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The sheriff’s office in Bay County, Florida, said officers responded Tuesday to a reported home invasion robbery at a residence in the 8200 block of Random Road. The area is about 10 minutes north of Panama City Beach.

Patrol deputies made contact with the victim, who reported that two masked suspects entered his home while he was sleeping and stole a large amount of cash, officials said.

He said Swartz earlier in the evening contacted him by phone requesting to visit his home and stating that she got his number through a mutual acquaintance, officials said.

The victim stated he confronted the suspects inside the residence and chased them out, officials said, adding that the suspects then fled in their SUV.

The victim then entered his own vehicle and pursued the SUV off Random Road and eastbound on Highway 388, officials said.

During the chase, the victim reported striking the suspect vehicle multiple times in an attempt to stop it, officials said, adding that after the final impact, the suspect vehicle swerved and crashed into a ditch.

When deputies arrived, they learned that the occupants of the crashed vehicle fled on foot into a nearby wooded area, officials said.

Investigators soon learned that the crashed vehicle was registered to 22-year-old Sarra Swartz, officials said.

While processing the scene, investigators found a large amount of cash in the vehicle and on the ground near the driver’s door, officials said, adding that the cash appeared consistent with the victim’s report of money taken during the home invasion.

The victim amid the investigation also provided additional information about events preceding the robbery, officials said.

RELATED: Florida home invader threatens homeowner with weapon, advances toward him, refuses to leave. But crook picks wrong victim.

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

He said Swartz earlier in the evening contacted him by phone requesting to visit his home and stating that she got his number through a mutual acquaintance, officials said.

The victim agreed, and Swartz arrived soon after and remained at the residence for about 15 to 30 minutes before leaving, officials said.

The victim added that he displayed a large amount of cash while giving money to his girlfriend — and while Swartz was present — which may have been observed, officials said.

After Swartz left, the victim fell asleep, officials said, after which he said his girlfriend woke him up screaming that individuals were taking his money.

The victim saw two masked males inside the residence, officials said, and described one as a tall, larger white male and the other as a shorter black male armed with a baseball bat.

The victim’s girlfriend also reported seeing what appeared to be a handgun in the possession of one of the suspects, officials said.

Deputies detained one suspect in the woods, later identified as 37-year-old James Crowe, officials said, adding that Crowe provided information identifying two additional suspects and detailed events leading up to and following the robbery.

As the search continued, investigators found Swartz walking along a road west of the crash site, officials said.

A short time later, investigators saw the third suspect, Devarius Stewart, seated in the passenger seat of a vehicle stopped in the area, officials said.

Stewart initially refused commands to exit the vehicle, officials said. However, with the arrival of additional units, Stewart and Swartz were detained and transported to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office for interviews, officials said.

RELATED: Armed Florida homeowner fights back against 4 thugs who reportedly try to force their way into his residence

(L to R) James Crowe, Sarra Swartz, Devarius Stewart. Image source: Bay County (Fla.) Jail, composite

Crowe, Swartz, and Stewart were arrested and charged with home invasion robbery with a deadly weapon, officials said.

Bay County Jail records indicate that all three remained behind bars Friday morning; Swartz’s bond is $75,000, Stewart’s bond is $100,000, and Crowe is being held without bond. Records also indicate that Crowe faces an additional charge of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon; his bond is $20,000 for that charge.

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​Crime thwarted, Arrests, Florida, Florida crime, Bay county sheriff’s office, Vehicle chase, Woods, Fighting back, Ome invasion robbery with a deadly weapon, Crime 

A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area has made abundantly clear that it will not be dominated by the sensitivities of activists — those whose apparent discomfort with America’s Christian inheritance has them fighting to hide civic symbols of courage, honor, and bravery.

Dealt a legal setback in October, the city of Quincy is now asking the state’s top court to weigh in on the matter of an angel and a saintly firefighter.

Saints and iconoclasts

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch commissioned renowned sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov to design two 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside their new public safety headquarters.

While the city had erected other statues by Eylanbekov without issue, this time was different as the new statues also carried religious significance — one depicting Florian, a 3rd-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon.

The statues have many fans in the community, including Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy, who indicated he feels “honored” by the Michael statue, and Quincy Firefighters Local 792 president Tom Bowes, who said, “Florian embodies the values that are most important to our work as firefighters: honor, courage, and bravery.”

Not all were, however, pleased.

‘If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone.’

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined a handful of locals in suing last May to block the installation.

Among the plaintiffs are:

a Unitarian social justice warrior; a self-identified Catholic who finds the “violent imagery” of good triumphing over evil to be “offensive”; a local synagogue member who suggested the images “may exacerbate the current rise in anti-Semitism”; an Episcopalian who believes that walking past such statues would amount to “submission to religious symbols”; and a lapsed Catholic who suggested the image of Michael stepping on the head of a demon was “reminiscent of how George Floyd was killed.”

Their lawsuit claimed that “affixing religious icons of one particular faith to a government facility — the city’s public safety building, no less — sends an alarming message that those who do not subscribe to the city’s preferred religious beliefs are second-class residents who should not feel safe, welcomed, or equally respected by their government.”

The complaint strategically neglected to mention the significance of Michael in other religions, in the Western literary canon, and pop culture. Similarly, it largely glossed over Florian’s potential secular appeal, emphasizing his recognition by Catholics as a saint.

RELATED: ‘Scandal’: Abortion radical’s appointment at University of Notre Dame has local Catholic bishop outraged

Detail from 17th century painting of Michael vanquishing Satan. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Mayor Koch emphasized in an affidavit that “the selection had nothing to do with Catholic sainthood, but rather was an effort to boost morale and to symbolize the values of truth, justice, and the prevalence of good over evil.”

The plaintiffs evidently saw things differently as their complaint suggested the statues’ installation “will not serve a predominantly secular purpose,” but rather to “promote, promulgate, and advance one faith, subordinating other faiths as well as nonreligious traditions.”

Setback

Norfolk Superior Court obliged the iconoclasts in October, blocking the planned installation of the already purchased and completed statues while the case proceeds.

Judge William Sullivan, a Democratic appointee, said in his ruling that “the Complaint raises colorable concerns that members of the community not adherent to Catholicism or Christian teaching who pass beneath the two statues to report a crime may reasonably question whether they will be treated equally.”

The judge suggested further that the statues “serve no discernable secular purpose.”

“Although defendants argue that the public has an interest in inspiring the city’s first responders in carrying out their work to maximum effectiveness, the court does not conceive the ability, commitment, and enthusiasm of members of the Quincy Police and Fire Departments to serve the communities will be appreciably undermined if the two statues are absent for the duration of this litigation,” added Sullivan.

The ACLU — which has alternatively defended the erection of satanic displays on public grounds — celebrated the ruling with Massachusetts chapter staff attorney Rachel Davidson thanking Sullivan for “acknowledging the immediate harm that the installation of these statues would cause.”

Onwards and upwards

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed last month to hear an appeal of the lesser court’s ruling — an opportunity welcomed both by the ACLU of Massachusetts and the city of Quincy.

“We look forward to defending Quincy’s plan to honor our brave first responders at the Massachusetts high court,” Mayor Koch said at the time.

The city — represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Quincy solicitor James Timmins — filed a brief with the SJC on Wednesday, making mince meat of the activists’ arguments and underscoring the statues’ permissibility under the law.

The brief reiterated that the statues have a secular purpose; their primary effect will not be to advance religion; and their prohibition based on religious hostility would violate the U.S. Constitution.

The brief noted further that the plaintiffs lack standing “since merely observing public symbols one finds disagreeable is not a cognizable injury” and that “the placement of inanimate statues as public art on a public building does not implicate direct support of religion in any manner, let alone the subordination by law of some faiths to others.”

To prohibit the statues would also be “at odds with the robust history of public display of other symbols with religious significance” in the state, said the brief.

There are, for instance, statues of Moses and “Religion” in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courthouse; a statue of Pope John Paul II — a Catholic saint — in the Boston Common; and a statue of Quaker martyr Mary Dyer outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

“The ACLU’s theory in this case is tragically simple: If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone,” Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city of Quincy, said in a statement.

“The ACLU’s radical rule flouts our nation’s civic heritage and decades of court decisions,” continued Davis. “The Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court should reject the ACLU’s Puritanical demands and make clear that artworks don’t have to be purged from the public square just because they might make someone think of religion.”

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The Super Bowl halftime show is one of the most powerful cultural platforms in the world, and Turning Point USA’s Jack Posobiec was well aware that challenging would not be easy — but the organization took it on anyway.

“I’ve heard the NFL tried to get you guys not to do it,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck says to Posobiec.

“So here’s what I can say. … Kid Rock himself came up — Bob came out and said, ‘It’s David and Goliath,’” Posobiec explains.

“This is what he was referring to because I knew that by picking a fight with the biggest cabal in America … we’re talking Hollywood, we’re talking corporate America, the biggest sports event in the country — the most money that goes into this thing because it has the most cultural power — that we were going up against Goliath,” he says.

“I don’t think we realized the ways that they can get you — the ways that they can gatekeep you and block you. Now, look, I’m not going to sit here and say that I, you know, I have an email from Roger Goodell that says, ‘You shall not do this,’ right?” he continues.

“This is the way that these elite events work is that it’s a trickle-down system, but they’re all connected through the sponsorships, the advertisers, the venues, the musicians, the music rights, the labels,” he adds.

Posobiec points out that there were times where artists would say, “Love to do it; can’t wait.”

“But then something would always happen, Glenn, somewhere along the line in that conversation, with — I want to say at a very large percentage of people we talked to, suddenly it was, ‘Oh, you know, something came up and we just can’t do it,’” he tells Glenn.

“And then they play games with the rights to the songs as well … because the publishers and the licensers have the song,” he explains, noting that the organization would have been sued to the tune of “tens of millions in liabilities” because “somewhere back in the office someone says ‘No Turning Point USA.’”

“This happens all the time in our world,” Glenn responds, “but it only happens, Jack, when you’re making a difference.”

“That shows how terrified they were of this,” he adds.

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Those with the means are fleeing America’s public schools. A recent article in The 74 reports that enrollment has dropped more in affluent Massachusetts districts than in all of the state’s low- and middle-income communities combined. That “rich flight” shows up even in a state whose schools routinely rank near the top nationally.

The 74 points to a July 2025 study by Joshua Goodman and Abigail Francis, published in Education Next, that compares actual Massachusetts enrollment to what pre-COVID trends predicted. The authors found a clear shift away from public schools and toward nonpublic options. Public-school enrollment came in 1.9% below the projected level. Private-school enrollment ran 15.6% above projections. Homeschooling rose 50% above projections.

Parents want options. If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line.

Charter enrollment moved the other way: 18.9% below pre-trend predictions, though nearly flat compared with 2019. The study notes that Massachusetts law caps the number of charter schools statewide and limits how much district funding can flow to them, which likely constrains charter growth even when demand rises.

The income story is the most revealing. Enrollment losses proved “substantially larger” in high-income districts. Top-income districts lost nearly 50% more students than the lower-income four-fifths combined.

The authors also compared Massachusetts to national 2023 data and found similar patterns, suggesting that this is not a Bay State anomaly. It is a national trend with a clear lesson: Families with options are using them.

That matters for at least three reasons.

First, affluent families are choosing private schools even though they already pay for public schools through taxes. That means they are paying twice — once to support a system they are leaving and again in tuition to exit it.

If families with the greatest ability to navigate public-school choice still choose to walk away, that should raise a blunt question: How many more middle- and working-class families would leave if they could afford to?

It also raises another: How much bigger would charter schools be if Massachusetts did not restrict their growth by law?

Second, Massachusetts is not a cautionary tale of failing schools. It is widely viewed as a high-performing state. Yet the families most able to choose still choose private education. If families are leaving in a state with strong academic reputations, how much faster would the flight be in states with mediocre outcomes and chronic disorder?

Third, Massachusetts offers choice largely within the public system, not through broad state-supported private-school options. Even charter expansion is restricted. Families who can afford to buy their way out are doing it anyway. Families who can’t are stuck.

The conclusion follows: Private education is winning the revealed-preference test. Parents with money choose it — even when it costs them twice.

RELATED: Teaching kids to hate America will have real-world consequences

Getty Images

Now imagine what happens when parents don’t have to pay twice. How popular would private-school options be if families could use a tax credit or scholarship to offset what they already pay into the system?

That question should terrify teachers’ unions. It should energize lawmakers.

School choice has already become a major political force, and it will only grow as parents lose confidence in public schools. That may help explain why Americans keep moving south. The biggest population gainers from 2014 through 2024 included states like Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida — states with low taxes and high growth, yes, but also states that have embraced school choice more aggressively than Massachusetts has.

Meanwhile, the broader K-12 picture remains grim. Public dissatisfaction has risen sharply in recent years, and the academic and behavioral fallout from COVID-era closures has not fully receded.

Chronic absenteeism remains high. Math scores remain depressed. School leaders report more disruption, more fighting, more bullying, more classroom chaos, and more fear among parents. Seventy-five percent of college faculty “say current students are less prepared in critical thinking, reading, and analysis compared to pre-COVID students.”

At some point, blaming the pandemic becomes a dodge. The system’s decline began before COVID, and it has not reversed since.

If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line. Parents want options. The country needs academic recovery. Competition would do more to improve outcomes — and to break the political stranglehold of teachers’ unions — than another decade of excuses.

​Public schools, Charter schools, Covid, Massachusetts, Public education, Homeschooling, Private schools, American education, School choice, Opinion & analysis 

Police said in a press release that they arrested a middle school vice principal in a child sex sting operation in San Jose, California.

The San Jose Police Department said officers were conducting the sting operation ahead of the Super Bowl game when they got 31-year-old Ruben Guzman to respond to their decoy.

Police asked for help from the public to identify other possible victims, given the suspect’s access to children at his job.

The suspect believed he was communicating with a 13-year-old boy when he allegedly offered to exchange money for sexual acts, according to police.

“Guzman arranged to pick up the child in the city of San Jose,” Police Sgt. Jorge Garibay said in the release. “But when he arrived, he was apprehended by officers with the SJPD Covert Response Unit who immediately took him into custody.”

Police said that when they searched him as well as his vehicle, they found “items consistent with the planned encounter” but did not elaborate on what those items were.

They then discovered that Guzman was working as an assistant principal at Sunrise Middle School located in San Jose.

Guzman was arrested and booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on a charge of communicating with a minor for sex.

Police asked for help from the public to identify other possible victims, given the suspect’s access to children at his job.

RELATED: Oklahoma attorney allegedly took Viagra and bought condoms before meeting to sexually assault 5-year-old, but it was a police sting

A KRON-TV report noted that his bio on the school’s website read, “My job as a teacher is to make students believe in themselves and take an active role in their community.”

Sunrise Middle School administrators said in a statement to KRON that Guzman was removed from the campus immediately and would not be allowed to have contact with students.

“Last Wednesday, we were informed by law enforcement that our assistant principal had been arrested in connection with allegations involving a minor that did not involve our school. Our immediate priority was student safety,” administrators said in part. “We have spoken with students in age-appropriate ways, communicated directly with families, and made counseling support available on campus. At this time, there is no information indicating that any Sunrise students were involved. While this is deeply upsetting, it does not reflect who we are as a school.”

Another 10 men were nabbed in the sting operation.

RELATED: Note saying ‘Call the police’ leads to arrest of elderly man’s live-in caretaker, police say

Image Source: San Jose Police Department press release composite

The suspects were named Cesar Rodriguez-Vela, Jose Garcia-Hernandez, Nelson Mejia-Rivas, Dexter Goody, Luis Medina De Leon, Gonzalo Yesca, Michael Valdeolivar, Harjeet Singh, Joey Minh Truc Nguyen, and Frank Huang, according to a separate press release.

They were also booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on charges that included attempted lewd acts with a minor, arranging meetings with a minor for sexual purposes, and child exploitation crimes.

The suspects ranged in age from 25 to 72 years old.

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​Middle school principal, Child sex sting operation, Ruben guzman arrested, Super bowl child sex sting, Crime 

America is edging toward a major economic crisis. Not a routine downturn or a mild recession, but something far worse. The Big One. We haven’t hit it yet, and we still have time to change course. But if Washington stays on its current track, trouble is coming.

You don’t need insider access to see it. It isn’t hidden. You only need to look at the numbers.

If Americans insist on responsible budgeting and smaller government, elected leaders will follow. That is how representative government works.

Federal budget documents describe an unsustainable path. Economists across the spectrum say the same. Credit rating agencies have issued warnings. The basic point is simple: We spend far more than we take in, year after year, and the bill keeps compounding.

What makes this moment dangerous is that we have little room left to respond when the next shock hits. We have nearly exhausted our fiscal space, which limits how much more we can borrow without triggering serious consequences. When the next crisis arrives, Washington won’t have the flexibility it relied on in the past. That’s when a bad situation turns into a true break.

Markets are already sounding alarms. Gold and silver prices have climbed. The dollar has weakened. Long-term rates have risen even as short-term rates fall. Foreign governments and major funds have reduced their appetite for U.S. debt. Investors don’t do that out of ideology. They do it when they see risk.

The hard part is not explaining the fix. The hard part is getting the country to accept it.

Too many Americans assume we are immune to the limits that bind every other nation. We are the biggest economy, the world’s reserve currency issuer, the greatest military power. So the thinking goes: Nothing can really happen to us.

That belief is the trap.

If we wait until the crisis becomes obvious to everyone, we will pay a much higher price. The damage will land on ordinary households first, and it will not be easily reversed. It is also immoral to hand our children and grandchildren a country buried under obligations it cannot meet.

RELATED: Washington printed promises. Gold called the bluff.

Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The remedy starts with first principles.

America’s founders did not build a system designed for permanent deficits and permanent expansion. They assumed limited government, manageable levels of debt, fiscal balance over time, and rules that protect the public without choking growth.

The economy has two broad parts: the public sector and the private sector. The public sector enforces law, protects the country, and provides basic administration. The private sector produces the goods and services that create real prosperity. When government grows beyond what taxpayers can support, it crowds out growth, drives up costs, and invites the temptation to paper over deficits with money creation.

Fiscal balance means spending and revenue align over time. When spending consistently exceeds revenue, debt rises. When debt becomes too large, governments lean on the central bank, and inflation follows. Inflation pushes interest rates higher and erodes purchasing power.

A growing government paired with chronic deficits becomes a slow-motion squeeze on the middle class through higher prices, higher borrowing costs, and higher taxes.

Regulation has a legitimate role. But today’s regulatory state has expanded into a sprawling, unelected bureaucracy that writes rules with little accountability. Burdensome regulation raises costs, slows productivity, and makes the economy less resilient.

RELATED: Congress needs to go big or go home

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

We need to bring the size of the federal government back in line with what the tax base can support. That means controlling spending, reforming programs that drive long-term obligations, and reining in regulation that serves bureaucracy more than citizens.

None of this is easy politically. Elected officials won’t act if voters demand ever more benefits and services without acknowledging the costs. That’s why public understanding matters.

Reform will require hard choices. It will require changes to benefits. But we can protect those who truly need help while restoring sanity to federal finances. The alternative is allowing events to impose those choices on us in the worst possible way — through crisis.

If Americans insist on responsible budgeting and smaller government, elected leaders will follow. That is how representative government works. The window for orderly reform is still open. It won’t stay open forever.

​Gold, Silver, Markets, National debt, Long term bonds, Short term bonds, Economy, Government spending, Fiscal responsibility, Federal government, Opinion & analysis, Debt bomb 

Turning Point USA’s All-American Halftime Show ignited controversy after Kid Rock took the stage — a choice BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey admits initially left her stunned.

“You’ve got Turning Point saying that they’ve got this family-friendly show, but then they have Kid Rock, who is not really a family-friendly guy, singing,” Stuckey explains, pointing out that this has become an “intra-Christian battle.”

When Stuckey initially heard that Kid Rock was playing at the Turning Point halftime show, she admittedly was skeptical.

“I don’t think of him as kid-friendly. … I know that he has a history of being very raunchy. He’s definitely about the, like, sex, drugs, and rock and roll; drinking; and things like that. So, I was very surprised,” she explains.

At one point in the show, Kid Rock began sharing the gospel.

“There’s a book that’s sitting in your house somewhere that could use some dusting off. There’s a man who died for all our sins hanging from the cross,” he said, singing, “You can give your life to Jesus, and he’ll give you a second chance, till you can’t.”

“OK, I love that. I loved that message. I love the theme of this song. It’s called ‘’Til You Can’t.’ And that line is so true, that Jesus will give you a second chance. He’s got all of this grace to give, until you can’t, and until you take your last breath,” Stuckey comments.

However, Kid Rock also sang songs that celebrated degeneracy.

“So, very confusing, and a lot of people rightly pointed out this seems a little bit hypocritical,” Stuckey says, but one post on X helped her make sense of it.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion & backlash, especially from the Christian community, about Kid Rock’s performance during TPUSA’s All-American Halftime Show. I believe I can clear things up …,” Jon Root began in a post on X.

“Kid Rock started his set by performing ‘Bawitdaba’, which came out in 1999. It is a vulgar song, referencing topless dancers, drinking, crooked cops, bastards, etc. Hearing that was a shock to a lot of us. Rightfully so. It felt worldly, which I believe was the point …,” he continued.

“Next, there was an acoustic set with two people playing a Christian hymn. It was meant to be an emotional bridge to what came next. … Finally, it transitioned to Kid Rock, his stage name, being introduced back to the stage as Robert Ritchie, his birth name. He then played a revised version of ‘Til You Can’t,’ which included lyrics about Jesus Christ,” he explained.

“He also spoke about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, encouraged people to follow Christ, and to read their Bibles. This was supposed to be an artistic way of portraying a redemption story. I don’t know Kid Rock’s walk with Christ, but he used this moment to point people to Christ, and I rejoice in that (Philippians 1:15-18),” he concluded.

“We should always praise God when the gospel is preached,” Stuckey comments. “That is my take on that.”

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A federal judge temporarily blocked the punishment against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona over a video directing U.S. military members to refuse unlawful orders from the administration.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Thursday that Kelly’s First Amendment free speech rights were violated by Pentagon officials. He went on to say the punishment had “threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees.”

‘This will be immediately appealed. Sedition is sedition, “Captain.”‘

Kelly and five other Democratic members of Congress published a video in Nov. 2025 addressed to members of the military to remind them that they were not bound to obey orders that were unlawful.

The administration accused them of suggesting that the military should disobey any order from the administration, which would be treasonous. Hegseth said in a statement that the “reckless and seditious video” was “clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline.”

“The traitors that told the military to disobey my orders should be in jail right now, not roaming the fake news networks trying to explain what they said was OK,” President Donald Trump responded at the time. “It was sedition at the highest level, and sedition is a major crime. There can be no other interpretation of what they said!”

Kelly posted about Thursday’s ruling from his social media account.

“Today a federal court made clear Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said,” he wrote.

“This is a critical moment to show this administration they can’t keep undermining Americans’ rights,” he added. “I also know this might not be over yet, because Trump and Hegseth can’t admit when they are wrong.”

Hegseth responded to the ruling on social media.

“This will be immediately appealed. Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,'” he wrote.

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi outraged after Defense Sec. Hegseth orders removal of gay icon’s name from naval ship

Kelly responded by citing the conclusion from the judge’s ruling.

“Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired servicemembers, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired servicemembers have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years,” the passage reads.

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An online feud broke out between Cardi B and the Department of Homeland Security after she jokingly threatened federal officers during her concert in California.

The rapper had her Mexican fans cheer at the concert in Palm Desert before promising to “jump” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents if they tried to detain her fans at the show.

‘I’ve got some bear mace in the back! They ain’t taking my fans, b***h!’

“Bitch, if ICE comes in here, we gon’ jump they asses!” she said to the crowd, who responded with loud cheers.

“I’ve got some bear mace in the back! They ain’t taking my fans, bitch!” she added.

Video of her comments was posted by TMZ before the official account for DHS fired back at the rapper.

“As long as she doesn’t drug and rob our agents, we’ll consider that an improvement over her past behavior,” the agency wrote.

The rapper previously divulged that she drugged men in order to rob them when she previously worked as a stripper.

Cardi B then responded right back at DHS and the Trump administration over the release of the Epstein files.

“If we talking about drugs let’s talk about Epstein and friends drugging underage girls to rape them. Why yall don’t wanna talk about the Epstein files?” she posted.

RELATED: Cardi B calls America ‘ghetto’ and complains about JD Vance in rant praising Saudi Arabia

The Department of Justice released millions of pages from the Epstein files, but Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has claimed that names of co-conspirators were improperly redacted. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) also claimed that the redacted files contain a million mentions of President Donald Trump.

Cardi B was previously praised by those on the right for demanding to know what the U.S. government does with the 40% in taxes that she pays.

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​Cardi b vs ice, Ice fires back at cardi b, Celebrities against ice, Cardi b concert tour, Politics 

A majority of Americans say that the Democratic Party has become too left-leaning, and it’s been getting worse for at least three decades, according to a new CNN analysis.

While many in the media have been accusing the Republican Party of being too far right, polling indicates that more Americans say Democrats have been turning too far to the left.

‘The Democrats are moving to the left, the far left is gaining power, and there could be some electoral repercussions.’

CNN’s chief data analyst, Harry Enten, demonstrated how polling showed that more Democrats identify as liberal.

“The far left is significantly more powerful than they once were. This sort of gives the game away here. Democrats who identify as very liberal or conservative — you know there used to be a lot of conservative Democrats, right?” Enten said during the CNN segment.

“Back in 1999, 26% of Democrats self-identified as conservative. Just 5% said that they were very liberal,” he explained. “It was a smidgen, a smidgen, a smidgen. Now that far left has gained considerably in power.”

He showed that recent polling had 21% of Democrats identifying as very liberal and only 8% identifying as conservative.

Enten went on to reveal polling for the last three decades that indicated more and more Americans see the Democratic Party as too liberal.

“Look at this percentage. It’s 42% in ’96, 48% in 2013, now 58% in 2025 of all voters say that the Democratic Party is too liberal. The Democrats are moving to the left, the far left is gaining power, and there could be some electoral repercussions,” he added.

The CNN analyst posted the video of his segment to his social media account.

RELATED: ‘We have a glaring disadvantage’: Democrats panic as GOP dominates in fundraising: NYT

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Enten also pointed out that among Democrats, about a third considered themselves democratic socialists in recent polling. And that is low compared to Democrats under the age of 35. 42% of that cohort reported identifying as democratic socialists.

“What happened in New York City is not some aberration,” Enten continued, referring to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election. “It is not something that just happened in New York City. It is something that we’re seeing grow within the Democratic Party at this particular point.”

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Perhaps Snow White should have kept her seven dwarfs, after all.

The 2025 live-action remake of “Snow White” dropped its use of dwarf actors and ended up being a progressive disaster as star Rachel Zegler mocked the traditional story in media interviews.

‘We didn’t do that this time.’

“Snow White” dragged its way to an $87 million domestic weekend when it opened, and while that seems like a massive sum for anyone, filings reported by Forbes showed the movie had nearly double that in losses.

Poisoned production

“Snow White” ended up going over budget, ultimately costing $336.5 million. Its domestic opening was a reported 13% less than forecast, and its eventual worldwide intake of $205.7 million hurt Disney massively, and ended up being the fifth-lowest gross for a live-action adaptation for the studio.

Many memes and unsold tickets later, the 2025 “Snow White” reportedly lost $170 million; here’s how the math works.

The U.K. government gave “Snow White” a reimbursement for filming in its region, equating to $64.9 million (per Forbes). So, while that brings their net expenses down, the box office money is split between the studio and the theaters, leaving Disney with a $271.6 million bill and around $103 million brought in.

That left the Mouse House at a $168.7 million loss.

RELATED: Dwarf actors fire back after Peter Dinklage gets dwarves canceled in new ‘Snow White’ movie: ‘Disney — call me’

Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Snow blow

Zegler diminished her movie so much before its release that YouTube accounts had no problem making compilations of her bizarre critiques. This included clips of Zegler saying the older cartoon movie scared her the first time she watched it and confirmations that the new movie would stray away from a story about a prince rescuing Snow White.

“We didn’t do that this time,” she boasted.

The film also featured no dwarfs at all, in terms of real actors.

After “Game of Thrones” star Peter Dinklage criticized the production for doing a “backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together” in 2022, Disney dropped its dwarf actors and replaced them with computer-generated ones.

This confused audiences, many of whom agreed with actor Dylan Postl, who remarked that the apparent progressive move actually resulted in dwarfs not getting any roles in perhaps the biggest movie there has ever been with specific characters for dwarfs.

“Peter Dinklage spoke up about this, and that was my issue,” Postl said at the time. “He had in the past no issue cashing checks that were made for dwarf roles like ‘Elf’ and all of that. Yes, he blew away the barriers when he did his roles that weren’t necessarily made for a dwarf, but the ‘Elf’ role was made for a dwarf, that check cleared just fine.”

RELATED: ‘It’s hard being women under the spotlight’: Disney’s woke princesses praise each other for their diversity

Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Woke crusade

In the months that followed, Zegler continued her woke crusade in different media appearances. At one point in December 2023, she teamed up with fellow Disney princess Halle Bailey to preach more about the religion of diversity while simultaneously declaring their victimhood.

As for “Snow White,” it ranks only above some rather infamous live-action Disney flops. It tops only “Mulan” (2020), “102 Dalmatians” (2000), “Christopher Robin” (2018), and “The Jungle Book” (1994).

According to WDW News Today, when adjusting the domestic performance of “102 Dalmatians” and “Christopher Robin” for inflation, they actually beat out “Snow White,” dropping the film down to third-worst in the studio’s history.

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The NFL may be touting Super Bowl LX as another ratings success, but BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes the fine print tells a very different story.

“The ratings dropped for the Super Bowl and for Bad Bunny, and they got to spin it in some sort of way,” he says, though he notes there is “no positive spin on what just happened.”

“The viewership’s down 2% to 124 million,” Whitlock points out.

“If you read the fine print of the stories that are coming out and trying to spin these Super Bowl ratings, it actually tells the real story,” he explains, before reading an excerpt from a Front Office Sports report.

“Notably, this was also the first Super Bowl with Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement process. The methodology, first introduced last September, brings in millions of additional data points from set-top boxes and smart TVs. That expanded view of the market has helped produce viewership gains across much of live sports, and particularly pro and college football — but not with the Super Bowl,” the article reads.

“What that means is since September, when we rigged up this new accounting system at Nielsen that counts all of these extra people, we’ve boosted up the TV ratings for football. And since September, everybody in live sports has been benefiting from this new calculation and new system that keeps producing these record ratings,” Whitlock explains.

“They had a system in place designed to boost the ratings of the Super Bowl and didn’t boost the ratings of the Super Bowl. That’s an indicator. That’s an indicator that the NFL and the Super Bowl are losing their grip. They’ve become too arrogant,” he continues.

Whitlock believes that the drop in ratings means that “people are finally starting to wake up to the diminished content.”

“They’re producing more content, and they’re giving us more content, but the content is no good,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement is urging Georgia law enforcement officials not to release an illegal alien charged with sexual crimes against a child, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release exclusively obtained by Blaze News.

Juan Carlos Salvador Diaz, 29, was accused of sexual battery against a 10-year-old girl on August 1, 2025, and on December 1, 2023. Salvador Diaz allegedly committed these crimes at a Marietta apartment complex.

‘We need cooperation from state and local authorities to return these types of sickos over to us, so we can get them OUT of our country before they victimize more Americans.’

Local authorities arrested him on January 30, and he is facing two counts of aggravated sexual battery.

Salvador Diaz is currently being held without bond.

The DHS reported that the Honduran national illegally entered the U.S. in 2019.

The day after his arrest, ICE lodged an arrest detainer with the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office.

RELATED: ‘Not true’: Chicago Mayor Johnson’s ICE order has his own prosecutors up in arms

Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

ICE is urging the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office not to release Salvador Diaz from its jail without first notifying the federal immigration agency.

“This monster sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl. We are now asking Georgia authorities to commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainer to ensure this pedophile is not released and able to prey on more innocent children,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to Blaze News. “We need cooperation from state and local authorities to return these types of sickos over to us, so we can get them OUT of our country before they victimize more Americans.”

RELATED: Sanctuary city official cries ‘abduction’ when ICE arrests alleged drug trafficker — DHS fires back

Photo by Jim Watson – Pool/Getty Images

The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office’s website acknowledges that the DHS has a detainer against Salvador Diaz.

In January 2021, then-newly elected Sheriff Craig Owens terminated the sheriff’s office’s participation in ICE’s 287(g) Program, which allowed local law enforcement to identify and process immigration violators in its correctional facilities.

However, in 2024, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed HB 1105 into law, which requires “any custodial authority” to “comply with, honor, and fulfill any request made in the immigration detainer notice.”

The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

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Liberal activists in Los Angeles are organizing a new way to warn illegal aliens about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Amanda Alcalde founded the Highland Park Community Support Group for ICE operations and began posting flyers about their new plan: Install sirens.

‘It feels dystopian in a way.’

“We’d like to ultimately have this along all the different streets so they can take shelter,” Alcalde said to KTLA-TV.

The effort is not sanctioned by the city, so the group will have to find private property supporters and businesses where it can install the sirens.

She added that she was “really taking a lot of that influence from Minneapolis and trying to turn it into our own here.”

Activists already use whistles to alert each other about ICE agents.

“We don’t directly get ourselves involved with ICE, but we will get involved protecting the community to stay in their office or home,” activist David Trujillo said to KTLA.

Alcalde claimed that the ICE operations have led to a reduced presence of ethnic minorities in Los Angeles.

“I’ve seen a lot of fear in people’s eyes. I don’t see a lot of our ethnic minorities out in the day-to-day. It’s big change. It feels dystopian in a way,” she said.

Blaze News reached out to DHS for comment but did not receive a response by time of publishing.

RELATED: ICE accuses LA of giving ‘a middle finger to the law’ after county paves way for illegal aliens to receive funding

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, has openly opposed the Trump administration’s order to surge ICE operations in the city.

“There is no plan other than fear, chaos, and politics,” Bass said in July. “Home Depot one day, a car wash the next, armed vehicles and what looked like mounted military units in a park the next day.”

The KTLA report promoted the group’s efforts to raise donations from people who oppose ICE.

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A white-majority Chicago suburb is preparing to distribute hefty cash payments to dozens of black residents as part of the city’s $10 million reparations pledge.

Black residents and descendants of black residents who lived in Evanston, Illinois, between 1919 and 1969 are eligible to receive the payments. Evanston plans to pay $25,000 to 44 qualifying black residents.

‘They are just entirely giving money, usually to black residents solely on the basis of race.’

The City’s Reparations Committee previously pledged $10 million over a decade as part of its Reparations Program, which was established in 2019 and approved by the city council in 2021. The government-funded program is the first of its kind in the U.S.

Cynthia Vargas, Evanston’s communications and community engagement manager, told the Chicago Tribune that payments to the 44 individuals are intended to cover housing expenses.

The city has allocated over $270,000 to its Reparations Program, funds that it collected from the real estate transfer tax. The program also receives funding from the city’s 3% Cannabis Retailers Occupation Tax, though it is unclear how much.

The Reparations Committee has proposed providing additional funding to the program through a potential tax on Delta-8 THC products, a psychoactive substance found in cannabis that is sold in vapes and gummies.

RELATED: Chicago suburb starts disbursing $10 million reparations package to black residents

Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

“Delta-8 products tend to be rather inexpensive, so the tax on them, it likely won’t be a huge revenue stream, but it is revenue,” Alexandra Ruggie, the city’s corporation counsel, stated. “The other thing that we will have to work out with our finance team is how to go about collecting those taxes, whether we tax it when there’s a point of sale at an Evanston business, or whether or not we tax it when those businesses buy it from the supplier.”

RELATED: Trump pulls US out of ‘racist’ UN forum pushing ‘global reparations agendas’

Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog, filed a lawsuit against Evanston last year, arguing that the Reparations Program used race as an eligibility requirement and therefore violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do them,” Michael Bekesha, a senior attorney at Judicial Watch, told Fox News Digital. “So reparations are to repair. And so we have provided in this country reparations in the past when somebody has been wronged by the government, and we try to make that person whole.”

“The reparations programs that you’re seeing around the country that are being talked about aren’t that. They are just entirely giving money, usually to black residents solely on the basis of race. And I mean, that’s just problematic,” Bekesha added.

A spokesperson for the city told Fox News Digital that it cannot respond to ongoing litigation.

According to 2020 census data, more than 46,000 of Evanston’s 78,000 residents identify as “white alone.” Just 12,500 identify as “black or African-American alone.”

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In a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” host Joe Rogan and his guest reacted to the new Epstein files release, including a very personal detail for Rogan.

Rogan and guest Cheryl Hines, who is best known for her role in the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” discussed the bizarre findings of the new Epstein files, which included over 3 million documents, and pointed out the inadequacy of the government’s handling of the case.

‘I’m in the files for not going because Jeffrey Epstein was trying to meet with me.’

Rogan’s producer pulled up an article headline from the Associated Press that read, “FBI concluded Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t running a sex trafficking ring for powerful men, files show.” Asked for the provenance of the article, Rogan’s producer said, “It was going around the internet today.”

RELATED: ‘Smoking Gun’: Yale prof nearly blown up by Unabomber defends his Epstein emails

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“Oh, today?” said Hines, who is married to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. “I thought that was from 2005.”

“That’s the gaslightiest gaslighting s**t I’ve ever heard in my life,” Rogan said. “What do they think is going on? Just a bunch of fun? A bunch of guys hanging out, being fellas? Having cocktails, talking about science?”

Prior to that exchange, Rogan also mentioned to Hines that he was in the files, but not for the reason people think.

“I’m in the files for not going because Jeffrey Epstein was trying to meet with me,” Rogan said.

The New York Post suggested that Canadian theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss had attempted to introduce Rogan and Epstein back in 2017, citing an email exchange that was released in the latest files dump.

“I was like, ‘B***h, are you high?'” Rogan recalled asking about the man who tried to connect him to Epstein.

Hines asked him if he was glad that he never went to meet Epstein, to which Rogan replied, “I would have never went anyway. It’s not even a possibility that I would have went — especially after I Googled him.”

Krauss did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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It started with a dispute between two Texas friends over sharing french fries and ended with one of them shooting the other in the head, Fort Worth police said.

Police said officers were dispatched around 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28 to an apartment complex near the 9500 block of Jeremiah Drive in reference to a shooting.

‘He didn’t think he was going to get shot, especially over french fries that [were] his.’

Officers arrived on scene and found an adult male victim with an apparent gunshot wound to his head, police said.

Detectives with the Gun Violence Unit learned that an argument between friends had taken place over an order of french fries that the victim did not want to share with the suspect, police said.

A verbal argument between the two escalated to a shooting, police said, adding that the suspect fled the apartment after the shooting. Detectives interviewed multiple witnesses and have identified the suspected shooter, who was known to live in the same apartment complex, police said.

However, police said they did not locate the suspect after conducting a search of the area and apartment complex.

Officers began CPR on the shooting victim until Fort Worth Fire EMS relieved them, police said. The victim was taken to a local hospital but was pronounced dead several hours later, police said.

Lemarques Darden, 18, was arrested Monday and faces a murder charge in connection with the shooting death of 19-year-old Jarvis Davis, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The paper said Darden was booked into the Fort Worth City Jail. By Tuesday, he was booked into the Tarrant County Corrections Center; jail records on Thursday indicate Darden is still behind bars with no bond.

Davis’ mother, Sherika Kennedy, told the Star-Telegram that a Wingstop meal was nearly over at the apartment when the argument between the two friends erupted.

Kennedy told the paper that when Davis declined to share his fries, the suspect got angry and fired a bullet into Davis’ head. Kennedy’s son died several hours later in the trauma intensive care unit of Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, police told the Star-Telegram.

RELATED: Thug allegedly stabs to death Macy’s security guard — just minutes after guard caught him trying to steal hats and let him go

“He didn’t think he was going to get shot, especially over french fries that [were] his,” Kennedy told the paper.

The Star-Telegram added that Davis had lived in Fort Worth for a year but grew up in Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana. He moved with his family to Texas in 2020, settling in Lewisville, his mother told the paper.

“He was only 19, with his whole future ahead of him,” Kennedy wrote in a GoFundMe post. “He was a loving son, a protective brother, and a fun-loving uncle to his three nieces. He brought laughter, energy, and love to those around him, and his absence has left a deep void in our hearts.”

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When the footage of Nancy Guthrie’s alleged kidnapper emerged online, it was met with optimism and confusion. On one hand, it was a much-needed lead in a case that has mostly run dry. On the other, the video wasn’t supposed to exist due to a number of circumstances. The fact that the FBI obtained and revealed the images immediately raised privacy concerns over Google’s recording and storage practices, some of which are valid, though the full truth is more complex.

The problem

On February 10, 2026, the FBI released the only known footage of Nancy Guthrie’s suspected kidnapper — a person wearing a balaclava mask, heavy gloves, a jacket and pants, and a backpack.

The admission that the FBI procured cloud-saved footage from an account with no cloud backup subscription raised red flags.

What makes the existence of the footage so perplexing is that the kidnapper disconnected the Nest doorbell camera that captured these images. He also stole the camera from its mount, removing it from the scene and making it inaccessible to law enforcement. Adding insult to injury, Nancy Guthrie reportedly did not have a Google Home Premium (formerly Nest Aware) subscription. This service stores captured video footage in the cloud so that it can be accessed remotely via the Nest app.

With no physical camera and no cloud storage backup, the FBI had no viable route to obtain footage that could identify the suspect. However, after 10 days of working directly with Google, the FBI managed to extract a short video clip “recovered from residual data located in backend systems,” according to FBI Director Kash Patel.

While it’s great to have a lead in the Nancy Guthrie case, the admission that the FBI procured cloud-saved footage from an account with no cloud backup subscription raised red flags throughout social media, with some jumping to the reasonable conclusion that Google stores video footage without users’ knowledge or consent, making it accessible to third parties and law enforcement. If true, this is a huge violation of privacy on Google’s part, and the public deserves a proper answer outside Kash Patel’s vague explanation.

Well, as it turns out, there is a reasonable explanation for everything, and it is even protected under Google Nest’s terms of service. Here’s what we think happened and why it’s actually a good thing that the footage was available.

RELATED: FBI releases terrifying video of masked and allegedly armed individual in Guthrie case

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The explanation

While most modern Nest cameras don’t come with big onboard SD cards or hard drives, they do feature limited onboard storage — aka “local cache” — that can save up to three hours of event video history. At the same time, this same video history is sent to Google’s servers for temporary storage, regardless of whether or not the user has an active Google Home Premium account.

“Why?” you might ask? “Isn’t that an illegal invasion of privacy?”

No, actually. According to Nest’s terms of service, Google processes video data on its servers to “provide the Nest Cam features and services that you’ve requested.” These features include livestreaming, which is accessible when a user opens the Nest app to check the live feed on one of the cameras. It also enables three-hour event history that users can search to find important motion events, like a creepy stalker removing your doorbell camera from the wall.

The residual data that the FBI gathered from Google was likely included in the three-hour event history that was saved on the device and transmitted to Google’s servers for safekeeping.

The big takeaway is that all users agree to send their footage to Google when they install and use a Google Nest product. It is part of Nest’s feature set, and it is completely within Google’s rights to share this information with the FBI for life-threatening cases, the same way the company would share your Google Drive files with law enforcement if they were implicated in a criminal case.

Nest’s privacy faux pas is actually a good thing

The ironic part in this entire story is that the suspect himself is the reason the footage exists. For users who don’t have a Google Home Premium subscription, the three-hour event history saved directly to Nest cameras and Google servers is temporary. It is designed to be overwritten as the camera continues to run and capture new motion events.

That didn’t happen in this case, however. Why? Because the suspect disabled the camera and removed it from the wall, thus stopping it from collecting more recordings and overwriting the evidence that he was ever there. If he had simply left the camera running, the last footage available would have shown the police searching the grounds of Nancy’s home instead of himself. It was the ignorance of the suspect, and the suspect alone, that froze the three-hour window on the images of his face, delivering a devastating blow to his covert operation.

The kidnapper essentially outed himself to the world.

Google is not completely innocent

While the suspect’s ill-fated actions may be the seminal piece of evidence needed to reveal his identity, Google isn’t off the hook entirely here. Yes, Nest’s terms of service imply that Google may process captured video data on its servers, but it’s not explicitly clear that videos are sent off to the cloud in a manner that makes them obtainable from Google’s servers. This means that practically anyone’s footage captured in the most recent three-hour window is potentially accessible by law enforcement. This isn’t something that should be possible, even for cases involving the FBI.

The privacy concerns that have spread throughout social media are completely valid, and Google deserves all the criticism for it. Just because this time the extracted footage may be helpful in a critical case, that is no excuse for the loophole in Google’s system that made it possible in the first place.

​Tech 

For a football player, winning the Super Bowl is the Mount Olympus of athletic dreams. Unless, of course, he wins it in California.

“If you win the Super Bowl in California, then they send you a bill that says, ‘Uh-oh, you lose,’” laughs Glenn Beck.

Since the Super Bowl was hosted in San Francisco, the state of California taxes not just the income the players earned for the game but for all their “duty days.”

But just how much money are we talking?

“This is going to blow your mind,” says Glenn.

Unlike many other states, “California reaches backward months into the past, and they claim the right to tax a slice of your entire season salary based on how many duty days you spent in the state. … So they’re not just taxing the bonus; they’re not just taxing the game check; they’re taxing you the entire year,” he explains.

What does that mean for the Seahawks players, who each received a $178,000 bonus for winning the Super Bowl? It means that they “[owed] the state more than that in taxes,” says Glenn.

“How can you lose money winning the Super Bowl? Well, California’s found a way to do it,” he scoffs.

California implements what is called a “jock tax,” which is the harshest nonresident income tax scheme on visiting athletes.

“In California, they’re giving you the highest marginal rate in the country. It’s over 13%, and they’re thinking about raising it,” says Glenn.

“When a government decides it can tax income earned elsewhere just because you happen to pass through, you’re not taxing activity; you’re taxing existence. That doesn’t work out well,” he warns.

In the 1970s, Richard Cloward and Frances Piven — two “crazy Marxist professors,” says Glenn — “collapsed New York [City]” when they intentionally overloaded the U.S. welfare system by mass-enrolling eligible people in benefits, aiming to force a crisis that would lead to major reforms.

“They had high taxes, aggressive enforcement — ‘you owe us because you were here.’ What followed in the 1970s?” asks Glenn. “Capital flight.”

“Why do you think Rush Limbaugh left? Why do you think Sean Hannity left? Why do you think I left?”

France has a similar story in its history books. In the 1980s, the nation imposed a hefty “wealth tax,” spurring a historic exodus of the nation’s richest people.

“The wealthy didn’t pay more. They left. And by the time the [French] government repealed the tax, tens of billions of dollars in capital already [were] gone, along with all the jobs and the investment that came with it,” says Glenn.

Ancient Rome is yet another example.

“In Rome — late empire — they took productive citizens and just squeezed them,” says Glenn. “Why? Because … they were bloating the state. They needed to pay for the giant state. Tax base completely collapsed. Economy followed — gone.”

“There is a lesson in every civilization that has tried this. … You cannot tax people into staying. You can only tax them into leaving.”

But will California heed history’s warnings? It’s not looking promising for the Golden State.

“Six straight years of net population loss [in California]. … Hundreds of major companies are gone. Film production is a thing of the past. Billionaires are moving their residence. Where? To Florida,” says Glenn.

But “instead of asking the question what’s happening here, they just answer the same way: just tax what’s left.”

“That’s the danger of the ‘jock tax’ mentality,” says Glenn, “because once you accept the idea that location alone gives the government the right to reach into your entire life, there is no limiting principle any more.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sharply criticized a Minnesota Democrat during a Senate Homeland Security hearing Thursday, blaming him for encouraging protests that the Republican lawmaker said helped set the stage for the deaths of two activists amid a high-profile federal immigration enforcement operation.

Johnson accused Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison of creating conditions that, he said, contributed to the fatal shootings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.

‘Yeah, sit there and smirk. Smirk. It’s sick. It’s despicable.’

“Two people are dead because you encouraged them to put themselves into harm’s way,” Johnson told Ellison during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

“A tragedy was going to happen, and you encouraged it. And you ought to feel damn guilty about it.”

Johnson’s criticism continued when Ellison appeared to smirk, stating: “Yeah, sit there and smirk. Smirk. It’s sick. It is despicable.” Ellison fired back, labeling Johnson’s remarks “all lies” and a “nice theatrical performance.”

RELATED: Olympic skier who wrote ‘F**k ICE’ in snow now says he is victim of ‘hate and vitriol’

Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Johnson went on to detail incidents of protester violence and interference that he said escalated the danger for federal agents. “These law enforcement officials have been shot at. Their vehicles have been rammed by some of these ‘peaceful protesters,’ probably the trained activists. They’ve had rocks thrown at their vehicles,” Johnson said.

RELATED: Skier Hunter Hess changes tune after saying he has ‘mixed emotions’ about representing USA: ‘I love my country’

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“You’ve got all these trained activists behind you,” Johnson said, “Is it any wonder they’re at hair-trigger alert? A tragedy was going to happen, and you encouraged it!”

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