Category: blaze media

Growing up, Republicans treated deportations like a topic that required careful handling. Under presidents such as George W. Bush, the language was softened, the messaging was restrained, and the emphasis was placed on policy rather than persuasion. The assumption was that if the argument was sound, the public would eventually come around to it.

That assumption turned out to be wrong.

The goal is not to explain policy in a traditional sense, but to normalize it through repetition, familiarity, and shareability.

Consider the sympathetic yet stern immigration pivots Republicans such as former Texas Governor Rick Perry had during the 2012 GOP primary. Back then, the media and liberal pundits painted Perry as hardcore and extremely right-wing. Compared to Republicans in office now, however, he would be considered passive and extremely soft on the issue.

The assumption that the independent and flip-voter public would buy in to the GOP stance was not because the policy case for enforcement lacked merit, but because the conversation was happening somewhere else entirely.

Opinions were not being decided based on press briefings or white papers. They were being shaped on TV screens, social media feeds, comment sections, and viral content ecosystems where tone and format mattered as much as the substance.

Jeremy Knauff, founder of the PR firm Spartan Media, puts it this way:

Public relations plays a far larger role in policy than most people realize. It’s not enough just to educate the public any more — today, lawmakers need to engage in a more direct effort to influence public perception. The government has always done this to some degree, but the left has been significantly more active and effective in this regard. But now we’re starting to see a measurable shift from the right.

What we are seeing now from the Department of Homeland Security’s social media team represents a break from that old model. Simply put, they’re playing to win.

The kids want memes

The DHS, along with the White House and ICE, has been using memes, viral audio, and internet-native content to promote deportation policy and immigration enforcement. This includes Christmas-themed deportation memes, TikTok-style videos set to trending music, and stylized content designed to travel well beyond traditional government channels.

Keep in mind that Millennials (roughly ages 27-42) spend an average of nearly three hours per day, or approximately 17 to 20+ hours per week, on social media.

These aren’t your father’s government employees figuring these things out on the fly, looking sloppy and rushed. The content they’re putting out isn’t just quality; it is the type of content you would see on the feeds of the most viral social media content creators. They’re in the major leagues of viral political content.

One viral video posted by the DHS, captioned ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All,’ showed ICE agents blowing in doors and handcuffing and leading away undocumented immigrants to the theme song from the “Pokemon” cartoon. It certainly tugged on Millennial heartstrings, because that clip alone has been viewed 75.5 million times.

The backlash has been as immediate and intense as you would expect. Critics say this approach is dehumanizing, that it trivializes serious issues, and that it reflects a level of insensitivity that should not be associated with government communications.

CNN has gone so far as to claim that “underlining” DHS recruitment posters “are undertones that historians and experts in political communication say are alarmingly nationalist — and fraught with appeals to a specifically White [sic] and Christian national identity.”

Supporters see it as effective and long overdue after years of what they view as overly cautious messaging from the right.

RELATED: The case against ‘principled conservatism’

Erhui1979/Getty Images

Focusing only on whether the memes are appropriate misses the larger point. What is happening here is not primarily about humor or tone; it is about control over how the issue is framed and where the framing takes place.

Knauff says, “The people who are criticizing this approach are only doing so because they can see that it’s effective. And their complaints are disingenuous because it’s the exact same thing they’ve been doing for decades.”

The cool kids in control

For the better part of the last decade, conservatives did not lose the immigration argument on substance. They lost it on distribution. They had policies and data on their side, but they failed to communicate those ideas in the environments where younger voters and low-information audiences were actually forming opinions.

Put plainly, they were boring and unwilling to defend their position with the same passion as liberals.

The polling makes the gap impossible to ignore. Multiple 2026 surveys show that younger Americans are far less supportive of Trump’s immigration policies than older voters, especially Boomers who largely consume cable news.

A February PBS/NPR/Marist poll found that just 18% of voters under 30 approved of the administration’s approach to deportations, while 69% disapproved. A CBS/YouGov survey in mid-January similarly found that 60% of respondents under 30 believed Trump was doing “too much” to deport illegal aliens.

This issue isn’t cut and dry. Trump was delivered a mandate in 2024, but now that optics are changing, the question is whether to keep the foot on the pedal or not.

The picture is clear though: Younger voters are not instinctively aligned with the administration’s immigration agenda, even if they support individual enforcement measures in isolation. So what to do? Keep the memes coming.

The current strategy appears to be an attempt to close that gap by meeting the audience where it already is. Instead of trying to pull younger users into formal policy discussions, the DHS is embedding its messaging inside the formats the youth consume on a daily basis.

The goal is not to explain policy in a traditional sense, but to normalize it through repetition, familiarity, and shareability.

Propaganda? Only call it that if it’s boring.

RELATED: Why I support ICE as the son of an immigrant

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

It’s all about virality

What we’re seeing represents a significant shift in how the government communicates. In the past, agencies relied on press releases, official statements, and media intermediaries to convey their message carefully and cautiously. Now, the message is being delivered directly to the public in the same formats used by influencers, creators, and online communities.

The distinction between political communication and internet culture is becoming increasingly blurred.

There are clear risks to this approach. When complex policies are reduced to highly shareable clips, the conversation can quickly become polarized.

At the same time, the old model was not getting the job done. Staffers with communications degrees did not win over younger audiences, did not reshape cultural perception, and did not prevent immigration from becoming one of the most emotionally charged issues in our society today.

Backtracking to a more restrained style of messaging would not solve anything. It would only surrender the digital battlefield once again.

What makes this moment notable is not just the content itself, but what it signals about the future of political communication. The DHS is operating less like a government agency and more like a savvy political campaign, prioritizing reach, engagement, and narrative control over neutrality.

Weapons of meme destruction

The DHS’ use of memes is an indication that the rules of engagement have shifted. Political power is no longer exercised solely through policy decisions or legislative victories, but through the ability to shape perception at scale.

Republicans spent years trying to win arguments in spaces that fewer and fewer people were paying attention to. Now, they appear to be adapting to the environment as it actually exists. Whether that approach proves sustainable or backfires politically remains to be seen.

Knauff explains it like this:

I believe this strategy will not only continue to be effective, but also become more effective as time goes on. Right now, it’s novel and exciting, but as the new car smell wears off, the impact will remain — if we have the discipline to stick with the mission. Public relations requires time to create the desired outcome. It’s not something you can rush. The left had decades to slowly leverage this strategy, so the right needs to be just as patient in their execution.

If the GOP maintains its majority in Congress, Republicans might joke about how the memes saved them. If they lose, expect the old guard to say the memes were too mean.

What is clear is that the next phase of political communications will not be conveyed primarily through speeches, press conferences, or media panels. It will be fought through content and the side that understands that reality will have a decisive advantage.

May the side with the best memes win.

​Dhs, Ice, Trump, Trump administration, Public relations, Memes, Social media, Deportations, Illegal immigrants, Mass deportations, Border security, Border patrol, Opinion & analysis 

A disgraced former lawmaker in Massachusetts is still hoping that taxpayers will help keep him comfortable in his retirement years, despite his criminal convictions.

In February 2021, Democratic ex-state Rep. David Nangle, who represented the Lowell area for two decades and even sat as vice chair of the House Ethics Committee for a time, pled guilty to nearly two dozen charges related to stealing money from his campaign for personal expenses, defrauding banks, and failing to report income to the IRS.

It was ‘only because he had been a member of the House of Representatives at the relevant time that he was in a position to illegally withdraw funds from his campaign account.’

According to the Boston Globe, Nangle stole $70,000 from his campaign and defrauded banks of over $300,000 in ill-begotten loans. Nangle has admitted that he has a gambling addiction, but prosecutors claimed that in addition to blowing money at the casino, he also spent money on luxury items and other personal expenses.

Nangle was sentenced to 15 months but served only about five months of that sentence behind bars.

The scandal also cost him his political career. Nangle was successfully primaried in September 2020 after 22 years in the seat.

After his conviction, the Massachusetts State Retirement Board decided to revoke the state pension he had accrued during his time in office, valued at over $800,000. A district court judge later upheld that decision.

RELATED: 38-year-old Democrat found dead, wrapped in ‘blankets and black garbage bags’ — and now all eyes are on her husband

Barry Chin/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Nangle filed an appeal in Suffolk County Superior Court last week, requesting a review of “a judgment entered by the Lowell District Court, which affirmed the Defendant State Board of Retirement’s forfeiture of David M. Nangle’s vested state retirement allowance.”

Nangle has argued that his crimes were in “no way” related to his work in public office and that the stolen money did not involve “governmental funds or property,” the Globe said.

The retirement board and Lowell District Court Judge Pacinco DeCapua don’t seem to be buying it. According to the Globe, DeCapua even noted it was “only because he had been a member of the House of Representatives at the relevant time that he was in a position to illegally withdraw funds from his campaign account.”

Nangle, 65, has also claimed that he will be “destitute” without the pension, but the Globe, citing DeCapua’s ruling in January, reported that Nangle was working three jobs, collecting $6,000 a month for just one of them.

DeCapua, who acknowledged Nangle’s “road of redemption” regarding addiction, nonetheless determined that his actions “dishonored his title as a State Representative.”

Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance seems to agree. He told Blaze News in a statement: “A bank robber doesn’t get to keep his steal after he is convicted, and a state lawmaker shouldn’t be able to keep their pension after being convicted of fraud. If it were allowed, every bad impulse would be acted upon by our legislature.”

Nangle’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​David nangle, Massachusetts, Lowell, Democrat, Fraud, Paul craney, Politics 

Overnight star entrepreneur Paul Conyngham is scaling his company based around his experiences mixing LLM medicine, analysis, established treatments, and private laboratory services to bring tailored treatments, such as he brought to his dog Rosie, to a wider, human audience. The Rosie saga has gone viral and birthed a business, and LLM companies are thrilled. Will any of it work?

Last week’s viral story of Rosie the dog, whose ambitious owner leveraged LLMs (among many other things) to create a custom-tailored mRNA vaccine continues to instruct, maybe edify, but surely divide.

The medical and health care industries are among the most deeply corrupt.

Enter the human version of the AI self-medicating story: GitHub founder and billionaire Sid Sijbrandij was diagnosed several years ago with osteosarcoma. Sid pursued standard treatments, but they weren’t enough to halt the cancer’s progress. So Sid countered with a truly impressive, even inspiring, quotient of agency — throwing himself into gathering his own medical team, deploying AI where possible, maximizing every diagnostic test he could find, and open-sourcing his records.

With this approach, Sijbrandij says he was able to advance something workable in terms of a treatment protocol. His cancer is in remission, and he’s talking about the process on X and his website.

First the good news

The stories have remarkable parallels. Both involve successful, wealthy tech entrepreneurs. Both involve cancer, and both offer hope. The timing of both is curious.

There are a few very hard — even uncomfortable and offensive — but necessary questions to ask with respect to media reality. Boomer elites hope to keep the all-important economic and financial line going comfortably up as they exit into retirement en masse. How much of the self-guided vaccine push, and the rosy vision behind it, is real?

At the end of 2024, Sijbrandij transitioned from CEO to executive chair of GitLab, saying, “I want more time to focus on my cancer treatment and health.”

RELATED: A man used Grok to save his dog. Is intellectual property about to die?

wildpixel/Getty Images

Paul Conyngham details in a long essay posted to X exactly what the chatbots did to help. Also detailed are the various other cost-prohibitive treatments he leveraged to save his dog. Conyngham admits he was putting in an extra hundred hours of work per week on complex paperwork. This is time most people don’t have to spare, obviously. He does not mention the costs, but in America at this point few have any cash after paying the monthly nut. In Paul’s essay, we read “what the chat bots did NOT do”:

They did not collect samples. They did not isolate or sequence the DNA. They did not physically manufacture the vaccine. They did not administer it. Many brilliant scientists were required — including Professor Pall Thordarson at the UNSW mRNA Institute who manufactured the vaccine, Professor Rachel Allavena & Dr. José Granados at the University of Queensland who administered it, and Professor Martin Smith who provided expert guidance on the bioinformatics throughout.

Enter the dissenting opinions and scam artists.

Peeling away the hype

Never one to leave credit, cash, or free and mistaken public goodwill lying on the table, Sam Altman weighed in last week. “The coolest meeting I had this week,” he posted, “was with Paul, who used ChatGPT and other LLMs to create an mRNA vaccine protocol to save his dog Rosie. It is amazing story.”

At about the same time, just after the euphoria dissipated and Altman chimed in, a series of critical posts took swings at the general, and admittedly largely dilettante, story.

Patrick Heizer, a working biomedical engineer, called Sid Sijbrandij’s approach and presentation of the evidence in his self-management of osteosarcoma “extremely impressive.” However, he also estimated that Sid spent “tens of millions” to make it happen.

In Heizer’s learned opinion, the era of personalized, AI medical utopia is not here. With respect to the evidence presented in the story of Rosie the dog, Heizer was dismissive — citing a general lack of risk protocol and evidence for what did and didn’t work.

Another biochem Ph.D./founder figure on X, Egan Peltan, echoed Heizer’s doubts regarding the Conyngham/Rosie story. “There’s no evidence his process (beyond FDA approved doggie α-PD-1) had any impact on disease progression. The most parsimonious explanation is a partial response to α-PD-1.”

In our previous examination of this heartwarming tale, I suggested that the era of AI medicine poses certain glimmers of hope with respect to the future of decentralized — and, potentially, more affordable and effective — medical treatments.

But this sunny future must first punch through a systemically corrupt and increasingly inept system — with medical “errors” leading causes of death, pharmaceutical regulatory capture well entrenched, overall care suffering long-term degradation, and institutional scams outstripping even the power of the federal courts to fight.

Will we arrive at a two-tiered privilege scenario where regular Americans are once again supplying their data to be used merely for the benefit of those at the top, who can afford to leverage the panoply of treatment options? We’ve gotten far too accustomed to being left out in the cold, and the medical and health care industries are among the most deeply corrupt.

​Tech 

From its earliest days, the United States saw itself as a nation with intense purpose. Not a static country, not a museum of inherited customs, but a project. Alexander Hamilton envisioned a commercial republic that would rival the great powers of Europe. The doctrine of manifest destiny pushed that ambition across a continent. After World War II, the same impulse extended outward into global leadership.

America, in other words, has always kept its eyes on the horizon.

But once the frontier had been settled, the U.S. seemed to turn inward, focusing its boundless energy and notion of destiny toward a social crusade. The progressive civil rights movement became the story Americans told about themselves more than any other. A nation built on outward expansion turned inward. The energy that once drove settlers westward and engineers skyward was redirected into a different kind of project: a moral and social crusade at home.

This narrative is so powerful that it now dominates both the conservative and liberal mind. This means that the U.S. no longer really has a conservative movement, but rather two competing versions of the same progressive teleology that only disagree about the pace at which the social revolution should be pursued.

Restless people settled the US; we barely complete the conquest of one challenge before some group splinters off to brave the next frontier.

The philosopher Aristotle is famous for his discussion of telos — the end or purpose of a thing. Many modern thinkers have discarded this notion of ultimate purpose in favor of a more materialistic understanding of the world, but Aristotle is right, and they are wrong. America was always a nation in tension, recognizing the need to solidify its identity as the first true product of the New World even as it was immediately compelled forward by ambition. Restless people settled the U.S.; we barely complete the conquest of one challenge before some group splinters off to brave the next frontier. The American advance has always been relentless. Our nation is one of great purpose and great energy that will be directed toward whatever end we put our minds to.

For most of its history, America’s telos was expansion. Not merely territorial, but civilizational. A restless people moved outward, solved one problem, then immediately sought the next. This produced enormous dynamism. It also produced tension. The country had to define itself even as it constantly outgrew its previous definitions.

The civil rights myth

North America is the natural domain of the United States, but once the West had been truly settled, there was nowhere left for that pioneering spirit to expand. World War II proved to be the nation’s most radical period of transformation, during which it emerged as one of only two real superpowers dominating the globe. There were attempts to redirect that impulse. The space race briefly reopened the horizon. The competition with the Soviet Union offered a global stage. But these proved temporary. The deeper shift was happening at home.

The civil rights movement had begun as a reasonable request for legal equality, but was quickly merging with hippie culture and anti-Vietnam protests into a full-blown revolutionary deconstruction of America. The story of the civil rights movement was no longer the effort to seek a temporary solution for a wrong done to a specific group. Instead the movement fully embraced the progressive and Marxist themes of its contemporaries. America was no longer a great nation that needed to make some adjustments to integrate black citizens better; it was an eternal oppressor that had to be entirely reconstructed.

That shift matters because it supplied a new telos. If the old purpose had been expansion, the new one was equality, understood not as a condition to be achieved, but as a process without end. Every disparity became evidence of unfinished work. Every institution became suspect. The project could not conclude because its logic required constant renewal.

Conservatives initially stood against the civil rights revolution. Barry Goldwater famously opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not because he supported Jim Crow, but because he understood the legislation as a revolutionary attack on states’ rights. Many conservatives initially objected to Ronald Reagan enshrining the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday into law because they still remembered that King was a communist sympathizer and serial adulterer who supported what we would later call DEI.

It was very clear that the CRA had already mutated well beyond its initial purpose and that civil rights law was expanding to consume every area of American life. But every movie, television show, novel, and news broadcast was selling the civil rights revolution as the new story of America. Conservatives never stood a chance.

The new telos of America was one of equality. The framers had written that “all men were created equal,” and it was now the purpose of the U.S. to make that a reality. While Thomas Jefferson may have penned those famous words, it is very clear that neither he nor most of the founding generation meant them in the way modern Americans do today. The continuation of slavery is the obvious example, but early American immigration laws restricted naturalization to whites of good character.

Alexis de Tocqueville, author of “Democracy in America,” famously argued that American blacks and Anglos were incompatible and that a race war would likely come before any national civil war. Even Abraham Lincoln was not optimistic about the integration of black and white America, with plans to send former slaves back to Africa once the Civil War was concluded. Whatever previous generations meant by that famous phrase, they obviously did not believe in a never-ending quest to remake society in the name of equality.

Predictably, leftists took the revolution as far and as fast as they could. America’s original sin was slavery, and the country’s entire purpose was now a never-ending mission to atone for this great evil. The suppression of black Americans was systemic, so the United States had to deconstruct all previous hierarchies to avoid oppression. First race, then gender roles, then marriage, then religion, then the concept of biological sex itself. No matter how absurd the exercise proved itself to be, the hunt for one new oppressed minority to grant civil rights to became the telos of America.

Conservatives are the Washington Generals

Conservatives assumed their classic position as beautiful losers. They rejected the speed and intensity of the revolution but accepted the premise. Republicans went from rejecting MLK Day to worshiping the communist as some moderate paragon of the civil rights revolution. The conservative movement rapidly came to believe much of what the left was already asserting, but wanted the revolutionaries to drive the speed limit. Yes, the founders were racist. Yes, they had failed in their promise. Yes, the story of America was its eternal reinvention to achieve social equality. But also, the military and baseball are good, and maybe we can keep some of the Christianity because that also seems important.

This created a strange phenomenon: two competing progressive teleologies, one extreme and one more moderate, came to dominate the American mind. The conservatives began to manifest this ideology in areas of life where they held power. American foreign policy became one of eternal liberation, where our country would conquer the world in the name of liberal democracy.

Despite theoretically opposing feminism or gay rights in the U.S., conservatives would also cite violations of these civil rights as reasons to invade and control other countries. American churches, even conservative ones, began to center their message on race relations, liberation of the oppressed, and care for illegal immigrants. A real right wing no longer existed in America; the new frontier was the eternal civil rights revolution, and the only question was how far and how fast it should go.

This dynamic has created something of an identity crisis for the American right. On one hand, conservatives want to limit the excesses of the left; on the other, they have bought entirely into the progressive premise. American conservatives do not really want to return to the intention of the racist, sexist, and homophobic beliefs of the founders. They like the progress, they approve of the revolution, and they are ashamed of their past.

This subversion of the American vision is unfortunate, but it does not have to remain permanent. Instead of wasting our blood and treasure trying to turn every authoritarian backwater into a flourishing Jeffersonian republic, we could once again turn our eyes to the stars. Instead of trying to stamp out every form of inequality in our society, we could embrace hierarchy and the pursuit of greatness.

Instead of being ashamed of our founders, conservatives could follow manifest destiny to Mars and beyond. That requires rejecting the idea that the nation’s highest purpose is to endlessly remake itself in pursuit of abstract equality. It means accepting that hierarchy, excellence, and difference are not pathologies to be erased, but features of any functioning civilization. Before we can pursue the frontier once more, we must believe that we are a people with a purpose, a nation that deserves not just to survive, but to thrive.

​Auron macintyre, Civil rights, Constitution, Mlk, Mlk day, Thomas jefferson, Space, Opinion & analysis 

A 37-year-old woman has been arrested for child cruelty after allegedly leaving six young siblings to fend for themselves, according to Georgia police.

Douglasville police said they found the kids, who ranged in age from 1 to 10 years old, unsupervised at the home on James D. Simpson Avenue on March 29.

‘I thought everything was OK, but I just know she’s never home, she’s never there, and it’s just sad.’

The oldest child told police they were forced to eat cockroaches and ants. Police believed they were left alone for about 12 hours.

Arrest warrants state that police found the home to be lacking “adequate food or suitable living conditions,” and they reported a “strong, foul odor consistent with unsanitary living conditions.”

Sherry Diane Magby was arrested on Thursday and charged with six counts of child cruelty in the second degree. She was taken into custody at the Douglas County Jail.

Police have not disclosed the woman’s relationship to the children.

One of the children died, but police did not release information about the circumstances of the child’s death.

WXIA-TV said court records indicated that Magby had been previously arrested for allegedly cutting her son by throwing a pocketknife at him. She faced a child cruelty charge in that incident as well.

Neighbors in the area told WXIA that they had expressed concern about the lack of supervision over the children.

RELATED: Baby found abandoned in front of stranger’s home — before 4 of her family members are discovered dead

“I thought everything was OK, but I just know she’s never home, she’s never there, and it’s just sad, sad,” said one neighbor, who didn’t want to be identified.

“One time, I told my husband we might need to do a welfare check because he came home like 12 o’clock one night, and the kids was outside playing. She wasn’t there,” another neighbor said to WAGA-TV.

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​Child dies after abandonment, Douglasville children abandoned, Sherry diane magby arrested, Six charges of child cruelty, Crime 

“Saturday Night Live” cast member Chloe Fineman is facing intense backlash after she admitted in a Vanity Fair game show video that she was fired as a teenage camp counselor for “pantsing” a 6-year-old boy as a prank.

“I was fired as a camp counselor. I pantsed a boy, and he wasn’t wearing underpants, and then a giant school bus drove by,” she recounted, noting that the boy was “6” when this incident happened.

When her fellow cast members reacted in shock, Fineman continued, “No, it was a different time! Like he would be like, ‘Hey, can I have a hug?’ and I’d go to hug him and then he’d like lift my shirt like a d**k. And then I was like, ‘I’m going to get back at you,’ and so we were on a hike, and I was like, ‘Hey, Ollie, go look over there, it’s a hawk,’ and then I yanked his pants down. He wasn’t wearing underwear. His little ding-a-ling was out.”

Although Vanity Fair has since edited out some of Fineman’s most controversial statements — specifically her admission that the boy was 6 and her use of the term “ding-a-ling” — Sara Gonzales has the fully intact clip. On a recent episode of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” she played the unedited video and reacted to it.

“Chloe [Fineman] thought that she was being funny when she admitted to sexually assaulting a child,” says Sara, lamenting the devolution of “SNL” from genuinely good comedy into woke, preachy politics.

“It wasn’t a ‘different time’ then. There was not a time where adult camp counselors could pants 6-year-olds,” she continues.

Sara notes that there’s been unsurprising silence from the left on Fineman’s disturbing comments.

“Not a peep. The same people who were like, ‘The Epstein files, we hate child predators, release the files’ — but nothing to say about this woman admitting that she sexually assaulted a 6-year-old. This is crazy,” she condemns.

“Is she going to be removed from ‘SNL’? Are the cast members going to continue to work with a sexual predator?” she asks. “Probably, because the left has no morals and no values. They only wish to use those morals and values against you.”

To watch the original, unedited Vanity Fair clip and hear more of Sara’s commentary, watch the video above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Blazetv, Blaze media, Snl, Saturday night live, Vanity fair, Chloe fineman 

There was a time when James Carville was one of the sharpest political minds in the country — quick, blunt, and effective. He could take a complicated moment and reduce it to something people could carry. That skill is what makes watching him now so unsettling.

Sitting alone, looking into a camera, and unleashing a stream of profanity and rage, it feels less like strategy and more like something unraveling in public. The volume is high, the emotion even higher. It’s completely out of proportion to the moment.

Someone willing to torch his career, his reputation, or even his freedom is not waiting around for your argument.

There’s a sadness to that. Somewhere along the way, he decided this was necessary. You can almost trace the descent, step by step, to a place where that kind of display felt reasonable.

But this isn’t just about one man.

We used to have a line. Not perfection or agreement, but a shared understanding that how we conduct ourselves matters.

That line has eroded, and most people can feel it. This didn’t start yesterday. We’ve been coarsening for a long time.

Years ago, if you were furious, you wrote it out, read it, said it out loud, and then burned it.

Now we broadcast what used to be processed privately. And once it’s out there, it multiplies.

Some people don’t just brush up against this behavior. They live in orbit around it.

Family caregivers know this terrain in a way most people don’t, not because they’re wiser, but because they’re required to learn. Addiction. Dementia. Chronic pain. They discover that not every situation can be reasoned through.

And those lessons transfer.

What you learn sitting across from someone in addiction or confusion applies when you’re standing in front of someone screaming in a parking lot or filming themselves in a rage they can’t govern.

There is a moment where something crosses a line. The defensiveness sharpens. The aggression follows. The reaction no longer fits the moment.

And in that moment, you realize you are no longer dealing with the issue in front of you. You are dealing with something underneath it.

There’s a story behind it, which is why, if it’s hysterical, it’s historical. At that point, you are not in a conversation. You are standing in front of something that will not respond to reason.

Someone willing to torch his career, his reputation, or even his freedom is not waiting around for your argument.

It is a tug of war.

If you win, you end up on your back. If you lose, you end up on your face. Either way, you are in the dirt.

So do not pick up the rope.

That runs against our instincts. We want to engage, correct, and win. But if you take hold, you are no longer engaging a person. You are engaging the disorder or the wound. That is a fight you cannot win.

I have learned this lesson the hard way. I have leaned in, pressed harder, and tried to force clarity into moments that could not hold it. All it did was pull me deeper into the chaos.

So you learn to do something different. You slow down, take a breath, and create space.

RELATED: How the DC media machine actually works

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sometimes that space is physical. Sometimes it is emotional. Sometimes it is simply refusing to engage. You do not have to comment, respond, or show up for every fight you’re invited to.

Scripture speaks to this. The apostle Paul wrote, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

If possible.

Sometimes it is not. Sometimes the other person has already decided otherwise. But you do get a vote on how you conduct yourself. That is where self-control comes in.

Self-control is not passivity or cowardice. There are times to confront and times when authority must be exercised, even forcefully. But even then, you are not called to function out of rage. You are called to do what is necessary.

And we are seeing more and more people choose escalation. A routine traffic stop becomes a standoff. A disagreement on a plane becomes removal from the aircraft. A minor infraction becomes handcuffs.

Crazy doesn’t let go, but that does not mean you have to hold on.

You don’t have to pick up the rope. You don’t have to match the volume. You don’t have to join the unraveling.

In a culture that rewards outrage, the rarest strength is self-control. And self-control may be the only thing that allows you to walk through chaos without joining it.

​James carville, Political discourse, Trump, Politics, Escalation, Opinion & analysis 

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is going to allow federal funding to flow once again to Planned Parenthood after a one-year ban, according to the Washington Examiner.

Pro-life groups are trying to keep the ban on Medicaid funds to the abortion provider when it expires on July 4.

‘Defending the right to life is fundamental and something all Republicans should fight for.’

Johnson passed a two-year ban on funds through the House last year, but it was reduced in reconciliation to one year in order to pass the Senate.

Now it appears that the reconciliation process will kill the ban altogether.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) responded on social media by calling on Johnson and other Republicans to reconsider the decision.

“I strongly supported defunding Planned Parenthood in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act and have championed provisions to ensure federal tax dollars aren’t funding abortions throughout my career,” he wrote. “Defending the right to life is fundamental and something all Republicans should fight for.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri also registered his disappointment.

“This would be a massive betrayal,” he wrote on social media. “Under no circumstance can Planned Parenthood be allowed to get taxpayer money for their abortions and gender transition insanity. Period.”

RELATED: ‘Fraud … for abortion’? Vance announces probe into Planned Parenthood’s $88M taxpayer-funded loans at March for Life

A Planned Parenthood report said it provided 434,450 abortions last year, the highest number recorded for the organization.

The Live Action pro-life organization said that worked out to about one child aborted every 73 seconds in the U.S.

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​Ban on planned parenthood funding, Mike johnson planned parenthood, Mike johnson abortion, Johnson betrayal, Politics 

A Federalist article published yesterday revealed that the government-funded Global Engagement Center assured the State Department its censorship “test bed” platform would not target U.S. audiences, yet it proceeded to fund a trial specifically aimed at Blaze Media.

“Let me break it down simply,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says.

“Back in 2011, Obama signed an executive order to establish the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications … to support ‘agencies in government-wide public communications activities targeted against violent extremism and terrorist organizations,’” she recounts.

This was the “seed,” she explains, that would eventually sprout and bloom into a domestic censorship apparatus.

In 2016, Obama then signed an executive order, renaming the existing Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications the Global Engagement Center and tasking it with coordinating U.S. government-wide counterterrorism communications activities directed at foreign audiences abroad to counter terrorist messaging.

“Pay attention to these dates. 2016, [Obama] is out the door,” Sara says.

In the waning days of President Trump’s first term (December 14, 2020, to January 7, 2021), however, a GEC-funded test-bed trial diverted from its stated mission to target foreign disinformation when it set its sights on Blaze Media.

Its other target was Sputnik News, a Russian state-owned news agency and radio service.

“Why would we be as big of a target as a Russian state news agency?” Sara asks. “Is the deep state that threatened by what we talk about?”

“The answer is yes — the deep state actually is that threatened by what we talk about,” she answers definitively.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down the GEC and its successor office, the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, in 2025, the New York Times and other left-wing outlets lamented it.

Sara mocks the coverage the story received: “He closed down the State Department office on foreign disinformation. Why would we want to have disinformation? That’s bad!”

“No, it was just being used to suppress and censor actual American media,” she explains. “Sorry, I’m saying American media like it was plural — like it was like this big venture. … No, it was just us.”

Why Blaze Media specifically?

Sara believes it’s tied to Blaze Media’s COVID coverage.

“We were one of the only (actually the only) alternative media outlet that was telling the truth during COVID, myself included,” she says. “We were getting demonetized left and right because we were actually telling the truth.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Blazetv, Blaze media, The federalist, Gec, Obama, Covid censorship, The blaze, The blaze censored, Global engagement center, Counterterrorism 

The attorney who represented an adult film actress who tried to take down President Donald Trump has been released from prison after serving time for defrauding his clients.

Michael Avenatti, nicknamed the “creepy porn lawyer” by Tucker Carlson, was convicted of trying to extort up to $25 million from the Nike shoe company and stealing from actress Stormy Daniels as well as others. In June, he was resentenced to serve 11 years and three months in prison in connection with some of the charges.

He reportedly cried in court before sentencing.

Avenatti once was considered one of Trump’s most potent foes and even said he was considering running for president but fell far short of taking down his opponent.

Daniels accused Trump of paying her hush money ahead of the 2016 election to keep her from speaking out about their alleged extramarital affair. Critics said the payment amounted to election interference.

Avenatti served about four years in prison and is ordered to report to a halfway house in Hollywood, where he will stay until Sept. 2028, according to TMZ. He is also ordered to stay away from unlawful controlled substances and has to participate in mental health treatment.

Fox News reported that he got early release after some of the sentences were allowed to run concurrently.

At the apex of the media circus propping up Avenatti’s celebrity, he was compared to one of the persons in the Holy Trinity by “The View” co-host Ana Navarro.

“Lately to me, you’re like the Holy Spirit,” she said in Aug. 2018. “You are all places at all times. Right? I mean, I see you all over cable news. … There’s a seat available if you want to be a co-host at ‘The View.’ There’s people here you can pitch!”

“He’s out here saving the country!” Joy Behar responded at the time.

Only a few months later, Daniels publicly accused Avenatti of ignoring her calls and starting a crowdfund campaign to raise money for her legal defense without permission. He was later convicted of stealing $300,000 from her and sentenced to four years in prison.

In 2021, he was sentenced to two and a half years for a conviction related to an extortion scheme he attempted against Nike. He reportedly cried in court before sentencing.

RELATED: MSNBC anchor makes stunning admissions about interview with Kavanaugh accuser

The next year, he was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for stealing from his clients and obstructing the IRS. He was resentenced last June.

Avenatti was ordered to pay nearly $6 million in restitution.

He was also accused of domestic abuse by a former girlfriend, but he vehemently denied those claims and was never criminally charged.

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​Michael avenatti prison release, Avenatti vs trump, Avenatti vs stormy daniels, Stormy daniels hush money, Politics 

The man on trial for allegedly stabbing to death a Ukrainian immigrant without provocation has been determined to be “incapable to proceed” by a state psychiatric facility.

Video from the light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, captured the moment that Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly brutally stabbed Iryna Zarutska in the neck, according to prosecutors.

Brown’s attorney argued that the capacity hearing cannot take place as long as the suspect is in federal custody.

Brown, who is 44 years old, had a long history of violence and mental illness before he allegedly attacked Zarutska, who was on her way home after working a shift at a pizza shop in Aug. 2025.

A public defender filed a court filing Tuesday citing the mental evaluation from the Central Regional Hospital, but the judge must determine whether he will accept the findings.

The case is expected to be delayed until Brown is given psychiatric treatment to restore his capacity to proceed.

Zarutska, who was 23 years old at the time of her death, had fled from Ukraine to escape the dangers of the Russian war. Her death has become a national crusade against lax criminal prosecution and was featured in President Donald Trump’s last State of the Union address to Congress.

Brown’s attorney argued that the capacity hearing cannot take place as long as the suspect is in federal custody.

WBTV-TV reported that the process of restoring competency in North Carolina can take a long time because of the lack of psychiatric resources.

The suspect’s mother has admitted that Brown suffered from mental illness and had been arrested more than a dozen times.

RELATED: Axios gets obliterated online for unbelievable framing of stabbing death of Ukrainian refugee

Tech billionaire Elon Musk donated $1 million to help fund murals across the country to honor the memory of Zarutska and bring more publicity to the cause.

Some of those efforts have been stymied by local activists and politicians who oppose the murals on the basis that they are “divisive” or do not align with their values.

“Evil doesn’t see policy. Evil doesn’t see left or right. Evil doesn’t see any of that. Evil is just evil,” said graffiti artist Gear Duran, who painted a mural in Las Vegas. “I’m here trying to combat that, to bring awareness with this mural, just to bring some positivity and light to what happened.”

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​Iryna zarutska murder, Decarlos brown jr mental illness, Decarlos brown incapable to proceed, Charlotte light rail murder, Politics 

On April 6, the WNBA’s Chicago Sky announced that it traded power forward Angel Reese to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for two first-round draft picks.

According to the team’s statement, the reason for the trade was “roster balance.”

But BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock isn’t buying it.

On this episode of “Fearless,” he unveils the real reason Reese was chopped after just two years with the Sky.

“I find it odd that the Chicago Sky would jettison her after just two years. I think that speaks to what a headache she was in Chicago,” Whitlock tells his panel — Jay Skapinac, Steve Kim, and Maurice from “Keep the Vision.”

“Teammates didn’t want to play with her; coaches couldn’t corral her. She was out there doing her double-double routine while the Chicago Sky were actually trying to win games or run an offense, and Angel Reese was just out there chasing stats,” he continues.

He asks the panel: “Do you think Angel Reese will adjust her approach, attitude, and style of play?”

“No, no, no, and no,” is Steve Kim’s honest response.

To Reese’s new Dream teammates, he warns, “Get ready to stick your hands out like this and never get the ball because she’s going to get the rebound, get another rebound, get another rebound, another rebound, and another rebound.”

Skapinac agrees: “She can barely — barely — make a layup, and in fact, she doesn’t make layups most of the time.”

“And Jason, I’m with you,” he continues. “She is going to be the locker-room team cancer.

“There’s never been a team — at Maryland, at LSU, and the Chicago Sky — where she didn’t have some sort of locker-room problem with her teammates. People don’t enjoy playing with her,” Whitlock says.

He does believe, however, that Reese may genuinely improve her game with the Atlanta Dream because she finally has the chance to potentially dunk on Caitlin Clark.

“She’s being offered a chance to play on a team that’s a championship-caliber team, and if she can get a WNBA championship before Caitlin Clark, that’s really going to enhance her brand, give her some standing around the league,” he says, “and I think that opportunity may for a short-term bring out the best in Angel Reese.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Fearless, Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, Chicago sky, Wnba, Angel reese, Caitlin clark, Atlanta dream, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Actress Kate Beckinsale wants to know why she was fired but a man was not.

The 52-year-old’s gripe dates back to 2023, when she was allegedly fired by talent agency UTA, which also represents actor Mark Ruffalo.

‘The price you pay for having a vagina while even remotely liking a post that was as un political as it could possibly be.’

‘Vagina’ monologue

Beckinsale took aim at Ruffalo by leaving a lengthy and inflammatory comment on his Instagram page last week. Ruffalo’s post was promoting a movie about Palestine, which prompted Beckinsale to leave scathing remarks claiming that UTA had fired her for liking a social media post about Palestine.

“Gosh, it must be so nice not to be fired by your Agent for liking a post about a ceasefire and not supporting the murdering of children,” Beckinsale reportedly wrote in response; her comments have since been deleted, Entertainment Weekly noted.

It only took two sentences for the “Underworld” actress to label her apparent firing as a case of sexism.

“I guess having a penis in Hollywood really counts for a lot because you’ve not been fired by the same Agent that I had and … I liked a post about a ceasefire and I’ve got fired on the same day as Susan Sarandon was fired,” she continued.

Saran-done

Unlike Beckinsale’s alleged firing, Sarandon’s was public and confirmed by UTA for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks at a pro-Palestine rally in 2023. According to Deadline, her comments included, “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”

UTA’s CEO at the time of Sarandon’s firing was Jeremy Zimmer, who is Jewish.

RELATED: Celebrities demand ICE send illegal immigrants back … to your neighborhood

Alex Kent/Getty Images

Social justice worrier

Beckinsale went on in her reported comments to describe the tough spot she was in when she was allegedly fired, having to take care of two sick parents. She also applauded Ruffalo for his “voice” and “activism,” before blaming sexism once more as the reason she was dropped by her agency.

“… the price you pay for having a vagina while even remotely liking a post that was as un political as it could possibly be, just asking for mercy for children and babies by UNICEF, in fact doing 1 millionth of what you have laudably done, caused me to be fired and you not, and that is, to say the least interesting.”

The actress said that other actresses and “women’s advocate groups” also found the situation interesting, before claiming that she had sent Ruffalo a private message about the issue months ago but he “ignored” her.

EW also reported that Beckinsale replied to one user’s comments by saying there exists “male privilege even in the good guys.”

RELATED: Gene Simmons’ advice for celeb activists Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo: ‘Shut the f**k up’

JOCE/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images

Hulk smashed

The agent in question was not named, and neither Ruffalo nor UTA have offered comment when approached by different outlets.

Beckinsale was correct to characterize Ruffalo as very politically active, though. He has put out a constant stream of commentary during the Donald Trump administration, including accidentally sharing AI images of Trump that he thought were real.

“Sorry Folks. Apparently these images are AI fakes. The fact Trump was on Epstein’s plane and what Epstein was up to is not. Be careful. Elon’s X and his allowing so much disinformation here is driving the value of his app down by 55%,” Ruffalo wrote at the time.

Ruffalo has shown his support for Palestine in many ways, including supporting the shutdown of the Oscars ceremony he was attending and calls for his union to protect pro-Palestine activists from being blacklisted.

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​Align, Hollywood, Palestine, Israel, Actors, Sexism, Woke, Liberal, Sexist, Ruffalo, Entertainment 

CBS will waste no time looking for laughs after “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ends its near-11-year run.

Colbert has faced consistent scrutiny since reports surfaced of his show’s alleged $40 million annual losses against a $100 million budget. Now, the finish line is fast approaching as his show nears its May 21 finale.

‘The world can never have enough laughter.’

CBS will reportedly waste no time replacing Colbert and is moving right along with a new lineup for the 11:35 p.m. time slot on May 22.

Giggle gang

According to The Hill, Colbert’s late-night talk show is set to be replaced by a pair of half-hour programs featuring actual comedians.

First, back-to-back episodes of “Comics Unleashed” will air in Colbert’s soon-to-be former slot, moving up an hour from where it sits currently. The show features panels of bantering stand-up comics that have ranged from newbies to legends like Dennis Miller, Bert Kreischer, John Lovitz, and more.

Moving into the 12:35 a.m. slot is “Funny You Should Ask,” a reboot of the 1968 classic of the same name. The format has celebrities and comedians answer trivia questions, while contestants have to determine if they are giving the right answer.

RELATED: ‘LATE’ HATE: Even Hollywood is sick of Colbert’s endless pity party

Nothing personal

CBS said in 2025 that its cancellation of Colbert’s show was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.”

They added, “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount.”

This came around the same time that CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, paid a $16 million settlement to President Trump. The lawsuit claimed the network deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during her 2024 presidential election campaign, the Guardian reported.

Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe.”

RELATED: From Prada to politics: Meryl Streep tacks on SAVE America Act scare tactics to end of Colbert interview

Happy meal

Both shows replacing Colbert are produced by comedian Byron Allen, who has pushed out a steady stream of TV shows and movies over the past two decades.

Allen told The Hill that “Comics Unleashed” is a platform for comedians to simply “make people laugh,” adding that he truly appreciates CBS for “picking up our two-hour comedy block.”

“The world can never have enough laughter,” Allen added.

The 64-year-old is on the board of governors of the Motion Picture & Television Fund, along with other Hollywood staples like director J.J. Abrams, actor Colin Farrell, and rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. The fund describes itself as supporting “working and retired members of the entertainment community with a safety net of health and social services.

In 2025, Variety reported that Allen reached a settlement with McDonald’s after filing a $10 billion lawsuit against the food chain. The lawsuit alleged that McDonald’s discriminated against black-owned media companies in its TV advertising expenditures.

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​Comedy, Align, Stand-up comedy, Late night, Talk show, Anti-trump, Colbert, Jon stewart, Entertainment 

The socialist dreams of the mayor of New York City have hit another stumbling block after fewer than 100 days in office.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration says the promise of “free and fast” public buses for all New Yorkers will not happen this year.

‘The fact that he can’t fulfill any of his silly promises is entirely unsurprising.’

Mamdani promised before the election that he would eliminate bus fares and said that doing so would cut down on violence on public transit.

“The act of fare collection on the bus happens on the bus. So when you eliminate the fare box, you make for a safer experience for the bus driver, for everyone on the bus,” Mamdani said in an interview with Trevor Noah in December.

“The safety of that bus, the efficacy of how is it moving, the question of the doors, all of this is tied to the elimination of fare at once,” he added.

In an interview released by Politico on Wednesday, Mamdani tried to deflect when asked if he was giving up on the free bus pledge after the New York legislature did not include funding for the program in budget proposals for this year.

“Both legislative houses included language within their one-house budget proposals in support of bringing back a free-bus pilot program,” he said. “That is something that we are encouraged by, and it continues to be part of budget negotiations. I’m absolutely committed to making buses fast and free, and we’re encouraged by the conversations we’re having with the governor and legislative leaders to take action on that in 2026 as a first step.”

Economic expert and Blaze News contributor Carol Roth responded to the mayor’s sinking socialist dreams in an email to Blaze News.

“Mamdani’s campaign always was akin to the class president promising free pizza and a hot tub in the lunchroom. The fact that he can’t fulfill any of his silly promises is entirely unsurprising,” Roth said.

RELATED: ‘Parasitic Socialist’: Elizabeth Warren is getting crushed online over her tax hike proposal

Very soon after his inauguration, some New Yorkers and bus drivers mocked and ridiculed the possibility of his promise coming true.

Even Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in November that she could not support the bus fare promise because of the prohibitive cost.

“I cannot set forth a plan right now that takes money out of a system that relies on the fares of the buses and the subways,” she said.

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​Mamdani socialist dreams end, Mamdani free bus fares, Socialism fails, Kathy hochul vs zohran mamdani, Politics 

My childhood had a simple structure: Leave the house, come back when hungry.

Nobody tracked my location. Nobody scheduled my fun. I roamed a small Irish village with a rotating gang of kids, knocking on doors to collect whoever was free, wandering fields we didn’t own, climbing trees we absolutely shouldn’t have.

Our treehouse was born from boredom. Three of us, on a long summer afternoon, with nothing to do.

Our treehouse — built from stolen timber, held together, technically, by two bent nails — would have given a structural engineer a full breakdown. We were enormously proud of it.

Bumps and bruises

There were scuffles. Real ones, occasionally bloody, always brief. Someone would throw a punch over some perceived injustice. A disputed goal, a broken rule, an insult that landed a little too cleanly. Five minutes later, we’d be back at it, whatever it was that day.

No adults mediated. No one processed feelings. The fight resolved itself because the game needed bodies, and everyone knew it. You learned, quickly, that holding a grudge cost you far more than swallowing it.

The point isn’t that we were tougher or that children today are soft, although I would argue that both are true. The point I’m trying to make is that we were unsupervised, and supervision, it turns out, changes everything.

I say this not from a rocking chair but as someone who, at age 8 or 9, split his time between farm chores and disappearing into the village like a feral little fugitive. Less than 25 years ago. A blink of the eye, really, except apparently long enough to completely reinvent childhood.

Rationing daylight

Now, one in 10 parents say their young children play outside once a week or less. One week. Seven days. Imagine rationing daylight like that. Childhood has migrated indoors, onto screens, into carefully arranged playdates where two children sit in a living room while two adults hover nearby, making sure nobody says anything upsetting. The kids sense the performance. They behave accordingly.

Researchers from Denmark recently did something beautifully simple: They asked children what good play actually feels like.

Not what it teaches. Not what skills it builds. What it feels like from inside.

The answers were slightly embarrassing for every adult who has ever built a color-coded activity schedule. Children cared about the feeling of play. That loose, almost electric sense that something is genuinely alive. They cared about belonging — not polite, managed inclusion, but being genuinely wanted by the group. They cared about imagination running slightly off the rails. They even valued a certain productive chaos, the kind that adults instinctively shut down.

Adults, predictably, care about outcomes — cognitive development, motor skills, social learning they can point to and measure. Children care about none of this while they’re playing. What they actually care about is whether it’s fun, whether they’re wanted, and whether there’s the slightest chance that it might go delightfully wrong.

Screen police

Our games always went somewhere unexpected. A football match would mutate, mid-afternoon, into something involving a rope, an old mattress someone had dumped in a field, and rules nobody could fully explain afterward. The logic was impeccable at the time. The mattress did not survive.

Modern play environments iron out exactly these qualities. Soft surfaces, approved equipment, and an adult nearby to ensure fairness and prevent anything resembling genuine consequence. The result looks like play. Children sense that it isn’t, the way you sense when a photograph has been retouched slightly too much. Something essential has been removed.

Screens fill the gap with surgical efficiency. Nearly a third of young children now engage regularly in what researchers call “media play” — a phrase that earns its quotation marks. Tapping a screen is not the same as negotiating who gets to be the villain or managing the social fallout when the smallest kid turns out to be the best climber and everyone has to begrudgingly update their hierarchy. Digital games have fixed rules, predictable rewards, and zero social friction. That’s precisely their appeal. It’s also precisely their poverty.

The consequences don’t arrive with bruises or a note from school. They arrive later, wearing other disguises. Low frustration tolerance. Social anxiety with no obvious origin. A deep unfamiliarity with boredom, which is actually the raw material of invention.

RELATED: The day my father handed me the gun

NurPhoto/Getty Images

Free range

Our treehouse was born from boredom. Three of us, on a long summer afternoon, with nothing to do. Within an hour, we had made a plan. Within a week, we had made something structurally catastrophic and deeply satisfying. Nobody told us to build it. Nobody approved the design. Nobody stood beneath it checking for hazards, which was probably wise given what happened to the second shelf.

Children need exactly that kind of space. Not the park for 15 minutes before the grocery run, but long, unscheduled stretches where the only available resource is other children and whatever the back yard contains. Boredom long enough to become uncomfortable. Discomfort long enough to force creativity.

They need, occasionally, for nobody to be watching.

We turned out fine, most of us. There were scraped knees. One incident involved a gate left wide open, a bull wandering into the street, and a level of collective amnesia that has never fully lifted. The treehouse was, after much deliberation, abandoned to the weather. The nails, I’m told, are still there.

​Childhood, Ireland, Culture, Play, Helicopter parents, Lifestyle 

The male accused of killing a woman in a Florida hammer attack last week is a Haitian illegal alien who was protected from deportation under former President Joe Biden’s administration, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

As Blaze News previously reported, a 40-year-old male is accused of hitting a woman in the head with a hammer and killing her in a horrific attack recorded on surveillance video outside a Fort Myers gas station convenience store.

‘Not only did the Biden administration release him into the country, but they then gave him Temporary Protected Status.’

DHS said the suspect in the attack “first entered the United States in August 2022 and was released into the country under the Biden administration. A federal judge issued a final order of removal against him in 2022, but the Biden administration granted him Temporary Protected Status, which expired in 2024.”

“This illegal alien barbarically hit this woman in the head multiple times with a hammer. This heinous murderer was RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration. Not only did the Biden administration release him into the country, but they then gave him Temporary Protected Status,” said Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary at the DHS Office of Public Affairs. “Their reckless immigration policies cost this woman her life.”

RELATED: Florida thug accused of bashing woman’s head with hammer, killing her, in horrific attack outside convenience store

Image source: Department of Homeland Security

DHS said Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer against the suspect, and he will be deported regardless of the outcome of his case.

Notably, both Fort Myers Police as well as the Lee County Sheriff’s Office spell the suspect’s name Rolbert Joachin, while DHS originally spelled it Rolbert Joachim. The reason for the spelling discrepancy is unclear, but Fort Myers Police on Wednesday confirmed to Blaze News that “the correct spelling is Joachin.” DHS on Wednesday later updated its website to the spelling Joachin.

Joachin on Wednesday remained behind bars at the Lee County Jail on charges of homicide (murder dangerous depraved without premeditation) and criminal mischief. There is no bond listed for him in jail records.

Gulf Coast News on Wednesday reported that Joachin gave a detailed confession to detectives following his arrest and indicated that he went to the gas station last week specifically to kill the victim — a gas station clerk identified as Nilufa Easmin, also known as Yasmin. The outlet added in a video report that Easmin was the mother of two daughters.

More from Gulf Coast News:

Joachin told detectives he wore the same clothes that Yasmin had seen him in two days earlier so that she would recognize him, court notes said. He then said he intentionally smashed her car with a hammer so that she would come outside.

Surveillance video from the store captured the attack. In the video, Joachin reportedly smashed her car’s windshield. The surveillance video then shows the clerk coming outside. Joachin then approaches the victim and is accused of hitting her in the head with the hammer, killing her.

The following video report about the killing aired prior to the news about the suspect’s immigration status.

RELATED: Concealed-carrying motorcyclist fatally shoots alleged road-rage driver who charged at him with hammer, police say

What’s more, detectives said Joachin is a suspect in another case they have been working on for months, Gulf Coast News reported, adding that specifics about the case were not revealed.

The outlet added in a Wednesday video report concerning the suspect’s pretrial detention motion hearing that the judge ruled Joachin will remain in jail with no bond until trial because he’s too dangerous to be released to the public; his next court appearance — his arraignment — is scheduled for May 4.

The Miami Herald reported that the Trump administration has been “fiercely litigating in the courts to end [Temporary Protected Status] for Haiti and several other countries.” The paper added that an appeals court in March upheld TPS for Haitians, which upheld a ruling from Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, “but the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case days later.”

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, referring to the killing of the Fort Myers gas station clerk, wrote on X that “this horrific murder was preventable. Even as Florida arrests hundreds of criminal aliens every day, four years of the Biden admin’s open-border policies continue to wreak havoc on our communities. Members of Congress pushing for amnesty should be ashamed. There is no dignity in allowing more American victims at the hands of those who have no right to be in our country.”

Jeremy Redfern, deputy chief of staff for Uthmeier, added on X that “U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes said that ending TPS for Haitians was racist, and she blocked the attempt. Oral arguments over whether SCOTUS should stay Judge Reyes’ order happening on April 29th. So, here we are.”

Editor’s note: This article has been edited after publication to note that DHS now spells the name Joachin.

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​Department of homeland security, Immigration and customs enforcement, Arrest, Biden administration, Crime, Dhs, Florida, Fort myers, Haiti, Hammer attack, Homicide, Ice, Illegal immigration, Joe biden, Killing, Temporary protected status, Politics 

A Democrat mayor joined a mob of activists to shut down the painting of a mural in honor of Iryna Zarutska in Providence, Rhode Island, but the muralist is getting the last laugh.

Mayor Brett Smiley said the mural was against the values of the city after the owners of a prominent gay bar previously said they would allow it to be painted on one of their walls.

‘She worked to build a life for herself and lost it along the way. This mural is our way of honoring her on a building owned by an immigrant family who understands that journey.’

Halfway through the commission of the mural, the owners of the Dark Lady changed their minds and said on social media that the outrage from the LGBTQIA+ community forced them to stop the painting.

Now the mural has found a new home at a Lebanese restaurant instead of the gay bar.

The owner of Opa the Phoenician on Atwells Avenue is donating space for the mural on Federal Hill.

“She was once an immigrant chasing the American dream,” said Francois Karam about Zarutska. “She worked to build a life for herself and lost it along the way. This mural is our way of honoring her on a building owned by an immigrant family who understands that journey.”

He went on to say that the decision wasn’t made out of political motivation.

A Change.org petition garnered more than 13,600 signatures from those who demanded that the mural be returned to the Dark Lady’s wall. In an email statement to Blaze News, the petition creator lamented that the voices against the mural had won.

“While I appreciate that a version of Iryna Zarutska’s mural has been allowed to go up at Opa Restaurant on Atwells Avenue, this is no real victory. It’s a quiet concession to political pressure,” said Anthony D’Ellena, a local Republican committee chairman.

“Mayor Smiley called the original prominent mural ‘divisive’ and used his influence to bully the first business into removing it,” he added. “Now Iryna gets a diminished, tucked-away tribute on a side wall instead of the bold, visible memorial she deserved in downtown Providence.”

A separate petition on Change.org opposing the mural garnered 15 signatures.

RELATED: New butterfly species named in honor of Ukrainian woman brutally murdered on NC light rail

D’Ellena said in an update to the petition that he would continue to fight for the return of the mural.

The brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska, an immigrant who survived the war in Ukraine, was captured on security video from the Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail system. A suspect with a history of mental illness and violent crime was arrested and sparked a campaign against lax law enforcement policies.

Mayor Smiley is running for re-election in 2026 against another Democrat on the ballot as well as a third Democrat candidate who is a convicted child molester.

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The U.S. and Iran reached a fragile ceasefire agreement on Tuesday before President Donald Trump’s threat of civilizational annihilation could be put to the test.

Trump subsequently noted that the U.S. “will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made,” adding that “this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!”

‘It is madness.’

When asked on Wednesday whether he was amenable to the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that transit the Strait of Hormuz — the body of water between Iran and Oman linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, across which one-fifth of the world’s oil customarily travels — Trump told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It’s a way of securing it — also securing it from lots of other people.”

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Trump said, hours before Iran reportedly halted oil tankers attempting to pass through the strait, claiming Israel had violated the ceasefire by firing on Lebanon.

While now apparently open to such a partnership with Iran, Trump suggested to reporters on Monday that the U.S. could unilaterally impose tolls on vessels attempting to pass through the strait, reported The Hill.

RELATED: Israel ramps up attacks on Middle East target despite US-Iran ceasefire

Elif Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

“What about us charging tolls?” said Trump. “Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner.”

He also said during the press briefing, “We want free traffic of oil and everything else.”

Such tolls on vessels transiting a natural strait would seem to run afoul of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — ratified by the U.S., 170 other nations, and the European Union — which guarantees vessels the “right of transit passage” through straits used for international navigation; bars states bordering straits from hampering transit passage; and states that “no charge may be levied upon foreign ships by reason only of their passage through the territorial sea.”

Tolls can be levied only at man-made canals, according to the U.N. agreement.

Of course, the agreement’s authority and enforceability could be tested.

“All international law, unfortunately, is fragile,” Saleem Ali, chair of the University of Delaware’s geography department, told the New York Times. Ali noted that international laws depend on mutual respect between nations.

Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.

The idea clearly doesn’t resonate with everyone.

Karen Young, a senior research scholar at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, told Blaze News, “It is madness to think we are jointly collecting fees to help secure profits to the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].”

Former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy expressed a similar objection, writing, “If President Trump lets the Iranians charge a toll for ships in the Strait of Hormuz, then every time you fill up your car at the pump, you will put money straight in the pockets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This would be a humiliating disaster for the US.”

Joint venture or no, it appears that Iran aspires to keep sweating passersby in the Strait of Hormuz, now for crypto tributes.

Hamid Hosseini, a spokesman for Iran’s government-linked Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, told the Financial Times that his nation intends to force ships passing through the strait to pay the cryptocurrency equivalent of $1 per barrel of oil and notify Iranian officials of their cargo during the two-week ceasefire.

“Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in Bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,” said Hosseini. “Everything can pass through, but the procedure will take time for each vessel, and Iran is not in a rush.”

Reuters estimated last week that if Iran charged each vessel $2 million to transit the Strait of Hormuz, as it had already in one instance, and traffic were restored to prewar volume — 150 ships down the strait — Tehran could bring in around $110 billion annually.

According to the European think tank Bruegel, the $2 million per vessel, which “translates to roughly $1 per barrel,” would prompt the world oil price to rise “by only $0.05-$0.40 per barrel, relative to the pre-war level,” with Gulf exporters absorbing the bulk of the toll.

Of course, for Iran to impose tolls, it must first keep the strait open.

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With the whole world holding its breath amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East over the past several weeks, President Trump’s ceasefire with Iran has restored some confidence to the markets — though some uncertainty remains.

Oil prices dropped and stocks surged after Trump’s announcement on Tuesday evening that a ceasefire had been reached with Iran.

Oil prices also plummeted as the Strait of Hormuz has been projected to be opened.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 1,300 points since the close of market on Tuesday following the announcement of the ceasefire.

Likewise, the S&P 500 saw a 2.5% jump from Tuesday to Wednesday in response to the news, moving from just over 6,600 to 6,785 when markets opened on Wednesday.

RELATED: Iran reneges on key point of ceasefire amid allegations of broken promises

Punit PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images

The NASDAQ also saw a significant leap in response to the news, moving nearly 650 points for an almost 3% positive gain.

Oil prices also plummeted as the Strait of Hormuz has been projected to be opened. Crude oil WTI dropped from roughly 112 per barrel to just under 95 per barrel, a 17-point drop overnight.

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