Brandon Goldman

Brandon Goldman is managing editor of Upward News

Why you need Big Balls

Big nicknames come with big responsibilities. And the owner of one of the mightiest monikers – Big Balls – feels the weight of his own obligations keenly. In a rare interview, Edward Coristine spoke about how his family fled to America from Russia after his grandfather was executed for spying for the US. Valery Martynov was a KGB officer who was recruited by the FBI in the early 1980s. He passed Soviet secrets to his American handlers until he was exposed by Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, two of the most notorious traitors in US history.  Recalled to Moscow under false pretenses, Martynov was arrested and executed in 1987. His widow and children eventually sought refuge in America.

Big Balls

Did Ilhan Omar marry her brother?

In as Trumpian a fashion as it gets, the president has rekindled the years-long debate: Did progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) marry her brother? Shortly after conservative icon Charlie Kirk was assassinated in cold blood by a deranged leftist, Omar reposted a video on X that called Kirk a “reprehensible human being” who was “spewing racist dog whistles” in his “last, dying words.” Republican lawmakers saw an opportunity to censure the “Squad” member and remove her committee assignments. The motion failed by a 214-213 vote.Nevertheless, some conservatives are demanding Omar’s denaturalization and deportation to Somalia. Denaturalization is allowed in cases of “concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.

Ilhan Omar

How Gen Z gender wars are reshaping America

The colossal divide, long suspected, between men and women of Gen Z – those aged 18 to 29 – has been confirmed by a recent NBC News Decision Desk poll. Beyond just a political split, young men and women have completely different ideas of what makes a successful life. From marriage and having children to prioritizing a lucrative career, they are further apart than ever. And this has enormous implications for the country.A dizzying number of articles and think-pieces have been devoted to the enormous voting gap between young men and women in the 2024 election. Gen Z men overwhelmingly pulled for Donald Trump, women for Kamala Harris.

Ella Emhoff

Will Omar Fateh become America’s most radical mayor?

American politics is often reactionary. Barack Obama rode the dip of the 2007-2008 financial crash, but after eight years of neoliberal slog Middle America chose Donald Trump to extract the globalist cancer from their venerated land. The Democrats staged a counterattack in the 2018 midterms, thrusting names like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into the spotlight. A reaction to a reaction to a reaction. And right on time, now that Trump has returned to office, a new breed of even more radical young Democrats is on the ascent. Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is committed to radical socialism and will likely be enthroned as America’s most powerful local executive in November thanks to a tide of support from the young, wealthy and highly educated.

Omar Fateh

Trump puts God back on the ballot

It was the summer of 1954, and Texas Senator Lyndon B. Johnson was locked in a primary fight with fellow Democrat Dudley Dougherty. Flush with cash, Texas oil tycoons threw their support behind Dougherty through tax-exempt organizations like Facts Forum and the Committee for Constitutional Government. But Johnson, political shark that he was, quietly slipped in a new amendment to the IRS code banning tax-exempt organizations from engaging in partisan political activity. Lyndon Johnson sailed through the primary, and the name Dudley Dougherty became lost to history. The Johnson Amendment lived on, though in the present age, it has been contorted by political activists to crack down on Christians.Johnson’s intention was not to censor religious institutions.

Trump

Zohran Mamdani’s radical parents

Voters often pay a premium for socialism. It’s the modern-day equivalent of free-range eggs or an electric car. Zohran Mamdani, a self-described “democratic socialist,” embodies that premium. In New York’s Democratic mayoral primary election, he got blown out of the water with lower-income voters – but won overwhelmingly with young, white, college-educated idealists desperate for the revolution. He would be the furthest left mayor New York City has ever seen if elected in November. While his policy prescriptions – city-run grocery stores, higher taxes on the wealthy and a diminished police presence – are radical proposals, it is his deep devotion to socialism that truly defies convention. There is no question that Mamdani loathes the West.

zohran Mamdani

Democrats want federally mandated infanticide

Women in Britain will soon be able to kill their baby at any point during their pregnancy, even if the child could survive outside the womb. Infanticide is set to be the law of the land after British MPs voted 379 to 137 in favor of an amendment to end the criminalization of abortion after 24 weeks. The natural consequence of a slouched, “you do you” morality.  Donald Trump called attention to the issue of unlimited abortion during his 2024 presidential debates, much to the media’s chagrin, who interceded desperately to disprove his claims about Democrats supporting "executions after birth." But he was right.

Abortion

Biden’s FBI targeted ‘radical traditionalist’ Catholics

Most Catholics were well aware of Joe Biden’s, at best, tepid observation of Catholic teachings as president.But even they will be aghast after a new report from the Senate Judiciary Committee uncovered the true breadth of a crackdown by the FBI – during the Biden administration – on “radical traditionalist” Catholics. In 2023, an FBI memo called for sources to be developed within parishes that offer the Latin Mass and online Catholic communities for the purpose of “threat mitigation.” At the time, the FBI retracted the memo after an outcry and said it was an isolated incident out of one field office. Now Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has discovered new evidence that casts serious doubt on that narrative.

Joe Biden

Why Gen Z is converting to Catholicism

Both of my parents are Jewish, as were theirs, going as far back as anybody remembers – probably to Abraham. As with many secular, Jewish-American families, God was practically non-existent in our house, though we still observed holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover. There came a point, however, when I had to ask why we partook in any of these traditions if God, who commanded their observance, wasn’t real. I figured that the Greeks had Zeus, the Romans had Jupiter, the Norse had Odin, and now we have God. This one will pass, too.In college, I studied progressive politics and devoured the writings of Marx and Engels, forming a firm foundation for my socialist beliefs.

Gen Z