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Former President Donald Trump praised Latinos during his rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Tuesday evening after receiving criticism over a joke made about Puerto Rico at a previous rally.

Allentown is a majority Latino city with nearly a third of the population composed of Puerto Rican people.

‘Nobody likes our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community like I do.’

The Harris campaign pounced on comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the former president’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as an island of garbage and made other racially tinged comments at the event. The Trump campaign distanced itself from the comedian after the backlash.

The campaign said various Puerto Rican speakers would speak at the Allentown rally. One of those was Zoraida Buxó, Puerto Rico’s shadow senator, who endorsed Trump.

“With everything that is going on and will happen during the final stretch, it’s easy to get distracted or misled by propaganda, emotional manipulation, and distortion of the truth and the facts,” Buxó said. “We need change, and Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are not the option to bring about the kind of change that you need and want and certainly not the strong leadership that the U.S. needs during these times of turmoil.

Cuban-American Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also addressed the rally before Trump gave his speech.

“I will protect our workers. I will protect our jobs. I will protect our borders. I will protect our families. And I will protect the birthright of our children to live in the richest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth,” said Trump to loud applause.

Trump brought Buxó onto the stage next to him, and she reiterated her endorsement.

“We need this man back in the White House! We need this man to be commander in chief!” she said.

“Nobody likes our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community like I do,” Trump added after she stepped away.

He went on to say that no other president in U.S. history had done as much as he had done for Puerto Ricans.

A handful of protesters demonstrated outside of the rally against Trump. The actor Martin Sheen also appeared at a small Harris event near the rally and sang “America the Beautiful” for the cameras.

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​Trump allentown, Allentown rally puerto rico, Puerto rico joke, Pa rally puerto ricans, Politics 

An Orthodox Jewish man wearing a kippah was shot while on his way to a Chicago synagogue Saturday — but the 22-year-old shooting suspect, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, wasn’t charged with a hate crime amid community outcry.

Chicago police said Abdallahi was identified as the offender who shot the 39-year-old male victim in the 2600 block of West Farwell Avenue around 9:30 a.m. NBC News reported that the victim is Jewish and was wearing the Jewish skullcap while on his way to services on the Jewish sabbath.

‘We are visibly Jewish, and that puts a target on our backs.’

Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said at a Monday news conference that the suspect shot the victim “in the shoulder without saying a word,” NBC News added. Snelling also said there wasn’t enough evidence to add hate crime charges but noted it remained a possibility. The victim was treated in a hospital and discharged Saturday afternoon, NBC News said.

Police said about 30 minutes after the first shooting, Abdallahi fired at responding officers and paramedics multiple times from various locations. Police said officers returned fire, striking the offender, who was placed into custody, taken to an area hospital, and charged. Police said a weapon was recovered at the scene. Police said no officers or fire department members were injured. The suspect was in critical condition, investigators told WGN-TV.

Video you can view here apparently shows part of the suspect’s second wave of gunfire.

Abdallahi was charged with six counts of first-degree attempted murder, seven counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm upon a police officer/firefighter, and one count of aggravated battery/discharge of a firearm, all of which are felonies, police said. Abdallahi’s detention hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, police added.

City Alderman Debra Silverstein — who attends the same synagogue as the Jewish man who was shot — said at the same news conference Monday that there’s increased fear among local Jews, NBC News noted.

“A man wearing the kippah as he walked to synagogue was shot, and this has just escalated our anxieties,” she said, according to the news network, which added that Silverstein in a later message to constituents wrote that she’s “very disappointed” that hate crime charges had not been filed despite “evidence that seems to suggest an antisemitic motive for the shooting.”

Silverstein told CBS News she visited the victim Saturday night after his hospital release and noted he’s doing “OK.”

Rabbi Shlomo Soroka of the Agudath Israel of Illinois told WMAQ-TV “at the end of the day, it’s as traumatic whether or not it gets that terminology of being a hate crime. My family lives here. My community lives here. We are visibly Jewish, and that puts a target on our backs.”

As for the present lack of hate crime charges, the rabbi noted to the outlet “there’s no question that from an emotional standpoint, it’s disappointing. But I think it’s equally important to understand that whether or not there is a hate crime charge, that’s a technicality. That doesn’t change the reality of our experience.”

Soroka added to WFLD-TV that the victim — described as an Orthodox Jew — took his “little girls with him” to synagogue “every single week.” But for some reason, not this past Saturday.

“And this week, this particular week, he decided to go by himself, and his little girls weren’t with him,” Soroka observed. “Can you imagine what would have happened if those little girls were with him?”

Abraham Trachtman told WBBM-TV there’s a large Orthodox Jewish community in the area, and he also was headed to a local synagogue when he was told of the shooting: “A Jewish guy walking to synagogue, Saturday morning, Sabbath morning, it just, it doesn’t make sense.”

Local Jewish leaders also noted to WFLD that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson hadn’t acknowledged the shooting or their pain.

More from NBC News:

Attacks on Jews in the United States tripled in less than a year after Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas militants, according to data from the ADL Center on Extremism. Attacks on Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. also increased, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said.

Sunday marked six years since a gunman opened fire on a congregation at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people in the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history.

You can view a video report here about the shooting.

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​Chicago, Faith, Hate crime, Jewish man shot, Kippah, Orthodox jews, Outcry, Politics, Shooting, Sidi mohamed abdallahi, Synagogue, Crime 

A 63-year-old man was arrested for allegedly punching a 69-year-old poll worker several times after being told to take off his “Make America Great Again” hat while voting.

A Bexar County Sheriff’s report said that Jesse Lutzenberger entered the polling location at the Johnston Branch Library on Thursday at about 6:30 p.m. with the MAGA hat on.

‘This type of behavior will absolutely not be tolerated. We will not allow anyone to disrupt the election process.’

Texas law forbids electioneering within 100 feet of a polling station, including clothing or accessories, and a violation is punishable by up to a $500 fine.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that an elections clerk asked Lutzenberger to take off the hat, and he initially complied with the request and went on to vote. After voting, he put the hat back on as he was leaving the building, and the elections clerk once again told him to take it off, Salazar said.

That’s when Lutzenberger allegedly punched the worker several times in the face and chest.

The worker was treated and released. Lutzenberger fled the polling place and was arrested by police at his home without incident.

Lutzenberger was charged third-degree felony injury to the elderly.

Bexar County Judge Sakai condemned Lutzenberger’s actions.

“Violence has no place in our elections process. This type of behavior will absolutely not be tolerated. We will not allow anyone to disrupt the election process,” Sakai said.

“The overwhelming number of people casting their ballots are behaving responsibly and respectfully,” the statement continued. “We want to protect and defend the right to vote for all citizens who are eligible to vote. Let’s respect everyone who is involved in our voting process.”

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales, a Democrat, said they would “vigorously prosecute” Lutzenberger for the alleged incident.

A news video of the incident can be viewed on the YouTube channel for KSAT-TV.

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​Poll worker punched, Violence over maga hat, Maga hat at polling, Jesse lutzenberger, Politics 

By now, most people have awakened to the reality that a huge percentage of the food sold in America is poisoning us.

From artificial flavors and dyes to preservatives and additives, the food we’re consuming is likely responsible for an overwhelming number of the chronic health issues Americans face. Many of the ingredients we find in everyday foods sold in the United States have been strictly banned in other countries.

Why then has our FDA not banned the ingredients that have been proven to be toxic to humans?

That’s the question Glenn Beck answered in his special, “Make America Healthy Again: The Chemicals Poisoning Your Food EXPOSED!”

In the short clip above, Glenn gives a fictional scenario to demonstrate what occurs at the pinnacle of our food industry:

“Let’s say I’m a food company. I’m running Beck Foods, and I want to make some little, yellow, yummy breakfast loops, and I want it neon yellow because it’ll make the kids scream to their parents, ‘I want that!’ when they pass it in the grocery store.”

“I’m going to need some food dye. Well that’s gonna need FDA approval on every single batch. Now luckily here at Beck Foods, I’m pretty close to the FDA. … You see, I pay the FDA’s salaries through something called user fees.”

“I do that so they can regulate the dye that I want in my cereal. Now you’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re paying the manufacturer. … You’re paying the watch dogs to watch you?”’

“Yeah, that’s the way it works,” says Glenn.

What the majority of Americans don’t know is that “food manufacturers pay about 46% of the FDA budget.”

What’s even more disturbing is the other major player in the game — “Big Pharma, who [also] funds the 6,500 jobs at the FDA.”

Further, when a food company needs FDA approval for a new ingredient, the FDA plays no role in the actual testing of that ingredient. Rather, the food companies themselves are responsible for proving that an ingredient is safe, and who they hire to conduct the experiment is entirely up to them.

“So the burden of proof to determine whether or not their food is dangerous is actually the guy trying to turn his product into profit not the government organization whose job it is to keep us safe,” scoffs Glenn.

Granted that’s the way the process works, these food companies go to their “clown scientist who says, ‘It’s Gr-r-reat!”’ Then they pay “a bunch of money to the FDA so they can read [the report] from the clown and then rubber stamp it.”

This is the process for every single batch of food a company produces.

“This is how you get to potential chemical poisoning of Americans,” sighs Glenn, noting that the entire process of ingredient approval is based on “bribery.”

To hear more about the “lucrative relationship” between the food production industry, the FDA, and Big Pharma and why these agencies hate Donald Trump specifically, watch the clip above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Fda, Big pharma, Big ag, Food industry, Make america healthy again, User fees, Corruption, Blaze tv, Blaze media 

Determined to employ the unrestrained force of the federal government against Donald Trump supporters who were at the Capitol during the unrest on January 6, 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray wanted to assure Americans that his agency “had deployed every single tool at its disposal and its full arsenal of investigative resources” to target their families, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens who exercised their right to free speech and free assembly.

“This ideologically motivated violence,” Wray told a Senate committee, “underscores the symbolic nature of the National Capital Region and the willingness of domestic violent extremists to travel to events in this area and violently engage law enforcement and their perceived adversaries.”

What Wray called ‘domestic violent extremism’ is a fiction contrived to frame the political right as terrorists and increase FBI budgets.

The FBI’s post-January 6 operations were intended to terrorize the opposition into silence. Dissidents would continue to be prosecuted, and anyone foolish enough to organize in the “National Capital Region” — that is, Barack Obama’s center of operations — would have their lives ruined, just like January 6 defendants. Here, the political effort to shatter the opposition intersected with the professional ambitions of Washington’s permanent bureaucracy.

As the U.S. had begun to downsize its presence in the Middle East, national security bureaucrats and their parasitical private sector partners saw that the industry that had made them rich was now at risk. Counterterrorism is a multibillion-dollar Beltway business, filling a trough that feeds Republican and Democratic constituencies including the State Department, the FBI, and other spy services, as well as defense contractors, NGOs, and think tanks.

The “insurrection” reinvigorated the industry, which easily adapted to the new model with counterterror experts plugging in the same keywords — radicalization, self-radicalization, lone wolves, etc. — for what is essentially the same enterprise, except that instead of fighting dangerous terrorists abroad, they are targeting Trump supporters. What Wray called “domestic violent extremism” is a fiction contrived to frame the political right as terrorists and increase FBI budgets.

“In our office in Daytona, for instance, there were no legitimate domestic terror threats,” says former FBI agent Stephen Friend. “There were no active cases that were any good. My first day in Daytona they gave me this case with these guys that just lived in the backwoods. They hadn’t done anything. A tip came that these guys might be domestic terrorists, but there was nothing to it. And I wanted to close it, and then supervisors were insisting, ‘No, we should get an undercover or an informant to go bump these guys and see if they’ll sell us a weapon and then we could charge them with a gun crime.’ And I said, ‘That’s entrapment, and I’m not interested in doing that.’”

‘You do what you’re told’

For the FBI, January 6 was a bonanza. It let Wray and FBI leadership boost the nearly nonexistent numbers of domestic terrorists to thousands in order to please their political masters and strengthen their hand in bureaucratic battles. With a live-action example of domestic violent extremism in the nation’s capital playing out on broadcast media around the world, FBI leadership had what it needed to press Congress to cough up more money.

“January 6 happens in Washington D.C., so the Washington field office would have responsibility for that case,” Friend said. “And then typically that office would open one case. And you investigate the subjects you want to investigate, and if they don’t live in Washington D.C., as most of the Jan. 6 people didn’t, it wouldn’t make sense to hop on a plane to go interview them. You would cut a lead, and an agent in the office where the subject is located would go do the interview.”

But that is not what happened with the January 6 cases, Friend explained. “They stood up a task force in Washington, D.C., which was doing the investigative actions. So these tips would come in by the hundreds and the thousands with the directive to field offices to open a case on these people. And we did it for every single person.”

By making the field offices open separate cases, the FBI turned January 6 into thousands of cases, one opened for every investigative subject. Spreading those cases around the country is how the FBI cooked its books so it could pronounce right-wing extremism as the No. 1 threat to U.S. national security. The fact is that most of the January 6 cases were not even domestic terrorism cases.

“All the January 6 cases are either one of two things,” Friend said. “They’re either 266, which means domestic terrorism, but the lion’s share of them are 176, which is a criminal charge, parading and rioting. But those riot charges are being investigated by joint terrorism task forces, and they’re being called domestic terrorist cases for statistical reasons. They’re juking the numbers. But people don’t know that. They think, ‘January 6, oh, that’s domestic terrorism.’ They’re not, not even by the way the FBI treated it.”

When Friend pointed out to his supervisors that they were violating FBI procedures, they turned on him.

What had once been the world’s premier law enforcement agency had become a homegrown version of a Soviet-style internal security service, an American Stasi.

“They said that I was a simp for January 6,” Friend recalled, “but I said, ‘You have righteous cases here if somebody was engaging in violence, but as a matter of disclosure, you have to turn over Brady material [information favorable to the defendant] that you departed from your own rules. If the defense finds out about that, that’s a bad black eye for us. What if the guy is a really bad dude and now you lost because you were so hell-bent on hitting your numbers that you violated your own protocols and now he walks?’ And they said to me, ‘Well, Steve, we’re not losing any of the cases.’”

And indeed, that was true. The Justice Department has won convictions against nearly every January 6 defendant who has come before a Washington, D.C. jury. And that is another reason why federal law enforcement made all its cases out of a jurisdiction that votes overwhelmingly Democratic. It is still unclear, however, when citizens on the left first resolved to punish fellow Americans for voting differently.

Friend’s misgivings started to grow. When he was assigned to transport a January 6 suspect, he spoke out. “They were going to send a SWAT team, arrest him, and then my job was to take him from where we arrested him to court and drop him off. I said, ‘This isn’t fair, and this is dangerous. We’re sending SWAT teams to guys’ houses that said they’d cooperate. The guy said 18 months ago that he would cooperate, and you have no contact with him for a year and a half, and now you send a SWAT team to his house? He has no expectation that you’re coming. There’s lots of different ways you can bring him into custody. You guys are a hammer looking for a nail.’”

Friend’s superiors couldn’t understand why it mattered to him. “I said, ‘You gave me training on identifying if I think that we’re doing things the wrong way, and I’m throwing the flag,’ and they said, ‘Yeah, you have an oath of office, you have training, but your real duty is to the FBI, and you follow orders and do what you’re told. What’s your problem with it?’ And I just said we’re supposed to be part of something bigger than that.”

That was it for Friend. In 2022, he became an FBI whistleblower after making protected disclosures to Congress about the FBI’s manipulative investigations of January 6 protesters.

What had once been the world’s premier law enforcement agency had become an arm of the ruling party, a homegrown version of a Soviet-style internal security service, an American Stasi serving not the people it was sworn to protect but the regime that funded and armed it. Thousands of Americans were swept up in the nationwide January 6 dragnet, detained for months, then years, their charges being bulked out with years-long sentencing enhancements.

Caught in a nightmare

Many were broken by it, like Matthew Perna, a 37-year-old from Sharpsville, Pennsylvania.

“Matt decided to go to the Stop the Steal rally because he wanted to be part of what he thought was going to be a historic celebration,” said his aunt, Geri Perna. “He did not believe that the election results were going to be certified. And he felt that by joining this huge crowd, they would be heard, and something unprecedented would take place. And actually, something unprecedented did take place, and Matt got caught up in it.”

Videotape shows that Perna walked into the Capitol through open doors past five Capitol Police officers. He held his cell phone aloft to record the events. He walked around for less than 15 minutes, then left through a different door.

“He went back to his hotel room and did a live Facebook feed where he talked about the day,” his aunt said. “He was upset that Pence certified the vote and Biden was named president. He said it’s not over yet. He meant that there will be investigations and that the truth will eventually come out.”

Geri Perna told me she was at home in Florida a week or so after and saw a Facebook post saying the FBI was looking for people who had attended the rally. “I clicked on the link, and I was shocked to see my nephew’s picture as one of the people that was wanted,” she says. “And I let my family know. My brother visited Matt at 6:00 that morning and Matt already knew about it. He honestly didn’t think he did anything wrong. He didn’t hurt anybody, didn’t steal anything, he didn’t break anything.”

Perna told his attorney that he wanted it to end as quickly as possible. The attorney told him that the quickest way to make it end would be to plead guilty.

He called the local FBI field office and explained who he was. The FBI made an appointment to visit him the following day. “Two officers showed up to question him about what happened,” Geri Perna told me. “He told them everything. Matt did not have an attorney because he thought this was just a mistake. And the FBI left that day giving Matt the impression that they had everything they needed.”

When she heard about the meeting with the FBI, she got on a plane to Pennsylvania to see Matt. “We got an attorney,” she says. “The FBI called, and they said they had a few more questions, and they showed up with five more officers and that’s when they arrested Matt. They searched his home, confiscated his laptop and all his phones. They took him to the local office in New Castle, and they booked him, then released him three hours later. They took the sweatshirt that he was wearing that day that said ‘Make America Great Again’ as evidence, and that was when the nightmare began.”

Perna’s attorney told him that he had nothing to worry about. He had no record, and all they would do was give him a slap on the wrist. “About 10 days later,” Geri Perna told me, “they added the obstruction charge to over 200 of the defendants at the time, and Matt was one of them. And that’s when everything got ugly. And this just began a series of postponements and delays.”

“And Matt was constantly worried, what were they going to find?” Perna said. “And every time there was a hearing, it got canceled and then postponed indefinitely. Matt’s mental state began to deteriorate. He saw how many more people were being arrested and charged with very serious crimes and taken to the D.C. jail. Matt had guilty feelings because he was not in jail and other people were. Time was wearing on, the cases kept mounting, Christmas was approaching, and Matt had become a recluse in his home. He was always a healthy eater. He was now eating destructively. He just didn’t care any more.”

Perna told his attorney that he wanted it to end as quickly as possible. The attorney told him that the quickest way to make it end would be to plead guilty.

“They weren’t offering to drop any of the charges,” Geri Perna explained. “The lawyer told them that he was looking at a six- to 12-month federal prison camp, with minimum security. Matt agreed to this. His late father suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and they were going to use the fact that Matt was his caregiver to maybe get the sentence reduced to house arrest. That’s what they were hoping.”

Driven to despair

On December 17, 2021, Perna pleaded guilty to obstruction of Congress, a felony, and three related misdemeanor charges.

“His sentencing hearing was scheduled for March 3 and a week before he called his attorney, and he said, ‘I have a very bad feeling about my sentencing hearing being on March 3,’” she said. “That is the day his mother died. And honestly, I don’t believe any of these dates are coincidental. They are playing with these people’s minds. They are torturing them mentally, and Matt just did not want to have the hearing on that date.”

His attorney told him that his hearing was postponed, but the prosecution was planning to ask the judge to add a sentencing enhancement, which could increase the sentence by many years.

“We later learned that Matt told his friend that he was looking at nine years. That just broke, Matt,” his aunt said. “He called me sobbing on the phone. I could barely understand him. He could barely put a sentence together. He was stuttering. He was sobbing and he was apologizing over and over to me about how this impacted my friendships and how much guilt this poor kid felt for bringing our name into the newspapers. I kept telling him, ‘Don’t worry, Matt. We’re going to tackle this. And you have to have faith.’ I think they had at this point convinced him that he deserved whatever they gave him. That Friday afternoon, early evening, my brother called me and told me to book a plane ticket because Matt had just hanged himself in his garage.”

Matthew Perna’s funeral was held March 2, 2022 in Hermitage, Pennsylvania. “We had an honor guard that requested to be there for the viewing the night before and then for the funeral,” his aunt said. “They did a flag-folding ceremony, and they handed my brother a flag, and my brother was confused and he said, ‘I don’t understand. Matt wasn’t in the military. Aren’t these funerals normally reserved for veterans?’ And they told him, ‘In our eyes, Matt was a bigger patriot than most of the veterans we’ve ever stood guard over.’”

The partisans in the FBI had driven a patriot, a good man, to despair. “We found out after he died about all of these amazing random acts of kindness that he did for people,” she says. “People showed up at the funeral and told us about all the things he did. There was a family with a bunch of kids who’d been in a restaurant one day and Matt picked up the bill for them.

“I made a phone call when I was going through Matt’s paperwork from his case. There was a phone number and a name in there for the prosecutor on Matt’s case, the one that was going to try to push this sentencing enhancement. I called the number and got the prosecutor, and I said, ‘I want to know why the sentencing enhancement.’ And he says, ‘Let me start off by saying that if Matthew just could have waited another month, I don’t think the sentencing enhancement would have stuck with the judge anyway.’ And I said, ‘Do you realize the threat of that enhancement and the jail time that went with it is the reason my nephew took his life?’ And he says, ‘Well, there are many people in our department who felt very bad that Matt took his life.’ And I said, ‘You and the many people in your department are responsible for Matt taking his life.’”

Geri Perna advocates on behalf of January 6 defendants and speaks with the families constantly. “I don’t know how many people have committed suicide over J6,” she told me. “You’re never going to know. I’ve had three people reach out to me to tell me about friends or neighbors who killed themselves after they saw their picture on there. And you’ve never heard about them because they never got that far. But what it did to our family has changed us all. The direction this country has taken is unbelievable. And it doesn’t seem to have a light at the end of the tunnel. We are a nation in distress.”

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from “Disappearing the President: Trump, Truth Social, and the Fight for the Republic,” by Lee Smith (Encounter Books).

​January 6, Fbi whistleblower, Fbi, Christopher wray, Steve friend, Matthew perna, Injustice, Opinion & analysis 

Members of the community in Hanford, California, are calling for more answers from their school district after a grade school teacher says she was assaulted several times by the same student.

Teachers and parents berated members of the Pioneer Union School District on Wednesday evening after teacher Madeline Cardoza posted photos of a black eye and bruises on her legs from an alleged student assault.

‘You guys have done nothing for this staff. Teachers should not be assaulted.’

Cardoza claimed that it was only the latest assault from the same student at Frontier Elementary and that there had been three other incidents from which she suffered a black eye. She also said she suffered a concussion from the last alleged incident.

“It’s incredibly sad that it took a bruised and battered face to bring attention to what teachers in our county have been dealing with quietly for years,” said Monica Cano, a teacher with the district.

“They need to protect themselves. You guys have done nothing for this staff. Teachers should not be assaulted,” said Amalia Phillips, a mother of children in the district.

Another parent said she also suffered from assault when she subbed in her daughter’s class.

“I was choked by my lanyard and punched in the stomach by a student. I had an immediate understanding of what was going on, and it wasn’t learning,” said Holly Pereira.

One father told the school board that his son had told him about the alleged threat but that he didn’t believe him and believed he was exaggerating.

Another parent, Anna Marie Johnson, said she had a difficult conversation with her son about the student who was allegedly committing the assaults.

“I had to ask him if he feels safe in the classroom, if he knows who the child is. And he said the child is still in class, that the child sits in the back of the classroom and that the child is not allowed at recess,” Johnson said.

The school board only said it had no response to the frustration from parents and teachers.

Liberal legislators in California in recent years have dismantled mandatory consequences for misbehavior in schools in an attempt to end what they call the “school-to-prison pipeline,” especially as it pertains to minority students. Critics have blamed the policies for a rise in crime in schools.

Images of the teacher’s injuries can be viewed on the news video from KMPH-TV about the incident can be viewed on YouTube.

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​Crime in school, First grader assault, Frontier elementary assault, Madeline cardoza assault, Politics 

Politics is patronage

If you’ve never encountered a Boomer conservative discussing the manifest unfairness represented by programs like affirmative action, you are truly missing out. Decades of television (read: propaganda) have removed their ability to fix this. All they can do is whine about nonexistent meritocracy. It is easy to pick on Boomers, but this mindset is ubiquitous across the political spectrum. Left, right, and center voters all possess a deeply held belief that here, in our house, we do things fair, and we do it for freedom, with liberty and justice for all; or if we don’t, then we should.

The problem is that those in power do not believe this, and no matter what rhetoric they trot out, they’ll always use their positions to enrich friends and damage enemies through patronage. This approach is not restricted to the left or to “bad people”; it is how political sausage gets made. Since leftists have captured Western institutions of power (universities, media outlets, big cities, and federal agencies), the left has grown fat on this sausage while the right starves. Well, it’s time for the right to get its fair share of pork.

What might right-wing patronage look like?

Picture a made-up 51st state: New Statesota. NS is just like the other 50 states: It has a few blue cities with purple buffer zones marring an otherwise red canvas. Liberal politicians pour federal money into the blue cities, causing them to grow like tumors. This creates a feedback loop that expands the base of support and strengthens liberal politicians, who can then pour in even more funds.

It’s in our interests to pour money onto the red canvas. It’s okay if some of it runs into the purple buffer; it’s undesirable but not intolerable for it to flow toward the blue cities. It’s good for the blue elites to be apoplectic that money is getting dumped on the “undeserving” reds. We want some of those Havel’s greengrocers to consider putting on the ol’ MAGA hat for the good of the family and their business.

How can we do this?

For your consideration, we submit a framework called the Constitutional Credit System.

Leftist patronage is a messy network

Today, Americans with the correct combination of ideological underpinning and socially relevant pedigree are empowered to cavort as statesmen. They talk at crowds, meet with donors, and reward a preferred slate of experts, advisers, and constituents — all in service of perpetuating a long-standing charade called Democratic politics. At its core, this charade is a systematized process of participants seeking the highest spot possible while rewarding friends and punishing enemies along the way.

The political system is a coin with two very different faces. On one side is representative democracy controlled by the popular will. On the other is a messy network of patronage — sinecures, titles, and relationships. The two sides are only connected by the inescapable fact that they are collocated in time and space.

Unlike social welfare programs, we don’t need a massive apparatus of academics to generate a false consensus on a bunch of barely-truths and white lies. We just need to build a simple, constitutionally compliant system for rewarding right-wingers for doing right-wing things.

The right doesn’t get anywhere near the latitude for largesse and sinecure that the left does. In fact, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find even a meager handful of Big Letter Organizations that get patronage from the Outer Party (the RNC) and not the Inner Party (the DNC, aka the Liberal Mafia).

The FTX List is a good example of this process. No one is going to get money from Distribution Central unless the Inner Party says they are allowed to. Even if some handful of supposed “true conservatives” attempted to divert cash toward “good institutions,” it’s just not going to happen. Precious few good institutions exist; the Managerial Elite has seen to that.

But what about good people? Do they still exist?

Ask the devout on our side of the spectrum, and you’ll get a lot of answers. Ask the atheists, and you’ll get just as many answers, but worded differently. Ask anyone, “Who is good?” and you’ll get an overcomplicated framework that always reduces to “none are righteous except those that I personally know to be righteous.”

And that’s fine; that’s how we are wired on the right side of history. But if you tasked some AI with putting out the great survey that collected everyone’s home-brew hierarchy of goodness, you would probably come up with a rough approximation of the “mostly good,” and we posit that this approximation would overlap pretty well with the mostly right.

So can we actually reward those who vote right, look right, and think right?

Yes, and it will actually be relatively easy to do it.

Right-wing patronage can be simple and efficient

Here’s a widely known, well-worded, and completely disregarded bit of prose from the late 1700s: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America. This little blurb is about as high-minded as you can get. What the Framers were thinking by setting the bar this high is anyone’s guess. Create a 4D image in your head of “the people” and see if they have been living up to this statement. All are called; few make it. But that’s only because the right has completely unfair ideological beauty standards.

Here are 10 simple qualifications for someone who should get government money without having to ask for it. This person should actively:

Perfect the Union
Establish Justice
Maintain domestic Tranquility
Maintain the common defense
Promote general Welfare
Secure Liberty for Posterity
Maintain the unofficial militia
Protect against unreasonable search and seizure
Promote speedy, public, local, and informed trials
Promote free speech

This is a right-wing grab bag. Sure, a smattering of leftists may qualify for some of these, but just as affirmative action and welfare assistance always seem to magically land on the DNC party faithful, there must be some way to do what God and our ancestors want, which is to reward your friends.

Each of these 10 convictions is a kernel of almost limitless patronage and sinecure for the deserving. In our society as it is currently configured, the deserving are largely on the right. We just need a system that rewards them.

What might this system look like?

This system needs to be simple and honest. It should require minimal effort: minimal effort for the credit receivers, minimal effort from the credit providers, minimal thought from the gatekeepers, and minimal explanations for the courts. Much of this will arise from conforming elegantly to the contours of the Constitution, and we really do want it to be promiscuous as a preacher’s daughter in terms of who it applies to (read: lots and lots of nice, churchgoing men).

This system needs to be defensible in court. It needs to be structured from constitutional square zero and stay well within those confines, because the moment the total state senses this, it will come after it.

This system needs to start small and develop quietly and quickly. It should be packaged inoffensively, politely shared with red-state governments, and deployed rapidly.

This system will be full daylight: no secret amounts, opaque components, or hidden recipients, as every aspect will be publicly available for review. Misusing or stealing money that everyone can see and track is very hard.

The biggest lesson of social welfare programs is that if you get your program running, even experimentally, you exponentially increase the number of “widows and orphans” in your armory to deploy in the presence of cameras when the bean counters come knocking. Once a system like this goes into effect, people will want it to stay effective. The goal is to target the broadest range of the rightest people in a constrained region that they dominate.

Gaming the state for fun and profit

Keeping it simple, the Constitutional Credit System should have a number of qualifying applicants equal to or slightly smaller than the number of right-wingers in the area of application from Day Zero. This means it’s built to match what the citizens are, rather than something they aspire to be.

We should build a test that right-wingers are already acing and that liberals are mostly failing. We need a scoring system in which the reds will be disproportionately represented on the profitable side of the filter and the blues are disproportionately left out in the cold. We should require that candidates have to “check enough boxes” so that liberals cannot merely get money for checking just a few.

Are you a credit to your community in a way that respects the spirit of the Constitution? You get a credit! Have you been a credit to your community for X number of consecutive years? You get more credits!

Some ideas for the grading rubric: The recipient must 1) be an American citizen, 2) pay property taxes, 3) be married, and 4) be a natural parent. The system should identify recipients and send them their reward for being constitutionally correct without the recipients having to apply for it, which is relatively easy, as each of these things is already tracked as well as rewarded individually during tax season.

We don’t need to build out the whole rubric now, but let us state clearly and shamelessly: We are devising a game that right-wingers are most likely to win just by being right-wing.

Are you a credit to your community in a way that respects the spirit of the Constitution? You get a credit!

Have you been a credit to your community for X number of consecutive years? You get more credits!

Maybe you’re the leader of a local Boy Scout troop or the organizer of a local farmers’ market. Maybe you volunteer at your church regularly. Married, with children, and a property taxpayer, you are a credit to your community, which promotes the general welfare and provides for the common defense. You get a credit! A few, actually!

Think of this like a tax refund but with a pair of extra steps. We already give tax benefits to married couples; we already give child tax credits; we’re just combining these statuses and expanding them tactically to reward productive behavior that is actually good for our communities. You get more of whatever you subsidize, and we want more productive, constitutionally spirited behavior.

And who doesn’t love tax refunds? Surely, certain politicians looking to attain or maintain office would enthusiastically support modified tax refunds for their voters.

It’s going to be hard for the Boomer conservatives to even fathom why a system like this would be desirable, much less necessary and proper, but we need to sidestep, ignore, and/or mitigate this reaction decisively. The Boomer is too busy playing with his speedboat to sit through a lecture on the decline of America and the loss of prospects for future generations.

Anyone who realizes what time it is knows that habits and practices that should be restricted to friends, like courtesy, propriety, and compassion, are things our adversary uses to beat us bloody, rob us blind, and harm our children, figuratively and in far too many cases literally. But there is still a lot of pain tolerance in the broader right. Many will not at all like the idea of abusing their wonderful system of color-blind meritocracy to reward the right for being rightward.

Start sending checks to these chuds, however, and watch how quickly they call their congressman should the program ever find itself on the chopping block of the state budget inquest.

Implementing right-wing patronage can be efficient, too

We do not have the array of culture war superweapons available to the Cathedral, so we won’t be able to use the institutions and methods that brought us programs like Gay Marriage Is an Unalloyed Good or Illegal Migrants Are All High-Value Contributors or Crime Is Actually Just Poverty / The Price of Freedom / The Legacy of Slavery.

We have talented writers, exceptional thinkers, specific deep pockets, and the will to power. We need to leverage these few but effective assets to get this program properly dressed to impress with its best suit on, and we need to find a selection of predominately red states with the right set of characteristics to deploy it effectively.

It should be noted that the social welfare system as we know it was forced into being in the midst of a massive outpouring of social distress. There were many detractors and critics who tried to stop it for very good reasons. But no matter what facts and figures they assembled, the opposition could not stop urbanites from demanding “free money for existing” after they had gotten a taste.

Conservatives had no hope of explaining to poor people that more and free money wasn’t going to change a single blessed thing, at least not for the better. The social welfare advocates knew this; their only strategy was to get enough gatekeepers to believe that they were helping fix society, and the dynamics of self-enrichment did the rest.

But they were trying to boil the ocean. We are going to warm up a pond. We don’t need everyone on board with this idea. We don’t want a bunch of professor types extolling the virtues of the Constitutional Credit System. All we need is:

The precise number of theorists and writers to craft the actual program policies;
The targeting and acquisition team to give us a list of viable candidate states/regions;
A collection of influencers with the tenacity to sell water to thirsty people;
A well-placed local administrator exercising some basic human judgment — though this may not even be necessary. Ideally, the system is tight enough that even a DEI hire in the statehouse can’t help but send the checks to the chuds.

Unlike social welfare programs, we don’t need a massive apparatus of academics to generate a false consensus on a bunch of barely-truths and white lies. We just need to build a simple, constitutionally compliant system for rewarding right-wingers for doing right-wing things.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more ground to cover. Arguments and analysis must take place. Details need to be filled in. It’s quite likely that any intelligent person hungry for advancement and keen to take back our country has already figured out how to pilfer this idea, reconfigure it, and get it going. And that’s excellent. Let a thousand programs blossom.

This idea is going to take a coordinated effort. To move the Constitutional Credit System from the imagination onto the drawing board and into the construction and sale phases will take experienced minds and an array of skills. That’s where you come in, patient reader. The CCS needs subject matter experts in policy and process, accountants, and constitutional lawyers. It requires political facilitators and active and former staffers at local, state, and federal levels. It needs storytellers and propagandists, artists and designers. With your help, it can be transformed from a promising idea into a magnetic policy proposal that attracts the necessary signatures of any desk it’s slid across — be it by executive action or detailed argument in chambers. With the coordinated effort of talented people, the CCS will replicate, scaling up and down as it gets configured for individual districts, towns, cities, and states.

“Make America Great Again” — this phrase that each of us sincerely believes implies one of two things: renovation or construction. The CCS is the tool kit that enables us to begin reframing the political landscape by the vision of those who originally framed it.

​Tech, Right wing, Controlling the purse strings, American patronage network 

The federal government will release a large amount of economic data this week, including “advance estimate[s] of Q3 GDP growth, non-farm payrolls, the unemployment rate, and JOLTS job openings,” plus “the ISM Manufacturing PMI, CB consumer confidence, the PCE inflation report, and personal spending and income figures,” as Trading Economics reports.

Much of this data will consist of estimates while the rest likely will be subject to the Biden administration’s economically negative revisions. Typically, positive economic numbers are released with fanfare and praise for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris only to be quietly revised downward into obviously bad news later.

The American people understand the reality of their own experiences.

By then, new numbers — also celebrated as evidence of Biden and Harris’ economic wisdom — shift attention from the disappointing revisions. These new figures are often presented as major improvements over the downwardly revised data, creating the impression of continuous economic growth. But comparing overly optimistic preliminary figures with grimly revised data skews the reality of the economy’s performance.

This game of three-card monte with economic data aims to deceive the public, and the legacy media is happy to play along. While some might plead ignorance, professional reporters and commentators have no excuse not to recognize the manipulation. Meanwhile, Americans face rising costs for groceries, clothing, gas, housing, utilities, and other essentials. Many also want to enjoy activities like dining out, going to the movies, attending concerts, and watching sports. For all of these, they now pay much higher prices than they did three years ago.

Joyful claims that inflation has slowed, while technically true over the past year, don’t just lower prices to where they were before. Although many people have received pay raises, those raises are in devalued dollars and generally don’t cover the full impact of inflation since January 2021. Most pay increases fall short of keeping up with inflation both in nominal terms and after adjusting for purchasing power.

Income, sales, use, property, and various excise and service taxes all continue to rise as prices, incomes, and housing values increase in dollar terms, though not in real value. This makes Bidenflation an enormous, hidden tax increase at all levels of government, with prices largely holding at higher levels.

Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration’s massive government borrowing in 2021 and 2022, with Harris casting tie-breaking votes on major spending bills, along with the Republicans’ reluctance to push for cuts in 2023 and 2024 drove up inflation and prompted the Federal Reserve to slow the economy to curb dollar devaluation.

This economic tightening has hit most Americans hard as businesses turn to lower-wage immigrant labor, leading to net job losses for native-born American workers.

The dismal result of this miserable game of spend, tax, inflate, stealth-tax, kill jobs for native-born Americans, and repeat has been a decrease in wealth and real income for the great majority of Americans. “The bad news is that over the Biden presidency, earnings are still about 1.3% BELOW inflation,” Unleash Prosperity reports. “It provides further evidence that wage growth under Biden hasn’t kept up with inflation, resulting in a 1.3 percent loss in real earnings.”

The consumer price index has increased by 21% since January 2021.

This economic decline has unfolded even as government agencies have consistently claimed month after month that conditions are improving.

National elections will take place just days after the release of these fantastical figures, with voting already underway in most states. Politicians, reporters, analysts, and others in the media may either be misled by these numbers or pretend to believe them. But the American people understand the reality of their own experiences.

​Economy, Inflation, Prices, Consumer price index, 2024 presidential election, Media bias, Lies, Economic news, Opinion & analysis 

Sean “Diddy” Combs is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in a New York City hotel room in 2005, according to a new lawsuit.

The California boy allegedly was interested in becoming an actor and/or rapper, according to Variety.

The boy later woke up in tears with his pants undone and pain in his anus and buttocks, CNN reported.

The lawsuit says the boy’s parents hired a music industry consultant who recommended that the family travel from Los Angeles, where they lived, to New York to meet with music industry figures. The consultant allegedly arranged for the boy to have an “audition” with Combs, who reportedly requested to meet with the child alone before meeting his family.

The consultant brought the boy to Combs’ hotel room and left him alone with him, according to the lawsuit.

The boy reportedly performed a few rap songs for Combs, who allegedly told the 10-year-old he could “make him a star” and asked him how badly he wanted it.

According to the lawsuit, the “plaintiff responded, as might any 10-year-old child, that he would ‘do anything.’”

While in the hotel room, someone presented the boy with a soda. Shortly after drinking the soda, the alleged victim said he reportedly began to feel “a little funny.” The plaintiff’s attorney claimed the drink was spiked with drugs “including but not limited to GHB and/or ecstasy.”

Combs allegedly instructed the child to move closer to him and pushed him down, then told him something to the effect of “you have to do some stuff you don’t want to do sometimes.” The complaint alleged that Combs exposed his penis and told the boy to “kiss it.”

According to the complaint, the boy refused Diddy’s sexual advances, but Combs forced the minor to perform oral sex on him. Soon after, the 10-year-old reportedly lost consciousness.

The boy later woke up in tears with his pants undone and pain in his anus and buttocks, CNN reported.

The 10-year-old allegedly told Diddy that he wanted to see his parents, and the Bad Boy Records founder reportedly threatened to hurt the child’s parents if he said anything to anyone.

Once the consultant returned, she allegedly noticed the boy was “badly shaken.” The child’s parents said their son appeared “lethargic and acting differently” after the “audition.”

The lawsuit noted that since the purported sexual assault, the alleged victim suffered from “severe depression and anxiety, which leaves him hopeless and fatigued.”

Second lawsuit involves 17-year-old alleged victim

A second new lawsuit accused Combs of sexually assaulting an aspiring 17-year-old male music performer during a 2008 audition for Combs’ “Making the Band” TV show, in which Combs determines the fate of entertainment hopefuls.

During the first interview with the alleged victim — which was one-on-one with Combs — the lawsuit states that “Combs asked plaintiff hypothetical questions about handling situations involving sexual pressure.”

“As Combs described these scenarios, he began to sexually assault plaintiff by touching plaintiff both over and under his clothing, including groping and fondling his penis and instructing plaintiff to undress,” the lawsuit alleges.

The alleged victim claimed Combs threatened that he had the ability to “make or break” his career.

At the second audition, the hip-hop producer reportedly told the teen to undress in order “to demonstrate the ability to embody a ‘sex idol’ persona.”

“This encounter eventually escalated into Combs forcing the plaintiff to perform oral sex on him, and Combs sodomizing the plaintiff,” the lawsuit claims.

At the third and final audition, Combs and his bodyguard reportedly sexually assaulted the teenager.

According to the suit, the contestant was eliminated from the reality TV competition “as Combs claimed that plaintiff was untrustworthy due to his reservations about performing oral sex on his bodyguard.”

The new lawsuits against Combs were filed in the Supreme Court of the state of New York on Monday. They are the latest lawsuits against Combs from attorney Tony Buzbee, who said he’s representing more than 120 individuals in civil lawsuits accusing the music mogul of sex crimes over the course of more than two decades. Buzbee said the youngest victim was only 9 years old when Combs allegedly sexually assaulted him.

Combs’ attorneys did not address the specific allegations in the two new lawsuits but told CNN their client never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone.

“As we’ve said before, Mr. Combs cannot respond to every new publicity stunt, even in response to claims that are facially ridiculous or demonstrably false,” Combs’ attorneys said in a statement. “Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor.”

As Blaze News reported earlier this month, a lawsuit accused Combs and another male celebrity of raping a 13-year-old girl as a female star watched the alleged sex crime.

In September, Combs was arrested and hit with charges, including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and interstate transportation for prostitution.

Federal prosecutors outlined sex acts known as “freak offs” during which Combs allegedly organized the transportation of sex workers across state lines and internationally — and often recorded them.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams previously said, “The freak offs sometimes lasted days at a time, involved multiple commercial sex workers, and often involved a variety of narcotics — such as ketamine, ecstasy, and GHB [gamma hydroxybutyrate] — which Combs distributed to the victims to keep them obedient and compliant.”

Combs pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Combs, 54, is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.

He is facing at least 27 civil cases, and his criminal trial is scheduled to begin in May 2025.

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​Sean combs, Sean diddy combs, Child sex abuse, Child sexual abuse, Child rape, Diddy parties, Freak offs, Sexual assault, Rape, Sex trafficking, Music, Crime, Lawsuits 

On Monday, a battleground state’s supreme court ruling delivered a crushing blow to election integrity.

The Nevada Supreme Court concurred with a lower court’s ruling that mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day on November 5 “must be counted,” even if a postmark “cannot be determined.”

The ruling was a significant setback for the Republican National Committee, which argued that ballots without a legible postmark should not be counted after Election Day.

The court’s decision upheld an August ruling by District Court Judge James Russell. Russell claimed that the ballots should be accepted to ensure that all eligible votes are counted.

The court filing read, “If a voter properly and timely casts their vote by mailing their ballot before or on the day of the election, and through a post office omission the ballot is not postmarked, it would go against public policy to discount that properly cast vote.”

“Indeed, there is no principled distinction between mail ballots where the postmark is ‘illegible’ or ‘smudged’ and those with no postmark — in each instance, the date the mail ballot was received by the post office cannot be determined,” it added.

The Nevada Supreme Court determined that the RNC lacked standing, claiming it failed to provide sufficient evidence that counting ballots without a postmark would be vulnerable to voter fraud or that current security measures were insufficient to address the concerns.

“The RNC asserts that it currently expends significant resources on election monitoring, but it would need to expend additional resources to specifically monitor mail ballots received without postmarks,” the court filing read. “But the RNC already monitors elections. Accordingly, any additional resources it would expend would merely constitute ‘continuing ongoing activities’ or ‘business as usual.'”

The justices also rejected the RNC’s argument that mail ballots favor Democrats.

Five of the seven justices agreed with the high court’s majority ruling. The two other justices concurred with the result but provided different rationales.

RNC spokesperson Claire Zunk told The Hill, “Requiring ballots to be postmarked on or before Election Day is a critical election integrity safeguard that ensures ballots mailed after election day are not counted.”

“It is also a requirement of Nevada law. By allowing Nevada officials to ignore the law’s postmark requirement, the state’s highest court has undermined the integrity of Nevada’s elections,” Zunk added.

Elon Musk responded to the court’s decision, writing on X, “This is messed up.”

Musk urged Nevada voters to cast their ballots for Republican candidates.

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​Election, Election 2024, Election integrity, Election security, Late ballots, Nevada, Nevada supreme court, News, Presidential election, Presidential election 2024, Politics 

When wokeness became the only acceptable ideology, the NFL fell in line, but that doesn’t mean all the players did.

On Sunday night, following a victory over the Dallas Cowboys, 49ers defensive lineman Nick Bosa flashed his MAGA hat during the postgame set.

According to Jason Whitlock, Bosa’s stunt was courageous — especially when you consider that he plays for the team that represents the most liberal city in the country.

When a reporter asked Bosa about his hat, his courage only continued.

“It would appear to be a political statement,” a reporter said curtly.

“I’m not gonna talk too much about it, but I think it’s an important time” is all the linebacker had to say back.

“That’s all that needed to be said because the hat says it all,” says Jason, who agrees with Bosa that we’re living in an incredibly important time.

“It’s a time where men need to come out of the closet and stand 10 toes down on what they believe and what they stand for, and that’s what I think we’re seeing in the sports world,” he continues, pointing to Texas Tech kicker Reese Burkhardt pulling up his jersey to reveal a homemade pro-Trump T-shirt after scoring a touchdown.

Jason also points to “Harrison Butker, the Chiefs kicker out campaigning for Josh Hawley and expressing his Catholic faith.”

“Men are coming back and standing on what they believe,” he says.

To find out whom Jason says we should “thank for Nick Bosa’s courage,” watch the clip above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, Blaze media, Blazetv, Nick bosa, San francisco, San francisco 49ers, Woke ideology, Nfl, Woke nfl, Fearless 

Liberal comedian Jon Stewart defended his colleague, who made a joke about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally, and instead jabbed at the Harris-Walz campaign for its own debacle involving Beyoncé.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe is known for his comedy roasts, but some of the politically incorrect jokes he made at the Madison Square Garden rally for former President Donald Trump led to a media firestorm. The Trump campaign distanced itself from the comments, especially in reference to Puerto Rico.

Stewart featured a clip of the jokes on “The Daily Show” Monday.

“For the media, there was one moment in particular that raised the alarms,” he said.

“Obviously, in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to a political rally a week before Election Day and roasting a key demographic … probably not the best decision by the campaign politically, but to be fair, the guy’s just really doing what he does,” he continued.

Stewart then laughed after playing video of Hinchcliffe’s edgy jokes at a roast of Tom Brady.

“Yes, yes, of course, terrible, boo. There’s something wrong with me. I find that guy very funny. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you,” he added. “I mean, bringing him to a rally and having him not do roast jokes? That’d be like bringing Beyoncé to a rally and not …”

Stewart was referring to an appearance by the popular singer at a Houston rally for Vice President Kamala Harris during which she spoke for a few minutes but did not perform as expected. Some of the rally attendees booed and interrupted Harris’ speech in their disappointment.

Democrats and some in the media have used Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico to try to revive racist allegations against Trump. The comedian refused to apologize for the joke, and some in the Puerto Rican community came out to support Trump regardless of the controversy.

Stewart’s commentary can be viewed on the video on his YouTube channel here.

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​Puerto rico joke, Garbage island trump joe, Tony hinchcliffe puerto rico, Jon stewart defends hinchcliffe, Politics 

A Pennsylvania man who purports to be a woman has been arrested and held without bail after he allegedly threatened to kill former President Donald Trump last week.

On Friday, Paul Gavenonis, 74, approached a transportation office employee at Penn State University and attempted to purchase a commuter lot parking pass. During a conversation with the employee, Gavenonis mentioned a Trump rally scheduled to take place at PSU the following day.

‘Frankly, I hope somebody would get him.’

As their conversation continued, Gavenonis then allegedly made violent threats against the former president. “I hate Donald Trump. I’d like to shoot that guy,” he reportedly said while pretending to rack a gun with his hands, according to the New York Post.

“You can’t take a gun in or the students will see it,” he allegedly added after discussing scaling a tall building.

Gavenonis’ alleged comments worried the employee, who reported them to the authorities within minutes. Gavenonis was arrested just after 10:30 p.m. Friday, jail records showed.

When questioned by the U.S. Secret Service, Gavenonis allegedly admitted that he “probably” could kill Trump at a rally and that he had a rifle at home.

“Frankly, I hope somebody would get him,” he also told federal and local law enforcement, according to the arrest affidavit.

Gavenonis was eventually charged with making terroristic threats and disorderly conduct, a court docket showed.

He was also denied bail in part because he was deemed “suicidal,” the docket noted.

Screenshot of court docket

Both the court docket and jail records list Gavenonis as a white female. The Centre County Public Defender’s Office also claimed he uses she/her pronouns, the Post reported.

When Blaze News reached out to the Centre County jail, Lt. Mark Waite provided Gavenonis’ booking photo but did not clarify whether he is being housed in a male or female facility.

The Kansas City Star reported that Gavenonis is a registered Democrat.

Three months ago, Trump came within millimeters of losing his life after Thomas Crooks fired multiple shots at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 140 miles west of the Penn State campus in State College. One bullet tore through Trump’s ear, while another killed former fire chief Corey Comperatore. Two others were critically wounded.

Then last month, Ryan Routh allegedly set up a sniper’s nest at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, with the intention of assassinating Trump. Fortunately, the suspect was spotted before he could fire a shot.

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​Crime, Paul gavenonis, Trump assassination, Penn state, Pennsylvania, Trump rally, Politics 

Arabic readers are lambasting socialist Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York for publishing a flyer meant to court the Muslim vote with obvious errors.

Ocasio-Cortez posted an image of the flyer to her X account, but she was immediately assailed for incompetently putting out the image without enough proofreading.

‘This is offensive and a stupid own goal at a time when you truly can’t afford it.’

“I can read Arabic so this is giving me severe psychic damage but I like to think that people who can’t can at least see how wrong this looks? Like it is very very obviously not how Arabic looks even if you don’t understand the language,” read one response.

Blaze News confirmed the error with a fluent Arabic speaker who said the mistake appeared to be on the part of the graphic designer who placed the text on the image without maintaining the proper direction of the letters.

Ocasio-Cortez deleted the tweet after the ridicule, which was extensive and detailed.

“Incredible. @AOC‘s team clearly didn’t even bother to consult an Arabic speaker for their flyer targeting Arab Americans. All the letters are disjointed and the words are reversed,” replied Tamara Nassar, an associate editor at Intifada magazine.

“Today AOC presented illegible fliers with backwards Arabic script. The gibberish being a clear indication that neither Arabs nor Iranians work in her campaign,” said comedian Chelsea Hart.

“No f***ing way,” responded an account identifying as pro-Palestinian. “She is trying to grift Arab vote but clearly doesn’t have a single Arab on her staff. Or even Central/South Asian cuz even they couldve pointed out the glaringly obvious error here.”

“I BEG you to have someone who knows Arabic produce or at least review your outreach materials,” replied Egyptian-American Amir Beshay. “This is offensive and a stupid own goal at a time when you truly can’t afford it.”

“It is breathtaking how deeply unserious and racist @AOC is towards the Arab community,” read another tweet.

Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left have been targeted by the pro-Palestinian fringe of the Democratic Party over their lack of extreme opposition to Israel. The politician’s own party, the Democratic Socialists of America, are considering to censure her for daring to sign onto congressional bills that acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

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​Aoc racist offensive, Ocasio cortez is racist, Aoc racist flyer, Racist arabic flyer, Politics 

Weaponization of the government’s power against its opponents and even its own citizens has been steadily growing worse and for a reason.

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend is well aware as to why that is.

“To set the foundation for it, you have to go back to Barack Obama assuming office in 2009. So, a Kamala Harris presidency would mean 20 years. That’s an entire government career, a full generation of hiring that has gone across every single agency,” Friend tells Steve Deace of “The Steve Deace Show.”

“Now you have 20 years of ideologies,” he continues, adding, “and that’s how you’re getting things like McDonald’s the other day, who had one franchise allow him to do one photo opportunity and then we had an E. coli breakout, CDC all over that one, and then the United States senators accusing them of price gouging and driving the stock share price down.”

Not only did the government jump at the chance to punish McDonald’s for allowing a photo op with a political opponent, but citizens across the country have fallen victim to the FACE Act.

“In the Biden administration, it’s been applied more than any other presidential administration in history,” Friend explains. “92% application towards pro-lifers, not people who were subject to fire bombings at their crisis pregnancy centers.”

“People do not know exactly the powers that are at their fingertips,” Friend continues. “They have the ability to have an assessment from the Patriot Act, which means that they can open up an investigation on any American for an articulable purpose. Don’t need probable cause of a crime.”

Deace is rightfully disturbed.

“In other words, you’re describing investigations in search of crimes. Not criminal investigations, but investigations in search of crimes. That’s what you’re describing,” Deace says.

“Find me a man, and I’ll show you the crime,” Friend agrees.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video phone, Video, Upload, Camera phone, Sharing, Free, Youtube.com, The steve deace show, Steve deace, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Steve friend, Fbi whistleblower, Kamala harris, Barrack obama, Government weaponization, The biden administration, Face act, Donald trump, Mcdonalds, Election 2024 

Armin Mizani, the mayor of Keller, Texas, explained on X why the joke made by roast comedian Tony Hinchcliffe about Puerto Rico’s trash problems will not sway him and many other Latinos from voting for former President Donald Trump.

Hinchcliffe’s joke at the Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday resulted in intense backlash for him and Trump.

“As one of the few Mayors in this country who is actually Puerto Rican (born and raised), lets get real for a moment and let me offer an explanation as to why [Trump] and [Vance] are surging in the polls amongst Latinos and why they’ll continue to do so through election day,” said Mizani, who lived on the island until he was 9 years old.

Harris’ support among Latinos in Nevada and Arizona is small when compared to President Joe Biden’s support.

“For Latinos, faith, family, and economic opportunity motivates us – not some bad joke by a comedian. America has had a first hand account of the two choices before us,” Mizani explained. “Under the Biden and Harris administration, Americans have seen record inflation, an open southern border, increased crime, the weakening of the family structure, and the taking away of God from our daily lives.”

Under Trump, Mizani continued, “Americans saw secured borders, economic prosperity, a respect for people of faith, and a respect for American values. This is why I, along with millions of Latinos, will help re-elect President Trump back into the White House.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) likewise said a joke by an insult comic may not appeal to everyone, but the real issue is what has happened under the Biden-Harris administration.

“What isn’t a joke is how Kamala Harris destroyed our economy and allowed dangerous criminals to illegally enter our country and terrorize, rape and murder Americans,” Rubio said. “And what isn’t a joke and truly outrageous is how ‘journalists’ are helping Kamala [Harris] with her dangerous campaign of hate by calling Trump the new Hitler and how MSNBC used old footage of Nazi rallies TO SMEAR TRUMP SUPPORTERS AS NAZIS!”

CNN reported Harris’ support among Latinos in Nevada and Arizona is small when compared to President Joe Biden’s support from that voting bloc in 2020. Harris is up 18 points with Latinos in Arizona, down from Biden’s 24 points, and she is up only one point in Nevada, down from Biden’s 26 points four years ago.

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​Politics 

This election season has been stuffed full of cringe-worthy moments, but Vice President Kamala Harris has overtaken all contenders with this latest entry into the contest.

‘That was just so awkward. It was painfully awkward to even watch.’

Harris was speaking before a number of supporters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when they began chanting her name. The presidential candidate attempted to make a point about their individual efforts when she made a bizarre request.

“Now I want each of you to shout your own name. Do that!” she said and laughed maniacally.

The crowd paused and quieted in confusion.

“Cuz it’s all about all of us!” she said in the uncomfortable silence. “It’s all about all of us!”

Video of the moment spread far and wide on social media, where it was met with hilarious ridicule. Just one post of the video garnered 5.4 million views on its own.

“She cannot control a crowd,” replied commentator Collin Rugg. “To her credit, she never deserved to be in this position. She was installed.”

“I honestly thought Hillary was the least likeable candidate ever in all our history, but I do believe Kamala has taken the title away from her,” read another response.

“This has to be the most embarrassing moment I’ve ever seen at a political rally. I feel bad for her campaign staff. This is not what you want happening 7 days before an election,” said another critic.

“That was just so awkward. It was painfully awkward to even watch. Ouch,” read another tweet.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz didn’t fare much better in the week before Election Day. A message meant to reach out to male voters was brutally mocked and ridiculed for a weird gaffe about football.

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With just a week until Election Day, Republicans’ record early voting and registration turnouts may be sending warning signs to Democrats.

Roughly 27.4 million Americans nationally have cast their votes early, with some swing states already exceeding 2016 rates. Although Republicans have historically hesitated to embrace early voting, several swing states that collect data based on party affiliation show that Republicans are now outpacing their Democratic counterparts.

“You’d rather be in our position than theirs,” James Blair, a political director for Trump, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s too early to start declaring victory, but the swings in our direction are very positive.”

‘Looking at who is showing up, I would say Republicans should feel good and Democrats may have some work to do.’

Trump is currently outperforming Harris in Arizona by 1.5 points despite losing the state to Biden by 0.4% in 2020. At the same time, Republicans are also outpacing Democrats when it comes to early voting.

As of Monday, 32% of Arizona’s electorate have cast their ballots by mail-in or early voting. Of those 1.4 million ballots, 589,000 are Republican ballots, 486,000 are Democratic, and 326,000 are from third-party or independent voters.

Arizona Republicans have also registered in greater numbers going into November compared to previous election cycles. As of October 2024, there are over 1.5 million registered Republicans and roughly 1.2 million registered Democrats. This nearly six-point registration gap between the parties is double the advantage Arizona Republicans had going into 2020.

Republicans hold a similar advantage in the neighboring Sun Belt state of Nevada. There, Harris is trailing Trump by an average of 0.7 points, although Biden won the state by 2.4% in 2020.

Republicans also have an unprecedented leg up in Nevada when it comes to early voting. Of the 712,000 early ballots that were cast as of Friday, over 280,000 are Republican ballots, 245,000 are Democratic, and nearly 180,000 were from unaffiliated voters.

There has also been a favorable shift toward Republicans with respect to voter registration. Of the 2.4 million registered voters in Nevada as of September 2024, there are about 718,000 Democrats, nearly 674,000 Republicans, and about 1 million third-party or unaffiliated voters. In contrast, of the 1.9 million registered voters in September 2020, about 742,000 were Democrats, 626,000 were Republicans, and 604,000 were third-party or independent voters.

Not only did overall voter registration in Nevada increase by roughly half a million, but there was also an increase in Republican, independent, and third-party registration while Democrats saw a decrease. However, unlike Arizona, Nevada implemented automatic voter registration in 2020, which may have contributed to this shift.

Some voters attribute Trump’s edge in the Sun Belt to a broader shift among Latino voters. Polls comparing Harris’ and Biden’s support among Hispanics have shown that the current Democratic nominee is hemorrhaging support with the demographic, while Trump has managed to gain ground.

Farther east, in North Carolina, Trump is leading Harris by an average of 0.9 points, while also winning the state in 2020 against Biden and in 2016 against former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Although the race is tight, Republicans have made strides.

Over a third of North Carolina’s eligible voters, or 3.1 million ballots, have been cast as of Tuesday. Of those early votes, Republicans are slightly outperforming Democrats, with roughly 1.1 million votes from Republicans and about 1 million from Democrats. Despite the close margin, Harris has actually pulled ads and resources from the state just a week from the election.

Although Republicans are slightly ahead, they are actually outnumbered when it comes to voter registration in North Carolina. As of October 2024, roughly 2.4 million voters are registered Democrats and 2.3 million are Republicans. The registration gap has significantly narrowed compared to October 2020, with over 2.6 million registered Democrats and 2.2 million Republicans.

Republicans are also gaining ground in Pennsylvania, the most electorally significant of the swing states. Although Trump lost the state to Biden in 2020 by 1.2%, the Republican nominee now boasts an average lead over Harris of 0.4 points.

Of the 1.4 million early ballots cast in Pennsylvania, nearly 815,000 have been cast by Democrats, while just 439,000 have been cast by Republicans. Although Democrats are outpacing Republicans, the GOP has begun to close the gap.

Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin don’t collect data based on party affiliation, but there is still a record turnout for early voting and voter registration.

“Looking at who is showing up, I would say Republicans should feel good and Democrats may have some work to do,” Michael Bitzer, a professor at Catawba College, told the Wall Street Journal.

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A Catholic group released an eye-opening new ad revealing Kamala Harris’ previous support for an “anti-Catholic hate group” and suggesting she harbors anti-Christian antipathy more generally.

On Monday, CatholicVote released the video ad featuring a photo of Harris posing with two drag queens from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at an LGBTQ-themed celebration in San Francisco in 2019. In the photo, Harris grins from ear to ear as she stands between longtime SPI member Michael Williams, aka “Sister Roma,” and San Francisco transgender activist James Mitchell, aka “Saint Honey Mahogany,” CatholicVote claimed.

‘Kamala Harris does not care about Christians in this country.’

“Why is Kamala Harris posing with the founder of an anti-Catholic hate group?” a voice-over begins. “They mock our faith.”

The ad then includes footage of members of SPI conducting sexual performances on sacred Christian symbols, including the cross.

“For Catholics, it’s hard to imagine anything more offensive,” the voice of Bishop Robert Barron says.

“Kamala Harris does not care about Christians in this country,” another male voice adds.

The ad closes by encouraging all Christians to vote this year to prevent Harris from acceding to the highest office in the land. “Christians can’t stay home November 5,” the voice-over says as the message “Reject Harris” flashes on screen.

In a statement, CatholicVote President Brian Burch referred to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as “a ‘drag’ troupe whose whole purpose is to mock and harass Catholics.”

Not only do their costumes and makeup attack innocent and faithful nuns, Burch claimed, but SPI then routinely blasphemes Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Christianity in general by hosting “Hunky Jesus” competitions during which drag queens “perform stripteases, simulate sex acts, and mock the crucifixion.”

Harris’ appearance with the blasphemous drag queens is hardly the only time she has demonstrated anti-Catholic animus. In 2018, then-Sen. Harris grilled Brian Buescher, nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump, for his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s charitable organization.

During her line of questioning, Harris repeatedly implied that Buescher’s association with the Knights of Columbus — which embraces Catholic teaching on abortion and marriage — meant he was unfit to serve.

The Biden-Harris administration has also engaged in ruthless lawfare against Christians who protest peacefully near abortion clinics, sending some to prison for years. The administration even targeted the Little Sisters of the Poor — a group of actual Roman Catholic nuns who dedicate their lives to serving Christ by assisting the elderly and vulnerable — over their moral objection to contraception.

Just last week, NBC News’ Hallie Jackson asked Harris whether she supported any restrictions on abortion, including “religious exemptions” ostensibly for performing abortions. Harris rejected the premise and indicated instead that abortion rights trumped all other considerations.

“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris replied.

Harris did not clarify whether she also considers the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the free exercise of religion, a “fundamental freedom.”

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The federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and elsewhere is “pathetic” and “inexcusable” compared to the massive deployment of U.S. military resources made in other hurricanes since 2017, a former top Pentagon official tells Blaze News.

Casey Wardynski, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs under former President Donald J. Trump, said the failing response by the Biden-Harris administration has the hallmarks of a political decision not to help because most of the affected areas are inhabited primarily by Trump voters.

“These are Americans who are apparently still in very dire straits a month after a disaster,” said Wardynski, who oversaw the Army’s manpower division from 2019 to 2021.

‘I know the sense of urgency that you would’ve had with Trump. I don’t see it here.’

“We have any number of folks running around our country talking about global climate change, or whatever that is, and the need to change every aspect of life to minimize [climate] change,” Wardynski said. “And yet when a disaster hits and the weather plays dirty tricks on people, they don’t seem to be able to mobilize key resources to relieve the suffering and restore the lives of Americans.”

Wardynski said his criticisms are aimed at the policymakers, not the men and women with boots on the ground.

“It works from the president on down in terms of allocation of resources. The military services, the Department of Defense, typically get the word from the president in terms of the level of commitment to make to these kinds of disasters,” he said. “Obviously there have been disasters with a much greater level of commitment from the national level through the policymakers than this one has.”

“The people on the ground are doing yeoman work, both the folks that are there in the private capacity and the military people that are working under those circumstances — they’re obviously doing great work,” he said. “It’s not up to them to figure out whether we need a couple of engineer brigades or not. That’s up to the people at the Pentagon and the White House.”

Wardynski said in the largely rural areas of Western North Carolina that are dominated by Trump voters, most of the humanitarian relief is being done by volunteers, church groups, and non-governmental organizations. “Support from the federal and even state government is very, very thin, and that should not be the case,” he said.

There are 1,500 regular Army troops performing relief operations in North Carolina, paltry by comparison with the 142,000 Guardsmen who fought wildfires in 2022 or the 62,000 military troops who responded to Hurricane Ivan, Wardynski said. Elements from the XVIII Airborne Corps have been performing a wide range of duties.

The National Guard had more than 11,000 troops committed to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton relief missions, and nearly 2,000 remain on duty in North Carolina, officials said. The Army Corps of Engineers also has nearly 300 members on mission in North Carolina.

Last week North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said the state was leading an “unprecedented response and recovery effort with the support of federal, local, and nonprofit partners.”

The Department of Defense committed more than 16,000 personnel after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Some 17,000 troops were deployed to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricanes Maria and Irma later that same year. The U.S. military committed 17,000 troops to Haiti after a 2010 earthquake and sent 15,000 to Indonesia after a tsunami in 2005.

So why only 1,500 Army troops for what many on the ground are calling “biblical” devastation from Helene?

“Here we are a month later, and people have no electricity, no water,” Wardynski said. “It is pathetic.”

“I know the response one would’ve seen with Trump, and I know the sense of urgency that you would’ve had with Trump,” Wardynski said. “I don’t see it here. I see it from good Americans where they just see another American as red, white, and blue.

U.S. Army soldiers assigned to Bravo Company, 1st Brigade, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) speak with the local community to provide debris clearance assistance at Marshall, North Carolina, on October 10, 2024. Photo by Sgt. Nicholas Session/U.S. Army

“But I’m afraid some of these governmental levels, it looks like they see it through either blue or red lenses, and they’re giving it the response they think is appropriate for a time that’s drawing close to an election.”

Blaze News reached out to the Pentagon for comment but did not receive a reply by press time.

On Oct. 17, Blaze News asked the public affairs officer for the Army XVIII Airborne Corps why the authorized North Carolina strength was 1,500 for the hurricane and not 15,000.

“It’s a great question,” said Maj. Aimee J. Valles. “We at the 18th Airborne Corps, we’re not policymakers. We’re not the decision-makers for that. We allow the folks who make those decisions to make that call, right? So I’d have to refer you to the DOD. They’re absolutely the ones cutting the orders, and also the governor. So the governor made a request for the amount of troops that he needed, and so I’d refer you to him as well.”

The Department of Defense should send combat engineering brigades from the National Guard to rebuild roads and bridges, set up temporary water pipelines, and install power grids, Wardynski said.

Wardynski said the Army could quickly send the 111th Engineer Brigade of the West Virginia National Guard, the 117th Engineer Brigade of the South Carolina National Guard, and the 194th Engineer Brigade of the Tennessee National Guard. There are eight such brigades in the National Guard, he said.

“They bring a ton of that equipment to bear to clear debris, put in roadways, put in pipelines, help prepare the way to bring in power, and restore services on the battlefield,” he said. “These are the guys that built the Burma Road into China from Burma through the mountains. They can do anything if you give them a chance.”

Combat engineer brigades would bring in large construction equipment for debris removal, road construction, bridge repair, and more.

“These National Guard units are handy in these kind of gap-filling moments,” he said. “They bring their own maintenance, they bring their own fuel, they bring their own medicine, they bring their own communications, they bring their own everything. And most [private] contractors aren’t set up to operate with no communication, no fuel, no maintenance, no logistics.

“They run dozers, Caterpillars, excavators, and they put in roads and all this kind of stuff for the Army,” Wardynski said. “This should have been happening now, and we shouldn’t still be looking at logistics by helicopter. The helicopters are great for quick relief, but you can’t restore power and you can’t restore water and you can’t restore fuel very reliably with Chinooks and Black Hawks. It’s a stop gap.”

Tent cities could house large numbers of displaced residents until more permanent housing can quickly be built, Wardynski said.

“These people with no homes, I mean, these kinds of things are not long-term solutions, but they’re better than living out in the open or some pup tents you might’ve had that survived this disaster,” he said. “A month in, this doesn’t seem reasonable any more.”

Wardynski said under the federal Stafford Act, the U.S. military has a significant role to play in disaster response, and it does not require taking away from preparedness to fight war if called upon.

Former President Donald J. Trump greets Adam Smith of Savage Freedoms Relief Operations, a group that turned a motorcycle dealership into a helipad and storm relief center, during a visit to Swannanoa, North Carolina, on Oct. 21, 2024.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

“The Stafford Act federal law provides for federal aid to state and local government a case of a disaster,” he said. “It talks about cost-sharing. States are supposed to pay about 25% of the money. The federal government is expected to bring somewhere around 75% of money.

“That money comes through FEMA and through expenditures for things like engineer brigades that are mobilized, National Guard brigades that are brought up to scratch to respond to disasters, Reserve units that are brought up to scratch to respond to disasters.

“In the Trump years we moved heaven and earth to help in Puerto Rico. When there was a disaster there, terrific resources were expended,” he said. “Typically these resources are available, and they don’t cause you to stop doing something else to begin doing disaster relief.”

The Army Corps of Engineers has the ability to set up a power grid to serve tens of thousands of homes, Wardynski said.

“Their prime power capability is truck-mounted, can bring in 72,000 homes’ worth of electricity on very quick notice. And they’ve done it before,” he said. “They did it when Trump was president in Puerto Rico. They even did it in the Maui fires. Where are they? Why are these people running off of Honda generators and fuel delivered by helicopters?”

Wardynski said the position that used to support him at the Pentagon coordinating military resources for disaster relief was eliminated by the Biden administration.

“The Biden bunch apparently didn’t see this as a priority. So that capability at the policymaking level … that job doesn’t exist and those people don’t exist, even though had they had existed through decades before.”

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 161st Engineer Support Company (Airborne), 27th Engineer Battalion (Airborne), 20th Engineer Brigade remove debris during route clearance near Green Creek in Bakersville, North Carolina, Oct. 18, 2024. Photo by Staff Sgt. Charles Brock/U.S. Army

The military could help state and local governments by setting up temporary post offices and voting locations so that no one misses a chance to vote in the Nov. 5 election.

“There are resources that people in FEMA and the Army Guard and at the Department of the Army know about,” Wardynski said, “that could be put in place lickety-split to fly in on a helicopter, open a post office for a certain number of hours a day in these disaster areas, and collect absentee ballots and provide a way for people to communicate with loved ones and get a check and do banking and all the things you need to do.”

Wardynski said the feedback he has gotten from those on the ground in Western North Carolina leaves him with the feeling that politics continues to drive the lack of urgency to storm response.

“The resources that are coming in, flowing in, are still mostly private,” he said. “And then you’ve got state-level leaders bragging about a paltry response.”

Wardynski said it’s “inexcusable” that the post-Helene response is still in emergency mode.

“Roads and power and fuel and the necessities of living should be rolling in there,” he said. “And it doesn’t sound like they are. We’re still at the NGO [non-governmental organization], private-citizen level of response, and it doesn’t sound like they’re getting a hell of a lot of help from the Stafford Act, federal and state level actors either.”

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​Politics, Fema, Pentagon, Assistant secretary of the army for manpower and reserve affairs, Casey wardynski, Hurricane helene, North carolina, 2024 election, Biden-harris administration, Hurricane response, Hurricane relief