Footage shows male senior swiftly strike ball in attempt to make goal, inadvertently hitting female player directly in mouth. A female high school lacrosse player [more…]
Category: blaze media
‘High-risk’ pedophile fired by New York city after ‘horrific’ new allegations involving 12-year-old girl
A convicted “high-risk” pedophile hired by the city of Syracuse, New York, was fired after he was arrested for “horrific” allegations involving a 12-year-old girl.
On Thursday, police responded to a report of a man with an underage girl in a parking lot. The man fled the scene after being approached by another adult, according to the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office.
He allegedly lured the child to an isolated area in the Town of Lafayette and subjected her to a sexual act two separate times.
An investigation of the victim’s social media found that she had been interacting with a male through Snapchat. The messages indicated they had been having a sexual relationship.
The man was identified as 45-year-old James M. Desantis, who was already registered as a high-risk sex offender.
Desantis was arrested Thursday and booked into the Onondaga County Justice Center. He faces a slew of charges that include:
First-degree attempted rape;Luring a child to commit a felony;First-degree sexual abuse;Sexual abuse with an underage child;First-degree coercion;Third-degree aggravated sexual abuse;Aggravated sexual abuse with an underage victim;First-degree stalking; First-degree disseminating indecent materials to minors;Third-degree obscenity; andTwo counts of acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17.
Desantis was previously convicted of sex crimes against children in 2004 and 2005. In the first case, he was sentenced to 10 years probation for the rape of a 14-year-old girl. In the second case, he was convicted for the rape of another 14-year-old girl and sentenced to five years in prison.
Both victims were known to Desantis.
In the more current accusations against Desantis, he allegedly lured the child to an isolated area in the Town of Lafayette and subjected her to a sexual act two separate times. Both times, he sent a photo of a firearm to her and said he knew where she lived.
Desantis was hired by the Syracuse Department of Public Works in 2017 and was promoted to an on-location supervisor in 2024. He was fired after the arrest, and city officials are now being questioned about how a child sex offender had been working for years at the city.
RELATED: Michigan parents charged with murder and torture after 7-year-old boy dies with disturbing weight
Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens said her administration is investigating how Desantis was hired by the city and reviewing hiring practices.
“I’m very angry,” Owens said to WSYR-TV. “I spent my life working with children and protecting families, and this, quite frankly, is pissing me off.”
Desantis is scheduled for a hearing on Wednesday.
The sheriff’s department asked for help from the public to find other possible victims in the case.
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New york, Pedophile, Snapchat, Syracuse, Social media, Child rape, High risk sex offender, Crime
The Second Amendment stops at too many tollbooths
On June 23, standing before a crowd in Pennsylvania, President Trump was asked where he stood on a national right to carry.
His answer was four words: “Yeah, we’re working on it.”
The crowd roared.
For millions of law-abiding gun owners, those words pointed toward something they have awaited for decades: an end to a system that treats a constitutional right like a privilege that must be renewed at every state line.
Let’s be honest about where things stand.
The president has not signed anything, and no national reciprocity law exists today. The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act cleared a House committee last fall but has stalled in the Senate.
Our rights are only as strong as our willingness to defend them.
This is the starting line, not the finish line. But it is the right race to run, because the issue reaches far beyond the convenience of carrying a firearm across state borders.
I think about that every time I drive from my home in upstate New York to North Carolina to visit my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.
I travel through New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Four states. Four sets of gun laws. Four different answers to the same question: What rights does a free citizen carry when he crosses an invisible line on a map?
We accept this with almost no other right.
My driver’s license is honored in all 50 states. My freedom to speak, worship, and remain secure in my home does not evaporate at a tollbooth.
President Trump has made the same point since 2015, comparing a carry permit to a driver’s license: If one works in every state, so should the other.
The argument is common sense. The principle beneath it runs deeper.
The Second Amendment does not create the right to self-defense. It recognizes a natural right the founders understood to be endowed by God.
The right to keep and bear arms is not a permission slip issued by the government. It is the people’s right of self-preservation.
The founders knew what they were guarding against because they had lived under it.
Strip people of the means to defend themselves, and every other freedom becomes a favor granted by those in power. Free speech becomes a suggestion. Religious liberty becomes a privilege.
History is brutally consistent on this point: Disarmament often comes before oppression, not after it.
RELATED: ‘Shall not be infringed’ — even if you’re high, Supreme Court rules
Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Yet over the past century, America has moved from treating the right to bear arms as a birthright of citizenship to treating it, in too many places, as a government-granted privilege hedged in by fees, waiting periods, and paperwork.
The result is a maze of state and local laws so inconsistent that the same citizen, with the same clean record and character, can be legal in one state and a criminal the moment he crosses into another.
That is not the rule of law. That is a trap for honest people.
National reciprocity would cut through that maze. It would recognize a simple principle: Your right to carry should travel with you.
Twenty-nine states already recognize that citizens should not need government permission to carry. The Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision also affirmed that the Constitution protects the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense rather than leaving it to the discretion of local officials.
Reciprocity would extend that logic across state lines.
So yes, the president’s words in Pennsylvania were encouraging. But encouragement is not law, and the bill remains stalled in the Senate. It will stay there unless the people who care about this issue make themselves heard.
I have often said that elections are only victories in individual battles. The fight for freedom continues long after the votes are counted.
This is one of those fights.
If you believe your God-given rights should not change the moment you cross a state line, say so. Call your senators. Talk to your neighbors. Make the national right to carry a question every candidate must answer.
Our rights are only as strong as our willingness to defend them.
The founders did their part. The question is whether we will do ours.
Concealed carry, Drivers license, Gun owners, President trump, Second amendment, Supreme court, Right to carry, Pennsylvania, Opinion & analysis
Bodies are piling up in record heat — but Europe is still banning air conditioners
Europe is warming at an unprecedented rate. England is experiencing record-breaking temperatures this summer, with the month of June being the hottest the country has ever recorded. In the same month, Spain saw over 1,000 heat-related deaths, and in France 40 people died from drowning in one week’s time, as people rushed to bodies of water to escape the suffocating heat.
Sadly, these deaths aren’t uncommon. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 175,000 people die from heat-related causes in Europe every year.
The irony is that Europe has some of the world’s most ambitious climate policies. Many countries have rules limiting how cold public buildings or offices can be set; energy costs price the majority out of purchasing air conditioning; and the public largely views climate change as an urgent crisis demanding immediate aggressive action.
Glenn Beck is nauseated by the number of Europeans dying from what’s an easily fixable problem.
“It’s a box in a window that blows cold air. What a crazy thought,” he scoffs, citing a study that found that “air conditioning cuts heat deaths by as much as 75%.”
“So, you would think with bodies piling up that Europe might be like, yeah, we got to get a box in every window. … You’d think that that would be one thing everybody could agree on, but you’d be wrong,” he sighs.
Glenn plays a recent clip of British climate activist Dr. Kush Naker urging Brits to essentially ditch their gas-powered air conditioners.
“If you can switch your electricity provider to one that’s completely renewable, or you speak to your MP and tell them that we need to get off oil and gas … those are the sorts of things that means that we can actually make our grid green and that we can actually have air con without making climate change worse,” he said.
“Good Morning Britain” anchor Richard Madeley pushed back, “But all of that would take a heck of a long time. Are you saying in the interim you shouldn’t have air con? You should wait until you can say, hand on heart, ‘Yep, it’s green energy that’s keeping me cool?’”
Despite the fact that thousands are dying from the heat, Naker — who was also addressing a mother of young children whose bedrooms are often hotter than the threshold of what’s considered safe — replied, “We need to be honest about the fact that it has costs, right? And then when we face these sorts of costs, we then need to make a decision: Well, who should we prioritize?”
“These people are out-of-their-mind nuts!” Glenn exclaims.
He then shares a harrowing story out of France, where several schoolchildren have fainted or been hospitalized from classrooms reaching over 100-degree temperatures.
In late June 2026, during a severe heat wave in Nîmes, a young pupil at École Primaire La Planette fainted in class as temperatures hit around 104 degrees F with no air conditioning.
Parents, frustrated by the conditions, crowdfunded money to buy and install AC units themselves.
“Problem solved, right? Of course not! You’re in France,” Glenn scoffs, calling the mayor of Nîmes a “communist.”
The left-wing municipality in Nîmes, led by communist Mayor Vincent Bouget, ordered the removal of the parent-funded air conditioners. The stated reason was that it “set a precedent” and created inequality, as not all neighborhoods/schools had parents with the means to do the same.
“Everybody sweats together. I just want you to know that’s not a glitch. That is the socialist philosophy. … You’re all going to be miserable,” Glenn says.
To hear more, watch the video above.
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The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Europe, Climate change
We engineered stem cells to make human eggs, tech firm says
One company believes biology should not limit who should be able to conceive children.
That same company says it has now made strides to turn that belief into a reality.
‘Yeah, I’m gay, and it’s something that got me so personally interested.’
Fertility company Conception announced last week that it accomplished what was, until recently, only possible with mice: creating early human egg cells.
“Biology limits who can have children and when,” Conception says on its website. “Egg supply declines and medical barriers can limit fertility entirely, as birthrates fall across the globe.”
To counteract this, Conception says, it has finally “generated the first early human eggs derived from stem cells.”
CEO Matt Krisiloff said that after a simple blood draw, his company converted blood cells into stem cells, and from there, “coaxed” those stem cells into becoming “miniature human ovaries containing the early eggs.”
Krisiloff has not hidden his intentions; in fact, he made them crystal clear during a 2023 interview with NPR. Inside the company profile, Krisiloff expressed that he is personally invested in being able to create babies for gay couples.
“My personal biggest interest in it is that it could allow same-sex couples to be able to have biological children together as well,” the CEO said. “Yeah, I’m gay, and it’s something that got me so personally interested in this in the first place.”
RELATED: Disembodied human brains kept ‘alive’ for drug testing by controversial American startup
Seoul National University/Getty Images
Conception calls its technology “in-vitro gametogenesis” and claims it is a “profound advance” in reproductive technology.
The recent announcement discusses the process, which comes from successful trials of making viable eggs from stem cells in mice back in 2016. Conception’s collaborative scientist, Katsuhiko Hayashi, reportedly demonstrated that skin cells in mice can be turned into stems cells capable of becoming any type of cell in the body, which in turn were used to create usable eggs.
“These eggs produced healthy [mouse] pups that lived normal lifespans and reproduced naturally, having healthy pups of their own,” Conception wrote.
While the process has been far easier to achieve in mice than in larger animals, the company said, the technology is still “worth pursuing” in humans.
No public information is available on what other animals Conception has tested on.
The company’s financial backing is available, though, and this includes investments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Skype founder Jaan Tallinn, and Recursion Pharmaceuticals co-founder Blake Borgeson, who all contributed to a $20 million round in previous years.
RELATED: At 250, America’s fate is wonderfully unwritten
Conception’s co-founders, Pablo Hurtado Gonzalez and Bianka Seres, also shared their views on the project. Hurtado Gonzalez said, “There is something intrinsic, sharing a life that is half me and half my husband.”
“I don’t have the capacity right now, and I am devoting my life to try to change that,” Hurtado Gonzalez added.
Seres also said the project is likely to be a “pretty big” deal around the world.
“And for individuals, I think it’s going to be life-changing,” she contributed.
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Fertility, Sam altman, In vitro fertilization, Tech
ICE officer shoots and kills illegal alien who allegedly tried to run him over during traffic stop in Houston
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Houston led to the shooting death of a Mexican illegal alien who allegedly tried to run over officers.
Officers were performing a traffic stop as part of a “targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien” just before 7 a.m. at the intersection of Canal Street and Wayside Drive, according to an ICE spokesperson.
‘All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation.’
Rather than pull over, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo reportedly tried to escape in his vehicle and rammed into an ICE vehicle.
ICE said he then “weaponized” his vehicle and tried to run over an officer, who fired in self-defense.
Araujo was struck in the stomach and transported to a hospital, where he was later declared dead.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the incident, according to ICE, but the FBI said it was investigating the potential assault on a federal officer, not the man’s death.
Video reportedly from the incident shows Araujo groaning on the ground near a white van while officers attend to him.
Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas issued a statement about the incident on social media.
“ICE has released an initial account, but the facts must be independently and thoroughly investigated, including the circumstances that led to the use of deadly force,” she wrote.
“All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,” she added. “The victim’s family, my constituents, and the entire community deserve a complete and transparent accounting of what happened.”
Houston City Council Member Alejandra Salinas also called for a “thorough and impartial investigation” into the circumstances of the lethal shooting.
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Ice shooting, Illegal alien, Immigration and customs enforcement, Traffic stop, Deadly force, Houston, Politics
California Democrat calls for ICE to be abolished after Homan announces ‘record’ illegal alien arrests
A Democratic congressman in California reiterated his call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a record high number of arrests was reported.
Border czar Tom Homan appeared on Fox News and lauded the historic number of arrests over the five-day period while talking about the effort to strip commercial licenses from illegal aliens.
Federal officials had been able to rescind over 28,000 commercial licenses that were being held by illegal aliens.
“In the last five days, ICE has arrested over 10,000 illegal aliens, which is a record for the agency,” Homan said to Fox host Dana Perino. “So we’re hitting on all cylinders. There’s just a lot of these people to find, but we are out there every day looking for them.”
He suggested that officials in states like New York were sheltering illegal aliens from these federal investigations.
“The problem is, we’re working very well with red states; in blue states it’s still a struggle, right? Places like New York, I mean, ICE and CBP can’t even get access to the DMV database!”
He added that federal officials had been able to rescind over 28,000 commercial licenses that were being held by illegal aliens since May 1.
In response, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted a statement on the X social media platform calling for ICE to be replaced.
“We cannot ignore their continued abuse and violation of human rights. It’s time to abolish ICE and replace it,” Khanna wrote in the post.
“These people being detained are being denied basic human rights,” Khanna said in a video attached to the post.
RELATED: Majority of Americans approve of Trump’s response to anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis: Harvard poll
“I was at the California detention center. I saw someone with blood in his urine who was denied medical care,” he continued. “I saw rocks in the food. I saw people shivering because they didn’t have clothes. We need to stop funding ICE that’s violating human rights.”
Homan went on in the Fox interview to accuse sanctuary mayors and state governors of “normalizing” illegal immigration by allowing illegal aliens to have driver’s licenses.
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Immigration and customs enforcement, Rep ro khanna, Illegal aliens, Tom homan, Ice arrests, Sanctuary cities, Politics
‘Comedian’ ambushed homeless, disabled people with high-powered, motorized water guns — and posted videos of his deeds: Cops
Houston Police last week said they arrested a 34-year-old male after investigating multiple cases of disabled and homeless people who’d been shot with high-powered, motorized water guns.
Police said Christopher Cayce — after taunting his victims and posting videos of the incidents on social media — was charged with assault with bodily injury.
‘In my eyes this was harmless fun that we all enjoy at one point of life.’
“I’m totally a thousand percent sorry for this, and that’s not just saying this because I’m caught,” Cayce told KTRK-TV Friday.
Cayce — a “self-described comedian,” according to the station — since last summer had been recording videos of himself driving around the Houston area and ambushing people with water guns.
But he was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of assault for spraying two men on June 4, KTRK said.
Many of his targets appeared to be homeless, and police said some of his victims were disabled, the station reported.
A KTRK reporter asked Cayce why he targeted “some of the city’s most vulnerable,” and he replied, “In my videos, I don’t just shoot homeless people.”
The station said that in one video he lures a woman to his car with money before spraying her in the face, and in another video he throws food at a man before shooting him with a water gun.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Cayce also took to Facebook to defend himself.
“I REALLY LOVE THESE PEOPLE I’M NOT A BAD PERSON,” he wrote Saturday alongside a video showing him handing food to people from the back of a pickup truck, the paper said, adding that Cayce’s post tagged the Houston Police Department.
“I feed these people,” Cayce told KTRK. “I gave these people $500 worth of clothes. I don’t post all my positive stuff ’cause it don’t get views. My channel algorithm was me shooting people with water guns.”
The Chronicle said Cayce in another post apologized for his “childish activities” but maintained he never intended to hurt anyone.
“For all the feelings I hurt I do sincerely apologize for my actions,” he wrote, the paper said. “In my eyes this was harmless fun that we all enjoy at one point of life.”
Cayce also argued that many of those condemning him online ignore the homeless in everyday life, the Chronicle said.
In the KTRK interview, Cayce held up a cross and said, “I just put this in front of the door. I walk and pray every day. Every time I go out, I pray before I go and shoot these people because I really don’t want to hurt nobody.”
“Believe it or not I keep God first,” Cayce also wrote on Facebook, the Chronicle said.
KTRK also pointed out that in one post, Cayce refers to his targets as “zombies,” but he told the station that “I’m not calling them zombies because that’s what they are. It’s all commentary for the content. It’s not what I really, truly mean. I love everybody genuinely.”
Cayce is set to appear in court Thursday, KTRK reported, and he also said he’s done with his water-gun exploits.
“They took all my water guns,” he added to the station. “You can go buy more easily, but I told them I’m done with it. I’m not gonna shoot nobody no more.”
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Arrest, Assault, Houston, Police, Water guns, Videos, Pranks, Crime
Pat Gray exposes the truth about the new wave of radical democratic socialist candidates
As a growing number of democratic socialists win elections and progressive policies gain traction nationwide, BlazeTV host Pat Gray is incredibly concerned about the left’s plans for America’s future.
“They are doing their damnedest to ruin this country — just bring it completely down, because … it can’t be brought down from without. So they’re hell-bent on doing it from within,” he says.
Executive producer Keith Malinak agrees, pointing out that the new Equality Act the left is pushing is essentially the same thing as the Civil Rights Act.
“It will take the Civil Rights Act and say, ‘Hey, guess what, trans people get all those rights, too. And you have no choice,’” Malinak explains.
“They’ve got their own problems in the party because they’re being taken over by communists and they don’t even care,” Gray chimes in.
“In fact, some of them are in love with it,” he says, explaining that radical democratic socialists have been winning elections across the country.
“We had a 29-year-old Ethiopian-born socialist in Colorado who just defeated a 30-year congresswoman. She’s been elected 15 times, and now a 29-year-old Ethiopian who’s a socialist just beat her,” he explains, pointing out that this particular congresswoman, Melat Kiros, has claimed America deserved 9/11.
Kiros also “wants all illegals who are here to just be granted immunity and amnesty and citizenship.”
“And she wants to abolish ICE. And she was elected,” Gray says.
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Pat gray, Melat kiros, Democratic socialist, America, Equality act, Democrat, 911, Keith malinak, Pat gray unleashed
Democrat who narrowly lost to DeSantis in Florida arrested on drug charges
A Democrat who ran for governor in Florida a few years ago is facing criminal allegations once again, this time in Alabama.
Andrew Demetric Gillum was pulled over for erratic driving and found to be in possession of methamphetamines and other drug paraphernalia, according to the Daphne Police Department.
A probable cause search of the car … allegedly led to the seizure of three packages of methamphetamines.
Gillum was the Democratic candidate for Florida governor in 2018, when he narrowly lost to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by just 33,000 votes, less than 1% of the vote.
On Thursday, Gillum was handcuffed and booked into the Daphne City Jail in Alabama.
Police claimed the 46-year-old was pulled over on U.S. Highway 98 near North Main Street at about 10:45 p.m. before an officer noticed a glass pipe on the center console.
That prompted a probable cause search of the car that allegedly led to the seizure of three packages of methamphetamines as well as the discovery of several rolled marijuana cigarettes.
Gillum was charged with one count of possession of dangerous drugs, possession of marijuana, and drug paraphernalia possession, according to jail records.
He was transferred from the city jail to the Baldwin County Correctional Facility in Alabama.
Gillum had a previous brush with the law involving methamphetamine allegations when he was found to be so inebriated at the 2020 scene of an overdose that police were unable to communicate with him.
“Inside of the hotel room, officers observed in plain sight three small clear plastic baggies containing suspected crystal meth on both the bed and floor of the hotel room,” a police incident report stated.
RELATED: Karen Bass makes bizarre promise to meth addicts with rotting teeth: ‘You can’t succeed without teeth!’
He left the scene and later claimed in a statement that he had gone to a wedding celebration and had too much to drink. He also denied partaking in methamphetamines.
The man who had overdosed in the hotel room identified himself as an escort online. Gillum revealed that he identified as bisexual after the incident.
Gillum later said that he cried every day since the incident, where a photo showed him naked on the floor of the hotel.
“That was not anything more than a person being at their most vulnerable state,” he said. “Unconscious, having given no consent and someone decided to use a moment where I was literally laying in my own vomit.”
Gillum was also charged with nearly two dozen counts of wire fraud in 2022 but was acquitted of all charges.
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Andrew gillum, Methamphetamines, Florida, Drug possession, Bisexual, Politics
Judge watches damning footage of Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin developing a stiff leg, heading to ‘sniper pad’
Prosecutors must convince state District Judge Tony Graf over the course of this week’s five-day preliminary hearing that they have sufficient evidence for him to try Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin, Tyler Robinson, for aggravated murder.
They have so far given Graf plenty to work with — and given the defense a great deal of explaining to do.
‘The shoes are the same, and from my viewing and seeing Mr. Robinson on the video, it’s the same person,’ an investigator said.
Graf heard on Monday about: Robinson’s alleged “sniper pad” on the roof of the Losee Center building, which overlooks the site at Utah Valley University where Kirk was fatally shot; the discovery of a red-and-black screwdriver at the “crime scene” that FBI Director Kash Patel previously alleged had Robinson’s DNA on it; and the events immediately surrounding the shooting. The judge also saw — and was literally moved by — graphic footage of Kirk’s murder.
The footage shown in court on Tuesday — which the defense wanted suppressed — was especially damning.
David Hull, a former Utah State Bureau of Investigation special agent who led the probe in the assassination, walked the court through a compilation of CCTV footage that he said shows Robinson’s movements on Sept. 10.
According to Hull, the clips allegedly show Robinson:
driving into a parking garage, parking, then walking off — wearing a backpack and dressed in Converse shoes, a ball cap, shorts, and a maroon T-shirt — to the university’s quad area, where he allegedly made contact with representatives from Turning Point USA before returning to his car and driving off;wearing the same outfit, returning to the campus on foot, and walking to a fast-food restaurant on the northeast side of the area where Kirk was ultimately shot;walk after his meal into a wooded area on campus, then return wearing a new set of clothes, no longer carrying a backpack and now limping with a visibly stiff right leg and apparent hip-level bulge toward “the railing that gives access to the roof of the Losee building”;ascending the staircase that affords scalers access to the Losee building rooftop just minutes before Kirk was shot — then rolling over the railing onto the rooftop;no longer limping but running along the rooftop of the Losee building “to what would be the southwest corner of the building,” then crawling over to the apparent shooting position, where he was prone at 12:23:28 p.m., when a Utah Valley University police officer stated over his radio, “Alpha 34, we have shots fired. Charlie Kirk is down”; and running to the edge of the Losee building’s rooftop, then dropping down onto a grassy area, then fleeing the scene with “some kind of object” in his hand.
“The shoes are the same, and from my viewing and seeing Mr. Robinson on the video, it’s the same person,” Hull said when asked about the suspect in the footage following his pre-shooting wardrobe change.
While Hull acknowledged in court that the surveillance footage of the suspect on the rooftop did not reveal any distinguishing facial features, the videos nevertheless provide a potentially convincing account of Robinson’s movements on campus the day of the shooting.
The prosecution also showed footage of an encounter near Campus Drive between Tyler Robinson and a Spanish Fork police officer early on Sept. 11, the day after the assassination. This gave the officer pause and prompted him to make a note of the license plate number.
Once Hull learned of the encounter by Spanish Fork police and noted that the car involved matched the description of a car believed to be involved in the Kirk assassination, he ran the license plate. It was then he learned that the car was registered to Tyler Robinson and his mother, Amber.
The clips, along with enhanced versions with circled highlights, zooming, and other slight tweaks intended to help viewers understand what they were seeing, were admitted as evidence.
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Tyler robinson, Charlie kirk, Assassination, Preliminary hearing, Footage, Shooting, Murder, Utah, Utah valley university, Turning point usa, Politics
Birth tourism, surrogacy, and the ‘Chinese communist plot to subvert our elections’
The Supreme Court ruled last week to uphold birthright citizenship — and BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler is horrified, calling it not only “one of the most devastating Supreme Court rulings of our lifetime,” but a “Chinese communist plot to subvert our elections.”
“One million Chinese communists will soon be eligible U.S. voters. You heard me. One million Chinese citizens — and if you’re a Chinese citizen, you’ve been indoctrinated in communism,” she explains.
“One million Chinese citizens who are communists, who’ve been indoctrinated to hate the United States and live in China, will soon be able to cast their ballot for your elected officials. Because the Chinese … they pay surrogates in the United States to birth their babies on U.S. soil,” she continues.
“So, they send their sperm to the United States. They buy an egg from an American, or they send an egg with them. They have a surrogate carry the baby, give birth on U.S. soil. That baby is now a U.S. citizen because he or she was born on U.S. soil,” she adds.
Or, she points out, wealthy Chinese will get pregnant and come to the United States to “visit to vacation.”
“They give birth to their child on U.S. soil, which makes the child a U.S. citizen. They then take the babies, whether born of surrogates or born of birth tourism, back to China, indoctrinate them into communists because that’s what happens in China,” she says.
Those children then turn 18 and are “deployed to vote in our elections.”
“And when I say deployed to vote in our elections, they don’t even have to come here. They can vote mail-in ballots. They can vote absentee. Their ballot can quite literally be mailed to them in China,” Wheeler explains.
“They can fill it out to vote for your president, send it back, and it can sway the outcome of our elections. This is not hypothetical,” she continues, pointing out that the first round of these Chinese communist U.S. citizens are about to turn 18.
“The first of these will be voting in our elections as early as 2028,” she says. “That’s right, the next presidential election.”
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Birthright citizenship, China, Communist, Liz wheeler, Surrogacy, Vote, Birth tourism, Donald trump, Election, The liz wheeler show
Belgian soccer players mock Trump after absolute rout of Team USA in World Cup
Players on the Belgian soccer team celebrated their crushing victory over the United States men’s national team on Monday night by mocking President Donald Trump’s famous dance.
Belgium took control of the game in Seattle, Washington, early on and did not let up. After a few key mistakes by the American team, Belgium skated easily to a 4-1 victory.
Videos on social media show them gesturing and laughing.
The game was also politicized in the days leading up to the game when Trump told reporters he had called the FIFA president to request a review of a red-card penalty in a previous game that led to the suspension of one of the best U.S. players.
When FIFA reversed the decision and allowed the player to compete against Belgium, critics accused the U.S. of abusing its political power to gain an unfair advantage.
Belgian players responded by doing the “Trump dance” on the field after scoring a fourth goal in the second half. Videos on social media show them gesturing and laughing.
The official account for the team also joined in by posting the message, “Overturn this,” in reference to the red-card controversy. After the game, the Belgians continued their mockery in the locker room by doing Trump’s signature dance.
Athletes in the U.S. have sometimes danced in the Trump manner, which sometimes led to criticism from Trump opponents.
The American team was the last of the three host countries to be knocked out of the round-of-16, with Mexico falling to England and Canada falling to Morocco.
RELATED: Democrat NAILED with brutal backlash for posing in Mexico jersey for World Cup
Despite the unceremonious exit of the American team, the World Cup matches in North America have been a great success for FIFA and the host countries. The U.S. has been greatly praised by visitors posting viral content on social media about their experiences with American culture and hospitality.
Belgium will go on to play Spain in the World Cup quarterfinals.
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Trump dance, Fifa, World cup 2026, Red card controversy, Team usa, Politics
Oil prices DROP to pre-Iran-conflict levels
The price of oil has fallen to pre-conflict levels after more than four months of a damaging surge from the conflict with Iran.
On Friday, Brent Crude oil traded at about $72 and has fallen farther to $70 on Tuesday, just below the $72 mark before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran commenced in late February.
‘We’re either going to make a deal, or we’re going to finish the job. It won’t be tough to finish the job.’
President Donald Trump faced some criticism after gas prices spiked from the Strait of Hormuz shutting down. In recent weeks he has been working on a peace agreement to open up traffic in the pivotal trade route.
Oil prices spiked slightly on Monday after a strike was reported on a tanker from Qatar by Iranian forces, but the price recovered by the next day.
The cause was further aided by a sharp cut in pricing by Saudi Arabia, a key member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
“Weak Asian demand, especially from China, together with the sanctions waiver on Iranian crude, has intensified competition among sellers and shifted the market in buyers’ favor,” said energy analyst Emma Li to Reuters.
On Monday, Trump warned that the U.S. would renew the military conflict if Iran could not agree to a peace agreement soon.
“We’re either going to make a deal, or we’re going to finish the job. It won’t be tough to finish the job,” he said to reporters at the White House.
About a fifth of global oil supplies flow through the Strait of Hormuz.
RELATED: Oil industry warns Trump about gas price SHOCK coming soon
“The situation around the Strait of Hormuz remains unsettled. But as we have argued since March, both sides should ultimately have an interest in containing the conflict,” said Berenberg chief economist Holger Schmieding.
He went on to say the president needed oil prices to drop before the midterms, while the Iranian regime needs the income from potential sanctions relief.
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Brent crude oil, Gas prices, Iran conflict, Oil prices, Opec, Peace agreement, Saudi arabia, Politics
One group of NBA fans is being labeled the ‘most foul-mouthed’ and negative in the league
It’s quite normal for basketball fans to point fingers at each other and tell them exactly how they feel.
Now, fans can back those comments up with some cold, hard statistics as data has come out showing which team’s fan base is the most hardcore, but only in the worst ways.
‘I cannot in good conscience contribute monetarily to this garbage.’
According to data from Action Network, the numbers are rather clear as to which group of NBA fans love making the most curse-filled and negative comments online.
The outlet analyzed over 1.6 million comments from NBA fan pages on the hyperactive forum site Reddit and found that in its two negative categories, Philadelphia 76ers fans were by far the worst of any NBA franchise.
More than 10.5% of 76ers fans’ comments contained swear words, almost 2 points higher than the second- and third-most mouthy fan bases (Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks fans), and were the only team to break the 10% barrier.
As if that weren’t enough, 76ers fans were also labeled the most negative group of supporters, with a whopping 31.67% of their comments carrying a negative tone. The Rockets’ fans were again second, and the Orlando Magic fan base was third.
This data tracks with the 76ers fans, who, at the time of this writing, had popular posts circulating like, “The misery never ends.”
One fan shared an email — allegedly sent to a 76ers team rep — expressing how much the fan thinks the team stinks and how the fan would never put money into the owner’s pocket for this “laughing stock” of a team.
“I would never put my hard earned dollars in the pocket of [owner Josh Harris]. … I cannot in good conscience contribute monetarily to this garbage,” the fan wrote.
At the same time, fans reposted a popular 2024 meme featuring 76ers player Kelly Oubre, which shows him calling several people a “bitch” during an altercation with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Drew Hallowell/Getty Images
“An analysis of over 1.6 million fan comments from the subreddits of all 30 NBA fandoms from the last 12 months found the Philadelphia 76ers to be both the most foul-mouthed NBA fandom” and “the most negative fandom,” an Action Network spokesman told Fearless.
A team that has slowly degraded its nicknames from the Answer to the Process to the FEDS over the years certainly lives up to the data in real life, too, not just online.
Popular YouTube channel Snapback Live said, “Sixers fans boo everything,” which appears to be true given the sheer quantity of videos showing the team’s supporters booing former player Ben Simmons in city streets.
There even exists video of a senior citizen 76ers fan telling rapper Lil Baby his team was “gonna kick your ass” while sitting courtside. Sixers fans not only start heckling at a very young age, but they are also willing to have it out with NBA greats like Kevin Durant.
Philly fans’ ornery reputation goes back more than a half-century as they notoriously once booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus during halftime at an Eagles game in December of 1968.
RELATED: Jason Whitlock: Nike and the WNBA fumbled the Caitlin Clark phenomenon
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fans of the Utah Jazz turned out to be the most polite NBA fans, with only 5.2% of their comments online containing swear words — less than half the percentage for 76ers fans.
Jazz fans were also determined to be the most positive NBA fandom, with almost 53% of their comments carrying a positive tone, one of only four teams to have more positive comments than negative. This included Brooklyn Nets fans (51.87%), Washington Wizards fans (50.80%), and Indiana Pacers fans (50.07%).
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Nba, Utah jazz, Philadelphia 76ers, Basketball, Santa claus, Philadelphia eagles, Sports
Rural health is the next MAHA frontier
As a Virginia farmer, I have spent years fighting regulatory overreach and corporate consolidation that hollow out rural America.
So when Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) recently led the effort to remove a pesticide-liability shield from the House farm bill, rural families had reason to cheer.
If we are serious about children’s health in rural America, we should examine whether newer technologies can reduce toxic exposures.
The provision would have given pesticide manufacturers such as Bayer broad protection from “failure to warn” lawsuits brought by Americans who allege glyphosate caused their cancer. It also would have limited the ability of states and local communities to establish no-spray zones near schools and weakened protections for waterways.
In other words, it was top-down federal overreach and a corporate handout disguised as “regulatory uniformity.” It had no place in legislation meant to serve farmers and rural families.
Luna’s amendment passed 280-142, with more than 70 House Republicans joining all but six Democrats.
Republicans such as Luna deserve credit for refusing to grant blanket immunity to corporations at the expense of American families. They also showed that Make America Healthy Again can become a governing philosophy — one that puts children, families, and farmers ahead of well-connected industries.
More than three years after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his presidential campaign and later joined forces with President Donald Trump, the MAHA movement continues to secure policy victories with consequences that families may feel for decades.
The pesticide fight is only one part of a much larger question. Once policymakers begin examining preventable chemical exposures, the issue does not stop at the edge of the field.
Former Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), a nurse and Tea Party leader, has noted that many of the same rural children whose schools and waterways Luna’s amendment would protect also spend hours each week riding older diesel school buses. Exposure to diesel exhaust has been linked to pediatric asthma, ADHD, and other health and developmental concerns.
If we are serious about children’s health in rural America, we should examine whether newer technologies can reduce those exposures.
That does not mean Washington should dictate transportation choices to rural districts. It means farmers and small-town families should have a seat at the table and access to resources when cleaner options, including electric school buses, become practical.
RELATED: Big Pharma’s miracle drugs have a nasty side effect
Bagira22/Getty Images
The American Lung Association projects more than $43,000 in health savings per electric bus through reductions in asthma attacks and respiratory illness. Electric buses are also substantially quieter than diesel models, which could benefit students with autism or sensory sensitivities.
Each community should weigh the costs and benefits for itself. But the issue deserves serious local consideration.
Rural water quality deserves the same attention.
A recent national analysis found that more than one in five Americans receive drinking water from systems with elevated nitrate levels associated with cancer and birth defects. Many of the hardest-hit communities are in agricultural regions.
Researchers and public health advocates have also raised concerns about PFAS “forever chemicals” contaminating farmland and groundwater, sometimes forcing farming operations to shut down.
Farmers understand better than anyone that stewardship has consequences. The land, water, and infrastructure we pass to the next generation will shape rural health long after today’s political battles are forgotten.
Reducing unnecessary exposures and modernizing aging infrastructure where it makes sense are practical, pro-family goals that fit squarely within the MAHA vision.
Luna and her colleagues showed that Congress can still deliver for rural American families when lawmakers put them ahead of corporate interests.
They should keep going.
Cancer, Farmers, House republicans, Lawsuits, Rural america, Rural heathcare, Make america healthy again, Maha, Rfk jr, Children’s health, Opinion & analysis, Anna paulina luna
Iranians are openly calling for Trump’s assassination — at the former ayatollah’s funeral
Iran’s supreme leader for 36 years died in the opening strikes of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. On June 18, Trump and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding setting a 60-day clock for a final deal.
Those talks are now paused — not for negotiations, but to bury the man America’s war machine killed.
‘Trump’s killing is our duty.’
The six-day mourning period kicked off Friday, July 3. Foreign delegations arrived in Tehran, including Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who, at the funeral, called deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “a great scholar, a great leader” and said Pakistan and Iran would “march together under all circumstances.”
He has otherwise avoided taking a side, telling reporters in June that Iran’s leaders “genuinely mean to promote peace in the region” and that Trump is “a man of peace.”
By Sunday, the tone at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla turned from grief to open threat. Eulogist Mohammad Rasouli asked the crowd why “the most despicable man in the world” was still alive, calling the crowd to chant “Trump’s killing is our duty.” According to Newsweek, banners read “Kill Trump” and “Kill Bibi,” a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Fox News reported that mourners pelted an image of Trump with stones, in footage it obtained from Iranian state media; one poster read “There will be blood.” Mourner Fatima Hassan told Fox: “We are here for revenge.”
RELATED: Radicals beware: Florida to hit top Islamist and leftist groups with new ‘terrorist’ label
Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
Trump weighed in from Mount Rushmore on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, saying the U.S. had “knocked the hell out of Iran” and gave Tehran “a week off for a funeral.” In a separate Axios interview, he said the U.S. wouldn’t strike Iran’s assembled leadership since it would leave “nobody to negotiate with.”
Speaking separately from the Oval Office on Monday, he warned the U.S. could knock out Iran’s power plants and bridges within hours if Tehran won’t make a deal.
New supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t appeared publicly since the strike that killed his father, amid unconfirmed speculation about his security or health.
Netanyahu disputed reports of a rift with Trump, saying they see “eye to eye” 99% of the time and Iran won’t get a nuclear weapon, “deal or no deal.” He also urged Trump not to readmit Turkey to the F-35 program, calling Ankara’s government “infected by the Muslim Brotherhood” — a request Trump appears set to ignore, with Erdoğan already claiming at the summit that he had been promised five of the jets.
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Assassination, Ayatollah ali khamenei, Benjamin netanyahu, Blaze news, Censors, Funeral, Iran, Iranian state media, Mojtaba khamenei, Mount rushmore, Netanyahu, Nuclear weapon, Revenge, Shehbaz sharif, Supreme leader, Usisrael war, Politics
Why are today’s parents so scared of the sun?
The days of the neighborhood children running with reckless abandon in the sprinkler out back appear to be long gone. Today we are a worried world, and we no longer rejoice when that golden celestial orb makes her appearance once again in the summer sky after being hidden away for far too long.
Today we fear the sun more than nuclear war, famine, or economic collapse combined. Yes, it’s that bad! The sun keeps us up at night fraught with concern about UV exposure, skin cancer, aging, and anything else that might remind us that we were indeed meant to live in the light and not cower in the dark.
There’s a theory that our ancestors never really got sunburned, unless they were stranded in the desert.
Of course I’m being dramatic for the sake of proving a point and because, well, it’s more fun to add a little poetry to our world and the way we see it. It’s also more fun to read, I hope.
But the truth is we are afraid of the sun. Not me, and hopefully not you, but someone is, and there are far too many someones out there.
Shirts and skins
I never realized how afraid people are of the sun until I had kids. Then, whenever we went to the playground, the park, the beach, or anywhere outside, I noticed that all the kids were hidden, covered, and protected from any and all rays that might emanate from the blue yonder above.
There were no UV protective “swim shirts” when I was a kid. Did not exist. At the risk of sounding like another complaining “back in my day” old person, I think it’s worth wondering why they appeared all of a sudden.
We go to the beach almost every day if it’s nice, and as I walk with my kids down the shore, we make note of what we see. We see a lot of kids in swim shirts. It will be 84 degrees and sunny, and they are wearing long-sleeve shirts in neon green, navy, and red.
My kids and their golden tans must appear like strange visitors from strange land, and I must seem like a reckless parent to the moms and dads who fastidiously apply SPF 7500 over an impenetrable swim shirt.
Mad hatters
You know those safari hats with the huge brims and the long tails that sit on the neck to protect the wearer from the hot African sun? You’ve probably seen them in old films depicting some adventure in the Sahara.
Well, I’ve seen them on the playground. Moms carefully placing the hat, tying it around the neck, and calling after their children not to take it off. I can confidently say that my children have never, and will never, be found wearing the safari hat on the swings or the slides.
I understand skin cancer is real. I know that getting burned to a crisp and having to apply that sweet green aloe vera lotion before bed isn’t exactly anyone’s idea of a good time. Although I must say I do love the smell of that aloe and appreciate the soothing relief it bestows upon the body.
But these scenes I describe are not scenes witnessed in the Mojave desert after 14 hours in the blistering sun or the Arabian peninsula on 117-degree day. I’ve seen all this in Northern Michigan, where the the temperatures aren’t even that hot and the sun isn’t even that strong.
I know that different people have different genetics. I saw a kid with fire-red hair and skin the color of Greek yogurt at the beach the other day. My kids with their brown hair and golden skin are probably a little more suited to the sun. I am aware of that. But still, my kids are European and relatively fair, all things considered, and there were red-haired Irish kids when I was in second grade and none of them wore swim shirts. Sunscreen, yes; swim shirts, no.
RELATED: Sun’s out, guns out: Finally, therapy even men can enjoy
Jason Connolly/Raymond Boyd/Getty Images
Indoor generation
I’ve thought about this a lot, and while I do think there is an element of safety-ism involved with this new trend to treat the sun as if it’s a wicked villain whose main aim is to scorch our kith and kin, I think the real reason why there are more swim shirts and sun-fearing families than ever before comes down to the television and the iPad.
Simply put, more people and more kids are spending more time inside than any of us ever did before. And because they are spending so much time on the iPad and in front of the television rather than outside in the great outdoors, they are lily white in the middle of summer. And so when they decide to venture out into that blazing day, they burn like a crisp. It’s too much all at once. Of course you are going to burn bad if you never see the sun.
There’s a theory that our ancestors never really got sunburned unless they were stranded in the desert. Basically the idea is that in our agrarian past, we spent more time outdoors, and if you spend more time outdoors all year round, you will get used to the sun gradually as it gets stronger over the course of the spring. You develop a natural tan slowly, and once July arrives, your skin will be ready.
Sunshine superman
Our ancestors were like a potato slowly warming in a pre-heating oven. The pale indoor-dwellers of today are like pieces of raw dough tossed into a deep fryer. No wonder they burn, and no wonder they fear their day in the sun.
I never put sunscreen on my kids, and they never burn. I believe it’s because they spend so much time outside. They are similar to our agrarian ancestors (and every single kid in America before the year 2000) in that way. They get used to the yellow rays gradually as spring blooms, and so by the time July comes, they can enjoy the beach like normal human beings, without a swim shirt or a safari hat.
I do hope I am not being too cruel to the parents who cover their children head to toe in July. I know they are just doing their best like I’m doing my best; their best is just different from mine. But perhaps all the sun protection, sunscreen, and fear might be avoided if the kids just got outside a little more.
The root of the matter, Lifestyle, Culture
Democrat Pramila Jayapal gets ANNOYED by a mom whose daughter was killed by an illegal alien
The human cost of illegal immigration took center stage during a contentious Capitol Hill hearing on sanctuary cities, where the mother of a young woman allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant confronted Democrats like Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) — who made it clear she couldn’t care less.
BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales explains that Sheridan Gorman “was allegedly gunned down by an illegal from Venezuela. She was walking through a park in Chicago. She made the most terrible decision to just walk through a park where she lived. That’s it. And she was killed.”
“And her mother has had enough of these Democrats who just are simping for the illegal criminals. Meanwhile, they don’t seem to give a s**t about her daughter or any of the other ones who have been killed by these illegals,” she adds.
The mother pointed out that it appears to only be the “Republican side that cares about our American children,” before delivering her heartbreaking response to Democrats fighting for illegal immigrants.
“I know that you’re a mother. I know that you’re a father. I deeply value that. But basically what you just did, what you said was, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. I have a daughter, too. I have a son. I feel your pain,’” the mother told Democrats in the hearing.
“You don’t feel my pain, because the next words out of your mother were ‘but.’ There’s no ‘but.’ When your child is in a coffin, there’s no but. And I need you to understand that. And if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here,” she continued.
“I’m going to buy Congress a bench. And they can come and sit and hold my hand and look me in the eye and explain to me why illegal immigrants are more important than my daughter,” she added.
And Pramila Jayapal couldn’t have sounded less interested in the tragedy.
“Unfortunately, this hearing is, it’s the fourth time in this committee that we’ve had a hearing on sanctuary cities. The fourth time. And there’s many other things that we could be doing other than this,” she said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. Are we taking up too much of your time? It’s just that people’s daughters are dying because you guys won’t stop letting illegal criminals in our country,” Gonzales comments, disgusted.
“Not only do they not care about murdered American children; clearly, Pramila Jayapal has better things to do,” she adds.
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Illegal immigration, Pramila jayapal, Sanctuary cities, Sara gonzales, Sheridan gorman, Sara gonzales unfiltered
The SAVE America Act is being buried, and Rep. Luna is blowing the whistle
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) says Republicans are squandering a golden opportunity to pass the SAVE Act and secure America’s elections — even though they have enough power to do it.
“We control the House, the Senate, and the White House,” Luna says to Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck. “And yet you have a group of four Republicans in the Senate, and really John Thune, who has every ability to enforce the talking filibuster and just doesn’t want to do it.”
“If you’re going to continue the cycle of insanity, then you can’t complain about it,” she continues. “But that’s why I’m taking such a hard-line position on what I’m doing right now — with, by the way, other members of Congress.”
“This is not just my fight. I mean, you have members of the Freedom Caucus, Representative Tim Burchett, Max Miller, all these members are saying, ‘Hey, hold up. We have the ability to, in the text of the National Defense Authorization Act, put the Save America Act,’” she says. “And yet, why are we not doing it?”
Luna, who is a veteran, points out that voter ID and proof of citizenship have always been important to national defense and security — but the Democrats are pretending it’s not.
“It is Chuck Schumer saying he wants to give citizenship to millions of illegal people here. It is the fact that it doesn’t matter if it’s one or one hundred or a thousand cases of voter fraud,” she says. “Why would you not want to secure that?”
While the left will claim the “Trump machine” will steal the next election, Luna points out that voter ID would fix that too.
“Even aside from that, even aside from party politics, black, white, Hispanic, Democrat, Republican, independent, men, women, we all want voter ID,” she continues. “Period.”
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Anna paulina luna, Chuck schumer, Donald trump, Glenn beck, House, John thune, National defense authorization act, Republicans, Save act, Save america act, Senate, Voter id, The glenn beck program
Crime stats said her new neighborhood was ‘safe’; then she saw what they left out
Politicians and bureaucrats routinely claim that America is experiencing a historic drop in crime and that, in many parts of the country, the streets have never been safer. Yet for everyday citizens who see boarded-up storefronts and brazen daylight robberies, there’s an unsettling sense that the reality on the ground tells an entirely different story.
This is not a matter of misperception. As Anna Giaritelli, a seasoned homeland security reporter for the Washington Examiner, details in her book “Under Assault,” the numbers being fed to the public are systematically manipulated.
‘You don’t know what you don’t know until you find out the hard way sometimes.’
Giaritelli experienced this firsthand when moving to Washington, D.C. Carefully examining official data was a priority during the neighborhood search. “I looked at the crime stats before I moved to Capitol Hill,” she told me, “and selected my home there based on blocks on Capitol Hill that were the safest and showed the least amount of crime incidents.”
Off the map
What she didn’t know was that the Metropolitan Police Department’s public crime map didn’t show the whole picture. It only displayed first-degree and select second-degree felonies. Most felonies and misdemeanors were entirely absent. In other words, the map only flagged major, headline-grabbing crimes like homicides or armed robberies. It completely skipped over everyday break-ins, property theft, and assaults.
“Whether it’s a resident or a business owner, people base their decisions on where to move on that crime map,” Giaritelli argues.
“And not to include all crimes shows an inaccurate picture of the state of public safety in D.C. I would not have moved to this block had I known the real extent of crime in the area. I’d argue Washington, D.C., officials are liable for misleading the public, particularly victims like myself who they knowingly deceive.”
When local governments sanitize data, families buy homes in dangerous areas and entrepreneurs invest life savings in storefronts that are highly vulnerable. By blinding the public, officials make it impossible to accurately assess risk, leaving citizens exposed.
Anna Giaritelli
Widespread issue
For individuals living in quiet suburbs or rural towns, spiking urban crime rates can seem like someone else’s problem. It is tempting to look at the mayhem in major metropolitan areas and assume it stays within city limits.
However, the manipulation of this data is a widespread issue that ignores municipal borders.
“I think city crime stats matter for everyone, regardless of whether they live in a suburb or rural America,” Giaritelli warns. “You don’t know what you don’t know until you find out the hard way sometimes.”
The methods used by big-city bureaucrats to improve their public image are easily exported. Whether in a small town or a massive coastal metropolis, police departments and municipal leaders answer to the same political pressures to show downward trends. If they learn they can rewrite reality with the stroke of a pen, they will.
As Giaritelli observes, a resident may not find out a town is doing this “until you become a victim and go looking for your stat, only to find you didn’t meet the threshold to be counted.” It remains unknown how deep or widespread this miscounting truly is across America.
RELATED: ‘Citizen Vigilante’: A cinematic hand grenade lobbed at the cathedral of liberal pieties
bollfilms.com
Collapse of public trust
This growing awareness has fueled a massive pushback. Giaritelli’s petition demanding absolute crime data transparency has received nearly 20,000 signatures. This groundswell signals a deeper crisis marked by the collapse of public trust in institutional data.
Public safety is one of the rare issues that unites most people across the political aisle. Sure, there is a loud faction of progressives who would gladly replace the local police force with hug-dispensing, gender-fluid therapists, but the vast majority, just like conservatives, want law and order. At the end of the day, everyday citizens simply want safe neighborhoods. But when government statistics become fiction, the entire justice system breaks down.
Giaritelli lays out the structural domino effect:
We can’t properly fund the public safety, the judicial system, and the prisons and jails in our communities if we don’t know how much crime is actually occurring. Covering up crime stats causes problems throughout the system. If we don’t know how much crime there is, we cannot plan and adequately respond to it.
When cities hide numbers, they intentionally starve the system of resources. Giaritelli points out the real-world cost:. In D.C., underfunding led to a severe lack of jail space. A violent offender arrested in her area was released the very next day. He lived blocks from her apartment. He went on to be arrested five more times before going to trial, and each time, the judge released him right back onto the streets due to a lack of space.
If those crimes aren’t counted, she notes, “then we’re not setting an annual budgets for the next year to take into account the need for jail space, the need for victims funding, and the need for more police.”
When citizens can no longer trust official government statistics, decision-making becomes distorted. Budgets become less reliable, serious crimes may be undercounted, and law-abiding families ultimately bear the consequences.
Punishing the victims
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in “Under Assault” is how Giaritelli discovered this institutional gaslighting.
In April 2020, Giaritelli was walking to the post office just blocks from the U.S. Capitol when she was physically and sexually assaulted on a public sidewalk in broad daylight. Her attacker was eventually caught and sent to federal prison. Later, while working on a routine newsroom assignment evaluating D.C. crime trends, she decided to look up her own incident on the city’s official crime map.
There was no mark. No pin. Nothing.
“When I contacted D.C. police to inquire about my specific assault, I was told that it did not meet the threshold to be counted by D.C. police on the crime map.”
A citizen was sexually assaulted, the perpetrator was convicted in a federal court and sent to prison, yet according to the city’s public-facing ledger, the crime never happened.
To make matters worse, the police department removed individual incident pins entirely. In their place, they covered the city map in vague, shifting shades of color to denote general crime levels. It is a clear case of bureaucratic deception. By erasing distinct markers, they make it completely impossible for a victim to verify whether an assault was ever officially counted. Giaritelli knows this only too well, even as many Americans remain unaware of the highly unethical practice.
When institutions trusted with safety care more about protecting their public image than protecting human lives, the system is actively hostile to the truth. The next time an official stands behind a podium and claims crime is down, it’s worth listening. But it’s also worth verifying it for yourself.
Crime, Washington dc, Anna giaritelli, Books, Interview, Lifestyle, Culture