In the whimsical yet cautionary world of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Veruca Salt storms through Willy Wonka’s factory like a spoiled brat on steroids, demanding golden geese, trained squirrels, and every shiny trinket that catches her eye. “I want it now!” she screeches, her petulance sealing her fate down the garbage chute. Fast-forward to 2025 Washington, and one can’t help but see echoes of Veruca in Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG)—once the bleach-blonde firebrand of MAGA, now morphing into the “Blonde AOC,” trading principled conservatism for performative tantrums because President Trump didn’t hand her a Senate endorsement on a silver platter.

From Wikimedia Commons: The Village Church (Benjamin Williams Leader, 1894) 

A philosopher and cultural warrior, Roger Scruton (1944–2020) dedicated his life to defending the principles of liberty, beauty, and tradition against the high tide of revolutionary ideology. In a modern world seduced by utilitarian and utopian doctrines, he stood firm, rooted in the conservative tradition of Edmund Burke and emphasizing the importance of continuity, moral order, and the transcendent value of culture.

The mask is off. The deep state operatives in Pennsylvania – that battleground fortress we fought tooth and nail to reclaim – have finally confessed to a treasonous betrayal that reeks of the swamp's foulest underbelly.

For decades, non-citizens, including illegals flooding our borders like an unchecked invasion, have been handed the keys to our sacred ballot box.

On Tuesday, Dec. 9, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker confirmed the status of Illinois as a state in open rebellion against the United States of America, by signing a bill passed by the state legislature during the recent veto session (HB 1312), forbidding federal authorities from enforcing federal law – including but not limited to immigration law – at a host of locations in Illinois, including hospitals, courthouses, universities and daycares, even to the extent of forbidding such entities from sharing information such as immigration status with federal law enforcement. 

American actions involving Venezuela have stirred up a flurry of theories and narratives around the United States’ strategic intentions.  Some theories highlight apparent contradictions between rhetoric and policy, such as President Trump’s pardons of major drug-traffickers despite his public anti-drug stance. Others frame potential U.S. military threats against Venezuela as being driven primarily by America’s dependence on oil.  Additional narratives have revived allegations of Venezuelan interference in U.S. elections, including claims from a former Maduro regime official about a “narco-terrorist war” against the United States.

Renewable energy really means anti-establishment energy, or politically correct energy.  The energy is usually electricity that is distributed via the electric grid.  The source of energy has to be “natural.”

Solar and wind are the most popular types of renewable energy.  Hydroelectric energy derived from a big dam on a river might seem ideal, except that the promoters of renewable energy don’t like dams.  If you can figure out how to generate hydroelectricity without a dam, you can call it renewable.  Nuclear energy might seem like a good candidate except that nuclear energy is too scary and too good a fundraising tool to accept as renewable.

Pithy social critic David Burge said it best: “Journalism is about covering important stories — with a pillow, until they stop moving.”  

One of the important stories that “journalists” are covering up today is the Trump administration’s increasingly successful efforts to combat violent crime.  At the end of July, the Department of Homeland Security released a report showing that violent crime rates had dropped significantly during the first six months of President Trump’s second term.  Homicides were down 17%; gun assaults were down 21%; aggravated assaults were down 10%; sexual assaults were down 10%; and carjackings were down 24%.  These reductions appear to have continued through the end of the year.  

For a brief, shining moment in 1945, the United States stood astride the world like a colossus. In four years, we had built the greatest military machine in human history, liberated half the planet, and dropped the sun itself on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prove the point. Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan (three empires that had terrorized the globe) lay in smoking ruins. The message was unmistakable: try America on the battlefield and you will be annihilated.

Over the past months, prominent political figures have attempted to convince Americans that those illegally in the country have not committed any crime. By their argument, immigration violations are civil offenses, not criminal offenses. Sure, laws were broken -- but no “crime” has been committed. By this reasoning, those illegally in the country have not committed any crime; therefore, removing them is wrong.

Safe to say, traditional Catholics repelled by the liberal views of the late Pope Francis are not finding much relief under its new pontiff.

In October, Pope Leo took yet another sharp-tongued and sarcastic aim at President Donald Trump for ejecting illegal immigrants from America, likening it to abortion and implying he is a hypocrite. "Someone who says I am against abortion but in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro life," the Bishop of Rome pondered out loud to media from his luxe Castel Gandolfo digs in Italy.

The American right has weathered storms before, but few moments have revealed its internal fracture quite like the Candace Owens controversies of 2025. 

What began as a season of mourning after Charlie Kirk’s assassination quickly morphed into a spectacle of spiraling claims, public feuds, and personal destruction. Her early tribute to Kirk, offered with presumably sincere sorrow after his September 10 assassination, spoke to millions who were stunned by the violence. 

In the history of American governance, few chapters will stain the pages as darkly as the utter failure of the Biden-Harris administration to safeguard unaccompanied migrant children. I must ask this question: If their goal was to intentionally traffic children into sexual slavery and forced labor, how would their actions have been any different?