“This case could completely wipe out the ATF’s ability to create law and subvert congress, which would be a massive win for the Second Amendment.” [more…]
Category: blaze media
‘Smoking Gun’: Yale prof nearly blown up by Unabomber defends his Epstein emails
David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale University and chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, survived an explosive letter he received in 1993 from Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber.
It appears, however, that his reputation has taken a hit over letters he sent years later to Jeffrey Epstein — especially since he has emphasized he regrets “nothing” about his relationship with the child sex offender.
The package
Kaczynski targeted businessmen, scholars, and random civilians with homemade bombs from 1978 to 1995, injuring over 22 victims and ultimately killing three people. Among the Unabomber’s victims was Gelernter.
‘Gentlemen and ladies don’t read each other’s mail.’
On the morning of June 24, 1993, the Yale professor — who had just returned from a vacation in the national capital — sat down in his office in Arthur K. Watson Hall to catch up on his mail. Along with various envelopes, waiting for him was a package, which he reportedly thought was a Ph.D. dissertation.
Gelernter recalled that when he tore it open, he was greeted by smoke, a hiss, and a flash. Shocked, missing a few fingers, and under the impression that multiple bombs “must be going off all over campus,” the professor fled the building, bleeding profusely.
“I saw the bones sticking out in all directions and the skin crumpled like paper,” he later wrote.
According to the Yale Daily News, the computer professor suffered severe wounds to “his abdomen, chest, face and hand, and even today Gelernter does not have the use of his right hand.”
The Unabomber later sent the professor a letter in April 1995 providing some insight into his animus toward technologists, writing, “People with advanced degrees aren’t as smart as they think they are. If you’d had any brains you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world.”
RELATED: Dear Uncle Ted
Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
The threatening letters sent his way by the terrorist helped boost Gelernter’s profile. The letters Gelernter later sent to Epstein now threaten to tear it down.
The letters
David Gelernter’s name repeatedly shows up in the Epstein files released on Jan. 30 by the Department of Justice, specifically in emails sent from 2009 to 2015.
Blaze News has reached out to Gelernter for comment.
‘I have no idea who my successor will be.’
Some of Gelernter’s letters to and from Epstein — exchanged years after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution — discuss meetups, a visit to Yale, architecture, business opportunities, and art shows.
The author of an especially questionable letter dated Oct. 11, 2011, and signed “David” — a letter Gelernter has reportedly defended writing — told Epstein about a female student he was recommending for a job in 2011, describing her as a “Yale sr, worked at Vogue last summ=r [sic], runs her own campus mag, art major, completely connected, v small goodl=oking [sic] blonde.”
Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images
Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart told CT Insider in an email last week that “the university does not condone the language used by the professor or the conduct he describes in his emails.”
Gelernter told the CT Insider that at the time of writing, he had no idea about Epstein’s status as a sex offender, that he was never exposed to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, and that he only became aware of the sex offender’s criminal history around five years ago.
“From my standpoint, he was one of the two (maybe three) smartest men I’d ever met,” Gelernter told the publication. “He was fun to talk to.”
“Fondness for little girls is a perversion that runs way outside ordinary locker-room talk,” the professor noted further. “No one would ever introduce it into normal conversation.”
The professor subsequently stated in a Feb. 4, 2026, letter to Yale’s engineering school Dean Jeffrey Brock that was forwarded to the Yale Daily News, “I was recommending her for a job I thought she’d like. When you do that — when you actually care about a rec letter — you keep the potential boss’s habits in mind.”
“So long as I said nothing that dishonored her in any conceivable way, I’d have told him more or less what he wanted. She was smart, charming & gorgeous. Ought I to have suppressed that info? Never!” continued Gelernter. “I’m very glad I wrote the note.”
When asked the next day whether he regretted any part of his relationship with Epstein, Gelernter told the Yale Daily News, “Nothing.”
Gelernter’s latest statements defending his correspondence with Epstein have apparently already led to consequences.
In a message to his students obtained by the CT Insider, Gelernter reportedly indicated that he had been removed from the class.
“For now on I no longer teach CPSC 4500. I have no idea who my successor will be,” wrote the professor, who has tenure at the university.
In his letter to students, Gelernter again defended his October 2011 letter to Epstein, claiming that the student referred to wanted to be recommended for a job working on the financial side of Epstein’s private bank; stating that neither he nor the student were aware that Epstein was a sex trafficker; and condemning the university for taking issue with a personal email.
“The university’s Smoking Gun is a personal, private email, dug out of the dump of Epstein files. (If someone handed you a a stack of other people’s private correspondence, would you dive in and read them? Of course not. Gentlemen and ladies don’t read each other’s mail. (Courtesy 101.),” wrote Gelernter.
According to ratings from students on Yale’s internal professor evaluation system, Gelernter reportedly ranked dead last among the 82 professors who have taught computer science courses at the university since 2020 and in the bottom 2% of all professors across the university.
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Jeffrey epstein, Esptein, Pedophile, Sex offender, Yale, David gelernter, Gelernter, Epstein files, Elite, Cabal, Uncle ted, Kaczynski, Unabomber, Politics
No more ‘safe harbor for illegals’: Colony Ridge settles with DOJ, Texas
Colony Ridge, one of the most controversial land developers in the nation, has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and the state of Texas regarding accusations of predatory loan practices, poor living conditions, and incentivizing illegal immigration.
According to a DOJ press release issued Tuesday, the Colony Ridge developer has agreed to pay $68 million to settle the lawsuit. Of that sum, $48 million will be invested in shoring up local infrastructure: $30 million for general infrastructure, and $18 million for drainage systems “to address severe and costly flooding damage to homes.”
‘Colony Ridge endangered American citizens by allowing illegal aliens to run rampant on its streets, in its schools, and in its community.’
The other $20 million will be invested in improving law enforcement and public safety in the area, including the construction of a new law enforcement facility. The developer also pledged to work with law enforcement to prevent those on a terror watch list and those suspected of transnational gang membership from purchasing property there, the settlement agreement said.
RELATED: Water issues at Colony Ridge and the Texas officials who apparently did nothing about them
According to the DOJ, Colony Ridge also agreed to:
implement stricter underwriting standards that better assess borrowers’ ability to repay loans;avoid misleading advertisements and instead “truthfully and accurately describe the properties for sale and applicable loan terms”;work with homeowners to prevent loan default and foreclosure; andsuspend seeking final approval on plats for direct-to-consumer sales for three years.
As part of the settlement, the Colony Ridge defendants did not admit to any wrongdoing. In fact, the defendants “expressly” denied any wrongdoing and signed off on the agreement “solely for the purpose of facilitating a settlement” with Texas and the DOJ, the agreement noted.
“We’re happy to resolve these lawsuits and move forward serving our growing community. The settlement allows us to continue investing in our neighborhoods and supporting the thousands of families who have trusted us to provide a place for them to call home. We’re glad that funds from this agreement will be directed back into the community to benefit residents,” said a statement from Colony Ridge, according to KTRK.
A sprawling, 33,000-acre development just north of Houston once dubbed “the world’s largest trailer park,” Colony Ridge first made national headlines more than two years ago after the development was accused of luring mainly Spanish-speakers into loans with exorbitant interest rates, often leading to foreclosure. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton previously claimed that the foreclosure rate at Colony Ridge was 50 times greater than the 2023 national average.
In their respective statements about the settlement, both DOJ Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and Paxton drew attention to these disturbing allegations.
“Intentionally targeting vulnerable borrowers with the American dream of home ownership and then trapping them in a predatory scheme is not only wrong, it also violates our civil rights laws. This DOJ will go after all lenders, financiers, and land developers who participate in schemes which ultimately encourage illegal immigration,” said Dhillon of the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
RELATED: Colony Ridge will sell to illegal aliens for shockingly low down payment: Project Veritas video
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“Under my watch, Texas will never be a sanctuary for illegals. Colony Ridge endangered American citizens by allowing illegal aliens to run rampant on its streets, in its schools, and in its community. Now, it’s time for those responsible to pay a steep cost for their unlawful actions,” said a statement from Paxton.
“My office will continue to bring the full force of the law against anyone who threatens the safety of our state or creates a safe harbor for illegals.”
A year ago, ICE made over 100 arrests in Colony Ridge as part of “phase one” of a larger area operation. According to an agency X post dated February 25, 2025, 118 people were arrested, including those with charges or convictions for “criminal sexual conduct, homicide, theft, negligent manslaughter, child sexual abuse, crimes of moral turpitude, weapons offenses and drug offenses.”
The Blaze Originals documentary “The Real Story of Colony Ridge” explores many of the problems at the development. You can access this and other original content by subscribing here.
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Colony ridge, Harmeet dhillon, Ken paxton, Texas, Politics
Sanctuary city official cries ‘abduction’ when ICE arrests alleged drug trafficker — DHS fires back
The Department of Homeland Security set the record straight after a Boston official accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of abducting “a neighbor.”
Last week, Boston City Councilor Enrique Pepén issued a statement concerning an “ICE abduction in Rozzie Square.”
‘ICE did not abduct anyone. We did arrest a criminal that this sanctuary politician and his policies released from their jails to terrorize more innocent Americans.’
“Earlier this morning, in broad daylight, ICE abducted a neighbor right out of their car in front of Family Dollar in Rozzie Square,” he wrote.
Pepén stated that “community members and business owners took immediate action” to notify a local organization providing services to immigrants, document ICE’s vehicles, and move the individual’s car to “a safer location.”
“We are working with our local partners to find out more about the individual taken and how to assist in bringing them back home,” Pepén continued. “To say that this is scary and not right is an understatement.”
Pepén insisted that “no one should be scared to do their daily errands regardless of their status — especially in our vibrant community.”
“Make no mistake, these abductions do not make anyone safe. Neighbors caring for neighbors do and I will continue to fight to get ICE out of our communities,” Pepén concluded.
He encouraged Boston residents to report any ICE sightings.
Enrique Pepen. Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/Boston Globe/Getty Images
The DHS hit back, explaining that ICE officers arrested Jose Perez-Antonio, whom the agency described as “a serial criminal illegal alien” with several charges, including for alleged identity theft and trafficking cocaine and fentanyl.
“Boston City Council member Enrique Pepén needs to stop with the smears,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Boston Herald. “ICE did not abduct anyone. We did arrest a criminal that this sanctuary politician and his policies released from their jails to terrorize more innocent Americans.”
McLaughlin stated that under President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership, those who break the law “will face the consequences.”
“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,” she added.
RELATED: ‘Killers bringing terror to our streets’: Swalwell smears ICE agents in heated hearing
Photo by John Moore/Getty Images
Pepén responded to the DHS’ statement in a video on social media.
“They claimed that I was smearing the situation and that I was smearing the agency. The only smearing that I see is the way that ICE is treating our people, the way that they come after our community and are able to continue to wear masks and create havoc and fear amongst our people. And yet we don’t know why, we don’t know what’s going on, we don’t know where people are being taken. That’s the only smearing that I see,” Pepén said.
“Regardless of whether or not this person has a record, ICE agents wreaked havoc in our neighborhood as they have been doing across the country and DHS has been found time and time of falsely reporting their objectives [sic],” he wrote.
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News, Massachusetts, Boston, Department of homeland security, Dhs, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Enrique pepen, Enrique pepén, Immigration crisis, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration, Immigration enforcement, Politics
Glenn Beck exposes what Bad Bunny’s halftime show was REALLY saying
This year’s Super Bowl halftime show was performed by six-time Grammy-winning artist Bad Bunny. Even though the majority of event spectators are English-speaking, the Puerto Rican artist sang almost entirely in Spanish — with the exception of a singular “God bless America” tacked on to the performance’s finale.
For years, the Super Bowl halftime show has reflected the “worst” aspects of American culture, says Glenn Beck, but Bad Bunny’s performance “went the extra mile” in all the wrong ways.
On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn breaks down Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, exposing its messaging.
“First of all, there was no English on American television at the biggest American sporting event for about 10 minutes,” he scoffs, speculating that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is perhaps letting us know that football is “not an American sport any more.”
“I mean, we know the NFL has already sold their soul to China,” he quips.
But it wasn’t just the language that Glenn says sent a message. Some of the lyrics Bad Bunny sang during his performance made strong statements of their own.
Some were sexually explicit — the most widely criticized being “so that your panties get wet” from the track “Safaera” — while others alluded heavily to sexual themes.
“Roger Goodell is saying, ‘That’s the American culture; that’s family entertainment,”’ Glenn says.
He compares Americans who watched the Super Bowl to a person being invited to a fancy party only to be “mocked and humiliated” by its “elitist host.”
“I think that’s the moment a lot of Americans experienced during the Super Bowl,” he says.
“The NFL should hear something: You’re not a preacher, okay? You’re not a church. … We didn’t come to you to hear lessons. You’re not a teacher, either. You’re not a cultural re-education program. You’re the host of a stupid game where people make millions of dollars based on my attendance and my watching you.”
Like the host of any party, the NFL’s job, Glenn says, is to “make space where wildly different people can sit at the same table without feeling targeted, diminished, or deliberately excluded.”
But Bad Bunny’s performance did precisely the opposite.
“When you as the host repeatedly signal contempt for me, my values, my friends’ values, I’m not going to riot. I don’t flip tables. I’ll just stop coming. … I’ll go find another room,” says Glenn, “which is what happened last night at halftime” when roughly 6 million people tuned into TPUSA’s alternative show, he says.
To hear more of Glenn’s breakdown, watch the video above.
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The glenn beck program, Blazetv, Blaze media, Glenn beck, Bad bunny, Super bowl, Nfl, Roger goodell, Super bowl halftime show, Super bowl halftime
‘This isn’t a CIRCUS!’ Bondi fends off attacks from Democrat lawmakers in combative hearing
Attorney General Pam Bondi went head-to-head with Democratic lawmakers Wednesday during a contentious House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. Lawmakers sparred with Bondi over the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein-related files and broader allegations about the department’s political priorities, while Bondi shot back that Democrats were merely “grandstanding” and engaging in political “theatrics.”
In a heated exchange with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who pressed her on alleged connections between President Donald Trump and Epstein, Bondi interrupted sharply.
‘I am not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.’
“This isn’t a circus! This is a hearing!” Bondi said.
Tensions escalated further during an exchange with Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat. Raskin attempted to interject, “I told you, Attorney General —,” before Bondi cut him off.
“Here we go with the theatrics!” she said. “You don’t tell me anything.”
RELATED: ‘I’m really proud’: American snowboarder refuses to take the bait on question about representing USA
Bondi also clashed with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who referenced Epstein victims present in the room and asked them to stand if they had been unable to meet with the Justice Department. Bondi declined to engage directly with that approach.
“Why didn’t she ask Merrick Garland this, twice, when he sat in my chair?” Bondi asked in response in Jayapal, referring to the attorney general under President Joe Biden.
“I am not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics,” Bondi continued.
RELATED: Olympic skier who wrote ‘F**k ICE’ in snow now says he is victim of ‘hate and vitriol’
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Throughout the hearing, Bondi defended the department’s priorities, citing prosecutions of violent crime and efforts to address what she described as prior politicization of federal law enforcement.
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Politics, Pam bondi, Hearing, Democrat, Lawmakers, Epstein, Epstein files
‘Seditious’ Democrats react to grand jury indictment decision
Months after President Trump called for the arrest of the “seditious” Democrats who called on military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders” from the administration, federal prosecution efforts led by D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro have hit a roadblock.
On Tuesday, a grand jury refused to indict Democratic lawmakers involved in the video, the Associated Press reported, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter.
‘Tonight we can score one for the Constitution, our freedom of speech, and the rule of law.’
The Justice Department reportedly opened an investigation into the six members of Congress who appeared in the November “Don’t Give Up the Ship” video. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) complained at the time that this was a form of “intimidation.”
RELATED: ‘SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR’: Trump demands arrest of ‘traitor’ Democrat congressmen for ‘dangerous’ video
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors were pursuing indictments against all six of the lawmakers or what charges they were attempting to bring. Prosecutors, however, could still attempt to secure an indictment against those involved, Fox News reported.
Slotkin was joined by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) in the video.
Slotkin, who claims to have organized the video, made a lengthy social media post on Tuesday.
“President Trump continues to weaponize our justice system against his perceived enemies,” Slotkin said in part. “It’s the kind of thing you see in a foreign country, not in the United States we know and love. No matter what President Trump and Pirro continue to do with this case, tonight we can score one for the Constitution, our freedom of speech, and the rule of law.”
Kelly called the investigation an “outrageous abuse of power by Donald Trump and his lackies,” adding, “Donald Trump wants every American to be too scared to speak out against him. The most patriotic thing any of us can do is not back down.”
Crow posted a minute-long video captioned in part, “We will continue to fight back against their rising tyranny.”
Deluzio chimed in: “They may want Americans to be afraid to speak out or to disagree — but patriotism demands courage in this moment. DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP!”
Houlahan called the entire investigation a “distraction”: “Today, as we celebrate the win for free speech, I’m putting this distraction behind us and getting back to the real work at hand.”
The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department did not respond to the AP’s request for comment.
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Politics, President trump, Elissa slotkin, Seditious six, Trump administration, Jeanine pirro, Don’t give up the ship, Mark kelly, Maggie goodlander, Chrissy houlahan, Jason crow, Chris deluzio, Military, Illegal orders, Refuse illegal orders
Team USA women’s hockey hands Canada its worst loss in Olympics history
The Canadians were beat every step of the way as Team USA delivered a historic beatdown on Tuesday.
A goal in each period saw the United States women’s hockey team not only triumph over Canada, but it is one the neighbors to the north may never forget.
‘Oh, you think you’ve done something, that’s when the mountain eats you up.’
The 5-0 trounce included two goals from 24-year-old Texan Hannah Bilka and marked the first time ever Team Canada has failed to score a goal in a women’s Olympic hockey game.
To add insult to injury, it was also the largest margin of defeat Canada has ever suffered at the hands of Team USA in both men and women’s Olympic hockey.
“It’s pretty special,” said 21-year-old American Kirsten Simms, per NBC. “This group has been unbelievable from the start of the tournament, and I think we displayed that going against our known rivals. It’s just good momentum for us going into the playoff rounds.”
Simms scored just over a minute into the second period.
“We’re playing a good brand of hockey, and we’re just sticking to it,” added Ohio native Laila Edwards, who scored in the third. “We’re sticking to the principles, and that benefits us. We’ve got a great group that just gels really well together.”
Coach John Wroblewski reminded his team not to get ahead of themselves, despite their record-setting victory. According to ESPN, the coach asked his team, “What’s the hardest part of climbing the mountain?”
Wroblewski provided the answer himself:
“Getting home,” he said. “If you ever feel good about climbing Mount Everest, it’s the way down. Oh, you think you’ve done something, that’s when the mountain eats you up.”
RELATED: Olympic skier who wrote ‘F**k ICE’ in snow now says he is victim of ‘hate and vitriol’
Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Team USA will play Italy in the quarterfinals on Friday, February 13, at 3:10 p.m. ET, in what should be an easy win. Italy has over-performed by some accounts, beating France and Japan, both of whom are ranked higher internationally. However, a loss to Germany and a pounding from Sweden have brought them back down to earth, and they likely will not be a problem for the Americans.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan called Team USA a deep and dynamic team with an “extremely balanced attack.”
With the Americans rolling all four offensive lines, the hockey insider wrote that the team’s mix of fresher faces may be what is giving them an edge. Kaplan noted that Canada has 16 players returning from their 2022 Olympic team.
The two teams could still meet again, but it may have to wait until the finals as Canada’s quarterfinal opponent is yet to be determined, and the bracket is not yet fleshed out; Canada still has to play Finland on Thursday.
If Team USA beats Italy, they would move on to the semifinals on February 16, with the bronze and gold medal games airing on February 19.
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Fearless, Olympics, Italy, United states, Canada, Women’s sports, Ice hockey, Hockey, Winter olympics, Sports
‘I’m really proud’: American snowboarder refuses to take the bait on question about representing USA
American snowboarder Chloe Kim was not looking to turn her Olympic event into a sideshow.
The two-time gold medalist from California was subject to the most popular — and divisive — question being asked of U.S. Olympians at the 2026 games in Italy.
‘The US has given my family and I so much opportunity.’
On Monday, a female reporter asked a panel of Americans how they “feel representing Team USA right now.”
The open-ended question has been a source of much controversy already, but when Kim spoke up, it was probably not what the reporter was hoping for.
“Obviously my parents being immigrants, this one definitely hits pretty close to home,” Kim began. “I think in moments like these, it is really important for us to unite and kind of stand up for one another for all that’s going on.”
While her answer was not likely to please both sides of the political aisle, Kim continued.
“I’m really proud to represent the United States. The U.S. has given my family and I so much opportunity. But I also think that we are allowed to voice our opinions on what’s going on,” the 25-year-old added. “And I think that we need to lead with love and compassion. And I would love to see some more of that.”
RELATED: Olympic skier who wrote ‘F**k ICE’ in snow now says he is victim of ‘hate and vitriol’
The question in Livigno, Italy, seemed to be deliberately politically divisive. The reporter prefaced it with a reminder that President Donald Trump had called Kim’s “teammate” Hunter Hess “a real loser.”
Hess is an American freestyle skier who told reporters that he had “mixed emotions” about representing the United States, which the president replied to by saying Hess should not have tried out for the team.
“U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Hess later walked back his comments, stating on his social media that he loves the United States, while adding, “But there are always things that could be better.”
RELATED: Olympic boxer Imane Khelif admits to having male genes, but sends message to Trump: ‘I’m not trans’
Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images
Kim, born in Torrance, California, is defending her Olympic gold in women’s snowboard half-pipe, having won at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and the 2022 games in Beijing.
Kim qualified for the finals on Wednesday, finishing first in the qualifier ahead of Japan’s Sara Shimuzu and American teammate Maddie Mastro, according to the Olympics.
The final takes place on Thursday, February 12, at 1:30 p.m. ET.
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United states, News, Olympics, Italy, Snowboarding, Patriotism, Trump, Woke, Liberalism, Politics
PAYBACK: No $10K fine for owners of slain ostriches
Universal Ostrich Farms has won a victory in its fight against the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
On Friday, February 6, Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal member Patricia Farnese ruled that the CFIA’s violation notice and $10,000 fine issued against Universal Ostrich Farms must be set aside.
‘Our farm is leading a movement.’
The ruling was based solely on procedural grounds. Farnese found that the CFIA failed to personally deliver the quarantine notice to the farm, instead sending it by email on Dec. 31, 2024, a day after verbally informing the owners of the quarantine.
“The agency’s failure to personally deliver the quarantine notice as mandated by subsection 91.4 of the HA Regulations is fatal to its case,” Farnese wrote.
Ruefully noting that the CFIA refused to test the ostriches for avian influenza, farm spokeswoman Katie Pasitney told Align: “The true virus here was the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. … They were the virus.”
Blood-soaked hay
The dispute — which attracted global media attention and significant support for the farm from figures such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz — began in September 2025, when the CFIA imposed a quarantine on UOF after alleging the presence of H5N1 avian influenza. The CFIA maintained that the farm posed a public health risk, despite refusing to test the animals for the virus.
The agency subsequently occupied the property for nearly seven weeks and issued an order to destroy the flock. The order was carried out overnight late on November 6 and into the early hours of November 7, resulting in the deaths of more than 300 ostriches.
Afterward, the agency left the farm in disarray, with hay bales contaminated with the blood of dead ostriches strewn across the property. Pasitney and her mother say they have been unable to clean up the mess because the property remains under quarantine, even as the federal government continues to insist that the birds carried H5N1 avian influenza.
RELATED: Aftermath of a slaughter: Universal Ostrich Farms vows to hold Canada accountable
Katie Pasitney
‘Off guard’
Pasitney said Monday that she and her mother, Karen Espersen, who owns the farm, were caught “off guard” by the tribunal’s decision — one they did not believe would go in their favor and did not expect to arrive until much later in the year.
“We read [the email from the tribunal] together,” said Pasitney, “and we both started crying, because it was just nice to hear from somebody on the federal level that they validated our concerns.”
Beyond nullifying the $10,000 fine, the decision raises broader legal implications. Does it undermine the legality of the CFIA’s entire operation against the farm — the initial invasion last September, the nearly seven-week occupation, and, most importantly, the killing of more than 300 ostriches?
“You know, those safeguards [against illegal quarantine] are put in place by Parliament for a very important reason, because quarantines carry such an excessive consequence for people with their livelihoods and their animals and their properties,” said Pasitney.
Leading a movement
So why did the tribunal rule in favor of UOF?
It assessed the CFIA’s negligence in its conduct at the farm, specifically finding that the quarantine notice relied upon by the agency was not properly served in accordance with federal law.
Pasitney shared the decision to her Facebook page on Monday, along with a statement from the farm. In the decision, the tribunal cited subsection 91.4(1) of the Health of Animals Regulations, which requires quarantine notices to be personally delivered — meaning physically handed to the affected party. The tribunal ruled that the CFIA failed to meet this requirement by relying on email.
As a result, the notice of violation and the accompanying $10,000 penalty were set aside.
The implications may extend beyond one farm, noted Pasitney. “How many other farmers were improperly served … and that resulted in unlawful enforcement?”
Pasitney said the decision has strengthened her resolve to keep pushing for accountability from the Canadian government — a crusade she said is now larger than Universal Ostrich Farms.
“Our farm is leading a movement. I’ve been blessed to be able to be the voice,” she said.
“And so I will continue to fight for my family and for everybody else out there.”
Lifestyle, Mark carney, Universal ostrich farms, Quarantine, Canada, Government overreach, Letter from canada
Mexican cartel drones in El Paso to blame for airspace closure: War Department
The Federal Aviation Administration briefly shut down El Paso flights after Mexican cartel drones “breached” American airspace on Tuesday.
The FAA lifted the flight restrictions Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours later, after initially establishing a 10-day closure due to “special security concerns.”
‘All flights will resume as normal.’
An official from President Donald Trump’s administration later clarified the security concern to Blaze News, noting the Department of War’s involvement.
“Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace,” the official told Blaze News. “The Department of War took action to disable the drones. The FAA and DOW have determined there is no threat to commercial travel.”
RELATED: ‘Impossible to deal with’: Pete Hegseth reveals the real culprit behind defense contractor delays
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The FAA reiterated that flights have resumed as normal in a statement posted on X.
“The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted,” the statement reads. “There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal.”
RELATED: Exclusive: ICE busts pedophile, abuser, and fentanyl trafficker despite ongoing shutdown
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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Pete hegseth, Department of war, Dow, El paso, Faa, Federal aviation administration, Mexican cartels, Mexican cartel drones, 911, American airpsace, Politics
Rogue Republicans side with Democrats, revolting against Trump’s key economic policy
The House of Representatives failed to protect President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with three Republicans enabling any lawmaker to challenge his economic policy on the floor.
Republicans attempted to pass a rule to block Congress’ ability to challenge Trump’s tariff policies late Tuesday night. The GOP ultimately fell short, failing to pass the rule in a 214-217 vote after Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Kevin Kiley of California, and Don Bacon of Nebraska sided with Democrats.
‘It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility.’
Massie fired back at accusations that he voted simply to buck Trump, arguing that the vote was an attempt to “subvert the Constitution.”
“My goal is to defend the Constitution and to represent the people,” Massie said in a post on X. “Taxing authority is vested in the House of Representatives, not the Executive. The vote tonight was to subvert the Constitution and the 1976 National Emergencies Act by literally saying a day is not a day.”
RELATED: Vance casts tiebreaking war powers vote after Republicans betray Trump
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Bacon, who has deviated from Trump in the past, also cited constitutional concerns with the vote.
“I don’t like putting the important work of the House on pause, but Congress needs to be able to debate on tariffs,” Bacon said in a post on X. “Tariffs have been a ‘net negative’ for the economy and are a significant tax that American consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are paying.”
“Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed that authority to the executive branch. It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility. I also oppose using the rules votes to legislate. I want the debate and the right to vote on tariffs.”
RELATED: Exclusive: Republicans pen OMAR Act, targeting lawmakers who have ‘blurred’ ethical lines
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Although the vote failed, Trump allies like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) continued to defend tariffs.
“This is life with a razor-thin majority as we have, and sometimes this happens,” Johnson said on Fox News Wednesday. “We had three defections. … I think it’s a big mistake.”
“I don’t think we need to go down the road of trying to limit the president’s power while he is in the midst of negotiating America First trade agreements with nations around the world.”
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Thomas massie, Don bacon, Kevin kiley, Donald trump, Mike johnson, House republicans, House democrats, Tariffs, America first, Trump tariffs, Congress, Constitution, Constitutional authority, Politics
‘They aren’t trying to hide their racist agendas anymore’: Texas lawmakers show ‘true colors’
Democrats are no longer even pretending they’re not pushing an inflammatory, racially charged agenda — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is grateful that they’re being honest, calling it “beautiful.”
“The beautiful part of it is that they aren’t trying to hide their racist agendas anymore. They’re just saying everything out in the open. They’ve just been emboldened to just be blatantly, publicly racist. And then that’s where you know their true colors,” Gonzales says.
“I always tell people the day the Latino, African-American, Asian, and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning because we are the majority in this country now. We have the ability to take over this country,” state Rep. Gene Wu (D-Texas) said in an interview on “Define America” with Jose Antonio Vargas.
“Oh, OK, that sounds, like, a little insurrection-y,” Gonzales comments.
“He’s calling on all of the minorities, all of the non-whites to take over the country. By what means, Gene?”
And Attorney General Ken Paxton is on the same page as Gonzales.
“Gene Wu is a radical racist who hates millions of Texans just because they’re white. This is who the modern Democrat party is,” Paxton wrote in a response to Wu’s comments on X.
But Wu isn’t the only one who has made inflammatory comments recently.
“There are those that have their own motivations for critiquing,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said in an interview on VOX’s “Today, Explained.”
The interviewer then pressed Crockett, asking, “Is it just racism and sexism?”
“I think there’s a lot of things. I think it depends on who it’s coming from, but I’ve been a black woman my whole life. So this idea that I’m going to go and be like, ‘Oh, well, they’re being racist and misogynistic towards me,’” Crockett said.
“Like, you think I didn’t know I was a black woman when I woke up and decided that I was going to run for the United States Senate. You think I didn’t factor in and make sure that we had enough room to account for that?” she asked.
“I’m going to be honest … I am a little bit black-pilled. I feel like every clip that I’ve played this show just makes me dumber somehow. It’s difficult to follow the logic there,” Gonzales comments.
“White people in this country are tired of hearing that they’re racist because they have brains,” she adds.
Want more from Sara Gonzales?
To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on 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, Video phone, Camera phone, Sharing, Free, Upload, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Gene wu, Jasmine crockett, Racist democrats, Racism, Insurrection, Minorities
Florida home invader threatens homeowner with weapon, advances toward him, refuses to leave. But crook picks wrong victim.
A home invader in Tallahassee, Florida, picked the wrong victim late last week.
The Leon County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a report of shots fired in the 5400 block of Touraine Drive around 9:40 p.m. Friday and found a male suffering from a gunshot wound.
‘Completely justified! Homeowners have a right to defend their property, their lives, and their families.’
Detectives determined the male entered a home uninvited and refused to leave after multiple requests from the homeowner, officials said.
The suspect then threatened the homeowner with a weapon while advancing toward him, officials said.
With that, the homeowner fired a single round from a semi-automatic handgun, striking the suspect, officials said.
The suspect was taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said, adding that no other individuals in the home were hurt.
Officials said charges are pending in the ongoing investigation.
Image source: Leon County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office
As you might expect, commenters under the Facebook post about the shooting from sheriff’s office were decidedly backing the homeowner’s actions:
“This the epitome of ‘fawk around and find out,'” one commenter wrote. “I hope those ‘pending [charges]’ aren’t against the homeowner.””Completely justified!” another user said. “Homeowners have a right to defend their property, their lives, and their families.””Good for the homeowner having a gun and defending himself!” another commenter declared. “This is one of the EXACT reasons we have the Second Amendment! Thank heavens!””Multiple requests to leave?” another user asked. “Um, you’re lucky if you get ONE request to leave.””Shouldn’t have to be transported to hospital,” another commenter said, adding that it would “be much better if they transported the subject to morgue.””Ain’t no intruder gonna survive to tell at my house,” another user promised.”I love a happy ending,” another commenter said.
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Crime thwarted, Florida, Guns, Gun rights, 2nd amend., Home invasion, Self-defense, Shooting, Crime
Idaho is deep red. So why do leftist bureaucrats still run the show?
Idaho votes like a conservative juggernaut. Republicans hold the governor’s mansion, both legislative chambers, and every statewide office. Yet the administrative state still runs on autopilot, and progressives who never win at the ballot box keep their hands on levers of power.
Last week delivered a clean example. Estella Zamora, the 72-year-old vice president of the Idaho Human Rights Commission, lost her seat after Gov. Brad Little withdrew her reappointment. Progressive activists erupted. The press corps dutifully framed it as a purge. But the real scandal sits one step earlier: Little’s office initially recommended her for another term, as if nobody bothered to look.
President Trump’s ‘drain the swamp’ mandate doesn’t end at Maryland and Virginia’s borders. It reaches every state capital where permanent bureaucrats ignore the electorate.
That rubber-stamp culture explains how red-state voters keep getting blue-state governance.
Zamora held influence for more than three decades. She didn’t win it from voters. She inherited it from the system. A Democratic governor appointed her in the 1990s. Republican administrations kept renewing her anyway, term after term, until she became another “untouchable” fixture inside Idaho’s bureaucracy.
Only public pressure forced movement. Conservative activists and outlets like the Gem State Chronicle, along with our own program, Idaho Signal, highlighted Zamora’s political activism online. She appeared before the Senate State Affairs Committee on Jan. 28 as part of the reappointment process. Lawmakers asked questions. The public noticed. Little reversed course a few days later.
Little made the right call in the end. The process that led to the near-miss should worry every Idaho voter.
Zamora didn’t simply hold personal opinions. She couldn’t resist using her public platform to attack Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency charged with enforcing federal immigration law. Her posts pushed anti-ICE propaganda, circulated protest material, and condemned enforcement operations as “harmful.” She aligned herself with the activist line that treats border enforcement as a moral offense.
Idaho doesn’t need every commissioner to share the governor’s politics. Idaho does need commissioners who can credibly carry out their duties without turning a state post into a political megaphone. A human rights commission depends on public confidence. Activism that signals contempt for lawful enforcement undermines that confidence.
This isn’t a free-speech dispute. Zamora can say whatever she wants as a private citizen. Voters can judge it. Officials must still decide whether that behavior fits a role that demands impartiality and restraint.
Progressives are already shouting “censorship” and “partisan purge.” They’re portraying Zamora as some saintly Latina icon victimized for speaking out. That rhetoric flips the facts. Nobody owes a lifetime appointment to someone who campaigns against the policies Idaho voters repeatedly choose in overwhelming numbers at the ballot box. Public service carries conditions. When the public loses trust, leaders should act.
RELATED: Trump’s primary endorsements are sabotaging his own agenda
Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
The greater lesson extends beyond Zamora.
Idaho’s bureaucracy keeps reappointing the same figures because too many Republican offices treat commissions and boards as background noise. Staffers recycle names. Vetting becomes procedural. Appointments become habit. Progressives understand this weakness, so they play the long game: They entrench themselves in institutions that outlast elections.
That pattern repeats across the country. Red states elect Republican leaders. Agencies keep advancing progressive priorities through regulation, enforcement discretion, and institutional culture. The left loses elections and wins governance anyway.
Republican governors and legislators can’t keep solving this problem only after activists force their hand. They should audit commissions and boards, review reappointments with real scrutiny, and replace partisan operatives with people who respect the mission and the law without bias and without apology.
President Trump’s “drain the swamp” mandate doesn’t end at the Maryland and Virginia borders. It reaches every state capital where permanent bureaucrats ignore the electorate and treat public posts as ideological turf.
Idaho voters spoke loudly. The administrative state had better listen because we’re just getting started.
Opinion & analysis, Deep state, Administrative state, Idaho, Brad little, Red states, Red state governors, Estella zamora, Idaho human rights commission, Anti-ice, Immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Rubber stamp, Autopilot, Bureaucracy, Donald trump, Drain the swamp
Just hundreds of people control earth’s future. What do they want?
Many in the AI field believe that the future is inevitable, a destination arrived at through the brute application of electricity and capital. This prevailing faith, known as the scaling hypothesis, posits that if one feeds enough data into enough GPUs, AI will emerge as a matter of course. It is a comforting determinism, suggesting that the machine evolves under its own logic, provided the resources are sufficient.
However, if we observe the actual dynamics of this revolution, we notice that the machinery is useless without a very specific, rare kind of human intervention. Servers may hum in their air-conditioned vastness, but the architecture of the computing they house does not emerge spontaneously from the chips. It is crafted, often painfully, by a handful of individuals. As the entrepreneur Naveen Rao observed, there are perhaps “only a couple hundred people in the world” who possess the deep expertise required to train cutting-edge models.
Progress relies on the spark of insight that only a human mind can provide.
The leaders of the industry are betting that a brilliant mind can unlock more progress than an extra few billion parameters can. While scaling provides the clay, the spark of human genius acts as the catalyst. This scarcity has precipitated what Elon Musk called the “craziest talent war” he had ever seen. Companies are not merely hiring; they are offering seven-figure salaries to lure researchers away from rivals, regarding these individual experts as the ultimate competitive edge.
There is a historical resonance here, a recurring pattern in which the movement of a few minds alters the geopolitical trajectory. We saw it in the 20th century, when the United States imported Wernher von Braun and his team under Project Paperclip, a move that enabled America’s achievements during the space race. We saw the inverse when the U.S., concerned with communist espionage, deported the Caltech-trained scientist Qian Xuesen to China, an act later described by a U.S. official as the “stupidest thing this country ever did.” Qian returned to China to orchestrate its nuclear program, proving that the loss of talent can be a strategic error that capital cannot fix.
We are now witnessing a diffusion of genius that belies the American assumption of dominance. For years, American discourse failed to see the rise of Chinese AI, lulled by the belief that innovation was a function of Silicon Valley’s unique ecosystem. Then came DeepSeek. In early 2025, this Hangzhou-based lab released a model that rivaled the best American systems, trained at a fraction of the cost.
RELATED: Zuckerberg names ex-White House deputy Meta’s new president — and Trump LOVES it
Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The shock was palpable. It was described as a “Sputnik moment.” DeepSeek did not achieve this by out-spending the Americans; it did it by out-thinking them. It utilized architectural efficiencies to achieve frontier capability with about a tenth of the computing power of its competitors. It demonstrated that elite technical talent can compensate for, and optimize around, resource constraints. Brains had outsmarted brawn.
This dynamic is reshaping the cultural geography of the field. Talent is no longer content to sit in the monolithic campuses around the San Francisco Bay Area. Consider the exodus from Meta. Of the 14 authors who wrote the original LLaMA paper, 11 had departed by 2025. They did not vanish; they circulated. Many resurfaced in Paris, founding Mistral AI, which quickly raised over €100 million on the promise of making AI accessible through open-source models.
The shift is from institutional loyalty to intellectual nomadism. Some researchers are driven by an open-source ethos, preferring to publish their model weights and invite global collaboration rather than lock their work behind corporate walls. Openness can be a strategy to harness talent. When Alibaba’s Qwen team or DeepSeek release their models, they are not just releasing code; they are signaling to the global community of mathematicians and engineers that the work is happening there, outside the confines of the American giants.
The scaling hypothesis suggests a kind of inevitability, that any sufficiently funded lab would eventually reach the same breakthroughs. The history of the field suggests, rather, that the Transformer architecture, the very backbone of modern AI, might not have appeared in 2017 had Vasilii Vaswani and his collaborators not been in the room to imagine it. These shifts are not guaranteed by external conditions: They require advocates, mavericks, particular minds capable of the conceptual leap.
Michael Polanyi spoke of tacit knowledge, the ineffable know-how that cannot be written down but resides in the intuition of the expert. With neural networks, this tacit knowledge is the feel for tuning a loss function, the aesthetic judgment required to guide a model’s learning. To build machines that behave intelligently, we are dependent on the rarest and most distinctively human forms of creativity.
The models are getting larger. The data centers consume the power of small nations. However, the direction of this juggernaut is still determined by a very small number of people. The scaling hypothesis was only ever half the story. The other half is the talent hypothesis, the stubborn fact that progress relies on the spark of insight that only a human mind can provide.
The intelligence we are so desperate to manufacture is not a commodity we can mine from the earth but a reflection of the people who build it. Without the elite engineers to imagine what to do with the compute, the ambitious visions of artificial intelligence remain just that — visions, waiting for a mind to bring them to life. The servers may be loud, but it is the quiet work of these few hundred people that will determine what they are saying.
Tech, Ai
‘Die from masturbation’: Days before murdering his parents, Utah ‘trans’ man made eerie complaints about ‘lunatic’ housemate
On June 18, 2024, Collin “Mia” Bailey gunned down his parents in cold blood in their Southern Utah home and attempted to do the same to a brother and sister-in-law.
Through bodycam footage and police reports obtained via public records requests, Blaze News can confirm that less than two weeks before the heinous shootings, Bailey made a disturbing call to police, accusing his then-housemate of harassing him and threatening to kill him with a shotgun.
Sound amplifier, ‘X-ray’ device, and poison: Bailey spins wild tale
At 3:41 a.m. on June 5, 2024, Officer Weston Hughes knocked on a door inside a residence in a quiet neighborhood in St. George, Utah. A sign reading “Baby is Asleep” hung on that interior door, and behind it lived Joseph Earl, his wife, and their young children.
Other tenants lived in the house as well. Collin “Mia” Bailey was one of them.
‘I’m going to screw my wife and make you die from masturbation.’
Though not for long.
Bailey was supposed to move out later that day. Earl’s wife, whose name is not provided in any of the reports, told police they were evicting Bailey for repeatedly making noise at night and waking up their kids.
This night was apparently no exception.
Officer Hughes and backup Officer Rob Anderson arrived at the residence in response to a 911 call from Bailey made at 3:23 that morning. The officers met Bailey outside the residence and listened to his wild rantings about Joseph Earl, whom he identified as the “house manager.”
“He hates me quite a bit, like, hates my guts,” Bailey emphasized. “And he’s pulling these stunts for months now. And the moment he pulled the gun, it was like, all right, I gotta say something.”
Bailey then explained to the cops that about a half-hour earlier, Earl had loaded a shotgun and threatened to kill him. Bailey reiterated to Anderson that Earl threatened to kill him “multiple times” and that he had been making similar threats for days.
“I know he has a shotgun because he tried loading it and then threatened to kill me and stuff,” Bailey told Hughes.
Hughes later asked Bailey to describe the gun. Bailey replied, “I don’t know what it was. It was too dark, but it was a shotgun.”
After Bailey gave meandering and seemingly inconsistent statements about what happened that night, Hughes asked him to clarify how he could have seen the gun but didn’t “know what it looked like.” Bailey replied: “I saw it. I’ve heard it. But I quickly opened the door and closed it.”
RELATED: Groomed for violence? The dark world of furries and transgenderism in America’s classrooms
In addition to accusing Earl of brandishing the shotgun, Bailey repeatedly claimed that Earl had a “sound amplifier” that allowed him to hear everything Bailey did in his room. Bailey further alleged that the amplifier gave him “splitting headaches.”
Bailey also referred to an “anti-recording” device that “blocks out sound from [Earl’s] end upstairs,” as well as some sort of “X-ray”-like device that allowed Earl to learn Bailey’s passwords.
“So there’s a thing. It slides — it’s four wheels. Because you can hear it up on the roof, you know. When you walk, you can hear footsteps, right? Or you can slide it throughout the house,” Bailey said of the “X-ray” machine.
Bailey indicated that both the “anti-recording” and the “X-ray”-like device seemingly interfered with his ability to document Earl’s antics. At least one of Earl’s alleged devices sometimes caused the house to “shake,” Bailey claimed, though it is unclear which one.
While Earl “appears to be in face fine,” he’s actually “very, very manipulative,” Bailey insisted.
Bailey also claimed to Officer Hughes that Earl had confessed to putting “poison” in Bailey’s drinks and threatened to put other drugs in them as well.
Bailey even claimed that some of Earl’s threats were sexual in nature. “I’m going to screw my wife and make you die from masturbation,” Bailey recalled Earl saying.
That particular night, Earl made other sexually explicit comments, Bailey claimed. “Basically he was saying, ‘F**k you! I hate you! Suck my c**k!'” Bailey said.
“So many messed up stuff. This guy is [a] lunatic,” Bailey insisted.
‘I don’t have schizophrenia or anything like that.’
Bailey later flipped through his phone, showing Officer Anderson a long list of apparent recordings as well as images and videos that Anderson indicated Bailey had taken of himself earlier that morning. Anderson then confirmed to Hughes that he saw nothing on Bailey’s phone to substantiate claims of a “disturbance.”
For his part, Earl denied making any threats, brandishing any weapon, or even engaging in any kind of argument with Bailey before he went to bed that night. “Absolutely nothing like that has happened,” Earl told Hughes.
Earl’s wife, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a child, confirmed to Anderson that there had been no “disturbance” and that her husband had been sleeping next to her all night. “I would have known if he left,” she added.
Throughout his conversations with the cops, Bailey repeatedly requested that they search the Earls’ apartment for evidence to back up his claims, alleging that Joseph Earl posed a threat to the other tenants in the home, but the officers declined. “It really doesn’t work that way,” Anderson replied. “There’s not even enough probable cause for us to apply for a warrant,” noted Hughes.
The bodycam videos, both about 20 minutes in length, conclude with Officer Hughes advising everyone to go to bed and explaining to Bailey that there is “no evidence” to corroborate his story.
RELATED: Trans-identifying man sentenced for brutal murder of his parents
‘A 96 ISSUE’: Bailey’s stability questioned
Police reports confirm that officials suspected Bailey of experiencing some kind of mental health episode from the start. Bailey called St. George police at 3:23 a.m. that day, the call report showed, and by 3:29, the dispatcher had already described him as “SOUNDING MORE AND MORE 96.”
Hughes, who first made contact with Bailey at 3:30 a.m. and exited Bailey’s residence at 3:50 a.m., reported to dispatch at 3:54 a.m. that “THIS WILL BE A 96 ISSUE.”
“96” is code for a “mental subject.”
Officer Hughes likewise admitted to Earl that Bailey’s statements and behaviors suggested that “there’s obviously something going on mentally. I just don’t know exactly what it is.”
In his incident report, Hughes documented that he asked Bailey whether he had “any mental illnesses” but that Bailey “denied having any.”
Audio redactions in the bodycam footage make it impossible to confirm Hughes’ claim of asking Bailey about “any” mental illness, but Bailey told the officers at 3:48 a.m., “I don’t have schizophrenia or anything like that.”
Bailey did tell Anderson that he identifies as “transgender” and began transitioning four years prior. Bailey also suggested that his gender identity could be a possible reason for Earl’s alleged animosity.
If the Earls harbored any trans-related animus against Bailey, they did not show it during their conversations with police. The Earls always referred to Bailey with female pronouns and indicated that they were mainly frustrated that Bailey frequently woke up their children and that he fabricated a story about their family and posted it to Facebook.
Throughout their appearances on the bodycam footage, the Earls seem calm and direct, just bewildered about being woken up in the middle of the night and about Bailey’s accusations against Joseph.
Joseph Earl and the woman believed to be his wife did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
At one point, Bailey did suggest that he suffered from self-loathing and that he admitted as much within earshot of Earl. “I kept complaining to myself that I didn’t like myself,” Bailey claimed to Officer Anderson. Bailey indicated that this alleged admission may have stoked Earl’s ire.
Bailey also admitted that he hadn’t been “feeling very well lately,” though he attributed that malaise to the “poison” Earl had allegedly given him.
It is unclear whether Bailey ever moved out of the residence he shared with the Earls and where he may have gone if he did.
‘Guilty and mentally ill’: Bailey’s murderous rampage
Less than two weeks after this encounter with police, Bailey shot and killed his father, 70-year-old Joseph Bailey, and his mother, 69-year-old Gail Bailey, in their home in Washington City, Utah. He also shot through a bedroom door where his brother and sister-in-law had barricaded themselves, though the couple were able to flee to safety.
Following his arrest, Bailey reportedly told investigators: “I would do it again. I hate them.”
In November 2025, Bailey, now 30, pled “guilty and mentally ill” to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to consecutive sentences of 25 years to life plus up to an additional five years for the assault.
At the sentencing hearing, Bailey’s attorney, Ryan Stout, claimed that Bailey had been diagnosed with a bevy of mental illnesses: autism, psychosis, schizophrenia, ADHD, and OCD.
Dustin Bailey — one of Mia’s brothers though not the one victimized in the attack — spoke at the hearing, reaffirming the family’s support for “LGBTQ rights” and seemingly blaming some of Mia’s mental spiral on cross-sex hormones.
“Providing powerful hormones to a person in a psychiatric crisis without proper psychiatric safeguards is not affirming care. It is reckless. … It acted as an accelerant, intensifying instability, impairing judgment, and compounding risk. That failure harmed Mia, and it endangered our parents,” Dustin said.
Mia Bailey, who claims to have converted to Islam, is currently housed at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City, which has separate buildings for men and women. Blaze News reached out to the Utah Department of Corrections to verify whether he is housed with male inmates but did not receive a response.
The St. George incident report and call report both list Bailey’s sex as male.
Washington City, Utah, is also the hometown of Tyler Robinson, accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk in September. Robinson’s alleged romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, reportedly identifies as transgender.
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Mia bailey, Transgender, St. george, Utah, Washington city, Politics
Michigan man who allegedly murdered his fiancée and her two sons says he just ‘snapped’
A man called police to report that home intruders had killed his fiancée and her two sons, but Michigan police arrested him for allegedly murdering them all.
Charles Broomfield, 44, reported the shooting at about 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 27 at the home on Worden Street SE, according to the Grand Rapids Police Department. He was arrested two days later.
‘She’s one of the best things that ever happened to me out of any woman, girl I’ve ever been with.’
In an interview with WOOD-TV from the Kent County jail, Broomfield said he saw red and then “snapped” that day.
He claimed that his fiancée, Jacqueline Neill, told him to move out of their home, and he grew so angry that one of his personalities took over.
Broomfield said he met Neill on the Tinder app and had known her for eight years. They had a son together five years ago, and she brought two sons, 15-year-old Cameron Kilpatrick and 13-year-old Michael Kilpatrick, into the family, along with two daughters.
“She’s one of the best things that ever happened to me out of any woman, girl I’ve ever been with,” he told WOOD.
However, they disagreed on how to raise the children and got into an argument just days after moving into the home on Worden.
“I remember the night before like it was f**king yesterday,” he said.
“We were just being petty towards each other,” he added.
He said he had woken up early that morning to shovel snow but that Neill told him it was over and he needed to move out.
“Something inside me just seen red,” he added. “Snapped, I just snapped. I blacked out, couldn’t think of nothing.”
He admitted to shooting Neill and her two sons to death.
“A monster who don’t give a f**k, don’t have no remorse, will not cry, does not care. I was crying,” he added.
Police said that Broomfield confessed after they noticed inconsistencies in his story. He now claims that he is suffering with numerous personalities that he has named.
“I am battling demons, like I said. Chuckie, Charlay, Charlie, Charles — all had something going on and whatever and whatnot. Chaz was just chillin’, and it’s like, I know I’m not a bad guy,” he added.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker believes Broomfield is trying to set up an insanity defense and said that he doesn’t buy it. When WOOD confronted Broomfield with the suggestion, he denied it.
Broomfield is being held on three charges of premeditated murder and gun charges.
He went on to offer an apology for the family of his alleged victims.
“Basically none of this was supposed to happen. Period,” he continued. “And I’m sorry to all of them.”
The Grand Rapids community held a vigil for the victims that included Neill’s sister Joanne Elzinga.
“Jacqueline and Cameron and Michael were an important part of all of our lives, and we’re going to do our best to begin patching up the holes that they left,” she said.
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Charles broomfield murder, Grand rapids triple murder, Crime, Man murders fiancee and sons, Man murders tinder fiancee
Blame bias, not Bezos, for the Washington Post’s downfall
The Washington Post just laid off more than 300 employees — roughly 30% of its newsroom — cutting back sports, local coverage, international reporting, and books. The paper has shed staff before, including a reduction in 2025 and voluntary buyouts, as losses piled up. Reports put the Post’s losses at $177 million over the past two years, with annual deficits topping $100 million since 2023.
Predictably, fired staffers and their allies blame owner Jeff Bezos for refusing to write blank checks indefinitely. They want the world’s fourth-richest man to underwrite their failing business model forever.
Downsizing isn’t a tragedy. It’s a market verdict.
But that’s not the story. The Post didn’t collapse because Bezos got cheap. It collapsed because its newsroom got ideological — and readers stopped trusting it.
The Post built its modern reputation on tough reporting and institutional seriousness. Then its editors and writers started injecting personal politics into straight news, smuggling advocacy into headlines, and treating dissent as moral failure. That approach earned applause inside the Beltway, but it bled credibility outside it. Readers left. Subscribers disappeared. Revenue followed.
Immigration coverage captures the pattern.
In 2018, the Post ran a story headlined “How Trump is changing the face of legal immigration.” The piece claimed an 81% drop in arrivals from Muslim-majority countries and a 12% overall decline in legal immigration, framing the change as a deliberate demographic overhaul. The story leaned on cherry-picked State Department numbers that covered only part of the admissions system while ignoring other federal data. The paper dressed activism up as analysis and called it news.
That same year, the Post published “U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question,” implying a broad campaign of anti-Hispanic discrimination. The story suggested “hundreds, possibly thousands” faced baseless fraud accusations tied to midwife-assisted births.
The piece ignored the long history of documented fraud in those cases and left readers with a clear impression: The Trump administration targeted Hispanics. In fact, denial rates actually fell under Trump — from 35.9% in 2015 to 25.8% in 2018. The Post later appended an editor’s note acknowledging errors challenged by the State Department. That kind of walk-back never repairs the original damage.
In 2024, the habit remained. The Post accused Republicans of “misleading ads” about the border while soft-pedaling the scale and timing of the Biden-era surge. It scolded language choices, such as “illegals” and “harsher,” framed enforcement as cruelty, and applied different standards depending on which party spoke.
This isn’t just an immigration problem. It’s a newsroom culture problem.
RELATED: Bernie Sanders gets obliterated online for dragging Melania into left-wing criticism of WaPo layoffs
Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The Post’s rush to judgment during the Nicholas Sandmann incident in 2019 showed how quickly narrative can replace verification. The paper treated a Kentucky teenager as a national symbol of Trump-era racism based on a misleading clip, then watched the fuller video upend the story. The Post paid an undisclosed settlement. The reputational hit lingered.
That pattern — moral certainty first, facts later — has infected much of corporate media. CNN, the New York Times, and their peers keep hemorrhaging trust because they keep selling ideology as “objective” reporting. They blur the line between news and opinion, then act shocked when audiences treat them as partisan actors.
That distortion carries consequences beyond subscriptions. When media outlets portray immigration enforcement as inherently malicious and frame routine operations as persecution, they turn policy disagreement into moral panic. They train audiences to view law enforcement as an occupying force. That mindset fuels the kind of street-level provocation that turns tense encounters into tragedy.
Journalism carries a sacred obligation: Tell the truth plainly, verify before amplifying, and separate reporting from activism. Too many at the Post treated that obligation as optional. The audience noticed. Circulation reportedly plummeted to about 97,000 daily in 2025. Financial losses followed.
Downsizing isn’t a tragedy. It’s a market verdict.
If the Washington Post wants to survive, it must rediscover objectivity — or keep shrinking until only its own employees bother to read it.
Opinion & analysis, Washington post, Jeff bezos, Democracy, Media bias, Corporate media, Leftists, Amazon, First amendment, Billionaires, Immigration, Facts
Thomas Massie’s viral Epstein poll reveals stunning top belief: He lives
Conspiracy theories continue to swirl around Jeffery Epstein’s controversial death. Many are unwilling to accept the FBI’s official ruling that the convicted sex offender committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019.
The most widespread theory is that Epstein, believed by many to be a keeper of dark secrets, was murdered.
Now, however, another conspiracy theory is ramping up. In the wake of the Department of Justice’s publication last month of over 3 million additional pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images from the Jeffrey Epstein files — some of which provided more insight into the event of his death — a new wave of online speculation has surged.
According to this hypothesis, which is fueled by unsubstantiated viral claims and AI-doctored photos on social media, Epstein is alive and well and living in Israel.
To gauge how many people were entertaining this theory, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) conducted his own experiment by posting a poll on X inviting users to vote on which Epstein outcome they believe is true. The responses, of which there were nearly 150,000, were telling:
During a recent interview with Massie, Matt Kibbe, BlazeTV host of “Kibbe on Liberty,” asked the Kentucky congressman to share his thoughts on the poll’s results.
“Three percent of the 147,000 people who took this poll think Jeffrey Epstein killed himself,” Massie says.
“Forty-some percent said that he’s still alive, and 30-some percent say that he’s dead, but he was murdered,” he adds, calling these numbers “surprising.”
Massie notes that he included the fourth option — “just show the results” — because some people fear that “Mossad might be watching the traffic on that poll.”
The ultimate question, he says, is: “Is [Epstein] the kind of guy who thought he was cornered and there was no way out?”
“I don’t think so,” Massie says. “Like, Jeffrey Epstein, to me, seemed like the kind of guy who was just waiting for them to come and unlock the key and take him back to one of his mansions.”
“He knew, just like with the first conviction, he just would have to wait for a while and play his cards right, and I think he was that arrogant,” he adds. “That kind of arrogance is built because you got away with it before, and then you got away with it a thousand times, and you got so much dirt. He’s probably thinking, ‘If I can get back to my hard drive, this is all over with.’”
Kibbe wonders if perhaps Epstein was secreted away, not necessarily because of the “dirt” he had on others, but rather because he was “indispensable.”
“He was the guy that fixed problems for this elite class of financiers and politicians,” he says.
Massie acknowledges this possibility, recalling Epstein’s advice to former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak: “Think of all the people who owe you something, and then start from there.”
“Those were his words to Ehud Barak. That’s what he had to be thinking in the jail cell,” he says.
While Massie initially thought the FBI’s suicide conclusion was “reasonable and plausible,” now that the released files show “the full color of who he was and the kinds of things he did and what he got away with,” he rejects that ruling.
“I’m not in that 3%,” he says.
To hear more, watch the video above.
Want more from Matt Kibbe?
To enjoy more of Matt’s liberty-defending stance as he gets in the face of the fake news establishment, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Kibbe on liberty, Matt kibbe, Thomas massie, Blazetv, Blaze media, Epstein still alive, Epstein death, Epstein files, Epstein files controversy
Washington printed promises. Gold called the bluff.
The latest partial government shutdown has ended, and two facts stand out: Washington will keep spending like a drunken sailor, and Republicans squandered their cleanest leverage point to rein it in.
Start with the number that matters: The House approved $1.25 trillion in additional discretionary appropriations. That decision pushes the annual deficit toward $1.75 trillion. Republicans voted for it, complained about it, and then acted surprised that the spending binge continued.
If Republicans keep missing moments like this one, investors will keep moving into gold and silver, not out of ideology, but out of self-preservation.
The shutdown fight should have forced a trade. Democrats focused on cutting Department of Homeland Security funding. Republicans had options beyond folding. They could have demanded real cuts elsewhere, then used Democrats’ own political pain points to make the deal stick.
One obvious target sat in plain sight. The Trump administration proposed a 50% cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That should thrill the MAHA crowd. Democrats hate what they call ICE “overreach.” Republicans despise what they view as CDC mission creep and pandemic-era abuses.
Congress could have paired both cuts and sold it as a reset: trim enforcement and trim the public health bureaucracy, then avoid another shutdown. Democrats could claim restraint at the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans could claim restraint at the CDC. Taxpayers would finally get something besides another blank check.
Instead, Republicans let the moment pass, and voters got another spending package.
Don’t expect the next round to improve. Markets already read Washington’s behavior as a warning label. Gold and silver prices sit at record highs because investors smell what Congress refuses to admit: Deficits at this scale produce either inflation, higher taxes, or both.
Central banks have acted on that judgment for years. They have moved away from dollars and Treasuries and into gold. Poland’s central bank led global gold purchases in October and November last year. That shift isn’t a protest from adversaries alone. It reflects a broader conclusion, from allies and rivals alike, that Washington keeps making promises it cannot afford to keep.
RELATED: Congress needs to go big or go home
Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
The trend looks set to continue. Goldman Sachs expects central banks to buy roughly 60 metric tons of gold per month in the year ahead. Retail demand is rising too. Gold-backed exchange-traded funds reportedly absorbed about 800 metric tons in 2025 as investors searched for an asset that doesn’t depend on congressional self-control.
Frederic Panizzutti of Numismatica Genevensis explains the appeal plainly: Gold’s simplicity attracts buyers “as geopolitics and geoeconomics have become more complicated.”
Americans across the political spectrum want to abolish wasteful agencies. Congress won’t do it. Fine. Then at least cut budgets hard enough to prove lawmakers can say no to constituencies, lobbyists, and the permanent bureaucracies that treat every crisis as a looting opportunity.
Washington’s real problem isn’t a lack of authority. It’s a lack of restraint. Entitlement growth, debt service, and a bipartisan appetite for militarized foreign policy push the country toward instability at home and abroad. Politicians focus on the next election and leave the bill to the next generation.
If Republicans keep missing moments like this one, the dollar’s erosion will accelerate. Investors will keep moving into gold and silver, not out of ideology, but out of self-preservation.
Gold, Republicans, Democrats, Spending bill, Dhs, House republicans, Ice, Cdc, Economy, Markets, Opinion & analysis, Homeland security, Congress, Partial government shutdown
