Category: blaze media

The Minnesota Vikings football team announced the inclusion of two males on its cheerleader squad, and some fans were not terribly thrilled about the decision.

Queerty, a website advocating the gay agenda, called the response “homophobic” and identified the two male cheerleaders as Blaize Shiek and Louie Conn.

‘I wish I never saw this. It’s truly heartbreaking. I cannot associate with this mess.’

Some fans said on social media that they were done with the team, and other commentators criticized the decision.

“As much as I love my Minnesota Vikings, I will not be supporting them any longer after I found out they have a male cheerleader. Im so done with this woke, bulls**t!” one user said.

“I wish I never saw this. It’s truly heartbreaking. I cannot associate with this mess. Come on @Vikings Be Better! Do Better! Stand for Something,” another user replied.

“Minnesota @Vikings put gay male cheerleaders in their squad. I’ll never go to another game. I used to be a season ticket holder with 4 seats on the 35 yard line 12 rows up,” replied one user, who said he stopped going to games during the national anthem kneeling protests.

RELATED: Ex-NFL star rejects league’s ‘wild’ support for Pride Month: ‘Football is none of these things’

Some said they were supportive of the male cheerleaders, but not if they were presented in a “girly” manner.

“I have no problem with this. Male athleticism is freaking impressive!” one user said. “And he’s not in full makeup and a skirt, so good for him! Just keep him ‘guyish’ and don’t make him girly.”

“This is an embarrassment @Vikings. If you want to have male cheerleaders fine, but not in this fashion,” another user said.

“I personally don’t care there’s a dude on the cheer team, but like dudes have a role on a cheer team. Make him a dude. He’s acting as a woman. And it’s degrading to everyone involved,” another detractor replied.

The Vikings will begin their regular season on Sept. 8 against the Chicago Bears. Queerty pointed out that 11 other NFL teams will include male cheerleaders this season.

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​Minnesota vikings, Male cheerleaders, Woke nfl, Gender bias nfl, Politics 

Aimee Betro — a 45-year-old from West Allis, Wisconsin — in September 2018 met a 31-year-old British man who used the name “Dr. Ice” on a dating app, according to the Daily Mail.

Betro traveled to London on Christmas Day 2018, where she met that man — Mohammed Nazir — and reportedly spent a night with him. While Betro left the U.K. and returned to the United States, the pair continued to communicate.

‘Where are you hiding? Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed.’

Betro returned to Great Britain in August 2019, according to reports.

During a trial that ended Tuesday, a defense lawyer asked Betro what she thought of Nazir, and she responded, “He was very charming, and I did like him. He was sweet, and I did have feelings for him.”

Nazir reportedly was able to convince the American woman to do his “bidding.”

BBC News reported that Nazir and his 59-year-old father, Mohammed Aslam, had a dispute with Birmingham businessman Aslat Mahumad.

The British outlet reported that the father and son were injured during a physical confrontation with Mahumad at his clothing store in July 2018.

Nazir and Aslam reportedly hatched a scheme against Mahumad and planned to use Betro in their plot.

RELATED: Arrested wife of ‘Ghost Adventures’ TV star accused of hiring hit man to kill him: ‘Was it done?’

The Daily Mail reported that Betro called Mahumad on Sept. 7, 2019, and said she wanted to purchase a car he was selling online.

Prosecutor Tom Walkling told the court, “Mr. Mahumad recalls being called by a woman with an American accent. … He was confused, as he hadn’t listed his number online. The woman said she wanted to buy the car today, but Mr. Mahumad said she could see it tomorrow.”

Betro’s alleged plot to lure Mahumad to her failed, so she reportedly purchased a Mercedes E240 from another seller.

Walkling said the man who sold the car to Betro indicated that he “sold it to someone he described, perhaps unkindly, as a short, fat woman who spoke with an American accent, wore a summer dress, and had a bag over her shoulder.”

Police say Betro drove to Mahumad’s family home on the night of Sept. 7, 2019, in her newly purchased Mercedes.

While Betro reportedly was lying in wait with a gun, Mahumad’s 33-year-old son Sikander Ali returned home around 9:10 p.m.

Jurors at the Birmingham Crown Court were shown surveillance video of a figure with a covered face approaching Ali and attempting to fire at him at point-blank range. However, police said the gun jammed, and Ali escaped by speeding away in his SUV.

‘I think she was fatally flawed.’

While Ali was fleeing, his vehicle allegedly clipped the Mercedes and damaged the car’s door so severely that it wouldn’t close.

Investigators said Betro ditched the Mercedes, but left a black glove — which had her DNA on it — in the vehicle.

Jurors were shown screenshots of text messages Betro purportedly sent to Mahumad after the attempted killing, and she allegedly told her intended target, “Where are you hiding? Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed.”

Betro took a taxi to return to the Mahumad’s home just hours after the first alleged assassination attempt, police stated. CCTV showed a figure firing three shots through the windows of the home in the early hours of Sept. 8, 2019. However, there was no one home at the time.

Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas claimed Betro used a niqab in an attempt to hide her face, but it “didn’t work very well.”

“It was a fairly poor attempt [at disguise], and again, whether or not the attitude was that the British police wouldn’t be up to it, I think she was fatally flawed, if that was ever the consideration in her mind,” Orencas explained.

Orencas claimed Betro’s motivation for the attempted murder was because she was “in love or infatuated with Nazir.”

The Daily Mail reported that Betro flew to the U.S. the day after the shooting, and Nazir did the same three days later.

While on the lam for nearly six years, Betro reportedly fled the U.S. and traveled to Armenia — but was soon tracked down by an unlikely source.

The Daily Mail said it found Betro in Armenia and informed the West Midlands Police about her location on June 15, 2024. The Daily Mail agreed to withhold publishing the news until she was arrested.

“I would like to put it on formal record and thank the Daily Mail for the information that they kindly shared with us,” Orencas stated before adding that “there were parallel inquiries going on, but without a doubt, the Daily Mail were of great assistance.”

Armenian authorities detained Betro and extradited her to the U.K. to face trial.

On Tuesday, jurors convicted Betro of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol with intent to cause fear of violence, and illegally importing ammunition.

RELATED: Multimillionaire hired numerous hitmen in murder-for-hire plots against wife — then killed himself as cops closed in: FBI

Betro is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

According to GB News, Specialist Prosecutor Hannah Sidaway stated, “This prosecution is a culmination of years of hard work doggedly pursuing Aimee Betro across countries and borders while she remained relentless in her bid to escape justice. Betro tried to kill a man in a Birmingham street at point-blank range. It is sheer luck that he managed to get away unscathed.”

Meanwhile, Nazir and Aslam were arrested last year and convicted of conspiracy to murder.

Nazir was sentenced to 32 years in prison, and Aslam was sentenced to 10 years behind bars.

Walkling insisted that “revenge was the motive” for the assassination attempt, BBC News said in a separate story.

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​Manhunt, Murder plot, Assassination attempt, Assasin, Assassination plot, Assassination scheme, Murder scheme, True crime, Crime, Uk, Us, Wisconsin, Love interest 

On July 24, former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis formally petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which legalizes same-sex marriage, marking the first significant challenge to the ruling since its inception. Davis, who was jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs, is appealing a $360,000 judgment against her for emotional damages and attorney fees, arguing that her First Amendment rights protect her from liability and that Obergefell was wrongly decided.

“Just like abortion, the left tries to tell us that [same-sex marriage] is untouchable, that this cannot be overturned. I’m not so sure that they’re correct about that,” says Liz Wheeler, BlazeTV host of “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

She reads a line from Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrent opinion published following the overturning of Roe v. Wade: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

“‘Substantive due process,’” says Liz, “is this legal philosophy held by leftist jurists that reads rights into the Constitution where they are not enumerated.”

“It’s just a way of judicial activists – ideologues who are on the bench – to invent meaning to the Constitution where the Constitution had no such meaning.”

Like abortion, which is “guaranteed nowhere to anyone in the Constitution,” same-sex marriage is yet another example of substantive due process.

“Even if you’re pro-gay marriage, even if you are libertarian and you don’t think we should be telling other people what to do, if you read the Constitution of the United States, start to finish … is gay marriage ever referred to?” asks Liz. “No, it’s never referred to.”

“You cannot contest the reality that the Constitution of the United States contains no such reference to gay marriage directly or indirectly.”

“Even if you think that the legislature of the United States should make gay marriage legal, which you’re obviously wrong on that for multiple different reasons, that’s different than the Supreme Court pretending there is a Constitutional right to gay marriage in the Constitution when there’s not,” Liz explains.

If SCOTUS agrees to take Davis’ case, there’s a chance — albeit a “low” one, says Liz — that the Court might re-evaluate Obergefell and reverse its original decision.

“It’s probably not going to be heard by the Supreme Court,” she says, but “it should be because Kim Davis had her religious freedom … violated by the government, and she’s one of the only Americans right now that has standing to challenge Obergefell because she was hurt by it.”

However, even if Obergefell is overturned, it’s unlikely to change much in terms of who can legally get married, Liz explains. “The United States Congress has passed a piece of legislation codifying gay marriage to a certain extent. It requires any state that doesn’t allow same-sex marriage to recognize … any valid marriage from any other state. So it kind of effectively nationally forces gay marriage in all the states,” she says.

And yet, she hopes Obergefell is reversed anyway because what it will really be reversing is the idea that the government has the right to redefine a word.

“Marriage means the union between one man and one woman, and they said, ‘No, no, we’re going to redefine that. It now means the union between any two consenting adults regardless of their sex.’ When government has the power to redefine a word, they can redefine any word,” says Liz. “And if they can redefine words, if they are the arbiters of truth, then they’re tyrants.”

To hear more of her commentary, watch the episode above.

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​The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, Blazetv, Blaze media, Clarence thomas, Scotus, Supreme court, Obergefell, Obergefell v. hodges, Gay marriage, Legalization of gay marriage, Liz wheeler show 

Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry is well known for her skills in front of the camera, but according to her ex-husband David Justice, she isn’t known for her skills in the kitchen.

The former MLB star, 59, met Berry in May 1992 before marrying her less than a year later in January 1993. The pair divorced in 1997.

“I was young and had only been in, honestly, one real relationship before her. My knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships, just wasn’t vast. So I’m looking at my mom, and I’m a Midwest guy. So in my mind I’m thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean, you know,” Justice said on the “All the Smoke” podcast.

“Then I’m thinking, ‘Okay, if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with and build a family with?’ And at that time, as a young guy, she don’t cook, don’t clean, don’t really seem, like, motherly,” he added.

While social media has erupted in anger at Justice for his “misogynistic comments,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock and BlazeTV contributors Shemeka Michelle and Delano Squires don’t believe Justice was wrong.

“There’s a lot of people who dismiss and diminish the role that a woman plays as a wife and a mother. And clearly David Justice believed that Halle Berry’s contribution to his home, as his wife and the mother of his children, was more important than her contribution to society as an actress,” Squires says.

Whitlock believes it appeared that their relationship was all about “looks” and “sexual attraction” at first.

“And then you actually get into the marriage,” Whitlock says, “like David Justice did and goes, ‘Hold on.’ This culture tells him, ‘What do you mean? It’s a rich, beautiful, powerful woman!’ And it doesn’t dawn on you until after you’ve made a mistake, after you’ve entered into a relationship, that this actually isn’t what I want.”

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.

​Free, Upload, Camera phone, Video, Video phone, Sharing, Youtube.com, Jason whitlock, Jason whitlock harmony, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Halle berry, David justice, Conservative, Relationships, Traditional values, Traditional marriage, Traditional roles, Fearless with jason whitlock, Fearless 

A Ventura, California, mini-golf venue was at the center of a tragic accident last week that had a woman’s family members rushing to provide emergency medical services.

Golf N’ Stuff in Ventura boasts a massive miniature golf course with a castle, palace, and a bevy of palm trees decorating the property. Those palm trees proved to be a horrific feature for the Magana family, who were there to celebrate their 13-year-old son Damien’s birthday.

‘After that, we went straight into stopping the bleeding.’

While father Amando, son Damien, and older son Junior were golfing, the celebration turned disastrous when they heard the sound of a branch breaking.

Just after 5:30 p.m., 53-year-old Adela Magana was sitting on a bench watching her family play when one of the palm trees at the venue fell on top of her.

“I was going to go look for the ball, and by that time, I heard a screeching sound — like a branch breaking,” Junior said, according to the Ventura County Star. “I thought nothing of it, but then I heard a big old thump, and people were running toward my mom.”

Junior, his father, and two other strangers reportedly lifted the approximately 40-foot tree off the woman while staff comforted the child.

“After that, we went straight into stopping the bleeding,” Junior continued.

The young adult said the team of people attending to his mother used a belt as a tourniquet while others called 911.

Ventura City Fire responded within about 20 minutes and transported her to Ventura County Medical Center, but the damage was sadly already done.

RELATED: Nike ditches wokeness in family-friendly golf ad: ‘More of this, please!’

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

Surgeons reportedly attempted to save the limb, but Adela Magana’s arm was so badly injured that the nerves and blood vessels were unsalvageable. The next day, doctors amputated the arm just below the shoulder.

A Golf N’ Stuff manager declined to comment on the incident to the local outlet but did remark that the mini-golf course was open.

Magana’s son Junior attempted to explain the family’s birthday plans, which never concluded due to the tragedy.

“We were trying to make his birthday a little bit better because it was mid-week, and we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “We thought of something fast: Play mini golf and then go have dinner afterward. But we never got to dinner.”

Daughter Nancy, who was seemingly not at the golf course, commented on the affect the accident had on Damien, “It’s a lot to take in as a 13-year-old to witness that. It’s always going to be there for him.”

RELATED: Which way, America: Scottie Scheffler or the WNBA?

Photo by Paul Lakatos/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Adela will require more surgery, learn how to use a prosthetic, and go through rehabilitation.

“She’s a very strong woman — even at this point. … She’s not able to talk, but she’s able to nod her head. She has a long journey ahead of her,” Nancy said of her mother.

Adela has four children and one grandchild, and reportedly manufactures bolts for the auto-racing industry.

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​Fearless, Mini golf, Golf, California, Accident, Sports 

The overwrought mainstream media reactions from the Washington, D.C., to New York City corridor are in full swing in response to President Donald Trump deploying the D.C. National Guard to help address the city’s crime.

Trump made the announcement on Monday, also stating he will be temporarily putting the D.C. Metropolitan Police under federal control. The National Guardsmen are expected to be used as force protection for the federal agents who have likewise been surged to the capital.

‘Let’s hope this federal intervention leads to real change to the laws in DC that allow this to happen year after year.’

While the city’s crime rate has seen a decrease from historic highs in 2023, it has not gone back down to the same rates it had pre-2020. Reports also indicate that the apparent drop in D.C. crime rates may be based on bogus data.

Even though some in the mainstream media who are based in D.C. have acknowledged the crime problem, others took a different approach.

RELATED: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says DC liberals secretly support Trump’s takeover

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says DC liberals secretly support Trump’s takeover. Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Global Citizen

“When I go to D.C., I’m not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I’m afraid of losing my vote. I’m not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I’m afraid that my children’s freedom to breathe will be stolen in a world where climate change policy is nonexistent. I’m afraid that the future of middle class people will be stolen,” progressive writer Anand Giridharadas told MSNBC.

“No, no, you gotta worry about two things at the same time,” host Joe Scarborough interjected.

— (@)

Symone Sanders, who was a top adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris, said on MSNBC that extra police does not mean she will be safer because she is a black woman.

“I’m a black woman in America. I do not always think that more police make streets safer. When you walk down the streets of Georgetown, you don’t see a police officer on every corner, but you don’t feel unsafe,” Sanders opined.

Sanders also wonders why when the debate is over public safety in the city’s black neighborhoods, the answer is more police: “I think we have to rethink what safety means in America.”

— (@)

On Tuesday, the D.C. Metro Police Union announced a shooting that took place in the city Monday evening that resulted in a death, marking the 100th homicide so far this year.

“Let’s hope this federal intervention leads to real change to the laws in D.C. that allow this to happen year after year,” the union said.

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​Politics 

President Donald Trump’s long-overdue decision to use federal resources to crack down on crime in Washington, D.C., will come at a steep cost: hundreds — possibly thousands — of teenage offenders now on track for lives in and out of prison.

This outcome was entirely predictable. Recent history offers examples of exactly where lax policies lead. Democrats and their activist allies pushed them on American cities anyway. They own the consequences.

It took the president to push past the crushing guilt the city’s activists feel for their own happy lives and finally say hard times come again no more.

To understand the failed experiment now ending in Washington, look back just six years. In 2019, the city was thriving. The dark days of the 1980s and ’90s were fading. Streets that were no-go zones when I arrived in 2004 had turned into trendy culinary destinations. The Obama family dined there while in the White House. CNN reporters were regulars.

The Wharf development project had been finished, transforming a place for cheap seafood that was surrounded by poorly lit parking lots and barbed wire into a hip place to live, take your family, or go out for dinner and drinks. The fairly new Nationals Park had already begun to build out restaurants and apartments in an area that was dangerously violent and depressed just a few years prior.

Breweries, distilleries, and wine bars had staked claims in neighborhoods that were still dangerous but no longer written off. My own neighborhood, where I bought a home in 2018, had filled with young families.

My Knights of Columbus chapter was talking with our parish priest about reopening the Catholic school next door. It was being leased to a charter school after failing to survive in a once-depressed area. Our priest — brilliant and sadly clairvoyant — was skeptical. He had seen reformers come and go. The school’s collapse, and the people who had abandoned it, still haunted him.

He had reason to doubt. By 2022, nearly every officer in my chapter had left the city. Most who could afford to leave did, taking their families with them.

The city didn’t fall to an economic collapse or a real plague. It fell to years of partisan Democrat policies — policies blind to human nature, indifferent to risk, and ignorant of the work it took to pull a city out of the abyss and into a place that was safer and improving year after year.

In 2020, schools shut down for more than a year. Bars, restaurants, and shops went under. Crime was recast as the voice of the oppressed. Sentences were cut, laws unenforced, easy prosecutions abandoned. Police were vilified and defunded.

The federal workforce went home and stayed away from downtown for years. Activists bought expensive tents for vagrants and addicts, who took over parks, menaced pedestrians, and claimed public spaces. Cops were barred from chasing criminals for fear a suspect might get hurt while fleeing. The plaza in front of the White House became a violent anti-Trump encampment.

It doesn’t take a criminologist to know what happens when you close schools and stop punishing crime, especially juvenile crime. Bored kids from broken families turn to the streets.

This isn’t theoretical. In the 1950s and ’60s, activists decried America’s prison population and pushed decriminalization and “rehabilitation” over the tougher penalties that had once kept order.

By the 1970s and ’80s, the jig was up. By the early 1990s, Republicans and Democrats alike had had enough of these “super predators,” and America saw things like the three-strikes laws, stop and frisk, and mandatory minimum sentences come crashing down on perpetrators.

The end result, after all those dreams led to all that murder and dysfunction, was a new generation lost to crime and the prison system — and a relatively peaceful and safe time in American cities.

Washington was among the last major American cities to emerge from the slump, in the early 2000s. Nearby Baltimore was just on the cusp when violent anti-white riots sent it crashing backward in 2015. D.C.’s black middle and upper classes had fled after the Martin Luther King assassination race riots torched large parts of the city, and few white families remained at all.

Older cabbies will tell you about the bad old ’90s, when, the stories go, you’d have a handgun built into the car to shoot the passenger behind you in case he pulled a gun on you — and cabbie legend tells of a designated body-dumping alley in Anacostia that the police didn’t ask about. A colleague once told me about witnessing a gangland decapitation on Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th, SE.

Then a series of down-to-business Democrat mayors set about gentrifying downtown, saying yes to development, and generally moving toward a more friendly posture toward businesses and restaurants.

At the same time, the police were tough, pushing crime to the peripheries and the worst neighborhoods in the city. When a string of murders, robberies, and sexual assaults hit wealthy, isolated Georgetown in 2006, police set up checkpoints around the suspects’ neighborhoods and instituted a citywide curfew for teenagers.

The tough policing didn’t protect everyone all the time. Poor, predominantly black neighborhoods plagued by generations of welfare and fatherlessness continued to languish. Criminals’ slang would differentiate between “taxpayers,” whom the cops would care about, and the rest of the city’s residents, who were fair-game prey for their wickedness. There was an unmistakable animosity among the poor population for the largely transient, professional political class who were gentrifying the city they called home.

Meanwhile, the corrupt, largely Democrat machine that ran the city chugged along. An old social media account gained popularity by tracking the days since a member of the city council was last indicted. And a promising, charismatic, and popular Democrat mayor, Adrian Fenty, was unelected for daring to question why D.C.’s public schools were fine with turning out illiterate and uneducated “students” with few options ahead of them but crime or menial labor.

Still, things were getting better all over, if slower in the poorer areas.

Then people forgot what it had taken to make the city safe. Reformers saw only two groups: the “hard-on-crime” enforcers and the criminals those policies punished. It was a childish oppressor-oppressed narrative.

By 2020, activists declared it was time to stop. They wanted to end the cycle of imprisonment for illiterate kids from broken families. On paper, it sounded noble. In practice, their plan was to stop holding those kids accountable for violent or antisocial behavior.

Add school closures to the mix, and the results came fast. The bad old days began to stir.

In September 2020, 1-year-old Carmelo Duncan was buckled into his father’s car when a stray bullet killed him.

In February 2021, a woman was carjacked in broad daylight while her 8-month-old sat in the back seat.

A month later, 13- and 15-year-old girls used a stun gun on a 66-year-old father and delivery driver, slamming his head into a pole. When police caught them, one girl seemed more worried about her missing cell phone than the man they’d killed.

In July 2021, 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney was riding her scooter with her mother when a stray bullet killed her. Later that month, gunfire erupted outside a Nationals baseball game, wounding fans.

An 8-year-old girl told a reporter she knew exactly what to do when she heard the shots — because it was the second shooting she had witnessed.

Less than a week later, CNN’s Jim Acosta and Kaitlan Collins were dining at Le Diplomate when a gunman opened fire nearby. Just a few years earlier, the Obamas had brought their children to that same restaurant. Now the street outside was a war zone again — just like it had been when I moved to D.C. 17 years ago.

Today, after President Trump’s announcement, those same CNN reporters and their allies claim there’s no problem. Democrats fear a federal crackdown on crime, so they repeat in unison that crime is “in decline.”

Yet in 2024, carjackings tripled compared with 2018, spilling into gentrified neighborhoods. D.C. doesn’t actually count carjacking as a violent crime. Property crimes are at historic highs, and one D.C. police commander is under investigation for falsifying records to make the numbers look better.

The bad old days aren’t back, but they’re hovering around the door. It took the president to push past the crushing guilt the city’s activists feel for their own happy lives and finally say hard times come again no more.

They’ll never say it out loud, but many longtime D.C. residents quietly hum the same song. Even the privileged elite know the teenagers walking Capitol Hill in balaclavas aren’t actually COVID-conscious — and the brazenness of their crimes is magnified in the poor neighborhoods they come from, where 1-year-olds like Carmelo Duncan and 6-year-old girls with bright eyes should be free to live and play.

Blaze News fact-check: Legacy media’s bogus defense of DC’s safe-streets narrative crumbles under scrutiny

Blaze News: ‘Knock the hell out of them’: Trump federalizes DC police, readies National Guard to crack down on crime

Blaze News: Nancy Pelosi cites Jan. 6 to criticize Trump takeover of DC — and gets obliterated by former chief of the Capitol Police

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​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

New population statistics show that President Donald Trump has been successful so far in reversing the inflow of immigrants, both legal and illegal.

The current population survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the foreign-born population dropped by an unprecedented 2.2 million people between January and July, the first few months of Trump’s second term.

The loss of 1.6 million in the illegal alien population constituted about a 10% drop.

Further, an analysis of the survey results by the Washington, D.C.-based research institute Center for Immigration Studies found that of those, about 1.6 million were illegal aliens.

The CIS said that the drop in illegal aliens was likely due to “increased out-migration in response to stepped-up enforcement” of immigration law and called the drop in the foreign-born population the largest of any six-month period within the same year.

The loss of 1.6 million in the illegal alien population constituted about a 10% drop, according to the CIS estimate, which would mean about 14.4 million illegal aliens are still residing in the U.S.

In March, the CIS reported that the foreign-born population had increased by 8.3 million people over the previous four years, which was “larger than in any four-year period in American history,” in its analysis.

RELATED: Trump orders Labor Statistics chief to be fired over revisions in weak jobs report

Trump’s efforts for the mass deportation of illegal aliens will likely ramp up after Republicans drastically increased funding for border enforcement in the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already reported a jump in recruiting.

The CIS allowed for some caveats to the numbers, including the criticism that some of the survey results might be compromised by a reluctance on the part of illegal aliens to respond at a time when there’s greater focus on border enforcement.

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​Foreign born population, Trump mass deportation, Cis analysis of illegal aliens, Illegal aliens deported, Politics 

As artificial intelligence models continue to grow and develop, their demand for more and more data also increases rapidly. Now, some companies are making it tougher for AI scrapes to happen, unless companies pay a price.

Reddit has announced that it will be severely limiting the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine’s access to the communication platform following its accusation that AI companies have been scraping the website for Reddit data. The platform will only be allowing the Internet Archive to save the home page of its website.

‘Until they’re able to defend their site and comply with platform policies … we’re limiting some of their access to Reddit data to protect redditors.’

The limits on the Internet Archive’s access was set to start “ramping up” on Monday, according to the Verge. Reddit did not apparently name any of the AI companies involved in these website data scrapes.

RELATED: Sam Altman loves this TV show. Guess what it says about godlike technology

Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“Internet Archive provides a service to the open web, but we’ve been made aware of instances where AI companies violate platform policies, including ours, and scrape data from the Wayback Machine,” Reddit spokesman Tim Rathschmidt told Return.

Some Reddit users pointed out that this move is a far cry from Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz’s philosophy. Swartz committed suicide in the weeks before he was set to stand trial for allegedly breaking into an MIT closet to download the paid JSTOR archive, which hosts thousands of academic journals. He was committed to making online content free for the public.

“Aaron would be rolling [in his grave] at what this company turned into,” one Reddit user commented.

Rathschmidt emphasized that the change was made in order to protect users: “Until they’re able to defend their site and comply with platform policies (e.g., respecting user privacy, re: deleting removed content), we’re limiting some of their access to Reddit data to protect redditors,” he told Return.

However, it has been speculated that this more aggressive move was financially motivated, given the fact that the platform has struck deals in the past with some AI companies but sued others for not paying its fees. Reddit announced a partnership with OpenAI in May 2024 but sued Anthropic in June of this year for not complying with its demands.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Reddit and continue to have ongoing discussions about this matter,” Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, said in a statement to Return.

​Tech, Reddit, Internet archive, Openai, Anthropic, Google, Wayback machine, Tim rathschmidt, Aaron swartz 

President Donald Trump has temporarily taken control of the Metropolitan Police Department — as is his prerogative under Section 740 of the Home Rule Act — and ordered on Monday the deployment of the National Guard to “re-establish law, order, and public safety” in the national capital.

“Rising violence in the capital now urgently endangers public servants, citizens, and tourists, disrupts safe and secure transportation and the proper functioning of the Federal Government, and forces the diversion of critical public resources toward emergency response and security measures,” Trump noted in a corresponding executive order. “These conditions cannot persist. We will make the District of Columbia one of the safest cities in the world, not the most dangerous.”

‘This is a phony, manufactured crisis.’

The promised law enforcement crackdown on “violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people” has ruffled plumage on the left.

Some liberals, including twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, have cited allegedly manipulated crime data to suggest that the problem Trump is working to solve — a problem that has earned D.C. a 2 rating on Neighborhood Scout’s crime index, where 100 is safest — is overblown.

RELATED: Fact-check: Legacy media’s bogus defense of DC’s safe-streets narrative crumbles under scrutiny

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who discussed the possibility last year of Democrats in Congress nullifying the 2024 election in the event of a Trump win, suggested that “this is a phony, manufactured crisis” and that Trump’s crackdown on crime “has nothing to do with fighting crime.”

Raskin appeared anxious that Trump might also restore law and order in other cities adversely impacted by Democratic policies, including Chicago, Oakland, and Baltimore.

‘It’s going to spread from city to city, and then to the suburbs, and then to rural areas.’

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) claimed that the crackdown — which was announced just days after former DOGE employee Edward Coristine was savagely attacked in D.C. — was just “a political ploy and attempted distraction from Trump’s other scandals.”

Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called Trump’s decision “deeply dangerous” — a sentiment echoed by Al Sharpton, who added a racial framing to the complaint.

Most of the liberal media has hit the ground running with Democratic talking points in hand.

Salon’s politics blogger Chauncey DeVega — the leftist who claimed a second Trump administration would “turn America into a type of Fourth Reich” complete with a “concentration camp system” — recycled the Democratic line about D.C. supposedly having record-low crime, then deviated into paranoid fantasy.

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi cites Jan. 6 to criticize Trump takeover of DC — and gets obliterated by former chief of the Capitol Police

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

DeVega suggested the crackdown on crime was not just “symbolic violence against the nation itself” but part of a “White restoration project whose goal is to roll the gains of the civil rights movement and long Black Freedom Struggle back to the Gilded Age.”

‘The people that are cheering this on privately are not like right-wing Republicans, they’re not MAGA people.’

Although less unhinged, writers at the Atlantic — the publication owned by one of failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ biggest donors — similarly treated the law enforcement operation as confirmation of liberals’ fears that Trump would deliver “the authoritarian government his party once warned about.”

Marc Elias, the founder and chair of Elias Law Group LLP, a law firm involved with the Steele dossier, told leftist YouTuber Brian Cohen on Monday that the law enforcement operation was effectively a test-run for taking over police departments nationwide.

“It’s going to spread from city to city, and then to the suburbs, and then to rural areas, until Trump feels like he has complete authority over local law enforcement,” said Elias.

Despite the desperate effort to paint Trump’s federalization of the MPD as the first move in some great authoritarian scheme, there appears to be a growing appreciation for the president’s initiative — even at MSNBC.

MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough complained on Tuesday about the city’s crime problem and read on air a text message from a “very liberal” friend who was “not totally opposed to Trump’s National Guard move.”

RELATED: Trump to DC: Public safety isn’t optional

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“The people that are cheering this on privately are not like right-wing Republicans, they’re not MAGA people,” said Scarborough. “A lot of our friends are in the media and also Democrats that worked on Joe Biden’s campaign, that worked on other campaigns, they’re just saying, ‘Yeah, I’d like to feel safe walking around this city.'”

The relative of a 1-year-old girl shot in the arm in Southeast D.C. last month told WTTG-TV that she welcomes the intervention by the president, saying that if Trump can make the streets safer, she’s all for it.

Representatives for the city’s police are apparently keen as well.

Gregg Pemberton, chairman of the D.C. Police Union, for instance, said in a statement obtained by WUSA-TV, “We stand with the president in recognizing that Washington, D.C., cannot continue on this trajectory. Crime is out of control, and our officers are stretched beyond their limits.”

While acknowledging the federal intervention as a “critical stopgap,” Pemberton suggested that the MPD needs proper staffing to thrive, and the city needs to ax the disastrous policies that have prompted officers to seek work elsewhere.

Republican lawmakers have also expressed support for Trump’s efforts to make the national capital safer.

“This bold move addresses the rampant crime that’s plagued our nation’s capital for too long. Thank you, Mr. President, for prioritizing safety!” wrote Sen. Mike Lee of Utah (R).

“Democrats have lost the plot and must face the fact that people who live this every day can’t be gaslit into believing their lived experiences are false,” wrote Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).

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President Trump has officially announced that he’s placing police in Washington, D.C., under federal control and deploying National Guard troops in order to fight violent crime in the nation’s capital.

“Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today! Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum with DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in last 3 months!), D.C. is next!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Democrats are outraged, citing lower crime statistics this year as a reason Trump’s move is nothing short of tyrannical. However, those crime statistics may be the result of manipulation meant to make the D.C. police look good.

D.C. Police Commander Michael Pulliam was put under investigation recently for allegedly making it appear as though crime has fallen considerably in the past year.

Pulliam was placed on administrative leave in mid-May.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is not surprised at all that the government would lie.

“They’re just cooking the books. It’s just like the CDC with COVID statistics. ‘Oh, this person died of COVID. Yeah, he was decapitated, but he died of COVID.’ I mean, these departments have been doing this for a very long time,” she says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“Anyone with eyeballs can see that D.C. is in the gutter and it needs something,” she continues. “So listen, if the D.C. Metropolitan Police and the D.C. mayor, Muriel Bowser, can’t actually fix it, who better than President Trump to come in there and do that?”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video, Upload, Camera phone, Video 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, Trump, President trump, Federalizing dc, Washington dc crime stats, Washington dc crime, National guard 

Washington, D.C., the capital meant to project American power, order, and pride, has instead become a showcase for failure.

For decades, Democrats have run this city. They’ve had the budget, the manpower, and the authority to make it safe. Yet today, open-air drug markets operate within sight of the Capitol. Carjackings happen in broad daylight. Businesses flee, joined by residents who refuse to live as prisoners in their own neighborhoods. The District of Columbia is now more dangerous than Colombia — the country Americans were once warned not to visit. That’s how far the city’s leadership has let it slide.

This is the Democrats’ signature failure: mistaking ‘less bad’ for success.

President Donald Trump on Monday called an end to the decline. Invoking Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, he took control of the Metropolitan Police Department and deployed 800 National Guard troops to the capital. He called it “Liberation Day.” It’s long overdue.

The left calls it “overreach” and “authoritarianism.” Nonsense. What’s truly authoritarian is forcing law-abiding citizens to live under constant threat while political leaders hide behind press conferences and meaningless task forces.

Yes, official crime stats show improvement. Homicides are down. Carjackings have eased. But ask the people who live here: They still avoid certain streets, they still walk with their heads on a swivel, and they still don’t feel safe. If residents can’t walk home at night without fear, nothing has been solved — the numbers have just been padded.

This is the Democrats’ signature failure: mistaking “less bad” for success. Shaving a few percentage points off violent crime is not a victory. A city is either safe or it isn’t. And D.C. isn’t.

RELATED: History podcaster Dan Carlin angers fans with his response to Trump’s takeover of DC police

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Here’s the truth they don’t want to face: If you can’t control crime in your own backyard, you have no business running a state — and you sure don’t belong running the country.

Trump’s move sends a message to every failing blue city: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles — if you won’t protect your people, I will. Most Americans will applaud that, because they’re tired of leaders who obsess over optics while their cities collapse into chaos.

Leadership is measured by results, not excuses. If you can’t deliver safety, you’ve failed at the most basic job of governing.

Liberation Day isn’t political theater. It’s proof that decisive action still exists in a political culture addicted to talk. It’s a reminder that law and order are not dirty words. And it tells the American people they don’t have to accept leaders who shrug at decline.

D.C. hasn’t seen leadership like that in years. That’s why Trump had to show up with the cavalry.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Washington dc, National guard, Crime, Crime rates democrat cities, Police, Murder, Theft, Public safety, Muriel bowser, Blue city crime, New york city, Chicago, Los angeles 

The Democratic Party is in a spot that any political party would dread. Not only do Democrats not control the White House, the House, or the Senate, but their attempts to resist the Trump administration are not resonating with voters or their base.

Recent polling from Gallup shows their favorability has cratered to historic lows despite their highly publicized attacks and criticisms against President Donald Trump.

“In fact, the Democratic Party’s 34% favorable rating is the lowest Gallup has measured for the group in its trend dating back to 1992. The prior low was 36% in November 2014, after the party lost its majority in the U.S. Senate in that year’s midterm election, which gave the Republican Party control of both houses of Congress at the time,” Gallup reported at the end of July.

The DC National Guard is currently mobilizing and is expected to be on the streets patrolling alongside law enforcement this week.

The most recent height of Democrats’ favorability was on January 21, 2021, when it sat at 48%. While there were brief increases in their popularity during the 2024 election cycle, they never went above that 48% mark during Joe Biden’s term.

Gallup further found Republicans’ favorability is at 38%, down from 44% after the election in November.

The polling firm also reported that Democrats do have a slight advantage with party identification and leanings among independents.

The Democrats’ woes are compounded by the fact that there is no clear leader within the party. Former Vice President Kamala Harris has no widespread support after her disastrous performance against Trump. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is seen as too old and not progressive enough among the younger parts of the base. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) has likewise been unable to produce effective talking points for his caucus. Almost no one outside politics knows who Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is.

Part of the reason for their unpopularity is also that many Democrat voters believe officials are not fighting Trump hard enough, and by fighting, they mean they want politicians to physically fight the administration.

The latest trap Democrats in the Beltway have fallen into has been their response to Trump activating the D.C. National Guard. With Trump and his administration pointing out the city’s high crime rate, even when compared to capitals in Latin America, Democrats have said the move is fascist, is a distraction from the Epstein files, and does not make sense when considering the riot on January 6, 2021.

RELATED: CNN host says J6 was the worst day for violence in DC amid Trump’s National Guard deployment

— (@)

The D.C. National Guard is currently mobilizing and is expected to be on the streets patrolling alongside law enforcement this week.

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​Politics 

A pair of monumental streaming deals have likely ended the chances of two major brands ever appearing on pay-per-view again.

In recent years, sports fans have typically only dished out cash for pay-per-view events if they were for boxing, mixed martial arts, or professional wrestling.

‘It’s an outdated, antiquated model.’

Fans of the latter two have been left frustrated in recent years, as events they would have simply paid a one-time fee to watch in the past now get locked behind subscription paywalls.

Rope a dope

When the UFC inked a deal with ESPN in 2019, the fight promoter abandoned standard PPV and made its events purchasable only through ESPN+, which requires a separate subscription. Viewers, now effectively required to pay for the opportunity to pay for an event, were understandably miffed.

Meanwhile, WWE, also owned by TKO Holdings along with UFC, has until now been showing its premium events through Comcast’s subscription-based streamer Peacock, without an additional fee.

Now, in the span of a week, TKO Holdings may have eliminated this hurdle — and the business model — forever.

As part of its new rights deal, UFC will abandon a PPV scheme, as viewing options slowly creep toward looking like traditional TV again.

RELATED: MMA star’s miracle faith awakening: Ben Askren finds Christ after defying death by surviving double lung transplant

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

Down for the count

Last week, TKO signed with ESPN to provide the WWE’s biggest live events to the Disney-owned network, which will shift ESPN+ to a direct-to-consumer model. Simply put, WWE events will either appear on the ESPN app or on television and the app at the same time.

As for UFC, it will depart ESPN for Paramount, which on Monday acquired the rights to UFC events for $7.7 billion over seven years, per CNBC.

All 13 marquee UFC events along with 30 “Fight Nights” will appear on the Paramount+ app, but it will not charge subscribers an added fee the way ESPN+ did.

RELATED: The Rock responds to WrestleMania criticism by telling media the whole business is fake: ‘Enjoy the show’

Photo by Waleed Zein/Anadolu via Getty Images

Fight club

What is left are two gigantic brands, no longer on PPV models, with some of the biggest wrestling events of the year appearing on ESPN’s cable channels.

“The pay-per-view model is a thing of the past,” Mark Shapiro, TKO Group’s president, said. “What’s on pay-per-view any more? Boxing? Movies on DirecTV? It’s an outdated, antiquated model,” he told CNBC.

“When [fans] find out, ‘Wait, if I just sign up for Paramount+ for $12.99 a month, I’m going to automatically get UFC’s numbered fights and the rest of the portfolio?’ That’s a message we want to amplify.”

For now, subscription models may reign supreme, but it seems entirely possible that premium products may wind up being free for viewers on whichever type of screen they choose to view it on, even if it is the dreaded living-room TV.

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MSNBC host Joe Scarborough defended President Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C.’s police force.

Scarborough has a checkered history with Trump to say the least, but he revealed he can still see the forest through the trees when it comes to crime in the nation’s capital.

During a segment on Tuesday’s edition of “Morning Joe,” Scarborough and his panel said that despite a downtick in crime numbers, D.C. remains incredibly dangerous for its residents.

‘Crime has been a problem in this city for the 32 years I’ve been living inside and outside of the city.’

Scarborough revealed that “so many people” have been calling him recently to say the federal government is long overdue in stepping in to stop crime in D.C. and “should have gotten involved years ago.”

“This place is dangerous, it’s a mess, it’s a wreck, and whatever,” Scarborough said he was told. However, this differs from the public comments made by the same people, who “go on Twitter” and say, “This is the worst outrage of all time.”

The host also pulled out his phone to read a text from a colleague about the issue, and while he did not want to name the person, he described him or her as being “very liberal” and sharing similar sentiments.

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi cites Jan. 6 to criticize Trump takeover of DC — and gets obliterated by former chief of the Capitol Police

The text read, “This may sound controversial, but I’m not totally opposed to Trump’s National Guard moving into D.C.”

Scarborough continued, reciting from a friend, “I know he’s doing it for politics, but crime remains rampant. I’ve had too many friends carjacked, shot at. None of us will walk more than three blocks after 8 p.m.”

“Thirteen-year-olds are committing many of these crimes, quite a change from a decade ago, when things were much calmer,” the message concluded.

While Scarborough said he did not want “any repeat” of how Trump used the National Guard on D.C. rioters in 2020, the city has been an awful place to live for more than three decades.

“I don’t care what the crime statistics say. Crime has been a problem in this city for the 32 years I’ve been living inside and outside of the city.”

Scarborough further revealed that he and his wife have been talking to many D.C. residents, “all Democrats,” who “won’t walk more than three blocks” in the city at night. He noted that D.C. could be described as a “door-to-door” city with “no sense of security” for its residents.

When he lived a block behind the Supreme Court, Scarborough claimed, “Every three days, one of my neighbors is getting held up at gunpoint.”

RELATED: History podcaster Dan Carlin angers fans with his response to Trump’s takeover of DC police

President Donald Trump walks from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020, after riots and fires in Washington, D.C. Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

President Trump recently suggested that crime-ridden metropolises like Chicago and New York City are also up for consideration when it comes to sending in federal support.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) famously rejected an offer from Trump in 2020 for National Guard intervention when the state experienced rampant rioting following the death of George Floyd.

“This is not the way we behave in the United States. Our law enforcement are out there on streets trying to protect people. They’re not at least here in Chicago, we’re not in the business of trying to put down peaceful protests,” Pritzker said at the time, per CNN.

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​News, Dc, Morning joe, Joe scarborough, Trump, Msnbc, Crime, Politics 

Baltimore police said officers responded to the unit block of South Eutaw Street for a report of a shooting around 2 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2024.

Police said officers located an unidentified male suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, and medics transported the victim to an area hospital where he died.

‘I’m not going to let you live.’

Days later, detectives arrested 61-year-old James Richburg of Baltimore in connection with the fatal shooting of 30-year-old William Womack on a bus in the unit block of South Eutaw Street after a dispute, police said.

Richburg was taken to the Central Booking Intake Facility where he was charged with first-degree murder, police said.

RELATED: Armed 17-year-old carjacker rolls the dice, promptly meets his match when victim pulls his own gun and opens fire

It wasn’t Richburg’s first go-round with the law, WMAR-TV reported, adding that online court records indicate he was sentenced to five years in 2021 for firearms possession and was convicted in connection with a 1996 robbery.

As for last year’s case, charging documents indicate Womack bumped into Richburg on the bus without apologizing, the station said, which led to an argument between the pair.

Police said Womack got back on the bus as the argument continued, after which Richburg opened fire, WMAR said.

Richburg fled, and Womack collapsed, the station said, adding that soon witnesses came forward, and police identified Richburg as the shooter.

WMAR reported that a jury last week found Richburg guilty of second-degree murder, use of a firearm in a crime of violence, and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

But while prosecutors said Womack was shot in cold blood, Richburg said it was self-defense, WBAL-TV reported.

During Thursday’s closing arguments, prosecutors told the jury, “The defendant did kill William Womack with a firearm. He fired a gun from near-point-blank range into Mr. Womack’s chest,” WBAL said.

The assistant state’s attorney said MTA transit bus surveillance video clearly shows Womack bending down to pick up a bottle he dropped and then bumping into Richburg and not saying “excuse me” or apologizing, WBAL reported.

The pair exchanged words, Richburg got off the bus, then got back on, WBAL said, adding that charging documents indicate Womack was annoying Richburg before Richburg said, “I’m not going to let you live.”

RELATED: Watch what happens after Democrat witness tells Rep. Brandon Gill Baltimore is a safe city

But Richburg’s defense claimed that even if Richburg said those words, he was concerned about his safety, WBAL said.

“Mr. Womack, he has committed a battery under the laws of the state of Maryland. Mr. Womack continues to harangue and harass Mr. Richburg. Mr. Richburg’s fight or flight instinct was already heightened because he was on the bus,” the defense argued, according to WBAL.

The defense claimed the shooting was in self-defense, WBAL said: “It is Mr. Richburg trying to warn Mr. Womack off. It is in response [to] Mr. Womack continuing to threaten and harangue Mr. Richburg. In the moment, Mr. Richburg understood Mr. Womack coming to harm him.”

However, WBAL added that Womack didn’t have a weapon.

Richburg’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 10, WBAL said, adding that he could receive up to 75 years in prison.

Mark Crosby — a pro-life Baltimore resident who was brutally beaten up in 2023 in front of a Planned Parenthood in the city, only for the culprit to walk away without any jail time — told Blaze News that the killing of Womack and how it started is no surprise to him given where it took place.

“There have been so many instances of that,” Crosby told Blaze News before adding that Baltimore recently was ranked the third-most dangerous city in the United States.

“Houses are boarded up, there’s graffiti on buildings, trash everywhere,” Crosby noted, adding that “all I can do is shake my head and say it’s business as usual.”

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​Guilty verdict, Bus, Baltimore, Fatal shooting, Bump, No apology, James richburg, Use of a firearm in a crime of violence, Murder, Possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, Repeat offender, Convicted felon, Crime 

Within hours of brokering a historic peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15 to discuss similarly resolving the war in Ukraine, which is now five months into its third year.

Trump’s plan is to join Putin for a “feel-out meeting,” confer afterward with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, and then at a later date, meet with both Putin and Zelenskyy in hopes of ironing out the details and ultimately sealing the deal.

‘He’s got approval to go to war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap.’

Zelenskyy was evidently peeved that the initial summit would take place without him as well as by Trump’s suggestion to reporters that the peace deal would likely involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”

Following Trump’s announcement, Zelenskyy said in a video statement that “Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier” and that “any decisions that are against us, any decisions that are made without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace. They will not achieve anything. These are unworkable decisions.”

Trump, who has made no secret of his frustration with Zelenskyy and who in February accused the foreign leader of “gambling with the lives of millions of people,” did not respond well to this apparent effort to sabotage the upcoming summit.

“I get along with Zelenskyy, but, you know, I disagree with what he’s done — very, very severely disagree,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

RELATED: Vance makes one thing abundantly clear ahead of Trump’s big ceasefire meeting with Putin

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying that ‘well, I have to get constitutional approval.’ I mean, he’s got approval to go to war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap,” said Trump. “There will be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.”

European officials who have spoken to U.S. officials about their talks with Putin claim that Moscow wants Ukraine to cede the eastern portion of the country known as the Donbas, reported the New York Times.

‘The money that’s been spent and the death is incredible.’

Russia occupies around 20% of the entire country and most of the Donbas — including all of the Luhansk region, most of the Donetsk region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

Trump noted that “Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They’ve occupied some very prime territory. We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”

According to the Institute for the Study of War’s latest assessment of the Russian offensive campaign, the “prime territory” that Trump was referencing was likely the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

“The money that’s been spent and the death is incredible. It’s the worst thing that’s happened — by far the worst that’s happened — since World War II. So I’m going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I’m going to be telling him, ‘You gotta end this war.'”

RELATED: Zelenskyy — still holding onto power a year after his term ended — commandeers anti-corruption bureau, sparking protests

Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in June that upwards of 250,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine and hundreds of thousands more have been wounded — leaving Moscow with a potential fatality rate five times the number of all Russian and Soviet wars combined since World War II. Ukraine has seen upwards of 100,000 soldiers killed with a total of 400,000 casualties.

The war, which the U.S. has sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into, has also resulted in the displacement of over 3.7 million people and an exodus of around seven million Ukrainians.

“I’d like to see a ceasefire. I’d like to see the best deal that could be made for both parties,” continued Trump. “It takes two to tango, all right.”

When asked whether Zelenskyy is expected to soften his position on this matter, the State Department referred Blaze News to the White House for comment. Blaze News has reached out to the White House.

Zelenskyy may not presently want to make any concessions, but recent polling suggests Ukrainians are growing increasingly desperate to negotiate an end to the conflict.

According to a Gallup poll conducted last month, 69% of Ukrainians said that they favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible. Only 24% said they support continuing to fight until victory.

‘I believe he wants to get it over with.’

This is nearly a total reversal of the responses to a 2022 poll, where 73% of Ukrainian respondents said they favored fighting until victory and 22% said they wanted to see a negotiated end as soon as possible — a peace that was spiked during negotiations in Turkey.

Despite the U.S. propping up Kyiv and Trump’s efforts to broker a peace, pollsters found that 73% of Ukrainians signaled disapproval of “the job performance of the leadership of the United States.” Only 16% of respondents signaled approval, which spiked in 2022 then began to plummet during former President Joe Biden’s term.

A trend that might make negotiations simpler is the Ukrainian sense that NATO membership is a bridge too far.

Whereas 64% of respondents said in 2022 that they expected Ukrainian NATO membership within 10 years, that optimism has dissipated such that now only 32% of Ukrainians expect acceptance into the organization, which Moscow has indicated would be intolerable.

Although Trump indicated Putin has disappointed him before, he said that this time around, “I believe he wants to get it over with.”

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​Ukraine, Kyiv, War, Endless war, Moscow, Russia, Putin, Vladimir putin, Volodymyr zelenskyy, Zelenskyy, Ukrainian, Donald trump, Peace, Foreign policy, Politics 

A late-night talk show host says President Trump’s second term has been so bad that it inspired him to acquire citizenship abroad.

The president has been a favorite target of late-night hosts for years, with network comedians recently accusing him of being the mastermind behind plots to silence them.

‘Like, I feel like it’s probably even worse than he would like it to be.’

Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” recently blamed his firing from CBS on parent company Paramount bending the knee to Trump in order to obtain approval for its $8 billion merger. Likewise, “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart said Paramount was trying to “censor and control” its hosts over Trump.

Now, another one of the president’s longtime late-night enemies says the current term has been too “unbelievable” to bear.

On a recent episode of “The Sarah Silverman Podcast,” comedian and host Sarah Silverman interviewed ex-boyfriend and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel has hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for more than 20 years but has become a ruthless critic of the president over the past decade. Kimmel has called Trump “disgusting,” mocked him for being banned by Twitter in 2021, and even cried on air about the possible repeal of Obamacare by Trump.

On Silverman’s podcast, Kimmel revealed that he dislikes Trump’s second presidency so much that he sought out foreign citizenship.

“A lot of people I know are thinking about, where are they going to get citizenship?” Silverman said.

“I do have Italian — I did get Italian citizenship,” Kimmel replied.

Elated, Silverman stated, “You do? Oh, that’s amazing!”

Kimmel confirmed, “I do have that. And what’s going on is as bad as you thought it was going to be. Way worse. It’s so much worse,” he said about Trump. “It’s just unbelievable. Like, I feel like it’s probably even worse than he would like it to be.”

RELATED: Trump says Colbert is to blame for his show’s cancellation — but adds Kimmel and Fallon are next

Silverman revealed that she sometimes seeks out news articles about Trump voters regretting their support for the president and that reading them gives her hope that Trump’s mistakes will “bring people together.”

Kimmel agreed and said he does not want to shut people out who have regret about voting for the president.

“I don’t believe the ‘f**k you, you supported him.’ I think everybody has to have — the door needs to stay open. That’s why if you want to change your mind, that’s so hard to do. If you want to admit you were wrong, that’s so hard and so rare to do … you are welcome.”

The duo went on to discuss left-wing activists gatekeeping their party, boiling it down to the idea that they repel new voters.

RELATED: ‘Made in America blame’: Talk show hosts point fingers at TRUMP for the LA fires

Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman at the AFI Film Fest 2005 in Hollywood, California. Photo by John Heller/WireImage

“The left, I’m on the left,” Silverman explained. “I find, in general, the party that is about inclusivity is incredibly elitist.”

Kimmel quickly defended the Democrats and said it is not the “majority” but rather “loud voices” who “scare people from saying what they believe.”

The 57-year-old pinpointed that those who “make you think twice about a joke” are to blame for being “no fun.”

While he admitted a lot of those voices have “valid” points, Kimmel said they are also “repulsive” to other voters.

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​Trump, Jimmy kimmel, Late night host, Colbert, Talk show, Democrat, Liberals, Politics 

OpenAI and AI techno-cult proselytizer Sam Altman recently shouted out an AMC television series called “Pantheon,” which pivots its narrative around the merger of human consciousness and digital technology. In “Pantheon,” the catharsis on offer to viewers appears to be that after exploring themes of corporate diabolism, all will be well for, as the kids say, reasons. Maybe this is why Altman liked it so much.

The show pivots on the creation and insinuation into human experience of a variety of nonconsensual simulated environments. Evil geniuses beam consciousness (“uploaded intelligences”) into sim-world systems, while other geniuses (closer to how we might presumably, but unsuccessfully, imagine ourselves) sort things out a bit. But the latter geniuses retain the ultra-tech-saturated worldview that AI founders like Altman work to make real.

In its vision, there’s no God, or if there is, it’s an inaccessible divinity. There’s no nature, either, so life is essentially a sort of Disneyland game.

“Pantheon” was canceled back in 2022 but nevertheless managed to achieve favored status among Silicon Valley types. Perhaps Altman, an individual with plenty on his plate, is picking up recommendations from locals and is lately just getting around to watching, enjoying, and posting about something he feels deserves a little notoriety.

Fair enough. Billionaires should do a great deal more in terms of supporting the arts. Even if those arts are designed by, built for, and all but advocating for a slow transition from a generally human-based social paradigm to one riven with tech implants, upgrades, and systemic alterations made upon human nature.

For the curious, the first pilot episode is more than enough to get the gist, especially when coupled with the now-inevitable online backgrounder of reviews, synopses, and X.com replies. If “Pantheon” hoped to reconcile the human race with runaway technology, its approach leaned on delegitimizing humanity in a way that felt all too convincing.

The kernel for the series comes from a Gen-X Chinese-American computer scientist turned lawyer turned mid-life author named Ken Liu who has said he became a writer so he might “turn values upside down and inside out to gain new perspectives.” Mission accomplished, Ken: “Pantheon’s” characters are depicted as possessing something like divine reason or intuition coupled with what amounts to a disturbed child’s emotional understanding of existence.

RELATED: The AI ‘Stargate’ has opened — and it’s not what you think

Photo by Nurphoto / Contributor via Getty Images

Given the great many interpersonal and moral difficulties Altman has faced, it isn’t surprising that he confessed to Theo Von, “I’m scared. … I don’t have an answer yet” with regard to AI psychosis and related mental health concerns.

Perhaps that’s why Altman acts so able to take recreational comfort in “Pantheon.” It ultimately encourages us to respond only to a “number go up” value system. In its vision, there’s no God, or if there is, it’s an inaccessible divinity. There’s no nature, either, so life is essentially a sort of Disneyland game with emo-high-school-level stakes and consequences, as empty inside as the players themselves. Bigger is the only better. Sounds like the stock market to me.

There is one memorable moment in “Pantheon’s” opening episode. In a brief, unconsciously propagandistic conversation between a father and child, the epistemological possibilities attached to “conspiracies” are situated inside a frame that could generously be termed insufficient to the realities. The father, a San Francisco tech-yuppie cartoon character in cartoon slim-fit designer jeans and a nice henley (organic cotton, surely) reframes the child’s questions about evil to conclude that conspiracy theories are most probably the result of dysfunctional minds.

But … while conspiracy theories are almost always not true, the father suggests, it’s possible that a conspiracy theory might have merit when “we” don’t quite agree with the moral framing …

Of course, as the narrative unfolds, conspiracies do exist, and the viewers are presented with the possibility of revisiting this narrow frame. Only they won’t, because the wider framework has already reduced the world to tech, more tech, tech machinations, and still more tech that feels good only for people who already loooove tech. What is a conspiracy to an NPC?

Meanwhile, back in reality, childbirth still hurts, the world still depends on fathers, and Ecclesiastes still hits like a ton of bricks. The conspiracy that would have made the show interesting would have been one weaving human pride into machinations of agentic evil within microprocessors and without. What are the transactions going down in such a vision? How might it work without a technological interface? What are its time constraints, if any?

The questions that would raise about what’s really so excessively bad about tech overload are uncomfortable indeed. Is it possible that my pride, my deficiencies of character and deformity of soul, have made me the unwitting pawn in a much wider game — perhaps one where I am rewarded by massively inflated riches for my childlike capacities for delusional self-interest? Am I myself complicit in an open conspiracy of bribes?

Maybe the Palantir moguls angling to restore the American Cinematic Universe will take a heavier swing at the subject matter with Founders Films. One may hope!

​Tech 

The Democrats’ media allies are arguing that President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C., was unwarranted due to sharply decreasing crime rates. However, these reports do not provide a complete and accurate picture of the crime crisis in the area.

Since February, Trump has repeatedly warned D.C. leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), that the federal government will intervene unless the nation’s capital is cleaned up.

‘Unfortunately, while Fake News journalists and politicians go out of their way to claim otherwise, the reality is that our nation’s capital is anything but safe.’

Trump declared Monday “Liberation Day” for D.C., unveiling a plan to rescue it from “bedlam and squalor.” His decision to place the Metropolitan Police under federal control and deploy National Guard troops was apparently prompted by the recent mugging of a former Department of Government Efficiency employee.

“The murder rate in Washington today is bigger than that of Bogota, Colombia; Mexico City — some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on Earth,” he said. “Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever.”

The legacy media was quick to portray Bowser as the victim, yet during a Sunday interview with MSNBC, the mayor admitted that D.C. needs assistance.

“We do need the federal government’s help,” Bowser said, listing several ways the Trump administration could assist, including “making sure that federal law enforcement is doing all of the policing that they can do.”

RELATED: ‘Knock the hell out of them’: Trump federalizes DC police, readies National Guard to crack down on crime

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

While Bowser thanked several federal law enforcement agencies for their assistance, she has still maintained that D.C. is “not experiencing a spike in crime but a decrease in crime.”

Many legacy media reports attempted to debunk Trump’s claims about high crime rates by referring to statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department. However, they failed to mention that the D.C. Police Union has long accused the MPD of manipulating its crime data to appear lower. MPD Police Commander Michael Pulliam was reportedly placed on paid administrative leave in May following the union’s allegations.

Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the D.C. Police Union, explained how the MPD was allegedly altering the data. He stated that some of the department’s lieutenants and captains were instructing officers to file reports for lesser offenses.

“Instead of taking a report for a shooting or a stabbing or a carjacking, they will order that officer to take a report for a theft or an injured person to the hospital or a felony assault, which is not the same type of classification,” Pemberton told WRC-TV.

He alleged that crimes that should be reported as involving a suspect armed with a dangerous weapon have instead been documented as felony assaults. He noted that felony assaults are not listed on the MPD’s daily crime stats, and they are not a requirement of the FBI’s uniform crime reporting program either.

Pemberton claimed that there is “absolutely no way” crime in D.C. has declined as significantly as reported by the MPD.

RELATED: DC police commander under investigation for allegedly manipulating crime stats

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

As of Tuesday afternoon, the department’s website indicated that violent crime has decreased by 26% compared to last year. The MPD reported a 35% decline in violent crime from 2023 to 2024.

Yet FBI crime data indicated that by June 2024, reported aggravated assaults reached 375, a figure not seen since before 2020.

The FBI’s data revealed that homicide rates have been steadily increasing over the past decade, peaking at 33 in August 2023. Reported robberies also reached a high of 501 in July 2023. Motor vehicle thefts have significantly risen since 2015, exceeding 700 incidents for three consecutive months in 2023. The most recent data shows 425 reported thefts in December 2024, which represents a 48% increase compared to the same period in 2014.

Initial data from the FBI is based on reports from local departments. Therefore, if the MPD manipulated its crime stats, those inaccuracies would likely still be reflected in the FBI’s recent reports. Additionally, FBI crime reports do not include data from D.C. for 2021 and 2022 because the federal agency was transitioning from its older Summary Reporting System to the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

Timothy H.J. Nerozzi, a foreign correspondent for the Washington Examiner, disputed claims that D.C. is safe.

“I am the man on the ground in DC here to tell you all that any journalists claiming the crime problem is anything less than horrific is intentionally lying to you. It is omnipresent from the Metro to the city outskirts. It is obvious and unignorable,” Nerozzi wrote in a post on social media.

Blaze News senior politics editor and D.C. correspondent Christopher Bedford claimed that just six weeks ago, he was “menaced” by “a dangerous, high vagrant while eating lunch.”

“I lived here 18 years before I sold my house because violence and open-air gun markets had made my once-decent neighborhood unlivable for my family. I now commute,” Bedford added.

A Washington Post report attempted to partially debunk Trump’s claims, but it was brutally mocked for quoting a resident who insisted that D.C. is “a safe city” but who chose to remain anonymous “over concerns of personal safety.”

“Washington, D.C., should be a symbol of pride and patriotism for the American people — and a safe location for tourists, residents, and public servants. Unfortunately, while Fake News journalists and politicians go out of their way to claim otherwise, the reality is that our nation’s capital is anything but safe,” a White House report read.

“Many residents don’t feel safe reporting crime,” it continued. “More than half of all violent crime in the U.S. goes unreported in the first place.”

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​News, Crime, Washington dc, Washington d.c., Dc, D.c., Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Muriel bowser, Crime rates, Fbi, Federal bureau of investigation, Metropolitan police department, Mpd, Michael pulliam, Legacy media, Corporate media, Mainstream media, Msm, Politics