Category: blaze media

Republican lawmakers have referred to the government closure as the “Schumer shutdown,” blaming Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for directing his fellow Democrats to oppose the clean continuing resolution that would have temporarily extended funding.

‘He’s afraid of his own party.’

Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) shared his comments about the shutdown on Thursday, arguing Democrats had taken the CR hostage.

“I don’t know that there’s a lot to negotiate,” Thune told NBC News.

“I don’t think you can keep this hostage. As soon as they release the hostage, then we can talk about those other issues.”

When asked whether Democrat lawmakers were “forcing Senator Schumer’s hand,” Thune responded, “Sure they are.”

“He’s under a tremendous amount of pressure. The far-left activist base in his party is what’s driving this, and they want to fight with the president,” Thune continued.

“They picked this hostage. I don’t think it’s a smart one, and I think it undermines what they’re trying to accomplish in the long run.”

RELATED: Trump’s MASTER PLAN to ensure shutdown spells DOOMSDAY for Democrats

Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

During a Thursday episode of “Blaze News: The Mandate,” Blaze Media senior politics editor and Washington, D.C., correspondent Christopher Bedford speculated that Schumer is afraid of a primary from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

“He’s afraid of his own party,” Bedford said. “And it’s people like her that threaten him.”

— (@)

He emphasized the importance of understanding government.

“It’s fine to be AOC and a rock-thrower on the outside. It’s fine to be some of the back-benchers in the GOP, who just want to throw rocks and don’t want to get along with people and don’t understand why they can’t get their way. But at the end of the day, it’s the people who really understand how to wield power and how to use power, which is what’s differentiated this Republican administration from previous ones,” Bedford said.

He explained that those in this Trump administration “actually know how the mechanisms of the bureaucracy work.”

RELATED: Russell Vought’s quiet war on big government

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Vice President JD Vance. Photographer: Annabelle Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought is “working diligently” to slash government bureaucracy amid the shutdown.

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Thursday morning.

Trump called on Republicans to use the shutdown as an opportunity to “clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud.”

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​News, Christopher bedford, Chuck schumer, Schumer, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, John thune, Government shutdown, Russell vought, Russ vought, Karoline leavitt, Politics 

X journalist Nick Sortor was on the ground in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday night, documenting Antifa harassing federal agents at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, when he was attacked by the far-left crowd and ended up getting arrested by Portland police officers.

During the night, Sortor took away a burning American flag and put out the flames, video showed. Once the flames were out, he carried the remnants of flag away from Antifa. This led to Sortor being targeted by the Antifa crowd.

Sortor recalled that he was getting video of federal agents macing protesters when he was surrounded by the crowd, who then pushed him down into a flower bed and one of them threw a punch, Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin reported. Sortor said he swung back and missed, but then disengaged and walked over to a group of Portland officers.

It was at that point he was taken into custody by Portland police.

“He says he was then shocked to be arrested by them, and he sat in the back of a police cruiser while officers figured out what to charge him with. I asked him about the female protester who was also arrested with him. He said he talked to her in the jail and she didn’t seem like she was the one who assaulted him,” Melugin reported.

Sortor was charged with disorderly conduct and spent the night in jail. He was released from custody early Friday morning.

RELATED: Democrats gloss over anti-ICE violence in Portland ahead of Trump’s crackdown on ‘domestic terrorists’

Portland Antifa in 2021Photo by MATHIEU LEWIS-ROLLAND/AFP via Getty Images

For his part, Sortor is gearing up for a legal fight.

Portland police “is going to absolutely HATE what’s coming. Lawyer up, folks!” he posted on X.

Sortor further claimed that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has promised to investigate his arrest. “Attorney General Pam Bondi has ORDERED a full investigation, led by Asst. AG Harmeet Dhillon, of the Portland Police Bureau, following my wrongful arrest last night, Bondi confirmed to me,” Sortor posted to X Friday, noting that Bondi had contacted him “personally” to let him know.

“FAFO, @PortlandPolice,” he added.

A spokesperson confirmed to Blaze News that the DOJ will investigate Sortor’s arrest.

Sortor’s arrest by Portland police set off a firestorm among conservatives and the Trump administration. Earlier this week, Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt was allegedly attacked by Antifa. She was hit in the face with a flagpole that caused a black eye and a concussion. Daviscourt attempted to get Portland officers on the scene to arrest her suspected attacker, but an officer standing nearby seemingly let the suspect go, according to video.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia Mclaughlin said there is going to be a surge of federal personnel in response to Sortor being attacked and arrested.

“This violence will end under [President] Trump,” she added.

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​Antifa, Katie daviscourt, Nick sortor, Politics 

I’ve got an old desk in my office. It’s covered in scratches, rings from coffee mugs, and countless old stains that set into the dark wood long before I was born. It’s a plain desk. A simple square top, three drawers on the left, and a tall cabinet on the right. It’s heavy as hell and a pain to move.

It was my grandpa’s desk.

My grandpa sat at his desk and wrote with a pen, and not much else. I’m not sure he ever learned how to type.

He used it when my dad was little, and then after he passed away it sat in our basement for a while. I’m not sure my dad wanted to use it. He was close with his father, and sometimes things like that make us too sad. But a grandson isn’t a son, and so now I use it.

Every day, I sit down in front of the old wood, set my black coffee to the right, open my laptop, and work.

In with the old

When I’m organized, I’ve got a pad of paper and a pencil to the left, unopened mail near the edge, a small lamp in the corner, and an external hard drive on the other side. When I’m less organized, I’ve got all the same things, plus a bunch of extra papers, tubes of chapstick, handkerchiefs, old coffee mugs, half-empty cans of sparkling water, and a ton of other random ancillary stuff that doesn’t really contribute to my productivity at all.

I’ve used my grandpa’s old desk for about 10 years now. When I first started using it, I was working in music composition and production. The top of the desk was crammed with keyboards, MIDI controllers, USB interfaces for recording vocals, and a couple of large displays.

I remember sitting there, working late at night in our big loft studio apartment. All the lights out, the skyline of the city beyond the windows, my wife sleeping in the corner we had blocked off as a bedroom, my headphones on with the music playing, the colorful little boxes in the DAW, the soft blue and red blinking lights on the various technological gear laid across the top of the desk.

I would sit there and think about how this desk is so old and my equipment is so new. My grandpa sat at his desk and wrote with a pen, and not much else. I’m not sure he ever learned how to type. His desk inhabited the old world before computer technology, and now it lives in the new one with more tech than we know what to do with. He worked at his desk in his way, and I work at his desk in my way. The work looks different, but it’s work nonetheless.

RELATED: A kid got a mint PS1 from his grandpa, and the internet is freaking out

Photo by Geoff Garrett/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

Lost in space

Our world can feel pretty sterile and soulless these days. Not the world of nature or the world of people; family life is the opposite of sterile, and love is not soulless. But our built environment really does seem to feel kind of like a mix between Star Trek and a shopping mall.

Technology plays a big role in that. It’s not only in the architecture; it’s also in all the little stuff we are surrounded with. Our phones, our tablets, our computers, our TVs, our “smart homes,” our doorbells with video cameras, and everything else that feels slick and plasticky.

I’m writing all these words on a laptop, of course. It’s silver like a spaceship, and the keys are black as night. It’s not really a very human machine; it’s pretty cold and inorganic.

With the grain

But that old desk isn’t. It’s so worn, scratched, and blemished. It’s wood — real wood! Remember that? Remember when we used to make stuff out of it? I run my fingers over it, and I can feel the deep grain. There are a few chips on the corners. It’s so earthy and so human; it’s so real. Its realness isn’t due to the fact it was my grandpa’s. It’s just the fact that it comes from the old world, and it feels like it.

I’ve thought a lot about the impact my grandpa’s old desk has on my office and my work. There is something estranging about technology. Being surrounded by it makes us feel unsettled in a way that’s hard to explain. In a sterile world of inhuman electronics, that old wood feels anchoring, or maybe just a little warm and relatable. It reminds me of humanity in a way that my computer never will.

Of course, the family history of that old desk has its own, slightly different, impact. My grandpa died almost 20 years ago, and to use something that was once his feels like keeping his memory alive in a physical sense. It’s why we don’t bulldoze old historic buildings and part of the reason why we have museums, even if we tell ourselves they are primarily for research purposes.

I think we are all comforted by some gentle reminder of the past. It reminds us of where we came from and who we are, keeps some memory alive, roots us in time and ties us to a bigger story, and even makes us feel a little more human in an increasingly inhuman age.

​Men’s style, Grandfathers, Lifestyle, Desks, Family heirlooms, Work, The root of the matter 

President Trump announced earlier this week his effort aimed at lowering drug costs, which includes the creation of a “TrumpRx” website, where Americans can buy medicine at a discount — and somehow got Pfizer to agree to join him.

“The United States is done subsidizing the health care of the rest of the world,” Trump said. “By taking this bold step, we’re ending the era of global price gouging at the expense of American families.”

Surprisingly, Pfizer is the first pharmaceutical company to comply with Trump’s demands, which include selling drugs to Medicaid and setting prices of new drugs at “Most-Favored Nation” levels, which is the lowest price available in other countries.

BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere is surprised by the move.

“This is interesting to me for a bunch of different reasons,” Burguiere tells BlazeTV host Dave Landau. “First of all, as a conservative, I don’t really like the idea of the government being involved in these things, but there are, you know, real concerns with drug prices on certain things.”

“The other thing I find fascinating about it, is like a big chunk of Donald Trump’s base thinks Pfizer is the Nazi regime. Literally hates this company more than anything else. And what I find fascinating about it is Trump can just do this stuff,” he continues.

“He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen that can just do this stuff. He can embrace a company that his base hates and somehow just go right down the middle unscathed,” he adds.

Want more from Stu?

To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video, Free, Video phone, Sharing, Upload, Camera phone, Youtube.com, Stu does america, Stu burguiere, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Trumprx, President trump, Donald trump, Big pharma, Global price gouging, Pharmaceuticals, Affordable care, Maga, Make america great again, Dave landau, Conservatives 

The discovery of SIM farms that threatened cellular networks in New York City is only the tip of a massive nationwide network run by the Chinese Communist government that poses an immediate threat to critical American infrastructure and has led to terrorist acts including hoax SWAT raids at the homes of national leaders, Blaze News has learned.

Sources in the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. intelligence community said these SIM card networks were operating in the United States as early as 2004. They have proliferated exponentially since President Donald J. Trump was re-elected to the presidency in November 2024.

‘It’s absolutely an act of war.’

“This is something that is a direct threat to our nation right now,” a top intelligence official told Blaze News. “A direct threat to our nation, and it needs to be shut down today — like ASAP. Only five of them have been taken down so far.”

The owner of the five sites raided in the New York City area is cooperating with Homeland Security Investigations and the Secret Service, the intelligence expert said.

The SIM networks were put in place and are managed by China’s Ministry of State Security, an ultra-secretive, massive espionage agency that has grown in prominence and global activity in recent years, according to the journal China Leadership Monitor.

The MSS employs more than 800,000 people, nearly double the Soviet KGB at its peak. The MSS “now operates worldwide at a scale and tempo not seen in decades,” China Leadership Monitor wrote in a recent newsletter.

Several officials who spoke with Blaze News anonymously said the establishment and use of this destructive network by China should be considered an act of war. The potential threat to America would be “second only to thermonuclear war,” one source said.

“It’s absolutely an act of war — an internationally recognized act of war,” one intelligence expert told Blaze News. “Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure is, and facilitating terrorism to the point where you’re trying to kill high-ranking members of the United States government. Those two alone are acts of war.”

Recently, these SIM farms are believed to be responsible for dozens of hoax SWAT raids, including a senior U.S. Secret Service official, FBI Director Kash Patel, members of Congress including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and media influencers such as Tim Pool and Stephen K. Bannon.

“These things were being used all summer to SWAT people since Trump was elected,” said one source, speaking anonymously because the source is not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation. “Swatting — that’s a terrorist act. The Trump administration declared that a terrorist act.”

RELATED: Romanian man pleads guilty to orchestrating online ‘swatting’ campaign against US lawmakers, including an ex-president

Homeland Security Investigations agents led September raids on five SIM farms tied to a secret nationwide network built by the Chinese Communist government.Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

While the Chinese facilitated the SWAT raids, it is believed that Americans who are familiar with the system — either through a government or a criminal enterprise — are initiating the hoax calls, the source said.

The swatting of a senior Secret Service official and some Secret Service protectees last spring led to the investigation that discovered the Chinese SIM farms in the Tri-State area, the Secret Service confirmed to Blaze News. A Secret Service engineer assigned to the investigation was key to discovering the SIM network.

“The only reason we found this network is because a senior Secret Service official was targeted for a SWAT raid,” the source said. “Otherwise, this investigation would have never been initiated.”

No U.S. intelligence or law enforcement agency detected the secret network, nor did the three major wireless carriers in the U.S., AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

Homeland Security Investigations led raids that disrupted five SIM farm sites in the Tri-State area of New York City just before the United Nations General Assembly, where President Trump spoke Sept. 23. The raids led to seizure of more than 300 co-located servers and more than 100,000 SIM cards.

“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in a statement. “The U.S. Secret Service’s protective mission is all about prevention, and this investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down and dismantled.”

RELATED: Secret Service says it busted ‘nefarious’ network capable of crippling NYC cellphone system, linked to ‘nation-state’ threats

Secret SIM farms are typically housed in nondescript corporate buildings and enable thousands of simultaneous cellular connections.U.S. Secret Service photos

An ongoing forensic investigation of the source of the servers and SIM cards is being carried out by Homeland Security Investigations, the Secret Service, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Matt McCool, special agent in charge of the Secret Service New York Field Office.

“This was a difficult and complex effort to identify the source of these fraudulent calls and the impact on the Secret Service protective mission,” McCool said in a video statement.

The SIM farms and their networked cellular chips pose a threat to critical infrastructure with the ability to disable cell towers, enable internet denial of service attacks, and facilitate anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal cartels, the Secret Service said.

‘They’ve launched legitimate cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure.’

Officials who spoke to Blaze News said the New York raids and seizure of servers are the tip of a much larger iceberg.

A nationwide network using millions of SIM cards operated by China has the capability to wipe out communications across entire regions with a cyberattack; target large lists of victims for hoax SWAT calls; act as chatbots to interact with teens and young adults in online forums such as Reddit; and operate identity-theft rackets, among other applications.

“What’s shocking is that there may be up to 100 or more of these sites everywhere,” an intelligence source told Blaze News. “There’s probably 60, 80, 100 of these in the United States.”

A SIM, or a subscriber identity module, is a small plastic card with an embedded silicon chip similar to chips found on credit cards. The chip has a microprocessor and memory circuits that store subscriber information including a device ID and authentication key so cellular networks can recognize each device. The SIM can store text messages and run applications.

RELATED: Noem, Patel vow cowardly ‘swatting’ perpetrators will be hunted down in wake of attacks on conservatives

U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran said the potential for disruption of cellular and other communications from secret SIM farms “cannot be overstated.”Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

A SIM farm is typically a nondescript room in a commercial building with dozens of SIM card servers stacked in metal racks. The device that holds the SIM cards is called a gateway, with 32 to 64 cellular modems with slots for 64 to 512 SIM cards, antennas, and ethernet ports for each SIM to connect to the internet wirelessly or via ethernet cables. The SIM farms don’t require huge power draws or generate substantial heat like traditional computer servers.

Experts say the potential for nefarious uses is huge — and so is the risk to national security.

George Hill, a retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst who ran counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber operations for the four-state Boston Field Office, told Blaze News that widespread cellular outages would be a disaster.

“EMS and hospitals rely almost exclusively on cell networks to coordinate responses to large-scale emergencies,” said Hill, a U.S. Marine veteran who also worked for the National Security Agency. “An attack in a major metropolitan area that loses cell service would result in EMS being unable to coordinate triage and the movement of injured people. This would then overburden radio networks, resulting in dispatch and redeployment of first responders going offline.”

The SIM farms can launch dangerous cyberattacks, spoof multifactor authentication to access and clean out bank accounts, and allow spies to carry out covert communications.

‘There may be up to 100 or more of these sites.’

“They’ve used these non-attributable networks to sneak into our networks,” the intelligence analyst told Blaze News. “So they’ve launched cyberattacks from these; they’ve launched legitimate cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure.”

The SIM farms can cost $10-$15 million per location to operate, but they actually make money because criminal organizations including drug cartels and scammers are allowed to use the networks, the source said. A site with 100 SIM gateway boxes can generate $240,000 per month in profit.

Most of the SIM farms have a multifactor authentication capability, so they can create real-looking accounts for social media, cryptocurrency wallets, email, and banking. They can also create undetectable chatbots on Reddit, Discord, and Meta platforms “to radicalize our citizens and divide our nation,” the source said.

Hill said the potential negative impacts from cyberattacks are staggering, affecting retail sales locations, banking, gasoline and petroleum refiners, and domestic military operations.

“The movement of traditional combat units’ equipment travels via the Military Sealift Command. These are government-owned ships operated by private companies,” Hill said. “These too would come offline, as would the use of trains to move heavy combat equipment inside the U.S.”

Blaze News reached out to the Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for comment on the SIM farms.

Coming next: How SIM farms masquerade as humans in online forums, radicalizing youth and encouraging violence.

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​National security, Politics 

An Alabama woman fatally shot a male amid an alleged home burglary Sunday night in Decatur, WZDX-TV reported.

A dispatch call indicated a woman said her house was being robbed, and that a male was heard screaming in the background.

State records show Brinkley served time for offenses, including first-degree robbery, third-degree burglary, possession of a pistol by a convicted felon, and distribution of a controlled substance, WZDX noted.

WAFF-TV said it picked up the following from a dispatch phone call: “10-4 units responding to the burglary in progress, 22nd Avenue caller now advising it was a black male wearing a white shirt armed with a firearm. The caller now advises she has shot that male; he is currently laying on the ground.”

A dispatch call also noted the woman shot the male in the chest and that he was “not conscious, not breathing.”

RELATED: Thug allegedly recorded himself raping woman at gunpoint — before she shot him

Decatur police officers responded around 7:30 p.m. to the report of a burglary in progress in the 1200 block of 22nd Avenue SW, and police said they were informed the caller shot the male suspect, WZDX reported.

When officers arrived, the male was found inside the residence with apparent gunshot wounds, and Morgan County Coroner Jeff Chunn pronounced him dead at the scene, WZDX noted.

Chunn on Tuesday identified the male as 46-year-old Narado Brinkley, and WZDX said his criminal past includes drug and burglary convictions.

State records show Brinkley served time for offenses, including first-degree robbery, third-degree burglary, possession of a pistol by a convicted felon, and distribution of a controlled substance, WZDX noted.

His records also indicate multiple probation violations, and he most recently served five months after a 2023 conviction on drug and burglary counts, WZDX added.

RELATED: Mother hid from home invader in closet with her baby — then shot thug in the head, police say

WZDX said the alleged shooter cooperated with investigators and was released with no charges at this time.

However, the station noted that the incident remains under investigation and will be referred to the Morgan County District Attorney’s Office for grand jury consideration.

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​Alabama, Decatur, Home invasion, Fatal shooting, 2nd amend., Guns, Gun rights, Intruder, Burglary, Self-defense, Crime 

Several Arizona police departments are piloting a new AI-powered policing tool that promises to revolutionize how officers catch criminals. But without robust constitutional safeguards, this cutting-edge technology could pose a serious threat to the civil liberties of everyday Americans.

Arizona police agencies are now testing a new AI program that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.” The program, called Overwatch, was developed by Massive Blue and provides police departments with up to 50 different AI personas.

While the technology could, in theory, be used for noble purposes, … it also creates new opportunities for government overreach.

These include a sex trafficker persona, an escort persona, a 14-year-old boy in a child trafficking scenario, and a vaguely defined “college protester.” Beyond social media monitoring, the program allows police to communicate directly with suspects while posing as one of these AI-generated personas, all without a warrant.

No transparency

So far, both the police departments using Overwatch and the company behind it have been extremely secretive about its operations. Massive Blue co-founder Mike McGraw declined to answer questions from 404 Media, which first broke the story, about how the program works, which departments are using it, and whether it has led to any arrests.

“We cannot risk jeopardizing these investigations and putting victims’ lives in further danger by disclosing proprietary information,” McGraw said.

The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, one of the few agencies that have confirmed using the program, admitted it has not yet led to any arrests. Officials refused to provide details, saying, “We cannot risk compromising our investigative efforts by providing specifics about any personas.”

At an appropriations hearing, a Pinal County deputy sheriff also declined to share information about the program with the county council. Remarkably, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which funds the initiative, does not appear to have been informed about the program’s specifics.

While the technology could, in theory, be used for noble purposes, such as preventing terrorist attacks or combating human trafficking, it also creates new opportunities for government overreach. Without safeguards, it poses a direct threat to the civil liberties of innocent Americans.

Invitation to entrapment

History is full of examples of government entrapment and abuse of power. In the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), for example, FBI involvement played a central role in bringing groups together that may never have otherwise connected.

Similarly, in Jacobson v. United States (1992), federal agents sent child sexual abuse material through the mail to a man with no prior criminal record, leading to his conviction, which was later overturned.

RELATED: Netflix’s chilling new surveillance tools are watching you

Photo Illustration by Piotr Swat/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

In both cases, it is doubtful the crimes would have occurred without government intervention. A program like Overwatch makes such abuses easier, granting the government new ways to monitor and manipulate citizens who have never been convicted of a crime, and all without warrants.

The risks are compounded by the program’s vague and troubling categories, such as “college protester,” which could be redefined depending on who is in power. That opens the door for the technology to be weaponized against political dissent, even when no crime has been committed.

Without serious constitutional safeguards, programs like this are poised to become political tools of tyranny. Americans must demand warrant requirements and legislative oversight before this technology spreads nationwide and the erosion of our constitutional liberties becomes irreversible.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Ai, A.i., Artificial intelligence, Artificial intelligence surveillance, Surveillance, Police surveillance, Ai surveillance, Civil liberties, Entrapment 

Progressive journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates knows how to create a villain — a useful talent for his side gig as a prolific Marvel comics writer.

But real life ain’t Wakanda — and when it comes to Charlie Kirk’s legacy, not everyone is sticking to Coates’ simplistic good guys/bad guys script.

In Coates’ world, that can only mean they’re “sanitizing” who the slain Turning Point USA leader really was.

‘But if you ask me what the truth of his life was … I would’ve had to tell you it’s hate.’

Coates, who’s scripted acclaimed runs of “Black Panther” and “Captain America,” slammed Kirk in Vanity Fair just six days after his murder, calling the 31-year-old conservative activist a purveyor of “transphobia” who “reveled in open bigotry” and was “unconcerned with” the “humanity of Palestinians.”

His proof? Out-of-context quotes from Kirk, all from infamous left-wing political machine Media Matters.

Having assembled this rap sheet of word crimes, Coates took it upon himself to call out those he felt were being too kind to Kirk after he was assassinated.

These included California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) for saying Kirk loved to debate, the Atlantic’s Sally Jenkins for stating that Kirk “argued with civility,” and NYT’s columnist Ezra Klein for opining that Kirk “was practicing politics in exactly the right way.”

Coates had a chance to confront Klein face-to-face as a guest on the September 28 episode of his NYT podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.”

Just 10 minutes in, Klein asked Coates, “Why do you think [Charlie Kirk] was winning?”

“That’s not really hard for me to understand,” Coates began, performing a roundabout before delivering some incredibly off-color remarks.

RELATED: Hollywood goes full antifa with ‘One Battle After Another’

“I published a book 10 years ago, ‘Between the World and Me.’ And one of the constant, constant reactions to that was that it was overly pessimistic about this country. It was overly pessimistic about the future. ‘Why are you so dark, Ta-Nehisi? Why can’t you give us any sense of hope?’” the writer prefaced.

“And the reason I would always say is because any sort of sober examination of the history of this country says that those of us who believe in equality, those of us who believe in respecting the humanity of our neighbors and of everyone, that we’re up against some really, really powerful forces of history and powerful, powerful narratives.”

Coates went on to reminisce about identity politics in reference to President Obama and said that while it is nice to bask in the race-based joy of “seeing a black family in the White House mirroring what some of us felt the best of us was,” the public sometimes “soothe ourselves” by pointing out instances of love and acceptance. Stating that he feels those are indeed powerful forces, Coates juxtaposed them with hate, which he believed Kirk was a purveyor of.

“I also believe hate is a powerful force. I believe it’s a powerful, powerful unifying force. And I think Charlie Kirk was a hate-monger.”

“I really need to say this over and over again,” Coates continued. “I have a politic that rejects violence, that rejects political violence. I take no joy in the killing of anyone, no matter what they said. But if you ask me what the truth of his life was, and the truth of his public life, I would’ve had to tell you it’s hate. I’d had to tell you it is the usage of hate and the harnessing of hate towards political ends,” Coates added.

RELATED: Bill Maher attempts risky intervention on Trump-deranged pal Rob Reiner: ‘You have to talk to people’

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The writer condemned Kirk’s killing as “horrifying,” before trying to convince Klein that “political violence is the norm for the black experience” in America.

“I don’t even mean, like, the Malcolm X, Martin Luther King variety of it, right? Which is the norm too. You would be hard-pressed to have a conversation with a black person in this country that is a descendant of slavery and not have them be able to reach maybe right here, or to tell you themselves, ‘Look, my uncle, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, they lived in a small town in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in Alabama. They got into some sort of dispute with a white man, and either they were lynched or we had to run.’ Political violence runs through us.”

According to Britannica, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 1,293 whites and 3,437 blacks.

The encyclopedia also states that after 1935, “the number of lynchings drastically declined. During the 1950s and early ’60s, the average stood at less than one per year. Some years saw no lynchings at all.”

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​Comics, Align, Marvel, Black panther, Charlie kirk, New york times, Gavin newsom, Entertainment 

The friends and family of 60-year-old Joey Alexander are grieving his violent end allegedly at the hands of a drug user in San Francisco.

Alexander worked for Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit tasked by the city to prevent crime and drug abuse through community-based initiatives rather than the use of law enforcement officers.

Alexander was the first of the nonprofit’s workers to die on the job, but he was the third to get shot. … Workers were sent into dangerous places of the city without law enforcement training.

On Friday, Alexander confronted a man outside the library in Civic Center Plaza just before 5 p.m. and asked him to stop using illicit drugs in front of children.

That man allegedly pulled out a shotgun and shot Alexander in the gut.

He died four days later at a hospital.

Police arrested 42-year-old Edmund Bowen and booked him into jail.

Urban Alchemy recruits people with a criminal past who are trying to fix their lives and pays them to be street ambassadors and help deter crime as well as drug abuse. Alexander reportedly served 23 years in prison prior to working for the nonprofit for two years.

“That was his beat, in front of the main library. He showed up to work every day when it was his shift,” said Jess Montejano, a spokesperson for Urban Alchemy.

He went on to say that the incident has scared other ambassadors.

“It’s a tight-knit team. There’s definitely some fear amongst Urban Alchemy practitioners right now. It’s very easy to see themselves in Mr. Alexander,” he said.

Montejano also told KQED-TV that Alexander was the first of the nonprofit’s workers to die on the job, but he was the third to get shot. He said workers were sent into dangerous places of the city without law enforcement training.

“They are trained with their lived experience,” he said, “to bring more peace, safety, and cleanliness on the streets. It’s an unfortunate reality that, yes, we do experience hate and sometimes violence in the line of work that we do.”

RELATED: Fight erupts right in front of city ‘security ambassadors’ — who stand on sidewalk and watch it go down

The nonprofit won contracts from many cities to operate homeless shelters and implement its community-based solutions, but it has been plagued with criticism about alleged financial mismanagement as well as improper conduct by workers. On Tuesday, about 100 workers were laid off by the group in Texas.

“As we mourn his loss, I am grateful for all of our ambassadors, including those from Urban Alchemy,” reads a statement from Mayor Daniel Lurie. “Every single day, they work alongside our city outreach workers and law enforcement to help those on the street and keep all of us safe.”

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The government is shut down again, and the usual panic is back. I even had someone call my house this week to ask if it was safe to fly today. The person was half-joking, half-serious, wondering if planes would “fall out of the sky.”

For the record, the sky isn’t falling — at least not literally. But the chaos in Washington does feel like it. Once again, we’re watching the same old script: a shutdown engineered not by fiscal restraint but by political brinkmanship. And this time, the Democrats are driving the bus.

This shutdown may be inconvenient. But it’s also an opportunity — to stop funding our own destruction, to reset the table, and to remind Congress who actually pays the bills.

Democrats, among other things, are demanding that health care be extended to illegal immigrants. Democratic leadership caved to its radical base, which would rather shut down the government for such left-wing campaign points than compromise. Republicans — shockingly — said no. They refused to rubber-stamp more spending for illegal immigration. For once, they stood their ground.

But if you’ve watched Washington long enough, you know how this story usually ends: a shutdown followed by a deal that spends even more money than before — a continuing resolution kicking the can down the road. Everyone pretends to “win,” but taxpayers always lose.

The Vought effect

This time might be different. Republicans actually hold some cards. The public may blame Democrats — not the media, but the people who feel this in their wallets. Americans don’t like shutdowns, but they like runaway spending and chaos even less.

That’s why you’re hearing so much about Russell Vought, the director of the United States Office of Management and Budget and Donald Trump’s quiet architect of a strategy to use moments like this to shrink the federal bureaucracy. Vought spent four years building a plan for exactly this scenario: firing nonessential workers and forcing reauthorization of pet programs. Trump talks about draining the swamp. Vought draws up the blueprints.

The Democrats and media are threatened by Vought because he is patient, calculated, and understands how to leverage the moment to reverse decades of government bloat. If programs aren’t mandated, cut them. Make Congress fight to bring them back. That’s how you actually drain the swamp.

Predictable meltdowns

Predictably, Democrats are melting down. They’ve shifted their arguments so many times it’s dizzying. Last time, they claimed a shutdown would lead to mass firings. Now, they insist Republicans are firing everyone anyway. It’s the same playbook: Move the goalposts, reframe the narrative, accuse your opponents of cruelty.

We’ve seen this before. Remember the infamous “You lie!” moment in 2009? President Barack Obama promised during his State of the Union that Obamacare wouldn’t cover illegal immigrants. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted, “You lie!” and was condemned for breaching decorum.

Several years later, Hillary Clinton’s campaign platform openly promised health care for illegal immigrants. What was once called a “lie” became official policy. And today, Democrats are shutting down the government because they can’t get even more of it.

This is progressivism in action: Deny it, inch toward it, then demand it as a moral imperative. Anyone who resists becomes the villain.

RELATED: The dog that caught the car

Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Stand firm

This shutdown isn’t just about spending. It’s about whether we’ll keep letting progressives rewrite the rules one crisis at a time. Trump’s plan — to cut what isn’t mandated, force programs into reauthorization, and fight the battle in the courts — is the first real counterpunch to decades of this manipulation.

It’s time to stop pretending. This isn’t about compassion. It’s about control. Progressives know once they normalize government benefits for illegal immigrants, they never roll back. They know Americans forget how it started.

This shutdown may be inconvenient. But it’s also an opportunity — to stop funding our own destruction, to reset the table, and to remind Congress who actually pays the bills. If we don’t take it, we’ll be right back here again, only deeper in debt, with fewer freedoms left to defend.

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​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Government shutdown, Federal jobs, Mass layoffs, Russ vought, Government spending, Government waste, Omb, Budget, Democrats, Republicans 

Tilly Norwood is a stunning London-based actress climbing the Hollywood ladder and closing in on almost 50,000 Instagram followers.

But there’s one catch. As you peruse her page of smiles and poses, you realize that she’s not real. Rather, Norwood is an AI-generated character that’s been created by the AI division of the production company Particle6.

And according to Particle6 founder Eline Van der Velden, she’s looking for an agent.

While Van der Velden is reportedly negotiating with multiple agencies to represent the AI character, Hollywood is not happy, as actors have been voicing strong opposition.

One actress, Emily Blunt, told the magazine “Variety” in an interview, “Good Lord, we’re screwed. That is really, really scary.”

“Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection,” she added.

Not usually on the same page with Hollywood actors and actresses, BlazeTV host Dave Landau couldn’t agree more.

“They’re trying to get representation for this AI, which is disturbing to me,” Landau comments.

“You know what’s funny,” BlazeTV co-host ¼ Black Garrett chimes in, “is that the SAG-AFTRA strikes were about AI and who controls it, not keeping it from being in the industry.”

“Yeah, they should have worked on that part,” Landau says.

In an attempt to defend her “creation,” Van der Velden wrote in a statement on Instagram: “To those who have expressed anger over the creation of our AI character Tilly Norwood: she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art.”

“Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity,” she added.

“The creator of the AI-generated actress released a statement, which itself sounds generated by AI,” Landau laughs.

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Most Americans assume proof of citizenship is required to vote. It isn’t. But thanks to the Trump administration’s new rule, the honor system that governs voter registration may finally be replaced with real safeguards.

At a time when Americans can’t seem to agree on anything — not even how to avoid a government shutdown — one principle still unites the country: Only U.S. citizens should vote in U.S. elections.

By requiring proof of citizenship at the point of registration, the Trump administration is doing what most Americans already assumed was happening.

A new poll from the Center for Excellence in Polling found that 87% of likely voters, including 80% of Democrats, support requiring individuals to prove their citizenship before registering.

The catch? More than 60% of those same voters believe the law already requires it. Nearly 70% of Democrats think citizenship is verified before registration. They’re wrong.

The honor system invites abuse

Yes, it’s illegal for noncitizens to register to vote. But the “verification” process amounts to checking a box. Election officials take applicants at their word. The result: a nationwide honor system for one of our most fundamental rights.

And bad actors are exploiting it. A 2024 study estimates that between 10% and 27% of noncitizens living in the United States are registered to vote. Census data suggests that could mean anywhere from 2 million to 5 million noncitizens on the rolls.

Consider Michigan, where a Chinese citizen faces felony charges for illegally voting in the 2024 election. Or Florida, where Russian and Uzbek nationals were arrested for allegedly conspiring to submit 132 fraudulent registration applications.

The problem goes beyond isolated cases. In Iowa, the Des Moines superintendent — earning roughly $286,000 a year — was arrested by ICE for living in the country illegally. He had been registered to vote in Maryland since 2012.

These examples add to a growing list of noncitizens caught on voter rolls in Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

A long-standing vulnerability

Election fraud isn’t new. After the September 11 attacks, investigators discovered that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote in Virginia or Florida, most likely through routine driver’s license applications.

For decades, we’ve known this vulnerability exists. But only now do we have a serious effort to close it.

The Trump administration steps in

President Trump signed an executive order this year requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. The Election Assistance Commission has followed up with a proposed rule that would make documentary proof of citizenship mandatory.

RELATED: Trump order leads to investigation of 33 potential incidents of noncitizen voting, AG Paxton says

BackyardProduction via iStock/Getty Images

The Foundation for Government Accountability will be submitting comments in support of this rule before the October 20 deadline, alongside many others calling for stronger election security.

The proposal does more than enforce the law — it meets Americans where they already are. Voters believe citizenship is required to register, and they want it enforced. This rule would finally align government policy with public expectation.

Voting is not a casual privilege. It is a right that belongs exclusively to citizens of the United States. That right is weakened every time the honor system allows a noncitizen to slip through.

By requiring proof of citizenship at the point of registration, the Trump administration is doing what most Americans already assumed was happening: protecting the ballot box for citizens and restoring trust in the democratic process.

​Opinion & analysis, Voting rights, Citizenship, Citizens, Voting fraud, Voter registration fraud, Ballots, Donald trump, Polls, Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Law, Des moines, Illegal aliens 

A viral video out of Baltimore shows a bouncer putting a male in a chokehold outside a bar — and then smashing the male’s head through the window of a car parked on the street’s curb.

The 51-second clip has garnered views climbing toward 10 million as of Thursday afternoon.

‘Learn to de-escalate, communicate, and walk away.’

In the video, the rather large bouncer is standing on a sidewalk telling a smaller male to “leave.”

Soon the smaller male’s hand appears to make contact with the bouncer’s chest, and the bouncer advances toward the guy — who soon appears to bump the bouncer in an attempt to walk by him.

Immediately the bouncer grabs the male around the neck from behind and puts him in the chokehold. About seven seconds later, the male taps repeatedly on the bouncer’s arm — a commonly known “I give up” signal in MMA fighting.

But the tap doesn’t work on this Baltimore street.

The chokehold continues, the bouncer wrenches the male’s neck a few times while spinning him around, and there are more taps on the bouncer’s arm.

“He tapped! He tapped! Let him go! Let him go!” one person is heard pleading in the clip.

Then the bouncer ups the ante and smashes the male’s head through a car window.

“Yo! Chill out!” a person is heard yelling at the bouncer, who by this point has taken the male behind the vehicle — now missing one window — as a second bouncer approaches.

Finally, the 33-second chokehold ends, the pair of bouncers restrain the male against the back of the vehicle in question, and they appear to let him go into the street as the clip ends.

RELATED: Armed 17-year-old carjacker rolls the dice, promptly meets his match when victim pulls his own gun and opens fire

WJZ-TV reported that the incident occurred on East Cross Street in the city’s Federal Hill neighborhood near the Cross Street Public House restaurant.

A restaurant spokesperson told the station the establishment doesn’t employ the bouncer in question and that Ace Event Services Group provided security. WJZ added that the restaurant and the security company “have since parted ways.”

Baltimore Democrat Councilman Isaac Yitzy Schleifer said that “both Bouncers/Security guards need to be held accountable.”

Baltimore police initially told WJZ they were aware of the video and attempting to figure out what went down; by Monday, police told the station they were trying to identify the bouncer in the video.

On Wednesday, Baltimore police announced that 41-year-old Kevin Weaver turned himself in — and is facing a first-degree aggravated assault charge.

Baltimore Police on Thursday told Blaze News, “We are unable to share a mugshot [of Weaver] at this time.”

In the aftermath of the viral video, WBFF-TV reported that some in the neighborhood are unsettled about the incident.

“I mean, the kid’s not 21, but that doesn’t mean you get to rough ’em,” one person told the station.

Another added to WBFF that “in security, you have to take some abuse from the public, but you don’t hit his head into a window … that’s disgusting.”

The station said police have yet to confirm the identity of the person who was placed in the chokehold.

RELATED: Watch what happens after Democrat witness tells Rep. Brandon Gill Baltimore is a safe city

Kim Klacik — host of “Kim Klacik Live” on WCBM-AM and a former candidate for the U.S. House who ran as a Republican — noted to WBFF in a follow-up story that “when it comes to police saying there is no report yet, I don’t believe this is something uncommon in these scenarios, considering that that young man that had his head rammed through the car window could have possibly been a minor.”

Pete Brazil — who worked security at another bar — told the station in a separate story that the bouncer’s actions were over the top: “For 30 seconds — I do not condone that. He tapped, so he shoulda let him go.”

WBFF said Brazil recognized the bouncer and described him as usually “a pretty cool, calm, collected dude” who “just had a bad day.”

RELATED: Bus rider gets upset at fellow passenger for being impolite, soon shoots him to death, authorities say. Jury returns verdict.

Brazil added to the station that “fights happen every day. I’m just happy that no one really got hurt.”

Another area bouncer told WBFF that those working security at bars need to “learn to de-escalate, communicate, and walk away.”

Mark Crosby — a pro-life Baltimore resident who was brutally beaten up in front of a Planned Parenthood in the city, only for admitted culprit Patrick Brice to walk away without any jail time — told Blaze News the chokehold and car-window smash were “horrific.”

Crosby added to Blaze News that all the much-larger bouncer had to do was “smack him once, and that would’ve been enough.”

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​Bouncer, Security guard, Baltimore, Chokehold, Window smashed, Police, Arrest, Aggravated assault charge, Bar, Crime 

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom continued his feud against President Donald Trump by threatening the universities who complied with a request from the federal government.

The president issued a 10-point memo titled the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine universities and said any that agreed would receive preferential treatment for grants and other federal money.

‘California will not bankroll schools that sign away academic freedom.’

Newsom, who has presidential ambitions and has positioned California as a leading state to oppose Trump’s policies, issued a threat to universities that agreed to the compact.

“California universities that bend to the will of Donald Trump and sign this insane ‘compact’ will lose billions in state funding — IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote on social media Thursday.

“California will not bankroll schools that sign away academic freedom,” he added.

The compact was sent to the University of Southern California, and the administration said more universities would be receiving it.

The document called for universities to change their hiring practices so they don’t consider sex, ethnicity, race, national origin, disability, or religion. It also demanded that undergraduate applicants take standardized tests that include the SAT and ACT.

The compact was also sent to Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania.

RELATED: DHS has a fiery message for Newsom after he bans masks for ICE: ‘We will NOT comply!’

American Council on Education president Ted Mitchell issued a statement opposing the compact.

“It’s not worth the compromises that they would have to make,” he said. “This is a Faustian bargain.”

Trump has been targeting colleges and universities by ending research funding and other taxpayer-provided funds from the federal government. Some of his efforts have been stymied by opposition in the courts.

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​Newsom vs trump, Trump compact for higher education, Gavin threat, Trump vs universities, Politics 

A Christian youth baseball coach in Texas was shot while praying with his team, and while police say it was an “accident,” shocking new details may tell a different story.

The incident occurred after three men allegedly fired upon the youth baseball tournament in Katy, Texas, and shot a coach when trying to hit targets in the area. Corbin Geisendorff, the assistant coach for the Texas Colts, explained that bullets were “flying everywhere.”

“It wasn’t just one shot,” he added.

And after doing a little digging, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales believes the attack wasn’t an accident at all, and instead, it may have been a terrorist attack.

“One of these men … the Lebanese man, Ahmad Mawed, has ties to a mosque called MAS Katy,” Gonzales explains.

“And he follows the mosque on social media, okay? And what we know from this reporting is that he has at least one photo linking him to being at one of the mosque’s celebrations earlier this year. So in 2025, he’s taking a picture outside the mosque at one of their Muslim holidays,” she continues.

“Now, you would say, ‘Oh, it’s just a mosque. Who cares? Of course, if he’s Muslim, he’s going to go to a mosque.’ Well, this isn’t just any mosque,” she adds.

The mosque itself has ties to the Muslim American Society, which has been described by federal prosecutors as “an overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“Now, for those of you who don’t know about the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Brotherhood has already been designated a terrorist organization in several regions, including UAE, Russia, Egypt, and I could go down the line. And its founder believed in political violence,” Gonzales explains.

“Oh, by the way, Hamas — you know Hamas, the group that is responsible for the murder, the rape, the just heinous, disgusting, inhumane acts of women and children in Israel — Hamas is a branch. It’s like an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood,” she continues.

And it gets worse.

One of MAS Katy’s most prominent current leaders, Main Alqudah, is “a self-admitted former member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan” who has openly advocated for Islamic law over secular law.

“So, one of the guys who leads the mosque has advocated for sharia law, Islamic law, instead of secular law. That’s not good,” Gonzales says.

Alqudah has “issued sharia rulings declaring that women may not engage in public speaking” and that young girls “should be forced to wear the hijab beginning at the age of 7.”

“One of the men who, oopsies, accidentally shot up a baseball field where a coach was praying, where a Christian was praying — total accident. Total coincidence,” Gonzales says after hearing a sermon from the church. “It’s just that one of those men that did that have ties to this church where they sermons and recitations that include verses branding Christians and Jews as disbelievers and warns that their children are, quote, ‘fuel for the fire.’”

“They threaten, quote, ‘humiliating punishment’ and curse Christians and Jews to, quote, ‘hell forever,’ unquote. … None of this makes sense. I mean, it does make sense if we’re not hearing the full story. What makes sense is that we’re not hearing the full story,” she continues. “What makes sense is that this was not some sort of an accidental discharge.”

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Lydia Kaiser has been able to return to school while recovering from injuries the 12-year-old sustained in the horrific shooting attack at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in August.

Kaiser has been praised as a hero for protecting her friend during the shooting when she was injured. Two victims died, and another 23 were injured before the gunman killed himself by gunshot.

‘The actions of this young lady were nothing short of heroic … Lydia faced the danger in a display of heroism that will not be forgotten.’

In a GoFundMe account set up for the Kaiser family, updates reported that Kaiser had to undergo three brain surgeries after the shooting.

Her family said that she will “need ongoing care for the foreseeable future, but she remains a brave little fighter, and she is feeling stronger every day.”

Kaiser’s father worked as the gym teacher at the school and had stayed with the children while they awaited being returned to their families.

Daniel Chapin, the founder of the Uvalde Foundation for Kids nonprofit, praised the girl in a statement to KMSP-TV for her actions during the shooting.

“The actions of this young lady were nothing short of heroic,” Chapin said. “There is no question that her selflessness and dedication to her friends and peers, manifested that day into her brave action to risk her own life to protect another student from gunfire … Lydia faced the danger in a display of heroism that will not be forgotten.”

The 23-year-old shooter identified as a transgender person, said that he had a “twisted mind,” and claimed the shooting was “a final act that has been in the back of my head for years.” He left other messages indicating he had suicidal thoughts and hatred for Catholicism.

RELATED: Democrat Minneapolis mayor issues unbelievable rebuke after shooting suspect is identified as trans

Another update said Kaiser was happy to return to school Monday to be with her friends.

“She has to take a break from her favorite sports, volleyball and basketball, and that is hard for her, but she will be cheering her teammates on all the way.”

Supporters have donated more than $407K to help her and her family.

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​Lydia kaiser victim, Annunciation catholic shooting, Annunciation gofundme, Transgender violence, Politics 

Cindy Clemishire accused the founding pastor of a popular Texas megachurch of sexually abusing her for five years beginning in 1982 when she was a 12-year-old child, and the 64-year-old former pastor pleaded guilty on Thursday.

Robert Morris previously admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady” while denying any intercourse was involved, but he has since admitted to the rape in a plea deal.

‘This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position. The victim in this case has waited far too many years for justice to be done.’

That deal had Morris admit to five felony counts of indecent conduct with a child but will allow him to serve only 6 months in jail of a suspended 10-year sentence.

He also has to pay restitution of $250,000 and will register as a sex offender.

Morris was reportedly a married 24-year-old traveling evangelist in 1982 when he began living with the Clemishire family after they met at a youth revival in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She recalled the abuse in disturbing detail and said that church officials allowed Morris to step down in 1987 for two years without going to law enforcement or making the matter public.

After Clemishire went public with her accusations in June 2024, Morris resigned from the church and was later indicted by a grand jury in Oklahoma on the five felony counts in March.

Morris was facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each charge.

“There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement. “This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position. The victim in this case has waited far too many years for justice to be done.”

RELATED: Bishop in largest California county frees Catholics from obligation to attend Mass over fear of deportations

Clemishire has filed a lawsuit against the church and certain church officials for allegedly covering up the crime when she first made her allegations known.

“For almost 40 years, Robert Morris and the leadership at Gateway have tried to blame me and put this in a flippant light of a relationship instead of what it was — a brutal crime against a 12-year-old child,” she said in a statement in June.

“My childhood and the woman I would have become died that day in 1982,” she added. “The person who abused me and the people who blatantly covered it up deserve to be held accountable. My hope is that bringing awareness to my case will help other victims and survivors feel hope, because the person who did this to me — and the people who enabled him and covered it up for decades — are being held accountable.”

Clemishire said she suspects there are other victims.

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​Gateway church, Robert morris allegations, Pastor child sex abuse, Cindy clemishire, Politics 

Curious new facts have come to light in the January 6 pipe-bomb case, and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) isn’t buying the previous narrative that the Biden administration pushed.

“It’s amazing what having an administration that actually wants to get to the truth can do to change a narrative,” Loudermilk tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program,” noting that the original premise was that the pipe bombs were placed on the evening of January 5.

“I reached out to the FBI several times during that time period. Of course, the Biden administration, they were not forthcoming with information. Basically, they always use this excuse: ‘This is an ongoing investigation, so we can’t share that information,’” he explains.

“So what we’ve learned through the Trump administration is that story doesn’t fit with the facts that we’re finding. It appears to us … that the pipe bombs had a 60-[minute] egg timer on them,” he continues.

Then Loudermilk recalls receiving a lab report from the FBI on the pipe bombs that said there was no electronic timer.

“The only timer was that 60-minute egg timer. So it’s impossible that these pipe bombs were placed and armed on the night of January 5. They had to be placed at some point not long before they were found on January 6,” he tells Glenn.

A woman who discovered the pipe bomb that was placed near the Republican National Committee headquarters claims that there were still 20 minutes left on the egg timer when she found it.

“So that’s one huge inconsistency,” Loudermilk says.

But that’s not the only inconsistency.

“The other is mysterious data, or data that has mysteriously disappeared. And it was when the FBI was doing geofence searches. They went to all the major cell carriers and asked for all the precise data of people who were in that area on January 5 and 6,” Loudermilk explains.

The only cell carrier that didn’t provide information was AT&T.

“AT&T apparently corrupted the data. Now, we kept hearing that the data was corrupted, and this is in my previous investigation. AT&T claimed they didn’t corrupt the data; the FBI did. The FBI, we found out later, said, ‘No, the data was corrupted when we got it.’ Now that we get the real information, it becomes even more mysterious,” he continues.

This is where an entity known as FirstNet comes in, which was created by Congress after 9/11 to pre-empt cell service for law enforcement.

“So FirstNet actually sits on the AT&T backbone. For some reason — and this is where my suspicion started growing — is when the FBI contacted AT&T, gave them a preservation letter, said, ‘Save all of this data specifically around the areas where the pipe bombs were’ because they have to go through the legal mumbo jumbo to actually get the subpoena,” he explains.

“So they don’t want stuff to disappear. They send a letter telling AT&T to preserve the data. AT&T responds and says, ‘You have to go to FirstNet to get this data.’ Which raises my suspicion. Why are they telling them to go to the carrier just for law enforcement?” he continues.

“Well, according to FirstNet, that data was going to be deleted within just a few hours. So they were in this massive hurry to download all the data before it was deleted, and somehow it just got corrupted,” he says. “I’m not buying the story.”

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A sophomore from Missouri State University allegedly confessed his crimes to a chatbot just minutes after committing them.

The student, Ryan Schaefer, is accused by the Springfield Police Department of mass vandalizing 17 different vehicles in a university parking lot in the early hours of August 28.

‘Yeah go f**k urslef. thats why i f**ked up all those useless f**kers cars.’

According to a police report obtained by the Smoking Gun, the damage included shattered windshields, ripped-off windshield wipers, dented hoods, and torn-away side mirrors.

The bounty of alleged evidence includes Schaefer’s shoe prints, cellphone data, security footage, and even witness statements, but the more compelling part of the story is Schaefer’s alleged conversations with ChatGPT after the alleged crimes occurred.

Schaefer reportedly consented to his phone being searched, which resulted in police saying that just 10 minutes after the incident, Schaefer asked the ChatGPT app on his phone, “how f**ked am i bro.”

The conversation with the AI is riddled with spelling mistakes and will be published as is.

ChatGPT gave the user tips about the potential outcome of getting caught for “vreaking the windzhaileds or random cars,” to which Schaefer allegedly responded, “what if i smashed the s**t oitta multipls cars.”

Schaefer then allegedly asked ChatGPT if the MSU freshman parking lot has cameras, while also allegedly saying, “i mean i was being chull ab it but i was smahisng the winshikefs of random fs cars.”

The chat continued, “Well they dont know it was me, there was a pfff campus oarty at artifacts. and yhen they f**ked uppp da cars at artifacts and it was me bc they has two cops here but they eventually left.”

Police then said at that point, “It appears that Schaefer begins to spiral.”

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Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Police wrote that ChatGPT began to worry and allegedly asked Schaefer to stop talking about harming people and property.

Now seemingly antagonistic toward the AI, the user wrote, “smd p***y,” before citing troubling details about freshman year. In summary, the user said he was hazed by his brothers and that his girlfriend was “raped” the previous school year.

But the user continued, seemingly confident that police would not find the suspect:

“smd ikl text y tmr cu i wont get in no trouble bc if i get in groubke for doung s**t i will kill all u fi kers.”

The user continued with threats toward the chatbot along with more statements about not getting caught.

“Yeah go f**k urslef. thats why i f**ked up all those useless f**kers cars, cuz they all dexerve to get raped and murdered, exactly like u.”

The messages continued, “i dont give a f**k shut the f**k up until dumb n****r try and get me in trouble for the shi i didn’t tn u wont ill do it f**king again.”

RELATED: ‘AI psychosis’ is sending men to the hospital

Photographer: Laura Proctor/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Schaefer’s alleged conversation showed that he was very confident that authorities would not recognize him, even if he was shown on camera.

Police described an interview with Schaefer in his residence during which he said, “I can see it, I guess, the resemblance,” while looking at screenshots from security footage.

Police seized his shoe and his iPhone as evidence, which Schaefer later agreed to have searched.

A witness told police that the suspect in police photos “was possibly Ryan Schaefer” and matched the description of the suspect who was on camera. Another witness told police that Schaefer had told them in recent weeks that he had smashed a windshield while he walked home. Schaefer denied any involvement in the incident and also denied making any admission.

The Smoking Gun reported that Schaefer was jailed on $7,500 bond. Upon his release, he will allegedly be barred from any premises “where the primary item for sale is alcoholic beverages” and will be required to submit to random testing for drugs and alcohol. Additionally, he will reportedly be fitted with a GSP monitoring device.

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​Crime, Return, Chatgpt, Missouri, Chat bot, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Tech 

Students at the University of California, Berkeley, immediately denounced a possible hate crime against students near their campus, but at least one professor has already politicized the incident.

The victimized Berkeley students were walking near the campus on Friday when assailants shot at them with what appeared to be a BB gun and yelled “racial slurs” at the same time, according to the University of California Police Department.

Cheah lists feminism, postcolonial theory, and anglophone postcolonial literatures in his list of research interests and expertise.

Police asked for information from the public but did not reveal the slurs uttered, a description of the assailants, or the racial identity of the alleged victims.

Students were alerted about the incident via the university’s warning system on Tuesday when it was reported to police, four days later. Police are investigating it as a hate crime and aggravated assault.

Despite the lack of details about the alleged attack, Berkeley professor Pheng Cheah told KNTV-TV that he blames the Trump administration.

“It’s a disturbing world these days. There’s so much hate with the Trump regime,” said Cheah. “We get notifications of disturbances, but I think it’s rarer to get a notification about a hate crime.”

“In today’s, like, climate, you can’t really take anything for granted. Like, even on a liberal campus, like, these things can still happen,” said Sophie Kwan, a Berkeley student.

Cheah lists feminism, postcolonial theory, and anglophone postcolonial literatures as his research interests and expertise.

Berkeley City Councilwoman Cecilia Lunaparra, whose district encompasses the campus, released a statement decrying the incident.

“I’m outraged by the recent hate crime and assault in District 7,” said Lunaparra. “This kind of violence has no place in our community. I have faith that together we’ll keep fighting for a Southside neighborhood and community that welcomes and stands in solidarity with all of our residents, especially the most marginalized.”

Lunaparra is a Mexican-American woman who identifies as queer.

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

The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement denouncing the incident but offered no additional information.

“We are deeply disturbed by this violent, reportedly racist attack and stand in solidarity with the victims. No one should have to fear for their safety while simply walking in public. Racist hate has no place in Berkeley or anywhere in our state. As we continue to see a rise in hate crimes across the country, it is more important than ever that communities speak out clearly and forcefully against bigotry and violence.”

Blaze News reached out to the university police, the university, and Cheah for comment.

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​Uc berkeley, Hate crime assault, Racial slurs at berkeley, Blaming trump, Politics