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A North Carolina gay couple was arrested after police got a tip about possible child sex abuse material possession, according to the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators said numerous tips from the Internet Crimes Against Children database in March led them to believe the two men were in possession of child sexual abuse material.

The arrest warrants indicate there are at least two victims from September.

Police performed a search warrant at the Linda Baucom Lane home of the couple identified as 39-year-old Joshua Lee Gilliam and 39-year-old Ronald Wayne Lynch Jr. and seized numerous digital devices.

Both Gilliam and Lynch were charged with first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor based on what was found on those devices.

Lynch faces an additional charge of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, while Gilliam faces additional charges of first-degree statutory sexual offense and indecent liberties with a minor.

The arrest warrants indicate there are at least two victims from September.

The couple first appeared at the Harnett County District Court on Thursday. Gilliam was given no bond, while Lynch was given a $360,000 secured bond.

The sheriff’s office said the investigation was ongoing and the two may face additional charges.

Online sleuths immediately found social media accounts that appeared to belong to Gilliam. An Instagram profile said the gay couple had custody of five children, all young boys, although a report from the North Carolina Beat said they have four sons together.

It is not known whether their boys are also victims.

One post on the account from March 7, 2021, reads, “Anyone wanna trade pictures with us message us.”

RELATED: Teen faces horrific rape and murder charges after 2-year-old foster child dies with suspicious injuries

WTVD-TV reported that Gilliam worked as a a phlebotomist at Cape Fear Primary Care in Erwin.

“The Harnett County Sheriff’s Office continues to work closely with the NCSBI and partner agencies to investigate crimes involving the exploitation of children and to ensure the safety and protection of victims and citizens of Harnett County.”

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​Gay couple child porn, North carolina gay couple, Gay couple with young boys, Gilliam lynch online presence, Politics 

We can use game theory to answer the question of university decline, but we will have to look outside game theory for the answer if we want to turn things around.

Universities once claimed to form character, cultivate wisdom, and preserve civilization. Now many of them offer courses on “witchcraft and social change through gossip,” “decolonizing mathematics,” and the moral importance of “disrupting systems of power with drag shows.”

Ideologues understand something conservatives often forget: Institutions belong to those willing to fight for them.

Parents spend six figures so their children can be taught that truth is oppression and that literacy itself may be colonial violence.

How did this happen?

Part of the answer is laziness. These are lazy ideologies that appeal to people’s base instincts. But laziness alone is too shallow an explanation. The deeper answer is game theory.

Game theory, broadly speaking, studies how rational individuals behave when incentives reward certain actions and punish others. It explains why perfectly intelligent people often cooperate in systems they privately know are absurd.

Once you understand it, modern university decline becomes almost embarrassingly predictable.

The first thing game theory explains is why nonsense replaces good ideas.

Economists long ago noticed something called Gresham’s law: Bad money drives out good money. If counterfeit and genuine coins circulate together at the same legal value, people hoard the good coins and spend the bad ones. Over time, the bad currency dominates public life.

The same principle applies to ideas.

A university that rewards ideological conformity more than truth-seeking will slowly replace good scholars with ideological activists. At first, the institution still coasts on inherited prestige. The physics department still has Nobel Prize winners. The literature department still quotes Shakespeare. The philosophy department still invokes Augustine between land acknowledgments.

However, as advancement continues to depend less on intellectual excellence and more on ideological signaling, ambitious people adapt accordingly.

If a professor discovers that publishing another tedious article on “systems of oppression in medieval gardening practices” produces grants, praise, administrative favor, and social protection, then more such articles will appear.

RELATED: DEI went into hiding — but remains as dangerous as ever

Carl Lokko/Getty Images

Soon, entire academic ecosystems emerge around rewarding jargon and punishing dissent. Aristophanes understood this over 2,000 years ago.

In “The Frogs,” he lamented not merely political decline but cultural degeneration itself. Bad money replaces good money, yes — but bad poetry also replaces good poetry, bad music replaces good music, and inferior men replace superior ones.

Civilizations slump downward because institutions stop rewarding excellence and begin rewarding flattery, manipulation, and fashionable absurdity.

Game theory also explains why woke ideologues are especially attracted to teaching.

Teaching offers something extraordinarily valuable to ideological activists: asymmetric authority over the young.

A professor stands before 18-year-olds who often know almost nothing about history, philosophy, economics, or theology. The professor controls grades, social approval, and often the moral atmosphere of the classroom itself.

For someone driven by ideological fervor, such an atmosphere is the perfect missionary environment. This fact is why universities increasingly attract people who view education less as the pursuit of truth and more as political activism.

Much of contemporary academic ideology has a peculiar economic structure. It frequently operates by cultivating envy and moral resentment. Students are taught to interpret society primarily through oppressor-oppressed frameworks. Achievement becomes privilege, and personal failure becomes systemic victimhood.

Ideologies that pander to hate and envy replace those that call for discipline and character formation.

It is always easier to blame “systems” than confront one’s own moral failings like hate, envy, and gossip. It is easier to denounce civilization than to build and defend one.

The most important aspect of this issue that game theory explains is why conservative professors so often remain silent while their institutions go downhill.

RELATED: Democrats don’t have a fix for their extremism problem

Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Imagine a professor who privately believes the university is descending into ideological madness. He sees mandatory DEI trainings becoming political indoctrination. He sees departments openly rewarding activism over scholarship. He sees students being manipulated by emotional propaganda dressed up as education.

Should he speak? Game theory says probably not.

Why? Because the incentives are brutal.

If he speaks while others remain silent, he risks social isolation, administrative retaliation, poor evaluations, stalled promotions, public smears, and endless bureaucratic harassment. Meanwhile, if he remains quiet, he keeps his salary, his colleagues, his research time, and his peace.

From the standpoint of narrow self-interest, silence is rational. This silence, however, is what allows institutional collapse to accelerate.

Every individual dissenter waits for someone else to take the risk first. Meanwhile, the activists never hesitate. Ideologues understand something conservatives often forget: Institutions belong to those willing to fight for them.

The result resembles a kind of academic prisoner’s dilemma. If many professors resisted together, the ideological takeover could be slowed or reversed. But if each calculates personal risk individually, almost all remain silent. Thus the activists dominate despite often representing only a loud minority.

Game theory can describe this dynamic perfectly, but we must look elsewhere in order to solve it.

Eventually, civilization depends upon something game theory cannot fully quantify: courage.

There are moments when virtue matters more than personal advantage. Moments when a man says, “Even if no one stands with me, I will still stand.”

We increasingly reduce all human behavior to self-interest, incentives, careerism, or evolutionary advantage. But civilizations are not preserved merely by incentive structures. They are preserved by people willing to sacrifice for what is true, good, and beautiful.

A society survives only if enough people believe some things are worth defending, even at personal cost.

And if universities are ever to recover from their descent into fashionable nonsense, it will not happen because game theory suddenly changes. It will happen because enough people decide goodness, truth, and beauty matter more than safety.

​Game theory, Political activism, Conservative professors, Universities, Dei, Woke college students, University decline, Courage, Liberal colleges, Opinion & analysis 

A lesbian Florida couple allege in a lawsuit that Key West authorities are violating their constitutional right to paint rainbow colors on their picket fence.

Nicole Sohn and her wife, Linda Bagely-Sohn, have filed a lawsuit after the city’s Historic Architectural Review Commission fined them $250 a day for their LGBTQ fence.

‘If the city is only enforcing the law against some people because of the message they’re expressing, that’s viewpoint discrimination.’

The couple said they decided to paint the pickets as a way of protesting state officials ordering that rainbow crosswalks be painted over to avoid politicization of public spaces. They live in the historic Old Town section of the city.

“It was so upsetting for so many of us, and I woke up one morning and was like, ‘I’m going to paint some pickets on our front gate,'” Sohn said.

“We posted on Facebook as a joke, like, ‘Anyone else want the rainbow fairy to come visit?'” she added. “And we were inundated, and my wife and I ran around that weekend painting a bunch of fences and gates, and it just took off.”

That’s when the commission notified them that the fences were in violation of local regulations, after they received several complaints. The couple said they tried to go through the approval process and obtain a permit for the fences but were denied.

They were told in March to paint the illicit fences an approved color or face the daily fine.

ACLU of Florida attorney Nick Warren accuses the city of violating the lesbians’ constitutional rights.

RELATED: Lesbian couple says vandalism of their ‘Little Queer Library’ feels like ‘censorship’ and hatred

“If you walk around Old Town Key West, you’ll see lots of colorful displays and different colored paints on fences and houses,” Warren says. “Many of them violate the same rules that the city is citing — but if the city is only enforcing the law against some people because of the message they’re expressing, that’s viewpoint discrimination.”

Their attorney said the city has three weeks to respond to the lawsuit, and city officials did not comment about the litigation.

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​Florida lesbians fence, Lgbtq fence pickets, Free speech rights, Lgbtq agenda, Politics 

A mother discovered that her seventh-grade child had been given a bookmark in support of the LGBTQ agenda, and her email to her county supervisor has led to a bitter debate.

The mother claimed that a woman gave a presentation during English classes and passed out the politically charged bookmarks, according to the email sent to Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld.

‘These items stray into inappropriate and unwelcome advocacy.’

She said her 13-year-old daughter was given a bookmark and called it “abhorrent” that the Fresno County Public Library had used “tax dollars to target children, suggesting reading materials with sexual/homosexual and transgender content.”

A screenshot of the email was published by KMPH-TV.

The mother went on to point out that library employees had access to children’s private information, and she posited that LGBTQ activists might misuse that information.

“In theory someone could use that data as a grooming list of vulnerable children — confused, unsupervised, ‘not supported at home,'” she added.

Bredefeld brought the issue before the other supervisors, and they voted 3-2 to restrict public libraries from recognizing Pride Month or erecting any display to support the LGBTQ agenda.

“The library now, rather than serve all members of the community in an unbiased fashion, has chosen to become advocates and promote a political agenda that many don’t support,” Bredefeld said.

Predictably, activists are outraged that public spaces won’t be used to push their LGBTQ agenda.

“When an LGBTQ youth walks into a Fresno County library and sees a Pride display, it’s not about politics. It’s a lifeline,” said Diana Feliz Oliva, the founder and CEO of Casita Feliz. “It tells them you are seen.”

Clovis mayor pro tem Diane Pearce disagreed and supported the decision.

“These items stray into inappropriate and unwelcome advocacy,” she said.

RELATED: Lesbian couple says vandalism of their ‘Little Queer Library’ feels like ‘censorship’ and hatred

The KMPH report said the libraries would still be allowed to display whatever books they wanted.

And despite Bredefeld airing concerns about the questionable content of some books, the county supervisors had no plans to take those books off the shelves.

Bredefeld brought out a sign reading, “No indoctrination of our children,” before the voting took place.

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​Lgbtq agenda, Lgbtq bookmark, Pride month display library, Public libraries, Politics 

The Trump administration is investigating the U.S.-funded Ukrainian biolabs that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was previously smeared as “treasonous” and “traitorous” for bringing to the public’s attention.

Then

Gabbard issued a video statement while a private citizen in 2022 where she claimed that “there are 25-30 U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine. According to the U.S. government, these biolabs are conducting research on dangerous pathogens.”

In order to mitigate the risk of breaches at the facilities, Gabbard said that “these labs need to be shut down immediately, and the pathogens that they hold need to be destroyed.”

‘The era of lies and betrayal is over.’

Gabbard was viciously attacked over the video even though days earlier, then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland — a woman whose meddling in Ukrainian affairs helped pave the way for the ruinous overthrow of its previous government — admitted that such labs existed.

Nuland testified to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee both that “Ukraine has biological research facilities” and the U.S. government was worried that “Russian forces may be seeking to gain control” of “research materials” in the labs. Then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) then steered Nuland into prophesying that should there be a biological or chemical incident in Ukraine, the Russians would necessarily be to blame.

Following Nuland’s admissions, then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee that Ukraine “operates a little over a dozen” biolabs for bio-defense; that the U.S. had “provided assistance” to the labs, at least “in the context of biosafety”; and there was room for misuse of “some of the material that’s there that is not intended for weapon purposes but nevertheless could be used in dangerous ways.”

RELATED: Chinese fraudster convicted for ripping off Americans with bogus COVID tests

Arun SANKAR/AFP/Getty Images

The Pentagon also noted in a fact sheet that month that the U.S., through the Biological Threat Reduction Program, had by that point dumped roughly $200 million in Ukraine since 2005 “supporting 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.”

The fact sheet noted further that BTRP sought to help the Ukrainians “consolidate and secure pathogens and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report disease outbreaks before they pose security or stability threats.”

Despite the Biden administration bolstering in advance the claims that Gabbard would make in her March 13, 2022, video, failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused Gabbard of “parroting false Russian propaganda” and spreading “treasonous lies” that “may well cost lives.”

Then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a Ukraine hawk who later stumped for Kamala Harris’ doomed presidential campaign, shared Gabbard’s video, writing, “Actual Russian propaganda. Traitorous.”

Gabbard noted that such remarks were “slanderous” and stuck to her guns.

Now

Now in a position to do the work she took abuse recommending the government do in 2022, Gabbard is investigating over 120 biolabs outside the U.S. that have been funded by American taxpayers.

The spy chief told the New York Post on Monday that her team will “identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and well-being of the American people and the world.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have,” Gabbard said. “Yet despite these obvious dangers, politicians, so-called health professionals, like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of these US-funded and supported biolabs and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.”

ODNI officials confirmed that more than 40 of the biolabs under investigation are — as Gabbard indicated four years ago — in Ukraine and could “be at risk of compromise” due to the ongoing war.

Trump ODNI officials said that the Biden administration’s mixed messaging about the Ukrainian biolabs were part of an “Information Resilience” strategy to “shape the public narrative” to simultaneously “mitigate and counter foreign malign influence” and downplay American ties to the war-zone research. In other words, they were pushing falsehoods domestically to neutralize foreign half-truths.

The State Department, for instance, noted in a carefully worded March 9, 2022, statement that “the United States does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine.” The State Department proceeded to reject the claim, not that the U.S. and Ukraine were collaborating on biological and chemical research, but that they were “conducting chemical and biological weapons activities.”

“The prior administration bankrolled dangerous gain-of-function research and foreign biolabs with American tax dollars, then deliberately hid it from the American people,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a statement.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, DNI Tulsi Gabbard and the entire Cabinet are righting these historic wrongs and delivering justice for our warfighters and the ones they protect,” Hegseth continued. “The era of lies and betrayal is over.”

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​Adam kinzinger, Avril haines, Biden administration, Director of national intelligence, Kamala harris, Marco rubio, Mitt romney, Pentagon, Trump administration, Tulsi gabbard, State department, Ukraine, Kyiv, Russia, Bioweapons, Biolabs, Laboratory, Science, Gain of function, Politics 

Basketball sensation Caitlin Clark has done more for women’s basketball — at both the collegiate and professional level — than any other player in history. And she’s just at the beginning of her career.

But BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes Clark’s impact and influence is waning rapidly, not due to any fault of her own but because the WNBA has already broken her.

“This whole secular, feminist, matriarchal, slave to the LGBTQ agenda may have completely destroyed Caitlin Clark,” he says.

On this episode of “Fearless,” Whitlock adopts the persona of “Sherlock Homie” and investigates the real reason Clark’s reign is likely coming to an end.

Last week, the WNBA tipped off with a three-game run for the league’s 30th season. Clark’s Indiana Fever was one of the teams to debut the season, but to the surprise of many, Clark (who plays point guard) went back to the Fever’s locker room twice during the game for back adjustments.

In her postgame interview, she, as well as her coach Stephanie White, insisted the injury was nothing serious.

But Whitlock thinks there’s more to the story.

The Fever recently drafting point guard Raven Johnson when Clark is just in her third professional season is a “red flag” and “a clue,” he argues.

“Caitlin Clark got manhandled and beaten up in year one, and I don’t think she’s ever recovered, and I think they know it,” he says, pointing out that the WNBA and sports news outlets have started featuring other players in marketing over Clark.

“They know Caitlin Clark is not long term for this league. … They’re trying to hustle us until Caitlin Clark can’t play anymore, and they’re hoping that, hey, by the time you figure that out, that she’s not going to be Super Caitlin and that she may have a limited career because of what we put her through in her rookie year,” Whitlock continues, playing footage of Clark getting repeatedly fouled during her first professional season.

Clark, he argues, has been put through “a hazing process” by the WNBA, which he calls a “lesbian college fraternity.”

“DiJonai Carrington and Marina Mabrey and the other LGBTQ thugs damaged this woman with their brutal style of play,” he says.

“They damaged their rookie hazing her way too aggressively, and now they’re apologizing now that she’s damaged and destroyed potentially.”

“We’ve been had, and that’s why Sherlock Homie is on the case.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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

​Blaze media, Blazetv, Caitlin clark, Dijonai carrington, Fearless, Fearless with jason whitlock, Indiana fever, Jason whitlock, Lgbtq agenda, Wnba, Women’s sports, Womens basketball 

Another exposé from Sara Gonzales has now led to a criminal investigation, this time related to a day care business that has sponsored a suspicious number of H-1B visas.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton directly cited the Gonzales report in a press release announcing the lawsuit against Golden Qi Holdings LLC and Yuan Yao, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China.

Then he drove off in his metallic rose gold BMW.

The report found evidence that Golden and other businesses are being falsely promoted as legitimate enterprises in order to apply for H-1B visas and sell them to Chinese nationals.

Gonzales visited the business known as the Allen Infant Care Center and found no evidence of children and instead found overgrown weeds. When she spoke to an individual familiar with the property, she claimed to Gonzales that Yao “sells visas” and that the business had not operated as a day care for an extended period of time.

The woman, whose identity was protected, claimed to Gonzales that Yao was selling visas for large amounts of money and then receiving labor from the applicants for “next to nothing” in exchange.

“None of these people come from poor homes. These are people who can pay him 20 grand for their visa,” the woman said in the report.

“That arrangement is made in China.”

Gonzales even confronted Yao, who appeared to claim through broken English that he was in the process of reopening the day care and that he had done nothing wrong. He also told Gonzales that he would call the police if she didn’t leave the business.

And then he drove off in his metallic rose gold BMW.

She went on to document how the company had apparently taken out two PPP loans in the amounts of $51,000 and $54,000, and both were forgiven. Gonzales also questioned how they had an autism behavioral center that did not seem at all operational.

“The thing that is so curious about this [case] when you go digging in the data and the [Labor Condition Applications] is that you wouldn’t think that a day care center would need, you know, ‘market research analysts’ or ‘supply chain analysts,'” Gonzales said.

“And yet, this company actually told the United States government that they needed foreign workers to fill those jobs,” she claimed.

RELATED: Sara Gonzales exposes ‘MUSLIMS ONLY’ event at city-owned site — and Gov. Greg Abbott is taking action

Paxton added in a statement that his office was working to prevent any foreign national from illegally entering into the U.S.

“Let this be a warning to anyone considering trying to scam the H-1B visa program,” he wrote. “I will continue fighting to ensure that the H-1B program serves the interests of Americans, not Chinese nationals, and that those who abuse the program are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

“My office will continue to work to stop any foreign national from entering this country unlawfully,” he added.

Gonzales thanked Paxton for taking action on her report.

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​Sara gonzales unfiltered, Golden qi holdings, Yuan yao, Politics, Texas day care chinese scam 

Liberal entertainer Chelsea Handler went head-to-head with one of the biggest comedians in the United States over the weekend, and the results were brutal.

Handler was once known for her talk shows, including “Chelsea Lately” (2007–2014), but in recent years, she has become a dominant progressive voice for feminism and being alone.

‘Her whole act is just talking about how it’s stupid to have kids.’

Handler has garnered headlines in the last two decades for comments like, “I’m not interested in long-term commitments” in 2025, saying “being childless and alone are everything they’re cracked up to be” in 2016, and “I definitely don’t want to have kids” in 2013.

On Sunday, however, Handler was forced to perform ahead of rival Tony Hinchcliffe on Netflix’s “The Roast of Kevin Hart” — giving the more conservative Hinchcliffe the last word.

Ladies first

Keeping with her progressive motif, Handler directed jokes at Hinchcliffe like, “Tony is what happens when women don’t have safe access to abortion care,” and “Tony you have the face of a school shooter and the personality of somebody who gets shot first.”

The 51-year-old also went after Shane Gillis, who was hosting the roast, saying, “Tony and Shane both live in Texas where abortion is illegal, but on the upside, if you see one of them doing comedy there’s a pretty good chance your uterus will start dry heaving on its own.”

She then joked that both are white supremacists who, if they weren’t at the event, would typically “just burn a cross on someone’s lawn.”

Six comedians later, it was Hinchcliffe’s turn, and he did not hold back his disdain for Handler in a series of brutal roasts.

RELATED: Video: Far-left comic Chelsea Handler hammers home how blissfully happy she is without children

–

Burn notice

“We knew Chelsea Handler would be available today because it’s Mother’s Day,” Hinchcliffe began.

Hinchcliffe then mocked Handler’s looks, saying she “looks like the f**king Joker” and is “aging like a vegetable in Lizzo’s fridge.”

It then seemed like Hinchcliffe may have gone off the cuff when he said Handler “f**king sucks and always has, by the way. Her whole act is just talking about how it’s stupid to have kids.”

He went on, “We get it, your ovaries are busted, that’s like if Kevin [Hart]’s whole act was about how ‘roller coasters aren’t that cool anyway.'”

Rounding out his full assault, the 41-year-old Hinchcliffe said, “Chelsea actually had her eggs frozen, not on purpose, they’re just inside of a cold, frigid bitch.”

RELATED: Progressive comedian blames anti-woke comedy for ‘slightly fascistic’ culture that will bring back slavery

– YouTube

Race to the bottom

Handler wasn’t the only liberal Hinchcliffe triggered, but the family of the late drug-addict turned progressive icon George Floyd took issue with one of the comedian’s closing remarks.

Hinchcliffe joked to Kevin Hart that the “black community is so proud of you — right now George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard that he can’t breathe.”

TMZ was told by a spokesman for the George and Gianna Floyd Foundation that Hart allowing Hinchcliffe’s joke is “sad for the culture.”

Floyd’s family and friends reportedly think Hinchcliffe is a “racist comedian,” while the foundation claimed it is only trying to better its community.

The foundation also bizarrely stated, “Let’s try to be a little bit more positive — and not sit up there doing colon inspections by white comedians.”

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​Align, Chelsea handler, Comedians, Comedy, Feminism, George floyd, Kevin hart, Roast, School shooter, White supremacists, Entertainment 

Nebraska voters heading to the polls on Tuesday are facing a convoluted Senate primary in which both parties are trading accusations of spoiler candidates intended to manipulate the November general election.

Incumbent U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) is up for re-election and defending his seat in the Tuesday primary against several Republican challengers.

‘We must vote for Cindy to knock fake Forbes out of the Primary Election to allow Osborn to take on Ricketts.’

Meanwhile, the Democrat primary election has sparked controversy, with candidate Cindy Burbank accusing her competitor, William Forbes, of being a Ricketts plant.

“Pete Ricketts, who is running for reelection, is putting in a candidate loyal to him in the DEMOCRATIC primary — to split the vote against him, so he wins easily. He’s running an anti-abortion activist named Bill Forbes, who has posted in support of Pete Ricketts!” Burbank’s campaign website states.

Burbank claimed that Ricketts planted Forbes because he is concerned that he will lose his re-election bid in the November general election to independent candidate Dan Osborn.

“He knows he’s losing to Dan Osborn and this is his plan to cheat his way to victory. We can’t let that happen,” Burbank’s website reads.

Burbank accused Forbes, a pastor who previously voted for President Donald Trump, of being “a ‘fake’ Democrat,” stating that Osborn “is a good man, a working man, a strike leader, and someone we can trust.”

“He deserves a fair shot against Ricketts.”

RELATED: Republicans receive another grim midterm forecast

Pete Ricketts. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Osborn previously ran a strong 2024 race against Sen. Deb Fischer (R), losing by less than seven percentage points. Although he did not win, he garnered 66,000 more votes than former Vice President Kamala Harris (D) received in Nebraska in the presidential election against Trump.

The Nebraska Democratic Party echoed the accusation that Ricketts “planted his spoiler and fake Democratic candidate.” The party expressed concern that a Forbes win over Burbank would split votes between Forbes and Osborn in the general election, giving Ricketts a greater chance of victory.

The NDP, which originally planned not to field a nominee, stated that the strategy was to ensure that Burbank won the primary. Burbank would then presumably withdraw before the general election to allow Osborn to compete against Ricketts.

“We must vote for Cindy to knock fake Forbes out of the Primary Election to allow Osborn to take on Ricketts one-on-one in the General Election. This is the path to send Ricketts and his millions packing. This is the way to break the one-party rule in Nebraska,” the NDP wrote.

NDP chair Jane Kleeb wrote in a post on X in July 2025 that the party planned to support Osborn, believing he was the best chance to beat Ricketts in the deep-red state.

The New York Times reported that Burbank “confirmed that she planned to exit the race after the primary, assuming that Mr. Osborn submits enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.”

“I will stay in until it is obvious that I cannot win in November, and I will drop out,” Burbank told the Times.

Osborn accused Ricketts of reverting to “classic dirty tricks” to win re-election.

“Unfortunately for Ricketts, Bill Forbes’ Trojan-horse campaign is doomed,” an Osborn campaign manager told KETV.

Forbes denied being a plant, telling the outlet that he is a “real Democrat in the mold of JFK and Ben Nelson — tough, practical, and focused on working families instead of coastal lunacy.”

“What flies in radical California dies in Nebraska. Voters here want a strong Democrat who reaches across the aisle and actually unites people — not another phony independent puppet like Dan Osborn,” Forbes said.

Ricketts’ campaign has denied having any role in the Democrat primary.

The Nebraska Republican Party responded to the Democrat plot by filing a complaint to have Burbank removed from the ballot, arguing that she was not a “good-faith” candidate because she had no intention of serving in office. Burbank challenged that removal attempt, and the Nebraska Supreme Court ultimately ruled to reinstate Burbank, stating that the deadline to consider such complaints had passed.

RELATED: Republican Indiana state senator has no regrets about redistricting vote

Dan Osborn. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

Legal Marijuana NOW Party candidate Mike Marvin was also accused of being a spoiler in the race after Burbank paid his $1,740 filing fee on the last day for candidates to file, according to the Nebraska Examiner.

She confirmed to the outlet that she paid his filing fee after witnessing “the secretary’s people refusing to take Mike’s check because it was for 10 dollars too much.”

“It pissed me off, and I paid for it. … I’ve never met Mike,” Burbank told the Nebraska Examiner. “If Ricketts can throw his money around, then so can I!”

When asked why Burbank paid his filing fee, Marvin told the outlet that he had “no idea what is happening.”

“I keep waiting for the check I wrote to clear,” Marvin stated. “I don’t even know Cindy Burbank.”

Marvin denied being a plant, writing in a Facebook post, “No one has hired me to do this; that is slanderous.”

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​News, Pete ricketts, Nebraska, Cindy burbank, William forbes, Bill forbes, Dan osborn, Donald trump, Trump, Nebraska democratic party, Democratic party, Jane kleeb, Nebraska republican party, Mike marvin, Politics 

After losing his home in the Palisades Fire, former reality star Spencer Pratt launched a viral mayoral campaign ad blasting Los Angeles leadership — and while Liz Wheeler isn’t the biggest fan of celebrities getting political, she believes there is something different about him.

“I confess: I am not typically a fan of celebrities who, just because they’re bored after the peak of their career, dip their toe in politics. I’m not typically a fan of that,” Wheeler says.

“However, Spencer Pratt might be a little bit different,” she admits, before playing Pratt’s viral campaign ad, which he reportedly shot in a few hours on a very limited budget and which has millions of views on X alone.

“This is where Mayor Bass lives,” Pratt begins, standing in front of a mansion. “You notice something?”

“They don’t have to live in the mess they’ve created — where you live,” he says, before showing a homeless encampment.

Pratt goes on to reveal where he now lives after the Palisades Fire: in a trailer.

“This is where I live. They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are. That’s why I’m running for mayor — for my sons and the rest of us Angelenos that want to stop these corrupt politicians from destroying our city,” he continues. “We are going to get the golden age of Los Angeles back.”

“The best part of this will be how immediately obvious that it becomes to everyone in the country — not just to residents of Los Angeles, not even just to California residents, but to everyone in the country, people on the right and the left, how immediately obvious it becomes that disgusting, dangerous, degrading cities like Los Angeles are not inevitable,” Wheeler comments.

“They are, in fact, a deliberate political choice that the Democrats make intentionally to hurt you and to control you. This is also why Democrats are not going to fight fair. They cannot let Spencer Pratt win, because they cannot have the American people, by and large, understand that disgusting, dangerous, degrading cities are a deliberate political choice that Democrats have made intentionally to harm and to control you,” she continues.

“And this is why we, the American people — even those of us who don’t live in Los Angeles — must help Spencer Pratt win in any way that we can offer our assistance,” she adds.

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​Blaze media, Blaze news, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcast network, Blaze podcasts, Blazetv, California, Celebrities, Corrupt politicians, Democrats, Failed leadership, Golden age, Homeless encampment, Leadership, Liz wheeler, Los angeles, Mayor bass, Political, Residents, Spencer pratt, The blaze, The liz wheeler show, Viral campaign 

A repeat offender who’s accused of seriously wounding two in a brazen daytime shooting Monday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seemed headed for a long stretch in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2021 to firing at police officers in Boston.

You see, prosecutors wanted Tyler E. Brown to serve at least 10 years in prison for shooting at cops the year before, the Boston Globe reported.

‘I am a firm believer that when Mr. Tyler Brown gets out, he will hurt, or worse, kill someone.’

However, the paper said Judge Janet L. Sanders imposed a sentence of five to six years in state prison, with credit for about 18 months he’d spent in custody while the case was pending.

After just a few years behind bars, Brown was released back into the community, WFXT-TV reported.

Brown on Monday allegedly shot two people with a rifle on a Cambridge street not far from Harvard and MIT, the Globe said. The victims remained hospitalized Tuesday with life-threatening injuries, officials told the paper.

RELATED: 19-year-old thug reportedly violated bond at least a half dozen times before being accused of murder — while out on probation

Brown was shot by a state trooper and an armed civilian, the Globe said, and remained at an area hospital.

Officials on Monday said Brown is expected to face two counts of armed assault with intent to murder and firearms offenses, the paper reported.

Forget how angry officials likely are over Monday’s shooting given that Brown might otherwise have been behind bars. Law enforcement was outraged back in 2021 over Brown’s lighter sentence — records show he was already on probation for a stabbing and witness intimidation at the time, WFXT noted.

One officer even predicted Brown would return to violence once he was released.

“I am a firm believer that when Mr. Tyler Brown gets out, he will hurt, or worse, kill someone,” one officer involved in the 2020 shooting wrote in an impact statement, according to WCVB-TV. “Probation apparently means nothing to Mr. Tyler Brown, nor does the value of life.”

Gregory Long, the department’s superintendent in chief at the time, said in a statement after Brown’s August 2021 sentence that “the Boston Police Department is extremely disappointed in this sentence,” the Globe reported.

Long, according to the paper, added that “this sentence does not reflect the magnitude and seriousness of the offense committed by this individual. Acts of violence such as this in our city streets require and demand adequate accountability.”

Even George Soros-backed Rachael Rollins — the Suffolk district attorney at the time — wasn’t happy with the judge’s sentence.

“My office recommended a significant sentence for Mr. Brown given the nature of his offenses and the trauma and harm he inflicted,” Rollins said, according to the Globe. “I am disappointed in the sentence that was imposed.”

As Blaze News previously reported, Rollins in 2023 announced plans to resign as Massachusetts U.S. attorney after she was accused of leaking “sensitive DOJ” information to the press in an effort to influence an election in favor of a fellow Democratic colleague.

More from the Globe:

Brown, now 46, had only been out of jail a few months on May 16, 2020, when he opened fire at several officers who had responded to a report of a man with a gun who was threatening people on Northampton Street in the South End. He was arrested after he fled to Massachusetts Avenue, where he shot at officers who returned fire, the Globe reported.

He pleaded guilty the following year to eight charges, including armed assault with intent to murder, attempted assault and battery by means of discharging a firearm for firing at a Boston police officer, and three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon for pointing a firearm at additional responding Boston police officers, officials said.

Prosecutors said they had sought a sentence of 10 to 12 years, followed by five years of probation. At the time of the shooting, Brown was on probation for a 2014 conviction for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a knife, and witness intimidation, records show.

In relation to Monday afternoon’s shooting, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan told WFXT in a separate story that an active shooter situation was under way when officers arrived at the scene in Cambridge, noting that the suspect “was already traveling down the middle of Memorial Drive, cars were stopped in traffic, … and he was actively firing in an erratic fashion at various vehicles along the road.”

RELATED: Thug reportedly with 131 prior arrests just got charged with setting homeless man on fire while victim slept

Two victims in separate vehicles were struck by gunfire, including a municipal bus driver who reportedly drove himself to the hospital after he was shot in the head, WFXT said.

Authorities added that a state police trooper — as well as a civilian described as a former Marine licensed to carry a firearm — moved toward the suspect while shots were being fired, WFXT said.

Officials said the suspect was struck multiple times in the lower extremities and treated at the scene, WFXT added.

Ryan noted that motorists abandoned their vehicles and ran in multiple directions as the shooting unfolded, WFXT reported, adding that some people reportedly took cover underneath their cars.

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​Cambridge, Judge janet l sanders, Lenient sentence, Massachusetts, Police, Rachael rollins, Repeat offender, Sentencing outrage, Shooting, Tyler e brown, Violent history, Crime, Politics 

Some Democrats refuse to believe their lying eyes, no matter how many attempts are made on Donald Trump’s life.

Despite a wounded Secret Service agent, a room full of witnesses evacuated from the premises, and video footage of a gunman on a rampage, a sizeable number of Democrats still do not believe anyone tried to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month, a new poll shows.

According to a NewsGuard poll released Monday, 24% of respondents overall and 34% of Democrats believe the WHCD shooting was staged. Even 13% of Republicans believe it was staged.

Just 38% of respondents believe that all three attempts were real.

Those between the ages of 18 and 29 were the most likely to believe the event was staged.

And that’s not all. The poll also revealed that many Americans — 12% of respondents — believe that all three Trump assassination attempts are fake. At 55%, Democrats represent a majority of those who hold that belief.

Just 38% of respondents believe that all three attempts were real.

RELATED: 11 of the most shocking security breaches in US Secret Service history

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Of note, would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was shot and killed by federal agents in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, but not before he struck Trump in the ear, murdered one man, and critically injured two others.

Would-be assassin Ryan Routh is serving a life sentence in federal prison after setting up a sniper’s nest near the sixth hole of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach two months after the Butler shooting.

On Monday, the same day the poll was released, suspected WHCD shooter Cole Allen pled not guilty to one count of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, one count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, and two counts of a gun charge.

Allen also faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

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​Donald trump, Assassination attempt, White house correspondents’ dinner, Butler, Politics 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) has a new solution for urban poverty: government-run grocery stores.

The plan, announced as part of his first 100 days in office, would spend roughly $70 million creating city-owned supermarkets across New York, beginning with a flagship location in East Harlem. The stores would operate through private contractors under city oversight, with subsidized staples — cheaper eggs, cheaper bread, cheaper basics — guaranteed by government rather than market competition.

Fast food, the supposed cheap fallback of the food-deprived, has out-inflated inflation itself and is now closer to a sit-down dinner than a quick bite.

Mamdani justifies this spending by invoking a persistent, infrequently examined assumption of liberal policymakers: that cities in America are riddled with blighted urban zones where fresh produce and healthy groceries remain frustratingly out of reach.

These are called “food deserts.”

Hunger games

Never mind that a quick look around the proposed East Harlem site reveals multiple grocery stores within walking distance, including produce markets sitting blocks from where the city plans to spend tens of millions constructing another one.

Yet the language persists. Reading recent coverage of America’s “food deserts,” you would be forgiven for thinking we have all woken up in the back half of “The Road,” scavenging tin cans in ash-choked ruins while a feral child clutches our pant leg.

ABC News informs us that 17 million Americans live in a federally designated food desert, a term so bleak it sounds like it should come with a Pulitzer and a black-and-white photo of a barefoot kid staring into the middle distance.

Tara Colton of New Jersey’s Economic Development Authority calls food deserts a product of structural racism, neighborhood redlining, and disinvestment — three abstractions stacked into one sentence, which is the literary equivalent of a turducken. Malcolm Gladwell is taking notes.

To be clear, there are real people in these stories who deserve real help. Take Knoxville, for instance, where an elderly disabled woman with a walker needs three to four hours to buy groceries. There are many like her. No car, no one to call when the fridge needs to be restocked.

But is that really a food problem, or is it a loneliness problem in disguise? A what-happened-to-neighbors problem? Whatever it is, it isn’t fixed by the nearest Kroger relocating two blocks closer, but by a person with transportation and 20 free minutes.

Couch-bound

Which brings us to the definition itself, because the definition is where this whole conversation instantly falls apart. Per the USDA, a food desert is a low-income area where residents live more than one mile from a supermarket in a city or 20 in the country.

The rural number is its own conversation. The urban one deserves a closer look. One mile. That is the apocalyptic threshold, the line past which we reach for the language of famine and structural decay. One mile is the distance between your couch and the place you were going to walk to anyway before you decided to “treat yourself” to DoorDash. There are CrossFit gyms charging $200 a month to make people walk farther than that carrying objects on purpose.

Then there is the part the hellscape correspondents won’t touch. A Big Mac combo now averages $9 nationally. A large pizza that feeds two or three people runs $15 to $20 before tip and delivery fee and the mysterious “service charge” that has crept onto every receipt in America. A medium fries alone is $4 now, a price point that used to get you the whole meal. Fast food, the supposed cheap fallback of the food-deprived, has out-inflated inflation itself and is now closer to a sit-down dinner than a quick bite.

Shop right

Meanwhile, in the so-called desert, a bag of dried lentils is $1.79. A pound of rice is a dollar. A dozen eggs, even after the great egg panic, is around $4 and gives you a week of breakfasts. Frozen vegetables, the great equalizer of American nutrition, run $2 or $3 at any Dollar Tree, which, surprise, exists in basically every “food desert” I’ve ever set foot in. A whole rotisserie chicken at Walmart is $5.97 and feeds a family for two days. A can of black beans is a dollar. An onion is 50 cents.

So when an able-bodied 28-year-old with a working car and a smartphone tells me he can’t eat healthy because he lives in a food desert, what he means is he doesn’t want to. He wants the Crunchwrap Supreme combo for $9. He wants the door to open and the food to be hot and the wrapper to crinkle.

That’s a preference, not a famine. Calling it a crisis is an insult to people who actually are in one — like, say, the woman with the walker — because it lumps her struggle in with some slob’s Tuesday-night laziness and gives both the same vocabulary.

Fertile ground

Either way, the term “food desert” seems deliberately designed to invoke panic. Maybe so taxpayers will look the other way when, say, New Jersey passes a $240 million Food Desert Relief Act and starts paying restaurants to deliver hot meals.

But there are no ash plumes. No one is barbecuing cats or plucking ducks from ponds. Well, very few are.

Battlefield Farm, a Knoxville nonprofit, understands this. It doesn’t tweet about food apartheid. Instead, it grows actual collards and drives them to actual people in an actual van. The company is planning a low-cost grocery store.

That’s the thing about real problems. They tend to have real, boring solutions, and they tend to require us to acknowledge reality before we can do anything about them.

The 53 million Americans the USDA classifies as having “limited” food access are not all starving in a wasteland. Most of them are within walking, biking, or one-bus distance of a place that sells apples and carrots. Most of them know this, and a lot of them are cooking meals right now. The ones who genuinely cannot get there need rides, ramps, and delivery — not a fatalistic op-ed painting America like a Ken Burns documentary nobody asked for.

​Food deserts, Make america healthy again, Zohran mamdani, Nutrition, Health, Battlefield farm, New jersey, Lifestyle 

As the United States navigates a fragile ceasefire in its conflict with Iran, the price of oil has remained volatile and high. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at $104.21 per barrel at market close on Monday, nearly 57% higher than its pre-conflict price. Inflation has risen as a result and is in a territory it hasn’t been since 2023, according to an analysis by NBC News.

On Tuesday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly Consumer Price Index update for April. It reported that inflation in April was 3.8%.

A vast majority of Americans don’t trust either party to fix the economy.

The bureau stated in a press release that the rise in energy costs is responsible “for over 40% of the monthly all-items increase.”

In its report on the April inflation numbers, NBC News noted that in Friday’s April jobs report, average hourly earnings rose by 3.6% over the past year. This marks the first time since 2023, during the Biden administration, that wages have not kept pace with inflation.

Despite the runaway inflation of the Biden years, Democrat congressional leaders pounced on the inflation news. House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.) said in a statement, “From his tariff taxes to his disastrous war in Iran, President Trump is making life even harder for American families. Today’s inflation data confirms what everyone can see: Costs are out of control.”

Republicans, on the other hand, are focused on the growth in jobs and the economy in general and reminding voters of the Biden-era inflation. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said, “While inflation has come down substantially since the 21% spike in prices seen when Democrats controlled all of Washington, American families are still looking for additional relief, and that is why Republicans acted to deliver the largest tax cuts in American history.”

Smith further highlighted the growth in GDP and hope that the new chairman of the Federal Reserve would be “a leader over monetary policy who understands that high interest rates have held back the true economic potential of our country.”

RELATED: The SAVE America Act won’t be enough to save the GOP from a midterm bloodbath

A consensus seems to be brewing among investment experts that unlike the broad-based inflation of the early part of the Biden presidency, this inflation could truly be transitory if energy prices come down.

“The report still showed only limited evidence of fully broad-based second-round inflation effects,” said Arielle Ingrassia, an investment specialist at Evelyn Partners, according to IFA magazine.

“That leaves the overall picture closer to an energy and transport shock than a full inflation spiral — at least for now.”

The inflation release Tuesday coincides with findings from a new CNN/SSRS poll that shows “roughly two-thirds of Americans say that Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country. And Trump’s approval rating stands at 30% on the economy, a career low,” according to CNN.

But Democrats do not fare well in this new polling either. A vast majority of Americans don’t trust either party to fix the economy.

As the nation heads into a midterm election being shaped by redistricting battles, Americans’ perceived economic outlook will continue to be a determining factor for the control of both the House and Senate in November.

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​Biden administration, Bureau of labor statistics, Consumer price index, Inflation, Interest rates, Iran, Jobs, President trump, Wages, Politics 

Former President Joe Biden was stumbling long before he took office. He fell behind in the first three Democratic primary elections of 2020, placing fourth, fifth, and second, respectively.

James Clyburn, South Carolina’s lone Democratic congressman, is credited with turning things around for the campaign and propping Biden up by delivering him a timely endorsement and South Carolina’s delegates.

Now, Biden’s political crutch is poised to lose his own footing.

‘This fight is a straightforward, fair election versus Democrat manipulation.’

During a heated meeting on Tuesday, lawmakers on the South Carolina House Constitutional Laws Subcommittee discussed legislation that, if successfully passed by both chambers of the legislature and ratified by the governor, would ultimately redraw the Palmetto State’s congressional maps and eliminate Clyburn’s district.

During the public testimony portion of the meeting, wild-eyed opponents accused Republican lawmakers of engaging in “fascism,” killing democracy in the state, disenfranchising black voters, and diluting liberal voting power.

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, among those who alternatively spoke in support of the legislation at the meeting, stated, “We have both the duty and the opportunity to maximize our conservative stronghold and ensure our people receive the representation they deserve, grounded in faith, freedom, family values, safe communities, and economic prosperity.”

RELATED: Virginia Democrats trying to force through illegal power-grab make ANOTHER humiliating mistake

South Carolina State House

“This fight is a straightforward, fair election versus Democrat manipulation,” Evette added.

The subcommittee ultimately signaled support for the legislation in a 3-2 vote that prompted heckles from the peanut gallery.

The full South Carolina House Judiciary Committee subsequently took up the matter.

Ahead of the state lawmakers’ meeting, President Donald Trump noted on Truth Social, “I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country who are counting on their Elected Leaders to use every Legal and Constitutional authority they have to stop the Radical Left Democrats from destroying our Country, including leveling the playing field against their decades of egregious Gerrymandering and Census Rigging.”

“South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week!” Trump continued. “Move the U.S. House Primaries to August, leave the rest on the same schedule. Everything will be fine. GET IT DONE!”

Clyburn, now serving his 17th term and seeking re-election, is furious over the prospect of losing power.

In a series of tweets last week, the Democratic congressman complained, “Republicans are trying to break apart South Carolina’s 6th District. Not because voters demanded it, but because Donald Trump requested it.”

“This fight is bigger than one district,” Clyburn continued. “It’s about whether our democracy belongs to the people, or to politicians who change the rules when they don’t like the results. We cannot let them succeed.”

Clyburn was first elected to represent South Carolina’s 6th district after its borders were redrawn with the intention of making it a majority-black district.

Republicans are empowered to augment Clyburn’s district as the result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Callais, where the high court struck down Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and made clear that redistricting should effectively be color-blind.

Clyburn briefly dropped the alarmist shtick during a recent CNN interview, where he admitted that he could potentially still get re-elected in a district that’s not a racial gerrymander.

The 85-year-old Democrat suggested further that other Democratic candidates could benefit from new maps, telling talking head Jake Tapper, “When they finish with the redistricting, there will be the possibilities of at least three Democrats getting elected here in South Carolina to the United States Congress.”

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​Callais, Clyburn, Democratic congressman, Former president joe biden, Jake tapper, James clyburn, Lt gov pamela evette, President donald trump, Racial gerrymander, Republican lawmakers, South carolina, State house, Subcommittee, Us supreme court, Politics 

The chances of a socialist democrat becoming mayor of Los Angeles appeared to collapse after Spencer Pratt obliterated her during their recent debate.

Pratt crushed City Councilwoman Nithya Raman when she tried to claim that her policies had succeeded in easing the homelessness crisis in L.A., and the moment went viral on social media soon afterward.

‘Before any polls or punditry, prediction markets quantified exactly what we all saw with our eyes: the Titanic hitting an iceberg.’

Although polling since the debate has not yet been released, the Kalshi prediction market documented that Raman’s chances to win the election have absolutely cratered.

At one point in late April, Kalshi predicted that Raman had an astounding 64% chance of winning the mayoral race. After the debate on Wednesday, her chances precipitously dropped to 14% — a loss of 50 percentage points.

Much of that may have been her unsteady and unsure performance during the debate. When challenged on homelessness, Raman stumbled after Pratt beat her down.

“The reality is, no matter how many beds you give these people, they are on super meth,” Pratt explained about the homelessness crisis. “They are on fentanyl. The DEA statistic says 93% of this is a drug addiction problem. I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with [Raman], and we can find some of these people she’s going to offer treatment for. She’s going to get stabbed in the neck!”

While some have doubted the value of prediction markets, BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere explained how they can be a leading indicator before polling can be completed.

“This is something that prediction markets do incredibly well,” he said. “Before any polls or punditry, prediction markets quantified exactly what we all saw with our eyes: the Titanic hitting an iceberg.”

He also pointed out that the large drop in her support was even worse than that of former President Joe Biden just before he dropped out of his re-election campaign in 2024.

“Joe Biden only dropped about 15 percentage points after his debate. That’s how bad she was,” said Burguiere of Raman.

RELATED: LA Times torched for trying to disqualify Pratt for mayor — because his home burned down

Raman has also pulled out of another mayoral debate, though she was preceded by incumbent L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Pratt as well. The debate has since been canceled.

Polling before the debate had Pratt in second place with 10% support and Bass in first place with 25%, but another 40% remained undecided, keeping the election up in the air.

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​Los angeles mayoral election, Spencer pratt, Pratt vs nithya raman, Prediction markets, Politics 

Christian persecution is happening around the world, and in some places that you would never expect — including Mexico.

Open Doors US CEO Ryan Brown tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that his organization has a World Watch List that tracks persecution across the globe, and what’s happening inside America’s southern neighbor is shocking, to say the least.

“One of the very also present realities there are with the cartels and organized crime,” Brown tells Stuckey, explaining that the cartels target Christians because the church is “bad for business.”

Christianity hurts the cartels, as it keeps young men from getting drafted into their ranks as well as stops potential drug or alcohol users from buying what they make their living on.

This is why many cartel leaders view the Christian church as a threat, and sometimes they “strike with violence” in retaliation.

One Christian church, Brown explains, was targeted by the cartel for not doing as they said.

“The cartels came in one night … with guns ablazing … and, you know, forced people out with the clothes on their back. They corralled them in a school building and held them captive there, wouldn’t allow them to escape, wanted people to see that they were being held there,” he recalls.

“There was one bucket in the middle of the room to utilize as the bathroom for a period of 10 days. No water provided. They had to drink water from puddles,” he continues.

There’s also an area of several states in Mexico called “the circle of silence.”

Geographically these states form a circle and represent an area where Christianity and Catholicism are not heavily represented.

“So, you know, there is not a strong presence of the church there to vocalize and to make the message of the gospel known. So, that’s one area of silence,” Brown tells Stuckey.

“They want no presence of Christianity there. They want it to be silenced,” he adds.

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​Captive hostages, Cartel leaders, Cartel targets, Christian persecution, Circle of silence, Gospel message, Mexican cartels, Mexico, Open door, Organized crime, Presence of church, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Ryan brown, Silencing christianity, Targeted church, World watch list, Threat to cartel, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals 

The Virginia Supreme Court sent Democrats into conniptions with a ruling on Friday striking down as unconstitutional a ballot measure that would have all but guaranteed their party another four seats in the U.S. Congress.

Democrats’ desperation to force through their illegal power-grab in the wake of the 4-3 decision now has them considering truly extreme options, including lowering the retirement age for justices on the Old Dominion’s high court, purging its current lineup, and stacking it with liberals.

‘Baby steps.’

While their comrades plot alternative ways of disenfranchising millions of Republican voters in Virginia, Democratic state officials are trying to get the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their gerrymandering initiative.

The Democrats behind the likely doomed petition are, however, having difficulties with spelling and differentiating between disparate courts.

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, House Speaker Don Scott, and President Pro Tempore of the Virginia Senate Louise Lucas filed a joint motion late on Friday asking the Old Dominion’s Supreme Court to delay its order invalidating the gerrymander referendum and the corresponding constitutional amendment proposed on the ballot while they appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) highlighted a glaring spelling error in the court filing, which was submitted by state Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge. Near the top, Virginia House of Delegates was spelled “Virgnia House of Delegates.”

RELATED: Democrats propose purging Virginia Supreme Court so they can force through illegal power-grab

Mike Kropf-Pool/Getty Images

Miyares wrote, “If you are going to appeal to SCOTUS maybe don’t misspell Virginia?”

Other keen observers — including Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon — pointed out that in the document, “senator” was spelled “sentator.”

Miyares continued: “This is a motion that has zero chance to succeed and is [a] Hail Mary to save face after wasting $70 million in political money and $10 million in taxpayer money on an illegal, unconstitutional gerrymandering amendment. This motion will be declared dead on arrival.”

Democratic Virginia officials — evidently willing to test Miyares’ theory that their motion “will be declared dead on arrival” — filed an emergency application on Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a stay of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision that they claimed was “deeply mistaken on two critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.”

The emergency application not only contained the Democratic officials’ previous embarrassing spelling mistakes but a brand-new error on the first page, referring to an “emergency application to the Supreme Court of Virginia,” rather than the Supreme Court of the United States.

“Good News: Dems managed to spell Virginia correctly,” Miyares wrote on Tuesday. “Bad News: They sent their emergency application to SCOTUS to the wrong court. Baby steps.”

U.S. Supreme Court

Miyares’ quip aside, the Virginia Democrats managed to get their mistitled petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Even still, Edward Whelan, a legal scholar and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, discovered other possible problems. “Very weird that cover page states ‘On Emergency Application to the Supreme Court of Virginia,'” noted Whelan. “That’s the styling for a petition for a writ of certiorari, but it makes no sense to say that the emergency application is ‘to’ the Supreme Court of Virginia.”

But the greater blunder, suggested Whelan, is that the Democratic petitioners do not appear to be asking for the right relief.

“Even if the Supreme Court were to grant Virginia’s emergency application for a stay (it won’t), that would still leave in place the lower-court injunction that the state supreme court affirmed,” wrote Whelan.

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​Appeal, Assistant attorney general, Democrat, Democrats, Emergency application, Gerrymander, High court, Humiliation, Jay jones, Legal scholar, Political money, Richmond, Spelling error, Supreme court, Unconstitutional ballot measure, Us congress, Us supreme court, Virginia, Virginia attorney general, Virginia supreme court, Politics 

A large group of teenagers on e-bikes allegedly ganged up on a man who was riding a scooter with his wife on the boardwalk in Huntington Beach, California, over the weekend — and kicked and stomped him and hit him in the face with a glass bottle, KTLA-TV reported.

The Huntington Beach Police Department confirmed to KTLA that a report was taken in connection with the incident, which occurred around 8 p.m. Saturday in the area of 103 Pacific Coast Highway.

‘Come here on Friday night, on Saturday night. … It’s chaos; it’s terror.’

Sam El-Said — a business owner — told the station he and his wife were riding home when he noticed a few hundred teens, many of them with e-bikes, gathered on the beach, the boardwalk, and a nearby grassy area.

El-Said told KTLA he slowed down to navigate through the crowd, when someone threw a glass bottle that hit him in the face; he added to the station that bottle either shattered on impact or was already broken, and it left him with minor injuries.

After he stopped and got off his scooter to see what happened, El-Said told KTLA someone knocked him to the ground from behind, after which as many as six teens kicked and stomped him while he was down.

Cellphone video caught the final moments of the alleged attack, and it shows one teen dressed in a dark Playboy hoodie being pulled away from the victim, who was on his hands and knees in the sand.

Some teens are heard hooting and laughing on video during the aftermath of the attack.

KTLA said that when El-Said rose to his feet, blood was running down his face, red marks were visible near his left temple and cheekbone, and blood also was on the fingers of his left hand.

RELATED: Mom of teen thug arrested after body-slamming, head-stomping much smaller girl says he’s a ‘humble,’ ‘quiet’ Christian

Police told the station that El-Said was able to detain one of the teens involved, and that teen was arrested and cited for misdemeanor battery.

Authorities told KTLA that the victim declined medical treatment at the scene.

El-Said, who also suffered a black eye, noted to the station that he and his wife moved to Huntington Beach three years ago for a better quality of life — and the incident demonstrates to him that law enforcement needs to take a stronger stance against such crime.

“Come here on Friday night, on Saturday night, to this very spot and see what this looks like,” he told KTLA. “It’s chaos; it’s terror. If nothing happens and things don’t change, we’re going to keep seeing incidents like what happened to me, but far worse.”

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​California, E-bikes, Ebikes, Huntington beach, Man attacked, Misdemeanor battery, Physical attack, Teen arrested, Teen mob, Crime 

The U.S. Dept. of Justice announced that the mayor of a city in Southern California has agreed to plead guilty to operating as a spy for China for two years.

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang agreed to resign from office after she was federally charged with acting as an illegal agent for a foreign country, according to statements on the city’s website.

‘How many more are there?’

“Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 — promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” wrote FBI Director Kash Patel on social media. “She has agreed to resign from office and plead guilty.”

Wang pled guilty in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday and now faces 10 years in prison, the New York Post reported.

Wang ran a website called the U.S. News Center that claimed to be a resource for the local Chinese-American community along with Yaoning “Mike” Sun.

Sun was Wang’s campaign manager and fiancé. Both admitted to receiving and executing “directives from PRC (People’s Republic of China) government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website.” They also “sometimes sought approval from PRC government officials to circulate other pro-PRC content,” the DOJ said in the plea agreement, according to ABC News.

In one example from Nov. 2021, Wang wanted to promote an article about the Chinese and Russian ambassador calling on Americans to respect the “democratic rights” of the PRC, the DOJ said.

A statement from the Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said that none of the spying activity was conducted while Wang was in office.

“We understand this news raises serious concerns, and we want to be direct with our community about what we know and where we stand,” wrote Lazzaretto on the city’s website.

“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,” he added. “We want to be clear: This investigation concerns individual conduct, and the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in December 2022.”

Lazzaretto indicated no city actions need to be invalidated despite accusations that the mayor worked as a spy for China.

“Following an internal review, we can confirm that no city finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved,” he added.

Sun had been arrested in Dec. 2024 on suspicion of conspiring with Chen Jun, aka John Chen, a Chinese national who had been convicted of federal crimes, as previously reported by Blaze News. Sun was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison in Jan. 2025.

RELATED: Retired Air Force major allegedly trained Chinese pilots — spying, hacking network involved

The alarming development bolstered critics of China, who warned about communist-funded infiltration into American society, including local governments as well as institutions of learning.

“How many more are there?” wondered Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.

“Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” said John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for National Security.

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​Arcadia mayor eileen wang, Chinese spy convicted, Communist china infiltration, Socal chinese spy, Politics