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The Trump administration’s Department of Transportation is taking significant steps to address issues within America’s trucking industry to improve road safety and national security.

On Monday, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the department has revoked nearly 3,000 of the estimated 16,000 commercial driver’s license training providers listed in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Training Provider Registry. The TPR lists all training providers authorized to offer entry-level driver training for CDL students.

‘Under Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, bad actors were able to game the system and let unqualified drivers flood our roadways.’

The impacted training providers were accused of “failing to equip trainees with the Trump administration’s standards of readiness,” a press release from the DOT revealed.

Reasons for removal included “falsifying or manipulating training data”; “neglecting to meet required curriculum standards, facility conditions, or instructor qualifications”; and “failing to maintain accurate, complete documentation or refusing to provide records during federal audits or investigations.”

The department issued warnings to another 4,500 training providers for potential non-compliance. Those entities have 30 days to respond and deliver evidence of compliance to avoid removal.

The DOT noted that this action aims to crack down on unqualified truck drivers and “corrupt operators.”

RELATED: Trump DOT hammers Gov. Shapiro, threatens to pull millions after state hands CDL to ‘suspected terrorist’ illegal alien trucker

Photo by GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images

“If you are unwilling to follow the rules, you have no place training America’s commercial drivers. We will not tolerate negligence,” said FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs.

“This administration is cracking down on every link in the illegal trucking chain,” Duffy stated. “Under Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, bad actors were able to game the system and let unqualified drivers flood our roadways. Their negligence endangered every family on America’s roadways, and it ends today.”

“Under President Trump, we are reigning [sic] in illegal and reckless practices that let poorly trained drivers get behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses,” Duffy added.

Also on Monday, the DOT revealed that it found one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued illegally.

The department is giving the state 30 days to come into compliance and revoke illegally issued licenses. The DOT is prepared to withhold up to $30.4 million in federal highway funding if Minnesota fails to comply.

RELATED: Exclusive: DOT withholds $40M from blue state for flouting English requirements for truckers

Sean Duffy. Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Barrs accused Minnesota of “openly and blatantly defying our rules.”

“Under the Trump administration, states have two choices: Meet our standards or face the consequences. Following the law is not optional,” he declared.

“Our audit exposes yet another example of foreigners taking advantage of Minnesota services under Governor Walz’s watch,” Duffy said. “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified noncitizens — endangering American families on the road.”

This latest warning follows similar action the DOT has previously taken against Pennsylvania. The department has already vowed to withhold federal funds from California after the state failed to comply with its regulations concerning CDL issuance.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety and the governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

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​News, American trucking industry, Trucking industry, Department of transportation, Dot, Sean duffy, Minnesota, Commercial driver’s licenses, Commercial driver’s license, Cdls, Cdl, Federal motor carrier safety administration, Fmcsa, California, Pennsylvania, Non-domiciled cdl, Non-domiciled cdls, Non-domiciled, Politics 

A rhetorical battle has broken out between the Republican speaker of the House and a Republican congresswoman who is running in the gubernatorial election in New York.

Rep. Elise Stefanik accused Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana of lying about the process to include a provision in this year’s defense policy bill.

‘This is an easy one. This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee.’

Stefanik’s proposal would require the Federal Bureau of Investigation to notify Congress when it opens an investigation into a candidate for federal office. She threatened to kill the National Defense Authorization Act if her demands aren’t met.

“My provision will strengthen this accountability and transparency to deter this illegal weaponization and it passed out of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress and previous ones,” she wrote on social media Monday. “If Republicans can’t deliver accountability and legislative fixes to arguably the biggest illegal corruption and government weaponization issue of all time, then what are we even doing.”

She went on to accuse Republicans of siding with Democrats on the issue.

“It is a scandalous disgrace that Republicans are allowing themselves to be rolled by the Dems and deep state on this,” she added.

On Tuesday, she said she walked out on a briefing about the issue and again lambasted Johnson.

“This is an easy one. This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee,” she added.

Johnson reacted to Stefanik’s accusations during a briefing with reporters Tuesday.

“All of that is false. I don’t exactly know why Elise won’t just call me. I texted her yesterday,” he said.

“She’s upset one of her provisions is not being made, I think, in the NDAA,” Johnson added. “I explained to her on text message — as soon as I head this yesterday, I was campaigning in Tennessee — and I wrote her. I said, ‘What are you talking about? This hasn’t even made it to my level.'”

He went on to explain that the provision had to be agreed upon by other committees before it could be included in the bill, and it was not approved.

“I don’t know why she’s frustrated with me. I literally had nothing to do with it. But I’m happy to roll up my sleeves and help her,” he added.

RELATED: Trump responds to failed bid to oust speaker Mike Johnson

Stefanik fired back on social media and accused Johnson of siding with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

“Just more lies from the Speaker,” she wrote.

“It wasn’t on your radar? This is the ONLY provision in the bill to root out the deep state rot,” she continued in part. “You torpedoed this siding with Jamie Raskin. You said you would fix it, so fix it.”

Stefanik is running to replace incumbent Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, but recent polling shows she has an uphill battle in the Empire State. While one poll from the Manhattan Institute shows Stefanik just slightly above the Democrat, other polls show Hochul with a double-digit lead.

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​Stefanik vs speaker johnson, Deep state mike johnson, National defense authorization act, Republican feud, Politics 

President Donald Trump has stood firm about his opposition to third-world immigration, especially from Somalia.

Somalians have flooded Minnesota under the leadership of Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz, whom Trump described as “seriously retarded” in a Truth Social post over Thanksgiving. In the same post, Trump announced he would be indefinitely pausing migration from third-world countries like Somalia and reiterated his position during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

‘I don’t want them in our country.’

Trump takes issue with the cultural and economic burden of importing tens of thousands of Somalians into a state like Minnesota, as well as the ungrateful attitude of migrants like Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar.

“Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have no anything. They just run around killing each other. There’s no structure,” Trump said. “And when I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, who I don’t know at all, but I always watched her for years. I’ve watched her complain about our Constitution, how she’s being treated badly. … ‘The United States of America is a bad place.’ Hates everybody.”

“I think she’s an incompetent person. She’s a real terrible person.”

RELATED: Trump sounds off again on Ilhan Omar — says why she should be thrown ‘THE HELL OUT of our country’

“Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars,” Trump added. “Billions every year. Billions of dollars, and they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing.”

Trump went on to say that America cannot afford to “keep taking in garbage into our country,” referring to third-world migrants who “do nothing but complain.”

“I don’t want them in our country; I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said. “Some might say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country. I can say that about other countries too.”

“We have to rebuild our country,” Trump said. “… We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know if people mind me saying that, but I’m saying it. We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”

RELATED: ‘Send them back’: Somalia First pitted against America First in Minnesota as Ilhan Omar attacks Trump over special status

Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

Trump urged migrants like Omar, who have developed a disdain for America’s culture and founding, to go back to their own countries and fix them instead of siphoning public resources and ceaselessly complaining.

“Ilhan Omar is garbage; she’s garbage,” Trump said. “Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain. And from where they came from, they got nothing.”

“When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but b***h, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

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​Ilhan omar, Donald trump, White house, Trump administration, Tim walz, Somalia, Somalian migrants, Minnesota, Mass migration, Immigration, Politics 

Two National Guard members were shot in what is believed to be a targeted attack near the White House — and the left is already blaming the president for the devastating holiday shooting.

One left-wing X account titled “Call to Activism” wrote, “BREAKING: Both National Guard members who were shot in Washington, DC, just one block from the White House, have died from their injuries. God bless them and their families.”

“History will wonder what we’re all thinking: why did Trump have to put them in harm’s way for a STUNT?” the user added.

“Of course, that’s not true,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere says on “Stu Does America.” “But again, when is that ever the consideration when posting something?”

When West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey wrote a heartfelt response to the shooting on X, one X user responded, “They should not have been there. You sent them to die for a stunt.”

Keith Olbermann also took the time to respond, writing, “Trump put them in harm’s way, fash.”

“Now, fash in this particular sense is short for fascist, which he’s said about every Republican he’s ever come across for as long as anyone’s known him,” Burguiere comments, pointing out that some are even blaming the shooting on guns.

“If you want to go and kill one person with a gun, it’s relatively easy to do anywhere in the world. So it’s just insane to blame this on guns,” he says.

However, the suspect has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old man who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021.

“This is something the Biden administration wanted and executed in the worst possible fashion,” Burguiere says.

“You can’t control whether one person does something terrible. We have people, we have our own citizens, who do plenty of terrible things. This is why you don’t import more of it, right? We have enough crap going on here already without bringing in people who will kill us from foreign conflicts with nations we were at war with very recently. It doesn’t make any sense to import more of that,” he continues.

“If you import somebody like that, you better freaking be sure things go well,” he adds.

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.

​Upload, Free, Camera phone, Video, Sharing, Video phone, Youtube.com, Stu does america, Stu burguiere, The blaze, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blazetv, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Afghan, Afghanistan, National guard members shot, National guard, President trump, President donald trump, President biden, Joe biden, Joe biden mental decline 

A 54-year-old man was arrested for allegedly tossing Molotov cocktail-style explosives at officers standing guard outside of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday morning.

Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that Jose Jovel is expected to be charged with arson and explosive-related offenses by the U.S. attorney’s office.

‘[He] stated that he wanted to blow up the building and “spray down” all the officers while making more derogatory comments.’

Jovel was arrested at about 8 a.m. after the attack at the federal building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.

“The suspect was taken into custody and stated that he wanted to blow up the building and ‘spray down’ all the officers while making more derogatory comments about ICE officers,” read a U.S. Department of Homeland Security statement.

The alleged firebombs were not lit before the suspect threw them.

A hazmat team evaluated a liquid at the site and determined it to be safe. Los Angeles firefighters also responded to the scene.

The man is under investigation for an arson at about 4 a.m. at his residence on North Westmoreland Avenue.

Jovel is a U.S. citizen. DHS said that investigators found four knives and a Leatherman tool in Jovel’s possession.

No one was injured in the incident, according to Laura Eimiller, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI is also investigating.

RELATED: Portland man threatened to kill ICE officers, sexually assault their wives, harm their children: FBI

In June, the same federal building was the site of a large protest by hundreds of people who opposed mass deportation operations of the Trump administration.

The building was vandalized with spray paint at the time, and police reported that some of the protesters had turned violent and tossed large pieces of concrete.

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​Molotov cocktail attack, Anti-ice attack, Downtown los angeles federal building, Jose f jovel, Politics 

Beloved former child star Macaulay Culkin revealed he has an “elevator pitch” idea about another possible “Home Alone” movie.

Culkin is currently making the rounds on his “A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin” tour and revealed during a recent stop that — unlike “Home Alone” director Chris Columbus — he is not opposed to doing a sequel to the Christmas movie.

‘I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.’

Culkin admitted he “wouldn’t be completely allergic” to reprising his role as Kevin McCallister, Variety reported, but said any form of a sequel would “have to be just right.”

At that point, the 45-year-old divulged he “kind of had this idea” on how a new movie could play out.

Like father, like son?

“I’m either a widower or a divorcee. I’m raising a kid and all that stuff. I’m working really hard, and I’m not really paying enough attention, and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me, and then I get locked out. [Kevin’s son] won’t let me in … and he’s the one setting traps for me,” the actor explained.

RELATED: ‘Wet Bandit’ Marv Records Plea for Help to Old Partner Harry After Seeing Kevin McCallister Video

(Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The star said that the iconic “Home Alone” house would be “some sort of metaphor for” the relationship between him and his son, with his character trying to “get let back into son’s heart.”

He added, “That’s the closest elevator pitch that I have. I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.”

Keep the change

The comments are the latest sign that the once publicity-shy Culkin has embraced his child-star past.

In 2018, Culkin became Kevin for a Google Assistant ad, using the app to make purchases and manage the thermostat in his house.

Culkin also appeared in a series of videos for YouTube channel Cinemassacre around that same time, playing and reviewing the video games that featured his on-screen characters.

RELATED: Male, 58, points gun at 12-year-old girls singing Christmas carols door-to-door, police say

‘That thing I did’

In 2025, Culkin said that he has been showing his own children his old movies recently and that he was no longer bothered by the idea that his films are still popular.

“I think for a while, you know, when you’re a teenager and [in] your 20s and stuff like that, it’s like, ‘Ah, just they keep on talking about that thing I did.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Oh! They’re still talking about that thing I did.’ … I enjoy my legacy,” he told Yahoo Entertainment.

For Christmas season 2025, Culkin also paid homage to his “Home Alone” role in a commercial for an in-home care service.

1990’s “Home Alone” and 1992’s “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” have grossed more than $450 million over their lifespan.

“Home Alone 3,” which did not feature Culkin, grossed just $30 million.

​Home alone, Align, Movies, Film, Christmas, Holiday season, Child actor, Hollywood, Macaulay culkin, Entertainment 

Three-time Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro had strong words about using humans in the production of his latest film.

Del Toro, a writer and director behind films like “Pacific Rim,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “The Hobbit” movies, was honored with a tribute award recently at the 2025 Gotham Film Awards.

‘Every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans for humans.’

Del Toro accepted the award alongside actors Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi for their work on the 2025 film “Frankenstein.”

Del Toro made several emotional comments dating back to when he first read the book that inspired his movie at age 11, before Isaac attempted to turn the acceptance speech into one about diversity and immigration.

“I am proud to be standing here tonight. … Immigrants, baby. We get the job done,” Isaac exclaimed. He is Guatemalan, Elordi is Australian, and del Toro is Mexican.

Elordi then spoke, but neither he nor del Toro added to Isaac’s remarks. Soon, music started to play, and the production looked to the next award. That was until del Toro interrupted, deciding that he wanted to add opinionated remarks of his own.

“No, no, no, wait!” del Toro interrupted. “I would like to tell to the rest of our extraordinary cast and our crew that the artistry of all of them shines on every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans for humans.”

“The designers, builders, makeup, wardrobe team, cinematographers, composers, editors,” he continued. “This tribute belongs to all of them. And I would like to extend our gratitude and say —” del Toro then paused, seemingly wondering if he should continue.

“F**k AI,” he added with a smile.

RELATED: Almost half of Gen Z wants AI to run the government. You should be terrified.

During his acceptance speech, del Toro spoke on the inspiration he drew from Mary Shelley, the original author of “Frankenstein.”

“Mary Shelley, who made the book her biography, she was 18 years old when she wrote the book and posed the urgent questions: Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? And where am I going?” del Toro explained. “She presented them with such urgency that they are alive 200 years later through this incredible parable that shaped my life since I first read it in childhood at age 11.”

Much of del Toro’s appeal comes from his ability to explore complex emotional topics from a unique viewpoints, and those unique thoughts typically come across whenever he is given the chance to speak. Del Toro told the award-show audience that even at a young age, he knew he “did not belong in the world the way my parents, the way the world expected me to fit.”

“My place was in a faraway land inhabited only by monsters and misfits.”

RELATED: Trump admin leaves Elon Musk’s Grok, xAI off massive list of AI tech partners

This outlook definitely falls in line with his recent work, including when he appeared in the recent video game series Death Stranding.

Working alongside iconic game developer Hideo Kojima, del Toro delivered storylines about life, death, and emotional connection, but this time as an actor.

Speaking on the games, del Toro said he believes in the importance of “paradoxical creation” and said it is “essential to art.”

The beauty of the game, he added, was that Kojima had both “the weirdest mind and the most wholesome mind,” which shaped his storytelling.

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​Return, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Movie, Film, Gaming, Video games, Frankenstein, Tech 

Today is Giving Tuesday — a day to think of those less fortunate, but also a reminder that charities want your money just as much as any for-profit brand, and many use the same polished tactics to get it.

The day itself is a sales pitch: created in 2012 as a feel-good counterweight to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but quickly dominated by big nonprofits with big marketing budgets. As philanthropy-sector insider Dave Moss writes, it was launched not by beneficiaries but by “representatives of corporate America, the public relations sphere, and/or enormous, already well-funded nonprofits.”

Just a reminder that sometimes it’s the scrappiest, more ‘unfashionable’ charities where your money will go the farthest.

The Wounded Warrior Project has mastered the Giving Tuesday playbook with emotional storytelling. But a 2016 CBS News investigation revealed millions spent on lavish staff conferences and travel, with a Senate review later finding that the charity had inflated its program-spending numbers by counting fundraising and PR as “veteran programs.”

The ASPCA is another case where glossy branding masks inefficiency. Despite its huge Giving Tuesday paw print, watchdogs say only a small share of its massive fundraising reaches animals in need, despite what its infamously maudlin ads suggest. Very little is granted to local SPCAs — which many donors assume they’re supporting — while the national group spends tens of millions on advertising and pays its CEO close to a million dollars a year.

RELATED: ‘Gimme’ shelter: ASPCA, Humane Society live large on your donations, warns watchdog

Michael Stewart/WireImage/Getty Images

Which is not to say you shouldn’t participate in Giving Tuesday. Just a reminder that sometimes it’s the scrappiest, more “unfashionable” charities where your money will go the farthest.

Here are six organizations doing the slow, unglamorous work of helping real American families, veterans, and workers.

1. The Ruth Institute

Mission: Promote and defend the traditional family; educate the public on marriage, sexual integrity, and the fallout of the sexual revolution.

The Ruth Institute isn’t shy about its worldview — or its conviction that a healthy society starts at home. If you want your donation to go toward shaping the cultural weather upstream of politics, this is the place.

Donate: https://ruthinstitute.org/donate/

2. Gary Sinise Foundation

Mission: Support America’s wounded veterans, Gold Star families, and first responders.

More than 30 years after playing wounded Vietnam vet Lieutenant Dan in “Forrest Gump,” Gary Sinise has quietly built one of the most trusted veterans’ charities in the country. Its work is extremely practical: specially adapted smart homes for wounded vets, emergency financial assistance, mental health support, community-building, and mobility programs. Few organizations deliver more hands-on, life-changing help.

Donate: https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/donate/

3. Farmer Veteran Coalition

Mission: Help veterans transition into careers in agriculture.

A perfect marriage of two underserved groups: rural America and former service members. FVC provides grants, training, equipment, and mentorship to vets who want to build careers in farming. It strengthens both individual livelihoods and America’s food supply.

Donate: https://farmvetco.org/donate/

4. Foundation for Rural Service

Mission: Strengthen the economic and social fabric of rural communities.

Millions of rural Americans get left out of every national conversation — and often out of basic services. FRS funds scholarships, rural broadband expansion, small-town revitalization, and educational programs.

Donate: https://www.frs.org/donate

5. Volunteers of America

Mission: Provide housing, addiction recovery, senior care, job training, and emergency services to vulnerable Americans.

One of the oldest faith-driven aid groups in America, VOA does the thankless work: shelters, recovery programs, support for disabled vets, senior care, and services for people re-entering society after incarceration. If you want your donation to translate quickly into beds, meals, care, and services, VOA is reliable.

Donate: https://www.voa.org/donate

6. mikeroweWORKS Foundation

Mission: Close the skills gap by supporting vocational training and America’s trades.

Mike Rowe has spent years reminding America that welders, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters don’t just keep civilization running — they are civilization. His foundation’s Work Ethic Scholarship Program helps people pay for trade school, buy tools, and get certified. A great way to invest directly in rebuilding the country’s working-class backbone.

Donate: https://mikeroweworks.org/donate/

​Lifestyle, Charities, Gary sinise, Non-profits, Wounded warrior project, Giving tuesday 

Earlier this year, 34-year-old Victoria Cox — a mother of three — pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping after admitting to helping a friend abduct two children.

The friend in question is 38-year-old Daniel Callihan, a resident of Amite, Louisiana.

‘These acts you committed, do you understand how awful these acts were? You understand how innocent these two little girls were?’

On June 12, 2024, Callihan fatally stabbed a mother of two — Callie Brunett — more than 50 times in her home in Loranger, Louisiana, and then kidnapped Brunett’s two daughters, ages 4 and 6, according to court documents.

Indeed, Callihan stole the stabbing victim’s 2012 Chrysler vehicle, placed Brunett’s two daughters inside it, and eventually drove to Amite, court documents show. That’s where he picked up Cox.

Law enforcement tracked down the missing girls to a property in Jackson, Mississippi, where they made a ghastly discovery. Authorities on June 13, 2024, found the body of the 4-year-old girl in a “pit,” according to a statement last month from the United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana.

Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade described the crime scene as “sickening” and revealed that he “observed small cages” and “small wired enclosures,” which “led us to believe that it was a location where human trafficking probably could have happened,” People magazine reported.

The 6-year-old sister was found alive and immediately transported to a hospital; she has since been reunited with relatives.

After Callihan was arrested, he admitted to investigators that he stabbed to death the mother of the two girls and kidnapped them, the U.S. Attorney’s office stated. Callihan also confessed that he “smothered” the 4-year-old girl to death “by holding [her] closely against his chest,” according to People magazine.

‘At any point in your mind were you thinking about your children when you did this? And that didn’t cause you to stop?’

United States District Judge Lance M. Africk handed Callihan consecutive life sentences for kidnapping resulting in death and transporting a minor in interstate commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Authorities also determined that Cox was Callihan’s co-conspirator in the disturbing crimes.

While Callihan and Cox engaged in sexual battery against the 6-year-old girl, court docs said, the sexual battery charge was dropped.

Cox has three children of her own — ages 6, 8, and 9 — and during her sentencing hearing, a stunned Hinds County Circuit Judge Winston Kidd asked her how she, as a mother, could participate in such a vile act against young children, according to WLBT-TV.

RELATED: Half-naked woman ‘missing flesh’ and handcuffed in backyard was tortured for weeks, beaten with bat, shot with BB gun: Cops

“At any point in your mind were you thinking about your children when you did this? And that didn’t cause you to stop?” Kidd asked Cox.

Cox replied, “I tried, but I couldn’t.”

Cox added to the judge that Callihan had forced her to get high on drugs on the day of the kidnapping, according to WLBT, and that she had been out of rehab for just two days before the kidnapping.

Cox also claimed she “didn’t know” Callihan didn’t have “permission” to have the children, WLBT reported.

Cox told the courtroom, “If I could change it all, I would, but I can’t.”

The station added that Cox released a handwritten note in court requesting to plead guilty as quickly as possible.

Cox wrote, “I’ve been trying to get my attorney to come go over my plea deal with me, but he has failed to do so. I would like to accept it. Can you put me on the court docket?”

According to Court TV, Hinds County District Attorney Jody E. Owens II noted that his office had never witnessed that happen before — and said of Cox, “She realized, I believe, that this crime was so horrific that the atonement level has to start today.”

Indeed, Kidd told Cox, “These acts you committed, do you understand how awful these acts were? You understand how innocent these two little girls were? This is something you’re going to have a lot of time to think about.”

Kidd last week sentenced Cox to a pair of concurrent sentences: 40 years in prison on the murder charge and 25 years on the kidnapping charge, according to WWL-TV.

Cox had faced the possibility of a death sentence.

The Jackson Police Department did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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​True crime, Victoria cox, Daniel callihan, Victoria cox arrest, True crime news, Daniel callihan case, Crime, Louisiana, Mississippi, Murder, Kidnapping 

The Trump administration is investigating allegations of massive fraud by members of the Somalian community, and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz (Minn.) is being accused of obstruction.

Small Business Administration Sec. Kelly Loeffler announced the investigation Tuesday after several indictments involving alleged fraud in relation to coronavirus pandemic relief funding.

‘Despite Governor Walz’s best efforts to obstruct, SBA continues to work to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable, full stop.’

“Numerous individuals and nonprofits indicted in the $1 billion Minnesota COVID fraud scandal, including Feeding Our Future, received SBA PPP loans in addition to other state and federal funding,” Loeffler said in the post on social media.

In November, federal prosecutors announced a 78th indictment in the scam. In that latest case, a man named Abdirashid Bixi Dool is accused of falsifying records for fake food sites in order to steal more than $1 million in pandemic relief funds.

Dozens have already been convicted in connection with the Feeding Our Future scam alone.

Loeffler went on to accuse the former Democratic vice presidential candidate of obstructing efforts to investigate the scams.

“Today, I have ordered an investigation into the network of Somali organizations and executives implicated in these schemes,” she added. “Despite Governor Walz’s best efforts to obstruct, SBA continues to work to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable, full stop.”

Loeffler cited a report from a group of Minnesota state workers at the Dept. of Human Services accusing the governor of being complicit in the theft of government funds.

“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,” reads a statement from the group’s social media account.

RELATED: The US is now ‘one of the worst countries’ because of Trump’s actions, says Ilhan Omar

“Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the group added. “Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL members and an indifferent mainstream media. It’s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to.”

In September, Walz was subpoenaed by the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee for not being responsive enough to a request for documents related to the fraud scheme.

“This was an appalling abuse of a federal COVID-era program,” reads a statement from a Walz spokesperson at the time.

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​Somalian covid fraud, Tim walz obstruction, Covid fraud scam, Minnesota somalis, Politics 

A national spotlight remains on America’s trucking industry after yet another illegal alien trucker is accused of causing a fatal crash.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer against Rajinder Kumar, a 32-year-old Indian national, after he apparently jackknifed his semi-truck and trailer while driving along U.S. Highway 20 in Bend, Oregon, on November 24.

‘How many more senseless tragedies must take place before sanctuary politicians stop allowing illegal aliens to dangerously operate semi-trucks on America’s roads?’

Kumar’s truck collided with a Subaru Outback, resulting in the deaths of both the driver, William Micah Carter, and passenger, Jennifer Lynn Lower, a newlywed couple.

As a result of the deadly crash, Kumar is being held at the Deschutes County jail and facing charges of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment.

The Department of Homeland Security reported that Kumar illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border near Lukeville, Arizona, in November 2022. He was released by the Biden administration and granted work authorization in 2023. The department reported that California issued Kumar’s commercial driver’s license.

The DHS noted that Oregon, where Kumar is currently being detained, is a sanctuary state, adding that “ICE will make all necessary efforts to bring Kumar into custody should he be released from custody.”

RELATED: Texas and Trump team take down over 30 illegal alien truck drivers in 1 day — California licenses BUSTED

Photo by: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

“Rajinder Kumar, a criminal illegal alien from India, was released into our country under the Biden administration and issued a commercial driver’s license by Gavin Newsom’s Department of Motor Vehicles. How many more senseless tragedies must take place before sanctuary politicians stop allowing illegal aliens to dangerously operate semi-trucks on America’s roads?” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated.

“Our prayers are with William and Jennifer’s families. Under Secretary [Kristi] Noem, ICE will continue its efforts to get illegal alien truck drivers off America’s highways,” McLaughlin added.

Kumar is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

RELATED: Trump DOT hammers Gov. Shapiro, threatens to pull millions after state hands CDL to ‘suspected terrorist’ illegal alien trucker

Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images

This latest arrest follows several similar fatal crashes involving illegal alien truckers.

Jashanpreet Singh, a 21-year-old Indian national in the U.S. illegally, was accused of causing a collision in California in October that resulted in three deaths and several hospitalizations.

Borko Stankovic, 41, an illegal alien from Serbia and Montenegro, was accused of causing a crash in Indiana in October that killed one individual.

Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old Indian national also in the U.S. illegally, was arrested after jackknifing his truck while making an apparently illegal U-turn in Florida in August, resulting in three deaths.

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On November 19, investigative journalist and BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo, alongside reporter Ryan Thorpe, broke a story that went instantly viral, rapidly spreading across conservative media, social platforms, and mainstream outlets.

Titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” the article peels back the layers and connects the dots of yearslong federal investigations into large-scale fraud involving members of Minnesota’s Somali-American community.

“The basic story is this: Over the last 10 years, Minnesota’s Somali community — it’s about 100,000 people, mostly in Minneapolis, a neighborhood called Little Mogadishu for obvious reasons — has been, you know, conducting fraud at an eye-popping scale,” Rufo explained on a recent episode of “Rufo & Lomez.”

“We’re talking about billions of dollars … that are getting sucked out of taxpayer programs, routed through various fake NGOs into the pockets of Somalis in Minnesota,” he added.

According to Rufo’s reporting, a web of interconnected schemes, enabled by lax oversight under Gov. Tim Walz’s administration and Minnesota’s generous welfare system, allows these Somali immigrants to exploit various government programs, especially those intended to serve low-income and immigrant families, like Medicaid, child food programs, and food stamps/SNAP.

While the feds have long known about these fraud schemes and have even been able to recover some of the funds and secure convictions, their investigations have been focused strictly on the theft and laundering.

Rufo, however, was the first to ask the question: But where is the money going? His bombshell piece revealed the answer: Much of it is allegedly going back to Somalia, specifically into the hands of Al-Shabaab — a designated terrorist group.

“The other kind of dirty secret of this story is that the Minnesota state government, the Democrats who are in charge, Tim Walz and others, have effectively turned a blind eye to this because they don’t want to offend the Somalis. They don’t want to earn the accusation of racism with the Somali activists who’re very, very ready and very eager to deploy, and they feel that they need the Somali vote in Minneapolis to win statewide,” Rufo told co-host Jonathan Keeperman.

“So you have this cycle of corruption, payoffs, kickbacks, and political influence, and I hope that the story, which blows open this whole scheme, will have some impact.”

Rufo’s wish is already coming true. Just two days after its publication, President Trump announced the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota on Truth Social.

Rufo also hopes, however, that his reporting will spark dialogue about immigration, American identity, and how the convergence of the two should determine who we allow into our country and how we expect them to live among us.

He argues that the reigning progressive dogma when it comes to immigration — diversity is strength, all immigrants are the same, and assimilation is a byproduct of white supremacy — has opened the door for Somali clan corruption to colonize Minneapolis and build a billion-dollar fraud pipeline to fund Al-Shabaab.

“When [immigrants] go through the Visa process, it doesn’t magically evaporate their former culture,” says Rufo.

“Look at dysfunction in Somalia. Look at corruption in Somalia. Look at how in Somalia money moves. Look at norms regarding theft. … Now compare it to what’s happening here [in Minnesota].”

Today “the primary source of income for Somali-Americans in Minnesota and also the primary source of income for the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization in Somalia appears to be fraudulently obtained United States taxpayer money,” he adds.

Keeperman praises Rufo’s reporting as “super important.”

He urges that “we need to be able to point to specific things to demonstrate the larger point about what Americanism is versus what it isn’t and why it’s important if we want to preserve America as it is — that we are bringing in people who will make America more like America and less like these other dysfunctional places they’re coming from.”

To learn more, check out Rufo’s original reporting here or watch the video above.

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​Rufo & lomez, Chris rufo, Jonathan keeperman, Blazetv, Blaze media, Somalia, Somali fraud, Minnesota, Tim walz, Rufo, Lomez, Tps, Somalis, Minnesota somalis 

CBS recently reported that U.S. Border Patrol is now quietly “monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide.” A network of cameras does the work of scanning license plates and grabbing facial ID information. The data is analyzed by an unnamed “predictive intelligence” algorithm.

Whatever happened to the land of the free?

The striking thing is, ever since 9/11, we all felt something like this was either happening or about to happen. Everybody knows, as the great bard Leonard Cohen sang. But what everyone doesn’t know yet is whether that sinking feeling can help us shape limits on the tech we want to deploy against others but not against ourselves.

The use of Palantir or something like it seems to be necessary to undo what the Obama-Biden revolution did.

Technologies of surveillance, identification, categorization, recordkeeping are all at their peak, and climbing. If it hasn’t happened already, we will very soon live in conditions where comprehensive, up-to-the-instant dossiers will be available on all human beings. These will later be integrated into psych profiles based on deep, personal internet histories.

True, the accuracy of these profiles will only be high if we presume a fixed human nature, devoid of spontaneity and repentance. The utility of these vast profiles will be high only insofar as our end goals are tied to a value system where material comfort and ever-increasing union between human souls and machines are prioritized. Prioritized above family, above the divine.

But more and more of us, willingly or otherwise, are signing up for that materialist, Borg-like existence.

Since 9/11, both the left and right have sounded the alarm on the “surveillance state.” Along the way, however, our demographics have undergone radical, unprecedented (some might even say suicidal) levels of alteration. We’ve imported competing tribes, ethnicities, and clans in numbers more than sufficient for those groups to wage their own little internecine wars on our streets — streets we Americans pay to upkeep in a thousand costly ways.

Why would we do this?

The answer is generally given that we Americans are no longer a people but a collection of increasingly isolated and belligerent peoples. And while some degree of regionalism has always marked the country, not until very recently did we think of ourselves this way. We can occupy ourselves with innumerable possible explanations for our increasing division, and many kill time or get paid spooling out financial, religious, historical, cyclical, and economic theories. All of these have some merit.

RELATED: Can Palantir defeat the Antifa networks behind trans terror?

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

But what about the technologies themselves? They seem to advance along a one-way ratchet no types of ups and downs can reverse, or even arrest. But it’s difficult to see how the tech is somehow “inevitable,” independent of human agency. Online occultists are ascribing responsibility to future entities reaching back into their past, our present day, roughly like the “temporal pincer movement” from Christopher Nolan’s time-turnstile sci-fi epic “Tenet.” Easier perhaps to cobble up an explanation from human nature, economic choices, and corruption.

Regardless, we’re going to have to deal with a very real pincer situation: predictive super-tech on one side and an invidious, noncompliant, indeed hyper-fragmented population on the other.

OK. Then what should we do with the surveillance panopticon we’re building in the meanwhile? Polls vary, but even Gallup shows that in 1995, immigration was very unpopular. It made no difference. The citizenry has been remade. Acceleration of the remaking may have peaked under the Biden presidency, but even now, with leaders like Stephen Miller mincing no words about the necessity to remigrate millions, we aren’t getting very far. The use of Palantir or something like it seems to be necessary to undo what the Obama-Biden revolution did.

Meanwhile, it’s no secret that the American dream was long ago “downsized,” all but dead at present. It’s not hard to envision the panopticon moving on from unwanted and unlawful “newcomers” to the underclass of heritage American men and women bitterly struggling to survive under impossible economic conditions. They see no path because there is none. Are the men of this class, say those under age 40, going to accept such egregious limitations on their capacity to secure a living wage to offer a potential mate?

This distortion of first-world expectations is so transparent that even the U.S. Department of Labor is posting images of Rockwellian-ideal domestic existence with the accompanying text: “The American Dream has been stolen from the American People. Decades of failed policies prioritized foreign labor, offshored our jobs, and sold the American Worker out.”

Do the math: Tons of foreigners and their interest organization, plus millions of young, able-bodied heritage American males unable to form families on promised terms, plus a surveillance apparatus that has no true ideological master … equals?

On the upside, AI-panopticon tech forged by the likes of Palantir would (you’d presume) make extremely short work of the right-coded goal to super-remigrate the 30-odd-million foreign noncitizens on U.S. soil. But wait! Regimes are changing. Palantir’s panopticon contract is sure to outlast the Trump administration. Even if we accept the ostensible inevitability of “total recall” and predictive algorithms shaping society, we don’t have much in place to backstop future abuses, even as we rush into unprecedented social, technological, and perhaps even biological change.

​Tech, Palantir, Surveillance state, Panopticon 

BlackRock’s CEO has seemingly changed his mind about the future of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Investor Larry Fink famously criticized Bitcoin in 2017 when he called it an “index of money laundering” that simply showed how much demand there was in the world to launder funds.

‘I do see more and more of a future of having more and more financial assets being digitized.’

Now, during a sit-down with the CEO of hedge fund Citadel, Ken Griffin, Fink said he sees cryptocurrency wallets being used to make stock moves en masse in the near future.

Fink revealed during the conference that if he could “tokenize” all ETFs and provide them in a digital wallet, users would be able to seamlessly make trades.

“You could seamlessly, without fees, … buy bond or stocks, and I believe that is going to be the future,” Fink said. “I do believe more transactions [are] going to be done digitally with authentication of ownership.”

He added, “I do see more and more of a future of having more and more financial assets being digitized, sitting in a singularity of a blockchain and going from cash to stocks to bonds, back and forth, doing that seamlessly, and I do believe that is going to happen sooner, not later.”

During the same event, Fink described Bitcoin as an investment made out of fear, but not in the way one might think.

RELATED: Bitcoin billionaire will serve time after British police broke down her door and arrested her in bed

Fink described Bitcoin and gold along similar lines, calling them “assets of fear” that investors scoop up when they are “frightened of the debasement of your currency.”

“You own it if you have financial insecurities, or you own it if you have physical insecurities and worries. So, that’s one of the foundational issues of my journey in understanding crypto more.”

Fink has confused audiences over the years with his remarks on digital currency, both in his evolving stance on the asset and, of course, his — along with other major institutions — apparent inability to recognize that it is in fact being used as he prophesies it will be used in the future.

Fink’s pontifications about the future of crypto, fiat, ETFs, and stocks/bonds being traded seamlessly on apps are already a reality. Countless companies allow direct deposit of paychecks to digital wallets, the same as any bank, while also providing the ability to trade stocks and cryptocurrency in-house.

RELATED: Almost HALF of Gen Z wants AI to run the government

French President Emmanuel Macron, left, and Larry Fink. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It is unclear if BlackRock’s plan was to slow-walk its investors into cryptocurrency cautiously, but its CEO has certainly made gradual strides in the direction of acceptance, hallmarked by his most recent comments.

In 2024, Fink seemed to turn a new leaf when he admitted he was wrong about Bitcoin and told CNBC he thought it had become a legitimate asset.

“It is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to maybe have uncorrelated type of returns. I believe it is an instrument that you invest in when you’re more frightened, though. It is an instrument when you believe countries are debasing their currency by excess deficits, and some countries are,” Fink explained.

Moreover, the CEO even referred to Bitcoin as “digital gold,” which is now in step with his recent description of the asset.

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​Return, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Banks, Fiat, Gold, Tech 

Immigration courts are not part of the judicial branch but rather part of the executive branch, where they are housed under the Department of Justice — meaning the Trump administration doesn’t have to take any guff or tolerate suboptimal performances from those warming their benches.

In the interest of maximizing efficiency and fulfilling the president’s promises to the American people, the Trump DOJ has made a series of changes to the courts under its purview. The bulk of these changes concern personnel, namely judges.

‘All of the judges are now sitting speculating about whether they’re next.’

The administration has sacked or accepted the resignations of at least 100 immigration judges across the country while simultaneously onboarding what the DOJ refers to as “deportation” judges — those keen to earn over $159,000 making “decisions with generational consequences” and ensuring “that only aliens with legally meritorious claims are allowed to remain.”

The Justice Department added eight more names to its triple-digit tally of ousted immigration judges on Monday, this time in New York City.

The latest firings — which were confirmed to the New York Times by an official at the National Association of Immigration Judges and a DOJ official — reportedly included Amiena Khan, assistant chief immigration judge at 26 Federal Plaza.

Khan, a former NAIJ president who donated on multiple occasions to Democratic campaigns, previously criticized the first Trump administration’s efforts to speed up the deportation process as well as immigration courts’ embrace of a “law enforcement ideology.”

Olivia Cassin, an appointee of former Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch, told the Times, “The court has been basically eviscerated.”

RELATED: Federal judge limits warrantless detentions by ICE in Colorado — White House fires off defiant response

Photo by Bryan Cox/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images

Cassin, who got fired at another New York City courthouse last month, added, “It feels like a Monday afternoon massacre.”

Carmen Maria Rey Caldas, a Spanish-born immigrant who became an immigration judge in 2022 after criticizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term, complained to the Times that “all of the judges are now sitting speculating about whether they’re next and the impact that that may have in their ability to remain impartial and do their jobs fairly.”

Rey Caldas was fired from her job as immigration judge in August.

The DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review declined to comment to the Times about the dismissals.

Amid the latest slew of terminations, one disgruntled former immigration judge, a U.S.-Lebanese dual citizen named Tania Nemer, sued the DOJ, claiming she was the “victim of unlawful discrimination in violation of Title VII and the First Amendment.”

Nemer, who ran unsuccessfully for a judicial office in Ohio as a Democrat before becoming an immigration judge under the Biden administration, accused the DOJ of firing her because of her sex, national origin, and partisan activities, despite acknowledging that no reason was given for her termination.

“The lightning-fast, precipitous timing indicates that the incoming administration’s decision was made — not as part of a careful evaluation of Ms. Nemer’s qualifications or fitness for office — but instead as part of a rushed attempt by the new administration to target disfavored civil servants,” the Democrat said in a complaint.

According to her lawsuit, Nemer filed the complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, which dismissed it, saying the termination was a “lawful exercise” of the removal power possessed by President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi under Article II of the U.S. Constitution.

“What happened to Tania Nemer is a disgrace,” Nemer’s attorneys said in a statement. “For more than 50 years, Title VII has prohibited discrimination in the federal workforce. The Department of Justice had a legal obligation to investigation [sic] Tania’s termination. But now the government is asserting a constitutional right to override the law and engage in discrimination. That is wrong. Title VII is unquestionably constitutional.”

Blaze News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

The Trump administration appears keen to have a different caliber of immigration judge sit on cases across the country.

In September, War Secretary Pete Hegseth approved sending as many as 600 military lawyers to the DOJ to serve as immigration judges.

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​Trump administration, Judge, Judges, Immigration, Immigration court, Court, Lawsuit, Trump, Deportation, Carmen maria rey caldas, Cassin, Tania nemer, Liberal, Democrat, Ice, Politics 

Recently I’ve been thinking about the fact that we can’t predict anything.

Yeah, we can predict the weather this afternoon, kind of — though the meteorologists seem to mess up about 50% of the time. Sure, we can be fairly certain that an asteroid from outer space isn’t going to come careening toward Earth, smashing our house to 1,000 pieces while we sleep, I guess. I’m not too worried about that one.

Many babies are born with grey or light blue eyes; it’s only over time that they morph into the color they will be for the rest of their lives.

But the reality is, life is more unpredictable than it is predictable.

Plan check

That’s the truth, and it’s hard for us, I think. We want to know what tomorrow will bring. We want to plan, and we want to make sure we are prepared for whatever is coming. We want to build civilization, and in some pretty key ways, building civilization requires planning.

Civilization itself is a form of predictability, or an attempt to increase predictability. Running water, reliable medical care, stores stocked with meat and eggs, traffic lights that are coordinated in a complex system so as to ensure drivers don’t crash into one another other, and electricity that doesn’t go out every other day. These things are predicable things, and life is better — much better — because of them.

But we can’t predict everything.

Answers and questions

Last week, my wife gave birth to our third child and our second daughter. We didn’t find out the sex ahead of time. We always wait to be surprised, and it was a surprise. Finally we had an answer to the most pressing question on our minds: Is it a boy or a girl? But there are so many more questions, and I have no idea what the answers will be.

Holding her in my arms, looking down into her little eyes, I wonder what color they will be. Many babies (of European descent) are born with grey or light blue eyes; it’s only over time that they morph into the color they will be for the rest of their lives. Our son has brown eyes; our other daughter has blue eyes. What will she have? I have no idea.

I look at her little hands and perfectly soft cheeks, and I wonder who she will be. I have no inkling. Not a single clue. She might be anyone. Her personality could be anything. Is there a seed of it already in her? There must be, but I don’t know it. I don’t know her yet.

There, in my arms, is this little person who might become anyone and anything. I have no idea what she will find funny, how she will be difficult, what she will be interested in, who she will marry, where she will live, how many children she will have, and 100,000 other things that make up a person. I don’t know any of it, and I have no way to predict any of it. All I can do is hold her, care for her, and try to steer her along the way.

A newborn baby is a metaphor for life.

RELATED: Birth is the only ‘gender reveal’ you need

Underwood Archives/Getty Images

Predictably unpredictable

When I look back at my life, there is no way I could have predicted any of it. No way I could have told my 28-year-old self where I would be today, what I would do for work, who I would be a father to, where I would live, and how I would feel. I just couldn’t have.

If I go back even further than that, it gets even more obvious. Eighteen-year-old me thought life was going to be one way, and it turned out not at all that way. Some stuff turned out harder, but most turned out better. Nevertheless, however it turned out, I couldn’t have predicted any of it.

The same, of course, goes for all the various social, cultural, and technological developments marching through our society today. I don’t think anyone in 2005 could have accurately predicted AI in 2025. I doubt anyone in 1995 could have predicted the cultural or political debates we are having in 2025. No one could have predicted the years-long ordeal known as COVID.

Serenity now!

Accepting the chaos and unpredictability of life doesn’t mean giving up on any kind of planning or attempt at establishing order. Those things are good; they are a part of civilization after all, remember? Coming face-to-face with the reality of life as something unpredictable means accepting the things we cannot change. It means internalizing Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous Serenity Prayer.

While it may be hard at first for us to accept the unpredictability of it all, it’s more than OK once we make it through the process of reckoning with the uncontrollable. It feels like looking out at the vast horizon and seeing endless possibilities. Like rolling the windows down, setting your arm on the edge of the door, and pressing the gas. Like letting go and letting it all happen. Like looking into the eyes of a newborn baby, knowing that for her, life has only just begun.

Like something beautiful.

​Lifestyle, Men’s style, Parenthood, Fatherhood, Newborn, Gender reveal, The root of the matter 

The Afghan national suspected of the atrocious shooting of National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe was shockingly brought to the United States as a part of President Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome.

“We didn’t just evacuate our allies. … The United States government evacuated anyone they could grab in the chaos, because chaos is the oldest enemy of truth. We opened up floodgates. Tens of thousands of people we didn’t know, nobody really vetted, nobody could verify, nobody could fully account for,” Blaze media co-founder Glenn Beck says.

“Even today, we don’t know where they are. And that’s not xenophobia. That’s not fearmongering. That’s the Department of Homeland Security’s own inspector general saying that. Quote, ‘We don’t know who many of these people are,’ end quote,” he continues.

“Think about the histories of nations who forgot the simple duty of understanding who they bring inside the gates. When that happens, the country is over. Rome did it. The Byzantine Empire did it. Europe did it before the migrant crisis. And now in 2021, we did it as well,” he adds.

The problem, of course, is that the United States welcomed strangers from a patriarchal, war-torn, tribal system into the country without so much as a second look.

“Imagine going from Afghanistan to Chicago. How do you survive in that?” Glenn asks.

“That’s the fault of our federal government — a government that just threw them and us into a social experiment overnight without even thinking about it, talking about it, just saying, ‘Accept it,’” he continues.

However, most Americans, including the mainstream media, refuse to point this out.

“We’re living in a time when people saying the truth, you know — you acknowledge reality? And you get labeled. You notice patterns? Oh, my gosh, you’re silenced. You ask responsible questions? You’re accused of bigotry,” Glenn says. “Truth doesn’t care about the labels.”

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Last month, several Democrat lawmakers appeared in a video calling for intelligence and military personnel to “refuse illegal orders” from President Donald Trump’s administration. Last week, the White House launched a new page to explicitly call out the media in the wake of some of its misleading coverage about the “seditious” video.

The bias tracker website names the Boston Globe, CBS News, and the Independent as the “media offender of the week.”

‘The president has never given an illegal order. These people know what they are doing.’

Alyssa Vega, Andrew Feinberg, Eric Garcia, and Nancy Cordes are called out by name for their coverage of the video and of Trump’s response.

It also shows a clip of the original video from Democrat lawmakers. The video is edited to label the Democrats as “seditious” after they demand defiance of supposedly “illegal” orders. A narrator then adds, “The president has never given an illegal order. These people know what they are doing.”

RELATED: ‘SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR’: Trump demands arrest of ‘traitor’ Democrat congressmen for ‘dangerous’ video

Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images

The same can be said of the media, the White House argues.

“The media misrepresented President Trump’s call for Members of Congress to be held accountable for inciting sedition by saying that he called for the ‘execution,'” the site states under “the Offense” section.

The White House website also includes an “offender hall of shame” with a long record of what it calls media bias. The hall of shame lists stories, publications, and reporters under various categories of offense, including “bias,” “malpractice,” “lie,” “omission of context,” and “left-wing lunacy.”

The media bias tracker currently lists more than 30 stories and 20 publications.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) delivered the original “seditious” message last month. The FBI has reportedly sought to interview Sen. Kelly and the other Democrats who appeared in the video.

Kelly’s office told NBC News, “Senator Kelly won’t be silenced by President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s attempt to intimidate him and keep him from doing his job as a U.S. Senator.”

Rep. Goodlander, who is married to Joe Biden’s former national security adviser Jake Sullivan, has spoken out publicly in the days following the video as well: “It is the basic principle that our service members follow lawful orders and lawful orders only. And that should not be a threat. Any other president of the United States in all of our history would absolutely agree with this principle. And that the President has become so unglued by it, I think unfortunately really is telling.”

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The Trump administration has worked diligently to help stabilize Syria in the wake of its December 2024 conquest by Islamic terrorists.

The administration has, for instance, removed sanctions and dropped the $10 million bounty on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist who is also known as Muhammad al-Jawlani; terminated the Syria sanctions program; revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation of al-Sharaa’s terrorist organizations al-Nusrah Front and HTS on July 8; and flooded parts of the war-torn country with humanitarian aid.

The recent Israeli attacks in the south of the country have prompted concerns among some in the administration, including the president, about the tenability of sustained peace in the region.

‘We are trying to tell Bibi he has to stop this.’

President Donald Trump reiterated his support for al-Sharaa on Monday and suggested that Israel should refrain from further interference.

“The United States is very satisfied with the results displayed, through hard work and determination, in the Country of Syria,” wrote the president. “We are doing everything within our power to make sure the Government of Syria continues to do what was intended, which is substantial, in order to build a true and prosperous Country.”

RELATED: ‘Begin repatriating’: German chancellor admits it’s time to give Syrian migrants the boot

President Donald Trump shaking hands with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Photo by Syrian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty Images

“It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State,” continued Trump. “The new President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is working diligently to make sure good things happen, and that both Syria and Israel will have a long and prosperous relationship together.”

Two senior U.S. officials reportedly told Axios that the administration is concerned that repeated strikes inside Syria — including Israel’s bombing of Syrian forces in July — serve to undermine hopes of an Israel-Syria security agreement.

Israeli troops reportedly killed 13 people, injured dozens, and arrested several individuals during a raid in Southern Syria on Friday, some footage of which Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adrae shared online.

The Israel Defense Forces indicated that the purpose of the operation was “to apprehend suspects from the Jaama Islamiya terrorist organization operating in the Beit Jinn area of southern Syria” and claimed that “during the activity several armed terrorists opened fire at the troops. IDF soldiers responded with live fire, supported by aerial assistance.”

The Syrian foreign ministry characterized the attack as a “full-fledged war crime” and claimed that the raid and corresponding airstrikes left more than 10 civilians dead including women and children.

Walid Akasha, a local official in the area, told Reuters, “We’re a peaceful, civilian population, farmers. We have a legitimate right to defend ourselves. We didn’t attack them first — they came onto our land.”

One of the U.S. officials told Axios, “The Syrians were going nuts. Their own constituents demanded retaliation because Syrian civilians were killed.”

According to the officials, Israel neglected to notify the White House or Syria of the operation in advance.

“We are trying to tell Bibi he has to stop this because if it continues he will self-destruct — miss a huge diplomatic opportunity and turn the new Syrian government to an enemy,” said one official, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu praised the Israeli soldiers involved in the Friday raid and noted in a statement on Tuesday, “After October 7th, we are determined to defend our communities on our borders, including the northern border, and to prevent the entrenchment of terrorists and hostile actions against us, to protect our Druze allies, and to ensure that the State of Israel is safe from ground attack and other attacks from the border areas.”

“What we expect Syria to do, of course, is to establish a demilitarized buffer zone from Damascus to the buffer zone area, including, of course, the approaches to Mount Hermon and the summit of Mount Hermon,” continued Netanyahu. “We hold these territories to ensure the security of the citizens of Israel, and that is what obligates us.”

The prime minister suggested further that in a “good spirit and understanding of these principles, it is also possible to reach an agreement with the Syrians.”

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​Syria, Israel, Tel aviv, Washington, Diplomacy, Netanyahu, Donald trump, Al-sharaa, Damascus, Politics 

Welcome to Sesame Street. The word of the day is “affordability.”

Democrats have treated it as a magic spell ever since their 2024 collapse drove the party’s approval to historic lows. New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and governors-elect Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey ran very different races, yet all credited their wins to a relentless focus on the cost of living. Mamdani in particular used the term like an incantation to bury a record full of extremist statements and friendly nods toward terrorist movements.

Turning ‘affordability’ into a political idol guarantees policies that cannibalize the future.

Democrats also see the “affordability” push as an opportunity to turn Republicans’ most effective weapon against them. Joe Biden’s low approval ratings on the economy dogged him throughout his entire term, and his constant insistence that things were improving did not cut the (suddenly expensive) mustard.

Republican anxiety grows

On his first day back in office, Donald Trump ordered “all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief.” But Democrats’ stronger-than-expected showing in the 2025 elections has GOP strategists wondering whether that relief is moving too slowly to blunt the message.

Trump, who dominated the 2024 campaign by hammering prices, sounds irritated that his best issue has turned into a liability. He avoids the word “affordability,” though it has begun sneaking into his teleprompter.

“We’re making incredible strides to Make America Affordable Again,” he told the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. “Democrats had the worst inflation in history. They had the highest prices in history. The country was going to hell. … We’re bringing prices down.”

A political arms race

Both parties now talk about the cost of living as their top priority, and struggling families need the attention. But a politics built around “affordability” can easily turn into a race to the bottom — an auction of quick fixes that burn next year’s seed corn for a bump in the polls.

Plenty of shortcuts tempt politicians. Mamdani floated the most obvious one: freezing rents across one million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. If he pulls it off — a big “if” — tenants will enjoy short-term relief. Yet the move will also choke new construction and allow existing homes to deteriorate as landlords lose the revenue needed to maintain them.

Beware of quick fixes

Even Republicans flirt with shortcuts. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) teamed up on a bill capping credit-card interest rates at 10%. Cheaper interest sounds great until you follow the consequences. A hard cap would force lenders to reject more applications, denying low-income Americans the credit they often need to escape poverty or cover emergencies.

Republicans face their own affordability temptation as well. AI data centers, which consume enormous amounts of power, are driving up electric bills faster than increased energy production can offset. Slowing or freezing data-center construction could save households money for a year or two. It would also cripple America’s position in the AI race with China and cost the country trillions of dollars in long-term economic growth.

RELATED: If conservatives will not defend capitalism, who will?

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tariffs under fire

Trump’s tariffs have become a favorite target for Democrats claiming to champion affordability. The administration recently eased tariffs on food imports such as bananas and coffee. But gutting the entire tariff regime — if the Supreme Court allows it to remain in place — would be a profound mistake.

Tariffs have pushed some prices upward, but the Harvard Business School tariff tracker estimates that only 20% of tariff costs reach consumers. Foreign companies and foreign governments absorb the rest.

Meanwhile, tariff revenue strengthens the government’s financial footing, and trillions of dollars in investment continue to flow into new and expanded U.S. manufacturing. Reverting to the failed neoliberal free-trade dogma in the name of “affordability” might give politicians a quick approval boost. It would gut the industrial base, weaken the budget, and destroy the very blue-collar jobs voters were promised.

Our marshmallow test

Blaming the other party for rising prices works because it taps into real pain. But it also encourages the kind of policymaking you would expect from the child in the famous experiment who couldn’t wait 15 minutes for a second marshmallow. He ate the first one instantly and lost the reward.

The cost of living in America (to say nothing of thriving) is far too high. Families need real relief. But turning “affordability” into a political idol guarantees policies that cannibalize the future. Prosperity demands discipline. A country that chases quick fixes will never escape its long-term economic traps.

​Cost of living, Gop, Miderms, Rent prices, Affordability crisis, Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Zohran mamdani, Rent control, Housing, Bernie sanders, Josh hawley, Credit card debt, Credit cards, Debt, Energy prices, Artificial intelligence, China, Tariffs, Taxes