Steve Easterling

[Jesse Granger @JesseGranger_]

Goalies with multiple Stanley Cups, multiple Vezina Trophies, and a Conn Smythe in NHL history:

Andrei Vasilevskiy
Patrick Roy
Ken Dryden
Bernie Parent

That’s it. That’s the list.

[Steve Easterling @grim_prime]

@CrazyVibes_1 Fantastic.

[Colion Noir @MrColionNoir]

Virginia is banning the sale, purchase, and transfer of AR-15s and other so-called “assault firearms” on July 1st.

So what did Virginians do?

They bought a record number of them.

After Governor Spanberger signed SB 749, Virginia firearm background checks more than doubled compared to the same month last year — and the state ranked second in the entire country for rifle and shotgun-related checks, behind only Texas.

The politicians said they were going to get these rifles “off the streets.”

Virginians said, “Bet.”

That’s the part everybody is laughing about. But the bigger issue is what comes next.

Because this ban lets people keep what they already own — for now.

And that phrase matters.

Sales ban today. Registry tomorrow. Confiscation talk later. That’s how these things move: one “reasonable step” at a time.

Virginia tried to ban America’s most popular rifle, prosecutors are already refusing to enforce it, and the people responded the most American way possible — by clearing the shelves before the window closes.

Shop the new 2A America hat and I Am The Militia hat: https://t.co/GBFpNwit6t

Subscribe, because I’m covering what happens when this ban takes effect July 1st.

Shop the “America” hat at:

https://t.co/YplOlyDFPM

[Bolts Breakdown @BoltsBreakdown]

Congratulations to Andrei Vasilevskiy, the best goaltender in the world.

He's been a finalist for the Vezina six times in his career. Only two goalies in NHL history have been a finalist more: Roy (7x) & Brodeur (9x).

This season, Vasilevskiy finished first in wins (39), second in GAA (2.31), & 4th in SV% (.912). Additionally, he allowed 2 or less goals in 35 games this season—tied for most in the league.

Vasilevskiy secured the Vezina this year with 114 points & 17 first-place votes. When he won in 2018-19, he had 148 points & 28 first-place votes.

——————————————————

When it's all said & done, Andrei Vasilevskiy will an undisputed top-three goal in NHL history. It's only just beginning!

Here's to another decade of Vasilevskiy brilliance🍻

#GoBolts

[Faithfulness Okom @AttorneyF_]

Christianity is the only major world religion structurally built on reasoning. Isaiah 1:18 isn’t an ornament, it says “Come, let us reason together” this is the actual operating system.

God for instance does not drop the resurrection out of nowhere and demand blind surrender. He spends centuries building a case.

He starts with Sarah’s dead womb, pulling life from what biology wrote off. He establishes a pattern so that when He later asks Abraham to sacrifice that same son, Abraham isn’t taking a leap in the dark. Hebrews 11:19 says Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. He applied logic to a pattern he had already witnessed. A pattern that also simultaneously prepared Israel for a virgin birth. If God can resuscitate a barren and biologically dead womb, he can make a virgin conceive.

Look at the Book of Hebrews. No other religious text matches its structural intent. It wasn’t written to merely assert authority; it was written to argue. It addresses deep doubt, deconstructs a competing framework from within its own texts, and walks wavering believers through a sophisticated intellectual crisis. Other religions rely on later theologians to patch up their texts. Hebrews does it internally. That is a different category of scripture.

Now turn the lens.

Look at Islam’s foundational structure: one man, one cave, one angel, 23 years, and zero witnesses. If Christianity rested on a single person claiming they saw the resurrected Christ, it would rightly be dismissed for a lack of evidence. Yet Islam’s entire revelation hangs on a private, solitary encounter no other human could corroborate. The Quran arrived through a chain of one.

Even its view of angels lacks checks and balances. Daniel 10 shows an angelic messenger being resisted by spiritual forces for 21 days, needing Michael’s help to break through. In the biblical framework, angels operate within a contested cosmic order; they aren’t automated, infallible pipelines. Islam makes Gabriel the sole transmitter of truth for two decades based on a single, unverified human experience.

The five daily prayers, the very core of Islamic practice, never appear in the Quran. You must rely on later Hadith collections to even find them. A system that claims to correct the Bible, yet depends on outside oral traditions to fill its own structural gaps, hasn’t answered anything.

Islam doesn’t resolve doubt with argument. It resolves it with institutional pressure; a closed system that criminalizes exit and suppresses questioning, presenting forced conformity as divine conviction. That is not clearing doubt; that is just outlawing it.

Christianity looks at the skeptic and says: Come, look at the empty tomb, examine the evidence, reason with Me. Islam’s response to the crucifixion is simply: “it was made to appear so”.

Think about what that requires. It means God staged a cosmic illusion on a hill in Jerusalem, actively deceiving the followers of Jesus, only to later punish humanity for believing the very trick He played. One faith is secure enough to invite its own interrogation. The other has to resort to a divine magic trick just to keep its narrative from collapsing under the weight of historical fact. 😂

[Tampa Bay Lightning @TBLightning]

ANDREI VEZINA-LEVSKIY 🦁

Vasy is your 2026 Vezina Trophy winner!

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇫🇷 Four years ago, Maja Chwalińska was battling depression so severe she could barely get out of bed.

Last week, the 24-year-old arrived in Paris ranked No. 114 in the world, with no sponsors, no guaranteed income, and uncertainty over how she would even pay for her hotel room.

She fought through three qualifying matches just to enter the French Open, then stunned the tennis world with nine straight victories to reach the final.

Now she is guaranteed at least $1.6 million, with $3.25 million awaiting if she wins the title.

A week ago she was worrying about a hotel bill. Today, she is living proof that fairy tales sometimes do come true.

[Steve Easterling @grim_prime]

Insane.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇺🇸BREAKING: The CIA officer caught with $40 million in gold bars allegedly invented an entire fake top-secret spy program to steal the money.

As if this story couldn't get and wilder:

-David Rush allegedly built a sham "special access program," the blackest box in U.S. intelligence, so secret even top-clearance officials couldn't look inside without authorization

-The fake program posed as "continuity of government" work, the doomsday planning that keeps Washington running after a nuclear war

-He allegedly read in two colleagues as unwitting accomplices and used a made-up government contract to funnel millions, persuading a defense contractor to buy huge amounts of gold

-The FBI raid on his home seized 303 gold bars worth roughly $40 million, $2 million in cash, and 35 luxury watches

-Investigators say he lied about his college degrees, faked being a Navy pilot, and still sailed through the CIA's notoriously brutal vetting

-A judge ordered him held as a flight risk, and several CIA officials are now on leave as the probe widens

The scheme worked because of the system, not in spite of it.

The secrecy walls built to hide operations from China and Russia hid the fraud from the CIA itself.

A man with a fake résumé ran a fake doomsday program inside the most paranoid institution in America, and for years nobody noticed...

Source: Washington Post

[Steve Easterling @grim_prime]

@MarioNawfal This is insane.

[A Gene Robinson @AlBuffalo2nite]

I’m going to say something that may make some people uncomfortable, but at this point I don’t care.

I am tired of watching Black Americans refuse to ask the most important question in modern politics. For most of the last sixty years, Black voters have given Democrats somewhere between ninety and ninety-five percent of their vote. That’s not support. That’s loyalty on a scale few political parties in history have ever enjoyed.

So where are the results? WHERE?

When I drive through many of our neighborhoods, I don’t see the success we were promised. I see memorials on street corners. I see boys growing up without fathers. I see schools where a shocking number of children cannot read or do math at grade level. I see poverty that survives election after election while politicians return every few years demanding the same vote and offering the same explanations.

Before anyone changes the subject, blames somebody else, or starts reciting talking points, answer that question. Not with feelings. Not with corny buzzwords . Not with excuses. Answer it with results.

Because history is not a record of what Democrat politicians promised. History is a record of what actually happened. OUTCOMES.
#AStoneGroove #SilentMajoritySpeaks

[Derrick Evans @DerrickEvans4WV]

This is INSANE.

AIPAC controls 76% of the members of Congress, regardless of which party they belong to.

There’s def a uniparty, but it looks much different than I could have ever imagined.

I NEVER looked or paid attention to any of this until they took out Thomas Massie.

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

A 24-year-old Polish tennis player arrived in Paris last week ranked 114th in the world, with no sponsors, no guaranteed income, and no certainty she could even pay for her hotel room.

She had to win three qualifying matches just to enter the French Open main draw. Prize money is only paid at the end of the tournament, so a Polish sports drink brand quietly stepped in and covered her hotel bill.

Her name is Maja Chwalinska. And today, she plays in the French Open final.

Before this tournament, she had won exactly one Grand Slam main draw match in her entire career. She had battled depression so severe that in 2021 she couldn't get out of bed. She underwent knee surgery in 2022. She spent years grinding through small tournaments across Europe just to stay afloat.

Then she arrived in Paris, won three qualifiers, and kept winning. Zheng Qinwen. Elise Mertens. Maria Sakkari. Diana Shnaider. Nine straight matches. One set dropped.

She is now the first qualifier in French Open history to reach the final. The last time a qualifier reached a Grand Slam final, it was Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open. Raducanu won.

By simply making the final, Chwalinska has earned more prize money than her entire career combined. The runner-up cheque alone is $1.6 million. If she wins today, she takes home $3.25 million.
One week ago she couldn't pay for her hotel room.

[Steve Easterling @grim_prime]

@NancyRPearcey One plus of that is that these people won’t be raising children.

[Jennifer Sey @JenniferSey]

So a man took a sports scholarship from a woman. On a women's team.

That thing that never happens . . . it happened.

[Tampa Bay Rays @RaysBaseball]

Reel nice work 🎣

#RaysUp | #RaysWin

[MLB @MLB]

Drew Rasmussen spins 7 scoreless innings as @RaysBaseball shuts out Miami in the series opener!

[Kenny Carmody @KennyCarmody]

Nietzsche’s “God is Dead” & the Religion of Scientism

When Nietzsche said God is dead, he wasn’t celebrating.

He was warning.

The full statement is almost never quoted. “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?”

His concern was not theological. It was psychological. He understood that human beings cannot live without a source of ultimate authority, ultimate meaning, ultimate certainty. Remove one, and they will construct another.

The question was never whether people would have a god.

The question was what form the next one would take.

In 2020, it wore a lab coat and held a press conference.

Understand the distinction Nietzsche would have drawn, the one that matters here. Science is a method. A rigorous, self-correcting, uncertainty-tolerant process for testing claims against evidence. It is among the most valuable intellectual achievements in human history.

Scientism is a religion. Vaccines became a religion. It is the transference of theological deference onto scientific institutions, the treatment of institutional consensus as sacred text, of credentialed authority as priesthood, of dissent as heresy.

Trust the science was never a scientific statement. Science doesn’t ask to be trusted. It asks to be tested.

Trust the science was a theological statement. It meant: submit to the authority of those who speak in science’s name.

The rituals were religious in structure.

The masks as visible markers of faith. The social exclusion of the uncompliant as excommunication. The language of “following the guidance” as liturgical recitation. The designated experts as an infallible magisterium.

And like every religious institution, it dealt with heterodoxy not through evidence but through authority.

Scientists who questioned were not refuted. They were deplatformed, defunded, and destroyed professionally.

Heresy is not answered with argument. It is answered with punishment.

Nietzsche’s challenge is the same one he always issued: have the courage to live without a guaranteed certainty. Tolerate the discomfort of not knowing. Resist the comfort of handing your judgment to any authority that promises to carry it for you.

That is harder than faith. It requires more strength.

Which is exactly why Nietzsche recommended it.

[Steve Easterling @grim_prime]

#NewProfilePic #DDay

[Jake @TBRaysCentral]

.900+ OPS with only 1 more strikeout than he has walks.

He’s already one of the best hitters in the sport at 22 years old.

[Steve Easterling @grim_prime]

Let’s not make the same mistake, Tampa.
Get the @RaysBaseball stadium deal figured out.
@RaysForeverHome @JPPetersonshow @TampaSportsAuth @CityofTampa

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921.

They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year.

Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move.

They lost them for two reasons.

The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs.

In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack.

Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet.

That fight dragged on for years.

The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois.

Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting.

So now it's all gone.

The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything.

Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize.

Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up.

But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works.

Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team.

And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago.

Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes.

Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."

There it is. "Billionaire-owned."

That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line.

Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it.

Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return."

When you run things this badly, you sell what's left.

They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect.

Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check.

But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires."

Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in.

Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster.

Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.