Category: blaze media

The 2024 ESPY Awards ended Wednesday night with bright lights, political speeches, and corporate jingles — but not a single “Thank God.”

From the Dolby Theatre stage to the post-show press scrum, winners thanked coaches, trainers, parents, and activists. The Author of Every Talent didn’t even make the credits. The omission wasn’t just noticeable — it felt deliberate. And for those of us who still believe sports can lift our eyes toward Heaven, the silence thundered.

God is still in the game, because we the people keep inviting Him.

Simone Biles, who took home two trophies, captured the event’s tone. While accepting Best Championship Performance, she closed with: “I believe in the power of sport, the power of us, and, of course, the power of she.” A slick nod to gender politics, sure — but no hint of the divine.

The Icon Award segment turned up the ideological volume. Soccer star Alex Morgan credited a legacy of “women who gave us the confidence and will to play, to fight, to advocate.” She declared: “We’re standing on the shoulders of giants. … It’s because of you that we never have to apologize for speaking up or for fighting to raise the bar.”

Rugby player Ilona Maher, named Best Breakthrough Athlete, offered her viral mantra: “Strong is beautiful. Strong is powerful. It’s sexy — whatever you want it to be.” Empowerment rang from every line. Gratitude to God? Missing again.

Even the evening’s most historic honor, the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, stayed strictly secular. NBA legend Oscar Robertson described his long battle for player rights: “It was a desperate need for players to have more security. … It’s important to do the right thing even if it comes at personal sacrifice.” Admirable. But no recognition that courage itself might be a gift.

Now compare that to what fans reward outside the ESPN echo chamber.

Just 24 hours earlier at MLB’s All-Star festivities, Yankees captain Aaron Judge was asked what truly satisfies him. His answer came without hesitation: “Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s given me this platform. … The fame is great and all, but it’s not as fulfilling as the relationship I have with Him.” Social media lit up. Judge’s bat — engraved with 2 Corinthians 5:7 — sold out in hours. Open faith still resonates. That’s the marketplace talking.

Football fans feel it every Sunday. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, now chasing a Super Bowl three-peat, once told reporters: “Before every game, I walk the field and do a prayer at the goalpost. … I thank God for letting me be on a stage where I can glorify Him.” That clip has tens of millions of views on TikTok — and thousands of comments from rival fans typing “Amen.” Stadiums full of people may disagree on who wins, but they unite in prayer.

College football delivered another reminder. LSU’s Jayden Daniels opened his 2023 Heisman speech with: “I want to first give thanks to God. … He’s my rock, my savior. He blessed me with the talents and ability to get here.” The ballroom erupted. ESPN’s own cameras showed fans rising to their feet. Hashtags like #GloryToGod trended for days.

Spectators haven’t rejected God. The gatekeepers have.

RELATED: Simone Biles signals defeat in feud with Riley Gaines on trans athletes

Photo by Loic Venance / Contributor via Getty Images

The same networks that replay Mahomes’ pregame prayer for clicks strip divine gratitude from their own scripts. They celebrate activism in every language — except the one that thanks Heaven. But when tragedy strikes, like Damar Hamlin’s collapse, the crowd knows what to do. Silence falls. Heads bow. The reflex is prayer. The reflex is God.

As a father of three, a Catholic convert, and host of the YouTube show and podcast “We the People,” I see what’s at stake. We welcome current and Hall of Fame athletes and popular entertainers on every episode to talk about faith, family, and freedom. And of the three, the one they speak most freely and fervently about is their faith in God.

Sport remains one of the last places in American life capable of binding us across lines of class, creed, and color. Strip out its spiritual bloodstream, and all that’s left is a corporate pageant — flashy but hollow.

So here’s the call to action the ESPYs missed: If you hoist a trophy the size of a small child and can’t spare one breath to credit the One who designed your lungs, hand the mic to someone who will. Fans still cheer character as loudly as clutch shots. They did it for Judge, Mahomes, and Daniels — and yes, even Biles, when she thanked God after winning gold in Rio.

The appetite is there. The crowd is ready. Only the stage managers lack the courage to serve it.

Until then, award shows will keep cutting Heaven from the highlight reel. But the roar in the stadium — and the quiet prayers whispered at home — tells a different story. God is still in the game, because we the people keep inviting Him.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Simone biles, Espys, Espy awards 2025, God, Religion, Jesus christ, Patrick mahomes, Christianity, Christians, Amen, Savior, Jayden daniels, Heisman trophy winner, Aaron judge, Faith, Corinthians, Super bowl, Espn 

In vitro fertilization – the process by which a human embryo is created outside the body using naturally occurring egg and sperm – is growing in popularity as infertility continues to rise.

But how should Christians view IVF? Is it something believers can support or take part in without compromising their Christian ethics?

Allie Beth Stuckey invited Live Action’s Lila Rose to “Relatable” to have a candid conversation about this topic.

Allie points out that many Christian IVF supporters make the case that “even though scientists and doctors are bringing together the sperm and the embryo, it always has to be God who gives the spark of life, so God is in IVF.”

“I’ve definitely heard that [argument] as well,” says Lila, and while “it is true that those are precious human beings made in God’s image” and “God respects our power to [create life artificially],” that doesn’t mean it’s the moral thing to do.

She explains that just because God has allowed life to happen doesn’t mean he condones the manner in which it was created. She points to rape as an example. In a case where a rape results in a child, that child is an image bearer of God and a blessing to be cherished, but the act that brought that child into the world is condemnable.

In the case of both rape and IVF, “The act that brought that life into existence … was not the moral act, so the act that brings life into existence can be immoral, but the bringing of the life into existence is never immoral,” Lila explains. The only way to morally bring a life into existence is through “the loving marital embrace.”

“[Children] deserve to be conceived in love. It’s a natural order, and there’s a lot of protective mechanisms in God’s providence for that child if they’re conceived that way,” she adds.

If children are conceived naturally, there’s no chance they will be “frozen” in perpetuity, and there’s a much higher chance of survival, as IVF has just a 50% success rate for women under 35 using their own eggs. That percentage plummets with a number of factors, including age, clinic quality, and lifestyle choices, among others.

“The natural order is much more designed for [children’s] safety and their nourishing, so IVF is wrong,” Lila concludes, “but what is not wrong is that new human life.”

Allie agrees — “The baby is always a blessing, but that doesn’t mean that we are endorsing every method of making a baby.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Allie beth stuckey, Live action, Lila rose, Pro life, Ivf, In vitro fertilization, Christianity, Catholicism, Blazetv, Blaze media 

If you’re frustrated with being unable to buy a home today, you’re not alone. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, homeownership affordability has been near an all-time low since 2023. The deadly combination of both home prices and interest rates skyrocketing broke the housing market, but simply lowering interest rates today won’t fix it.

To understand why, it’s important to know what caused this housing affordability crisis. Over the last several years, the federal government spent trillions of dollars it didn’t have in the world’s largest-ever borrowing binge. The money came from the Federal Reserve, which created those trillions of dollars out of nothing, depressing interest rates.

The real solution is not to manipulate rates lower and spawn further inflation, but to get government out of the way so interest rates can come down naturally.

The predictable result was a rapid devaluation of the dollar, manifesting as 40-year-high inflation, followed by the fastest rise in interest rates in just as long to cool off the inflation.

Rates aren’t the problem

Not only did home prices become stratospherically high relative to incomes, but financing costs became prohibitively expensive. Consequently, during the four years of the Biden administration, the monthly mortgage payment doubled on a median-priced home.

For the housing market, this was a one-two punch that cratered affordability and consigned millions of Americans to renting for the foreseeable future.

The Fed’s artificially low interest rates helped cause the problem in the first place. Home prices rose not only because the dollar lost value (taking more dollars to buy the same home), but also because lower interest rates meant potential home buyers could borrow more and bid up the price of homes.

What’s most important to someone when considering buying a home is not the home’s price but the monthly mortgage payment. While the payment is clearly dependent on the whole price, interest rates are also a major factor. When those rates fell below 3%, people were willing to spend much more on the same home because the monthly payment didn’t change much.

As the months passed, however, and the bidding wars continued, prices just kept rising. Once interest rates returned to more normal levels, everything fell apart as monthly mortgage payments exploded. It now takes over two-thirds of the median household’s take-home pay to afford a median-priced home.

Historically, when interest rates rise, home prices fall, but that didn’t happen this time. So many people locked in home loans at interest rates below 4% — or even below 3% — that they can’t sell their homes today, because doing so would mean losing that interest rate and getting a new mortgage at 7%, 8%, or 9%.

The only way to make the math work is if homeowners sell at a huge premium, giving a massive down payment on their next home, minimizing the amount borrowed at a higher rate, and therefore preventing their monthly payment from skyrocketing. The large and fast increases in interest rates pushed home prices even higher instead of lower.

Get government out of the way

The temptation today is for the Fed to simply lower the federal funds rate (its benchmark interest rate), under the assumption that such a move will push down interest rates throughout the economy, including mortgages. Sadly, instead of fixing the broken housing market, it would likely have the opposite effect.

Last autumn, in a move that could only be described as blatant election interference, the federal funds rate was reduced when there was no empirical justification for doing so. But the move buoyed stock prices. Market participants saw through the charade and realized the artificially low rates would ultimately lead to more inflation, which prompted private market interest rates to rise.

RELATED: Trump rips into Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates and suggests he’ll be fired soon

Photo by e-crow via Getty Images

Lenders don’t like inflation because it reduces the value of the money being repaid in the future. To compensate, creditors demand a higher rate of return. That’s why the yield on Treasury debt at the end of last year jumped 100 basis points after the federal funds rate fell 100 basis points, demonstrating the Sisyphean nature of the problem.

Additionally, interest rates and home prices have recoupled. If interest rates fall one or even two percentage points, that will again prompt potential home buyers to borrow more, thereby bidding up home prices again. Unless rates drop substantially more, existing homeowners will remain trapped by the golden handcuffs of their 2% or 3% interest rates.

The real solution is not to manipulate rates lower and spawn further inflation, but to get government out of the way so those rates can come down naturally. If the government spent much less, then there would be less demand for borrowed money. Reducing demand in turn reduces the price, and the price for borrowed money is the interest rate.

Profligate government spending broke the housing market. Only fiscal restraint at the federal level will fix the problem.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Housing market, Housing, Housing prices, Housing crisis, Mortgage rates, Interest rates, The fed, Federal reserve, Jerome powell 

Despite a vocal commitment to safety and public good – seemingly more genuine than other top-level players in the AI sector – Anthropic keeps coming under legal fire. Already, the leading AI firm has been caught red-handed pirating thousands of copyrighted books and, in a separate-but-related incident, destroying millions of physical books used to train its AI models. Further court proceedings later this year will determine exact fines for the violation, potentially $100,000 per incident.

It matters, not just for the sake of those authors, but because Anthropic is one of the main four or five companies positioned to make decisive plays with national consequences over the next 12 months and beyond. It is tier-one, pushing an upper-echelon valuation, and like too many companies in the space, its palliative verbiage on ethical considerations hasn’t translated into action.

Anthropic’s LLM was caught faking data and ratting on perceived user ‘wrongdoing,’ and it even resorted to user blackmail.

Led by the Amodei siblings, Dario and Daniela, Anthropic emerged out of the high-profile breakup of OpenAI and has gone on to simultaneously rake in massive heaps of cash based on a rather overweening advertising and PR focus on human safety and “safe AI.”

The “public benefit” organization strategy does indeed seem to retain some of the quasi-nonprofit and public-good corporate structuring ethos carried over from Musk’s original OpenAI vision. Nonetheless, when we consider we’re dealing with potentially the most powerful and transformative (destructive?) technologies yet imagined, the company’s early track record leaves a bit to be desired.

From safety to blackmail

Anthropic strategy has targeted enterprise and B2B, and along the way, it has secured an impressive set of tech-heavy allies and business partners, including Google and Amazon Web Services. The company of “safety, steerability, and interpretability” may have larger designs that include clawing back, or perhaps sharing, some of Palantir’s government market share. In June of this year, its Claude Gov product was launched through the Fed Start program in a process involving both Palantir and Google Public Sector.

Anthropic product quality and market penetration are strong. The flagship, Claude, is a set of large language models in direct competition with Grok, Chat-GPT, and Gemini. Comprised of Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Haiku, the whole package is underwritten (in theory) by so-called Constitutional AI, which is essentially an experimental training method to guide software toward explicit rules – as opposed to relying solely on human feedback or implicit reward systems, which have been used by other AI organizations with equally mixed results.

Also on offer are Artifacts, a coding assistant; Computer Use, a sort of bridge between Claude models and physical desktops; and AI Fluency Framework, which purports to be an educational initiative for human users of AI. Various sub-variants and custom creations seem to have been built for the aforementioned partnerships, as well.

In terms of missteps and the usual upheaval we see in the AI industry, Anthropic’s Constitutional AI, while designed to “embed” ethical guidelines and minimize toxic output, hasn’t managed to screen out the toxic and ethically ambiguous. In a recent episode, when placed in fictional settings for tests, Anthropic’s LLM was caught faking data and ratting on perceived user “wrongdoing,” and it even resorted somehow to user blackmail as it scrambled to locate “right and wrong.”

RELATED: Tech elites warn ‘reality itself’ may not survive the AI revolution

sankai via iStock/Getty Images

One wonders if this sort of acting out, as is often seen with children, is somehow related to those very restrictions placed into an LLM to restrict action. If the LLM by nature cannot ever grasp embodied human morality, why pretend otherwise, especially when misbehavior is the result?

In and out of court

Anthropic has faced numerous legal challenges for its commandeering of intellectual property and copyrighted material. In 2023, Universal Music and other publishers sued Anthropic for allegedly infringing copyright of song lyrics while training Claude. A March ruling sided with Anthropic.

This year saw another lawsuit from Reddit wherein it was alleged Anthropic had “scraped the site upwards of 100,000 times.”

In another illustrative episode, the Anthropic legal team was caught out in court when it was determined that a Claude-derived citation deployed to bolster the company’s copyright defense was fake — it was rather the product of so-called “AI hallucination,” a phenomenon whereby an LLM simply invests, fabricates, or alters material for evidently unknown reasons.

It’s all, as the kids say, not a good look. With a valuation upwards of $60 billion, why not work out a bulk purchase deal with distributors?

Most curious and potentially dangerous (aside from the insistence on ethics as the correct framing for an LLM that lacks human morality or spirituality), is the interwoven nature of the Anthropic funding structure – which suggests mixed economic objectives may quickly override any high-minded claims of human-first product. Amazon ($8 billion), Google ($2 to $3 billion), and a host of other Silicon Valley venture firms whose allocations aren’t entirely transparent are all committed.

To its credit, Anthropic has made the humiliating results of its hallucinating AI public and open to comment, which lends credence to its stated principles.

Still, some have suggested this rather overly attentive response may be little more than advertising for the company’s favorite virtues. It’s well known that Anthropic is among the more woke-friendly AI companies on the block – a recipe for a quasi-spiritural form of censorship-driven safetyism, where the AI treats the user with kid gloves while the humans in the C-suite run amok.

​Ai, Anthropic, Tech, Lifestyle, Digital privacy, Llm, Claude, Return 

An NFL team is cooperating with police on an investigation into a “racist and hateful symbol” that was found at the construction site of their new stadium.

The Nissan Stadium for the Tennessee Titans is scheduled to open in 2027, but that might be delayed by the discovery of a noose, according to the Tennessee Builders Alliance, which is in charge of construction.

‘We’ve taken some steps, both with local policies, state policy, and partnership with them to try, again, to keep temperatures low and prevent hate incidents like this.’

“This week, a racist and hateful symbol was discovered on our site. There is no place for hate or racism in our workplace,” said the organization. “We reported the incident to law enforcement, suspended work, and launched an investigation.”

They added that workers will be subjected to anti-bias training after the incident, according to an ESPN report.

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, a Democrat, decried the harrowing discovery.

“Obviously, this is an environment where we want to try as hard as we can to prevent scenarios that might be fear- or hate-based,” the mayor said in a statement. “We’ve taken some steps, both with local policies, state policy, and partnership with them to try, again, to keep temperatures low and prevent hate incidents like this. It is very concerning. There is an open investigation. I know the Titans are cooperating with Metro Nashville Police, and we’ll see what that investigation turns up.”

The builders alliance is also offering a reward for information that leads to the “identification of the individual responsible” for the noose.

RELATED: ‘It’s a straight-up noose!’ — Bubba Wallace is angry at online response to FBI’s investigation

The deal reached to construct the stadium has been criticized for including the largest public subsidy for an NFL stadium in U.S. history. Critics of these subsidies argue that the economic benefits of building a new stadium never meet up to the promises made by local lawmakers and the league.

The stadium will cost about $2.1 billion, with much of that cost being shouldered by the taxpayer. The Titans and the NFL are paying for about $840 million of the project.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Noose at stadium, Tennessee titans stadium, Noose at a construction site, Noose found, Politics 

An NFL team is cooperating with police on an investigation into a “racist and hateful symbol” that was found at the construction site of their new stadium.

The Nissan Stadium for the Tennessee Titans is scheduled to open in 2027, but that might be delayed by the discovery of a noose, according to the Tennessee Builders Alliance, which is in charge of construction.

‘We’ve taken some steps, both with local policies, state policy, and partnership with them to try, again, to keep temperatures low and prevent hate incidents like this.’

“This week, a racist and hateful symbol was discovered on our site. There is no place for hate or racism in our workplace,” said the organization. “We reported the incident to law enforcement, suspended work, and launched an investigation.”

They added that workers will be subjected to anti-bias training after the incident, according to an ESPN report.

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, a Democrat, decried the harrowing discovery.

“Obviously, this is an environment where we want to try as hard as we can to prevent scenarios that might be fear- or hate-based,” the mayor said in a statement. “We’ve taken some steps, both with local policies, state policy, and partnership with them to try, again, to keep temperatures low and prevent hate incidents like this. It is very concerning. There is an open investigation. I know the Titans are cooperating with Metro Nashville Police, and we’ll see what that investigation turns up.”

The builders alliance is also offering a reward for information that leads to the “identification of the individual responsible” for the noose.

RELATED: ‘It’s a straight-up noose!’ — Bubba Wallace is angry at online response to FBI’s investigation

The deal reached to construct the stadium has been criticized for including the largest public subsidy for an NFL stadium in U.S. history. Critics of these subsidies argue that the economic benefits of building a new stadium never meet up to the promises made by local lawmakers and the league.

The stadium will cost about $2.1 billion, with much of that cost being shouldered by the taxpayer. The Titans and the NFL are paying for about $840 million of the project.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Noose at stadium, Tennessee titans stadium, Noose at a construction site, Noose found, Politics 

Democrats were virtually salivating as they unanimously voted against Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act ahead of the Independence Day holiday, which certainly should give pause to Republicans as they prepare for the midterms and the 2028 elections beyond.

What gives the Democrats hope that they can campaign effectively against Trump’s mega-bill? Is it the fact that Republicans were able to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts? Are they planning to campaign against the “no tax on tips” provision that even Kamala Harris supported? Will they claim that funding border security and mass deportation of illegal aliens is somehow bad for the country?

Remember, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the codification of the agenda that President Trump ran on in 2024. It’s not tricky. It’s not nefarious.

No, no, and no. Democrats are not idiots. They know that they have the short straw on all of those 80-20 issues. So they are going back to the same issue they have demagogued since 2008 — health care. By tugging on the heartstrings of the American public, they know they can use fear to win votes.

Demagoguing Medicaid … again

During debate in both the House and Senate, Democrats relied on questionable forward-looking interpretations of the impact of the mega-bill on Medicaid to claim that nearly 12 million low-income people would lose health coverage if the bill passed, as it ultimately did.

The left-leaning Congressional Budget Office supplied some of that data, and by the time the vote was finalized on July 3, various other groups were adding fuel to the fire. KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, added the 12 million people who would allegedly lose Medicaid to the five million who KFF claimed would lose coverage in the Affordable Care Act marketplace, concluding that at least 17 million would be at risk. Then, there was the claim that Trump’s budget would deny food stamps to hungry children and pregnant women.

But not so fast. Despite the bleak picture painted by Democrats and weak-kneed RINOs that Trump wanted poor people to just die and be done with it, there were reasonable explanations for all the budget changes that had nothing to do with genocide.

Reductions in Obamacare premium subsidies are just an acknowledgment that the COVID crisis is over, and those boosted premiums are no longer necessary. Likewise, food stamps are still going to be provided to the disabled, families with young children, and the impoverished elderly, even if Democrats want to pretend otherwise.

And pretend they will, so if Republicans want to prevail in future elections, they had better fully understand the truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because otherwise, they will be painted as heartless elitists who want their fellow Americans to die by the millions.

Telling the truth

Fortunately, the road map is already clear on how to respond to the demagoguery of the Democrats, and it was modeled by two members of the Trump administration on the Sunday morning talk shows over the long holiday weekend.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, faced down their hostile questioners on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” respectively.

Bessent, who by all accounts is the most competent member of Trump’s Cabinet, immediately pushed back on Dana Bash’s supposition that the bill would cut benefit programs like Medicaid:

Only in D.C. is a 20% hike over 10 years a cut. Medicaid funding will go up 20% over the next 10 years. The people who Medicaid was designed for — the pregnant women, the disabled, and families with children under 14 — will be refocused. The able-bodied Americans are not vulnerable Americans, so a work requirement or a community service requirement, that’s very popular with the public.

Bessent then struck a blow against the argument that millions of Americans will lose their Medicaid coverage because they didn’t remember to reapply for benefits under the new rules.

“It is a group of Democrats who unfortunately seem to think that poor people are stupid,” he said. “I don’t think poor people are stupid. I think they have agency, and I think to have them register twice a year for these benefits is not a burden. But these people who want to infantilize the poor and those who need these Medicaid benefits are alarmist.”

RELATED: The budget hoax that nearly sank Trump’s biggest win (so far)

Photo by Tom Brenner For the Washington Post via Getty Images

Over on “Face the Nation,” Hassett was interviewed by Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for CBS. She dutifully recited the claim that 12 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage, but Hassett struck back hard:

Let’s unbundle that a little bit. What we are actually doing is asking for a work requirement, but the work requirement is that you need to be looking for work or even doing volunteer work, and you don’t need to do it until your kids are 14 or older, so the idea that that’s going to cause a massive hemorrhaging in availability of insurance doesn’t make a lot of sense. And if you look at the CBO numbers, if you look at the numbers they say are going to lose insurance, about five million of those are people who have other insurance. … If they lose one, they’re still insured.

Hassett also explained that the best way to get insurance is to get a job, and so if the Trump economy stimulates growth, it will help people to happily leave Medicaid after they gain employment.

On another question, about whether the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is harmful because it grows the national debt by between $3 trillion and $5 trillion over the next 10 years, Hassett responded by reminding the reporter that the Congressional Budget Office is underestimating growth in the economy compared to what happened in the first Trump term pre-COVID. Based on that historical record, Hassett expects the debt to actually shrink by $1.5 trillion in the next decade.

What Hassett didn’t say, but which should be on the lips of every Republican defending their votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is that over the 10 years from 2014 to 2024, the federal debt increased by more than $17.5 trillion. Admittedly, Trump’s first term played a role in that thanks to COVID, but only Trump and Republicans are making any effort today to shrink the debt. If left up to Democrats, every social program in the budget would see increased funding, deficit be damned.

Fight fear with facts

To summarize, here are the talking points that every Republican candidate for Congress must master if they hope to beat back Democrat distortions:

Republicans voted to increase Medicaid spending over the next 10 years by 20%.Republicans voted to preserve Medicaid for the needy by making sure that everyone using the program’s valuable resources is truly needy — and eligible.Republicans voted to create an economy where more people can get jobs that provide high-quality health insurance. Emphasize this: Jobs are good.Republicans treat Medicaid recipients with dignity, asking them to follow simple rules to qualify for the benefit, rather than treating them as helpless wards of the state.Republicans are bending the curve downward on the national debt. Even if the CBO is right that the debt will increase by $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years, that increase is only 20% of what it was over the previous 10 years. And the Trump tax cuts are expected to stimulate the economy, so the national debt should actually decrease.

Those will do for a start. Remember, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the codification of the agenda that President Trump ran on in 2024. It’s not tricky. It’s not nefarious. And if it is unpopular, that’s only because Democrats have been lying about it.

Now, it’s up to Republicans to fight back against the big Medicaid lie, or else pay the price for their silence.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Democrats, One big beautiful bill, Big beautiful bill, Medicaid, Cuts, Expansion, Spending, National debt, Budget reconciliation, Budget deficit, Mike johnson, Chuck schumer, Face the nation, State of the union, Media bias, Dana bash, Scott bessent, Weijia jiang, Cnn, Cbs news, Lies, 2026 midterms, Congressional budget office 

Democrats were virtually salivating as they unanimously voted against Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act ahead of the Independence Day holiday, which certainly should give pause to Republicans as they prepare for the midterms and the 2028 elections beyond.

What gives the Democrats hope that they can campaign effectively against Trump’s mega-bill? Is it the fact that Republicans were able to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts? Are they planning to campaign against the “no tax on tips” provision that even Kamala Harris supported? Will they claim that funding border security and mass deportation of illegal aliens is somehow bad for the country?

Remember, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the codification of the agenda that President Trump ran on in 2024. It’s not tricky. It’s not nefarious.

No, no, and no. Democrats are not idiots. They know that they have the short straw on all of those 80-20 issues. So they are going back to the same issue they have demagogued since 2008 — health care. By tugging on the heartstrings of the American public, they know they can use fear to win votes.

Demagoguing Medicaid … again

During debate in both the House and Senate, Democrats relied on questionable forward-looking interpretations of the impact of the mega-bill on Medicaid to claim that nearly 12 million low-income people would lose health coverage if the bill passed, as it ultimately did.

The left-leaning Congressional Budget Office supplied some of that data, and by the time the vote was finalized on July 3, various other groups were adding fuel to the fire. KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, added the 12 million people who would allegedly lose Medicaid to the five million who KFF claimed would lose coverage in the Affordable Care Act marketplace, concluding that at least 17 million would be at risk. Then, there was the claim that Trump’s budget would deny food stamps to hungry children and pregnant women.

But not so fast. Despite the bleak picture painted by Democrats and weak-kneed RINOs that Trump wanted poor people to just die and be done with it, there were reasonable explanations for all the budget changes that had nothing to do with genocide.

Reductions in Obamacare premium subsidies are just an acknowledgment that the COVID crisis is over, and those boosted premiums are no longer necessary. Likewise, food stamps are still going to be provided to the disabled, families with young children, and the impoverished elderly, even if Democrats want to pretend otherwise.

And pretend they will, so if Republicans want to prevail in future elections, they had better fully understand the truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because otherwise, they will be painted as heartless elitists who want their fellow Americans to die by the millions.

Telling the truth

Fortunately, the road map is already clear on how to respond to the demagoguery of the Democrats, and it was modeled by two members of the Trump administration on the Sunday morning talk shows over the long holiday weekend.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, faced down their hostile questioners on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” respectively.

Bessent, who by all accounts is the most competent member of Trump’s Cabinet, immediately pushed back on Dana Bash’s supposition that the bill would cut benefit programs like Medicaid:

Only in D.C. is a 20% hike over 10 years a cut. Medicaid funding will go up 20% over the next 10 years. The people who Medicaid was designed for — the pregnant women, the disabled, and families with children under 14 — will be refocused. The able-bodied Americans are not vulnerable Americans, so a work requirement or a community service requirement, that’s very popular with the public.

Bessent then struck a blow against the argument that millions of Americans will lose their Medicaid coverage because they didn’t remember to reapply for benefits under the new rules.

“It is a group of Democrats who unfortunately seem to think that poor people are stupid,” he said. “I don’t think poor people are stupid. I think they have agency, and I think to have them register twice a year for these benefits is not a burden. But these people who want to infantilize the poor and those who need these Medicaid benefits are alarmist.”

RELATED: The budget hoax that nearly sank Trump’s biggest win (so far)

Photo by Tom Brenner For the Washington Post via Getty Images

Over on “Face the Nation,” Hassett was interviewed by Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for CBS. She dutifully recited the claim that 12 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage, but Hassett struck back hard:

Let’s unbundle that a little bit. What we are actually doing is asking for a work requirement, but the work requirement is that you need to be looking for work or even doing volunteer work, and you don’t need to do it until your kids are 14 or older, so the idea that that’s going to cause a massive hemorrhaging in availability of insurance doesn’t make a lot of sense. And if you look at the CBO numbers, if you look at the numbers they say are going to lose insurance, about five million of those are people who have other insurance. … If they lose one, they’re still insured.

Hassett also explained that the best way to get insurance is to get a job, and so if the Trump economy stimulates growth, it will help people to happily leave Medicaid after they gain employment.

On another question, about whether the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is harmful because it grows the national debt by between $3 trillion and $5 trillion over the next 10 years, Hassett responded by reminding the reporter that the Congressional Budget Office is underestimating growth in the economy compared to what happened in the first Trump term pre-COVID. Based on that historical record, Hassett expects the debt to actually shrink by $1.5 trillion in the next decade.

What Hassett didn’t say, but which should be on the lips of every Republican defending their votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is that over the 10 years from 2014 to 2024, the federal debt increased by more than $17.5 trillion. Admittedly, Trump’s first term played a role in that thanks to COVID, but only Trump and Republicans are making any effort today to shrink the debt. If left up to Democrats, every social program in the budget would see increased funding, deficit be damned.

Fight fear with facts

To summarize, here are the talking points that every Republican candidate for Congress must master if they hope to beat back Democrat distortions:

Republicans voted to increase Medicaid spending over the next 10 years by 20%.Republicans voted to preserve Medicaid for the needy by making sure that everyone using the program’s valuable resources is truly needy — and eligible.Republicans voted to create an economy where more people can get jobs that provide high-quality health insurance. Emphasize this: Jobs are good.Republicans treat Medicaid recipients with dignity, asking them to follow simple rules to qualify for the benefit, rather than treating them as helpless wards of the state.Republicans are bending the curve downward on the national debt. Even if the CBO is right that the debt will increase by $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years, that increase is only 20% of what it was over the previous 10 years. And the Trump tax cuts are expected to stimulate the economy, so the national debt should actually decrease.

Those will do for a start. Remember, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the codification of the agenda that President Trump ran on in 2024. It’s not tricky. It’s not nefarious. And if it is unpopular, that’s only because Democrats have been lying about it.

Now, it’s up to Republicans to fight back against the big Medicaid lie, or else pay the price for their silence.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Democrats, One big beautiful bill, Big beautiful bill, Medicaid, Cuts, Expansion, Spending, National debt, Budget reconciliation, Budget deficit, Mike johnson, Chuck schumer, Face the nation, State of the union, Media bias, Dana bash, Scott bessent, Weijia jiang, Cnn, Cbs news, Lies, 2026 midterms, Congressional budget office 

In June, Texas Patriot, a prominent anonymous account supportive of President Donald Trump, announced during the height of tensions with Iran:

F**k it. If Trump takes us to war, I’m done with him and his administration.
I voted for:
NO WARS
No taxes
Cheap gas
Cheap groceries
MAHA.
What of these things has actually happened?
I’m pissed.

This message from a popular pro-Trump account seemed significant. Was Trump’s populist base turning on him?

In our current world, however, where plausible fake engagement can be created at an almost limitless scale, true anons will lose a great deal of their power.

But shortly thereafter, Right Angle News, another popular anonymous account, asserted that Texas Patriot was actually based in Pakistan. Yet another popular anon account contested this, saying that Texas Patriot is really an American originally from Texas who now lives in Georgia. Notably, most other major accounts weighing in on the controversy, from Proud Elephant to Evil Texan, are themselves anonymous, adding further to the hall of mirrors.

Either way, Texas Patriot deleted its own account shortly thereafter, perhaps suggesting that he or she had something to hide — or at least didn’t want the scrutiny.

The question of whether Texas Patriot is, in fact, a patriot from Texas or a bad actor in Islamabad is ultimately beside the point. As Newsweek wrote of the incident:

Social media has proved useful for galvanizing the MAGA movement, with popular accounts often reacting to political developments from Trump’s feud with X owner Elon Musk to Trump’s policy agenda. If it emerged that an account alleged to be American was actually based in another country, it would impact users’ trust.

And such trust is rapidly eroding, which will accelerate as ever more sophisticated fake accounts and bot farms are exposed.

The incident was just one of many in which major social media accounts were discovered — or at least suggested — to be run by someone far different from who they were purported to be. And it previews a shift that is just now beginning, which will fundamentally change how we interact with social media content.

Bots indistinguishable from humans

When it comes to who will rule social media, the age of the anon is ending. The age of radical transparency is beginning — and yet, if designed well, radical transparency can still include a substantial and valuable space for a large degree of online anonymity.

Several reasons explain the shift. Increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence models and bots generate outputs that, in many cases, are already almost indistinguishable from humans. For most users, they will soon become fully indistinguishable (a fact confirmed by multiple studies that have shown that most people have a poor ability to tell the difference between the two). And almost certainly, bots guided with even a minimum of human interaction will become indistinguishable from actual humans.

Many of my best friends have had anon accounts. A few are still prominent anons. It’s also noteworthy that almost every prominent ex-anon I know personally, whether doxxed or self-outed, dramatically improved their profile and professional opportunities once they were no longer anonymous.

I am not anti-anon, however. I understand why some people, especially those expressing opinions well outside of the mainstream, need to be anonymous. I also acknowledge that anonymity has been a crucial part of the American political tradition since the revolutionary era. An internet that banned anons would be an internet that is much poorer. This is why the biggest current anon accounts will be grandfathered into the coming system of radical transparency, as they have actual operators who are known to enough people that they are recognized as genuine.

I know several big anon accounts like this. I don’t know who is running them, but I have multiple offline friends I trust who do know the account holders and vouch for them. Accounts of this kind, with credible, real-world validation, will continue to have influence. But increasingly, new big anon accounts will be ignored, even if they amass a large number of followers (many of whom are fake).

As these ersatz accounts become increasingly sophisticated every day, engaging with the truly real becomes ever more important. Fake videos and photos proliferating on social media merely add to the potential for deception.

Age of radical transparency

Even accounts run by real people will not be immune to the age of radical transparency. Some are partially or wholly automated — a way for a “content creator” to maintain a cheap 24-hour revenue stream. In the future, if you want to have influence, mechanisms will be in place to prove not only that it is you who are posting but that you are posting content that is authentic, with a proven real-world point of origin. Some have even suggested using the blockchain as a method of validation.

There should be a simple way of blocking the worst AI slop accounts, foreign bad actors who post highly packaged clickbait, or those who shamelessly steal content made by others. Most Americans would probably prefer not to engage with unverified foreign accounts when discussing U.S. politics. Certainly, I would be willing to pay for a feed that only showed me real, verified accounts from America, along with a limited list of paid, verified, and non-anonymous accounts from other parts of the world.

I am interested in having discussions with real people about real content and the real opinions they have. I want accounts mercilessly downrated if they produce inauthentic content presented as real. I want accounts downrated that regularly retweet unverified slop. If X, or any other online platform, can’t consistently provide that, I’ll look elsewhere — and so will many others.

Anonymity breeds toxicity

My desire for authenticity is not a left-wing attempt to police “disinformation” — that is, whatever the left doesn’t want said. It’s far more serious. It’s not about getting “true” facts but a feed that is filled with actual people producing their own content representing their own views — with clear links to the sources for their claims.

Anonymity has, naturally, always been accompanied by a slew of problems: It can lead to echo chambers or aggressive exchanges, as users feel less pressure to engage rationally.

The lack of personal stakes can escalate conflict, which is amplified by AI. Modern AI can generate thousands of unique, human-like posts in seconds, overwhelming feeds with propaganda or fake news. The increasing influence of state actors in this fake news ecosystem makes it even riskier.

RELATED: Slop and spam, bots and scams: Can personalized algorithms fix the internet?

Vertigo3d via iStock/Getty Images

Anonymity also emboldens individuals to act without fear of repercussions, which often has downsides. The online disinhibition effect, a psychological phenomenon first described by psychologist John Suler in 2004, suggests that anonymity reduces social inhibitions, leading to behaviors individuals might avoid in face-to-face settings.

Everyone has met the toxic anon online personality who turns out to be quite meek and agreeable in person. One friend of mine who had an edgy online persona eventually closed her anon account (with tens of thousands of followers) and recreated her online presence from scratch as a “face” account. Her tweets are no longer as fun or spicy as they had been, but her persona is real — and presents who she really is. And she eventually landed a great public-facing job, partly based on the quality of her tweets.

Dwindling era of anon accounts

Anons could play a leading role in the old social media world where bots were mostly obvious, and meaningful provocations were, in large part, created by real people through anonymous accounts. In our current world, however, where plausible fake engagement can be created on an almost limitless scale, true anons will lose a great deal of their power. They will be replaced as top influencers by those who are willing to be radically transparent.

Truly transparent identities should include verifiable information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or government-issued IDs for account creation. While such information does not need to be publicly shared, it should be given to the social media company connected to the account.

Raising the barrier for AI-driven impersonation, while not foolproof, deters malicious actors, who must invest significant resources to create credible fake identities.

For anons unwilling to trust their private information to one of the major online platforms, third-party identity verifiers dedicated to protecting user privacy could carefully validate their identities while keeping them anonymous from social media companies. Such third-party brokers themselves would have their prestige checked by the accuracy of their verification procedures. This method would still allow for a high degree of public anonymity, bolstered by a backend that guarantees authenticity.

A new internet age

In the future, pure online anonymity will not be banned — nor should it be. But in the coming age of radical transparency, a truly anonymous account — one whose owner’s real-world identity is neither known within i own trusted circles nor verified by a reliable third party — will have little to no value.

The next internet age will value not just what you say, but more importantly, that others know you are the one who is saying it.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally in The American Mind.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Anonymous, Social media, Censorship, Freedom of speech, Free speech, Online outrage, Trolls, Bots, Artificial intelligence, Ai, Disinformation, Misinformation, Deception, Foreign influence, Elections, Lies, Iran, Foreign policy, Jeffrey epstein, Anonymity, Anon, X, Twitter, Verification, Truth, Internet 

Dana Free is the author of “What Every Christian Needs to Know About Spiritual Warfare” – a practical, biblical approach to combatting demonic forces.

But like many accomplishments, this book was born through the fire. On a recent episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick Burgess interviewed Dana about the wild circumstances that led her to author such a book.

Dana was raised with a “full gospel understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit” outlined in Acts and 1 Corinthians, but when she got married, she didn’t realize the journey ahead of her would require her to step into the spiritual gifts in ways she never imagined.

Her husband became a meth addict, but because Dana viewed marriage as “covenant, not contract,” she stayed and asked the Lord for guidance. He faithfully led her to “the right places, the right people, the right books, [and] the right sermons” that taught her how to “fight back spiritually.”

She realized that her husband’s drug problem was a spiritual problem. Substance abuse at its root, she explains, is really about “abandonment or rejection or depression.” “The enemy just uses the drugs to keep [people] bound and destroy their life.”

But once she started fighting back with spiritual weapons, the opposition got stronger. “The enemy did not like what I was doing to stand and fight against generations of these problems where they had had a good foothold … so they threw everything they could at me to try to get me to leave him and write him off,” she tells Rick. “I saw almost everything that can come against a marriage happen.”

“When you were dealing with these demons, did they ever present themselves to you?” Rick asks.

While Dana never saw a physical manifestation of a demon, she was physically assaulted by one. Once, when someone was performing witchcraft against her and her husband, a spirit attacked her in her home.

“I did have that spirit come in my room and press me down in the bed and try to choke me where I couldn’t say the name of the Lord Jesus,” she recounts, but “once I said his name, it lifted and then I tore into it.” When she told her husband, he thought she was crazy, but shortly after, the spirit returned and did the same to him.

Many Christians mistakenly believe that spells, brews, and incantations that have been so absorbed into mainstream witch lore are just fictional. But they’re not. The forces of darkness have real power, just as God’s forces have real power.

“[Christians] have this power of the Spirit and that gets counterfeited by the enemy and the occult into witchcraft,” says Dana, noting that the witch behind the spirit who attacked her and her husband was “reading tarot cards,” which is “divination.”

“The New Age and the white witchcraft,” which involves “crystals … the third eye, yoga, meditation — all these things that people really don’t understand” — are luring people, but especially “the youth,” into darkness, she warns. “The enemy doesn’t care. He will take whatever open door he can get.”

This seemingly benign witchcraft is extremely successful at snaring the secular, who are “drawn to the supernature,” but it’s also snaring Christians who either mistakenly write it off as silly, or become drawn to it themselves because “they’re not seeing [the power of the Spirit] in church,” Dana says.

“What do you think is the biggest mistake that people of faith are making when it comes to spiritual warfare?” Rick asks.

“Ignorance” is Dana’s answer.

“That’s why I wrote the book,” she says, “because when I talk to your average Christian, they’re clueless.”

To hear more about Dana’s book and the story behind her husband’s hard-won deliverance, watch the episode above.

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The president of the iconic California hamburger company In-N-Out has announced for the first time that California’s policies have driven her family to move to a red state.

Lynsi Snyder made the comments to Allie Beth Stuckey on the Blaze Media podcast “Relatable,” which was published Friday. The company had previously announced that they were expanding into Tennessee, but Snyder went on to explain that her entire family had decided to move from California.

‘Raising a family is not easy here. Doing business is not easy here.’

“We’re building an office in Franklin, so I’m actually moving out there,” Snyder said.

“How do you feel about that?” Stuckey asked. “You’re a California girl through and through, right?”

“Yeah. I really loved living in Northern California, and I am so thankful that I grew up there because I think it changed a lot of who I am today,” Snyder replied. “I think I would be different if I had been raised in Southern California.”

She went on to say that there were a lot of great things about California but that the state’s policies had driven her out.

“Raising a family is not easy here. Doing business is not easy here,” she explained. “Now, the bulk of our stores are still going to be here in California, but it will be wonderful having an office out there, growing out there, and being able to have the family and other people’s families out there.”

RELATED: In-N-Out Burger donates $25,000 to California GOP, and leftists are not happy, call for boycott

Snyder said the company would give her employees a “longer runway” to make it easier to plan the move out by 2030.

Stuckey asked if she was still tied to the line of demarcation she had set against growing into the East Coast, and Snyder suggested that line was softening.

“Florida has begged us, and we’re still saying no. The East Coast states, we’re still saying no,” Snyder said.

Snyder, who is the granddaughter of the founders of In-N-Out, also talked about her path of developing her Christian faith. She said that keeping the high standards for the company was a part of her showing her faith in God and respect for her parents and grandparents.

RELATED: In-N-Out Burger reportedly takes new bold stance about employees wearing face masks

“Lynsi shares the untold story of In-n-Out’s early years and the hardship she went through before becoming the successful business leader she is,” Stuckey said about the interview.

“She has an incredible testimony and is so passionate about serving God and glorifying Him in everything she and the company does,” Stuckey said. “Her journey to Jesus is raw and redemptive. You will be so encouraged.”

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The attack on a right-wing independent reporter at a Seattle anti-ICE protest has led to the arrest of a man who denies he is affiliated with Antifa but admits to being a left-wing activist.

Jeremy Lawson, 33, made a court appearance on Thursday after being accused of assaulting Cam Higby, who was covering the protests in June.

‘It’s a group of these Antifa guys. … I film them committing crimes, and they don’t like that.’

Higby told KOMO-TV he was left with a concussion and head trauma despite wearing tactical gear that included a helmet. He is still recovering from the alleged beating and says he went to the emergency room that night seeking medical attention.

Higby says he was targeted by left-wing activists because he was documenting their illegal activities.

“It’s a group of these Antifa guys,” he said to KOMO. “I film them committing crimes, and they don’t like that.”

Before his arrest, Lawson admitted to being a left-wing activist but claimed he was not connected to Antifa.

“I have nothing against Higby and wasn’t at the protest that night,” he claimed in a statement to the Center Square. “I am an IWW advocate (Industrial Workers of the World) and a Black Panther supporter and only want to unionize the working poor, create equality in the workplace and take back the means of production. … I’m in no way affiliated with Antifa.”

He also said that he’s lost his job because of the accusations.

Lawson is facing a charge of felony assault in the second degree.

“I hope it sends a message that people will eventually get caught, and I won’t be deterred from going into the field,” Higby said to KOMO.

KOMO included the video of the assault in their news report below. It shows Higby on the ground as he is assaulted, and then he defends himself with the use of pepper spray.

RELATED: Antifa and far-left agitators take over University of Washington building, start fire: Report

Prosecutors argued that Lawson was a safety risk based on messages he posted on social media as well as private texts to Higby that unnerved the victim.

In the exchange via text, a person identifying as Lawson used Higby’s legal name, which isn’t public. He then added that he wouldn’t rest until “justice was served” and made a reference to the neighborhood where Higby lives.

Prosecutor Jonathan Arnold also cited a message on social media where Lawson claimed innocence but added that he supported the assault of Higby.

A judge set his bail at $75,000. Criminal records show that Lawson pleaded guilty to criminal trespass and resisting arrest in a previous case.

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​Lawson vs cam higby, Assault on cam higby, Cam higby attack, Seattle anti ice assault, Politics 

Manhattan federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey, was fired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office this week — after being a prosecutor in the case against accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and later against Sean “Diddy” Combs.

But that’s not all she’s linked to.

“She also happens to be involved, or was involved, in the same district that was involved in the FBI raids on your home, your newsroom,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales tells James O’Keefe on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

O’Keefe, founder of O’Keefe Media Group, is notorious for his work exposing corruption at some of the highest levels via sting operations that often begin with a simple swipe on a dating app.

And the corporate and government entities O’Keefe targets have made it clear they are not fond of his work.

“What happened with me is they went shopping to eight different magistrate judges in 2020,” O’Keefe tells Gonzales.

“To try to get these secret subpoenas that are reserved for terrorists and traffickers, child traffickers, you know, drug traffickers, serious criminal conspiracies.”

“And they got these magistrate judges to grant them all these secret warrants to spy on me for a year. And then after spying on me, they went to another magistrate judge, Sarah Cave, and SDNY, and they presented probable cause,” he continues, noting that the document explaining why they raided his newsroom has been completely redacted.

“If you think your government is going to be transparent about sex traffickers, but they can’t even be transparent about why they raided a newsroom,” he says. “There’s only one thing that’s not redacted on this document. It’s a footnote that says — an FBI agent is writing this, and he says, ‘I have learned amongst other things that cell phones are capable of sending emails.’”

“So this is a clown show. This is not even serious. This is just absurd. Completely absurd,” he adds.

O’Keefe does have a theory as to why the documents regarding the raid of his home and business were fully redacted.

“In my case, with the redaction you just saw, there probably are confidential FBI informants at Project Veritas,” he tells Gonzales. “I was raided during the Project Veritas time. So the FBI has to protect the names of their sources.”

Despite the action taken against O’Keefe, he hasn’t given up on his mission to expose corruption in those the American people are told to trust — and is expanding it with his new series, “American Swiper.”

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​Sharing, Upload, Camera phone, Video, Free, Video phone, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, James o keefe, O keefe media group, Government corruption exposed 

Shortly after Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the 2016 election, the media and deep state actors began work to subvert his win. The public-facing campaign began when BuzzFeed published an unvetted dossier compiled by a former British spy at the behest of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

To recap, the Clinton campaign funneled money to the Democratic National Committee, which hired a law firm to then hire an opposition research firm, Fusion GPS, which hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compose the since-debunked briefing.

‘The integrity of our democratic republic demands that every person involved be investigated and brought to justice to prevent this from ever happening again.’

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is now alleging that the campaign-funded document formed the basis of a “treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and try to usurp the President from fulfilling his mandate.”

“Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016,” Gabbard wrote on X Friday, “intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President [Donald Trump], subverting the will of the American people and undermining our democratic republic.”

The documents show around the beginning of December 2016, the U.S. intelligence community compiled an assessment for then-President Obama concluding, “Russia ‘did not impact recent U.S. election results’ by conducting cyber attacks on infrastructure.”

She added, “Before it could reach the President, it was abruptly pulled ‘based on new guidance.’ This key intelligence assessment was never published.”

The documents point to Obama ordering FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to direct their agencies to “create a new intelligence assessment that detailed Russian election meddling, even though it would contradict multiple intelligence assessments released over the previous several months.”

The day after the reported meeting, leaks appeared in the Washington Post and NBC News. The DNI report details “whistleblower emails” it says prove Clapper and Brennan used the Steele dossier as the basis to put forward a false narrative.

RELATED: The Russian collusion hoax began, continued, and ended with Hillary Clinton

Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images

“This betrayal concerns every American,” Gabbard wrote. “The integrity of our democratic republic demands that every person involved be investigated and brought to justice to prevent this from ever happening again.”

The DNI referred the newly revealed documents to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution.

Public reaction was swift. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said on X that the revelations show that “it was all a giant HOAX.” He then called on the Department of Justice to “investigate and prosecute.”

“This is surreal,” Gen. Mike Flynn, former national security adviser in Trump’s first term, said on X. “Here in America, the Director of National Intelligence @DNIGabbard is now stating emphatically that a former President of the United States @BarackObama attempted a coup against the @POTUS @realDonaldTrump.”

The full trove of documents released Friday can be found here.

This is a developing story.

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​Politics, James comey, Brennan, James clapper, Barack obama, Donald trump, Tulsi gabbard, Russia collusion, Russia hoax, Hillary clinton, Fusiongps 

Complaints about raucous parties at a Northern Maryland short-term rental led to an indictment of a Cameroonian immigrant for allegedly sending funds to support a separatist military group in his homeland trying to create a new nation named “Ambazonia.”

Residents of a neighborhood in Damascus griped to WBFF-TV about the constant parties at a for-profit rental where they witnessed people allegedly going to the bathroom in the open and shooting off fireworks.

WBFF spoke to the owner at the time, who dismissed the complaints in July 2024.

“If my neighbors have a concern, they should have written to me,” said Eric Tataw at the time.

In May, Tataw was indicted on charges related to funds, personnel, and weapons that he allegedly sent to the “Amba Boys” to support a campaign of violence against civilians in the effort to establish Ambazonia. Tataw, who has a large social media presence, allegedly sent at least $100,000 to the group, some of which was reportedly spent on acquiring AK-47s.

The militants are known for committing acts of mutilation called “Garriing” against civilians, and Tataw reportedly referred to himself as the “Garri Master,” or master of mutilation, according to prosecutors.

RELATED: Radical Islamists in Mali Recruit, Pay for Child Soldiers

WBFF reported that Tataw was also being held without bond for accusations that he raped a young woman and held her against her will.

Human Rights Watch praised the arrest of Tataw, as well as the arrest of another accused militant.

“While arrests like those of Tataw … may be steps in the right direction, justice is still painfully slow. Other alleged perpetrators of grave abuse, including government forces, should be brought to account for the serious crimes committed against civilians in Cameroon,” the group said in a statement.

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​Camaroon separatists, Eric tataw, Ambazonia, Garri master, Politics 

A journalist is facing ridicule from online critics after he admitted that the anger of Trump supporters led to him taking “trauma leave” after the attempted assassination of the president in Butler, Pennsylvania.

CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane told Chuck Todd that he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had to miss work because of what he experienced on July 13, 2024.

‘You saw it in the eyes. The reaction of the people. They were coming for us.’

“For those of us there, it was such a horror, because you saw an emerging America,” said MacFarlane.

“And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck. I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because, I think, of the shooting, but because — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us!” he continued.

“If he didn’t jump out with his fist, they were going to come kill us!” he added, referring to the president.

“I know,” Todd responded.

RELATED: Reporter who was ‘body-slammed’ says he was ‘flabbergasted’ by GOP congressman-elect’s statement

Video of MacFarlane’s comments were posted on social media, where they quickly went viral.

Many ridiculed MacFarlane for focusing on his own trauma rather than the tragedy of the innocent bystander who was killed or the attempt on the president’s life.

“He’s the real hero!” joked Greg Gutfeld about MacFarlane on his late night show.

“He is,” responded panelist Joe DeVito. “And I hope he got some other good medical advice from his gynecologist!”

A government accountability report released by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Saturday suggested that a campaign staffer compromised the president’s safety in Butler when he or she made the Secret Service deviate from its security plan for the sake of optics.

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A “horrific incident” on Friday morning at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles, California, resulted in the deaths of several deputies.

Sources told ABC News that the victims were Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department employees killed in a blast while handling explosives. The news outlet described the Los Angeles facility as a Special Enforcement Bureau compound that also houses the bomb squad.

‘There’s a lot more that we don’t know than what we do know.’

Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that at least three are dead.

Bondi wrote in a post on X, “Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”

The sheriff’s department held a press conference in the early afternoon to shed some light on the incident, confirming that “three sworn members” who were on arson explosives detail were killed in a blast around 7:30 a.m.

Sheriff Robert Luna noted that the victims had served their community for 19, 22, and 33 years, respectively. He did not share their identities, stating that their families are still being notified.

“I’ve heard over and over the word ‘elite’ being used. I think sometimes that term gets overused. But if you’re familiar with our Special Enforcement Bureau, they’re the best of the best. And the individuals who work our arson explosives detail, they have years of training,” he said. “These aren’t people who don’t do this very often. They are fantastic experts, and unfortunately, I lost three of them today.”

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Photo by Omar Zaghloul/Anadolu via Getty Images

Luna reported that there were no other injuries.

“There’s a lot more that we don’t know than what we do know,” Luna declared.

He explained that approximately 30 minutes before the press conference, the scene was rendered safe for investigators to enter.

“Our intent is to look at this from the very beginning and figure out what is it exactly that caused this tragic event,” Luna said.

RELATED: Police find more incendiary devices at Tesla dealership amid wave of attacks

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

He stated that “homicide detectives are on scene” to investigate the “post-blast portion of this incident.”

Luna described the area as a “very active crime scene.”

In response to a request for clarity on Luna’s statement about the Special Enforcement Bureau being treated as a crime scene, the sheriff’s office informed Blaze News, “It’s because of the loss of life. That’s why he termed it that.”

Law enforcement agents have not yet determined the cause of the explosion but noted that it was an isolated incident and that there is no threat to the community.

— (@)

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BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler doesn’t expect a “whodunit” Epstein list full of elite criminals gift wrapped and dropped on her doorstep, but she does expect some answers — which is why she’s compiled a list outlining how she believes the American people can get them.

First on her list is getting Ghislaine Maxwell, who procured underage girls for Epstein, to testify before Congress.

“Worst-case scenario, she either tells lies or produces nothing. She just wants attention. Best-case scenario, she actually gives you leads to answer some of these questions that we don’t have answers to,” Wheeler explains on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

Wheeler believes that another step the congressional hearings should take is inviting the forensic pathologists, who publicly stated that the wounds on Jeffrey Epstein’s body following his death were incongruent with the medical examiner’s findings, to testify as well.

“We were told he committed suicide. We were told it was suicide by hanging,” Wheeler says, citing one forensic pathologist’s belief that it was “homicide by strangulation.”

“Congress should invite them to testify, and they should question them, and then they should subpoena the medical examiner and the Bureau of Prisons, and they should say, ‘Okay, your findings have been contested,’” she explains.

Former Trump cabinet member and U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, whose original non-prosecution agreement in the Epstein trial stirred up widespread controversy, is another interesting character who Wheeler believes should testify in front of Congress.

Acosta’s emails mysteriously vanished after he alleged that he was told to steer clear of Epstein because he was an intelligence asset.

“For the love of all that is good, if this man said that, he must have had a basis for why he said that. Please edify us,” she says, noting that if Trump and Elon were to make up, Elon and his “DOGE bros” could “do a forensic analysis and find out what actually happened to Alex Acosta’s emails.”

“Let’s find out what happened to Alex Acosta’s emails because something tells me it’s not a migration issue,” she says.

William Burns is another mysterious player with ties to Epstein, and Wheeler believes he should be called before Congress as well.

“William Burns was the under secretary of state who, while he was the under secretary of state, met with Jeffrey Epstein three different times in three different locations, and very shortly thereafter became the CIA director,” she says. “His official narrative was, ‘Oh, he was just consulting with Jeffrey Epstein about, you know, transitioning to the civilian sector.’”

“No, something doesn’t ring true there. And if something doesn’t ring true, that person who said the thing that doesn’t ring true should be hauled in front of Congress and questioned about it,” she adds.

The executive branch also can play a role in getting the truth out to Americans. Wheeler says these include Pam Bondi “releasing these documents and keeping her mouth shut on Fox News.”

“There is also something that can be done by or with the judicial branch,” Wheeler explains, noting that Alan Dershowitz has claimed that he has seen the Epstein client list but cannot reveal it publicly because of nondisclosure orders.

“He said that there are several judges who have in their power the ability, I believe, to release him from those nondisclosure orders,” she says, before getting to her last point.

“So that brings us, of course, to this final thing that needs to happen in the process of accountability, and that final thing is a special prosecutor,” Wheeler concluded.

Much like Charlie Kirk’s proposal earlier this week, Wheeler’s suggestions are concrete, positive examples of actions the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi can take to restore the trust of the American people.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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The American hype train is real, according to Anduril founder and billionaire Palmer Luckey.

Appearing at the Reindustrialize Summit, Luckey seemingly proved the power of positivity makes nearly anything possible, and not in a cringey, motivational speaker sort of way, either. Rather, it is in the create robots, video games, and military warfighter technology kind of way.

In fact, Luckey found a way to corroborate his belief at the summit and showed it off in such a manner that was far more interesting than the movie “Real Steel.”

‘Hype is what allows you to get investment in these problems.’

With a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and an unsightly wig, Luckey delivered a 20-minute speech on the conference stage by remotely controlling a robot using virtual reality.

While the bot seemed a bit primitive by today’s expectations, basic movements were controlled by the billionaire from afar using just VR goggles.

“I finally pulled off my long-standing goal of speaking at a conference via VR telerobotics!” Luckey wrote on X. “Thousands of miles of travel saved, and no chance of Luigi.”

While the robot’s ability to shake a hand was suspect, Luckey’s message was not as static. The entrepreneur emphasized his goal of making a “Star Trek” future and said a lot of the ability to make that happen comes from “hype.”

RELATED: Palmer Luckey-led crypto bank promises startups a capital hoard safe from scheming feds

A lot of hype is “bad if you really let it break your thinking,” Luckey told author Ashlee Vance on stage.

While the billionaire explained that over-hyping a project and forgetting prime directives can result in “really playing yourself,” he clarified, “hype is what allows you to get investment in these problems.”

“Investors don’t want to hear, ‘It’s going to be a 20-year slog, and it’s probably not going to work out for us, it’s probably our other companies that are going to win,'” Luckey continued.

To that end, the Anduril boss said the “enormous power” of optimism can help drive innovation forward and produce real results. The example he provided was exactly the technology Luckey was showing off.

“I think the hype around virtual reality and augmented reality in the early 20-teens led to tens of billions of dollars in research and development. It would not have happened if people had been … a little less on the hype train.”

Luckey has indeed ventured into AR military equipment with this mindset and recently revealed his first project would be a military helmet called Eagle Eye, which gives Army soldiers access to advanced augmented reality systems that make them “superhuman.”

Luckey added at the conference, that while some will downplay the hype, he finds it hard to “get too upset” about hype happening “in a space like American manufacturing.”

RELATED: ‘Insane radical leftists’ are gone: Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey reunite for US military project

– YouTube

As for Luckey’s robotic stand-in, look no further than the Phantom robot from company Foundation.

Founder Sankaet Pathak said on X in early 2025 that his company has no issue with being at the forefront of the weaponization of robotics.

“Unlike most humanoid robot companies in the U.S., which have committed to non-weaponization, we believe it’s essential for our robots to master these tasks to support human expansion,” Pathak said, per MikeKalil.com.

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An unnamed Missouri teen had been visiting friends in South Florida and was set Monday to return home to Kansas City on a Spirit Airlines flight out of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

‘I don’t believe he acted criminally. He was acting as an immature 16-year-old in my opinion.’

Flight 1332 was scheduled to depart at 2:37 p.m. Monday, according to flight tracker Flightradar24. However, the flight would not depart until more than five hours later — at 7:44 p.m. — due to an alleged disturbance in the cabin that ignited concern among passengers and crew members.

Authorities claim that a teen passenger made a false bomb threat.

The Miami Herald reported that the 16-year-old suspect said, “I have a bomb in my pocket.”

Spirit Airlines told WTVJ-TV that the commercial airliner taxied to a remote location, and passengers were safely deplaned. Law enforcement inspected the aircraft and cleared the plane after not finding any explosive devices.

People magazine reported that Spirit Airlines lost approximately $50,000 in connection with the incident.

RELATED: ‘My laptop is a bomb’: Florida man’s alleged mid-flight bomb threat forces emergency landing — now the FBI is involved

Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies took the teen into custody.

The teenager faces charges of criminal mischief over $1,000 and false report of a bomb or explosive, according to the sheriff’s office.

The Herald noted that a woman who said she’s the teen’s mother indicated that her son was sitting on the plane as it was set to depart when he made the statement — and a woman in the aisle next to his seat reported it.

But the teen’s mother added to the Herald that her son is a “good kid” and that the remark was a “slang joke” about his masculinity and not a bomb threat.

The teen’s father asked a judge for leniency during a Tuesday hearing in juvenile court.

“I would just like to ask for grace in this matter,” Phillip Schmidt said, according to WTVJ. “I don’t believe he acted criminally. He was acting as an immature 16-year-old in my opinion.”

However, the judge was not swayed by this argument and ordered the teen to undergo a psychological evaluation and remain in custody at a juvenile facility.

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