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If you think the new $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund is merely a slush fund for January 6 defendants, you are missing the bigger story. And if you are tempted to roll your eyes because of your politics, let me introduce you to my family — and to many other American families whose names you have never heard.

The truth is this: Department of Justice weaponization is rarely about politics. It is almost never about a president. It is about power — who has it, who lacks it, and which private citizens have built warm enough relationships with federal prosecutors to pick up the phone and ask for a favor.

The very existence of a publicly funded process that acknowledges the government can ruin innocent Americans marks a step the country has needed for a very long time.

I learned that the hard way.

In 2020, a former federal prosecutor then working for Amazon Web Services called his old colleagues at the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia and asked them to criminally investigate my husband, a former Amazon employee. He did not pitch a murder case. He did not allege a Ponzi scheme. He claimed my husband had violated the terms of his Amazon employment agreement.

Read that again. A private company hired a lawyer to ask the federal government to put my husband in prison over an alleged breach of a corporate HR document.

And it worked.

The Eastern District of Virginia opened an investigation. FBI agents pounded on my door one pandemic morning while my baby sat on my hip in a diaper. Federal prosecutors used civil forfeiture to seize every dollar in our bank accounts. We sold our house, sold our car, and emptied my husband’s retirement account to pay lawyers.

My husband was never charged with a crime. A federal judge later ruled that he had complied with the “explicit terms” of his Amazon contract. The government eventually returned 85% of what it had taken, with no apology and no explanation.

Why did this happen?

The answer has nothing to do with Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors almost all leave the Justice Department for private practice. The value they bring to big firms lies in their relationships and their institutional know-how. To make partner, you need a book of business. To build that book, you cultivate corporate relationships before you leave government service. Future clients need to know you can call your old colleagues and get movement. That is the currency. That is the game.

RELATED: Conservative lawyer John Eastman punished AGAIN for representing Trump

ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

The lawyer who pushed for the investigation of my husband had spent years as a line prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia. He called the sitting U.S. attorney, his former colleague. The U.S. attorney looped in the criminal chief, who had also worked with Amazon’s lawyer in that same office. In later civil discovery, we obtained an email in which the criminal chief reassured Amazon’s lawyer that she had “specifically selected” her “two best prosecutors” for his client’s “important matter.”

The important matter was a private employment dispute.

Two of the best prosecutors in a major federal district were assigned by name to a corporate HR grievance because the corporation’s lawyer used to work down the hall. Bill Barr once warned that the investigation itself is the punishment: “People facing federal investigations incur ruinous legal costs and often see their lives reduced to rubble before a charge is even filed.” He was right.

And this does not happen once in a blue moon. It happens every day in the 93 U.S. attorney’s offices across the country. It has almost nothing to do with who occupies the White House.

We are not the only ones.

If prosecutors now face some real consequence for promising their ‘best’ people as a favor to old work friends … maybe a few of them will pause before making the call.

Ask Nevin Shetty, the former chief financial officer of a Seattle start-up. His company hired a former federal prosecutor to bring a criminal case over an investment that lost money. Shetty had moved corporate cash into a stablecoin platform he believed was safe enough to entrust with his own life savings. Then the stablecoin collapsed, erasing $60 billion in four days, and the platform’s founder later pleaded guilty to fraud.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called Shetty’s prosecution an “improper attempt … to stretch the wire-fraud statute beyond its breaking point.” Shetty was convicted anyway and sentenced to two years in federal prison. At bottom, his “crime” was violating company investment policy. The start-up, by the way, had billionaire investors on its board.

Ask Michael Kail, the former Netflix executive. Netflix hired another firm thick with former federal prosecutors to pursue criminal charges over a violation of its “culture deck,” which barred outside advisory work for vendors. He is in federal prison today, separated from his wife and two teenage sons. The start-up founders who supposedly paid him were never prosecuted. Netflix, of course, was founded and run by a billionaire.

Ask Ryan Bloom, the former construction company CEO charged with bank fraud over allegedly false bank invoices. Agents arrested Bloom in front of his young child, who was left alone when they hauled his father away in handcuffs. Later, the judge learned that the prosecutor’s wife worked for the University of Oklahoma, whose president founded and sat on the board of the alleged victim bank. Under that president, her salary had doubled to $310,000, with a $100,000 raise arriving two months before the superseding indictment, even as the university cut costs elsewhere. The court disqualified the prosecutor.

After 18 months of hell, the charges were dismissed. No billionaire required. Just a prosecutor with a personal stake and enough power to wreck a family before anyone checked his work.

RELATED: Democrats’ lawfare has targeted online privacy for years — Meta’s big court defeat is the win they crave

Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Now flip it.

Take billionaire Robert Smith. After a four-year investigation, the government’s top tax prosecutor was prepared to indict him in one of the largest individual tax-fraud cases in American history. Smith had allegedly hidden more than $200 million in income through offshore structures. Instead, he got a non-prosecution agreement. He paid $139 million, admitted to “an illegal scheme,” and walked away a free man, still running his firm, still worth billions.

Compare those ledgers and tell me what you see.

I see a justice system weaponized not mainly by presidents, but by access — by titans of business, by corporations rich enough to hire the right former prosecutors, and sometimes by prosecutors themselves. It is a quiet, daily message to the rest of us: Get in line, or we can ruin you.

And while we are being honest, ask yourself why federal prosecutors did not exactly race to take down Larry Nassar before Olympic gymnasts forced the issue. Or why Jeffrey Epstein secured a sweetheart non-prosecution deal in 2008, even as dozens of women came forward. My theory is simple. No future law firm partnership is built on prosecuting a gymnastics doctor or a sex trafficker. No lucrative book of business waits on the other side. Prosecutors are human. They respond to incentives. Regular American families pay the price.

So no, the anti-weaponization fund is not just for railroaded January 6 defendants. Read the government’s announcement. It contains no partisan requirement for filing a claim. The fund exists, in Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s words, to redress “victims of lawfare and weaponization.” That category includes far more Americans than cable news will admit.

It includes the family that lost their home to civil forfeiture even though no charges were ever filed. It includes the CEO arrested in front of his child over a case later dismissed. It includes all of us who do not have a billionaire’s lawyer on speed dial.

I do not know yet whether this fund will be administered fairly. But the very existence of a publicly funded process that acknowledges the government can ruin innocent Americans marks a step the country has needed for a very long time.

And here is the part that gives me hope. If prosecutors now face some real consequence for promising their “best” people as a favor to old work friends, or for running a case while their own families cash in, maybe a few of them will pause before making the call. Maybe the next family will get to keep their house.

That is worth $1.776 billion of the federal budget. It is worth much more than that.

Ask anyone who has lived it.

​Opinion & analysis, Weaponization, Lawfare, January 6, Civil liberties, Department of justice, Todd blanche, Donald trump, Fbi, Fraud, Asset forfeiture, Amazon, Netflix, Irs 

After spending nearly 11 years flapping his gums at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City, Stephen Colbert’s time as the host of CBS’ “The Late Show” has come to an end — and President Donald Trump couldn’t be happier.

“Colbert is finally finished at CBS,” the president wrote after the final show aired. “Amazing that he lasted so long!”

Colbert, who took over the show in 2015 from beloved host David Letterman and then shepherded the franchise to its death, quipped on Thursday that he didn’t get his wish of having Pope Leo XIV on the show as his last interview.

Instead of the Roman pontiff, Colbert chatted with one of the last surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney, and had Paul Rudd, Bryan Cranston, Jimmy Kimmel, and other Hollywood script-readers make brief cameos.

“The pope, who was definitely my guest tonight, has canceled. We already sent the other stars away,” said Colbert, who, while claiming to be a Catholic, has long championed causes diametrically opposed to the church’s moral teachings. “This is terrible.”

‘He’s finally gone!’

Despite his reflexive propagandizing and monomaniacal fixation on Trump, Colbert — who just months ago praised the Soviet Union for its supposed feminism — largely avoided politics in his finale but made sure to once again criticize vaccine skeptics, calling them “little pricks.”

RELATED: LIP SERVICE: Pedro Pascal demands goodbye kiss from departing ‘Late Night’ host Colbert

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty Images

This was especially on brand given that Colbert routinely attacked those who in recent years dared to question whether the experimental COVID-19 jabs were as safe or effective as advertised; strenuously pushed COVID-19 vaccination; and blasted the notion that natural immunity was optimal.

Later in the finale, Colbert briefly spoke to science podcaster Neil deGrasse Tyson, who explained away the CGI wormhole that would deliver the host to a gabfest with Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel, then threaten to devour all of late-night.

Some fans gathered outside the Ed Sullivan Theater — which survived the wormhole — to bid Colbert adieu with well-wishing signs and at least one stating, “Colbert for President.”

Following the conclusion of Colbert’s finale, Trump wrote, “He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”

The show was eulogized by various liberals, including twice-failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D), Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey (D), and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

CBS announced in July 2025 that it was canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and ending the franchise, stating that it was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.”

The show’s time slot will now be occupied by Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed.”

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​Cbs, Donald trump, Paul mccartney, Pope leo xiv, Stephen colbert, The beatles, The late show, Vaccination, Television, Politics 

Earlier this year, Anthropic lost its AI deal with the Department of War after the company tried to dictate how the government used its platform. The story ended with Anthropic labeled as a supply chain risk, leaving the government without an AI partner for military operations. Anthropic’s competitors all proposed deals of their own to fill the void; however, the War Department ultimately chose another option — to build an AI army that brings the best AI platforms together into one central fighting force.

The backstory

To get the full story, we have to go all the way back to January 2026. The U.S. military conducted a special operationin which Delta Force went into Venezuela to capture dictator Nicolás Maduro. The mission was a huge success, with the U.S. military asserting a devastating level of force and efficiency over Maduro’s guards, with only seven injuries on the U.S. side.

While the U.S. military has always been a lethal force, some of the mission’s success was attributed to Claude, Anthropic’s sophisticated AI platform.

Instead of choosing one, they went with all of them.

This got the attention of Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei. By February, Amodei raised concerns over the War Department’s use of Claude for military operations. In his official statement, he stressed that “in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do. Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now.”

Amodei went on to revise the agreement he already had with the War Department, adding that the government couldn’t use Claude for “mass domestic surveillance” or “fully autonomous weapons.”

Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs and senior adviser Sean Parnell responded quickly, stating that, “The Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement.”

Unfortunately, the two sides failed to reach a new agreement, citing that the current deal was already sufficient, and President Trump declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk in a Truth Social post that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reposted on his X account. This designation prevents federal workers from using Anthropic’s products on their work computers, with a six-month phase-out period to remove Claude entirely.

Although Claude was reportedly also used in the Iran strike missions, the War Department found itself in need of a new AI platform. Instead of choosing one, the department went with all of them.

RELATED: Killer drones have conquered the skies. Can we ever be safe again?

Mike Mareen/Getty Images

AI army, assemble!

To make sure an AI company never tried to dictate the terms of the military’s operations ever again, the War Department assembled the Avengers of AI platforms, creating one powerful AI army, with each vendor offering up its unique expertise.

SpaceX: Recently acquiring xAI as part of its core business, SpaceX offers data center infrastructure through its ambitious lunar base initiative, as well as the latest AI models that power Grok.OpenAI: As the leading AI platform that brought ChatGPT to the forefront, OpenAI’s platform offers robust data analysis and content creation for a range of applications.Google: With a broad Google Cloud Platform network that powers its own AI platform, Gemini, Google brings both powerful AI capabilities and cloud infrastructure to the military deal.NVIDIA: As a leading provider of GPUs that power most of the AI data centers in America and abroad, NVIDIA provides the backbone to build the advanced platforms our military needs to succeed.Reflection: Although not as well known as the other names on this list, Reflection builds AI agents designed to write code and create “superintelligent” autonomous systems.Microsoft: With its Azure network of data centers, as well as LLMs that make up portions of its Copilot AI platform, Microsoft brings both infrastructure and intelligence to the table.Amazon Web Services: Amazon owns one of the most robust cloud and data server networks on the planet. As part of the team, it brings its advanced infrastructure and connectivity knowledge to the deal.

Before the AI partnership blew up into oblivion, the U.S. military relied heavily on Anthropic’s AI models to conduct operations. When the two parted ways, the disruption created a massive hole in the War Department’s offensive capabilities.

Looking over the new list of AI providers, it might appear as if Anthropic left a hole so large that seven Big Tech giants had to come together just to fill it. That’s not the case, however. The U.S. military learned from the mistake with Anthropic that trusting one company to provide so many vital services was a risk that put soldiers and the nation in a bad spot if things went bad. This new initiative aims to diversify the department’s AI capabilities, bringing together the best of today’s AI platforms without giving any single company more power or authority than the other. It’s a smart move meant to ensure that AI partners supply their expertise while the government alone decides how to use them, according to the law.

In the end, having an entire roster of AI platforms at our disposal makes the U.S. military more capable against our enemies than ever. And the most interesting part? Every partner on the list agreed to the same terms that Anthropic proposed — that “any lawful use” under the Constitution is the final word.

​Tech 

A man is grieving the loss of his wife of 25 years after she was brutally mauled to death by dogs allegedly belonging to their neighbor in Florida.

A spokesperson for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said police were investigating the mauling death of a woman on Tuesday.

‘Seeing the same woman I’ve loved for the last 30 years, 25 years just ripped apart by two animals was just … I’ll never get that image out of my mind.’

Donnell Smith told WESH-TV that he went to help a neighbor at about 1 a.m. and returned to his home to find his wife, Jodi Cowan, and one of her dogs gone.

He said he heard a faint cry for help and then saw that his wife was being dragged away.

“I saw the silhouette of the two dogs dragging my wife down the road, off into the grass in front of the truck down there,” Smith said tearfully.

He said his wife was in a pool of blood and the dogs returned to try to continue dragging her away.

“I pulled my knife out, you know, just swinging with it one hand and holding the blood with the other, trying to stop her from bleeding,” Smith said.

Smith said he was eventually able to call 911 and his wife was flown to a hospital, but she died hours later.

“It was brutal. Seeing the same woman I’ve loved for the last 30 years, 25 years just ripped apart by two animals was just … I’ll never get that image out of my mind,” Smith added.

He believes she may have gone out to save their dog from the neighbor’s dogs and then became a victim herself.

RELATED: College student mauled and killed by 3 pit bulls she was pet sitting, police say

Smith says the dogs belonged to a neighbor and that he had previously warned the sheriff’s office about the threat from the dogs.

“I told them that she had those two pits that get out all the time and run the neighborhood and have been aggressive towards people, and they didn’t do anything about it,” Smith said. “My wife lost her life because of it.”

WESH reached out to the sheriff’s department to confirm whether it had received the prior complaints about the dogs. A spokesperson said the department would provide an update as the investigation progresses.

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​Dog attack, Lethal animal attack, Pit bulls, Pet attack, Crime 

They say never meet your heroes. It turns out Indiana Jones is no exception.

Arizona State University’s commencement this year featured exactly the kind of speaker Americans have come to expect from modern universities: a wealthy Hollywood celebrity lecturing graduates about climate change, “indigenous spirituality,” social justice, and the moral failures of Western civilization.

The sign over the modern left-wing academy reads: Let none who seek intellectual consistency enter here.

Harrison Ford told ASU graduates, “Humanity is a part of nature, not above it,” before calling for sweeping environmental action, “cultural change,” and the elevation of indigenous perspectives about the natural world. Had he remained silent, some might have mistaken him for wise. Instead, he opened his mouth and proved himself a fool.

The speech mattered not because it was unusual, but because it perfectly captured the ideology that now dominates many American universities. Had you asked ChatGPT to generate a commencement address based on ASU’s official political commitments, it would have sounded very much like this one.

The solutions offered by Hollywood activists and university administrators are the very ideas that helped produce much of the confusion in the first place.

Ford’s speech rested on a rejection of the biblical view of man. Scripture teaches that human beings are distinct from the rest of creation because they are made in the image of God. In Genesis, man is commanded to exercise dominion over the earth, not as a tyrant, but as a steward. Human beings are created to behold the glory of God in the world He made, not merely to dissolve into nature as one creature among many.

Ford rejects that distinction. But the moment he does, he collapses into contradiction. If human beings are merely another species within nature, no different in principle from wolves, termites, or algae, then why should they presume to reorganize economies, restrict energy production, and manage the global ecosystem?

The rest of nature does not hold climate summits. Ants do not draft sustainability goals. Coyotes do not issue carbon mandates.

Nature simply acts according to its nature. That is the emptiness of leftism. Ford made millions pretending to be heroes who could save the day. Now, sliding into old age, he has no answer for anyone. The left thrives on captive audiences. Put its spokesmen outside the lecture hall, and the whole performance looks ridiculous.

RELATED: The answer to university decline is hiding in plain sight

Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Ironically, Ford’s own activism depends on the very biblical framework he rejects. The claim that mankind has a moral duty to care for the world makes sense only if man occupies a unique place above the rest of creation. Stewardship presupposes authority.

The modern environmental movement tries to erase the biblical doctrine of dominion while quietly smuggling morality back in whenever moral action becomes necessary. Yet it cannot explain where such morality comes from. Nature is red in tooth and claw. Why, then, should man not follow suit?

Ford also praised indigenous communities for understanding that “the trees, the mountain, water, soil are not commodities. They are relatives.”

This romanticized view of indigenous life now comes standard in university rhetoric. It also bears little resemblance to history. Human beings across cultures, ancient and modern, have altered landscapes, hunted animals to extinction, waged wars, enslaved rivals, and struggled ruthlessly for survival. Indigenous tribes were not mystical ecological saints floating above ordinary human nature.

One cannot help noticing the contradiction built into these speeches. ASU routinely acknowledges that it sits on indigenous land. Fine. If that confession is sincere, when exactly does the university plan to return the property? ASU confesses the theft, keeps the land, and then congratulates itself for moral awareness. That is not repentance. That is performance.

And what about Ford himself?

He owns multiple luxury properties and has spent decades enjoying private aviation, industrial modernity, and immense personal wealth. Has he offered to return any of his land? Has he proposed downsizing his estates for the sake of climate justice? The modern progressive elite increasingly resembles a secular priesthood that demands sacrifice from everyone except itself.

Ford also repeated the now-obligatory oppressor-oppressed framework that dominates university discourse. Every social question gets filtered through the same categories: oppressor versus oppressed, colonizer versus marginalized, privileged versus victimized.

That framework has become so totalizing that universities no longer even pretend to offer intellectual diversity on first questions about human nature, morality, or society. In their world, you are either oppressed or an oppressor, and those are the only categories available for interpreting history.

RELATED: Billionaire Bruce blasts ‘rich men’ in latest concert rant

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

That raises an obvious question: Will ASU ever invite a commencement speaker who openly defends the American founding, free markets, Christianity, or the biblical doctrine of man?

Or will commencement remain an ideological pep rally, one last progressive sermon after four years of DEI, decolonization, and critical-theory mush?

To Ford’s credit, he did say one thing that was undeniably true. Speaking to the graduates, he admitted, “The world you’re stepping into, the world my generation left you, is a real mess.”

On that point, he was right. But then he instructed the students to clean it up and presumably climbed into a private jet back to one of his luxury homes.

The ideas pushed by Hollywood activists and university administrators are the very ideas that helped produce the confusion in the first place: hostility to the biblical view of man, contempt for America’s inheritance, and utopian promises of social transformation through centralized moral activism.

ASU’s graduates deserved better than another lecture in fashionable conformity. A university worthy of the name would expose students to competing visions of humanity and the good life. Instead, they got Harrison Ford declaring that mankind is not above nature, moments before assigning mankind the duty to save the planet and clean up after him.

The sign over the modern left-wing academy reads: Let none who seek intellectual consistency enter here.

​American founding, Arizona state university, Christianity, Climate change, Decolonization, Harrison ford, Indiana jones, Indigenous land, Social justice, Western civilization, Opinion & analysis 

Fifteen months into Donald Trump’s second administration, and after repeated Supreme Court rulings affirming ICE’s authority to detain and deport illegal aliens, lower courts still overrule immigration law every week. The Supreme Court shows little urgency in stopping them.

Yet when a lower court finally follows the law and rules against the Department of Health and Human Services’ approval of a dangerous abortion drug by mail, the Supreme Court suddenly rediscovers its appetite for emergency intervention. Welcome to the vaunted 6-3 conservative majority, now better understood as a 7-2 majority against most conservative priorities — and against the court’s own recent precedents.

The so-called conservative majority increasingly looks like a bloc that exists to disappoint conservatives more politely than the left would.

We finally found a case in which the justices were eager to stay a lower-court injunction against a political policy. Last week, the Supreme Court paused a Fifth Circuit injunction against mail-order and telehealth access to the abortion drug mifepristone. The expansion of mifepristone to mail distribution was plainly unlawful, yet only Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have left the injunction in place.

That tells you a great deal.

They’re becoming so predictable

Start with the legal question, then consider the political implications and the court’s larger hypocrisy.

In 2023, several doctors opposed to abortion on moral and religious grounds challenged the FDA’s original 2000 approval of mifepristone. They argued that the agency had unlawfully approved the drug under Subpart H regulations meant for serious or life-threatening illnesses, on the absurd premise that pregnancy is an illness.

They also argued that the Biden administration’s later expansion of the drug to mail-order use and prescription without an in-person visit violated the Comstock Act. The statute explicitly bars mailing any “drug … for producing abortion” and makes it a felony to use “any express company or other common carrier or interactive computer service” to ship “any drug … designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.”

After the doctors won in a Texas district court and secured a partial victory in the Fifth Circuit against the mail-order expansion, the Supreme Court reversed and tossed the claim.

More recently, the Fifth Circuit sided with Louisiana in a separate challenge to mifepristone. The state argued that the entire mail-order abortion-pill regime violates Dobbs, which returned authority over abortion to the states. Under the FDA’s policy, a resident of a state such as Louisiana can still receive abortion pills in the mail even though abortion is banned there.

RELATED: Conservative SCOTUS justice restores access to abortion drug — for now

Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg/Getty Images

By staying that injunction last week, the three Trump appointees made one thing painfully clear: They will overrule conservative lower courts even when the law and recent Supreme Court precedent are on the conservatives’ side.

This is the classic Republican move: one step forward, one giant leap backward.

Thomas and Alito stand fast

Planned Parenthood may be on the ropes in some states, but Trump’s own administration sided with the abortion lobby to preserve Biden’s expansion of the abortion pill. That dangerous drug has made Dobbs functionally hollow by turning every mailbox into an abortion mill. By 2023, 63% of all abortions were already chemical abortions, and that number has almost certainly risen since.

Republicans cannot celebrate the Dobbs decision while refusing to fight mifepristone. In Trump’s case, his administration is not merely refusing to fight. It is siding with the abortion industry. What they call “pro-life” politics is a gross exercise in sophistry and perfidy.

Then comes the broader hypocrisy of the Republican appointees, with Thomas and Alito the lone exceptions.

For the past 15 months, liberal district and circuit judges have nullified immigration law, invented new rights and due-process claims for illegal aliens, and ignored Supreme Court precedent. Yet the high court shows no comparable eagerness to slap them down.

Nearly every day, lower courts order ICE to release criminal aliens on bond, even though Jennings v. Rodriguez made clear that such claims violate the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Supreme Court stayed some injunctions against Trump’s cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for certain nationalities, but it has refused to issue a categorical ruling that would end the lower-court cat-and-mouse game. Earlier this month, another federal judge still managed to block Trump’s cancellation of TPS for Yemeni nationals.

The worst example may have come earlier this month, when U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick ruled against Trump’s travel ban, absurdly suggesting that the murder of a National Guardsman by an Afghan national was not enough reason to stop visas from similar countries. But Trump v. Hawaii already held that the plain language of the INA allows the president to suspend visas from any country whenever he deems it in the national interest. Courts are not supposed to second-guess that determination.

This ‘conservative’ court?

The same pattern holds elsewhere. The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled last month that the president must accept asylum claims at the border, despite his clear authority under Section 212(f) of the INA to suspend entry. Yet none of these lower-court judges gets the Fifth Circuit treatment.

The same goes for guns. After the Bruen decision, blue states still restrict where common firearms may be carried and what magazines may be owned, in plain defiance of the requirement that modern gun regulations align with the nation’s historical tradition. The Supreme Court refused to hear challenges to Maryland’s ban on common semiautomatic rifles and Rhode Island’s ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

In both cases, Gorsuch joined Thomas and Alito in dissent. Kavanaugh and Barrett said nothing.

RELATED: Funding is useless if Democrat judges can still hold ICE hostage

Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty Images

Remember the Harvard affirmative-action ruling that was supposed to end race-based admissions? Discrimination remains rampant, and lower courts keep blessing open bias against white and Asian students. In a 2024 dissent from denial of certiorari, Alito — joined, of course, only by Thomas — warned that the court had “twice refused to correct a glaring constitutional error that threatens to perpetuate race-based affirmative action in defiance of Students for Fair Admissions.”

No meaningful follow-up has come since.

So what, exactly, is conservative about this court? What is it trying to conserve?

It is not defending the rule of law. It is not disciplining rogue lower courts. It is not protecting states’ authority on abortion, border security, gun rights, or equal protection.

Thomas and Alito still understand the assignment. The rest of the so-called conservative majority increasingly looks like a bloc that exists to disappoint conservatives more politely than the left would.

​Opinion & analysis, Supreme court, Abortion, Mifepristone, Fifth circuit, Dobbs, Roe v. wade, Donald trump, Neil gorsuch, Amy coney barrett, Brett kavanaugh, Clarence thomas, Samuel alito, Immigration, Guns 

New York City may have once been the victim of the worst attack on United States soil at the hands of Islamic terrorists, but it appears residents have gotten over it.

“In case you were, I don’t know, on the fence about whether or not New York City forgot all about 9/11 — they did,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says.

“It just keeps becoming increasingly obvious that they forgot because the Islamic conquest, it’s just as we predicted here at ‘Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,’ it’s just happening in broad daylight. And you know what? That’s to be expected when you elect a Muslim commie mayor,” she explains.

Gonzales then plays a clip of tens of Islamic men praying outside of an all-girls’ Jewish school in New York City.

“Just taunting the Jews inside that building,” she says.

In another video, a large Muslim crowd gathered outside of a synagogue during prayer, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Allahu Akbar.”

“I would be concerned about it. If I’m the mayor of New York City, I’m on it. I’m concerned about it. But instead of being concerned about it, of course, you would have the Muslim commie Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is actually here to tell you that it’s the Muslims who are under attack in New York City,” Gonzales says.

“I am aware of the disturbing incident targeting worshippers during Friday prayers outside the Baitul Mamur Mosque in Brooklyn, where a man praying was struck with an egg,” Mamdani wrote in a post on X.

“That hateful act is unacceptable and an affront to the values that define us as New Yorkers. My administration is committed to rooting out anti-Muslim hate in all its forms and ensuring every New Yorker can live and worship in safety and dignity,” he continued.

Mamdani added that “the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating this incident.”

When Gonzales tried to research the incident, she “couldn’t find any reporting on this other than the media reporting on his post.”

“There’s no video. There’s no description of a suspect. The mosque itself hasn’t even commented on it. Isn’t that strange? Isn’t that odd? And I guess Zohran Mamdani as the mayor, he just got the scoop,” she says.

“The mosque wasted an opportunity to be the victims of an egg attack,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​New york city, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Zohran mamdani, Islam, Terrorism, Anti-semitism 

The owner of a day care targeted in a viral Nick Shirley exposé has been charged six months later with millions of dollars of fraud related to allegedly false reimbursements from the government.

Fahima Egeh Mahamud, the CEO of the Future Leaders Early Learning day care in Minneapolis, allegedly claimed to have provided thousands of meals at her center and defrauded the government.

The day care closed in January, according to state records reviewed by KMSP-TV after the exposé went viral in December.

Mahamud had signed up her day care for a federal child nutrition program through Feeding Our Future, which has since been identified as a source of massive fraud. She also claimed to have provided day care for low-income families through the Child Care Assistance Program.

Prosecutors said she received $4.6 million from the child care program and another $850,000 from the nutrition program. She allegedly submitted over 13,000 fraudulent claims to CCAP from October 2022 until December 2025.

The day care closed in January, according to state records reviewed by KMSP-TV after the exposé went viral in December.

Mahamud was previously charged for the nutrition fraud but was charged on Wednesday for the day care fraud.

The day care was also inspected in November and found not to be “operating within the terms of its license.” It was cited for cleanliness and disrepair issues.

She is being charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

RELATED: Top scammer of ‘Feeding Our Future’ fraud in Minnesota NAILED with painful sentence

On Thursday, the top schemer in the Feeding Our Future scam was also sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison for orchestrating the massive fraud scheme.

“This was a vortex of fraud, and you were at the epicenter,” said U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel to Aimee Bock after her sentencing.

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​Daycare fraud, Feeding our future, Wire fraud, Nick shirley, Politics 

Depending on when Los Angeles residents looked up, they may have seen frightening images in the sky.

Over a duration of about 10 minutes, locals were likely to be either completely in awe or horrified.

‘What if there was a glitch?’

The source of the image of a skeleton with bright, glowing red eyes is not a nefarious one, it turns out, unless viewers were particularly unfond of Amazon. The company broke a Guinness World Record this week in L.A. when it lit up the sky with a record-setting drone show promotion for its new “Masters of the Universe” movie.

Ahead of the June 5 theatrical release, images that could easily be mistaken for an apocalyptic event appeared in a gigantic display, and if residents glanced over the horizon at the right time, they would have seen a horrifying image of Skeletor looking down at them.

The display in its entirety is less frightening; the approximately 10-minute show included a title screen, Castle Grayskull, He-Man, and theme music surrounding the hooded skeleton character.

RELATED: ‘Everything on the internet is fake’: Social media marketers reveal that most online trends are fabricated

The film’s director, Travis Knight, was on-scene to collect the Guinness certificate for brightest aerial image formed by multirotors/drones, officially credit to Amazon MGM Studios, USA.

With a reported 1,600 drones, it was nowhere near Guinness’ record for the most multirotors/drones airborne simultaneously from a single computer. This feat belongs to Guangdong EHang Egret Media Technology Co. Ltd., which displayed 22,580 drones in a presentation in Hefei, Anhui, China, on February 3, 2026.

Readers were understandably disturbed by the idea of giant images taking up a portion of the Los Angeles skyline for a significant period of time, with some calling the display “risky” considering the damage the drones could cause if they were to fail.

“What if there was a glitch and they fall down everywhere,” one viewer asked, picturing “people driving getting a drone crashing on their windshield.”

Another X user asked whether the accompanying sounds would be played loud enough for residents to hear:

“It looks great, but damn I’d hate to live round there,” Mark wrote.

RELATED: Karen Bass roasted over plan for free dental care for homeless meth addicts

A lot of sarcastic viewers commented on the display, with some saying, “I’m sure this didn’t freak anyone out,” while others pointed out the irony of “a skeleton character, somewhat reminiscent of the grim reaper, [looking] out over Hollywood.”

The display is out of touch according to many, with an overwhelming sentiment among viewers being that even such a grandiose promotion will not save the movie industry. Comments demanding film studios “make better movies” and concluding the studios have “no idea that they’re in active failure” were not hard to come by.

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​Amazon, California, Drones, Guinness world record, Los angeles, Tech 

The debate over Sharia law, immigration, assimilation, and whether America is starting to look like parts of Europe continues to be deeply divisive.

To gauge the severity of the issue, BlazeTV host Steve Deace spoke with Texas Representative and attorney general candidate Chip Roy (R), a co-founder of the Sharia-Free America Caucus in the House of Representatives.

“How real is this, Chip?” Deace asks bluntly.

“It’s very real. Our Democrat colleagues like to dismiss it as they did yesterday in the hearing that I held on this very topic,” Roy says, referring to the May 13 House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing titled “Sharia-Free America: Why Political Islam & Sharia Law Are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.”

“I wanted to show that number one, we have had 5.5 million people imported into the United States from majority-Muslim countries since 9/11. That’s suicidal; it’s stupid. Number two, the Muslim Brotherhood is driving the agenda, and all of the organizations that are basically affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, even if they don’t want to admit it, they’re driving the agenda in a concerted and organized plan,” he explains, citing several examples of Islam’s growing influence in the state of Texas.

Deace puts the 5.5 million statistic into perspective: “That would be the 24th-largest state in the union if it was just in one location. That would be more people than live in the following places: Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Utah, Nevada, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming.”

But when you consider that a huge portion of these immigrants have then started families in the U.S., it gets even more alarming.

“Let’s add in the children that they have created over those last 25 years at a higher rate than we are. I promise you that number is a much higher number. Maybe you double it,” Roy says.

“That’d be a top 10 state,” Deace says.

Roy says that he’s often questioned about his commitment to the First Amendment, but these critics misunderstand his advocacy.

“I’m not telling people what they can believe or not believe. Nothing about what I’m saying is that. What I’m saying is, you can’t advocate a political ideology, the stated objective of which for the vast majority of the people adherent to the religion is to undermine our civilization and destroy Western civilization,” he explains.

“It is Islam that is the inconsistent element here with our Western values, and we have to acknowledge it because you can’t win a war you don’t acknowledge exists — and one exists,” Roy continues.

Deace sums it up succinctly: “You have a right to believe what you want to believe; you don’t necessarily have a right to believe it here.”

While many, especially conservatives, are worried about illegal immigration, Deace and Roy point out that America has a “legal immigration problem” as well, specifically when it comes to Muslim migrants.

Roy points to England and France, where legal immigration from predominantly Muslim countries has significantly altered city demographics and culture.

“If we think that what’s happening in London and Paris is not happening right now on steroids, we’re crazy,” he says. “I think we will surpass how bad it is in the United Kingdom and France very quickly because people here will use the First Amendment … as a sword that they’re actually unable to do as easily in the U.K. or France.”

Roy warns that Muslim immigrants plan “to use our own property rights” and other freedoms “against us” to build “housing communities in and around their religious centers,” which is tied to their broader plan to conquer the West.

“By far, our number one threat to our country’s future … is the march of Islam into our communities,” he comments.

To hear the full interview, watch the episode above.

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​Steve deace, Steve deace show, Chip roy, Sharia law, Islamification, Texas 

Members of the LGBTQ+ community were outraged after one of the largest Pride festivals in Southern California was canceled just hours before it was scheduled to begin.

Long Beach city officials shut down the festival on Friday and accused the organizers of failing to provide them critical safety and operational documentation required for the event.

‘This decision comes at a moment when LGBTQ+ people are facing escalating attacks from the current federal administration and from political forces across the country.’

The city’s attorney sent a cease and desist order to the organizers right before the start time.

“The City notified the organizer that it had failed to timely submit the required application materials and supporting documentation necessary for permit review and issuance. As a result, no special event permit has been approved or issued for the events,” Dawn McIntosh said in the letter.

Long Beach Pride President Tonya Martin lashed out at the city in a statement Friday demanding that it “protect and uplift” the LGBTQ community, but she did not say whether the group had provided the proper documentation.

“Long Beach Pride is deeply disappointed by the City’s decision to cancel the Long Beach Pride Festival, a long-standing community institution built by volunteers, sustained by love, and rooted in the belief that every person deserves to live openly, safely, and with dignity,” the lesbian wrote.

“This decision comes at a moment when LGBTQ+ people are facing escalating attacks from the current federal administration and from political forces across the country,” she added.

On Saturday, the city responded with a rebuttal described as “aggressive” by the Advocate, an LGBTQ+ news outlet.

According to the city, organizers still had not submitted approved structural plans for the stages and trusses, approved electrical plans, detailed security plans, or sufficiently detailed site plans that identify critical infrastructure locations.

The city said most festivals of that size completed the documents 65 days in advance and that they had worked with the organizers all the way until the day of the event to try to get it to work out.

RELATED: LGBTQ activists are FURIOUS that California county shut down Pride Month display at public library — over a bookmark

The city also pointed out that it had to step in three years ago to keep the event going but had intended to do so as a one-time commitment. It has since continued funding and managing the parade.

Despite the cancellation of the festival, the Pride parade went on as scheduled.

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​Long beach, Pride festival, Pride parade, Politics, Lgbtq 

Students are claiming emotional trauma from their middle school teacher apparently hanging a black baby doll by an electrical cord from the television in her Florida classroom.

The bizarre incident was caught on video and was widely circulated before the art teacher was fired from the job at Barrington Middle School in Lithia.

‘They should not have to sit in the classroom and worry if they’re going to see images that can terrorize them for life.’

Nina Williams, the parent of the student who recorded the teacher, wants her to face serious consequences.

“I want her teaching certificate gone,” Williams said. “I don’t want her to be able to practice in another state. I don’t want her to be able to do what she did to my child and the other many children in that classroom to any other children.”

Williams posted the video on Tuesday to social media, where it quickly went viral.

“She needs to be charged for it and license removed. Not be around kids at all,” said Aracelis Perez, the parent of another student who recorded the teacher throwing the doll away after the hanging.

After much outrage, the district said the teacher had been terminated immediately on Wednesday.

“Our school counselors and administrators will continue to be available to meet with any students at Barrington Middle School who have concerns or need additional support,” reads the statement from the district.

Among those outraged was Hillsborough NAACP President Yvette Lewis.

“They should not have to sit in the classroom and worry if they’re going to see images that can terrorize them for life,” Lewis said. “If you don’t know your history, you’re bound to repeat it, and it was clear that this teacher did not know the history. Because if you knew your history and you knew what that meant and how it will invoke fear or intimidation to African-Americans, you would have never done it.”

Lewis went on to claim that the incident might not have happened if Florida state officials had not removed certain African-American history books from schools.

The teacher, whose name is Karen Savage, did not return requests for comment from WTLV-TV.

RELATED: NY middle school teacher fired over ‘racist’ joke allegedly made to two students about slavery

The district said the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Professional Practice Services is investigating whether her teaching certificate should be revoked.

WTSP-TV asked the FBI if it was investigating the case, but the agency refused to confirm or disconfirm any investigation.

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​Racism accusation, Florida school, Teacher racism, Politics, Middle school 

A former federal prosecutor is accused of illegally secreting confidential documents about the Trump administration from special counsel Jack Smith.

62-year-old Carmen Mercedes Lineberger is facing two felony charges for theft of the documents plus other charges in the government investigation.

Lineberger is not being detained and did not have to post any bond for release.

Lineberger allegedly emailed herself the documents and labeled the emails as cake recipes, according to prosecutors. She was working at the Fort Pierce branch of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

The documents were under seal from the Smith investigation into the alleged mishandling of national security records by President Donald Trump and two co-defendants after his first term in office.

She entered a plea of not guilty on Wednesday.

One of the emails was allegedly labeled “chocolate cake recipe,” while another file was allegedly labeled “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf.”

The second volume of Smith’s report had been sealed by federal Judge Aileen Cannon. Lineberger is accused of violating that order and taking steps to conceal her efforts.

She worked at the prosecutor’s office for almost two decades before retiring in December.

Lineberger is not being detained and did not have to post any bond for release.

Federal prosecutors said she could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on one charge, three years for another, and one year for each of the two charges of document theft.

RELATED: District Judge Cannon issues ruling on fate of Trump adversary’s Biden-era special report

Cannon, a Trump appointee, ruled that the case should be tossed out because the appointment of Smith as special counsel was unconstitutional.

The Trump administration had argued in Oct. 2024 that the release of the special counsel’s report amounted to election interference.

“Radical Democrats are hell-bent on interfering in the presidential election on behalf of Lyin’ Kamala Harris,” said former campaign spokesman Steven Cheung at the time.

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​Politics, Southern district of florida, Special counsel jack smith, Trump administration 

Reality TV star Spencer Pratt may be running one of the most unconventional political campaigns in recent memory — and according to BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler, that’s exactly why it’s working.

“What Spencer Pratt is doing … I don’t think I’ve ever seen another politician do this,” Wheeler says, explaining that what he’s doing is “removing the stigma of voting Republican for Democrats in L.A. who’ve been hurt by Democrat elected officials.”

“This person’s home was burned down, and this is what he wants to do so that that never happens again. This person sees the financial corruption that’s happening in the city of Los Angeles at the hands of politicians and wants to give that money — that’s your money — back to you,” she says.

“This is next-level political strategy that we don’t see in our country,” she adds.

Wheeler calls Pratt’s strategy “instinct that is not just a gut reaction.”

“This is instinct that’s based on a pre-existing thorough understanding of human nature that you have to provide for people, in order for them to change their minds, the ability to save face,” she says.

Unlike most politicians, Pratt has also identified who the elites are and how he plans to stop them.

“He’s identified the elites: Karen Bass, Nithya Raman, Gavin Newsom. And he’s identified a problem that you are suffering from that was caused by these elites. And he’s saying he’s not running away from the fact that he’s wealthy. He was famous. He’s doing the same thing that Trump did,” Wheeler explains.

“He’s giving people who aren’t just natural Republicans permission to vote for him based on the fact that he’s not necessarily associating himself with the Republican brand,” she continues.

“Spencer Pratt is not trying to appeal to Republicans in Los Angeles. Republicans are already going to vote for Spencer Pratt. He’s trying to appeal to Democrats,” she adds.

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​Karen bass, Liz wheeler, Los angeles, Political campaigns, Reality tv star, Republicans, Spencer pratt, The liz wheeler show, Blazetv, Blaze podcasts, Blaze media 

A member of a Tennessee school board has been charged with assault in connection with an incident during a recent public meeting in which he referred to a female high school student as “hot” and appeared to touch her, WJHL-TV reported.

Keith Ervin of the the Washington County Schools Board of Education was seen on video appearing to touch a student seated next to him while making a sizzling noise before telling her, “God, you’re hot, you know that? … Where do you go to school at?”

‘Every board member has been concerned about her and how this has impacted her and will impact her.’

The student replied that she attends David Crockett High School, after which Ervin exclaimed, “All right!” WJHL noted.

The incident occurred during an April 2 school board meeting and can be seen on the school district’s YouTube page; the incident occurs just after the 1 hour and 16 minute mark.

WJHL said that following public outcry, the school board on April 8 voted to censure Ervin, and the Washington County Commission issued a vote of no confidence in Ervin on April 27.

Ervin also was censured in 2009 after reportedly making a lewd gesture of a sexual nature in front of a class at David Crockett High School, the station said.

RELATED: Florida HS staffer, 49, initially fights female student in self-defense — but soon crosses way over the line, cops say

Ervin, however, has insisted the clip recorded during the meeting showing his interaction with the student lacks context, and he has stated he only was complimenting the manner in which she had been asking questions during the meeting, the station said.

A charge of assault was filed Monday against Ervin, with a violation date of April 2, WJHL reported, citing court records.

RELATED: Jesus, Trump, Charlie Kirk reportedly named role models by elementary students — but school staffer allegedly squashes picks

Washington County Schools Superintendent Jerry Boyd provided the station with a statement from the school board acknowledging that its members are aware a simple assault charge has been filed against Ervin in relation to the incident.

“Board chair Annette Buchanan previously stated that Mr. Ervin’s comments and actions were ‘shocking’ and that he ‘objectified and diminished a young woman,'” the statement reads, according to WJHL. “The Board reiterates that Mr. Ervin’s actions do not reflect the standards, policies, or values of the school district. The Board remains committed to ensuring a safe, respectful, and appropriate environment for all students and staff.”

The station said the school board stated that it will defer to law enforcement and the judicial system regarding the charge against Ervin.

Boyd added to the station that “none of the burden placed on the board members or myself or any district member compares to probably what the individual student feels. So every board member has been concerned about her and how this has impacted her and will impact her. Every board member wishes her the best. And as I said, both her and any student or any staff member that needs some additional supports, we’ll be prepared and are prepared to provide whatever we can.”

The father of the student at the center of the April 2 incident said on social media that Ervin should not be “anywhere near students” and called the other board members’ lack of action amid the incident “equally disturbing,” WJHL noted.

The station added that on May 7, the student herself addressed the school board, including Ervin, and called the board members “cowards” and said Ervin’s actions were “not only unwelcome, but sexist and derogatory.”

Boyd added to WJHL that the board has no authority to take action or discipline an individual board member beyond what already has been done — and that Ervin, an elected official, cannot be dismissed.

Boyd also told the station that “certainly in any situation, you always reflect, you certainly consider what you could have done differently during the moment, but you also focus on what can you do now. And I know every board member has been in the process of reflecting and acting on how they need to improve our board meetings, what their responsibility is, and also what my role will be and how I can support that.”

He added to WJHL that as “a father of girls and as a superintendent and a lifelong educator, this is a situation none of us anticipated; the student definitely didn’t anticipate that she would be in that kind of situation in a formal board meeting and honestly, nobody else did, either. So we’re taking measures to be preventative in the future, including ensuring that our board members always maintain a certain level of professionalism.”

The station said it has reached out to Ervin for a response.

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​Tennessee, Washington county schools, Board of education, Student, Keith ervin, Assault charge, Crime, School board meeting 

President Donald Trump surprised many of his own supporters during a recent interview with Sean Hannity when he defended the presence of Chinese students at American universities — arguing that removing them would devastate higher education in the United States.

“I could tell them I don’t want any students. It’s a very insulting thing to say to a country. They would then immediately go out and start building universities all over China,” Trump told Hannity.

“If you want to see a university system die, take a half a million people out of it,” he added.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray and executive producer Keith Malinak are among those supporters confused.

“We’re completely dependent on Chinese students,” Gray says in disbelief. “American universities would collapse without Chinese students. Come on.”

“What are you, Joe Biden? That’s something he would say. Or Barack Obama, not Donald Trump,” he adds.

“And so far,” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in, “as the president is making his case, the two main points that he has offered to us is that it’s highly insulting and the schools might go bankrupt.”

“I’m not seeing the bigger picture here that the president is, clearly,” he adds.

“Clearly not true, for one thing,” Gray says.

“American universities will not collapse without 500,000 Chinese in them. That’s nonsense,” he continues. “This is a fairly new phenomenon to begin with. And secondly, 500,000 split between, what is it, 15,000 universities? How many do we have in the country? It’s not that many; you’re not going to lose that many students.”

Trump went on to claim that while the “top schools will do fine” without the influx of Chinese students, the “lower schools” would not be fine.

“I think it’s just the opposite of that,” Gray says. “It’s more like the Harvards and the Princetons that are going to do worse because how many Asian students are at those schools? They probably have the highest percentage.”

“They’re cutting back on their Asian students because they’ve got too many,” he adds.

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​Joe biden, Pat gray, Pat gray unleashed, Sean hannity, Barack obama 

Former officials in the Biden administration have been credibly accused of letting a tech giant slide on preventable cybersecurity breaches only to later secure lucrative arrangements with or cushy jobs at the same corporation.

The American Accountability Foundation, a nonprofit government oversight and research organization, asked the Justice Department in a lengthy letter on Tuesday to open a formal investigation into Microsoft and several Biden officials.

‘We will act where the facts and the law support it.’

Among the Biden cronies singled out in the letter is Lisa Monaco, the former deputy attorney general whose post-government career move captured President Donald Trump’s attention in September 2025.

Trump wrote that “Corrupt and Totally Trump Deranged Lisa Monaco (A purported pawn of Legal Lightweight Andrew Weissmann)” had “been shockingly hired as the President of Global Affairs for Microsoft, in a very senior role with access to Highly Sensitive Information. Monaco’s having that kind of access is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand. She is a menace to U.S. National Security, especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government.”

Monaco’s employment at Microsoft apparently also struck the team at AAF as potentially problematic.

The watchdog noted that Monaco — who had announced a cyber fraud initiative in 2021 aimed at using the False Claims Act against contractors who intentionally misrepresent cybersecurity risks — proved eager to bring actions against numerous companies and institutions, but never against Microsoft.

Monaco and the rest of the Biden administration’s inaction against Microsoft is especially strange because the company suffered five massive cyber intrusions by foreign criminal and state-sponsored hacker groups between 2019 and 2023 that directly and adversely impacted the U.S. government.

The AAF emphasized that these intrusions “penetrated the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Departments of Treasury, State, Commerce, and Justice, as well as the National Security Council and numerous other federal agencies” and “resulted in the theft of tens of thousands of government emails, including correspondence from the U.S. Ambassador to China, the Secretary of Commerce,” and other bigwigs.

RELATED: ‘RedSun’ flaw in Microsoft’s security software lets hackers take over your PC. Here’s how to protect it.

Former President Joe Biden and Lisa Monaco. Ting Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

One of these cyber attacks, SolarWinds, reportedly relied on the exploitation of a flaw in Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services. The company was allegedly aware of the flaw for years but avoided patching it for fear of jeopardizing a multibillion-dollar federal cloud contract.

Former Microsoft President Brad Smith told Congress in 2021 that “there was no vulnerability in any Microsoft product or service that was exploited” in the SolarWinds attack.

While some Biden officials proved willing to assign Microsoft some blame, it was never too much or pursued as grounds for punitive action.

The Cyber Safety Review Board, an outfit established by former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, concluded that Storm-0558, a separate cyber attack executed by Beijing-linked hackers in May 2023, was enabled by a “cascade of Microsoft’s avoidable errors.”

Despite such recognition that it had dropped the ball, Microsoft managed to evade any meaningful reckoning.

“These facts, in our view, present squarely the kind of conduct that the Biden administration’s Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative was created to address: knowing or reckless misrepresentations by a federal contractor regarding the cybersecurity of products sold to the government,” the American Accountability Foundation said in its letter. “Yet to our knowledge, no False Claims Act investigation of Microsoft’s conduct has ever been opened, while other contractors whose conduct appears materially less egregious have been pursued under the same initiative.”

Besides Monaco, the watchdog made a point of mentioning several other Biden administration officials, including:

Bryan Vorndran, a former assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division who served as the bureau’s representative on the Cyber Safety Review Board. Vorndran, who the AAF said was mysteriously recused from the board’s probe into the Storm-0558 attack, joined Microsoft in June 2025 as deputy chief information security officer.Jerry Davis, a member of the CSRB from 2022 to 2025 who participated in the board’s investigation of the Storm-0558 attack. Davis was hired as a chief security adviser at Microsoft three months after the CSRB released its report faulting the company for “inadequate” security culture.Robert Joyce, the former director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency and an inaugural member of the CSRB. After leaving the NSA in 2024, he founded a cybersecurity firm that the AAF suggested counts Microsoft as one of its clients.

The AAF stressed that “federal ethics rules prohibit government officials from participating in matters in which they have a financial interest, and require cooling-off periods before certain officials may represent private parties before their former agencies.”

While the AAF did not “allege that any individual violated any specific law or regulation,” the watchdog noted that an investigation into the matter is warranted.

A Justice Department spokesperson told Breitbart, “The Department of Justice is committed to aggressively fighting fraud and protecting taxpayer dollars. We welcome referrals from anyone with credible information about fraud, and we will act where the facts and the law support it.”

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​Technology, Microsoft, American accountability foundation, Justice department, Cybersecurity, Graft, Biden, Federal, Cover up, Politics 

The orchestrator of a massive $242 million fraud scheme in Minnesota was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison on Thursday.

Aimee Bock, 45, was the founder and director of the Feeding Our Future nonprofit that promised to deliver meals to children and received hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic relief money from the federal government.

‘This was a vortex of fraud, and you were at the epicenter.’

Bock was found guilty on all counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy, and bribery.

“I made mistakes, so many mistakes. If I could go back, I would do everything differently. I don’t have the words to express just how horrible I feel,” Bock said while crying to the court after receiving the sentence.

“This was a vortex of fraud, and you were at the epicenter,” U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel said to Bock in court.

The investigation into the sprawling scam has led to more than 70 indictments and 60 convictions, many from the Somalian community.

Prosecutors said in a filing that the “brazen and staggering nature of her crimes has shaken Minnesota to its core, leaving lasting damage and eroding public trust.”

Republicans have accused officials in the deep-blue state of obstructing efforts to shut down the fraud. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) has denied the claims, but the furor led to his ending a re-election campaign for a third term.

In April, Walz tried to take credit for federal raids on numerous businesses in Minnesota accused of similar fraud schemes, but FBI Director Kash Patel mocked the claim.

“Come again? This FBI and DOJ with our DHS partners drafted and executed every search warrant today,” Patel wrote on social media. “But go ahead and take credit for our work while we smoke out the fraud plaguing Minnesota under your governorship.”

Minnesota state Rep. Kristin Robbins (R) also accused Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota of aiding the scam.

RELATED: ‘Feeding Our Future’ scam artist agrees to plea deal with a slap-on-the-wrist sentence

After Omar failed to comply with a request from a Minnesota state oversight committee, Robbins accused her of refusing to answer difficult questions about previously passing a bill “that took the guardrails off the school nutrition program that led to the conditions that enabled Feeding Our Future.”

“Democrat Ilhan Omar has shown her disdain for the taxpayers. She believes she’s above answering for her role in the Feeding Our Future fraud,” Robbins wrote at the time. “We’ve sent her multiple letters and invites, but zero response from Ilhan Omar — what is she hiding?”

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​Aimee bock, Feeding our future, Minnesota gov tim walz, Minnesota somali fraud, Politics 

Zohran Mamdani’s office has made it clear that it’s all about free speech, especially when it comes to the Luigi Mangione fangirl group the “Mangionistas.”

Mamdani’s office granted press passes to Abril Rios, Ashley Rojas, and Lena Weissbrot, who cheered on the alleged murderer outside the courthouse — and had some choice words for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“His children are better off without him,” one of the Mangionistas said. “They need to learn to not be like their dad.”

“I’m standing on business,” another one said. “F**k Brian Thompson. I don’t give a flying f**k. Millions of Americans suffer every single day.”

“If you guys are OK with someone like Brian Thompson being around and being a part of our society, that says more about you as a person because you look absolutely monstrous defending someone like that,” she added.

“I’m pissed off about this, Dave,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere tells co-host Dave Landau on “Stu and Dave Do America.”

“They say they don’t care about this guy dying because they think the children are better off without him,” Stu says.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Dave chimes in, saying that the “Mangionistas” who “want you to go kill a CEO of a health care company” are the “same people that want you to believe everything that a drug company tells you.”

“Wear a mask and lockstep to every single thing you were told during COVID. So explain that. Like that’s the part I don’t understand. You’re the reason every business shut down, because you believed every single thing that they had to say,” he says.

“But then you’re also on the side of the moron who came from a very, very rich family, and you’re completely OK with that,” he adds.

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Prediction markets have been harshly criticized over claims of insider trading and illegal gambling practices, leading to politicians and media demonizing them wholesale. Are their warnings symptoms of a growing problem in dire need of recourse, or is it all part of a smear campaign meant to wrest political power away from the people? Today, we dispel the myths of these “dangerous” prediction markets, highlight the differences between the top trading apps, and gain some powerful insights from our very own Stu Burguiere.

What is a prediction market?

A prediction market is a system that allows users to trade shares on the outcomes of specific events. In the words of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Prediction markets offer a variety of products designed to help the public forecast, plan for, hedge, and even harness perceptions of future events.”

‘When I take a position, I assume I’m going to hold it until resolution.’

Although today’s prediction markets revolve heavily around politics and sports, the first markets centered on something a little less glamorous — agriculture. The Grain Futures Administration of 1922 was a regulatory commission tasked with combating fraud among grain traders. Their efforts were so effective that, by the 1930s, the commission expanded into other products and industries. Under a new name, the Commodity Exchange Administration oversaw markets that regulated cotton, eggs, rice, butter, metals, energy, and more. Finally, in 1974, Congress passed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act, which created the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that oversees prediction markets to this day.

The important thing to keep in mind is that prediction markets are nothing new — they’ve been around for a century! However, an increase in online accessibility and notoriety has landed these legal trading platforms in hot water.

Why prediction markets are “dangerous”

If you spend any time online, you’ll see how prediction markets are vilified by everyone from politicians to the media. Most of them claim the same thing — prediction markets are a form of online gambling, a practice that isn’t legal on a federal level. In fact, some states, like Arizona, are suing popular prediction market apps, accusing them of illegal betting practices.

The New York Times even called prediction markets “dangerous,” noting that “prediction machines have become infrastructure for the legitimacy of event outcomes, no matter how outlandish.” In other words, prediction markets have the power to reveal truths and trends outside the media’s control, making them a direct threat to the left-wing media machine.

According to the chairman of the CFTC, Michael S. Selig, prediction markets exist as a way to combat the fake news, stories, and narratives of the media. Instead of relying on talking heads to tell their audience how they should feel about a particular event, users log on to their favorite prediction market app and vote on an event’s outcome based on their own knowledge and deductive reasoning. Since users are discouraged from voting in favor of outcomes they believe to be a lie, prediction markets reveal societal truths backed by real money, giving facts more weight than misinformation with an honesty incentive at the end.

Both left-wing media and politicians, like Arizona’s Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes, hate prediction markets because they take narrative power away from the elite and put it back into the hands of the people. As for the warnings of illegal gambling? That’s a lie. The CFTC classifies prediction markets as financial products similar to stocks traded on the stock exchange, which are completely legal and regulated by the federal government.

RELATED: Prediction markets let you ‘bet’ in states where gambling is banned: Here’s how

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Top prediction market apps

Thanks to prediction market apps, the markets themselves are easier to access than ever. Two apps in particular dominate the App Store and Google Play: Polymarket and Kalshi.

Polymarket is a sports-first trading app with robust stats on the MLB, NBA, NHL, golf, and more. It also offers a section for politics and weather, with more categories on the way, but if you’re a sports fanatic, Polymarket is a great place to start.

Kalshi offers a much broader range of trading options. From sports to politics to crypto, culture, and more, Kalshi’s rounded trading portfolio makes trading much more accessible for new and seasoned users who prefer more variety.

Since both apps are financial products, you will need to provide some personal information to create your account — this can include your first and last name, date of birth, phone number, home address, your Social Security number, a form of government ID (either a driver’s license or a passport), and a current selfie for verification.

Remember that prediction markets are subject to the same ethics and government regulations as the stock market. That means all trades are subject to government scrutiny, and insider trading laws do apply.

Make markets ‘Predictable with Stu Burguiere’

To get a better understanding of prediction markets and how they work, we chatted with BlazeTV resident expert Stu Burguiere. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: What are the big differences between the prediction market platforms? Are there any benefits to choosing one platform over another (taking into account the UI, trade options, trading fees, etc.)?

A: I think it’s beneficial for the ecosystem to have many different approaches. Kalshi is the best known in the U.S., they started here as a fully regulated platform in 2021. I was using the platform within their first few weeks of existence, but they didn’t get election markets until 2024 after suing the government and winning.

Polymarket took a more crypto-forward approach and mostly remained overseas in a bit of a gray area for U.S. users. They have since launched Polymarket U.S. but have only recently expanded beyond sports.

PredictIt has been around much longer but was limited in the amount you could invest in any contract until recently. Their fees have been a famous sticking point among the nerd community, of which I am a member.

There are also several other smaller players and rumors of up to a couple of dozen new prediction markets on the way. Some of these will likely partner with deep-pocketed companies and attempt to challenge the big boys.

Q: What are the pros or cons of using multiple prediction market apps?

A: If you’re a serious trader or someone investing a lot of money in this area, it is probably worth being on multiple apps and sites. Even markets with high liquidity will sometimes have differences in price by a few percentage points, and there’s little downside in chasing the best price. You also will find instances where a nearly identical-looking contract has preferable rules on one site over another.

It can get confusing to keep track of everything, but if you’re looking at this as part of a real money portfolio, it’s worth it to look for these advantages.

But for someone just getting started, I wouldn’t sweat it.

Q: Which app provides the best trading data to make a sound decision, set expectations, etc.?

A: I think you can find the information you need to trade pretty easily on most, if not all, of the various markets once you get comfortable. I wouldn’t say any of them are the places where you’re doing research, though. The most important part is to always read the rules because the headline question is occasionally more complicated than you think.

Q: Are there any delays in depositing money to trade or receiving money after a trade is complete?

A: I find it to be about as easy as funding any investment account. Kalshi, for example, offers no-fee bank transfers in one to three days, almost instant crypto transfers, and even Venmo, CashApp, Google Pay, PayPal (fees vary), and traditional bank wire transfer. Maybe even carrier pigeon.

You won’t be surprised to hear they make it very easy for you to deposit your money! But I have also never had an issue at all withdrawing funds from any of them.

If you’ve never dabbled in crypto, the overseas Polymarket exchange can be a little intimidating. The U.S. version seems to be more manageable for the average person.

Q: Are there any missing features between the mobile and desktop web versions of Kalshi and Polymarket?

A: I prefer desktop for anything complicated. It’s pretty easy to make basic trades on the apps or to see how your investments are performing. When you are looking back at your history, you’re going to want the desktop, unless you have a fetish for scrolling and clicking “more” over and over again.

Q: Is there any risk of “wash trading” or manipulation where users can sway the stock in favor of a certain outcome?

A: I don’t think manipulation presents much risk overall, especially with the current market liquidity. There are people much smarter than me trading thousands of times a week, and that’s part of the deal. But that’s not how I go about it. When I take a position, I assume I’m going to hold it until resolution. If you take that approach, it doesn’t really matter where the markets move on a day-to-day basis. In the end, you’re either going to be right or wrong, and no market actor can change that.

Q: How serious are the “illegal gambling” lawsuits, and what are platform holders like Kalshi and Polymarket doing to push back against this narrative?

A: As with any innovation, there are plenty of annoying government officials trying to screw it up. Throw in a hefty dose of established actors looking to protect their turf against competition, and the threat is serious in scope if not in argument.

Luckily, for the time being, we have Michael Selig as CFTC chair, and an administration friendly to financial innovation. Selig has correctly been aggressive in defending the authority of the CFTC to maintain oversight over these markets. Just like your state can’t ban you from buying Walmart stock, they shouldn’t be able to stop you from participating in prediction markets.

This could all change under a different Congress or a President AOC, but we can deal with that level of hell when we arrive in it.

Q: How do prediction markets handle ties? Do these come up often or rarely?

A: I would say a tie is very rare. Most of the rules are written to make them impossible. In the old days, there were sometimes markets with poorly written rules or descriptions that led to controversy. This isn’t particularly common anymore, but it does occasionally happen.

There was a recent example revolving around the removal of the leader of Iran. Kalshi is legally prohibited from listing or paying a contract that is the result of death or assassination. This was clear in the rules, but a lot of people don’t read them. So there was controversy over the required unwinding of that contract, and some overseas markets without those restrictions resolved the contract in a totally different way.

Those rare examples get lots of press but occur in a tiny percentage of the markets available. Most people will never even experience one of them.

Q: Do you have any tips, tricks, or advice for new users who are just starting to get into prediction markets?

A: Start small and assume you’re wrong more often than you think you are. Challenge yourself on your priors, and especially in politics, make sure you’re not investing with your heart. I always feel better investing in a race when I’m on the side of the candidate I want to lose. At the very least, if I’m wrong, I’m happy with the outcome in real life. And if the candidate I dislike winds up winning, at least I’m being paid for my pain. It’s hedging your life.

Oh yeah, and hang out with us at PredictableShow.com.

Tune in

Still curious about prediction markets? Maybe you want to throw some of your own cash on a current event, but you’re not sure how to get started? Check out Stu’s new show — “Predictable with Stu Burguiere” on YouTube and Substack — for the latest prediction market news, updates, insights, and more.

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