Desperate Democrats Take Eye Off Prize As Party Infighting Spreads Across US
'the GOP might have a chance to stay in power'
Police 'flabbergasted' after finding out what one man has been doing in an Arizona forest for 8 years
An unmarked dirt trail in the Tonto National Forest once gave police an indication of what was going on in the park, and it turns it out was much worse than they thought.
In 2025, an acre of land was being investigated, with an officer describing it as one of the "worst" cases he has ever seen. This June, forest rangers were not prepared for how things had progressed.
'I was flabbergasted by the amount of debris in the area.'
Garbage in
Two U.S. national forest rangers came upon an illegal site in Tonto National Forest in central Arizona in June, and with it was 65-year-old Mark Aaron Gatz.
According to documents acquired by ABC News, Gatz was operating an illegal campsite that contained not just a wood-burning fire — a huge problem in itself — but also 1,000 pounds of trash.
Gatz's encampment was entrenched in garbage that had built up over two years of him living in that location, with the man telling officers that he had been living in the forest for eight years in total.
WCNC-TV reported that the trash was scattered over about half an acre of forest service land and was causing permanent damage to the ecosystem. The garbage included items like tires, plastic bags, regular trash bags, aluminum cans, and more.
Aside from finding Gatz's illegal campfire, they also saw he had made a canopy to go over his SUV that was parked in the forest.
"I was flabbergasted by the amount of debris in the area," a responding officer reportedly wrote in response to the mess.
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Bless this mess
This latest discovery was part of an extensive rap sheet that had been built by the older male; police soon discovered Gatz had six outstanding federal warrants from previous forest-related violations.
The citations go back to May 2025 when forest officials followed a dirt trail to a campsite littered with clothes, tools, plastic, and other trash. Authorities determined it was there for at least a month.
In early July 2025, officers reportedly responded to complaints of a "large messy campsite" that contained years' worth of trash. It was described at the time by one officer as "one of the worst residential cases" he had seen in the entire forest.
Gatz was cited for unsanitary conditions due to his household trash being scattered around the land.
Then, in February 2026, forest officers found a red and white trailer that was surrounded by tarps and string used as clothes lines, seemingly to dry towels, sheets, and sleeping bags. This belonged to Gatz, who was also allegedly operating a 3-foot campfire made of stone and clay.
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Camp scamp
The serial camper has been in violation of U.S. Department of Agriculture rules surrounding camping in a national forest. The rules state that camping for more than 14 days in a 30-day period or more than 30 days in a 365-day period is prohibited.
According to ABC News, Gatz pleaded guilty to a violation of fire restrictions for his recent activities, along with residential use of the forest without a permit. He was sentenced to three years of probation.
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Arizona Supreme Court Hands Recorder Heap Win In Maricopa Elections Battle
The Arizona Supreme Court handed Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap a major victory on Tuesday in his ongoing battle to maintain his election responsibilities. In its new order, the Grand Canyon State’s highest court dissolved a stay (“pause”) issued by the Arizona Court of Appeals on an April ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge […]From Parental Rights To Elections, Here Are 3 Major Cases SCOTUS Just Agreed To Hear
The U.S. Supreme Court is busily dishing out its final opinions before heading into America’s 250th birthday. But it’s also announcing which cases it’ll be hearing in its upcoming fall term. As part of its Monday order list, the high court revealed that it will be taking up and holding arguments in a series of […]Pedophile 'prophet' who abused his child 'brides' gets convicted — AGAIN
Samuel Bateman, the self-described "prophet" who led a sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Arizona-Utah border town of Colorado City, was sentenced in December 2024 to 50 years in prison for horrific sexual crimes against children as young as 9 years old.
Bateman, who was originally convicted on federal charges along with 11 of his adult followers, was convicted again on Friday — this time on a triplet of state child abuse crimes.
'I just trusted myself.'
Quick background
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints fragmented in the early 2010s after its polygamist leader, Warren Jeffs, was sentenced to life in prison for raping two little girls he claimed as "spiritual wives" — one of whom ultimately bore his child.
Bateman presented himself as Jeffs' successor, formed a splinter sect, and began amassing followers in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Utah in 2019. According to the second superseding indictment filed against him in May 2023, Bateman told recruits that he had "impressions of Heavenly Father's will" and was doing "Uncle Warren's" will.
In addition to having sexual relationships with various adult female followers, several of whom he impregnated, Bateman convinced his followers to give their children to him as "brides" to sexually abuse. He victimized at least 10 children.
The Justice Department noted at the time of Bateman's sentencing that the perverted cult leader would regularly force his victims to participate in individual and group sexual activities — both with other adults and children.
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In at least one instance, Bateman gave one victim to an adult male cultist to be sexually abused. In another instance, Bateman transmitted a live video stream of child sexual abuse to his followers.
Bateman and his cronies transported the victims over state lines to facilitate the nightmarish abuse, which continued until his arrest in September 2022.
On Aug. 28, 2022, Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers spotted a GMC Denali dragging along a wooden trailer on Interstate 40. After someone alerted authorities to having seen children's small fingers moving in the gap of the rear trailer door, troopers pulled over the vehicle in a Flagstaff parking lot and discovered three kids between the ages of 11 and 14 in the boiling-hot trailer.
The unventilated trailer contained a bucket for a toilet, a trash bag, and camping chairs to sit in.
After Bateman's initial arrest, his followers bailed him out, enabling him to return to his home in Colorado City, where FBI subsequently re-arrested him two weeks later.
False prophet convicted again
Just days after telling an Arizona jury that he is "a kind and loving father" who doesn't ever "willingly harm anybody," Bateman was convicted Friday on three state counts of child abuse in connection to the trailer incident, the Associated Press reported.
During his trial concerning his endangerment of three minors — specifically his placement of kids in an enclosed cargo trailer, surrounded by unsecured objects, and without ventilation or seat belts — Bateman admitted that he knew the girls were in a sweltering-hot trailer for hours with virtually no ventilation but downplayed the severity of the conditions.
"I just trusted myself as a driver," the convicted sex offender said. "I asked God to bless me every time we hopped in that vehicle."
Bateman, who claimed ahead of the trial that the state had insufficient probable cause to search the trailer, claimed that the girls were free to get out of the trailer whenever they stopped and that he was "shocked as could possibly be" when he learned that they were still trapped in the trailer when troopers pulled him over.
Eric Ruchensky, deputy county attorney at the Coconino County Attorney's Office, told jurors, "It's common sense that you don't carry people in a trailer designed for cargo on a hot day with no ventilation."
Each of the child abuse counts comes with a mandatory prison sentence between four and eight years, further ensuring the cult leader will die behind bars.
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Meet the Democrat senator whose donors have been bankrolling his 'luxury lifestyle'
Democrat Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has made the rising cost of living a centerpiece of his political identity.
"The average Super Bowl ticket now costs $6,773. That's not just a game — it's a luxury bill," he wrote on X in February. "For too many working Americans, seeing the biggest sporting event in person would take ... months of rent just to afford one ticket."
'He's using campaign cash to live a luxury lifestyle.'
Federal campaign finance records reviewed by Politico show donor money has been footing the bill for his travel.
Gallego, who has campaigned as a working-class fighter from Phoenix, has spent liberally across two donor-funded accounts — on luxury resorts, private jet flights, family trips to Disney parks, and repeated personal reimbursements.
Twenty days after launching his Senate campaign, Gallego and then-Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) used their joint fundraising committee, Swallego Victory Fund, to attend and host a Super Bowl LVII fundraiser in Glendale, Arizona, Politico reported. Filings show the committee spent $34,700 on "event tickets" and $2,700 at the Henry, a Phoenix restaurant.
The fund raised $56,505 total and dissolved Jan. 1, 2025.
Swalwell later resigned amid sexual assault and harassment allegations from multiple women, which he called "false." Gallego said he did not know about Swalwell's alleged behavior, but the joint committee leaves their finances and names linked in the public record.
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Records show Gallego has tapped his leadership PAC and main campaign committee for more than $18,000 in child care reimbursements since 2019 — including $400 to an individual Politico identified as his wife's mother for babysitting — with his wife, three kids, and au pair joining him on the road at donors' expense.
"He just spends his campaign account like it's his personal slush fund," a person granted anonymity told Politico. "He's using campaign cash to live a luxury lifestyle."
Gallego pushed back. "This is not breaking news," he told Politico.
"Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House alike regularly travel with their wives and children, as is permitted by the FEC." Leadership PACs have broad latitude under FEC rules as long as spending has some fundraising function.
Gallego's JUNTOS PAC records reviewed by Blaze News reveal additional spending: nine payments totaling $115,000 to Wheels Up, a private jet membership company, listed as "fundraising consulting services"; more than $60,000 at the Phoenician, a luxury Scottsdale resort; three payments totaling roughly $10,200 to the Dorado Beach Ritz-Carlton in Puerto Rico; and a single staffer who received more than $54,000 in reimbursements, including a $43,847 payment for "travel and catering."
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) asked Senate leadership in April to investigate Gallego over allegations "sexual in nature" and potential campaign finance violations. His office called them "right-wing conspiracy theories." Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the matter was referred to the Senate Ethics Committee.
Gallego has since established a legal defense fund in May.
"He is one of the most vetted candidates after his tough 2024 campaign," said Jacques Petit, a spokesperson for Gallego.
The drip of revelations arrives at a delicate moment. Gallego is among Democrats eyeing a potential 2028 presidential bid, alongside Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sen. Gallego did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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Christian ministry sues after Phoenix criminalizes its weekly meals for the homeless
St. Herman’s Table, an Orthodox Christian ministry, serves meals and shares the gospel with the homeless at a park in Phoenix, Arizona, every Thursday. Volunteers distribute water, small hygiene items, and Bibles as part of their outreach.
However, this weekly act of almsgiving and evangelizing is now at the center of a lawsuit after the Phoenix City Council approved the Medical Treatment and Food Distribution in Parks Ordinance, which would effectively prevent St. Herman’s Table, a ministry of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church, from continuing its charitable efforts.
'Phoenix provides no evidence or meaningful argument explaining why a birthday party providing cake to twenty select two-year-olds is any less likely to strain park resources with noise or mess than a religiously-motivated gathering open to twenty members of the public.'
St. Herman’s Table and its founder, Lance Brace, filed a lawsuit against Phoenix, arguing that the new ordinance, which took effect in early June, violates the First Amendment and the Arizona Free Exercise of Religion Act by criminalizing their weekly almsgiving, which, he notes, is a mandatory practice of the Orthodox Church.
The city’s website described the ordinance as “establishing a comprehensive framework for medical treatment and food distribution events in City parks,” where there was previously no formal oversight. The new rule requires those like St. Herman’s Table to apply for a permit to distribute food.
Critics of the ordinance argue that it effectively amounts to a ban by limiting permits to just two per park each month. Furthermore, it restricts these activities to parking lots or other hardscape areas, which generally lack shade and other amenities.
Brace, who spoke with Blaze News, described what inspired him, his wife, and his son to start St. Herman’s Table. After becoming baptized into the Orthodox Church, Brace had an “overwhelming feeling” that he needed to help his local homeless neighbors.
The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church already had a program in which its parishioners would assemble bags filled with food, water, clothing, and other essential items. Church members would keep these care packages in their cars to be distributed to homeless individuals they encounter while driving around the city.
Brace became involved in the church’s charitable efforts and drove to various parks and other locations to provide care packages.
“We kept ending up at this same park, the Cave Creek Park at Cactus, and got to know several of the people that were there very consistently. And just had this feeling like this is where we need to be,” Brace said.
Father Thomas Frisby, with the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church, told Blaze News that St. Herman’s Table is a “grassroots” effort led by the Brace family.
“If you knew the couple that’s running this, they are just extremely conscientious and just great people. It was literally just birthed out of, they lived near there, they would see people in the park, and they’re like, ‘Let’s do something to help,’” Frisby stated.
In Oct. 2025, Brace and his family started preparing homemade meals on Wednesdays and setting up a buffet at the Cave Creek Park at Cactus on Thursday evenings to serve food and pray with those in need. Members of Brace’s church soon learned that he was hosting weekly meals at the park, and they began volunteering alongside Brace and his family.
“By about December, early January, we had consistently about five different parishioners that would come out every week. And it really became, at that point, an organization, an event,” Brace stated.
Around the same time St. Herman's Table was growing, the Phoenix City Council approved the Safe Medical Treatment in Parks Ordinance, which aimed to enhance park safety by regulating medical activities in public parks. Councilmembers’ Dec. 2025 decision to pass this ordinance followed resident concerns about sanitation issues in parks, particularly regarding drug use and discarded syringes.
The ordinance’s effective date was delayed twice “to allow time for stakeholder outreach to be conducted.” Then, in Mar. 2026, the city proposed a revised order, the Medical Treatment and Food Distribution in Parks Ordinance, which expanded regulations to limit food distribution. The new ordinance took effect on June 7.
The city’s ordinance does not apply to family members aiding one another, private gatherings, or the distribution of water.
Those who violate the order could be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor, which could lead to a sentence of up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.
In response to the St. Herman’s Table lawsuit, a spokesperson for Phoenix stated that the city intends to defend its ordinance, which it believes is lawful.
Several days after St. Herman’s Table filed the complaint, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing the city from enforcing its ordinance against the organization and Brace for 14 days.
“Phoenix provides no evidence or meaningful argument explaining why a birthday party providing cake to twenty select two-year-olds is any less likely to strain park resources with noise or mess than a religiously-motivated gathering open to twenty members of the public,” the judge wrote.
Phoenix agreed to comply with the judge’s order, but argued that the ordinance “makes no distinction based on religion.”
“The City Council adopted this ordinance to ensure that all residents can enjoy their neighborhood parks, and it applies equally to anyone who wants to hold a feeding event at a park,” the city said. “The ordinance simply provides an effective tool to regulate and manage the growing competition in City parks between food distribution events and other, more traditional park uses, like children’s play, youth sports, adult recreation, and family outings.”
Brace rejected the idea that St. Herman's Table's efforts to feed the homeless compromise the cleanliness and safety of the park.
“Everything that we’re doing with St. Herman’s, we’re doing in love. And that includes how we’re approaching the City Council, the Parks Department, and potentially any police officers that might have to enforce this ordinance,” Brace stated. “They are also our neighbors, and we love them deeply.”
“It’s being a lot of times framed, in my opinion, as we don’t want clean and safe parks, right? That we want to take care of these people at the detriment of the park. And I just don’t agree with that,” he added.
He stated that St. Herman’s volunteers make a deliberate effort to remove trash before and after their weekly event. The group claims that the city has never cited them for the park gatherings.
When reached for comment on why the city chose to combine park restrictions on medical services and food distribution, rather than separating the two categories, Phoenix’s Parks and Recreation Department referred Blaze News to its webpage detailing the ordinance.
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Trump’s Justice Department is shining a light on woke universities — finally
The Department of Justice has now launched an investigation into Arizona State University over its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” practices. The probe will examine whether ASU has subjected students to illegal discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin through its DEI policies in admissions, recruitment, scholarships, tutoring, and educational support.
That news did not surprise me.
Universities constantly speak the language of ‘inclusion,’ but they do not want disagreement. They want compliance.
For years, many of us who work inside higher education have watched American universities become captive to a worldview that divides human beings into permanent categories of oppressor and oppressed. These ideologies present themselves as enlightened and compassionate, but underneath the slogans is something much uglier.
They claim to fight racism, in effect, by being racist.
That is not rhetorical excess. It is the actual logic of these programs. If you are told that your moral standing is shaped by your race, if students are sorted into categories of guilt and grievance based on ancestry, if “equity” means treating people differently because of their race, then the old evil has simply been repackaged in new academic language.
I know this from experience.
The Arizona Supreme Court has now agreed to hear my case against Arizona State University and the Arizona Board of Regents over ASU’s required DEI training. My challenge began because ASU forced employees to take its “inclusive communities” training.
The training, in some cases produced by Starbucks (I kid you not), told employees how to think about race, guilt, power, and identity, and it required assent to predetermined “correct” answers. I could not in good conscience affirm teachings that judged people by skin color, ethnic identity, gender, religion, and geography.
The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to hear my case goes to the heart of whether state universities can force employees into ideological training that violates state law and basic principles of equal treatment. Arizona law prohibits public schools, including universities, from using curriculum that engages in race blame.
The issue is technical in legal form, but simple in moral substance: When a public university imposes unlawful race-based ideology, does anyone have the right to challenge it?
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That question should never have had to be asked. But that is where our universities are.
The takeover has been so comprehensive that many campuses no longer even recognize dissent as legitimate. Faculty culture is overwhelmingly leftist (97% at ASU identify as left-wing). The ideological imbalance among professors is staggering. Conservatives, Christians, and others who reject the reigning orthodoxy are rarely hired, and when they are hired, they are often isolated or pressured into silence.
Universities constantly speak the language of “inclusion,” but they do not want disagreement. They want compliance.
When someone objects, the mask slips. The same faculty and administrators who preach compassion suddenly become contemptuous when the dissenter is someone outside the progressive fold. The slogans about empathy disappear and the sneering begins.
That is because DEI is not really about inclusion. It is about power.
Its basic framework is the old Marxist oppressor-oppressed dialectic, merely translated into race, gender, and sexuality categories. Students are taught to see the world through this lens from their first days on campus. The university no longer helps students pursue truth. It trains them to become activists for a ready-made ideology.
The ugly irony at the center of it all is that students are charged tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to sit in classrooms where they are instructed by self-appointed champions of the oppressed, many of whom enjoy comfortable salaries and taxpayer support while lecturing others about systems of injustice.
The university administrator or professor who denounces oppression does so while cashing a government-backed paycheck and enforcing ideological conformity inside a vast institutional bureaucracy.
That is not liberation. It is a racket.
The federal investigation into ASU is important not only for Arizona but for the whole country. The era of automatic deference to DEI bureaucracies may be ending.
If government investigators are asking whether ASU’s programs have crossed the line into unlawful discrimination, then other universities should be asking themselves the same question. How many scholarships, support programs, admissions initiatives, and training sessions around the country are doing precisely what civil-rights law was supposed to forbid?
The answer, I suspect, is many.
American universities have largely abandoned the idea that education is the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. In its place they have installed a therapeutic political religion in which redemption comes through identity confession, public denunciation, and endless activism.
The categories of the system are fixed: Someone must be blamed, someone must be oppressed, and the institution itself must always pose as the righteous mediator.
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The ideology has spread far beyond the office door. It lives in the curriculum, in hiring, in faculty trainings, and in the language administrators use to describe their mission. It is the very institutionalized bigotry that it claims to oppose.
What is needed now is moral reform and clarity.
Public universities should not be in the business of teaching students or employees to judge one another by race. They should not use tax dollars to promote theories that blame individuals for the sins of categories. And they certainly should not punish or marginalize those who object.
The Justice Department’s investigation into ASU and the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to hear my case are both signs that resistance is possible. But much more is needed.
Americans must recover the courage to say plainly what too many in higher education have forgotten: Racism does not become justice when wrapped in the language of equity, and discrimination does not become virtue when blessed by a university bureaucracy.
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