Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: The Good, the Bad, and the Dark

By Gayle McQueary Published on March 11, 2025

X Goes Dark

The social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk and formerly known as Twitter, experienced significant outages which began yesterday morning with users across North America, Europe, and parts of Asia reporting difficulties accessing the site, posting content, and viewing feeds.

Downdetector, a platform that tracks online service disruptions, logged tens of thousands of user complaints beginning around 4:30 a.m. Monday, marking this as one of the most severe outages in X’s recent history.

Musk took to X to put out an ominous statement: “We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1899149509407473825

In today’s technological landscape, most cyberattacks go unnoticed unless people’s services are disrupted. You may recall as many as 500,000 Facebook and Instagram users suffering a massive blackout last March, reporting issues accessing the social media sites. CNN reported at the time, “Major platform outages happen relatively infrequently but are typically the result of something benign, such as an issue with a software update.”

That does not appear to be the case this time, though: The pro-Palestinian hacking group “Dark Storm Team” is claiming responsibility for the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, according to Newsweek. It will be interesting to see what the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has to say after investigating this.

Out with the Old and In with the Worst

O, Canada, you’ve outdone yourselves.

With a whopping 131,674 votes, the nation’s Liberal Party chose former Bank of England governor Mark Carney Sunday evening to be prime minister of Canada after notorious globalist Justin Trudeau stepped down on Jan. 7. However, Carney still will face a federal election later this year.

We weren’t fans of Trudeau, but as the old adage goes, “Be careful what you wish for.” As another adage warns, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire!” The 59-year-old Carney has never received a public vote or held elected office before now, but he did serve as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance beginning in 2020. Whereas Trudeau may have genuinely believed that his globalist policies were helpful to Canadians, Carney is more blatant in saying that his George Soros-tainted goals outweigh the people’s interests.

He claims to have a gift for knowing how the world works, and states outright that his background will cause people to see him as an “elitist” or “globalist,” but as he recently boasted to podcast host Alastair Campbell, “That’s exactly what we need.”

https://twitter.com/BillboardChris/status/1898897888253755703

We think that’s false no matter what country one happens to lead, but only time and Canada’s fall election will tell if Canadians feel the same way. Please join us in praying for our northern friends as they find themselves forcefully placed on this bumpy road.

Rubio Oversees Drastic Cuts to USAID Programs

The State Department has completed a sweeping review that Secretary Marco Rubio announced Monday has resulted in the termination of a whopping 83% of programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Rubio, in a statement on social media, claimed the cuts were necessary to eliminate programs that “did not serve, and in some cases even harmed, the core national interests of the United States.” The remaining 18% (approximately 1,000 initiatives) will now fall under the direct purview of the State Department — a move Rubio said was made in consultation with Congress.

The decision has sparked fierce debate, with Democratic lawmakers labeling the cuts as illegal, lacking congressional approval, and potentially causing dire humanitarian consequences, such as disruptions to global health and famine-relief efforts. Proponents, however, argue that the restructuring is long overdue to curb wasteful spending.

The abrupt nature of the cuts, based on recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has also led to lawsuits from affected aid organizations, further complicating the fallout.

Leave the Amish Alone

A federal appeals court upheld a nearly six-year-old New York law requiring Amish children to be vaccinated despite their religious objections. In a March 3 ruling, the Second U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in Miller v. McDonald that a law passed in 2019 after a measles outbreak requiring all children to be vaccinated in order to attend school, regardless of religious views, does not violate the First Amendment.

The only exceptions to the mandate are allergic reactions to the vaccine ingredients or the vaccine itself.

Three Amish schools and three individuals sued the state in June 2023. They sought an injunction, arguing the law infringed on their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

A lower court dismissed the case, and the Second Circuit upheld that decision, rejecting the plaintiffs’ comparison to the 1972 Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder, which allowed Amish families to end formal education after eighth grade on religious grounds.

The court reasoned that vaccination requirements do not fundamentally disrupt the Amish way of life the way extended compulsory education would, and emphasized the law’s neutrality, as it applies equally to all children without targeting religious groups.

The case drew national attention, with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 19 other states filing an amicus brief in May 2024. Condemning New York’s actions, Marshall released a statement saying, “New York has so little regard for religion that it will seek out, harass, and threaten Amish communities that want only to live out their faith amongst themselves. Parents should not be forced to choose between their children’s schooling and their fundamental rights.”

The ruling leaves the Amish community, which traditionally opposes government-mandated medical interventions, facing a dilemma: comply with the mandate or forego formal schooling at their private schools. Amish schools and families refusing to comply have already been fined a collective $118,000.

Time to Heal

Yesterday, construction crews began removing the “Black Lives Matter” mural painted on 16th Street NW near the White House during the George Floyd protests in 2020; the process is expected to take six weeks. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced last week the plan to replace the inflammatory roadway “art” with new city-sponsored murals.

The removal, prompted by pressure from congressional Republicans, reflects a new dawn for the District of Columbia thanks to the new Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress that reminded Bowser of D.C.’s limited autonomy (going so far as to propose the BOWSER Act, which aims to repeal the Home Rule Act of 1973, a law that gave the District of Columbia limited autonomy to act as a state).

The Associated Press reports that Bowser posted her reasoning to remove the paint on X last week, stating, “The mural inspired millions of people and helped our city through a painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference. The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number one concern.”

The dismantling caused strong reactions from many, including Megan Bailiff, CEO of Equus Striping, the company that painted the mural, describing its removal as “historically obscene.” This could just be a move for Bowser to avoid conflict with Trump, or maybe she sees that it’s time for America to heal from the incessant race baiting of 2020 and beyond.

Not-So-Good and Good From SCOTUS

Fire Chief Fired

First the not-so-good: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the wrongful termination case of Ron Hittle, a 24-year veteran fire chief from Stockton, California, who was fired after attending the Global Leadership Summit hosted by Illinois’ Willow Creek Church 15 years ago.

The famously liberal Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his termination in 2023 — prompting Hittle to appeal to the Supreme Court. Though the High Court turned the case away on a 7-2 vote, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented, arguing the Court should have taken the case to reconsider a legal standard they criticized for causing “confusion and unfair outcomes” in employment discrimination cases.

Hittle attended the Global Leadership Summit in 2010, after his superiors recommended he get some leadership training. An anonymous caller complained to the city of Stockton that the conference, known for hosting prominent secular and faith-based speakers, was hosted by the megachurch. As a result, the city fired Hittle.

Hittle’s fight for religious liberty continues. “We are disappointed with the court’s decision regarding this religious discrimination case,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and chief counsel of First Liberty, which was one of three groups representing Hittle. “We will continue to fight for all people of faith whose religious liberty is threatened.”

The dissent highlights broader concerns about the way courts handle discrimination claims.

Conversion Therapy

Now for the good news: Though it turned away Hittle’s case, the High Court agreed Monday to hear a case stemming from Colorado to determine whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning so-called “conversion therapy” for children struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions or gender-identity disorders. This decision follows ongoing legal debates nationwide, including a pending ruling from a Tennessee case regarding state bans on treating transgender minors.

About half of the U.S., including Colorado, already prohibits mental health professionals from offering any kind of help to children struggling with these things other than “affirming” their sexual or gender-based struggles; critics claim that presenting a different or biblical viewpoint is “unsafe and ineffective.” However, mental health professionals say such laws limit their ability to help clients.

The Court will hear the case sometime after the next term starts in October.

Editor’s Note: Good news! We now have a way to offer a transcript in our video posts. The transcripts are automatically generated and lightly edited, so please be aware there could be typos or other small errors. The Stream is continuing to work toward a transcription service that does fast, accurate, and reliable work; thank you in advance for your patience! Please let us know your thoughts on this new service at [email protected].

Along The Stream…

Over the weekend, horror broke out in Syria, as Islamists backed by the new president (a former member of ISIS) began systematically murdering Christians and Alawites, dumping “hundreds of bodies” in the streets. Please read Stream contributor Jason Jones’s impassioned appeal to President Trump to intervene, and share it with your friends.

Despite ongoing efforts to close the southern border to illegal aliens, smugglers, and traffickers, U.S. Border Patrol agent exposes a shocking loophole that continues to allow “foot guides” to bring minors into the U.S. — without facing prosecution.

 

Gayle McQueary is The Stream’s social media coordinator. She has a background in production and is a scary judge of bad legal precedents.