Category: Blaze Media
FBI breached whistleblower settlement with fired agent Steve Friend, stiffed him for $425,000, attorney says
The FBI never intended to reinstate Special Agent Steve Friend and is guilty of “gross misconduct” for violating “nearly every significant term” of a whistleblower settlement agreement signed by the Department of Justice in August, his attorney says — including failure to pay nearly $425,000 in back salary, pension, annual leave, and other benefits..
Attorney Kurt Siuzdak of Madison, Conn., filed a protected whistleblower disclosure Wednesday with U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), alleging multiple breaches of contract and bad faith. The complaint also alleges vindictiveness, citing how Friend’s firing was leaked to the New York Post a day before Friend himself was notified by FBI Director Kash Patel.
‘May God have mercy on your soul.’
“The FBI and its executive leadership have committed gross misconduct by immediately breaching the settlement agreement that was approved by the FBI and signed by the senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General Vance D. Day,” Siuzdak wrote.
“Despite leaking to the press, Mr. Friend was fired for ‘veiled threats,’” Siuzdak said. “However, the fact is that since signing the settlement agreement on August 26, 2025, the FBI has breached the agreement and refused to abide by any terms of its settlement agreement with Mr. Friend.”
Friend was summoned to the FBI’s Daytona Beach Resident Agency on Saturday, Dec. 13, and was handed a termination letter signed by Patel.
Friend spent the previous five days at the Daytona office without any assigned duties, without a restored security clearance, service weapon, current credentials, or a bureau cell phone, Siuzdak said. The FBI also assigned someone to guard Friend while he was in the building, Siuzdak said.
Left: Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend at the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing in May 2023. Right: Friend and former Special Agent Kyle Seraphin at the premiere of the film “Police State” at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.Photos courtesy of Steve Friend
“The FBI took no action to reinstate until 74 days after the settlement agreement’s deadline had passed,” Siuzdak said. “Then, Mr. Kash Patel personally terminated Mr. Friend five days later …”
In the termination letter, Patel accused Friend of “unprofessional conduct and poor judgment” for his social media activity, including appearances on various podcasts offering opinions on FBI operations and slamming Patel and other senior leaders.
Patel drew specific attention to Friend’s Dec. 5 appearance on “The Kyle Seraphin Show,” hosted by the former FBI special agent from Texas.
Pipe-bomb patsy?
The men discussed the ongoing controversy over the bureau’s handling of the Jan. 6 pipe bombs case and the Dec. 4 arrest of Brian J. Cole Jr. as the alleged bomber. Cole was charged in federal court with planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee building and near the Republican National Committee building on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.
Both men expressed the view that Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, Va., is not the pipe bomber. The FBI arrested the wrong person to cover up alleged law enforcement involvement in the placing of the pipe bombs, they said. They noted that Cole is likely autistic and operates on the level of a 16-year-old, according to his grandmother.
“Whatever the motivation is, if you’re doing another put-up job on this guy — I think we spelled out a pretty compelling case that this probably ain’t the guy — then may God have mercy on your soul,” Friend said.
The alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber (left) stops and sits down at a bush next to the Congressional Black Caucus Institute the night of Jan. 5, 2021. A Capitol Police counter-surveillance officer (right) peers at something under the same bush just minutes before he discovered the pipe bomb at the nearby Democratic National Committee building on Jan. 6. U.S. Capitol Police CCTV
“I’m going to end with this. I’m going to bring out my inner [Emperor] Commodus,” Friend said. “You better pray to Gaia or Vishnu or whatever your maker is that @RealSteveFriend is never in a position to be an instrument of God’s wrath. Because I will be merciful.”
“I won’t give you a trial and a hanging,” Friend said. “I’ll allow you to breathe every breath that your body will have for the rest of its natural life inside of a box. And then when it ultimately fades to black, that’s when real wrath begins.”
‘Kash Patel should be more concerned with his agency arresting the actual perpetrator of the January 6th pipe bombs.’
The firing was leaked in advance to Caitlin Doornbos of the New York Post, who sent Friend a text at 7:05 p.m. Eastern Dec. 12. In it, she made reference to the whistleblower advocacy group Empower Oversight dismissing Friend as a client on Dec. 5 — and suggested his latest podcast comments could cost him his job.
“I am writing a piece about them [Empower] firing you following the ‘wrath of God’ comments you made on Kyle Seraphin’s podcast that were apparently about FBI Director Kash Patel,” Doornbos wrote, according to a copy of the text obtained by Blaze News. “I have reporting that suggests these comments may also have put your employment with the FBI in jeopardy, and I’m wondering if you would like to respond?”
In an emailed letter, Empower told Friend it was terminating its legal representation because he did not abide by the firm’s advice not to speak about the FBI on social media. Empower founder Jason Foster and President Tristan Leavitt told Friend, “We are aware that, contrary to our previous advice, you once again commented publicly on FBI matters today, risking further adverse administrative action by the FBI.”
Empower is “no longer willing or able to expend further time and resources representing your interests or providing counsel moving forward,” read the letter, provided to Blaze News by Friend, who said he waived attorney-client privilege.
The Post story on Friend’s firing was published the next day, less than two hours after Friend reported to the Daytona office to be given his termination letter.
‘Deranged rant’
The story described Friend’s Dec. 5 podcast commentary as a “deranged rant,” “hot rhetoric,” an “outburst,” and “disturbing remarks.” The discussion about Cole being an alleged patsy to hide possible government involvement in placing the pipe bombs was described as a “bogus cover-up.” Friend’s ongoing social media commentary amounted to “bashing the FBI and weighing in on conspiracy theories.”
Friend said because the FBI was in breach of the settlement agreement, he did not consider himself an employee when making podcast appearances in recent months. “I always issued a qualifier that I was speaking on my own behalf and not a representative of any government entity,” he said. “It was a joke with the audience. I called myself a hobbyist podcaster.”
The remarks made on the Seraphin show were not intended as a threat, Friend said. He defended the comments in a statement to Blaze News.
“I stand by my remarks,” Friend said. “It isn’t a threat to say that public servants who willfully rob American citizens of their God-given liberty in order to advance their careers or earn positive media attention deserve to go to jail.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino at a Dec. 4 press conference to announce the arrest of Brian J.Cole Jr. in the Jan. 6 pipe-bombs case. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The termination “was clearly an effort by the FBI director to besmirch my reputation to distract from his failures,” Friend said. “Kash Patel should be more concerned with his agency arresting the actual perpetrator of the January 6 pipe bombs than retaliating against me for pointing out they didn’t.”
Friend was first suspended from his job as a special agent in the Daytona Beach Resident Agency on Sept. 19, 2022, under President Joe Biden’s FBI director, Christopher Wray. He had previously lodged complaints with supervisors that the FBI’s plans to use SWAT teams to arrest a misdemeanor Jan. 6 suspect presented serious issues. He refused to take part.
‘The FBI had no real intent to reinstate Mr. Friend.’
“I expressed that I have an oath of office,” Friend said during an interview at his Florida home in October 2022. “And while I’m aware that an arrest warrant is a legal order from a judge, I have an oath to protect the Constitution.”
Friend said he was troubled when he was reassigned from investigating sexual trafficking of minors and young adults to working on the Joint Terrorism Task Force doing Jan. 6 casework. The Bureau broke with normal case management protocols by opening what ended up being nearly 1,600 criminal cases stemming from the protests and rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“They’ve chosen to open hundreds of cases and then spread them around the country,” Friend said in 2023. “That gives the impression that domestic terrorism is a nationwide threat, when really, the numbers the FBI is touting stem from one incident on one day.”
Friend resigned from the FBI in February 2023, a day before he was set to give transcribed testimony to the Republican-led U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. On May 18, 2023, he was among three FBI whistleblowers who testified before the select subcommittee about the retaliation against whistleblowers by the FBI for lawful, protected disclosures they made to Congress.
Relationship sours
Initially, Friend was part of an ad hoc group of Patel supporters who regularly communicated with the “Government Gangsters” author and co-host of “Kash’s Corner” on Epoch TV. The group ramped up activity after Patel was announced as President Donald Trump’s choice for FBI director in November 2024.
The group also included Seraphin, then-suspended Special Agent Garret O’Boyle, and George Hill, retired FBI national security intelligence supervisor, and others. After gaining Senate confirmation in February, Patel sent the men a text that read, “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Patel planned to bring O’Boyle and Friend into the bureau with him, Friend said, but that never happened. As Patel was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he credited the group with helping put him across the finish line, according to a text message obtained by Blaze News.
After his nomination was announced by President Trump on Nov. 30, 2024, O’Boyle sent congratulations along with the statement, “Thank you, Kash, for what you’ve done for us.” Patel responded, “Thank you guys, you made this happen.”
“Thank you guys for your relentless friendship and mission love,” Patel wrote in a January text. “You guys made this possible.”
After the February Senate confirmation vote, Friend texted Patel, “Congratulations Director.” Patel responded, “Thank you guys. … Now we all go to work.”
A group of whistleblowers formed an ad hoc group to advise Kash Patel as he prepared for confirmation hearings to become FBI director. The men are now at great odds.Images courtesy of Steve Friend and Kyle Seraphin
As 2025 wore on and the bureau had not publicly announced plans to settle with O’Boyle and other suspended FBI whistleblowers, or offer any of the men a job, the men began criticizing their former ally Patel and his new deputy director, Dan Bongino.
Friend said Bongino offered to hire him in March. Friend said he talked about some kind of staff position, either as an agent or a special government employee.
Friend texted Bongino a reply on March 4, “Thank you for this opportunity. I’m honored to support you. Count me in.” Bongino wrote, “Excellent. I will be in touch.” That was the last Friend ever heard about it, he said.
On Aug. 21, Patel announced that the FBI had reached settlement agreements with 10 whistleblowers represented by Empower Oversight. The announcement caught some of the whistleblowers, who said they had not yet agreed to anything, off guard.
Friend signed his settlement agreement on Aug. 26. It was also signed by DOJ senior legal counsel Vance Day.
‘I couldn’t have done this without you.’
Friend said under the agreement, he is owed $450,000 in back pay and $61,431 in reimbursement for medical coverage. The FBI was required to reinstate him by Sept. 19. By that date, the FBI was to pay the back salary and insurance reimbursement, cancel his indefinite suspension, reinstate Friend’s security clearance, and “rescind and expunge employee’s removal and all related records concerning misconduct or poor performance,” the agreement said.
Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend speaks at a Collier County Republicans event in Naples, Fla.Photo courtesy of Steve Friend
Three days before it fired Friend as a client, Empower received some updates from the FBI. Friend began receiving deposits on Oct. 9, which the FBI said were salary. Friend says he had no idea what the payments were for, that he never received a pay/leave statement, and that he could not access his Employee Personal Page at the FBI National Finance Center. The FBI told Empower that Friend’s access to pay statements was restored Dec. 2.
The FBI further said it was processing paperwork to enroll Friend in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. As for the back pay and reimbursement, the FBI said, “Backpay calculations are pending for all employees.” None of the whistleblowers have thus far been paid their back salary.
During his five days in the Daytona office, Friend was assigned an FBI vehicle but was refused an FBI gas card, he said. Regulations prohibit personal use of FBI vehicles, so without any job duties, Friend parked the vehicle at his house.
“The vehicle served only to block his driveway and as a reminder that the FBI had no real intent to reinstate Mr. Friend,” Siuzdak wrote.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
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Wake up and smell the Islamic invasion of the West
Over the course of a single day this month, a pattern repeated itself across the West. Two Muslims murdered at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Five Muslims were arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market in Germany. French authorities canceled a concert in Paris due to credible threats of an Islamist terror attack. Two Iowa National Guardsmen in Syria were murdered by an Islamist while we play footsie with an illegitimate regime.
None of this represents an anomaly. It represents the accumulated failure of a strategy best summarized as “invade the Muslim world, invite the Muslim world.”
This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.
That doctrine has produced neither peace abroad nor safety at home.
A contradiction the West refuses to resolve
Western governments spent the better part of a generation importing millions of migrants from unstable regions while simultaneously deploying their own soldiers to those same regions to manage sectarian civil wars.
The contradiction remains unresolved: We accept the risks of mass migration while risking our troops to contain the same ideologies overseas.
Islamist movements do not confine themselves to national borders. Whether Sunni or Shia, whether operating in Syria, Europe, or North America, the targets remain consistent: Jews, Christians, secular institutions, and Western civil society.
Yet our policy treats these threats as isolated incidents rather than the expression of a coherent ideology.
Strategic incoherence in Syria
Nowhere does this incoherence appear more starkly than in Syria.
On one hand, the Trump administration has moved toward normalizing relations with Syria’s new leadership. In June, President Trump signed an executive order terminating U.S. sanctions on Syria, including those on its central bank, in the name of reconstruction and investment. Last month, Syria’s new leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — a former al-Qaeda figure rebranded as a statesman — visited the White House, where Trump publicly praised developments under the new regime and said he was “very satisfied” with Syria’s direction.
At the same time, Trump floated the idea of establishing a permanent U.S. military base in Damascus to solidify America’s indefensible presence and support the new government.
This would be extraordinary. The United States would be embedding troops deeper into one of the most volatile theaters on earth, effectively placing American soldiers at the mercy of a regime whose leadership and allies only recently emerged from jihadist networks — including factions accused of massacring Christians and Druze.
Simultaneously, the White House pressures Israel to limit its defensive operations in southern Syria, including its buffer-zone strategy along the Golan Heights, even as Israeli forces do a far more effective job degrading jihadist threats without sacrificing their own soldiers.
The result is perverse: America risks lives to stabilize an Islamist-adjacent regime while restraining the one ally actually capable of enforcing order.
Wars abroad, chaos at home
The contradiction deepens when immigration policy enters the picture.
Despite Syria remaining one of the world’s most unstable countries, with no reliable vetting infrastructure, the United States continues admitting Syrian migrants while maintaining roughly 800 troops inside Syria with no clear mission, no defined end, and no defensible supply lines.
Worse, U.S. forces increasingly find themselves aligned with terrorist factions tied to al-Jolani’s coalition to manage rival Islamist groups — placing American soldiers in the same position they occupied in Afghanistan, where “allies” repeatedly turned on them.
That dynamic produced deadly ambushes then. It is happening again.
Qatar’s fingerprints all over
The common thread running through Syria, Gaza, immigration policy, and Islamist indulgence is Qatar.
Qatar (along with our NATO “ally,” Turkey) invested heavily in Sunni Islamist factions during Syria’s civil war and backed networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood for more than a decade. Qatar hosts Islamist leaders, bankrolls ideological infrastructure, and operates Al Jazeera, a media outlet that consistently amplifies anti-Western and anti-Israel narratives.
Yet Qatari preferences increasingly shape Western policy. We remain in Syria. We soften pressure on Islamist factions. We tolerate Muslim Brotherhood networks operating domestically. We allow Al Jazeera to function with broad access and influence inside the United States.
These choices do not occur in isolation. They align consistently with Qatari interests.
Unfettered immigration kills
Which brings us to the attack in Sydney that killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more, when two Muslim terrorists opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration — using weapons supposedly banned in a country that prides itself on gun control, but not border control.
The alleged attackers, Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, were a father-and-son pair of Pakistani origin. Sajid Akram entered Australia from Pakistan in 1998 on a student visa, converted it to a partner visa in 2001, and later received permanent residency through resident return visas.
In other words, this was not a transient or marginal figure. Akram was educated, had lived in Australia for more than 25 years, raised an Australian-born son, and still became radicalized enough to murder Jews in his adopted country.
Pakistan is one of the countries the Trump administration continues to treat as an ally, allowing large numbers of its nationals into the United States. Over the past decade, roughly 140,000 Pakistanis have received green cards, with tens of thousands more entering on student and work visas.
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Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
The same pattern appears elsewhere. In Germany, five terrorists arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market came from Morocco, Syria, and Egypt. In the U.S., we have issued green cards to approximately 38,000 Moroccans, more than 100,000 Egyptians, and over 28,000 Syrians.
This problem is not confined to ISIS or a handful of extremists in distant war zones. It is systemic. It explains why thousands took to the streets celebrating the Sydney massacre and why Islamist mobs now routinely surround synagogues in American cities, blocking worshippers and daring authorities to intervene.
The truth is, it doesn’t matter which Islamic country they hail from, how friendly that government may be to the West, or the tribal dynamics on the ground there. All of them, when they cluster in large numbers and form independent communities run by the Musim Brotherhood organizations, are incompatible with the West.
The problem is with Islam itself and the mass migration and Western subversion promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood through Qatari and Turkish gaslighting.
A choice we keep postponing
This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.
The West must decide whether it intends to defend its civilization or continue subsidizing its erosion — through mass migration without assimilation, foreign entanglements without strategy, and alliances that demand silence in exchange for access.
Rather than building up Syria, risking the lives of our troops, and continuing to appease our enemies in Qatar, why not pull out, let Israel serve as the regional security force, while we focus on closing our border to the religion of pieces?
Protecting the country requires clarity. That means ending immigration from jihadist incubators, dismantling Islamist networks operating domestically, withdrawing troops from unwinnable sectarian conflicts, and empowering allies who actually fight our enemies.
Anything less is not “compassion” or sound foreign policy. It is criminal negligence.
Vance refuses to throw Tucker Carlson under the bus, emphasizes America is a ‘Christian nation’
Several speakers at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest offered competing and ostensibly irreconcilable views of the way forward for the MAGA coalition, in some cases identifying one another as cowards, saboteurs, or worse.
In his speech closing out the conference in Phoenix, Vice President JD Vance emphasized that “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests.”
‘Do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends.’
Vance, the Republican front-runner going into 2028 whom TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk endorsed last week for president, faces mounting public pressure to throw Tucker Carlson under the bus over his criticism of Israel and perceived bigotry as well as to censure Nicholas Fuentes, the head of the so-called Groypers who has been particularly critical of the vice president.
Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” told the Washington Post, “The reasonable actors can see that JD is being a reasonable arbiter of this debate, and that’s a really important signal to send out — that Israel is our ally. They’re an important ally. They’re not our only concern, though.”
“I think JD understands the needs, wants, and concerns of young Americans as well, if not better than, any other leading politician in the country,” added Kolvet.
“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Vance told the crowd of thousands gathered on Sunday.
“We have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”
The vice president underscored that the “America First movement” constitutes a big tent welcoming those who seek to make America “richer, stronger, safer, and prouder.”
In a recent interview with Sohrab Ahmari, the U.S. editor of UnHerd, Vance provided some insights into why he refused to denounce Carlson or waste any time discussing Fuentes.
“Tucker’s a friend of mine,” he told Ahmari. “And do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends, especially those who work in politics. You know this. Most people who know me know this. I’m [also] a very loyal person, and I am not going to get into the business of throwing friends under the bus.”
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Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images
Vance noted further that “the idea that Tucker Carlson — who has one of the largest podcasts in the world, who has millions of listeners, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, who supported me in the 2024 election — the idea that his views are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement, is frankly absurd.”
As for Fuentes, Vance intimated that a condemnation of the 27-year-old host of “America First” podcast wasn’t worthwhile.
“[Fuentes’] influence within Donald Trump’s administration, and within a whole host of institutions on the right, is vastly overstated, and frankly, it’s overstated by people who want to avoid having a foreign-policy conversation about America’s relationship with Israel,” Vance said in the interview.
‘Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s**t.’
While the vice president maintains that Israel is an “important ally,” he indicated that he welcomes substantive disagreements with the Middle Eastern nation as well as debates at home about American foreign policy.
Vance told Ahmari that anti-Semitism and all forms of ethnic hatred “have no place in the conservative movement” but noted that “if you believe racism is bad, Fuentes should occupy one second of your focus, and the people with actual political power who worked so hard to discriminate against white men should occupy many hours of it.”
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Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images
Although recognizing Fuentes as an apparent sideshow to an important conversation, Vance did make a point of telling Ahmari, “Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is [former Biden press secretary] Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s**t.”
On the theme of America First’s genuine spirit of inclusion, the vice president made clear in his AmericaFest speech that the Trump administration and the broader movement supporting it has “relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs.”
“In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white any more. And if you’re an Asian, you don’t have to talk around your skin color when you’re applying for college, because we judge people based on who they are, not on ethnicity and things they can’t control,” said Vance. “We don’t persecute you for being male, for being straight, for being gay, for being anything. The only thing that we demand is that you be a great American patriot.”
‘It is better to die a patriot than live a coward.’
In addition to risking offense with his acknowledgement that white Americans needn’t apologize for their pigmentation and with his refusal to betray a friend, Vance realized the fears articulated in recent years by liberals and anti-Christian activists by noting in his speech that “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation.”
For the benefit of those who might strategically misconstrue his meaning, Vance clarified that Americans don’t have to be Christian but that “Christianity is America’s creed,” despite the decades-long campaign by the left to remove Christianity from public life.
“That creed motivated our understanding of natural law and rights, our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak, and the belief in individual conscience,” continued the vice president. “Even our famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept.”
The vice president noted further that the “fruits of true Christianity” are good men like his murdered friend, Charlie Kirk.
“The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons,” said Vance. “And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asks them to do. Because so many of us recognize that it is better to die a patriot than live a coward.”
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Charlie Kirk was right: How Islam is destroying the West
Western nations are collapsing under the weight of mass migration, failed assimilation, demographic upheaval, and the growing alliance between Marxist and Islamist ideologies — a threat Charlie Kirk warned about with clarity long before his death.
“We don’t talk enough about Islam. … We don’t talk nearly enough about the hundreds of thousands of Muslims that we have voluntarily imported into our country that build mosques, implement Sharia law,” Kirk once said.
“You go to Minneapolis, you even go to Dallas, you go to New York, and it will metastasize. It will spread. You know why? Because the women of the West, they get cats. The women of Muslims, they have eight kids. Eventually, it doesn’t work very well,” he continued.
BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey couldn’t agree with Kirk more.
“I thought he was going to go in the direction of toxic empathy, because it’s toxic empathy that has made us say, ‘No, Christians are the bad ones. Muslims are the great ones. And we just need to accept, unfettered, anyone into our country,’” she tells her father and BlazeTV contributor Ron Simmons on “Relatable.”
And Simmons has noticed it in his own neighborhood.
“Even in the neighborhood that I live in, I walk a lot. … I will pass people that I know have immigrated here, you know, meet them, and they won’t even make eye contact. It’s just really strange,” Simmons tells his daughter.
“That’s not the America that I grew up in or believe in,” he adds.
“And that’s one thing, you know, we heard so much, especially the past few years: ‘Diversity is our strength. Diversity is our strength.’ Well, statistically, that’s not true,” Stuckey agrees.
“It can bring different perspectives and things like that, but at the end of the day, you have to say, ‘Okay, but this is what we have in common.’ But if you don’t have that, then diversity is a weakness,” she says.
“We are trying to force multiculturalism upon people without any shared underneath values,” she continues. “And that has worked zero places throughout history.”
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Is the laundromat the last bastion of public life?
The world is vast and varied — different foods, cars, buildings, beliefs, and political systems wherever you go.
Yet somehow, laundromats are always exactly the same.
In an era of technologically dehumanizing isolation, I find myself seeing beauty in the most mundane moments of human connection or human commonality.
Universal, they stretch from the northern Atlantic to the southern Pacific. Where there are people and where there is civilization, there is laundry and there are laundromats.
Watching the washers
I remember waiting in a laundromat in northern France. It was right across the street from the Super-U. It was long and thin with tall windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It was late November, the low sun was warm on the seats next to the windows, our clothes turning back and forth behind the tightly sealed window facing us. The silence of the warm carpet, our winter coats unbuttoned though still on, as we waited for our clothes to finish before walking back to the apartment.
In Chicago, my laundromat had long rows of metal machines. They loaded from the top and took six quarters per cycle. You slipped the quarters in the little slots and only once all six were filled could you push the metal slider forward. A few seconds later, the machine would start.
There were boxes of overpriced dry laundry soap next to the front door and a few benches next to the bathrooms that were always occupied by people staring down at their phones. I would wait in the corner, leaning against a rumbling dryer, looking up from my phone only when someone got up to move their wet clothes from washer to dryer. I would see wrinkly shirts, knotted sweaters, socks, pants, and skirts as they shuffled their clothes to another metal machine.
When I lived in Jerusalem, I washed my clothes at a laundromat close to Kikar Tzion. It was usually quiet, though never entirely empty. There was always someone else there talking quietly on the phone, listening more than speaking. Sometimes in Hebrew, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in French. The walls were covered with posters and printouts with little tags with phone numbers that could be torn off and slipped into your pocket if you were interested in whatever they were selling.
Metal machine music
Last week, our washer broke. On Saturday night, I took three loads plus two kids out in a snowstorm to the laundromat to get the laundry done.
It was empty, with the exception of the guy at the front desk who greeted us kindly as we stumbled in knocking the snow off our boots on the long black carpet. There was a TV in the corner, a couple tables with chairs, long lines of big, silver machines, and a few teal seats that looked like they were made in 1982. The kids and I loaded up the machines, poured in the detergent we had brought from home, and began listening to the low hum as the clothes began to spin.
The sound is always the same in every laundromat. There’s never loud music on a stereo; if there’s a TV, it’s always muted or very quiet. Even the people waiting for their socks and underwear behave as if they’re in a library, talking in low voices by the rumbling machines and spinning heat.
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Jim Steinfeldt/Getty Images
On the scent
The smell too; it’s always the same. All laundry soap all over the world has that same detergent-y scent. Soft, flowery, and lightly chemical. Detergent in Italy and detergent in Israel may have different names from detergent in America or detergent in Iceland, but they all are basically the same. The world is big and there are so many people, but all their clothes smell the same.
At the laundromat, people wash their most intimate garments in public, together. They carry their laundry baskets in and wash the things they only show their significant others right next to the things that someone else only shows theirs.
We never acknowledge any of this, and this is why we all hurry to put our clothes in, or change our clothes over, when we are at the laundromat. We all have a secret to protect, and we are all stuck together, in public, with the spinning machines, the low hum of the heat, and the smell of chemical flowers.
Together alone
This is part of why we are all fairly quiet as well. It’s like we don’t actually want to acknowledge that anyone else is really there washing their clothes right alongside ours. We may make small talk, but we don’t say much.
Laundromats are almost something like holdovers from a more necessarily communal time. Waiting and watching the people sitting and their clothes spinning, I have thought about how all the women must have washed clothes down by the river, or wherever it was they did laundry, in the ancient days.
In an era of technologically dehumanizing isolation, I find myself seeing beauty in the most mundane moments of human connection or human commonality. The things we share even if we don’t dwell on them. The things we do together even if we are alone. The spinning machines, the private garments we want to keep to ourselves, the smell of the detergent, the quiet as we wait.
Congress takes aim at online harms — and misses the center mass
On December 11, 18 child online safety bills took a significant step toward becoming law. The package — each bill addressing, in some way, the harms children face online — passed out of a House subcommittee on a mostly party-line vote. The legislative bundle is, overall, a somewhat milquetoast mix of meaningful wins and frustrating defeats for child safety advocates. Still, it represents real progress. For those who have long pushed for action, the ball has finally moved down the field.
The bills vary dramatically in scope. Some, like the Assessing Safety Tools for Parents and Minors Act, would simply mandate an analytical report on the efforts technology companies are making to protect children. Others, such as the App Store Accountability Act — which would require app stores to determine whether a user is a minor and, if so, prohibit downloads without parental consent — are far more consequential, fundamentally changing how app stores operate.
Advancing 18 bills signals that one of the longest-standing objections to action — whether social media actually harms children — has effectively collapsed.
There are also bittersweet elements. The most well-known and controversial bill, the Kids Online Safety Act, is included in the package — but in a significantly watered-down form. The original version, introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), passed the Senate with more than 90 votes. But House GOP leadership raised constitutional concerns, arguing that the bill placed undue pressure on social media companies to regulate speech.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), one of the bill’s most prominent opponents, warned that it would “empower dangerous people.” Other critics likened KOSA to the British Online Safety Act — a far more draconian law than its American counterpart. (The most recent Senate version of KOSA focuses on disabling addictive features and restricting minors’ access to dangerous content.)
These concerns forced substantial revisions. Most notably, the bill now includes a sweeping pre-emption clause barring states from regulating anything that “relates” to KOSA — effectively nullifying existing and future state-level efforts to protect children online.
Equally disappointing is what failed to make the cut.
Some excluded proposals were undeniably radical, such as the RESET Act, which would have barred minors from creating or maintaining social media accounts altogether. But another bill left behind — the App Store Freedom Act — was critical to restoring competition and accountability in the app ecosystem.
That legislation would have challenged the Apple-Google duopoly, which controls more than 90% of app store purchases in the United States. As long as those two companies dominate the marketplace, meaningful reform will remain elusive. Unsurprisingly, both firms opposed the bill, arguing that it would “endanger” children by allowing downloads from unvetted third-party stores.
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), the bill’s sponsor, blasted that claim, noting that Apple has long permitted minors to download TikTok — a platform run by a Chinese company with well-documented national security concerns.
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Image by Alexandr Muşuc via iStock / Getty Images
Despite its importance, the App Store Freedom Act was removed from the package. Even so, the remaining legislation still marks a major victory for those focused on protecting children online.
Here’s why.
First, advancing 18 bills signals that one of the longest-standing objections to action — whether social media actually harms children — has effectively collapsed.
For years, lawmakers debated whether digital platforms were the problem or whether other factors deserved the blame. A steady stream of studies, headlines, and internal leaks showing that social media companies knew their products damaged adolescent mental health helped put that question to rest.
Second, the breadth of the package ensures that something will happen. Even the weakest provisions — those requiring studies or reports — will energize advocates and help bring order to what remains a digital Wild West for children and families.
The legislative fight is far from over. The bills must still clear committee, pass the House, and survive the Senate. But momentum is clearly shifting toward reform.
It’s time to finish the fight.
Make Mass Great Again
This Thursday is sure to see packed pews where they may otherwise sit empty. Catholics who regularly attend Mass might find themselves seated next to a CEO—not a “Chief Executive Officer,” but a “Christmas and Easter Only” Catholic. Protestant and Catholic churches alike advertise their times of worship for Christmas, expecting crowds too large to accommodate in one service. But this is not how it should be, according to Robert Cardinal Sarah. Instead, these churches should be full every weekend with reverential, traditional worshippers.
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Tulsi Gabbard warns: Powerful foreign allies eager to pull US into war with Russia
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the AmericaFest crowd in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday that key global allies are hoping to drag the United States into a war with Russia.
Gabbard explained that the “warmongers in the deep state” are blocking Russia and Ukraine from reaching a peace agreement, undermining President Donald Trump’s efforts.
‘We cannot allow this to happen.’
“Predictably, they use the same old tactics that they’ve always used. The deep state within the intelligence community weaponizes ‘intelligence’ to try to undermine progress,” she stated, motioning air quotes.
Gabbard said these deep-staters then leak that so-called “intelligence” to their friends in the “mainstream propaganda media” to propel a false narrative.
She went on to accuse the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of wanting to pull the U.S. into direct battle with Russia.
President Donald Trump. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“[Deep-staters] foment fear and hysteria as a way to justify the continuing of the war and their efforts to undermine President Trump’s efforts towards peace,” Gabbard said. “And do so in this case in order to try to pull the U.S. military into a direct conflict with Russia, which is ultimately what the EU and NATO want.”
“We cannot allow this to happen,” she declared.
During her AmFest speech, Gabbard also warned about the threat of Islamist ideology.
“There’s a threat to our freedom that is not often talked about enough. And it is the greatest near- and long-term threat to both our freedom and our security, and that is the threat of Islamist ideology,” she said.
Gabbard’s comments prompted cheers and applause from the audience.
President Donald Trump, DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
She argued that, at its core, Islam is a political ideology that seeks to implement a “global caliphate” that would destroy freedom through Sharia law.
“This is already underway in places like Houston. This is not something that may possibly happen; it is already happening here within our borders,” she continued. “Paterson, New Jersey, is proud to call themselves the first Muslim city.”
You can view Gabbard’s remarks about Islamist ideology beginning at the 6:50 mark in the below video:
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Gabbard added that Islamist ideology “is propagated by people who not only do not believe in freedom, their fundamental ideology is antithetical to the foundation that we find in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is that our Creator endowed upon us inalienable rights. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
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How Jesus modeled loving confrontation — and why niceness was never the goal
Modern Christianity often treats “niceness” as its highest virtue and “offending” as its worst. The American church is far too often shaped by this creed.
Yet the Gospels paint a far different picture of Jesus. He was loving, compassionate, and merciful, yes — but He was also unapologetically offensive when truth required it. When we avoid speaking hard truths for the sake of being liked or preserving a shallow sense of “peace,” we slip into spiritual complacency, apathy, and lukewarmness — all things Jesus rebuked.
Jesus never softened the truth to keep crowds happy.
The American church has developed an aversion to tackling tough cultural issues that are, at their core, purely biblical. Pastors often retreat in fear of angry emails, pushback from congregants, or worse, the loss of Sunday pew-warmers.
Last year, in my home state of South Dakota, an amendment allowing abortion up to nine months was on the ballot. A pastor of one of the state’s largest churches refused to address it, worried about being labeled the “abortion church.” He chose the path of cowardice instead of defending the innocent unborn.
At its core, this kind of timidity is rooted in the fear of man, disguised as a desire to “attract” people to the gospel. Numbers are prioritized over hearts, popularity over true discipleship.
What most pastors try so hard to avoid today, Jesus hit head on. Jesus offended — and offended often. His offense was never petty but was always purposeful. He never once flinched from boldly proclaiming truth because it might “offend” someone or ruffle feathers. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Jesus set the example: Truth will offend
The Pharisees were Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day, esteemed by many and considered high-class elites.
But Jesus didn’t care how lofty and noble these men appeared to be — He saw straight through their transgressing hearts, calling them offensive names like “hypocrites,” “blind fools,” “brood of vipers,” “serpents,” “children of hell,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “greedy and self-indulgent.” Naturally they were offended.
In Matthew 15:1-12 and Matthew 23, the disciples pulled Jesus aside after He offended the Pharisees by exposing their spiritual corruption. Jesus told these perceived religious zealots they honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him.
The disciples questioned, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15:12). Jesus’ backbone, as stiff as steel, responded, “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matthew 15:14). He didn’t have any time for nonsense.
Jesus didn’t just offend the Pharisees with truth; He offended His disciples too.
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Christ driving money-changers from the Temple (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
In John 6, the disciples took offense at Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life. He challenged their religious assumptions and expectations about the Messiah as He proclaimed, “I am the living bread” (John 6:51), and symbolically called them to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (John 6:53).
Their offense shows their difficulty understanding the spiritual truths that transcended human understanding.
Jesus offends repeatedly all throughout the Gospel stories. When He claims He existed before Abraham as John 8:56-59 says, the Jewish leaders interpreted His teaching as blasphemy, which led them to try to stone Him. When one of the Pharisees invites Him to dinner in Luke 11:37-54, instead of a surface-level conversation about the weather, Jesus didn’t waste time and immediately unmasked their hypocrisy, legalism, and spiritual emptiness. In response, they began plotting against Jesus — not repenting and humbling themselves.
Jesus never softened the truth to keep crowds happy. He offended religious leaders, political authorities, and even His own followers when they opposed the kingdom of God. His love was inseparable from honesty.
If we claim to follow Him, we cannot avoid offending people. Jesus reminds us in the Gospel of John that if the world hates us to remember it hated Him first. Faithful discipleship means being willing to confront lies, challenge sin, and speak truth, even when it divides, disrupts, or costs us something — or everything.
Courageous truth-telling is a biblical virtue
The modern church often elevates “niceness” above righteousness and holiness. But Jesus wasn’t crucified for being nice — He was crucified because He spoke truth that offended people even though a week before they spread cloaks and branches, shouting “Hosanna” as He entered Jerusalem.
I recently read through the Gospels, noticing the countless times Jesus “offended” but for good reason. He never offended for the sake of it — but always because it was the outcome of teaching truth with conviction.
In Jesus’ hometown, people were both astonished and “offended” when Jesus taught in their synagogue as Matthew 13:54-57 recounts. Their familiarity led to their unbelief, and Jesus exposed the depth of their spiritual blindness. The people of Nazareth then tried to throw Jesus off a cliff. They were first impressed but then violently offended (Luke 4:16-30).
‘Modern religion focuses upon filling churches with people. The true gospel emphasizes filling people with God.’
Imagine congregants trying to throw a modern-day pastor off a cliff because he was too bold? Oh, to have more courageous pastors who righteously offend. Many would cower to the crowds or be taken to the side by their elder board demanding they tone it down, but not Jesus; He continued preaching truth at all costs.
Even up to His crucifixion and death on the cross, Jesus didn’t try to appease or reason with the people. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t use caveats. He was mission-focused on preaching the gospel that saves and leads to repentance. Not once did He try to people-please at the price of watering down sound doctrine.
Niceness avoids conflict, clarity, and offense — but Jesus didn’t. He embodied compassion and mercy, yet He also spoke hard, confrontational truths when necessary.
True Christlikeness means loving people enough to tell them what they need to hear — not what keeps us comfortable or well-liked.
Jesus didn’t offend to be cruel or to win an argument; He offended to reveal truth, to expose bondage, to free hearts, and to reveal God’s kingdom. His offense was holy, rooted in love, and aimed at transforming hearts and minds.
Fear of offending has paralyzed the church
A.W. Tozer wisely said, “Modern religion focuses upon filling churches with people. The true gospel emphasizes filling people with God.”
Many American pastors avoid addressing culturally explosive but biblically clear issues because they don’t want to offend. This silence stems from the fear of man — fear of losing members, donations, reputation, and influence.
The result is lukewarm churches that prioritize optics over obedience. Nothing is “wrong” with the church, but nothing is “right” with it either. People aren’t leaving convicted or repentant. They’re leaving feeling pretty good about themselves as they wallow in complacency.
Why does the American church continue to sit on the truth? True disciples follow Jesus until death.
No boats have been rocked, no hearts have been transformed, and no one has been truly discipled.
But the apostle Paul in Galatians 1:10 makes clear: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” You can only serve one master: God or the world.
When leaders refuse to speak on matters like abortion, sexuality, or sin because they might upset people, they are choosing self-preservation over faithfulness.
“If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it,” declared Charles Finney, a minister and leader during the Second Great Awakening.
Speaking truth in love: The cost of radical discipleship
John the Baptist offended people when he called them to repentance, criticized Herod for committing adultery, and condemned religious hypocrisy. He lost his head as a result. Paul offended people by preaching the Christ crucified and calling out legalism and man-made traditions. He was decapitated because of it. Elijah offended King Ahab and the prophets of Baal by confronting idolatry. Jezebel threatened to kill him. Amos offended the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom when he spoke out against wealth, corruption, and injustice in Israel. He faced rejection and threats.
These were all offenses they were willing to make because they lived for an audience of one.
So why does the American church continue to sit on the truth? True disciples follow Jesus until death.
Christian Nigerians right now are being slaughtered for their faith by the thousands, yet they continue gathering in droves to worship their King. Meanwhile American churches are sitting on the sidelines too worried about offending people to speak truth, rather than taking up our cross and truly following Christ.
As believers, we must be strong and courageous, with a truth-telling edge. We should not be harsh or abrasive but rather love people enough to say what’s hard.
If Jesus’ ministry provoked offense for the sake of truth, perhaps ours should too.
Husted, We Have A(I) Problem
As 2026 looms, the voyage of Sen. John Husted’s (R-Ohio) Children Harmed by AI Technology (CHAT) Act from proposal into…
