Why Florida Is Right To Leave Vaccine Decisions Up to Parents, Not Bureaucrats
Florida announced it is taking steps to be the first state to end school vaccine mandates. Every state should follow suit.Florida announced it is taking steps to be the first state to end school vaccine mandates. Every state should follow suit.Add These Pennsylvania Election Fraud Cases To The Pile Of Other ‘Rare’ Voting Crimes
Death by a thousand cuts may be the best explanation for how U.S. election integrity has been compromised by expanding voting options.Rep. Cory Mills gives wild explanation for messages to Miss United States as hearing ends in frustration
As has been the case since Miss United States Lindsey Langston came forward to accuse Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) of making threats of violence and revenge porn after their breakup, the hearing about her petition for a restraining order against him was filled with drama.
Langston testified at Columbia County Courthouse on Friday morning about her growing concerns about Mills' mental health at the tail end of their three-year relationship as well as her increasing terror afterward on account of his behavior. According to Langston, Mills repeatedly contacted her after the breakup in February, pleading with her to reconcile and progressively threatening greater and greater harm to himself and others if she did not agree.
'I'm up against this person who is intimidating, and I don't know what to do.'
Langston testified that in March he threatened to commit suicide if she would not take him back.
Despite these alleged alarming comments, Langston said she continued to speak with Mills, even mentioning to him in late April or early May that she was struggling with an IRS- and tax-related problem, though she noted that she eventually had to ask him to stop contacting her.
Sometime in May, she began ignoring his messages, she said, and by late May, she started blocking him on her phone and social media accounts. However, she said the messages continued — and that they promised to harm her future love interests and even to share revenge porn with them or with the Miss United States organization.
Blaze News previously viewed screenshots of those messages, some or all of which were then introduced into evidence on Friday. They include:
- "You want to date or be with someone else. Be my guest. But they need to know well in advance that if we cross paths, I don’t care this week, this month, or this decade. They better damn well know it’s coming every time."
- "May want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy."
- "I can send him a few videos of you as well," followed by "Oh, I still have them."
Messages that she received in June were so specific that she worried he was somehow monitoring her activities in Columbia County, she told the court.
Langston previously indicated to Blaze News that on June 12 she told him once and for all to leave her alone, and her attorney, Bobi J. Frank, noted at the hearing on Friday that Langston asked him "10, 11, 12 times" to stay away.
Between the escalating rhetoric and his previous boasts about engaging in violence, Langston testified that she felt she had no choice but to involve law enforcement.
"I'm up against this person who is intimidating," she said through tears on the stand, "and I don't know what to do."
"I thought I could handle this, and I can't. I can't handle it by myself. Please help me. Someone please help me because I don't know what to do, and I'm scared," she added.
RELATED: Drama continues as Rep. Cory Mills prepares for looming court hearing against Miss United States
When it was Mills' turn to take the stand, he did not deny contacting Langston after their breakup, noting that they had broken up and reconciled before and that he believed that they were on a path toward reconciliation once again. When his attorney, Aaron Delgado, asked about the messages that Langston found worrisome, Mills seemed to suggest that they were inside jokes between two Southerners raised in the "country."
"I grew up in the country," Mills said. "You know, I grew up hunting and fishing in Perry and Mayo and things like that. We grew up with subsequently the same backgrounds. ... We used to talk about how country folk are a little bit different than those up North."
He indicated that he was merely adopting her type of "voice" and language.
Mills at first said his last conversation with Langston 'was around the June 12th time frame,' but when Delgado pressed further, asking whether he had any contact with Langston after that point, Mills equivocated.
As far as the messages seemingly directed at a new man in Langston's life, Mills said they were responses to threats that the man had first given about him. "She even sent me a text that was cropped that just said, 'Good luck,' saying that this was his response," Mills asserted.
Langston testified Friday that while she had gone on dates, she had not been involved in another relationship after Mills.
Mills further stated that while Langston had sent him explicit videos of herself during their relationship — a fact that Langston confirmed during cross-examination — he had deleted those videos and that the phone on which he had received them was later damaged. He denied ever contacting the Miss United States organization or the county GOP group of which Langston is a member about the explicit photos and videos.
RELATED: Rep. Cory Mills to appear in court following bombshell accusations from Miss United States
Mills, who is still believed to be married to Rana Al Saadi despite reportedly telling Langston in 2024 that his divorce had been finalized, gave an ambiguous answer when Delgado asked him to pinpoint the last time he had contacted Langston.
Mills at first said his last conversation with Langston "was around the June 12th time frame," but when Delgado pressed further, asking whether he had any contact with Langston after that point, Mills equivocated. "No, sir, only to the fact of I have heard ..." Mills began before he was cut off multiple times by Frank, Judge Fred Koberlein, and Delgado that he was engaging in hearsay.
At the prompting of Judge Koberlein, Delgado eventually redirected the line of questioning, and Mills' testimony concluded shortly thereafter.
Langston had testified earlier that after she contacted law enforcement and the media, Mills, his current girlfriend, and his chief of staff sent her a flurry of messages and phone calls, begging her to retract her story. She told Blaze News on August 5, the day our story on the accusations broke, about this alleged harassment.
The hearing Friday extended well beyond the time allotted, with other critical procedures, including cross-examination of Mills and closing statements, left undone. After both attorneys petitioned for more time, Judge Koberlein suspended the hearing, demanding that by 4 p.m. Friday they agree upon another date and time to continue the proceedings.
After the court was recessed, Mills promised the gaggle of reporters in attendance, including Steve Baker of Blaze News, that he would address them outside the courthouse, but he never appeared, instead exiting the building from another door.
Delgado did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News, and Frank declined to give one.
The court had previously dismissed Langston's emergency petition for a restraining order. As of the time of this writing, no follow-up hearing has been scheduled.
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Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz stays open in huge win for Trump’s immigration agenda
Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, a detention center established to expand bed capacity for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been engaged in a persistent legal battle but achieved a significant victory on Thursday afternoon.
‘It is entirely unclear to us, moreover, how the district court concluded that it could order the proactive dismantling of the Facility by way of a mandatory preliminary injunction.’
Kathleen M. Williams, a federal judge in Miami, ruled last month that no additional detainees could be housed at Alligator Alcatraz and required it to be dismantled within 60 days.
In a 2-1 vote on Thursday, a panel of judges with the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta blocked Williams’ ruling to shut down the facility. The ruling allows the detention center to remain open.
Environmental groups have argued that the facility, which opened in July and is located in the Florida Everglades, should have been subject to federal environmental reviews.
However, Alligator Alcatraz is a state-operated facility, and Florida has not received federal reimbursements for its operation.
RELATED: Florida makes one thing absolutely clear after Obama judge orders teardown of Alligator Alcatraz
“It is entirely unclear to us, moreover, how the district court concluded that it could order the proactive dismantling of the Facility by way of a mandatory preliminary injunction,” Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote for the majority. “It is wholly unreasonable to conclude from the naked assurances of politicians and lawyers that the Facility is federally funded when not only is the record devoid of credible evidence that a legally binding payment decision has been made, but the record undisputedly contradicts that finding.”
RELATED: Trump admin expands ICE detention space into notorious state prison
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the latest ruling “a win for Florida and President Trump’s agenda!”
“The 11th Circuit not only blocked Judge Williams’ order to close Alligator Alcatraz, but they blocked her from proceeding with the case until the appeal is complete,” he wrote in a post on social media.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R) declared that the “mission continues at Alligator Alcatraz” and celebrated the overturned ruling of “leftist judge” Williams.
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Bizarre bodycam video shows Florida cops arresting Chuck E. Cheese mascot as kids, parents watch in shock
Police bodycam video shows the moment children and parents watched in shock as a Florida man dressed in a Chuck E. Cheese mascot costume was arrested.
The Tallahassee Police Department recently released bodycam video of the eye-opening July 23 arrest.
'Would y’all put Mickey Mouse in handcuffs?'
Police bodycam footage shows officers marching into a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Tallahassee.
"We’re gonna detain the mouse," an officer is heard telling a fellow cop on video as they enter the pizza restaurant geared toward kids.
Bodycam footage shows children playing arcade games as officers walk toward an individual dressed from head to toe as the Chuck E. Cheese mouse mascot.
"Chuck E.’s a little bit busy, ma’am," an officer tells a woman.
The officer orders the person in the mouse costume, "Chuck E., come with me. Chuck E! Chuck E! Stop resisting! You’re being detained, stop resisting! Let it go! Do not cause a scene here, sir."
The Chuck E. Cheese mascot is handcuffed and then escorted out of the children's restaurant as parents and kids watch in disbelief.
As one of the officers exits the restaurant, a furious woman scolds the cop for arresting the mouse mascot in front of children at the restaurant.
"I would like y’all to walk him out the door instead of traumatizing all these children seeing someone like Chuck E. Cheese get arrested," the woman is heard saying.
She then asks, "Would y’all put Mickey Mouse in handcuffs?"
Tallahassee Police Department spokesperson Alicia Hill previously told the Tallahassee Democrat that officers had planned to escort the Chuck E. Cheese mascot from the restaurant and handcuff him outside. But police said they became nervous after the suspect resisted.
Hill explained that when officers approached the individual in the Chuck E. Cheese mascot costume, the suspect "immediately tenses up and resists, and so at this point they make the decision to put him in handcuffs" for the safety of the suspect, customers, and officers.
Hill added that it was "unfortunate" that the suspect "happened to be in a suit and in costume."
"The parents were not happy with us detaining Chuck E. Cheese," one officer tells another cop in the clip.
The other cop responds, "Too bad."
After police remove the costume head from the suspect's head, exposing his face, officers attempt to search the handcuffed man for weapons. However, the suspect is still wearing the rest of the mouse costume, which makes it difficult to detect if the suspect has any weapons on him.
“I’m working, you know, I’m just doing my job," the suspect tells cops. "What the f**k is this about?”
Police arrested 41-year-old Jermel Jones for allegedly purchasing items with someone else's credit card.
Citing the probable cause affidavit, Fox News reported that a woman informed police that her debit card went missing June 28 and that she last recalled seeing her debit card at the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant for her child's birthday party.
WKMG-TV reported that the woman said her debit card was used at a smoke shop, a grocery store, and a Whataburger fast-food restaurant without her knowledge or consent.
Police said officers found the stolen credit card in the suspect's left front pocket. Jones reportedly told officers that he "never used" the debit card and denied any wrongdoing,
"Jones was also in possession of a small amount of marijuana," the affidavit stated, according to Fox News. Jones allegedly told a police officer that he was "on the way" to getting a medical marijuana license.
According to WPEC-TV, Jones was charged with theft of a credit card, criminal use of personal identification information, and fraudulent use of a credit card totaling over $100.
Jones was released the next day on a $1,000 bond.
A Chuck E. Cheese spokesperson told People magazine, "We have taken the appropriate action concerning the subject employee."
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Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Florida’s fight for medical freedom targets vaccine mandates
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made a major announcement concerning mandatory vaccinations during a press conference on Wednesday, which was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience.
'They do not have the right. Do not give it to them.'
Ladapo began his speech by praising Governor Ron DeSantis (R) for resisting government overreach during the COVID era.
He then revealed a significant win for medical freedom, stating that the Florida Department of Health and DeSantis would work in partnership to end "all" vaccine mandates in Florida law.
The crowd reacted to Ladapo's announcement by standing up and bursting into applause.
"Every last one of them," Ladapo clarified. "Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery."
"Who am I as a government, or anyone else — or who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body?" he continued.
"Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don't have that right. Government does not have that right. They want you to believe they have that right. And unfortunately, they've been successful."
RELATED: Where’s the outrage?! This whistleblower's vaccine injury lawsuit demands national attention
Ladapo noted that nearly every state has vaccine mandates.
"They do not have the right. Do not give it to them. Take it away from them," he declared. "And we're going to be starting that here in Florida."
He emphasized the importance of allowing Americans to make informed decisions about vaccines.
Ladapo explained that the Florida Department of Health has the power to initiate the process by eliminating rules established under the previous administration that required certain vaccines.
"It'll be wonderful for Florida to be the first state to do it," he said.
Also during the Wednesday press conference, DeSantis unveiled the establishment of the Florida Make America Healthy Again commission, which will be chaired by first lady Casey DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (R).
DeSantis referred to Florida as the “national model for medical freedom.”
"The Florida MAHA commission will prioritize reforms that empower Floridians, reduce regulatory burdens, and hold actors accountable for their conduct, while fostering incentives for healthy living and innovation," he stated during the press conference.
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