An abiding mystery of this lunatic Fourth Turning is how it came to be that the supposed intellectual elite of America was the class that so shamelessly lost its collective mind, got behind ideas that ranged from absurd to disgraceful — “Defund the Police,” “boys in the girl’s locker room,” “voter ID is unfair,” “dismantle capitalism,” “no one is illegal,” “mostly peaceful riots,” “Covid vaccine mandates” “CIA-run censorship,” — and finally decided to march under the banner of communism, history’s most floridly ruinous political program.

The answer is that intellectuals are in the employ of the racketeering operation that is Washington’s permanent bureaucracy married to the Democratic Party’s laundering of taxpayer dollars into all the parasitical enterprises that this combine feeds. And the more the money-flows get cut, the more the intellectuals fear losing their fat salaries and their status. In desperation, they are now trying to just burn the USA house down.

At least you don’t hear “Slava Ukraini,” anymore, since it’s so far beyond obvious that the EU has been using that sad-sack place as a launching pad for World War III, and evidently even “progressives” have decided that’s not such a hot idea. (The EU’s elites might even be crazier than America’s.)

History, I remind you, is a trickster. It’s also a cardinal irony of the times that this Fourth Turning’s “Gray Champion” role fell to one Donald Trump. He is at once cartoonish in speech, appearance, and predilections while being stunningly effective, indefatigable, and intrepid in his job as president. His mere presence on the scene drives his opponents to fugues of rancor. Their failure to eliminate him by either bullets or the most fantastically fallacious lawfare has led their favored political party to a frank break with reality, possibly close to suicide.

There was a silver lining to the ludicrous election shenanigans of 2020 that stuffed “Joe Biden” in the White House and marooned Mr. Trump out in the political wilderness. After being naively buffaloed by his Deep State enemies in Term No. 1, he got a great opportunity to stand back and see exactly how they operated with their hands on the levers of power, and then to map out the money-driven matrix of nefarious orgs that nourished these enemies. And even while getting dragged through the courts in one bogus case after another, and dodging bullets, Mr. Trump was able to lay coherent big plans to defeat these enemies.

Reality becomes ever harder to discern for a creature (the human being) who depends on a consensus about what’s real as driven by language, the engine of agreement. When you wreck language, you make agreement impossible, and reality turns to a gray ooze. The Lefty-leftists changed-up language like crazy until every word, every idea attached to every word, became the opposite of what everyone thought it was. The strategy backfired badly, because it was the Lefties who thereby destroyed their own reality, making themselves crazy as well as ridiculous. Imagine a Supreme Court nominee, a female, as it happens, who claims under oath that she can’t define what a woman is.

The Lefties who fell for this were trained up exquisitely by their own Leftie mentors in the universities, who were all in on Saul Alinsky’s depraved Bible of political dirty-fighting, Rules for Radicals, the number-one rule being: accuse your opponents of doing whatever you are doing. It helped their cause a lot that women were overtaking men demographically in higher ed and in the management jobs they segued into after college. Women, being smaller and not as physically strong as men, are more inclined to dirty fighting. That has been the sad recent history of the Democratic Party, and now it’s floundering in a netherworld of mental illness.

It was in the nature of conservatives to resist all the attempts at the language changes foisted on the country. They generally did not believe that men could become women by wishing it, or that the “diversity” provided by 20-million illegal immigrants was “our strength,” or that mothers had to be called “birthing people.” Their consensus about reality was not fractured.

The once-powerful elite can’t stand not having power. They still have plenty of money, but they probably want to keep what’s left of it, and now that all the laundering of taxpayer money through NGOs is ending, it will be ever harder to finance their power-grabbing with other people’s money. The midterms are more of a challenge for them than their official information channels let on, and the Woke slop on the Internet isn’t helping much either.

Apart from some traumatic “October surprise,” I now think it’s unlikely that the president will invoke a national security executive order to require anything like uniform voter ID across the country. Instead, it looks like several executive agencies will monitor activities at and around the polling places. Sec’y MarkWayne Mullin of the Department of Homeland Security stated that ICE agents could be present at polls. Lawsuits have been filed seeking to block that. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon declared that the DOJ intends to send 1000 lawyers and trained legal staff to select districts. The DOJ has also warned state and county election officials that fooling around with ballots will trigger a hard finding out this time.

If there’s trouble this year, it’s more likely to happen after the election, when Democrats refuse to accept the results. Lawfare ninjas Marc Elias and Norm Eisen will swing into overdrive attempting to paralyze the nation in post-election lawsuits. As for riots, the NGOs know that the FBI is watching their remaining money flows to outfits such as Antifa, or whatever remains of Black Lives Matter, or MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán), or groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. Billionaires like Neville Roy Singham are reportedly getting the heebie-jeebies. Soros will fork over around $30-million in cash to candidates, but I doubt he’ll sponsor any street-fighting. He and his successor son, Alex, are already skating on thin ice.

Anyway, the intellectual elite have thoroughly disgraced themselves. The still-unfolding Covid-19 aftermath sets off a slow-motion train-wreck of disgraced experts, one after another. The spectacle of Dr. Fauci taking the 5th last month is not the end of that business. Almost certainly there will not be any indictments of the many Deep State traitors before November 3 — the president does not aim to be accused of election interference. But after the midterms, the deluge.

James Howard Kunstler

School strikes are taking place across Germany to protest against the possible reintroduction of compulsory military service.

One of the organisers of the strike, Bela Breitner, from School Strike Against Compulsory Military Service said the federal government was “serious about gradually reintroducing compulsory military service”.

At one protest in Hamburg, demonstrators waved flags and held up banners emblazoned with the words “We won’t take part in your wars”.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made boosting Germany’s military a priority following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A new law introducing voluntary military service came into force in January, with the aim of recruiting volunteers to increase the number of soldiers.

However, if the security situation worsens or if too few volunteers come forward, a form of compulsory military service could be considered by Germany’s Parliament, the Bundestag.

Under the law, all 18-year-olds in Germany are being sent a questionnaire asking if they are interested and willing to join the armed forces.

One protester, 16-year-old Elias Bernhard, from Hamburg, said that the responses to the questionnaires “show that young people do not want to join the Bundeswehr [Germany’s armed forces]”.

“That is why I am out on the streets today. That is why we are serious about striking until compulsory military service is off the table. We will carry on.”

The questionnaire is mandatory for men and voluntary for women. All 18-year-old men will have to take a medical exam to assess their fitness for possible military service.

The organisers of the protests, say the trigger came after some 18-year-olds in the northern German towns of Kiel and Flensburg, were sent official invitations for medical exams, even though they expressed no interest in joining the army on their registration forms.

one protest in Hamburg, demonstrators waved flags and held up banners emblazoned with the words “We won’t take part in your wars”.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made boosting Germany’s military a priority following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A new law introducing voluntary military service came into force in January, with the aim of recruiting volunteers to increase the number of soldiers.

However, if the security situation worsens or if too few volunteers come forward, a form of compulsory military service could be considered by Germany’s Parliament, the Bundestag.

Under the law, all 18-year-olds in Germany are being sent a questionnaire asking if they are interested and willing to join the armed forces.

One protester, 16-year-old Elias Bernhard, from Hamburg, said that the responses to the questionnaires “show that young people do not want to join the Bundeswehr [Germany’s armed forces]”.

That is why I am out on the streets today. That is why we are serious about striking until compulsory military service is off the table. We will carry on.”

The questionnaire is mandatory for men and voluntary for women. All 18-year-old men will have to take a medical exam to assess their fitness for possible military service.

The organisers of the protests, say the trigger came after some 18-year-olds in the northern German towns of Kiel and Flensburg, were sent official invitations for medical exams, even though they expressed no interest in joining the army on their registration forms.

The group says over a hundred demonstrations are planned across Germany, including in Kiel, Hamburg, Berlin and Frankfurt.

A spokesperson for the Defence Ministry told the BBC that under the law, the obligation to undergo a medical examination applies “to all men liable for military service who were born after 31 December 2007”.

This also applies to people who have stated that they have no interest in compulsory military service. The spokesperson said that since July around 1,000 18-year-old men, who showed no interest in the army, have had the medical exam.

During the Cold War, Germany, like many other European countries, had a large army. But it reduced its armed forces during the 1990s after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Germany’s former Chancellor, Angela Merkel, ended compulsory military service in 2011.

Bethany Bell, BBC

Former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands and former National Security Council chief of staff Alex Gray on Saturday hailed President Donald Trump’s new Greenland security agreement, arguing on Newsmax’s ”America Right Now” that it represents a major expansion of America’s strategic position in the Arctic.

The agreement, signed Tuesday by the United States, Denmark, and Greenland, allows Washington to expand its military presence beyond Pituffik Space Base and establish additional defense areas, and gives U.S. aircraft broad rights to fly over and land in Greenland.

It also bars non-NATO countries from establishing military installations without the parties’ agreement and provides for screening potentially sensitive foreign investments.

President Trump’s art of the deal changed,” Sands said when asked how Trump overcame earlier Danish and European resistance.

”When he said, ‘We think we’re going to buy Greenland. We need to control Greenland,’ you know, that was his opening salvo. And now the United States basically has control of the defense of Greenland and the territory.”

Sands called the agreement ”a win for the American people,” while saying Denmark and Greenland also benefited.

”Denmark gets to win, too. They get to keep Greenland within the Kingdom of Denmark,” Sands said. ”And Greenland gets to win because they maintain their independence as a nation.”

Greenland remains a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, and the agreement explicitly recognizes its right to self-determination.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said this week that the accord ”acknowledges and respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark.”

Gray said Greenland’s strategic significance has been recognized by American presidents for more than a century because of its geography and proximity to potential threats to North America.

This is a critical key asset for U.S. national security because of its geography, because of where it sits on the map,” Gray said. ”And the president has figured that out, just like so many of his predecessors.”

Gray particularly highlighted Greenland’s direct participation in the new agreement, contrasting it with the original 1951 U.S.-Denmark defense agreement.

”This new deal that President Trump has done included the Greenlanders,” Gray said.

”So when ultimately the Greenlanders get independence, and I think we should take them at their word, I think that’s what they want to do, this will now be the governing document that an independent Greenland will follow.”

The agreement provides that if Greenland becomes independent, it would remain in NATO and assume the rights and obligations established by the new accord.

Gray also predicted Greenland would play a central role in Trump’s planned Golden Dome missile-defense system.

”100% it will,” Gray said when asked whether Golden Dome components would be stationed there.

”There is almost no better location in the Northern Hemisphere to put the Golden Dome missile defense sites than Greenland in order to protect our homeland.”

The agreement itself specifically identifies establishment of a Golden Dome defense system as part of the shared U.S., Danish, and Greenlandic security interest.

Sands, meanwhile, said an expanded American presence could produce significant economic benefits for Greenland through military construction and other U.S. investment.

”We’re going to invest in other ways,” Sands said, arguing Greenland could eventually capitalize on its natural resources.

”Greenland could become, if they choose to, probably the world’s richest people and the world’s richest island.”

Asked to rate the national-security significance of the agreement on a scale of one to 10, Gray answered, ”12.”

Sands went considerably higher.

”1,000,” she said. ”It’s the new Louisiana Purchase. Because we get a continent, an island that’s one-third the size of the continental U.S. This is giant for our defense.”

Jim Morley, Newsmax

Why Iran’s Path to Freedom Is Closer Than the West Thinks For decades, the ruling apparatus in Tehran has relied on two foundational lies to maintain its grip on power: first, that the Iranian opposition is fragmented and planless; second, that no viable structure exists inside the country to manage a transition. Today, as the Islamic Republic enters its most precarious era of institutional decay, both myths are crumbling.

The national uprising sweeping Iran is not a series of isolated, emotional outbursts. It is the culmination of a decade-long trajectory of political evolution – from the peaceful gatherings at Cyrus the Great’s tomb in 2016 to the uprisings of 2017, 2019, 2022, and the nationwide defiance of Dey 1404. With each wave of state repression, the Iranian people have gained tactical maturity. Behind this public resilience lies a decentralized, highly resilient communication and organizational network operating within the deepest, safest layers of Iranian society. While the regime’s propaganda machine puts on theatrical displays of control, its intelligence agencies are acutely aware that they are fighting an invisible, organic infrastructure. This network does not rely on a single vulnerable headquarters; it is embedded in neighborhood groups, labor unions, and student bodies across every province. It is precisely because the regime cannot locate a single choke point that it cannot suppress this decentralized front.

As opposition leader Reza Pahlavi recently emphasized in Toronto, this movement operates within a comprehensive macro-strategy focused on five key goals: maximum pressure on the regime, maximum support for the population, maximum organization of internal resistance forces, maximum attrition of the state apparatus, and a detailed plan for post-collapse governance.

A persistent misreading in foreign policy circles is that opposition unity requires total ideological conformity. It does not. Genuine democracy thrives on political diversity. The coalition coalescing around Pahlavi’s vision encompasses republicans and monarchists, left-wing and right-wing thinkers, united not by a single dogma, but by four fundamental pillars: the preservation of Iran’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty; the strict separation of religion and state; equal rights and civil liberties for every citizen under the rule of law; and the absolute right of the Iranian nation to choose its future form of government through free, fair, and internationally monitored elections.

Anyone who accepts these four tenets belongs in this national coalition. The opposition’s goal is not to dictate the future, but to secure the democratic framework that allows the Iranian people to cast their vote in a free Tehran.

Skeptics often ask how an unarmed population can overcome an apparatus that commands vast security forces. The answer lies in understanding the mechanics of totalitarian collapse. A state that must import foreign mercenaries to suppress its own citizens is not strong; it is desperately fragile. The Islamic Republic has reached a state of deep internal mistrust. Within the military and civil institutions, a process of passive attrition is already underway. Personnel remain inside the bureaucracy on the surface, but they no longer serve the leadership’s directives as they once did; they are quietly allowing the pillars of repression to erode from within.Pahlavi’s transition strategy intentionally seeks to accelerate this internal fissure. By offering clear guarantees of transitional justice, administrative continuity, and national reconciliation, the opposition is providing civil servants and regular military personnel a viable off-ramp.

As popular pressure reaches a critical threshold, passive attrition will inevitably shift into active attrition – the decisive moment in any revolution when security forces openly lay down their weapons, refuse orders to shoot, and align with the public. Comprehensive transitional blueprints are already crafted to safeguard critical infrastructure, maintain public safety, and stabilize the economy from day one of the regime’s fall. In this strategic equation, the Iranian diaspora is no longer just an observer group; it has become an indispensable force multiplier for the movement inside Iran. When hundreds of thousands of Iranians brave freezing temperatures in Toronto, Munich, Los Angeles, and Stockholm, they send an unmistakable message to Western capitals: the Iranian people are a single, unified nation regardless of geographical borders.

Countries like Canada set a crucial precedent when they severed diplomatic ties with Tehran and listed its terror apparatus. The global community must recognize that continued engagement with a dying, illegitimate regime is both a moral failure and a bad geopolitical gamble. The Iranian people have made their verdict clear: the primary threat to Iran’s prosperity and regional stability is the Islamic Republic itself. Iranians have repeatedly rejected state patronage and economic intimidation, choosing dignity over compliance. The global community now faces a strategic choice. Nations that value stability, human rights, and international law cannot afford to treat the regime in Tehran as a permanent feature of the Middle Eastern landscape. The basis of future global engagement with a free Iran will be rooted firmly in mutual respect and Iran’s national interests.

The morning of freedom in Iran will not arrive by chance; it will arrive through coordinated strategy, underground organization, and unyielding national resolve. The international community must look past Tehran’s hollow propaganda, recognize the reality on the Iranian street, and stand with a nation prepared to reclaim its future.

Amil Imani, Geller Report

A state can legally permit parents to educate their child outside an accredited school system, only for that child to reach adulthood and discover that an employer requires credentials from the very system his parents legally chose not to use.

If that becomes widespread, homeschool freedom could exist on paper while carrying a penalty in practice.

This isn’t an argument that every homeschool diploma must automatically qualify someone for every job. Employers obviously have the right to establish legitimate qualifications.

But demonstrated ability ought to matter.

If an applicant can pass examinations, meet physical standards, obtain professional certifications and demonstrate the knowledge required for a position, should the location where he learned algebra at age 15 determine whether he gets an interview at 22?

That question won’t disappear with Andrew Coates.

It’s going to become more common.

The Homeschool Boom Didn’t End With COVID

When schools shut down during the pandemic, homeschooling exploded. Many assumed families would eventually return to the old system and homeschooling numbers would settle back to their previous levels.

That hasn’t happened.

New data from the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Research Lab show that of the 22 states reporting 2025-26 numbers so far, 17 — 77 percent — experienced another increase in homeschooling.

Montana jumped 27.7 percent. North Dakota increased 18.8 percent. Arkansas rose 14 percent. Nebraska increased 9.8 percent, California 8.5 percent and Vermont 8.4 percent.

Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin have now reached their highest recorded homeschool enrollment.

Homeschooling hasn’t disappeared with the pandemic. It has become an established part of the American educational landscape.

And what people call “homeschooling” increasingly doesn’t resemble the stereotype.

A nationally representative Johns Hopkins/RAND survey found 88 percent of homeschooling parents use additional educational resources. Forty-four percent use online resources, 29 percent participate in co-ops, 27 percent use online classes and 24 percent use online schools.

Today’s homeschool can be part kitchen table, part online academy, part co-op, part tutor and part community classroom.

Something bigger than homeschooling is happening.

Parents are discovering that education doesn’t necessarily have to come from one building, one curriculum or one institution.

Why This Matters Even If Your Kids Attend Public School

It would be easy for parents with children in public or private schools to look at these battles and conclude they don’t concern them.

They do.

Behind the homeschooling debate is a much larger question: Who bears primary responsibility for a child’s education?

Government unquestionably has legitimate interests in protecting children and ensuring they receive an education. The disagreement begins when “ensuring an education” becomes defining exactly what that education must look like.

Consider how differently states already answer that question.

Rhode Island requires homeschool instruction to cover subjects including reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, U.S. and Rhode Island history and American government. Attendance must be substantially equivalent to public schools, and local school committees approve home instruction.

New Hampshire just moved dramatically in the opposite direction. A law taking effect this year makes homeschool declarations largely optional, eliminates annual evaluations and makes certain record keeping optional. Its law explicitly recognizes a parent’s right to direct a child’s education as a “natural right.”

Those are two very different philosophies of the relationship between family and state.

And that question reaches far beyond homeschoolers.

It touches Christian schools, private education, charter schools, curriculum disputes, religious instruction and ultimately the ability of parents to make educational choices that differ from whatever government considers normal.

The Next Education Revolution

Homeschooling’s continued growth tells us something important about America.

Parents are increasingly willing to question institutions that previous generations simply accepted. Some leave because of academics. Others because of safety, special needs, flexibility, religious convictions or disagreements over what schools are teaching.

Technology has made acting on those concerns easier than ever.

You no longer need to reproduce an entire school inside your home. Parents can access teachers, curricula, lectures, tutoring, advanced courses and educational communities from almost anywhere.

The old educational monopoly is being broken into pieces.

And that means the argument is changing.

The question is no longer simply whether Americans should have the freedom to homeschool.

The coming question is whether government institutions, universities and employers will genuinely respect that freedom when those children become adults — and how much control government will demand over families still raising them.

Andrew Coates may be one young man trying to become a firefighter in Nebraska.

Behind him is an entire generation.

And that generation is growing up.

A dangerous trend is unfolding in America: please do not let what happened in my home country happen here. Many people refuse to see the gradual creep of Islamist ideology into nearly every sector of American society: media, politics, community organizing, education, and public discourse. These are what the stages of an Islamic revolution look like. It advances quietly and methodically — an ideology that prioritizes its religious doctrine over national identity, Sharia constitutions over non-Islamic ones that are made by made by man, not by Allah.

If voters continue supporting and electing them [Muslims], they will soon transform this country as is the plan as stated in “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the [Muslim] Brotherhood in North America”:

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”

Every vote for these jihadists sends the country hundreds of years backwards — just as happened in Iran after 1979, when they seized power in a matter of months and imposed their full Sharia rules. They evidently would like to do the same in the US (see here, here and here). They will use deception if they believe it might help to get there, and they will always prioritize their version of Sharia, their religious ideology, over American law and values to reach the heaven they believe their doctrine promises. Every such vote works against freedom, democracy, and the nation’s founding values. It has happened elsewhere – after the quiet creeping stage, with a speed that is shocking.

If some will say that an Islamic takeover is impossible in the United States, that is just what they said about Iran before 1979. In the years leading up to the Islamic Revolution, even the sharpest experts — both Western leaders and ordinary Iranians — failed to grasp what was lying in wait for them. The forces that eventually seized power did not, carefully, declare their intentions from the start. They worked from the bottom up — through mosques and civil society organizations, gradually gaining influence. They presented themselves as socialists, reformers or defenders of the people. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran through a revolution, originally promised democracy, equality for religious and ethnic minorities, women’s rights:

“Islam cares more for women than men: it has given women more rights than men. What this means is that women have the right to vote. What we grant women is better than what West grants. Women have the right to vote and they have the right to be elected. All this will exist. Women will have authority over their own affairs … they are free to work if they so choose.”

IranWire comments:

“The Islamic Republic then imposed the hijab on women and today opponents of forced hijab are routinely prosecuted.”

The change, when it finally came, was swift. Within months, a modernizing country was transformed into a medieval theocracy. Sharia rules were imposed on every aspect of life — especially on women. The world was shocked. Those men who had been dismissed as “marginal” had prepared carefully for years.

In Shiite Islamist traditions a key concept is taqiyya — dissimulation or concealment. They is religiously permissible in the when it serves the higher goal of furthering Islam, “Until the cry, ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world….”

That is part of what made them so effective at taking over of Iran: the ability to say what people wanted to hear while advancing rather a different long-term agenda. Once power was secured, religious law and “exporting the revolution” ranked above economic progress, any individual freedoms, or the welfare of ordinary citizens. Iran, a country rich in resources, has spent decades in poverty, with its leaders repressing its own people as a result.

A similar movement can now be seen in parts of America. Islamist-leaning influence appears in media, activism, local projects, and electoral politics. Consider figures such as Zohran Mamdani, now mayor of New York City; Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan; Imtiaz Mohammad, a Republican candidate for the Florida House; and the influential streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned alongside these kinds of candidates.

If some will say that an Islamic takeover is impossible in the United States, that is just what they said about Iran before 1979. In the years leading up to the Islamic Revolution, even the sharpest experts — both Western leaders and ordinary Iranians — failed to grasp what was lying in wait for them. The forces that eventually seized power did not, carefully, declare their intentions from the start. They worked from the bottom up — through mosques and civil society organizations, gradually gaining influence. They presented themselves as socialists, reformers or defenders of the people. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran through a revolution, originally promised democracy, equality for religious and ethnic minorities, women’s rights:

“Islam cares more for women than men: it has given women more rights than men. What this means is that women have the right to vote. What we grant women is better than what West grants. Women have the right to vote and they have the right to be elected. All this will exist. Women will have authority over their own affairs … they are free to work if they so choose.”

IranWire comments:

“The Islamic Republic then imposed the hijab on women and today opponents of forced hijab are routinely prosecuted.”

The change, when it finally came, was swift. Within months, a modernizing country was transformed into a medieval theocracy. Sharia rules were imposed on every aspect of life — especially on women. The world was shocked. Those men who had been dismissed as “marginal” had prepared carefully for years.

In Shiite Islamist traditions a key concept is taqiyya — dissimulation or concealment. They is religiously permissible in the when it serves the higher goal of furthering Islam, “Until the cry, ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world….”

That is part of what made them so effective at taking over of Iran: the ability to say what people wanted to hear while advancing rather a different long-term agenda. Once power was secured, religious law and “exporting the revolution” ranked above economic progress, any individual freedoms, or the welfare of ordinary citizens. Iran, a country rich in resources, has spent decades in poverty, with its leaders repressing its own people as a result.

A similar movement can now be seen in parts of America. Islamist-leaning influence appears in media, activism, local projects, and electoral politics. Consider figures such as Zohran Mamdani, now mayor of New York City; Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan; Imtiaz Mohammad, a Republican candidate for the Florida House; and the influential streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned alongside these kinds of candidates.

The change, when it finally came, was swift. Within months, a modernizing country was transformed into a medieval theocracy. Sharia rules were imposed on every aspect of life — especially on women. The world was shocked. Those men who had been dismissed as “marginal” had prepared carefully for years.

In Shiite Islamist traditions a key concept is taqiyya — dissimulation or concealment. They is religiously permissible in the when it serves the higher goal of furthering Islam, “Until the cry, ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world….”

That is part of what made them so effective at taking over of Iran: the ability to say what people wanted to hear while advancing rather a different long-term agenda. Once power was secured, religious law and “exporting the revolution” ranked above economic progress, any individual freedoms, or the welfare of ordinary citizens. Iran, a country rich in resources, has spent decades in poverty, with its leaders repressing its own people as a result.

A similar movement can now be seen in parts of America. Islamist-leaning influence appears in media, activism, local projects, and electoral politics. Consider figures such as Zohran Mamdani, now mayor of New York City; Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan; Imtiaz Mohammad, a Republican candidate for the Florida House; and the influential streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned alongside these kinds of candidates.

What is especially striking is that these figures are not even attempting to hide their priorities the way the architects of the 1979 Islamic revolution did. In Iran, the Islamists practiced careful deception, taqiyya, presenting themselves as moderate reformers until they held power. Today, some of the most prominent voices rising in American politics and culture are far more open about placing Islamic identity, community priorities, or sharp criticism of the United States above national and American loyalty. Look at the record.

Imtiaz Mohammad, the Republican nominee for Florida’s House District 103, stood in 2018 at the Darul Uloom Institute and declared, “America run on hate… And the American people are the most uneducated nation in the world.” When the clip resurfaced years later, he stood by the statement.

Hasan Piker, the influential streamer who has campaigned alongside candidates including Abdul El-Sayed, said on a 2019 livestream, “America deserved 9/11, dude. Fuck it, I’m saying it.”

Zohran Mamdani, now mayor of New York City, has made his Muslim identity central and public: he visited dozens of mosques during his campaign, took his oath of office on the Quran, and has framed Islam itself as “a religion built upon a narrative of migration,” using these texts to denounce ICE and President Trump’s deportation of illegal and criminal migrants.

The EPIC project in Texas (rebranded “The Meadow” after Governor Abbott accused the group of attempting to bring Sharia into the US) was openly marketed as a purpose-built community “to serve the growing needs of a Muslim community,” complete with a mosque and Islamic school — drew intense scrutiny from state officials, who warned against parallel societies and legal systems.

These are not hidden agendas. They are public statements, campaign choices, and project designs that place Muslim identity, Islamic framing, or deep criticism of America front and center. That openness is what makes the current moment dangerous, as in 1979 Iran. For those who remember how quickly Iran changed once the mask came off, the openness is also more alarming.

For many who hold a strong Islamist worldview, religious identity and the goal of advancing Islamic norms rank above national loyalty. An American leader, such as President Donald J. Trump, who places the country’s founding principles and prosperity first will defend the Constitution, individual rights, and equal citizenship under US law. An Islamist, however, regards religious doctrine as the only high authority. Religious projects take precedence, and the country’s broader interests—freedom, prosperity, women’s rights — must be subordinated. Iran is the clearest modern example of that.

Every vote for these jihadists sends the country hundreds of years backwards — just as happened in Iran after 1979, when they seized power in a matter of months and imposed their full Sharia rules. They evidently would like to do the same in the US (see here, here and here). They will use deception if they believe it might help to get there, and they will always prioritize their version of Sharia, their religious ideology, over American law and values to reach the heaven they believe their doctrine promises. Every such vote works against freedom, democracy, and the nation’s founding values. It has happened elsewhere – after the quiet creeping stage, with a speed that is shocking.

Voters, especially young voters, would do well to be extremely careful. Promises of free services, economic justice, or “representation” sound irresistibly appealing. Khomeini used similar language before 1979. He spoke of benefits for the people. Sadly, these promises have often accompanied movements whose real aims were quite different. Look at the former Soviet Union, Cuba and Venezuela. Once in power, the core ideology does not dissolve. It asserts itself.

America is heading down an extremely dangerous and scary path, one that closely resembles how my birth country, Iran, and so many other places — Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, to name just a few — were suddenly overtaken by Islamists or an Islamic revolution. If voters continue supporting and electing them, they will soon transform this country as is the plan as stated in “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the [Muslim] Brotherhood in North America”:

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on the US foreign policy. He can be reached at dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu

Gatestone Institute

Asbury Theological Seminary is pulling out of the federal student loan program, becoming one of the first prominent seminaries to do so, citing a desire to reduce student debt and concerns that a hostile future administration could use federal funding against the school.

The Kentucky seminary, which is rooted in a the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and serves students from dozens of denominations, announced that it would stop processing federal Title IV student loans beginning in May 2027. Title IV is the section of the Higher Education Act that governs federal student aid.

Asbury President David Watson said the seminary’s heavy use of internal scholarships is one reason it is scaling back its reliance on federal loans.

“Right now, we scholarship on average 65 percent of master’s tuition costs, 100 percent of Ph.D. student costs and about 50 percent on our doctor of ministry program,” Watson told The Christian Post in an interview. “We want to get that number higher, but the big issue really was student indebtedness.”

Watson, who has been president for a little over a year, said the seminary seeks to “chart out our own course” and not let federal government have any influence on its financial situation.

“If the federal government controls your finances, then the federal government can control other things about your institution,” he said. “Asbury is a school that is Wesleyan, orthodox and Evangelical and it’s very important for us to maintain those commitments.”

If a federal government administration rose to power that stood in opposition to Asbury’s beliefs, Watson said the seminary could find itself “compromised.”

“We just don’t want to get there,” he said.

Watson is unsure if other schools are making similar moves but said he wouldn’t be surprised if some are planning on it.

“I think it could become a trend in Christian higher education because depending upon the ideology of the administration that’s in power, things could become very difficult for schools that take their Christian identity seriously,” Watson told CP.

In addition to internal scholarships, Asbury works with churches and church groups to identify scholarships available to students.

“If students must take out loans, we can work with them to identify the best lenders, private lenders for them, but we really don’t want them to do that,” Watson said. “We have some capacity to provide some internal loans but in general, we want to discourage students from taking out loans unless they really have to.”

Finances are continually one of the biggest burdens for people pursuing careers in ministry.

“A lot of students over the years have graduated with significant debt, … not necessarily from Asbury, but from seminary in general. I went to a different seminary and graduated with … debt. And when you go into ministry … if you’re starting out in your career as a minister, you don’t make a lot of money in most cases,” he said.

“This can really be a hindrance to effective ministry. … We want to prepare ministers to be as effective as possible once they get into the church. And so student loans and debt can be a hindrance and finances can prevent people at times from going to seminary or from finishing seminary.”

Watson believes the institution’s move away from Title IV funding will “be good for our students” and allow Asbury to “chart our future in the most faithful way possible.”

According to Asbury, the share of its students relying on Title IV funding has dropped from about 30% to around 17% in recent years. Watson told CP that pulling away from Title IV is “not a new idea at Asbury,” adding, “We’ve been working at this for a long time.”

The seminary credited its ability to take this step to its “strong endowment health, supported by decades of generous donor investment and strategic stewardship.”

Ryan Foley, Christian Post

A couple is suing an Oregon hospital for $10 million after they were allegedly forced to drive home with the body of their dead infant son.

Aleksandr and Nataliya Yeremeyev are accusing Salem Health Hospitals and Clinics of negligence after their infant son, Michael, died in the emergency department in September 2024. Hospital staff then allegedly instructed the Yeremeyevs to drive their son’s body home to Seattle in their personal vehicle.

“Michael Yeremeyev died in Salem Hospital’s emergency room after falling ill during his first family trip, at less than nine months old,” the family’s attorneys said in a statement. “At the moment when his parents, Aleksandr and Nataliya, most needed support, guidance, and assistance in navigating this tragic situation, they got none.”

The Yeremeyevs had traveled to Salem, Oregon, with their 6-month-old son, Michael, for a Christian retreat when his breathing suddenly became shallow and rapid, according to the complaint. Michael was born with Down syndrome and had other significant medical conditions. Aleksandr Yeremeyev took Michael to the emergency department at Salem Hospital. Despite lifesaving efforts by medical staff, Michael died hours later.

After the child passed away, the parents said hospital staff asked them to stay away from his body while they waited for a medical examiner. Eventually, hospital staff told the couple that a medical examiner would not be coming, according to the complaint.

When the parents asked about arrangements for their child’s body and how to arrange for a local funeral home to transport him in a manner that aligned with their religious beliefs and practices, staff allegedly told them it would be too expensive and instructed them to drive the child’s body home in their own car.

Staff also allegedly said they couldn’t print the necessary paperwork for the child’s death because they did not have the correct paper or form. A doctor provided them with a handwritten note stating the child had died at the hospital. When the parents asked how they were to transport the child’s body and expressed concern about his body becoming stiff during the four-hour drive, hospital staff allegedly said they should lay his body flat in the backseat.

The couple then carried their dead child, whose face had turned blue, out of the emergency department and into their car. They laid him in the backseat, as they said they were told to do, and drove home to Seattle, the lawsuit says.

“No grieving family should ever be placed in that position,” their lawyers said. “Salem Health categorically failed this family at the worst moment of their lives, and we intend to hold them accountable.”

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Salem Health said the company was unable to discuss pending litigation but that their deepest condolences are with the Yeremeyev family.

“Salem Hospital responded in accordance with the family’s wishes and followed both hospital policy and Oregon state law in consultation with the appropriate local authorities, including the medical examiner,” the spokesperson said. “Care with respect is a guiding principle of clinical practice at Salem Hospital and remains central to how we support patients and families during some of life’s most difficult moments. We recognize the profound grief families experience following the loss of a loved one and treat every patient and family with empathy, dignity, and respect.”

Amanda Rhoades, WJTV

The meme is funny — and more truth than satire. The fact remains, however: Under Democrats, every voter will give up much more than $5000.

AND their guns. AND their retirement accounts. AND the Social Security and Medicare they were forced to pay for and will now, with those programs going bankrupt, they will never see. AND all economic growth, jobs and actual affordability due to the 90 percent tax rates that AOC and Bernie Sanders talk about. AND their ability to use fossil fuels. AND their freedom of speech. AND their freedom of choice on vaxes or other medical decisions. AND their ability to live in a world where violent criminals are locked up, and where Iranian mullahs can’t annihilate us with nukes paid for by Biden and Obama. AND secure borders that keep out terrorists and sociopaths. AND their sovereignty over their own children’s education and hormone injections. AND so much more.

Under Democrats, you will give up essentially everything — except for legalized weed and free abortions. I do not understand why so many people vote for this.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Posted on September 26, 2026

If Democrats take over Congress and the White House in 2026 and 2028, it will be a catastrophe. But even so, Republicans could come back in two elections after that. This presupposes Republicans stay as firm as Trump has forced them to be, and gets back more into economic issues like privatization, massive tax and regulation cuts. It’s really our only hope, because Democrats have radicalized to well beyond the COVID or puppet Biden eras, the worst eras for liberty in American history to date. If the radical left Democrats now in control of that Party impose, or try to impose, a full-fledged dictatorship the next time they seize power, it’s either (1) curtains for America and for all human liberty; or (2) a terrible civil war in America that will probably become a terrible world war. It’s sobering, but these are the facts. I wish you people who voted to give leftists and their RINO enablers power all these years would face and own up to what you’ve done.

The Ed Sheeran affair last week involved yet another pop celebrity caving in to the official dogma of the day. Sheeran initially tried not to take a side, and then (clearly after pressure) wobbled and conceded that he is against Israel and in favor of Muslim terrorism in Palestine and elsewhere. Always shocking; never a surprise. We are living in the Cultural Revolution of Maoist China, which means: Everything is political. Everything. You WILL take a side — or else. Your position, even if you don’t wish it to be part of your creative endeavors, WILL be the position of The Party. The only difference is that the will of the Party (for now) gets enforced primarily through money and pressure by government funded academics, government subsidized/manipulated corporate hacks and intellectually bereft Internet typists who label themselves journalists and think their feelings (posing as philosophically important content) matter. If things are this bad now, just imagine how it will get when The Party has 100 percent control over Congress, a packed Supreme Court and the White House.

“The wicked only grow bolder when they are tolerated.” We don’t just tolerate the wicked (meaning the irrational, the wrong, the barbaric, the dishonest). We subsidize them, applaud them, cheer them on, tiptoe on eggshells around them, ostracize and intimidate dissenters and then wonder why the world is going to hell and ludicrous caricatures start to dominate government, business, media and academia.

Michael J. Hurd, Daiiy Dose of Reason