HBO’s new “Harry Potter” series has released an official trailer — and one character in particular has fans in an uproar.

That character is Snape, who is remembered by fans as a deathly pale older white man played by the late Alan Rickman — whose long, jet-black hair and dark, broody eyes only accentuated his spooky skin tone.

“It was being advertised as being wholly faithful to the original source material. You know, it was meant to show audiences that everything the movies were not able to communicate, now we are going to communicate that through the show,” BlazeTV host John Doyle comments.

“And then rumors began to kind of circulate around that one of the most essential characters to the story, Professor Snape, played by the late, great Alan Rickman — fantastic English actor in the original films — he would actually be getting race-swapped and portrayed by British actor named Paapa Essiedu,” he continues.

And after watching the trailer himself, Doyle calls it “disgusting.”

“It’s disgusting just because they used to recycle franchises like 50 years later. Like, they would make a movie called ‘The Smurfs’ 50 years after ‘The Smurfs’ stop being relevant. … You would see kind of like the resurgence of these old IPs, as they’re called, well after the franchise had expired,” he explains.

“I just think it’s disgusting because of what it says about what we are able to produce creatively as a society where nobody can do anything. And so, what we have to do is basically drag these old IPs out, put a new coat of paint on them, and present them to the public with a modern cast, which is to say a diverse cast,” he continues.

Doyle also notes that this isn’t only happening in movies.

“If you look at public opinion polling on how, like, diverse Americans believe their country is, the average American — this is a fact — the average American believes that the country is 50% black. The reason for that is because every time they turn on the television, all they see are black people,” Doyle explains.

“All they see in movies, commercials are black people. … And so, as a result, yeah, Professor Snape is a black guy,” he says, pointing out that Snape is described as “pale” with “stringy black hair, long black hair.”

“I don’t have an issue with it in the sense that, you know, the West has fallen because ‘Harry Potter’ is not the way I want it to be. ‘Harry Potter’ is not the way I want it to be because the West has fallen,” he adds.

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During a dinner at the annual gathering of the Ciceronian Society on March 19, a glance at my phone profoundly changed the rest of the evening. It had been an intellectually stimulating day with fellow Christian thinkers, for which my wife and I were grateful to be part of. Something familiar caught my eye: the photo of a man I instantly recognized, Brandon Shah.

We were part of the same staff group section within the larger U.S. Army Command and General Staff College class of 2019. Brandon never used X, so I was immediately curious why he was showing up so prominently on my feed. Immediately, the following words accosted me: “The victim of the terrorist attack at Old Dominion has been identified as Lt. Col. Brandon Shah.”

Our founders did not sacrifice their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to give safe harbor to Islamic crusaders.

My pulse raced, followed moments later by sudden rage. My anger over how the political class has betrayed veterans of the so-called Global War on Terrorism rekindled. My wife could tell something was bothering me. “Are you OK?” she asked. I wasn’t. My focus on the planned presentation I was to deliver later broke, my mind hijacked by a kind of mourning I had avoided throughout 20 years in the military due to learning that a man I served with died in combat on home soil.

For decades, I’ve observed our politicians signaling support for the troops, thanking us for keeping the nation secure. “I’m making the future safer for my descendants” is the bargain I believed and accepted in exchange for missing significant portions of my sons’ young lives. Then they imported the very threat they sent us to neutralize. We veterans of the war on terror did our part.

But the government failed to uphold its end of the agreement, an egregious betrayal for which no amount of hollow “thanks for your service” incantations can cover.

For decades, policymakers and commanders full of utopian dreams and desperate to cement their legacy engaged in open-ended missions to rebalance the scales of power overseas rather than defend our own homeland.

As my colleagues and I were sent to foreign fields under arms, we were denied the ability to carry arms on home soil for personal defense. Firearms are restricted on military installations, and in most civilian settings where service members labor. Due to military regulations and local laws, troops are denied many of the Second Amendment protections they fight to uphold.

America for Americans

Brandon died at the hands of the terrorist Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a man who immigrated to the U.S. from Sierra Leone. He was arrested in 2016 for attempting to offer material support to ISIS, gather weapons for a terrorist attack, and provide funds for people hoping to join ISIS. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 11 years in prison, and was released early in 2024 for completing a substance abuse training program.

Had his original sentence been carried out, Jalloh would have remained incarcerated through 2029. Details on his immigration or past life events are hard to come by, as they often are when the murderer isn’t a white man, or one classified as such by the mainstream press.

Brandon’s death is not the first instance of the U.S. homeland being turned into a combat zone. On November 26, 2025, an unvetted Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, attacked a National Guard patrol in Washington, D.C., killing Army National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and severely wounding Air National Guard Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe. President Trump rightly awarded the Purple Heart to both.

What they faced that day was engagement with an enemy combatant on U.S. soil. On September 8, 2021, Lakanwal was imported via the Operation Allies Welcome program, which allowed Afghans who wouldn’t fight for their own country to resettle here. Chaos and empathy prove a deadly combination.

We’re all aware of the deluge of illegal immigrants that flooded the nation because of the Biden administration, which welcomed them with all but celebratory parades. Ending illegal immigration is a righteous priority. But left largely ignored, even by conservatives, is the legal means of immigration that imports threat actors.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is well-known for his take that “legal, good; illegal, bad.” But that’s incorrect. Jalloh was in America legally. Both he and Lakanwal seem to pass the Cruz test. But neither belongs here.

Fighting them here

My generation of veterans served under the Bush Doctrine, which stated: “We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.” Yet, while we were sent overseas for the past two decades and counting, the U.S. political class accelerated immigration from Islamic countries, where the populace holds hostile views toward the Christian values upon which America was founded.

Worse yet, those who demonstrate open loyalty to groups that want to destroy us are allowed to remain. Even John Walker Lindh, dubbed the “American Taliban,” was released early from prison despite retaining his Islamist beliefs.

RELATED: ‘Die in your rage’: Islamist attacks and murder plots are quickly adding up

Stephanie Tacy/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The day of Brandon’s death, Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi blamed Shah’s death on a love of guns that constitutes a “national sickness.” In reality, the national sickness is a critical theory-infused brand of empathy that manipulates Americans toward disordered love, where a foreigner is given priority over familial and regional bonds.

Pete Hegseth and David Goodwin called this social doctrine the “Cultural Marxist Paideia” in their New York Times bestseller, “Battle for the American Mind.” The terms “Islamophobia,” “racism,” and “hatred” are used to intimidate and silence patriots by those who have rushed the Trojan horse through American streets.

Joe Rigney’s argument that the West has a deadly obsession with empathy, the practice of trying to immerse oneself in the suffering of another, proves increasingly sound. This contrasts with sympathy, the righteous feeling of sincere concern for a fellow human being experiencing pain or difficulty. The former attempts to spread suffering. The latter aids in healing it.

In our case, critical empathy makes magistrates subservient to malevolent actors. That framework presents predators as victims who must be yielded to, flipping social contract theory on its head. But our founders did not sacrifice their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to give safe harbor to Islamic crusaders.

I’m pleased to see Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduce the Naturalization Accountability Act, which would denaturalize immigrants convicted of felonies or who support terrorist groups. If you want to live here, don’t sympathize and cooperate with those who call for the murder of Americans and chant, “Death to America.”

Joining the Taliban or offering any support to terrorist groups such as ISIS, Hamas, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, etc., should be an immediate disqualifier for the benefits of American citizenship — and such people should be deported with haste. The stigma rightly belongs to those who endorse evil.

But in the wake of the tragedy involving Bradon Shah, ROTC and Junior ROTC students at schools around the nation have been directed not to wear their uniforms out of concerns for their safety. The shame is placed upon the virtuous instead. This should not be.

Two days after receiving the shocking news of Brandon’s death, I shared the reflections that grew into this essay instead of my planned presentation at the Ciceronian Society conference. Through a choked voice, I looked at the group picture of Staff Group 2D, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College class of 2019, and concluded by remembering a time when we could gather as military officers to study without fear that Islamic terrorists and battlefield combatants would transform our classroom into a zone of combat.

Brandon and I were not close and did not maintain contact after graduating. But he was a fellow veteran, a man I spent most days of a year with, through both good and frustrating times. He should still be alive, a husband to his wife, a father to his child, and a mentor to his students. His death is a betrayal.

Though the terrorist who killed him rightly faced immediate justice at the hands of bold cadets that day, there are many policymakers and enforcers whose hands are stained by their actions.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The American Mind.

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Sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein kept a brazenly detailed and jam-packed Google Calendar, recording flight plans and visits with notable figures.

The database comes in the form of a new website, from the same web designers who created Jmail.world, a clone of Epstein’s Gmail inbox.

‘I suggest inviting Al Gore on Sept 23 to Nantucket.’

The detailed schedule, organized on a Gmail Calendar app, is suitably named JCal.

In a typical entry, Epstein listed a “meeting with Scott Stackman and Ghislaine Maxwell” for May 31, 2016. Stackman was Epstein’s alleged financial adviser, while Maxwell was his alleged confidante and procurer.

The calendar is full of meetings with elites from the entertainment industry and banking; Epstein even penciled in his attendance at movie screenings, along with a constant stream of flight details.

There are, for instance, several meetings and visits with Ariane de Rothschild, now CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Group in Switzerland, who married banker Benjamin de Rothschild in 1999. Benjamin died in 2021 at 57 years old of a heart attack.

“A production company in LA is doing a documentary film on Deepak Chopra’s new book. He will film part of it as a lecture,” Epstein reportedly wrote for September 23, 2016. “Al Gore ‘Inconvenient Truth’ style in Nantucket.” He went on: “I should wait to discuss until Sept 18th unless I suggest inviting Al Gore on Sept 23 to Nantucket.”

A screening of a Woody Allen movie is written in for December 16, 2016, with Allen himself listed as an attendee.

RELATED: Log into this Gmail clone to read all the Jeffrey Epstein emails as if you were Epstein himself

Other noteworthy meetings included those with Noam and Valeria Chomsky, and an Arianna Huffington event at the Madison Square location of membership club NeueHouse, which abruptly shuttered last year following the death of founder Joshua Abram after a long fight against multiple myeloma.

The online world has taken particular interest in making a mockery of Epstein through quick-turnaround projects Five Nights at Epstein’s, a viral video game modeled after Five Nights at Freddy’s, the popular online game and media franchise.

Five Nights at Epstein’s has players monitor security cameras in Epstein’s compound with the hope of avoiding encounters with various characters. In this game, players are on the receiving end of jump scares of clip art of President Trump, Stephen Hawking, and Epstein himself.

RELATED: Epstein files were allegedly compromised by foreign hacker in 2023; FBI admits ‘cyber incident’

Image Credit Scott Olson/Getty Images

While Jmail was created by web designer Riley Walz and programmer Luke Igel, Newsweek reported Swedish that software engineer Matheus Mendes is behind JCal. To build the stunt, Mendes reportedly used Reducto, described as an AI document parsing and extraction software.

Walz has a history of making obscure humorous websites and programs, including a fast-food price comparison index and a random video viewer that shuffles iPhone videos uploaded to YouTube between 2009 and 2012.

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Former New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa is getting lambasted by Republicans and other critics over a cutesy video he made with socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Sliwa hammered away at Mamdani during debates before the election, but since the socialist defeated him for the mayor’s office, Sliwa appears to have warmed up to the leftist.

‘You can tell when people are true to the party, and I thought it was reprehensible.’

In the video produced for the Inner Circle show, Sliwa pretends to be a doctor and gives the mayor an allergy shot so he can live with a cat in the official mayor’s residence. The event raises money for charity.

“I thought it was great because it was promoting rescuing animals,” Sliwa explained to the New York Post.

Others didn’t think it was so great.

“Betrayed his family. Betrayed the Republican Party. Betrayed everyone,” said a GOP operative to the Post under the condition of anonymity.

The Post reported that others said they wanted their political contributions to his campaign returned after seeing the video.

“When you don’t have a bed to sleep in, you have to find anyone who will take you,” replied former New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat. “You can tell when people are true to the party, and I thought it was reprehensible.”

Sliwa fired back at the Republicans criticizing him by pointing out they had not criticized President Donald Trump for cozying up to Mamdani several times.

“If people are upset at that, why aren’t you mad at the president, Donald Trump, who has welcomed him into the White House twice?” he said.

He also claimed that the sketch was the first time he had spoken to Mamdani since the election.

Sliwa is planning to run for the Republican nomination for the mayor’s office again in 2029.

RELATED: Mamdani made big promises to cut the budget — here’s the embarrassing result so far

Paterson was still angry at Sliwa for staying in the election and possibly playing spoiler for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He went on to mock Sliwa’s performance in the mayoral election by comparing it to that of the New York Jets.

“[Curtis] was never going to win,” Paterson said. “He got 7 percentage points, seven — even the Jets get seven when they play.”

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A recent set of man-on-the-street-style interviews conducted by conservative Kaitlin Bennett in Tampa, Florida, yielded alarming results — as many of them shared that they would feel more comfortable standing next to someone shouting “Allahu Akbar” than someone in a MAGA hat.

“The good news is that we were actually filming for three hours, but we still managed to get 30 minutes of liberals saying Donald Trump and Trump supporters of MAGA were worse,” Bennett tells BlazeTV host Pat Gray on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“I have 30 minutes of this on my YouTube channel, Liberty Hangout. And a woman literally goes, ‘I’m a Democrat, so I definitely feel I, you know, can relate more to radical Islamists.’ … She said it out loud. That’s their entire thing right now,” she explains.

Bennett took to the streets of Tampa while the city was celebrating St. Patrick’s day, which worked in her favor.

“I’ve always found the best way to engage with people on a topic like this is to go up with them and say something completely unrelated,” she says, noting that asking everyone where St. Patrick was from helped to break the ice before the questions got more political.

“Then they answer, and I get them hooked,” she explains.

“Most people just walked away. Most people, actually, when they see a camera, they do have a little bit of awareness of, like, ‘Don’t open your mouth,’” she says, though she notes that the woman who related more to radical Islamists justified her position with the fact that “she’s gay.”

“For a lesbian to say that she has more in common with radical Islam than MAGA supporters, when they would literally kill her, it’s so ignorant. It’s just sheer, unadulterated ignorance,” Gray says, shocked.

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The CEO of Air Canada airlines announced his resignation after getting backlash over an English-only statement about the death of two pilots in a U.S. crash.

Michael Rousseau, 68, told the board of the company that he would leave by the end of the third quarter, according to the announcement Monday.

‘The Air Canada board of directors will have to ensure that the next CEO speaks French.’

Two pilots were killed when their Air Canada plane with 72 passengers collided with a fire truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport. Dozens were also injured in the March 22 incident.

Rousseau released a statement offering his condolences about the accident but was immediately criticized because it was in English but not in French. Canada is officially a dual-language country, and Air Canada is based in a French-majority province.

The issue was so contentious that even Prime Minister Mark Carney weighed in to call the resignation “appropriate.”

He added, “It is essential that the next CEO of Air Canada is bilingual.”

Quebec Premier François Legault agreed.

“I salute the decision of Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to step down from his position. The Air Canada board of directors will have to ensure that the next CEO speaks French,” Legault said.

Legault also pointed out that Rousseau had promised to learn French when he was elevated to the CEO position in 2021.

RELATED: Investigator of LaGuardia plane crash suggests ‘multiple failures’ caused the collision; survivors respond

The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages said it received hundreds of complaints about Rousseau’s statement.

On Tuesday, National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy said on Fox News that the investigation into the crash was ongoing but that she believed there were “multiple failures” that led to the lethal accident.

“We have found in all of our investigations that it is not a single error that led to a terrible tragedy. … So we’re going to look very comprehensively,” she said.

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