04 Culture

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“It’s about God’s [promise] that he makes to us,” Giants starter Landen Roupp said.

Major League Baseball has drawn a line in the sand: rainbow logos are fine, Bible verses are not. Three San Francisco Giants pitchers have reportedly been warned by the MLB after appearing during Friday night’s Pride Night game with Scripture references written on their caps, prompting a fresh round of questions about whether baseball’s diversity mantra extends to Christians who dissent from the league’s liberal social messaging.

Giants starter Landen Roupp appeared with “Genesis 9:12-16” written on his cap, the biblical passage describing God’s covenant symbolized by the rainbow. The inscription partially overlapped the Pride-themed rainbow “SF” logo featured on the special-edition cap. Relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker also displayed Bible verses, while pitcher Sam Hentges opted to wear the club’s standard black cap rather than the Pride Night version.

MLB was not amused. “The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations,” MLB Chief Communications Officer Pat Courtney told The Athletic. Roupp, however, made clear he wasn’t backing away from the message.

“It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that he makes to us,” Roupp told reporters. “That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I’m thankful we live in a country where we have the freedom to believe what we want … and express what we want.”

Emails obtained by America First Legal reveal a host of officials, from FBI officials to sheriffs across the country, told the Biden administration they have no need to investigate parents protesting “woke” school boards. Despite these warnings, the Biden administration went ahead with a systematic effort to investigate parents for committing potential crimes by voicing their dissent against progressive policies.

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After Major League Baseball (MLB) warned three San Francisco Giants players for wearing Bible verses on their caps during the team’s LGBTQ+ “Pride Night” game on Friday, comedian Rob Schneider offered to pay the fines of any players who defy the Bible ban.

“I will pay the fines for any @MLB Christian player who wears a Bible verse on their uniform. @MLB is ANTI-CHRISTIAN,” Schneider declared Tuesday in a social media post.

Schneider was reacting to a Sports Illustrated story reporting on the league’s rebuke:

“Three Giants pitchers were issued a warning from Major League Baseball after they appeared in Friday’s game against the Cubs with Bible verses written on their Pride Night caps. The league notified the players that similar behavior would not be tolerated in the future.

“Right-handed pitcher Landen Roupp started Friday’s game on the mound. Etched on his cap throughout the game was ‘Gen 9:12-16’ in white lettering. The writing was a reference to the Bible verse Genesis 9:12-16.”

Two San Francisco relief pitchers, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker, also wore Bible verses on their caps.

The next day, the Giants issued a statement apologizing to the LGBTQ+ community because the Bible verses angered them:

“We understand that the choices by individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that.”

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Republicans are calling on federal authorities to impose stringent regulations on the abortion drug mifepristone, citing the dangers posed by the drug’s largely unregulated use to Americans’ drinking water. A coalition of 15 red state attorneys general is urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add mifepristone to the agency’s Contaminant Candidate List, which would likely trigger safety studies and potentially stricter regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The latest state to join the effort was Indiana.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) said in a press release this week that the use of the abortion drug is “causing pain and suffering to women. … Obviously, this starts with the individuals persuaded by Planned Parenthood and Big Pharma to use mifepristone to abort their pregnancies, but increasingly it extends to other women who might ingest the drug from their local water supplies.” Rokita noted that when a woman ingests mifepristone, whether via the drug in pill form or via mifepristone contaminating drinking water, the chemicals block the natural production of the hormone progesterone and erodes an unborn baby’s uterine environment. “The baby, in effect, is starved to death in the womb,” the Hoosier State A.G.’s office said.

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When Pope Leo XIV last week completed his seven-day trip to Spain by visiting the Canary Islands, where thousands of migrants have died attempting to reach Europe, one would expect the usual boilerplate language typical of the Catholic hierarchy of late. This would include that Western nations need to treat immigrants with respect and dignity (hint: unreservedly welcoming them in and putting them on the fast track to citizenship) and that immigrants have the right to leave their nations of origin. There was certainly some of that, similar to his predecessor, Francis.

But what was surprisingly welcome was that the pope tempered that language with exhortations and warnings to those same migrants, a message that has been often frustratingly absent from the Catholic Church’s public commentary regarding one of the greatest crises facing the West. It’s language that many of the Catholic faithful — and the broader world that, to various degrees, still looks to the papacy as a moral compass — desperately yearned to hear, especially given that Catholic teaching is actually quite nuanced and moderate on the topic of immigration and borders. One hopes the rest of the Catholic hierarchy were paying attention.

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Although the league says it was merely responding to a run-of-the-mill rule infraction, its warning to three San Francisco Giants players after a recent game struck many Americans as inherently anti-Christian.

The trio wrote Bible verses onto their caps before the “Pride Night” game during which the team had been instructed to wear rainbow-themed uniforms. 

In response to the move, the MLB handed down its reprimand and, in turn, opened itself up to widespread criticism.

As The Hill reported, Vice President J.D. Vance was among the critics:

“To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message,” MLB told The New York Times about the incident. “We respect players’ right to free expression. However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League Baseball’s uniform regulations.”

Vance, in a social media post on Tuesday, responded to a Sports Illustrated report about the warning, saying “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.”

MLB is one of several major sports leagues that features annual Pride nights and events, encouraging teams to celebrate diversity during Pride Month in June.

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Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Sine Qua Non Sequitur is investigating rumors of a “Never Ending Meat Wheel” at a Wednesdays-only speakeasy somewhere near the Inner Hebrides.

This isn’t just about California today, but that’s always a good starting place for any overall examination of the extreme leftward drift of the Democratic Party. As we discussed last week, that is the proving ground for the most insane leftist initiatives and schemes that the Dems hope to one day mainstream.

Our jumping off point is a real doozy, even by California lunatic fringe standards. Had I not read it on one of our sister sites, I probably would have triple-checked it. This is from my Townhall colleague Joseph Chalfant:

A new report from the City Journal revealed the “LGBTBE Certification” process that individuals must go through should they wish to receive preferential treatment in the taxpayer-funded contract bidding process in the state of California.

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Jacob Wenske, 26, was charged in late May with one count of making a terroristic threat against Kirk.

A new report has revealed that anti-Christian extremism and “assassination culture” could have fueled a recent assassination attempt that targeted the widow of Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk, who is now leading Turning Point USA. The report comes as threats against public officials have increased.

Jacob Wenske, 26, was charged in late May with one count of making a terroristic threat involving public fear of serious bodily injury or public disruption after he allegedly planned to bomb a Turning Point USA event where Kirk was set to speak as the keynote.

At the time, he wrote in an email to Turning Point USA that he was targeting Kirk as well as other “Christian nationalists,” according to police documents. The suspect had also posted multiple threats on social media in addition to the email, according to the Fox News.

The threats against Kirk allegedly from Wenske emerge as there have been a record number of threats against members of Congress as well as other political figures in the US. According to the US Capitol Police Threat Assessment, there was a 58 percent increase in threats against members of Congress from 2024 to 2025.

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The strategy of selling killing based on it being limited to rare circumstances is used in every jurisdiction when debating the legalization of poisoning.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) argues that once legal, the assisted killing law inevitably expands because it is discriminatory to allow doctors to kill one group of people while restricting doctors from killing another group of people with similar conditions. EPC has been vilified for our honesty.

The Globe and Mail published an opinion article on June 13 by Dr Konia Trouton titled: Why are the rules different for MAiD depending on what you have? Trouton is not only a euthanasia doctor but she is also a co-founder and past president of CAMAP (Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Practitioners) and she helped develop the curriculum for training doctors to poison (kill) their patients.

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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is demanding answers from Major League Baseball (MLB) after it threatened to punish several players for expressing their Christian faith.

In a Tuesday letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, the Show Me State’s senior senator requested the league account for its recent warning to a group of San Francisco Giants players over their decision to inscribe Bible verses on their “pride night” hats. The players wrote variations of Genesis 9:12-16, which details God’s use of a rainbow to symbolize His covenant that He would never again destroy mankind by flooding the Earth.

Following leftist backlash, MLB released a statement Monday, saying, “The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations.”

Writing to Manfred about the incident, Hawley cited a recent story involving a Washington Nationals executive who was fired after admitting on camera that the team discriminated against one of their Christian players. In doing so, the GOP senator demanded that the commissioner “must answer for what appears to be a pattern of discrimination within MLB against baseball players who profess their Christian faith.”

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EXCERPT:

Although the league says it was merely responding to a run-of-the-mill rule infraction, its warning to three San Francisco Giants players after a recent game struck many Americans as inherently anti-Christian.

The trio wrote Bible verses onto their caps before the “Pride Night” game during which the team had been instructed to wear rainbow-themed uniforms. 

In response to the move, the MLB handed down its reprimand and, in turn, opened itself up to widespread criticism.

As The Hill reported, Vice President J.D. Vance was among the critics:

“To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message,” MLB told The New York Times about the incident. “We respect players’ right to free expression. However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League Baseball’s uniform regulations.”

Vance, in a social media post on Tuesday, responded to a Sports Illustrated report about the warning, saying “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.”

MLB is one of several major sports leagues that features annual Pride nights and events, encouraging teams to celebrate diversity during Pride Month in June.

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Your water may be contaminated by abortion pills, officials warn.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told the Daily Caller News Foundation that it is reviewing comments from 14 attorneys general urging the agency to classify mifepristone as a water contaminant.

“Pharmaceuticals, like Mifepristone, encompass a diverse group of chemicals, including prescription and over the counter drugs,” an EPA spokesperson told the DCNF. “EPA is currently reviewing comments submitted on its draft contaminant candidate list 6 (CCL 6), which lists pharmaceuticals as a group, and human health benchmarks for 374 individual pharmaceuticals that are approved by the FDA and may occur in surface and groundwaters and/or treated drinking water.”

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Rolling into the 250th anniversary of the United States, liberals, leftists, Democrats, and democratic socialists are united behind one message: America stinks.

At the counterprogramming to the White House UFC match over the weekend, a bunch of miserable looking, aging celebrities held a “#resistance” rally or something like that.

Robert De Niro, an aging Hollywood gazillionaire last seen trying and failing to play a young tough guy in “The Irishman,” took to the stage and announced that “loving our country is starting to sound like an abused spouse saying they love their abuser.”

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CHICAGO — A person is in custody in an investigation of a large cross set on fire in a well-known Chicago park, police said Tuesday.

The burning cross was discovered June 9 in Grant Park, where Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech when he was elected the nation’s first Black president in 2008.

A 21-year-old college student told WMAQ-TV that he was the shirtless person in an image distributed by police when they were looking for a suspect. But police did not immediately say Tuesday if he’s the person in custody.

The man said he protesting President Donald Trump and not making a racist statement.

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California is “too gay to function.” And if you are surprised by this, you are not paying attention.

According to Chris Rufo, in California, the left is prioritizing contracts for “state-certified gay-owned businesses.” It is unclear how your business can get certified in gayness, but I digress.

Per City Journal:

In 1986, Governor George Deukmejian signed Assembly Bill 3678, which required certain CPUC-regulated utilities to submit annual “plans” for buying goods and services from woman- and minority-owned companies. Two years later, CPUC created its “Supplier Diversity Program,” which would enforce the law and set contracting “goals” for large utilities.

Under a series of Democratic governors, the program has expanded to include gay-owned businesses. In September 2014, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring CPUC to recognize “LGBT-owned businesses” as eligible for supplier-diversity benefits. Five years later, Governor Gavin Newsom expanded the program further, “encouraging” other companies involved in the energy sector to award contracts to gay-owned firms.

Question: How has this mandate made residents better off? When mandating certain insignificant preferences be prioritized when awarding special contracts, the state ought to be held to some accountability. Why does no one care?

By 2022, CPUC had fully implemented the expansion. In practice, this meant establishing a “goal” for utility companies with annual revenues exceeding $25 million to buy things from state-certified LGBT businesses: 0.5 percent of procurement in 2022; 1 percent in 2023; and 1.5 percent in 2024 and beyond. If “large” CPUC-regulated utilities met these “goals” in 2024, they would have sent roughly $633 million to LGBT-owned firms.

San Francisco Giants pitcher Landen Roupp wrote Genesis 9:12-16 on his rainbow festooned ballcap on “Pride Day.” The day celebrates non-heterosexuality and the denial of the human binary gender. Roupp stated after the game that the rainbow is “about God’s covenant… a promise that he makes to us.”

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Last week in Frisco, Texas, 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison. No one in the jury believed his claim of self-defense and instead found that Anthony provoked a confrontation with student Austin Metcalf by going into his school’s tent during a track meet, taunting the students there, refusing to leave despite repeated requests, and finally plunging a knife into Austin’s heart after being nudged.

It remains a mystery why exactly Anthony did this, which might explain why so many people even entertained his claim of self-defense. But the facts of the case show that Anthony apparently had no other reason to kill Metcalf than pure malice and aggression.

One could go further and ask why Anthony harbored these violent impulses in the first place. He lived in Frisco, an affluent, family-friendly suburb with good schools. He had two parents at home to take care of him. He played sports and had plenty of friends. He was a month away from graduating and could have done anything. So why throw it away?

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Most teachers are concerned about their students’ education amid the looming artificial intelligence revolution, a recent survey shows.

Fifty-four percent of K-12 teachers say AI is making it harder for their students to learn critical thinking skills, IPSOS reported Friday. NPR/IPSOS surveyed a representative sample of teachers between April 27 and May 5.

Forty percent of teachers said AI has had a negative effect on education, whereas only 9 percent said it’s been positive, according to the survey. Additionally, 57 percent of teachers said AI is making it harder to assess their students’ knowledge level, and 59 percent said AI is tarnishing trust between them and their students.

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Oscar-nominated actress Ellen Page—who now goes by the name “Elliot” and identifies as a man—recently told an interviewer that she is now experiencing “healthy masculinity.” Ilana Glazer, host of the “It’s Open” podcast, asked Page about her “gender journey.”

I’ve been asking people about masculinity and femininity,” Glazer said. “In your gender journey, which to me as someone who knows you but also as someone consuming you as a public figure, to me you appear healthy and continually finding more health and security. What does it mean to you to hear me say healthy masculinity?

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The administrative state orchestrated a calculation during the global pandemic, utilizing specific diagnostic infrastructure to drive a nationwide enforcement regime. Anthony Fauci, acting as the primary architect of the federal response via the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), deployed hyper-amplified diagnostic parameters to mandate unprecedented economic and societal lockouts. This strategic mobilization substituted clinical confirmation with automated data collection, forcing compliance and establishing a blueprint for institutional control.

Anthony Fauci directed a command-and-control apparatus that dismantled localized medical autonomy and enforced absolute policy adherence across federal and corporate sectors. By shifting the state response from optional guidance to rigid containment directives, the public health leadership created an operational environment where alternate medical strategies faced immediate institutional suppression. Federal executive powers restricted public assembly, disrupted small commerce, and penalized individual resistance, utilizing public health agencies as an enforcement arm.

The administrative architecture penalized non-compliance by design. State governors and municipal authorities received direct allocations of emergency funding tied explicitly to the execution of federal mitigation protocols. This structural mechanism transformed local health networks into branches of a centralized command structure, ensuring that internal dissent from independent medical practitioners encountered professional decertification and systemic exclusion.

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Rebecca Bennett, a Democrat nominee for Congress in New Jersey, was caught on audio claiming she stopped going to church specifically because she could not stand sitting in the same pews as people who voted for President Donald Trump.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that it obtained audio from a February campaign event of Bennett, a Navy veteran and healthcare executive running against Republican incumbent Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. for the state’s 7th Congressional District. In the clip, Bennett answers a question about how she deals with invocations of her patriotism being considered a “right-coded way of presenting yourself.”

“I will say I use that word intentionally, and the reason that I do it is because, so, I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and after Trump got elected, I stopped going to church for the first time in my life because I was like, ‘I cannot sit in this room of people,’” she responded. “At the time, I was stationed somewhere that was pretty conservative. I was still in the military at the time. I was like, ‘I cannot sit in this church full of people who voted for Trump.’ And then, ultimately, I decided they do not get to decide what Christianity looks like, and to me, it’s the same thing about (how) they do not get to decide what patriotism is. You do not get to wrap yourself in the flag while you are literally murdering Americans in broad daylight.” (The audio ends before Bennett elaborates on which Americans were “murdered in broad daylight.”)

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(LifeSiteNews) – America First Legal (AFL) accused Chicago Public Schools (CPS), San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), and Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) of “socially transitioning” gender-confused students without the knowledge or consent of their parents in new complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The New York Post reported that the group maintains all three districts let students change the names and genders they use at school without parental involvement or notification, plus lets male students who “identify” as girls participate in female-specific athletics and use female lockers and restrooms.

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Every now and again, someone in Congress takes advantage of having this or that weasel to question under oath. Sen. John Kennedy is a master at making them squirm, and all he does is calmly ask the kinds of questions Normal Americans would ask, and particularly, the kinds of follow-up questions the media and congressional Democrats never ask of Democrats. He’s never rude or angry. He doesn’t insult anyone, but when a witness is concealing something or lying, or says something absolutely stupid, he calls them on it to great comic effect.