President Trump was reportedly stunned to find out that the new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may be gay.

According to sources, Trump was so shocked upon hearing the information that he even laughed when he was briefed on the development.

And Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck’s reaction isn’t much different.

“Did you see that the ayatollah’s son might be gay?” Glenn asks BlazeTV host Pat Gray on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“Yes,” Gray answers, adding, “Which is impossible of course, because there’s no gay people in Iran, right?”

And according to former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Gray is right.

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals,” Ahmadinejad claimed in 2007, as homosexual conduct is illegal in Iran.

“He’s not apparently really a devout Muslim, because he’s [allegedly] having sex with men, apparently,” Glenn says.

“And that might be why his dad wasn’t that excited about him taking over,” Gray chimes in, adding, “Because he’s gay.”

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In recent years, the national conversation has drifted toward the Arctic and the geopolitical contest unfolding there. Greenland pops into the headlines as a strategic prize for the United States. But the truth is, we already hold the most important ground for early warning, deterrence, and defeat of airborne threats: Alaska.

No other place on American soil combines geography, infrastructure, military capacity, and testing range in a way that can anchor what defense planners call the “Golden Dome” — a multilayered, 21st-century shield against missile and air-launched threats.

From the polar sky to the missile fields below, Alaska stands as the nation’s shield — strong, tested, and ready.

For conservatives who believe in peace through strength, constitutional defense, and American sovereignty, Alaska is not just valuable; it is indispensable.

The geographic high ground

Alaska’s advantage begins with location. At the top of the world, it sits astride the northern approaches that matter in great-power competition. When Russia or China run long-range aviation patrols, they do not approach through Florida or California. They come over polar routes.

For decades, the Alaska NORAD Region has met them first. American and Canadian forces have executed countless intercepts, sending a message that never changes: We see you. You will not approach unnoticed.

That deterrence does real work. It prevents miscalculation. It keeps pressure off the rest of the country. Alaska makes that possible by standing watch on America’s northern frontier.

Building the Golden Dome

Homeland defense now faces threats that do not fit Cold War assumptions. Hypersonic glide vehicles, low-flying cruise missiles, and next-generation systems demand fast detection, precise tracking, and long-range defeat.

A Golden Dome won’t be a single system. It will require an integrated network of sensors, communications, long-range radar, interceptors, and command and control.

Alaska already hosts critical pieces of that architecture: early-warning infrastructure, long-range radar, secure communications, and the operational footprint to integrate new systems quickly. Fort Greely anchors an established missile defense mission, with layered capability aimed at threats inside and outside the atmosphere. That foundation allows faster expansion than any “build-it-from-scratch” option elsewhere.

Closing the gaps

Coastal coverage can track many high-altitude threats. Low-altitude cruise missile detection presents a harder challenge, because adversaries design these systems to fly fast and low and to exploit radar limitations.

The Army’s Long-Range Persistent Surveillance system offers a proven way to close those gaps. Alaska’s geography provides a vantage point no other state can match across northern air corridors.

Detection only matters when response follows. Alaska maintains frontline intercept forces today, including fifth-generation fighter squadrons. A Marine Corps presence in Alaska also supports a mobile ground-based air defense mission that can move to critical nodes and build resilient, flexible layers.

A responsive homeland air defense posture starts with geography. Alaska supplies it.

RELATED: America’s next-gen weapons face a down-to-earth foe: The elements

DAVID MCNEW/AFP/Getty Images

The world’s premier testing ground

Missile defense depends on systems tested, refined, and validated under realistic conditions. Alaska offers a unique advantage: the largest live-ordnance range on Earth.

That range supports testing and training at scale — emerging radar and sensor concepts, counter-hypersonic development, and joint-force exercises in conditions that mirror the northern environment where homeland defense may be decided.

Alaska lets the U.S. test what it builds and field what it tests in the same strategic space.

America’s shield, ready today

Alaska is more than a strategic location. Alaska is a living, operating defense ecosystem.

With infrastructure already in place, the latest technologies ready for deployment, multilayered detection systems available, and unmatched training and testing ranges at our disposal, Alaska stands ready to detect and defeat airborne threats long before they reach American cities.

Every investment that strengthens Alaska’s surveillance, detection, and intercept capacity multiplies security across the country. In an era of tight budgets and rising instability, that is exactly the kind of smart national defense conservatives should demand: protect American lives and territory by leveraging American assets that already work.

Other places capture attention. Alaska carries the burden. It remains the geographic high ground of missile defense, the first line of deterrence, and the proving ground for the systems America needs next. From the polar sky to the missile fields below, Alaska stands as the nation’s shield — strong, tested, and ready.

After nominating James Talarico for the Senate in Texas, are Democrats now racists and misogynists?

It’s a reasonable question. Democrats chose James Talarico, a white man, over Jasmine Crockett, a black woman. That choice also collides head-on with what Democrats told the country after Kamala Harris lost the presidency: that racism and misogyny decided the outcome.

Democrats can’t keep changing the rules depending on who wins.

In Texas’ recent Democratic Senate primary, Talarico, a member of the Texas House since 2018, faced Crockett, a two-term member of Congress from Texas’ 30th District. On paper, Crockett looked like the stronger Democrat brand: a young, outspoken black woman with far left-wing views and national visibility.

Yet Talarico won handily, 53% to 45%, after a primary season marked by intraparty drama — including fights that centered on race.

If identity politics commands the party, the result looks odd. Even sympathetic Democratic observers described the two candidates as ideologically similar. MSNBC analyst John Heilemann said Talarico is “not a moderate” and that he and Crockett held “basically the same positions on almost every issue.” In other words, voters didn’t choose a centrist over a firebrand. They chose one firebrand over another — and they chose the white male.

Democrats will reply that the answer is “electability.” They’ll say Talarico gives them a better shot in November. Maybe that’s what many primary voters believed. But Democrats have spent years insisting that “electability” talk is often a cover for bias, a way to push women and minorities aside while keeping the old hierarchies intact.

That’s why the question won’t go away.

Democrats routinely portray themselves as the party most attuned to race and sex. The 2024 numbers underline that self-image: Exit polls showed Harris won overwhelming support from black voters and strong support from women, including black women. Democrats treat those blocs as moral proof of the party’s mission.

They also treated Harris’ loss as moral proof of the country’s failure.

Former President Joe Biden blamed the 2024 defeat on sexism and racism, saying voters “went the sexist route” and wouldn’t accept “a woman of mixed race.” When candidates for DNC chairman were asked whether racism and misogyny played a role in Harris’ defeat, all eight raised their hands. David Axelrod said bluntly that the campaign included appeals to racism and that “anybody” who thinks bias didn’t affect the outcome is wrong.

Rank-and-file Democrats echoed the claim. NBC News’ post-election interviews featured Democrat voters attributing Harris’ loss to the country’s unwillingness to elect a woman, with race layered on top. “Regardless of race,” one black Democrat from Pittsburgh said, “they didn’t want her to win.”

RELATED: James Talarico found a verse — and twisted the meaning

Mark Felix/Bloomberg/Getty Images

So Democrats have made this argument, loudly and repeatedly: When a woman loses at the top of the ticket, the country’s sexism and racism bear much of the blame.

Then Texas Democrats faced their own test. They could nominate the black woman — especially in a race where ideology wasn’t the separating line — and they didn’t.

Democrats might point out that Harris flamed out early in the crowded 2020 presidential primary and that the party still elevated her to vice president and then the 2024 nomination. That’s true. But that history cuts both ways. It suggests Democrats will showcase race and sex when it serves the coalition — and set it aside when it doesn’t.

And this time, they aren’t even pretending they didn’t set it aside.

Talarico’s profile rose fast, aided by a national media moment. Stephen Colbert posted an interview online after CBS declined to air it over “equal time” concerns, and the clip drew millions of views. The controversy boosted Talarico’s visibility and fundraising — and helped turn a state primary into a national narrative.

Democrats are now framing their choice as pragmatic. They’re saying: We picked the candidate who can win.

Fine. But Democrats don’t get to treat “electability” as an illegitimate dog whistle when Republicans use it — then invoke it as a clean, neutral justification when Democrats do.

Here’s the bottom line: When America chose Trump over Harris in 2024 — in a race with major policy contrasts — Democrats blamed racism and misogyny. When Texas Democrats chose a white male over a black woman in 2026 — in a race Democrats say offered little substantive contrast — the party expects everyone to treat it as smart strategy.

That double standard is the point.

Either identity is decisive and bias explains outcomes — or voters, including Democrat voters, sometimes make other calculations and deserve to be treated like adults.

Democrats can’t keep changing the rules depending on who wins.

America is only months away from celebrating its quarter-millennial birthday — officially billed as “America 250” and even, in some quarters, a “Super Centennial.” But will America make it another 50 years, all the way to its tricentennial? Even as President Trump wages an existential conflict abroad, another one rages at home.

Without question, the country has lived a long and remarkable life. But the world also knows it has not been free of grave danger. Go back 165 years to the Civil War, and you’ll find proof that the American experiment can wobble — and nearly break.

‘We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.’

Even at the nation’s birth, the outcome was not guaranteed. The men who signed their names to independence did so knowing that the newborn republic could be stillborn. In the eyes of King George III, they were committing treason.

That fragility hit me again recently on one of my many walks through Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in my neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow, New York. Sleepy Hollow is the final resting place of captains of industry — families such as the Rockefellers and Carnegies — as well as Washington Irving, America’s first internationally recognized literary giant.

Inside the cemetery’s borders stand monuments commemorating the dead of both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. They are stark reminders of how fragile a nation’s life can be.

The words carved on the Revolutionary monument still land with force.

Photo by Albin Sadar

1776 — 1783
In Memory
of the
OFFICERS and SOLDIERS
of the
REVOLUTION
who by their valor
sustained the cause of liberty
and independence
on these historic fields.

While we honor the dead, we should remember the courage of the living — including those too old to take up arms themselves. When Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence, an act of treason in the eyes of the Crown, he is said to have offered a grim assessment: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

That line came rushing back when Susan Rice laid out what amounts to a warning shot about the next round of political retribution. On a recent podcast, Rice promised a reckoning for those who “take a knee to Trump,” and she made clear that Democrats, once back in power, will not "play by the old rules.”

Her message was simple: Align yourself with Trump — or with the tens of millions who support him — and your time “is not going to end well.”

For anyone who watched what happened to people swept up in the post-Jan. 6 dragnet, the implication is not subtle. The left’s appetite for lawfare is real. And it rarely stops with the obvious actors. It metastasizes. It broadens. It looks for new targets.

So what can derail the Democrats’ destructive engine?

The answer may be hiding in Franklin’s line: Hang together.

RELATED: America at 250

Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

President Trump has made two standards central to national survival: secure borders and honest elections. The border is more secure than it has been in years. But Congress still hasn’t delivered the SAVE America Act — and that failure matters.

Within months of July 4, 2026, Americans will again head to the polls. The choices will be stark, and Democrats will not be shy about what they want: revenge, institutional capture, and a reset of the country on their terms.

Two things now matter, and they are not complicated. First, patriots must keep pressure on elected officials to pass the SAVE America Act. Second, they must show up and vote in overwhelming numbers this November. Nobody gets to sit this one out.

That’s how Republicans keep their majorities. That’s how Trump’s agenda survives. And that’s how the country avoids another round of “fundamental transformation” — imposed by people who have already told you they plan to discard the old restraints.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.

A man who committed many "depraved" acts of child molestation was given a record long sentence after being convicted for numerous child sex abuse crimes in Tennessee.

Walter Lucian Lewis, 32, was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility of parole, with another 60 years in prison added, according to the Sumner County District Attorney's Office.

'This behavior will not be tolerated in Sumner County, and you will be held accountable for your crimes.'

The Sumner County Sheriff's Office began its investigation into Lewis after hearing from two children that he had touched them inappropriately.

Lewis told them to keep the incidents a "secret," according to the children, who also claimed to have witnessed him molesting a third child. One of the victims was 5 years old during the abuse.

Police said follow-up interviews with the children led them to believe Lewis had molested them in periods in 2024 as well as 2025. They also determined that he had sexually abused a child in 2022 in Rutherford County.

When they confronted him at his Portland house, police said Lewis barricaded himself in a bathroom with a 1-year-old child hostage. After police gained entry, Lewis stabbed himself in the neck with a knife in an apparent attempt to commit suicide.

Deputies found the child unharmed in the bathtub and were able to subdue Lewis. He was hospitalized for treatment.

Lewis was convicted of a slew of crimes as follows:

• Continuous sexual abuse of a child;
• Three counts of aggravated rape of a child;
• Aggravated sexual battery;
• Especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor;
• Sexual exploitation of a minor;
• Especially aggravated kidnapping; and
• Aggravated assault on a first responder.

The sentence given to Lewis was the longest one handed out in Sumner County for abuse-related crimes. It's also the first sentence given without the possibility of parole in the county.

RELATED: California couple sentenced for 'monstrous' abuse of sons after decapitating other two children

"Walter Lewis' depraved actions have negatively impacted the lives of multiple children and their families. Our community is now safer because he will spend the rest of his life behind bars," District Attorney General Thomas Dean said in the statement from the end of February.

"This sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who may wish to follow in Mr. Lewis' footsteps: This behavior will not be tolerated in Sumner County, and you will be held accountable for your crimes," he continued.

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A growing identity crisis is shaking the conservative movement, as longtime tensions between grassroots audiences and establishment voices boil over in our increasingly digital age.

According to BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre, the chaos is driven by years of mistrust built first between the mainstream media and their own audiences, and now between conservative institutions and their audiences.

“To say that the conservative movement has come off the rails would comically understate the damage,” MacIntyre begins.

“Plenty of commentators blame podcasts for this new disorder, and the new ecosystem gives them no shortage of bad behavior to cite. But that diagnosis misses the deeper cause,” he says, pointing out that the “deeper cause” is, conservatives are now replicating the legacy media’s attitude toward their listeners.

“Establishment conservatives treated their audience the same way the legacy press did: as a resource to be managed, manipulated, and occasionally milked. A movement that spent decades being lied to will not be stitched back together by scolding the people who finally stopped listening,” MacIntyre says.

“Democrats screamed about disinformation, warned about the dangers of free speech, and then launched research projects designed to replicate what they claimed to hate. The right cheered the upheaval. Establishment conservatives, however, never fully grasped what the shift meant for them,” he continues.

“Trump didn’t rise only as a battering ram against progressive media. He rose as a middle finger to conservative establishment media as well. That plan worked and then kept working in ways that many people didn’t anticipate,” he adds.

Now, MacIntyre explains, “conservative gatekeepers” are mimicking the “panicked reflexes the left showed” as they accuse others of “dangerous rhetoric,” call for “deplatforming,” and ask for “responsible voices to regain control.”

“These instincts never belong to one ideology. They belong to institutions that sense their monopoly slipping away,” he says.

Now, MacIntyre is warning conservatives that they “can’t lecture podcast audiences about responsible broadcasting after years of manipulating their own viewers.”

“The level of mistrust runs too deep. Censorship will fail too. Shaming and platform policing didn’t rebuild credibility for Democrats, and it’s not going to rebuild credibility for Republicans, either,” he adds.

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Radical progressives love to say the United States has no culture of its own — only whatever happens to be popular at the moment. If America amounts to little more than a consumer brand, then why do so many anti-American activists talk less about tweaking our politics and more about erasing Western civilization altogether?

America isn’t distilled water. It carries a civilizational inheritance. That fact explains why the people who hate the American project so often hate Western civilization writ large.

A country can’t treat open hostility to its civilizational foundations as harmless expression while expecting those foundations to survive.

A case in point: Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian activist and apologist for Islamic jihad who led a coalition at Columbia University called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The group’s stated goal is the “total eradication of Western civilization.” That goal raises the obvious question: Why the West? Why not simply “America”?

Because, for many activists in this mold, America represents the West at full strength — the most successful expression of the Western tradition.

America as the West’s culmination

In “The Roots of American Order,” Russell Kirk argued that the United States fused traditions from key centers of Western thought and life: Jerusalem gave us a Judeo-Christian moral order and the idea of covenant under God. Athens bequeathed reasoned inquiry and ordered thought. Rome passed down republican government and the rule of law. London developed parliamentary practice and secure property rights under the common law.

In Philadelphia, America’s founders combined those inheritances into a constitutional republic built around Judeo-Christian concepts of contract, incorporation, property, and ordered liberty. Put simply, America did not emerge from nothing. It grew out of a specific civilizational soil.

Why the West wins — and gets blamed

Many non-Western societies struggle under political and economic systems that concentrate power, block opportunity, and punish initiative. When institutions work well in those places, they often resemble Western inheritances: stable law, predictable property rights, accountable governance.

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, the authors of “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,” summarized the phenomenon in more politically correct terms, arguing:

Nations fail primarily because of extractive political and economic institutions that concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few elites, stifling innovation, incentives, and broad-based economic growth. Unlike inclusive systems that foster prosperity, extractive regimes discourage investment and education, creating a "vicious cycle" of poverty and political instability.

That reality should invite honesty. Instead, it often produces resentment.

Under the reigning narrative, Western culture becomes “colonization,” “genocide,” and “taking” — a catch-all scapegoat for failures at home. That story also ignores inconvenient facts, including that Western colonialism had a relatively brief modern run and that many Western countries ultimately divested themselves of empires while insisting — at least in principle — on freedom and sovereignty.

So the West gets blamed for the world’s troubles, while the West remains the place millions still want to move to.

RELATED: What will replace the old world order?

Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

Importing anti-Western radicalism

That leaves America with a growing problem: activists and migrants who embrace America’s freedoms while rejecting the civilization that produced them.

The Trump administration sought to remove Khalil, arguing that his presence created “adverse foreign policy consequences.” An activist judge later ordered his release from detention, and the useful idiot New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) publicly celebrated him at Gracie Mansion.

Whatever one thinks of that specific case, the larger principle holds: A country can’t treat open hostility to its civilizational foundations as harmless expression while expecting those foundations to survive.

A nation that loses confidence in its roots will not protect them — and a nation that refuses to protect them will not keep them.

If the United States wants to survive beyond President Trump’s current term, it needs to recover a healthy pride in its Western inheritance and shape immigration policy with that reality in mind. A society that invites people who openly seek its destruction invites its own decline.

A man who formerly worked as a principal at an Oregon high school was convicted on child porn charges after he was placed on paid leave for comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.

Jeremy P. Williams, 50, was on paid leave when he was arrested in Sept. 2025 on numerous charges, according to a letter written by Rainier School District superintendent Chad Holloway.

He was charged with possessing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit content, as well as distribution of the same.

He resigned as principal in Nov. 2025 and was getting paid $99.5K in his last year.

Police said they were informed by alerts from a social media site about the illicit images connected to an account used by a resident of Longview, Washington.

Investigators obtained warrants to confirm that the account belonged to Williams and then served a search warrant at his home to confiscate computers, phones, and other digital storage devices.

He was charged with possessing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit content, as well as distribution of the same.

Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Thad Scudder sentenced Williams to five years and one month in prison after he was convicted in February. He must also serve three years of probation, pay $3K in court fees, and register as a sex offender.

None of the images were of students from the high school, police say.

RELATED: Child sex abuse material found on PE teacher's phone after he inappropriately touched students, police say

Investigators said more than 30 child sex abuse images were found on his devices. One involved a 6-month-old child.

A reporter for the Daily Chronicle in Longview said Williams previously boasted about winning awards for writing erotic fiction.

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A South Carolina prison inmate handed a judge a "wad" of counterfeit cash to pay his trespassing bond — and then told the judge to "keep the change," the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office said.

Officials on Monday said an inmate at the Chesterfield County Detention Center was charged with forgery after the incident.

With that, instead of a relatively minor charge of trespassing, Alexander soon was charged with counterfeit money/forgery, the sheriff's office said.

A judge said he had set bond for inmate Patrick Alexander, 33, of Mississippi in the amount of $250 on a trespassing charge, officials said.

After being given his personal property, Alexander reportedly "removed a wad of money, sorted through the bills, and handed the judge" three $100 bills — and then told the judge to “keep the change," officials said.

As you can imagine, the judge wasn't impressed by the suspect's supposed generosity.

Instead, the judge told Alexander he "could not keep the change and, while holding the money, noticed the color of the bills appeared unusual," the sheriff's office said.

Upon further inspection, the judge observed Chinese writing on the back of the bills, officials said.

A detention officer then checked the bills using a counterfeit detection pen, and that revealed the bills were counterfeit, the sheriff's office said.

Alexander then was informed the currency was fake, and the judge instructed the detention officer to hold the money as evidence, officials said.

RELATED: Video shows Texas man shoot up meat market after worker refuses to accept counterfeit $50 bill: 'Watch what's gonna happen'

Image source: Chesterfield County (S.C.) Sheriff's Office

With that, instead of a relatively minor charge of trespassing, Alexander soon was charged with counterfeit money/forgery, the sheriff's office said.

A warrant was obtained and served on Alexander at the Chesterfield County Detention Center, the sheriff's office noted.

"Under South Carolina Code § 16-13-10 (Forgery), it is unlawful for a person to falsely make, forge, or counterfeit, or knowingly assist in the making or counterfeiting of any writing or instrument," officials said.

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Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey has been reportedly subpoenaed in the investigation into a "grand conspiracy" against President Donald Trump.

The development was confirmed by two sources with knowledge of the situation who spoke to Axios. It was also reported by NBC News, which cited two sources as well.

'No one is above the law. ... We will follow the facts in this case.'

The "grand conspiracy" investigation is targeting top officials from the former Biden and Obama administrations, according to the sources, and has produced more than 130 subpoenas.

The subpoena against Comey reportedly relates to the infamous Intelligence Community Assessment about Russian election interference that was sent in January 2017.

The investigation into the grand conspiracy is being led by U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones from the Southern District of Florida.

Comey was indicted in Sept. 2025 by a grand jury for allegedly abusing his office out of political motivation.

"No one is above the law," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement following the indictment. "Today's indictment reflects this Department of Justice's commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case."

That was dismissed after a judge found in Nov. 2025 that Trump had improperly appointed Lindsey Halligan, his personal attorney, to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Justice Dept. has appealed that ruling.

RELATED: Trump rips into Comey over seashell message: 'He knew exactly what he was doing!'

Comey made headlines in May 2026 when he snapped a photo of shells on a beach that many took to be a threat against Trump. After posting the image on social media, he denied knowing that the message could be taken as a threat.

"He knew exactly what that meant," Trump said about the incident. "A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant? That meant assassination."

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A major political shake-up unfolded in Illinois as progressives whose views align with those of "the Squad" were dealt a decisive blow in recent Democratic primaries.

According to BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere, the losses highlight growing fractures within the Democratic Party, particularly between establishment figures and the party’s far-left flank associated with the likes of Jasmine Crockett, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“What we saw in Illinois was a situation where you’ve got obviously a bright, bright, bright blue state, right? This is the bluest of the blue basically where, you know, you can kind of do whatever you want if you’re a Democrat,” Stu begins.

“So, you have these factions of the Democratic Party warring with each other. They’re fighting, they’re going back and forth trying to take control. Of course, one of the big groups that is trying to do that is the sort of Squad left,” he continues.

“The Squad left,” Stu explains, is the “AOC left.”

“Someone who’s very, very socialist leaning, very, very anti-Israel, very, you know, pro-abortion and trans, everything as far as you can go,” he says.

“And they had a play here in Illinois. They had a chance to do something. They had a chance to move the needle a little bit, and it did not work,” he says, referencing an article by Axios titled, “The ‘Squad’ left suffers complete wipeout in Illinois.”

“The left suffered a virtually total collapse in the Illinois Democratic congressional primaries on Tuesday night — even in races where the AIPAC-backed candidate lost,” the article reads.

“It’s a bad sign for the dozens of insurgent Democrats running in congressional races across the country, both in open seats and as primary rivals to older or more establishment-oriented incumbents,” it continues.

“AIPAC is like, I don’t know, they’re supposedly the ultimate villains of all the world right now because, you know, a lot of people even on the right, certainly plenty on the left, are blaming them for pushing us into war with Iran and, you know, all sorts of different things,” Stu explains.

Stu notes that AIPAC was “very excited” about Illinois’ results, as “they put a lot of money into these races to try to stop very hardcore anti-Israel candidates from winning those primaries.”

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On March 17, Joe Kent resigned from his position as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in protest over the Trump administration’s ongoing war in Iran. He claimed he could not “in good conscience” support the conflict, arguing that Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. and that the war was started due to pressure from Israel and its American lobby.

BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler was taken aback when she read Kent’s accusatory letter.

“This is a very big claim that Joe Kent is making,” she says.

On this episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” Liz unpacks Kent’s letter and explains why she’s skeptical of its contents.

“He is making the allegation that President Trump was duped ... with false information into embarking on this military operation in Iran, and he claims that this trickery happened at the hands of Israel and the Israeli lobby in the United States,” she says, summarizing the allegations listed in his letter.

“He further claims that there is no evidence in the intel community, which he would be aware of as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, of an Iranian threat,” she adds, calling it “the scandal of the century” if proved true.

Liz is unwilling to entertain Kent’s claims until he can provide hard evidence.

“Where’s the evidence of this?” she asks. “If you are so certain that President Trump’s military operation in Iran is essentially based on manipulation by the Israelis and that Iran posed no threat, ... shouldn’t you show us evidence of this?”

While Liz welcomes a “whistleblower,” she demands the “receipts.”

“If you make a claim of this enormity — I mean, the implications of a claim like this being true would shake our nation — then you owe us the receipts. You need to show us the evidence of this,” she insists.

But Kent’s lack of evidence isn’t the only cause of Liz’s skepticism.

She considers his recent podcast appearances a calculated “media tour” on which he speaks only to hosts who are the “least likely to ask the most important questions.”

“To go on a media tour insinuates one of two things,” she says, “that either you have information of severe corruption — so severe that it could not be remedied internally — that you have to take this to the American people rather than go the legal whistleblower route internally in the intelligence community, or there’s some kind of other attention that is being sought.”

Liz acknowledges Kent’s traumatic history — he “lost his first wife” to “an ISIS suicide bomber”; however, the information she currently has makes her believe that Kent is “behaving as an opportunist.”

To hear more of her analysis, watch the full episode above.

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A reporter trying to scare voters on the SAVE America Act got a crushing response from Vice President JD Vance at a stop in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Thursday.

Craig Mauger of the Detroit News asked Vance to respond to comments made by President Donald Trump that he might order the federal takeover of elections to ensure voter integrity.

Vance joked that they had no plans to send Secretary of State Marco Rubio to count ballots in Michigan.

"There's a lot of concern and talk in Michigan right now ahead of this pivotal midterm election that the federal government might somehow intervene in the administration of the election here in this state," said Mauger.

"Do you have any promises that you would make that the federal government will not intervene in any way in this election, or what would you tell people in Michigan who are concerned about that?" he asked.

Vance said it was the first time he had heard about possible federal intervention in elections and asked him to clarify the question.

"I believe the president has talked about nationalizing elections in recent months himself," Mauger responded.

"If what you mean by ‘intervening in the election’ is that we want everybody to have a voter ID before voting in this country, yes, we should be doing that, to be clear," Vance responded.

He received great applause and USA chants from the event audience.

Vance joked that they had no plans to send Secretary of State Marco Rubio to count ballots in Michigan and added that they had no intention to intervene in elections.

"I don't think so. I haven't talked to the president or Marco about it, but look, there's a lot of scare tactics," Vance responded.

"If you believe, as I do, that the American people are sovereign in their own country, then you have to believe that their vote should be protected, and the only way to fully protect their vote is to prevent fraudsters from coming and voting in American elections," he added.

RELATED: 'Dead on arrival': Chuck Schumer says Dems will 'go all out' to defeat voter ID bill

Mauger appeared to be referring to comments made by Trump in February, when he said that "the federal government should get involved" in elections by sending "agents of the federal government to count the votes" in cities that included Detroit.

"A state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway," Trump said to reporters. "But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is."

Video of the interaction was widely circulated on social media where it garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested several criminal illegal aliens, including those with convictions for murder and child sexual abuse.

A Department of Homeland Security press release obtained by Blaze News highlighted five arrests made by ICE on Wednesday.

'President Trump has been clear: If you break the law, you will face the consequences.'

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announces the arrest of more criminal illegal aliens convicted for heinous crimes, including murder, lewd acts with a child, forcible sexual abuse, and possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine," the press release stated.

The DHS noted that nearly 70% of the immigration agency's arrests are of illegal aliens with prior charges or convictions in the United States.

The agency highlighted the capture of Santos Cornelio Ramos Vasquez, an illegal alien from Guatemala. Ramos Vasquez is a registered sex offender who was convicted on two counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor child under 14 years old in Los Angeles, California.

RELATED: White House offers concessions to end DHS shutdown — but Dems still choose illegal aliens over unpaid American TSA agents

Santos Cornelio Ramos Vasquez. Image source: Department of Homeland Security

Cesar Verduzco-Rojas, an illegal alien from Mexico, was also arrested by ICE officers. He was previously convicted of murder in Perris, California. According to the San Bernardino Sun, Verduzco-Rojas was accused of killing a 24-year-old Mead Valley man in 2021. The victim was found behind the wheel of his vehicle, deceased from gunshot wounds.

Cesar Verduzco-Rojas. Image source: Department of Homeland Security

Federal immigration agents nabbed Jermaine Dalton Crosley, an illegal alien from Jamaica who was previously convicted of third-degree murder in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Court records revealed that Dalton Crosley was accused of fatally shooting a man who had allowed him to live on his property. A physical altercation ensued after the man demanded Dalton Crosley vacate.

Jermaine Dalton Crosley. Image source: Department of Homeland Security

Alber Eleazar Blanco, an illegal alien from Venezuela, was nabbed by immigration agents. He has a prior conviction in Provo, Utah, for forcible sexual abuse. Based on sex offender registry data, Blanco is 33 years old and lives in Spanish Fork, Utah.

Alber Eleazar Blanco. Image source: Department of Homeland Security

The final arrest noted by the DHS was Jose Manuel Ruiz Preciado, an illegal alien from Mexico. He was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas of possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine.

RELATED: Georgia city cuts water to planned ICE detention center

Jose Manuel Ruiz Preciado. Image source: Department of Homeland Security

"The media and sanctuary politicians continuously ignore the criminal illegal aliens ICE law enforcement is arresting from American neighborhoods," DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis stated.

"Yesterday alone, ICE arrested multiple murderers, pedophiles, and drug traffickers. President Trump has been clear: If you break the law, you will face the consequences," Bis continued. "Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S."

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Republican Rep. August Pfluger of Texas is leading a bipartisan charge to combat the rise of nitazenes, a class of illicit drugs that could be deadlier than fentanyl, Blaze News has learned.

Pfluger and co-leader Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.) introduced the House version of the DETECT Nitazenes Act Thursday alongside Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia. The bipartisan and bicameral legislation would direct resources from the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate and the Drug Enforcement Administration to enhance technologies to detect illicit drugs like nitazenes at extremely low concentrations, according to bill text obtained exclusively by Blaze News.

'These deadly drugs are taking American lives.'

"Nitazenes are an emerging class of illicit drugs that pose a serious threat to Americans' health and safety, yet today, these deadly drugs have not received the level of attention necessary to combat them," Pfluger told Blaze News. "The DETECT Nitazenes Act will close critical gaps in detection capabilities, support law enforcement efforts, and improve public safety outcomes by enabling faster and more accurate identification of these deadly substances."

"As the risk from synthetic drugs continues to evolve, this legislation ensures that we remain prepared to respond to the next generation of deadly narcotics and protect our communities," he continued.

RELATED: Exclusive: SAVE Act hangs in the balance as Republican Study Committee pushes for Senate passage

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who is leading the companion bill in the Senate, demonstrated just how destructive nitazenes can be, urging Congress to take swift action.

"Nitazenes are powerful synthetic opioids that are stronger than fentanyl, cheaper to produce, and devastatingly lethal," Schmitt told Blaze News. "These deadly drugs are taking American lives, and we must get smart on them before they devastate communities across Missouri and the nation."

RELATED: Exclusive: GOP lawmaker leads push to counter CCP influence in global telecommunications

Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Schmitt added, "I was proud to introduce the DETECT Nitazenes Act in the Senate and am encouraged to see my colleagues introduce it in the House. I urge both the House and the Senate to take up this critical bill to help tackle this crisis before nitazenes get out of control."

Editor's note: This article has been edited after publication to clarify Rep. Michael Baumgartner is co-leading the legislation.

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Watching the real-time updates from Operation Epic Fury, one lesson kept flashing like a warning light: Don’t chase the rockets. Find the launcher.

For years, militaries have built sophisticated defenses. Rockets fly, interceptors rise, lives get saved. That matters. But every soldier knows intercepting rockets never counts as the long-term solution. Defense buys time. Strategy ends the threat.

Recall the maxim that the best defense is a good offense. Intercepting rockets protects you today. Disabling the launcher protects you tomorrow.

You trace the attack back to its source. You stop the launcher, and you stop the rockets that follow.

That principle applies to our culture.

Take the Oscars. Every year, a celebrity steps to the microphone and scolds half the country. Commentators repeat it the next morning. Clips hit social media within minutes. None of this happens by accident. The provocation is the point. The speech aims to trigger a predictable response, and for years it worked. Every clip pulled more people into the outrage cycle. Rocket after rocket.

But something changed. People have built defenses.

Many Americans now recognize the pattern. The provocation arrives. The clip goes viral. The outrage machine revs. And more people shrug. The rockets still fly. They just don’t land the way they once did.

I saw that recently in a clip of Ben Stiller promoting his new soda brand in a grocery store. For years, Stiller fired political rockets on social media at Donald Trump and his supporters. But there he was in the beverage aisle, hawking soda while shoppers pushed carts past him.

The moment felt revealing.

At some point, the rockets stopped landing.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone who remembers what Michael Jordan once said when asked why he stayed out of politics: “Republicans buy sneakers too.” Jordan understood something fundamental about celebrity influence. Star power works only if the audience still wants to watch.

Attention may be the currency of choice for some. But actual currency still runs the world.

Rebuking a president may generate applause and headlines. Selling soda still requires receipts. Filling theaters still requires paying customers. You can see it in the numbers: Award show ratings have fallen, and box office success increasingly depends on audiences tired of being lectured.

The rockets are still flying, but they’re losing range.

RELATED: ‘Bugonia’ and Hollywood's most post-Christian Academy Awards yet

Photo by Nick Agro/Academy Museum Foundation via Getty Images

Which raises the real question: Why do we keep arguing about the explosions instead of the launchers?

Most cultural flashpoints don’t originate on a stage or in a viral clip. They are symptoms of deeper forces already at work — ideas formed in classrooms, reinforced by institutions, and absorbed by the next generation.

Those are the launchers.

Some leaders figured this out and adjusted their strategy. Instead of reacting to every viral moment, they went to the places where the ideas get produced and packaged. That’s a big part of what made Charlie Kirk effective with young audiences. He didn’t spend his life chasing rockets. He went to campuses and challenged the ideas being launched there.

Recall the maxim that the best defense is a good offense. Intercepting rockets protects you today. Disabling the launcher protects you tomorrow. Once the launcher is gone, there’s far less you need to defend against.

That takes patience. Discipline. And the wisdom to ignore the latest explosion overhead.

Playing defense keeps you alive. Playing offense wins.

And there’s one more thing worth noticing.

God never plays defense. Throughout scripture, truth advances. Light pushes back darkness. The gates of hell aren’t advancing against the church. They are the ones being stormed.

The lesson is simple: Stop chasing rockets. Find the launchers.

A bevy of European countries and Japan issued a joint statement to condemn Iran and pledge to defend the Strait of Hormuz from the belligerent regime's military threat.

Iran has shut down the strait and sent oil prices spiraling after the U.S. and Israel began military strikes about three weeks ago.

'Everybody agrees. The strait cannot stay closed. It has to open up again as soon as possible. This is crucial for the world economy.'

European countries initially refused to join the effort to defend the strait, but on Thursday, they relented and issued a statement condemning Iran.

"We express our deep concern about the escalating conflict. We call on Iran to cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks, and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping," said the global leaders in their proclamation.

Leaders from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan signed the letter, which went on to call Iran's actions to disrupt global energy supply chains "a threat to international peace and security."

"We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait," the letter continued. "We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning."

President Trump had warned that the future of NATO was threatened unless the international community joined the effort to defend the oil tanker route.

"The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both Militarily, Economically, and in every other way, but the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help — A LOT!" he wrote on Saturday.

"This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be — It will bring the World together toward Harmony, Security, and Everlasting Peace!" he added.

Crude oil rose to about $65 in late February and spiked to above $95 by Thursday, an increase of about 50%. Americans are seeing the price surge at the gas pump, leading some to worry that cost-of-living concerns may crush Republicans in the midterm elections.

An Israeli strike on a major oil field in Iran led to retaliatory Irani strikes against oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, as well as Kuwait. Trump claimed that he had not been alerted prior to the oil field attack, but an Axios report citing U.S. and Israeli officials said he had been told about the strike.

"Everybody agrees. The strait cannot stay closed. It has to open up again as soon as possible. This is crucial for the world economy," said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte Thursday. "I am confident that allies as always, will do everything in support of our shared interest."

RELATED: The Economist gets crushed over sympathetic portrayal of dead Iranian leader

War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday the strikes on Iran would escalate.

"Again, today will be the largest strike package yet, just like yesterday was. As I've said from day one, our capabilities continue to build; Iran's continue to degrade," he said in a media briefing. "We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above."

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The midterms are shaping up to be a rough outing for Republicans, according to CNN analyst Harry Enten.

On Thursday, Enten pointed to Americans' attitudes on the cost of living and a massive drop in satisfaction from just before the election in 2024 until March 2026.

'You can't win when you're 41 points below water on the cost of living.'

While President Donald Trump enjoyed a three-point net positive on the issue of cost of living in October 2024, he now has a negative 41-point rating on the same issue. The rating is the worst recorded, said the analyst.

"I would say that this is the most troublesome sign that I have seen for the president of the United States and the Republican Party so far," said Enten.

"You can't win when you're 41 points below water on the cost of living."

Among independent voters, which many consider to be a bellwether for elections, the drop is even steeper. The president had a net positive rating of 11 points in 2024, but that has fallen by 71 points to a net negative rating of 60 points among independents for the cost-of-living question.

"This, my dear friends, is just a political nightmare waiting to happen for the Republican Party come the midterm election," Enten added.

Voters also rate cost of living as their top issue, and that concern has grown slightly for the next election.

Thirty-eight percent of voters cited cost of living as their top concern in 2024, and 39% now say it's their top concern.

"Simply put, I am saying this loud and proud: You cannot win an election when you are the incumbent party and the top issue is the cost of living," he added.

"And your net approval rating on it is 41 points underwater? I mean, you're with Greg Louganis at this point!"

Louganis is an American diver who won multiple Olympic gold medals in the 1980s.

RELATED: Congressional Democrats have horrendous approval ratings — even among Democratic voters

Enten posted video of the segment to his official X social media account.

"You cannot win. If you're the president and you're the Republican Party and you're not addressing this issue: Wave adios, amigos, goodbye, see you later to your House majority and may very well be your Senate majority as well."

Enten also pointed out that prediction markets pointed to a strong possibility that inflation would be higher when reported for the month of March over the last year, which would likely worsen conditions for Republicans.

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President Donald Trump's pick to head the Department of Homeland Security advanced through committee Thursday thanks to one Democrat senator.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin's nomination advanced through the Senate Homeland Security Committee after Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania crossed party lines and voted in favor of the nominee. Mullin's confirmation was previously in jeopardy after the committee's chairman, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, vowed to vote against the nominee, citing concerns about his "temperament."

'Seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us.'

"They've had to have known for weeks that I couldn't be real happy about a guy that won't apologize and thinks that my assault was perfectly understandable," Paul said.

Without Paul's support, Mullin was on the brink of failing the simple majority vote needed to pass through the committee. However, Fetterman joined seven Republicans on the committee to advance Mullin's nomination to the Senate floor.

RELATED: 'Freaking snake': Trump's new DHS pick faces major roadblock from lone Republican

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Paul and Mullin sparred in Wednesday's confirmation hearing after the chairman confronted the nominee over past comments he made about a violent assault Paul survived.

"You have never had the courage to look me in the eye and tell me that the assault was justified," Paul said of Mullin's comments following the 2017 assault that left him with broken ribs. Paul also claimed Mullin referred to him as a "freaking snake."

Mullin pushed back on Paul's claims in his opening statement, saying they addressed their differences when the Oklahoma senator was still in the House.

"I'm very blunt and direct to the point," Mullin said. "And if I have something to say, I'll say it directly to your face."

"Seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us," Mullin added.

RELATED: Noem is OUT — and Trump has named her replacement

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Mullin's nomination is now headed to the floor, where the Republican-controlled Senate is expected to confirm him with a simple majority.

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A Haitian fraudster learned the hard way that when it comes to citizenship, the U.S. government can giveth and taketh away.

Joff Stenn Wroy Philossaint, a 35-year-old Haitian national, applied to become an American citizen in early 2020. While his citizenship application was pending, Philossaint participated in an elaborate wire fraud and money laundering scheme in Florida.

'You will lose what you unlawfully gained.'

Philossaint and his co-conspirators submitted 40 fraudulent applications on behalf of numerous businesses, seeking roughly $3.8 million from COVID-19 relief programs, said the Department of Justice. The applications falsely certified the businesses' revenue, number of employees, and expenses.

The Haitian later acknowledged that after the conspirator business owners received their paydays, they paid him a fee of approximately 10% of the value of the loans, which amounted to approximately $549,000.

While ripping off his would-be countrymen, Philossaint lied in an interview with a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer that he had never made false misrepresentations to receive a public benefit in the United States and had never committed a crime for which he had not been arrested — false representations that led to his naturalization as an American citizen.

Philossaint pleaded guilty in 2022 to wire fraud and money laundering charges and was found guilty in February 2023 of illegally obtaining his U.S. citizenship. He was sentenced in June 2023 to 50 months in federal prison.

RELATED: 'Staged armed robberies': 11 Indian nationals catch visa fraud charge amid conspiracy allegations

The flag of Philossaint's one-time homeland flies over Fort Lauderdale, Florida. James D. Morgan/Getty Images

Of the five defendants charged in the case, Philossaint was the only individual sent to prison, reported the Miami Herald. Although initially charged in connection with the fraud scheme, the Haitian's former fiancée, Florida lawyer Mariel Tollinchi, was acquitted on all charges in 2024

The DOJ announced on Tuesday that Philossaint has been stripped of his American citizenship per the orders of U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

"United States citizenship is one of the greatest privileges our nation can offer, and it must be earned honestly," U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement.

"This defendant built his path to citizenship on false statements while stealing millions from programs meant to keep small businesses alive during the pandemic," continued Reding Quiñones. "The court’s order revoking his citizenship restores accountability and reinforces a simple principle: If you lie to obtain immigration benefits and commit federal crimes, you will lose what you unlawfully gained."

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