Category: blaze media

A male was caught on video punching a Philadelphia-area crossing guard in the face and knocking her out in front of elementary students Monday afternoon.

The incident took place outside Walnut Street Elementary School in Darby Borough shortly after 3:30 p.m., WPVI-TV reported.

‘Her children go to this school, so can you imagine? They shouldn’t have to witness anything like that.’

Authorities told the station the guard was helping students cross the street when a male exited his car, chased her down the sidewalk, and punched her in the face.

“It’s disgusting,” Darby Borough Police Chief Joe Gabe told WPVI. “She stated an unknown male exited a Nissan Altima and came at her in an aggressive manner, chased her down the street, about a quarter of the way down the block, grabbed her, and struck her in the face with his left fist.”

RELATED: 3 females dragged Philly crossing guard off bus when she tried to escape brutal beating, detective says; suspects arrested

Surveillance video captured the attack; it shows the male chasing the guard down a sidewalk until she stops next to a school bus. The male gets in her face, brutally punches her, she falls backward to the ground, and he runs off.

She told police she was knocked unconscious as the male ran back to his car and drove away, the station said.

The chief told WPVI it’s believed the suspect may have been angry about waiting in traffic: “He may have been upset with having to wait for her to cross children off of the school bus there.”

Gabe added to the station that the suspect was yelling profanities as he drove through the intersection prior to the attack: “When he was approaching her, he was yelling more obscenities at her before he grabbed her and struck her in the face.”

The crossing guard suffered swelling to her face, WPVI said, adding that police said she regained consciousness, walked home, and then called authorities.

The station said the crossing guard didn’t report to work Tuesday, and a male crossing guard took her place.

“We just spoke to her, she’s feeling OK, but she’s very shaken up over what happened yesterday and is worried to go back to her position as a crossing guard,” Gabe added to WPVI.

Dionne Galloway, a school district employee, added to the station that “I see her every day. She’s a part of this family, this school district. She crosses these children every day. She’s always on time. She’s always helpful. I just hope she recovers and is safe. Her children go to this school, so can you imagine? They shouldn’t have to witness anything like that.”

Police told WPVI they’re asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspect, who was seen driving a gold Nissan Altima. However, police added to the station that the car didn’t have a license plate and had a paper tag in the window.

“It’s terrible that a person would come up, just out of nowhere, just maybe frustrated with traffic or having to wait, and goes over and assaults this woman,” the chief told WPVI. “A male goes over and assaults this woman in front of children and has no problem doing it.”

Gabe also has a message for the suspect, the station noted: “We are tracking you down, and we’re hoping that we will be able to find you and have you prosecuted. So the best thing to do is to turn yourself in.”

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​Physical attack, Crossing guard, Male punches female, Elementary school, Darby, Pennsylvania, Knocked out, Suspect at large, Caught on video, Assault, Crime 

Republicans didn’t win the Senate so their leaders could manage expectations. They won it to deliver results. Will Republican leaders actually deliver? We are about to find out with the SAVE America Act.

The legislation requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. That is not a fringe idea. It’s the law of the land in nearly every nation in the world — and is one of the most widely supported election reforms in the United States.

Republicans campaigned on restoring integrity to elections. Passing the SAVE America Act should be treated as a blood oath, not a messaging exercise.

A February Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 85% of voters say only U.S. citizens should vote in American elections. The same survey found that 71% support the SAVE America Act itself, 81% support voter ID, and 75% support proof-of-citizenship requirements. Perhaps most striking: Roughly 70% of Democrat voters support voter ID.

That’s a consensus. When an issue has that level of support, failure usually isn’t about policy. It’s about will.

Yet Senate Republicans still appear poised to treat the SAVE America Act like a messaging exercise: Debate it for a bit, eventually set up the opportunity for Democrats to kill it rather than having to vote on the bill, shrug, and move on.

That may satisfy the Senate’s procedural instincts, but it won’t satisfy voters. It certainly isn’t how Donald Trump gets a deal done. In “The Art of the Deal,” Trump laid out a strategy he has followed again and again with demonstrable success: seeking leverage, wearing down your opponent, fighting back hard and never folding, exerting time to your advantage, and applying psychological pressure.

Past Senate leaders have understood this method and have used it themselves. In December 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wanted the Affordable Care Act passed before Christmas. Several Democrat senators were balking.

RELATED: ‘Allows ICE to kick tens of billions’ off voter rolls? Schumer’s SAVE Act claims keep getting worse.

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Reid’s solution was blunt: No one goes home until the votes are there. The Senate stayed in session nearly a month and passed Obamacare on Christmas Eve. Senators whose votes hadn’t been there suddenly discovered ways to support it. Amazing what happens when missing Christmas becomes the alternative.

Senate leaders routinely use endurance and inconvenience as leverage — especially in budget fights. They keep the floor open overnight, run endless amendment votes, and threaten to blow through recess until the holdouts crack.

That kind of determination to change the dynamic when “the votes aren’t there” should not be reserved just for spending bills. The SAVE America Act is exactly the kind of legislation where pressure works and why Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) wants to restore the standing filibuster for this bill to maximize pressure.

The recess threat isn’t just about challenging Democrats’ ideological commitment to unverified voting processes. It’s about the human cost of being physically trapped in Washington while your family, your staff, your donors, your fundraisers, and your district events — as well as your junkets and vacations — are elsewhere. That applies to every senator regardless of how committed they are to blocking the bill.

And over 80% public support for common-sense voter ID creates an entirely different kind of psychological pressure: the daily political exposure of defending an unpopular position.

This would be the application of Trump’s doctrine, which isn’t just about wearing down a monolithic opponent — it’s about identifying and applying pressure to the weakest link.

Remember, Democrats are politically exposed. Democrats must defend two Senate seats this year — including Georgia, where Jon Ossoff faces re-election in a state Trump carried, and Michigan, where Gary Peters’ retirement has created a competitive open seat.

Other Democrat incumbents — from Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire to Mark Warner in Virginia — represent states where elections are often decided at the margins. Picture what a real floor fight would look like if Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) were serious about getting the SAVE America Act passed.

RELATED: The SAVE Act is the hill voters will die on

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

The SAVE America Act stays on the Senate floor. No artificial deadline. No prearranged surrender through cloture vote. Republican leadership simply says: We are staying here until this bill passes — even if that means canceling spring recess.

Senators like Jon Ossoff — or any Democrat in a competitive state — would be faced with a brutal choice: Keep blocking a bill their own voters support overwhelmingly, while missing weeks of campaigning, or break ranks.

That’s exactly the kind of leverage Trump talks about. Find the pressure points. Apply force where the incentives are weakest. Keep the fight going until the opposition starts looking for the exit. Republicans don’t need to break the entire Democratic caucus. They need seven votes — really six if you think John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is smart and sensible.

Now add one more piece of leverage: Restore the standing filibuster so that obstruction actually carries a cost. The Senate survived that rule for most of its history, and its absence has helped turn the Senate from the world’s greatest deliberative body into the place where legislation dies in darkness.

If Democrats want to block the SAVE America Act, let them talk all night if necessary. Let them explain repeatedly why they oppose proof of citizenship to vote. Go on record with their condescending view that married females are too dim-witted to get new IDs (thank you, Mazie Hirono) and their racist smears that minorities will struggle to get ID (thank you, Chuck Schumer).

The modern “silent filibuster” protects obstruction from accountability. A talking filibuster does the opposite — it puts obstruction on display.

Republicans campaigned on restoring integrity to elections. Passing the SAVE America Act should be treated as a blood oath, not a messaging exercise. Trump would understand that instinctively. The question is whether Senate leadership does, because right now the country isn’t looking for performative politics. It’s looking for resolve and results.

A “hybrid talking filibuster” is a good step, but ultimately what counts is delivering results, and Donald Trump, the dealmaster, shows how to get it done.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Save america act, Election security, Voter fraud, John thune, Senate republicans, Save act, Gop, Trump, Democrats, Opinion & analysis, Filibuster, Voting rights, Voter id, Voter registration 

I was in the delivery room for my eighth child when I found out Paul Ehrlich died.

Ehrlich’s 1968 book “The Population Bomb” did not come from concern for the environment. It grew out of a basic contempt for his fellow man. He viewed people not as the foundation of society but as a destructive force consuming resources. His warnings about overpopulation and climate issues were not about protecting nature. They were about controlling and reducing the number of people.

Ehrlich prided himself on the hundreds of millions of babies who were never born because of his ideas. That is his legacy.

This line of thinking was not original. Ehrlich drew directly from Thomas Malthus, the 18th-century writer who argued that population increases faster than food production, leading inevitably to catastrophe. Malthus provided the intellectual justification for elites of his era to look down on the poor and the growing families among them.

Ehrlich updated the same argument with modern statistics, computer models, and environmental language. He took it farther. Ehrlich functioned as a modern version of the Albigensians, the medieval sect condemned by the Catholic Church for teaching that physical matter and the body were inherently corrupt. Those believers discouraged marriage and childbirth, seeing procreation as trapping more souls in an evil material world. The ultimate good preached by the Albigensians was for followers to starve themselves to death to show their commitment to not consuming resources.

Ehrlich repackaged these ideas in pseudoscientific terms: Stop having children, or you will destroy the planet. The message stayed the same — human life and babies are the problem.

His specific forecasts failed, one after another. He predicted that hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation in the 1970s and ’80s. That did not happen.

He wrote that India faced unavoidable mass famine and societal breakdown. Instead, new agricultural techniques dramatically increased food production there and across Asia.

In a famous 1980 wager with economist Julian Simon, Ehrlich claimed prices of key raw materials would surge due to scarcity over the next 10 years. The prices fell, and he lost the bet.

Ehrlich had an easy time settling his $10,000 bet with Simon. He mailed the check shortly after receiving both the MacArthur “Genius” Grant and the “ecologist’s version of the Nobel” for his ingeniously wrong ecology — twin prizes that netted him $485,000 (about $1.15 million today).

Despite this best-selling record of error, Ehrlich’s outlook and recommended policies gained influence among those who consider themselves the educated, evidence-based class. University departments, international organizations, and media outlets adopted his assumptions.

RELATED: NYT is getting crushed online for downplaying infamous ‘population bomb’ false alarm

Gene Arias/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank

When he wasn’t barnstorming lecture halls demanding that parents be taxed at higher rates than selfish adults, he was making multiple appearances on “The Tonight Show,” where he warned that “there’s a finite pie. The more mice you have nibbling at it, the smaller every mouse’s share.” Johnny Carson nodded along, no doubt contemplating the alimony he had paid out over the course of four marriages.

Our elites were not simply mistaken about the facts. They embraced Ehrlich’s ideas because they already held contempt for the people they aimed to direct. Large families in middle America, working parents, and growing populations in developing nations represent something they want to limit — too many independent voices, too many demands on resources, too much resistance to top-down planning.

This shared attitude explains why policies inspired by Ehrlich persisted, from China’s one-child policy to aggressive carbon pricing that burdens ordinary households and education that frames having children as environmentally irresponsible.

The goal was never just saving the planet. It was managing populations that elites view as excessive and unruly.

It may no longer be in vogue in communist China, which is now scrambling to recover from the disaster of crushing birth rates through forced abortion and sterilization, but progressives throughout the Democratic Party and Europe are still wildly enthusiastic about suppressing new life in the name of “freedom.”

Maybe the closest Ehrlich ever came to being correct is when he predicted that Britain would no longer exist as a viable nation by the year 2000. That will not happen for another year or two under Keir Starmer’s leadership. The U.K., it turns out, won’t be undone by climate catastrophe or mass starvation, but by its embrace of Paul Ehrlich’s worldview. In 2023, England and Wales aborted nearly 300,000 babies. Live births dipped below 600,000.

Ehrlich is gone, but the impulse he represented continues in policy circles and institutions that treat the human population itself as the central threat. Families across the country continue to reject that message. They are choosing to raise children and invest in the future without apology.

Ehrlich prided himself on the hundreds of millions of babies who were never born because of his ideas. That is his legacy. It had to be, because, as he boasted throughout his lifetime, he got a vasectomy in 1963 after the birth of his first child.

Paul Ehrlich lived 93 years. His family tree spanning four generations is less crowded than the recovery room I’m in right now.

​Paul ehrlich, Population bomb, Thomas malthus, Natural resources, Population bomb book, Birthrates, Opinion & analysis, Obituary, Environmentalism, Population decline 

Officials in a Georgia city have locked Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of accessing the local water supply for the agency’s planned mega-detention facility.

ICE’s plans to open a detention center in Social Circle, Georgia, first became public in December, when the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration aims to overhaul the immigration detention system by renovating seven large-scale warehouses to hold 5,000 to 10,000 people each.

‘The lock is there until ICE indicates how water and sewer will be served without exceeding our limited infrastructure capacity.’

The warehouses will reportedly be located in major logistics hubs: Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri. ICE would also establish other smaller warehouses capable of holding 1,500 people each.

According to the Post, ICE plans to establish a feeder system in which individuals would be booked into smaller processing sites and then funneled into one of the seven larger detention facilities for holding while they await deportation. This new system reportedly aims to speed up deportations.

The Post’s article revealed that one of those mega-centers would be located in Social Circle, a plan which city officials have called “infeasible,” citing limitations on local water and sewer infrastructure.

“The mayor and city council of the City of Social Circle unequivocally does not support an ICE detention facility in the city or the surrounding areas,” the city said in a December statement.

Later reports revealed that the DHS is planning eight large detention centers, not seven.

RELATED: Exclusive: DHS dispels legacy media’s claims about family detention center

Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Social Circle Mayor David Keener released a joint statement in January insisting that the detention facility is “not right for Social Circle, and the City of Social Circle does not support it.”

“We are urging the administration to abandon this plan, which risks overwhelming the city’s resources and more than tripling its population,” the joint statement reads.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) joined local leaders in opposing the planned facility.

“Folks in Social Circle voted for this president overwhelmingly,” Warnock stated March 3. “But here’s what they didn’t vote for — they didn’t vote for a 10,000-person detention center that will triple the size of their town, to place a massive detention center next to an elementary school. They didn’t vote for potential ‘boil water’ advisories or sewer overflows because this administration has overstrained their city’s resources. They didn’t vote for their voices to be unheard and trampled by their own federal government.”

In early February, Social Circle confirmed that ICE had purchased a facility within the city and that local officials had met with the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the plan.

The city claimed the DHS plans to “fully implement” its new detention center model, which involves transitioning from private operations to government-owned facilities, by the end of the fiscal year.

“DHS plans to implement a ‘Hub and Spoke Model,’ in which four smaller processing facilities will feed into the larger detention facilities,” the city said. “The proposed facility in Social Circle is identified as one of eight ‘mega centers’ that will be located across the nation. Overall, ICE intends to reduce its number of facilities from approximately 300 to 34 nationwide. The facility in Social Circle is expected to house anywhere from 7,500 to 10,000 detainees and will be constructed using a modular design so that capacity can be scaled up or down as needed.”

The city stated that the facility will employ roughly 2,000 to 2,500 staff members and include holding areas, gyms, recreational spaces, court facilities, intake areas, cafeterias, laundry facilities, health services, and a gun range.

Social Circle estimated that ICE will begin intake at the detention center between mid-May and June.

RELATED: ACLU’s Alligator Alcatraz lawsuit CRUSHED: Trump judge smacks down liberal bid to close facility meant for illegal aliens

Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images

DHS reportedly committed that the facility will have “no adverse effect on the community and surrounding properties”; however, city officials are not convinced, claiming that concerns about its water and sewage capacity have not been addressed to their satisfaction.

“Documents provided by DHS indicate this detention facility alone would have a sewage demand of 1,001,683 gallons per day. The city’s current wastewater system processes 660,000 gallons a day and is already operating at capacity. It cannot accommodate an increase in usage of this magnitude,” the city stated.

While Social Circle plans to build a sewer treatment plant that would initially increase its capacity by 1.5 million gallons per day, construction has not yet begun, and it is projected to take one year to 18 months to complete.

As a result, city officials have opted to cut off water and sewer services to ICE’s facility by locking the water meter serving the warehouse.

“The lock is there until ICE indicates how water and sewer will be served without exceeding our limited infrastructure capacity,” Social Circle said Monday.

Blaze News requested comment from the city regarding whether it or any other local or state government entity was required to review or approve the sale of the warehouse to ICE.

“The federal government acted unilaterally to acquire the property. Nobody from the city was consulted prior to purchase,” City Manager Eric Taylor replied.

Walton County told Blaze News that it “had no correspondence or communication with the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, or any private contractors regarding the detention center’s establishment.”

“The facility in question is located within the city limits of Social Circle. Consequently, all planning, zoning, and land use matters fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the City of Social Circle,” the county stated. “There was no requirement for Walton County to review, approve, or sign off on the purchase of the warehouse. As this is a private property transaction within city limits, the county was not a party to the sale or any associated federal agreements.”

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s office stated, “As this is a federal project the state has no involvement in, I would have to refer you to the Department of Homeland Security for more information.”

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

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​News, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Department of homeland security, Dhs, Social circle georgia, Georgia, Ice facility, Ice detention center, Immigration crisis, Illegal immigration crisis, Immigration, Illegal immigration, Politics 

Storm season is here, and depending on where you live, you may have already seen some early strong thunderstorms, mild flooding, and even intense tornadoes. The best way to know what’s coming next is to track your local forecast with your smartphone. These are a few of our favorite free weather apps you need for iPhone and Android.

A few of our favorite weather apps

There are tons of weather apps on the App Store and Google Play, but they’re not all created equal: They offer varying types of information, their user interfaces are wildly different, and most importantly, they pull weather data from different sources, potentially leaving forecasts open to holes and inaccuracies. If you only use one weather app or tune into the same weather report on TV, you might have an incomplete picture of your local weather.

Having access to the best weather apps is only half the battle when a severe outbreak rolls through.

As the de facto “weather guy” in my own family, I use a combination of all of these to understand weather conditions as they unfold. The options below are all available for free with ads. If you want to remove the ads or unlock even more features, most of these offer recurring subscriptions. For the sake of accessibility, though, we’re only dealing with the free versions today.

The Weather Channel app

The Weather Channel app is one of the earliest apps on the App Store, launching just several months after Apple opened its digital storefront to developers back in 2008. Although the Weather Channel has gone through several major redesigns, it remains one of the most accurate and reliable weather apps available. It’s especially good at predicting daily and weekly forecasts. The live radar is easy to read as storms move through. The severe outlook map layer is a handy way to see if your region is at risk of severe weather. Lastly, real-time precipitation notifications with lightning alerts let you know exactly when rain is about to start, whether it’s just a light shower or something much more severe.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / The Weather Channel

AccuWeather app

AccuWeather is another weather solution that’s been around for ages. Getting its start all the way back in 1962, its service is trusted by local TV and radio stations from coast to coast. As for the app, the hourly precipitation estimator, Minutecast, is a great way to know if any rain is expected within the next hour, making it easier to shore up outdoor plans. The radar filters are especially useful, with multiple views to display live radar, temperature, and cloud cover. My personal favorite feature, though, is the government-issued event map, which shows distinct colored zones for watches and warnings, just like on TV.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / AccuWeather

Weather Underground app

Although not as much of a household name as the first two, Weather Underground has spent the last 30 years building its reputation as a hyper-local weather forecasting service. The app wraps all the usual weather metrics into a beautiful modern design. The reason I keep it in my collection, though, is for the map data, more specifically storm tracks. Unlike some other apps that lock storm tracks behind a paywall, Weather Underground offers it for free. Once enabled, storm tracks lets you see granular radar-indicated information about every storm, including the path of each storm cell, its intensity markers, and overall threat level (tornado impact, hail risk, damaging wind, and more). These tracks can make the difference between knowing if a tornado is aimed for your home or expected to miss.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / Weather Underground

Native weather apps

If all else fails, your phone comes with a built-in weather-tracking option that will get the job done.

Users of iPhones get instant access to Apple Weather. While Apple used to rely heavily on the Weather Channel for its data, its acquisition of hyper-local weather phenom Dark Sky back in 2020 gave Apple the first-party edge it needed to make its weather app essential. It includes granular hourly rain alerts, severe weather notifications, and Apple News integration that displays weather-related stories from local stations and mainstream outlets.

RELATED: New hack poses biggest iPhone threat in 19 years: What you can do

Xaume Olleros/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The big place where Apple Weather falls short, in my opinion, is the lackluster radar that only highlights minimal precipitation, and that’s about it. I’ve also encountered some inaccuracies with incorrect rain alerts, but your experience may vary. Overall, Apple Weather offers a good baseline for tracking conditions in your area.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / Apple Weather

Samsung Galaxy phones come with Samsung Weather. The app offers a clean look at hourly forecasts, air quality, and other typical weather metrics. At its core, though, the app is just a wrapper for the Weather Channel, which powers Samsung Weather’s entire data portfolio. In fact, if you click on any of the data points in the app for more information, you’ll be redirected to a web app for the Weather Channel, which is, unfortunately, not nearly as good as the main Weather Channel app. If you own a Samsung phone, you may as well just download the former for a better experience.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / Samsung Weather

Google Pixel users get exclusive access to Pixel Weather. Powered by Gemini Nano, Pixel Weather is an AI-first weather app that offers generated weather reports that summarize expected weather conditions, weather insights that let you know what kind of weather event is coming your way, plus daily forecasts, air quality, and a radar that is slightly more useful than the one in Apple Weather. While the look and feel of Pixel Weather is modern on the surface, its overall accuracy — at least regarding the snow estimates of the recent Midwest and East Coast blizzards — has been called into question.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / Pixel Weather

Stay safe with emergency alerts

Having access to the best weather apps is only half the battle when a severe outbreak rolls through. You also need a lifeline to let you know when bad weather is on the way. Luckily, all major smartphones support government-issued alerts to tell you when to take cover. Check your settings now to make sure you’re all set up when the next major storm strikes:

iPhone: Open the Settings app and tap “Notifications.” At the very bottom of the page, check “Emergency Alerts” and “Public Safety Alerts.”Samsung Galaxy: Open the Settings app. Tap on “Notifications,” followed by “Advanced settings,” and then “Wireless emergency alerts.” From here, make sure “Extreme threats” and “Severe threats” are toggled on.Google Pixel: Open the Settings app. Select “Notifications” and then “Wireless emergency alerts.” On this page, toggle the switches for “Allow Alerts,” “Extreme threats,” and “Severe threats.”

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw / Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel

Severe weather can develop fast as we shift into spring, but you don’t have to live life in the dark. All it takes is a few apps and alerts to get all the information needed to keep you and your loved ones safe.

​Weather, Apps, Storms 

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is sounding off on what she sees as a deeply unsettling turn in high fashion, criticizing Paris Fashion Week for embracing what she describes as “demonic” and grotesque aesthetics over beauty.

“The theme is clearly to be demonic. And I don’t know what kind of statement they’re trying to make, if it’s some kind of critique of society or if they are just the demonic people themselves, but pretty scary. Obviously, not about beauty,” Stuckey says.

And those who attend the shows and praise the designers aren’t much better.

“I think that they’re all thinking about being seen, and how the world is interpreting them, and what kind of statement they’re making, and what kind of opportunity or attention this is going to get them,” Stuckey says, mocking, “‘Do people think I’m edgy finally? Oh, I bet I’m going to be the strangest, most bizarre, most, you know, edgiest person there.’”

“I think they’re all thinking about themselves. I don’t think that they are there to enjoy the art or to enjoy the spectacle. I think they are there to be the art and to be the spectacle,” she adds.

Designer Kei Ninomiya’s collection was described as “gloom” made “tangible” by Vogue Runway. The collection featured gothic horror elements of bondage and morbid animal sculptures.

“Because all of us are like, ‘How can I get my hands on some gloom?’” Stuckey comments.

“The soundtrack for the collection was labeled ‘the aural equivalent of a nervous breakdown,’” she says. “Again, I have always wanted my nervous breakdowns to become an aura that I could just kind of swim through.”

The brand Enfants Riches Déprimés, whose French name translates to ‘Depressed Rich Kids,’ also made an appearance.

“His show featured a model chained to a statue of a man’s head. … The brand’s inspiration comes from fellow child elites the designer met in rehab as a young man,” Stuckey explains.

The designer, Henri Alexander Levy, is quoted as once saying, “If you were going to kill yourself, wouldn’t you want to do it with a $7,000 cashmere noose?”

“I think people underestimate how many people in Hollywood, the fashion world, movie industry, are truly just disturbed people who are working out their trauma and demonic possession through entertainment and fashion,” Stuckey says.

Another brand, Matières Fécales — which is French for “Fecal Matter” — claims that its collection is a critique of “wealth, power, corruption, and inequality.”

“Somehow, I just don’t feel like that’s what it’s accomplishing,” Stuckey says.

“There is something just very dark about the glorification of the demonic that we see among a lot of people in Hollywood and in the music industry,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Demonic, Demonic possession, Demonic influence, Paris fashion week, Matières fécales, Enfants riches deprimes 

Cesar Chavez has been lauded by Mexican-Americans as an iconic labor leader who fought for farmworkers’ rights in the 1960s, but his legacy may be marred by growing allegations of “profoundly shocking” behavior.

Several celebrations of Cesar Chavez Day, which is observed March 31, have been canceled across the country by the United Farm Workers, an organization Chavez co-founded.

‘These allegations have been profoundly shocking. We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it.’

The union said in a letter Tuesday that the claims against Chavez were “incompatible” with the organization’s values.

“Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on,” the group said. “Far more troubling are allegations involving abuse of young women or minors. Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing. We have not received any direct reports, and we do not have any firsthand knowledge of these allegations.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that Cesar Chavez events were canceled in Tucson, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and San Bernardino.

The union went on to say that canceling the events could “provide space for people who may have been victimized to find support and to share their stories if that is what they choose.”

The Times reported that it was unclear when the allegations might be made public.

“These allegations have been profoundly shocking. We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it,” the UFW said.

RELATED: Jill Biden mocked for comparing Hispanics to tacos at ‘Latinx Incluxion’ conference: ‘Previously unimaginable level of cringe’

The Cesar Chavez Foundation also released a statement referring to the allegations, saying it had “become aware of disturbing allegations that Cesar Chavez engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with women and minors during his time as President of the United Farm Workers of America.”

A spokesperson for labor leader Dolores Huerta said she was not commenting on the issue after she pulled out of a march in Corpus Christi.

A legal expert told the Times that the allegations may lead to legal trouble for the group.

Some on the left have argued against the glorification of Chavez over his opposition to illegal immigration because of its effect on union wages.

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​Cesar chavez allegations, United farm workers union, Profoundly shocking accusations chavez, Politics, Labor events canceled 

To say the conservative movement has come off the rails would comically understate the damage. Wild accusations bounce from show to show. Members of Congress pick petty fights on social media. President Trump even waded into internet drama while another war rages in the Persian Gulf.

Plenty of commentators blame podcasts for this new disorder, and the new ecosystem gives them no shortage of bad behavior to cite. But that diagnosis misses the deeper cause. Establishment conservatives treated their audiences the same way the legacy press did: as a resource to be managed, manipulated, and occasionally milked. A movement that spent decades being lied to will not be stitched back together by scolding the people who finally stopped listening.

Conservative audiences will not return to reality through scolding. They will return through honesty.

After Democrats lost in 2024 to a resurgent Donald Trump, they went hunting for culprits. They blamed a new breed of podcasters who cracked the information monopoly progressives had grown used to enjoying. Talk radio always bothered the left, but it remained a kind of cultural ghetto for older conservatives. Podcasts like Joe Rogan’s reached a younger, largely male audience that rarely participated in politics at all. Democrats screamed about “disinformation,” warned about the danger of free speech, then launched research projects designed to replicate what they claimed to hate.

The right cheered the upheaval. Establishment conservatives, however, never fully grasped what the shift meant for them. The left’s control of mainstream media gave it a weapon of enormous magnitude, but Fox News and talk radio served a parallel purpose on the right: discipline the acceptable narrative, keep Republican voters inside a manageable story, and punish those who stepped too far outside it.

Institutional conservatives also abused that power. They sold narratives that served donors, careers, and comfortable assumptions. They treated their base as a captive audience. This behavior helped fuel the Trumpian revolution in the first place. Trump did not rise only as a battering ram against progressive media. He rose as a middle finger to a conservative establishment that had earned the people’s contempt.

That plan worked, then kept working in ways many people did not anticipate. The democratization of information that destroyed the progressive narrative machine has now turned its solvent on the conservative one. Populism behaves like universal acid. It rarely dissolves only the targets you prefer.

Conservative gatekeepers now display the same panicked reflexes the left showed: warnings about “dangerous rhetoric,” demands for deplatforming, and pleas for “responsible” voices to regain control. These instincts never belonged to one ideology. They belong to institutions that sense their monopoly slipping away.

RELATED: America First can’t survive an Iran quagmire

Blaze Media Illustration

Podcast distribution changes the game. Commentators once required the reach of major networks and the production value that came with large teams. Now anyone with a microphone, a ring light, and an internet connection can reach millions.

It turns out that younger audiences value relatability and long-form conversation more than professional polish. Even established names found the freedom of the podcast more attractive than a coveted cable slot.

The low barrier of entry produces obvious downsides. Wild speculation spreads faster than corrections. Personal feuds drive engagement more reliably than careful analysis. The audience rewards charisma and intensity, not always judgment. The result looks ridiculous at times. This week, the president inserted himself into a juvenile online dispute while U.S. forces struck Iran, a perfect example of how unserious the culture can become when attention becomes the currency and everyone fights for a share of it.

But all the moralizing in the world will not restore the old order. Mainstream conservatives cannot lecture podcast audiences about “responsible broadcasting” after years of manipulating their own viewers. The level of mistrust runs too deep.

Censorship will fail too. Shaming and platform policing did not rebuild credibility for Democrats. It will not rebuild Republicans’ credibility.

RELATED: The SAVE Act is the hill voters will die on

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

This is the part conservative leadership does not want to hear. The path out requires admitting that the problem did not begin with podcasts. The problem began with institutions that treated truth as a tool. Restoring coherence demands that conservative leaders stop trying to reassert narrative control and start rebuilding trust. That means fewer games, fewer insinuations, fewer anonymous smears, and more willingness to say, “We were wrong,” and explain why.

Conservative audiences will not return to reality through scolding. They will return through honesty. That will require a different posture from conservative leaders: less control, more candor; fewer moral lectures, more receipts; fewer slogans, more clarity about what can be done and what cannot. The movement will stumble until it learns that discipline beats drama.

So expect things to get worse before they get better. Conservative media spent years breaking trust. The bill has come due. And now the only way out is through.

​Podcasts, Joe rogan, Right wing, Republican voters, Donald trump, Populism, Censorship, Opinion & analysis, Conservative movement, Elections, Media, Popular opinion, Disinformation, The left 

The search for a family missing since January ended gruesomely after their remains were found in a wooded area, according to Alabama police.

A 40-year-old mother, along with her daughter and son, had not been seen at their home since Jan. 30, and they were reported missing a day later. They were identified as Aurelia Choc Cac, her 17-year-old daughter Niurka Zuleta Choc, and her 2-year-old son Anthony Garcia Choc.

‘We wouldn’t be standing here today if this defendant, who has an extensive violent criminal history, was not released under Biden’s administration in 2021.’

The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office reported signs of struggle at the house and identified 31-year-old Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra, whose real name was later determined to be Hector Gamaliel Argueta-Guerra, as a person of interest in a post on Facebook that same day.

Argueta-Guerra was arrested and charged with kidnapping in February.

On March 13, the sheriff’s office reported finding remains it believed to belong to the family in Summerdale in Baldwin County.

“This is a horrific, gruesome murder,” said Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood at a media briefing.

Police said Argueta-Guerra was a member of the Sureños gang in El Salvador with a lengthy criminal history. In 2016, a detention order for terrorism-related conduct with special aggravating factors was issued against him. Other terror-related filings were made in 2018 as well as 2024.

Despite that long record, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch said Argueta-Guerra had been deported once before and then released inside the U.S. under the Biden administration.

“We wouldn’t be standing here today if this defendant, who has an extensive violent criminal history, was not released under Biden’s administration in 2021,” Burch said.

Police said Argueta-Guerra had been charged with a slew of additional crimes, including:

Three counts of kidnapping in the first degree;One count of capital murder under 14 years;One count of obstructing justice using a false identity;Three counts of abuse of a corpse;Three counts of capital murder/burglary;Three counts of capital murder/kidnapping; andOne count of capital murder of two or more persons.

RELATED: ‘It had to be done’: Man confesses to brutal murders of 3 women in Utah after he hit an elk, police say

Argueta-Guerra pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to appear in court in April. The district attorney said they will seek the death penalty.

“Hector, you are a sick person to do what you did to this family, and we know if convicted, you will never see the outside world again,” the sheriff’s office said.

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A disturbing exposé from the Washington Post is raising serious ethical questions about the global electric vehicle boom, detailing alleged “slavery-like” conditions tied to a Brazilian plant operated by Chinese automaker BYD.

The exposé details a specialized task force’s findings of the alleged scheme, which “began in China, where job postings and foremen issued false promises of good pay — usually more than $1,700 per month — often without committing them to writing.”

“At the Brazilian border, workers were brought in on visas sponsored by [Chinese electric automaker] BYD that identified them incorrectly as specialized technicians rather than manual laborers,” the exposé alleges.

“They didn’t speak Portuguese. Many of their passports, investigators found, had been locked inside a drawer at the jobsite. Most of their pay — around half of what was promised, prosecutors said — was deposited in China, not Brazil. Some of the housing structures were patrolled by an armed guard, according to investigators,” it continues.

“What China was doing was saying, ‘Hey, yeah, we’re going to pay you all this money. We’re just going to deposit it in an account that you can’t access because you’re halfway around the world. How does that do for you?’” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere comments.

The article also points out that the workers “never seemed to do anything for fun,” and their food was prepared in a garage “amid industrial detritus and vermin.”

But it gets even worse, with the Washington Post writing that “authorities alleged BYD and its partners had preyed upon 220 vulnerable laborers — some of whom were illiterate — duping them with false promises of high pay.”

“They were then pressed into punishing labor from which they could not escape. Many had their passports confiscated, prosecutors alleged, and much of their promised pay was withheld,” the article continues.

“This is the price of your environmentalism, boys and girls. This is what’s happening all over the place. … BYD is making these vehicles incredibly cheaply. This is not the way that Tesla is doing business by any means. But there are companies that do it this way,” Stu comments.

“We’re used to this type of thing from places like China. They can get these prices way, way down, and they’re building it on the backs of people like this,” he alleges.

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​Stu does america, Stu burguiere, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, China, Electric vehicles, The washington post, Slavery, Modern day slavery, Chinese automaker byd 

A Texas ex-substitute teacher and her boyfriend were indicted on a combined 39 child sex crime charges earlier this month stemming from sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl, according to multiple reports.

Madison Paige Jones, 30, was indicted on 19 criminal charges, including 13 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, four counts of indecency with a child by exposure, one count of indecency with a child sexual contact, and one count of possession with intent to promote child pornography, according to court records.

‘She told officers that Jones and Dondlinger were in a relationship and that she had concerns with Dondlinger’s behavior toward a 5-year-old child in Jones’ home.’

On the same day, Jones’ 37-year-old boyfriend, Zackery Dondlinger, was indicted on 20 criminal charges, including 13 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, three counts of indecency with a child by exposure, two counts of indecency with a child sexual contact, one count of sexual performance by a child, and one count of possession with intent to promote child pornography.

According to jail records, Jones and Dondlinger are being held at the Wayne McCollum Detention Center in Waxahachie. Their combined bonds total nearly $9 million — $5 million for Dondlinger and $3,840,000 for Jones.

As Blaze News reported in December, Jones had been a substitute teacher with the Midlothian Independent School District. However, the district said Jones was terminated from her position immediately following her arrest.

KDFW-TV reported that Jones had worked as a substitute four times in 2025 at Heritage High School and Baxter Elementary School.

The school district emphasized that there is no indication that the child sex crime charges are linked to Jones’ role as a substitute teacher. The school district said preliminary findings show that none of the alleged misconduct occurred on a Midlothian ISD campus or during school-sanctioned events.

RELATED: Neighbors allegedly noticed something suspicious — now a teacher is accused of ‘extremely disturbing’ sex assault of student

The Midlothian Police Department said in a statement that officers were “dispatched to investigate a report of a potential sexual assault involving a child” on Dec. 17.

KFDA-TV obtained court documents in January saying officers went to the home of a woman who identified herself as a friend of Jones.

“She told officers that Jones and Dondlinger were in a relationship and that she had concerns with Dondlinger’s behavior toward a 5-year-old child in Jones’ home,” KFDA reported.

Court documents said Jones informed authorities that Dondlinger was having sexual fantasies about the child.

According to KFDA, “Officers then spoke with Jones, who then confessed to sexually assaulting the 5-year-old on direction from Dondlinger.”

Jones confessed that she sent videos of the sex acts to Dondlinger via Snapchat to satisfy his sexual requests, according to court records.

Citing the affidavit, KFDA reported that investigators discovered a message from Dondlinger that corroborated Jones’ claim that she was acting at his direction.

The San Antonio Express-News reported that Jones is accused of possessing more than 500 visual depictions of child pornography.

KVII-TV reported that the alleged child sex abuse involved one purported victim between Dec. 5 and Dec. 17.

According to KVII, Jones was arrested Dec. 19, and Dondlinger was arrested Dec. 23 on an oil rig site about an hour west of Odessa.

Police seized an iPhone and an iPad from Jones and two iPhones from Dondlinger, according to KFDA.

The Midlothian Police Department said Jones and Dondlinger were in a dating relationship, CBS News reported.

The Ellis County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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​Teacher arrested, Bad teacher, Madison paige jones, Teacher sex scandal, Teacher student sex scandal, Child porn, Child pornography, Child sex crimes, Child sex abuse, Crime, Texas, Midlothian police 

The general manager of the Seattle Seahawks football team says a new tax proposal from Democrats will make it much harder for him to sign new players.

On Wednesday, Washington state Democrats passed a proposal to impose a 9.9% state income tax on high earners, and it awaits the governor’s signature to be put into law.

‘So yeah, it’s going to sting from a recruiting standpoint.’

General manager John Schneider said during a radio interview Thursday that the team would lose an advantage it had to lure players away from high-tax states if the proposal passed and that it would affect other sports teams in the state as well.

“All the pro teams here in town, it’s always been a huge attraction, especially competing with the California teams. It’s been a big deal for us,” he said, referring to California’s high state income tax. “So yeah, it’s going to sting from a recruiting standpoint.”

He added that some players’ agents texted him to say, “Hey, can’t use that anymore, buddy, you know?”

Washington state Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, has already pledged to sign the tax proposal. It will likely face legal challenges, but if it’s implemented, the state would begin taking payments in 2029.

“Dang, it’s gonna sting. There’s no question about it,” Schneider reiterated.

The “millionaire’s tax” will apply to those who earn $1 million or more, which would apply to any free agent signed by the Seahawks because the NFL minimum salary in 2026 for players who have already played one season is over $1 million.

RELATED: Billionaire former head of Starbucks abandoning Seattle as state Democrats push millionaire tax

Critics of the law say it will lead to high-earning individuals and companies moving from the state to avoid taxes and taking their revenue with them.

Billionaire Howard Schultz announced his move from Washington state just this month as the bill was progressing through the legislature. Although he did not cite the tax as part of the reason for his departure, he fled to Florida, which has no state income tax.

The Seahawks won the Super Bowl championship in February after handily defeating the New England Patriots with a score of 29 to 13.

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​Seattle seahawks manager, Washington state tax proposal, Millionaires tax washington, Nfl team state taxes, Politics 

The principal of a California high school is looking for other employment opportunities after facing a barrage of criticism from social media over the treatment of a pro-ICE student.

A student from Torrey Pines High School in San Diego was suspended in February for putting up flyers that read, “I love ICE,” and signed, “Real Americans.”

‘The District promotes all lawful exercise of free speech and students’ rights to express their viewpoints while also maintaining school campuses that are safe, orderly, and respectful learning environments.’

The swipe was made apparently at the hundreds of students who had previously walked out on classes to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. While the school did not sanction either protest, they did tell students that they would be marked truant if they walked out of school.

A letter sent to parents about the student getting suspended was posted to social media, which launched a campaign against the school.

On Thursday, an email from Rob Coppo announced his resignation as principal of the school.

“It is time for me to enter a new role in education, but I have been forever shaped by my time leading this incredible school,” he wrote. “The search will soon begin for my successor, and rest assured that we will find a highly qualified educational leader to carry on the proud tradition of excellence this school is known for.”

Coppo said in a comment to the the Coast News that he was nearing retirement and did not reference the ICE controversy.

The San Dieguito Union High School District previously released a statement to Blaze News denying that the student had been punished for his political point of view.

RELATED: Praise rolls in for high school suspending hundreds of students in anti-ICE walkout: ‘Adults are taking charge’

“The San Dieguito Union High School District is aware of recent social media posts regarding an incident at Torrey Pines High School in late February,” the district’s statement reads.

“Some online commentary has suggested that students were disciplined because of their political views, but that claim is inaccurate — the District does not discipline students because of their political viewpoints,” the statement continued. “The District promotes all lawful exercise of free speech and students’ rights to express their viewpoints while also maintaining school campuses that are safe, orderly, and respectful learning environments for everyone.”

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​Pro-ice flyer protest suspension, Torrey pines high school, Principal resigns after outrage, Ice student walkouts, Politics 

Car manufacturers will need to comply with new AI tracking technology requirements by the end of the year.

The add-ons will place cameras pointed directly at the driver’s face to monitor eye movements, among other bodily functions.

‘The touch system is being designed to analyze alcohol found beneath the driver’s skin’s surface.’

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is to blame for the new requirements that will allegedly reduce drunk driving deaths and reduce costs that Congress claimed were more than $44,000,000,000 in 2010.

Section 24220 of the bill, titled “ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY,” declares that in order to “ensure the prevention of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities,” advanced prevention technology “must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles.”

This includes requirements to “passively monitor” the performance of a driver in order to “accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired,” “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected,” and “passively and accurately detect” if a driver’s blood alcohol concentration is equal to or over the legal limits.

RELATED: Sam Altman tells BlackRock he wants AI on a meter ‘like electricity or water’

According to Yahoo News, the technology in practice will be fairly invasive, as it will include a series of artificial intelligence-backed sensors and cameras that will continuously monitor the driver’s mental state.

This includes infrared cameras mounted on the steering column that will directly track the driver’s eyes for pupil dilation. The report also stated that the systems will monitor drowsiness patterns.

If the AI determines the driver to be impaired, it can both prevent ignition or limit the vehicle’s speed.

RELATED: ‘Staged armed robberies’: 11 Indian nationals catch visa fraud charge amid conspiracy allegations

Photo by David L. Ryan/Boston Globe via Getty Images

One such example of this technology is made by Magna, a company contracted by General Motors.

Magna’s technology utilizes “cockpit-embedded sensors” that consistently measure a driver’s exhaled breath, which, when combined with “pupillary signals,” determines the driver’s blood alcohol levels.

In addition, not only is GM reportedly working on its own alcohol detection system, but researchers are looking to include touch as another way to detect impairment.

“The touch system is being designed to analyze alcohol found beneath the driver’s skin’s surface,” wrote the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety program, which is funded by large automakers.

The technology is rather intrusive in that it requires a finger scan to use “tissue spectroscopy to measure alcohol” in the driver’s finger or palm.

As it stands, the monitoring technology is required for “all new passenger motor vehicles” only.

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​Return, Ai, Artificial intelligence, General motors, Mandatory, Driver tech, Ai monitoring, Tech 

On Sunday, March 15, the 98th Academy Awards was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, honoring films released in 2025.

Acceptance speeches were a mixed bag: plenty of good-natured thanks and sweet moments, alongside the usual political remarks — including Javier Bardem’s “No to war, and free Palestine” statement, Jimmy Kimmel’s Trump and Melania digs, gun-violence references, and other commentary on wars and politicians.

But there was one Oscar speech that stopped “Relatable” host Allie Beth Stuckey in her tracks: Jessie Buckley’s.

When the Irish actress took the stage to accept her Best Actress Oscar for her role as Agnes, William Shakespeare’s wife, in the film “Hamnet,” she chose to frame the moment not around her own talent, hard work, politics, or even her historic win as the first Irish woman in the category, but around the beauty of motherhood.

After thanking her fellow actresses and the producers of “Hamnet,” Buckley turned to her husband, Freddie Sorensen, with whom she welcomed their first child in 2025.

“You, Fred, I love you, man. I love you; you’re the most incredible dad. You’re my best friend, and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. I do!” she tearfully exclaimed.

She then addressed their 8-month old daughter, Isla: “I love you, and I love being your mom, and I can’t wait to discover life beside you.”

“It’s Mother’s Day in the U.K. today. So I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart,” Buckley added.

Allie was pleasantly shocked by Buckley’s heartfelt speech about motherhood.

“I don’t know all Oscar speeches, but I’ve never heard a speech dedicated to motherhood,” she says.

“Dedicating it to motherhood as an institution and saying something to your husband — ‘I want to have 20,000 more babies with you’ — that’s just not usually what you see,” she adds.

Allie recalls Michelle Williams’ acceptance speech at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, during which she said, “I’ve tried my very best to make a life of my own making … and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose. To choose when to have children and with whom.”

“Well, obviously, being a mom and accomplishing these things is possible at the same time,” says Allie, “and even if it’s not, motherhood is better.”

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​Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Oscars, Oscars 2026, Jessie buckley, Motherhood, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota unleashed an unhinged rhetorical attack against President Donald Trump after he accused her of playing a part in the Somali fraud ring.

The president lashed out at Omar while speaking about his new anti-fraud task force from the White House and criticized Somalia, the country she immigrated from.

‘She’s one of the ringleaders. She’s bad news, really bad news. She’s so bad for our country.’

“Everyone knows they’ve been cheating for years. It’s the first ever, and it’s gotta be stopped. It’s gotta be stopped. Think of it: Somalia is a third-world, maybe a fourth-world nation. One of the worst, one of the most dangerous,” Trump said, with Vice President JD Vance at his side.

“They don’t have anything. They don’t have councils. They don’t have government. They don’t have police. They shoot each other all over the place. They come here, and they steal $19 billion — it’s crazy,” he added.

“And Ilhan Omar, I hope this is part of it, but she married her brother supposedly. I mean, there’s a lot of documentation. That means she’s here illegally, and she’s a congresswoman,” Trump alleged. “And I hope you’re gonna be looking at that or somebody is, all right? Because she’s one of the ringleaders. She’s bad news, really bad news. She’s so bad for our country.”

Omar responded with a crazed attack on the president in a post on social media.

“The most disturbing part of his unhinged comments is how comfortable he is in telling the world how stupid he and his followers are,” Omar wrote.

“But I guess it’s expected from a man who regularly and publicly fantasized about sleeping with his own daughter and is clearly implicated in the worst pedophile coverup case,” she added.

The anti-fraud task force will be headed up by Vance.

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

The president’s accusation that the Somalian community is responsible for $19 billion in fraud appears to be based on an estimate by then-federal prosecutor Joe Thompson, who said in December that as much as half of the $18 billion in federal funds billed in Minnesota could be fraudulent. Thompson later quit over his objections to immigration policy.

One of the larger convictions of fraud in the Somalian community from Minnesota involved $250 million of pandemic funds stolen through the Feeding Our Future scheme.

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Instead of accepting an Oscar on Sunday night, actor Sean Penn decided to visit a war zone.

Fellow actor Kieran Culkin told viewers that Penn probably “didn’t want to” be at the Oscars, poking fun at him while accepting the Oscar for him.

‘This year I’ll be at the right place.’

Penn won Best Supporting Actor for his role in “One Battle After Another,” his third Oscar in total.

After presenting the award, Culkin said, “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening — or didn’t want to, so I’ll be accepting the award on his behalf.”

Duty calls

It appeared that Penn preferred to spend his time in Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the president sharing a photo of his meeting with the 65-year-old.

“Sean, thanks to you, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is. You have stood with Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale war. This is still true today,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “And we know that you will continue to stand with our country and our people,” he added, along with a photo of himself and Penn from inside the presidential office.

RELATED: Yes, there’s an AI hive mind, and it’s making us dumber

Net positive

Penn’s retreat to Ukraine is a stark contrast to Ben Stiller, who chose to skip Oscar night for much more relatable reasons.

On Sunday afternoon, Stiller responded to a picture from the 2025 Oscars that asked, “Does he know the knicks won,” referring to the NBA’s New York Knicks.

The noted basketball fan replied, “This year I’ll be at the right place.”

Lo and behold, Stiller was pictured courtside at Madison Square Garden in an official team photo that stated, “[Ben Stiller] knows where to be.”

RELATED: Sam Altman tells BlackRock he wants AI on a meter ‘like electricity or water’

Kiev, Ukraine, 2022. Photo by Ukrainian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Missing in action

Both Stiller and Penn are outspoken liberals, making their absence from the Oscars stage — a dependable platform for leftist political messaging — all the more notable.

Recently, Stiller asked the Trump administration to remove a clip of his film “Tropic Thunder” from one of the White House’s highly divisive hype videos, stating, “We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.”

Stiller has consistently posted jabs at the administration on X, such as suggesting it is not adhering to the Constitution, but he has not mentioned the president by name on the platform since 2021, when Trump was ending his first term.

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The latest U.S. Treasury report revealed that in February 2026, the federal government paid $79 billion just in net interest on the national debt, which is approaching a staggering $39 trillion.

“We’re $39 trillion in the hole. We just paid $79 billion last month for just service of the debt. Let me ask you … is your life getting better?” asks Glenn Beck sardonically.

Of all the areas where government money is supposedly spent to improve our quality of life — roads, bridges, hospitals, public education, and airports, among others — Glenn admits the only one that’s actually gotten better is the military.

“I see it in the military. And that’s it. … So where’s the money actually going?” he asks.

Some of it appears to be disappearing into fraudulent schemes.

A recent CBS News investigation exposed widespread indicators of fraud in Los Angeles County’s hospice industry, where “over 700 of the roughly 1,800” licensed hospice providers revealed numerous red flags — i.e., shell companies, empty offices, piled-up mail, dead phone lines, and suspicious concentrations of “businesses” in single locations.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn dives into L.A.’s hospice scandal, warning that the broader implications should stop us dead in our tracks.

“Final chapter of life, families gather, pain is eased, dignity is preserved, and you’re stealing from that?” Glenn asks in disgust. “Wow. Medicare pays for that. No, let me rephrase that — you pay for that, your tax dollars.”

He expresses shock that “hundreds of hospice companies suddenly appeared almost overnight and nobody noticed” despite numerous glaring signs.

“Many of these [hospice companies] are run out of small little offices and storefronts and residential homes — like 30 of these companies in one little office. And they were enrolling patients who were not dying. In fact, they existed, but they didn’t know they were enrolling in this,” Glenn exclaims, noting that “tens of thousands of dollars” go to every single hospice patient.

“The dying turn into billing codes. The elderly turned into profit centers,” he scoffs.

While some may argue that this is “victimless crime,” Glenn sets the record straight: “Hospice fraud means that real care is denied. Pain medication is withheld. Proper treatment is delayed. Families misled.”

“And it’s not theft of just money. It is the theft of dignity at the end of human life,” he emphasizes.

But hospice fraud is just the beginning of L.A’.s woes.

The city is also funding the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles to the tune of $106 million+ to help tenants fight evictions. Except LAFLA and its lawyers also sue the city to block clearing homeless encampments, which create unsafe, disorderly conditions, hurt businesses, and violate city codes.

“The system is a joke. It’s a loop,” Glenn ridicules. “Government tries to do its job. Government then funds the lawyers who want to stop it from doing its job. Lawyers sue the government. Government pays the settlement. Crisis continues.”

Add our “trillion dollar deficit in five months” to L.A.’s hospice fraud and the “legal warfare that perpetuates [its] urban collapse,” and you arrive at a sinister question, he says: “What if Los Angeles is not the exception? What if it is actually the rule?”

“We spend roughly $6.5 trillion every year. … If just 10% of that is lost to fraud, waste, and corruption, that’s $650 billion. If it’s 20%, that’s $1.3 trillion. That’s the entire deficit,” Glenn exclaims, calling it “deeply unsettling.”

“If what we’re seeing in places like Los Angeles reflects the broader system, then 20%, maybe one-third, of the federal deficit every single year may simply be because of corruption,” he continues.

If this “quiet siphoning of money from [taxpayers] through programs that are meant to be compassionate, noble, [and] necessary” is allowed to continue, Glenn warns that the consequences will be catastrophic.

Not only will it result in “financial bankruptcy” but also “moral bankruptcy.”

“If hospice fraud can flourish in the shadows, if taxpayer money can fund legal warfare against you with your money, if billions can move through programs with no accountability, then the deficit we see on paper is only part of the story,” he cautions.

“The real deficit is something harder to repair — a deficit of courage, a deficit of attention, a deficit of moral clarity. And unless we rediscover those things really soon, gang, the most dangerous line in the federal budget will not be the interest payments. It will be that silent line item that’s been growing for decades: the cost of looking the other way.”

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

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President Donald Trump demanded over the weekend that NATO members, Pacific region allies, and even China help the United States clear the Strait of Hormuz — through which maritime traffic has ground to a halt due to the ongoing threat of Iranian missile and drone strikes — and “make sure that nothing bad happens there.”

Trump noted that “this should have always been a team effort, and now it will be.”

‘Not a simple task.’

The response was less enthusiastic than Trump had apparently hoped, with some nations rebuffing the invitation and others kicking their decisions down the road.

“There are some countries that greatly disappointed me,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House on Monday. “What does surprise me is that they’re not eager to help.”

Fewer than 24 hours later, Trump unpacked his disappointment on Truth Social, noting that “the United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon.”

“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” continued the president.

RELATED: Joe Kent resigns from Trump admin, says Israel forced US into Iran conflict

Vessel attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on March 11. Photo by Handout / ROYAL THAI NAVY / AFP via Getty Images.

After noting that Iran’s leadership and key defenses “are gone,” Trump said, “We no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

‘You will lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella.’

Trump’s latest criticism of NATO comes just weeks after the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, told his European colleagues, “If anyone thinks here again that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming. You can’t. We can’t. We need each other.”

Rutte said that without the U.S., European nations would need to each beef up their defense spending to 10% and build out their nuclear capability.

“In that scenario, you will lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the U.S. nuclear umbrella. So hey, good luck,” added the NATO secretary general.

Despite Rutte’s reminder about Europe’s reliance on America and Trump’s threat on Sunday that NATO would face a “very bad future” if members didn’t assist, numerous NATO members and U.S. allies farther afield declined Trump’s invitation to commit forces in the Persian Gulf.

Kaja Kallas, vice president of the European Commission and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, told reporters on Monday that officials want to maintain their focus on Ukraine and that where Iran is concerned, their “focus is de-escalation and also freedom of navigation.”

While acknowledging the impact of the conflict and Iran’s ballistic blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Kallas stressed, “This is not Europe’s war — this situation in the region.”

Kallas noted further that the EU has Operation Aspides underway in the Red Sea — a military operation aimed at safeguarding merchant and commercial vessels — but that it won’t cover the strait as “there was no appetite from the Member states to do that.”

Stefan Kornelius, a spokesman for the German government, stated, “The government will not participate in this war,” reported Deutsche Welle. “This war has nothing to do with NATO; it is not NATO’s war.”

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius echoed this sentiment on Monday, stating, “It is not our war; we did not start it. We want diplomatic solutions and a swift end, but additional warships in the region will likely not contribute to that.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in an address on Monday that “we have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure stability” but that it “is not a simple task.”

Emphasizing that the U.K. will “not be drawn into the wider war,” he noted that Britain is working with European allies on a “viable, collective plan that can restore freedom of navigation in the region as quickly as possible.”

While reluctant to send warships, the U.K. is reportedly planning to send mine-hunting drones to help reopen the strait.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, “We are not party to the conflict and therefore France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz in the current context,” reported Reuters.

‘We won’t be dragged into any war of choice.’

“We are convinced that once the situation has calmed down — and I deliberately ⁠use this term broadly — once the situation has calmed down, that is to say, once the main bombing ⁠has ceased, we are ready, along with other nations, to assume responsibility for the escort system,” added Macron.

RELATED: ‘Die in your rage’: Islamist attacks and murder plots are quickly adding up

Photo by Benoit Tessier / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reportedly indicated that the conflict was none of Warsaw’s business, stating his government “does not plan any expedition to Iran, and this does not raise any doubts on the part of our allies.”

Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told Euronews that “NATO is indeed a defensive alliance, and we won’t be dragged into any war of choice.”

“We of course have a collective interest — and I should say not only within NATO — but as the world, to have the oil flowing, to de-escalate, and that is certainly something we are calling for,” added Valtonen.

Anita Anand, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, said that Iran’s blockade was unlawful but also backed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s claim that the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes appear to violate international law.

Anand said further that there’s been no formal discussion among NATO members about Trump’s request, stating, “To our knowledge a request has not been made to NATO for the type of assistance that is being requested,” reported the Globe and Mail.

Some allies outside of NATO similarly poured cold water on the prospect of a coalition of the willing.

Australian Transport Minister Catherine King, for instance, said her country “won’t be sending a ship to the Strait of Hormuz.”

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reportedly told lawmakers on Monday that her nation had no plans to send warships to the Persian Gulf.

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A public fistfight in a ritzy Washington, D.C., neighborhood led to a former Biden staffer raging against the failures of Democrat-controlled cities on social media.

Yemisi Egbewole worked as the chief of staff to former press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, but she has since become critical of many Democratic policies.

‘Tolerating this behavior is unfair to the residents who live here and unfair to the kids themselves. We need to enforce consequences.’

On Sunday, she posted a video on social media showing a large group of what appeared to be teenagers beating down and stomping a victim at the D.C. Navy Yard.

“Blue cities need to wake up. Tolerating this behavior is unfair to the residents who live here and unfair to the kids themselves. We need to enforce consequences,” Egbewole wrote.

She went on to post another video of the unruly young people running through D.C. and criticized Councilmember Janeese Lewis George for voting against curfews that could have curtailed the fighting.

“[George] believes compassion for these children is the pathway to rehabilitation. But at this point, that kind of ‘compassion’ is just abject neglect,” Egbewole added.

“Imagine paying $3,500 a month to live in a box in the city, working all week to afford it, and when the weekend comes you can’t even enjoy it because kids are bare-knuckle beating each other outside your window,” she continued. “The city you pay taxes to does nothing. Incredible.”

She also rejected commenters who argued that the kids were acting out because of a lack of “third spaces” like skating rinks and arcades, a concept popularized by urbanist activists.

“Is this a joke? So the solution is creating more ‘third spaces’ for them to fight each other in? This is a problem that starts at home. It’s a moral and values issue. A skating rink isn’t going to fix that,” Egbewole responded.

RELATED: Former Biden aides unload on Karine Jean-Pierre after she leaves Democratic Party: ‘As breathtaking as it is desperate’

Egbewole addressed the same issue in an op-ed for Fox News, where she warned that Democrats were wrong to avoid the crime issue.

“Refusing to address crime doesn’t protect communities of color; it leaves them more vulnerable,” she wrote in August. “The kids causing chaos aren’t the only ones who live in these neighborhoods. There are other young people who want to learn, want to grow and are watching bad behavior go unchecked.”

Two firearms were recovered in the Navy Yard altercation, and two juveniles were arrested.

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