Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 26

Operation Divide MAGA

If one were dead set on dividing President Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition at the seams, how would one proceed? Trying to drive a wedge through the immigration issue doesn’t necessarily make sense: Tightening and securing America’s borders is so core to the nationalist-populist MAGA project that there can be little room in the coalition for much dissent. Trying to divide MAGA along economic laissez-faire or populism lines is also doomed to fail: As important as pocketbook issues are to everyday Americans, the wonky details of fiscal policy generally don’t stoke fiery passion.

One could do a lot worse, however, than focusing on Jews – and specifically, on the respective relationships between American Jews and American Christians and between the United States and Israel. I experienced this firsthand, yet again, this week.

As an observant Jew, I was offline recently for the holiday of Sukkot – also known as the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles. Of all the Jewish holidays, it is the one most intimately affiliated with pure joy and happiness. As it says in Leviticus, “you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for a seven day period.” And so I did.

When I came back online Wednesday evening, I learned that while I was off, the unhinged conspiracy theorist Candace Owens had ludicrously accused me of foreknowledge – or perhaps complicity – in the murder of my own friend Charlie Kirk. This is appalling behavior, at best – demonic, at worst. Anything goes, it seems, to push the (utterly baseless) narrative that the Jews had something to do with a radicalized left-wing transgender-adjacent “furry” fetishist’s decision to murder Kirk in cold blood.

Owens is hardly the only prominent right-of-center voice who has embarked down this dark, well-trodden path. Tucker Carlson, the one-time cable news king now moonlighting as a dissident podcaster, has evinced an unhealthy obsession with the Jewish people and the state of Israel. From accusing Israel of “genocide” to entertaining Hitler/Nazi apologia to “just asking questions” about whether Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad asset to dismissing the Hebrew Bible itself, Carlson’s agenda has become entirely clear.

The list goes on. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and her former colleague Matt Gaetz spend an inordinate amount of time these days railing against alleged – and allegedly nefarious, at that – Jewish and Israeli influence on American culture and politics. Lower-name conspiratorial Jew-haters sometimes find their way onto the nation’s most popular podcasts.

All of this, meanwhile, while Trump, the very incarnation of MAGA, remains avowedly supportive of tight-knit U.S.-Israel relations. The Trump Justice Department and broader Trump administration, moreover, remain stalwart supporters of the health, safety and security of the Jewish people. From his first to his second term, Trump has been the most pro-Jewish president in American history.

So, what gives?

The immediate goal of this concerted information operation is the debasement of American Jews, but the more politically salient goal is the gaslighting of American evangelical Christians – the very core of the MAGA base, and an overwhelmingly pro-Jewish, pro-Israel constituency at that. By focusing so much on the Jewish people and the Jewish state, these provocateurs have a much broader goal in mind than merely ostracizing America’s small Jewish minority. They want to alienate evangelicals too.

The goal, then, seems to be nothing less than the complete supplanting of MAGA with a new political movement – an angry, ultra-conspiratorial, unbiblical, neo-pagan movement of misfits and their hangers-on.

Given the extraordinarily ambitious (and dastardly) nature of that goal, the stakes are enormously high. Historically, political movements die when they become subsumed by paranoid Jew-hatred. So too do societies crumble and nations perish when they turn on their Jewish populations and fall prey to the world’s oldest bigotry.

And for evangelical Christian supporters of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, the entire operation is nothing less than a collective slap in the face. Jews are harmed, and Christians are insulted.

The contrast of what I experienced during Sukkot and what I discovered afterward is both stark and illuminating. While I was “rejoicing” with my family before God, as I am commanded to do, agents of destruction were fabricating the most outlandish lies imaginable in order to sow division and resentment. It is the eternal struggle of humanity going back millennia: justice versus tyranny, order versus chaos, light versus darkness.

I know which side of that eternal divide I am on. My hope is that the American Right and the MAGA coalition know which side they are on too.

Understanding Israel’s unimaginable pain

As the nation of Israel eagerly awaits the return of the remaining hostages, some of them alive (perhaps barely so), the rest of them dead, there will be much celebration and joy. At last, after more than two hellish years, they will be home. But there is also much pain, and not just the pain of the moment. It is the cumulative pain of generations.

Some will immediately say, “But what about the people of Gaza? What about their pain? What about their suffering and agony?”

After all, we see the images of the bombed cities, of the terrified children, of the grieving mothers, of the dead and the dying and wounded, virtually 24 hours a day. How can we not talk about the suffering of the people of Gaza?

My response is that I am not denying or minimizing their suffering, neither am I justifying all of Israel’s military actions. To the contrary, already in early December 2023 I wrote an article titled, “Sympathy for the Palestinians,” and I have often drawn attention to their plight.

That is simply not the focus of this article here, especially as we have just passed the two-year anniversary of the barbaric, mind-boggling October 7 massacre.

In that light, I think of people like Eli Sharabi, pulled away from his wife and two teenage daughters and dragged into 491 days of Hamas captivity, somehow managing to survive, emerging from his captivity gaunt and frail, bringing back memories of the starved Jews in Nazi concentration camps.

It was only upon his release that he learned that his precious family had been murdered in cold blood shortly after his abduction. Who can imagine the pain? (His just released story, “Hostage,” makes for a compelling read.)

I think of the Bibas family, Yarden, his wife, Shiri (just 32 years old), and their red-headed boys Ariel (4 years old) and Kfir (just under 9 months).

Yarden too was separated from his family on October 7 and survived 484 days in captivity. His wife and little boys were also taken hostage, the boys separated from their mother, all three of them slaughtered in cold blood in captivity. (Forensic examinations of their remains confirm that they were not killed in an Israeli bomb strike, as claimed by Hamas, but were rather murdered by their captors.)

Yarden also emerged from captivity looking like a Holocaust survivor – and all this while there are still Holocaust survivors alive today. Talk about trauma upon trauma.

But, to repeat, this is the cumulative pain of generations.

Just think of the words of HaTikvah, Israel’s national anthem: “As long as the heart within the Jewish soul yearns forward toward the East, an eye looks to Zion, our hope is not yet lost. Our hope is two thousand years old: To be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.”

In fact, “HaTikvah” in Hebrew means “the hope.” Are there any other national anthems that carry “hope” as their central theme?

Yet no sooner did Israel declare its independence in 1948 then the surrounding Muslim nations declared war. In one form or another, the war has never stopped.

So it is that the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is also associated with the murder of Jews. (I’m speaking here of the Yom Kippur war of 1973.)

And so it is that the most joyous day of the Jewish calendar, the last day of Sukkot (Tabernacles), called Simchat Torah (the Joy of the Torah), is now associated with massacre and rape, with the burning of children alive, with barbaric bloodshed. (I’m speaking here, of course, of the events of Oct. 7, 2023.)

And yet still, the hope of peaceful coexistence with Israel’s neighbors remains, as articulated by “Galit Dan, whose 13-year-old daughter, Noya, was killed alongside her grandmother, Galit’s mother, Carmela, in Kibbutz Nir Oz.”

Galit said at the recent October 7 ceremony, “We do not seek revenge; we seek healing. We want to defeat fear and find hope. To overcome hatred and reconnect to our humanity. To overcome rage and reconnect to compassion. To awaken once more the values that my grandparents came here for.”

This is another aspect of the pain of which I speak.

The people of Israel also know that in order to get all the hostages back, they have agreed to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including 250 with life sentences, some of them involved in acts of mass murder.

How can these mass killers walk free? And what terror might they unleash upon their release?

This is the price Israel must pay to free the hostages, and it can only bring to mind the fact that Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7, was one of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel as part of the deal to bring Gilad Shalit home in 2011 after he was held captive by Hamas for 5 years.

It is in this context that you can better understand why, at the end of every Jewish wedding ceremony, the groom stomps his foot on a glass, smashing it to pieces. And so, “even at the height of personal joy, we recall the pain and losses suffered by the Jewish people and remember a world in need of healing.”

May the Lord bring comfort to those who grieve in Zion, and may they find rest in their Messiah and King, Yeshua our Lord.

When public policy replaces private virtue

Jay Jones is the current Democratic Party candidate for attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia. His candidacy has become a national scandal since it was revealed that he, through texts to and a phone conversation with Virginia Republican state legislator Carrie Coyner in 2022, said horrific things about Todd Gilbert, then the Republican speaker of the Virginia House of Representatives.

Among Jones’ appalling statements were that if he had only two bullets, and had the choice to kill Gilbert, Adolf Hitler and/or Cambodian mass murderer Pol Pot, he would put both bullets in Gilbert’s head. Jones said, “Put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”

But that wasn’t enough. Jones also suggested that Todd’s children (then aged 5 and 2) should be killed, and that Todd’s wife, Jennifer, should have to watch her children die in her arms. Jones justified his views, accusing Todd and Jennifer Gilbert of being “evil” and of “breeding little fascists.” He further elaborated to Coyner, “I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”

Keep in mind, this man is running to be the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the state.

Even if one assumes that Jones would not actually put a bullet in the brain of a political opponent, it is reasonable to ask what he would do if someone else did. What will his approach to law enforcement be? Americans are already outraged by the treatment of criminals by prosecutors and judges whose “progressive” views make them soft on crime and impervious to the damage criminals inflict on innocent, law-abiding citizens.

Just a few examples: In Milwaukee in 2021, Darrell Brooks Jr. was released on $1,000 bond after trying to run over the mother of his child with his car; less than a week later, he plowed that car into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six and critically injuring dozens. In North Carolina, Decarlos Brown had a history of serious mental illness and had been arrested 14 times, but Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes let him loose; on Aug. 22, he stabbed Iryna Zarutska in the neck on a Charlotte train, killing her. On Dec. 7, 2015, Ronald Exantus broke into a house in Versailles, Kentucky, and stabbed four members of the Tipton family, killing 6-year-old Logan. Exantus was acquitted of Logan’s murder on grounds of insanity, and was just released from prison after only seven years because of “good behavior.”

Is this the kind of “justice” Virginians can expect from an attorney general who so cavalierly wishes death upon those with whom he disagrees?

In the not-too-distant past, statements like the ones Jones made would produce bipartisan calls for his withdrawal from the political race.

Not anymore.

Not a single notable Democrat at either the state or national level has demanded that Jones exit the race: not Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger (who is running around the state telling her constituents, “Let your rage fuel you.”) Not either of Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Tim Kaine or Mark Warner. Not U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer or House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

To the contrary, Democrats in Virginia and elsewhere are expressly standing behind Jones. The current speaker of the Virginia House of Representatives characterized Jones’ texts as a “distraction.” The Virginia Beach Democratic Committee invoked the Bible, dismissing Jones’ remarks by saying, “Let those without sin cast the first stone.”

What explains this?

For large swaths of the population in America today, being virtuous is no longer defined by individual behavior; it is your political viewpoint that gives you the moral high ground. In other words, your own words and actions can be utterly despicable, and that’s A-OK as long as you hold the “correct” views – meaning leftist views – about public policy.

Jones’ vicious texts are only the latest examples. After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered (just four weeks ago), social media was filled with people who hated his conservative politics, and who therefore celebrated his death and cheered for the man who assassinated him. Luigi Mangione is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the middle of New York City; Mangione is being hailed as a hero by the Left.

By shifting the definition of virtue from their personal conduct to their public policy positions, the “Free Palestine” crowd can justify ripping down posters of Israeli hostages and murder victims, storming buildings on college campuses, destroying property, assaulting innocent people and yelling, “Globalize the intifada!”

Making left-wing policy a proxy for actual virtuous conduct is why New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani can – without a trace of irony – proclaim himself to be looking out for the common good, even though as a student in Cairo, Egypt, in 2013, he witnessed women being brutally sexually assaulted during protests there but did nothing to intervene or even seek help for them because he thought doing so was culturally insensitive.

Proclaiming your lefty policy bona fides is cheap grace; it demands nothing of you personally.

In truth, this isn’t a completely new phenomenon; Hollywood has made it an art form. The entertainment industry is populated with people whose personal lives are a mess: they are notorious for their sexual excesses (including criminal sexual conduct); most can’t stay married (at least, to the same person); they are regulars in rehab (or need to be). Yet astonishing numbers of these celebrities feel free to lecture Americans who don’t share their views – ill-informed as those views may be – and to call us “fascists,” “racists,” “white supremacists” and every other conceivable slur. Actors’ and musicians’ personal shortcomings don’t matter, as long as their politics are reliably leftist.

But the magnitude of the societal shift is new. This phenomenon is not limited to Hollywood stars or tenured Ivy League faculty, groups isolated by wealth and tenure from the consequences of their pernicious worldviews. It is nurses and doctors, teachers and school administrators, mid-level managers, soccer moms and veterinarians.

It is elected officials and candidates running for elected offices.

It is impossible to overstate the dangers of this worldview, which is completely antithetical to the founding principles of the United States. Our constitutional liberties depend upon a population that practices virtue in their everyday lives. Nor is this some “slippery slope” fallacy; we are watching the consequences in real time, every day: murder, rape, theft, arson, censorship, political persecution, lawfare – all are justified when the perpetrators are in pursuit of so-called progressive goals and the victims are conservatives.

Statements like the ones Jones made are either a disqualification for the office, or a qualification) for it. There is no in between. Jones has issued an apology, for whatever that’s worth. But if he’s elected, the next candidate who expresses similar sentiments toward others won’t.

Because he’ll know he doesn’t have to.

Comey’s non-perp walk

Out with the woke

Posthumous: Charlie Kirk to be awarded Medal of Freedom on 32nd birthday

President Donald Trump takes the stage with Erika Kirk at the Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok)

Charlie Kirk, the conservative leader shot dead last month on a Utah campus, will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously on Tuesday, Oct. 14, which would have been his 32nd birthday.

The life and ministry of Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, inspired countless Americans and Christians to live lives of truth, sacrifice and courage, especially in the public square.

President Trump announced Friday that Kirk would receive America’s highest civilian honor at the White House.

“We’re giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest honor you get outside of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” he said. “Erika, his beautiful wife, is going to be here, and a lot of people are going to be here.”

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Merit and accountability: Hegseth speech ‘was stuff we say over a beer at the O Club’

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks at the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025

The military has a saying: “The standard you walk past is the standard you set.”

Failure to enforce a standard – whether for grooming, fitness, marksmanship, or countless other criteria including performance in combat – sets a new, lower standard for the next generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. The saying is a call for basic accountability.

Because when an officer sees a soldier with an unshaven face and fails to correct him, the new standard becomes “it’s fine to skip shaving.” When the highest-ranking military officer (e.g., Mark Milley) is corpulent, the new standard becomes “it’s fine to be fat.” And when the U.S. military fails to win wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and no general officers are fired for combat ineffectiveness, the new standard becomes “it’s fine to lose wars.”

For more than 20 years, too many leaders “walked past the standard.”

They walked past the standard on haircuts, hygiene, and grooming. They walked past the standard on physical fitness, particularly in combat arms units. They walked past the standard on unit cohesion and military discipline. Over time, small deviations from the standards eroded the quality and readiness of our military personnel, and the character of our military institution. For proof, watch a video of the military parade in Washington, D.C. this past June. Formations were sloppy, undisciplined, and poorly trained.

So on September 30, Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. The brass flew in from around the world, and sat as still and stone-faced as buck privates at the final formation of boot camp. Hegseth lectured them—about standards. He wants them to enforce grooming standards again: “no more beards, long hair, superficial expression.” He wants them to raise standards for combat arms units. And he wants standards for physical fitness that are tough, uniform, and gender neutral.

“If not, they’re not standards,” Hegseth said. “They’re just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.” Most importantly, Hegseth said he wants a culture where leaders enforce standards. No more “walking on eggshells” for fear of retribution from disgruntled troops. No more anonymous complaints undermining a leader’s authority. “These directives are designed to take the monkey off your back and put you, the leadership, back in the driver’s seat,” Hegseth said. “Move out with urgency because we have your back. I have your back, and the commander in chief has your back.”

It was a back-to-basics speech, and exactly what officers needed to hear from Hegseth and President Trump. “Most of [the speech] was stuff we say over a beer at the O Club,” said a retired Marine general.

Which made the speech unacceptable to Peggy Noonan, an opinion columnist for the Wall Street Journal. From her perch on the Upper East Side, the old songbird of a bygone political era splattered on Hegseth’s head, declaring that military leadership has little to do with standards for fitness or combat readiness. She whined that Hegseth was a “drama queen” who watched “‘Platoon’ too much as a child.” Her column was full of bile and class prejudice. Most of her words could have been written by Paul Krugman or Graydon Carter, pundits from the political Left who despise Trump and his cabinet as much for their politics as who they represent: real America.

Out in real America, people live with the consequences of reckless choices and ill-conceived plans hatched in places like California, New York, and Washington, DC. People see the decline in standards for the military but also in other segments of American society. In standards for education. In standards for customer service. In standards for public behavior. In standards for family life. In standards for religious leadership. Wherever progressives have found a standard, they have worked tirelessly to lower it – or negate it entirely.

Because a standard is, after all, a reflection of a collective value. We create standards to ensure that the values of our culture are upheld: indeed, so that a shared culture itself can be maintained. Yes; standards exclude some people from certain benefits and opportunities. But certain exclusions are necessary, if only to maintain the integrity and functions of our institutions. The political Left hates standards for all of these reasons. But more than anything, they despise standards because they imply the existence of a norm, and justify judgments based on the norm.

For President Trump, that norm is merit. In his own remarks to the generals and admirals, Trump said the purpose of the American military is “not to protect anyone’s feelings, it’s to protect our republic […] to protect our country,” and that’s why the Trump administration is “bringing back a focus on fitness, ability, character, and strength.” This is the latest chapter in Trump’s ongoing effort to restore trust in our government by reconstructing the character and integrity of its institutions.

If Hegseth succeeds in revitalizing the U.S. military institution, his example will set a new standard for leaders of organizations far beyond national defense.

Adam Ellwanger  is a professor at University of Houston – Downtown, where he teaches rhetoric and writing. Follow him at @1HereticalTruth on X. John J. Waters is a lawyer. He served as a deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security from 2020-21. Follow him at @JohnJWaters1 on X. 

This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.

Buying electrons before bytes: A practical plan to power the AI boom

Internet data center

The AI surge is exposing an old truth: electricity is the master resource. Data‑center power demand is projected to more than double globally by 2030. In the United States, the interconnection queue is now so large that both new generation and large loads face multi‑year delays. Unless utilities, grid operators, and hyperscalers strike the right deals, AI capacity will keep outrunning electrons—and public patience.

Start with a simple rule: buy electrons before bytes. Match each gigawatt of new data‑center load to contracted, firm low‑carbon generation (nuclear, hydro, geothermal, gas with CCS where credible) plus storage and specific transmission upgrades. Put these commitments in public, milestone‑based contracts. If the power doesn’t show up on schedule, the load waits. Negotiate water honestly: avoid evaporative cooling in arid regions; everywhere, publish water‑use metrics and site accordingly.

Cities can turn “waste” into an asset. Data‑center heat is already warming homes at scale in Finland, where Fortum and Microsoft are connecting new facilities into the Helsinki‑region district‑heating network.

The hardware is straightforward—industrial heat pumps and large‑diameter pipes. The hard part is governance: contracts, tariffs, and interconnection timelines that align incentives across utilities, municipalities, and cloud buyers.

Next, design internal efficiency gates that executives and regulators can verify. Measure energy per unit of useful work: megawatt‑hours per billion tokens for training; megawatt‑hours per million inferences for operations. Publish PUE and WUE, plus siting rationales and heat‑reuse metrics. Route workloads to the cheapest model that meets quality and risk thresholds. New accelerator generations deliver large gains in performance per watt; lock those savings in rather than chasing square footage.

Finally, widen access to compute without widening the footprint. Public‑interest compute programs can steer demand to the most efficient capacity while seeding skilled talent. The U.S. is standing up a National AI Research Resource Operations Center to coordinate shared resources. Pair efforts like that with “compute passes” redeemable across clusters and clouds, clear eligibility, and quarterly dashboards that report energy, water, and outcomes. That transparency earns the public’s trust.

For utilities, this is a growth story if done right. Long‑term virtual PPAs, storage adders, and targeted transmission upgrades can underwrite new clean capacity with predictable offtake. For operators, it’s a risk‑reduction story: fewer permitting fights, fewer headlines about strained substations, more projects that quietly work. And for communities, it’s tangible benefits—lower heating emissions, industrial jobs, and reliable power.

Electrons are the rate‑limiting step for AI. If we align contracts, metrics, and siting with that fact, we can scale compute without crashing the grid—and bring the public along.

 

Theodor Engøy is an independent writer based in Ås, Norway, focused on the intersection of AI, energy, and infrastructure. He has no financial relationships with entities cited and is not being compensated for this submission.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

‘$191 million gamble’: Biden streamlined path for offshore wind boondoggles despite red flags

The Biden administration granted major offshore wind projects financial breaks despite internal warnings of increased risks to taxpayers, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Functional Government Initiative (FGI).

Denmark-based Ørsted’s massive “Revolution Wind” project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut not only received final approval in August 2023 under the Biden administration but also an exception that allowed the company to postpone the funds for dismantling the project at the end of its life for 15 years, according to the documents. Despite internal warnings that this kind of exception “increases the risk to the federal taxpayer,” the Biden administration granted Revolution Wind and Vineyard Wind sweetheart breaks for their decommissioning costs that were estimated at $325 million and $191 million, respectively, according to the documents and FGI.

“With each revelation, two things become clearer: wind electricity wasn’t ready for primetime, and the Biden administration didn’t care. It was determined to force these projects through no matter the cost, the risks to taxpayers, or the dubious value to the people who pay for electricity and pay federal taxes,” FGI spokesman Roderick Law told the DCNF. “President Trump was right to halt projects and put them under careful review to ensure every environmental and safety impact is examined and that the taxpayers are at risk propping up failing, untested efforts.”

A May 2021 internal memo revealed the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) warned the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that “delaying receipt of financial assurance increases the risk to the federal taxpayer” when BOEM was considering granting Vineyard Wind the 15-year decommissioning cost delay.

Federal rules typically require companies to pre-fund decommissioning to protect taxpayers if a project fails or reaches the end of its life. The Biden administration allowed Ørsted and other developers a special exception to delay those funds, despite offshore wind being relatively untested in the U.S., while cracking down on well-established energy resources like oil, gas and coal.

“While this is a BOEM decision, BSEE has significant concerns with granting a departure to current regulations that require financial assurance before installation of any facilities,” the memo states. “The primary risk are as follows: delaying receipt of financial assurance increases the risk to the federal taxpayer as identified by Government Accountability Office (GAO), the longer financial assurance is deferred, the greater the chance that the government will not collect [and] decommissioning funds may need to be accessed prior to the expected end of project life due to unforeseen events.”

The documents show that Ørsted requested the 15-year deferral of the customary financial assurance for decommissioning Revolution Wind in November 2023 and subsequently received approval for it in March 2024. Notably, a Reagan-appointed federal judge allowed Revolution Wind to continue in a ruling on Sept. 22 after the Department of the Interior (DOI) issued a work-stop order in August 2025.

“Revolution Wind, LLC is in compliance with BOEM financial assurance requirements for the project, including with respect to decommissioning,” an Ørsted spokesperson told the DCNF. “Revolution Wind is 80% complete, remains under construction, and will power more than 350,000 American homes upon its completion.”

While the Biden administration aggressively promoted offshore wind development, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that temporarily blocked virtually all federal waters from new wind leasing on his first day back in office, pending a review. The Trump administration has branded offshore wind farms as “costly failures” and moved to block several projects, with Trump himself repeatedly lambasting wind energy.

The DOI halted all “preferential treatment” on July 17 for wind and solar projects that it considered to be “unreliable,” “subsidy-dependent” and “foreign-controlled.”

FGI previously discovered Vineyard Wind, the project that shed debris off the coast of Nantucket after a defective turbine broke, received a similar exception from the Biden administration in 2021.

“This was essentially a $191 million gamble with our money,” Roderick said at the time of the first discovered decommission cost delay exception. “It’s not often you can put a price on recklessness, but BOEM under its previous leadership was in such a rush to get the risky project underway that it left American taxpayers unprotected.”

FGI argues that the failure of these projects granted exemptions by the Biden administration were not implausible, as Revolution Wind was reportedly a year behind schedule before Trump called for the wind farm reviews.

BOEM adapted its “renewable energy modernization” rules in May 2024, allowing wind companies a more flexible framework to cover decommissioning costs. In some cases, wind companies can avoid paying these costs upfront by proving their financial strength through other means, including power purchase agreements. Notably, multiple other power purchase agreements for offshore wind have been scrapped in recent years, including projects involving Ørsted, after utilities backed out citing financial concerns with contract costs.

Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) previously confirmed to the DCNF that the Biden administration did not adequately review the environmental impacts of some offshore wind projects before approval. Additionally, some fishermen and environmentalists have protested and criticized offshore wind as they believe wind farms pose dangers to and disturb marine life.

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‘He will triumph’: Potential restoration of faith ‘may be looming on the near-horizon’

While history suggests that religious zeal often follows and quickly fades after tragedies like Charlie Kirk’s assassination, prophetic visions from more than four hundred years ago shine a light on the current situation and offer hope for a sustained faith revival.

Through a 16th-17th century Ecuadorian nun, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, the Virgin Mary — under the title Our Lady of Good Success — reputedly foretold with staggering precision the ominous religious landscape in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, an immense loss of faith and practice — a mass apostasy — would be followed by a religious restoration.

Born to a Spanish noble family in 1563, Mother Mariana, at a young age, accompanied her religious aunt Maria overseas to Quito, Ecuador. At 15 years old, Mariana made her vows and joined the Conceptionist Order, of which she would later serve as abbess. Throughout her pious life, she had visions of Our Lord, the Virgin Mary, angels, and various saints.

One evening in 1582, while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, Mother Mariana reportedly witnessed a crucified Christ bearing inscriptions related to God’s punishments for the late 20th century due to heresy, blasphemy, and impurity. During the encounter, the Blessed Mother asked the nun — who had been “judged blameless” — whether she would “sacrifice” herself for those sinners, to which the latter accepted.

Mother Mariana’s mystic visions spanned decades and they “tortured” her because of a predicted loss of innocence and modesty by children and women in the decades we are now living in. In these visions, Our Lady consistently expressed her deep sorrow for the “children of these times” — because Satan “will reign” and faith would decay.

She prophesied that in our times heresy would flourish; vocations would be lacking, accompanied by rampant “sexual impropriety”; the faithful would be scandalized by priests; and the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, marriage, and extreme unction, would be attacked, robbed of meaning, or forgotten. Many “frivolous souls” would be lost in the mayhem.

Despite the numerous grave warnings, the Blessed Mother also offered consolation and encouragement, telling Mother Mariana about the “merciful love of my Son” for the faithful during this period, prophesying the “happy beginning of the complete restoration.”

To spread devotion, Our Lady of Good Success instructed Mother Mariana to commission a statue, which had been “miraculously completed” by the archangels in January 1611, according to legend.

Mother Mariana died at 72 years old on Jan. 16, 1635. In the ensuing years, the local diocese approved and promoted the apparitions — which is now a worldwide devotion after awareness accelerated due to the accuracy of the predictions. In 1790, Father Manuel Sousa Pereira catalogued the religious nun’s life in The Admirable Life of Madre Mariana de Jesus Torres; and in 1986, the Archdiocese of Quito officially opened her cause for canonization.

The accuracy of the Virgin Mary’s prophesies were born out by the sexual revolution and anti-traditional posture of the 1960s, millions of children dying from abortion, and the clerical sexual abuse scandal to name a few. From these spewed a myriad of social pathologies that have plagued not only the Catholic Church’s standing as a moral stalwart, but civilization at-large. The proof has been, sadly, evident.

Vocations did collapse — as well as widespread religious practice and prayer. Marriage has declined, along with baptisms and the other sacraments. And there has been a gaping lack of knowledge about the Eucharist — the source and summit of Christian life. When the basic tenets of faith are misunderstood or ignored entirely, a mass apostasy is inevitable and has taken place in the West, and has affected all Christian denominations.

There are wider implications that should concern everyone about the decline in American religiosity. Religious unaffiliated residents are less civically engaged than those active in their faith lives, and less charitable in terms of monetary donations. As apostasy grows, civic associations have, likewise, shuttered, providing fewer opportunities for neighbors to commune and engage in society.

It is no coincidence, then, the bevy of social ills emerging from the lack of social cohesion since the early 2000s, which Robert Putnam recognized in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Since then, there has been a precipitous rise in anxiety and depression particularly among younger demographics, leading to a pervasive “happiness crisis.” It is no wonder why people are generally despondent or searching for answers.

Increasingly, we are isolated from God, our neighbors, and ourselves.

But in Christ’s parable of the Prodigal Son, the titular son returned to his father after hitting rock bottom. After the strife of the 20th and early 21st centuries, is a renewal — or “restoration” as Our Lady of Good Success allegedly proclaimed — a possibility? And did we collectively have to hit our lowest point to come back to our senses and God?

The seeds for a 21st century ‘Great Awakening’ are not entirely improbable. Within the past year, Gen Zers have flocked to religion more so than previous generations; and the rise in religious “nones” — or the unaffiliated — has slowed. U.S. politicians have urged for a “spiritual reawakening” and have an expressed desire to “bring God back” into the public square. Indeed, the Trump administration established the Religious Liberty Commission to reacquaint Americans to “our Nation’s superb experiment in religious freedom in order to preserve it against emerging threats.”

While challenges remain and thousands of churches are set to close, Kirk’s death could likely be a spark for a surge in religious practice in a nation that has, for the past few decades, jettisoned faith. After all, an overwhelming majority of Americans still believe in God, so there may be a willing audience.

For the faithful, there are not only encouraging signs of a revival, but promises in Scripture. Christ promises to the Apostles, and us, that the “gates of the netherworld shall not prevail” against the Church. Ultimately, Heaven will win — and Hell will lose. In the end, God will restore creation, wiping every tear from our eyes, and establish a New Heaven and New Earth. Moreover, God has an eternal devotion to us; He is always working, especially when the times are bleakest; and He will triumph.

Although the apparitions of Our Lady of Good Success have so far proven true, there is wisdom in Mother Mariana’s tale: God has an eternal devotion to us, He is always working, especially when the times are bleakest, and He will triumph.

With the recent uptick in religious attendance, clamor for God, and discussion of a spiritual renewal in the weeks following Kirk’s death, perhaps a potential “restoration” of sorts — even if short-lived — may be looming on the near-horizon. The data and cultural shift should fill us with hope, and strengthen our hearts to welcome the influx of weary and inflamed souls longing for peace, meaning, and God. 

This article was originally published by RealClearReligion and made available via RealClearWire.