A Florida woman wanted for the murder of a father whose body was found with a zip tie around his neck and buried in a shallow grave has been arrested following a weeks-long, multistate manhunt, according to authorities.

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office said the U.S. Marshals Task Force on Thursday afternoon arrested 38-year-old Isabelle Johnson at a house in Cottondale.

‘She covered the body with cement so that the dog would not dig it up again.’

“We got her,” police proclaimed on social media. “Isabelle Johnson is in custody.”

Johnson was arrested while wearing a T-shirt with message that read, “Force to be reckoned with.”

WMBB-TV reported that Johnson appeared in court Friday morning, and she was ordered held without bond.

Police stated, “The arrest was the result of information developed by the Walton County Sheriff’s Office Cyber Crimes Unit on Johnson’s whereabouts.”

Authorities alleged that investigators searched for Johnson in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

Walton County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Dustin Cosson said investigators put in “tons and tons of man-hours” during the search for Johnson that lasted roughly 45 days, according to Fox News.

Fox News added that the broader investigation involved more than 40 subpoenas and over 20 search warrants.

On Friday afternoon, police announced that Johnson has been extradited from the Jackson County Jail to Walton County.

Johnson was wanted on an open count of murder in connection with the death of 43-year-old Jason Coulthart, whose remains were discovered June 25 in a shallow grave.

The New York Post, citing police, reported that Coulthart’s body was found “with a zip tie around his neck buried in a shallow grave, which was covered in concrete, with a black Cadillac parked over it …”

Coulthart initially was reported missing May 24.

“She killed the victim by placing a zip tie around his neck,” an unnamed witness told investigators, according to the police report.

Johnson’s roommate helped her dig a hole to bury Coulthart’s body, the police report also noted.

A witness added, “She covered the body with cement so that the dog would not dig it up again.”

The witness also told investigators that “he was aware of her ‘getting rid’ of a boy because he was ‘aggravating and irritating her,'” according to the police report the Post obtained.

The witness said the “boy” also was “threatening to interfere with Isabelle’s custody of her children,” the police report added.

RELATED: Alleged border-hopping black widow who drugged, robbed, and killed older men she met on dating apps faces extradition: FBI

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office said in a previous statement, “She’s a monster, not a beast.”

“Johnson frequently moves locations and often convinces others to help her by telling sympathetic stories involving domestic violence or other personal hardships,” according to authorities.

Investigators described Johnson as a “master manipulator,” according to ABC News.

Police said Johnson had multiple identities and aliases, including Harley, Jessica Elaine Bowman, Jessica Elaine Thrush, Jessica Elaine Thrash, and Jessica Dowdy.

Others have been arrested in connection with the case.

“Five individuals have been arrested for accessory after the fact to a capital felony as investigators continue efforts to locate Johnson, who has been actively evading law enforcement,” police stated.

According to WEAR-TV, 31-year-old Bobbi Wagstaff was charged with accessory to capital murder after the fact and possession of methamphetamine.

Martin and Sandra Leaverton, both 63, were charged with accessory after the fact to capital murder after investigators alleged they helped Johnson retrieve her belongings, provided a cell phone, and tried to help her find refuge outside Florida, WEAR added.

Michael Ray White, 74, and Kathleen Morris, 59, were charged with accessory to a capital felony after the fact and obstruction after they allegedly provided Johnson with shelter, transportation, and supplies while misleading police regarding her whereabouts.

Walton County officials said additional charges are expected.

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​Us marshals, Florida, Manhunt, Murder suspect, Shallow grave, Arrest, Crime 

Morbidly obese actress Chrissy Metz has lost 100 pounds after taking a GLP-1, but the left isn’t happy about it.

In an interview on “The Today Show,” Metz’s decision was shockingly met with concern by Savannah Guthrie — who pointed to the feelings of those in the “body positivity” movement.

And BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales isn’t surprised, commenting, “One of the things that just continues to be true about the left is that they just want to bring everyone else down.”

“They seemingly work to keep people fat via the body positivity movement where they’re cheering on obesity because somehow it makes you more strong and more powerful the fatter you are or something,” she adds.

In the interview, Guthrie pointed out that “a lot of people” have “admired” Metz because they “feel seen.”

“You’ve represented this whole community. And I don’t know if there are some people watching and have mixed feelings about it. And I don’t know that you have to provide an answer to them,” Guthrie said.

“But if there are people that are like, ‘Oh, Chrissy, I thought, you know,’ somehow they’re disappointed with this, what would you say?” Guthrie asked.

“Well, I think that it’s so important to put yourself first. And you know, as we age, sometimes we have health issues that we’re concerned about or want to get ahead of. And that certainly was my case. And I have to do what’s right for me,” Metz responded.

“You have to live your own life, and I have to do that for myself,” she added.

“Somehow, people are supposed to be disappointed that she’s actually trying to better herself,” Gonzales comments, before mocking Guthrie, “Let me explain to you why you’re letting people down by taking control of your health.”

And Gonzales, of course, doesn’t think Metz should worry about the “movement” she has disappointed, as she believes it’s just a way for unhealthy people to cope with their decisions.

“It’s just an insecurity thing where they’re like, ‘Actually, I’m proud that I’m morbidly obese,’” she says.

“I cannot be convinced that anyone actually thinks that way,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Body positivity, Savannah guthrie, Today show, Weight loss, Sara gonzales, Chrissy metz, Glp1, Obesity, Blazetv show 

A night of drinking in Belfast gave Joe Rogan an epiphany: It’s never going to be that way again.

Joking with fellow comedians Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, and Ari Shaffir, the quartet were going through their usual roundtable of anecdotes when — as usual — some sage advice poked its head through.

‘Cameras have ruined young people.’

Just the flip

Rogan was recalling a night on the town in Northern Ireland, telling his friends about a literal drunken Irishman who was rambling about being willing to fight anyone. That experience, known only to him, is foregone history now thanks to modern technology.

“I miss those days where I could just go to a bar and just just pull up and just get lit. It was fun,” Rogan said on his podcast.

“It’s too hard” now, the comedian continued; it’s all about the phones.

“So this is like 2007 … there’s no cameras. There’s no phones. Nobody. There’s no iPhone yet. So it’s like people were just hanging out.”

Then even Normand, who is usually a sunglasses-wearing fly on the wall who provides inappropriate remarks, was in lock-step with how smartphones have caused generational issues for the youth.

“Cameras have ruined young people, [they] can’t cut loose.”

Rogan concurred, “Phones ruined everything in terms of like, people’s connection with each other.”

The 59-year-old has lived a long time in the spotlight; whether it was reporting from early UFC events, hosting “Fear Factor,” or doing stand-up tours, he feels confident pinpointing the exact place in time young people should be trying to replicate.

“The old phones, that was as far as we should have went. The flip phone that you could text on, and the texting sucked.”

RELATED: Move over, milk crates: Dorm rooms now come with interior designers — and five-figure price tags

Scroll models

Rogan’s message been clear over the years: Put the phone away or face being “stuck,” only if for a few days.

“I’ve pulled back considerably like I was saying, over the last three months. … I just decided enough is enough,” Rogan continued. “I don’t like how I feel when I just scroll through doom.”

Having previously stated that he doesn’t want his phone anywhere near him while driving, Rogan, along with Gillis, has been signaling to young men that being disconnected from one’s phone can not only serve as an advantage, it can be a relief.

The dreadful feeling was Gillis’ angle, who felt like his decision to disconnect was thrust upon him, as opposed to a conscious move like that of Rogan.

Mirroring lawsuits against popular social media companies, Gillis said his exodus from platforms isn’t a choice, instead he “got lucky enough that I can’t look at it anymore. I can’t. It’s just negative.”

“It’s not like I’m like making a disciplined choice to be like, ‘I don’t want to look at this anymore,'” Gillis added. He hasn’t looked at Reddit in years, and he can’t even bring himself to look at X.

“It genuinely makes me feel bad,” he stressed.

“I don’t want to click on it anymore.”

RELATED: ‘House’ star Hugh Laurie responds to claims he supports men in women’s sports: ‘Firstly, f**k off’

Anna Barclay/Getty Images

Bro breakthrough

The four horsemen of “Protect Our Parks” represent the advanced status of a group of friends from different backgrounds who made it big.

The reflection men see in them is obvious; it’s like bros in a basement. This is specifically present when Rogan says things like, “There’s a UFC in L.A. If you guys want to take over the Comedy Store for a weekend,” as if they’re heading to the bar.

But in that commentary comes lessons for the next generation of young men:

“You don’t want to live in their world,” Rogan said of influencers and phone addicts.

The truth bombs culminated:

“You don’t want to be in their head, and they don’t want it either. And the only way for them out is to not do that. And if they keep doing it and keep living in that f**king same swamp of ideas, they’re never going to change.”

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​Comedy, Joe rogan, Ari shaffir, Mark normand, Shane gillis, Cell phones, Entertainment 

As the buzz of summer winds down, back-to-school season offers families a fresh start. Kids return to routines and extracurriculars. Moms like me return to schedules, snacks, playdates, forms, and the peculiar relief of getting everyone back on a calendar.

Before we get buried in backpacks and lunch boxes, though, parents need to brace for something harder: our children’s mental health.

Our children need adults willing to talk with them, challenge them when necessary, and remain present when the conversation gets uncomfortable.

A recent Wall Street Journal investigation described Oregon as an epicenter of pediatric gender medicine, with diagnoses of gender dysphoria and use of cross-sex hormones among minors rising sharply in recent years. Oregon has only about 1% of the nation’s teenagers, yet its clinics reportedly accounted for roughly 7% of gender-related mastectomies performed on teenage girls from 2019 through 2023.

Those numbers are shocking. But behind every one is a child. I was one of those children not very long ago.

When I was 16, I found Tumblr communities full of girls who sounded just like me. They were uncomfortable in their bodies. They struggled with anxiety, depression, isolation, and the feeling that they did not fit. Their stories felt eerily familiar. We fed off one another’s pain until many of us came to believe that being transgender explained it — and that changing our bodies might cure our mental distress.

I was already battling anorexia. I hated myself and hated the body I saw in the mirror. That is why the contrast in how adults treated my two forms of distress still haunts me.

When I told doctors and therapists that I was starving myself because I saw myself as overweight, they did not affirm that perception. They treated it as something to question and work through. But when I said my breasts made me uncomfortable, my gender distress was not challenged in the same way. I was told that transition could be the answer. No questions, no pushback.

Looking back, I was not born in the wrong body. I was a hurting teenager looking for belonging, certainty, and an explanation for my pain.

The reality is that adolescence itself is full of unstable explanations. Teenagers are awkward, lonely, impulsive, anxious, obsessive, and desperate to belong. They compare themselves with peers, test identities, reject identities, and search for language that makes their discomfort intelligible. Sometimes the first explanation that feels coherent is not the right one.

RELATED: Detransitioner sues Oregon gender clinics for ‘abhorrent misdiagnosis’ that ‘mutilated’ her body

Image source: YouTube video screenshot

Across the country — consider states such as New Mexico, where schools have adopted policies accommodating students’ asserted gender identities — vulnerable children can encounter adults who treat social transition as an appropriate response before parents even understand what is happening.

That should terrify parents, especially when gender distress appears alongside trauma, autism, depression, eating disorders, or a simple discomfort with narrow stereotypes about what girls and boys are supposed to be. Those possibilities should be explored, not hurried past.

Previous generations of girls were told, directly and indirectly, that happiness required becoming impossibly thin. Today, some distressed girls encounter a different promise: Maybe the body itself is the problem. The common thread is not merely social media or “woke” politics. It is vulnerability.

That’s why therapy should help a young person untangle difficult emotions, not merely supply a label for them. “Why do you feel this way?” and “What name and pronouns would you like me to use?” are not interchangeable questions. One opens an inquiry. The other can foreclose it.

As another school year begins, parents should remember that adolescence has always been messy. Teenagers feel awkward and lonely. They try things, fail at things, discover new passions, abandon old ones, experiment with style and music, and slowly begin to understand who they are. That process can continue well beyond high school.

RELATED: The right has a blind spot about young women

Blaze Media Illustration

Our children do not need adults who immediately affirm every explanation they discover online. They need adults willing to talk with them, challenge them when necessary, and remain present when the conversation gets uncomfortable.

Use the dinner table. Talk about your own failures and insecurities. Tell them what helped and what you wish you had understood sooner. Get them outside. A scraped knee from the monkey bars is often healthier than another four hours alone with an algorithm.

Most of all, do not surrender the hard conversations to strangers, schools, influencers, or online communities. Do not let someone else take the reins of your child’s life while you are still trying to figure out what happened.

The best back-to-school supply we can give our kids is not another lesson in identity. It is the reassurance that they do not have to change their bodies, their appearance, or every uncomfortable feeling in order to belong.

​Anorexia, Autism, Depression, Gender dysphoria, Mental health, Stereotypes, Transgender, Social transition, Lgbtq, Opinion & analysis 

Do you wear shoes in the house?

Or do you remove them every time you open the front door, place them tidily next to the closet, and proceed into your humble abode with only a thin layer of sock between your foot and the floor?

What does it mean that most households in America today are shoes-off households? Why is there a change?

This question of indoor footwear, or lack thereof, is a surprisingly interesting one. You might think it doesn’t really matter that much whether or not your shoes stay on while inside, but it is a somewhat fascinating little debate for the acute observers of our perpetually evolving American culture.

Sole survivors

There are a few different ways to view the shoes-in-the-house debate. The first layer is that of personal preference. For lots of families in America, it comes down to a mundane choice. Mom and dads on a random weekday just sort of come to the conclusion that they are going to either be a shoes-on or shoes-off household, and that’s what they do for the rest of their lives together. For others the decision is an inherited one. They grew up keeping shoes on, so that’s what their kids grow up doing. We do what we are used to; it’s tradition.

Beyond the simple choice of personal taste, there are geographical ways of looking at the question of rubber soles on wood floors. There are regional factors at play. The U.S. is a big place with lots of different climates, and taking shoes off or keeping them on wavers a bit from region to region. For those in the sloshiest and snowiest ares of the U.S., keeping your boots on inside in the middle of February is a nonstarter. For others, in the drier regions, keeping shoes on isn’t particularly concerning whether it’s July or February.

There are also global differences in the answer to the question of shoes inside the house. I should say it’s a bit hard to get reliable data on global attitudes regarding this question. All the maps you find are slightly different, and the sources aren’t exactly clear. I mean, what’s this polling really like? But taking account of all the available maps, the very west end of Western Europe, North America, Central America, and South America tend to be shoes-on, and the rest of the world is generally shoes-off with a few exceptions.

Don’t tread on me

Last but not least, a final aspect to this discussion is one of American history. Have you ever seen a photo of a family gathering or party in America during the 1950s in which the majority of adults are sitting or standing around inside without their shoes on?

Probably not, and if you have, it’s an exceedingly rare photo of an equally rare occurrence. Back in old America — think 1800-1950 — people kept their shoes on inside. The thought of a group of adult men and women sitting around showing their dirty socks to one another would be very preposterous, extremely undignified, and generally rude. No one was asking people to take their shoes off at the door in 1958 America.

Though America is still considered a shoes-on country by many foreigners, things have changed. There is a trending line running toward socks on the floors and shoes by the doors.

What does it mean that most households in America today are shoes-off households? Why is there a change? And what has brought it about?

It’s hard to say. Some might argue that increased immigration from countries where shoes-off is the norm has changed attitudes in America without people realizing their attitudes are being changed. I think there could be truth to this. Immigration obviously brings unforeseen impacts, though I’m not sure many Midwesterners are really that influenced by Asiatic household footwear norms. Any influence due to immigration is probably minimal when it comes to this very narrow matter.

RELATED: Yes, groceries are more expensive. Now what?

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Footloose and fancy-free

I think any change toward an increase in more shoes-off households comes more broadly from an increasing informality that has spread through our culture over the past four decades. People are now comfortable showing their bare socks and requesting others do the same when visiting their home.

Is that a good thing? Is it a sign of a closer community or a more generally friendly and approachable disposition?

I don’t know. Maybe, but probably not. People are not closer today than they were in the past. They know their neighbors less, community bonds are weaker, and social satisfaction is down. Robert Putnam’s 2000 book “Bowling Alone” documents all this well. The fact that more people host parties and request that guests take off their shoes says more about increased informality and less about closeness.

Toeing the line

Changing opinions about cleanliness play a role in this evolution. For some reason today, people really do not want any dust or dirt tracked into the entryway to their house. It’s not unreasonable to want a clean house. We all do. I have three kids in a small home and know how messy it can get. But brooms and vacuums exist, and they work. People certainly seem more concerned about any possible dirt being tracked in than they did a few generations ago.

I don’t think there’s an objectively right or wrong way. Shoes-on houses are good, and so are shoes-off ones. Though I do think it’s worthwhile to wonder what cultural changes signify, because they often mean more than what meets the eye. And no matter how logical it might be to remove shoes so as to keep a house cleaner, the change from 1956 to 2026 says something about changing attitudes regarding formality and presentation in the American home, and it’s fair to wonder if those changing attitudes are related to broader developments in the society, many of which are not terribly good.

Is there some strange connection between requesting that guests remove their shoes and pajama pants in the airport? In the American context, probably yes.

As for me, I’ll keep wearing my sport coat at the airport and my loafers in the kitchen.

​Indoor footwear debate, Shoes in house, Global differences, Lifestyle, Culture, Etiquette, Hospitality, The root of the matter 

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.

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​Us border patrol, Immigration, Illegal immigration, Child abuse, Deportations, Politics 

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 Images

By 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.

​Activist judges, Department of homeland security, Illegal immigrants, Kilmar abrego garcia, Southern border, Supreme court, Deportations, Opinion & analysis, Donald trump 

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 Images

To 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 Images

In 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.

​Black women, Democratic socialists of america, Dr seuss, Foreign policy, Illegal immigrants, Woke 1, Woke 2, Zohran mamdani, Economy, Lgbtq agenda, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Abdul el-sayed, Opinion & analysis 

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.

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