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When an elected official swears an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend the United States, that pledge should mean something. But what happens when a member of Congress chooses to place her allegiance with another country over the United States? It’s a violation of that oath, plain and simple.

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a sitting member of Congress, openly stated in Spanish during a political event in Mexico City, “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.”

If we don’t demand that our elected leaders place their loyalty to the United States above all else, then we risk the very foundation of this republic.

Ramirez didn’t have a casual slip of the tongue. Her statement was a declaration of her loyalty to another nation. And it’s not just her words that are troubling; her husband, according to Rolling Stone, is in the U.S. illegally. That’s a violation of our immigration laws — laws that Ramirez should be sworn to uphold.

— (@)

Ramirez’s statement isn’t an isolated incident. This is part of a growing pattern where elected officials, like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), proudly identify with their country of origin before America. They claim cultural pride, but celebrating your heritage is distinctly different from putting your identity above the country that gives you the freedom and opportunity to express that identity.

Heritage vs. loyalty

I’m proud of my heritage, as many Americans are. My wife’s family is a great example. They’re Italian-Americans who are very proud of their roots. But they would never say they’re “Italian before American.” They are Americans who cherish their heritage.

This is what Theodore Roosevelt meant when he said, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.” This is not a swipe at immigrants. This is a call for unity under one flag, one national destiny. For too long, we’ve allowed dual loyalties to take root in the very institutions that are meant to protect our sovereignty. This is how nations crumble.

George Washington warned against foreign entanglements and divided loyalties in his Farewell Address. He understood the dangers of dual allegiances. He knew the republic couldn’t survive if its leaders pledged allegiance to foreign powers instead of the Constitution.

This isn’t about whether you love your country of origin. It’s about the fundamental principle of loyalty to the United States. You can’t serve in Congress, be part of the body that governs and protects America, if you’re more loyal to another country than to the sovereignty and integrity of the U.S.

National security at risk

This issue goes beyond politics. It goes to the very heart of our national identity. The growing influence of foreign allegiance among our elected officials poses a direct threat to national security. You can’t be trusted to defend America’s borders and enforce immigration laws if you’re willing to place another country above your sworn duty.

RELATED: Ilhan Omar claims Somalia is better than America

Photo by Anadolu/Getty Images

Congress must hold these people accountable. Ramirez must be removed from any committees related to national security or immigration. She has shown that her loyalty lies elsewhere. Her position on the Homeland Security Committee is not only a conflict of interest, it’s a violation of the trust placed in her by the American people.

Her husband’s illegal status must be investigated thoroughly. If you or I were in the same situation, we’d be facing the consequences. There’s no reason why she and her family should be above the law.

Time to act

This issue is about loyalty, integrity, and national security. If we don’t demand that our elected leaders place their loyalty to the United States above all else, then we risk the very foundation of this republic. The time to act is now.

Will Congressional lawmakers listen to the American people and choose America, or will they continue to play politics with our sovereignty? We need to know, now more than ever, whom these leaders are really serving.

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​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Rep. delia ramirez, Delia ramirez, Ramirez guatamala, Ilhan omar, Rep. omar, Rep. ilhan omar 

Last Friday, Hamas released a propaganda video capturing emaciated 24-year-old Israeli hostage Evyatar David digging his own grave in a dark Gaza tunnel.

“It’s really sick,” says Glenn Beck, noting that David was one of the unfortunate victims captured by Hamas at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

“I haven’t seen a Jewish person look like this since the Holocaust,” he sighs.

Sadly, the media outrage is lacking, to say the least.

Mainstream outlets regularly amplify Hamas’ narrative that Gaza is starving but pay little mind to the Israeli hostages who are starving in captivity. Even worse, they refuse to acknowledge that Gaza’s starvation is a direct result of Hamas capitalizing on the hunger crisis by intercepting aid.

If the media really cared about starving Gazans, why squash the truth about why they’re starving? And why ignore successful efforts by genuine humanitarians to quell the crisis?

Glenn shares the incredible story of a 30-year old woman from Eastern Jerusalem named Sarah Awaidah, who has received almost zero media attention for her aid initiative that has fed over 100,000 Gazan families via a clever operation that bypasses Hamas.

By partnering with Mena Aid, a regional partner coalition operating under the Multifaith Alliance, in coordination with Israeli authorities, Sarah’s team “built a system that moved hundreds of trucks of food and supplies into Gaza, bypassing Hamas and private contractors who had turned hunger into a business,” says Glenn, reading from a Fox News article.

“Did you catch that line? Bypassing Hamas and private contractors who had turned hunger into a business,” he says, emphasizing the truth the media refuses to acknowledge — that Hamas is the reason Gaza continues to starve.

In June 2025, Sarah’s team decided to “scale up distribution … at a time when no one was able to get anything into Gaza because of looting, chaos, and multiple layers of obstruction on the ground” by mapping “an alternative route.” Working with multiple “trusted logistics partner[s],” many of whom were Israeli, Sarah’s team “[reached] Northern Gaza, where people had not seen a stable supply of food for months.”

Israeli authorities were critical in Sarah’s mission. They “tried to cut off these private-sector schemes by shutting down the routes that allowed commercial profiteering,” Glenn reads, highlighting another truth the media ignores — Israel is assisting humanitarian efforts to aid Gaza.

While Sarah’s initiative has been highly successful, it has come at a cost: “Her own safety,” says Glenn.

The aid system Sarah and her team created undermined the Hamas-created economy that profits on hunger, which put a target on her back.

“There’s a lot of private-sector businessmen, some associated with Hamas and other political groups. They try to use aid to make millions of dollars because there’s such a shortage of goods and prices are so high. Some steal aid and sell it in the market. Others try to take over the supply route so they can resell it,” says Glenn, quoting Sarah.

“By flooding the market with free goods,” Sarah’s team “fed families” while simultaneously “[driving] down the inflated prices charged for basics like sugar and flour.”

The death threats came swiftly.

“I began receiving death threats, not just from Gaza, but from the West Bank. Heartbreakingly, some came from people I once trusted … and now my life is at risk because I refuse to let the private sector hijack aid for commercial gain or let political actors bend it to serve their goals,” said Sarah.

“Why isn’t everyone covering this woman?” Glenn asks.

To hear more of Sarah’s story and Glenn’s commentary, watch the video above.

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Police data indicates that Washington, D.C., saw a significant drop in violent crime in 2024 and continued improvements this year. Democrat D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser made a big deal about this positive trend in her April letter to President Donald Trump’s “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force” as well as in public statements.

Chatter about this trend serves to gloss over how these improvements are relative to statistics in 2023, when the city suffered a 39% increase in violent crime — the biggest violent crime spike in the country — and recorded more murders than in any year since 1997. Despite the spin by city officials, D.C. remains one of America’s most dangerous cities and has a long way to go to achieve a passing grade.

‘He is also a HERO for sacrificing his own safety to defend a helpless woman!’

The president, who has set his sights on D.C.’s beautification and safety, was recently confronted with yet more evidence of the violent state of the nation’s capital, this time manifest in a brutal attack on a former employee. It appears the attack may have been the last straw.

Trump shared an image Monday on Truth Social of a battered and blood-covered man, later identified as Edward Coristine, the young engineer known as “Big Balls” who previously worked for the Department of Government Efficiency.

According to Elon Musk, “a gang of about a dozen young men tried to assault a woman in her car at night in DC. A DOGE team member saw what was happening, ran to defend her and was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her.”

Marko Elez, a friend of “Big Balls” who also worked for the DOGE, said that he took the photo and indicated that “Edward protected a young woman from an attempted carjacking by 8 thugs near Dupont Circle.”

— (@)

The Metropolitan Police Department indicated that on Sunday, suspects approached the victims in the 1400 block of Swann Street Northwest, “demanded the victim’s vehicle and then assaulted one of the victims.”

According to an incident report obtained by Wired, police saw around 10 juveniles surround what was apparently Coristine’s vehicle. Before the mob descended on him, Coristine “pushed” his girlfriend, Emily Bryant, into the car, then “turned to deal with the suspects.”

RELATED: Trump signs executive order to help cities and states tackle homelessness and drug abuse

Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images

The thugs scattered when nearby police officers exited their vehicle.

Police have arrested and charged a 15-year-old male and a 15-year-old female of Hyattsville, Maryland, with unarmed carjacking.

Coristine has been hailed as a hero for facing the mob to defend Bryant and back up his nickname.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, noted, “Not only does Edward Coristine patriotically work to gut our government of waste, fraud, and abuse, he is also a HERO for sacrificing his own safety to defend a helpless woman!”

‘Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see.’

Trump, evidently disgusted with how Coristine was “beaten mercilessly by local thugs,” noted, “Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control. Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released. They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!”

Trump suggested that the juvenile thugs engaged in such crime should be prosecuted and sentenced as adults “starting at age 14.”

Newly confirmed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro vowed on Monday to “fight crime with a vengeance” and “make sure there are consequences” for crime.

RELATED: ‘Anti-white bigotry’: Mob beats victims down to street — including male who punches woman in face, apparently knocks her out

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and President Donald Trump. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

“Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see,” Trump added in his Truth Social post. “If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.”

Trump has long discussed a federal takeover of the city.

In February, the president suggested that the federal government should govern the district, stating, “I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely, flawlessly beautiful, and I think we should take over Washington, D.C., make it safe.”

Last month, again, the president suggested, “We could run D.C.,” adding that “we want a capital that’s run flawlessly, and it wouldn’t be hard for us to do it.”

During a press conference Monday evening concerning his establishment of a White House Olympics task force, Trump reiterated his intention to take over the city unless things drastically improve.

“Somebody from DOGE was very badly hurt last night. You saw that: a young man who was beat up by a bunch of thugs in D.C.,” said the president. “Either they’re going to straighten their act out in terms of government and in terms of protection, or we’re going to have to federalize and run it the way it’s supposed to be run.”

Federalizing America’s capital in a sustainable fashion would require the repeal or suspension of the District of Columbia’s Home Rule Act.

The Home Rule Act of 1973 enabled residents of the district to elect a mayor and a 13-member council and delegated certain powers to the district’s local government. D.C. was previously governed by Congress and federal appointees.

Republican lawmakers Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced legislation in February that would repeal the Home Rule Act one year after the passage of the bill.

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Owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, set off a chain reaction of nonsensical fights on the social media app X after attempting to explain his bad experiences working with agents like Jay-Z.

“Because when we have a problem with the player, the agent is nowhere to be found,” Jones explained. “Jay-Z said that Dez would make all meetings. Jay-Z and I negotiated the contract. We spent hours negotiating the contract. Jay-Z.”

“He said, ‘Anybody in my organization is on time.’ He said, ‘My office used to be on the street corner, and I’ve always been early. So they will be on time.’ I said ‘Where do I sign? But I’m going to call you.’ Finally quit taking my call,” he added.

Dez Bryant responded in a post on X, “JERRY JONES I DONT THINK ITS SMART TO MENTION MY NAME. I KEPT QUIET ABOUT A LOT OF UNFAIR SHIT. ON SOME G SHIT … WE CAN HAVE STORY TIME IF THATS WHAT WE ARE DOING.”

“So that’s Dez, being slightly undisciplined and just in his feelings and just injecting himself into this for really no reason in my view,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock says.

“Jerry Jones made Dez Bryant really rich at the time when he did the contract. He ended up the second highest paid wide receiver of all time. Anyway, he could have stayed out of it, because Dez, at the end of the day, Jerry Jones is an ally of yours,” he continues.

But it doesn’t stop with Bryant.

“Next thing you know, Nicki Minaj, who doesn’t like Jay-Z, she jumps in this, and she tells Dez Bryant, ‘Go beat your mom & then ask Desiree Perez & JAYZ why they’ve allegedly been the vile c***s they’ve been to so many black people while lining their own pockets and weaponizing racism in order to keep black people blinded from the truth,’” Whitlock reads from the rapper’s post on X.

Bryant then fired back, writing, “‘Say b***h I didn’t go to jail or touch my mama … I was defending myself … I removed her nails from my skin … folks know I was dealing with some curupt [sic] s**t in Dallas … I don’t get how you can even be on the internet with your husband being a sex offender. … You said we are speaking facts weird h*e … so come on.”

“This is tribalism,” Whitlock says. “There’s no loyalty. There’s no set of values. There’s no standard in tribalism. There’s no protection of each other. There’s no looking out for each other.”

“We got to cut the cosplay out because this clown role that we’ve been given … it’s not working. We’re making fools of ourselves,” he continues, adding, “It doesn’t create loyalty. It doesn’t.”

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Between soaring stock prices and a relatively new presidential administration stretched thin while putting out global fires, you might think Big Tech tyrants are enjoying a free pass. Has their censorship and collusion been quietly forgotten?

Perhaps not.

While consumers have clearly benefited from many Big Tech companies’ baseline goods and services, it’s evident that the companies have resorted to extralegal and unsavory measures to maintain and grow their market share.

Without the slightest fear of consequences, Silicon Valley monopolists spent years targeting dissenting voices — not just conservatives, but nearly anyone slightly out of tune with the far left. Those who refused to play along found social media accounts restricted — or even banned outright — while search engine algorithms buried websites so far down the results list that few would ever find them. This sinister practice became known as “shadow-banning.”

Ultimately, their plan to manipulate voting outcomes backfired. Despite their best efforts, Republicans swept 2024’s elections, and tech executives have conveniently made a late shift toward the GOP. Though their smiles flashed during President Trump’s inauguration were spun as a mark of a genuine change of sentiment, their real intentions were obvious: to cozy up to the new guys in power.

Luckily, despite seemingly chummy behavior, the Trump White House is going after Silicon Valley.

The Trump administration fights back

In late July, the Justice Department filed a landmark statement of interest in a case accusing mainstream media outlets of illegally colluding with social media giants to deplatform conservatives. Just two weeks before, a federal judge rejected Apple’s attempt to dismiss the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the company.

These are the latest examples of the tide turning against Big Tech. While the leaders have tried to cozy up to the Trump administration, their pleas have already fallen on deaf ears and will continue to do so.

While some are surprised by Trump’s efforts to rein in Big Tech, these moves are consistent with his philosophy.

In his first term, his Justice Department joined with 15 mostly Republican-leaning states to file an antitrust suit against Google.

Moreover, Vice President JD Vance historically has been a critic of Big Tech, even expressing support for the work of Lina Khan, President Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair, who aggressively went after the largest offenders. Last year, Vance described Khan as “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.”

Personnel is policy, and thus it’s telling that one of Vance’s former staffers, Gail Slater, now heads the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

Slater, speaking about the suit against Google earlier this year, said, “In a time of political division in our nation, the case against Google brings everyone together.

“Nothing less than the future of the internet is at stake.”

No Big Tech sympathy there.

Biden’s anti-capitalist approach

However, Biden’s and Trump’s approaches to antitrust issues have notable differences. Biden’s brigades wanted to either punish or scapegoat companies for reasons rooted in far-left economics.

In announcing the suit filed against Apple in March 2024, the Justice Department said the company’s net income “exceeds any other company in the Fortune 500 and the gross domestic products of more than 100 countries.”

Similarly, in announcing a case against Visa last year, the department cited the company’s operating income, operating margins, and network fees.

The implication is that the companies’ outsized earnings were evidence of their guilt.

The suit filed against Visa was particularly egregious. The company’s market share is only 60%, with no evidence of anti-competitive activity, and a raft of upstart competitors could lead that market share to decline.

Breitbart News reported that the suit was politically motivated (to scapegoat for Bidenflation). Biden administration officials hoped that the Southern District of New York would overlook the weak claims within the suit and proceed.

Trump’s pro-capitalist accountability

By contrast, Trump administration officials are looking to strengthen capitalism, not tear it down. “Big” should always merit skepticism, but Trump’s antitrust team knows it doesn’t always have to be bad. In the absence of unfair company practices, administration officials don’t want to interfere. They believe upholding law and order is the basis of antitrust law.

The tide is turning against Big Tech.

Thus, when a federal judge ruled in April that Google had violated antitrust law, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department would focus on “encroachments on free speech and free markets by tech companies.”

Apple and others certainly have plenty of evidence of that!

Honesty and transparency are fundamental to free markets. But both Google and Meta have admitted to failing on both counts. In May, Google agreed to pay a fine of $1.4 billion to Texas in response to two lawsuits that accused the company of privacy violations related to tracking users’ locations and searches.

Last year, Meta also paid $1.4 billion to Texas, following allegations that it had used facial recognition software without getting users’ permission to do so.

Honesty also means not rigging the rules in your favor. But that’s exactly what Google has been charged with in several antitrust cases. The company has lost three of these cases involving its app store, search engine, and advertising technology.

In some jurisdictions, it’s three strikes before you’re out. No wonder the Trump administration didn’t amend the Biden Justice Department’s call for Google to be broken up. Given how the tech giant now operates units ranging from YouTube to a self-driving taxi company, some say the company should break itself up.

RELATED: Congress has the power to crush Big Tech’s app monopoly

Photo by Bloomberg/Getty Images

Moreover, Apple’s brazen tactics have stood out among its Big Tech brethren. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that the company had “willfully” failed to comply with an earlier court order related to its app store. In trying to cover its tracks, the judge said Apple engaged in a “cover-up,” which included one employee lying under oath.

Justice for Americans

While consumers have clearly benefited from many Big Tech companies’ baseline goods and services, it’s evident the companies have resorted to extralegal and unsavory measures to try to maintain and grow their market share.

Their losses in the courts and their lack of support in the Trump administration are bad news for them, but great news for the American people.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Big tech, Big tech censorship, Apple, Meta, Google 

There are no surprises anymore.

In our day and age, we seem focused on making our lives as predictable as possible.

Every single day for nine months, I wondered who it was.

We can flatten the roller coaster otherwise known as life. We can know the weather tomorrow or the day after. We can know what’s going to kill us with blood tests, scans involving complex probabilities, and a catalog of family history. Someday soon we might even be able to know just exactly how many years we have left with 99.9% accuracy.

Of course, it’s easier to plan that way. And I’m sure we’d all agree one of the major benefits of technology is that it often lets us eliminate unpleasant surprises: Nobody ever wished for a more “interesting” medical checkup or airplane flight.

Suprised by joy

The danger is that in our eagerness for certainty and control, we end up eliminating the good surprises as well. Surprises that make you smile, rather than shudder: opening a thoughtfully wrapped gift, finding out you got the promotion, learning that a girl you’ve been thinking about has been thinking about you too.

Remember that youthful feeling? It’s youthful because it takes a certain optimism and playfulness to embrace surprise — especially when it would be easier to just cut to the chase.

The greatest, most meaningful surprise I’ve experienced has been as a new father.

The waiting game

You wait nine long months, planning for the future as best you can. Then one day you rush to the hospital. More waiting as your wife goes through labor, as you do whatever you can — if anything — to help her through it.

Then, in one incredible moment, you find out if you have a son or a daughter. There’s nothing like that surprise.

Today, not many “wait to find out,” as we say. Most parents are anxious to know if it’s a boy or a girl, so as soon as they are able to do the test and find out, they do the test and find out.

I get it. I really do. It’s the most exciting thing in the world knowing that you are going to be a parent, and you just want to know if it’s a boy or a girl. Who is that little person growing inside?

It’s hard to wait all that time, refusing to know when you could so very easily know. All you have to do is call your doctor, and in a few seconds he can tell you.

That way you can buy the right clothes and paint the nursery the right color. And honestly, that little moment on the phone is its own little surprise.

RELATED: Baby wars: Trump voter birth rate outpacing Democrat voters in record numbers

Photos by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images, Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Mystery meet

But waiting is better. It really is. We always wait with our kids, and I have to say that nothing in life compares to that one incredible moment. It’s when they arrive. When they leave the protected world of their mother’s womb and join us in ours.

We see them for the first time, in flesh and blood, and we know who they are, or at least one thing about who they are. “It’s a girl!” Or, “It’s a boy!”

Waiting was hardest with our first. There was already so much we were excited about, anxious about, confused about, and generally worried about, that holding off and not learning whether or not we were having a boy or a girl was pretty tough.

Every single day for nine months, I wondered who it was. But I waited and only found out I had a son, in one heart-shaking breath, two seconds before I held him.

God knows

With our second, it was easier. We thought it was going to be a boy. Our first was a boy, it was all we knew, and for some reason we just swore it was going to be the same. We had a feeling.

We felt wrong; it wasn’t a boy, and learning that it wasn’t early one November morning after our car broke down on the way to the hospital was a shock no smaller than that of a few years prior when we found out we had a son.

It’s the waiting and knowing that the answer is known, but not by you. Knowing that someone is in there — and we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but we are going to know soon — is a nine-month tease unlike anything else we experience.

It’s a tension that builds, a question that keeps being asked. And then, finally, it’s answered in one euphoric moment and no matter the answer, it’s a good one, and you just can’t believe it.

The greatest surprise in life is the surprise of life. Babies — they are life. New, beautiful, fresh, pure, innocent life. They are our future. In reality and symbol. And so we wait all those months, and when finally we have an answer to our question, we hold them and look at their little watery eyes and ask them quietly, knowing that they can’t possibly respond, “Who are you going to be?”

There are still surprises left in life.

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In the centuries following North America’s separate visits by Catholic explorers Leif Erikson, John Cabot, and Amerigo Vespucci, the United States has counted tens of millions of Catholics as its own but not a single pope — until this year.

On May 8, Chicago-born Robert Prevost, one of America’s over 60 million Rome-ward citizens, became supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Leo XIV.

The unprecedented nature of Pope Leo’s papacy has generated some uncertainty about the status of his citizenship, which federal law indicates could, in some cases, be taken away from an American who accepted a position as a foreign head of state.

According to the U.S. State Department, “A U.S. national’s employment … with the government of a foreign country or a political subdivision thereof is a potentially expatriating act pursuant to Section 349(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act if the individual is a citizen of that foreign country or takes an oath of allegiance to that country in connection with such employment.”

The policy clarifies that accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of a foreign office can result in expatriation “only if done voluntarily with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship.”

The State Department works under the presumption that Americans intend to keep their U.S. citizenship when they “naturalize as nationals of a foreign state, declare their allegiance to a foreign state, or accept non-policy level employment with a foreign government.”

RELATED: Republicans steamroll Senate Democrats, confirm Trump’s pick for Vatican ambassador who illuminated Harris’ bigotry

Photo by Cristian Gennari via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

The U.S. Supreme Court made clear in a January 1980 ruling that in establishing loss of citizenship, the government must “prove an intent to surrender United States citizenship, not just the voluntary commission of an expatriating act such as swearing allegiance to a foreign nation.”

Paul Hunker, an American immigration attorney, told the Catholic News Agency, “I think unless he comes forward and says, ‘I have the intention of relinquishing my U.S. nationality,’ then he is not considered to have lost his U.S. citizenship.”

While Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the papacy “is not a political office, it is a spiritual office,” the pope nevertheless commands temporal powers that appear to qualify his position as policy-level employment, meaning his citizenship status could undergo greater scrutiny.

‘He is the Holy See.’

In addition to serving as spiritual leader of over 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, Pope Leo is the absolute monarch of the world’s smallest country.

According to Vatican City law, he holds “the fullness of the power of government, which includes the legislative, executive, and judicial powers,” directing the 121-acre Vatican City, its population of 673 citizens, and its full diplomatic relations with 184 states, including the U.S., where CatholicVote co-founder Brian Burch was just made President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the Holy See.

RELATED: Pope Leo XIV: The right leader for a church in crisis

Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Whereas Americans employed by foreign governments in non-policy-level foreign government positions don’t have to take any steps to retain their U.S. citizenship, those in policy-level positions could face review and questions about their intent with regards to their nationality.

The State Department policy notes that it “will only actively review cases in which a U.S. national is elected or otherwise appointed to serve as a foreign head of state, foreign head of government, or foreign minister,” and does so because “such cases raise complex questions of international law, including issues related to the level of immunity from U.S. jurisdiction that the person so serving may be afforded.”

When pressed by the Associated Press, the State Department declined to comment about the pope’s status, noting that it does not discuss the citizenship of individuals.

To ensure that the pope remains an American at least on paper, Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) recently introduced legislation prohibiting the revocation of U.S. citizenship during a papal tenure.

The so-called Holy Sovereignty Protection Act, which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means on July 17 and presently has six Republican co-sponsors, would also exempt the pope from U.S. tax obligations.

“The election of Pope Leo XIV marks a historic moment not only for the Catholic Church but for America,” Hurd said in a statement. “This legislation ensures that any American who answers the call to lead more than a billion Catholics worldwide can do so without risking his citizenship or facing unnecessary tax burdens. This legislation recognizes the extraordinary nature of the papacy — a role at the intersection of faith, leadership, and global responsibility.”

While the pope technically remains an American Catholic with those whom Alexis de Tocqueville described as the “most zealous citizens,” Andrea Gagliarducci, a Vatican analyst for CNA, noted, “You cannot consider the pope a Peruvian, a U.S. citizen, or whatever. He is the Holy See. This is different; it is another world.”

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The parents of a boy targeted in a murder plot from his classmates spoke out about the incident and answered some questions about the shocking case.

Police have not released many details about the four fifth graders who were arrested over a plot to stab their victim and make it look like a suicide, as previously reported by Blaze News.

‘He’s like, well, you know, “They wanted to kill me, but I’m not dead.” Like, literally, that’s how he acts now.’

The victim’s mother, Brittany Mudd, and his stepfather, Nick Bernardi, told KTVK-TV that they wanted to dispel some of the rumors that were floating around online about the incident.

The couple said their son was only 10 years old when the plot was discovered by children he had considered his best friends at the West Surprise campus of Legacy Traditional Schools in October. He is also autistic, which had not been previously reported.

“It was literally his friends at school tried to murder him,” Bernardi said.

While the police report said the murder was planned because of a breakup involving the boy, the couple denies that explanation for the motivation.

“It wasn’t a love triangle. It was just a bunch of kids that would hang out in the playground,” Bernardi said.

“But it doesn’t really matter why. There’s literally no reason or anything that a little kid could do for that to be what you choose to do,” Mudd added.

They said they were shocked at the amount of planning that was undertaken in the plot. Police said one of the children was told to act as a lookout, another would forge a suicide note, a third would commit the stabbing, and a fourth would provide the knife.

“Maybe it’s different now, but when I was 10 years old, we did not know about covering our tracks, fingerprints and police investigations, crime scenes. Like, that is not something that you’re supposed to know at 10,” Bernardi said.

“What movie did you just watch? What shows are you watching?” Mudd asked.

RELATED: Children were drugged and raped in underground bunker, stunned police say: ‘Most horrible thing I’ve ever seen’

The couple worries that one of the four children was reportedly unapologetic and expressed no remorse after getting caught. The girl was said to be laughing while making excuses for the plot.

“That’s psychotic behavior,” Mudd said.

“There was a mastermind to this, and what is going to happen to stop this child from potentially being a real offender, doing it again? Being kicked out of school, that really doesn’t change much because that doesn’t fix your behavior,” Bernardi said.

A notice from the court to the couple said that all four students involved were ordered to participate in a juvenile diversion program. They were also supposed to write an apology letter, but so far that has not happened.

“It’s closure, right? I mean, the courts are done, but the lives that were impacted are just left out to float away and just deal with it,” Bernardi said.

They also discussed the effect the entire incident had on their boy.

“He’s like, well, you know, ‘They wanted to kill me, but I’m not dead.’ Like, literally, that’s how he acts now. And it’s just like, that’s a normal part of his life now, you know?” Bernardi said. “And it kills us every time we hear it because, like, what do we say?”

“He was vulnerable with these kids and thought they were his friends, and look what happened. So, now I think part of him is a little afraid to have more friends like that again,” Mudd added.

They said the boy has been moved to another school in the Legacy Traditional Schools system.

A statement from a Legacy Traditional Schools spokesperson said they reacted in accordance with district protocols but said they could not discuss the case because of privacy laws.

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​5th grade girl plot, 11 year old murder plot, Surprise child attack, Plot to murder boy, Crime 

Two days after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced the central bank’s decision not to reduce interest rates, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported scathingly bad news about the U.S. economy.

Employers added much fewer jobs than expected in July, revised numbers showed that employment and hiring were weak in May and June, and the unemployment rate ticked up again in July, reaching 4.2%.

Powell and the Fed have been doing their best to stunt economic growth — and they are succeeding.

Although Powell refuses to admit it, the Fed’s tight money policy is crushing economic growth.

In an impressive “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment, Powell said on Wednesday that the Fed was not ready to lower interest rates, citing low unemployment and inflation slightly above the Fed’s stated goal of 2%. Despite the Fed having lowered its target interest rate three times last fall to its current level — even though inflation remained “somewhat elevated” at the time, as the Fed put it — the Fed seems to have changed its tune under the Trump administration.

Friday’s numbers destroyed Powell’s explanation. The 73,000 new jobs in July were far below the 110,000 that economists had expected. In addition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics cut the reported job-creation totals for May and June from a healthy 291,000 to a dismal 33,000.

The economy has clearly been wobbly since January 2021 brought the tax-spend-borrow strategy that created the Biden-era fiscal disaster. The Fed caused the 2020s inflation by monetizing the Biden administration’s massive, irresponsible increase in the federal deficit and debt; boosting the money supply by 12.3% from January 2021 to April 2022; and holding the Fed funds rate around 0.08% until March 18, 2022, when the Fed raised it to a meager 0.33%.

The Fed’s target interest rate is now 4.33%, much higher than it has been at any other time in the 2000s except for the run-up to the Great Recession of 2008.

Punting responsibility

The central bank watched inflation soar during the Biden administration and wants to ensure that it does not recur. The Fed has used high interest rates and asset sales to tighten the money supply for three years now. Recent money supply growth has been lower than normal.

The federal budget has stabilized now, however, surprisingly running a slight surplus in June, which is relieving the main source of inflationary pressure. The surplus will undoubtedly prove temporary, but the lower-deficit trend will persist as long as economic growth continues and Congress does not increase spending any further: A growing economy provides greater tax revenues.

Powell is scuttling that plan by keeping interest rates too high. Instead of taking responsibility for the lingering effects of his inflationary Biden-assistance plan, Powell has been blaming tariffs and workers for the current slightly elevated inflation.

The Federal Reserve consistently sees low unemployment as bad news, assuming that it will bring on price inflation as workers demand higher wages, emboldened by a reduced fear of being stuck without a job. In addition, Powell argues that tariffs will increase inflation.

Both those notions ignore the simple fact that inflation is a general rise in prices, not price increases in specific sectors of the economy. If tariffs cause the prices of imported goods and some business inputs to rise, prices of other things must fall, unless someone increases the overall money supply — and that would have to be the Fed itself.

Similarly, if wages rise, it must be because productivity is increasing, or businesses would not be able to afford to pay higher wages — unless somebody increases the overall money supply, which again points to the Fed.

If businesses decide to pay the higher wages, even if output per worker is not rising and consumers continue to buy those items at the same rate, prices of other things must fall. Less money available for purchasing or investing in those other things means lower prices — unless the central bank increases the money supply.

Stalling Trump’s progress

Try as he might, Powell cannot exonerate the Fed for the struggles with inflation.

President Trump and congressional Republicans have rolled back the worst of the pandemic- and Biden-era fiscal and regulatory mayhem in addition to the sky-high inflation under the Biden-Harris administration — and the results are beginning to show. The U.S. economy grew at an unexpectedly strong 3% annual rate in the second quarter, a clear, positive response to the tax cut extension and major deregulation over the past six months.

The recent extension of the 2017 tax cuts and the Trump administration’s rapid action to deregulate industry and energy will go far in reviving the economy, if given a chance. Unfortunately, the Fed seems determined to thwart a full recovery.

RELATED: Fed Chair Powell defies Trump, keeps interest rates unchanged despite good economic reports

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Staff via Getty Images

“You do not see weakening in the labor market,” Powell said in his Wednesday press conference, two days before the Bureau of Labor Statistics documented that very weakness.

“Demand for workers is slowing, but so is the supply. … Wages are gradually cooling,” he continued.

We now know why wages have been cooling while the jobs market was strong: The jobs market was not strong. Powell and the Fed have been doing their best to stunt economic growth — and they are succeeding.

Stop the squeeze

All of this suggests that the Fed should reduce interest rates — gradually and with a keen eye monitoring the situation — to give the economy room to expand and take advantage of somewhat-improved federal fiscal, regulatory, and energy policies.

In addition, continuing the slow reduction of the central bank’s balance sheet, which the Fed’s governors nearly doubled in 2009 and foolishly ballooned during the second Obama administration and the pandemic, would continue to provide a brake on inflation without unduly stunting economic growth.

Though federal fiscal policy still needs serious reform — through substantial cuts in spending — squeezing the economy with tight money is certainly not the solution to our economic problems.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, The fed, Federal reserve, Federal reserve board chairman jerome powell, Jerome powell, Jerome powell vs trump, Powell, Powell defies trump, Powell interest rates, Powell jobs, Economy 

Labubu began as a cutesy monster character in Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung’s Nordic mythology-inspired picture book series, “The Monsters.” However, when Pop Mart, a Chinese toy company, began producing and selling the character as a collectible plush toy in blind boxes in 2019, it became a global sensation, producing millions of dollars in revenue over the past few years.

The big-eyed, sharp-toothed plush toy has even been endorsed by high-profile celebrities like Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Lizzo, Simone Biles, David Beckham, and Cher, among many others.

Recently, however, people began to notice something strange about the Labubu doll: It has an uncanny resemblance to the Mesopotamian demon Pazuzu — the evil spirit that possesses and torments the character Regan in the 1973 film “The Exorcist.”

Before long, reports about Labubu toys exhibiting supernatural behavior started circulating, with people claiming that their doll whispers, changes eye color and facial expressions, moves on its own, and haunts their dreams. Some have even reported electronic devices malfunctioning or lights flickering in rooms where Labubu dolls were displayed.

Several people have resorted to burning their dolls or dousing them in holy water to ward off evil.

Is this a case of internet-spawned hysteria, or is there indeed a darkness attached to this toy?

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey ventured down the rabbit hole of the Labubu controversy. Her conclusion: Stay away.

“Is this doll demonic? I don’t know. I don’t think it is possible for … an object to be demon-possessed,” says Allie, who attributes claims of supernatural Labubus to “superstition and not a biblical understanding of the powers that exist.”

She points to 1 Corinthians 8:4, where Paul reminds us that idols have “no real existence.”

“There is no inherent power in those icons or in those idols. They can’t hear. They can’t see. They don’t have power in and of themselves,” says Allie.

What’s concerning to her, however, is not the possibility of Labubus holding power but rather the idolatry they inspire.

“From a biblical perspective, [Labubus are] absolutely idolatrous,” she says.

In the West, this idolatry most often takes the form of materialism — “collecting that which is here today and gone tomorrow,” but in the East, it can look like “straight-up idolatry.”

“In Thailand, the Labubu character has been incorporated into Buddhist amulets [and] sacred tattoos due to its perceived ability to bring wealth and good fortune. Labubus were also featured in a Taoist ritual at a temple in Singapore during the nine emperor gods festival,” says Allie.

In both cases, it’s clear that Labubus are “casting some sort of spell on people,” she warns.

“Whether it is the kind of outright idolatry — idol worship, pagan worship — that we are seeing through Labubu in a place like Thailand, or whether it’s just part of this worship of materialism … or whether it is part of this very strange and disturbing trend of infantilizing the scary … I think [Labubu] is a very dangerous influence on the people who are purchasing these items and especially on the culture that our children are growing into.”

To hear more about the Labubu craze and Allie’s biblical analysis of this dark cultural trend, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Allie beth stuckey, Blazetv, Blaze media, Labubu, Labubu doll, Pop mart, China, Demonic, Idolatry 

On July 24 in Queens, New York, a man dragged a pit bull onto a public street, doused the body in a flammable liquid, and lit it on fire. Surveillance footage captured every second. The man responsible later admitted to kicking the dog to death before torching the body.

His face is on video. His confession is in writing. And yet under New York’s laws, this act of pure evil was not bail-eligible. He was released — without bail.

This dog had no voice. But we do. Let’s use it — before the next victim is a child.

This isn’t just a failure of justice. It’s a moral collapse.

As a state legislator and lifelong animal advocate, I’ve seen how animal cruelty is often the first step toward something far worse. The link is well established: Those who torture animals frequently go on to harm children, women, and other vulnerable people — for example, Jeffrey Dahmer. If we ignore the signs, we’re not just failing animals — we’re endangering our communities.

In Florida, I championed Dexter’s Law with State Rep. Linda Chaney (R), which increases penalties for the worst cases of animal cruelty and creates a public animal abuser registry — so abusers can’t hide. But laws like Dexter’s should not stop at state lines.

We need federal action

We need national sentencing standards for extreme animal abuse. We need a nationwide registry. And we need to ensure that those who commit such crimes stay behind bars — not walk free hours later.

This wasn’t just an attack on an innocent dog. It was an attack on the values we hold dear as Americans: compassion, accountability, and justice.

RELATED: Elderly woman who ran dog rescue is charged with dozens of felonies in largest animal cruelty case in Ohio state history

Photo by Anastasiya Romanova via Unsplash

This horrific act should ignite something in us — not just outrage, but action. We must demand stronger laws, and we must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

This dog had no voice. But we do. Let’s use it — before the next victim is a child. May God bless the innocent, and may he give us the courage to protect them.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Dog abuse, Animal abuse, Congress, Pit bulls 

In the continuing battle over documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking ring, his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell is firmly opposed to the unsealing of testimony.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi requested the release of grand jury testimony in various cases against Epstein, who is deceased, as well as Maxwell. One request related to two cases has already been rejected on the basis of appellate court rules that do not apply in other cases.

‘When Epstein died, prosecutors … pivoted and made Maxwell the face of his crimes. She became the scapegoat and the only person the government could put on trial.’

“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not,” Maxwell’s attorney David Markus wrote in the filing Tuesday. “Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain.”

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence over trafficking charges and is appealing the charges. The case may be taken up the U.S. Supreme Court in September.

Markus went on to claim that Maxwell was being scapegoated by prosecutors. He argued that she has not been able to review the testimony under consideration.

“When Epstein died, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York pivoted and made Maxwell the face of his crimes. She became the scapegoat and the only person the government could put on trial. She was convicted in a media firestorm of false reporting and mischaracterization of evidence,” Markus wrote.

“Now, with her case pending before the Supreme Court, the government seeks to unseal untested, hearsay-laden grand jury transcripts, which contain statements presented in secret and never challenged by the adversarial process,” he added. “Maxwell has never been allowed to review those transcripts even though the government did not oppose her recent request to do so.”

RELATED: Prison workers who were guarding Jeffrey Epstein admit to falsifying records — but avoid jail time in deal with prosecutors

Maxwell has been meeting with Trump officials in hopes of reaching an agreement to testify before Congress about what she saw as Epstein’s confidante.

Markus says Maxwell was asked questions about 100 people during the interview and answered every question without citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He also suggested that she would seek a pardon from President Donald Trump.

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​Ghislaine maxwell appeal, Pam bondi on epstein, Epstein files controversy, Politics, Ghislaine vs doc unsealing 

An American beauty queen has now accused Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida of threatening to send sex videos to anyone she tried to date after she broke up with him earlier this year, prompting an investigation by the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Blaze News reached out to Mills for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

‘He’s pushing things along’

They both wanted to keep their relationship a secret when they began dating shortly after meeting in November 2021, Lindsey Langston told Blaze News. She, a young 20-something who was elected Columbia County Republican state committeewoman last August and crowned Miss United States in October, was busy with pageant work and growing her influence in Florida politics.

Mills was then still almost a year away from winning his first congressional race — and, according to Langston, still in the midst of a nasty divorce.

‘[In] August, you’d only be, like, eight weeks pregnant whenever you gave up your title.’

Langston describes Mills as “captivating” and charismatic and claimed that he often spoke of a future with her. “He’s met my family. … He’s reaching out to them about talking to them about an engagement,” she recalled.

Within the last year or so, he began expressing interest in starting a family with her.

“He’s talking about, you know, ‘I’m getting older. I would like to have other children. How do you feel about starting to try?’” she told Blaze News.

“‘[In] August, you’d only be, like, eight weeks pregnant whenever you gave up your title. We could get married that weekend,’” he continued, according to Langston.

“He’s pushing things along.”

RELATED: GOP Rep. Cory Mills explains why he was married by a radical Islamic cleric

Getty Images

While Langston was interested in continuing the relationship, she adamantly refused to move in with Mills until he was officially divorced. She said he told her in late May 2024 that “they were just waiting on a stamp, and then the divorce would be finalized. Everything’s settled.”

Though multiple sources have told Blaze News that Mills routinely claimed he was no longer married, as of the time of publication, Blaze News could not confirm that Mills is divorced.

Nevertheless, Langston believed the divorce had occurred, and the couple moved into a beach house in New Smyrna, Florida, together sometime last summer, while Mills also had a penthouse apartment in D.C.

Between these two residences, Mills was under obligation to pay $33,000 in rent per month, $12,000 for the beach house and a staggering $21,000 for the D.C. penthouse, the latter of which he has had difficulty paying. Just last month, his landlord filed an eviction notice after Mills apparently failed to pay more than $85,000 in rent from March to July.

Mills, whose congressional salary is just over $170,000 but whose estimated net worth is somewhere between $8 million and $40.35 million, blamed the missed payments on technical issues and process failures.

‘People would come with money bags’

The relationship was rife with drama, Langston indicated to Blaze News. She saw affectionate photos with other women, endured holidays alone without explanation or even last-minute cancellation — and even witnessed shady cash transfers.

“There were lots of times he had somebody meet him at the house … to bring him cash,” Langston claimed, noting that she did not know who the person was.

‘Cory did leave with money.’

“People would come with money bags, and he would get cash,” she added.

She also recalled an incident at a steakhouse in Washington, D.C. She and Mills were having dinner with Shannon Doyle and Jeffrey Kroeker, Mills’ fellow corporate directors at PACEM North Canada Inc., according to a filing that was updated in December. “They did not speak about business at all, but Cory did leave with money,” Langston said.

Mills and his estranged wife, Rana Al Saadi, co-founded PACEM Defense, an international weapons company, after they were married by a radical Muslim cleric in 2014. Al Saadi is still listed as the executive chairwoman on the company’s website, which also repeatedly refers to her as “Mrs. Al Saadi.”

RELATED: Rep. Mills’ risky road trip through Syria raises eyebrows

Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

When questioned by Blaze News about his business dealings earlier this year, Mills said: “I don’t take money from the company. I don’t get money from the company.” He also claimed that he has “zero decision-making in this company,” while leaving the details ambiguous: “I think I’ve divested from one company, and I think I’m in a blind trust for another. I’d have to go back and look; I couldn’t honestly tell you.”

Doyle declined Blaze News’ request for comment. Blaze News reached out to Kroeker for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

Last year, the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Conduct board opened an investigation into how Mills acquired some of his 2022 campaign funds. A House Ethics Committee investigation into Mills’ campaign financing remains ongoing. In a previous interview with Blaze News, Mills claimed that the complaint was filed by his “primary opponent” and noted that the OCC “is known to have partisan bias.”

Mills has also taken several trips to the Middle East since becoming a congressman, including an eyebrow-raising car ride without U.S. government security through Hezbollah-controlled territory after a private meeting with the president of Syria.

‘Tell every guy you date’

After more than three tumultuous years together, Langston and Mills broke up in February 2025 after Sarah Raviani, whom Mills was also apparently dating at the time, called police from Mills’ D.C. apartment, alleging he had engaged in domestic violence.

On February 19, Raviani told police that “her significant other for over a year” had “grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door.” She later recanted, and Mills was never charged.

As Blaze News has previously reported, until this domestic disturbance made headlines, even some members of his own staff were apparently unaware that Mills was still married.

RELATED: Cory Mills vs. the truth: Top 10 times the GOP wunderkind played fast and loose with the facts

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Though Langston moved out of the beach house after that incident and considered the relationship over, Mills continued to contact her, she told Blaze News.

His tone and the substance of their conversation soon escalated, and Mills eventually lashed out, threatening to harm anyone Langston was seeing — and to share sexually explicit photos and videos involving her, she said.

‘Hope you hold your crown to the end.’

According to screenshots shared with Blaze News, some of his messages are damning.

“You want to date or be with someone else. Be my guest. But they need to know well in advance that if we cross paths, I don’t care this week, this month, or this decade. They better damn well know it’s coming every time,” he apparently wrote at one point.

“May want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy,” he allegedly wrote in another.

On yet another occasion, he seemed to threaten some hypothetical love interest of Langston, apparently telling her, “Let him put his actions behind his mouth.” He followed that message with “I can send him a few videos of you as well,” and “Oh, I still have them,” the screenshots showed.

When Langston tried to make sure she understood what he was saying, asking, “So I can be with you, be alone, or be scared that you’ll hurt whoever is in my life in the future?” Mills replied, “Take it how you want,” one screenshot revealed.

“Hope you hold your crown to the end,” he apparently added in another.

Langston showed Blaze News messages through the end of May 2025, as well as a few in June. After Langston told Mills on June 12 to leave her alone once and for all, Mills again seemingly threatened to share compromising images of her, allegedly responding, “Get me his number and I can send him videos. Take care.”

Langston told Blaze News that these alleged threats have her worried. “Am I gonna wake up one day to videos of us having sex on social media?” she wondered. “Because I know he has them, and he’s put it in writing.”

‘It’s very manipulative and calculating’

In May, President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act, which makes sharing or threatening to share revenge porn online a federal crime. Like nearly every other member of Congress, both Democrat and Republican alike, Mills voted for the Take It Down Act earlier this year, giving Trump his first major bipartisan achievement since his inauguration back into office in January. The Take It Down Act was so important to the Trump family that the president even had his wife, Melania, sign it as well.

“This will be the first-ever federal law to combat the distribution of explicit imagery posted without subjects’ consent,” President Trump said at the time. “We will not tolerate online sexual exploitation.”

‘This is sexual extortion and sexual blackmail to an extreme degree.’

Mills is not accused of violating Take It Down, which specifically prohibits sharing sexually explicit material online. However, Take It Down does expressly condemn “any person who intentionally threatens to” publish intimate visual depictions “for the purpose of intimidation, coercion, extortion, or to create mental distress.”

Florida law also addresses similar issues related to threats and extortion: “Whoever, either verbally or by a written or printed communication, maliciously threatens to … impute any deformity or lack of chastity to another … with intent to compel the person so threatened, or any other person, to do any act or refrain from doing any act against his or her will, commits a felony of the second degree.”

Langston believes that one of the reasons Mills targeted her for a relationship was because he presumed that her pageant career and political ties would likely keep her quiet if their relationship ever turned sour.

“It’s very manipulative and calculated, like, who he picks because they have a reputation, and he knows that they’re not going to just blow it up,” she explained.

RELATED: Stolen valor? Veterans dispute Cory Mills’ record: ‘He fooled a lot of us’

Anadolu/Contributor/Getty Images

Despite the risks, Langston decided to come forward anyway. On July 14, she filed a report with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office about Mills’ alleged threats of releasing revenge porn against her. She then spoke with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement a week later.

The police report confirmed that Langston gave investigators at the sheriff’s office the same basic story she gave Blaze News. “Since February 20th of 2025 Cory has contacted Lindsey numerous times on numerous different accounts threatening to release nude images and videos of her, to include recorded videos of her and Cory engaging in sexual acts,” said the report obtained by Blaze News.

“Lindsey stated with Cory frequently absent from their New Smyrna home, they partook in exchanging sexual images and videos with each other. The threats were made when Cory believed Lindsey to have other romantic partners in her life after the break up,” it added.

Langston’s attorney, Anthony Sabatini, who ran against Mills in the Republican congressional primary in 2022, indicated that Mills is receiving special treatment from law enforcement because he is a member of Congress.

“This is sexual extortion and sexual blackmail to an extreme degree and a clear violation of Florida’s extortion statute, section 836.06,” Sabatini said in a statement to Blaze News.

“If this investigation wasn’t moving slowly due to him being a ‘political official,’ Mills would already be in handcuffs right now.”

Now that Langston has gone to the police, she wonders whether the risk was worth it.

“Is he just going to get a slap on the wrist with this? And am I just poking the bear? Because he does have very much a ‘if it’s not my way, I’ll burn the whole world down. I don’t care,’” type of attitude, Langston told Blaze News.

Mills certainly attempted to convince Langston that her future in American politics was beginning to look bleak, two ominous screenshots revealed.

“Your name is floating out there and it’s not in a good way,” one message said.

“Lots of talk in Mar a Lago and within some DeSantis circle about you,” added another, followed by, “Just letting you know.”

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​Cory mills, Sextortion, Extortion, Blackmail, Threat, Miss united states, Florida, Lindsey langston, Politics 

Smart meters are everywhere, but as we’ve learned with many other household products, that doesn’t mean they’re safe.

Smart meters emit radio frequency radiation that may endanger households by causing health issues like cancer, neurological disorders, and immune system damage, as suggested by some studies.

“The smart meter is like this new digital meter that isn’t the analog one, so you don’t have to have the meter maid come to your house,” director of “FrankenSkies” Matt Landman says on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“Distance is your friend, from EMF sources. So there’s this thing called inverse square law. It applies to sound and light. And EMF is light, just light that we can’t see. So, as you get farther away from it, it dissipates exponentially,” he explains, noting that he has been injured by a smart meter.

“I didn’t know when I was making the film ‘FrankenSkies,’ and I was working all day at home and sleeping in the same space, I didn’t know there was a smart meter like 3 or 4 feet from me on the other side of the wall,” he says.

“I started getting crazy heart palpitations. I became sensitive to my smartphone. It would shock me. It would shock me every time I got it in my hand. And I started venting to my landlord and friends, and my landlord jokingly said, ‘Haha, maybe it’s that new smart meter they put in,’” he continues.

This is why if you’re concerned about the placement of your smart meter on your home, Landman advocates for calling your power company and asking them to put an old one in, or move it to a post some distance from your house.

“If it’s on the other side of the wall of your newborn,” he says, “you need to fix something.”

Want more from Pat Gray?

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​Video, Upload, Sharing, Camera phone, Free, 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, Smart meters, Lithium ion battery fire, Smart meter safe, Smart meters emf, Frankenskies, Chemtrails, Matt landman 

Fears of another pandemic are rising after China issued a quarantine order over thousands of cases of a viral disease carried by mosquitoes.

Chinese officials reported 7,000 infections of the chikungunya disease in Foshan, a city located in the south. The disease is not usually fatal but can be very painful.

‘You raise the specter of the zero COVID strategy, with its zero-tolerance approach, the mass mobilization, the surveillance.’

Health officials have ordered a “patriotic public health campaign” to aid their efforts to find and destroy mosquito breeding sites in the city. They are employing drones, mosquito-eating fish in ponds, and “elephant mosquitoes” that feed on the chikungunya-carrying mosquitoes.

Residents have been instructed to ensure there is no water stagnating anywhere in the city. Some have reported heavy-handed police efforts.

A neighborhood committee cut electricity to at least five houses for not cooperating with the order in the Guicheng subdistrict.

Some of the residents complained on Rednote, a popular app, that police were excessively enforcing orders to prevent stagnant water where mosquitoes might breed.

The disease is carried by the Aedes mosquito, which can also carry dengue and Zika. The mosquito can breed in very little water, as little as that which fits into a soda bottle cap.

China has not yet imposed the most severe quarantine policies, but many are fearful that they are coming soon.

“Essentially you raise the specter of the zero-COVID strategy, with its zero-tolerance approach, the mass mobilization, the surveillance and testing,” said Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

RELATED: Chinese scientist with reported ties to USAID finds new bat coronavirus that could infect humans like COVID

Photo by SALEH AL-OBEIDI/AFP via Getty Images

On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a Level 2 travel warning for those going to the Guangdong province. There are two vaccines available to Americans against the disease, but those are not available in China.

The chikungunya virus was first identified in the 1950s in southern Tanzania. The name, translated from the Kimakonde language, means “that which bends up,” which apparently refers to the painful contortions of infected people.

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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and the Center of Military History reached a deal this week to install Moses Jacob Ezekiel’s famed grave-site sculpture in Arlington Cemetery, the Beltway Brief has learned, after Virginia accepted a request from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to display the statue in the cemetery it was intended for, near the grave of its artist. The display is part of a 50-year loan from the commonwealth and goes a long way toward healing recent desecrations.

The announcement comes just over a year and half after the statue was unceremoniously torn down and shipped to an Old Dominion warehouse by then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

‘And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.’

“At the request of Moses Ezekiel’s family and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Moses Ezekiel’s sculpture will be returned to Arlington National Cemetery,” Youngkin said in a statement to Beltway Brief, “where he is buried and where his legacy as a renowned American artist and decorated veteran can be honored.”

The sculpture, first erected a century ago, was initially swept up in the moral fervor of the early 2020s — but mistakenly so, because the story it tells is exactly the kind of story Americans needed to hear in those angry years.

Ezekiel (1844-1917) was one of the more celebrated sculptors of his day and the first Jewish-American sculptor to gain international acclaim. His works still exhibited today include “Religious Liberty” in Philadelphia, a memorial to writer and poet Edgar Allen Poe in Baltimore, and a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Louisville.

He was also a veteran of the Confederate Army, who alongside his fellow cadets at the Virginia Military Institute fought at the battle of New Market. He lost his shoes in that muddy battle, but worse: He lost his roommate, whose bedside he attended for two days before the 17-year-old Thomas Garland Jefferson slipped away.

Ezekiel’s memorial to that hard fight shows the Roman goddess Virtus, traditionally associated with Virginia in art and on the state’s flag, in mournful watch. The sculpture’s base holds the remains of six of his 10 classmates who died that day.

When the war was over, Ezekiel went to Europe — first to Berlin, then to Rome. While he maintained a lifelong friendship with Robert E. Lee, visitors to his studio also included President Ulysses S. Grant. His Arlington work was commissioned by the Northern and Republican President William McKinley and dedicated by the Democratic and Southern President Woodrow Wilson. Just a few years later, Ezekiel’s death was marked by the Northern and Republican President Warren G. Harding.

The statue’s display at Arlington was coordinated between the governor of Virginia, who was warehousing it in crates, and the Center of Military History, which is responsible for the official history of the United States Army, including the preservation of historic art and documents. It will take an estimated two years to reassemble the 32-foot sculpture, restore it, and prepare it for display in 2027 alongside interpretive panels that will explain the complicated history around America’s Civil War and the slow path to reconciliation.

That path toward national healing didn’t quite begin at Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrendered his army to Grant. The Spanish-American War 33 years later was the first conflict that saw American military units from the North and South once again on the same side of the battlefield and even included veterans of both sides.

This reality served to rekindle mutual patriotism and affections between the North and the states of the former Confederacy. But Southern support for the war and its conclusion was lukewarm at best, pushing McKinley to tour the region by train, making the case and preaching for a renewed national friendship.

During the tour, he was disturbed at the state of disrepair of Confederate graves, and so in a December 1898 speech at the Atlanta Peace Jubilee, he pledged to end the federal practice banning their upkeep to help the broader movement toward unity. The speech was a hit, and by 1900 it had led to congressional legislation, sponsored by both a Republican and former brevet major general for the Union and a Democrat who had served as a Confederate general, to reinter nearby Southern war dead in a section of Arlington near those killed in the more recent conflict with Spain in Cuba.

Ezekiel was selected as the artist, and his grave now joins the approximately 481 other Confederate soldiers and civilians laid in circles around the old base of the memorial, which was left in place in 2023 to avoid further disturbing the graves.

Feelings ran high in the years after the Civil War ended, and the animus continued for a century in some areas. Reconciliation was seriously sought and hard-won. The 2020s saw what Democrats and liberal allies called “a reckoning,” which is just about the opposite of “reconciliation,” and included memorials removed, graves disturbed and bodies dug up, churches attacked, and statues around the country torn down.

It was an ugly time, when the kinds of moral lessons and historic contexts that could have been helpful were ejected in favor of destruction. Historic art is crucial to knowing our history, and this statue’s display in Arlington is an important step. Ezekiel’s inspiration, after all, was Isaiah’s prophecy that when God is accepted, war will end: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

“After a full refurbishment, the sculpture will be displayed at Arlington in 2027,” Youngkin told the Brief. “We are grateful for the care being taken to preserve and display this statue, which allows us to better understand the complex history of the United States.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “I’m proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel’s beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as the ‘Reconciliation Monument’ — will rightfully be returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site.

“It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it.”

Bedford in the New Criterion: Moses Jacob Ezekiel and a true part of the story

Blaze News, 2023: Pentagon to tear down Reconciliation Monument in Arlington National Cemetery by week’s end despite protest

Bedford in the Federalist, 2020: Everywhere statues are torn down by the mob, history promises people are next

Bedford and Tucker Carlson, 2020: Statue destruction is ‘always followed by people’

Blaze News, 2023: National Cathedral swaps out Civil War-themed stained glass for civil rights-themed windows

Blaze News, 2022: Democrat mayor orders body of Confederate general dug up

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New campaign funding filings show that Elon Musk was supportive of pro-Trump and pro-Republican efforts even as he was falling away from both in public.

Musk had headed up the Department of Government Efficiency in the Trump administration and enthusiastically supported the agenda of President Donald Trump. That relationship soured in July, and the tech billionaire appeared to pull back from politics.

Musk donated $5 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC and another $10 million to two groups working to win or keep congressional seats for Republicans.

As he was criticizing Trump and the Republicans, Musk was also donating $15 million to pro-Republican political action committees, according to newly released reporting records.

He had said publicly in May that he was done giving to political campaigns after donating $288 million to support Republican victories in the 2024 election.

“I think I’ve done enough,” Musk said about his donations. “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason.”

Only a month later, Musk donated $5 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC and another $10 million to two groups working to win or keep congressional seats for Republicans.

He then began suggesting that he would start a third party to compete with Republicans and Democrats. Musk had expressed deep disappointment that the “big, beautiful bill” passed by Republicans didn’t do enough to cut the deficit, though supporters of the president said the bill funded the Trump agenda.

RELATED: Elon Musk responds with 3-word message after SpaceX Starship rocket explodes into massive fireball

Musk most recently was given a $26 billion pay package from Tesla, making him the highest paid CEO in history.

While $10 million is a large sum of money to most people, it is a very small percentage of Musk’s net worth. If an American with a median net worth of $193,000 made the same percentage contribution, it would be about $5.47.

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Actress Sydney Sweeney’s spicy American Eagle ad may have landed her in hot water with the left — but not with President Trump, who was thrilled when a reporter told him the actress is a registered Republican.

“She’s a registered Republican? Oh, now I love her ad … you’d be surprised at how many people are Republicans. That’s one I wouldn’t have known, but I’m glad that you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic,” Trump told a reporter.

Trump also went on to post about it on Truth Social.

“Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there. It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves.’ Go get ‘em Sydney! On the other side of the ledger, Jaguar did a stupid, and seriously WOKE advertisement, THAT IS A TOTAL DISASTER! The CEO just resigned in disgrace, and the company is in absolute turmoil,” he wrote in his post.

Following the news of her political party affiliation, a video surfaced of Sweeney at a gun range.

“So you know the liberals hate it, because she’s a real woman. She’s hot. She has a healthy BMI, and she can shoot. They hate her right now,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“As you know, I was an actor in Hollywood,” BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden says. “And they are absolutely trying to cancel her. That is exactly what they’re doing. It is disgusting.”

“And you know what? It’s not going to work, because I keep telling people this. Hollywood has no morals. … And what they will do is if you’ve got someone who is bringing in the money, because nobody’s bringing in the money in Hollywood any more, they are still going to give her work,” he explains.

“I do think the tide has turned for her,” he adds.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) implied he will seek the nuclear option of asking a court to vacate the seats of Democrats who refused to show up in order to stall a redistricting vote.

About 50 Democratic state legislators fled the state on Sunday to prevent the legislature from calling a quorum Monday and voting on a measure that would likely help Republicans gain seats in the U.S. Congress.

‘Democrats have abandoned their offices by fleeing Texas, and a failure to respond to a call of the House constitutes a dereliction of their duty as elected officials.’

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) signed arrest warrants for the Dems and ordered the sergeant-at-arms to find and bring the members back to the chamber, but those warrants are not enforceable beyond the borders of Texas.

On Tuesday, their absence prevented a quorum for a second day.

“Democrats have abandoned their offices by fleeing Texas, and a failure to respond to a call of the House constitutes a dereliction of their duty as elected officials,” read a statement from Paxton. “Starting Friday, any rogue lawmakers refusing to return to the House will be held accountable for vacating their office.”

Democrats have accused the Texan Republicans of seeking to redistrict just to appease the wishes of President Donald Trump so that he can increase Republicans’ chances of keeping control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.

RELATED: ‘Just a waiting game’: AG Paxton tells Glenn Beck what fate awaits absentee Texas Democrats

Other states, including California and New York, have threatened to redistrict their maps as well in order to counterbalance the efforts in Texas.

Paxton has admitted that the process of replacing Democrats would be laborious and tedious.

“We’d have to go through a court process, and we’d have to file that maybe in districts that are not friendly to Republicans,” Paxton said Monday. “So it’s a challenge because every district would be different.”

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The Democrats who fled Texas to deny a quorum for the Texas state House to proceed with its special session say they are willing to face the consequences for their unexcused absence.

On Monday, with the state legislators having not returned to Texas, a motion was passed to issue arrest warrants for the absent members. The out-of-state lawmakers are also facing fines and investigations to see if bribery charges can be brought against them.

‘Perhaps we can reach, you know, an agreement to not do this.’

“We‘re here in Illinois, correct, and we plan to stay as long as it takes. You‘ve just heard that the special session lasts until August 19th. That‘s the very least time that we expect to be out here,” state Rep. Lulu Flores told CNN on Tuesday.

“We are taking it a day at a time, a session at a time. We will wait to see what the governor decides to do. Once this special session ends … he can call subsequent special sessions. However, the mood of the nation is — and we’ve heard from other states that are willing to take action — so perhaps we can reach, you know, an agreement to not do this,” she continued.

RELATED: Texas state rep. forces CNN to show examples of Dems gerrymandering: ‘I’m incredibly flattered’

Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

As for the threat of fines and potential bribery charges, Flores said she is not taking any money to pay for the fines. She said everyone left knowing full well what they could face for not partaking in the special session.

During a press conference, state Rep. Ramón Romero said he and others are willing to “pay that price” for the United States.

“There are others that are saying and warning us that they’re going to arrest us or make us pay fines. I’ll pay that price for America. And I think everyone behind me would say they would do the same,” he explained.

Another Texas representative, Ron Reynolds, said he and his colleagues might not go back for a long time, even “if it’s two weeks to run out the clock for this first called special session and any other special sessions that Gov. Abbott may call.”

Illinois does have a notoriously gerrymandered map for House districts, as noted by former state Rep. Jeanne Ives (R).

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