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... et="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 M ...
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title>Blaze Media</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/</link><description>Blaze Media</description><atom:link href="https://www.theblaze.com/feeds/feed.rss" rel="self"></atom:link><language>en-us</language><lastBuildDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 04:05:25 -0000</lastBuildDate><image><url>https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMDc1MjEwMC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTcyODcwODQxMn0.59DTUXtTHFlGjZ-jVF0n94q8MVzdlnElHjm2ftO6wY8/image.png?width=210</url><link>https://www.theblaze.com/</link><title>Blaze Media</title></image><item><title>Felony charge dropped against Texas driver after dashcam footage showed police officer injured himself by kicking car</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/police-injured-himself-blames-driver</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183367&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C3%2C0%2C4"/> 
Dashcam footage saved a man from felony charges after a police officer accused him of seriously injuring the cop in the Woodlands in Texas.

The incident unfolded as Toby McLaughlin, a 40-year-veteran, was directing traffic outside of the Ironman North American Championship on April 27 at about 3 p.m.

The Montgomery County Precinct 2 Constable’s Office initially claimed that McLaughlin was hit by a driver who was ignoring his orders and then sped away in the white Honda Civic.

MacLaughlin was transported to the Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital in serious but stable condition.

Police found the 50-year-old driver and charged him with failure to stop and render aid causing serious bodily injury, which is a third-degree felony. He was given a $30,000 bond and held at the Montgomery County Jail.
"Those videos don't take sides." 
That's when dashcam video saved the day.

The video does show the driver ignoring the officer's order, but rather than showing the officer being struck, the video shows that the officer tried to kick the moving car and injured himself after falling to the ground.

The video also records a man's voice reacting to the incident and yelling, "Why the f*** would you kick the car?!"

After the district attorney's office reviewed the video and saw that the officer had injured himself, the felony charge was dropped against the driver.

KPRC-TV's legal analyst, Brian Wice, said that the proliferation of dashcam videos and other surveillance technology has revolutionized the amount of evidence available in these cases.

“I believe that ring doorbells, dash cams, and municipal surveillance cameras are probably among the most consequential developments in the criminal justice system in the last generation or two, because it underscores the criminal justice system’s dual commitment to freeing the innocent, convicting the guilty," he explained.

"Those videos don’t take sides," he added. "And we can have almost instant real-time exoneration, or in some cases real-time conviction, based upon those compelling videos."

The driver was instead charged with a class-C misdemeanor related to obedience required to police officers.

“The maximum possible punishment is a $200 fine in court costs," said Wice.

"Our thoughts and prayers remain with Investigator McLaughlin as he recovers from his injuries, and we wish him a speedy and full recovery," read a statement from the police.
The Woodlands is special-purpose district that is located about 28 miles north of Houston. <h2>
Here's the video of the incident:
</h2>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hAvp002DRzk?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>! 
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 02:53:17 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/police-injured-himself-blames-driver</guid><category>Police injures himself</category><category>Texas cop blames driver</category><category>Toby maclaughlin injury</category><category>Cop video injuring himself</category><category>Crime</category><dc:creator>Carlos Garcia</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183367&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Johnson meets with Greene and Massie, who have been advocating for speakership ouster</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/greene-massie-meeting-speaker-johnson</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183308&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C107"/> Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who have been advocating to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from the speakership slot, met with him on Monday.Johnson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSCJTrrAk74" target="_blank">described</a> it as a "lengthy, constructive meeting" and said they will meet again on Tuesday.The threat of possible removal has been looming over Johnson's speakership since Greene <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/speaker-johnson-motion-to-vacate" target="_self">filed</a> a motion to vacate in March, but Greene <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/greene-motion-to-vacate-speakership" target="_blank">indicated</a> last week that she planned to pull the trigger on the speakership ouster bid this week. Massie and GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona both <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/gosar-cosponsors-motion-to-vacate" target="_blank">cosponsored</a> Greene's motion to vacate in April.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/democratic-leadership-table-motion-to-vacate" target="_blank">said</a> in a <a href="https://democraticleader.house.gov/media/press-releases/joint-democratic-leadership-statement-motion-vacate" target="_blank">statement</a> last week, "We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed."In <a href="https://youtu.be/nA8iuoRNQws?si=OOI-hdpMq6QkMRLD&t=53" target="_blank">comments</a> that aired on "60 Minutes," Jeffries said, "Even though we're in the minority, we effectively have been governing as if we were in the majority because we continue to provide a majority of the votes necessary to get things done."Massie shared the clip on social media and <a href="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1787472591495569900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787472591495569900%7Ctwgr%5E61531929a39ef7062d478bc5463b1a93b6183d1b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theblaze.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2668179231publish" target="_blank">wrote</a>, "Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries gloats that Democrats control the House of Representatives under Mike Johnson, yet some of my Republican colleagues want to continue business as usual for the rest of the year."<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1787472591495569900">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1787472591495569900"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
"What we need is a new Speaker willing to use our majority to wield the power of the purse for the benefit of America. In just a few months, this Speaker has worked to give the Executive more authority and more money than even Pelosi granted. Vacate this #uniparty Speaker," Massie declared in a <a href="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1787441674878165312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787441674878165312%7Ctwgr%5E61531929a39ef7062d478bc5463b1a93b6183d1b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theblaze.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2668179231publish" target="_blank">post</a> that he shared on Monday morning.<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1787441674878165312">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1787441674878165312"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here!</a>]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 02:39:48 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/greene-massie-meeting-speaker-johnson</guid><category>Marjorie taylor greene</category><category>Mike johnson</category><category>Thomas massie</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Alex Nitzberg</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183308&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Video shows Texas man shoot up meat market after worker refuses to accept counterfeit $50 bill: 'Watch what's gonna happen'</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/meat-market-shooting-counterfeit-bill</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183234&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C8"/> 
Surveillance video captured the moment that workers at a Mexican meat market scattered from gunfire after they refused to accept a counterfeit $50 bill from a customer,
<a href="https://www.kens5.com/article/news/crime/shooting-at-culebra-meat-market-man-tries-to-use-counterfeit-money-san-antonio-police/273-84e18637-43af-44a8-bfeb-1b6105b01dff" target="_blank">according</a> to Texas police.

San Antonio police said they responded to numerous calls of a disturbance with a gun at the Culebra Meat Market 3 on Old Pearsall Road at about 10:30 a.m. on April 25.

Video shows the entire interaction between the man and a worker at the store. He goes up to the register with items to purchase and hands the woman some money.

The owner of the market told KENS-TV that she immediately identified the bill as counterfeit and refused to accept it. She also refused to give it back to the man and told him she was calling the police.

At one point, he tried to snatch the money from her, but she was able to pull away from him. They
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqOQzQX72p4" target="_blank">said he also</a> threatened them by pretending to shoot at them with his fingers.

The man angrily left the market before warning her, "Watch what's gonna happen."

Video then shows glass shattering and workers running away after the market was shot up. Police said he had fired at them twice from his vehicle.

Some of the employees sustained minor injuries from the glass flying from the windows, police said, but no one was shot.

Police say the man fled the scene in a black vehicle down Old Sky Harbor Drive. They are asking for the public's help to identify the suspect and say there is a $5,000 reward for information that leads to his arrest and felony conviction.

Video shows that the suspect is heavily tattooed on his arms and on his head, which is bald.

The market released a
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C6MZq3YRh4Z/?hl=en" target="_blank">statement</a> about the incident on its official Instagram account.
<blockquote>
Today, we are truly saddened by the senseless act of violence that occurred at our Old Pearsall location. This act of unspeakable violence has shaken an entire community. At Culebra Meat Market our top priority is to uphold and protect the safety and security of our employees and customers.
</blockquote>
The statement went on say that the company was working with police to identify the suspect.
<h2>Here's the video of the incident:</h2>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N63kUyYcEmg?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>! 
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 02:03:01 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/meat-market-shooting-counterfeit-bill</guid><category>San antonio shooting</category><category>Culebra meat market shooting</category><category>Counterfeit shooting</category><category>Texas shooting</category><category>Crime</category><dc:creator>Carlos Garcia</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183234&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Man accused of kidnapping teenager and raping her for months in his Chicago basement had been arrested 52 times previously</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/man-kidnaps-rapes-15yrold-chicago</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183009&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C104%2C0%2C0"/> 
A man who was arrested for allegedly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/derek-swift-charged-kidnapping-sexual-assault-teen-girl/" target="_blank">kidnapping</a> a teenager and repeatedly raping her in his basement had been previously arrested 52 times, according to Illinois police.Cook County prosecutors said 48-year-old Derek Swift drove up to the 15-year-old girl on Dec. 6 while she was walking to her home in Chicago. The girl said that he kept asking her if she wanted a ride until she relented and got into his car. Once inside the car, she was allegedly pressured to drink alcohol and take drugs until she agreed and then went unconscious. She said that she awoke naked in the man's basement apartment and was kept against her will for nearly five months while she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Swift. She hit her 16th birthday while being allegedly held captive. "She is a child who was being traumatized in the most unimaginable way.”The victim said she was left alone by her captor for days at a time and although he left a phone with her, she said he threatened to kill her if she tried to leave and also to kill anyone she tried to call with the phone. She only called the police after being able to find the address of the apartment from a piece of mail on April 29.
Assistant State’s Attorney Anne McCord said that police rescued the girl and saw on the phone that it was only used to make calls between her and Swift. 
When <a href="https://cwbchicago.com/2024/05/chicago-man-charged-abducting-sexually-assaulting-teen-for-months.html" target="_blank">police interviewed</a> the man, he allegedly admitted to picking the girl up but claimed that he believed she was 20 years old. He also claimed that their sex was consensual. McCord argued that whatever age Swift believed the girl to be, it was immaterial to the charges he faced. Swift is charged with one count each of aggravated kidnapping, kidnapping, criminal sexual assault, and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.Swift's defense attorney asked why the girl didn't simply leave the situation, but McCord answered that she had been allegedly threatened and beaten by Swift for trying to escape twice. “She’s now a child who had been in this basement, fed pills, raped every day, and threatened that he would kill her, threatened he would kill her loved ones," the prosecutor argued. "She didn’t say anything, but how can she? She is a child. She is a child who was being traumatized in the most unimaginable way.”
At a bail hearing, police said that Swift had been arrested 52 times in his life. Judge Susana Ortiz said he was a safety risk and ordered him to remain behind bars at the Cook County Jail. His next court hearing is scheduled for May 21.<h2>
Here's a video about the incident:
</h2>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e8-ZztgpyPc?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>! ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 01:06:23 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/man-kidnaps-rapes-15yrold-chicago</guid><category>Chicago rape kidnap</category><category>Derek swift rape</category><category>Kidnap rape of teenager</category><category>15 year old kidnapped rape</category><category>Crime</category><dc:creator>Carlos Garcia</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52183009&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan — who identifies as conservative — announces he'll vote for Biden</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/geoff-duncan-vote-for-biden</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52183023&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C40%2C0%2C67"/> Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who describes himself as a conservative Republican, has noted that he plans to vote for Democratic President Joe Biden in 2024."Unlike Trump, I've belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass," Duncan <a href="https://www.ajc.com/opinion/geoff-duncan-why-im-voting-for-biden-and-other-republicans-should-too/LFLE5YWCBBA6VDGJAJKMNPCDKQ/" target="_blank">declared</a> in an opinion piece.But while he plans to back Biden in the presidential contest, Duncan advocated for working to get Republicans elected to Congress to block the Democratic president from accomplishing his goals."Yes, elections are a binary choice. Yes, serious questions linger about President Biden’s ability to serve until the age of 86. His progressive policies aren’t to conservatives' liking," Duncan wrote. "But the GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect GOP congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance. The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character.""Trump has shown us who he is. We should believe him. To think he is going to change at the age of 77 is beyond improbable," Duncan wrote. Duncan <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Geoff_Duncan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">served</a> as Georgia lieutenant governor from early 2019 through early 2023.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here!</a> ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 00:45:02 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/geoff-duncan-vote-for-biden</guid><category>Geoff duncan</category><category>Biden</category><category>Trump</category><category>Presidential election</category><category>Election</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Alex Nitzberg</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/png" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52183023&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders announces re-election bid</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/bernie-sanders-announces-reelection-bid</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182760&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C24%2C0%2C82"/> Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has <a href="https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/S000033" target="_blank">served</a> in the Senate since early 2007, has <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1787497740416454780" target="_blank">announced</a> that he will seek another term in office. In a video announcing his plan to seek re-election, he pushed climate alarmism ideology. "This is a global crisis. We must work with every country on earth to cut carbon emissions and save the planet for our kids and future generations," Sanders claimed."We must codify Roe v. Wade into national law," he also said in the video.Sanders, who is currently 82, would be 89 by the conclusion of his next term if he were to win re-election. Before serving in the Senate, Sanders had been a member of the House of Representatives for 16 years. Other left-wing lawmakers expressed support for Sanders. "Bernie's lifelong commitment to progressive values provides invaluable leadership in the United States Senate. From Medicare for All to the Green New Deal, I am lucky to be his partner in the tough fights to secure a better world. Let's keep fighting," Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/EdMarkey/status/1787528658334241166" target="_blank">tweet</a>.<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1787528658334241166">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/EdMarkey/status/1787528658334241166"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>"Bernie showed us we don't have to settle for half-measures, that we are right to demand that democracy work for ALL of us. @BernieSanders has been a leader for decades. It's time to send him back to Congress to continue fighting for working-class people across the country," Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York declared in a post."Bernie will always fight for the America that lives up to what it says on paper — the one we deserve. Thrilled to have his voice for a fourth term in the Senate," Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota <a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1787533024436814028" target="_blank">tweeted</a>. <blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1787533024436814028">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1787533024436814028"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here!</a>]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 00:10:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/bernie-sanders-announces-reelection-bid</guid><category>Bernie sanders</category><category>Reelection</category><category>Ilhan omar</category><category>Ro khanna</category><category>Ed markey</category><category>Senate</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Alex Nitzberg</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182760&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Video shows homeless woman brutally attacking Los Angeles bus driver after allegedly demanding a free ride</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/bus-driver-attack-homeless-woman</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182774&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C8%2C0%2C0"/> 
A <a href="https://abc7.com/woman-violently-attacks-los-angeles-ladot-bus-driver-over-fare-dispute/14772286/" target="_blank">vicious fight</a> between a Los Angeles bus driver and the homeless woman who attacked her was captured on cellphone video.

The Los Angeles Police Department said officers responded to the incident at about 12:40 p.m. on Sunday near Central Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard.

Witnesses said that the woman tried to get on the L.A. Dash bus without paying her fare and the bus driver refused, telling her she could not. The woman then attacked the female bus driver and dragged her off the bus from behind her plexiglass safety barrier. 
Video shows the woman shoving and punching the driver, who struggles with her and yells, "Get off me!" several times. The homeless woman was able to punch the driver at least once in the face before the driver got back on the bus and pushed the attacker off while she closed the door. 
Police told KTLA that the homeless woman was later taken into custody. The bus driver was treated at the scene and was released.<h2>Drivers protest </h2>The altercation came just two days after bus drivers <a href="https://ktla.com/news/local-news/la-metro-acknowledges-potential-delays-as-bus-operators-may-intentionally-call-in-sick/#:~:text=On%20April%2022%2C%20a%20Metro,her%20attacker%20was%20a%20transient." target="_blank">protested</a> by organizing a "sick-out" in order to pressure officials about the lack of safety at work. Workers with the L.A. County Metropolitan Transit Authority refused to go to work on May 3 after a series of attacks, some of which were lethal. On April 22, a woman was stabbed to death on the Metro train by an attacker who police later said was homeless. On April 18, a man punched a Metro bus driver without provocation and then <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/la-metro-bus-attack-willowbrook/3391749/" target="_blank">stabbed him.</a> The driver was treated at a hospital and released. The organization blamed “untreated mental illness and drug addiction” for the rise in criminal incidents and told the protesting workers that a "sick-in" was against the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. “Transit riders throughout Los Angeles County depend on the Metro Bus and Rail network every day to reach critical destinations including work, school, and medical facilities, and to care for their friends and family members,” read a statement from Metro. “We appeal to our operators to reconsider the impact their plan to call in sick will have on some of the most vulnerable people in the county," it added. <h2>
Here's the video of the altercation: </h2>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wCGFjnozeOk?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>

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]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 23:40:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/bus-driver-attack-homeless-woman</guid><category>La bus driver attacked</category><category>Homeless crime</category><category>Homeless woman attacks driver</category><category>Ladot driver attacked</category><category>Crime</category><dc:creator>Carlos Garcia</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182774&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Milwaukee mayor ousts election commission executive director a week after former deputy director sentenced for election fraud</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/milwaukee-mayor-ousts-election-commission-executive-director-a-week-after-former-deputy-director-sentenced-for-election-fraud</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182717&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C28%2C0%2C59"/> The executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission is now out just one week after one of her former colleagues on the commission was sentenced for committing election fraud.On Monday, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat, announced that he had removed Claire Woodall, aka Claire Woodall-Vogg, as executive director of the commission. However, there seem to be differing explanations for Johnson's decision to remove her.Just before noon on Monday, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/milwaukee-election-leader-ousted-6-months-election-presidential-109959671" target="_blank">ABC News</a> reported that Jeff Fleming, a spokesman for the mayor, cited "issues internal to the election commission office and to city government that raised concern" as the reason for her removal but indicated that such "issues" did not relate to how she ran elections.The <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/06/what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-why-claire-woodall-is-being-replaced/73586242007/" target="_blank">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a> then reported around 2:30 p.m. that Mayor Johnson had denied firing Woodall, claiming he had offered her another position that she seems disinclined to accept. He refused to state whether she had lost her job for "any wrongdoing," the outlet said.
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rWKc27uaKAs?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>
A "dedicated public servant, who is passionate about quelling voter suppression"Johnson first nominated Woodall for the executive director position in the <a href="https://www.tmj4.com/news/milwaukee-county/claire-woodall-out-as-milwaukee-election-commission-executive-director" target="_blank">summer</a> of 2020. At the time, Johnson described Woodall as a "dedicated public servant, who is passionate about quelling voter suppression and overcoming the barriers faced by our electorate to ensure that everyone in our city has free and fair access to electoral participation."Following the contentious 2020 presidential election, Woodall claimed she had received numerous threats against her safety and even insisted two years ago that she would work remotely if Milwaukee ended up hosting the 2024 Republican National Convention — which it <a href="https://gopconvention2024.com/" target="_blank">will</a>."Should MKE host the RNC, you will find me working remotely out of state that week, lest I be hung in the town square like some have threatened," she <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/03/22/milwaukee-makes-pitch-host-2024-rnc-but-deleted-tweet-reflects/7130900001/" target="_blank">reportedly</a> wrote on the social media platform then known as Twitter. She deleted her Twitter account a few days later.With Woodall now off the Milwaukee Election Commission, Johnson has since nominated deputy director Paulina Gutierrez to fill the vacancy. "Paulina’s integrity and capabilities are ideally suited to this position. She will lead the office at an important juncture when public scrutiny of the work of the department will be extremely high," Johnson said in a statement. "I have confidence in her, and I will make certain the department has the resources it needs to fulfill its duties."Gutierrez has been deputy director for a little more than a year. Milwaukee's Common Council still needs to approve her nomination before she can assume the role of executive director.Neither Woodall nor Gutierrez responded to ABC News' request for comment.The news about Woodall comes just one week after former Milwaukee Election Commission deputy director Kimberly Zapata was sentenced for four charges related to her actions while in office. In March, Zapata was convicted of one count of felony misconduct in public office and three counts of misdemeanor election fraud, as <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/former-election-commission-deputy-director-in-wisconsin-found-guilty-of-election-fraud" target="_blank">Blaze News</a> previously reported. Zapata was sentenced to probation and a $3,000 fine after she requested absentee ballots for non-existing military members and then sent those ballots to Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who has openly questioned Joe Biden's victory in Wisconsin in 2020.
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xZhZjNNOPto?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>
Kimberly Zapata guilty in Milwaukee ballot fraud case | FOX6 News Milwaukee

<a href="https://youtu.be/xZhZjNNOPto" target="_blank">youtu.be</a>

Zapata did not deny sending the fraudulent ballots. Instead, she admitted she views herself as "a whistleblower" who attempted to expose a serious flaw in the state's election procedures."[Rep. Brandtjen] is the most vocal election fraud politician that I know of," Zapata said to explain her actions, "and I thought that maybe this would make her stop and think and redirect her focus away from these outrageous conspiracy theories [about the 2020 election] to something that's actually real."Woodall apparently agreed with Zapata's claims though not with her method of addressing them. Before Zapata's sentencing, Woodall wrote that "despite the harm [Zapata] has caused, her actions were rooted in a very real security vulnerability that state statute has created and that continues to persist."Woodall also indicated that the accusations against Zapata affected her as well: "As the executive director of the Election Commission, I faced severe skepticism and criticism from my colleagues, employees, and the citizens that I serve after Kim's actions came to light."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 23:10:41 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/milwaukee-mayor-ousts-election-commission-executive-director-a-week-after-former-deputy-director-sentenced-for-election-fraud</guid><category>Election integrity</category><category>Election fraud</category><category>Milwaukee</category><category>Wisconsin</category><category>Cavalier johnson</category><category>Claire woodall</category><category>Claire woodall-vogg</category><category>Kimberly zapata</category><category>2024 election</category><category>2020 election</category><category>2020 presidential election</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Cortney Weil</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182717&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>The Democrats' anti-Semitic campaign in the US</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/shows/levintv/anti-semitic-2668177088</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182606&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> 
As anti-America and anti-Israel chants took over the Quds Day rally in Dearborn, Michigan, the extremist influence in our nation has been revealed.

“If you hate America, you hate Israel. If you hate Israel, you hate America. The reason is simply because they both are built on Western principles, the Judeo-Christian ethics and morality. So, they must be destroyed for Marx and his ideology to succeed,” Levin explains.

Levin believes that Marxism and Islamism are fusing after relating to each other on the basis that they hate everything America and Israel stand for — and it’s great for the Democrat Party.

“These are the voters that Joe is counting on to win Michigan and Minnesota and New Jersey,” Levin says. “These are the people who Joe Biden and the Democrat Party are relying on and responding to in their massive anti-Israel, and I might add anti-Semitic, campaign against the Israelis.”

Not only are they relying on the votes of these extremists, they’re <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/05/pro-palestinian-protests-columbia-university-funding-donors-00156135" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">funding the creation</a> of them on college campuses.

“You can see the poison spreading in our streets. Little kristallnachts going on all over the country now, against synagogues, against Jewish people. And I might add now, Christian people,” Levin says.

Meanwhile, the rallies in Dearborn feature chants like “Death to America,” which the media has entirely ignored.

“If this was some other ethnic religious group making these statements and urging violent overthrow of the United States, it sees no time on MSNBC or CNN, it gets very little coverage in the rest of the Democrat Party media, and Joe Biden hasn’t said a damn thing about it,” Levin says.
<h3></h3> <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CVILK7NjXbU?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe><h2>Want more from Mark Levin?</h2>To enjoy more of "the Great One" — Mark Levin as you've never seen him before — <a href="https://get.blazetv.com/levin/?utm_source=theblaze&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=article_shortcode_marklevin" target="_blank">subscribe to BlazeTV</a> — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 22:44:07 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/shows/levintv/anti-semitic-2668177088</guid><category>Activism</category><category>Biden</category><category>Blazetv</category><category>Clips</category><category>Conservative</category><category>Conservative podcast</category><category>Conservative show</category><category>Conservatives</category><category>Dearborn</category><category>Extremism</category><category>Extremist</category><category>Fox news</category><category>Islam</category><category>Levin</category><category>Levin tv</category><category>Levintv</category><category>Life liberty and levin</category><category>Mark</category><category>Mark levin</category><category>Mark levin audio rewind</category><category>Mark levin blaze</category><category>Mark levin blazetv</category><category>Mark levin monologue</category><category>Mark levin show</category><category>Mark levin today</category><category>Mark levin youtube</category><category>Michigan</category><category>Muslim</category><category>News</category><category>Patriots</category><category>Podcast</category><category>Politics</category><category>Promo</category><category>Protest</category><category>Qudsday</category><category>Republican</category><category>Terrorism</category><category>Tyt</category><category>Usa</category><category>Video</category><category>Youtube mark levin</category><category>Youtube.com</category><category>Levintv</category><dc:creator>BlazeTV Staff</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182606&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Miss USA — a DEI proponent — resigns crown, citing her 'mental health'</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/miss-usa-a-dei-proponent-resigns-crown-citing-her-mental-health</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182240&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C243"/> The Miss USA organization says it will now have to undergo a "transition of responsibilities" after the reigning Miss USA has elected to resign.Last September, Noelia Voigt of Utah was crowned Miss USA. Two months later, she went on to represent the U.S. at the Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador, where she cracked the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/miss-usa-noelia-voigt-resigned-from-title-2024-5?op=1" target="_blank">top 20</a>."Prioritize your mental health."However, on Monday, just eight months into her reign, Voigt announced on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C6oIKIYLDGG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==" target="_blank">Instagram</a> that she was resigning the crown, ostensibly to care for her "mental health." "Deep down I know this is just the beginning of a new chapter for me," she wrote in part, "and my hope is that I continue to inspire others to remain steadfast, prioritize your mental health, advocate for yourself and others by using your voice, and never be afraid of what the future holds, even if it feels uncertain."In a message accompanying the post, Voigt, 24, admitted that the news would likely "come as a large shock to many." "Never compromise your physical and mental well-being," she continued. "Our health is our wealth."Claudia Michelle, a former social media director for the Miss USA organization, noted in her resignation letter posted to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C6hYijkv5w7/?img_index=2" target="_blank">Instagram</a> last Friday that she likewise observed a "decline" in Voigt's mental health recently. "I feel like her ability to share her story and her platform have been diminished," Michelle claimed.Voigt, who survived childhood cancer and later attended the University of Alabama, competed in state pageants four times total. The first three times, she won first runner-up. Despite those setbacks, she ran once again and won Miss Utah in April 2023."It could have been very easy for me, all those times getting first runner-up, to just say, 'I can't do this anymore, I'm so frustrated,'" she said in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-miss-usa-won-first-runner-up-three-times-2023-10?op=1" target="_blank">October</a>. "But instead, every time I got first runner-up, it was more fuel to the fire for me to keep on going. And I think that hard work really paid off."As part of mental wellness, Voigt made "anti-bullying" a focus of her advocacy during her brief time as Miss USA. She also drew significant attention to her background as a first-generation American, noting in her Instagram announcement that she was "the first Venezuelan-American woman to win Miss USA."Perhaps because of her background, she likewise championed "immigration rights and reform," according to her statement, as well other leftist causes, including DEI. Just weeks after her Miss USA victory, she told <a href="https://people.com/miss-usa-2023-noelia-voigt-resigns-from-title-mental-health-8644021" target="_blank">People</a>: "Miss USA is a symbol of unity and diversity and inclusivity.""If the United States is going to call themselves the land of opportunity and a place where you can achieve the American dream," she added, "… Miss USA should be able to represent all of them."The Miss USA organization issued a statement following Voigt's resignation. "We respect and support former Miss USA Noelia Voigt’s decision to step down from her duties," a spokesperson said. "The well-being of our titleholders is a top priority, and we understand her need to prioritize herself at this time. The organization is currently reviewing plans for the transition of responsibilities to a successor and an announcement regarding the crowning of the new Miss USA will be coming soon."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 21:35:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/miss-usa-a-dei-proponent-resigns-crown-citing-her-mental-health</guid><category>Miss usa</category><category>Miss usa organization</category><category>Beauty pageant</category><category>Miss universe</category><category>Dei</category><category>Diversity and inclusion</category><category>Noelia voigt</category><category>Utah</category><category>Human interest</category><dc:creator>Cortney Weil</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182240&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>NYC judge sets free thug accused of sucker-punching woman, breaking her jaw — then judge retires to Florida: Report</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/nyc-judge-sets-free-thug-accused-of-sucker-punching-woman-breaking-her-jaw-then-judge-retires-to-florida-report</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181763&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C1%2C0%2C0"/> 
A New York City judge set free a suspect accused of <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/another-woman-punched-in-nyc-suffers-broken-jaw-suspect-reportedly-released-without-bail-despite-7-prior-assault-arrests" target="_blank">sucker-punching a woman and breaking her jaw</a> — then the judge retired to Florida days later, the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/05/04/us-news/nyc-judge-matthew-sciarrino-retiring-to-florida-just-days-after-setting-free-deranged-brute-who-broke-mom-of-threes-jaw/" target="_blank">New York Post reported</a>.

<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="80c340c7eb6c6603623e6a3fec125885" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="292eb" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52182147&width=980"/>
Image source: YouTube screenshot
<h2>What are the details?</h2>
Prosecutors on Wednesday upgraded charges against 33-year-old Franz Jeudy in connection with the highly publicized, unprovoked March attack against 57-year-old Dulche Pichardo, a mother of three, the Post said.
The <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/03/29/us-news/another-nyc-woman-sucker-punched-on-street-in-attack-that-left-her-with-broken-jaw/" target="_blank">paper initially said</a> Jeudy was charged with third-degree assault — a misdemeanor, which means he's not bail-eligible — and he was released.District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a separate <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/05/01/us-news/suspect-accused-of-socking-mother-of-3-and-breaking-her-jaw-cut-loose-again-in-nyc-court-despite-upgraded-felony-charge/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Post story</a> that a grand jury soon returned an indictment for felony assault against Jeudy.Prosecutors asked for bail-eligible second-degree assault and requested $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond for Jeudy — but Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Matthew Sciarrino rejected the request and let the suspect go, the paper said.
<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="eb505c6e04c035c9ddba1eef2cec9b6e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="201ff" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52182162&width=980"/>
Image source: YouTube screenshotSciarrino on Friday told the Post he followed state law when releasing Jeudy, noting that "you can't set bail on someone” who “is a not flight risk.”The judge — a Republican with more than 18 months left on his mayoral appointment — then retired Friday to Florida, the paper said, adding that a court spokesperson said Sciarrino filed his retirement papers in January and insisted the move south “has nothing to do with the bail decision in this case.”Councilman Robert Holden — a moderate Queens Democrat in favor of tougher bail laws — told the Post he's glad Sciarrino is headed out of New York: "Good riddance to this soft-on-crime judge! We need judges with the backbone to put bad guys behind bars, not ones that let out the entire world and then flee to Florida, where the laws are tougher.”
Prior to the brutal punch Pichardo endured in March, Jeudy was arrested seven times on assault charges, <a href="https://abc7ny.com/brooklyn-unprovoked-attack-crown-heights-woman-sucker-punched-nyc-crime/14580392/" target="_blank">WABC-TV reported</a>. A previous <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/03/29/us-news/another-nyc-woman-sucker-punched-on-street-in-attack-that-left-her-with-broken-jaw/" target="_blank">Post story</a>, citing police, said one of those priors took place in 2018 when Jeudy was charged with second-degree assault for an attack on a cop. The paper, citing sources, added that Jeudy also was collared for punching a security guard in 2019.The Post reported that Jeudy was charged with misdemeanor assault in both cases, but prosecutors said the charges were later dismissed because Jeudy — with an apparent history of schizophrenia — was declared unfit to stand trial.
<h2>What else?</h2>
The attack against Pichardo came in the wake of a Blaze News report about multiple women saying they were <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/horrified-women-say-men-punched-them-in-face-head-in-unprovoked-broad-daylight-attacks-on-nyc-streets-this-month" target="_self">randomly punched</a> in the face and head on New York City streets.

Pichardo told WABC the suspect randomly punched her in the face around 5 p.m. March 26 while she was walking down Grand Avenue near Dean Street in Brooklyn.

“He just punched me on the right side here, very strong,” Pichardo <a href="https://pix11.com/news/local-news/brooklyn/nyc-woman-suffers-broken-jaw-when-randomly-punched-while-walking-down-street/" target="_blank">told WPIX-TV</a>, adding, “I was surprised. I said, ‘What’s going on? Why did you hit me? Why did you do it?’ I didn’t do anything. No reason to hit me."

<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0003508baadb244d3e517ea5eca5c2fe" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="11b8d" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52182158&width=980"/>
Image source: WABC-TV video screenshot
She told WPIX her attacker never said a word.

WABC reported that Pichard's face was fractured in several places, her mouth was wired shut, and she was scheduled to drink food from a straw for six weeks. WABC added that Pichardo sustained permanent damage to her lower lip, three of her teeth were knocked out, and surgery might be necessary.
<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://abc7ny.com/video/embed/?pid=14580841" width="640">
</iframe></div>
WABC said Pichardo is a school bus aide and was returning from work — just steps from home — when the attacker punched her.

More from WABC:
<blockquote>
Her brother owns a restaurant across the street from where she lives. He and an employee chased the suspect down. 
 
Yohan Flores says the suspect was standing cold and emotionless when they confronted him. The suspect denied attacking Pichardo. 
 
Pichardo's brother and the employee followed the suspect for several blocks and stopped him from fleeing until police arrived.</blockquote>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HnOVQ0uc67I?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 21:20:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/nyc-judge-sets-free-thug-accused-of-sucker-punching-woman-breaking-her-jaw-then-judge-retires-to-florida-report</guid><category>New york city</category><category>Watch</category><category>Physical attack</category><category>Random attacks against females</category><category>Politics</category><category>Soft on crime</category><category>Repeat offender</category><category>Judge</category><category>Punch</category><category>Injury</category><category>Released</category><category>Crime</category><dc:creator>Dave Urbanski</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181763&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>African Methodists take a stand for biblical marriage after United Methodist Church adopts pro-LGBT measures</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/african-methodists-take-stand-for-biblical-marriage</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181798&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C67%2C0%2C68"/> A group of African Methodists released a statement last week, taking a stand for orthodox Christian teaching on sexual ethics.The United Methodist Church joined ranks with other progressive American denominations last week when, at its general conference, the church reversed prohibitions on LGBT clergy, same-sex weddings, and rules against LGBT-practicing members.Now, United Methodist pastors <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/umc-votes-allow-lgbtq-clergy" target="_blank">can openly practice the LGBT lifestyle</a> and <a href="https://www.umnews.org/en/news/united-methodists-remove-same-sex-wedding-ban" target="_blank">will not face discipline</a> for officiating same-sex marriages. The denomination, moreover, <a href="https://www.umnews.org/en/news/church-ends-52-year-old-anti-gay-stance" target="_blank">no longer teaches that</a> "the practice of homosexuality ... is incompatible with Christian teaching."But Methodist representatives from the majority world are standing their ground.In a statement, a group of African Methodist delegates accused the UMC of following in the footsteps of "western culture" to change the definition of marriage."The United Methodist Church has chosen to follow what pleases man instead of what pleases God," the delegates <a href="pro-LGBT%20theology%20is%20almost%20uniquely%20confined%20to%20the%20Western%20church,%20where%20issues%20of%20sexuality%20and%20gender%20have%20become%20cultural%20lightning%20rods." target="_blank">charged</a>."The United Methodist Church has changed the definition of marriage. It now defines marriage differently from what God created it to be in the beginning (Genesis 2:18, 23-25). It has changed the definition of marriage from how Jesus described it in Matthew 19 as one man and one woman," the delegates added."In Africa we do not believe we know better than Jesus. We do not believe we know better than God. We do not believe we know better than the Bible," they said.The African leaders made it clear they want the entire world to know where they stand: "We do not accept a change in the definition of marriage, and we will never accept marriage as anything other than one man and one woman."Nimia Peralta, a delegate from the Philippines, similarly <a href="https://www.umnews.org/en/news/church-ends-52-year-old-anti-gay-stance" target="_blank">said</a>, "While we celebrate worldwide regionalization, I truly believe the definition of marriage can never be regionalized."Measures to approve the progressive guidelines were adopted with overwhelming approval. That's because most conservative Methodists chose not to attend the conference. Indeed, thousands of former UMC congregations have voted to leave the UMC, joining <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2024/march/global-methodists-renewal-prayer-scripture-identity.html" target="_blank">the Global Methodist Church</a> or remaining independent. The pushback from African Methodists demonstrates an important phenomenon happening in Christian circles today: the embrace of pro-LGBT theology is almost entirely confined to the Western church.On the other hand, Christians in Asia, Africa, and Latin America — areas of the world where the issues of sexuality and gender are not cultural lightning rods — are remaining faithful to orthodox Christian teaching on sexual ethics.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 21:05:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/african-methodists-take-stand-for-biblical-marriage</guid><category>Umc</category><category>United methodist church</category><category>Marriage</category><category>Lgbt</category><category>Christianity</category><category>Faith</category><dc:creator>Chris Enloe</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181798&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>INSANE new theory: Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared into a WORMHOLE</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-glenn-beck-program/conspiracy</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182208&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> 
A decade ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared without a trace. Now, conspiracy theories are swirling around what really happened that day.

One of those conspiracies claims that the flight’s disappearance was a cover up by our very own government — and investigative journalist Ashton Forbes not only believes this may be true but has some eyebrow-raising receipts.

In video footage that Forbes claims was leaked from within the government, a plane is seen disappearing into what may be a wormhole created by three rotating orbs.

When Forbes initially saw the footage in 2014, he ignored it like most people did.

“It’s only in 2023/2024 that we could even begin to understand that what we see there is potentially real because science on the public side is slowly catching up to these private defense contractors,” Forbes tells Glenn Beck, adding, “They know this stuff is real.”

Forbes also explains that there has been a $150,000 bounty for the potential hoaxer of the video to come forward — but no one has.

“Somebody didn’t make these with just one shot, it would have taken lots of time and effort to put these together. There’s not one discrepancy on a single frame in either video. No errors anywhere,” he says, noting that the video footage predates all commercial AI.

“I would argue that what we’re looking at there is the mouth of the wormhole,” he explains as he goes over the video footage. “If you want to think of it in layman’s terms, you’re ripping through the fabric of reality there.”

“This seems ridiculously unbelievable,” Glenn says.

While it’s possible the video is fake, Forbes has some good news if it’s real.

“I don’t want to give anybody false hope out there, what I do want to tell people is that if this is real, then free energy is real, and that will change our entire planet,” Forbes says, adding, “If you imagine the implications of free energy, you can see why they would hide this.”<h3></h3> <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CdUsiSeZHEk?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe><h2>Want more from Glenn Beck?</h2>To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, <a href="https://get.blazetv.com/glenn/?utm_source=theblaze&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=article_shortcode_glennbeck" target="_blank">subscribe to BlazeTV</a> — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 20:56:19 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-glenn-beck-program/conspiracy</guid><category>Ashton forbes</category><category>Beck</category><category>Beck podcast</category><category>Blaze</category><category>Blaze tv</category><category>Blazetv</category><category>Conservative</category><category>Conservative podcast</category><category>Flight 370</category><category>Flight 370 explained</category><category>Flight disappears</category><category>Glen</category><category>Glen beck</category><category>Glenbeck</category><category>Glenn</category><category>Glenn beck</category><category>Glenn beck podcast</category><category>Glenn beck radio</category><category>Glenn tv</category><category>Glennbeck</category><category>Glenntv</category><category>Justxashton</category><category>Malaysia flight 370</category><category>Mystery</category><category>News</category><category>Science</category><category>Science fiction</category><category>Theblaze</category><category>Video</category><category>Warp drive</category><category>Warp technology</category><category>Youtube.com</category><category>The glenn beck program</category><category>The glenn beck program</category><dc:creator>BlazeTV Staff</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52182208&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>'Your eyes are slightly too big': Indiana Pacers fan going viral for extremely friendly heckling</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/pacers-bucks-polite-heckler-yells</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/your-eyes-are-slightly-too-big-indiana-pacers-fan-going-viral-for-extremely-friendly-heckling.jpg?id=52181544&width=1024&height=560&coordinates=0%2C32%2C0%2C91"/> The Indiana Pacers may have won their first-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, but it isn't the series victory that is dominating headlines, rather an overly polite fan.In their own right, the Bucks have been part of waves of stories in the 2024 NBA season because of some rather polarizing activities. The team popularized their post-game <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/milwaukee-bucks-prayer-circle-nba" target="_blank">prayer circle</a> and encouraged other players to take part. In January, they even had a half-time <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/video-drag-queens-perform-during-milwaukee-bucks-pride-night-halftime-show-but-not-everyone-is-gleeful-about-it" target="_blank">drag queen performance</a>.This time in the playoffs, it again wasn't the team's play that made headlines despite losing the first-round series <a href="https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2024/east-first-round-3" target="_blank">4-2</a>. The viral posts have come because of an Indiana Pacers fan who has been categorized as the world's friendliest heckler.During the series-deciding <a href="https://www.nba.com/game/mil-vs-ind-0042300126/box-score" target="_blank">120-98</a> Game 6, the Pacers fan wasn't shy about rubbing it in. The heckler was captured in TV broadcasts on multiple occasions delivering his slightly off-color remarks."Gallinari, you need a haircut!" the fan yelled at Bucks forward Danilo Gallinari:<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1786167352972722687">
<div style="margin:1em 0">This Pacers fan won\u2019t stop screaming \u201cGALLINARI YOU NEED A HAIRCUT\u201d \ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d</div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/OhhMar24/status/1786167352972722687"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Star Damian Lillard was able to fend off comments from the fan and hit a perfect 10 free throws in 10 attempts, despite vicious heckles such as "Lillard, your tattoos are only decent!" and "Lillard, your mom's watching!"<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1786171143570752000">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1786171143570752000"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Bobby Portis may have been a little affected. Despite scoring 20 points, he sunk just three of his seven free throw attempts.It goes without saying that heckles like "Portis! Your eyes are slightly too big for your head!" being screamed at a player over and over while he is trying to shoot may have a psychological effect on him.<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1786306074364067916">
<div style="margin:1em 0">Das beste an der Pacers-Bucks Serie war dieser Pacers Fan mit seinen unfassbar pers\u00f6nlichen, aber kinderfreundlichen Heckles. \ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\n\n"PORTIS, YOUR EYES ARE SLIGHTLY TOO BIG FOR YOUR HEAD!"\n\n"LILLARD, YOUR TATTOOS ARE ONLY DECENT!"\n\n\ud83d\udc10</div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/RealLennyCarlos/status/1786306074364067916"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Forward Khris Middleton was also on the receiving end in a video that has since been removed from X but is still watchable on <a href="https://www.boundingintosports.com/2024/05/indiana-pacers-fan/" target="_blank">Bounding into Sports</a>."Middleton, I respect your game, but I hope you miss!" the fan said. It is unknown if the same heckler sarcastically <a href="https://x.com/_Talkin_NBA/status/1785520560832684038" target="_blank">yelled</a>, "Khris Middleton is Michael Jordan! It's official!" during the game, although it's likely.Some viewers believe the heckler to be the same fan seated behind the announcers' table who was heard in the 2014 NBA playoffs asking Pacers player Paul George if he was "ready to go home in the first round.""You ready to go home in the first round against Atlanta? You're supposed to be an All-Star. Start playing ball, and stop traveling!" the fan screamed.<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aozuJxchD0Y?si=glFWCFujNEdo9cq3" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>The Pacers moved on to the <a href="https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2024/east-semifinal-2" target="_blank">second round</a> to play the New York Knicks.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 20:50:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/pacers-bucks-polite-heckler-yells</guid><category>Nba</category><category>Milwaukee bucks</category><category>Indiana pacers</category><category>Basketball</category><category>Sports</category><dc:creator>Andrew Chapados</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/your-eyes-are-slightly-too-big-indiana-pacers-fan-going-viral-for-extremely-friendly-heckling.jpg?id=52181544&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Anti-Israel protesters claimed they got concessions from UChicago. The school says that's not true.</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/anti-israel-protesters-claimed-they-got-concessions-from-uchicago-the-school-says-that-s-not-true</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/anti-israel-protesters-claimed-they-got-concessions-from-uchicago-the-school-says-that-s-not-true.jpg?id=50412091&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C53%2C0%2C54"/> Anti-Israel protesters at the University of Chicago claim that the university has agreed to an initial set of demands put forth by anti-Israel protesters who have set up an encampment at the school, but a statement put out by the school casts doubt on that claim.In a joint post on Instagram, the National Students for Justice in Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, US Palestinian Community Network, and UChicago United for Palestine said the college has agreed to one item in order to start negotiations with the camp. "As a precondition for meeting with administration, the power of our encampment forced the University to establish a Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative, which will bring 8 at-risk Palestinian scholars to work and study at UChicago," the groups' statement said but added, "We're appalled to have to pull the University's teeth for them to protect not only academic freedom but individual human lives." The statement goes on to say the new initiative was agreed to without putting any conditions on the encampment.With their first concession seemingly met, the anti-Israel groups say they are far from done."However, this falls far short of our demands. The fight to divest, disclose, and repair continues. We scould not accept a deal that would put constraints on our movement while doing nothing to end UChicago's material complicity in Israeli genocide and colonialism."The statement claims the demands for true divestment were "emptied of all substance" when they reached President Paul Alivisatos.After the Instagram post was published, classics professor at the college Dr. Shadi Bartsch said many faculty have "no idea" what is going on after Alivisatos had previously said the encampment was in violation of rules.<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1787248572460638518">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/ShadiBartsch/status/1787248572460638518"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>In <a href="https://news.uchicago.edu/media/statement/statement-protest-update" target="_blank">response</a> to the protesters' claims, the college said the program already exists and is open to anyone throughout the world."There are material inaccuracies and mischaracterizations in the information being shared on social media. In particular, the <a href="https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Scholars at Risk</a> program is an existing initiative at the University of Chicago and other leading universities and colleges. The program is open to scholars throughout the world. All scholars impacted by this conflict are being encouraged to participate. In addition, UCPD presence on the Quad has fluctuated based on needs and circumstances and at no point did we reduce — or agree to reduce — the security presence based on negotiations."The encampment at the college spurred a counter-protest, with students carrying American flags. Anti-Israel protesters rallied to "defend" their camp, but it did not result in a riot similar to the camp at the University of California Los Angeles. While the counter-protesters were not looking for a fight, scuffles still broke out.
<iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=eyJ0ZndfdGltZWxpbmVfbGlzdCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOltdLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2ZvbGxvd2VyX2NvdW50X3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9iYWNrZW5kIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19yZWZzcmNfc2Vzc2lvbiI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZm9zbnJfc29mdF9pbnRlcnZlbnRpb25zX2VuYWJsZWQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib24iLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X21peGVkX21lZGlhXzE1ODk3Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRyZWF0bWVudCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3Nob3dfYmlyZHdhdGNoX3Bpdm90c19lbmFibGVkIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19kdXBsaWNhdGVfc2NyaWJlc190b19zZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdXNlX3Byb2ZpbGVfaW1hZ2Vfc2hhcGVfZW5hYmxlZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdmlkZW9faGxzX2R5bmFtaWNfbWFuaWZlc3RzXzE1MDgyIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRydWVfYml0cmF0ZSIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfbGVnYWN5X3RpbWVsaW5lX3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9mcm9udGVuZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1786490164052693078&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fthechicagothinker.com%2Fwe-peacefully-marched-for-america-on-the-uchicago-quad-heres-why%2F&sessionId=44a071110525e6b0573a151135e3d62f025ddf26&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=500px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; max-width: 100%; position: absolute; visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="X Post"></iframe><blockquote></blockquote>"Due to our staunch commitment to keeping our counter-demonstration peaceful, we neither pushed through them nor initiated any physical contact, but instead simply stood our ground, chanting 'USA' with our fellow marchers and waving American flags. Unfortunately, the occupiers did not reciprocate our commitment to peaceful protest. They shoved, punched, broke a speaker, and grabbed phones," the leaders of the counter-protest wrote for the <a href="https://thechicagothinker.com/we-peacefully-marched-for-america-on-the-uchicago-quad-heres-why/" target="_blank">Chicago Thinker</a>."One protestor shoved me (Mitch) and hit my phone; another punched my friend John in the face. Yet another seized an American flag and attempted to rip it away from a fellow counter-protestor before being shooed away by me (Arthur)," the group added.<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1786490164052693078">
<div style="margin:1em 0"></div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/TheArthurLong/status/1786490164052693078"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 19:50:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/anti-israel-protesters-claimed-they-got-concessions-from-uchicago-the-school-says-that-s-not-true</guid><category>Education</category><category>Hamas</category><category>Students for justice in palestine</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Julio Rosas</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/anti-israel-protesters-claimed-they-got-concessions-from-uchicago-the-school-says-that-s-not-true.jpg?id=50412091&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>3 white former executives at NYC's Department of Ed to receive huge payout, following 'evidence of race-based discrimination'</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/3-white-former-executives-at-nyc-s-department-of-ed-to-receive-huge-payout-following-evidence-of-race-based-discrimination</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181533&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=133%2C0%2C121%2C0"/> In yet another blow to DEI initiatives across the country, three white former executives with the Department of Education in New York City will soon receive a hefty payout after they had allegedly been demoted in favor of "less-qualified" employees "of color," the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/27/us-news/nyc-to-pay-2-1m-in-toxic-whiteness-discrimination-settlement/" target="_blank">New York Post</a> reported.Five years ago, Lois Hererra, Jaye Murray, and Laura Feijoo filed a lawsuit alleging that the city's DOE had discriminated against them on the basis of their race, as <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/lawsuit-toxic-whiteness-purge-at-nyc-education-department" target="_blank">Blaze News</a> previously reported. The lawsuit originally sought $90 million in damages.Hererra, a Harvard alumna who had become executive director of the Office of Safety and Youth Development following decades at the agency, had been demoted in favor of Mark Rampersant, a black man with a GED. Murray, a former executive director of the Office of Counseling Support Programs, was demoted three rungs and had to report to Rampersant at one point. Finally, Feijoo, a former senior supervising superintendent who once supervised <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/05/28/bombshell-suit-claims-carranzas-toxic-whiteness-purge-cost-doe-execs-their-jobs/" target="_blank">all other DOE superintendents</a> was passed over for an opening at deputy chancellor by one of her black subordinates, Cheryl Watson-Harris, who did not even have the license necessary for the position at the time she was hired.Those staffing changes occurred under the leadership of former Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, a lackey of Democrat former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was "fixated on diversity," according to an internal DOE email written by then-chief operating officer Ursulina Ramirez.According to the lawsuit, Carranza threatened the job of any "Caucasian DOE employees" who dared to question his "equity platform." "Get on board ... or leave," he allegedly warned them. In sworn depositions in connection with the lawsuit, both Carranza and de Blasio admitted that they wanted to create a DOE that "looked like New York City," the Post reported. Carranza resigned from his position in February 2021, and de Blasio was term-limited out of office the following December.Three months ago, a judge ruled that the lawsuit showed "evidence of race-based discrimination in Carranza’s DOE," and a trial had been set for June.
<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DwdRqxOQxTo?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>
Rather than proceed with the trial, the city elected to reach a settlement with the plaintiffs. Hererra, Murray, and Feijoo will now each receive $700,000.Their lawyer, Davida Perry, called the settlement "a resounding affirmation that discrimination of any form should not be tolerated in educational institutions, regardless of the race of those negatively impacted." She also claimed her clients "feel justified and vindicated."Though the city will have to shell out more than $2 million to settle with the three white women, it still has not admitted wrongdoing. "The DOE and City are fully committed to fair and inclusive employment practices, and we maintain that these claims lack merit,” a spokesman for the Law Department said. "Nevertheless, settlement of this long standing case was in the best interest of all parties."Hererra has since retired, and Feijoo left for another job three and a half years ago. Murray is the only plaintiff who remains on the NYC DOE payroll, but her duties have been "sharply reduced," the Post said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 19:35:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/3-white-former-executives-at-nyc-s-department-of-ed-to-receive-huge-payout-following-evidence-of-race-based-discrimination</guid><category>Human interest</category><category>Racial discrimination</category><category>Anti-white racism</category><category>Dei</category><category>Diversity equity inclusion</category><category>Richard carranza</category><category>Mayor bill de blasio</category><category>New york city</category><category>Department of education</category><category>Racism</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Cortney Weil</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181533&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Breastfeeding charity ousts trustees who sought to exclude men from its services</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/breastfeeding-charity-ousts-trustees-who-want-to-exclude-men-from-its-services</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181566&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C53%2C0%2C54"/> 
La Leche League is a
<a href="https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/283771/governing-document" target="_blank">decades-old </a><a href="https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/283771/governing-document"> </a>non-governmental organization present in nearly 90 countries whose <a href="https://llli.org/about/philosophy/" target="_blank">stated mission</a> is to help "mothers worldwide to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education."

LLL volunteers understand that breastfeeding is the most suitable source of nutrients for infants. Not only does naturally occurring breast milk
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8471419/" target="_blank">help with human growth</a>, it also helps stave off disease, accelerate immunity development, and aid in intestinal colonization.

Although breastfeeding is exclusively the province of women, gender ideologues keen to ignore the insuperable differences between the sexes apparently regard it it as yet another female space to invade. In recent years, radicals on both sides of the Atlantic have endeavored to do so by way of more make-believe, medical experimentation, and coercion.

LLL's U.S.-based board of directors recently informed the British wing of the lactation charity, which has over 70 groups across the U.K., that it must support "male lactation,"
<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/01/breastfeeding-la-leche-league-suspends-trustees-trans-women/" target="_blank">according</a> to the Telegraph. Accordingly, the LLLGB must cater to transvestic men who seek to have infants choke back their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/health/transgender-woman-breast-feed.html" target="_blank">nausea medication-induced</a> discharge.

The LLLGB was further informed that the charity's use of the term "mother" might amount to a "roadblock" and that doubts over gender ideology were "harmful."

Late last year, six of the LLGB's
<a href="https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/283771/trustees" target="_blank">12 trustees</a> took a stand against the directors' attempt to insert mentally-compromised men into women's spaces nationwide, indicating that the demand contravened British law, which protects sex-segregated spaces. They implored the U.S.-based board to permit the organization to remain single-sex, as groups in Muslim countries and other nations resistant to gender ideology are permitted.

The international wing of the LLL responded in February, "We focus on providing breastfeeding support and understand the importance of making our spaces welcoming to all those who want to breastfeed or give their babies human milk."

"We don't argue with parents or other leaders about how they identify; we accept them with respect, just as they say they are, and do not refer to them with words that conflict with their identity," added LLLI.

For having dared to suggest that babies deserve real breast milk contra some drug-induced slurry from fetishists, the LLLI suspended the dissenting trustees, stating, "The continued promotion of LLL as an organization that excludes people is damaging to LLL's credibility."

One LLLGB trustee told the Telegraph, "Many breastfeeding supporters like me feel utterly disheartened by the way our charity has become obsessed and sidetracked by sex and gender issues. In the most recent diktat, we were informed that our charity is not and 'cannot become a single-sex' charity."

"We had already been told that the term 'mother' could be a 'roadblock'. Any attempt to question or debate these positions is hounded down as 'harmful,'" continued the trustee. "But these are not small changes or 'additive' terms to our messaging: it is fundamentally problematic to delivering on our philosophy as a charity. Crucially, it is not in the interests of mothers or babies."

The ousted trustees said in a
<a href="https://with-woman.org/2024/05/02/guest-post-statement-from-the-concerned-lllgb-trustee-group-defending-sex-based-rightsguest-post/" target="_blank">statement</a> obtained by the maternity care advocacy coalition With Woman, "La Leche League (LLL) has always been about mother-to-mother support to breastfeed. Being able to provide a female-only service is fundamental to the rights, safety and wellbeing of both mothers and babies."

"Pressure to abandon mother-only breastfeeding services has been building internationally at LLL for several years as gender-identity activism has gathered force," continued the statement. "We are now at the point that group leaders around the world are being told they must support 'male lactation.'"

The trustees indicated they have reached out to Britain's Charity Commission, which regulates registered charities in England and Wales. The Critic
<a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/misappropriating-motherhood/" target="_blank">reported</a> that the whistleblowers' report claims the charity is no longer acting in the beneficiaries' interest.

"We would like to reassure group leaders and the mothers who benefit from LLLGB's services that we are confident the law is on our side, as mother is a sex-based term in UK law," said the trustees.

A spokeswoman for the commission told the Telegraph, "We have received correspondence from groups of trustees, alerting us to a disagreement among the charity’s board about the way in which the charity delivers its services. We are assessing the information to determine whether this is a matter for the Commission as regulator to become involved in."

The U.K.-based
<a href="https://www.womensrights.network/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Women's Rights Network</a> said in a <a href="https://x.com/WomensRightsNet/status/1785801983405838528" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">statement</a>, "Let's call this what it is. An organisation helping men who want to put their nipples into babies' mouths, an suspending six trustees who rightly object. Babies should no be used to satisfy a male fetish. We applaud the LLL6."

It appears the LLL has been racing down the road to absurdity since at least 2020 when it
<a href="https://laleche.org.uk/support-transgender-non-binary-parents/?fbclid=IwAR3hicS6TFxbXpkCJTvvPt1MT87_0kSCGvCcd3G4MuautGm9HF2o5_HShx0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> it supported "everyone who wants to breastfeed or chestfeed in reaching their goals. We do not discriminate based on sex, gender or gender identity. Trans men, trans women and non-binary individuals may choose to breastfeed or chestfeed their babies. You do not need to have given birth to breastfeed or chestfeed, as we can also see in the experiences of those nursing adopted babies."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 19:20:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/breastfeeding-charity-ousts-trustees-who-want-to-exclude-men-from-its-services</guid><category>Transgender</category><category>Gender ideology</category><category>Gender</category><category>Breastfeeding</category><category>Breastfeed</category><category>Chestfeeding</category><category>Lunacy</category><category>Leftism</category><category>Social constructivism</category><category>Lll</category><category>La leche league</category><category>Women</category><category>Woman</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Joseph MacKinnon</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181566&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Rhode Island ignores ICE's detainer, releases illegal alien charged with child molestation and domestic assault</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/rhode-island-ignores-ice-s-detainer-releases-illegal-alien-charged-with-child-molestation-and-domestic-assault</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/rhode-island-ignores-ice-s-detainer-releases-illegal-alien-charged-with-child-molestation-and-domestic-assault.jpg?id=52181535&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C63%2C0%2C44"/> A Rhode Island court ordered the release of an illegal alien who was charged with child molestation and domestic assault, ignoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detainer request, according to a recent <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ero-boston-apprehends-guatemalan-citizen-arrested-locally-first-degree-child" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">press release</a> by Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston Field Office.A 22-year-old Guatemalan was apprehended by Border Patrol in November 2018 after he attempted to illegally enter the country in Nogales, Arizona. The unnamed man was served with a notice to appear and released into the interior of the country.Providence Police Department issued an arrest warrant for the individual on November 21, 2022, on child molestation and sexual assault charges, the ICE's ERO Boston Field Office reported. He was later apprehended on February 28, 2024, for the outstanding warrant as well as domestic assault charges.After he was booked into custody, ERO lodged an immigration detainer request against him. According to ERO, the detainer was ignored, and the Sixth District Court of Rhode Island ordered the man's release. On April 10, 2024, the same day as his release, ERO located the individual and placed him under federal custody "without incident." He will remain in custody pending a future immigration hearing."As part of its mission to identify and arrest removable noncitizens, ERO lodges immigration detainers against noncitizens who have been arrested for criminal activity and taken into custody by state or local law enforcement," ERO stated. "An immigration detainer is a request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to state or local law enforcement agencies to notify ICE as early as possible before a removable noncitizen is released from their custody."ICE has a maximum of 48 hours beyond the time the suspects would have been released from state or local law enforcement custody to pick up the individuals and transfer them to federal custody. "Detainers increase the safety of all parties involved — ERO personnel, law enforcement officials, removable noncitizens and the public — by allowing an arrest to be made in a secure and controlled custodial setting as opposed to at-large within the community," ERO's press release continued. "Because detainers result in the direct transfer of a noncitizen from state or local custody to ERO custody, they also minimize the potential that an individual will reoffend. Additionally, detainers conserve scarce government resources by allowing ERO to take criminal noncitizens into custody directly rather than expending resources locating these individuals at-large."ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons urged state and local law enforcement agencies to honor immigration detainers."This unlawfully present individual was arrested locally on first degree child molestation charges and was released back into the community despite an immigration detainer," Lyons explained. "ERO Boston hopes to cooperate with our local partners in Rhode Island to help make safer neighborhoods for everyone in the state and throughout New England."The city did not respond to a request for comment from the <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/03/blue-state-releases-child-molester-ice/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Daily Caller News Foundation</a>.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 19:05:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/rhode-island-ignores-ice-s-detainer-releases-illegal-alien-charged-with-child-molestation-and-domestic-assault</guid><category>Politics</category><category>News</category><category>Immigration</category><category>Illegal immigration</category><category>Illegal immigrants</category><category>Illegal migrants</category><category>Open border</category><category>Immigration and customs enforcement</category><category>Ice</category><category>Rhode island</category><category>Crime</category><dc:creator>Candace Hathaway</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/rhode-island-ignores-ice-s-detainer-releases-illegal-alien-charged-with-child-molestation-and-domestic-assault.jpg?id=52181535&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Former MLB star EXPOSES Stephen A. Smith</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/shows/fearless-with-jason-whitlock/stephen-a-smith-2668175687</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181623&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> 
The evidence just keeps stacking up against Stephen A. Smith, and this time it’s from former Red Sox and Phillies pitcher Jonathan Papelbon.

“Stephen A. did a segment dissing Mike Trout and saying, you know, he’s too injured, and how could he get injured in a sport like baseball where there’s not much contact or whatever. And then Jonathan Papelbon kind of opened up a can on Stephen A. Smith,” Jason Whitlock explains.

Papelbon then recounted a story on the show "Foul Territory" that does not bode well for Smith’s already shaky reputation.

“When I was in the Philadelphia clubhouse, we had a traveling secretary named Frank the Tank,” Papelbon began, saying he got into a conversation with Frank about Stephen A. Smith.

“I said, ‘Well, how come he never comes in the clubhouse any more?’ and he says to me, ‘Oh no, we had to kick him out of the clubhouse,’” Papelbon recalled.

“He proceeds to tell me that he was doing all kind of shady s*** like going through the manager's office when he wasn’t in there, going through the training room, pulling out reports, and all kinds of places he shouldn’t have been,” he continued.

“So for me, I've always looked at this guy like a complete joke and really is just real shady. Real shady guy. Like when you get kicked out of a major league clubhouse, that means that you should never be able to be a journalist ever again,” he added.

Jason Whitlock isn’t sure he believes it, but he isn’t writing it off, either.

“Any time you start passing along gossip and things you heard, it’s kind of high-risk and undermines the credibility of the accusations,” Whitlock says.

“I can’t see Stephen A. Smith hunting through private documents inside a baseball locker room, but who knows?” he continues. “Stephen A. doesn’t have much ethics. He’s willing to write books and a fictional narrative about himself, so I guess, you know, he’s potentially capable of it.”
<h3></h3> <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kwKvowJLmGU?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe><h2>Want more from Jason Whitlock?</h2>To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, <a href="https://get.blazetv.com/fearless/?utm_source=theblaze&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=article_shortcode_jasonwhitlock" target="_blank">subscribe to BlazeTV</a> — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 19:03:07 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/shows/fearless-with-jason-whitlock/stephen-a-smith-2668175687</guid><category>Blaze</category><category>Blaze media</category><category>Blaze podcast network</category><category>Blazetv</category><category>Fearless</category><category>Fearless with jason whitlock</category><category>Jason whitlock</category><category>Jason whitlock fearless</category><category>Jason witlock</category><category>Jonathan papelbon</category><category>Philadelphia phillies</category><category>Sports podcast</category><category>Stephen a smith</category><category>Stephen a smith jason whitlock</category><category>Stephen a smith jonathan papelbon</category><category>Stephen a smith mlb</category><category>The blaze</category><category>Video</category><category>Whitlock</category><category>Whitlock fearless</category><category>Whitlock stephen a smith</category><category>Youtube.com</category><dc:creator>BlazeTV Staff</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52181623&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Reporter uses ABC News' airwaves to pop Democrats' bubble about Biden's re-election chances: 'Was really shocking to me'</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/asma-khalid-2024-election-trump-biden-economy</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/reporter-uses-abc-news-airwaves-to-pop-democrats-bubble-about-biden-s-re-election-chances-was-really-shocking-to-me.jpg?id=52180130&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C6"/> An NPR reporter delivered news from the campaign trail on Sunday that doesn't look good for President Joe Biden.During a roundtable discussion on ABC News' "This Week," NPR correspondent Asma Khalid confirmed that voters who typically compose the "core" of the Democratic Party lack enthusiasm for Biden's re-election.Khalid was pushing back on Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett's claim that voters are falsely "glamorizing" Donald Trump's presidency."What I've already heard in so many of my interviews with people is a lackluster sense of enthusiasm," she said of voters' attitudes toward Biden, "whether it's black voters, whether it's — you'd call them, sort of like, disaffected Republicans."Khalid, moreover, suggested the Biden campaign's attempts to make the 2024 campaign into a referendum on Trump — when voters feel most hurt by Biden's policies — is a mistake."There's a whole bunch of things that went right for Biden, I would argue, in 2020: It was unity and opposition to Donald Trump," she explained. "To make this a referendum is what the Biden campaign wants, but it’s really challenging because many voters are looking at this election as a referendum on [Biden]."How does she know this? According to Khalid, she is reporting directly what she hears from voters on the campaign trail."You know, I was just up in Pennsylvania. Nonstop, I heard about the economy, and people don't feel great about the economy," she explained."This nostalgia for the Trump years is something," she continued. "It's the economy nostalgia I heard from Democrats even, which was really shocking to me — lay Democrats, remembering how good they thought their 401K was. They would say in their next breath they're not going to vote for Trump for a variety of reasons, but that's what Joe Biden is up against."<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><script src="https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6352370028112&w=650&h=366" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Election polls confirm Khalid's campaign anecdotes. ABC News' latest survey, in fact, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/6-months-out-tight-presidential-race-trump-biden-poll/story?id=109909175" target="_blank">showed that Trump</a> narrowly leads Biden in a very tight race. But where Trump truly shines is his handling of the issues most important to Americans: Voters trust Trump on the economy, inflation, immigration, foreign policy, and crime.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 18:50:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/asma-khalid-2024-election-trump-biden-economy</guid><category>Abc news</category><category>Election 2024</category><category>Asma khalid</category><category>Joe biden</category><category>Donald trump</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Chris Enloe</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/reporter-uses-abc-news-airwaves-to-pop-democrats-bubble-about-biden-s-re-election-chances-was-really-shocking-to-me.jpg?id=52180130&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Corporate bias watchdog reveals extent of Fortune 10 companies' ideological capture</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/corporate-bias-watchdog-reveals-extent-of-fortune-10-companies-ideological-capture</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/corporate-bias-watchdog-reveals-extent-of-fortune-10-companies-ideological-capture.webp?id=52178876&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> 
The
<a href="https://1792exchange.com/" target="_blank">1792 Exchange</a>, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to altogether combat woke capital, has released <a href="https://1792exchange.com/press-releases/" target="_blank">another damning batch of insights</a> into the extent of the ideological capture at America's Fortune 10 companies.

The watchdog's recent analysis — critical additions to a growing database that tracks the political preferences of board members and leaders inside Fortune 250 companies' C-suites — indicates that executives from America's top 10 companies, taken in aggregate, direct the super-majority of their political giving to Democrats. The 1792 Exchange further highlighted various public remarks suggestive of executives' prioritization of left-wing activism in the name of so-called stakeholders over results and returns for those shareholders who have everything on the line.

The 1792 Exchange indicated that executives from Fortune 10 companies give 77% of their political donations to Democrats and only 23% to Republicans. The political bias is especially clear at Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet, where the ratio of political giving to Democrats over Republicans apparently exceeds 9:1. Of the three corporate behemoths, 97%, 97%, and 95% of political donations went to Democrats, respectively.

Two outliers among the Fortune 10 in this regard are Chevron and Walmart, where 81% and 69% of political donations from executives and board members went to Republicans.

Matt Buckham, vice president for programs at the 1792 Exchange, told Blaze News, "What we see is instead of having a fair representation of viewpoints, instead of having a clear understanding that we are serving the shareholder, we see a massive tilt of 'We favor one party’s political opinions, one party’s ideas, one party’s ideology.'"

Buckham suggested that these executives should alternatively be focused on the business — on "doing what's good for the shareholder, what's good for the customer, and making the best product or service possible. Activism is the complete opposite of that."

"We don't want them to take harmful, left-wing, Democratic activist viewpoints and ideologies and incorporate them in a business with the pretense that it's helping the shareholders," continued Buckham. "We're trying to help companies avoid another Bud Light moment."

In an apparent effort to signal its woke alignment, Bud Light collaborated last year with transvestite influencer Dylan Mulvaney,
<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/bud-light-taps-transsexual-dylan-mulvaney-to-become-march-madness-spokesman" target="_blank">celebrating</a> his supposed "365 Days of Girlhood." The leftist activism hurt the company and shareholders by extension.

A boycott reacting to the company's apparent mockery of women successfully
<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/bud-light-boycott-sales-dylan-mulvaney" target="_blank">took</a> Bud Light out of the ranking of America's list of top 10 beers, <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/bud-light-boycott-proves-incredibly-successful-costing-anheuser-busch-15-7-billion-in-market-value" target="_blank">cost</a> Anheuser-Busch tens of billions in market value, and prompted a <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/bud-light-boycott-leaves-anheuser-busch-having-to-sack-hundreds-of-corporate-bigwigs" target="_blank">purge</a> of corporate employees. <a href="https://hbr.org/2024/03/lessons-from-the-bud-light-boycott-one-year-later" target="_blank">According</a> to the Harvard Business Review, Bud Light's sales decline persisted for around eight months.

It is unclear whether the executives at America's Fortune 10 companies — Walmart, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Apple, UnitedHealth Group, CVS, Berkshire Hathaway, Alphabet, McKesson, and Chevron — have taken the Bud Light lesson to heart. It is clear, however, that many are predisposed to a potentially costly leftward drift.

Referencing public statements made by company directors in recent months and years, the 1792 Exchange report indicated that ESG and DEI are baked into executives' conversations and considerations.

The report highlighted, for instance, former PepsiCo. CEO and current Amazon Audit Committee chairman Indra Nooyi's sense that discriminatory hiring policies are the way forward.

"You have to put some quotas and numbers in place to get the appropriate critical mass of diverse people in," Nooyi is quoted as
<a href="https://youtu.be/XpRJxGoKSKw" target="_blank">saying</a> at a 2022 leadership event in Dubai. "Don't look at quotas as something bad. It's bad if it's not in the early stages. So if it's in the early stages, start with a quota. Insist that the numbers get to 25[-]30% diverse people."

"[Inclusion] starts with numbers and then becomes a mindset," continued Nooyi.

Nooyi is evidently not the only race obsessive with priorities besides profitability at Amazon.

Andy Jassy, the company's president and CEO, reportedly said, "If you knew what a lot of the senior leaders at Amazon spend their time on when they're not at work. They spend their time on issues of racial equality. People are very passionate about it. I spend a lot of my time on that, too, so I care a lot about it."

It appears even the directors at ExxonMobil have waved on the leftist march through corporate institutions.

The 1792 Exchange highlighted how
<a href="https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/corporate-governance/board-of-directors/gregory-goff" target="_blank">Gregory Goff</a>, an independent director at the oil giant since 2021, is among those who have bought into stakeholder capitalism contra shareholder capitalism.

"I would hope that a director or directors would never compromise those plans and [ESG] programs by maybe challenging how much money is being spent on the things that are the most important to do,"
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_9z5akGDuo" target="_blank">said</a> Goff.

Things are no better at the UnitedHealth Group where the company's so-called chief innovation officer Dame Vivian Hunt appears to be of the mindset that the company must embrace an activist role. Hunt
<a href="https://youtu.be/pwFkEKOHjXI" target="_blank">noted</a> at an Imperial College Business School conference, "We want to lead responsibly. Stakeholder capitalism is a framework to do so. It's new harmony with a brain, a balance sheet, as well as a heart."

Over at Google's parent company Alphabet, board member Roger Ferguson Jr., is apparently of the mind that capitalism is broken and needs to be fixed.

"Business leaders must embrace a new definition of capitalism that puts a greater emphasis on social responsibility and equity," Ferguson
<a href="https://youtu.be/mzh3BvPmMuY" target="_blank">said</a> at a 2021 gala where he was being honored. "The Business Roundtable took meaningful steps toward that goal when it redefined the purpose of the corporation to include a commitment to all stakeholders."

Paul Tice, an adjunct professor of finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, indicated in his recent book, "The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System," that stakeholder capitalism theory, which began making the rounds in management circles around the 1960s, "argues that modern enterprises must serve not only shareholders but all company stakeholders — including employees, suppliers, and customers as well as the state, the economy, and society at large."

Tice suggested that stakeholder capitalism, particularly the kind championed by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, is built upon a corporatism "doubtless influenced by an engineering flow-chart mindset and a Prussian need to order society" that is "basically a collectivist political ideology with a dark lineage."

Buckham told Blaze News, "There's no end to what a stakeholder is or who a stakeholder is, so anybody and everybody can be one, they're loud."

"We're just saying [to company executives], 'Stop listening to everybody. Focus on your company — on what you do well, who you actually serve as the shareholder — and your company will do well," continued Buckham.

Just as <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/conservative-group-launches-news-service-that-helps-identify-woke-products" target="_self">Consumers' Research provides consumers with insights</a> into how they can avoid giving woke companies their hard-earned cash, the 1792 Exchange — named in tribute to the founding of the first American stock exchange in 1792 — seeks to both chasten top executives and help investors "make sure that they know what's going on in the companies they're invested in."

Buckham indicated that the 1792 Exchange will keep furnishing investors with insights so they can avoid woke companies and have a hand in turning things around for the better.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 16:55:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/corporate-bias-watchdog-reveals-extent-of-fortune-10-companies-ideological-capture</guid><category>Business</category><category>1792 exchange</category><category>Money</category><category>Investing</category><category>Investment</category><category>Fortune 10</category><category>Fortune 250</category><category>Companies</category><category>Board room</category><category>Esg</category><category>Dei</category><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Joseph MacKinnon</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/corporate-bias-watchdog-reveals-extent-of-fortune-10-companies-ideological-capture.webp?id=52178876&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Washington’s bungling of the anti-Semitism bill</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/washingtons-bungling-of-the-anti-semitism-bill</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/washingtons-bungling-of-the-anti-semitism-bill.jpg?id=52179592&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C77%2C0%2C30"/> Washington stands ready to fix all our problems. This week, the Senate will consider what the House already did — how to excise hate from the human heart with a quick vote (and hopefully as little debate as possible). The Jewish faith might be the most persecuted in history. From Babylon to Egypt and Greece to Rome, and from the czar to the führer and the king to mufti, the Jews have borne a heavy share of murder. That is, until Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) solved it with a bill last week allowing the government to protect the Jewish people by punishing hate speech, as defined by “the <a href="https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism" target="_blank">working definition</a> of the Holocaust Remembrance Project.” Much has been said exploring the how ham-fisted and overreaching Johnson’s new bill is, and you can find interesting critiques from <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/the-house-anti-semitism-bill-is-a-hate-speech-law-in-disguise-dont-fall-for-it" target="_self">Glenn Beck</a> and others, but the more immediate question in the Washington snow globe is whether this bill has a chance of passing. But first: its origins. The anti-Semitism bill began as a “messaging bill” — something for Republicans to unify around and vote on in the House, regardless of its potential for success in the Senate, so they can force Democrats to take a stance against it, then campaign on it. To that end, Johnson kicked off the debate with a visit to Columbia University’s campus, where he rightly called violent, threatening, illegal encampments “un-American” in their style. That visit was the last thing to go right, because after that he unveiled his new bill, which includes everything from linking Jewish people to the state of Israel all the way to criticizing the state of Israel as illegal hate speech. The bill helps to better define Johnson and his allies. Through it, and his breaking on Ukraine aid, his folding on border security, and his advocacy for warrantless wiretapping, an image of Johnson as a caricature of a 2012-style Republican begins to emerge. This is a man who has proven incapable of applying any of the lessons of the past eight years to governance (if he ever learned them in the first place). And now he leads a <a href="http://center-left%20coalition/" target="_blank">center-left coalition</a> in the U.S. House of Representatives. The messaging part of the messaging bill quickly fell apart once introduced. Republicans like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida denounced it as so broad as to criminalize the Gospels, and Democrat supporters of the campus occupiers’ and rioters’ message joined in opposition from the other side. Republicans had lost a golden opportunity to make a simple political argument that illegal mobs cannot be tolerated and must be punished, and instead they opted to argue specific points with radicals and anarchists (always dumb) and expand federal power over speech (also bad). So what now? Now the bill goes to the Senate, which returns on Tuesday. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is reportedly eager to pass it. Much of the disorder began in his state, and the left-wing civil war it has pushed into the open is deeply uncomfortable for the most powerful Jewish politician on the planet. A couple of things stand in Schumer’s way, however. First, that whole civil war thing. He’s got colleagues in his own caucus who are against passage, with trouble likely from Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), with a possible defection from Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Leaders generally don’t like to expose fractures in their own conference (with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a notable exception), but when it comes down to it, Schumer probably could cajole the rest of his caucus into toeing the line. The second problem is those Republicans (mostly) who remember free speech protections are necessary to protect unpopular speech and are concerned about expanding the feds’ “hate-speech” arsenal. Though even they lack the stomach for a big fight. At the top of the new week, politicians from both sides of the aisle have holds, so a fight of some sort is brewing. But here’s the third problem: No politician in the Senate really wants to fight about Israel right now. The debate is a minefield all around, just as the presidential election shifts into a new gear. “It’s the Senate” after all, one longtime Republican Senate aide told Blaze Media. “They’re terrified of anything relevant.” But the candidates don’t want to talk about it either. After dragging his feet for weeks, Joe Biden finally condemned the riots late last week, while former President Donald Trump signed an executive order in December 2019 nearly identical to Johnson's legislation. While the executive orders are closer to glorified press releases than law, the order generated little controversy when signed (and thus far has been largely ignored, rather than abused, by the current administration). At the other end of all the holds, however, are a goodly number of co-sponsors willing to pass the bill up to the president’s desk. “It’s probably going to go through in some form,” one senior aide to a conservative Republican predicted to Blaze Media. “Nobody wants to fight it too hard in the Senate, although some senators are working to amend it so that it’s less offensive to the First Amendment and doesn’t implicate Scripture.” But finally, there is the real prospect of nothing happening at all. It doesn’t take a lot to grind the Senate to a halt, and a lot of Democrat senators would prefer to pretend they don’t have anything to do with campus disorder. Schumer might decide it is better to use his time confirming more liberal nominees than arguing about Israel in front of the voters.Glenn Beck at Blaze News:<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/the-house-anti-semitism-bill-is-a-hate-speech-law-in-disguise-dont-fall-for-it" target="_self">The House anti-Semitism bill is a hate speech law in disguise. Don’t fall for it.</a> <h2>IN OTHER NEWS </h2>The Trump trial drags onThe former president’s hush money trial will enter its fourth week on Monday, with Trump and <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112372819456433498" target="_blank">his beautiful blue eyes</a> forced off the campaign trail and into the Manhattan courtroom once again as prosecutors continue to move through their witness list. Last week, former Trump aide Hope Hicks broke down in tears on the stand as she testified about her role on the 2016 campaign and her interactions with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and the Democrat DA’s star witness. Defense attorneys for Trump are continuing to chip away at Cohen’s credibility while arguing that much of the “conspiracy” prosecutors are describing to the jury was not actually illegal. The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, though prosecutors haven't shared which witnesses they will put on the stand. For “safety.” The numbers for the president, in the meantime, continue to fallAccording to <a href="https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1232a22024Election.pdf" target="_blank">an ABC News and Ipsos poll</a>, Biden’s support among black voters has fallen more than 20 points since his election and with Hispanics by 17 points. Young voters, the poll found, have flipped from Biden +24 to Trump +5. While the same poll shows Trump ahead of Biden overall, the current White House occupant still leads among the all-important likely voters, 49% to 45%. “They keep shaking the poll machine, and it keeps spitting out these same faulty numbers,” the Free Press’ Nellie Bowles <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/tgif-dont-tread-on-me-bro" target="_blank">joked</a>, citing a similar findings from a CNN poll released a week before. White boy summer This week saw the revenge of the frat boy, with normal American students taking aim at campus radicals and their pals working to hold colleges captive. The week kicked off with University of North Carolina students defending the American flag, while a mob that had raised the Palestinian flag in its place hurled abuse and pelted them with ice. “Help us raise funds to throw these frats the party they deserve,” one of the bros quickly posted on GoFundMe: “a party worth of the boat-shoed Broleteriat who did their country proud.” In less than a week, the effort <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/UNC-frat-bros-defended-their-flag-throw-em-a-rager" target="_blank">raised</a> more than $500,000. The example has spread. New York Police followed the frat bros’ lead the following day, re-raising Old Glory at City College after the mob had taken it down. Now, groups of normie college students across the country are making sport of it, chanting back at occupiers and taunting activists.The fire rises: “‘A step back in time’: America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways,” <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/step-back-time-americas-catholic-040718410.html" target="_blank">Associated Press</a><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/step-back-time-americas-catholic-040718410.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>Politics aside, the Catholic Church in America is changing. For years we’ve seen a return to orthodoxy among young parishioners. While it's true that the decidedly unorthodox pope rules one of the last absolute monarchies on the planet, more astute observers might recognize the Church as a more democratic institution than it seems, where shifts often come from the bottom up, rather than the top down. Though it drips with condescension, this AP piece documents some of the changes happening now. <blockquote>The shrinking numbers [of practicing Catholics] mean that those who remain in the church have outsized influence compared with the overall Catholic population. On the national level, conservatives increasingly dominate the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and the Catholic intellectual world. They include everyone from the philanthropist founder of Domino’s Pizza to six of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices. “Then there’s the priesthood. Young priests driven by liberal politics and progressive theology, so common in the 1960s and 70s, have ‘all but vanished,’ said a 2023 report from The Catholic Project at Catholic University, based on a survey of more than 3,500 priests. Today’s young priests are far more likely to believe that the church changed too much after Vatican II, tangling itself up in America’s rapidly shifting views on everything from women’s roles to LGBTQ people. </blockquote>]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 15:40:09 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/washingtons-bungling-of-the-anti-semitism-bill</guid><category>Politics</category><dc:creator>Christopher Bedford</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/washingtons-bungling-of-the-anti-semitism-bill.jpg?id=52179592&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>‘Psychological gentrification’ is muddling the American mind</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/psychological-gentrification-is-muddling-the-american-mind</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/psychological-gentrification-is-muddling-the-american-mind.jpg?id=52174848&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> 
Drew Barrymore’s<a href="https://x.com/theblaze/status/1785028251288510805" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> cringey</a> plea for Kamala Harris to be “Momala” of the country was yet another reminder that many actors, comedians, and media personalities are progressive shills. But the reaction to her request from Essence<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C6Zw0tIp-xg/?img_index=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> magazine</a> — a firm declaration that “BLACK WOMEN ARE NOT YOUR MAMMIES” — was a reminder that many black institutions and influencers have invited white people, including washed-up actresses, to take up permanent residence in their minds.

It is important to understand this phenomenon of “psychological gentrification” because the most valuable property that any person controls is his or her own mind. What a person fills it with will impact one's values, beliefs, words, and actions.

A lack of clear thinking and moral reasoning are the natural byproducts of a gentrified mind.

The hallmarks of urban gentrification include new restaurants, coffee shops, dog parks, and bike lanes. Gentrification is a complicated topic because even the people who resist the changes to their neighborhood appreciate the increase in their property value as well as the new amenities that accompany an influx of affluent residents.

Psychological gentrification offers no such perks. All it does is leave people feeling perpetually offended and unable to think clearly.

Amanda Seales is an actress, comedian, and author who holds herself out as equal parts entertainer, intellectual, and revolutionary. She recently did a three-hour<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9fRHyEidvY&ab_channel=ClubShayShay" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> interview</a> with Shannon Sharpe on his "Club Shay Shay" podcast.

It was clear that her mind is gentrified.

Seales spoke extensively about all the ways she has been victimized throughout her life on account of race. She accused a former teacher of being racist after getting in trouble for “correcting” the adult in front of the class. She also said her fellow child actors called her the “N-word” and bullied her. She even claimed that white supremacy was behind the black media outlets being willing to engage with Candace Owens.

None of this was surprising, given that Seales proclaimed herself to be a race “scholar” who sees the world through a racial lens. She claimed that people don’t like her because she’s straightforward and tells the truth, but she shut down and became defensive when Sharpe tried to get her to consider any perspective that moved her out of the victim seat. It’s hard to lead a revolution when you can’t even stomach having your perspective questioned.

Boyce Watkins is another person who speaks extensively about race. He holds a Ph.D. in finance and is the author of “The 10 Commandments of Black Economic Power.” Watkins occupies a different space in the black political ecosystem than Seales but suffers from the same symptoms of psychological gentrification.

Watkins tried his hand at sports commentary during the recent NFL draft when he<a href="https://x.com/drboycewatkins1/status/1783818287576383802" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> posted</a>, “The NFL draft is a lot like a slave auction, except the slaves aren’t working for free.”

Hundreds of people — myself included — <a href="https://x.com/DelanoSquires/status/1784316289608999040" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pointed</a> out that the NFL draft is nothing like a slave auction, especially since the players want to participate and will be paid a king’s ransom. Watkins is not the first person to compare professional sports leagues with a large percentage of black athletes to slavery.

The journalist William Rhoden published a book in 2006 called “40 Million Dollar Slaves” that argued black athletes had as little power in their respective sports as their enslaved ancestors had on plantations. More recently, the backup quarterback-turned-police abolitionist Colin Kaepernick claimed that the NFL Combine was<a href="https://x.com/JudgeEnjoyer/status/1780330343377019369" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> similar</a> to a slave auction. Jemele Hill, former ESPN personality, said the<a href="https://x.com/jemelehill/status/1327798625049608192?s=46&t=gBbd43U9Utweari1tbJ6FQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> same</a> thing a few years before him. There was also the lawsuit brought by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores that began with an<a href="https://x.com/CBSMornings/status/1488862606760681474" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> accusation</a> that the NFL is run like a slave plantation.

All these individuals have demonstrated a lack of clear thinking and moral reasoning, both the natural byproduct of a gentrified mind. Professional athletes in the NFL make more in one year than the average American makes in a lifetime. They train their entire lives with the hopes of making it to their respective leagues. Not only that, but their parents invest countless resources and time to get them into the pros.

I’m no history major, but I can’t recall a single account of an enslaved mother and father who jumped for joy as their child was sold on an auction block.

Black America will never reach its full potential if we are unable to think about a complex, dynamic, ever-evolving society without lazily reverting to slave metaphors or assuming all our problems stem from racism. This is a guaranteed recipe for social and economic stagnation. If you think of yourself as a slave, then you will always be looking for a master and be terrified of the responsibilities that come with freedom.

Booker T. Washington understood this well. He gave his black students at Tuskegee University an education in skilled trades as well as liberal arts. He instilled a sense of pride and dignity in students who were literally building the school in which they learned. He took this approach so that graduates could go back and empower their communities across the rural South. Washington knew that a man who is stable and secure in his own identity can engage, build, and partner with others as equals, not as someone seeking pity, affirmation, or protection from the people he claims are oppressing him.

A lot of people today need to learn the same lesson.
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 11:05:30 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/psychological-gentrification-is-muddling-the-american-mind</guid><category>Opinion & analysis</category><dc:creator>Delano Squires</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/psychological-gentrification-is-muddling-the-american-mind.jpg?id=52174848&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>VW caves to union; will workers come to regret it?</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/align/vw-caves-to-union-will-workers-come-to-regret-it</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/vw-caves-to-union-will-workers-come-to-regret-it.jpg?id=52170605&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C53%2C0%2C54"/> 
Two weeks ago, workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee, factory voted for United Auto Workers representation. Much has been written about how "historic" this decision is. The Chattanooga plant makes VW the frst foreign-owned car manufacturer in the South to unionize.

What isn't being discussed: How big government and big labor colluded to sway the vote and why VW employees are likely to regret it.

The union successfully organized Volkswagen’s Pennsylvania facility in 1978. Years of labor unrest followed, with VW eventually shuttering the plant in 1987.

Crucial to UAW's campaign was the promise that VW workers would receive the same rich $108,000 annual pay package (equivalent to a Silicon Valley software developer’s income) that the union won for Detroit Three blue-collar workers last fall.

But there was a stick to go along with the carrot. In a not-so-subtle threat to all 13 non-union auto companies being targeted by the UAW, 33 Democratic Party senators sent a letter earlier this year demanding that they remain neutral in the union’s campaign.

“We believe a neutrality agreement is the bare minimum standard manufacturers should meet in respecting workers’ rights,” wrote the senators, before getting to the point. “Especially as companies receive and benefit from federal funds related to the electric vehicle transition.”

Translation: Unionize, or pay the consequences.
<h2>All part of the (five-year) plan</h2>
These are dramatically different times in the U.S. auto industry since the UAW last tried to organize VW’s Chattanooga plant in 2019. Today’s industry is being forced by U.S. governments — at both the federal and state levels — to manufacture electric vehicles to solve the manufactured climate crisis.

Failure to meet government sales mandates will be met with massive fines that increase by leaps and bounds after 2026. California, the nation’s biggest auto market, will, for example, require that 35% of automaker sales be of battery-powered vehicles by 2026.

Failure to meet that number will cost them $20,000 per vehicle for every vehicle below the threshold. The percentage jumps to 43% in 2027, 51% in 2028, 59% in 2029, and 68% in 2030 on the way to outlawing the sales of gasoline cars in 2035. Federal penalties are similarly harsh.

Tesla aside (as an EV-only seller, it is not only exempt from penalties but also receives generous subsidies), just 5% of sales today are electric, with 50% of EV buyers returning to a gas car when they go back to market.

To help automakers meet the arbitrary sales goals, the U.S. government is greasing the “EV transition” skids with billions in federal aid under the Inflation Reduction Act to construct battery plants and sweeten each EV purchase with $7,500. To gain that subsidy, the Biden administration prefers that EVs be domestically produced — preferably with UAW labor that ultimately fills Democratic election fund coffers.

An admirer of Communist Chinese industrial policy, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is determined to follow in China's EV footsteps. “China ... has adopted 14 five-year plans that are focused on dominating supply chains and manufacturing products that we used to excel in. They’re producing huge volumes of solar panels and EVs,” she told media allies at the National Press Club in February. “But we are fighting back.”
<h2>Stuck in neutral</h2>
VW got the message. In 2019 it played a part in the union's narrow defeat by actively discouraged unionization, creating a website touting the benefits of a non-union shop and linking to anti-UAW editorials and articles about UAW corruption, while warning that overly expensive labor could be replaced by automation.

VW was notably neutral in its handling of this year’s UAW campaign and will pay the price for the union victory. VW’s non-union labor costs on the popular VW Atlas SUV and VW ID.4 electric vehicle are 30% less than its U.S. competitors.

With a UAW shop, VW will lose its competitive cost advantage over Detroit automakers — a big reason it located its sprawling 350,000-square-foot facility in right-to-work Tennessee in 2011 — and be forced to submit to inefficient UAW work rules.

But the cost equation may be changing as governments dictate product planning.

Ford lost over $4 billion on its EV operations last year, and VW EV sales have cratered in Europe, where EVs are also mandated.

VW has dealt with unions for years in Europe; the company may feel the cost of unionization is a necessary price to stay in the good graces of Democrats who control the subsidy spigot. “VW is accustomed to a union environment in Germany,” said veteran industry analyst and Seeking Alpha columnist Doron Levin. “But the UAW is likely to be more adversarial and militant than Germany’s metal workers union.”

It’s the second time VW’s U.S. facilities have opened their doors to the UAW. The union successfully organized Volkswagen’s Pennsylvania facility in 1978. Years of labor unrest followed, with VW eventually shuttering the plant in 1987. Let’s see what happens in Tennessee.
<h2>Great leap backward</h2>
“Every autoworker in this country deserves their fair share of the auto industry’s record profits, whether at the Big Three or the Non-Union Thirteen,” UAW president Shawn Fain said in response to the senators’ February letter. “It’s time for the auto companies to stop breaking the law and take their boot off the neck of the American autoworker, whether they’re at Volkswagen, Toyota, Tesla, or any other corporation doing business in this country.”

Fain says he plans to unionize all of the non-union auto plants. His next target? Mercedes-Benz's Alabama plant.

What's missing in Fain's triumphant bluster is any sense that unionization could have serious downsides for workers.

Big Three automakers are accelerating robotic automation in their plants to replace expensive worker jobs. In union-heavy Europe, meanwhile, the high costs and low demand for EVs have led to thousands of layoffs in the last year as carmakers and their suppliers struggle to meet governments’ socialist EV vision

The EV mandates should remind us of when the heavy hand of government forced bankers to give mortgages to uncreditworthy borrowers in the 1990s. That turned out well, didn't it? Now the government wants control of the auto industry. The United Kingdom tried this decades ago. It ended up selling off domestic automakers and more or less destroying the once-proud British car industry,

If Granholm really wants to beat China, she should consider the effect that top-down increases in labor costs will have on America's ability to compete. In the short term, consumers will have to bear higher prices; in the long term, workers may endure decreased job security. Sounds like a great leap backward to us.
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 10:45:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/align/vw-caves-to-union-will-workers-come-to-regret-it</guid><category>Lifestyle</category><dc:creator>Lauren Fix</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/vw-caves-to-union-will-workers-come-to-regret-it.jpg?id=52170605&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Blaze News investigates: Mobs of illegal aliens keep storming border — but El Paso is laying down the law</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/blaze-news-investigates-mobs-of-illegal-aliens-keep-storming-border-but-el-paso-is-laying-down-the-law</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/blaze-news-investigates-mobs-of-illegal-aliens-keep-storming-border-but-el-paso-is-laying-down-the-law.jpg?id=52166895&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C10%2C0%2C97"/> 
Over the past couple of months, there have been multiple coordinated attempts by large groups of illegal aliens to breach the southern border, with this trend appearing to be on the rise.
 

On April 12, a mass of illegal immigrants cut and tore down the concertina wire used to block illegal entry into the country. The wire was located in front of Gate 36 along the border wall. The gate is not a port of entry where so-called 'asylum-seekers' are permitted to surrender to federal authorities.

Within the mob of approximately 300 individuals, 142 allegedly "push[ed]" forward, forcing Texas National Guardsmen to "back off," according to a state prosecutor who argued the group's actions constituted participation in a riot. The arrested individuals were predominantly Venezuelan nationals, while some were from Guatemala and Honduras.

"Joe Biden has abandoned Texas," U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Blaze News.

"The federal government won't defend our border, so we are doing it ourselves," Cruz continued. "The idea that Joe Biden cares about border security is laughable. Every step of the way, he's blocked Texas from defending itself and even took a
<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/supreme-court-extends-freeze-on-texas-law-that-would-allow-police-to-arrest-deport-illegal-migrants" target="_self">lawsuit</a> against Texas all the way to the Supreme Court."

El Paso County Public Defender Kelli Childress, who represented the group, argued that Texas DPS lacked probable cause for the mass arrests, according to
<a href="https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/immigration/2024/04/22/el-paso-county-judge-no-probable-cause-of-border-riot-arrests-judge-ruben-morales/73418221007/" target="_blank">El Paso Times</a>. She claimed it was "nothing more than an attempt to arrest and harass."

El Paso Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Vandenbosch contended that the illegal immigrants had participated in a riot and pointed to the fact that the group had camped out while "waiting for someone to cut the concertina wire."

Childress slammed the Texas Department of Public Safety for filing "identical" affidavits for "almost all" of the illegal immigrants that used "boiler plate language."

"No evidence of who in the National Guard witnessed the crime," she contended. "These affidavits are nothing more than hearsay. We have nothing that points to these [individuals] participating in a riot."

Vandenbosch argued that the illegal aliens "bum rush[ed]" military members and law enforcement officers protecting the southern border.

"They all followed," Vandenbosch noted. "When you come in force with a large group, you are participating in a riot."

Ira Mehlman, media director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told Blaze News that the illegal immigrants who participated in the April 12 border breach "clearly met the standards for being prosecuted."

"What happened down there was a riot," Mehlman said.

"You had people who were not only violating U.S. immigration laws by entering the country illegally but were also refusing to obey the orders of law enforcement agents once they reached the U.S. side of the border. They engaged in violence as they came across," he added.

County Court at Law 7 Judge Ruben Morales ultimately sided with the defense and
<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/el-paso-judge-dismisses-riot-charges-against-140-likely-illegal-aliens-republican-da-indicts-them-anyway" target="_self">dismissed the cases</a> on April 22. During the hearing, Morales stated, "After reviewing the affidavit, I don't believe that [probable cause] exists."

"I don't believe there is probable cause for these individuals to continue to be detained for the offense of riot participation," he decided.

As a result of the judge's ruling, the group of illegal immigrants was set to be released from state custody and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has a detainer request on each of the individuals for entering the country illegally.

John Zadrozny with America First Legal told Blaze News that Morales' decision to dismiss the indictments is "proof" of an "awful double standard" in El Paso County and elsewhere in the country that "needs to be addressed."

The day after the judge's ruling, District Attorney Bill Hicks called for a grand jury of 12 El Paso citizens to decide on the cases. The
<a href="https://www.kwtx.com/2024/04/25/over-140-migrants-indicted-over-failed-border-breach-el-paso/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">jurors indicted more than 140 illegal aliens</a> on misdemeanor rioting charges.

During a press conference, Hicks told reporters that the DA's office had previously objected to the initial trial and attempted to get it pushed back.

"We didn't feel like we had adequate notice of the hearing. We did not feel like we had adequate service of what the hearing was about, and we objected to that," Hicks explained. "The judge overruled our objections and went forward with the hearing."

Hicks also noted that the judge denied evidence offered by the DA's office.

"At the hearing, the judge ultimately ruled that, based on the complaint affidavit in front of him, that the 141 cases from the April 12 arrests on the riot cases, that there was not probable cause to believe that the riot cases should proceed," he added. "Because the judge's ruling was limited to the complaint affidavit in front of him, that allowed us to take the broader case to the grand jury."

Additional evidence, including video footage, was presented to the jurors that the judge did not review.

"The citizens of El Paso, through the grand jury, essentially overruled the judge's ruling and found probable cause to believe that the riots did occur," Hicks told reporters. "They signed a grand jury indictment on each of the 141 cases."

The cases against the illegal immigrants are now being processed through the clerk's office. Once the indictments are processed, which Hicks mentioned could take some time for all 141 cases, arrest warrants will be issued. Some or all of the individuals may already be in federal custody by that time. If so, ICE will return the illegal aliens to the county jail.

Hicks said during the press conference that he would not tolerate individuals entering the country illegally and committing additional crimes.

"If people believe they can come to our country, knocking down barriers, endangering lives, causing our National Guardsmen to fear for their lives, having to back away — and to have that kind of mentality, just so they can get up to a particular gate — they can't do that," he stated.

Hicks explained that the charges had nothing to do with citizenship status.

"We've got to take a stand," he continued. "It doesn't matter an individual's legal status. If U.S. citizens were involved in this, they too would be charged with rioting."

If convicted, the illegal aliens could face up to 180 days in the county jail and up to a $2,000 fine.

Texas DPS Regional Director Jose Sanchez told reporters during the news conference that the law enforcement agencies work together to obtain intelligence information that could tip them off to an upcoming rush of illegal immigrants at the southern border but that they had not anticipated the breach on April 12.

Sanchez also explained that the installation of the concertina wire and the presence of the Texas National Guard was necessary to prevent waves of illegal migrants from running across the road.

"If we don't do anything, then we're going to have chaos like we did
<a href="https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/watch-news-crew-captures-video-of-migrants-running-across-el-paso-highway/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">two years ago</a>," Sanchez told reporters. "Before the concertina wire was up, we had migrants that were getting hit on Border Highway. We had citizens that were getting into accidents, hitting into the center medians, hitting into the fence because they were trying to avoid hitting the tons of migrants that were coming across."

"It was a madhouse for a very long time," Sanchez added. "So now, what we're seeing is them cutting through the wire. This is a whole different group of people than what we were dealing with two years ago. Two years ago, we didn't have the violence that we're having now. Besides what you saw in the riots, we've also had soldiers that have been assaulted."

He stated that a female soldier was punched in the chest by an illegal immigrant. Sanchez noted that the illegal aliens crossing the border now are not from Mexico, and some have ties to transnational crime gangs, including the largest criminal organization in Venezuela, Tren de Aragua.

<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1Xam80YpFQc?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) applauded the El Paso DA's office for effectively
<a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1782976926803456241" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">overruling the judge's dismissal</a> of the riot charges.

Zadrozny stated that Hicks is "doing the right thing by enforcing local laws" to protect the local community.

"Responsible state and local public officials who take law enforcement, public safety, and the rule of law seriously would be wise to follow Mr. Hicks' lead in indicting aliens who are illegally in the United States and commit crimes in their jurisdictions," he told Blaze News. "One of the most important things that state and local law enforcement officials across the country can do to tackle the Joe Biden-induced illegal immigration crisis in the United States is simply arrest, charge, and convict illegal aliens of crime whenever they engage in criminal activity on American soil."

He noted that these local arrests "will eventually make it easier for a future responsible administration to remove these illegal aliens from the United States."

The
<a href="https://www.borderreport.com/immigration/shelters-emptying-as-migrants-rush-to-border-wall/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Border Report</a> found that private and government-operated shelters in Juarez, Mexico, were near capacity a week before April 12 but were half empty on the day of the breach of the U.S. border. Shelter facility leaders said that false social media about an "express" asylum process prompted thousands of individuals to leave and head for the border.

According to a video obtained by
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/border-crisis-migrants-rush-bridge-linking-mexico-u-s-el-paso-texas-video" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fox News Digital</a>, approximately one week prior, on March 10, a group of at least 1,000 would-be illegal aliens stormed the Paso del Norte bridge, which connects Mexico and El Paso. In response to the chaotic scheme, Customs and Border Protection rolled out "<a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/13/video-shows-hundreds-of-migrants-rush-us-mexico-border-bridge/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">port hardening measures</a>" due to "a potential threat to make a mass entry."

The incident was blamed on
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/mexican-cartels-social-media-misinformation-blamed-rush-migrants-texas-border-bridge" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mexican cartels</a>, which frequently use social media to influence illegal immigrants to head to targeted areas of the border.

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety stated at the time that a Facebook post claimed that CBP would allow illegal aliens to enter the country if they arrived at the border with children or if they had an "extreme" asylum claim.

The coordinated swarms are used to distract law enforcement and tie up resources while the cartel implements smuggling operations in other parts of the border.

Mehlman noted that the Mexican cartels have been influencing illegal immigrants to rush the southern border for a long time to create distractions for Border Patrol agents.
 "These are not happening spontaneously. These are being organized. This is big business for the cartels," he told Blaze News.
"And very often, it augments their drug trafficking business because when the Border Patrol is tied up processing migrants, then the border remains wide open for them to start bringing in narcotics," Mehlman added.

Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News that human smuggling and drug trafficking are a billion-dollar business for Mexican cartels, noting that "the two businesses go well together" because they "channel[] large groups of illegal crossers to certain points on the border." By using this strategy, the cartels "can divert Border Patrol and leave areas unguarded for the movement of drugs."

Just weeks before the April 12 breach, a mob of
<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/footage-migrants-storm-border-rush-national-guard?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dlvr.it_x_theblaze&tpcc=social" target="_self">more than 100 illegal aliens</a> was captured on video by the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/03/21/us-news/migrants-break-barriers-and-rush-border-guards-in-el-paso/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New York Post</a> breaking through the razor-wire barriers and knocking down Texas National Guardsmen. The group consisted primarily of adult males.

The five troops standing along the concertina wire attempted to block the illegal immigrants from rushing through but were ultimately pushed down or shoved aside by the massive group of unruly individuals, the video showed. After breaking past the guards, the illegal aliens ran to the closed border gate, Gate 36, and shouted at authorities standing on the other side to let them through.
<blockquote class="rm-embed twitter-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1770934083826155584">
<div style="margin:1em 0">The Biden Border Crisis is an invasion. Anyone who says differently is lying to you.</div> — (@)
<a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1770934083826155584"></a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
According to Hicks, nine illegal aliens involved in the rush were indicted with felony charges. He said the individuals were identified and accused of "physically attacking the National Guardsmen" or cutting down the razor wire. Hicks added that the video evidence is still being reviewed to identify individuals who committed additional criminal activity.

Approximately 350 illegal immigrants have been arrested on rioting charges since March, according to the El Paso DA's office.

During a
<a href="https://www.ktsm.com/video/da-bill-hicks-talks-about-riot-charges-stemming-from-march-21-migrant-incident/9569663/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">news conference</a> following the March 21 incident, Hicks told reporters that he is "concerned about violence and destruction of property."

According to the DA, National Guardsmen were punched in the face, and their knees were stomped on during the mad rush. One of the illegal aliens attempted to steal a gun from one of the guardsmen, according to Hicks. Two guardsmen suffered injuries as a result of the incident.

After the caught-on-video breach, there were several similar riots, he claimed.

"There was another group of 250, followed by a group of 200, followed by another group of 100 that had to be repelled from Gate 36. We have a group of close to 1,000 that has left Chihuahua City that is making its way to El Paso with instructions to go to Gate 36," Hicks said.

"If they're willing to tear down government property, what's going to stop them from tearing down people's back yards?" he questioned. "If they're willing to assault government officials, what stops them from assaulting our friends, our neighbors, our mothers and fathers in those neighborhoods?"

"We have to send a message that you cannot do that," Hicks declared.

Many have cited the incident as further evidence that the Biden administration's open-border policies have caused a full-blown invasion.

"The Biden administration, the entire federal government, and many Democrat state and local officials throughout the United States are doing everything they can to fuel illegal immigration into the United States in the hopes of getting them to vote illegally in this fall's elections," Zadrozny told Blaze News. "Not only do they want unchecked illegal immigration regardless of the impact on the health and safety of American citizens, but they almost seem to want to turn illegal aliens into super-citizens who can do whatever they want and break laws without consequences."

In a statement to Blaze News, Senator Cruz said, "We won't back down, and I'm proud to stand with local law enforcement, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and first responders across the Lone Star State who have stepped up to do the federal government's job."

Mehlman stated that Texas' attempts to deter illegal immigration appear to be working.

"We have seen over the past few months, as Texas has made its own effort to deal with illegal immigration and deter it, that the traffic has moved further west into Arizona and California," he told Blaze News.

Hankinson explained that Gov. Abbott's Operation Lone Star has "hardened [Texas'] physical line along the banks of the Rio Grande and prosecuted thousands of illegal aliens for state offenses like trespassing and vandalism."

"This is having some deterrent effect, but it cannot really counteract Biden's welcome mat of policies encouraging illegal immigration. Texas is taking a brave stand, but they can never succeed alone in the face of federal dereliction of duty," he told Blaze News. "Since January 2021, when the Biden administration made it clear that anyone crossing into the U.S. illegally had a good chance of being released without any real surveillance, there has been a historically unprecedented flow of aliens being caught and released at the border."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2024 10:30:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/blaze-news-investigates-mobs-of-illegal-aliens-keep-storming-border-but-el-paso-is-laying-down-the-law</guid><category>News</category><category>Texas</category><category>El paso</category><category>Ted cruz</category><category>Bill hicks</category><category>Greg abbott</category><category>Illegal immigration</category><category>Open border</category><category>Human interest</category><category>Immigration</category><category>Politics</category><category>T3</category><dc:creator>Candace Hathaway</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/blaze-news-investigates-mobs-of-illegal-aliens-keep-storming-border-but-el-paso-is-laying-down-the-law.jpg?id=52166895&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>From fathers to failures: Feminization of society endangers us all</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/from-fathers-to-failures-feminization-of-society-endangers-us-all</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/from-fathers-to-failures-feminization-of-society-endangers-us-all.jpg?id=52163852&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C116%2C0%2C116"/> 
As my Blaze Media colleague Jason Whitlock often says, we have too many young men who are over-mothered and under-fathered. That explains the entire culture.

What is traditionally viewed as masculine discipline has been defined in today’s world as harsh. And here’s the thing: It is. Which is why when it comes to the riots and disturbances and melees happening on college campuses right now, I would suggest letting Dad take his belt off in the following way, particularly in blue states.

Let them fight.

Those who were taught and nurtured by the administrations at all of these “educational” institutions are now turning against their masters. This is also a reflection of the voting patterns of the states where the chaos is most pronounced. Which is why the worst thing we could do, in my opinion, would be to try to tame this situation and ultimately let the evil and the rot remain institutionally in place.
What will happen if that occurs? Western Europe will occur. Canada will occur. Australia will occur. This is the death of the West. We’ve decided we’re not going to confront human nature any more and instead thought we could tame it. But the Borg won't stay on deck 16, will they?
Take a good, hard look, America. You need to see what your lies and excessive comfort have wrought.

We are on the edge of a knife as a civilization about to lose the whole damn thing.

I applaud the police for standing down at UCLA, no matter their reason for it. I would no more send any police in there than I would want my son to go fight for Ukraine. We must let the laws of sowing and reaping do their work. This is Romans 1. See how horrible it truly is to be given over to your own depraved minds.
The lampstand is taken away. Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. This is judgment. Men and fathers used to understand that, but we just don’t have a lot of them any more because such things all seem too harsh to us today. Yet it was the harsh spiritual discipline sometimes inherent in that biblical worldview that led to this civilization of ours even being established in the first place. We simply can’t escape that. Destruction awaits if we try. And in the case of these college campuses, they will richly deserve it.<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BMDC6618460047" width="100%"></iframe></div>The feminization of our culture, though, has led us to the point now that the minute we see any sign of struggle, conflict, or anything that might draw attention to us, we beg for it to go away as quickly as possible through the most convenient and least personal means available. Like when I weighed 380 pounds and preferred the trance of self-medicating because my stepdad smacked me around too much as a kid instead of telling myself I was just lazy and ate too much bad food. I needed to stop. I needed to reverse trends. I needed to take a long and hard look in the mirror.
It’s harsh but necessary. We don’t have time for games. We don't have time for bleeding hearts. We are on the edge of a knife as a civilization about to lose the whole damn thing. And a lot of it is because we’ve ignored our heavenly Father and we didn’t have an earthly father worth spit to teach us discipline.

So let the colleges touch that hot stove and burn themselves into oblivion if they must. The scar that remains if we all finally learn our lesson about what happens when we push God aside will be a far better outcome than letting them burn the entire house down and taking all of us with them.
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2024 11:00:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/from-fathers-to-failures-feminization-of-society-endangers-us-all</guid><category>Opinion & analysis</category><dc:creator>Steve Deace</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/from-fathers-to-failures-feminization-of-society-endangers-us-all.jpg?id=52163852&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>How to block distractions on your phone</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/return/how-to-block-distractions-on-your-phone</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/how-to-block-distractions-on-your-phone.png?id=52154256&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C25%2C0%2C102"/> 
Smartphones have often been called the new cigarettes due to their addictive nature. Yet smartphones aren’t as easy to restrict as cigarettes (nor half as cool). They’re jam-packed with distractions like games and social media, but they’re also darn useful. Many of us rely on our smartphones to look up important (and not-so-important) information, contact friends, find directions, take photos, and even pay for goods and services. How do we balance the benefits of smartphones and the demonic distractions that fill our heads with nonsense and steal time away from those around us?

The market has responded with a slew of solutions.Some products like the <a href="https://www.thelightphone.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Light Phone</a> aim to replicate the best parts of a smartphone while discarding the distractions. Some even try going back to flip phones. Many of my friends have tried things like this, but they never seem to stick. Smartphone ecosystems are chock-full of useful tools that these products can’t hope to imitate, and many of them are also great cameras. I have many lovely photos of my kids that I wouldn’t otherwise have if not for my iPhone.

Apple and Google have introduced their own solutions. Apple’s answer is called Screen Time, but it’s a feature designed to look good on paper and not work in reality. If you set a daily limit on an app like Facebook, bypassing it is as easy as tapping Ignore Limit. Whatever intentions Apple may have, the company is incentivized to have you using your iPhone as much as possible.

<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1d3af58e11b121193978c9b396b401a4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="cffb8" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52154258&width=980"/>
Screenshot 

One startup hopes to improve upon Apple’s foundation by creating self-imposed screen restrictions that aren’t so easy to ignore: <a href="https://getbrick.app" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Brick</a>. Brick is both a hardware and software product:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brick-ditch-distractions/id6448794069" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Brick app</a> ties into Apple’s Screen Time feature to lock you out of distracting apps.</li>
<li>The Brick, well, brick, which is a $49 hardware device you use to “brick” and “unbrick” your iPhone.</li>
</ul>
The app is free, subsidized by purchasing the required Brick hardware. The device itself is incredibly simple. It’s a small 3D-printed box with an NFC tag and a magnet inside — the magnet is there so you can stick the Brick to your fridge.

<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="713e0cd80a395f15c5a3e1da6245b13b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="c087c" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52154261&width=980"/>
Josh Centers

When you want to lock out distracting apps, you open the Brick app, tap the Brick button, and then place the tip of the iPhone against the Brick. Likewise, you repeat the process when you want to unbrick your iPhone.

<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2f8bdcd41e9b7a214fa0dc3f7caf83b5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="fd436" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52154264&width=980"/>

You can bypass this lockout without the Brick hardware, but there’s a catch: It uses one of your five emergency unbricks. And the app is clever enough to detect if you did something like turn off Screen Time to bypass Brick, and it counts against your emergency unbricks.

I asked the company what happens when you run out of emergency unbricks: You can delete the Brick app entirely. Unless, that is, you put the Brick app into Strict Mode, which removes all of the workarounds. In that case, you can either contact Brick for help or buy another Brick device to unlock your iPhone. TJ at Brick said that they’ll probably offer additional emergency unlocks as an in-app purchase in the future.

You can use the same Brick for every iPhone in your home. In fact, the company says that all Bricks are interchangeable, so you could brick your iPhone at home and then unbrick it at a friend’s house.

I’ve been testing the Brick for a few weeks, and it’s quite effective. I can brick my iPhone before going to bed and lock myself out of my usual doom-scrolling apps like Facebook and X. I can no longer mindlessly scroll through these apps in bed unless I get up, walk downstairs, go to the fridge, and unbrick my iPhone, which usually isn’t worth the trouble, so I end up doing something more constructive like reading from my Bible app.

However, the Brick has some catches and downsides to be aware of.
<h2>Setup is a pain</h2>
To set up the Brick, you select 50 apps, and those apps can either be the only apps you can use while your iPhone is bricked (allow list), or the only apps not allowed when your iPhone is bricked (block list). You can create multiple app lists, but the allow/block list distinction applies to all of them, though you can change whether you’re allowing or blocking apps in your list at any time.

<img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2c6a551fd3abcf3f8087dd44f0a03048" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="51546" loading="lazy" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.png?id=52154279&width=980"/>
screenshot

The block list option is okay if you want to block a handful of particularly distracting apps. The other upside of the block list option is you can also block out websites, which is something you can’t do if you choose an allow list.

However, if you truly want to turn your iPhone into a semi-dumb “brick,” the allow list is the only way to go. But then the problem is figuring out exactly which 50 apps you need, which is a process of trial and error. I couldn’t tell you how many times I bricked my phone only to realize I needed an important app, like a banking app, and had to go unbrick my iPhone so I could add it to my app list.

Eventually, I think I got this figured out, but then the other problem is that distracting websites are still a problem.
<h2>Blocking Safari isn’t easy</h2>
You can’t block websites when using the allow list option, and even worse, you can’t add Safari to your list of apps because of Apple’s restrictions. Many social networks have pretty rich mobile web apps these days, like X, so they’re every bit as addicting in Safari as they are in their native apps. This is another example of how Apple’s Screen Time almost seems designed to be ineffective.

Thankfully, the Brick developers offer a workaround to block Safari, but it’s a bit thorny: You have to <a href="https://zest-legume-e0c.notion.site/How-To-Prevent-Access-to-Safari-When-Bricked-a625cc2fbc7f4496af3d78f2f893856b" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">use the built-in Shortcuts app</a> to add automation that detects when your iPhone is bricked, then sends you to the Brick app when you open Safari.

Unfortunately, this is probably intimidating to the less technical. And there’s another problem: What if you actually need a web browser to look something up?

I found a good solution for that: I simply use the Google and Perplexity apps to look up random things. Their in-app browsers aren’t suited to web apps, so it gives me access to instant knowledge while preventing me from getting sucked into online drama.
<h2>You actually have to remember to use it</h2>
Other than Apple’s own limitations, the drawback of the Brick is you. You actually have to remember to brick your iPhone, and that can be difficult. It’s not intuitive to purposelly cripple a device for which you spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And these social media apps, games, and other distractions are fun and enjoyable, which is why we can’t escape them.

The Brick is trying to do something very difficult: overcome our own lack of discipline. If we had better control of ourselves, such a device wouldn’t be necessary, or we could at least use Apple’s Screen Time to keep tabs on how much time we’re spending with screens.

The Brick certainly makes things easier — at least after the initial setup. But ultimately, the flaw is us and our passions, which are preyed upon by tech companies with teams of psychologists tasked with making their apps as addictive as possible.

Devices like the Brick give support where we’re weak, and I applaud the team behind that, but it’s ultimately a crutch. Crutches are helpful, but you’re not meant to fumble around on them forever. Rather, they’re a tool to help a broken part heal. At best, perhaps the Brick can be your crutch to help relieve the burden of your own passions until you’re strong enough to walk on your own.
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 13:15:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/return/how-to-block-distractions-on-your-phone</guid><category>Brick</category><category>Smartphone</category><category>Smartphone addiction</category><category>Smartphone apps</category><category>Smartphones</category><category>Apps</category><category>Digital addiction</category><category>Tech</category><dc:creator>Josh Centers</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/png" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/how-to-block-distractions-on-your-phone.png?id=52154256&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Don’t save Democrats from their own campus disaster</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/dont-save-democrats-from-their-own-campus-disaster</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52155119&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=300%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> 
My dear conservative friends, we need to have a talk. This is more of an intervention than anything else. You must stop protecting institutions that are committed to destroying your way of life. The university system hates you. It always has. It will continue to hate you until it is dismantled brick by brick and replaced with something else. Something better. The universities will just never be into you, and if two factions of the left want to destroy themselves while shutting down college campuses, that’s what we in politics like to call a win.

You don’t need to ride to the rescue. You aren’t the white knight in this scenario. Just grab some popcorn and enjoy the show; I promise this will work out in your favor if you let it.

Red-state governors should maintain the safety of those under their care but otherwise leave leftists to their own devices. Let those factions fight.

Protests surrounding the Hamas terror attack on October 7 in Gaza and the subsequent response by Israel have now raged on college campuses across the country for weeks. The establishment left is nominally pro-Israel due to a legacy attachment to the nation and the need to maintain a healthy relationship with major donors. The more radical leftist vanguard has drunk deeply from the well of wokeness and made the natural connection between anti-European decolonization rhetoric and Israel, which it now identifies as a white colonial oppressor.

Jews have been stalwart Democratic voters for a long time and have avoided being dropped to the bottom of the party’s oppression hierarchy, but that arrangement is now being called into question by other members of the coalition. The left has imported and elevated a generation of immigrants who feel no attachment to America’s past relationship with Israel, and many in the vanguard come from cultures that are openly hostile to the Jewish nation.

The progressive coalition has always been tenuous, and October 7 created an eruption across the most critical fault line that has manifested as an intra-leftist civil war playing out on college campuses.

Most opposing political parties would recognize this as a gift from on high. The Republicans, on the other hand, have several specific hang-ups that compel them to solve this problem for their opponents.

The conservative impulse to protect institutions is an admirable one. In a healthy society, institutions are the formal structures that help to enshrine a culture’s values and transmit them to the next generation. But American society is not healthy, and the long march through the institutions perpetrated by the left has installed a hostile ideology deep into the heart of the university system.

College campuses are not places of learning where promising young minds develop the leadership skills necessary to forge a brighter future. These institutions are progressive seminaries where students go deeply into debt to learn how to hate their parents, religion, and nation. This ideological poison is then distributed through every major corporation, piece of entertainment, and news headline as college graduates take their places as leaders and managers throughout society.

Conservatives have complained for decades that the public schools are hostile indoctrination centers designed to secure leftist hegemony, but when the pandemic shut down these enemy institutions, conservatives became the most vocal proponents of reopening them.

The same dynamic is currently playing itself out on university campuses. Conservatives may complain about the education system, but they are ultimately defenders of the status quo and would rather see these institutions continue to operate, even if they are calling for the literal destruction of the United States.

Part of this response is linked to the natural and admirable conservative impulse toward order. Conservatives recoil at the idea of violence and intimidation on these campuses, and where Republican governors are in charge, they should absolutely protect the physical safety of all students.

But there is also an impulse among many Republican politicians to punish public criticism of Israel, and this is a serious problem.

The right has spent endless hours mocking the leftist ideas of hate speech and safe spaces, but now many GOP politicians are suddenly obsessed with implementing exactly those policies. Governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, for example, have come out in favor of cracking down on “hate speech” and anti-Semitism in the wake of these protests. It is becoming hard not to notice that most of these politicians took no action as anti-white rhetoric and demonstrations dominated academia for the last decade, to the point where that ideology has now made its way into several best-selling books.
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The Democrats are already facing a critical election in which they must run a deeply unpopular dementia patient against a former president who maintains a strong base of support despite being hit with an endless barrage of fake criminal charges. The very last thing the left wanted was a civil war on college campuses that exposed the disastrous contradictions at the heart of its coalition.

The only thing that could possibly rescue the Democrats from this nightmare scenario would be footage of Republican governors sending in police to violently silence protesters. This would bail out the establishment and allow mainstream liberals to put the woke vanguard in its place while pointing at the GOP as the real enemy, a unifying symbol of authority to hate.

I know the gut instinct of the right is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but the GOP must sit on its hands and let this play out.

Try for a moment to imagine any scenario where two factions inside the right are destroying each other and humiliating themselves in an election year and the left dives on that grenade for conservatives. You can’t, because it would never happen.

Again, red-state governors should maintain the safety of those under their care but otherwise leave leftists to their own devices. Let those factions fight. In the worst-case scenario, some kids don’t get to attend Hate America 101. And the best case? Things get so bad that the Democratic coalition rends itself asunder while desperate parents plead for the right to reform the university system from the ground up.

I am begging you, my conservative allies, take the easy win just this once.
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 11:00:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/dont-save-democrats-from-their-own-campus-disaster</guid><category>Opinion & analysis</category><category>Auron macintyre</category><category>Hamas protests</category><category>University hamas brigades</category><category>Take thewin</category><category>Take the win</category><category>Conservatism</category><category>Kevin stitt</category><category>Overreaction</category><category>Palestine protest</category><category>Antisemitism</category><dc:creator>Auron MacIntyre</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52155119&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Blaze News original: The surprising companies accused of helping sexual exploitation — and how to protect your children online</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/how-to-protect-your-children-digital-world</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/blaze-news-original-the-surprising-companies-accused-of-helping-sexual-exploitation-and-how-to-protect-your-children-online.jpg?id=52131079&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C12%2C0%2C29"/> 
You might be surprised to learn which digital entities are accused of facilitating, enabling, and even profiting from sexual abuse and exploitation online.
 

Last month, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation released
<a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/dirty-dozen-list-2024/" target="_blank">its annual “Dirty Dozen” list</a>, a campaign bringing attention to entities and companies it believes are complicit in sexual exploitation.

This year’s list includes the following entities and the NCOSE's reasoning for including them:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/apple/" target="_blank">Apple</a>: "This Big Tech titan refuses to scan for child sex abuse material, hosts dangerous apps with deceptive age ratings and descriptions, and won’t default safety features for teens."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/cash-app/" target="_blank">Cash App</a>: "This peer-to-peer payment app appeals to pimps, predators, and pedophiles looking for a covert way to conduct criminal activity."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/cda-230/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act</a>: "The Greatest Enabler of Online Sexual Exploitation. Misinterpretations of Communications Decency Act Section 230 grant Big Tech blanket immunity for any and all types of abuses they facilitate."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/cloudflare/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cloudflare</a>: "Providing a platform for sex buyers and traffickers. Cloudflare says it wants to build a better internet. So why does it provide services to some of the most prolific prostitution forums and deepfake sites?"</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/discord/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Discord</a>: "This platform is popular with predators seeking to groom kids and with creeps looking to create, trade, or find sexually abusive content of children and unsuspecting adults."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/linkedin/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>: "LinkedIn legitimizes Pornhub and other exploitative enterprises by giving them a platform, overlooks deepfake tool promotion, and is rampant with sexual harassment against women."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/meta/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Meta</a>: "Meta’s launch of end-to-end encryption, open-sourced AI, and virtual reality are unleashing new worlds of exploitation."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/github/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Github</a>: "The vast majority of deepfakes, 'nudify' apps, and AI-generated child sex abuse content originate on this platform owned by the world’s richest company."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/reddit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reddit</a>: "Child sex abuse material, sex trafficking, and image-based sexual abuse hide in plain sight among endless pornography subreddits allowed on this platform."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/roblox/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Roblox</a>: "Roblox treats child protection like a game. Among the avatars, blocks, and buildings, kids are exposed to predators, rape-themed games, and age-inappropriate content like sex parties."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/spotify/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Spotify</a>: "Sexually explicit images, sadistic content, and networks trading child sex abuse material on its platform prove Spotify is out of tune with basic child safety measures and moderation practices."</li>
<li><a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/telegram/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Telegram</a>: "Messaging app Telegram serves as a safe haven for criminal communities across the globe. Sexual torture rings, sextortion gangs, deepfake bots, and more all thrive on an alarming scale."</li>
</ul>
What is immediately obvious about the list is that children and teenagers use these applications and programs every day.

Children are, therefore, being exposed to the dangers of sexual exploitation through these entities, according to the NCOSE, an alarming phenomenon that validates the thesis of psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s newest book, “The Anxious Generation.”

His central idea
<a href="https://www.afterbabel.com/p/anxious-generation-pre-order" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">goes like this</a>: “We have overprotected children in the real world and underprotected them in the virtual world.”

That our children face an onslaught of digital dangers in an increasingly technological world raises an important question:
How can parents protect their children in our digital world?

If you asked Haidt for his prescription to the problem, he would counsel you not to buy your children a smartphone until they begin high school. And social media? Don’t let them use it before age 16 — at the earliest.

Others believe the dangers that screens and social media pose are too great for any child because, after all, a person's brain won't complete its development until one's mid-20s.

But experts who spoke with Blaze News made it clear: This is not an issue parents can ignore because the well-being of your family and the lives of your children are at stake.

"We have a distorted view of the creepy guy in the van picking up our kids on the way to the playground or the fear of a child climbing too high on the tree," Lina Nealon, vice president and director of corporate advocacy at NCOSE, told Blaze News.

"But then we give them this very dangerous device with very little oversight or even understanding of the dangers that are literally in the palm of their hands," she warned.
Blaze News reached out to each of the companies listed above. None provided a response to NCOSE's allegations. <h2>The problem is vast</h2>
Mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, bullying, suicidal ideations, addictions, and exploitation — those are just some of the problems with the digital world.
 

But the unique challenge with the digital world is that social media and digital technologies are designed to hook users by hijacking their brain chemistry to keep them scrolling without understanding the consequences of such behavior.

"They are dangerous by their very design because their profit is made by facilitating those connections and making people stay online," Nealon said.

This online world is not only dangerous for you, according to Nealon, but your children are particularly vulnerable.

"First of all, there are very little limitations and protections for children online from being accessed by adults in general — adult strangers and certainly predatory adults," she explained.

"Teenagers, they are built to seek connection and meet. They want to meet new people. They want to know where they fit into the world. And so these companies — Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok — create this environment where it is very easy," she said. "It's not only easy for predators to access kids, but they're creating the very environment that makes kids more susceptible to sexual abuse and exploitation."

Through connection, likes, and shares, social media companies tap into the vulnerabilities of children, Nealon explained — and make them even more vulnerable.

"These platforms are actually reducing the self-esteem and self-worth of these children, and then they are allowing predators and adults to access them to see what they're doing, to see those vulnerabilities, to actually interact with them," she said. "So, from that perspective, it's very dangerous."

What is most alarming, Nealon told Blaze News, is that social media and digital companies do not have an incentive to protect your children.

"It's their very business model to put these kids at risk," she said. "I would say that they themselves are predators in a sense because they are preying on our children and their vulnerabilities for profit."
<h2>How to protect your family</h2>
Thankfully, all is not lost.

You can protect your family and children from the harms of the digital world — but it requires intentionality and sacrifice.
<h4>1. Educate yourself and your children</h4>
Melanie Hempe, <a href="https://screenstrong.org/" target="_blank">founder of ScreenStrong</a>, said the most important step to protect your family from the dangers of the digital world is to educate yourself and your family.

"Get educated and understand how kids are different from adults," Hempe told Blaze News. "The way an adult uses a screen is very different from the way a child uses a screen. We tend to think our kids are just little adults — and that's not true. They don't have impulse control. They're high-risk takers, and they're going to be searching for novelty even more than we are."

The sheer power of digital technology is exactly why parents need to be educated, Hempe explained, so that they "know how to harness the power."

"I'm telling you: You pay now or you pay later, but someone will pay. And most of the time, our kids are the ones paying," she warned.

Nealon delivered a similar warning.

"Be educated and keep up with the trends and what's happening," she said. "There's so much research out there ... and I think the less digital, the healthier your kids will be."
<h4>2. Cultivate a community of shared values</h4>
Engaging in conversations with other adults where your children are — such as school, church, and friends' houses — is critical to protect them from the harms of the digital world.

"Having conversations with adults where your children are going to be — at school, at church, in activities and youth groups — we are constantly shocked at how even leadership, people who are supposed to be caring for children, don't understand even some of the basic risks of the technology they may be using and actually encouraging kids to use," Nealon told Blaze News.

"It's critical to have those conversations when your child is going elsewhere because you can have all of the safety features at home. You can have the conversations, you can be very vigilant," she explained. "But, of course, they're out there in the world, and you hope that your children will make the right decisions — but they're also children."
"So, we need to make sure that the other adults that we put in their care are also paying attention and know and can also be sure that they're doing what they can to minimize the risks to the kids," she said.

Hempe agreed that cultivating community is necessary when seeking the proper relationship with screens and the digital world.

"It's hard to be alone and doing this on your own, especially when you have kids — they want to play with other kids who are not on Fortnite all day," she said. "You want your kids to be around other kids who have the same values and that are shooting for the high bar like you are."
<h4>3. Internet filters</h4>
If you choose to let your children use digital technology, consider installing software on devices that filter what they will be able to see and access.

"Make use of technology that's out there to protect your kids online," Nealon advised.

Companies like <a href="https://www.bark.us/" target="_blank">Bark</a>, <a href="https://canopy.us/" target="_blank">Canopy</a>, and <a href="https://www.covenanteyes.com/" target="_blank">Covenant Eyes</a> have built solutions for parents looking for filtering software. The benefit of these technologies is that you can limit what your children can access (i.e., harmful content) while still allowing them to use the internet.
<h4>4. Be a coach</h4>
When it comes to technology and your family, Hempe said parents need to be a coach.

"They need us to be like a coach," she said.

"My daughter was in gymnastics for years, and I learned so much about coaching," she explained. "I learned the coach has to be present when a child is doing something that's kind of dangerous. The coach has to be there. The coach can't be in the other room. And she learned that, 'Hey, I need my coach right here to spot me.' That's how it is with screens: We have to be there to spot our kids."

Hempe said it's not about being "controlling" or "legalistic." But she warned that giving children unfettered access to technology not only exposes them to the harms of the digital world — like screen addictions and sexual exploitation — but it's like letting your children drive a Mack truck on the interstate.

"They're not going to be safe on the highway when they're 10 years old driving the Mack truck," she explained.
<h2>Tools, not toys</h2>
The truth is that technology is not going anywhere. In less than 20 years' time, we've gone from the iPhone to AI, and Gen Z cannot fathom a life without social media or the digital world.

It is up to parents, then, to take serious the relationship their family will have to technology. Exploitation, digital addictions, and attachment dysfunctions are just some of the ramifications that parents are now facing because of technology, screens, and social media.

When discerning how to move forward with technology, remember this one principle from Hempe: Screens are a "tool — not a toy."

If you can remember that, Hempe promised you will figure out how to raise children in a digital world, all while protecting your family from the built-in harms of the technology.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a>!
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 10:30:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/how-to-protect-your-children-digital-world</guid><category>Child development</category><category>Child protection</category><category>Crime</category><category>Cybersecurity</category><category>Digital literacy</category><category>Digital parenting</category><category>Digital well-being</category><category>Digital world</category><category>Harmful content filtering</category><category>Internet safety</category><category>Lina nealon</category><category>Melanie hempe</category><category>National center on sexual exploitation</category><category>News</category><category>Online predators</category><category>Online safety</category><category>Parental controls</category><category>Screen time management</category><category>Screens</category><category>Screenstrong</category><category>Sexual exploitation</category><category>Social media risks</category><category>T3</category><category>Tech</category><category>Technology</category><category>Technology addiction</category><dc:creator>Chris Enloe</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/blaze-news-original-the-surprising-companies-accused-of-helping-sexual-exploitation-and-how-to-protect-your-children-online.jpg?id=52131079&width=980"></media:content></item><item><title>Blaze News original: 9 Hollywood movies with hidden conservative messages</title><link>https://www.theblaze.com/news/hollywood-movies-conservative-hidden-messages-list</link><description><![CDATA[
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52154623&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/tag/hollywood" target="_blank">Hollywood</a> is known to be a liberal enclave, but there are a handful of movies that have <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/tag/conservative" target="_blank">hidden or secret conservative messages</a>. While not always obvious, some Hollywood movies have elements or themes that align with conservative values or perspectives.<h4>'The Chronicles of Narnia'</h4>C.S. Lewis drifted into atheism during his youth but later returned to Christianity to write "The Chronicles of Narnia" series, thanks in part to his friendship with fellow author J.R.R. Tolkien. The books present a direct allegory of Christian themes. Of the seven books by Lewis, three were adapted into movies: "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (2005), "Prince Caspian" (2008), and "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (2010). The movies often reflect Christian beliefs. The films also feature symbolic representations of the characters, places, objects, and themes that represent biblical ideas and entities.The religious symbolism is seen in the consequences of one's choices and battles between good and evil. Aslan is a representation of Jesus Christ, while the White Witch can be seen as an allegorical depiction of Satan. In "The Chronicles of Narnia," Peter's leadership as the high king can be interpreted as a parallel to the Apostle Peter in the Bible. There are Christian virtues throughout "The Chronicles of Narnia" series, including sacrifice, redemption, atonement, and salvation through <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/tag/faith" target="_blank">faith</a>. The characters often find solace in the belief that with God's providence, they will be safely guided through life's challenges.<h4>'The Dark Knight Rises'</h4>"The Dark Knight Rises" boasts conservative themes, such as individualism, justice, self-reliance, and the limitations of government. Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy finale stresses the importance of individual action and self-reliance. With crime running rampant in Gotham because of the city government's ineptitude, Bruce Wayne takes on the mantle of Batman to carry out vigilante justice. Wayne not only fights crime in the streets but also uses his wealth to fund social programs to enhance the lives of Gotham City's citizens. The superhero movie attacks the mob mentality and that a revolution cannot be achieved through mass violence. A recurring theme in "The Dark Knight Rises" is the preservation of traditional values in the face of societal challenges when government institutions fail. Batman upholds the traditional values of personal freedom, individual sacrifice, honor, heroism, and valuing law and order. Gotham City is plagued by corruption within various institutions of government. There is also a battle against authoritarianism and reclaiming civil liberties. The movie has a tenet of community, where residents have shared values, cooperation, and collective responsibility for each other's well-being. Citizens banded together after Bane brought chaos, took over the city, and dismantled critical societal structures.<h4>'Forrest Gump'</h4>"Forrest Gump" champions the virtues of patriotism, loyalty, hard work, perseverance, personal responsibility, and resilience of the American spirit.The Tom Hanks vehicle celebrates American values, such as Forrest Gump's love for his country. He faithfully served his country by putting his life on the line by fighting in the deadly Vietnam War. Forrest also becomes a symbol of American exceptionalism.In the movie directed by Robert Zemeckis, there is a reflection of traditional American ideals. There is also an appreciation of American nostalgia for a bygone era. The film portrays major moments in American history from the 1950s through the 1980s — that some conservatives consider to be the golden age of the United States.The protagonist overcomes his disadvantaged upbringing to attain success in various endeavors through his grit, determination, and self-reliance.Forrest Gump has unending loyalty to his friends that lasts for his entire life, even when they are struggling or don't appreciate his friendship. <h4>'Gattaca'</h4>This 1997 science-fiction drama provides an admonitory tale about trans-humanism and the progressive fantasy of a eugenically correct world. "Gattaca" presents how an overbearing government could corrode civil liberties under the guise of genetic determinism. The movie also foretells the pitfalls of pursuing scientific progress without considering the broader ethical implications instilled by unchecked entities. The movie highlights the eroding of individual freedoms and privacy under a pervasive surveillance state. This future society is completely controlled by biometric technologies and big brother tools. This dystopian film exhibits a societal hierarchy and class system where superior genetic individuals are given a higher social status and afforded better opportunities. The government forces its citizens to be subjected to genetic tests from birth, and their genetic profiles determine their opportunities. The cautionary story warns of how eugenicists would try to eliminate humans they deem to be less worthy of enjoying what the world has to offer. "Gattaca" raises ethical questions about genetic engineering and eugenics. The future society in the movie practices eugenics, where the citizenry is subjected to selective breeding to produce offspring with desirable genetic traits while discouraging or preventing the reproduction of individuals considered genetically inferior — who are called "invalids." Some argue that the movie shows the perils of eugenics, where biotechnology could become so advanced that it might mean that babies with Down syndrome or who are disabled could be aborted before their birth. The movie's protagonist – Vincent Freeman, portrayed by actor Ethan Hawke – is an invalid who dreams of becoming an astronaut. However, Freeman is considered genetically inferior in the society, thus he is limited to a lower-status occupation because of the genetic discrimination. "Gattaca" illustrates the hazards of a society that is not a meritocracy. Despite being deemed an "invalid," Freeman demonstrates virtues of resilience, determination, hard work, and ingenuity to overcome adversity. There is a significant spotlight on self-reliance and the importance of the nuclear family throughout the film. <h4>'Ghostbusters'</h4>"Ghostbusters" delivers a variety of timeless conservative vantage points, including government overreach, entrepreneurship, and capitalism.Faced with a calamity that threatens New York City, a ragtag group of trailblazers is able to demonstrate American ingenuity. They successfully create a service that is necessary for survival and embraced by the free market. However, a regulation-happy EPA bureaucrat threatens to ruin the Ghostbusters' business as well as the safety of millions of New Yorkers. The film shows the challenges of the entrepreneurs fighting back against the red tape of the Environmental Protection Agency. The scientists also show a healthy skepticism of authority that pays off in the end. The supernatural comedy movie reveals how capitalism and the free market provide a fertile environment for success and the American dream. The scientists are self-made achievers through hard work, innovation, and entrepreneurship. There is also a message about heroism and how a group of nerdy scientists can take on a supernatural entity that threatens to end the world. The troupe utilizes camaraderie, teamwork, and ingenuity to overcome their most arduous challenges. <h4>'Gran Torino'</h4>Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" showcases Christian values of redemption and sacrifice, while also sharing conservative messages of traditional values, personal responsibility, and a love of one's community.Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, is a Korean War veteran who confronts gangs in his neighborhood over spiking violence and crime. Kowalski's old-school sense of masculinity is highlighted by his commitment to hard work, self-reliance, and stoicism.Kowalski boasts a strong sense of unwavering patriotism and reverence for the American flag. He values the spirit of resilience but despises the erosion of traditional values and the decline of moral standards in society. Initially, Kowalski does not appreciate his immigrant neighbors but then develops a strong bond over mutual aspirations to make the neighborhood safer. His story is one of redemption as he overcomes his own prejudices and atones for his past sins. He is able to find salvation through faith and repentance after his moral awakening after finding solidarity and mutual respect with his neighbors. The movie tells of the transcendent forces of compassion, empathy, and human connection.Kowalski has a deep-rooted sense of community and is willing to stand up for what he believes is the right thing to do even if it puts him in jeopardy by confronting gang members terrorizing residents. <h4>'The Incredibles'</h4>"The Incredibles" highlights the superpowers of the nuclear family structure.This 2004 Disney and Pixar animated film is about a family of superheroes living in a world where superheroes are forced to hide their superpowers because of public backlash and government regulations. The film has a hidden message about limiting government interaction and expanding individual autonomy. The movie also has a secret conservative message regarding government overreach as a hindrance to individual liberty and innovation.Mr. Incredible and his wife, Elastigirl, save the day — all while raising a young family. The husband and wife superhero parents show each other love, support, and mutual respect. Mr. Incredible embodies traditional masculine traits, such as strength, bravery, and a desire for adventure.At its core, "The Incredibles" celebrates the conservative ideals of traditional family values and emphasizes that the nuclear family is the cornerstone of society. The film honors the sanctity of marriage and the countless rewards of parenthood.The animated movie highlights themes of heroism, personal responsibility, independence, empowerment, and not adopting a victimhood mentality. <h4>'Rocky'</h4>In its essence, "Rocky" embodies the American dream and one man's determination to build the life he has always fantasized about with the woman of his dreams. The 1976 sports classic shows the rise to fame of a humble man who had a blue-collar job. Rocky Balboa becomes the heavyweight champion through hard work, perseverance, and grit. The boxer never makes excuses and always holds himself accountable. "Rocky" praises conservative ideals of hard work, self-reliance, and personal responsibility. It also presents the importance of a meritocracy. Meanwhile, the underdog film also shares the dangers of entitlement and victimhood. Rocky Balboa personifies traditional masculine traits such as physical strength, courage, sacrifice, perseverance, and pushing himself to his absolute limits. Conversely, Adrian Pennino reflects the traditional female gender role of the woman who is a devoutly supportive and nurturing partner who stands by her man through thick and thin.<h4>'The Matrix'</h4>Conservatives have embraced the iconic scene in "The Matrix" where the hero – Neo, played by Keanu Reeves – takes the red pill over the blue pill when given the option by his mentor Morpheus – portrayed by Laurence Fishburne. The red pill represents an awakening, enlightenment, courage to question accepted truths that could be illusions, and challenging the status quo. Neo embarks on a journey of self-discovery, rebelling against the system, and liberation after consuming the red pill. The sci-fi dystopian thriller features themes of individualism, the quest for objective truth, self-reliance, individualism, resistance to oppressive systems, a healthy skepticism of authority, and the triumph of individualism over collectivism.The world in "The Matrix" has been hijacked by authoritarian machines. The film warns viewers about the dangers of unchecked government tyranny and the corrosion of individual liberty. The movie presents a case for showing concern regarding the fast-paced rise of technology that lacks humanity and the overwhelming reach of artificial intelligence. "The Matrix" examines the concepts of fate and choice, destiny and fortuity, and free will.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here!</a>
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Blue Pill or Red Pill - The Matrix (2/9) Movie CLIP (1999) HD

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]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 18:30:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://www.theblaze.com/news/hollywood-movies-conservative-hidden-messages-list</guid><category>Conservative movies</category><category>Rightwing movies</category><category>Conservative movies with hidden message</category><category>Entertainment</category><category>Hollywood</category><category>T3</category><category>Red pill</category><category>News</category><category>Movie review</category><category>Align</category><dc:creator>Paul Sacca</dc:creator><media:content medium="image" type="image/jpeg" url="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=52154623&width=980"></media:content></item></channel></rss>

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