Category: blaze media

“You see how this looks, right?”

That question captures Chris Hansen’s method. He takes a man who believed he was meeting a child for sex and forces him to look at his own conduct from the outside.

We do not merely lie to other people. We lie to ourselves. That is how ‘I knew it was wrong’ can coexist with ‘I did it anyway.’

For more than two decades, Hansen’s predator stings — from NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” to later investigations — have offered a grim case study in self-deception. The men know the conduct is wrong. They choose it anyway. Then, when Hansen arrives with the transcripts, they scramble to preserve the belief that they are good men.

In other words, Chris Hansen has given us a case study in sin.

The basic scenario is familiar. An adult begins communicating online with someone he believes is underage. The age is made explicit. The conversation becomes sexual. A meeting is arranged. The man drives to the house.

Then Hansen walks into the room.

“Have a seat. What are you doing here?”

Almost nobody simply says, “I came here because I wanted to have sex with a child.”

Instead, the explanations begin.

“I just came to talk.” “I was lonely.” “I wanted to make sure she was OK.” “I knew this was probably a setup.” Sometimes the man insists he intended to warn the supposed child about the dangers of talking to strangers online.

Then Hansen produces the chat logs.

He reads an explicit message in that grave, almost bureaucratic voice and asks, “What did you mean by that?” Everyone knows what it means. The point is that the words are no longer private. Hansen has dragged the man’s rationalizations into the open and placed them next to the evidence.

Now the story changes. Simple denial will not work, so the explanation becomes biography. He was lonely. He was depressed. He had a hard day. The goal is no longer to deny the conduct but to move the audience’s sympathy toward the man who chose it.

Hansen keeps returning to the same question: Does any of that make it acceptable to send sexual messages to someone who told you she was 13?

The excuses collapse one by one.

RELATED: Christians are missing the opportunity next door

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Perhaps he missed the message stating the child’s age. Hansen points to the exchange in which the decoy asked whether the age was a problem and the man said it was not.

Perhaps he never intended to do anything sexual. Hansen reads the acts the man described in his own messages.

Perhaps he changed his mind on the drive over. Then why did he keep driving? Why did he knock on the door? Why did he bring condoms?

If he knew it was wrong, why did he still show up?

At some point, the rational answers run out. What remains is the answer many of the men cannot bear to say plainly: I wanted to do this.

Instead, they reach for the self-image they are desperate to protect. “I’m not a predator.” “I’m a good person.” “I just made one stupid mistake.”

The deception is not merely directed at Hansen. Much of it appears to be directed inward.

They are trying to preserve a portrait of themselves that the evidence no longer supports. Dorian Gray had the decency to keep his portrait hidden in the attic. Hansen puts the chat log on the kitchen table.

This is where Hansen becomes an accidental moral philosopher. He keeps asking a question human beings are remarkably good at avoiding: Why did you do what you did if you knew it was wrong?

The answer is frequently, “I don’t know.”

Philosophers have a name for part of this problem: weakness of the will, or akrasia. A person judges one course of action to be better and chooses another anyway.

Christianity goes farther. Sin is not merely rule-breaking. It disorders desire and corrupts our understanding of ourselves. Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful. Paul describes people as suppressing truths they do not want to face.

We do not merely lie to other people. We lie to ourselves.

That is how “I knew it was wrong” can coexist with “I did it anyway.” Fallen human beings do not merely fail to do the good they claim to know. They can learn to love what is evil while renaming it good. Milton gives Satan the line: “Evil, be thou my good.”

Some of the strangest Hansen encounters make the point even more sharply: The men recognize him.

They have watched the show. They know what happens. They have seen other men caught in precisely the same way. Yet they somehow never placed themselves in the same category.

Those guys were predators. I’m different.

Hansen sometimes asks whether they have children the same age as the decoy. Many do. What would they think if a grown man sent their child these messages? The moral judgment suddenly becomes easy — until Hansen turns it back on them.

That brings us to the problem with toxic empathy.

Compassion is a virtue. But compassion becomes morally destructive when it rearranges the categories of victim and perpetrator.

A man who drives to a house believing he is about to sexually exploit a child may indeed be lonely. He may have suffered. He may have psychological problems. Those facts can help explain him. They do not make him the victim of the encounter.

RELATED: The lion, the witch, and the worldview war

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The child he intended to exploit is the victim.

Our culture increasingly prefers therapeutic questions: What happened to him? Why is he hurting? How did society fail him? Those can be legitimate questions. They become toxic when they displace the more basic moral question: What did he choose to do to someone else?

Hansen’s great contribution is remarkably simple. He puts the evidence on the table and asks the person to account for it.

In an interview with me, Hansen said he learned something from Mike Wallace: Sometimes the most powerful question is simply, “Explain.”

That is why the format has a moral force larger than the television sting itself. Explanation is where excuses either become clearer or finally run out.

For more than 20 years, Hansen’s subjects have demonstrated something Christianity has taught for 2,000 years. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Jeremiah admonishes, “and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Hansen’s kitchen table is not a confessional. But it is a place where self-deception has a hard time surviving the evidence.

​Chris hansen, Christianity, Toxic empathy, Sin, To catch a predator, Predators, Akrasia, Culture, Mike wallace, Dorian gray, Opinion & analysis 

Some of the major corporations that once wrapped themselves in the LGBT flag and embraced racist DEI initiatives have in recent years signaled a change in tack.

It appears that this may have been a pump fake — that normalcy advocates may have been premature in celebrating the apparent return to sanity at Ford Motor Company, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile.

‘Companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.’

The 1792 Exchange, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to educate lawmakers about the dangers of woke corporate policies, has been tracking various businesses’ DEI commitments, participation in the LGBTQ activist organization Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, and their nonbusiness activities — particularly those with an ideological bent.

For example, Ford signaled in 2024 that it would be undergoing some reform on the woke front.

Ford CEO Jim Farley noted in an August 2024 memo obtained by normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck that the automotive company would: focus on taking care of its customers and employees as opposed to “publicly commenting on the polarizing issues of the day”; end its participation in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index; and ensure that its policies and practices “drive business results.”

RELATED: Gay Atlantic writer whines to Bill Maher that LGBT extremism is blowing up support for homosexual ‘marriage’

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The watchdog also highlighted how:

T-Mobile announced in a July 2025 letter to the Federal Communications Commission that it was dissolving its DEI roles and corresponding initiatives and instead partnering with “third party suppliers, community groups, and other organizations … to advance our core business objectives”;Target announced that it would cease participation in the Corporate Equality Index, “further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to [the company’s] roadmap for growth,” and end its DEI goals; andMolson Coors signaled in September 2024 that it would cease participation in the CEI and end DEI-based training programs and donations to divisive events.

Allen Mendenhall, a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation’s American Investor Initiative, told the Daily Signal in June that these changes were part of a broader “market correction and a cultural correction.”

“Businesses are increasingly rejecting pressure from activist investors and corporate bureaucracies in favor of listening to consumers and respecting longstanding moral and religious convictions,” continued Mendenhall. “Top-down cultural engineering is losing its grip.”

The 1792 Exchange pointed out a month ago that some of these supposedly reformed corporations haven’t lost their woke reflexes.

Target, for instance, was listed this year as a platinum sponsor of New York City Pride, a supposed “carnival-style celebration for LGBTQIA+ youth, their families, and allies.” The stated aim of this year’s parade was to “empower and educate queer youth with a variety of queer- and gender-affirming resources and activities.”

This included a political rally “to demand protections for trans and queer youth.”

This year, Target was also listed as a sponsor on numerous other LGBT activist events, including Jersey Pride, LA! Pride in Los Angeles; Utah Pride in Salt Lake City; Pride Houston 365 in Texas; and San Francisco Pride.

Through its Vizzy Hard Seltzer brand, Molson Coors was named a “silver sponsor” of Jersey Pride, a “diamond partner” of Miami Beach Pride, and a presenting sponsor of Denver Pride, where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement signage was visible in the parade.

T-Mobile is also still backing LGBT activist events. T-Mobile Fiber is listed both as a gold-level sponsor of Phoenix Pride’s Rainbows Festival and as a bronze-level sponsor of Capital City Pride in Des Moines, Iowa. Metro by T-Mobile is listed as a sponsor for this year’s Philly Pride 365.

Children appear to have been present at these events despite the heavy sexual themes and imagery.

Ford, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News by deadline.

The 1792 Exchange noted that “publicly traded companies have a fiduciary responsibility to create long-term value for shareholders while remaining consistent with their publicly stated commitments and corporate values. When engaging in charitable giving or corporate sponsorships, companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.”

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​Ford, Leftism, Lgbt, Molson coors, Pride parade, Robby starbuck, T-mobile, Target, Woke business, Politics 

After nearly two decades of convincing an entire generation that human connection works best as a door-to-door sales catalog, Silicon Valley has run into a small problem. Match Group, the digital giant that built an empire by turning romance into an endless loop of low-consequence choices, recently surveyed the cultural wreckage and decided it was time to sell us back the exact social structures it helped demolish.

The corporate headquarters in Dallas has relaunched Upward. Once a modest corner of the internet reserved for devout Christians, the platform is being repositioned as a refuge for anyone tired of standard app culture. Upward now features a “chivalry mode” that encourages men to send the first message, sets clear timelines for getting married, and includes explicit prompts for those willing to pay for dinner.

It’s cynical. It’s brilliant. It’s America.

The executives at Match Group call these users “next-gen traditionalists.” The Atlantic, observing the exact same shift with its usual mixture of mild anxiety and high-minded condescension, labeled the phenomenon a “regressive streak.” Beyond the elite media commentary, the commercial calculation is far simpler. The industry spent far too long marketing infinite option value to young adults, only to discover that the modern romance industry mostly produces desperate souls sitting alone in apartments, eating takeout, and endlessly scrolling their phones.

The writers at the Atlantic seem genuinely perplexed that a 25-year-old woman might want a husband who can change a flat tire and feels no deep emotional turmoil about picking up the check. In the cultural ecosystem of coastal media institutions, traditional social scripts are routinely framed as oppressive remnants of a primitive past. To the editorial board, a man offering to pay for a meal looks like an act of subtle subjugation. To a young woman who has spent three straight years negotiating ambiguous coffee dates with men who view basic adult commitment as a boundary violation, it looks like basic common sense.

The sickness and the cure

This corporate about-face marks a classic cycle of modern commerce. Silicon Valley gained dominance by fostering a problem, extracting massive financial value from the resulting confusion, and then inventing a brand-new product line to fix the damage. Tinder and its corporate siblings taught young Americans to view potential partners as temporary inventory. The result was a dramatic decline in marriage rates, plummeting birth rates, and widespread romantic exhaustion. Having successfully monetized the dissolution of traditional dating, the industry is now monetizing its restoration. It’s cynical. It’s brilliant. It’s America.

RELATED: These influencers can’t stop crying on camera — now they’re superstars

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The cultural gatekeepers spent decades telling young people that structure was the enemy of authentic living. Every traditional expectation regarding how men and women interact was systematically dismantled in favor of complete, unscripted autonomy. But people do not thrive in spaces devoid of rules. When every social interaction requires a fresh, ground-up negotiation over roles, expectations, and intentions, the result is less freedom than total paralysis.

Young men were hit particularly hard by this rather perverse social experiment. For years, they received explicit instructions that traditional masculine initiative was predatory, overbearing, outdated, and dangerously toxic. Then they logged onto mainstream dating apps and found that women still overwhelmingly preferred men who took charge, planned dates, and made their intentions known. The culture demanded passive neutrality, while reality demanded action. By explicitly asking men to step up and pursue with clear purpose, Upward is merely acknowledging a reality that elite institutions spent decades trying to educate out of the population.

Normal is no mystery

The media class often treats traditional marriage as an ancient artifact that survived by accident. They view old-fashioned courtship as something that must be constantly explained away or neutralized with appropriate progressive caveats. What they fail to grasp is that traditional structures survived for centuries because they align perfectly with fundamental human desires. People want permanence. They want clear expectations. They want to build families with partners who consider commitment a virtue rather than a compromise.

When a massive tech company changes its business strategy to cater to old-fashioned rituals, it’s not running an ideological crusade. Silicon Valley responds strictly to consumer demand and revenue metrics. Match Group is shifting strategy because the infinite-choice model has run out of runway. The revolution promised endless novelty, but delivered misery on a massive scale.

Some young Americans are perhaps adopting traditional dating habits out of nostalgia for a time they never lived through. But most are adopting them because the alternative failed. The counterculture in America is no longer found in rejecting traditional norms, but in building a stable household, raising children, and expecting a partner to be there in the good times and the bad. The boardrooms of Big Tech have finally read the room, even if the writers at the Atlantic are still trying to understand why anyone would want a husband who not only books the dinner reservation but doesn’t insist on going Dutch.

​Tech, Dating, Apps, Christians, Chivalry 

Jenn Nizza is an ex-psychic medium who converted to Christianity over a decade ago. Her platform today heavily revolves around warning people against falling prey to mainstream occultism. That includes the obvious — divination, tarot cards, crystals, manifesting, and astrology — but it also includes things like subliminal messaging in Disney movies and Taylor Swift music.

For years, Nizza has warned that she believes the pop icon deliberately infuses her music with “New Age ideologies” and even performs “witchcraft on the stage.”

On this episode of “Relatable,” Nizza joins Allie Beth Stuckey again to warn Swifties that their beloved idol is on a mission to normalize witchcraft.

“[Taylor Swift] is a pop star that’s using her platform for the enemy. … She is being used as a vessel of destruction because she is promoting and glamorizing New Age and occult ideologies and practices like karma and especially numerology,” says Nizza, noting that Swift is “obsessed with the number 13” and even “makes decisions based on this number.”

The spiritual darkness surrounding Swift, she argues, has grown over time — which is precisely the point.

“She appeared as somebody so innocent and Christian-like in the beginning, and I really believe that’s how the enemy does this because then you get your gathering. … You get your platform. You get your followers, right?” says Nizza. “The Swifties came in, and then the darkness starts to come out, and that is to, of course, indoctrinate masses of people.”

She gives the example of Swift’s song “Invisible String” — a folk-pop love ballad about fate quietly tying her to a lover through small coincidences across years, as if an unseen thread had been pulling them together all along.

While perhaps trivial at first glance, Nizza explains that the invisible string theory originates from New Age occultism.

“The invisible string theory is the idea that there is an invisible string around one of your fingers and an invisible string around another person’s finger that is kind of like your twin flame, the person you’re meant to be with,” she says, noting that belief in this concept often leads people to “divorce” and other sins.

“It is a doctrine of demons, meaning a teaching of demons and not the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as an imaginary string around anybody’s finger,” she adds.

The invisible string and other New Age concepts, like zodiac signs and energy readings, Nizza argues, are all demonic because they’re predicated on the idea that “you are your own authority” and that “the universe will assist you in getting things you want.”

She explains that this paradigm is the opposite of Christianity, which puts Christ alone on the throne and calls people to be “accountable for [sin]” and seek “forgiveness.”

“There’s so much freedom in Christ … but in the New Age, what’s good is bad, and what’s bad is good. It’s backwards,” she says.

To hear Allie and Nizza unpack occultism hidden in other areas of culture, including children’s entertainment, watch 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.

​Allie beth stuckey, Jenn nizza, Taylor swift, Witchcraft, Blazetv show 

Governments have been handing out public work since men were laying stones on the Appian Way. And wherever government hands out money, people line up to get some.

Abraham Lincoln was said to have faced so many office-seekers and applicants for government favors that he finally complained, in his usual earthy fashion, that “there are too many pigs for the teats.”

The Democratic Socialists of America do not own the word ‘kindness.’

The pigs have multiplied.

During the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt dramatically expanded Washington’s role in the economy. His administration also strengthened organized labor. The Wagner Act of 1935 guaranteed workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, and unions became a central pillar of the Democrat coalition that dominated American politics for decades.

The same political pattern appeared again during the War on Poverty.

Michael Harrington’s 1962 book, “The Other America,” helped force poverty onto the national political agenda. Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty task force later brought Harrington to Washington as a consultant.

The federal government also needed a way to measure poverty. That measure was developed principally by Mollie Orshansky, an economist at the Social Security Administration, whose thresholds became the basis of the official federal poverty measure.

Then came the Great Society: Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance, housing programs, and a vast expansion of Washington’s responsibility over Americans’ lives and livelihoods.

The political argument over those programs has raged ever since. But one fact should not be controversial: Americans have transferred staggering amounts of wealth through government because they believe people in genuine need should be helped.

That is kindness on an industrial scale. And wherever kindness operates on an industrial scale, thieves notice.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion every year to fraud, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

That is not “waste” in the loose political sense. The GAO is estimating losses from deliberate fraud.

Look around the country. In Minnesota, the House Oversight Committee says at least $300 million was stolen through the Feeding Our Future child-nutrition scandal. The committee also says federal prosecutors estimate that fraud involving several high-risk Medicaid programs could total billions.

RELATED: The government would like to discuss your allowance

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In New York, federal prosecutors charged 15 defendants in health care schemes involving more than $10.6 billion in fraudulent billings to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers.

Arizona’s Medicaid system was hit by another grotesque scheme aimed at programs serving Native Americans struggling with addiction. The state attorney general says losses from the wider scandal reached into the billions. In one recent federal case alone, an addiction-treatment operator was sentenced to 14 years after fraudulently billing Medicaid more than $69 million.

In California, Paul Richard Randall orchestrated a scheme that submitted nearly $270 million in false Medi-Cal claims for expensive medications that were often unnecessary or never provided. Medi-Cal actually paid about $179 million. Randall got 30 years in federal prison.

Across seven Southeastern states, the Justice Department this summer announced 17 cases involving more than $350 million in intended losses involving SNAP, housing benefits, Small Business Administration loans, and tax fraud.

This thieving from American kindness is nationwide.

The Trump administration has now made federal fraud a major target. This month, the government canceled Affordable Care Act policies covering roughly 760,000 people whose enrollments it says were fraudulent or otherwise ineligible. The administration projects about $2.2 billion in savings.

It turns out that industrial-scale redistribution creates industrial-scale opportunities for fraud.

The Biden-era immigration surge adds another political argument. The Congressional Budget Office estimates net immigration at roughly 1.5 million people in 2021, 2.8 million in 2022, 3.3 million in 2023, and 2.7 million in 2024. Much of that increase fell into the CBO’s “other foreign national” category, which includes people who entered without lawful status as well as others admitted under temporary authorities.

But illegal immigrants are generally barred from SNAP, nonemergency Medicaid, SSI, TANF, and most federal housing assistance. States can choose to spend their own taxpayers’ money anyway. California sure does, to the tune of $22 billion a year.

And immigration has a political consequence separate from voting. The census counts residents, not merely citizens, for congressional apportionment. Illegal aliens count in those population totals just like everyone else living in the country.

When Washington spends money on a colossal scale, responsibility becomes diffuse. A federal agency sends money to a state. The state sends it to a provider. The provider bills a program. A nonprofit administers another piece. Somewhere along that chain, the pigs find the teats.

Then everybody expresses shock.

RELATED: Can a $1.2 trillion giveaway become a fiscal bargain?

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Perhaps the 50 states should shoulder far more responsibility for caring for their own poor. Perhaps Washington should stop pretending that every human problem requires another federal funding stream.

The alternative is industrial-scale socialism accompanied by industrial-scale fraud.

Something else eventually gets stolen, too: trust. Every dollar stolen from Medicaid makes taxpayers more suspicious of Medicaid. Every fake food-benefit claim makes it harder to defend assistance for the family who actually needs groceries. Every crooked nonprofit feeds the suspicion that “compassion” has become a business model.

That may be the most destructive theft of all.

The Democratic Socialists of America do not own the word “kindness.” Neither does any political party. Americans who work, pay taxes, and agree to help their neighbors have every right to demand that their money reach the people it was intended to help.

And they have every right to be furious with the pigs at the teats who steal it.

​Arizona, California, Democratic socialists, Franklin roosevelt, Fraud, Government accountability office, Lyndon johnson, Medicaid, Medicare, Minnesota, Money, New deal, New york, Snap, Trump administration, Washington, Wellfare, Opinion & analysis 

Cabaña Mexican Grill in Garden City, Kansas, temporarily closed last week as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted operations across the southwestern part of the state.

In a bilingual Facebook post featuring a Mexican flag, the restaurant said, “ICE is in our community, and fear is spreading through the families who work hard every day to keep businesses like ours running.”

Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do.

The post urged other businesses to stand with their employees: “People before profit. Community before business. Together.”

Kansas Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran responded by stressing coordination between federal agents and local law enforcement.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted to X. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”

Marshall said he was closely following events and had been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and local authorities “as ICE executes warrants in order to keep Kansans safe.”

Moran added that he had spoken with Mullin and stressed “the importance of DHS working with our local law enforcement to safely execute these warrants.”

He also relayed an assurance from Mullin that the warrants were “only for the purpose of arresting individuals who have been charged with criminal activities.”

Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton struck much the same note. He said immigration agents should focus on serious criminals, coordinate with local officials, and avoid leaving Kansas families afraid.

How strange that the Republicans and the Democrat should sound so similar, especially to voters who expect Republicans to offer an unapologetic defense of immigration enforcement.

Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on carrying out what he called “the largest deportation operation in American history.” More than 77 million Americans voted for him, and he carried Kansas by 16 points.

RELATED: Sanctuary cities’ get-out-of-jail fail

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Yet when federal immigration agents arrived in Southwest Kansas, the state’s two Republican senators did not lead with a defense of the administration’s enforcement authority. They led with concerns about coordination, local knowledge, and public safety — language strikingly similar to Hamilton’s.

That distinction is worth getting right.

ICE routinely works with state and local law enforcement, including through its 287(g) partnerships. Asking federal agents to communicate with sheriffs and police is not, by itself, a sanctuary policy, nor does local government possess a veto over federal immigration enforcement.

The real question is what Moran and Marshall believe ICE should be enforcing.

ICE is not merely a federal version of a local police department. Immigration enforcement is itself at the core of its mission. Removal does not depend in every case on a separate violent-crime conviction.

When Moran and Marshall say that ICE should be focusing on public safety or illegal aliens charged with criminal activity, what they seem to mean is that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens should receive enforcement amnesty. That’s madness.

I don’t think it is even worth pointing out to either Republican senator that it is illegal for illegal aliens to work under the table in the United States, and usually that implicates other crimes, including identity theft and document fraud.

Logic cannot prevail when we are hearing Democratic talking points from the mouths of Republicans. This is particularly troubling at a time when some Democrats, including Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), are openly calling to abolish the Department of Homeland Security.

RELATED: The mass-deportation promise is disappearing

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images

Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do, particularly in areas that have been transformed by mass immigration, both legal and illegal.

Comments responding to a KSN story included blunt reactions: “The businesses hiring them should be fined and arrested,” “Sounds like they need to stay closed if they can’t hire Americans,” and from one Western Kansas resident, “I voted for this!!!”

Those comments are not a scientific sample of Kansas opinion, obviously. They are, however, a reminder of the constituency Republican politicians helped create when they spent years promising tougher immigration enforcement and failed to deliver.

Now that enforcement has arrived in Southwest Kansas, voters can see clearly how their elected officials respond.

​Ice, Kansas, Republicans, Midterms, Markwayne mullin, Democrats, Illegal immigrants, Mass migration, Delia ramirez, Dhs, Rinos, Opinion & analysis 

The woke intelligentsia has identified yet another seemingly innocuous instrument of white supremacist oppression that literally emanates from your fingertips.

A bizarre article published by the BBC claims that a trending practice in which women’s nails are left unpainted is actually a racist plot against minorities.

‘When I do get a manicure now, it’s no polish. Why? Because I’m old and tired. Not because I joined the KKK.’

The article cites Kristina Rodulfo, a beauty journalist, who links the bare-nail trend to racism.

“That trend really promotes blankness and this kind of sameness and erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities,” she said.

“They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty,” Rodulfo added.

The article goes on to enumerate far less extremist reasons for the trend.

“It’s just really chic. And I love less is more, I love minimalism … less consumerism and just self-care things that you could probably do at home,” said one woman who chose the unpolished look.

Critics latched onto the white supremacist comment to mock the BBC and the author.

“This is the most absurd story ever and it demeans the BBC to be reporting as ‘news’ that going without nail varnish is (apparently) classist and racist,” said arts writer Alexandra Wilson.

“I got manicures for short to mid length red nails, every two weeks for decades. Decades!” responded one woman. “I simply got tired of doing it. And that is why I have bare nails. When I do get a manicure now, it’s no polish. Why? Because I’m old and tired. Not because I joined the KKK.”

“So if you actually can’t keep a manicure bc you spend your days doing laundry and dishes, or can’t afford one, or are too busy working and taking care of kids to do your own, you are a white supremacist. Yes, that totally makes sense,” said another sarcastically.

“I cant believe my bare nails are a political statement. I dont get em done because I dont want to sit in a badly ventilated chop shop full of carcinogens every 4 weeks risking blood and skin infections due to poor hygiene,” replied another critic.

RELATED: ‘Pure evil’: Gay couple raped adopted baby boy before brutally killing him

“According to BBC breathing is racist, eating is racist, sleeping is racist, not polishing your nails is racist,” read another response.

The national broadcaster is reportedly in financial straits and has been forced to cut shows, lay off workers, and threaten cutting off services.

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​Bbc, Racism, White supremacy, Politics 

A South Carolina mother apparently said she was hallucinating when she was arrested on Saturday for allegedly stabbing her two young children.

Officers were called to a residence on Bud Arthur Bridge Road for a welfare check when the children were found, according to the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office.

‘Some of the lacerations were so deep they cut to the bone.’

The children, ages 3 and 6 years old, had dozens of injuries, according to police.

“Between the two children, we’re estimating that there were approximately 50 stab wounds,” said Lt. Graham McLellan of the sheriff’s office.

“Some of the lacerations were so deep they cut to the bone,” said the solicitor’s office.

Police arrested the children’s 35-year-old mother, Taylor Gosnell, after she arrived at the home. She was acting erratically and was sent for a mental evaluation.

The home was also described as covered in blood and with broken debris and shattered glass throughout the home. Televisions and mirrors were found destroyed inside.

The children were transported to the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center for treatment and are said to be in stable condition. But the injuries to the 6-year-old are disturbing.

“He’s currently facing the possibility of amputation of fingers and possibly an arm due to the severity of the injury sustained,” said the solicitor’s office.

McLellan also said the deputies were disturbed by what they experienced.

“There is no preparation that our deputies can have to see something like that,” he added.

“We’re going to do our job,” McLellan continued. “Our deputies are going to go out there and do what they have to do to make sure that there’s justice delivered for these children.”

Gosnell was charged with two counts of attempted murder.

RELATED: Woman attacked her 10-year-old son with a machete while they were in the shower, cops say

The suspect has previous charges pending of child endangerment from 2024, according to the sheriff’s office.

She’s being held without bond.

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​Attempted murder, South carolina, Stabbing, Crime 

In most countries, getting a life-saving organ transplant depends on tragedy, timing, and luck.

But according to the author of “Killed to Order,” Jan Jekielek, China operates under a very different system.

“In a normal ethical transplantation regime like here, if I need a new heart, right, someone has to have a catastrophic accident and that heart needs to match me, blood type and tissue type, so my body doesn’t reject it,” Jekielek tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck.

“We end up with a situation where there’s very, very few available hearts for transplant. There has to be this catastrophic accident. In China, it’s the exact reverse,” he continues.

Jekielek explains that one of the original whistleblowers was a transplant surgeon who noticed that a patient was able to get an organ to order in just two weeks’ time.

“Which means that that catastrophic accident was being arranged,” he tells Glenn.

And to be able to arrange this kind of sale, China has a very specific recipe.

“They have this long history in communist China of creating class enemies. OK, one of the first was land owners. They wanted to seize people’s land,” Jekielek explains.

“So they push this mass dehumanizing propaganda into the system, demonizing the land owners, convincing everybody that these are bad people, that they’re evil, that they’re dangerous, and basically conditioning the population to hate these people,” he continues.

After a successful dehumanization campaign, these people are incarcerated.

“They blood-typed, tissue-typed, and organ-scanned them across a database of a million or maybe 2 million people,” he tells Glenn.

“If I’m a rich person, I’ve got that 200 grand. I drop the money. That transaction is made, and I can get that new heart in two weeks,” he continues.

“Someone the regime has pushed dehumanizing propaganda against to be used against their will as my donor kills to order. That is what they do over there,” he adds.

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​Glenn beck, China, Jan jekielek, Epoch times, Organ donation, Organ transplant, Whistleblower, Blazetv show 

The Trump administration has shut down an extension of special protections for certain LGBTQ+ members imposed under former President Joe Biden, and Democrats are imploding.

In 2024, Biden included sexual orientation and gender identity under the categories that would be protected under Title IX in the policies at the Department of Education.

‘Trump is once again attacking the civil rights protections that help make our country great.’

According to the Department of Education, “The Biden administration’s Office for Civil Rights pushed schools across the country to illegally allow males to intrude into women’s sports and intimate facilities, and it investigated school staff for using incorrect pronouns or failing to ask students to declare a preferred gender.

The Trump administration has now ended those policies and “returned to enforcing the first Trump administration’s 2020 Title IX rule,” the Education Department press release said.

“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect[] court orders and congressional intent — reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions,” said a statement from Linda McMahon, the secretary of education.

The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement implying that the change would result in more sexual violence in schools.

“The Trump administration is erasing protections for LGBTQ+ kids and survivors of sexual assault in school settings without an opportunity for public comment,” the organization said. “Trump’s Department of Education has abandoned its duty to protect students from sex discrimination and sexual violence in schools.”

Others pounced on the announcement to attack the president.

RELATED: Trump admin threatens California with ‘imminent enforcement action’ over trans athletes

“Every day, this administration continues to target LGBTQIA+ kids,” said Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington. “It’s incredibly harmful and does the exact opposite of what our shared goal should be: protecting kids. The LGBTQIA+ community and all our students deserve better.”

“While the administration is unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ they are systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” responded National Women’s Law Center director Shiwali Patel in a statement to Politico.

“Trump is once again attacking the civil rights protections that help make our country great. Illinois will remain a safe state for ALL students to pursue their dreams,” replied Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).

Republicans applauded the return to former policies.

“The Biden Administration’s rewrite of Title IX did immeasurable harm to women and girls by replacing biological sex with gender identity,” replied Republican Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina.

“Biological males do not belong in women’s locker rooms, on women’s teams, or competing in women’s sports. This action restores common sense and makes clear that schools must protect the safety, privacy, and opportunities of female students.”

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​Department of education, Joe biden, Lgbtq agenda, Linda mcmahon, Politics, Title ix, Trump administration 

A possible 2028 presidential contender has been forced to respond to a poll showing how few Americans believe Democrats actually care about them.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona was being interviewed on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday when host Martha Raddatz pressed him about a poll saying only 34% of Americans believe Democrats care about people like them.

Kelly tried to distract from the unpopularity of the Democratic Party by criticizing the president.

“What does that tell you, what do you do about it if people just aren’t feeling it from the Democrats, if you’re sort of a default or people stay away from the race?” Raddatz asked.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m doing about it. I’ve been traveling across the country basically nonstop for the last six months,” said Kelly.

He went on to list the states he’s been visiting, including New Hampshire and South Carolina, and added that he’d been to a Navajo parade in Arizona.

“Just talking to people and trying to understand their challenges in their homes, in their schools, in their communities,” he added. “We have to deliver, there’s no question about that.”

After refusing to answer the question, Kelly pivoted to attacking President Donald Trump over the conflict in Iran.

The nonresponse fit into an earlier exchange from the same show where Kelly tried to distract from the unpopularity of the Democratic Party by criticizing the president.

Video of Kelly’s nonresponse was posted to social media by the official account of the Republican National Committee.

RELATED: ‘Blue wave’ expected for midterms looks more like a tiny ripple, says CNN’s Harry Enten

While Kelly’s trips to the Navajo parade may not ease Democrats’ polling woes, the president’s popularity has also taken a dive owing to high gas prices and the conflict in Iran.

Democrats are hoping to seize control of at least the U.S. House of Representatives in order to thwart Trump’s legislative goals for the latter part of his second term.

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​Arizona, Polling, Democrats, Politics, Donald trump 

Americans are often told that Canada’s health care system is proof that universal coverage works. Nick Freitas wants to know: at what cost?

And the filmmakers behind “Broken Country” have the answer.

“What do we tell our barista at Starbucks when they tell us that we just don’t understand how wonderful it could be if we had a Canadian-style system, that all of a sudden you would get free health care and whether or not you live or die would no longer be determined based off of how much money you made because up there they really care about everybody,” Freitas asks Mira Metter and Mike Werry.

“The first sort of misconception is that it is free. It comes out of taxation, right? It comes primarily out of personal income tax. And to the average Canadian family of four, it’s roughly $18,000 a year for just health care out of taxes,” Metter tells Freitas.

“The second one is that you might not pay at the front desk with the nurse when you go to receive any level of care, but you pay with how long you’re waiting for that care and the impacts along the way,” she continues.

Metter had her own experience in the Canadian ER when her doctor sent her there to get same-day blood tests. She was there for 14 hours and recalls being “absolutely horrified watching senior citizens dying in gurneys in the hall.”

“People coming in from all walks with all sorts of levels of severity just sitting around waiting, bleeding, you know, in agony for hours and hours and hours on end, and that in itself has major implications,” she explains.

“So when you look at a health care system and think it’s so ideal, is it ideal because you’re not paying for it at point of purchase, or is it ideal because you don’t see that payment but you’re paying with prolonged issues due to wait times?” she adds.

In their film, she recalls interviewing a man who slipped and fell on ice and had to wait 18 hours in the hospital to be seen.

“It became a permanent disability that caused severe pain. And that costs so much more than whatever sort of paid insurance plan would actually be,” she says.

“Is this really descriptive of the system?” Freitas asks.

“It’s universal,” Werry answers, adding, “Average wait times at hospitals in Canada are about 16 hours.”

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Health care, Nick freitas, Broken country, Mira metter, Mike werry, Blazetv show, Canada 

Democratic lawmakers and officials around the country are so desperate to disarm law-abiding Americans, they are now going after some toy guns.

With the backing of the March for Our Lives Foundation and the eponymous gun-grabber activist group of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Democratic Rep. Kevin Mullin (Calif.) introduced legislation last week targeting certain air guns.

‘They are literally coming for your Red Ryder.’

Federal law currently defines the term “firearm” as “(A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device.”

Whereas a firearm utilizes burning gunpowder to launch projectiles, air guns — as the name suggests — use compressed gas to send projectiles down the barrel.

Although air guns are categorically not firearms, Mullin’s bill would classify them as such if they launch .177 pellets, .22 caliber pellets, and .25 caliber pellets at an initial velocity of at least 800 feet, 500 feet, and 450 feet per second, respectively. Any air gun firing a metallic pellet above .25 caliber would also be designated as a firearm.

RELATED: The FBI’s new active-shooter report has a surprise

Michele Eve Sandberg/Corbis/Getty Images

If enacted, this bill would require that air gun purchasers undergo a background check.

The legislation would also require that the attorney general “publish … guidance to assist manufacturers of lethal air guns in becoming federal firearms licensees, including assistance with the application process and on compliance with requirements for licensees, including serialization and record keeping requirements” within a year of enactment.

Mullin said that he introduced his so-called “Garrett’s Law” after Garrett Edwards — a constituent who, though barred from possessing a firearm, committed suicide using an air gun.

Ann Edwards said in a statement that her deceased son experienced “late onset psychosis” and was “able to access a lethal airgun through Amazon.”

‘The attempted Australia-ification of the US continues.’

Since one mentally compromised constituent abused his freedom, Mullin evidently wants to restrict that freedom for all Americans.

“If a weapon is powerful enough to kill, it should be subject to the same commonsense safety standards as any other gun,” stated Mullin. “It makes no sense that someone prohibited by law from purchasing a firearm can still walk into a store or go online and legally obtain an airgun capable of killing. This bill closes that gap and, hopefully, helps prevent another family from facing this kind of unimaginable loss.”

“Lethal weapons should be treated like lethal weapons,” said March for Our Lives Foundation co-founder Jaclyn Corin.

Daisy, the over-century-old American company behind the famous Red Ryder lever-action BB gun, noted on X that Mullin’s bill would impact toy air guns like the Daisy 880.

“Their goal is to eventually include all airguns,” said the company. “If passed it will treat airguns guns producing ‘high velocity’ as firearms.”

“It bears watching very closely,” added the company.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) blasted Mullin’s legislative initiative, stating, “The gun control lobby targeting BB and pellet guns is fundamentally unserious.”

“Putting dangerous criminals behind bars and keeping them there is the #1 way to reduce violent crime, but leftists have convinced themselves that law-abiding gun owners are villains,” added Lee.

“If you want to know how far gun-grabbers will go, they are now trying to reclassify BB guns as ‘firearms,'” tweeted Young Americans for Liberty. “They are literally coming for your Red Ryder.”

The National Association for Gun Rights suggested that this kind of legislation was a long time in coming.

“The attempted Australia-ification of the US continues,” said the association. “Giffords and David Hogg’s former gun control group are backing a bill to regulate air guns the same as firearms. This isn’t a shock. We’ve said for years they’ll never stop at firearms.”

“They constantly point to places like the UK, Germany, and Australia as the model we should follow. Places that regulate knives with a point and make you register airsoft guns with the government,” added the association.

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​Airgun, Democrat, Firearm, March for our lives, Second amendment, Mike lee, Politics 

A Mexican national remains in custody in Northern Michigan after he was identified as the suspect in a sexual assault on Mackinac Island earlier this month.

Mackinac Island is a picturesque tourist destination located in Lake Huron between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. Some say going to Mackinac Island is almost like taking a “step back in time” with its breathtaking views, Victorian architecture, and strict prohibition of motor vehicles.

MIPD described Jaimez in the press release as ‘a 30-year-old male from Mexico.’

According to a press release from the Mackinac Island Police Department, a woman was walking alone on Main Street, just east of Hoban Street, around 2:15 a.m. on September 16. At that point, a man forced her to the ground, sexually assaulted her, and then fled the scene on foot.

The woman was taken to the Mackinac Island Medical Center for treatment, the press release said.

Later that day, Carlos Adrian Fernandez De Lara Jaimez was identified as the suspect. Jaimez was arrested and booked into Mackinac County Jail in St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula.

He is identified in his county booking photo as “Carlos Fernandez,” though court records list Jaimez as his last name. A deputy confirmed to Blaze News that he remains in custody as of Monday afternoon.

RELATED: Long-serving mayor of idyllic Michigan island has just been re-elected — for the 50th time

Blaze News

MIPD described Jaimez in the press release as “a 30-year-old male from Mexico.” The county deputy could not confirm Jaimez’s legal status but did note that surrendering his passport was one of the conditions of Jaimez’s bond.

Jaimez has been charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct with personal injury, a felony. He was arraigned on September 18, when Judge Beth Gibson assessed him a $100,000 cash or surety bond, court records show.

Jaimez had a probable cause conference on Monday, though court records listed only “miscellaneous action” under the event description. He has a preliminary examination hearing scheduled for next Monday.

Jaimez’s attorney and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

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​Mexico, Michigan, Mackinac island, Crime, Politics 

After more than a decade of jokes, false promises, and disappointments, Apple’s Siri is finally worth the hype. The latest version brings a bunch of new capabilities to iPhone, thanks to Apple Intelligence. Here’s what it can do and how you can enable it on your device — if you meet the requirements.

The new Siri isn’t just marketing fluff or corporate spin. It’s real. I’ve used it for more than a week, and I’ve come away impressed. Granted, Siri isn’t perfect. It makes mistakes, just like any other AI chatbot from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. But compared to the old Siri that sometimes struggled with basic facts, the new version is light-years ahead. It’s even good enough to replace some interactions you might have with bots from the competition.

This is a huge leap forward.

The new Siri is included with iOS 27 on supported devices. The catch, though, is that it’s not enabled by default. In fact, if you want to use the new Siri, you’ll have to sign up and spend time on a digital waiting list.

I signed up during the public beta, and I only had to wait about 10 minutes. Now that iOS 27 is out for everyone, though, wait times can stretch out to several days to several weeks. So for those interested in the new Siri, you’ll want to sign up as soon as possible.

Getting on the list is simple. Open the Settings app, tap “Siri,” then select “Try Siri AI (Beta),” and you’re in the queue. That’s it.

Old Siri (Left), New Siri (Right)/Apple

Once approved, the Siri Settings page will have a new interface with new voice options that are fully customizable to build the ideal-sounding digital assistant for fielding questions and queries.

You’ll also find a new Siri app on your home screen. It functions similarly to other AI chatbot apps that you may have used in the past. There’s an option to type questions to Siri or review past conversations for reference or posterity.

Finally, you can access Siri by writing queries in Spotlight (the search bar that pops out when you swipe down from the middle of Home Screen) or using voice commands by holding the power button on the side. You can even ask Siri about something on your screen, it will analyze the data, and give you more information in real time.

Perhaps the most impressive part, though, is that Siri is actually useful now. It knows facts, draws on current events, and understands complex data, all powered by Apple Foundation Models, which are essentially custom Google Gemini models with revised training data running on Apple Silicon.

Confusing, I know.

Of course, none of Siri’s new capabilities are all that new for Android users who have had Gemini for the last couple of years, but on iPhone, this is a huge leap forward for a previously addled Siri. There’s also something Siri can do that no other chatbot can — maintain your privacy.

RELATED: You can finally get all those blobby shapes off your iPhone. Here’s how.

martin-dm/Getty Images

The new Siri combines local data processing with Private Cloud Compute, a system that anonymizes queries by removing customer metadata and IP address information to mask users’ identities. The entire process is complex, but ultimately, all queries that can’t be conducted on-device are encrypted and sent to a Private Cloud Compute.

They’re used only to complete a specific task as requested by the user, and then they are promptly deleted from the system. Queries aren’t gathered and saved as training data, and Apple claims that no one — not even an Apple employee — can access them.

Here’s the bad news for anyone interested in trying out the new Siri on iPhone. The new models require cutting-edge hardware. That means you need an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max and up, an iPad mini with an A17 Pro chip and up, an iPad with an M1 series chip and up, or a Mac with an Apple Silicon M1 chip and up.

Even more devices can download the latest iOS 27 update, but only a select few can use Apple Intelligence and the new Siri to its fullest extent.

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​Ai chatbot, Artificial intelligence, Tech, Apple, Siri 

The editors of New York Magazine decided that the person best suited for its debut “men’s style” issue is a transgender-identifying actor.

The magazine’s photographer “kibitzed” with some of the “most stylish” men at the Russian and Turkish Baths in New York City, but many online were not impressed.

‘The Spirit of the Age wants us to know it is mocking and scorning us.’

“When even 15-year-olds are ‘hype’ about Ralph and Armani’s got a brand-new designer — it feels like the right moment to dedicate an entire issue to the subject,” read a post from the magazine on Monday.

While the other covers featured biological men, one cover was dedicated to Ellen Page, who now identifies as Elliot Page after undergoing transgender surgery.

Much of the response online expressed bewilderment at the choice.

“Where is the man here? I see a mentally ill, testosterone injected woman that had her breast surgically removed,” said one account.

“Fueling Elliot Page’s gender dysphoria is not helping her or others. She needs to abandon Hollywood before it destroys what’s left of her. Or, y’all do it for them,” said another critic.

“I feel like this is sabotage or something,” said another user. “Everyone knows that most people are so sick of trans crap being centered and don’t relate to it. And it’s icky to a lot of normal people even. And her face looks like she is scared or like a prisoner. Not flattering.”

“Way to just alienate more of the audience of men’s style. This poor woman’s body is destroyed because she’s traumatized. Just sad,” replied one detractor.

BlazeTV host Steve Deace responded to the discordant cover in comments to Blaze News.

“Publications like the New Yorker are not for us, but for the opposing culture that occupies this land mass along side of us,” he said. “And putting Ellen Page on its ‘men’s styles’ issue is a clear declaration of that, but also a declaration of war.”

RELATED: Tuberville mocked for warning about pilots with ‘deranged fetish’ — then he brings the receipts

“The Spirit of the Age wants us to know it is mocking and scorning us,” Deace added. “Except it’s really doing something much riskier — shaking its fist at an all-powerful God.”

Page is best known for her female role in “Juno” and most recently in a male role in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”

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​Ellen page, Gender dysphoria, Transgender agenda, Masculinity, Politics, New york magazine 

A recent article from the New York Times alleges that President Donald Trump is cracking down on free speech in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination — but BlazeTV host Pat Gray says that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Instead of defending free speech, Gray says the Times is excusing the left “as they revel in violence.”

“They had some thoughtful insight into Charlie Kirk’s assassination just a few days after the anniversary of his assassination. And you know, they’ve got all of these reporters who side with all the murderers in our society now,” he says.

“They did the same thing with Mangione and the murder of the CEO from the health insurance company,” he adds.

Gray went on to explain that no one is stopping them from celebrating “the murder of anybody they want.”

However, he says, “It just shows what kind of people we’re dealing with here. It shows that the left has no respect for human life.”

And in a recent poll, it’s revealed that nearly a whopping 60% of Democrats are neutral on President Trump getting assassinated in order for him to leave office.

“Twenty-three percent of Democrats say that would be very positive. Nine percent say somewhat positive,” executive producer Keith Malinak says.

“So you’ve got 32% saying it would be very or somewhat positive,” Gray says.

“Fifty-seven percent either positive or they’re fine with it,” Malinak adds.

“The New York Times wants to make this a freedom of speech thing. … That’s not the issue here. The issue is these people are insane. They’re psychotic. The left has literally gone nuts,” Gray says.

“Violently, frighteningly nuts,” he adds.

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​New york times, Donald trump, Assassination, Charlie kirk, Free speech, Leftists, Blazetv show 

A shooting inside the parking garage at the Orange County (Florida) Courthouse on Wednesday stopped court operations for several hours while deputies investigated the attempted murder of a woman in the garage, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said.

Later in the day, deputies captured the “known suspect” — 26-year-old Kenneth Jerome Logan Jr., officials said.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Logan was arrested on the following charges:

Attempted first-degree murder with a firearmAggravated battery with firearm (two counts)Armed burglary of conveyance with firearmBurglary of conveyance with assault/battery Robbery with a firearm Aggravated stalkingFalse imprisonment (with a weapon) Battery

Florida Today reported Friday that Logan was denied bond; he remained behind bars Monday, jail records indicated.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Logan and the victim are married.

The victim told investigators she was at the downtown Orlando courthouse Wednesday to seek an injunction against Logan, the Sentinel said, citing records. No details about the injunction were available, the Sentinel added.

The victim parked her car in the garage and then went to the courthouse, deputies told the Sentinel.

When she returned, she entered the vehicle — and then noticed the seat had been moved and that something was in the back seat, the Sentinel said, citing Logan’s arrest affidavit.

With that, she ran out and saw Logan exit the car and point a handgun at her, the paper added.

He fired at her twice as she tried to run away, grabbed her dropped cell phone, caught up with her, struck her in the head with the gun, and held her as he tried to reload the weapon, the Sentinel reported.

The sheriff’s office said the woman wasn’t injured in the shooting.

But as he tried to reload, she was able to escape toward an elevator, and Logan ran off, the Sentinel reported, citing the affidavit. He also threw something inside her vehicle before running away, WOFL-TV reported.

During the incident, Logan repeatedly asked the victim, “Why are you doing this to me?” the paper noted.

RELATED: Male accused of shooting wife amid argument — then running ill-advised errand while taking her to hospital

Deputies had responded to the courthouse garage around 11:30 a.m. after reports of shots fired at the Orange Avenue facility, the Sentinel reported, adding that the lockdown was lifted in the afternoon while deputies continued searching for Logan.

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​Florida, Arrest, Shooting, Orlando, Orange county sheriff’s office, Husband and wife, Crime 

An FBI website was hacked by Pokémon enthusiasts.

This is not a joke.

‘Thank you for your attention to this matter.’

The hack that allegedly took place may have flown under the radar if not for the group leaving a public calling card to show the government agency had been compromised.

At the same time, an adjoining message showed a frightening display of access.

The hackers call themselves ShinyHunters, referencing the active pursuit in Pokémon games of rare Pokémon creatures. Their adopted symbol is a golden Poké Ball, used to capture such Pokémon.

ShinyHunters then circulated a message online taking credit for the hack, which reportedly contained personal information on 5,000 FBI agents.

“We have compromised the FBI. We hold very sensitive data on almost ALL FBI Agents and individuals who filed an application with the FBI for a job,” the message said, according to the Associated Press.

The claims were corroborated by 404 Media, which said the hacker group contacted the company to show the obtained information.

The FBI website in question was the agency’s job website — apply.fbijobs.gov — which found its own information replaced with the image of a Pokémon named Umbreon; the “Shiny” portion of the hacker group’s name likely refers to the rare type of Pokémon in the video game’s universe.

“This site has been seized by ShinyHunters,” the group wrote, akin to what the FBI puts on a website that has been taken down by the government.

The message added, “All FBI data was compromised including [personally identifiable information and protected health information] on incumbent and former FBI employees and all applicant information. We have a lot more than we claim here.”

“Thank you for your attention to this matter,” the message concluded.

Not only did the revealing hack compromise government employee data (addresses, phone numbers, spouse name), it allegedly revealed the FBI’s own hacking team too.

RELATED: Terror threat strikes Missouri archdiocese ahead of pre-sainthood Mass for Fulton Sheen

Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

The FBI’s Remote Operations Unit, which is known to be made up of the agency’s own decoders, had personal addresses, phone numbers, and in some cases spouses’ phone numbers exposed, 404 Media further reported. The website said it fact-checked the allegedly hacked info by cross-referencing other breached data to show, for example, one person had worked for the Secret Service.

“We hacked the FBI. We hold data on all FBI employees and applicants,” a representative for the hackers told the outlet.

On the other hand, the FBI has sent out a public statement indicating it is “aware of a cyber-criminal enterprise group claiming a compromise of the FBIJobs.gov portal.”

The FBI managed to pull down the targeted subdomain, marking it for “scheduled maintenance.” Meanwhile, the agency said the “point of breach” was undetermined, and it was “actively and aggressively investigating this matter and working closely with those third-party providers that support FBIJobs.gov to mitigate any and all risk.”

RELATED: DOJ claims ICE agent made up wild ‘broom’ attack story after shooting — but lawyer says he’s being used as a ‘political pawn’

Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

404 Media asked ShinyHunters if it planned on extorting the FBI, to which it said, “What we plan to do is not something I’d call extortion, maybe coercion.”

The group then claimed its efforts are “not finically motivated” and that the FBI has made “false allegations” against it by claiming the group exaggerates what it has gained access to.

The group wants those allegations taken down.

404 Media said the initial hacked data was verified by cross-referencing it with open source intelligence records and also by contrasting it with other previously compromised data.

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​Hackers, Fbi, Government, Tech 

Even in these days of hotter summers and disappearing traditions, a few fall rituals remain reassuringly predictable: back-to-school sales, postseason baseball, and the annual uproar over an offensive Halloween costume.

This year, it was Target’s turn.

For generations, poverty among rural Southern whites had been treated not simply as an economic condition but as evidence of something wrong with the people themselves.

A screenshot circulating on social media showed a child model wearing a “circus clown” getup from the retailer’s Hyde and EEK house brand. Critics said the face mask, miniature top hat, and gloves — not to mention the child’s pose — evoked blackface and 19th-century minstrelsy. Target quickly pulled it.

The Rev. Jamal Bryant, the Georgia pastor who spent the previous year leading a boycott of Target over its retreat from DEI initiatives, called it “a profoundly harmful symbol of racism.” Target followed with a corporate apology: “As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment.”

The resemblance to Jim Crow-era imagery was vague enough to give Target the benefit of the doubt. The individual elements of the costume have lost enough of their original meaning that a designer could plausibly assemble them without recognizing that they once belonged to a caricature of a particular people.

But the cultural memory of minstrelsy remains strong enough that once the connection was pointed out, the resemblance was clear enough to make pulling it the right call.

We retain a similar sensitivity to the old caricatures of most ethnic groups, even when the stereotypes themselves have receded from everyday life. But there is one old American caricature that has become so detached from the people it once mocked that most of us no longer recognize it as an ethnic caricature at all.

Hillbilly Highway

Walk into almost any big-box store or scroll online retailers this month, and you will find it: the frayed overalls, the missing front tooth, the corncob pipe, and a jug of moonshine. A quick Google search shows that “trailer park,” “redneck,” and “hillbilly” costumes abound. You can even dress as Joe Dirt, Ricky from “Trailer Park Boys,” or Joe Exotic from “Tiger King.”

No corporate statement has ever called such costumes “especially hurtful.” No brand has ever pulled any one of them and promised to look closely at how it happened. It’s simply a costume built on the presumed backwardness, dirtiness, and moral degeneracy of the people once called “hillbillies,” sold with little awareness of the history behind the stereotype.

That history includes a largely forgotten mass migration — and the prejudice and discrimination that followed it. At roughly the same time that millions of black Southerners were heading north and west in the Great Migration, another vast movement was under way. Historian Max Fraser estimates that as many as 8 million whites left the Southern countryside for the factory towns and cities of the industrial Midwest, along what became known as the “Hillbilly Highway.”

And that was only part of a much larger exodus. Historian James Gregory estimates that nearly 20 million white Southerners left the South over the course of the 20th century, compared with close to 8 million black Southerners. Yet while the Great Migration became a familiar part of the American historical narrative, the parallel movement of white Southerners largely faded from national memory.

Southern man

My own family were part of that migration, moving from Western Kentucky to Gary, Indiana, in the 1950s. They weren’t hillbillies, technically — Western Kentucky sits roughly 300 miles from Appalachia — but that distinction meant little once they got north. To the people already there, a Southern accent did all the sorting a map wouldn’t.

That the migration was remarkably successful seems hardly to have mattered. Chad Berry’s oral histories of the Southern whites who migrated to Midwestern mill and factory towns found that most achieved the economic stability they had sought, even as their new neighbors continued to stereotype them as violent, drunken, lazy, unclean, and sexually dissolute.

Richard Dorson captured the prejudice in “Land of the Millrats,” his study of the industrial communities around Gary. Driving through nearby Whiting with a local man named Ed, Dorson was told why trailers carried a particular stigma: “This is a Southern white area. Hillbillies live in the trailers. So there’s prejudice attached to trailers, ’cause that was the first housing available to Southern whites in the community. So trailer equals hillbilly.”

The prejudice could have more tangible consequences. Historian Anthony Harkins found that job listings announcing “No Southerners need apply” and restaurants refusing to serve “hillbillies” were not uncommon in Northern cities receiving Appalachian migrants.

RELATED: How My Hometown Got Eugenicized

Gabriel Gigliotti

White trash

But the contempt those migrants encountered in the North had much older roots. For generations, poverty among rural Southern whites had been treated not simply as an economic condition but as evidence of something wrong with the people themselves.

In her book “White Trash,” historian Nancy Isenberg traces that tradition from colonial descriptions of the poor as “waste people” through the antebellum contempt for the supposed moral failings of “poor white trash” and into eugenic theories that treated poverty and “feeble-mindedness” as hereditary defects.

Appalachian journalist James Branscome made this case explicitly more than 50 years ago, in a 1971 manifesto called “Annihilating the Hillbillly.” By portraying Appalachians as backward, ignorant, and responsible for their own poverty, he argued, coal operators, government agencies, and the national media diverted attention from the economic arrangements that had enriched outsiders while leaving much of the region poor.

The hillbilly, in other words, provided a convenient explanation for poverty: The problem was the people. And when millions of those people left the rural South, found industrial work, and built more prosperous lives elsewhere, the stereotype followed them anyway.

Yokels only

Today the hillbilly survives mostly as a seemingly harmless comic trope. The caricature migrated from comic strips like “Snuffy Smith” and “Li’l Abner” to television’s “Hee Haw” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.” More recently it was “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” and “Duck Dynasty.” Cletus and Brandine Spuckler are still turning up on new episodes of “The Simpsons,” more than 30 years after Springfield introduced its “slack-jawed yokel.”

It might be harder to laugh if we still connected those characters to the people the caricature once described.

The history isn’t particularly ancient. In 1958, Time quoted sociologists describing poor Southern whites as “vicious” and more difficult to assimilate than other minority groups. A Wayne University survey of Detroit residents published in 1952 found “poor Southern whites; hill-billies” the second-most frequently named group when residents were asked which people were “not good to have in the city.” Twenty-one percent named them, compared with 13% who named black residents; only “criminals and gangsters,” at 26%, ranked higher.

These were the people who left Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia for the mills of Gary and East Chicago and the auto plants of Detroit. They didn’t bring backwardness north with them. They brought labor. Many found the economic security they had gone looking for and became part of the working class that built the industrial Midwest.

Eventually, they also became less visible. Their children and grandchildren lost the accents, left the trailer parks, moved into the middle class, and blended into the rest of America. The people disappeared into the country while the character remained behind.

That is the history the Halloween costume no longer evokes.

None of this requires another corporate apology. But corporate sensitivity reveals something in what it notices — and what it doesn’t. Some old caricatures still carry a social cost. Others remain fair game.

I don’t know what my own family heard when they migrated more than 300 miles north to Gary. They’re gone now, and they didn’t leave that part written down. That’s part of the point. The costume survived. Their story didn’t.

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