Category: blaze media

It’s not hard for BlazeTV host Mark Levin to dismantle Jimmy Kimmel’s narrative about Charlie Kirk’s assassination — because it was false — nor is it hard for him to dismantle the free speech outrage that followed his warranted suspension.

Levin points out that while Kimmel claimed the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” all he really did was use ABC’s platform to lie.

“Well, first of all, that is a flat-out lie, and it is an attempt to politicize and exploit what took place, and people who love Charlie and his supporters trying to upset them, and he succeeded,” BlazeTV host Mark Levin says on “LevinTV.”

“Now, is that free speech? Is that constitutionally protected free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution? There’s a difference between constitutionally protected free speech and just free speech,” he continues.

“The Kimmel suspension was never a battle over free speech or government control of speech. Kimmel was dropped because he’s a loathsome punk who made a highly inappropriate comment about the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. It is Charlie Kirk who was murdered because of his speech. Did Kimmel even talk about that? No. He lied,” he adds.

Levin also points out that ABC is a private company and has every right to fire its employees for what they say.

“I would ask you,” Levin says, addressing the audience, “most of you are employees, right? So if you say something that’s outrageous or inappropriate or something of that kind, and you’re fired, do you jump up and down and say, ‘Hey, my free speech rights! Hey, my free speech rights!’”

“You are careful to some extent because you know if you don’t have a governor on your mouth, you will be fired. Whether it’s your free speech or not, it’s irrelevant. Employers can and do fire employees for things they say,” he continues.

“The chairman of the FCC had no role in any of it, no matter what he said or didn’t say. He can’t even act on his own. He needs a majority of the commissioners,” he says, adding, “But he didn’t actually do anything. So there’s no First Amendment at issue, despite the best efforts to concoct one.”

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​Sharing, Free, Camera phone, Video phone, Upload, Video, Youtube.com, Levintv, Mark levin, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Jimmy kimmel, Charlie kirk assassination, Charlie kirk, Maga, President trump, Free speech, First amendment, Abc 

So many slide decks and white papers promise a future of AI under human control, a project framed not as a technological sprint but as a long journey. The language is meant to reassure, a steady hand on the shoulder of a jittery public. Yet the very premise of the journey implies a certain departure, a recognition that the systems we are building now operate at a speed and complexity that have outstripped our capacity to easily oversee. One might nervously wonder whether the center will hold.

One answer to this predicament is “interpretability,” a technique for examining an AI model to figure out why it did what it did. It’s the equivalent of reading a plane’s flight recorder after a crash. But a system making thousands of autonomous decisions a second offers no time for such leisurely forensics. A failure may not be an event but a condition, a constant state of potential deviation.

The new thinking, then, is to move from forensics to architecture. The goal is to build in the oversight, to treat governance, not as a secondary analysis, but as a foundational requirement, an immutable audit trail that logs not just a model’s output but its entire lineage: the data it was fed, the model version that made the call, the key inputs that shaped its rationale. We are no longer merely watching the machine; we are building a watchtower.

In the loop?

At the heart of this new architecture is the “human-in-the-loop,” a concept whose neatness belies anxiety. The human, we are told, will shift from a passive reviewer to an active designer, engage in a continuous loop of governance that sets the boundaries and defines the goals. But the very act of depending on these systems can engender a state of cognitive offloading, a subtle atrophy of our own critical faculties. We are asked to be the system’s ultimate arbiter at the very moment the system is eroding the instincts required for the job.

The friction is everywhere. We see it in the laboratory, when a researcher at the University of Washington uses deep learning to design functional proteins that have never existed in nature, opening doors to novel medicines and biosensors. We see it in the game of Go, when a machine makes a move that defies centuries of human wisdom, a move of startling, alien creativity. The promise is one of discovery, of accelerating the scientific method. The possible reality is a “theory glut,” a condition in which the bottleneck shifts from ideation to validation. We find ourselves in a world that can generate hypotheses at a superhuman rate, but our capacity to test them, to ground them in the physical world, remains stubbornly, irreducibly human. We might drown in brilliant answers to questions we have not yet learned how to ask.

This dissonance echoes in the most intimate spaces of our lives. We are offered “digital twins,” virtual replicas of our own physiology, updated in real time, upon which a surgeon can rehearse a procedure in a risk-free environment. We are told that AI copilots will save the legal profession a great number of hours per year, freeing lawyers from the drudgery of document review to focus on the higher arts of deepening client relationships.

RELATED: Female avatar appointed as Europe’s first AI government official

Photo by SFOTO / Contributor via Getty Images

Free and fragile

The narrative is one of liberation, of efficiency begetting connection. And yet, this reclaimed time exists within a system of escalating expectations. The Jevons paradox, a 19th-century economic observation, finds its modern footing here: As efficiency increases, so sometimes does demand. The two hours a sales professional saves each day are not banked for leisure; they are reinvested into the pursuit of higher quotas. The freedom from menial tasks does not lead to rest, but to the creation of new, more complex work.

And beneath it all, there is a persistent hum of vulnerability. The very transparency we engineer for control becomes a new attack surface. An adversary can engage in “data poisoning,” slipping malicious information into a training set to warp a model’s output in subtle, insidious ways. The system built for audibility becomes uniquely susceptible to a kind of attack that leaves no obvious trace, a hidden vulnerability that could lie dormant for years in a system that guides autonomous vehicles or calibrates antibiotic dosages. The solution, it turns out, has problems of its own.

The long journey points not toward a destination but toward a state of perpetual negotiation. The most critical constraint is not hardware or networking or power. It is talent. The crisis is human. The skill gap between the demand for those who can manage these systems and the available supply is the true bottleneck. The government may frame this challenge as a matter of national security, an imperative to maintain a competitive advantage. But it seems to be something more fundamental. A controllable AI future is not about building smarter machines. It is about the far more complex and uncertain project of building a more resilient and healthy human society, one capable of managing the strange and brilliant weather of its own creation.

​Tech, Ai, Jevons paradox, Artificial intelligence 

Conservatives have long noticed a disturbing pattern: Hispanic illegal aliens appear again and again in drunk-driving cases. Recent news searches bring up multiple examples, some involving the deaths of children.

This summer’s tragedy in Wisconsin made the problem impossible to ignore — yet the corporate left-wing press tried to do just that. Two high school sweethearts, Hallie Helgeson and Brady Heiling, died when a drunk driver going the wrong way slammed into their car. Just weeks earlier they had gone to prom together.

Americans deserve more than platitudes and silence. They deserve honesty about the cultural, biological, and policy factors behind drunk driving.

The driver was Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila, a Honduran illegal alien who had racked up multiple drunk-driving charges. She lived in a sanctuary jurisdiction that shielded her from deportation. Only under the Trump administration’s renewed immigration enforcement did local authorities finally hand her over to ICE.

A cultural problem that fuels tragedy

The Wisconsin case was heartbreaking, but it was not unique. In 2007, the Raleigh News & Observer published a rare report on the problem. A Mexican man admitted he thought he “drove better after a few beers” and that drunk driving was normal in Mexico. At the time, alcohol-related crashes caused by Hispanic drivers in North Carolina were three times higher than for non-Hispanics.

The national data confirms the trend. Hispanic drunk-driving rates are roughly double those of whites. Alcohol-use disorder is three times as common. More than a third of Hispanic alcohol-dependent users relapse, compared with 23% of whites.

Binge-drinking drives much of the danger. Hispanics are more likely than whites to consume large amounts of alcohol in one sitting. Forty-two percent of Hispanic drinkers admit to three or more drinks per day, compared to 30% of whites.

The numbers don’t lie

Mexicans, who make up half of the illegal alien population, show the highest risk. Mexican-Americans are three times more likely than whites to develop alcohol-use disorder. FBI crime data reported last year shows that Hispanics, 19% of the U.S. population, account for 30% of drunk-driving arrests and 44% of public drunkenness arrests.

In California, where Hispanics made up 37% of the population at the time, they represented 44% of DUI charges in 2012 (the latest I could find). In North Carolina, Hispanics were just 8% of the population but accounted for 18% of 75,000 DUI arrests in 2007.

New Mexico illustrates the deadly stakes. With a population that is half Hispanic, the state suffers nearly three times the national alcohol-related death rate. Five people die every day from alcohol. Before reforms in the 2000s, New Mexico’s DUI crash rate stood 70% higher than the national average.

The pattern reflects Mexico itself. In the United States, drunk drivers cause 31% of traffic deaths. In Mexico, the figure is over 70%. About 24,000 Mexicans die annually in alcohol-linked crashes — more than twice the U.S. toll despite the population difference. Until recently, most Mexican states had no legal blood-alcohol limits, and licensing often required little more than paying a fee.

Native populations face even steeper risks. In McKinley County, New Mexico, where the population is 80% Native American, the alcohol-related death rate is three times higher than the state average and ten times the national average.

Research points to genetic factors. Enzymes that mediate alcohol’s effects vary by ethnic group. Indigenous populations, exposed to alcohol only in the last 300 years, show far higher vulnerability. With Mexicans being heavily Mestizo — roughly 20% indigenous and 60% mixed indigenous (Mestizo) — the biological risk compounds the cultural one.

The media silence

Given decades of national campaigns against drunk driving, one might expect attention to this ethnic dimension. Instead, the media downplay or ignore it. An America First lobbying group once tried to enlist Mothers Against Drunk Driving to raise awareness, but the effort went nowhere.

RELATED: ‘Imminent hazard’: Trump administration shuts licensing loophole after illegal alien trucker allegedly causes fatal crash

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Academics sometimes excuse the problem by claiming Hispanic immigrants drink out of depression or isolation. Yet the biggest consumers are Puerto Ricans, not Mexicans. Cuban-Americans drink the least. Mexican women report the lowest rates of all, meaning the averages are driven almost entirely by men.

And claims of “racial profiling” ring hollow. Most offenders are caught at night, their identities confirmed by arrest records, not stereotypes.

Why it matters

Democrats dismiss these realities for the same reason they ignore illegal aliens’ broader lawbreaking: victimhood politics. They portray Hispanics as downtrodden and conservatives as cruel.

But the grief of families like the Helgesons and Heilings is not a talking point. It is permanent loss. It is trauma that echoes for generations.

Americans deserve more than platitudes and silence. They deserve honesty about the cultural, biological, and policy factors behind drunk driving. They deserve leaders who will enforce immigration law, reject sanctuary loopholes, and tell the truth about the risks that put their families in danger.

​Opinion & analysis, Illegal immigration crime, Illegal aliens, Drunk driving, Drunk driving deaths, Mexico, Alcoholism, California, New mexico, Native americans, Hispanics, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Sanctuary cities, Dui arrests, Media bias, Hallie helgeson, Brady heiling, Noelia saray martinez-avila, Genetics 

Hollywood talent agencies are about to sign their first AI (non-human) actor-entity.

The AI entity seducing the film industry goes by the name of Tilly Norwood. Tilly is the creation of Eline Van der Velden, herself a human actress/comedian. Van der Velden seems to be more than happy to play the role of bridge between the film executive looking to save money and the technologist looking to provide cost-saving solutions in the form of digital representations on-screen. Van der Velden has sought for some years now to facilitate the corporate-technological gap within the film industry. Mission accomplished.

In the music industry, where life has never been the same since Napster, the ravages of tech are well known, and the response to AI reflects it. Spotify is rejiggering its algorithm to allow for select, curated AI music applications to flow on its platforms. Spotify has signaled that its policy revisions will target AI impersonation, spamming of the algorithm by AI slop producers, and, most notably, steps toward an international standards agreement regarding disclosure of AI content.

This role — creating fake people to act out what used to be a soulful calling for humans — we could call ‘non-human avatar technician.’

Spotify moving to increase its protections and analysis with respect to AI music is a great step. Maybe we’re winning. Somewhere in the corporate cloud are human ears listening to human voices crying for authenticity. Spotify’s latest forays into adjusting the relationships between these digital entities and humanity will provide an initial template for other corporations to build on. Wise human feedback must be incorporated as the process of adjustment proceeds.

Before we start slapping each other on the back, a nagging question: Why did the premier AI corporations roll out the creative stuff first? Why not remake HR, or paralegals? Maybe it’s too conspiratorial, but one wonders if it’s an example of “little Suzie, do you want peas or carrots?” Which is to say, if we avoid the AI ultra-slop in the arts, can we, human beings who live here on planet Earth among other humans, mitigate the creep toward the managerial, juridical, and religious AI slop flood? We better.

Conspiracy theorists of old used to talk about divide and conquer with reference to the unfolding forces (or secret agents) of history, and it’s hard to avoid seeing the way that the left is divided from the right with respect specifically to art and technology. In this latest reassessment, Spotify removed 75 million fraudulent songs. Not bad. This substantiates, to some degree, the company’s genuflection toward the sanctity of the art and the artist. Still, the company’s history and the pressures of making “number go up” suggest that audiences and critics should remain vigilant.

RELATED: A penguin avatar will be the new leader of a Japanese political party

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Neko Case, the powerhouse PNW singer/songwriter (one given to voicing the occasional lefty political opinion), recently lamented of her latest album: “I had the privilege of making this record in a studio and maybe got the last advance anybody’s ever gonna get. And so I wanted to make sure all the sounds on the record were made by real people.”

We can imagine, and the discourse will soon provide, some lukewarm verbiage-gruel smeared over the only mildly interesting notion of AI fronting for an artist. “Puppeteer” simply wouldn’t do to substantiate the recursive pretension required to float a profession that (if it takes off) is just corporate and tech logic merging to feed the maw of public appetite for jejune psychic diversion. This role — creating fake people to act out what used to be a soulful calling for humans — we could call “non-human avatar technician” and stem the otherwise inevitable flow of false accolades.

There are many who say of this moment that AI and the intensity of investment ($500 billion from the U.S. government, as one example) suggest merely another financial bubble that, much like previous bubbles, is preceded by a massive fear of missing out. There’s some of that FOMO involved in this latest swing from Hollywood executives and music industry decision-makers. There’s a sense that they don’t know what’s next. Which isn’t surprising, because all such executives have ever known is how to buy true creative talent. Is AI true creative talent? Nope.

Hollywood needs to do what it can to limp along. Artists such as Case, despite whatever ideological or political differences they may have with Christians (and there are plenty), will need to look toward firmer spiritual ground if they hope to avoid total obliteration. For now, the audiences prefer human hands on instruments and genuine human vision in their storytelling. If the battle comes down to corporate costs vs. customer preference, however, we may need to begin looking at other options soon.

​Tech, Culture 

No political insult gets thrown around more recklessly these days than “fascist.” The word has been gutted of meaning, reduced to a club progressives swing at President Trump and people like Stephen Miller and the late Charlie Kirk. Democrats and their media allies casually smear conservatives as extremists who follow the “fascist playbook.”

Joe Biden himself dragged the rhetoric to a new low. In September 2022, standing in front of Liberty Hall in Philadelphia, he declared that “MAGA Republicans” are extremists and enemies of democracy.

“They embrace anger,” Biden thundered. “They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth, but in the shadow of lies.” Weeks earlier, at a fundraiser in Maryland, he even called the MAGA movement “semi-fascist.”

The smear reveals less about conservatives and more about the authoritarian streak buried in the left’s own philosophy.

Say what you want about Trump’s sharp elbows in politics, but he never demonized American voters as enemies of the republic. Biden did — and Democrats have repeated the smear ever since. The question is: What happens to a country when its leaders brand millions of citizens “fascists”?

The goals of the MAGA movement are plain: Protect natural rights, foster prosperity, expand energy access, secure the border, reduce crime, preserve domestic peace, and pursue a foreign policy rooted in prudence. These aims hardly resemble fascism. Yet defenders of liberty now find themselves caricatured as authoritarians.

To see how absurd this charge is, it helps to remember what fascism actually means.

A (very) short history of fascism

The intellectual father of fascism was Giovanni Gentile, an Italian philosopher born in 1875. Following Hegel, he saw the rational state as the end point of history. He defined “true democracy” not as liberty but as the individual’s willing subordination to the state.

For Gentile, public and private interests were one and the same. To serve society was to serve the state. His student, Benito Mussolini, turned this philosophy into doctrine: “All is in the state, and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.”

Contrary to today’s rhetoric, fascism did not begin on the right. Mussolini himself was a Marxist. He and Antonio Gramsci broke with Leninist revolution but retained socialism’s collectivist core. Fascism emphasized nationalism, racial particularity, and the total authority of the state — summed up in the term “blood and soil.” Its very name came from the Latin word fasces, the Roman bundle of rods bound to an axe — symbolizing unity and power.

Fascism arose in the economic chaos of the 1920s and ’30s. Italy and Germany launched massive public-works programs, funded by confiscatory taxes, borrowing, and printing money. As with communism, fascism treated every citizen as an employee and tenant of the party-run state. Force and coercion were essential. Mussolini was blunt: The individual’s “anti-social right” to resist the state did not exist.

In his 1928 autobiography, he wrote:

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill.

Fascism and the New Deal

The American version of the 1930s response to the Great Depression, of course, was Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Today it’s remembered as democracy’s answer to authoritarianism. But at the time, many noted striking similarities between Roosevelt’s programs and those of Mussolini and Hitler.

John T. Flynn, a leading conservative writer, warned in “As We Go Marching” (1944) that the New Deal looked like a “good fascism” — regulation and planning at home, military adventures abroad, and growing state power. Others saw the same trend: massive public-works projects, charismatic leadership, centralized propaganda, and the creation of a “voluntary compulsion” that blurred the line between civic duty and government coercion.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s remarkable 2006 book, “Three New Deals,” compares the era’s regimes. He did not equate Roosevelt with Mussolini or Hitler, but he highlighted the parallels: grand projects like the TVA, monumental architecture, direct appeals from the “leader” to the people, and the constant use of war imagery. Roosevelt even warned that those who resisted his programs were “enemies” of recovery.

The difference, of course, was that America retained constitutional checks that Europe discarded. Yet the centralizing impulse — and the temptation to vest extraordinary authority in a leader — was real.

Progressive roots

The resemblance should not surprise us. European fascism and the New Deal both grew from the same philosophical soil. The American founding drew on John Locke and natural law. “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one,” Locke wrote. “And reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind.” The Declaration of Independence, in turn, proclaimed that rights are endowed by the Creator and cannot be erased by government.

European thought took another path, from Machiavelli to Hegel, exalting the state as the source of order and authority. By the late 19th century, American Progressives imported this vision. Woodrow Wilson and other intellectuals trained in German universities rejected the founders’ natural-rights philosophy and embraced statism.

RELATED: The next generation of Marxists is marching through the institutions

Photo by Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images

Progressives, like their European cousins, placed the state at the center of political life. They taught that rights flow not from God but from government — positive, material entitlements dispensed by bureaucrats. Over the past century, Democrats from Wilson and FDR to Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama have built a regime that subordinates every aspect of American life to the federal leviathan.

The real irony

Given this history, 21st-century progressives should think twice before flinging “fascism” as a slur. Their own intellectual lineage shares far more with Mussolini and Gentile than anything found in the MAGA movement.

Trump supporters want liberty secured, prosperity restored, and sovereignty defended. Progressives want the state elevated above all. The smear reveals less about conservatives and more about the authoritarian streak buried in the left’s own philosophy.

​Fascism, Fascist, Opinion, Opinion & analysis, Maga, Donald trump, Hegel, Joe biden 

A Los Angeles man allegedly murdered his wife and dismembered her body because she had a difficult time losing weight after giving birth to his child.

Jonathan Renteria, 25, confessed in a handwritten letter to killing his 37-year-old wife, June Renteria, according to a criminal complaint.

‘My wife, June Renteria, is deceased in her apartment. I kill her. I am truly sorry.’

On Sept. 11, the man was found “inside a hotel room in Ventura County lying in a bathtub bleeding from a puncture wound to his forearm” at about 12:30 p.m., according to prosecutors.

A note was found in the room reading, “My wife, June Renteria, is deceased in her apartment. I kill her. I am truly sorry,” with an address in Hollywood written on the back.

Police were sent to the apartment address on a welfare check and reported a “foul” odor emanating from the door.

Once they gained entry into the residence, they discovered his wife “in a state of decomposition with her arms and legs severed.”

Security video obtained by police showed the man leaving the apartment with the couple’s 1-year-old child about five days before he was found bleeding in Ventura.

Jonathan Renteria was treated at a hospital and then interviewed by police. He allegedly confessed to the crime and told investigators that he had gotten into an argument with his wife “about her failure to lose weight following her pregnancy.”

He said his wife threatened to leave him and ensure he never saw his daughter again. He reacted by getting her into a “rear-naked chokehold,” which he learned in jiujitsu. That admission corroborated a medical examiner’s finding that she had died from “traumatic neck injuries.”

RELATED: Illegal alien dismembered man who overdosed and flushed his organs in order to avoid deportation, police say

Prosecutors also claimed that he had sent an email to his father confessing to the crimes.

“The only thing I could do in the moment was choke her. And I did. I held it for as long as I could until my arms gave out. I was horrified at myself. Right after this I took a lot of drugs to get through it,” he allegedly wrote.

Jonathan Renteria was arrested and charged with murder and the mutilation of human remains. His bail was set at $4,000,000.

The suspect met the victim on social media, and she moved to the United States from Scotland to be with him.

A GoFundMe page set up for the family of June Bunyan, the maiden name for June Renteria, said that she had been proud of earning a law degree and had moved to the U.S. in pursuit of becoming a defense attorney.

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​Dismembered wife, June renteria, Murder over birth weight, Jonathan renteria murder, Crime 

President Donald Trump announced last month on Truth Social that he would designate Antifa as a “major terrorist organization.” His move followed the assassination of Charlie Kirk, in which the alleged shooter etched Antifa-linked slogans onto bullet casings.

The announcement was overdue. But it isn’t enough. The deeper problem lies in the way far-left ideology has wormed its way into America’s universities. For more than a decade, Antifa sympathizers in higher education have used their influence to normalize radical tactics and ideology.

Studying radical groups is not the problem. The problem is activist educators who weaponize academic freedom.

Hiding behind “academic freedom,” these activists have seized positions of authority, cloaked propaganda as scholarship, and worked to sanitize Antifa’s record of violence. Their work not only whitewashes street-level thuggery but also lends intellectual credibility to other radical movements.

Radicalized classrooms

In the fall of 2020, Rutgers University’s Rutgers Today gave Professor Mark Bray a glowing profile. Bray, author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” softened Antifa’s image by claiming the movement simply wants to “change the world dramatically.” He insisted its “strategic focus” is to shut down the far right and “protect progressive social movements.”

That framing wasn’t neutral scholarship. It was spin. Bray is a proudly outspoken leftist. His book is an apology for and encomium to Antifa’s “direct action” tactics.

Across the country, courses that elevate Antifa are now showing up in university catalogs. They are not taught as dispassionate examinations of an ideology. They are taught by activists who share the movement’s goals.

At the City University of New York, an English course titled “Global Antifa” promises to explore “antifascist traditions” and link them to “racial justice, anti-imperialism, intersectional feminism, and critiques of capitalism.” In practice, the course serves as movement training, rather than academic analysis.

Over the summer, video from the Socialism 2025 conference revealed the professor behind the CUNY course openly endorsing a boycott of the fossil fuel industry. Other footage showed a Seattle University law professor calling on activists to “break laws and rules” to hide people from ICE and “the cops.”

RELATED: ‘Hey, fascist! Catch!’ Leftist group apparently recruiting college students with slogan tied to Kirk murder

Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Their classrooms mirror their activism. A review of one law professor’s 2019 “Race and Law” syllabus confirmed the bias. The reading list included Bray’s “Antifa Handbook,” a comic book glorifying Antifa, Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility,” and a stack of pro-Palestine and pro-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions tracts.

Unfortunately, pro-Antifa materials are not confined to graduate seminars. They have also seeped into undergraduate classrooms.

At Harvard, the Department of Government offered a course titled “#Abolish Police.” The syllabus included Bray’s book and assigned a unit on solidarity with the BDS movement and the Palestinian cause.

Rutgers went even farther. A 2018 sociology course openly declared its aim: to study the “rise and success” of resistance movements like the Black Panther Party, Anonymous, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the “Anti-Trump resistance movement.” This is clearly not neutral instruction. It is activism disguised as scholarship.

From the ivory tower, these ideologies trickle down. What begins in university courses eventually lands in teacher training programs, K-12 classrooms, and education conferences. The process has a name: “idea laundering.” Academic activists flood journals, dissertations, and repositories with work that favors Antifa, then cite that same “research” to legitimize the movement.

The results can be laughable — or dangerous. One sociology dissertation at Mississippi State University read more like agitprop than analysis. The author admitted that Antifa “embraces the concept of violence and intimidation,” but brushed it off as a minority tendency. The dissertation concluded that the real problem wasn’t Antifa’s violence but the “negative press” it receives, while claiming fascist groups are the greater threat.

RELATED: Democrats falsely claim Antifa does not exist after movement gets terrorist designation

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Another paper, brazenly titled “Plantifa: Antifascist Guerrilla Gardening Curriculum,” shows just how far the indoctrination has gone. It links Antifa’s radical ideology with environmental “justice,” turning classrooms into training grounds for activism. The stated goal is to condition students in anti-fascism, to “plant seeds of love against hierarchies.” Translation: Enlist kids into a movement that openly rejects Western civilization.

Cleaning house

President Trump’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization is a long-overdue step. But stopping street violence is only part of the battle. The ideological campaign waged inside universities must be confronted with equal seriousness.

Studying radical groups is not the problem. Academic freedom allows rigorous analysis of movements and ideas. The problem is activist educators who weaponize that freedom. They smuggle their politics into classrooms, presenting indoctrination as scholarship. They use liberal values — free inquiry, free thought, dissent — as camouflage for an anti-Western ideology bent on dismantling the United States and its allies.

Universities ignore this threat at their peril. Antifa’s intellectual allies behave like a parasitic wasp: They burrow into the institution, feed on its resources, and, eventually, kill the host. If higher education refuses to police itself, the rot will spread unchecked — leaving the next generation radicalized and the nation badly weakened.

​Opinion & analysis, Antifa, Antifa portland, Donald trump, Terrorism, Terrorist organization, Leftism, Colleges, Universities, University of seattle, Radicalism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Black bloc, Mark bray, Antifa handbook, Left-wing professors 

Body positivity activist and “plus-size” model Tess Holliday took center stage at the September 20 Teen Vogue summit to give some horrible advice — as she’s done before regarding body positivity — to those listening.

In the clips, when Holliday is not trying to tear down other celebrities who have lost weight, she tells the audience that she is not speaking to multiple members of her family because they stayed “quiet when so many injustices are happening” in places like Palestine, Sudan, and Congo.

“I literally blocked my brother yesterday. I’m not speaking to my mom, my stepmom, my dad. I’m collecting them like Pokemon. I’m like, ‘Who can I block next?’” Holliday said in a clip from the summit.

“And it stinks, but I just think that you have to stand for something. And I think as you get older and mature — and I feel like you guys are already far more mature than I was at your age — you have to stand for what matters to you,” Holliday continued.

“And when you see things happening, you have to say something, in my opinion. And I understand that there’s safety concerns, and I have a lot of privilege as a cis white woman saying those things,” she added.

“Body positivity activist,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray says, shocked.

“She blocks people that don’t support her views on the Palestinian people. … She blocks her brothers just because they don’t think there should be a Palestinian state,” executive producer Keith Malinak comments.

“Wow, well that’s beautiful. That’s a wonderful person right there,” Gray says.

“And what do you want to bet, she knows nothing about it,” he adds.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Free, Sharing, Camera phone, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Pat gray unleashed, Pat gray, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Body positivity activist, Tess holliday, Palestine, Cutting off family members, Cult, Pokemon, Liberals, Liberal politics, Liberal agenda, Teen vogue 

Obamacare was supposed to solve the problem of a small minority of people who couldn’t afford health insurance but weren’t eligible for Medicaid. Fifteen years later, Democrats now admit their plans are so expensive that unless taxpayers cover nearly the entire cost, they remain unaffordable.

Instead of regulating and subsidizing the market into insolvency, Republicans should finally offer a bold alternative to the largest sector of the economy and the most expensive line in a household budget.

$40 billion a year goes to insurers to pad numbers and keep insolvent plans alive.

News of a possible government shutdown dominates headlines, but few understand what triggered the standoff over fiscal year 2026 funding. Democrats insist that Biden’s COVID-era expansion of Obamacare subsidies be extended or made permanent. In other words: more debt to prop up a broken system. Just what we need.

Subsidizing greed, debt, and inflation

Through the 2021 COVID bill and the Orwellian-named 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats raised the income cutoff for subsidies from 400% of the federal poverty line to 800%. That’s roughly $300,000 for a family of five. The change placed nearly everyone outside employer coverage under government subsidies. Millions now pay nothing for premiums. The bill goes straight to the national debt.

Insurers responded as any vendor feeding at a public trough would: They raised prices. Family premiums have jumped 20%-25% since 2021, with another 6.5% hike expected next year — the largest increase in 15 years. Because government, not consumers, is now the customer, companies treat subsidies as free money. The result: Health care drives the deficit spending that makes everyday living more expensive.

Small businesses suffer most. Employer plans aren’t subsidized, so workers lose potential wage increases to soaring premium costs. Since 2014, family premiums have climbed 52%, the worker’s share 31%. Deductibles for individual plans have surged 53%, reaching $1,787 in 2024.

The grift goes farther. Paragon Institute data shows that nearly 12 million enrollees never used their coverage. Before Biden’s credits, only 4 million filed no claims. Today, 45% of the 24.3 million exchange “enrollees” are phantom accounts — people auto-re-enrolled, some without even knowing it.

Free money fuels fraud

Once Biden pushed full subsidies for those earning up to 150% of poverty — 55% of 2025’s enrollees — brokers saw a jackpot. With clients paying nothing, brokers collected thousands in commissions per sign-up. Some pocketed $6,000 per plan. Insurers happily billed the government while HHS looked the other way. Paragon estimates that 6 million people received full subsidies despite earning above the threshold.

That means $40 billion a year goes to insurers to pad numbers and keep insolvent plans alive.

RELATED: Medicaid for millions, misery for the middle class

MCCAIG via iStock/Getty Images

Breaking the cartel

The real fix is simple: Stop inflating prices with subsidies and break the insurance cartel.

With more than 70 million already pushed onto Medicaid, why not put everyone else into one competitive market where consumers choose freely and insurers compete with unregulated plans?

Trump and congressional Republicans should counter Democrats’ proposal with a market-based plan that:

Allows insurers, employers, trade associations, and states to offer unregulated alternatives — including expanded “short-term” three-year plans revived from Trump’s first term.Expands HSAs by raising contribution caps to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for joint filers and allows tax-free use for premiums, concierge fees, and health-sharing ministries. Employers should get equal tax treatment for these alternatives.Demands price transparency by prohibiting contracts that block providers from offering discounts to self-pay patients. Repeal the HMO Act and subject managed-care giants to antitrust law.Lifts the ban on physician-owned hospitals to restore competition and shore up rural care.

Federal health spending has ballooned from $85 billion in 1987 to nearly $1.5 trillion today — double since Obamacare. Employer-based insurance, warped by government tax policy, adds another $1.1 trillion. More subsidies will only deepen the hole.

Republicans should seize the chance to present a real alternative: consumer choice, price transparency, and competition. That’s the only way to bring health care costs down without bankrupting families or the nation.

​Opinion & analysis, Obamacare, Health insurance, Healthcare, Subsidies, Donald trump, Congress, Medicaid, Entitlements, Inflation reduction act, Covid-19, Republicans, Democrats, Insurance companies, Cartel, Premiums, Hmo act, Health savings account, Debt 

The pro-life activist who was violently attacked while arguing with a woman about abortion says she will file a civil lawsuit after a liberal district attorney accidentally forgot to file charges before a deadline.

Savannah Craven Antao was filming interviews with random people in April for the Live Action pro-life group when a woman punched her in the face without warning. The exchange was caught on video by Antao’s husband and published online, as previously reported by Blaze News.

‘Failing to prosecute these clear-cut charges sets a dangerous standard for how our society responds to violence against those engaging in democratic dialogue.’

“The woman became aggressive and violent upon learning Savannah’s pro-life stance,” Antao’s husband said. “I intervened to protect my wife, and we immediately called 911. The police arrived, and we provided them with the assailant’s photo and description. We hope justice will be served soon.”

The suspect was arrested and identified as Brianna Rivers, but the charges against her were dropped when Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg claimed that his office had accidentally missed a filing deadline.

Antao said she wasn’t even contacted about the development and learned about it from Rivers’ social media.

Bragg’s office released a statement of apology.

“Every victim deserves their day in court, and our office has reached out to apologize to Ms. Craven for the unacceptable error of missing the discovery deadline. We are taking immediate internal steps in light of this case,” the statement reads.

Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, is representing Antao and excoriated Bragg’s actions.

“District Attorney Bragg’s shocking refusal to uphold justice only works to undermine confidence in the system, especially when our political climate has become as fraught as it is now,” Ferrara explained. “Failing to prosecute these clear-cut charges sets a dangerous standard for how our society responds to violence against those engaging in democratic dialogue.”

RELATED: Woman who punched pro-life activist during street interview claims she was antagonized

Antao says she will file a civil lawsuit against Rivers. The assault led to Antao needing stitches and racking up $3,000 in medical bills.

“It just goes to show, right now in our country, we are experiencing leftist violence, political violence, at an all-time high. And it has to be shown,” Antao said. “The left always loves to say it’s the conservatives that are all violent, and they’re hurting people because they have different beliefs — but I am proving that it’s the complete opposite.”

Rivers claimed that she was antagonized by Antao and points to the edits in the video released as evidence for her claim.

“She needs to release the unedited footage with her relentless antagonization on a subject that is very touchy,” she wrote. “I will not allow my image to be defamed by this woman’s actions. Anyone who knows me knows how respectful I am, I don’t even litter, there’s no way you believe I’m punching people for disagreeing with my POV.”

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In the middle of conducting man-on-the-street-style interviews for her YouTube channel, “Her Patriot Voice,” pro-life advocate Savannah Craven Antao was attacked by a woman named Brianna Rivers — and New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg just dropped all charges against her.

“She’s out there on the streets. This woman walks up and the interview — I don’t know, I’m going to say it escalated very quickly,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments.

Antao asked basic questions about Rivers’ beliefs surrounding abortion, to which the woman answered that if a woman doesn’t want a baby, she should “just get rid of it.”

“What happens in an abortion?” Antao asked.

“They literally suck the life out of you. They’re going to take the whole baby out. And as they should, because I shouldn’t be a taxpayer paying child support and food stamps,” Rivers replied, audibly yelling.

“You should be a taxpayer paying for abortions?” Antao asked again.

“Exactly. For a woman who didn’t want the baby in the first place, that doesn’t make sense to me. Don’t ever sit here and lock yourself down with a man who already told you he doesn’t want to be with you,” Rivers said.

“But you don’t get to kill the baby just because their dad didn’t want that,” Antao replied.

“You can,” Rivers said, to which Antao replied, “Should we kill the kids in foster care?”

“Why not!” Rivers screamed.

When Antao brought up that the woman appeared to be okay with killing not only unborn babies but babies in foster care, Rivers punched her in the face.

Antao was faced with stitches and $3,000 in medical bills, and Rivers was charged with second-degree assault.

“But it was dropped because Alvin Bragg’s office apparently is full of DEI hires, I guess. I don’t know. They missed a key filing deadline, and they didn’t even turn over evidence to the court in time,” Gonzales says. “Imagine letting the real criminals, the violent criminals, run free because you can’t be bothered to hit your deadlines.”

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A New York Times report published on Monday claimed that at least 15 American citizens have been “arrested or detained and questioned” by law enforcement officials as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security rejected the Times’ accusations in a press release obtained exclusively by Blaze News.

The Times claimed that the DHS has “roamed the streets, courthouses and workplaces demanding proof of citizenship from residents,” particularly in Southern California communities.

‘Any US citizens arrested are because of obstructing or assaulting law enforcement.’

The DHS rejected the Times’ accusation, emphasizing that its operations are “highly targeted” and do not result in the arrest of U.S. citizens.

“We do our due diligence,” the department explained. “We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability. ICE does not arrest or detain U.S. citizens.”

The Times further reported that Americans had been detained overnight in immigration facilities without access to a lawyer or a phone call.

The DHS stated this was not true, noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers have higher standards “than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

RELATED: Pam Bondi issues zero-tolerance order on violence against federal officers

Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

“Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false,” the DHS said.

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” the DHS continued.

The Times highlighted several cases, including those involving Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, Jason Brian Gavidia, Javier Ramirez, George Retes, and Leonardo Garcia Venegas. The outlet reported that all the individuals were American citizens who were unjustly targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.

According to the news outlet, Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, was riding in his employer’s truck with his co-workers in May when the Florida Highway Patrol pulled them over. After Laynez-Ambrosio and the other vehicle occupants refused to exit the vehicle, troopers forcibly removed them, the Times reported. Laynez-Ambrosio was allegedly held at a nearby Border Patrol facility for roughly six hours, despite repeatedly telling officials he was a U.S. citizen.

The DHS argued that Laynez-Ambrosio, who was in the vehicle with “several adult male illegal aliens from Guatemala,” resisted arrest during the traffic stop. Border Patrol agents, who were responding to a request for assistance from the FHP, arrested the illegal aliens.

Law enforcement officials detained Gavidia, 29, and Ramirez, 32, after conducting an operation at their place of business in East Los Angeles in June. The Times claimed that both were American citizens who were improperly targeted.

“Gavidia was arrested for assaulting a law enforcement officer and interfering with agents performing their duties,” the DHS stated. “Javier Ramirez was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.”

RELATED: Pot farm raid update: Trump’s DHS found convicted rapists and kidnappers working near migrant kids

Glass House Farms protest. Photo by BLAKE FAGAN/AFP via Getty Images

The Times reported that law enforcement agents unjustly detained Retes, a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran, in July. During the detainment, officers allegedly broke his windshield and pepper-sprayed him after mistakenly identifying him as an unruly protester. Retes was on his way to work as a security guard for Glass House Farms, a marijuana farm in California. At the time of the incident, the farm was the site of a federal law enforcement operation, which sparked an anti-ICE demonstration.

The DHS claimed that Retes “became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement” while they were executing criminal search warrants at the farm.

“He challenged agents and blocked their route by refusing to move his vehicle out of the road. CBP arrested Retes for assault,” the department said.

The Times reported that authorities wrongfully targeted Venegas while he was working at a construction site. He began recording the officers after witnessing them push his brother, who is an illegal immigrant, to the ground, according to the news outlet. An officer allegedly tackled Venegas and kept him handcuffed for hours.

“During a targeted worksite operation, Garcia Venegas attempted to obstruct and prevent the lawful arrest of an illegal alien,” the DHS wrote. “He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands. Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated, “We have said it a million times: ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens. Not even a week after the terrorist attack targeting ICE in Dallas, the media is once again shamefully peddling a false narrative, attempting to demonize our DHS law enforcement agents, who are already facing a 1,000% increase in assaults against them.”

“Any U.S. citizens arrested are because of obstructing or assaulting law enforcement,” McLaughlin declared.

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An evacuation was ordered at Utah State University after a suspicious package was reported just ahead of a scheduled event for Turning Point USA.

Witnesses watched as police officers detonated the package and state police later said the university was cleared of any threat.

‘Out of an abundance of caution, the bomb squad detonated the suspicious device.’

Video on social media from journalism professor and reporter Erin Cox showed students being evacuated from the Old Main building of the university. She added that police were bringing K-9 crews into the building as well.

An alert was sent to students telling them to evacuate the building.

An evacuation has been ordered for the Old Main building on Logan campus. Leave immediately using the nearest exit. Use stairs, not elevators. Take only essential items. Go to your department’s evacuation area if applicable. Follow instructions from emergency personnel. Updates will follow.

After hearing officers yelling, “Fire in the hole,” an explosion was heard from inside the building.

“A suspicious device was found near the exterior of Old Main. University and Local law enforcement were dispatched to the scene. A device was located and deemed to be a non-explosive device,” reads a statement from the Utah State police.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the bomb squad detonated the suspicious device,” they added. “Old Main building is now clear and safe. All scheduled events may resume as normal.”

RELATED: Man arrested for alleged threats against Pride parade in revenge for Charlie Kirk: ‘We can send a clear message’

Cox noted that Charlie Kirk, the founder of TPUSA, had been scheduled to speak at the event before he was assassinated. There had been plans for day events preceding the evening event, but those were canceled.

Prior to Kirk being killed, some students organized a petition to prevent him from speaking at Utah State University, and they garnered all of 34 signatures. After his death, some students organized a petition to prevent TPUSA from its presentation at the university. That endeavor garnered all of 31 signatures.

Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10 while debating students on his national campus tour at Utah Valley University.

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Law enforcement in Florida went into overdrive mode late last week when it was reported that 17-year-old Caden Speight was missing.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office issued an Amber Alert Thursday night stating that Speight was last seen around 4 p.m. Thursday in the 12800 block of SW Highway 484 in Dunnellon, which is about an hour south of Gainesville.

‘Oh, dear Jesus, please bring this young man back to his family safe and unharmed.’

The alert also stated that “law enforcement believes he may be with four unknown men, possibly Hispanic, who are driving a light-colored van. If you have any information about his whereabouts, or if you see him, please do NOT approach and call 911 immediately.”

RELATED: Racist signs found above water fountains in Georgia high school. Turns out student of color is behind hate hoax.

Image source: Marion County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office

As time wore on and the crisis heightened, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods noted that he had dedicated all of his available resources in an effort to find the teen, and his personnel worked through Thursday night and into Friday on the case. In fact, Woods later said “federal agencies” as well as reinforcements “from around the state” turned out to help.

It was a big operation, indeed.

Many observers also were worried; one replied to the alert on Facebook with the following: “Oh, dear Jesus, please bring this young man back to his family safe and unharmed.”

But the original story soon got a bit hinky.

In an updated alert Friday, the sheriff’s office said that “detectives obtained information and collected evidence that are unsupportive of the initially reported facts” and that “there is no evidence to indicate that he was taken by four Hispanic men in a light-colored van.”

Officials added that they arrived at this determination after an initial investigation of the teen’s disappearance as well as a shooting reported in the 12800 block of SW Highway 484 around 4:10 p.m. Thursday. It was the same time when — and place where — the teen was last seen.

The updated alert added that it was possible the teen “left the incident location on a black bicycle with a red and grey tent, which he purchased at Walmart on SW 19th Avenue Road in Ocala just prior to this incident being reported.” Ocala is about 40 minutes northeast of Dunnellon.

“Since Caden is still a missing endangered juvenile, MSCO is asking anyone who may have seen a male matching his description with a dark-colored mountain bike and a tent to call 911,” the sheriff’s office added.

RELATED: ‘Noose’ found at Obama Presidential Center building site in Chicago — but some conservatives are skeptical: ‘I’ll take ‘hate crime hoaxes’ for $3,500, Alex’

WESH-TV reported that when deputies arrived at the scene of the reported shooting, they found a car belonging to Speight, but he was not there. A separate WESH video report indicated that a bullet hole was found in that vehicle.

But a witness named Jackson McClure also spoke to the station Friday morning, and WESH reported he had the following to say: “I passed by here around 4 o’clock, and there was a boy, young man, believed to be the guy they’re looking for, getting something out of the truck and shoving it into a book bag, and then about 10 to 15 [minutes] later, I believe he drove by my house on a bicycle. I called [the] Marion County non-emergency line and told them what I had seen, and they said, ‘Thank you very much, that’s very helpful.'”

WESH noted that McClure also said police “did ask me if he was bleeding as he went by, and I told them no, he looked normal, and he wasn’t struggling to ride his bicycle.”

Finally, by late Friday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said Speight “has been located safe in Williston,” which is about 35 minutes northwest of Ocala.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

Sheriff Woods soon announced in a video some major developments in the case — but they cast a decidedly negative light on the teen whom law enforcement worked so hard to find.

First off, the sheriff’s office on Tuesday told Blaze News that Speight was the one who made the claim about the four Hispanic men. In fact, the sheriff’s office added to Blaze News that Speight in a text message “claimed that four Hispanic men in a white van were following him, and that he was shot.”

Woods addressed this issue and didn’t hold back, revealing that “the initial details that Caden texted to his family were proven to be false. Completely made up.”

Woods added that evidence indeed was found “of a single gunshot where Caden left his truck. However, his claims that he had been shot and abducted were quickly disproven. We then learned that he had purchased a bicycle, tent, and camping supplies just prior to him reporting this.”

The sheriff’s office on Tuesday added to Blaze News that “based on the information he provided to his family and the evidence located on scene, MCSO was working his disappearance as a possible shooting and abduction. It was clear that Caden made an effort to leave the scene in such a state that, in the context of his last text, it would appear he was shot and kidnapped.”

Woods added that “we had witnesses that contradicted the initial information. Caden simply rode away toward Williston while the rest of us were left to think the worst, and my team was working in overdrive to solve this case.”

Then came the kid’s outrageous coup de grace, which Woods detailed: “Now, content to continue the ruse, Caden — who had a handgun with him since the beginning of all of this — chose to shoot himself in the leg, causing a non-life-threatening injury just prior to walking out to the roadway where he would be located by citizens in Williston. There is zero chance that Caden’s gunshot wound came from any type of an assailant.”

RELATED: Facebook user threatens to kill black people at Alabama fair, adds ‘white power’ message and Confederate flag. Cops say black man is behind post.

Woods added in his video update that many people have wondered if Speight will face any charges and what the cost to taxpayers will be after this “large-scale investigation and search.”

“Trust me,” the sheriff said. “It is on my mind. I can tell you those items are not off the table at this point. Right now, we are still processing all of the evidence in this case. I don’t want to make any statements on that until we have fully examined it all.”

However, despite detectives having “a lot of questions for Caden,” the sheriff added that “his parents refuse to allow my detectives to speak with him so that we could come to a true, final conclusion in all this.”

“Again, thank you citizens for your tips and information that you sent in,” Woods concluded, “and when we do have any updated information on this case, I promise you, we will provide it to you.”

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When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth first announced the unorthodox step that he would gather all generals and admirals at Marine Base Quantico on short notice, many speculated that this could be a sign that we might be heading toward another war. Hegseth did declare war, but not in the way many pundits expected. He’s going to war against declining standards in the military.

In every respect, this was a historic speech. The convening itself was historic, but more significantly, Hegseth’s speech carried the weight of history. Hegseth’s purpose was to align all of the flag officers around one mission, as he put it, “The only mission of the newly restored War Department is this: warfighting.”

For too long, side quests have taken the military’s focus off lethality. Military standards were changed to accomplish partisan distractions.

By contrast, Hegseth’s predecessor, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, oriented the military around climate change, social justice, and other side quests. For example, in 2021, Austin declared, “We face all kinds of threats, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does.”

War on wokeness

The Pentagon’s mission under the Biden administration was to fight a war on the weather, even going so far as to prioritize climate plans over the duty to build warships. These side quests weakened our military and our nation.

Even worse, Austin’s leadership ushered in an era of politically motivated promotions that prioritized sex and skin color characteristics over merit. To this end, retired Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, who served as the 21st chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Biden administration’s final years, famously wrote a memo mandating racial and sex quotas. This firmly committed our military away from promotions based on wars won and lives saved toward a process infused with the radical agenda of the left.

Warrior ethos restored

This was the context of Hegseth’s speech. Within the Pentagon, competing priorities eclipsed the primal imperative of being prepared to kill the enemy before they kill us. The woke agenda pushed by the radical left caused a slow rot that shifted focus from warfighting to social engineering, greatly frustrating many senior military officials.

Hegseth vowed to excise this type of decay inflicted by “foolish and reckless politicians.” He outlined several concrete steps to do just that, including restored grooming standards, stricter enforcement of physical training requirements, leadership and accountability reforms, and changes to training to focus on core warfighting elements.

But if the meeting was only about outlining these seemingly mundane reforms, why gather these high-ranking generals and admirals in one place? Couldn’t the content of his speech have been sent in an email? No, it could not. This was far more important than updating senior leaders on reforms; this was a cultural moment for military leadership. The era of hiding behind systemic racism and sexism to undermine the mission of the military while projecting woke platitudes as a defense of those actions is officially over.

Hegseth understood the mission, which was tough talk to tough people to prepare them for tough times. Some will whine that it’s uncouth for a secretary of sar to say, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. … We are done with that s**t.”

The whiners need to realize that many warfighters have prayed that someone would say this to their senior leaders. Hegseth did exactly that. This can’t be captured by a mere email.

Symbolically and practically, it’s meaningful that the secretary of war said this directly to their faces, immediately reinforced by a speech from the commander in chief. Saying this face-to-face is not hostile; it’s a sign of respect among tough people.

Hegseth’s admonitions, from calling out fat generals to reminding them that personnel is policy, are best summed up in this statement: “It’s like the broken windows theory of policing. It’s like when you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff.” This principle should be understood by our military leadership, but it became a vestigial sentiment that was no longer actively practiced.

Aligned for lethality

For too long, side quests have taken the military’s focus off lethality. Military standards were changed to accomplish partisan distractions. Whether it was diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or the climate agenda, the leaders in the Quantico audience accomplished these side missions ruthlessly and effectively — to the detriment of their primary purpose.

RELATED: Pete Hegseth just ended the era of woke brass in the military

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Going forward, this speech empowered the military to fight against the entropy of distractions and declining standards. Whether they wear five stars or one, all of our star-ranked officers have been aligned to a new standard: lethality. This means effectively and ruthlessly accomplishing the only mission that matters: warfighting.

History, which favors winners, will view this as the moment the U.S. military was made great again. This will be remembered as the day the Trump administration aligned the stars, one in which our senior military officials were liberated to align their leadership with basic common sense.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Pete hegseth, Hegseth, Pete hegseth speech, Pentagon, Wokeness in military, Woke military, End wokeness, Military, Army, Navy, Air force, National guard, Coast guard 

After anti-ICE protests broke out in Portland, Oregon, President Donald Trump has announced plans to send troops to combat the lawlessness rampant in the liberal stronghold.

“At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump posted to Truth Social.

“I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he added.

However, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) wasn’t happy with President Trump’s announcement.

“Me and the group of elected leaders and community leaders behind me, we are in the central city of Portland, Oregon. And it is a beautiful day. Beautiful day, and we are very happy to be here speaking with you today,” Kotek began.

“In my conversations directly with President Trump and Secretary Noem, I have been abundantly clear with them that Portland and the state of Oregon believe in the rule of law, and we can manage our own local public safety needs,” she added.

“Wow. OK. So they got everything under control,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray jokes on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“I mean, there were some protesters that were armed, they had an explosive device there. I mean, that’s just Portland,” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in, adding, “We haven’t even talked about the Illinois Broadview Facility yet or what’s happening in Los Angeles. I mean, it’s chaos everywhere, and it’s by design.”

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with pro-Israel American social media influencers at the Israeli consulate in New York City on Friday following his speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

At the meeting, Debra Lea Schwartzben, a New York-based influencer who founded a Turning Point USA college chapter and has worked as a marketing coordinator at Fox News, asked Netanyahu what is to be done in the event that evangelical support for Israel begins to wane.

There appears to be a generational shift under way in the evangelical community. A 2024 report from Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of the United States revealed that whereas in 2018, 68.9% of American evangelicals under 30 said they supported Israel, that number plummeted to 33.6% in 2021. Despite that significant drop, support reportedly stabilized from 2021 to 2024.

According to the findings of a new survey released by the Quinnipiac University Poll, 47% of all American voters think that supporting Israel is in the national interest; 41% disagree; and 12% declined to opine.

‘We’re going to have to use the tools of battle.’

“Evangelicals are the reason that Israel has been supported in public sphere outside of just Jews,” said Schwartzben. “With Charlie’s assassination and with the … trajectory that we see with, like, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, I guess I’m curious about what’s another game plan if we lose evangelical support for the state of Israel. What’s our backup plan to be strong, like, outside of the diaspora?”

In his reply, Netanyahu apparently referred to Owens, Carlson, and other such “Christian influencers” using the terms “woke right” and “Woke Reich,” noting that “these people, they’re not any different from the woke left. I mean, they’re insane. They’re loonies. But they’re actually meeting on some of the things.”

“We have to secure that part of our — the base of our support in the United States,” continued Netanyahu. “That is being challenged systematically.”

Blaze News has reached out to Netanyahu’s office for clarification about his meaning of “woke right” as well as to Owens and Carlson for comment.

RELATED: ‘Woke right’ smear weaponized by liberal interlopers against MAGA conservatives, populists — and Arby’s?

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Israeli officials and advocates for the Jewish state appear to be growing increasingly concerned over the so-called “woke right,” a flexible term that has been used by liberals as a smear against various conservatives but appears in the context of Netanyahu’s Friday remarks to specifically denote isolationists on the right and those critical of Israel and/or Middle Eastern military interventions.

Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, for instance, cautioned Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in an open July 13 letter — shortly after Kirk and Megyn Kelly raised the question of whether Jeffrey Epstein may have been a Mossad asset — about platforming Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and other so-called “conspiracy theorists,” claiming that the named Americans “are not conservatives; they are full-blown wokists just wearing different costumes.”

“I’m asking you: please stay true to your strong moral compass and speak out against antisemitism, whether it comes from the woke left or the woke right,” added Chikli.

Karys Rhea, a former associate producer at the Epoch Times and delegate for Israel365 Action, told the Tel Aviv-based “ILTV News Podcast” in December that members of the so-called “woke right” say that “they are part of the America First movement. They’re very clear about that. They consider themselves patriots, usually proud Christians, people who are anti-censorship, pro-faith, pro-family, anti-globalism, anti-Marxism, anti-elitism. But people have observed that it seems like both their beliefs and their actions say otherwise”

The beliefs that Rhea insinuated were disqualifying for an American conservative and qualifying for the “woke right” label appear to largely center on criticism of Israel.

Rhea added that Tucker Carlson is the “godhead” of the “woke right.”

Author Danny Burmawi recently suggested in the pages of the Times of Israel that “while the left vilifies Israel in the name of anti-imperialism and social justice, the woke right attacks Israel through the language of nationalism and religious betrayal. They see in Israel a foreign parasite, an ethnostate hijacking U.S. resources, dragging America into endless wars, and manipulating domestic institutions. They accuse the ‘Zionist lobby’ of corrupting Christian values, spreading cultural degeneracy, and controlling the media.”

After suggesting that the so-called “woke right” is both state- and NGO-backed, Netanyahu said on Friday, “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers.”

Netanyahu further told the influencers, “We’re going to have to use the tools of battle.”

The prime minister clarified that the weapons he had in mind were not swords or drones but social media, emphasizing the importance of TikTok and Elon Musk’s X.

“We have to fight the fight, okay? To give direction to the Jewish people and give direction to our non-Jewish friends or those who could be … our friends,” added Netanyahu.

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​Benjamin netanyahu, Netanyahu, Israel, Woke, Woke right, Foreign policy, Leftism, Leftist, Politics 

Democrat lawmakers have rejected Republican attempts to keep the government open amid a looming shutdown, demanding an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller slammed Democrats for refusing to support a “clean, routine government funding bill because it doesn’t give free healthcare to illegals.”

‘The approximately $66.4 billion in federal expenditures attributable to illegal aliens is staggering, and constitutes an increase of 45 percent since 2017.’

Neera Tanden, the former domestic policy adviser under the Biden administration, accused Miller of pushing a “total and complete fabrication.”

“This is a lie. It is a violation of law for the ACA premium tax credits to go to illegal aliens,” Tanden wrote in a post on X.

ACA’s eligibility standards require an individual to be a U.S. citizen or a lawfully present noncitizen, which can include asylum-seekers, refugees, and those granted employment authorization. The Biden administration relaxed criteria for various categories of immigration status, allowing more foreign nationals who were previously considered unlawfully present to qualify for status that may be eligible for ACA tax credits.

Additionally, multiple studies have uncovered that federal tax dollars do reach illegal aliens through the health care system.

RELATED: Democratic governor hands tax dollars to illegal aliens for college tuition while state drowns in debt

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The Congressional Budget Office found in October 2024 that the Biden administration had cost state and federal taxpayers $16.2 billion to cover Medicaid emergency services for illegal aliens since taking office.

Paul Winfree, president and CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, told Fox News Digital in March that California has been “exploiting an existing loophole within law” to use billions of dollars in reimbursements from the federal government to provide illegal immigrants with Medicaid.

“Medicaid spending is supposed to be jointly financed by the federal government and states. However, states are increasingly designing Medicaid money-laundering schemes that result in massive federal expenditures without any state financial obligation,” an EPIC report claimed. “The state of California, colluding with insurance companies who cover Medicaid beneficiaries, has created one of the most outrageous ones yet, a money-laundering scheme that results in California obtaining more than $19 billion in federal money without any state contribution over the period from April 2023 through December 2026.”

California’s Department of Healthcare Services claimed EPIC’s report was “misleading.”

RELATED: Did your state just sue the Trump administration to keep benefits flowing to illegal aliens? Here’s the list.

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A 2023 study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform found $66.4 billion in federal expenditures on illegal aliens, including $23.1 billion in medical spending.

“The approximately $66.4 billion in federal expenditures attributable to illegal aliens is staggering and constitutes an increase of 45 percent since 2017. This amounts to roughly $3,187 per illegal alien, per year,” FAIR reported.

“Illegal aliens do qualify for many benefits,” Ira Mehlman with FAIR told Blaze News. “Illegal aliens who have been granted parole, [Temporary Protected Status], or DACA qualify for these benefits because — while they remain illegal aliens — they are lawfully present. Under the Biden administration, millions of illegal aliens were paroled into the country or granted TPS and have been able to access these benefits.”

Editor’s note: This article has been edited after publication to include a statement from Ira Mehlman with Federation for American Immigration Reform.

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​News, Medicaid, Affordable care act, Aca, Stephen miller, Neera tanden, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Health care, Politics 

In a highly anticipated in-person speech to nearly every general and admiral in the U.S. military, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth laid down his marker: the warrior ethos must once again define America’s armed forces. A great nation needs a great military. That is his aim.

The audience mattered. Senior officers have lived for decades under politicized leadership that drained readiness and morale. Many of them became complicit in the decay. Hegseth addressed that reality head-on.

Restoring standards

No issue exposes the compromise of standards more clearly than the push to force women into combat roles. In 2015, President Barack Obama ended the combat-exclusion policy that had kept certain military professions male-exclusive. Alongside that change came the promise of a “neutral” fitness test that would evaluate service members without sex-based bias.

Hegseth did not dismiss the service of women or minorities. He rejected the falsehood that readiness and lethality can coexist with preferential treatment.

Reality quickly destroyed the illusion. The Army never implemented a sex-neutral test. Women could apply for the same jobs as men but received higher fitness scores for weaker performances. In 2021, under political pressure, Army generals dropped the “leg tuck” exercise — the only event that measured upper-body pulling strength — because women performed comparatively worse. Senior officers defended these changes as if they were sacred doctrine.

Even special operations forces were not spared. Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, then commander of Army Special Operations Command, produced the “Women in ARSOF” report. He had solicited candid feedback from Green Berets, Rangers, and operators. The report dismissed their concerns as bigotry, portraying combat veterans as sexists in need of re-education.

The 83-page document dwelled on alleged discrimination in schools like Jumpmaster and agonized over access to contraception. It devoted not a single paragraph to whether integrating women made America’s most lethal units more lethal. It didn’t — so the report pretended not to notice.

Research ignored, ideology embraced

Serious studies on women in combat confirm what soldiers already know: Sex-integrated units fight with less effectiveness than male-only ones.

Commanders in 2015 knew this, yet they embraced an ideology that put politics above victory. They proved willing to compromise the standards that safeguard success on the battlefield.

Hegseth’s speech on Tuesday declared that era over and done. The administration will close the door on identity politics in uniform and restore a culture rooted in the warrior ethos, not fashionable slogans.

RELATED: Hegseth declares war on woke military policies: ‘We are done with that s**t’

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Consequences of compromise

The consequences are not abstract. Every diluted standard, every political accommodation, every double standard based on sex or race weakens the institution charged with defending the nation. A military that bends to ideology loses sight of its sole purpose: to fight and win wars.

Hegseth did not dismiss the service of women or minorities. He rejected the falsehood that readiness and lethality can coexist with preferential treatment. He rejected the belief that temporary political fashions should rewrite timeless military traditions. And he reminded the brass that generals and admirals who pushed progressive experiments cannot be trusted to restore strength.

The way forward requires courage. Leaders must speak truth over ambition, defend standards without apology, and recommit to preparing soldiers for combat. The pride and strength of the American military depend on it.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Pete hegseth, Hegseth, Defense secretary, Secretary of war, Military readiness, Military, Military meeting, End wokeness, Wokeness, Wokeness in the military, Transgenderism 

Netflix is facing renewed boycott threats after Elon Musk said he canceled his subscription over transgender indoctrination and incendiary comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

The tech entrepreneur posted on X, the social media platform he owns, in response to the controversies springing up about the entertainment streaming service.

‘A random nazi gets shot and its a public statement. You’re such a f**king evil s**t.’

The popular Libs of TikTok account posted a video clip from a show on Netflix, which is sold as being appropriate for children as young as 7 years old. The video from “Dead End: Paranormal Park” shows a main character coming out as transgender to a friend.

The show is based on a comic book series created by Hamish Steele, who lists his pronouns as “he/they” on his website and is proud of receiving an award from the LGBTQ group GLAAD.

Steele also allegedly posted extremely harsh statements on the BlueSky platform about Kirk after his death in response to someone else’s post.

“Why the f**k are you even commenting on this, d**khead? You sympathy [sic] for any of the families being slaughtered by your weapons but a random nazi gets shot and its a public statement,” Steele wrote. “You’re such a f**king evil s**t.”

“He’s a groomer,” Musk replied to the post from Libs of TikTok.

Musk then said he canceled his Netflix account.

Libs of TikTok reported that Steele locked up his account on BlueSky after the backlash.

RELATED: LGBTQ activists complain companies are caving to backlash against Pride Month: ‘They’re scared to death’

Others jumped on the bandwagon to post screenshots of their cancellation notices from Netflix.

“JUST CANCELLED MY @netflix ACCOUNT. We will not support a company who pushes transgenderism on kids and employs someone who celebrates m*rder,” one post reads.

The show originally debuted in 2022 and lasted only two seasons before Netflix cut the show.

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​Elon musk, Netflix boycott, Charlie kirk mockery, Transgender indoctrination, Politics