Category: The Washington Free Beacon
The Spectacle Ep. 306: Immigration: Kristi Noem and the Rest of Trump’s Team Needs to Talk Less and Do More
The Trump administration is in charge and is acting helpless in the face of problems they promised to solve. They…
The Filibuster Must Be Protected Now
Conservative demands to abolish the filibuster, like earlier lamentations over the continued existence of the pesky debt limit, strongly indicate…
WATCH: ‘Then Why Aren’t There State Prosecutions?’ Local Reporter Calls BS on Tim Walz’s Claim He Sent Somali Fraudsters to Jail
Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) was pressed by a local reporter on his false claim that he sent Somali fraudsters to jail.
The post WATCH: ‘Then Why Aren’t There State Prosecutions?’ Local Reporter Calls BS on Tim Walz’s Claim He Sent Somali Fraudsters to Jail appeared first on .
Nearly Five Years Later, FBI Makes Arrest In DC Pipe Bomb Case
The FBI made an arrest early Thursday morning in the five-year-old Washington, D.C., pipe bomb case. Authorities arrested Brian J. Cole Jr. and accused him of planting two live bombs on Jan. 5, 2021 — one near in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the other near the headquarters […]
‘Lawful and needful’: Navy admiral dispels Hegseth’s alleged ‘kill them all’ order during drug-boat strike
Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth remains on offense, as another military official stands up in defense of the infamous boat strike against alleged drug traffickers.
The Washington Post published a story claiming that Hegseth ordered Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley to “kill them all” during a September 2 strike on alleged drug boats, insinuating that the alleged order amounted to a war crime.
‘I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, load it with drugs.’
Bradley echoed remarks made by Hegseth and members of the administration defending the strike and calling the Post’s reporting into question.
Lawmakers exiting the Thursday-morning meeting with Bradley reaffirmed that the accusations levied against Hegseth and his Pentagon were unfounded, claiming there was “no such order.”
RELATED: Trump’s boat strikes may leave one Venezuelan drug-smuggling pirate haven in ruins
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2 were entirely lawful and needful, and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said as he was exiting the classified briefing.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Cotton added.
RELATED: Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Cotton went on to describe the footage of the strike that was shown to the lawmakers.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat — loaded with drugs, bound for the United States — back over so they could stay in the fight,” Cotton said. “And potentially, given all the context we heard, of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid.”
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White House makes touching gesture to honor assassinated National Guard member, allegedly by CIA-linked Afghan
President Donald Trump’s administration is honoring fallen National Guard member Spc. Sarah Beckstrom in the wake of her horrific murder just yards away from the White House grounds.
The White House lowered all flags on the grounds to half-staff on Thursday after Beckstrom succumbed to her wounds on November 27, Thanksgiving Day. The suspect is a CIA-linked Afghan national who allegedly shot her and fellow guardsman Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe in Washington, D.C, the day prior.
Beckstrom was only 20 years old.
‘The Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States.’
The proclamation from Trump’s administration extended the honor to “all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, December 4, 2025.”
The flags will also be lowered at American embassies, legations, consular offices, and military facilities across the world.
Flags at the White House are lowered to half-staff in memory of Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom.
May God bless her family, our National Guard heroes, and the United States of America. 🙏🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/OyOGMc0dv3
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 4, 2025
Twenty-nine-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was officially charged with Beckstrom’s murder, also allegedly ambushed 24-year-old Wolfe, who is miraculously expected to recover.
Lakanwal first came to the United States under President Joe Biden’s administration under the program Operation Allies Welcome following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Lakanwal was also a member of a CIA-backed military operation to hunt down Taliban commanders.
RELATED: Suspect in National Guard shooting was part of CIA-backed unit that hunted down Taliban commanders
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
“In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
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Illegal drivers, dead Americans — this is what ‘open borders’ really mean
Wherever you’re reading this, your day almost certainly began on an American road. You might have driven your kids to day care, headed to work, or grabbed a coffee. Even cyclists rely on the same system. Those routines rest on one basic assumption: The people operating massive commercial vehicles are trained, vetted, and accountable.
The assumption is disintegrating because the country is still digging out from the chaos of the Biden administration’s border collapse. President Trump is trying to put the pieces back together, but the wreckage didn’t disappear overnight — and we see the consequences on our highways.
America’s highways shouldn’t become another casualty of Washington’s failures. Neither should American workers.
A recent tragedy in Florida makes the point. A 28-year-old man from India made an illegal U-turn on the turnpike and allegedly killed three people. He reportedly entered the United States illegally and still obtained a commercial driver’s license. In California, a 21-year-old — also allegedly in the country illegally — slammed his semi into stopped traffic on Interstate 10, killing three more. Authorities say he crossed the border in 2022 during the peak of the Biden administration’s open-border surge.
These cases aren’t flukes. They reflect a system that stopped taking seriously who gets behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound vehicle.
The incentives run in one direction. The trucking industry faces a driver shortage. Instead of raising wages and restoring what used to be a proud, middle-class profession, too many companies cut corners by hiring illegal labor willing to work for less. That choice endangers families on the highway and robs American truckers of the wages they earned by playing by the rules.
Every illegal driver creates two problems. First, a safety threat to everyone sharing the road. Second, downward pressure on American workers’ earnings. Flood the labor market with illegal labor, and you weaken the people who keep the country moving.
Trucking remains a central pillar of the American economy. Nearly everything in your home arrived on a truck. These jobs once supported families. They now absorb the fallout from policies that ignore the consequences of illegal hiring.
Fixing this requires basic seriousness. That means, at the very least, strict verification, no loopholes, and no more rubber-stamped licenses issued without proof of legal status. And no more pretending that illegal immigration leaves public safety and wages untouched.
Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The country depends on trucking. The system works only when drivers are properly trained, thoroughly vetted, and in the country legally. It fails when policymakers encourage shortcuts and lower standards to satisfy an open-border ideology.
This debate isn’t abstract. It’s about safety. It’s about economic fairness. It’s about recognizing that border policy shapes everyday life — including the safety of your morning commute.
America’s highways shouldn’t become another casualty of Washington’s failures. Neither should American workers. Both deserve leaders willing to enforce the rules that keep this country safe and prosperous.
Do we love the ‘Wicked’ movies because we hate innocence?
As I watched Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked: For Good” last week, I kept thinking about another, very different filmmaker: David Lynch.
Specifically, the Lynch that emerges from Alexandre Philippe’s excellent 2022 documentary “Lynch/Oz,” wherein we discover just how deeply the infamously surreal filmmaker was influenced by one of cinema’s sweetest fantasy films: the original “Wizard of Oz.”
In the era of #WitchTok … a story like ‘Wicked’ has built-in appeal.
Philippe’s film includes footage from a 2001 Q and A in which Lynch confirms the extent of his devotion: “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about ‘The Wizard of Oz.'”
The logic of fairyland
And that shouldn’t be surprising given how much it shows up in his work. From Glinda the Good Witch making an appearance in “Wild at Heart,” to the hazy, dreamlike depiction of suburbia in “Blue Velvet,” his films exist in a dual state between the realm of fairyland and the underworld.
Indeed, Lynch doesn’t reject either. In proper Buddhist fashion, these two forces exist in balance, equally potent and true. There is both good and evil in his world. Neither negates the other’s existence. And when darkness spills over into the light, it may be tragic, but it is also just another part of the world. Like Dorothy, his protagonists find themselves walking deeper into unknown territory. The protagonists of his films truly “aren’t in Kansas anymore.”
“The Wizard of Oz” is potent because it captures the logic of fairyland better than almost any film ever made. Channeling the fairy stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, and George MacDonald, it transports the mind to a realm that is more real than real, where even the most dire intrusion of evil can be set right according to simple moral rules.
As G.K. Chesterton famously puts it:
Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
Wicked good
“Wicked” and its new sequel reject this comforting clarity for something altogether more “adult” and ambiguous. Instead of presenting good and evil as objective realities that can be discerned and defeated, the films show how political authorities manipulate those labels to scapegoat some and exalt others.
They do so by swapping the original’s heroes and villains. The Wonderful Wizard is a cruel tyrant. Glinda is foppish and self-obsessed. Dorothy is the unwitting tool of a corrupt regime. And Elphaba — the so-called Wicked Witch — is reimagined as a sympathetic underdog with a tragic backstory, a manufactured villain invented to keep Oz unified in ire and hatred.
Elphaba exudes a whiff of Milton’s Lucifer — an eternal rebel in a tragic quest to upend the moral order. But unlike “Paradise Lost,” “Wicked” presents rebellion against its all-powerful father figure not as a tragic self-deception, but as a justified response to systemic cruelty.
Witch way?
“Wicked: For Good” takes the ideas of its predecessor even further than mere rebellion. If “Wicked: Part One” is about awakening to the world’s realities and becoming radicalized by them, “Wicked: For Good” is about the cost of selling out — the temptation to compromise with a corrupt system and the soul-crushing despair that follows.
This is where the irony of the film’s title, “Wicked: For Good” comes in. Once a person sees the world for what it truly is, they can’t go back without compromising themselves. They’ve “changed for good.” They’ve awakened and can’t return to sleep.
It’s worth considering why the “Wicked” franchise is so wildly popular. Gregory Maguire’s original 1995 novel has sold 5 million copies. The 2003 stage show it inspired won three Tony Awards and recently became the fourth longest-running Broadway musical ever. And the first film grossed $759 million last winter, with the sequel poised to make even more money.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that this outsize success comes at a time when Wicca and paganism have grown into mainstream cultural forces. In the era of #WitchTok, in which self-proclaimed witches hex politicians and garner billions of views on social media, a story like “Wicked” has built-in appeal. It offers glamorous spell-casting and a romantic tale of resistance to authority.
RELATED: ‘Etsy witches’ reportedly placed curses on Charlie Kirk days before assassination
Photo by The Salt Lake Tribune / Contributor via Getty Images
A bittersweet moral
The temptation of witchcraft is one that always hovers over our enlightened and rationalistic society. Particularly for young women, witchcraft offers a specific form of autonomy and power — over body, spirit, and fate — that patriarchal societies often deny. Many view witchcraft as progressive and empowering; “witchy vibes” have become a badge of identity.
Thus the unsettling imagery of Robert Eggers’ 2015 film “The Witch” comes into focus: A satanic coven kidnaps and kills a Puritan baby, seduces a teenage girl, and gains the power to unsubtly “defy gravity” through a deal with the devil.
“Wicked” is all about this power to transcend. Even as its protagonist grows despairing in the second film and abandons her political quest for the freedom of the wastelands, the film presupposes that it is better to resist or escape a corrupt system than submit to it.
Ultimately, the two films leave their audience with a bittersweet moral: Society is dependent on scapegoats. The Platonic noble lie upon which all societies rest cannot be escaped — but it can be redirected. A new civic myth can be founded that avoids sacrificing the vulnerable and overthrows the demagogues atop Mount Olympus. And the witches play the central role in overturning the world of Oz. Their rebellion sets it free.
But because the films blur the clear, objective distinction between good and evil — even while acknowledging that real evil exists — the characters in “Wicked” often drift in moral grayness, defining themselves mainly in relation to power. The world becomes overbearing, radicalizing, and morally unstable.
Sad truth
This is far afield from the vision of Oz presented in the 1939 film, the one David Lynch venerated as vital to his understanding of the world. But it reflects how modern storytellers often grapple with Oz. Almost every sequel or spin-off struggles to recapture the sincerity of the original. The 1985 sequel “Return to Oz” reimagined the land with a dark-fantasy twist. 2013’s “Oz the Great and Powerful” comes closest to the original tone but centers on fraudulence and trickery.
“Wicked,” too, falls in line with the modern tendency to subvert and complicate traditional stories of good versus evil. “Frozen,” “The Shape of Water,” “Game of Thrones,” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” all explore morally conflicted worlds where bravery is futile or where Miltonian rebellion is celebrated.
Of course, seeing the stories of our childhood with a jaundiced adult eye can be quite entertaining; it’s perfectly understandable why even those not in covens love these films. They are well-made, well-performed, and especially irresistible to former theater kids (I am one).
Their popularity isn’t inherently bad either. They are perfectly fine in isolation. It is only when we contrast them with the clarity and beauty of the original — and place them within the context of our society — that a sad truth emerges: Finding fairyland is hard. Most of us prefer to live in the Lynchian underworld.
