Category: blaze media

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.

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​Opinion & analysis, Glenn beck, Memorial day, Holiday, Gold star family, Gold star mom, Pentagon, Marine corps, Grief, Bereavement, Iraq war, Afghanistan, Global war on terrorism 

God works in mysterious ways, including through the pages of the New York Times.

The legacy media and progressives have spent months fearmongering about President Trump’s crusade against anti-Christian bias in the government and his policies that seek to protect religious liberty. They frame it as dangerous flirtation with so-called “Christian nationalism,” wielding this label as a cudgel to demonize Trump and his supporters.

Instead of sounding the alarm, the most influential newspaper in the world just broadcasted the gospel loud and clear.

But in a bout of divine irony, the New York Times is now spreading the gospel — inadvertently, of course.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a 30-minute service at the Pentagon called the “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service.” In its breathless coverage of the event, the New York Times implicitly tried to connect the event — which Hegseth plans to host once a month — to so-called Christian nationalism and even suggested the Trump administration may be violating the First Amendment.

The tone of the article is clear: Panic! The Christian nationalists are taking over! Prayer in the halls of public power? Oh, no! We can’t have that!

But here’s the twist: The New York Times didn’t only report on the event, but the newspaper quoted Hegseth acknowledging the “providence of our lord and savior Jesus Christ” and the “author in heaven overseeing all of this, who’s underwritten all of it, for us, on the cross, gives me the strength to proceed.”

The New York Times even broadcasted Pastor Brooks Potteiger’s message about President Trump, “We pray for our leaders who you have sovereignly appointed — for President Trump, thank you for the way that you have used him to bring stability and moral clarity to our land. And we pray that you would continue to protect him, bless him, give him great wisdom.”

Even more stunning, the New York Times printed Hegseth’s prayer:

King Jesus, we come humbly before you, seeking your face, seeking your grace, in humble obedience to your law and to your word. We come as sinners saved only by that grace, seeking your providence in our lives and in our nation. Lord God, we ask for the wisdom to see what is right and in each and every day, in each and every circumstance, the courage to do what is right in obedience to your will. It is in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray. And all God’s people say “Amen.”

Amen, indeed.

Isn’t this amazing? The New York Times — like the rest of the legacy media — wants Americans to be alarmed at what progressives believe is a dangerous blend of government and Christian faith. They want Americans to see public Christianity as something dangerous.

But instead of sounding the alarm, the most influential newspaper in the world just broadcasted the gospel loud and clear.

Jesus told His disciples to spread the gospel. And thanks to the New York Times, Hegseth was just handed a mega-microphone to give Jesus a platform.

This latest episode of anti-Christian fearmongering reveals how God, indeed, works in mysterious ways: As the media and progressive secularists campaign to “cancel” Christianity in public, all they actually do is supercharge its impact. The more they fight the gospel and try to silence Christianity, the more vibrant and visible it becomes.

In this case, the New York Times amplified Jesus Christ and made Him impossible to ignore.

​Christian, Christian nationalism, Christianity, Gospel, Jesus christ, New york times, Pentagon, Pete hegseth, Faith 

Last weekend during the WNBA season kickoff, Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark received a flagrant foul when she slapped the arm of the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese. Reese immediately responded by bowing up to Clark, resulting in a technical foul for verbal taunting.

It wasn’t long before allegations of Fever fans targeting Reese with racial slurs emerged, resulting in the league launching an investigation.

Coincidence?

Jason Whitlock thinks not.

“Angel Reese misbehaves poorly, and the next thing you know — voila, Indiana Fever fans, they shouted racial taunts,” he says, calling the scandal “a hoax.”

The chances of the allegations being true are incredibly slim, given that the only people who go to WNBA games are “black women” and “left-wing lesbians” — none of whom are likely to hurl racial slurs, Whitlock explains.

Further, nobody seems to want to fess up about exactly what happened to fuel the allegations. Last week during a Chicago Sky practice, reporters interviewed Reese, who was willing to talk about everything except what actually happened.

Whitlock plays the clip of the interview.

“How did it affect you Saturday trying to do your job, trying to play and having this going on simultaneously?” one reporter asked.

“It’s tough, but I think I have a great support system. I’m loved by so many people,” Reese responded.

“What do you think of the league’s response, just coming out right away and getting that investigation going?” another reporter asked.

“They understand that this is the priority. Obviously, there’s no place for this,” Reese said.

One reporter then attempted to shift the conversation to the actual allegations, asking where the alleged racial slurs were coming from in the arena, but he was quickly shut down by Reese, who said, “That’s not a me question.”

Another reporter chimed in, asking, “What would you like the league to do with those fans?” but a Sky PR staffer interrupted, shutting the question down.

Whitlock says it’s obvious they don’t want to talk about what happened precisely because “nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened to her other than she gets to nail herself to a cross and pretend like she’s a victim,” he says.

What’s really beneath these fake allegations is a deep hatred for Caitlin Clark, he argues. But because she knows “Caitlin Clark has done nothing to [her],” she’s instead taking out her vitriol on Clark’s fans.

“Caitlin Clark fans — they’re the real bad people, and they’re in the arena shouting negative things at me, racist things,” Whitlock mocks.

To hear more of his commentary and see the footage of Reese’s interview, watch the video above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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

​Fearless, Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, Caitlin clark, Indiana fever, Wnba, Angel reese, Chicago sky, Blazetv, Blaze media, Race hoax 

The Wagon Box is a rustic retreat nestled amid ponderosa pines and aspen groves below the Bighorn Mountains in Story, Wyoming. Besides the fishing pond and the odd bison, the 20-acre property boasts a bunkhouse, log cabins, and a main building that has
long hosted locals and travelers from afar, feasting them at its steakhouse-style restaurant and keeping them cool at its frontier-style bar.

The Wagon Box
went up for sale a few years ago and was acquired in late 2022 by Tom Bombadil LLC. The entity is named after the forest-dwelling J.R.R. Tolkien character immune to the ring of power.

The resort has since undergone a transformation that left it magnetized, attracting positive attention from “homesteaders, literati, rebel coders, ascetics, founders, political skeptics, freedom lovers, doomer optimists, wilderness foragers and such,” according to the
resort’s website. This, in turn, has led to negative attention from elements of the liberal media, including a former contributor to an “open-source intelligence” outfit that has received funding from Open Society Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy.

The structures on-site remain intact, as do the retreat’s charming rough edges, its names-carved bar rail, and its many blurred borders with nature, which appears — at least in photographs — to be everywhere encroaching.

What’s changed under the new leadership of Paul McNiel, the combat veteran and outdoorsman behind Tom Bombadil, besides the addition of a few camperized school buses, teepees, instruments on the wall, and an ever-growing library?

For starters, it’s no longer
just a place or a venue.

The Wagon Box

It’s now a “project,” a “parallel network node,” and the “West’s last resort”; according the Wagon Box website, a
convergence of “the best of Web3 with the concrete” that serves “as a catalyst and clearinghouse for ideas, and a launching point and headquarters for experiments in new models of human organization.”

Although now effectively a picturesque incubator for big American ideas, largely of the kind rooted in hope and an essentially Christian worldview, the Wagon Box accomplishes something far more basic yet increasingly rare: It successfully facilitates the nourishment of those panged by the pandemic-exacerbated hunger of our times — the hunger for deep and meaningful personal connection.

McNiel recently spoke to Blaze News about how this transformation came about and detailed the project’s greater significance — a significance recognized by others, including American novelist Walter Kirn, who
characterized the Wagon Box as a “refuge for thoughtful spirits,” and environmental sociologist Ashley Fitzgerald, the co-founder of the “Doomer Optimism” podcast, who noted it is “a realistic place in the greatest sense of the word.”

Inception

McNiel, a real estate investor who grew up off-grid in remote Quebec and served in Afghanistan after college, told Blaze News that he hosted numerous events in Montana, “from little gatherings in my living room, to open mics, to movie nights, to all sorts of get-togethers,” during the pandemic.

These gatherings quickly became the go-to for “various factions” that shared in common, at the very least, a healthy skepticism of the mainstream narratives surrounding COVID-19.

“I find myself often as sort of the middleman between various — you could say — extremes or just different sides of certain things,” said McNiel.

Paul McNiel. The Wagon Box

While McNiel appreciates the appeal and popularity of group chats, online forums, and other meetings in virtual realms — despite never really dialing in himself — the pandemic drove home the realization that they were no replacement for in-person meetings, which he suggested better foster the good faith and trust “necessary to restore America’s culture and to restore some kind of fabric of understanding.”

As the pandemic began to wind down, the Wagon Box resort went up for sale.

RELATED: No One Is Coming to Save You

Gabriel Gigliotti

Although McNiel was still living in Montana at the time, Wyoming, with its favorable crypto legislation and “live and let live” ethos, looked like an ideal place to “build on and expand the kind of gatherings that [he had] been doing and, more than that, try to start building it as a node, a cultural node, for people to meet, to exchange ideas, and to connect in this post-COVID landscape where people are realizing how important that is.”

‘Real people come there with their full families and their full selves.’

He acquired the property in 2022 and “started small” with writers’ retreats and other events. But as people began to connect on site and the Wagon Box started hosting other people’s larger events as well as its own, it started to gain a reputation as something of a cultural hub.

The Wagon Box has hosted multiple events in recent years featuring relatively big names, and more are scheduled.

The Wagon Box

For instance, a recent event on futurism featured Notre Dame political science professor
Patrick Deneen and Matthew Azrieli, founder of the Post Millennial.

Fitzgerald and James Pogue, a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, have a
doomer optimism event scheduled next month, where they’ll speak along with English author and Dark Mountain Project co-founder Paul Kingsnorth, Symbolic AI co-founder Jon Stokes, and others on the topic of “how the Machine shapes families, the environment, personal autonomy, and class politics while highlighting inspiring acts of creative resistance.”

A previous doomer optimist event is what first landed Fitzgerald at the Wagon Box.

Hardware

Fitzgerald told Blaze News that she and an associate sought to bring together a number of people from across their shared networks — “disaffected environmentalist” and MAHA types — and McNiel invited them to have it at the Wagon Box.

“It’s not really that easy to get to, so it’s kind of like a retreat,” said Fitzgerald. “People have to go out of their way to get there. It’s sort of isolated in a small town. There’s not really much outside the complex.”

Fitzgerald indicated that the resort’s remoteness, its layout — a TV-free bar, library, and restaurant all attached — and the absence of external distractions helped bring her and her online friends together in what some suggested felt like a “family reunion.”

The Wagon Box

She indicated it was also culturally conducive to “fun and convivial” conversations.

“It’s not this stuffy, air-conditioned conference room or hotel lobby,” continued Fitzgerald. “It feels like a real place where real things are happening.”

“Real people come there with their full families and their full selves, and their messiness,” added Fitzgerald.

McNiel observed that there are “all these projects out there that I think of as software because they’re mostly ideas and networks, but they don’t have a campus.”

He wants the Wagon Box to become hardware that different “software programs” can run on simultaneously.

‘This is a Christian project, but you don’t have to be a Christian to be part of it.’

When asked about the Wagon Box’s operating system and what all the guests share in common, McNiel said the “operating system is very much personal. It’s not a particular defined doctrinal statement or even a mission statement. It’s a personal sort of central nervous system of core people.”

While there are other proponents and members, McNiel told Blaze News that he is “the center of the hub,” operating as a moderator, as a “filtering mechanism,” and a connector.

Coding in common

Past guests and speakers at the Wagon Box appear to be all over the traditional political spectrum; however, McNiel, numerous key guests, and champions online appear to share Christianity in common.

RELATED: Between the Land and the Sky

Eric Granado

McNiel told Blaze News that “this is a Christian project, but you don’t have to be a Christian to be part of it. And, I think, that probably could have been said about America 200 years ago.”

Nihilists and materialists may, however, struggle to fit in, as the Wagon Box, on the other hand, “is for people who believe in God and have hope for the future; that God cares about this world; and that it is our responsibility to do our best to honor him with our little corner of it and to bring forth some kind of a brighter, more heavenly future.”

Besides Christian faith, the coding that much of the “software” share in common appears to be an estranged or a hostile relationship with the postwar liberal consensus and its guardians.

The resort’s website indicates that those drawn to the Wagon Box largely are those who:

want to get away from the Cathedral hall monitors, obsolete arguments mired in [global American empire] party politics, vacuous hack corporate journalism, identity political games and want to get in on the discussions that matter: possible future relationship between human nature and machines, ancient avenues to truth and beauty, postliberal governance models, fourth-world solutions, corporate surrealism, parallel economic systems, new models of property ownership and investment collaboration, re-wilding and re-civilizing.

Fitzgerald’s doomer optimism, for instance, is a reaction “against the machine — the machine being the sort of techno, global neoliberal, taking the souls away from everything good and beautiful” state of play.

“We realized there was a lot of overlap between the sphere of people we wanted to bring together and then the Wagon Box people, so we kind of just became friends,” said Fitzgerald.

“I would say a lot of the people drawn to doomer optimism, at least at first, are sort of like fringe lefty environmentalists —
Battle of Seattle-type environmentalists who now feel like the environmental movement has morphed into something weird and corporate,” said Fitzgerald.

“We aren’t exactly the same,” continued Fitzgerald. “We have a lot of the same critiques with the same things and a lot of the same solutions, so they’re almost like mirror images.”

James Pogue
noted in a 2023 Vanity Fair piece that “McNiel is extraordinarily well read and friendly with a number of literary types. He is a bit of a prepper, and while he is deeply Christian, he doesn’t consider himself right-wing.”

The Wagon Box

McNiel told Pogue at the time that the right-left political binary was kaput; that it’s now “us against the machine.”

Suzy Weiss, a reporter with the Free Press who attended the second annual “The Machine and (Human) Nature” retreat at the Wagon Box last year,
noted, “There are many tensions in the nascent ideology brewing at The Wagon Box.”

“The retreat was billed as an opportunity to disagree about the specifics,” continued Weiss. “A labor organizer told me that his politics differ from most of the people here, but that ‘this happened to be the place where people are open-minded.'”

Pigeonholing

A pair of reporters who have written about real and imagined extremism for the New York Times and other liberal publications recently hinted at a desire to paint the Wagon Box as a hive of right-wing radicalism.

Ali Winston
noted in a letter, subsequently posted by McNiel to X, that he and Jason Wilson, a Portland-based smear merchant who writes for the Guardian and previously contributed to Bellingcat, were writing an article about events hosted at the Wagon Box.

‘They seem to be just really bitter folks who are really trying to exorcise some … boogeyman from American culture.’

“Does your organization have an open political affiliation with a movement that seeks to replace democratic governance with corporate governance?” asked Winston. “Are you hosting any events other than far right political and cultural conferences?”

Winston alluded in the letter to the “Malheur occupation,” hinting that the duo are interested in making hay out of an
old link between McNiel and Ryan Payne, an individual sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for his involvement in the Ammon Bundy-led 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon.

The Sheridan Daily
previously reported that McNiel and Payne recorded a video together in 2021, and McNiel suggested communications were few and far between after the fact.

Winston’s writing partner has sought to do more damage with even less of a link in the past, smearing prominent right-leaning personalities and lumping them in with actual identitarians and bigots.

For instance, when working for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s so-called Hatewatch in 2022, Wilson
identified Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok fame, BlazeTV host Alex Stein, Catholic YouTuber Taylor Marshall, parental rights advocate Alvin Lui, Trump State Department official Darren Beattie, and others as “extremists.”

Quillette
noted in 2019 that “Wilson is not simply a pro-Antifa activist who also happens to write for the Guardian: He actively leverages his role as a regular Guardian writer to promote Antifa, whitewash its violence, and signal-boost its leaders (whom he presents as ‘experts’) — often under the guise of neutral news reporting.”

McNiel, who dismissed the insinuations from the duo in a full-throated response highlighting the diversity of views represented at the doomer optimism events, told Blaze News, “They seem to be just really bitter folks who are really trying to exorcise some … boogeyman from American culture. I’m not sure what their problem is. They’ve doxxed a lot of people, and they’re digging around and trying to mix connections.”

The Wagon Box

McNiel suggested further that the reflexive liberal hostility toward the Wagon Box appears to be born of a Calvinist-style outlook in which “you’re either elect or damned.”

“They’re trying to decide whether or not I’m a horrible person and need to be cut out like a tumor and the Wagon Box needs to be cut like a tumor out of the American landscape,” added the founder.

On the rails

McNiel has made clear from the outset that the Wagon Box is not lawless.

“I love localism, but there is definitely a point where it can turn into blood and soil,” McNiel told Pogue around the time he was getting the resort ready to open to the public. “I feel like my role is to argue for a localism that doesn’t go off the rails into exclusion.”

Like localism, he is protective generally of the culture at the retreat.

McNiel stressed to Blaze News that the Wagon Box “is a cozy, wholesome, and based place where there’s plenty of room to disagree, plenty of room to be honest and share where you’re coming from — but it’s not a free-for-all.”

He reckons the Wagon Box has so far struck a good balance, telling Blaze News that at every gathering, the conversations feel like they are the most important taking place in America right now, and this sense is enhanced by the intimacy of “sitting around a campfire or smoking a pipe on the deck, having a glass of wine inside, you know, or just wandering, going on a walk. … There’s just something that, really, I haven’t found anywhere else, and we’re trying to build on that.”

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​Lifestyle, The wagon box, Wagon box, Paul mcniel, Doomer optimism, Postliberal, Jason wilson, Post-liberal, Doomer, Prepper, Conservative, Populist, Homesteading, Politics 

Many people mistakenly believe that it’s harmless to watch free pornography online. “It’s simply a fantasy,” they say.

But a new report released by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation provides the hard proof that the pornography industry has contributed to the global rise in image-based sexual abuse (ISBA), which has serious and traumatic real-world impacts.

Our elected leaders need to act to hold pornography tube sites accountable for the abuses they perpetuate.

IBSA is a rapidly growing form of sexual violence that includes the creation, manipulation, theft, extortion, threatened or actual distribution, or any use of images for sexual purposes without the meaningful consent of the person depicted. IBSA manifests in several forms, including nonconsensual distribution of sexually explicit images or videos, recorded sexual violence, video voyeurism, and nonconsensual creation or distribution of AI-generated forged pornography.

The reality is that porn companies like Pornhub, XVideos, XNXX, and xHamster have built their platforms by allowing, encouraging, and profiting from the distribution of image-based sexual abuse.

The enormous traffic generated by the availability of free pornography videos drives revenue from advertisers and affiliates as well as of “premium content,” such as personalized subscriptions and á la carte purchases. Thus, the internet pornography industry’s profit model is, in part, dependent upon the proliferation of free, user-generated material, which was ushered in by Pornhub, XVideos, and xHamster.

The uncomfortable reality is that this “freemium” model requires vast amounts of video content, so the platforms have become incentivized to allow user uploads without any meaningful age and consent verification for people depicted, even looking the other way when abuse or piracy is reported.

These concerns are not hypothetical: Videos of sexual assault, sex trafficking, and nonconsensual recordings are routinely uploaded to porn sites worldwide.

Take, for example, a women’s university field hockey team that traveled to another university to play a game. The visiting team was directed to a men’s locker room to use before and after the game. While using that locker room, the women were surreptitiously video recorded by a hidden camera that was placed there by a university employee, who then uploaded these videos to Pornhub and xHamster.

An investigation by journalists into XVideos described a video of an unconscious woman being sexually assaulted. In the video, which at the time had 121,000 views, someone left the comment, “I love the fact that she looks so lifeless lol.” At that time, there were also XVideos search categories such as “against her will” and “drugged and f***ed.”

A woman who works as a news anchor sued WCGZ S.R.O (XVideos’ owner) and other tech companies for allegedly using her image for dating and erectile dysfunction ads without her knowledge. The woman learned of the existence of the ads from co-workers. The image of the woman used in the ads was obtained from security camera footage at a convenience store.

Pornography companies are effectively socializing millions, if not billions, to see image-based sexual abuse as normal.

In February 2025, the pornography website XVideos returned 95,680 results for the term “real voyeur”; for the same term, XNXX returned 101,533 videos and an additional 18,800 “gold” videos, which were accessible with payment. Despite “warning messages” on the Pornhub website for some IBSA-related terms, as of February 2025, Pornhub continues to return results for many terms associated with IBSA and pirated material.

The truth is this: Pornhub and the porn industry as a whole continue to socialize their users to view IBSA (whether real or staged) not as abuse but as normative sexual behavior.

Those who are victimized may endure lifelong emotional, physical, and social trauma. A study conducted in Australia reported that one in five persons of 4,274 participants (2,406 female, 1,868 male) had experienced at least one form of IBSA. Among those who had experienced IBSA, 80.8% of women and 72.9% of men reported feeling annoyed, humiliated, depressed, angry, or fearful as a consequence.

In 2017, an online survey of 3,044 individuals conducted in the U.S. reported that compared to people without IBSA victimization, survivors of IBSA had “worse mental health outcomes and higher levels of physiological problems.” Informal online survey data from August 2012 to December 2013 found that 51% of those victimized by IBSA contemplated suicide as a result of their experience.

Once a video is uploaded, it is nearly impossible to get it removed from the platform and from the internet at large.

The recently passed TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed into law by President Trump, criminalizes the act of uploading image-based sexual abuse and mandate its removal within 48 hours. This is a tremendous step forward in confronting IBSA.

But many solutions to confront this abuse are needed, and our elected leaders need to act to hold pornography tube sites accountable for the abuses they perpetuate.

Everyone deserves to live without the fear of their likeness being found on a pornography website.

​Pornography, Sexual abuse, Ncose, Porn, Abuse, Xxx 

Pedro Pascal is no dummy.

“The Last of Us” actor is having a moment, which means he appears in one out of every five movies or TV shows. We exaggerate but only a little.

Those Tom Cruise stunts are getting more and more dangerous. What next — cabin boy on another ‘ladies who launch’ Blue Origin flight?

So the star of “Eddington”/”The Fantastic Four”/”Gladiator II”/”Freaky Tales”/”Materialists” is doing what “it actors” do when the spotlight arrives. He’s vomiting out every pet cause he can find.

That doesn’t mean denouncing anti-Semitism or decrying how the Democrats hid a dementia patient from the nation. Oh, no. Pascal is pushing the trans agenda, attacking J.K. Rowling, and, now, promoting Planned Parenthood.

The actor was one of several “names” to sign an open letter supporting the pro-abortion group this week. Oh, and he’s cursing out President Donald Trump.

It’s as if he saw the flaming wreckage of former “it actress” Rachel Zegler and said, “Hold my career” …

Who’s next

You know woke is in retreat when Disney waves the white flag on the subject. The Mouse House has dialed back its progressive propaganda of late, witnessing apolitical smashes like “Inside Out 2,” “Moana 2,” and, now, the live-action “Lilo & Stitch.”

The folks behind “Doctor Who” haven’t gotten that message, apparently. The British sci-fi favorite can’t give up the woke, and it’s costing the show dearly where it counts.

The ratings.

The far-left Deadline.com noted that it’s impossible to deny the show’s viewership has sunk, badly, in recent months.

Meanwhile, the players in the “Who”niverse are giddy at its woke transformation. Co-star Varada Sethu said the naysayers are just proof that the inclusivity is working.

Showrunner Russell T. Davies said last month he “has no time” for any fans unhappy with the new direction. If the series’ ratings droop any more, he might have plenty of time on his hands …

Cruise faces ‘Reckoning’ at box office

The “last movie star” could use your help.

Tom Cruise stands virtually alone in Hollywood today. He’s unfailingly polite, positive, and apolitical. He spends as much time thanking audiences for seeing his films as shooting them. And of course, he does as many stunts as a studio’s insurance agents will allow.

And it’s not enough this time.

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is on track for a $65 million opening this weekend. That’s solid for most films but not one with a reported $400 million price tag. The eighth and perhaps final film in the saga will need a miracle to recoup its costs.

The worse news? The summer movie season is here, and the competition only gets stiffer in the coming weeks.

Besides, those Tom Cruise stunts are getting more and more dangerous. If this flick flops, who knows what extremes he’ll go to next time — cabin boy on another “ladies who launch” Blue Origin flight?

Same old Variety

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Actor Zachary Levi is back, and he’s trying to bring Hollywood to Texas. The “Chuck” alum is plotting a movie studio to be built in Austin, a chance to steal Los Angeles’ thunder. That’s the newsy part of this Variety profile.

The crazy part? Both Levi and Variety admit the star’s right-leaning views have damaged his Hollywood career. It’s the latest installment of the Hollywood blacklist 2.0, where right-leaning artists have to watch what they say … or else.

Naturally, an august publication like Variety just shrugs it off.

Remember that the next time it publishes another “Trump Is a Fascist” article. Its scribes don’t actually know what the word means. Or care …

U2, Bono?

Better late than never?

U2’s Bono was one of the very few musicians to speak out immediately after Oct. 7, particularly citing the Nova music festival attacked by Hamas barbarians. He’s been mostly quiet since then on the subject, while bolder voices like Five for Fighting’s John Ondrasik have taken up the cause on a near-daily basis.

Now, Bono is back, and he’s finally saying what every musician on the planet should have demanded from the jump.

Let the hostages go.

The lead singer is also demanding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resign, perhaps as an attempt to “both sides” the matter.

Either way, it would have been nice if the Irish superstar has used his celebrity clout over the past year. His comments are still better than the near silence from the rest of his community.

​Christian toto, Tom cruise, Pedro pascal, Hollywood, Culture, Disney, Doctor who, Toto recall 

The pharmaceutical industry reigns supreme over us all — including expecting mothers — and Dr. Adam Urato, a fetal and maternal medicine specialist, is gravely concerned by the lack of informed consent given to pregnant women concerning their medications.

Namely, SSRI antidepressants.

“The main one I’m focusing on currently is the use of antidepressants during pregnancy, because we’re seeing so much of that in the general population, but in particular, in pregnancy as well,” Urato tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“I tell my patients that medications are chemicals. They’re not naturally occurring substances. They’re not like oranges growing on an orange tree. They’re synthesized in a chemical manufacturing facility,” he explains, noting that in any manufacturing plant, you’ll see workers wearing masks and goggles for a reason.

“Those medications are going to cross over from the mom into the baby. A drug like Zofran has an impact on the serotonin receptors. Serotonin is a crucial cell-signaling molecule. Serotonin is crucial for fetal development.”

“So if you’ve got this delicate system, intricate system, that relies on serotonin and other neurotransmitters,” he continues, “and then you disrupt it with chemicals like Zofran or like the SSRI antidepressants or other antidepressants, it’s going to have an impact.”

While these medications are intended to help patients with what’s going on in their mind, it affects their entire body.

“There’s evidence, for example, that patients on antidepressants, on the SSRI antidepressants, have increased rates of bleeding,” he tells Stuckey, explaining that it’s because SSRIs have a huge impact on platelet function.

The drugs also have a great impact on the gut and bone strength, which leaves many SSRI patients with a higher rate of fractures in their bones and higher rates of osteoporosis. But it gets worse.

“We’re seeing increased rates of miscarriage, so the woman loses her pregnancy early. We’re seeing increased rates of birth defects. It’s been clearly shown with some of the drugs, things like heart defects,” Urato explains. “We’re seeing increased rates in preterm birth, we see increased rates in PPROM, breaking your water early, having the rupture of the membranes. We see increased rates of low birthweight babies, small for size; they didn’t grow well likely because of the impact of the drugs on the placenta late in pregnancy.”

“We see an increase in the disease called pre-eclampsia, which causes high blood pressure in women, and proteinuria, protein in the urine, we see higher rates of that in the women on the SSRIs,” he continues. “We see higher rates of postpartum hemorrhage, there’s higher rates of women bleeding who are on SSRIs.”

“Postpartum hemorrhage is one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality,” he adds.

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Chicago police allegedly found a “chunk of hair” embedded in the smashed windshield of a vehicle they pulled over last week — and it just so happens that officers were investigating a fatal hit-and-run in the area, CWB Chicago said.

One factor that helped turn the case toward getting solved was that police allegedly noticed that the hair in the windshield resembled the hair of the deceased 76-year-old hit-and-run victim, the outlet noted.

Tolefree was charged with failure to report a fatal accident — which is a felony.

Patrolling officers on the city’s South Side found the victim lying lifeless in traffic lanes near 70th Street and Western Avenue just before 9:30 p.m. last Tuesday, CWB Chicago said.

RELATED: Chicago-area Democrat mired in scandal reportedly joins all-out brawl at public meeting, loses shoe, thrown to floor

Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune

Witnesses told officers they saw the driver of a speeding silver vehicle strike the man while traveling north on Western, the outlet said, citing a police report — and the driver kept going.

More from CWB Chicago:

About 30 minutes later, officers at the crash scene saw a silver Hyundai Santa Fe travel past them with a heavily damaged front end and a “large crack” in the windshield, the report said.

Cops tried to stop the car, but the driver took “an unusual amount of time to pull over,” according to their report. Once the driver stopped, the cops allegedly found a “chunk of hair” similar to the victim’s embedded in the windshield. They said they also noticed Svedka vodka bottles on the passenger seat and under the driver’s seat, the report said.

Arresting officers said the driver, 29-year-old Nyamca Tolefree, asked “multiple times” to lean on their squad car so she could stay upright. Their report said they could “smell a heavy odor of alcoholic beverage” on her breath and body and said she exhibited “slurred, thick tongued and stuttered speech.”

Tolefree urinated on herself while riding to the hospital in the back seat of a squad car, CPD’s arrest report said. She refused sobriety tests and made “multiple utterances” about being involved in a crash while driving, according to the report.

While police initially indicated that Tolefree faced a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of alcohol, the outlet said prosecutors didn’t end up charging her with DUI.

CWB Chicago said, however, that Tolefree was charged with failure to report a fatal accident — which is a felony. She also was cited for transporting alcohol as a driver, failure to exercise due care, and failure to reduce speed, the outlet added.

Judge Luciano Panici Jr. ordered Tolefree detained pending trial, CWB Chicago reported.

Blaze News reached out to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for comment, particularly in regard to why Tolefree wasn’t ultimately charged with DUI — and officials there responded to Blaze News on Wednesday, saying they “approved the felony charge of Leaving the Scene of a Fatality, and the misdemeanor charge filed by police was dismissed.” The CCSAO added that Tolefree remains in custody at the Cook County Jail, and her next court appearance is scheduled for June 4.

“As this matter is pending litigation, we are unable to further comment,” the CCSAO added to Blaze News.

RELATED: ‘F*** this car up!’ Thugs climb on Tesla’s hood amid Chicago street takeover, repeatedly pound, kick car — then one idiot gets schooled on Newton’s third law of motion

– YouTube

youtu.be

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Tom Cruise revealed that a game of phone tag and some old-school Hollywood finesse got the city back in the swing of production during COVID-19 shutdowns.

Cruise gave an exclusive interview to “The Pat McAfee Show” on Wednesday ahead of the premiere of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” the eighth movie in the franchise that has spanned 29 years.

‘I don’t take no for an answer, really.’

Host Pat McAfee asked Cruise if he felt the weight of the movie industry on his shoulders during COVID-19 shutdowns. Hollywood came to screeching halt in March 2020 and did not resume filming until June, and even then only with heavy restrictions. Cruise is widely credited for getting the industry moving again that summer.

“Yeah, I did,” Cruise replied. “It’s not just about the films I’m making. The difference in movies and other sports is I’ve never felt competitive with other people. I’m like, ‘I want everyone to do well.'”

Cruise explained that while productions were firmly shut down, he had a conversation with his lead producer and said they needed to figure out how to get the cameras rolling.

After the producer agreed, Cruise then pulled off one of the greatest Hollywood capers of all time.

RELATED: California gas-car ban overturned by Senate

Tom Cruise attends the ‘Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Mexico red carpet. Photo by Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

Cruise went to into his bag of tricks on his first call with a movie studio. He picked up the phone and asked a studio head, “You guys shooting?”

Cruise recalled, “He’s like, ‘No, no, we can’t. We’re all shut down for that.’ I said, ‘Oh, wow. … You know we’re shooting our movies.’ And they were like, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re making our movies.'”

Referring to “Top Gun: Maverick” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” sequel, Cruise faked that he was continuing production in order to string studio heads along. Cruise knew that if he could convince other studios that he was still filming, they would start their own productions, which in turn would actually get his movie the go-ahead to resume.

“I called back a week later, and I was like, ‘How’s it going?'” the movie star continued. “They said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re shooting our films.’ And I said, ‘Cuz we’re coming out next summer, you know. … So you know we’re on this date. I hope you’re not on this date.'” They’re like, ‘Well, you know we’re making our movie. We’re coming out next summer.'”

Cruise then called the studio he was working with and said, “Look, all these guys are making movies. We got to make movies!”

RELATED: Trump’s new tech policy director doesn’t want you to ‘trust the science’

The 62-year-old actor said if he had not pulled the slick moves, he would not have been able to finish “Top Gun: Maverick” in post-production and he would not have been able to carry on with the sequel of his best spy films.

Cruise also noted he got on the phone with governments, production companies, and those responsible for COVID protocols to map out safety precautions to please the powers that be.

“Everyone was kind of like, ‘No, you can’t do this; no, you can’t do that.’ I don’t take no for an answer, really, Pat,” Cruise told the host.

After establishing the production restrictions, Cruise resumed filming in the U.K. in July 2020 with special permissions from the government. They began with outdoor scenes but were able to avoid a two-week quarantine requirement for actors who were flying in and out to film.

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On Saturday, President Donald Trump traveled to West Point, New York to deliver the commencement address at the United States Military Academy. He arrived at the event on Marine One and walked through a line of saluting cadets. According to Fox News, he was greeted by chants of “USA! USA!.”

Trump strode to the microphone clad in his signature red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. He then began his nearly hour long address by congratulating the graduating cadets. He told them, “you are winners, every single one of you.”

His speech touched on areas of foreign policy and what Trump sees as the role of the military as he works to remake the world order.

Fox reported that he told the graduates, “The job of the U.S. is not to host drag shows or transform foreign countries, to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun. The military’s job is to dominate and foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime and anywhere.”

WATCH the whole speech below:

RELATED: Return of the ‘American System’: Trump’s economic comeback

​Donald trump, West point, Us army, Us military academy 

After two Israeli diplomats were murdered in Washington, D.C., it couldn’t be more clear that America has a left-wing violence problem, and the left-wing media refuses to acknowledge it.

“You’ve got polls about political violence. Democrats don’t think it’s a good idea. Only Republicans, only people inclined to consume conservative media, are now, I think upwards of 50%, say that if necessary, violence is okay,” host Nicolle Wallace boldly claimed on an MSNBC segment.

“You’ve only got the conduct on one of the two sides,” she added.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” isn’t having it.

“Okay, all right, let’s go back to 2016, the police ambush, Dallas Police Department, the congressional baseball shooting, that was a Bernie bro that carried that one out, the Tacoma ICE facility firebombing in 2019, the Antifa shooting of a Patriot Prayer member in Portland in 2020, the, of course, mostly peaceful BLM riots in 2020 as well,” Gonzales lists.

“Of course, you’ve got Thomas Matthew Crooks who shot and nearly killed Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, who was also an ActBlue donor, Ryan Routh, a Ukraine fanatic and an ActBlue donor, also tried to, of course, ambush and kill Donald Trump just a few months later,” she continues.

But she’s not done.

“May 2025, there was an Antifa arson on the University of Washington — by the way, that’s not even counting all of the pop-up protests, riots across college campuses, Harvard, all of these Ivy League schools, and now we have another case of left-wing violence we can add to the list: the slaying of two Israeli diplomats,” she explains.

The man suspected of killing the Israeli diplomats was captured on video yelling “free Palestine.”

“The left didn’t just ignore the story; many radicals just basically celebrated the murders by showing solidarity on social media,” Gonzales explains, noting that in the comment sections of videos about the shooting, there’s an onslaught of users calling the murderer a “hero” and reciting “free Palestine.”

“America has a left-wing violence problem,” Gonzales concludes, adding, “Of course, they’re going to gaslight you and claim that it’s the GOP, that it’s white supremacy, that it’s all the other things other than what you’re seeing, what you’re watching happen before your very eyes.”

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​Upload, Video, Video phone, Camera phone, Free, Sharing, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Left wing violence, Israeli diplomats murdered, Free palestine, Left wing media, Anti semitism on the rise, Anti semitism, President trump, Donald trump, Donald trump assassination attempt 

You’ve probably never heard of Phil Larimore — a teenage hero of World War II whose story sounds too improbable to be true. But behind the unbelievable details stands a real young man with the leadership of Dick Winters (“Band of Brothers”), the resilience of Louis Zamperini (“Unbroken”), and the courage of Desmond Doss (“Hacksaw Ridge”).

Born in 1925, Philip B. Larimore Jr. excelled at outdoor pursuits — hiking, camping, horsemanship, sharpshooting, and hunting. But he also struggled with discipline and behavior, prompting his parents to send him to military school at age 13. There, Phil found his purpose. He emerged as a standout cadet and natural leader, graduating with honors shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

If Dad could speak to us this Memorial Day, I believe he would ask for just one thing: Tell the stories of those who served.

At 17, he became the youngest cadet up to that point to complete the Army’s demanding Officer Candidate School. Days after his 18th birthday, he received his commission — becoming the youngest Army officer in the war. He then trained intensively with the 82nd Airborne.

By early 1944, Phil had landed on the beachhead at Anzio, Italy, with the 3rd Infantry Division. He had just turned 19.

A survivor

He fought in frontline combat almost immediately. He first led an ammunition and pioneer platoon, working shoulder to shoulder with his men. At night, often deep in no man’s land, Phil defused mines, strung barbed wire, delivered supplies, and engaged in brutal combat — sometimes hand to hand — as he advanced through Italy and into southern France.

During that phase of the war, the average life expectancy for a junior officer on the front lines was 21 days. Phil survived 415.

Days after his 20th birthday, he was promoted to company commander, the Army’s youngest at that post. He went on to become one of the most highly decorated junior officers, receiving every valor medal the Army awarded except the Medal of Honor — including the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts, and three Presidential Unit Citations. His bravery included volunteering to fly 200 miles behind enemy lines to find where Hitler had hidden the world-famous Lipizzaner stallions — a top-secret mission that led General George Patton to authorize Operation Cowboy to save the breed from extinction.

On April 8, 1945 — just one month before VE Day — Phil learned that a squad of his men were pinned down by more than 120 German soldiers. Without hesitation, he jumped on the back of a tank and coolly manned a .50-caliber machine gun under relentless enemy fire. He wiped out three German gun nests and scattered the surrounding troops. A sniper’s bullet shattered his leg before he could return to cover.

Surgeons in a field hospital amputated his right leg. Phil was then flown home to an Army hospital, joining more than 15,000 soldiers recovering from major limb loss. Army policy at the time mandated automatic discharge for all amputee officers after rehabilitation. Phil refused to accept it. He appealed the policy, calling it unjust, unfair, and unethical.

A shattering setback

During his appeal hearing on April 15, 1947, Phil discovered exactly how Army brass viewed amputee officers. One colonel told him, “You’re a handicap to the Army. You’re a highly decorated cripple — but still a cripple.” Another added, “The Army doesn’t need one-legged handicaps,” and “Amputee officers simply don’t have a place in our Army.”

The board denied his appeal by a single vote. Phil received an honorable discharge with the rank of major — at just 22 years old.

Though the Army later reversed the policy in 1950, the damage had been done. Phil’s self-image was shattered. His promising military career had been stolen — not only by a German sniper, but by the Army and country he had faithfully served and loved. He fell into despair and contemplated ending his life.

Fortunately, he turned to an Army chaplain for help. With the support of family, friends, and his faith, Phil rebuilt his sense of purpose and began healing.

I’m the oldest of Phil’s four sons. He never spoke about the war. Only after he and my mother celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary did I ask what it felt like to be a hero.

“Two million men fought in Europe,” he replied. “I was one of over 500,000 American casualties. But more than 100,000 are buried there. Those are the real heroes. Not me!”

A role model for generations

Dad’s quiet but steady faith, humility, and lifelong service to others became a model — not just for my brothers and me but for the many students and Boy Scouts he mentored over the decades. Several even named their first sons Philip.

After retiring, Dad made peace with his past and with his Creator. The nightmares faded. The stench of war no longer haunted him. He died peacefully in his sleep on Oct. 31, 2003. He was 78.

After 15 years of research and writing, I completed my biography of him — “At First Light” — first published in 2022. The book led to his posthumous inductions into the Army’s Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame and the 3rd Infantry Division Hall of Fame, alongside legends like Audie Murphy and Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, and Lucian K. Truscott.

After his most recent induction, I visited his grave. I thought: Dad, I always loved being your son. Now more than ever, I’m honored by it.

If he could speak to us this Memorial Day, I believe he would ask for just one thing: Tell the stories of those who served. Tell the stories of those who gave everything on the altar of war — those who sacrificed their tomorrows so we might have our todays.

And above all, remember the cost. The freedoms and liberties they preserved must not only be appreciated — they must be wisely stewarded.

​Opinion & analysis, Memorial day, Phil larimore, Dwight d. eisenhower, Audie murphy, World war ii, George patton, George c. marshall, Lucian k. truscott, Boy scouts of america, Virtue, Honorable discharge 

Picture a Harvard University faculty lounge: a ring of professors clustered around Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s letter, one of them furrowing his brow and murmuring, “Wait, are we the baddies?” Such moments of self-awareness, alas, remain forever just beyond the reach of our academic elite. The very institutions that lecture us daily about our original sin — racism — have, with impressive irony, perfected the art of racial discrimination.

We are now at the far end of a 75-year arc that began with William F. Buckley Jr.’s “God and Man at Yale” and ends, aptly, with Harvard losing federal funds over the consequences of its own institutional neglect. The problems Buckley identified — contempt for Christianity and American ideals chief among them — have not only remained; they have metastasized.

The very professors who made a career of moral hectoring have, predictably, become the thing they claimed to hate.

How did we get here?

On Thursday, Noem sent a letter to Harvard informing the school that it had lost its certification for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. This came after Harvard repeatedly ignored federal requests to disclose statistics related to anti-Semitic activity on campus. According to the letter, Harvard fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students, tolerates pro-Hamas sympathies, and sustains racially discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

Funds with strings attached

Harvard is now learning the lesson that Christian colleges grasped nearly half a century ago: Government money comes with government strings. But why did it take Harvard so long to recognize this? The answer is disarmingly simple — until now, those strings were always in harmony with Harvard’s ideological tune.

Federal dollars came bundled with leftist priorities, and thus the elite saw no need to question them. Christian colleges, in contrast, often declined the money to preserve their mission of faithfulness to Scripture.

What’s astonishing is that Harvard — the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere, chartered in 1650 — still behaves as though it needs government money. Its endowment, by the latest count, stands at more than $53 billion. Yet judging from the panic issuing from the president’s office, one might think bankruptcy was imminent. The reason? DEI is embedded so deeply into Harvard’s research infrastructure — even in the sciences — that stripping funding from DEI-tainted grants strikes at the university’s financial core.

In academic circles, panic now masquerades as prophecy. Professors speak as though the world is ending — though, given their long record of failed doomsday predictions about climate catastrophe, one might be forgiven for tuning them out. I remember, early in my career, being told by an administrator that Al Gore’s book was a “road map to the future.” It turned out to be more of a road map to irrelevance. Global warming’s great success was posting more failed predictions than Hal Lindsey.

RELATED: Harvard’s broke and begging — but it still won’t change its ways

Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

But now the panic is personal. It’s not the planet they fear losing. It’s their world — their imagined utopia of managed speech, redefined morality, and subsidized ideology. That world is slipping through their fingers, and they have nothing left but their performances of alarm, such as reading an indigenous land acknowledgement, confessing their privilege, employee training about infinite genders, and giving a voice to the voiceless.

Yes, you are the baddies

This explains the despair among leftist academics. Even as the broader world shows signs of improvement, economically, culturally, and even morally, they howl louder. Why? Because the improvement is happening without them — or worse, despite them.

They believed they were changing the world by sermonizing about “whiteness” and “heteronormativity.” Instead, they became a punch line. They trained a generation of DEI advocates with the promise that there would always be government work, but those jobs disappeared faster than the edibles at a faculty party.

This is why Noem’s letter cuts so deeply. It documents, officially and unambiguously, the discriminatory policies of Harvard University. The very professors who made a career of moral hectoring have, predictably, become the thing they claimed to hate.

Yes, you are the baddies.

As we turn the page on this chapter of the failed American university, we should remember that Buckley, despite his critique, was ultimately optimistic. He knew that donors, parents, and students were no longer represented by Ivy League ideology, even as those schools embraced collectivism in his day. He believed they would reject the communitarian ideologies of these universities. And they have!

Now, as the last gasps of those failed philosophies echo through Harvard Yard, we too have reason to be hopeful. Parents, donors, and students are awakening, and they’re asking for something better. American ideals and Christianity are back on the menu at the schools that matter. Perhaps, at long last, we are remembering what once made Harvard great in the first place: Veritas.

​Opinion & analysis, Harvard, Anti-semitism, Kristi noem, Foreign students, Immigration, Federal aid, Department of homeland security, Department of education, Student and exchange visitor program, William f buckley jr, God and man at yale, Christian colleges, Land acknowledgement, Ivy league, Veritas 

California police are looking for a man who allegedly tried to attack a 13-year-old girl but ended up with a broken ankle after she fought him off with jiu-jitsu.

The incident unfolded on May 6 at Carmel-by-the-Sea as the girl was walking home, according to Michael Blackburn, her jiu-jitsu instructor, who spoke with KSBW-TV.

‘The person was acting unusual, like potentially under the influence of something or dealing with some other personal issues.’

“Halfway home, a gentleman was standing in between two cars, and he stepped out to punch her in the face,” said Blackburn.

The girl reacted by using the jiu-jitsu training she had undertaken for three years in Blackburn’s classes at the Carmel Youth Center.

“She punched him, she wrapped it, got him in a headlock, kneed him a couple of times, spun him around, threw him on the ground,” Blackburn said. “And she had stepped on his foot doing all this, and when she threw him to the ground, she broke his ankle.”

The girl then ran home and is safe with her family.

The man, however, got away.

The girl’s identity is being withheld from the public for her safety, given that the man is still at large. Carmel Police Dept. Commander Todd Trayer said that police have a sketch of what the man is believed to look like.

“The person was acting unusual, like potentially under the influence of something or dealing with some other personal issues,” said Trayer.

RELATED: MMA fighter with jiu-jitsu black belt pins to sidewalk thug who was on alleged sucker-punching rampage against NYC pedestrians

Photo by Kuttigullstein bild via Getty Images

Blackburn went on to say he was grateful his student was able to defend herself.

“I told her we were proud of her, and she did exactly what she was supposed to do,” he added. “You have to fight in class like you’re going to protect yourself on the street.”

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a tourist location on the central coast with only about 2,300 residents.

The police sketch and the Blackburn interview can be viewed on the KSBW news video on YouTube.

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​13 year old attacked, Girl with jiu jitsu, Girl attacks her attacker, Carmel by the sea attack, Crime 

Several agricultural agencies came out and criticized President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated MAHA report that was released on Thursday. After thoroughly reviewing the records, Blaze News uncovered who is behind many of these anti-MAHA groups.

The MAHA report’s
findings suggested that exposure to agricultural chemicals like pesticides and insecticides are one of the many root causes that have contributed to chronic diseases and health epidemics afflicting American children. Several studies found that these “crop protection tools” have “raised concerns about possible links between some of these products and adverse health outcomes,” according to the report.

The through line in this thorough report is that pesticides may be harmful, and the industry players may not have been transparent about it.

RELATED: RFK’s highly anticipated MAHA report paints dark picture of America’s health crisis

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

For example, one of the most common herbicides, known as glyphosate, has been found to have a number of health effects “ranging from reproductive and developmental disorders as well as cancers, liver inflammation, and metabolic disturbances,” according to the report.

The MAHA report also noted that there are great disparities in research conducted by pesticide manufacturers compared to non-industry research, which may be a result of bias. One of the many analyses cited in the report found that 50% of non-industry research deemed a common pesticide harmful compared to just 18% of industry-funded studies.

The through line in this thorough report is that pesticides may be harmful, and the industry players may not have been transparent about it.

Various agricultural groups categorized the MAHA report, specifically the concerns about pesticides, as “baseless” and a source of “misinformation.” At the same time, many of these groups have been direct beneficiaries of companies and corporations that manufacture or promote the very same chemicals.

RELATED: 100 days of MAHA: What has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. done so far to make America healthy again?

Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall
said the MAHA report “sows seeds of doubt and fear” and called the White House’s endorsement of the report “deeply troubling.” Notably, Blaze News found that multiple local chapters of the Farm Bureau have collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from Monsanto, a subsidiary of Bayer Global, which manufactures agricultural chemicals and GMO technologies.

Some of this money has been
allocated for various disaster relief programs, while some has gone toward political action committees. For instance, the Oregon Farm Bureau PAC has received over $130,000 from Monsanto from 2007 to 2017, much of which was “raised during an annual golf tournament” hosted by the Oregon Farm Bureau to “raise money for its political activities.”

The American Farm Bureau did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

RELATED: HHS scrapping COVID jab recommendations for pregnant moms and kids: Report

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Similarly, Elizabeth Burns-Thomson, the executive director of Modern Ag Alliance, said the report would be guided by “misinformation” rather than science. Modern Ag Alliance, which was
founded by Bayer Global, represents over 100 agricultural agencies that advocate for “crop protection tools.” Some of the members of the Modern Ag Alliance also include the American Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and the National Association of Wheat Growers.

The ASA, NCGA, and NAWG, along with the International Fresh Produce Association,
issued a statement saying the MAHA report “baselessly attacks” the American food industry and caters to the “opinions and preferences of social influencers and single-issue activists.”

Since 2010, the ASA, NCGA, and NAWG have all individually received multiple donations totaling over $120,000 from
CropLife, according to publicly available tax filings. CropLife is an organization that calls itself the “national trade association that represents the manufacturers, formulators, and distributors of pesticides.” The IFPA has also been sponsored by Bayer multiple times in recent years.

The ASA, NAWG, and Modern Ag Alliance did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. NCGA and IFPA redirected Blaze News back to its original statement on the report.

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​Rfk, Robert f kennedy jr, Donald trump, Maha commission, Maha report, Pesticides, Insecticides, Make america healthy again, Chronic disease, Big ag, Agrochemical, American farmers, American health crisis, Health epidemic, Politics 

On May 9, three New Jersey Democratic House Representatives — Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez, and LaMonica McIver — along with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) clashed with ICE agents at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark during an unannounced oversight visit, protesting the facility’s reopening for migrant detention.

Never mind the fact that ICE acting Director Todd Lyons has told us that “75% of the 152 detainees at Delaney Hall have convictions or pending charges for serious crimes,” says Glenn Beck, calling the detention center a “common-sense” move. Democrats — even though they lost the election and even though the majority of Americans support the deportations of illegal immigrants — are going to die on this hill.

The incident in Newark isn’t an isolated event. Since January, we’ve witnessed legal injunctions, sanctuary policies, public protests, legislative protections, and advocacy for illegal immigrant rights. We’ve seen Democrat judges arrested and charged for helping illegal immigrants evade ICE. We’ve seen Democratic lawmakers and activists rally around alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, while pushing for broader protections for DACA recipients and mixed-status families to thwart the Trump administration from fulfilling the campaign promise of mass deportations.

And it’s not going to stop.

Because it’s not compassion for immigrants driving these efforts; it’s ideology, Glenn explains. Leftists intentionally opened the borders and imported illegal immigrants during the Biden regime because they want to break the system and turn the nation permanently blue. With every deportation, that goal slips farther away.

Their fight to retain as many illegal immigrants as possible is just beginning. Newark and everything we’ve seen so far from the Democrats was merely “a warm-up act.”

On this episode of “Glenn TV’s” Wednesday Night Special, he interviews border czar Tom Homan and breaks down the terrifying reality of what’s on the horizon. Check it out below.

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President Donald Trump’s decisive victory in November appears to have caused a seismic shift in California’s Democratic leaders’ sanctuary rhetoric, clearing a path for conservative local politicians to ramp up their fight against the illegal immigration crisis.

As Americans rally behind Trump’s immigration crackdown, Californians are becoming increasingly outraged by the state’s existing crime surge, further worsened by sanctuary laws.

Trump and others continue to battle against those targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom — despite his recent attempts to reinvent himself as a moderate — keep thwarting those attempts with pro-sanctuary policies.

First-of-its-kind task force

Several local leaders have seized the opportunity to right the course and address the state’s illegal immigration chaos.

United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli announced Monday the formation of a new task force dedicated to eradicating the state’s destructive sanctuary laws.

‘The days of giving criminal illegal aliens a free pass are over.’

Operation Guardian Angel, a program launched May 10 alongside federal partners, aims to “neutralize California’s sanctuary state policy and protect Americans from criminal illegal aliens incarcerated in county jails by issuing federal arrest warrants for them,” according to a Department of Justice press release.

The task force comprises assets from multiple federal agencies, including ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Border Patrol, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

RELATED: Sheriff vows to break California’s sanctuary law by alerting ICE about violent illegal aliens

California Governor Gavin Newsom. Photo by ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images

The press release noted that Essayli’s district is home to approximately 1.5 million illegal aliens, including gang members and violent felons.

As of May 15, the program has already resulted in the arrest of 13 individuals by filing complaints and arrest warrants, allowing federal authorities to seize custody of defendants in state jails. The task force scans criminal databases every day to identify illegal aliens currently detained. An arrest warrant is then issued for those who can be transferred to DOJ custody for illegal re-entry before they are released from local jails.

Essayli slammed California’s sanctuary laws for releasing “even the worst criminal aliens” back onto the street.

“These laws effectively render federal immigration detainers meaningless,” he stated. “The days of giving criminal illegal aliens a free pass are over. While California may be presently disregarding detainers, it cannot ignore federal arrest warrants.”

Essayli said in a statement to Fox News that the state’s sanctuary laws “made it almost impossible for ICE to do their job, issue detainers, and get criminal illegal immigrants out of jails.”

He declared, “We’re going to flood the system with warrants for criminal illegal immigration that are in county jails, they can ignore a detainer, but they cannot ignore a criminal arrest warrant.”

Essayli referred to California as the “testing ground” for the groundbreaking new program that could be implemented in other sanctuary jurisdictions.

He noted that he does not expect resistance from local authorities.

“They have no choice, they will comply. And if they don’t comply, if they interfere in our ability to arrest a federal felon, they can expect to face consequences for that,” Essayli added to Fox.

Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, told Blaze News that federal judges’ criminal arrest warrants “cannot be ignored” and “are exempt from the sanctuary policies.”

While Vaughan stated that she has not seen any indication that local politicians are shifting their stance on sanctuary policies, she highlighted efforts to arrest illegal aliens who were previously deported.

“ICE has taken steps to make it easier for California law enforcement agencies, most of whom have always supported cooperation with ICE, to transfer custody of certain illegal aliens who have been arrested that ICE is seeking to remove,” she explained. “I’m sure most of the sheriffs and police chiefs will be fine with this arrangement.”

When reached for comment, Essayli’s office referred Blaze News to the previous statement in the press release and those provided to Fox News.

Local law enforcement digs in

Some of California’s local law enforcement leaders have also led the charge against the sanctuary policies.

San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez came under fire late last year when she stated that her office would not comply with the San Diego County Board’s decision to pass its own sanctuary measure, in addition to the state’s existing policies.

Martinez’s office previously told Blaze News that it would not be “expanding or changing anything we have been doing.”

“We will continue to follow state law and maintain the way we have been operating for several years. The Board Action sought to impose restrictions well beyond those already provided for in-state law regarding how local law enforcement can work with immigration officials,” the sheriff’s office said.

However, Martinez’s office stopped short of rejecting all sanctuary policies, instead stating that the “current state law strikes the right balance between limiting local law enforcement’s cooperation with immigration authorities, ensuring public safety, and building community trust.”

While Martinez’s office has stood behind California’s sanctuary laws, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a 2026 gubernatorial candidate, has come out in full force against the state, becoming the first and only sheriff to join Huntington Beach’s lawsuit against California, Newsom, and Attorney General Robert Bonta.

In January, the city council members declared Huntington Beach a “non-sanctuary city,” then later filed a lawsuit claiming the state’s laws “drastically limit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement authorities, shield illegal aliens, and threaten public safety.”

Bianco told the Desert Sun, “Local law enforcement has not and does not enforce immigration law.”

He argued that California’s sanctuary policy “was only designed to protect criminals in jail from being deported.”

RELATED: The Trump effect? Newsom pledges to veto Dem bill that would expand protections for illegal aliens

Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County. Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Vaughan told Blaze News that California sheriffs resisting local politicians’ efforts to impose stricter sanctuary laws “should feel a bit safer doing this knowing that the Trump administration will support them.”

‘This is a battle that needs to be fought, both for supremacy of the federal government on immigration enforcement and for the sake of public safety.’

In response to the lawsuit, Bonta’s office previously told Fox News Digital, “The Attorney General is committed to protecting and ensuring the rights of California’s immigrant communities and upholding vital laws like SB 54, which ensure that state and local resources go toward fighting crime in California communities, not toward federal immigration enforcement.”

“Our office successfully fought back against a challenge to SB 54 by the first Trump administration, and we are prepared to vigorously defend SB 54 again,” the statement added.

Bianco’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Recalls and electoral shifts

California locals’ frustration with Democratic policies appeared to reach a tipping point late last year when several recall efforts successfully booted radical leftists.

In Alameda County, an area so devastated by crime that numerous businesses fled, voters removed two George Soros-backed politicians: then-Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao (D) and then-Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price (D).

A similar situation played out in Los Angeles County.

After weathering failed recall efforts, former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón suffered a blistering loss in his November re-election bid.

The progressive DA was replaced by Nathan Hochman, an Independent candidate who ran on the promise to restore safety and prioritize “protecting victims’ interests.”

Hochman, a former Republican, shared a post on social media on May 18 stating that “the fun is over” for illegal alien criminals.

“I am standing at the border between LA County and San Bernardino County where criminals used to enjoy crossing in the LA direction, thinking that little to no consequences would occur if they stole, robbed, and engaged in criminal conduct,” he wrote.

“Times have changed!” Hochman declared. “A new DA was elected. And criminals in LA County will now be prosecuted and held fully accountable for their illegal actions.”

Hochman’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

What’s next?

While it remains uncertain whether the quieted pro-sanctuary rhetoric during Trump’s second term, coupled with mounting frustrations over surging crime, will ultimately eradicate sanctuary policies, it offers California’s dissenting local leaders with a rare opportunity they will either seize or risk losing through inaction.

“The real test will be when the Trump administration begins imposing penalties on California, such as denying certain funding, and possibly takes legal action to challenge some of the more egregious local policies,” Vaughan stated.

“This is a battle that needs to be fought, both for supremacy of the federal government on immigration enforcement and for the sake of public safety,” she remarked.

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The Washington Post was lambasted on social media Friday over an article that suggested Jews didn’t belong in some places after a horrific killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening, and police arrested a suspect who screamed, “Free Palestine!” at cameras.

‘I can’t imagine the level of willfull ignorance or putrid evil it takes to write that sentence in any context.’

While many were incensed by the incident, the Washington Post took the occasion to debate whether there are some places that Jewish people simply do not belong. The tweet was hit with the dreaded “ratio,” when the critical comments outnumber the “likes” and retweets.

The Post was excoriated on social media over the headline.

“What an absolutely psychotic headline,” replied Mike Cosper, a contributor to Christianity Today.

“I’m not saying everyone involved in writing this should be eaten by bears but that is what I am saying,” responded writer Marilyn Maupin.

“Where they belong? I can’t imagine the level of willfull ignorance or putrid evil it takes to write that sentence in any context. Yet here you are, WAPO, blasting your vile bigotry for everyone to see,” said one critic.

“Are you f**king kidding me? What is this, 1943 in Germany? Go f**k yourselves,” read another response.

RELATED: Anti-Israel social media users praise slaying of Israeli embassy staff in DC

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

“Go f**k yourselves where democracy dies in the darkness of your pig ignorant empty skulls, you contemptible scumbags,” said another unsatisfied reader.

“Did Hamas write this headline?” asked one simply.

On Thursday, suspect Elias Rodriguez appeared in court, where he was told that he could face the death penalty over the charges related to the killings.

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More than a dozen people were stabbed in an attack at the central railway station in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday.

The Hamburg fire service initially said that six people were critically wounded, three sustained serious injuries, and another three suffered minor injuries in the alleged attack. Police later said there were no valid figures confirmed about the number of wounded.

‘The person arrested is a 39-year-old woman. Based on the information so far, we believe she acted alone. Investigations into the background are in full swing.’

The incident unfolded on the platform between tracks at about 6 p.m. local time, according to local authorities. First responders treated victims on the platform as well as inside trains.

Hamburg police released a brief statement indicating that a suspect had been arrested.

“The person arrested is a 39-year-old woman. Based on the information so far, we believe she acted alone. Investigations into the background are in full swing,” they wrote.

Video reportedly from the incident on social media appeared to show the suspect being led away by police. She is reportedly German and offered no resistance. Police were able to recover a knife at the scene.

Many train lines were shut down that evening, while others were delayed or diverted because of the incident. Knives are banned at the station.

RELATED: Afghan driver rams into crowd in Germany and injures dozens, police say

JONAS WALZBERG/AFP via Getty Images

Police spokesperson Florian Abbenseth said police were investigating whether she was motivated by mental illness and said so far there were no indications of political motivation.

Video from the Sunday Times News report on YouTube showed bloodied victims at the train station surrounded by police.

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Boeing and the Department of Justice reached a deal regarding two 737 MAX crashes that resulted in the deaths of 346 people.

Friday court filings revealed that Boeing has agreed to “pay or invest” over $1.1 billion, which includes a $487.2 million criminal fine, $445 million to the crash victims’ families, and another $445 million on compliance, safety, and quality programs.

‘Nothing will diminish the victims’ losses, but this resolution holds Boeing financially accountable, provides finality and compensation for the families, and makes an impact for the safety of future air travelers.’

The agreement allows Boeing to avoid prosecution for the deadly 2018 and 2019 plane crashes.

RELATED: Boeing agrees to plead guilty to criminal fraud over fatal 737 MAX crashes: DOJ

Crash site of Ethiopia Airlines on March 11, 2019. MICHAEL TEWELDE/AFP via Getty Images

The DOJ stated, “Ultimately, in applying the facts, the law, and Department policy, we are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits.”

Paul Cassell, an attorney for many of the victims’ families, said, “Although the DOJ proposed a fine and financial restitution to the victims’ families, the families that I represent contend that it is more important for Boeing to be held accountable to the flying public.”

In a separate statement, Cassell called the deal “unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history.”

He noted that the families plan to object to the non-prosecution deal.

RELATED: Boeing burns billions, now begs for a $15 billion lifeline

The crash site of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 on March 12, 2019 in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images

“Nothing will diminish the victims’ losses, but this resolution holds Boeing financially accountable, provides finality and compensation for the families, and makes an impact for the safety of future air travelers,” the DOJ stated.

In July, the company agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration after it allegedly “deceived” the FAA’s Aircraft Evaluation Group “about an important aircraft part called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) that impacted the flight control system of the Boeing 737 MAX,” according to the DOJ.

Cassell previously referred to the DOJ agreement as a “sweetheart plea deal” for Boeing.

Boeing did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

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