Category: blaze media

President Donald Trump’s legal team has filed an appeal to reverse his New York criminal conviction, in which he was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.

The case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), involved accusations that Trump improperly marked payments he made to his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen as legal expenses in an effort to conceal a $130,000 settlement payment that Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

‘This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction.’

Trump secured a new legal team, attorneys with the Manhattan-based firm Sullivan & Cromwell, in January following his inauguration. He was previously represented in the case by Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, whom he has since appointed as U.S. deputy attorney general and U.S. principal deputy associate attorney general, respectively.

Judge Juan Merchan sentenced the then-president elect just days before Inauguration Day with an “unconditional discharge,” which allowed Trump to avoid jail time, fines, and probation supervision. While the sentence did not interfere with Trump’s ability to return to the White House, it did brand him with a felony criminal conviction.

On Monday, Trump’s legal team filed a 96-page appeal, writing, “This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction.”

RELATED: Trump’s new lawyers move to appeal New York criminal conviction over ‘misuse’ of law

Juan Merchan. Marc A. Hermann for New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

“The DA, a Democrat, brought those charges in the middle of a contentious presidential election in which President Trump was the leading Republican candidate,” the court filing read.

The president’s attorneys claimed Bragg “concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory.”

RELATED: Trump presses SCOTUS for 11th-hour intervention ahead of criminal sentencing in New York hush-money case

Alvin Bragg. Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital, “President Trump’s legal team filed a powerhouse appeal in the Manhattan DA’s Witch Hunt, as the president continues his fight to put an end to the Radical Democrat Lawfare once and for all.”

“The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately overturned and dismissed,” the spokesperson said. “President Trump will keep defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn as he [focuses] on his singular mission to Make America Great Again.”

Blaze News reached out to Bragg’s office for comment.

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The Department of Homeland Security appears to be shifting tactics in order to drastically increase the number of daily arrests of illegal aliens by changing leadership at field offices across the country.

First reported by the Washington Examiner, DHS is set to replace directors at field offices that are normally staffed with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with U.S. Border Patrol agents. While both agencies fall under DHS and carry out similar immigration enforcement duties, they have been employing different tactics to target illegal aliens.

Because of the shock-and-awe tactics … the White House favors Border Patrol to lead operations.

As previously reported by Blaze News during a ride-along near Miami, ICE agents mainly do targeted enforcement of illegal aliens who have gone on to commit more crimes while in the United States. Intelligence is gathered to determine a target’s behavior before making arrests. If they have the ability to take in other illegal aliens near the target or targets, agents can do so now under the Trump administration.

Border Patrol, on the other hand, has been let loose by the Trump administration to conduct sweeps in sanctuary cities across the country, employing daytime raids to arrest illegal aliens and to send a message that things are different than they were under the Biden-Harris administration. Border Patrol agents are eager to do missions in the interior after being forced to allow illegal immigrants into the United States during the Biden border crisis.

Border Patrol’s random sweeps at job sites worked by illegal immigrants have resulted in the arrest of people with serious criminal backgrounds.

RELATED: Border Patrol arrest at Home Depot punches hole in Democrats’ narrative

Julio Rosas/Blaze Media

Because of the shock-and-awe tactics, which have increasingly resulted in mobs forming to attack the agents, the White House favors Border Patrol to lead operations in order to get more illegal aliens out of the country.

DHS posted video on Tuesday showing an anti-Border Patrol crowd in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago attacking agents. Tear gas had to be used after some in the angry crowd threw objects at agents.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin said the leadership changes are happening in cities such as:

Los AngelesPhoenixPhiladelphiaDenverEl PasoSan DiegoSeattlePortlandNew Orleans

The different tactics have reportedly caused tensions between the two agencies and their allies in the White House and DHS. One DHS official told Melugin the department has “lost” its way trying to solely focus on increasing arrests, while a Border Patrol official reportedly said, “What did everyone think mass deportations meant? Only the worst? Tom Homan has said it himself, anyone in the U.S. illegally is on the table.”

Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said on X that the DHS has “no personnel changes to announce right now.”

Addressing tensions between the two sides, McLaughlin noted, “This is one team, one fight. President Trump has a brilliant, tenacious team led by [Secretary Kristi Noem] to deliver on the American people’s mandate to remove criminal illegal aliens from this country.”

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​Politics 

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and spam phone calls.

Robocalls are on the rise these days with an estimated 2.5 billion calls targeted at U.S. residents per month. Instead of letting your phone ring off the hook, try out these free spam-blocking tools for Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel.

It’s easier than ever to block calls with the latest anti-spam features built directly into your phone.

How to block spam calls on Apple iPhones

To use Apple’s new call-blocking features, you’ll need to download the latest iOS 26 update. If you don’t like the way it looks, don’t worry; here are some quick tips to make it a little easier on the eyes. Once you’re ready, open the Settings app on your phone, scroll down to Apps, then tap Phone. Scroll down again and find the Screen Unknown Callers section. Now choose from one of the three options:

Never: allows spam callers to continue to bother you, unabated.Ask Reason for Calling: will prevent your phone from ringing when an unknown number tries to reach you. Using AI, your iPhone will send the caller a message, asking them why they’re calling. You will then receive a notification with their response. If the call is legitimate, you can pick it up and speak to the person on the line, or if it’s spam, you can simply ignore it. Most of the time, scammers will hear the call screen message and hang up on their own, leaving you in peace.Silence: prevents your phone from ringing when an unknown number calls.

Beneath this section, you’ll also find Call Filtering. This setting lets you completely silence missed calls and voicemails from unknown numbers. This is especially useful if you get a lot of unknown calls and you simply don’t want to be bothered.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

How to block spam calls on Samsung Galaxy Android phones

Built with the anti-spam service Hiya, Samsung’s Smart Call feature is baked directly into Samsung Galaxy phones starting with the S8 and newer. You can enable it by opening the Phone app on your Galaxy phone, tap on the three dots in the top right corner, tap Settings, and then flip on the Caller ID and spam protection toggle. Tap on this section one more time to go a bit deeper, and choose whether you’d like to block high-risk calls or spam calls altogether.

Once that’s complete, all incoming phone calls will run through Hiya’s robust spam detection database. If you only choose to block high-risk numbers, a message will pop up on your screen to identify other potential spammers, scammers, or fraudsters as they come in, and you’ll have the option to report or block them. If you choose to block all spam calls, suspected spammers will be silenced entirely, restoring a modicum of peace to your digital life.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

How to block spam calls on Google Pixel Android phones

Built exclusively for Google Pixel phones, Call Screen uses AI to identify suspicious phone numbers. When a call comes in, Google Assistant can answer on your behalf, ask the caller why they’re trying to contact you, and provide a live transcription of their answer so that you can decide if you’d like to pick up. Call Screen can also automatically decline calls from spammers without alerts or notifications, leaving you blissfully unbothered.

To enable Call Screen and other useful spam-blocking features, open the Phone app on your Google Pixel and tap the hamburger menu in the top left corner. Under Call Assist, enable Caller ID & Spam to identify spam numbers. You may want to check Spam Detection next, which will alert you, in real-time, if a caller is trying to scam you during an active conversation. Finally, enable Call Screen to automatically review your incoming calls and manage them based on one of these three settings:

Maximum Protection screens all unknown numbers and declines spam.Medium Protection only screens suspicious numbers and declines spamBasic Protection only declines spam, leaving you open to the widest range of unknown callers.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

One last word of warning

While most spam-blocking tools will silence robocalls, scammers can still use call screening to trick you. Thanks to AI, scammers can leave messages that sound like your friends and family, begging for help, money, or worse. To make sure you’re always talking to the real person, set up a verbal password — something random, like “platypus” or the number “18” — that your friends and family can use to verify their identities, especially if they call from an unknown number.

RELATED: Thin is NOT in: Why nobody is buying the new Apple and Samsung phones

Photo by NurPhoto / Contributor via Getty Images

In most cases, robocalls are trivial at best, and it’s easier than ever to block them with the latest anti-spam features built directly into Apple iPhones, Samsung Galaxy devices, and Google Pixels.

Simply turn them on and enjoy that much-needed peace and quiet from those forever-unknown callers.

​Tech, Spam 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the arrest of federal ICE agents for doing their jobs — and it did not go unnoticed by the Trump administration.

Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.) claimed in a statement earlier this week that local police could “arrest federal agents if they break California law.”

“Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law, and if they are convicted, the president cannot pardon them,” Pelosi said in a statement on October 23.

Pelosi also wrote in a post on X: “A mass deployment of federal agents in the Bay Area is an appalling abuse of law enforcement power. The people of San Francisco stand with our patriotic immigrants who are the constant reinvigoration of America. We will not be intimidated by politically motivated fear tactics.”

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey’s father and BlazeTV contributor Ron Simmons could not be more thrilled with the response her comments inspired.

“That statement is so inappropriate and, in some ways, factually incorrect that it’s just appalling,” Simmons says, noting that Attorney General Pam Bondi did not let Pelosi’s comments slide.

Bondi responded to Pelosi’s nonsensical statements on Fox News, explaining that “Pelosi got a letter today from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. So did Brooke Jenkins, that DA in San Francisco.”

“We told them, ‘Preserve your emails. Preserve everything you have on this topic because if you are telling people to arrest our ICE officers, our federal agents, you cannot do that. You’re impeding an investigation. And we will charge them. If they think I won’t, they have not met me, because we will charge them if they are violating the law,” she added.

Simmons couldn’t be happier with Bondi’s response.

“I say hooray. Thank goodness. Thank goodness that they’re willing to do that,” he says, pointing out that Blanche went on in his letter to write, “Any attempts to arrest or interfere with federal agents is illegal and futile.”

“So, I hope that they’ll enforce that to the fullest extent of the law. All these men and women are trying to do is carry out their responsibilities that are passed down from the leaders of the executive branch,” Simmons says.

“And again, they’re not deporting U.S. citizens, and they’re focusing primarily on those that have committed crimes here in the U.S. or at home,” he continues.

“So … it’s just sickening,” he says, adding, “and almost, in my opinion, what some of these people are trying to do is on the border of treasonous. When you’re trying to impede federal law being upheld, I don’t know what else there could be. I mean, you become almost an enemy of the state.”

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.

​Camera phone, Sharing, Upload, Video, Video phone, Free, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Attorney general pam bondi, Pam bondi, President trump, The trump administration, Ron simmons, Ice, Nancy pelosi, Nancy pelosi ice agents, Todd blanche 

With only a week left before the election in the contentious New York City mayoral race, socialist Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism for a photo with a Ugandan lawmaker who supported legislation restricting LGBTQ behavior.

The criticism stems from his July visit to Uganda, where he was born. During his visit, he met with Rebecca Kadaga, a well-known Ugandan lawmaker who served as speaker of the Parliament of Uganda from 2011 to 2021. She has been the first deputy prime minister since 2021, according to the New York Post.

Mamdani appeared at a ‘Gays for Zohran’ event, posing with two drag queens.

Mamdani and Kadaga appeared in a photo together during his return to Uganda.

“Delighted to meet with Zohran Mamdhani [sic] incoming Mayor of New York City. Good luck in the next phase of elections,” Kadaga said in a post on X at the end of July.

RELATED: Stop calling Zohran Mamdani a communist — he’s something worse

Photo by Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014 features a variety of punishments for homosexual behavior, including seven years in prison for a variety of acts. A more recent expansion on the law includes the death penalty.

“Ugandans want that law as a Christmas gift. They have asked for it, and we’ll give them that gift,” Kadaga told Reuters in 2012, prior to the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

However, Mamdani has strongly advocated for LGBTQ issues.

One X user pointed out Mamdani appeared at a “Gays for Zohran” event, posing with two drag queens. According to one source, Mamdani joined the event for National Coming Out Day on October 11.

“Zohran Mamdani ran into the First Deputy Minister while he was at Entebbe airport waiting to board his flight back to New York City. She asked to take a photo,” Mamdani campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec told the Post about the photo with Kadaga.

“If he was aware she was the architect of this horrific attack on queer Ugandans, he would not have done so,” Pekec continued. “Zohran’s belief in universal human rights extends to all people, and he has put forward the most comprehensive plan of any candidate to protect LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.”

In July, Zohran Mamdani posted a video on X announcing that he would be heading to Uganda to celebrate his marriage to wife Rama Duwaji with family and friends. The video mocks the “thousands of messages” telling him to “go back to Africa.”

In late June, Kadaga extended her congratulations and greetings from Uganda after he won the Democratic nomination in the mayoral race.

Blaze News reached out to Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

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​Politics, Uganda, Rebecca kadaga, Zohran mamdani, New york city, New york city mayor, Mayoral race, Lgbtq, National coming out day 

A little more than a month after President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced an official statement suggesting a link between Tylenol and autism, drug manufacturers are facing some heat.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue for allegedly concealing the link between prenatal use of acetaminophen and autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol.

‘By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again.’

Dated October 27, the lawsuit lodges two main complaints against Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries Kenvue Inc. and Kenvue Brands LLC.

First, the lawsuit alleges that “defendants have paid no heed to the scientific facts” by downplaying or concealing the known link between acetaminophen and ADS and ADHD. If the defendants had been more forthcoming on their labels, pregnant mothers may have chosen to avoid the drug, the lawsuit posits.

RELATED: Trump administration claims link between autism and Tylenol, greenlights remedy

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It cites 26 epidemiological studies that showed “positive associations” between prenatal use of acetaminophen and ASD and ADHD. Other studies showed a dose-response relationship, according to the lawsuit.

The second part of the lawsuit alleges that Johnson & Johnson, aware of the legal risk of its product, attempted to “shed its liability” by transferring its liabilities associated with Tylenol to Kenvue without transferring the necessary assets to the subsidiary company.

Asked about the lawsuit, a Johnson & Johnson spokesperson told Blaze News, “Johnson & Johnson divested its consumer health business years ago, and all rights and liabilities associated with the sale of its over-the-counter products, including Tylenol (acetaminophen), are owned by Kenvue.”

“Big Pharma betrayed America by profiting off of pain and pushing pills regardless of the risks. These corporations lied for decades, knowingly endangering millions to line their pockets,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a news release. “Additionally, seeing that the day of reckoning was coming, Johnson & Johnson attempted to escape responsibility by illegally offloading their liability onto a different company. By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again.”

On its website, Kenvue issued the following statement regarding the supposed link between acetaminophen and autism: “Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of the people who use our products. We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with allegations that it does and are deeply concerned about the health risks and confusion this poses for expecting mothers and parents.”

“We will vigorously defend ourselves against these claims and respond per the legal process. We stand firmly with the global medical community that acknowledges the safety of acetaminophen and believe we will continue to be successful in litigation as these claims lack legal merit and scientific support,” a Kenvue spokesperson told Blaze News.

Blaze News contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for comment but did not receive a response.

Editor’s note: This article was edited after publication to include a comment from Kenvue.

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​Politics, Ken paxton, Johnson and johnson, J&j, Tylenol, Autism, Tylenol autism, Big pharma, Kenvue, Adhd, Trump, Rfk jr, Maha 

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas made a claim so egregious about the ongoing East Wing renovations at the White House that even CNN had to fact-check the lawmaker.

Crockett was accusing President Donald Trump of neglecting Americans during the government shutdown, falsely claiming that the construction of the new East Wing ballroom was his “main priority.” Crockett was quickly corrected by CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, who clarified the original context of press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s response.

Crockett is not the only high-profile Democrat who has misled about the White House ballroom.

“I have no idea,” Crockett said in response to Collins. “I mean, you started off talking about how the president is in Japan. The president has time to do everything but what he needs to focus on.”

“In fact, we heard the press secretary say that his main priority is the ballroom,” Crockett added. “The ballroom that no one asked for. The ballroom that requires him to destroy historic pieces of the White House.”

RELATED: White House trolls Democrats with highlights of prior administrations’ scandals amid liberal furor over East Wing renovation

Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images

Collins responded to Crockett’s wildly out-of-context claim, noting that Leavitt was responding to a question about additional White House renovations and not about the president’s general list of priorities.

“That context of the comment from Karoline Leavitt, she was asked if the president was working on any other renovations when it came to the White House, and she was saying his focus was the ballroom,” Collins replied.

RELATED: ‘These people are sick’: Trump admin slams top Dem for justifying shutdown suffering

Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images

Crockett is not the only high-profile Democrat who has misled about the White House ballroom. Former vice presidential candidate and current Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) also echoed the claim that the ballroom is Trump’s top priority, insinuating that the project is taxpayer-funded.

As Leavitt pointed out the week prior, Trump’s ballroom is entirely funded by private donors, with the president himself even pitching in to finance the project.

“He’s a builder at heart, clearly,” Leavitt replied when asked if Trump was weighing any additional construction projects. “His heart and his mind is always churning about how to improve things here on the White House grounds. But at this moment in time, of course, the ballroom really is the president’s main priority.”

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​Jasmine crocket, Cnn, Kaitlan collins, Donald trump, Tim walz, Karoline leavitt, Trump administration, White house, East wing, East wing ballroom, White house ballroom, Ballroom hoax, Democrat hoax, Fake news media, Legacy media, Politics 

Justin Bieber’s latest album ends with the pop star delivering an almost eight-minute, spoken-word retelling of the first three chapters of the book of Genesis.

Now the 31-year-old singer has opened up about his own Christian faith on a recent livestream, a clip of which was shared on YouTube. In it, the Canadian-born heartthrob sits over fast-food takeout with some of his crew, discussing the Bible, God, and what it means to be a man.

‘Now we get to live free and rather than focus on sin, now we can focus on Jesus, the wonderful savior.’

Many of Bieber’s comments revolve around the responsibility he feels he has to others and to God and how he is doing his best not to judge life based on perceived outcomes.

“It rains on the just and the unjust,” Bieber says, going on to stress that:

Bad s**t happens to everybody, you know? Bad s**t happens to good people, good s**t happens to bad people. … Everyone’s on the same equal playing ground, and that’s hard for people to really comprehend or want to digest because I think it’s makes us feel better to be like, ‘Well, I’m better than this guy.’

He adds, “I don’t want to think I’m better than anybody ’cause you don’t know what someone’s born into.”

‘It’s the same thing’

The conversation also turns to matters of morality, with Bieber speaking about taking “ownership” as a man and avoiding the sin of adultery:

“If you even think of a woman with lust it’s the same thing as actually doing it; committing adultery or whatever,” he says, clearly referring to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5:28. “It’s the same thing. So if it even just crosses your mind for one second, if you treat a man with anger or something, it’s the same as killing a man, scripture says.”

RELATED: Why the Bible is suddenly flying off shelves across America

– YouTube

Am I worthy?

The singer seems to touch on his own mental battles when he speaks of God’s mercy.

“Someone’s probably struggling with their own self-image of like, ‘You know, am I worthy of love?’ And God says you are. You know what I mean? I don’t make the rules. But Jesus says that, and I really believe Him.”

“I believe He loved us so much,” Bieber passionately continues.

He put on skin and bones and came onto this Earth as a person, as a human. Lived a sinless life so that we don’t have to be focusing on sin because none of us can do the right thing all the time. And then He literally went to the cross, was lashed, whipped, made fun of, then he rose on the third day defeating death, Hell, and the grave. Now we get to live free and rather than focus on sin, now we can focus on Jesus, the wonderful savior. And I really think He’s the king of the world, bro. He’s the king of Hollywood. He’s the king of L.A., bro. He’s the king.

— (@)

Transaction reaction

The men further discuss how and when scripture makes its way into their daily lives, with Bieber revealing that at this point in his career, he does not want to work with people for transactional purposes.

“That’s what, like, business is these days,” he says. “It’s just like, ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’ And you guys, it’s not based on love.”

RELATED: LA Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen puts Christian faith front and center ahead of World Series: ‘Make heaven crowded’

When asked how he learned about his faith and if it simply comes from reading the Bible, Bieber responds by saying much of it has stuck with him after his mother rewarded him for memorizing passages as a child.

“I would get a gold star. So I would just memorize it,” he recalls enthusiastically.

Bieber admits he often doesn’t know where a particular passage comes from in the Bible — just that God brings it to the front of his mind.

“The scripture says, ‘I will remind you the things that I’ve told you’ and He just reminds me,” Bieber concludes. “Because He knows what I want. He knows that I want this for other people. So I think He puts it to my brain.”

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​Faith, Entertainment, Justin bieber, God, Christianity, Music, Canada, Scripture, Religion 

A modern marvel of worship is close to completion in a small mountain town in Wyoming.

A group of Carmelite monks have used advanced techniques and built off a love for historical design to accomplish the unthinkable: a 145,000 square-foot French Gothic-style monastery.

‘This will be a miracle when it’s accomplished.’

The plans go back more than a decade when the monastery was but a simple drawing as the monks worked to resolve objections from neighboring ranchers in Park County, Wyoming. The area of approximately 30,000 residents had concerns of unwanted sightseers, water supplies, and possible effects on wildlife and ranching operations. Eventually, those concerns were rescinded, and Park County commissioners said the monks could move forward and build their epic house of worship on a 2,500-acre cattle ranch; about seven miles from its nearest neighbor.

In October, word of the nearly completed monastery rapidly spread as photos were shared online showing the construction. In a matter of days, new photos emerged of the project nearing completion, until images of the near-finished project eventually showed the monks going over plans on the interior.

The monks have surprisingly used state-of-the-art technology like Computer Numerical Control machines to build the ancient-looking building. According to X account Culture Explorer, the monks taught themselves how to carve the stone with the diamond-tipped CNC machines and learned the complex engineering techniques without any formal training.

This reportedly included creating depictions of angels, gargoyles, and more, carved out of 4,000-pound stones.

RELATED: Christians are refusing to compromise — and it’s terrifying all the right people

The forward thinking monks have previewed their work on a YouTube channel; they showcased the process of stone carving along with some designs mapped out on digital computer programs.

The group described the architecture as having the guiding principles of “maximum height and maximum light, brought together with an intricate and delicate aesthetic.”

This was coupled with seven key architectural elements, as described by the monks themselves: “pointed arches, large stained glass windows, rib vaults, flying buttresses, pinnacles and spires, elaborate entry portals, and ornate decoration.”

The Carmelite Monks of Wyoming say they are a contemplative community within the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

“The Carmelite Monks live the fullness of the Carmelite Rule in the solitude of the mountains,” they wrote. “They pray the entire divine office in common, have a daily sung mass chanted in Latin, do two hours of mental prayer, manual labor, and the daily common rosary.”

RELATED: Notre Dame’s reopening calls for celebration — and reflection

The massive work of architectural art sits on a remote, private road called Meeteetse Creek Road. The group of monks plan on operating a commercial coffee-roasting facility in order to fund their operation, which consists of living quarters and an eventual nun’s convent, according to the channel Purely Catholic.

During a public 2010 hearing, the Billings Gazette reported that Brother Simon Mary vowed that “everything” about the monastery was “for the worship of God” and “oriented toward that end.”

Mary added, “This will be a miracle when it’s accomplished.”

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​Return, Monastery, Stone carving, Gothic, Monks, Wyoming, Tech 

Senate Democrats have brushed off pressure from the nation’s largest union of federal workers after the organization put pressure on lawmakers to end the ongoing government shutdown.

‘It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike.’

As the shutdown enters its fifth week, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 workers, called on both parties to abandon “partisan spin” and instead take action to ensure federal employees do not miss another paycheck.

“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE, stated. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”

Republicans previously proposed a clean continuing resolution to reopen the government until November 21, but Democrats repeatedly blocked it.

“When the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren’t looking for partisan spin,” Kelley continued. “They’re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they’re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.”

“It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike,” he added.

RELATED: Capitol Police officers are forced to take out loans to pay their bills because of government shutdown, union boss says

Photo by Moriah Ratner for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Yet CNN reported that Democratic lawmakers “appeared to be unmoved” by the AFGE’s demands, despite more than one million federal workers going unpaid.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) stated that the AFGE’s comments had “a lot of impact,” noting that the union has “been our friends and we’ve worked with them over the years.” However, he told CNN, “I’m not seeing any change in position at this time.”

RELATED: Trump admin blames Senate Democrats for SNAP debacle: ‘The well has run dry’

Sen. Richard Durbin. Photo by Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said, “I work very closely with [the AFGE]. That matters to me. But the issue that I’ve always been focused on, that I’ve shared with y’all is, is a deal, a deal? And the AFGE would not want us to cut a deal and then have Trump fire a bunch of people next week. If we cut a deal and then he did that, they would come to us and say, ‘What the hell were you guys thinking?’”

The AFGE filed a lawsuit in September against the Trump administration to block any efforts to fire federal workers furloughed amid the shutdown.

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​News, Shutdown, Government shutdown, American federation of government employees, Afge, Federal workers, Federal employees, Everett kelley, Dick durbin, Tim kaine, Politics 

The House Oversight Committee released a nearly 100-page report on Tuesday deeming invalid those executive actions and pardons issued without proper authorization and with machine-generated signatures in former President Joe Biden’s name.

“Barring evidence of executive actions taken during the Biden presidency showing that President Biden indeed took a particular executive action, the Committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void,” said the report.

‘Hold those who orchestrated this coup d’etat accountable.’

In hopes that real consequence might be dished out following their damning report — a report that suggests the country was effectively run in recent years by unelected Biden staffers — the Republican-led committee has also asked the Department of Justice to both review the validity of every executive action taken during the previous administration and to “determine whether legal action is necessary to ameliorate consequences of any illegitimate pardons granted, or executive actions implemented, throughout the Biden Autopen Presidency.”

The Oversight Project got the ball rolling in March by revealing that Biden’s signature on numerous executive orders, pardons, and other documents of national consequence was machine generated.

While other presidents have made extensive use of the so-called autopen, there is cause besides Biden’s mental deterioration to doubt the validity of many of the documents issued in his name.

For starters, there are reports of staffers and family members making decisions on his behalf; Biden allegedly admitted to having no memory of signing a greatly impactful order that bore an autopen signature; Biden’s signature appeared on documents while he was absent and in at least one case on vacation; and internal emails from the Justice Department show that there was a high-level understanding in the Biden administration that many of the commutations autopenned in the former president’s name were legally flawed.

Following a review of approximately 1,597 enrolled copies of documents bearing Biden’s signature — including pardon warrants and executive orders — the Oversight Project concluded in a Monday report that 846 of 958 executive orders, pardons, commutations, and proclamations were signed with autopen.

RELATED: Biden freed killers with a pen he didn’t even hold

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Broken down further by category, the Oversight Project indicated that of the Biden-era documents reviewed, 59.2% of the executive orders; 96.3% of the presidential proclamations; 75% of the pardons, including the pardons for Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Biden clan, and former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee; and 51.8% of the commutations were signed with autopen.

Biden apparently signed all but one bill into law by hand.

“We, as a nation, operated for years without a functioning president and instead ceded executive power to a politburo of unelected bureaucrats who exercised presidential power via autopen,” the watchdog group stated. “These statistics are alarming. The time is now for the administration and Congress to hold those who orchestrated this coup d’etat accountable.”

The Oversight Project’s bombshell exposé earlier this year paved the way for additional investigations into the legitimacy of autopen-signed Biden-era documents, namely those launched by DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin, the Trump White House Counsel, and the House Oversight Committee.

The Oversight Committee’s Tuesday report, the product of a five-month probe, indicates that Biden aides made liberal use of the autopen to carry out official actions without evidence of the former president’s approval.

The committee — echoing a finding of the Oversight Project — found, for instance, that 32 of 51 clemency warrants were signed with digital copies of Biden’s signature but without any contemporaneous paperwork linking Biden to the decisions.

Former Idaho Solicitor General Theo Wold testified during a U.S. Senate hearing in June that with regard to the clemency warrants, the “president actually has to make the decision — that cannot be delegated to a staffer or an adviser,” but there was no indication “that anyone other than staff were making these decisions.”

In addition to highlighting apparent evidence that senior Biden White House aides exercised the authority of the former president, the committee asked the DOJ to investigate three top Biden White House aides who previously refused to testify to the committee: Biden White House physician Kevin O’Connor and aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini.

Blaze News has reached out to the DOJ for comment.

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement obtained by CNN, “Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished. Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void.”

A Biden spokesperson stated, “This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency.”

“There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown,” added the spokesperson.

Biden told news outlets in June, “I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations.”

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​Autopen, Oversight committee, James comer, Comer, Oversight project, Pardon, Biden pardons, Commutation, President, Biden administration, Scandal, Politics 

Shocking text messages allegedly have revealed a sinister plan by a Nebraska high school teacher and her boyfriend to groom and sex traffic her 16-year-old student.

Police said 36-year-old Elizabeth Jamie Love and her boyfriend, 42-year-old Jarid “Jack” Krause, were arrested Friday.

‘It’s a huge risk. We might not find the right girl for us.’

The Phelps County Attorney’s Office charged both suspects with one count of sex trafficking of a minor (a Class IB Felony). Love also was hit with a charge of sexual grooming by a school employee (a Class IV Felony).

If convicted, Love and Krause face up to life in prison and a lifetime on the Nebraska Sex Offender Registry.

Love and Krause were booked into the Phelps County Jail and held on bonds of $250,000 cash each, police stated.

Police noted that Love had been a transition coordinator and educator in the Educational Service Unit No. 11 for several years, during which she traveled to as many as 15 schools in the south-central part of Nebraska.

The Holdrege Police Department said in a statement, “The investigation into Ms. Love and Mr. Krause began after a current high school student, whom Ms. Love was instructing through her employment as a transition coordinator and teacher in ESU-11, reported inappropriate interactions with the couple over the past few weeks.”

RELATED: Ex-middle school teacher — guilty of 21 counts of sex crimes against daughter’s underage babysitter — learns her fate

Police said the investigation began Oct. 14 after reports of possible sex abuse of a 16-year-old student.

Authorities said Love communicated with the teen through text messages, Facebook Messenger, and non-school email addresses.

Citing the arrest affidavit, People magazine reported that the alleged victim is a girl who told investigators she and Love “developed a close relationship, which has evolved into talking about things going on in [her] life beyond the normal scope of a speech therapist/educator.”

The alleged victim said she had worked with Love since she was in seventh grade, according to the affidavit.

Court documents said the teen told investigators she considered moving into Love’s home in Holdrege on weekdays so she could attend a school in another district.

The student said she was in Love’s car in August when Love had a phone conversation with Krause, the affidavit stated.

During the phone call, Krause said he wanted to have sex with Love, and Love later told the student she “would be willing to share” Krause, according to the arrest affidavit.

The student said she was supposed to attend the state fair with Love that day, but the conversation made her so “uncomfortable” that she called her aunt to pick her up, court documents said.

During an alleged incident on Oct. 11, Love picked up the teen from her home and took her to Love’s house, court documents said.

People magazine reported, “The student alleged that while she was there, Krause led her to an upstairs bedroom and made a request she believed was for sex.”

‘We’ll find the girl that appreciates us for what we are and provide. Someone who sees the value of our family and one that loves us both more than anything.’

The outlet added that the alleged victim declined Krause’s advances and asked to leave.

The affidavit said the student left the house and began walking home until Love picked up the teen in a car and drove the alleged victim home.

Nebraska-TV reported, “The affidavit said the girl told investigators Love apologized to her, told her not to tell anyone, and gave her $100 in $20 increments.”

When police later interviewed Love, the educator insisted the payments were not intended as “hush money” but rather a gift to help the girl purchase a new cell phone, according to court documents.

Citing text messages revealed in the affidavit, People magazine reported that Love and Krause “spoke about the student as early as April, before seemingly planning to proposition the student for sex in August” and to determine “if she’s not feeling it.”

The affidavit also said the couple discussed developing a “code phrase” to use that would “help [Love] know if she’s interested or not.”

Another text message revealed in the affidavit indicated Love told Krause she hoped the proposition “works out” and added that “if she doesn’t want to, then I’ll keep looking.”

Krause messaged Love about “[finding] our person,” according to the affidavit.

“We’ll find the girl that appreciates us for what we are and provide. Someone who sees the value of our family and one that loves us both more than anything,” Krause wrote to Love, according to court documents.

The affidavit claimed Love then asked Krause if they should “start the paperwork for foster care.”

According to court documents, Krause replied, “Do you think it’s time for that? It’s a huge risk. We might not find the right girl for us.”

The arrest affidavit said Love responded, “I know. But I also don’t have to take them all. Even though I want to. Haha.”

ESU-11 administrator John Poppert told Blaze News that Love was placed on administrative leave “as soon as the ESU learned of the allegations.”

“The ESU has cooperated fully with the Holdrege Police Department investigation,” Poppert noted. “The administration also contacted the ESU’s attorney. We will continue to work closely with law enforcement, and we thank them for their efforts in this matter.”

During the investigation, the Holdrege Police Department received assistance from the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department, Kearney Police Department, Minden Police Department, the Nebraska State Patrol, and the Nebraska Department of Justice.

Police said investigators have yet to find any evidence that Love had inappropriate interactions with other current or former students.

The investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information about this case is urged to contact the Holdrege Police Department at 308-995-4407.

The Holdrege Police Department and the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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​Bad teacher, Teacher arrested, Teacher sex scandal, Teacher student sex scandal, Nebraska, Sex trafficking, Child sex crimes, Elizabeth love, Crime 

New York City’s Canal Street has long been a hot bed for illegal immigrants selling knock-off designer bags to tourists, but after Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez caught it all in a video that’s now gone viral — that may all be about to change for good.

Following Hernandez’s video, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Canal Street and arrested nine illegal aliens, some of whom had criminal backgrounds.

“I was Ubering, and I saw this huge market of African migrants selling all of these bags along this sidewalk. This sidewalk was actually completely full of people. So I was like, ‘OK, pull over. Let me see what’s going on,’” Hernandez says in the video.

“Now, I spoke to some of the migrants, they were telling me they’re all from Senegal. And as I’m walking around, they all start grabbing their bags very quickly. Again, this entire block was filled with all these bags. And they picked them all up very quickly, within two minutes, they all started jumping in vehicles, running away,” she explained.

While speaking with one of the migrants, he admitted to Hernandez that they didn’t have licenses to sell the purses, and if the cops were to catch them, they’d take away all their products.

“I don’t have confirmation that DHS saw my post. All I will say is that it went extremely viral. I think it got about five million impressions, and the left wing took hold of it first, and they were roasting me, and they were like, ‘Congratulations on discovering Canal Street, this has been happening for decades,’” Hernandez tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“Which, I still posted the video because I was like, ‘OK, congratulations. Criminal activity has been going on for decades. Let’s go ahead and get it fixed,’” she continues. “A couple days later, ICE goes and completely raids the area.”

“And as far as I’m concerned, this street is still cleaned up,” she adds.

“It’s just such a bizarre world that we’re living in where the argument is that it’s a bad thing to swoop up and grab illegal criminals off the streets … plus, they have criminal records on top of the fact that they’re already criminals for being here illegally,” Gonzales says.

“Why would anyone not want them off the streets is just very strange,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Camera phone, Free, Sharing, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Ice agents, New york city, Canal street, Illegal immigration, Illegal immigrant, Black market nyc, Savanah hernandez, Turning point usa 

Stephen King got rich by tapping into something universal: the primal, human fears that haunt us all, regardless of race, class, or creed. Books like “The Shining” and “Salem’s Lot” are effective whether you read them in Borneo or Bangor, in Czech or Chinese.

Never mind the master of modern horror’s recent fixation on America’s president — a figure who (at least for King’s senescent Woodstock-generation cohort) represents an evil worse than Pennywise and Randall Flagg combined. The author’s late-career Trump derangement syndrome can’t undo the undeniable impact his more than 60 novels, countless short stories, and a flood of TV and movie adaptations continue to have on pop culture.

King once described organized religion as ‘a dangerous tool.’ His online tirades often single out Christians, casting them as theocrats, hypocrites, or villains.

That is an impact well-worth examining, especially for Christians. Beneath the lurid gore, King’s books can seem oddly comforting and even wholesome. King has a knack for creating heroes out of “regular” Americans, flawed but well-meaning small-town folk who watch “The Price Is Right,” drive Chryslers, and buy Cheerios at the supermarket.

What’s more, these heroes do battle in a world where good and evil are clearly delimitated, with the former always triumphing over the latter. King seems to adhere to the sort of “culturally” Christian worldview that still held sway in the America of his youth (he was born in 1947).

Folly of faith

But a closer look at King’s more than 50-year career reveals a consistent tendency to subvert Christianity. Indeed, it seems that King has applied his considerable storytelling gifts to denigrating faith as much as inducing fear.

King doesn’t simply tell tales of terror. He builds worlds where Christianity is a sickness, believers are lunatics, and God is either cruel or indifferent to our suffering. His work isn’t just critical of religion, but a deliberate inversion of it. The sacred becomes sinister, and devotion becomes disease.

In “Carrie,” King’s first novel, the villain is not the telekinetic girl but her mother — a wild-eyed Christian who punishes her daughter for being human. Blood becomes sin, the Bible becomes a weapon, and faith is presented as the root of madness. Millions of readers met Christianity through that book and learned to detest the believer more than the devil.

The monster in the pews

In his novella “The Mist,” he repeats the theme. Trapped townsfolk turn to a hysterical woman who quotes scripture on her way to presiding over human sacrifices. She becomes a prophet of panic, a parody of piety. The monsters outside may be frightening, but the believer inside is worse. Once again, King’s message is clear: The sacred is the scariest thing of all.

Then comes 2014’s “Revival,” perhaps King’s clearest expression of his contempt for Christianity. It begins in a small New England town, where young Jamie Morton meets Reverend Charles Jacobs, a gifted preacher who wins hearts and fills pews. But when tragedy strikes his family, the reverend’s faith vanishes. From his own pulpit, he mocks belief, denounces God, and is driven out in shame.

Years later, Jamie — now a weary musician addicted and adrift — meets Jacobs again, no longer a man of God but a man of wires and obsession. The reverend has replaced prayer with experiments, chasing power instead of purpose. When he finally forces open the door between life and death, what he finds isn’t heaven or hell, but a monstrous parody of creation — an insect god ruling over the void. It’s less revelation than ridicule, King’s way of saying that only a fool would still look to God for guidance.

Pulling punches

It’s worth noting what King never touches. He spares Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism the same disdain he reserves for Christianity. To mock those faiths would be called “punching down” by the cultural gatekeepers he aligns himself with.

But his compass is as broken as his conscience — spinning wildly, always pointing away from truth. He pretends he’s striking upward at power when, in truth, he’s sneering downward at the poor and ordinary believers who build churches, not empires. It’s all fair game in art, so long as the victims are mostly white and Christian. Mocking Islam would be “insensitive.” Ridiculing Hinduism would be “problematic.” But tearing into Christianity? That’s considered brave. In King’s moral universe, faith is fair game, as long as it’s practiced in small communities, not gated ones.

RELATED: Stephen King forced to apologize for Charlie Kirk remarks, threatened with lawsuit, ripped as ‘evil, twisted liar’

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

‘Spiritual vandalism’

Another important point worth emphasizing is that King’s world isn’t godless. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s god-haunted, but the divine is turned on its head. His priests prey instead of pray. His crosses offer no comfort, only despair.

This is not accidental. King once described organized religion as “a dangerous tool.” His online tirades often single out Christians, casting them as theocrats, hypocrites, or villains. He preaches clarity while painting conviction as madness. The man who once wrote about demons now sees them in ordinary Americans.

What King practices is a kind of spiritual vandalism. He keeps the architecture of Christianity — the rituals, the icons, the language — but fills it with sacrilege. The chalice still shines, but the wine is poison. Grace becomes guilt, creation becomes cruelty, and salvation becomes surrender. It is not atheism but corruption — the gospel rewritten in reverse.

King vs. the King

Yet even in his rebellion, King can’t escape the faith he so clearly despises. His stories are soaked in scripture, each one haunted by the very God he denies. Every curse echoes a prayer. Every desecration betrays a longing for what was lost. Behind his hatred lies hunger. A need for meaning, even if that meaning must be mutilated to be felt.

The irony is almost biblical. King writes of hell because he still dreams of heaven. He rejects the transcendent but cannot stop reaching for it. That is why his work feels so spiritual even in its cynicism — because rebellion is, in its way, a strange kind of worship.

This Boomer icon may never kneel before Christ, but his stories do — in rage, not reverence. They curse the altar, yet can’t look away. Stephen King may write about death, but his real subject is the divine he can’t quite kill.

​Stephen king, Carrie, The stand, The mist, Revival, Literature, Entertainment, Trump derangement syndrome, Culture, Faith 

With a divided Congress and the clock likely running out on GOP control, President Trump’s decision to forgo a second budget reconciliation bill is puzzling. Reconciliation is the only tool available to pass major priorities without a filibuster. So why refuse another chance to make the America First agenda permanent?

At a recent meeting with Senate Republicans, Trump told lawmakers, “We don’t need to pass any more bills. We got everything” in the big, beautiful bill earlier this year. “We got the largest tax cuts in history. We got the extension of the Trump tax cuts. We got all of these things.”

The first Trump presidency showed what executive courage can do. The second must prove what lasting law can achieve.

Really? That answer ignores reality. Tax cuts were never the full measure of the Trump revolution. The movement promised structural reform — from securing the border to dismantling bureaucracies. Limiting the victory to tax relief leaves unfinished the hard work of codifying executive policies into law before the next Democrat in the White House wipes them out with the stroke of a pen.

Biden’s first weeks in office in 2021 proved how fragile executive action can be. Nearly every Trump-era reform — on immigration, energy, education, and national security — vanished within days. The same will happen again if core policies remain tied to presidential discretion instead of actual statutes.

Immigration is the clearest example. Trump moved the country in the right direction, but many key policies remain blocked by courts or enjoined indefinitely. These include:

• Ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants,
• Defunding sanctuary cities,
• Cutting federal assistance for noncitizens,
• Requiring states to verify lawful status for benefits under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,
• Expanding expedited removal of gang members under the Alien Enemies Act,
• Authorizing ICE arrests at state courthouses,
• Deporting pro-Hamas foreign students,
• Returning unaccompanied minors to Central America,
• Suspending refugee resettlement, and
• Ending “temporary” protected status for long-term illegal residents.

Each of these reforms can and should be codified through legislation. Courts can’t enjoin what Congress writes into law.

The same applies beyond immigration. Critical Trump policies remain trapped or reversible, including:

• Abolishing the Department of Education,
• Keeping male inmates out of female prisons,
• Blocking federal funding for hospitals that perform gender “transitions” on minors,
• Removing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, and
• Requiring proof of citizenship to vote and restricting mail-in ballots in federal elections.

All of these measures would fulfill campaign promises. All of them will vanish the instant Democrats reclaim the White House — unless Republicans act now to make them permanent.

RELATED: While the lights are off, let’s rewire the government

Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

Meanwhile, the economic front remains unsettled. Inflation continues to crush families, and Washington’s spending addiction keeps prices high. Health care remains broken, with no Republican alternative to stop Democrats from reinstating Biden’s Obamacare subsidies. The challenges are mounting, not receding.

The reconciliation process exists precisely for moments like this. It allows a governing majority to bypass the filibuster and pass budget-related priorities with a simple majority — the same procedure Democrats used twice under Biden to jam through massive spending and climate legislation. Refusing to use it again would be an act of political negligence.

Trump has accomplished much, but claiming “mission accomplished” now risks repeating the failures of his first term — executive orders that were erased within weeks and policies undone overnight.

The task ahead is to legislate the revolution. Codify the border. Dismantle bureaucratic strongholds. Rein in judicial activism. Secure election integrity. Cement economic reform.

The first Trump presidency showed what executive courage can do. The second must prove what lasting law can achieve. If Trump wants his achievements to outlive his term, he must act now — not by declaring victory, but by legislating it.

​Congress, Department of education, Donald trump, Federal reserve, Government overreach, Government shutdown, Government spending, Government waste, Immigration, Maga, Mass deportations, Midterm elections, One big beautiful bill, Opinion, Opinion & analysis, Reconciliation, Republicans, Supreme court, Tax cuts, The courts 

A 19-year-old man was arrested for attacking and killing a 52-year-old delivery worker at Chick-fil-A in the middle of the night, Illinois police say.

Darryl Lee Jr. of Kankakee allegedly broke into the restaurant at about 3 a.m. and attacked Tracey Land of Bridgeview with a knife and hammer.

‘The guy got my son on the floor, so I got out of the car, and I was trying to get him away from my son so he couldn’t hit my son anymore.’

Land died from the alleged attack.

Lee then reportedly attacked a 20-year-old maintenance worker at the same location. The man was stabbed but fought with Lee and was able to subdue him until police arrived.

He was helped by his mother, who was also a maintenance worker and happened to be in a car nearby and rushed in to help her son.

“There were hitting each other,” she said anonymously to WLS-TV. “The guy got my son on the floor, so I got out of the car, and I was trying to get him away from my son so he couldn’t hit my son anymore.”

Lee was charged with nearly a dozen counts related to the incident, including the following:

First-degree murder, a class M felonyAttempted first-degree murder, a class X felonyConcealment of homicidal death, a class 3 felonyAggravated battery, a class 3 felonyArmed robbery, a class X felonyArmed violence, a class X felonyBurglary, a class 2 felony

Oswego Police transported Lee to the Kendall County Jail.

RELATED: Elderly man confesses to killing his daughter and wife with an ax to avoid homelessness after losing his job, police say

“This was an unprovoked attack and resulted in a tragic loss of life. Our hearts go out to the victims, their families, and everyone affected by this tragic incident,” reads a statement from Oswego Police Chief Jason Bastin.

“We are grateful for the bravery of those who intervened and for the coordinated response from our officers, fire personnel, and assisting agencies,” he added.

WGN-TV reported that Lee’s defense attorney expressed concern that he was not fit to stand trial.

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​Chick-fil-a lethal attack, Darryl lee jr of kankakee, Knife and hammer murder, Crime, Restaurant workers attacked 

When you hear the name George Soros, one of the words that comes to mind is “globalist.” However, despite his obvious intentions for the world, what few know is what truly fuels his ideology.

“You think ‘open borders,’ which is accurate, but that doesn’t actually describe what he believes. He’s been somewhat reticent to admit publicly what his beliefs are. And so, some people will be like, ‘Oh, he’s a communist. He’s a Marxist. He’s a socialist,’” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“Well, not exactly. … In a sense, it would be easier if he were because it would be easier to define and identify the various parts of his ideology and his work, but he’s not. So, what is he? Because globalism and open borders — that’s not really an end. That’s a means to an end,” she continues.

That’s why Wheeler has done a deep dive into Soros’ background, and in doing so she stumbled on a 1998 interview Soros did on “60 Minutes.”

“Are you religious?” the interviewer asked.

“No,” Soros replied.

“Do you believe in God?” the interviewer pressed further.

“No,” Soros again replied, short and quick.

“Soros told us he believes God was created by man, not the other way around, which may be why he thinks he can smooth out the world’s imperfections,” the interviewer narrated.

“So, not to sound preachy here, not to sound religious, but George Soros’ hatred of the United States and our norms and our traditions and our sovereignty is based on hatred of the foundational principles on which our country was built, that of God and Christianity,” Wheeler says.

“And isn’t this always the case? It’s always a hatred of God that motivates them. That’s why they killed Charlie,” she continues.

“They want to destroy all definitions of objective reality, because that is written by God. That’s natural law,” she adds. “That’s why they’re seething with hatred at the United States, because we’re built as a Christian nation to allow us to glorify God. That’s why they want to dehumanize us, because we are made in the image of God.”

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When 250 state ballots arrive in your Amazon order, faith in election security gets harder to defend. Yet that’s exactly what happened to a woman in Newburgh, Maine, who opened her package of household items to find five bundles of 50 official Maine referendum ballots.

Adding to the irony, the ballots were for Question 1 — a measure asking voters whether to tighten absentee ballot rules and require photo ID. The woman did the right thing and called authorities. But what if she hadn’t?

How can citizens trust the vote when ballots appear as shipping mistakes?

Now under investigation, the bizarre mix-up raises urgent questions. Who had access to the ballots? Were chain-of-custody rules violated? How many more ballots might be “out for delivery”?

For years, skeptics of election fraud have claimed concerns about ballot integrity are overblown. Yet events like this prove the opposite: The system is riddled with vulnerabilities. When official ballots wind up in an Amazon box, the process is beyond merely “flawed” — it’s broken.

Election officials and lawmakers must confront an uncomfortable truth: The safeguards meant to protect our democracy aren’t working. Anyone arguing against stronger voter ID laws should look to Newburgh. How can citizens trust the vote when ballots appear as shipping mistakes?

This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a test of whether Americans still believe their votes matter. A democracy depends on a transparent, verifiable process — from printing to counting. When that chain breaks, confidence collapses.

Newburgh should be a wake-up call. Every ballot must be tracked, every voter verified, every election beyond reproach. Reassurances and press conferences won’t cut it. Citizens deserve a voting system that’s airtight, accountable, and secure. Anything less insults the republic.

Commonsense reforms aren’t complicated. Require a government-issued photo ID to vote — the same standard used to board a plane, buy a beer, or enter a federal building. For mail-in ballots, require proof of identity both when requesting and returning a ballot. Without that, the system leaks from every seam.

RELATED: Honor system? More like fraud system

Photo by Moor Studio via Getty Images

When ballots get rerouted into cardboard boxes unnoticed, the integrity of democracy itself comes into question. It signals a culture that prizes convenience over vigilance, treating ballots like junk mail instead of sacred instruments of self-government.

Democracy doesn’t collapse in secret; it erodes in daylight while people look away. That’s why reform must be bold, not bureaucratic. States need top-to-bottom reviews of how ballots are printed, stored, distributed, and tracked — and consequences for failures.

If democracy is worth defending, ballots are worth protecting. Anything less, and we’ve already surrendered what makes the vote sacred.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Voter fraud, Election fraud, Fraud, Stolen election, Stolen election claims, Ballots, Ballot initiative, Election integrity, Security, Democracy, Maine, Question 1 

Arnold Schwarzenegger ripped into Democrats over their insistence that President Donald Trump had been the aggressor in the ongoing battle over gerrymandering and redistricting.

The former California governor appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and argued that Democrats had been gerrymandering for many decades before the president jumped into the fray.

‘It’s all between Democrats and Republicans, and the ones that are getting left behind are the people.’

“Is it fair to argue that — do you believe that the Republican Party is starting this?” host Jake Tapper asked.

“No, Jake. There has been gerrymandering going on for 200 years,” Schwarzenegger replied.

“There is such extreme gerrymandering going on that in a state like Massachusetts, it has, like, 40% of the people voting for Trump — they have zero representatives. The Republican Party has zero representatives sent to the House. Think about that,” he added.

“In New Mexico, 45% of the people voted for Trump and vote Republican, and zero is sent to the House, zero representatives from the Republican Party,” Schwarzenegger said. “So there’s gerrymandering, crazy gerrymandering going on all over the country, and we wanted to try to stop it in California.”

Schwarzenegger has been on record in opposing efforts led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to redistrict California’s congressional seats in order to send more Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I think this whole thing about finger-pointing and saying, ‘They did it, so therefore we should [do] it,’ that’s not really the way to go,” he added. “The one party should outperform the other party.”

RELATED: Obama defends Gavin Newsom’s redistricting scheme to counteract ‘gerrymandering’ by Texas Republicans

“When you think about this trying to outcheat each other rather than outperform each other, it’s all between Democrats and Republicans, and the ones that are getting left behind are the people,” Schwarzenegger added.

Tapper pointed out that about 62% said they supported the proposition in California that would allow Democrats to redistrict the deep blue state.

The entire interview can be viewed on CNN’s YouTube channel.

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Stephen A. Smith has gotten himself on the FBI’s radar, but not for anything impressive.

After the FBI announced a sweeping probe into two separate illegal sports gambling-related cases that included the arrest of Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player Damon Jones — among some mob families — the ESPN star complained on “First Take” that President Trump is “coming” for the sports world.

FBI Director Kash Patel then joked about Smith’s comments on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“I’m the FBI director. I decide which arrests to conduct and which not to conduct. That may be the single dumbest thing I’ve everheard out of anyone in modern history, and I live most of my time in Washington, D.C. It’s right up there with Adam Schiff,” Patel told host Laura Ingraham.

“We arrest people for crimes,” he added.

“How would anybody connected to the sports world hear this story — that an NBA hall of famer, an NBA champion, an NBA head coach, active head coach, is involved in some sort of poker scheme involving mafia members — and the reaction be, ‘Oh man, Trump’s coming,’ and, you know, ‘Trump’s coming after his enemies,’ and, ‘Trump is the bad guy here,’” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock says on “Fearless.”

“The entire media is now rigged around a system of ‘the only crimes that are punishable are crimes committed by Donald Trump or his supporters,’” he continues. “If you’re an enemy of Trump, there’s nothing we can’t rationalize by saying, ‘What about Brett Favre?’ or ‘What about Donald Trump?’ or ‘What about some random white guy?’”

While many are asking why those who are already rich through professional sports would then engage in illegal gambling to pad their pockets further, Whitlock believes its a symptom of the culture surrounding sports.

“Why wouldn’t they do it given the environment and the culture that we’ve built around sports? They show up to arenas. The arenas play a style of music that promotes corruption and greed and debauchery,” Whitlock says.

“We want athletes to mimic the behavior of criminals, gangsters, men that are incarcerated. So, athletes, we want you to tat yourself up, dress with your pants hanging off your ass. We want you to pretend like you’re some Iceberg Slim-type pimp and rapper, and that’s your brand now,” he continues.

“That’s what’s been promoted to all of these athletes, and that’s what they’ve done,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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