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Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made a major announcement concerning mandatory vaccinations during a press conference on Wednesday, which was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience.

‘They do not have the right. Do not give it to them.’

Ladapo began his speech by praising Governor Ron DeSantis (R) for resisting government overreach during the COVID era.

He then revealed a significant win for medical freedom, stating that the Florida Department of Health and DeSantis would work in partnership to end “all” vaccine mandates in Florida law.

The crowd reacted to Ladapo’s announcement by standing up and bursting into applause.

“Every last one of them,” Ladapo clarified. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

“Who am I as a government, or anyone else — or who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body?” he continued.

“Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don’t have that right. Government does not have that right. They want you to believe they have that right. And unfortunately, they’ve been successful.”

RELATED: Where’s the outrage?! This whistleblower’s vaccine injury lawsuit demands national attention

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Ladapo noted that nearly every state has vaccine mandates.

“They do not have the right. Do not give it to them. Take it away from them,” he declared. “And we’re going to be starting that here in Florida.”

He emphasized the importance of allowing Americans to make informed decisions about vaccines.

Ladapo explained that the Florida Department of Health has the power to initiate the process by eliminating rules established under the previous administration that required certain vaccines.

“It’ll be wonderful for Florida to be the first state to do it,” he said.

RELATED: Study: COVID-19 vaccination is ‘strongly associated with a serious adverse safety signal of myocarditis’

Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

Also during the Wednesday press conference, DeSantis unveiled the establishment of the Florida Make America Healthy Again commission, which will be chaired by first lady Casey DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (R).

DeSantis referred to Florida as the “national model for medical freedom.”

“The Florida MAHA commission will prioritize reforms that empower Floridians, reduce regulatory burdens, and hold actors accountable for their conduct, while fostering incentives for healthy living and innovation,” he stated during the press conference.

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A Texas man with a large cache of weapons is accused of shooting and killing an 11-year-old boy who allegedly was playing the “ding-dong ditch” doorbell prank, according to authorities.

The Houston Police Department said in a statement that officers responded to a report of a “fatal shooting of a juvenile male” around 10:55 p.m. Saturday.

Police reported that gunshots are heard on the video, followed by audio of the boy gasping.

The shooting victim was rushed to an area hospital, but doctors on Sunday pronounced the child dead.

Authorities identified the shooting victim as 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who reportedly was playing a “ding-dong ditch” prank. Participants in the prank ring a home’s doorbell or knock on the door and run away before the occupant answers.

Investigators said the shooting victim and his 10-year-old cousin were at a family gathering nearby before they walked a block away to play the “ding-dong ditch” prank.

“Officers were told that Guzman was ringing doorbells of homes in the area and running away,” the Houston Police Department stated. “A witness stated Guzman was running from a house, after ringing the doorbell, just prior to suffering a gunshot wound.”

Houston Police Department Homicide Detective Sgt. Michael Cass told CBS News that the suspect was “waiting in the shadows in his own side yard behind a fence” after the victim and his cousin began playing the prank — doing so three times in a span of 15 minutes.

But by the third ding-dong ditch attempt, police said “the cousins ran as fast as they could, but the homeowner was waiting behind the fence in his yard,” according to the news network.

Police said the incident was recorded on Guzman’s cell phone.

Police reported that gunshots are heard on the video, followed by audio of the boy gasping.

‘What harm could they have done? Playing with a doorbell?’

The Houston Police Department named the shooting suspect as 42-year-old Gonzalo Leon Jr.

On Monday, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office charged Leon with murder.

On Tuesday, officers with the Houston Police Department’s SWAT unit and a Criminal Apprehension Team located Leon and his packed car at a hotel in La Porte, Texas.

Leon was arrested and booked into the Harris County Jail, according to online records.

RELATED: California man convicted of murdering 3 teenagers after ‘ding-dong ditch’ prank that included ‘mooning’

Sgt. Cass noted that the children were “not threatening in any way” and that the shooting did not seem to involve self-defense because it “wasn’t close to the house.”

Cass told KHOU-TV, “In my opinion, it does not look like any type of self-defense.”

Legal analyst Carmen Roe added to KHOU, “From what we know, it is difficult to imagine a homeowner reasonably believing children playing a centuries-old prank posed a legitimate threat.”

While executing a search warrant at Leon’s house, investigators found a handgun and 20 other firearms, plus tactical and smoke grenades, police said.

“Looked like he may have been a collector of firearms,” Cass said.

Leon is an Army veteran who was deployed and spent time in the reserves, police told CBS News, which added that his defense attorney at his Wednesday court appearance said Leon was disabled in combat and honorably discharged.

Neighbors were shocked after a child’s prank resulted in tragedy.

“What harm could they have done? Playing with a doorbell? That’s the part that really kind of hurts the heart,” one neighbor told KHOU. “For someone to shoot him in the back, they knew they were a kid. What’s the purpose of it?”

Another resident added, “Kids are just being kids. I feel like we’ve all played ‘ding-dong ditch.'”

One neighbor claimed to have seen a group of children pranking homes in the neighborhood on the day of the shooting.

“I warned them that they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing, that it was dangerous, and they had two minutes to go and leave the property or I would contact the police,” the neighbor stated. “They knew that they were doing something wrong.”

One resident claimed that “an innocent life” was taken, but it could have been avoided if parents taught their children “what’s right and what’s wrong, and it’s wrong to knock on somebody’s door playing a prank.”

A number of recent “ding-dong ditch” pranks resulted in unfortunate outcomes.

As Blaze News reported in May, a Virginia homeowner was charged with murder after a high school senior was fatally shot as he allegedly played the “ding-dong ditch” game. In January, four juveniles reportedly did the doorbell prank at a home in Missouri, after which the homeowner chased them with a sawed-off shotgun but didn’t fire it.In July 2024, a Maine man fired 14 rounds at teens who had played the “ding-doing ditch” prank.Blaze News reported in August 2023 that a Delaware state trooper was suspended for allegedly beating a 15-year-old boy after the teen played the “ding-dong ditch” game at the officer’s home.

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Billionaire entrepreneur Joe Gebbia said that the failure of Democrats to secure the border led to his abandoning the party and voting for President Donald Trump.

The 44-year-old, who co-founded Airbnb, made the comments while speaking to Katie Miller on her podcast. He said that he spoke to his friends on the Democratic side about border issues and was not satisfied with their explanations.

‘This is not right. … This is a real problem, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be enforcing the laws of our country.’

“In mid-2021, the activity at the border caught my attention, and I remember thinking, ‘What’s going on with this topic? It seems as if there’s no border,'” said Gebbia. “And as it got worse that year, I felt as if I needed to understand this problem more, so I reached out to my friends from the Democratic side of the House, at all levels, from the highest level all the way down.”

He added: “I got some answers, but felt unfulfilled.”

Gebbia went on to say that the president’s son-in-law and former adviser Jared Kushner sealed the deal with him after explaining the issue more fully.

“I get on the phone with Jared and say, ‘Hey, can you help me? Fill in the gaps for me? Like, what am I missing here? Is this normal? Like, it seems there’s no enforcement of our own border. Like, don’t nations need borders to be a nation?’ And so he put me on this curriculum of just talking to experts in the field, and I remember just being like, ‘Holy cow, this is crazy!’ Like, this is not right,” Gebbia continued.

“This is a real problem, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be enforcing the laws of our country and our border,” he added. “And so, I think, as I started to pull on that thread, I sort of began to look at other topics and eventually came to the point where I don’t think I can support a political party that wants to have an open border, that lets in criminals and dangerous people into our country. That’s not something I can get behind.”

Video of Gebbia’s comments went viral on social media with more than nine million views.

RELATED: Anti-Trump critics call for boycott against Airbnb after co-founder reportedly joins DOGE

Gebbia went on social media to clarify that he had stepped away from any operating role at the company in 2022.

“My views are my own and are in no way reflective of the company,” he added.

That did not prevent people on the left from attacking him.

“Gross. Airbnb’s co-founder Joe Gebbia spreading anti-immigrant hate on the podcast of a fascist who delights in separating families and disappearing people,” responded queer New York City Council member Tiffany Caban.

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California’s mask commissars are once again clamoring for Americans to cover their faces.

During the pandemic, Democrat leaders and health officials in the Golden State proved eager to condition Americans’ ability to leave the house and to perform basic errands on wearing a mask.

“Bring your mask with you whenever you leave your home,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “That will help us get more freedoms.”

On June 18, 2020 — just over a month after L.A. reopened its beaches — the California Department of Public Health announced that Californians were required to wear face coverings in public spaces; when obtaining services from the health care sector; when waiting for or riding on public transportation; when engaged in work with other members of the public; and “while outdoors in public spaces when maintaining a physical distance of six feet from persons who are not members of the same household.”

“Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered,” said Gavin Newsom — the Democrat governor who months later issued a statewide order expanding the mask requirement to most indoor and outdoor settings.

Newsom issued his order despite evidence that masks, like the COVID-19 vaccines, weren’t as effective as some proponents liked to pretend.

RELATED: Let us never forget how COVID lockdown lunacy, tyranny, and hypocrisy harmed all of us

Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

For instance, the Centers for Disease Control’s peer-reviewed journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, published a study in May 2020 that found “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.”

The researchers stated, “There is limited evidence for [disposal medical masks’] effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

‘I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces.’

Although Newsom’s mask mandate was partially dropped in March 2022, mask requirements nevertheless remained in effect for certain settings. Even a comprehensive Cochrane analysis of scientific studies concerning the efficacy of masks in reducing the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses, led by Oxford epidemiologist Tom Jefferson and published in January 2023, concluded:

Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness/COVID‐19-like illness compared to not wearing masks. … Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks.

Aimee Sisson, the health officer in Yolo County, said in a statement on Friday, “California is experiencing a summer COVID wave.”

The CDC’s COVID-19 Hospitalization Surveillance Network indicated that in the week ending Aug. 23, the national hospitalization rate was 1.4 per 100,000 for those ages 0-4; 0.2 for those ages 5-17; 0.4 for those ages 18-49; 0.9 for those ages 50-64; and 5.1 for those 65 and older.

While the overall level of hospitalizations for the endemic virus is reportedly “low,” the Los Angeles Times indicated the number is increasing across the Golden State.

According to an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 31 states, including California.

RELATED: The numbers hold terrible news for the Democrats’ future

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

“Based on current wastewater levels of the virus that causes COVID-19, I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces,” said Sisson. “I also recommend that people in the rest of Yolo County wear masks when they are around others indoors if they are 65 or older, have a weakened immune system, have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a greater risk of severe COVID-19, or spend time around people who fall into these categories.”

The San Francisco Department of Public Health has similarly recommended “wearing a well-fitted mask when you are in crowded, indoor spaces, including when traveling.”

The California Department of Public Health noted in a social media post on Saturday, “Protect yourself and your loved ones by considering masking in indoor public places like airports and planes. Wear a high-quality mask like an N95, KN95 or KF94 to stay protected.”

The CDPH told Blaze News in a statement, “CDPH continues to recommend masks in certain situations and is not considering changing these recommendations at this time.”

“Local health departments may make recommendations on masking based on virus activity in their region,” the agency added in its statement. “Overall wastewater concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 are currently increasing, and it is not yet clear when wastewater activity will peak this summer.”

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The Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expanded its detention space to yet another state, after already opening facilities in Florida, Indiana, Nebraska, and Texas.

ICE has officially opened the “Louisiana Lockup” within the Louisiana State Penitentiary. This facility was created through a partnership with the notorious prison to utilize an unused section, expanding ICE’s capacity by 416 beds. The DHS plans to house the “worst of the worst” illegal immigrants at this facility.

‘If you are in this country illegally, you could find yourself in the Louisiana Lockup.’

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan, and Governor Jeff Landry (R) plan to host a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the new facility.

“To the worst of the worst: Welcome to the LOUISIANA LOCKUP,” Landry wrote in a post on X ahead of the press conference.

“Criminal illegal aliens beware: Louisiana Lockup is where your time in America ends,” Landry said. “Louisiana Lockup will give ICE the space it needs to lock up some of the worst criminal illegal aliens — murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers, and gang members — so they can no longer threaten our families and communities. This facility fulfills President Trump’s Make America Safe Again promise. I want to thank President Trump, Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Deputy ICE Director Madison Sheahan for their leadership and partnership. Together, we’re making Louisiana and America safer.”

RELATED: Lone Star Lockup: Trump admin unveils largest ICE detention facility yet

Photo by Giles Clarke/Getty Images

“If you are in this country illegally, you could find yourself in the Louisiana Lockup,” the DHS wrote on social media. “Avoid arrest and self deport now using the CBP Home App.”

The department told Fox News that 51 immigrants have already been moved to the detention center.

RELATED: From Alligator Alcatraz to the Speedway Slammer: Noem’s DHS increases ICE detention space

President Donald Trump and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

“Today, we’re announcing a new partnership with the state of Louisiana to expand detention space,” Noem stated. “Thank you to Governor Landry for his partnership to help remove the worst of the worst out of our country. If you are in America illegally, you could find yourself in CECOT, Cornhusker Clink, Speedway Slammer, or Louisiana Lockup. Avoid arrest and self-deport now using the CBP Home App.”

CECOT — Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo — is a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration transferred suspected gang members.

Blaze News reached out to the DHS for comment.

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Last month, a high-ranking Israeli government official was arrested and charged with a felony during a sex crime sting operation by Nevada police. Nearly a month after he posted bail, flew back to Israel as scheduled, and failed to appear for his felony arraignment on August 27, Tom Artiom Alexandrovich was scheduled to appear in court via a Zoom link Wednesday.

Alexandrovich, who was confirmed to be a senior official of the Israel Cyber Directorate, was arrested and charged with using computer technology to engage in a sexual act with a minor, a felony.

The court acknowledged that supervising and enforcing these conditions would be difficult given the ‘distance’ between the court and Alexandrovich’s current whereabouts.

Having flown to Israel shortly after posting $10,000 bail on August 7, Alexandrovich was not available to appear before the court in person on August 27, nor did he appear via Zoom. As was clarified on the court docket and during the hearing Wednesday, his bail was posted prior to the probable cause review.

Blaze News can confirm that Alexandrovich appeared at the arraignment hearing set for September 3.

RELATED: Israeli government official arrested in child sex-crime sting, flees to Israel

Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL/AFP via Getty Images

Noting the seriousness of the charge, Henderson Justice of the Peace Barbara F. Schifalacqua ordered Alexandrovich to avoid contact with minors and prohibited the use of social media or applications for dating or meetups.

The court acknowledged potential difficulties in supervising and enforcing these conditions given the “distance” between the court and Alexandrovich’s current whereabouts.

During the hearing, the defense stated that Alexandrovich submitted to and “passed” a polygraph test when asked if he had ever had sexual contact with any person under the age of 19. The defense also noted that Alexandrovich has been compliant with the court in the almost 30 days that have elapsed since the arrest.

An opposition hearing was set for September 24. The reply will be heard on October 1, and the argument, at which Alexandrovich will appear via Zoom once more, was scheduled for October 6. The date of the preliminary hearing will be scheduled during the argument hearing.

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Iconic filmmaker David Mamet got into an enlightening discussion about Democrat policies destroying the American family, and liberal podcaster Bill Maher did not disagree.

Mamet was being interviewed by Maher on his “Club Random” podcast when Maher tried to challenge him on the notion that liberals want to destroy the family.

‘Liberals actually think they’re doing good. I know a lot of times it’s really just about making them feel good. … But they’re not actually trying to destroy.’

“I know you think liberals want to destroy the family,” Maher said to Mamet.

“No. I don’t think they want to destroy the family. I think they have destroyed the family,” Mamet responded. “But they haven’t destroyed my family.”

“But they didn’t really do it on purpose,” Maher replied.

“Wait a second. What you’re saying is ‘I didn’t know it was loaded,’ right?” Mamet joked.

“Yes!” Maher laughed.

“That’s what Lee Harvey Oswald could have said!” said Mamet, referring to JFK’s assassin.

“Okay. But liberals actually think they’re doing good,” Maher responded. “I know a lot of times it’s really just about making them feel good, which is what’s so obnoxious when they do that. But they’re not actually trying to destroy …”

“Yes, and we understand as dramatists is that nobody ever did something for a bad reason,” Mamet interjected.

RELATED: How the black family was broken — and how we can restore it

The video was first published in June but resurfaced as a clip on social media this week and garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

Elsewhere in the interview, Mamet said that President Donald Trump called him after his past appearance on Maher’s show and scolded him for not defending the president’s claims of a stolen election. He said Trump spoke to him for 20 minutes to persuade him about his argument.

Mamet is best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Glengarry Glen Ross,” as well as the films “The Untouchables” and “Wag the Dog.”

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A group who say they were victims of disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein held a press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday, demanding transparency.

The self-proclaimed survivors voiced support for the Democrat-led Epstein Files Transparency Act, which calls on the attorney general to “release all documents and records in possession of the Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who sponsored the bill, appeared with survivors in D.C. alongside Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), as the victims made a shocking revelation.

‘It will be done by survivors and for survivors; no one else involved.’

Lisa Phillips, who has spoken extensively about surviving abuse at the hands of Epstein, took the podium at the Capitol to make a series of statements.

“Transparency is justice. Release the files,” Phillips stated in one clip from the event.

Phillips has been vocal about her claims recently, saying she was sex-trafficked by Epstein when she was a young model in the early 2000s. However, it was at the press conference that she dropped a bomb.

“Several of us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list of names,” Phillips revealed. “We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world, and it will be done by survivors and for survivors; no one else is involved.”

RELATED: White House slams Massie’s Epstein bill as a ‘very hostile act’ — some Republicans sign on anyway

As one of 23 co-sponsors, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has filed a petition to force a vote on Khanna’s bill in Congress. He would need 218 House members to sign the petition to force the vote, which would likely include all 212 Democrats.

According to BBC, four Republicans have already signed, including Massie himself, Greene, Nancy Mace (S.C.), and Lauren Boebert (Colo.).

In a comment to NBC News this week, the White House slammed Massie’s push for the bill to get a vote, calling it “a very hostile act to the administration.”

Massie has responded, stating that President Trump “may be covering for some rich and powerful people,” according to The Hill.

RELATED: Epstein victims have identified other ‘persons of interest,’ House Oversight Committee chair says

Lisa Phillips speaks during a rally in support of the victims of disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In comments alongside the Epstein victims, Greene called the fight for transparency “the most important” battle currently in Congress.

“Fighting for innocent people,” Greene added, stating that the women she stood with have never received justice.

Greene continued, noting she become aware that Epstein rubbed shoulders with elites in the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

“Jeffrey Epstein, somehow, was able to walk among the most rich, powerful people, not only in America, but foreign countries,” Greene claimed.

She stressed that the scandal is something that should “never happen in America” and that the issue is not something that should drive a political wedge between Republicans and Democrats.

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Amid his stunning success at reducing crime in Washington, D.C, President Donald Trump has floated the idea of sending federal law enforcement agents to yet another deep-blue city with a violent crime problem — instead of to Chicago.

On Wednesday, Trump indicated that he may first send federal agents down south to New Orleans on account of his strong relationship with Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

‘With a crime rate of 65 per 1,000 residents, New Orleans has one of the highest crime rates in America.’

“We’re making a determination now, do we go to Chicago, or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite tough, quite bad?” Trump said from the Oval Office.

“So we’re going to be going to, maybe, Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks. It will take us two weeks — easier than D.C.”

RELATED: Mayor Johnson remains defiant on Trump’s pending National Guard deployment amid violent weekend

– YouTube

Outlets initially balked at Trump’s description of New Orleans as “quite tough” and “quite bad,” citing statistics that suggest crime fell slightly in 2024 and significantly since 2022. However, other crime indices show that New Orleans does indeed have “a crime problem,” as Trump said.

Neighborhood Scout said that “with a crime rate of 65 per 1,000 residents, New Orleans has one of the highest crime rates in America.” The database rated New Orleans a 1 out of 100 where 100 is the safest possible. In a 2023 version of its top 100 most dangerous cities in America, Neighborhood Scout listed New Orleans at 33.

It also happens to be one of the most Democratic. According to World Population Review, New Orleans is among the top 20 most liberal cities in America, coming in at number 17.

Blaze News reached out to the offices of Gov. Landry and NOLA Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) to see whether they would cooperate with any type of federal law enforcement help, but neither office responded.

Even with the ongoing violence in cities like New Orleans and strong resistance from Illinois Democrats like Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Trump still seems determined to assist the crime-beleaguered residents of Chicago.

“We can straighten out Chicago. All they have to do is ask us to go into Chicago,” he said.

“We don’t have the support of some of these politicians. But I’ll tell you who is supporting us, the people of Chicago, and I sort of want them to let it be known they have incompetent people.”

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President Donald Trump revealed a military strike against drug-runners in a ship from Venezuela in an offhand comment from the White House, but it led to a curious response from his critics.

The president offered few details on the operation to reporters Tuesday but said that he had been briefed on the strike by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

‘He’s basically the actual devil you can stop playing it safe now.’

Trump later released a video of the strike on a post on Truth Social and said that 11 people had died. He said they were members of the infamous Tren de Aragua criminal gang.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” Trump said.

The U.S. sent three more warships to the seas near Venezuela in order to combat drug cartel activity that occurred in the prior weeks. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called the actions of the U.S. an “extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral, and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”

On social media, anti-Trump voices pounced to attack the administration and seemingly defend the murderous drug cartels.

“Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war. Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed, which U.S. forces just illegally did,” human rights activist Kenneth Roth responded.

“It’s truly insane to me that Trump sent 7 warships and 4,500 troops to Venezuela and just illegally attacked one of their boats and I have barely heard the media and democrats even mention it. What would he have to do to actually get you to fight??? He’s basically the actual devil you can stop playing it safe now,” left-wing YouTuber Kyle Kulinski replied.

“As with Trump’s bombing of Iran, his show of force and possible military assault on Venezuela — a country that poses no threat to the US — is taking place with no congressional input or approval, and next to no public debate. It is pure gangsterism,” activist Max Blumenthal responded.

“We’re not at war with Venezuela. And drug trafficking is not a capital crime nor one that merits extrajudicial execution. If the Trump administration had evidence that they were trafficking drugs, the next step was arresting and prosecuting them. Not calling in the military,” progressive activist Andrew Wortman said.

RELATED: Trump puts $50 million BOUNTY on the president of Venezuela

At least one major left-wing influencer claimed that Trump was motivated by the desire to distract from a group of Jeffrey Epstein victims who were meeting with members of Congress Wednesday.

“Trump just murdered 11 people on a boat off of Venezuela to distract from the Epstein victims speaking out tomorrow,” Brian Krassenstein said. “My guess is an even larger escalation around the time that the victims start speaking in the morning.”

There was no larger escalation after the victims spoke in the morning.

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Disgraced Olympic boxer Imane Khelif has submitted an appeal to an arbitration court about being banned from women’s boxing.

Khelif won gold in the women’s 66kg competition at the Paris Olympics in 2024 despite complaints that he is, in fact, a man. Following a dominating performance at the games in which he did not lose a single round, three different reports surfaced that claimed Khelif is a man. A fourth report revealed a medical document that showed the Algerian has XY chromosomes, seemingly putting the story to rest.

‘She doesn’t box anymore. After what happened at the Olympics.’

Even Khelif’s former coach said the boxer had left his gym and the sport and had not been seen training in months following the leak of the medical report.

Now, the Court of Arbitration for Sport says Khelif is requesting to compete again.

Khelif has filed an appeal against World Boxing regarding a decision that prohibits him from competing in upcoming events without a preliminary genetic test, the CAS said in press release.

In June, Khelif was set to defend a women’s title at the Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands, which is run by World Boxing. But Khelif did not compete in the event when the WBO announced it would begin implementing mandatory sex testing.

Khelif was seeking to overturn that decision, which stated that he is “not allowed to participate … in any World Boxing event until she had undergone genetic sex testing.”

At the same time, the appeals organization noted that Khelif made another brazen request.

RELATED: Transgender boxer disappears as mandatory gender testing introduced worldwide

Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images

Khelif’s submission also reportedly requested that the CAS declare him “eligible to participate in the 2025 World Boxing Championships from 4 to 14 September,” without having to submit to a genetic test.

Khelif hoped that the submission of the appeal would result in an injunction on the ban, which would allow him to compete against women in the interim before an official decision on the appeal was made. However, CAS shot that down.

“CAS dismissed a request to suspend the execution of the decision by World Boxing until the case is heard,” the organization wrote.

Khelif’s side and the CAS will move forward with an exchange of written submissions and subsequently schedule a formal hearing.

RELATED: Trump wins: US Olympic Committee bans men from women’s sports

Photo by Pierre Suu/WireImage

Khelif had been thought to be retiring from boxing after his former manager, Nasser Yesfah, claimed “she has stopped everything.”

“She hasn’t even started again. She doesn’t box anymore. After what happened at the Olympics.”

He added, “In any case, she will be subjected to the same type of test if she becomes a professional.”

As reported by 3 Wire Sports, Khelif’s alleged medical condition is formally described as 5-alpha reductase type-2 deficiency. He reportedly has XY chromosomes, internal testes, and a “micropenis.”

U.S. government website Medline Plus explains that those with such a condition are genetically male but can be mistaken to have female genitalia at birth.

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​Fearless, Imane khelif, Transgenderism, Women’s sports, Woke, Olympics, Sports 

President Donald Trump returned to the office on Jan. 20 and made immediately clear that he expected federal bureaucrats to follow suit.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office indicated in a recent study that as of June 2024, over 200,000 federal employees — 9% of the federal workforce — worked remotely. Gallup survey data indicates that in the fourth quarter of last year, 61% of federal employees were working in a flexible hybrid work model.

‘That’s what we’ve been looking to do for many, many decades, frankly.’

Trump noted in a day-one memo to the heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch that “as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

“We think a very substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient,” the president later told reporters. “And that’s what we’ve been looking to do for many, many decades, frankly.”

Despite naysaying by academics, bureaucrats, and the liberal media, Trump’s effort to get workers back has yielded serious results besides the voluntary exit of tens of thousands of bureaucrats.

RELATED: Buc-ee’s gets rich by doing everything Wall Street hates

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

According to a new Gallup survey of 542 federal employees in “remote-capable” jobs, 46% of federal employees are now working in the office — up from 17% in the fourth quarter of 2024 and double the national average.

The percentage of federal employees engaged in hybrid work arrangements is now 28%, down 33 points since Q4 2024. Twenty-six percent of federal employees are reportedly engaged in fully remote capacities, said the survey published on Tuesday.

“In Washington, the hybrid era is over,” said Gallup’s Ryan Pendell.

Blaze News has reached out to the Office of Personnel Management for comment.

The survey further indicated that unlike the federal government sector, across the board, on-site work has not rebounded among full-time, remote-capable American employees. In 2019, over 60% of workers were in the office full-time. Now, 21% of employees are working on-site full-time. Fifty-one percent are engaged in hybrid work.

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​Opm, Office of personnel management, Working, Hybrid work, Remote work, Remote workers, Federal, Bureaucrats, Swamp, Donald trump, Winning, Politics 

I was on the ferry to Isle Royale National Park, sitting on a long, wooden bench, watching everyone else.

There were singles, couples, groups, and families. Watching a few kids slink along beside their parents, moms and dads making sure they had everything in the right place and everyone was coming along at the proper pace, I remembered the camping trips I used to take with my mom and dad.

None of us had cell phones, much less smartphones. When we were on the trip, we were on the trip and nowhere else. We were all there — wherever we were — together.

We were tent campers. We weren’t as hardcore as the people who do the deep backcountry stuff. You know, the trips where they hike in seven miles and set up their tent in the middle of the dense wilderness. But we were rustic enough for my parents to look down at RVs and any kind of electricity.

Scamps like us

Since then, they have moderated their stance. In their old age, they have acquired a small Scamp trailer — the smallest one you can buy, they assure us — and are constantly apologizing for its very existence, maintaining that they “put in their time.” We tell them that it’s OK, they are almost 70 years old after all. They can stop roughing it.

One summer when I was in middle school, we took a trip out to Maine. We camped the whole way from West Michigan to Acadia National Park. I was watching some old family videos the other day and saw some clips from that trip. We were packing up in the rain in New Hampshire. That’s rough. That video brought back all sorts of other memories from that trip. I remember my brother and I were so into skateboarding and almost killed ourselves every other day.

Dog days

When I was in 9th grade, we took a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We went over to the Apostle Islands off the coast of Wisconsin, too. We brought our dog along. Once, way up north, she jumped out of the car and right into a ditch. We thought her leg was hurt.

My parents were annoyed at the prospect of wasting a day (and money) trying to find a vet way up there. Then, all of a sudden, she miraculously started walking fine again. For the rest of her life (she lived to the ripe old age of 19), we always joked about how she was “faking it” on the U.P. trip.

I was getting really into music around that time and brought my trumpet because I swore I couldn’t take any days off. I would practice with a whisper mute around the campsite and sometimes in the car without a mute. If my parents were ever annoyed, they didn’t show it. They were always supportive, even when we didn’t have any room to spare in the blue Dodge Caravan and I was incessantly running the same passages over and over in the back seat.

In-tents experiences

After my sophomore year of college, we took a big trip, the biggest we ever took. We camped all the way out to California and back. We went to Yosemite, Zion, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain National Park, and a bunch of other places along the way. I saw a video from that trip the other day, too. We were on the beach south of San Francisco. My dad was filming. My mom and sister were talking with one another near the water, and my brother and I were goofing off down the beach, acting like a couple of idiots.

My parents took us camping because it was cheap. They loved it, of course, they did it before we were born, but I know that a big reason for camping our way across the country in a tent was the affordability.

We almost never stopped for fast food. If we did, it was a crazy treat. Instead, we made sandwiches using soggy cold cuts drawn from the bottom of the blue-and-white cooler in the trunk. It was always half ice, half water in there. We would sit outside a rest stop with our sandwiches, a big bag of half-crushed Lay’s potato chips, and plastic cups filled with water from the drinking fountain near the bathrooms inside.

Some trips, my brother and I shared a small tent while my mom, dad, and sister slept in a bigger one on the other side of the campsite. Other trips, we all shared one big tent together, all five of us. I remember laying there at night, joking with each other, the cold dampness of the sleeping bag on my arms, my mom and dad on one side of the tent, us kids on the other.

IRL or bust

None of us had cell phones, much less smartphones. When we were on the trip, we were on the trip and nowhere else. We were all there — wherever we were — together. Crammed in the car, asleep in the tent, packing up the site in the rain, hotter than hell in Zion National Park in July, sitting around the fire in the morning, freezing after emerging from our sleeping bags in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Some of my most potent childhood memories are from those camping trips. They weren’t fancy or luxurious, we never went to Disney World or any big resorts, and I know I, in my foolish youth, sometimes wondered why my parents were so old-fashioned taking us camping in tents. But they really were special. I know it now, though I didn’t realize it for a long time.

It’s only as a dad that I now understand how much work those trips were and how much they mattered. Taking us three wild kids camping across the country in a tent, seeing all those incredible places. Spending all those days and nights together, just our family, camping. Our parents must have really loved us.

​Camping, Men’s style, Lifestyle, Tents, Family, Fatherhood, National parks, Acadia national park, Michigan, Upper peninsula, The root of the matter 

A Team USA Olympic legend went against the advice of “experts” and sold his coveted gold medals at auction.

In a revealing Facebook post, the former athlete said he used the money to move abroad, selling a house in California, too. Apparently in financial strain, the Olympic hero explained that after the sales, he picked up his life and moved to Central America.

‘I told the truth; I needed the money.’

A Wheaties box cover athlete and four-time gold medal winner, 65-year-old diver Greg Louganis said his career was mismanaged and he needed the money that auctioning off some of his medals would get him.

“I have auctioned three of my medals, which sold, I believe, because I went against what the ‘experts’ told me last time when I tried the first time,” Louganis wrote in a surprising Facebook post.

Louganis sold two of his four gold medals, along with a silver medal, the New York Post reported. The high-diver won gold in the three-meter springboard and 10-meter platform dives at both the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

His silver came in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada, for the 10-meter platform dive.

Louganis’ medals took in a reported $437,000 combined, the Post reported.

“I told the truth; I needed the money. While many people may have built businesses and sold them for a profit, I had my medals, which I am grateful for,” Louganis continued.

In the same post, the retired Olympian said goodbye to his home, while selling/giving away his belongings before moving abroad.

RELATED: Trump wins: US Olympic Committee bans men from women’s sports

Greg Louganis competes in the Men’s 10-meter platform competition at McDonald’s Olympic Swim Stadium at the 1984 Summer Olympics, August 11, 1984. Photo by Rob Brown /Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

“I decided to donate, sell what can be sold, give gifts, and give where things might be needed or appreciated,” Louganis explained, revealing that he had a lot to consider regarding shipping and import fees when moving.

Now calling Panama home, the former diver was forced to confront the idea that he would be lacking in possessions when he moved, but he kept friends in mind who had lost their homes in some of California’s wildfires, such as the Pacific Palisades fire in 2025 and the Woolsey Fire in 2018.

While Louganis’ remarks left questions unanswered, including why Panama was the destination of choice, he chalked up his future to needing a spiritual journey to redefine himself.

RELATED: Western Michigan sparks controversy with Arabic jersey during NCAA college football kickoff

Greg Louganis attends the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Strange Darling’ at DGA Theater Complex on August 19, 2024, in Los Angeles. Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

“Now I get to discover who is Greg Louganis? Without the distraction and noise from outside. At least this is my goal, and hey, I may not find that,” he wrote.

The Olympian added, “I think I may find it at times, in moments, my goal is to live it! Discover, allow, and nurture that human spirit through the experiences of life. To be joyful in the moments, embrace the grief, the anger, and the laughter, and embrace it all, feel it all in this experience we call our lives.”

In addition to his Olympic medals, Louganis won 11 more gold medals between the World Championships and Pan American Games from 1979 to 1986.

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​Fearless, Olympics, Seoul, Korea, 1980s, Los angeles, Summer games, High diving, Diving, Palisades, California, Olympian, Panama, Sports 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) said on Tuesday that the real reason why his city had a Labor Day weekend filled with shootings and other crimes is because Republican-run states have more gun rights than Illinois.

Johnson made his remarks after President Donald Trump confirmed that he will be sending National Guardsmen and federal law enforcement into Chicago to lower the city’s crime rate.

‘Chicago will continue to have a “violence problem” as long as Red states continue to have a gun problem.’

“We’re going in. I didn’t say when. We’re going in. … This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation. When 20 people are killed over the last two and a half weeks, and 75 are shot with bullets,” Trump said, pointing to how his deployment of personnel to Washington, D.C., has made the city safer.

Johnson and Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) have repeatedly said they do not want the extra help to address crime.

“Chicago will continue to have a ‘violence problem’ as long as Red states continue to have a gun problem,” Johnson reiterated on X. “The endless flow of illegal guns into Chicago can be traced to Red states like Mississippi, Indiana, and Louisiana. It is up to the federal government to step up and stop interstate gun trafficking networks.”

RELATED: ‘That is an outright lie!’ Chicago pastor rips into Democrats over crime

— (@)

Johnson said the “vast majority” of firearms used in crimes do not come from Chicago. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Firearms Trace Data for 2023, at 9,147, Illinois was the number-one source state of guns that were recovered. Indiana was number two at 2,796.

Johnson rallied protesters on Labor Day, telling the cheering crowd, “Are you prepared to defend this land? This land that [was] built by slaves. The land that was built by indigenous people. The land that was built by workers. Are you prepared to defend this land? I need you all to stand firm, to stand strong, if this president decides to continue to break this Constitution.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on Sunday that extra immigration agents will be sent to the sanctuary city in a manner similar to what has been happening in Los Angeles, using U.S. Border Patrol agents.

RELATED: Federal judge says Trump unlawfully sent military troops into Los Angeles

— (@)

It remains to be seen where National Guardsmen will placed in Chicago after they are deployed there. Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez (D) suggested that the soldiers protect the tourist areas of the city so that Chicago police can go back to patrolling other areas of the city that have higher crime rates.

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​Politics 

During a Wednesday speech at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., border czar Tom Homan outlined the Trump administration’s success regarding immigration enforcement.

‘I said two months ago, “We’re going to flood the zone,” and that’s exactly what we’re doing.’

Homan explained that President Donald Trump gave him three tasks as border czar: secure the border, run a mass deportation operation, and find missing unaccompanied migrant minors.

“We have the most secure border in the history of the nation,” he stated, giving credit to the president and Border Patrol agents. “Illegal immigration is down 96%.”

Trump’s success with the border proves that the Biden administration “unsecured the most secure border on purpose,” Homan declared.

“It wasn’t mismanagement. It wasn’t incompetence. It was by design,” he added.

RELATED: National conservatism is the revolt forgotten Americans need

Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Homan stated that Trump’s border policies have saved thousands of lives by reducing human trafficking, drug trafficking, and sexual assaults.

“They always say the Trump administration is inhumane,” he continued. “I’m a racist, supposedly. I’m a white nationalist. I read it all. I’m a terrorist.”

“Whatever you want to call me. I don’t give a s**t what people think about me, never have,” Homan remarked.

He explained that under Biden’s open border policies, a historic number of immigrants died making the journey to the U.S., hundreds of thousands of Americans died from fentanyl, sex trafficking was at an all-time high, and cartels prospered.

RELATED: Trump prepares massive immigration enforcement in sanctuary city

Border czar Tom Homan. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Homan also addressed sanctuary cities that are attempting to shield illegal aliens from federal immigration officials.

“I said two months ago, ‘We’re going to flood the zone,’ and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he stated. “In Chicago, it’s coming.”

“President Trump is going to make Chicago safe again,” Homan declared.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a massive operation in Chicago that will involve 200 Department of Homeland Security agents and the use of the Naval Station Great Lakes.

“President Trump has been clear: We are going to make our streets and cities safe again,” a senior DHS official previously told Blaze News. “Across the country, DHS law enforcement are arresting and removing the worst of worst, including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists that have terrorized American communities. Under Secretary Noem, ICE and CBP are working overtime to deliver on the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe again.”

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​News, Tom homan, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Deportations, Trump administration, Trump admin, Donald trump, Trump, Border, Politics 

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump broke free of his usual pro-COVID vaccine sentiment and appeared to openly question pharmaceutical companies in a post on Truth Social.

“It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump began in his post.

“I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public. Why not??? They go off to the next ‘hunt’ and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC, trying to figure out the success or failure of the Drug Companies Covid work,” he continued.

“I want them to show them NOW to the CDC and the public, and clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!! I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???” he added.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention insider Dr. Robert Malone, who’s been on the front lines of the vaccine fight ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, has his own thoughts on the matter.

“In public health, I don’t think that we’ve ever had a period of time, a window of time, in which the underlying culture and a lot of the established conceptions of particularly the vaccine sector being challenged so actively,” Malone tells BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler in response to Trump’s post on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

But the COVID vaccine isn’t even close to the only one that Trump should be questioning.

“There is a culture, and it really has earned the name of the term, being a cabal. There is a culture, an obsessive culture of vaccination. And let’s be real here. Vaccines are just another pharmaceutical. That’s all they are. They are not a magic bullet that cures all infectious disease,” Malone tells Wheeler.

“Influenza vaccination is something like less, well less than 50% effective. Sometimes it’s almost down in the single digit,” he continues.

However, the “experts” refuse to acknowledge this.

“They act as if they are untouchable, that their determinations are God’s truth and shall not be questioned,” Malone tells Wheeler, adding, “This is scientism.”

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​Upload, Sharing, Video phone, Camera phone, Free, Video, Youtube.com, The liz wheeler show, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Liz wheeler, Dr robert malone, President trump, President donald trump, Covid vaccine, Covid 19, Robert malone, Pfizer, Moderna, Truth social 

Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino attempted, and failed, to erase Highway America’s beloved country store. Masino’s doomed endeavor is just the latest example of refinement culture’s steamrolling homogeneity, but this felt different, somehow much worse, than previous flattenings of consumer couture. Cracker Barrel’s eccentricities and nostalgia kitsch turned a remodel into a reckoning.

Of course, the woke Millennialification is cringe-inducing. However, this is not the first overhaul of an established chain with pop culture power. Previous iterations of Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut also invoke nostalgia, with images from the 1990s and early aughts making the rounds online once a season or so. Cracker Barrel, clearly, had a different pull. In practical terms, it has always been a sit-down-first experience, but the backlash runs deeper than that.

The logo may have been salvaged, but if interior remodels continue apace, your roadside retreat will become a hospice grab-and-go.

Founded in 1969 as a purposefully nostalgic endeavor, the Cracker Barrel project set out from the get-go to tug on your heartstrings. It evoked a bucolic America already gone by, the decor a launching point for older relatives to spin yarns about the good old days. Pizza Hut nostalgia is down simply to a decade of construction and the passage of time.

Cracker Barrel’s true uniqueness is its emphasis on an ambience that says “stay,” inviting customers to settle in and reminisce. Whether you were playing the peg game over butter and biscuits or rifling through the wooden toy and Weasel Ball aisle, Cracker Barrel never motioned toward the door. Cozy and familiar, Cracker Barrel invited you into the tangible world of things: clutter, knickknacks, antiques, wood, gas lamps, and farm equipment. The walls were heavy. Stone hearths anchored every dining room. The Barrel presented itself as a destination, as the American grandparent par excellence, a barn-den of earthly delights.

Contrast this with the new interior. The tyranny of gray, of symmetry and 90-degree angles, becomes omnipresent. It is profoundly soulless: rolling pins arranged in perfect squares and sequence, kettles in fluorescent color affixed exactly upright in rows on bland canvas displays. In essence, Cracker Barrel’s simulacrum of a country home is abstracted even farther into its most literal parts and parcels, calling to mind cooking blog thumbnails and pallid pop art. It points toward the digital, to the representative over the real, and even worse, it pushes the consumer toward the exit. It seems to say “get in and get out.”

RELATED: Why Cracker Barrel’s disastrous rebrand was inevitable

Photo by Joe Raedle / Contributor via Getty Images

The digital is fundamentally temporary, the way in which we interact with essays, short-form video content, tweets, and the rest. The sign of this is the gray, the sleek, nostalgic props rendered in perfect lines like typeface, all blaring with the same refrain: EXIT. They’re razing the physical and replacing it with a digital reconstruction.

Everything is an airport. Everyone, everywhere, wants you out as soon as you walk in. The restful, the physical are stripped away in order to sap the hearth of its heat so you never get comfortable enough to stay. There is nowhere to stop and wait for a while. You have to keep moving, racing through a world of commodities blurring together into one long strand of gruel.

The last redoubt of color and clutter, Cracker Barrel is now just another franchise, flattened and homogenized. The logo may have been salvaged, but if interior remodels continue apace, your roadside retreat will become a hospice grab-and-go.

We still crave slivers of the real, of invitation and warmth, of the physical world. We desire escape from our escapes, entry into the real and exit from the digital. Cracker Barrel’s rebrand discarded the pleasant lie of highway stopover as home away from home. Venues will increasingly resemble the virtual as comfort food becomes uncomfortable.

​Culture, Cracker barrel 

National conservatism is an idea whose time has arrived. The battle for our future is not between democracy and autocracy, capitalism and socialism, or even “right” and “left,” in the old meaning of those terms. It is between the nation and the forces that would erase it.

For decades, many in power — not just here, but across the West — have been locked in a cultural war with their own nations. We see it across Europe today, where the immigration crisis threatens to transform the ancient fabric of those nations — and an increasingly totalitarian censorship state menaces all who object. America, too, is threatened by these elites, driven by the same interests and ambitions.

Settled, founded, and built by the most adventurous and courageous sons and daughters of the West, America realized the destiny of Western civilization.

They are the elites who rule everywhere but are not truly from anywhere. National conservatism is a revolt against this fundamentally post-American ruling class.

Revolt on the right

This revolt is from the right — but also within the right. For too long, conservatives were content to serve as the right wing of the regime. They waged foreign wars in the name of global “liberalism” and “democracy.” They rewrote our trade policies in service of global capital. They supported amnesty and mass migration.

The Washington Consensus was a bipartisan affair. Until President Trump, the mainstream right quibbled over the left’s means but hardly ever challenged its ends. Conservatives cheered intervention after intervention — not to defend America’s national interests, but to pursue the Wilsonian fantasy of a “world safe for democracy.”

They backed the North American Free Trade Agreement and welcomed China into the World Trade Organization, not because it was good for American workers, but because it served the vision of a borderless marketplace. On immigration, the old conservative establishment may have opposed illegality on procedural grounds, but it took no issue with the substance. If the same end were achieved “legally,” many celebrated it.

At this point, it should be clear that the fact that the government sanctions something does not mean it’s good for our country.

Immigration and the American worker

For decades, we were told “high-skilled immigration” was an urgent necessity. The H-1B visa, for example, was sold as a way to keep America competitive. But programs like H-1B have imported a vast labor force not to fill jobs Americans can’t or won’t do, but to undercut American wages, replace American workers, and transfer industries into the hands of foreign lobbyists.

Millions of foreign nationals were funneled in to take the jobs and futures that should belong to our children — not because they were more talented, but because they were cheaper and more compliant. While trade agreements kneecapped blue-collar workers, abuse of H-1B is kneecapping white-collar workers before our eyes.

For tens of thousands of Americans forced to train their foreign replacements just to get severance, the fact it was “legal” is little comfort.

A nation, not just an idea

For decades, the left and the right alike seemed to accept the idea that America was merely an “idea.” President Bill Clinton said in 1998 that immigration proved America was “not so much a place as a promise.”

But America is not just a proposition. Our founding principles are rooted in a people and a way of life. Take a trip to rural Missouri, and you’ll see that the Second Amendment is not a theory. It’s who they are. If you imposed a carbon copy of the U.S. Constitution on Kazakhstan tomorrow, Kazakhstan would not become America.

What makes America exceptional is not only our commitment to self-government, but also that we, as a people, are capable of living it. The left drained our principles of their substance, turning the American tradition into an ideological creed that demanded transformation of the nation itself. So the statues come down. The names are changed. Yesterday’s heroes become today’s villains.

On the right, too many accepted this worldview. Neoconservatives spoke as if the whole world were Americans-in-waiting. America, they said, was “the first universal nation.”

RELATED: They won’t admit it: Why Trump’s agenda is guided by a higher calling

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Donald Trump rejected this. He knew America was not just an idea but a nation and a people. His movement is the revolt of the real American nation — a pitchfork revolution, driven by millions of Americans who felt like strangers in their own country.

They were the forgotten men and women, mocked as “deplorables,” sneered at as “bitter clingers,” but still loyal to their nation. In Trump’s defiance, they heard their own. In 2016, they discovered millions more felt the same way.

It is their interests, their values, their lives that the American right must defend, without apology, if it wants a future.

Our birthright

The Pilgrims at Plymouth, the Continental Army soldiers at Valley Forge, the pioneers of Missouri — they did not fight for a proposition. They believed they were establishing a homeland. America is their gift to us. It belongs to us. It is our birthright, our heritage, our destiny.

If America is everything and everyone, it is nothing and no one. But America is real, distinctive, unique — the most essentially Western nation. Settled, founded, and built by the most adventurous and courageous sons and daughters of the West, America realized the destiny of Western civilization.

For decades, elites tried to turn our past into a repressed memory. But we are done being ashamed.

That spirit explains why Americans mapped the genome, invented the microchip, built the airplane, and planted footprints on the moon. We are the nation of explorers, builders, and pioneers.

Yet for some time now, we’ve been taught to be ashamed. The left says our curiosity and ambition were sins. But the American frontier was not a crime. It was an expression of our pioneer spirit — a spirit that raised cities, cured diseases, explored galaxies, and forged new worlds.

We’re not sorry. America is the proudest and most magnificent heritage ever known to man.

No more shame

On July 4, 2020, as riots raged, President Trump stood at Mount Rushmore and declared: “This monument will never be desecrated.” Mount Rushmore is who we are. Americans carved the faces of heroes into a mountain — not out of necessity, but because they could.

For decades, elites tried to turn our past into a repressed memory. They made shame our civic religion. But we are done being ashamed. We love our country, and we will never apologize for the great men who built it.

RELATED: Rekindling statesmanship to secure America’s golden future

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

To transform a nation, you must transform the way it understands itself. That’s why the left tears down statues, rewrites language, and mocks traditions. It wants a new America with new myths. But America does not belong to the left. It belongs to us.

This fight is about whether our children will have a country to call their own. It’s about whether America will remain what she was meant to be: the apex and vanguard of Western civilization.

A strong, sovereign nation — not just an idea, but a home, belonging to a people, bound together by a common past and a shared destiny.

Editor’s note: This article has been adapted from a speech delivered on Tuesday, September 2, at the fifth National Conservatism Conference (NatCon 5) in Washington, D.C.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, National conservatism, National conservative conference, Senator eric schmitt, American heritage, Immigration crisis, Citizenship, Mount rushmore, The left 

A major charity providing healthy food to vulnerable seniors has had to close two sites in its home base of Portland, Oregon, mainly on account of crime.

Earlier this summer, Meals on Wheels People, linked to the national organization Meals on Wheels America, closed its Hillsboro and Elm Court Center locations. While Hillsboro closed because of low site traffic, the Elm Court site in downtown was no longer safe, CEO Suzanne Washington indicated.

‘If you’re out here by yourself, don’t come out here at night.’

“We couldn’t guarantee the safety of our staff and our volunteers. We’ve had many issues with drug dealing, threats of violence, and safety issues around needles and defecation,” Washington said, according to KPTV.

“Every day, they’re stepping over feces, and there’s needles and drug dealing and deaths,” she added, according to KOIN.

On at least one occasion, MOWP personnel had to step over a dead body to enter the Elm Court site. “We’ve been threatened with knives, and fires have been set,” she claimed. “It was time to close.”

Residents confirmed that crime and drug-use have become major problems in the area. Sean Meece, who rents an apartment above the shuttered Elm Court site and who used to dine there, said, “If you’re out here by yourself, don’t come out here at night. Because within a mile or two-mile radius, it’s not a fun place to be by yourself.”

The Elm Court location opened in 2007 and served more than 300 clients. Though the site stopped providing in-person dining during the government-imposed COVID lockdowns, it had still been used as a distribution center for staff and volunteers to pick up food to deliver to seniors in need.

“We got to the point where we were paying for space for congregate dining, but we couldn’t use it because people were afraid to come in,” Washington said.

Meals on Wheels America declined to comment on the specific situation affecting Meals on Wheels People, but it did provide Blaze News with the following statement:

Meals on Wheels providers across the country are having to make really tough choices every day given rising demand and inadequate funding. One in three Meals on Wheels providers has a waitlist while COVID-19 emergency funding has dried up. Meals on Wheels is proven to be the most effective solution to senior hunger and isolation, but the network of community-based providers needs more resources to ensure everyone who needs these services gets it.

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While Washington and her team considered finding an alternative location, they ultimately decided to save the cost. “Instead of paying for someplace else, we want to keep people fed,” she said.

Washington noted that some of the COVID-era federal funding has since expired, and with further federal cuts looming on the horizon, MOWP has slashed more than $1 million from its 2025-26 budget.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is make sure the money we do have is going to feed people, not to pay overhead,” she explained.

So far, the new MOWP budgeting plans have worked. Despite increased demand, MOWP has continued to provide meals without waitlisting anyone.

Still, Washington added, MOWP is ever in need of donations and volunteers. “We do need help, we need it every year,” she said.

“Whether the Medicaid cuts impact us today or tomorrow, we need funding now to feed the seniors who are coming to us for help.”

H/T: The Daily Mail

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​Meals on wheels, Meals on wheels people, Crime, Portland, Oregon, Politics