R Magic Brow

The media melted down last week as the Department of Homeland Security’s top attorney, James Percival, criticized “the worst of the worst” activist judges who are blocking President Trump from securing our borders and our homeland.The American people should be outraged — not by the rebuke of a top federal official, but by the judges who are overstepping their authority and putting us in danger.The left’s playbook is obvious: Activist judges usurp power that they do not have to block the Trump administration, and then liberals in the media run interference for them.President Trump is doing what people re-elected him to do: secure our southern border and deport the tens of millions of illegal immigrants who were allowed in this country by the Biden administration and previous administrations. But a small number of activist federal district judges have issued rulings contrary to the law that have made this a lot more difficult, frustrating the will of the voters.The examples are especially shocking when you get past the media spin. The Trump administration has now repeatedly won at the Supreme Court on the president’s ability to end Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from specific countries. For example, people allowed to come here temporarily after 1991’s violence in Somalia are still here 35 years later. Some 50,000 Hondurans were permitted to come here after 1999’s Hurricane Mitch; President Trump ended their temporary status last September. The administration was sued for finally ending TPS for multiple countries, and the Supreme Court upheld the Trump position that temporary means temporary. Yet today, even after the Supreme Court ruling, rogue judges in Massachusetts and Illinois continue to deny the president the ability to terminate TPS.An even more ridiculous example is that the federal government still has not been allowed to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien who has no legal right to be here. Why? Because a district judge ordered Garcia, a suspected gang member, released into the United States. The Trump administration is appealing that ruling too, spending valuable time and taxpayer dollars defeating yet another activist ruling by a rogue judge.Rather than defend these indefensible judicial rulings, the liberal media are attempting a sleight-of-hand trick and are attacking Percival for criticizing judges by name. This is laughably hypocritical, since U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani targeted Percival directly in an official judicial opinion. Some of the left’s greatest heroes have said far more bombastic things than the Trump DHS has ever said, and they did so without journalists hyperventilating. President Obama broke centuries of precedent by castigating the Supreme Court in person during the State of the Union Address over the Citizens United case, causing a visible reaction of disbelief by Justice Samuel Alito. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) all but threatened Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh by name that “you will pay a price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Sure enough, deranged leftists have attempted to murder Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett ever since that hateful speech, yet we never hear the media call for Schumer to exercise civility.RELATED: The Justice Department finally has a grown-up in charge Alex Wong/Getty ImagesBy now, the left’s playbook is obvious: Activist judges usurp power that they do not have to block the Trump administration, and then liberals in the media run interference for them, distracting the public with manufactured outrage. The goal is to run out the clock on the Trump era. The critics tell Percival to simply appeal these rulings without criticizing judges, but the appeals cost the department months of time in a brief four-year presidential term, which is exactly what the left wants. The public needs to know the agenda they voted for is being thwarted by activist judges.As DHS’ top lawyer, Percival is right to call out rogue district judges and make clear that activist rulings will be appealed and overturned by the higher courts. I held Percival’s job during the first Trump administration, and I faced many of the same challenges from activist judges. The department has an obligation to correct misinformation and false impressions in the public, especially those that will encourage more illegal immigration, visa overstays, and other lawbreaking.Judges are public servants with a public trust, and the Constitution says that they are to hold their positions only on condition of “good behavior.” The Trump administration must continue to call them out, continue to get their rulings overturned, and continue to carry out the mandate of the voters. Either America will finish the fight against illegal immigration or illegal immigration will finish America.This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Border Patrol agents caught a man who returned to the U.S. after being previously deported, according to an exclusive statement to Blaze News. Francisco Gallegos-Garza was deported to Mexico after he was convicted in 2011 for illegal re-entry into the U.S. and served 46 months in prison.'Criminal illegal aliens who repeatedly attempt to enter our country pose a serious risk, and our agents stand ready to meet the challenge.'On Aug. 10, Border Patrol agents were patrolling west of Del Rio, near the Rio Grande, when they encountered Gallegos-Garza, who is now 59 years old.The man has an extensive criminal record, including a felony conviction for injury to a child with intentional bodily injury.Gallegos-Garza faces another charge of re-entry after deportation and faces up to 20 years in prison, if convicted."Keeping repeat offenders from entering our borders is key to safeguarding our communities," said Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Anthony "Scott" Good."Criminal illegal aliens who repeatedly attempt to enter our country pose a serious risk, and our agents stand ready to meet the challenge," he added.The Trump administration has significantly ramped up deportation and other immigration enforcement efforts. In June the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said that there had been 356,389 total deportations for the current fiscal year. RELATED: Illegal alien with a badge impersonates Border Patrol agent to disrupt mission — and calls in 'reinforcements' The Trump administration has blamed the former Biden regime for easing immigration enforcement and allowing millions to flow into the U.S. "Fulfilling President Donald J. Trump’s mandate, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have delivered the most secure border in history, stopping dangerous criminal aliens and illicit narcotics from entering our communities, which will keep America safe for generations to come," read a statement from Border Patrol to Blaze News.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Ariana Grande’s new music video for her song “Petal” opens with a “parental advisory and viewer warning.”Before a single verse is sung, a voiceover cautions: “The following video contains explicit content and depicts graphic violence, which may be offensive to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.”It’s an honest warning. The nearly seven-minute video that follows includes one of the most graphically violent sequences in a mainstream Hollywood pop music video in recent history.In the video, a skeletal-looking Grande plays the role of Pepper, an aspiring actress who repeatedly auditions at the fictional Fame Inc. and faces harsh rejection from male executives over her looks and talent. Eventually, Pepper snaps and murders the panel with a chainsaw.The sequence cuts between stark red silhouette shots of Pepper wildly swinging the chainsaw and closer live-action frames that show the blood spraying as limbs and fingers are severed. She keeps going until the executives are a mangled, bloody heap, then walks out of the room still covered in gore, as the room full of her fellow female auditionees erupts into applause and cheers.The scene is so horrifically violent, Allie Beth Stuckey refuses to play it on her show. But she does expose what’s going on beneath Grande’s sudden dark turn. Allie highlights a disturbing pattern among female pop stars.“They become darker and edgier and more violent and more disturbed in their artistry as time goes on,” she says, pointing to Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Chappell Roan as examples. “That seems to also be true of someone like Ariana Grande.”Between the gory violence in the “Petal” music video and Grande’s “skin-and-bones” frame, Allie is nearly certain the “Wicked” star is under the influence of demonic powers.“When you have this skeletal figure covered in blood, you see the wedding of these two things [and] she's glorifying them ... I do think that there is something very dark going on mentally and spiritually here,” she says, noting that Grande has not admitted to any weight-related illness or struggle and has insisted she’s “so much healthier now than she used to be.”“I don't know what goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood. I think some very scary exchanges probably happen,” Allie continues, “but again, we don't even need to know all of that to know that this is just the nature of sin: It takes you from one thing to the other.”She argues that between Grande’s sickly weight, her new dark image, and her dating Ethan Slater, her “Wicked” co-star who was married and had a child, Grande should be “a very controversial figure.”“But instead her posts still get millions of likes. People still praise her as being beautiful and wonderful,” says Allie. “I'm like, ‘No, this girl is on the brink of death, fantasizing and glorifying murder — the last thing our culture needs right now. And she's a home-wrecker.”’To hear more, watch the video above.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Readers familiar with the Dr. Seuss classic "The Cat in the Hat" will remember the twin chaos agents Thing 1 and Thing 2. “‘These Things are good Things,’” the Cat reassures the children, whose mother has inexplicably left them under the supervision of a fish. “‘They are tame. Oh, so tame! / They have come here to play.’”The Things briefly feign innocence, then quickly reveal themselves to be marauding imps, knocking over nightstands and ruining the linens. “I do not like the way that they play!” says the son of the house.Now here comes Woke 1 and Woke 2. “Woke 1 was crazy,” said U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, quoting an unnamed city councilman in a viral interview for ABC. The congresswoman sheepishly acknowledged that Americans did not like the way Woke 1 played out, while also implicitly announcing that there will soon be, or already is, a Woke 2. And it will be tame. Oh, so tame!For purposes of advertisement, Woke 2 will try to keep its trans members less conspicuous than Woke 1 did, for at least as long as it takes to re-establish national power.There is, in fact, a new version of wokeness in the making. But just as Thing 2 was fundamentally identical to Thing 1, Woke 2 will not be any different in essence from Woke 1. They are both here to upend the furniture.Wokeness in all its forms is grievance politics. Its central idea is that an injustice lies at the heart of America and must be corrected to atone for the historical misery inflicted on groups of innocents.What is changing in Woke 2 is the account of who those innocents are and how they have been wronged. Woke 1 was founded on the notion that black women are the most oppressed, and therefore most righteous, of all people. “I’m thinking,” said Kamala Harris in her vice presidential victory speech, “about her and the generations of women — black women.” She mentioned many other kinds of women, of course, but the list began and ended with “the black women — who are too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.”This approach had rhetorical power, up to a point. It traded on the successes of second-wave feminism and the reality of black slavery in America’s past. But it ran into some problems. Third-wave feminism, as worked out by theorists like Judith Butler, made it basically impossible not to affix the prefix “trans-” wherever the word “woman” appeared. So the flag of Woke 1 became the complicated and confusing progress Pride flag — a gay rainbow with black and trans colors intruding from the left.RELATED: How Kamala Harris accidentally sold the SAVE America Act Christian Bruna/Getty ImagesTo make matters worse, the legacy of slavery did not actually touch all the racial minorities that Democrats wanted to bring into their fold. Most Nigerians, for example, had not experienced segregation in the United States. Nor had the millions of unvetted South and Central Americans streaming across the border.They were certainly “people of color.” But so were Chinese, Japanese, and Indian Americans, whose typically enviable life outcomes fit awkwardly into the narrative that the country was built on a ruthless caste system.The contradictions heightened as Woke 1 faced a series of embarrassments such as Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the 2023 Supreme Court case in which Asian students complained that admissions officers were discriminating against them in favor of black applicants. Then there were the notorious Trump ’24 ads that pinned Harris to her previous support of taxpayer-funded gender surgeries for federal prison inmates.Placing black women at the center of the moral universe created an unexpected and electorally unworkable set of obligations to illegal immigrants and queer felons.Clearly, the coalition needed shuffling. And so rearranging the order of priorities in the grievance hierarchy is what the reinvention of woke has actually been about. In place of the black trans woman who defined Woke 1, Woke 2 has chosen as its ideal victim the dispossessed Palestinian liberationist, fighting with Hamas against Israel. This has a number of interesting strategic advantages.First, the racial argument has been neatly streamlined. Rather than implausibly analogizing every racial group in America to the victims of Jim Crow, Woke 2 presents the black American story as just one instance of a global fight for justice carried out by minorities everywhere and epitomized in the intifada.RELATED: Socialism’s favorite bait-and-switch Scott Olson/Getty ImagesIn 2023, on a panel for the Democratic Socialists of America, future New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani claimed that “when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”He was outlining the blueprint for Woke 2, which takes its cues not from Judith Butler but from post-colonialist Frantz Fanon’s "The Wretched of the Earth" (1961). “Between colonial violence and the insidious violence in which the modern world is steeped,” wrote Fanon, “there is a kind of complicit correlation, a homogeneity.” Therefore, “The colonized, underdeveloped man is today a political creature in the most global sense of the term.”Recently, in an intriguing interview with the New Yorker’s David Remnick, Democrat Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed put forward an argument that connects Fanon’s global struggle to America’s domestic economy. He claimed that pro-Israel politicians are allowing “the money that should be spent taking care of our kids to be sent to a military that has done a genocide.”In other words, Woke 2’s new order of priorities allows its proponents to suggest that white or white-coded (read: Jewish) oppressors are funneling money away from America’s working poor to fund a worldwide campaign of mass slaughter.Distant as this account is from reality, it is much more ruthlessly focused as a line of woke reasoning. It emphasizes foreign policy and the economy, where the public’s real anger lies, and deftly mutes the discredited claims of LGBTQ extremists.In practice, any woke administration of any variety will end up imposing pretty much the same bizarre sexual priorities on the country once elected. But for purposes of advertisement, Woke 2 will try to keep its trans members less conspicuous than Woke 1 did, for at least as long as it takes to re-establish national power.Replacing the progress Pride flag with the Palestinian flag will distract from the ravages of queer excess while infusing socialist revolution with the moral self-righteousness of anti-white resentment.Whether this tactic succeeds with voters is another matter. If it does, though, Americans will discover that both Woke 1 and Woke 2, like Thing 1 and Thing 2, only play nice until they can start turning over tables. If we want to avoid a rerun of the early 2020s, then — to paraphrase Seuss — we will have to get rid of Woke 1 and Woke 2.Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.