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‘It’s a Wonderful Life’: The amazing UNTOLD story of the classic Christmas movie
“It’s a Wonderful Life” wasn’t always a beloved classic — in fact, it was a complete failure that nearly destroyed the careers of Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart.
“It was actually born out of failure, it was born out of exhaustion, and it was born out of people who felt just like its lead character, George Bailey,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck says.
“The movie was made by Frank Capra, and it was right after World War II. Frank Capra had just come back. He didn’t come home triumphant. He came home a changed man. He had spent the war making film for the United States government, the war department, about why the West is worth saving,” he explains.
Capra came back and started his own studio, betting “absolutely everything on it.”
“‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was supposed to be the movie that proved Frank Capra is still Frank Capra. And it nearly ruined him,” Glenn explains.
“The movie lost money. Critics really didn’t like it. They mocked how schmaltzy it was. Audiences stayed home. Jimmy Stewart, this was his first movie that he made when he came back home from the war. And this was his start,” he continues, pointing out that not even Stewart could save it.
“The most beloved man in America gave a really raw, shaken, almost too real performance for people at the time. He wasn’t the cheerful hero that is coming out of war as a victory. This was a man that was cracking under the weight of responsibility, a man who did everything right, but he still felt like he was a failure,” Glenn says.
The movie was what Glenn calls “a noble misfire,” before everyone forgot about it.
“And so, the rights lapsed. There was no grand relaunch. There was no marketing genius. Just a legal oversight that let the rights lapse,” Glenn says.
That’s where Ted Turner and Superstation TBS come in.
“They needed some holiday programming, and they needed it cheap. And when I say cheap, what Ted really meant was free. ‘We need a bunch of free programming that we can run all Christmas. … No rights, no royalties,’” Glenn explains.
“The vaults open up, and lo and behold, they find ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’” he says.
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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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VIRAL VIDEO: Sara Gonzales SLAMS Target shopper who films her own anti-Charlie Kirk meltdown
One California Target shopper has clearly been lacking in Christmas spirit this season — as the disgruntled woman pulled out her phone to record herself harassing an elderly Target worker over the shirt she was wearing.
The shopper, whom online sleuths discovered to be employed by Enloe Health, asked the worker why she was wearing a red shirt that read “Freedom” with Charlie Kirk’s name underneath. In the video that she recorded and posted on her TikTok herself, she accuses the woman of supporting a “racist.”
“Are you f**king stupid?” the customer asked, while the employee, acting nonchalant, calmly responded, “That’s your opinion, ma’am.”
“Imagine harassing this woman and posting it on your TikTok account like you’re the good guy in this situation. I mean, imagine that,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales reacts, shocked.
Gonzales dug up a little more dirt on the Target shopper, and what she found was disturbing.
The shopper, whose name is Michelea Ponce, is no stranger to political posts. In one Facebook post, she proudly shared her husband and daughter making fun of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“But there is good news out of this situation,” Gonzales explains.
The Target employee has been identified as “Jeanie” in a GiveSendGo crowdfund, which has surpassed its $200,000 goal.
“It’s like God works in mysterious ways because Cassandra McDonald, who was kind of on top of this fundraiser, she spoke with Jeanie and she said Monday, the day the fundraiser was launched for her, was the 12th anniversary of her husband’s death by suicide after a long battle with illness and oncoming dementia,” Gonzales explains.
“And she now works to raise awareness of suicide prevention options. And by the way, she said she might not even … use the money to go on vacation, because she loves everyone she works with. The Target is standing behind her,” she continues.
“She just sounds like just the sweetest lady who didn’t deserve that,” she adds.
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Viral theory claims ‘Home Alone’ is secretly a Christian film — and the symbolism is shocking
The film “Home Alone” has been a beloved Christmas movie for decades.
However, “Live Free” podcast host Josh Howerton recently went mega-viral for pointing out something that few people have noticed: “Home Alone” is also a Christian movie.
“And so I’m going to read this. He says, ‘Watch this scene very carefully where Kevin is drawn into the beauty and warmth of the church,’” Howerton begins in a TikTok clip.
“As he walks inside to ‘Oh Holy Night,’ he hears the words, ‘Fall on your knees, oh, hear the angel voices’ … a sanctuary candle passes across the foreground, indicating that Christ is present inside the church,” he continues.
“When you first meet Old Man Marley, in the movie, what’s he doing? He’s salting the earth. Now so check this out. So Old Man Marley, Christ figure, Kevin makes a confession to him, then shakes his hand, and we see a bandage on Marley’s hand … his hand is pierced all the way through like the nails driven through Christ’s hands on the cross,” Howerton explains.
“At the end of the movie, Kevin cannot save himself from the burglars, and so Marley appears again to rescue him,” he says, adding, “’Home Alone’ is a Christian movie.”
“I got goosebumps,” BlazeTV co-host Jeff Fisher says on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”
“That’s interesting,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray chimes in.
“I mean, that’s some subtle symbolism there,” he adds.
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Glenn Beck praises Trump as ‘disciplined’ for baiting media into reporting on his wins
President Trump addressed the nation this week about his administration’s many accomplishments over its first year — and shockingly, in a move very unlike the president, the speech was only 20 minutes.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it. When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans,” Trump began.
“Over the past 11 months, we have brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history. There has never been anything like it. And I think most would agree,” he continued.
Some successes Trump pointed out were that “drugs brought in by ocean and by sea” are down 94% and the “grip of sinister woke radicals in our schools” has been broken.
He also touted that he has “settled eight wars in 10 months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat, and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years peace to the Middle East, and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead.”
Trump recalled the rising inflation under Biden, which he happily reported has declined since he took office.
But one thing the president didn’t say is that we’re going to war with Venezuela — and BlazeTV host Glenn Beck believes he might have tricked the media into covering all his successes.
“Everybody was speculating, ‘He’s going to say we’re going to war.’ … I don’t think we’re going to war with Venezuela. I think he’s making it look like we’re going to war to freak Venezuela out and to get Maduro out, but I don’t think we’re going into war,” Glenn says.
“I saw this as the kickoff of the campaign. I saw this as, okay, this is the message for 2026 for the Republicans. And it was so disciplined and so tight,” he continues, pointing out that sometimes the media won’t cover a speech like that.
“I wonder if the war thing wasn’t a way to get them to cover this,” he adds.
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Debate: Hip-hop culture’s grip on Deion and Shedeur Sanders
BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes that football stars like Deion Sanders and his son Shedeur are spreading the worst of black culture to not only NFL fans but players — but former NFL quarterback Shaun King doesn’t share his sentiment.
“If we’re being honest, the black rap hip-hop culture has permeated every part of America. I mean, go on TikTok. It’s white moms with young white daughters doing the dances. You know, I don’t even know if athletes are who this generation of young Americans idolize,” King argues.
“All they did was looked at what the algorithm says works, and we’re going to use this to build a post-Deion playing career brand, and it’s focused on that energy. But they didn’t create it. They just took what was working and said, ‘We’re gonna use it to bring some more money into the Sanders’ family,’” he continues.
“So that’s why I try not to target them. It’s like they’re the reason that Jaxson Dart is wearing diamond necklaces or that J.J. McCarthy is doing the dance as he runs. … It’s rap, hip-hop took over,” he says, adding, “They had like a 10-15 year stretch where they kind of raised a whole decade of Americans.”
“On that we agree,” Whitlock says.
“Hip-hop has had incredible influence over athletes and young people in general, and for black athletes, my argument is like, ‘Hey man, football, particularly at the quarterback position, but football in general, because of its military-like structure, it’s about submission,’” he explains.
“It’s about submitting to the head coach and the team as greater than yourself. And hip-hop is about individuality and being rebellious to authority,” he adds.
Whitlock also points out that point-wise, white quarterbacks are dominating black quarterbacks in the NFL — and he believes it has a lot to do with this culture.
“White guys are free to submit,” Whitlock explains. “Black guys have all this pressure to be rebellious, mimic hip-hop culture, and that’s why there’s a bit of a struggle, and that’s what I’m saying is going to be a part of Shedeur’s struggle.”
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Chip Roy: Why it’s time to pause LEGAL immigration
Illegal immigration has long been a contentious issue, but Rep. Chip Roy believes those who are very against illegal immigration aren’t going far enough. Rather he believes that we need to go after legal immigration as well.
“We’ve now got a situation where we have millions of people in our country that are not seeking to assimilate, not seeking to be the quote ‘melting pot,’ but rather are trying to kind of re-establish their cultures from other countries here rather than becoming fully American,” Roy tells Glenn.
“To put it in perspective, we have 51 and a half million foreign-born people here in the United States. The vast majority of whom did not come here illegally, right? But legally. But they’ve kind of been abusing the process in the system because we’ve got this broad use of H-1B visas. We’ve got these things called diversity visas,” he explains.
“We have chain migration where you’ve got everybody’s cousin, uncle, aunt, whatever, and they’re just growing the population here. And this is now unlike it was a century ago … and at that point, we didn’t have a welfare state. We had schools that were teaching that America was great,” he continues.
And to Roy’s point, despite how well everything was going, America still “flatlined” immigration.
“And I think our country was stronger for it. Today it’s worse because we’ve got so many people coming here who are not assimilating. We have schools that are not teaching people that America’s great, and we certainly are continuing to have a welfare state now that is causing a big problem,” he tells Glenn.
That’s where Roy’s Pause Act comes in.
“We should pause legal immigration until we fix a lot of things. Fix diversity visas, fix chain migration, fix H-1B,” Roy says.
“Until you fix all those things … then we’re going to lose our country. We’re going to lose our culture,” he adds.
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These stats don’t lie: How DEI is dragging down quarterbacks across the NFL
You’ve heard of DEI in the workforce, but DEI in the National Football League isn’t all that different of a ball game. And after looking at the stats, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock determines it’s been doing far more damage than good.
In 2018, 19 quarterbacks averaged more than 250 passing yards per game. Now, in 2025, there are only five quarterbacks who average more than 250 passing yards per game.
“There are five quarterbacks that average more than 250 passing yards per game: Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and Drake Maye. … What are we watching? What is going on with the National Football League?” Whitlock asks, disturbed.
“Has gambling and fantasy football distracted us so much and covered up all the flaws of the National Football League that we’re sitting here watching … quarterback play go directly into the toilet, and we’re pretending like we don’t see it at all,” he continues.
However, Whitlock has a theory as to why this is happening.
“My contention is, the hyperfocus on DEI and black quarterback play has diminished merit, has diminished competition, has undermined the pursuit of excellence for the pursuit of quotas. And everybody’s play has dropped because of the hyperfocus on DEI,” Whitlock explains.
“DEI degrades everything in sight, including the National Football League,” he adds.
In 2018, Whitlock points out that there were three black quarterbacks who had more than 250 passing yards.
“Now, we’re in this time in 2025 where there are 14 black quarterbacks who have started eight or more games, and only two black quarterbacks are averaging more than 250 yards per game,” he explains.
“So, we’ve increased the number of black quarterbacks playing, but we’ve decreased the number of black quarterbacks playing at a high level. Once you quit pursuing excellence, everybody gets hurt, even the black quarterbacks,” he says.
“DEI isn’t elevating the play of black quarterbacks. It’s actually diminishing the play of all quarterbacks,” he continues. “Coaches, organizations — they’re not thinking about, how can we be the best we can possibly be.”
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Dan Bongino’s FBI exit fuels questions as marriage strain takes center stage
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has announced that he’s stepping down from the FBI, and the rumor mill is now swirling as to why he decided he was no longer right for the job.
“When I woke up this morning, I saw a Daily Mail article that said, ‘Dan Bongino set to quit the Trump administration after FBI job put strain on his marriage,’” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales recalls, “and that was the only thing. It was, like, it was just a rumor, right?”
“It also said Bongino’s reported intention to step down just comes two days before the deadline to release the Epstein files on Friday, which I found interesting. But we did know, I mean, there were some signs of this,” she continues.
In an interview on “Fox and Friends” months ago, Bongino did mention that he was struggling with the distance his new job put between him and his wife.
“I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my wife is struggling, and I’m not a victim. I’m not Jim Comey, it’s fine. I did this, and I’m proud I did it. But if you think we’re there for tea and crumpets …” Bongino said.
“I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., you know, by myself, divorced from my wife. Not divorced, but I mean, separated, divorced. And it’s hard. I mean, you know, we love each other, and it’s hard to be apart,” he added.
President Trump echoed this sentiment when he commented on Bongino’s departure, saying, “Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show.”
“I think he wants to go back to podcasting,” Gonzales repeats. “I am rendered speechless. One of the only moments in my life.”
“He’s done so much for the country,” she says. “And, by the way, I appreciate the sacrifice that he mentioned, but it’s like, yeah, we know. Can you stop complaining? Do your job.”
“This is my take on it,” BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden chimes in. “Dan is a patriot. We all knew when he gave up his show that he was sacrificing millions of dollars for the country.”
“It’s not like he’s someone that came out of something completely different to go into the FBI. He knows the job. He knows the job. So, he knew what the strain would be on his marriage. And I’m not saying that it’s not having a strain on his marriage, but what I will say is, those difficulties are worth it if you are seeing a change and if you are seeing results,” he continues.
Gonzales points out that through his social media posts, Bongino often alluded to uncovering major details regarding the Epstein case — which she believes may have led to him being frustrated that he couldn’t share them later.
“He’s leaving all of these nuggets to make it sound like, ‘Oh, we are uncovering all sorts of crazy things. I can’t wait to share it with you.’ And then we never quite got the other part of that, right? We never were told really what it is,” Gonzales says. “And so, you have to wonder, like, okay, he must be very frustrated.”
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Former NFL player melts down after old ‘Caucasian’ mistakes him for an Uber Eats driver
Former NFL standout Keyshawn Johnson took to social media this week after a run-in with a “Caucasian” woman whom he guessed to be no older than 65 — because he was upset that she asked him if he was an Uber Eats driver.
“So, I just went to pick up food from a restaurant down the street from my crib. And I live in an affluent neighborhood. You know, it’s many different ethnicities and all of those sort of things, and people make money and, you know, they live a certain lifestyle,” Johnson said into the camera.
“So, when I walk in the restaurant to pick up my food, I had somebody who’s a Caucasian — I’m African-American, whatnot — ask me if I was, like, a Uber Eats or DoorDash or something, you know, picking up the food for delivery or whatever. She says, ‘Oh, are you here with Uber Eats?’” he explained.
“I was like, ‘No, I’m not,’ and then I proceed to move forward and say, ‘Everybody that’s a minority isn’t Uber Eats or picking up food to go and delivering service or nothing like that,’” he said.
Johnson went on to claim that the woman tried to backtrack and say she “didn’t mean it that way,” and that “she couldn’t have been no more than, like, 65.”
“I mean, I understand they get plastic surgery and all that, but she couldn’t have been no more than, like, 65 years old. But the fact that she would ask me something like that, it rubbed me the wrong way. And I just want to know what y’all think,” he said, asking, “Am I overreacting?”
“If I’m sensitive, y’all let me know,” he added.
“Keyshawn, you’re sensitive,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock answers.
“I hope there’s someone in his circle that could tell him that someone asking you, ‘Hey, do you have a job?’ or you’re working a job or whatever, or mistaking you for someone who’s working, that’s not an insult,” he continues.
“Keyshawn, you’re being overly sensitive,” he adds.
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