Category: blaze media

Anti-Trump commentator Ana Navarro made a case for the idea that the latest attempt on the president’s life might have been staged to distract the American public.

Navarro, who is a co-host of “The View,” previously worked for the presidential campaign of the late Sen. John McCain but has become a bitter critic of President Donald Trump and his policies.

‘People look at this and say, “Oh my God, is he trying to distract us again?” because that is what he does, right?’

On the Sunday edition of her “Bleep!” podcast, Navarro offered some reasons why people might think the Trump administration staged the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

“It’s odd to me that in a place that is teeming with Secret Service, with Washington, D.C., police, with all sorts of law enforcement, this could happen,” Navarro said.

“But also, I think people jump to the conclusion that it is staged because Trump lies. He lies constantly, daily, and pathologically. So people do not trust and do not believe anything Trump says. His lips are moving, the likelihood is, he is lying,” she added.

“Also, this is a man who has mastered the art — forget the art of the deal — he has mastered the art of distraction,” Navarro said. “Any time he finds himself in hot water, his numbers right now are down in the basement, his Iran war is incredibly unpopular, people are pissed as hell at the price of gas and the price of everything going up.”

The Justice Dept. presented in a media briefing Monday the mountain of evidence so far collected to show that alleged shooter Cole Tomas Allen was motivated by left-wing animus to target the president.

“People look at this and say, ‘Oh my God, is he trying to distract us again?’ because that is what he does, right?” Navarro continued.

“He posts crazy things, and he does crazy things and says crazy things to distract us from the Epstein files, to distract us from his horrible [polling] numbers, to distract us from the failures and incompetence of his administration,” she added.

RELATED: Ana Navarro cites her disabled relatives to defend abortion and people are horrified

On Monday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that Allen was charged with one count each of attempted assassination of the president of the United States, interstate transportation of a firearm to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.

“Violence has no place in civic life,” Blanche said. “It cannot and will not be used to disrupt democratic institutions or intimidate those who serve them, and it certainly cannot continue to be used against the president of the United States.”

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​Ana navarro, Whcd shooting conspiracy theory, Trump assassination attempt, Politics, Cole tomas allen 

Democratic former President Barack Obama appeared to be baffled about the motivation of the suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, despite the rather persuasive evidence already available.

Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California, was arrested after he allegedly opened fire at the dinner, prompting attendees to dive under their tables and the president to be evacuated from the area.

‘There is no ambiguity. … It’s wrong to downplay or obscure the obvious motive.’

Allen had allegedly released a manifesto and left a massive online footprint full of Democratic anti-Trump propaganda, and yet Obama said he had no clue what could have motivated the suspect to try and assassinate the president and members of his administration.

“Although we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it’s incumbent upon all us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy,” Obama wrote in the statement on social media Sunday.

“It’s also a sobering reminder of the courage and sacrifice that U.S. Secret Service Agents show every day,” he added. “I’m grateful to them — and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay.”

The former president was immediately assailed for the bizarre comment.

“This guy. We don’t have the motives? There’s a damn manifesto that details everything,” NewsNation reporter Katie Pavlich responded.

“Oh, come on. The shooter left a detailed manifesto in his hotel room and sent writings to family members shortly before the attack where explicitly identified himself as the ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ and said was targeting Trump administration officials — prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

“There is no ambiguity. It was a politically motivated attack driven by anti-Trump and anti-Christian bile. It’s wrong to downplay or obscure the obvious motive,” she added.

RELATED: ‘Enough is enough’: Melania Trump demands ABC ‘take a stand’ against ‘coward’ Jimmy Kimmel

“You are so SICK!” responded the account for the Republican National Committee. “Law enforcement officers confirmed this radicalized Leftist was targeting President Trump and his administration last night. Why are you lying?”

Allen appeared in federal court for arraignment Monday on charges of attempted assassination of the president, interstate transportation of weapons, and discharge of a firearm during a violent crime. He is likely to face many other charges based on the information gathered from the investigation.

Allen’s next scheduled court date is May 11.

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​Whcd assassination attempt, Whcd shooter motivation, Obama on whcd shooting, Cole tomas allen, Politics 

In the aftermath of the third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took to the podium on Monday to call out specific Democrats for heightening tensions and calling for violence.

Just days after 31-year-old Cole Allen allegedly sprinted through a security checkpoint and opened fire in the lobby at the Washington Hilton, wounding a Secret Service agent, Leavitt is pointing the finger at Democrats who have inspired deranged leftists to take up arms.

‘These are Democrat-elected officials calling for war.’

“It’s not just the media. … The entire Democrat Party has made their pitch to voters across the country that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy, that he is a fascist, and that they compare him to Hitler,” Leavitt said Monday.

“I mean, these are despicable statements that the American people have been consuming for years, and so many mentally perturbed individuals are led to believe these words are truth and then are inspired to act on it.”

RELATED: Stunning new details reveal the ‘depraved’ motivation of the suspected WHCD shooter

Truth Social/Anadolu/Getty Images

Leavitt said those incessantly likening Trump to dictators who deserve to be met with violence inspired the three assassination attempts and countless threats waged against the president and his allies.

“Rep. Hakeem Jeffries just this April, this month, said, ‘We are in an era of maximum warfare everywhere all the time,'” Leavitt said. “Governor Josh Shapiro said, ‘Heads need to roll’ within the administration. Senator Alex Padilla said people are ‘dying because of fear and terror’ caused by the Trump administration.”

Leavitt went on to list several more prominent Democrats like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), and Ed Markey (Mass.), Gov. JB Pritzker (Ill.), Rep. Ayanna Presley (Mass.), and Rep. LaMonica McIver (N.J.), who have made similar appeals likening Trump to a fascist, dictator, or authoritarian and calling for ambiguous escalations.

“These are Democrat-elected officials calling for war against the president of the United States and his supporters,” Leavitt said.

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​Adam schiff, Alex padilla, Assassination attempts, Ayanna pressley, Cole allen, Cole allen manifesto, Democrat party, Donald trump, Ed markey, Elizabeth warren, Hakeem jeffries, Jb pritzker, Josh shapiro, Karoline leavitt, Lamonica mciver, Left wing violence, Secret service, Trump assassination attempt, White house, White house correspondents dinner, Politics 

A depraved radical opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night with the apparent aim of assassinating President Donald Trump and administration officials.

Following this latest attempt on his life, Trump implored all Americans to “recommit with their hearts in resolving our difference peacefully.”

‘A lot of this does come from the White House.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt expounded on the need to drop the divisive rhetoric, telling reporters on Monday that “this political violence stems from a systemic demonization of [Trump] and his supporters by commentators — yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party and even some in the media. This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”

Like the hordes of anti-Trump leftists who sounded off online over the weekend, especially on the liberal X knockoff Bluesky, Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) made clear Monday on CNN that he would rather point fingers than build bridges.

Vindman impressed upon CNN talking head Sara Sidner the supposed need for social media censorship, which he euphemistically referred to as “better regulat[ion.]”

When Sidner asked the Democrat congressman whether toning down the rhetoric “is even possible with this political class, with the vitriol that comes out of the White House,” Vindman agreed that Trump is at least partially responsible for the divisive “political climate.”

“No,” responded Vindman, a native of the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic whose twin brother attacked Trump online after the previous attempt on the president’s life. “Absolutely not. And look, I think you’re right. A lot of this does come from the White House.”

RELATED: Suspected WHCD shooter and another would-be Trump assassin have a lot in common — and it’s not just Ukraine

U.S. President Trump via Truth Social/Anadolu/Getty Images

Vindman was hardly the only Democrat who apparently felt obliged to blame Trump for the violence directed his way.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) told CNN on Monday, “Remember that it’s been Donald Trump and the Republicans that have called for political violence.”

After blaming suspected shooter Cole Allen’s intended targets, Pritzker said that America needs to bring “peace to its politics.” This sentiment was, however, short-lived, as he proceeded to defend the suggestion in his state of the state speech last year that the Trump administration is reminiscent of the Nazi regime in Germany.

Unlike Pritzker and Vindman, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) told his Democrat peers to “drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”

Fetterman further acknowledged that the hotel where the gunman attacked on Saturday “wasn’t build to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government.”

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday, “What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!”

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​Cole allen, Donald trump, Law enforcement, Political violence, President, Secret service, Tds, Vindman, White house ballroom, White house correspondents association, Sara sidner, Cnn, Pritzker, Leftism, Violence, Politics 

Today, Allie Beth Stuckey, BlazeTV host of “Relatable,” debated Jacob Hansen, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints podcaster whose channel is dedicated to exploring various worldview apologetics and comparing them to the LDS perspective.

In this fascinating 90-minute conversation, Allie and Hansen dive into important topics that differentiate creedal Christianity from the LDS faith, including the founding of the LDS Church, the Trinity, salvation, and much more.

Allie and Hansen kicked off the debate by discussing the founding of the Mormon faith.

It began in 1830 in upstate New York when a young farm boy named Joseph Smith claimed that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and directed him through the angel Moroni to translate the book of Mormon from ancient golden tablets.

“They essentially told [Smith] that the original church of Jesus Christ was not in its fullness on the Earth,” Hansen summarizes.

“What was missing was the priesthood authority and keys that were given to Peter … to effectuate the ordinances of salvation as a means by which we make covenants with our Father in heaven, and so you don’t have the fullness of the church without the fullness of the priesthood that is necessary to govern that institution, and we believe that was what needed to be restored,” he elaborates.

Allie asks Hansen a tough follow-up question: Does the Mormon church consider her — a Baptist — an apostate who lacks the fullness of truth?

“We would believe that you are a full, sincere believer in Jesus Christ, and we believe that you can reach a potential of relationship with Jesus Christ through that sincere belief that you have,” Hansen answers.

But in LDS theology, the afterlife isn’t binary as it is in the creedal Christian perspective. Heaven and hell are on a spectrum.

“The way that our faith views things is that there are different levels of light that people are willing to accept, right?” Hansen explains. “And the fullness of the light is to come into a full covenant relationship with Jesus Christ through His church, through the ordinances that put you into a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ.”

In other words, someone like Allie, who has a deep and personal relationship with Christ but rejects the tenets of Mormonism that contradict creedal Christianity, can experience “great joy and happiness” in the afterlife but not to the same level as those in the LDS Church who have both a sincere faith in Jesus Christ and fully accept the Church’s restored priesthood authority.

But Allie sees a contradiction.

“At least semantically, you would say Jesus died for our sins and that his sacrifice on the cross paid for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God,” she says.

“But it sounds like you’re saying there’s something else too — that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t quite enough, that you also need to enter into ordinances.”

Hansen addresses Allie’s point with the analogy of a group of teenagers who ignored their parents’ warnings and decided to drive their car around a cliff.

“The brakes all of a sudden go out, and our car is heading downhill towards the cliff. … There’s nothing we can do to save ourselves; we’re going to go off that cliff, and then Jesus shows up with a helicopter, and He reaches His hand out and He says, ‘Take my hand, and I’ll get you out of this mess,’ right?” says Hansen.

He explains that the teenagers in the car are not automatically rescued just because Jesus showed up. They have to “choose Jesus Christ” in order to be saved.

But choosing Christ isn’t just saying yes to being rescued, Hansen argues.

“Our view is that we have to do something to reach up to take His hand,” he says, pointing to how the crowd Peter was preaching to at Pentecost had to repent and be baptized before they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

“So our view is that our repenting, being baptized, which is where we make this covenant with Christ, opens us up to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by those who have authority,” he tells Allie.

To hear her response and watch the rest of the debate, check out the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Lds church, Apologetics, Baptism, Blaze media, Blazetv, Christianity, Church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, Debate, Jacob hansen, Joseph smith, Lds, Lds faith, Mormon faith, Mormonism, Mormons, Priesthood authority, Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Salvation, Trinity, Lds perspective 

Cole Tomas Allen, 31, has officially been charged by the Department of Justice for the shooting that took place during Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, including for the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump.

The suspect was seen on security cameras rushing through a checkpoint in the lobby of the Washington Hilton hotel before opening fire and shooting a Secret Serviceman who was wearing a bulletproof vest. The gunman was immediately detained, and his alleged manifesto later revealed his plans to target Trump and members of Trump’s Cabinet.

As a result, Allen is facing three federal charges.

‘This count is punishable by up to life in prison.’

“I want to make this clear,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said. “This man was a floor above the ballroom, with hundreds of federal agents between him and the president of the United States. The Department of Justice approaches incidents like this with urgency and clarity of purpose.”

“Violence has no place in civic life. It cannot and will not be used to disrupt democratic institutions or intimidate those who serve them, and it certainly cannot continue to be used against the president of the United States.”

RELATED: Stunning new details reveal the ‘depraved’ motivation of the suspected WHCD shooter

ANNABELLE GORDON/AFP/Getty Images

Blanche vowed to continue investigating the incident as well as the left-wing organizations Allen was reportedly affiliated with, saying he will “ensure that accountability is swift and certain.”

“Today, the Department of Justice filed three federal charges in United States District Court against Cole Tomas Allen,” Blanche said. “The first count is attempted assassination of the president of the United States. This count is punishable by up to life in prison. The second count is interstate transportation of a firearm to commit a felony. This is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. And the third count is discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, which is punishable by a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 10 years, a maximum of life.”

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​Attempted assassination, Attorney general, Department of justice, President donald trump, Todd blanche, Kash patel, Trump assassination attempt, Secret service, White house correspondents dinner, Politics, Cole tomas allen 

President Donald Trump is trying to clear the field of several Indiana Republican state senators who previously opposed a congressional redistricting map by endorsing their challengers in the upcoming May 5 primary election.

In December, 21 Republican state senators joined their Democrat colleagues to block a redrawn congressional map that would have strengthened the GOP’s control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

‘Anybody that votes against Redistricting, and the SUCCESS of the Republican Party in D.C., will be, I am sure, met with a MAGA Primary in the Spring.’

The new map, which would have created two more Republican-leaning congressional districts, failed in the state Senate in a 31-19 vote.

Trump issued a warning to Republican state senators ahead of the vote, cautioning those who planned to block the map.

“Anybody that votes against Redistricting, and the SUCCESS of the Republican Party in D.C., will be, I am sure, met with a MAGA Primary in the Spring,” Trump wrote, adding that he would “do everything within my power to make sure that they will not hurt the Republican Party, and our Country, again.”

Trump declared that “every one” of the Republicans in the state Senate who voted against redistricting “should be ‘primaried,’ and I will be there to help!”

Republicans who voted against redistricting who are seeking re-election in May:

James Buck (District 21)Spencer Deery (District 23)Dan Dernulc (District 1)Greg Goode (District 38)Travis Holdman (District 19)Rick Niemeyer (District 6)Linda Rogers (District 11)Greg Walker (District 41)

Republican state Senators Eric Bassler (District 39) and Kyle Walker (District 31) also voted against the redistricting map. However, neither is seeking re-election.

RELATED: Indiana Republicans vote with Democrats to block redistricting — despite Trump’s threat to unseat them

Kaiti Sullivan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Trump issued his first endorsements of Republican challengers in January, backing Paula Copenhaver against Deery and Brenda Wilson against Goode. He also endorsed Jeff Ellington to take over Bassler’s open seat.

Trump described Copenhaver, the Fountain County GOP Chair, as a “MAGA Warrior” and a “terrific Candidate.”

“Paula is running against an incompetent and ineffective RINO incumbent named Spencer Deery who, for whatever reason, betrayed his voters by voting against Redistricting in Indiana,” the president stated.

Trump called Vigo County Commissioner Wilson a “Proven America First Patriot” and “a Successful Family Farmer,” arguing that she would be “a strong and effective Voice for our amazing Farmers and Indiana Agriculture.” He criticized Goode as a “RINO” and nicknamed him “No Goode.”

The president declared that Ellington, an “American First Patriot,” would be “a fantastic replacement for RINO Eric Bassler.” He described Ellington as “a Successful Businessman, Retired Firefighter, Horse Farmer, Greene County GOP Chairman, and former State Representative, who has dedicated his life to serving his Community.”

Trump issued three additional endorsements in February, supporting Blake Fiechter against Holdman, Tracey Powell against Buck, and Michelle Davis against Walker.

Fiechter is “a very successful Real Estate Broker, Proud Husband, Loving Father to three girls, and a Highly Respected Councilman in the wonderful City of Bluffton,” Trump said.

The president described Powell as “a successful Businessman, Chiropractor, Farmer, and Highly Respected Tipton County Commissioner.”

Trump contended that Davis, a state representative, has a strong record that includes voting “WITH Republicans to pass Redistricting in the State House.”

RELATED: ‘Total RINO’: Trump vows to oust Indiana Republican leader over redistricting betrayal

Kaiti Sullivan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

On Apr. 7, Trump posted two additional endorsements in his effort to remove Indiana RINOs from their Senate seats. He announced his support for Dr. Brian Schmutzler against Rogers and Trevor De Vries against Dernulc.

“A Proven Leader, Brian serves his Community as a Highly Respected Anesthesiologist and Medical Director,” he wrote in a post on social media.

“A Successful Businessman, Trevor knows the America First Policies required to Grow our Economy, Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., and Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE,” Trump said in a separate post.

Gov. Mike Braun (R), who supported the redistricting effort, also endorsed seven Trump-backed candidates: Copenhaver, Davis, De Vries, Fiechter, Powell, Wilson, and Schmutzler.

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​News, Donald trump, Trump, Indiana, Jim buck, James buck, Spencer deery, Dan dernulc, Greg goode, Travis holdman, Rick niemeyer, Linda rogers, Greg walker, Paula copenhaver, Brenda wilson, Jeff ellington, Blake fiechter, Tracey powell, Michelle davis, Brian schmutzler, Trever de vries, Rinos, Rino, Redistricting, Primary election, Politics 

The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night has renewed the fervor of another debate raging in the nation’s capital.

On Sunday morning, President Trump made a post on Truth Social renewing his call to complete the White House ballroom, a project that has been halted due to an ongoing lawsuit.

‘The White House ballroom is essential for the safety and security of the president, his family, his Cabinet, and his staff.’

Trump argued that the shooting over the weekend demonstrates why the president needs a secure venue to host large events.

“What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE,” Trump wrote. “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!”

RELATED: WHCD attendees caught snatching wine bottles off tables amid chaos in aftermath of shooting

Pete Marovich/Washington Post/Getty Images

He added that the ballroom is both beautiful and far more secure than the Hilton hotel in Washington.

Trump then pivoted to attack the ongoing lawsuit that has obstructed the construction of the ballroom despite his wishes.

“The ridiculous Ballroom lawsuit, brought by a woman walking her dog, who has absolutely No Standing to bring such a suit, must be dropped, immediately. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with [sic] its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule!!!” Trump concluded.

Trump echoed this message in a White House press briefing in the aftermath of the shooting, adding that modern times place higher demands on security than those of the past: “We need levels of security that probably nobody has ever seen before.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signaled his agreement with Trump’s calls to continue the project, posting a copy of a letter regarding the lawsuit along with the caption, “It’s time to build the ballroom.”

The letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, begins by stating that the shooting Saturday was not the first attempt on a president’s life at the Washington Hilton hotel, referring to an attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life by John Hinckley Jr., at the beginning of his presidency.

Shumate continues: “Yesterday’s assassination attempt on President Trump proves, yet again, that the White House ballroom is essential for the safety and security of the president, his family, his Cabinet, and his staff. When the White House ballroom is complete, President Trump and his successors will no longer need to venture beyond the safety of the White House perimeter to attend large gatherings at the Washington Hilton ballroom.”

He says that the lawsuit therefore puts the president and those close to him at “grave risk,” adding that he hopes “yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost.”

Blanche added in a reply to the post that the lawsuit is “on behalf of a single person who walks in the vicinity of the White House once a month and expects to dislike the East Wing’s new design.”

However, the reality is a bit more complicated than the “passing aesthetic gripe of a single person,” as Blanche described.

The lawsuit was brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, a nonprofit organization chartered by Congress in 1949. The organization represents thousands of members across the country, according to the complaint.

Blanche appears to be describing one member of the organization who is explicitly mentioned in the lawsuit, though she is not the only member whose interests are represented.

That said, she is described as a “professor emerita at a university where she taught history and historic preservation” who “frequently visits the White House neighborhood in order to enjoy the historic buildings and the beauty of the city’s design, in which the White House prominently features.”

Many right-leaning X accounts posted messages following the shooting urging the completion of the White House ballroom.

“THIS IS WHY WE NEED TRUMP’S BALLROOM,” Libs of TikTok wrote.

“Now you know why the left is suing to block Trump’s privately-funded WH ballroom,” End Wokeness said.

“I don’t want to hear one more f**king criticism of Trump’s new ballroom at the White House,” Meghan McCain added.

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​Acting attorney general, Assassination attempt, Assistant attorney general, Hilton hotel, Politics, President ronald reagan, President trump, Todd blanche, Truth social, Washington, Washington hilton, Whcd attendees, White house ballroom, White house correspondents dinner 

Virginia voted last week in favor of a referendum to adopt a gerrymandered congressional map that would all but guarantee that 10 out of the state’s 11 congressional seats go to Democrats in the upcoming midterm election.

There remains a good chance, however, that the new map may not ultimately be adopted.

Background

There are numerous legal battles across Virginia over whether the gerrymandering referendum that passed Tuesday is lawful. One of those battles — Scott v. McDougle — is now before the Virginia Supreme Court.

In October 2025, Republican state lawmakers and members of the Virginia Redistricting Commission filed a lawsuit, claiming that the special session reconvened late last year to consider a constitutional amendment on redistricting was invalid as it was called not by the governor, who holds the exclusive right to do so, but by the speaker of the state House.

The complaint noted further that while the Virginia House of Delegates “has no constitutional authority to propose a plan to redraw or reapportion districts” for the U.S. Congress, as this falls under the purview of the Virginia Redistricting Commission, the state House nevertheless usurped the authority.

To bypass the commission, lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment to redraw the congressional map. Getting this amendment on the April 21 ballot required the approval of a corresponding resolution in two separate legislative sessions on either side of a state election. Challengers contend that this process was bungled and legally flawed.

RELATED: GOP bill would squeeze Democratic hives out of Virginia — and back into DC

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), a supporter of the gerrymandering scheme. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Tazewell County Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. ruled on Jan. 27 that the proposed constitutional amendment was unlawful, but the Virginia Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Virginians could still vote for it in the statewide April 21 referendum while the case proceeds.

The day after the referendum passed, Hurley blocked the state from certifying the results of the vote, ruling that the legislature’s constitutional amendment and the special election on it were invalid.

Skeptical of Democratic plot

On Monday, the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in Scott v. McDougle.

One Virginia justice extracted concessions from the defense at the outset that the “yes” vote in the referendum “doesn’t tell us anything” about the merits of the challengers’ claims, and that the Virginia General Assembly didn’t follow its own procedural rules with regard to the special session during which the new congressional map was passed.

Multiple justices expressed skepticism about the validity of that special session.

One justice said that contrary to the previous expectation in Virginia that the legislature wouldn’t sit year-round, the Democratic “interpretation of the special session would allow them to sit in continuous session for the better part of two years.”

The same justice appeared receptive to the argument by Thomas McCarthy, attorney arguing for the plaintiffs, that “it’s sort of a nonsensical position to say that the special session exists through a regular session” — referencing the overlap of the 2024 special session and the 2025 general session.

The justices also did not appear entirely convinced by Democrats’ argument that enough time had passed between when the amendment was first passed and the 2025 state election. The legislature voted on the amendment in October, weeks after early voting for the 2025 election had already begun.

“What is your position — your client’s position — regarding a constitutional amendment that is adopted at 6 p.m. on Election Day with an hour left at the polls?” asked one justice. “Is that still the next general election?”

Virginia Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge responded that the amendment must only be passed before Election Day, rather than on it.

McCarthy argued to the contrary, claiming that for the amendment to have been valid, it should have been passed before the entire voting period, not just before Election Day 2025. A Virginia Supreme Court justice subsequently noted that the amendment process responsible for the passage of the gerrymandering legislation was unprecedented.

Of note, the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond ruled on Sunday in a separate but related case that the Virginia General Assembly did not exceed its authority when passing the amendment on redistricting.

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​Abigail spanberger, Constitutional amendment, Democrats, General assembly, Lawsuit, Midterm election, Old dominion, Redistricting, Redistricting battle, Referendum, Republican voters, Resolution, Special session, Us congress, Virginia, Virginia house of delegates, Virginia redistricting commission, Virginia supreme court, Politics 

First lady Melania Trump came out swinging against late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel after the latest assassination attempt against her husband.

Kimmel was heavily criticized online after making a joke on Thursday that implied that President Donald Trump might die soon and leave the first lady a widow.

‘Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.’

On Monday, the first lady fired back.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” she wrote in a statement on social media.

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” she added.

“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand,” she concluded. “How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”

Kimmel made the joke during a mock White House Correspondents’ Dinner sketch where he addressed the first lady.

“Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow!” Kimmel said.

Kimmel was previously suspended from his own show after he implied that the suspect who allegedly shot and killed Charlie Kirk was a Trump supporter. He was reinstated after only a few days.

RELATED: WHCD attendees caught snatching wine bottles off tables amid chaos in aftermath of shooting

The first lady was at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when shots rang out and attendees were evacuated from the building. The comments against Kimmel were her first about the shooting.

President Donald Trump told reporters it was a “rather traumatic experience” for the first lady.

“I don’t want to say, and people don’t like having it said that they were scared, but certainly, I mean, who wouldn’t be when you have a situation like that?” he said to CBS News.

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Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted by a federal grand jury on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly using over $3 million in donor funds to secretly pay informants inside extremist groups like the KKK.

On this episode of “Rufo and Lomez,” Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman, both of whom have been targets of the SPLC, trade stories and discuss the significance of these indictments.

The SPLC, says Rufo, “is this amazing story of the organized left creating this phantasm of the radical right and then fighting that phantasm that they themselves have created.”

The powerful role the SPLC has inhabited on the left, says Keeperman, hinges on telling liberals “who the bad guys are” and thus who they are “allowed to hate.”

But it goes further than just slapping damning labels on conservative individuals and organizations.

If the SPLC targets you, it proceeds to attempt to “ruin your reputation, ruin your ability to earn a living, and then send out [its] goons by proxy and by arms’ distance to physically hurt you if you show up anywhere in public,” alleges Rufo, citing the SPLC’s targeting of American political scientist and scholar Charles Murray, who suffered both professionally and personally after the advocacy group labeled him an extremist.

Rufo keenly recalls the first time the SPLC targeted him.

In the early 2020s when he was on his anti-critical race theory campaign, he found himself in the organization’s crosshairs, and it genuinely frightened him.

“I felt the fear,” he admits.

“You have this sense like, OK, I better fight hard because these people are trying to knock me off the board altogether — ruin my reputation, ruin my ability to support my family.”

Rufo’s fight proved successful. “I was able to kind of rebuff those initial challenges and actually kind of boomerang them and turn them into a badge of honor, a fundraising appeal to my supporters. … I was able to get them to retract certain claims that they were making against me to show in essence that I was able to make them back down,” he recounts.

That was just the first attack though.

Over the last few years, there have been over “a dozen” attacks on Rufo, but they no longer elicit the same fear as the first time.

“You actually develop a kind of immunity through exposure,” he says, calling the recent charges against the SPLC “both shocking and not shocking.”

“It’s both a blow to their effectiveness, but it’s also just really another nail in the coffin.”

To hear more, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rufo & Lomez?

To enjoy more of the news through the anthropological lens of Christopher Rufo and Lomez, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Charles murray, Chris rufo, Critical race theory, Extremist groups, Jonathan keeperman, Kkk informants, Lomez, Radical right, Rufo & lomez, Southern poverty law, Southern poverty law center, Splc, Organized left, Splc indictment, Blazetv, Blaze media 

An elected state representative in North Carolina is no longer a registered Democrat after she crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans on immigration.

Last week, news broke that state Rep. Carla Cunningham was no longer registered as a Democrat. She had represented the Democratic Party in office since she was first elected to the 106th Congressional District seat in 2012. Cunningham then confirmed in a statement that she “came to realize” that she wants “to serve the people, not a party.”

‘All cultures are not equal.’

“Being an independent thinker does not align with party politics, and I will never compromise the needs of my constituents to satisfy a political agenda,” her statement continued, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Cunningham’s voter registration now says she is “UNA,” or unaffiliated.

In the last year, Cunningham has faced considerable criticism after making a speech on the floor of the North Carolina House in favor of American citizens over illegal aliens and other immigrants.

“If you ask me to line up behind another group of people to raise awareness about their plight, I unapologetically say no,” she said back in July.

“It’s time to wake up. We must establish new rules to address a distinct type of migration that we are facing in our country, state, and cities. It’s time to turn the conveyor belt off,” she continued.

During the fiery speech, Cunningham noted that some immigrants come from cultures that are incompatible with the American way of life. “All cultures are not equal,” she said, adding that she would still “welcome” those immigrants who “want to adapt to [our] country, not isolate yourself, and come here legally.”

RELATED: Loud-mouthed former Democrat mayor tries to resurrect political career in a new state — and a new party

Nevertheless, Cunningham voted with Republicans that month to override a veto from Democrat Gov. Josh Stein on the Criminal Illegal Alien Enforcement Act. Her vote appears to be based on principle, as it was not needed for the veto override to pass the House, which passed the override overwhelmingly, 72-48. The state Senate likewise passed the override by a sizeable margin, 30-19.

Cunningham, who is black, claimed that she was accused of racism on account of that vote. “Yes, I was degraded for my vote. Yes, I was called racist for my vote. And yes, I was said I was trash,” she stated during her floor speech.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden (D) even allegedly threatened Cunningham over that vote. In January, Cunningham joined others in filing a petition to recall McFadden, claiming that McFadden warned her not to vote to override the veto — or else.

McFadden called Cunningham and claimed that people would “come after” her if she voted to override it, Cunningham claimed in a sworn affidavit. “I don’t want to see you get hurt; you live in my county,” he added, according to Cunningham, who took those alleged statements as a threat masked as concern.

McFadden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Despite the allegations against him, McFadden effectively won re-election in March after he sailed through the Democrat primary and now faces no opposition in the general election in November.

Cunningham, however, did not fare well in the March primary. After seven terms in office, she lost her Democrat primary race to Rev. Rodney Sadler, who carried the day with nearly 70% of the vote. With no Republican or independent candidates in the race, Sadler will win the seat in November.

Blaze News was curious whether Cunningham has given any thought to running for political office again, perhaps as an independent or even a Republican. However, her office did not respond to a request for comment.

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An enraged crowd of family members exploded with profanities and racial slurs at an arrested male accused of fatally shooting a 15-year-old boy at a New York City playground earlier this month.

Police had to restrain relatives of victim Jaden Pierre while 18-year-old Zahir Davis was being walked out of the 113th Precinct on Saturday, WCBS-TV reported.

‘Look at my face! I hope they f**k you up every f**kin’ day!’

Davis was then taken to his arraignment in Queens criminal court where he was charged with second-degree murder, gang assault, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, the station said.

Davis’ private attorney entered a not guilty plea, WCBS reported.

During his perp walk out of the precinct, the crowd didn’t hold back their anger at Davis:

“You’re a f**kin’ piece of s**t!””You’re a f**kin’ bitch!””You’re a dead man!””How dare you do that to my nephew!””Look at my face! I hope they f**k you up every f**kin’ day!”

Content warning: Profanity and racial slurs:

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Saturday morning announced Davis’ arrest — noting that Davis fled to Jamaica following the deadly April 16 shooting.

“NYPD detectives assigned to the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force have arrested Zahir Davis for the senseless murder of 15-year-old Jaden Pierre in a park in Queens last week,” Tisch wrote on X. “Davis fled to Jamaica following the shooting and was arrested immediately when he landed back in NYC last night.”

Officials told WCBS that while Pierre was being beaten, Davis allegedly pulled a handgun from his bag and shot Pierre in the chest.

The Queens District Attorney’s Office added to the station that Davis flew to Jamaica the next day “to evade responsibility,” and police urged Davis’ family to have him fly back home.

Davis is due back in court Wednesday, WCBS reported, adding that he faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

Davis is a reputed gang member, WABC-TV reported, adding that detectives believe the shooting stemmed from previous fights between him and Pierre.

WABC also noted that detectives who reviewed cellphone video believe Davis may have been attempting to pistol-whip Pierre, but the gun went off.

The victim’s older sister, 17-year-old Nellie Pierre, had harsh words for those recording video of the attack on her brother, telling the New York Daily News that “everyone there recording did nothing. They treated it all as entertainment. He was already beat up. He was helpless, and they shot him.”

WABC also reported that Davis was separately charged with aggravated harassment and harassment for allegedly threatening to shoot his ex-girlfriend, the mother of his child, on April 12. That was just four days before the fatal shooting of Pierre.

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​Arrest, Zahir davis, New york city, Queens, Nypd, Police, Murder charge, Jaden pierre, Fatal shooting, Beatdown, Perp walk, Crime 

FBI Director Kash Patel is facing some tough questions in the aftermath of yet another assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.

Trump and members of his Cabinet were targeted Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner after a gunman rushed past a security checkpoint and opened fire in the Washington Hilton lobby. The suspect, later identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen, was staying at the hotel and was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives.

‘It was a total failure.’

Before he was apprehended and taken into custody, the gunman shot a Secret Serviceman who was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Allen’s alleged manifesto was later made public, revealing anti-Trump and anti-Christian motivations that may have fueled the attack.

Although the Secret Service successfully stopped the third assassination attempt, several questions remain about the efficacy of the security measures in place since the shooter was able to get that far.

RELATED: Stunning new details reveal the ‘depraved’ motivation of the suspected WHCD shooter

US President Trump via Truth Social/Anadolu/Getty Images

“They did a great job on the ground,” “Fox & Friends” host Lawrence Jones said of the Secret Service. “But they remain reactive. The proactive approach is still under great scrutiny. The president of the United States is averaging an assassination attempt once a year.”

“So who’s going to do the investigating of the procedures?” Jones asked Patel. “Secret Service can’t investigate themselves because there are still people in leadership at the Secret Service that were responsible for Butler. How does that happen? It was a failure.”

Patel acknowledged the failures that took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, but deferred to the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s leadership. Patel did not detail which procedures or protocols would be improved or changed but indicated that some sort of reform would take place.

“I can’t speak to Butler, and I agree it was a total failure. Absolutely,” Patel responded. “But I have full confidence in Secretary Markwayne Mullin. He oversees the United States Secret Service. I’ve talked to him repeatedly over the weekend … and said, ‘Whatever you need from the FBI, whatever we can assist in, and however we can better prepare to protect our protectees going forward, with the U.S. Secret Service, this FBI stands ready to do.’ And we’re going to improve that process under Markwayne’s leadership and oversight of the Secret Service.”

RELATED: Trump evacuated from White House Correspondents’ Dinner following possible gunfire

Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty Images

Patel was also pressed about the suspect’s proximity to the event. He had checked into the Washington Hilton the day before. Although the Hilton hosts the dinner, only a portion of the hotel is secured despite the dozens of dignitaries in attendance.

“This was a matter that needs to be heavily scrutinized, because it almost took the lives of dozens if not hundreds of people,” Patel said.

“We’re going to be talking about how we improve the security, not just for this event but for all events going forward,” Patel added. “We’re going to learn from this one, and we’re going to utilize President Trump’s leadership and backing of the blue and law enforcement and work with DHS to ensure our Cabinet, our protectees, and the American civilian population is as best protected as possible.”

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​Butler pennsylvania, Cole allen, Department of homeland security, Donald trump, Fbi, Fox and friends, Kash patel, Lawrence jones, Secret service, Washington hilton, White house correspondents dinner, Whcd shooter, Dhs, Markwayne mullin, Politics 

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner came to an abrupt and premature end Saturday night after shots rang out at the venue.

But the party didn’t stop for some attendees.

‘Repugnant!’

In the ensuing chaos after gunshots sounded at the Hilton, some dinner attendees decided to grab some souvenirs as most people vacated the scene.

One video has gone viral showing a blonde woman apparently grabbing two bottles of wine off an empty table, sparking an online “scandal” some have dubbed “wine-gate.”

RELATED: Stunning new details reveal the ‘depraved’ motivation of the suspected WHCD shooter

Mandel NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

One account that posted the video wrote in a caption: “So, there you have press members STEALING wine bottles: this is who the press is! Repugnant!”

It is not clear whether the woman in the video is a member of the press or another guest. She has not yet been identified.

Another photo from the aftermath of the event went viral, gaining over one million views since its posting on Saturday night.

The photo shows a man in a white tuxedo holding what appears to be two bottles of champagne.

The caption of the post, made by a user named Comfortably Smug, reads, “Bro they are removing the journos from the ballroom and journos are taking all the booze with them two bottles at a time LMAOOOOO.”

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was interrupted when a shooter attempted to breach security and opened fire at the venue. One agent, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot and taken to the hospital. The shooter was subdued and taken into custody.

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Nine weeks after Thomas Matthew Crooks’ attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a July 13, 2024, rally in Pennsylvania, Ryan Routh tried his hand at assassinating then-candidate Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Cole Allen, identified as the suspect who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night, appears to share much in common with Routh.

‘I’m a random Californian guy.’

Besides making donations to the same party and obsessing over the same foreign power, both Routh — who was sentenced in February to life in prison over his attempted assassination of Trump — and Allen were apparently radicalized in recent years with the help of Democrats’ incendiary rhetoric.

Donations and slogans

Although not a registered member of a political party for decades, Routh, a 60-year-old North Carolina native, made multiple donations to support Democrats beginning in 2019 and voted in North Carolina’s Democratic primary in March 2024.

In addition to supporting Democrats monetarily and at the ballot box, Routh supported their divisive narrative.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats not only characterized Trump and other Republicans as fascists and imminent threats to the republic ahead of the 2024 election but repeatedly claimed that “democracy is on the ballot in November.”

In some instances, Harris — who joked in 2018 about Trump dying — coupled this claim with combative language, stating that democracy “is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it” and painting a target on Trump by referring to him as a would-be “dictator.”

Then-President Joe Biden was far less subtle, stating on a July 8, 2024, phone call with donors, “We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye.”

RELATED: Stunning new details reveal the ‘depraved’ motivation of the suspected WHCD shooter

FBI outside a home associated with the suspected WHCAD shooter in Torrance, California. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

Routh accepted this alarmist view, sometimes repeating Democrats’ slogan verbatim.

On April 22, 2024, for instance, Routh tweeted to then-President Joe Biden, writing, “@POTUS Your campaign should be called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA … make Americans slave again master. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose. We cannot afford to fail. The world is counting on us to show the way.”

Allen, like Routh, contributed a modest donation to at least one Democratic cause, a Harris-supporting Democratic PAC in October 2024, reported the Associated Press.

The suspected WHCAD shooter, who was reportedly engaged in political activism in recent years and a member of the leftist group “the Wide Awakes,” also amplified unhinged anti-Trump messaging from Democrats online.

The investigative journalist behind the Substack Kanekoa News reported that ahead of the 2024 election, a X user believed to be Allen repeatedly shared alarmist social media posts on X from Kamala Harris, Democratic lawmakers, liberal media personalities, and the anti-Trump propaganda outfit MeidasTouch and amplified liberal characterizations of Trump as a fascist or Nazi.

Allen’s alleged manifesto and the Bluesky account ascribed to Allen are replete with evidence suggesting that he continued to stew in alarmist Democratic propaganda in the time since the 2024 election.

For instance, the Bluesky user believed to be Allen — the handle is @coldforce.bsky.social, and Cole allegedly signed his manifesto “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen” — shared a post from Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) earlier this month claiming that Trump “is deranged, unstable, and unfit to lead,” as well as a post from Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (D) that stated Trump “must be impeached and removed from office” and “Republicans who don’t stop him will have blood on their hands.”

Ukraine obsession

Routh was unmistakably a Ukraine obsessive.

The would-be assassin:

ran a website called “Fight for Ukraine,” which details various ways — including unlawful ways — people could supposedly go to fight as mercenaries in Ukraine; pleaded online with Western defense officials and organizations to allow Afghan mercenaries into Ukraine; demonstrated in support of Ukraine’s infamous Azov Brigade; self-published a book in 2023 titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War” detailing his unsuccessful attempts to aid Ukraine’s war effort; andasserted on X that he was “going to fight and die for Ukraine.”

The social media accounts ascribed to Allen — who allegedly stated in the manifesto, “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes” — provide evidence of a similar obsession with Ukraine and its efforts to repel Russian forces.

For starters, the bio for Allen’s alleged Bluesky account states, “I’m a random Californian guy with posts about American politics, support for Ukraine, and observations of small creatures.”

The Bluesky user believed to be Allen also shared Ukrainian military fundraiser posts, updates on Russian attacks, and multiple posts insinuating that Trump is in league with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While highly critical of Trump, the user also directed Ukraine-related ire toward Vice President JD Vance.

At a Turning Point USA event on April 14, Vance recalled how his advocacy for ending funding for the Ukraine war ruffled feathers, then noted he was proud of the Trump administration’s refusal to continue “buying weapons and sending them to Ukraine anymore.”

This evidently enraged the Bluesky user believed to be Cole, who wrote, “He’s proud that we don’t uphold our commitments[;] what a piece of s**t.”

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A proposed device has the potential to monitor how much energy a person’s skeletal muscles produce, a patent application reveals.

The notion that earbuds are simply a convenient way to take phone calls or listen to music on the go may be a thing of the past if certain applications reach their goal. However, given the timeline, headphones may already be capable of recording complex biometrics of the person who wears them.

‘The device may have more electrodes than are necessary.’

Online researchers have recently discovered the patent, first filed by Apple Inc. in January 2023, titled “Biosignal Sensing Device Using Dynamic Selection of Electrodes,” which is still pending.

The patent describes how brain activity can be monitored by electrodes placed inside or around the outer ear of the user. Images provided look very similar to Apple AirPods.

The headphones are described as a “wearable electronic device, such as an earbud, a pair of earbuds, and/or a wired headset.”

The earbuds would “measure biosignals of a user of the wearable electronic device,” which may include, “but are not limited” to: electroencephalography, electrooculography, electromyography, electrocardiogram, “galvanic skin response,” and “blood volume pulse.”

All of these measurements seem incredibly intrusive, particularly when each term is dissected in detail.

First, electroencephalography is a technique that measures the brain’s electrical signals and how its neurons communicate with each other. The patent literally states that the earbud “may be used to measure a biosignal, for example, an electroencephalogram (EEG), for measuring brain activity.”

Things only get more bizarre from there.

RELATED: Anti-Trump Indian investor wants you to use this hat that reads your thoughts

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Electrooculography, also known as EOG, is a standard technique for measuring eye movements via electrical potentials, which are the body’s tiny electrical outputs. The body’s movements — in this case from the eye — can be identified by how many millivolts are produced in the area.

Next is electrocardiogram; Apple wants its device to be able to measure electrical heart activity.

Additionally, blood volume pulse measurements would monitor the user’s heart rate.

At the same time, the patent covers electromyography and galvanic skin response. These techniques also measure the body’s electrical activity in very specific manners.

According to Cleveland Clinic, electromyography is a diagnostic test that evaluates the health and function of skeletal muscles and the nerves that control them. In this context, it would measure the electric activity produced by a wearer’s skeletal muscles.

RELATED: The FBI busted an anti-ICE attack squad by reading its encrypted messages. The FBI can read yours too.

Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Galvanic skin response is described by Noldus as the measurement of “the skin’s electrical conductance, which changes with sweat gland activity.”

“This activity is controlled by the autonomic nervous system,” the description adds. This means that the earbuds would measure the electrical conductivity of the user’s skin.

Lastly, the patent describes that the device may have “more electrodes than are necessary” in order to measure user biosignals. The justification for this is to account for how the device is being worn, with it dynamically choosing between different subsets of electrodes at different times.

There is no clearly stated end goal described in the patent; it chiefly seeks to monitor brain activity and “biosignals” in a manner alternate to electrodes on the scalp. What that information would be used for is up for interpretation.

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​Airpods, Apple, Brain activity monitoring, Earbuds, Earphones, Energy monitoring device, Headphones, Health, Iphone, Ipod, Return, Wearable electronic device, Tech 

I went to meet an old friend for coffee on the East Side of Portland. I don’t make it over to the East Side very often. That’s the more progressive, “social justice” side of town.

That’s where the most WE BELIEVE IN SCIENCE signs are. And Pride flags. And other statements of left-wing beliefs, prominently displayed.

Who in their right mind would wear an actual MAGA hat on the East Side of Portland? You might get attacked by a woman with face tattoos.

It’s also where people get stabbed, shot, and drive their cars into other people’s houses.

I live on the West Side, where people are more reserved and reasonable. Though there’s a lot of SCIENCE and PRIDE over there too.

Philadelphia Freedom

So I pulled up at the cafe to meet my friend. The sun was out, so people were sitting at outside tables: a lesbian couple, three skinny guys with tattoos, and an odd-looking woman in a dress and lipstick — but also with a tuft of gray hair growing out of the bottom of her chin. I was a bit startled by that.

And then another surprise: When I reached for the cafe’s front door, I saw myself in the glass reflection. I was wearing my bright red Phillies baseball cap.

In case you don’t know, the Phillies are a baseball team from Philadelphia. Their team colors are red and blue. Their hats are red.

I also own a Boston Red Sox hat that is navy blue, a San Diego Padres hat that is brown, and some other hats of other colors. I wear all these hats randomly. I own all these hats because I play softball in the summers and I like to rotate my hats.

The problem with the Phillies hat is that it’s almost the exact same shade of red as a MAGA hat. So if people catch sight of it out of the corner of an eye, they think they have spotted a MAGA person.

For this reason, my Phillies hat has been out of my usual hat rotation. When Biden was president, I wore it occasionally. But with Trump back in office and Portlanders suffering from their various Trump derangement diseases, I do not.

RELATED: The secret to senior softball? It’s all about the magic bat

Irfan Khan/Getty Images

Behind enemy lines

Earlier that day, I had been wearing the red Phillies hat to run errands near my house. On the West Side, nobody cares what color hat you’re wearing.

But on the East Side, they do care. They care a lot. For instance, the woman with the gray beard had looked up at me as I walked by. She was probably checking my hat. And since it didn’t say MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, she went back to her coffee.

And really, who in their right mind would wear an actual MAGA hat on the East Side of Portland? Nobody. Especially going to a hipster coffeehouse. You’d be asking for trouble. You might get attacked by a woman with face tattoos.

Seeing the bright red hat in the door’s reflection, I had to make a decision. Go into the leftist cafe with my Phillies cap? Which might draw stares. Which might provoke comments. Or go back to my car and throw it in the trunk?

I mean, at some point, you gotta say enough is enough. A hat is just a hat. Even if it was a MAGA hat, shouldn’t I be allowed to wear it? Isn’t this America?

Our Lady of the Sacred Hat

I did have a MAGA hat back in the early days. This was when I was volunteering for a Republican candidate for governor in 2018. At some point, someone handed out MAGA hats.

Unfortunately, they were so badly made that they were unwearable. The top part of the crown wasn’t stitched properly, so it pointed upward in a clownish way.

Later, I found a real MAGA hat that was immaculate. It looked fantastic. But I never wear it. I keep it under lock and key. It’s my most prized possession.

To poke or not to poke

Meanwhile, back at the cafe, I had to make a decision. Seeing my hat in the door’s reflection, I could clearly see the big white “P” on the front. The “P” stood for “Philadelphia Phillies.” Any idiot could see that.

But leftists are crazy. And they can be dangerous. Especially in Portland. One is wise not to provoke them.

Also, my old friend was probably left-leaning himself. We hadn’t discussed it, but he lived on the East Side with his wife and kids. So even if he wasn’t a Democrat, he would have to pretend he was.

Did I want to put him through the awkward moment of seeing my bright red hat and asking himself, “Why is he wearing that?”

I did not. Nor did I want to get stared at. Nor did I want to have to explain myself. Nor did I want the barista to spit in my coffee. Or worse.

Live to fight again

So I went back to my car and threw my Phillies hat in the trunk. Fortunately, my old Los Angeles Dodgers hat was crumpled in the back. I uncrumpled it, put it on, and went back to the cafe.

Now there would be no problems. Though I did get a very suspicious look from the gray-bearded lady.

​Maga hat, Lifestyle, Portland, Culture, First-person, Blake’s progress 

Everybody talks about the cost of health care as if it is one single thing. But in our complicated system, many elements contribute to our health care affordability crisis, and some are bigger problems than others. Spending on hospital care accounted for 40% of the growth in national health spending between 2022 and 2024. And when the providers who set those rising prices consolidate their power, families, employers, and taxpayers get squeezed even more.

Over the past few decades, major hospital chains have merged with competing providers and become local monopolies. Since 1998, there have been nearly 1,600 mergers among these systems. It’s no surprise that the Federal Trade Commission now considers 90% of hospital markets highly concentrated.

If a hospital wants the legal privileges of being nonprofit, it should have to earn them every year.

And it’s not just large systems acquiring each other. They have gobbled up doctors’ offices too. Between 2013 and 2018, the share of hospital-owned physician practices more than doubled, and by 2020, more than half of physicians worked directly for a hospital or for a practice owned by one.

This is a problem because these big health systems then use that market power to charge more. Leading budget experts found that after a hospital buys a physician practice, the price of services such as MRI scans, drug infusions, and chemotherapy rises by two to three times their prior cost, and the overall price of health care services increases 14%. One patient saw the out-of-pocket expense of arthritis treatments rise over 1,000% after her outpatient clinic was acquired by a hospital. Despite these increased costs, government research has also shown that hospital mergers do not improve quality.

Another problem is just plain abuse of the tax code. Many of the largest hospital systems are legally “nonprofit,” which makes them tax-exempt, despite behaving like corporate conglomerates. In New York, the vast majority of hospitals are tax-exempt because they ostensibly provide charity care. The result is a substantial public subsidy, estimated as a $9.4 million windfall per hospital.

New York Presbyterian shows how this model can be exploited. Reporting indicates that less than 1% of the services it provides are charitable in nature, yet the institution retains the tax advantages of a nonprofit. In 2021 it recorded roughly $1.5 billion in profits and an operating margin of 17.4%. Its CEO compensation reached almost $11 million per year. It even had resources to sponsor the New York Mets.

This is not just a New York story. Most hospitals claim nonprofit status, but leadership compensation can reach the tens of millions. Those packages persist because the IRS grants large tax benefits and the standards for keeping them are weak. The Lown Institute has documented a wide gap between tax breaks received and community benefit delivered, estimating that fair share deficits in 20 states total $11.5 billion per year. Meanwhile, executives travel on private jets.

RELATED: Venture socialist health care in America: Employer insurance plans now cost as much as a car

RapidEye/iStock/Getty Images

And the care can be anything but caring. Several of the California hospitals in the CommonSpirit Health nonprofit system were disciplined by federal and state officials in 2022, 2023, and 2024 for moving deceased patients to an off-site morgue, where they were stored and even allowed to decompose for months — or in some cases years — without notifying the families.

This is a governance failure. If a hospital wants the legal privileges of being nonprofit, it should have to earn them every year by providing a real, transparent community benefit, meaningful charity care, and outcomes that justify public support. If it wants to operate like a profit-maximizing corporation, then it should pay taxes like one.

Congress already has a starting point. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee issued a report on the overuse of charitable designations by nonprofit hospitals and recommended greater federal scrutiny and possible changes in the tax code. That scrutiny should be paired with payment reform, especially site-neutral payments, and stronger antitrust enforcement in markets the FTC already calls highly concentrated.

The status quo is a quiet transfer of wealth from patients, workers, and taxpayers to consolidated hospital systems that can raise prices, claim tax exemptions, and restrict competition. The goal is not to punish hospitals. It is to achieve affordability by restoring the validity of nonprofit status and the power of competitive markets.

​Federal trade commission, Health care affordability, Hospital mergers, Local monopolies, Rising prices, Tax exemption, Transparency, Wealth transfer, Opinion & analysis 

I’ve never felt much sympathy for addicts.

Not the gamblers refreshing their portfolios at 2 a.m., nor the wine devotees who have rebranded a nightly bottle as “self-care,” nor the doomscrollers mainlining outrage as if it were a dietary need.

For decades, coffee attracted suspicion like a stranger at a school gate.

Addiction, to me, has always looked less like an illness and more like a failure of will. Which makes this confession awkward.

Mr. Coffee

I am, demonstrably, an addict — a coffee addict, to be specific. Three cups daily, minimum. Four when my sleep quality files for early retirement. I have never pawned jewelry, put my family through an intervention, or woken up in a city I have no memory of arriving in. But remove coffee from my routine, and my tolerance for other people’s existence, already a carefully managed resource, drops to levels more commonly associated with Patrick Bateman. If you have never related to that sentence, congratulations on your even temperament and your decaf. But bear in mind that you’re also, statistically, in the minority.

In America, the world’s most instructive laboratory for excess, coffee consumption has hit historic highs. Entire office towers function because of it. So do emergency rooms. It powers long-haul truckers and early-morning construction workers. Coffee, for tens of millions of Americans, is less a habit than a non-negotiable term of existence.

And unlike most dependencies, this one keeps passing its medical exams with flying colors.

Fill ‘er up

A new, long-term study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, tracking over 400,000 people, arrived at a finding that seems almost conspiratorially convenient for people like me: two to three cups a day correlates with measurably lower rates of anxiety and depression. The effect doesn’t erase your suffering or rewrite your difficult childhood. The risk simply drops, noticeably and consistently.

The mechanism is straightforward. Caffeine blocks adenosine, the chemical your brain uses to announce that it is done for the day. Dopamine rises to fill the gap. Concentration improves. The effect feels dramatic because at the neurochemical level, something genuinely dramatic has happened. This is not a trick the mind plays on itself, but chemistry doing exactly what chemistry does.

For decades, coffee attracted suspicion like a stranger at a school gate. Too stimulating. Too addictive. A gateway to jittery dysfunction. The warnings came confidently and often. Then the studies accumulated, the data became less impeachable, and coffee was acquitted of most charges.

Beyond the bean

Caveats exist, as they always do. Five cups daily and the benefits plateau, then reverse. The same compound that steadies you begins rattling the cage. To be fair, anyone drinking five cups of coffee a day has larger questions to answer about his life choices, and caffeine is probably the least of his concerns.

The bean, at least, has always been transparent about the transaction. You know exactly what you are getting and exactly what it costs.

What has been done to the bean is another matter entirely.

Somewhere between the postwar diner and the present moment, coffee got kidnapped. Starbucks, once a straightforward purveyor of decent espresso, became a laboratory specializing in whipped, drizzled, and syrup-fortified structures that happen to contain trace amounts of coffee. Syrups compounding upon syrups. Whipped cream deployed where no cream has any reasonable business. Names so elaborate they require careful study and occasionally a second opinion.

At some point, ordering coffee became something you perform rather than something you do.

The prices reflect the absurdity: six or seven dollars for something containing more sugar than a child’s birthday cake, sharing only a nodding acquaintance with the actual coffee bean.

RELATED: ‘Sugar-free’ scam: How scapegoating a pantry staple is ruining our health

Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

Teddy’s choice

The backlash arrived. Starbucks has watched American foot traffic fall as customers stopped finding the ritual worth the receipt. Black coffee is gaining ground. Strong, simple, unbothered by the season, it is coffee that commits to tasting like coffee.

There’s something satisfying in that correction. Not moral superiority — nobody earns virtue by ordering an Americano — but a return to proportion. The unnecessary removed, the thing itself restored. Real coffee demands nothing from you. No rehearsed order, no twelve-step customization, no theatrical pause before naming your flavor preferences. Hot water meets ground bean; the transaction is completed. The fog between you and the day lifts on schedule.

And so I have made my peace with the label. Addict, junkie, dependent — the word changes nothing about what is in the cup. There are considerably worse things to crave. Voltaire drank dozens of cups a day. Beethoven counted out exactly 60 beans every morning. Theodore Roosevelt consumed a gallon before most men had finished breakfast. All three left the world considerably more interesting than they found it. Correlation may not be causation, but it is a remarkably consistent pattern among people who got things done.

​Addiction, Starbucks, Theodore roosevelt, Dopamine, Coffee, Lifestyle, Make america healthy again