The Trump administration is freezing $2.1 billion in funding for Chicago infrastructure projects over accusations of “race-based contracting” as the government shutdown continues. 
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced the move Friday morning, saying that the freeze would impact construction to modernize the city’s public transit system. It comes just two days after the Department of Transportation <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-freezes-18-billion-for-nyc-infrastructure-over-unconstitutional-dei-principles?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Freezes+%2418+Billion+For+NYC+Infrastructure+Over+%E2%80%98Unconstitutional+DEI+Principles%E2%80%99">froze</a> $18 billion for New York City infrastructure projects over “unconstitutional” diversity, equity, and inclusion “principles.”
“$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects — specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project — have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” Vought wrote on X. 
Shortly after Vought’s announcement, the Department of Transportation <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-transportation-statement-review-chicagos-discriminatory">confirmed</a> the freeze and suggested that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) were to blame for leading the Democrats’ resistance to a temporary government funding bill. 
The department said that it was “committed to conducting these reviews as fast as possible so reimbursements can move forward. Unfortunately, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ decision to shut down the government has negatively affected the Department’s staffing resources for carrying out this important analysis.”
“We urge Democrats in Congress to stop holding the federal government’s budget hostage so USDOT can get back to the important work of the American people,” the department added. 
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It sent letters on Friday to the Chicago Transit Authority, stating that it had initiated an administrative review of two ongoing projects to modernize the city’s rail system, and added that it was concerned about preferential treatment in construction contracting based on race. 
“Together, these critical reviews are intended to ensure no additional federal dollars go towards discriminatory, illegal, and wasteful contracting practices,” the department said. “The American people don’t care what race or gender construction workers, pipefitters, or electricians are. They just want these massive projects finally built quickly and efficiently.”
President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-meeting-set-to-axe-democrat-agencies?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump%3A+Meeting+Set+To+Axe+‘Democrat+Agencies’">has urged</a> Republicans to take advantage of the shutdown to cut “Democrat Agencies” and eliminate wasteful spending. 
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday. 
The White House has tasked Vought with reviewing the federal bureaucracy amid the shutdown and identifying areas for spending cuts.

MixCollage-03-Oct-2025-10-22-AM-1097

Blue City Blues: Another Democrat-Run Stronghold Gets Infrastructure Funding Frozen

Blue City Blues: Another Democrat-Run Stronghold Gets Infrastructure Funding Frozen Amid Shutdown

Chicago

Chuck Schumer

Department of Transportation

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Donald Trump

Economy

Government Shutdown

Hakeem Jeffries

Illinois

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Politics

Russ Vought

The Secretary of War and the President of the United States spoke before hundreds of top U.S. military leaders on Tuesday.
This event had been touted for a few days in advance. The idea was to have all the top U.S. military brass gather at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. 
There was a lot of speculation about the meeting. Was it going to be an announcement about Ukraine? Or China? Or was it going to be about Venezuela?
It turns out, it was going to be a speech from Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, and a speech from the President of the United States, about recalibrating our military approach, particularly internally.
Pete Hegseth has spoken about this a lot over the past few years. I recorded an episode of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhVMY0AxZd0">Sunday Special</a> with Pete Hegseth about a year ago. He had a new book out, “The War on Warriors,” in which he wrote about wokeness in the military, lowered standards in the military, and the fact that more militaries around the world were not fearing us as much because we had implemented all of these left-wing ideologies within the military. This has legitimately been a big bugaboo of Hegseth’s for years.
Well, now he has the opportunity to change all of that because, of course, he sits atop the Department of War.
The event, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/30/hegseth-military-meeting-trump-generals/">The Washington Post</a>, was organized by Hegseth&#8217;s team at the Pentagon. He summoned generals and admirals from command posts throughout the world to Virginia.
General Dan Caine, Trump&#8217;s hand-selected Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told attendees in his opening comments that the event was an unprecedented opportunity, and an honor for assembled senior officers and their top enlisted advisers to hear directly from the military civilian leadership. 
Hegseth was going after wokeness in the military again, and he railed against what he called “Fat dudes and men in dresses.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2290-warfighters-hegseth-trump-launch-assault-on-woke-military"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-974957 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
So, optically, yes, I understand the Left being very, very upset about it. But it happens to be something that the American people agree with, along with the people who enlist in our military. Journalists around the nation are very, very upset about what Pete Hegseth did yesterday because they believe the military should be a place for social engineering, as opposed to a place for warfighters.
Well, Secretary Hegseth was a grunt. He&#8217;s a person who served in the trenches, and on the front lines. And that means he is significantly more in touch with the feelings of people who actually serve in the military, than certainly the people in the world of journalism — and truthfully, more than many of these sorts of political generals who have spent the last 40 years rising in the ranks.
Which means that recalibrating along those lines is actually not a bad thing at all.
As Secretary Hegseth <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/defense-secretary-hegseth-addresses-senior-military-leaders/666410">said yesterday</a>:
<blockquote>Frankly, it&#8217;s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it&#8217;s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It&#8217;s a bad look. It is bad. And it&#8217;s not who we are. So, whether you&#8217;re an Airborne Ranger or a “Chairborne Ranger,” a brand new private, or a four star general, you need to meet the height and weight standards and pass the PT test.</blockquote>
This, apparently, was very upsetting to folks. 
He also went after what he called “Dudes in dresses,” which was a specific reference to the fact that under the Biden administration, there were legitimate videos of troops doing drag as an attempt to drive people into the military. I can&#8217;t think of anything that would drive the types of young men who want to join the military away from the military more than men in drag.
Honestly, that does not seem like a recruiting pitch for the U.S. military. And you can see it in the numbers. The Biden administration was having a very, very difficult time fulfilling its recruiting quotas. From literally the minute Pete Hegseth was announced as Secretary of Defense, those numbers began to rise.
Hegseth then <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/defense-secretary-hegseth-addresses-senior-military-leaders/666410">said</a>: 
<blockquote>This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I&#8217;ve said before and will say again, we are done with that sh**.</blockquote>
People are apparently angry about this. And there&#8217;s also a fair bit of gaslighting going on here. 
So the way that this works is that when the Left takes over an institution, they skew that institution. And then, when somebody who is not on the Left takes over the institution and says, “We&#8217;re going to unskew it,” the Left then says, “How dare you do this? How dare you politicize?”
They do this with so many institutions in American life. For example, take higher education, a domain once designed to actually create better American citizens, people who are supposed to be in touch with their civilization. They took an institution that was supposed to be at least titularly nonpartisan and made it highly partisan in favor of the Left.
And then people get into power who are not on the Left. And they say, &#8220;Let&#8217;s shift it back. Let&#8217;s shift it back toward the center.&#8221; And the Left says, “How dare you touch our hallowed institutions? How dare you attempt to change the underlying politics of that institution?”
The same thing in the military. There is an attempt by the Left to hijack the military and use it for a wide variety of social engineering causes, ranging from climate change to DEI to gender identity.
And now, when the Right takes over and says, “Hey, we&#8217;re not going to do any of that stuff, we&#8217;re actually going to go back to the status quo where the military was about winning wars,” the Left responds, “How dare you? How dare you politicize? How dare you intervene? How dare you get involved in politics?” This is an exercise in gaslighting.
The Left is perfectly willing to gut these institutions and wear their faces around like a mask from “The Silence of the Lambs.” But the minute the Right says, “Let&#8217;s restore those institutions to what they were before,” the Left then claims politicization.
It’s nonsense.

President Trump And Pete Hegseth Address U.S. Senior Military Leaders At Quantico

Hegseth To Top Military Brass: No More Dudes In Dresses

American General

Department of War

Opinion

Pentagon

Pete Hegseth

Transgender

U.S. Military

Washington D.C.

Woke Culture

The retirement savings of millions of federal workers are being weaponized to push climate change and DEI mandates, a watchdog warned lawmakers. 
Financial asset giants BlackRock and State Street are leveraging their management over billions of dollars in federal employees’ retirement savings to push left-wing politics, according to a Monday <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Hild-Letter-to-SCHSGA-and-HCOGR-RE-TSP.pdf">letter</a> to top Republican lawmakers from Consumers’ Research obtained by The Daily Wire. The pair manages around $668 billion in federal retirement savings through the Thrift Savings Plan, the federal government’s version of a 401(k) plan. 
“Asset managers like BlackRock using Americans’ hard-earned money to unfairly and illegally push radical political agendas without consent is hardly a new problem, but their control of most of the Thrift Savings Plan takes the scandal to a new level,” Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hild told The Daily Wire. “Flagrantly violating fiduciary duty with federal employee dollars begs for congressional scrutiny and more.”
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The letter was sent to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Rand Paul (R-KY). It requested that the lawmakers investigate the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB), the agency that administers the Thrift Savings Plan program. 
The letter says that the agency “has contracted with asset managers and proxy advisors that have pursued goals to impose emissions reductions and diversity quotas on companies, rather than focus solely on financial returns as required” by federal law. 
“Examples of BlackRock’s and State Street’s harmful conduct include: (1) using proxy voting power to push companies to adopt emissions targets; (2) maintaining commitments to climate-activist organizations in pursuit of Paris Agreement goals; (3) using internal proxy-voting guidelines that require using engagement and voting to pressure companies to align with net zero; (4) using pension fund assets to advance a net-zero agenda; and (5) succumbing to activist pressure to join climate groups and change their proxy voting to support activist proposals,” Hild wrote in the letter. 
An example of political policies being pushed by BlackRock included <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/publication/annual-stewardship-report-2024.pdf">voting</a> in 2024 for a shareholder proposal to require Cracker Barrel to establish and publish greenhouse gas emissions targets. It backed similar proposals for companies like Jack in the Box, Wingstop, and Denny’s. 
Hild cited previous <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20241226122512/https:/www.ssga.com/library-content/assets/pdf/global/asset-stewardship/proxy-voting-and-engagement-policy.pdf">policies</a> by State Street to generally oppose company boards that are not “composed of at least 30-percent female directors” and “at least one director from an underrepresented racial/ethnic community.”
In recent years, BlackRock has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blackrock-makes-major-change-after-backlash-against-woke-investing">backed away</a> from some of its more recent pushes for activist investing after widespread backlash. In April 2024, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity gave BlackRock a &#8220;B&#8221; for its voting record on &#8220;extreme&#8221; shareholder proposals, up from a &#8220;C&#8221; the previous year. The same report grades State Street as a &#8220;C.&#8221;
&#8220;BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, had been one of the leading voices in support of ESG a few years ago. But last year, under pressure from groups like ours and others, he began to retreat from its ESG advocacy on proxy voting as shareholder proposals have become more extreme,&#8221; the report found.
BlackRock&#8217;s recent global voting <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/publication/2025-investment-stewardship-voting-spotlight.pdf">spotlight</a> also highlighted that it voted with corporate management on 209 out of 214 votes in the Americas on climate and natural capital. &#8220;We again found that many of these proposals were over-reaching, lacked economic merit, or sought outcomes that were unlikely to promote long-term financial value,&#8221; the report said.
The letter also states that the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board relies on the Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory firm, for analysis of BlackRock and State Street’s proxy voting record. The firm is also “committed to environmental activism and imposing quotas on company boards,” Hild wrote. 
The agency utilizes quarterly analysis from the Institutional Shareholder Services to ensure that BlackRock and State Street vote in line with their written guidelines. 
“Reliance on ISS is contrary to [federal law’s] sole-interest standard, as ISS pursues an agenda that is incompatible with shareholder value and has made commitments to incorporate ESG into its processes. Contracting with ISS also raises concerns about ISS’s role in recommending votes that would inject race- and sex-based considerations into companies’ practices, which potentially violates federal and state civil rights laws,” Hild wrote. 
Hild wants Congress to press the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board to ensure that federal workers’ retirement savings are not being used to push politics. 
“The [FRTIB] owes the public answers, starting with whether it broke the law by allowing these notoriously woke firms to fund their ESG activism with millions of federal workers&#8217; savings. The longer that firms like BlackRock freely manage Thrift Saving Plan assets, the greater the danger to so many Americans&#8217; retirement security,” he said.

MixCollage-29-Sep-2025-11-26-AM-2253

Federal Retirement Dollars Used To Push Leftist Politics, Watchdog Warns

BlackRock

Climate Change

James Comer

Rand Paul

Wokeness

The DEI-obsessed medical school dean who called President Donald Trump’s efforts to define male and female an “attack on women” is stepping down from his position as his institution continues to promote radical ideologies.
Jerry Kruse, the dean of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, recently <a href="https://www.siumed.edu/news/dr-jerry-kruse-retire-siu-dean-provost-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that he would be leaving his position as head of the school in August 2026 after over four decades working at the institution. Over the last few months, Kruse has faced <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/unearthed-footage-exposes-medical-school-administrators-pledging-resist-trump-executive-orders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scrutiny</a> over comments pledging to resist the Trump administration’s DEI crackdown and revelations that the school has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/med-school-caught-rejecting-white-and-asian-applicants-with-better-scores-than-minorities-it-accepts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continued to reject</a> white and Asian applicants with higher test scores in favor of minority candidates.
Kruse, who has been with the school since 1984, <a href="https://www.siumed.edu/news/dr-jerry-kruse-retire-siu-dean-provost-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that he was “deeply proud of what we have accomplished together and confident that SIU Medicine will continue to grow and innovate.&#8221;
&#8220;Our triple aim has always been to provide health care that is effective, efficient and equitable, and I am looking forward to ending with excellence,&#8221; he added.
His departure was welcomed by Ian Kingsbury, the director of research for the medical watchdog Do No Harm.
“After aggressively steering Southern Illinois University School of Medicine toward an embrace of a radical woke agenda, it is welcome news that Dean Kruse is stepping down,” Kingsbury said. “From promoting discriminatory scholarships and practicing race-based admissions to publicly flouting President Trump&#8217;s executive orders, the school has practically begged for a federal investigation.”
“Hopefully, the former dean’s successor has the courage to clean up the mess of identity politics he will inherit and restore the institution&#8217;s integrity. Do No Harm will be watching,” he added.
Back in May, Do No Harm obtained footage of Kruse giving a speech to SIU staff where he laid out the school’s opposition to Trump’s executive orders on DEI and gender. Specifically, he took aim at Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> cracking down on radical gender ideology.
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“While the order allegedly attempts to protect women and girls, what it really does is threaten any woman or girl who doesn&#8217;t conform to sex based stereotypes and opens them up to invasion of privacy. This is an attack on women, on gender identity, on sexual orientation, and on basic human rights,” Kruse <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/siy9ewmyoo7rrwnyqq3ar/SIU-News-and-Views-with-Dr.-Kruse-0325.mp4?rlkey=80pp1ok0lj1etr5g9ik42vokn&amp;e=1&amp;st=43sm5lq3&amp;dl=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, according to the footage.
Kruse also promised to fight the Trump administration and wait for the directives to play out in court.
&#8220;We will resist obeying in advance. We won&#8217;t do any anticipatory obedience,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The existing laws have not changed, no court directives will require any change in compliance at this time.&#8221;
The Southern Illinois University School of Medicine has been <a href="https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/RecipDetail?arg_EntityId=PlNjsfJ%2FhuFyRnIQqjoNjQ%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> over $5 million in federal funds this year and received another $6.4 million in 2024.
Currently on its website, SIU promotes multiple <a href="https://archive.ph/9EHhD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scholarship</a> opportunities that are only available on the basis of race or sex. For example, the “Underrepresented Students in Medicine” scholarship is only available for those who are African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander, or from mainland Puerto Rico. There is also the “American Dissertation Scholarship,” which is only available to women.
The school’s office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion also <a href="https://www.siumed.edu/studentaffairs/affinity-groups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offers</a> multiple gender and racially-based affinity groups, and the school proudly <a href="https://www.siumed.edu/diversity/minority-faculty-recruitment-plan.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advertises</a> its “minority faculty recruitment plan.”
The University of Illinois System, which oversees the school of medicine, has embedded DEI into its <a href="https://siusystem.edu/about/strategic-plan/index.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strategic plan</a>.
<div id="attachment_977103" style="width: 626px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-977103" class="size-full wp-image-977103" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-25-at-2.23.55-PM.png" alt="" width="616" height="785" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-25-at-2.23.55-PM.png 616w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-25-at-2.23.55-PM-235x300.png 235w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-25-at-2.23.55-PM-452x576.png 452w" sizes=" (max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px" />SIU strategic plan.</div>
&#8220;We will be a national model of anti-racism and anti-oppression that promotes diversity, inclusion, and equitable access and opportunity for all individuals,” the system says.
The system was awarded the Leadership in DEI Award at the 2025 Keystone Awards by a Norwegian-based education company.
The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/med-school-caught-rejecting-white-and-asian-applicants-with-better-scores-than-minorities-it-accepts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that the school admits black and Hispanic students with lower average MCAT scores and GPAs than the average scores of white and Asian students it rejects despite the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn affirmative action. That report led to a <a href="https://dehayf5mhw1h7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/1515/2025/06/05072346/jacobs-siu-school-of-medicine-admissions-policy-letter-6-2-25.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> from local lawmakers to the school demanding transparency about its admissions processes.
The school also <a href="https://www.siumed.edu/centers-family-medicine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">owns</a> and <a href="https://www.siumed.org/treatment/gender-equity-and-transgender-clinic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">operates</a> a Gender Equity and Transgender Clinic, which offers “gender affirming hormone therapy” and provides referrals for the surgical removal of breasts and other genital surgeries. The clinic’s website inaccurately claims that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones can be reversed.

MixCollage-25-Sep-2025-05-13-PM-4582

DEI-Obsessed Med School Dean Who Pushed Resistance To Trump Is Leaving

Education

medical school

In March, the Trump Administration issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/">Executive Order</a> (EO) calling for a restoration of “Truth and Sanity to American History” which included a review of the Smithsonian Institute Museums. Now, the Administration is making good on that EO.
Naturally, politicians, Left-wing media, and the far-Left are pouncing with charges of &#8220;Stalinist tactics,” “fascism,” and “Trump’s historical vision.”
Yet, the most glaring example to justify the Administration’s action is the now <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333">infamous</a> Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s &#8220;Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States.&#8221;
But it is not just the one museum, the American Art Museum also features a <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/furthering-conversation-about-whiteness">page</a> titled “Furthering the Conversation About Whiteness.”
While the auditing of these institutions is probably overdue and necessary, there also needs to be a spotlight put on the teaching of culture and history in our educational institutions, especially K-12 schools.
The defensive position from the Left is that they just want to teach “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/27/opinions/teachers-union-critical-race-theory-schools-weingarten">honest history</a>.” Meant to sound noble, this is nothing more than wordplay. It is misdirection in an attempt to hide their heavily curated and far-Left [re]vision of history.
“Honest history,” as they will have the public believe, is just teaching the history of “underrepresented groups” to highlight their contributions to the United States. However, peel back the feel-good façade and it is clear there is a political agenda to advance anti-American, anti-Western ideologies – i.e. anti-“whiteness.”
In the context of K-12 education, there is no clearer example of this than [liberated/critical] ethnic studies.
Sold to school districts, parents, students, and the public writ large as the teaching of history and culture of minority groups, it is a far-Left radical political programming.
It is agitprop being deployed on children into K-12 schools. Amping up their emotions, preying on their empathy, and then feeding them politically biased content.
It’s general framework begins with a heavy focus on a student’s various racial and ethnic “identities,” or intersectionality. The intention is to create a strong tribal attachment to the student’s collective identities.
It then introduces “<a href="https://www.newsmax.com/politics/critical-competency-consciousness/2023/12/07/id/1145144/">critical consciousness</a>,” which trains students to find racism and oppression everywhere in their lives. Driving them into a constant state of anxiety and fear.
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For example, a recent Castro Valley Unified School District ethnic studies <a href="https://cvk12ca.community.highbond.com/document/cf8c0982-2db8-464f-83da-7932fab50636/">presentation</a> to the district board demonstrates this via student art which states “As an Asian American, racism is prevalent all around me.”
Ethnic studies activate deep feelings of anger and resentment in students towards the United States, and even towards their white teachers and peers.
A <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/ridgs/ethnic-studies-initiative/ethnic-studies-evaluation-projects">review</a> of Saint Paul Publics Schools’ ethnic studies program by the University of Minnesota highlights several students’ reflections on the course. One anonymous student stated &#8220;Why would a course about being critical have white teachers? My school has one [B]lack teacher teaching it. How can we be critical if we don’t listen to the voices who are firstly impacted? Also, white teachers even if they mean well will implement their own biases that students will have to deal with.”
The political programming continues by creating heroes, legends, and mythology through the intentional curation of historical events and peoples that have modeled “resistance” against whiteness. Examples include <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/ethnic-studies-course-features-poster-of-che-guevara-on-wall-includes-content-focused-on-white-supremacy-and-privilege/">Che Guevara</a>, the <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/scotts-valley-unified-school-district-ethnic-studies-course-teaches-students-that-capitalism-heterosexism-and-ableism-are-systems-of-oppression-and-forms-of-oppression-requires-students-to-part/">Black Panther Party, Angela Davis</a>, and even a defense of <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/san-francisco-unified-school-district-provides-resource-to-social-studies-and-ethnic-studies-teachers-that-claims-israeli-terrorism-has-been-significantly-worse-than-that-of-the-palestinians-reso/">anti-Israel</a> activism and terrorism.
Finally, students are taught and required to engage in far-Left social justice activism. Under the guise of “Youth Participatory Action Research,” students are trained to become street <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2023/11/20/staley-k-12-student-demonstrations-equity-double-standard/">activists</a> for the flavor-of-the-day far-Left cause.
Eventually, the goal is to embed it into every single subject area and <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/santa-rosa-city-schools-ethnic-studies-courses-feature-critical-race-theory-whiteness-and-social-justice-activism-paid-ethnic-studies-consultant-530000-over-four-years/">curriculum</a>. They admit this outright.
In California, San Rafael City Schools <a href="https://simbli.eboardsolutions.com/SB_Meetings/ViewMeeting.aspx?S=36030430&amp;MID=24501&amp;enIID=fBHmEqAHmyvMJ3CrfpluszzjQ%3D%3D&amp;srch=ethnic+studies&amp;ktype=Exact&amp;Tab=Agenda">contracted</a> with the University of California Berkeley’s <a href="https://ucbhssp.berkeley.edu/ethnic-studies">History-Social Science Project</a> to integrate ethnic studies “concepts and pedagogies” into the district’s World and U.S. history courses.
The university’s site states that it is assisting teachers and districts in integrating the “<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/13h6vVmJEeVyk1XdBAGZDuxMiZjLhhoYD4loNz7NSlck/copy">CA Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum</a>” into courses, which includes helping teachers “familiarize themselves with&#8230;critical race theory, intersectionality, which are key theoretical frameworks and pedagogies.”
This issue is not about the actual teaching of culture and history; it is about how far-Left actors are advancing their cultural revolution via the long march through American institutions.
While the Administration and public focus their attention on the national museums, heavy scrutiny must simultaneously be placed on the teaching of “honest history” and ethnic studies in K-12.
The advancement of anti-American and anti-Western ideologies need to be removed from classrooms.
* * *
Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Defending Education. He holds a master&#8217;s degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of volleyball coaching experience from Women’s Division I down to junior high.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Empty Black Board in Classroom

‘Furthering The Conversation About Whiteness’: Anti-American Rhetoric On The Rise In The Classroom

'Furthering The Conversation About Whiteness': Anti-American Rhetoric On The Rise In The Classroom

American History

California

Critical Race Theory

Ethnic Studies

Leftists

Public Schools

Students

Whiteness

Cracker Barrel is under fire.
What did they do? They changed their logo.
I thought their logo used to be charming. It showed a middle-aged white farmer sitting on a chair, leaning against a barrel with a logo that said “Cracker Barrel: Old Country Store.”
It didn&#8217;t look generic. Their new logo now shows the same font and letters, but they got rid of the man on the chair leaning on the barrel and the old country store. All that’s left is just the Cracker Barrel logo inside a yellow hexagonal background.
It looks like you&#8217;re driving into a Carl&#8217;s Jr.
I would hazard a guess that the shape is supposed to be in the shape of a sideways barrel, but you have to really think about it to get that far.
<div id="attachment_963781" style="width: 825px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-963781" class="size-large wp-image-963781" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-815x576.jpg" alt="Courtesy: Cracker Barrel" width="815" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-815x576.jpg 815w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-300x212.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-768x543.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-1536x1086.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-2048x1448.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 815px) 100vw, 815px" />Courtesy: Cracker Barrel</div>
It&#8217;s a very bad move.
It’s getting rid of historic intellectual property in favor of something absolutely and ridiculously generic.
When it first opened in 1969, Cracker Barrel had a logo with just text. In 1977, it updated its logo to have the man resting next to the barrel. The restaurant says the new logo is now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel, shape, and wordmark that started it all. It also noted that farm-fresh scrambled eggs and buttermilk biscuits were the inspiration behind the color palette in the new campaign.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2264-democratic-party-bleeding-voters?elementPosition=4&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino tried to explain why they mutilated the logo this way, saying, “Honestly, the feedback&#8217;s been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we&#8217;re doing. I&#8217;ll give you another sound bite. I actually happened to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers. We bring them together once every other year and the number one question that I got asked was, ‘How can I get a remodel? When can I get a remodel? How do I get on the list?” Because the feedback and the buzz is so good, not only from our customers, but from our team members. They want to work in a wonderful restaurant. So we&#8217;re doing everything for our guests and our team members.”
This is very reminiscent of when we used to buy Aunt Jemima’s syrup. During the great racial reckoning of 2020, they decided they had to redo the entire logo and they changed it to Pearl Milling Company. That was bizarre, because the actual story of the woman who was Aunt Jemima is fascinating.
<div id="attachment_963793" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-963793" class="size-large wp-image-963793" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031-768x576.jpg" alt="26 June 2020, US, New York: Syrup bottles from &quot;Aunt Jemima&quot; are in a supermarket. US food giant Pepsi is giving its 130-year-old &quot;Aunt Jemima&quot; brand a new look. The mascot so far: a black woman as a friendly servant. There is to be a new start this year. (to dpa-Korr &quot;Popstars, Uncle Ben's and Co.: Racism debate leads to rethinking&quot;) Photo: Benno Schwinghammer/dpa (Photo by Benno Schwinghammer/picture alliance via Getty Images)" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Benno Schwinghammer/picture alliance via Getty Images</div>
Her name was Nancy Green, and according to ABC News, “Green was born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky. After the Civil War, she moved to a deeply divided Chicago, becoming a strong voice at Olivet Baptist Church, the city’s oldest black congregation.”
<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/untold-story-real-aunt-jemima-fight-preserve-legacy/story?id=72293603">ABC News</a> found a descendant of hers who said, “She was the trusted face. Back then, you know, anybody who would look at an African American woman cooking, they knew that they can trust her cooking, that she could cook.” He said of the decision to remove her picture, “I was taken aback. I was really shocked. I knew people didn&#8217;t realize that those were real people and, you know, to phase them out would kind of erase their history.”
But somehow this was supposed to make the country better.
I&#8217;m not sure what Cracker Barrel is doing here. It doesn&#8217;t make a lot of sense. Cracker Barrel does have many DEI initiatives. If you take a look at their corporate website, they have the LGBTQ+- sign; they have a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging department.
In other words, they do all of the usual left-wing tropes. They&#8217;re a generic New York-based kind of company.
I would have guessed that when they lost that local flavor, they would lose some sales as well.
Sure enough, on Thursday, CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cracker-barrel-cbrl-stock-down-200-million-loss-new-logo-change/">reported</a>, “Cracker Barrel shed almost $200 million in market value after its stock plunged Thursday following the release of a new logo. &#8230; Shares of Cracker Barrel fell as much as $8.74, or almost 15%, in Thursday trading, shaving as much as $194.6 million from the company&#8217;s market value. The stock regained some ground in early afternoon trading, with shares down $8.19, or 13.9%, to $50.84.”
It is sad that so much of the intellectual property of America is getting more and more generic. I remember when McDonald&#8217;s had the big golden arches outside, and now they&#8217;ve decided to dump them in many places and instead use a generic logo.
It’s making the culture deeply impersonal and cold.
And I don’t like it.

Cracker Barrel Redesigns Its Logo

Cracker Barrel: Now With 100% Less Grandpa

Ben Shapiro

Corporations

Cracker Barrel

restaurants

A federal judge struck down the Trump administration&#8217;s efforts to crack down on DEI programs at federally funded schools, claiming the administration bypassed procedural requirements. 
Maryland District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/federal-judge-rules-education-department-race-dei-crackdown-unlawful.pdf">ruled</a> on Thursday against <a href="https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf">guidance</a> from the Education Department warning schools not to implement DEI programs that discriminate against white or Asian students. Gallagher&#8217;s ruling also applied to the Education Department&#8217;s demand that schools certify they were not discriminating through DEI programs.  
“This Court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue in this case are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair,” Gallagher wrote. “But, at this stage too, it must closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. Here, it did not. And by leapfrogging important procedural requirements, the government has unwittingly run headfirst into serious constitutional problems.”
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“The administration is entitled to express its viewpoints and to promulgate policies aligned with those viewpoints. But it must do so within the procedural bounds Congress has outlined. And it may not do so at the expense of constitutional rights,” the Trump-appointed judge added. 
The ruling was prompted by a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers and other teacher groups. The guidance was first blocked back in April. 
In response, the Department of Education said that it would continue to protect students from racial discrimination across the country. 
“While the Department is disappointed in the judge’s ruling, judicial action enjoining or setting aside this guidance has not stopped our ability to enforce Title VI protections for students at an unprecedented level,” a spokesman <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/14/federal-judge-declares-education-departments-attempt-to-bar-diversity-programs-unlawful-00510621">said</a>. “The Department remains committed to its responsibility to uphold students’ anti-discrimination protections under the law.”
The original guidance from the department was issued in February, and state education agencies were requested to certify compliance in April. It sought to end the practices of some schools to bypass the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn affirmative action and to end racially-based DEI school programs. The guidance suggested that schools could lose funding if they continued to promote DEI.  
“American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families. These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia,” <a href="https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf">the guidance read</a>. “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

Key Speakers At America First Agenda Summit

Judge Deals Major Blow To Trump’s Efforts To Purge DEI From Public Schools

Judge Deals Blow To Trump Admin Efforts To Crackdown On DEI At Public Schools

Courts

Department of Education

Trump Administration

The reason Washington, D.C. is in the news this week isn&#8217;t because of anything Donald Trump did. It&#8217;s because D.C., more than any other city in the country, is a monument to the sustained, managed decline of the United States. As our capital, the District is an unmistakable symbol of a pervasive mediocrity, at every level. Every aspect of the city, from top to bottom, operates in exactly the same way.
Take the police department, for example. By now you may have seen the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPM8QoXclUQ">viral clip</a> of the Police Chief, a woman named Pamela Smith, at a press conference with the mayor the other day. In this footage, she appears perplexed by the term &#8220;chain of command,&#8221; as if she&#8217;s never heard those words before in her entire life. A lot of people mocked that clip, and rightfully so. A police chief who doesn&#8217;t understand the concept of &#8220;chain of command&#8221; is a bit like a cook who&#8217;s never heard of the word &#8220;kitchen.&#8221; It&#8217;s the kind of jaw-dropping moment that doesn&#8217;t seem like it could possibly be real.
As bad as that clip was, the entire answer that Smith gave is even worse. The more context you provide for the clip, the more excruciating it becomes. It is important play the full context. Watch as a reporter tries, for more than a minute, to ask Smith about the extent of the federal government&#8217;s control of the D.C. police department. For all practical purposes, as we know, the White House has assumed command of the D.C. police for the next 30 days, pursuant to their legal authority over the District. But Smith seems to struggle with this concept. She implies, repeatedly, that the D.C. police are going to be working alongside the federal government as partners, without giving any indication of who&#8217;s actually in charge. And then, when the reporter finally asks the question as directly as he can, the police chief gives her now-infamous answer. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mayor Bowser, Chief Smith answer questions on federal takeover of DC Police" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UPM8QoXclUQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: WUSA 9/YouTube.com
The way Muriel Bowser swoops in, at precisely that moment, is probably the most revealing part of that clip. She knows how incompetent her police chief is. So she takes over, before things get any worse. Presumably, Bowser didn&#8217;t want the police chief to expound on all of the other words and phrases she doesn&#8217;t understand. After all, when your crime lab isn&#8217;t even accredited and your murder rate is higher than Baghdad&#8217;s, there&#8217;s only so many more hits to morale the city can take.
After this footage aired, a lot of people pointed out that Smith was not hired based on merit. Instead, a couple of years ago, she was hired as the chief &#8220;equity officer&#8221; in the D.C. police department. She was a &#8220;DEI hire&#8221; in every sense. And then, very quickly, she rose to become chief of police. It would be like elevating a DEI consultant to be the CEO of, say Microsoft. It&#8217;s a decision that makes no sense whatsoever.
At the time, when Smith got the job, local media in D.C. wasn&#8217;t interested in asking her about anything substantive. Instead, of course, they highlighted her skin color and gender, as well as her life story. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 DEI interview" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wVpPdvo0iHQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Washington D.C. is a District that, if it became a state, would have the highest murder rate in the entire country. It&#8217;s so dangerous that members of Congress are being carjacked and beaten in their apartments. The security detail for a Supreme Court justice was nearly carjacked, before they shot the attackers. The only relevant question, when you&#8217;re picking a police chief for a place like this, is what exactly the police chief is going to do about the carnage that&#8217;s unfolding every day. Instead, we&#8217;re told she&#8217;s a nice lady. She&#8217;s black. And she had a tough upbringing. Those were her qualifications.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1640-the-matt-walsh-show?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
It&#8217;s not an exaggeration to say that the local media did precisely zero vetting of this woman, nor did anyone in the D.C. government. At most, she was asked superficial questions, with no follow-ups. In a separate interview, for example, the local ABC affiliate asked Smith what she was going to do about all of the murdering that was going on in Washington D.C.
Here&#8217;s how she responded:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 Police Chief Pamela Smith" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Djjr_VLJngQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
They&#8217;re going to &#8220;come up with a plan,&#8221; according to Smith. The plan will address the murders. And it will address the lack of police officers, too. But you don&#8217;t get to know what the &#8220;plan&#8221; is. That would just be ridiculous. Any questions?
That was good enough for the local ABC affiliate. They asked no follow-ups. But in retrospect, it seems like we all know what the &#8220;plan&#8221; was. As we <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-moves-to-end-d-c-s-third-world-lawlessness-democrats-lose-it?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Matt+Walsh&amp;category=Opinion&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Trump+Moves+To+End+D.C.%E2%80%99s+Third-World+Lawlessness.+Democrats+Lose+It.">discussed</a> yesterday, it looks a lot like the plan in D.C. was to fabricate crime statistics. Instead of taking a report for a carjacking or a stabbing or a shooting, officers would classify the incident as &#8220;taking an injured person to the hospital&#8221; or a &#8220;theft&#8221; or a &#8220;felony assault.&#8221; Apparently, according to the police union, when an incident is classified as a &#8220;felony assault,&#8221; it doesn&#8217;t get counted in the D.C. police department&#8217;s daily crime stats, or the FBI&#8217;s uniform crime reporting system. This is a loophole that, we can only assume, is being used by many, many other police departments.
Also, in many cases, D.C. police would simply refuse to respond to crimes, including robberies and assaults. That&#8217;s another way to cook the books, as we all know. And for the DEI lady running the police department, apparently, that&#8217;s good enough.
Again, though, this isn&#8217;t about this one person. Pamela Smith is obviously inept. She has no business holding the job that she does, and people are dying as a result. But really, she&#8217;s a part of a larger problem. And pretty much everyone can see that. In the past year, due to various incidents — prison escapes, terrorist attacks, and wildfires — several prominent government officials in major cities all across the country have been thrust into the national spotlight.
<div id="attachment_960545" style="width: 775px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-960545" class="size-large wp-image-960545" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2197928039-765x576.jpg" alt="NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - FEBRUARY 05: New Orleans Chief of Police Anne Kirkpatrick arrives at Super Bowl Soulful Celebration at Mahalia Jackson Theater on February 05, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Kaitlyn Morris/Getty Images)" width="765" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2197928039-765x576.jpg 765w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2197928039-300x226.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2197928039-768x578.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2197928039.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 765px) 100vw, 765px" />Kaitlyn Morris/Getty Images</div>
After a jihadi mowed down more than a dozen people in New Orleans, the elderly female police chief informed the world that she had no idea — no idea whatsoever — that the city had purchased pedestrian barriers that could have prevented the attack. Whoops. That would&#8217;ve been nice to know, she said.
<div id="attachment_953505" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-953505" class="size-large wp-image-953505" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Teresa-Theetge-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot / YouTube: WBNS 10TV" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Teresa-Theetge-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Teresa-Theetge-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Teresa-Theetge-768x433.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Teresa-Theetge-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Teresa-Theetge.jpg 2006w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot / YouTube: WBNS 10TV</div>
Then, after the mob of &#8220;festival-goers&#8221; in Cincinnati brutally attacked white people at a music festival, which has long been a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y83e5lVccHI">state-sanctioned hotbed</a> of anti-white racism, the female police chief scolded the people who recorded the violence. 
<div id="attachment_856861" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856861" class="size-large wp-image-856861" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1237831459-864x576.jpg" alt="Deputy Fire Chief Kristin Crowley has been selected by Mayor Eric Garcetti to lead the Los Angeles Fire Department. Announcement was made at a press conference held at Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1237831459-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1237831459-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1237831459-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1237831459.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Irfan Khan via Getty Images</div>
Earlier in the year, in Los Angeles, as wildfires destroyed entire neighborhoods while firefighters ran out of water, it emerged that the fire chief was a strong independent lesbian who was committed to advancing the LGBTQIIA+ agenda. 
<div id="attachment_960549" style="width: 586px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-960549" class="wp-image-960549 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-576x576.jpg" alt="@EndWokeness/X. LAFD Deputy Chief Kristine Larson." width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-13-Aug-2025-04-03-PM-5533-2048x2048.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" />@EndWokeness/X. LAFD Deputy Chief Kristine Larson.</div>
Meanwhile the deputy fire chief, another fiercely independent girlboss, shot a <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/12/us-news/lafds-diversity-chief-sparks-fury-for-defending-dei-by-blaming-the-victim/">video</a> in which she downplayed the idea that female firefighters might not be able to rescue a man trapped in a fire by saying, and I, “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.&#8221; In other words, it&#8217;s the victim&#8217;s fault, as he&#8217;s burning alive, that women can&#8217;t meet the physical standards necessary to be firefighters.
Just from a statistical perspective, there&#8217;s an obvious problem here. We all know that, in the private sector, women aren&#8217;t typically leading major companies. That&#8217;s true in spite of the fact that every Fortune 500 corporation goes out of its way to advance women as part of their DEI agenda. That&#8217;s because women often choose to raise families instead of climbing the corporate ladder. In many cases, they find that they&#8217;re either unwilling or unable to work 80 hours a week, wasting away their entire life in an office building in exchange for a promotion. Also, men and women are different, and men are often just more suited for those kinds of jobs. Women certainly don&#8217;t choose to become police officers or firefighters in large numbers, for obvious reasons. And yet, whenever there&#8217;s a big news story in the past year, we discover that women are somehow running the local police or fire department.
The only way to explain what&#8217;s going on is that these departments are hiring women who are unqualified for the job, solely because they&#8217;re women. That&#8217;s not a partisan point. It&#8217;s basic math. That&#8217;s why these women immediately face-plant on the national stage, the moment they have to respond to any kind of crisis. See, the thing about incompetence is that, very often, it&#8217;s not particularly well-hidden. We&#8217;re not talking about criminal masterminds here. These people only get away with it because, in pretty much every case, no one checks on what they&#8217;re doing. But increasingly, it&#8217;s becoming impossible to ignore what&#8217;s happening. The degree of incompetence is simply too great.
By taking control of Washington D.C. — if only for 30 days or so — the Trump administration has the opportunity to highlight this incompetence even further. The administration can provide a clear contrast between Pamela Smith and Muriel Bowser on the one hand, and competent leadership on the other. They can make sure that every relevant piece of evidence is shipped to a functioning crime lab. They can unseal the D.C. police department&#8217;s fraudulent investigation into January 6, including the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. They can use basic terms like &#8220;chain of command&#8221; without freezing like a deer in the headlights. And in the end, they can expose the extent to which American decline is a choice. We can shut it down, just as quickly as the crime lab was shut down. And before any more people are forced to suffer in the nation&#8217;s capital, or any other major city, that&#8217;s exactly what needs to happen.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Holds A News Conference After President Trump Announced Federal Takeover Of D.C. Police

The Insanely Incompetent DEI Hire Running One Of America’s Most Dangerous Cities

Crime

Muriel Bowser

Police

Violent Crime

Two more military academies agreed to permanently end race-based admissions, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
In a new settlement, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Air Force Academy will abandon DEI in favor of merit, Attorney General Pam Bondi <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-settles-lawsuits-challenging-race-based-admissions-west-point-and-air">said</a>. The settlement will lead to the dismissal of two lawsuits against the academies brought by the group Students for Fair Admissions.
“This Department is committed to eliminating DEI practices throughout the federal government,” Bondi said. “We are proud to partner with the Department of Defense to permanently end race-based admissions at West Point and the Air Force Academy — admission to these prestigious military institutions should be based exclusively on merit.”
Students for Fair Admission, the group whose suit led to the end of affirmative action at universities across the country, argued that race-based admissions policies at the military academies violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
The terms of agreement in the settlement stipulate that merit will be the only factor leading to admission at either West Point or the Air Force Academy.
“America is the land of equal opportunity, in spirit and in law,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Today’s agreement ensures that our future military leaders will carry on the greatness that is born of opportunity, effort, and a level playing field.”
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon also praised the settlement.
“Congrats to our [DOJ Civil] Division for their hard work in restoring merit-based admissions to some of our top military academies!” she posted on X.
In June, a similar settlement <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/naval-academy-promises-to-permanently-end-race-based-admissions">was announced</a> between Students for Fair Admissions and the U.S. Naval Academy.
That came after President Donald Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-americas-fighting-force/">executive order</a> on January 27 that said that no one within the military should be given any advantage based on gender or race.
“Unfortunately, in recent years civilian and uniformed leadership alike have implemented Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and their attendant race and sex preferences within the Armed Forces,” Trump wrote in an executive order. “These actions undermine leadership, merit, and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness.  They also violate Americans’ consciences by engaging in invidious race and sex discrimination.”

Washington DC Celebrates Army’s 250th Anniversary With Parade And Festivities

Two More Military Academies Agree To ‘Permanently’ Drop Race-Based Admissions

Affirmative Action

Air Force

Department of Justice

Military

U.S.

West Point

A Texas mayor was caught on video using disturbing language berating a Christian preacher at a LGBT festival, video shows.
Jim Ross, the mayor of Arlington, Texas, targeted the preacher during a 2023 LGBT event. The shocking moments were captured by Vice, though Ross&#8217;s face is blurred and the footage has just now been <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/exclusive-arlington-mayor-jim-ross-200000969.html">uncovered</a> by The Dallas Express.
Ross claims he&#8217;s a moderate, but routinely <a href="https://www.keranews.org/politics/2023-04-05/arlington-candidates-tackle-dei-issues-transportation-development-in-naacp-forum">pushes</a> race-based and gender-based initiatives and has promoted LGBT &#8220;pride.&#8221;
“I believe y’all can have free speech. But this is some hateful s*** and I am a heterosexual guy,&#8221; Ross says in the footage, speaking to preacher Ruben Israel, who has since passed away.
“You stand out here like you are a b*da** motherf***er,” the mayor continued. “You don’t think anal sex is good, do you? Have you ever f***ed your old lady in the a**? I’d f*** your old lady in the a**.”
Ross was not done, however. He called Israel a &#8220;p**** mother***er&#8221; and told him, “Shut your a**, shut your a**, you little piece of s***. You ought to talk s***, these people around here are having a good f***ing time.”
At the time of the confrontation, Ross was serving as mayor of Arlington, and currently holds the same position.
Tarrant County GOP Chairman Bo French said Ross needs to resign &#8220;immediately&#8221; over the conduct.
Tarrant County Republican Precinct Chair TK Campbell, also speaking to The Dallas Express, said Ross&#8217;s unprofessional behavior mirrors that of prominent Democrats, who&#8217;ve clung to cursing as an apparent political strategy.
“The now Mayor of Arlington’s vile, profanity-laced rant at the late Ruben Israel, a Christian street preacher, is a disgrace,&#8221; Campbell said. &#8220;Perhaps the mayor was stressed out because of not being able to pay his taxes of late, but his unprofessional conduct mirrors the worst of today’s cursing Democrats. Leadership demands better.&#8221;
Campbell&#8217;s comments regarding taxes seem to reference Ross recently having his wages garnished by the IRS. <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/arlington-mayor-acknowledges-irs-garnishment-160013005.html">According</a> to The Dallas Express, Ross owes $940.39 in penalties and interest and has an outstanding debt of about $175,000.
During his tenure as mayor, Ross has created advisory councils based on race, religion, and identity, including black, Asian, Latino, Muslim, and LGBTQ.
In 2023, Ross defended the forums during an NAACP event. “You have to have a black advisory council because, folks, black people are not the same. Did y’all know that?” he said, <a href="https://www.keranews.org/politics/2023-04-05/arlington-candidates-tackle-dei-issues-transportation-development-in-naacp-forum">according</a> to KERA News. “Latinos are not the same. Asians are not the same.”
WARNING: Language 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
🚨BOMBSHELL🚨 Newly surfaced footage identifies Texas Arlington Mayor Jim Ross at an LGBTQ festival telling a Christian preacher: “I’d f*ck your old lady in the *ss.” Ross used vulgar language and made explicit remarks
Read article👇.
Follow: <a href="https://twitter.com/DallasExpress?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dallasexpress</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Carlos__Turcios?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Carlos__Turcios</a> <a href="https://t.co/IzagUbFqb5">pic.twitter.com/IzagUbFqb5</a>
— Carlos Turcios (@Carlos__Turcios) <a href="https://twitter.com/Carlos__Turcios/status/1953919764616638727?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2025</a></blockquote>

Mayor Jim Ross

‘I’d F*** Your Old Lady In The A**’: Liberal Mayor Berates Christian At LGBT Festival

LGBTQ

Pride

As we pass the halfway point of the 2020s, it’s safe to say we’ve all had front row seats to what many people have described as the vibe shift. You don’t really have to pay attention to business to understand that something is changing in corporate America. You don’t have to be looking at stocks every day to realize that the balance of power is shifting away from the heights of wokeness we saw at the beginning of the 2020s. President Trump’s latest executive <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-guarantees-fair-banking-for-all-americans/">order</a>, prohibiting politicized debanking, is creating massive positive waves for conservatives concerned about losing access to their finances — and investors who don’t want the banks they invest in playing politics. This comes on the heels of other executive orders targeted at biased AI <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/preventing-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/">programs</a> and divisive, discriminatory <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/">DEI policies</a>.
These big steps are the results of top-down exercises in executive power. And a frequent criticism I hear, as someone whose job it is to pay attention to business, is that Trump’s executive orders will just create a facade of non-wokeness, under which companies will resume their previous biased policies. As it happens, answering that criticism is a major part of my work in the world of corporate engagement. Because the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-year-the-dei-tide-turned?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=10&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Year+The+DEI+Tide+Turned">pushback</a> against ESG, DEI, &amp; corporate wokeness isn’t just coming from the White House. It’s coming from ordinary investors all across this country who want the businesses they invest in focusing on… well, business.
Let’s take debanking as an example. Months before Trump’s debanking executive order came down, banks like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/major-win-jpmorgan-chase-ends-political-debanking?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Major+Win%3A+JPMorgan+Chase+Ends+Political+Debanking">JPMorgan Chase</a> &amp; <a href="https://x.com/IsaacWillour/status/1929918865842012351">Citigroup</a> adopted explicit guarantees: no more debanking based on clients’ political beliefs or affiliations. These banks weren’t just anticipating the regulatory and political shift coming from Washington — they were hearing from shareholders. Why? Because when businesses play politics, they don’t just incur the wrath of Republican politicians. These gambles with brand value and deviations from the core business model hurt ordinary Americans, who rightly expect Citigroup to create value for their kids’ college fund instead of opining on gun control through their lending policies.
When JPMorgan Chase debanked Ambassador Sam Brownback, investors took notice. And the investors I work with aren’t the type to sit back and take it. Shareholders like <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/my-bid-to-make-jpmorgan-less-woke-progressive-discrimination-conservatives-christians-shareholders-sec-banking-finances-583c7999?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAhg8WubEGKB7cvLlardDDcKkGeJqpUicqcbM1xoLBHMGeBHqpP1w-ZC4shMtQk%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68957d1d&amp;gaa_sig=hpzyOTrRxsQ-AO0cLmG4VpK0q2-FpzuLTXkXA0T73nZM0Iu73898-9shhfsDz68MpAEbFs9tDXU_DvlMbfl-Fw%3D%3D">David Bahnsen</a> and other ordinary <a href="https://investor.bankofamerica.com/regulatory-and-other-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0001193125-24-064529/d529855ddef14a1.pdf">investors</a> were attending annual meetings and putting pressure on these companies from the inside for years, not to be right-wing or give special privileges to conservatives, but to play it neutral: serve everyone, because everyone needs banks. And because banks have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, there have been real arguments occurring between investors and company reps for years on the debanking issue. Add to this pressure from red state fiduciaries cutting ties with activist banks (turns out, pro-energy states don’t take kindly to banks demonizing the energy industry), and the supercharging effect of an executive order, and you start to see how corporate America is slowly shifting back towards normalcy. And that’s just the debanking issue.
If you had to sum up why the backlash to corporate wokeness is working in one sentence, try this one: the pro-sanity business ecosystem has become too big to ignore, and too committed to fail. Think about it as a coalition. One part is ordinary investors and institutions who invest for return — these aren’t professional activists, a dynamic that companies are only recently having to get used to. Another part is financial professionals, another part are legal advocates like Alliance Defending Freedom, working to make sure companies can’t just ignore their own shareholders (because they try — often). Another part is friendly journalists and X personalities like Robby Starbuck, putting millions of eyes on this issue. Another part is the countless advocacy groups providing the research &amp; data that fuel our ability to talk to these companies, such as Consumers’ Research and the 1792 Exchange. Effective corporate engagement happens when all these forces align on a single aim: getting companies out of politics &amp; back to business. 
And we’re seeing real results on a whole host of issues. Beyond the debanking issue, we’re seeing companies <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/us-banks-quit-net-zero-alliance-before-trump-inauguration">ditch</a> anti-energy commitments in droves (turns out, net zero becomes a fantasy the minute you look at the energy demands of the real world.) We’re seeing companies commit to treating their religious employees with the same respect &amp; privileges afforded to non-religious ones, including through workplace affinity groups and inclusion in charity matching programs. We’re seeing companies like <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/pepsico-puts-out-viewpoint-neutral-media-buying-content-policy-website">PepsiCo</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ibm-rolls-back-dei-commits-to-political-neutrality?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=IBM+Rolls+Back+DEI%2C+Commits+To+Political+Neutrality">IBM</a> commit to not using their ad policies to discriminate against conservative news outlets like the Daily Wire. And we have good reason to believe that, as corporate engagement increases, more wins are coming.
So, what about that façade of nonwokeness? Aren’t companies just going to lie? As it happens, vigilance from actual investors is a fantastic way to safeguard against that. People generally have the biggest incentive to do something when it hurts to not do it. So, who has the biggest incentive to make sure businesses aren’t playing politics? The people who own the business: shareholders. The investors we represent have a clear incentive to be in the details — because the problem of corporate wokeness isn’t just a PR or branding issue. It’s an issue that affects the bottom line Americans depend on.
The vibe shift we’re seeing goes far beyond Washington, even though Washington matters. What’s happening in America, in real time, is conservative investors and institutions waking up and realizing that they’ve been leaving their financial influence on the table. And we truly have no blueprint for how much winning is possible when that influence is brought to bear. So, from Washington, to the halls of conservative institutions, to the ordinary mom-and-pop investors sitting at their kitchen table in West Texas — here’s to winning. The best is yet to come.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Flag and Wall street sign

Why The Pro-Sanity Coalition Is Winning Again In Corporate America

Banks

Business

debanking

JP Morgan

Stock Market

Wall Street

The following excerpt is taken from the new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22E4UEYSZLK9L&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7OpVlvjzAMkKLRoafpVC5BbfjWiiv_d1HNPN1kmFXABtw90xnU8oHEEAF-C1mFSw.m6gzq7MX5HeMeyZUsEzNWkKLTJiFGUtfa6NHjZv0eDw&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=the+war+on+science+lawrence+krauss&amp;qid=1754574679&amp;sprefix=the+war+on+sc%2Caps%2C111&amp;sr=8-1">The War On Science</a>,&#8221; edited by Lawrence M. Krauss (Post Hill Press, 2025), with contributions from Jordan B. Peterson, Niall Ferguson, Richard Dawkins, Gad Saad, and many more. 
* * *
<h3>The Archetypal Fate Of The Universities</h3>
The institutions of higher education in the West are administratively top-heavy, in precisely the manner allowing that very administration to prey upon the future earnings of the students they hypothetically serve. Furthermore, the faculty itself leans very heavily in the radical direction despite being the dubious beneficiaries of administrative expansion. Student-to-faculty ratios have increased dramatically. The status and autonomy of the faculty have been very badly compromised. None of this seems to have made the professors and researchers any more forthcoming in their resistance or any more skeptical about the self-righteous “progressive” ideals they advocate. Finally, the students themselves have been infantilized, as well as taught outright that progressive radicalism is identical to virtue. It is, therefore, very difficult to imagine anything approximating an across-the-board improvement in behavior at the universities, in consequence. There are no imaginable circumstances under which the extant Ivy League institutions, for example, would be likely to dispense with the 80 percent of administrative staff and a somewhat lesser but still high proportion of the faculty that would have to disappear for any real change in orientation to occur. 
There have been recent initiatives, most famously in the states of Texas and Florida, to push back against the diversity, inclusivity, and equity bureaucracy-mob, but a simple name change is no trouble for the serpentine Machiavellians of the radical fringe to manage. This means that the same old corrupt players can just change their ideational camouflage, and at the surface level, just as they did when the revelations of Communist excess became too self-evident to deny in the 1970s, and Marxism metastasized into the intersectional oppression idiocy of today. It is, therefore, highly possible that the academy in the West is rotting because it is, in fact, dead and cannot be revived in anything resembling its current form. In that case, the flame will have to be kept burning at new institutions, whether in the classic bricks-and-mortar and in-person guise, if that proves possible (and I doubt it), or electronically, if the major changes in the conceptualization of education and the technology necessary to offer mass higher learning prove capable of delivering on their obvious but by no means certain promise.
<div id="attachment_958091" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.uHHyjHn4r9-5D55ze0R9Gk-xy5AIFtAEK7qQ4oR-WpQLi51rBu79jgtR88ZY5U4VgKNq4guJpjpfz4JBsu0CN4ZKfzsmHlY2xOTX5ypfus0dPolpFU3YLRuD1JycE93FkmrEi8sJQT_-K9sN8c2aXpVu9KANTbLiCQ7kDTygeqz7Oh8iBp7BWNSPZkoE6i9QqlYnHbmAMe8OQScq8S7oi0FoZ5cX6CV4hwRSurj_rO8.zNhWL4XZiBpgI8rDMadnYyGjqoUHGwS4_vcJYlypv18&amp;qid=1754575409&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-958091" class="wp-image-958091 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-384x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Post Hill Press" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Credit: Post Hill Press</div>
Is there a way out personally, psychologically, or conceptually? Or, more specifically, what is presently incumbent upon those who are currently or will in the future be engaged in the university teaching or research enterprise? We can turn, once again, to the Enuma Elish account to elucidate the archetypal pattern. It is always in the very darkest hour that the redeeming hero emerges. Deliverance comes to the faithless murderer-children of chaos and order in the story in question in the hero-form of Marduk, the Mesopotamian savior-son-of-God. After Cain and Abel, we are presented with the cataclysm of the flood, as well as the erection of the Tower of Babel, the totalitarian edifice which is a structure of value with the wrong value at its pinnacle. Those are the twin fates of the descendants of Cain, the parasites who will not sacrifice properly and who undermine what even they themselves most truly value and depend upon. What are these fates? The descent of the world into the primordial waters of chaos that reigned before the beginning; alternatively, the worship of the false idols of the Luciferian intellect that likewise produce disunity and confusion — in the latter case, the eventual inability of those who aim wrong to even understand or utter the same words. “What is a woman?” — indeed. What is the way forward in the biblical narrative — perhaps running parallel to the Mesopotamian story? 
Careless pride eternally comes before a fall, but the humility that is its medicament is the attention that leaves nothing out of its purview and can, therefore, perceive the proper course forward. We could consider the account of Jonah, the everyman alerted by his conscience to speak the words of truth that set society straight. He flees, initially, from the requirement — who wants to risk standing against the mob? — but upon encountering the abysmal consequences of maintaining silence when there is something that demands to be said, he reconsiders his cowardice, turns his voice over to the control of the divine, and redeems the corrupt city of his enemies. What is the moral of such stories for the timorous, ideology-addled professors of today — or for those who enable them through their silence or even “allyship”? What might be done by forthright and faithful believers in the redeeming quality of truth and sacrifice when the walls we relied on to protect us have been breached and the barbarians have entered the gates? And have they? Here’s a telling data point: it is none other than the despicable Michel Foucault, darling of the Luciferian radicals, who is by some accounts the most cited “scholar” in the world.
What might be done, indeed? We professors, scholars, and researchers could open the eyes and the mouths God has given us instead of continuing to take each of the thousands of small steps backward that have enabled the devouring ideologues at our institutions. We could forthrightly note the chaos that looms and identify and hold to account its purveyors and acolytes. We could do the duty required of us by the people who have charged the inhabitants of the academy with the responsibility of preserving and seeking the truth, and we could call out the frauds, hucksters, Machiavellians, and outright charlatan-psychopaths of the faux disciplines and idiot theories of oppressor and victim. We could, by so doing, speak the words of truthful magic that redeem the fragmented world and position the foundation back in its place. Alternatively, we could remain frozen in the corner like the petrified rabbits we have far too often revealed ourselves to be and let the parasitical rabble attain their temporary and inevitably self and society-destroying “victory.” What did the great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn say so effectively in his all-out and eventually successful assault on the predatory tyrants and parasites of the envious and ideology-possessed radical world? ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD. The protected professoriate pays for the opportunity and protection historically granted by the community to the academic endeavor with the vow to protect what is true, beautiful, and good. If we once again found the courage to be the standard-bearers of such value, the mad and ideological mob would be rapidly defeated. 
Will we do what needs to be done? We have failed so far, and it would take a mad bit of optimism to suggest that the course could be reversed. Nonetheless, the situation is far from hopeless. Here is another bit of traditional mythology to consider with regard to such a situation. When Abraham is informed by God of the latter’s decision to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the great prophet objects, making the case that wholesale destruction is no temperate and proper response to the sins even of the many (Genesis 18: 22–33). God agrees to spare the threatened cities if even fifty righteous people might still be found dwelling within their walls. Abraham persists in his objections, even after receiving such consideration from God, bargaining the divine down to forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty — then ten. What does this strange story indicate? Nothing less than this: an entire polity, and all of its denizens, can be saved even from an impending, dire, and deserved fate if even a tiny number of its inhabitants remain willing to risk the great adventure of the truth.
The moral of the story for the current denizens of the academies of higher education? It would not take a great number of professors, researchers, and students even now to speak and turn the tide. The moral, even more specifically, even more personally? It is incumbent on each and every one of us engaged in such enterprise to risk being one of the redeeming ten. We should remember, too, when considering such things: it is indeed a risk to see what is in front of our eyes and to say what needs to be said. It is also true, however, that willful blindness and failure to speak when there is something to say are ventures with perils of their own. The ten in question may find themselves in trouble when they speak, but they are simultaneously saving themselves and all those around them from the invisible hand of doom, threatening the future. This is an existential fact, alluded to in the great story of Jonah. It is not by mere chance that the fleeing prophet finds himself drowning when he holds his tongue after being commanded to speak — and then, worse, devoured by the beast of the abyss. There is indeed a descent into hell that threatens, both psychologically and socially, when conscience is ignored. It is the wisdom of the ages that the risk of seeing and speaking, all things considered, is much less than the risk of hiding and silence. There may be a price that is to be paid for the former — but the price of the latter is both soul and society. The true spirit of the academy is the prophetic voice that redeems. We abandon that at our great peril and to the detriment of all that depends on education itself. 
See, therefore, and speak — or pay the inevitable price.
* * *
This excerpt is published by permission of Post Hill Press. “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22E4UEYSZLK9L&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7OpVlvjzAMkKLRoafpVC5BbfjWiiv_d1HNPN1kmFXABtw90xnU8oHEEAF-C1mFSw.m6gzq7MX5HeMeyZUsEzNWkKLTJiFGUtfa6NHjZv0eDw&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=the+war+on+science+lawrence+krauss&amp;qid=1754574679&amp;sprefix=the+war+on+sc%2Caps%2C111&amp;sr=8-1">The War on Science: Thirty-Nine Renowned Scientists and Scholars Speak Out About Current Threats to Free Speech, Open Inquiry, and the Scientific Process</a>,” edited by Lawrence M. Krauss. (Post Hill Press, July 2025).
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-role-of-the-holy-spirit-distinguishing-between-your-will-and-gods-will" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Jordan B. Peterson</a> is a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. From 1993 to 1998 he served as assistant and then associate professor of psychology at Harvard. He is the international bestselling author of “Maps of Meaning,” “12 Rules For Life,” “Beyond Order.” Be sure to order his newest book, “We Who Wrestle with God” (Portfolio/Penguin).
Lawrence M. Krauss is an internationally renowned theoretical physicist, bestselling author, and acclaimed lecturer. A passionate advocate for science and reason, and the public understanding of science, he is the author of twelve popular books, including the international bestsellers &#8220;The Physics of Star Trek, A Universe from Nothing,&#8221; and his most recent book, &#8220;The Edge of Knowledge.&#8221; He received his PhD from MIT and then moved to the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is currently President of The Origins Project Foundation, Chair of the Board of the Free Speech Union, Canada, and host of The Origins Podcast.

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