Category: blaze media

While there have been mixed reactions to the January 3 capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro by the U.S., few have shown greater support for the move than opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.

On Thursday, Machado visited President Donald Trump at the White House and presented him with her Nobel Peace Prize, which she won in October.

‘María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done.’

When asked in a Fox interview why she gave her medal to the president of the United States, Machado had a simple answer: “Because he deserves it.”

“It was a very emotional moment. I decided to present the Nobel Peace Prize medal on behalf of the people of Venezuela.”

RELATED: Venezuelan freedom fighter wins Nobel Peace Prize — and she immediately dedicates it to Trump for his support

Photo by Drew ANGERER/AFP via Getty Images

The medal was presented to Trump in a large golden frame with text that reads: “To President Donald J. Trump in Gratitude for Your Extraordinary Leadership in Promoting Peace Through Strength.” The text further calls the award a “Personal Symbol of Gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan People.”

After the meeting, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”

A White House official confirmed to CNBC that Trump intends to keep the medal.

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​Politics, Maria corina machado, President trump, Nicolas maduro, Venezuela, Nobel peace prize, White house, Trump, Donald trump 

A day-care worker in Minnesota confessed to “intentionally suffocating” an 11-month-old boy who died last fall, police told WCCO-TV, adding that it was “an attention-seeking act.”

Theah Loudemia Russell, 18, is in custody and will face a second-degree murder charge and other charges, Savage Police Chief Brady Juell told the station, which added that formal charges were expected to be filed Thursday.

Authorities investigating Russell’s background found ‘a documented history of attention-seeking behavior,’ including ‘nonsensical’ 911 calls, fire-starting, and ‘erratic behavior toward other children,’ Juell added to the station.

A 911 call came from Rocking Horse Ranch in Savage on Sept. 22 reporting that a child — later identified as 11-month-old Harvey Muklebust — was not breathing, WCCO said.

Authorities responded, and the boy was taken to a hospital where he later died, the station said.

Three days before, Savage police responded to Rocking Horse Ranch on a report of an unresponsive 4-month-old, the chief told WCCO. In addition, just two hours before the 911 call about the 11-month-old boy, the same 4-month-old child was found unresponsive, but police were not called, the station said.

RELATED: Day-care worker accused of child abuse; father of alleged victim posts images of 1-year-old son’s mangled face

Juell told WCCO that Russell’s “behavior and actions at the scene immediately raised suspicion, drawing investigative focus to her as the primary person of interest.”

Authorities investigating Russell’s background found “a documented history of attention-seeking behavior,” including “nonsensical” 911 calls, fire-starting, and “erratic behavior toward other children,” Juell added to the station.

Following a three-month investigation, Juell told KTSP-TV a clear pattern emerged: Russell was involved in all three incidents at the day care, had the last contacts with the children before the incidents occurred — and exhibited suspicious behavior in the immediate aftermath of each incident.

Russell in an interview with police confessed to “intentionally suffocating” Muklebust and the other child “in an attention-seeking act,” Juell told WCCO, adding that she “confessed to the attempted murder of our first victim on two occasions and to the murder of Harvey Muklebust.”

Russell had worked at the day care for only three weeks before the boy’s death, Juell noted to the station.

WCCO said that after the infant’s death, Rocking Horse Ranch owner Lisa Weiss told the station she had no comment.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services said it suspended Rocking Horse Ranch’s license on Sept. 23 but that the suspension is under appeal.

Russell on Friday was listed on the inmate roster at Scott County Jail. She’s also facing felony assault charges, jail records show.

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​Murder charge, Assault charge, Day-care center, Minnesota, Arrest, Confession, 11-month-old victim, Crime 

Riots broke out in Minneapolis on Wednesday after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot one of three illegal aliens the Department of Homeland Security claims savagely attacked him in an effort to evade arrest.

During the violent riots, independent journalist Nick Sortor captured damning footage of radicals ransacking and destroying federal vehicles. In one of Sortor’s videos, anti-ICE rioters appear to rip a weapons locker out of a federal vehicle. In another video, radicals appear to successfully break open a different weapons locker and seemingly steal a rifle.

Sortor not only managed in the second video to get clear images of the suspected rifle thief’s face — a face with a very specific tattoo — but his apparent license plate as well.

‘Minnesota leadership ENCOURAGES lawbreaking.’

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday evening that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives working in concert with Justice Department partners captured a known member of the Latin Kings gang who allegedly stole FBI body armor and weaponry. Fox News confirmed that the suspect is 33-year-old Raul Gutierrez.

Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office records indicate that Gutierrez of Inver Grove Heights is being held on theft and weapons charges.

“This criminal is a perfect example of what our brave federal law enforcement agents are up against every day as Minnesota leadership ENCOURAGES lawbreaking,” said Bondi.

RELATED: Trump threatens Insurrection Act after ambushed ICE agent shoots illegal alien: ‘Put an end to the travesty’

Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bondi indicated that Gutierrez has a history of violence.

FBI Director Kash Patel indicated that “there will be more arrests,” emphasizing that “any individual who attacks law enforcement or vandalizes federal property paid for by hardworking taxpayers will be found and arrested.”

Sortor, whose vehicle was mobbed and vandalized by anti-ICE radicals on Sunday, noted on Friday that in the wake of the arrest, he has been inundated with complaints from leftists.

“Their Trump Derangement Syndrome is so bad that they’re defending violent gang members who steal machine guns. Lmao,” wrote Sortor. “What a time to be alive.”

Antifa has circulated Sortor’s picture on the liberal X knockoff Bluesky.

Journalist Cam Higby indicated on Thursday that he was swarmed and attacked by anti-ICE protesters who had mistaken him for Sortor.

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​Nick sortor, Sortor, Minneapolist, Renee good, Illegal alien, Venezuelan, Venezuela, Ice, Us immigration and customs enforcement, Immigration, Criminal noncitizen, Crime, Fbi, Doj, Bondi, Patel, Politics 

Are American women experiencing a deeper spiritual crisis beneath today’s political chaos?

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes so, arguing that the most extreme strains of progressive activism are not driven by the majority of women — who largely identify as conservative or moderate — but by a smaller, highly intense subset channeling their natural nurturing instincts into politics.

And the liberal media’s new darling — the perceived victim of the recent ICE shooting in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good — is an example of the stereotypical woman who could be identified as having had a spiritual crisis.

“She’s kind of the stereotype of this liberal, white woman. Is this characterization of older, white women as unstable social justice activists accurate? I would argue yes and no. So if we look at the political demographics of the white woman in America, 36% of white women identify as conservative,” she says.

“Most white women don’t actually identify as liberal: 33% is moderate, 28% as liberal. That is still a large percentage, but that is a lower percentage of progressives in our demographic than any other demographic of women in America. So white women are actually the most conservative female demographic in America,” she continues.

However, as Stuckey points out, the women who identify as liberal are “extremely intense.”

“I think it has to do with this idea of misplaced mothering. And this is not just for white women. This is just for women in general,” she explains.

Misplaced mothering is when women — who have a natural biological instinct to nurture children — instead put that instinct into pets, plants, politics, or their profession.

“This kind of disordered channeling of the nurturing, beautifying, cultivating, mothering instinct creates a kind of inner discord and disorder that lends itself to bitterness and can lend itself to instability and lends itself to outsized passion when it comes to social justice projects and social justice causes,” Stuckey explains.

“The illegal alien becomes your child, or the gangbanger becomes your child, or this man who thinks that he’s caught in the wrong body and just wants to go into the girls’ locker room becomes your child. These causes become your children, the perceived victim in these causes become your children,” she continues.

“And this is all triggered by what I call toxic empathy,” she says, pointing out that the more empathetic a person is, the more likely they are to be radicalized.

“The more highly empathetic someone is, actually, the meaner they can be to those that they don’t perceive as the victim. If you perceive this one person as the oppressed … you’re putting all your feelings in how they feel. Everyone that you see as oppressing that victim becomes your enemy, and you become absolutely ruthless to them,” she explains.

This is why so many highly empathetic women are going to bat for Renee Nicole Good, when if you scroll through their social media history, they’re dancing on the grave of Charlie Kirk.

“She feels like she is like a mother and protector of all of these supposedly marginalized groups,” Stuckey says, “Everyone that she sees as the oppressor becomes the enemy, and she is cruel towards them, and she will fight them tooth and nail.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Free, Sharing, Camera phone, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Renee nicole good, Liberal white women, Liberal women, Spiritual crisis, Misplaced mothering, Toxic empathy 

Some story ideas are best left in the editing room … or in the first draft.

“Marty Supreme” casts Timothee Chalamet as a ‘50s-era ping-pong prodigy hoping to dominate his sport. Yes, we’re talking ping-pong, but it’s still a terrific movie despite the goofy concept. There’s even an impressive performance by “Shark Tank” alum Kevin O’Leary.

Now even a shrinking ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ is reducing the number of live musical interludes between spoon-feedings of propaganda.

His character is the lead’s frenemy, a benefactor who clashes with the brash ping-ponger. Except the film’s ending nearly featured a bloody coda that would have shocked everyone.

And perhaps crushed its Oscar dreams.

Director Josh Safdie reveals the original premise ends with an ‘80s set scene where O’Leary’s character bites Marty in the neck. Yeah, he’s a vampire in that iteration of the film, even though there’s only one vampire reference prior to it. Audiences assumed it’s a metaphor.

A24, the artsy-fartsy studio behind the film, apparently balked at that ending. The rest may be Oscar history. Bullet dodged …

The naked lady sings

Our heroine is a scrappy OnlyFans model, gang!

The political leanings of the Metropolitan Opera’s new “Carmen” update are so on the nose that it would make Pinocchio blush. This take on Bizet’s classic features an ICE agent attacking an innocent victim on a stage decked out to be the U.S. southern border. And that poor soul happens to be an OnlyFans model.

Who knew Orange Man Bad wasn’t a fan of the adult web site? Now we know, and knowing is half the battle. The other half? Saving your money and watching a version that doesn’t devolve into “resistance” agitprop.

Big Bird, free agent

And yet another “we must fund media that hates us” argument hits the bricks.

PBS and NPR finally had their federal funding removed, courtesy of Team Trump. The usual progressive suspects decried this attack on … wait for it … democracy.

Actually our democracy is better when state-sponsored news doesn’t use our cash to suppress stories like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and a cognitively impaired president.

One chronic PBS defense boils down to two words (or one name): Big Bird. Today’s children must have free, unfettered access to the yellow fella living on “Sesame Street” or they’ll grow up listening to Kid Rock.

Now even that argument is going down in flames.

YouTube just partnered with Sesame Workshop to make more than 100 full “Sesame Street” episodes available, for free, to anyone with an internet connection.

Move over, Oscar — looks like another progressive institution is headed for the dustbin of history.

The ‘Show’ must go on (and on)

Jordan Klepper remains gainfully employed by Comedy Central, but his star just won’t rise. He’s the guy who seeks out uninformed Trump supporters and mocks them for his “Daily Show” sycophants.

George Carlin, he ain’t.

This week, Klepper — one of the show’s rotating hosts — attacked President Donald Trump for … supporting the Iranian people desperate to overthrow their tyrannical government.

How does a freedom-fighting fake newsman spin that as something bad? Not to worry — Klepper found a way, calling Trump a hypocrite because he’s against the violent radicals attacking ICE in Minnesota:

Ah, he’s talking about Iran. My mistake. Yes, but you know what? It doesn’t matter, because President Trump is nothing if not consistent in his beliefs and ironclad in his principles. And I know that his police force will treat Americans with that same empathy and restraint when they — ah, [bleep], you know where this is going.

Yes, we do know where it’s going, Jordan. Which is why anyone with a brain tuned out “The Daily Show” a long time ago.

Spin doctors

Scrap the musical guest … we got Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in studio!

Late-night TV is getting out of the music business, laments the Hollywood Reporter. First “The Late Show” cut back on its musical guests. Then “Late Night with Seth Meyers” jettisoned its house band to cut costs.

Now even a shrinking “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is reducing the number of live musical interludes between spoon-feedings of propaganda.

The article laments a great opportunity for emerging bands to make a name for themselves — even if the spots don’t move the needle like they used to.

The bigger message is clear. It’s belt-tightening time with Team Kimmel, and the show’s fans would rather watch Democrats blather than enjoy a cool, new band cracking the zeitgeist.

Oh well. Maybe Senator Pocahontas can lead a drum circle.

​Showbiz, Entertainment, Culture, Opera, Carmen, Only fans, Daily show, Donald trump, Ice, Toto recall 

The criminal case against Brian Jerome Cole Jr. for the alleged January 2021 placement of two pipe bombs on Capitol Hill raises more questions than it answers about Cole’s movements that night and why the FBI appears not to have addressed notable actions in its case documents, as well as the strange behavior of Capitol Police investigators that immediately followed.

The government alleges that Cole, 30 — who the defense says is an autistic man with obsessive compulsive disorder — was a lone wolf who somehow evaded the FBI’s massive dragnet for nearly five years. Blaze News examined the charges against Cole to see if his arrest fits with the case history and facts already in the public square. The list of conflicts, problems, and questions is extensive. This is Part 1.

‘I’m pretty confident that we’re closing in on some suspects.’

The defense disclosure that Cole suffers from Level 1 autism spectrum disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder recast the prosecution’s case and called into question the FBI’s four-hour interview of Cole on Dec. 4 and his alleged “detailed confession” without an attorney present.

“I know that the government has come out and claimed that Mr. Cole has made confessions,” defense attorney Mario Williams said in an interview with WTTG. “Not true. … That interview, we do not consider a confession at all,” Williams said. While Williams asserted his client’s innocence, he declined to comment on whether his client is the hoodie-wearing person depicted in the footage of the bomber.

On Jan. 9, Cole pleaded not guilty to two felony charges in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.: transportation of explosives and malicious attempt to use explosives. His defense has pointed out that the five-year statute of limitations on the charge for transporting explosives expired a day before a federal grand jury handed up the two-count indictment. The status of that charge is not clear.

Disbelief and muted praise

Cole’s arrest was greeted by skepticism and disbelief by the Cole family, by an FBI whistleblower who worked on the pipe-bombs case, and by officials inside the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, and White House, who all spoke privately to Blaze News. Cole’s grandmother, Loretta R. Cole Donnette, told a reporter that her grandson operates on the mental level of a 16-year-old.

While FBI Director Kash Patel went out of his way to credit then-Deputy Director Dan Bongino for assembling a new FBI team that solved the pipe-bomb case using only the evidence and tips the bureau had already compiled, the White House remained silent. Even the FBI’s initial self-congratulations have been muted since the initial press conference.

After Bongino left the FBI in early 2026 to return to his podcasting career, Patel’s farewell comments failed to mention his most high-profile success.

“Dan heads back to the private sector after helping orchestrate a record year for the FBI,” Patel wrote on X on Jan. 4. The director cited eight examples, from the U.S. murder rate to Operation Summer Heat, but nary a mention of the pipe bombs.

This stands in contrast with the attention the two brought to the case in the months leading up to the arrest and in its immediate aftermath. In May, Bongino listed the Jan. 6 pipe bombs as one of the top three cases he and Patel planned to focus on. “We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention to these cases,” Bongino wrote on X May 25.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino (L), accompanied by Attorney GeneralPam Bondi (C) and FBI Director Kash Patel (R), speaks during a news conference on an arrest of a suspect in the January 6 pipe-bomb case at the Department of Justice on December 4, 2025.Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Bongino said in May 2025 that the FBI had been working anew on the pipe-bombs case ever since Patel was sworn in as the ninth director the previous February. He told Fox News: “The second we got in, I put a team on it and I said, ‘I want answers on this.’ And I’m pretty confident that we’re closing in on some suspects.”

It’s not clear what became of any other suspects — plural — Bongino mentioned this past spring, as there was no further word about the case for more than five months, and the FBI now alleges Cole acted alone.

Two months later, in July, Bongino garnered more than 20 million views with a single post on X, writing that he was “shocked” by the things he had learned about the FBI during his brief tenure. He made the remarks in the context of a pledge that he and Patel were “committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations” and later told radio host Vince Coglianese they were specifically in reference to anti-Trump corruption he uncovered investigating the Obama FBI’s 2016 Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence operation that alleged Russian interference in the election.

“It is a priority for us. But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core,” he wrote on X. “We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.”

A rough start for the DOJ

The prosecution got a sloppy start during Cole’s initial court appearance on Dec. 5.

Despite having placed so much importance on the years-long investigation, the Department of Justice did not have an indictment of Cole when he was arrested — only a criminal complaint.

A magistrate judge set Dec. 15 for a detention hearing but did not establish a date for arraignment, where Cole would have an opportunity to enter pleas to the charges. The detention hearing was later moved to Dec. 30 by joint agreement.

Cole’s right to a speedy trial meant federal prosecutors had until Dec. 19 to obtain a federal indictment or face an adversarial preliminary probable-cause hearing, where the government would have had to present its evidence to the judge showing that Cole is likely guilty of the charges and defense attorneys could question the case against their client.

While Cole agreed to delay the detention hearing until Dec. 30, he refused to waive his right to a preliminary hearing within the 14-day window his speedy-trial rights demand, his attorneys said in court filings.

FBI, Prince William County Police Department

The DOJ did a bit of an end run on Dec. 29 by obtaining an indictment of Cole in the local D.C. Superior Court. It is not a standard practice for federal courts to accept indictments from the local or municipal-level D.C. court. A test case on that question is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, though a decision on that case is unlikely in time to affect the Cole case.

While the DOJ finally went back to the district court to get a federal grand jury indictment of Cole on Jan. 6, the statute of limitations on one of the charges had expired — by a single day. Now, Cole’s attorneys are arguing that the DOJ missed both the window for that charge and the deadline for a speedy trial.

After a magistrate judge ruled that Cole must remain locked up until trial, defense lawyers filed an emergency motion for review of the decision with U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who was assigned to the pipe-bombs case.

Cole’s “emergency motion seeks release because the government failed to follow the law, and it does not get to detain Mr. Cole now because the magistrate judge failed to properly release him on Dec. 30,” attorney J. Alex Little wrote in a motion supporting his client’s release.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has worked tirelessly to solve the pipe-bombs case, decried the DOJ’s ongoing efforts to keep Cole in jail until trial.

“No credible motive, presents danger to no one, flimsy evidence, no priors, willing to wear a tracker under house arrest, family will vouch, and DOJ botched the legal work,” Massie wrote on X the day before Cole’s Jan. 7 detention hearing. “Irreparable harm to him otherwise.”

Independent case discoveries

Blaze News outlined shocking case discoveries on Oct. 9 in a feature story on the work of an independent investigator who goes by the social media handle “Armitas” and has asked not to be otherwise named publicly for security reasons.

Armitas tracked the hoodie-wearing bomb suspect by scrubbing the feeds of dozens of U.S. Capitol Police CCTV security cameras. He discovered that the suspect visited two locations apart from where the bombs were found on Jan. 6, 2021.

At the first, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, the suspect sat down cross-legged in front of a bush on the north side of the building. The suspect leaned into the bush and appeared to attempt to place something under the shrub around 7:47 p.m. After 77 seconds, the suspect got up, grabbed the suspect’s backpack, and walked off toward the DNC a few hundred feet away.

The bomber also visited a C Street rooming house near the Capitol Hill Club at about 8:15 p.m. Security video shows the suspect visited the front garden of a congressional rooming house known as the C Street Center, 133 C St. Southeast.

Photos by U.S. Capitol Police

The suspect was standing behind some bushes when a Capitol Police squad car pulled over directly across the street about 8:15 p.m. The suspect then walked south on Rumsey Court and, according to the FBI, placed a bomb along the rear wall of the Capitol Hill Club.

The FBI has never publicly addressed the two Capitol Police squad cars parked across the street from the pipe bomber just as the suspect was moving into place to drop the second pipe bomb. It is not known whether the two patrol officers were ever identified or interviewed.

Armitas said he presented the information about the possible other bomb-drop locations to the FBI and the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Remaining Questions Surrounding Jan. 6. The FBI has not publicly acknowledged the information or explained whether it has investigated the possibility that the bombs were originally intended to be placed and explode at other sites.

Williams said the defense has an expert prepared to testify that the pipe bombs were not explosives and could not have detonated.

“We have an expert that’s well recognized, and we have an expert report,” he said. “Now, these devices that are alleged to be explosive and this or that by the government, what’s the key point that you need to focus on? [They] were not viable, by their [the government’s] own data.”

Either a ‘device’ or a hoax

The first responders to the discovery of the Capitol Hill Club/RNC device had serious doubts that the contraption was a real bomb. This included the head of RNC security and then-Capitol Police Officer Michael Riley, who exchanged looks of disbelief but had no choice but to treat the device as real, Riley told Blaze News.

The devices had 60-minute kitchen timers attached, but were ostensibly placed 17 hours before they were found. Under questioning by Massie in June 2023, former FBI Assistant Director Stephen M. D’Antuono said it was not technically possible for a device with a 60-minute timer to detonate 17 hours later.

The House Subcommittee on Oversight also took issue with the FBI’s description of the pipe bombs as “viable.”

‘By the way, they didn’t go look for a third pipe bomb.’

“According to an FBI bomb technician who agreed to speak to committee staff on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, the FBI’s use of the term ‘viable’ is a deviation from the standard description used by bomb technicians,” read a January 2025 Subcommittee on Oversight report.

“Traditionally, bomb technicians deliberately avoid using vague language,” the report continued, “choosing instead to refer to a bomb as a ‘device’ if it would ‘function as designed,’ or as a ‘hoax.’”

Did Cole set the bomb timer for 60 minutes?

According to the FBI, Cole told agents he set the kitchen timer on the DNC bomb for 60 minutes before he placed the device near a park bench behind the building. However, the video released by the FBI doesn’t show the suspect even attempting to set the timer before placing it under the DNC bush.

Armitas said the surveillance video released by the FBI from a DNC security camera shows that the bomber took the device out of a backpack and immediately placed it under the bush near the base of the park bench. Setting the timer would have required two hands. “Video from 2 different angles shows that the timer was never set,” Armitas wrote on X.

“This device requires 2 full turns of the dial to set it,” Armitas wrote, “not to mention you have to unclip and re-clip all the alligator clips, otherwise turning the dial will close the switch across those clips, shorting the detonator — kaboom. As we can see in the video, the device is pulled out of the backpack and immediately placed.”

Counter-surveillance behavior

One of the two-man Capitol Police counter-surveillance teams dispatched after discovery of the Capitol Hill Club bomb on Jan. 6 exhibited odd behavior in their search for other devices.

The counter-surveillance agents chose to walk all the way from the Capitol South Metro Station near the RNC, despite the urgency of the search. Capitol Police CCTV footage did not show them conducting any searches along the way.

They walked along South Capitol Street Southeast, not stopping at the park bench where the FBI has since insisted the device sat for 17 hours, and proceeded to the north side of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building a few hundred feet from the DNC.

Two U.S. Capitol Police counter-surveillance officers walk toward the Democratic National Committee on Jan. 6, 2021. One of the officers would discover a pipe bomb under a park bench behind the DNC. U.S. Capitol Police

The agents walked up a sidewalk to the front of the CBCI building before returning. One of the agents stopped, leaned down, and looked under a bush beside the sidewalk. It was the same bush where security video shows the alleged bomber stood and sat for 77 seconds the night before, appearing to attempt placement of something under the shrub. What did the agent see? Was it the same thing noticed by a construction worker who peered under the bush at 1:00 p.m., just minutes before?

The CBCI shrub and the bomber’s visit were unknown to police at midday on Jan. 6, and the counter-surveillance agents had not yet discovered the DNC device. Why did the bush draw their attention? How could they have known the shrub could be an important part of the forthcoming investigation?

51 of them ‘were identified as “not needing further action” because the phones “belonged to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list.”‘

The appearance of the bomb suspect at the CBCI bush was not even mentioned in an Oct. 22 video update from the FBI. The animated map shown in the FBI video does not show the bomber walking down a sidewalk north of the CBCI building and spending 77 seconds standing and sitting in front of the shrub.

Once the counter-surveillance agents found a device in the bushes at the DNC, it appears that they stopped searching for other bombs, even though the risk should have been heightened by discovery of a second bomb within just 25 minutes of the first. They later could not account for this when questioned by Rep. Massie.

“How did they know exactly where to look, including the place [Congressional Black Caucus Institute bush] where the pipe bomber tried to place a bomb?” Massie asked. “It was police, it was Capitol Hill Police that found these bombs, and they got there. But … I hope they went and bought lottery tickets after finding these, after going to these two locations.

Bomb orientation different on J6 than night before?

According to Armitas, the hoodie-wearing bomb suspect placed the DNC pipe bomb under the bench with the kitchen timer facing out toward the sidewalk. But when the bomb was discovered by a Capitol Police counter-surveillance agent at 1:05 p.m. Jan. 6, the device’s orientation was 180 degrees different, with the timer facing under the bush and the long end of the pipe facing toward the sidewalk. That could indicate that the bomb was removed after being placed on Jan. 5 and re-placed shortly before its discovery on Jan. 6.

Corrupted cellular data?

In testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary in 2023, the former head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office said some of the data turned over by cell carriers was “corrupted” and that “the corrupted data may have contained the identity of the suspect,” according to a January 2025 U.S. House report.

“We have complete data,” former FBI Assistant Director D’Antuono told a Judiciary committee in June 2023, before correcting himself. “Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers. Not purposely by them, right. It just — unusual circumstances that we have corrupt data from one of the providers.”

In later correspondence with the Judiciary Committee, representatives for AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile said they did not supply corrupted data and that the FBI never notified them with concerns about the integrity of the information they supplied.

The Subcommittee on Oversight said in its January 2025 report that the FBI “has refused to comply with multiple requests from the subcommittee regarding this claim.”

Of the 186 phone numbers of interest identified by the FBI, 51 of them “were identified as ‘not needing further action’ because the phones ‘belonged to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list,’” according to the January 2025 U.S. House report. The names associated with those 51 protected numbers have not been made public.

FBI identified possible suspect using AdID

Case agents developed eight potential targets from subpoenas issued to 10 AdTech companies, which use anonymized trackers to help target advertising to customer prospects. The information collected by AdTech includes “the websites a user visited, their internet activity and a user’s location,” a 2025 House report stated.

Unlike the vague location information from cell phone tower pings, AdTech uses GPS technology to pinpoint a user’s exact location in order to tailor advertising based on the user’s location. Anyone with online-purchasing apps, maps, or applications like DoorDash and Uber Eats can be tracked using AdID technology.

‘The user associated with this AdTech ID was a significant lead.’

According to AdTech, the company’s software tools allow advertisers to reach qualified customer prospects, control how and where advertisements are shown, and optimize advertising spending “in real time.”

The FBI Counterterrorism Advanced Projects Unit initially identified three potential AdID targets, but “none of these targets were ‘particularly high-confidence candidates,’” the 2025 House report stated. By March 2021, the FBI identified one AdID “whose movements matched the suspect’s movements as outlined by the video the FBI released tracking the suspect’s whereabouts.”

The pipe-bombs case team requested that the FBI’s Special Operations Group conduct surveillance on the person of interest tied to the AdID. The House reports called this a “significant lead.”

“It ultimately remains unclear what happened to this lead; however the allocation of resources for surveillance purposes suggests the user associated with this AdTech ID was a significant lead,” the report said.

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​Politics 

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) blasted California officials this week for refusing to extradite a doctor facing abortion charges.

Murrill said that it was “appalling” to see Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) “openly admitting that they will protect an individual from being held accountable for illegal, medically unethical, and dangerous conduct that led to a woman being coerced into terminating the life of her unborn child.”

Remy Coeytaux was charged on Jan. 8 in St. Tammany Parish with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 50 years of hard labor.

‘The trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me.’

Murrill announced on Tuesday — several months after indicating that she would “pursue anyone and use any legal means available” to hold accountable those who distribute abortion pills in the Bayou State — that a criminal arrest warrant had been signed for Coeytaux and his name had been entered into the National Crime Information Center.

Roughly an hour later, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry indicated that he was “signing the extradition paperwork to bring this California doctor to justice.”

“Louisiana has a zero tolerance policy for those who subvert our laws, seek to hurt women, and promote abortion,” said Landry. “I know Gavin Newsom supports abortion in all its forms, but that doesn’t work in Louisiana. We are unapologetically pro-life.”

RELATED: Pro-abortion doctor gets dismantled by Hawley on men and pregnancy: ‘I don’t know how we can take you seriously’

Shuran Huang for the Washington Post via Getty Images

Newsom said in response that “Louisiana’s request is denied.”

“We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services. Not today. Not ever,” said Newsom. “We will never be complicit with Trump’s war on women.”

Newsom suggested that this frustration of Louisiana justice was consistent with his 2022 executive order directing California to decline extradition requests for doctors accused of providing or facilitating abortions.

Nancy Northup, the president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Coeytaux in a separate civil case, told the New York Times that the allegations “are unproven and should not be reported as fact.”

“Women should also be able to get safe and legal abortion care in their own state,” added Northup. “Thousands of women seek abortion pills via mail every year because abortion is banned in their state, and that will not change until abortion is legal everywhere.”

While characterized as safe, abortion pills not only kill unborn children but endanger women’s lives. The Ethics and Public Policy Center noted in a report last year that over 10% of women “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion.”

Coeytaux is accused in a federal lawsuit of sending abortion pills to a Louisiana woman in 2023 — a woman who has indicated she was pressured to take the drugs and is now “haunt[ed]” by her chemical abortion.

Rosalie Markezich, the recipient of the drug and now suffering from the fallout of the abortion, claimed in a September court filing that despite initially celebrating her pregnancy, her boyfriend “soon changed his mind,” then used her personal email address and mailing address to obtain mifepristone and misoprostol “from an online provider that his sister has used multiple times before.”

A few days after allegedly forwarding to Coeytaux the $150 her boyfriend sent her, Markezich received the drugs by mail.

According to her declaration, Markezich changed her mind about killing her child, but her boyfriend, who “had anger issues and a criminal record,” allegedly coerced her into taking them — and she proved unable to throw them back up.

“The trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me,” said Markezich.

Coeytaux is also named in a civil complaint filed in July with the federal court for the Southern District of Texas. The Texas complaint alleges that a woman, Kendal Garza, was pressured by her estranged husband to use abortion drugs allegedly obtained from Coeytaux “to murder” Garza’s unborn child by another man.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) ordered Coeytaux on Aug. 14 to cease and desist from mailing abortion drugs into the state of Texas and indicated such conduct not only violates Texas state law but the federal Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibits the mailing of abortion-related drugs.

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​Abortion, Gavin newsom, Mifepristone, Abortionists, Gavin, Newsom, California, Louisiana, Murrill, Rob bonta, Abortion pill, Interstate, Politics 

Courts can block executive action, so Congress must cut funding. Yet Republicans refuse, leaving the Justice Department and FBI with the same tools Democrats will use again.

That gap between rhetoric and action now threatens to erase everything President Trump promised. In March 2023, he vowed, “For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” and pledged to “obliterate the deep state” and fire the bureaucrats who turned federal law enforcement into a political weapon. Those words land with force. Appropriations decide whether they mean anything.

Trump’s ‘retribution’ pledge will collapse into another campaign slogan if Republicans keep funding the same Department of Justice and FBI they claim to oppose.

But if Trump relies on executive action alone, courts will block key moves and the next Democrat in the White House will reverse the rest. Only structural reforms written into law can stop the next round of weaponization.

That reality hits hardest at the Department of Justice and the FBI. A Congress that keeps funding these agencies under the Biden-era architecture keeps the weaponization machine intact.

Yet Republicans just pushed through a Justice funding bill that drew more Democrat support than conservative support.

That vote captures the GOP Congress since 2017. Leadership passes budget bills with less resistance from Democrats than from Republicans. Spending is the battlefield. Everything else fades fast. If your own side opposes your funding bills more than the other side, you are not changing the country. You are managing the status quo.

Here’s the brutal truth: Congress has not structurally defanged the Justice Department’s weaponization or taken a sledgehammer to the FBI’s open-ended mandate. The same deep-state actors who drove January 6 abuses, FACE Act prosecutions of pro-life activists, and FBI operations like Arctic Frost still collect paychecks.

Republicans had one last chance to shrink this machinery before Democrats likely regain the House. The final Justice Department appropriations bill should have cut off funding for the most abusive programs and permanently reduced the department’s ability to target Americans. Instead, Republicans passed a status quo bill that effectively codifies Biden’s DOJ.

The vote breakdown exposes the scam. All but six House Democrats supported the minibus package that included full-year DOJ funding. Meanwhile, 22 House conservatives opposed it.

The package included three appropriations bills: Commerce-Justice-Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment. Freedom Caucus pressure forced leadership to hold a separate vote on the Commerce-Justice-Science portion first, and even then, it drew 40 Republican “no” votes. Leadership tried to quiet the revolt by swapping out a $1 million earmark for a Somali-led nonprofit after a welfare fraud scandal in that state. That move changed nothing about the bill’s core failures.

RELATED: The ‘blue-slip block’ is GOP cowardice masquerading as tradition

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Democrats voted for this bill despite calling Trump a dictator because the bill left the regime’s tools in place. On the issues that matter most, it stayed silent.

It did not:

Bar funding for future January 6 prosecutions.Bar funding for FACE Act prosecutions of pro-life activists.Address the FBI’s Arctic Frost overreach.Defund sanctuary cities, even though sanctuary policies endanger federal agents and courts have repeatedly blocked Trump’s efforts to punish them. If Congress refuses to codify enforcement policy, courts will keep neutralizing it.Cut off grants to NGOs that help illegal aliens evade deportation. Other appropriations bills even fund refugee resettlement contractors.End incentives for blue states to implement red-flag laws. The bill keeps the $740 million slush fund that bribes states to expand them. It also fails to defund Biden’s pistol brace ban, the “engaged in the business” rule, and the Justice Department’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention.Fund an Election Integrity Office to implement Trump’s executive order on election integrity, even while the bill keeps money flowing to offices that persecute Americans.Rein in the Office of Inspector General, which receives $139 million despite lacking an appointed inspector general and operating under an acting career bureaucrat.

The FBI budget barely took a haircut from its record Biden-era levels. Keep the scale in mind: The bureau has more than 35,000 employees, yet only 138 have been fired so far.

Republicans also promised fiscal discipline. This minibus package totals roughly $180 billion and rejects steeper cuts conservatives proposed in committee. It includes nearly $5.6 billion in earmarks for 3,030 projects. Leadership found room for parochial spending while refusing to squeeze the agencies that turned federal power against the public.

Congress holds one real lever to change the regime without begging courts for permission: the power of the purse. If Republicans won’t pass transformative legislation, they must at least defund odious policies through appropriations.

Trump’s “retribution” pledge will collapse into another campaign slogan if Republicans keep funding the same Department of Justice and FBI they claim to oppose. When Democrats vote happily to fund the very departments that targeted Americans under Biden, the conclusion writes itself. Washington will not dismantle the machine. It will keep it humming until Democrats take power again and aim it at us with even fewer restraints.

​Opinion & analysis, Justice department, Fbi, Weaponized justice, Weaponization, Congress, Senate republicans, Joe biden, Retribution, Budget, Minibus, Arctic frost, Face act, Abortion, Sanctuary cities 

A Venezuelan security guard, speaking to the New York Post after the January 3 raid that captured Nicolás Maduro, described American forces using some kind of directed-energy weapon that left hundreds of defenders bleeding from their noses, vomiting blood, and unable to stand. According to this account, about 20 U.S. troops from roughly eight helicopters took down hundreds of Venezuelan soldiers without a single American death.

The basic facts are wild enough without the sci-fi angle. Delta Force conducted Operation Absolute Resolve in the predawn hours, capturing Maduro and his wife from Fort Tiuna in Caracas. More than 200 special operations forces participated, supported by about 150 aircraft that disabled Venezuelan air defenses and extracted Maduro to New York to face narco-terrorism charges. Venezuela reported over 100 casualties, with only seven U.S. troops injured.

That’s already one of the most audacious military operations since the bin Laden raid.

Trump wants adversaries, particularly in Latin America, to believe the US has these capabilities.

But then comes the guard’s testimony, shared publicly by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on X. He describes radar systems simultaneously shutting down, swarms of drones, and then this mysterious weapon that made his “head feel like it was exploding from the inside.” Mass collapse. Internal bleeding. Complete incapacitation.

To those of us with long memories, it sounded strangely familiar, hearkening back to the “Havana syndrome” attacks on American personnel starting in Havana in 2016. Those attacks were suspected to have been caused by a secret energy weapon. Now, the United States has its own.

Whether we actually used that weapon or the White House just wants you to believe it did, either way, the strategic effect is the same.

The Havana syndrome connection

Starting in late 2016, U.S. diplomats and CIA officers in Cuba began experiencing bizarre symptoms: sudden onset of severe headaches, hearing strange sounds, vertigo, cognitive issues, and what appeared to be actual brain injuries. Over the next several years, hundreds of American personnel reported similar incidents in China, Russia, Austria, and even Washington, D.C.

The National Academies of Sciences concluded in 2020 that “pulsed electromagnetic energy” was the most plausible explanation for at least some cases. Multiple intelligence panels agreed: Directed-energy weapons were the leading theory. In 2024, investigative reporting linked Russia’s GRU Unit 29155 to research on “non-lethal acoustic weapons.”

For years, American officials have suspected, but couldn’t prove, that hostile actors used these weapons against U.S. personnel. The attacks hit diplomats inside embassy compounds, in hotels, and even at home. Invisible, deniable, and devastating.

Now fast-forward to the January 3, 2026, raid and its darkly ironic twist: 32 Cuban military advisers were killed defending Maduro’s compound, possibly hit with the same type of weapon that may have been used against Americans in Cuba.

If true, it sends a message: We know what you did to our people in Havana, and now you’ve experienced it yourselves.

The Pentagon just bought the Havana syndrome weapon

CNN reported on January 13 that Homeland Security Investigations acquired a device through an undercover operation for tens of millions of dollars in the waning days of the Biden administration, using Pentagon funding. The backpack-size device produces pulsed radio waves and contains Russian components.

That portability matters. One of the long-standing questions about Havana syndrome was how you could make a weapon powerful enough to cause brain injuries that’s also portable enough to deploy against specific targets in embassy compounds, hotels, and homes.

The Pentagon tested it for more than a year and considered it serious enough to brief the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in late 2024. There’s still debate within the government about its actual link to Havana syndrome cases, but the acquisition has, according to CNN, “reignited a painful and contentious debate” about whether foreign adversaries have been attacking U.S. officials with directed-energy weapons.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who went public about injuries he sustained in what he believes was an attack in Moscow in 2017, told CNN: “If the [U.S. government] has indeed uncovered such devices, then the CIA owes all the victims a f**king major and public apology for how we have been treated as pariahs.”

This news breaks days after Venezuelan guards described similar symptoms during the Maduro raid. Interesting timing.

RELATED: Polymarket bettors RAGE as the app says Maduro’s capture doesn’t count as ‘invasion’

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But did they actually use it?

The Venezuelan guard’s account describes mass nosebleeds, vomiting blood, and hundreds incapacitated simultaneously. These are more extreme than documented Havana syndrome cases, which typically involved headaches, vertigo, and cognitive issues rather than acute internal bleeding. Could blast overpressure from conventional explosives cause similar effects? Yes. Could shrapnel, concussive force, and chemical irritants from 150 aircraft’s worth of ordnance produce these symptoms? Absolutely.

Here’s what makes me skeptical: Both Maduro and his wife claimed injuries, but they survived and appeared in a Manhattan courtroom days later. The injuries reported (Maduro falling while fleeing, his wife struck in the head) sound like conventional combat trauma, not internal organ damage from directed energy.

And the biggest tell: The White House press secretary amplified this story. The Pentagon just spent tens of millions on a device they suspect is behind Havana syndrome attacks, briefed Congress, and now CNN is reporting on it publicly. If U.S. special forces had actually deployed a classified weapons system and some guard blew the secret, the response would be aggressive operational security and plausible deniability. Instead, we’re getting transparency.

That’s not how you handle a genuine security breach. That’s how you handle a psychological operation.

Why ambiguity is the weapon

The Trump administration wants adversaries, particularly in Latin America, to believe the U.S. has these capabilities. And here’s the brilliance: The technology is real (we have the receipts), but whether it was used remains ambiguous. Venezuela can’t prove it didn’t happen. The U.S. won’t confirm or deny. Adversaries now have to plan for worst-case scenarios.

This is the modern version of Reagan’s Star Wars program. Most scientists knew it couldn’t work as advertised, but the Soviets spent billions trying to counter it anyway. Sometimes the belief in a capability is more valuable than the capability itself.

The United States just demonstrated it can reach into a fortified compound in a hostile capital, extract a head of state, and fly him to New York to face trial, all while suffering minimal casualties. That capability needs no embellishment. But the embellishment serves a purpose: forcing every tin-pot dictator and mid-level drug trafficker in the Western Hemisphere to wonder if they’re next and whether their security forces can protect them from weapons they can’t see or hear.

And for anyone involved in Havana syndrome attacks, whether Cuban, Russian, or anyone else, there’s now a very clear message: If you hit our people with invisible weapons, don’t be surprised when we return the favor. The 32 dead Cuban advisers make that point unmistakably clear, regardless of what weapon actually killed them.

Power projection isn’t just about what you can do; it’s about what others believe you can do.

The bottom line

The truth about Venezuela is probably somewhere in the middle. Electronic warfare to knock out radar and communications? Almost certainly. That’s standard doctrine. Directed-energy weapons causing mass internal bleeding? The technology exists, but the extreme symptoms described don’t match documented effects. Whether they were actually used? Strategically ambiguous.

And that’s the point. The ambiguity itself is the weapon. If they used it, adversaries know America will deploy it. If they didn’t, adversaries still believe they might next time, and uncertainty is often more powerful than certainty.

Here’s a story: Cuba helps Russia attack American diplomats with invisible weapons starting in 2016. Years later, Cuban advisers die defending a dictator when the U.S. raids his compound with technology that sounds awfully familiar. Whether that’s coincidence, retaliation, or just good storytelling doesn’t really matter. The message landed.

That’s worth understanding because we’re going to see more of it in this fifth generation of warfare. The age of warfare where you could independently verify what happened on the battlefield is over. In the era of psychological operations, classified capabilities, and information warfare, the story about the battle matters as much as the battle itself.

Maybe more.

​Tech, Return, Havana syndrome, Venezuela, Nicolas maduro, Operation absolute resolve 

A native Salvadoran faces likely deportation after pleading guilty in connection with nearly $1 million in COVID-related fraud.

On Tuesday, a man who calls himself a woman and prefers the name Ruby Corado learned that he will have to spend 33 months behind bars followed by two years of supervised release. Corado pled guilty to one count of wire fraud back in July 2024.

Corado was previously charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of monetary instruments, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds, and failure to file a report of a foreign bank account. Prosecutors dropped the other charges in exchange for the guilty plea.

‘You betrayed this country.’

In 2020, Corado applied for two federal COVID-relief loans on behalf of Casa Ruby, the now-defunct nonprofit he founded in Washington, D.C., ostensibly to help homeless LGBTQ+ youth. An Economic Injury Disaster Loan and a Paycheck Protection Program loan, both from the Small Business Administration and totaling $956,215, were then deposited directly into a Casa Ruby account, according to a defense sentencing memorandum.

However, Corado instead wired at least some of those funds overseas and hid them from the IRS, prosecutors claimed, according to NBC Washington. Corado also escaped to El Salvador in 2022, apparently to evade federal authorities.

Prior to sentencing, Corado submitted a statement to the court, admitting to funneling at least $200,000 to El Salvador. He claimed he had hopes of establishing Casa Ruby services there

“I am sorry that my mistake impacted my work,” he told the court.

RELATED: Transvestite founder of LGBT group caught 2 years after fleeing country; faces federal fraud charges

Photo by Linda Davidson/Washington Post/Getty Images

In his statements during the sentencing hearing on Tuesday, D.C. District Judge Trevor McFadden issued a scathing rebuke of Corado.

“You betrayed this country,” McFadden said, according to WUSA9. “You spotted an opportunity to defraud the American people.”

McFadden also professed himself “very dubious” that Corado tried to bring Casa Ruby to El Salvador, noting that the defense offered no evidence that Corado had attempted to establish any nonprofit there.

McFadden also ordered Corado to pay back the SBA in full.

The defense had argued for leniency, requesting that Corado, who identifies as a “transgender woman,” be able to serve his sentence at a local jail or perhaps even at home out of fear that the Trump DOJ will place him in a men’s facility in accordance with his “biological sex”:

DOJ policy has moved to align federal detention practices with directives rejecting gender identity in favor of “biological sex,” resulting in transgender women being transferred into men’s facilities and in efforts to curtail gender-affirming medical care. Attorneys representing transgender women in BOP custody have described these shifts as placing their clients in “incredibly dangerous” situations, effectively emboldening predators and exposing inmates to foreseeable harm. As one longtime advocate explained, the signals sent by these policies can determine “whether a person lives or dies.”

Whether Corado will be housed in a men or women’s facility remains unclear, though he was incarcerated in a men’s jail after his arrest in March 2024. What is clear is that Corado will likely be deported back to El Salvador after his sentence is concluded.

“Your deportation is likely if not certain,” Judge McFadden said.

Corado also faces a civil suit regarding alleged failure to pay Casa Ruby employees. Though that suit was paused pending the criminal proceeding, it may soon resume now that Corado has been convicted.

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​Ruby corado, Casa ruby, Lgbtq, El salvador, Transgender, Covid, Politics 

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have refused to honor congressional subpoenas requiring them to testify about Jeffrey Epstein and the federal government’s handling of his crimes.

The former president and secretary of state responded with a sharply worded letter to House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) — also posted publicly on X — dismissing the probe as partisan politics designed to distract from the Trump administration’s failures, including aggressive ICE operations; January 6 pardons; threats to funding and free speech for universities, media companies, and law firms; the dismantling of national security agencies (such as USAID); and the weaponization of the Department of Justice.

“Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time,” the letter declares.

“Really? Now? … Now, when you’re asked to testify in front of Congress under subpoena about Epstein? That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back?” Glenn Beck retorts, calling the timing of their sudden “fight” for “principles” suspiciously convenient.

Their letter and refusal aren’t about justice or principle at all — they’re about what the Clintons have always prized most: self-preservation.

In the letter, Washington’s most scandal-ridden, slippery duo wrote, “You accepted the least from those who know the most but demand the most from those who know the least. To say that you can’t complete your work without speaking to us is simply bizarre.”

Glenn finds this statement so absurd, it’s almost funny. “Is there anybody that was closer to Epstein than Bill and Hillary Clinton? I mean, maybe not Hillary, but Bill? I mean, he was there all the time,” he claps back. “In the stairway of the Epstein mansion was that weird-ass picture of Bill Clinton in the dress with his legs draped over wearing heels.”

The letter also addressed the potential for contempt of Congress charges. “We expect you will direct your committee to seek to hold us in contempt,” they wrote, denouncing such an act as a partisan move that will only halt Congress.

In 2022, however, Hillary Clinton publicly supported holding both Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro — former Trump advisers — in contempt of Congress for defying the Jan. 6 subpoenas.

But now that the same fate is staring them in the face, the Clintons are suddenly calling it “injustice.”

“You don’t get to suddenly sound like James Madison after you spent four straight years trying to put Donald Trump in prison by any means necessary,” Glenn says, recalling that “it was Hillary Clinton that started the whole Russiagate thing.”

“[The Clintons] did everything — Russian collusion, manufactured intelligence, leaked FISA warrants, media operation masquerading as journalism, all of that stuff,” he continues. “Now, we know that all of this stuff is based on lies, so when I hear warnings about the Justice Department being used as a cudgel, … when I hear lectures about intimidation and subpoena and punishments of enemies, you know, I don’t dismiss them, but I also don’t forget who the people were that normalized it.”

The truth is, everyone who was tied to Epstein in any way — not excluding President Trump — should be questioned, Glenn says.

“Doesn’t mean they all go to jail. Doesn’t mean they all did something. But you should be questioned — all of them,” he says.

“I don’t want show trials. I don’t want immunity for friends or punishment for enemies. … I want equal justice under the law — you know, the kind written in the Constitution and almost never practiced by anybody in power lately.”

But Glenn knows the odds of real justice ever catching up to the Clintons are slim to none.

“They’re above it all,” he acknowledges.

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

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Clintons, Clinton subpoena, Epstein, Bill clinton, Epstein island, Epstein victims, Crooked hillary, Hillary clinton 

A wife sleeping next to her husband said she was awakened by a loud noise and heard some liquid dripping before turning on the light and finding out it was blood, according to Pennsylvania police.

Court documents say 42-year-old Douglas Dietz was shot and killed by their adopted son, an 11-year-old boy, over a Nintendo Switch gaming console.

He allegedly described opening the safe, removing the gun, and walking to his father’s side of the bed.

Even more shocking, the incident occurred after the family celebrated the boy’s birthday.

Police said they responded to the home on South Market Street in the borough of Duncannon early on Tuesday morning at about 3:20 a.m. They found Dietz dead from a shot in the head in his bedroom.

Police noted that the parents’ bedroom was connected through a closet to their son’s bedroom.

Dietz’s wife told them she had smelled a strong scent like fireworks when she awoke to discover her husband shot after turning on the lights.

Their son, Clayton Dietz, allegedly entered the room and said, “Daddy’s dead.”

Police also reported that they heard the boy say, “I killed Daddy,” to their mother.

When police questioned him, he said that the family had a good time but that he grew angry at his father when he was told to go to bed.

“He admitted that he had someone in mind whom he was going to shoot, whom he identified as his father,” police wrote in their report.

The boy said that he found the key to their gun safe when he was looking for his Nintendo Switch that had been previously taken away. He allegedly described opening the safe, removing the gun, and walking to his father’s side of the bed.

“He pulled back the hammer and fired the gun at his father,” police said.

The boy faces homicide charges.

RELATED: Man admitted to killing his mother and then beheading her, South Dakota police say

A neighbor named Jesse Weldon told WGAL-TV that he was shocked by the incident.

“They’re very kind. I mean, I didn’t talk to them much. They, you know, kept to themselves over there and just seemed pretty nice. I didn’t expect this,” Weldon said.

The boy was booked into the Perry County Prison, where he is being held without bail.

The couple adopted the boy in 2018, when he would have been about 3 years old.

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​Clayton dietz kills father, Douglas dietz killed, Son murders his father, Murder over nintendo switch, Crime 

Slate magazine published a hit piece by an anti-Trump propagandist on Tuesday suggesting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does such a poor job of screening applicants that “trigger-happy” criminals — or even subversive Antifa apologists — could find themselves with badges.

“A few months ago, ICE hired me,” Laura Jedeed, the self-identified “anti-ICE journalist” behind the piece, noted in a summary of her article on X. “I didn’t sign and submit any paperwork. I’m real outspoken about my opinion of the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable[.] And yet, there it was, in plain English. ‘Welcome to ICE!'”

‘ICE had officially hired me.’

Liberal rags such as the Guardian and Democracy Now! rushed to amplify Jedeed’s tale, along with her suggestion that if she made it through the recruitment process, then pedophiles, rapists, white supremacists, and other unsavory characters might similarly be securing ICE jobs.

The Department of Homeland Security stated, however, that the Slate article’s core claim was “a lazy lie.”

This response was met in turn with a community note on X casting doubt on the agency’s denial.

After corresponding with both parties, Blaze News learned that contrary to the 38-year-old leftist’s suggestion, ICE neither hired Jedeed nor sent her a final offer.

In her article, Jedeed claimed she spoke to a recruiter and submitted her resume at an ICE career expo in Texas last August, working under the presumption that her time serving in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, her repeat deployments to Afghanistan, and her civilian analyst work might “tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting.”

RELATED: Trump threatens Insurrection Act after ambushed ICE agent shoots illegal alien: ‘Put an end to the travesty’

Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images

Jedeed indicated that on Sept. 3, she received a tentative offer instructing her to log on to USAJobs, fill out a declaration for federal employment, and submit several documents, including driver’s license information, an affidavit that she never received a domestic violence conviction, and a form consenting to a background check.

‘I never received an emailed final offer.’

Despite supposedly doing “exactly none of these things,” she allegedly received an email three weeks later indicating that she had confirmed her intention to continue with the hiring process and asking her to complete a pre-employment drug test.

The leftist suggested that she subsequently traveled to her local LabCorp, underwent a drug test with THC potentially coursing through her system, and then — nine days later — discovered that “ICE had apparently offered me a job.”

“According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was ‘EOD’ — Entered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period,” she wrote. “I moused over the exclamation mark next to ‘Onboarding’ and a helpful pop-up appeared. ‘Your EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE!'”

In a video Jedeed shared online, the ICE recruitment portal appears to indicate that she was in the fifth and final stage of onboarding for the role of deportation officer, despite indications that she not yet completed the drug or physical fitness tests. The video also appears to show the ICE portal state welcome Jedeed to ICE and specify that her EOD was on Sept. 30.

“By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me,” Jedeed wrote. “Perhaps, if I’d accepted, they would have demanded my pre-employment paperwork, done a basic screening, realized their mistake, and fired me immediately.”

While the DHS did not comment on the authenticity of Jedeed’s video, a spokesperson told Blaze News, “This individual was NEVER offered a job at ICE. Applicants may receive a Tentative Selection Letter following their initial application and interview that is not a job offer.”

The agency’s careers page states that “following receipt of a tentative selection letter, you must complete per-employment requirements. These requirements vary by position. All positions require security vetting and drug test. You may also be required to pass a medical exam, fitness exam and oral board interview.”

The page notes further that “a tentative selection letter remains tentative until all pre-employment requirements are met for the position.”

RELATED: Blocking ICE with ‘micro-intifada’: Good’s group taught de-arrest, cop-car chaos before her death

Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

When asked about the DHS statement to Blaze News, Jedeed said, “I did not receive a final offer, nor did I accept one.”

Jedeed noted in a follow-up email, “To clarify: I did not receive a final offer in the mail.”

“I never received an emailed final offer — the portal indicated that I had already accepted that offer, as you can see from the screen capture posted on X,” she wrote.

When asked whether she suspected or had any reason to believe that the system would have barred her from proceeding upon hitting the accept button, Jedeed told Blaze News:

I do not know what would have happened had I hit that accept button on the ICE portal. It’s possible they would have asked for the paperwork — I certainly hope so. But the fact I already had an EOD date before filling out paperwork which the tentative job offer described as mandatory for proceeding to the next phase of the hiring process (final offer, onboarding), and the fact that my background check showed up as completed, are reasons for concern.

While she was not hired, did not receive a final offer, and has conceded that perhaps what she experienced on the ICE recruitment portal was “some kind of computer glitch,” Jedeed nevertheless suggested in her Slate piece that her recruitment experience is indicative of a broader problem at the agency — a problem that set the stage for Renee Nicole Good’s death.

“How are we to trust ICE’s allegedly thorough investigations of the people they detain and deport when they can’t even keep their HR paperwork straight?” Jedeed wrote. “And if they’re not going to screen me out, what hope is there of figuring out which recruit might one day turn into a trigger-happy agent who would forget that law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of vehicles, get jumpy, and shoot a 37-year-old woman to death on the streets of Minneapolis?”

Jedeed, like her fellow travelers in the media, neglected to mention that Good — whom Jedeed claimed was murdered — was shot while driving her SUV into an ICE agent after ignoring multiple lawful orders and interrupting a federal law enforcement operation.

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Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said in a social media post that she stopped Democrats from sending $1 million to an addiction center with ties to ISIS, and has called for a fraud investigation.

She went on to say that Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah helped her stop the funds, but called on the Department of Justice to investigate the alleged fraud scheme.

‘It is undeniable that expressing admiration for someone who sought to commit atrocities against the United States raises most serious concerns.’

The center was located above a Somali restaurant that was run by three people who live in the same house, and they have a relative who tried to join ISIS, according to Ernst.

She posted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding an investigation into Generation Hope MN that is based in Minneapolis. The organization was established in 2019 and is described as a Somali-led addiction recovery and substance use disorder center.

Ernst said the group lists on their 501(c)(3) non-profit application three people as directors who live at the same address. She documented the organization’s spending profile and said it suggests “minimal direct services, opaque financial reporting, and heavy reliance on contractor payments,” which she said “should trigger immediate scrutiny, not federal taxpayer dollars.”

In addition, Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame was arrested in 2015 along with nine others for preparing to travel to Syria in order to join the ISIS terrorist group. He is the older brother of Generation Hope MN founder Abdirahman Warsame.

The older Warsame agreed to a plea deal that included a 30-month sentence.

“Should someone with such associations be considered worthy of taxpayer funding?” she wrote. “We do not know Abdirizak Warsame’s current views on ISIS or its goals, nor how his influence may shape his brother’s actions and aspirations, but it is undeniable that expressing admiration for someone who sought to commit atrocities against the United States raises most serious concerns.”

RELATED: Minnesota news outlet is getting wrecked online for story on Somali migrants’ economic impact

Abdirahman Warsame responded to the accusations in a post on the Facebook page for the organization and denied many of the claims.

“To be clear, Generation Hope has never committed fraud, or submitted falsified paperwork. In addition, we have not received any federal funding related to this proposed request,” the statement reads.

“Generation Hope is a grassroots organization rooted in the community at large, created from a place of pain and hope for the future,” he added. “We have served the recovery community for nearly seven years, and we plan to continue to do so.”

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The Los Angeles Police Department has angered officials of the Latino Equality Alliance after saying that a man flinging bags of poop at their center is not criminally prosecutable.

Members of the Mi Centro LGBTQ Community Center in Boyle Heights have been cleaning up small bags of dog poop being deposited at the center for months. They say it’s an expression of hate-filled fecal vandalism against the LGBTQ community.

‘This “legal loophole” has left the center and its youth vulnerable to continued harassment without consequence.’

In August, the center posted an image of the dog poop in a post on Facebook that called the acts “abhorrent” as well as “unacceptable.” Some of the poop was tossed onto the awning in front of the center.

Months later, a suspect was identified with the aid of surveillance video, but police reportedly told the center that the dog poop deposits “do not meet the threshold for criminal prosecution.” Because the man has left poop inside of bags, it only meets the far lower standard of a littering infraction.

“This ‘legal loophole’ has left the center and its youth vulnerable to continued harassment without consequence,” reads a statement from the center.

LEA Executive Director Eddie Martinez told the media that police needed “substantial evidence” to prove the acts constituted a hate crime.

“They said a bag of poop is not enough to be arrested,” Martinez lamented.

RELATED: Rainbow Pride fence vandalized with sexual images and anti-gay message; police investigating as hate crime

Bell Police Department Chief Damian Velasco said at the same press conference that officers had contacted the suspect and were waiting to hear from him to determine “what the mindset is and what exactly is going on.”

The center describes itself as serving LGBTQ+ persons of “Latinx” and “Latine” descent.

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A Las Vegas special education aide is accused of dragging an autistic elementary school student by the arm 30 feet down a hallway.

Clark County School District Police on Friday arrested 21-year-old Zachary May at J.E. Manch Elementary School, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

The arrest report said the student stood up after being dragged and attempted to kick May in the shin, the paper added.

May faces one felony count of battery on a vulnerable person and one felony count of child abuse or neglect, the Review-Journal noted, citing North Las Vegas Justice Court records.

Police said school surveillance video showed May dragging the student from a classroom doorway into a hallway shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday, the paper said.

The student has limited verbal communication abilities and had entered an open classroom and greeted students before May arrived and attempted to get the student to leave, the paper said, citing the arrest report.

Police said a person who witnessed the incident indicated that the student fell to their knees before May “aggressively grabbed (them) by the arm and dragged (them) out of the classroom while (the student) was still on the floor,” the Review-Journal reported.

The witness didn’t hear May say anything to the student, but he showed frustration on his face, the paper reported, citing police.

About five minutes later, video showed the student running away from May and turning a corner in the school’s hallway, the Review-Journal said, citing the arrest report. May turned the corner, grabbed the student, and again dragged the student down the hallway — this time for about 4 feet, the paper said, citing the arrest report.

The teacher’s assistant also was seen hovering over the student at one point, KVVU-TV reported.

RELATED: Florida classroom assistant jailed after ‘knee-jerk’ physical reaction to 6-year-old autism student’s behavior: Cops

Two of the elementary school’s assistant principals told police they reviewed the school’s surveillance video and saw May grab the student by the arm and drag the student for about 30 feet, the Review-Journal reported.

The arrest report said the student stood up after being dragged and attempted to kick May in the shin, the paper added.

More from the Review-Journal:

Police said they visited the student’s house for a wellness check following the incident and took photos of the student’s arms. The arms did not show any fresh injuries, bruising or marks, the arrest report said.

Police placed May into handcuffs on Friday morning and briefly spoke to him inside a conference room at Manch Elementary, according to the arrest report. When asked about Thursday’s incident, May told police that he placed a minor restraint on the student after they escaped him.

May’s felony arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 9, the paper said, citing court records.

A separate KVVU report said May has been employed with the district since January 2025 and was last assigned to Manch Elementary School as a specialized programs teacher assistant.

Police told the station he will be placed on unpaid leave after negotiation.

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On Monday at their end-of-season media conference, Baltimore Ravens’ owner Steve Bisciotti made statements about the team’s quarterback Lamar Jackson that deeply upset fans and NFL commentators.

When asked whether Lamar Jackson was consulted before head coach John Harbaugh was fired, Bisciotti said that while he had spoken with Lamar, whom he described as “nonconfrontational,” he didn’t play an “outsized part” in the decision.

He also said that when it comes to hiring a new head coach, Jackson has “a lot of say, but he has no power.”

“Let me translate that for you,” says BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock. “What he’s saying is: Lamar Jackson is not a leader.”

“It’s not that leaders look for confrontation, but they’re not afraid of confrontation. They don’t avoid confrontation. They don’t avoid conflict. They settle conflict. … That’s not Lamar Jackson,” he says.

“[Jackson] knows what he can actually do, and that’s play quarterback, make enough plays with his arms and feet to be an exceptional quarterback, but that’s it. He’s not a leader. They don’t have the traditional quarterback leadership with Lamar Jackson.”

The fans and critics who have complained about Jackson’s lack of power when it comes to team decisions clearly don’t understand this about him, says Jason. But Bisciotti “[knows] exactly who Lamar Jackson is” — not a “business mogul who we need to be conferring with before making business decisions” but an “overgrown [child].”

Part of Jackson’s growing up journey needs to involve “[keeping] his mama out of his business,” says Jason. Jackson’s mother, Felicia, has operated as his manager since his NFL debut and to this day plays a central role in his contract negotiations.

Jason warns that if she gets “gassed up by the idiots on ESPN and other places that talk about ‘player empowerment’ and ‘Lamar must have influence,”’ she’s going to create major problems between her son and Steve Bisciotti.

If Jackson were anything like former Ravens’ heart-and-soul leaders Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, it’d be a different story.

“Steve Bisciotti makes it crystal clear we don’t have a Ray Lewis situation here with Lamar Jackson. We have a great quarterback who likes to play video games, who can’t stay healthy for 17 games, particularly now as he ages and takes more hits. We want to keep this quarterback, but we’re not going to treat him like he’s Ray Lewis or Ed Reed,” says Jason.

To hear more of his commentary, watch the video above.

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A Florida woman was arrested on numerous charges after she allegedly punched a state trooper during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation Tuesday.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said 40-year-old Jennifer Cruz of Jacksonville objected to the ICE operation on Beach Boulevard but ended up getting arrested herself.

‘The idea that you’re going to assault one of our troopers is unacceptable, and you are going to face consequences as a result of that.’

“This is Jennifer Cruz of Jacksonville. Jennifer disagrees with immigration enforcement and decided to commit a few felonies by getting out of her car and punching a Trooper in the face,” Uthmeier said in a post on social media.

“But unlike Minnesota, we don’t put up with this nonsense. Not today, Jennifer,” he added.

Uthmeier included an image of Cruz’s arrest from a police camera.

The owner of the Mi Pueblo Mexican grocery store spoke to WJXT-TV about the arrest that unfolded in front of his business.

“What I witnessed was a traffic stop by the state trooper,” Juan Alvarez said. “ICE agents showed up with the state trooper. They detained a driver, the person was driving, and so yeah, they had an operation going on, and after that, they had detained another person, but it seems they got into an altercation with that person. It turned violent, and that led to the presence of a lot of more, you know, police, federal enforcement showing up.”

He was also able to record officers taking down Cruz from the window of his shop.

Jail records indicate Cruz was charged with a slew of crimes, including resisting an officer with violence, battery on law enforcement, and driving with a suspended driver’s license.

RELATED: Michigan sandwich shop faces backlash for profanity-laced tirade against ICE: ‘F**k your BLATANT fascism’

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis commented on the arrest during a media briefing.

“This is not Minneapolis. This is not going to end well for you in Florida,” he said. “You have a right to go out there and criticize government policy. You can go out there and protest within respected zones, but the idea that you’re going to assault one of our troopers is unacceptable, and you are going to face consequences as a result of that.”

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Protests continue to rage across the nation for Renee Good — the 37-year-old woman who was lethally shot by an ICE officer on January 7 after she struck him with her vehicle while intentionally impeding a federal immigration enforcement operation.

Some liberal activists — particularly women — are showing their solidarity with Good and opposition to President Trump and ICE by recycling the stunt they pulled in 2024 following Donald Trump’s presidential victory over Kamala Harris.

Shortly after the election, a trend went viral on social media where women shaved their heads in protest of what they perceived as the beginning of a dictatorship. Now they’re doing the same thing for Renee Good — buzzing all their hair off because that somehow sticks it to the man.

“These people are psychotic,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says.

And they’re also not the smartest. Sara plays a video of one woman participating in the head-shaving trend, dubbed “Shave for Renee,” except her social media caption reads: “We watched Renee Cook get brutally gunned down by ICE.”

“This dumbass is shaving her own head over someone whose name she doesn’t even know,” Sara laughs.

And to the people who are still perpetuating the narrative that Renee Good didn’t hit the ICE officer with her SUV, Sara corrects them: “He was actually struck by the vehicle and suffered internal bleeding to his torso, according to DHS.”

A Fox News article confirms that Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot Good, discovered in the hospital that he had internal bleeding — a stark contrast to Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey’s statement that Ross “walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door with his hips.”

“But please, keep shaving your heads so we know who all the Looney Tunes are. It’s actually a very good indicator,” Sara scoffs.

To see the head-shaving video protesting the death of “Renee Cook” and to hear more of Sara’s scathing commentary, watch the video below.

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Unsurprisingly Texas bears a disproportionate share of the burden from illegal immigration due to its expansive southern border. Now state leadership has released the numbers to prove the massive financial burden illegal aliens have had on one sector in particular: hospitals.

New data has been released by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission showing a baffling 10-figure financial burden on Texas hospitals in fiscal year 2025, Texas Scorecard first reported.

The total cost tipped over the billion-dollar mark: $1,050,642,864.

According to the new data, the total visits between November 2024 and August 2025 reached 313,742 for those “not legally present.”

RELATED: Trump threatens Insurrection Act after ambushed ICE agent shoots illegal alien: ‘Put an end to the travesty’

Photographer: Desiree Rios/Bloomberg via Getty Images

And the total cost tipped over the billion-dollar mark: $1,050,642,864.

The year-end totals show that the burden is not only on one type of care either.

A large portion of the visits come from the “Emergency Department – Non-Medicaid/Non-CHIP” category, though the lion’s share of the cost comes from the “Inpatient Discharges – Non-Medicaid/Non-CHIP” category, meaning that the hospital system is being burdened by illegal aliens seeking both emergency and long-term care.

This data was collected and released pursuant to an executive order signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in August 2024. The order directed hospitals to begin collecting data on illegal alien patients in Texas hospitals beginning in November 2024.

As Texas Scorecard noted, these numbers are therefore not reflective of the full fiscal year, and the actual totals very likely exceed these figures.

Abbott argued in the executive order that Texans ultimately bear the burden of public financial support through higher taxes and more expensive medical care as well.

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