Category: blaze media

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has announced criminal charges against a woman who allegedly vandalized the World War II monument in D.C. and posted video of herself apparently in the act.

Pirro noted her personal interest in the charges against Melissa Farris in a statement released Friday about the vandalism.

‘Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit. … Where do these animals come from???’

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” said Pirro in a post on social media.

Farris allegedly spray-painted messages on the memorial in pink paint and also allegedly put a sudsing agent into the waters of the fountains. “I’m here. I done did it,” she appears to brag on video.

“Clean hands Dirty $” was the message scrawled in spray-paint, WJLA reported.

Pirro went on to say that Farris was charged in a federal district court with depredation against the property of the United States as well as destruction of veterans’ memorials.

President Donald Trump noted the vandalism in a post on Truth Social.

“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals,” he wrote Friday morning. “THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II. First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???”

The president linked the war memorial vandalism to the damage allegedly done to the new lining that was sprayed into the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. Pirro dropped charges against a man accused of damaging the lining, claiming that contractor errors were to blame for the damage.

RELATED: Swastika and racial slur found on fence at elementary school in SoCal town

Trump was reportedly furious at Pirro, who blamed the debacle on Interior Sec. Doug Burgum.

Farris could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, according to Pirro.

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​Crime, Donald trump, Jeanine pirro, Social media, Vandalism, World war ii, Politics 

The 911 operators of New Orleans are not happy about what they are calling irresponsible journalism.

The conflict stems from a report that accused the emergency service providers in the city of using artificial intelligence — instead of humans — to respond to emergency calls.

‘No, New Orleans 911 is NOT replacing humans with AI.’

The article in question was originally titled “New Orleans will use AI to answer 911 calls instead of a human,” from the Shreveport Times.

The outlet said the Orleans Parish Communication District, which handles emergency and public safety calls for the city, was testing out a new tool to reduce the intake volume for dispatchers.

Citing “over a thousand emergency calls a day,” the paper stated that while the AI was originally implemented in April for non-emergencies, the AI is now answering 911 emergency calls for Louisiana’s largest city.

In response, the OPCD called the report “extremely misleading & inaccurate, and “containing numerous errors of fact.”

A press release from the organization titled “No, New Orleans 911 is NOT replacing humans with AI,” refuted the claim that officials are exchanging staff members for artificial intelligence and offered an explanation for how their “AI call-triage” tool works.

That’s where the automated responses come in.

OPCD said that when all operators are busy and a 911 call comes in from within 200 meters of an already-reported incident, the AI tells the callers they have reached New Orleans 911 and asks if they are calling about the same case.

RELATED: Surveillance pricing is here — and this surprising state is saying NO

Don Juan Moore/Getty Images

“If the caller responds with anything other than ‘YES’ (in any language), they are returned to the 911 call queue to speak with a human,” the organization wrote.

If the caller does say “Yes,” the AI tells the caller that the incident is already known and that if the caller is involved or has further information to stay on the line. The call is still logged and the normal audio and data still recorded, the OPCD stated.

Although OPCD described the story as “irresponsible,” the Louisiana paper’s description of the program was seemingly not as egregious as one would imagine. The Times described the triage as a system that assesses incoming calls to provide immediate feedback to callers.

“This is intended to handle the increase of calls that are related to one incident,” the Times said.

RELATED: Infamous cyberattackers claim their next shocking victim — using a decades-old trick

Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images

In fact, the outlet outright stated that the AI “will not be used to handle emergency calls, only to direct such calls to a human dispatcher.”

One discrepancy was that the program had started in just April, but OPCD said it has been in use since the fall of 2023.

Nonetheless, OPCD said the Shreveport Times failed to properly fact check its “incredibly inflammatory story,” while labeling such acts “irresponsible” and “unprofessional.”

Following the OCPD’s complaints, the Shreveport Times has updated its article and title. The article now reads, “New Orleans hoping limited AI use could speed response for emergencies,” with the following note:

The original version of this story did not meet our editorial standards. We are conducting a thorough review and implementing immediate measures to strengthen our process. We regret the error and any distress it may have caused. This story will be updated as additional facts or information warrant.

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​Artificial intelligence, 911, 911 dispatch, New orleans, Louisiana, Tech 

The Democrats’ plot to seize control of the U.S. Senate may not get any help from the voters in Michigan if the latest polling results hold until Election Day.

Republican Mike Rogers has a narrow lead over Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, but other results in the Fox News poll show some strength on the left that may show up at the ballot box.

‘El-Sayed being down by that 4-point margin is the weakest that any Democrat has polled at this point in a Senate race this entire century.’

Fifty-one percent of respondents back Rogers while only 47% say they are voting for El-Sayed, but that lead is within the poll’s margin of error.

However, Democrats are much more interested in voting in the election generally, to the tune of a 15-point advantage over Republicans.

El-Sayed was able to defeat establishment candidate Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary by 1% despite polling showing that she competed better against Rogers.

CNN election analyst Harry Enten found that El-Sayed’s support is historically low among Democrats vying for the U.S. Senate.

“El-Sayed is significantly weaker than these other Democrats who are running, and I will also note, I went back, and I tried to find every single poll I could find at this point in previous Michigan Senate campaigns in the 21st century,” he said. “I believe that El-Sayed being down by that 4-point margin is the weakest that any Democrat has polled at this point in a Senate race this entire century.”

Political science professor Robert Shapiro of Columbia University says Democrats should be encouraged by the poll despite the narrow Rogers lead.

“First, it’s an encouraging sign that he is not trailing badly in the polls given how he is readily painted as an extremist and vehemently anti-Israel,” Shapiro said to Newsweek.

RELATED: El-Sayed PURGED more than 100 YouTube videos expressing FRINGE beliefs — and they have resurfaced

“It is trite to say it but true that the election will be all about turnout,” he added. “Turnout of the MAGA base and anti-leftist Republicans versus a fired up Democratic voting base that is fed up and angry with how they see Trump and his Republican congressional lackeys have not only failed to perform effectively on the inflation and affordability front, but have made things worse overall with the misguided war against Iran.”

El-Sayed is the first Muslim to be nominated for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Rogers sailed into the Republican nomination unopposed after previously serving as a congressional representative for Michigan and losing a U.S. Senate race in 2024.

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​Democrats, Us senate, Michigan, Abdul el-sayed, Muslim, Politics 

The biggest threat facing the West, says BlazeTV host Nick Freitas, is much bigger than wokeism.

“Wokeism is more of a smoke screen for something much more dangerous and much more comprehensive,” he says.

What is fueling progressivism and America’s growing wave of democratic socialism is an insidious ideology called “third worldism” — the framework that divides the world into Western “oppressors” and Global South “victims” with the explicit goal of decolonizing and dismantling the West.

Europe, Freitas explains, “planted the seeds” of third worldism decades ago, and today we’re watching the horrific fallout.

“I don’t say this hyperbolically: Europe may already be lost,” he says.

The United States, however, still has time — but not much. The signs that we are catapulting toward the same demise are more abundant than most realize, Freitas explains.

“What I think a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that when you actually look at the total number of democratic socialists that have been elected to local, state, or federal positions within the United States, it’s actually far larger than people think,” he says, noting that there are currently “about 250 elected officials.”

“Americans need to understand this, because they think it’s isolated to a couple of pockets of just crazy insane blue districts, and it’s not. It’s far more pervasive,” he adds.

But what’s perhaps more disturbing is the DSA’s stated goals on its website.

“When you look at the DSA website, when you look at what they’re actually advocating for, you actually see the same language that is used by third worldists,” says Freitas. “DSA’s own international committee explicitly organizes around global solidarity and anti-imperialism — not domestic wokeism.”

But what does that actually mean?

It means, Freitas reads from the DSA website, “the full decolonization of all occupied lands of the United States, self-determination and full sovereignty for Hawaii; Puerto Rico; [American Samoa]; [Guam]; Northern Mariana Islands; Virgin Islands; and to all indigenous nations whose ancestral lands are within current U.S. borders; as well as to the independence to [sic] all overseas territories and dependencies controlled, occupied, or otherwise exploited by the USA.”

In other words, they “don’t want the United States to exist,” says Freitas, explaining that the DSA’s objective is “not really to get everything back the way it was” but to “to destroy and undermine the West.”

But the terrifying part is that the DSA is downplaying its radicalism in order to gain popularity and power.

“When Mamdani went on to Jon Stewart’s show and said that socialism is basically just Social Security and public libraries … but then you look at the language that he uses or the organizations he associates with, and it becomes very clear,” says Freitas. “They want the dismantling of the United States.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Nick freitas, Democratic socialism, Zohran mamdani, Third worldism, Blazetv show 

Faced in recent years with accusations of racism, Greater Manchester Police — like other law enforcement institutions in the United Kingdom — embraced DEI in the extreme, not only prioritizing race and ethnicity as factors in its hiring decisions but setting racial quotas.

The force, whose chief constable denies the existence of two-tier policing and anti-white animus on the force, was met this week with yet another reminder that diversity is not their strength.

‘The victim is our priority.’

Mohammad Hassan, a 23-year-old student officer in training at GMP described as “of Asian-Pakistani ethnicity,” was arrested in West Yorkshire over the weekend and charged on Monday with rape and other crimes.

According to the GMP, officers received a call at 10:18 p.m. on Saturday “where a woman could be heard to be in distress in a vehicle in the Manchester area.” Police tracked down the vehicle — but when they approached, the driver fled.

The suspected driver was later identified as Hassan, who was “off-duty” at the time and driving “his personal vehicle,” GMP said. He was arrested “on suspicion of kidnap, rape, and dangerous driving.”

Ewan Cooper, a senior crown prosecutor, alleged during a hearing on Tuesday at the Stockport Magistrates’ Court that on the night of the rape, Hassan drove at speeds of up to 120 mph.

After a high-speed chase down the M62 highway, police finally stopped and arrested Hassan.

RELATED: ‘Beyond evil’: Nightmarish report reveals full scale of mass Islamic rapes of ‘250,000’ white British girls

ANDREW YATES/AFP/Getty Images

Hassan has been formally accused of oral rape, kidnap, strangulation, sexual assault, theft of mobile phone, and dangerous driving.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Dexter said in a statement, “The victim is our priority, and we are ensuring she continues to receive specialist support. Criminal proceedings must now take its course without interference.”

“I understand, and share, the feeling among the public and our thousands of hard-working, decent staff who will have seen this news,” continued Dexter. “Proceedings are underway and necessary action will be decisively taken within the regulations.

Dexter added that the GMP’s Professional Standards Directorate conducted a review and found that Hassan’s “vetting was completed without any reason for concern.”

The Pakistani trainee, who did not enter a plea this week, has been suspended and has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for an investigation. He is due in Manchester Crown Court for a hearing on Sept. 15.

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​Greater manchester police, Police, England, Rape charges, Pakistan, Politics 

A coach in the Little League World Series delivered a speech on the mound on Wednesday that is being labeled the greatest of all time.

During a West Region tournament game between Arizona and Hawaii, Arizona had a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth inning. That’s when Coach Drew Breivogel visited his pitcher on the mound.

‘This is a baseball game, right?’

Little League teams from across the globe compete every year to become world champions, and the pressure can be overwhelming for many of the young players, who are all ages 10 to 13 years old.

Pitcher Camden Burke of Chandler National Little League in Arizona seemed to be feeling the heat when Breivogel came to speak to him. What happened next was unexpected.

“I’m so proud of you. I’ve known you since you were 8,” Breivogel said, as ESPN microphones picked up his comments. “Not a lot of people get to see the fruit of the labor that you put in, right?”

The coach went on, “Remember Zacchaeus in the Bible? Someone planted that tree 30, 40 years prior so he could climb up into it. Salvation — we’re talking salvation. This is a baseball game, right?”

In an effort to help the young player relax, the coach seemed to be letting Burke know there are more important things in life than the outcome of the game.

“If you walk the next five guys, Jesus is still Lord,” Breivogel continued.

“If you strike out the next five guys, guess what: Jesus is still Lord. Okay? I love you. Have some fun,” he concluded.

A post that showed the exchanged labeled the coach’s speech “the greatest [Little League] mound visit of all time,” and had already been viewed more than 10 million times at the time of this writing.

RELATED: Texas pastor issues two challenges for men today: ‘Putting it into action bears fruit’

Although Burke had the lead, he was already 82 pitches into his night, a lot for even a major league hurler. This no doubt had an effect as Kawaihau Community Little League of Hawaii scored four runs in the inning.

Neither team scored in the remaining innings, and Hawaii took home the victory, 5-2, eliminating Arizona from the tournament.

The speech was not without controversy, however. Several responses criticized the coach for not talking strategy or offering the boy pitching advice.

“How about a scouting report?” Tim Earle replied, suggesting the coach should have given “some advice about mechanics.”

RELATED: ‘She didn’t wait until it was easy’: Victim of brutal injury from male athlete praises Sophie Cunningham

Dylan Buell/Getty Images

Another widely viewed remark accused the coach of “using TV to make himself look good [.] He knew he was Mic’d up, that was his BIG moment.”

Although the coach received a lot of support, detractors of his speech were split between those who found it to be inappropriate for the situation and those who preferred the coach to dish out strategy during his time at the mound.

Neither the coach nor the player has addressed the memorable moment.

Hawaii will play Southern California in the West Region championship Friday at 9 p.m. ET. The winner will advance to the elimination tournament.

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​Baseball, Christianity, Faith, Arizona, Hawaii, Sports 

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey went head-to-head with progressive political commentator Monte Mader in a wide-ranging Jubilee debate over abortion, feminism, same-sex marriage, and the role of Christianity in American public life.

Mader approached the debate as a critic of the conservative Christian worldview she once embraced, while Stuckey defended her positions from a biblical Christian perspective.

‘Christians … have the right and the responsibility to bring the fullness of our worldview into the public square, into the voting booth.’

The hour-long “Face Off” centered on four claims: whether Christians must oppose abortion, whether patriarchy or feminism is at odds with Christ’s teachings, whether Christians can affirm same-sex marriage, and whether America can rightly be considered a Christian nation.

Across all four subjects, the debate repeatedly returned to a larger disagreement: What authority should Scripture have over Christian moral beliefs, and how much influence should those beliefs have in American public life?

Abortion and personhood

The debate opened with Stuckey’s claim that “Christians must oppose abortion.”

Mader challenged that position by pointing to disagreements over abortion throughout Christian history and arguing that bodily autonomy should allow a woman to decide whether to continue a pregnancy.

Stuckey rejected the idea that historical disagreement determines whether abortion is morally permissible.

“I’m really not interested in all of the people throughout church history who were wrong about a number of things,” Stuckey said.

“My argument is that killing an innocent person is always wrong.”

For Stuckey, the critical issue is personhood. She argued that drawing the line anywhere after conception creates an arbitrary standard for determining which human beings have rights.

“I think the morally safest, and of course the biblically safest too, position is to say, ‘You know what? All human beings no matter how small, no matter how young, no matter their location, are people that have rights,'” Stuckey said.

Mader countered by repeatedly returning to bodily autonomy, arguing that the life developing in the womb does not supersede the rights of the woman carrying it.

RELATED: Paxton intervenes to help save surrogate baby from abortion

Courtesy Jubilee

Feminism, patriarchy, and the role of women

The second section centered on Mader’s contention that “patriarchy, not feminism, is at odds with Christ’s ministry and teaching.”

The two agreed that Jesus elevated the dignity of women and that Christianity should not be used to excuse abuse. Their disagreement centered on whether biblical distinctions between men and women inherently create inequality.

Stuckey described herself as a traditional complementarian and affirmed the teaching in Ephesians that husbands and wives have distinct roles. Mader argued that complementarianism can create unequal power structures, particularly when churches reserve spiritual authority for men.

The disagreement eventually returned to abortion and why Stuckey believes many Christians reject modern feminism.

“We disagree on abortion being a civil right, and that is exactly why you see the demonization of feminism because your equality boils down to the right to kill your child inside the womb,” Stuckey told Mader.

Can Christians affirm same-sex marriage?

The third portion produced perhaps the debate’s clearest theological divide.

Stuckey argued that Christians cannot affirm same-sex marriage as morally good while remaining consistent with Scripture. She also distinguished that claim from questions about how government should regulate marriage.

“My claim is not even about the legislation of same-sex marriage,” Stuckey said. She argued instead that it is not “biblically viable” for a Christian to support the idea that same-sex marriage is “moral and good and right and holy.”

Mader challenged Stuckey’s interpretation of Scripture, pointing to different forms of marriage found in the Old Testament and noting that Jesus’ comments about a man and woman becoming one flesh came in response to a question about divorce.

Stuckey later clarified that she was not claiming Christians who affirm same-sex marriage cannot be saved.

“You can’t be a Christian and affirm same-sex marriage and be correct,” she said, adding that all Christians will ultimately discover they held incorrect beliefs about some theological questions.

Stuckey cited Genesis, Jesus’ teachings, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and Ephesians 5 in defending marriage between a man and a woman as the consistent biblical model.

Should Christian beliefs influence American law?

The final section moved directly into the relationship between Christianity and America.

Mader argued that America is “not and will never be a Christian nation,” defining Christian nationalism as the belief that the country is fundamentally Christian and that government should promote Christian identity and values through civil life and legislation.

Stuckey agreed that America has no established national religion and affirmed the principle of separation of church and state. She rejected, however, the idea that Christians should be expected to separate their worldview from their politics.

“It’s impossible to create a law outside of a moral worldview,” Stuckey said.

She argued that every voter brings moral assumptions into political decisions and that Christian beliefs should not be uniquely excluded from the public square.

“Christians also have the right and the responsibility to bring the fullness of our worldview into the public square, into the voting booth,” Stuckey said.

Mader countered that religious freedom also requires protecting Americans from having another person’s religious convictions imposed upon them through government.

The discussion eventually returned to abortion and gender, with Mader arguing that progressive positions can be grounded in science and data rather than religious doctrine. Stuckey disputed the idea that progressive politics involve a neutral, worldview-free position.

“Either everyone can bring the fullness of their worldview into legislation and we duke it out and see what wins, or no one can,” Stuckey said.

RELATED: Texas pastor issues two challenges for men today: ‘Putting it into action bears fruit’

Courtesy Jubliee

A deeper disagreement over biblical authority

The biggest divide of the debate was not any single political issue. It was the authority each side believes Scripture should have over those issues.

Mader challenged conservative Christian interpretations of the Bible from outside the faith tradition she once embraced, often appealing to historical context, bodily autonomy, civil liberties, and modern understandings of science and sexuality.

Stuckey repeatedly returned to Scripture as authoritative for Christians, even when its teachings conflict with prevailing cultural beliefs.

That disagreement carried directly into politics. Mader argued that separation of church and state should prevent religious convictions from being imposed through law. Stuckey countered that no political movement legislates from a worldview-free position and that Christians have the same right as anyone else to bring their convictions into the public square.

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​Abortion, Allie beth stuckey, Christianity, Christian nationalism, Faith, Politics 

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2028 presidential front-runner, recently criticized the SAVE America Act because it would require people to prove their citizenship when registering to vote.

Well, yes.

Sometimes the strongest argument for legislation comes from the people trying to defeat it.

Requiring someone to establish that he is a U.S. citizen before being added to the voter rolls is not some hidden provision critics just uncovered. It is the point of the bill.

The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship before registration for federal elections. Harris meant that as an indictment. Supporters see it as the safeguard at the heart of the legislation.

Recent events are making the distinction harder to dismiss.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security warned election officials in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania that tens of thousands of noncitizens appeared on state voter rolls.

Less than a week later, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill (D) acknowledged that roughly 6,600 noncitizens had been registered because of what she called a “software glitch.”

Calling it a software glitch may explain how it happened. It does not answer the more important question: Why did the system allow it to happen at all?

New Jersey does not prove that every state has the same problem, and an erroneous registration is not the same thing as an illegal vote. But it does demonstrate the basic case for prevention rather than cleanup.

How long did the vulnerability exist? Why was it not caught sooner? And why should states wait until ineligible registrations occur before verifying eligibility?

The New Jersey episode becomes even more revealing because lawmakers had already spotted the weakness.

In May, state Sens. Jim Beach (D) and Kristin Corrado (R) introduced bipartisan legislation intended to prevent New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission from prompting people to register to vote after they had already indicated they were not U.S. citizens.

Think about that for a second.

The software glitch did not invent the vulnerability. It exposed a problem legislators were already trying to fix. That is precisely why supporters of the SAVE America Act want safeguards at the front end of registration, before election officials are left explaining how ineligible names reached the rolls.

As Texas Public Policy Foundation Chief National Initiatives Officer Chuck DeVore wrote in “How to Ensure That Only Citizens Vote,” “When non-citizens vote for any reason, citizens’ votes are diluted and thus disenfranchised.”

RELATED: The SAVE America Act cannot save this electorate

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The argument is not that eligible Americans should face needless obstacles. It is that citizenship should be established before someone is placed on a federal voter roll, protecting the weight of every lawful ballot.

That position is hardly outside the mainstream.

A recent Fox News poll found that 83% of registered voters favored requiring photo identification to register and 77% favored requiring it to cast a ballot.

Most Americans appear to regard verification as a reasonable expectation, not an extraordinary burden. Which makes the Democrats’ position even stranger.

Earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats support voter ID.

Then came the vote. Senate Democrats opposed Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s voter ID bill, which would have required voters to present valid identification before receiving a ballot in federal elections.

So what exactly do they support?

The debate has become almost comically inverted. Critics say proof of citizenship goes too far. Democrat leaders say they support voter ID. Then, when a voter ID requirement reaches the Senate floor, they vote against it.

Meanwhile, New Jersey has supplied a real-world example of what happens when verification comes too late.

Kamala Harris meant to make the case against the SAVE America Act. Instead, she described exactly why its supporters want it.

The contradiction now extends well beyond Harris: Democrats say they support verification while opposing the mechanisms designed to perform it.

Sometimes the strongest argument for legislation comes from the people trying to defeat it.

​Kamala harris, Opinion & analysis, Save america act, Voter registration, Department of homeland security, Citizenship, Democrats, Voter fraud 

Actor Hugh Laurie was quick to respond to recent accusations about his views on men playing in women’s sports.

While Laurie’s popular character on his hit show “House” was highly sarcastic, Laurie wasn’t joking around when it came to this controversial idea. However, his initial remarks only confused readers who were ready to jump to his defense.

‘You started it.’

Tit for tat

It all started when Laurie posted some statistics about the “broigus” in professional basketball.

“99.9% of the world are, effectively, ‘women,'” Laurie wrote. Adding that “an American man between 20 and 40 years of age and 7 feet tall or more, there’s a 17% chance you’re already in the NBA.”

There was no shortage of replies from X users that interpreted Laurie’s comment as meaning that he supports ungendered sports categories, an argument mirrored by scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson in recent years.

This included writer Graham Linehan, who wrote, according to Grok, “You don’t have to ACTUALLY be House to say this is unfair and wrong. Or maybe you do.”

Laurie was quick to vehemently put any assertions to bed.

“Firstly, f**k off,” the actor replied. “Secondly no, I don’t believe men should compete against women. I thought I’d made that pretty clear. If you’d looked.”

That wasn’t the end though.

RELATED: WNBA gives awful update after meeting to establish gender eligibility rules

Arch enemy

Linehan not only asked why Laurie was so hostile if he agreed, but he suggested that the actor, “Just say that you support Sophie Cunningham in her fight for fair sports and stop trying to be arch.”

Laurie made it clear, “Yes, I support Sophie Cunningham. And you, some of the time,” he told Linehan.

As for the unpleasantries, Laurie simply stated, “You started it.”

“‘Cowardly’ to ‘f**k off’ is the going rate of exchange around here,” Laurie explained, definitively.

As mentioned though, Linehan was not the only person to read into Laurie’s comments as being a sign he has the exact opposite beliefs he later espoused. To the 67-year-old’s credit, he took time to kindly respond to many accusations.

RELATED: WNBA team co-owner FINED and SUSPENDED for cursing out teen fans of Sophie Cunningham at Seattle game

Scott Humbert/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images

Vodka thoughts

“It was just an observation — not even mine — about that particular sport,” Laurie told one reader.

“It was an observation, that’s all. Carry on,” he said in response to another critique.

Laurie gave a more pointed response to a woman who said she had interacted with him over a review of his show in the past. The woman went on to point out more immutable characteristics that differentiate men and women.

It was when speaking to her that the actor said that his point was being made by “my vodka bottle,” and he was simply trying to assert that basketball has “a single characteristic — greater than any other sport I can think of.”

“I just find that amazing,” he added. “I also find it amazing that no one else finds it amazing.”

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​Hugh laurie, House, Transgenderism, Women’s sports, Entertainment 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) may be navigating a new chapter in her personal life, but Alex Stein sees an opportunity.

After her reported split from her longtime fiancé, Stein is reviving his years-long public tangle with the congresswoman.

“Well, this is a great day for me,” Stein tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“Other than the fact that AOC likes to murder babies in the womb, and, you know, she wants to import a million illegal immigrants, she’s not half bad. I mean, if we’re just being intellectually honest, like, she’s decently good looking,” he continues.

“And you know what, Sara, as much as we make fun of her, and when it comes to politics, it’s not the smartest person that gets elected. It’s a popularity contest, and she’s incredibly popular,” he adds, pointing out that the democratic socialist also recently said that “Woke 1 was crazy” in reference to the “rhetoric” the left used in 2020.

And as AOC potentially gears up to run for president in 2028, Stein says that it’s not too “far of a pivot for her to start using some of those talking points and become moderate.”

“I really believe, other than a few cultural war issues like abortion and immigration, she’s going to be universally liked,” he says.

“I’m not here to kiss AOC’s butt, but just I think she froze those eggs because she does want to have babies, and she’s the only Latina that’s almost 40 years old that’s never been pregnant in American history,” he adds.

“You have a very long history, a long and sordid and complex history with AOC,” Gonzales says, before playing an old clip from Inside Edition.

“Congresswoman AOC is calling out the creepy guy who hassled her on the steps of the Capitol,” a reporter says, as video shows Stein smiling at the camera.

“You look very beautiful in that dress. You look very sexy. Look at that booty on AOC. That’s my favorite big booty Latina,” Stein said, still grinning.

“The firebrand liberal New York Democrat was heading to work with an aide and her fiancé and dog when she was heckled. She turned to confront the guy, then flashed him a sarcastic peace sign,” the reporter continued.

“I love it, my favorite AOC. Nice to meet you AOC, look how sexy she looks in that dress,” Stein said.

AOC quickly took to social media to call the interaction a “deeply disgusting incident.”

“If you look at Riley in that video,” Stein tells Gonzales, “he doesn’t do anything. He just keeps walking their little pooch, you know, the little dog. He doesn’t go and get in my face. So she realized that he’s not an alpha male.”

“And I would believe, and I just speculate this, that she wants an alpha male,” he adds.

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​Alex stein, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Big booty latina, Democratic socialist, Sara gonzales, Woke, Fiance, Blazetv show 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota’s Democratic Senate primary in May, claiming that the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement defender of child sex-rejection surgeries “fights from the heart and knows how to win.”

Warren appears to have gifted Flanagan with something even better than her endorsement: not being a real Indian.

‘Elizabeth Warren is doing a land acknowledgment on Flanagan’s head.’

The Massachusetts senator spent decades masquerading as an American Indian for apparent personal gain. Warren:

claimed “American Indian” status on her State Bar of Texas registration card while working at the University of Texas School of Law;compelled University of Pennsylvania Law School to list her ethnicity as “Native American” rather than “white”; was identified as an American Indian at Harvard Law School; and contributed recipes to the 1984 cookbook “Pow Wow Chow,” described as a compilation of “recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families.”

When first running for the U.S. Senate in 2012, Warren told reporters, “Being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born.”

The sham was exposed, however, thanks in part to President Donald Trump, who famously challenged Warren, whom he called “Pocahontas,” to get a DNA test to prove she is Native American. The results revealed that she is only 1/1,024th Native American, if at all.

RELATED: Here are North America’s top 5 fake Indians

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Warren’s identity crisis has presented Flanagan with an opportunity to characterize her potential win in November as historic.

Although she was raised by her white mother, Flanagan appears to have embraced the cause of her late father, Marvin Manypenny — an American Indian sovereignty activist who grew up on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.

While Flanagan has certainly played up her Indian heritage throughout her political career, she is leaning especially hard into it ahead of the midterms.

The Senate candidate — who in 2020 joined Warren at the Democratic National Convention’s Native American Caucus meeting — recently donned her bead earrings and told the transvestite Minnesota state representative formerly known as Christopher Finke (DFL) that she is a member of White Earth and her “family is the Wolf Clan.”

Flanagan’s campaign site similarly emphasizes her identity, stating, “Born into an Indigenous and Irish family, Peggy is Ojibwe and a member of the White Earth Nation. Her Anishinaabe name means ‘speaks in a loud and clear voice woman.'”

In a July 15 post, Flanagan wrote, “In almost 250 years, there’s never been a Native woman serving in the U.S. Senate. I’m thinking of my daughter — who just got her first jingle dress — and whether or not she will see Indigenous women in all parts of our government.”

After Flanagan won her party’s nomination on Tuesday, her campaign fundraising operation sent out a variation of this message, stating, “Friend, in almost 250 years, there’s never been a Native woman serving in the U.S. Senate. It’s time to change that,” reported the New York Post.

Flanagan’s quest to take Warren’s unofficial former title prompted some mockery online.

“Has anybody checked on Elizabeth Warren?” the Republican Party wrote on X.

Michigan College Republicans shared an AI illustration of Warren weeping in traditional Native American attire.

“Elizabeth Warren is doing a land acknowledgment on Flanagan’s head,” joked New York Post columnist Kirsten Fleming.

Warren’s office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

The Republican set to face off with Flanagan in the general election is Michele Tafoya, an award-winning sports journalist who wants tax cuts, the deportation of foreign fraudsters and illegal aliens, stronger elections, and men out of women’s sports.

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​Elizabeth warren, Peggy flanagan, Minnesota, Indian, Senate, Politics 

A Florida male threatened and began beating up a homeowner in a Fort Pierce mobile home park earlier this week, but police said the victim pulled a gun, fired once, and ended the threat.

The shooting occurred at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Seminole Mobile Home Park, WPEC-TV reported.

The sheriff told WFLX-TV the victim ‘shot the suspect … point blank in the chest.’

St. Lucie County Sheriff Richard R. Del Toro told the station the two men knew each other and had been involved in a dispute that included verbal arguments and threatening text messages.

Investigators said the 37-year-old suspect — who has yet to be identified — made several threats before showing up at the home of the 22-year-old man, WPEC noted.

Deputies said the 37-year-old knocked on the front door and was let inside before a brawl broke out, the station said.

Investigators said the suspect pushed the 22-year-old homeowner and punched him several times in the stomach, WPEC reported.

“The victim disengaged … pulled out a handgun, shot one time, and the threat was over,” Del Toro told the station.

The sheriff told WFLX-TV the victim “shot the suspect … point blank in the chest.”

The suspect was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, WPEC reported.

“It’s not fair, because my son has no father now. He’s 5 years old, and what am I gonna tell him? We didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Naomi Pallarez, the girlfriend of the man who died, told WPEC.

Del Toro told WPEC the homeowner remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators; the homeowner’s girlfriend and sister also were inside the residence and provided corroborating statements.

Deputies recovered the handgun after executing a search warrant at the residence, WPEC said.

No charges have been filed against the homeowner, WPEC reported, adding that investigators are working with the State Attorney’s Office to determine if the shooting falls under Florida’s stand-your-ground self-defense law.

“Obviously, you have to be in defense of yourself, but at the same time, you have to be in fear for your life anytime you’re going to use deadly force,” Del Toro added to the station.

More from WPEC:

The sheriff said the suspect had a criminal history, including drug-related and resisting-officer charges, domestic violence-related charges, and three felony convictions. He stressed that the man’s criminal history was not a reason for him to be killed.

The suspect’s name has not been released because investigators have not yet notified his next of kin, WPEC said.

“I am very much heartbroken,” Pallarez told WPEC. “And now I’m a single mom.”

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​2nd amendment, Florida, Guns, Gun rights, Self-defense, Fatal shooting, Mobile home, Stand your ground law, Crime 

The summer before my freshman year of college, my 18-year-old brain was wholly devoted to two things: relishing the last delicious bits of time with high school friends and the equally important endeavor of curating the perfect dorm room aesthetic.

The “it” color that summer was mint green. My chosen vibe was (I giggle as I write this) “shabby chic” — because there’s nothing like a 168-square-foot cinder-block prison cell draped in lace and florals.

Hiring an interior designer to curate a perfectly polished, bespoke dorm room robs a girl of the trial-and-error experience of honing her unique brand of beauty.

Once my Pinterest mood board was created, I enlisted my poor mother, who — bless her — cheered and abetted all my fantastical pursuits, to help. I dragged her to various home goods retailers, craft stores, and antique malls until we had what we needed to realize my vision of weathered elegance

When move-in day arrived, we utterly transformed the sterile gray box into a twinkle-lit sanctuary. Floral craft paper taped over cinder blocks became “vintage wallpaper.” Ornate gold picture frames hung with Command hooks created a “gallery wall.” Gauzy fabric thumbtacked into drop ceiling tiles served as a “bed canopy.”

I know what you’re thinking: This is ridiculous.

Reader, I couldn’t agree more. It was ridiculous — but it was fun, wildly creative, and one of my most cherished memories to date.

Judge me if you must, but hold your scrutiny until I tell you what some students are doing with their dorm rooms today.

A growing trend that is delighting some and incensing most involves hiring professionals to create custom “home” designs for college students. In other words, dorm room interior design is now a legitimate professional service.

Inside the full-service dorm design experience

What does hiring a dorm room interior designer involve? As it turns out, quite a lot.

It begins with a consultation — sometimes, depending on the company you opt for, multiple consultations. This is where the details of the project are ironed out: room dimensions, timelines, budgets, and, most importantly, vibes. Identifying and capturing one’s stated personal style is, of course, at the heart of these operations.

Then comes procurement.

But most of these designers, certainly the high-end ones, aren’t plucking knickknacks off Target and TJ Maxx shelves. “Mainstream” and “mass-produced” tend not to be in the vocabularies of the Southern belles who make up the overwhelming majority of dorm room designers’ clientele.

It’s only natural that an elevated experience would involve elevated items — and that’s exactly what most of these designers purchase or commission on behalf of their clients. A combination of custom headboards, made-to-fit cabinets, accent walls, and high-end furniture pieces paired with custom drapes, original artwork, monogrammed textiles, and specialty lighting ensure that each girl (or exceedingly rare male) gets a luxurious and one-of-a-kind living space.

Shelly Gates, the founder of Mary Margaret Designs, a design firm specializing in college dorm rooms, works directly with a “carpenter, seamstress, and handyman” to pull off her elaborate custom work.

“It definitely takes a village to get those dorm rooms together,” she told House Beautiful.

And it’s no wonder. Here’s an example of a dorm room she decorated at the University of Alabama:

Designer Ginger Curtis put it more bluntly to the New York Times: “We’re moving away from Ikea and getting the opposite of fast furniture.” Ginger is the founder of Urbanology Designs, a high-end Dallas-based interior design firm that has expanded into decorating luxury college dorm rooms because the demand is there.

Is it really, though? Is there actually a viable market for dorm room interior design?

Oh, yes — but with one critical distinction.

The demand is real — and growing

For starters, shelling out cash for dorm rooms is trending upward. The National Retail Federation projects college students and their families will spend a record $103.5 billion on back-to-school supplies this year — up from $88.8 billion the year prior. $14 billion of that is expected to be spent on dorm room or apartment furnishings alone.

Is this increase in expected spending caused by higher prices? Without a doubt — but the fact that there are now several companies specializing in transforming standard dorm rooms into luxury suites suggests that rising expectations are also a factor.

Business does seem to be booming for these niche designers, too.

Mary Margaret Designs, Gates explained in the same House Beautiful interview, started as a summer side hustle when she was a teacher. But when the business “exploded,” she made it her full-time gig. According to the Independent, she “now has a wait list stretching two to three years.”

Eden Bowen Montgomery, founder of dorm room design firm Essentials with Eden (a hilariously ironic name), had built such an empire by 2024 that she had to hire a seasonal staff of 25 employees.

But it’s important to note that this particular design service is not trending across the nation. Its popularity is specifically concentrated in the South. Montgomery, Gates, Curtis, and Dawn Thomas (After Five Designs founder and pioneer of the high-end dorm room design trend) are all based in the South and primarily serve large Southern state schools, including Ole Miss, the University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State, and Southern Methodist University in Texas.

It’s not lost on me that all of these schools are famous for their intense Greek-life cultures. I’m not here to cast aspersions on sororities, but I think it’s fair to say that the modern ones are not known for cultivating the values of moderation or restraint. It fits that the exclusive clubs notorious for choreographed RushTok dances and five-figure designer rush outfits would also sustain a thriving dorm-room design industry.

RELATED: This new app for new moms is a game-changer

ArtistGNDphotography/Getty Images

Delivery, installation, and the big reveal

The entire elaborate design process wraps up with transportation and installation. A delivery truck packed full of custom furnishings and décor arrives on campus along with the designer and an install team, who ensure that the lucky girl(s) has a thrilling turnkey experience. Here’s an example of the final stages from Mary Margaret Designs:

But the cherry on top, of course, is the big reveal, where the girls are often filmed reacting to their renovated dorm rooms. This filming process is worth noting, I think, because it captures what almost certainly fuels the entire dorm room design industry and the sorority culture it primarily serves: Instagramability. For a tragic majority of today’s youth, an exciting experience is only that if other people are watching.

Here’s an example of the grand finale from Thomas’ After Five Designs:

The price tag

Now for the really fun part: the bill. What do these dramatic dorm room makeovers cost?

It’s a spectrum, but on the low end, roughly $5,000 per student. According to the New York Times, a full room makeover from Essentials with Eden will run parents “about $10,000 per room ($5,000 per student)”; Curtis’ Urbanology averages between “$7,000 to $8,000, though the costs can grow much higher.”

Mary Margaret Designs, says People magazine, “charges between $5,000 and $20,000 to make over collegiate living spaces.”

As the New York Times aptly put it, college living has acquired “the Gilded Versailles Touch.”

The part that actually bothers me

I’m not going to bore you with the obvious critique: that dorm room interior design that costs more than some home down payments is nauseatingly extravagant. Nor will I indulge in the predictable lament that such obnoxious luxury sets kids up for crushed expectations in a world where AI gobbles up industries like potato chips and home ownership is out of reach for the majority of young Americans.

Instead, I want to focus on a less evident but equally important problem. Wanting a fabulous dorm room isn’t the issue for me. I think the introduction of this article makes that quite clear. Rather, the problem is that hiring an interior designer to curate a perfectly polished, bespoke dorm room robs a girl of the trial-and-error experience of honing her unique brand of beauty.

You may think it’s not that deep, but I would argue aesthetics are actually key to a woman’s identity. Embodying and cultivating beauty in the world is central to the female experience. It’s not that men don’t care about or play a role in matters of beauty, but there’s a reason home décor shops, Sephoras, and craft stores are frequented primarily by women.

This lifelong search for our own brand of beauty starts when we are toddlers trying on our mother’s heels and lipstick. In middle school, it looks like rearranging our rooms and deciding between the leopard and the floral headband. In high school, it’s experimenting with different eyeliner styles. And in college, it’s obsessing over what our first home apart from our parents will look like. It’s a journey that never ends — and one that’s crucial for becoming a confident, original woman.

It’s not trivial to search for one’s personal aesthetic, but it is deeply hollow to outsource that creative process to someone else, especially in our formative years — trading messy uniqueness for vanilla perfection. A girl’s sense of style should be forged in hot pink fire, not in design rooms.

​College students, Dorm room interior, Female identity, Southern schools, Instagramability, Sorority, Greek life, College, Lifestyle, Culture 

Chinese nationals and U.S. citizens saying “I do” with their fingers crossed behind their backs, all to exploit the U.S. immigration system? The Department of Justice says it’s true.

On Wednesday, the DOJ announced it had busted one of the largest marriage fraud rings in U.S. history — over 1,000 sham marriages arranged to secure green cards for foreign nationals, primarily citizens of the People’s Republic of China, run like a business for a decade.

‘Anyone willing to lie, cheat, or steal their way to legal immigration status is a direct threat to America’s national security.’

The DOJ claims the scheme, which ran from at least 2016 through July 2026, was based in New York City with marriages arranged across the U.S. and as far away as China.

According to the DOJ, three roles kept it running: facilitators who found foreign clients, recruiters who found U.S. citizens, and assistants who filed the paperwork. Officiants, attorneys, tax preparers, and insurance agents were also in the fold — a full-service fraud economy.

Facilitators charged foreign nationals up to $100,000 apiece, paid U.S. citizens up to $30,000 in installments, and paid recruiters commissions of up to $5,000 per referral, the DOJ claimed. The DOJ estimates the alleged network collected tens of millions of dollars.

Couples would often meet for the first time immediately before getting a marriage license, then stage wedding ceremonies and photographs to make the unions look legitimate, the DOJ claimed.

Afterward, participants allegedly manufactured further evidence — staged photos, joint bank and utility accounts, joint tax filings, and insurance policies. They also submitted green card applications with false statements and were coached to mislead immigration officials during green card interviews, the DOJ claimed.

RELATED: Birth tourism is only the beginning

U.S. Department of Justice

Attorney General Todd Blanche said couples even signed prenuptial agreements waiving marital rights — no estate claims, no child support, nothing. One clause allegedly read: “Both parties live independently and must not interfere with each other.”

The defendants identified in the DOJ press release are: Amy Cheng, Xiao Mei Chan, Christine Lu, Jing Yan Ye, Xiao Yan Chen, Gang Zheng, Anthony Cheng, Michelle Duenas, Angela Duenas, Sigrid Cetino, and Erika Johnson. They range from 26 to 72 years old and represent nearly every New York City borough as well as Westchester County.

Each defendant was arrested Wednesday and faces up to 15 years combined — five for conspiracy to commit marriage and immigration fraud and 10 for conspiracy to encourage unlawful residence of aliens.

The bust also lands the week after President Trump signed a pair of executive orders targeting birth tourism — part of what officials describe as a broader push against people gaming the immigration system.

RELATED: Trump takes another BIG swing at birthright citizenship and birth tourism

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said, “Anyone willing to lie, cheat, or steal their way to legal immigration status is a direct threat to America’s national security.”

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jamie McDonald said the government is now weighing whether to revoke the green cards it already granted through the scheme.

This isn’t the first Chinese-linked alleged sham-marriage bust the administration has touted this year. In February, 11 people were charged in Jacksonville, Florida, for allegedly paying Navy sailors up to $35,000 to marry Chinese nationals — and, in some cases, bribing base personnel for military ID cards.

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​Birth tourism, Department of justice, Foreign nationals, National security, New york city, Us citizens, Politics 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is taking followers inside her egg-freezing journey, sharing videos of hormone injections and encouraging more women to learn about their reproductive options — but BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes the conversation is missing something: the truth.

While egg freezing is often presented as a path to freedom and control, it glosses over the physical side effects, financial burden, and biological limitations that women will face if they wait to start families.

“The path that she is pursuing of political ambition and hoping to have kids via egg freezing and embryo creation in her 40s. Trust me, that is not going to be the path that leads to fulfillment and happiness and satisfaction,” Stuckey says.

“In fact, it’s just going to end up leading to a lot of disappointment,” she adds, before citing several studies on the process.

“UCLA study found that only 5.7% of women who froze their eggs between 2014 and 2016 actually used them within five to seven years,” she explains.

“The whole procedure costs about $12,000 to $15,000 per cycle. This is another thing when people tell me, ‘Oh it’s too expensive to have children, like, that’s why we’re not having kids in this economy.’ And then you have someone who is touting a procedure that can cost you $15,000. It’s a lot,” she says.

There are also little-known side effects to freezing your eggs.

“The most severe side effect of freezing your eggs is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. The ovaries become swollen and very painful,” Stuckey says, noting that up to 20% of women will experience the side effect.

And in a 2017 study that “surveyed women who had had their eggs frozen found that 16% had severe regret over the decision two years later; 33% had mild regret.”

“When you are injecting yourself with hormones, again, and you are doing things that affect your body that intimately and that seriously, you’re going to have big emotions about it. People don’t talk about it,” she says.

And when women wait until their mid-30s to start having children, the list of complications go up.

“Maternal age of 35 and older, this is according to the Cleveland Clinic, is associated with a higher likelihood of complications such as high blood pressure, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, miscarriage, C-section,” Stuckey explains.

“And that is not just a risk for the mom, it’s also a risk for the baby. Data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology show that about 53.1% of women under 35 achieved a live birth after one egg retrieval cycle compared with only 4.2% of women over 42,” she continues.

“So again, you just can’t beat biology,” she adds.

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​Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Allie beth stuckey, Biology, Egg freezing, Ivf, Pregnancy, Blazetv show 

At first glance, President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures look like a major scandal.

CBS News recently released an interactive dashboard analyzing what it called Trump’s “unprecedented” volume of investment activity during the first quarter of 2026: 1,296 sales and 2,346 purchases worth somewhere between $212 million and $695 million.

Calling it ‘potential insider trading’ is easy. Proving it requires something more than trades that sometimes came before favorable news.

The report emphasized that much of the activity involved individual stocks rather than index funds and noted that some purchases “preceded policy moves” or public statements by Trump that could affect the companies involved.

“The concern is he is in a position to make all kinds of decisions that can affect stock prices,” one government ethics expert told CBS.

“In the meantime, he could have bought or sold stocks that are affected by these decisions.”

It certainly sounds suspicious. That is exactly what Democrats are counting on. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has already demanded an investigation into “potential insider trading” as her party tries to cast Trump as an out-of-touch oligarch before the midterms.

But the scandal starts to look much thinner once you move past the insinuation and examine what actually happened.

For one thing, Trump is not personally making these trades. CBS News included a statement from the Trump Organization saying that “independent third-party investment managers” handle the president’s stock transactions without direction from Trump or his family.

Vice President JD Vance put it more colorfully: Trump “doesn’t sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his, like, Robinhood account, buying and selling stocks. That’s absurd.”

Fine. But what about the timing? Doesn’t that suggest some coordination between Trump and his money managers?

Not much, judging from CBS News’ own charts. If Trump is insider trading, he is doing a remarkably bad job of it.

Take Nvidia. CBS noted that Trump’s financial managers bought between $500,001 and $1 million of Nvidia stock on January 6. The following week, the administration relaxed export controls on some of Nvidia’s AI chips, allowing sales to China.

RELATED: Trump has media and left panicking over election national emergency threat

Jim WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

That sounds explosive until you look at the stock price. Nvidia closed at $187.24 on Jan. 6. After the policy change, it closed the following week at $186.23.

The next two purchases shown by CBS came after — not before — brief but significant drops in Nvidia’s share price. Trump’s disclosure also shows sales totaling between $1.8 million and $3.6 million in Nvidia stock during March. The stock then climbed sharply the next month.

That is not what a clean insider-trading narrative looks like.

It looks much more like ordinary portfolio management: buying dips, trimming positions, missing upside, and generally doing what professional money managers do every day — often while charging clients handsomely for the privilege.

Palantir and Eli Lilly transactions cited in the report show a similarly messy pattern rather than some obvious sequence of privileged information followed by perfectly timed trades.

One investment professional quoted by CBS even speculated that Trump’s managers may have been realizing losses for tax purposes. Maybe. If not, Trump might want to ask what exactly he is paying them for.

Either way, that theory does not establish insider trading. And neither does the mere fact that a trade happened before a policy announcement affecting the same company.

To make the case, you need evidence that Trump possessed material nonpublic information, that he communicated it to the people managing his portfolio, and that they traded on it. The disclosures and timing highlighted by CBS do not establish that.

The simplest explanation remains the least cinematic one: Trump pursues policies he believes are good for the country while outside money managers invest his fortune without his input.

If you want to understand what genuinely suspicious political trading can look like, consider the Pelosi family.

In 2024, Paul Pelosi sold roughly $500,000 in Visa stock. The following month, the Justice Department sued Visa on antitrust grounds, and the stock fell.

That timing naturally attracted scrutiny. But timing alone is not proof there, either. We do not know that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tipped off her husband, and the public evidence does not establish insider trading.

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi’s post-Congress plan: A ‘nonpartisan’ $50 million institute at Berkeley

Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

What it does show is why these stories require more than a suggestive chart. A suspicious-looking sequence is a reason to ask questions, not a substitute for evidence.

That standard should apply to Trump too.

Democrats need voters to believe Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself, his family, and his friends. That is why every financial disclosure becomes an invitation to imply corruption before proving it.

Maybe investigators will eventually uncover evidence that Trump directed trades around government policy. If they do, investigate it.

But the material CBS News has presented so far does not get us there.

Calling it “potential insider trading” is easy. Proving it requires something more than trades that sometimes came before favorable news, sometimes after price declines, and sometimes before the portfolio missed a rally altogether.

For now, there is plenty of insinuation and remarkably little proof.

​Cbs news, Democrats, Donald trump, Eli lilly, Insider trading, Investigation, Jd vance, Justice department, Nancy pelosi, Opinion & analysis, Palantir, Corruption, Stocks, Disclosure 

A Texas teacher has gone viral for breaking down emotionally during a social media post because several of his senior students struggle to read and write.

In a video that has gone viral online, Darius Williams says he assigned high school senior students to read two paragraphs and write a sentence on the second day of school.

‘Something is broken somewhere. It has to be. To see this level of engagement with students who simply don’t have literacy skills is completely disheartening.’

He stated in the viral video, “I literally broke down in the middle of class.”

An emotional Williams continued, “I gave them the scenario, we annotated together, I gave them the answers before we even had the problem, and they couldn’t do it.”

“I basically completed the sentence for them in the model,” Williams said. “These are 17- and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words!”

The tearful teacher added, “I don’t know. I simply don’t know where the problem is. This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write.”

Williams remarked, “They can reason, they have the ability to defend their reasoning if it’s talking to their homeboy, but applying that to a written text, two paragraphs, they couldn’t do it. Our young black men, our young brown men, our young black girls, and our young brown girls. Oh, God.”

Williams wrote in the caption accompanying the Instagram video:

I thought long and hard about posting this. But we have got to do something. Something is broken somewhere. It has to be. To see this level of engagement with students who simply don’t have literacy skills is completely disheartening. Whew. Y’all did not prepare me for this. Whew.

The viral video notched more than 144,000 views on Instagram.

Darius Williams is listed in the Wheatley High School staff directory as a New Education System and Career and Technical Education teacher in a non-foundational program of study.

KRIV-TV reported, “The Texas Education Agency says a ‘non-foundational’ teacher teaches elective, specialized, or enrichment subjects instead of core academic courses.”

“The district describes CTE as a collection of courses designed to prepare students for further education and careers in current or emerging professions,” KPRC-TV reported. “The district says its CTE programs prepare students for industry certifications, while some programs also offer dual-credit opportunities that allow students to earn college credit while still in high school.”

RELATED: Texas pastor issues two challenges for men today: ‘Putting it into action bears fruit’

While the Houston Independent School District did not directly address Williams’ claims in his viral video, it said it was “proud of the progress students are making.”

“The first days of the school year are an important time for teachers to get to know their students’ academic abilities, assess their individual needs, and determine the support each student may require,” the district said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“We see students with a range of academic needs every day,” the statement read. “As teachers and instructional leaders, it is our responsibility to identify those needs and our commitment to close the gaps.”

The HISD conceded that there are some “students who need additional academic support.”

Wheatley High School has faced academic challenges in recent years.

The Houston Chronicle reported that approximately 130 schools in the Houston Independent School District, including Wheatley High School, were taken over by the state of Texas in 2023 following seven consecutive years of failing evaluations within the state accountability framework.

Wheatley High School currently has an overall C rating and a student STAAR performance rating of 69 out of 100.

The Texas Education Agency defines STAAR Performance as standards-related “levels of test performance to the expectations defined in the state curriculum standards known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.”

The school has a graduation/completion rate of 55 out of 100.

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​High school, News, Politics, Texas, Viral video 

Jason Arday, the serial fabulist who resigned last week from Cambridge University, released his memoir “Great and Unfortunate Things” on Tuesday. As of this writing, the book had a 4.18 average from 103 ratings on Goodreads. Fully 48% give Arday five stars. Another 37% give him four. Two stars or below? A mere 7%.

The Goodreads jury, apparently, has reached its verdict: The story of a nonverbal autistic boy who could not read until 18 and then rocketed all the way to becoming Cambridge’s youngest black professor is sacred.

When the demand for underrepresented heroes outstrips the supply, fabulists and frauds have an opening. More important, they have an ecosystem.

The reviews are replete with the language of wonder. One called the book “the improbable-but-true story” and awarded five stars “for the basic premise alone,” adding: “You make this stuff up (sic).” Truer words!

Another declared that Arday becoming a college graduate a mere five years after becoming fully literate was “nothing short of amazing.” Others called his accomplishments “truly unbelievable,” his memoir “incredibly moving” and “incredibly inspirational.”

Incredible. Amazing. Unbelievable. The reviewers keep reaching for exactly the right words without quite noticing what those words might mean.

Never mind that Arday stepped down August 5 after Cambridge opened an investigation into his academic qualifications and honorary appointments. Never mind the detailed allegations of extensive textual overlap in his doctoral thesis. Forget the questions surrounding his athletic feats, fundraising claims, and résumé. Pay no attention to the rather awkward question raised by the tale of a man who supposedly learned to read at 18 and graduated from a prestigious institution five years later.

The Goodreads crowd had already rendered its rapturous verdict.

Among the first two dozen or so reviews visible on the site, nearly all awarded four or five stars. Almost nobody stopped to wonder whether the “unbelievable” story might, in fact, be unbelievable.

Why would they? The story delivers everything the contemporary literary class has been trained to admire: a black autistic man overcoming a racist and ableist system; a fierce immigrant mother redeeming her son; grit and determination carrying him into the heights of the ivory tower. It is less a memoir than a perfect machine for producing approved emotions.

RELATED: How to play liberals for suckers

Blaze Media Illustration

Even reviewers who finished the book after the scandal broke offered only careful, almost apologetic caveats. One finished the memoir, Googled Arday, discovered the plagiarism reports and resignation “only hours” earlier — and still found the book “well written” and “fascinating.”

Several reviewers thanked 37INK, a Simon & Schuster imprint devoted to publishing black authors, for providing advance review copies through NetGalley. NetGalley collects volunteer reviewers whose preferences are already known. Publishers naturally use such networks to build early attention and enthusiasm around books they hope to sell.

Nothing sinister is required here. That’s practically the point.

The machinery works because everyone already knows the story he is supposed to like. The publisher finds the audience. The audience recognizes the moral cues. The reviewers supply the adjectives. By publication day, a book whose author is already engulfed in questions about his biography can arrive wrapped in a halo of “incredible,” “amazing,” and “inspirational.”

Amazon, where reviews could not be posted until the book was actually released, appears much less enchanted. Even 37INK, perhaps wisely, does not feature the book on its home page.

When the demand for underrepresented heroes outstrips the supply, fabulists and frauds have an opening. More important, they have an ecosystem.

The university hires. The publisher packages. The advance readers applaud. And by the time anyone asks whether the inspirational story is true, the five stars are already in.

​Cambridge university, Jason arday, Opinion & analysis, Memoir, Diversity equity inclusion, Fabulist, Goodreads, Amazon, Fraud 

While smearing law-abiding conservatives in recent years as “extremists,” the Southern Poverty Law Center was seemingly getting into bed with bona fide Nazis — in one alleged case, perhaps quite literally.

Heidi Beirich, the former director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project who was indicted and arrested on Wednesday, is accused not only of getting romantically involved, cohabitating, and sharing bank accounts with a neo-Nazi informant whose work she oversaw, but also allegedly committing fraud along the way.

‘The charity that supposedly fought Neo-Nazis actually funded Neo-Nazis.’

The second superseding indictment in the SPLC’s criminal fraud case announced by the Justice Department on Wednesday sheds light on Beirich’s various alleged improprieties as well as on the SPLC-linked activities of her alleged skinhead lover.

Quick background

The Alabama-headquartered smear- and fearmongering outfit was federally charged on April 21 with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

The SPLC — which has been credibly accused of bankrolling leaders and organizers in the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, the American Front, United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America, and the National Alliance with millions of dollars in donor funds through fictitious accounts — pleaded not guilty in May to all counts.

RELATED: Klansman allegedly on SPLC payroll was ‘true believer’ white supremacist, not reformed infiltrator

FBI

On June 2, the DOJ filed a superseding indictment against the SPLC detailing some of the ways that field sources allegedly used SPLC donor money, including to grow existing chapters of extremist groups; make donations to extremist group leaders; host extremist rallies; purchase materials for cross burnings as well as for KKK robes and hoods; and publish extremist literature for recruitment purposes.

The June indictment also told the love story about a former Intelligence Project director and a field source referred to only as “F-9.”

The second superseding indictment filed on Tuesday fills in some of the gaps in that love story — including the former director’s name, Heidi Beirich — and paints her in a particularly unflattering light.

The SPLC, Beirich, and Beirich’s attorney did not respond to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

There are three core components to the case against Beirich, who has been personally charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

1. Shell companies

Beirich is an anti-Trump liberal who served as director of the Intelligence Project from 2012 until 2019 and now serves as the chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. In her latest capacity, she concerned-mongered before Congress in 2020 over the supposed problem of white supremacists in the military.

The indictment alleges that Beirich opened and/or modified a series of bank accounts in the name of numerous shell companies, including the Center Investigative Agency, Fox Photography, Tech Writers Group, and Rare Books Warehouse — and knowingly signed bank documents “containing false statements for the purpose of influencing banks” to open and maintain the accounts.

‘I knew it was that fat, ugly hog Heidi Beirich.’

According to the indictment, the fictitious organizations Beirich allegedly helped stand up were never incorporated, conducted no legitimate business, and had no real employees.

Funds from SPLC donors — who were led to believe they were supporting the fight against extremism — were allegedly funneled through the identified shell companies to so-called informants, including Beirich’s alleged lover, F-9.

2. Thick as thieves

Prosecutors allege that F-9 received millions of dollars in donor funds, primarily through the Tech Writers bank account, while helping the National Alliance “carry out its extremist activities.”

RELATED: Federal judge REJECTS the victim narrative pushed by the criminally charged SPLC

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Beirich allegedly oversaw the SPLC payments to F-9 while engaged “in a romantic relationship” with him, said the indictment.

Beirich is also accused of getting a taste of the action.

“During this relationship, BEIRICH and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts,” the indictment alleges. “Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000.00 in donors’ money flowed from the SPLC operating account, through the Tech Writers account, and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and BEIRICH.”

The then-SPLC director allegedly used donors’ money to pay for their shared living expenses, even though she does not appear to have been hard-pressed for cash. After all, when Beirich left the SPLC, she was reportedly earning $190,000 in salary and benefits.

Whether their alleged romantic relationship is ongoing is unclear.

3. Another use for the Nazi informant

According to the allegations, Beirich’s informant broke into the National Alliance’s headquarters in West Virginia in 2014 with her knowledge; stole 25 boxes of documents; transported those documents across state lines; and with Beirich’s help, copied those documents before breaking back into the National Alliance headquarters to return the originals.

Prosecutors alleged that Beirich paid for the copies with donor funds and used the stolen material for a “story to solicit more donations.”

The documents taken in the burglary appear to have served as the basis for Beirich’s lengthy March 2015 “Hatewatch” article titled “Chaos at the Compound,” where she discussed drama and mismanagement behind the scenes at the National Alliance.

Beirich then allegedly “paid approximately $6,000.00 in donors’ money” to a different field source “to falsely take responsibility for the burglary.”

After the June indictment came out and linked the SPLC to the burglary, William White Williams, National Alliance’s 78-year-old chairman, told the New York Post, “I knew it was that fat, ugly hog Heidi Beirich.”

Protest and condemnation

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement on Thursday, “The charity that supposedly fought the KKK actually funded the KKK. The charity that supposedly fought Neo-Nazis actually funded Neo-Nazis. Heidi Beirich supposedly dedicated her career to fighting neo-Nazis. The indictment alleges she helped FUND them.”

Patel added, “The woman who supposedly fought hate allegedly helped pay the very people spreading it, used their activity to raise more donor money, and personally benefited from the scheme.”

Beirich’s lawyer denies she did anything wrong.

“Dr. Beirich is innocent, and this case is without merit,” Beirich’s attorney, Michael Proctor, said in a statement obtained by CNN. “We believe the charges against her and the SPLC are politically motivated, and Dr. Beirich has been targeted in this case because of the important work she has done to combat hate groups and extremists.”

The SPLC has already tried and failed to get the case dismissed on the basis of the claim that the prosecution is politically motivated.

Judge Emily Marks of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, a Trump appointee, said in an order rejecting the SPLC’s motion on Friday, “The SPLC has failed to offer some evidence tending to show animus on the part of the prosecutors involved in bringing this case and that such animus resulted in the prosecution.”

Proctor added, “Dr. Beirich won’t be silenced or intimidated by the government’s false and politicized allegations now.”

“The actions taken by the DOJ will not shake our resolve,” the SPLC told CNN. “We remain steadfast in our fight for justice and in our commitment to ensuring the promise of the Civil Rights movement becomes a reality for all. We are confident in our position and look forward to presenting the evidence and making our case in court.”

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​Southern poverty law center, White supremacists, Nazis, Kash patel, Fbi, Politics 

A woman from Moldova has been stripped of her citizenship after she was discovered to have been involved a business that sexually exploited children.

Tatiana Power gained her U.S. citizenship through the naturalization process but was later convicted of crimes related to a child modeling business.

Power was one of six people who were charged with crimes related to the case, but two of those have died.

Power had been the bookkeeper for Newstar Websites, which recruited children under the guise of modeling, but instead the children were made to engage in sexual conduct for images and videos.

The organization had targeted Moldovan, Ukrainian, and other Eastern European children and then sold the child sex images and videos to customers in more than a hundred countries.

Prosecutors said they produced about 4.6 million videos and images, including children as young as 6 years old.

Some of the children were made to wear transparent underwear, pantyhose and miniskirts, or dress up in cheerleader or police costumes.

Power pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy and was sentenced in 2022 to more than 12 years in prison.

On Tuesday, the DOJ said it had also stripped Power of her citizenship.

Power was one of six people who were charged with crimes related to the case, but two of those have died, two others were imprisoned, and one has eluded U.S. custody.

RELATED: Illegal alien allegedly bites 3-year-old’s face in horrifying random attack — DHS blames Biden

The Justice Department said it has filed 123 civil denaturalization complaints, which is the most in U.S. history.

Others who were denaturalized were Narinder Singh of India for identity fraud, Emigdio Sanchez of Mexico for lying about being arrested for domestic abuse, and Yetunde Folake Olaniyi of Nigeria for entering into s sham marriage.

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​Immigration and customs enforcement, Child sex abuse material, Denaturalization, Immigration, Politics