Category: Blaze Media
Even in Iowa’s Bible Belt, porn for kids is now the sacred cow
A library board member in the reddest part of one of the reddest states in the union recently learned what “progress through cooperation” really means: Sit down, shut up, and stop objecting to porn for kids.
Teri Hubbard, a Sioux Center, Iowa, library board member, was the only vote to remove the book “Icebreaker” — which contains a six-page, graphic sex scene — from the shelves. Her reward? A gentle nudge from City Manager Scott Wynja suggesting she resign.
If these people can’t be trusted to protect children from graphic sex scenes, they can’t be trusted with anything else.
“As our motto with the city states, ‘progress through cooperation,’ I would ask that you work in a spirit of cooperation for the best interest of all,” Wynja wrote, after the board voted 8-1 to keep the book available to everyone, including minors. “If you feel you are unable to serve in that capacity … we can consider going another direction.”
So let’s take a moment to appreciate what “progress,” “cooperation,” and “best interest of all” apparently sound like in Sioux Center. They sound like a passage that opens with: “Don’t be gentle. F**k me like you hate me.”
Wholesome stuff, truly. Norman Rockwell could never.
In fact, I’m shocked Wynja doesn’t put that line on a welcome sign, right under “Population: Proudly Confused.” And why not? I’m sure the eight board members — Tara Berkenpas, Angeles Bahena, Andrew Geleynse, Logan Kaskie, Brian Van Der Vliet, Lynn Van Beek, Lisa Dykstra, and Ruth Clark — would approve. They voted to keep the book, so the public deserves to know their names.
Clark even made the motion to retain it. And here’s the plot twist: She’s a Christian schoolteacher! Apparently, the gospel is no match for the mystical powers of library director Becky Bilby, who seems to think the First Amendment collapses into dust if 13-year-olds don’t get unlimited access to graphic sex scenes.
When Hubbard asked whether the concerned parents could attend the library board meeting — as they had requested — Bilby shut it down immediately.
“Becky made it clear this was a very bad idea,” Hubbard wrote to Wynja, “and that we do not want the public at board meetings because that would lead to media at board meetings, and that would be disastrous.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Public board meetings should avoid the public. The threat of transparency is far more frightening than distributing smut to minors.
Naturally, the usual cast of local intellectuals showed up to defend the cause. Kim Van Es, former chair of the Sioux County Democrats, solemnly warned that “excluding certain authors or certain views leads to authoritarianism, as it did in Nazi Germany.” She then offered a hypothetical about a majority-Muslim town imposing beliefs on Christians — because when you’re out of arguments, you go straight to Hitler and a thought experiment.
But she’s a Democrat. This is exactly the level of analysis we have come to expect.
RELATED: Australia BANS key social media apps for kids under 16 — and platforms must enforce the rule
Photo Illustration by Algi Febri Sugita/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Then Northwestern College theology professor Jason Lief stepped up in “hold my beer” fashion.
“I’m afraid the Bible’s going to be pulled off the shelf,” he said. “I mean, if we go by kind of lewd, sexual stuff. I don’t know if you’ve read the Bible. The Judah-Tamar story …”
This is the profound insight he brought “on behalf of the Bible.”
Has Lief ever read Romans 12:9: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good”? Doesn’t seem like it.
For those in Sioux Center and at Northwestern College who have read it, here’s a modest proposal: Demand everyone on the board except Hubbard resign immediately. Then fire Wynja, Bilby, and Lief. They all had the easiest job in America — don’t give kids access to pornography — and failed spectacularly.
If they can’t be trusted to protect children from graphic sex scenes, they can’t be trusted with anything else.
Mamdani dares ICE to come get him — and throws the Constitution in the trash
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani calls himself a “Democratic Socialist,” but he clearly doesn’t support the cooperative federalism that keeps American democracy functioning.
Just weeks after projecting a diplomatic, moderate tone during an Oval Office visit, Mamdani issued a message that should chill any American who values the rule of law. Responding to a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Chinatown, Mamdani in a video urged illegal aliens to “stand up” to federal agents by exploiting every legal loophole to stall enforcement.
Mamdani’s encouragement mirrors the toxic doctrine of states’ rights absolutism that fueled the nation’s march toward civil war.
“We can all stand up to ICE if you know your rights,” he declared, offering a tutorial on how to shut doors in agents’ faces, demand endless clarifications, and film operations to disrupt them.
This is a blueprint for openly defying federal authority, wrapped in the rhetoric of righteous resistance. As a self-avowed Democratic Socialist who promised to “fight back” against ICE and labeled the agency a “reckless entity,” Mamdani reveals a contempt for constitutional order that has moved from fringe to mainstream on the American left.
The peril in this rhetoric is not theoretical. While the circumstances differ, Mamdani’s encouragement mirrors the toxic doctrine of states’ rights absolutism that fueled the nation’s march toward civil war. In the 1850s, leaders of the nascent Confederacy preached nullification — the idea that states could ignore federal laws they deemed unjust, particularly those touching slavery.
South Carolina’s 1832 Ordinance of Nullification, defying federal tariffs, was a dry run for the secessionism that exploded in 1861. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens later declared in his “Cornerstone Speech” that the Confederacy rested on the principle of state sovereignty over federal authority.
Fast-forward to Mamdani’s New York, a sanctuary city where local laws are exalted above national ones and illegal aliens are coached to treat ICE as an invading force. This reckless approach can only ratchet up tensions, increasing the likelihood of violent confrontations and accelerating the erosion of our constitutional order.
This isn’t rights protection. It’s the resurrection of a philosophy that once split the nation in two. The Civil War claimed more than 600,000 lives because defiant states elevated their local priorities over the union’s supremacy. Mamdani’s sanctuary-state playbook risks igniting a similar dynamic — one resisted arrest at a time.
The hypocrisy is glaring. For nine years, Democrats and their media allies branded Donald Trump a “threat to democracy,” insisting that “no one is above the law.” Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on camera, declaring his actions an assault on the Constitution. Chuck Schumer warned that Trump’s border enforcement would “Balkanize” America.
Yet when Mamdani — a rising progressive star — directly subverts federal immigration statutes, the same chorus falls silent. No calls for indictments. No panic-stricken editorials about authoritarianism.
Democrats declared Trump’s alleged election interference a constitutional crisis. But Mamdani’s defiance goes straight at the Supremacy Clause, which makes federal law the “supreme law of the land.” By elevating New York’s sanctuary policies and restricting cooperation with ICE to only 170 “serious crimes,” Mamdani is not safeguarding democracy. He is undermining it.
America’s founders envisioned a balance: states as laboratories of democracy but always subordinate to the union’s paramount authority. Sanctuary cities flip that design on its head. Once New York shields violators of immigration law, copycats are inevitable. What happens when California nullifies EPA emissions rules? Or Texas ignores ATF gun tracing? Or Florida decides federal taxes are optional?
Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Localized resistance metastasizes into a patchwork of fiefdoms where the law becomes whatever the local politician decrees.
Mamdani’s vision, if replicated, promises rapid national deterioration: a swelling illegal population operating in the shadows, strained public resources, and cities like New York — home to at least a half-million illegal aliens — functioning as de facto no-go zones for federal agents.
Progressives who cheered Mamdani’s victory must reckon with the monster they helped unleash: a leader who cloaks defiance in compassion while sowing the seeds of anarchy. American federalism depends on shared laws, not selective compliance. If New York wants to lead, it should honor the union that made its success possible — not mimic the Rebels of 1861.
Otherwise we’re not securing the nation. We’re dismantling the house that stands between order and oblivion.
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The post EXCLUSIVE: In Wake of Free Beacon Report, Trump Administration To Investigate Federal Contractors That Say They Won’t Hire US Citizens appeared first on .
Harvard Ousts Director of Human Rights Center Targeted By Trump Admin Over Rampant Anti-Semitism
Harvard University ousted Mary T. Bassett as director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, which has been a prime target in the Trump administration’s campaign against anti-Semitism at the Ivy League school.
The post Harvard Ousts Director of Human Rights Center Targeted By Trump Admin Over Rampant Anti-Semitism appeared first on .
Tim Walz Pledges To ‘Welcome More’ Somalis Into Minnesota as Evidence of Staggering Fraud Scheme Makes National Headlines
Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) is pledging to bring more Somalis to his state even as he faces a federal investigation into a massive Somali welfare fraud scheme that occurred under his watch.
The post Tim Walz Pledges To ‘Welcome More’ Somalis Into Minnesota as Evidence of Staggering Fraud Scheme Makes National Headlines appeared first on .
‘A direct path to Citizenship’: Trump announces official launch of Trump Gold Card visa program
The Trump administration has announced a brand-new visa package that is expected to help some of America’s biggest companies keep their foreign talent.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced the launch of the Trump Gold Card, an expedited pathway to U.S. residence and even citizenship for a premium price.
‘This landmark program fulfills President Trump’s promise to attract the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors to America while guaranteeing they have skin in the game.’
On Truth Social, Trump said, “THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT’S TRUMP GOLD CARD IS HERE TODAY! A direct path to Citizenship for all qualified and vetted people. SO EXCITING! Our Great American Companies can finally keep their invaluable Talent.”
The program has multiple tiers. Individuals can pay a fee of $1 million to receive U.S. residency in “record time” as part of the Trump Gold Card.
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images
The Trump Corporate Gold Card functions similarly but has a fee of $2 million that the company will pay.
The Trump Platinum Card, which the website says is “coming soon,” costs $5 million and will allow foreigners to live in the United States for 270 days “without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained how companies can use this program: “The company can keep them here, and they have a path to citizenship. Obviously, they have to be perfect people in America. And having passed the vetting, after five years, they’ll be available to become citizens, and then the corporation puts someone else on the card.”
Lutnick added that the proceeds of this expensive program will function as a “gift to the United States.”
All applications also require a $15,000 processing fee as part of the vetting process.
The Trump Gold Card functions as a lottery through EB-1 and EB-2 visas, which filter for extraordinary ability in various fields.
“This landmark program fulfills President Trump’s promise to attract the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors to America while guaranteeing they have skin in the game,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X in light of the announcement.
Trump ordered the creation of the Trump Gold Card program on the same day that he ordered the $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications, a popular move that addresses some of the abuses with the H-1B program without canceling it entirely.
The Gold Card office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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13 Republicans vote with Democrats to defy executive order from Trump
More than a dozen Republicans voted with Democrats Wednesday to advance a bill overturning a presidential executive order against federal worker unions.
The bill, led by Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), passed in the U.S. House with the support of 222 members, while 200 voted against the bill. All Democrats voted in favor of the bill, which needs another procedural vote to be implemented into law.
‘If the majority we built over the past few months sticks together, we can overturn this union-busting executive order.’
The Protect America’s Workforce Act would repeal the executive order signed in March that would forbid collective bargaining with unions representing a large number of federal departments. Golden said the order stripped about 1 million workers of their bargaining rights.
“President Trump said ending collective bargaining was about protecting our national defense. … If the majority we built over the past few months sticks together, we can overturn this union-busting executive order, and we can show America that this body will protect workers’ rights,” the Democrat said.
The 13 Republican representatives who voted with Democrats are listed below.
- Jeff Van Drew (N.J.)
- Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.)
- Nick LaLota (N.Y.)
- Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.)
- Rob Bresnahan (Pa.)
- Don Bacon (Neb.)
- Mike Lawler (N.Y.)
- Tom Kean (N.J.)
- Ryan Mackenzie (Pa.)
- Zach Nunn (Iowa)
- Chris Smith (N.J.)
- Pete Stauber (Minn.)
- Mike Turner (Ohio)
If approved again by the House, it will go to the Senate and will need approval from the president.
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When Trump signed the executive order in March, the AFL-CIO union vowed to aggressively oppose it.
“President Trump’s executive order is political retribution against unions, plain and simple,” reads a statement from the union. “America’s unions have been in the streets, the courtroom, and the halls of power fighting back against his agenda.”
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