The Democrat-controlled Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to ban the use of masks by federal officials, and the Justice Dept. responded immediately with a fiery statement.

All of the Democrats on the board voted 4-0 in favor of the ordinance on Tuesday, with the lone Republican member abstaining. A second vote on Dec. 9 is needed to pass it. If that happens, law enforcement officers will be required to wear visible identification and agency affiliation.

‘We will not expose our brave men and women to personal attacks by allowing agitators to dox them and their families through facial recognition tools.’

Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, responded immediately to the vote.

“Let me be very clear: the county has no jurisdiction over federal agents, and we will not comply with any state or local laws restricting federal law enforcement,” he posted in a statement on social media.

“Our agents are under unprecedented assault in Los Angeles, largely due to reckless narratives and rhetoric advanced by the media and local politicians,” he added. “We will not expose our brave men and women to personal attacks by allowing agitators to dox them and their families through facial recognition tools.”

In a statement about the vote, Supervisor Janice Hahn accused ICE of behaving like an “authoritarian secret police” force.

“This is how authoritarian secret police behaves — not legitimate law enforcement in a democracy,” Hahn said.

“ICE agents are violating our residents’ rights every day they are on our streets. These agents hide their faces. They refuse to wear badges,” she continued. “They pull people into unmarked vans at gunpoint and wonder why people resist arrest. We are declaring in no uncertain terms that in L.A. County, police do not hide their faces. That is our expectation, and this ordinance will now make it our law.”

RELATED: DHS slams Newsom over illegal alien accused in death of 11-year-old boy on Thanksgiving

If approved in the second vote, the mask ban will go into effect 30 days after that vote.

Hahn added that the board expects the Trump administration to challenge the ban in court, and it is prepared to take on the court battle.

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An exchange between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and an attorney from a Democratic attorney general’s office has gone viral on social media.

The case involves a pro-life pregnancy center objecting to a subpoena from the New Jersey state attorney general’s office to provide a list of its donors. Thomas cornered a representative for the AG’s office in oral arguments about the justification for the legal targeting of the faith-based group.

Even Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal justice on the court, appeared to be sympathetic to the pro-life center’s plight.

Thomas zeroed in on the point that there had been no complaints from donors about the center, while Sundeep Iyer, the chief counsel to the New Jersey attorney general’s office, was defending the investigation into whether donors had been deceived.

“Did you have complaints that formed the basis of your concern about the fundraising activities here?” Thomas asked.

“We certainly had complaints about crisis pregnancy centers,” Iyer responded.

“No, about this crisis pregnancy center,” Thomas interrupted.

“So, I think we’ve been clear from the outset that we haven’t had complaints about this specific —” Iver replied.

“So you had no basis to think that they were deceiving any of their contributors?” Thomas interrupted again.

“I don’t think that’s correct, Your Honor,” Iyer stammered.

“I think we had carefully canvassed all of the public information that is provided on the website of First Choice in making a determination that we wanted to initiate an investigation,” he continued.

“But you had no factual basis,” Thomas asserted.

“I don’t think that’s true, Your Honor. I think, for example, you could take a look at a comparison between the donation page of First Choice that we have carved out, from the very beginning —” Iyer said.

“But you had no complaints?” Thomas asked.

“We had no complaints, but the state governments [and] federal government initiate investigations all the time in the absence of complaints, where they have a reason to suspect that there could be potential issues of legal compliance,” Iyer responded.

“Well, that just seems to be a burdensome way to find out whether someone has a confusing website,” Thomas asserted.

Iyer went on to argue that the existence of complaints would be material to the merits of the case, but not to whether the state officials had standing for the subpoena.

Audio of the exchange was posted to social media, where it went viral.

The Supreme Court is considering whether the state court must enforce the subpoena against First Choice Women’s Resource Centers before the faith-based pregnancy center can challenge it in federal court.

RELATED: Leftist war on pro-life pregnancy centers faces Supreme Court reckoning

The center argues that the subpoena violates its First Amendment right to free speech as well as the right to free association.

Even Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal justice on the court, appeared to be sympathetic to the pro-life center’s plight.

“An ordinary person, one of the funders of this organization or any similar organization, presented with this subpoena and then told, ‘But don’t worry, it has to be stamped by a court,’ is not going to take that as very reassuring,” she said during the case.

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BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo and his co-author have broken a story on the rampant fraud within Minnesota’s social services system — and now even the New York Times is reporting on what has gone down on the governor’s watch.

“This is fascinating,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere says. “Why would they be doing this? … Why would Tim Walz be the target of an actual investigation by the New York Times?”

In the New York Times article, titled, “How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch,” the outlet writes, “Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in the pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.”

“These are the types of things that we always tell you are going to happen when they set these programs up. They always do happen, and no one cares,” Burguiere says.

“Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections,” the article reports.

Burguiere isn’t surprised in the slightest.

“It’s weird — when you just give away a bunch of free money, a lot of people who want free money show up. That happens all the time. It’s what we say about the border. It’s what we say about all sorts of different communities that are able to access this cash,” he says.

And according to the Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary, Walz was aware of the fraud well before he began taking action to stop it.

“Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the account wrote in a post on X.

And according to the White House, the Trump administration is now “terminating Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, indefinitely halting migration from third-world countries, re-examining green cards for every alien from every country of concern, pausing all asylum decisions, and more.”

“I’m sure there are many wonderful examples that escaped a civil war and have done great things,” Burguiere comments regarding Somali citizens. “That being said, a lot of these people are not examples of that situation, and we need to do something about that, not ignore it because we feel bad to call people names because we’re worried they might think we’re racists.”

Want more from Stu?

To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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The horseshoe theory may have been on full display after the supreme leader of Iran made a surprisingly feminist statement on social media.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei often ponders philosophical and political topics on his X page, most recently critiquing the role of women in Western society. In a string of posts on Wednesday, Khamenei insisted that Islam treats women better than other Western faiths and societies, and even resurrected a 2010s feminist talking point that has long been debunked.

‘Women’s wages are lower than men’s for the same work.’

“Islam’s view of women is the opposite of the Western capitalist view,” Khamenei said in a post on X. “In Islam, she possesses her independence, her capacity to act & to progress, her identity; in the West, her dignity is not respected, and she is treated as an object in the service of material interests.”

There is certainly room to criticize women’s role in Western societies, especially in the post-modern era. However, Khamenei conveniently omits the practical application of Sharia law in countries like Iran that tolerate child marriages and require women to hide behind hijabs.

RELATED: Trump to ‘permanently pause’ migration from third-world backwaters in wake of National Guard member’s grisly murder

Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images

In an even more surprising take, Iran’s supreme leader insisted that the gender wage gap was an oppressive reality that Western women have to endure, despite it being both disproven and outlawed altogether.

“Today, in many Western countries, women’s wages are lower than men’s for the same work,” Khamenei said in a post on X. “Today, that’s how it is. It’s a blatant injustice.”

RELATED: How Sharia law violates everything the founding fathers built

Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

While criticizing the West, the ayatollah omitted the real, dramatic gender disparities in Iran’s workforce.

In Iran, less than 14% of women participate in the workforce, compared to 67% of men. Additionally, a husband can prevent a wife from working at all if he believes it to be “with the family interests or the dignity of himself or his wife.”

Iran’s law also forbids women from being employed in “dangerous, arduous, or harmful work,” with massive underrepresentation in higher professions like parliament. Women are barred from positions like supreme leader, and they cannot be appointed to judicial roles.

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The Department of Homeland Security is blasting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) after an illegal alien was charged in the death of an 11-year-old boy on Thanksgiving.

Hector Balderas-Aheelor ran over Aiden Antonio Torres De Paz when the boy left his Escondido home to retrieve a soccer ball on Thanksgiving eve, according to police. The boy died the next day, on Thanksgiving morning.

‘We do give thanks that he is up above with our heavenly father.’

Officials said Balderas-Aheelor did not stop and sped away from the scene. He was later apprehended and arrested for the alleged hit-and-run.

The 44-year-old Mexican national had been deported three times in 2004 and a fourth time in 2010, according to a DHS press release.

In a post from the agency on social media Wednesday, the agency accused Newsom of refusing to honor the immigration detainer on the man.

“Governor Newsom is REFUSING to honor the ICE detainer for an illegal alien who killed an 11-year-old boy,” read the statement in part.

“When will Governor Newsom stop releasing criminals into our neighborhoods and putting American lives at risk?”

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin added that the state’s “sanctuary laws threaten to put this killer back onto California’s streets.”

Newsom’s office responded with a brief statement.

“The federal government admits a failure to apprehend the suspect when he unlawfully entered the U.S., but California law does not prevent them from acting now,” said a spokesperson.

RELATED: Illegal immigrant community shocked by ICE nabbing popular figure for deportation

Balderas-Aheelor was charged with felony hit-and-run causing death or injury.

“Sanctuary policies, like those backed by Gov. Newsom, put Californians in danger every day,” replied Rep. Ken Calvert of California on social media. “We must make the safety of California families our top priority.”

Irene Gonzalez, a friend of the child’s family, spoke to KNSD-TV.

“We’re not celebrating Thanksgiving like we should be,” she said.

“We do give thanks that Aiden is no longer in pain. … We do give thanks that he is now up above with our heavenly father.”

Escondido is a suburb of San Diego.

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The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to ensure that their shredded cheese products are not contaminated with metal fragments.

According to an FDA enforcement report, Ohio-based Great Lakes Cheese Co. — which touts itself as “an award-winning, premier manufacturer and packager of natural and processed bulk, shredded, and sliced cheeses” — initiated a recall on Oct. 3.

‘Wrap it securely before putting it in the trash.’

On Dec. 1, the FDA classified the recall as Class II, which describes “a situation in which use of, or exposure to, a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”

There are three classes of recall. A Class II designation is the second-most serious. The most serious, Class I, concerns situations when there is a reasonable probability that the use or exposure to a problematic product will cause adverse health consequences or death.

While Great Lake Cheese Co. made the potentially contaminated shredded cheeses, they were sold by various brands including Always Save, Borden, Brookshire’s, Econo, Food Club, Happy Farms, Laura Lynn, Publix, Simply Go, Stater Bros. Markets, and Sunnyside Farms.

The bulk of the recalled cheeses were low-moisture part-skim shredded mozzarella — 235,789 cases — but a number of Italian-style and pizza-style shredded cheese blends, such as Simply Go Italian Style Six Cheese Blend, have also been recalled.

The cheeses are customarily sold at big stores such as Aldi, Target, and Walmart.

RELATED: MAHA movement WINS: PepsiCo releases NEW Cheetos and Doritos alternatives amid RFK Jr.’s health crusade

Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The recalled cheese was distributed to Puerto Rico and the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Great Lakes Cheese Co. did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

The FDA notes on its website that consumers who suspect that they have a recalled food in their possession can generally return the items to the store where they were purchased for a full refund. The agency urges consumers not to give the potentially contaminated product to others such as a food bank or a pet and noted that if chucking the recalled product, consumers should “wrap it securely before putting it in the trash.”

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The Trump administration is continuing its deportation operations in more cities. Now the Department of Homeland Security is launching another operation in a Southern sanctuary city.

The DHS confirmed in a Wednesday press release that it is surging resources for increased deportations in New Orleans, Louisiana.

‘It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims.’

The project, dubbed Operation Catahoula Crunch, is targeting criminal illegal aliens who have been allowed to “roam free thanks to sanctuary policies that force local authorities to ignore U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest detainers,” according to the DHS.

“It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims. Catahoula Crunch targets include violent criminals who were released after arrest for home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto, and rape. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, we are restoring law and order for the American people,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

RELATED: ‘So dumb it hurts my soul’: DHS brutally fact-checks viral ‘new data’ from Cato Institute

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

The press release included mugshots of some of the “worst of the worst” criminals targeted in the operation. The listed criminals are from Honduras, Vietnam, Jordan, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the commencement of the operation Wednesday morning: “The men and women of DHS law enforcement have landed in The Big Easy. Operation Catahoula Crunch will remove the worst of the worst from New Orleans, Louisiana, after the city’s sanctuary politicians have ignored the rule of law.”

“LAW AND ORDER WILL PREVAIL,” she added.

Border Patrol commander of operations Gregory Bovino, who has been at the head of many of the widely publicized deportation operations across the country, signaled that the new operation was off to a good start: “We are here arresting criminals who should not be here. The state, local and federal law enforcement partners in Louisiana are excellent partners!!”

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As deportation operations continue to clean up sanctuary cities across the country, the Department of Homeland Security is focusing on another hub of problematic immigration: the Minneapolis-St. Paul region of Minnesota.

The Washington Examiner reported that Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, hinted at an immigration enforcement surge there as soon as this week.

‘Focus is on those Twin Cities more because of the criminal activities there that’ve been uncovered by DOJ and DHS.’

In a Fox News appearance on Tuesday, Homan suggested that plans were already in the works to increase resources in the Twin Cities in particular.

“I can tell you, the focus is there. It’s coming, but I don’t want to give a lot. I can’t tell you how many people are on the ground now, and how many people are going to be on the ground. I’ll leave that to the secretary of homeland security, but focus is on those Twin Cities more because of the criminal activities there that’ve been uncovered by DOJ and DHS,” Homan said in the interview.

RELATED: It’s not ‘racist’ to notice Somali fraud

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Citing an anonymous source familiar with the operations, the New York Times reported that the operation will target Somalis with final deportation orders in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.

Roughly 100 ICE agents have been called in for the operation, according to NYT.

This surge in law enforcement comes as the federal government expands its investigations into massive COVID-era fraud schemes. Over 75 indictments have already been issued, and Governor Tim Walz has been accused of obstruction in the case.

“Today, I have ordered an investigation into the network of Somali organizations and executives implicated in these schemes,” Small Business Administration administrator Kelly Loeffler said on Tuesday in an X post. “Despite Governor Walz’s best efforts to obstruct, SBA continues to work to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable, full stop.”

In his now-infamous Thanksgiving Truth Social post, President Donald Trump highlighted the plethora of problems the state of Minnesota is facing in connection with the Somali community.

“Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” he said.

Trump singled out Walz and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar:

The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how “badly” she is treated.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin stated, “What makes someone a target of ICE is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally.”

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