By the time of its collapse in 1991, the Soviet regime had overseen a democide of tens of millions of Russians, thrown millions of people into the regime’s hellish Gulag labor camp system, and spent nearly 70 years brutally persecuting those at odds with dissenting views, especially Christians.

Stephen Colbert, the departing host of CBS’ “The Late Show” who pushed COVID-19 vaccination during the pandemic, recently suggested that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasn’t all bad on account of its purported feminism.

‘Russia and the Soviet Union were the vanguard of world feminism.’

During her Monday appearance on Colbert’s show, Soviet-born reporter Julia Ioffe peddled her new book about the feminist experiment in the USSR — a “fairy-tale country” whose communist regime forced women to work, legalized abortion, ushered in no-fault divorce, and took other efforts to transform men and women into interchangeable units of labor devoid of strong loyalties outside the state.

“I remember seeing Soviet posters basically saying, ‘In the West women are not allowed to do any of this,'” Colbert told Ioffe. “There was a forward-looking feminist agenda to the communist enterprise.”

RELATED: Domestic extremist or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the mom

Julia Ioffe and Stephen Colbert. Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images.

“I think a lot of people forget, including Russians, that Russia and the Soviet Union were the vanguard of world feminism,” said Ioffe.

Ioffe’s apparent efforts to paint the Soviet Union as the “vanguard of world feminism” didn’t get past critics.

Newsbusters noted that whereas women’s right to vote, which was granted by the Provisional Government that replaced Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, was taken away by “Colbert’s Soviet poster children” after the October Revolution, 15 American states allowed women to vote before 1917, and the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920 without suffering the country to communism.

Although Ioffe acknowledged that women’s right to vote in the USSR became “largely irrelevant very quickly,” she suggested to Colbert that there were other perks made available to women under the totalitarian regime, including access to free higher education, abortion, child support, no-fault civil divorce, and paid maternity leave.

Ioffe noted further that the regime gifted roughly 800,000 women, mostly teenage girls, the responsibility to fight in active combat during World War II.

Colbert, apparently upset to learn that the USSR’s efforts to maximize the utility of women to the state dissipated over time, asked, “Why did it go away?”

“Because men,” answered Ioffe.

“I’m so sorry,” said Colbert.

Colbert, who recently told fellow travelers that a 2028 presidential run was not in the works despite speculation to the contrary, is leaving “The Late Show” in May.

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​Woke, Soviet, Ussr, Russia, Julia ioffe, Stephen colbert, Communism, Feminism, Retarded, Politics 

The District of Columbia wasn’t supposed to be like this. Hard as it is to believe today, the capital was set apart as its own district not to make it an untouchable bureaucratic citadel, but to make it work for all Americans. Unattached to any one state and free from the control of any one constituency, our government was supposed to serve the whole country.

Decades of misunderstanding, however, have muddled this design. Federalization gives us a fighting chance of restoring it.

Perhaps the most prudent solution would be to subsume the District’s entities into the federal government.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government resided in Philadelphia until a military mutiny prompted it to leave. With this in mind, the framers proposed an optional federal district.

Under the proposal, Congress could create a capital and be vested with “exclusive” legislative authority over it. This would put the government in a position to contemplate and sympathize equally with all Americans. The states approved. And so the framers’ proposal was ratified under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution. Congress then placed the capital along the Potomac River, and D.C. was organized in 1801.

Confusion soon followed. Congress tried many approaches to local governance and settled on a semi-independent model, enacted as the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973. This established a congressionally appointed judiciary and a popularly elected city council, mayor, and attorney general. Under home rule, D.C. could make its own law, albeit with congressional oversight.

The founders warned us about this model, however. They anticipated that self-governance would embarrass, impede, and endanger the federal government.

This failure predates Trump

Trump derangement syndrome has only vindicated this position. In 2017, D.C.’s attorney general joined litigation against Trump’s so-called Muslim ban. Then in 2020, D.C. painted a “Black Lives Matter” memorial along 16th Street NW, flipping an urban bird at the Trump White House. And in 2025, the District’s attorney general protested Trump’s public safety initiative, contesting his right to seize the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard across the city.

One might overlook these obstructions if the District’s fierce independence enabled it to ensure safe and efficient self-governance. But that doesn’t describe D.C. In 2023, a Senate staffer traversing the northeast part of the city was knocked to the ground and repeatedly stabbed in the head and chest. Then in May 2025, two embassy interns were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum. The following month, a congressional intern was fatally shot in the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood.

Nor is partisanship the only problem. D.C. behaves almost as poorly when Democrats wield federal power. In April 2024, pro-Palestinian protesters erected an encampment at George Washington University (a federally chartered school). City officials refused to remove the protesters for two weeks even though their disruptions interfered with students’ final exam preparations.

Bringing the capital to heel will ultimately require legislation. There’s already a proposal to repeal home rule. It’s a great start, but the proposal doesn’t detail how D.C. would operate afterward — not a promising omission when Congress tends to be so ineffective.

Perhaps the most prudent solution would be to subsume the District’s entities into the federal government. Then Congress need not work from a blank slate by creating new bodies for local governance. Instead, D.C.’s city council could become an advisory body to recommend local laws. This would meet the Constitution’s requirement that Congress make the laws without requiring it to fuss over the minutiae of local governance.

This idea won’t appease locals who want equal electoral representation to that enjoyed by other Americans, if not greater. We know that D.C. residents (or, more accurately, the Democrats in their ears) seek D.C. statehood. But if it’s a state they’re after, then they should entertain retrocession or repeal the District’s charter. Illegitimatizing the Constitution to preserve the mock state is not the way to go.

Forcing the issue through the courts

Knowing that Democrats in Congress will object on these grounds to any discussion of federalization, we should use litigation to force a solution on this matter. The difficulty with litigation is finding a plaintiff — a D.C. resident who believes in a federal capital and whose case wouldn’t be easily dismissed by local judges seeking to avoid the issue. But with so many conservatives currently serving in D.C. under the Trump administration, now might be the time to bring a suit.

The right litigant has two ways to attack home rule — challenge D.C.’s lawmaking power or neutralize its prosecutorial authority. The lawmaking approach likely faces two objections. First, judges might question how Congress’ ultimate legislative authority under home rule meaningfully differs from exclusive authority under the Constitution. Second, they might raise the constitutional liquidation theory, which posits that the post-enactment tradition fleshes out constitutional indeterminacies.

RELATED: Six questions Trump and conservatives can no longer dodge in ’26

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Neither objection holds water. For one thing, exclusive legislative authority means what it says — one body enacts the law. Using D.C.’s city council as a think tank wouldn’t violate this principle, because only Congress would oversee legislation from introduction to enactment. But home rule fails because Congress shares its authority with another body. In fact, a law could exist under home rule without Congress touching it at all. The Constitution doesn’t envision such an anomaly.

Relatedly, liquidation presupposes that a constitutional provision is ambiguous. But here, the framers couldn’t have written a clearer provision. Congressional authority over D.C. is exclusive; that means only Congress can exercise it. And so even though Congress has handed lawmaking power to D.C. on multiple occasions, viewing this abdication as indicative of the Constitution’s original meaning would only sanction congressional laziness and cowardice.

A limited win that still matters

The prosecutorial approach would open a more straightforward path to a more limited victory. The pitch is simple: The D.C. attorney general is a federal creation. And yet he is elected and can sue the federal government at will. This flouts the appointment process, as well as the president’s power to remove officers and direct executive-branch entities. Now would be the perfect time to press this argument, as the Supreme Court aims to clarify the president’s removal power later this term and the D.C. Circuit recently questioned whether “the District possesses an independent sovereignty that can give rise to an Article III injury from actions of the federal government.”

The only issue is that D.C. could still make law. But some of that law will be unenforceable if the attorney general cannot prosecute. Hence, a small win — but a win nonetheless.

Congress has subverted the Constitution by entertaining home rule. The results have been ugly and will get uglier. District residents will grow increasingly radical in their demands for self-governance. The framers, in their wisdom, didn’t create a sovereign D.C. — they bequeathed us a federal city to preserve a neutral national government. We should restore that vision.

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind

​Dc, Dc home rule, Trump, Congress, Constitution, Opinion & analysis, Washington d.c., Lawsuit, The courts, Attorney general, Self-government, American mind, Capital, Black lives matter, Crime 

A man who was allowed to become a police officer despite child rape accusations was later convicted of a horrific campaign of rape that included a child under 13 years of age.

The victims of 24-year-old Cliff Mitchell described him as “the devil” and “a pathetic excuse of a man” over the horrific abuse he committed as a U.K. police officer.

‘You are the devil. You disgust me. I hope you suffer for the rest of your life.’

Even worse, Mitchell was allowed to become an officer despite the past child rape allegations because he fit a diversity quota when officials were driving to recruit more officers.

Mitchell’s application was denied in 2020 over the 2018 allegations, but an admission panel overturned the decision and allowed him to join the force.

Prosecutors said Mitchell used a knife to kidnap one of his victims in Sept. 2023. He tied her arms with cable ties and put tape over her mouth before raping her. Mitchell laughed at her cries and told her no one would believe her because he was an officer.

Mitchell was convicted of 10 counts of rape, 4 counts of rape of a child under 13, one count of kidnap, and a breach of a non-molestation order.

“You deserve to spend the rest of your life in a cell because you are a serious danger to every woman walking the streets,” one of the victims said to Mitchell in court. “You are the devil. You disgust me. I hope you suffer for the rest of your life.”

The other victim, who said she lives in fear, also excoriated him in court.

“I’m holding you to account for your actions; you took away my self-worth,” she said. “You are a pathetic excuse of a man.”

RELATED: School credit ‘recovery’ plans are apparently being misused for racial equity — and disadvantaging students even more

“Cliff Mitchell is clearly a deeply troubled young man. … (His) serious offending appears to have arisen for desire for control,” Mrs. Justice May said at his sentencing. “The fact he was a police officer, albeit for a short time, will make imprisonment a harsher experience for him.”

Astoundingly, the drive for diversity and an increased demand for recruitment led to other questionable people being allowed to become officers.

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​Diversity hire rape, Uk cop commits rape, Rape diversity, Cliff mitchell child sex rape, Politics 

September 11, 2001, remains the most tragic day in American history, but almost a quarter-century later, mysteries surrounding the events of the day have yet to be solved.

And one TMZ documentary that BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler admits shockingly gave her “chills” involves United Flight 23, which was grounded when the World Trade Center was hit. However, the plane may have been another one that hijackers were attempting to weaponize.

“I watched the creepiest — I’m talking chills up and down your arms — documentary recently. The absolute creepiest. It was actually a documentary done by TMZ, believe it or not. I’m not particularly into celebrity gossip,” Wheeler says.

“It’s actually quite a well-done piece of investigative journalism about September 11, 2001,” she adds.

The narrative that the documentary challenges claims that four planes were hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists on 9/11, and the documentary provides evidence that there was actually a fifth.

“What if I presented evidence to you today that there was actually another plane — another plane that was supposed to be hijacked too? And not only was there another plane that had hijackers on it, but the government found out about it afterward. And so did the airlines. They knew about it. And to this day, they’re covering it up,” Wheeler explains.

The documentary features the claim, according to a flight attendant, that one passenger on the plane was a man who was wearing a burka.

“How would you react if you were on an airline and there was not only a person in a full burka — not just a hijab, a full burka with just the eye slits — but a person with hairy hands, a person that the flight crew were pretty certain was a man?” Wheeler asks.

There was a male “bodyguard” sitting next to the man in the burka, who flight attendants recalled was “sweating profusely.”

But these were not the only Middle Eastern passengers of note aboard the flight.

“So we have four Middle Eastern passengers in first class. Someone, an individual dressed in a full burka with just eye slits. … The other man in the tan suit was trying to peer into the cockpit using his son as an excuse,” Wheeler explains.

These same passengers argued with the flight crew about taking off quickly instead of being delayed to hand out food.

“As if that’s not creepy enough, once the news broke that the plane was not going to be taking off because the other planes on 9/11 had hit the towers, had hit the Pentagon, these same passengers asked a question of the flight crew,” she continues.

One of them asked, “Did they get the White House?”

Once they were all deplaned and the airport was being evacuated, someone on the ground noticed that there were people back on the aircraft, 20 minutes after the plane was locked.

When it was investigated, it was discovered that the hatches to the plane had been reopened.

“So, what does that mean? Did someone enter the airplane through the floor hatch to remove, I don’t know what, evidence, weapons after everyone exited the plane?” Wheeler asks. “Well, that’s not just a hypothetical question. A weapon that had been planted on a plane was found at JFK.”

When TMZ reached out and even filed a Freedom of Information Act request, the organization was ignored.

“How can you not think that this is a government cover-up?” Wheeler asks, shocked. “The 9/11 commission didn’t even interview the pilot of that plane.”

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​Sharing, Camera phone, Free, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze media, 911, Conspiracy theory, Terrorism, Five planes 911, Tmz conspiracy documentary, Tmz september 11 documentary, September 11 2001, The liz wheeler show 

The shooting of a machete-armed man led to a horrific discovery inside his home, according to New Jersey police.

Piscataway police said they were called to the residence on River Road on Monday at about 5:30 p.m. on a report of a man with a knife.

‘I just want to let the general public know this is not somebody coming in, knocking on the door. This is all folks that all knew each other.’

Police said they found a man armed with a machete and tried unsuccessfully to stop him with the use of tasers. When he lunged at them with the machete, they shot him and killed him.

When officers entered the residence, they found three bodies.

The bodies are believed to belong to the man’s grandparents and his mother.

Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler spoke to reporters outside of the home and said that the 911 caller was the suspect’s father, who was the sole survivor.

“You have to understand, there is a husband that is about to bury a wife, parents, and a son,” the mayor said.

“So out of respect to the household, for the rest of the family members, but they were all related,” he added. “I just want to let the general public know this is not somebody coming in, knocking on the door. This is all folks that all knew each other and were related to each other blood-wise.”

Officials said there had been no prior incidents at the house involving police. A later report said the mother was 60 years old, the grandparents were 86 and 84 years old, and the suspect was 29 years old.

Police indicated that they died of stabbing wounds.

Neighbors of the family told WABC-TV that their previous interactions with them had been all been pleasant.

RELATED: Police arrest teens in gruesome carjacking death of elderly woman, two are 15-year-old girls

“Very nice lady. Very nice, quiet neighborhood. It’s so tragic that something like this happens,” said Keith Heron, a neighbor of the family’s.

The deaths are being investigated by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office as well as the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

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​New jersey machete man, Nj police kill man, Machete man’s family dead, Piscataway machete deaths, Politics 

A few years ago, I went all in on CrossFit.

Not casually. Not “a couple of sessions a week.” I mean fully immersed. Dawn classes. Protein evangelism. Callused palms held up like merit badges. A vocabulary that slowly became unintelligible to my friends and family.

Effort has been engineered out of daily existence. The result isn’t ease but restlessness. So people voluntarily buy pain.

It worked, too. I got strong. Very strong. But eventually, the thing that had promised discipline started to feel devotional. The workouts were brutal, yes, but the culture grew insistent — about identity, about belonging, about the strange idea that redemption could be loaded onto a barbell.

I left CrossFit because it started to feel like a cult. Manson family vibes, minus the desert and the murders. It had a creed, but a shallow one: Pain conferred status, while rest felt vaguely shameful. And like most people who escape one intense, borderline insane tribe, I did the most predictable thing imaginable. I joined another.

Enter Hyrox.

20 miserable meters

If CrossFit thrives on variety, Hyrox runs on ritual. The same test. Every time. Everywhere. Eight one-kilometer runs, each broken by a workout station designed to sap dignity and drain glycogen in equal measure.

Sled pushes that turn legs to jelly. Burpee broad jumps that make grown adults negotiate with God. Farmer’s carries that compress your entire life into 20 miserable meters. Lunges, rowing, wall balls, the works. No mystery. No surprises. No excuses. You know exactly what’s coming. Which somehow makes it worse.

What began as a handful of lunatics in a warehouse now stretches from Boston to Brisbane. Americans, in particular, go absolutely gaga for this brand of glorified self-flogging. Last year, some 70,000 Americans lined up to compete in Hyrox races.

It’s measurable. It’s standardized. It has timing chips, age brackets, and leaderboards that humiliate you with forensic precision. And as a fully indoctrinated Hyroxer, I can’t pretend I’m above it. I get it.

Something primal

I’ve raced in the U.K., Ireland, and Thailand. Thailand, in particular, feels surreal. You’re preparing for an event designed to dismantle your nervous system while palm trees nod approvingly, someone hawks knockoff iPhones nearby, and ladyboys shout suggestive comments. And yet amid the madness, something primal asserts itself. Suffering, it turns out, is a universal language.

Hyrox isn’t “for everyone,” and it shouldn’t be sold that way. There’s a strange modern habit of presenting extreme physical challenges as all-purpose answers. As if every personal demon can be exorcised with sprints. For some people, this stuff is genuinely stabilizing. Structure helps. Training gives shape to days that might otherwise dissolve. Discipline can be a lifeline.

For others, though, it’s avoidance, plain and simple. I’ve met men and women who, without an outlet this intense, would almost certainly be annoying their lawyers or alarming psychiatrists. Not everything can be lifted, lunged, or rowed into submission. Eventually the joints revolt and the scoreboard stops flattering you.

Comfortably numb

The global popularity tells us something slightly uncomfortable about the moment we’re living in. Modern life is comfortable to the point of numbness. Effort has been engineered out of daily existence. The result isn’t ease but restlessness. So people voluntarily buy pain. They pay for race entries, overpriced shoes, and punishing workouts simply to feel alive again. Hyrox doesn’t negotiate. You run, or you don’t. You move the sled, or it doesn’t move. The feedback is immediate and unforgiving.

And it’s precisely that simplicity that has prompted the next, inevitable escalation: Olympic ambition.

Hyrox’s new Science Advisory Council, a small army of researchers from New Zealand, the U.K., and Europe, signals a sport that wants legitimacy. Standardization, data, physiology, performance analysis — the entire scientific kitchen sink has been thrown at the 2032 dream. On paper, it makes sense. The format is fixed. The judging is clean. The variables are controlled. If breakdancing can make it into the Olympic ecosystem, why not a race that looks like a PE teacher’s revenge fantasy?

Why not, indeed.

RELATED: Women can crush pull-ups too: 5 steps to doing your first

Wundervisuals/Getty Images

Going mainstream

The Olympics have always been a little ridiculous. They celebrate niche obsessions elevated to national honor. People dedicate their lives to throwing things, jumping over things, sliding on ice in improbable positions. Hyrox fits right in. It’s absurd, yes, but so is speed-walking. So is synchronized swimming. Absurdity has never been a barrier to inclusion.

The more interesting question isn’t whether Hyrox deserves Olympic status. It’s what happens to a cult when it goes mainstream, when something built in warehouses and back alleys gets handed a global spotlight. Like an underground punk band suddenly piped through stadium speakers, intensity changes when scale takes over. What once thrived on proximity starts to lose its edge.

Whatever happens, I’ll line up again. Dublin. Bangkok. London. I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, I know what’s in it, and I’m still reaching for another cup. There’s no exit interview. No recovery program. I’m not a philosopher. I just know that in a world drowning in opinions and moral lectures, it’s a relief to face a problem that can only be solved by putting one foot in front of the other, until you can’t.

​Hyrox, Crossfit, Physical fitness, Exercise, Lifestyle