Listen, Watch and Catch Up
Most Active US Stocks
Disclosure: Inside the Fight to Reveal Government Secrets
Your News
Thursday, December 04, 2025
Wednesday, December 03, 2025
Mormon Women are Taking Over Screens | DRUDGE REPORT
Mormon Women Are Taking Over Screens...
Mormon Women Are Taking Over Our Screens
Across
reality shows, social media and best-selling books, women raised in the
church have increased its profile across pop culture.
"This fall, as Whitney Leavitt and Jen Affleck were competing for the mirror ball trophy on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” their other TV show, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a Hulu reality series, released its third season.
During commercial breaks for both, ads could be seen for the upcoming season of ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” with Taylor Frankie Paul, another “Mormon Wives” star, as the lead. (The Walt Disney Company owns both the network and the streaming platform.) Another cast member, Mayci Neeley, in October released her memoir “Told You So,” which then became a New York Times best seller. This week, the Broadway production of “Chicago” announced that Leavitt would be taking a turn as Roxie Hart.
The women are also members of MomTok, the social media influencer group whose successes and frictions are the central drama of “Mormon Wives,” which premiered in 2024. Bravo has been concurrently airing the sixth season of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.” The group and the Bravo housewives are all part of a growing wave of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dotting TV and social media, who, together, have increased the religion’s profile across pop culture. . ."
READ MORE: New York Times
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: fRANCE 24
Liberté Égalité Actualité
France 24, the international news channel, broadcasts 24/7 to 533 million households around the world in French, Arabic, English and Spanish.
The four channels have a combined weekly TV audience of 99,3 million viewers.
France 24 gives a French perspective on global affairs through a network of 200 correspondents located in nearly every country.
It is available via cable, satellite, DTT, ADSL, on mobile phones, tablets and connected TVs, as well as on YouTube in four languages.
Every month, France 24’s digital platforms attract 19,6 million visits and 192,5 million video views (2023 average). France 24 has some 65 million followers on Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube.
More about France 24 - Press Kit
France 24
Media company
France 24, the international news channel, broadcasts 24/7 to 315 million homes around the world in French, Arabic and English.
Today's top stories
Putin Warns Europe: Russia Ready for War
Kremlin says no compromise with U.S. on Ukraine, no Putin-Trump meeting planned
—
3 December, 00:38
US-Russia talks. Photo: TASS
𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗜𝗡 𝟭𝟳𝟴𝟵: 𝗔 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗟𝗟, 𝗣𝗢𝗢𝗥, 𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞𝗬 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 | Zane History Buff 🇺🇸🦅
𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗜𝗡 𝟭𝟳𝟴𝟵: 𝗔 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗟𝗟, 𝗣𝗢𝗢𝗥, 𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞𝗬 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧
— Zane History Buff
In 1789, the United States was not a superpower.
It was smaller than modern Los Angeles County, broke, mostly farmland, and nobody was sure it would survive 10 years—let alone 200+.
Here’s what the USA actually looked like when George Washington took the oath. 
⸻
A Skinny Country on the Coast • Only 13 states, hugging the Atlantic coast
• Population: around 3.9–4 million people
• Biggest cities (still tiny by modern standards):
• Philadelphia – ~40,000
• New York City – similar size
• Boston, Charleston, Baltimore – important but not huge
• Most people lived on farms, in villages, or frontier cabins, not cities
West of the Appalachians was mostly frontier and contested territory:
• The U.S. claimed land to the Mississippi River
• Spain controlled New Orleans and the river’s mouth
• Britain still had forts near the Great Lakes despite losing the Revolution
The US was basically a thin coastal strip with a giant, uncertain interior.
⸻
A Brand-New Government, No Guarantee It Would Work1789 is Year 1 of the Constitution in action.
Before this, the US used the Articles of Confederation—a loose, weak system that almost fell apart.
Now:
• George Washington becomes first President in April 1789 (in New York City, not DC)
• The First Congress meets and starts:
• Setting up federal courts
• Creating the Departments of War, State, Treasury
• Arguing about how powerful the federal government should be
• James Madison introduces amendments that become the Bill of Rights
There are no official parties yet, but factions are forming:
• Hamilton & the Federalists – want a strong central government, finance, trade, closer ties with Britain
• Jefferson & emerging Democratic-Republicans – want more power to states and farmers, suspicious of centralized authority
In 1789, the Constitution is an untested experiment.
Plenty of people think it might collapse or drift into monarchy or chaos.
⸻
A Farm Republic in Serious DebtThe economy in 1789:
• Over 90% rural
• Most people are farmers—subsistence or small commercial farms
• No railroads, no telegraph, no factories in the modern sense
Regional flavors:
• New England – small farms, fishing, coastal trade, early mills
• Middle States (NY, PA, NJ) – mixed farming, trade, growing towns
• South (VA, MD, NC, SC, GA) – plantation agriculture:
• Tobacco, rice, indigo, and soon cotton
• Dependent on enslaved labor
Financial reality:
• The national government is deeply in debt from the Revolution
• Individual states are heavily in debt too
• There’s no central bank yet, and currency is messy
When Washington takes office, the US is closer to a fragile startup than to an empire.
⸻
Freedom for Some, Slavery for ManyThe rhetoric says “all men are created equal”.
The reality in 1789:
• Roughly 1 in 5 people in the U.S. is enslaved
• Slavery is legal and central to the economy in the Southern states
• Some Northern states are starting gradual abolition, but slavery still exists there too
The new Constitution has just:
• Counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation
• Protected the international slave trade from being banned before 1808
Women:
• Cannot vote (with a brief, narrow exception in early New Jersey property law)
• Are legally controlled by fathers or husbands in most states
• Have no formal political rights, despite crucial roles in homes, farms, shops, and informal politics
Native American nations:
• Are treated as foreign nations and obstacles, not citizens
• Control large areas west of the Appalachians
• Are already in violent conflict with US settlers and militias, especially in the Ohio Valley
So the “land of liberty” in 1789 is really:
A republic dominated by white male property owners, built on
enslaved African labor, ongoing Native dispossession, and
women largely shut out of official power.
⸻
A Small Republic in a World of EmpiresOn the global map, the U.S. in 1789 is:
• Weak militarily
• Not yet a major trading power
• Surrounded by empires:
• Britain in Canada & western forts
• Spain in Florida, Louisiana (Mississippi mouth), and the Southwest
• France in the Caribbean and still influential
Americans are nervous about:
• British influence on the frontier
• Spanish control of New Orleans and Western trade
• Being dragged into European wars
And just as the U.S. gets its new government going, across the Atlantic:
• The French Revolution begins in 1789
• That will soon split American opinion and pressure Washington’s foreign policy
The United States is a small, experimental republic in a world of kings.
⸻
Everyday Life: Half Colonial, Half “American”Life in 1789 still feels very much 18th century:
• Lighting by candles and oil lamps
• Heat from fireplaces and wood stoves
• Water from wells, streams, and pumps
• No electricity, no cars, no phones—news travels by horse, ship, and rumor
Culture:
• High literacy rates among white men in many regions
• Newspapers and pamphlets are fiery, partisan, and influential
• Churches are central to community and politics
Yet something new is emerging:
• People call themselves “Americans”, not just Virginians or former Britons
• The Revolution is already being turned into a founding myth
• Writers and politicians are asking: Can a republic this big actually last?
They don’t know the answer.
They are living the question.
⸻
The US in 1789 in One LineA small, rural, deeply unequal, heavily indebted republic,
just launching a risky new Constitution under George Washington,
surrounded by empires, unsure if it would survive—
but already carrying the seeds of the superpower it would one day become.
— 𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗜𝗡 𝟭𝟳𝟴𝟵: 𝗔 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗟𝗟, 𝗣𝗢𝗢𝗥, 𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞𝗬 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧
⸻
𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘𝗦 • Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution
• Alan Taylor, American Revolutions and American Republics
• Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers and American Creation
• Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution
• Carol Berkin, A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution
• Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
• Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
-
Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
