Weekly Battleground Buzz
March 24, 2025
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March 24, 2025
In Loving Memory of Mia Love
1975 – 2025
Today, we honor the life and legacy of Mia Love, a trailblazer, public servant, and inspiring voice in American politics. Mia passed away at the age of 49 after a courageous battle with brain cancer. As the first Black Republican woman elected to the U.S. Congress, she broke barriers and led with conviction, grace, and strength.
In her own words:
"Difficult things aren't easy, but they're worth it."
– Mia Love
May we carry forward her spirit of perseverance, purpose, and courage. Listen to our interview with Mia here.
This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, Chuck and Sam are joined by David Harsanyi, senior writer at the Washington Examiner, who dives into his book The Rise of Blue Anon and explains why today’s Democrat Party has embraced conspiracy politics and paranoia—from Russia collusion to claims that Elon Musk is a Nazi.
3-2-1 Here’s Why Trump’s Tariffs Are a Good Idea
By Tim Mooney
Here’s what the ENTIRE international press has missed in reporting about Trump Tariffs’ true macroeconomic goals. First, some tax truths. Tax policy is based around 3-2-1.
Recruiting Challenges Facing the U.S. Military
By Russ Walker
As the U.S. military pivots its focus toward preparing for a potential peer-on-peer conflict, particularly with China over Taiwan, it faces significant recruiting challenges. The National Defense Strategy has acknowledged China as a primary competitor, necessitating a transformation in how the U.S. military recruits, trains, and retains personnel. Despite technological advances and an advanced military, the success of the U.S. military still hinges on having a lethal, ready, and sufficiently large force. However, recruitment numbers have been declining for over a decade, and barriers such as changing cultural priorities (e.g., DEI, social media), poor physical fitness, low test scores, and health standards present challenges in meeting the needs of the modern military.
This article will explore the challenges in military recruitment and retention, particularly in the context of preparing for a potential conflict with China and the defense of Taiwan, and propose solutions to ensure that the U.S. military is ready for the demands of peer-on-peer warfare.
The unsolved mystery of Peter Bergmann
In 2009, a man calling himself Peter Bergmann arrived in Sligo, Ireland. Over the next three days, he carefully erased all traces of his identity. When his body was later found on a beach, investigators were left with more questions than answers. To this day, his true name and story remain unknown.
Who is bitcoin’s mysterious founder Satoshi Nakamoto? And why he ‘might not exist’
On April 7, 2022, PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel delivered the keynote speech at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Miami. He railed against the so-called enemies of Bitcoin, like Warren Buffett and Larry Funk, whom he called “extensions of the state.”
The true believers of bitcoin, unlike these corporate stooges, weren’t part of a company and had no board.
“We do not know who Satoshi is,” Thiel told the crowd.
He was referring to Satoshi Nakamoto, the man who invented bitcoin, and had become an “elusive figure who might or might not exist,” writes Benjamin Wallace in his book “The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto” (Crown), released on March 18.
Mother’s Only Son was Killed in Robbery–But She Gained Another by Helping Rehabilitate One of the Convicted Boys
The easy choice was revenge.
Tina Crawford lost her only son Ira Hopkins in 2014 when gunshots struck him in a senseless robbery. He was 35. And it happened on his birthday.
For a while, Crawford was overwhelmed with rage and craving retribution. An eye for an eye, after all.
But by the time the two men responsible for her son’s murder were sentenced in a Delaware courtroom, Crawford had one eye on forgiveness.
She told the judge at the hearing, “I have forgiven the people that have done this to our family because my God tells me to, but what they did was wrong and it was hateful, and they must pay with whatever you decide.”
An 18-year-old who was involved in the robbery, but did not fire the fatal shots, Jy’Aire Smith-Pennick, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the crime.
Crawford shared what happened next in a recent interview with CNN. After the verdict, she discovered that she was acquainted with one of Smith-Pennick’s aunts. She met another one of his aunts too—and all three women stayed in touch.
Soon, Crawford found herself going far beyond the easy choice of revenge and fully embracing mercy. She invited Jy’Aire to write her a letter and eventually, that offer became a telephone call.
One day the phone rang and she learned a few details of Jy’Aire’s life—and that call was followed by numerous other conversations that illuminated the situation.
Jy’Aire was homeless for large stretches of his youth, bouncing between different houses and different schools. Stability was hard to find and became even more elusive when his mother died when he was 14, his father at 17, and stepmother at 18.
He turned to the streets, started selling heroin and got talked into robbing a stranger, Ira Hopkins, late one July night right outside Crawford’s apartment.
Throughout his long years in prison, Mrs. Crawford became one of the people helping him get through it all, giving him encouragement by phone once a month.
She urged Jy’Aire to better himself and get an education while in prison. He turned that advice into a high school diploma—then an associate’s degree. Another course certified him as a peer specialist who counseled some of his fellow inmates and even talked a few out of suicide.
He wrote an apology letter to Ira that was published on the internet. Indeed, a renaissance was underway. A soul lost to the streets had made an abrupt turn, to discover a whole new path back to life.
Seven years after he was sentenced, Jy’Aire had a chance to get out. The Delaware Board of Pardons met in October 2024 to consider his case. Dozens of people showed up to support his parole. One of them who spoke on his behalf was Tina Crawford.
“That man hurt me,” Crawford said, according to the article from CNN. ”He took something from me…I lost a son…”
“But in the process, I gained one.”
The Board of Pardons voted unanimously to commute Jy’Aire’s sentence. In a few months, he would be a free man.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Jy’Aire is working with Tina on a non-profit called the IRA Foundation. The organization will teach at-risk kids some marketable skills like bricklaying, carpentry, music, and photography. They’ll carry on Ira’s memory. And perhaps they will protect a few from the pitfalls that claimed Jy’Aire.
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