ARMONK, N.Y., April 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Today IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced plans to invest $150 billion in America over the next five years to fuel the economy and to accelerate its role as the global leader in computing. This includes an investment of more than $30 billion in research and development to advance and continue IBM’s American manufacturing of mainframe and quantum computers.
“Technology doesn’t just build the future — it defines it,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. “We have been focused on American jobs and manufacturing since our founding 114 years ago, and with this investment and manufacturing commitment we are ensuring that IBM remains the epicenter of the world’s most advanced computing and AI capabilities.”
IBM is one of the nation’s largest technology employers and has ushered in innovations that include the data processing systems that enabled the U.S. social security system, the Apollo Program that put a man on the moon, and power businesses in every industry.
That legacy continues in Poughkeepsie, New York, where we manufacture the cutting-edge mainframes that are the technology backbone of the American and global economies. More than 70% of the entire world’s transactions by value run through the IBM mainframes that are manufactured right here in America.
IBM also operates the world’s largest fleet of quantum computer systems, and will continue to design, build and assemble quantum computers in America. Quantum computing represents one of the biggest technology platform shifts and economic opportunities in decades and will solve problems that today’s conventional computers cannot solve. Enabling these solutions will not only help us better understand the fundamentals of how the world works but are projected to transform American competitiveness, jobs, and national security. IBM’s Quantum Network provides access to IBM’s quantum systems for nearly 300 Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions, national laboratories, and startups and is accessed by over 600,000 active users.
Today’s announcement reaffirms IBM’s unwavering commitment to the future of American innovation, igniting new economic opportunity in the United States and around the world.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service. Visit http://www.ibm.com for more information.
On April 14, I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded.
The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges. I hope and expect that Zeldin and his team are up to the job of carrying out a rescission that will stick. I offered my suggestions for how to do a rescission that will stand up to challenge in this post from January 26.
Separately, Nelson has made a thing out of compiling a growing list of “Signs That The Climate Scam Is Collapsing.” That list is now up to some 33 items and counting. The current version can be found here. Readers of this blog are likely already familiar with many of the items on Tom’s list. However, today I would like to feature a couple of items from Tom’s list that are important but may be less well known.
Item 3 on Tom’s list is that the funding of something called “NASA GISS” is likely to be terminated as part of the DOGE cost-cutting efforts. GISS is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. For some unknown reason, GISS is part of NASA, and is located, of all place, in Manhattan, in an office building on upper Broadway near Columbia University. GISS is mainly known for producing a world temperature time series known as GISTEMP, which is systematically massaged and altered in ways to enhance the narrative of climate alarm. For more details than you will ever want to know about the data tampering, go to my 30+ part series “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.”
Tom calls NASA GISS a “climate alarm shop,” which is accurate. For many years it was headed by crazed alarmist James Hansen, until his retirement in 2013. Since then the head has been Gavin Schmidt, who has proved to be Hansen’s equal in spreading alarm. GISS is best known for its regular press releases proclaiming the most recent month or year to be the “warmest ever.” Indeed, GISS’s most recent press release, from January 10, has the headline “2024 Was the Warmest Year on Record.” Since January 20 GISS has not issued any further press releases, which hopefully represents some message control getting exerted by the Trump administration.
Following Nelson’s links, it is not clear to me that the information about the impending defunding of GISS is completely definitive. One link goes to this Wall Street Journal piece from March 29, with the following quote:
It is at NASA, though, where Musk is making the biggest shift in an agency’s priorities to align them with his own—both financially and personally. He is working to recast its programs, reallocate federal spending and install loyalists to aid his decadeslong goal of sending people to Mars.
The Juliana case was brought way back in 2012 in the federal District of Oregon. The plaintiffs asserted a “constitutional right” to a clean and healthy environment, and sought as a remedy that the court impose a plan to “phase out” all use of fossil fuels. My April 9, 2024 piece included a fairly lengthy summary of the proceedings to that time, which had included three visits to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After the Ninth Circuit had found a lack of standing for the plaintiffs in a 2020 decision, it had remanded the case back to the District Court with instructions to dismiss; but the District Court instead had given the plaintiffs another chance to amend the complaint so District Court was starting to get the case ready for trial. So after four more years of getting jerked around in the District Court, the government was back in the Ninth Circuit with a mandamus petition when I wrote that post a year ago.
The latest news is that the Ninth Circuit granted the mandamus petition, and now, finally, the Supreme Court has denied a petition for certiorari from the plaintiffs. From Reuters, March 24, 2025:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by 21 young people to revive a novel lawsuit claiming the U.S. government’s energy policies violate their rights to be protected from climate change. The justices denied a request by the youth activists to hear their appeal of a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directing a federal judge in Oregon to dismiss the case after holding they lacked legal standing to sue.
So this one case is definitively over. The bad news is that there are many other similar and/or copycat cases out there kicking around in the courts. It will be a long time before they are all killed off, but at least this one is a start.
Check out Tom’s list for plenty more examples of the continuing, if painfully slow, demise of the climate scam.
As Russia continues its warfare against Ukraine, one outspoken Republican senator is encouraging President Donald Trump to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place.
Putin has reneged on every promise that he has made to President Trump. His latest proposal is, well, nothing. He wants to keep all the territory that he’s taken,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on the latest installment of “Fox News Sunday.”
“He wants to prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO, and he wants America and Europe to stop helping Ukraine,” he added. “I think that Putin thinks that America has taken the bullet train to Chumptown.”
A recent Fox News poll indicated that 36% of the American people do not approve of President Trump’s job performance on Russia, and 39% don’t approve of his handling of Ukraine. Voters are also split over what to do when it comes to U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
A recent Fox News poll indicated that 36% of the American people do not approve of President Trump’s job performance on Russia, and 39% don’t approve of his handling of Ukraine. Voters are also split over what to do when it comes to U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
More airstrikes from Moscow continued overnight in Ukraine following days of military fighting, around the same time as President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met face-to-face for the first time since their infamous Oval Office spat in February, as they were attending Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome.
I think he thinks we’re afraid of him,” Sen. Kennedy said of Russia’s leader. “He has jacked around President Trump at every turn. He has disrespected our president. I don’t think it’s gonna get any better until we make it clear to Mr. Putin that we are willing to turn him and his country into fish food.”
On Thursday, Trump demanded Putin “stop” strikes on Kyiv and said he was “not happy” with the Kremlin for continuing attacks on Ukraine. The day before, on Wednesday, Trump blasted Zelenskyy after he said that Ukraine would not recognize Russian control over Crimea, which Putin invaded in 2014.
Putin so far has rejected several U.S. proposals for a peace deal, but the White House remains optimistic about Trump’s ability to end the war.
We need to get Russia down and choke them. They’re not going to come to the table otherwise,” Kennedy said Sunday. “I want a settlement in Ukraine. We also have to ask Europe to do better. Europe’s got to start paying its own bills.”
If it wasn’t for the American taxpayer, Putin would be in Paris right now. Europe’s gotta do more. But mainly,” he emphasized, “we’ve got to make Putin understand that there is a price to be paid for his jacking our president around.
REHOBOTH BEACH, DE — Former President Joe Biden was placed under arrest today for harboring just over eleven million illegal immigrants.
Following the arrest of a judge in Wisconsin for attempting to help an illegal immigrant evade capture, Biden was arrested and charged with the same crime but “times eleven million.”
“We’re pretty sure it’s a record,” said FBI Director Kash Patel, after announcing the arrest. “Incredibly, this man apparently committed all eleven million crimes in the span of just four years. That’s over five crimes per minute for four years straight, assuming he never slept. And, we have reason to believe this man slept about 16 hour per day. It’s a crime spree like no other.”
According to sources, Biden will plead innocent, claiming that he has no recollection of bringing in eleven million illegal aliens or doing anything else of note over the past four years. “Ask anyone – I’ve been at the beach for the past four years, minding my own business,” said Biden. “I’ve got hundreds of witnesses saying I’ve been right here under this umbrella, sipping margaritas and baking in the sun since 2012. It wasn’t me, Jack.”
At publishing time, the FBI had entered day three of reading all eleven million criminal charges in court against Biden.
Democrats are embracing the f-bomb in congressional campaign messaging as they seek to tap into their party’s anger.
In recent weeks, a number of newly launched Democratic hopefuls for key House and Senate seats have pledged to “unf‑‑‑ our country” or have urged their party to “drop the excuses and grow a f‑‑‑ing spine.”
The ads are indicative of the rising temperature in American politics generally, but they also underscore the ways politicians are trying to resonate with base voters, many of whom have expressed frustration with Democratic leaders.
“I think that in the case of the Democratic candidates … the swearing reflects their sense of crisis,” said Michael Adams, a lexicography expert and author of the book “In Praise of Profanity.”
“There’s just a point at which the usual vocabulary will not be sufficiently expressive in the moment,” Adams said. “I suspect that this is a ‘no, I really mean it,’ type of emphasis … All of the niceties, all of the conventions, all that stuff — we have to put that aside because the situation in which we find ourselves is so dire politically, culturally and historically, that we just need to act.”
Democrat Nathan Sage last week launched his campaign by decrying that farmers have been “f‑‑‑ed over” and vowing to “kick corporate Republican [Sen.] Joni Ernsts’s a‑‑” in the midterms.
A spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) hit back, arguing that Democrats “seem obsessed with saying ‘f‑‑‑ing’ and ‘a‑‑’ as the strategy to win back the voters that rejected them in 2024.” They pointed The Hill to examples of sitting congressional Democrats leaning on the language lately.
Profanity, once seen as taboo in politics, has been increasingly common to hear from lawmakers and candidates on both sides of the aisle over the last few years, in line with a broader societal uptick in the acceptance of profanity across the last few decades.
Research conducted by The Hill and GovPredict back in 2019 found the incidence of curse words from lawmakers on the social media site then-called Twitter, for example, jumped dramatically in the first year of President Trump’s first term. The New York Times dubbed Trump at the time as “the profanity president,” spotlighting his frequent use of four-letter insults.
Democrats are embracing the f-bomb in congressional campaign messaging as they seek to tap into their party’s anger.
In recent weeks, a number of newly launched Democratic hopefuls for key House and Senate seats have pledged to “unf‑‑‑ our country” or have urged their party to “drop the excuses and grow a f‑‑‑ing spine.”
The ads are indicative of the rising temperature in American politics generally, but they also underscore the ways politicians are trying to resonate with base voters, many of whom have expressed frustration with Democratic leaders.
“I think that in the case of the Democratic candidates … the swearing reflects their sense of crisis,” said Michael Adams, a lexicography expert and author of the book “In Praise of Profanity.”
“There’s just a point at which the usual vocabulary will not be sufficiently expressive in the moment,” Adams said. “I suspect that this is a ‘no, I really mean it,’ type of emphasis … All of the niceties, all of the conventions, all that stuff — we have to put that aside because the situation in which we find ourselves is so dire politically, culturally and historically, that we just need to act.”
Up Next – Trump approval rating lower than first term: Fox poll-00:20
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Democrat Nathan Sage last week launched his campaign by decrying that farmers have been “f‑‑‑ed over” and vowing to “kick corporate Republican [Sen.] Joni Ernsts’s a‑‑” in the midterms.
A spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) hit back, arguing that Democrats “seem obsessed with saying ‘f‑‑‑ing’ and ‘a‑‑’ as the strategy to win back the voters that rejected them in 2024.” They pointed The Hill to examples of sitting congressional Democrats leaning on the language lately.
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Sage appears as the latest of a handful of Democratic hopefuls who have used strong language in their polished ads.
In New York, former journalist Mike Sacks earlier this month launched a Democratic challenge for Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-N.Y.) Empire State seat, pledging to “unf‑‑‑ our country.”
Challenging longtime Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) last month, progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh told Democrats to “drop the excuses and grow a f‑‑‑ing spine.”
“Lots of candidates use haughty, stilted language that sounds out of touch and even alienating. Kat sounds like a real person — and real people are f‑‑‑ing fed up with the status quo,” Abughazaleh’s campaign manager, Sam Weinberg, told The Hill.
Profanity, once seen as taboo in politics, has been increasingly common to hear from lawmakers and candidates on both sides of the aisle over the last few years, in line with a broader societal uptick in the acceptance of profanity across the last few decades.
Research conducted by The Hill and GovPredict back in 2019 found the incidence of curse words from lawmakers on the social media site then-called Twitter, for example, jumped dramatically in the first year of President Trump’s first term. The New York Times dubbed Trump at the time as “the profanity president,” spotlighting his frequent use of four-letter insults.
“When people find out about politicians swearing, it’s often accidental, before Trump. Something that the politician didn’t intend to be public, but that just got captured on a hot mic,” Adams said. “Trump came along and he kind of threw that aside.”
Weinberg, from Abughazaleh’s campaign, said of the NRSC’s response to Sage’s bid that “it’s amusing that Republicans would be up in arms about candidates swearing” when Trump “has quite the knack for profanity.”
But especially when it comes to carefully planned campaign launches or ads, experts say the use of such language likely has a considered political purpose as candidates work to connect with voters vexed by politics — and as some Democrats fret internally that the party has fallen out of touch with the majority.
“The linguistic choices that professional politicians make are extremely tightly crafted,” said Ben Bergen, a professor of cognitive science at University of California San Diego and the author of a book about swearing.
“It would surprise me if, for many of them, they were sort of stumbling into accidentally using profanity. The use is probably, in most cases, something that’s strategic.”
Favorability for the Democratic Party hit record lows in polling from both CNN and NBC News last month, and Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill has drawn particular ire from young progressives for what they see as weak pushback to the Trump administration.
Polling on how open voters are to hearing profanity from their political representatives is sparse, but evidence does indicate younger generations are more receptive, and Bergen noted a “radical generational shift” with respect to the f-bomb in recent years.
“There are known consequences to how people judge you when you swear, and some of those might not be desirable for a politician: like, you’re judged to be more out of control, possibly less intelligent, possibly less well educated,” Bergen said.
“But then there are things that might be useful, judgments that folks might have about you that you might want: like, people who swear are judged to be more truthful, more genuine, more accessible, funnier, more passionate.”
The 2024 election was “a wake-up call that we have to simplify our language,” said Democratic strategist Fred Hicks, from word choice to broader messaging.
“Republicans have done a great job of painting Democrats as elitists, and the Democrats have done a great job of painting ourselves as elitists,” Hicks said. “Democrats bring a term paper to a knifefight.”
But Demcorats will also want to avoid retooling their language in a way that comes across as performative or an obvious strategic move, especially when trying to reach young people.
“[Democrats] can’t just go out there and throw f-bombs and hope it’s gonna land. It’s gotta be authentic,” Hicks said.
It’s also not just congressional hopefuls that are tapping into the language.
Ken Martin, newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), took heat online for telling tech billionaire Elon Musk last month to “go to hell.” He then doubled down in a post on social platform X, responding, “I said what I said.” The DNC itself also proudly touted Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-Ill.) labeling of Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month as “a f‑‑‑ing liar.”
During a rally for federal workers in February, first-term Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) exemplified how some in her party are using the language to convey the urgency of the moment, saying: “I don’t swear in public very well, but we have to f‑‑‑ Trump.” She told The Oregonian afterward that “my only wish, frankly, is that I had said the line with more conviction.”
“I think particularly younger Democrats have realized that the majority of voters, including their own voters, have regarded them as being asleep at the wheel and engaging in sort of somnolent, uninspiring messaging,” Democratic strategist Jon Reinish said.
“This reads to me as a quick attempt to show that there is some energy and a pulse, to maybe capture some younger voters who are so incredibly disappointed and disaffected,” Reinish said. “A quick way to show that there’s a spark of life.”
The numbers are in: Israel is a happy place. Despite constantly facing vicious enemies and enduring a year and a half of sustained fighting and funerals, Israel ranks in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of happiness, according to the newly released 2025 World Happiness Report. At No. 8, Israel contrasts sharply with other war-torn countries that are quite reasonably miserable: Ukraine sits at 111, and Lebanon, which opened a second front against Israel in October 2023, is third from the bottom, at 145. Even advanced Western nations such as Great Britain and the United States, in 23rd and 24th place, respectively, have a glee gap with Israel. How come?
An illuminating if perhaps counterintuitive datapoint is that, since Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis have rushed ahead with making babies. Baby booms often occur postwar, not in the middle of one. But Israelis have continued to affirm life even while mourning more than 1,700 dead. At almost three babies per woman, Israel already has the leading birth rate among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—a forum of 37 democracies with market-based economies—and in the final months of 2024, it witnessed an estimated 10 percent increase in births.
Another remarkable statistic explains Israeli optimism. On April 12, 96 percent of Israeli Jews will participate in the oldest ongoing ritual in the Western world: the Passover Seder, celebrating the exodus from Egypt three millennia ago. Few democracies, if any, match these participation rates. While 88 percent of Americans enjoy turkey on Thanksgiving, the ritual surrounding that meal is less elaborate and usually much shorter. Seders are often hours long, ritualized re-creations of the flight from Egypt, a reflection of how Jews live inside their history—and with their history. Prayers, songs, food, and other rituals invite Jews to see themselves as having been personally redeemed.
Most optimists are mission-driven. Feeling a sense of belonging, they progress confidently toward worthy goals. And as the best-selling British historian Paul Johnson, who wrote histories of the Jews, Christianity, and the American people, observed, “No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny.” Despite searing political divisions, Israelis remain united culturally. Cherishing family, community, country, and history shapes their faith in the future.
In democracies, meanwhile, happiness tends to evoke notions of peace, serenity, and the search for one’s personal bliss. Rather than singing their national anthem proudly, aspiring Western universalists dream of the paradise of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” where there is no heaven, no hell, and no countries. We have “nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.” Everybody is just “livin’ for today … aha aaa.”
Alas, living in the moment often strips those moments of meaning. Fewer people choose to become parents in this happy, peppy, borderless, self-indulgent utopia. The American birth rate in 2023 was the lowest in 40 years at 1.7 births per woman. The average birth rate of OECD countries has plummeted to 1.5 since 1960, when a more traditional, religious, and patriotic West had a birth rate of 3.3. Today’s runners-up to Israel’s birthrate of 2.9 in the OECD are Mexico and France, at 1.8. Although ultra-Orthodox and Arab women boost Israel’s rate, secular Jewish women average a chart-topping two children per woman.
Whereas optimism was always synonymous with America, today an epidemic of despair afflicts young Americans especially, and the West more broadly. According to a Financial Times analysis of 2023-2024 Gallup data, American youth are some of the most pessimistic among OECD countries. In 2023, the demographer Karen Guzzo explained that the great American baby bust can be attributed to “economic strains, work instability, political polarization, student loans, access to health care, climate change, and global conflicts.”
Moreover, too many young Americans appear to have lost pride in their nation and its story, even though it’s one of world history’s greatest epics—a story of pioneers and immigrants coming together to launch a civilizational enterprise fueled by life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These young Americans have been subject to a campaign of demoralization, whether by woke schoolteachers or the board of the American Historical Association, who have promoted what could be dubbed as “historicide”—killing their own history—and have emphasized America’s “systemic” sins rather than the good that America has been responsible for.
In contrast, Israelis feel they are part of Israel’s story and the Jewish story, that of a proud people trying to do better in the world while also bettering it. After repeatedly overcoming oppression, they’ve returned to their homeland to live freely—and happily. Israeli schools repeatedly assign students shorashim, “roots,” projects. These family-tree explorations, even in high school, usually culminate in evenings celebrating parents’ or grandparents’ differing ethnic origins, cuisines, and Zionist journeys, propelling everyone forward together.
With so much to live for, Israelis know what they are willing to die for, too. On the eve of battle, many soldiers write goodbye letters to be read in case they die. Having buried more than 1,000 soldiers since Oct. 7, Israelis have cherished these messages by fallen soldiers affirming their motivation to fight and their willingness to sacrifice everything for this country that imbued them, as individuals, with a particular identity—past, present, and future.
To be sure, wars usually inspire patriotism. But, remarkably, Israel’s mourning rituals honor each soldier as a critical link in the Jews’ old-new chain. Most funerals are massive and hours long. Fellow citizens often line the streets for miles as the bereaved parents leave their home to endure the worst moments of their lives. Shivas—seven days of mourning—are so crowded, most mourners host comforters in tents, featuring fridges overstocked with donated food and drinks. Within days, the family announces some living monument reflecting their loved one’s values or continuing their life mission. The community then kicks in with its own acts honoring the fallen warriors: supporting a new school in the desert for youth at risk, a hip-hop album of the soldier’s songs, a national competition in a beloved sport, and so on. Creating a constructive culture of memory, not a nihilistic death cult, Israelis integrate the life that was ended prematurely into an eternal story going back millennia that Israel’s reestablishment reinvigorated in 1948.
Quotations from the letters of soldiers killed in action adorn bumper stickers throughout Israel. It is true that having cruel enemies, and being able to recognize the threat they pose, provides moral clarity. But the heartbreaking letters go further. The soldiers, including reservists, who volunteered for combat duty, affirm their mission to defend Israel and the world against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the terrorist scourge. A 35-year-old father of four, Master Sgt. (res.) Elkana Vizel, wrote in a letter retrieved with his body, “We are writing the most meaningful moments in the history of our people and the whole world … Keep choosing life all the time—a life of love, hope, purity and optimism.” Sgt. Maj. (res.) Ben Zussman, 22, a Jerusalemite neighbor, wrote a letter while rushing toward Gaza, which friends passed to his parents after he was killed fighting there. “I’m happy and grateful for the privilege I have to defend our beautiful country and Am Yisrael [the Jewish people],” he wrote. “Even if something happens to me, I don’t allow you to sink into sorrow,” he demanded, insisting that his mother make her special cookies and that the mourning week flow with meat along with “beers, sweet drinks, nuts, tea.” “I had the privilege to fulfill my dream and my mission.”
In the Gulag, prisoners with robust identities, national and/or religious, were the strongest partners in the daily struggle against Soviet jailers. Those connected to communities awaiting them back home felt accountable and saw their actions as part of a historical chain.
Israel’s historical optimism proves that identity is built through shared stories and values, not political agendas and competing grievances. When nurtured thoughtfully, group identity doesn’t compromise our freedom; it enhances our journey, filling our free, prosperous lives with the sounds of others, inspired by the ideas of our ancestors.
The West needs good tribalism: A healthy commitment to community, connectedness, and history anchors us. It motivates us to defend ourselves when necessary, while inspiring us always to build a better world. That’s the essence of most Israelis’ Zionism, which many just call patriotism. And that’s the essence of the Passover seder message, too.
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that the Democratic Party lacked a vision for the future.
Host Kristen Welker said, “Let’s talk about what you have called your oligarchy, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have been criss-crossing the country warning of an oligarchy. Senator you told the New York Times, ‘One of the aspects of this is to get people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the Democratic Party.’ As someone who twice ran in the Democratic presidential primary are you trying to strengthen the Democratic Party or Senator, are you trying to start a third party?”
Sanders said, we’re not trying to strengthen a third party. We are trying to strengthen the American democracy. Right now it’s extremely low. We are living, Kristen, in the richest country in the history of the world and yet you have one person, Mr. Musk, who owns more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households. That is insane. That is oligarchy on steroids. Meanwhile, we have 60% of our workers living paycheck to paycheck. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major nation on earth and we have over 20% of seniors in America living on $15,000 a year or less. What the American people are saying is that they want, and what our tour was about is to say that they want an economy that works for all of us, and not just for Musk and other billionaires.”
He continued, “What Democrats lack right now is a vision for the future. How are we going to provide a decent standard of living for a younger generation where everything being equal will be poorer than their parents? How do we repair a broken heath care system? How do we deal with the corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to control both political parties? Those are some of the issues that need to be discussed and we are going out around the country right now asking people, working people, run for office. You want to run as a Democrat? Great. You want to run as an Independent? That’s great, but you’ve got to get involved in the political process because right now the two-party system is failing the working class of this country.”
Afton Brown had recently moved back to her hometown after living out of state for several months when she met a young man with whom she had an instant attraction. When Brown discovered she was pregnant after just a few months of dating, she was uncertain where to turn.
Brown told Live Action News, “I talked to my boyfriend about it, but neither of us knew what to do or how to handle it. We were both in shock. I was just 23 years old at the time.”
She turned to a family member who had been supportive of her romance for advice. To her dismay, the relative berated her, accusing Brown of getting pregnant on purpose and telling her to ‘take care of it.’
“She was very angry and controlling towards me,” Brown said. “I couldn’t believe she would act in this manner.”
Brown called another family member who told her that an abortion would be the best solution and offered to take her to the abortion facility. “It all happened very quickly; I had no time to think about it,” Brown said. “It was very hard for me. I remember being sedated and crying. I was so distraught that my family member had to help me out of the facility afterward.”
A childhood friend was waiting for Brown outside after her abortion. That day, Brown noted, changed both of their lives forever.
“I was so traumatized that I had a hard time walking, my legs were so weak,” Brown said. “I took off work the next day and I told no one about my secret. I would keep that part of my life hidden for 15 years.”
After she returned to work, she tried to close the door to that chapter of her life and move on as best as she could. She was never in contact with her boyfriend again after the abortion and eventually started dating a man with whom she would eventually marry and build a family.
Years later, she started volunteering for a local pregnancy support center. Brown said, “It was sometime down the road that I told the director of the center that I had an abortion. I didn’t think about healing, though I did begin to open to small groups of people.”
Pro-life speaker nudges Brown toward post-abortive healing journey
In 2022, at the pregnancy support center’s annual banquet, speaker and evangelist David Williams told his experience of living a sexually immoral lifestyle and being complicit in two abortions.
“He talked about his anger issues as a result and that really resonated with me,” Brown said. “He said it didn’t occur to him that he needed healing. Hearing that, it was as if a light went off and I realized that I needed to get healing.”
Over the past years, Brown directed her pent-up anger against her family as a means of coping with deeply buried pain. Now, it was time to deal with that anger. She sought help from “Surrendering the Secret,” a ministry designed to help women and men heal from the grief of abortion through resources, training and connection.
Brown said, “I was encouraged to write a song or poem to the child I had lost from abortion. So, I wrote the song, ‘I Didn’t Know,’ and when I sang it to a group of ladies at the center, we all cried together.”
She recorded the song on an album and the following year, sang at the annual pregnancy support center’s banquet. She later recorded a powerful video, recently launched on YouTube, that walks though the journey of “Surrendering the Secret” and ends with her having a conversation with her daughter:
The launching of a ministry
“I entered the video into the 2025 Christian Worldview Film Festival and brought home a trophy for first place,” Brown said. “I felt God was taking me into ministry using my story for others’ benefit.”
She just produced a documentary entitled, “Beyond the Ultrasound” which focuses on her local pregnancy support center and its services to women dealing with unexpected pregnancies. Brown said, “I felt there was too much misinformation on social media regarding pregnancy support centers. So, I interviewed our director and showed behind-the-scenes videos about the many programs they offered.”
To create a safe space for men and women hurt by abortion to come together and heal, Brown launched a social media ministry she named Living UnderNeath Abortion (“LUNA”) which provides resources on Instagram and Facebook channels.
“It’s a gathering place where people can share their stories and feel the grace and love of the Father and to promote a culture of life,” Brown said. “We lift each other up and offer support to those who have experienced the horrors wrought by abortion.”
While Brown felt pressured to have her abortion, she holds only herself responsible for her choice.
“I learned to be a people pleaser at the church I attended that was more like a cult environment than Christian-based,” said Brown. “I always kept feeling I had to do better, and as such, I was easily manipulated. But I know that abortion is never the answer no matter how bad one’s situation is. There are many people who can help.”
She advises women facing unplanned pregnancies to slow down and carefully consider their options.
“Get counseling from someone who isn’t going to benefit from your abortion,” Brown said. “I have not yet met a single woman who regretted giving birth to their child — even those who placed their babies for adoption — but I have met many women who have suffered greatly from the pain of abortion.”
The son of a top CIA official was killed last year fighting on behalf of Russia against Ukraine, according to an investigation by independent Russia media that was reported this week.
On April 4, 2024, Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, was killed while serving in the Russian military by artillery after rushing to the aid of a comrade. Gloss had enlisted in hopes of obtaining a passport and Russian citizenship. His mother, Juliane Gallina, was named the deputy director for digital innovation at the CIA only two months prior in February. The CIA later confirmed the death first reported by iStories.
Michael’s father, Larry Gloss, told the New York Post that his son suffered from mental illness and developed a fixation on environmental issues, hoping to bring clean water to the people of Russia.
One of the manifestations of his mental illness was grandiosity,” Larry Gloss, an Iraq War veteran, toldthe outlet. “He always cared about the environment. He always wanted to take care of those disadvantaged, less able.
“In Michael’s thinking, which I now conclude largely as a function of some text exchange he’s had with comrades before his demise, he thought the best way of realizing his dreams of water purification would be as a citizen of Russia. And the quickest way to get there, the quickest way to Russian citizenship would be through serving.”
Michael Gloss grew up in a middle-class Virginia neighborhood and played football and lacrosse for his local high school. At some point, he became disenchanted with United States over its support of Israel, according to the investigation.
In college, he became fixated with gender equality and environmental issues, eventually joining Rainbow Family, a left-wing protest group. He traveled to Hatay, Turkey, in 2023 to aid with earthquake recovery in the region and eventually made his way to Russia, where he joined the military.
On social media the younger Gloss posted pictures of Palestinian and Russian flags, describing himself as “a supporter of the multipolar world.”
“I ran away from home. traveled the world. I hate fascism. I love my homeland,” he wrote.
One acquaintance told iStories that Michael Gloss became enraged at U.S. foreign policy over the past two years.
He was usually watching videos about Palestine and was so angry at America,” the person told the outlet. “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to war with the USA. But I think he was very influenced by the conspiracy theory videos.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, the elder Gloss said his son had always been anti-establishment but that news of his involvement Russia-Ukraine war came as a shock.
“If you knew our son, he was the ultimate antiestablishment, anti-authority young man the minute he came into the world.”
When reached for comment, the CIA’s responded in an official statement read: “CIA considers Michael’s passing to be a private family matter — and not a national security issue. The entire CIA family is heartbroken for their loss.”
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 