat Senator Cory Booker all riled up on television, he’s talking about “her truth,” “his truth,” or even “their truth” — as if a hundred conflicting descriptions of the same event could all be truthful.  

During Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, Democrats called Dr. Christine Blasey Ford to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Ford claimed that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in 1982 when both were in high school.  Kavanaugh vehemently denied the allegation and argued that many parts of Ford’s story didn’t add up.  When Kavanaugh told the senators that the whole thing was a political spectacle being used as a weapon to derail his confirmation, Senator Booker shouted, “Are you calling her some kind of political operative?”  Kavanaugh calmly pointed out, “The witnesses who were there [the party at which Blasey Ford claimed the alleged assault occurred] say it didn’t happen.”  Kavanaugh then stated that, although Blasey Ford’s allegations were false and harmful, his “family has no ill will toward her.”   

This is how Booker responded to Justice Kavanaugh’s total denial of the allegation against him: “She came forward.  She sat here.  She told her truth.”  Her truth.  Not the truth.  The “truth” that was most likely to help Democrats “Bork” Kavanaugh’s nomination — just as then-Senator Joe Biden and fellow Democrats tried to do during Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings back in ’91 when they brought in a witness who claimed that Thomas had made “unwelcome sexual comments” when the two worked together, a charge Thomas similarly and furiously denied.  

What was revealing about Booker’s made-for-TV moment was his disregard for whether Kavanaugh had actually done anything untoward forty years earlier in his life.  He didn’t care.  The lack of any evidence that could credibly support Blasey Ford’s allegation didn’t matter.  Nor did it matter that Kavanaugh flatly denied the allegation.  For Booker, the only “fact” that mattered was that Blasey Ford was willing to testify to something that might sink Kavanaugh’s nomination.  “Her truth,” even if false, made it compelling.

Booker’s flippant disregard for the truth was reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s rationalization to a grand jury that he never lied about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky when he told his staff, “There’s nothing going on between us,” and Jim Lehrer of PBS, “There is no improper relationship.”  As everyone who recalls Lewinsky’s stained blue dress knows, Clinton’s statements were lies.  But when Clinton testified before members of a grand jury, this was his truth:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.  If the — if he — if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not — that is one thing.  If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.…Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said ‘no.’  And it would have been completely true.”  

At that moment, President Clinton proved to Americans that he had no interest in truth.  He did not care if he lied.  He cared only whether the American people might catch him in a lie.  Whether Clinton had “plausible deniability” mattered.  Whether he could confuse enough jurors over the meaning of “is” mattered.  But the truth?  Well, the truth is for rubes and suckers.  Clinton’s dissembling and Booker’s disregard for what actually happened in 1982 are symptoms of the same disease: our dishonest age’s abandonment of — and even hostility toward — what is true.

Politicians lie.  That’s hardly breaking news.  What is newsworthy, though, is that our society does not even pretend to pursue truth anymore.  

During COVID, we were forced to follow government mandates that made absolutely no sense.  Why was it safe for Walmart to remain open when small businesses were forced to close?  How could paper masks, arrows painted on the floor, plexiglass walls, or six feet of space save us from microorganisms that don’t care about such things?  Why should schools be closed when the virus posed the least threat to young people?  Why should healthy people who had already acquired natural immunity be forced to take an experimental injection?  The public was right to ask so many valid questions.  Yet our government-run health organizations responded with juvenile insouciance: We’re working at the speed of science!  That was the “scientific” equivalent of, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

We’re fifteen years into this gender-bender madness during which “experts” (including too many with M.D.s) claim that biological sex is not real and that what we perceive as male or female is nothing more than a self-imposed social construct.  People who have refused to play this delusional game have been fired from jobs.  People looking for jobs tell obvious lies.  

During Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn asked, “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”  The newest member of the Supreme Court replied, “No, I can’t.”  “You can’t?” Blackburn asked incredulously.  The jurist who holds one of the most powerful offices in the United States claimed, “Not in this context.  I’m not a biologist.”  This is where we are now.  A judge with two Harvard degrees can’t tell the American people whether she is actually a woman.  

A few days ago, reporter and columnist John Stossel noted that twenty years have passed since former Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was released in theaters.  Along with a short five-minute video that includes research scientists from the Heartland Institute debunking the pseudoscience behind “climate change” fearmongering, Stossel summed up Gore’s lies thusly: “NONE of his scary predictions have come true.  Mt. Kilimanjaro still has snow and Glacier National Park still has glaciers.”  Yet included in that short video is a litany of celebrity “experts” and Democrat politicians all parroting the same lie: We have only twelve years left to live.

The “global warming” liars spent the last twenty years scaring children all over the world by telling them that they would die before being old enough to drive.  Now some of those scared kids have children of their own, and the “climate change” con is still going.  Prominent Democrats such as Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Richard Blumenthal have even supported legislation that would prohibit funds to federal agencies that “challenge the scientific consensus on climate change.”  In other words, Democrat politicians wish to outlaw the Scientific Method.

Our society does not doggedly pursue truth.  It pursues ideological compliance. 

Truth does not require President Joe Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board to arbitrate reality for the public.  Science is never “settled,” as President Barack Obama claimed in his 2014 State of the Union Address.  People without PhDs are quite capable of defining a “woman” and deciding for themselves whether to wear paper masks.  To pretend otherwise is just another lie.

Here’s the real problem, though: When our politicians, scientists, educators, and philosophers spread the lie that there is no objective truth, they transform our existence into gooey meaninglessness.  Because if everything is “true,” then nothing is true.  And if nothing is true, then politicians will decide what is “true” for us.  

Pursuing truth does not mean that we ever obtain it.  It is the vigilant pursuit of truth, though, that gives us sufficient wisdom to recognize the lies and liars among us.  In an age when liars rule, question everything.

The number of American men in the workforce are at its lowest level in two decades — with about one in three American men having stopped working as of 2026, new labor statistics show.

Just 66% of men were employed or actively seeking a job as of April, a nearly 20-year low from 73% in 2006, according to data the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released earlier this month.

The current number — covering men aged 20 and over — is almost exactly as low as it was after the 2008 recession, when rates first plummeted by seven points in about a year.

Employment rates slowly eked up across the 2010s — before being gutted during the 2020 pandemic, when just 59% of men were employed.

Rates partially recovered within two years but then began a trickling decline that’s persisted into the current lows.

And trends are still pointing downward, with male employment dropping as of April by a full point year over year from 2025, the Labor Department showed.

Numerous labor trends are fueling the rates, including male-heavy industries like transportation, manufacturing and other labor-intensive fields shedding jobs in the last year, according to the Washington Post.

Increasing numbers of retirees and male students have also narrowed the working population.

But men who are no longer working because of a disability make up the majority who have left the labor force.

“If me and my mom weren’t living together, I would have a really hard time living a life,” said 51-year-old Andy Breedlove, who had to quit work as a gas station manager in 2018 because a bone condition kept him from staying on his feet for long periods of time.

The West Virginian now stays at home to care for his aging mother, and lives off about $1,000 a month from government assistance.

“I’d much rather be working,” he told the Washington Post. “I’d make a lot more money.”

Even some young folks have found themselves forced out over disability.

“I have a lot of trouble doing day-to-day stuff sometimes,” said Cordell Loll, a 25-year-old who’s never had a job because of chronic stomach problems and mental health struggles. Loll spends his time keeping his health in check and playing video games at home, while living off disability checks.

“The thought of working seems very impossible,” he said.

Rates of women leaving the workforce have followed roughly similar trends over the past two decades, though with much less severe ups and downs.

Employment among women dropped by just 2 points during the 2008 recession, as opposed to the 5-point drop men experienced.

There was also a fractional decline since female labor force numbers picked up after the 2020 pandemic, but they haven’t dropped below 56% point since 2022.

The raw numbers of women in the workforce have historically been lower than men.

Deregulation, tax cuts, and a fundamental trust in the power of private enterprise across the Atlantic stand in sharp contrast to the sluggish, apathetic-socialist policies of Germany and the European Union — and not in Europe’s favor.

Thomas Kolbe | May 29, 2026

While German industry is pulling up stakes and heading for greener pastures, the United States is experiencing a small investment miracle. Through its deregulation agenda, the American government is proving the thesis that prosperity is created exclusively in the private sector — not through state regulation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz appears disoriented, whiny-apathetic, and remarkably weak in leadership these days. Perhaps the chancellor senses that the project of his political generation is entering its final phase. Is he aware that the construction of eco-socialism has failed? That both his reckless debt policies and Germany’s rapid deindustrialization are consequences of this ideological insanity? The fact that Friedrich Merz still found the audacity — despite the catastrophic domestic political and economic situation at home — to publicly accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of lacking strategy in the Iran conflict speaks to an almost immeasurable degree of stubborn arrogance and self-delusion.

There he was again: the German know-it-all. The type of politician who once lectured Europe’s neighbors over debt problems while failing to compare his own actions with the present condition of his own country.

Merz would have done well to take a look at the American economy and the U.S. labor market before stepping onto such embarrassingly thin rhetorical ice.

In April, the private sector in the United States created 115,000 new jobs. During the opening months of the previous year, another roughly 180,000 jobs had already been added. The U.S. economy has now delivered four strong months in a row, signaling that America is rapidly gaining momentum and — unlike the European economy — is not being derailed by the Iran crisis. These are phenomenal numbers at a time when the world is fighting over scarce capital, know-how, and access to cheap energy resources.

The contrast with Germany could hardly be greater. During the first year of the Merz government, the German public sector was bloated with another 205,000 more-or-less useless jobs, while Donald Trump’s administration cut 300,000 positions from the overstretched state apparatus. During the same period, the American private sector created a net total of more than 750,000 jobs since Trump returned to office, while the German economy eliminated roughly 200,000 positions.

Deregulation, tax cuts, and a fundamental trust in the power of private enterprise across the Atlantic stand in sharp contrast to the sluggish, apathetic-socialist policies of Germany and the European Union — and not in Europe’s favor.

How strongly the American economy is currently developing can be seen in an interesting media phenomenon.

April 29, 2026 — a Wednesday — may one day prove to have been an important turning point. On that day, outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared before the press for the final time to announce the latest decision on U.S. interest rates. The fact that the Fed left rates unchanged within a range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent came as no surprise. What was striking, however, was the deafening silence inside financial newsrooms, which normally inflate Fed rate decisions into mega-events for the markets and American capitalism itself. This time, the waters remained perfectly calm.

Two developments lie behind the media’s sudden disenchantment with Fed meetings. First, there is the policy of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who used legislation such as the Genius Act and the Clarity Act to establish the framework for U.S. dollar-based stablecoins, thereby shifting a significant portion of money creation back into the hands of the private banking sector — where it once resided before the creation of the Federal Reserve. Second, the higher policy rates compared to the Eurozone appear to indicate that the U.S. economy is far more robust than European politicians and media figures would like to admit. So the attitude has become: best not to talk about it too much. Otherwise, people might start noticing that the Eurozone economy itself is incapable of surviving positive real interest rates.

Donald Trump’s second presidency has so far delivered 15 months of determined deregulation and a noticeable liberation of the energy sector from the strangling regulatory activism of climate fanatics. Until Trump’s election victory, Washington had been ideologically subordinate to Europe. Back in 2009, the Europeans succeeded in pushing Barack Obama into effectively adopting Europe’s climate policies wholesale in the United States. But the hope that America’s collapse would somehow conceal Europe’s own decline has now evaporated. Behind the strength of the U.S. labor market stand massive forces of private-sector investment.

This is where the ideological divide between the United States and the European Union truly lies. While the EU — driven in large part by German political pressure — has constructed a green redistribution machine that functions as a state within the state, siphoning resources out of productive sectors into the political economy and green transformation bureaucracy, Americans understand something Europeans have forgotten: prosperity is created exclusively through investment in deregulated free markets supported by a functioning price mechanism that reflects relative scarcity.

The effect of Trump’s deregulation wave can only be estimated in rough numbers. In the first quarter of 2026, gross private investment in the United States rose 8.7 percent year-over-year. Investment in equipment and industrial structures increased by 10.4 percent during the same period. These are extraordinary figures at a time when nations are competing aggressively for know-how and resources.

Now compare that to Germany: after years of eco-socialist degrowth policies, overregulation, and energy-policy suicide, Germany’s net investment ratio has slipped into negative territory. In plain English, the German economy is consuming itself. Whatever industrial substance remains is being eaten away and financially leveraged by the state wherever possible. While German industry is tearing down its tents, the United States is writing a genuine reindustrialization story. If the American economy succeeds in maintaining technological leadership over China and secures dominant positions through massive investments by U.S. tech giants in artificial intelligence, robotics, medical technology, aerospace, and mobility, the geopolitical balance of power will shift accordingly.

More than 400 major industrial projects are currently being developed across the United States. These include new nuclear power plants, gigantic data centers, traditional automobile manufacturing facilities, and even aluminum smelters. They are being financed through investments from the Arab states, Japan, and other parts of the world that President Trump brought home from his numerous foreign trips. But domestic demand and America’s internal investment engine are also running at full speed. Something is brewing in the United States — perhaps even a small economic revolution.

From a European perspective, this makes the situation all the more dramatic because the entire ideological failure of globalist politics becomes far more obvious in contrast to the United States.

If ideological hardliners, committed statists, and central planners remain in power in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, the old continent is likely to sink into a prolonged economic coma — tired, aging, and increasingly weak. Hope for the future, entrepreneurial innovation, and economic dynamism will only return once a younger generation of European free spirits awakens from this comatose winter.

I am convinced that one day a generation of Europeans will clear away the ideological mud of the past with a cold smile on their faces, astonished by the arrogance and ideological blindness of their predecessors. In the end, civilization and humanity’s desire to improve its living conditions will prevail.

American Thinker

An Alabama probate judge was reportedly suspended after a judicial ethics complaint accused her of making a racially charged comment regarding a white court clerk and other offenses.

Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard faces seven charges tied to allegations ranging from racial comments to mishandling involuntary commitment cases, the New York Post reported, citing a complaint from Alabama’s Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC). The complaint alleges that Blanchard’s conduct disrupted court operations, made conditions difficult for staff and posed a “threat to public safety,” 1819 News reported.

Blanchard allegedly made a racially charged comment about Chief Clerk Amanda Reid, a white woman, according to the complaint. A court staff member told Blanchard on her first day that she liked Reid, which prompted the judge to allegedly respond, “Oh, I forgot you all like kissing white ass.”

The complaint further alleges Blanchard tried to fabricate insubordination and performance concerns against Reid by kicking her out of her office and restricting her access to necessary documents and tools, according to WBRC. The judge allegedly moved Reid’s desk into a cubicle positioned directly before a bailiff as retaliation for her obeying a subpoena.

Blanchard allegedly showed up to court late regularly, the New York Post reported. She did not hear an involuntary commitment hearing for the first nine months of her term as judge, resulting in mentally ill patients remaining in hospitals, the JIC alleged.

Hospital staff allegedly said one patient remained hospitalized for two additional weeks because hearings were postponed or canceled, according to WBRC. The complaint also claimed Blanchard told staff she was late to an involuntary commitment docket because she “had three dogs to walk,” 1819 News reported.

An attorney cited in the complaint allegedly pleaded with the court not to reschedule a hearing because he feared his client “is going to die.”

As of January 2026, mental health officers alleged that roughly 120 patients remained in the community and were not able to be committed since Blanchard did not convene hearings in a timely manner as caseloads grew, Inquisitr reported. One probate matter was rescheduled four separate times, the complaint alleged.

Blanchard had not responded officially to the complaint as of May 22, according to WBRC. She was suspended from her post Thursday, according to 1819 News.

The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission declined to provide further comment to the Daily Caller regarding the matter. The Daily Caller also reached out to Judge Blanchard for comment.

Ann Rodgers, Daily Caller

In Leo XIV’s new society, ‘the poor, the sick, the migrants and the least among us — will become the cornerstone’ and not Jesus Christ.

On May 8, 2025, Leo XIV spoke these words from the loggia of St. Peter’s:

We want to be a synodal Church.

Now, on May 25, 2026, he has published a detailed manifesto for its construction.

Magnifica Humanitas is a blueprint for the construction of a new society, which Leo variously calls the “city,” “Jerusalem,” and a “civilization of love.” The words “building” and “rebuilding” are used 40 times in the text.

This “Jerusalem” is not the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ, or is the term used to refer to the heavenly Jerusalem to come. In fact, the term “Catholic Church” does not appear even once in Magnifica Humanitas. Leo XIV does use the term “synodal Church.” ^[1]

Leo XIV’s new “civilization of love” is founded on the rationalistic principles of liberalism that have been progressively imposed on Christendom over the past two centuries while being continually condemned by the Catholic Church.

Magnifica Humanitas is a massive document. Indeed, with more than 40,000 words, five chapters, and 245 paragraphs, it is better described as a short book – a book that is also a manifesto for the destruction of the Catholic Church.

In this initial article, I wish to give an overview of its most destructive elements; further detailed examination of individual sections will follow later.

Leo XIV sets out his agenda

The first two paragraphs of the text reveal Leo XIV’s agenda, with the opening sentence introducing two images that will repeat throughout the texT.

“Humanity,” Leo writes, “is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” ^[2]

The “Tower of Babel” is the present world, moving in directions that give Leo XIV grave cause for concern. The “city in which God and humanity dwell together” is the alternative way of living that Leo proposes to us.

This city, however, is quite different from the “city of God” as conceived in traditional Catholic thought, that is, as the Catholic Church and the Christian social order that is the fruit of her teaching and her sacraments.

On the contrary, Leo tells us that every generation “inherits the task of shaping its own era” and of “guiding history” to “become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible.” ^[3]

In this first paragraph, Leo establishes that his society has a natural rather than a supernatural end. In Leo’s vision, man, not God, is in the driving seat of history, and the world he is called to build is a “fraternity” centered on man. ^[4]

In the second paragraph, Leo XIV assures us that “the powerful and mysterious action of the Holy Spirit” allows us to “diligently contribute to every initiative that builds a more just world, and we can call others to collaborate in promoting the integral development of every human being.”

For Leo, the “integral development of every human being” is the goal, but there are few grounds for thinking he considers such development as reaching beyond the bounds of this life.

At no point in the document does Leo make reference to man’s true destination – eternal supernatural union with God in the beatific vision of heaven – which is the very meaning and purpose of his life. Or does the document in any way allude to the possibility of eternal separation from God in Hell. ^[5]

The word “spiritual” is occasionally found. It is never used with reference to the spiritual life as understood by the Catholic Church but always in a way which embraces a wide variety of meaning and could be used by people of all religions and none. Indeed, Leo states that there are many “great spiritual paths” to be found among the religions of the world. ^[6]

The preaching of the faith replaced by ‘dialogue’

The Church’s contribution to man’s integral development is to be found in “dialogue,” Leo writes, in the document second introductory paragraph:

We wish to engage in dialogue with all men and women of our time, with whom we share in the events, questions and aspirations of humanity. Together with them, we seek to identify new paths for the common good and for promoting a dignified life for all. Indeed, openness to dialogue is an integral part of the Church’s vocation because, constituted in Christ as “a sacrament… of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race,” she recognizes history as the place where the Gospel challenges and directs human experience.

This paragraph introduces two major themes that will run through the document.

First, Leo identifies “dialogue” as an “integral part of the Church’s vocation.” However, the Church was not established by Jesus Christ to dialogue with the world but to judge it. Our Lord entrusted His Church with the “Great Commission” to preach the gospel. He instructed His Apostles:

Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (Mk 16:15-16)

The Catholic Church teaches with authority truths that have been revealed by God. These are not matters for dialogue, but doctrines that must be obediently received by mankind, and that are necessary for our salvation.

The salvation of souls is the core mission of the Church. It is why she was founded. Yet this is the mission excluded from consideration in Magnifica Humanitas.

Secondly, the Church can only be considered “a sacrament … of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race” to the extent that men are united with Christ in His Mystical Body, which is none other than the Catholic Church.

Unity in the Catholic Church strictly requires three conditions: baptism, public profession of the faith proposed by the Magisterium, and obedience to the legitimate authority of the hierarchy.

Yet, as we will see, this need for unity is precisely what Leo XIV does not require in his “Jerusalem,” his “civilization of love,” or his “synodal Church.”

Fatal threads that run through the text

The first two paragraphs of Magnifica Humanitas introduce two key approaches that run throughout the text: (i) the substitution of a natural end for the “church,” (ii) the avoidance of the “church’s” claims to possess a body of true doctrine that must be taught with authority. These errors, found in seed in the introduction, bear abundant bad fruit as the document proceeds.

I speak of the “church” because the society described by Leo in Magnifica Humanitas cannot be the Catholic Church. Indeed, as noted above, Leo does not even use that term. Leo’s “church” is better described by the term that he used on the day of he was chosen to succeed Francis and that he repeats in this text, that is, “synodal Church.”

Leo’s secular liberal Jerusalem

In the next section of this article, I will give some idea of how these ideas develop as the document proceeds. The examples given in the next section are far from being comprehensive. In future articles, specific errors will be examined in more detail.

In the ninth paragraph of Magnifica Humanitas, Leo reintroduces the image first presented to us in the introduction, namely the choice between “constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is here identified with “fraternal coexistence” rather than the Church. ^[7]

The next paragraph further emphazises that this “rebuilding” refers to “the possibility of building together, of transforming diversity into a resource and of making listening and dialogue the common ground upon which to cultivate justice and fraternity.” ^[8]

The role of Christians in this process is, “through the practice of synodality,” to become “the space in which humanity rediscovers its solid foundations and its final end.” ^[9]

Leo XIV notes that “in the Book of Revelation, John sees the New Jerusalem “coming down out of heaven from God” (Rev 21:2) as a gift for all humanity.” ^[10] But for Leo, the “new Jerusalem” is not the Church Triumphant. On the contrary, in the next sentence, he explains that “this vision of grace is an invitation for us Christians to work together in order to foster a peaceful, just and dignified life in community within today’s ‘cities.’” ^[11]

Leo clearly replaces a vision of our eternal life with God with one of an improved life on this earth.

In the next paragraph, Leo makes clear that building this new Jerusalem “means accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected.” ^[12] Conversion, therefore, will not be required. Indeed, in paragraph 13, he makes clear that all “faith communities” have “their own section of the wall.” ^[13]

This new society does have “standards of discernment,” but they are of a purely natural, temporal kind: “the dignity of the human person, the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor, care for our common home and peace”. ^[14]

Leo’s “city” will “translate these standards into practices such as responsible planning, the assessment of human and social impact, the inclusion of the most vulnerable, the promotion of digital literacy and guiding research and industry toward justice and peace.”

This is a technocratic vision of secular human society and one in which Leo wants all mankind to merge. In paragraph 16, Leo addresses his appeal to join this new city to all mankind: “to all the Catholic faithful, to all Christians and to all men and women of goodwill.” ^[15]

The cornerstone of this new society will not be Jesus Christ but rather “the “rejected stones” — the poor, the sick, the migrants and the least among us — will become the cornerstone, and a solid, welcoming common home will emerge on the earth.” ^[16]

The Synodal Church replaces the Catholic Church

For the new society, there will be a new church. The age of the Catholic Church, established by God and exercising divine authority, is over. Leo’s church is one which carries out “her particular vocation of listening, dialogue and service, and of being responsive to everything concerning the lives of contemporary men and women.” ^[17]

This church “stands alongside the world without overpowering it” because its doctrine is not “a handbook of principles and norms to be applied, but a process of shared discernment.” ^[18] It is “committed to reflecting on the concrete reality of historical situations, rather than abstract concepts.” ^[19]

This church has the “mission” of “transforming the structures of society from within and forging paths toward a greater humanity.” ^[20]

Such a church cannot, of course, be the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ, hence Leo XIV gives it a new name: “a synodal Church, a Church that ‘walks together,’” ^[21]

He calls on us to transform ourselves into the new church through “the adoption of a synodal style.” ^[22] He urges Catholics to carry out an “examination of conscience” to “ensure that the principles outlined in this chapter are applied, especially within its own structures.” ^[23] These include “a synodal approach for mission.” ^[24]

What will the Synodal Church look like?

Paragraphs 118-126 are among the most dangerous of the whole text. It is here that the real nature of the “synodal Church” is made clear. In a future article, I will examine them in more detail, but a summary can be given here.

For Leo XIV, religion does not consist in shared faith and worship but rather in the cultivation of internal religious experiences. This is the religious approach of Modernism. I have already explored its relationship with synodality here, and with the teaching of Francis here.

Religion, for Leo XIV, comes from within, from our internal experiences, and finds its expression not just in worship but also in art. Leo finds “an almost prophetic significance” in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica and Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List. ^[25]

In paragraph 123, Leo praises humanity for being “capable of creating institutions that protect our shared life,” but the institutions named are not Catholic institutions but the Red Cross and the United Nations. ^[26]

The document mentions the word “sin” only three times. Two of these occasions are in reference to “structures of sin” rather than individual sin. ^[27] The third is a statement that sin does not remove human dignity. ^[28] There is no reference to sin with relation to the offense caused to God or to its eternal consequences. “Moral corruption” is mentioned in paragraph 121, but only as something that harms humans and society.

Leo XIV’s religion has in fact lost its “religious” character. It is nothing more than secular humanism. Everyone is welcome in his “civilization of love.” Among the individuals presented as examples for us are Nelson Mandela, Benazir Bhutto, and Martin Luther King Jr. ^[29]

These are secular saints for Leo XIV’s new secular religion.

Leo XIV tries to preempt his critics

Leo XIV was clearly aware that his introduction to the document, discussed in some detail above, would raise alarm bells in readers who still possessed some sense of the authentic Catholic faith.

Therefore, as early as the third paragraph of the document, he tried to preempt criticism by associating himself at the outset with the great pontiff Leo XIII. “Criticize me,” he seems to say, “and you criticize him.” Leo XIV writes:

When some objected that the Church should not waste energy on worldly matters, but instead focus on communicating the message of eternal life, Leo XIII responded with realism and wisdom, saying that the proclamation of the Gospel cannot overlook the concrete lives of people. ^[30]

However, consideration of the teaching of Leo XIII only reveals the stark contrast between the two men. While Leo XIV completely neglects the eternal welfare of mankind, Leo XIII places it at the center of his teaching. His great encyclical Rerum Novarum was indeed focused on social and economic problems, but the Holy Father was careful to place his social doctrine in its proper context.

Leo XIII taught:

The working man, too, has interests in which he should be protected by the State; and first of all, there are the interests of his soul. Life on earth, however good and desirable in itself, is not the final purpose for which man is created; it is only the way and the means to that attainment of truth and that love of goodness in which the full life of the soul consists. ^[31]

He continued:

What advantage can it be to a working man to obtain by means of a society material well-being, if he endangers his soul for lack of spiritual food? “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” This, as our Lord teaches, is the mark or character that distinguishes the Christian from the heathen. “After all, these things do the heathen seek … Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice: and all these things shall be added unto you.” ^[32]

He went on to place his entire teaching on the economic order in the light of these eternal principles:

Let our associations, then, look first and before all things to God; let religious instruction have therein the foremost place, each one being carefully taught what is his duty to God, what he has to believe, what to hope for, and how he is to work out his salvation; and let all be warned and strengthened with special care against wrong principles and false teaching. Let the working man be urged and led to the worship of God, to the earnest practice of religion, and, among other things, to the keeping holy of Sundays and holy days. Let him learn to reverence and love holy Church, the common Mother of us all; and hence to obey the precepts of the Church, and to frequent the sacraments, since they are the means ordained by God for obtaining forgiveness of sin and for leading a holy life. ^[33]

These are the salutary truths that the Church was founded to preach and that Leo XIV fails to transmit.

Conclusions

In his encyclical Humanum Genus, Pope Leo XIII, like Leo XIV, made use of St. Augustine of Hippo’s language of two cities. Commenting on a quotation from the saint, he wrote:

“Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, an earthly city; and the love of God, reaching to contempt of self, a heavenly one.” At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other, with a variety and multiplicity of weapons and of warfare, although not always with equal ardor and assault. ^[34]

The Vicar of Christ continued:

At this period, however, the partisans of evil seems to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons. No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God Himself. They are planning the destruction of holy Church publicly and openly, and this with the set purpose of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom, if it were possible, of the blessings obtained for us through Jesus Christ our Savior. ^[35]

Pope Leo XIII’s age is our own. We are still living out the battle between the City of God and the City of modern, liberal man.

Magnifica Humanitas of Leo XIV represents the next stage of Satan’s assault on the Catholic Church, aiming for its complete destruction and the ruin of what remains of Christian civilization. In its place, Leo XIV will continue to build the “synodal Church” to keep the true Catholic Church in eclipse.

This is not a conspiracy theory; it is a plan laid out in the pages of Magnifica Humanitas.

It is also a plan that is ultimately doomed to fail.

In Humanum Genus, after exposing out the diabolic scheme in which the enemies of the Church were engaged, Pope Leo XIII directed us to a remedy that will not fail:

So vehement an attack demands an equal defense — namely, that all good men should form the widest possible association of action and of prayer. We beseech them, therefore, with united hearts, to stand together and unmoved against the advancing force of the sects; and in mourning and supplication to stretch out their hands to God, praying that the Christian name may flourish and prosper, that the Church may enjoy its needed liberty, that those who have gone astray may return to a right mind, that error at length may give place to truth, and vice to virtue. ^[36]

And he entrusted our cause to “the Virgin Mary, Mother of God … who from the moment of her conception overcame Satan” to “blessed Michael the prince of the heavenly angels, who drove out the infernal foe,” to “Joseph, the spouse of the most holy Virgin and heavenly patron of the Catholic Church,” and to “the great Apostles, Peter and Paul, the fathers and victorious champions of the Christian faith.”^[37]

With heavenly intercessors like this on our side, we may be confident that the synodal Church will never prevail against the Catholic Church, no matter the earthly powers with which it may align.

For decades, politicians in Washington have paid lip service to “fiscal responsibility” as they practice fiscal irresponsibility on a scale unprecedented in American history.

Jim Cardoza | May 28, 2026

For decades, politicians in Washington have paid lip service to “fiscal responsibility” as they practice fiscal irresponsibility on a scale unprecedented in American history. The national debt of the United States has now climbed beyond $35 trillion, a number so large that it has ceased to register emotionally with most citizens. Yet numbers do not lose their consequences simply because they become difficult to imagine. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion dollars. Thirty-five trillion dollars represents obligations so enormous that future generations may spend much of their lives paying for promises made long before they were old enough to vote.

What is particularly remarkable is not merely the size of the debt, but the normalization of it. Politicians announce deficits in the hundreds of billions as casually as a family discusses grocery expenses. News reports treat another trillion added to the debt as routine political weather. Meanwhile, the same people who lecture ordinary Americans about budgeting, sustainability, and sacrifice routinely spend money the government does not possess.

No household can survive indefinitely by spending more than it earns. No business can remain solvent by perpetually borrowing to finance daily operations. Yet somehow, we are expected to believe that the federal government alone has discovered a magical exemption from economic reality. It has not.

The laws of economics do not disappear because politicians vote against them.

For years, America enjoyed advantages that concealed the danger. The U.S. dollar served as the world’s reserve currency. Foreign governments eagerly purchased Treasury bonds. Interest rates remained relatively low. These conditions allowed Washington to postpone consequences that would have arrived swiftly in less fortunate nations. But postponing consequences is not the same thing as eliminating them.

Already, interest payments on the national debt consume staggering amounts of federal revenue. The government is increasingly borrowing money merely to pay interest on money already borrowed. That is not financial management. It is the fiscal equivalent of using one credit card to pay another. Families attempting such a strategy are usually described as headed toward bankruptcy. Governments use softer language — ”stimulus,” “continuing resolutions,” or “necessary investments” — but arithmetic remains unmoved by rhetoric.

Massive debt crowds out productive investment. As government borrowing expands, capital that might otherwise finance businesses, innovation, factories, or job creation instead finances political promises. Economic growth slows. Wages stagnate. Productivity suffers.

Inflation becomes another danger. Governments deeply addicted to debt often discover that devaluing currency becomes politically easier than controlling spending. Inflation is particularly cruel because it operates as a hidden tax. It punishes savers, retirees, and working people whose wages fail to keep pace with rising prices. The wealthy often possess assets that rise with inflation. Ordinary citizens watch groceries, gasoline, insurance, and housing consume larger portions of shrinking paychecks.

There is also the matter of national security. A heavily indebted nation becomes vulnerable. Dependence on foreign creditors constrains policy choices. Economic weakness invites geopolitical weakness. History is filled with great powers undone not merely by military enemies but by internal fiscal decay.

Rome debased its currency. Britain declined under mounting financial strain after two world wars. Numerous modern nations — from Argentina to Greece — have learned that debt crises arrive gradually, then suddenly.

Yet perhaps the most destructive consequence is moral rather than economic.

When politicians spend money they do not have, they are effectively voting to obligate people not yet born. Future taxpayers inherit liabilities without consent. One generation enjoys benefits while another gets the bill. Such conduct would be considered irresponsible within a family. In government, it is often celebrated as compassion.

The central problem is incentives.

Members of Congress face incentives to spend, not to save. Government programs create constituencies. Spending purchases votes, headlines, influence, and campaign contributions. Fiscal restraint, by contrast, creates enemies. Every dollar cut has a visible loser. Every dollar borrowed postpones pain until after the next election cycle.

In other words, Congress behaves rationally according to the incentives it faces.

That reality suggests a solution far simpler than the thousands of pages of budget gimmicks and bipartisan commissions produced over the years.

Congress should not be paid if it spends more money than the federal government collected in revenue during the previous fiscal year.

The principle is straightforward. If Congress approves expenditures exceeding prior-year revenues, salaries for members of Congress are automatically suspended until a balanced budget is restored. No exceptions. No accounting tricks. No “emergency” loopholes broad enough to drive entire spending bills through. If lawmakers insist on spending beyond available revenue, they must do so without compensation.

Suddenly, incentives would change.

The people deciding whether to overspend would personally experience consequences from overspending. Remarkably, this is the same standard applied daily to ordinary Americans.

A contractor who fails to manage costs does not receive a bonus for exceeding the budget. A worker who continually overspends household income eventually confronts unpaid bills. Yet Washington operates under precisely the opposite logic. Politicians spend recklessly and continue collecting salaries, pensions, speaking fees, and media contracts.

Imagine if every congressional debate over spending included immediate personal stakes. Imagine if legislators knew that another trillion-dollar deficit meant their own paychecks disappeared. One suspects budget negotiations would become serious rather quickly.

Critics would object that congressional salaries are relatively small compared to the federal budget. That misses the point entirely.

The issue is not whether suspending congressional pay alone would erase the deficit. The issue is whether incentives influence behavior. They do. They always do.

James Madison once observed that to preserve liberty, government must be bound by chains of constitutional restraint because men are not angels. Yet modern government increasingly operates on the assumption that politicians, unlike ordinary citizens, can be trusted with limitless financial discretion.

Experience suggests otherwise.

Others would argue that emergencies require deficit spending. Certainly, there are moments — major wars, catastrophic attacks, national crises — where extraordinary expenditures become unavoidable. But Washington long ago ceased treating deficits as emergencies. Deficits have become the default operating condition of government under both political parties.

Temporary emergency measures became permanent habits.

Moreover, the proposal would produce something almost extinct in Washington: accountability. Politicians frequently campaign against debt while voting for spending once elected. Under this system, rhetoric would become expensive. Promises would carry consequences.

Most importantly, such a reform would restore a forgotten principle: government officials should bear responsibility for the results of their decisions.

Today, Congress socializes costs while privatizing benefits. Politicians gain electoral advantages from spending while taxpayers absorb the burden. That imbalance explains much of modern fiscal irresponsibility.

A Congress forbidden to pay itself while overspending would finally encounter the same reality faced by every American family: resources are finite.

The national debt is not merely an accounting issue. It is a warning sign of a political system increasingly detached from restraint, discipline, and consequences. Nations rarely collapse overnight. More often, they slowly normalize behavior that would once have seemed unthinkable — until arithmetic finally reasserts itself.

America cannot borrow indefinitely against the future while pretending prosperity requires no sacrifice. Eventually, reality presents the bill.

The question is whether we will restore fiscal discipline voluntarily or have it imposed upon us by economic crisis.

Jim Cardoza is the author of The Moral Superiority of Liberty and the founder of LibertyPen.com. Read more of his essays 

Published Thu, May 28 20268:00 AM EDTUpdated 2 Hours Ago

Phil LeBeau@Lebeaucarnews

Published Thu, May 28 20268:00 A

Published Thu, May 28 20268:00 AM EDTUpdated 2 Hours Ago

Phil LeBeau

• Experian Automotive’s analysis of more than 5 million open auto loans and leases in the first quarter shows nearly 19% of new vehicle loans include a monthly payment of at least $1,000.
• Almost 74% of the auto loans requiring owners to pay $1,000 or more every month are for non-luxury models.
• The top five models for the $1,000-plus payments were popular pickup trucks including the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and Ram 1500, according to Experian.

country where big trucks are a big deal, those pickups and SUVs represent a big percentage of auto loans that come with a sizable monthly payment, more than $1,000 a month, according to new data.

Experian Automotive’s analysis of more than 5 million open auto loans and leases in the first quarter shows nearly 19% of new vehicle loans include a monthly payment of at least $1,000. That’s up from roughly 17.4% year over year.null

“The assumption is that it’s all luxury, it’s high-line, and that is not the case,” said Melinda Zabritski, head of automotive financial insights for Experian Automotive.

Almost 74% of the auto loans requiring owners to pay $1,000 or more every month are for non-luxury models, with the top five models being popular pickup trucks including the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and Ram 1500, according to Experian.

Just five years ago, auto loans with monthly payments over $1,000 accounted for just 5.4% of the market. Then the global chip shortage hit in 2021 and 2022, and automakers around the world prioritized production of higher-end, more profitable models. Vehicle prices soared, and so did the amount borrowed for auto loans.

Zabritski said those higher prices have changed how car and truck buyers look at what it takes to finance the purchase of a new vehicle.

“We haven’t seen a reduction in that MSRP, and in those high loan amounts,” she told CNBC. “I think as time goes on, I think more consumers are getting used to the $1,000 payment.” 

The average amount borrowed is now at an all-time high of $43,952, and the average monthly payment has also climbed to an all-time high of $770, according to Experian Automotive. Both are a reflection of a new auto market that is relatively strong.  

As for auto loan delinquencies, the percentage of loans that have payments more 30 days late has edged up to 2% of all new vehicle loans, with the 60-day delinquency rate also increasing.  

Still, Zabritski noted that delinquency rates remain below 2018 levels. 

“The driving force in the 60-day delinquency really does fall within the subprime market. Lower credit scores are going to have a higher likelihood of default,” she said.

In a country where big trucks are a big deal, those pickups and SUVs represent a big percentage of auto loans that come with a sizable monthly payment, more than $1,000 a month, according to new data.

Experian Automotive’s analysis of more than 5 million open auto loans and leases in the first quarter shows nearly 19% of new vehicle loans include a monthly payment of at least $1,000. That’s up from roughly 17.4% year over year.

“The assumption is that it’s all luxury, it’s high-line, and that is not the case,” said Melinda Zabritski, head of automotive financial insights for Experian Automotive.

Almost 74% of the auto loans requiring owners to pay $1,000 or more every month are for non-luxury models, with the top five models being popular pickup trucks including the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and Ram 1500, according to Experian.

Just five years ago, auto loans with monthly payments over $1,000 accounted for just 5.4% of the market. Then the global chip shortage hit in 2021 and 2022, and automakers around the world prioritized production of higher-end, more profitable models. Vehicle prices soared, and so did the amount borrowed for auto loans.

Zabritski said those higher prices have changed how car and truck buyers look at what it takes to finance the purchase of a new vehicle.

“We haven’t seen a reduction in that MSRP, and in those high loan amounts,” she told CNBC. “I think as time goes on, I think more consumers are getting used to the $1,000 payment.” 

The average amount borrowed is now at an all-time high of $43,952, and the average monthly payment has also climbed to an all-time high of $770, according to Experian Automotive. Both are a reflection of a new auto market that is relatively strong.  

As for auto loan delinquencies, the percentage of loans that have payments more 30 days late has edged up to 2% of all new vehicle loans, with the 60-day delinquency rate also increasing.  

Still, Zabritski noted that delinquency rates remain below 2018 levels. 

“The driving force in the 60-day delinquency really does fall within the subprime market. Lower credit scores are going to have a higher likelihood of default,” she said.

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A group of former federal probationary employees surveyed more than 300 of their fired colleagues to assess their job searches, mental health and several other topics.

Sean Michael Newhouse | 

May 27, 2026 12:56 PM ET

The Trump administration fired thousands of probationary employees in February 2025. Jackyenjoyphotography / Getty Images

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They were told they’d move on. A year later, many fired federal employees say they haven’t been able to

A group of former federal probationary employees surveyed more than 300 of their fired colleagues to assess their job searches, mental health and several other topics.

Sean Michael Newhouse | 

May 27, 2026 12:56 PM ET

• Firings

As part of its effort to downsize the federal workforce in February 2025, the Trump administration conducted a mass firing of thousands of agency employees in their probationary periods, which generally last for the first year after a worker has been hired by or promoted within the government. Such staffers have weaker civil service job protections. 

In September 2025, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the removals were unlawful. He didn’t order agencies to reinstate affected employees, however, due to an earlier Supreme Court decision and because, as he put it, “The terminated probationary employees have moved on with their lives and found new jobs.”

So, a group of former probationary employees sought to find out if their colleagues had, in fact, “moved on.” Between February and March, they conducted a survey of more than 300 individuals impacted by the firings, representing 12 federal departments as well as 43 states and one territory.  

The results show that many fired probationers haven’t found new jobs, are experiencing poor mental health and remain concerned about their former agencies’ effectiveness with reduced workforces. 

Unemployment

The most frequent answer to a question in the survey asking how long it took to find a new job was “still unemployed.” Relatedly, around 80 participants reported that they have submitted more than 100 job applications. 

Jacob Saunders, a respondent who worked at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for five weeks before he was fired, said that he still hasn’t found a full-time job. In the meantime, he is a high school lacrosse coach, has taken on sporadic gig work and sells items on eBay. 

“It does annoy me when somebody thinks that it’s pretty simple. I’ve applied to 15 jobs in one week. I might apply for three jobs a day or two jobs a day,” he said. “I’ve applied to a lot of jobs.”

The president in January defended his cuts to the civil service by claiming that employees who were pushed out are now in the private sector making double or triple their government salaries. 

In contrast, the probationary survey found that, among respondents who found new roles, 49% reported that their salary is “significantly lower” than what they made in the federal government with another 19% saying their salary is “lower.” 

The survey data was published by 27 UNIHTED, an organization of former National Institutes of Health employees established in response to the second Trump administration. 

Mental health 

In the survey, 95% of participants responded that they experienced “new mental health symptoms that had negative impacts on personal wellbeing” after being terminated.

Liz Crandall, one of the respondents and a fired field ranger from the U.S. Forest Service, wasn’t surprised by that result. 

“I’m seeing it still from friends that were probationary employees that were fired. They’re still not doing well. I would almost argue they’re doing worse because it’s grief mixed with embarrassment and shame that they’re still not able to get through it,” she said. “A lot of people have had to go on new medications and take out loans. And our health insurance is obviously taken away since we were fired.” 

null

Crandall had been in her position for more than one year but had not yet received full civil service job protections because she was hired under Schedule A, a mechanism for agencies to bring on workers with disabilities that has a two-year probationary period. 

Many civil servants hired under Schedule A who had been in their jobs between one to two years have argued that they wouldn’t have been impacted by the probationary firings if they were recruited through another pathway. 

Nearly 85% of survey respondents said that their agencies were not transparent about their firings. Crandall, for example, thought she might have been spared from the removals because initially only probationary employees with less than one year in her division were terminated. But she was let go the next day. 

“Nothing made sense, no one had answers, HR had no idea what was happening. No one had any idea,” she said. “It was so bizarre and unprecedented and chaotic and even my conservative [coworkers] were crying.”

Likewise, Saunders said that his supervisor didn’t know he had been fired. He was the one who informed him. 

Effect on agency operations 

The two most common responses to a question in the survey asking about negative impacts to the public due to the probationary firings were: “larger (sometimes unmanageable) workload for remaining employees” and “loss of institutional knowledge.” 

Crandall is worried, in particular, about her former agency’s continued ability to combat wildfires. Like many other USFS employees who were fired or otherwise pushed out by the Trump administration, she held a “red card” — meaning she was certified for firefighting duties and could be deployed as needed. 

Government Executive previously reported that at least 1,400 USFS employees with “red cards” left the agency, but officials asked some of them to volunteer to return for the 2025 fire season.

Beyond personnel numbers, Crandall said that she possessed localized knowledge like locations of non-designated campsites and unofficial roads. 

“Instead of people having to risk their safety to go in and navigate this insane spider web of roads, they would look to people like me and say ‘Where are the sites so that we can just go in and evacuate those directly? So we don’t have to wander while a fire is creeping up on us,’” she said. “That was really important. That’s the mixture of institutional knowledge, on-the-ground knowledge, local/regional knowledge as well as personnel.”

Both Saunders and Crandall said that they were offered their positions back following court orders but declined due to fears that they would still lose their jobs through layoffs under reduction in force procedures, which is another method the Trump administration has used to reduce agency headcounts. 

“You can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube,” Saunders said. “Once I had already gotten fired, what’s stopping it from happening again?”

Crandall now works for a conservation nonprofit. 

The Office of Personnel Management, which Judge Alsup determined illegally required the probationary firings, did not respond to a request for comment by press time. 

Additional findings

The former probationers who conducted the survey noted that respondents’ participation was based on self-selection rather than a random sample. 

A quarter of respondents reported that they were reinstated to their federal jobs. Another 15% said they got their positions back but were then terminated later. 

While probationary periods are associated with workers who are new to government, around 45% of survey respondents said they previously worked for a federal agency as a contractor.

The Trump administration recently launched several efforts to recruit early-career workers to serve in a federal agency.

If you have a tip that can contribute to our reporting, Sean Michael Newhouse can be reached securely at seanthenewsboy.45 on Signal.

Israel Gershoni’s Colonial Propaganda Masquerading as “Evidence.”

More on the push by Achcar (who, outrageously, compared genocidal Palestinian Oct 7 onslaught to the 1943 Warsaw Uprising) and Gershoni attempts to downplay widespread Nazi sympathies in Arab Palestine.

Gershoni’s use of Arabic newspapers from the Second World War period as reliable evidence is methodologically worthless. These newspapers, during the WWII, did not operate under conditions of press freedom, but under a strict British wartime censorship regime that monitored, edited, suppressed, and directed political reporting in Mandatory Palestine. As British records show, and as laid out by Mustafa Kabha and David Sharfman, the wartime press functioned under extensive colonial supervision, where publication was conditioned by political control and security considerations rather than independent journalism.

Sharfman demonstrates that wartime censorship formed an integral part of British propaganda and internal security policy, while Kabha’s work likewise highlights the pressures, restrictions, and interventions imposed upon the Arabic press during the Mandate period. Under such conditions, newspapers cannot seriously be treated as transparent reflections of public opinion or political reality. To rely on them uncritically, while ignoring the coercive framework under which they were produced, strips the argument of historical credibility altogether.

______

Sharfman, D. (2023). Jerusalem in the Second World War: Part 2. Living in wartime. 3. Civil defence, rationing, and press censorship. Taylor & Francis. https://books.google.com/books?id=B7_mEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT29

Censorship and the Jewish and Arab press – political issues.

The government’s censorship policy was severely criticised by Trevor in a book published by the end of the Mandate. She claimed that: ‘While the censorship thus accumulated the worst features of all the different systems known in other belligerent countries, it worked on certain principles peculiar to Palestine … For example, the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini was taboo. In June 1939, the papers had been informed that as he was officially excluded from Palestine ‘on account of his nefarious activities’, any publication concerning him or his movements was likely to endanger the public peace and might lead to suspension of the paper. The authorities also suppressed any criticism of the administration: ‘down to the slackness of post office clerks and the accents of radio announcers’. Another forbidden topic was Zionism, and any expression of sympathy for it in the outside world was to be kept from the knowledge of Arabs and Jews in Palestine: ‘However theoretically or moderately phrased the plea, however high the standing of the pleader – be it Dr. Weizmann or Mr. Churchill himself – the axe fell’.

The censors banned articles or excerpts from them in almost every field….

Kabahā, M., Caspi, D. (2011). The Palestinian Arab In/outsiders: Media and Conflict in Israel. United Kingdom: Vallentine Mitchell, pp. 58-59.

The Palestinian Press During the Second World War.

When the Palestinian revolt subsided and ended in the early months of the Second World War, which broke out in early September 1939, all activities of the Palestinian National Movement and its various Palestine branches were suspended. One reason was the absence of the senior leadership, whose members were either under arrest or in forced exile (by the British) or had joined Mufti Haj Amin in his wanderings among Baghdad , Rome and Berlin. Another reason was the developing economic reliance of the Palestinian bourgeoisie on the British market: the financial circumstances of significant parts of the bourgeoisie depended on their engagement in supplying the needs of the British army and its war efforts in the East, leading to compromising and conciliatory views towards Britain and its allies. Those who refused to compromise felt the wrath of the British censor: the authorities often used newsprint quotas and restrictions of other technical services in order to punish newspapers voicing criticism and to reward more compromising news-papers (interview with Fawzi al-Shanti, Jerusalem, 5 June 1995). During the Second World War eighteen new newspapers appeared, of them three dailies, six weeklies, six monthlies and three that appeared erratically (Mawsou’a 1994, Volume 4 , pp.448-9). Two of the most prominent, al-Muntada, ‘Discussion Forum’, and Huna al-Quds, ‘Here is Jerusalem’, were published by British authorities, with the aim of influencing Palestinian public opinion in favour of Britain and its allies. These two newspapers were virtually the only available sources of information on the fighting on the different fronts, even for other newspapers, although the news they presented was probably censored and edited at the discretion of the authorities. Two other newspapers, al-Ittihad and al-Ghad, ‘The Tomorrow’, were leftist-oriented and expressed the increasing influence of popular elements and labour unions which began to assemble at the time, challenging the senior political leadership, many of whose members were absent.