Category: blaze media

I do not believe the actual deportation and self-deportation numbers are anywhere near the roughly 3 million claimed in Department of Homeland Security press releases.

This is more than a hunch. The published figures appear mathematically impossible.

If a population roughly equal to that of New Mexico left the United States, there should be visible statistical evidence.

That is a serious problem, which is why the Oversight Project has announced a lawsuit to force the DHS to release the underlying data.

Some people will be surprised that a Trump-aligned legal and investigative organization, best known for exposing the autopen scandal, is suing the administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

Here is why.

Trump’s central promise

Immigration enforcement has been the central thesis of President Trump’s political career.

It began with “build the wall” after he descended the golden escalator in 2015. He returned to office with 77 million votes after promising mass deportation.

Agenda 47 contained only 20 major promises. The first was to secure the border, and the administration deserves enormous credit for doing so — even as House Republicans refuse to codify those gains without attaching amnesty for illegal farmworkers.

The second promise was to conduct the largest deportation operation in American history.

Trump repeatedly indicated that this meant surpassing President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1954 operation, which some estimates say reduced the illegal population by 31% in a single year.

With two and a half years remaining in office, Trump is entering the period when presidents begin thinking seriously about legacy.

If “promises made, promises kept” is to mean anything, the deportation machinery must begin operating at full capacity now. Only then can removals reach the millions during the administration’s final years and surpass Eisenhower’s record.

Trump has the resources to do it. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is better funded and equipped than ever.

The administration should direct ICE toward high-density workplaces where illegal labor is concentrated — factories, farms, hotels, restaurants, warehouses, and meatpacking facilities — while imposing serious penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

That is how the numbers begin rising rapidly.

Surpassing Eisenhower would be the natural culmination of Trump’s political career. It would fulfill the promise at the center of his movement and provide the necessary answer to the Biden years, when roughly 10 million illegal aliens were allowed into the country and dispersed throughout American communities.

Those illegal aliens are still here. Trump can still remove them.

RELATED: The birthright ruling leaves Trump one clear move

Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The amnesty lobby needs inflated numbers

The second reason for demanding transparency is that the amnesty lobby does not care what Trump promised.

Many Republicans rolled their eyes when he pledged mass deportation. They quickly began trying to narrow enforcement to a small category of the “worst of the worst” criminals.

The reason is obvious: The amnesty lobby, especially its Republican wing, is in love with cheap illegal labor. Its members fiercely oppose worksite enforcement, even though worksite enforcement is the only realistic way to generate removals on the scale Trump promised.

They are already preparing their next push for what they will call “comprehensive immigration reform,” the familiar euphemism for mass amnesty.

The Dignidad Act has roughly 20 Republican co-sponsors. The Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026, another amnesty proposal for illegal farm laborers, has attracted more than 40.

Congress is also considering reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Over time, that law has encouraged migration from noncontiguous countries and fed migrants into labor- and sex-trafficking networks.

It has also created a funding stream for left-wing nongovernmental organizations now suing the Trump administration, undermining both the war on fraud and the work once associated with the DOGE.

The House and Senate are full of pro-amnesty Republicans financed by industries that profit from cheap labor. Most are not going anywhere soon.

Their preferred argument is predictable: Enough people have already been deported. Now it is time to make a deal.

We will not allow them to make that case using inflated numbers.

The amnesty lobby used the same tactic during the Obama administration. It combined border returns with formal removals to portray Barack Obama as the “deporter in chief.”

The goal was to make Obama look tough enough to create political space for amnesty. That strategy produced the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, which collapsed after a national populist revolt, and the unlawful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

That revolt also helped create the conditions for Trump’s rise.

I was born at night, but not last night.

The amnesty lobby is preparing to run the same play again.

The numbers don’t add up

The third reason for the lawsuit is simple: The public deserves the real figures.

The DHS recently gave several media outlets the following statement:

In President Trump’s first year back in office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations. As of June 24, we have now deported over 948,000 illegal aliens and arrested over 981,000 illegal aliens.

Consider the first sentence.

It refers specifically to Trump’s first year back in office, from January 20, 2025, through January 20 of this year. The same claim appeared on the DHS website.

If 3 million people left and 2.2 million supposedly self-deported, that leaves approximately 800,000 formal deportations or removals.

But DHS has provided no evidence supporting the claim that 2.2 million people self-deported.

The administration has pointed to the CBP Home app, yet only about 72,000 people reportedly used it to leave as of March. I have reason to believe even that number may be overstated.

That leaves a gulf of more than 2 million people.

RELATED: A real nation knows who is in and who is out

Blaze Media Illustration

If a population roughly equal to that of New Mexico left the United States, there should be visible statistical evidence. School enrollments, rental markets, remittance flows, employment records, border crossings, airline bookings, and foreign-government data should all reflect it.

The DHS should be able to produce that evidence.

Now consider the claimed 800,000 deportations during Trump’s first year.

The department’s fiscal year 2027 Congressional Budget Justification states that the DHS and ICE removed or returned 442,637 illegal aliens during fiscal year 2025, which included several months of the Biden administration.

That figure combines removals, which are closer to formal deportations, with returns, which often occur at the border.

Even with those categories combined, the official budget figure is little more than half the number implied by the press release.

The second sentence creates an even larger problem. If 800,000 people were deported during Trump’s first year, how could the cumulative total be only 948,000 seven months into 2026?

That would mean the administration deported only 148,000 people during those seven months.

The numbers do not add up.

Anyone who travels the country, follows social media, or watches television knows skepticism about these claims is now widespread. That is creating a political problem, especially among young Republican men who rank immigration enforcement and national sovereignty among their highest priorities.

Fortunately, the problem is fixable.

The administration can expand full-scale worksite enforcement and produce real, rapidly increasing removal numbers. It can then release those figures transparently, every month, with the same attention given to the jobs report.

Mass deportation is part of the glue holding Trump’s coalition together.

Regular, verifiable reporting would generate enthusiasm and demonstrate that the administration has not retreated from its defining promise.

The Oversight Project does not want Trump to fail. We want him to succeed.

That begins with knowing the real numbers.

​Dhs, Ice, Immigration, Mass deportations, Trump, Dignity act, Congress, Republicans, Gop, Eisenhower, Opinion & analysis 

A self-described lover of communism has had to face the music after allegedly crowing about canceling a DoorDash food order for the Department of Homeland Security and stealing the meal.

A social media user who indicated that she was a DoorDash driver apparently posted messages about how she took food ordered by a detention center in Buffalo, New York, and instead dropped it off at her local pantry.

‘When our support team attempted to address their report and explain our policies, the individual was abusive toward the agent, which is a separate violation.’

The account posting under the name “nixxslingerland” had a profile photo of the user wearing a “Black Lives Matter” shirt.

“Just dropped off another cancelled nazi DoorDash to my free pantry and was handed this large bag of m&ms in return,” she apparently wrote. “I love communism.”

She apparently added in another post, “For new people who are unaware, there’s unfortunately a detention center right in my town, and every single time I contact support and tell them they need to remove the location completely, I doubt they ever will, but it still feels good getting their orders cancelled and donating their food.”

DoorDash responded after the popular Libs of TikTok account posted images of the alleged messages. The account shared the images on Wednesday afternoon, and they appear to be marked as a couple of days old.

“This Dasher’s account has been deactivated,” the official business account responded to Libs of TikTok within hours.

“Misusing the safety-unassign feature to intentionally cancel orders and redirect the food based on where it’s going is theft and a violation of both our Community Guidelines and Platform Access Policy,” it added. “When our support team attempted to address their report and explain our policies, the individual was abusive toward the agent, which is a separate violation.”

RELATED: Meal service company gets CRUSHED online over very crude sex joke for Pride Month

The user appears to have canceled the account or renamed it. Blaze News reached out for comment to other accounts believed to be associated with the same user but did not receive a response.

The DoorDash delivery company previously faced backlash from anti-Trump liberals after a marketing stunt included a delivery driver dropping off McDonald’s food at the White House.

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​Black lives matter, Department of homeland security, Libs of tiktok, Doordash, Politics 

Dear Mr. Haygood,

My name is Brad Dacus, and I am the founder and president of the Pacific Justice Institute.

Congratulations on your appointment as President and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

One cannot openly profess devotion to Jesus Christ on Sunday morning while leading an organization that labels fellow believers as hate groups on Monday.

I understand that you are a purported follower of Jesus Christ and that the SPLC Board has publicly praised your religious convictions and concern for human dignity.

I am also a Christian. However, I believe there is a contradiction between the faith we both profess and the institution you now lead.

For nearly 30 years, PJI has defended religious liberty, parental rights, free speech, and other constitutional freedoms. We have represented churches, schools, students, parents, veterans, business owners, and everyday Americans who believed their rights had been violated because of their faith and had nowhere else to turn.

Yet the institution you now lead classifies PJI as a “hate group” and has placed our nonprofit on a “hate map” alongside reputable Christian ministries such as Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, and American Family Association.

PJI and these ministries have spent decades serving others and helping people live according to their convictions. We love God and our neighbors, and we seek to serve our communities faithfully.

Yet the SPLC’s judgments of PJI and these organizations now bear your signature.

Mr. Haygood, how do you reconcile your Christian witness with leading an institution that publicly brands Christian ministries as hateful because of their Bible-based beliefs?

One cannot openly profess devotion to Jesus Christ on Sunday morning while leading an organization that labels fellow believers as hate groups on Monday.

Do you believe adherence to biblical teaching is sufficient grounds to classify a ministry as a hate group?

Let me be clear: PJI categorically rejects the SPLC’s accusations. We do not incite violence, bigotry, or hatred. The SPLC is wrong about who we are and what we do.

Your public profile cites 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” If those words genuinely guide your leadership, then a public examination of the SPLC’s accusations should not be viewed as a threat, but as an opportunity.

That is why I am extending a direct and public invitation to you:

I welcome you to join me for a recorded, in-person conversation. Sit across from me and explain why PJI and these other ministries deserve to be classified as hate groups. Defend the SPLC’s accusations and conclusions.

The issue before us extends far beyond PJI or the SPLC. It concerns whether Americans can still disagree without being publicly vilified and whether deeply held religious convictions can be represented fairly in our national conversation.

The invitation stands, and I truly hope you accept it.

Running the Race,

BRAD DACUS

Founder and President
Pacific Justice Institute

Editor’s note: This letter originally appeared at pacificjustice.org.

​Southern poverty law center, Hate groups, Pacific justice institute, Freedom of religion, Ryan p. haygood, Faith 

The woman who was at the center of the viral fraud investigation by Nick Shirley has pleaded guilty to fraud related to a Minneapolis day care she owned.

Prosecutors say 50-year-old Fahima Mahamud owned the Future Leaders Early Learning Center and charged the federal government $854,000 in reimbursements for the Feeding Our Future scam.

She also fraudulently claimed to have provided up to 60,000 meals for needy children on a monthly basis during the scam.

Rather than use the money to feed needy children, she used the vast majority of the ill-gotten gains to buy real estate. Among those purchases was an autism center that billed the federal government $3.1 million over the last five years.

She billed the federal government for child-care expenses as part of the Child Care Assistance Program and was able to scam $4.6 million from the government.

Mahamud pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, but a sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.

Prosecutors said she booked a flight to London in February immediately after alerting the state that her learning center was shutting down.

News video footage from KARE-TV showed Mahamud walking into the courthouse while wearing full-body Islamic garb that covered her face as well.

Mahamud received the largest amount of reimbursement from the Child Care Assistance Program, which totaled about $4.6 million, after submitting over 13,000 fraudulent claims from 2022 until Dec. 2025.

RELATED: Top scammer of ‘Feeding Our Future’ fraud in Minnesota NAILED with painful sentence

She also fraudulently claimed to have provided up to 60,000 meals for needy children on a monthly basis during the scam.

Mahamud did not respond to requests for comment from a KARE reporter at the courthouse.

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​Autism center, Feeding our future, Nick shirley, Scam, Daycare fraud, Autism fraud, Minnesota, Politics 

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Barbara struck down President Trump’s executive order denying automatic citizenship to children born to parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States.

Chief Justice John Roberts and the majority found a constitutional violation where none exists.

The court has ruled. Now Congress must answer.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s separate opinion points to the path forward. He agreed that the executive order conflicts with the law’s current language, but he rejected the majority’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

“Congress could — consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment — amend §1401(a) or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Congress now has both the authority and the responsibility to act.

Justice Clarence Thomas’ exhaustive dissent recovered the original public meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That phrase required more than physical presence. It contemplated complete political allegiance and permanent domicile.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the debates surrounding the 14th Amendment distinguished permanent members of the American political community from temporary visitors and people who remained subject to foreign powers.

Justice Samuel Alito also warned of the consequences of the majority’s interpretation. Automatic citizenship for the children of illegal entrants and birth tourists creates opportunities for foreign exploitation and weakens the nation’s control over membership in its political community.

This was not a close call.

The majority conflated temporary subjection to American law with the solemn allegiance, duties, and privileges of citizenship in a constitutional republic.

The American Revolution rejected the relationship between monarch and subject. The United States instead recognizes sovereign citizens with God-given rights who consent to government through a shared political compact.

By erasing the distinction between a person temporarily subject to American law and a citizen belonging permanently to the American political community, the court cheapened citizenship and created a serious vulnerability.

The judiciary has failed. Congress must now correct that failure.

Unfortunately, the current Republican Congress has squandered much of the mandate voters delivered. Election-integrity legislation remains unfinished, while promised efforts to restrain activist courts and restore constitutional government have stalled.

Voters have noticed.

RELATED: The birthright ruling leaves Trump one clear move

Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The legislative solution follows directly from Kavanaugh’s opinion and the historical record presented by the dissenters.

Congress should pass a Birthright Citizenship Reform Act amending 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a). Citizenship at birth should attach only when at least one parent is a United States citizen or a lawful permanent resident domiciled here.

Congress should also define “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to exclude the children of foreign nationals present unlawfully or admitted only temporarily.

The legislation should apply prospectively and include narrow transition provisions. These changes would respect the original limits of the 14th Amendment, close national security gaps, and restore the integrity of American citizenship.

I am running for Congress in Florida’s 19th District because Washington needs representatives willing to turn constitutional principles into legislation.

I qualified for the ballot through citizen participation rather than by writing a check. As a former January 6 defendant who refused a false plea agreement and endured solitary confinement, I understand the cost of standing on principle.

In Congress, I will introduce the Birthright Citizenship Reform Act and fight for its passage. I will also demand action on election integrity and work to restore American sovereignty.

Justice Alito identified the danger. Justice Thomas supplied the historical case. Justice Kavanaugh identified the legislative remedy. All that remains is for Congress to find the courage to enact it.

The court has ruled. Congress must answer.

This is our republic. We have a duty to keep it.

​Congress, Scotus, Supreme court, Birthright citizenship, 14th amendment, John roberts, Clarence thomas, Civil rights act, American revolution, American citizens, Justice alito, Opinion & analysis 

The Supreme Court delivered a monumentally bad decision last week in Trump v. Barbara, holding that, with limited exceptions, children born on U.S. soil become citizens at birth.

Much of the majority’s reasoning rested on mythology rather than a faithful reading of the law.

The court has closed one path. It has not closed them all.

No one can say with certainty when the United States began treating the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens as citizens. Google and Wikipedia claim the practice dates to the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Both also assert that the Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

Both claims are wrong.

After the Civil War, the citizenship provisions of the 14th Amendment and its precursor, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, were understood primarily as securing citizenship for former slaves and their children.

It took seven years after ratification for anyone even to ask whether the Citizenship Clause applied to children born here to foreign nationals. When the question finally arose, Attorney General George Williams concluded that such children were not citizens because they retained allegiance to their parents’ countries and therefore were not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.

Wong Kim Ark addressed a different question: whether a child born in the United States to lawfully present foreign nationals became a citizen at birth.

Nowhere in the court’s 59-page opinion did it decide whether the Citizenship Clause applies to the children of illegal aliens.

Americans are therefore justified in reacting angrily to Trump v. Barbara.

But border hawks and rule-of-law conservatives should stop acting as though the decision ends the fight.

This is not the first dreadful Supreme Court opinion on immigration law. Anyone remember Plyler v. Doe? It will not be the last.

The court could have resolved the problem through a reasonable interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Instead, the majority chose political mythology over persuasive legal argument.

But birthright citizenship never had to be addressed only through the courts.

RELATED: 1776, not 1608: What the Supreme Court got wrong on birthright citizenship

It can also be confronted through diligent enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Now the Trump administration must do exactly that.

Illegal immigration is not merely a border problem. Once illegal aliens reach the interior, they settle in American communities and form families. Under Barbara, their U.S.-born children become citizens.

But illegal aliens who never enter the country cannot give birth here.

The damage from the court’s decision can therefore be reduced through secure borders and rapid removal of illegal entrants before they establish themselves and have children in the United States.

Birth tourism can also be curtailed through enforcement.

State Department consular officers already presume that pregnant women applying for B-2 visitor visas may be seeking entry for the primary purpose of giving birth to a U.S. citizen child.

After Barbara, the administration should scrutinize such applications more aggressively. Applicants suspected of birth tourism should bear the burden of demonstrating a legitimate temporary purpose for travel.

The problem becomes more complicated with foreign nationals admitted temporarily for work.

H-1B workers, L visa intracompany transferees, and other employment-based nonimmigrants may travel with their families and reside here for extended periods. Preventing every birth to those visa holders would be neither practical nor lawful.

But consular officers already have authority to refuse visas when they believe an applicant is misrepresenting the purpose of entry.

RELATED: The birthright ruling leaves Trump one clear move

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

If officials have credible reason to believe that the primary purpose of an application for H-1B, H-4, or another temporary visa is to secure U.S. citizenship for a child, they should deny it.

The Supreme Court’s absurdly broad interpretation of birthright citizenship proves the adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Automatically granting citizenship to every child born on American soil to foreign nationals is terrible policy.

The best way to limit its consequences is to prevent the circumstances that trigger it. That means effective border security, rapid removal, rigorous interior enforcement, and close scrutiny of birth tourism and visa fraud.

The court has closed one path. It has not closed them all.

The Trump administration should now use every lawful enforcement tool available to prevent Trump v. Barbara from taking root and expanding the very incentive that produced the case.

​14th amendment, Birth tourism, Birthright citizenship, Civil rights act, Constitution, Illegal aliens, Opinion & analysis, Plyler v doe, State department, Supreme court, Trump v. barbara, Visa fraud, Deportation 

BlazeTV’s Sara Gonzales has been at the forefront of busting H-1B fraud in Texas. Her on-the-ground investigative reporting has been deeply impactful for the state — triggering state investigations and lawsuits by Attorney General Ken Paxton against dozens of suspect companies and a gubernatorial freeze on new H-1B hires at state agencies and universities.

Now Sara’s H-1B crackdown has escalated to the national level. While Vice President JD Vance has been heading the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud since March, the administration launched its first major H-1B fraud investigation on July 8. The Department of Labor has already issued dozens of subpoenas targeting visa abuse, labor trafficking, worker displacement, and related PERM issues in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to prioritize American workers.

“Uh-oh. Ticktock. The jig is up. … Pack your bags. Hurry up. Get out of sight before they find out all of the fraud that you guys have been achieving,” Sara says with glee.

On this episode of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” she sits down with Dept. of Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito to break down the Trump administration’s aggressive H-1B visa fraud probe.

“What prompted this investigation from the Department of Labor?” Sara asks D’Esposito.

“The fact that we have a president and a vice president that actually supports rooting out fraud here in America,” he replies.

The task force, D’Esposito says, is a dream team — everyone is “working together,” there are ample “resources,” and the team has direct communication lines to the president and vice president.

“We could call the president or the vice president’s team and say, ‘Listen, if we want to conduct this investigation, if we want to broaden the scope of the fraud that we could tackle, these are the resources that we need,’ and they come up with them,” he tells Sara. “They never hang up the phone and say, ‘Sorry, we can’t help.”’

The DOJ’s involvement and support is another factor that makes D’Esposito confident the fraud investigation will produce major results.

“I remember the cases that I worked on in New York City, whether it was homicides or dismantling gangs or gun trafficking. The cases that you always brought to the finish line were the ones that you worked hand in hand with prosecutors, and that’s what we are doing now,” he explains.

While the task force is uprooting all kinds of fraud, D’Esposito is ready for a major crackdown on H-1B fraud, specifically because that’s what’s “holding the American job hostage” right now.

“President Trump made it very clear that he wants to rein the golden age of the American worker in, and he’s been doing that. … But think about how much better we could do when the people who are taking these jobs away from American workers [are held accountable],” he says.

“I say this often on social media, and I mean it. Fraud is a tax that you never voted for, but also fraud is without a doubt fueling and funding both violent crime and criminal enterprises throughout the United States of America,” he continues, referencing how H-1B workers often send their wages back to their home countries to fund illegal activity.

“So, not only are they taking American jobs away, not only are they putting American people out of work, but they’re actually taking the wages of the American dollar and sending it back to criminal enterprises. And after these conversations, we said absolutely no more.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, H-1b fraud, Anthony d’esposito 

A Democratic Illinois state representative was indicted for an alleged fraudulent scheme that included her county clerk husband and her daughter.

Rep. Carol Ammons allegedly collected fraudulent unemployment benefits from the pandemic era and also orchestrated kickback payments from state funds, according to an indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

‘Leadership means holding your own members accountable, not waiting until political pressure becomes unavoidable.’

The indictment says that Ammons funneled state grant money to three separate nonprofits that employed her daughter Titianna Ammons. From 2017 until 2023, Ammons and her daughter allegedly “received financial benefits in excess of $100,000.”

One of those nonprofits was a prison reform group called Hood Vote Neighborhood Transformation, which received $605,000 in funds. The daughter was also allegedly paid nearly $16,000 from the “Friends of Carol Ammons” campaign fund, which was “out of proportion” with the services she provided.

Rep. Ammons is accused of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about those payments to her daughter in May 2024.

Prosecutors say her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, allegedly instructed a potential witness in the federal investigation to “muddy the waters” in order to obstruct the FBI’s “ability to trace the illegal cash payments to Carol Ammons.”

Titianna Ammons was indicted previously and is not indicted in the newest filing.

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat, said Wednesday that Ammons would be temporarily removed from House committees and meetings and prevented from accessing other resources. However, he stopped short of calling for her resignation.

“The allegations in this indictment are extremely serious,” reads a statement from Welch. “Every person under our system of justice is entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process.”

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, a Republican, vehemently condemned Ammons and called for her resignation.

“Leadership means holding your own members accountable, not waiting until political pressure becomes unavoidable,” she said.

Ammons was previously accused of stealing a Coach purse at a secondhand store, but the special prosecutor in that case declined to press charges.

RELATED: Gov. Pritzker says he’s one of the good billionaires, not the ones vilified by socialists

Ammons is running for re-election, but she is unopposed in the race. She is an 11-year veteran of the Illinois House.

On her campaign website, Ammons touts her successful effort to end cash bail in Illinois, as well as to ban the use of chokeholds by law enforcement officers.

She also supports reparations, as is documented by the popular Libs of TikTok X account.

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​Fraud charges, Libs of tiktok, Democrat indicted, Government corruption, Kickback scheme, Politics, Illinois 

An unmarked dirt trail in the Tonto National Forest once gave police an indication of what was going on in the park, and it turns it out was much worse than they thought.

In 2025, an acre of land was being investigated, with an officer describing it as one of the “worst” cases he has ever seen. This June, forest rangers were not prepared for how things had progressed.

‘I was flabbergasted by the amount of debris in the area.’

Garbage in

Two U.S. national forest rangers came upon an illegal site in Tonto National Forest in central Arizona in June, and with it was 65-year-old Mark Aaron Gatz.

According to documents acquired by ABC News, Gatz was operating an illegal campsite that contained not just a wood-burning fire — a huge problem in itself — but also 1,000 pounds of trash.

Gatz’s encampment was entrenched in garbage that had built up over two years of him living in that location, with the man telling officers that he had been living in the forest for eight years in total.

WCNC-TV reported that the trash was scattered over about half an acre of forest service land and was causing permanent damage to the ecosystem. The garbage included items like tires, plastic bags, regular trash bags, aluminum cans, and more.

Aside from finding Gatz’s illegal campfire, they also saw he had made a canopy to go over his SUV that was parked in the forest.

“I was flabbergasted by the amount of debris in the area,” a responding officer reportedly wrote in response to the mess.

RELATED: Why are today’s parents so scared of the sun?

–

Bless this mess

This latest discovery was part of an extensive rap sheet that had been built by the older male; police soon discovered Gatz had six outstanding federal warrants from previous forest-related violations.

The citations go back to May 2025 when forest officials followed a dirt trail to a campsite littered with clothes, tools, plastic, and other trash. Authorities determined it was there for at least a month.

In early July 2025, officers reportedly responded to complaints of a “large messy campsite” that contained years’ worth of trash. It was described at the time by one officer as “one of the worst residential cases” he had seen in the entire forest.

Gatz was cited for unsanitary conditions due to his household trash being scattered around the land.

Then, in February 2026, forest officers found a red and white trailer that was surrounded by tarps and string used as clothes lines, seemingly to dry towels, sheets, and sleeping bags. This belonged to Gatz, who was also allegedly operating a 3-foot campfire made of stone and clay.

RELATED: What was the ‘alt-right’? ‘Whitepill’ clears up the media hysteria

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images

Camp scamp

The serial camper has been in violation of U.S. Department of Agriculture rules surrounding camping in a national forest. The rules state that camping for more than 14 days in a 30-day period or more than 30 days in a 365-day period is prohibited.

According to ABC News, Gatz pleaded guilty to a violation of fire restrictions for his recent activities, along with residential use of the forest without a permit. He was sentenced to three years of probation.

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​News, Arizona, National forest, Lifestyle 

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) believes access to artificial intelligence is so important, he’s willing to put taxpayer money where his mouth is.

The governor announced that the state is entering a new partnership that will inevitably see AI spread across state agencies and possibly municipalities throughout California.

‘Building AI responsibly and in service of people has been our approach from the start.’

Newsom’s government is already using AI in the Office of Emergency Services and the Department of Technology, but is looking to expand the usage across all departments by offering the service at a discount.

California agencies will have access to Anthropic’s Claude at a 50% discount after the state secured a contract with the Silicon Valley company.

However, there is no statewide budget allocation for this service, and each department will have to pay from its own budget. The offer is available to local governments, too, the Sacramento Bee reported.

“We’re entering a partnership to strengthen cybersecurity and provide [Claude AI] to state agencies — and California local governments — at a 50% discount,” Newsom wrote on X.

“The Golden State helped build Silicon Valley — and every Californian should benefit from the responsible use of their latest innovations.”

Despite the governor’s wording, the “benefit” is to come only through government usage, as the discount is not available to the average resident.

RELATED: The next AI race isn’t about smarter machines. It’s about human experience.

A state press release says the new deal offers workforce training, “expert” technical assistance, and “workflow input” from Anthropic developers to state actors.

“This partnership is about using technology the California way: responsibly, transparently, and in service of people,” Newsom claimed. “AI should not replace the human work of government; it should help our workers move faster, solve problems more effectively, and deliver better results for Californians.”

A California Department of Technology spokeswoman said that as of the Monday after the announcement, no departments had taken up the state’s offer to use the technology under the new contract.

Blaze News previously reported on Claude’s pricing structures, which can pile up quickly if not limited or monitored by employers. The prices are based on tokens, which cost upwards of $25 per million.

One token is equal to approximately four written characters in English text or “0.75 words,” so generating a PDF costs about 125,000 tokens, a large document around 25,000 tokens, and a webpage roughly 2,500 tokens.

RELATED: Trump signs ‘quantum’ executive order: Here’s what it means

Jim WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Anthropic’s head of Americas, Kate Jensen, said the company feels “a real responsibility to our home state” which encouraged the company to strike the deal.

“Building AI responsibly and in service of people has been our approach from the start, and that’s exactly what this partnership puts into practice.”

California’s Government Operations Agency Secretary Nick Maduros said state employees are hoping to provide Californians “with the best possible service,” and in order to do that they “need to make sure” their teams have access to “the best modern tools,” including Claude and other “emerging technologies.”

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​News, Anthropic, Claude, California, Gavin newsom, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Tech 

The Daughters of the American Revolution is a genealogical society for women whose relatives helped America gain independence 250 years ago.

The society has been around for 135 years, but it just voted to allow men in.

At the organization’s 135th Continental Congress, a resolution to define “woman” as someone born female was struck down 1,481 to 984. DAR leadership had already been allowing men who identify as women to join — and now five men are members.

“The wokesters have now accomplished institutional capture in one of our age-old historical institutions here in the United States,” Stuckey says, noting that while conservatives have had some “major wins” recently, “woke is not dead.”

And unless you “eradicate it completely,” she explains that it will “keep coming back like mold.”

“So, don’t have any delusions that wokeness and progressivism has waned. It will come back with a vengeance, especially if they take political power in the midterms and then in 2028. So, the resolution stated this, and praise God for you, woman, who brought this forth,” Stuckey says.

The struck-down resolution by the resistance group Daughters Advocating for Restoration said, “The term ‘woman’ shall be understood to clearly mean a woman who was born female, and therefore, individuals who were born male shall not be eligible for membership; transgender women shall not be eligible for membership; and men who have their birth certificates changed from male to female shall not be eligible for membership.”

The group’s reasoning for allowing men into the group is that while the existing bylaws require members to be women, they do not define the term “woman.”

This, Stuckey says, is “why it’s so important for us Christians to define our terms.”

“We are supposed to be a bastion of courage and clarity,” she says.

“There’s a lot of people who want to be confused, so they are actually sowing chaos through the confusion. That’s what they want to do. They might do that in the name of empathy or niceness or whatever it is,” she continues.

“But there are a lot of people who don’t want the confusion, who don’t want the chaos, who just want to be told what is real, what is true,” she says. “That’s where Christians come in.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Allie beth stuckey, Conservatives, Relatable, Wokeness, Daughters of the american resolution, Transgender, Christianity, The blaze, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

The top baby name for boys born in England and Wales has held on to its crown for the third consecutive year.

The newly unveiled list, compiled by the Office for National Statistics, is based on birth data from the 2025 calendar year.

Muhammad has ranked among the top 10 boys’ names in England and Wales every year since 2016.

Muhammad, given to 5,957 newborn boys, topped the list, up 4% from 2024. Noah ranked second with 4,075, followed by Leo, Luca, and Arthur.

Alternate spellings of the top boy name also fared well, with Mohammed in 20th place and Mohammad in 55th place, increasing the count by an additional 2,600.

The ONS additionally provided a month-by-month breakdown, which revealed that for every month of 2025, Muhammad claimed first and Noah second.

Muhammad has ranked among the top 10 boys’ names in England and Wales every year since 2016 and among the top 100 since 1997.

By contrast, traditional girls’ names have remained popular. Olivia appeared in the top slot for the 10th year in a row. Lily moved up to second place, followed by Amelia, Isla, and Florence.

RELATED: ‘Rape of Britain’ ignored because of the Muslim vote, UK lawmaker tells Joe Rogan

Office for National Statistics

According to the 2021 census, the Muslim population of England and Wales was 3.87 million, or 6.5% of the total population. A third of the population growth in England and Wales between 2011 and 2021 was Muslim.

Restore Britain party leader Rupert Lowe criticized the rankings on X, writing, “This is awful and demonstrates the rapidly changing demographics of our country.”

“Only Restore Britain will fight this,” he added.

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​Muslim, Politics, Muhammad 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration will take legal action against the U.S. after the lethal shooting of a Mexican national who had lived in Texas for decades.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during a traffic stop in a “targeted enforcement operation” in Houston on Tuesday.

‘There’s no reason for them to be in detention centers or for violence to be used. So, we’re preparing legal measures — obviously, more significant ones.’

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Araujo refused to follow orders and then tried to run over an officer, who fired at him in self-defense.

Araujo was shot in the stomach and declared dead at a hospital later.

The man’s family claimed he had no criminal history and had been applying for legal status for more than a year before the lethal incident.

“Our goal is to go beyond diplomatic notes and what we raised at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, since we cannot allow the mistreatment of our brothers and sisters who are in the United States — our fellow citizens. So we’re proposing other measures,” Sheinbaum said to reporters on Wednesday.

“There has been another tragic death of a fellow citizen in the United States due to detention issues, when their only ‘offense’ is not having papers — even though they were hired by a U.S. company. There’s no reason for them to be in detention centers or for violence to be used. So, we’re preparing legal measures — obviously, more significant ones.”

Sheinbaum previously feuded with President Donald Trump over illegal immigration as well as tariffs imposed on her country.

Three other people were detained during the enforcement operation.

RELATED: ‘He is no victim’: Sister of man shot by Border Patrol in Arizona tells anti-ICE protesters to stop defending him

Local leaders immediately called for a transparent investigation into the shooting.

“ICE has released an initial account, but the facts must be independently and thoroughly investigated, including the circumstances that led to the use of deadly force,” Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas said.

“There must be a complete and transparent investigation, and my office stands ready to support our community and any local investigation into how this tragedy unfolded,” Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin responded.

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​Department of homeland security, Houston, Illegal alien, Illegal immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Lethal ice shootings, Mexican national, Mexican president, Politics 

The New York City Police Department told Blaze News that it received a report that a 30-year-old female was aboard a northbound R train approaching the West 28th Street and Broadway subway station around 3 p.m. June 28 when an unidentified individual sexually abused her.

Police told Blaze News that the victim exited the train, and EMS transported her to a local hospital for treatment. The unidentified individual accused of sexually abusing her remained on the train, police told Blaze News.

‘Savage.’

Police noted to Blaze News that Ari Shtein, an 18-year-old male from Washington, D.C., was arrested and charged Wednesday evening in the NYPD’s 5th Precinct with aggravated sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

Citing prosecutors and a criminal complaint, WPIX-TV reported that Shtein is accused of putting his fingers inside a woman’s private area while she was riding a Manhattan subway train with four kids, ages 7 to 11.

The station, citing authorities, said Shtein was standing behind the woman when he allegedly sexually abused her.

Shtein was arrested after turning himself in, WPIX said.

The station said it was unclear whether the victim is the mother of any of the kids she was with.

RELATED: Florida teacher accused of kissing male student for about 6 minutes, unzipping victim’s pants, performing sex act on him

WPIX, citing police, added that Shtein also was charged with sexual abuse and forcible touching.

The station reported that Shtein was arraigned Wednesday, and he pleaded not guilty and was released without bail, according to court records.

WPIX said his attorney could not be immediately reached.

One commenter under the NYPD Crime Stoppers’ “wanted for sexual abuse” X post regarding the incident replied with one word: “Savage.”

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​Male suspect, Arrest, New york city, Subway train, Children, Aggravated sexual abuse, Fingers, Woman’s privates, Sexual abuse, Forcible touching, Endangering the welfare of a child, Crime 

The American people have not been getting the full story on alien disclosure, and while Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) isn’t yet allowed to tell it, she isn’t shying away from teasing it.

“Under the last administration, we were being obstructed, and really, until President Trump gave the green light for them to start releasing stuff,” Luna tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, “we would not have been able to talk about or share some of the investigations that have been conducted by the federal government. We wouldn’t have been able to talk about some of the footage that you’re now seeing.”

“Do you know something that has not been released?” Glenn asks. “Do you know things that you feel the American people should know?”

“There will be an announcement soon on one other kind of factor to all this, but … I think it’ll just kind of give the assurance that people will understand that the phenomenon is real,” Luna responds.

“What I will say is, without a doubt the phenomenon is real,” she adds.

“Are you leaning one way or another? Foreign or not earthly?” Glenn asks.

“I think when you talk about these things, I don’t want to say not earthly because we don’t know … but what I would say is that energy is real, and a lot of these — you can see in some of them orbs — they can’t explain it,” Luna responds.

“And so I think that gets into a deeper discussion,” she adds.

Glenn wants to dig deeper, asking, “Is this a defense, or is this a spiritual question? Which is the bigger question — defense or philosophical/spiritual?”

“I think that it will really kind of make people ask the fundamental question of, ‘Do you believe?’” Luna explains.

“Do you believe in God or not, and then do you believe that we’re the only creation, not speculating on nefarious or bad,” she adds.

“I don’t understand how people are saying that this is going to make everybody question their faith,” Glenn answers. “If I find out that there are other beings, why would I question my faith?”

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​Aliens, Anna paulina luna, Creation, Disclosure, Donald trump, Energy, Faith, Glenn beck, Philosophical, The glenn beck program 

President Donald Trump has stamped his name on a Florida airport effective immediately, according to Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy.

Duffy posted a video Thursday showing the transformation of the welcome sign reading “Palm Beach International Airport” to the new one bearing the president’s name.

‘There is no person who has done more for Florida and our country, and no one more deserving of this incredible honor.’

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation passed by the legislature to approve the change earlier this year.

Trump Force One was the first aircraft to land at President Donald J. Trump International Airport, or DJT, touching down at 5:01 a.m. ET on Thursday.

The president’s son Eric Trump expressed his happiness that Trump Force One was the first plane to land at the renamed airport.

“There is no person who has done more for Florida and our country, and no one more deserving of this incredible honor,” he wrote on social media.

“Congratulations Dad — I’m happy to have played a big role in making this happen,” he added.

On the other hand, critics of the president posted their outrage on social media about the change to the airport in West Palm Beach.

“Good to know. I will never set foot in that s**thole,” one response reads.

“What is the point of f**king renaming everything. Get America out of debt. I guess it is up to some future president,” another detractor said.

“It’s a joke. Living presidents should NOT have public infrastructure named after them. Maybe this is an omen that @realDonaldTrump will die of old age and obesity soon?” a critic said.

“Nothing says ‘definitely not a cult’ like naming an international airport after a sitting politician and having his son write a love letter about it. … This isn’t patriotism. It’s personality cult politics. The constant worship is embarrassing,” another reply reads.

RELATED: Outrage erupts over passport celebrating America’s 250th — and guess whose image is on it

“I live in Florida all my life. Your dad hasn’t done f**king s**t for me bro,” another critic said.

Supporters of the president were thrilled by the change. The Trump Organization also posted video of Trump Force One landing at the newly named airport.

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​Eric trump, President donald trump, Transportation dept, Trump force one, Trump organization, Politics 

Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner is not having a good week — and it just got much worse. He has now suspended his campaign after a rape allegation, as another scandal surfaced in an “exclusive” Washington Post report.

“We have a new story out about him,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere excitedly tells co-host Dave Landau.

“Ex-girlfriend of Graham Platner says he removed condoms without consent during sex,” Stu says, reading the headline from the Washington Post exposé.

“Lyndsey Fifield is the woman who brought this information to our attention. She’s one of the original accusers from the New York Times article as well. She said she dated Platner from 2013 to 2015 in D.C.,” Stu explains.

Fifield alleges that she told Platner he had to wear condoms during sex because she was not on birth control, but Platner would ignore her and pull them off.

According to the Washington Post, she said in an interview, “He would do it in a sneaky way.”

Dave finds the story interesting, as “Democrats basically lost men because they called them Nazi rapists,” but now they “plan to elect [an alleged] Nazi rapist.”

“You bring up the point on the Nazi rapist thing, which is a great point because the reason why this happened is because they looked at a group of people, you know, regular middle class Americans who got sick of political elites and were like, ‘I want somebody who’s going to speak, you know, plainly, who’s not going to be part of the establishment,’” Stu says.

“‘I want someone from the outside,’” he continues. “‘I want someone who maybe is a little offensive like Donald Trump and will say some things that are uncomfortable like Donald Trump.’ So they went, and they just found a freaking Nazi.”

“It’s not working out all that fine, though,” he adds. Even after Platner suspended his campaign, these accumulating scandals highlight the Democratic Party’s vetting problems in the high-stakes Maine Senate race.

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​Dave landau, Graham platner, Maine, Senate, Stu burguiere, The blaze, Washington post, Accusations, Lyndsey fifield, Stu and dave do america 

Vice President JD Vance has compared the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee to a child stealing cookies after relating a story about the mayor’s “aggressive” denial of election fraud.

The vice president was speaking at a stop in Milwaukee on Wednesday when he related that Mayor Cavalier Johnson sent him a letter objecting to the probe into the 2020 presidential election.

‘It was a little bit of “he doth protest too much.”‘

Johnson invited Vance in the July 7 letter to talk to the officials who run the election and scrutinize the process, but he denied any justification for the probe.

“Federal law enforcement agents, deployed at the direction of the President’s administration, have been present in my city, interviewing election officials,” Johnson wrote in the letter. “I know of no justification for this activity. Evidence of wrongdoing is entirely absent.”

Vance responded in comments to a reporter that he didn’t have time to visit Johnson.

“I did get the letter from the mayor of Milwaukee, and he wants to meet, and he’s welcome to come to Washington, D.C.,” Vance responded. “I’ll sit down and meet with him.”

Vance went on to compare the mayor to his cookie-stealing son.

“Some guy sends me a letter, the mayor of Milwaukee, and says, ‘We don’t do any election fraud! We don’t do any election fraud! We don’t do any election fraud!'” the vice president said.

“And my response to that is, you know what? It kind of reminds me of like a couple weeks ago. I get home … and my 6-year-old greets me, and I love my little boy, but he’s a little mischievous,” Vance explained. “And he gives me a big hug, and he says, ‘Daddy, I’m glad you’re home! I didn’t steal any of the cookies!’ I said, ‘Huh, that’s interesting that you volunteered that, when I wasn’t even talking about that!’ Well, of course, he stole the cookies.”

Vance got some laugher from the audience.

“So, when I hear a guy protesting out of nowhere, ‘I did not do any election fraud! I did not do any election fraud!’ it makes me wonder, why is that guy protesting so aggressively? It’s a little odd!” he added.

Video of Vance’s comments was posted to social media, where it was widely circulated.

RELATED: Democrat demands answers on ICE detention of Islamic leader in Milwaukee — and DHS slaps her down

“It was a little bit of ‘he doth protest too much,'” Vance added, referring to the famous Shakespeare line.

In a statement emailed to Blaze News, the mayor responded by accusing the vice president of raising “false claims regarding election integrity.”

He added, “Rather than addressing the real questions, the vice president digresses into stories about his child.”

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​Vice president jd vance, Milwaukee mayor cavalier johnson, 2020 election fraud, Milwaukee, Politics 

On Thursday, the Utah prosecutors working to convince state District Judge Tony Graf to try Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin, Tyler Robinson, for aggravated murder delivered perhaps the most damning pieces of evidence yet.

In a pre-recorded deposition played in court despite protest from the defense, Lance Twiggs — Robinson’s trans-identifying homosexual lover who was given immunity for the statements — says that the individual shown in FBI images taken from the Utah Valley University surveillance footage played in court earlier this week “looks like [Robinson] in terms of the shoes he’s wearing, the sunglasses.”

‘I will have left no evidence.’

“It’s definitely, especially the bottom, the last two [images], definitely do look like him,” continued Twiggs, who spoke to authorities on Sept. 12 and again on April 20. “They do look like Tyler Robinson.”

The court saw surveillance videos on Tuesday showing the individual who Twiggs said looked like Robinson skulking around Utah Valley University campus — where he was not a student — ahead of the Sept. 10 shooting and ascend onto the roof of the Losee Center building.

Twiggs, who started dating the suspected assassin in 2023 and lived with Robinson in a townhouse in St. George, Utah, also told law enforcement that on the day of Kirk’s killing, Robinson left their residence earlier than usual — as early as 4 a.m.

Twiggs noted further that he lent Robinson a tool to engrave some bullets for a supposed hunting trip.

RELATED: ‘Did they know?’ FBI investigating whether pro-trans radicals knew in advance about Charlie Kirk assassination plot

Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) confirmed that investigators found an inscription on a spent fire casing that read, “Notices bulges, OwO what’s this?” — an alleged reference to an online meme that has been used to mock gay furries — as well as the following inscriptions on unfired cartridges:

“Hey fascist! Catch! ↑ → ↓ ↓ ↓” — the arrows are an apparent reference to a move in the video game “Helldivers 2″ that sets the stage for the deployment of a large bomb;”Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao,” lyrics from an Italian folk song that has been embraced by anti-fascist movements and various leftist causes and features in the violent Spanish TV show “Money Heist.” Willem van Spronsen, the Antifa terrorist who firebombed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in July 2019, apparently referred to the song in his final statement; and”If you read this, you are gay, LMAO.”

Twiggs claimed that the morning after the shooting, Robinson returned to the apartment and appeared nervous.

“He started crying a little bit,” Twiggs claimed, “and said he wishes he hadn’t done it.”

Utah State Bureau of Investigation Agent Brian Davis walked the court through text messages between Twiggs and the alleged assassin where Robinson allegedly wrote in the wake of the shooting, “Shouldn’t be long until I can come home, but I gotta grab my rifle still. To be honest I hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I am sorry to involve you.”

Robinson allegedly added, “I had planned to grab my rifle from my drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down.”

“If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence,” Robinson allegedly wrote. “Going to attempt to retrieve it again.”

Earlier in the week, Utah Department of Public Safety Sgt. Jennifer Faumuina testified that the two sets of male DNA discovered on the towel wrapped around the suspected murder weapon were a match to Twiggs and very likely to Robinson.

The texts read by Davis show that when asked by Twiggs why he had allegedly done it, Robinson allegedly answered, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

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​Charlie kirk, Assassination, Tyler robinson, Lance twiggs, Lgbt, Utah, Utah valley university, Trans, Politics 

Three adults and four juveniles have been arrested in connection with the July 4 mob attack on female police officers caught on video in South Carolina.

North Charleston Police said the juveniles face charges ranging from assault by mob (third degree), assault on police while resisting arrest, resisting arrest, and possession of a machine gun to breach of peace.

‘We just can’t do that. We can’t attack and jump on a police officer who was just trying to do her job and beat her like that, like a mob. That just can’t happen.’

Police also said 19-year-old Giovanni Mekhi Sincere Campbell of North Charleston faces a charge of possession of a machine gun, and 18-year-old Sa’Mya Adriana Collette Weaver of North Charleston faces charges of breach of peace and assault on police.

In addition, the police department’s Gang Intervention Team and the Intelligence Led Policing Team said they arrested 21-year-old Charleston resident Dejuan Ravenel in connection with the theft of a Taser and loaded gun magazines from one of the assaulted police officers. Police said they received information identifying Ravenel and determining he was possibly staying at an apartment complex in the West Ashley area, after which police established surveillance at the location.

Police said they saw Ravenel leave the apartment and enter the back seat of a vehicle. Soon they followed the vehicle to a restaurant, and Ravenel was taken into custody after exiting the restaurant, police said.

Investigators later executed a search warrant at the apartment and recovered the stolen Taser and loaded gun magazines, police said.

Ravenel was charged with unlawful taking of a weapon from law enforcement and transported to jail, police said, adding that the investigation remains ongoing and additional arrests are possible.

The following is cellphone video of the physical attacks on police:

RELATED: Over 400 arrested after July 4 ‘TikTok Takeover’ in beach city leads to fights, looting, vandalism, violence against cops

Prior to the July 4 mob attack, police said North Charleston had permitted a neighborhood block party. Police said leadership met with block party organizers to discuss the event, including traffic and parking plans to ensure emergency vehicles could safely access the area if needed.

But police said around 8:30 p.m., officers began receiving reports of gunfire and individuals shooting fireworks toward passing vehicles.

Officers responded immediately, and attendees told them that several people had begun discharging firearms, police said, adding that officers made repeated public announcements advising that the event had ended and directing attendees to leave the area safely, in an attempt to de-escalate the situation.

Police said that despite those efforts, multiple fights broke out and additional gunshots were fired.

Officers exited their patrol vehicles to intervene, separate individuals involved in fights, and restore order and protect the public, police said, adding that during the response, multiple firearms and a makeshift spear were recovered.

Police said “multiple officers were physically assaulted, with two female officers sustaining minor injuries,” and “several attendees were arrested as a result of their own actions.”

“Attacks on law enforcement are unacceptable, and those responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” police said. “The safety of our residents and visitors remains our highest priority.”

Police also said “we especially thank those from the community who helped officers during the attacks.”

WCSC-TV reported that the attacks occurred near Chicora Community Park on Calvert Street — and that police said the event had been held in the same location for about 10 years without incident.

About 400 people were present at the scene, police told WCSC.

North Charleston Police Chief Ron Camacho told the station that the two female officers who were injured “are fine. They’re working.”

Community advocate Elvin Speights told WCSC he was shaken after watching the video circulate online: “A lot of emotions. Ashamed. Disgraced. I’m very pleased that no one was seriously hurt. That could have gone really bad.”

Speights added to the station that “we just can’t do that. We can’t attack and jump on a police officer who was just trying to do her job and beat her like that, like a mob. That just can’t happen.”

Speights also told WCSC the police response was admirable: “I just wanted to give a huge shout-out to that officer who showed humongous restraint on not going out here and pulling her gun and start shooting. The North Charleston Police Department as a whole — no one was seriously hurt. They showed a lot of restraint.”

Camacho told the station that police had prior intelligence that juveniles were planning to engage in fights using fireworks in the area that night — but were not prepared for the scale of what took place at the block party.

“We were not ready for this,” Camacho noted to WCSC.

“We need some help,” Camacho told WCSC. “We really do. We need some help from the community. Because stuff like this is getting dangerous.”

Camacho also told the the station that unruly juveniles are “the most difficult thing that I’ve had to deal with in my policing career.”

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​Mob attacks police, North charleston, South carolina, Viral video, Arrests, July 4, Crime