Sorry folks, this one's not street legal

The couple opted not to share images of their newborn on social media

The following is an excerpt from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ new book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America,” released Nov. 12. Have you ever driven through a blizzard in Wyoming? Your field of vision doesn’t extend more than twenty feet. There are only the storm and the road, except for the occasional butte or buffalo. Silence descends on the glacier-carved valleys as ice and snow pile up and muffle all sound. The grizzlies seek shelter. You want to do the same. The frontier is dangerous. It is majestic yet simple. It is imposing yet liberating. It is, in short, the most American thing there is. And like those ancient glaciers that permanently reshaped the landscape of the West, Americans have been carving civilization into the stone since the Pilgrim fathers’ “errand into the wilderness.” Still, the frontier has changed us much more than we will ever change it. Land shapes behavior. Western blizzards formed a people with distinct habits and customs; westerners couldn’t survive in such a land if they didn’t have a spirit of perseverance, toughness, and adaptability. The very unavoidability of nature gave people a healthy appreciation of mortality and chance. Other American landscapes did the same. The Cajun culture of Opelousas, for example, is indelibly intertwined with the forests and bayous where my ancestors settled. The same is true of the descendants of the brave men and women who followed Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap and settled large swaths of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee—and of the pioneers who pushed across the Great Plains, past the Rockies, and to the Pacific Coast. Those mountains made them. As much as the natural diversity of her people, the variations of America’s landscape created a need for federalism. As each group of people adapted to each unique landscape, America developed diverse local cultures, economies, and institutions that made federalism both necessary and sensible. At the same time, the experience of settling a wild yet bountiful land was common to them all. The rugged individualism and true grit demanded by the frontier forged the American spirit. That’s a big part of what makes America unique. Our frontier tends to shape explorers, astronauts, cowboys, and innovators. A frontier attitude is one of risk taking, hard work, and optimism. Our elites once understood this spirit. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, even Barry Goldwater (who was born in the Arizona Territory) all came from the frontier. But this is no longer the case. For those who are stuck in big cities on the coasts, the frontier has become nothing but a setting for movies and video games, and federalism a hollowed-out idea from a dead letter. So what happened? When did we lose sight of the American frontier, and how can we reclaim it? That story begins and ends in California. That’s because California wasn’t always the progressive hellscape it is today. For most of its history, California occupied a particular place in the American and Western imagination: it was the end of the frontier, the edge of the Western world, the place where the sun sets. From priests such as Father Junipero Serra, who rode on muleback as he founded California’s first missions, to pioneers such as Augustus  T. Dowd, who discovered sequoia trees while tracking a wounded grizzly through unfamiliar territory in 1852, that spirit—of adventure, of pushing onward, of spreading the Gospel to every corner of the world—was what California was all about. Even after the American West was settled and civilized, California continued to open new frontiers. In 1912, Charles “Doc” Herrold of San Jose, California, became “the father of broadcasting” with the first regular radio broadcast, part of a ferment of tinkerers that would eventually result in Silicon Valley. In 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, with a revolutionary animation system that would open new frontiers of the imagination. In the 1930s, scientists in Pasadena doing pioneering work in rocket propulsion founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which has since gone on to send spacecraft to every planet in our solar system and land five rovers on Mars. Is it any wonder that Ronald Reagan, a native son of California, was adamant about exploring the “next great frontier” and rebooting America’s space program? Deeper, farther, higher: that’s California, or at least it was. But there was always another nightmare version of the California dream. For every would-be astronaut exploring outer space, there was a psychonaut of “inner space” looking to conquer the frontiers of human consciousness: Eastern yogis, Pentecostal preachers, Esalen seminar leaders, New Age gurus, LSD chemists. It’s no coincidence that Steve Jobs, living on an LSD-soaked orchard commune, chose an apple with a bite out of it as his computer’s symbol. “And ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” After decades of development, Silicon Valley in the 1990s promised to open the next tranche of the California frontier: the internet. What had made the frontier great was that it had enlarged Americans’ imaginations. It had drawn us out of ourselves to the horizon. It had challenged us and made us strong. It had taught us the importance of freedom, but it had also reminded us of the fragility of our human condition and taught us to rely on God and on one another. The internet can provide powerful tools for would-be explorers and pioneers. But mostly, that wasn’t what Big Tech built. Rather than expanding the American frontier, Silicon Valley inverted it, both metaphorically and literally. Once again, the frontier has changed us more than we will ever change it; this time for the worse. It has disembodied us. More and more, our bodies and brains are becoming the frontier being explored and the Big Tech algorithms and Deep State surveillance the explorers The Deep State, whether by intention or accident, aims to put the American spirit on puberty blockers; to domesticate our free people into “a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” The thing is, the frontier is dangerous. It’s wild. It’s violent and sometimes disorderly. “The meeting point between savagery and civilization,” the historian Frederick Jackson Turner called it. The federal government has always had a role in mediating between the frontier and the republic writ large. But the United States is so vast that there’s always been plenty of room. There’s a myth that the frontier “closed” with the end of U.S. territorial expansion. But anybody who has spent time in the Big Sky Country of Montana, in the great Alaska range, in the vastness of the Great Plains, in the West Texas valleys that go on for days, knows that this isn’t really true. The frontier is alive and well. What changed was the growth of the federal apparatus throughout the twentieth century. The job of the federal marshal in the Wild West was to restore order when the cowboys couldn’t quite manage. Today’s Deep State treats us more like the cattle. The defenders of the Deep State will say that [important] reforms … will make us less safe. They’re right. Being a free person is dangerous. It demands responsibility, resilience, self-reliance, and humility; virtue, in a word. I can picture in my mind’s eye the choice words that the Wyoming ranchers of my acquaintance would have for a nanny-state bureaucrat who warned them that hunting bears or rolling their own barbed wire wasn’t safe. Safety imposed via surveillance breeds fragility and weakness. In the diktats of the Deep State, we should hear the nagging voice of the overbearing helicopter mom: “Why don’t you play inside, where it’s safe?” “Why don’t we wear two masks, just to be safe?” “Feeling anxious about your body changing? We should put you on puberty blockers, just to be safe.” The Constitution is being overthrown by a new form of tyranny based on federal centralized control, surveillance, and weaponized law enforcement. Against the stifling safety of the New Authoritarianism, we need to reclaim within our souls the spirit of endless frontier federalism. Even as we do what we can to fix Washington, we need to sever the apron strings and reacquaint ourselves with self-government at the state and local levels. Doing so will at times be messy and dangerous. But it will be a gymnasium of the frontier spirit. The post Reclaiming the American Frontier Spirit appeared first on The Daily Signal.

JK Rowling: Wokeness Has Taken the Left Somewhere I Won't Go

What the Heck, Michael Strahan?

In the end, Kamala Harris was the wrong candidate with the wrong message at the wrong time. President-elect Donald Trump won the greatest comeback in American political history – bigger than Richard Nixon’s 1968 victory – by surviving two assassination attempts, a media that was shamelessly in the tank for Harris and a majority of voters who appeared tired of being labeled “deplorables” and “garbage” by a condescending elite. Trump has transformed the Republican Party from an image of a mostly white, big corporation- loving, country club, rich guy’s party, to a more racially diverse, working man’s party that the Democratic Party used to be. Trump peeled away a significant number of Black and Latino voters to win. He even did well in deep Blue New York City. Harris flogged abortion as her only issue and Democrats, according to one estimate, spent half a billion dollars on TV ads claiming Trump would sign a national abortion ban. Voters apparently saw through the lie. Significantly, a Florida constitutional amendment that would have barred the government from involvement in the procedure to the point of denying parents the right to know about their daughter’s abortion, failed, as did a measure that would have legalized marijuana and made the state its chief dispenser. In his relatively short (for him) victory speech, Trump said: “America has given us a mandate.” So, it seems with Republicans winning the S enate and likely to keep their House majority. Trump said his first act as president would be to “seal borders.” He also promised to “pay down debt.” He called his win “a massive victory of democracy,” a slap at The Washington Post’s slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Not on Tuesday. It beamed in brightness as a record number of Americans voted. Trump said it is “time to put the divisions of the last four years behind us.” One hopes that wish comes true. It can start with a promise to cease name-calling. Both sides must make that promise and keep it. Policy is paramount and success will bring more unity than disparaging fellow Americans. What might be another step in building some sort of unity is for President Biden to issue pardons to his son, Hunter, and to Donald Trump and for all cases against Trump to be dropped, including the New York political conviction of Trump on 34 trumped-up felony charges. This would allow the next president to focus on what concerns most Americans and the issues on which he ran, including inflation, grocery and gas prices, immigration and the border. What Republicans have rightly called “lawfare” in which someone (usually a Republican) is indicted as a political act must also end. A new attorney general who puts the law ahead of political retribution will go a long way toward achieving that goal and restoring public confidence in the justice system. The contentiousness and bitterness of the last four years must end if the United States is to make progress and dig itself out of the dark hole we have been in. Kamala Harris and her party sought to re-shape American institutions in ways the public rejected. In fact, her decision to say little about policy (other than abortion) made her the stealth candidate. People want to know what a president stands for and where he (or she) plans to lead the country. Harris failed to articulate that message. Trump did. Given the results, it was not an overstatement (unusual for Trump) for him to say the election was “the day the American people regained control of their country.” It was nice to see him give credit where credit was due, and not heap praise on himself. A little humility, combined with policy successes, will go a long way toward making his second term a victory for all Americans. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America" (HumanixBooks).

Democratic strategist James Carville revealed the exact moment that he believes Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election. Speaking to Tim Miller on "The Bulwark Podcast" on Saturday, Carville said Kamala's campaign was doomed after she froze up during an interview on "The View."'That’s the money question. That's the one you want. ... And you freeze!'"I think if this campaign is reducible to one moment, we are in a 65% wrong-track country," Carville said. "The country wants something different. And she’s asked, as is so often the case, in a friendly audience, on 'The View.'" Carville noted that one question asked by "The View" host Sunny Hostin derailed the Harris campaign. "But when we go back, and history unearths this, it’s going to be right there on ‘The View.’ And I think her name was Sunny Hostin ... asked the question, and that’s the most devastating answer you could imagine,” Carville said. Carville stated, "'How would you be different than Biden?' That’s the one question that you exist to answer, all right? That is it. That’s the money question. That's the one you want. That’s the one that everybody wants to know the answer to. And you freeze! You literally freeze and say, ‘Well, I can’t think of anything.’"As "Blaze News Tonight" previously reported, Harris responded to the question by saying: “There is not a thing that comes to mind. I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact, the work that we have done."Carville claimed that the Democrats had a "united party" because Harris was endorsed by former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Carville added, "By the way, she had every advantage. We had a united party, from Dick Cheney to AOC, everybody was, whatever you want to do is fine."Carville said that Harris had more resources than President-elect Donald Trump but stressed that “since the dawn of time,” no amount of resources or technology has overcome the lack of a reason to vote for a political candidate.“We had more people on the ground," Carville continued. "We had more volunteers. We had more money, all right? We had more surrogates, but we didn’t have a reason."“You cannot not have a reason and beat it with technology, or beat it with volunteers, or do that,” Carville continued. “The overall message here, Tim: A reason, and she didn’t give us a reason.”Carville also slammed President Joe Biden for staying in the race for so long. “If we would have had this process, we’d have had gone through it, and we would have had this mega level of talent that exists, and all of these people would have been different. It would have been energetic. It would have created a sense of real excitement,” Carville stated. "Biden, he just blocked all that from happening."Carville blasted the Democrats for their messaging."If the country wants something different, you try to give the country something different," he said. "We are just not going to give in to them. But maybe the odiousness of [President-elect] Trump combined with the Dobbs decision, we can overcome it. Well, we didn’t overcome it." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Spirit Airlines said that a plane attempting to land in Haiti was diverted to the Dominican Republican after it was hit by gunfire and one person was injured. 'We have suspended our service at Port-au-Prince (PAP) and Cap-Haitien (CAP) pending further evaluation.' The budget airline said Flight 951 had departed on Monday from Fort Lauderdale and was to land at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, but it instead landed in Santiago after being struck several times by gunfire. One of the bullets grazed a flight attendant, who sustained minor injuries. The plane also sustained damage consistent with gunfire, according to the airline. None of the passengers were injured, and the flight attendant was evaluated by medical personnel. Other flights into Haiti were grounded. "The safety of our Guests and Team Members is our top priority, and we have suspended our service at Port-au-Prince (PAP) and Cap-Haitien (CAP) pending further evaluation," read a statement from the airline. Haiti has been rocked by a civil war after the government fell and violent criminal gangs battled for control of the island nation. Haitian refugees absorbed into the U.S. became an emotional talking point in the November election as President-elect Donald Trump criticized the lax immigration policies of the Biden administration. Images and video of the damage to the plane can be viewed at the New York Post channel on YouTube. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

As Donald Trump prepares to take his place as president of the United States for the second time, liberals are freaking out. And rightfully so, as their rejection of common sense on a policy level is about to come to an end. Trump calls this a “mandate to bring common sense back to the country,” which he plans to kick off by making the border safe and secure and initiating mass deportations of illegal immigrants who squeezed through the border when it was open. Trump even called New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and while the details of their conversation are unknown, Adams has reportedly already revoked illegal immigrants' food cards. “He’s just racking up W’s,” Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” comments. “He’s not even in office yet.” But that’s not all. Almost immediately after Trump’s win, Hamas called for a ceasefire. “Hamas just saw that he won and Hamas was like, ‘All right, OK, ceasefire, we give, oh s**t, we don’t want to deal with Donald Trump,’” Gonzales says, adding, “The same thing happened with the Ukraine-Russia war.” “Just the day after his landslide victory, Putin congratulated Donald Trump,” she continues, “He said Donald Trump’s remarks on ending the war deserved attention. Because finally, we have a president who’s talking about ending the war rather than continuing it and just funneling our money until they don’t need it anymore.” It’s not just Trump’s eagerness to solve the problems the Biden-Harris administration created that’s impressive but how quickly he’s making changes despite not being in office yet. “He hasn’t been in office for almost four years, he hasn’t set foot back in the White House yet, and he’s already elevated the first woman to chief of staff, he’s making mass deportation a top priority, he’s warning against the weaponization of the DOJ, and he’s already begun the process of ending wars on multiple fronts,” Gonzales explains. “I’m sure you guys can tell in my eyes, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” she continues, adding, “We’re not living in total darkness anymore. The demons have been put on notice.” Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Leftists this holiday season should feel free to stay away from family and friends who voted for President-elect Donald Trump in order to take care of their "mental health," a Yale psychiatry resident told MSNBC host Joy Reid on Friday. Reid asked Dr. Amanda Calhoun, “How do you interact with people who you know voted for this? If you are an LGBTQ person and know someone in your family voted essentially against your rights, or you’re a woman knowing this man was calling people the B-word. [Vice President-elect] JD Vance was literally calling Kamala Harris 'the trash' and said we’re going to take out 'the trash.' I know a lot of black women were incredibly triggered by that." 'And if you feel like you need to establish boundaries with people, whether they're your family or not, I think you should very much be entitled to do so.' Reid continued, "And if you then meet somebody, and you know they voted for the people who called you trash, or if you’re Puerto Rican ... and you know someone voted that way, do you recommend just from a psychological standpoint being around them? We got the holidays coming up.” Calhoun replied that there is a "societal" expectation that "if somebody is your family that they are entitled to your time. And I think the answer is absolutely not. So if you are going to a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you — like what you said, against your livelihood — and it's completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why. You know, to say, 'I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood, and I’m not gonna be around you this holiday. I need to take some space for me.'" Calhoun added that she doesn't believe anyone should be forced "to be around people just because they're your family. ... And if you feel like you need to establish boundaries with people, whether they're your family or not, I think you should very much be entitled to do so. And I think it may be essential for your mental health.” — (@) Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!