Trump Isn’t “Pirating Ships” — He Must Seize and Sell 300 Venezuelan Oil Tankers to Satisfy an International Court Judgment Owed to U.S. Companies
A lot of people are reacting emotionally to the idea of oil tankers being seized, but most of the outrage comes from not understanding what is actually being discussed. So let’s slow this down and explain it clearly, legally, and step by step. This is not war. This is not piracy. This is judgment enforcement — the same principle used every day when courts seize bank accounts, property, aircraft, or cargo from someone who lost in court and refuses to pay.
What Venezuela did (the part that always gets skipped) In the 2000s, under Hugo Chávez, Venezuela seized oil projects owned by foreign companies, including major U.S. firms such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. This wasn’t a policy disagreement. It was expropriation: • Contracts were broken • Assets were taken • Compensation that had been agreed to was not paid That is not controversial. It is historical fact.
What the courts decided Those U.S. companies didn’t complain on social media. They went to international arbitration and U.S. courts — the proper legal venues. They won. The rulings were: • Final • Binding • Enforceable Venezuela lost and was ordered to pay tens of billions of dollars in damages.
The real problem: Venezuela refused to pay Here is the key point most critics ignore: Venezuela refused to comply with the court judgments. In any legal system — domestic or international — when a party: • Loses in court • Owes a judgment • Refuses to pay …the law allows creditors to seize commercial assets belonging to the debtor outside its borders to satisfy the judgment. This is called judgment enforcement. Countries do not get a free pass simply because they are countries.
Why oil tankers even enter the conversation Venezuela’s primary commercial asset is oil. Oil moves on oil tankers. Those tankers: • Carry state-owned Venezuelan oil • Are commercial property, not military or diplomatic assets • Can be lawfully seized by court order in cooperating jurisdictions This is no different in principle from seizing: • A bank account • A plane • A shipment of goods Calling this “piracy” is legally incorrect. Piracy is theft without lawful authority. This is court-ordered seizure to collect a debt already ruled on.
The math everyone avoids Let’s use conservative, realistic numbers so no one can claim exaggeration. • Estimated unpaid court judgments: ~$35 billion • Oil price used: $62 per barrel • Typical large oil tanker (VLCC): ~2 million barrels
Value of one full tanker: • Gross value: ~$124 million • Net value after realistic court-sale discounts: ~$115 million
Now do the math:
$35,000,000,000 ÷ $115,000,000 ≈ 300 tankers That’s where the number comes from. Not one tanker. Not ten. About three hundred. One tanker only covers about one-third of one percent of what Venezuela owes.
What this means — and what it does NOT mean This does not mean: • Tankers are being randomly grabbed • This is a military action • The goal is punishment It does mean: • Courts already ruled • A debt legally exists • Enforcement is the only option left when payment is refused When Donald Trump talks about seizing oil shipments, he is not inventing a new power. He is talking about using existing legal authority to enforce judgments Venezuela already lost.
In plain English:
You took property, you lost in court, you refused to pay — so your commercial assets are seized and sold until the debt is satisfied. That is how the rule of law works.
Why you don’t see hundreds of tankers seized Because enforcement is: • Legally narrow • Jurisdiction-dependent • Deliberately targeted Venezuela also structured its exports to: • Avoid enforceable ports • Use intermediaries • Break shipments into smaller pieces So tanker seizures are rare, careful, and strategic, not mass roundups. Tankers are leverage, not a magic wand. The bottom line • Venezuela seized U.S. assets • Venezuela lost in international court • Venezuela refuses to pay • The debt is ~$35 billion • A tanker is worth ~$115 million net • It would take ~300 Venezuelan oil tankers to make the judgment whole This is lawful enforcement, not piracy. This is accounting, not aggression. This is what happens when court rulings are ignored. People arguing “this sounds extreme” are missing the most important fact: The court already decided. Once that happens, enforcement isn’t optional — it’s inevitable. Everything else flows from that reality.
Maduro getting arrested just shook the whole board.
Everybody thinks this is just about Venezuela.
It ain’t. 
This isn’t a victory lap. It’s not bloodlust. And it’s not me excusing anything evil done in the name of “politics.”
It’s an explanation. Because power always has a pattern.
Read this slowly. If it makes you mad, ask yourself who you’re mad at. Then read it again.
Here’s the big idea.
Tyrants don’t fall because CNN suddenly finds a conscience. They fall when the money shifts. When protection runs out. When the cost of keeping them gets higher than the benefit. 
No accidents. No “random timing.”
What happened, in plain English.
U.S. officials say there were strikes in and around Caracas. And President Trump announced Maduro was captured and flown out. 
That ain’t a normal headline. That’s the kind of move you only see when the government wants the whole world to notice.
⸻
Why is this good?
Because Maduro’s been accused for years of running his country like a c•rtel in a suit. The U.S. filed charges back in 2020 for n•rco-t•rrorism and c•caine tr•fficking conspiracies. 
And the U.S. government had a standing reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction, later raised as high as $50 million. 
Whether you love Trump or hate him, this part matters.
A message got sent:
“Some of y’all ain’t untouchable anymore.” 
Why is Maduro a bad man?
Because his rule has been tied to authoritarian control and a nation getting crushed. When a leader won’t let his people choose, won’t let the truth breathe, and keeps the machine fed while families starve, that’s not “leadership.”
That’s oppression wearing a flag pin. 
Now the part folks in the U.S. need to understand.
This can hit America in three ways.
First, dr•gs.
If the U.S. is serious about c•rtel-style regimes pushing poison north, this is a warning shot to every “government” that makes money off tr•fficking. 
Second, immigration.
If Venezuela destabilizes more, people flee. And guess where a chunk of that pressure lands.
Right here. 
Third, energy and money.
Reuters reported Venezuela’s oil facilities were largely unscathed after the strike, but the bigger story is shipping, sanctions pressure, and how fast markets and black markets react. 
And here’s the part the media will play games with.
One side will call it “freedom.” The other side will call it “imperialism.” The uniparty will use it to fundraise, posture, and distract.
Because outrage is a product. And business is good when people are blind and angry.
You knew this already.
A lot of y’all have been saying for years that some leaders aren’t “politicians.” They’re bosses. They’re middlemen. They’re the front man for a dirty pipeline.
And you got laughed at for saying it.
Clean takeaway.
When power finally moves, it moves fast. And when the protection umbrella closes, the “strongman” suddenly ain’t that strong.
I am stunned by where New York is today. Mamdani has appointed an attorney who represented a 9/11-linked al-Qaeda terrorist as his chief counsel. One of his first acts was to repeal executive orders that defined antisemitism and ensured that city agencies enforced that definition. This is truly mind boggling. Palestinian Activist Linda Sarsour: “I would be honored to die a martyr.” Sarsour is one of Zohran’s top advisors. 🚨NYC CONQUERED: NO PLANES. NO EXPLOSIONS. JUST SURRENDER
New York State is lighting 16 buildings green in recognition of Muslim American Heritage Month.
Governor Hochul issued a proclamation. It’s the first time New York has officially done this.
HERITAGE?” – LET’S BE HONEST
What exactly is the “heritage” being honored?
How about instead of lighting buildings green, we honor the Americans murdered in 16 Islamic terror attacks carried out on U.S. soil by jihadists?
Islamic Terror Attack: World Trade Center Bombing — New York City (1993)
Islamic Jihad Terror Attacks: September 11 — New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania (2001)
Parents are the primary authority and steward of their child’s education and moral upbringing. Yet, in today’s public school system, many families are alarmed (if not horrified) by the content being taught to children as young as five years old—particularly in areas like “comprehensive” sex education, gender identity, and radical ideological instruction.
There are also classes, materials, and extracurricular activities being promoted in public schools that directly conflict with Christian beliefs and family values. That’s the bad news.
The good news? Parents still have the right to opt their children out of these harmful programs and agendas.
Parents, grandparents, and church leaders must respond proactively to protect the hearts and minds of children from the wicked propaganda to which too many government school bureaucrats are exposing and encouraging children into early sexual experimentation, homosexuality, and transgender confusion.
Now that Gov. JB Pritzker has signed a new law requiring universal mental health screening in Illinois public schools, Christian parents should be especially alert. Do you want your child’s emotional and psychological well-being assessed through the lens of secular ideologies that reject biblical truth? There are serious reasons to be concerned that the state’s values will not align with your family’s faith.
Who decides what qualifies as a mental health issue? Can we really trust government-approved professionals to make such judgments when many of them reject the foundational truth that God created us male and female—and that God has set clear moral boundaries for sexuality and life?
Also, what happens when a boy who thinks he is a girl is screened by the school district, and this desire is discovered? Will the school notify the parents—or conceal it in the name of “affirmation”? What if the parents disagree with the label or proposed treatment—do they have any rights or recourse? Will the DCFS be called in to interrogate parents, or worse?
And will the same institutions now labeling children as mentally unwell also promote curriculum that normalizes LGBTQ ideology and graphic sex-ed, even in kindergarten?
OPT OUT
Parents, if you’re unable to homeschool your child or afford private education, please consider protecting him/her from radical sex education, mental health screenings, and other godless indoctrination.Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court granted public school parents the right to withdraw their children from materials and discussions on LGBTQ+ issues and other subjects that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” conservative leaders in California are predicting schools will be swamped with opt-out demands.
That hasn’t happened yet, but attorneys agree that this latest escalation of the culture wars will likely cause turmoil, confusion, and years of litigation, largely because the court offered no guidance on how opt-out requests should be handled, how religious belief claims can or should be verified, and how schools should handle potential logistical issues.
“There is a lot of trepidation about how to handle this issue in a way that is legally compliant and doesn’t trigger a backlash from one side of the issue or the other,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, told EdSource via email Saturday night.
“Superintendents have concerns about how to make a fact-specific determination regarding parent requests, and we have heard of districts getting threats of litigation from both sides,” he said.
LGBTQ+ advocates and defenders of the state’s progressive school standards are threatening discrimination lawsuits if opt-outs are granted, Flint said. Parents are threatening to sue if they aren’t granted immediately.
In most districts, he added, leaders “are hesitant to address this publicly for fear of attracting more scrutiny and making the issue even more difficult to manage.”
A leading academic on education law said that while the Supreme Court decision was based on parental objections to LGBTQ+ books and lessons, the religious opt-outs are likely to have a broader reach.
“It is deeply misguided for people to believe that this case is only about LGBTQ+ and equality,” Yale Law School professor Justin Driver told EdSource. The decision “sweeps, given the prevalence of deeply felt religious objections, to lots of material,” he said.
It could “affect everything from reading to science, to literature to history. It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the decision,” Driver said. “Some people think Bert and Ernie are gay. Is ‘Sesame Street’ now suspect?”
California, for instance, requires students to learn the history of gay people fighting for civil rights and the story of the country’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor was assassinated in 1978 and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.
Flint said that parents “in at least one district have hinted at trying to expand the opt-out requests to other types of instructional materials.” He did not identify those materials.
Meanwhile, as school administrators ponder their next steps, firebrand social conservatives are seizing the moment that the nation’s highest court created.
“There should be opt-outs. There are things that go against what God laid down,” pastor Angelo Frazier, of Bakersfield’s RiverLakes Community Church, said of what’s taught in California schools.
“It’s not education. It’s ‘You can touch me here.’ It’s very suggestive and inappropriate.” He said the ruling was a relief to frustrated parents in his congregation. “It gives them breathing room.”
The leader of a Fresno-based Christian group, long involved in parental rights advocacy, said the state is no longer in charge of what children learn in school.
The ruling shows that “parents are the ultimate determination of whose values get taught to the child,” said Greg Burt of the California Family Council. “We’re now in charge of deciding what we think is good and what we think is not good.”
But as opt-outs begin to play out across California’s more than 10,000 public schools as the 2025-26 academic year opens, the only certainty from the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, is that uncertainties abound — and may for years.
They include:
Can or should parents file blanket opt-out requests stating they want their child removed from any and all instruction about LGBTQ+ topics, and leave school personnel to sort it out? Or should schools ask parents to review reading lists — often available online — and let parents flag those items to which they object?
What do school leaders do with students whose parents opt them out of a class? Their class time still needs to be used for instruction. Where do they go?
Who watches or instructs the youngest of removed students, who can’t be left unsupervised? Some of the books cited in the Supreme Court case, including ones about a child’s favorite uncle marrying a man and a puppy getting lost at a Pride parade, are used in kindergarten and even transitional kindergarten classes.
Will school districts need to budget money to defend lawsuits from parents whose opt-out requests may be denied?
Can parents even attempt to opt out their child from exposure to an LGBTQ+ teacher, or a teacher who displays a Pride flag in a classroom?
Lawyers and academics interviewed for this story said that Justice Samuel Alito’s decision, joined by the court’s five other conservatives, offered little guidance on how opt-outs should work.
Mahmoud v. Taylor happened because the Montgomery County schools in suburban Maryland created an opt-out program to appease parents who objected to the teaching of LGBTQ+ materials on religious grounds. But the program ended in less than a year. Alito noted in his decision that school officials found that “individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” Parents then sued.
Focusing largely on principles of religious freedom, Alito’s decision doesn’t specifically address how opt-outs might work given the Maryland situation, or how claims of a sincerely held religious belief might be evaluated.
The high court has long recognized the rights of parents to “direct the religious upbringing of their children,” he wrote, a principle at the case’s core.
But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonja Sotomayor predicted opt-outs would cause “chaos for this nation’s public schools.”
Giving parents the chance to opt out of all lessons and story times that conflict with their beliefs “will impose impossible administrative burdens,” Sotomayor wrote. It threatens the very essence of public education.
“The reverberations of the court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.
Other conservatives said they see a path where Alito’s decision could lead to the removal of books and teaching they oppose by overwhelming schools with opt-outs to the point where the best option is to remove the materials.
“If there are so many people who want to opt out of this curriculum, maybe we should stop teaching it,” said Julie Hamill, an attorney and president of the California Justice Center. School leaders, she said, should be reflecting on whether they are “doing something wrong as a district and educational entity. Those are questions that are not being asked right now. It’s very obvious that’s what needs to happen.”
Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley Unified School District board member running for state superintendent of public instruction in next year’s election, said she wants opt-outs to “overtax the system to where they just give up, and they stop teaching this stuff.”
If so many opt-outs were filed that books are removed from curricula, that would help, said Burt of the California Family Council, which has urged parents to flood districts with opt-outs. “We’re advocating for good books in school, and we think these are bad books, so we’re not going to be sad if we see them go.”
But an anti-censorship advocate said that would amount to book banning by a different name.
“I’m not at all surprised that this is their plan of attack,” Tasslyn Magnusson, senior adviser to the Freedom to Read team at PEN America, an anti-censorship group, said of conservative activists. “These are books about families. These are books about how we experience the world, and they’re beautiful and well written,” she said. “Remember that it’s important for kids to have a variety of materials in front of them that resonate with their lives and their experiences.”
Another impact of the opt-outs will be how LGBTQ+ students and students from families with LGBTQ+ members will react when classmates leave and when teaching materials reflecting their lives are presented.
That could make “a child feel they’re not only different, but that they’re not accepted or that they should be ashamed of the family that they have,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas, a spokesperson for Equality California, a civil rights group. Although the opt-outs promise to be disruptive, he said, they won’t end the state’s use of an inclusive curriculum. “We’re talking about a very small population of parents that are ignorant and full of hate.”
The presidents of California’s two largest teachers unions both said educators are not going to fold under pressure created by the high court’s decision.
“The role of the public school is to help students develop the critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary to engage in a pluralistic democracy,” said Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “We cannot have individuals dictating what is the good of the public. It’s also important that our public schools avoid over-compliance and refuse to capitulate to the weaponization of this decision.”
David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said that teachers “will obviously follow the law, but we want to make it clear to our members that there are other laws in California around kids’ ability to learn about their own identity, cultures, or all kinds of identities. We’re going to still honor kids’ ability to learn about their own identity and all kinds of identities.”
Goldberg also said it would be a mistake for school administrators to place the burden of opt-outs on teachers. “Teachers are overwhelmed already, just getting through the curriculum,” he said. Opt-outs are “a compliance thing that districts are going to need to figure out.”
The Scopes Monkey Trial
The country has a long history of science clashing with religion.
Driver, the Yale law professor, noted that in a 1987 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court that ruled fundamentalist Christians could remove their children from public school lessons that depicted women working outside the home, which they argued conflicted with their religious beliefs.
Now, following Alito’s decision in the Maryland case, the losing argument in that case could be successful, Driver said. “It seems to me the Mahmoud versus Taylor decision empowered these sorts of objections to potentially carry the day.”
Alito’s decision also came 100 years after the landmark court case on the teaching of evolution in public schools — the epic clash of science versus religion known as the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted legendary lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan against each other.
Jennings, hired to prosecute a high school biology teacher, John Scopes, for teaching evolution against state law, won. But Tennessee’s Supreme Court later overturned Scopes’ conviction, ruling that a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools was unconstitutional.
But it didn’t end the debate over teaching science in the face of religious beliefs, said Pepperdine University law and history professor Edward Larson, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the trial. When it ended, “school districts all over the country and some states banned the teaching of the theory of human evolution,” he said.
Even when religious objections were later banned, “a series of state laws and local actions calling for balanced treatment of either teaching creation science, along with evolution, or later intelligent design” followed, Larson said. Several states, including Alabama, require disclaimers in biology books stating evolution “is just a theory,” he said.
“The issue of evolution in public schools remains a flash point,” Larson said. “It has been for a hundred years, it still is today.”
As the Alito decision plays out in the coming years, Larson said, “Schools may want to force people to provide all sorts of evidence” to prove their sincerely held religious beliefs. “But I’m thinking that most won’t feel it’s worth their time to get too engaged,” he added.
The U.S.-China trade war is turbocharging the revival of America’s rare earth industry. After Beijing’s export controls exposed U.S. vulnerability, public and private capital is pouring into domestic firms to build a secure supply chain. scmp.com/economy/global… US-China Tensions Fuel Revival of American Rare Earth Industry
The CEO of USA Rare Earth – a company launched in 2019 with the goal of reviving America’s rare earth magnet supply chain – was having a hard time raising capital from Wall Street until a few months ago.
China has dominated the rare earths sector for decades, with its firms having a huge competitive advantage due to their lower costs and massive capacity, making the American company’s vision a tough sell to investors.
But then came US President Donald Trump’s return to office. After a US tariff blitz led Beijing to impose export controls on seven rare earth elements, America’s vulnerability was exposed in vivid fashion as a string of blue-chip American companies warned that a lack of magnets could soon disrupt their production.
All of a sudden, the investment environment “all changed”, Ballard said, and the CEO has been quick to take advantage.
“We’re looking at how we can accelerate,” he told the Post in an interview near his home in the San Francisco Bay Area. “We want to be a major player in this.”
Capital is now pouring into the US mining sector as Washington invests huge resources to reduce its reliance on China for critical minerals, which are needed to produce everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
Last month, the Pentagon invested US$400 million to acquire a big stake in MP Materials, which owns America’s only operating rare earth mining and processing facility. Apple also struck a US$500 million deal with the company to create a recycling facility to shore up its rare earth magnet supply.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration approved a licence for a new mining facility in the state of Wyoming – the first approval granted for a US rare earth mine in 70 years.
USA Rare Earth is also reaping huge benefits from a surge of investor interest, as the company targets becoming the second largest player in America’s rare earth sector after MP Materials.
It has already raised US$170 million over the past year for its 600-tonne capacity magnet production line. Ballard said the extra US$300 million that he aimed to raise for a second, third and possibly fourth production line was now “all raise-able”.
The company’s March listing on the Nasdaq exchange has brought in a growing number of retail investors, as well as three strategic US-based investors, according to Ballard. Private equity investors and buyers with a long-term need for metals may also be willing to invest, with USA Rare Earth already in talks with more than 60 potential clients, he added.
By the end of 2026, USA Rare Earth plans to expand the rare earth magnet production capacity at its plant in Stillwater, Oakland, to 1,200 tonnes, with a goal of eventually hitting a capacity of 5,000 tonnes.
“There’s been a proven moment here and there’s plenty of demand,” Ballard said.
The American company, which currently has about 50 employees, is working to set up an internship programme with Oklahoma State University to train future engineering talent.
The global rare earth elements market was worth US$12.44 billion last year and is projected to more than triple in size by 2033 to reach US$37.06 billion, according to the market research firm IMARC Group.
Ballard expects global demand for rare earth metals to double over the next decade to 250,000 tonnes, with the United States and Europe accounting for 100,000 tonnes of that demand and China around one-third.
USA Rare Earth’s Round Top rare earth and lithium project in Texas has found reserves of 15 of the 17 rare earth elements. The mine is leased from the state government on a remote mountainside a 90-minute drive from the city of El Paso.
To move ahead technologically, the USA Rare Earth mine is “actively developing rare earth separation capabilities” and advanced magnet production techniques, industry information platform Rare Earth Exchanges said.
Ballard said the mine recycled acids, reagents and water to sustain its operations and ease any future environmental concerns – an issue that has held back the US’ rare earth industry in the past.
The company could expand faster if the US had a better way of recycling used cars and smartphones to harvest their rare earth content, Ballard said.
However, the CEO cautioned that China would still play an outsize role in supplying rare earth metals to the US even if American industry got stronger.
“I’m not going to try and compete with China on price – I’m not saying we’re going to get 100 per cent of anything, that’s a silly expectation,” Ballard said.
Beijing began fast-tracking more export permits for rare earths in June, easing global supply issues, but China still maintains a stranglehold on the industry. The country controls roughly 60 per cent of global rare earth mining and 90 per cent of the world’s refining capacity.
“The biggest strength for the US rare earth elements industry right now is in that they have the support of Washington to increase production so China can’t hold the supply of magnets over the USA in a trade fight,” said Jon Hykawy, president of the Toronto-based industry advisory Stormcrow Capital.
But Chinese mines benefited from a larger and cheaper labour force and often had a higher rare earth output than peers in the US, Hykawy said. The US restrained its industry’s development in the past over land degradation and water contamination fears.
The 77-year-old Indigenous actor kept forgetting his lines. The director said three words that changed everything: “Tell your story.” What happened next made film history.
1976 Filming for “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
Chief Dan George, the legendary Indigenous actor who’d made history six years earlier as the first Native American nominated for an Academy Award, was struggling.
At 77, memorizing pages of dialogue wasn’t as easy as it once was. Takes were running long. The script wasn’t flowing naturally. Director Clint Eastwood watched, considered, then made a decision that would define some of cinema’s most powerful moments. “Forget the exact words,” he told George. “Just tell me the story the way you’d tell it.” It was more than just practical direction. It was an act of profound respect. Chief Dan George was born Geswanouth Slahoot in 1899 on the Burrard Reserve in North Vancouver. For most of his life, he wasn’t an actor—he was a longshoreman, a father, and in 1951, became chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. He didn’t start acting until his 60s. But when he did, he brought something Hollywood had never seen: authentic Indigenous voice, real authority, lived experience spanning nearly a century of change. His breakthrough came in 1970 with “Little Big Man,” playing Old Lodge Skins opposite Dustin Hoffman. George rewrote some of his own dialogue to reflect actual Indigenous perspectives rather than Hollywood’s imagined version. The performance earned him an Oscar nomination—the first Indigenous actor ever recognized by the Academy. Hollywood noticed. Not just his talent, but what he represented: the possibility of Indigenous characters portrayed with full humanity rather than stereotypes. When “The Outlaw Josey Wales” was being cast, George was the clear choice for Lone Watie—a Cherokee survivor of the Trail of Tears who becomes companion to Clint Eastwood’s outlaw protagonist. The role was substantial. Lone Watie wasn’t comic relief or mystical guide. He was a fully realized character who’d lost everything to American expansion, finding unexpected family among fellow outcasts. But age and the demands of memorization were creating challenges on set. This is where many directors would have demanded retakes, used cue cards, or quietly started recasting conversations. Eastwood, himself a longtime actor who understood performance from the inside, recognized something more valuable than perfect script adherence. Chief Dan George carried the actual history of his people. When Lone Watie talked about the Trail of Tears, George wasn’t channeling research—he was speaking from generational memory, from stories passed down, from the lived reality of Indigenous survival. So Eastwood gave him space to find his own path through scenes. To use his natural storytelling cadence rather than Hollywood’s written rhythms. To draw on his real voice rather than a screenwriter’s approximation. The result transformed the film. When George speaks about loss, about survival, about finding humor in tragedy, you hear authentic Indigenous storytelling. The phrasing reflects oral traditions, not screenplay formulas. The quiet dignity comes from someone who’s told these stories many times because they matter. The relationship between Josey Wales and Lone Watie became the film’s emotional core—two men scarred by violence finding companionship in shared loss. Roger Ebert called it “one of the best Westerns ever made.” It earned over $31 million and has endured as a genre landmark. Chief Dan George’s performance is consistently cited as one of the film’s greatest strengths—a fully dimensional character bringing humor, wisdom, and heartbreaking humanity to every scene. But George’s significance extended far beyond any single role. For him, acting was advocacy. Every performance was an opportunity to present Indigenous people as fully human to audiences fed decades of dehumanizing stereotypes. To insist on dignity.
A man with a $200 computer took down a $72-million empire—one phone call at a time. In 1985, Edward Johnson sat in his small Atlanta apartment, watching televangelist Jerry Falwell on the screen. “Pick up the phone, friend. Call now.”
The toll-free number flashed across the television. Millions of viewers called that number every year, and their donations had built Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour into a fundraising machine bringing in more than $72 million annually. But Edward wasn’t reaching for his wallet. He was reaching for something else. His elderly mother had been sending Falwell money she couldn’t afford. Money meant for groceries. Money meant for bills. She believed every word the preacher said. And it ate at Edward every single day. “She trusted him,” he would later say. “And I believed that trust was being exploited.” Edward wasn’t a hacker. He wasn’t a programmer by trade. He was just a 46-year-old computer consultant with an Atari 800 home computer and a phone line. But he understood something most viewers didn’t: toll-free calls aren’t free for the organization receiving them. Every time someone dialed that number, Falwell’s ministry paid for it. So Edward wrote a simple program. Just a few lines of code that would do one thing: Dial the toll-free number. Wait until someone answered. Hang up. Pause thirty seconds. Repeat. Forever. When he clicked “Run,” his modem crackled to life. “Old Time Gospel Hour, how may we help you—” Silence. Then a click. Thirty seconds later: the same thing. And again. And again. Two calls per minute. One hundred twenty per hour. Nearly three thousand per day. At first, Falwell’s operators thought it was a glitch. Then they realized it wasn’t stopping. The same number, calling around the clock, seven days a week. The lines jammed. Real callers couldn’t get through. The phone bills started climbing. Ten thousand dollars. Fifty thousand. The total would eventually reach somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000—depending on which source you believe. As word spread about what was happening, others joined in. LGBT activists, furious at Falwell’s public campaigns against gay rights, began organizing their own calling campaigns. At one point, prank calls made up an estimated 25 percent of all incoming traffic. But nobody matched the relentless precision of Edward’s Atari. It didn’t sleep. It didn’t get tired. It just kept dialing. Eventually, AT&T technicians traced the source. On December 17, 1985, they narrowed it down to the Atlanta area code. Within thirty minutes, they had Edward’s address. A Southern Bell representative gave him a choice: stop calling, or lose your phone service. Edward pressed a single key. The screen went dark. After eight months, the automated siege was over. Falwell was furious. His spokespeople called the attacks “unlawful activities” that caused “injury to the cause of Christ.” They considered lawsuits. But here’s the thing: nothing Edward did was clearly illegal at the time. He didn’t hack into any system. He didn’t steal any data. He just called a public phone number—thousands of times. In 1986, facing mounting losses and operational chaos, Falwell made a drastic decision: he disconnected the toll-free prayer lines entirely. The very tool that had helped build his empire had become too expensive and too vulnerable to maintain. Edward Johnson never became famous for what he did. He never sought publicity or profit. When asked about it, he was matter-of-fact. One journalist reported that toward the end, operators would answer the dead line and say: “Edward Johnson, is that you?” He had become a ghost in their system. Today, cybersecurity experts recognize his campaign as one of the earliest recorded denial-of-service attacks in history—years before the internet made such tactics famous. Edward discovered something that still holds true: any system built on openness can be overwhelmed if someone is patient enough and persistent enough. His Atari computer is long obsolete now. But the lesson it taught remains: Sometimes the smallest weapon, wielded with enough determination, can change everything.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through City Hall, Not a creature was stirring, not even a crawl. The budget was hung by the chimney with care, Knowing that no head tax soon would appear.
The aldermen were nestled all snug in their wards, With visions of restraint and reaping the rewards. Mayor Branjo in his red t-shirt, and his CTU cap, Had settled his brains for a long winter’s nap.
When out on the LaSalle there arose such a clatter, He sprang from his desk to see what was the matter. Away to the window he flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
With courageous leaders, so lively and quick, He knew in a moment his tax plan was licked. Faster than the CTA, in their votes they came, And they whistled and shouted and called out by name:
Now, Reilly! Now, Dowell! Now, Sposato and Beale! On, Tabares! On, Lopez! On, Quinn, on their heel! To the 5th floor! Take it straight to city hall! Dash away head tax! Dash away small ball!
And then, in a twinkling, he heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each steadfast hoof. As he drew in his head and was turning around, Down the chimney the aldermen came with a bound.
They were dressed in fine suits, from their head to their foot, And their clothes were untarnished by CTU soot. A bundle of savings they’d flung on their back, And they looked like wise stewards just opening their pack.
Their eyes how they twinkled! Their dimples, how merry! Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like cherries! They rejected the demands of the union so droll, With robocalls and ads that took quite a toll.
The CTU grumbled, with demands ever high, Tax more, more, and more, reaching up to the sky. But the aldermen stood firm, with backbone and grit, Passing their own budget, a responsible fit.
Johnson’s head tax was dead, no per-employee fee, No job killing levy on companies free. With pension funds bolstered, and no downgrade fear, A sensible plan for a prosperous year.
The mayor spoke not a word, but backed down in defeat, No veto to issue, his loss was complete. The aldermen praised for their courageous fight, Saved Chicago’s future on this festive night.
They sprang to their wards, to their teams gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard them exclaim, ’ere they drove out of sight:
Merry Christmas to Chicago, and to all a good night!
My thoughts on Sherrone Moore and Michigan, based on details presented in court, conversations I’ve had over time, and my own opinion.
First, I genuinely feel terrible for his wife and his three daughters. They didn’t ask for any of this.
I care about Kelli Moore. Look how much she supported her husband. With their newborn baby literally on the sidelines.
The more I’ve learned about the situation, it appears it wasn’t the affair itself that ultimately cost him. It was how he allegedly handled the breakup. According to court details, the staffer ended the relationship, and in the days that followed, Moore allegedly continued contacting her to the point where she felt she had no other choice but to go to the athletic department, with receipts.
Once that happened, there was no path forward for him as Michigan’s head coach. That said, it also appears likely that a lot of people knew about the extramarital affair well before things reached that point. In my opinion, strong leadership, specifically from his boss, should have stepped in and shut it down immediately. Someone should have said, “STOP IT!” Instead, there seems to have been a culture of looking the other way. And the longer that happens, the more invincible someone can start to feel.
Ousted Michigan coach Sherrone Moore was probed multiple times over alleged conduct with women: report trib.al/li0kiOy
Fired Michigan coach Sherrone Moore was charged with home invasion and stalking days after breaking into a woman’s apartment and threatening to harm himself
Pittsfield Michigan police say Moore entered a home through an unlocked door and got into an argument
Prosecutors say he grabbed two butter knives and scissors and threatened to harm himself
He told the victim “I’m going to k*ll myself” and “I’m going to make you watch” before fleeing
Police arrested him Wednesday evening in a church parking lot in a nearby town
The 911 call came from the apartment of his executive assistant Paige Shiver
If convicted on all counts he faces up to six and a half years in jail and $3,500 in fines
Moore was given a $25,000 bond and ordered to wear a GPS monitor while continuing mental health treatment
I think from a legal standpoint, it looks like Moore had about as good of a day in court as he could have hoped for. The charges appear relatively light, and this is a case that likely never fully sees the light of day. It will probably be resolved between attorneys.
Who is Paige Shiver, the executive assistant of fired Michigan coach Sherrone Moore? trib.al/QJrtRpX
So what happens next?
Moore’s priority should be getting whatever help he needs, especially if there are underlying mental or emotional issues. I’ve heard for a long time that he’s a fragile person, and that didn’t seem to be a secret inside the program. He also has to figure out how to repair the damage done to his family.
This country loves a comeback story. Will he ever be the head coach at Michigan again? No. Will he be a head coach at a major college? Probably not. But he was a very good position coach, and down the line, if he does the work, there may be a path back into football in a lesser role.
Honestly, I also believe that even without this situation, he was likely going to be fired within a year. I don’t think he was ready to be a head coach, and I don’t think he should have been given the job in the first place.
Sherrone Moore woke up as Michigan’s head coach on Wednesday and he’s probably never going to coach another game anywhere in his life now.
Landor is Rastafarian and does not cut his hair as part of his religious practice. While serving a five-month prison sentence on drug charges, however, Louisiana prison officials handcuffed him to a chair, held him down, and shaved his head. They did so, moreover, despite the fact that Landor brought a copy of a federal court decision establishing that he had a right, under federal religious liberty law, to keep his hair long while incarcerated.
And yet, it seemed very clear during oral arguments in Landor’s case on Monday — the case is known as Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections — that at least five, and possibly as many as six, justices will vote against Landor.
Key Takeaways
Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections involves a straightforward violation of an incarcerated man’s religious rights.
The case turns, however, on an arcane rule governing whether he may sue the officers who violated his rights.
Roy F. McCampbell's Blog 