It is Tunisia’s duty to stand with the Palestinians, its president has said The Tunisian parliament on Thursday began discussing a bill that would define [more…]
Category: blaze media
Liz Wheeler warns of ‘one big caveat’ in Russiagate reckoning
On Friday, July 18, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard declassified over 100 pages of documents — including emails, memos, and internal communications — related to the Russiagate scandal, confirming what most of us have known for nearly a decade: Former President Barack Obama and his administration apparently orchestrated a campaign to push the false narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump’s campaign.
When she heard the news, Liz Wheeler, BlazeTV host of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” was thrilled.
“My reaction when I first saw this was ‘Oh, heck yes!’” she says. “For the first time, we have access to a whole host of documents” that prove “high-ranking Obama administration officials were intimately involved in staging this attack on President Trump, which is really an attack on you, the voter.”
And yet, “There’s one big caveat before we celebrate this reckoning for Russiagate,” she warns, and that caveat is Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Pam Bondi is now facing, I would argue, an even bigger test than the Epstein files,” says Liz, who’s been unapologetic in her criticism of Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case.
Gabbard’s declassification of the Russiagate documents has put Americans in a place where they can “actually demand justice.” But justice “is not just exposing corruption,” says Liz. “Justice means arresting, indicting, and putting on trial the criminals: Barack Obama, James Comey, [James] Clapper, [John] Brennan,” and likely “a whole list” of co-conspirators.
And “silly perjury charges,” she says, aren’t going to cut it. “Justice is perp walks and jumpsuits.”
“Treason … seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the government, deprivation of rights under the color of law, grand conspiracy — those are the charges that fit the crimes,” Liz says.
But the question remains: Will Pam Bondi serve justice proportional to the crimes committed?
“This is her big test,” Liz says. “Are we going to see perjury charges, or are we going to see justice?”
To hear Liz’s thorough breakdown of the entire scandal top to bottom, watch the episode above.
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The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, Blazetv, Blaze media, Russiagate, Barack obama, Tulsi gabbard
Heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne dies at 76 years old
The famed heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne died Tuesday morning at the age of 76, according to his family.
Tributes poured in for the former lead singer of Black Sabbath, who is largely considered to have changed the course of music history.
‘I remember playing in the Crown Pub in Birmingham and thinking, ‘This will be good for a couple of years, drink a few beers and have a jam.”
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love,” reads the statement posted to Osbourne’s social media account.
The statement was signed by his wife, Sharon, his sons Jack and Louis, and his daughters Kelly and Aimee.
Osbourne had just performed with former Black Sabbath bandmates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward at the Villa Park stadium in Birmingham before 45,000 fans.
He died just weeks after his “farewell tour.”
Born John Michael Osbourne to a working-class family in Birmingham, England, he struggled in school due to his dyslexia and dropped out at the age of 15 to work menial jobs. In 1968, he became the front man for the Polka Tulk Blues Band, which eventually evolved into Black Sabbath. At the time, he didn’t think it would go very far.
“I remember playing in the Crown Pub in Birmingham and thinking, ‘This will be good for a couple of years, drink a few beers and have a jam,'” he recalled.
Massive fame and wealth followed afterward.
RELATED: Brian Wilson, Beach Boys co-founder, dies at 82: ‘One of a kind genius’
His most well-known songs included “Paranoid,” “Crazy Train,” “War Pigs,” and “Iron Man.”
Osbourne had been battling with Parkinson’s disease and was physically debilitated during his last few public performances. He admitted that his health had been compromised by the large amount of drugs and alcohol that he had ingested earlier in life.
He credited his wife for saving him.
“I do count my lucky stars,” Osbourne said to Rolling Stone magazine in Nov. 2023. “I don’t know why I’m still here, and I do sometimes think I’m on borrowed time. I said to Sharon the other day, ‘What a great f**king life we’ve had and what a great f**king experience.'”
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Death of ozzy osbourne, Ozzy osbourne, Celebrity deaths, Heavy metal music, Entertainment
Did your state just sue the Trump administration to keep benefits flowing to illegal aliens? Here’s the list.
Nearly two dozen states of the union have joined a lawsuit against efforts by the Trump administration to ensure that federal benefits stop going to illegal aliens.
The lawsuit alleges that the administration did not go through required steps needed to authorize the cuts to such benefits and that such cuts would amount to “devastating impacts” on the states.
‘The Trump administration is trying to gut Head Start, community health clinics, food banks, and other lifeline programs by banning states from serving their residents.’
The new policy would require programs to verify the citizenship status for those who are receiving benefits from health, education, and social services programs.
“People facing homelessness or domestic violence have never needed proof of immigration status to walk into a shelter,” reads a statement from the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys general of Rhode Island, Washington state, and New York. Attorneys general from another 18 states have joined the lawsuit, as listed below:
CaliforniaColoradoNevadaArizonaConnecticutHawaiiIllinoisMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaNevadaNew JerseyNew MexicoOregonVermontWisconsin
Also included is the District of Columbia.
New York Attorney General Letitia James posted a statement on social media about the lawsuit.
“The Trump administration is trying to gut Head Start, community health clinics, food banks, and other lifeline programs by banning states from serving their residents,” she said. “I’m leading 20 attorneys general to stop these attacks on hardworking families.”
“This is yet another outrageous attempt by this administration to work around the law and disrupt critical services Arizonans depend on every day,” reads a statement from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes about the new rule.
“Congress designed these services to be widely accessible to people in this country. But now the Trump administration wants to do an immigration check as preschoolers file into the classroom, ready to learn their ABCs,” said Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown.
RELATED: 20 Democrat AGs sue Trump’s Education Department over ‘massive’ staff cuts
“These notices impose unworkable requirements on state agencies and providers that are plainly intended to damage these vital support systems and intimidate vulnerable people,” Brown added.
Illegal aliens generally do not qualify for federal benefits such as food stamps or Social Security, but many states set up their own programs that benefit illegal immigrants.
“When illegal aliens exploit these resources, it is at the expense of Americans in desperate need of them,” reads a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson to the New York Times. “President Trump was elected based on his promise to put Americans first, and that’s exactly what this administration is committed to doing.”
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20 state lawsuit, Benefits for illegal aliens, States sue trump, Illegal alien benefits, Politics
Russiagate unraveled: Glenn Beck recaps scandal in light of smoking gun documents
Following the declassification of over 100 pages of documents related to the Russiagate scandal, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard made the bombshell claim that Barack Obama, his administration, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign engaged in a “treasonous conspiracy” and sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice.
“This is one of the biggest stories of all time in America,” Glenn Beck says.
These documents, he says, are the “smoking gun” we’ve long needed to get to the bottom of Russiagate. On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn unpacks the scandal from beginning to end and explains what must happen next.
Beginning
On September 12, 2016, in a secure briefing room, a document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under President Barack Obama was “circulated quietly” among his intelligence team. The memo stated: “Foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyberattacks on election systems.”
In other words, Russia was not a threat to the election’s outcome.
But when thousands of private DNC emails were leaked by hackers, the Clinton campaign and the media blamed Russia, despite the NSA’s “low confidence” in that claim. As Hillary Clinton’s campaign began “hemorrhaging,” Glenn Beck notes, “inside of John Brennan’s CIA and James Comey’s FBI, the chatter grew that Moscow was coming for our democracy.”
Then on October 7, 2016, the DNI and DHS “jointly state that Russia is directing cyberattacks,” contradicting internal memos from the same week that showed key agencies still had serious doubts about Russia’s involvement.
Middle
After Donald Trump’s victory, panic took hold of the White House.
“A meeting is called on December 9, 2016, in the situation room. Everyone is there — Clapper, Brennan, Susan Rice, McCabe, Kerry, and President Obama,” Glenn says, noting that this meeting is on record. “Instructions are issued to scrap the post-election briefing that had reaffirmed [there was] no Russian interference at all and have the intelligence community rewrite a new draft.”
Thanks to the newly declassified documents, now “we have in the DNI’s own handwriting that a new assessment on Russia’s influence [had] been ordered per [President Obama’s] request.”
Then in January 2017, “just days before Trump is inaugurated, a new briefing from the intelligence community” is released, claiming “Russia did influence the election.”
“No smoking gun, no new evidence — just a new tone,” Glenn says. “That change, now backed by Brennan and Clapper, echoed by Obama, was enough to justify a two-year, multimillion-dollar investigation into Trump and Russia.”
Dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into Russia’s potential role in Trump’s victory used the Steele dossier, a report funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign with phony claims about Trump’s ties to Russia, to justify spying on Trump associates like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, which was done illegally via altered documents submitted to a FISA court to obtain surveillance warrants.
“As for accountability, it never came,” Glenn says.
End
Last Friday, Tulsi Gabbard declassified hundreds of documents, supporting what many of us strongly suspected: “A president, along with others, [conspired] to take down a presidency, working together in coordination and using the press to push it all out,” Glenn says.
Gabbard also claimed that both special counsel Robert Mueller and special counsel John Durham “chose not to follow the evidence.”
“The whole machine, from the press to the prosecutors, geared not towards justice, but protection of the narrative, and at the center of that narrative, Gabbard says, is Barack Obama himself. He didn’t just know. He orchestrated the shift from ‘no cyber-manipulation’ to ‘the Russians stole the election,’” Glenn says.
“You have to understand — they not only doctored [the intelligence] … they presented it as truth; they weaponized it. They then colluded with the media, and they did a psychological operation on you, the American public, to get you to believe it,” he explains.
Now that the case has been sent to the Department of Justice, potential indictments lie in the hands of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“And if there are no indictments, it’s going to be trouble,” Glenn says.
Why?
Because Russiagate “is no longer a conspiracy theory,” he says. “The documents are real, they’re out, the voices are named, the signatures are in ink, and the line runs not through Moscow but through Langley.”
“The American people have to trust in the integrity of our democratic republic. Accountability is essential,” he adds.
To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the episode above.
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The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Tulsi gabbard, Barack obama, Russiagate, Russian interference, 2016 election, Election interference, Clinton, James comey, John brennan, Hillary clinton
Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles faces de-banking over alleged ‘legally binding order’
A major payment processing platform revealed that it halted payouts to a Daily Wire political commentator due to “a legally binding order.”
On Monday, Michael Knowles accused payment platform Stripe of possibly “de-banking” him. He speculated that the suspension was a reaction to his political opinions.
‘Looking forward to resolving this issue with Tennessee.’
“Hi, @Stripe. Are we still doing this de-banking thing? Was it something I said?” Knowles wrote. “If we say that men can’t be women, if we donate to pro-life charities, if we oppose two men buying eggs, renting wombs, and commoditizing babies.”
“Does that come at the cost of de-banking?” he questioned.
In a multi-post thread, the Daily Wire host explained that payments from his monetized X account “abruptly stopped” six months ago. Assuming it was “an innocent mistake,” he reached out to Stripe’s user support to rectify the issue.
Stripe’s support team confirmed that it had “temporarily disabled” his payouts, stating that it sent a message to X in October with more details about the pause, according to screenshots uploaded by Knowles.
The payment platform reportedly instructed him to contact X directly to obtain more information.
“I would recommend contacting your platform for more information, as we can’t provide any further information on this account hold,” a screenshot of a support email reads.
Photo Illustration by Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Knowles said that he then asked X for assistance on the matter, but its team referred him back to Stripe.
“We have confirmed this issue is not on our end — and you will need to login [sic] to Stripe and contact them to sort this out,” an X team member reportedly wrote.
Knowles concluded that Stripe’s decision to suspend his account was likely a retaliatory act due to his political views, emphasizing that he had not violated any of the platform’s stated “prohibited businesses” rules.
“Since I haven’t been distributing fake IDs, selling drugs, or jamming telecommunications equipment, it seems Stripe concluded that my political opinions had somehow violated their policy against encouraging ‘unlawful violence’ against certain demographics,” Knowles stated. “Of course, I’ve never encouraged ‘unlawful violence’ against anyone. But in the absence of any real explanation from Stripe, I can only conclude that they’ve now decided that certain conservative opinions amount to ‘illegal’ activity.”
RELATED: Major bank announces end of de-banking policies on guns and political affiliation
Michael Knowles. Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images for The Daily Wire
Stripe responded to Knowles, requesting that he contact them directly to resolve the issue.
A few hours later, Stripe reached out again, offering additional information about the circumstances surrounding the pause. Yet its second post raised more questions than it answered.
“By way of follow-up, we can confirm that the restrictions placed on your account were not taken unilaterally by Stripe, but were the result of a legally binding order that was issued to us. Our support team previously reached out to X regarding this matter. In order to maintain your privacy, we are following up with you in a separate email with additional information,” Stripe wrote.
While it remains unclear what the order pertains to, Knowles provided an update on the issue on Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m pleased to say Stripe has reached out to resolve this strange issue, which appears to have begun with a government administrative error rather than intentional de-banking,” Knowles wrote. “As we investigate, I’m even more pleased to say that we’re also exploring legislative solutions to the lack of transparency that often makes these issues unresolvable for countless Americans. Will discuss more on the show and keep everyone posted as this develops.”
Stripe responded, stating, “Thanks for working with us. Looking forward to resolving this issue with Tennessee. At Stripe, our role is to process payments — we do not take action on accounts based on political speech.”
When reached for comment, Stripe referred Blaze News to its response to Knowles on X.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
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News, Michael knowles, Daily wire, Stripe, X, Debanking, De-banking, De-bank, Debank, Debanking scandal, Politics
Barack Obama responds to Trump’s accusations of treason in rare comment: ‘Weak attempt at distraction’
A spokesperson for former President Barack Obama issued a rare public response to the strong accusations made by current President Donald Trump that Democrats had committed “treason.”
Trump went into a tirade about what he said was “irrefutable proof” that Obama had orchestrated a treasonous conspiracy to tip the balance of the 2020 election in favor of the Democrats. He went on to name other Democrats involved in the alleged scheme and called for “serious consequences” for the perpetrators.
‘Our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response.’
Within hours of the comments from the current president, a spokesperson for the former president issued a statement denying the allegations.
“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” reads the statement from Patrick Rodenbush.
“Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,” he added. “These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”
Trump leaned on a report from Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, in his accusations.
“They caught President Obama absolutely cold,” Trump said. “Tulsi Gabbard. What they did to this country, starting in 2016, but going up all the way, going up to 2020 and the election, they tried to rig the election. And they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that.”
He went on to name several alleged collaborators in the conspiracy, including former DNI James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former FBI Director James Comey.
“The leader of the gang was President Obama. Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump continued. “He’s guilty. This was treason. This was every word you could think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever even imagined, even in other countries.”
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Trump vs obama, Obama treason, Obama responds to treason, Gabbard probe into treason, Politics
Republican senator reminds Steve Deace about his ‘friendly’ subpoena of Kash Patel
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has consistently fought for transparency and answers for the American people. Johnson shared his latest push for transparency with Steve Deace on the “Steve Deace Show” Tuesday as he and many others across the country are still hungry for answers.
Over a year has passed since Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots at former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, nearly assassinating the incoming leader of the free world. Despite the time that has elapsed, the American people still know little about the assassination attempt or the would-be assassin himself.
Johnson decided to take matters into his own hands.
“An awful lot of what we do know, my investigatory staff, just by calling local law enforcement shortly after Butler … were able to develop a pretty detailed timeline,” Johnson told Deace. “We published a preliminary report, laid out all of the failures of the security plan of the Secret Service in Butler. Then, within two weeks, the FBI pretty well took over the investigation, and everybody clammed up.”
“I assumed when President Trump won the election that he would be appointing people that would dig into this, investigate it, and release that to the public,” Johnson added. “All of a sudden, the one-year anniversary is upon us, and nothing has really been released.”
RELATED: Exclusive: Congress pushes bipartisan bill preventing Mexico’s ‘illegal seizure’ of American assets
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Johnson decided to take matters into his own hands by issuing what he called a “friendly subpoena” to FBI Director Kash Patel for all documents related to the Butler assassination attempt.
“I issued what I consider a friendly subpoena to Kash Patel, just basically reminding him, hey, the public has a right to know what happened in Butler,” Johnson said. “They have a right to know what happened in West Palm Beach there, in terms of the second assassination attempt. … There are an awful lot of unanswered questions here that deserve answers.”
Johnson’s subpoena does not address the second assassination attempt.
RELATED: Tulsi Gabbard orders ‘unprecedented’ release of MLK assassination files
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“I understand the challenges,” Johnson added. “But all that being said, I would still think this would be the priority of President Trump’s administration to get to the bottom of the assassination and make everything they found out public.”
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Kash patel, Ron johnson, Steve deace, Donald trump, Trump adnministration, Fbi, Butler, Trump assassination attempt, Butler pennsylvania, Butler assassination attempt, Thomas matthew crooks, Fbi investigation, Subpoena, Politics
‘Give me a break’: Gov. DeSantis fires back after illegal aliens make insane complaint about ICE
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) had viewers laughing after he addressed an obscure complaint from detainees at a federal detention center.
While in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the governor gave a joint press conference with newly appointed Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia.
DeSantis was talking about his state’s finances when a reporter asked about detainees’ rights at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement center named Alligator Alcatraz in Ochopee, Florida. The governor then revealed he had heard a wild complaint from the illegal immigrants there.
‘Did they at least cut the crust off[?]’
“You know lawyers are not able to see their clients out there,” the reporter claimed about the ICE facility. “What do you think, being a lawyer yourself and a JAG lawyer?” the reporter added, referring to DeSantis’ time as legal adviser in the Navy.
The governor expressed disappointment in members of the media, who he said have been taking complaints from “criminal aliens” and “running with it” without verification. DeSantis even explained that despite claims detainees at Alligator Alcatraz are not fed well, they are actually “fed the same [food] that the staff is fed.”
He continued, “But, like, in Florida prisons, do you think the prisoners get the same meals as the guards? No. Of course not. It’s different. Everyone’s the same there,” DeSantis stressed.
The governor then recited a bizarre complaint allegedly made by some of the illegal aliens.
“They were mad that the ham sandwiches weren’t toasted. Excuse me? I mean, give me a break.”
RELATED: Alligator Alcatraz is a warning to illegal immigrants in the US: Leave now or end up here
Not only did the live audience of reporters laugh at DeSantis’ recollection of the complaint, but viewers of the clip on X were equally as astonished.
“Did they at least cut the crust off the bread for these poor criminals?” one viewer on X replied.
Another viewer laughed and called it “ridiculous that these people are complaining.”
A third viewer said he believed that the complaint was true based on New York City’s migrant shelters, where residents had complained about the meals being served inside their luxury hotel.
RELATED: Florida police go full steam ahead with historic partnership to enforce federal immigration law
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
For example, at the Row Hotel in New York City, migrants complained of rotten food and poor choices for their children.
However, Mayor Eric Adams claimed that the illegal aliens were being too picky about their food choices and preferred preparation styles from their regions of origin, i.e., Central and South America.
“People might have a different cultural taste for certain foods — we can’t do that. We can only provide nutritional food for people,” Adams said at the time, per NBC New York.
The New York Times also reported at the end of 2023 that the company providing meals to migrants had listed more than 70,000 meals as “wasted.”
Of course, NYC taxpayers foot the bill for the wasted food costs, which were estimated to be around $39,000 per day.
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News, Illegal immigrants, Immigration, Migrants, Florida, Desantis, Ice, Alligator alcatraz, Politics
Move over, racial quotas and DEI questions. Colleges are letting high schoolers virtue-signal their way in.
Administrators at elite American colleges are simultaneously outsourcing some of their work evaluating potential students to juvenile critics around the world while giving applicants an opportunity to virtue-signal their way into contention by telling strangers what they want to hear about hot-button topics like abortion and the war in Gaza.
Colby College, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, and Washington University have partnered with Schoolhouse.world and will welcome applicants to submit “Dialogues” certifications on the peer-tutoring platform as an optional supplement to their college application this fall.
One of the upcoming ‘Dialogues’ focuses on the topic of DEI.
According to Schoolhouse, which was founded by the CEO of Khan Academy, Sal Khan, “The Dialogues portfolio is a certificate you can submit to our university partners as part of your college applications to demonstrate your open mindedness, empathy, and communication skills.”
Students on Schoolhouse can engage in one-on-one Zoom conversations with other students for “Dialogues” credits.
Topics include abortion, “addressing racism,” affirmative action, climate change, euthanasia, “free speech vs hate speech,” “future of gender equality,” “income inequality,” “Israel Palestine Conflict,” and “threats to democracy.”
At the time of publication, one of the upcoming “Dialogues” focuses on the topic of DEI.
Students participating in sessions on this particular topic will be: provided with an overview on the subject; prompted to discuss their views on diversity, equity and inclusion; and allotted 60 minutes to discuss the matter and take up relevant questions.
RELATED: ‘As a woman’: Duke Law quietly pushes insane diversity statements for law journal applicants
LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images
In order to receive credit for the session, students ages 14-18 must complete a post-event survey, which asks them to select up to five terms from a list of real and HR-championed virtues — including empathy and kindness — that best describe their partner’s strengths in the discussion. These responses are reflected in the other student’s “Dialogues” portfolio.
Students can improve their scores by attending more sessions, signaling the attributes strangers online want to see, and challenging their own views.
“It’s very easy in anonymous or asynchronous forums to just completely ‘other’ the other party — to think they’re idiots, think they’re evil, whatever,” Khan told Education Week. “That’s very hard to do in this [face-to-face] setting.”
Harvard sophomore Alex Bronzini-Vender noted in a recent New York Times op-ed that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in college admissions, colleges exploited a “loophole”: “Though the court would no longer allow colleges to screen applicants for race per se, they would probably still be allowed to ask applicants how race had shaped their lives.”
This “identity question” apparently gave way to a “disagreement question,” where applicants were prompted to detail a moment where they engaged in a difficult conversation or encountered someone with a differing opinion.
‘Not exactly subtle.’
Schoolhouse, which rewards literal virtue signaling, appears to afford colleges another way of “tone-polic[ing]” admissions files, suggested Bronzini-Vender.
Forbes noted in 2022 that colleges were drawn to Schoolhouse by the promise that it could provide evidence both of applicants’ academic preparation and whether they might make positive contributions to campus life.
James Nondorf, the University of Chicago’s vice president for enrollment and dean of college admissions, told Forbes, “In our first year of the partnership with Schoolhouse.world, students from 15 different countries and 14 states submitted certifications to UChicago, and UChicago enrolled an incredibly diverse group of 13 students with Schoolhouse.world transcripts.”
“College admissions basically adding ‘virtue signaling’ to [their] list of enrollment requirements,” said Austen Allred, co-founder and CEO of the coding boot camp BloomTech.
“‘Let’s debate immigration then I’ll grade you on empathy,'” Allred added. “Not exactly subtle.”
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Education, University, College, Campus, Admissions, School, Schoolhouse, Dialogues, Leftism, Empathy, Virtue, Virtue signaling, Sal khan, Politics
Tennessee Titans halt $2.1B stadium project after noose is found on site, offers counseling and $250K award for leads
The Tennessee Titans’ new stadium — the Nissan Stadium, a fully enclosed dome designed to seat 60,000 people — was well underway when the $2.1 billion project was suddenly halted after a noose was discovered on the construction site on July 17.
The Tennessee Builders Alliance condemned the prop as a “racist and hateful symbol” and suspended work pending an investigation involving Metro Nashville Police. It also implemented mandatory anti-bias training for workers, provided counseling services, and offered a $250,000 reward for information identifying the culprit. Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell (D) called the incident “very concerning.”
“When are they going to learn? These are almost never real,” scoffs Pat Gray, BlazeTV host of “Pat Gray Unleashed.”
But even if the noose was a racially motivated stunt, it’s not enough to “shut down a $2 billion project,” says co-host Jeffy, pointing out that the majority of construction workers involved in the project probably didn’t even see the noose at all.
“We’ve become a nation of babies,” says Pat, arguing that the solution is simple: “Pull it down, throw it away, move on.”
Given that the majority of these stunts turn out to be attention-seeking hoaxes, Pat assumes that the culprit is likely reveling right now in the frenzy his little spectacle is causing. Giving this type of incident so much attention, he says, is counterproductive in that it only “[hypes] up the division between us.”
Per usual, the media certainly isn’t helping.
“All the news stations are covering it like it’s this horrific crime,” says Jeffy.
“Not one of them even brings up the possibility that it’s a hoax,” adds Pat.
Sadly, the media narrative that emerges will almost certainly be: This is a result of living in “Trump’s America.”
To hear more of the panel’s commentary, watch the video above.
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Pat gray, Pat gray unleashed, Blazetv, Blaze media, Tennessee titans, Nissan stadium, Noose, Racism, Tennessee, Nashville
Mahmoud Khalil refuses to condemn Hamas as he tours the country after being released
Mahmoud Khalil, the green card holder the Trump administration is trying to deport, refused to specifically condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization when given the chance multiple times during an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
Khalil’s legal status in the United States has been targeted by the Trump administration as they seek to crack down on noncitizens who have lent their support for terrorist groups and have organized disruptive protests on college campuses. The State Department maintains that Khalil’s participation in a group calling for the end of Western civilization and his support for Hamas are reason enough to revoke his green card.
“Just to be clear here, though, do you specifically condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization in the United States, not just for their actions on October 7?” CNN host Pamela Brown asked Khalil.
“I condemn the killing of all civilians, full stop. And —” Khalil began to reply.
“But do you condemn Hamas specifically?” Brown pressed.
“No, I’m very clear with condemning all civilians. I’m very straight in my position in that part. But it’s disingenuous to ask about condemning Hamas while Palestinians are the ones being starved now by Israel. … So I hate this selective outrage of condemnation, because this is not — this wouldn’t lead to a constructive conversation,” Khalil explained.
Brown then reminded Khalil the reason why it is valid to ask him if he supports Hamas is because that is one of the justifications the federal government is seeking to have him deported from the United States.
“I simply asked and protested the war in Palestine. That’s what I did. That’s my duty as a Palestinian, as a human being right now, is to ask for the stop of the killing in my home country. And that’s consistent with who I am,” Khalil said.
Host Wolf Blitzer ended the interview by praising Khalil for his strong condemnation of anti-Semitism and wishing his family good luck.
Photo (left): Spencer Platt/Getty Images; Photo (right): Win McNamee/Getty Images
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America. The Trump Administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil, as it does with any alien who advocates for violence, glorifies and supports terrorists, harasses Jews, and damages property,” the Department of Homeland Security said in response to Khalil’s interview.
Since being released from federal custody while his case is still pending, Khalil met with members of Congress in Washington, D.C., such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
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Politics
VIDEO: Jon Stewart’s expletive-filled reaction to Colbert cancellation is getting scorched online
The reactions to the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show has spanned a wide spectrum, but few have reached the “cringe” depths to which Jon Stewart has sunk.
CBS notified Colbert on Thursday that his show was canceled, leading many to accuse Paramount Global, the network’s parent company, of trying to appease the Trump administration while seeking FCC approval of a merger with Skydance Media worth $8 billion.
‘This reminds me of an angry teen yelling at his parents when told they are grounded.’
Stewart lambasted the decision on his show and brought on singers appearing to be a church choir to sing an expletive-filled reaction that many online found embarrassing.
“Go f**k yourself!” Stewart sang, adding, “F**k, f**k, f**k yourself, just go f**k yourself!” while the choir repeated the phrase in the background.
In his screed about Colbert, Stewart accused CBS of targeting Colbert in an attempt to gain favor from President Donald Trump. Stewart’s show airs on Comedy Central, which is also owned by Paramount Global.
“If you believe, as corporations or as networks,” said Stewart, “you can make yourself so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless you’ll never again be on the boy-king’s radar, A) Why will anyone watch you? And you are f**king wrong! You want to know how impossible it is to stay on Lord Farquaad’s good side? Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News!”
RELATED: Liberals really want to believe Colbert’s show was canceled for political reasons
Many on social media found the display childish and embarrassing.
“Left-wing media is populated by entitled, spoiled brats,” responded investigative journalist Jen Van Laar.
“This is precisely the kind of partisan, juvenile slop that led to Colbert’s unprofitability and, in time, will lead Jon Stewart to the same place. ‘Yelling expletives at Trump with a gospel choir’ is not clever or entertaining. It’s garbage,” replied Christopher Rufo.
“This reminds me of an angry teen yelling at his parents when told they are grounded for some teen transgression,” read one response. “And this man is 62 years old. If there were any sense in Stewart he would look at this in a few days and cringe.”
“Very disrespectful to get a Church choir to sing curse words and blasphemy. Very low and unnecessary. Even if the singers and musicians are not from a real church choir, still a terrible thing to do,” read another response.
Others have accused Trump, without evidence, of ordering the cancellation of the show and called the decision the latest example of “fascism” from the administration. Although the show has been canceled, Colbert will have one more year of broadcast time to criticize Trump and Paramount Global.
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Jon stewart expletive choir, Jon stewart vs paramount global, Cancellation of stephen colbert, Trump vs late nite, Politics
US House more than doubles security spending for members’ homes and protective details
Each U.S. House member will receive up to $20,000 to install or enhance security systems at their home residences and up to $5,000 a month to hire private security teams through September 2025, the Committee on House Administration announced Tuesday.
The huge funding boost for home and personal security comes more than five weeks after the June 14 assassination of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) and her husband, Mark Hortman, inside their suburban Minneapolis home.
The USCP Threat Assessment Section investigated 9,474 ‘concerning statements and direct threats’ against members of Congress in 2024.
The suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, faces a possible death sentence under a federal grand jury indictment handed up July 15. His federal public defender said Boelter plans to plead not guilty to all charges when he is arraigned Sept. 12 in Minneapolis.
Boelter is accused of a gruesome plot to murder at least seven Minnesota lawmakers and family members in the predawn hours of June 14. The FBI said Boelter shot state Sen. John Hoffman (DFL-Champlin) nine times and his wife, Yvette, eight times in their suburban home. Boelter went on to force his way into the Hortman residence and killed the former Minnesota House speaker, her husband, and their golden retriever, the FBI said.
Boelter was reportedly dressed as a police officer and drove an SUV painted and outfitted to look like a police vehicle. The FBI found what it said was a hit list in the suspect’s SUV containing the names of more than 45 primarily Democrat lawmakers from six states.
$5,000 per month
“The enhanced member security framework aims to address security gaps and alleviate members’ concerns while fulfilling their duties as elected officials, particularly in their districts and residences,” the Committee on House Administration said in a statement.
“This plan will bolster the lifetime Residential Security Program limit to $20,000 for each member, to allow for a more comprehensive suite of security equipment to be installed at their residences and address rising costs in security equipment since the start of the program,” read a one-page circular sent to all House members. The previous limit was $10,000.
RELATED: Accused Minnesota assassin: ‘If you want to save the country you have to get your hands dirty’
US Capitol Police will work with local law enforcement to increase security for members of Congress in their districts. Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images
The plan increases the monitoring and maintenance allotment from $150 per month to $5,000, and allows members to “use the proposed allotment to hire licensed and insured individuals or companies to provide personal security for the remainder of FY2025,” the memo said.
Under the plan, the House Security Assistance Authorization program will work with U.S. Capitol Police to develop memoranda of understanding with local police in each member’s district so “local law enforcement can provide additional coverage should a threat arise,” the memo said.
Capitol Police officials have reported a sharp increase in threats to members of Congress in recent years. The USCP Threat Assessment Section investigated 9,474 “concerning statements and direct threats” against members of Congress in 2024. That figure represented an 18% increase from 2023.
Threat cases rose every year since 2017 except 2022, the year after the Jan. 6 protests and rioting, Capitol Police reported in February 2025.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) moved up the start of the annual August recess, with the final House votes taking place July 23. House business will resume Sept. 2 after the Labor Day holiday.
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Vance boelter, Melissa hortman, Assassination, Mike johnson, Politics
Business spending reaches near 30-year high under Trump: ‘It’s the real deal’
Business production spending has seen its highest climb since 1997, when accounting for post-COVID reopenings, the Trump administration has announced in a release obtained by Blaze News.
Capital expenditures — or capex, which refer to what companies spend on their research and development, software, transportation, and more — are a great way to gauge how much businesses are expanding or developing their operations.
Additionally, real wages are also rising, according to the Trump administration, and the growth speed in 2025 has been outpaced by only one previous administration.
‘Trump is a real idea man. Everything in his plan is interconnected.’
Business equipment production jumped 11% in Q2 2025 after already garnering a 23% gain in Q1, which marks the strongest growth since 1997, the announcement said.
“President Trump’s capex comeback has clearly been generated by the One Big Beautiful Bill,” Joe Lavorgna, counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, told Blaze News. “Businesses trusted from the get-go that President Trump would implement positive policies, and they implemented them sooner rather than later. This caused the growth we’ve seen in both quarters.”
Capex are up over 16% in the first half of 2025, the administration explained, noting that there is a major wave of investment in American industry already under way.
Another strong factor the administration pointed to was the growth of blue-collar wages. Lavorgna said that President Trump had one former president he had to compete with in this regard: himself.
RELATED: Read it and weep: Tariffs work, and the numbers prove it
“Real wages are rising at a very fast pace. The second fastest ever, second only to President Trump in 2017,” Lavorgna told Blaze News.
Secretary Bessent said on X that thanks to Trump’s policies, real wages for hourly workers are up nearly 2% in the first five months of Trump’s second term. This marks the strongest growth in the category in 60 years.
Lavorgna added, “The ‘big, beautiful bill’ was designed to encourage high-tech manufacturing, and the fact that wages for non-supervisory production workers are going up, that means we’re making the right moves.”
In comparison, President Biden saw a 1.7% decline, while Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan all saw negative growth in real wages.
RELATED: We’re finally living through the conservative revolution we’ve always needed
Lavorgna stressed that the Trump administration wants to bring high-value manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and at the same time, ramp up production in certain industries to become a worldwide leader.
This includes the artificial intelligence race, which has seen significant investment that has since spawned data centers and campuses. These campuses and centers employ more people and need more energy brought to them, providing employment to even more people.
“Trump is a real idea man. Everything in his plan is interconnected; it’s the real deal,” Lavorgna added.
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Economy, News, President trump, Blue collar, Industry, Manufacturing, Wages, Ai, Politics
Mainstream media has new talking points about what Trump is up to
The first six months into President Donald Trump’s second term have been strong, with early victories, including the southern border being secured and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act becoming law.
‘There’s zero self-reflection.’
The mainstream media appears to be on the same page with one another, however, with similar headlines pushing the idea that Trump is talking about several other topics to “distract” from the Epstein files.
“Critics say Trump trying to distract from Epstein by talking about everything but that” — ABC News“As MAGA world focuses on Epstein, Trump seeks focus on anything else” — the Washington Post“Trump administration delves into MAGA distractions in deviation from the so-called Epstein files” — the Independent“Trump’s wildly fascistic posting spree isn’t just a distraction from Epstein” — Rolling Stone“CNN’s Erin Burnett nails the playbook behind Donald Trump’s Epstein distraction blitz” — HuffPost
While the controversy over the Epstein files has caused great debate with Trump’s base, other pressing issues have sprung up in the weeks since the leaked Epstein memo from the Department of Justice. The mainstream media might call Trump’s actions “distractions,” but others note they are par for the course for Trump’s leadership style.
RELATED: DOJ reaches out to one major Epstein witness everyone’s been afraid to talk to
DOJ reaches out to one major Epstein witness everyone’s been afraid to talk to Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan | Getty Images
Curtis Houck, managing editor of the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, said this lock-in-step approach from major news media organizations is nothing new.
“There’s zero self-reflection or chance to cry uncle. Incredibly, doing so might help them regain a modicum of credibility. Instead, these partisan tools go into character assassination mode of the person sharing said information and/or claim they’re invalid due to its timing,” he told Blaze Media.
“Here, the Russian collusion hoax has been nearly a decade in the making, and they’re surely not going to stop now. The liberal media and their allies in elected office and the deep state can say whatever they want about the timing in correlation with the Epstein hubbub, but the American people are tired of excuses,” Houck continued. “Director [Tulsi] Gabbard and her team provided a stunning, one-stop shop for what happened with the Obama regime and how their plan was so easily given birth in the liberal media.”
As for the release of files related to the Jeffery Epstein case, Trump has already ordered the DOJ to release the relevant case files to the public as soon as possible.
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Leftists go full conspiracy theorists after Stephen Colbert’s show is canceled
After 11 seasons of Stephen Colbert’s political commentary, “The Late Show” on CBS has come to an end — and while leftist politicians are in disbelief, BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere is not even close to surprised.
“Before we start our show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending ‘The Late Show’ in May,” Colbert told his audience.
“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” he added.
A CBS News executive said in a statement that the show’s cancellation wasn’t “related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matter happening at Paramount.”
“Now, obviously, the first thing you do is you jump to the big conspiracy theory, right?” Burguiere says on “Stu Does America.” “We’re told all the time that we on the right are the big conspiracy theorists. Of course, it’s not just like podcasters on the left going to conspiracy theories. It’s like mainstream left-wing politicians.”
Unsurprisingly, one of those left-wing politicians is Elizabeth Warren.
“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons,” Warren wrote in a post on X.
“Fascinating, of course, because the whole show was political. The whole thing was political. They didn’t care about that show being political because it benefited them the entire time. Now that politics might be getting in their way, they don’t like it so much,” Stu comments.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also joined in to theorize on the cancellation of Colbert’s show, posting on X, “People deserve to know if this is a politically motivated attack on free speech.”
Stacey Abrams also opined over the CBS show’s cancellation, posting several photos of herself on the show.
“Maybe that’s part of the problem, that he invited you on this,” Stu laughs.
Want more from Stu?
To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
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It’s the hottest conference in tech. Here’s how Reindustrialize plans to save America from the scrap heap.
As tech summits go, the only thing like last week’s Reindustrialize conference — the name speaks for itself — is last year’s Reindustrialize conference. It debuted in Detroit, a symbolic statement so powerful the event doubled down and returned to Motor City for its second run. With strategic, technological, and business interests flowing with speed and urgency toward hard tech and heavy industry, Reindustrialize — co-founded by the New American Industrial Alliance — is a most well-timed beast.
I got NAIA CEO Austin Bishop and Board Chairman Julius Krein on the phone to chat about the origins of Reindustrialize, the moment for action, and the possibilities of the future. (Our interview below has been edited for length and clarity.)
James Poulos: Why reindustrialize now? Some say it’s too late!
Austin Bishop: It’s definitely not too late. We should have done something like this many years ago, but I think only now is it possible to have a coalition of companies, institutional investors, builders, policy and government leaders who actually care about this stuff because things have gotten to the point where you can’t really ignore the realities of the decisions that we made over the last few decades.
I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. The impacts of some of the trade and industrial policy decisions that were made were obvious to anyone in Cleveland. But I don’t think the broader country has really felt the real costs of moving our production overseas. A lot of places have done great as we’ve moved into a peer services economy — look at Silicon Valley; look at Wall Street.
Photo courtesy Reindustrialize
COVID really accelerated what was going to be an inevitability. COVID hit, and everyone in America felt the supply chain crisis for the first time. There’s been plenty of white papers battling in the marketplace of ideas, but for the first time people actually felt it in the literal marketplace where moms in the Midwest couldn’t get baby formula because the Suez Canal was blocked. No white paper is going to be nearly as persuasive as when people feel it in their pocketbooks.
Folks where I’m from felt this trend long ago when, for example, LTV Steel laid off tons of people back in the late 90s. Those people felt it, for sure. But I don’t think the country as a whole was acutely impacted by these decisions. It’s been slow.
On our end, we think this is the best time, and I think both sides of the aisle are seeing this too. This is the time for us to really push for a change in our posture on the world stage and how we think about our economy and the downstream civic effects of offshoring our jobs.
Julius Krein: Is it too late? It would have been great if we could have done this earlier, but I think things happen because it’s the right time.
I’ve noticed a real shift in the investor world over the last several months of, you know, “this is the most interesting game in town,” and a lot of these deficiencies that Austin mentioned are hitting in other ways. The AI boom is very interesting for a number of reasons, but one reason is that all these companies are more capital-intensive now, whether it’s energy or other industries. I think if you want to make AI more than just making dumb videos on the internet, you’ve got to think about AI-enabled, advanced manufacturing in the physical space.
So, for all those reasons, it is the right time, and I think the opportunities look bigger than they have in my lifetime. But there are also big challenges out there.
JP: You talk about timing, and the iron logic here is that you can’t reindustrialize unless you first deindustrialize. So let’s talk a little bit about deindustrializing. The blame game can be lame, but do you see some real villains here? Who is responsible for getting us into this situation? At a macro level, why is it that the U.S. was put on the path of seeing deindustrialization as the future?
AB: I’ll give the Trump answer. The Chinese are, with a lot of their industrial policy, forcibly deindustrializing us, but I don’t blame them. This is the game theory of it. It’s smart, and I wish we had leaders who were that smart. Not to the point where we’re going to forcibly deindustrialize other countries. Our group does not exist to deindustrialize any other country.
I just want our country to not be deindustrialized anymore. Our pushing for policies that incentivize or allow offshoring implicitly created the situation that we’re in now, and I don’t want to point too many fingers, but I was in hedge funds for a long time. Look at the valuations of these businesses. And really the multiples that you see on them only make sense when you’re in the world that we’re in now, where so much of the labor costs, for example, are overseas.
JK: There are certain individuals, organizations, companies one could name that were perhaps more enthusiastic about deindustrialization than would ever be warranted, but I think it’s probably less about villains per se than just the mindset that originated after the Cold War or even the second half of the 20th century.
I don’t think U.S. policymakers ever really imagined that a country could pursue economic development with the goal not to make individual consumers or individual stock market investors wealthy, but to actually build industrial and technological capacity and skills with the goal of geopolitical dominance and not merely financial enrichment.
On a related note, there’s been this view that free markets are when the U.S. government does nothing, but maybe what’s happening is that the absence of U.S. involvement just meant greater Chinese Communist Party intervention in the shaping of our markets. I think a lot of the free-market stuff obscured what was a pretty coordinated, almost unprecedented campaign of market manipulation in the U.S. by the Chinese Communist Party. So a lot of people, particularly on the right, perhaps dropped the ball.
AB: These are not McKinley respecters. Even with what happened around China joining the WTO, no one was saying that we need to lose these jobs to China because, on net, it’s going to be better for the economy. Most people explicitly said they would not lose jobs due to China’s permanent normalized trade relations and China joining the WTO, and we then went on to lose 10 million jobs over the next decade and a half.
Photo courtesy Reindustrialize
JP: Well, heading into the 70s — and you’ve got this from some of the right as well as parts of the left, was industry is bad for human beings. It destroys the environment, it makes life uglier, it wears people down, it’s dehumanizing — the Christopher Lasch broadside against industrialization.
So, when you look at technology, you look at how tech was built up as a savior or an alternative to industry. And now you have a lot of guys thinking, “Well, wait a minute. We definitely don’t want to get rid of tech, but we don’t want to get rid of industry either.” Yet if we surrender, if we sacrifice humanity at the altar of industry and technology, that’s also bad.
So, how do you identify that middle zone of harmony, and how do you implement that in the world?
JK: First, the environmental movement. Certainly, there was something real there when the rivers were on fire. It wasn’t like nothing needed to be done. But it went off in and, to some extent always contained within it, some very strange directions.
Initially, the environmental movement was the coal guys against nuclear. But what’s interesting now is that the environmentalists realize that they went too far and are now pushing for permitting reform. They can’t build renewable energy because of the systems they themselves created. So I think we’re seeing a healthy correction, perhaps. But on a deeper level, what’s interesting is that we think of tech now as software separated from hardware, and I think that that’s a step back.
Designing and building a steam engine is very high tech, or was at the time. Even today, you have to have your hardware somewhere, or else the software will be worthless, like with your iPhone, for example. It’s only as a financial matter that these things can truly be separated.
The most interesting people in Silicon Valley, the most ambitious and talented people, as far as I can tell, don’t want to build SaaS anymore. It’s boring, it’s flattening, it’s uninteresting.
The idea of coming up with a way to build a ship or aerospace stuff better than anyone’s done it — that’s where I think the excitement is, not just from a national security or business perspective, but from an intellectual and human perspective as well.
AB: On the last point Julius made, the types of businesses, especially at the earlier stage that we’re talking about that are making physical things, rockets, supply chain logistics businesses, tooling, aerospace parts, even all the way to agriculture and food production — these are just way more charismatic businesses to build in the first place, and at the risk of being unserious, I do think that in America, at least in the 20th century going forward, tooling always wins.
Everyone’s getting really excited about these businesses that we’re talking about here, whether it’s in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, all the above, energy. You have 20-year-olds going out and starting nuclear businesses, nuclear power plant businesses. That person will have a way easier time recruiting talent, and we already see it. These people have been massively charismatic and massively successful in building out early teams.
Now, that again is at the very early stage. We have to say not that those guys aren’t serious, but that we have problems we must solve right now.
I’m not completely convinced that most of the problems we face right now are tech problems. China is not ahead of us in manufacturing because they have some space-age technology that we don’t have. In fact, most of the tech they have was stolen from us. Most of the problems we face both on an industrial level and downstream of that are simply just because we can’t make stuff and therefore, we move stuff overseas. But the bigger problem is the policies that we created that have led to the situation where some of these jobs go overseas.
JP: Coming out of a substantial, although not total, swing of support in and around tech toward Trump and the potential of a fundamental effort at reform, it’s always a risk to bite off more than you can chew, but there does seem to be a collective sense that this is the time to take the big swing. Bearing that in mind, where do you want to be in a year from now? What can we expect across the organization in terms of your agenda and ambitions for the new year?
Photo courtesy Reindustrialize
JK: Longer term, we’re focused on everything from deregulation and permitting reform, both for energy and industry, as well as on the investment side. There’s been a bipartisan proposal kicking around for a new development bank that we think could be especially useful in addressing some of these issues across industry sectors. The Biden administration pioneered some models to get more private capital into certain sectors and key areas, but they were not as successful as they could have been.
The new administration can do that much bigger and better. Especially, we have an investment banker at the Department of Commerce and an investor at Treasury. I think they get this very intuitively and could really hit it out of the park. The White House could easily invest in these physical sectors as well, and I think that that could be a huge win.
AB: We’re growing very quickly. We have all these great companies joining, from old industry, new industry, high tech, low tech … all these great folks from the investor world.
A real measure for success a year from now is continuous growth in this coalition that we’ve built. Being able to point to the meaningful impact we had on the regulatory front on policies that incentivize more companies to be more competitive, both on the procurement side as well as incentivizing more investment in this space, is crucial.
On the summit side, we were blessed to have four different states bidding on the summit. We’re building the summit into the premier forum for senior leaders across capital companies and government. We want to have senior people from both sides of the aisle. We have a lot of folks from the admin we’re very friendly with, and then there’s people in the company and investor world as well.
JK: One more thing I’ve noticed in doing this is there’s a divide in mindset or even “branding” across the U.S. hard tech and manufacturing landscape right now where we don’t think of companies in Ohio — your legacy manufacturing — as tech, but they are, or they could be, or they need to be.
Likewise, we have a lot of Silicon Valley stuff that thinks of itself as tech. But now they need to scale up. They need to build those factories in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, and elsewhere. They’ve got the technology, they’ve got the IP. Now it’s time to actually build that physical infrastructure, which is the hard part to fundraise for. We need to bring these two sides together.
AB: The main takeaway is there’s something bigger than any of us individually happening, and when you ask that question again, “Why now?” we’re not really asserting this is the right time. There’s a massive wave. It just demonstrably is.
Tech, Reindustrialize
Male wielding 2 knives caught on police bodycam video jumping from window, running at cop, stabbing officer
Police in Amherst, New York, earlier this month responded to a 911 call for a domestic violence-related incident in the 4800 block of North Bailey Avenue, officials said. Amherst is about 20 minutes northeast of Buffalo.
Police on Thursday released bodycam video showing what happened after officers arrived at the residence in question around 5 p.m. July 12.
Bodycam video also shows the officers attending to the suspect’s wounds and one of the officers bleeding from his left arm.
Video appears to show a male jumping out of a window from the rear of the house:
Image source: Amherst (N.Y.) Police Department
Video then shows the male running toward one of the officers armed with a knife in each hand, WIVB-TV reported.
Amherst Police Chief Scott Chamberlin told the station that the suspect was upon the officer “within two seconds.”
Image source: Amherst (N.Y.) Police Department
Police said 26-year-old Rayquell M. Grant stabbed Amherst Police Officer Aidan Vangelov twice — once in the shoulder and once in the arm, WIVB reported.
Image source: Amherst (N.Y.) Police Department
Image source: Amherst (N.Y.) Police Department
Officer Vangelov and another responding officer, Lt. Matthew Lobuglio, opened fire on Grant, police said, adding that a taser was initially deployed but didn’t connect.
Image source: Amherst (N.Y.) Police Department
Image source: Amherst (N.Y.) Police Department
Bodycam video also shows the officers attending to the suspect’s wounds, and one of the officers bleeding from his left arm.
You can view the bodycam video below.
Content warning: Police said in the YouTube description of the bodycam video that it may contain strong language and images that some may find disturbing:
Officer Vangelov was treated for stab wounds to his arm at the Erie County Medical Center, and Grant was taken to the same facility for gunshot wounds to his chest and arm, officials told WIVB in a separate story.
“My office conducted a thorough review of the officer-involved shooting,” Erie County District Attorney Mike Keane said in a statement, according to the station. “We have determined that the actions of the police officers were justified. The members of the Amherst Police Department who fired the shots that resulted in injuries to the defendant have been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.”
Grant was charged Friday with first-degree attempted murder, first-degree attempted assault, and second-degree assault in connection with the incident, officials added to WIVB.
Grant allegedly was wanted for failure to appear in court on a pending domestic violence-related case before the incident unfolded, officials added to the station.
Grant was being held without bail, WIVB said, adding that the charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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Trump says ‘irrefutable proof’ shows Obama is guilty of ‘treason’ — and names other Dems in ‘biggest scandal’ in US history
President Donald Trump said that many top Democrat figures were guilty of “treason” based on new findings from the Dept. of Justice, and he named names to reporters on Tuesday.
Trump cited a report from Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, that provided evidence of a plot by former President Barack Obama with former FBI Director James Comey, former DNI James Clapper, and John Brennan, former director of the CIA.
‘The leader of the gang was Barack Hussein Obama. He’s guilty. This was treason.’
The president made the comments Tuesday morning while answering reporters’ questions.
“They caught President Obama absolutely cold,” said Trump. “Tulsi Gabbard. What they did to this country, starting in 2016, but going up all the way, going up to 2020 and the election, they tried to rig the election. And they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that.”
Some had noted that the president had posted on his social media in May a meme calling for military tribunals and pointing to Obama.
“You know when we caught Hillary Clinton, I said, ‘You know what? Let’s not go too far here.’ It’s the ex-wife of a president, and I thought it was sort of terrible, and I let her off the hook. And I’m very happy I did. But it’s time to start, after what they did to me, and whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” he continued.
“Obama’s been caught directly,” the president said. “So people say, ‘Oh, you know, a group.’ It’s not a group. It’s Obama. His orders are on the paper. The papers are signed. The papers came right out of their office. They sent everything to be highly classified. Well, the classified’s been released, and what they did in 2016 and in 2020 is very criminal. It’s criminal at the highest level. So that’s really the things you should be talking about.”
RELATED: Election officials rage as Trump administration pushes for election security
When asked who the DOJ should target, the president specifically mentioned top Democratic figures.
“Based on what I read, and I read pretty much what you read, it would be President Obama. He started it. And Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper, the whole group was there. Brennan. They were all there. In a room. Right here, this was the room,” he said.
“The leader of the gang was President Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. … He’s guilty. This was treason. This was every word you could think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever even imagined, even in other countries.”
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He said there was “absolute” proof and tied the scandal to the autopen as well.
“This is proof, irrefutable proof, that Obama was [seditious],” said Trump.
“That Obama was trying to lead a coup. And it was with Hillary Clinton, with all these other people, but Obama headed it up. And you know I get a kick when I hear everyone talks about people I never even heard of, no no,” he added.
“It was Obama; he headed it up. And it says so right in the papers. … This is the biggest scandal in the history of our country, and it really goes on to even the autopen, because it all relates to the same thing. It all started [with] the same sick minds,” the president said.
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Trump accuses obama, Trump says treason, Obama treason, Trump names plot, Politics
Syria’s terrorist regime just killed an American citizen — more Christians, Druze are next
Those who warned that the takeover of Damascus by Turkish-backed Islamic terrorists might bode poorly for Christians and other minorities in Syria have unfortunately been vindicated by the massacres, bombings, rapes, and kidnappings executed by Sunni radicals in recent days and months.
According to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as of Sunday, over 1,200 people had been killed in the brutal clashes that broke out on July 13 between Sunni Muslim Bedouin clans, which were aided at times by government forces, and Druze-linked militias in Syria’s southern Druze-majority Suwayda province.
Among those slain in cold blood was Hosam Saraya, an American citizen and Oklahoman who Sens. Markwayne Mullin (R) and James Lankford (R) confirmed was executed alongside several members of his Druze family in Syria. An American relative of the deceased told CNN that Saraya had traveled to Syria to tend to his sick father.
Footage reportedly taken on July 17 shows a group of what appear to be government troops marching eight unarmed men — one of whom was later identified as Saraya by an American relative — to a roundabout, where they lined them up and gunned them down. While slaughtering the captives, the militants shouted, “Allahu Akbar.”
One of the female survivors of the massacre said in a message to Saraya’s American relative, “Pray for us, they kidnapped the boys, they shot the house, they stole stuff.”
An individual claiming to be a relative of Saraya alleged on X that government security forces were responsible for the American citizen’s execution and stressed that “what’s happening is ethnic cleansing — the systematic killing of minorities, with no real intention for dialogue or protection.”
RELATED: New massacre, old problem: How Syria can protect its religious minorities
Photo by BAKR ALKASEM/AFP via Getty Images
Although Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s forces were supposedly sent to restore order, Reuters indicated they effectively teamed up with the Sunni clans and attacked the Druze community.
It was certainly not the first time that al-Sharaa’s men butchered Druze.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program previously acknowledged that the al-Nusrah Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, carried out multiple terrorist attacks throughout Syria under the leadership of al-Sharaa — also known as Muhammad al-Jawlani.
“In April 2015, ANF reportedly kidnapped, and later released, approximately 300 Kurdish civilians from a checkpoint in Syria,” reads the bounty page for the Islamic terrorist. “In June 2015, ANF claimed responsibility for the massacre of 20 residents in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in Idlib province, Syria.”
The ANF merged with other radical groups to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the terrorist organization that seized the Syrian capital of Damascus in December under al-Sharaa’s leadership and toppled the Assad government — a regime change that the Obama CIA and the Pentagon helped with along the way.
In hopes of “fulfilling President Trump’s vision of a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria,” the U.S. revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation of al-Nusrah Front and HTS on July 8.
‘These are historic, longtime rivalries between different groups in the southwest of Syria.’
When pressed for comment about Saraya’s slaying, a State Department spokesperson told Blaze News the department was “looking into accounts of the death of an individual reported to have been a U.S. citizen in Syria” and that the “U.S. Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens.”
The department later confirmed that an American had indeed been killed in Syria.
The spokesperson refrained from commenting on whether government forces were involved in the slayings, whether the Trump administration was presently considering reapplying sanctions on Syria, and whether it may have been premature to drop the terrorism designation for al-Sharaa and his allies.
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Syrian President Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa. Photo by AREF TAMMAWI/AFP via Getty Images
The situation was complicated further last week by the entry of another warring party.
Apparently without telegraphing its intentions to the U.S. — which has committed to supporting Damascus and a stable Syria — Israel executed a series of strikes last week against Syrian government troops and armor headed to Suwayda.
Axios reported that a day after after U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack asked his Israel counterparts to stand down on July 15, Israel bombed Syria’s military headquarters in Damascus, just near the presidential palace.
Following the Israeli strikes — the stated purpose of which was to protect the Druze — and amid continued fighting in Suwayda, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in the Oval Office on July 16 that “these are historic, longtime rivalries between different groups in the southwest of Syria — Bedouins, the Druze community — and it led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated that President Donald Trump “was caught off guard by [Israel’s] bombing in Syria and also the bombing of the Catholic church in Gaza.”
Barrack, meanwhile, announced on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and al-Sharaa agreed to an American-backed ceasefire.
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Photo by Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbors,” Barrack said.
When the Syrian government attempted to implement the ceasefire over the weekend, fighting reportedly escalated.
‘Khaled Mazhar, the pastor of the Good Shepherd Evangelical Church in Suwayda city, was killed along with his wife, his children, and other relatives.’
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights indicated that “violations include the arrival of reinforcement from military forces affiliated with the Damascus government to the north-western outskirts of Al-Suwaidaa province and along Damascus-Suwaidaa highway.”
Dr. Joel Veldkamp, director for public advocacy at Christian Solidarity International, told Blaze News that while the fighting has been momentarily paused in Suwayda, “the conditions for mass killings are all present,” adding that “hundreds of thousands of Druzes and Alawites (and Sunni Muslim Bedouins) have been driven from their homes in the last few months and are living in precarity, a known risk factor for genocide.”
“The Syrian government is determined to take control of Suwayda governorate by force and seems, at best, unable to do that without sending in jihadist shock troops who will kill people on the basis of their religion,” Veldkamp continued. “If talks break down between the government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast, we could see a replay of last week’s violence in the northeast Syria as well.”
Veldkamp noted that “what we might call slow-motion ethnic/religious cleansing is under way” elsewhere in the country.
“In Homs, Hama, and on the Syrian coast, Alawites and Druzes are abducted on a weekly or even daily basis, and many are looking for a way to flee the country,” Veldkamp said. “Many Alawites, before and after the March massacres, have been expelled from their villages by government forces, and their lands have been distributed to Sunni Muslims.”
Veldkamp confirmed that Christians in Suwayda were also impacted by the government forces’ latest attacks.
“Khaled Mazhar, the pastor of the Good Shepherd Evangelical Church in Suwayda city, was killed along with his wife, his children, and other relatives — 12 people in all,” Veldkamp said. “The Greek Orthodox Church put out a statement saying that their church members, like everyone in the province, were suffering from the cutoff of medicine, water, electricity, and food to the province during last week’s attack. Mar Mikhael Church in the village of Al-Soura Al-Kabira was set on fire.”
Aid to the Church in Need International reported that 38 homes belonging to Christian families were also torched in Al-Soura. Some of those made homeless by the apparent attacks have taken refuge in the hall of a different church, where they are sitting ducks.
‘Al-Sharaa has concentrated power in his own hands, and his forces have now carried out repeated massacres of religious minorities.’
This latest bout of violence comes just weeks after a jihadist opened fire on Syrian Christians gathered for Mass inside the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias in Damascus, then detonated an explosive vest, killing at least 25 Christians and wounding 63 others. A government-linked group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Months earlier, the terrorist regime in Damascus dispatched tens of thousands of security forces and auxiliary fighters to the western coastal region largely populated by Alawites, adherents of an offshoot of Shia Islam, and Christians, where they killed hundreds of perceived Assad loyalists.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, security forces also killed at least 973 civilians in 39 massacres and undertook “executions based on regional and sectarian affiliation.” Women and children were reportedly among the butchered civilians.
The regime denied that it was directly responsible for the massacres on the west coast, but Christian Solidarity indicated that Damascus had called for volunteers to mobilize while Sunni mosques across the country called for a jihad in the coastal region.
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US President Donald Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa (L) along with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (R) on May 14, 2025. Photo by Bandar Al-Jaloud/Saudi Royal Court/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
Veldkamp suggeted that it was premature to drop the terrorism designation for al-Sharaa and his allies, noting that “the terrorism designation was well-earned and was an important piece of leverage that the U.S. could have, and should have, used to demand protection for religious minorities in Syria and an inclusive government.”
“Instead, al-Sharaa has concentrated power in his own hands, and his forces have now carried out repeated massacres of religious minorities,” Veldkamp added.
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Ethnic cleansing, Syria, Damascus, Israel, Terrorism, Jihad, Jihadist, Druze, Christian, Alawite, Ahmed hussein al-sharaa, Jolani, Al qaeda, Al-nusrah, Al-jawlani, Genocide, Murder, Execution, Fighting, War, Donald trump, Marco rubio, Politics