Bill Gates knew Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender. He met with him anyway — for years. On Wednesday, he had to explain that to Congress.

The 70-year-old Microsoft co-founder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for a closed-door, transcribed interview. The session lasted nearly six hours.

‘I guess if you’re a big deal, you can do more than the rest of us.’

On his way in, Gates told reporters he was “glad to be here voluntarily.” He retained Jake Greenberg, who until December was the Oversight Committee’s chief investigations counsel. Mid-session, Greenberg reportedly said Gates would not answer questions about his affairs unless directly tied to Epstein.

The paper trail complicates the “voluntary” part.

In February, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) formally asked Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to subpoena Gates and compel him to testify under oath.

Comer sent Gates a formal written request in March stating the committee believed he had “information that will assist in its investigation.” Before the session on Wednesday, Comer told reporters, “No one’s accusing Bill Gates of any wrongdoing.”

RELATED: Nancy Mace crashes and burns in South Carolina governor primary

Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In his prepared opening statement, Gates expressed regret but denied having extensive knowledge about Epstein’s criminal behavior.

“I recall being aware that Epstein had faced prior legal issues, but I did not fully understand the extent of the crimes he committed,” he admitted. “I accepted the introduction without applying the scrutiny I should have.”

He also denied ever visiting Epstein’s island, ranch, or Florida home.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor and served jail time as a registered sex offender. Gates claimed he began meeting with Epstein in 2011 over a pitch to unlock billions in global health donations.

By December 2014, Gates said he had cut off contact, concluding Epstein “would never deliver on his promises.”

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) said she directly asked Gates why he continued to associate with a registered sex offender. Gates told her that “getting billions of dollars for global health was worth it,” she said.

After Gates allegedly cut ties in 2014, a departing employee engaged Epstein to negotiate the “separation” — Epstein, Gates claimed, used that channel to learn of his infidelities and pressure him to re-engage.

RELATED: Thomas Massie’s viral Epstein poll reveals stunning top belief: He lives

Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) called the questioning “intense” but said Gates was “well coached” and that he didn’t expect much new information to surface.

Burchett also broke with GOP leadership over the closed-door format: “I’m big about transparency. … Let it be wide open.” He added, “I guess if you’re a big deal, you can do more than the rest of us.”

Gates closed his opening statement to Congress with a conditional apology: “If the time I spent with Epstein lent him any credibility, I am deeply sorry.”

He left without answering a single question from reporters.

Democrats have repeatedly called for Trump to testify — a push Republicans have so far blocked. But the White House may not be able to stay out of it much longer.

Per Stansbury, Republicans have agreed to call acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump’s former lawyer — to testify about White House Epstein strategy sessions.

Comer also announced plans for a transcribed interview with Alan Dershowitz, who negotiated Epstein’s 2008 plea deal.

A full transcript is expected in the coming days.

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​Alan dershowitz, Attorney general, Bill gates, Charitable giving, Congress, Former presidents, Global health, House oversight, Jeffrey epstein, Melinda french gates, Npr, Plea deal, Sex trafficker, Situation room, Todd blanche, Transparency, Victims, White house, Politics 

Heidi Beirich was a director at the Southern Poverty Law Center. A man identified as “F-9” was allegedly a neo-Nazi informant. And according to a damning new report building off the Justice Department’s latest indictment against the SPLC, the two allegedly fell in love under the most unlikely circumstances.

Indictments

In April, the Justice Department announced that a grand jury in Alabama returned an indictment charging the SPLC — a liberal outfit whose bread and butter is smearing law-abiding conservatives as “extremists” — with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

‘I knew it was that fat, ugly hog.’

The organization is accused of secretly dumping several million dollars in donated funds to individuals linked to various extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America — groups the SPLC was supposedly fighting against.

The DOJ expanded its case against the SPLC this month, filing a superseding indictment on June 2 that alleged, among other things, that the “SPLC secretly funneled approximately $4.1 million dollars in tax-exempt donor funds to a series of fictitious accounts” — such as for the fake Tech Writers group — that in turn paid so-called field sources “who were either leading or affiliated with multiple violent extremist organizations.”

The field sources allegedly used SPLC donor money for various activities, including:

Attending and hosting extremist group rallies across the country; Growing existing chapters of extremist groups;Creating new chapters of extremist groups;Making donations to extremist group leaders;Purchasing materials for cross burnings as well as for Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods;Creating racist paraphernalia that extremist groups sold at rallies; andPublishing extremist literature for recruitment purposes.

RELATED: Klansman allegedly on SPLC payroll was ‘true believer’ white supremacist, not reformed infiltrator

Heidi Beirich. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

SPLC CEO Bryan Fair, whose smear- and fear-mongering racket has denied the allegations of wrongdoing, claimed that the field sources were “paid confidential informants” tasked with gathering “credible intelligence on extremely violent groups.” He said the SPLC no longer works with such informants.

F-9 finds love

The superseding indictment alleges that in one case, at the SPLC’s direction, a field source referred to only as “F-9” “infiltrated” a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance.

While reportedly funded over a 20-year period, F-9 allegedly received over $1.2 million in SPLC donors’ money just between 2010 and 2023. While receiving SPLC donor funds, F-9 allegedly fundraised for the National Alliance and helped it “carry out its extremist activities.”

Although a proven asset to the neo-Nazi group, F-9 apparently gave the SPLC some return on their investment.

According to the allegations, in 2014, he broke into the National Alliance’s headquarters in West Virginia; stole 25 boxes of documents; transported those documents across state lines; and, with the knowledge of an SPLC employee and the help of SPLC funding, copied those documents before breaking back into the National Alliance headquarters to return the originals.

The New York Post identified the SPLC employee involved in this alleged plot as the former director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, Heidi Beirich.

Beirich, an anti-Trump liberal who now serves as the chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

The SPLC employee identified as Beirich allegedly used around $6,000 in donor money to pay a different field source — a man the Post identified as Randolph Dilloway, an accountant whom the neo-Nazi group hired to conduct a forensic audit — to falsely take the fall for the burglary.

The indictment alleged further that the stolen documents served as the basis for an SPLC “Hatewatch” story, which was used to solicit more donations.

Beirich penned the lengthy March 2015 “Hatewatch” article titled “Chaos at the Compound,” where she discussed drama and mismanagement behind the scenes at the National Alliance, making extensive use of internal documents that she claimed Dilloway had copied and provided to the SPLC.

RELATED: SPLC indictment BOMBSHELL: Charlottesville violence allegedly was a leftist-funded ‘false flag’

MIKE THEILER/AFP/Getty Images

Beirich allegedly leaned on her field source for more than information.

Not only was the SPLC employee identified by the Post as Beirich overseeing payments of donor money to F-9, but she was also allegedly in a romantic relationship with him, according to the superseding indictment.

“During this relationship, Employee-2 and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts,” the indictment said. “Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000.00 in donors’ money flowed from the SPLC operating account, through the Tech Writers account, and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and Employee-2. This amounted to approximately 66% of all money ever deposited into their joint bank accounts.”

The indictment further alleged that the employee identified as Beirich “then used donors’ money to pay the couple’s personal living expenses.”

Property records reviewed by the New York Post revealed that during the period covered by the indictment, Beirich owned a vacation home in Ellijay, Georgia, in addition to her Montgomery, Alabama, residence.

After over 20 years with the SPLC, Beirich left the organization in December 2019 — around which time she was reportedly earning $190,000 in salary and benefits.

The SPLC and National Alliance did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

William White Williams, National Alliance’s 78-year-old chairman, told the Post, “I knew it was that fat, ugly hog Heidi Beirich.”

In addition to confirming that the details of the indictment comport with what happened to his organization and expressing uncertainty about the identity of F-9, Williams said, “I think some of those cluckers wanted to get out of the movement, and they went to the SPLC for help. But instead of helping them, [the SPLC] said, ‘Why don’t you stay in and get paid?'”

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The United States and Iran announced a preliminary framework agreement intended to end the recent war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and lift the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. The agreement reportedly includes a 60-day ceasefire period for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. A formal signing ceremony is scheduled for June 19 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Critics and analysts across the political spectrum, however, have expressed skepticism because many key provisions remain undisclosed. Israeli officials and other observers have raised concerns that unresolved issues — including Iran’s regional proxy networks and the specifics of future nuclear restrictions — have been left for later negotiations.

To get clarity on these matters, Glenn Beck spoke with none other than Vice President JD Vance.

Glenn begins with several frank questions: “How do you negotiate with an apocalyptic, end-times-twelver regime, and what makes you confident that we can, as the president has said on the outset, get no support for proxies, end of the missile program, and no nukes? Do we have those, and how do you lock them in with — to be honest — crazy people that think they’re living in the end times?”

“One of the most important lessons that [Trump] has given me in international negotiation or anything is you don’t trust anybody,” says Vance.

“I don’t trust the words; I don’t trust the commitments, though they have committed to stop funding terrorism and to stop building or buying a nuclear weapon. Those commitments are there, but I trust people’s actions,” he adds.

This philosophy, he claims, underpins the entire peace deal.

“The way that we set up that deal, given the president’s directives, is if they perform the things that they say they’re going to perform, then they get a lot of relief, and if they don’t perform any of those things, then they get nothing,” says Vance, claiming that regardless of how Iran reacts, the United States is still in “a great position.”

“We got the Strait of Hormuz open; oil is now down below $80 today. We have their military still destroyed, their defense industrial base still destroyed, their nuclear program still destroyed,” he declares.

If Iran “[behaves] like a normal country,” the United States will treat it “like a normal country,” he adds, and if it doesn’t, Iran will suffer while the U.S. remains strong.

“The United States still has all the cards, and there’s no skin off our back for entering into this negotiation,” says Vance.

Glenn reiterates his initial question: “And no support for proxies, end of the missile program, and no nukes for sure?”

“Correct, Glenn, and if they don’t do that, they don’t get any of the benefits of the bargain,” Vance confirms.

But as a Christian, Glenn can’t help but wonder about the fate of the Iranian people.

“It is hard to watch a regime slaughter its own people who are — just to use an American term — ‘yearning to breathe free.’ We hoped that we would be able to have, you know, a free people in Iran by the end of this. It doesn’t look like that is part of the plan at all. Can that be done without … regime change?” he asks.

“We’ve given the Iranian people an opportunity here. [Iran’s] military is substantially weaker. I mean it’s effectively gone. … If the Iranian people want to rise up and make, you know, their own country or make their own political future, then obviously the president of the United States would be happy to deal with whatever new government they produce, but we’re not going to force that on anybody,” Vance explains.

“We will empower people on the ground who yearn to breathe free, but we’re not going to force them to … elect their own government. What we’re going to do is pursue our best interests,” he continues.

The U.S., Vance says, entered this war with Iran with clear goals: to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to allow it a “conventional military” that could not “threaten its allies in the region.”

“And that’s what we got,” he states.

To hear more, watch the full interview above.

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Three San Francisco Giants pitchers have received a league warning about their failure to comply with the team’s Pride Night celebration, Major League Baseball stated.

Specifically, Giants pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker are being threatened with league discipline.

‘That’s just kind of something I believe in.’

On Friday, starting pitcher Landen Roupp and relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker wore the rainbow Pride caps on Pride Night but wrote a Bible verse on them. The Pride Night hats featured a rainbow version of the Giants’ logo that included colors that represent transgenderism.

In a statement to the Athletic, the league said, “The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations.”

Roupp was asked about his silent protest after the game and said, “It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that He makes to us that, you know, His faithfulness and His mercy.”

“That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want,” Roupp added, per Sports Illustrated.

RELATED: Washington Nationals under fire after anti-Christian public relations disaster EXPOSED (UPDATE)

Andy Kuno/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images

Roupp, Brubaker, and Walker referenced Genesis 9:12-16 on their caps, which says the following:

And God said, “This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

Additionally, Giants reliever Sam Hentges appeared in the game on Friday night and decided not to wear the Pride hat, instead opting for the Giants’ black and orange logo.

Pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers Blake Treinen protested in a similar manner last week when he refused to wear a Pride-themed hat when he pitched in the ninth inning.

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

Andy Kuno/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images

The Bible verse method of protest was also used by Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw in 2025, when he wrote, “Gen 9:12-16,” on his hat as well.

Blaze News has also reported on the Washington Nationals’ public relations disaster surrounding pitcher Trevor Williams and his alleged blacklisting from team promotions due to his Catholic faith.

Williams spoke out against Pride celebrations in 2023, when he was also a member of the Dodgers.

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Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated alien movie “Disclosure Day” hit theaters last Friday. In the weeks leading up to its premiere, a circulating theory — fueled by the government’s ongoing UFO file declassifications — suggested Spielberg collaborated with the government to prepare the public for real alien disclosure.

Glenn Beck saw it on opening night, and he says it’s definitely “worth seeing.”

But could it actually be predictive programming?

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn shares his raw thoughts on what “Disclosure Day” really means.

Glenn isn’t ready to dismiss the theory that “Disclosure Day” is predictive programming — entertainment designed to plant ideas so that future real-world events feel familiar and less shocking.

“The Department of War and the CIA have had an official entertainment liaison office for decades,” he says.

“They are brought in to help shape stories, and it’s not a shadowy conspiracy … [Hollywood is] given jets and bases and technical advisers for their movies, and in exchange, they shape the stories for the government, and this is documented policy.”

However, there’s another framework worth considering: George Gerbner’s cultivation theory.

Gerbner’s theory argues that long-term, heavy exposure to media gradually “cultivates” or shapes people’s perceptions of reality, making them believe the world is more like what they see on screen than it actually is.

Glenn points out that heavy media consumption is one of the modern era’s defining characteristics, as people are “scrolling and staring and consuming media” essentially “eight hours every day.”

“[Gerbner’s] research shows that heavy viewers develop mean world syndrome where everything is a danger. They overestimate the danger, crime, threats. They become more fearful, more dependent, and more open to strong-man measures,” he explains.

What if “Disclosure Day” isn’t preparing us for real aliens but rather attempting to scare people into submitting to future government mandates?

The most critical question, Glenn insists, is: “Who profits from the fear?”

“We’ve been seeing a steady drum beat of disclosure that is happening. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not,” Glenn confesses.

But he does know one thing: “A government who has been denying [aliens] for decades suddenly decides to open the door?”

“Why? And who profits from fear?” he asks.

To hear more, watch the video above.

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A plot to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event on Sunday was thwarted by the FBI and supporting law enforcement agencies, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.

“On June 10, FBI and our law enforcement partners became aware of a potential threat to the UFC America 250 event in Washington, D.C. involving individuals outside of the National Capital Region — and thanks to the rapid action of this FBI, our partners, and the [Department of Justice in a multi-state operation], multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold,” Patel wrote in an X post Tuesday.

‘We got to tell everybody to tone it down.’

Officials claimed the plot included employing drones with explosive capabilities to target surrounding buildings, prompting event attendees to flee toward a team of snipers, according to Fox News. Between the crowds on the South Lawn and the Ellipse, approximately 90,000 gathered in the area to watch the event.

The attackers then allegedly planned to rush the White House gate.

Fox News also reported that a suspect allegedly revealed the targets to be “billionaires,” “capitalist elites,” and politicians with funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Signal chats obtained by the FBI allegedly featured “pre-operational activity” discussed among a network of 23 people. Five people are in custody, Fox News reported.

In a statement on X, Secret Service Director Sean Curran said, “The U.S. Secret Service worked closely with the FBI throughout this investigation. In the days leading up to this weekend, our special agents, mission support personnel, and technical security teams worked around the clock to identify those responsible and hold them accountable.”

Curran added, “Equally important to our protective mission is ensuring accountability through the justice system.”

RELATED: ‘I prayed so much for this’ — Justin Gaethje’s UFC victory speech perfectly captures American spirit

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

When Trump was asked about the alleged attack at the G7 summit in France, he responded, “I haven’t heard of it,” adding, “The attack that I watched was the fighters.”

On “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning, Vice President JD Vance said, “This is what happens when people turn the rhetoric up so loud that disagreeing with somebody is a cause for violence.

“We got to tell everybody to tone it down.”

“Everybody has a role to cut this stuff out, but I think a lot of my Democratic colleagues in Washington have got to look themselves in the mirror and say, why is so much of this political violence coming from our side of the spectrum?” Vance also said.

The UFC Freedom 250 event featured 14 fighters from a range of countries on the White House South Lawn on June 14, the same day as Flag Day and Trump’s 80th birthday.

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One day, not long ago — no one can recall exactly when — AI dropped from the sky, a deus ex machina springing fully formed from the head of, well, maybe its own head.

Or so it seems.

The context around the technology matters even more than the content.

In reality, AI’s origin story runs much deeper. So does the backlash against it. Both look stranger than they are because our shared memory of the recent past keeps shrinking.

AI has been a long time coming. In the mid-20th century, when human imagination still outran human and machine memory, artists produced vivid narratives about supercomputers and superintelligence. Scientists and engineers did the same, especially after World War II. Go back and read atomic-age Vannevar Bush, who mentored the namesake of Anthropic’s Claude, and the surprise is not that AI arrived. The surprise is that it took so long.

So why has AI produced such powerful future shock?

Not long ago, Americans rushed to embrace new technology. Yes, we were naïve about social media. We underestimated how people and governments would peep into our personal cyberspace. But when social media exposed our own questionable collective character, the reaction was not fury. Troubled? Yes. Shocked? No.

Even now, despite evidence that smartphones have entrenched bad habits and unhealthy temptations, we broadly regard the phone-and-app ecosystem as manageable. The trade-offs seem worth the bother if we clean up our act and make responsible choices.

AI is different. For millions participating in the backlash, AI differs from smartphones and social media not merely in power and scope, but in perceived injustice. Smartphones may rot our brains slowly. According to the backlash, even moderate AI use will swiftly destroy society.

The history we long to forget

Left-wing critics describe this destruction in terms of justice and the human nature Marx called our “species being.” Right-wing critics reach for the language of spiritual illness and stolen souls. The claim remains roughly the same: AI uniquely threatens our humanity, so the conversation about how to respond need not account for anything else.

Introduce any complicating factor outside AI and its creators, and critics may accuse you of distraction, dissembling, excuse-making, or apologizing for a permanent underclass — perhaps even human extinction.

I understand why so many people are so freaked out and so unwilling to pull focus away from AI. But the biggest reason lies outside AI and the AI debate.

Look at the arc Americans traveled with smartphones and social media. These transformative technologies became ubiquitous around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. Thanks to “innovative” monetary policy and frantic institutional improvisation, the world avoided penury, and technological development kept moving along its established trajectory.

Many Americans surely spent more time online as economic slack and stagnation spread after the crisis. Yet that shock was nothing like the blow that came during the COVID lockdowns.

Over those two decades, America’s fundamentals became dangerously unsound. Governance embraced can-kicking, corruption, patronage, fraud, and self-dealing legerdemain that cooked the country as much as it cooked the books. But the populist backlash — as veterans of Occupy Wall Street, the Ron Paul “rEVOLution,” or the Bernie Bro movement will remember — remained contained and controlled.

RELATED: There’s a surprising fix for our AI oversight anarchy

sonmez karakurt/iStock/Getty Images

At least until Trump came along.

Even during Trump’s first term, few Americans felt like sitting ducks in the shadow of cataclysm. Times were tough, the middle class felt squeezed, and the dollar didn’t go as far. But those pressures had become baseline dynamics — the same problem set Ross Perot once explained with his chicken-foot pointer in populist third-party infomercials.

The lockdown era obliterated that holding pattern. It also wiped out many people’s ability to process the new normal. The socioeconomic malaise accelerated into territory so unsustainable that people simply stopped trying to understand it.

They blocked it out like an event too awful to remain in our memory.

Runaway inflation. Church closures. Rising living costs. Soaring entry costs for upward mobility. Devalued savings. Exhausted savings. The mathematical impossibility of building a middle-class life across family, education, and wealth formation within the given number of workweeks in a year.

That was the comprehensive catastrophe.

And it unfolded before robust AI asserted itself on the social scene.

Rebirth and return

That means we cannot understand the AI backlash unless we recognize that the context around the technology matters even more than the content.

For many millions across the political spectrum, the American dream was already destroyed before they could form real judgments about AI. In a national atmosphere of spiritual sickness, financial insolvency, economic weakness, and social disintegration, AI appeared as the final blow — especially as AI leaders themselves forecast the end of paychecks, jobs, careers, and perhaps humanity itself.

Deep down, many Americans feel that the habits, institutions, and confidence that might have allowed them to participate fruitfully in the AI era were stripped away years ago. AI seems big, alien, and wrong. Worse, it seems forced on them at a moment of unprecedented weakness, after any hope of recovery has already vanished.

Because they now feel they can fight the “clankers” and their makers in a way they cannot fight their own downward mobility and immiseration, AI has become the perfect scapegoat.

And that is the danger.

Killing AI will not regrow our spiritual and social roots. In fact, our structural situation has deteriorated so badly that leaning harder on the machines than we otherwise would may now be necessary.

We need a financial reboot. We need to dismantle the governance system that sucked us dry. We need to shift from overextended sole superpower to sustainable civilization-state fast enough to avoid the geopolitical spike pit between those two conditions.

Without those urgent needs, we would have more time and room to maneuver on AI. But we do need those things, and we do not have much choice or time — at least not if we want to hold the country together long enough to give Americans back the freedom to regrow their spiritual and social shoots.

The real way. The slow way. The human way.

Treating AI as the ultimate scapegoat for all our ills will distort and delay that process. Treating AI as the ultimate savior will derail and damage us in the opposite direction.

Nor will the fantasy of curing our national trauma by using AI to solve all human problems restore American life as a challenge worth living. Our new technology can be much more, and much less, than a replacement plan for people reduced to polyp status.

That is the opening for a constructive approach to AI that most of us can ultimately live with.

​Ai, Artificial intelligence, Civilization, Human nature, Humanity, Opinion & analysis, Social media, Soul, Technology 

If Prime Minister Mark Carney has is way, logging on to social media in Canada may one day require more than a password.

Critics say the Liberal Party’s latest legislation is a backdoor attempt to normalize digital ID while creating a powerful new bureaucracy to police online speech.

Platforms that fail to comply could face fines of up to $10 million and an additional penalty of 3% of global revenue.

This is but the latest step in a years-long campaign to expand government oversight of the internet that began under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and appears to be accelerating under Carney.

Harm’s way

Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, would prohibit anyone under the age of 16 from using social media platforms. To enforce that restriction, users would have to verify their age online, prompting concerns that Canadians could ultimately be required to use digital ID or comparable age-verification systems simply to access social media.

The bill also establishes broad categories of prohibited “harmful content.” Platforms that fail to comply could face fines of up to $10 million and an additional penalty of 3% of global revenue. Those companies may in turn seek to shift liability onto individual livestreamers and content creators, creating what this reporter has previously described as “trickle-down censorship.”

It remains unclear whether Bill C-34 is intended to replace the Trudeau government’s proposed Online Harms Act or simply add another layer to Canada’s growing regime of internet regulation.

Hate reach

Meanwhile, Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, awaits final approval before becoming law — a step widely expected to proceed without difficulty. The legislation expands Canada’s hate speech laws and removes the long-standing defense for good-faith religious expression in certain criminal hate speech cases, raising alarms among civil liberties advocates and religious freedom groups.

The earlier Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) never became law after Parliament dissolved before it could be passed. Even so, it remains one of the most alarming assaults on free expression ever proposed in Canada.

Among its most controversial provisions, the bill would have allowed courts to impose preventive peace bonds — including curfews, travel restrictions, electronic monitoring, and even house arrest — on people who had not been convicted or even accused of a hate crime, but who authorities feared might commit one in the future. In other words, Canadians could have had their liberty restricted not for something they had done, but for something the government believed they might do.

Pre-crime division

The legislation also would have revived Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, exposing citizens to steep civil penalties for certain forms of online expression, and expanded hate-related penalties elsewhere in Canadian law. It is little wonder that critics denounced the proposal as a form of “thought crime” or “pre-crime” legislation — a dramatic departure from the traditional principle that people should be punished for their actions, not for what governments fear they may think, say, or do.

Bill C-34 identifies seven categories of prohibited “harmful content”:

Intimate content communicated without consent.Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor.Content that induces a child to harm himself.Content used to bully a child.Content that foments hatred.Content that incites violence.Terrorism or violent extremism content.

Notably, the legislation does not define “hatred,” even as it devotes extensive language to defining “terrorism” and “violent extremism” as politically, religiously, or ideologically motivated acts intended to intimidate the public or undermine institutions or social stability.

The bill would also establish a digital safety commissioner, a position critics say could function as a de facto national internet censor with sweeping authority to assess and enforce rules governing online content.

RELATED: Canada-US coalition emerges against Mark Carney’s surveillance bill

JCCF board member John Robson. David Krayden

‘Blank check’

Among the organizations condemning the legislation is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

“Greater transparency and accountability from tech companies is long overdue. But that must come through clear, targeted rules, not sweeping obligations and an open-ended government authority over any regulated service,” said Howard Sapers, the association’s executive director. “A blank check for federal power is the wrong answer to a real problem.”

“Bill C-34 introduces obligations which are so alarmingly broad that providers of regulated services will be tempted to over-comply at the expense of users’ freedom of expression and privacy rights,” Sapers added.

Another Carney government proposal, Bill C-22, would require technology companies to disclose user communications when requested by federal authorities or Canadian law enforcement agencies, potentially overriding their own privacy commitments.

Two Republican members of Congress have also raised concerns about the legislation. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-Fla.) have written to Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree warning that Bill C-22 could threaten privacy rights in both Canada and the United States.

​Social media, Mark carney, Censorship, Free speech, Justin trudeau, Hate crime, Digital id, Canada, Civil liberties, Jim jordan, Brian mast, Lifestyle, Culture, Letter from canada 

A Nevada woman jailed in Mexico is expected to be extradited to the United States to face additional charges for allegedly using dating apps to prey on older men. Federal authorities say the woman drugged, robbed, and killed her victims in twisted romance schemes.

The FBI’s Las Vegas Division issued a bulletin in February 2025 about 44-year-old Aurora Phelps, who also went by the names of Aurora Alvarez, Aurora Flores, and Aurora Velasco.

‘Drop the case, or I will kill you.’

The FBI said Phelps “met individuals online or exploited those known to her in order to steal their personal information” between approximately 2019 and 2022.

“Mrs. Phelps then used this information to fraudulently access their bank, Social Security, or retirement accounts,” the statement read.

“It is believed Mrs. Phelps would sometimes drug her victims without their knowledge to obtain this information,” the FBI added. “Mrs. Phelps primarily targeted elderly men; however, she was known to target all age groups as well as women.”

KTLA-TV reported that Phelps — a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen — targeted at least 11 individuals on both sides of the border.

One of Phelps’ alleged victims reportedly was Robert Erbach, a 67-year-old American retiree who lived in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the pair connected on the Tinder dating app — Phelps under the username “Sissy” — and met at a casino that Erbach frequented in Guadalajara, according to his friends.

Friends said Erbach invited Phelps to the Hard Rock Hotel in Guadalajara to see a friend’s rock band perform in December 2021.

The Times said that “it was the last time Erbach was seen alive.”

U.S. and Mexican court records revealed that Phelps drove Erbach’s white BMW SUV to Las Vegas, where she used his personal documents to open a Wells Fargo account under his name.

Surveillance video the FBI obtained captured Phelps using a Wells Fargo ATM to make cash withdrawals with Erbach’s debit card. Phelps drained $50,500 from two of his bank accounts, according to the FBI.

In January 2022, Erbach’s son received a text message from his father’s phone written in broken English, the Times reported.

According to the FBI, one of messages said Erbach was moving to Quito, Ecuador, and ordered the son to tell family and police to halt any searches for him.

Prosecutors said there were attempts to redirect Erbach’s pension payments, but they were unsuccessful because a verified signature was required.

Two days after Erbach’s rendezvous with Phelps at the casino, the unidentified body of a man with no identification reportedly was found along a road near Guadalajara. Authorities said the man died from asphyxiation.

It was later revealed that the deceased man was Erbach, according to Newsweek.

In addition, the Times reported that Phelps met a 69-year-old divorced expat from the United States who had a “thriving practice” in Guadalajara. She allegedly met the chiropractor on Tinder in May 2022 and called herself “Sisy.”

According to court testimony, Phelps and the chiropractor went to a restaurant where he ordered a chocolate milkshake. The pair went to a hotel after the restaurant, according to the Times.

At the hotel, they allegedly had drinks, and the chiropractor passed out.

Phelps testified that the chiropractor had gotten drunk, but police later concluded he had consumed 1,000 milligrams of Valium “most likely added to his drink or the unattended milkshake,” the Times reported.

When the chiropractor regained consciousness, he reportedly asked Phelps to take him back to his home.

According to the Times, a surveillance camera at the house showed the chiropractor barely able to walk outside, and he “fell by the front door, cracked his head on the concrete and began bleeding.”

The chiropractor’s live-in maid reportedly drew a bath to try to help him wake up.

The Times reported that the maid became suspicious after Phelps told her she was the landlord and that the maid “should consider herself fired.”

‘She truly believes her lies.’

The maid allegedly called Carmen Garduño — a clinic employee who had worked with the chiropractor for 13 years. Court testimony said Garduño grew suspicious when the maid said the chiropractor appeared drunk, as Garduño said she had never seen him drink alcohol.

Garduño rushed to the house where she found the “pale” chiropractor unconscious in the bathtub, breathing heavily and wearing his doctor’s scrubs backward, according to the Times.

“He was practically absorbing his lips into his mouth,” Garduño said in court.

Garduño said she began performing CPR on the chiropractor, and then he vomited, and his breathing steadied, but he remained unresponsive.

When police arrived at the home, Phelps told officers she was the chiropractor’s fiancée, court records show.

The Times reported that the chiropractor “would remain unconscious for nearly a week.”

Once the chiropractor recovered, he reportedly filed a report against Phelps with the Jalisco state police. The chiropractor claimed Phelps stole approximately $25,000 in cash, electronics, and jewelry, including his wedding ring.

A Jalisco state judge issued an arrest warrant for Phelps for aggravated theft.

The Times reported that the chiropractor then received a call — and the voice on the other end of the line was one he did not recognize. The paper said a man speaking in a thick Mexican accent told him, “Drop the case, or I will kill you.”

The chiropractor reportedly ceased pressing his case.

An FBI investigation connected the death of Erbach to the alleged drugging of the chiropractor, the Times reported. FBI agents informed the chiropractor that the threatening call was made by Phelps using a voice-altering app.

The chiropractor agreed to cooperate with authorities and file a separate civil lawsuit against Phelps, according to the Times.

RELATED: He led cops to a dismembered body — now he’s charged with murder along with two others

The FBI said a month later, Phelps met Miguel Carrillo — a dual Mexican-U.S. citizen — in Chapala, near Guadalajara.

The Times reported Carillo days later was found dead in an abandoned lot, and his car was found outside a bank — and his bank account was drained.

In November 2022, Phelps reportedly used the Plenty of Fish dating app to meet John Wiens — a 78-year-old divorced and retired mechanical engineer living in Las Vegas.

Wiens’ son allegedly was unable to connect with his father.

“Stranger still, his Facebook profile now featured a picture of Wiens photoshopped into a city in Brazil,” the Times said.

The son told Mexican investigators he received a text message from his father’s phone that said he had moved to Brazil, which was odd since Wiens did not speak Portuguese.

A neighbor purportedly noticed the front door open at Wiens’ home, but he was nowhere to be found.

The Times said Wiens’ dog was left alone with no food or water, plus there were “feces everywhere.”

The son reportedly traveled from California to his father’s house, obtained his dad’s laptop, and was able to access his dad’s email account.

“The inbox was crammed with orders from Christian Dior, Gucci, and other designer brands for women’s apparel,” the Times said. “The purchases were sent to Phelps’ Las Vegas home under the name of her daughter or to ‘Abraham Flores,’ the name of her brother.”

Authorities said they discovered Wiens’ minivan at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

FBI agents obtained surveillance video showing Phelps and Wiens boarding a plane bound for San Diego on Nov. 4, 2022 — just one day after their first date.

The pair reportedly then traveled to Mexico City and checked into a hotel.

The Times said Wiens the next day was found dead in a hotel room bathtub, and an autopsy found he died of a heart attack.

Of 11 possible victims identified so far, three of them were found dead shortly after their encounters with Phelps, according to Spencer Evans, who at that time was a special agent for the FBI Las Vegas Division.

One of the victims spent five days in a coma after Phelps drugged him, Evans said. The Times reported that Phelps allegedly liquidated $3.3 million of the man’s Apple stock and tried to transfer the proceeds to a bank account she controlled.

Mexican authorities arrested Phelps at a Guadalajara bank on Feb. 27, 2023, the Times noted.

The Department of Justice released a statement in February 2025 saying Phelps “has been charged in a 21-count superseding indictment for allegedly luring older men she met through online dating services and stealing their monies for her personal benefit.”

Phelps was charged with one count of kidnapping resulting in death, one count of kidnapping, three counts of identity theft, three counts of mail fraud, six counts of bank fraud, and seven counts of wire fraud.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that a Mexican judge last week sentenced Phelps to 37 years, six months in prison on charges related to the disappearance and death of Erbach.

Sandy Breault, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Las Vegas field office, told Newsweek that Phelps “will be extradited to the U.S.— but no date has been set yet.”

Evans also stated that “once she incapacitated her victims, Phelps stole their cars, accessed their bank and brokerage accounts to withdraw cash, used their credit cards to make a variety of purchases, including luxury retail goods and gold, and even attempted to access their Social Security and retirement accounts.”

Christopher Delzotto, FBI special agent in charge in Las Vegas, said that “the white-collar criminal, especially when it comes to Aurora Phelps, is no different than a violent criminal. They are psychopaths. She truly believes her lies. She visualizes all of this stuff. She believes it. It has become her reality.”

Those with information about Phelps’ alleged romance scams are urged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

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​Aurora phelps, Elderly men, Extradition, Fbi, Mexico, Murder, Scam, Tinder, United states, Arrest, Crime 

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?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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