Category: blaze media

For generations, homeowners have been told that paying property taxes is simply the price of owning a home. But Florida voters may soon have a chance to change that.

A proposed ballot amendment would remove an estimated 60% of homeowners from property tax rolls, a move supporters say would provide long-overdue relief and strengthen private property rights.

“Of course, they’re pushing back on the other side of this. And talking about Oviedo, a bedroom community outside Orlando, has been trying to build a new police station for a decade, but now with this property tax situation, they may not even have a police department to put in the new station,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray explains on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“They might have to merge with the county,” he says.

However, Gray is hopeful that Oviedo’s concerns may be ignored.

“In November, Florida voters decide on a ballot amendment that would remove roughly 60% of Florida residents from property tax rolls,” he says. “That’s amazing.”

“Why isn’t that happening in Texas?” he asks.

“Because our governor is a follower,” executive producer Keith Malinak answers.

“If you look at everything, whether it’s COVID or anything, religious stuff, that you’ve seen DeSantis stand up for … Abbott goes, ‘Oh, the water seems fine. I guess now I’ll jump in,’” Malinak says.

“So, maybe this will happen,” he adds.

Want more from Pat Gray?

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​Florida, Governor, Greg abbott, Oviedo, Pat gray, Property taxes, Ron desantis, Texas, Pat gray unleashed 

The arrest of two suspects during San Francisco’s Trans March led to police clashing with marchers who were trying to free the suspects, according to police.

The two suspects were arrested, three marchers were arrested, and two of the police officers were injured while trying to deal with the crowd.

‘People were dancing, children were running around. It was just joyful. And suddenly the police came running. Some of them had their guns drawn, batons out.’

Police said the two were seen vandalizing property with spray paint and that one suspect had assaulted and spray-painted another marcher. When they attempted to arrest the suspects, marchers surrounded them and obstructed the officers in an attempt to free the suspects.

A woman who witnessed the melee Friday told KRON-TV that the police should have let the suspects go rather than fight back against the marchers.

“I’m crying because it was just so shocking to see such a peaceful, beautiful event just be basically run over by police out of nowhere over somebody spray-painting,” said the woman, who wanted to be known by the name Missy.

She said she went to the march with her transgender-identifying child before the police ruined it.

“People were dancing, children were running around. It was just joyful. And suddenly the police came running. Some of them had their guns drawn, batons out,” she added.

Two people were arrested on suspicion of obstruction of police, and three were arrested for alleged vandalism and assault.

“I get that in large crowds police have a heightened sense of awareness and reaction and all of that, but the guy was spray-painting. I just don’t feel it was necessary,” the woman added.

The San Francisco Police Dept. released a statement about the incident:

The SFPD always respects individuals’ First Amendment rights to protest; however, criminal activity will not be tolerated in San Francisco. Additionally, the SFPD is unwavering in its support for the LGBTQ+ community and will continue to protect and serve every community in San Francisco.

One livestreamer recorded himself screaming at police officers and demanding to know why they would arrest transgender-identifying people in the transgender district.

RELATED: California taxpayers are funding gender transition services for homeless illegal aliens: Report

Missy was upset that the police tried to arrest people committing crimes instead of standing by transgender-identifying marchers.

“We don’t need our police officers being unpredictable,” she added. “We need them to stand side by side with us.”

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​Lgbtq community, San francisco, Trans march, Vandalism, Obstruction of justice, Politics 

The pastor of the New Hope Community Church in Palatine, Illinois, says that he isn’t backing down from preaching the truth after LGBTQ+ activists showed up to protest.

The protesters are angry at messages the church has posted on its digital sign that refer to Pride Month, and they want the church to stop.

‘That gives us the chance to share God’s truth. I wish they’d come every day so we can have conversations.’

One of the messages reads, “We love you enough to tell you the truth,” while another reads, “Ditch Pride, embrace humility.”

“Our goal was to let other residents of Palatine know what this church preaches and that Palatine is better than that,” said Paul Dombrowski of the Northwest Suburban Pride Network to WLS-TV.

“It is important to stand up for those in our community who are being marginalized and who are being ostracized clearly in this way,” said Chelsea Laliberte Barnes, a member of a group named Liberal Moms of the Northwest Suburbs.

Some said they were concerned about the messages because the church is near a school.

The WLS news video report showed that one protester held up a sign reading, “Hate has no home here,” while a report from LGBTQ Nation called the messages “hateful.”

Members of the church came out to defend the innocuous messages and discuss the issue with the protesters.

James Pittman Jr., the pastor of the church, said they would not change their messaging and added that he welcomed the protests.

“That gives us the chance to share God’s truth. I wish they’d come every day so we can have conversations,” Pittman told WLS.

RELATED: NY Pride group disbands after founder is arrested for disgusting alleged crime with minor

The pastor explained that the church’s digital messages would often reflect the season, such as Christmas or Easter, but in June they refer to Pride Month.

WLS noted that LGBTQ activists had also tried to get Palatine city officials to fly a Pride flag outside of city hall but had been rebuffed.

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​Christianity, Church, Lgbtq, Pride month, Protest, Politics 

Nobody asked us. Not me, not my teammates, not the 18-year-olds who had just arrived at the University of Pennsylvania and found themselves sharing a locker room with Lia Thomas.

Nobody held a vote, nobody sent an email, nobody knocked on the door and said, “Hey, is this OK with you?” They simply instructed us that a man would be joining the women’s swim team and waited for us to get used to it. We never did.

Somewhere along the way, it became the job of a bunch of college kids to fix something the adults in the room had broken.

Plenty of lawyers and pundits will spend the next several weeks dissecting the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. B.P.J. They will argue about precedent and jurisdiction, but here is what most of them are missing: They were not in that locker room. I was.

Eighteen times a week for an entire season, I changed and showered alongside a male athlete. Eighteen times a week, my teammates and I were expected to act like this was normal.

Voicing concerns was dubbed hateful, and the policy that created this situation in the first place was not. We had earned our spots on the team, but not one person in a position of authority at Penn, the NCAA, or USA Swimming ever pulled us aside and asked how we were handling the situation.

The administration and governing bodies were not interested. The message was quiet but very clear: Your discomfort is not the problem we are trying to solve.

When we tried to raise our concerns, the athletic department told us Thomas’ place on the team was nonnegotiable. Staff members offered us psychological services in an attempt to re-educate us into being comfortable undressing in front of a man. Their solution was not to protect us but to “fix” us.

Somewhere along the way, it became the job of a bunch of college kids to fix something the adults in the room had broken.

That is what I want people to understand when they hear about this ruling: It is not abstract to me. It is not a hypothetical or a talking point. I lived inside the policy the court just ruled states have the right to prohibit.

I can tell you from experience that the “compassionate” framing the other side always reaches for has never once held up to reality.

RELATED: SCOTUS sides with common sense after boys try to play sports with girls

Alex WROBLEWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Compassion for whom? Not for the female athletes who trained their entire lives and finished one place lower than they should have. Not for the teenager in California who lost a state track title she had earned. Not for my teammates and me who were expected to smile and say nothing while the people making decisions were only concerned about the feelings of one male athlete.

This ruling matters, but it does not automatically fix the issue of the governing bodies and professional organizations that spent the last several years dismantling women’s protections one policy at a time.

The NCAA still allows athletes to compete on an amended birth certificate in some cases, a solution you’d come up with if you were never really trying to solve the problem and never had to share a locker room with a fully grown man.

And worse still, 23 states have no law protecting girls at all.

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act has been sitting on Capitol Hill for years. Every member of Congress who let it die in committee now has a Supreme Court majority telling them they had the authority to act and chose not to. It is time to finish the job.

I have been waiting for that moment since I was 19.

The court got it right. I just wish it had not taken this long for the people in charge to catch up to what I knew firsthand in my locker room.

​Supreme court, Lia thomas, Women’s sports, Scotus, Ncaa, Upenn, Transgender athletes, Usa swimming, Opinion & analysis 

Chief Justice John Roberts begins the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship opinion in Westminster in 1608 with Calvin’s Case and the English law of royal subjectship.

I would begin in Philadelphia in 1776.

English law rested upon allegiance to the Crown. The American Republic would rest upon the consent of a self-governing people.

Between those two places — and those two moments — lies the American Revolution. And the Revolution changed more than who governed America. It changed the very foundation of political membership.

That is the central problem with the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara. The court’s opinion is learned, careful, and historically rich. Chief Justice Roberts traces the English doctrine of jus soli through Calvin’s Case, Blackstone, a substantial body of antebellum American authorities, and finally United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

It may well become the definitive defense of the conventional understanding of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. But it answers the wrong question.

The issue is not whether America inherited English legal language. It plainly did. The issue is whether America also inherited England’s understanding of political membership.

The majority assumes that the American Revolution left the English understanding of political membership largely intact. The dissents argue that the Revolution rejected that understanding and replaced it with an American conception of citizenship grounded in the consent of the governed. That is the real disagreement in this case.

A new creed

Under English common law, nearly everyone born within the king’s dominions became a natural-born subject. Birth within the sovereign’s territory created permanent allegiance to the Crown because the child was born under the king’s protection. That doctrine made sense in a monarchy. It reflected a world of subjects, sovereigns, dominions, and perpetual allegiance.

But the United States is not a monarchy.

The Declaration of Independence did more than announce separation from Great Britain. It rejected the political philosophy upon which English subjectship rested. Jefferson’s words — that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed” — were not mere rhetorical flourishes. They announced a new theory of political legitimacy.

The Declaration’s closing words made the rejection of perpetual allegiance explicit: The new states were “absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown.”

English law rested upon allegiance to the Crown. The American Republic would rest upon the consent of a self-governing people.

That revolutionary transformation should have been central to the Court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

Instead, the majority largely assumes that English subjectship and American citizenship belong to the same constitutional lineage. Roberts proves an important proposition: England recognized birthright subjectship. But he does not prove the decisive one: that Americans who had repudiated monarchy intended, less than a century later, to constitutionalize the English law of royal subjectship as the definition of citizenship in a republic.

Mere obedience to law is not the same thing as complete political allegiance.

Justice Joseph Story helps explain why that distinction matters. Story was steeped in English law, but he was not merely Blackstone with an American accent. His great constitutional project was to explain how inherited English legal concepts had been adapted to the institutions and principles of an American republic.

He stands as a bridge between the common-law inheritance and American constitutionalism.

That is the bridge missing from the majority’s account. Roberts reads the inherited legal tradition largely as a line of continuity from Calvin’s Case to Wong Kim Ark. But the American constitutional genealogy runs along a different path: the Declaration of Independence, Story’s adaptation of inherited law to republican constitutionalism, Lincoln’s reaffirmation of the Declaration as the nation’s first principle, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the 14th Amendment.

Abraham Lincoln understood this better than anyone. He did not treat the Declaration as a mere political manifesto. Lincoln treated it as the nation’s statement of principle. In his famous meditation on the Constitution and the Union, Lincoln described the Declaration’s principle of liberty as the “apple of gold,” with the Constitution as the “picture of silver” framed around it.

The frame was made not to conceal or destroy the apple, but to preserve it.

That is precisely the point here. The Constitution must be read as law. But it is American law, not English law. And the 14th Amendment must be read as part of the Constitution’s effort to vindicate the principles of the Declaration after the catastrophe of slavery and Dred Scott.

Preserving the cornerstone

The Reconstruction Congress was not attempting to preserve English constitutionalism. It was completing the work begun in 1776.

The Declaration proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” Dred Scott denied that promise, holding that an entire class of Americans could never become members of the political community. The 14th Amendment repudiated that decision.

But it did so by restoring the principles of the American founding, not by reviving the legal doctrines of the British Crown.

This is why the majority’s repeated description of the Citizenship Clause as “declaratory” does not resolve the question. Declaratory of what? The common law of royal subjectship inherited from England? Or the constitutional law of citizenship that Americans had transformed through the Declaration, the Revolution, and nearly a century of republican self-government?

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, not 1768. It should therefore be interpreted through the constitutional understandings of the American Republic, not simply those of the British Empire.

The Citizenship Clause provides: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” The clause does not simply require birth in the United States. It adds a second requirement: The person must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

Those words must do real work.

RELATED: The Supreme Court puts border judges back in their lane

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The majority effectively equates “subject to the jurisdiction” with “subject to American law.” Anyone physically present in the country, except diplomats and members of sovereign Indian tribes, must obey American law. From that premise, the majority concludes that virtually everyone born here becomes a citizen.

But the Reconstruction Congress was speaking of something more profound than traffic laws and criminal jurisdiction. It was defining membership in the American political community.

The debates surrounding the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment repeatedly invoked the ideas of complete jurisdiction, complete allegiance, and undivided political obligation.

Senator Lyman Trumbull, the principal author of the Civil Rights Act, explained that citizenship extended to those who were subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States — not merely to those temporarily answerable to its laws.

Every foreign visitor is obliged to obey American law while here. So is every foreign student, every tourist, every diplomat’s driver, and every person who crosses the border unlawfully. But mere obedience to law is not the same thing as complete political allegiance. If it were, the jurisdictional language would add almost nothing to the constitutional text.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 used slightly different language, extending citizenship to persons born in the United States and “not subject to any foreign power.” The 14th Amendment altered the phrasing, but not the underlying concept of complete political jurisdiction. The point was not mere geography. It was political membership.

That is why the dissents have the stronger originalist argument.

Citizenship in America

Justice Clarence Thomas begins with a question the majority never fully confronts: What did Americans understand citizenship to mean after they had rejected English subjectship? That is the proper originalist inquiry. It is not enough to ask how English courts defined the king’s subjects. The constitutional question is how Americans defined members of a self-governing republic.

The majority’s treatment of United States v. Wong Kim Ark illustrates the same methodological difficulty. Roberts portrays today’s decision as little more than the faithful application of settled precedent. That gives Wong Kim Ark much broader force than it actually possessed.

The case involved a child born in San Francisco to parents who had been lawfully admitted and permanently domiciled in the United States. That holding was sufficient to resolve the controversy before the Court. Whether the Constitution mandates citizenship for children born to temporary visitors or to those unlawfully present was not presented.

To be sure, Justice Horace Gray’s opinion draws heavily on the English tradition of jus soli. But the opinion’s reasoning extended well beyond the facts before it. Its discussion of temporary visitors and the full scope of the Citizenship Clause should be evaluated on the strength of its historical reasoning, not treated as though every observation carried the force of the Court’s holding.

That is especially important because Wong Kim Ark itself looked backward through the English common-law tradition. Today’s Court repeats that move. But whether Justice Gray correctly understood the original meaning of the 14th Amendment remains the very question under debate.

Over the past two decades, Edward Erler, Michael Anton, and I, along with several other prominent legal scholars, have argued that the Citizenship Clause must be understood against the backdrop of the American Revolution rather than the English common law of perpetual allegiance.

That argument does not deny England’s commitment to jus soli. It asks whether the American Revolution rejected the premise on which English jus soli rested.

RELATED: Sen. Schmitt offers glimmer of hope after birthright citizenship ‘mistake’ from SCOTUS

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Chief Justice Roberts presents an intellectually serious account of the conventional view. The majority opinion deserves respect for its scholarship and for its careful engagement with difficult historical sources.

But scholarship is only as persuasive as the question it seeks to answer.

Roberts proves that England followed jus soli. He proves that English subjects acquired allegiance by birth within the king’s dominions. He proves that Wong Kim Ark embraced that historical tradition.

What he never quite proves is why the American people, after repudiating monarchy and proclaiming government by consent, should be presumed to have constitutionalized that English doctrine rather than adapting inherited legal language to their own revolutionary understanding of citizenship.

The disagreement between the majority and the dissent is therefore not ultimately about Blackstone, Calvin’s Case, or even Wong Kim Ark. It is about what the American Revolution accomplished. Did it merely transfer sovereignty from the king to the people while leaving the English understanding of political membership intact? Or did it reject that understanding and replace it with citizenship grounded in consent, allegiance, and membership in the American political community?

Justice Thomas places that question at the center of the inquiry. For an originalist, that is exactly where it belongs.

The Declaration of Independence eloquently and definitively answered that question in favor of the doctrine of consent rather than the feudal doctrine of jus soli. In this, its 250th anniversary, it should not have been overlooked.

​Scotus, Birthright citizenship, 14th amendment, 1776, Wong kim ark, Dredd scott, Common law, Declaration of independence, Supreme court decision, Opinion & analysis 

Comedian Druski took the stage at the BET Awards as a flamboyant preacher obsessed with celebrities’ net worths and extravagant displays of wealth. And while it was a joke, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes it exposed something very real about the current state of the black church.

“The black church is now a running joke to the point that the BET Awards can be based off of it. Druski opened up the BET Awards mocking the black church,” Whitlock says, before playing a few clips from Druski’s performance.

In one clip, Druski yelled that “somebody getting impregnated with the Word of God in here, in the front row right here.”

In another clip, he says, “We’ve got so many stars in the building whose net worths are blessed and who God has ordained to bless me. Put Tyler Perry net worth up there. Oh my God! Glory! $1.4 billion dollars! We pulling net worth tonight. Amen.”

“Somebody better donate, amen? Amen. Amen. Who else in the building? We got Stevie Wonder in the building. Put his net worth up there. $200 million,” he continues, with the screen behind him showing Wonder’s net worth in brail.

“This man is mocking the black church, taking God’s name in vain in front of a national television audience on the biggest night in black culture,” Whitlock says.

“I actually think he’s a force for good. He’s holding up a mirror and saying this is the type of clown show we have become,” he continues.

“Druski is using comedy properly to hold up a mirror and say … our behavior is so foolish that the only thing I can do is mock it,” he adds.

While Shemeka Michelle agrees, she also doesn’t think the comedy is for everyone.

“I don’t have a problem with it when it comes to people like us who actually can say this is so sad, that it’s accurate … but I think where my problem would come in at is that so many people won’t see it. They won’t see that this is accurate and this is sad and that there needs to be a change,” Michelle says.

“They will just take it as ‘OK, this is nothing to take serious, and we can continue to just play with God and the church, and it’s something that should be made a joke of,’” she continues.

“That’s what I’m kind of fearful of, that people just won’t have any reverence for God,” she adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Jason whitlock, Fearless, Druski, Comedian, Bet awards, Black church, Shemeka michelle, Jason whitlock harmony 

Eleven years ago, after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obergefell redefined marriage, Daniel Horowitz published his book “Stolen Sovereignty,” warning that a day was coming soon when the court would redefine what citizenship means — “the ultimate question” of every civilization.

Today, his prediction came true. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of birthright citizenship — determining that any child born in the United States, regardless of the parents’ immigration status, is a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment.

Now that the gavel has fallen, what is needed, says Horowitz, is not an “analysis of the [majority] opinion,” but a willingness to “[look] forward” to what comes next.

On this episode of “Conservative Review,” Horowitz explains why this SCOTUS ruling is only a travesty if we allow it to be.

“The important thing is not what the court said but what Trump and the Republican Party in control of Congress and, frankly, the red states … will do with this opinion,” he declares.

Calling the ruling “the Waterloo moment of judicial supremacism,” Horowitz argues that the executive and legislative branches have “an obligation to act in concert with what [they] know to be true” — namely, to “say no and not issue it.”

Because the judiciary lacks the power of the purse or the sword, its rulings are not self-executing on the other branches; they depend on the executive and legislative branches choosing to give them effect.

“The action item from here is very simple,” says Horowitz.

“Congress, in budget reconciliation and/or the appropriation bills to fund the government past October 1, [fiscal year] 2027, must prohibit the funding for the issuance of passports and, obviously, birth certificates to people [who] cannot show that one parent is a [legal permanent resident].”

As for the executive branch, it “should just say no,” Horowitz states bluntly.

“This should be Trump’s entire focus — just this,” he says. “All the political capital they’re going to expend on holding up the NDAA, holding up the Farm Bill … — it needs to be for defunding the issuance of … citizenship documents to illegals and tourist visas.”

To accept a ruling from SCOTUS — made up of unelected, life-tenured judges — as unassailable law, Horowitz warns, is like allowing “tyranny worse than King George” to govern our land.

“How fortuitous and tragic that it’s on the week of July Fourth 250th celebration … that we are being told that [] the unelected branch, without consent, could engage in social transformation without representation … that they could determine [birthright citizenship] with finality, including allowing the entire world to come in and dilute our citizenship and help vote and determine everything else as well,” he exclaims.

“That is not a thing. That is something that we never adopted, and it cannot and must not go through.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

​Conservative review, Daniel horowitz, Scotus, Birthright citizenship, 14th amendment, Conservative review with daniel horowitz 

As Europe’s record-breaking heat wave continues and excess deaths in France climb past 1,300, a Paris official says Americans bear responsibility for the crisis because of emissions and air conditioning.

Audrey Pulvar, Paris’ deputy mayor for international relations, lashed out at American tourists and influencers who had mocked the city for its lack of widespread air conditioning as temperatures soared past 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

‘OMG, this is so rich.’

“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticising and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room. … OMG, this is so rich!” she wrote on Instagram.

She argued the U.S., which she claims is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, bears a “significant amount of responsibility responsibility” for the warming driving the crisis, noting American cities are roughly 90% air-conditioned. “So please, enough with the lecture. Just start doing your part.”

France has recorded at least 1,300 excess deaths since June 21, according to Sante Publique France, with officials warning the count could climb higher.

About 15,000 elderly people died in France’s 2003 heat wave, though air conditioning still hasn’t caught on nationwide. As of June 25, officials had confirmed at least 55 drowning deaths — a toll likely to keep climbing — after many have sought relief in unsupervised waterways.

Paris went so far as to ban public alcohol consumption on streets and in parks to “preserve emergency services and allow medics to concentrate on taking care of the most vulnerable.”

RELATED: Here’s what the war in Iran means for you at the gas pump

Dimitar DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images

Only about a quarter of French households have air conditioning, versus roughly half in Spain and Italy and 90% in the U.S. and Japan. The French have long associated air conditioning with illness, attributing colds to “thermal shock” from sudden temperature changes, according to GB News.

With Parisians sleeping in parks and booking hotel rooms to escape the heat, even traditionally AC-skeptical politicians — including France’s Green Party — have conceded wider adoption may now be unavoidable.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright drew fire days earlier, telling a London conference that “cold is a vastly larger killer than heat is,” citing deaths tied to high energy prices after Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion.

On Europe’s air conditioning scarcity specifically, Wright said a “shale gas revolution” in the U.K. could have cut electricity bills and avoided the shortage altogether.

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​Air conditioning, Americans, Blaze news, Censors, Chris wright, Crisis, Death toll, Electricity bills, Emergency services, Energy prices, Europe, Excess deaths, France, Green party, Greenhouse gas, Heat wave, Illness, Influencers, International relations, Italy, Japan, Journalists, Murder, Paris, Politicians, Russia, Social media, Spain, Tourists, Uk, Ukraine invasion, Politics 

Three females have been charged with murdering a mother of five on a south Texas street in broad daylight — and at least one suspect appeared to smile on video after her arrest.

Officers with the Del Rio Police Department just after 2 p.m. Thursday responded to Val Verde Regional Medical Center after receiving a report of a female suffering from multiple stab wounds, police said.

‘The severity of this crime is indeed a stark reminder of the consequences of violent actions. We need God in our lives.’

Upon arrival, officers determined the assault had occurred in the 800 block of East 10th Street, police said.

Due to the severity of her injuries, the victim was taken to a medical facility in San Antonio for emergency treatment, police said.

During the investigation, detectives identified the victim as a 32-year-old female and developed three suspects: Kitty Mia Diaz, 21; Amaya Cookie Diaz, 19; and Kyandra Renee Faz, 21.

Investigators gathered surveillance video, processed evidence, and conducted numerous witness interviews, police said, adding that officers located and arrested Kitty Mia Diaz and Amaya Cookie Diaz without incident around 4 p.m. Soon after officers located and arrested Kyandra Renee Faz, police said. All three suspects were taken to the Del Rio Police Department for booking and processing, police said.

USA Today reported that video capturing the arrests of Kitty Mia Diaz and Amaya Cookie Diaz show both females grinning as they’re placed into police vehicles. The below news video — at the 2:38 mark — shows at least one handcuffed female appearing to smile following her arrest:

RELATED: Convicted killer giggles in court as judge describes murder. Judge asks why he’s laughing — and isn’t amused by his answer.

Around 9 p.m. investigators were told that the victim — identified as Caroline Peña, KENS-TV reported — was pronounced dead, police said.

Following the victim’s death, all three suspects were charged with murder and were taken to the GEO Correctional Facility, police said.

Authorities said the investigation remains active and ongoing and that additional charges may be filed as investigators continue to gather evidence and determine the full circumstances surrounding this incident.

A number of those commenting underneath the police department’s Facebook post about the killing were taken aback by it:

“The severity of this crime is indeed a stark reminder of the consequences of violent actions,” one commenter wrote. “We need God in our lives.””It’s heartbreaking to see women (or any person) involved in such a violent incident,” another user said before adding, “Stay strong Del Rio, my thoughts are with the victim’s family and the community during this difficult time.””None of this had to happen,” another commenter stated. “The saddest part is that all of them had children and families who now have to live with the aftermath. Choices don’t just affect yourself; they affect everyone connected to you.””Prayers for the victim’s family,” another user wrote.

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​Murder, Arrests, Del rio, Texas, Mother, Stabbing, Crime 

In a decisive ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court has settled the most consequential legal question for women’s sports in a generation — affirming what biology and fairness have always made clear: Women’s sports must remain protected spaces for female athletes.

The court ruled 9-0 that Title IX — the federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women in education and sports — and 6-3 that the Equal Protection Clause allow states to protect female athletes with sex-based categories in sports.

Changing the culture means rejecting the lie that biology is bigotry.

The decisions in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. mark a watershed. The court recognized that sex is a biological fact, not a feeling, and that it shapes athletic performance in ways no paperwork or policy can undo.

Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh held that Title IX “cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.”

By upholding the constitutionality of state laws safeguarding sex-based categories in athletics, the court has reinforced the rights of girls and women in the 27 states that have already passed protective legislation. This is a win worth celebrating.

No longer will biological males like B.P.J. dominate girls’ shot-put competitions in West Virginia next season. The ruling draws a firm line: Sex is not a feeling, and paperwork and lip gloss cannot rewrite reality.

Female athletes deserve fair competition, safe locker rooms, and equal opportunity — the principles Title IX was built to protect and that reflect simple scientific truth. The majority opinion emphasizes immutable biological differences in strength, speed, and physiology and rejects the claim that gender identity can override sex in the context of physical athletics.

Yet this victory, meaningful as it is, remains incomplete.

In the remaining 23 states — California chief among them — business as usual persists. Biological males can still claim girls’ and women’s titles, taking podium spots from female athletes they outperform.

The patchwork nature of this decision means fairness remains geographically contingent. But a girl’s right to compete on a level playing field should not depend on her zip code.

We have made progress. President Trump’s 2025 executive order provided critical momentum, functioning with the force of law and prompting the NCAA to reaffirm that women’s categories are for women. The International Olympic Committee has committed to protecting the female category starting with the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Ballot initiatives in blue states like Colorado and Washington this November will let voters decide directly whether girls deserve their own sports. In Maine, fathers have mobilized to put the Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine initiative on the ballot so their daughters can have the same opportunities their mothers did.

These developments are encouraging. But the challenges remain formidable.

The NWSL and the WNBA still operate without meaningful sex verification. Professional leagues, private events such as the Boston Marathon, and college athletics remain fractured. Birth certificates — the only proof of sex required by the NCAA — can be changed in 44 states. Given the fungible nature of paperwork and other IDs, documents cannot substitute for actual biological testing at the highest levels of sport.

Blue states continue to defy federal guidance, treating fairness as optional. Interstate competition creates impossible inconsistencies. A female athlete protected in Tennessee could still face unfair qualification scenarios against out-of-state males if she advances to national competition.

How is that fair?

The deeper truth is that a Supreme Court ruling can set a legal boundary, but it cannot change the culture by itself. That work falls to all of us — parents, athletes, coaches, journalists, and everyday citizens who refuse to stay silent.

RELATED: Democrats can’t escape their trans problem

Kirby Lee/Getty Images

For too long, institutions have prioritized feelings, optics, and activist pressure over the safety, dignity, and opportunity of girls and women. We saw a version of the same pattern in the gymnastics sex abuse scandals I helped expose decades ago: Adults in power looked the other way while vulnerable athletes paid the price.

The Safe Sport Act now exists to protect young athletes from abuse, but the coaching culture has not changed enough, and abuse still occurs. SafeSport faces a four-year backlog of abuse reports.

Changing the culture means rejecting the lie that biology is bigotry.

It means parents showing up at school board meetings, statehouses, and ballot initiatives with unrelenting clarity. It means athletes — female and male — finding the courage to speak the truth even when it costs them. It means sponsors, leagues, and media outlets facing real consequences for enabling unfairness.

And it means raising a generation that understands sex is real, fairness is not optional, and protecting female spaces is not hate. It is basic decency.

Legal wins are essential guardrails, but they are not the finish line. We must build a culture where courage defeats compliance, evidence defeats ideology, and the protection of girls takes precedence over performative virtue.

Only then will the promise of Title IX — and the promise of fair sports — be fully realized for every daughter, in every state.

The fight continues. But today, with the Supreme Court’s backing, we have firmer ground beneath our feet.

Now let’s use it to shift the culture for good.

​14th amendment, Biological sex, Equal protection, Gender identity, Opinion & analysis, Supreme court, Title ix, Transgender athletes, Safe sport act, Biology, Reality 

The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day back in office making it U.S. policy not to issue citizenship documents to a person whose mother was unlawfully in the country and whose father was neither an American citizen nor a permanent resident at the time of the person’s birth.

‘The Court has made a mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.’

This order has been at the center of a legal battle that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s determination on Tuesday in Trump v. Barbara that “children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.”

Unwilling to suffer the fallout of the high court’s ruling, some conservatives are looking for legal ways to prevent America from cheapening citizenship and becoming a spawning ground for opportunistic foreigners.

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R) noted in the wake of the consequential ruling that “the majority tried to constitutionalize unlimited birthright citizenship. But Justice Kavanaugh MAY have left Congress a door.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a partially dissenting opinion:

The Executive Order does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Order does contravene a federal statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a). 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. But Congress has not yet done so.

RELATED: SCOTUS rules on Trump’s birthright citizenship order

Sen. Eric Schmitt. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Recognizing that the high court’s decision “will destroy the republic” but is unfixable with ordinary legislation, Schmitt advocated that “we must do what the Constitution commands in moments of national crisis: We must amend the Constitution and restore American citizenship. We must again put ‘We the People’ first.”

“When the Court entrenches its mistake as a constitutional command, the remedy must match the injury,” the Missouri senator wrote. “Congress can propose an amendment under Article V, and the states can ratify it. That process is purposefully difficult. It requires two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states.”

The senator announced that he is filing legislation to amend Section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Schmitt’s proposed “American Citizenship Act” would clarify the meaning of the Citizenship Clause such that a person born in the United States would be “deemed subject to a foreign power if neither parent of such person is a United States citizen or has been lawfully admitted for permanent residence at the time of such person’s birth.”

The act would not apply retroactively to persons already born.

“That amendment will restore the original American understanding of citizenship. It will restore the right of the American people to define their own political community,” Schmitt said. “And it will ensure that citizenship once again reflects allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation.”

The clarification proposed by Schmitt appears to be in keeping with the longstanding American understanding of the clause referenced by Justice Samuel Alito in his dissent in Barbara.

Alito, like Justice Clarence Thomas, railed against the majority’s apparent revisionist history and suggested that the court broke from tradition in its interpretation of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” taking it to mean “subject to the laws that apply to everyone who is present within the country’s borders.”

The conservative justice stressed that this interpretation presents at least three “fatal problems” on textual grounds:

“It gives the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship test a meaning that plainly differs from that in the Civil Rights Act, even though it is beyond any reasonable dispute that Congress did no such thing”;”The Court cannot explain why the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer citizenship on children born in the United States to tribal Indians”; and”The Court cannot explain why the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States applies to naturalized citizens.”

Alito said in conclusion that “the Court has made a mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.”

President Donald Trump suggested that the Supreme Court’s mess could be cleaned up “in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President.”

He stressed that “no long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!”

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​Supreme court, Birthright citizenship, Samuel alito, Eric schmitt, 14th amendment, Politics 

Three illegal alien members of a vicious gang based in El Salvador have been convicted of a long list of heinous crimes including murder, according to a Justice Department press release.

30-year-old Jose Luis Reynaldo “Molesto” Reyes-Castillo, 27-year-old David Arturo “Herbi” Perez-Manchame, and Joel “Momia” Vargas-Escobar were involved in at least nine murders.

‘These defendants carried out a campaign of terror marked by murders, kidnappings, and brutality.’

The three illegal aliens are from Honduras and El Salvador.

They were convicted of charges that include conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving murders and attempted murder, murder in aid of racketeering, kidnapping in aid of racketeering, and attempted murder in aid of racketeering, as well as various gun crimes.

The three participated in the murders of rival gang members in Nevada and California and in some cases kidnapped and tortured their victims.

In one case from Dec. 2017, Reyes-Castillo and another gang member kidnapped a victim from Mendota, California, and brutally murdered him with a machete and knives, leaving the victim’s remains unrecognizable.

In another from Jan. 2018, Reyes-Castillo and Vargas-Escobar kidnapped a victim and shot and stabbed him to death after driving him into the desert. They believed the victim had defected to a rival gang, the DOJ said.

In Feb. 2018, Reyes-Castillo and Perez-Manchame kidnapped a victim who they believed was a rival gang member based on a tattoo and the clothing he wore. They stabbed him over 200 times, and his body was found decomposing in the mountains about three weeks later.

The three illegal aliens all face life in prison when they are sentenced in November.

“These defendants carried out a campaign of terror marked by murders, kidnappings, and brutality,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah in the press release.

“Their reign of violence ends today,” he added. “The Las Vegas Homeland Security Task Force is unyielding in its mission — we will hunt down violent gang members, dismantle their networks, and drive transnational criminal organizations out of our communities. Southern Nevada will not be a refuge for predators or the terror they attempt to unleash.”

RELATED: Nationwide ICE sweep leads to arrests of hundreds of DREAMers and MS-13 gang members

The DOJ released a photo of Reyes-Castillo that showed him posing with two firearms.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel said that stamping out criminal gangs is a special focus of the FBI and claimed gang arrests were up 322%.

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​Illegal alien crimes, Justice department, Ms-13 gang, Politics 

The New Jersey congressman who missed more than 140 votes has finally revealed the mystery “medical issue” that kept him from his congressional duties.

Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (N.J.) last voted in Congress on March 5 and then went missing for three months without a full explanation of his absence.

‘There is no timeline for recovery, only the work of getting better one day at a time.’

On Tuesday, Kean said in a speech on the floor of Congress that he had been diagnosed with depression and told to stay in the hospital for treatment.

“Several months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing. I did not believe that this would result in a long-term stay,” he said. “I was given the diagnosis of depression.”

Kean said his doctors recommended that he stay in the hospital to treat his depression.

“They explained to me that this would be the fastest way to recovery, and to be honest, I was hesitant. I didn’t think that I had time for it. … Like many people, I believed that I could simply push through,” Kean continued. “But I agreed to follow my doctor’s recommendations again, not believing that it would result in a long-term stay.”

Kean was pressed for details about his absence from Congress in April and said only that he had been dealing with a “personal medical issue.”

He said Tuesday that he had hoped to seek release earlier but his treatment dragged on.

“As the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing. There is no timeline for recovery,” he added, “only the work of getting better one day at a time.”

Kean won the primary for his re-election campaign during the time he was gone.

RELATED: GOP congressman sort of reappears after going AWOL for months, missing over 100 votes

Kean reiterated his message on social media.

“I’m a private person by nature, so sharing my story wasn’t easy. But if speaking openly about what I’ve been through helps even one person know they’re not alone, then it was worth it,” he wrote.

“I’m deeply grateful for the prayers, kindness, and support I’ve received,” Kean concluded.

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​Depression, New jersey, Politics, Tom kean 

After 40 years in Congress, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has revealed what comes next.

Pelosi has announced the Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy at University of California, Berkeley, which the school described as a “nonpartisan” academic center set to open in January 2027.

During her speakership in 2009, House Democrats achieved an all-time congressional record for party-line voting.

“I viewed this as a liberation for me from the political, not politics, but partisanship,” Pelosi, 86, told CNN in an article published Monday. “Because you’re going to an academic institution. It’s about what our founders had in mind with our Constitution, and it’s a beautiful story to tell.”

The institute will sit inside Berkeley’s political science department, focusing on research, civic engagement, and training future leaders, according to UC Berkeley. Pelosi is slated to co-teach a course on Congress beginning in spring 2027, while the institute will also run a visiting fellows program and an annual forum for prominent leaders.

Pelosi agreed to personally raise $25 million toward the school’s broader $50 million campaign — a target she said she hit “quite easily.”

Pelosi said the idea of a bipartisan academic center particularly intrigued her. “I loved it because they talked about human rights in the U.S. and in the world, addressing the challenges to our democracy, the climate, and economic income inequity,” she said of Berkeley’s pitch.

Pelosi, who was first elected to Congress in 1987 and became speaker 20 years later, has been no stranger to squeezing out members of her own party who stepped out of line. In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) accused Pelosi of “singling out newly elected women of color,” calling her treatment of the progressive “Squad” “outright disrespectful.”

RELATED: The man who propelled Ocasio-Cortez into Congress fails SPECTACULARLY in race for Pelosi’s seat

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

On one of the rare issues with real bipartisan momentum in recent years — banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks — Pelosi first opposed the idea and was later only lukewarm toward it, even as scrutiny mounted over her husband’s frequent stock trades during her tenure as speaker.

Her most notable legislative achievement, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, passed the House without a single Republican vote. Pelosi reportedly dismissed a more bipartisan version of the bill as “Kiddie Care,” pushing for the more sweeping, partisan version that ultimately passed 219-212.

Pelosi’s clash with Trump produced one of the most viral partisan moments of his presidency when she tore up her copy of his 2020 State of the Union address on camera, calling it “a manifesto of mistruths.”

During her speakership in 2009, House Democrats achieved an all-time congressional record for party-line voting — sticking together 94.2% of the time, a hallmark not of compromise but of caucus control.

GovTrack’s most recent report card found she introduced fewer bills than anyone in the California delegation, and in 2016, joined bipartisan legislation less frequently than any other House Democrat. GovTrack notes, however, that party leaders often post unusual scores given the nature of their role.

Even in the same CNN interview announcing her “liberation” from partisanship, Pelosi couldn’t resist a parting partisan shot, declaring unprompted that Democrats are “going to win the House” in November.

The institute is set to launch in January 2027, with a public exhibit on Pelosi’s career opening at the Bancroft Library that spring.

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​Nancy pelosi, Congress, Berkeley, Politics 

A film that is triggering progressive critics is becoming a viral sensation after the director called it “an inconvenient truth.”

The movie stars actor Armie Hammer as a man who takes justice into his own hands after he feels the government and law enforcement have failed to protect their citizens.

‘Racist, xenophobic, ethnocentrist.’

‘X’ rated

“Citizen Vigilante” has been called “anti-migrant,” “racist, xenophobic,” and “incomprehensible,” yet audiences seem to love it.

With a fan score of 94% on popular review site Rotten Tomatoes, critics seem once again to be at odds with audiences while drawing a political line in the sand.

A huge social media push has seen the movie top the streaming charts, with multiple outlets reporting on Monday that “Citizen Vigilante” soared to No. 1 on Amazon Prime’s “Top 10 movies to rent or buy,” where it still stood at the time of this writing.

The film was reportedly No. 2 on Apple TV’s top movie list on Monday as well.

This all came after X owner Elon Musk posted “Citizen Vigilante” for free download on his platform last Thursday — with director Uwe Boll’s permission — garnering at least 8 million views by Musk’s own account.

Boll responded on X, “Dear Elon thank you. Donald Trump needs to see the film.”

RELATED: ‘Citizen Vigilante’: Outlaw director takes unflinching look at migrant violence

Banned abroad

By all accounts, the film draws on anti-immigration sentiments that are becoming popular around the world, and even references real-life migrant crimes for its story.

The movie has already been banned in Germany because it was found to be “inciting violence against migrants,” director Boll told Variety in June.

Boll called it “deliberate censorship” that was “on purpose.”

In an email to Newsweek, the director said his movie “shows an inconvenient truth what all other movies out there don’t want to show or try to sugarcoat in their productions.”

Boll added, “The audience wants real films again — bold and with impact and about reality.”

Bans and negative reviews have been overtaken by the film’s momentum, and the flick was just acquired by Quiver Distribution for a worldwide push, except for in the U.K., German-speaking territories, South Korea, and Taiwan.

RELATED: ‘Supergirl’ has disastrous opening after star declares character ‘doesn’t live inside the binary’

Many such (angry) cases

Many critics have not enjoyed the film, with some reviewers declining to even score it.

For example, Stefan Birgir Stefans called the film “brain dead” and gave no score, while Variety’s Todd Gilchrist similarly gave no rating and said the director was “deliberately sabotaging his star.”

Nicholas Bell said the film was “magnifying its xenophobia through the beacon of far-right agitprop,” while Joseph Robinson called it “a discriminatory parable.”

It was U.K. outlet the Guardian that dubbed “Citizen Vigilante” as “anti-migrant” on Tuesday, with Ready Steady Cut describing the film as “utterly incurious and incomprehensible, but politically barbed.”

Critic Jonathon Wilson argued the film was for people who believe “immigrants are to blame for all the violent crimes in the West to see as a rubric for defending their homeland.”

Tyler Thier of In Review Online summarized the movie as “racist, xenophobic, ethnocentrist, alt-right agitprop manufactured to piss off the ‘woke Left.'”

The consistent use of “agitprop” by reviewers is, interestingly enough, a reference to pro-communist propaganda used by the Soviet Union.

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​Movies, Citizen vigilante, Germany, Migrant crime, Elon musk, Armie hammer, Lifestyle, Entertainment 

Ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary, a recent Gallup poll reveals that very few Democrats say they are “extremely proud” to be an American.

The poll, which measured levels of American pride among differing demographics and compared results to past years, demonstrated that pride levels have fallen to a 25-year low.

The Democratic Party is facing a patriotism problem that only seems to be worsening.

General pride levels peaked in 2002, largely caused by the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. At the time, 69% of adults said they were “extremely proud” to be an American, and 23% said they were “very proud.” In 2026, those numbers have fallen to 33% and 20%, respectively.

The last year that over 50% of respondents fell under the “extremely proud” category was 2017.

Between Republicans and Democrats, Republicans have consistently produced higher levels of patriotic feelings. Yet the divide seems to have grown even sharper since President Donald Trump came onto the political scene.

In 2016, 68% of Republicans responded as “extremely proud” compared to 45% of Democrats. Today, Republicans — despite dipping seven percentage points from last year — sit at 70%, while Democrats record an all-time low of 14%. Combining “extremely” and “very” proud responses, Republicans climb to 93% and Democrats to 27%.

As numerous far-left candidates with track records of anti-American rhetoric have been emerging victorious in Democratic primaries across the country, it is becoming increasingly evident that the Democratic Party is facing a patriotism problem that only seems to be worsening.

RELATED: America turns 250 with a broken heart

Looking at changes over the past year, “extreme” pride has fallen in all categories covering age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education. Women represented the largest decline, dropping 13 points from 39% to 26%. Younger age groups fell as well, down 10 points to 14% among 18- to 34-year-olds and down 12 points to 30% among 35- to 54-year-olds.

Among 18- to 34-year-olds, 21% of respondents reported that they are “not at all” proud to be an American, with another 24% saying they are “only a little” proud. This data indicates that Generation Z in particular does not share the same sense of patriotism as older generations — a trend that has the potential to shape how Americans relate to their country in the coming decades.

“People of color” and non-college graduates also saw 10-point drops since 2025.

Meanwhile, men, those 55 and older, non-Hispanic white adults, and non-college graduates still top their respective categories.

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​Democrats, Generation z, United states, Politics, American pride 

Fears over losing jobs to artificial intelligence bots have abounded in the last couple years during the AI boom — and in some cases have even been realized.

However, one top automaker has decided to try something new in the age of AI: reversing course and rehiring the “gray beards” who were originally let go.

‘Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers.’

And this novel experiment of bringing back experienced engineers might pay off.

Ford Motor Co. has decided to change course away from replacing senior engineers with artificial intelligence after an apparent realization that experience is nearly impossible to replace.

RELATED: Stellantis’ China gamble could reshape America’s auto industry forever

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Bloomberg reported this week that Ford has hired 350 veteran engineers over the last three years after the company’s push toward AI drove costs and, it seems, tanked the quality of the products.

Much of the incurred cost for the company related to repairs and warranty coverages, Ford’s CEO suggested to Bloomberg.

“We’re seeing our warranty coverages come down. We’re seeing our recall costs come down,” chief executive officer Jim Farley said after the engineers were rehired. “These are all contributing to literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of a tailwind for Ford on cost.”

The switch, Bloomberg noted, has already yielded some positive results, with Ford ranking first in mass-market brands in the new JD Power Initial Quality Survey.

The experienced engineers were hired to train younger staff and reprogram the artificial intelligence agents, officials indicated.

“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told Bloomberg. “Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles.”

“Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product,” Poon continued. But “we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals.”

All told, the company hopes to cut $1 billion in costs this year.

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​Artificial intelligence, Ford motor company, Engineers, Politics 

President Trump has initiated the end of a high-profile, bureaucratic nightmare related to your own car.

During the Monday signing of a memorandum on “the freedom to fix,” President Trump himself expressed his disbelief at the ridiculousness of the problems the government creates.

‘If you own it, you should have the freedom to fix it!’

“It came to my attention because I noticed they were arresting people for fixing their car. … That’s not even believable,” Trump said before he signed the memorandum.

After signing the memo, Trump added, “We rule by common sense, to a large extent.”

RELATED: Exclusive: Trump’s EPA takes major step to end animal testing after Fauci’s cruel beagle experiments

Alex Wong/Getty Images

The memo will begin the process of giving car owners greater flexibility to fix their own car. One of the primary limitations at the moment is the harsh restrictions on tampering with emissions controls: “To further ensure vehicle affordability, it is the policy of my Administration that consumers should be able to fix their vehicles with affordable parts without being deemed to have circumvented emissions controls.”

The presidential action will attempt to bring greater peace of mind to consumers and after-market parts manufacturers, which are in regulatory limbo as things stand.

It also takes back federal control from the de facto regulatory control taken by California by loosening restrictions and making the costs of repair more affordable. California’s system is apparently bloated and time-consuming for owners to receive the necessary certifications for their vehicles.

If it is any indication of the current regulatory environment around this issue, the California Air Resources Board “has the only certification process for after-market parts currently recognized as sufficient under the [Clean Air Act],” the memorandum states.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who is tasked with loosening the restrictions, touted this memorandum as a win for consumers.

“If you own it, you should have the freedom to fix it!” Zeldin wrote on X. “President Trump just signed a new Presidential Memo protecting Americans’ freedom to fix their own vehicle if they so desire. The President’s action also combats cheap foreign aftermarket vehicle parts while also breaking up the monopoly the California Air Resources Board has had over certifying aftermarket parts.”

“This is an idea from the top when President Trump called me one recent Saturday night saying he wants this Memo drafted, signed and implemented at Trump Speed instantly,” he added.

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​President trump, Lee zeldin, Politics, California 

At first glance, genetically mutated rats in New York, Iran’s missile program, Britain’s grooming gang scandal, attacks on ICE facilities, and the rise of democratic socialism in America’s largest cities appear to have nothing in common.

But according to Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, they’re all examples of the same fundamental principle at work.

“Researchers now at Rutgers University found the vast majority of house mice and brown rats across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., have now genetically mutated to shrug off all of the poison that we have thrown at them for decades,” Glenn reports.

“Every rat that survived a less-than-lethal dose handed that resistance to the next litter. And generation by generation, we bred a more poison-resistant rat,” he adds.

Another story, Glenn says, is that the Trump administration is “asking Congress for $88 billion in supplemental funding tied to the Iran war, with most of it going to the Pentagon and replacing strained missile stockpiles.”

“Yet Tehran is boasting that the deal leaves its missile program untouched while it negotiates with Oman to charge costs for passage through the Strait of Hormuz,” he continues.

“This is a lesson that we refuse to learn, and the world has already learned it about us. We’re never, ever fighting a war enough to kill it. We never fight them hard enough to end it because we get bored, distracted,” he adds.

Glenn also points to the Rape Gang Inquiry Report, which dropped a bombshell: Muslim grooming gangs targeted and trafficked young white girls throughout the U.K.

“For 20 years, British authorities saw this, looked away, terrified of exactly the accusation now being aimed at the report. A half-confronted evil doesn’t shrink from embarrassment. It learns which words will make you flinch,” he explains.

And there is another story Glenn believes is related to the prior three: “More than a dozen defendants got prison for the 2025 attack on an ICE facility, and Rashida Tlaib called the sentencing bull crap.”

One of those arrested shot an ICE officer in the neck.

“The guy who pulled the trigger got 100 years, and Rashida Tlaib is saying this is crazy,” Glenn says.

“We’re jailing bodies, but we’re not touching the belief that told them that violence was righteous. So the belief goes on looking for more recruits,” he continues.

And now, socialists are “about to run four of America’s biggest cities.”

“Mamdani’s machine swept New York,” Glenn says.

“So, line up all of these stories, and the same law runs underneath all five. It is the oldest law in biology, and it does not care about your politics,” he continues. “A poison that doesn’t kill teaches.”

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

​Glenn beck, Trump administration, Zohran mamdani, Donald trump, Socialists, Iran, The glenn beck program, Rashida tlaib 

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered on Tuesday its highly anticipated ruling in Trump v. Barbara — the contentious case concerning whether President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens is constitutional.

The court held that “children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.”

‘Today’s opinion devalues that citizenship.’

In the majority opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Chief Justice John Roberts began with a history lesson and concluded by writing that “citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ … We keep that promise today.”

The court found that the arguments for limiting birthright citizenship to those legally living in the United States erred “in their definition of ‘allegiance,’ contending that natural allegiance was no longer sufficient for citizenship and that some greater quantum of allegiance (based on domicile) was required.”

According to the high court, there was “scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view.”

RELATED: Alito torches SCOTUS ruling in mail-in ballot case, warns of voter fraud

Swim ink 2/Corbis/Getty Images (L); John Moore/Getty Images (R)

In the opinion for the court, Roberts wrote that “if Congress intended to limit American citizenship to the children of those domiciled in the United States, nothing in the succinct language of the Citizenship Clause conveyed that design.”

Roberts noted further that words that appeared in Trump’s executive order — including “mother,” “father,” “lawful,” and “temporary” — were also absent from the language of the clause.

“And while the Clause does ensure state citizenship attaches for U.S. citizens in ‘the State wherein they reside,’ … the explicit invocation of residence for state citizenship only highlights its absence from the criteria for U.S. citizenship,” Roberts added.

Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a 91-page dissent joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch that the majority diverged from historic American interpretations of the citizenship clause and that its account of how American citizenship came to be understood is “not historically accurate.”

“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Thomas wrote. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

In addition to stating that Trump’s order had many potential applications which were “consistent with the original public meaning of the Citizenship Clause,” Thomas expressed uncertainty that “today’s opinion will stand the test of time.”

In closing, he wrote, “The Citizenship Clause ‘added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship.’ … Today’s opinion devalues that citizenship.”

Justice Samuel Alito echoed Thomas’ sense of gravity and disappointment in his dissent, writing, “This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake.”

“As interpreted by the Court today, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of ‘birth tourists,’ women who come here solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly return home,” Alito wrote. “Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way.”

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​Birthright citizenship, Illegal aliens, Scotus, Donald trump, Immigration, Constitution, Politics