Category: blaze media

Bill Maher says that Spencer Pratt needs to stop crying about his house burning down.

On the latest episode of his podcast “Club Random,” Maher also called Pratt a “douchebag” while the two discussed Pratt’s run for mayor of Los Angeles.

‘They’re not going to have any money to take from these people to give to you.’

However, while Maher joked that being unliked meant Pratt should have no problem facing off against unfettered California bureaucracy, the duo were in overwhelming agreement when it came to the fiscal waste that cripples L.A. and the surrounding area.

About three-quarters of the way into their discussion, Maher claimed that “douchebag guys” who are in debt from gambling websites represent Pratt’s core audience.

While Pratt joked in response about having “more voters” than he realized, he immediately asserted that his true voting block consists of mothers who are concerned about the safety of their children in the city. Pratt used that talking point as a launchpad to warn young voters about opening the door to socialism.

“Socialism has captivated people. … I feel like people are all hyped on socialism because they’re like, ‘Everything’s so expensive. America’s failed. Give me money,'” Pratt explained. “But what they’re forgetting is all the people that these socialists are saying they’re taking the money and giving it, they’re gonna leave.”

Pratt added, “Then they’re not going to have any money to take from these people to give to you.”

RELATED: Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman shrink Karen Bass’ lead in tight race for LA mayor: Poll

Maher and Pratt largely agreed there is far too much red tape in Los Angeles, and furthermore, in the state, but it was Maher’s anecdote about needing three city inspections to change his garage door that perfectly framed the issue.

The 70-year-old then warned Pratt that if he becomes mayor, the “special interests” representatives are going to eat him alive by demanding policies just like those that ruined his garage revamp.

“What you’re going to go up against is a state that is just full of special interests, all of which are very, very powerful. I mean, you can’t do anything in this state without, like, getting a license or an inspection.”

At this point, Maher pointed to Pratt being a “douchebag” as a positive trait that would help him deal with the bureaucrats, whom Pratt described as “champagne socialists” who are stealing taxpayer dollars.

“This state is all these f**king pigs at the trough,” Maher lamented.

RELATED: Socialist mayoral candidate is outraged at encampment outside her LA home — but it’s not what it seems

HIGHFIVE/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Pratt told the host his modus operandi has been to get into office so he can stop theft at the government level, which means letting the “successful rich people build businesses, build restaurants,” and put money into the citizens’ pockets.

The former star of “The Hills” said his leadership would get the money in the hands of the people without increasing taxes, because those “champagne socialists scammers steal” the money that is already coming in from wealthy L.A. residents.

“I can’t even comprehend taxing more,” Pratt announced.

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​Align, Bill maher, Spencer pratt, Los angeles, Karen bass, California, Entertainment 

A former journalist at the Washington Post is suing the outlet after she was apparently fired for disparaging white males in a post about the death of Charlie Kirk.

Karen Attiah said Monday that her case against the Post was progressing after eight months since she was fired. She had worked as a Post writer and editor for more than a decade.

She appeared to accuse Kirk of espousing hatred and suggested the political violence against him was justified.

“After 11 years at the Washington Post, I was fired in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk killing,” wrote Attiah. “This week, I’m fighting back. My case heads to arbitration on Thursday.”

Attiah posted a screenshot of the messages she wrote on BlueSky that seem to have led to her firing. She appeared to accuse Kirk of espousing hatred and suggested the political violence against him was justified.

“For everyone saying political violence has no place in this country… Remember two Democratic legislators were shot in Minnesota just this year. And America shrugged and moved on,” she wrote.

“Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence,” she added, apparently referring to Kirk.

“Again. I don’t care for empty rhetoric,” she added.

She characterized the posts as a “refusal to strip my clothes in performative mourning for Charlie Kirk.”

Attiah also published the apparent termination notice in which she was accused of “gross misconduct” related to the messages, which the Post said had potentially endangered the safety of its staff. The letter said she had violated the outlet’s prohibition against disparaging people based on their ethnicity or race.

She went on to say that the lawsuit challenges the termination and that her presence in the editorial office was important based on the color of her skin.

“As the last remaining Black full-time staff columnist in the Washington Post’s Opinions section, I was very aware of what my firing represented for diversity in newsrooms,” Attiah wrote.

Blaze News has reached out to the Washington Post for comment.

RELATED: WaPo faces backlash over bizarre headline on ‘complex’ drop in fentanyl seizures at border

Attiah was among those who fell for a scam by a Somali activist who falsely claimed to have been assaulted with a brick by a man after she spurned his advances. A jury later found the activist guilty of faking the story in order to garner $42,000 from a GoFundMe campaign.

In 2022, Attiah also assailed white “cis” women for not being sufficiently supportive of the transgender agenda.

“Many white, cis women would rather gatekeep and maintain privilege than work in solidarity with other groups. Patriarchy is crushing us, but y’all wanna play both-sides pattycake,” she wrote at the time.

“We will need a politics of solidarity and community building to resist this, which is not something that white women have historically had to do.”

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​Karen attiah, Washington post, Political violence, Diversity hire, Politics 

An elderly grandmother was stabbed to death on an Atlanta train over the weekend in an unprovoked, daytime attack, authorities said.

Arrest warrants indicate that the 66-year-old victim was stabbed 18 to 20 times while aboard a MARTA train Saturday, WXIA-TV reported.

‘There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her family because her family is her everything.’

John Elijah Matthews, the 25-year-old suspect, first cut the throat of victim Margaret Swan just seconds after he walked next to where she was seated on the train nearing the Oakland City MARTA station, WXIA said, citing arrest warrants. Oakland City is an Atlanta neighborhood.

Video from inside the train indicates that the two never communicated, the station said, citing warrants.

Video showed Swan sitting alone aboard the train at 11:21 a.m., WXIA said, adding that just before 11:25 a.m. Matthews is seen walking to the side of the train where Swan was sitting.

Just 19 seconds later, Matthews “is seen walking up to [Swan] and standing just to her right,” the station said, adding that several seconds later he took out a knife, opened it, and cut the victim in the throat.

Warrants say Swan was screaming and trying to get up from her seat as Matthews held her and stabbed her, WXIA reported.

Matthews was then seen on video “throwing [Swan] to the floor and standing near her until the train arrived at the Oakland City Station” less than two minutes later, WXIA added.

Warrants indicate that when the train arrived at Oakland City, Matthews exited the train with the knife still in hand as officers rushed to the scene, the station reported.

Warrants add that officers tried unsuccessful lifesaving measures on Swan, WXIA reported.

The station noted in a news video that Matthews was arrested “almost immediately” after the attack and that he waived his Monday hearing.

RELATED: Karoline Leavitt blasts media for ‘shamefully’ ignoring horrific stabbing of Ukrainian refugee

Matthews does not have an address or phone number, the station said, citing warrants, and he “did not want to continue speaking with detectives” at the College Park MARTA Police Precinct.

WXIA said searches of metro Atlanta court and jail records did not immediately indicate clearly whether Matthews has a prior criminal history in the area.

The station added that Matthews is charged with murder in Saturday’s killing.

RELATED: Van Jones claims there’s ‘NO EVIDENCE’ of racial animus in Charlotte stabbing. Audio in murder footage suggests otherwise.

“My mom was the rock of her family,” Swan’s daughter, Shanae Sams, told WXIA. “There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her family because her family is her everything.”

Sams added to the station that her mother’s killer “didn’t just take away a mom, but my children’s grandmother was taken away.”

Swan had five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, WXIA reported, adding that her daughter said she used the train frequently.

A MARTA spokesperson told the station that “this appears to be a senseless act of violence, and our thoughts are with the victim’s loved ones and those who witnessed this horrific incident.”

The agency added to WXIA that “we understand the concern and fear incidents like this can cause for those who ride and work on the MARTA system. MARTA Police are actively investigating and remain committed to the safety and security of our riders and employees.”

The station’s news video added that with the FIFA World Cup soccer matches coming to Atlanta this month, concern for safety aboard MARTA trains has increased.

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​Arrest, Atlanta, Fatal stabbing, Fulton county sheriff’s office, Georgia, Marta, Train, Unprovoked attack, Crime 

As more people share their big life moments on social media, the more extravagant “ghetto prom” videos have flooded everyone’s timelines — featuring red carpets, flashy outfits, and expensive cars.

“They’re spending a lot of money on these proms, going to a lot of trouble and expense for these proms,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock comments, sharing a recent tweet that brought this to his attention.

“A white woman on tiktok said that ‘ghetto prom’ is flashy and over the top because it’s the closest thing they have in their culture to weddings. She got dragged for saying it, but many black people in the comments begrudgingly agreed with her point,” Mary Morgan posted on X.

“Have things gotten so bad as it relates to marriage and family that we’ve started a new tradition that the prom is the peak of black love, and it has to be celebrated and money spent on it like it’s a wedding?”

Whitlock asks Delano Squires what he thinks.

“I think it’s a two-part thing,” Squires says, “One, the prom also signals the end of a high school career, so to speak. So there’s a celebration aspect in that respect.”

“But then it’s also this notion that, OK, boy and girl together, got on the dresses, you know, you’re renting nice cars, and so on and so forth,” he continues, pointing out that “in the age of the internet, these things are getting even more extravagant.”

In one clip of these young prom-goers, Squires points out that a boy was “flashing a wad of cash.”

“I’ve seen reports that that young man was actually killed,” he says. “I don’t know if he was killed on his prom night or at some point after that. And there’s an even larger overarching phenomenon that’s going on here, which is that in a lot of these communities, particularly for young men, to make it to the age of 21 or 25 is an accomplishment.”

“So part of the reason I think you see such over-the-top celebrations is because some of these proms are taking place in communities where there really is not a lot to celebrate and young men don’t live long enough to have a full life,” he continues.

“So,” he adds, “when you see this kid go from flashing stacks of money to now the quote-unquote celebration of life is going to be in the church where they’re laying him to rest. I can understand why people who live in those circumstances think … we have to throw a big bash because they’re living in a sort of cultural context where it’s like literally tomorrow is not promised today.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Delano squires, Fearless, Ghetto prom, Jason whitlock, Prom, Social media, Wedding, Jason whitlock harmony 

Roxanne Brown, the head of the United Steelworkers, must recognize the reality of her members and consider the recent history of the steel industry. If she remembers what happened when steel mills closed and factory towns devolved into ghost towns, she must distinguish herself from her predecessor, David McCall, whose intransigence during his tenure was neither shrewd nor productive. To set her union on a renewed path forward, Brown must distance herself from McCall’s troubling legacy and avoid jeopardizing the very workers she claims to represent.

Brown has reportedly rejected U.S. Steel’s initial contract offer, setting the stage for the next round of negotiations beginning July. If talks go south again this summer, workers could face lost wages, disrupted health benefits, and uncertainty over retirement security. Their families would feel the pressure through tighter household budgets, delayed bills, strained child care and health care decisions, and the emotional toll that comes with prolonged economic uncertainty.

Steelworkers deserve leadership focused on jobs, wages, benefits, and retirement security — not reputation management or corporate alliances.

In steel towns and surrounding communities, the impact would ripple through local businesses, schools, churches, charities, and public services that depend on steady paychecks and a stable industrial base. A lockout would not just pause production; it would threaten livelihoods, family stability, and the economic backbone of communities built around American steel.

McCall’s reckless efforts to tank the Nippon-U.S. Steel merger led to a revolt among steelworkers, and his alliance with competitor Cleveland-Cliffs’ CEO Lourenco Goncalves showed he prioritizes his own reputation and corporate alliances over his members. In the next round of contract talks, McCall should not be allowed anywhere near the negotiating table from the union side.

For decades, steelworkers have been heavily affected by market swings and fluctuating steel production demands. 2026 has been a welcome relief of slow but steady growth, aided by investments like those from Nippon, shifts toward modernization, and economic tailwinds, but history shows this tide can turn anytime.

When the steel industry turns down, it faces facility idling, facility closures, layoffs, and industry upheaval. Despite recent upturn, this volatility has contributed to a public perception that blue-collar jobs like those of steelworkers are unstable, making the upcoming contract negotiations in July that much more significant.

The past tells us quite a bit about what could be ahead for steelworkers. Last year’s high-profile Nippon-U.S. Steel merger carried major consequences for American steel production and steelworkers’ jobs. Yet as the deal progressed through the approval process, McCall chose to advance his own interests rather than champion union members’ security and prosperity, revealing deeply troubling behavior.

In 2023, when the merger was proposed, U.S. mills produced about 89.7 million net tons of raw steel, supporting 70,000 workers in iron and steel manufacturing. The deal promised substantial benefits to American steelworkers, including: $2.7 billion in capital investments exclusively dedicated to USW facilities; a 10-year commitment to maintain steel production levels at existing facilities, protecting union jobs; a $5,000 signing bonus for union workers and eligible nonunion employees below the senior-manager level upon deal closure; and written, enforceable commitments to honor existing union contracts and labor agreements.

RELATED: The AI bubble is about to pop. Here’s how to prepare yourself.

Just_Super/Getty Images

Despite clear support among many rank-and-file members for the merger’s approval, McCall staked out firm personal opposition that did not reflect union workers’ input. In a February 2024 phone interview, McCall stated bluntly: “I want to kill this deal.”

McCall also took advantage of the Biden administration’s likely politically partisan, election-driven opposition to the merger. A lawsuit alleged that Biden sought to kill the deal to “curry favor with the USW leadership in [Pennsylvania] in his bid for re-election … motivated by ‘purely political reasons.’”

Perhaps most damning is that McCall’s opposition clashed with the interests of steelworkers.

This is a pivotal time for the future of the American steel industry. The industry can only thrive if USW and the companies that employ its members can reach a commonsense agreement that both protects workers and allows companies to continue operating.

Brown must capitalize on this unique opportunity to move the union past the destructiveness of McCall’s leadership by participating in good faith in the upcoming negotiations and avoiding prolonging the contract talks at the expense of her members’ well-being. America’s steelworkers deserve better than their fate still being in the shadows of David McCall.

​Steel mills, Roxanne brown, Us steel, Nippon steel, Steelworkers, Biden administration, American jobs, Opinion & analysis, Unions, Employment, Economy, Manufacturing, Tariffs, Investment 

In April, President Trump signed an executive order slapping 100% tariffs on patented pharmaceutical imports. The idea: force drugmakers to bring manufacturing back to American soil — an America First bet that U.S. medicine should be made in the U.S.

Two months later, one of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical companies cut a nearly $3 billion deal with a company in Beijing.

On Friday, Eli Lilly struck a research agreement with Beijing-based Haisco Pharmaceutical worth up to $3 billion — though neither company disclosed which diseases the drugs are meant to treat.

Shipments of gray-market GLP-1s from China surged 44% in January alone.

According to a Haisco press release, the deal covers “up to five innovative target programs” across “multiple therapeutic areas.” The arrangement is simple: A Chinese biotech finds the drugs; an American pharma giant bankrolls them. Haisco gets $87 million up front, with the rest of the nearly $3 billion tied to milestones and a cut of future sales.

“This collaboration is highly aligned with our international development strategy and is expected to generate sustainable value and long-term returns. By partnering with a global biopharmaceutical leader such as Lilly, Haisco aims to accelerate the global development of innovative therapies and deliver high-quality treatment options to patients worldwide,” said Dr. Pangke Yan, chief executive officer of Haisco, in the release.

Lilly has been on a buying binge fueled by blockbuster profits from its weight-loss drug Zepbound. Hours after the Haisco announcement, the Indianapolis company licensed a drug for short bowel syndrome from Korea’s Hanmi for $1.2 billion. Earlier this year, Lilly signed an $8.5 billion collaboration with China’s Innovent Biologics to develop cancer and immune system drugs.

RELATED: Why weight-loss drug prices finally fell — and who deserves credit

Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Zepbound costs over $1,000 per month without insurance — and Trump struck deals to bring that down to $245 for Medicare patients and $350 through TrumpRx. But shipments of gray-market GLP-1s from China surged 44% in January alone, as everyday Americans turned to Chinese suppliers offering the same compounds for as little as $50 a vial.

Lilly is not alone. New York-based Pfizer struck a $10.5 billion deal with Innovent — the same Chinese biotech Lilly just partnered with — to develop 12 cancer drugs. North Chicago-based AbbVie struck a $745 million deal with Haisco for two non-opioid pain treatments. U.S.-based Frazier Life Sciences licensed a Haisco lung disease asset for up to $955 million in January.

More than half of large pharmaceutical companies’ licensing agreements this year have come from China, up from 39% last year and just 5% in 2022.

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​China, Eli lilly, Research and development, Politics 

The U.S. and Israel kicked off a 39-day bombing campaign against Iran on Feb. 28 during which over 13,000 targets were hit, including the upper crust of the regime in Tehran. While the U.S. and Iran agreed in early April to a ceasefire, it has been strained in recent days and weeks by violent exchanges between the warring parties.

While admittedly not in a rush to strike a deal to end the war in time for the midterms, President Donald Trump nevertheless expressed optimism early Monday that “Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us.”

Hours later — and after U.S. Central Command announced that a pair of Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces in Kuwait had been intercepted — Iranian state media reportedly announced that Tehran has suspended peace talks with the United States, citing as cause Israel’s offensive in Lebanon and escalations in Beirut.

‘I don’t particularly want to talk either.’

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in a statement before his nation’s state media threw cold water on the peace talks that “the ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation.”

Following the news of the initial ceasefire in April, the Israel Defense Forces announced that the Israeli military had “ceased fire in the operation against Iran” but was “continuing to conduct targeted ground operations against Hezbollah” in Lebanon, where the IDF already had a significant troop presence.

In the months since, Israeli forces have expanded their occupation of the south of the country — going well beyond the Litani River — and claimed significant gains over Hezbollah militants.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he ordered attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

RELATED: Congress may be quietly seeking to integrate US and Israeli militaries — but critics have taken notice

Ronen Zvulun/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

Mohsen Rezaei, an Iranian politician who served as military adviser to the late Ali Khamenei, said on Monday, “The Strait of Hormuz is under Iran’s management. We will not allow the continuation of the maritime blockade, and the escalation of tensions in Lebanon will not be tolerated either. The patience of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran has its limits.”

Tasnim, the semi-official state news agency that is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, subsequently reported that “the Iranian negotiating team will suspend ‘talks and the exchange of texts through mediators.'”

The agency also claimed that Iran and its allies would “activate other fronts, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait” at the entrance of the Red Sea.

Trump told NBC News’ Garrett Haake, “I think it’s fine if they’re done talking.”

“It’s an appropriate thing to say, because they’re better negotiators than they are fighters,” the president said. “But they haven’t informed us of that.”

Trump noted that the apparent suspension of talks “doesn’t mean we’re going to go and start dropping bombs all over there” but that the U.S. will “keep the blockade. Blockade is a piece of steel.”

“If they don’t want to talk, that’s okay with me. I think it’s fine. I don’t particularly want to talk either. We talk too much,” Trump added.

In an apparent effort to rescue the peace talks from total collapse, Trump announced around 1:30 p.m. on Monday that after speaking to Netanyahu, “there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.”

The president also said Hezbollah had agreed not to attack Israel.

Tump said in a Truth Social post just minutes later that “talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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​Iran, Tehran, Lebanon, Israel, War, Donald trump, Negotiations, Ceasefire, Military, Foreign entanglement, Strait of hormuz, Politics 

A savage attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer has led to the arrest of a “violent agitator” as described by the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Photos posted by DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin showed the bleeding bite mark left on the forearm of the agent, who was allegedly attacked during rioting at an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey.

‘Anyone who assaults a law enforcement officer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’

“Last night, a violent rioter savagely kicked and bit ICE law enforcement officers outside of Delaney Hall. Today, this violent agitator is being charged,” wrote Mullin on social media Friday.

Anti-ICE protesters claim that detainees at the ICE facility at Delaney Hall are being held under improper conditions and that some are responding with a hunger strike.

Mullin has denied the allegations and claimed that the hunger strike is actually based on demands from detainees that they be fed food from their respective ethnic origins.

“There was only a handful of individuals that was refusing to eat because they want their ethnic right food,” he said from the White House. “Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want. … This isn’t Holiday Inn.”

A statement from the DHS indicated that five of the six arrested on Friday in relation to the anti-ICE violence were alleged agitators from outside New Jersey. The agency cited this as evidence that the demonstrations were a “coordinated campaign of violence” against federal agents.

“Our ICE law enforcement officers are facing an 8,000% increase in death threats and a 1,300% increase in assaults against them,” the agency added. “This violence against law enforcement must end.”

In another incident from the Delaney Hall center, an agitator was recorded on video Wednesday screaming that he would kill the wife and children of an ICE agent. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said agents were actively seeking to identify and arrest the man for the alleged death threat against a federal agent.

RELATED: WATCH: Protester screeches ‘Nazi b***h!’ at Fox News reporter on air during NJ protest

DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin X post

There are about 300 detainees being held at the privately run Newark ICE facility that holds about 1,000 beds. The detainees also have access to digital tablets with online connection.

“The Trump Administration will ALWAYS stand with our federal law enforcement officers,” Mullin added. “Anyone who assaults a law enforcement officer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

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​Hunger strike, Newark ice facility, Death threat arrest, Anti-ice protests, Politics 

A viral “alien disclosure” scandal has been rocking Christian circles after a group of charismatic pastors claimed the government held a secret meeting warning religious leaders about impending UFO revelations involving a fake rapture and a massive deception.

“There’s groups of people meeting to talk about their beliefs about aliens or the government, that’s not new at all. That’s been going on for quite a long time. But the idea that government officials were there and that they were informing these pastors so that the pastors could help the people because the government was about to tell us stuff that was so wild,” Bible teacher Mike Winger tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey.

“They absolutely misled the people into thinking that they had some sort of government-approved inside information, and it was just smoke and mirrors, the whole thing,” he explains.

However, they were actually just meeting with “private Christians who they say are intelligence operators.”

“They like to use that phrase, but they don’t actually work for any government agency or any sort of government at all,” he says.

Rather, these Christians actually just have “theories based upon publicly accessible information.”

“It’s all been declassified info for years. And they just go and they try to put it together in a way that they think tells a story that they believe is true. And the story they believe is true, interestingly enough, is that the government’s going to affirm aliens do exist,” Winger says.

“And they’re going to couple this with propaganda from the government itself to say Christianity is false,” he says, noting that one man in attendance claimed that “there will soon be an alien in the sky who will be a false Jesus, and there’ll be a false rapture event, and they’re going to use this to deceive Christians around the world.”

“These are kooks. These men are kooks,” he continues.

“They try to position themselves as ‘the government has informed us of what’s really coming guys, you need to listen to us, we will be your guides, we’ll be your thought leaders through this turbulent time of disclosure,’” he explains.

“And I was like, this is going to hurt a lot of people,” he continues, adding, “They should not be our thought leaders.”

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 with allie beth stuckey, Allie beth stuckey, Mike winger, The bible, Ufos, Alien, Christianity, Rapture, Disclosure, Relatable 

Democratic socialist and anti-Zionist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has become the first New York City mayor to boycott the Israel Day Parade since its creation in 1964.

At a security briefing on Thursday for the then-upcoming parade, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, alongside Mamdani, shared details on the security measures that would be implemented in order to ensure the safety of all attendees.

‘I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that the mayor of New York City, a city that has the largest Jewish population outside of the state of Israel, chose not to be here.’

“This Sunday, New Yorkers will see the most extensive security plan that the NYPD has ever put together for the Salute to Israel Parade, including the largest number of officers ever assigned to that detail. Included in that security plan will be the most heavy weapons teams ever, robust camera coverage of the area, and comprehensive screening of everyone entering the parade route including spectators, vendors, participants, and the press,” Tisch said.

Despite the commissioner’s plans to march “proudly” as the honorary grand marshal, Mamdani, when asked his response to critics who say that he can still attend the parade to support Jewish New Yorkers without directly supporting the current Israeli government, replied: “I said on the campaign trail that I wouldn’t be attending the parade, and I’ve made my views on the Israeli government abundantly clear.”

He also said: “I take seriously my responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of every New Yorker and every event, regardless of my attendance.”

The Israel Day Parade, formally called the Israel Day on Fifth, is the largest gathering in support of Israel in the world. It has been held annually in New York City for the past 61 years, with every mayor from Robert F. Wagner Jr. to Eric Adams having marched in it during their time in office. The parade consistently attracts tens of thousands of participants and spectators every year.

The event is also profoundly pro-American, with this year’s theme of “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists” visible in the sea of American and Israeli flags down Fifth Avenue.

Mamdani’s decision comes at a frightening time for Jewish New Yorkers. For the month of April, anti-Semitic hate crimes made up 60% of all reported incidents in the city, while numerous anti-Israel demonstrations — many of which Mamdani has supported — have been held outside synagogues and Jewish institutions.

However, it isn’t as though skipping out on a cultural celebration is a norm for Mamdani. The mayor was in attendance at this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, during which he compared historical Irish suffering to the “genocide” of Palestinians.

In March, Mamdani attended the Lunar New Year Parade with New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul. Last year, he appeared at the Puerto Rican Day Parade, India Day Parade, and Pakistan Independence Day Parade.

RELATED: Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses NYC Mayor Mamdani of anti-Semitism after his first day in office

kena betancur/AFP/Getty Images

Mamdani also became the first mayor in the city’s history to address an International Workers’ Day rally, also known as May Day, on May 1.

Notable officials and figures who marched in the Israel parade on Sunday include Gov. Hochul, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), former Mayors Eric Adams (D) and Michael Bloomberg (D), Nassau County executive and Republican nominee for governor Bruce Blakeman, and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, among many others.

“I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that the mayor of New York City, a city that has the largest Jewish population outside of the state of Israel, chose not to be here,” said Lawler, who has been a vocal critic of Mamdani and his administration.

Adams uploaded a video to his official Instagram account Friday publicly announcing his excitement for the parade: “As your mayor, I was proud to march in this parade for all four years I was in office, and this year will be no different. I’ll be right there, marching with tens of thousands of New Yorkers.”

The CEO of the prominent Jewish organization UJA Federation of New York, Eric Goldstein, blasted Mamdani in an open letter Friday.

“You are the first mayor in the history of New York City — home to the largest Jewish diaspora community in the world — to refuse to participate in this parade because you fundamentally reject Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”

Goldstein claims Mamdani’s “refusal to participate this Sunday is not principally grounded in criticism of a particular Israeli government or policy” but rather rooted in a “refusal to acknowledge the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.”

“Your absence — and what it represents — will be long-remembered.”

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​Jessica tisch, Mayor zohran mamdani, New york city, Politics 

The cost of doing business today may be higher than ever, even if it involves fewer humans.

While some major U.S. companies are starting to see the vast costs of their robotic colleagues as prices soar for AI-driven operations, companies are still pushing employees to use more and more AI.

According to executives at computing companies, the cost of AI has now exceeded the typical employee salary totals.

The mantra is that even more AI usage needs to happen.

“For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees,” Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at chip maker Nvidia, said in early May.

The cost of AI computing, especially when it comes to coding, has come as a surprise to some companies once they start integrating it into their teams and spreading access to their engineers.

Most of the major corporations have been using Anthropic’s Claude, which is seemingly cheap when it comes to image generation, but dollar signs pile up when generating documents or computer code.

As Forbes reported, Uber ran through its entire 2026 AI budget in just four months. Chief technology officer at the company, Praveen Neppalli Naga, even admitted to spending $1,200 by using AI for a personal demo, with the company’s engineer cost ranging from upwards of $250 per month in usage, all the way up to $2,000 per month.

RELATED: DOJ asked to probe whether Biden officials let Microsoft off easy in exchange for cushy jobs

Huiying Ore/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Between December and March, Uber achieved a 95% usage rate among its engineers to implement AI tools and use Claude for coding.

Over at Microsoft, thousands of its developers were invited to use Claude for coding, but so were project managers, designers, and other employees.

The Verge reported that after starting in just December, the usage has become so popular that the company is making a switch and adopting Microsoft’s own Copilot model into its workflow.

The mantra shared by all of these companies is that even more AI usage needs to happen. Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta are pushing employees to keep spending tokens.

RELATED: Self-driving trucks are about controlling the roads — not making them safer

Idrees MOHAMMED/AFP/Getty Images

Uber ranked its engineers on internal leaderboards based on Claude code usage. A Meta employee reportedly made a leaderboard titled “Claudenomics” to track which workers were using Claude the most.

Fortune reported that Amazon is pushing employees to “tokenmaxx” and use as many tokens as possible.

As icing on the cake, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said he believes eventually every employee at his company will work alongside 100 AI agents.

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The Democrat hoping to win a seat in the U.S. Senate from Texas for his party for the first time in decades goes to a very unorthodox, woke church.

James Talarico frequently employs religious wording and concepts to justify his far-left agenda, but his church is openly supportive of the extreme LGBTQ+ movement and funding abortion.

The far-left church calls abortion a ‘blessing’ and uses donations to fund the transportation for women to obtain abortions outside of Texas.

Talarico has even preached sermons at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, according to a Daily Wire report.

The far-left church calls abortion a “blessing” and uses donations to fund the transportation for women to obtain abortions outside of Texas. It also lists Planned Parenthood as one of the organizations that shares the church’s “vision and goals for the world.”

The church also supports Out Youth Austin, a group that runs a transgender summer camp and stocks sexually explicit books for children in its library.

Talarico has been very public about his belief that the Bible supports abortion.

“I say all this in the context of abortion, because before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent,” he said in an interview with Joe Rogan. “You cannot force someone to create … so that’s how I come down on that side of the issue.”

That reading of the Bible may not be in line with the vision and goals of traditional Christians in Texas.

The church also sides with Palestinians in Gaza by supporting an organization that lists “Zionism” along with “racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, queerphobia, transphobia, classism, and ableism.”

RELATED: Stephen Colbert melts down when CBS pulls Talarico interview just months before show ends

Talarico is running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has had his own problems in relation to marital infidelity accusations and other various scandals. Paxton has used his office to oppose abortion in Texas.

Paxton has a slight edge over Talarico in the latest polling. If the far-left candidate is able to pull an upset, it would help tremendously toward Democrats winning control of the Senate.

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​Ken paxton, Woke church, James talarico, Us senate race, Politics, Texas 

The House Armed Services Committee released its first draft of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization bill last week.

Section 224, a provision buried hundreds of pages into the $1.15 trillion defense policy legislation that outlines the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” has generated some controversy on the fringes of Capitol Hill.

‘This provision would flip the script on the current bilateral relationship.’

Committee member Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) is among those who rushed to characterize section 224 as benign, stating that it amounts to a “security agreement” that “will allow for the US to leverage advanced Israeli technologies.”

Some, however, have expressed concerns that the initiative will effectively mean a politically consequential integration of the U.S. and Israeli militaries along with their respective industrial supports.

The legislative proposal

Section 224 of the 2027 NDAA draft would have the secretary of war designate a Pentagon official to oversee the synchronization of “cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.”

The designee would, among other things,

identify Israeli-origin or jointly developed technologies that the U.S. could integrate into its systems and programs;facilitate the transition of such technologies from research and development into procurement and acquisition pathways;establish “frameworks for joint ventures, licensing agreements, and United States-based co-production or manufacturing partnerships with Israeli industry”; andpromote “joint training exercises and information-sharing mechanisms to enhance operational readiness to deploy jointly developed technologies.”

The section clarifies that the “cooperative efforts” pursued under this technology initiative can be carried out through numerous domains including: counter-unmanned systems; anti-tunneling and subterranean threats; missile and air defense technologies; AI; directed energy; cyber warfare; biotechnology and biomanufacturing; network integration; and defense industrial base cooperation, manufacturing, and co-production.

Backlash

Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, claimed in a recent analysis for Responsible Statecraft that “if fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world.”

RELATED: White House says no worries after report claims rebuilding missile inventory used in Iran strikes will take years

YOAV LEMMER/AFP/Getty Images

While acknowledging that the U.S. has worked closely “with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan,” Freeman said that section 224 would not only “fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future” but afford the foreign power “the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S.”

Beyond potentially setting the stage for more Israeli influence over American politics and fusing together the two nations’ military-industrial complexes at a time when the majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel, Freeman — echoing a colleague at the Quincy Institute — suggested that the initiative will shield the relationship from public scrutiny by migrating it from a visible aid vote in Congress “into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Pentagon did not respond to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

Responding to Freeman’s report, departing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) tweeted, “If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries (section 224) makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor.”

“We are a sovereign country,” Massie added in a post Rep. Van Orden suggested was the “dumbest possible take.”

Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said that he will introduce an amendment in committee to axe section 224. Khanna noted further that “Trump can’t kill the Massie/Khanna partnership no matter how much he posts on Truth Social.”

A New Policy, the PAC founded in 2024 by a pair of Biden staffers who quit over the administration’s support for Israel, is campaigning against section 224.

“At a policy level, this provision would flip the script on the current bilateral relationship, shifting the leverage we currently hold because of our security assistance to Israel over to the Government of Israel who would be able to hold key [Department of Defense] capabilities hostage through the integration of Israeli technologies into the DOD supply chain,” states the PAC’s template letter to members of the House Armed Services Committee. “Section 224 also assumes a commonality of national security interests between Israel and the U.S., which, as the current conflict with Iran clearly demonstrates, does not exist.”

Code Pink, the leftist group co-founded by former Democrat political activist Jodie Evans, has also seized upon section 224 as a cause du jour, calling upon Congress to reject “US integration with the Israeli military.”

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​Military industrial complex, Military, Israel, United states, Technology, Manufacturing, Business, Israeli, Ndaa, Section 224, Politics 

California used to be a land of promise that produced fine Americans who mocked D.C. elites, a former U.S. Marine officer says.

In the face of failed state and federal leadership in the Democratic Party, an ex-soldier has a message for inland communities.

The coastal cities and elites are supported by the inland residents, says security expert and veteran Adam Castillo.

‘I’m tired of being the butt of jokes for MAGA.’

In an interview with Blaze News, Castillo explained that he found opportunity in Myanmar after being left as an “unemployed veteran as part of that massive sequestering period by the Obama administration around 2013.”

Promises from the Barack Obama administration of finding jobs for veterans turned into nothing more than a check-box item for hiring managers, Castillo claimed, who would then say, “Hey, we we interviewed a veteran,” and move on.

Castillo ran a security company during Myanmar’s 2021 coup d’état, which taught him a valuable lesson: things can be done properly with the right leadership, even under the harshest conditions.

It is that experience that brought Castillo to believe the inland communities of California should be the focus for Republicans while the rest of the state crumbles around them.

“To be frank, who do you think supports these coastal cities? The inland desert communities, right? We’re the ones commuting to the cities to make sure they’re run, to make sure that the sanitation infrastructure is run [and] the electricity is run,” Castillo declared.

RELATED: Self-driving trucks are about controlling the roads — not making them safer

George Rose/Getty Images

Republicans and conservatives should start with town councils, school boards, and the like before splintering outward into state legislatures, Castillo suggested.

“When you start going inland, specifically into the deserts, this is where it gets really conservative. … They are the power of California.”

“What we need to concentrate on in terms of organization at the community level is the inland communities, not the coastal cities,” he went on.

“School board, city council, mayor, state legislator, then congressman, then senator,” Castillo said.

For the coastal elites, Castillo says the voters need to deal with the consequences of their elections for a bit longer.

“I think we just let the liberal coastal cities rot,” the former officer bluntly stated. “Honestly. They’re already rotting. So let them continue to rot. They do not represent us. They don’t even have that many representatives.”

RELATED: The left spots fake reality only when Hollywood gets hurt

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While Castillo’s remarks could be seen as divisive or jarring by some, he remained confident that a Republican governor in 2026 and beyond would set an amazing precedent in smaller communities and provide much-needed inspiration.

In the end, his belief that Californians can still recapture their glory years serves as his ongoing motivation.

“I’m tired of being the butt of jokes for other states. I’m tired of being the butt of jokes for MAGA,” he concluded.

“We’re Californians. We were better than you people,” he said of D.C. elites. “We were born better than you people. It’s about time we reclaim our seat at that power.”

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The Supreme Court of the United States has shut down the National Football League’s attempt to keep a major lawsuit hidden behind closed-door arbitration — which began when Brian Flores interviewed for a head coach job with the Broncos.

“This is a bizarre story — has been going on for years and years and years and years,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere comments on “Stu and Dave Do America.”

Flores’ lawsuit alleges that Broncos officials did not take him seriously as a candidate for the job because he’s African-American, as they showed up hung over and an hour late to interview him.

However, the Broncos released a statement that Flores’ allegations were not true and that he was a serious candidate.

“Now, what’s interesting about this is the reason why the background of all this is what’s called the Rooney Rule. Basically, it was an idea a while ago. They said there weren’t enough African-American coaches, and they said, ‘Hey, well, one way we can do that is force teams to interview African-American candidates for every job,’” Stu explains.

“The way they measure this and the way the complaint is sort of formed is, well, about 60%, let’s say, of the league’s players are African-Americans. So therefore, they say 60% of the coaches should be African-Americans,” he continues.

Stu points out that despite the statistics, there are wildly different skill sets used in each position.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this at all, but Andy Reid has a different build than, let’s say, [DK] Metcalf,” he says.

“It’s one of those things where you don’t need to be an incredible athlete to be a coach. So all of us whiteys go into coaching,” he adds.

Not only do the positions require different skill sets, but African-Americans are only 11% of the American population.

“They’re hiring to the best jobs available — the players — at seven times the representation of the population. That does not strike me as racist,” Stu says.

“I think they’re picking on merit because they want money and they want the best players on the field, and the best players typically wind up being African-American for whatever reason,” he adds.

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​Stu and dave do america, Stu burguiere, Dave landau, Brian flores, The nfl, Rooney rule, Dk metcalf, Andy reid, Denver broncos 

A Michigan man was caught on video attacking and attempting to kidnap a 14-year-old girl last month, and the Kentwood Police Department said in a statement that it wasn’t the only assault he allegedly committed that day.

“A 66-year-old female reported that while working in her yard between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on May 12, 2026, a male suspect stopped his vehicle, engaged her in conversation, made unwanted advances, and physically assaulted her,” police said.

‘I think he chose me because he saw me as a woman alone.’

Mary Raab, the first alleged victim, told WOOD-TV she was planting flowers by her mailbox when a man approached and told her that he was struggling because his brother had died.

“He got out and said, ‘I have had this very traumatic incident happen to me, my brother passed away, and I am in deep grief, and I do not know how to deal with it,'” Raab said.

Raab added, “I am thinking, ‘Well, this is very weird.'”

Raab said the man then asked her if he could use her restroom and wash his hands. Raab said she declined and directed him to a local gas station.

“I went to shake his hand, and then he put his arms around me and went to kiss me on the mouth, and I turned my head away, and he planted his lips between my jawbone and my neck,” Raab said.

She continued, “He made it kind of difficult to break out of his embrace.”

Raab added, “It is violating somebody’s space; why do you think you have the right to do that?”

“I think he chose me because he saw me as a woman alone. He was definitely testing me to see how vulnerable I was, and luckily I was calm enough and level-headed enough to make him go away without having anything devastating and dramatic happen,” Raab said.

At around 6:40 p.m., police officers responded to a report of an attempted kidnapping.

Video appears to show a dark-colored SUV pulling up alongside a teen before a man jumps out of the vehicle, runs toward her, and assaults her.

“A 14-year-old female reported that the suspect stopped his vehicle, approached her, physically assaulted her, and attempted to restrain her while she was walking on the sidewalk,” the statement read.

Police said the victim was able to fight off the suspect, who fled the crime scene in his vehicle.

Court records obtained by WWMT-TV noted that the girl told investigators the suspect grabbed her and told her, “I got you,” before she fought him off.

Police described the teen’s acts as “heroic.”

“That victim absolutely saved her own life that day; she did amazing things and fought hard and made that suspect jump back in the car and take off,” Kentwood Police Department Captain Tim Wierenga told WOOD.

Investigators interviewed witnesses, utilized license plate information, and obtained surveillance video from a resident. Detectives determined that the same suspect committed the assault and attempted kidnapping.

Police identified the suspect as 29-year-old John Moore and arrested him within 24 hours of the alleged crimes.

Records from the Kent County Correctional Facility show that Moore was arrested and booked on May 13. Moore is being held on $140,000 bail.

Moore was charged with unlawful imprisonment and assault and battery.

Citing records from the Kent County Sheriff’s Office, the New York Post reported that Moore also was hit with two probation violations.

“Obviously age didn’t matter to him; he was just looking for a victim,” Raab said. “But I am glad that I kept my head. I am glad I didn’t let him into my house.”

RELATED: Teen abducted from Dallas Mavericks game tells harrowing story of being sex-trafficked, raped — and how God saved her

WOOD reported that Moore had been previously arrested for being a “bathroom peeper who recorded an upskirt video” at a grocery store in September 2023.

WOOD at the time reported that a woman was in a restroom stall of the store when she noticed Moore “peering down at her from the next stall over.”

Surveillance cameras also caught Moore recording an upskirt video in the store’s common area and “crouching down behind the victim” to position his cell phone to record up the shopper’s dress, according to WOOD.

In 2025, Moore allegedly sexually assaulted women at a different grocery store.

Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker told WOOD that Moore walked around the store telling female customers they had spiders on their backs and then grabbed their buttocks.

Three women reported that Moore assaulted them, Becker said.

Moore was sentenced to time served; he had already spent six months in jail. Moore also was given three years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Moore’s public defender at a hearing called him “kind” and “gentle,” WOOD reported.

“He’s kind, and he’s gentle, and he’s patient,” attorney Laura Joyce said of Moore. “And I don’t think these crimes are reflective of the person that he is.”

“I think that he’s had a reckoning while he’s been in jail regarding some potential substance abuse issues that he has to handle,” Joyce added.

Those who witnessed suspicious activity related to the case or the suspect are urged to contact the Kentwood Police Department at 616-656-6580 or send an anonymous tip through Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.

The Kentwood Police Department did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly unveiled housing agenda called Fix the City represents a dramatic expansion of government power over private property — honing in on “the worst landlords in New York City” as a target.

“When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers. And for buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we will work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards,” he explained.

“Stewards that include community land trusts, nonprofits, or even the tenants themselves,” he added.

“Pat Gray Unleashed” executive producer Keith Malinak is shocked to hear the cheers from the crowd during Mamdani’s speech, calling them “good little communists.”

“Wow, so they’re going to redistribute wealth. They’re going to take the property from the landowner and give it to the tenant,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments.

Mamdani also recently quoted former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, telling a crowd, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

He quickly caveated, “If anything, my friends, it seems that you eventually need a socialist to clean up the mess.”

However, Gray doesn’t see it the same way as Mamdani.

“It’s worse than I imagined, I think. It’s even worse,” he says. “And it’s unabashed. And it’s unashamed. He’s just fully embracing Marxism.”

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​Communism, Housing plan, Keith malinak, Margaret thatcher, Marxism, New york city, Pat gray, Socialism, The blaze, Zohran mamdani, Pat gray unleashed 

Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee hoping to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, has in recent months polled relatively well and enjoyed the support of fellow travelers in D.C. despite a series of scandals — including one scandal that prompted multiple members of his campaign to jump ship.

Platner has managed, for instance, to maintain the support of Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.), Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Sen. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), even after it was revealed he previously identified as a communist, branded rural white Americans as racists, suggested that service members worried about being raped should buy “Kevlar underwear,” smeared all police officers as “bastards,” mocked Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and adorned himself with an apparent “totenkopf” tattoo reminiscent of the skull image popularized by Adolf Hitler’s Schutzstaffel elite guard.

‘He is an issue.’

While Platner’s campaign has always been plagued by controversy, it appears to finally have become too much for some Democrats to bear — especially after it was revealed that the married candidate sent at least six women sexually explicit texts.

Amy Gertner — Platner’s wife since 2023 — discovered the trove of debauched extramarital texts, then brought them to the attention of her husband’s Senate campaign during the vetting process last year, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

“The United States Senate is not a training ground for redemption,” Genevieve McDonald, the former Democratic state representative who resigned as political director of Platner’s campaign in October, told the Times. “It is a place for proven leaders with moral clarity and integrity.”

McDonald claimed that Platner sent sexually graphic texts to as many as a dozen women.

After current and former campaign officials confirmed the exchanges to the Times, Platner’s campaign confirmed to Politico that the candidate had indeed sent the texts.

RELATED: Squad-endorsed candidate once reportedly volunteered with group tied to al-Qaeda and testified for terrorist ‘blind cleric’

Graeme Sloan/Getty Images

Morris Katz — a strategist for Platner’s campaign who wrote that he wanted to use images of his penis in a 2020 children’s book — said of the reports about his boss’ wandering eye, “It’s no one’s f**king business what happened in Graham & Amy’s marriage before he was ever a candidate for office.”

Gertner — who receives money from the campaign for serving as its volunteer coordinator — tried on Saturday to turn her husband’s scandal on the media, noting in a video statement shared online by Platner, “It makes me really angry, disappointed, and I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on.”

After insinuating that questions about Platner’s trustworthiness and fidelity aren’t relevant to the race, Gertner said that she and her husband went to marriage counseling and that she doesn’t “want a perfect marriage.”

Like Gertner, Rep. Ro Khanna reaffirmed his support for Platner, stating on Saturday that he was proud of Collins’ challenger “for having a vision for a new deal for our time.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), however, adopted a different tone, telling ABC News when asked on Sunday whether Platner might be jeopardizing Senate control for the Democrats, “Yes, I have concerns. That guy has questions to answer.”

Levar Stoney, the former Democratic mayor of Richmond, Virginia, similarly knocked Platner, writing, “I can’t help but think that if this candidate were a person of color or a woman, my party would be asking them to consider stepping aside immediately. A Nazi tattoo! Now this. I want Democrats to take back the Senate — but not like this.”

Prior to the revelations about Platner’s sexting exploits, some Democrats were already airing their concerns about his candidacy.

“I think when we’re talking about moral clarity and what we want to see from Democrats, I think he is an issue,” former Biden press office chief of staff Yemisi Egbewole, told Fox News’ Bill Melugin last week.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) also denounced Platner last week, telling CNN, “I’ve been clear about Graham Platner. I find that tattoo and his commentary about it to be personally disqualifying.”

“I hope Maine voters agree with me,” continued Auchincloss. “I think it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think that Graham Platner’s brand of the Democratic Party is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country.”

Over the weekend, the Maine Wire reported that Platner appeared to have an account on the messaging application Kik — long a cesspool for perverts and child exploitation — with the username “phustle0331.”

CNN later confirmed that the account, which features a photo of a partially naked individual with tattoos identical to those sported by the Democratic candidate, belongs to Platner, the same person Sen. Warren said last month was her “kind of man.”

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​Graham platner, Democrats, Senate, Maine, Susan collins, Sex scandal, Sexual, Infidelity, Adultery, Ro khanna, Politics 

Artificial intelligence usage at a single company spiraled out of control and led to a half-billion-dollar bill, according to a recent report.

A consultant is sounding the alarm on what could become the norm for companies in the near future: paying for AI integration may not be all it is made out to be.

One token is equal to approximately four written characters in English text.

An AI consultant recently provided Axios with a stunning revelation that has sparked intrigue across the globe. According to the unnamed insider, one of the consultant’s clients spent approximately $500 million in a single month on AI usage.

These costs reportedly piled up because the company failed to put usage limits on its employees who have AI licenses for the large language model Claude.

Anthropic, Claude’s operator, has different pricing structures that go up to $25 per million tokens. This may seem low, but one token is equal to approximately four written characters in English text or “0.75 words,” Anthropic says on its website.

This of course includes punctuation marks.

Token consumption can be quite heavy when it comes to documents. For example, a PDF costs ~125,000 tokens, a large document is ~25,000 tokens, and a webpage is listed at ~2,500 tokens.

RELATED: The Trump phone is here — and so is the controversy. Is it any good?

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Images through Claude Vision are calculated using a formula based on picture size in pixels. The formula is width * height / 750.

For example, a YouTube thumbnail is 1280 × 720 pixels and would therefore cost about 1,229 tokens. While it might end up costing just under $5 to produce around 1,000 average-sized images, the high costs are believed to stem from the scale of employee usage as well as when Claude is used to code.

The unnamed company — which was described in a LinkedIn post as a U.S. corporation — reportedly gave employees unfettered access with zero spending caps or usage limits.

RELATED: Google’s AI overhaul of Search will overfish the internet to extinction

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Without any guardrails in place, a company that creates documents or webpages or even performs coding with AI could be passively spending tens of thousands of dollars.

One chief technology officer told Axios that employees had been using AI for some of the most trivial tasks, which included checking the weather. Token plans may not be as they seem and are not “all you can eat” buffets, the CTO said.

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America is turning 250, and for the first time in years, its capital is starting to look the part.

Political insider Ken Farnaso has lived in Washington for 13 years. In that time, he never once saw a certain D.C. fountain turned on. Last week, he watched it run for the first time.

“Honestly, I don’t think many Washingtonians thought it would ever come back. … It’s more beautiful than I expected,” he wrote on X.

‘D.C. is looking beautiful. The fountains are almost all open.’

The transformation extends well beyond one fountain.

In July 2024, the phrase “HAMAS IS COMIN” was spray-painted onto the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain during large-scale demonstrations in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress. The perpetrator later pled guilty to misdemeanor destruction of government property.

The U.S. Department of the Interior noted on X that the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain “has been dry since before the first iPhone launched,” but today, that same fountain is gleaming white stone again.

The White House official account has been making the before-and-after contrast explicit, posting side-by-side images of Columbus Circle by Union Station — once graffiti-covered, pristine today — captioned simply: “Decline is a choice.“

Since January, a quiet but visible transformation has been under way in D.C.’s public spaces — dried-up fountains restored, graffiti-tagged monuments scrubbed clean, parks that had grown shabby suddenly tended again.

The scope stretches across the city: Lafayette Square, Freedom Plaza, Meridian Hill Park, and six other historic fountains that had gone dark are being brought back to life, while nine more — including the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial — are receiving mechanical upgrades.

At a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump touted the results. “D.C. is looking beautiful. The fountains are almost all open,” he said.

RELATED: 13 DC police officials placed on leave, pending termination amid crime stat manipulation scandal

Meridian Hill ParkBlaze News

Not everyone is cheering. Critics have zeroed in on the funding source: At least $60 million in National Park Service entrance fees — collected from visitors at parks across the country — is being channeled toward D.C. projects.

Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, called them “Trump’s vanity projects and the stuff that he can see from his golden throne off the Lincoln Bedroom,” arguing that crumbling infrastructure elsewhere in the park system should take priority.

The $60 million, however, comes not from the National Park Service’s main budget, but from a separate self-funded pool — entrance fees that, by law, the agency can redirect at its discretion to sites that don’t collect their own fees, like the National Mall.

That congressional budget, meanwhile, is hardly starved: Congress appropriated $3.27 billion for the National Park Service in fiscal year 2026 — 54% more than the Trump administration itself requested.

The Department of the Interior pushed back on the criticism directly, saying D.C. residents are “experiencing working fountains across the district for the first time in decades, all thanks to President Donald J. Trump” and that the agency has been addressing deferred maintenance “throughout the country.”

An additional $13.1 million is going toward the National Mall Reflecting Pool — a project that has drawn scrutiny of its own. Trump awarded a no-bid contract to a Virginia firm, and costs have ballooned from the original $1.8 million estimate to $13.1 million. Historic preservationists have filed suit, alleging that the blue coating being applied is “altering the historic character” of the pool without proper review.

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When Blaze News visited the newly restored fountains, not everyone in the crowd was a Trump supporter — but that didn’t seem to matter much. One D.C. resident said he hadn’t voted for Trump but that the restored fountains were a welcome sight regardless. “It’s the small things,” he said. “D.C. is my home, and it’s nice to have them back.”

A longtime Washingtonian nearby didn’t need much more than a look around. “I haven’t seen it like this for years,” she said. “It’s a beautiful day out.”

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​Dc, Decline, National mall, National park service, Politics