Abdul El-Sayed, the Islamic leftist who came out on top last week in Michigan's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, has vowed to "fight to expand Medicare to cover all necessary healthcare" and "extend it to every single American from cradle to grave without premiums, copays, or deductibles."

Now that El-Sayed is the Democrat nominee set to face Republican Mike Rogers, his grand plan has finally come under scrutiny.

'That includes reproductive rights, right? That includes gender-affirming care.'

The leftist has not only admitted who would fund this supposedly "free" scheme but what exactly it would cover at taxpayers' expense.

In an video excerpt popularized on X by the Republican National Committee's "Research" account, El-Sayed states, "I believe that Medicare for All should cover all health care, which is defined by what a patient needs in accordance with their doctor."

"So that includes reproductive rights, right? That includes gender-affirming care," added El-Sayed.

The El-Sayed campaign did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

Greg Manz, senior communications adviser for the Michigan GOP, told Blaze News, "Abdul El-Sayed's extreme positions are breathtakingly radical: higher taxes, government-controlled health care, and Michigan taxpayers footing the bill for abortions and irreversible gender reassignment surgeries, even for children — it doesn't get more extreme than that."

RELATED: Abdul El-Sayed PURGED more than 100 YouTube videos expressing FRINGE beliefs — and they have resurfaced

BlazeTV host Nick Freitas noted, "He believes we should be forced to subsidize the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of confused kids. There. Fixed it for him."

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said in response to El-Sayed's plot to fund sex-rejection procedures, "Horrific. Taxpayers should castrate kids — that’s today’s Democrat position."

"I wish he'd elaborate. Spell it out," tweeted Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R).

El-Sayed's website notes that if elected to serve in the Senate, he would "oppose any effort to criminalize certain medications and the use of lawfare or funding cuts to stop healthcare providers from providing full-spectrum healthcare that meet [sic] all the needs of their diverse communities."

The Trump administration, which has gone the distance in the other direction on this issue, released a final rule on Tuesday barring the use of federal Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program funds to pay for minors' sex-rejection medical interventions — including genital mutilation procedures, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers.

"These interventions carry serious risks and can cause irreversible harm. The federal government will no longer use Medicaid and CHIP dollars to fund procedures that fail to meet the evidentiary standard our children deserve," Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement.

An Associated Press-NORC poll conducted last year found that 66% of U.S. adults oppose the funding of sex-rejection procedures and drugs for people under the age of 19 by public health insurance programs such as Medicare or Medicaid. Fifty-three percent of adults oppose coverage for so-called "gender-affirming care" for persons 19 and older.

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JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images

El-Sayed not only wants taxpayers to fund those surgeries and practices that President Donald Trump described as "barbaric" but to increase their financial burden in the process.

NBC News' Kristen Welker asked El-Sayed on Sunday, "Some Americans worry, though, you can only make Medicare free and universal if you increase taxes. So if you are elected and make this push, would you need to increase taxes?"

"I am for taxing billionaires their wealth," said the radical.

When pressed on whether Americans with "less than a billion and less than a million dollars" will also have to pay higher taxes to realize his utopian vision, El-Sayed answered in the affirmative in a roundabout way.

"After you pay your taxes, the next biggest check that comes off the top of your pay stub is to your health insurance company," said the Democrat. "Imagine instead of paying that to your health insurance company, whose CEO makes $20 million a year, instead you paid a little bit more in taxes for health care that you wouldn't lose if you lost your job, or turned 26, or got married, or got divorced."

"So there's an opportunity here, I think, to trade what we give to a big corporation who gets to decide who we get to see and who we don't for a little bit more paid into FICA, and I think that's a trade that's worth making," he added, after repeatedly referring to the care as "free."

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In 2019, a sitting president was impeached after pressing Ukraine to investigate matters involving Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Viktor Shokin's explosive new book, “Biden’s Corruption and War,” offers a first-person account from one of the figures at the center of that controversy.

No freedom-loving American can forget the video of then-Vice President Joe Biden recounting how he threatened to withhold U.S. loan guarantees unless Ukraine fired its prosecutor general.

Americans deserve to know how their government uses power abroad, how foreign aid is distributed, and whether politically connected families benefit.

“Well, son of a bitch. He got fired,” Biden said. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

The clip has been replayed for years because it sounds, at minimum, astonishingly cavalier: a sitting vice president boasting that American leverage forced the removal of a foreign prosecutor.

The central dispute is why.

Shokin says he was removed because he was pursuing corruption connected to Burisma and investigating matters involving Hunter Biden. Biden and his defenders have long maintained that Shokin was ineffective and that U.S. pressure for his dismissal reflected a broader Western anti-corruption consensus.

That conflict is the heart of Shokin's book.

The stakes were high enough that Trump's efforts to press Ukraine for investigations eventually produced one of his impeachments. Shokin's account asks readers to revisit the events that made Ukraine such a combustible subject in American politics.

Here was Joe Biden celebrating the removal of Ukraine's prosecutor general, Shokin — the man who says he was pursuing Burisma, the energy company that had placed Hunter Biden on its board.

For years, Biden and his allies insisted there was nothing improper to see in Hunter Biden's Burisma role or Joe Biden's conduct in Ukraine.

Now the fight over that history has begun in earnest. Joe and Hunter Biden are back on the interview circuit, while the ex-president’s memoir is on the way. The authorized version of history is being written now. Shokin's book is meant to challenge it.

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Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Ukraine war as a vehicle for hidden agendas

Shokin presents a stark thesis: He argues that the war in Ukraine became a vehicle for corruption and hidden agendas extending far beyond the battlefield.

Among his most explosive allegations are claims that $350 billion in U.S. taxpayer money was recycled through political and globalist networks, that arms arrangements were tainted by corruption, and that wartime chaos facilitated the trafficking of Ukrainian women and children.

Those are grave allegations. They come from a man who says he paid a personal price for getting too close to uncomfortable truths. But they remain allegations, and the book should be read as Shokin's case — not as independent proof of every charge.

Inside Biden’s corruption and war

Shokin has practiced law since the 1980s and served multiple times as deputy prosecutor general before becoming prosecutor general. He says his troubles began when he was investigating Mykola Zlochevsky and Burisma.

Shokin in the book gives his account of the pressure campaign that ended with his removal.

He writes that Joe Biden was known in Ukraine as the "Vice King" and portrays the vice president as wielding extraordinary influence over then-President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian government.

The book lays out names, dates, meetings, and episodes that Shokin says connect the Burisma investigation to the effort to fire him.

RELATED: The Biden tapes blow open the autopen scandal

Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty Images

Censorship and the fight for the record

Shokin also argues that his story has been suppressed through limited media attention and reduced online visibility. He describes a system in which war, foreign aid, lobbying, and personal enrichment became intertwined, and he presents his own removal as one episode in that larger pattern.

Whether readers accept all of his conclusions or not, the book raises questions that deserve examination rather than dismissal.

Shokin's case is not merely historical. He argues that the same patterns of influence, opaque foreign aid, and political pressure continue today in Ukraine and elsewhere.

That claim should be tested, not waved away.

Americans deserve to know how their government uses power abroad, how foreign aid is distributed, and whether politically connected families benefit from relationships that ordinary citizens would never be allowed to maintain without scrutiny.

"Biden's Corruption and War" is valuable because it puts the testimony of a central participant into the record. It may not be the final word, and it does not relieve readers or journalists of the duty to verify its most serious claims.

But it does make it harder to pretend there is no dispute at all.

Read it before the people who tried to bury this story write the only version anyone remembers.

Filmmaker and mother Jessica Solce was frustrated by the difficulty of finding healthy, all-natural products for herself and her family. To make it easier, she created the Solarium, a curated marketplace for third-party-tested foods, clothing, beauty products, and more — free of seed oils, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and other potentially harmful additives.

In this occasional column, she shares recommendations and research from her continuing education in health and wellness.

Every time I return to my parents' home, I find myself standing in my mother's closet.

My parents are moving, and I'm helping. Just as when I was a kid, I still take pleasure in running my hands across the fabrics of my mother's clothes. Everything is silk, cotton, wool. Sturdy, perfectly kept, and just as soft and vibrant as they were 40 years ago.

Acrylic or polyester becomes 'faux fur'; polyurethane or PVC becomes 'vegan leather.' The language makes the substitution sound almost virtuous.

What isn't in her closet is just as striking. It isn't overflowing with heaps of disposable fashion bought for a season and forgotten. Everything seems chosen — the accumulation not of endless consumption but of decades of taste and considered decisions. She bought things she liked, cared for them, and kept them.

Fast and cheap

This kind of restraint is out of style. Modern closets can be filled cheaply and frequently, thanks to synthetic fibers. Polyester, nylon, and acrylic are inexpensive to produce, easy to care for, and endlessly adaptable — and we embraced them. What is stranger is how even luxury fashion followed. Materials once prized precisely for their natural beauty — silk, wool, linen, cashmere, leather, and fur — increasingly share racks and runways with petroleum-derived fabrics. We've gained an astonishing abundance of clothing while losing some of the tactile abundance that made clothing worth keeping in the first place.

The transformation began nearly a century ago. In 1935, DuPont chemist Wallace Carothers produced nylon, the first fully synthetic fiber to become a consumer product. Nylon is a plastic, made from petrochemical-derived polymers, but it could be spun into fibers that looked and behaved like textiles.

Nylon's first great consumer success was women's stockings, and the appeal was obvious. Silk stockings were expensive, delicate, and prone to runs. Nylon promised something stronger, cheaper, and easier to care for. Women loved them: When DuPont introduced nylon stockings nationwide in 1940, nearly 800,000 pairs sold on the first day.

The appeal wasn't hard to understand. Silk was expensive and delicate. Nylon was strong, inexpensive, and practical. Soon, other synthetics offered similar promises: Polyester resisted wrinkles, and later synthetic blends offered stretch, moisture-wicking, and easy washing.

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Creative Commons/H. Armstrong Roberts/Classicstock/Getty Images

Wool undefeated

Consumers had perfectly good reasons to want these new fabrics. But somewhere along the way, convenience made us lose sight of the qualities that made natural materials beautiful in the first place.

Acrylic, for example, could imitate wool at a fraction of the price, without the moths or troublesome washing. But the bargain came with costs: Acrylic retains odors more readily, generates static, manages moisture poorly, and can melt when exposed to flame. A good wool sweater can still look beautiful decades later. Anyone who has owned a cheap acrylic sweater knows that isn't always true of its substitute.

What few people standing at a department-store counter in 1940 could have imagined was the scale to which synthetics would come to dominate the clothes we wear. Polyester alone accounts for roughly 59% of global fiber production. We have reached the point at which much of the clothing touching our skin every day is made principally from plastic.

Plastic by any other name

That has consequences far beyond the feel of a shirt. Synthetic textiles shed microscopic plastic fibers as they are manufactured, worn, washed, and dried. Researchers have found these fibers in wastewater, household dust, and indoor and outdoor air. A fleece jacket doesn't cease being plastic because it has been transformed into something soft enough to wear.

Yet we have developed increasingly flattering language for the substitution. Fur and leather, natural materials used by human beings for millennia, are increasingly treated as environmentally or ethically suspect. Replace them with petroleum-derived synthetics, however, and plastic acquires more flattering names. Acrylic or polyester becomes "faux fur"; polyurethane or PVC becomes "vegan leather." The language makes the substitution sound almost virtuous.

Recycling has helped make plastic similarly easier to embrace. Turning discarded bottles into clothing can reduce the demand for new petroleum-derived material, but it doesn't make the plastic disappear. A recycled-polyester shirt can still shed synthetic fibers, and at the end of its useful life, it presents many of the same disposal problems as other synthetic textiles.

You are what you wear

Then there is the more complicated question of what all this means for our bodies.

No one anticipated the emerging health problem of microplastics. Synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon, spandex, and acrylic constantly shed microplastic particles. These particles can contain or carry chemicals, including PFAS — the persistent “forever chemicals” used in some water- and stain-resistant textiles — phthalates, dyes, and flame retardants, some of which are known or suspected endocrine disruptors. The fibers themselves can be inhaled or ingested, while researchers continue to investigate the extent to which chemicals associated with them enter the body through different routes.

Studies have found that chemicals released from textile microfibers may contribute to effects including hormonal disruption, immune stress, and oxidative damage. Other research has linked exposure to certain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including some used in plastics and textiles, with effects on male reproductive health.

Exactly what ordinary exposure to microplastics means for human health over a lifetime remains an active area of research. The ubiquity of plastics is nevertheless a profound environmental problem affecting the globe.

Cleaning house

So what do we do?

We don't have to empty our closets tomorrow, and we aren't going to eliminate synthetic materials from modern life. They have legitimate uses, and in some circumstances, they are remarkably useful.

But we can begin paying attention again.

We can look at the tag before buying a sweater. We can choose wool instead of acrylic, linen instead of polyester, cotton instead of a synthetic blend when those choices make sense. We can buy fewer things and expect more from them. We can seek out manufacturers that tell us what their products are made from and make things intended to survive more than a season.

Consumer choice helped make the world we have, and I believe it can help change it. Every decision to buy something made from natural materials, to choose something made well enough to keep, or simply to refuse another disposable product creates demand for something better.

Clothes and connection

That belief is part of what led me to create the Solarium. I wanted to make it easier to find the foods, clothing, and everyday products I was already searching for myself — and to connect people with the makers and producers who are still trying to do things well. If convenience helped lead us away from many of these things in the first place, perhaps we can make choosing them convenient again.

And perhaps buying less, choosing better, and keeping things longer isn't a retreat from progress. It's a way of caring for the world we actually inhabit.

My mother's closet offers a small reminder of what that can look like. Those clothes have been kept for decades because they were worth keeping. Someone chose the fabric carefully. Someone made the garment to last. And because it lasted, someone cared enough to preserve it.

That relationship between maker, material, and owner once seemed ordinary. Perhaps it can again.

A Delaware dance instructor was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing teenagers who attended classes at the studio where she worked, according to authorities. Law enforcement warned there could be more sexual abuse victims.

Delaware State Police said in a statement that 23-year-old Emily Pryor Albino of Seaford was arrested and charged with four felony counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust and one felony count of sexual solicitation of a child using a computer/cell phone/other electronic device

'Further investigation revealed that Pryor Albino also exchanged sexually explicit messages with the two victims.'

According to Delaware law, a person convicted of first-degree sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison.

An individual convicted of sexual solicitation of a child using a computer/cell phone/other electronic device faces up to 25 years in prison.

Albino was arraigned and committed to the Delaware Department of Correction after her bail was set at $110,000 cash, state police said.

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Police said Emily Pryor Albino is a dance instructor at the X-Treme Dance Studio in Laurel.

Detectives launched an investigation into Albino on Aug. 4 over suspicions that the dance teacher sexually abused two teens who attended the studio, according to police.

"Further investigation revealed that Pryor Albino also exchanged sexually explicit messages with the two victims," the Delaware State Police stated.

Detectives said they have reason to believe there are additional victims involving Albino.

The Delaware State Police Troop 4 Criminal Investigations Unit, in conjunction with the Delaware Department of Justice, is continuing the investigation into the case.

The X-Treme Dance Studio and Delaware state investigators did not immediately respond to the New York Post's request for comment.

Those with information about the case or any other victims are urged to contact Detective R. Mitchell by calling 302-752-3794, Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-847-3333, or the official Facebook account of the Delaware State Police via private message.

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Mackinac Island is an island located in Lake Huron between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas — and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat nominee for Senate in Michigan, hates it.

Known for banning motor vehicles for over 125 years, the island relies on bicycles, walking, and horse-drawn carriages.

And in a recently resurfaced video of El-Sayed walking on the island, he says, “I hate Mackinac so much.”

“It’s funny because, like, if we win, this is going to be the, like, summer home,” he said, adding, “I'm just going to be, like, every time I’ve ever come here I’ve hated it. Why am I here?”

“So if you live in Mackinac Island, understand that the guy that wants to represent you in the U.S. Senate hates you. Just hates your island there,” executive producer Keith Malinak says on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“The homes are awesome there,” Jeff Fisher comments.

“And he hates it,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray says.

“You can get a house there relatively cheap for the size. Like, you can get a beautiful mansion for like $2 million, but it can only be open during the summer,” Fisher points out, explaining that it gets closed down in the winter.

“The trade-off is that your governor is Gretchen Whitmer,” Malinak adds.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

It hasn’t been an easy path for Mark Zuckerberg. However you keep score on his performance as a major figure in American life, he has survived attacks from the highest levels of government against his business, reputation, and livelihood. Few major figures in tech, with the possible exception of his longtime mentor, investor, and friend Peter Thiel, have endured quite the same treatment. Simply put, Zuck won’t quit.

That indestructible attitude has carried straight into AI. Amid criticism, naysaying, and ridicule, Zuckerberg has refused to concede the race to the leading hyperscalers. Now, as those frontier companies hit their own buzz saw of criticism, Zuck has dropped a long manifesto laying out his vision for America’s technological future and Meta’s place in it.

Liberal democracy must discipline superintelligence. Superintelligence must revive liberal democracy. Each is supposed to save the other.

The most striking thing is not that Zuckerberg wants Meta to win. It is what he thinks victory requires. Despite years of periodic hostility from the U.S. government, he has positioned Meta as perhaps the most explicitly pro-American player in the AI industry. He is betting the farm on the proposition that America’s political principles — not merely its capital, engineers, or computing power — are what can carry us through the age of superintelligence.

That’s a gigantic wager, and it arrives at an awkward moment. Dissatisfaction with America’s actual system of government is near a breaking point. More Americans are asking whether the assumptions grounding the regime are viable any more — or even true.

Even many who still defend America’s founding principles believe the government we actually have has become corrupt, broken, and badly detached from them. The appetite for a “new founding,” on the left and the right, keeps growing. Yet the country is too divided and degraded for any ordinary political movement to break through to the other side.

That frustration is part of why so much American energy, ingenuity, money, and willpower have poured into the narrow goal of building the most powerful technology possible — something that may soon go far beyond what any individual human being can comprehend or control.

The irony is brutal. Technological prowess was once among America’s great sources of pride. Now millions of people increasingly experience it as a curse from hell rather than a blessing from God. They already feel reduced to peonage and stripped of agency by institutions they do not trust. And now tech, they fear, is preparing to sweep the refuse we have become into the trash.

Not so fast, says Zuck. His argument begins with a surprisingly old-fashioned insight: Human beings disagree. They struggle, suffer, compete, fear, and want incompatible things. No technical breakthrough abolishes politics because no technical breakthrough can reconcile every human value at once.

“There is no technological solution that can align with everyone’s opposing interests and values at once,” Zuckerberg writes. "Any singular superintelligence would have to prioritize some values over others." His answer is not perfect alignment but a balance of power — the same basic insight, he argues, that underlies Western democratic institutions.

That is why America’s humbler principles — dispersing power, allowing people to define their own goals, and trusting them to work things out for themselves — matter so much in Zuckerberg’s vision. Paradoxically, political humility produces personal ambition. It renews energy more reliably than any genius, planner, or guru could ever manufacture from above.

RELATED: Is this the number-crunchers’ come-to-Jesus moment?

Inkoly/Getty Images

If this sounds familiar, it should. Zuckerberg is singing from the hymnal of good old-fashioned liberal democracy. His wild idea is that machines powerful enough to transform human life beyond recognition are best developed by patriotic Americans who still believe liberal democracy is basically right about how human beings ought to live together.

And here is the problem.

If liberal democracy brought us to a point where the American government has largely expunged liberal-democratic habits from its own operation, how exactly are we supposed to encode those habits into superintelligence?

Do you believe your vote counts?

Do you believe legislative, executive, and judicial power are effectively separated?

Do you trust your fellow citizens to form judgments and pursue their own plans?

Do you think most of us still possess the maturity, education, thoughtfulness, and patriotism that self-government demands?

In other words: Do Americans still believe in liberal democracy strongly enough to teach it to machines?

That is where Zuckerberg’s argument becomes both elegant and unnerving. The same country that increasingly doubts its political order is now being asked to use that order as the operating principle for technologies more powerful than any previous institution.

Many Americans, meanwhile, are trapped between two impulses: burn it all down or run for the hills. Almost nobody has a plausible alternative regime that could actually work here, much less arrive through a peaceful and orderly transition. People feel bereft of political options, which is one reason the hunger for some higher, almost spiritual answer keeps growing.

The trouble is that whatever spirituality emanates from the upper reaches of the tech world often combines the creepiest and least American aspects of the hippie and the nerd.

Zuckerberg’s answer is startlingly different. He is not proposing that superintelligence replace liberal democracy. He is proposing that the arrival of superintelligence may force Americans to recover it. The new computational powers will be so immense that only a political order committed to dispersed authority, pluralism, and limits can keep a handful of self-appointed global masters from remaking everyone in their own image.

RELATED: The path to America-first AI

Yunping liang/Getty Images

That is the real bet: AI does not redeem liberal democracy because the machines become wise. AI redeems it by making the alternatives intolerable.

It is a surprisingly elegant and tantalizing vision. But there is one catch. For it to work, Americans will have to treat AI the way they treat liberty itself — not as an accessory or afterthought, but as something woven into daily life. Maybe you personally can remain mostly outside it. But if most Americans do, Zuckerberg strongly implies, the country may not generate the distributed competence, power, and agency his model requires.

So Zuckerberg’s wager runs in both directions. Liberal democracy must discipline superintelligence. Superintelligence must revive liberal democracy. Each is supposed to save the other.

Maybe that circle is virtuous. Maybe it is impossible.

But Mark Zuckerberg has placed his bet. Now? It’s your turn.

On Saturday, August 8, the local government in Suisun City, California, completely froze. Hackers broke into the city's computers, locked down the system, and forced officials to call an emergency. Workers couldn’t access basic files, run local offices, or keep normal operations moving.

Two days later, on Monday, August 10, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced a brand-new "AI Cyber Defense Program." Newsom’s press team went into overdrive, boasting about this “first-in-the-nation” initiative. But being first is no guarantee of being good, and this plan is very bad.

Instead of sending immediate money or technical experts to fix broken local computers, Newsom’s big fix is to hire more bosses. He is telling state agencies to name an "AI cybersecurity officer" for every department and set up another state-level office. Small towns are getting hit by real ransomware today, and Sacramento’s answers are inflated job titles and publicity campaigns.

Hostile foreign governments view California's weak systems as prime targets.

This predictable act of layering yet more bureaucracy on top of California's morass is especially dangerous. Hostile foreign governments are actively targeting American infrastructure.

A tidal wave of danger

State-sponsored hackers from Russia, China, and Iran are scanning for weak spots in real time. These foreign adversaries are targeting the basic services that millions of Americans rely on every day.

Federal investigators recently uncovered Iranian-backed hackers targeting more than 30 water utilities across Minnesota. These terrorists would love nothing more than to bring America’s largest state to its knees. Imagine turning on the tap in your California kitchen and finding out the treatment plant was shut down by hackers operating out of Tehran or Beijing. Imagine a Russian cyber unit turning off the electricity grid during a 105-degree heat wave or freezing local 911 dispatch software so that emergency calls go unanswered. That is the real danger facing regular families.

Governor Newsom's response to this massive crisis is filled with fancy-sounding distraction programs designed to look good on paper while accomplishing virtually nothing. He boasts about a consumer web tool named DROP, which lets residents ask data brokers to delete their personal info; a worker study project called Engaged California; and an "Innovation Council" accelerator stacked with tech executives and academics.

None of these projects stop a hostile missile site or a foreign military cyber unit from locking down your neighborhood's water main. A small town trying to fix its emergency systems gets zero help from state-sponsored talking shops that focus on "listening at scale" while real-world servers burn.

When a city network gets locked, administrators need real-world backup teams, emergency funding, and simple hardware upgrades. They need basic password protections, isolated off-site backups, and physical network engineers, not empty political pledges about "responsible AI innovation." Telling an underfunded county government to hire an advisory officer is like handing a firefighter a pamphlet on fire safety while the building burns down around him.

RELATED: The latest cybercrime turns security systems against you — and there's no good defense

Robert Wicher/Getty Images

It shifts the burden to local workers who lack the cash to fix the problem, while Sacramento pats itself on the back for creating another layer of red tape. It’s cruel, and it’s reckless.

Sitting ducks

The state government collects hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars every year, yet leaves everyday infrastructure running on decade-old, unprotected software. California is home to the richest technology companies in the world, but your local city hall relies on systems that can be breached by a savvy teenager using off-the-shelf software. Hostile foreign governments from Moscow to Tehran know this, and they view California's weak local systems as prime targets to paralyze American life.

Imagine the chaos and the carnage. What happened in Suisun City, home to 29,000 people, was wake-up call enough. Now, imagine a blackout like that striking San Francisco, a city of over 810,000 residents on which America's tech security depends, or Los Angeles, a crucial logistics hub with a massive population approaching 3.9 million.

Power grids going dead for hours, cell towers dropping, and panicking residents realizing they are completely unable to contact 911 dispatch. Traffic lights instantly go dark, emergency response grinds to a total halt, and municipal services go offline overnight. Widespread looting, mass panic, and violent crime would spill across city streets within hours.

The movie "The Purge" was written as Hollywood fiction, but an automated, state-sponsored cyber strike on California’s crumbling public infrastructure could turn that apocalyptic nightmare into an immediate reality.

Sacramento should treat serious national security threats as existential threats. Instead, it reduces them to paperwork and procedure. When the next city's power or emergency lines freeze, Newsom will likely sign another executive order and announce another committee. California families deserve working water taps, reliable power lines, and real defenses against foreign enemies. They deserve a governor who takes their safety seriously and does everything in his power to ensure the state is prepared for the worst.

A year into the National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C., the Trump administration points to falling crime numbers as proof its "Safe and Beautiful" mission is working to reduce violent crime.

But the Center for American Progress, an openly progressive think tank, says the timeline tells a different story.

'Another Radical Left SCAM.'

The CAP's analysis found violent crime and murder rates were already falling sharply — 14% and 22% — across the 11 targeted cities before the first deployment. Its statistical model found no significant change tied to the deployment in Los Angeles or D.C., with the lone exception being Memphis, where an initial drop reversed within two months.

The CAP flags one caveat: The deployments overlapped with other federal and immigration enforcement surges, so the model can't isolate the Guard's effect from the others. The CAP says this fact makes the "no effect" finding more conservative, not less.

Chandler Hall, who authored the research, put it plainly on C-SPAN: "Both things can be true. Violent crime and homicides in the district absolutely are going down. ... That being said ... what our research meant to show was whether or not the deployments and the tactics the president is using to drive down crime have evidence to support their effectiveness. We find none."

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Kevin Carter/Getty Images

If there's anything about the Guard deployment that's actually working, Hall told NBC Washington, it's this: The visible presence may have deterred opportunistic, low-level street theft — phones, purses, crimes of convenience that a uniformed presence on a corner can spook someone out of attempting.

That's hard to square against the numbers the U.S. Marshals Service touted Monday: more than 16,000 arrests in the deployment's first year, including 35 homicide suspects, over 100 known gang members, and more than 3,200 narcotics arrests, plus nearly 2,000 firearms seized and 25 missing children recovered.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro says prosecutions are up 67% since she took the D.C. post.

The CAP's report — published under the "Advancing Racial Equity and Justice" section — calls on policymakers to "reject out of hand" the administration's public safety claims and argues the deployments' "primary goal was never to stop crime."

Trump responded to Hall by calling the CAP's research "another Radical Left SCAM," accusing its funders — including George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, and several major banks and corporations — of bankrolling "this gaggle of Lunatics" and saying he intends to sue and go after some of the group's contributors.

RELATED: Joe Scarborough freaks out after realizing who Democrats are getting into bed with

Mandel NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has previously acknowledged that Trump's takeover helped reduce crime — even signing an executive order encouraging cooperation with federal officials.

But marking one year since the surge began, Bowser last week called the continued Guard presence and immigration enforcement "problematic," crediting D.C.'s own Emergency Operations Center for the crime drop.

The D.C. deployment has been extended through 2029, and the administration's FY2027 budget request asks for $3 billion to "[Combat] Violent Crime in the Nation's Cities" — explicitly citing D.C. and Memphis as the model to expand nationwide.

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The Orange County Sheriff's Office released a video of a 44-year-old Florida man being led into a police cruiser after he was arrested for first-degree murder.

Jose L. Proano allegedly killed his elderly stepfather and dismembered his remains, which were found in suitcases near the man's home.

The arrest report said someone was recorded on surveillance video stuffing human remains into suitcases.

Jorge Vazquez-Escutia was reported to be missing from his home on Hal Court on Aug. 4.

An arrest report said that someone told police Proano had been threatening Vasquez-Escutia and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The report also said someone claiming to be Proano's friend had left a voicemail sent to the wife of Vasquez-Escutia claiming that Proano had killed him.

Deputies then canvassed the area near the missing man's home on foot and were able to find suitcases with multiple human remains.

The arrest report said someone was recorded on surveillance video stuffing human remains into suitcases.

"There are no outstanding suspects, and there is no threat to the community," said the sheriff's office.

The victim's neighbor Patrick Washington told WESH-TV that Vasquez-Escutia was known to be kind and helpful to others in the neighborhood.

"To hear that he's been found unalive, that's really close to home, because he was that neighborhood guy, we're talking about close to 20 years," Washington said.

"Gonna be touched to hear that one. Gonna be hurt," he added.

RELATED: 12-year-old girl found dead at her stepfather's home — and he's been charged with sexual assault

In the video posted by the sheriff's office on Facebook, Proano stared at the camera for a second before the officer slammed the door shut on the police cruiser.

"Our thoughts are with Mr. Vazquez-Escutia’s loved ones as they navigate this unimaginable loss," said the Sheriff's Dept.

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BlazeTV’s Sara Gonzales has been leading the charge of busting H-1B fraud in her home state of Texas. Because of Sara’s investigative reporting, multiple companies have faced heightened federal scrutiny and lawsuits over alleged visa abuse, Texas lawmakers and officials have pushed for stronger state-level oversight and investigations, and the issue has fueled broader national policy debates and proposed reforms aimed at curbing displacement of American workers.

But for all the success she’s achieved, Sara has no plans to hang up her hat.

On a recent episode of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” she teased that things are about to get really bad for people scamming the H-1B system in the state of Texas. It’s not just Attorney General Ken Paxton involved any more — Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito has now joined the fight.

- YouTube

“If you are an H-1B fraudster in this country, it is about to be a bad time for you, because the team-up they hoped would never happen — oh, it happened, and it is happening,” Sara warned.

She explains that she wasn’t in the studio recording episodes as she usually does.

“I was out in Texas in the streets with the inspector general of the Department of Labor, Anthony D'Esposito,” Sara shares.

The duo investigated several “ghost offices” in the Dallas area, one of which D’Esposito told Newsmax had “500 approved H-1B applications” but no signs of any business operations, along with some other questionable companies.

“You may see [D’Esposito] appearing in some of our H-1B investigation specials very soon — like maybe as soon as this weekend,” Sara teases.

“This is a huge one.”

To hear more about Sara and Anthony D’Esposito’s joint investigation and how you can watch the upcoming specials, check out the episode above.

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Two former NBA players are making a point at the WNBA’s expense. Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White have said they intend to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft. Their point is obvious: They are men, and the WNBA exists as a women’s league. Yet a culture that struggles to say what a woman is has made even an obvious distinction strangely difficult to state.

There is a stage in childhood development often described as “magical thinking.” A child has not yet learned to distinguish consistently between what he wishes, imagines, or says and what exists independently of his mind.

Children eventually learn that saying, ‘I’m a pirate,’ does not make them pirates. A healthy civilization would do well to remember the same lesson.

The child announces, “I’m a pirate!” and for the next hour he is Captain Blackbeard. Later, he is a knight. By dinner, perhaps he is George Washington.

This is charming in a 3-year-old. It becomes considerably less charming when adults and institutions adopt a similar theory of reality. If an adult insists that he is Napoleon despite all evidence to the contrary, we do not ordinarily conclude that his conviction has transformed reality.

Consider one of the central claims of transgender ideology: A person can be a woman because he identifies as a woman. The identification is treated not merely as a desire, preference, or psychological state but as establishing what the person actually is.

Notice the philosophical claim being made.

Ordinarily, thinking something does not make it so. If I believe I am 6'5'', my belief does not add inches to my height. If I announce that I am 25 years old, the state does not alter my birth certificate. If I sincerely identify as the king of England, Buckingham Palace is under no obligation to prepare my bedroom.

Reality stubbornly refuses to conform itself to my thoughts.

Yet transgender ideology asks others to treat a declaration of gender identity as authoritative. Pronouns change. Bathrooms change. Athletic categories change. Institutional policies change. Increasingly, disagreement with the underlying claim is treated not as a philosophical dispute but as a moral offense.

When medical intervention enters the picture, the same assumption is extended to the body itself: Healthy tissue may be altered so that the body more closely conforms to the asserted identity, and the alteration is presented as affirming the person’s true self.

The remarkable thing is that the identification can itself be fluid. Someone might identify as male at one time, female at another, or neither. The surrounding society is nevertheless expected to reorganize itself around each successive declaration. That is the absurdity White and Freedom are trying to expose by invoking the WNBA.

RELATED: Trans basketball player dominating French women’s league responds to calls to play in WNBA

Valery HACHE/AFP/Getty Images

Imagine our 3-year-old announcing, “I’m a pirate,” and the entire neighborhood immediately converting itself into a Caribbean port. When he announces an hour later that he is a knight, everyone rushes outside to build a castle.

We would recognize the problem immediately. The world does not become whatever someone currently imagines it to be.

This raises a much older philosophical question: What does it mean for one thing actually to become another?

Change is real. An acorn becomes an oak tree. A boy becomes a man. Water can become ice or vapor or, under carefully controlled conditions, all three at once. But not every imaginable change is possible. A giraffe cannot become a lizard. A whale cannot become a cow. Saying otherwise does not expand the possibilities of nature.

The biblical account of creation provides a foundation for understanding why. God creates things with definite natures. Genesis repeatedly describes living things reproducing “according to their kinds.” Creation contains enormous variation, but variation does not abolish nature.

Human beings likewise have a nature. “Male and female he created them,” Genesis 1:27 tells us. Men and women share a common human nature and are equally made in the image of God, but they are not interchangeable sexes.

Men vary enormously from one another. Women vary enormously from one another. A man may be tall or short, masculine or effeminate, athletic or bookish. A woman may possess any combination of personality traits, interests, abilities, and appearances. None of those variations turns one sex into the other.

This is where our culture has confused identity with reality.

Historically, truth has meant bringing our minds into conformity with what is. If I believe something false, reality is not required to change. I am required to change my belief. That’s how we distinguish what is real from what is merely asserted.

The contemporary revolution reverses the direction. Instead of requiring my mind to conform to reality, reality — and everyone around me — must conform to my mind.

Behind this error stands an ancient temptation.

The Greek sophist Protagoras famously declared that “man is the measure of all things.” Taken in its most radical form, that principle places the human knower rather than an objective order at the center of truth.

RELATED: Christian family seeks SCOTUS win against trans insanity in ‘case about swinging d**ks’

Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images

The biblical account takes us even further back. In Genesis 3, the serpent tempts Adam and Eve with the promise that they will “be like God,” determining good and evil for themselves.

The temptation is not merely to break a rule. It is to claim an authority that belongs to the Creator: the authority to determine reality and goodness for ourselves.

Some strands of modern critical theory give this temptation a contemporary vocabulary. Categories once understood as features of reality are redescribed as social constructions maintained by power. If human beings constructed the categories, the argument goes, human beings can reconstruct them.

But creation is not ours to reconstruct.

Christianity begins somewhere radically different: God is the measure of all things. God determines what exists because God created what exists. God determines human nature because God created humanity. God determines male and female because “male and female he created them.” And God determines what is good for us because God created our nature.

Our task, therefore, is not to demand that reality conform to our desires. It is to discipline our desires and beliefs according to reality.

That distinction reaches far beyond the transgender debate. A civilization cannot survive indefinitely if it teaches its citizens that sincere belief establishes truth and that everyone else must participate in maintaining the resulting claim.

Children eventually learn that saying, “I’m a pirate,” does not make them pirates.

A healthy civilization would do well to remember the same lesson.

The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly planning to spend millions to outfit Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents with gloves that can deliver an electric shock to targeted individuals.

The gloves were developed by Compliant Technologies LLC out of Lexington, Kentucky, and have already been deployed by police departments and some jails.

'If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool.'

A DHS notice published Monday says the agency is seeking to spend $20 million on the shocking gloves.

The devices are named G.L.O.V.E., an acronym for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. The manufacturer says the gloves function normally until the wearer activates the electrical mode. The glove must be in contact directly with the target's skin, and the shock typically incapacitates the target in seconds.

John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, studied the device and described its effects.

"It's immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting," said Peters. "If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool."

He went on to say the device could be misused but that it is unlikely to cause injuries.

"Unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject," said Compliant Technologies founder Jeff Niklaus in an email about the report.

The manufacturer said officers must complete a course on the gloves and be recertified every two years.

"For smaller officers or weaker officers or older officers, I think it has a great advantage" because it can produce faster takedowns and shorten confrontations," Peters added.

RELATED: Democratic governor signs 'strongest' anti-ICE legislation yet

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta of the American Civil Liberties Union warned that the gloves could be abused.

"ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do," Borchetta said. "Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public."

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Why has election integrity become one of the most divisive issues in American politics? According to BlazeTV host Nick Freitas, the answer is simple: One side doesn't want it.

“You want to make it so easy that it becomes incredibly easy to cheat,” Freitas says. “And more importantly, it becomes almost impossible to catch or prosecute cheating. That’s what you really want to do.”

“Right now we have a significant problem in the United States with two things," he explains. "One, we have a very, very disengaged electorate in many sectors that simply just shows up to vote based off of, 'Well, I thought this one had kind eyes.'"

“But then we have another class of voters that their entire thing is, ‘Who’s going to give me stuff at the expense of other people?’ And so when you are a net beneficiary of the bureaucracy, when you are a net beneficiary of wealth transfers from productive people to nonproductive people, you have a perverse incentive to vote for the people that are going to perpetuate that system,” he continues.

“So I am all about acknowledging that everybody voting is not necessarily a good thing for your country,” he adds.

And Freitas has something important that he wants Democrats to understand.

“When I actually see you guys concerned about the integrity of our elections, when I see you willing to actually put in proper safeguards to make sure that only citizens can vote, that they can only vote once. When I see you actually investigating in the cities that you control, when I see you investigating things that are obviously shady as hell,” he begins.

“When I see you guys looking at stuff like that going, ‘Yeah, that deserves to be investigated and potentially prosecuted,’ then I’ll believe you that all you want is for every eligible citizen to be able to participate in the process,” he continues.

“But I don’t believe that’s what you want,” he adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

A Republican congressional candidate says he was disinvited from a California convention in what is yet another episode of cancel culture.

Marty O'Donnell running as a Republican for Congress in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, but there is way more happening behinds the scenes than the typical congressional run.

'Propaganda from leftist supporters ...'

Tarnished halo

O'Donnell is considered video game royalty after he composed the legendary theme song for the Halo series, which has cumulatively sold more than 80 million copies.

That is why O'Donnell makes appearances at popular conventions, and this was no different for SacAnime, in Sacramento in September.

O'Donnell said online that he was set to make a 25th anniversary appearance at SacAnime to celebrate the game, but was told he is no longer invited due to staff at the event voicing concerns about their safety.

"The promoter for SacAnime has shared that his LGBTQ staff does not feel comfortable if you attend the event," the message shared by O'Donnell reads. "Based on your recently reported statements of the political campaign, they have to rescinded [sic] their invitation to not cause any further staff upset."

O'Donnell expressed his disappointment with the move, adding, "If you thought we defeated Cancel Culture in 2024, guess again!"

While it isn't clear what the event is referring to in particular, the cancellation comes following O'Donnell being put under the spotlight by Democrats last month.

The X account "HQNewsNow," formerly @KamalaHQ, shared a video of O'Donnell in July that purported to show him saying he "calls for persecuting LGBTQ+ people."

RELATED: 'The system is rigged': Congressional candidate Marty O'Donnell calls for cuts to 'bloated' federal government

Left behind

In the clip presented, O'Donnell says the following:

Talk about an existential threat — this is where we are right now. We are on the cliff looking down into the abyss. And the abyss is Marxism; it's anti-Western philosophy. There's a weird alliance of all these groups that like to pretend like they're oppressed. So the LGBTQ+ people, the Islamists, the Marxists, they’re all together now.

The page for Headquarters was actively used to promote Kamala Harris' 2024 presidential campaign. It was described at the time, according to Grok, as the official rapid-response page of Harris' campaign, posting ads, videos, and endorsements.

O'Donnell told Blaze News that the cancellation was based on "propaganda from leftist supporters of my political opponent."

"I'm disappointed I can't support my actor friends," O'Donnell added. "Folks who want to support me should contribute at MartyforCongress.vote."

RELATED: Legendary Halo composer unravels the video-game industry’s woke collapse

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Cut scene

SacAnime's most recent post promoting the event is riddled with remarks from O'Donnell supporters, who said, for example, "You guys are absolutely disgusting."

"Why would you disinvite a gaming industry legend," a woman asked on X.

"I'm seriously wondering if they even understand who pays them?" said another reply.

Headquarters could not be reached for comment.

SacAnime did not respond to a request for comment or confirmation surrounding O'Donnell's removal from the event.

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President Donald Trump has announced that the White House press secretary will be resigning at the end of the month but will continue advising his administration.

Karoline Leavitt has been a fiery presence at the White House podium since Trump returned for a second term, but after giving birth to her second child in May, she decided to resign from the post.

She was the first pregnant White House press secretary in U.S. history.

"Our wonderful White House Press Secretary, and one of my most trusted aides, Karoline Leavitt, will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect!" said the president in a post on Truth Social Wednesday.

The president said she will continue to be one of his top outside advisers.

Leavitt had just returned to the administration from maternity leave. She was the first pregnant White House press secretary in U.S. history.

She has a son named Nicholas Robert Riccio, and the newest addition to her family a girl is named Viviana.

"Karoline has been one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office. Thank you, Karoline, for a job well done!" the president concluded.

RELATED: Karoline Leavitt rips into WaPo for 'BS story' that Trump is angry with Hegseth

Leavitt, who turns 29 later this month, is also the youngest person to serve as White House press secretary.

She and her husband, Nicholas Riccio, were married in Jan. 2025. They have a 32-year gap between their ages, according to People magazine.

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A heroic police dog has made a triumphant return to a Florida sheriff's office after being shot and losing a leg while protecting deputies.

Angel Bowers, 27, was arrested and charged in March 2024 with allegedly having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl inside a children's "princess tent," according to KFOX-TV.

'Prayers are answered because Ace is alive and our deputies are uninjured.'

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Bowers was scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 3 but failed to appear. A judge revoked Bowers' bond and issued a felony warrant.

On Aug. 6, three Polk County Sheriff's Office deputies and K-9 Ace tracked down Bowers in a tent hidden in the woods, Judd stated in a press conference.

Police claimed Bowers began shooting at the officers, and one bullet hit Ace in his left shoulder, severely damaging his front leg and an artery.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office released audio of the moment that several shots were fired, and Ace can be heard whimpering in the background.

Citing the sheriff, KFOX reported that deputies returned fire, and Bowers was later found dead holding a stolen gun.

Ace's partner and handler, Polk County Sheriff's Office Deputy Natalie Oestreich, tended to the dog's wounds and whisked him to safety, the sheriff's office said, according to Fox News.

Ace, a 7-year-old German shepherd who has served with the Polk County Sheriff's Office since March 2020, was rushed to the Parkway Veterinary Emergency Clinic in Lakeland, Polk County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. Once stabilized, Ace was airlifted to the Veterinary Medical Center at Lakewood Ranch in Bradenton.

Fox News reported, "Veterinarians there performed a several-hour surgery to amputate his left front leg."

An emotional video shows a group of deputies giving Ace treats and applauding the K-9 as he walks out of the medical center under his own power while wearing a shirt that reads: "Ride or die."

RELATED: Florida sheriff tells homeowners how to handle looters: 'Shoot him so he looks like grated cheese'

On Tuesday, less than a week after being shot and losing his front leg, Ace returned to the sheriff's office to a hero's welcome.

"Look at Ace. He’s happy; he’s eating; he bit my finger,” Judd said.

"Listen, we're so proud of Natalie and Ace," Judd continued. "They stood in the gap between good and evil, and they saved three deputies’ lives. That’s why we’re so proud of him. He did so good, and we couldn't have done it without the handler — she is absolutely the very best .”

"Prayers are answered because Ace is alive and my deputies are not injured," Judd remarked.

Sadly, Ace was forced to retire because of his traumatic injuries. "Chill out and enjoy your retirement, Ace," Sheriff Judd said.

The sheriff's office said of Ace, "His days of chasing bad guys may be over, but Ace will always be one of our heroes!"

RELATED: Florida man wearing bra, fake breasts, G-string gets busted — but what cops found moments later raised more alarms: Police

Polk Sheriff’s Charities established a K-9 fund to help support Ace's care going forward.

The sheriff's office stated, "The Wiltse Family Trust has already informed us that they intend to cover the cost for Ace’s care at Veterinary Medical Center at Lakewood Ranch AND the Trust has already committed to purchasing a new K-9 to replace Ace now that he will have to retire."

Steve Wiltse, who founded the Wiltse Family Foundation in 2019 to support community heroes with his wife, said Ace's handler will not have to worry about "anything" in caring for the hero dog.

"That's what the foundation's there for, so it kind of makes it a no-brainer. It's there for events like that, so Natalie can worry about Ace," Wiltse told WTVT-TV. "She doesn't have to worry about where she's getting money; she doesn't have to worry about anything."

Mary Anne Wiltse added, "They keep us safe and protected, and if we can facilitate them with a tool to do that, then it's fulfilling."

"There's a litany of emotions you go through: grief, sorrow, excitement, happiness, because he's going to be OK," Mary Anne Wiltse noted. "He was able to save the lives of three officers."

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Newly released text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed a stark contrast between his private concerns and his public statements about COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy. While Fauci assured Americans in 2021 that roughly 20,000 vaccinated pregnant women had shown “no red flags,” private messages from the same period show him discussing potential risks.

“Since the EUA and under the EUA, approximately 20,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated with no red flags, as we say, and this is being monitored by the CDC and the FDA,” Fauci said in 2021.

However, texts from Dr. Fauci’s phone reveal a much different story.

“I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of. Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester,” he wrote.

Two weeks later, Fauci said, “[FDA] have found thus far, and we have to be careful, but thus far, no red flags about that, about pregnant women.”

BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere is disturbed by the contrast.

“So that’s what he was saying publicly, while showing those sorts of doubts privately. And honestly, whether you think the COVID vaccine was great or you think it was terrible, whatever you think, you shouldn’t be doing those two things,” Stu comments.

“The man was asking other people in these circles, other physicians, other researchers, to delete emails to hide them. That is absolutely a crime when you’re a government official,” he adds.

Co-host Dave Landau points out that that wasn’t all Fauci was doing.

“He was asking that people be fired, have their medical license taken away. He was saying that he was ‘the science,’ that he was the be-all, end-all of what this was supposed to be,” Dave says.

Dave also explains that several of his friends' wives miscarried after getting the COVID shot.

“I had three people text me yesterday because their wife miscarried after that booster,” he says.

“I talked to a person yesterday as well who had a similar situation," Stu says.

"That’s four, though, just at this table," says Dave.

"But again, that’s, you know, it’s anecdotal,” Stu says.

“That’s a rough anecdote,” Dave adds.

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NBC election guru Steve Kornacki had a very long election evening Tuesday that was capped off by a cringe-inducing coverage collapse.

Kornacki is known for his energizing staccato analysis of polling, but Tuesday's election was especially vexing for the fan-favorite pundit.

'I want you to know I hate, hate doing this to you, because I know you're here for the results.'

At one point he debated whether he had time to go to the bathroom before another tranche of data arrived to change a pivotal election.

"I have to ... do you know what I'm saying?" he said while gesturing.

"Well, I don't want anybody to go anywhere. I will run. It'll take two minutes! It's just I, you know, you understand, but I don't want — something just came in!" he said.

"What was it? [Francesca] Hong took the lead! Oh my! I almost went to the bathroom for that! OK!"

Many viewers lifted that moment from the network's "Kornacki Cam" coverage on YouTube.

The culmination of Kornacki's election divination shenanigans came when he apologized to the audience for ending his coverage after the results from Wisconsin were delayed by a massive error.

"We're kind of indefinitely waiting for them to get their act together here and get the sticks and bring them back and go on. And we got folks here who are working real late, and I don't think we wanna, you know, keep me here to, um, this could go 90 minutes. And it's 90 minutes of me saying, 'Have you heard of any other athletes running for Congress?'" he said as the night segued into morning.

"I want you to know I hate, hate doing this to you, because ... I know you're here for results," Kornacki added.

The blank look on a clearly exasperated Kornacki peppered with cringey broadcast silence was described by one social media user as the "most awkward 3.5 minutes of live air in NBC News history."

Video of that segment went viral on social media.

RELATED: MSNBC viewers spew hatred at Steve Kornacki for saying Walz wouldn't help Democrat ticket

In another video from a week ago, Kornacki accidentally spilled his water bottle onto his computer and short-circuited the monitor .

Despite the bizarre moments, or maybe because of them, Kornacki continued to be popular among election watchers.

"I love him. He’s the best. Never not watching Kornacki cam on an election night," responded one user.

"Kornacki is truly an amazing human being! Love him!' said another.

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The Justice Department's criminal lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center has expanded to an indictment against a former official.

Heidi L. Beirich served as director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project from 2012 until 2019, as previously reported by Blaze News, and is accused of overseeing a field agent who "infiltrated" a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance.

'This FBI will find anyone who exploits the trust of the American people and our financial system.'

Beirich was also allegedly in a romantic relationship with the field source.

Her attorney, Michael Proctor, confirmed that she was indicted Wednesday and was scheduled to appear in court in Riverside, California, later that day, according to the Associated Press.

Beirich is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, according to the DOJ.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel posted on social media about the superseding indictment.

"As alleged, Heidi Beirich was at the center of our ongoing investigation into SPLC and their previously alleged criminal activity — where SPLC knowingly misled donors, who believed their money was being used to dismantle violent extremist organizations — when in fact, part of those donations were instead being used to pay senior leadership within those extremist groups," he wrote.

"This is an ongoing investigation. This FBI will find anyone who exploits the trust of the American people and our financial system," he added.

"A free and fair society does not use the justice system to silence its political opponents," said Proctor.

The SPLC, based in Alabama, has denied the allegations and accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the federal government against its political enemies.

RELATED: 'You have to be out of your f***ing mind': Eric Adams rips into Mamdani aide over white supremacist comment

After leaving the SPLC in 2020, Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and has testified before Congress about right-wing extremism. She has also appeared on numerous news programs to opine as an expert on political extremism.

A statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Alabama indicated that Beirich lives in Palm Springs, California.

Newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that more arrests are expected in the case.

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U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a daughter of immigrants who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, appears desperate to undermine the Trump administration at every opportunity — even at the expense of American election security.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March aimed at protecting "the integrity of the mail as a medium for transmitting Federal election ballots and establish[ing] uniform standards for mail-in or absentee ballot services implemented through the United States Postal Service."

'The district court's erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government's ability to implement Section 3.'

The USPS subsequently issued a proposed rule that would implement best practices in accordance with the order, including a process that would help "evidence how many ballots have been mailed and allow law enforcement officials to compare the total number of mailed ballots to the total number of received ballots to detect potential issues meriting further investigation."

The threat of higher standards was evidently too much to bear for liberal activist groups and various blue states.

Twenty-three Democratic-run states led by California and the District of Columbia challenged Trump's executive order, claiming several parts of it violated the separation of powers, the Elections and Electors Clauses, and the 10th Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine.

Talwani ruled in June that the executive order did not apply in the blue states that raised the fuss and granted them a permanent injunction.

RELATED: Christian family seeks SCOTUS win against trans insanity in 'case about swinging d**ks'

US Solicitor General D. John Sauer. Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images.

In a separate but related case overseen by Talwani, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and other liberal advocacy groups sued the government, claiming that sections 2 and 3 of the EO were unconstitutional and violated their members' rights to vote.

On Tuesday, the Obama judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS from "implementing, giving effect to, or enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order No. 14399, with respect to the November 3, 2026, or any earlier federal election."

Section 3 of Trump's EO requires that all outbound ballot mail must be in an envelope that:

• is marked as official election mail;
• is automation-compatible and bears a unique intelligent mail barcode; and
• has undergone a design review by the USPS to ensure compliance with agency mailing standards.

Section 3 also gave states until 60 days prior to the midterm elections to notify the USPS whether they intend to submit to the agency a list of eligible voters — with their eligibility confirmed on the basis of citizenship data — whom they intend to provide a mail-in or absentee ballot via the postal service.

The activist judge wrote, "Where the EO is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy, the court finds that enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation."

"That it is now less than 90 days before the November 3, 2026, midterm elections underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election," added Talwani.

The Trump administration — which asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the first of the two cases before Talwani on July 27 — asked again for a stay on Wednesday, stressing that the Obama judge's order in the League of Women Voters of Mass v. Trump case "violates well-established Article III standing and ripeness requirements for all the same reasons as its prior orders."

"Courts cannot enjoin implementation of an executive order that merely instructs agencies to pursue a proposed policy in a manner that is consistent with law, while leaving open material issues for them to resolve, unless and until those agencies actually take concrete actions that injure the plaintiffs," wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

Sauer noted that barring a stay from the high court, "the district court's erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government's ability to implement Section 3 of the executive order for the federal elections in November, thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity."

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