Category: blaze media

According to a Cygnal poll, a sizable group of liberals supports breaking the law regarding ICE when simply protesting does not get the job done.

According to the poll, 42% of liberals overall and a whopping 60% of liberals under 30 consider it appropriate to “go beyond peaceful protest” in response to ICE, even if that means “breaking the law.” For Democrats ages 18-44, breaking the law to oppose ICE is a +15 issue, but a -42 issue among Democrats ages 45 and above, highlighting the increasing radicalization of younger voters.

An overwhelming 76% of general voters agreed that ‘politics has gotten more confrontational, and they wish it could return to being more civil.’

The poll, which was conducted October 7-8 of this year and surveyed 1,500 likely general election voters, showed a number of striking trends and top voter issues. The top issue for voters is now “threats to democracy,” up to 21% from 17% in April. It replaced “inflation and the economy,” which fell from 35% to 17% across the same period. Other top issues include illegal immigration and border security and health care.

An overwhelming 76% of general voters agreed that “politics has gotten more confrontational, and they wish it could return to being more civil.” However, 57% believe that political conflict and violence will continue to escalate. A telling detail is that voters under 30 are three times more likely “to accept the current tone and style of politics today as necessary or preferable,” 34% versus 12%.

RELATED: DOJ files first terrorism-related charges against alleged ‘Antifa Cell’ after ICE attack: ‘Get to the rifles’

Photo by NurPhoto / Contributor via Getty Images

Another interesting data point is the breakdown of where voters get their news. For Democrat voters, the main source is national TV at 45%. GOP voters favor cable at 44%. Among voters under 30, however, YouTube is the dominant news source, favored by 52% of Republican voters and 51% of independents. Among Democrats, the number sinks to 35%.

Popular figures on both sides of the aisle experienced slight increases in negative perception over the last few months. Cygnal has President Trump currently at 54% unfavorable and RFK Jr. at 52%. Support for the MAHA movement, however, remains very strong at 74%. On the other side, Chuck Schumer is at 51% unfavorable, while Hakeem Jeffries fares better at only 38% unfavorable, but with 15% having no opinion.

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Decisions made in the 1970s may still be affecting the average American’s ability to buy a home.

When the United States used gold as a standard for backing its currency, it acted as a limiter on money creation, capping the amount of currency that could be printed.

‘You have one year. One year. I don’t give a damn. I don’t care if you go bankrupt.’

According to currency expert and author Paul Stone, severing the U.S. dollar from gold in 1971 allowed for unlimited money-printing, immediately devaluing Americans’ savings while causing the unfettered spiraling of housing prices.

“The best way for everyone to understand gold standard … is it’s just a limiter,” Stone told Return in an interview. “They raised gold’s price to 35 bucks an ounce, which immediately diluted your savings by 40%. … That’s evil. When the government fixes its problems or addresses them at our expense, that’s evil.”

Likening uncontrolled money-printing to making “cotton candy out of thin air,” Stone told Return that the government has continuously doubled down on creating a false financial-energy system that causes stress and burden where it need not be.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in housing costs.

RELATED: Jerome Powell proves the Fed’s ‘independence’ is a myth

Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Contrasting the median price of a home in 1970 ($23,000), Stone said today’s average of $420,000 should be around $56,000-$70,000 if it were not for inflation caused by money printing.

Printing “us” out of debt was continuously perpetuated, Stone explained, all the way through the Bill Clinton administration, which “made fractional lending happen.”

Stone explained that with fractional lending, banks were allowed to lend 10 times the real amount of their money, which flooded the market with nonexistent capital. With that much money floating around, and an additional 1,000% spending power, the money directly inflated real estate pricing.

“So the price goes from what we think it ought to be … to $420,000 grand?!” he laughed, disappointedly.

When Stone was asked whether or not cryptocurrency, or perhaps specifically Bitcoin, was a way to circumvent inflation and make real capital gains, Stone identified that the method of currency is not the problem, but rather it is the user.

RELATED: I went to El Salvador to see if the country really gave up on Bitcoin

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“The reason there’s a ton of crypto is we’re brilliant creations,” Stone theorized. “And so people started to sense issues with government money. So they created non-government money. And of course the government has the power to get on top of that. And now it’s all just lipstick on a pig.”

The currency, whether crypto or fiat, will continue to be devalued and spiral out of control if the government does not change its core thesis, the author continued. “You can rename the dollar to some other name and it’s still worth three cents and you’re still printing money to pay your bills and you’re still killing the currency. There’s no way out of this.”

His radical solution? “Stop printing a dollar. Literally start back and just bring reality in as it kicks our ass,” Stone bluntly stated.

Additionally, Stone said that his “drastic” solution would include telling all U.S. corporations that they have one year to stop manufacturing outside of the country.

“You have one year. One year. I don’t give a damn. I don’t care if you go bankrupt. The country is practically dead financially.”

At the same time, he suggested a focus on state power and urged young Americans to vote with their feet and attempt to create an insulated environment in an affordable place. This sort of devolution revolution involves citizens not paying for what the federal government could not pay for if it weren’t for money-printing.

Stone urged, “The number-one solution to all this is you either move to a place where what you earn overwhelms your bills better or the government stops printing. … Move to a small town.”

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The Department of Justice under President Trump has formally filed what appear to be the first known charges related to Antifa as a terrorist organization.

In early July, Antifa gunmen were allegedly involved in a violent ambush outside a federal facility in Texas called the Prairieland Detention Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas.

‘Antifa adherents have increasingly targeted agents.’

In a document citing the incident, the federal government provided more details about an alleged Antifa terror cell.

A “North Texas Antifa Cell” of at least 11 operatives who were “clad in black and donning masks” attacked the detention center on the Fourth of July, 2025, the DOJ wrote in court documents. The government alleged that some of the operatives were wearing body armor and carrying firearms as well.

The documents, obtained by Fox News and filed in the Northern District of Texas on October 15, alleged that the Antifa cell members were “shooting fireworks towards the facility and vandalizing vehicles and a guard shed.”

When the DHS called local police, alleged Antifa members then started issuing disturbing directives.

RELATED: ‘SURREAL’: Glenn Beck shares what it was like talking to the FBI about Antifa

Mark David Smith/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

As Alvarado police were issuing commands to a “black-clad figure,” one accused Antifa member allegedly yelled, “Get to the rifles.”

That same person then allegedly opened fire on officers, hitting one in the neck area. The wounded officer fell to the ground but was able to return fire.

The accused continued to fire additional rounds until his rifle jammed, which is when the attackers fled the scene, the document added. Police also reportedly found a flag reading, “Resist Fascism. Fight Oligarchy.”

Prosecutors previously described the incident as an “ambush” and a “coordinated attack.”

RELATED: If Trump labels Antifa a foreign terrorist organization, here’s what he can do next

Police arrested most of the alleged Antifa cell after the attack. Many were arrested near the scene of the crimes, the DOJ wrote. Alleged Antifa members Zachary Evetts and Cameron Arnold, aka Autumn Hill, were named in the document.

The DOJ claimed that the Antifa cell subscribes to “revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology,” which explicitly calls for “the overthrow of the United States Government.”

“Antifa adherents have increasingly targeted agents and facilities related to DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the document added.

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Late last month, Blaze News reported about a Florida teen who authorities said carried out a jaw-dropping hoax featuring his own supposed kidnapping as well as texts to his family claiming he’d been shot and was being followed by four Hispanic men.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office and surrounding agencies pulled out all the stops, committing personnel and resources over the course of about 24 hours to find 17-year-old Caden Speight.

‘While continuing the investigation, detectives additionally learned that Speight had mentioned running away before, and they located ChatGPT searches on his laptop about collecting his blood without causing pain and Mexican cartels.’

But things began looking suspicious with every update, and finally the kid was found. But it was far from a happy reunion.

Turns out authorities said Speight shot himself in the leg. And his claim about Hispanic men following him? Made-up. But that was just for starters.

It now appears that his alleged hoax was even more elaborate than authorities first thought.

How it began

An Amber Alert was issued on the night of Sept. 25 stating that Speight was last seen about four hours earlier in the 12800 block of SW Highway 484 in Dunnellon, which is about an hour south of Gainesville.

RELATED: Racist signs found above water fountains in Georgia high school. Turns out student of color is behind hate hoax.

Image source: Marion County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office

As time wore on and the crisis heightened, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods noted that he had dedicated all of his available resources in an effort to find the teen, and his personnel worked through the night of Sept. 25 and through most of the next day on the case. In fact, Woods later said “federal agencies” as well as reinforcements “from around the state” turned out to help.

Many observers also were worried; one replied to the alert on Facebook with the following: “Oh, dear Jesus, please bring this young man back to his family safe and unharmed.”

But after the Hispanic men claim was debunked, authorities combed the scene where both Speight’s truck had been found and a shooting had been reported. The teen wasn’t there — but a bullet hole in the truck reportedly was.

The dominoes kept falling. An updated alert added that it was possible Speight “left the incident location on a black bicycle with a red and grey tent, which he purchased at Walmart on SW 19th Avenue Road in Ocala just prior to this incident being reported.” Ocala is about 40 minutes northeast of Dunnellon.

Finally the sheriff’s office said on the afternoon of Sept. 26 that Speight had “been located safe in Williston,” which is about 35 minutes northwest of Ocala.

Authorities say it was a hoax

Sheriff Woods a few days later announced in a video update that Speight made it all up.

Woods said, “We had witnesses that contradicted the initial information. Caden simply rode away towards Williston while the rest of us were left to think the worst, and my team was working in overdrive to solve this case.”

As for the teen’s claim that he’d been shot, the sheriff said, “Content to continue the ruse, Caden — who had a handgun with him since the beginning of all of this — chose to shoot himself in the leg, causing a non-life-threatening injury just prior to walking out to the roadway where he would be located by citizens in Williston. There is zero chance that Caden’s gunshot wound came from any type of an assailant.”

Woods added that numerous people asked if Speight would face consequences, and this week that has come to pass.

RELATED: ‘Noose’ found at Obama Presidential Center building site in Chicago — but some conservatives are skeptical: ‘I’ll take ‘hate crime hoaxes’ for $3,500, Alex’

Facing justice

The sheriff’s office said Major Crimes Detective Jason Williams on Tuesday arrested Speight for presenting false evidence, shooting into a conveyance, making a false report of a crime, and possession of a firearm by a minor.

In its announcement, the sheriff’s office added that during the all-out search for Speight, crime scene technicians noticed a bullet hole through the windshield of his vehicle, suspected blood, Speight’s severely damaged cell phone, drag marks in the dirt, and bicycle tracks leading away from his truck.

But authorities soon said he went much further than that in an attempt to solidify the hoax:

Further investigation and testing revealed that Speight had fired the shot through the windshield, splattered a mixture of blood in the truck, and destroyed his cell phone. Speight then fled the area on a bicycle with camping supplies he purchased at Walmart just before reporting this incident. An eyewitness also advised that he saw Speight leaving the area on a bicycle.

While continuing the investigation, detectives additionally learned that Speight had mentioned running away before, and they located ChatGPT searches on his laptop about collecting his blood without causing pain and Mexican cartels. On September 26, 2025, Williston Police Department (WPD) officers located Speight during a call for service at 727 W Noble Avenue in Williston. Speight was found with a handgun and the bicycle still in his possession. He attempted to continue the ruse and had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his leg, which shattered his femur and required medical treatment.

The sheriff’s office said that after Speight’s arrest, he was taken to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

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BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey has been praised across the aisle for the debating prowess she displayed during her Jubilee debate with 20 progressive Christians — and she has some seriously helpful tips for those who might find themselves in similar disagreements.

“Here is my tip when you’re debating. Number one, connection without compromise. Connecting to them in a human and genuine way without conceding to their argument,” Stuckey says.

“Number two, define your terms,” she says, explaining that in order to have a debate on a subject, you have to agree on the building blocks of the debate.

In a clip from the debate, Stuckey defines her terms before engaging with a liberal on abortion, saying, “So, abortion, the intentional killing of a human being in the womb. Can we agree on that?”

When the liberal said he didn’t believe abortion is murder, Stuckey brought it back to “killing.”

“I believe that it is killing life in the womb,” the liberal agreed.

“Killing what species of life?” she asked.

“A human,” he answered.

“So, we can agree that abortion is the intentional killing of a human inside the womb,” she says.

“Evil, bad, wrong, simple,” she says. “So, I believe that the intentional killing of an innocent human being is evil. Do you agree?”

“No,” he answered.

“They’re not in charge. You can be in charge, and you can do that in a gracious way and an assertive way. They are not setting the rules; you are setting the rules. So, define terms. That is so important from the very beginning,” she says, reflecting on the clip.

And one of her most important tips is that “you are not trying to win every argument in every conversation.”

“You are trying to advance the ball down the field a little bit more. You are trying to plant a seed. Remember, this is so important for every sphere of life. You are not the main character. You’re not the main character in your own life. You’re not the main character in that person’s life,” Stuckey says.

“You are one of maybe 10,000 people that the Lord is going to use in a person’s life to complete their testimony. You are a small part. You are one vessel. You have one role to play,” she continues.

“You plant the seed; you love them,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

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Most smartphones come with decent cameras these days, complete with customizable modes, color filters, and basic zoom capabilities. However, recent advancements in camera zoom technology make it easier than ever for someone to spy on you or your family from afar, both in public spaces and from the comfort of your own home.

Hybrid zoom is here, and it’s everywhere

The cameras on most smartphones today feature two zoom technologies. Optical zoom uses the focal length of the camera lens to magnify a subject. In other words, it can only zoom in as far as the lens physically allows. Digital zoom expands the zoomable distance of the optical lens by cropping the image even closer. Although this neat software trick can dramatically increase the zoom distance on your phone, zooming in too far will make a photo grainy or blurry.

Innovations like hybrid zoom will continue to chip away at basic rights like personal privacy and security.

While zoom technology is nothing new, hybrid zoom is a newer concept that combines optical and digital zoom to produce more enhanced photos, and it’s sweeping through the smartphone market. For the first time, all three major phone manufacturers in the United States now make flagship phones that can snap photos and videos up to 40x-100x away, far beyond the standard 3x-5x zoom length found on most phones prior to 2020. Now that these devices are widely accessible, privacy and long-distance surveillance are major concerns that all Americans should keep in mind.

Pro Res Zoom on Pixel 10 ProKeynote slideshow by Zach Laidlaw

Watch out for these flagship phones with hybrid zoom

Samsung was the first to add “Space Zoom” to its Galaxy lineup back in 2020. You may have seen photos of Samsung users taking very detailed pictures of the moon, and although it was later confirmed that Samsung used AI to craft some of these images, Space Zoom is still effective at snapping close-up shots here on Earth. Even five years later, the latest Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra takes some of the most impressive zoomed-in photos, with up to 100x the lens focal length.

RELATED: Don’t upgrade your iPhone to iOS 26 until you know about this trick

Photo by Cheng Xin/ Getty Images

Google and Apple also joined the fray this year. The Google Pixel 10 Pro series received a telephoto lens with 100x “Pro Res Zoom” that’s further enhanced by AI to take incredible photos and video from far away. As for Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro series, these phones received the longest telephoto lens ever put into an iPhone, with up to 40x zoom capabilities.

While each phone has its drawbacks — Samsung Galaxy faked its moon photos, Google Pixel’s AI can sometimes distort a zoomed-in image, and Apple’s iPhone doesn’t get as close as its competitors — hybrid zoom is now a basic feature on all three major flagship devices.

Should you worry about hybrid zoom? Here’s what it does and doesn’t do.

Now that hybrid zoom is widely available, it’s easier than ever for someone to snap photos or videos of you from a distance, without your knowledge or permission. A stranger can see where you are and what you’re doing at any given moment.

Even worse, hybrid zoom is versatile — someone could use it to spy on you at a park, in the grocery store, or while driving your car, and it can even peek through the front window of your home. It has the power to breach your personal privacy almost everywhere.

Luckily, hybrid zoom doesn’t enhance the microphone on the host device. So while someone can photograph you from a distance, he can’t hear what you’re saying, unless he gets close.

Quick tips to protect yourself from hybrid zoom

Even if a stranger can’t hear you, he can learn a lot about you by taking photos and videos. Here are some quick tips to stay safe.

Close your blinds and curtains, especially at night. No one can zoom into your window if it’s covered.Never leave your phone, tablet, or laptop on and unattended in public. Be especially careful when using privacy-sensitive apps, like banking, investments, etc.Always use biometrics (fingerprints or facial recognition) to log in to your devices and webpages. This way, no one can watch out for your passcode or login passwords.Don’t leave your credit card out on a table at a restaurant or anywhere it can be photographed.

Knowledge is power

As consumer technology evolves faster than ever, new innovations like hybrid zoom will continue to chip away at basic rights, like personal privacy and security. None of us can stop them from coming, but awareness makes it easier to keep you and your family safe on both sides of your front door.

​Tech 

Sports commentator Skip Bayless said Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Travis Hunter is checking out from football.

Bayless, a former ESPN2 and FS1 commentator, posted a 28-minute video on Tuesday in which he claimed that Hunter should not have taken time out of his day last Sunday to get baptized.

‘It’s Sunday. It’s God’s day.’

Hunter was baptized on Sunday before a home game against the Seattle Seahawks, completing the ceremony at Celebration Church, a non-denominational congregation in Jacksonville.

In a post on X, Bayless criticized Hunter, stating, “There is no way Travis Hunter should’ve chosen to be baptized on the morning of a game. He is losing interest. He is mentally checking out on the Jags.”

A Christian himself, the 73-year-old went on to tell his audience that the baptism was evidence that Hunter was “starting to lose interest” in his team.

“So he was actually happy to be baptized on a game-day morning because football isn’t taking that much concentration, or focus, or pregame mental preparation,” he said.

The analyst continued to opine, citing Hunter’s college coach Deion Sanders as saying that Hunter needs to be played a lot in order to stay engaged with football. This is allegedly because the athlete likes video games and fishing.

Explaining that he did not think the baptism was any sort of protest, Bayless still claimed that Hunter’s attitude in this case was, “Hey, they’re not using me that much anyway; why not get baptized on a game-day morning?”‘

Hunter, on the other hand, was flabbergasted when asked by reporters about his choice to get baptized.

RELATED: 26 NCAA softball players baptized together before going head-to-head in Conference USA tournament

“Did you get baptized this morning?” a female reporter asked Hunter on Sunday, after his team lost 12-10 to the Seahawks.

“Yes,” Hunter plainly replied.

“Why’d you do that?” the reporter continued.

“It’s a crazy question: Why did I get baptized?” Hunter said with a smile.

Still pressing, the reporter then asked, “Why did you choose to go to church this morning?”

The 22-year old-provided a simple answer: “Sunday. It’s God’s day. I’ve been planning to get baptized for a minute. I changed my life over to become a better man.”

A male reporter then chimed in to ask, “What did it mean to you?”

Hunter, turning to his right, revealed, “It means a lot. Becoming a better man, leaving my old flesh and just becoming the new Travis.”

RELATED: ‘Thank you Jesus for this amazing moment’: Minor league baseball player gets baptized by teammate on the field

Bayless had stats to back up his claim that Hunter may not be getting the amount of playing time he is used to, stating that in his last year in college at Colorado, he was used in 87% of offensive plays and 83% of defensive plays. With Jacksonville, through six games, he has been used in just 63% and 39%, respectively.

“If given the correct opportunities, Travis Hunter will revolutionize modern-day pro football as a two-way player [on] offense and defense,” Bayless claimed.

The now-independent commentator revealed in his remarks that he knows Hunter’s baptism was special because he himself is a Christian who recently rededicated his life to God.

“I’m a God guy,” Bayless said. “I was baptized as an infant in Methodist Church.”

At the same time, Bayless added that he does not like to call himself Christian any more because “that’s been condemned as this term for far-right nutcases, zealots. I believe in God and the Bible with all my heart and all my soul. My life is dedicated, start to finish, to God and the Bible.”

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Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo does not take the issue of childhood vaccines likely — and is making major changes for the health and safety of Florida children.

Florida is seeking to end all vaccine mandates, including those for schoolchildren.

“The whole ‘means justify the ends’ that people are championing — our critics are championing — it’s a really bad way to make public policy,” Ladapo tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“Ultimately, I get the interest in — you know, none of us want people to be sick. None of us want to have to deal with people catching different viruses or bacterial infections, going to the hospital, things that are part of life — but we want to minimize those for sure,” he continues.

“But you can’t do it through unethical means. The means do not justify the ends. If the means are bad, the means are bad. The means and the ends are two different things. And it’s just so clearly both a parents’ rights issue and it’s very clearly a moral and ethical issue,” he adds.

Ladapo believes that Americans have a God-given right to “control what goes into your body.”

“Otherwise, do you really own it?” he asks.

Gonzales couldn’t agree more.

“If the government says you don’t have the right to control what enters your body, you don’t have any rights,” she says. “Like, that is one of the most fundamental, basic ideas. I don’t understand how it’s controversial.”

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.

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The Department of War has implemented new rules regarding news-gathering at the Pentagon such that now, according to Secretary Pete Hegseth, the building “has the same rules as every U.S. military installation.”

These rules, which reflect the fact acknowledged by the New York Times that “members of the news media do not possess a legal right to access the Pentagon” and that “legally, the press has no greater right of access than the public,” prompted apoplexy among scores of liberal news outlets.

‘It’s like college move-out day.’

After the Pentagon Press Association characterized the rules as a form of intimidation, the Associated Press, the Atlantic, CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, Task & Purpose, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post announced that they were not going to sign an agreement signaling comprehension of the new policy by the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

If the liberal reporters loath to sign a form indicating they “have received, read, and understand” the new rules thought that the Department of War was going to buckle in the face of their protest, they were greatly mistaken.

The Pentagon Press Association said in a statement that on Wednesday — a day after Hegseth gave select publications a virtual wave goodbye — the Department of War “confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America.”

The PPA claimed further that “Oct. 15, 2025, is a dark day for press freedom that raises concerns about a weakening U.S. commitment to transparency in governance, to public accountability at the Pentagon, and to free speech for all.”

RELATED: While the lights are off, let’s rewire the government

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Footage shows shows a gaggle of reporters who apparently turned in their press credentials and vacated their Pentagon workspaces exiting the building, many wearing looks of self-satisfaction.

A reporter from an independent outlet that covers the military told the Columbia Journalism Review, “It’s like college move-out day.”

Nancy Youssef, a reporter for the Atlantic who has occupied space at the Pentagon since 2007, told the Associated Press, “It’s sad, but I’m also really proud of the press corps that we stuck together.”

One America News Network did not stick together with the liberal media outfits. It reportedly signed the form recognizing the new rules.

Hegseth indicated that the new rules rejected by the liberal media were, in essence, that reporters can no longer roam freely through the halls of the Pentagon; members of the press must wear visible badges; and the “credentialed press [is] no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts.”

The lengthy document detailing the new rules in full states that:

credentialed members of the press who are American citizens can access the Pentagon 24 hours a day;reporters must ensure their press credentials are visible and worn above the waist while in the Pentagon;reporters cannot roam around various locations within the Pentagon without an escort from an authorized War Department official;while members of the press are not required to submit their writings to the War Department for approval, DOW information “must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released by any military member, DoW civilian employee or contract employee”; andreporters could have their credentials revoked or not renewed if they “solicit government employees to violate the law by providing confidential government information.”Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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Florida authorities arrested a 9-year-old male last Thursday after they say he brought a knife into his elementary school the day before and threatened classmates with it.

The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said during one incident the suspect got into a fight with a victim during recess at Middleton-Burney Elementary School in Crescent City, and the victim told deputies the suspect said he was going to stab him and pulled a pocketknife from his backpack. The victim told deputies he ran and told a teacher.

‘We have not had any repeat offenders since we have put this in place.’

Another victim told deputies that the suspect tapped him on the shoulder on the playground, and when the victim turned around, the suspect had an open knife in his hand. The victim told deputies he ran away out of fear and tripped, after which the suspect stopped chasing him and walked away.

Another student told deputies the suspect walked over to her and showed her a knife and asked her not to tell teachers; she added that the suspect walked over to another child and “flicked open the knife” and pointed it at the child’s stomach. Authorities said that child was unable to be identified.

In the end, the sheriff’s office said deputies arrested the 9-year-old suspect and took him to the Putnam County Jail. He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, officials said, adding that he was booked and then released to a parent until his court date.

However, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office is getting backlash for posting the suspect’s mug shot on Facebook. The sheriff’s office also named the young arrestee in the post.

About 48,000 comments have followed as of Thursday morning. Here’s what some opponents of the mug shot posting have had to say:

“I don’t agree with this at all,” one commenter said. “While I absolutely do not support his behavior or bringing a weapon to school, this is still a 9-year-old child. Arresting him, taking a mugshot, and publicly posting it like this can cause lasting psychological harm. At this age, the focus should be on intervention, counseling, and protection, not criminalizing him in a way that could follow him for life. There should be statutes in place to protect children this young, this feels more like trauma and child abuse than justice.””Posting a 9 YEAR OLD’S mugshot?!” another commenter exclaimed.”Yeah. I’m all about shaming criminals. But that’s a little far,” another commenter noted. “He’s still a baby and needs guidance not [shame]. That will only reinforce forms of hate and mistrust. Post his parents and get him help and positive encouragement.””Since when does law enforcement [show] pictures of a 9 yr. old child and [give] their name?” another commenter wondered. “What the child did I’m not condoning, but still he’s a very young child.”

But the sheriff’s office, for now, is not budging. In fact, it told WTSP-TV that the decision to post the child’s mug shot is a policy the agency has upheld since 2018, and it won’t remove the post.

“We have not had any repeat offenders since we have put this in place,” Allison Merritt with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office added to the station.

In fact, just a week earlier, the sheriff’s office posted a 10-year-old male’s mug shot for the same charge and circumstance. Officials said this child brought a pocketknife to school and threatened another student.

WTSP said state law doesn’t protect the confidentiality of juveniles charged with felonies, and their names, photos, and arrest reports legally can be released.

But the station added that the statute allows families to request that photos be taken down from websites — and if they’re not removed within 10 days, the posters can face civil penalties.

“Just because we can post a mug shot of a 9-year-old doesn’t mean we should,” attorney Shannon Schott, a legal expert in juvenile law, told WTSP.

Schott added to the station that posting a child’s mug shot online can have lasting consequences, including an impact on the child’s mental health, future schooling, and chances at rehabilitation.

“The juvenile justice system really is intended to keep things behind closed doors so a family can privately heal and move forward and help their child move forward,” she told WTSP. “It’s really just a conflict between the way the sheriff thinks that things should be done and how the system actually works.”

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​Mugshot, Minor, Juvenile, 9-year-old boy, Putnam county sheriff’s office, Florida, Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill charge, Elementary school, Threatening classmates, Knife, Felony arrest, Crime 

A President Trump supporter says he has been kicked out of countless stores and card tournaments simply for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.

Joe Brennan, a champion Magic: The Gathering player, made headlines last week after he was banned from an upcoming tournament over alleged behavioral issues stemming from anonymous complaints. However, most supporters pointed to a different culprit: the fact that other game players simply do not like Brennan for wearing his MAGA hat at tournaments.

‘There was a player that had a play mat with Trump’s bloody, severed head next to a guillotine on it.’

After Brennan’s ban, it was not hard to find posts online referring to him as a “Nazi” who made people “uncomfortable” with his hat or others that called for even greater restrictions on him.

Mind Rot

Brennan has triggered liberals in his space for years, and the fact that he is seen as one of the best players in the world and the “poster child” for vintage Magic cards, all while wearing a MAGA hat, does not bode well for his online reputation. Past posts from 2023 that show threads complaining about Brennan wearing his hat while “knowing it irritates people” are still available.

In a 2024 Twitter post, a user asked, “With Nazi s**t finally being cancellable can we kick Joe Brennan out of eternal magic?”

Still, dozens of players stood up for Brennan after his ban and signed a letter asking for an adequate resolution. The completely reasonable document riled up even more agitators, who Brennan said went after his supporters.

“People [were] getting doxxed and extorted into giving money to charities that they may or may not have supported otherwise, but they were kind of pseudo-canceled,” Brennan told Blaze News. “Basically, as your penance you have to give money to this charity to show that you’re on the right team and things like that.”

Brennan called the reactions “egregious,” but also expressed great discomfort with the idea that not only were individuals engaging in such behavior but they “felt comfortable posting pictures of their messages engaging in that behavior and bragging about it, as if they knew that the community would celebrate them for doing ‘the right thing’ for doxxing and extorting these people for signing their names on this letter.”

Virtue’s Ruin

No stranger to a ban, Brennan revealed to Blaze News that these acts were just the latest in a years-long battle.

RELATED: MAGA hat triggers woke cardplayers into allegedly banning champion from entering tournament

Joe Brennan after winning the 2019 NYSE Open tournament. Photo courtesy Joe Brennan

Brennan stressed that he does not mind anyone wearing political attire or messaging in stores, public settings, or at tournaments; he simply wants to be able to wear his, too.

Describing the Magic card scene as like “the Seattle or the Portland” of hobby communities, Brennan said tournaments are rife with left-wing displays that are never challenged.

Bernie Sanders, President Obama, and even pro-Palestine materials are consistently on display, Brennan told Blaze News, while providing pictures of Magic players wearing shirts like “Smoke Meth & Hail Satan.”

“Even last year at this tournament there was a player that had a play mat with Trump’s bloody, severed head next to a guillotine on it,” Brennan explained.

Cast Out

The progressive bias even extends to brick-and-mortar locations. Reasserting that he does not mind if a company has political displays or allows patrons to wear attire he disagrees with, Brennan said that there have been many occasions when he would walk into a store and immediately face a ban over his MAGA hat.

“Most of the time I would just walk into the store, and oftentimes it was stores that had known me for years, but they would say, ‘Hey, either you have to leave,’ without really any discussion, or some of them would say, ‘You have to either take your hat off or leave.'”

Brennan has even faced bans despite being on amicable terms with organizers, before arriving at an event to face a public excommunication.

“[The tournament organizer] kicks me out in front of everybody as soon as I walk in the door. … It seemed to me like he was looking to make a public spectacle, like a virtue signal.”

Despite the ongoing crowd of distractions, Brennan has stayed out of the mud. In the most recent instance, he even reached out to the company that banned him, looking for a solution.

Shockingly, the two parties came to terms.

RELATED: DC liberals are escaping reality by pretending to be mermaids

— (@)

Collective Restraint

With the help of a fellow game player and lawyer, Brennan spoke with Card Titan, the organizers of a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tournament now in its 11th year.

While Card Titan had vaguely allegedly alluded to Brennan in a post on X about its “core values,” Brennan was surprised when the company agreed to put out a joint statement.

Both parties said they agreed to “bring down the temperature” and attempt to find unity. The statement also said “political discrimination has no place” in the community and that “wearing a MAGA hat” is “not a legitimate reason to remove” someone from an event.

Brennan said he was shocked that Card Titan agreed to the statement and said it was the first step in such a direction that the company or any relevant tournament host has ever made in their community.

“At this point I don’t believe that Card Titan in any way was discriminating against me like past companies certainly have,” Brennan explained. “But I do believe that the most likely scenario is probably that whoever made the underlying complaints, or whatever they were, I assume were just politically motivated.”

Brennan’s desire for positive outcomes cannot be ignored. He even described several instances when he has bitten his tongue in order to keep the peace.

Show of Valor

For example, Brennan recalled speaking to the organizers before the 2019 NYSE Open, a Magic: The Gathering tournament in New York. Brennan revealed that organizers told him at the time that even with a $500 entry fee, they were still not breaking even and that 2019 would be the final tournament.

Not only did Brennan promise he would win the tournament, but he vowed to return the first-prize winnings to the organizers to bankroll future tournaments.

“I said, ‘Listen, don’t sweat it. I’m going to go win the event, and I will give you back the first-place prize. … I will give you back that prize, and you’ll be able to run the next event — you know, use that as your startup money.’ And I did that,” Brennan remembered.

Brennan said the prize was four copies of the card Mishra’s Workshop, currently valued between $2,500 and $3,200 USD each. Due to his generosity, the tournament was able to live on. However, the next time it was set up, other players circulated a petition asking to have Brennan banned from the tournament, despite his actions to ensure that the tournament could continue.

“Now, these players didn’t know what I had done,” Brennan said. “They didn’t know that that tournament would not have existed were it not for my, you know, what I had done the previous year. But it was like, man, that really kind of hurt.”

Through all the insults and stressful situations Brennan has gone through, his spirit has not wavered, even when asked if he is putting too much faith in his opposition in terms of coming together.

“Really, we need to come together, man. This toxicity and polarization is just crazy. I would ask anybody who’s listening: Play out the current trajectory to its inevitable conclusion. And 10 years from now, is that a world you want to live in? You know? That’s all I’m saying.”

Brennan is set to return to Card Titan’s tournament in 2026. Card Titan did not return requests for comment.

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The second anniversary of October 7, 2023 — the horrific day when Hamas attacked Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and abducting 251 hostages — was marked yet again by sickening celebrations from pro-Palestinian activists worldwide, who lauded Hamas’ invasion as “resistance.”

But Mark Levin refuses to overlook the deeper implications. He recognizes that the support for Palestine’s cause extends beyond merely demanding that Israel relinquish Gaza and the West Bank — it’s a broader push tied to undermining the foundations of the entire Western world.

“Israel and the United States, [Islamists] view as one of the same. They view Europe as one of the same. Canada, Australia as one of the same. In other words, the West has to be overthrown,” he warns.

“Your nation is based on Judeo-Christian values combined with the Enlightenment. [Islamists] don’t believe in Judeo-Christian values or the Enlightenment. They’re seventh-century. This is what we’re up against,” Levi explains.

He calls out the Palestinians who claim that Gaza and the West Bank are their ancestral lands. Palestinians, Levin reiterates, is the new term for the people the Bible calls the Philistines — “enemies of the Jews” who were “not indigenous to that area.”

He explains that in the 1960s an Egyptian by the name of Yasser Arafat, who knew “the Western media are both stupid and ideologically driven hard left,” renamed the Bedouin Arabs “Palestinians.”

When we hear activists chant about Palestine being free, what it really means is the total evisceration of Israel, its people, and ultimately everyone in the West.

For those who think Islamic vitriol won’t touch America, Levin says it’s already happening. Not only are pro-Palestine protests allowed to run rampant across the country, but New York City is on the cusp of electing Zohran Mamdani — “a Hamas-supporting Marxist, America-hating, Jew-hating lowlife” — as mayor.

He warns that there’s a poisonous sect within the Democrat Party — run primarily by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — that will never stop campaigning for the Palestinians and their nefarious causes.

“This has to be fought every damn day, or we’re going to lose our country. Jews, Christians, other faiths, people who believe in the American system, in our values, in our belief system — we’re losing it, America. We’re losing it. And we’re losing it fast,” Levin laments.

To hear more of his analysis and commentary, watch the clip above.

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President Donald Trump may have resolved several bloody conflicts since retaking office, but he is clearly not averse to executing military strikes in the Western Hemisphere in the interest of protecting the American people.

The president announced on Sept. 2, for instance, that he had ordered a strike that killed 11 individuals on an apparent narcoterrorist drug boat that was headed to the United States. Following a series of similar attacks, Trump revealed on Tuesday that the U.S. military had conducted yet another lethal strike on an alleged narcoterrorist vessel, killing six men “just off the Coast of Venezuela.”

‘Venezuela is feeling heat.’

Trump, who has suggested that every such drug boat vaporized amounts to 25,000 American lives saved, confirmed on Wednesday that the U.S. will not limit its actions against Venezuelan cartels, which the administration does not distinguish from the socialist Maduro regime, to kinetic maritime strikes.

The president confirmed on Wednesday — months after the State Department increased the bounty for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to $50 million and weeks after White House special envoy Richard Grenell reportedly cut off all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela on the president’s instruction — that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert actions on the ground in Venezuela.

During a news conference in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said he made the authorization for two reasons: first because Venezuela has “emptied their prisons into the United States of America” and second because of the drugs Venezuelan terrorists smuggle into the U.S.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the New York Times reported earlier in the day that the authorization meant the CIA could execute lethal operations both in Venezuela — against Maduro and his regime — and elsewhere in the Caribbean, where Trump recently notified Congress that the U.S. is now engaged “in a non-international armed conflict” with several terrorist organizations.

Trump said of the efforts by South American cartels to smuggle drugs into the U.S., “We’ve almost totally stopped it by sea. Now we’ll stop it by land.”

RELATED: ‘We will stop you cold’: Trump announces successful strike against ‘narcoterrorist’ vessel

The U.S. Navy warship USS Sampson docked in Caribbean waters. Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images

When asked whether he was considering executing land-based military strikes on enemy cartels, Trump said, “I don’t want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea very well under control.”

Three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, the nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie, and the littoral combat ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul are presently operating in the region.

Maduro, whom the Trump administration has recognized as leader of the specially designated global terrorist organization Cartel de los Soles, claimed last month in response to the American military buildup in the region, “in response to maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum readiness to defend Venezuela.”

Caracas has supposedly enlisted over 8 million Venezuelans as reservists.

When asked on Wednesday whether the CIA has “the authority to take out Maduro” — there is allegedly interest among a handful of senior officials in the Trump administration in orchestrating a regime change in Venezuela — the president said that was a “ridiculous question” for him to answer. Trump noted, however, that “Venezuela is feeling heat.”

Maduro, whose alleged electoral victories in 2018 and 2024 are not recognized by the U.S., stated in response to Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, “No to regime change that reminds us of the failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. … No to coups d’état carried out by the CIA.”

Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.

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In June, the left launched its “No Kings” protest to denounce the horrific “authoritarian dictatorship” of Donald Trump. Deporting illegal alien gang members, preventing the mutilation of children, and punishing criminals all became proof of Trump’s incipient “fascism.”

Now that Trump has deployed National Guard troops to stop violent leftist mobs from attacking ICE officers, Democrats and the left have decided to stage a sequel on Saturday. The whole thing will look like farce — clever signs, bad folk music, and stale slogans — but behind the clown show, the left is radicalizing shock troops preparing to do real violence.

The ‘No Kings’ spectacle will fill news segments and late-night monologues, but it’s just camouflage.

No myth runs deeper in American life than the idea that peaceful protest drives reform. Boomers grew up believing that singing folk songs, waving witty signs, and smoking pot were powerful tools of change. The media sanctified the calm resolve of civil rights marches and the flower-child theatrics of the anti-war movement as the true engines of progress. As usual, Hollywood left out the ugly parts.

Those movements also produced riots, rapes, arson, bombings, and murders. The violence was so widespread that Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign ran one of the most famous ads in political history promising to restore law and order. The peaceful demonstrators made for good television, but it was the violence that moved the needle. No one likes to say it aloud, but the violence worked.

The first round of “No Kings” protests had respectable turnout but achieved nothing. Leftists filled the streets to mock Trump and chant about freedom, but no policies changed, and no momentum followed. Trump’s approval may have slipped to the mid-40s, but Democrats still wallow in the low-30s. Americans may be weary, but the protests haven’t persuaded them that the Democrats can govern.

Violence has been far more effective. The assassination of Charlie Kirk has made conservative campus events nearly impossible. Universities now demand absurd security fees or simply cancel appearances outright, citing “safety concerns.” The threat doesn’t come from the speaker — it comes from the activists university officials refuse to restrain. Several conservative commentators are stepping in to finish Kirk’s tour, but the assassin’s veto has reshaped the landscape.

Violence also brought Jimmy Kimmel back to late-night television. After he lied about Kirk’s assassination, sponsors complained, and two major affiliates refused to run his show. Sinclair Broadcasting even planned to air a Kirk tribute in his slot. Then came bomb threats, followed by gunfire targeting an ABC station in California. Sinclair folded, scrapped the tribute, and restored Kimmel to the lineup. Terrorism works. It succeeds where boycotts fail.

RELATED: Evil unchecked always spreads — and Democrats are proof

Blaze Media Illustration

Mob action has disrupted immigration enforcement too. Leftists have assaulted ICE officers, blocked arrests, surrounded vehicles, and tried to plant explosives. One would-be assassin aimed for agents but only killed detainees. Trump’s Justice Department has begun cracking down, but the left keeps escalating. They’ve learned that violence yields results.

It’s hard to take Democrats seriously when they wail about “authoritarianism.” They jailed Trump officials, abortion protesters, meme-makers, and even the president himself. They don’t fear power — they crave it. What they hate is losing it.

Organizers claim that more than 2,000 “No Kings” protests are set for the weekend. The biggest ones will draw crowds, mostly aging Boomers reliving their youth. They’ll march, sing, and pretend to matter. But the real movement isn’t in the drum circles. It’s with people like Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general candidate who still enjoys Democratic support despite texting fantasies about murdering the children of conservatives. That’s the true face of the modern left. They’re not waving signs — they’re plotting.

The “No Kings” spectacle will fill news segments and late-night monologues, but it’s just camouflage. Behind it stands an organized, violent movement convinced that terror is legitimate politics. These people don’t want debate. They want obedience — and they’re willing to bleed us for it.

​Opinion & analysis, No kings, Protests, Political violence, Jay jones, Jay jones texts, Charlie kirk, Assassination, Security, Antifa, Leftism, Left wing violence, Donald trump, Terrorism, National guard, Immigration, Ice, Ice raids, Mass deportations, Richard nixon, Law and order, Baby boomers, Jimmy kimmel, Censorship, First amendment 

If only Ophelia had ditched the flowers and gotten herself a redwood tree, maybe she could have turned things around.

Such are the latest musings of pop’s most famous AP English student. Beware, all ye who listen here.

We have, in real time, watched Taylor Swift age but not grow. Her discography charts the elevation of emotional immaturity into an art form.

We weren’t surprised when a teenage girl struggled to control her emotions and thought that a boyfriend could save her. But to witness the “all grown up” version of that girl still in that same mental state is to feel a certain existential dread.

What we have in Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” — her 12th studio release in a career spanning two decades — is a cautionary tale about a middle-aged woman in a perpetual state of arrested development. (Cue Ron Howard: “Hey, that’s the name of the show!”)

This new album earns an “explicit” label for bad words and sexual content. But the deeper problem is not the vulgarity of the body — it’s the vacuity of the mind. “Showgirl” is less a collection of songs and more a case study in what happens when emotional adolescence becomes a permanent condition. Swift is not merely immodest; she’s foolishly immature. Let’s look at a few songs to get the point across.

Get thee to a nunnery

Every Taylor Swift song addresses the same inexhaustible mystery: How does Taylor feel? At times the feelings are so big that Swift has no choice but to enlist the help of the kind of literary heavyweights they write CliffsNotes about.

In “The Fate of Ophelia,” it’s William Shakespeare’s turn. Swift casts herself as Hamlet’s doomed girlfriend — with a crucial revision: Instead of being undone by spiritual despair, Swift’s Ophelia is saved by romantic ecstasy. Why drown yourself in the river when you can dive into the sheets? It takes a certain talent to depict sexual yearning poetically without making the reader cringe in embarrassment. Shakespeare had it in spades; Swift emphatically does not.

Never mind: This is Swift’s vision, and her emotions are in the driver’s seat. But her peculiar vision of salvation through (finally) finding Mr. Right suggests serious spiritual depression rather than empowerment. Add to that her pride in thinking that referring to one of literature’s most well-known characters imparts intellectual depth, and you have no reason to think she will ever mature.

It’s not so much a feminist reimagining as it is the fan fiction of a sophomore lit major. In this story, Ophelia has some prurient advice for her would-be Hamlet, but more on that soon enough.

Feminists will hate that she wants to be saved by a man. Christian parents should warn their children that no man or woman can save you and that entering a relationship with that expectation will surely doom it to failure. They needn’t take Mom and Dad’s word for it; this is a lesson you can see play out again and again in Swift’s own songs.

Naughty ‘List’

While Swift’s “sex-positive” Ophelia has left her religious hang-ups behind, that’s not to say that “Showgirl” discards the numinous altogether. In “Wi$h Li$t” Swift prays to God for “a best friend who is hot.”

The chorus petitions for a husband, kids, and a basketball hoop in the driveway. Lest this vision appear too wholesomely straight and suburban, Swift punctuates it with the F-word. She’s also quick to acknowledge the listener’s weary skepticism: Haven’t we heard this all before? “I thought I had it right once, twice, but I did not,” she confesses. Yes, Taylor — we noticed.

This moment of honesty is meant to sound self-aware; instead it reads like the notes of a 20-year group therapy session that never progressed past week one. It’s a chronicle of romantic exhaustion mistaken for wisdom.

In some sense she sees her need for salvation, and she recognizes it must be personal/relational, but she looks for it in sex and not from Christ. A teenager missing this is sad but understandable. A middle-aged woman still missing it is culpable ignorance.

But wait. What if this really is the relationship that’s going to save her? Swift makes her case in the next song.

RELATED: Taylor Swift isn’t a role model — and it’s time for moms to stop pretending she is

Todd Owyoung/NBC | Getty Images

Stiff competition

It is called “Wood.” And if that title prompts some involuntary Beavis-and-Butthead-style snickering, you are on Swift’s wavelength.

The listener, having already endured the desecration of “Hamlet,” must now endure the anatomical metaphor of the redwood tree. “He ah-matized me and opened my eyes,” she sings, before clarifying: “His love was the key that opened my thighs.”

Just ponder this. Swift has been wrong more than once before. But this time she’s right, because this time she has proof: his “redwood.” Is it too cynical to conclude that the only thing this guarantees is future musical torture — yet another song tearing down another false savior? It’s too bad the title “Timber” has already been taken.

These are the kinds of lyrics that make one nostalgic for the intellectual rigor of bubblegum pop. Somewhere, Shakespeare’s ghost is filing a restraining order. Hamlet’s father bids us adieu.

But Swift needs more than an editor to fix her songwriting. Her problem isn’t just bad taste — it’s a disordered worldview. In one sense, the title “Showgirl” is sadly apt: On this album Swift puts her spiritual emptiness on full display. She craves deep and lasting love, but years of seeking it in fleeting infatuations have left her soul in a deplorable condition.

Taylor’s (re)version

We have, in real time, watched Taylor Swift age but not grow. From the dear-diary teenage angst of her self-titled debut to these latest middle-age manifestos of sensual self-affirmation, her discography charts the elevation of emotional immaturity into an art form. Taylor and her emotions are always in the center. There is no self-mastery, no self-discipline, no lessons learned. Just doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.

Even the most dazzling career is a cautionary tale in the making. Just ask Madonna, still gyrating unhappily at 67. Parents may one day scare their daughters with the warning, “You better shape up or you’ll end up like Taylor Swift.”

Some will say I’m a grumpy old man. So be it. But Swift could stand to be a little more pessimistic herself. While she revels in her freedom to use bad words and talk about sex, she can’t see that it changes nothing; she’s still fleeing the same profound emptiness. We all are, and the more frantically we try to escape it on our own, the closer we get to the same grim destination: spiritual death.

It’s only Christ’s love that can save us. That Swift has persisted for so long on the same fruitless path is a testament to the allure of the world and the stubbornness of the soul. Perhaps instead of Ophelia, Swift should have drawn inspiration from another of Shakespeare’s indelible creations: the Fool in “King Lear.”“Thou shouldst not have been [middle aged] till thou hadst been wise.”

In the world of this album, however, wisdom is passé and self-absorption is a virtue. Swift gives us a spectacle with endless costume changes and a plot that goes nowhere. But even as we turn away in boredom, we should hold out hope that Swift will someday find a better ending. God’s love has confounded expectations many times before. Even the most jaded showgirl sometimes gets a second act.

​Taylor swift, Life of a showgirl, Review, Culture, Entertainment, Music, Pop music, Faith, Christ, Christianity, Swift judgement 

Now that President Trump has designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, unleashing the Department of Justice to investigate its funding networks, operations, and supporters, the mainstream media’s marching orders are: Revive the narrative that Antifa doesn’t exist.

Jimmy Kimmel, CNN’s Erin Burnett, and “The View’s” Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, among a long list of other media figures and Democrat officials, are claiming that Antifa is nothing more than an “imaginary” entity — a boogeyman used by the far right to vilify leftist activism.

Glenn Beck, however, has been sounding the alarm on the very real and insidious network that is Antifa. Last week, he aired the following episode exposing the hidden support and funding networks propping up the terrorist organization.

Soon after the episode dropped, Glenn was contacted by the FBI.

“Saturday I get a phone call: ‘The director would like to send over some agents to speak to you, Glenn,’” he recounts.

Shortly after, three FBI agents were sitting in his living room. Glenn called his head researcher, Jason Buttrill, to come over, and they spoke with the agents for two hours.

While the experience was “surreal,” it was also eye-opening.

“Let me just say this: Finally, we have an administration and an FBI director that is willing to go in deep — not surface, but deep,” says Glenn. “I can only imagine what we could have avoided if anyone in an administration would have done this in 2011.”

Glenn has a warning for anyone who has even loose ties to Antifa: “I would be very concerned. … The FBI is deadass serious.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Donald Trump, Kash Patel, and all of the agents at the FBI,” he says.

This is what we’ve been waiting for.

As for the mainstream media talking heads pushing the narrative that Antifa doesn’t exist, Glenn says, that’s “like saying al-Qaeda doesn’t exist.”

Their “logic” is basically that since there’s no headquarters address or HR department, then it doesn’t exist.

“It is a real point used in an intentionally dumb way to mislead,” says co-host Stu Burguiere. If anything, the fact that Antifa is “disengaged from a centralized [entity]” makes the group “more dangerous.”

And yet mainstream figures are pushing a false narrative to make it seem like Antifa is “not a threat.”

“They know it’s not accurate, and they’re trying to mislead people,” says Stu.

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

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A Texas mother was arrested for allegedly abusing her 11-year-old autistic son by locking him up in horrific conditions at her mobile home on Homan Street in Baytown.

The Baytown Police Department said a police officer was called to the home of 41-year-old Rachel Nicole Blaylock in May and reported the strong smell of fecal matter and the presence of numerous flies.

The son reportedly had dried fecal matter under his nails and on his face, arms, and hands.

She said the smell was “bad enough she nearly threw up.”

Blaylock reportedly told the officer that her son had trouble going to the bathroom and would often toss his “poop” in his room and into the hallway.

The officer said she saw dried fecal matter on the floor of the home.

Blaylock began locking her son in his room after he ran out of the home naked several times. She took the door off his room and replaced it with a screen door so she could keep an eye on him but have him locked away.

The officer reported seeing a mattress described as “filthy” and said there was fecal matter on the screen door and in the room.

The son reportedly had dried fecal matter under his nails and on his face, arms, and hands. He also suffered from rotting teeth and had dried urine on his legs.

The officer recorded Blaylock’s response when she told her that her son needed to go to a hospital.

“I just can’t drop everything I’m f**king doing and take him to the hospital so a quack-ass doctor can say, ‘Oh, I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ so we can see another one,” she reportedly said.

RELATED: Elderly woman beaten to death with a rock — police said they found her daughter ‘covered in blood’

Police also spoke to the boy’s grandmother, who said Blaylock was not a good mother and confirmed many of the accusations of neglect.

The boy weighed 46 pounds, according to police, who said a boy of his age should weigh about 88 pounds. Officials said he was placed in foster care.

On Oct. 7, police arrested Blaylock and found that she had a cylinder container with contents inside on her belt. She claimed that they were her “baby daddy’s ashes,” but police said they determined the contents were actually crystal methamphetamine.

She was charged with injury to a child as well as possession of methamphetamine. She was booked into the Harris County Jail.

Baytown is a city of over 84,000 residents on Galveston Bay about 30 miles east of downtown Houston.

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Two teenage suspects whose assault on a former Trump administration engineer made national headlines avoided jail time and were sentenced to probation.

Edward Coristine, whose nickname is “Big Balls,” was defending his girlfriend from a group of about 10 juveniles when they turned on him and viciously beat him in August. He worked as a software engineer at the Department of Government Efficiency.

‘Think of your daughters and mothers. The same group attacked people before and after us, breaking ribs and stomping heads. This senseless crime must be stopped.’

The incident was cited by President Donald Trump as evidence that federal troops needed to be sent into Washington, D.C., in order to help law enforcement officials quell criminal violence. The president shared a photo of Coristine bloodied and beaten up after the incident.

Prosecutors called for neither 15-year-old to be incarcerated, and the judge respected that wish.

The teenage boy pleaded guilty to four counts related to a robbery and the separate beating of Coristine and received a year of probation. The girl received nine months of probation after pleading guilty to a count of simple assault for pepper-spraying someone during the robbery.

None of the other juveniles involved in the attack have been charged.

Judge Kendra D. Briggs told the two in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday that the goal of juvenile court was “rehabilitation, not punishment,” during the court hearing.

“I know you are not unfamiliar [with] trauma,” Briggs said to the girl. “I don’t disagree that the trauma you’ve already suffered in life is kind of how you ended up on U Street that day. But I think you also have to think about the trauma that you’re inflicting on others when you engage in the activities that you all chose to engage in a couple of months ago.”

The teenagers also have to complete 90 hours of community service and adhere to several behavioral restrictions, including drug testing.

Coristine responded to the sentencing on social media.

“To this day, they’ve only caught two out of the ten. Eight of them remain on the street,” he said.

RELATED: DC Dems are furious at Mayor Bowser for admitting Trump’s troops are lowering crime

“That night could’ve gone far differently,” Coristine continued. “Think of your daughters and mothers. The same group attacked people before and after us, breaking ribs and stomping heads. This senseless crime must be stopped.”

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also responded on social media.

“If these charges (against the teenagers who brutally beat Big Balls) had been brought in federal district court, the sentence would have been … very different,” Lee wrote. “But they weren’t, so they got a mild slap on the wrist.”

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Milwaukee Police on Monday released dashcam video showing a deadly shoot-out between an off-duty officer and a male who pistol-whipped him just prior to the shoot-out.

Police said the officer was involved in a minor car accident in the 4800 block of West Mill Road while on his way to work just before 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Police said video of the incident was released to the public ‘in the interest of transparency.’

Both drivers pulled over and exited their cars, police said, adding that as they were assessing the accident, the other driver approached the off-duty officer, pulled a gun, and struck the off-duty officer in the face with it.

Image source: Milwaukee Police dashcam video screenshot

The off-duty officer drew his department-issued firearm, police said, adding that they exchanged gunfire, and the 26-year-old male who struck the off-duty officer was shot and pronounced dead at the scene.

While no one else was struck by gunfire, police said the off-duty officer was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries as a result of the incident.

Police said the off-duty officer is a 40-year-old male with over 21 years of service and was placed on administrative duty, as is routine in officer-involved shooting investigations.

Police said the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team is investigating the incident, and the West Allis Police Department is the leading agency.

Police said video of the incident was released to the public “in the interest of transparency,” after regulations requiring police to give next of kin a chance to view relevant video within 48 hours of the incident and regulations requiring police to release relevant video within 15 days of a critical incident were met.

RELATED: Gunman firing rifle while walking along snowy Milwaukee street shoots cop; 2nd officer returns fire, killing suspect

What’s more, WISN-TV reported that the family of Elijah Wilks — the fatally shot male — wanted the video released early and called the shooting justified, as they believe the clip shows everything that occurred.

WISN added that the release of the video came after grainy surveillance video was posted on social media over the weekend.

Attorney B’Ivory LaMarr, who represents the family, told the station that “Elijah pulls out a firearm with his right hand, and … he’s essentially swinging it in the direction of the off-duty officer. One time. It’s almost like a punch is what actually transpired.”

Last Thursday, a neighbor said police pulled a 10mm bullet from his living room wall, WISN noted, adding that video indicates Wilks was facing that direction. Milwaukee police noted to the station that they don’t have 10mm service weapons.

“What this family has done is made the difficult decision, while they’re grieving, to put aside their privacy, put aside their grieving, to allow again the opportunity for accountability to actually exist where the public can see what they saw,” LaMarr added to WISN. “And just try to move past the situation and heal this city.”

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New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has been considered a questionable character by those on the right since he began his campaign — and now his wife, Rama Duwaji, is drawing their ire as well.

Duwaji took to social media to publicly mourn the death of Palestinian influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi, who openly celebrated the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

“Beloved Jafarawi,” she wrote on her Instagram story, pairing it with four broken heart emojis.

Jafarawi was confirmed killed Sunday in clashes between Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

“This guy that his wife is so enamored with was also a crisis actor. He was showing up at all kinds of different incidents, playing all kinds of different parts, blaming Israel for certain things. And the Palestinians have a real habit of faking these events and putting them on film and doing it for a camera, and then they show it to the world,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“And he participated in, I don’t know how many of those. And then he’s killed by some kind of Hamas, anti-Hamas gang. I guess the factions are now battling for control of Gaza right now,” he continues.

“It’s inconceivable that Zohran Mamdani and his wife are going to be the first couple of New York City,” he adds.

“It’s an insult to the history and the legacy of New York City,” Gonzales says.

“This is what happens when your other option is one of the worst people that humanity has ever provided to us, Andrew Cuomo, who is just awful in every single way,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere agrees.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he continues, “for not rooting for a man who … basically is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, and the people he left in the state, he mostly groped.”

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