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An opponent of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) has targeted NASCAR as his No. 1 priority.

Senate candidate Paul Dans, a member of the first Trump administration, has remained steadfast in his dedication to unseating Graham.

‘We don’t give a crap what Bubba Wallace thinks.’

On Sunday, however, Dans posted a video from the Goodyear 400, held at South Carolina’s iconic Darlington Raceway, and revealed one of his day-one promises.

Dans said that, if elected, he would immediately pick up the phone and ask NASCAR to overturn one of its George Floyd-era rules.

“On June 10, 2020, NASCAR banned the flying of Confederate flags at its races,” Dans began. “As your next U.S. senator from South Carolina, my first call is going to be to the CEO of NASCAR, Jim France.”

“Sir, we want to fly our flags again at NASCAR, and we don’t give a crap what Bubba Wallace thinks. South Carolina will rise again,” Dans added.

NASCAR banned the flags from its events in 2020 just two days after driver Wallace called for their removal in the wake of Floyd’s death, which had happened about two weeks prior.

NASCAR said at the time that the presence of the Confederate flag at its events “runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors, and our industry. … The display of the Confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”

RELATED: ‘I’m on fire!’ NASCAR indefinitely suspends driver for using ‘gay voice’

Photo by Malcolm Hope/Icon Sportswire/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Less than two weeks after the ban, an alleged noose was found in Wallace’s garage stall, followed by “a piece of twine tied in what appeared to be a noose” found “hanging from a tree on raceway property” at Sonoma Raceway in California.

Days later, the FBI concluded no crime had been committed and revealed that the rope in Wallace’s stall had been there since October 2019, and “nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned” to that stall.

The alleged noose turned out to be a “a garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose.”

RELATED: Michael Jordan shocks NASCAR by doing something no one has done in 77 years

Photo by Matt Hazlett/Getty Images

Dans’ platform focuses heavily on replacing Graham; his website reads, “Fire Lindsey Graham,” in a pop-up upon first visit, alongside a photo of the candidate with President Trump.

Other positions by Dans include “no more endless wars” and “obliterate the deep state.”

The candidate is well known for being the director of Project 2025, a document that drew much criticism from left-wing sources in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. For example, the ACLU described the project as “a roadmap for how to replace the rule of law with right-wing ideals.”

However, the project’s website says it was a way to “prepare for a new conservative administration through policy, training, and personnel.”

Graham’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Republican primary for South Carolina takes place on June 9.

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​News, South carolina, Nascar, Confederacy, Confederate flag, Politics, Lindsey graham 

For decades, Cesar Chavez occupied near-canonical status in American universities. The United Farm Workers leader’s name adorned schools, his image filled lecture slides, and his story was told as secular hagiography: the humble labor leader who organized the oppressed, challenged exploitation, and embodied moral courage in the struggle for justice.

Now that image is cracking.

The reassessment of Chavez is not the end of something. It is the beginning of a broader reckoning.

A blockbuster New York Times story this month detailed serious allegations of sexual misconduct, including deeply disturbing claims that, if true, must force a fundamental reassessment of Chavez. The question is not only whether the allegations are true, but why this reckoning arrived only now.

What we are witnessing is not merely the fall of a man but the exposure of a pattern — one that reveals more about the moral framework of academic elites than about Chavez himself.

The manufactured hero

For years, Chavez has been presented, especially in university settings, as a hero of the proletariat. Not always in explicitly Marxist terms, of course. The language is smoother than that. But the structure is unmistakable: Chavez as the labor leader who stood against capital, exposed exploitation, and mobilized collective struggle in the name of justice.

Students are taught to see history as the story of structural oppression and economic conflict. Chavez became a usable symbol in that story. Because he served that function, his image was carefully curated.

What is now becoming clear is that the darker aspects of Chavez’s life were not entirely unknown. Reports of infidelity, domineering leadership, and abuses of power were not buried in some inaccessible archive. They were part of the broader historical record.

Silence around sin

Yet they were largely ignored.

That is how leftist professors handle their heroes. The facts that do not serve the narrative get minimized, reframed, or omitted. This is the first lesson of the current moment: The moral concern of the DEI professoriat is not truth but rather usefulness to the cause.

A figure is praised or condemned not by a consistent moral standard, but by whether he advances a political project. As long as Chavez could serve as a symbol of labor activism and anti-capitalist struggle, his sins remained background noise. Now that those sins threaten his usefulness, they have moved to the foreground.

No new moral conscience has emerged on the left. What we’re seeing is pure calculation.

RELATED: Labor group cancels Cesar Chavez events over ‘profoundly shocking’ new allegations

Tony Korody/Sygma/Getty Images

A narrow moral vision

The deeper problem goes beyond hypocrisy. The moral vision offered by Chavez’s academic admirers is radically narrow. It focuses almost entirely on one category of wrongdoing: economic injustice. Greed, real and serious as it is, gets elevated into the supreme moral concern. Entire departments and movements organize themselves around exposing and correcting it.

But what about lust? What about pride? What about the abuse of power in personal life, not just economic systems?

Those sins get treated as secondary or, worse, as distractions from the real work of social transformation. The result is a moral framework that is selective and shallow. It addresses external structures while neglecting the corruption of the human heart. Marxism 101 still teaches that if we revolt our way into a better system, we can somehow produce a better man.

But a philosophy with no coherent account of sin cannot solve sin.

From moralism to tyranny

That failure has predictable consequences. If the problem lies mainly in external systems, then the solution must also be external: regulation, enforcement, and conformity. Behavior must be monitored. Speech must be controlled. Dissent must be suppressed.

That is why academic environments that preach tolerance so often practice censorship. That is why calls for equity come paired with ideological compliance. Those who depart from the approved narrative do not get argued with. They get disciplined.

Until we recover a full account of human nature, one that takes sin seriously and looks beyond man for its cure, we will repeat this cycle again and again.

And that is why such movements, once they gain power, tilt toward tyranny. They do not govern by the standards of fairness they once demanded, because their moral framework never grounded those standards in the first place. It only deployed them when useful.

The fall of Chavez is not an anomaly. It is a case study. A movement that cannot account for sin will eventually be undone by it. Robespierre gets guillotined every time.

The deeper problem

At the heart of all this sits a basic misdiagnosis. Man’s greatest problem is not economic inequality. It is not structural oppression. It is not even political injustice, though all of those are real. Man’s greatest problem is sin.

It is the corruption of the heart that gives rise to every form of injustice, whether in the marketplace or the home, the factory or the family. No amount of social reorganization can fix that. You can redistribute wealth, rewrite laws, and restructure institutions and still end up with the same fallen human nature operating under new conditions.

That is why movements that promise moral transformation through politics end in disappointment. They try to fix what is internal by manipulating what is external. A Latin American studies professor once told a friend of mine, “Che su Christo.” Che is Christ.

RELATED: The lie that launched a thousand riots

Fitzgerald Whitney/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The only real solution

But there is only one Christ and only one remedy for sin, and it is the one most conspicuously absent from the classrooms that long celebrated Chavez.

The answer is not a program or a policy. It is a person.

Christ does not merely demand outward reform. He gives a new heart. He restores sinners to communion with God. He addresses not only the consequences of sin, but its source. He transforms the inner man, and from that transformation flow justice, righteousness, and love.

That is precisely why He is excluded. A system built on human effort, collective struggle, and ideological conformity cannot tolerate a solution rooted in repentance, grace, and divine authority. It is the works-righteousness religion of our age.

The inevitable reckoning

The reassessment of Chavez is not the end of something. It is the beginning of a broader reckoning. If our heroes are chosen for usefulness rather than virtue, they will disappoint us. If our moral standards are selective, they will collapse under their own inconsistency.

And if we refuse to acknowledge the true nature of sin, we will keep acting surprised by its consequences. The real lesson of this moment is not that another historical figure has fallen. It is that a moral system built on partial truths and ideological commitments cannot bear the weight of reality.

Until we recover a full account of human nature, one that takes sin seriously and looks beyond man for its cure, we will repeat this cycle again and again.

​Opinion & analysis, Cesar chavez, Cesar chavez allegations, United farm workers union, Sexual misconduct, Sexual abuse allegations, The left, Professors, Narrative, Marxism, Labor unions, Justice, Oppressed, Virtue, Sin, Human nature 

A Columbia County grand jury indicted a very popular TikTok influencer on Thursday over charges related to the alleged rape of seven women over a decade.

Benjamin Gleason, who has over a million followers, was arrested by New York state police on 17 counts and pleaded not guilty.

It is unclear if Gleason contacted any of the alleged victims through his social media account.

The alleged victims ranged in age from approximately 17 to 27 years old, according to prosecutors.

Gleason identifies himself as an American artist on his social media profile and claims to be “your girlfriends [sic] favorite influencer.” His videos include lip-syncing, music performances, and commentary about dealing with borderline personality disorder.

The charges against Gleason include:

Three counts of predatory sexual assault;Three counts of first-degree rape by forcible compulsion;Three counts of first-degree rape involving physically helpless victims;Four counts of criminal sexual act in the first degree;One count of aggravated sexual abuse in the second degree; andOne count of sexual abuse in the first degree.

He could face up to life in prison over the charges, if convicted.

It is unclear if Gleason contacted any of the alleged victims through his social media account.

RELATED: Activist pretends to be child online to catch alleged pedophiles: ‘You ain’t getting away, homeboy!’

Gleason had also created a GoFundMe donation account to ask his followers to raise $6K to repair his teeth. He said that his former struggles with addiction had damaged his teeth.

“The cost of dental repair is overwhelming, and it’s simply out of reach for me right now,” the suspect wrote.

That campaign has raised only $20.

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​Tiktok influencer rape, Serial rapist influencer, Benjamin gleason arrested, Influencer arrested for rape, Crime 

After President Donald Trump accused state Rep. James Talarico (D) of insulting Jesus, the Texas lawmaker responded with a speech framing progressive policy positions as expressions of Christian values — and Trump’s positions as the antithesis of them.

But BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes the president was right.

“Let me tell you the good news. The good news is, their candidate is whacked out with his six different forms of gender and all the things that I saw. The insult to Jesus,” Trump told Brian Kilmeade on Fox News.

“Trump is obviously absolutely right about that. He’s right about everything that he said,” Stuckey says. “Talarico is very extreme, very kooky. He uses the name of Jesus to justify his extremism.”

And Talarico took the opportunity to respond to Trump’s criticism.

“The President of the United States just said that I insulted Jesus. You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off their health care while cutting taxes for billionaires. You know what insults Jesus? Deporting the stranger and separating babies from their mothers,” Talarico began.

“You know what insults Jesus? Bombing innocent schoolchildren in Iran and sending our brave men and women off to die in another forever war. You know what insults Jesus? Covering up the Epstein files and then refusing to prosecute a single person in them,” he continued.

Talarico went on to ask the audience, which appeared to be churchgoers, whether they can imagine war in heaven, bigotry in heaven, or poverty in heaven.

“This would be my advice to Trump,” Stuckey says. “I don’t want Trump to talk about Talarico anymore. I don’t want him to talk about Talarico anymore, even though everything he said is absolutely true.”

“I support Trump, but his realm is not theology, and so comments like he’s ‘an insult to Jesus’ don’t really help this conversation,” she continues, pointing out that Talarico, like Satan, mixes lies with truth.

“And so, I’ll just point out some of the true things that he says before I get into the complete and total lies. Jesus is saddened by sickness and death. Jesus is saddened by the killing of innocents always. Jesus is definitely against Jeffrey Epstein and the delay of justice,” she explains.

However, Talarico was also very wrong about several of his claims.

“It is not true that Jesus is always against war. Romans 13, New Testament, part of the inerrant word of God, says that the government bears the sword to punish the evildoer, both here and abroad. Lots of debate and nuance about when and how that should be used, absolutely,” Stuckey says.

“But it does mean, at least in principle, that not all government-wielded violence is wrong. And actually, that it is at times necessary to protect the innocent and to quell evil,” she continues, pointing out that it is also “not true” that in order to love the sick, “we have to have a government-provided and mandated health care system.”

“Christians have a very long, rich history of caring for the sick, and we should continue to do that. That does not require us to support Medicare for all,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Allie beth stuckey, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Christianity, James talarico, President donald trump, The bible, Christian, Religion 

A student-run newspaper has apologized this week but not to the peer who was murdered.

Loyola University Chicago student Sheridan Gorman, 18, was shot and killed on March 19 around 1:00 a.m. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time she had been walking in a park with friends.

‘We deeply regret these errors, and we’re committed to continuing the high standards we hold for ourselves as journalists.’

DHS went on to accuse Jose Medina-Medina, “a Venezuelan criminal illegal alien,” of wearing a mask and shooting Gorman as she attempted to run away.

Now Loyola University Chicago’s newspaper is apologizing for characterizing the accused as an “illegal immigrant.”

In an article published on Sunday, the Loyola Phoenix added an editor’s note about language used in an Instagram post on Monday.

The outlet first wrote that its original headline on Instagram, “Immigrant Man Charged in Murder of Sheridan Gorman, DHS Involved,” was inappropriate because it caused “harm” to “community members.”

“That headline didn’t reflect the most important elements in the story, and it was taken down minutes later to prevent any further harm to affected community members,” the Loyola Phoenix began.

Then the student-driven paper apologized for using the term “illegal immigrant” entirely.

RELATED: College student went to Chicago park to see northern lights — and was lethally shot by illegal alien suspect, DHS says

“In the body of the original post, we described the man who was charged as an ‘illegal immigrant,’ using language provided by the Department of Homeland Security. That language does not align with Associated Press style, nor does it align with the values of this newspaper,” the note said.

“No human’s existence is illegal, and we quickly changed our wording to reflect that.”

Associated Press dropped the term “illegal immigrant” in 2013 and currently provides a bevy of alternate terms while declaring one should “use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant.”

The style guide goes on to say that terms like “immigrants lacking permanent legal status” or “irregular migration” are acceptable substitutes. The guide explicitly says not to use the terms “alien, unauthorized immigrant, irregular migrant, an illegal, illegals, or undocumented,” except when quoting people or government documents.

“Many immigrants have some sort of documents, but not the necessary ones,” it adds.

RELATED: Will Pritzker honor ICE detainer against illegal alien accused of murdering 18-year-old college student?

Photo by Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Loyola’s paper continued, saying it acknowledged the “harm such language can cause and the power and importance of the words we choose to use.”

“We deeply regret these errors, and we’re committed to continuing the high standards we hold for ourselves as journalists and members of the Loyola, Rogers Park, and Chicago communities,” the message concluded.

Blaze News reached out to the article’s author, Lilli Malone, who is also listed as the editor in chief of the paper, but did not receive a response.

In its report, DHS said that Medina-Medina was released into the country in May 2023 after being apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol and released again that June after he was arrested for alleged shoplifting in Chicago.

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​News, Murder, Illegal immigrant, Immigration, Chicago, Illinois, Venezuela, College, University, Crime, Politics 

In yet another example of our human experiences being harvested to feed Big Tech, it has come to light that data culled from Pokémon Go, the once-trendy phone-based game, was leveraged to push robotics to the next level — players unaware. Those goofy humans running around their trendy cities, chasing meaningless but well-branded digital phantoms, never had the least idea who they were serving or what they were actually doing in the protracted “just for fun” exercise.

In point of fact, Pokémon Go, which incentivized users to “catch ’em all” in the immersive new “augmented reality” world, did disclose in its terms and conditions that none of the collected data would be owned by the players. Niantic Spatial, the owner of the game and designer of the bait-like fantasy creatures, buried this item deep in the small print, of course. The company knew, and we know now, that the players, much like anyone impatiently clicking those little pop-up checkboxes, never cared and likely never even read the T&Cs.

It’s the theme of the times: harvesting the human until the human can be replaced.

Niantic’s dataset is so valuable because its players ran and walked with their children and friends through the unmapped urban canyons of the world, so difficult for GPS to access. Coco Robotics had a problem getting robots to deliver pizzas without GPS. The result — the intended outcome — is called visual positioning system. Niantic calls it “the future,” and it’s what robots of the present and future will be using to orient and navigate the physical world.

Robots will use VPS for delivering pizzas. Soon, they’ll also use it to deliver kinetic payloads — missiles, as civilians call them — to the doors of living, conscious beings. It would be nice to believe that former Pokémon Go aficionados will find themselves morally torn about such things, and as the explosions refresh their dulled recollections one last time, maybe a few of them will.

For now, as the brute facts of user exploitation come to light, there doesn’t appear to be much, if any, player complaint.

But what of the more sinister underlying pattern — people actively replacing themselves? At what point will people care about that? The new workflow of ramping up our own digital substitutes just keeps repeating itself. Games are developed and used for ulterior purposes, including military ones, as gamers who played Battlefield 3’s detailed Kharg Island map ruefully observe. Amazon plans to let go 14,000 employees in the near future. Jack Dorsey just dropped his staff from 10,000 to 6,000 with an X post. If they’re not safe, who is?

RELATED: California’s next dumb tech idea: Show your papers to scroll

Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Pokémon Go players aren’t to be blamed any more than the rest of us who know the adage, “If the product is free, you’re the product,” but failed to find much else to do with our time over the past 20 years but stare at “our” screens, ever more intently, for ever greater stretches of unremembered time.

One wonders: How far in advance of the development and release of Pokémon Go did the creators understand its collected data would be the big payoff? How long have they waited for the robotics tech to need their human datasets to scale? Can we blame the creators trapped in the substitutionary circuit any more than the users?

Our avoidant response to the flywheel of our self-induced obsolescence is enabled by soothingly rational arguments. After all, look around: Isn’t our national infrastructure wasting away? Isn’t our population aging? Wouldn’t we rather all take an early retirement? On the strength of such ideas, Jeff Bezos has unveiled his latest stratagem for hyperscaled success. The archetypal nerd, whose outsized winnings from the on-demand, on-the-couch economy have fueled his transformation into an ‘80s-style action figure, is pivoting into an AI-driven conquest of industry and manufacturing.

He is gathering a reported $100 million to buy up whatever distressed, fire-sale material operations he can, rejigger the works with robots, let his Prometheus AI djinn do the management, and, along the way, jettison the human “element” entirely. Is this to usher in the age of no work and all play? Back to owning nothing and being happy we go, this time wrapped in a nationalist instead of globalist skin.

And what happens after AI conquers every building, every company, every neighborhood? There’s no more value to be extracted from our world but us. It’s the theme of the times: harvesting the human until the human can be replaced. With what, if anything, “expert” opinion differs.

​Tech 

Philadelphia’s far-left district attorney issued a warning to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who have been deployed to the city’s airport to help ease the burden on Transportation Security Administration agents amid the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

During a press conference at the Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) threatened to arrest and prosecute ICE agents.

‘If you don’t like it, Larry, tell your fellow Democrats to fund’ DHS.

“I have a message for the good people, and there are a lot of good people who work for ICE as agents: Keep your oath; uphold the United States Constitution,” Krasner stated.

He said that he views “mass deportation” as “immoral,” but added that his opinion “does not matter for my job.”

“My job is to enforce the law,” he continued.

“You commit crimes within the jurisdiction that is the city and county of Philadelphia — I prosecute you. That is how it works. No, I don’t take a phone call from the president, saying, ‘Let him go.’ No, the president cannot pardon you.”

RELATED: ‘We will find you’: Soros-backed district attorney vows to ‘hunt down’ ICE agents who violate law

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Krasner, who previously received financial aid from left-wing billionaire George Soros, repeated that President Donald Trump would not be able to pardon prosecuted ICE agents.

“And yes, I will put you in handcuffs, and I will put you in a courtroom. And if necessary, I will put you in a jail cell if you decide to make the terrazzo floor of this airport anything like what you did in the streets of Minneapolis, which involved the criminal homicide of unarmed, innocent people. We are not having that here,” Krasner added.

RELATED: ‘You don’t want this smoke’: Philly DA and sheriff threaten ICE officers — DHS just laughs

Larry Krasner. Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images/Getty Images

On Wednesday, Krasner posted a video on social media further condemning ICE’s deployment to airports.

“My message to ICE agents deployed at PHL Airport: Don’t break the law, or you’re going to find out,” he wrote.

The White House responded by calling Krasner “sick and deranged.”

“@ICEgov is there to help because Democrats have forced @TSA officers to work without paychecks. If you don’t like it, Larry, tell your fellow Democrats to fund @DHSgov,” Rapid Response 47 replied.

“To most Americans, our ICE officers are heroes as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists,” DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told Blaze News. “What Krasner is trying to do is unlawful, and he knows it. Federal officials acting in the course of their duties are immune from liability under state law.”

“Attacks and demonization of ICE law enforcement are wrong. Because of smears like this, our ICE officers are now facing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists,” Bis continued. “What’s immoral is illegal aliens killing American citizens like 18-year-old Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman, who was shot and killed last week, allegedly by Jose Medina-Medina, a Venezuelan criminal illegal alien.”

Editor’s note: This article has been edited after publication to incorporate a statement from the DHS.

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​News, Larry krasner, Larence krasner, Philadelphia, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Immigration crisis, Illegal immigration crisis, Immigration, Transportation security administration, Tsa, Department of homeland security, Dhs, Dhs shutdown, Airports, Politics 

President Donald Trump is once again weighing in on the ongoing peace talks with Iran, portraying the adversary as “strange” and increasingly desperate.

Trump is hammering Iran to cut a deal with the United States as the conflict with Iran approaches its fourth week. Iranian media has denied that there are ongoing peace talks, but the president insists Iranian officials are “begging” to make a deal to end the hostilities.

‘Only President Trump determines who negotiates.’

“The Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange,'” Trump said in a Truth Social post Thursday. “They are ‘begging’ us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal.'”

“WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”

RELATED: ‘Utterly false’: White House sets the record straight over media’s ‘laughable’ Iran narratives

Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

After Trump initially made the negotiations public on Monday, reports began swirling about which officials are being included, and in some cases excluded, from the talks.

CNN reported earlier in the week that Iranian officials would not re-enter negotiations with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, instead insisting on meeting with Vice President JD Vance. The anonymous reports that Kushner and Witkoff were cut out of meetings were quickly quashed by the White House and other sources who set the record straight.

“President Trump and only President Trump determines who negotiates on behalf of the United States,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Blaze News.

“As the president stated today, Vice President Vance, Secretary [Marco] Rubio, Special Envoy Witkoff, and Mr. Kushner will all be involved.”

RELATED: ‘TOTAL RESOLUTION’: Trump orders temporary suspension amid Iran peace talks

Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images

Another source familiar with the negotiations told Blaze News that these reports are a form of foreign propaganda relying on accounts of potential adversaries who want to see the peace talks fail.

“CNN and NYPost are using anonymous sources aka sources from other Middle Eastern countries who clearly want to scuttle negotiations to launder foreign propaganda and blatant misinformation,” the source told Blaze News.

“The big tell is it’s not even being sourced to the Iranians but other unnamed regional sources who may or may not have a reason to undermine negotiations by peddling this type of laughable fiction,” the source added. “The whole premise and their sourcing is laughable — they’re relying on other countries who may have an interest in quashing any negotiations here.”

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​Donald trump, Karoline leavitt, Marco rubio, Jd vance, Steve witkoff, Jared kushner, Iran, Iran war, Middle east war, Fake news, No new wars, Politics 

A viral hoax circulating right now claims Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dead. Conspiracy theorists perpetuating this narrative speculate that his recent appearances are actually sophisticated AI deepfakes, despite fact-checks confirming he’s alive and well.

Glenn Beck was disturbed when he realized the popularity of this conspiracy theory.

“We have to be able to see through these fake stories. We have to slow down enough and think through logically,” he says.

Hiding Netanyahu’s death would demand “silence from the people who physically surround him — that’s family, personal staff, security detail, medical personnel, drivers, aides, schedulers,” Glenn adds.

Some of those people, he argues, would “have every incentive — financial, ideological, even personal — to speak up if something this enormous were true,” making it “damn near impossible” to keep the news concealed.

Glenn explains the impossibility of such a scenario.

“[Netanyahu] has to constantly interact with military leadership, the intelligence, the cabinet members, the opposition leaders, the foreign diplomats. If the man were gone, every single one of those interactions has to become a performance. Every meeting becomes a theater,” he says.

“Then you have the United States government. You have the European allies, regional adversaries, intelligence services across the globe. They all have to either be fooled or actively participate in the deception,” Glenn continues.

“Think about that for a minute — rival intelligence agencies, some of which exist specifically to expose weakness or deception in Israel. They would all have to miss or suppress it. That’s just not how intelligence services behave. They leak, they compete, they expose.”

Then there’s the massive media arm — “the hostile press, the friendly press, the foreign press, the independent journalists” along with all their “camera crews,” “audio technicians,” and “editors” — that would have to be either completely duped by a “flawless” scheme or fully “complicit” in the ruse.

“Journalists break careers for stories far smaller than this. This would be the biggest political cover-up in modern history, and no one has the human instinct to cash in on that, on Israel?” Glenn asks skeptically.

For those claiming that all of Netanyahu’s recent appearances are AI deepfakes, Glenn has a blunt message: AI is advanced, but not that advanced — at least not yet.

“You would need the technology that could generate full-motion, real-time video; … handle unpredictable environments, lighting, background noise, interruptions; … maintain consistency across multiple appearances, different angles, different days; and do it so perfectly that video experts cannot detect it, foreign intelligence could not detect it, political opponents can’t expose it,” he explains.

“If that technology exists at that level — not in a lab, but operationally deployed — it would be the most valuable and destabilizing capability on Earth, and it wouldn’t be used for Benjamin Netanyahu. It would be used for something far, far greater than that,” he continues.

Realistically pulling off a scheme as grand as hiding a world leader’s death from the entire world is simply too great a task for our current technological capabilities, Glenn concludes.

“You’d need total silence from the inner circle, total coordination against his entire government, total compliance or total failure of government intelligence from all over the world, … total [complicity] or total incompetence of the international media, and flawless, undetectable AI that could replace a human being in dynamic public settings,” he summarizes.

“That’s a pretty big wall to get over.”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the video above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Ai deepfake, Benjamin netanyahu, Israel, Netanyahu death, Rumor 

Think back to fourth-grade American history. We learned why the Articles of Confederation failed and why the Constitution replaced them. One major problem was that states struggled to trade with one another and often tried to protect local interests by taxing or restricting goods from other states.

That helps explain why the Constitutional Convention gave Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce in Article I.

The challenge to the machine-gun ban asks more than whether one statute survives. It asks whether the Constitution’s architecture still restrains power at all.

In grade school, the principle sounded straightforward enough. Two centuries of litigation have made it anything but. A basic question still hangs over the Commerce Clause: How much power does it actually give Congress?

Can Congress force you to buy health insurance? Can it stop you from growing wheat in your own garden to bake your own bread? Can it ban you from possessing a firearm?

Not buying a firearm, which plainly involves commerce. Not using one. Just possessing one.

And does the answer change if that firearm happens to be a machine gun?

In 1986, Congress made it illegal “for any person to transfer or possess a machine gun,” with narrow exceptions for military use and for machine guns lawfully possessed before the statute took effect. For everyone else, the ban is absolute.

One might expect Congress to have debated whether the Commerce Clause, or any other constitutional provision, gave legislators the power to ban mere possession of a machine gun. It did not. The only real justification for banning post-1986 machine guns came in a single House floor statement from Rep. William J. Hughes (D-N.J.), the amendment’s sponsor: “I do not know why anyone would object to the banning of machine guns.”

Hughes did not offer a constitutional justification. He simply assumed Congress had the power and never bothered to prove it.

In reality, Congress does not possess a general police power. It cannot create a comprehensive national criminal code simply because it wants to. That authority belongs chiefly to the states. Congress may enact criminal laws only when they rest on one of its few enumerated powers.

That’s the essence of federalism.

RELATED: Want a machine gun? These states might soon make buying one easier

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images

So the real question remains: Does Congress have the power to prohibit mere possession of a machine gun, or does that authority remain with the states and the people?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has confronted the question before, but it has never answered it.

In 1997, the full court, sitting en banc, split evenly in United States v. Kirk. Sixteen of the 17 judges participated, and the court divided straight down the middle. Half concluded that the machine-gun ban exceeded Congress’ Commerce Clause authority. Half disagreed. Because no majority emerged, the district court’s judgment was affirmed by default, and the written opinions carried no precedential force.

Three months later, the court faced the issue again in United States v. Knutson. This time, the panel included three judges who believed Congress did have the power to ban machine guns. They upheld the law. The full court stayed silent, and Knutson remains binding precedent.

Two months ago, Judge Don Willett raised the issue again in a nonbinding concurrence in United States v. Wilson. Willett expressed serious doubt that Congress has constitutional authority to prohibit mere possession of a firearm. He walked through the Supreme Court’s three recognized categories of Commerce Clause authority: the channels of interstate commerce, the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Mere possession of a firearm, he concluded, “fits uneasily within any of these categories.”

Willett’s observation gets to the heart of the problem.

If mere possession counts as interstate commerce, or as something Congress may regulate under the Commerce Clause, then federal power no longer has a meaningful limiting principle. Congress can regulate nearly anything, so long as some lawyer can imagine a downstream economic effect.

That is not constitutional government. It is federal power without a boundary.

Now, nearly three decades after Knutson, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Temple Gun Club are prepared to press the issue again. Temple Gun Club is made up of law-abiding citizens who want machine-gun ownership made lawful for their members. The organization is not talking about weapons bought on some national market. It is talking about firearms the members would build themselves by converting guns they already lawfully own, firearms that never entered the stream of interstate commerce.

This case is about more than just machine guns. It is about whether the Commerce Clause still has limits. If Congress may ban possession of an item that was never bought, never sold, never exchanged across state lines, and has no substantial effect on interstate commerce, then Congress can regulate virtually every aspect of human life.

RELATED: When good guys carry, killers lose — and the media looks away

Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/Denver Post/Getty Images

Willett made the point well in Wilson:

Far from viewing this sort of incremental, frog-boiling expansion of federal power as legitimate, the Founding generation saw it as the more insidious threat — a quiet, gradual erosion of liberty rather than a sudden seizure of it.

That’s right. The courts should return to first principles. They should revisit the machine-gun ban and ask the question Congress ducked in 1986: Does “regulate commerce” still mean something limited and intelligible, or has the phrase become a blank check for federal control?

The challenge to the machine-gun ban asks more than whether one statute survives. It asks whether the Constitution’s architecture still restrains power at all — or whether the 10th Amendment has been reduced to a historical footnote.

​Opinion & analysis, Machine gun, Ban, 1986 machine gun ban, Constitution, Commerce clause, Congress, Limited government, Possession, Federal lawsuit, Fifth circuit, Second amendment, Supreme court, William j. hughes, Police power, Federalism 

An illegal alien who’s been deported four times faces upgraded charges now that the elderly Air Force veteran he’s accused of shoving onto subway tracks in New York City earlier this month has died.

Bairon Posada-Hernandez — a Honduran national with 15 prior charges on his record — was initially charged with attempted murder in connection with the incident, the Department of Homeland Security said.

‘I hope he rots in hell.’

However, the New York Daily News, citing court records, reported that charges against the 34-year-old suspect were upgraded to murder Wednesday after the elderly victim who had been on life support recently passed away.

More from the Daily News:

Richard Williams, 83, was waiting on the downtown platform for the F and Q trains at the Lexington Ave.-63rd St. station when he was shoved onto the tracks around 11:30 a.m. on March 8. Moments before, the assailant had pushed a 30-year-old man standing next to Williams onto the tracks as well without saying a word, cops said.

Williams was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell in critical condition, the paper said, adding that his eldest daughter said he wasn’t expected to survive.

“It doesn’t look good,” Debbie Williams told the Daily News from her father’s bedside. Richard Williams died on March 17, the paper said.

Police told the Daily News that the city’s medical examiner attributed Williams’ cause of death to multiple blunt-force injuries.

RELATED: ‘Heinous’ thug accused of shoving 83-year-old military vet onto NYC subway tracks was deported 4 times, charged 15 times: DHS

“I hope he rots in hell,” Debbie Williams said of the suspect, according to the paper.

Posada-Hernandez pleaded not guilty earlier this month; his arraignment on the new charges is scheduled for Monday, the paper said.

The suspect’s attorney Michael Papson told the Daily News his client “vehemently denies these allegations. He’s never been arrested in the state of New York — ever.”

However, Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis had a different take, calling Posada-Hernandez a “heinous” and “serial criminal” who “should never have been able to walk our streets and harm innocent Americans.”

More from DHS:

Posada-Hernandez first entered the country on January 2, 2008, and has been deported four different times, most recently in 2020. He entered illegally a fifth time at an unknown date and location.

The suspect has a lengthy criminal history, including 15 prior charges such as simple assault, domestic violence, obstruction of police, possession of a weapon, drug possession, and aggravated assault.

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​Crime, Bairon posada-hernandez, Department of homeland security, Richard williams, Air force vet, Elderly man, New york city, Subway, Shoved onto subway tracks, Murder charge, Illegal alien, Illegal immigration, Politics 

Buckle up, Boomers and Gen Xers, because I’m going to serve you up some nostalgia bait. Stop at the concession booth to pick up your complimentary rose-colored glasses, and don’t feel shy.

Generation X was born between 1965 and 1980. We are the last generation who experienced the real, physical world the way most humans have experienced it. We came along when generational transitions were gradual. We knew our Boomer parents’ music and movie stars, and we know our Silent Generation grandparents’ music and movie stars. As a kid, I knew who the Andrews Sisters were, and I could sing along because my grandmother played their records.

There will be Slant Six engines running in good health long after I’m dead, just as God intended.

Compare to today: The average Gen Z kid has no idea who Michael Jackson, Madonna, or Lucille Ball are. Starting with Millennials, a chasm opened up between generations. People a generation younger asked who some of the most world-famous stars were when they were working and alive just 20 years earlier.

With Gen Z it’s even starker. They were given digital poison in the form of smartphones in their tender years, and the entire cultural landscape fragmented into a billion bespoke Balkan states.

It’s hard to convince young people that some of the technologies from the bad old world of analog were actually superior to what we have today. They don’t believe that phone calls on copper wire were clear and never dropped (it’s true, though). Hilariously, they think film photography was always blurry and little better at capturing detail than an Impressionist painter.

Well, some of these things were better. And I want them back.

1. Kodachrome film

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

I trained as a photographer in college, and that was going to be my career. But then digital came along. I was in romantic love with the hands-on craft that was film photography. When computers took over, I packed it all away because I was in love with silver gelatin emulsions, not silicon chips.

The loss of Kodachrome color slide film was the worst, and I shed real tears when Kodak pulled the plug. There was no color film in history that reproduced color as well as Kodachrome did; there’s a reason Paul Simon wrote the song. He was right.

Kodachrome was actually a black-and-white film with no built-in dyes like all other color films. Instead it captured the blue, red, and green light on three layers in the film separately. The color dyes were added during the wet chemical processing, and those dyes were richer and more time-stable than ordinary color film. This is why a Kodachrome slide from the 1940s looks like a high-quality photograph taken today — there’s no fading or washed-out colors like many of us see in old color photos in our family albums.

It was also the sharpest film with the highest resolution. A scene taken on Kodachrome was reproduced in such detail that looking at the slide was nearly like looking at real life through a window.

Because you’re reading this on a computer screen, you and I can’t see what the slide “really” looks like. It’s mediated by an electronic screen. But you can still see the rich color and fine detail that no other film could achieve.

2. Three-strip Technicolor

People today talk about bright hues looking like “Technicolor,” but few people understand what that really meant. For decades in Hollywood, the patented Technicolor film process was different from every other color film technology, and it reined supreme. Motion pictures shot in Technicolor were brighter and more vivid than any other process. They made real life look like the Land of Oz.

The quality came at a price. Like Kodachrome, Technicolor used black-and-white film, adding stable, rich color dyes later during processing and printing. This made the shooting process difficult. The film was “slow,” requiring so much light on set that actors sometimes got eye damage. They certainly sweat a lot.

Technicolor cameras ran three separate strips of black-and-white motion picture film through the camera at the same time. A “beam splitter” separated the light into red, green, and blue, directing one color only to each of the three strips of film. The cameras were heavy and needed to be sound-baffled during a shoot.

Striking the final print for projection required precision machines that could line up each of the three strips of film in perfect registration to lay down cyan, yellow, and magenta dyes. It took precision-machining, skill, time, and money. That’s why the process was abandoned when cheaper, easier all-in-one color motion picture film became available.

But that’s also why the Technicolor process was so beloved that songs were written about it. This is from the Technicolor production “Silk Stockings” with Janis Paige singing to Fred Astaire.

3. Air-cooled Volkswagen engines

I went outside to play in 1978 and came upon my stepfather on his knees behind the 1967 beige VW bug that was our family car. “God — son of a *@^%!” he cussed as the engine cranked and cranked and wouldn’t fire up. He was trying to gap the points in the distributor, a job he was never good at. I learned to do it decades later from a classic butch lesbian, and it didn’t seem that hard to me.

My stepdad was doing this because that’s what normal people did in those days. You tuned up your own car. Most dads had a toolset and the know-how to do car maintenance at home. Repairs were less expensive, and you didn’t have to have a computer technician “scan” your engine to figure out what the bloody computer thought was wrong with it.

Sure, the old VWs were simple and had few features. The heaters were so bad that winter driving required an ice scraper for the inside of the windscreen. The bugs were tiny compared to modern cars, but you could get a surprising amount in there if you were clever.

Sure, they were light (some people call them death traps), but that was great when my mother went off a snowy road in Upstate New York, and four boys from the local college fraternity just picked it up out of the ditch and set it back on the road.

I’d give anything to hear that musical, metallic tinkle of the exhaust pipes on America’s roads today.

4. The Chrysler Slant Six engine

If you know, you know. America never built a more durable engine than the famous Chrysler Slant Six. The engine got its name because the designers tilted it 30 degrees to fit the block under the lower, sleeker hoods that became stylish in the early 1960s.

This six-cylinder may not have had the raw horsepower of a big block V8, but it produced a surprising amount of oomph for its size, and it was an engine that never died. If you’ve owned one, you can hear the sewing machine-like purr and tick in your mind.

We had two Slant Six-powered family cars growing up. As an adult, I’ve had a Dodge Dart and a Plymouth Belvedere powered by this motor. There’s no better way to spend an afternoon than adjusting the valves on a Slant Six while it’s running. I miss how easy it was to work on these engines, made in the days when you could move around under the hood and adjust something without taking off 15 components just to get enough room to put a finger in the engine bay.

There will be Slant Six engines running in good health long after I’m dead, just as God intended.

RELATED: My 1966 Plymouth Belvedere let her 225 Slant-6 do the talking

NBC/Getty Images

5. Customer service

This is a social technology that needs to make a comeback. My first jobs as a teenager were running the cash register at a Wegman’s grocery store and bringing burgers to tables at a Big Boy restaurant. Friendly, efficient customer service was mandatory. It was expected by every customer and every employer.

You were to greet customers with a friendly hello and an offer to help. Smiles were either compulsory or strongly encouraged. If a customer needed to find an item, you found it for them and walked them over to the right aisle.

What do you get today when you walk into any retail store? Dead-eyed, silent stares from any staff younger than 35. Need to find a pipe fitting in a big store like Lowe’s? Try asking. You’ll get, “Um … a what? If we had any, they’d be, like, over there,” as “Jonas” waves in a northeasterly direction.

Surprisingly, a young clerk at my local McDonald’s reminded me of the good old days of customer service last week. Like so many places, McDonald’s is making its restaurants hostile to humans. In addition to the ugly, gray, brutalist “updated” architecture, the lobbies are crammed with touch-screen kiosks, while the staffed registers have been reduced to one or two maximum. As recently as 15 years ago, McDonald’s had a reputation for employing staff that were neater, tidier, and friendlier than the competition.

That’s gone now — except for this one young man at my local McD’s. I walked past the kiosks and up to the register, expecting to be ignored for five minutes as is now McDonald’s standard. “Jeff” was about 22. His shirt was tucked in. He was neatly groomed. He smiled at me and said, “Welcome to McDonald’s; how are you today?” He meant it. He was looking me in the eye. I was so pleasantly surprised I thought I was dreaming, and I made a point to thank him for being human and polite.

The other day, I saw this old early ’80s commercial for McDonald’s Shamrock Shake. Take a look, and try not to tear up. If you’re 35 or under, you probably think the chipper and upbeat tone looks “fake.” You may not believe anyone ever acted that way. You might even find this level of cheer “cringe.”

Well, it was like that. I was there. And I want it back.

​Generation x, Kodachrome, Lifestyle, Culture, Technicolor, Chrysler slant six, Cars, Nostalgia, Customer service, Mcdonald’s, Intervention 

America’s newest political battlefield runs through one of the most miserable places in the country: the airport.

Democrats have held up funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid their ongoing war over ICE, and after a month without pay, TSA employees have started refusing to come to work. The result has been crippling delays at major airports, with waits stretching four hours or more and turning an already degraded flying experience into something closer to a public humiliation ritual.

The GOP theoretically holds the levers of power, but in practice it remains terrified of disturbing the status quo.

The brutal truth is that one political party is willing to disrupt travel across the country to protect illegal immigrants and preserve a future voter pipeline. Even after assassination attempts, lawfare against political opponents, and an open push for demographic replacement, conservatives still hesitate to admit that our political battles have become existential.

In theory, the United States remains the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. In practice, basic air travel now is a dysfunctional disaster. Seats are cramped, service is miserable, fellow passengers are often feral, and airlines charge extra for every scrap of convenience in the hope of squeezing one last dollar from exhausted travelers.

For a while, the indignity at least purchased speed. Flying still got you from one place to another faster than anything else. But incompetence, cost-cutting, and crumbling infrastructure have made significant delays routine. Travelers now regularly build an extra day into both ends of a trip because same-day arrival has become an increasingly reckless assumption.

Adding four-hour TSA lines to that ordeal is more than just another inconvenience. It’s simply insulting.

To his credit, President Trump has moved ICE officers into airports to assist with screening. It is less satisfying than watching those officers execute deportation raids, but early signs suggest the move has worked. Atlanta reportedly went from nearly five hours of screening delays to roughly five minutes. ICE officers appear to be in good spirits, and the agency itself seems to be recovering some badly needed public goodwill. Tom Homan has even said ICE agents will continue deportation operations while helping with TSA duties. It is not an ideal arrangement, but Trump has once again found a way to turn executive action into a political win.

RELATED: The right’s only way out of podcast chaos is radical honesty

Blaze Media Illustration

Still, the TSA mess raises a larger strategic question, one that extends well beyond airports.

During the COVID lockdowns, public schools across the country shut their doors. Conservatives had spent years correctly describing government education as a progressive propaganda machine and a patronage network for Democratic clients. Yet when the system buckled, the right did not use the opening to challenge the legitimacy of the whole structure. Republicans begged for schools to reopen as quickly as possible. Faced with a rare chance to dismantle an atrocious institution, conservatives instead demanded a “return to normal.” But normal was already a disaster.

The same pattern now applies to the TSA.

The agency did not even exist before 2001, and it has performed badly almost from the start. Most contraband still gets through screening. The TSA has not stopped a single terrorist attack. Like the public school system, it functions largely as a jobs program for Democrat clients while draining billions from taxpayers and making ordinary life demonstrably worse.

Republicans still act as though enduring a few nasty New York Times editorials is too high a price to pay to save the country.

Rather than using this crisis to argue for dismantling the TSA, Republicans have rushed to prove that it is indispensable. The short-term political benefit is obvious enough. No administration wants to own airport chaos. But every such rescue reinforces a deeper assumption shared by both parties: Any government program, once created, becomes permanent. No one is going to vote himself into a smaller state. The incentives do not allow it. America is far more likely to watch the regime collapse than to see it willingly scale itself back.

That failure of imagination points to a larger problem.

Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the presidency while holding a friendly Supreme Court, yet they still appear terrified to govern. Only Trump, in his early burst of executive orders, showed much appetite for using the moment. Even that momentum slowed once the administration ran into the courts and Congress refused to codify any serious part of the MAGA agenda. The GOP theoretically holds the levers of power, but in practice it remains terrified of disturbing the status quo.

RELATED: The taboo conservatives refuse to confront

Blaze Media Illustration

Democrats behave very differently. Even from a minority position, they are willing to shut down travel across the country for the explicit purpose of keeping illegal immigrants here. Members of the Democratic Party understand that their coalition depends on dissolving the old American nation and distributing its assets to clients in exchange for votes. That agenda is not particularly popular with the historic American population, but it is attractive to new arrivals who did not build the country and feel no inherited obligation toward it.

To remain electorally viable, Democrats need an ever-expanding pool of imported voters dependent on public wealth transfers to cancel out the votes of the native population. If they can replace enough of the country, they can govern it indefinitely. Progressives celebrate that possibility whenever they are not dismissing it as a conspiracy theory.

If one party is willing to grind national air travel to a halt to preserve its electoral advantage while the other will not pass basic legislation for fear of offending someone, the country has a big problem. Trump has pressed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act to strengthen election integrity and give Republicans a tactical advantage, yet the GOP continues to drag its feet. One party behaves as if politics actually matters. The other behaves as if politics is an embarrassing chore.

Democrats are willing to hold the nation hostage in airport security lines to secure victory. Republicans still act as though enduring a few nasty New York Times editorials is too high a price to pay to save the country. A movement that fears bad press more than national dispossession has surrendered the habits of self-government and forgotten what political power is for.

​Tsa, Air travel, Tsa lines, Gop, Airports, Democrats, Trump, Ice, Covid, Maga, Opinion & analysis, Demographics, Government shutdown, Congress, Mass deportations, Illegal immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Illegal aliens 

Wisconsin police were on the smelly trail of a “serial defecator” until the woman was tracked down through the use of a drone and trail cameras.

A viral post from the Stoughton Police Department on Facebook said the drone captured video of the 46-year-old woman on Feb. 5.

In the video published by WISN, the officer reassured her that video of their interaction would not air on television.

“SPD USES DRONE TO ARREST SERIAL DEFECATOR IN CITY PARK,” police wrote in all caps.

An extensive investigation established a defecation pattern early in the morning at the park by use of the cameras and drone. This led to an officer confronting the woman about her illicit and public lavatorial activities.

“After multiple reports of residents finding human feces and used toilet paper in a city park, SPD used trail cameras and a drone to ID and cite the person responsible,” police said.

WISN-TV obtained video of the police officer confronting the woman at 5 a.m.

“Can you come here and talk to me?” he asks her.

“Sure,” she responds.

“Can you look directly above me? See the drone that just caught you going to the bathroom back here?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she responds.

“You’ve been doing this quite a while too,” he says.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she replies.

The woman said she routinely jogs but was unable to use the portable toilets that were usually available during warmer climes. The officer told her to stop defecating on the trail and gave her a citation.

In the video published by WISN, the officer reassured her that video of their interaction would not air on television.

“I am mortified,” she responded.

RELATED: Officials of ‘Latinx’ LGBTQ+ center are outraged that months-long fecal attacks are not an arrestable offense

Police also responded to concerns that the woman might have been homeless by denying those suspicions.

WISN identified the public defecator as a health professional but would not identify her because she was not charged criminally.

The nurse practitioner will likely have to pay a $187 fine.

Stoughton is a city of about 13K residents located about 20 miles south of Madison.

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​Serial defecator, Defecator on wisconsin trail, Mortified defecator, Video arrest of defecator, Crime 

Another Black Lives Matter activist has been caught committing fraud, and the woman was named a “Bostonian of the Year” in 2020 by the Boston Globe.

Monica Cannon-Grant became a BLM activist after the death of George Floyd and ran a nonprofit organization called “Violence in Boston” that received tens of thousands of taxpayer-funded pandemic relief.

Prior to pleading guilty, Cannon-Grant had blamed ‘white supremacy’ for the fraud allegations.

On Monday, Cannon-Grant was ordered to pay back $224K in funds that she rerouted from the nonprofit to benefit herself personally.

The woman and her husband, Clark Grant, were indicted in the fraud scheme in 2023, but he died from a motorcycle accident two months after they were indicted.

Cannon-Grant pleaded guilty to more than a dozen fraud-related charges in Jan. 2026 and was able to escape prison time, though she was sentenced to six months of home confinement, four years of probation, and 100 hours of community service.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said she spent the money on her car insurance, auto loan payments, travel, hotels, gas, food deliveries, restaurants, and nail salons.

Cannon-Grant pleaded guilty to the following:

Ten counts of wire fraud;Three counts of wire fraud conspiracy;One count of mail fraud;Two counts of filing false tax returns; andTwo counts of failing to file tax returns.

RELATED: BLM activists in Boston facing even more federal fraud charges

The nonprofit’s stated mission included reducing violence, raising social awareness, and aiding community causes in the Boston area. The organization’s board voted to shut it down after the embezzlement charges.

Prior to pleading guilty, Cannon-Grant had blamed “white supremacy” for the fraud allegations.

“Monica Cannon-Grant’s crimes were not a momentary lapse in judgment — they were a calculated pattern of deception that spanned years,” U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said. “She repeatedly lied to donors, government agencies, and the public, even after being caught — all while presenting herself as a champion for others. Fraud disguised as activism or charity is still fraud.”

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​Monica cannon-grant, Blm activist fraud, Blm scam artists, Politics, Violence in boston nonprofit scam 

As politics becomes increasingly shaped by social media, mass messaging, and distant institutions, BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre is questioning whether modern societies have simply grown too large to be human.

And author of “The Master and His Emissary” Dr. Iain McGilchrist has an answer for him.

“More and more, our politics is this disembodied understanding. It is the thing fed to us through social media feeds and communicated through advertisements and headlines and these things. People feel like they know more about the world than they’ve ever known,” MacIntyre says.

“In reality, they know not even their neighbor or the issues that they face politically. And so these things have become completely disconnected. To my mind, the way that this is evolving is that we are basically becoming less human in all of our political interactions, making it very difficult for us to then understand the other as human, to understand the society and the world around us,” he continues.

MacIntyre believes this will precede a “collapse in our political systems” that will bring us back “to more of a city-state model.”

“Do you think that we can continue to see these large, you know, super-states expand and continue to lean on this idea that they have some kind of meaningful input from the individuals involved in their citizens, or do you think that ultimately we will have to contract and once again deal with each other at a much more local level when it comes to political organization?” MacIntyre asks McGilchrist.

“I do think we will need to do that very definitely if we’re to survive,” McGilchrist answers.

“We will have to rediscover the virtues of intermediate size,” he continues, pointing out that it may resemble the “downfall of a civilization.”

“But it might actually enable the regeneration of a much better way of life in which we lived with more modest demands on the earth, closer to the earth, cultivating the earth in common with our own community, sharing our lives with them, helping and supporting one another,” he explains.

“That would be a very different one from the one in which we are alien from one another,” he adds.

Want more from Auron MacIntyre?

To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist’s commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcast network, Aaron macintyre, The auron macintyre show, Iain mcgilchrist, Democracy, Society, Humanity, Philosophy, The master and his emissary 

The parent companies of two of the most influential social media platforms were hit with a historic loss by a California jury on Wednesday.

While the damages awarded by the jury in the Los Angeles case were negligible for the tech giants, the decision sets a precedent for other potential lawsuits.

‘It’s a resounding verdict.’

The lawsuit was filed by a 20-year-old woman who alleged that the design of the online platforms led to her social media addiction and had a deleterious effect on her mental health.

The defendants included Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok.

Snapchat and TikTok settled with the woman before the trial began, but Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Google, the parent company of YouTube, were ordered to pay $3 million in damages.

Even more damaging, the jury ruled against the companies, despite the woman admitting that there were other unrelated causes that degraded her mental health.

In comments to Blaze News, economic expert Carol Roth pointed to the stock market reaction to the lawsuit.

“If the platforms are as addictive as the jury seems to believe, then the companies probably don’t have much to worry about in terms of future earnings, as it means their customer base isn’t going anywhere!” she joked.

“But on a more serious note, while the verdict and payout in the Los Angeles case sets a bad precedent for the company and future lawsuits,” she added, “the damages won’t have a material effect at this point on the companies, and the market’s reaction to Meta and Google’s stock price isn’t showing any concern — in fact, in the case of Meta, the damages are lower than some investors expected. The biggest concern may stem from any future regulation pushes that make use of this ruling.”

A spokesperson for Meta said in an email statement to Blaze News that the company “respectfully” disagreed with the verdict and will appeal.

“Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app,” the statement reads. “We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

RELATED: Blaze News investigates: Online predators are using artificial intelligence to force children into sextortion scams, says digital expert

Fox News legal analyst Josh Ritter, a criminal defense attorney, predicted the case would lead to a wave of lawsuits against the companies.

“It’s huge as far as what it means for all of the other plaintiffs. This is now blood in the water. They now understand that these companies are vulnerable,” Ritter said.

“These arguments work. … It’s a resounding verdict, even though the money itself is probably not a check that’s gonna be all that difficult for these companies to write,” he added.

Worse still for Meta, on Tuesday a jury ordered the company to pay $375 million over a lawsuit brought by the New Mexico state attorney general alleging the company misled users about sexual predators on their platforms.

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​Lawsuit against meta, Lawsuit against google, Mental illness social media addiction, Social media addiction, Politics 

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Rochester police officers and a Crisis Response Team social worker were called to an apartment in the 1900 block of Ashland Drive Northwest around 9:30 p.m. March 11 on a report that a man was experiencing a mental health crisis.

Officers and social workers arrived and spoke to the man in his apartment, the bureau said, adding that an adult female and multiple children also were present.

The bureau said White ‘grabbed an officer’s firearm during the struggle and pulled the trigger, causing the gun to fire.’

Officers and the social worker noted that the man was acting erratically and paranoid, and they concluded that he possibly was a threat to himself and others, the bureau said.

Authorities decided to place the man — later identified as 47-year-old Cleavon White — on a 72-hour mental health hold and told him he would be transported to a hospital, the bureau said.

RELATED: Police release bodycam video of cop fatally shooting 6’5″ woman who slashed his face, kept advancing despite warnings to stop

Image source: Rochester (Minn.) Police Department bodycam video screenshot

After White refused to go, officers then attempted to take him into custody, the bureau said.

But White resisted and a struggle ensued, the bureau said.

RELATED: Sheriff gave dire public warning after being forced to release ‘very dangerous’ inmate. Turns out his warning was warranted.

Image source: Rochester (Minn.) Police Department bodycam video screenshot

The bureau said White “grabbed an officer’s firearm during the struggle and pulled the trigger, causing the gun to fire.”

Police bodycam video of the incident — which can be viewed here — recorded the moment when the officer shouted, “He’s grabbing my gun!”

Seconds later, another officer fired five shots, according to the bodycam video.

The bureau said the shots struck White, after which officers immediately rendered medical aid until an ambulance arrived and transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

In the aftermath of the shooting, someone is heard on the bodycam video asking where the gun is, and someone else — presumably the officer who shouted, “He’s grabbing my gun!” — is heard saying, “It’s still in my holster.”

No officers were injured, the bureau said.

Officer Josiah Duit — who has three years of law enforcement experience — fired his department-issued firearm, the bureau said, adding that the Rochester Police Department placed Duit on critical incident leave.

A March 12 news release from Rochester Police said the then-unidentified man grabbed one officer’s firearm during the struggle, but it did not indicate he pulled the trigger. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension issued it’s report March 17. The police bodycam video was released Wednesday.

The bureau said the Rochester Police Department requested that it investigate the use of force, and the bureau will present its findings without recommendation on charges to the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office for review.

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​Mental health crisis, Bodycam video, Rochester, Minnesota, Police, Police involved shooting, Fatal shooting, Man grabs cop’s gun, 72-hour hold, Resisting officers, Use of force, Minnesota department of public safety’s bureau of criminal apprehension, Crime 

President Donald Trump is praising the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are helping at airports amid a partial government shutdown and says the public is responding positively.

Long lines at airports have been plaguing travelers since a congressional standoff paused some funding for the Department of Homeland Security, affecting mainly the Transportation Security Administration.

‘They are Great American Patriots, they just happen to have much larger, and harder, muscles than most — which is what they’re supposed to have.’

While the media has tried to scare the public into thinking ICE agents would harass and detain U.S. citizens, other reports say the program has been a success.

“I am so proud of our ICE Patriots! They were unfairly maligned by the Lunatic Democrats for years, and now, at the Airports, in addition to what they are supposed to be doing, they are helping people with bags, even picking up and cleaning areas. They are so proud to be there!” the president wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.

The president went on to say the Democrats’ criticism against ICE has backfired.

“The fact is, they shouldn’t have to do this, but they are rehabbing a fake image given to them by Radical Left Democrat politicians,” he added. “The Public is loving ICE, so the Democrats, unwittingly, did us a favor — They are Great American Patriots, they just happen to have much larger, and harder, muscles than most — which is what they’re supposed to have.”

Democrats have been trying to force Republicans to defund ICE by stalling the funding for DHS, leading Republicans to blame Democrats for the staffing shortages and long lines.

ICE has been sent to 14 U.S. airports to help with the long lines, according to border czar Tom Homan, who added, “If they see criminal activity, just like a law enforcement officer, they should take action.”

“Thank you to ICE for the GREAT job you are doing. America very much appreciates it!” the president concluded.

RELATED: Heroic off-duty ICE officers jump into action to save 4-year-old boy under water in hotel pool for 5 minutes

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​Ice at airports, Trump thanks ice, Dhs funding shutdown, Dems to blame for dhs shutdown, Politics 

The White House has flat-out rejected media reports claiming key players have been cut out of ongoing negotiations with Iran.

Outlets like CNN and the New York Post have reported that Iran does not want to re-enter negotiations with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and that they instead insist on negotiating with Vice President JD Vance. The White House and other sources familiar with the negotiations vehemently pushed back on this characterization, telling Blaze News that only one person has the discretion to decide who is or isn’t involved in peace talks.

‘The whole premise and their sourcing is laughable.’

“President Trump and only President Trump determines who negotiates on behalf of the United States,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Blaze News.

“As the president stated today, Vice President Vance, Secretary [Marco] Rubio, Special Envoy Witkoff, and Mr. Kushner will all be involved.”

RELATED: ‘TOTAL RESOLUTION’: Trump orders temporary suspension amid Iran peace talks

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Other officials went even further, telling Blaze News that these anonymously sourced articles are just another attempt to quash peace negotiations.

“These stories are utterly false,” a White House official told Blaze News. “This obvious op sourced entirely to anonymous or ‘regional’ sources is clearly a coordinated foreign propaganda campaign meant to undermine the president.”

Another source familiar with the negotiations said the reports are sourced by foreign actors attempting to push their own propaganda about the ongoing Iran war.

RELATED: ‘Insulting and laughable’: Trump administration slams Joe Kent’s resignation protesting Iran strikes

Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images

“CNN and NYPost are using anonymous sources aka sources from other Middle Eastern countries who clearly want to scuttle negotiations to launder foreign propaganda and blatant misinformation,” the source told Blaze News. “The big tell is it’s not even being sourced to the Iranians but other unnamed regional sources who may or may not have a reason to undermine negotiations by peddling this type of laughable fiction.”

“The whole premise and their sourcing is laughable,” the source added. “They’re relying on other countries who may have an interest in quashing any negotiations here.”

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​Donald trump, Karoline leavitt, Jd vance, Marco rubio, Steve witkoff, Jared kushner, Iran, Iran war, Cnn, Nypost, Peace talks, Politics