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President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been engaged in an ongoing legal battle to remove Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien from El Salvador, from the United States.

‘That claim of fear is hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries.’

A letter obtained by Fox News revealed that ICE has plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, a small country in Southern Africa.

Last month, a federal judge blocked ICE from deporting Abrego Garcia to Uganda.

“As you know, the United States seeks to remove you from the United States based on your final order of removal,” ICE wrote in a letter to Abrego Garcia on Friday. “Currently, you are designated to be removed to Uganda. Your attorney has informed us, however, that you fear persecution or torture in Uganda.”

The letter went on to list nearly two dozen countries — including El Salvador, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras — where Abrego Garcia expressed similar fears.

RELATED: Federal judge forbids Trump to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia while legal defense proceeds

Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“That claim of fear is hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries,” ICE continued. “Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.”

Abrego Garcia was previously deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, but returned to the U.S. in June to face human trafficking charges. He pleaded not guilty.

The federal government has accused Abrego Garcia of engaging in “extensive criminal activities since he has been in the United States,” including being an MS-13 gang member, which he denies.

RELATED: MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia urges Obama judge to silence DHS, DOJ officials

Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Abrego Garcia is currently being held in a detention center in Farmville, Virginia, while he awaits deportation following a judge’s 2019 order of removal.

“This man is a suspected terrorist known to affiliate and be friends with MS-13 members. He’s an extremely dangerous individual,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Newsmax. “A known wife-beater. This is someone that should never be free in the United States of America, and bringing him to justice is incredibly important to the safety of the American people.”

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It’s been 56 years since NASA landed the first humans on the moon. Since then, our knowledge and technology has exploded. Today, we know more than ever about space exploration, computing, robotics, and materials science — far surpassing the capabilities and innovations that made the Apollo 11 mission possible.

So why haven’t we been back?

Former nominee for NASA administrator Jared Isaacman tells Glenn Beck that the bureaucracy at NASA is what’s barring America from achieving her potential in space.

“There needs to be some sort of a reorganization of the agency so you can kind of get back to concentrating on the real needle movers — the things that if NASA doesn’t do it, no one will, or if it is done, it’ll be done by the Chinese or the Russians,” he says.

Another moon landing is important, says Isaacman, because of “what we may learn from a scientific perspective,” the potential for “economic benefit,” and for reasons related to “national security.”

But “despite having a space station up there for 20 years, the biggest accomplishment we’ve had is keeping people alive continuously for 20 years in the harsh environment of space, which is good. But we haven’t figured out that magic wand” that “treats cancer” or “improves technology,” he says.

The problem isn’t that we can’t get to the moon; it’s that we keep standing in our own way.

“There’s a lot of bureaucracy [at NASA] that’s impeding progress,” says Isaacman.

For example, “NASA has yet to approve iPhones to go to the space station for their astronauts,” even though Russian astronauts have consistently brought theirs to the space station and even share them with American astronauts.

Isaacman says this is a “petty example,” but it paints a picture of just how severe NASA’s bureaucracy is.

One of the main problems, he says, is that “we’ve become very risk averse.”

But “there are some risks worth taking. Exploring the worlds beyond ours is a risk worth taking. You’re not going to get there if you’re not accepting some risk,” he says.

But how can we even begin to take calculated risks when there are “50 different departments” at NASA dedicated to safety?

“That’s not to say safety isn’t important, but if you have lots of people in a position to say no rather than bubbling it up logically to a single organization, it’s going to be easier to just say no,” says Isaacman. “I mean the best way to keep astronauts and pilots safe is don’t fly and don’t go to space.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the full interview above.

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The federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority is the largest public utility in the country, providing electricity to Tennessee and six surrounding states. And because the president appoints its board, it’s also a political football.

Democrat administrations have stacked the TVA board with green energy zealots committed to phasing out carbon fuels in favor of wind and solar. Donald Trump has responded by firing directors who embraced that faux utopian agenda, along with those who allowed the executives to reward themselves with high seven-figure compensation packages while outsourcing jobs to noncitizens.

The blue-collar working class has become a key element in the Trump coalition. If Trump moves to privatize the TVA, it will feel like a betrayal to the very people who have had his back.

Now a new tempest is brewing: Should the TVA be privatized?

Usurped by green zealots

The TVA was established as a public corporation in 1933 to provide flood control, rural electrification, and economic development in the Tennessee River Valley, as well as the surrounding areas of Appalachia. For almost a century, it has delivered abundant, inexpensive, and reliable electricity.

Most of its electricity comes from nuclear (42%) and natural gas (31%), while coal and hydroelectric account for about 23% combined.

Despite years of agitation from anti-carbon activists and Obama- and Biden-era appointees, the TVA’s power mix has remained overwhelmingly carbon-based — for one reason: It works.“Renewable” energy sources (primarily solar) only constitute about 4% of its total electricity production. And, as always, solar energy drops to zero at night.

A third way

The debate has focused on two extremes: Keep the TVA under federal ownership or privatize it. However, a third option offers a middle ground: Transfer ownership to the seven states that rely on it.

Moving ownership — and board appointments — to the seven primarily red states that rely on the TVA would ensure that green activists can’t destroy its ability to provide inexpensive, reliable electricity, while also maintaining the TVA’s status as a public utility.

The argument for keeping the TVA federally owned is that it has been very successful for a century now in providing electricity and flood control to much of Southern Appalachia. It also provides significant employment to the region.

Current corporate culture driven by private equity slashes employment to reduce labor expenses; relaxes quality and safety controls to meet budget-cutting goals; terminates the most experienced employees to eliminate their salaries; and outsources as many jobs as possible to non-Americans. Naturally, the fear of privatization is legitimate by those who rely on the TVA for electricity and employment.

Though the Trump administration hasn’t yet formally announced that it is considering privatization, many speculate that it is on the table. As the Atlantic reported recently:

Trump hasn’t spoken recently about privatizing the TVA. But in his first term, he proposed selling off the TVA’s power lines to a private buyer in 2018 and again in 2020. Now, he is positioned to stack the TVA’s board with new members. That, combined with his administration’s relentless push to shrink the federal government, has revived speculation about privatization — which many in Trump’s MAGA orbit have long argued should be the utility’s fate.

Most of the TVA’s 11,000-plus employees are skilled tradesmen and women who belong to unions. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents about 10,000 TVA employees. It has issued a pre-emptive warning to the Trump administration, stating:

The TVA is the primary reason the Deep South became the economic force it is today, and IBEW members have been there every step of the way. It’s an American success story that required skilled, union labor. We will fight tooth and nail attempts to turn it into a for-profit corporation whose only concern is ultra-rich shareholders.

I have had occasion throughout my career to work with companies that employ IBEW electricians, as well as companies that contract out for electrical work using the IBEW. These skilled tradesmen are overwhelmingly patriotic, America-first MAGA voters who detest the anti-carbon activists on the left. They also detest corporate America’s war on American labor.

The blue-collar working class has become a key element in the Trump coalition. If Trump moves to privatize the TVA, it will feel like a betrayal to the very people who have had his back.

Real concerns

Libertarian purists recoil at any level of government owning a utility. Yet privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority as a regulated monopoly offers little difference from government ownership. Without a free-market competitor willing to build nuclear plants and hydroelectric dams, the result is the same.

Chattanooga’s Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R), whose district includes the highest concentration of TVA employees, strongly opposes privatization. Knoxville Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, whose district houses TVA headquarters, is more open. He has said:

Any organization that pays their head $6 million a year plus bonus needs to be evaluated. For too long, the Tennessee Valley Authority has operated in the shadows with closed-door meetings and minimal transparency. I have sponsored, passed, and supported bills to fix these issues. I am a believer in capitalism and the free market. Any option that maximizes efficiency, incentivizes transparency, and keeps prices low for ratepayers should be explored.

Burchett has built a reputation fighting pork in Washington and is right to question the TVA’s waste and secrecy. But full-scale privatization isn’t the answer.

A better path would be to transfer ownership to the states. That compromise could deliver efficiency, accountability, and local control — while keeping the TVA safe from both federal meddling and Wall Street overreach.

RELATED: Tennessee Valley Authority gets a Trump-style reckoning

Photo by CHUNYIP WONG via Getty Images

Well-intentioned defenders of federal ownership, from Fleischmann to the IBEW, assume that the TVA’s future will look like its past. It won’t. Democrats in Washington will never allow the TVA to remain a major provider of carbon-based energy. The most conservative region in America should not gamble its power supply on the whims of left-wing swamp creatures.

Delivering for the people, not bureaucrats

The mechanics of ownership among the seven states would require negotiation, but one model could grant Tennessee 40% ownership — reflecting its dominant use and production — with the other six states dividing the remaining 60%.

That structure would put accountability where it belongs: in the hands of state leaders answerable to the families and businesses who depend on the TVA. Local officials would bear political responsibility for keeping the lights on and the air conditioning running — not distant bureaucrats in D.C.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Tva, Tennessee valley authority, Wall street, Private equity, Green energy, Green new deal, Nuclear power, Donald trump, Waste, Secrecy, Transparency, Unions, Maga, International brotherhood of electrical workers, Public utilities 

With Congress back in session after the August recess, pressure has once again been mounting for more answers surrounding the Epstein case. In a surprise moment during an interview, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) claimed Trump’s disgust with Epstein’s actions dates back decades — and involved an “FBI informant.”

In a walking interview with CNN reporter Manu Raju on Friday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson addressed concerns over the Epstein files and the efforts of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) for disclosure.

‘When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.’

Speaker Johnson criticized Massie and his “antics,” claiming that Massie’s “attacks” were “totally unfounded.” Massie has led the charge in pushing for disclosure of the Epstein files in the form of a discharge petition.

Johnson called the discharge petition “mooted” and “not necessary,” adding that six women who came forward on Thursday “represent as many as a thousand other women, most of whom are not comfortable coming forward.”

RELATED: Thomas Massie leads pressure campaign, forcing Congress to address Epstein

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The reporter pressed him on Trump’s calling the Epstein debacle a “hoax,” leading to an unexpected statement.

“I’ve talked to him about this many times. … It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying what Epstein did is a hoax. … It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself,” Johnson said. “When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”

It is not clear whom Speaker Johnson was referring to as an “FBI informant.” However, it is not publicly confirmed whether Trump or Epstein ever worked in this capacity for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Blaze News contacted Speaker Johnson’s office and the White House but did not receive a response.

This is a developing story.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) was expected to make an “important campaign announcement” on Friday afternoon, which further fueled speculation that he was considering ending his re-election campaign.

A report from the New York Times, citing anonymous sources, claimed Adams may soon leave the race to pursue a position with President Donald Trump’s administration as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

‘Those reports are wrong; I’m not.’

Adams held the press conference outside Gracie Mansion on Friday afternoon. He stood behind a sign that read “Re-elect Eric” to announce that he has no plans to withdraw from the race.

“This polo shirt that I’m wearing that says, ‘Eric Adams, Mayor of the City of New York,’ I’m gonna wear that for another four years,” he declared.

“I have two spoiled brats running for mayor,” Adams said, presumably referring to Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. “They were born with silver spoons in their mouths, not like working-class New Yorkers. I’m a working-class New Yorker. They are not like us. They’ve never had to fight. They never had to struggle. They never had to go through difficult times like you and I had to go through.”

RELATED: Radical left poised to redefine America’s cities

Democratic mayoral nominee and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

He rejected reports claiming that he has plans to travel to Washington, D.C., on Monday.

“Those reports are wrong; I’m not. I’ll be moving throughout this city, in the five boroughs that made me mayor in the first place,” he continued. “I’m running for re-election.”

Adams left the press conference without taking questions from reporters.

An Adams spokesperson previously denied the Times’ rumors in a statement to Newsmax on Friday ahead of the scheduled announcement.

RELATED: ‘It’s a culture thing’: Top Eric Adams adviser stumbles through explanation for handing reporter cash-stuffed bag of chips

Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

“Serving New Yorkers as their mayor is the only job I’ve ever wanted,” the statement read. “I’m proud of the progress we’ve made lowering crime, improving schools, building housing, and cutting costs for working families — and I remain the best person to lead this city forward.”

“While I will always listen if called to serve our country, no formal offers have been made. I am still running for re-election, and my full focus is on the safety and quality of life of every New Yorker,” the statement added.

Trump has stated that he would like to see two mayoral candidates drop out of the race to increase the chances of beating Mamdani, a Democratic front-runner. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and disgraced former Governor Cuomo (D) also remain in the race.

“I don’t like to see a communist become mayor, I will tell you that,” Trump said of Mamdani.

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Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid appears to have gone off the deep end as, during a recent appearance on former MSNBC colleague Katie Phang’s Youtube channel, she questioned the veracity of the assassination attempt on President Trump.

“He’s got these magical doctors who claim that he was shot in the ear, but his ear, I guess, grew back,” Reid began. “He had a Dukal bandage on one minute, no bandage the next. We can’t get a medical record from this alleged assassination. He was supposedly shot. We have nothing.”

“Where are the investigative records? One day, he slapped a maxi pad on his ear. The next day, the ear is totally fine,” Phang jumped in.

“Isn’t it odd that we’ve never asked for his medical records?” Reid said.

“You’re not allowed to even say, ‘Isn’t that weird?’” she said.

“And the mainstream media isn’t demanding his medical records. They’re not demanding anything. They’re terrified of this man,” she added.

“This is weird. This is so weird. Like, we can agree that, yeah, we don’t have enough information about Thomas Crooks or any connections he might have had with some people in the government. We need to get to the bottom of that,” says Keith Malinak, executive producer of “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“She’s hung up on, ‘I don’t think he was shot,’” he continues. “That’s what she’s hung up on.”

“That’s the big conspiracy theory on the left,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray agrees.

“These people are unhinged,” Malinak adds.

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Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who was previously known as Tim McBride, is the first “out” transgender person elected to Congress — and he is adamant that conservatives are the “weird” ones.

“They are obsessed with culture war issues. The Republican Party is obsessed with culture war issues. It is weird, and it is bizarre. And the American people deserve serious legislators, serious elected officials who are focused on bringing people together,” McBride said

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is not even close to being on the same page.

“If you are to believe this man, who believes that he is a woman, that’s your first mistake, is trusting anything that this person says,” Gonzales says. “If you are to believe Tim McBride, the right is weird because we believe in biological truths and that biological men are men and women are women.”

“That is so weird. That is so bizarre,” she mocks, before pulling up a selfie McBride posted to Instagram in the women’s bathroom in 2016.

“Here I am using a women’s restroom in North Carolina that I’m technically barred from being in. They say I’m a pervert. They say I’m a man dressed as a woman. They say I’m a threat to their children. They say I’m confused. They say I’m dangerous. And they say accepting me as the person I have fought my life to be seen as reflects the downfall of a once great nation,” McBride wrote in the caption.

“I’m just a person. We are all just people. Trying to pee in peace. Trying to live our lives as fully and authentically as possible. Barring me from this restroom doesn’t help anyone. And allowing me to continue to use this bathroom — just without fear of discrimination and harassment — doesn’t hurt anyone. Stop this. We are good people,” he added.

“This is a man entering a woman’s bathroom and taking pictures of himself in a woman’s bathroom and posting it on social media for likes and clicks is telling you that it’s weird that you care that he’s doing this,” Gonzales comments, adding, “That is so mind-boggling.”

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As has been the case since Miss United States Lindsey Langston came forward to accuse Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) of making threats of violence and revenge porn after their breakup, the hearing about her petition for a restraining order against him was filled with drama.

Langston testified at Columbia County Courthouse on Friday morning about her growing concerns about Mills’ mental health at the tail end of their three-year relationship as well as her increasing terror afterward on account of his behavior. According to Langston, Mills repeatedly contacted her after the breakup in February, pleading with her to reconcile and progressively threatening greater and greater harm to himself and others if she did not agree.

‘I’m up against this person who is intimidating, and I don’t know what to do.’

Langston testified that in March he threatened to commit suicide if she would not take him back.

Despite these alleged alarming comments, Langston said she continued to speak with Mills, even mentioning to him in late April or early May that she was struggling with an IRS- and tax-related problem, though she noted that she eventually had to ask him to stop contacting her.

Sometime in May, she began ignoring his messages, she said, and by late May, she started blocking him on her phone and social media accounts. However, she said the messages continued — and that they promised to harm her future love interests and even to share revenge porn with them or with the Miss United States organization.

Blaze News previously viewed screenshots of those messages, some or all of which were then introduced into evidence on Friday. They include:

“You want to date or be with someone else. Be my guest. But they need to know well in advance that if we cross paths, I don’t care this week, this month, or this decade. They better damn well know it’s coming every time.””May want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy.””I can send him a few videos of you as well,” followed by “Oh, I still have them.”

Messages that she received in June were so specific that she worried he was somehow monitoring her activities in Columbia County, she told the court.

Langston previously indicated to Blaze News that on June 12 she told him once and for all to leave her alone, and her attorney, Bobi J. Frank, noted at the hearing on Friday that Langston asked him “10, 11, 12 times” to stay away.

Between the escalating rhetoric and his previous boasts about engaging in violence, Langston testified that she felt she had no choice but to involve law enforcement.

“I’m up against this person who is intimidating,” she said through tears on the stand, “and I don’t know what to do.”

“I thought I could handle this, and I can’t. I can’t handle it by myself. Please help me. Someone please help me because I don’t know what to do, and I’m scared,” she added.

RELATED: Drama continues as Rep. Cory Mills prepares for looming court hearing against Miss United States

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

When it was Mills’ turn to take the stand, he did not deny contacting Langston after their breakup, noting that they had broken up and reconciled before and that he believed that they were on a path toward reconciliation once again. When his attorney, Aaron Delgado, asked about the messages that Langston found worrisome, Mills seemed to suggest that they were inside jokes between two Southerners raised in the “country.”

“I grew up in the country,” Mills said. “You know, I grew up hunting and fishing in Perry and Mayo and things like that. We grew up with subsequently the same backgrounds. … We used to talk about how country folk are a little bit different than those up North.”

He indicated that he was merely adopting her type of “voice” and language.

Mills at first said his last conversation with Langston ‘was around the June 12th time frame,’ but when Delgado pressed further, asking whether he had any contact with Langston after that point, Mills equivocated.

As far as the messages seemingly directed at a new man in Langston’s life, Mills said they were responses to threats that the man had first given about him. “She even sent me a text that was cropped that just said, ‘Good luck,’ saying that this was his response,” Mills asserted.

Langston testified Friday that while she had gone on dates, she had not been involved in another relationship after Mills.

Mills further stated that while Langston had sent him explicit videos of herself during their relationship — a fact that Langston confirmed during cross-examination — he had deleted those videos and that the phone on which he had received them was later damaged. He denied ever contacting the Miss United States organization or the county GOP group of which Langston is a member about the explicit photos and videos.

RELATED: Rep. Cory Mills to appear in court following bombshell accusations from Miss United States

Photo courtesy of Lake City Reporter

Mills, who is still believed to be married to Rana Al Saadi despite reportedly telling Langston in 2024 that his divorce had been finalized, gave an ambiguous answer when Delgado asked him to pinpoint the last time he had contacted Langston.

Mills at first said his last conversation with Langston “was around the June 12th time frame,” but when Delgado pressed further, asking whether he had any contact with Langston after that point, Mills equivocated. “No, sir, only to the fact of I have heard …” Mills began before he was cut off multiple times by Frank, Judge Fred Koberlein, and Delgado that he was engaging in hearsay.

At the prompting of Judge Koberlein, Delgado eventually redirected the line of questioning, and Mills’ testimony concluded shortly thereafter.

Langston had testified earlier that after she contacted law enforcement and the media, Mills, his current girlfriend, and his chief of staff sent her a flurry of messages and phone calls, begging her to retract her story. She told Blaze News on August 5, the day our story on the accusations broke, about this alleged harassment.

The hearing Friday extended well beyond the time allotted, with other critical procedures, including cross-examination of Mills and closing statements, left undone. After both attorneys petitioned for more time, Judge Koberlein suspended the hearing, demanding that by 4 p.m. Friday they agree upon another date and time to continue the proceedings.

After the court was recessed, Mills promised the gaggle of reporters in attendance, including Steve Baker of Blaze News, that he would address them outside the courthouse, but he never appeared, instead exiting the building from another door.

Delgado did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News, and Frank declined to give one.

The court had previously dismissed Langston’s emergency petition for a restraining order. As of the time of this writing, no follow-up hearing has been scheduled.

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​Cory mills, Miss united states, Lindsey langston, Restraining order, Florida, Revenge porn, Harassment, Threats, Politics 

Homeland Security Investigations announced a massive raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia that resulted in the arrest of hundreds of individuals.

HSI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other federal agencies participated in an operation on Thursday into “unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes.”

‘As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company.’

Federal law enforcement agents arrested 475 individuals who were “illegally present in the United States or in violation of their presence in the United States,” according to Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of HSI for Georgia and Alabama.

“Yesterday, Homeland Security Investigations, in coordination with our law enforcement partners, executed a judicial search warrant as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and serious federal crimes,” Schrank stated during a press conference on Friday.

“This was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks, and put them on buses,” he continued. “This has been a multi-month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence, conducted interviews, gathered documents, and presented that evidence to the court in order to obtain a judicial search warrant.”

He stated that the arrested individuals, the majority of whom were South Korean nationals, were “working unlawfully.” Schrank explained that some of these individuals had either crossed the border illegally, overstayed their visas, or entered the country through visa waivers but were not permitted to work.

RELATED: After ICE removes illegal workers, job applicants flood meatpacking plant to replace them

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lee Jaewoong, a spokesman for South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, stated Friday, “The economic activities of our investment companies and the rights and interests of our citizens must not be unjustly violated during U.S. law enforcement proceedings.”

The raided facility was a construction site for HL-GA Battery Company, a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution. This plant will supply batteries to the nearby Hyundai electric vehicle manufacturing plant.

The arrested individuals worked for “a variety of different companies that were on the site.” Those determined to be illegally in the U.S. were turned over to ICE custody, according to Schrank, who called the raid “the largest single-site enforcement operation” in HSI’s history.

No criminal charges were announced as of Friday.

RELATED: Not tired of winning: Trump’s 200 victories in 200 days

Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Hyundai Motor Company told Blaze News, “We are aware of the recent incident at the HL-GA Battery Company construction site in Bryan County, Georgia. We are closely monitoring the situation and working to understand the specific circumstances.”

“As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company. We prioritize the safety and well-being of everyone working at the site and comply with all laws and regulations wherever we operate,” the statement added.

Blaze News contacted HL-GA Battery Company for comment.

Mary Beth Kennedy, senior public relations specialist with the HL-GA Battery Company, previously told WSAV-TV, “HL-GA Battery Company is cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities regarding activity at our construction site. To assist their work, we have paused construction. We do not have further details at this time.”

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Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced charges against two teenagers accused of fatally shooting a congressional intern.

‘This killing underscores why we need the authority to prosecute these younger kids, because they’re not kids; they’re criminals.’

Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts student and intern for the office of Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas, was killed near D.C.’s Mount Vernon Square in June when a group of people exited a car and opened fire. Two others were injured in the attack, including a 16-year-old.

“The scene involved two rifles, one 9 millimeter, and 79 rounds on the ground,” Pirro said on Friday.

Pirro announced that two 17-year-olds had been arrested and charged with first-degree murder for the shooting. She noted that authorities are also pursuing a third suspect. The teens will be tried as adults.

“[Tarpinian-Jachym] was an innocent bystander who was caught in a violent act that was not meant for him,” Pirro stated. “His death is a stark reminder of how fragile life is and how violence too often visits us in the nation’s capital.”

RELATED: 21-year-old congressional intern killed in triple shooting in Washington, DC

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Pirro stated that Tarpinian-Jachym was shot four times.

“The D.C. Council thinks that these kids need to be protected. They don’t need to be protected. They need to be made accountable,” Pirro said. “This killing underscores why we need the authority to prosecute these younger kids, because they’re not kids; they’re criminals.”

Blaze News reached out to the D.C. Council for comment.

Pirro mentioned that violent acts like this are the reason President Donald Trump has launched a law enforcement initiative in D.C. to restore order.

RELATED: DC mayor and AG at odds as lawsuit challenges Trump’s anti-crime operation

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“Eric, you didn’t die in vain,” Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym, the victim’s mother, told the Washington Post. “If we would’ve known the city was so dangerous, we wouldn’t have let him go.”

She told the news outlet that listening to President Donald Trump gave her hope.

“Hope that my son won’t just be a statistic. And hope that these changes will mean no other innocent people will get shot,” she added.

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Comedian Druski is making headlines after showing up at a NASCAR race decked out in whiteface for a comedy skit that’s now gone viral.

In the video, Druski, whose real name is Andrew Desbordes, goes undercover as a white man with a phony beard, a mullet, tattoos, denim overalls over a bare chest, a cowboy hat, and even a bright red farmer’s tan. As the camera follows him, he yells things like “I’m white and I’m proud” and spits at the feet of black people he passes.

“I didn’t find this funny,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock says on “Fearless.” “I found it more intentionally provocative and just trolling. ‘Hey, I’m going to do whiteface, and white people can’t do blackface, and I’m going to portray a white redneck in the worst way possible.’”

“I found it as like, ‘Hey, I have privileges. I can do things that white comedians can’t, so I’m going to do it.’ And it’s the hypocrisy of it that bothers me,” he continues.

“I’m not offended by the video. The video’s harmless. But it’s just really, really hypocritical, and it’s intentionally done to inflame white people, and that’s where he’s going to get the traction off of,” he adds.

BlazeTV contributor Shemeka Michelle is in agreement.

“I felt like it was harmless as well. I didn’t think anything of it when I saw it. I think the most I thought about it was that I have a similar hat in my closet, and so that was kind of funny to me. But I do see the hypocrisy in it,” she explains.

Michelle notes that comedians like Jimmy Fallon have had to apologize for skits they did that weren’t even blackface but closely resembled it.

“White people can’t do this without having to apologize. I see the hypocrisy in it, and I do understand the white people that are online saying, ‘This is hypocritical,’” Michelle says.

“This is what people have been saying for a while now, that there are things that black people can say and do that white people can’t say and do. And, you know, maybe it’s hypocritical,” she continues, “but it is actually the truth. It’s just a fact. We can get away with pretty much saying and doing anything.”

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President Donald Trump declared on March 17 that “the ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” the president continued. “The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.”

Liberal fact-checkers rushed to suggest the president was wrong about the Biden pardons — however, a great deal of evidence has come out vindicating Trump’s understanding that the pardons were likely unlawful.

‘I made the decisions during my presidency.’

Two weeks after the Oversight Project obtained internal emails from the Justice Department indicating that there was a high-level understanding in the Biden administration that many of the commutations autopenned in the former president’s name were legally flawed, Just the News received internal Biden White House memos that could similarly spell trouble for recipients.

Mike Howell — president of the Oversight Project, which first exposed the Biden White House’s prolific use of the autopen earlier this year — told Blaze News, “We’ve been right all along, and it’s nice to be right again. It’s past time to start actually charging these people.”

The memos, gathered as part of a Trump White House Counsel probe into Biden’s use of autopen signatures for official business, shed additional light on the Biden White House’s shifting approach to pardons and the former president’s involvement in the process.

RELATED: ‘WTF are you guys doing?’ DOJ exposes ‘black and white evidence’ that Biden admin knew autopenned pardons were legally flawed

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A February 2021 draft memo from then-White House staff secretary Jessica Hertz — a final version of which was reportedly not referenced in the National Archives — detailed guidelines for Biden’s autopen use “based on precedent from the Obama-Biden administration.”

The memo, which was sent early in the Democratic administration to Biden insiders, including then-chief of staff Ron Klain, noted that congressional bills, veto messages, and pardon letters were among the documents the president should personally approve and hand-sign.

It is clear from the liberal use of autopen signatures on pardons and other consequential presidential actions by the Biden White House that this guidance did not stick.

While Biden told news outlets in June, “I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” a draft memo circulated by Biden’s White House Counsel in February 2024 suggested otherwise.

The 2024 draft memo detailed the “general pattern” followed by members of the White House Counsel’s Office clemency team when securing approval for clemency, revealing that Biden “previously asked the White House Counsel to discuss the [clemency] candidates with him, although in the last round the vice president’s approval was sufficient to obtain his approval.”

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

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The Trump White House reportedly concluded that this particular memo indicates that Biden was “outsourcing” clemency decisions to Kamala Harris in 2024.

The Trump WHCO’s probe also found very little evidence to suggest Biden actually attended four critical clemency meetings in December 2024 and January 2025 and “turned up no record of the president’s briefing books addressing pardons, commutations, or clemency at that time,” Just the News reported.

The National Archives apparently has no contemporaneous staff notes confirming Biden was present at the Dec. 5, Dec. 11, Jan. 11, and Jan. 19 meetings where he was later said to have supposedly given “verbal approval” for commutations for federal death row inmates, members of the Biden family, and other unsavory characters.

The Trump White House also found a troubling indication in its review that Biden may have not been sufficiently involved in the controversial commutation of sentences for 37 federal inmates sitting on death row.

In a Dec. 10, 2024, draft memo, then-White House counsel Edward Siskel recommended that Biden grant clemency for the felons; however, the National Archives reportedly proved unable to find a final version of the memo bearing proof of Biden’s approval for the commutations that were ultimately granted in his name.

Just the News indicated that the office of Joe and Jill Biden did not respond to a request for comment.

“In June 2022, the Biden White House began deploying the autopen to sign clemency warrants and executive orders in July of 2022. Autopen use skyrocketed from there,” former Idaho Solicitor General Theodore Wold, a board member of the Oversight Project, told the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in June. “We found that of the 51 clemency warrants issued during the Biden presidency, over half — 32 in total — were signed with an autopen.”

Wold later emphasized that the “president actually has to make the decision — that cannot be delegated to a staffer or an adviser,” but there was no indication “that anyone other than staff were making these decisions.”

— (@)

Editor’s note: Mike Howell is a contributor to Blaze News.

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“Third Way is circulating a memo,” Politico’s Adam Wren posted on X, “… featuring a new black list of words Dems shouldn’t use.”

So what’s new? We’ve dealt with years of woke policing of language. It got so ridiculous that for my sketch comedy series, “Comedy Is Murder,” my co-conspirators at Free the People and I imagined what George Carlin would have to say about the state of language and communication today.

Will they get back any of that checked privilege — with interest? Or will the Democrats still ask for them to check it — but, like, find a different way to phrase it?

Remember back in 1972, Carlin only had “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” But 50 years later, the list had metastasized to “7,000 Words You Can Never Say on Television … or Anywhere.” (Actually, “metastasized” is on the no-no list — since it’s clearly size-ist.)

But as it turns out, the self-described center-left think tank’s advice to blacklist some 45 words and phrases isn’t your typical virtue-signaling censorship move. It’s actually a call for Democrats to defund the speech police and talk like normal people.

That’s right: Democrats are attempting to normalize normal.

Nothing to see here

The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell is a fan of going this direction. Along with a screenshot of some of the blacklisted terms, she posted the following on X:

Don’t say “birthing person.”
Don’t say “incarcerated person.”
Don’t say “the unhoused.”
Don’t say “chest feeding.”
Don’t say “centering.
Don’t say “Latinx.”
When voters hear this, they think Democrats are out of touch crazy people. Just talk normal. Be normal.

I understand what’s going on here: The goal is to connect with voters and win elections. And I’m not one to take advice from when it comes to elections. The only election I ever won was back in high school, when I became student body president. (Looking back on my tenure, I’m surprised I wasn’t impeached or overthrown in a coup d’état.)

But I believe it’s important to use language that represents your actual beliefs. If you sincerely believe in “birthing persons” and “chest feeders,” then you owe it to voters and yourself — or yourselx — to use that language. You can “talk normal” all you want, but it doesn’t mean you actually “believe normal.”

Crazy talk

Good on Longwell and others for bringing back the use of “crazy” without apology. But the fact is that you can sound normal and still be an out-of-touch crazy person. Which, I guess, can be a winning strategy for the Democrats.

As Third Way puts it:

We are not out to police language, ban phrases, or create our own form of censorship. Truth be told, we have published papers that have used some of these words as well. But when policymakers are public-facing, the language we use must invite, not repel; start a conversation, not end it; provide clarity, not confusion.

One might call this “lying.” So in order to win, Democrats must lie — which is going to make for some awkward conversations.

According to the Playbook Podcast, “Third Way argues that to ‘please the few, we have alienated the many — especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty, and arrogant.'”

Chuck your privilege

Just think of all the college graduates who took out student loans they have no hope of ever repaying just to learn to speak this AWFL (affluent white female liberal) language.

You want Democrats to stop using the word “privilege” and the term “systems of oppression” — but what about all the woke white allies who have spent the last decade checking their privilege because of their place at the top of these systems of oppression?

Will they get back any of that checked privilege — with interest? Or will the Democrats still ask for them to check it — but, like, find a different way to phrase it? In lieu of words, perhaps an aggressive eyeroll. Or pull a Prince circa 1993 and go with an unpronounceable symbol. Since they’re blacklisting the term “cultural appropriation” now, I’m guessing that’s kosher.

Third Way wants Democrats to stop using the word “microaggression,” but what else would you call the act of asking someone, “Where are you from?”

No more “body-shaming”? Ozempic will make that easier.

But how about “Latinx?” Just because you stop using “Latinx,” it doesn’t mean you stop believing the Latinx are out there. (Even though you are more likely to encounter a chupacabra than a Latinx.)

I’d be happy if Democrats ditched words like “cisgender,” “deadnaming,” “heteronormative,” and “patriarchy” if they no longer believed in the queer philosophical foundations on which these terms were built. (Since “Bonus Hole” didn’t make the black list, I assume it’s still good to use.)

RELATED: Her son wears dresses, her daughter’s a ‘boy,’ and it’s all for status

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‘White’ out

If Democrats are taking requests, I’d like to see them do away with “racism” — as defined by “prejudice plus power.” I’d also like to see “whiteness” gone — not in a “white genocide” manner. But in that “let’s stop blaming everything that happens in the universe on whiteness” kind of way. Unlike gravity, whiteness is not one of the fundamental forces of nature — even though woke pols treat it so.

In “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell wrote:

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

If Orwell were trying to appeal to voters, he would be advised to blacklist a number of those words he used above. Honesty could cost him the election, but it’s that kind of allyship I can get behind — even though allyship is a word Third Way recommends you leave behind.

​Democrats, Trans, Democratic party, George carlin, Censorship, Blacklist, Birthing people, Bad words 

Paul Gottfried is an American philosopher and historian who has largely been disappointed by the conservatives of the past for their refusal to enforce their supposed values, whose moderate stances have led to the LGBTQ cult takeover as well as the rise of far-left figures like Zohran Mamdani and Jasmine Crockett.

“Watching Fox News, I’ve been struck by the fact that they simply went along with gay marriage. … Last year I saw Caitlyn Jenner on Fox News … presented as some kind of conservative transgender,” Gottfried tells BlazeTV hosts Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson on “Blaze News: The Mandate.”

“There seems to be a reluctance to offend groups that are seen as very powerful and may interfere with the careers of some of these establishment conservative celebrities, but this does not seem to be the case with the populist right,” he continues.

“They’re very frontal in their attack on the social cultural revolution that the country has gone through in the last 20, 30 years, and you know, they don’t hold back, which I think is much to their credit,” he adds.

This is what Gottfried calls a “spontaneous counterrevolution.”

“I cannot get over this transformation, but it has really risen from the people in a way that the neo-conservative takeover certainly did not,” he explains.

And Gottfried believes the youth who are taking on the left in a harsher way than their elders did are right to do so for the sake of the future of our country.

“I think the woke thing is more dangerous in America than communism ever was,” he tells Peterson and Savage, noting that what makes it so dangerous is what drives it.

“What drives this woke left is not utopianism or some vision of this. It is absolute hatred. It is hatred of normal people, as far as I can determine,” he explains.

“It’s pure malice that drives many of these people, where the feminists hate the men. You know, ‘I’m the victim of the patriarchy,’” he mocks. “And you look at these women, they’re living very well. How are they victims of the patriarchy?”

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Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas provided a shocking defense of crime, arguing that poverty simply makes people more susceptible to “engage in certain things.”

Crockett defended criminals in an interview with the “Grounded” podcast on Wednesday, claiming that the only reason people commit crimes is “because they literally are trying to survive.” Crockett also argued that there is “no good point” in prosecuting certain kinds of crime because she views them as acts of desperation.

‘Not because people are criminals, but because they literally are trying to survive.’

“Just because you are impoverished does not mean that you will be a criminal,” Crockett noted.

“But I do want to be clear that there is a direct link between poverty and susceptibility to having to engage in certain things,” Crockett added. “And this is something that I know up close and personal as a public defender.”

RELATED: Tim Kaine shockingly compares the Declaration of Independence to Iran’s theocratic regime: ‘Extremely troubling’

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Crockett also referred to John Creuzot, the Dallas County district attorney, who has made similar justifications for crime in the past. She conceded that Creuzot probably should not have said the quiet part out loud, but ultimately sided with his soft-on-crime policies.

“In fact, my elected prosecutor in Dallas County, he kind of caused some flak because — he probably shouldn’t have said it out loud, but — he specifically said, ‘If I’m getting people that are getting charged with a low-level misdemeanor for going and stealing food, diapers, like, basic necessities … I’m not locking you up.'”

Crockett agreed with Creuzot’s track record, saying that “there is no good point” in prosecuting crimes she thinks are committed out of necessity or desperation.

RELATED: Tone-deaf Democrats lash out over prayers for Christians murdered in devastating Minnesota shooting

Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Court Accountability

“Granted, there is no good point in doing it because a decent defense attorney would have a defense.”

“I want people to understand that there are crimes that are committed, not because people are criminals, but because they literally are trying to survive.”

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With sensitive subjects, I believe it’s best to be direct, so let’s rip the Band-Aid off: This article is about female narcissism.

It’s not about men’s faults; those are catalogued and exaggerated around the clock, every day of the year. This piece is about a truth that many people know, and have noticed, but that almost no one will dare say.

I spent decades being the ‘gay best friend’ in platonic female friendships. Men like me know things about women that many other men don’t.

Since the rise of feminism in the 1960s, American women have entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers, overtaken men in college matriculation (58%), and become the vast numerical majority in every industry related to childcare and instruction.

But a strange and contradictory thing has happened along the way. The more “equality” American women have gained, the more solipsistic, entitled, self-focused, and immature they’ve become.

Exiles in gyno-ville

We are told that women have it worse than ever and that the average man is a misogynist. Not a “sexist.” Not even a “male chauvinist pig,” as the ladies in “9 to 5“ would have called such men in the days of “women’s lib.” Nay. Men are now misogynists, a word that means roiling hatred for women because they’re women.

It is a term that, until the past 15 years, was only used to describe the most depraved men, psycho-sexual serial killers such as Richard Ramirez (the “night stalker”) or Ed Gein (“the butcher of Plainfield”).

Now, it’s glibly tossed off by self-confident but dissatisfied women toward men who don’t symbolically kneel and kiss their Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Men don’t want a second date with a woman? Misogynist. Male colleagues complain about women in HR censoring their conversations and managing their tone and terminology? Misogyny. Women with part-time jobs, or women who take time off to nurture their newborns, complain hilariously about the “gender pay gap.” They claim falsely that women are paid less for the exact same work with the exact same years of service. It’s not true. Not even a little bit.

But if you point that fact out? You guessed it: misogynist.

Hag-iography

I’m in an interesting position when it comes to commenting on the never-ending war of the sexes, a war that is being waged mainly by women against men. We men didn’t ask for these hostilities.

As a 50-year-old gay man, I spent the majority of my adult life as a leftist liberal before I matured and found grown-up conservatism. This meant I spent decades being the “gay best friend” in platonic female friendships. Men like me know things about women that many other men don’t.

When I was enacting an everyday version of Jack and Karen on “Will and Grace,” I was the toast of female society. But when I began to notice the entitlement, the diva-like behavior, and the “give me stuff for free and expect nothing in return” attitude of many modern women, I was thrown to the curb.

Former friends called me — wait for it — a misogynist. And not just a misogynist but an especially virulent one. “Gay men are the most misogynistic men on the planet,” such women say in between sips of mimosas and texts to their gay BFF about what color they should ask for at the nail salon.

Some even speculated that my “anger at women” foretold a future career as a spree killer (I wish I were joking).

The fog of feminism

We’re not experiencing an epidemic of male misogyny. We’ve been living in a gynocracy for decades, and we’re saddled with a bumper crop of women who have never been told “no.” They’ve never been denied a participation trophy or a promotion to HR manager. They’ve never been told they’re not a “10.” They’re not even expected to say “thank you” when a gentleman holds a door for a lady.

Some readers think I exaggerate. They’re constructing an image of me as a “bitter” or “frustrated” man. This is where the modern female mind (and the minds of too many feckless, gelded men) go when women are held to the same standards of deportment and adult behavior that men are expected to maintain.

It’s a fish-who-doesn’t-know-what-water-is problem. Since the flower power era, feminism has been the oxygen that all Americans, liberal and conservative, breathe. We think outsized female self-regard and entitlement is normal, but it’s not. It’s recent, and it’s at the root of huge societal problems, “wokeness” being the biggest.

Dumping on men

Let me give you an example from the real world. This will indeed seem like “no big deal” to many readers, and it’s true that it’s a mild incident. But consider whether you would react that way if the sexes were reversed.

I went to the city dump to unload a car full of branches and lawn trimmings. As I hauled the leaves over to the pile, two late-middle-aged women in twin-set sweaters and pearls were doing the same about five feet from me.

One said to the other, knowing full well that I was standing there, “Where are the men? Why should we have to do this? Do they do anything?” They both gave a soft, suburban chuckle. Her friend responded, “At least when women are around we know work will get done.”

Were I to respond to those women the way they would have responded to me in the reverse, I would have shrieked, “Misandrist!” and run home to tell my wife how unsafe I felt at the town grass tip. The point is, it would not even occur to most men to be so gauche about women in mixed company. Not only are most men not inclined to give women social offense that way, they know damned well they’d be punished if they did.

RELATED: How leftists think — and how you can change their minds

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Expired tarts

This brings me to, of all people, Taylor Swift. The biggest pop star in the world became a household name by singing forgettable songs about inadequate men and the trauma of a teenager’s dating life. Thing is, she’s still singing about this stuff at age 35. And her concerts are packed not just with teen girls, but with suburban moms well into their 50s, crying the way adolescent girls did in the early ’60s when the Beatles first washed ashore.

This is not normal. This infantilized girlboss pose by mothers and career women has no historical precedent. For all the talk of shiftless, video-gaming boys and young men, we spill precious little ink on the fact that adult women think nothing of dressing like 16-year-old tarts and waxing about how they’re in their “soft girl era.”

It’s undignified and so is the direction Miss Swift is taking with the publicity for her new album. Take a look at the photo she released on social media.

It’s too generous to call that garment a teddy; it’s closer to a gownless evening strap (pacé Shirley Bassey). Her rump is exposed, and she’s bending over to stick out her backside while leaning against what looks like a truck stop bathroom wall. Even the lighting looks like grimy gay male pornography from the 1970s.

Aging like milk

What does this have to do with the state of ordinary, everyday, non-Taylor Swift women? A lot.

Miss Swift is doing on stage what millions of workaday women are doing on the street. She is refusing to age gracefully, and she’s getting raunchier as time goes on. This has been a pattern with women for the past 15 years, as mothers don’t want to be seen as mothers but as the older, more … experienced version of their nubile daughters.

This is the friction point where we can see that modern female narcissism is an expression of extreme insecurity in women. These ladies have a terribly sad belief that the only thing of value they have to offer is sex. And no, it’s not the “male gaze” or “male producers” who are at fault. Taylor Swift — and Linda Smith down the street — are doing this to themselves.

Women call it the “invisibility” problem. On leaving youth and entering middle age, they say, men stop looking at them as desirable. This is a double-edged sword for most women. Many express relief at not having their breasts and backside ogled (men are cads; women aren’t making that up), but at the same time, they complain bitterly about no longer being perceived as sex objects.

Lust for life?

They blame this on “patriarchal” male tastes, but that’s just feminist cope. If fault there be, it is the fault of nature, not social constructs. Women lose their sexual appeal after youth in a way that men, largely, do not. This is a fact. No, it’s not a fun or favorite fact. But it is a fact.

Women seem to believe they are entitled to be lusted after and desired at 45, 55, 65, the way a fresh-faced college girl turns men’s heads. It’s ridiculous. Look at Madonna (67), Cher (79), or Jennifer Lopez (56). That’s the road Taylor Swift is on, and mind-bogglingly, it’s the road way too many normal women seem determined to travel.

Kavin Mazur/Taylor Hill/Xavi Torrent/Getty Images

The problem these women are facing, I believe, stems from the fact that so many have stayed adolescent girls their whole lives instead of learning from the example of their grandmothers. There is an arc to a woman’s life. Some have called it Maiden, Mother, Crone. If you don’t like that, label it some way you find pleasing.

Grande dames wanted

There is a role for middle-aged and old women, at least there always used to be. It was upheld in almost all societies before the mid-20th century. Even the actresses of old Hollywood, beauty queens in youth like Joan Crawford, assumed this role as they aged. Our grandmothers assumed this role.

It is the role of the grande dame. It is the carriage of a mature, put-together, self-confident, and wise woman. A true matriarch. Hair goes up, and hems go down.

Youthful beauty and sex appeal are natural to the young part of a woman’s life; this tracks with evolutionarily programmed facts of reproduction. When one is past one’s reproductive prime, life offers new roles to men and women.

But not in the 2020s. But it doesn’t have to be this way for women. Dignity is available to those who will step into it.

​Culture, Feminism, Gays, Lgbt, Narcissism, Cluster b, Men and women, Dating, Intervention 

The United States Senate isn’t happy with Bobby Kennedy Jr. Senators say he’s a grievous threat to the health and safety of Americans and that everything was fine before he came to town.

These Republican and Democrat senators would rather see nothing change. They know the country gets sicker and fatter every day, but they don’t want people fired over that. That attitude almost makes sense. Responsibility and accountability are rare birds in these parts, and most of these people have been in their offices for decades while our national downward slide continues uninterrupted.

The same politicians who have held office for decades while autism rates exploded and Americans got fatter and sicker were angry.

But what scares them most about RFK Jr. isn’t what he’s doing; it’s what he’s saying. For decades, the scientific bureaucracy relied on unquestioning trust and obedience. That’s over now, and the moneyed interests that long ago captured this section of government and its congressional supervisors are terrified of this reality.

What’s more, this moment cannot be undone. Broken trust is tough to repair even between people as close as husband and wife. But government and citizens, or companies and consumers? That might as well be impossible.

This is the reality facing the American scientific establishment today, regardless of whether the politicians can bring themselves to admit it. COVID-19 shattered the public’s trust in everything from the medical establishment to the education system like Vietnam and Watergate shattered the basic assumptions decades prior — and there’s no going back.

The next administration can undo much of the excellent work this White House has accomplished on border enforcement, drug interdiction, trade policies, foreign entanglements, etc. — but Democrats cannot undo a population that is now questioning their “recommendations.” Too many of them simply don’t survive scrutiny.

When our daughter was born last year, my wife and I had a book on the research, benefits, negatives, and potential consequences behind each and every vaccine “recommendation.” Our baby needs the hepatitis B shot when she’s one day old, even though her mother, like all pregnant women in America, was tested for it and it’s a disease confined to prostitutes and intravenous drug addicts?

That’s what “the science” says, they responded, and “there’s a lot of misinformation out there.” No, thank you, Doctor, what else do you have for her?

That just was not the case when my son was born nine years ago. My wife tacitly trusted that the doctors had his best interests in mind. Why wouldn’t they? Back then, we thought most vaccine skeptics were strange celebrities and homeschool families.

We’re never going back to that passive acceptance, and every few weeks I get a message from a newly expectant father or mother asking for advice on navigating the pediatric offices, which largely insist that you follow the Centers for Disease Control “recommendations” or be ejected from their care. For them, it’s a matter of dogma.

Families around the country watched while playgrounds and beaches were closed, elderly couples died alone in separate rooms of the same hospital to “protect them from COVID,” and dads were barred from their wives’ sides during labor.

We saw that strip clubs, casinos, and mass protests were called safe places to gather, but churches were shut down.

We listened to the transgender “science.”

We heard the ever-changing mask policies, and if we didn’t personally suffer from it, we knew at least one young person whose heart was hurt by the untested COVID vaccines.

And we woke up. Kennedy is giving voice to these people. Just as he said in his opening statement to the Senate on Thursday: “We were lied to about everything.”

Senators didn’t want to hear that. The same politicians who have held office for decades while autism rates exploded and Americans got fatter and sicker were angry. Funny; the American people are angry too. Our trust is broken, and the only way back is through the truth. That will require confrontation. It’s going to make powerful people who aren’t used to being challenged very uncomfortable. There’s a lot of money in lying about this stuff.

We know we were lied to about everything. We’re wide awake now, and we’re not going back to sleep.

Blaze News: RFK Jr. laughs at Elizabeth Warren’s concern-mongering: ‘You’re just making stuff up’

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​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

My name is Erik Bork. I am not a household name.

But if you watched the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” there is a good chance I have already been in your living room. I had the great pleasure of helping to write and produce that series and a few other projects with Mr. Hanks, including “From the Earth to the Moon,” about the Apollo program.

Comedy, to me, is the great disarmer. It creates breathing room. I leaned into that and set out to create a story where political opposites are not caricatures, but characters

“The Elephant in the Room” is my newest project. It’s something completely different: a romantic comedy about two strangers who meet without knowing the other’s politics. When they soon find that out, it changes everything. She voted Biden. He voted Trump. And it’s December 2020.

They must decide if their budding connection can survive this divide. And should they give it a chance? Or maybe try to impact the other’s views? That shouldn’t be hard, right?

RELATED: Can true love ‘Trump’ our political divide? Writer/director Erik Bork is optimistic.

Erik Bork

Polar exploration

The film approaches this touchy issue with levity and heart rather than arguing and bitterness. By exploring what could happen here, we might invite a deeper conversation about welcoming differences or, at the very least, opening up enough to listen to each other, rather than falling into stalemate polarization.

I was lucky enough to start my career in a kind of apprenticeship with Tom Hanks, helping him bring historical stories to life with meticulous detail. They were stories that tended to be celebrations of a great American achievement, where the stakes and risks were sky-high and success by no means guaranteed.

I see the growing political divide the same way. Beyond the issues we might be passionate about — the politicians and policies we might love and support or fear and loathe — there are human beings “on the other side” who think differently. Are they necessarily evil or stupid? Because that’s what polarization tells us about them. Or do they just have different life experiences, education, news sources, and circles they travel in?

Entrenched like me

I come from one side of this great divide myself. And I have spent years reacting to what those “others” are doing and saying and believing, entrenched in my belief that the only problem was them. That their side is essentially all wrong and my side all right.

But there’s more to it than that. And I’ve learned that I can believe and advocate for everything that’s important to me while also making space to see people in my life with opposing views as human beings who probably agree with me on many fundamental values. And with whom talking and listening openly, while perhaps disagreeing, can be a positive thing for us all.

That’s not happening much online or in the news and media right now. There’s an obvious divide that many of our elected leaders and media seem incentivized to keep in place, where little that’s constructive and has broad appeal can get done and few basic facts can be agreed upon. And we no longer can agree on what America is supposed to mean and what about it should be celebrated and supported.

The great disarmer

The more I looked at how this has evolved and lamented it, I began to wonder: Could characters from opposite ends of the political spectrum share a space without it turning into a fight? Could they still see each other as human beings first? What if there was strong physical and emotional chemistry giving them an incentive to try?

And could I explore this seemingly dead serious issue in that lightest of genres, the romantic comedy? That challenge I gave myself turned into “The Elephant in the Room.”

Comedy, to me, is the great disarmer. It creates breathing room. I leaned into that and set out to create a story where political opposites are not caricatures, but characters; a place where disagreement is not necessarily an ending. Nothing is definitively answered, and no one is asked to change their views — including the audience. But a space is made for possibility.

​Movies, The elephant in the room, Erik bork, Donald trump, Lifestyle, Culture 

European leaders are pushing for the implementation of digital identification.

Specifically, both French President Emmanuel Macron and former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair have urged sitting U.K. PM Keir Starmer to consider making digital IDs mandatory.

‘The same playbook is being used as a justification for broader powers to the establishment.’

Starmer is under pressure from English activists to stem illegal immigration, with illegal transport by sea from France being the primary focus. For this reason, Macron said he wants Starmer to address the “pull factors” that are allegedly attracting illegal immigrants to the U.K.

Apparently, digital ID would be the best way to do that, according to the French president.

As reported by the Independent, a compulsory national ID card is being considered by the U.K.’s highest office.

“We’re willing to look at what works when it comes to tackling illegal migration, … in terms of applications of digital ID to the immigration system,” the prime minister’s spokesman said.

“The point here is looking at what works, ensuring that we’re doing what we can to address some of the drivers of illegal migration, tackle those pull factors, ensure that we’re doing everything we can to crack down on illegal working,” the spokesman added, echoing Macron’s reasoning.

Simultaneously, a push factor is coming internally from former U.K. leader Blair, who actually tried the scheme before during his third term as prime minister.

RELATED: UK police face wave of backlash over live facial recognition tech at carnival

Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Daily Mail reported that Blair was pushing the idea behind the scenes, continuing his attempt from the early 2000s to enforce the mandatory digital ID.

“In 2005, there was a huge vote which unfortunately was narrowly passed for ID cards in order to crack down on crime,” Lewis Brackpool, director of investigations at Restore Britain, told Blaze News. “Many ministers were incredibly skeptical on this move due to its ever increasing powers to the state.”

Brackpool cited a 2004 BBC report that criticized the IDs as a “badly thought out” excuse to fight organized crime and terrorism. It noted then that plans for the cards included biometric data that carried fingerprints and iris scans, and would have become compulsory in 2013. The plan was abandoned in 2010.

The Englishman continued, “Now, 20 years on, the same playbook is being used as a justification for broader powers to the establishment. Tony Blair is somewhere in his evil lair rubbing his hands and cackling; his career ambition is coming to fruition.”

RELATED: YouTube admits to secretly manipulating videos with AI

Photo by Stuart Brock/Anadolu via Getty Images

The implementation of digital ID is straight from the playbook of the World Economic Forum, the yearly gathering of world elites where globalist policy is discussed and planned.

Seven years before the WEF broadcasted its report on reimagining digital ID and before its ideas became globally criticized, it published “A Blueprint for Digital Identity” in 2016.

The report boasted of the Aadhaar program, a government initiative from India that was implemented in order to “increase social and financial inclusion” for Indians. The Unique Identification Authority of India holds a database of user information “such as name, date of birth, and biometrics data that may include a photograph, fingerprint, iris scan, or other information.”

Over 1 billion Indians have enrolled in the program for the 12-digit identity number, and it continues today.

As for England, “It is not a reasonable solution,” Brackpool says. “It is the very thing many concerned British citizens and campaigners have been warning about for years down the line.”

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​Return, Digital id, Big tech, India, England, France, Uk, United kingdom, Starmer, Wef, World economic forum, Tech 

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice is taking legal action against another sanctuary jurisdiction.

The DOJ filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Boston, contending that the city’s sanctuary status interferes with the federal government’s immigration enforcement.

‘If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will.’

The agency accused Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu, who recently reaffirmed her support of sanctuary policies, of “repeatedly” shielding criminal illegal aliens from federal immigration agents and endangering public safety.

“In a recent letter to Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi, Mayor Wu went so far as to say that ‘Boston will never back down’ from its sanctuary city policies,” the DOJ’s lawsuit read. “Cities cannot obstruct the Federal Government from enforcing immigration laws. When that occurs, a city breaks the law. The City of Boston is doing just that.”

The department argued that the city’s sanctuary policies, specifically the Boston Trust Act, are illegal under federal law. The act prevents local law enforcement and other city departments from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detainer requests.

RELATED: ‘Flood the zone’: ICE fires back at Boston Mayor Wu’s sanctuary defiance

Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

The lawsuit against Boston is part of the DOJ’s greater effort to take legal action against sanctuary policies nationwide. The department previously filed complaints in New York, New Jersey, and California.

“The City of Boston and its Mayor have been among the worst sanctuary offenders in America — they explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice,” Bondi said. “If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will.”

RELATED: Boston mayor vows to continue resisting Trump’s deportation efforts

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Wu responded to the lawsuit by declaring that the city “will not yield.”

“This is our city, and we will vigorously defend our laws and the constitutional rights of cities, which have been repeatedly upheld in courts across the country. We will not yield,” Wu stated.

“This unconstitutional attack on our city is not a surprise,” Wu continued. “Boston is a thriving community, the economic and cultural hub of New England, and the safest major city in the country — but this administration is intent on attacking our community to advance their own authoritarian agenda.”

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​News, Boston, Massachusetts, Boston massachusetts, Michelle wu, Sanctuary policies, Sanctuary jurisdictions, Sanctuary cities, Sanctuary, Department of justice, Doj, Justice department, Pam bondi, Trump administration, Trump admin, Politics