Category: blaze media

Vice President JD Vance immediately referred top Minnesota Democrats for criminal investigation after a Republican congressional committee released evidence that they had ignored massive scams.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report released on Monday documented testimony from officials who accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Attorney General Keith Ellison of knowing about the fraud and doing nothing to stop it.

Stolen funds ‘likely ended up in the hands of international terrorist networks and certainly funded the lavish lifestyles of criminal fraudsters.’

“I’ve referred these allegations to DOJ’s new Fraud Division for criminal investigation,” Vance wrote in a social media post Monday evening. “Minnesota state officials are not above the law, and if they facilitated fraud, lied under oath about what they knew, or harassed and intimated whistleblowers, they must face justice.”

Gov. Walz, Vance’s one-time vice presidential opponent, had been forced to drop his gubernatorial re-election campaign after being accused of collusion in the Minnesota fraud schemes, many of which were centered in the Somali community.

He has denied any wrongdoing and claimed that his administration took many steps to curb the fraud.

The committee claimed Walz and Ellison knew about the scams as far back at 2019. Even worse, Walz allegedly retaliated against whistleblowers speaking out to expose the fraud.

The scams put $300 million of federal child nutrition funds and up to $9 billion of Medicare-related funding at risk.

The committee also claimed that the stolen funds “likely ended up in the hands of international terrorist networks and certainly funded the lavish lifestyles of criminal fraudsters, while vulnerable populations were harmed.”

Vance called on the National Fraud Enforcement Division to investigate the allegations against Walz and Ellison.

RELATED: FBI RAIDS ‘Quality Learing Center’ and nearly 2 dozen more in Minnesota FRAUD investigation

A spokesperson for Walz called the Republican claims a “joke” in a statement to KSTP-TV.

“This committee has proven time and time again to be nothing more than a joke,” the spokesperson said. “They continue to rehash COVID-era fraud to distract from endless wars, gas prices, ICE, and the president’s insider trading. Governor Walz is glad to see fraudsters are going to prison. If the committee is concerned about corruption, they should investigate why President Trump continues to let fraudsters out of prison.”

Ellison also released a statement claiming the accusations are “riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations in an effort to politicize the issue of fraud, instead of actually helping Minnesota protect tax dollars and go after fraudsters.”

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​Attorney general keith ellison, Fraud investigation, Minnesota gov tim walz, Vice president jd vance, Politics 

As jurors began deliberations late Tuesday morning in the murder trial of Karmelo Anthony, they were instructed that they could consider a lesser charge of manslaughter, KTVT-TV reported.

Anthony was 17 when authorities charged him with murdering high school star athlete and fellow 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in a stabbing at a Frisco, Texas, track meet in April 2025.

‘These guys are much bigger than you. Do you turn your back and walk away and take a chance with these teenage boys with their raging hormones?’

The murder charge is a first-degree felony, the station said, and if the jury decides to convict Anthony on the murder charge, he would face a sentence of five to 99 years or life in prison.

According to Texas law, murder means a defendant “intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual,” KTVT said — but manslaughter means the defendant “recklessly causes the death of an individual.”

A conviction for manslaughter — a second-degree felony — would mean a sentence of two to 20 years in prison, the station said.

Criminologist Alex del Carmen told KTVT in a separate story he believes Anthony’s case meets the threshold of manslaughter: “He didn’t get up with the intent to kill someone, but he knew the risks taking that knife to campus and pulling it out. Self-defense or not, rational choices needed to be made.”

In addition, Anthony’s defense objected to jury instructions that didn’t include criminally negligent homicide as a lesser charge available for consideration, KTVT reported.

Criminally negligent homicide is a state jail felony, the station said, adding that it’s the lowest level of felony offense in Texas law and would bring a sentence of six months to two years in prison, KTVT said.

Prosecutor Bill Wirskye argued that criminally negligent homicide shouldn’t be an option for jury consideration since there is not “any evidence in the record that the defendant was unaware that his actions could lead to death,” the station said.

Collin County Judge John Roach overruled the defense’s objection, KTVT said.

RELATED: Karmelo Anthony murder trial: All prospective black jurors dismissed; 1 said he’d have ‘hard time putting a brother in jail’

In addition, the defense objected to jury instructions saying they can find Anthony’s self-defense argument not viable if they believe the defendant provoked the attack, the station said.

However, the prosecutor argued that a rational jury could find Anthony provoked the altercation, KTVT said, and therefore the instruction should remain. Judge Roach agreed with the prosecutor, overruling the defense’s objection, the station said.

The prosecutor waived the right to begin closing arguments Tuesday morning, so lead defense attorney Mike Howard was the first to address the jury, KTVT said.

Howard focused on his client’s self-defense argument, saying, “Austin Metcalf had no legal right to use force to eject Karmelo Anthony from that tent,” the station reported.

Howard added that “he had no legal right to put his hands on Karmelo” and that “Karmelo is in a public place,” KTVT noted.

Howard also asked the members of the jury to put themselves in Anthony’s shoes, noting that it was raining, the station said: “You want to get out of the rain. … Sure enough, one of the people at Memorial says, ‘Yeah, come on over.'”

KTVT said the defense attorney added that “Hunter Metcalf, or Austin, say, ‘Who are you? You need to leave.’ … These guys are much bigger than you. Do you turn your back and walk away and take a chance with these teenage boys with their raging hormones?”

“Austin and Hunter had the right to tell Melo to leave, but they did not have the right to use deadly force to make him leave,” Howard told the jury, according to the station. “Melo had an absolute right to [defend] himself against that.”

Howard also asked the jury, “How do you know in a split second of chaos when it’s too late? … Because if you wait too late to defend yourself, self defense is meaningless,” KTVT reported.

Anthony did not take the stand in his defense.

Following the defense’s closing argument, prosecutor Wirskye began speaking to the jury and rebutting Anthony’s self-defense claim, the station said.

“This is one of those rare cases where every important fact can be boiled down to one sentence: You do not get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove,” Wirskye said, according to KTVT.

“Why didn’t [Anthony] just not walk away?” Wirskye asked jurors, according to the station. “You see [he] had a choice to walk away and abandon the encounter.”

The prosecutor added that “you can meet deadly force with deadly force in Texas, but you can’t meet force — a shove — with deadly force — a stab. Size differential, it doesn’t work in this case; you don’t get to kill someone just because they are bigger than you,” KTVT reported.

Wirskye also told the jury that “self-defense has to be a reasonable belief — a reasonable belief means a belief that would [be] held by an ordinary and prudent person in the same situation as the defendant,” the station said.

“It has to be immediately necessary. Where was the immediate necessity to plunge a knife into an unarmed, young man?” Wirskye asked the jury, according to KTVT. “It’s not self-defense, folks — it’s murder. Murder, plain and simple.”

Notably, all prospective black jurors were dismissed during jury selection last week — and one reportedly said he’d have a “hard time putting a brother in jail.” Anthony is black; Metcalf was white. They attended different high schools and didn’t know each other.

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​Karmelo anthony, Murder trial, Austin metcalf, Texas, Fatal stabbing, Jury deliberation, Race, High school, Manslaughter, Closing arguments, Frisco, Crime 

Technology. I’m not a “technology writer” by any stretch of the imagination, but I find myself writing about it a lot.

I don’t opine about the next breakthroughs in AI or the newest generation of iPads that are set to be released at the end of Q3. Are there new iPads coming out in Q3? I don’t know. I’m not a technology writer.

But it is the most viable and scalable path forward in a world oversaturated with digital technology.

But I do think a lot about the role of technology in our lives. About the way we live differently alongside it and how we are shaped in strange ways by it.

Same but different

In some ways, it’s a very 21st-century concern. Technology — digital technology in particular — has been advancing at an unparalleled rate in our century, and it doesn’t seem to show any signs of slowing.

But, of course, technology didn’t begin with the digital. Cars are technology. The washing machine was once cutting-edge technology. Same for the printing press, the mechanical clock, and the wheel. Technology has been around, advancing, and disrupting for a long time.

We live in a post-assembly-line world. That term — the assembly line — isn’t even particularly interesting to us. Same with the Industrial Revolution. That’s just something boring we learned about (and then promptly forgot) in middle school.

But the Industrial Revolution and the assembly line were quite radical at one point. They changed the way people work, and they disrupted society. A fair share of the carnage of the 20th century is due, in part, to the disruptions of the Industrial Revolution.

The train changed the way we move, the printing press changed how we learn, the telephone made us closer even when we were farther, the radio made mass society possible, the television made books less relevant, and the invention of the washing machine — yes, the mundane washing machine — played some role in the social revolutions of the 1960s.

All-consuming

In this sense, the age of AI is no different from the steam age. In another sense, however, it is unlike any technological revolution we have ever experienced: far more immersive and all-consuming than anything that came before.

Because it is more possible than ever to always be connected to everyone on earth in a perpetual state of latent distraction and worry, our time presents unique challenges for all thinking people who want to live a decent life that might be be hard to recognize to those who came before us.

For a few, the answer is blowing it all up. For many more, the answer is embracing every single aspect of every new form of digital technology imaginable like a dog lapping up fresh water. Both are wrong. The extreme answers are often the most alluring because they only require addressing one decision point. This way or that way? Once you settle on which, you just scale it out the whole way and set the cruise control.

RELATED: Want to be a man of action? Start a family

Ian Tyas/Getty Images

Split the difference

Yes, as with most things, the middle path is the way forward. I know, it’s not sexy, and it’s not at all alluring. Moderation never is. But it is the most viable and scalable path forward in a world oversaturated with digital technology.

Intentional technology use — that’s what it is, and that’s what we will call it. That first word is the key word: intentional. Most of the drift into toxic technology consumption and brain rot is due to being less than intentional in terms of how one uses technology.

Defaulting to “just using the phone” or “just asking Grok” or “just scrolling” because you have some time to waste. Concluding that watching more, streaming more, scrolling more, and outsourcing more of your decision-making to technology because there isn’t anything inherently wrong or immoral about it.

That kind of unintentional approach to technology can quickly lead to surrendering all of your agency to the bots. As the gamers would put it, you go from being a player to one of those automatons the player meets along the way: a non-player character.

Best intentions

To use technology intentionally is to ask if we can do it ourselves before enlisting digital help. Intentional technology use is asking ourselves if we like ourselves when we use some product, app, or digital service — and, if the answer is no, changing course.

Intentional technology use is setting aside time apart from technology so we can remember what it means to be purely human. Intentional technology use is about balancing convenience and thoughtfulness. It’s about managing the speed of the modern world without losing the pace of organic human society.

Intentional technology use isn’t about making everyone’s choices regarding technology the exact same. People will decide differently. Everyone’s lives won’t be alike. That’s a feature, not a bug.

The key is that first word — intention. Without that, we’re just floating down the stream, pushed wherever the currents of technological progress take us. The 21s century is unlikely to become less complicated. To thrive as humans in this most disruptive of times, we must keep asking ourselves the fundamental question: Who are we, and who do we want to be?

​Men’s style, Technology, Ai, Ipads, Family, Lifestyle 

Last September, President Trump issued a well-received proclamation intended to discourage the continued use and abuse of the now very well-known H-1B program. The policy, however, has hit a roadblock in the courts.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa sponsor fee is unlawful.

‘They’re hurting our country very badly.’

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, appointed by Obama in 2014, ruled that the $100,000 fee violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution.

Judge Sorokin of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts argued that the policy is effectively a tax, and Congress had not clearly delegated the prerogative of levying it to the president. The judge agreed with the states that “the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax.”

RELATED: Paxton targets dozens of North Texas businesses after Sara Gonzales sounds alarm on H-1B fraud

Mandel NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

The lawsuit was brought in December by 20 states, many of which are led by Democrats and which draw heavily from the H-1B program.

“Every day, thousands of people with H-1B visas serve New Yorkers as doctors, teachers, and other skilled workers,” Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose state was among those who brought the suit, told CNBC.

“Today a court put an end to this administration’s illegal attempt to destroy this critical program and the many jobs it makes possible,” James said.

When asked for a response to the ruling, Trump told a reporter, “These federal judges are really giving us a hard time.”

“It’s really crazy what’s going on with the court system,” Trump added, according to CNBC. “They’re hurting our country very badly.”

The Trump administration intends to appeal the decision and expects it to be reversed.

In a statement to Reuters, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, “President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is ⁠exactly what he did.”

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​Constitution, Donald trump, Federal judge, H1b fraud, Letitia james, Massachusetts, Trump administration, Us district court, White house, Politics 

Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is facing scrutiny over his personal relationships after reports surfaced linking him to not one, but two former staffers during his time in the Texas Legislature.

“I’m very interested in the timeline here. Now, you know who’s not interested is the mainstream media,” Gonzales says.

“The legacy media, not interested in that at all because of course their entire existence is just to run cover for Democrats in any of these inappropriate workplace relationships,” she continues, before pointing out that there’s a deeper rabbit hole when it comes to Talarico’s workplace relationships.

“He seems to have a history of preying on young female staffers in the Texas Legislature. I’d like to introduce you to another Texas legislative staffer that he was in a relationship with, Irma Reyes,” she explains, showing a post on X from the former staffer.

Reyes did not deny a relationship with Talarico and instead simply requested “privacy.”

“Now I really have questions because the left has consistently told us through the Me Too movement that that kind of workplace imbalance of power is actually sexual harassment and that it doesn’t matter if the women consents because it’s just inherently wrong,” Gonzales says.

“It’s inherently abusive if the man is in a position of power over the woman. You’re not allowed to do that. That’s a no-no. That’s been their whole thing,” she continues, calling Talarico a “total weirdo.”

“And I think if the Democrats had any actual real principles or morals or values, they would be willing to call it out. But they don’t because they’re just evil ghouls,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Sara gonzales, James talarico, The blaze, Irma reyes, Brianna menard, Texas legislature, Me too movement, Texas, Sara gonzales unfiltered 

New York Knicks fans were among the loudest of any in their reaction to President Trump’s appearance at the NBA Finals on Monday night.

There was one hurdle that Trump supporters in the building seemingly had to overcome though — their fellow Knicks fans.

‘He’s a genuine Knicks fan.’

The president attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals amid heightened security at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with the hometown Knicks hosting the San Antonio Spurs.

When the president made his first appearance on the in-arena big screen, it looked like Trump being the first sitting POTUS to attend an NBA Finals was not going over well with fans. A mixture of jeers and boos chorused through the building as Trump was shown alongside his granddaughter Kai during the national anthem; both of them smirked at the reaction.

However, as the night went on, Trump seemed to gain a bit more favorability, especially when the New York Fire Department made its way onto the court for a presentation.

The crowd erupted into chants of “USA! USA!” as the president pumped his fist along with some of the patriots in attendance.

RELATED: LA Dodgers pitcher refuses to comply with Pride Night, enraging progressive fans

The crowd seemed to cheer for the president later in the game when he was shown on-screen with Knicks owner James Dolan, but it is difficult to tell if the images of Trump shown on television were what garnered the reaction from fans.

Regardless of their support for the president, Knicks fans went home upset after their team lost 115-111, with the Spurs cutting into the Knicks’ series lead, which now sits at 2-1.

Chaos filled the streets after the game, and fights broke out despite a heavy NYPD presence. New Yorkers also seemed to target Spurs fans with violence, according to multiple videos posted on X. One younger male had his Spurs jersey ripped off of him, while an older man in a Spurs jersey was chased by a group of fans who were throwing objects at him.

RELATED: The NBA is finally going with a pro-America stance: ‘We’re proud’

– YouTube

Before the game, there was plenty of contentiousness surrounding Trump’s appearance, with multiple New York Democrats questioning his support for the team.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said it wasn’t clear to him that Trump was a real fan, while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) suggested Trump couldn’t name the “1993 championship team,” which is a strange reference as the Knicks did not win the Eastern Conference or the NBA Finals that year.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver cleared up some of the controversy in an interview with ESPN when he said Trump was invited to the game by the Knicks owner, and he even described the president as a “fixture at Madison Square Garden” in the past.

“Back in the old days, he had courtside seats. He was here all the time. He was at the draft. So he’s a genuine Knicks fan,” Silver stated.

Regarding Trump attending the game, the commissioner concluded, “I think we should be using sports to create more of a sense of community with people, not less.”

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​Fearless, New york knicks, Nba, Basketball, Donald trump, Sports, Adam silver 

Far-left Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman defeated former reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary election for L.A. mayor, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.

Raman will go head-to-head with incumbent Karen Bass in the November general election.

‘Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the LA runoffs after the big lead he had.’

Now, a week after Election Day and with 92% of the votes counted, Bass received 275,992 votes, Raman received 229,576, and Pratt received 207,757.

Many have criticized California for running a “rigged” election after Pratt had a 40,000-vote lead and a nearly 10-point advantage over Raman, which shrank rapidly over the weekend.

Raman, who gave a concession speech on election night, reacted on Monday to the latest vote-counting results.

“I’m incredibly honored that voters have given us the opportunity to advance to the general election for Mayor of Los Angeles,” Raman wrote in a post on social media.

“Now our fight for a healthier, safer, more affordable, and more joyful Los Angeles continues. For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections. Meanwhile, working people pay the price in higher rents, depleted services, and a city that has stopped working for them.”

RELATED: ‘Absolutely RIGGED’: Critics question Raman’s ‘statistically impossible’ surge past Pratt in LA mayor race

HIGHFIVE/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

“If you’re as frustrated by the broken status quo as I am, I hope you’ll join our movement to build a city that works for everyone,” she added.

Libs of TikTok replied to Raman’s post, calling her a “cheater.”

New Mexico state Rep. John Block (R) wrote, “After you conceded, your handlers stuffed inconceivable amounts of statistically impossible fraudulent ballots, thereby successfully stealing another election in the Third World failed state — also known as Los Angeles, California.”

RELATED: Spencer Pratt’s 40,000-vote lead vanishes in Los Angeles mayor race as California continues counting ballots

Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

President Donald Trump also called the election “rigged.”

“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!” he wrote.

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​News, Los angeles, California, Nithya raman, Spencer pratt, Karen bass, Donald trump, Politics 

A 41-year-old man confronted a teen about talking too loudly on his phone aboard a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus in the Bronx Monday, after which the teen shot the complaining man to death, police sources told the New York Daily News.

The victim was shot in the stomach on a Bx36 bus on East Tremont Avenue near White Plains Road around 2:30 p.m., police told the Daily News.

‘It’s really sad. … I don’t think I’ll ever get back on a bus.’

Medics rushed the victim to Jacobi Medical Center, where he died, the paper said, adding that the victim’s name was not immediately released.

The shooter was last seen fleeing south on White Plains Road and has not been caught, the Daily News added.

The shooter is estimated to be between 13 and 16 years old, the New York Post reported.

RELATED: ‘White boy,’ ‘cracker’: Subway rider dares to glance at hollering female behind him — so she veers into beatdown mode: Cops

The shooter was wearing a white T-shirt and carrying a black handgun, law enforcement sources added to the paper.

RELATED: Thug punches, kicks, stomps man to death in subway station because he didn’t like the way victim looked at him, officials say

The Post added that a bloodstain was still visible on the sidewalk after the shooting, and the area around the bus was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape as cops investigated.

“It’s really sad,” one man told WCBS-TV. “You know, I haven’t gotten on a bus in probably 30 years, but I don’t think I’ll ever get back on a bus.”

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​Fatal shooting, New york city, Bronx, Teen shooter, Confrontation, Bus, Mta, Man shot to death, Crime 

Lately, a new talking point has emerged online: Donald Trump no longer cares about his MAGA base.

The claim goes like this: The president has become too isolated in Washington and too focused on his own bottom line. Rather than looking out for the working-class men and women who elected him, he has descended into the same D.C. swamp he once denounced.

Politicians often sell out their constituents, and corporate pressure on Capitol Hill is enormous. But in Trump’s case, maybe, just maybe, a little hope is warranted.

It’s a crazy argument, and one that collapses on contact with his record.

Trump may not hold as many Rust Belt rallies as he once did. That should not surprise anyone. He’s busy doing the job of president. But fewer rallies do not mean he has forgotten the voters who sent him back to the White House.

Look at his policies.

Start with his fight against fraud. The endless theft of taxpayer money in Democrat-run Minnesota shows how severe the criminal abuse has become. That is why Vice President JD Vance held a meeting with state attorneys general to discuss the issue and press them to act.

The meeting came as the Trump administration declared a “full-scale war on fraud.” White House adviser Stephen Miller has argued that Washington’s fraud problem is so large that eliminating it could effectively balance the federal budget. This is not abstract accounting. Fraud steals from working-class Americans who both pay into federal programs and rely on them.

Trump is also fighting on housing. The president understands that the cost of a new home keeps rising, often because state and local officials stand in the way of reform. They bury builders in red tape, restrict supply, delay construction, and then wonder why young families cannot afford a starter home.

Trump recently pushed back against those NIMBY nabobs with an executive order that cuts through anti-housing regulations at the federal level while pressuring states and municipalities to do the same. The order takes particular aim at “green” building codes, beloved by Democrats, that delay home construction and drive up costs.

Trump is also streamlining the Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program, which underwrites loans to help working-class and rural Americans buy or build homes. He has also backed a bill to bar big financial firms from buying up single-family houses and driving prices higher by reducing competition.

Does that sound like a president who has forgotten his base?

Then consider prescription drugs. The global medicine market has become a racket. The United States develops and manufactures life-saving drugs while other wealthy countries impose price controls and pay below-market rates. American patients then get stuck making up the difference.

RELATED: Scott Bessent is the secret weapon for Trump’s economic plan

Ludovic MARIN/AFP/Getty Images

Americans today pay two to three times as much for prescription drugs as people in other developed nations. For seniors living on fixed incomes, that can mean skipped doses, delayed refills, and impossible choices between medicine, groceries, and rent.

Trump is demanding that foreign nations pay their fair share. He recently dispatched U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and health adviser Chris Klomp to press the German ambassador and demand that Europe’s wealthiest country stop underpaying for American medicines.

The president has already struck a deal with the United Kingdom that will require it to pay 25% more for U.S.-developed drugs. That means less cost-shifting onto American patients, and Trump has pledged to take the same fight to other freeloading foreign governments.

Trump is also protecting the working class by defending their right to vote. He recently signed an executive order declaring that voting is reserved for American citizens while cracking down on fraudulent ballots and strengthening mail-in voting safeguards.

Every illegal immigrant who votes cancels out the lawful vote of an American citizen. Election integrity is not a boutique issue. It is the foundation of self-government, and working-class Americans have the most to lose when powerful interests dilute their voice.

From cutting taxes to expanding apprenticeship programs, from growing the job market to presiding over historic blue-collar wage growth, Trump has kept his focus where it belongs. He still believes in striking deals that help the forgotten men and women of this country get ahead.

The media may miss this while obsessing over New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s latest performance. But Trump is still fighting the good fight.

Pessimism in politics is understandable. Politicians often sell out their constituents, and corporate pressure on Capitol Hill is enormous. But in Trump’s case, maybe, just maybe, a little hope is warranted.

​Donald trump, Working class, Maga, Rust belt, White house, Drain the swamp, Affordability, Illegal immigration, War on fraud, Opinion & analysis 

The race for the next California governor began with 61 official candidates looking to replace Democrat Gavin Newsom, with no clear early frontrunner. The top two candidates, regardless of party affiliation, proceed to the general election in November.

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra (D) and former Fox News host and small-business owner Steve Hilton (R) received the most votes in Tuesday’s primary election and will advance to the general election, according to Decision Desk HQ and RealClearPolitics. As of Tuesday morning, other election aggregators, including the Associated Press and NBC News, have confirmed Becerra’s spot in November’s runoff election, but not yet Hilton’s.

‘Enough with this disastrous system — universal mail-in chaos is killing election integrity and transparency.’

With 83% of the votes counted, Becerra received 2,177,556, Hilton received 1,975,062, and Democratic candidate Tom Steyer received 1,759,328. Hilton held a 2.7-point lead over Steyer as of Tuesday morning.

With many Democrats in the race and the party failing to coalesce behind one candidate, there was early speculation that two Republicans, Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, might be the two candidates to advance to the general election.

However, in the final days leading up to the primary, Becerra began to pull ahead in the polls. An Emerson College poll, which surveyed registered voters from May 27 to 28, reported Becerra with a stronger lead, securing 28% of the vote, followed by Steyer with 22%, Hilton with 21%, and Bianco with 12%.

RELATED: California Democrats’ search for a front-runner: Polls show 26% of voters undecided in fast-approaching gubernatorial race

Xavier Becerra. ETIENNE LAURENT/AFPGetty Images.

Steyer has criticized Becerra, labeling him a “corporate Democrat.”

“For too long, we’ve had a system where corporations buy off politicians to protect their profits,” Steyer said during a campaign rally.

“If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the story of Xavier Becerra’s campaign.”

RELATED: Democrats narrow field in California’s crowded gubernatorial race to avoid primary disaster

Steve Hilton. Mario Tama/Getty Images.

Hilton’s campaign criticized California for its vote-counting delay, calling it an “ABSOLUTE DISGRACE.”

“California’s election machine is a slow-motion disaster deliberately dragging out vote counts for 35 DAYS while the rest of the world tallies hundreds of millions in hours,” his campaign wrote. “Enough with this disastrous system — universal mail-in chaos is killing election integrity and transparency.”

Hilton stated that he will wait for the AP to call the race before declaring a victory.

“Thank you so much for all your congratulations! We always said we would wait for@AP_RaceCalls before declaring victory so we’re not popping the champagne just yet … but it’s definitely time for a beer!” Hilton said.

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​News, Xavier becerra, Gavin newsom, Steve hilton, Chad bianco, California, Politics 

An attempted beheading in the Kinnaird Avenue area of North Belfast was thwarted late Monday night after a stick-wielding Good Samaritan and other passersby intervened, giving the attacker a good thwacking.

Although he kept his head, the victim — a citizen in his 40s — was taken to the hospital in serious condition with “significant injuries to his face, neck, and back,” according to a police press release.

‘We do not have to live like this.’

The suspected attacker, a Sudanese national in his 30s whom the Police Service of Northern Ireland initially mistook for a Somali, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. He remains in police custody.

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said in a statement, “This brutal attack will have sent shock waves through the community, causing real concern. I want to reassure the local community that we are treating this attack with the utmost seriousness.”

Citing the supposed risk of further traumatizing the victim, Henderson implored “members of the public not to share or repost” images or footage of the attack.

Despite the urging by police, remigration activist Tommy Robinson and other transparency-oriented members of the British public have shared the horrific footage, which shows a black male sitting atop a bloodied victim, shouting something in a foreign tongue, then carving into the victim’s throat.

RELATED: British cop involved in Henry Nowak murder case resigns as fury intensifies over damning arrest footage

Tejas Sandhu/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

A burly gentleman armed with a hurling stick can be seen rushing into action and repeatedly hammering the suspect over the head. Another two men rush in to help — one attempting to pull the victim to safety and the other giving a few well-placed kicks to the aggressor’s head.

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, addressed the Good Samaritans who intervened, stating, “You showed the very best of humanity, and you have the profound gratitude of this entire House.”

Gavin Robinson, a member of the British Parliament for East Belfast who pressed Benn to comment on the matter, claimed that the Sudanese suspect behind the “medieval” attack was in the country on a five-year visa.

“Having abused the privilege of our nation, the perpetrator living in the U.K. under a five-year visa needs to be convicted and deported on the first flight out on a one-way ticket,” said Robinson.

While Benn refused to divulge whether the suspected attacker first entered Northern Ireland illegally, he said that “any foreign national who abuses the hospitality of this country to commit crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them.”

Rupert Lowe, a British lawmaker who serves as leader of Restore Britain, demanded on Tuesday that Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who characterized the attempted beheading as “sickening” — provide “full details of this savage’s nationality, immigration status, and religion,” stressing that the “British people need to know the full truth.”

“I have had enough. The British people have had enough. We do not have to live like this,” wrote Lowe. “There is another way. Death penalty, mass deportations, end mass immigration.”

While British conservative politician Matt Vickers, the MP of Stockton West, did not advocate for the death penalty, he was among those who similarly demanded that the government release the relevant facts “to avoid speculation and prevent an information vacuum, which the independent reviewer of terror legislation has warned about.”

“If there have been failings on our borders, this is yet another reminder that we do need stronger borders and this is why we believe it is time to leave the [European Convention on Human Rights,]” added Vickers.

While some politicians want answers, others have expressed concern that this latest apparent instance of imported violence might be used by the right in criticism of Britain’s failed migration policies.

Colum Eastwood, an Irish politician who served as the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, stated, for instance, “The horrific scenes in North Belfast should not be used by English, right wing politicians to further their own ends.”

The Green Party stated, “There are those who will seek to use this to further their aims, to create division, marginalise vulnerable communities, and undo the steps we have made toward a more cohesive society. We must not let them.”

Mass protests are expected to rock Belfast on Tuesday evening.

Lowe cautioned protesters in advance: “Patriots — if you are protesting tonight, in Belfast or elsewhere, do NOT give Starmer what he wants. Stay calm. Keep your heads. Do NOT attack the police. The state will show you no mercy. The dangerous ‘far-right’ will be blamed, and your life will be ruined forever. It will be that brutal. However angry you are feeling now, it is not worth it. Protest — but do it loudly, do it peacefully.”

Tommy Robinson, who has advertised the protests, said in a statement, “Stop dumping these third world savages into our communities!”

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​Belfast, Sudanese, Migration, Britain, United kingdom, Migrant, Murder, Leftism, Borders, Starmer, Rupert lowe, Remigration, Deportation, Politics 

Social media influencer couple Jesse and Ashley Ridgway had been sharing their excitement about becoming first-time parents with their audience when one day they announced “a very difficult decision”: They were choosing to “terminate the pregnancy” because prenatal testing showed the baby had Down syndrome.

In the announcement, Jesse wrote, “Down syndrome isn’t a ‘blessing,’ it is objectively s**tty from a health perspective,” and listed various medical challenges associated with the condition.

He concluded his announcement by thanking his audience for being “understanding” about their decision.

But the majority of responses the couple received were the opposite of understanding.

The Ridgways’ announcement sparked a furious response from pro-life and disability advocates, as well as parents of children with Down syndrome, many of whom called the couple’s decision “evil” and accused them of being “murderers.”

While Glenn Beck was heartbroken by the Ridgways’ decision, he is plagued by a fear that goes deeper than one couple’s decision to abort their child: What happens when society begins measuring human worth by intelligence, independence, health, or convenience?

Citing LDS premortal life doctrine, Glenn speculates that the valiant angels in heaven who “fought on the front lines and cast Satan out” and thus needed less mortal testing were perhaps sent to Earth as people with Down syndrome.

“Have you ever met a Down syndrome kid? … Their default is love; their default is kindness,” he says, recalling his years working with Special Olympians.

“As a father of a daughter with cerebral palsy who has taught me more than anyone I know, she is my hero. The way she deals with things, her spiritual connections, the way she’s disciplined herself, the things she’s overcome. She’s my hero,” he continues.

While there have been many challenges that have come with raising a child with a disability, the hardest one, Glenn says, has been “seeing your child left out of things, seeing your child not understood.”

“But through all the pain that our children face and all the pain that we face, it is so worth it,” he says. “But you have to realize that life is not about you.”

But that’s the problem with abortion advocates, Glenn argues. They do have a self-centered perspective of life, believing life is about only them — their freedom, ambitions, and desires. Even those who claim that abortion benefits would-be disadvantaged children are merely masking their egocentrism, Glenn says.

He warns that when we make a practice of eliminating the weak, we “become more and more like an animal and less and less like a human being.”

To hear more of Glenn’s powerful monologue, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Abortion 

We’re hearing a lot of noise right now about the federal gas tax.

Some believe President Trump already eliminated it. Others are convinced an executive order is about to slash prices at the pump.

Americans are asking why drivers in some states consistently pay dramatically more than drivers elsewhere.

The reality is more complicated.

Piece of the puzzle

Even if Congress suspended the federal gas tax tomorrow, fuel prices would remain far higher than many drivers expect. That’s because the federal tax has become one of the smaller pieces of a much larger pricing puzzle.

And that’s the part of the debate most headlines miss.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has announced plans to introduce legislation suspending the federal gas tax, which today adds 18.4 cents per gallon to gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon to diesel fuel. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has argued that the tax has largely outlived its original purpose, since the interstate highway system it helped fund is mostly complete.

The proposals immediately sparked headlines suggesting relief could be coming for drivers.

Even if Congress approved a suspension tomorrow, however, the savings would likely be smaller than many consumers expect. Most estimates suggest drivers might see roughly 15 cents per gallon in actual savings.

That’s real money, particularly for families with long commutes and businesses that rely on transportation. But it wouldn’t suddenly make fuel inexpensive again.

Because federal taxes are only part of the equation.

California scheming

The bigger story is what many states continue adding on top.

California remains the clearest example. While the national average for regular gasoline recently hovered around $4.17 per gallon, California drivers were paying nearly $6 per gallon on average, with some regions approaching $7. Diesel prices climbed even higher.

That gap isn’t an accident.

California drivers face some of the highest fuel taxes and regulatory costs in the country. State excise taxes, special fuel-blend requirements, low-carbon fuel programs, cap-and-trade costs, environmental fees, and refinery regulations all contribute to higher prices.

Those costs become permanent parts of the system, and consumers pay them every time they fill up.

RELATED: Cheap Chinese cars: Trojan horse built to undermine US security?

Jade Gao/Bettmann/Getty Images

Policy pain

That’s why Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.) introduced the Gas Tax Reduction Act, which would reduce certain federal transportation funding to states imposing gasoline taxes above 50 cents per gallon.

Whether the bill advances or not, it highlights a reality many drivers already recognize: Policy choices can have a significant impact on fuel prices.

Drivers are often told that fuel prices are primarily the result of global events or market conditions. What receives far less attention is the role government policy plays in determining the final price consumers see at the pump.

Taxes, refinery capacity, fuel mandates, and transportation policy all play a role in determining what consumers ultimately pay at the pump.

Most consumers don’t follow every detail of energy policy, but they understand what happens when they fill up their vehicles. Higher fuel costs ripple through nearly every part of the economy.

Higher diesel prices increase shipping costs. Grocery prices rise. Contractors, delivery companies, farmers, and small businesses all face higher operating expenses that eventually get passed on to consumers.

Road rage

The gas-tax debate is resonating because many Americans are beginning to connect fuel prices to broader policy decisions. They’re asking why drivers in some states consistently pay dramatically more than drivers elsewhere. They’re questioning why taxes and fees continue rising while road quality often fails to improve at the same pace.

Those are reasonable questions.

The federal gas tax was originally created to help build and maintain the interstate highway system. Today, many motorists feel they are paying more while receiving less in return. Roads remain in poor condition in many areas despite billions collected annually from drivers.

At the same time, governments are already looking for new sources of transportation revenue.

As electric vehicles and hybrids become more common, many states are experimenting with replacement taxes, including EV registration fees, mileage-based taxes, and road-usage charges. Officials understand that gasoline-tax revenue eventually declines when fewer people buy fuel.

Transportation taxes aren’t disappearing. They’re evolving.

Political theater

Which brings us back to the current debate.

The real issue isn’t whether Congress temporarily suspends the federal gas tax and saves drivers a few cents per gallon.

The bigger question is how much of today’s fuel pricing structure is driven by decades of taxes, regulations, mandates, and policy decisions layered onto the cost of energy.

That’s the part many headlines overlook.

Americans don’t need more political theater. They need honest conversations about energy policy, infrastructure spending, refinery capacity, and the real factors driving transportation costs.

Because drivers don’t care about talking points when they’re standing at the pump.

They care about affordability.

And right now, many Americans feel they’re paying more every year while getting fewer answers about where all that money is going.

​Electric vehicles, Fuel prices, High gas prices, Gas prices, Federal gas tax, California, Gavin newsom, Lifestyle, Mike lee, Josh hawley 

An actor who has long been rumored as the next James Bond has finally put his cards on the table.

During an interview in GQ, Idris Elba stopped talking about how hates interviews long enough to discuss the future of the iconic franchise.

‘In realistic terms, some markets just don’t go for that.’

The 53-year-old Brit began by addressing the more than a decade of speculation that he would take over the role from Daniel Craig — making him the first-ever black 007.

“It was never legit. It was always just a rumor,” Elba told the outlet.

License to chill

The London-born Elba, whose mother and father hail from Ghana and Sierra Leone, respectively, said that fans simply took the rumor and ran with it.

“I’ve always felt that it’s not a realistic thing,” Elba continued. “James Bond was written how he was written for a reason. But I was complimented by it.”

Elba suggested that for many fans, Bond’s white, Anglo-Saxon ancestry is part of what makes him Bond.

“[S]ome markets just don’t go for that,” he said. “Bond is big all over the world. And [audiences] won’t [all] go for a black male, an African male, playing Bond. That’s not what they like in their culture. Period.”

While Elba — whose full legal name is Idrissa Akuna Elba — said he was not opposed to other attempts to revamp Bond to appeal to modern audiences, he said he would draw the line at anything “woke.”

RELATED: Iconic actress tells ‘James Bond’ star to his face: ‘James Bond has to be a guy’

Mike Marsland/Getty Images/Omega

Shaken, not stirred

“Bond is so unrealistic, so a hint of reality is good, but let’s not try and make it woke,” Elba told the magazine. “I think you’ve got to be pure to what it is: escapism. Don’t try and answer the world’s taste. Just be Bond.”

Elba is far from the only A-lister to come to Bond’s defense. Last year, while doing press for “The Thursday Murder Club” with former Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren shut down his musing that it was time for a woman to take on the role. “I’m such a feminist, but James Bond has to be a guy. You can’t have a woman. It just doesn’t work,” said Mirren.

Brosnan, who played the spy in four films from 1995 to 2002, had previously suggested the recasting in September 2019. “Get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there,” Brosnan said at the time.

RELATED: Top 5 women who fought back when coming face-to-face with crooks

Keith Hamshere/Getty Images

Agents of change

Much of the impetus to change Bond’s sex or ethnicity seems to come from the white males who have played him.

In 2008, just two years into his tenure as Bond, Daniel Craig opined that the next actor to play the spy should be black.

“If we can have a black U.S. president, we can have a black James Bond,” Craig said after Barack Obama’s election, per the Daily Mail.

Craig, who went on to play Bond for another 13 years, presumably meant when he was finished with the role.

The most recent actor to portray James Bond was Irishman Patrick Gibson, who portrayed and voiced the video game character of Bond in 007 First Light (2026).

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​News, James bond, 007, Idris elba, Woke, Movies, Entertainment 

A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed near the coast of Oman while patrolling regional waters on Monday as the war in Iran has now crested the 100-day mark.

According to U.S. Central Command, the two pilots were rescued at 7:33 p.m. ET — within approximately two hours of the crash — and are in “stable condition.” CENTCOM spokesman Capt. Timothy Hawkins said that a U.S. Navy surface drone “found and rescued the crew from the water.”

‘I call all the shots.’

The rescue operation was led by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 82nd Airborne Division and aided by U.S. Air Force and Navy units, including U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59.

After attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals in New York City, President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters that “the pilots are fine” and said that nobody was injured in the crash. He would not specify what prompted the crash.

CENTCOM noted that an investigation into the cause of the crash is underway.

The Apache is hardly the first American aircraft lost during the conflict with Iran.

RELATED: Trump boxes Netanyahu’s ears over Lebanon offensive, calls him ‘f**king crazy’: Report

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

According to a May 13 report from the Congressional Research Service, 42 fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft, including drones, have reportedly been lost or damaged during Operation Epic Fury. The lost or damaged aircraft include:

three F-15E Strike Eagle fighter aircraft shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait early in the conflict and the F-15E shot down during combat operations over Iran;one F-35A Lightning II fighter aircraft damaged by Iranian ground fire;one A-10 Thunderbolt II ground-attack aircraft, which crashed after sustaining enemy fire over Iran; andseven KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft, five of which were damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia during an Iranian missile and drone attack, and two of which were involved in an accident over friendly airspace.

The aircrew of all of the lost or damaged aircrew mentioned above survived with the exception of the six service members killed in the March 12 Stratotanker crash.

In his remarks to the press on Monday evening, Trump said that a deal to end the war is imminent.

Late last month, negotiators representing the U.S. and Iran appeared poised to advance the cause of peace between their respective nations, extend the fragile ceasefire that first went into effect in April, and open the Strait of Hormuz again to trade.

The peace talks quickly began to unravel, however, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s June 1 announcement that Israel was going to ramp up attacks in Lebanon and conduct a new round of strikes in Beirut.

Iranian officials subsequently indicated that Tehran was backing out of the talks, citing Israel’s offensive in Lebanon.

Trump responded to the apparent sabotage of his deal by boxing Netanyahu’s ears, calling him “f**king crazy” and insisting upon greater restraint. The American president managed to salvage the talks in part by securing a tentative truce between Israel and Lebanon.

This truce would not, however, hold.

Late last week, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem characterized the ceasefire plan agreed by Israel and Lebanon as a “roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people” and said that “as long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue.”

On Sunday, Israel attacked Beirut — an attack that Netanyahu’s office said was “in response to Hezbollah’s firing at Israeli territory.” Iran responded by firing missiles at Israel. Israel, in turn, attacked “military and economic targets throughout Iran,” Netanyahu said.

As things were cooling off, Trump told reporters on Monday that Iran and Israel are “going to just leave each other alone for another week or something. It’s been going on for a long time — you could say about 3,000 years if you really want, but certainly it’s been going on for 47 years.”

“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal that will not allow in any way, shape, or form nuclear weapons, et cetera, and the strait will open up right away,” said Trump. “It’ll open up immediately upon signing, which could be in two or three days.”

Earlier in the day, Trump noted that the negotiations were proceeding, “subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.”

When asked by the Financial Times (U.K.) over the weekend whether Netanyahu would ultimately have to accept a deal with Iran, Trump said, “He won’t have a choice.”

The president emphasized, “I call the shots. I call all the shots. [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.”

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​Iran, Us air force, War, Operation epic fury, Donald trump, Benjamin netanyahu, Tehran, Conflict, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Politics 

The Department of Justice has now launched an investigation into Arizona State University over its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” practices. The probe will examine whether ASU has subjected students to illegal discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin through its DEI policies in admissions, recruitment, scholarships, tutoring, and educational support.

That news did not surprise me.

Universities constantly speak the language of ‘inclusion,’ but they do not want disagreement. They want compliance.

For years, many of us who work inside higher education have watched American universities become captive to a worldview that divides human beings into permanent categories of oppressor and oppressed. These ideologies present themselves as enlightened and compassionate, but underneath the slogans is something much uglier.

They claim to fight racism, in effect, by being racist.

That is not rhetorical excess. It is the actual logic of these programs. If you are told that your moral standing is shaped by your race, if students are sorted into categories of guilt and grievance based on ancestry, if “equity” means treating people differently because of their race, then the old evil has simply been repackaged in new academic language.

I know this from experience.

The Arizona Supreme Court has now agreed to hear my case against Arizona State University and the Arizona Board of Regents over ASU’s required DEI training. My challenge began because ASU forced employees to take its “inclusive communities” training.

The training, in some cases produced by Starbucks (I kid you not), told employees how to think about race, guilt, power, and identity, and it required assent to predetermined “correct” answers. I could not in good conscience affirm teachings that judged people by skin color, ethnic identity, gender, religion, and geography.

The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to hear my case goes to the heart of whether state universities can force employees into ideological training that violates state law and basic principles of equal treatment. Arizona law prohibits public schools, including universities, from using curriculum that engages in race blame.

The issue is technical in legal form, but simple in moral substance: When a public university imposes unlawful race-based ideology, does anyone have the right to challenge it?

RELATED: The left doesn’t like it when minorities think for themselves

Jemal Countess/Getty Images for MoveOn

That question should never have had to be asked. But that is where our universities are.

The takeover has been so comprehensive that many campuses no longer even recognize dissent as legitimate. Faculty culture is overwhelmingly leftist (97% at ASU identify as left-wing). The ideological imbalance among professors is staggering. Conservatives, Christians, and others who reject the reigning orthodoxy are rarely hired, and when they are hired, they are often isolated or pressured into silence.

Universities constantly speak the language of “inclusion,” but they do not want disagreement. They want compliance.

When someone objects, the mask slips. The same faculty and administrators who preach compassion suddenly become contemptuous when the dissenter is someone outside the progressive fold. The slogans about empathy disappear and the sneering begins.

That is because DEI is not really about inclusion. It is about power.

Its basic framework is the old Marxist oppressor-oppressed dialectic, merely translated into race, gender, and sexuality categories. Students are taught to see the world through this lens from their first days on campus. The university no longer helps students pursue truth. It trains them to become activists for a ready-made ideology.

The ugly irony at the center of it all is that students are charged tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to sit in classrooms where they are instructed by self-appointed champions of the oppressed, many of whom enjoy comfortable salaries and taxpayer support while lecturing others about systems of injustice.

The university administrator or professor who denounces oppression does so while cashing a government-backed paycheck and enforcing ideological conformity inside a vast institutional bureaucracy.

That is not liberation. It is a racket.

The federal investigation into ASU is important not only for Arizona but for the whole country. The era of automatic deference to DEI bureaucracies may be ending.

If government investigators are asking whether ASU’s programs have crossed the line into unlawful discrimination, then other universities should be asking themselves the same question. How many scholarships, support programs, admissions initiatives, and training sessions around the country are doing precisely what civil-rights law was supposed to forbid?

The answer, I suspect, is many.

American universities have largely abandoned the idea that education is the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. In its place they have installed a therapeutic political religion in which redemption comes through identity confession, public denunciation, and endless activism.

The categories of the system are fixed: Someone must be blamed, someone must be oppressed, and the institution itself must always pose as the righteous mediator.

RELATED: The answer to university decline is hiding in plain sight

Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

The ideology has spread far beyond the office door. It lives in the curriculum, in hiring, in faculty trainings, and in the language administrators use to describe their mission. It is the very institutionalized bigotry that it claims to oppose.

What is needed now is moral reform and clarity.

Public universities should not be in the business of teaching students or employees to judge one another by race. They should not use tax dollars to promote theories that blame individuals for the sins of categories. And they certainly should not punish or marginalize those who object.

The Justice Department’s investigation into ASU and the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to hear my case are both signs that resistance is possible. But much more is needed.

Americans must recover the courage to say plainly what too many in higher education have forgotten: Racism does not become justice when wrapped in the language of equity, and discrimination does not become virtue when blessed by a university bureaucracy.

​Arizona state university, Department of justice, Higher education, Dei, Arizona supreme court, Arizona, Marxism, American universities, State universities, Opinion & analysis, Diversity equity inclusion, Lawsuit, Donald trump, Wokeness 

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — the law that allows the government to spy on foreign targets overseas, including their communications with Americans — has a looming deadline.

Supporters call it essential to national security. Critics call it “Big Brother.”

‘FISA needs serious reform. Full stop.’

The House Freedom Caucus launched a #DontSpyOnMe campaign, demanding, in accordance with the Fourth Amendment, a warrant before the government can query Americans’ data in Section 702 collection.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), one of the effort’s loudest voices, was blunt on X: “The government has no right to your private communications without a warrant. FISA needs serious reform. Full stop.”

“The Freedom Caucus is America First more than anyone else, as far as I’m concerned,” Self added.

RELATED: The FBI should get a warrant before reading your messages

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

For most Democrats, the objection isn’t about the law itself — it’s about who Trump tapped to oversee the intelligence agencies involved with it.

On June 2, Trump named Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence — the official who oversees all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. Pulte replaces Tulsi Gabbard, who announced she was resigning effective June 30. Confirmed as Federal Housing Finance Agency director in March 2025, Pulte will hold both roles simultaneously.

When pressed on Pulte’s lack of any intelligence or national security experience, Trump was unfazed. “I think he does, actually, because he’s smart,” he said. “I wasn’t greatly experienced in national security, and I think I’ve done a really great job with it.”

At the FHFA, Pulte referred several anti-Trump Democrats and government officials — including New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), and Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook — to the Justice Department for alleged fraud.

The Government Accountability Office opened an investigation into whether Pulte misused federal authority to do so. As DNI, critics argue, he would have far more power to continue targeting Democrats.

The backlash to his appointment was swift and bipartisan. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) put it plainly: “We don’t need a weaponized DNI. We need professionals there,” and the Senate voted 47-52 against a motion to proceed on the FISA extension, with six Republicans crossing the aisle to kill it.

Punchbowl News reported that Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) privately warned Thune: no Pulte withdrawal, no Democratic votes for FISA.

Trump, for his part, has pushed for a clean extension — but finds himself boxed in on all sides.

Congress has already passed two short-term extensions of the surveillance program this spring — the last one, in April, bought just 45 days.

Something has to give before June 12 — the White House blinks on Pulte, the Freedom Caucus gets its warrant requirement, or Congress slaps on another emergency patch.

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​Bill pulte, Congress, Democrats, Fourth amendment, Freedom caucus, Government accountability office, Intelligence agencies, John thune, Justice department, National security, New york attorney general, Senate, Trump, Tulsi gabbard, White house, Politics, Fisa 

Google is trying to make Gemini as ubiquitous as possible. From AI Mode in Search to Gemini Intelligence in Android, and even the Gemini app on iPhone, the company is betting big that you’ll encounter its AI bot somewhere on your devices and fall so in love that you can’t live without it. One of these new features is Daily Brief, a digital corkboard that scans through all of your Google services to write a custom agenda for the day that is as cool as it is creepy. But is it useful? Let’s take a look.

What is Daily Brief?

Every morning, I wake up to a new Gemini notification on my Pixel phone waiting to be unraveled. The Daily Brief is an automatically generated itinerary for the day ahead. It can include just about anything — a reminder about an important event you have coming up next week, a nudge to talk to your boss about that email you sent before you clocked out the day before, maybe even a prompt to follow up on that question you Googled earlier in the week.

You are giving Gemini permission to scour your Google account, and it will find a lot.

Google calls it “your personalized overview of today’s priorities.”

That’s not exactly true. We’ll get to why in a bit. The important part for now is that Daily Brief is a constantly evolving to-do list that changes based on your activity in Google’s apps and services.

What makes Daily Brief creepy

For Daily Brief to work, it needs complete access to your Google account through Gemini’s Personal Intelligence feature. Once enabled, Gemini can look through the entire treasure trove of information saved in your Google apps and services and use all of it in its responses to your queries.

Before you panic over privacy, Google claims that it “built Personal Intelligence with privacy at the center.” Take that with whatever heaping mountain of salt you like. As for me, Google already knows more than enough, thanks to my dependence on its services, and it turns out that Google knows quite a bit.

I was a bit stunned when my first Daily Brief showed up in my notification shade. At the time, I was writing my article about prediction markets with Stu Burguiere. Daily Brief knew that, because it saw the article saved in my Google Docs and it spotted the ongoing email chain with Stu to lock in his responses to my questions. It reminded me that I still needed to gather his answers before I could submit the piece to my editor.

Cool, right? I thought it was pretty neat at first, and then I realized what it meant — that Gemini knew everything I was doing in Google’s ecosystem and could serve it back to me, even when I least expected the results.

RELATED: Google is about to overhaul the Android. You’ll either love it or hate it.

lixu/Getty Images

This went on for a few more days. It reminded me about pending emails with my editors that still needed responses. It looked at my Chrome browser history and urged me to dig deeper on another set of stories I was researching for Blaze Media. It even recalled from a previous Gemini chat that I write for a living and suggested stories to add to my writing portfolio saved in Google Drive.

With Daily Brief, I was suddenly more knowledgeable, more astute, more capable — or at least I appeared that way, as Gemini pinged me reminders for things that were postponed or had completely fallen off my radar.

It knew everything about me. Too much, in fact. But I suppose that level of insight is what you get when you give Google a front-row seat to your digital life.

Cool? Yes. Creepy? Double yes.

Is it useful?

For the first couple of days, Daily Brief was useful. I’m not sure it was ever a necessity, but on a few mornings, I woke up intrigued to find what it had in store for the day. Some agenda items were spot-on, like the reminders to follow up on my emails and articles. Eventually, though, Daily Brief started to slip, especially when it came to tasks that it couldn’t see.

For instance, I write my stories in Google Docs, but I submit most of them to my editor through a third-party messaging service. In a week, Daily Brief had no idea which stories I was working on or what was still pending approval, despite the fact that my Google Docs are all dated and have activity history that shows when they’re finished or not. It didn’t prompt me for updates on these at all, because it didn’t know when I sent them off for editing. The brief would have been different if I emailed my drafts, but that’s simply not my workflow, so no briefs for me.

Just like that, Daily Brief went from creepily useful to oddly empty. All that remained were notes telling me to research article topics that were now outdated because those articles were already in my editor’s hands.

Then the following week, Daily Brief did something useful again, reminding me about a paint recycling event coming up next week that I completely forgot about. (I really do need to get those old paint cans out of my storage closet.)

So to answer definitively if Daily Brief is useful, I can only say “sometimes.” If you actively participate in Google’s digital ecosystem, it can be extremely helpful. If you use Google services sparingly or not at all, however, Daily Brief will be completely useless. Your mileage depends entirely on how much you rely on Google.

Try Daily Brief if you dare!

If you’re interested in seeing how useful Daily Brief is all for yourself, you can test it out now. Daily Brief is already available to the public, and it lives directly inside the Gemini app and webpage, so you can access it on Android devices, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and PCs.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Google Gemini app

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Every parent knows the moment. The phone call. The ultrasound. The doctor walking back into the room. The uncertainty.

We all tell some version of the same joke: “I just hope the baby has 10 fingers and 10 toes.” We spend nine months praying for a healthy baby. We celebrate reassuring scans. We cling to every piece of good news.

Some decisions are so intimate and consequential that they do not belong in the marketplace of clicks and comments.

But over those nine months, we learn the ultimate lesson of parenthood and life: We are not in control.

Last week, the country got a front-row seat to one family’s struggle with that lesson. Jesse Ridgway, a YouTuber known as “McJuggerNuggets” with more than 4 million subscribers, took to X to update followers on a pregnancy he and his wife had documented for months.

“This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21,” Ridgway wrote. He added that he had not realized the child would be “fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.” He concluded, “We made a difficult decision that we believe in the long run will be beneficial for our family.”

I suppose the baby was not yet considered part of the family.

I do not doubt that the Ridgways were scared. Every parent can sympathize with fear. Every parent can sympathize with grief over shattered expectations. But what happened next was not merely a story about fear. It was a story about what we do with fear.

The entire enterprise of parenthood is uncertainty.

Healthy babies develop cancer. Healthy babies lose their sight. Healthy babies suffer traumatic brain injuries. Healthy babies develop learning disabilities. Healthy babies struggle with addiction. The moment you become a parent, you sign a contract with uncertainty.

Parenthood does not give you guarantees. It gives you responsibility.

We do not love our children because of the outcomes they produce. We love them because they are ours. If a child develops a disability at age 6, do we decide his life no longer has value? Of course not.

RELATED: Euthanasia and the lie of the ‘good death’

Mininyx Doodle via iStock/Getty Images

Then why would we decide that at 6 months in the womb?

What is so unique about Down syndrome? It involves suffering, imperfection, and uncertainty. But so does every human life. Down syndrome simply makes those realities visible sooner.

The question is not whether this child would face challenges. The question is why challenges suddenly make a life disposable.

If Down syndrome is enough to make a life disposable before birth, what other conditions qualify? Blindness? Autism? Cerebral palsy? A missing limb? A learning disability?

Where exactly is the line?

I will make this personal. Our second child faced a possible cystic fibrosis diagnosis. The meeting with the specialist was dark. She was preparing us for devastating news. I remember sitting in my car afterward, calling my dad, and bawling my eyes out.

But the conversation was never, “Should this child live?” The conversation was, “How do we prepare to raise this child?”

That distinction matters.

Fast-forward to our fourth child, now 5 months old. Her scans showed what doctors believed was a significant kidney defect that would require either in-utero surgery or surgery immediately after birth. Again, my wife and I were terrified. Again, we began preparing.

And again, it was all for nothing.

In both cases, the doctors were wrong.

Doctors are incredibly skilled. They are not prophets. A probability is not a person.

Ridgway mentioned that doctors told him and his wife that up to 90% of women terminate after learning their child has Trisomy 21. That statistic is often cited as evidence of how difficult these diagnoses can be.

I see it differently.

I see it as evidence of how quickly our culture has confused hardship with hopelessness.

This hit me on another personal level. I volunteer at a special-needs ministry. Some of the happiest people I know have Down syndrome. Through all their challenges, they radiate a level of joy, affection, and sincerity that our country desperately needs.

After reading Ridgway’s announcement, I could not stop wondering what one of them would think if he read it. Imagine opening your phone and discovering that people are publicly discussing whether lives like yours are worth living. Imagine being told that your diagnosis makes your existence negotiable.

Parenthood can never be reduced to consumer choice. Children are not products we order. They are gifts we receive.

RELATED: What ‘fur babies,’ 2D boyfriends, and ‘sharenting’ tell us about the West’s future

lchumpitaz via iStock/Getty Images

The deepest moments of parenthood often arrive when life refuses to follow the script. A parent’s love is measured by what remains after expectations disappear.

The decision itself was not the only thing that struck me. So did the need to announce it.

Some moments should produce reflection, not engagement. Some decisions are so intimate and consequential that they do not belong in the marketplace of clicks and comments. Have we reached the point where even the death of a child becomes content?

As of this writing, Ridgway’s post has more than 24 million views.

He has faced a mountain of criticism online, much of it hateful and cruel. As a Christian, I am taught to hate the sin and not the sinner. I will leave judgment to God.

But I hope this tragic and very public episode forces us to think carefully about what parenthood requires.

A child does not earn the right to live by meeting our expectations.

Parenthood begins when we decide to love a child even when life does not unfold the way we hoped. The measure of parenthood is not how we respond when life follows the script.

It is how we respond when it does not.

​Opinion & analysis, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Down syndrome, Youtube, Content, Trisomy 21, Abortion, Clickbait, Children, Family 

Last week, a jury was seated in the Karmelo Anthony murder trial in Collin County, Texas. Despite a Batson challenge from the defense, no black jurors were selected.

Anthony was charged with first-degree murder in April 2025 when he allegedly stabbed 17-year-old high school student Austin Metcalf in the chest after a verbal confrontation. Anthony pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming he acted in self defense, despite the victim being unarmed.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock was “overjoyed” when he heard the news that all prospective black jurors were struck, believing that true justice is only possible if black bias is not a factor.

But now that the trial is underway, there’s a new concern that’s making some Texans worried: What if a guilty verdict sparks mass riots?

Former Infowars host turned independent media entrepreneur Owen Shroyer, who lives in Austin, Texas, is one of those cautionary voices.

On June 4, he tweeted:

But Whitlock disagrees.

“I think all the emotion around this trial, the support of Karmelo Anthony, I think it’s all bought and paid for and fake,” he counters. “I don’t think there are real people in support of Karmelo Anthony.”

While Shroyer agrees that a guilty verdict is unlikely to culminate in “Black Lives Matter-style riots,” he does believe there will be consequences at the “local” level.

“Based off of what I saw outside of that courtroom, I do believe there is going to be a local community … issue,” he says. “I don’t know if it’ll get to the level of Ferguson with buildings on fire, but I do anticipate there’ll be some stress and strife if Karmelo Anthony gets a long sentence.”

Supporters of Karmelo Anthony have gathered daily outside the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney, Texas, wearing matching “We Declare He Will Walk Free” T-shirts and chanting slogans like, “Self-defense is not a crime,” while protesting the lack of black jurors. One protester has gone viral for repeatedly shouting, “The only good cracker is a dead cracker!” directly in front of police officers.

“Once you get a group like that that truly believes that they’re fighting racism, and that’s a cause that they’re going to get out in the streets for, sometimes these things can tend to grow and get some gravity,” says Shroyer.

But Whitlock has sources in the Frisco area who have led him to believe that much of the hype is manufactured.

“I know a few people in Frisco, Texas. I spent some time a year ago talking to a woman whose daughter went to high school with Karmelo Anthony. I just think the people on the ground know like Karmelo Anthony was a troublemaker, and this story is BS,” he says.

Shroyer, however, believes our highly racialized time has produced people who “are not logical” and “don’t care about the facts.”

He recounts how during the Michael Brown trial in 2014, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, a black man, concluded that Brown never said, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” But despite this verdict and copious forensic evidence and credible witnesses supporting Officer Darren Wilson’s account, protesters “didn’t change their minds” and even continued to protest.

“These people, unfortunately, they’re very emotional-based,” says Shroyer.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Jason whitlock harmony, Jason whitlock, Karmelo anthony, Austin metcalf, Owen shroyer, Texas