A probationary wildlife biologist for Yosemite National Park lost her job last year after perverting an American landmark in protest of the Trump administration’s reality-affirming policies regarding gender.

Furious over her visitation by consequence for covering the side of El Capitan on May 20, 2025, with a giant trans-activist flag, Shannon Joslin painted herself as a victim and took legal action.

‘You have failed to demonstrate acceptable conduct.’

Joslin, a “nonbinary”-identifying woman, first complained to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, asking it to halt her termination.

When the OSC denied her request, Joslin asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the National Park Service to reinstate her; to bar the Trump administration from enforcing park regulations against her for “speech supportive of trans rights”; and to award her damages.

Her case was transferred to a federal court in California, where U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston, a Biden appointee, delivered the LGBT activist some bad news on Friday.

While adopting a sympathetic tone and referring to Joslin using her preferred “they/them” pronouns, Thurston dismissed the LGBT activist’s employment-related claims and requests for relief, explaining that her hands were effectively tied.

“The Court lacks jurisdiction to review Joslin’s termination or to offer any related relief, including a reinstatement,” wrote the Biden judge.

RELATED: Actress Elliot Page mocked ruthlessly after trying to define ‘healthy masculinity’

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

“The government claims for its part that Joslin was fired for reasons that had ‘nothing to do’ with ‘speech,'” wrote Thurston. “But the government has another more fundamental and more persuasive point: Under the laws that Congress has passed, and under the legal precedent that a federal trial court must follow, this court does not have authority to decide whether Joslin was fired for unconstitutional or illegal reasons, nor to block a hypothetical criminal case against them.”

Joslin hatched the idea to rig a flag on El Capitan as a “statement in support of trans people,” then worked with other radicals to “stake out the technical logistics of fixing a sizable flag to the rock face,” according to her original complaint.

She told Climbing.com, “Calling congressmen and writing representatives feels like yelling into the void. We have this f**king microphone that is El Cap.”

Wyn Wiley, a drag queen who goes by “Pattie Gonia,” partook in the protest and said in a May 22, 2025, propaganda video featuring clips of Joslin securing the flag, “The Trump administration and transphobes would love to have you believe that being trans is unnatural.”

“Call it a protest; call it a celebration,” continued Wiley. “We are bringing elevation to liberation.”

Months after transforming the rock formation into a “microphone” for gender ideologues, Joslin received notice indicating that she was out of a job effective Aug. 12, 2025.

The letter provided a reminder that the purpose of the two-year trial period — which started for Joslin on Sept. 10, 2023 — is to “determine whether newly appointed Federal employees are suitable for successful service in the areas of conduct and performance.”

“During your trial period, you have failed to demonstrate acceptable conduct,” continued the letter. “Specifically, on or about May 20, 2025, you participated in a small group demonstration in an area outside the designated protest and demonstration area without permit as required by 36 CFR 2.51 and thus circumvented rules applicable to all park visitors.”

Following the dismissal of Joslin’s complaint, the Department of the Interior and the NPS have reissued the statement they provided to Blaze News February: “We take the protection of the park’s resources and the experience of our visitors very seriously and will not tolerate violations of laws and regulations that impact those resources and experiences.”

“Yosemite National Park was designated by Congress to highlight the beautiful natural and cultural features of the area,” continued the statement. “No matter the cause, demonstrating without a permit outside of designated First Amendment areas detracts from the visitor experience and the protection of the park. To safeguard the protection of visitors, visitor experiences, and park resources, many demonstrations require a permit.”

Unable to draw a salary working as an NPS employee in the park, Joslin is attempting to exploit her termination with an agitprop film about the “complicated relationship between wildlife, food systems, and LGBTQ+ rights.”

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​Activist, Biden, California, Court, National park service, Trans, Yosemite, El capitan, Transgender, Flag, Drag queen, Pervert, Politics 

While many on the left have framed the murder of Austin Metcalf and conviction of Karmelo Anthony through the lens of race, BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler argues that the real story is being deliberately ignored.

“There’s a reason the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know the truth, the reality, and the facts. Because if you know what actually happened, you are much less likely to fall for the lies that they’re telling you,” Wheeler says, explaining that what the left refuses to discuss is the element of “black culture” involved in the case.

“What I’m talking about is gang culture and rap culture that has infiltrated and broken black families — a culture that glorifies violence, that dehumanizes people. Young men, young black men specifically, who are raised in broken black families, who don’t have male role models, who instead look to these celebrities, whether it’s gang members for community or rap culture for their idols — they are not being molded from young men into actual men,” she says.

“And nobody wants to say this. It’s unpopular. It’s uncomfortable. You’ll be accused of saying racially charged things,” she explains, “But it’s true. The murder of Austin Metcalf by Karmelo Anthony is also an indictment on wokeness. An indictment of ‘The 1619 Project,’ which told us that America is racist. It’s an indictment on critical race theory.”

“Every politician, every corporation, every celebrity, every leftist influencer, every teacher, every liberal white woman who spews, ‘White privilege,’ and, ‘America is inherently racist,’” she continues, “seeds and feeds this anger and forms this lens through which Karmelo Anthony sees the world.”

And the lens through which he sees the world is one where he believed bringing a knife to a track meet was a good idea.

“It’s not a normal reaction to grab a knife and stab the other person to death,” Wheeler says. “That’s not normal human behavior. The behavior of Karmelo Anthony in the tent, even before he got the knife out of his backpack and stabbed Austin Metcalf to death, that behavior is deliberate.”

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

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​Liz wheeler, Austin metcalf, Karmelo anthony, Racism, Murder, Leftism, The liz wheeler show 

Forget the final score. The real World Cup upset this summer is how many international fans are discovering that America is, against all odds, kind of great — especially in a “why does this gas station have 40 kinds of jerky and also a Wi-Fi password printed on the receipt” way — and they’re documenting their delightful experiences on social media.

The breakout star of the bunch is a German fan known on X as Freddy who has been chronicling a six-week road trip across the U.S. and Canada, following Germany’s national team, and has picked up hundreds of thousands of followers in his trek.

‘The European mind can’t comprehend this.’

Freddy’s Atlanta stop hit the respectable tourist beats — Stone Mountain, the MLK National Historical Park, some “Stranger Things” filming locations — and then immediately abandoned all dignity for Taco Bell, which he called “the holy land.”

A 1 a.m. Waffle House visit got a perfect 10/10 — food, prices, and staff included.

His Wendy’s stop in Tennessee produced the single best exchange of the whole tour. His order somehow came back under the name “John,” and when he posted his haul of burgers and fries, the official Wendy’s account replied with one demanding question: “WHERE IS THE FROSTY.”

He also fit in a Walmart run for water, socks, and USA soccer merch and somehow found time to watch the NBA Finals at Chili’s amid all this.

Before a single World Cup match had kicked off, Freddy watched the War Eagle fly over Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium and called it the most “the European mind can’t comprehend this” moment of his life.

One of Freddy’s posts got enough traction that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy shared it on X, writing: “There’s no better way to see our country than on a road trip! Because to LOVE AMERICA you have to SEE AMERICA.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) invited him back for football season. When he posted from the Gulf Coast, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis welcomed him to Florida — but couldn’t let it go that Freddy had called the Gulf “the sea.”

RELATED: ‘I had the right papers’: Somali World Cup referee booted from US gets an answer from the White House

Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images

Freddy is not even the only German on this beat. Finn Agostinelli has been touring Chicago — the Riverwalk, “the Bean,” and a visit to Portillo’s so good that he posted a petition to get one opened back home in Hamburg.

His best moment came at Macy’s, where he had ducked in to find a restroom and instead found himself staring up at an enormous American flag. “I respect how proud Americans are of their country,” he wrote. “Unimaginable back home in Germany.”

Texas, for its part, did not go unnoticed either. A group of Japanese fans told KDFW their assessment of the state in six words: “Texas is good — everything is big.” Which checks out. Everything is bigger in Texas.

And in a tradition that has followed Japan’s national team since its 1998 World Cup debut, Japanese fans were spotted picking up trash in the stands after a 2-2 game against the Netherlands in Dallas, a habit rooted in a saying that a bird leaves no trace when it flies. Stadium staff, presumably, were thrilled — and possibly a little confused.

Meanwhile, a young Swedish fan named Elsa Thora landed in Indianapolis and immediately discovered ranch dressing, which, by the tone of her posts on X, may have been a bigger moment for her than the actual soccer.

“Why did no one tell me ranch sauce is like crack? EUROPE WE NEED RANCH ASAP,” she said.

Elsa screamed at a school bus in Indiana, posted a photo of Twinkies and Combos pretzels with the caption “I feel like I’m in a movie,” and has been working her way through Trader Joe’s ever since.

She also discovered that Amish people are, in fact, real.

Not every discovery has been a hit, though. Elsa also found shampoo locked behind anti-theft barriers at a store, a security measure uncommon in much of Europe, and called it her first negative experience of the trip.

She’s not alone on the friction front. Scottish fan Shaun Cumming arrived in New York after flying from Edinburgh and was blunt about the cost of everything — especially after a $150 Uber ride into Brooklyn.

He also noted to Newsweek that Americans are noticeably more open than people back home.

“People here are very positive, enthusiastic, and they’re not shy at all,” he said. “They will tell you how they feel for good or for bad. And sometimes for British people, it can catch us off guard a little bit.”

Cumming had no complaints about the food. He said American cooking is simply better seasoned than what he’s used to: “Here, you get flavor, you get fed well, they put a lot spices, herbs and seasoning into their food in general, which just makes it really good” — and that the regional variety is what stuck with him most.

RELATED: Trump and Mamdani are on a collision course about ICE at the World Cup

Joe Lamberti/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Underneath all of it is something that keeps surprising people more than the food: the locals.

A tourism expert told Fox News that visitors driving nine hours across Texas are running into “overwhelming American kindness,” often from small-town residents who have no idea why someone with hundreds of thousands of followers just pulled into their gas station.

A New Jersey deli owner gave a couple of British tourists a free lunch, and Alabama firefighters gave other British fans a station tour and sent them off with free gear.

Waffle House has been open at 1 a.m. for 50 years. Buc-ee’s has always been enormous. Ranch dressing has been sitting in American refrigerators, unremarked upon, since before the Reagan administration. Perhaps the deli owner who fed the British tourists wasn’t doing anything he wouldn’t do for a local who looked lost.

What’s new is that someone finally pointed a camera at it.

For years, the conversation about America — at home and abroad — has been almost entirely about Washington: the politics, the division, the sense that the country is somehow failing itself. But that was never the whole country.

The actual texture of American life — the diners, the gas stations, the absurd portion sizes, the stranger who will drive you to a game because your Uber didn’t show — was always there, underneath all of it, completely unaffected by whatever was happening in D.C.

This summer, a few hundred thousand people from somewhere else have seen the real America: big, weird, generous, a little much.

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​American life, Bucees, Culture, Diners, Florida, Gas station, Nba finals, Netherlands, Taco bell, Texas, Trader joes, Transportation secretary, Washington, Politics 

DEI is not dead. It survives because the left embedded it deep inside institutions, habits, grant programs, training regimes, and professional language. Even when the label changes, the ideology keeps moving.

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions in his second term was an executive order directing the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to eliminate illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The order put immediate pressure on organizations that built their funding models around DEI and what they call “victim-centered” ideology.

Democrats have already parroted the brainwashing narrative. If they win the midterms, many will try to turn it into impeachment-palooza and legal warfare.

Those organizations are now fighting back. They are filing lawsuits, mobilizing allies, and defending their grants. A federal court order has complicated the fight by forcing the government to keep funding some of them while litigation continues. In other words, taxpayers are still cutting checks to groups openly hostile to the president and his movement.

The Civil Rights Division should treat this novel doctrine as what it is: DEI with prosecutorial power.

The “victim-centered approach” is a federally funded prosecution doctrine. It carries a badge and wears judicial robes, but it rests on the same power-differential framework that drove DEI through human resources departments, universities, and activist nonprofits. It replaces objective proof with subjective harm and presents ideological assumptions as neutral expertise.

Nearly 12,000 American judges have been trained in this doctrine since 1999. The training does not teach law. It teaches trauma theory, “power and control” wheels, trauma bonding, and coercive-control frameworks imported from activist social work and repackaged as forensic science.

Judges emerge from the program describing themselves as “trauma-informed” members of a new generation of jurists who understand what victims are really experiencing — even when some of those alleged victims insist they were not victimized.

That is ideological preconditioning, not legal education. And the federal government has funded it for 25 years.

One major proponent is Freedom Network USA, an organization that trains law enforcement and certifies victim advocates nationwide. It has sued the Trump administration, arguing that the executive order prevents it from delivering trafficking-victim services because the order restricts words central to its curriculum.

RELATED: Trump’s Justice Department is shining a light on woke universities — finally

Angela Lewis/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Americans have already seen DEI in schools. They have seen DEI hiring programs raise serious questions about competence in public safety and aviation. The victim-centered approach shows DEI wearing a badge and sitting on the bench.

The left built this machinery for use against communities it has already labeled dangerous, irrational, or cult-like. And the left has made clear that it regards MAGA as a cult and Trump as its leader.

How do we know? Because they told us.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a former impeachment manager, said publicly that he consulted cult experts to help him communicate with Republican colleagues. Hillary Clinton said MAGA supporters may need “formal deprogramming of the cult members.”

Those were not stray comments. They were previews.

Freedom Network USA is one node in a federally funded network of nongovernmental organizations that train law enforcement, write curriculum, and certify judges. These groups are not merely observers of the doctrine. They are its infrastructure. The same political coalition calling MAGA a cult built the legal machinery to act on that belief. Now it is suing the administration to keep the money flowing.

The public can already see how this victim-centered approach may play out in court. The government has relied on “cult expert” Steven Hassan, author of “The Cult of Trump,” to help shape prosecution theories. The Oversight Project has documented Hassan’s ties to Raskin, whom Trump has called on Congress to expel.

Real victims of horrible crimes deserve care and respect from the justice system. That is not in dispute. But this doctrine does not strengthen judicial decency. It undermines it by weakening the protections that should apply to all parties.

RELATED: How to fix the woke teacher problem

H. Rick Bamman/Pioneer Press/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

The victim-centered approach is what MAGA will face if the left regains power. Conservatives will be cast either as brainwashers or as the brainwashed.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s story shows what may come next. Her memoir about her time as a Trump White House staffer makes a specific psychological claim: Loyalty to Trump becomes coercion. Personal devotion becomes proof that a person cannot leave freely. Under the victim-centered approach, and with criminal precedents already in place, that claim no longer remains a social critique. It can become a theory of prosecution.

Democrats have already parroted this brainwashing narrative. If they win the midterms, many will try to turn it into impeachment-palooza and legal warfare. That makes it time to take unserious arguments seriously.

They are telling us what they think of MAGA. They see a web of cults and subcults led by pastors, celebrities, politicians, and activists, all supposedly brainwashing followers to obey Trump.

They will try to draw a web of influence and use the victim-centered approach to build a brainwashing case against Trump and his supporters.

How do we know? Because they told us.

​Democrats, Trump, Dei, Woke, Civil rights division, Freedom network usa, American judges, Maga, Cults, Cult of trump, Radica left, Oversight project, Opinion & analysis 

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton (R) has pledged to tackle the cross-border toxic waste issue in San Diego County’s Tijuana River Valley if elected.

On Monday, Hilton posted a video from his recent visit to the Tijuana River, explaining that Mexico is still dumping raw sewage into it. He slammed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for failing to address the ongoing health and safety crisis.

‘If this isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is.’

If elected California’s next governor, Hilton pledged that he would immediately declare a state of emergency and demand solutions.

“Today, we’re going to show you what’s going on with this unbelievable, disgusting scandal that’s been going on for 35 years here in San Diego, right at the border, the Tijuana River,” Hilton stated in the video.

“The water that’s flowing there,” Hilton said, pointing toward the river, “that is raw sewage, human sewage from Mexico coming into our country, our state. And then it’s flowing out into the ocean.”

RELATED: EPA uproots 455 DEI and ‘environmental justice’ workers to end Biden’s woke initiatives

GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP/Getty Images

Hilton noted that the Navy SEAL training center in Coronado is roughly 13 miles up the coast.

“Our Navy SEALs are swimming in raw sewage from Mexico,” he stated.

Hilton explained that the white foam in the river was from “forever chemicals” and “toxic waste” from Mexican industrial plants.

“It is just an absolute disgrace,” he added.

“If this isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is. … I will, on day one, declare a state of emergency for this outrageous situation.”

RELATED: Toxic gas linked to cross-border sewage sparks public health scare in San Diego — but county rejects researchers’ findings

Steve Hilton. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In 2024, researchers at San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego reported finding dangerously high levels of toxic gas in the Tijuana River Valley linked to raw sewage flowing from Mexico into the U.S. The findings sparked public health concerns and prompted a group of local Democratic lawmakers to urge Newsom to declare a state of emergency. Newsom has framed the crisis as “a decades-long federal failure.”

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​News, Steve hilton, California, Tijuana river, Gavin newsom, Mexico, Politics 

It took years after acquiring Fitbit, but Google is finally shaking up its health and fitness products and services. Last month, the tech giant officially replaced the well-established Fitbit app with Google Health, and it launched the brand new Google Fitbit Air tracker with an ultra-minimal design that’s built for 24/7 use. I’ve tested them both for two full weeks, and here’s how they stack up.

Fitbit Air returns to the company’s roots in more ways than one. It doesn’t feature a screen like the Charge series. It doesn’t receive notifications like Versa smartwatches. It doesn’t come with any bells, whistles, or distractions. It’s a no-muss, no-fuss fitness band that tracks what Fitbit does best – steps, workouts, heart rate, oxygen levels, sleep.

While there’s a lot to like about Fitbit Air, there are a few negatives.

The device itself is a tiny pebble that houses the electronics, battery, and heart rate sensor. Its size alone is pretty impressive, considering the original Fitbit was about the size of a simple pedometer. The pebble fits into specially made straps meant to be worn on the wrist. It comes with the fabric Performance Loop band that is both soft and comfortable. You can also buy a secondary silicone Active band that’s great for sweaty workouts or polyurethane Elevated Modern band that’s meant to dress up the tracker when you go out.

Once it’s on the wrist, Fitbit Air is extremely lightweight. During my two-week test, I forgot I had it on half the time, which is exactly what you want from a device that’s meant to be worn 24/7. Despite its tiny weight and size, Fitbit Air can last approximately seven days between charges, though you may get a little more or less depending on how often you work out.

The most important part, though, is the data. How accurate is this tiny device? To compare, I wore Fitbit Air alongside my Apple Watch that has been on my wrist every day since 2015. Let’s see where they agree and how they differ.

Steps

During the test period, Apple Watch marked a higher daily step count 70% of the time while Fitbit Air was higher 30% of the time. The largest disparity left a 605-step gap (approximately a quarter of a mile) between devices at the end of the day, while they were only 15 steps apart on the closest day. There was a lot of variation between the two, making it difficult to decide which one was more accurate, so I resorted to a 100-step controlled test, where both devices accurately counted exactly 100 steps each. Ultimately, the difference between daily metrics likely boils down to the way both devices misinterpret slight hand movements — like typing on a keyboard all day — as steps.

Heart rate

Each device measures heart rate differently, with Fitbit Air logging data every several seconds and Apple Watch measuring heart rates every 4-6 minutes. This logging algorithm gives Fitbit Air more heart data to track over time, providing a clearer look at your heart health. For the most part, my Apple Watch and Fitbit Air agreed, with both devices crafting similar heart rate graphs each day. The only place where Fitbit Air falls short is during strenuous workouts. Sometimes, the heart rate sensor misses sudden rate spikes or lags behind by several seconds before it registers, potentially leading to inaccurate workout tracking.

RELATED: How the iPhone crushed young women’s fertility

Godong/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

To end on a high note, though, Fitbit Air includes high/low heart rate notifications and irregular rhythm alerts to detect potential heart issues, which I thankfully didn’t get a chance to test during my review phase. Overall, Fitbit Air’s heart rate performance and safety features are impressive for its size.

Oxygen

Unlike Apple Watch, which lets you take an oxygen reading on demand, Fitbit Air only measures oxygen passively while you sleep. This data can then be used to help identify possible air obstructions or conditions, like sleep apnea. Comparing the two, Apple Watch was usually 0.5%-1% points lower than Fitbit Air, which is a huge discrepancy in the sensitive world of pulse oximetry. To be fair, though, wrist-based oxygen measurements are rarely as accurate as finger-based devices. The most important thing for fitness bands is how consistent the measurements appear from night to night, and both devices highlighted similar data trends.

Sleep

As someone who rarely gets enough sleep, tracking my good nights against my bad is critical for balancing energy, work, and responsibilities during the day. Thankfully, I’m happy to say that Fitbit Air excels at sleep tracking. Compared to my Apple Watch, both devices usually agreed on when I fell asleep and woke up within minutes of each other. There were even a few times when I woke up in the middle of the night for an hour and went back to sleep, which Fitbit Air captured perfectly. The coolest part is that you don’t have to put Fitbit Air into sleep mode (like Apple Watch) or tell it when you’re lying down for bed. It simply looks for physiological cues within your set bedtime and logs sleep automatically as you drift away. If you want more insight into your sleep health, Fitbit Air is a great place to start.

Zach Laidlaw

So what’s the catch?

While there’s a lot to like about Fitbit Air, there are a few negatives worth mentioning: It doesn’t have a GPS sensor like most premium Fitbit devices and watches, and it doesn’t come with an altimeter either. This means that you’ll need to carry your phone with you on outdoor walks or runs to map your journey and record elevation information; otherwise, your workout data may not be as accurate or informative. Depending on your activity level, though, this may not even be an issue for you.

By the end of the test period, I walked away (slight pun intended) very impressed with this little device. It excels in heart rate detection, sleep tracking, and long battery life, and it’s more than good enough when it comes to monitoring workouts and oxygen at night. At only $99, Fitbit Air is easy to recommend to anyone who wants to get fit or simply keep tabs on health — that is, if you don’t mind giving your health data over to Google for at least the life of the product. And when it’s time for an upgrade — well, you know the deal.

Like most tech companies these days, Google wants as much of you as possible in its ecosystem for life. Fitbit Air makes it easy and tempting to say yes.

​Tech 

The police chief of a small Ohio village was arrested on Thursday over child sex assault allegations from his time as a teacher and Young Marines instructor.

Chad Essert, 44, of Blanchester was indicted by a Clermont County Grand Jury on 56 third-degree felony counts of sexual battery and 14 third-degree felony counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

‘It takes tremendous courage for a victim to come forward, especially when the accused wears a badge and holds a position of authority.’

Essert allegedly committed the crimes between 2005 and 2010 during the time he was a teacher at a Sharonville school, according to a press release from the Clermount County Sheriff’s Office. He later became the police chief of Bethel.

Prosecutors said the victim was one of Essert’s students.

The incidents of abuse occurred at numerous locations in Clermont and Hamilton County, according to prosecutors.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Tactical Investigations Section took Essert into custody in Seminole, Florida. He is awaiting extradition to Clermont County.

The mayor of Bethel said he’s working to have Essert fired from this position.

“Chief Essert should no longer lead the Bethel Police Department. I intend to initiate the statutory process to remove Chief Essert from employment with the Village of Bethel,” reads a statement from Mayor Jay Noble.

Essert faces a maximum penalty of 280 years in prison if he’s convicted on all charges.

RELATED: Virginia man allegedly tried to meet minor for sex and sought victims on Snapchat, police say

“It takes tremendous courage for a victim to come forward, especially when the accused wears a badge and holds a position of authority,” reads a statement from Sheriff Chris Stratton.

“Today’s indictment demonstrates that no one is above the law,” he added. “Every victim deserves to be heard, and every allegation will be thoroughly investigated and pursued in accordance with the law.”

Bethel is a village of about 2,600 residents located in southeast Ohio.

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​Child sex assault, Police chief, Sexual battery, Unlawful sexual conduct, Crime 

Warner Discovery last week staged what it called a memorial ceremony for TBS and CNN founder Ted Turner, who died on May 6. What it delivered instead was a propagandistic pep rally — one that twisted Turner’s story into his beatification as a left-wing journalistic saint, amid an institutional chest-thump by Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Christiane Amanpour, and former CNN President Tom Johnson.

Johnson was a longtime aide to President Lyndon Johnson before becoming publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He ran CNN from 1990 to 2001. His remarks about Turner last week quickly veered into an anti-Trump sermon that also managed to mask the huge failures of the contemporary CNN.

Ted Turner was no saint. He was loud, brash, womanizing, hard-drinking, chance-taking, and wildly successful — an All-American original. That was exactly the sort of role model I admired in 1982 — and still do.

Johnson ended his diatribe with this declaration: “CNN will not bend and will not sway during this terrible, chaotic Trump era. We can best honor Ted by continuing to keep CNN as the most outstanding news network of them all.”

Really, Tom?

CNN “will not sway”? You mean the same CNN, under your watch, whose international news chief, Eason Jordan, admitted in the New York Times that the network had withheld reporting on Saddam Hussein’s abuses to keep its Baghdad bureau open?

CNN “will not bend”? You mean the same CNN that, under your successor, Jeff “Mother” Zucker, turned prime-time into a rolling psychodrama and allowed Don Lemon to become one of the network’s most embarrassing public faces? Lemon was fired in 2023 after a long trail of controversies and allegations of misogynistic behavior.

Zucker himself was pushed out after his sexual relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer. Maybe that qualifies as not getting bent.

And “the most outstanding news network of them all”?

Maybe CNN deserved that description in the early 1980s, when I was there helping build the network. Maybe it still did in the 1990s, during Johnson’s tenure. But after Johnson left in 2001 and Turner lost control to Warner, CNN entered a quarter-century of decay and decline. And Johnson knows it.

How else would he explain the clown show created by Chris Cuomo and his brother Andrew, the disgraced former governor of New York? Or Jeffrey Toobin, the CNN legal analyst who humiliated himself and tarnished the network by masturbating on a Zoom call? Or the fact that Zucker turned the network Johnson helped bring to its zenith into a laughingstock of the news business?

Several CNN anchors used the memorial to mount their ego-steeds and blather about “editorial independence,” likely because they can feel the walls closing in. If — when! — Skydance and Paramount take over Warner Bros.-Discovery, Bari Weiss could gain real editorial influence and give CNN’s lefty stable the Scott Pelley treatment.

Christiane Amanpour phoned it in from Beirut, looking like Mother Teresa on life support, and delivered the expected sermon in her usual syncopated style.

“I am a complete and utter adherent to fighting for editorial independence and to being able to pursue independent news coverage without fear or favor, no matter who is in charge politically, no matter where we go,” she said. “That is our mission. That is Ted Turner’s legacy, and that’s one that I intend to fulfill in my life.”

Right, Christiane.

This would be the same Amanpour who, under wildly anti-Trump Jeff Zucker, compared the Trump administration to Kristallnacht. That was not “independent journalism.” It was journalism independent of facts, independent of fairness, and independent of good judgment.

RELATED: The left’s icons keep face-planting in public

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty Images

And no CNN self-celebration would be complete without Wolf Blitzer.

“Ted Turner was one of the greatest visionaries of our time,” Blitzer said, demonstrating his masterful command of the obvious. “He always told me to make sure we report the news fairly and accurately, and, if possible, break those stories first on CNN.”

Sure thing, Wolf. But while we are discussing fairness and accuracy, I do not remember CNN making much of your previous work for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Jerusalem Post when you covered the Middle East. That seems like relevant context.

Finally came the Man from Glad himself, CNN’s SOB — son of a billionaire — Anderson Cooper.

Cooper described Turner as “a complex man of passion and guts and daring and drive,” a man who “saw what was possible when others didn’t, when others couldn’t.”

Too bad Cooper did not bring that kind of precision to his coverage of Hurricane Katrina or the BP oil spill.

The strangest moment came when Cooper told Johnson he should come back to CNN.

“We just want you to stay here,” Johnson told Cooper.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Cooper replied.

I’ll take Bari Weiss and no points against that spread.

One last thought: Ted Turner was no saint. He was loud, brash, womanizing, hard-drinking, chance-taking, swashbuckling, creative, and wildly successful — an All-American original. You know, all the traits that make contemporary leftists, no kingsers, and me-too’ers gasp, cover their eyes, point, and scream “toxic masculinity!”

That was exactly the sort of role model I admired in 1982 — and still do. That was why I wanted to work for Ted Turner when I joined the CNN Special Assignments Unit. If Ted came back to life tonight, I would be first in line to join whatever he wanted to build next.

​Cnn, Tbs, Ted turner, Anderson cooper, Wolf blitzer, Liberal media, Trump, Bari weiss, Opinion & analysis