Army General Chris Donahue, the final American soldier to withdraw from Afghanistan, is leaving his post amid an overhaul by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. MS NOW Pentagon Reporter Priya Sridhar has more details. Fmr. Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel and Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha join Alicia Menendez with their thoughts.
Has the state of Texas become a christian theocracy now? It seems every year they change the school curriculum to make it more white and more Christian. Itis clear that the Christian billionaire preacher who basically bought the state legislature and calls the shots has long wanted the state to be a White Christian Male paradise. These new changes basically make the state schools the same as the Jewish Orthodox schools in NY, where the students learn only the Torah but can hardly count to 20 and speak / write very little English. They are getting tax money to educate kids but they don’t. The kids graduate and can’t get jobs and are on state assistance. The new Texas standards emphasize white contributions and minimize any contributions from other races. They push religious stories over facts. This is just the forced religious indoctrination of children regardless of the religious beliefs of the parents. Notice there is no opt out on these religious texts, books, stories but parents much be told and can opt their child out of any lesson that mentions the LGBTQ+ or reading material containing information about it. If you are worried about the white washing race removing Christifying of public schools and the rewriting of history to change what really happened to make white people look better please give this article a read. below are a few quotes from the article. Hugs
The statewide reading list would require, among other literary works, that schools teach Bible material to children as young as 6 years old up to young adults preparing to receive their diplomas. That includes Christian stories about Adam and Eve, the eight Beatitudes and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
On the contrary, Republicans eliminated a standard specifying that students should consider “the perspectives of groups whose voices are less represented in traditional historical accounts.” They added another requirement that introduces the biblical story of Moses alongside the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman — who was nicknamed “Moses” because, similar to the biblical prophet, she helped people escape slavery.
“Let me be very clear: Islam is not a religion,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, testified before the education board Monday. “It is a totalitarian theocracy, not unlike totalitarian systems of communism, Nazism and globalism.”
Meanwhile, students, educators and progressive activists spoke out in opposition to the lack of racial, ethnic and gender inclusion in the debated books and lessons, as well as the state’s Christian focus over other religions.
The State Board of Education will hold a final vote Friday on incorporating more Christian stories into classrooms and deemphasizing race and cultural diversity in history lessons.
Certified elementary school librarian Sarah Pepin speaks at a State Board of Education meeting in Austin on June 22, 2026. Manoo Sirivelu/The Texas Tribune
Texas elementary and middle school students will likely see redesigned social studies and reading lessons that minimize racial, geographic and cultural diversity while emphasizing the Bible — but changes for high schoolers have suddenly hit a pause.
The Republican-led State Board of Education decided Thursday evening to allow final votes on a rewrite of Texas’ K-8 social studies lessons and a mandatory reading list for all public schools that includes Christian stories. Those votes are expected Friday.
However, the board delayed proposed changes to high school U.S. history, world history, geography and government.
For months, educators, Democrats and public education advocates criticized Texas’ social studies revamp as rushed. Conservative advocates and Republican board members insisted on pushing the process forward. But board chair Aaron Kinsey expressed doubts Thursday about having enough time to cut down the number of lessons packed into each course.
“This is a conundrum we’ve created of our own doing,” Democratic member Marisa B. Pérez-Díaz said. “And I’m very frustrated by it.”
Kinsey rejected an assertion from Pérez-Díaz that he rushed the process and said he was willing to continue working. But he also said board members made mistakes when they pushed through changes during late hours. For example, they eliminated a requirement that students learn about the American Revolution in high school U.S. history before reinserting it Thursday.
The elected board is on track to update what public school students must learn in reading and social studies. This week’s meetings ran as late as 2 a.m., as board members meticulously parsed through changes to lessons in each grade.
Along with Bible stories in reading, the social studies proposal features a dramatic transformation in how Texas schools have long administered lessons on history, geography, economics and government. It eliminates the current sixth-grade world cultures course, deemphasizes world history outside of European tradition and dedicates more focus to Texas and the United States.
Democrats suggested changes they hoped would make lessons more accurate and inclusive of historically underserved groups — most notably people of color — even if they ultimately did not favor the overall plan.
Republicans blamed cherry-picking over what students should learn for the delay.
“We wasted many hours late into the morning,” Republican member Brandon Hall said. “We have worn out and exhausted our staff on trifling amendments coming from people who had no intention of ever working with us or ever actually approving something they wanted to pass.”
Conservative leaders and activists champion the new lessons, which they view as “the final battle” in a push to rid Texas schools of instruction they say paints America in a negative light and trains students to hate the country.
Sociology classes, for example, currently require students to understand “the impact of race and ethnicity on society” and “analyze the varying treatment patterns of minority groups.” But that standard was eliminated in the newly proposed social studies plan.
If approved by the education board Friday, the K-8 social studies changes and the reading lists will take effect during the 2030-31 school year. The board will also decide whether to phase in the social studies changes or introduce them all at once.
Members could take up the high school courses at its next scheduled meeting in September, or the chair could schedule a special meeting before.
Reframing history
Educators criticized how the social studies proposal prioritizes memorization over critical thinking and simplification over accuracy. Historians called attention to factual errors, saying the new standards would set children up for failure post-graduation.
One lesson, for example, had described the forced relocation and imprisonment of Japanese families during World War II as one of the “contributions” to America’s military effort. Another proposal noted that high school students should know the significance of leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, specifying Thurgood Marshall, Barbara Jordan and Hector P. Garcia — but not Martin Luther King Jr.
The standards initially approved this week reflect slightly different suggestions, instead describing Japanese incarceration as one of the “changes” during the war and adding King to the list of Civil Rights leaders.
But Democratic board members said the minor tweaks will not fix what they see as a whitewashed social studies plan and a politically influenced approval process.
A panel of nine advisers guided the social studies overhaul, almost all of whom hold no Texas K-12 classroom experience and several of whom are either conservative activists or closely affiliated with them. Educators have described it as a major reversal of previous years when teachers led the way, while Democrats have said they do not feel fairly included in decision-making.
“Our voices are being left off constantly,” Democratic board member Tiffany Clark said.
Republicans clarified that advisers only provide recommendations. Elected members maintain final say in the social studies overhaul, they noted. The GOP members argued that it is Democrats’ own responsibility to ensure they are included in the rewrite.
“I, as well as several of my colleagues, have been in direct contact with our content advisers,” Republican member Audrey Young said. “I have been communicating through my content adviser this entire time.”
But some of the appointed experts also expressed frustrations. Yolanda Chávez Leyva, a historian at the University of Texas at El Paso helping guide the board, said she “didn’t feel that every adviser’s input was treated equally.”
Kate Rogers, a social studies adviser who previously led the Alamo Trust before publicly clashing with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, said the group remained professional but its recommendations did not represent all participants.
For instance, the advisory panel proposed changing a lesson that originally called on students to “identify domestic challenges for the United States following World War I related to racial violence and intolerance, including the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the Tulsa Race Massacre.”
They instead suggested that students learn about the Klan’s “intolerance” of Catholics, Jews and immigrants but did not specify Black Americans. They also changed the “Tulsa Race Massacre” to the “Tulsa Race Riots.” During the 1921 massacre in Oklahoma, a white mob killed Black residents, destroyed their homes and looted their businesses after a Black teenager was falsely accused of trying to assault a white girl in an elevator.
The appointed group also removed standards that defined racial segregation as “keeping people apart based on the color of their skin” and specified that Africans endured slavery in the U.S. because of their race.
“I want to make it clear to the board members that we did not discuss every item on this document,” Rogers said. “Some of the changes were not reviewed by all of the content advisers.”
Board members adopted many changes proposed by the advisory group but reinserted several others, including how Nat Turner’s Rebellion “heightened sectional tensions and deepened disagreements over slavery” and how the expansion of slavery was the central cause of the Civil War. They also clarified that the Klan sought to intimidate and “limit the rights of African Americans in Texas during Reconstruction.”
Some members initiated changes that would expose students to more positive aspects of Black history, including Republican Keven Ellis’ suggestion that schools teach about Bessie Coleman, a Texan who became the first African American and Native American woman to obtain an international pilot’s license.
On the contrary, Republicans eliminated a standard specifying that students should consider “the perspectives of groups whose voices are less represented in traditional historical accounts.” They added another requirement that introduces the biblical story of Moses alongside the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman — who was nicknamed “Moses” because, similar to the biblical prophet, she helped people escape slavery.
Prior to debating high school social studies, a handful of Republicans on the elected board unsuccessfully attempted to block amendments from members who did not meet an earlier deadline to submit proposed changes.
If successful, the move effectively would have stopped Democrats from proposing on-the-spot tweaks, which was notable because the rule had not been enforced when the board discussed elementary and middle school lessons.
Reading lessons with Christian stories
Some of the nearly 500 speakers at this week’s meetings exchanged heated words about Christianity’s role in the development of the country, and at least one person with a Confederate flag was deemed out of order by the board chair and escorted from the room for verbally interrupting the meeting.
The statewide reading list would require, among other literary works, that schools teach Bible material to children as young as 6 years old up to young adults preparing to receive their diplomas. That includes Christian stories about Adam and Eve, the eight Beatitudes and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Republican leaders across the state often depict Islam as a violent religion they view as incompatible with their conservative Christian American values. During the board’s April meetings, the board eliminated a social studies standard that would have required students to learn about Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy.
“Let me be very clear: Islam is not a religion,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, testified before the education board Monday. “It is a totalitarian theocracy, not unlike totalitarian systems of communism, Nazism and globalism.”
Asked if he had ever visited a Muslim-majority country, the senatorHall responded no.
Elizabeth Jensen, who identified herself as a Texas school board trustee but did not specify the district, told the education panel that she believes “slavery was and still is fundamental to Sharia,” referring to the set of moral codes and principles that Muslims follow. Sharia does not have a uniform meaning, as Muslims interpret and act upon it differently.
Muslims have spent months denouncing such Islamophobia at State Board of Education meetings, calling it misinformation and harmful to the hundreds of thousands of Texans who practice the faith.
Meanwhile, students, educators and progressive activists spoke out in opposition to the lack of racial, ethnic and gender inclusion in the debated books and lessons, as well as the state’s Christian focus over other religions.
“These proposed standards actually defy the Constitution and highlight only one group of Americans as the founders who built this country to the exclusion of others — both in the past and in the present,” Ruth Nasrullah, a Muslim speaker, told the board members.
English teachers stressed during the meeting that many of the books on the proposed reading list do not align with what Texas requires them to teach, despite taking up most of roughly 36 weeks of instructional time in an academic year.
Before initial approval of the reading list, the board members — led by Republican Tom Maynard — debated whether they should prohibit teachers from assigning non-state-mandated books without the educators first posting them online for parental review. However, some expressed concerns about micromanaging teachers.
They also considered whether to grant charter schools flexibility in which grades they introduce the required readings, an attempt to appease charter leaders who said they wanted to assign more rigorous books to children in lower grades. But some members said doing so might create the opposite effect, allowing lower-performing campuses to lessen rigor for students in higher grades.
Neither of those passed, but board members have another opportunity to resurface suggestions before the final vote Friday.
Jaden Edison is the public education reporter for The Texas Tribune, where he previously worked as a reporting fellow in summer 2022. Before returning to the Tribune full time, he served as the justice…
Just remember this is pure pushing the Christian religion and denying that same money to public schools. And if you watch the video the church is hoping this is only a drop in the bucket they can get. Remember these churches don’t pay taxes, and they are not under state laws on what they teach. The don’t allow the general public who pay those taxes including the LGBTQ+. They discriminate against these and other groups due to religious beliefs, and they refuse the enrollment of the disabled because that cuts into their profit. This is a money-making scheme designed to suck public taxpayer money from public schools while not being required to serve all students or pay into the funds they want given to them. This is just an attempt to push religious schools while denying needed funds to public schools. These people want a Christian nationalist nation, and they demand the rest of us pay for it. They have no concern for the truth of history or anyone else’s beliefs; it is their god pushed at your money while you get no services or money for your local schools. Great video I hope you will watch. And I can tell you as an atheist in Florida I am against this hard drive desire of DeathSantis to force his religious views onto me and the children of this state. After all he helped his wife steal a huge amount of money meant for a charity to help sick people and use it for their gain. Hugs
Scottie posted this meme yesterday and it prompted a further exploration than seemed easy in his list of images.
I think I’m going to shock some people here, maybe even get someone mad at me at this writing. I have to tell you all, I’m kinda a shy person. So, I’m not comfortable with some strange transgender person staring at my pecker when I pee.
I’m really just not comfortable with that. But, you know, I’m not comfortable with a strange man staring at my pecker when I’m trying to pee either. Nor am I comfortable with a strange woman staring at my pecker. In fact, I don’t flaunt my pecker about when I pee. And, I feel somehow disenfranchised because I don’t find the bathroom a place to flaunt my privates, yet the way some on the right talk about it there must be things going on in there that I’m not contributing to or enjoying. What am I doing different than those who are worried about this happening?
Some may also find this startling, but I heard that this person was found in the women’s bathroom. Many accused homophobes feel that people should not “pretend” to be a woman for the sole purpose of going into the women’s bathroom.
And, some uptight karens would say that the prevalence of this very person in a women’s bathroom is indicative of just how far things have come that “she” would feel comfortable going into a women’s bath. They say we should be shocked and outraged at Sports Illustrated for publishing these pictures.
And others would be wise to tell you that this is ILONA MAHER, a phenomenal women’s rugby star and arguably the best in the world. I would tell you that she is very strong, very aggressive, and very beautiful, and I would tell you that hassling Ms. Maher is surely contraindicated for a long life.
The uncomfortable facts are that sexual assaults perpetrated by trans people is extremely low. And, let’s consider just for a moment the great deal of bother a person needs to go through to transgender, and there are those who think it’s so they can go look at girls?! Further, the uncomfortable fact remains that 85%-90% of all sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known by the victim — ie: not strangers, and often they are family members or close family friends and DO NOT happen in a public bathroom. And finally, a great many lgbtq folks actively avoid bathrooms, no matter how desperately they need relief, because they are all too often the victim of assault by other bathroom goers.
Personally, I’m not going into the bathroom to make friends, to admire others or to find comparisons to determine where I fall in the pissing contest of reactionary karens. I don’t care. We are all human, and like the kid’s book says, we all gotta poop.
Morgan Armstrong.Credit : Image provided by Horwitz Law
Morgan Armstrong, then 18, filed a lawsuit last year against Tennessee Christian Preparatory School after being suspended over a social media post in which she came out as gay
On June 22 of this year, a final judgment order was entered into court stating that a settlement was reached between both parties
They agreed that Armstrong’s suspension has been rescinded, and that the school will pay her $10,000
Over a year after a student sued a private Tennessee high school for suspending and prohibiting her from attending graduation after she came out as gay on social media, the school will now pay her $10,000 as part of a resolution to the case.
A final judgment order was entered into the Chancery Court for Bradley County, Tenn., on Monday, June 22, stating that a settlement was reached between Morgan Armstrong and Tennessee Christian Preparatory School.
Armstrong, then an 18-year-old graduating senior at the school, made the social media post on April 23, writing, “cats outta the bag,” according to a complaint obtained by PEOPLE and filed on May 19, 2025.
A screenshot of the post, which was included in the complaint, showed Armstrong and her girlfriend kissing and holding hands.
Armstrong defended the post in a May 29, 2025, interview with The Washington Post. “Everyone else gets to post their boyfriend or girlfriend. So just because I have a girlfriend and I’m a girl, why does that mean that I shouldn’t be able to?” she asked. “I love my girlfriend and I wanted to show it.”
Days after making the post, Armstrong was summoned to the administrator’s office and given a suspension letter, according to the complaint.
The suspension letter, which was included in the complaint, stated that Armstrong would not be allowed on campus or at any school events, including but not limited to graduation, which took place on May 10, 2025.
Although the school said that her diploma would be mailed to her on June 15, 2025, the complaint alleged that the school “explicitly threatened to sabotage Morgan’s college admissions process and to withhold Morgan’s diploma” if there was any “online slander” about the school or anybody associated with it.
Additionally, the school alleged in the letter that Morgan’s social media posting included “a disparaging remark reflecting the people at Tennessee Christian,” a claim that Armstrong disputes.
The complaint claimed that her suspension letter mentioned a private message that the senior sent to some of her friends that read: “go like and comment on my post guys bc if no one on my socials knew I was gay then they sure as hell do now so this is a big thing tbh, also I’m kinda scared about the facebook comments bc i have some ruthless trump supporting ‘jesus’ mfs on there.”
However, according to the complaint, that message did not refer to the school, but instead referred to some of Armstrong’s relatives — people who, according to Armstrong, “profess but do not practice Christian principles of love, acceptance, and compassion.”
The complaint alleged that the real reason why the school suspended her “was the fact that she had come out as gay” — and that even if she had violated the school’s social media policy, it would have been a first-time offense, and the maximum policy should have been a one-day in-school suspension.
Armstrong and her parents, who were named co-plaintiffs in the suit, sought to expunge Armstrong’s suspension record and disciplinary violation, allow her to take her final exams, forbid the school from withholding her diploma and prohibit the school from “sabotaging” Armstrong’s college admissions process.
In Monday’s final judgment order — which PEOPLE reviewed — both parties agreed that Armstrong’s suspension has been rescinded, even though they disagreed on the extent of her violation of Tennessee Christian Preparatory School’s policies.
The order also stated that the school had not spoken with other colleges or universities for the purpose of disparaging Armstrong, and agreed to be prohibited from making such remarks to the institutions.
The school will have to pay a $10,000 money judgment to Armstrong, the order read, and the lawsuit is now over.
In a statement shared with ABC affiliate WTVC, Tennessee Christian Preparatory School said: “Tennessee Christian and the Armstrong family disagree regarding the extent to which Morgan Armstrong violated school policies. Both parties acknowledge that this disagreement remains unresolved and have mutually agreed to move forward. No further comments will be made regarding this matter.”
Daniel Horwitz, an attorney for Armstrong and her family, said in a statement shared with PEOPLE, “School is a place where every student is entitled to feel welcome, accepted, and supported.”
Horwitz continued, “It is not a place where any administrator should feel comfortable disciplining or threatening kids for being gay. We were proud to represent Morgan and her family in this righteous lawsuit, and we are thrilled to have prevailed on their behalf. We hopeMorgan’s bravery will inspire others to stand up for themselves the way that she did.”
Tennessee Christian Preparatory School did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Tuesday, June 23.
In the coming weeks, the United States plans to provide a welcome gift to white South Africans entering the United States as refugees. They will get an Android tablet, an American flag and copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They will also receive a packet of literature that provides a sanitized, Trump-approved view of American and South African history, one that criticizes racial equity and civil rights laws and promotes claims of discrimination against white people.
The welcome bags include a report commissioned by Mr. Trump during his first term that downplays the role of slavery in the country’s founding, and a children’s book accusing South Africa’s government of “favoring the Black population.” The gifts would be the latest step by the Trump administration to welcome the white minority in South Africa, even as the president maintains a ban on refugees fleeing from war and persecution everywhere else in the world.
New York Times reporters and authors of the new book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, sit down with Jon Stewart to discuss the surprising revelations they uncovered about the Trump administration, like the president being absent from the room when his own team discussed the Epstein files, as well as the motivation behind controversial moves like the tariff policy rollout and the Iran war. They also speak to how Trump controls the terms when reporters reach him on his cell phone and compare his first term to his second, which they describe as a story of hubris, built on gut feelings and belief from his cabinet that he is someone of destiny – because who else can survive four indictments and two assassination attempts to win the presidency a second time?
To me and hopefully to everyone this is horrific. But something I have been highlighting here that Israeli is a rouge terrorist government drying to genocide the Palestinian people. It is horrific that a people who experienced such actions would inflict them on others. But this show what can happen when right-wing movements turn into religious domination of the government. The Israel government is now filled with extreme Jewish religious extremists who feel their holy book grants them all the territory around then that is the sovereign territory of other countries. They feel their god gave it to them thousands of years ago so they have the right to take it. Regardless of laws or norms between countries. They want it so it should be theirs. Just like Putin in Ukraine. Israel talked our demented leader into going into war against their enemy which had no benefit for us but we took all the cost and risks. The military equipment and weapons used in the genocide of the Palestinians was paid for by the US taxpayer. Some quotes below. Hugs
The UN commission said in its report, released on Tuesday, that Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission’s chair, in a statement accompanying the report.
“This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional,” it said. It added that it believed children were targeted collectively because the Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas and other armed groups.
Muralidhar said that by targeting children, Israel was undermining the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.
The inquiry also found that attacks on healthcare and reproductive facilities affected newborns’ survival and the reported increase in miscarriages, and that nearly all children in Gaza were reported to be in need of psychological support.
It said Palestinian children, especially boys, were subjected to systemic mistreatment in detention, including forced stripping, beatings and food deprivation.
He calls Jews “a malevolent force throughout history,” praises Adolf Hitler as “a great man,” and urges Black Americans to “return to Africa.” Despite that history of hateful comments, he has now become the star of a pair of social-media videos for Tennessee Republican candidate for governor Monty Fritts [photo].
Still, Dane Chisholm, 28, of Rogersville, Tenn., is completely unapologetic about his controversial views. “For the soft and fake ‘Conservatives’ who worry about being called homophobic, racist or Nazi … go sit quietly in a corner,” Chisholm wrote in a June 20 post on X. “The real Christian men – who will save this world – are going to start handling things.”
Fritts, who is running an unapologetically Christian nationalist campaign, did not respond to a text from NewsChannel 5 Investigates about the star of his social-media posts.
Read the full article. Watch the unreal video below.
State Rep. Monty Fritts appeared here in January 2026 when he called for executing supporters of trans healthcare, saying that “such killings align with scripture.”
Fritts appeared here in March 2025 when the Tennessee House advanced his bill declaring July 2025 a “month of fasting and prayer for the physically able and spiritually inclined.”
Last year Fritts sponsored a “chemtrails” bill that would criminalize weather control with fines of “$100,000 per violation.”
Fritts appeared here in January 2025 for his bill making it a felony for state officials to adopt pro-migrant policies.
Fritts first appeared here in 2023 when the Tennessee House approved his bill allowing officiants to refuse to conduct same-sex, interfaith, and interracial marriages.
Ok after reading and highlighting this I feel I need a shower. This is the US that trump has caused to surge and become normal. This is the front runner for governor. I put some quotes from the story below. We have to stomp this out and make it unacceptable again while they are still a small minority. But notice how they wrap themselves in as real christians and Christian nationalist. By doing that they get protection as the law states that religon is a protected class in the law and the SCOTUS has ruled that law really only applies to Christians and to pushing the Christian faith. Saddly we need to know what these people are doing and pushing so we can fight back against them and stop this dragging the country into being Nazi Germany of the 1940s. They are openly racist, openly white supremacist, and openly Christian nationalists, and they are especially open about being willing to be violent to accomplish what they want. Hugs
Still, Dane Chisholm, 28, of Rogersville, Tenn., is completely unapologetic about his controversial views.
“For the soft and fake ‘Conservatives’ who worry about being called homophobic, racist or Nazi … go sit quietly in a corner,” Chisholm wrote in a June 20 post on X.
“The real Christian men – who will save this world – are going to start handling things.”
Fritts, who is running an unapologetically Christian nationalist campaign, did not respond to a text from NewsChannel 5 Investigates about the star of his social-media posts.
Dane Chisholm, 28, of Rogersville, Tenn., is completely unapologetic about his controversial views and is showing who he wholeheartedly supports in Tennessee’s gubernatorial race
He calls Jews “a malevolent force throughout history,” praises Adolf Hitler as “a great man,” and urges Black Americans to “return to Africa.”
Despite that history of hateful comments, he has now become the star of a pair of social-media videos for Tennessee Republican candidate for governor Monty Fritts.
Still, Dane Chisholm, 28, of Rogersville, Tenn., is completely unapologetic about his controversial views.
“For the soft and fake ‘Conservatives’ who worry about being called homophobic, racist or Nazi … go sit quietly in a corner,” Chisholm wrote in a June 20 post on X.
“The real Christian men – who will save this world – are going to start handling things.”
Fritts, who is running an unapologetically Christian nationalist campaign, did not respond to a text from NewsChannel 5 Investigates about the star of his social-media posts.
Reached by phone, Chisholm insisted he was not paid for the videos; instead, he said he produced them as part of Fritts’ team of volunteer campaign workers.
“Do I think my words are going to hurt Monty? No,” Chisholm added. “I’m sure there are surface-level thinkers and voters who were probably going to vote the other way anyway. But the idea that an individual separate from him has ‘controversial takes,’ I can’t imagine that goes very far.”
Chisholm appears in the two social-media videos, interviewing voters on the streets of Knoxville in one and chatting with Young Republicans after a forum in another.
View one of the Fritts campaign videos below:
In the videos, Chisholm wears an America First cap with the initials “NJF” – for America First founder Nicholas J. Fuentes – on the back.
Fuentes is the white-nationalist, antisemitic figure whose followers are known as Groypers. Despite the Jewish genocide, Fuentes has called Hitler “cool” and argued that “what Hitler represents is if white people didn’t give a f–k.”
On X, Dane Chisholm describes himself as a Christian who “fearlessly speak[s] the truth.”
And Monty Fritts, the candidate for governor, follows him.
“There’s lots of clues that we’ve been lied to tremendously about who Hitler was,” Chisholm said in a video posted on Easter comparing the Nazi leader to Jesus.
In another post, he wrote: “Hitler was a great man. We’ve been lied to, we know it.”
WTVF
Dane Chisholm video and post about Adolf Hitler
He has argued that Hitler’s actions “were justified by the necessity of security or defense of his people, to which Jews were internationally plotting to destroy.”
In other posts, he has argued:
COVID was part of a Jewish plot,
“The jews [sic] did kill Jesus Christ, and they have been a malevolentforce throughout history,” and
“Jews only lie when they breathe.”
In a reply to another X account, Chisholm demanded: “shut up jew rat.”
And while he was cordial to a group of young African-American men in one of the videos for Monty Fritts, News Channel 5 Investigates found a post where Chisholm referred to Black people with a shortened version of the n-word and called them “f–king monkeys”
“Don’t forget,” he added, “this racial-tension s— show is only a created distraction by the Jewish ran [sic] and owned press and socials to distract you from their jew [sic] crimes and subversion.”
X/@DeepDiverDane
Dane Chisholm post about Black people and Jews
In a recent interview, Fritts sought to distance himself from some Christian nationalists who have praised Hitler as a much-needed Christian prince.
“You’ll never hear from me that Adolf Hitler was a good guy,” Fritts said. “You’ll never hear that from me. I think he got what he deserved.”
This controversy follows Fritts’ appearance back in December on a podcast hosted by Stew Peters, who has been described by the ADL as “a far-right conspiracy theorist, Christian nationalist and prolific antisemite.”
During that show, Peters acknowledged that Fritts might be opening himself up to criticism.
“You’ll have to understand that I’m toxic. You’ll probably get a hit piece written about you just for appearing on my show,” he added.
Peters has called for what he calls the “final solution” to deport all Jews from America.
Still, when pressed about that appearance, Fritts insisted he had not made a mistake by engaging with the man known for his hatred of Jews.
“You and I aren’t gonna agree on everything, Phil – we don’t have to,” the candidate said. “That’s the beauty about being in America and in Tennessee, is we can have divergent opinions on stuff and still have respect for one another.”
Certified elementary school librarian Sarah Pepin speaks at a State Board of Education meeting in Austin on June 22, 2026. Manoo Sirivelu/The Texas Tribune
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A man plays with a baby as Palestinian children look on amid the rubble in Khan Younis, Gaza, in March.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesWomen mourn a baby killed in an Israeli strike on Khan Younis last year.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesChildren jostle for food at an aid point in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Monday.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
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X/@DeepDiverDane
Scottie's Playtime 