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While the White House has tried to move past the Epstein files, some Republicans are reigniting the pressure campaign for transparency.

The commotion surrounding the Epstein files largely subsided in early August after Congress left Washington, D.C., for its annual five-week recess. Now that the Hill is back in full force, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is once again leading the charge to release the Epstein files.

‘They’re threatening anyone who helps bring true transparency.’

Massie filed a discharge petition on Tuesday as soon as Congress came back into session. The discharge petition, should it reach at least 218 signatures, would force a vote on his bill to make public all Epstein-related materials with minimal redactions.

Although Massie’s petition has gained traction with Democrats, a White House official warned Republicans that signing on to the petition would be viewed as a “hostile act” by the administration.

RELATED: Thomas Massie leads pressure campaign, forcing Congress to address Epstein

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

“Helping Thomas Massie and liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the Oversight Committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration,” the official said in an email to NBC.

Within two hours of Massie’s filing, the petition secured the backing of 131 Democrats and three Republicans: Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Assuming all 212 Democrats back Massie’s petition, he will need six Republicans besides himself to meet the 218 signature threshold.

“I’m committed to doing everything possible for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein,” Greene said in a post on X. “Including exposing the cabal of rich and powerful elites that enabled this.”

RELATED: FBI, DOJ Epstein memo sparks right-wing outrage: ‘Nobody is believing this’

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“They’re threatening anyone who helps bring true transparency and justice for the survivors,” Massie said in a post on X. “This is a tacit admission the Oversight Committee data release is woefully incomplete.”

The data release Massie is referring to came from the House Oversight Committee Tuesday afternoon and includes over 33,000 Epstein-related documents that were made publicly available.

“As a survivor, I stand with victims demanding justice and full transparency,” Mace said in a post on X. “I also just signed the discharge petition to ensure the full truth comes out.”

House Republicans also scheduled a vote later in the week to allow the House Oversight Committee to “continue its ongoing investigation” into the government’s “possible mismanagement” of the Epstein case. Massie pushed back, calling it a “meaningless vote” meant to provide “political cover” for politicians who don’t want to support his bill.

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​Marjorie taylor greene, Thomas massie, Nancy mace, Lauren boebert, White house, Donald trump, Trump administration, House republicans, Congress, Epstein files, House oversight committee, House democrats, Epstein victims, Politics 

A University of Kentucky cheerleader has been arrested for hiding her dead infant inside a closet, according to police.

Laken Snelling, 21, is accused of wrapping her dead infant in a towel, placing it in a trash bag, and stashing the baby’s body in a closet to conceal the recent birth, authorities said.

Snelling posted a $100,000 bond and is now on ‘home incarceration with no ankle monitor.’

The city of Lexington issued a statement saying police officers were dispatched on a report of an unresponsive infant around 10:30 a.m. Aug. 27.

“When officers arrived, they located an infant that was pronounced deceased at the scene,” authorities stated.

The Fayette County Coroner’s Office is investigating the infant’s cause of death.

Investigators with the Lexington Police Department identified Snelling as the mother of the dead baby.

Citing the arrest citation, WLEX-TV reported that investigators interviewed Snelling and that she “admitted to giving birth.”

Snelling “admitted to concealing the birth by cleaning any evidence, placing all cleaning items used inside of a black trash bag, including the infant, who was wrapped in a towel,” the arrest citation said.

RELATED: Mother confesses to killing her newborn because of ‘expenses,’ enlisting daughter to help dispose of baby still crying inside trash bag: Prosecutor

Police arrested Snelling on Sunday and booked her at the Fayette County Detention Center. Police said she was charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.

WLEX, citing a court document, said in a Tuesday update that Snelling posted a $100,000 bond and is now on “home incarceration with no ankle monitor.” It’s not clear exactly when she posted the bond.

The station, citing the document, added that Snelling is “to live with parents.” WLEX also said Snelling reportedly entered a not guilty plea and is scheduled for a Sept. 26 court appearance.

The Lexington Police Department’s Special Victims Section is investigating the infant’s death.

NBC News reported that Snelling has been a “member of the competitive cheer stunt team” at the university and that it was “not clear” if she has a lawyer.

RELATED: Florida woman allegedly tried to sell baby daughter for $500 outside an H&R Block, then abandoned infant

Photo by benedek via iStock / Getty Images Plus

The university told WLEX in a statement, “We can confirm that she has been a member of the STUNT team for the last three seasons. All other questions should be directed to the Lexington Police.”

University of Kentucky Athletics describes STUNT as “a head-to-head competition between two teams that focuses on the technical and athletic aspects of cheer. It is one of the fastest-growing female sports in the United States.”

Snelling on Tuesday afternoon was still listed on the school’s STUNT roster.

Police are urging anyone with information regarding the case to contact the Lexington Police Department at 859-258-3600 or submit anonymous tips to Bluegrass Crime Stoppers by calling 859-253-2020 or online at bluegrasscrimestoppers.com.

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​Kentucky, Kentucky crime, Infanticide, Laken snelling, University of kentucky, Stunt team, Crime, Student, Abuse of a corpse charge, Tampering with physical evidence charge, Concealing the birth of an infant charge 

Nathalie Rose Jones of Lafayette, Indiana, was arrested in Washington, D.C., last month for allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump and transmitting threats across state lines.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C., indicated that “justice will be served”; however, an Obama judge and a grand jury comprising Washington residents evidently had other plans.

‘The government may intend to try again to obtain an indictment, but the evidence has not changed.’

U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg, whom Attorney General Pam Bondi slapped in July with a misconduct complaint “for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration,” overruled a magistrate judge last week and ordered Jones’ release.

Boasberg told Jones, who recently participated in an anti-Trump protest outside the White House, to drive to New York City and meet with her psychiatrist.

Jones’ attorneys revealed in a Monday court filing that a D.C. grand jury declined to indict her.

“The Honorable James E. Boasberg reversed the detention order on August 25, 2025, and released Ms. Jones to home detention,” wrote the attorneys. “One of the factors the court considered in determining the conditions of release was the nature of the case and the weight of the evidence. A grand jury has now found no probable cause to indict Ms. Jones on the charged offenses.”

“Given that finding, the weight of the evidence is weak,” continued the attorneys. “The government may intend to try again to obtain an indictment, but the evidence has not changed and no indictment is likely.”

RELATED: If ‘words are violence,’ why won’t the left own theirs?

Judge James Boasberg. Photo by DREW ANGERER/AFP via Getty Images

The Department of Justice noted that among the 49-year-old woman’s many alleged threats against the president was a statement on social media indicating a willingness to “sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.”

Prosecutors claimed that Jones — who a friend indicated in a character reference had spent some time in the Army Reserve — also said she “would take the president’s life and would kill him at ‘the compound’ if she had to, that she had a ‘bladed object,’ which she said was the weapon she would use to ‘carry out her mission of killing’ the president, and that she wanted to ‘avenge all the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic,’ which she attributed to President Trump’s administration and its position on vaccinations.”

In recent years, others have been indicted and ultimately convicted for far less graphic threats against Democrat presidents.

‘The system here is broken on many levels.’

On Thursday, 20-year-old Troy Kelly of New York was convicted for threatening former President Joe Biden. Kelly said in response to a Biden post on social media that he was “gonna put a bullet in your head if I ever catch you.”

Cody McCormick of Kansas was sentenced last year to nearly two years in prison for writing, “I will get a Greyhound bus ticket and go and shoot him,” in reference to Biden.

Brandon Correa was sentenced in 2015 to 18 months in prison for posting a social media message directed to former President Barack Obama that said, “Im [sic] coming to watch you die.”

RELATED: Online outrage erupts over video of illegal alien’s arrest in DC — then the horrific charges against him are revealed

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Pirro said in a statement to Fox News, “A Washington, D.C., grand jury refused to indict someone who threatened to kill the president of the United States. Her intent was clear, traveling through five states to do so.”

“She even confirmed the same to the U.S. Secret Service. This is the essence of a politicized jury. The system here is broken on many levels,” continued Pirro. “Instead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in D.C. refuses to even let the judicial process begin. Justice should not depend on politics.”

‘I’m going to f**k your ass up.’

Blaze News has reached out to Pirro’s office for additional comment as well as to the White House and the U.S. Secret Service. When pressed for comment, the USSS referred Blaze News to Pirro’s office.

D.C. residents have repeatedly signaled an unwillingness to hold accountable those who allegedly threaten Trump or attack the federal agents keeping their city safe.

DOJ prosecutors recently told a magistrate judge that a grand jury also refused to indict Edward Alexander Dana, who is similarly accused of threatening President Trump, reported the Associated Press.

D.C. police responding to a report of destruction at a restaurant in the northwest of the city arrested Dana on Aug. 17. According to the U.S. Secret Service’s affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, Dana allegedly told an officer wearing a body camera that he was affiliated with the Russian mafia and said, “I’m going to find out who you are, where you live, who you’re married to, if any. … I’m going to make sure that many people, not just me, come after you. … I’m going to f**k your ass up.”

The affidavit indicated that Dana then proceeded to threaten Trump’s life, allegedly stating, “I’m not going to tolerate fascism. You see, I was adopted [inaudible] to protect the Constitution by any means necessary. And that means killing you, Officer, killing the president, killing anyone who stands in the way of our Constitution.”

D.C. grand juries also recently refused to indict:

Alvin Summers, an individual accused of fleeing from a U.S. Park Police officer who asked to see his identification, then assaulting the officer during a subsequent arrest attempt; Sidney Lori Reid, a D.C. resident charged in July with an alleged assault on an FBI agent who was assisting with the transfer of an alleged international gang member at the D.C. Central Detention Facility; and Sean Dunn, the former DOJ employee who was caught on video allegedly throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer on Aug. 10.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Washington, Dc, District of columbia, Grand jury, Grand juries, Pirro, Donald trump, Secret service, Trump, Assassination, Threats, Threat, Politics 

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform kicked off its series of high-profile subpoena hearings last month with former Attorney General Bill Barr, who investigated the suspicious death of Jeffrey Epstein. Tuesday, however, former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s hearing ran into an unexpected hitch, leading to its cancellation.

Mueller, who became the FBI director shortly before the September 11 attacks and resigned in 2013, was reportedly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease four years ago.

‘We’ve learned that Mr. Mueller has health issues that preclude him from being able to testify.’

The AP reported that the committee withdrew its subpoena of Mueller, citing the state of his health.

“We’ve learned that Mr. Mueller has health issues that preclude him from being able to testify. The committee has withdrawn its subpoena,” a committee aide told CBS News earlier this week.

RELATED: Former AG Bill Barr testifies he found no dirt on Trump during Epstein probe, Comer says

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“Bob was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the summer of 2021,” Robert Mueller’s family said in a statement to the New York Times on Sunday. “He retired from the practice of law at the end of that year. He taught at his law school alma mater during the fall of both 2021 and 2022, and he retired at the end of 2022. His family asks that his privacy be respected.”

Suspicions that Mueller’s health was declining have been aired since at least 2019, when he gave a “halting performance” during a hearing on the Russia investigation, according to the New York Times. During a key meeting to discuss the findings of the investigation, Mueller’s hands “were trembling” and his voice was “tremulous,” Barr wrote in a memoir published in 2022.

In a cover letter addressed to Mueller on August 5, Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) explained the reasoning behind the subpoena issued on July 23, 2025. The committee sought information that members believed Mueller may have regarding the investigation into Epstein. “Because you were FBI Director during the time when Mr. Epstein was under investigation by the FBI, the Committee believes that you possess knowledge and information relevant to its investigation.”

The subpoena hearing was set for September 2, 2025.

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​Politics, House committee on oversight and government reform, James comer, Bill barr, Jeffrey epstein, Robert mueller, Former fbi director robert mueller, Chairman james comer 

As news of the beloved old country store Cracker Barrel’s “woke” makeover went viral, Americans across the country voiced their disappointment — and even President Donald Trump weighed in.

“Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before. They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again. Remember, in just a short period of time I made the United States of America the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. One year ago, it was ‘DEAD.’ Good luck!”

Despite the obvious backlash, Cracker Barrel’s new CEO doesn’t seem to notice.

“Honestly, the feedback’s been overwhelmingly positive, that people like what we’re doing,” the CEO said on ABC News.

“I’m sorry,” BlazeTV host Jill Savage tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace on the “Steve Deace Show.” “You don’t have to be, like, a genius. You had to be online for about three minutes and you would know that people were making fun of this rollout on both sides of the aisle.”

Savage believes the new design choice reflects a larger agenda for a “soulless America.”

“They want, like, fashion trends that absolutely everybody follows and doing things that everybody else does. And that, to me, is the Soviet trend,” she explains.

“They’re trying to put this into a box that’s just like everything else. Don’t be exceptional. Don’t be yourselves. Don’t be unique. Just be like everything else,” she adds.

“So conformity over ingenuity is what you see,” Deace comments.

“Yep, absolutely,” Savage adds.

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​Free, Upload, Video, Video phone, Camera phone, Sharing, Youtube.com, Steve deace show, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Cracker barrel, Cracker barrel logo, Woke, Maga, Cracker barrel backlash, Cracker barrel ceo, President donald trump, President trump, Jill savage, Steve deace 

Plenty of alternative takes on history circulate on the American right today. How did World War II really begin? Who were America’s true allies, and who were the enemies — foreign and domestic? These are serious questions, and some counter-narratives raise valuable points. But many of them belong in the advanced section. Before you dive into them, you need a grasp of the basics.

The left has long had this problem. For its adherents and especially its new recruits, woke history is the only history. Nothing fuels leftists’ superiority complex more than tossing around facts that appear to shatter common assumptions — if you don’t know the rest of the story. The right is only just beginning to learn that game.

You need to read these histories that challenge the national narrative as interesting, with real and uncomfortable truths — but not as definitive texts.

On the left, historians like Howard Zinn, William Blum, and Noam Chomsky absolutely excel. Did you even know that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves?! Did you even know that the founding fathers were a bunch of rich white guys?! Did you even know we worked with former fascists against the communists when we rebuilt Europe?!?

All that is true! And these realities should inform a proper understanding of history. Held in a vacuum, however, they obscure the real story.

It’s tempting to hear things that pierce the basic histories we’ve learned and that question the proud narratives all countries build around their histories. But that special feeling of knowing something you weren’t taught in school can inflate the ego well beyond where it should go.

How many woke scholars “know” Christopher Columbus was a tyrannical rapist, but don’t know that entire counter-narrative is based on the writings of one man who wanted his job, which were not taken seriously in their day and are corroborated nowhere else?

How many woke scholars know enough about the lives of Jefferson and Washington, the realities of the world they lived in, and their substantial contributions to a society in which no man is a slave? How many of them know what the communists were doing in Europe, the realities of functioning governance on the ground, and why communist terrorists had to be fought? You’re not going to find that context in “A People’s History of the United States.”

Today, the American right is experiencing its own reckoning with history. For the first time, many patriotic Americans are open to dissident accounts that challenge the United States’ “hero story.” Younger conservatives in particular grew up under elites who dismissed that story outright, replacing it with the Zinn-Chomsky narrative taught as unquestioned truth.

They were told that whiteness is wicked, men are oppressors, masculinity is toxic, Christianity is tyrannical, and America itself is evil. At the same time, they were fed lie after lie about COVID, the deep state, and more. They are angry, and the internet now supplies them with historical alternatives that reinforce a conspiratorial worldview.

Some of this is healthy. My grandfather remembered when World War II propaganda dubbed Josef Stalin “Uncle Joe,” even as Soviet sympathizers burrowed into the State Department and the White House. They funneled Stalin aid while forcing Britain to bankrupt itself to pay for its own defense, hastening the empire’s collapse.

The trick is that you need to read these histories that challenge the national narrative as interesting, with real and uncomfortable truths — but not as definitive texts. Did we choose bad allies in the 20th century? Yes. Did we choose correct foes? That’s a mixed record. Did we make mistakes that ended up with half of Europe under Soviet domination? Absolutely. Could we have prevented that? Maybe, but only at incredible costs.

Could we have prevented the original destruction of Europe that resulted from World War I? Certainly not. Could we have gone back farther and stopped it all by staying out of that war? Probably not. Could we have made the French be nicer to the kaiser? Very unlikely. Should we have gotten involved at all? Depends on where and when.

Did we target the only Catholic cities in Japan for nuclear attack? Yes. Did we also kill vastly more people in Tokyo than either of those outlier cities? Yes. And on and on and on.

The punk band NOFX mocked their radical fans in the early 2000s with the lyrics: “I never looked around, never second-guessed / Then I read some Howard Zinn, now I’m always depressed / And now I can’t sleep from years of apathy, all because I read a little Noam Chomsky.”

The young conservatives of the day scoffed at these preening “academics” at a time when the American right bought the old narrative more fully than it should have. That day has passed. The regime, the left, and the internet all combined to blast our shared history to pieces — and there’s so much left to question.

Just don’t be stupid about it. Investigate the alternative takes, then place them into the broader context. And never stop learning.

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​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

A curious feature of American life is the belief that putting a man on the moon in 1969 was not merely a thing we did, but a thing that defined who we are. The moon landing became the fixed point in a national narrative of progress, the ultimate rebuttal to any subsequent doubt. If we can put a man on the moon, the refrain went, we can do any lesser thing. It was a statement of faith in a particular kind of American power, the fusion of technological genius and free-enterprise grit that could, it seemed, bend the arc of history. The phrase has since acquired a certain nostalgic patina, a relic from an era when the country could still muster that kind of singular, massive effort.

Now, the proposition is being tested.

The question of whether China will beat the United States back to the lunar surface is, on one level, a technical one, a ledger of rocket tests and budget allocations. Yet to frame it this way is to miss the point. The competition is not about launch windows or payload capacities but about the story America tells itself. A Chinese flag planted in the regolith of the lunar south pole before an American one would do more than mark a geopolitical achievement; it would be a blow to perceptions of American exceptionalism. The old refrain would hang in the air, suddenly hollow.

We are witnessing the formation of two distinct camps, exporting earthly rivalries to space.

The American effort, named Artemis after Apollo’s twin sister, is a program freighted with legacy and ambition. It relies on the Space Launch System, a behemoth of a rocket that flew a successful uncrewed test in 2022, but also shed foam insulation on its way up, a disquieting echo of the Columbia disaster. For the actual landing, NASA has outsourced the task to SpaceX, whose Starship is a fully reusable silver ship promising fantastically to deliver, not just astronauts, but the entire infrastructure of a settlement. It is a characteristically American bet on the power of the private sector, a leap of faith that has yet to achieve, as of mid-2025, a successful orbital flight. The official timeline for an American return has slipped from 2024 to 2026, and now, in the quiet admissions of internal reviews, to 2027, at the earliest.

China, meanwhile, proceeds with the calm of a nation that confidently measures progress in five-year plans. Its program lacks a poetic name but possesses an observable momentum. The hardware has a familiar, almost classical design: a Long March 10 rocket, a crew capsule named Mengzhou (“Dream Vessel”), and a lander called Lanyue (“Embracing the Moon”). The architecture is a direct echo of Apollo: a two-part lander with a command module in orbit. It is a repetition of a proven method, not a reinvention of it. While NASA contends with the uncertainties of Starship, China has been methodically hitting its marks. In August 2025, engineers successfully test-fired the first stage of its new rocket and simulated a lunar landing by hanging a 26-ton prototype from a crane. Its stated goal is to land taikonauts on the moon before 2030. At the current pace, they are likely to succeed.

This divergence in approach is telling. The United States is trying to innovate its way back to the moon, to do something bigger and more sustainable than before. China is simply trying to get there. One could argue this reflects a difference in governance models: the chaotic, brilliant, and often inconsistent engine of America versus the focused, centralized will of the Chinese state. While NASA’s budget is subject to the whims of Congress and shifting presidential priorities, a cycle of grand announcements and quiet cancellations that has plagued the agency for decades, China’s space program is integrated with its national and military ambitions, backed by pockets of undisclosed depth.

RELATED: China built a solar-powered back door into millions of American homes

Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe / Contributor via Getty Images

The geopolitical stakes extend beyond mere prestige. Both nations are aiming for the lunar south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are believed to hold vast quantities of water ice, the key resource for any sustained presence on the moon. The United States has attempted to shape the norms of this new frontier through the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for peaceful lunar exploration signed by over 35 nations. China and Russia are conspicuously absent, instead promoting their own coalition around an International Lunar Research Station. We are witnessing the formation of two distinct camps, exporting earthly rivalries to space. The nation that arrives first will not own the territory (the 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids it), but it will enjoy the advantage of being there, setting precedents and controlling the most valuable real estate.

There are those who see a silver lining in this scenario. A Chinese landing could serve as a “Sputnik moment,” shocking the United States out of its complacency and galvanizing a new era of investment and innovation. It’s also possible that being second, but arriving with the revolutionary capability of Starship, could prove to be the more significant achievement in the long run. History may judge the establishment of a true lunar outpost as more important than the planting of the next flag.

Yet, the symbolism of that first footprint remains potent. For over half a century, the moon has belonged, in the popular imagination, to America. It was our “can-do” spirit made manifest. To see another nation achieve what we have struggled to repeat would be to confront a fundamental shift in the global order. It would suggest that the future is no longer a chiefly American enterprise. The race to the moon was never just about the moon. It was, and is, about the terrestrial anxieties and ambitions of the nations doing the racing. As we watch the trajectories of these two great powers, it is difficult to avoid the sense that we are witnessing not just the dawn of a new space age, but the twilight of an old one.

​Moon, Tech, China, Us 

Lisa Cook’s financial house is on fire. Naturally, there is a Michigan angle to the story. Because there’s always a Michigan angle to the story.

Cook, a governor with the Federal Reserve Bank, has a bank loan on a “secondary” home in Massachusetts, which the Trump administration alleges she rents out full-time. A judge might call that mortgage fraud.

There cannot be two sets of rules: one for the elites who scam their way into favorable financial terms and another for the rest of us.

Cook also owns a condo in Atlanta, which she claims is her primary residence on banking and government documents. The Trump administration alleges there is evidence that she rents that one out, too. And that also could be mortgage fraud.

But Cook also has a third home in Ann Arbor, which she also lists as her primary residence on banking and government papers. Lisa must be living in Ann Arbor in the tidy brick house with a columned portico on Jackson Avenue, right?

RELATED: Trump fires Biden Fed governor for possible ‘criminal conduct’ — but Lisa Cook is desperate to cling to power

– YouTube

I stopped by the house last week. The glass in the storm door was filthy with neglect. A metal lockbox — the kind used by realtors — hung on the door knob. From the porch, I could see a figure sitting at the dining room table. When I knocked, the door slightly cracked open, only to reveal a white man partially visible behind the filthy glass.

“I’m a reporter,” I told the figure, who did not undo the chain. “I was wondering if Lisa Cook lives here. Or do you rent?”

“No, we’re just renters here.” He made it clear he didn’t feel comfortable with a reporter on the deteriorating porch. “You’ll have to talk to the owner.”

“OK,” I said. “Is it you just living here?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Just renting?” I asked again.

“No comment.”

“I’m sorry?”

It was difficult to hear. The traffic was crackling like an old transistor radio. There was a bus stop nearby.

“You’ll have to talk to the owner of the house.”

And with that, the interview was over. The chain rattled. The door closed, and someone pulled the curtains tight.

It’s hard to believe Cook got confused over her mortgage paperwork. Cook is a financial sophisticate, a member of the board of governors of the world’s most powerful central bank. A bank that sets interest rates that influence the cost of financing a home, mind you.

All three mortgages were taken out by Cook in 2021, all within a timespan of two months, three weeks, and four days. In her 2025 government ethics filings, Cook claimed two of the properties are her primary residences and the Massachusetts dwelling is an income property.

That’s cheating. Trump fired her last week for “cause,” and two criminal referrals against Cook have been referred to the Department of Justice. For her part, Cook is suing over her firing.

Trump is accused of attacking a prominent black woman who refuses to lower interest rates as Trump has demanded.

Perhaps.

As far as my motivations go, I simply try to hold the powerful to account. When it comes to questions of residency and real estate, you may have seen me on the porches of two Detroit mayors, a current mayoral candidate, a county executive, a county commissioner, a supreme court justice, a circuit court judge, a district court judge, a member of Congress, a fire commissioner, a prominent minister, and a major political party treasurer, just to name but a dozen. These people were black, white, male, and female. Doesn’t matter to me.

We cannot have two sets of rules: one for the elites who scam their way into favorable financial terms and another for the rest of us who endure audits, foreclosures, and repossession.

Cook has three basic questions to answer:

Was she renting the properties when she was supposed to be sleeping at them?Did she claim rental income on her tax forms?And where does she actually live?

Because it sure the heck ain’t Ann Arbor.

Editor’s note: A version of article appeared originally in the Michigan Enjoyer.

​Politics, Charlie leduff, Lisa cook, Fed governor, Federal reserve, Ann arbor, Trump, Doj, Donald trump, Mortgage fraud 

When investigative journalist Gina Keating first dove into the Raven 23 case, she found something incredibly unexpected.

Under the Obama administration, the government — whom she initially trusted to do its job — alongside Hillary Clinton attempted to imprison a group of four American veterans by any means necessary in order to help guarantee that Iraq elect the president the American government wanted.

“You write, ‘Thanks to Wikileaks, we know that behind the scenes, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder pushed for convictions because of political pressure from a corrupt Iraqi government that they wanted to make appear legitimate,” Blaze media co-founder Glenn Beck reads to investigative journalist Gina Keating from her own book, “Raven 23.”

The official story went that Blackwater employees Dustin Heard, Paul Slough, Nick Slatten, and Evan Liberty fired “unprovoked” into a crowd of civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad. But the story was a lie.

“We didn’t know for sure that that’s what was going on until Christin Slough’s attorney, Dave Harrison, checked Wikileaks and found those emails between Hillary Clinton and, I think his name is Harold Koh, who was her chief legal counsel,” Keating tells Glenn.

“And it was literally the day after … the dismissal of the case was made public in Iraq. It was, I think, January 2 or 3. She immediately emailed him and said, ‘How can we make this case come back?’” she says.

“And that’s literally it. … So she did that, and then Joe Biden goes to Iraq about two weeks later and guarantees the Iraqis that, you know, they’re going to get justice. … The second most powerful man in the world is going on TV and saying essentially that you’re guilty and you got away with it,” she continues.

Through Keating’s investigation, she found that those four former servicemen had actually been fired on by insurgents and had engaged according to the rules of war — despite the government’s refusal to acknowledge the truth in favor of its own agenda.

“So, essentially,” Keating says, “American domestic policy and criminal justice is being decided by Nouri al-Maliki and the desire to have him as the prime minister of Iraq.”

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A man who was caught taking photos of children in a movie theater bathroom was discovered to be a middle school teacher, according to Virginia police.

Colonial Heights Police said they were called to the Regal Cinemas at Southpark Mall on July 22 on a report that a man was taking the photos of children. Shaun Jason Adams, 49, was arrested for child pornography after police viewed material on his phone.

Court documents said they messaged each other about sexually abusing children in their care.

Police said they found a “thread of sexually explicit messages about children” from the data on the phone, and that information led to the arrest of 33-year-old Richard Franklin Troshak III of Chesterfield County.

“Once, of course, we look at a phone, you start leading to where people have sent messages, sent pictures, and those are the ones that led to the other investigation,” said Gray Collins, attorney for the commonwealth of Colonial Heights.

Court documents said they messaged each other about sexually abusing children in their care.

Adams faces 25 counts of felony manufacturing of child pornography and five felony counts of indecent liberties with a child, while Troshak faces eight counts of felony manufacturing of child pornography and two felony counts of indecent liberties with a child.

Both Adams and Troshak worked for Chesterfield County Schools, the former for Elizabeth Davis Middle School and the latter for the Chesterfield Early Childhood Learning Academy.

Police said Troshak was arrested at the learning academy without incident.

Chesterfield Superintendent Dr. John Murray said he immediately ordered both to be terminated from the district.

The investigation also found that both men had previously worked at the Tuckaway day care. At least one message referenced abuse at the day care.

RELATED: Missing 12-year-old was killed by alligators — and records show horrific prior conviction against his mother

Petersburg Police Deputy Chief Emanuel Chambliss said a third investigation has opened up where Adams lived.

“If they recognize the teacher involved and suspect he might be involved in any activity here in the city, please contact us,” he said.

WRIC-TV reported that Troshak has been named the “Overall CCPS Beginning Teacher of the Year” just months before his arrest. The learning academy’s principal and assistant principal were placed on administrative leave, according to WRIC.

Collins went on to say that many times, victims and witnesses don’t want to come forward in these kinds of cases.

“Even if you don’t want to come forward in court, we still need to hear your story so we can make sure that this doesn’t happened again to other people,” he continued.

“We’ve done initial meetings with parents without the children present so we can go over the facts of what we’ve heard, what we know, and then they can make a more informed decision if they want to actually try to keep going forward with the charges,” Collins added.

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​Child sex abuse materials, Chesterfield teacher abuse, Troshak and adams, Crime, Day care child sex abuse 

Donald Trump’s base has reached a clear conclusion: The entire importation of white-collar workers from India was a scam. It replaced American workers, fueled outsourcing to India, and boosted its economy at the expense of our own.

The labor market is so weak that even legal visa programs should be suspended under Trump’s 212(f) authority. Yet the H-1B and L visa pipelines remain open, and worse, the Trump Justice Department is defending one of Obama’s most lawless expansions: the H-4 spousal work program.

Defending Obama’s H-4 visa scheme undermines both the law and the American workforce.

Save Jobs USA, representing American workers, has sued the government for continuing Obama’s program that grants work permits to H-1B spouses on H-4 visas. Congress authorized the H-4 visa, but it never authorized work permits. Obama simply created them in 2015 by executive fiat.

Because the program is untethered from statutory limits, it has no cap. While the U.S. still issues around 120,000 H-1B visas each year — including under Trump — hundreds of thousands of spouses now work illegally in the same industries, displacing Americans. Most are funneled into the tech sector, overwhelmingly from India.

This lawsuit has been winding through the courts for nearly a decade. It began after Southern California Edison fired American workers and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. Both district and appellate courts in D.C. sided with the government. Now, as the case reaches the Supreme Court, Trump’s Justice Department filed a brief — signed off by Pam Bondi — arguing that plaintiffs lack standing to sue.

“Petitioner did not identify a single member who is ‘suffering immediate or threatened injury’ that is fairly traceable to the 2015 rule,” government lawyers wrote last month.

Even if one debates the technicalities of standing, why would Bondi waste resources defending a program that is plainly illegal and harmful to American workers — the opposite of what Trump promised in 2015?

A broader failure on foreign labor

Seven months into the new administration, the broader picture looks grim. The White House has failed to slow worker visa programs outside of narrow national security concerns. Trump has not invoked his 212(f) authority to halt needless foreign labor. Instead, he has floated the idea of importing 600,000 Chinese students — an economic and national security risk rolled into one.

This is the worst possible time to flood the market with foreign workers. The economy has averaged just 35,000 new jobs a month, the weakest pace since the Great Recession. Entry-level job listings are down 15% while applications are up 30%. The class of 2024 is still struggling: 41% underemployed, 58% still searching.

Tech companies, meanwhile, continue layoffs by the tens of thousands this year even as they lobby for more H-1Bs:

Intel: 21,000Panasonic: 10,000Meta: 3,600Hewlett-Packard: 2,000Hewlett Packard Enterprise: 2,500IBM: 8,000PayPal: 2,500Dell: 12,500TCS: 12,000

Why would they seek more visas in the middle of layoffs? Because nearly half of H-1Bs go to outsourcing and staffing firms, which feed India’s tech industry while hollowing out our own. Each expansion of the visa pipeline means more outsourcing, not more prosperity for Americans.

RELATED: American universities should be for Americans

Blaze Media illustration

The corporate capture

The deeper problem is the growing partnership between this administration and multinational tech giants. The government even owns a 10% equity stake in Intel. Palantir, which holds sensitive defense and health databases, has been allowed to staff up with foreign workers who now handle American taxpayers’ critical data.

Against this backdrop, Bondi’s defense of Obama’s illegal spousal work program looks less like a legal technicality and more like a political signal: This administration is drifting from Trump’s 2015 America First promises and closer to the “America Last” priorities of multinational corporations.

Back to 2015’s warning

The case against foreign workers is even stronger now than when Trump rode down that golden escalator a decade ago. The economy is weaker, the job market tighter, and the outsourcing racket more blatant. Defending Obama’s H-4 visa scheme undermines both the law and the American workforce.

The administration needs to remember what brought Trump to power in the first place. Stop importing foreign labor. Shut down lawless programs. Put American workers first.

​Opinion & analysis, H-1b visas, H-4 visas, Legal immigration, Ban, Immigration, Outsourcing, Jobs, Technology, Big tech, Donald trump, Pam bondi, Lawsuit, Save jobs usa, Barack obama, India, Intel, Panasonic, Meta, Hewlett packard enterprise, Ibm, Paypal, Dell, Tcs, Southern california edison, Scam 

Police in Frisco, Texas, said they responded on Aug. 16 to a hospital and learned that earlier that day a 27-year-old mother arrived at her place of employment around 2 p.m.

Detectives believe the mother at that time “intentionally left her 15-month-old child for over two hours in a vehicle she knew did not have working air conditioning with an outside temperature of at least 95 degrees,” police said.

Police said Esquivel’s bond was set at $250,000.

Based on information gathered during the investigation, police said Frisco detectives believe probable cause existed that Vanessa Esquivel committed murder since “intentionally leaving the child in the car caused injury/endangered the child, which is a felony.”

Police added that the suspect’s actions resulted in the child’s death and met the statutory requirements of murder.

Police said detectives obtained a warrant for her arrest, and Dallas police on Aug. 20 took Esquivel into custody and transferred her that same day to Frisco officers’ custody.

RELATED: 3-year-old boy dies after woman working for Alabama state agency left him in car that may have reached 140 degrees: Attorney

Police said Esquivel later was transferred to the Collin County Jail; its records on Tuesday indicate Esquivel was charged with murder.

Police said Esquivel’s bond was set at $250,000, adding that the offense in this case is a first-degree felony that carries a punishment of five years to life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

RELATED: Dad visits ‘the Adult Shoppe’ while his kids sit in 125-degree car for almost an hour, cops say

Vanessa Esquivel. Image source: Frisco (Texas) Police

Esquivel’s attorney listed in jail records — Katheryn H. Haywood — on Tuesday told Blaze News that she was appointed Saturday but that Esquivel’s family hired another attorney. Blaze News on Tuesday afternoon left a message with the office of the new attorney, Kenneth Onyenah of Dallas. The office confirmed to Blaze News that Onyenah is indeed Esquivel’s new attorney but added that he wasn’t available for comment at the time about the case.

Police said those with information about the case are asked to contact the Frisco Police Department’s non-emergency number — 972-292-6010 — or submit a tip using Tip411 (text FRISCOPD and the tip to 847411).

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​Murder charge, Mother, Texas, Frisco, Hot car, Toddler dies, Arrest, Crime 

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee said that some “persons of interest” in the Jeffrey Epstein case had been named by victims during a meeting Monday.

The members met with the six victims for over two hours in a closed-door meeting, according to Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky. Afterward, he told reporters that they had “learned of some additional names today.”

‘There was outrage. It was both — I would describe it as heartbreaking and infuriating.’

A representative for the committee said the people identified “possess information” about Epstein or those who allegedly participated in his sex trafficking ring.

“Some of the ladies have shared these stories publicly before, but at least two of the women had never told their stories before, one for the very first time in the room, and so there were tears in the room,” said Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

“There was outrage. It was both — I would describe it as heartbreaking and infuriating,” he added. “That justice has been delayed so long.”

Also on Monday, the committee released a trove of 33,295 pages from the Epstein files, though it was unclear what percentage of the release was new material.

“DOJ has indicated it will continue producing records while ensuring the redaction of victim identities & child abuse material,” Comer said on social media.

RELATED: Trump denies report of letter and drawing sent to Jeffrey Epstein on his 50th birthday, threatens to sue Wall Street Journal

“It was as bipartisan as anything I’ve seen in the nine years I’ve been here,” Comer added about the meeting with victims.

“Some of the women in the room began to be groomed by Epstein and his accomplices, Ghislaine Maxwell and the others, 30 years ago,” Johnson added.

“Some of them began civil litigation against Epstein and the Epstein evils and everything associated with it 20 years ago,” he continued. “This has gone on for a long, long time, and they, they shared their stories.”

President Donald Trump has lashed out at his supporters who continue to demand more information about the Epstein case and accused them of falling for a Democratic scheme.

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls**t,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump said in July. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”

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Today, Blaze Media’s own Dave Landau, known for his biting wit on “Normal World,” joined podcasting titan Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Experience” to share the raw and unfiltered story of his addiction, recovery, and redemption.

The duo reflect on last week’s devastating school shooting in Minneapolis, where a transgender-identifying male opened fire during a Catholic school Mass, killing two children and injuring several others.

“Seven [school shootings] in a row have been trans, except one was nonbinary, which is just diet trans,” Rogan says.

“The problem is, some people get to a certain point in their life, and they have no friends and no community and no identity and no life, and they’re not successful, and they feel like s**t, and then they have gender dysphoria on top of that, and then they’re probably on a bunch of SSRIs,” he speculates, pointing to the undeniable “connection between mass shootings and psychiatric drugs.”

“Everyone knows [they’re connected], and it’s just this dirty secret that no one talks about because all the media is paid off by the pharmaceutical drug companies, and nobody wants to make this correlation/connection because you also risk the wrath of all these people that are on them,” he adds.

Dave, who knows a thing or two about psychiatric drugs, shares that he’s currently in the throes of getting off Zoloft — one of the most common SSRIs on the market — after using it for 10 years. Even though he’s told his doctors that the medication is worsening his depression, they’ve insisted he stay on it.

But Dave, having detoxed from several substances over the years, is bent on getting clean.

“I took myself off of them for five days, and I felt good. And then I got really queasy and really nauseous, like my brain started kind of misfiring, so now I’m weaning it off a little more correctly as opposed to just going cold turkey,” he tells Rogan.

“I already feel better being on less, but I was told for the last 10 years that that’s what I should be on, and I think it’s had a very negative effect [on] me.”

Rogan then inquires about what led Dave to start taking SSRIs in the first place.

Dave shares that his mother’s suicide was the catalyst that sent him to the psychiatrist. But even though his mother, who was bipolar, was on antidepressants when she killed herself, his doctor insisted that medication was the best option for him too.

But life had already been hard long before the tragic loss of his mother. When Dave was a child, his father, a Vietnam veteran, developed soft tissue sarcoma due to exposure to Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.

“The VA was great. They did nothing for our family. They denied both of my mom’s claims. My dad lost all of his money,” Dave says, noting that his father died when he was just 18 years old.

The trauma of Dave’s family’s struggles and a genetic predisposition toward mental health struggles drove him to self-medicate as a teen.

From recreational and prescription drugs to cigarettes and alcohol, Dave tells Rogan the wild stories of how he overcame a range of addictions, starting in high school. At one point, he was even institutionalized because his behavior was so erratic from drugs and drinking. He shares the darkly humorous story of being attacked by his roommate, who believed he was a werewolf.

“He’s jumping on top of me, and I grabbed a lamp to hit him with it, but it was f**king glued down because it’s a mental hospital. … And he’s on top trying to bite me, and I’m, like, holding him back. And that’s when [hospital staff] came in. … They hit him with the syringe,” he laughs.

When Dave was nearing high school graduation, an intuitive teacher saw the comedic potential behind his classroom disruptions and urged him to pursue comedy. With his parents’ support, Dave enrolled in Second City — a renowned improvisational comedy theater and training center in Detroit.

Comedy proved to be a sanctuary from his depression and the perfect way to make light of his hardships. “When I finally found that outlet, it was wonderful, dude,” he says.

Unfortunately, addiction followed him into the field, especially during his days as a road comic. “I’m going into these bars and nightclubs. I’m like, ‘Hey, do you have a phone jack I could use for a few minutes?’ … I got this ankle monitor, and I got to plug it in somewhere to a phone jack so they can download to make sure I’m not drinking,” Dave recalls.

Salvation from substance abuse finally came in 2009. After 13 arrests, four DUIs, and the threat of prison looming, Dave decided he would get sober. It was a tough journey that involved using a breathalyzer to start his car and staying vigilant to avoid relapse. But eventually, he conquered his addictions.

Today, Dave, now 43, co-hosts Blaze Media’s comedy show “Normal World,” where he channels the wild tales of his past and his skepticism of Big Pharma into biting comedy that resonates with those who crave his unique blend of raw truth and dark humor. Dave’s book, “Party of One: A Fuzzy Memoir,” chronicles his journey from addiction to redemption. Living with his wife and young son, Dave finds stability in family and making wholesome memories.

To hear his full interview with Rogan — covering Detroit’s decline, organized crime, corporate job loss, and wildlife issues — check out the video below.

​Normal world, Blazetv, Blaze media, Dave landau, Joe rogan, The joe rogan experience, Addiction, Depression, Ssris 

A congressional committee has released more than 33,000 pages from the Jeffrey Epstein files after some members of Congress had a private meeting with Epstein victims.

The billionaire financier was convicted of state-level prostitution charges in 2008 but was later arrested and charged with much more serious human trafficking charges after a public outcry. He died by his own hand in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial, leading many to suspect a conspiracy to protect his wealthy and powerful alleged accomplices.

‘I feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves.’

On Monday, 17 years after his first conviction, a trove of documents from Epstein’s case were released to the public. The 33,295 pages were posted to the Oversight Committee’s website.

“DOJ has indicated it will continue producing records while ensuring the redaction of victim identities & child abuse material,” wrote Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky.

Some Democrats took credit for the meeting with the Epstein victims.

“House Oversight is convening a private roundtable with survivors of Epstein’s abuse,” wrote Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. “This is a testament to our pressure. I look forward to hearing from survivors & won’t stop pushing for a full, public hearing so their stories are documented in the Congressional Record.”

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said she had to leave the meeting early.

“Since it’s already being reported — Yes I left the Oversight briefing with Epstein victims early. As a recent survivor (not 2 years in), I had a very difficult time listening to their stories,” she posted.

“Full blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking,” she added. “I can’t breathe. I feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves because we know absolutely no one will fight for us. GOD BLESS ALL SURVIVORS.”

RELATED: Kash Patel, Dan Bongino say Jeffrey Epstein DID commit suicide: ‘I’ve seen the whole file’

FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino angered some when they denied in May that there had been any conspiracy involved in the death of Epstein.

“As someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in the metropolitan detention center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that’s what that was,” Patel said.

“He killed himself,” Bongino added. “Again, I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

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​Epstein files release, Epstein files controversy, Congressional oversight committee, Epstein victims, Politics 

A federal judge said that the president’s deployment of military troops to Los Angeles was illegal even as the administration plans to send more troops to other cities.

President Donald Trump said that the military action was necessary to quell anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement violence and crime, but his critics say that the real goal is the militarization of the streets to intimidate dissenters and critics.

Breyer said Trump was trying to create ‘a national police force with the president as its chief.’

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled against the Trump administration to prohibit the Pentagon from using National Guard troops and U.S. Marines for police actions. He said in the 52-page ruling that the president had violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military in domestic law enforcement.

Breyer said Trump was trying to create “a national police force with the president as its chief.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta had vehemently opposed the troop surge in Los Angeles.

“The president is looking for any pretense to place military forces on American streets to intimidate and quiet those who disagree with him. It’s not just immoral — It’s illegal and dangerous,” said Bonta in June. “Local law enforcement, not the military, enforce the law within our borders.”

The president has since then sent troops into Washington, D.C., to help suppress crime. His actions were met with angry denunciations from liberal lawmakers, but Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser admitted that the troops were helping.

“We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what [the D.C. Municipal Police Department] has been able to do in this city,” said Bowser. “This surge has been important to us.”

RELATED: DC Dems are furious at Mayor Bowser for admitting Trump’s troops are lowering crime

Trump was dismissive of the order when a reporter asked him about it at the White House.

“It was a radical left judge,” said the president, who pointed out that the administration was allowed to keep 300 troops in Los Angeles.

Breyer was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and is the brother of former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

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​Breyer vs trump, Trump posse comitatus, Trump military order, Military into los angeles, Politics 

The arrest of an illegal alien influencer has turned into a circus after a tow truck driver towed away a vehicle used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the operation, but officials got the last laugh.

The incident from Aug. 18 unfolded on numerous videos, including the live stream of influencer Leidy Tatiana Mafla-Martinez, a 24-year-old illegal alien from Colombia. Critics of the administration say she was targeted because she was using her platform to warn illegal immigrants about the presence of ICE officials.

‘Now he can laugh behind bars while he faces justice.’

In one recording, the officers run after the vehicle as it is towed away while Mafla-Martinez is detained on the ground.

On Monday, acting U.S. Attorney General Bill Essayli said on social media that the tow truck driver, identified as Bobby Nunez, had been arrested.

“Bobby Nunez is now under arrest for brazenly towing an ICE vehicle. He is charged with theft of government property,” said Essayli.

“Apparently he thought it would be funny to interfere with our immigration enforcement operations,” he added. “Now he can laugh behind bars while he faces justice. Nunez is looking at up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.”

Essayli included the video of the vehicle being towed away as well as a video of the arrest of Nunez.

The vehicle had a gun in a gun safe when it was towed away, according to the criminal complaint. Prosecutors said that Nunez was laughing as he towed the car and was live streaming himself. Investigators were able to track him down through his TikTok account.

RELATED: Online outrage erupts over video of illegal alien’s arrest in DC — then the horrific charges against him are revealed

An attorney for Mafla-Martinez said that she did not cooperate with the officers’ commands because they had refused to present the warrant for her arrest.

“The reason she didn’t come out is, these are, these are masked men, and they said they had a warrant. She just wanted them to display it, ‘Show me the warrant,’ and they never displayed anything,” said her attorney Carlos Jurado.

A spokesperson for the White House said she had been arrested over a prior DUI conviction. Her attorney did not deny the conviction but claimed the real motivation for the arrest was her online activism against ICE.

“We believe, at this point, based on things that have been said to her, is that, because she was out filming ICE activities, she was targeted,” Jurado added. “There has been nothing that’s been stated to her by the arresting officers that stated that it was because of the DUI.”

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​Ice vehicle towed, Anti-ice tow truck driver, Tatiana mafla-martinez arrest, Ice influencer arrest, Politics 

For months, Americans were warned by the media about a global economic trade war that would begin in the wake of President Trump’s tariffs — but it hasn’t happened.

“All the fearmongering was totally wrong,” the Heartland Institute’s Justin T. Haskins tells BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler on “The Liz Wheeler Show.” “It was just totally and completely wrong.”

“As of right now, the data that we have clearly shows that the tariffs that have gone into effect have not dramatically increased prices for consumers. We obviously are not in the midst of an economic catastrophe or something like that,” he continues.

Haskins also points out that “revenues are up” and “tax revenues are up.”

“That’s a good thing because we have a gigantic deficit problem in this country and a gigantic government debt problem long-term, and this could be a potential solution to that,” he explains, though he notes that the mainstream media is not reporting any of the good.

“If you just were to Google this story and look around the internet, you’ll see people say that the tariffs are causing lots of inflation. You’ll see it in headlines all over the place, and I just want to give real data from the government that proves that that’s not the case,” Haskins says.

Haskins points to the CPI inflation rate, which is the standard used for measuring inflation.

“In July, the 12-month inflation rate from July 2024-2025, 2.7%, is basically the same as in June. That’s less than what it was in December and in January before Trump was even president. So at that point it was around 3%,” Haskins explains.

“So the inflation has actually gone down over the past eight months, if you’re just comparing it in that way. If you start looking at individual numbers, parts of the economy prices, CPI prices in specific parts of the economy where you would expect to see tariffs causing inflation, if tariffs do cause inflation, you’re not seeing it,” he says.

One example Haskins uses is with clothing, of which, he explains 97% is not made in the United States.

“We are seeing prices actually go down … so if tariffs are causing inflation, then you would think that would be one area where you’d expect to see prices soaring, and we’re not seeing that.”

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​Video, Camera phone, Sharing, Upload, Video phone, Free, Youtube.com, The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Inflation, Trump tariffs, Tariffs, Trade war, Justin haskins, Justin haskins blazetv, Inflation rate, Lowering inflation, Taxes, Taxpayer money 

Heritage Foundation president Dr. Kevin Roberts emphasized in his Tuesday speech at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., that America’s true source of greatness is the family and that conservatives unapologetically oppose that which serves to weaken it — even if championed by fair-weather friends within the Trump coalition — and defend that which serves to strengthen it.

Roberts, whose organization’s so-called Project 2025 caused so much consternation on the left last year, further stressed the need for conservatives both to get “uncomfortably honest about our present crisis” and to reject the “temptation to separate the personal from the political, to believe that our private lives are of no concern to our public work,” as “that separation is a lie.”

‘The family’s decline is not a law of nature; nor is it an unstoppable force.’

Roberts, among the first speakers at this year’s NatCon, noted at the outset of his speech that whereas the stability of the great empires of yesteryear’s Europe rested on the monarchs’ bloodlines and on the strength of their thrones, America “bet her future on something humbler yet infinitely stronger” — “on what Chesterton called ‘the most extraordinary thing in the world’: an ordinary man and an ordinary woman bound in covenant love, passing on their faith and virtue to ordinary children.”

“We staked it all on the American family,” continued Roberts. “The family is the seedbed and safeguard of our grand experiment in ordered liberty — the source and summit of our political order, the true origin of our exceptionalism.”

Roberts noted that whereas America’s political architecture is still outwardly intact — “the Constitution that gives our body politic its structure remains in its glass case at the National Archives” — “the American family, the spiritual heart and soul that animates that Constitution, has grown weak, fractured, and hollow.”

RELATED: Family or fallout — experts assess the threats now facing the nuclear family

Photo by Lambert/Getty Images

The Heritage Foundation president noted that the weakening of American families — evidenced by a declining marriage rate, delayed marriages, an all-time low fertility rate, a staggeringly high number of abortions, and crushing loneliness among young Americans — was no accident but rather “the result of a deliberate campaign to uproot the most fundamental institution of human life.”

“You can call this campaign liberalism or enlightenment, rationalism or modernity — the name doesn’t matter,” said Roberts. “What matters is realizing that our current crisis has been centuries in the making.”

Roberts indicated that American conservatives are now in a position to do something about this crisis, which was brought about with the help of radical feminists and industrialists who dragged the mother out of the home; eugenicists like Margaret Sanger who promoted the notion that “children are a burden”; and educational activists like John Dewey who “shifted children’s formation from home and church to state institutions.”

“The family’s decline is not a law of nature; nor is it an unstoppable force,” said Roberts. “It’s the product of human choices — and human choices can change.”

“The American people have entrusted us with the power of government. They are asking us to make America great again. They are urging us to usher in a new golden age in American life. To honor their request, we have one clear task,” said Roberts. “We must do intentionally what the founders did instinctively: stake our future on virtuous and ordinary mothers and fathers.”

‘[Prudence] demands that we ask of every policy, every proposal: Will this strengthen the American family?’

Roberts suggested that it’s not enough to seek an end to DEI and Pride flags; to combat the “uniparty” interventionists’ prioritization of the “family of nations” over the families of Americans; and to rethink policies that work on the assumption that “maximizing GDP is an overriding and unspoken goal.”

Conservatives must take back their homes and live by example — entering into marriage, embracing its commitments, and remaining faithful through its trials; welcoming children into the home and giving them the love, discipline, and kitchen-table education they need to prosper; and ruling with prudence, which Roberts noted is the “opposite of ideology.”

Roberts noted that prudence “recognizes that the interest of the family and the national interest are not merely aligned — they are one and the same. [Prudence] demands that we ask of every policy, every proposal: Will this strengthen the American family? Will it advance the common good of the American people? Will it cultivate the virtues without which liberty cannot endure?”

RELATED: ‘Woke right’ smear weaponized by liberal interlopers against MAGA conservatives, populists — and Arby’s?

Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images

“If the answer is no,” continued Roberts, “even if the proposal aligns with some past ideological commitment, prudence requires that we reject it.”

‘Prudence is not a retreat from conviction.’

Tariffs, for example, may have been imprudent years ago but, based on the needs of the family today, may be prudent now, suggested Roberts. He suggested further that conservatives ruling with prudence may simultaneously demand the deregulation of certain industries such as construction — in the interest of helping young couples afford homes — but greater regulation of other industries, such as pornography, sports betting, and social media, which adversely impact children and the family.

“Prudence is not a retreat from conviction. It’s the application of conviction to reality,” stressed Roberts. “In this moment, conviction and reality both tell us the same thing: The surest test of any policy, any law, any reform is whether it fortifies the institution upon which the future of our nation stands.”

Roberts’ apparent willingness to upset libertarians and strike at the liberal status quo is par for the course at the National Conservatism conference, a project of the Edmund Burke Foundation chaired by Israeli-American philosopher Yoram Hazony.

The project defines “national conservatism” as “a movement of public figures, journalists, scholars, and students who understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing.”‘

There have been several NatCon conferences in recent years both at home and abroad. Past guests and speakers include Vice President JD Vance, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), elements of Blaze Media, and a host of international leaders of various political stripes.

The momentum and influence enjoyed by elements of the national conservatism movement have not gone unnoticed by liberals, who have lashed out in various ways, some more forceful than others.

Last year, for example, police stormed the NatCon conference in Brussels on the orders of a leftist mayor who appeared eager to shut down the event.

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​National conservatism, Natcon, Natcon 5, Kevin roberts, Heritage, Heritage foundation, Conservatism, Conservatives, Coalition, Maga, Trump, Donald trump, Jd vance, Politics 

A recently discovered medieval document is being hailed as the earliest written mention of the Shroud of Turin. Its author, Nicole Oresme, the learned Bishop of Lisieux, writing around 1370, claims the Shroud is a forgery. Some have rushed to seize on this fragment as if it were a fatal blow to the Shroud’s authenticity.

But is it?

To treat this new discovery as proof that the Shroud is a forgery means ignoring the massive wealth of evidence that indicates its authenticity.

Historian Nicolas Sarzeaud’s recent article uses Oresme’s passage as basis for rejecting the Shroud. However, the facts reveal more fallacy than forgery.

In the ongoing debate about the Shroud’s authenticity, the question is what this discovery actually means. Imagine a set of scales. On one side rests the enormous weight of historical, scientific, and forensic evidence pointing to the Shroud’s authenticity. On the other side, we now place this solitary note from a skeptical medieval bishop.

So does this new discovery tip the balance? The answer is a resounding no — and here’s why.

Reason 1: The inexplicable image

Picture yourself in 1370. You live in a pre-scientific, pre-photographic world, and your thoughtful approach to faith makes you skeptical of the mania for relics at that time. You hear reports of a mysterious cloth bearing the image of a crucified man, said to be Jesus.

What would you think? Most likely, your first reaction would be, “Someone must have painted it.” And as a product of his time, that is exactly what Oresme assumed.

But Oresme had no access to modern science — or to the groundbreaking work of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project.

After an exhaustive investigation, STURP concluded that the image was not created by pigment, stain, dye, paint, or any known artistic method. In fact, the image itself isn’t made of any substance that rests on top or is embedded in the weave of the cloth — it is a discoloration of the linen fibers themselves. When the Shroud is backlit, the image disappears, something no painting could replicate. Even more remarkably, the image is not the result of brush strokes; it is a photographic-negative-like image encoded with three-dimensional information.

This means that whatever makes the image was not deposited on the cloth and that the image was not made by contact with a body, statue, or brush.

Oresme had no framework for scientific thought and how to interpret such a phenomenon. In his world, images came only from the hand of an artist. The Shroud has revealed itself as an exception to the rule. In our world, the Shroud has defied every artistic or technological explanation. What seemed “obvious” in the 14th century has proven scientifically untenable today.

And for historian Sarzeaud, the use of Oresme’s comments strikes me as strained, particularly when they are presented as if they were direct references to the Shroud itself. The move from a general critique of relics to the assumption that he meant the Shroud is more conjecture than evidence.

Just as telling is Sarzeaud’s reliance on a modern interpretive framework while failing to engage seriously with the textile, historical, and iconographic data that challenge his conclusions.

Reason 2: Corrupt corroboration

In Sarzeaud’s assertion that the Shroud is a forgery, he relies heavily on the previously oldest known mention of the Shroud, which is known as the d’Arcis Memorandum, written around 1390, in which Pierre d’Arcis, Bishop of Troyes, claimed the Shroud was painted. He includes the entire memo as evidence that the Shroud was considered a forgery as soon as it was first exhibited 35 years earlier. Although this is corroboration, Sarzeaud presents the memo without mentioning the controversy surrounding it.

Sarzeaud fails as a historian and treats this as if it were a straightforward confirmation of Oresme’s skepticism. But the reality is far murkier.

RELATED: Shroud of Turin debunked? Not even close — here’s the truth

claudiodivizia/iStock/Getty Images Plus

First, there isn’t just one memo. Calling it “the memo” is misleading, since there are two surviving drafts that differ in tone and detail. The French scholar Ulysse Chevalier, who published the d’Arcis memo in the early 20th century, conflated the two versions into a single document — and then asserted, without proof, that it had been sent to Pope Clement VII. No such record exists in the Vatican archives, and there is no evidence that it was ever sent to the pope.

Second, even within the memorandum, d’Arcis admits that his charge was based on hearsay: His predecessor supposedly knew the name of the forger but never revealed it. Modern scholarship has highlighted these inconsistencies, but Sarzeaud neglects to mention them. In other words, what he presents as solid corroboration rests on fragile ground.

As historians, we must do better and not overreach in presenting the evidence as Sarzeaud has done.

Reason 3: Earlier does not equal better

We share Oresme’s skepticism of relics. I’ve visited the Saxony hometown of Johann Tetzel (1465-1519), the Dominican friar infamous for selling indulgences in the early 16th century. He was commissioned to raise money for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Tetzel became notorious for a jingle he reportedly used in his preaching to stir people to buy indulgences: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Orsme was thinking, writing, and standing firm for Christian truth in a time rife with spiritual manipulation, and this influenced his overreaction to the Shroud. By the 14th century, Europe was rife with dubious relics. Skeptical observers like Oresme often dismissed any new devotional object as fraudulent.

But what Oresme lacked — and what we now possess — is the benefit of centuries of scientific progress.

It is true that Oresme’s fragment pushes the written record of the Shroud back to around 1370. And yes, having a mention of the Shroud so close to when it first appeared in Europe is noteworthy. But it doesn’t mean it carries more weight than other evidence.

In fact, given the advent of the age of science and the technological advances since Oresme’s day, there is far more and far better evidence now than there was then.

Think of it this way: Knowledge accumulates like compound interest. Every decade of careful research into the Shroud — microscopy, spectroscopy, blood chemistry, pollen analysis, and digital imaging — adds layers of data. To elevate a lone medieval opinion over the wealth of evidence gathered since 1978 is to confuse proximity with authority. Oresme’s comment is historically interesting, but evidentially it is a footnote, not a verdict.

Sarzeaud does appeal to the 1988 radiocarbon test that dated the Shroud to 1260-1380 to support the claim that the Shroud is medieval. Once again, however, he does not mention the fierce debate surrounding the results or the work done since then that casts serious doubt on its validity.

The very latest state of the evidence is the richest; we only gain more knowledge. To treat this new discovery as proof that the Shroud is a forgery means ignoring the massive wealth of evidence that indicates its authenticity. The new find only has force when isolated from the overwhelming contextual evidence.

Reason 4: The ‘forgery’ claim falls apart

The fatal flaw in relying on this new document and the d’Arcis Memorandum as proof that the Shroud is a forgery is that the dots don’t connect.

If the Shroud were obviously painted, as Oresme assumed, then why have the best scientists in the world — equipped with electron microscopes, chemical analysis, and cutting-edge imaging technology — failed to detect any paint, pigment, or dye responsible for the image?

RELATED: New evidence indicates Shroud of Turin shows EXACT moment of resurrection

Stefano Guidi/Getty Images

Dr. John Jackson, physicist and leader of the STURP team, cataloged 17 unique characteristics of the image on the Shroud — features that any genuine explanation must account for. Countless attempts to reproduce the image have fallen short. Photographs, paintings, and scorchings may imitate some features, but none replicate them all.

The Shroud’s image remains, scientifically speaking, an unsolved phenomenon.

This is the Achilles’ heel of the forgery theory: What was “obvious” to a 14th-century skeptic has been thoroughly disproven by modern analysis. The image is not a painting. The claim collapses under scrutiny.

Weighing the evidence

Nicole Oresme was right about one thing: Popular religious claims should be subjected to rigorous testing. As Sarzeaud himself quotes, Oresme insisted that such claims be examined through Scripture, credible testimony, and reason.

Sarzeaud concludes, “For Oresme, popular beliefs must be critically examined through methodical analysis, using Scriptural authorities, credible testimonies, and arguments grounded in reason, with significant weight being given to the latter.”

Yet in holding Sarzeaud to his own standard, his argument and conclusion fail. He has failed to critically examine the new Oresme passage with methodical analysis by ignoring the problems with the d’Arcis Memorandum. He has ignored the credible testimony of the scientific evidence and the compelling historical evidence of the Shroud’s existence in history prior to appearing in Europe. He has overlooked the historical evidence placing the Shroud well before the 14th century.

When all the evidence is placed on the scales, this newly found fragment does not tip the balance. Instead, it reminds us of an enduring truth: Skepticism is not new.

From the beginning, voices have attempted to dismiss the Shroud as forgery or fabrication. But 2,000 years of history and a century of scientific inquiry testify otherwise. And by appealing only to selective evidence that agrees with his premise, Sarzeaud fails to ground his arguments in reason, but rather commits the fallacy of special pleading.

The one thing Sarzeaud succeeds in is generating headlines by making something from nothing. Sarzeaud’s article may generate headlines, but it does not overturn the evidence.

In the end, the Shroud continues to confront us with the same, unyielding mystery: the image of a crucified man, unlike any other in human history — a discovery that refuses to be explained away.

​Shroud of turin, Jeremiah johnston, Christianity, Christians, Jesus, Jesus christ, Nicole oresme, Nicolas sarzeaud, Faith