Since 2014, our Deep State and the corrupt, oligarchical governments of Western Europe have been colluding to stoke conflict in Ukraine with Russia. In that year, a U.S.-sponsored coup put in power a regime honeycombed with Western agents who promoted abortion and LGBTQ agitprop. They also cooperated with Western governments seeking to enfold Ukraine in the nuclear military alliance that is NATO — a prospect that alarmed Russia the way Russian missiles in Cuba outraged President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 chose Russia as the scapegoat for its made-up conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was a paid foreign agent — which Obama holdovers in our Deep State would turn into a slow-motion coup against the newly-elected president. The phony investigation and fake impeachment that resulted poisoned Trump’s attempts to defuse conflict with Russia. The Democrats’ cynical ploy set the stage, after Joe Biden was installed in office, for a war launched by Russia which has claimed more than 1 million casualties — mostly European Christians.
Since taking office, President Trump has wavered between the hawkish stance of our military/industrial complex and his own instincts toward peace. Trump knows that anti-Russian spooks were deeply involved in crippling his first administration, and that claims of Russia menacing Europe are laughable. Furthermore, U.S. aid to flailing Ukraine just further drives Russia into a hardening alliance with Red China. But the pressure from the neocon GOP establishment has been immense to make impossible demands of Russia as the price for peace, and Trump has even escalated provocative arms shipments to Kiev, threatening to add in longer-range Tomahawk missiles.
Now there’s renewed hope for peace. MSN reports:
President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin spoke on Thursday for more than two hours, the White House said, ahead of Trump’s in-person meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump called it a “productive” conversation and said he and Putin would eventually meet again — in Budapest, Hungary, at an unspecified time.
“At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated. A meeting location is to be determined. President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”
Influential conservative Rep. Anna Paulina Luna raised a possible outcome if such talks proved successful:
POTUS is likely going to be able to negotiate a multi trillion dollar trade deal with Russia, which would greatly impact our markets positively.
Please join me and praying for the president as he navigates this process.
There are many people that want war. He does not. Peace…— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) October 16, 2025
Instead of sanctions that mostly backfired and starved Europe of affordable natural gas, a Trump deal with Putin could save thousands of lives and redirect Russian resources westward — rather than sending them to hostile nations like China.
Transgender Madness May Be Subsiding Among the Young
In more welcome news, the shocking upsurge of transgender dysphoria — spread by social contagion and encouraged by groomers in schools — seems to be diminishing. At UnHerd researcher Eric Kaufman reports:
A surprising shift is taking place in the gender and sexual identities of young Americans. Data from my new Centre for Heterodox Social Science report, “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans”, shows that since 2023 both trans and queer identification have dropped sharply within Generation Z.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which conducts a large annual survey of US undergraduates, polled over 60,000 students in 2025. My analysis of the raw data shows that in that year, just 3.6% of respondents identified as a gender other than male or female. By comparison, the figure was 5.2% in 2024 and 6.8% in both 2022 and 2023. In other words, the share of trans-identified students has effectively halved in just two years. [emphasis added]
The news isn’t all good, however:
Despite hints of a youth religious revival, FIRE survey data shows no major drop in the share of non-religious students, who still make up nearly half of the sample in recent years. Woke progressives and secular students are much more likely to identify as trans, bisexual, or queer than conservative or religious people. This ties in with upbringing and longstanding tensions between religious conservatism and LGBTQ identity.
Warmonger John Bolton Indicted for Massive Abuse of Classified Documents
There’s some justice in the world. One of the anti-Trump Republicans with the worst record of fomenting international conflict, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, appeared on TV as a talking head to praise lawless attempts to prosecute Trump over documents he’d declassified, culminating with the now-infamous Mar-a-Lago raid. Now Bolton is in deep, dark trouble for actually doing what he’d falsely accused Trump over. CNN reports, through gritted teeth:
John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-adversary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland.
He now faces 18 charges: eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that during the time he was national security adviser to Trump, Bolton shared “more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities” with two unauthorized individuals. Both of those people were related to Bolton and didn’t have the authority to access classified information, prosecutors said.
Print-outs of “diary” entries were also found in Bolton’s home, according to the indictment.
Gateway Pundit elaborates:
If convicted, Bolton is facing decades in prison, which would be a life sentence for him because he is 76 years old.
Bolton was indicted on 18 counts under the Espionage Act.John Bolton transmitted classified emails over a private server system and they were intercepted by Iran, according to the indictment….
The investigation into John Bolton began in 2020 when he used classified information to write his book titled, “The Room Where It Happened.”
Last month, new documents released revealed that John Bolton stored classified information about WMDs and the United Nations.
Let the justice system do its job — then throw away the key.
Election Fraud Specialists Face Corruption Trial
The vote company which critics say was founded in Venezuela to help that nation’s Marxist government steal elections, whose software found its way into Dominion voting machines, is facing a day in court — for corruption in yet another country. Just The News reports:
Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged the voting technology firm Smartmatic with money laundering and bribing Philippine election officials with $1 million, according to the Associated Press….
The charges are related to payments the company allegedly made to secure a contract with the Philippine government to help oversee its 2016 presidential election and secure timely payment for its work. The payments were made between 2015 and 2018.
We’ve said here before that the roadmap to the 2020 election steal — and ongoing down-ballot vote fraud that stole multiple House and Senate seats from the GOP in 2024 — starts in Venezuela, and that Trump’s renewed pressure on that country’s dictatorship might be part of proving massive election fraud in America.
Trump isn’t kidding around. According to MediaIte:
President Donald Trump “secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela,” reported the New York Times on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials.
The report by Julian E. Barnes and Tyler Pager called the authorization the “latest step in the Trump administration’s intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela” and its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration has been targeting alleged drug smuggling boats coming from the country, using deadly military force to stop them from coming to the United States.
The administration has also stood in solidarity with the opposition in Venezuela and publicly accused Maduro of rigging the last election in the country, a claim widely agreed upon by the international community.
Younger Catholic Priests More Orthodox, Despite 10 Years of Marxist Pope and Lavender Bishops
In good news for Catholics — and those who have to share a country with us — priests in the past 10 years have become not less faithful to core church teachings, but more. That includes teaching about sexual morality, despite the overt support the Vatican showed to sexual dissenters under Pope Francis. Lifesitenews reports:
Yet another survey of American Catholic priests has found that younger generations are more theologically orthodox than their older counterparts.
The survey, conducted by the Catholic University of America (CUA), also finds younger priests are less interested in liberal social politics like LGBT issues and “climate change” than older priests. It echoes a similar report by CUA’s Catholic Project in 2022 and 2023….
The report stated: ‘[A]mong priests ordained before 1975, more than 70% described themselves as theologically progressive, while in the 2010-or-later cohort only 8% did so. By contrast, over 70% of the youngest priests described themselves as either “conservative/orthodox” or “very conservative/orthodox,” leaving only about one in five in the “middle-of-the-road.”’
I think I know what’s happening. Of course, it could be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or some other kind of miracle. But my private theory is this: What’s saving the priesthood, ironically, is the acceptance of same-sex “marriage.” That’s right. Now there’s a fabulous ceremony to which young male Disney princesses can invite their mothers that isn’t an ordination to the priesthood.
God works in mysteries ways, His wonders to perform.
Along The Stream
Don’t miss Chenyuan Snider, survivor of Communist persecution in China, and her thoughtful review of the new Communist propaganda movie promoting civil war in America starring Leonardo Di Caprio, One Battle After Another. But do miss the movie, which is long, bloodthirsty, and filthy.
Later this morning, watch the latest from Peter Demos on the danger of sports idolatry. Come on, guys. You know exactly what he means.
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.
