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Government officials, the establishment media, and pharmaceutical representatives spent years reassuring the American public that COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective.” Those who dared to correctly suggest otherwise were often attacked and censored, and many who refused the jabs lost their jobs.

Several weeks after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took an axe to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mRNA vaccine development activities and in the immediate wake of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s revocation of emergency-use authorization for COVID vaccines, FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary told CNN talking head Jake Tapper that his agency is about to shine an unflattering light on the fallout of the vaccines.

Makary indicated on Thursday that the manufacturers of the latest COVID vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax — have agreed both to conduct clinical trials on healthy subjects this flu season and to produce their results by May.

‘There have been children who have died from the COVID vaccine.’

“I think that’s going to help answer the question a lot of parents have. If you have a 6-year-old girl, does she need 70 more shots in her average lifespan, or is the population immunity, the natural immunity, and the current circulating virulence — that is, the severity of the virus circulating now — more like a common cold, and is the protection transient?” Makary said. “And what is the true death rate or myocarditis rate or serious adverse event rate of the COVID shot in a young, healthy male today?”

“We do know at the FDA — because we’ve been looking into the [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] database of self-reports — that there have been children who have died from the COVID vaccine,” the commissioner told Tapper.

VAERS accepts reports of adverse events that take place following vaccination from members of the public, health care providers, and vaccine manufacturers.

RELATED: RFK Jr. laughs at Democratic senators’ vaccine concern-mongering: ‘You’re just making stuff up’

SementsovaLesia/Getty Images

According to the VAERS database, there have been many thousands of reported serious reactions following COVID-19 vaccination among those 29 years of age and younger, including death and permanent disabilities.

Makary indicated that his agency is now “doing a proper investigation” into COVID-19 child vaccination deaths.

‘It was not released in the last administration, and it should have been.’

The commissioner noted that this investigation will include a review of autopsy reports, further scientific investigations, and interviews with “the primary sources, the family members who lost a child.”

“We think the public deserves to have that information,” Makary continued. “It was not released in the last administration, and it should have been.”

Blaze News reached out to the FDA as well as to Pfizer, Novavax, and Moderna for comment but did not receive responses by deadline.

After insinuating that the Biden administration sat on possible evidence of the COVID-19 vaccines’ lethality, Makary alleged that some of the recently departed officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had hamstrung efforts earlier this year to obtain data pertaining to the link between myocarditis and the COVID vaccines.

RELATED: RFK Jr. makes crystal clear to the CDC mutineers: The restoration of public trust ‘won’t stop’

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle that can manifest as various symptoms, including heart palpitations, chest pain, fainting, and weakness, and can also cause fatal cardiac arrest.

Months after ex-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky claimed without evidence that her agency had not “seen any reports” or “a signal” for myocarditis, the FDA and the CDC belatedly put out advisories in 2021 admitting of an elevated risk of myocarditis among mRNA COVID-19 vaccinees. Despite these admissions, the corporate media and medical establishment spent years pushing the narrative that such risks remained mild and rare.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a Senate hearing last week that he agreed with the suggestion attributed to Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices member Dr. Retsef Levi that the COVID vaccines caused serious harm, including death, “especially among young people.”

Tapper, referencing Kennedy’s agreement on this point, asked Makary on Thursday whether there was “a reliable, credible study behind that claim,” noting that his team at CNN “went to the CDC website, and almost all the studies there, if not all the studies there, suggested the opposite, that kids were generally not poorly affected by the vaccine, that it was rare.”

“Yes, there is because they’re at higher risk, particularly males, for myocarditis,” Makary responded.

Referencing the findings of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the commissioner added, “It can be as high as 1 in 2,600 young males between the ages of 17 and 24.”

A peer-reviewed study published last year in the pharmacotherapy journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety concluded that “COVID-19 vaccination is strongly associated with a serious adverse safety signal of myocarditis, particularly in children and young adults resulting in hospitalization and death.”

‘We’re not going to just keep rubber-stamping the approvals.’

An FDA-funded study published by the Lancet journal eClinicalMedicine in October indicated that myocardial COVID-19 injuries warrant “continued clinical surveillance and long-term studies in affected patients.”

Makary suggested that his agency has “asked for the CDC to give us [myocarditis] data since we came into office” but was blocked and “given different excuses and told to wait and ‘we can’t do it.'”

The commissioner alleged that “those individuals who resigned from the CDC that were at leadership [level]” were those who “gave us the hard time about getting the data.”

Among the CDC officials who recently resigned were Debra Houry, who served as chief medical officer; Daniel Jernigan, who directed the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Demetre Daskalakis, the non-straight activist who directed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

While Makary suggested during the interview that the vaccines produced as a result of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed saved lives, especially because early on “there was low population immunity,” he stressed that now is “a different time.”

The FDA recently revoked emergency-use authorization for COVID vaccines but approved COVID-19 vaccines for adults over 65 and for individuals 6 months and older who have one or more risk factors putting them at high risk of severe COVID.

“We’re not going to just keep rubber-stamping the approvals that then lead to this incredible march and chant every year: ‘Everyone has to get their COVID shot,'” Makary told Tapper.

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Homeschool has long been seen as a bubble of hardcore Christians who are opting out of the public school system to keep their children far away from state indoctrination — but according to CEO of Classical Conversations, Robert Bortins, that’s all changing.

“I think God’s design for all humanity is for you to educate your own children. So I’m very glad that secular non-Christians are homeschooling,” Bortins begins. “But as that’s taken place, a lot of the homeschool kind of pioneers who maybe created this curriculum don’t have people to pass it on to.”

“So they’re selling to like PE companies or larger organizations, and they’re secularizing the curriculum,” he explains.

While Bortins doesn’t believe it’s necessarily a bad thing that non-Christians are opting to homeschool their children, it is changing the environment, and in some ways for the worse.

One curriculum in particular, Saxon Math, was written by a Christian.

“He gets older. He wants to retire. He sells it to Pearson, which is a billion-dollar publicly traded company. Well, they don’t want to have those same ideas. They want to have their curriculum lined with Common Core or No Child Left Behind, or whatever the latest government edicts are,” Bortins explains.

“And so they basically make a homeschool curriculum of the old version and then just use the branding for the new one. Meanwhile, they’re jacking up the prices for homeschooling curriculum because they don’t want to maintain it and really want to just drive that out,” he continues.

“And so you’ve just got to be very careful that as homeschooling expands, that these ideologies are going to start creeping in. And I think that’s going to have a possibility for just negative outcomes for the homeschooling space in general if we aren’t wide-eyed on what’s going on,” he adds.

One friend of Bortins went on a homeschooling field trip with their kids, which they were expecting to have “a young earth creation worldview.”

“It was being put on by secular evolutionists, and so you know, they paid for it, and went to this event, and really got an education in why they needed to do more research before just blindly thinking everything in the homeschool space is Christian,” he explains.

Stuckey is horrified, noting that it was also reported in the National Review that wokeness is infiltrating homeschooling.

The article details a homeschooling “unConvention” in Virginia that featured sessions like “all history is queer history,” which was led by a transgender rights activist. Other sessions included talks on “forms of decoloniality” and “resolving unexamined experiences with bias and oppression.”

“Now, I don’t understand why someone who believes this wouldn’t just send their kids to public school,” Stuckey says, adding, “I mean, you can get that kind of thing for free, right? Unless they think it’s not radical enough.”

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.

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President Donald Trump commended West Point Academy for canceling an award ceremony intended to honor a “woke” actor.

The U.S. Military Academy scheduled an award ceremony for September 25 to honor Tom Hanks with a Sylvanus Thayer Award. The award is given annually to an American citizen “whose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in the West Point motto, ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’”

‘Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name of Fairness and Justice.’

“Tom Hanks has done more for the positive portrayal of the American service member, more for the caring of the American veteran, their caregivers and their family, and more for the American space program and all branches of government than many other Americans,” stated Robert A. McDonald, the chairman of the West Point Association of Graduates.

WPAOG stated that Hanks’ “five-decade career reflects his support of veterans, the military, and America’s space program,” citing his work as a spokesperson for Washington’s World War II Memorial, a national chairman for the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and movie roles where he played U.S. service members. The group also noted Hanks’ support of military personnel through profits from Hanks for Our Troops, a coffee company.

Hanks called the honor “humbling and meaningful.”

RELATED: Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg reunite for long-awaited WWII drama ‘Masters of the Air,’ celebrating brave men of the ‘Bloody Hundredth’

Tom Hanks in the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ Photo by CBS via Getty Images

“To have my first ever visit to the Academy be to accept such an honor as the Thayer Award is simply astounding. West Point’s legacy of leadership, character, and service to the nation is a powerful example for all Americans,” he said.

Retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, president and chief executive officer of the WPAOG, announced Friday in an email to faculty that the group had canceled the ceremony, according to the Washington Post.

“This decision allows the Academy to continue its focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army,” Bieger wrote.

RELATED: Tom Hanks slams campaign to modify classic books to please cancel culture: ‘Let me decide what I am offended by’

The 2024 Sylvanus Thayer Award awarded to former President Barack Obama. Photo by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images

The email did not specify whether Hanks would still receive the award.

Trump responded to the cancellation in a Monday post on Truth Social.

“Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks,” Trump wrote. “Important move! We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name of Fairness and Justice. Watch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE!”

WPAOG and a representative for Hanks did not respond to a request for comment from Politico.

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Michigan radio journalist Bobby Powell poured his heart into finding and telling the truth about suspicious actors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Sadly, his heart gave out before he could finish his work.

Bobby suffered nine heart attacks after Jan. 6. It would not be hyperbole to suggest that Jan. 6 killed Bobby Powell. He predicted it would. He was 61.

‘I refuse to let the history I recorded on January 6th slide down the rabbit hole.’

It was that ninth heart attack that took his life at about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 4, just weeks after he wrote me an email titled, “Final Thoughts.” We never got the chance to do the interview I requested after reading his final note.

“Well, I’m just about down to my last breath, and I refuse to let the history I recorded on January 6th slide down the rabbit hole,” Powell wrote on Aug. 11. “They’ve tried to bribe me, kill me, and maybe even had a hand in inducing a few of those heart attacks I’ve had.”

Since Bobby died destitute, his son Adam asked the Jan. 6 community to help pay for funeral expenses. In just two days, Adam’s crowdfunding campaign raised $23,000.

Bobby Powell was the cover story of a 2022 issue of Insight by The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times

Bobby was passionate and outspoken about what he witnessed on the east patio of the Capitol on Jan. 6. His frustration grew when it seemed almost no one wanted to hear about the two suspicious actors he captured on video.

He could be gruff. In one of my stories, I called him “grizzled.” I think he wore that like a badge of honor. He spent more than $20,000 and sacrificed his health trying to get the word out about these provocateurs.

Bobby Powell tells his Jan. 6 tale to Joseph Hanneman in “The Real Story of Jan. 6 Part II: The Long Road Home.”

As soon as Bobby began seeking media coverage for his Jan. 6 work, he was demonetized on social media, where he published a blog called “The Truth Is Viral.” That drop in income forced him to sell his Michigan home and live in an RV in Florida.

He said a prominent Michigan Republican Party official offered him $200,000 to go away. When Bobby refused, he was threatened that if he didn’t put a lid on his Jan. 6 fedsurrection talk, he could be killed. For this reason, he moved around a lot from campground to campground in Florida, always looking over his shoulder.

I hope the many politicians and media figures who rebuffed, scorned, or ignored him since Jan. 6 are now inspired to take a look at the evidence he left behind. The silence from them, the FBI, and the Justice Department speaks loudly — even more so now that Bobby’s voice has been stilled.

‘I swore that I would tell the truth to my last breath, no matter what the cost.’

Maybe the new Jan. 6 Select Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) will investigate the men Bobby suspected were fed provocateurs.

In the Aug. 11 email, Bobby’s last message to me was a warning.

“You’re a good man, Joe. You’ve been there for me when many others didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing and speak truth to power,” Bobby wrote. “Unfortunately, I cannot say that about many other ‘MAGA Influencers,’ politicians, or so-called ‘journalists.’”

During my first interview with him in 2022, Bobby shed tears. This tough Marine Corps veteran broke down over the phone — simply because I said that I believed him. His story rang true because it is true. He was beyond relieved to have a new ally. I wrote about his efforts many times over the next three years.

January 6 was supposed to be Bobby’s last assignment before he retired after more than three decades in radio journalism. He hosted his own podcast, “The Truth Is Viral,” and was host of “Your Defending Fathers” on WCHY-FM 97.7 in Cheboygan, Michigan.

Little did he know as he filmed the crowd around the famous Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol the gravity of what he was witnessing. He emailed me in 2022:

Two men I recorded attacking the building in separate incidents, smashing a window and pushing people inside the East Entrance doors, have not been arrested, nor are they on the list of suspects being sought by the FBI.

That remains the case today. Neither bad actor — dressed suspiciously like plainclothes federal agents — has been publicly identified, arrested, or prosecuted.

It was not for lack of trying on his part. In January 2021, Bobby contacted the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Force. He offered a copy of the 29 minutes of high-definition video he shot on Jan. 6. They never called back.

Bobby was filming the crowds on the east patio of the Capitol at about 2:15 p.m. on Jan. 6 when Hunter Allen Ehmke jumped on a window sill and began smashing the glass. Ehmke was later arrested, convicted, and ordered to serve four months in jail.

‘Be careful who you trust, Joe. Wolves in sheep’s clothing are all around us.’

When Bobby spun around with his camera, he caught the man as he pulled out a large section of the tempered glass and dropped it on the ground.

Bobby Powell shows me his Jan. 6 footage in his RV near Tampa in November 2022. Paulio Shakespeare/The Epoch Times

Minutes later, when Bobby was approaching the entrance to the giant Columbus Doors, another man dressed in tactical clothing placed a hand on his back and shoved him into the foyer. That man was holding open one of the doors with a heavy wooden rod.

Bobby personally handed thumb drives with video of these incidents to prominent Republicans in Congress and scores of media celebrities and influencers. Only a few gave his story the attention it deserved — if any attention at all.

Trying to engage with the self-appointed “Sedition Hunters” in late 2002, Bobby asked them why his two feds were not on the Sedition Hunters’ website. Bobby made up hashtags for the two provocateurs: #CapitolGlassMan and #CapitolDoorman.

Sedition Hunters eventually put up a page with photos of the GlassMan. They even claimed to know his name, but no one was ever arrested.

Joseph M. Hanneman

Missing CCTV video

One of the topics we were going to discuss in our final interview was a gap in the Capitol Police CCTV security video from inside the Columbus Doors.

The missing footage should have shown #CapitolDoorman holding the huge ornate doors open with a wooden pole and pushing protesters inside the Capitol. This footage was somehow missing from the video from Camera 7029 published online by the Republican House Subcommittee on Oversight.

This was a great find by the intrepid Marine. The gap in video has not yet been solved. That is a project I will take on in Bobby’s memory.

During his final two years, Bobby got bowled over by two hurricanes. Before one of them, he emailed me that his RV was hunkered down in an alley between two brick buildings in the Tampa area. Hurricane Debby flooded his RV in August 2024. After that storm, Bobby and a neighbor used his boat to rescue a 90-year-old man and his caregiver from the floodwaters.

Peter Ticktin, an attorney for President Donald J. Trump, was one of the few officials who accepted a thumb drive with Bobby Powell’s Jan. 6 video evidence. Photo courtesy of Bobby Powell.

“On the bright side, I have a roof over my head, air-conditioning, internet, and I’m not dead yet,” he wrote me in an Oct. 2 email. “Compared to others, I have a lot to be thankful for.”

Bobby’s heart was badly scarred and less able to pump effectively every day. He knew his time was growing short.

Not much heart muscle

“My cardiologist said my heart is about 30% muscle and 70% scar tissue that doesn’t beat at all,” he wrote in late 2024. “I asked why I was out of breath all of the time, and she told me, ‘Because every step you take is like carrying a 250-pound man on your back. Your heart has to pump twice as hard whenever you do anything.’”

Even with that challenge, Bobby was determined to forge ahead with his work. He attended the Capitol premiere of my documentary “The Real Story of Jan. 6 Part II: The Long Road Home.” He recorded a testimonial for our producers after the screening.

Bobby testified in several Jan. 6 trials in Washington. He was kept out of others by DOJ prosecutors who didn’t want federal juries to see his fedsurrection footage. The court cases gave him an outlet to keep sharing his story. It also took a heavier toll on his health.

“My cardiologist tells me that every day I wake up is a gift from God,” he wrote on Aug. 11, 2025. “I’m still limited in my abilities, but I think I can handle a call-in show I’m planning; until I can’t.”

In December 2022, he wrote me from his hospital bed after Jan. 6 heart attack No. 4.

“This is number four since J6, five total in the last three years,” he said. “And it’s the last one I will survive.”

Bobby said both atria of his heart were badly damaged by the attack. He had to wear a defibrillator jacket until a permanent defibrillator could be implanted.

Bobby Powell was all thumbs-up from his hospital bed in December 2022. Photo courtesy of Bobby Powell.

After we filmed a documentary interview in his RV near Terra Ceia, Fla., in November 2022, we talked about his Christian faith. I gave him a blessed challenge coin designed by my friend Father Richard Heilman. The coin had been touched to a relic of the True Cross of Christ, which makes it a third-class relic.

One side of the coin has the image of St. Michael the Archangel with the Latin phrase Defende Nos in Proelio (Defend Us in Battle). The other side has a likeness of St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus, with the Latin phrase Sancte Joseph Castissimi • Terror Daemonum, noting Joseph’s warrior title as the Terror of Demons.

I gave this blessed coin to Bobby Powell in November 2022. He said he would keep it on him at all times. Joseph M. Hanneman/Blaze News.

Bobby understood as well as anyone that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. As St. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:

Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.

Bobby said he tried to live his life every day for Christ. In his final email to me, he wrote of regret for not teaching his daughter more about Jesus.

“I could never speak to her about Christ’s love for us,” he wrote. “She’d just look at me with her big, beautiful eyes and say, ‘Oh Daddy, you know I don’t believe in that.’”

“I thought I would have plenty of time to teach her about Christ, but she died at just 24 from an idiopathic heart attack.”

Bobby said his hurt and regret fueled a commitment that drove his Jan. 6 work.

“I lifted her ashes to the heavens and swore to Almighty God that I would never be afraid to tell the truth again for fear of being called a ‘conspiracy theorist’ or a ‘kook,’ even though all of my conspiracy theories turned out to be true,” he wrote.

“I swore that I would tell the truth to my last breath, no matter what the cost.”

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​Politics, Opinion & analysis, January 6, Fedsurrection, Truth about jan 6, Capitol riot, Investigation, Congress, Fbi, Justice department, Department of justice, Bobby powell 

After federal agents raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia and arrested 475 illegal aliens, most of whom were South Korean nationals, President Donald Trump’s administration struck an agreement with the South Korean government for their release.

Last week, Homeland Security Investigations, alongside other federal agencies, conducted a raid as part of a “multi-month criminal investigation” into “unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes.”

‘Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so.’

Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of HSI for Georgia and Alabama, explained during a Friday press conference that the arrested individuals were “illegally present in the United States or in violation of their presence in the United States,” noting that they had either crossed the border illegally, overstayed their visas, or entered the country through visa waivers but were not permitted to work.

Schrank and a spokesperson for South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that most of the arrested individuals were South Korean nationals.

The Trump administration and the South Korean government reached a deal on Sunday for the release of 300 workers.

RELATED: Federal agents arrest nearly 500 in immigration raid at Hyundai plant

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

“Negotiations for the release of the detained workers have been concluded, after swift responses by the relevant ministries, business agencies, and companies,” South Korean presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik stated. “However, some administrative procedures remain, and once they’re completed, a chartered plane will depart to bring back our citizens.”

Trump said, “Following the Immigration Enforcement Operation on the Hyundai Battery Plant in Georgia, I am hereby calling on all Foreign Companies investing in the United States to please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws.”

RELATED: After ICE removes illegal workers, job applicants flood meatpacking plant to replace them

Photographer: Parker Puls/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so,” he continued. “What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers. Together, we will all work hard to make our Nation not only productive, but closer in unity than ever before.”

Hyundai Motor Company provided a statement to Blaze News on Friday, stating that it was “reviewing our processes to ensure that all parties working on our projects maintain the same high standards of legal compliance that we demand of ourselves.”

“This includes thorough vetting of employment practices by contractors and subcontractors,” the company stated.

Blaze News reached out to Hyundai for an updated statement on Monday.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal immigration agencies can continue to conduct massive sweeps in Southern California after a lower court ruled the operations allegedly violated due process for illegal aliens.

Federal Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued the restraining order for the operations in July.

“We argued the order was overly broad, aiming to hinder our ability to apprehend and remove illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. We are a nation of laws. Federal law enforcement is non-negotiable and cannot be curtailed by any court. If plaintiffs disagree with immigration laws, they should address Congress, not a single judge,” acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said in response to the ruling.

Gregory Bovino, the chief patrol agent in charge of removal operations in Los Angeles County, said, “Border Patrol has been doing this 101 years and quite frankly the poorly written (very poorly) [temporary] restraining order was the worst I’ve ever seen. We are going hard in Los Angeles today and are hitting a location as I write this.”

Despite Frimpong’s restraining order, Border Patrol still conducted lawful operations in the Los Angeles area.

RELATED: Resistance mounts in Chicago as city braces for potential National Guard deployment

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Bovino is expected to lead a task force in Chicago for the enhanced crackdown on illegal aliens in that part of the country, bringing similar tactics and planning used in Southern California.

Editor’s note: The headline of this article was edited after publication.

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​Politics 

Over the weekend, Indiana’s lieutenant governor decided to show his cards. On social media, he boasted of supporting the importation of 40,000 Haitians into his state. Then, in a tacit admission that he knew how wrong this was, he shut off the comments, then deleted the post.

If he’s so proud of turning his state into a third-world dumping ground, why silence the people who elected him? Because he knows his constituents — Trump voters in a state the president won by 20 points in 2024 — vehemently reject it. He tried backtracking with another post, but that was too little, too late.

America’s culture comes from Americans. Indiana deserves leaders who understand that. Iowa will have one.

When a Republican openly advocates something his base opposes, he’s telling you whom he serves. Not the people of Indiana. Not the voters of the GOP. He serves the corporatist and globalist interests that see middle America as expendable.

The real divide

This fight is no longer Republican versus Democrat. It isn’t conservative versus liberal. The real question is simple: Do you believe America is for Americans or not?

Do landowners in Iowa actually own their land, or are they just maintaining it and paying taxes on it until some globalist interest comes along and decides to take it? Do the people of Indiana get to pass on their heritage, or must they watch it be erased by forced demographic change?

Democrats like Tim Walz in Minnesota and Rob Sand in my home state of Iowa are eager to impose that future. But too many Republicans are playing along, including Indiana’s lieutenant governor.

What’s at stake

I’m running for governor because part of a governor’s job is to protect and preserve the culture of his state. And culture begins with people — families and communities who built the heartland on hard work, dedication, grit, integrity, and a belief that a holy and righteous God still rewards such things with peace and prosperity.

That means ending the punishment of Americans who play by the rules, only to be undercut for cheap labor and political power. Donald Trump understood this, which is why he became the most successful Republican leader of the modern era. Yet too many in the party haven’t learned the lesson — or refuse to.

RELATED: A storm is brewing in Iowa — and Republicans should take note: ‘There are danger signs’

Photo by Dee Liu via Getty Images

Iowa’s fight

Here is what must be done to preserve our way of life.

We need an economy that works for families — not for Wall Street. As governor, I will launch the largest skilled-trade expansion in Iowa’s history. These are good jobs AI won’t erase, jobs that don’t require sending our kids off to universities that saddle them with six figures in student loan debt and leftist indoctrination.

Our communities must shape government, not the other way around. They are not cogs in the globalist-corporatist machine. They are the bedrock of America’s culture, traditions, and faith. They built the greatest nation in history, and they deserve protection.

America’s culture comes from Americans. Indiana deserves leaders who understand that. Iowa will have one. If elected governor, I will use every power vested in me to protect and preserve Iowa’s culture — a culture rooted in Iowans themselves.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Illegal immigration, Immigration crisis, Immigration and customs enforcement, Illegal immigrants, Haitian immigrants, Haitian migrants, Iowa, Indiana, Republicans, Globalism, Culture, Iowa governor 

President Donald Trump announced the latest steps his administration is taking to protect the right to pray in schools across the nation.

Trump pointed out the tremendous, and often underreported, anti-Christian bias that has become commonplace in American schools during a speech Monday at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. In order to protect millions of Christians across the country, Trump announced that his Department of Education will soon issue a new guidance to protect prayer in public schools.

‘I know what you went through.’

“For most of our country’s history, the Bible was found in every classroom in the nation,” Trump said. “Yet in many schools today, students are instead indoctrinated with anti-religious propaganda, and some are even punished for their religious beliefs.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Trump added.

RELATED: Trump defends religious faith, says Tim Kaine ‘should be ashamed’ for equating the Declaration of Independence to Iran

Trump went on to tell the story of Hannah Allen, a student at Honey Grove Middle School in Texas who tried to gather a group of friends to pray for an injured classmate in 2018. The school’s principal reportedly told Allen not pray publicly but to instead pray behind a curtain, in an empty gym, or outside where she is out of view.

Due to pressure from religious liberty groups, the Honey Grove Texas Independent School District eventually reversed its decision and allowed students like Allen to pray in public.

“I know what you went through,” Trump said. “I know what you went through.”

RELATED: Mainstream media turns a blind eye to vicious stabbing of young Ukrainian woman

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

“To support students like Hannah, I’m pleased to announce this morning that the Department of Education will soon issue new guidance protecting the right to prayer in our public schools,” Trump added.

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​Donald trump, Anti-christian bias, Anti-christian, Prayer in school, Education department, Hannah allen, Protecting prayer, Bible museum, Bible, Faith, Politics 

In a recent interview, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) urged Americans to tone down violent and divisive rhetoric — emphasizing unity and civil debate as core to the nation’s strength.

“The president has done this, knowingly divided. He uses words like, ‘the enemy,’ ‘the enemy within,’ and we’ve never used that language,” Walz said in the interview.

However, Walz has contributed to much of the inflammatory rhetoric himself, and BlazeTV host Pat Gray has the receipts.

“Think about how easy it would be to be a damn Republican,” Walz shouted on stage at a DNC summer meeting. “Oh, what should I wear today? This stupid, freaking, red hat. What should I say today? I don’t know, just make sure it’s cruel. Who do we listen to? That guy, oh, the felon in the White House.”

“That’s not divisive at all,” Gray says sarcastically on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“And neither is this,” he adds, before playing another damning clip of Walz.

“My record is so pro-choice, Nancy Pelosi asked me if I should tone it down. I stand with Planned Parenthood, and we won!” he yelled.

In yet another clip, Walz is confronted in a congressional hearing about calling ICE agents under the orders of Trump “a modern-day Gestapo.”

“Do you realize how disgusting that is considering the history of Nazi Germany? Would you like to recant that statement?” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) asked Walz.

“What I said congressman, and I have a long history of supporting law enforcement, I said President Trump was using them as his modern-day Gestapo,” Walz answered.

“Right,” Gray says in disbelief. “That’s the problem.”

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​Camera phone, Free, Sharing, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Pat gray unleashed, Pat gray, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Tim walz, Tampon tim, The dnc, Gestapo, Nazi comparisons, Leftism, Nancy pelosi, Pro choice, Planned parenthood, Nazi germany, Ice agents, President donald trump, President trump 

President Trump drew heavy criticism for calling up the California National Guard to confront anti-ICE rioting in Los Angeles in July. On Sept. 3, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer blocked the move, claiming it violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. He delayed his order until Sept. 12, but the administration immediately appealed, and the Ninth Circuit has already granted a partial stay while the case moves forward.

Critics insist Trump is misusing the military as some kind of “secret police.” They invoke the Posse Comitatus Act as if it were an absolute ban on military involvement in domestic affairs. That is flatly wrong. The Act does not prohibit the president from using the Army, Marines, or National Guard to enforce federal law. It simply requires that such forces be deployed under the president’s authority, not at the whim of a sheriff or local marshal.

The real danger comes not from Trump’s use of the National Guard, but from a judiciary willing to invent limits the Constitution never imposed.

The Constitution itself grants the president this power. Article IV, Section 4 reads:

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

Congress reinforced that authority in the Insurrection Act of 1807, which authorized the president to use the Army when it became “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” In short: When mobs threaten federal law, the president has the duty — and the power — to act.

What Posse Comitatus really meant

Before 1878, federal marshals could deputize Army units as a local posse. That pulled soldiers out of their chain of command and placed them under partisan officials. Officers objected, rightly fearing the practice would corrupt the Army. They welcomed congressional intervention.

The Posse Comitatus Act corrected that flaw. It barred the military from being drafted by civil authorities except when the Constitution or Congress explicitly authorized it. The Act did not strip the president of power. It reaffirmed that only the president, acting under constitutional authority, could commit troops to restore order.

History bears this out. The U.S. military has intervened in domestic affairs 167 times since America’s founding. Soldiers put down the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s, enforced fugitive slave laws in the 1850s, and captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry in 1859. After the Civil War, troops secured polling places so freedmen could vote. The Act was not written to stop such uses, but to prevent local abuse.

As scholar John Brinkerhoff explained in 2002, “All that [the Posse Comitatus Act] really did was to repeal a doctrine whose only substantial foundation was an opinion by an attorney general. … The president’s power to use both regulars and militia remained undisturbed.”

Why Breyer is wrong

Judge Breyer’s ruling misreads both history and law. By treating Posse Comitatus as a blanket prohibition, he ignores the Constitution and the Insurrection Act. His injunction assumes any federal troop support is unlawful. But the law says otherwise: Troops cannot be used under lesser authority than the president’s. Trump acted as president. That is the highest authority the law contemplates.

The Ninth Circuit has already acknowledged the seriousness of the case by issuing a partial stay. That matters. Pulling remaining troops before the courts finish their review risks chaos. Keeping them in place while the appeal proceeds protects public order.

RELATED: A president’s job is to stop the burning if governors won’t

Photo by SAHAB ZARIBAF/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Prudence, not prohibition

The Posse Comitatus Act never emasculated the presidency. It preserved the president’s authority while removing soldiers from the clutches of local sheriffs. The only real limitation is prudence. Presidents must decide when the threat justifies force and when restraint serves the nation better.

I have opposed proposals to use the military in the so-called war on drugs and other ill-considered campaigns. Prudence matters. But the Constitution is clear: When federal law is under assault, the president can act.

The real danger comes not from Trump’s use of the National Guard, but from a judiciary willing to invent limits the Constitution never imposed. Los Angeles cannot be allowed to burn while mobs terrorize federal officers. The president has the duty to restore order.

That is why the administration is right to appeal. The courts should correct this error and reaffirm what the Constitution already guarantees: the president’s authority to protect the republic against domestic violence.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Posse comitatus, Insurrection act, Insurrection act of 1807, Anti-ice mobs, Anti-ice riots, Constitution, Charles breyer, Donald trump, Illegal immigration, Law and order, National guard, Federal court, Ninth circuit, Whiskey rebellion, Civil war, Article ii 

In 1993, Tara Reade worked as staff assistant in then-Senator Joe Biden’s office. One day, according to Reade, Biden allegedly sexually assaulted her. She claims she filed a written complaint with a congressional personnel office, but as of today, no copy of this complaint has surfaced.

All attempts to seek help both internally and externally were unsuccessful, according to Reade, who alleges she was stripped of her responsibilities and treated poorly as a result.

In 2020 when Joe Biden was running for president, Reade filed a police report with the Washington, D.C., police, but the case remained inactive because the timing of the alleged assault fell outside the statute of limitations. She was even denied help from Time’s Up — a nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse. However, the organization had ties to Anita Dunn, one of Joe Biden’s top advisers.

The intimidation, threats, and false accusations Reade suffered from her advocacy became overwhelming. In 2020, Reade’s Twitter records were subpoenaed by a grand jury, her bank accounts were disrupted, and a FedEx package containing her book manuscript, which was a memoir detailing her alleged abuse, mysteriously disappeared.

Fearing for her safety, Reade relocated to Russia in 2023 after being granted asylum. Even though Biden is no longer in office, she remains in Russia today, as she fears the Biden family will seek retribution.

In 2024, Reade filed a $10 million tort claim against the Department of Justice, alleging that the DOJ and the FBI targeted her after she went public with her claims, but in February of this year, she increased the claim to $100 million.

On a recent episode of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” Reade joined Sara to share the details of her legal battles, including why she amended the lawsuit to include Jill and Hunter Biden.

In 2020, when Biden was confronted about Reade’s accusation, he “looked confused” and “stuttered” through a denial, says Reade. “I don’t know whether he remembered what he did or not,” she says.

But in 2023, it was clear to everyone that he was in severe mental decline. “They had already issued a statement that he wasn’t fit for court,” says Reade.

That’s why she’s amended her lawsuit to include Jill and Hunter.

“Hunter and Jill Biden were both working as de facto presidents — unauthorized and unelected — and so they do not fall under any kind of protection against a lawsuit because they shouldn’t have been doing what they were doing in the first place,” she tells Sara. “My lawsuit is the first one to hold this administration accountable …for the fact that somebody else was pulling the strings and, you know, running the show.”

The “cabal” that was puppeteering Joe Biden was bigger than just Hunter and Jill, though. There were numerous people pulling strings behind the scenes.

“That Democrat elite cabal is still there, and they’re waiting like a spider for the next election,” warns Reade, pointing to Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, and Barack Obama.

“This is a dangerous time, and the way I was treated was a microcosm of a macrocosm. There were so many Americans that were targeted and abused by the Biden regime via a weaponized FBI and DOJ.”

Reade hopes that the DOJ will allow whistleblower hearings related to the numerous allegations of abuse and corruption in the Biden administration. “I would be more than willing to testify about Biden’s corruption and about what he did to me and then the way he tried to cover it up,” she says.

To hear the full interview, watch the video above.

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​Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Blazetv, Blaze media, Tara reade, Biden, Biden sexual assault, Jill biden, Hunter biden 

President Donald Trump torched Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia over his recent remarks undermining the importance of faith in our country’s founding.

Kaine recently argued that our natural rights come from the government and not from God, directly contradicting the Declaration of Independence. Kaine went on to say that the simple notion that our inalienable rights come from God is “extremely troubling,” comparing this core founding principle to Iran’s theocratic regime.

‘It is the tyrants who are denying our rights.’

“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes,” Kaine said in a committee hearing Wednesday. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia [sic] law, … and they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator.”

“The statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling,” he continued.

RELATED: Tim Kaine shockingly compares the Declaration of Independence to Iran’s theocratic regime: ‘Extremely troubling’

Kaine’s comments were promptly met with outrage on the right, most recently with Trump calling him “ineffectual” and saying he “should be ashamed of himself.”

“As everyone in this room understands, it is the tyrants who are denying our rights and the rights that come from God,” Trump said during a speech at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

“It’s this Declaration of Independence that proclaims we’re endowed by our Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Trump added. “The senator from Virginia should be ashamed of himself.”

RELATED: John Thune to use Democrats’ own ‘nuclear option’ to defeat Senate confirmation blockade

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Trump went on to defend the notion of God-given rights in spite of Kaine’s comments, saying we will “never apologize for our faith.”

“We will never surrender our God-given rights. We will defend our liberties, our values, our sovereignty, and we will defend our freedom,” Trump said.

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​Donald trump, Bible museum, Faith, Tim kaine, God given rights, Inalienable rights, Senate, Senate democrats, Senate republicans, Declaration of independence, Iran, Iranian regime, Life, Liberty, And the pursuit of happiness, Trump administration, Politics 

A popular left-wing radio host said he understands vaccine hesitancy and revealed he has his own health issues after getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

The remarks came up organically on Friday when a listener called in to a popular New York City radio show to air a grievance he had with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

‘It’s a new vaccine every few months, every year.’

“Yo, I have a problem with these anti-vaxxers, man, especially this Robert Kennedy guy,” James from North Carolina began.

The caller immediately made an egregious claim in relation to why he feels the secretary is not suitable for his job.

“He is in no position to be telling people anything about health. I mean, he can’t — have y’all heard how he breathes?” the caller said.

The call came during Power 105.1 FM’s “The Breakfast Club” show during a segment called “Get It Off Your Chest.”

“He ain’t got no business telling nobody nothing,” the caller went on about Kennedy. “Vaccines are important because it builds up an immunity to your system whenever you get those shots for whatever the illness is.”

However, the radio hosts quickly put the man in check.

RELATED: Florida moves to end ALL vaccine mandates in MAJOR health policy shift

Host Lenard McKelvey, aka Charlamagne tha God, immediately said, “I understand the vaccine hesitancy though, especially amongst black people.”

McKelvey is a noted Democratic supporter with a huge following, who at times has criticized the party’s policies. He was also the host who interviewed Joe Biden when the politician said that if Americans did not vote for him, they are not black.

Co-host and comedian Jess Hilarious also disagreed with the caller.

“There are natural ways to boost your immunity, though,” she retorted. “A vaccine is not the only way to do that. You got to really be careful about the things that you’re putting in your body. You got to do research on all that stuff. It’s a new vaccine every few months, every year, and then you find out after it’s being recalled.”

At that point, Charlamagne revealed that he feels like he has chest pain since being vaccinated for COVID-19.

“I ain’t going to lie. Every time I have chest pain now, I be like, ‘Man, I should have never got that damn COVID shot,” he continued. “I had no cardiovascular issues until I got that goddamn COVID shot.”

RELATED: The real RFK threat

Charlamagne tha God. Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images

The caller mostly relented as co-host DJ Envy, the third member of the show, added onto the group’s position.

“[They] kind of forced us to get the COVID shot. Right. We didn’t have an option if we wanted to continue to work, which sucks,” Envy said.

Still, Charlamagne was not willing to make a definitive claim that the vaccine had caused his chest pain. Safely and legally, the host remarked, “I’m just saying when I think about, you know, things, the changes that I’ve had over the last five years, that was a big one, getting that vaccine.”

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​Align, Radio show, Charlamagne, New york city, Robert f. kennedy jr., Rfk jr., Vaccine, Covid vaccine, Covid 19, Entertainment 

CHICAGO, Ill. — “Make some noise if you’re going to fight like hell to abolish ICE!”

The marching crowd in downtown Chicago cheered as far-left activists led the way through the streets on Saturday. It had been barely a week since President Donald Trump reiterated his pledge to send in the National Guard and extra federal immigration agents to the Windy City in order bring down the crime rate. In the week after Labor Day, far-left groups of all kinds are preparing for when the troops and agents come in force.

“This administration has waged war on anybody in this country who is a threat to white supremacy. … We are also literally standing in a moment where we are fighting about whether justice, equity, and, freedom will live or die in this generation,” one speaker said during Saturday’s protest.

RELATED: Pritzker and other libs melt down over Trump’s ‘Chipocalypse Now’ meme, prompting a badly needed reality check

— (@)

The anti-Trump march was peaceful as it snaked its way through the heart of downtown, once again not having a march in the west or south side of the city. Despite Chicago Public Schools having a budget of over $10 billion, protesters chanted, “Fund the schools, not the Guard! Get the hell out of our backyard!”

— (@)

In North Chicago, about an hour north of the Loop, anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters gathered outside Naval Station Great Lakes, the military base most known for being the boot camp for U.S. Navy recruits. Federal agents have set up an operations center on the base to support the illegal immigration crackdown.

While no major acts of violence took place, the small crowd marched on the street and blocked the roadway that led to the base’s main gate. Protesters blocked the road for around 30 minutes before marching on. Local and Navy police officers watched the group to ensure they did not step on federal property.

RELATED: ‘My position changed over the past week’: The Chicagoans who want Trump to send in the National Guard

— (@)

The ICE facility in Broadview, a village outside Chicago city limits, has also seen protesters attempting to block federal vehicles from entering or leaving the compound. On Friday, anti-ICE agitators claimed victory because ICE vehicles reportedly turned around after seeing the crowd. It appears they will try the same tactic again this week.

While the increased enforcement operations in Chicago are just getting started, the effect of the pending arrival of federal agents has already been felt in other parts of the city.

WGN reported businesses in the Latino-majority neighborhood of Little Village have seen a 50% decrease in customers since many residents, and seemingly illegal aliens, are staying at home.

“Generally, these corners — you’ll have one vendor per corner, [but] they’re empty. The vendors aren’t out there,” business owner Ariella Santoyo told WGN. “You see people not in restaurants. To see it so empty, to find parking is super rare. People are just holding off.”

Little Village Community Council President Baltazar Enriquez said he and other volunteers will be patrolling the neighborhood and blow whistles to alert illegal aliens if they see federal agents.

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​Politics 

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show returned in 2024 following a hiatus, but the brand has never been the same.

The company pushed pause on the show in 2019 after chief marketing officer Ed Razek resigned over remarks that were considered to be insensitive to transgender and obese models.

‘Plus-size models are a byproduct of the body positivity movement.’

Razek essentially saying the show is not for men or plus-size models was enough for the brand to slam the brakes on both their show and their appeal to women. Upon the fashion show’s revival in 2024, Victoria’s Secret made its allegiance clear — and it was not with their usual fan base.

Not only did the revamped show feature models over 50 years old, but it also showcased five plus-size models and two men pretending to be women.

In a new promo, the brand is doubling down and proving its 2024 return was not just the last gasp of a woke era, but it was only the beginning of its redrawn standard. Whereas the new genre of Victoria’s Secret Angels may have been simple additions to the roster in 2024, in 2025, they are leading the charge ahead of the October show.

In the new promo — aptly titled “The Secret Is Out” — the fashion show features transgender model Alex Consani and plus-size model Yumi Nu front and center, while dragging out some of its legacy models who are widely accused as having facial surgeries.

It is not just the use of Consani that is troubling, but the model’s backstory makes his inclusion even more disturbing.

RELATED: Victoria’s Secret or Victor’s Secret? Trans models featured in 2024 fashion show

Alex Consani. Photo by Gisela Schober/Getty Images

At just age 14, Consani gave an interview as “the world’s first” and “youngest transgender model,” according to Cosmopolitan.

“I was about three or four years old when I realized I was attracted to girls’ clothes. So I slowly started wearing girlish clothes and became who I am today,” the boy said.

Cosmopolitan eerily wrote that Consani “isn’t just interested in looking pretty” but wants to achieve “greater tolerance for transsexuality.”

Last year, Victoria’s Secret featured Valentina Sampaio, a male model posing as a woman. The 28-year-old Brazilian also has a jaw-dropping background. According to Business Insider, he was told by a psychologist that he was transgender at just 8 years old before he started referring to himself as a girl at 12.

In 2020, Sampaio became the first female-dressing man to be in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, which is also where Nu, the plus-size model in the Victoria’s Secret promo, made waves.

RELATED: Candace Owens is wrong: Victoria’s Secret is nothing to celebrate

Yumi Nu. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit

Nu was the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover model in 2022 and was touted by People as the first “Asian curve model” to do so.

These types of titles are often associated with the new era of victim-centric models, including Anok Yai, who was also featured in the Victoria’s Secret ad. Yai, 27, was described by Hola! as the the first “black model of South Sudanese descent to open major shows.”

Also featured in the promo were veteran models Adriana Lima, 44, Lily Aldridge, 39, and Joan Smalls, 37.

Blaze News reporter Rebeka Zeljko said that while the brand is “clearly trying to relive the glory days,” it has still made room for “ugly ideologies” to be represented.

“Trans models like Consani have become immensely successful in the modeling industry, where androgyny is viewed as versatile and desirable,” Zeljko explained. “Plus-size models are a byproduct of the body positivity movement that ignored both health standards and objective beauty. In both cases, Consani and Nu clash with Victoria’s Secret’s original and beloved brand of hyperfemininity.”

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​Culture, Align, News, Models, Victoria’s secret, Transgender, Obesity, Entertainment 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is set to leverage a Democratic precedent to override their obstruction and clear through the lengthy backlog of nominees.

Democrats have held up President Donald Trump’s Senate nominees for months, making it the first administration ever not to have a single nominee confirmed via voice vote or unanimous consent. Instead, Democrats are digging their heels in and forcing “time-consuming” votes on uncontroversial nominees who later get confirmed along bipartisan lines. Now, the “nuclear option” is on the table.

‘It’s Trump derangement syndrome on steroids.’

“It’s delay for delay’s sake, and it’s a pettiness that leaves desks sitting empty in agencies across the federal government and robs our duly elected president of a team to enact the agenda that the American people voted for in November,” Thune said in an op-ed for Breitbart.

“Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this obstruction any longer,” Thune added. “We have tried to work with Democrats in good faith to batch bipartisan, noncontroversial nominees and clear them expeditiously, according to past precedent. Democrats have stood in the way at every turn.”

RELATED: Republican senator takes aim at JD Vance: ‘What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment’

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Over the last month, Republican senators have developed a rule change based on a proposal initially introduced by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Angus King of Maine in 2023, one Republican aide told Blaze News.

Starting Monday, Thune will begin reforming the Senate rules based on the Democratic proposal, allowing Republicans to confirm nominees in batches, the aide confirmed to Blaze News. Without this rule change, the Senate would need to hold over 600 roll call votes just to clear the backlog of nominees who are currently on the docket.

“No party should be able to weaponize the confirmation process the way that Senate Democrats are doing now, in a way that has never been done before,” Thune said.

RELATED: Tim Kaine shockingly compares the Declaration of Independence to Iran’s theocratic regime: ‘Extremely troubling’

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

Since Trump took office in January, the Senate has taken more votes than any other Senate at this point in over three decades. Despite this, the current confirmation pace has plateaued due to Democrats’ obstruction, which Thune said comes down to one thing.

“It’s Trump derangement syndrome on steroids.”

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​John thune, Amy klobuchar, Angus king, Senate republicans, Senate democrats, Senate confirmations, Senate nominees, Donald trump, Trump administration, Trump nominees, Trump derangement syndrome, Politics 

It might seem odd to bring up transhumanism at a national conservatism conference. What does a fringe group of scientists trying to “become gods” have to do with national security, fiscal sanity, or securing our borders?

But as leading conservative policy activist Rachel Bovard argued at NatCon 5, the greatest threat to the movement may not be unhinged debt, unchecked immigration, or even foreign enemies. These threats are real — but they’re symptoms of something deeper. The more dangerous threat is philosophical. It’s metaphysical. And it’s already being engineered.

Transhumanism will seduce the libertarian wing of the right with the promise of individual freedom, productivity, and human enhancement. But make no mistake: Transhumanism is not liberation. It’s the edge of a metaphysical cliff.

Transhumanism, broadly defined, seeks to use technology to overcome the limits of the human species. More specifically, it’s a global movement of scientists, technologists, and philosophers committed to accelerating humanity’s “evolution” into a post-human future — one free of weakness, ignorance, suffering, and, most ambitiously, death. Through artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, gene editing, and artificial wombs, transhumanists want to break the boundaries of biology itself.

Bovard is right to identify transhumanism as a direct assault on conservative metaphysics. Conservatives are metaphysical realists. We believe truth, goodness, and beauty exist independently of us. We believe human nature is not a construct but a reality — immutable, knowable, and worthy of reverence. The body is not an accident. It is a gift.

Transhumanism, in contrast, is anti-realist — and practically Marxist. Things like truth, goodness, beauty, and human nature are mere constructs. “In a world unmoored from truth,” Bovard warned, “everything can be rewritten. And the people with the most power can do the most rewriting.”

At its core, transhumanism isn’t a harmless theory tossed around on university campuses and tech conferences. It’s the will to power masquerading as liberation.

From transgenderism to transhumanism

The transgender ideology is the beachhead for this deeper revolution. If our culture can be convinced that male and female — the most basic, biological categories — are malleable, no metaphysical limit is left to defend. As Bovard put it, “If they can do that, they can do anything.”

Transgenderism prepares the way for transhumanism — both ideologies reject the body as given and instead treat it as material to be manipulated, dissolved, or remade. Both claim to be about “liberation,” but what they really offer is alienation from the real.

The ultimate goal, Bovard explains, is “to liberate people from reality” itself.

Transhumanism, however, goes beyond transgenderism’s attack on gender into reality itself. The human body is editable, the human mind programmable, death overcomable, and metaphysical guardrails deplorable.

This dystopic “liberation” entails children gestated in pods, designer embryos edited for optimal traits, death turned into a programming glitch, and the human mind as a blank canvas for artificial intelligence.

As the father of transhumanism, Oxford professor Max Moore said bluntly, “The body is not sacred.” If it’s just a “random accident,” the human being, then — and the world we live in — become raw material for the powerful to re-engineer.

Reclaiming reality

Bovard reminds us that conservatives cannot limit ourselves to fiscal or foreign policy debates. These are important, but they are downstream from the real crisis: the loss of reality itself:

The task ahead of us is not to come up with better “make-believe.” It’s to get back to reality. To return to the “real” — in our metaphysics, in our culture, in our politics.

Reclaiming reality means returning to the source that gives reality any meaning at all: God.

“Without God,” Bovard continued, “there is no truth. There is no beauty. There is no good. There is no ‘is.’ There is only ‘might.’ There is only power.”

This is why appeals to “Judeo-Christian values” — while noble — are no longer enough. If we treat values merely as political instruments, we hollow out the very God who gives those values meaning. The task is not to instrumentalize God for the sake of the culture. It is to submit our culture — and ourselves — to God.

Generic appeals to “Judeo-Christian values” simply won’t weather the storm.

Embodying a different image

Bovard rightly sees our “culture wars” as a metaphysical war and the political war as a spiritual one. “You can’t fight a spiritual battle with a tax plan,” she continues, “or a transhumanist future with GDP growth alone.” We must clearly and boldly articulate conservatism’s core beliefs of reality — and then embody them.

Rene Girard taught that humans are mimetic creatures — we desire what is mirrored to us by people, images, and narratives. For too long, the same Marxist, anti-realist paradigm has dominated the Leitkultur, our public images, and our leading institutions. They have tantalized the most vulnerable and left them broken, mutilated, and disembodied from reality.

We must embody a counter image. If we want the next generation to desire virtue, we must be people of virtue. If we want people to cherish human nature, we must fall in love with being human. And if we want to affirm reality, we must cherish it and the God who made it.

This means embodying truth, goodness, and beauty in our lives. It means affirming reality not just with arguments but with reverence. And it means recovering a politics that begins in metaphysics, not just in messaging.

RELATED: Transhumanists: The scientists who want to become gods

Photo by Andry Djumantara via Getty Images

Transhumanism will continue to grow in prominence. It will seduce the libertarian wing of the right with the promise of individual freedom, productivity, and human enhancement. But make no mistake: Transhumanism is not liberation. It’s the edge of a metaphysical cliff. And if we aren’t clear about what we’re for — not just what we’re against — we will find ourselves with strange and dangerous bedfellows.

Conservatism cannot simply be a social club for fiscal hawks and free speech warriors. It must be a positive commitment to the real: to human nature, to moral order, and to the God who authored them both.

​Return, Transhumanism, Nat con 5, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Gene editing, Conservativism 

JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, had an ugly meltdown on Saturday about a meme shared by President Donald Trump. When a member of the liberal press took a page out of Pritzker’s book and treated the meme as a threat, Trump leaned in with a reality check.

How it started

Days after Pritzker claimed that Trump is “neither wanted here nor needed here,” Chicago suffered another bloody Labor Day weekend with at least eight killed and 58 wounded. According to police, America’s rattiest city suffered 278 homicides as of Aug. 31.

Trump condemned the violence, warning Pritzker: “Better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming.”

Pritzker and other Democratic officials instead channeled their energies last week into condemning a possible federal intervention rather than meaningfully tackling the underlying issues.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, for instance, kicked things off by signing an executive order “denouncing any attempts to deploy the United States Armed Forces and/or the National Guard and/or militarized civil immigration enforcement in Chicago.”

RELATED: This is what Brandon Johnson is blaming for Chicago’s violent Labor Day weekend

Vincent Alban/Getty Images (left); Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images (right)

Pritzker then concern-mongered on MSNBC, telling former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki that Trump’s plan is “one that’s been repeated over and over again by … tyrannical dictatorships across history where you try to incite local population into some mayhem by sending in police or other disruptors, and then claim that there’s too much mayhem on the ground, and therefore there must be troops that are sent in.”

The Democratic governor, who held on tightly to emergency powers through the pandemic and well into 2023, suggested further that the aim of the plan, which has already neutralized most street crime in Washington, D.C., was to “convert a democracy into something other than that.”

The meme

At the outset of another weekend marked by numerous fatal shootings in Chicago, Trump shared a meme titled “Chipocalypse Now” that features an AI image of himself as Colonel Bill Kilgore, the fictional commander of the 1st Cavalry Division in “Apocalypse Now,” with the Chicago skyline as his backdrop.

Whereas Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall, states in film following an airstrike on potential enemy combatants along a nearby tree line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” Trump’s meme is captioned, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”

Trump added, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

Pritzker characterized Trump’s post as a legitimate threat, writing, “The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

“Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man,” continued Pritzker. “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

— (@)

Pritzker subsequently disseminated guidance on how to handle encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for the apparent benefit of illegal aliens in his state, recommended that residents film federal operatives, and advanced the suggestion that the Trump administration’s efforts to restore law and order constituted “atrocities.”

Mayor Johnson also decided to interpret Trump’s humorous post as a threat, noting, “The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution. We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”

NBC News’ Yamiche Alcindor joined Pritzker and Johnson in spinning the president’s meme as a declaration of intent, asking Trump whether he was indeed “going to war with Chicago.”

“Darling, that’s fake news,” said Trump.

When Alcindor began to argue the point, the president responded, “Be quiet. Listen. You don’t listen. You never listen. That’s why you’re second rate.”

“We’re not going to war. We’re going to clean up our cities,” said Trump. We’re going to clean them up so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war. That’s common sense.”

Trump further underscored on Sunday that he is simply keen on making American cities safe and beautiful.

“Chicago is a very dangerous place, and we have a governor who doesn’t care about crime,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “We could solve Chicago very quickly.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Blaze News in a statement, “Eight people were killed and over 50 people were wounded over Labor Day weekend in Chicago, but local Democrat leaders are more upset about a post from the president — that tells you everything you need to know about the Democrats’ twisted priorities.”

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Surveillance video caught the moment when a mob of hammer-wielding, hooded thugs pulled off a smash-and-grab jewelry store robbery in broad daylight.

A vehicle is seen backing into the San Jose store’s entrance, which created an opening for at least a dozen crooks to pour in late last week.

‘This is appalling. Watching this senior get assaulted made my blood boil.’

San Jose police confirmed it’s investigating an “armed robbery” that occurred at the Kim Hung Jewelry store on the 1900 block of Aborn Road just after 2 p.m. Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

No arrests have been made, and the robbers are “unidentified and remain at large,” the department confirmed Sunday morning to the Chronicle.

Video appears to show 16 individuals entering the store holding hammers and breaking display cases and grabbing merchandise as a few store employees look on. Police told the paper that at least one of the suspects carried a gun but didn’t comment on the value of the items stolen.

The robbers fled the scene in multiple vehicles, police said in their statement, according to the paper.

Video shows one of the robbers violently shoving one of the employees to the floor, and an X poster noted that his friend’s 88-year-old uncle was the victim in question.

“He was injured by broken glass and then had a stroke,” the poster wrote before adding a message to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, saying the Democrat has “done a lot for SJ but still more criminals to be locked up.”

The Chronicle said it couldn’t independently verify the information in the X post.

Mahan posted on X the following response: “This is appalling. Watching this senior get assaulted made my blood boil. I’m sorry this happened to your friend’s uncle, @Chris_Moore4Sup. These people need to face the harshest possible consequences for their actions. I’ve been in touch with our Police Chief @SJPD_AC_Joseph and will be following the investigation closely. Wishing our @SanJosePD officers godspeed as they pursue leads.”

The paper said police didn’t respond to an inquiry regarding if anyone was injured during the incident and added that the department did not have “any details to provide at this time.”

Police also told the Chronicle that anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact the agency’s robbery unit at sjpdrobbery@sanjoseca.gov.

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In the aftermath of the tragic Minneapolis shooting — where two young lives were lost to a violent gunman — Trump’s Department of Justice is considering taking action to stop guns from getting in the hands of transgenders.

The move is being celebrated by conservatives, as the shooter, Robin Westman, was a 23-year-old man who identified as a woman.

One potential avenue could see Trump formally declare that those who identify as transgender are mentally ill and no longer legally allowed to possess firearms.

“Under Attorney General Bondi’s leadership, this Department of Justice is actively considering a range of options to prevent mentally unstable individuals from committing acts of violence, especially at schools,” a spokesman for the DOJ said.

However, while many conservatives believe that transgenderism is a mental illness — they’re not sure that broadly banning guns for any group of people is the right move.

“I read that headline and my knee-jerk reaction is like, good, they shouldn’t have guns. And then I’m like, ah, I don’t know how you do that with the Second Amendment,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“I think everyone would agree you don’t want violent, mentally ill people to have firearms,” BlazeTV contributor Grant Stinchfield chimes in. “So we can all agree on that. The problem becomes ‘Who is the decider?’”

“So who decides who’s violently and mentally ill? Because I promise you, Nancy Pelosi is going to say, ‘Well, Stinchfield’s mentally ill because he loves freedom and God and all those things.’ So it’s all in the decider,” he continues.

“Now, transgender certainly … it’s a violent, violent section, mentally ill people, and it is a mental illness. If you think you’re a boy and you don’t have nuts hanging down below you, you’re mentally ill,” he adds.

Gonzales notes that while not all shooters are transgender, transgenders make up such a small percentage of the population and have committed several of the devastating mass shootings in recent years.

“It’s pretty skewed when you look at that,” she says, adding, “And so it’s just hard because you want to prevent this from happening.”

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