Category: blaze media

A Florida woman who tried to get a trend going to encourage shooting MAGA supporters was found guilty by a federal jury and now faces up to five years in prison.

Desiree Doreen Segari, 41, of Sarasota posted a video to TikTok calling on people to shoot at supporters of the Make America Great Again movement, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

‘Put them back in their basements, make them scared again to be racist, homophobic, and terrible just awful [expletive].’

“So if we all get our guns and use our Second Amendment right … and you see somebody with a MAGA hat, ‘pew pew,’ that’s what we do. That’s the way; it’s the only way,” Segari said on the video, according to the statement.

While saying “pew pew,” the woman made shooting gun gestures with her hands.

“Put them back in their basements; make them scared again to be racist, homophobic, and terrible just awful f**king pieces of s**t,” she added.

“MAGA people deserve to be terrified and scared to walk in the streets because they should know that real Americans are gonna f**king kill them,” Segari said.

She added the hashtag “see MAGA pew pew MAGA” on the post and wrote, “Starting a new trend, hope it catches on. Please spread the word. Share this video. Repost it. Use the hashtag all over the internet. Let’s go guys. It’s time to fight back in a potentially effective manner.”

In case there wasn’t enough evidence against her, Segari posted a second photo reiterating her intention.

“See MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA so these [expletive] know we ain’t here to play,” she added.

Segari’s video was posted to social media, where it was widely condemned.

RELATED: ‘He is no victim’: Sister of man shot by Border Patrol in Arizona tells anti-ICE protesters to stop defending him

She was indicted in Sept. 2025 and later found guilty by a federal jury of interstate communication of a threat to injure.

Segari is scheduled to be sentenced on May 5.

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​Desiree segari convicted, Tiktok threats against maga, Liberal threat against maga, Social media political threats, Florida woman threat maga tiktok, Politics 

James Talarico, the Democratic nominee hoping to succeed Republican John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate, routinely concern-mongers about traditional Christian views and their influence on American society.

For instance, Talarico stressed during his recent interview with CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert the supposed need to confront “Christian nationalism” — a catchall term he and other radicals use to describe their ideological foes who also happen to be Christian in a nation almost entirely founded by Christians and where today over six in 10 adults are Christian.

The hypocrisy of Talarico’s criticism was highlighted in an excerpt of one of his sermons that resurfaced this week.

‘Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy.’

Talarico — a part-time Presbyterian seminarian who has attempted to use scripture to justify abortion, protested the public display of the Ten Commandments, voted against sparing kids from sex-rejection mutilations, and claimed there are six sexes — discussed the separation of church and state during a sermon at his home church on June 30, 2024.

After criticizing those on the Christian right for supposedly politicizing their faith, Talarico effectively admitted he does the same thing.

“My faith in Jesus leads me to reject Christian nationalism and commit myself to the project of a multiracial, multicultural democracy where we can all freely love God and fully love our neighbors,” said the Democrat.

“My politics grows out of my faith.”

RELATED: David French catches flak for claiming Talarico, a pro-abortion Democrat, ‘acts like a Christian’

Non-straight activist flag hanging prominently from Biden White House. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images.

“Democracy is a Christian value, and Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy,” added Talarico, fretting that some of the Christian Americans with whom he disagrees seek, in Jesus’ name, to ban homosexual “marriage” and the slaying of unborn babies.

Talarico stated in the portion of the sermon that has gone viral, “It’s been said before that when fascism comes to America, it’ll be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Christian nationalists use Christianity to protect their own social, political, and economic power.”

The X account for the National Republican Senatorial Committee noted that Talarico made these remarks while standing in front of a cross wrapped in a so-called “Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag,” complete with the purple “intersex” symbol. While waging lawfare against traditional Christians, the previous administration hoisted the same colors at home and abroad.

Second Amendment activist and leftist-protest survivor Kyle Rittenhouse commented, “Bro just outted himself.”

The same excerpt from Talarico’s sermon was shared unironically in 2024 by the Austin chapter of the LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign, a group that has advocated for policies that infringe upon the religious liberties of Christians and Christian groups.

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Space enthusiasts will have to wait even longer to see man set foot on the moon for the first time since 1972.

The delays are an interesting chapter in a book of American space exploration that has featured stranded astronauts, Elon Musk, and celebrity forays in recent years.

The lunar landing task would fall under Artemis IV, which has a launch date of early 2028.

In 2024, Boeing astronauts were stranded in space and had to be rescued by Musk’s SpaceX program.

2025 saw headlines from the widely mocked New Shepard program, backed by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. The all-female celebrity jaunt traveled to the Karman line, known internationally as the official boundary of space, grabbing attention while actual female astronauts were simultaneously in orbit conducting space operations.

At the same time, 2025 was meant to be the year NASA’s Artemis III would land astronauts near the South Pole of the moon for the first time. Now, that target has been pushed back and the mission seems increasingly distant.

RELATED: Is real-life ‘Star Wars’ America’s manifest destiny?

Photo bty CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Not only is Artemis III still not ready, but Artemis II hasn’t even launched yet. Artemis II was planned as a crewed lunar orbit aimed at testing systems before the lunar landing. NASA gave it a mission window of late 2024.

However, in 2024, NASA pushed Artemis II back for the first time to September 2025, while Artemis III (the human landing) received a new window of September 2026. After more delays, the 10-day Artemis II mission has since been scheduled for no earlier than April 2026, but the lunar landing mission will be delayed even longer than expected.

Now, Artemis III is scheduled for mid-2027. Its official mission page states that it will launch by 2028. However, the parameters have now shifted and this mission will no longer complete a lunar surface landing at all.

That feat has since been bumped to another mission, according to NASA.

RELATED: Actresses Olivia Munn and Olivia Wilde mock all-female trip to space: ‘Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride?’

Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images

The space program will certainly not be making any believers with its latest announcement in early March, which stated that the lunar landing task would fall under Artemis IV, which has a launch date of early 2028.

According to the announcement, NASA plans to launch another lunar surface mission, Artemis V, by the end of 2028, followed by subsequent annual missions thereafter.

“This mission also is when NASA is expected to begin building its moon base,” NASA claimed.

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The head priest and dean of an Episcopalian church in Pennsylvania is in trouble with the law due to a recent string of alleged thefts.

According to police, a Walmart store says it has the priest on security video stealing for five days straight, snatching up items and leaving without paying.

‘Please pray for Aidan.’

The Very Reverend Aidan Smith from the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh was arrested at the end of February after he allegedly continuously stole from a Walmart in Economy Borough. As ABC News reported, police said Smith was arrested with 27 packs of baseball cards concealed under his clothing in a carboard box.

The arrest came after five consecutive days of allegedly stealing baseball cards, with each alleged theft ranging from $121-$261 of merchandise.

Walmart has reportedly valued the cards at $1,099.99 total, and the reverend has been charged with receiving stolen property and retail theft.

RELATED: What Shia LaBeouf’s public struggle shows us about Christian redemption

Following Smith’s arrest, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Right Reverend Ketlen Solak, sent a message to cathedral members addressing the situation.

“I have spoken with Aidan and assured him of our prayers for him in this difficult time,” Solak wrote, per NBC News. “Please pray for Aidan, for Melanie and their children, for the entire cathedral congregation as we grieve this news, and for everyone involved in this hard situation,” she concluded.

Diocesan officials will reportedly investigate the situation and follow church procedure for the handling of clergy misconduct.

According to Solak, Smith has been on administrative leave from the cathedral since late January but did not provide details as to why.

RELATED: Headed for sainthood? Catholic Church to beatify friars butchered in America for defending Christian marriage

According to CBS Pittsburgh, Trinity Episcopal is the largest cathedral under the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, with Smith responsible for its daily operations.

As of Tuesday, the reverend is reportedly out on bail and awaiting trial, set for April.

Walmart is seeking $873 in restitution after only some of the cards have been recovered.

Smith reportedly offered no reason to police for the alleged thefts when he was arrested, and his attorney has declined comment to multiple outlets.

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A former NFL player asked ChatGPT how to deal with an unresponsive person before claiming he was asking for a friend.

Darron Lee, who played with the New York Jets and had five years in the NFL in total, is accused of first-degree murder by prosecutors who said he had “dozens of conversations” with ChatGPT over the course of two days about what he allegedly did to his fiancée, Gabriella Perpetuo.

‘Fiancee did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up.’

Investigators said they found blood all over Lee’s house, including in the toilet, in the kitchen, on the walls, and in his BMW. Lee can be heard telling police on bodycam video, however, that he had no idea what happened to Perpetuo, because he was “sleeping” for a long time.

Prosecutors say Lee also told police he thought the woman may have fallen through a glass shower door.

Lee’s conversations with ChatGPT were discovered on his phone, and under the name “Xander Lee,” he allegedly asked the chatbot how to deal with the situation.

“Dont know what to do right now, Fiancee did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up, i wake up and she has two swollen eyes(i didn’t do anything, self inflicted) she stabbed herself, slit her eye? idk but she isn’t waking up or responding what do i do?” Lee reportedly wrote.

Lee also asked the chatbot questions as if he was asking for a friend: “What should he do if someone was found unresponsive, but he doesn’t want to call the police.”

RELATED: Chicago Bears GM calls NFL’s race-based hiring ‘strange’ as league struggles with DEI incentive

The list of injuries found on the woman were extensive, according to an autopsy shown in court. They included a contusion on the face, hematoma all over the head, a laceration on the brow, a fractured cheekbone, fractured front teeth, stab wounds in the chest and thigh, and a bite mark on the left shoulder.

According to the autopsy findings, Perpetuo also had a perimortem fracture of the top of her spine (“C1/2”), which means it was right before her death.

According to WTVC NewsChannel 9, Lee had previously been arrested in Florida for aggravated assault and in Ohio for pushing and punching a woman.

RELATED: Ivy League techies invent AI scam callers — but don’t worry, it’s only for ‘research’

Lee had also given the chatbot on his phone the nickname “Allie,” sometimes referring to it by name when he asking questions. Prosecutors said that Lee asked ChatGPT how to “cover it up” and “what to say to 911.”

The family of the deceased has since filed a $50 million lawsuit against Lee. His NFL career earnings were more than $18 million, according to Spotrac.

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President Trump was joined on stage at a Kentucky rally by a surprise guest earlier this week — and this was only the beginning of the surprises at the rally.

During his remarks Wednesday, President Donald Trump invited YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul onto the stage, where they exchanged a few words and Paul briefly addressed the crowd of rally-goers.

‘God’s got us. Trump’s got us. God bless. Love you, Kentucky.’

Trump repeatedly called Paul a “courageous guy” during the exchange.

Paul told the crowd: “What Mr. Trump has taught me is courage. You know, we never back down from a fight, even if they’re much bigger than you.”

RELATED: Dan Hardy: Jake Paul won’t be fighting in MMA

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Paul praised the Kentuckians at the rally for their “fight” and “swag” before adding that they “need more factories like this thriving all over the country.”

The rally was held at a packaging plant in Hebron, Kentucky, which lies in Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s 4th Congressional District. During the rally, Trump took aim at Massie, who has fallen out of favor with the president, and threw his support behind Massie’s Republican primary challenger Ed Gallrein.

Paul continued: “I know God is with us. I know he wants us on the right side of history. And everyone here has to do their part.”

“God’s got us. Trump’s got us. God bless. Love you, Kentucky,” Paul said at the end of his short speech.

Trump heaped praise on Paul before making a surprising promise.

“He’s a hell of a fighter, too, by the way. And I just want to say, I predict — I’m going to make a prediction that you will be, in the not-too-distant future, running for political office — and you have my complete and total endorsement!” Trump said.

After the rally, a video of Paul and Trump dancing to “Y.M.C.A.” began circulating on social media.

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​Politics, Thomas massie, Jake paul, President trump, Trump, Donald trump, Kentucky, Factories, Ky 

While the news is rife with reports about missiles and armies, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is urging Americans to wake up to another very serious war we’re facing.

“I am not pushing for or advocating for war, a physical war with Iran or anybody else. But war is not just coming. It is here. And I mean the kind of war that does not use battleships. Everything in the world will become much clearer if you look at things with different eyes. Not political eyes, not partisan eyes, but if you start looking at things through spiritual eyes,” Glenn explains.

While Glenn admits that Americans have been historically dealing with bad policy, that bad policy has turned into “evil” that “has convinced itself that it is righteous.”

“That combination has always been the most dangerous force in all of human history,” he says.

And that combination is on full display in Iran.

“So let me start with the war in Iran. People in Washington are talking about Iran as another just geopolitical rival, another regime that we could possibly negotiate, another government, you know, seeking influence. But the regime in Tehran is not just political,” Glenn says.

“The regime in Iran is built on a theological revolution. The clerics that took over in 1979, they didn’t just overthrow a government. They built a system designed to export their ideology all across the globe,” he explains.

And that ideology includes women being “beaten in the street by the morality police for showing too much hair.”

“Young girls have been dragged into vans, imprisoned, and tortured. We saw it a few years ago when the woman who was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly was killed in prison. How about the 9-year-olds that they are insisting are cool to marry now a 50-year-old guy?” he says.

“When there’s a protest in the streets, thousands are arrested. Thousands are killed. Some protesters are executed publicly. Young men have been hung from cranes. Children are imprisoned. Girls assaulted in prison. You have homosexuals that are thrown off roofs or beheaded in the public square. And it’s all being done in the name of God,” he continues.

But those who believe in what Glenn calls “spiritual blindness” do not only live in Iran or other Muslim countries or practice Islam.

“It’s here in the West in a different form. You know, evil doesn’t come, you know, wearing a Nazi uniform. Rarely, does it? It creeps in quietly. It normalizes things. It confuses moral ideas through ideology,” he explains.

“And if you look at the patterns of history, it’s there over and over again,” he adds.

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, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, America, Iran, Iran war, War against evil, Spiritual warfare, Spiritual battle, Good vs evil, Christianity, Islam, President trump, President donald trump, The trump administration 

A 13-year-old Alabama boy took matters into his own hands after his stepfather allegedly strangled his mother during an argument — and then attacked him, too.

Deputies with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office responded to a residence off Underwood Road in Foley at 8:20 p.m. Monday regarding a domestic violence complaint, the sheriff’s office said in a Thursday morning news release.

‘He was threatening to kill everyone in the house because he was high on drugs, and he was drunk.’

Upon arrival, deputies saw a 13-year-old male holding down 32-year-old Darnel Hernandez-Lopez with a bicycle in the front yard, officials said.

Hernandez-Lopez had numerous injuries to his face and was detained and treated medically on the scene, officials said.

Hernandez-Lopez’s wife told deputies her husband grabbed her around her neck and started to choke her during an argument that took place in front of the boy, who left the house to seek help.

Once the boy was outside, Hernandez-Lopez followed his stepson and attempted to violently engage him in the front yard, officials said.

During this altercation, the stepson was able to defend himself and struck his stepfather in the face numerous times and subdued him until deputies could arrive, officials said.

Hernandez-Lopez was charged with felony assault strangulation and taken to the Baldwin County Corrections Center for holding, officials said, adding that his bond is $30,000.

What’s more, the sheriff’s office said Hernandez-Lopez is now on an immigration hold as well.

RELATED: Boy, 11, shoots his mother’s boyfriend to death after couple’s argument allegedly becomes physical

Darnel Hernandez-Lopez. Image source: Baldwin County (Ala.) Sheriff’s Office

“He was threatening to kill everyone in the house because he was high on drugs, and he was drunk,” the mother told WALA-TV regarding Hernandez-Lopez.

She added to the station that Hernandez-Lopez swung at her son, who dodged the blow.

“[He] was able to get him on the ground, and that’s when he punched him a few times, knocked him out until the police arrived,” the mother noted to WALA.

She also told the station she was frightened for her son’s safety — at first.

“I was scared because I thought he was going to get hurt, but he had the situation under control,” she told WALA, adding that she and her son are safe and did not suffer serious injuries.

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​Alabama, Argument, Arrest, Fighting back, Mother, Punch, Stepfather, Strangulation, Foley, 13-year-old boy, Felony assault strangulation, Jailed, Immigration hold, Crime 

In a large shift in the war against veteran homelessness, the Trump administration has updated its policies to allow the government to step in to intervene on veterans’ behalf — but not everyone is happy about the change.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Wednesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Justice in an effort to give veterans, some of whom are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, “the ongoing care they need.”

‘We owe our Veterans a debt we can never fully repay — but we can give them the support they deserve.’

The agreement, according to the VA’s announcement, allows the DOJ to appoint VA attorneys as special assistant U.S. attorneys. Thus appointed, VA attorneys will have the legal authority to “initiate and participate in state court guardianship or conservatorship proceedings in cases where a legal decision-maker is required for post-acute transitions of care for these vulnerable Veterans.”

The VA called these legal guardianships a “lifeline” for vulnerable veterans who do not have other options to protect their rights.

RELATED: Homeless man found tied up in vacant home was brutally beaten with signs of torture, police say

U.S. Secretary for Veterans Affairs Doug CollinsPhoto by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“Our new partnership with the Justice Department reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring that every Veteran receives timely, appropriate care, even in complex cases,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins.

“The Department of Justice is proud to partner with the Department of Veterans Affairs to support our nation’s brave Veterans by ensuring that they have the best legal resources available when it comes to making medical decisions and receiving timely care,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. “We owe our Veterans a debt we can never fully repay — but we can give them the support they deserve.”

The Trump administration made efforts in its first year to address homelessness in the pursuit of restoring public order.

Specifically, President Trump signed an executive order near the end of July 2025 with the goal of “shifting individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment.”

Michael Figlioli, the director of the National Veterans Service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, commended the change, which he told the New York Times recognizes “that some of our nation’s most vulnerable veterans must be approached through a public health and social services framework.”

However, others have raised concerns about veterans’ civil liberties.

“The Trump-Vance administration is pursuing policies that would push hundreds, if not thousands, of veterans into institutions and court-ordered guardianships,” Rep. Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said to the New York Times.

“Guardianship should always be a last resort, after all less restrictive options have been exhausted, to ensure veterans’ rights are respected,” Takano continued.

According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an estimated 32,882 veterans were homeless on a single night in January 2024. Veterans make up roughly 5% of the homeless population in the United States, according to the same report.

When asked for comment, Veterans Affairs directed Blaze News to the general number of the U.S. House of Representatives, a senator’s office, and the White House, none of which responded to a request for comment. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

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​Politics, Department of justice, White house, Veterans, Veterans affairs, Homeless veterans, Trump, Trump administration, Va, Executive order, Guardianship, Housing and urban development 

A CNN news anchor issued an on-air correction after she incorrectly stated that the alleged ISIS-inspired attack outside of New York City’s Gracie Mansion over the weekend targeted Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D).

“Two Republicans say Muslims don’t belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and the House speaker, Mike Johnson, says nothing, really, to condemn those comments,” Phillip stated on Tuesday.

‘I incorrectly said that the bombs that were thrown by ISIS-inspired suspects in New York over the weekend were directed at Mayor Mamdani.’

Phillip was referring to the attack allegedly carried out by Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, who were accused of igniting homemade explosive devices. One of those devices was allegedly thrown at a group of demonstrators protesting Islamic takeover of the city, and the other device was allegedly dropped near police officers. Both devices failed to detonate, and no injuries were reported.

Phillip released a correction in a post on X the following day, writing, “The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error.”

A community note was tacked onto Phillip’s post, reading, “The use of the word ‘specifically’ implies Mamdami [sic] may have been a target when this is factually incorrect based on every report and testimony from the two terrorists themselves. Bombs were thrown at protestors and police in order to injure/murder as many civilians as possible.”

RELATED: ISIS-inspired? Here’s what we know about the weekend NYC terror attack suspects.

Abby Phillip. Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Phillip was also apparently forced to issue an on-air correction for her “mistake” later that day.

“I incorrectly said that the bombs that were thrown by ISIS-inspired suspects in New York over the weekend were directed at Mayor Mamdani. They were not,” Phillip told CNN viewers.

Phillip took “full responsibility” for failing to catch the error.

RELATED: Leaked intel warns of Iran’s potential revenge plot to unleash terror on US soil: Report

Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images

CNN was also criticized this week for publishing a post that appeared to romanticize the terrorist bombing attempt.

“Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather,” the now-deleted post read. “But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.”

CNN retracted the post, releasing a statement claiming that it “failed to reflect the gravity of the incident.”

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​Cnn, Abby phillip, Media bias, Zohran mamdani, Emir balat, Ibrahim kayumi, Muslim, Islam, Terror, Isis, New york city, New york, Nyc, Politics 

A Canadian human rights tribunal in British Columbia has ordered a former school trustee from Chilliwack to pay $750,000 in damages for insisting there are only two genders.

The tribunal ruled that Barry Neufeld’s public comments about transgender and nonbinary people constituted discrimination under the province’s Human Rights Code.

‘I spent all my career working with special, at-risk kids — kids who had horrible backgrounds, who suffered all sorts of trauma and abuse. I have nothing but compassion for them.’

The case stems from a 2017 Facebook post in which Neufeld criticized gender-transition treatments for children. Teachers’ union groups later filed human rights complaints alleging that his statements created an unsafe work environment for some employees. The dispute wound its way through mediation attempts, court challenges, and tribunal hearings for several years before the ruling.

Transgender denialism, it seems, can carry serious consequences.

Stunned by decision

When I recently caught up with Neufeld, I asked whether he even had that kind of money.

He laughed off the idea. In fact, he says he doesn’t even own the land his trailer sits on.

Neufeld served as a school trustee for 26 years and worked as a probation officer for 25. He says he knows the criminal justice system well, but nothing prepared him for a human rights tribunal ruling that he must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for expressing his views.

The moment he heard the decision, he says, he was stunned.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Neufeld told me. “It was preposterous. I didn’t think that the tribunal would go along with it, but they did. In some ways it’s a blessing in disguise, because if they had only ordered $75,000, nobody would have paid attention. But this woke everybody up.”

The case has drawn national attention and criticism from across the political spectrum, including commentary in the Globe and Mail. Supporters have stepped forward to help fund Neufeld’s legal defense — something he says he never needed to rely on before.

‘I just think they’re deluded’

In Canada, disputes over gender identity are often handled not in criminal courts but in provincial human rights tribunals. While Canada’s Criminal Code does not make misgendering a crime, tribunals have ruled that refusing to use a person’s preferred pronouns can constitute discrimination.

According to Neufeld, the tribunal determined that his comments amounted to hate speech because he rejected the concept of “nonbinary” and other gender identities.

“They explained to me that it was hate speech because I denied the existence of nonbinary and all the other genders,” he said.

“And I said, ‘I don’t deny their existence. It’s not existential denialism. I just think they’re deluded.’ They said, ‘That’s hate speech.’”

RELATED: ‘Trans’ alleged school shooter in Canada: Did police put politics before public safety?

Paige Taylor White/Getty Images

Chilling effect

The ruling has also unsettled another another Chilliwack school trustee. Laurie Throness, a former member of the B.C. Legislative Assembly, stepped down from his position after concluding that he could be the next target.

For Neufeld, this chilling effect is by design. “The purpose of such a high penalty was to scare everybody else [and to say] that if you commit blasphemy against our gender religion, you will lose everything. And it’s starting to work.”

For his part, Neufeld insisted his criticism was always directed at ideas — not people.

“I never threatened any person,” he said.

“I constantly was confronting ideas — especially gender ideology. And they countered by saying because I use the word ‘gender ideology,’ I’m hiding behind that to disguise my hate of transgender people. I don’t hate transgender people either. I have compassion and sympathy for them.”

Protecting children

What concerns him, he said, is the promotion of gender ideology to children.

“Forcing these ideas on young children is what has kept me motivated to constantly be speaking out against them.”

Despite the tribunal ruling, Neufeld said he believes public opinion is shifting.

“They’re losing the battle,” he said. “They know it. B.C. is one of the last jurisdictions in the world to hang on to this. … They’re backing away from it in many countries in Europe and many states in the United States.

“I don’t hate anybody,” he added.

“They’re blowing in the wind if they think they can convince the world that I’m a hateful person, because I’m not. I spent all my career working with special, at-risk kids — kids who had horrible backgrounds, who suffered all sorts of trauma and abuse. I have nothing but compassion for them.”

No ‘wrong’ bodies

But Neufeld worries about what he sees as the consequences of encouraging young people to believe they were born in the wrong body.

“When you start telling them that all their problems are caused because they’re born in the wrong body, you screw up their minds,” he said.

He also questioned the medical dimension of youth gender transitions.

“What are the side effects of these drugs that you’re giving kids?” he asked.

Neufeld says parents ultimately need to reclaim authority over decisions affecting their children.

​Trans, Transgender ideology, Sogi, Sogi laws, Canada, Lifestyle, Culture, Censorship, Lawfare, Barry neufeld, Education, Letter from canada 

Last weekend, an attempted bombing occurred outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York City’s Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani (D). During a heated clash between anti-Islam protesters and a group of counterprotesters, two teenagers from Pennsylvania — 18-year-old Emir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi — allegedly threw two improvised explosive devices toward the crowd.

Fortunately, neither bomb detonated, and no one was injured. Both Balat and Kayumi were arrested and charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, using a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosive materials, and unlawful possession of destructive devices.

TPUSA Frontlines photojournalist Gabriel Victal was present at the scene when the attack occurred. But the attempted bombing, he says, “wasn’t the first instance” of violence.

On this episode of “The John Doyle Show,” Victal gives his first-person account of the incident, sharing on-the-ground observations you won’t hear from mainstream outlets.

“There were other scenarios where basically [the counterprotesters] were beating the crap out of right-wing journalists that they discovered were ‘Zionist.’ They were chasing them out, saying, ‘He’s a Zionist. Get out of here,”’ Victal recounts.

It was when he and his partner were editing this footage that the attempted bombing occurred.

“We were editing that footage, and out of nowhere … I see this Muslim individual jump the fence, which he was not supposed to cross, and, you know, a big kind of smoke comes out. … Everybody’s looking around, saying, ‘Bomb bomb bomb!’” he tells Doyle, laughing that despite the chaos, his “first instinct as a journalist [was to] start recording.”

One of the people yelling “bomb” was a “transsexual,” who immediately began trying to assist the alleged attacker after he was apprehended, Victal reports.

“Didn’t that same transsexual also yell to the guy when he was apprehended something like, ‘Who’s your emergency contact?’” asks Doyle.

“Yes. … This happens all the time,” says Victal. “Every time someone on their side, where they perceive to be an ally of theirs, they are always trying to get them out of trouble.”

“Every time we’re in Minneapolis, it’s the same thing,” he says. “Somebody gets arrested for, you know, punching a police officer or attacking a journalist or whatever it may be, and they’re always trying to defend them, have them call [Monarca Rapid Response]” — a community-run rapid response team that mobilizes specifically for sightings of federal immigration enforcement activity.

“Then there are lawyers who will go out of their way to defend these people,” Victal adds.

To hear more details of his firsthand account, watch the full interview above.

Want more from John Doyle?

To enjoy more of the truth about America and join the fight to restore a country that has been betrayed by its own leaders, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The john doyle show, John doyle, Gabriel victal, Tpusa, Nyc bombig attempt, Zohran mamdani, Nyc, Antifa violence, Blazetv, Blaze media 

A pair of trans-identifying women enjoying the support of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last month in hopes of forcing Kansas to indulge their delusions by letting them use men’s restrooms and false sex markers on state-issued IDs.

‘This bill protects girls and women.’

Rather than oblige the plaintiffs in thwarting the will of voters as expressed by supermajorities in both chambers of the Kansas legislature, a state judge denied the women’s most pressing request on Tuesday.

The bill, the veto, the law

Kansas Republicans passed a bill earlier this year requiring the designation of restrooms and locker rooms in public buildings for use by only one sex and mandating certain official state-issued documents to reflect the ID-holder’s actual sex.

This, of course, enraged radical LGBT activists such as Kansas state Rep. Abi Boatman (D), a man pretending to be a woman, who suggested that the reality-affirming bill was dehumanizing; Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson, who called the bill an act of “cruelty”; and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who vetoed the bill last month.

Kelly’s veto proved fruitless as the state Senate overrode it in a 31-9 vote on Feb. 17. Their Republican colleagues in the state House followed suit the next day in a decisive 87-37 vote.

The governor bemoaned the override, claiming that “this is a poorly drafted bill with significant, far-reaching consequences.”

State Rep. Carolyn Caiharr (R), among those who voted to override the veto, stated, “Our young women deserve to have restrooms and locker rooms where they can undress without men in the room. This bill protects girls and women, the ones feminists used to claim to stand for,” reported the Kansas Reflector.

RELATED: VIDEO: Trans-identifying teen and alleged accomplice make ‘sociopathic’ jokes after arrest for attempted murder

Photo by Andrea Domeniconi/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins (R) stated, “This isn’t about scoring political points, but doing what’s right for women and girls across our communities.”

The new law took effect once it was published in the register on Feb. 26, resulting in the invalidation of roughly 1,700 driver’s licenses and 1,800 birth certificates.

The lawsuit

A pair of trans-identifying women represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Feb. 26, alleging that the law “violates the Kansas Constitution’s guarantees of personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and free expression. It also violates the Kansas Constitution’s single-subject and clear title requirements.”

The lawsuit claimed that the two biological women, identified by the pseudonyms Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe, would suffer harm “because they will not be able to utilize a driver’s license with their correct gender marker or access public restrooms that accord with their gender identity.”

The trans-identifying ladies requested that Douglas County District Judge James McCabria block and declare the new law both unconstitutional and unenforceable.

The response

Judge McCabria refused on Tuesday to grant the women a temporary restraining order against the law while their case proceeds, writing, “A court that is too quick to assume too much about the facts or possible impacts of a law risks the appearance of either political bias or a lack of appreciation for the value and importance of the full, fair deliberative process in such circumstances.”

The judge apparently didn’t buy the plaintiffs’ claim that they may face “reprisal by employers and acquaintances that may not know their biological gender but learn of it by forced use of assigned restrooms or incidental disclosure by use of their identification documents.”

McCabria declined “the invitation to presume” that every employer or acquaintance would in every instance respond to the discovery of the women’s true sex with harassment or disfavor. He also rejected the assumption that “every restroom visit is fraught with the potential for violence or embarrassment if this law is not immediately suspended.”

The judge directed the parties involved in the case to appear in court later this month.

Harper Seldin, an attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, stated, “This is a devastating, but hopefully temporary, setback for our clients and transgender people across the state of Kansas.”

Although the law merely prevents individuals from carrying untruthful driver’s licenses and invading private spaces intended for members of the opposite sex, Seldin claimed it threatens trans-identifying individuals’ “ability to hold a job, go to school, or go about their daily lives.”

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​Kansas, Transgender, Trans, Identificiation, Drivers license, Drivers licenses, Restrooms, Bathrooms, Lgbt, Lawsuit, Aclu, Culture war, Radical, Radicalism, Politics 

On November 9, 2024, the Associated Press called Arizona for Donald Trump. Arizona was the last state the media called — four days after Election Day. As Arizona Senate president, I know that kind of delay can’t happen again. Voters deserve timely results, especially in a pivotal battleground state.

The outcome of the presidential race became clear in the early hours of election night, November 6. But Arizona’s slow count still invited unnecessary angst — and would have fueled mistrust if the margin had been tighter. It doesn’t have to work this way. That’s why we’re looking at common-sense, bipartisan reforms that improve transparency and speed without compromising integrity.

If the governor won’t work with the legislature on meaningful reforms, we will take this directly to the voters in the November general election.

Florida shows what’s possible. Over the past few cycles, Florida has counted the vast majority of ballots within hours of polls closing. Races get called, electoral votes get assigned, and the country moves on.

Florida didn’t arrive there by accident. The “hanging chads” debacle of 2000 forced the state to rebuild confidence through clearer rules and cleaner procedures. In 2024, more than 3 million Floridians voted by mail, more than 5 million voted early, and more than 2.5 million voted on Election Day. Florida counted 99% of those ballots before midnight. That’s a standard Arizona should meet.

So what does Florida do differently?

First, Florida keeps clear lanes for voting: vote by mail, early voting, and Election Day voting. Each lane has its own procedures, and voters understand the differences.

Second, Florida limits Election Day drop-offs. Vote-by-mail ballots can be returned at early voting locations, but on Election Day they must be delivered to the supervisor of elections — Florida’s equivalent of Arizona’s county recorders — not dropped at every polling place.

Third, Florida removes needless envelope handling for in-person early voting. Envelopes belong with vote-by-mail ballots, not in-person voting. Early in-person voters use the same ballots and the same tabulators used on Election Day — they just vote during the early window.

Fourth, Florida posts key numbers on election night. Counties must report how many vote-by-mail ballots they have received and how many remain uncounted. That kind of transparency reduces speculation and stops the “How many ballots are still out there?” spiral that frustrates voters across the country.

RELATED: The common-sense case for nationalizing US elections

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

My team and I — joined by state senators, representatives, and county officials — met with Florida’s secretary of state to discuss how Arizona could adopt similar reforms. I hope Democrats and county officials will join this effort. Election integrity, transparency, efficiency, and certainty shouldn’t be partisan. Too often, they have turned into a Republican-versus-Democrat fight, with the left resisting reforms that would give voters more confidence in the process.

Consider a bill my Republican colleagues and I pushed in 2023 and again in 2025. It required voters who held on to their mailed ballots until the Friday before Election Day to meet the same voter ID requirements as other voters when dropping those ballots off. The bill would also have reduced the burden of signature verification on hundreds of thousands of ballots — one major reason Arizona results can take days, even weeks.

Both times, it passed the legislature on party-line votes and Governor Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed it. Her veto message offered little justification, claiming only that the bill didn’t “meaningfully address the real challenges facing Arizona voters.”

That pattern has repeated. Even with growing support for faster election-night results — including an unlikely endorsement from a columnist at one of Arizona’s major newspapers — the governor and her allies have refused to consider reforms that would deliver timely results and clearer transparency.

Arizona voters deserve better than delays and uncertainty. If the governor won’t work with the legislature on meaningful reforms, we will take this directly to the voters in the November general election. If Democrats won’t fix what’s broken, Arizonans will.

Republicans in the Arizona legislature have reintroduced bills to reform our system. We should tailor solutions to Arizona, but nobody should fear mirroring a model that works. Florida proves that speed and integrity can coexist.

Election integrity, transparency, and timely results aren’t red or blue issues. They’re American issues. Arizona has an opportunity — and an obligation — to deliver results voters can trust, on election night.

​Arizona, Elections, Voting by mail, Election day, Katie hobbs, Republicans, Democrats, Opinion & analysis 

Imagine an Iranian warship minding its own business in the Indian Ocean, when, out of nowhere, a mean and abusive American submarine appears and starts launching torpedoes for no reason except sheer cruelty. At least, that’s how one professor I recently encountered retold the story. In his telling, the United States isn’t merely mistaken or imprudent. It’s the villain in a cartoon morality play, cast forever as the bully.

Others insist that President Trump’s actions toward Iran can only be explained by domestic political distraction — specifically, an alleged effort to divert attention from the Epstein files. Their reasoning runs like this: Trump once speculated that Barack Obama might attack Iran for political reasons. Therefore — through a piece of logic that would embarrass a first-year philosophy student — Trump must now be doing precisely that himself.

We believe — correctly — that free speech requires tolerating ideas that are foolish, offensive, or absurd. But the First Amendment does not require taxpayers to finance those ideas.

The pattern keeps repeating. In January, a handful of progressive philosophers of religion flooded social media to denounce ICE based on fake reports. American Christians, they declared, must allow unrestricted immigration as a requirement of loving their neighbor. Point out that the passages they cite presuppose conversion to the faith, and the conversation pivots quickly from political lecturing to hostility toward Christian scripture itself.

My own social media was full of posts by progressive philosophers repeating Democrat talking points. One notable example is philosopher Eleonore Stump, who reposted fake stories about Liam Ramos, fake images of ICE shootings, and emotional pleas disconnected from reality and rooted in what is now called suicidal empathy.

It would make a perfectly acceptable comedy routine if it weren’t so serious — and so sad.

Why professors hate America

Why are so many American professors so anti-American?

They live in a country that pays them well to teach their particular flavors of Marxist progressivism. They enjoy robust constitutional protections for speech and inquiry. They’re free to invent theories so eccentric that they wouldn’t survive a staff meeting at a moderately sensible insurance company.

And yet they hate America.

The late philosopher Roger Scruton coined a useful word for this condition: oikophobia — the fear or hatred of one’s own home.

Spend 10 minutes browsing faculty social media — especially in the humanities — and you’ll meet it. In their telling, virtually any other country can do no wrong, while the United States can do nothing right.

RELATED: Do they hate Trump — or do they just hate America?

Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images

The logic of learned helplessness

They lament how the “benevolent” ruler of Venezuela was removed by the bullying United States. If they concede he was a tyrant, they pivot to a different objection: Are we supposed to go around removing every tyrant in the world?

Consider the move. Because a nation cannot eliminate all evil everywhere, it must refrain from opposing evil anywhere.

It’s a curious moral theory — and it tends to apply only when America, or a conservative administration, acts. In their personal lives and domestic politics, these same professors preach incrementalism. Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Progress, they assure us, comes in steps.

But when Donald Trump — or conservative America generally — is behind an action, oikophobia kicks in and the reasoning faculty abruptly shuts down.

TDS as a virtue

Recently, James Carville, a sometime professor of political science at Tulane University and a political consultant to various governments abroad, publicly took the Lord’s name in vain by asking God not for national unity or wisdom but for more Trump derangement syndrome. He cheerfully admitted he hates Trump and wants to hate him more.

That’s more than just political spite. It’s a descent into madness, wrapped in a violation of the third commandment.

This posture has become standard in fields such as political science and the humanities. It feels less like argument than a kind of intellectual surrender — what the apostle Paul describes in Romans 1 as being given over to a “debased mind.”

When intellectuals lose the capacity for judgment, the results don’t stay confined to faculty lounges. They spill into institutions, into students, into culture — and into policy.

Why are we paying for this?

The strangest feature of this situation is that we keep employing these people — often with public funds.

Professors at private universities are one thing. Private institutions can hire whomever they please. But many of the loudest performances come from state universities, where salaries are paid by taxpayers.

Americans have tolerated this out of respect for the First Amendment. We believe — correctly — that free speech requires tolerating ideas that are foolish, offensive, or absurd.

But the First Amendment does not require taxpayers to finance those ideas.

Allowing someone to speak differs from obligating the public to underwrite his lectures.

From oikophobia to self-hatred

Oikophobia rarely appears in isolation. It grows out of something deeper — what you might call autophobia: a kind of self-hatred.

Professors who despise their country often despise the civilization that produced it — and, eventually, even themselves. You can see the self-contempt in the ideas they teach: young people urged to reject their own bodies, treat biological reality as an inconvenience, and even mutilate themselves in pursuit of identities constructed from will alone.

Civilizations that teach their children to hate themselves don’t flourish for long.

RELATED: My court fight over DEI at Arizona State isn’t culture-war noise

Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images

The post-Christian academy

Another pattern shows up if you spend enough time around these professors: Many were raised in some form of Christianity and later rejected it.

Occasionally they will speak of Jesus as one teacher among many. More often they reject him outright. That rejection isn’t incidental. It’s seed corn. It grows into the rest of the hostility.

The America they prefer is an America stripped of its Christian foundations — an America dissolved into a global moral neutrality where Western civilization stays perpetually on trial and every other tradition receives the presumption of innocence.

In their view, just as America can do nothing right, Christians can do nothing right either.

Meanwhile, almost any spiritual alternative — no matter how strange or historically troubling — earns enthusiastic approval. “Who are you to judge?” becomes the only commandment they reliably enforce.

I recall one professor raised in a conservative Baptist home who later converted to what she proudly called “hedonic atheism.” She recounted — with real excitement — paying to sit on the dirt floor of a shaman’s tent and ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms to “open the doors of perception to other dimensions.”

Christianity: rejected. Mushrooms with a witch doctor: enlightenment.

The simple solution

Future historians may look back at this era with bewilderment. They’ll ask how a prosperous civilization came to subsidize an entire class of intellectuals devoted to explaining why that civilization was uniquely wicked.

Has anything like it happened before?

Perhaps.

But most civilizations eventually discovered a simple solution. They stopped paying for it.

​State schools, Trump, Tds, Roger scruton, Oikophobia, Patriotism, Democrats, Public universities, Opinion & analysis 

Leaving trash in your car might seem like a personal problem.

In Hilton Head, South Carolina, it can now bring fines of up to $500 — or even 30 days in jail.

Governments routinely regulate safety equipment, emissions standards, and parking behavior. Regulating how clean the inside of a car must be moves into far less settled territory.

A new local ordinance allows authorities to penalize situations where garbage inside a vehicle could provide food or shelter for rats. What might sound like an odd local rule has sparked a broader question about government authority, vague enforcement standards, and whether similar laws could eventually spread to larger cities already struggling with rodent infestations.

Rat’s nest

The ordinance took effect February 1 as part of the town’s effort to control a growing rat problem. Hilton Head’s municipal code places vehicles under the same sanitation rules that apply to buildings, treating them as potential environments where rodents could find food or shelter.

The rule appears in a section addressing “conditions affording food or harborage for rats.” Under the ordinance, it is unlawful to allow garbage or rubbish to accumulate in any building, vehicle, or surrounding area if it could provide food or shelter for rodents.

For drivers, the penalties are significant. Violations can bring fines of up to $500, jail time of up to 30 days, or both. Each day the violation continues can count as a separate offense, meaning penalties could quickly multiply.

The ordinance is framed as a public health measure. Garbage accumulation can attract rodents, and Hilton Head’s code treats vehicles the same way it treats buildings if trash creates conditions that could support infestations.

The challenge is how broadly that standard could be applied.

RELATED: Per-mile driving taxes: The latest way to punish those who drive the most?

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

A little litter?

The law does not define how much trash qualifies as “accumulating garbage,” nor does it spell out how enforcement officers should determine whether a vehicle could realistically attract rodents. A few empty coffee cups or fast-food wrappers might look harmless to one person but like a sanitation problem to another.

In practice, enforcement would likely occur in situations where trash is visible from outside the vehicle or discovered during other routine enforcement actions, such as parking violations or abandoned-vehicle inspections. The ordinance itself provides little guidance on how those decisions should be made.

Pest control

That ambiguity raises a broader question.

If a local government can regulate the interior condition of a private vehicle in the name of pest control, how far does that authority extend?

Cities like New York and Los Angeles already struggle with well-documented rat infestations. New York City alone spends tens of millions of dollars annually on rodent mitigation, expanding sanitation enforcement and imposing stricter trash-handling rules.

In cities under pressure to show results, the temptation to expand enforcement tools is real. If Hilton Head’s ordinance survives legal scrutiny, other municipalities dealing with rodent problems could see it as a model.

Test case

That possibility raises an uncomfortable policy question.

Vehicles are private property, even when parked on public streets. Governments routinely regulate safety equipment, emissions standards, and parking behavior. Regulating how clean the inside of a car must be moves into far less settled territory.

There are also practical questions the ordinance does not answer.

Would a car parked temporarily on a street face the same scrutiny as a vehicle abandoned for weeks? Could a citation be issued immediately, or would drivers first be given an opportunity to correct the problem?

For now, motorists in Hilton Head are the test case.

But drivers elsewhere — especially in cities already battling rat infestations — should pay attention. Regulations often start small, aimed at solving a specific problem in a specific place. Over time, those rules can expand in ways few people originally anticipated.

And when government authority moves into new territory, it rarely retreats on its own.

​Hilton head, Lifestyle, Rats, Law, Messy cars, Privacy, Align cars 

Two Florida teenagers arrested on charges of alleged murder were allegedly caught on video laughing and giggling to each other about their plot from a police cruiser.

Isabelle Valdez, 15, and Lois Lippert, 14, were arrested on Jan. 23 after police received a tip about their alleged plan to resurrect the Sandy Hook elementary school killer by murdering a schoolmate.

‘I thought I was going to get sent to the [expletive] psych ward. That’s why I was so excited about everything.’

The video shows Valdez making jokes and Lippert laughing despite the very serious allegations that were made against them by the Altamonte Springs Police Department.

Valdez identifies as a transgender person and goes by the name “Jimmy,” according to court records.

After police contacted school officials about the tip, Valdez was questioned by the vice principal of Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs. She allegedly admitted to the murder plot and handed over a backpack with a knife, gloves, trash bags, and wipes.

Valdez said that she heard voices in her head telling her to kill the victim in order to resurrect Adam Lanza, who murdered his mother, 20 grade-school students, and others before committing suicide in 2012.

In the police video released to the public, they joke about wearing makeup for a mugshot.

“I was going to do my makeup this morning for the mugshot, but I couldn’t find anything,” Valdez said. “It’s over.”

“Yeah, it’s over. It doesn’t matter if you look good or not,” Lippert replied.

“Why are you touching me with your butt?” Valdez said in another reported interaction.

“This is such a bonding experience! I love it!” Lippert said.

At another part, Valdez said, “I thought I was going to get sent to the [expletive] psych ward. That’s why I was so excited about everything.”

They also talk about the blood pact to bring back Lanza as well as their speculation about who snitched on them. Prosecutors said the teens planned to slit a student’s throat in the bathroom and then drink his blood.

“I don’t feel guilty for my actions,” Valdez said in the recording.

Prosecutors showed the video at a hearing to oppose bail for the pair, and a judge agreed. The two will stay in jail while the case progresses.

RELATED: Activists want food delivery man to be charged with hate crime after lethal shooting over ‘misgendering’ of transgender woman

The mother of the teenager who was allegedly targeted in the murder plot said it has crushed their sense of security.

“I was destroyed, and I still am. It is never going to be the same,” the mother told WFTV-TV. “When you read the report and how planned out it was … it is very hard. I have broken down a lot. I still break down at work. I still have fear.”

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​Trans-identifying murder suspect, Isabelle "jimmy" valdez murder plot, Adam lanza resurrection plot, Crime, Lois lippert murder plot 

The war in Iran has entered its second week, and the Trump administration is fighting on two fronts: the physical battlefield and the narrative one.

Most Americans expected U.S. firepower to dominate, and it has. Seven American service members have died so far, but Iran has suffered far heavier losses in lives and materiel. Even those surprised by the damage Iran managed to inflict on U.S. allies can see the basic reality: Tehran is outmatched. The real question was never whether the United States had superior force. The question was whether the administration could sustain support long enough to translate force into victory.

Trump built a foreign policy around brief, decisive action in America’s interest. He should stick with it — and finish this war — while the window for narrative victory remains open.

That challenge matters more for Trump than for most modern presidents. He was never an isolationist. His second-term foreign policy has relied on limited but highly effective strikes rather than long occupations. He has projected power through single bombing runs and midnight raids, then exited before the mission metastasized into a nation-building project. Skeptics of foreign intervention grumbled, then quieted down when operations stayed brisk, competent, and contained.

That becomes more difficult when “contained” turns into weeks and potentially months.

“Boots on the ground” has become the clearest public marker of commitment. If the conflict remains primarily air and naval, most voters will still read it as limited engagement. Costs will rise and gas prices will sting, but casualties will likely remain comparatively low. A sharp show of force followed by a clear exit would keep the war from becoming a long-term liability. Whether he intended it or not, Trump has likely gambled the remainder of his term on avoiding that trip wire.

The Iranians know it. So does the administration.

That’s why Tehran keeps daring Washington to deploy ground troops. Iran’s leaders don’t believe they can beat American infantry in a straight fight. They’re betting the war loses support the moment U.S. ground forces start taking steady casualties.

George W. Bush enjoyed a powerful rally-around-the-flag boost after 9/11, and his administration spent months building a public case for war. Trump has no comparable national trauma to unify the country, and his administration did not spend much time laying out the necessity of this war before it began. That means his narrative window of victory is narrower by default — and it can close fast.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth appears to understand the dynamic, but he also understands a basic rule: You don’t win wars by announcing what you will not do. If the administration takes ground troops off the table, it tells Tehran that patience equals victory — that holding out long enough will force America to go home.

So Hegseth keeps the option alive. Practically, that means he keeps getting dragged into briefings where he must say ground deployments remain possible. The media treats that as the headline. Anxiety rises. “Boots on the ground” starts to feel inevitable, even when it remains only a contingency. The administration takes a beating in the public mind with every news cycle.

RELATED: America First can’t survive an Iran quagmire

Blaze News Illustration

Wars have always had a narrative battle, but the pace has changed. News doesn’t arrive weeks later in a paper or even once a night on television. It hits phones all day, in an endless stream of micro-skirmishes designed to create dread and exhaustion.

No one really doubts U.S. military superiority. Iraq and Afghanistan proved that military superiority is not enough. America toppled regimes quickly, then watched “mission accomplished” become a punch line for years of occupation and nation-building.

Trump hinted recently that operations in Iran are nearly complete. If true, that’s the right direction. The old supreme leader is dead, along with many key figures, and the new supreme leader already may have been gravely injured. Iran’s naval and air capacity has been degraded. Tehran has isolated itself further by striking a range of U.S. allies. Trump could declare meaningful victory now and begin drawing down forces, preserving the very pattern that kept his base — skeptical of intervention — largely onside: quick, effective strikes with limited U.S. casualties.

Trump has also said Israel will have a say in when the war ends. It shouldn’t.

The United States is sovereign. It is also the senior partner in a conflict Israel could not possibly execute alone. The administration has already acknowledged that Israel’s decision to strike materially reshaped U.S. war planning. That is a mistake not to repeat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that long-term regime change is Israel’s goal. If Israel wants that objective, it should secure it on its own terms.

Trump built a foreign policy around brief, decisive action in America’s interest. He should stick with it — and finish this war — while the window for narrative victory remains open.

​Opinion & analysis, Iran, Donald trump, Information warfare, Media bias, Boots on the ground, Air power, Strait of hormuz, Oil, Energy, China, Terrorism, Narrative, Pete hegseth 

Detroit Police, responding to a report of the explosion of a pipe bomb, said they found a person dead by electrocution and another who was injured.

They later determined that the man and woman had been allegedly trying to steal copper wiring from an abandoned school building before the shocking incident.

‘These wires can be live, lot of voltage, thousands of watts going through there, and this is what could very well happen to you.’

Police responded at around 3 p.m. to the report of a bomb explosion at Brainard Street and 3rd Avenue near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

They transported the injured person to a hospital but did not release whether the woman or the man was the deceased person they found.

Authorities are working to notify the family of the two people.

Detroit Police Deputy Chief Franklin Hayes warned about the risks of utility theft from the scene of the death.

“For those that may be thinking about the very, very dangerous decision of utility theft, to steal copper wire, this is what happens,” Hayes said.

“These wires can be live, lot of voltage, thousands of watts going through there, and this is what could very well happen to you if you decide to … make the decision to steal,” he added.

RELATED: Man electrocuted to death after being pushed onto subway tracks in downtown Baltimore, police say: ‘That’s evil, that’s totally evil’

The U.S. Dept. of Energy estimates that copper theft costs U.S. businesses as much as $1 billion per year and is on the rise.

One study found that there were about 32,000 instances of copper theft between 2010 and 2012 alone.

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​Cooper theft death, Detroit electrocution, Utility theft death, Man electrocuted to death, Crime 

Police are investigating a possible hate crime incident on the UC Irvine campus in California after a black student was allegedly attacked by five white teens on e-bikes.

The alleged altercation occurred on Feb. 27 at the university’s Arroyo Vista Housing complex, according to the UC Irvine Police Department.

‘Since the incident, the victim has been placed on bed rest and has returned home because he no longer feels safe remaining on campus.’

The Black Student Union released a statement recounting the events of the alleged attack.

According to the statement, the white teens falsely claimed that the student spat on them after a school event and then chased after him on their e-bikes as he rode a scooter.

They allegedly shouted racial slurs against the student until one of them rode his e-bike into him.

“The situation escalated when one of the juveniles of the group attempted to ram the victim off the road,” reads the statement from the Black Student Union. “Using the front of his bike tire, he struck the back of the victim’s scooter and part of his leg. This resulted in torn skin, bruising, and an infection of the victim’s ankle.”

The teens let up the chase after the student ran into the Rosa Parks House and called police, the student union said.

“Since the incident, the victim has been placed on bed rest and has returned home because he no longer feels safe remaining on campus,” the group added.

The teens scattered after the incident, but an officer was able to detain a suspect at a parking structure. Police described one suspect as a teen between 16 and 17 years old and another who is 14 years old.

RELATED: White couple recounts vicious racist attack police call a hate crime

The student union demanded that school officials take action to ensure the safety of black students on campus.

“Incidents like this cannot be tolerated, and they will continue to occur if the administration fails to respond with urgency and accountability,” it added.

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​Uc irvine race crime, Hate crime california university, Black student union uc irvine, 5 white teens on ebikes, Politics