Video captured the moment that a man rammed his four-wheeler into a Tesla vehicle in Texas, and police say he went on to damage two other Tesla vehicles.

The surveillance video shows 33-year-old Demarqeyun Cox from Texarkana allegedly driving an ATV into the car intentionally on Tuesday, according to Texarkana, Texas, Police Department.

‘He has not told us what his motivation was in doing that is or was.’

Police said the man’s anti-Tesla rampage began at the Golden Place restaurant on Summerhill Road, where he was captured on the Tesla’s surveillance footage ramming into it at full speed.

They were investigating the incident when police got a report of another Tesla damaged in the parking lot of a Lowe’s.

Police then said they saw a man fitting the description riding an ATV near the intersection of Summerhill and New Boston Roads. When they questioned Cox, he reportedly gave them a false name initially.

Police got a third report of Tesla vandalism near Genesis Prime Care on College Drive after they arrested Cox.

The man was charged with one count of felony criminal mischief and one count of failure to identify. Police said additional charges are pending for the other incidents.

Police also said that the word “Elon” was scratched into two vehicles.

“In the initial incident, he rammed the car with the four-wheeler, and the two subsequent incidents, he actually used some kind of tool to scratch the word ‘Elon’ into the paint of the vehicles there,” said Shawn Vaughn of the TTPD. “He has not told us what his motivation was in doing that is or was.”

Cox was in custody at the Bi-State Justice Center Jail in Texarkana on a bond of $105,000.

Tesla has been the target of protests from the far left after the company’s owner, Elon Musk, announced his support for President Donald Trump and then joined the administration to advise the Department of Government Efficiency. Some Tesla dealerships and vehicles have been vandalized with physical damage, gunshots, and even firebombing.

Video of the man ramming into the vehicle was widely shared on social media.

An image of the small four-wheeler can be viewed on the news video report from WBIR-TV on YouTube.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) signed new legislation on Wednesday that requires mobile app stores, including Apple and Google, to implement a user age verification process to protect children online.

The law, sponsored by Sen. Todd Weiler (R) and Rep. James Dunnigan (R), passed earlier this month. The bill takes effect on May 7.

‘The apps are the first main gateway to how you protect children.’

Instead of age checks at app download, Utah’s law mandates that app stores verify ages up front. The App Store Accountability Act, a first-of-its-kind law, requires providers to confirm users’ age categories, secure parental consent for minors, and share that data with app developers. A minor may download or purchase an app or make in-app purchases only with consent from a linked parental account.

The act prohibits app stores from enforcing contracts against minors who did not receive parental consent or from “misrepresenting parental content disclosures.”

Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection has been tasked with establishing age verification standards.

Additionally, Utah’s new legislation “creates a private right of action for parents of harmed minors,” “provides a safe harbor for compliant developers,” and “includes a severability clause.”

The law permits parents to sue app providers that violate the act, claiming $1,000 per violation or actual damages.

Meta, X, and Snap Inc. issued a joint statement praising Utah’s new legislation.

We applaud Governor Cox and the State of Utah for being the first in the nation to empower parents and users with greater control over teen app downloads, and urge other states to consider this groundbreaking approach. Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a device’s app store. This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting personal information to countless individual apps and online services. We are committed to safeguarding parents and teens, and look forward to seeing more states adopt this model.

A February report from the Wall Street Journal found that at least eight other states — Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, New Mexico, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia — were considering similar legislation.

Terry Schilling, the president of the American Principles Project, told Blaze News that Utah’s new bill is “a very strong law” and a “good first step.”

Schilling outlined the major threats facing children online.

“You want to protect children anywhere where people can get access to them,” Schilling explained. “The apps are the first main gateway to how you protect children. So that’s why I think it’s a really great first step.”

“Then next, we’ve got to start protecting kids from porn online directly by forcing the porn companies to do age verification,” he continued, noting that 20 states have already implemented this requirement. “You’ve got to start protecting children and doing age verification for social media accounts in general.”

Schilling told Blaze News that he anticipates that other states will soon enforce legislation similar to Utah’s to protect children online.

“There is a huge movement of people in America that want to protect kids online, and it’s now being translated to the political class — to the politicians and their staff,” he said. “That is so critical and important to actually getting things done. You can’t just change the culture or people’s hearts and minds; you’ve actually got to legislate it.”

Apple and Google did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Both have previously expressed privacy concerns regarding age verification laws for app stores.

Last month, Apple stated that “the right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content.”

On March 12, Google’s director of public policy, Kareem Ghanem, stated, “These proposals introduce new risks to the privacy of minors, without actually addressing the harms that are inspiring lawmakers to act. Google is proposing a more comprehensive legislative framework that shares responsibility between app stores and developers and protects children’s privacy and the decision rights of parents.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A former New Jersey special education teacher has been indicted on seven counts of child sex crimes against an eighth-grade student in her class, according to authorities.

On Tuesday, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago announced the indictment against Allison Havemann-Niedrach, a 44-year-old former teacher and mother of two from Jackson.

‘I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how serious and disturbing it is.’

Havemann-Niedrach was charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault, first-degree endangering the welfare of a child via the manufacture of child sexual abuse materials, second-degree official misconduct, second-degree sexual assault, third-degree endangering, and two counts of second-degree endangering.

In July 2024, a judge placed Allison Havemann-Niedrach in home detention and ordered her to have no contact with minors except her own two children, who are ages 5 and 12.

Havemann-Niedrach previously had been employed since 2022 as a special education teacher at Freehold Intermediate School, which educates students in grades six through eight.

As Blaze News previously reported, Havemann-Niedrach is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy starting in January 2024 until her arrest in June 2024.

According to the Asbury Park Press, Superior Court Judge Vincent N. Falcetano said during a detention hearing in July 2024: “Clearly, this is a very, very serious and disturbing offense.”

“I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how serious and disturbing it is,” Falcetano stated. “It’s predatory, it is a breach of trust, it crosses the line. As a special education teacher, she should have known that line is even closer than for a regular teacher.”

The Monmouth County Prosecutor Special Victims Bureau and the Freehold Police Department reportedly discovered more than 25,000 text messages between the teacher and the student.

According to assistant Monmouth County prosecutor Danielle Zanzuccki, the investigation allegedly uncovered thousands of text messages between Havemann-Niedrach and the 15-year-old student, which included the exchange of sexually illicit photos and videos.

School officials allegedly observed Havemann-Niedrach bringing the student food and eating lunch with him daily in a classroom. The teacher allegedly gave the boy gifts.

During the detention hearing, Zanzuccki said Havemann-Niedrach was “obsessed” with the boy.

Investigators claimed that the ex-teacher engaged in illegal sexual acts with the alleged victim at her house and at hotels.

Zanzuccki said investigators learned that the alleged victim told a friend that he was dating a teacher.

The teen’s mother allegedly contacted investigators to inform them that her son admitted to her that he had been in a sexual relationship with Havemann-Niedrach, Zanzuccki said.

Asia Michael — the superintendent of the Freehold Borough School District — sent an email to staff and parents in June 2024 regarding the arrest of someone described as a “former staff member.”

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share some distressing news with you,” the email read. “We have been informed that a former staff member has been arrested on allegations of third-degree aggravated sexual assault and inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor.”

Anyone with any information about the alleged teacher sex scandal is urged to contact Detective Dawn Correia of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office at 800-533-7443.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Vice President JD Vance issued a fiery response to what he called a “hit piece” in the Jewish Insider that claimed to document criticisms of Vance from Republicans in the U.S. Senate.

The article at the Jewish Insider said that various senators were wary of the comments Vance made in the private text thread that was accidentally leaked to the Atlantic editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Vance said in the thread that he opposed the strike on the Houthi militants in Yemen.

‘These seven cowardly neocons attacking JD anonymously are genuine p***ies.’

The Insider quoted one senator on the record and several others anonymously.

“JD is consistent on this. He does not like to see the deployment or the projection of American power outside of a direct threat to the United States,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “He’s at least consistent on that. I disagree with him, but he is consistent.”

“A number of Republican senators are very concerned about [his foreign policy views],” said another GOP senator. “They think it’s quite revealing. It reveals a mindset that I’m sure is perplexing to our European allies.”

Another senator said that President Donald Trump must be disappointed in his VP pick, while another said the debate and disagreement were healthy for determining the best foreign policy.

“It was shocking to me that he didn’t see the need to strike back when they struck our naval vessels,” said another senator. “That’s not a British problem or a European problem. Frankly, them striking our friends in Israel is more than enough justification. It’s the Tucker Carlson view of how to use military power.”

When contacted for a comment, Vance’s office referred to a statement from Donald Trump Jr.

“These seven cowardly neocons attacking JD anonymously are genuine p***ies. If they really feel this way, then they should at least be man enough to put their names to these quotes,” Trump Jr. said, according to the Jewish Insider. “The fact that they are too cowardly to do that is exactly why I’m so happy that these RINOs are a dying breed in our party — whether they realize it or not.”

Vance reiterated the point on his social media account.

“This morning, @JoshKraushaar ran a hit piece against me in Jewish Insider, which has become an anti-JD rag. It has many problems, including seven anonymous quotes from cowardly Republicans,” wrote Vance.

He went on to identify a mistake in the piece identifying the wrong terror group that attacked Americans in January.

“Now, you might say this is evidence of Kraushaar being the biggest hack in Washington, and you *may* be correct. Another very plausible explanation is that he’s the dumbest journalist in Washington,” Vance continued.

“Either way, shocking an error like this could get through his vaunted editorial process!” he added.

The Insider issued a correction in accordance with the vice president’s mockery.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked a lower court’s order seeking records from the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency regarding its plans to significantly reduce the size of the federal government.

Earlier this month, United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan directed the DOGE to turn over the documents in response to a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic-led states, headed by New Mexico. Additional plaintiffs included Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

‘That should be the end of this ill-conceived challenge.’

The states’ lawsuit claimed that the DOGE and Elon Musk violated the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause and separation of powers, arguing that Musk was not confirmed by the Senate. The states aimed to block the DOGE from accessing several government systems and terminating federal employees.

The complaint requested records from the department as part of the discovery process.

“Defendants argue that the ‘inner workings of government’ are immaterial to an Appointments Clause claim,” Chutkan wrote in her decision. “The court is not convinced, but that is a legal issue appropriate for resolution after fulsome briefing. At this stage, it is sufficient that Plaintiffs’ discovery requests intend to reveal the scope of DOGE’s and Musk’s authority.”

She noted that the plaintiffs’ requested materials “seek to identify DOGE personnel and the parameters of DOGE’s and Musk’s authority—a question central to Plaintiffs’ claims.”

Chutkan ordered the DOGE to produce recordings concerning “agencies, employees, legal agreements, or data management systems” pertaining to the states. The judge gave Musk and the DOGE until April 2 to comply.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily blocked Chutkan’s order, suggesting she first rule on the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss before moving to discovery.

Chutkan canceled a Thursday status hearing following the appeals court’s ruling.

The administration’s motion to dismiss argued, “By the Complaint’s own terms, the States agree that Elon Musk ‘does not occupy an office of the United States’; they allege only that he wields ‘de facto power.'”

“That should be the end of this ill-conceived challenge,” it read. “The States’ contrary view rests on conflating influence and authority.”

The White House has insisted that Musk is not the head of the DOGE but a senior adviser to President Donald Trump.

Despite facing an onslaught of litigation, the DOGE has not slowed its cost-cutting efforts. On Wednesday, the DOGE applauded the Department of Labor for terminating $557 million in “America Last” grants, totaling $237 million in savings.

According to the department, the wasteful awards included $10 million for “gender equity in the Mexican workplace,” over $12 million for “worker empowerment in South America,” $5 million for “elevating women’s participation in the workplace” in West Africa, more than $4 million for “assisting foreign migrant workers” in Malaysia, $3 million for “enhanc[ing] social security access and worker protections for internal migrant workers” in Bangladesh, another $3 million for “safe and inclusive work environments” in Lesotho, and $6.25 million for “improving respect for Worker’s rights in agricultural supply chains” in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Amateur sleuths, politicos, and others hoping to glean new insights from the latest trove of unredacted John F. Kennedy files were likely frustrated if they dove into the archives in search of names that might satisfy the lingering questions of who — if not Lee Harvey Oswald — actually assassinated the president and who else may have been involved in the murder plot.

Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck underscored in his “Glenn TV” Wednesday Night Special that while the JFK files are disappointing if approached with questions of who, questions about what — “What has been going down? What are they trying to protect? What is the source of most of this mess?” — yield illuminating answers.

Beck and his team, aided in part by artificial intelligence, parsed through the JFK files with the “what?” type of questions in mind, testing long-standing theories, highlighting patterns of institutional abuse, and identifying the significance of certain previously unreleased files.

Over the course of the special, Beck zeroed in on
what-centric documents that should put to bed any remaining doubts that the CIA is (or at least until recently has been) an unchecked, meddlesome, and dangerous organization willing to interfere in American elections, businesses, and media reports.

Going beyond the archives, Beck
handily demonstrated with a replica of the rifle Oswald supposedly used in 1963, along with the appropriate “CIA bullets,” that the single-shooter narrative is plausible. Beck also spoke to Shane Stevens, the grandson of Billie Sol Estes — a Texas businessman with alleged ties to Lyndon B. Johnson — about an expert-authenticated recording in which an alleged associate of LBJ accused him of hiring a hit man to take out Kennedy.

— (@)

While the audio recording and Stevens’ commentary fuel more
who-questions, Beck made clear that the contents of the JFK files, the substance of which is not always readily apparent, nevertheless reveal much about the intelligence community of Kennedy’s time — one that proved capable of routine wrongdoing, was familiar with Oswald, and grew more brazen in the months following the president’s slaying — as well as the practices they wanted to keep hidden.

Off the reservation

Beck covered a lot of ground in his Wednesday special, discussing, for instance:

• new evidence of the bad blood between JFK and the CIA that was brought to a boil after the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco;
• the parallels between Kennedy’s counter-moves against the CIA in the early 1960s and President Donald Trump’s moves against the U.S. Agency for International Development in recent months;
• indications that the CIA was tracking Lee Harvey Oswald from the moment he departed the Soviet Union;
• the agency’s connections to the establishment that sold Oswald the rifle that shot Kennedy, as well as to the ammunition used in the assassination;
• the CIA’s infiltration of the American media and businesses and its apparent attempted wiretap of then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; and
• former CIA asset John Garrett Underhill Jr.’s allegation that elements of the agency killed the sitting president because he caught wind that they were “carrying on a lucrative racket in gun-running, narcotics and other contraband, and manipulating political intrigue” for their own ends.

Beck also touched on the CIA’s surveillance of Barry Goldwater, citing it as another damning example of precisely how “out of control” the agency had become around the time of Kennedy’s assassination.

— (@)

President Donald Trump was hardly the first Republican whose presidential campaign was infiltrated by politically motivated elements of the deep state on behalf of an incumbent Democratic president.

Barry Goldwater, a major general in the Air Force Reserve who long served as a senator for Arizona, was similarly surveilled when he ran for president against Lyndon Johnson following the Kennedy assassination. Whereas the FBI spied on Trump, in Goldwater’s case, the CIA, which is prohibited by law from operating stateside, did
most of the legwork.

Much has been said and written about the CIA’s infiltration of Goldwater’s 1964 campaign. The agency’s infiltration of the Goldwater campaign has been public knowledge for roughly 50 years.

Everette Howard Hunt Jr., a 20-year
veteran of the CIA who was a major agency player in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and ended up serving prison time for his role in the Watergate burglary, told Senate investigators in 1973 that he directed a spying campaign on Goldwater’s 1964 campaign.

According to Hunt, the instructions concerning this espionage came down from his CIA superiors and in turn allegedly came “down from the White House.” Hunt told investigators that he “dispatched a couple of people to the Goldwater headquarters to see what was going on.”

The spies apparently obtained advance campaign schedules, news releases, and “any other information they could get,” said Hunt. This information ultimately made its way up the chain at the CIA, including to a superior allegedly stationed at the Johnson White House.

In the special, Beck highlighted a
46-page document consisting of numerous memos — some marked “secret” and written by Scott Dudley Breckinridge Jr., the former deputy inspector general of the CIA — regarding Hunt.

‘The audio sounds convincing.’

Breckinridge noted in a Dec. 20, 1973, memo marked “secret” that agency files showed that during the fall of 1964, when Hunt “was alleged to have been engaged in surveillance activities of Barry Goldwater,” Hunt was in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, which is also known as the Clandestine Service.

“Our files showed Hunt was in DO Division … and in August 1964 was assigned to the Washington field office,” wrote Breckinridge.

Again, the
what was telling: the CIA was running clandestine operations in the nation’s capital with the apparent aim of keeping Johnson in power.

Haunting tape

In a portion of the special, Beck explored the theory of Lyndon B. Johnson’s involvement with the assassination with former Nixon administration staffer
Roger Stone. Beck proved more willing to entertain this particular theory on account of a haunting audiotape played in full for BlazeTV subscribers and in excerpted form on YouTube.

In January, Alex Jones of Infowars
hosted Shane Stevens and played never-heard-before digital audio of Clifton Carter, the former executive director of the Democratic National Committee and an apparently close associate of LBJ, claiming in conversation with Stevens’ grandfather, convicted fraudster Billie Sol Estes, that Johnson hired a man named Malcolm “Mac” Wallace to kill JFK.

“The audio sounds convincing,” said Beck. “I didn’t want to take anyone’s word for it.”

‘I do believe it helps confirm the LBJ and Mac Wallace involvement.’

In addition to speaking directly to Shane Stevens about the audio and listening to the actual analog tape live, Beck indicated that his team “had a JFK assassination expert examine the original tape,” whose input left him “convinced that it is an authentic recording.”

Dory Wiley, JFK assassination expert and CEO of Commerce Street Holdings LLC, told the program in a statement, “I’ve known about these tapes for years. Estes made several copies and gave them to some of his closest friends.”

“I believe them to be genuine,” continued Wiley. “The voices sound like the Billie Sol Estes and Cliff Carter from other sources I have heard.”

Wiley added, “I believe them to be correctly dated and recorded at the time Shane has declared, and I believe the accusations. This does not mean there wasn’t involvement by the CIA, the Secret Service, FBI, Mafia, or others, but I do believe it helps confirm the LBJ and Mac Wallace involvement.”

Clifton Carter appears to say in the audio, “Well, Sol, it’s been a pretty touch-and-go situation. Lyndon and I have had quite a few unpleasant words here lately over the deal that he hired Mac Wallace to assassinate the president.”

“It’s been hectic in every way, but we’ve lived through it this far and I guess we’ll continue to do so,” Carter appears to say. “Lyndon should have never issued that order to Mac. But we’ve had our differences and I’m true blue to Lyndon, as I’ve always been and tried to carry out every order that he’s ever given me. But this is one I’ll probably never be able to forget.”

When pressed about his delay in releasing the audio, Stevens told Beck his grandfather tried on more than one occasion to “release the truth” but came to fear for his life.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A little-known agency in Washington perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with our bloated, corrupt government: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. It should be the poster child of everything that Elon Musk is exposing.

The agency was established in 1947 under the Labor Management Relations Act to serve as an independent agency mediating disputes between unions and businesses — a noble mission, perhaps. But like so many government institutions, it has rotted into something far removed from its original purpose.

The FMCS goes beyond mismanagement into blatant corruption and theft.

What was once a mechanism for labor stability has morphed into an unchecked slush fund — an exclusive playground for bureaucrats living high on taxpayer dollars.

The FMCS is a textbook case of government waste, an agency that no one was watching, where employees didn’t even bother showing up for work — some hadn’t for years. And yet they still collected paychecks and spent government money — our money — on their personal luxuries.

Luxury cars and cell phone bills

The Department of Government Efficiency discovered how FMCS employees used government credit cards — intended for official business — to lease luxury cars, cover personal cell phone bills, and even subscribe to USA Today. The agency’s information technology director, James Donnan, apparently billed taxpayers his wife’s cell phone bill, cable TV subscriptions in multiple homes, and personal subscriptions.

FMCS officials commissioned portraits of themselves and hung them in their offices, and you footed the bill. They took exotic vacations and hired their friends and relatives to keep the gravy train rolling.

The FMCS goes beyond mismanagement into blatant corruption and theft — and it went on for decades, unnoticed and unchallenged.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to abolish the FMCS — a necessary and long-overdue move. But the FMCS is just one of many agencies within the federal government burning through billions of taxpayer dollars. How many more slush funds exist in the shadows, funneling money into the pockets of bureaucrats who produce nothing? How many government-funded NGOs operate in direct opposition to American interests?

Perhaps the most disturbing question is why Americans tolerate such corruption. Why do so many Americans tolerate this? Why is the left — supposedly the party of the people — defending the very institutions that rob working-class Americans blind?

Corruption beyond bureaucracy

The recent rallies led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and their socialist acolytes claim to be a grassroots uprising against corruption and greed. But GPS data from these rallies tells a different story. The majority of attendees aren’t ordinary citizens fed up with the status quo. They’re professional activists — serial agitators who bounce from protest to protest.

Roughly 84% of devices tracked at these rallies were present at multiple Kamala Harris events. A staggering 31% appeared at over 20 separate demonstrations, tied to Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and pro-Palestinian causes.

Many of these organizations receive federal grant money — our tax dollars — and they’re using those funds to protest the very policies that threaten to cut off their financial lifeline.

This isn’t democracy in action. This is political theater — astroturfing perfected. And the American taxpayer is funding it.

Rooting out corruption

Trump was a battering ram against this corrupt system. Elon Musk is a surgeon, meticulously exposing the infection that has festered for decades — and that’s why the leftists hate him even more than they hate Trump. Musk threatens to dismantle the financial web that sustains their entire operation.

When we allow the government to grow unchecked and our leaders to prioritize their own wealth and power over the good of the nation, figures like Trump and Musk are necessary. Rome didn’t fall because of an external invasion but rather due to internal decay that looked an awful lot like what we see today.

We must demand better. We must refuse to tolerate this corruption any longer. The FMCS may be gone, but the fight to root out this deep-seated corruption is far from over.

Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn’s FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.

In a better world, people would cultivate virtue and develop habits of right action, practicing them regardless of external pressures. But we don’t live in that world. For most, concepts like honor and morality emerge from community, not individual will. These vital, pro-social behaviors rely on constant reinforcement by others. When daily life consists of anonymous, disconnected interactions, it becomes easier to justify selfishness. But when people must live among and depend on those who observe and remember how they behave, accountability shapes conduct.

Social norms depend heavily on the expectation of repeated interactions — what game theorists call “iterated games.” A functioning society requires widespread cooperation. When people believe they benefit more by acting selfishly than by cooperating, social cohesion begins to unravel. In one-time interactions, the incentive to cheat or defect rises sharply. One can gain an immediate advantage with little risk of social or material consequences.

Many debate distant acquaintances online, try to enforce shared principles across cultural divides, and appeal to ‘common sense’ in a world where little remains common.

Carnival workers and traveling merchants were once known for scamming customers. Sailors and touring rock musicians were infamous for defiling the honor of the daughters of the town. These groups operated without accountability because they never had to face the communities they affected. Their minimal connection to others reduced the costs of antisocial behavior and encouraged defection.

Today, we see a broader breakdown of communal life. We’ve fragmented communities, commodified identity, and isolated individuals. In doing so, we’ve eroded shared moral standards and stripped away even the basic incentives to cultivate virtue.

As a colleague recently observed, communal gatherings used to serve as informal “wellness checks.” Church, for example, grounded both cultural norms and moral expectations. It also required people to present themselves before others. Even atheists or agnostics often showed up on Sunday mornings — not for faith but to signal solidarity and demonstrate their role as contributing members of the community.

Churches noticed what others missed. Underfed or unwashed children caught someone’s eye. A hungover woman felt the weight of disapproval. An unfaithful man encountered the quiet judgment of those around him. These small acts of social accountability reinforced a shared moral order.

For most of history, individual independence was difficult, if not impossible. People relied on their communities for safety, food, education, goods, and entertainment. In many ancient societies, exile was tantamount to a death sentence. Some preferred suicide to being cast out. Reputation and honor mattered more than money because survival depended on others’ trust. A man’s worth reflected the number of relationships he had managed honorably over time.

Today, people can meet most of their basic needs without relying on others. That shift creates the illusion of freedom, but in reality, it has replaced dependence on community with dependence on the state.

Now, instead of interacting face-to-face within tight-knit communities, we operate as isolated individuals within anonymous digital spaces. Functions once performed by churches and neighborhoods have shifted to malls and bureaucracies. But social correction — once a communal responsibility — has become taboo. Attempting to help or intervene risks public shaming as a so-called “Karen” on social media.

The best social worker, no matter how dedicated, cannot match the quiet authority of vigilant grandmothers. And as that kind of local, relational accountability fades, the consequences grow harder to ignore.

A shared religion and common cultural norms significantly increase the likelihood that people will cooperate and act ethically, even among strangers. This dynamic defines what we call a “high-trust” society — one where individuals expect cooperation and moral behavior from others, even without close, day-to-day interaction.

In such societies, cultural expectations and religious beliefs so deeply shape conduct that people often can’t imagine behaving any other way. Even when defection carries few immediate consequences, trust persists because moral behavior has been internalized through habit and community values.

This is why most successful civilizations develop around a unifying religion and dominant cultural framework. A shared moral and social code allows complex societies to function by making behavior more predictable. Without that foundation, everyday interactions become unreliable, and cooperation breaks down.

Still, this model has its limits. Problems arise when a society continues to assume widespread agreement on values long after the cultural or religious foundation has eroded. Without a clear basis for those norms — or mechanisms to enforce them — shared assumptions collapse. The result isn’t cohesion but confusion, fragmentation, and in many cases, failure.

Social norms draw their power from habit and community enforcement. Religious precepts gain strength by asserting transcendent truths. Strip away both, and the incentive to cooperate weakens dramatically.

This is why the popular secular call to “just be a good person” falls flat. What does it mean to be good, in what context, and to what end? Only deep-rooted moral traditions, developed over time within specific communities, can answer those questions with any clarity or authority. When pressure mounts, the only forces that reliably foster cooperation are interdependence, strong communal accountability, or a belief in higher truths — all of which arise from tight-knit communities. Attempts to universalize these concepts without those foundations always collapse in the end.

As Americans confront the consequences of open borders and increasing social isolation, questions of national identity have become more urgent. We’re told Americans value liberty and hard work — and while that’s true, it’s not enough. Many debate distant acquaintances online, try to enforce shared principles across cultural divides, and appeal to “common sense” in a world where little remains common.

To recover a meaningful national identity, we need to rebuild on the foundations of Christian faith and real, local community. Neighbors must be able to depend on one another and hold each other accountable. That’s a tall order in a digital age where every device offers an escape from responsibility. But those willing to embrace that challenge will be the ones most equipped to lead.

Every once in a while you hear about these people who build up totally fake identities on the internet.

They devote hundreds of hours to crafting a persona and a story that are completely fabricated. They claim they have eight kids. They claim they have a ton of money. They claim they are something they are absolutely not.

We shouldn’t seek out approval pretending to be someone else. We shouldn’t drift off into the digital abyss, play-acting like little children.

What is that? What can we learn from it? What does it mean for us?

A new kind of delusion

It’s a very modern phenomenon, that’s for sure. It didn’t exist 50 years ago. It couldn’t have existed 50 years ago. There was just no way to do it. There was no internet. No possibility of retreating into the safety of a false digital reality.

And that’s what it is at bottom: a retreat into a more alluring world. A world where you don’t have to ever do anything or be anything. You can just say you are anything, and that’s enough.

It’s a kind of fantasy escapism. Yes, of course, we have had fantasy and escapism for a long time. Books can be just that. But this is very different from books. It’s more interactive, more immersive, more alluring.

We live in an era of parallel worlds. There is the digital world and the actual world. It’s no stretch to suggest that retreating into a false digital identity, living in a false digital world, is a retreat from life itself.

How do you end up claiming that you have 11 kids when you have none? How do you end up claiming you are some wealthy mogul when you are living with your parents? How do you end up claiming you are 27 when you are 49?

The same old escapism

I imagine it happens slowly. It starts with a desire to escape. To leave life behind. To become someone else, someone you see as greater, without doing any of the work to get there.

You don’t leave your life if you are happy. You don’t leave reality if you are fulfilled. Think about drug addicts who zone out every day. Do they do it because they are fulfilled in their lives? No, they want to zone out as far as they possibly can without going over the edge into death.

A similar thing is going on with retreating into the digital. “Life is miserable, but the digital world can be whatever I want.” That’s the logic.

That’s how it all starts. Then it accelerates. The “likes” start coming in. The followers start increasing. Fabricators see what works, and soon enough they are throwing red meat to their mob. The people eat it up.

They see that everyone loves who they are. Well, not who they actually are, but who they pretend to be. “I’m not enough, but my pretend self is.” That must be painful, but it can be overcome for the sake of likes and follows.

Bridging the gap

The examples above are extreme. Most people, thankfully, don’t concoct false parallel lives for internet dopamine hits. But the question of how we bridge the gap between the digital and the actual in a healthy way is a question we all must wrestle with. How do we remain ourselves in the digital world?

Honesty. That’s how we remain ourselves. We just have to be honest, or at least not dishonest. We don’t have to tell the whole world everything about who we are. Strangers don’t have a right to anything that’s ours. We don’t owe anyone any details about how we live our lives.

But we shouldn’t lie to ourselves or others. We shouldn’t seek out approval by pretending to be someone else. We shouldn’t drift off into the digital abyss, play-acting like little children.

Living a parallel life isn’t natural. We haven’t evolved with the internet. We are new to it. Throughout human civilization, we have only lived IRL. Now, we live IRL and online. The dissonance of managing two conflicting identities at the same time is not something we were ever made to do.

Bad for the soul

It’s not good for the soul, either. There has to be some kind of corrosion that happens when you live a parallel life in the digital world. Some kind of deeper self-hatred burns there. The self-deception must eat away at you.

The most fundamental problem of losing oneself in the digital world is the fact that we will never escape the actual one, no matter how hard we try. We can’t upload our brains to the cloud. We can’t get away from the fact that we are stuck here on earth. We can’t escape our bodies, the rooms where we sleep, or the fingers with which we type. The actual world will always remain, as long as we do.

Offloading one’s energy and emotions to a parallel identity in the digital world only prevents us from bettering our actual lives in the actual world. It doesn’t matter how many likes you get or how many followers you have if you hate yourself. It doesn’t matter how exciting your digital life looks if your actual life is miserable.

The internet has given us incredible opportunities, but it also presents us with incredible dangers. We must never lose our way in a false digital world. We must always remain ourselves, both online and offline. This might be one of the great challenges of our time.

The FBI busted the largest dogfighting ring in the bureau’s history and nabbed a former NFL running back while seizing 190 pit bulls.

The Department of Justice said 54-year-old LeShon Eugene Johnson was indicted for allegedly operating the dogfighting ring at a large-scale breeding and trafficking operation in Broken Arrow and Haskell, Oklahoma.

‘Animal abuse is cruel, depraved, and deserves severe punishment.’

The 54-year-old running back was drafted to play for the Green Bay Packers in 1994 and went on to play for the Arizona Cardinals as well as the New York Giants.

Johnson’s alleged operation was called “Mal Kant Kennels” and included the breeding of dogfight champions. The DOJ said that Johnson benefited financially from the business and also furthered the growth of the dogfighting industry.

Court filings indicate that investigators were able to recover evidence from Johnson’s phone including a Facebook page and emails discussing pedigrees of the dogs, as well as Cash App history.

If convicted, Johnson faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“Animal abuse is cruel, depraved, and deserves severe punishment,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “The Department of Justice will prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law and will remain committed to protecting innocent animals from those who would do them harm.”

Johnson pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2004 for an operation he called “Krazyside Kennels.”

“The FBI views animal cruelty investigations as a precursor to larger, organized crime efforts, similar to trafficking and homicides,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “This is yet another push in the FBI’s crackdown of violent offenders harming our most innocent.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!