Category: blaze media

The House of Representatives failed to protect President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with three Republicans enabling any lawmaker to challenge his economic policy on the floor.

Republicans attempted to pass a rule to block Congress’ ability to challenge Trump’s tariff policies late Tuesday night. The GOP ultimately fell short, failing to pass the rule in a 214-217 vote after Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Kevin Kiley of California, and Don Bacon of Nebraska sided with Democrats.

‘It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility.’

Massie fired back at accusations that he voted simply to buck Trump, arguing that the vote was an attempt to “subvert the Constitution.”

“My goal is to defend the Constitution and to represent the people,” Massie said in a post on X. “Taxing authority is vested in the House of Representatives, not the Executive. The vote tonight was to subvert the Constitution and the 1976 National Emergencies Act by literally saying a day is not a day.”

RELATED: Vance casts tiebreaking war powers vote after Republicans betray Trump

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Bacon, who has deviated from Trump in the past, also cited constitutional concerns with the vote.

“I don’t like putting the important work of the House on pause, but Congress needs to be able to debate on tariffs,” Bacon said in a post on X. “Tariffs have been a ‘net negative’ for the economy and are a significant tax that American consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are paying.”

“Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed that authority to the executive branch. It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility. I also oppose using the rules votes to legislate. I want the debate and the right to vote on tariffs.”

RELATED: Exclusive: Republicans pen OMAR Act, targeting lawmakers who have ‘blurred’ ethical lines

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Although the vote failed, Trump allies like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) continued to defend tariffs.

“This is life with a razor-thin majority as we have, and sometimes this happens,” Johnson said on Fox News Wednesday. “We had three defections. … I think it’s a big mistake.”

“I don’t think we need to go down the road of trying to limit the president’s power while he is in the midst of negotiating America First trade agreements with nations around the world.”

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​Thomas massie, Don bacon, Kevin kiley, Donald trump, Mike johnson, House republicans, House democrats, Tariffs, America first, Trump tariffs, Congress, Constitution, Constitutional authority, Politics 

Democrats are no longer even pretending they’re not pushing an inflammatory, racially charged agenda — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is grateful that they’re being honest, calling it “beautiful.”

“The beautiful part of it is that they aren’t trying to hide their racist agendas anymore. They’re just saying everything out in the open. They’ve just been emboldened to just be blatantly, publicly racist. And then that’s where you know their true colors,” Gonzales says.

“I always tell people the day the Latino, African-American, Asian, and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning because we are the majority in this country now. We have the ability to take over this country,” state Rep. Gene Wu (D-Texas) said in an interview on “Define America” with Jose Antonio Vargas.

“Oh, OK, that sounds, like, a little insurrection-y,” Gonzales comments.

“He’s calling on all of the minorities, all of the non-whites to take over the country. By what means, Gene?”

And Attorney General Ken Paxton is on the same page as Gonzales.

“Gene Wu is a radical racist who hates millions of Texans just because they’re white. This is who the modern Democrat party is,” Paxton wrote in a response to Wu’s comments on X.

But Wu isn’t the only one who has made inflammatory comments recently.

“There are those that have their own motivations for critiquing,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said in an interview on VOX’s “Today, Explained.”

The interviewer then pressed Crockett, asking, “Is it just racism and sexism?”

“I think there’s a lot of things. I think it depends on who it’s coming from, but I’ve been a black woman my whole life. So this idea that I’m going to go and be like, ‘Oh, well, they’re being racist and misogynistic towards me,’” Crockett said.

“Like, you think I didn’t know I was a black woman when I woke up and decided that I was going to run for the United States Senate. You think I didn’t factor in and make sure that we had enough room to account for that?” she asked.

“I’m going to be honest … I am a little bit black-pilled. I feel like every clip that I’ve played this show just makes me dumber somehow. It’s difficult to follow the logic there,” Gonzales comments.

“White people in this country are tired of hearing that they’re racist because they have brains,” she adds.

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.

​Video, Video phone, Camera phone, Sharing, Free, Upload, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Gene wu, Jasmine crockett, Racist democrats, Racism, Insurrection, Minorities 

A home invader in Tallahassee, Florida, picked the wrong victim late last week.

The Leon County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a report of shots fired in the 5400 block of Touraine Drive around 9:40 p.m. Friday and found a male suffering from a gunshot wound.

‘Completely justified! Homeowners have a right to defend their property, their lives, and their families.’

Detectives determined the male entered a home uninvited and refused to leave after multiple requests from the homeowner, officials said.

The suspect then threatened the homeowner with a weapon while advancing toward him, officials said.

With that, the homeowner fired a single round from a semi-automatic handgun, striking the suspect, officials said.

The suspect was taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said, adding that no other individuals in the home were hurt.

Officials said charges are pending in the ongoing investigation.

RELATED: ‘Anyone who breaks into someone’s home should expect to get shot’: Gun-toting Florida homeowner takes care of business

Image source: Leon County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office

As you might expect, commenters under the Facebook post about the shooting from sheriff’s office were decidedly backing the homeowner’s actions:

“This the epitome of ‘fawk around and find out,'” one commenter wrote. “I hope those ‘pending [charges]’ aren’t against the homeowner.””Completely justified!” another user said. “Homeowners have a right to defend their property, their lives, and their families.””Good for the homeowner having a gun and defending himself!” another commenter declared. “This is one of the EXACT reasons we have the Second Amendment! Thank heavens!””Multiple requests to leave?” another user asked. “Um, you’re lucky if you get ONE request to leave.””Shouldn’t have to be transported to hospital,” another commenter said, adding that it would “be much better if they transported the subject to morgue.””Ain’t no intruder gonna survive to tell at my house,” another user promised.”I love a happy ending,” another commenter said.

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​Crime thwarted, Florida, Guns, Gun rights, 2nd amend., Home invasion, Self-defense, Shooting, Crime 

Idaho votes like a conservative juggernaut. Republicans hold the governor’s mansion, both legislative chambers, and every statewide office. Yet the administrative state still runs on autopilot, and progressives who never win at the ballot box keep their hands on levers of power.

Last week delivered a clean example. Estella Zamora, the 72-year-old vice president of the Idaho Human Rights Commission, lost her seat after Gov. Brad Little withdrew her reappointment. Progressive activists erupted. The press corps dutifully framed it as a purge. But the real scandal sits one step earlier: Little’s office initially recommended her for another term, as if nobody bothered to look.

President Trump’s ‘drain the swamp’ mandate doesn’t end at Maryland and Virginia’s borders. It reaches every state capital where permanent bureaucrats ignore the electorate.

That rubber-stamp culture explains how red-state voters keep getting blue-state governance.

Zamora held influence for more than three decades. She didn’t win it from voters. She inherited it from the system. A Democratic governor appointed her in the 1990s. Republican administrations kept renewing her anyway, term after term, until she became another “untouchable” fixture inside Idaho’s bureaucracy.

Only public pressure forced movement. Conservative activists and outlets like the Gem State Chronicle, along with our own program, Idaho Signal, highlighted Zamora’s political activism online. She appeared before the Senate State Affairs Committee on Jan. 28 as part of the reappointment process. Lawmakers asked questions. The public noticed. Little reversed course a few days later.

Little made the right call in the end. The process that led to the near-miss should worry every Idaho voter.

Zamora didn’t simply hold personal opinions. She couldn’t resist using her public platform to attack Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency charged with enforcing federal immigration law. Her posts pushed anti-ICE propaganda, circulated protest material, and condemned enforcement operations as “harmful.” She aligned herself with the activist line that treats border enforcement as a moral offense.

Idaho doesn’t need every commissioner to share the governor’s politics. Idaho does need commissioners who can credibly carry out their duties without turning a state post into a political megaphone. A human rights commission depends on public confidence. Activism that signals contempt for lawful enforcement undermines that confidence.

This isn’t a free-speech dispute. Zamora can say whatever she wants as a private citizen. Voters can judge it. Officials must still decide whether that behavior fits a role that demands impartiality and restraint.

Progressives are already shouting “censorship” and “partisan purge.” They’re portraying Zamora as some saintly Latina icon victimized for speaking out. That rhetoric flips the facts. Nobody owes a lifetime appointment to someone who campaigns against the policies Idaho voters repeatedly choose in overwhelming numbers at the ballot box. Public service carries conditions. When the public loses trust, leaders should act.

RELATED: Trump’s primary endorsements are sabotaging his own agenda

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

The greater lesson extends beyond Zamora.

Idaho’s bureaucracy keeps reappointing the same figures because too many Republican offices treat commissions and boards as background noise. Staffers recycle names. Vetting becomes procedural. Appointments become habit. Progressives understand this weakness, so they play the long game: They entrench themselves in institutions that outlast elections.

That pattern repeats across the country. Red states elect Republican leaders. Agencies keep advancing progressive priorities through regulation, enforcement discretion, and institutional culture. The left loses elections and wins governance anyway.

Republican governors and legislators can’t keep solving this problem only after activists force their hand. They should audit commissions and boards, review reappointments with real scrutiny, and replace partisan operatives with people who respect the mission and the law without bias and without apology.

President Trump’s “drain the swamp” mandate doesn’t end at the Maryland and Virginia borders. It reaches every state capital where permanent bureaucrats ignore the electorate and treat public posts as ideological turf.

Idaho voters spoke loudly. The administrative state had better listen because we’re just getting started.

​Opinion & analysis, Deep state, Administrative state, Idaho, Brad little, Red states, Red state governors, Estella zamora, Idaho human rights commission, Anti-ice, Immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Rubber stamp, Autopilot, Bureaucracy, Donald trump, Drain the swamp 

Many in the AI field believe that the future is inevitable, a destination arrived at through the brute application of electricity and capital. This prevailing faith, known as the scaling hypothesis, posits that if one feeds enough data into enough GPUs, AI will emerge as a matter of course. It is a comforting determinism, suggesting that the machine evolves under its own logic, provided the resources are sufficient.

However, if we observe the actual dynamics of this revolution, we notice that the machinery is useless without a very specific, rare kind of human intervention. Servers may hum in their air-conditioned vastness, but the architecture of the computing they house does not emerge spontaneously from the chips. It is crafted, often painfully, by a handful of individuals. As the entrepreneur Naveen Rao observed, there are perhaps “only a couple hundred people in the world” who possess the deep expertise required to train cutting-edge models.

Progress relies on the spark of insight that only a human mind can provide.

The leaders of the industry are betting that a brilliant mind can unlock more progress than an extra few billion parameters can. While scaling provides the clay, the spark of human genius acts as the catalyst. This scarcity has precipitated what Elon Musk called the “craziest talent war” he had ever seen. Companies are not merely hiring; they are offering seven-figure salaries to lure researchers away from rivals, regarding these individual experts as the ultimate competitive edge.

There is a historical resonance here, a recurring pattern in which the movement of a few minds alters the geopolitical trajectory. We saw it in the 20th century, when the United States imported Wernher von Braun and his team under Project Paperclip, a move that enabled America’s achievements during the space race. We saw the inverse when the U.S., concerned with communist espionage, deported the Caltech-trained scientist Qian Xuesen to China, an act later described by a U.S. official as the “stupidest thing this country ever did.” Qian returned to China to orchestrate its nuclear program, proving that the loss of talent can be a strategic error that capital cannot fix.

We are now witnessing a diffusion of genius that belies the American assumption of dominance. For years, American discourse failed to see the rise of Chinese AI, lulled by the belief that innovation was a function of Silicon Valley’s unique ecosystem. Then came DeepSeek. In early 2025, this Hangzhou-based lab released a model that rivaled the best American systems, trained at a fraction of the cost.

RELATED: Zuckerberg names ex-White House deputy Meta’s new president — and Trump LOVES it

Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The shock was palpable. It was described as a “Sputnik moment.” DeepSeek did not achieve this by out-spending the Americans; it did it by out-thinking them. It utilized architectural efficiencies to achieve frontier capability with about a tenth of the computing power of its competitors. It demonstrated that elite technical talent can compensate for, and optimize around, resource constraints. Brains had outsmarted brawn.

This dynamic is reshaping the cultural geography of the field. Talent is no longer content to sit in the monolithic campuses around the San Francisco Bay Area. Consider the exodus from Meta. Of the 14 authors who wrote the original LLaMA paper, 11 had departed by 2025. They did not vanish; they circulated. Many resurfaced in Paris, founding Mistral AI, which quickly raised over €100 million on the promise of making AI accessible through open-source models.

The shift is from institutional loyalty to intellectual nomadism. Some researchers are driven by an open-source ethos, preferring to publish their model weights and invite global collaboration rather than lock their work behind corporate walls. Openness can be a strategy to harness talent. When Alibaba’s Qwen team or DeepSeek release their models, they are not just releasing code; they are signaling to the global community of mathematicians and engineers that the work is happening there, outside the confines of the American giants.

The scaling hypothesis suggests a kind of inevitability, that any sufficiently funded lab would eventually reach the same breakthroughs. The history of the field suggests, rather, that the Transformer architecture, the very backbone of modern AI, might not have appeared in 2017 had Vasilii Vaswani and his collaborators not been in the room to imagine it. These shifts are not guaranteed by external conditions: They require advocates, mavericks, particular minds capable of the conceptual leap.

Michael Polanyi spoke of tacit knowledge, the ineffable know-how that cannot be written down but resides in the intuition of the expert. With neural networks, this tacit knowledge is the feel for tuning a loss function, the aesthetic judgment required to guide a model’s learning. To build machines that behave intelligently, we are dependent on the rarest and most distinctively human forms of creativity.

The models are getting larger. The data centers consume the power of small nations. However, the direction of this juggernaut is still determined by a very small number of people. The scaling hypothesis was only ever half the story. The other half is the talent hypothesis, the stubborn fact that progress relies on the spark of insight that only a human mind can provide.

The intelligence we are so desperate to manufacture is not a commodity we can mine from the earth but a reflection of the people who build it. Without the elite engineers to imagine what to do with the compute, the ambitious visions of artificial intelligence remain just that — visions, waiting for a mind to bring them to life. The servers may be loud, but it is the quiet work of these few hundred people that will determine what they are saying.

​Tech, Ai 

On June 18, 2024, Collin “Mia” Bailey gunned down his parents in cold blood in their Southern Utah home and attempted to do the same to a brother and sister-in-law.

Through bodycam footage and police reports obtained via public records requests, Blaze News can confirm that less than two weeks before the heinous shootings, Bailey made a disturbing call to police, accusing his then-housemate of harassing him and threatening to kill him with a shotgun.

Sound amplifier, ‘X-ray’ device, and poison: Bailey spins wild tale

At 3:41 a.m. on June 5, 2024, Officer Weston Hughes knocked on a door inside a residence in a quiet neighborhood in St. George, Utah. A sign reading “Baby is Asleep” hung on that interior door, and behind it lived Joseph Earl, his wife, and their young children.

Other tenants lived in the house as well. Collin “Mia” Bailey was one of them.

‘I’m going to screw my wife and make you die from masturbation.’

Though not for long.

Bailey was supposed to move out later that day. Earl’s wife, whose name is not provided in any of the reports, told police they were evicting Bailey for repeatedly making noise at night and waking up their kids.

This night was apparently no exception.

Officer Hughes and backup Officer Rob Anderson arrived at the residence in response to a 911 call from Bailey made at 3:23 that morning. The officers met Bailey outside the residence and listened to his wild rantings about Joseph Earl, whom he identified as the “house manager.”

“He hates me quite a bit, like, hates my guts,” Bailey emphasized. “And he’s pulling these stunts for months now. And the moment he pulled the gun, it was like, all right, I gotta say something.”

Bailey then explained to the cops that about a half-hour earlier, Earl had loaded a shotgun and threatened to kill him. Bailey reiterated to Anderson that Earl threatened to kill him “multiple times” and that he had been making similar threats for days.

“I know he has a shotgun because he tried loading it and then threatened to kill me and stuff,” Bailey told Hughes.

Hughes later asked Bailey to describe the gun. Bailey replied, “I don’t know what it was. It was too dark, but it was a shotgun.”

After Bailey gave meandering and seemingly inconsistent statements about what happened that night, Hughes asked him to clarify how he could have seen the gun but didn’t “know what it looked like.” Bailey replied: “I saw it. I’ve heard it. But I quickly opened the door and closed it.”

RELATED: Groomed for violence? The dark world of furries and transgenderism in America’s classrooms

In addition to accusing Earl of brandishing the shotgun, Bailey repeatedly claimed that Earl had a “sound amplifier” that allowed him to hear everything Bailey did in his room. Bailey further alleged that the amplifier gave him “splitting headaches.”

Bailey also referred to an “anti-recording” device that “blocks out sound from [Earl’s] end upstairs,” as well as some sort of “X-ray”-like device that allowed Earl to learn Bailey’s passwords.

“So there’s a thing. It slides — it’s four wheels. Because you can hear it up on the roof, you know. When you walk, you can hear footsteps, right? Or you can slide it throughout the house,” Bailey said of the “X-ray” machine.

Bailey indicated that both the “anti-recording” and the “X-ray”-like device seemingly interfered with his ability to document Earl’s antics. At least one of Earl’s alleged devices sometimes caused the house to “shake,” Bailey claimed, though it is unclear which one.

While Earl “appears to be in face fine,” he’s actually “very, very manipulative,” Bailey insisted.

Bailey also claimed to Officer Hughes that Earl had confessed to putting “poison” in Bailey’s drinks and threatened to put other drugs in them as well.

Bailey even claimed that some of Earl’s threats were sexual in nature. “I’m going to screw my wife and make you die from masturbation,” Bailey recalled Earl saying.

That particular night, Earl made other sexually explicit comments, Bailey claimed. “Basically he was saying, ‘F**k you! I hate you! Suck my c**k!'” Bailey said.

“So many messed up stuff. This guy is [a] lunatic,” Bailey insisted.

‘I don’t have schizophrenia or anything like that.’

Bailey later flipped through his phone, showing Officer Anderson a long list of apparent recordings as well as images and videos that Anderson indicated Bailey had taken of himself earlier that morning. Anderson then confirmed to Hughes that he saw nothing on Bailey’s phone to substantiate claims of a “disturbance.”

For his part, Earl denied making any threats, brandishing any weapon, or even engaging in any kind of argument with Bailey before he went to bed that night. “Absolutely nothing like that has happened,” Earl told Hughes.

Earl’s wife, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a child, confirmed to Anderson that there had been no “disturbance” and that her husband had been sleeping next to her all night. “I would have known if he left,” she added.

Throughout his conversations with the cops, Bailey repeatedly requested that they search the Earls’ apartment for evidence to back up his claims, alleging that Joseph Earl posed a threat to the other tenants in the home, but the officers declined. “It really doesn’t work that way,” Anderson replied. “There’s not even enough probable cause for us to apply for a warrant,” noted Hughes.

The bodycam videos, both about 20 minutes in length, conclude with Officer Hughes advising everyone to go to bed and explaining to Bailey that there is “no evidence” to corroborate his story.

RELATED: Trans-identifying man sentenced for brutal murder of his parents

‘A 96 ISSUE’: Bailey’s stability questioned

Police reports confirm that officials suspected Bailey of experiencing some kind of mental health episode from the start. Bailey called St. George police at 3:23 a.m. that day, the call report showed, and by 3:29, the dispatcher had already described him as “SOUNDING MORE AND MORE 96.”

Hughes, who first made contact with Bailey at 3:30 a.m. and exited Bailey’s residence at 3:50 a.m., reported to dispatch at 3:54 a.m. that “THIS WILL BE A 96 ISSUE.”

“96” is code for a “mental subject.”

Officer Hughes likewise admitted to Earl that Bailey’s statements and behaviors suggested that “there’s obviously something going on mentally. I just don’t know exactly what it is.”

In his incident report, Hughes documented that he asked Bailey whether he had “any mental illnesses” but that Bailey “denied having any.”

Audio redactions in the bodycam footage make it impossible to confirm Hughes’ claim of asking Bailey about “any” mental illness, but Bailey told the officers at 3:48 a.m., “I don’t have schizophrenia or anything like that.”

Bailey did tell Anderson that he identifies as “transgender” and began transitioning four years prior. Bailey also suggested that his gender identity could be a possible reason for Earl’s alleged animosity.

If the Earls harbored any trans-related animus against Bailey, they did not show it during their conversations with police. The Earls always referred to Bailey with female pronouns and indicated that they were mainly frustrated that Bailey frequently woke up their children and that he fabricated a story about their family and posted it to Facebook.

Throughout their appearances on the bodycam footage, the Earls seem calm and direct, just bewildered about being woken up in the middle of the night and about Bailey’s accusations against Joseph.

Joseph Earl and the woman believed to be his wife did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

At one point, Bailey did suggest that he suffered from self-loathing and that he admitted as much within earshot of Earl. “I kept complaining to myself that I didn’t like myself,” Bailey claimed to Officer Anderson. Bailey indicated that this alleged admission may have stoked Earl’s ire.

Bailey also admitted that he hadn’t been “feeling very well lately,” though he attributed that malaise to the “poison” Earl had allegedly given him.

It is unclear whether Bailey ever moved out of the residence he shared with the Earls and where he may have gone if he did.

‘Guilty and mentally ill’: Bailey’s murderous rampage

Less than two weeks after this encounter with police, Bailey shot and killed his father, 70-year-old Joseph Bailey, and his mother, 69-year-old Gail Bailey, in their home in Washington City, Utah. He also shot through a bedroom door where his brother and sister-in-law had barricaded themselves, though the couple were able to flee to safety.

Following his arrest, Bailey reportedly told investigators: “I would do it again. I hate them.”

In November 2025, Bailey, now 30, pled “guilty and mentally ill” to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to consecutive sentences of 25 years to life plus up to an additional five years for the assault.

At the sentencing hearing, Bailey’s attorney, Ryan Stout, claimed that Bailey had been diagnosed with a bevy of mental illnesses: autism, psychosis, schizophrenia, ADHD, and OCD.

Dustin Bailey — one of Mia’s brothers though not the one victimized in the attack — spoke at the hearing, reaffirming the family’s support for “LGBTQ rights” and seemingly blaming some of Mia’s mental spiral on cross-sex hormones.

“Providing powerful hormones to a person in a psychiatric crisis without proper psychiatric safeguards is not affirming care. It is reckless. … It acted as an accelerant, intensifying instability, impairing judgment, and compounding risk. That failure harmed Mia, and it endangered our parents,” Dustin said.

Mia Bailey, who claims to have converted to Islam, is currently housed at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City, which has separate buildings for men and women. Blaze News reached out to the Utah Department of Corrections to verify whether he is housed with male inmates but did not receive a response.

The St. George incident report and call report both list Bailey’s sex as male.

Washington City, Utah, is also the hometown of Tyler Robinson, accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk in September. Robinson’s alleged romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, reportedly identifies as transgender.

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​Mia bailey, Transgender, St. george, Utah, Washington city, Politics 

A man called police to report that home intruders had killed his fiancée and her two sons, but Michigan police arrested him for allegedly murdering them all.

Charles Broomfield, 44, reported the shooting at about 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 27 at the home on Worden Street SE, according to the Grand Rapids Police Department. He was arrested two days later.

‘She’s one of the best things that ever happened to me out of any woman, girl I’ve ever been with.’

In an interview with WOOD-TV from the Kent County jail, Broomfield said he saw red and then “snapped” that day.

He claimed that his fiancée, Jacqueline Neill, told him to move out of their home, and he grew so angry that one of his personalities took over.

Broomfield said he met Neill on the Tinder app and had known her for eight years. They had a son together five years ago, and she brought two sons, 15-year-old Cameron Kilpatrick and 13-year-old Michael Kilpatrick, into the family, along with two daughters.

“She’s one of the best things that ever happened to me out of any woman, girl I’ve ever been with,” he told WOOD.

However, they disagreed on how to raise the children and got into an argument just days after moving into the home on Worden.

“I remember the night before like it was f**king yesterday,” he said.

“We were just being petty towards each other,” he added.

He said he had woken up early that morning to shovel snow but that Neill told him it was over and he needed to move out.

“Something inside me just seen red,” he added. “Snapped, I just snapped. I blacked out, couldn’t think of nothing.”

He admitted to shooting Neill and her two sons to death.

“A monster who don’t give a f**k, don’t have no remorse, will not cry, does not care. I was crying,” he added.

Police said that Broomfield confessed after they noticed inconsistencies in his story. He now claims that he is suffering with numerous personalities that he has named.

“I am battling demons, like I said. Chuckie, Charlay, Charlie, Charles — all had something going on and whatever and whatnot. Chaz was just chillin’, and it’s like, I know I’m not a bad guy,” he added.

Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker believes Broomfield is trying to set up an insanity defense and said that he doesn’t buy it. When WOOD confronted Broomfield with the suggestion, he denied it.

Broomfield is being held on three charges of premeditated murder and gun charges.

RELATED: Teens’ story claiming they were attacked unravels after cops find their damning video posted to social media, police say

He went on to offer an apology for the family of his alleged victims.

“Basically none of this was supposed to happen. Period,” he continued. “And I’m sorry to all of them.”

The Grand Rapids community held a vigil for the victims that included Neill’s sister Joanne Elzinga.

“Jacqueline and Cameron and Michael were an important part of all of our lives, and we’re going to do our best to begin patching up the holes that they left,” she said.

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​Charles broomfield murder, Grand rapids triple murder, Crime, Man murders fiancee and sons, Man murders tinder fiancee 

The Washington Post just laid off more than 300 employees — roughly 30% of its newsroom — cutting back sports, local coverage, international reporting, and books. The paper has shed staff before, including a reduction in 2025 and voluntary buyouts, as losses piled up. Reports put the Post’s losses at $177 million over the past two years, with annual deficits topping $100 million since 2023.

Predictably, fired staffers and their allies blame owner Jeff Bezos for refusing to write blank checks indefinitely. They want the world’s fourth-richest man to underwrite their failing business model forever.

Downsizing isn’t a tragedy. It’s a market verdict.

But that’s not the story. The Post didn’t collapse because Bezos got cheap. It collapsed because its newsroom got ideological — and readers stopped trusting it.

The Post built its modern reputation on tough reporting and institutional seriousness. Then its editors and writers started injecting personal politics into straight news, smuggling advocacy into headlines, and treating dissent as moral failure. That approach earned applause inside the Beltway, but it bled credibility outside it. Readers left. Subscribers disappeared. Revenue followed.

Immigration coverage captures the pattern.

In 2018, the Post ran a story headlined “How Trump is changing the face of legal immigration.” The piece claimed an 81% drop in arrivals from Muslim-majority countries and a 12% overall decline in legal immigration, framing the change as a deliberate demographic overhaul. The story leaned on cherry-picked State Department numbers that covered only part of the admissions system while ignoring other federal data. The paper dressed activism up as analysis and called it news.

That same year, the Post published “U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question,” implying a broad campaign of anti-Hispanic discrimination. The story suggested “hundreds, possibly thousands” faced baseless fraud accusations tied to midwife-assisted births.

The piece ignored the long history of documented fraud in those cases and left readers with a clear impression: The Trump administration targeted Hispanics. In fact, denial rates actually fell under Trump — from 35.9% in 2015 to 25.8% in 2018. The Post later appended an editor’s note acknowledging errors challenged by the State Department. That kind of walk-back never repairs the original damage.

In 2024, the habit remained. The Post accused Republicans of “misleading ads” about the border while soft-pedaling the scale and timing of the Biden-era surge. It scolded language choices, such as “illegals” and “harsher,” framed enforcement as cruelty, and applied different standards depending on which party spoke.

This isn’t just an immigration problem. It’s a newsroom culture problem.

RELATED: Bernie Sanders gets obliterated online for dragging Melania into left-wing criticism of WaPo layoffs

Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Post’s rush to judgment during the Nicholas Sandmann incident in 2019 showed how quickly narrative can replace verification. The paper treated a Kentucky teenager as a national symbol of Trump-era racism based on a misleading clip, then watched the fuller video upend the story. The Post paid an undisclosed settlement. The reputational hit lingered.

That pattern — moral certainty first, facts later — has infected much of corporate media. CNN, the New York Times, and their peers keep hemorrhaging trust because they keep selling ideology as “objective” reporting. They blur the line between news and opinion, then act shocked when audiences treat them as partisan actors.

That distortion carries consequences beyond subscriptions. When media outlets portray immigration enforcement as inherently malicious and frame routine operations as persecution, they turn policy disagreement into moral panic. They train audiences to view law enforcement as an occupying force. That mindset fuels the kind of street-level provocation that turns tense encounters into tragedy.

Journalism carries a sacred obligation: Tell the truth plainly, verify before amplifying, and separate reporting from activism. Too many at the Post treated that obligation as optional. The audience noticed. Circulation reportedly plummeted to about 97,000 daily in 2025. Financial losses followed.

Downsizing isn’t a tragedy. It’s a market verdict.

If the Washington Post wants to survive, it must rediscover objectivity — or keep shrinking until only its own employees bother to read it.

​Opinion & analysis, Washington post, Jeff bezos, Democracy, Media bias, Corporate media, Leftists, Amazon, First amendment, Billionaires, Immigration, Facts 

Conspiracy theories continue to swirl around Jeffery Epstein’s controversial death. Many are unwilling to accept the FBI’s official ruling that the convicted sex offender committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019.

The most widespread theory is that Epstein, believed by many to be a keeper of dark secrets, was murdered.

Now, however, another conspiracy theory is ramping up. In the wake of the Department of Justice’s publication last month of over 3 million additional pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images from the Jeffrey Epstein files — some of which provided more insight into the event of his death — a new wave of online speculation has surged.

According to this hypothesis, which is fueled by unsubstantiated viral claims and AI-doctored photos on social media, Epstein is alive and well and living in Israel.

To gauge how many people were entertaining this theory, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) conducted his own experiment by posting a poll on X inviting users to vote on which Epstein outcome they believe is true. The responses, of which there were nearly 150,000, were telling:

During a recent interview with Massie, Matt Kibbe, BlazeTV host of “Kibbe on Liberty,” asked the Kentucky congressman to share his thoughts on the poll’s results.

“Three percent of the 147,000 people who took this poll think Jeffrey Epstein killed himself,” Massie says.

“Forty-some percent said that he’s still alive, and 30-some percent say that he’s dead, but he was murdered,” he adds, calling these numbers “surprising.”

Massie notes that he included the fourth option — “just show the results” — because some people fear that “Mossad might be watching the traffic on that poll.”

The ultimate question, he says, is: “Is [Epstein] the kind of guy who thought he was cornered and there was no way out?”

“I don’t think so,” Massie says. “Like, Jeffrey Epstein, to me, seemed like the kind of guy who was just waiting for them to come and unlock the key and take him back to one of his mansions.”

“He knew, just like with the first conviction, he just would have to wait for a while and play his cards right, and I think he was that arrogant,” he adds. “That kind of arrogance is built because you got away with it before, and then you got away with it a thousand times, and you got so much dirt. He’s probably thinking, ‘If I can get back to my hard drive, this is all over with.’”

Kibbe wonders if perhaps Epstein was secreted away, not necessarily because of the “dirt” he had on others, but rather because he was “indispensable.”

“He was the guy that fixed problems for this elite class of financiers and politicians,” he says.

Massie acknowledges this possibility, recalling Epstein’s advice to former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak: “Think of all the people who owe you something, and then start from there.”

“Those were his words to Ehud Barak. That’s what he had to be thinking in the jail cell,” he says.

While Massie initially thought the FBI’s suicide conclusion was “reasonable and plausible,” now that the released files show “the full color of who he was and the kinds of things he did and what he got away with,” he rejects that ruling.

“I’m not in that 3%,” he says.

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​Kibbe on liberty, Matt kibbe, Thomas massie, Blazetv, Blaze media, Epstein still alive, Epstein death, Epstein files, Epstein files controversy 

The latest partial government shutdown has ended, and two facts stand out: Washington will keep spending like a drunken sailor, and Republicans squandered their cleanest leverage point to rein it in.

Start with the number that matters: The House approved $1.25 trillion in additional discretionary appropriations. That decision pushes the annual deficit toward $1.75 trillion. Republicans voted for it, complained about it, and then acted surprised that the spending binge continued.

If Republicans keep missing moments like this one, investors will keep moving into gold and silver, not out of ideology, but out of self-preservation.

The shutdown fight should have forced a trade. Democrats focused on cutting Department of Homeland Security funding. Republicans had options beyond folding. They could have demanded real cuts elsewhere, then used Democrats’ own political pain points to make the deal stick.

One obvious target sat in plain sight. The Trump administration proposed a 50% cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That should thrill the MAHA crowd. Democrats hate what they call ICE “overreach.” Republicans despise what they view as CDC mission creep and pandemic-era abuses.

Congress could have paired both cuts and sold it as a reset: trim enforcement and trim the public health bureaucracy, then avoid another shutdown. Democrats could claim restraint at the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans could claim restraint at the CDC. Taxpayers would finally get something besides another blank check.

Instead, Republicans let the moment pass, and voters got another spending package.

Don’t expect the next round to improve. Markets already read Washington’s behavior as a warning label. Gold and silver prices sit at record highs because investors smell what Congress refuses to admit: Deficits at this scale produce either inflation, higher taxes, or both.

Central banks have acted on that judgment for years. They have moved away from dollars and Treasuries and into gold. Poland’s central bank led global gold purchases in October and November last year. That shift isn’t a protest from adversaries alone. It reflects a broader conclusion, from allies and rivals alike, that Washington keeps making promises it cannot afford to keep.

RELATED: Congress needs to go big or go home

Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

The trend looks set to continue. Goldman Sachs expects central banks to buy roughly 60 metric tons of gold per month in the year ahead. Retail demand is rising too. Gold-backed exchange-traded funds reportedly absorbed about 800 metric tons in 2025 as investors searched for an asset that doesn’t depend on congressional self-control.

Frederic Panizzutti of Numismatica Genevensis explains the appeal plainly: Gold’s simplicity attracts buyers “as geopolitics and geoeconomics have become more complicated.”

Americans across the political spectrum want to abolish wasteful agencies. Congress won’t do it. Fine. Then at least cut budgets hard enough to prove lawmakers can say no to constituencies, lobbyists, and the permanent bureaucracies that treat every crisis as a looting opportunity.

Washington’s real problem isn’t a lack of authority. It’s a lack of restraint. Entitlement growth, debt service, and a bipartisan appetite for militarized foreign policy push the country toward instability at home and abroad. Politicians focus on the next election and leave the bill to the next generation.

If Republicans keep missing moments like this one, the dollar’s erosion will accelerate. Investors will keep moving into gold and silver, not out of ideology, but out of self-preservation.

​Gold, Republicans, Democrats, Spending bill, Dhs, House republicans, Ice, Cdc, Economy, Markets, Opinion & analysis, Homeland security, Congress, Partial government shutdown 

The Trump administration ordered the removal of a Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument celebrating a riot by gay males against police in the ’60s.

The order said only U.S. flags and other authorized flags can be displayed at sites managed by the National Park Service.

‘New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.’

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed his outrage against the order in a post on the X social media platform.

“I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani wrote. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history. Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to live up to it.”

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said he would re-raise the flag at the monument Tuesday, along with other New York City-area politicians.

The national monument commemorates a riot against police by gay males in Greenwich Village. LGBTQ+ activists cite the rioting as a turning point in the gay rights movement. The monument was established under the administration of former President Barack Obama.

“I think it’s important that we speak out and stand up for the community, frankly, just as our forebears, who exhibited much more courage back in 1969,” Hoylman-Sigal said in an interview Tuesday. “This is not a moment for our community to stand by idly as attempts to undermine our history are put forward by Trump and the federal administration.”

“I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbors — without exception,” Mamdani continued in his X post.

RELATED: Trans activists are outraged that Twitter has quietly removed restrictions on ‘dead-naming’ and misgendering people

A similar outrage erupted from LGBTQ activists in February when the Trump administration stripped the “T” and the “Q” from LGBTQ at Stonewall. Protesters vandalized the sign at the monument to add the word “transgender.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) denounced the Trump administration at the time.

“This is just cruel and petty,” she responded. “Transgender people play a critical role in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights — and New York will never allow their contributions to be erased.”

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California Democrats are seeking to replace missing revenue after they passed an electric car mandate that undermined inflows from a gasoline tax.

While some are pushing a tax-by-the-mile to reclaim the revenue, a backlash from Californians has led to Democrats backing off from the proposal.

‘We already pay the highest gas taxes in the nation. Now Sacramento is talking about adding a new tax for every mile people drive.’

Democrats have known the state would be hit with lower tax revenue since 2023 when an independent legislative analyst released a report saying the mandate would lead to a loss of $5 billion per year by 2035. The gas tax is also affected by increased vehicle gas efficiency.

However, when Republicans in the state raised the alarm about the possibility of a mileage tax, legislative staffers in Sacramento said they were hit with angry calls from voters against it.

The outrage was so strong that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was forced to address the controversy.

“Studying a concept is not enacting it,” his press office wrote on social media Wednesday. “Despite national support from prominent *conservatives* like the Cato Institute, there is no mileage tax proposal in California — and the Governor would not sign one.”

Democrats were also hit with angry messages on social media.

RELATED: LA Times gets obliterated online for scolding people wanting to leave high-tax California

“Californians are already getting crushed by the cost of food, housing, power, and gas,” Republican Assembly Leader Heath Flora said. “We already pay the highest gas taxes in the nation. Now Sacramento is talking about adding a new tax for every mile people drive.”

Newsom is widely considered to be trying to expand his national brand recognition in preparation for a possible presidential campaign in 2028.

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While the previous Epstein file dumps have proven to offer little information for the general public to work with, the latest Epstein files release has revealed just how evil some of the most powerful people really are — and naturally, BlazeTV contributor William Wolfe from the Center for Baptist Leadership is among those incredibly disturbed.

“What stood out to you the most about what is, you know, the most revealing Epstein file dump yet?” Deace asks Wolfe.

“I would say two things. One is that the conspiracy theorists are proven right yet again,” Wolfe says. “There is this cabal of truly horrific, disgusting, pedophilic people running things in our country and globally. And, you know, Alex Jones just stays winning and vindicated on this overall theme of, the worst people you could ever imagine are in charge.”

“The second thing that really stood out to me is just the total banality of evil. I mean, they’re just kind of dumb, evil, disgusting people. You know, they just happen to also have power. These are the same kind of evil people you could run into any day on the street. Yet somehow this cadre of individuals managed to take this evil to the highest levels of power and influence across our government,” he continues.

“And so, I mean, really in some ways it’s not that surprising. But it’s shocking, it’s revealing, it’s disgusting. But this is just, like, what we’re up against. It is a fight of good versus evil from the top to the bottom, from your everyday life at your city council to the highest levels of government,” he adds.

Wolfe believes that this is definitive proof that we’re in a “spiritual battle of good versus evil.”

“I don’t know how you look at these files and come away from that with any other conclusion,” he says.

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A nonprofit organization linked to the wife of the mayor of Baltimore is facing intense scrutiny after it ended operations despite taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to WBFF-TV.

The mission of the Bmore Empowered nonprofit was to encourage black women and girls to excel in entrepreneurship and “holistic wellness,” according to its website. It was first founded in 2017 and came to be led by Hana Scott in Sept. 2021 until Sept. 2025.

‘This is not a pause. It is the end of a beautiful chapter.’

Her tenure as director of operations ended the same day that Bmore Empowered announced an “organizational pause.”

The organization is reportedly behind on tax filings, has been sued for unpaid rent, and is listed as “delinquent” on the state’s charity database.

In July 2022, Hana Scott went public about her relationship with Baltimore’s mayor, and Bmore Empowered got a surge of new funding.

The taxpayer-funded Downtown Partnership of Baltimore granted the group $80,000 at an event attended by the Scotts. The Baltimore City government gave the group taxpayer-funded payments that added up to $34,950 by 2024. And the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund, also paid for by taxpayer money, sent the organization $62,500.

Despite this, Bmore Empowered failed to report a tax form for the 2024 fiscal year, which was due to the IRS in May 2025.

WBFF reported that the organization did not respond to questions about how it intends to spend the taxpayer money. Hana Scott did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment, and the mayor’s office did not respond to questions about a possible conflict of interest, among others.

The report said that Bmore Empowered paused operations in September, but a post on its Facebook page Monday said the organization was coming to a close, adding, “This is not a pause. It is the end of a beautiful chapter.”

In addition to all of the taxpayer funds that Bmore Empowered received, the group obtained $175,000 from Open Society in 2022, which is funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros. The donation was part of a campaign by the Alliance for Open Society International to provide millions in funding for organizations in the Baltimore area.

RELATED: Nonprofit claimed to provide daily brown-bag meals to thousands of students — schools say they got nothing

WBFF also documented how Bmore Empowered received tens of thousands of dollars from the BOOST program of the Downtown Partnership to open a storefront and failed to do so. Instead, it opened offices at a separate location and then was sued for not paying rent at that location. The landlord won a financial judgment against the group when no one showed in court.

A Blaze News request for comment from the Bmore Empowered organization was not answered.

Despite pausing operations, Bmore Empowered continues to sell T-shirts on its website.

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​Bmore empowered, Baltimore mayor, Nonprofit stole taxpayer money, Hana scott at bmore nonprofit, Politics 

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday regarding the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, Democratic lawmakers took turns giving their usual sanctimonious speeches.

When her opportunity came to pose questions to acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons, New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver (D) launched into a roughly 3.5-minute diatribe replete with not only dubious murder accusations but her trademark insinuations of racism.

‘Aggressively attacking those witnesses personally is inappropriate.’

McIver, a Democrat facing nearly 20 years in prison for allegedly assaulting ICE officers last year, then decided to present her attacks as spiritual reflections about eternal consequence.

After prompting Lyons to confirm that he was indeed a “religious man,” McIver — a staunch supporter of abortion — asked the acting ICE director, “How do you think Judgment Day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?”

“I’m not going to entertain that question,” Lyons responded.

“Of course not,” said McIver. “Do you think you’re going to hell, Mr. Lyons?”

RELATED: Understanding hell — Part I

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Once more, the acting ICE director, whose agents had to repel an apparent incursion by McIver’s fellow travelers into a Newark detention facility last year, indicated he wouldn’t entertain such a question.

Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) intervened to remind McIver both that members “must adhere to established standards of decorum and debate” and that “witnesses are here voluntarily.”

Garbarino added, “Aggressively attacking those witnesses personally is inappropriate and not in keeping with the traditions of our committee.”

“I’m just asking a question,” McIver said. “You all, you guys are always talking about religion here and the Bible. I mean, it’s OK for me to ask a question, right?”

Having evidently disregarded Garbarino’s reminder and the corresponding committee traditions, McIver immediately went back to the attack, asking Lyons, “How many government agencies, Mr. Lyons, are you aware of that routinely kill American citizens and still get funding?”

Before yielding her time, McIver called for the abolition of ICE.

The congresswoman was charged in June with multiple counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding, and interfering with federal law enforcement agents. She could face a maximum of 17 years in prison if convicted.

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​Lamonica mciver, Democrat, Ice, Todd lyons, Immigration and customs enforcement, Dhs, Homeland security, Congress, Hell, Heaven, Politics 

Sports used to be one of the only places you could turn to without being beaten over the head by the political opinions of others — but now it’s hard to get through a game without it.

“‘Just shut up and play.’ I thought that that was a very poignant thing that Ann Coulter said,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says, pointing out that while most people are talking about the political spectacle that was the Super Bowl — the Olympics have been no better.

“Wouldn’t you know, you have all of these people, all of these Americans over there in Milan to represent our country on a world stage, and they take that opportunity to just trash their own county in press conferences as if that makes them morally superior,” she continues, before playing a clip of one Olympian bashing his own country.

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.,” Team USA freestyle skier Hunter Hess said.

“I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people that support me getting here,” he added.

“What an absolute loser,” Gonzales says. “If you don’t want to be there, don’t. You don’t have to represent our country. Like I don’t understand why you would be there representing our country if you’re not proud to represent our country.”

And Gonzales isn’t the only one taking issue with Hess’ statement.

“U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” President Trump posted on Truth Social.

“Why are we sending America-haters to represent our country?” Gonzales asks.

“And by the way, I would love to hear from Hunter which country is better,” she adds.

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Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) unveiled the TruckSafe Tipline on Tuesday, which allows those who work in the trucking industry to report carriers that may be breaking federal laws.

“If you’re a trucker or work in the industry and see something unsafe or know of shady carriers hiring illegals, I want to hear from you,” Banks wrote in a post on social media.

‘The TruckSafe Tipline gives people on the ground a way to speak up when they see carriers cutting corners and putting lives at risk.’

The reporting system encourages truckers to submit a form if they believe a carrier has employed or contracted drivers who are illegally in the U.S., who are not authorized to drive, or who do not meet the English-language proficiency requirements.

Banks’ office will share the submitted tips with the Department of Transportation and its Office of Inspector General.

“Indiana is the Crossroads of America and Hoosiers are getting killed because drivers who shouldn’t be here in the first place are behind the wheel. If you’re driving a truck on our roads, you need to be legal, you need to be able to read traffic signs, and you need to follow the law. The TruckSafe Tipline gives people on the ground a way to speak up when they see carriers cutting corners and putting lives at risk,” Banks stated.

The tip line was launched following a semi-truck crash in Indiana last week that resulted in the deaths of four Amish men, including a father and two sons.

RELATED: Trucker accused of killing 4 Amish men — and DHS claims he’s an ‘illegal alien’

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The driver of the truck, Bekzhan Beishekeev, a 30-year-old Kyrgyzstani national who obtained his commercial driver’s license in Pennsylvania despite allegedly residing in the U.S. illegally, was accused of swerving into oncoming traffic and striking a 15-passenger van head-on.

Beishekeev is in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

RELATED: ‘Do it NATIONWIDE!’ Florida mandates English-only driver’s tests, following Trump’s lead

Jim Banks. Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Banks’ office noted that the DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is investigating the carrier that employed Beishekeev as well as several other companies.

“These interconnected carriers have all the markings of FRAUD and are accused of being CHAMELEON CARRIERS. This is when companies swap names and DOT numbers to avoid enforcement,” DOT Secretary Sean Duffy stated. “The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working AROUND THE CLOCK to hold anyone involved in this horrific crime accountable.”

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​News, American trucking industry, Trucking industry, Commercial driver’s license, Cdl, Cdls, Commercial driver’s licenses, Bekzhan beishekeev, Indiana, Jim banks, Road safety, Department of transportation, Dot, Trucksafe tipline, Politics 

Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) criticized Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for trying to enforce a statute that the lawmaker opposes.

The DHS faced pushback from Duckworth after the agency requested a list of the Office of Inspector General’s ongoing investigations, accusing the OIG of illegally withholding such information.

In late January, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) met with DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to demand that the watchdog open a probe into the “egregious public execution of Alex Pretti and pattern of brutality from Trump’s lawless agents.”

‘It is unfortunate that you are trying to score cheap political points rather than focus on the Inspector General’s illegal conduct.’

Duckworth speculated that the OIG denied her request because the DHS had sent the OIG “repeated tacit threats” to “sabotage” its investigations by invoking 5 U.S.C. § 417, a provision of the law that gives the DHS secretary the authority to terminate investigations that could harm national security or present a significant impairment to U.S. interests.

“I learned Kristi Noem repeatedly reminded DHS’s IG that she can unilaterally kill any investigation,” Duckworth wrote. “Why would she do that? Feels like a threat to me.”

If Secretary Noem chooses to invoke the statute to terminate an OIG investigation, the OIG must report the decision to Congress within 30 days, providing an explanation of its rationale and whether the watchdog supported the decision.

RELATED: ‘Vindication’ for Trump administration: Appeals court greenlights end of deportation protections for 90,000

DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

In a Friday letter to the DHS, Duckworth described seeking to enforce the statute as an “obscure authority” that has “never been invoked in the history of DHS,” adding that it is “contrary to the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act of 1978.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated, “Senator Duckworth is arguing that a Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary shouldn’t use an existing section of federal law because she doesn’t think it should exist. If Senator Duckworth and her fellow Democrats do not like the law that Congress already passed, they — as members of Congress — have full constitutional authority under Article I to change the law and assuage their own concerns. As it stands, 5 U.S.C. 417 is federal law, and it applies to Secretary Noem just the same as it applied to previous homeland security secretaries for decades without controversy.”

DHS General Counsel James Percival responded to Duckworth’s letter on Monday.

“I want to express my surprise at your suggestion that DHS should only enforce the laws that you personally agree with,” Percival told the lawmaker in his response letter, obtained by Blaze News.

“I am puzzled that you would ask me, the Senate-confirmed General Counsel who swore an oath to uphold federal law, to become a law unto myself and pick and choose which laws to enforce. As you surely know, it is Congress’s purview to make laws, and it is the Executive Branch’s purview to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’” Percival told Duckworth. “I decline your request to ignore the separation of powers and intrude into your own branch’s functions.”

Percival confirmed that the DHS had requested a list of ongoing investigations from the OIG, but that Noem had not sought to invoke her authority to terminate any of those probes.

“Rather, I requested on her behalf a list of all investigations to ensure she can evaluate whether it might ever be appropriate to exercise that power,” he continued.

Percival accused the OIG of “illegal conduct” by stonewalling such information.

“The real problem is that for years the Inspector General has been violating an implied requirement of the statute by withholding this information from prior secretaries and thereby making it impossible for them to faithfully execute § 417,” Percival wrote. “The fact that previous secretaries have ignored this law only demonstrates the incomparable leadership of Secretary Noem.”

“It is unfortunate that you are trying to score cheap political points rather than focus on the Inspector General’s illegal conduct,” he added.

RELATED: Democrat fires staffer accused of posing as immigration attorney at ICE facility

Tammy Duckworth. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Duckworth called Percival’s response “truly bizarre and deeply troubling.”

“I am frankly shocked that instead of simply denying that the Secretary is seeking to intimidate an independent government watchdog out of investigating potential crimes committed by DHS agents, it appears her brown-nosing General Counsel is proud of his efforts to sabotage IG independence on behalf Secretary Noem [sic] and is baselessly accusing Donald Trump’s own hand-picked IG of engaging in ‘illegal conduct,’” she stated.

The OIG did not respond to a request for comment.

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Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee sharply criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement during an oversight hearing Tuesday, accusing the agency of systemic abuse and misconduct — claims ICE leadership rejected as misleading or false.

The hearing on Capitol Hill erupted into a heated showdown, as Democratic lawmakers repeatedly clashed with immigration officials in exchanges that rapidly spread across social media.

Democratic members described ICE as operating as a ‘fascist’ or ‘secret police’ force.

One of the most widely shared exchanges involved Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) pressing acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to resign, claiming that by staying in his leadership position, Lyons is siding with “killers bringing terror to our streets.”

“Will you resign from ICE?” Swalwell asked.

“No, sir, I won’t,” Lyons responded.

RELATED: LAPD defies Newsom: Chief refuses to enforce mask ban on ICE

Other Democratic lawmakers used more pointed rhetoric. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) compared ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents to slave patrols and Ku Klux Klan members, describing federal officers as “white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color.”

Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) railed at Lyons, claiming he had “blood on [his] hands” and asking whether he feared God’s judgment. “Do you think you’re going to hell?” she asked.

Throughout the hearing, Democratic members described ICE as operating as a “fascist” or “secret police” force, while agency officials defended their mission, saying enforcement priorities focus on violent offenders, human traffickers, and repeat immigration violators.

RELATED: ‘We do not support ICE’: Speedway gas station sparks backlash after booting Border Patrol boss

The hearing came as Congress continues negotiations over Department of Homeland Security funding, with Republicans warning that partisan disputes could lead to a partial government shutdown affecting border security and enforcement operations.

By the hearing’s conclusion, immigration officials had rejected calls to resign or concede wrongdoing, characterizing the accusations as distorted narratives rather than evidence-based critiques. No resignations or formal actions resulted from the exchanges.

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Waymo’s chief safety officer was not exactly clear when it came to questions about the company using overseas operators.

Mauricio Pena faced tough questions from U.S. senators last week when he was asked if Waymo employs humans who remotely assist its driverless taxis through difficult driving scenarios.

‘It’s one thing when a taxi is replaced by an Uber or a Lyft. It’s another thing when the jobs just go completely overseas.’

The question came from Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) during a hearing on commerce, science, and transportation. Pena submitted testimony titled “Hit the Road, Mac: The Future of Self-Driving Cars,” which promoted his company as an “American innovation success story” while urging lawmakers to advance legislation for self-driving cars.

However, it was the grilling from Senator Markey that got the most attention online.

“Senator, they provide guidance. They do not remotely drive the vehicles,” Pena told Markey. “As you stated, Waymo asks for guidance in certain situations and gets an input, but the Waymo vehicle is always in charge of the dynamic driving tasks, so that is just one additional input.”

Seeking more clarification, Markey asked, “But the human being helps the vehicle to navigate those difficult driving scenarios. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Pena replied.

The safety executive went on to admit that at least some of these agents operate remotely from the Philippines, but he was unable to state a percentage or figure as to how many overseas agents Waymo employs.

“I just don’t have that number,” Pena told the committee.

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Senator Markey called the admission “fairly shocking” and said it was “completely unacceptable” to have people overseas influencing American vehicles. He then listed a string of possible safety issues, such as out-of-date information, lack of roadway knowledge, or not having a U.S. driver’s license.

“Let’s not forget,” Markey added, “Waymo is trying to replace the jobs of hardworking taxi and rideshare drivers. And now you’re saying that of the human beings, the human jobs that remain in the system, you’re shipping those jobs overseas. It’s one thing when a taxi is replaced by an Uber or a Lyft. It’s another thing when the jobs just go completely overseas.”

Across multiple outlets, Waymo sought to clarify what exactly its remote operators do and do not control.

In an interview with Decrypt, a Waymo spokesperson said the company does not consider its remote operators to be drivers. Furthermore, Waymo rejected the idea that humans control its taxis in real time.

“Their role is not to drive the vehicle remotely. They’re not remote drivers,” the spokesperson explained. “They answer, generally speaking, multiple-choice questions posed to them by the vehicle.”

The representative maintained that “all of the driving happens on board” the vehicle and does not happen remotely.

Addressing the safety concerns, the spokesperson said that both U.S.-based and foreign response agents are licensed and trained for the regions they support.

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Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

All the agents have a “vehicle or van driver’s license,” the spokesperson went on, stating that human input is contextual and not direct commands.

“The human offers a suggestion in a challenging scenario, and the Waymo Driver will take that suggestion into account when making its next decision.”

In regard to its foreign hiring, the company told People that its reason for outsourcing to the Philippines was an effort to scale the company globally.

These “fleet response” agents allegedly undergo regular driving history checks, People reported. However, the outlet also said that Waymo did not provide any information on how many remote operators are located in the U.S. or abroad.

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