JEDI NUT: Mark Hamill posts sick 'if only' pic of dead Trump



Lights! Camera! OnlyFans!

“My Name Is Earl” alum Jaime Pressly is the latest starlet to embrace the provocative web portal. The 48-year-old star follows in the footsteps of Shannon Elizabeth and Drea de Matteo, who also found a home on a site known for very adult material.

We don’t need Columbo to figure out who killed late-night TV. It was a homicide committed in plain sight.

“I’ve always believed in evolving with the times. … This is another way for me to connect directly with my audience, on my own terms, with creativity and intention. I’ve loved meeting fans at various Comic Cons, and the excitement of having those real face-to-face moments made me want to seek options like OnlyFans.”

Not sure it's your face they'll be coming to see, Jaime.

To be fair, not all OnlyFans content is adult in nature, but aligning yourself with the porn-centric platform does generate certain expectations — and a lot of buzz.

And sometimes the buzz is enough. Elizabeth reportedly made $1 million in her first week — and if disgruntled Reddit users are to be believed, she did it without posting anything racier than bikini pics.

The bigger picture? Starlets often struggle in youth-obsessed Hollywood to find steady work, forcing more … creative options after the age of 40.

For de Matteo, her unwillingness to follow draconian pandemic protocols helped push her out of Hollywood Inc. Progressive Hollywood, with all its MeToo starlets, didn’t have her back.

Hamill's dark side

The force is wrong with this one.

Actor Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill shared an image of a dead President Trump on, where else, Bluesky, with the phrase “If Only” attached. The “Star Wars” icon loathes the president, but this seemed an escalation that most — but not all — celebrities wouldn’t go near.

The post got plenty of attention, including some from major entertainment news sites. They usually hide stories that paint liberal stars in a bad light, but this was too ugly to ignore.

That spurred Hamill to backtrack, somewhat, but show little actual remorse.

“Accurate Edit for Clarity: ‘He should live long enough to… be held accountable for his… crimes.’ Actually, I was wishing him the opposite of dead, but apologize if you found the image inappropriate. 💙-mh”

Some "apologize" (sic). And sick …

No-kill Bill

Here’s betting Bill Maher isn’t eager to chat up Hamill.

The “Club Random” podcaster is liberal, like the erstwhile Skywalker, but he draws the line at wishing his political opponents dead.

He’s old-school like that.

In fact, Maher admonished some of his fellow Democrats for joining Team Hamill.

“If you’re one of these people — and there’s many in this country — who watched that and was disappointed the president wasn’t killed … you’re not a good person. Or a smart person.”

But, chances are, the ones who felt that way were watching Jimmy Kimmel that night …

RELATED: 'Crawl': Killer gators make for gruesome guests in overlooked creature feature

Paramount Pictures

Kombat pay

“Mortal Kombat II” is barely a movie. The sequel to the 2021 reboot hits theaters May 8, and it’s earning begrudgingly positive reviews — currently at about 69 percent “fresh” at Rotten Tomatoes.

That’s not shabby for a film with all the depth of a late spring puddle. Call it Extreme Guilty Pleasure Cinema.

Producer Todd Garner wasn’t satisfied, apparently, with that reasonably positive rating.

“Some of these reviews are cracking me up. It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/canon of Mortal Kombat.”

He may be partially right. It is a film meant for gamers, first and foremost. And it’s still a movie-movie, and many producers would be tickled to get reviews above the 60% mark.

At least Garner didn’t single out a particular critic and cry, “Finish him!”

Murder, they wrote

Remember how Lieutenant Columbo would sniff out the killer, often by attempting to leave the room before returning with a final question?

“Just one more thing,” he’d croak, and the villain would get very nervous. Viewers knew the gooses were about to get cooked.

We don’t need Columbo to figure out who killed late-night TV. Endless one-note monologues and ostracizing half of the country proved the weapons of choice. It was a homicide committed in plain sight.

Even David Letterman, the old guard who put the funny first, thinks the format may go the way of the 8-track tape in a year.

The murder suspects are planning to gather later this month to honor the host set to depart first.

Stephen Colbert’s farewell tour as “The Late Show” host will bring Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and John Oliver on for one the CBS show’s final episodes. The quintet, comically dubbed the Strike Force Five for their brief pandemic podcast, will help wish Colbert a fond farewell.

And perhaps they’ll take turns telling Trump jokes for old times’ sake. Chances are, this will be a recurring featuring until it's finally "and then there were none" time.

ACLU fights archangel Michael statue honoring cops — but court might not normalize 'heckler's veto'



A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area commissioned a pair of 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside its new public safety headquarters.

Since the statues also carry religious significance — one depicts the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon, and the other depicts Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman Christian — the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of secularizing activist groups joined local thin-skinned critics in suing to block the installation last May.

According to the ACLU, having the two statues as the sole adornments on the building's facade "would undermine religious pluralism in Quincy and violate the Massachusetts Constitution’s long-standing requirement that the government remain neutral in matters of religion."

'Let Quincy pay tribute to its firefighters and police.'

The ensuing legal battle has reached the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy.

The defendants' thesis, as outlined in their opening brief to the court, is that symbolism on government property should not become "illegal simply because some citizens perceive it to have religious meaning."

Some of the court's justices, Democrat-appointee Gabrielle Wolohojian in particular, did not appear to be entirely buying what the attorney for the city from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was selling at the outset despite considering his arguments in a city already replete with public art evoking persons, symbols, and themes of religious significance, including multiple statues of Moses.

RELATED: Young men flocking to Christianity in record numbers

Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Image

The court proved particularly fixated on whether Florian and Michael's special recognition as saints by the Catholic Church was actually an issue in this case and raised as possibly relevant in a lower court's insinuation that the statues' primary champion, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, was untrustworthy and had worked clandestinely to get the statues funded and installed.

The court was not, however, overly receptive to the ACLU's arguments in favor of denying Quincy first responders their statues, which have been defended in recent months by a plethora of organizations, including the nation’s largest firefighter and police unions, various faith groups, and esteemed constitutional scholars.

One justice questioned whether:

  • such legal concern-mongering constitutes a "heckler's veto" that is here at risk of being normalized;
  • the plaintiffs were effectively asking the state's high court to "provide less protection than the Supreme Court on free exercise," or "allow more hostility to religion than the Supreme Court would tolerate"; and
  • the statues endorsed a particular religion — an especially dubious claim given Florian's secular, historical significance and the archangel Michael's significance in multiple distinct faiths as well as in popular culture and literature.

Tom Bowes, president of Quincy's Firefighters Local 792, said in a statement, "For generations, Florian’s legacy has inspired the brave men and women who run toward danger when others need help. We hope the court allows Quincy to honor that tradition and the first responders who live it every day."

Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city, said, "In this country, public art doesn't become off-limits just because it may make some people think about religion. We’re confident the justices will apply that commonsense rule here and let Quincy pay tribute to its firefighters and police."

Eric Rassbach, another attorney at Becket, said in the wake of the hearing on Wednesday that the ACLU's argument largely "relied on the supposedly dead legal standard known as the Lemon test, which SCOTUS abrogated."

"For decades, the unusuable Lemon test produced confusion and split decisions in cases involving religious symbols," continued Rassbach. "That changed in 2019, when SCOTUS ruled 7-2 in [American Legion v. American Humanist Association] that the First Amendment does not require removing a WWI memorial cross and made clear that Lemon no longer applies."

While the Supreme Court rejected the relevance of the test articulated by SCOTUS in its 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling as a way of guiding the court in identifying Establishment Clause violations, Norfolk Superior Court Judge William Sullivan previously leaned heavily on it in the Quincy case.

"It would be a bizarre move for Massachusetts to revive a test that failed so badly at the federal level, especially since Lemon has no grounding in the Commonwealth’s Constitution," wrote Rassbach. "That document takes a different approach: It recognizes the vital role of religion in public life while guaranteeing equal protection for all religious denominations. That’s a far cry from forcing cities to scrub anything that smacks of the religious from all public property."

The court is expected to deliver its decision sometime this fall.

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STILL THE KING: Squeaky-clean Michael Jackson biopic moonwalks all over competition



You come at the King of Pop, you best not miss.

When critics condemned the new Michael Jackson biopic for ignoring the sexual abuse allegations that haunted the late pop star, audiences had a simple retort: Beat it.

The upstart politician uncorked a banger ad campaign that shredded current California leaders for crushing the City of Angels.

Last weekend, they packed in theaters to give “Michael" a monstrous $97 million stateside haul.

The chasm between critic and general audience has never been bigger.

Now, with those gaudy numbers in hand, Lionsgate is teasing a sequel. And yes, there’s so much left to share about Jackson’s life. That “marriage” to Lisa Marie Presley. The plastic surgery mania that left the singer looking radically different and shockingly frail.

The reliance on surgical anesthetic as a sleep aid, a habit that eventually killed him. Oh, and the numerous court cases and allegations saying he preyed on children.

That’s enough for a whole franchise, but given the Jackson family is still holding the keys to the saga, we’ll have to wait and see if any or all of the above finally gets a close-up ...

'Witch' watch

Imagining. Reimagining. Rebooting.

Heck, just call it what it is. A desperate attempt to squeeze every ounce out of a horror franchise. We recently learned a “new” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” film is in the works, with the director promising a fresh take on the property.

Let me guess ... this time around the human pruning will be emissions-free.

Now, a movie that defined “lightning in a bottle” is coming back. The 1999 found-footage shocker “The Blair Witch Project” caught everyone off guard. The film’s sneaky marketing even tricked some viewers into believing it was a documentary.

The $60,000 flick ultimately became one of the most profitable films of all time — followed by two of the most underwhelming sequels of all time.

Despite this track record, the pitch for another “imagining” of the film (Lionsgate's word, not ours) is heading to the Cannes Film Festival.

Let’s hope the project’s $10 million budget allows for someone to hold the camera steady ...

Ding-a-ling

We thought “Jeopardy” champions were supposed to be smart.

Recent winner Jamie Ding wrapped an epic run on the venerable game show, and he used his 15 minutes of fame to bash ... Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

First, he played the "as an immigrant and person of color" card. Wow, we’ve never seen that on our TV screens before. Stop the presses!

But even after 31 consecutive wins, Ding apparently can’t tell the difference between himself and the average undocumented Tren de Aragua member.

Maybe we can help: "What is illegal immigration?"

RELATED: Jimmy Kimmel: It's not 'my job' to make you laugh

NurPhoto/CBS Photo Archive/Kevin Winter/NBC/Getty Images

Jihad to be there

“The Daily Show” isn’t the dumbest program on TV. That dishonor goes to “The View.” But this week, Comedy Central's creaky fake news flagship threatened to steal the dunce cap from Whoopi and crew with a segment featuring Muslim comedian Mo Amer.

Amer whitewashed reality to both talk up Muslim achievement (fine, good!) and distract from the unrelenting headlines about radical Islamists (bad!). And of course, he wrapped by calling Americans racist for noticing the latter. Naturally.

“So stop using lazy tropes to divide people so you can bomb other countries, creating even more refugees, making you more upset at Muslims in America being doctors or engineers, lawyers, or selling you street meat out of delicious halal carts!”

Memo to Amer: It's not so much the Muslim doctors who get under Americans' skin — it's the Jew-hating, terrorist ones. Although to be fair, some enterprising immigrants manage to pull off both careers.

And by the way, if you’re going to appear on “The Daily Show,” you might want to tell an actual joke or two. You never go the full Kimmel ...

As seen on TV

Why does it take reality-show stars to fix our problems? The country elected Donald Trump twice to address the issues ignored by too many politicians, like our porous southern border. Now, “The Hills” alum Spencer Pratt is trying to do the same for Los Angeles.

The upstart politician uncorked a banger ad campaign that shredded current California leaders for crushing the City of Angels.

This is one sequel Hollywood desperately needs — “The Reality-Show Star Strikes Back.” Given the Golden State’s recent history, though, it might never get greenlit.

Blue-state city battles ACLU to install archangel Michael statue honoring police



Thomas Koch, the mayor of Quincy, Massachusetts, commissioned two 10-foot-tall bronze statues to complement his city's new public safety headquarters, a 122,000 square-foot facility that will ultimately house both the police department and the fire department's administration offices.

One of the statues that the city asked renowned sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov to design depicts the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon. The other statue depicts Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman soldier, dumping water on a burning building.

'The statues of Michael and Florian honor service — not a creed.'

Despite the broader cultural significance of both figures and their longstanding association with first responders, groups loath to see any public signs of Christianity joined a number of local residents in suing to block the installation of the statues.

While the Norfolk Superior Court granted a preliminary injunction last week blocking the installation of the two statues, the city of Quincy, evidently unwilling to surrender to iconoclastic secularists, has teamed up with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to file an appeal.

"We respect every citizen's beliefs, religious or not. But the statues of Michael and Florian honor service — not a creed," Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch said in a statement to Blaze News. "We’re hopeful that the court will reverse this order and allow our city to pay tribute to the men and women who keep our city safe."

The lawsuit

The lawsuit filed in May by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, names a number of Quincy residents as plaintiffs including

  • a Unitarian social justice warrior;
  • a self-identified Catholic who finds the "violent imagery" of good triumphing over evil to be "offensive";
  • a local synagogue member who suggested the images "may exacerbate the current rise in anti-Semitism";
  • an Episcopalian who believes that walking past such statues would amount to "submission to religious symbols";
  • several Catholics turned atheists apparently keen to avoid some of the imagery they grew up with; and
  • a lapsed Catholic who suggested the image of Michael stepping on the head of a demon was "reminiscent of how George Floyd was killed."

The lawsuit states that "affixing religious icons of one particular faith to a government facility — the City's public safety building, no less — sends an alarming message that those who do not subscribe to the City's preferred religious beliefs are second-class residents who should not feel safe, welcomed, or equally respected by their government."

RELATED: Exposing the great lie about 'MAGA Christianity' — and the truth elites hate

Quincy City Hall. Photo by Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.

The complaint hammers home the significance of Michael in Catholicism, where he is recognized as the patron saint of police, yet neglects to note that Michael also features prominently in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic religious texts and traditions as well as in the Western literary canon and pop culture.

While the suit hints at possible civic or professional accomplishments on the part of Florian that could be recognized with a statue, it again suggested that as the patron saint of firefighters, a statue of the historical figure would similarly "send a predominantly religious message."

The plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit that the city violated Article III of the Massachusetts Declaration Rights, and suggested that the installation of the statues "will not serve a predominantly secular purpose," but rather to "promote, promulgate, and advance one faith, subordinating other faiths as well as non-religious traditions."

The allegation of a violation of state law as opposed to a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution appears to have been strategic. After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has made expressly clear that "simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause."

Mayor Koch rejected the plaintiffs' thesis, underscoring in a sworn affidavit that he regarded it as "appropriate to erect statues of two internationally recognized symbols of police and fire service, an act which would also serve to inspire the men and women who work in the building."

"There was nothing religious about this decision," continued Koch. "The fact that Michael and Florian each happen to be saints venerated in the Catholic Church is ancillary to their significance in the Police and Fire services, respectively."

The injunction

Quincy suggested in the suit that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they were "simply offended by the planned statues, and, unwilling to confine themselves to the ordinary means for airing ideological disagreements with the government — the political process — have sought to make a lawsuit out of it."

Norfolk Superior Court Justice William Sullivan, who was put on the court by former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, was evidently not persuaded.

On Oct.14, Sullivan denied the city's motion to dismiss the lawsuit and granted a preliminary injunction against the erection of the statues, noting that the plaintiffs had demonstrated "that they are likely to succeed at proving that the permanent display of the oversized overtly religious-looking statutes have a primary effect of advancing religion."

RELATED: Clinton labor secretary panics after Trump asks the archangel Michael for help fighting evil

Photo by: Claudio Ciabochi/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Speaking to Koch's suggestion that the statues have secular significance and purpose, Sullivan wrote, "To the extent a statue of Saint Michael provides inspiration or conveys a message of truth, justice, or the triumph of good over evil, it does so in his context as a biblical figure — namely, the archangel of God. It is impossible to strip the statue of its religious meaning to contrive a secular purpose."

Rachel Davidson, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts, celebrated the ruling, stating, "We are grateful to the court for acknowledging the immediate harm that the installation of these statues would cause and for ensuring that Quincy residents can continue to make their case for the proper separation of church and state."

"Massachusetts citizens are free to practice their personal religious views by placing statues of saints or other religious iconography on private property," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. "But such religious iconography emphatically does not belong on government buildings where all must feel welcome."

The appeal

Becket, a firm focused on protecting religious liberty, announced on Tuesday that it will join the city of Quincy in appealing Sullivan's decision.

"If allowed to stand, the decision would push cities across the Commonwealth to strip historic symbols from civic life whenever they carry religious associations," the firm said in a statement. "But the Supreme Court has upheld the use of symbols with religious roots in public life, including a World War I memorial featuring a cross, when they carry historical, cultural, or commemorative significance."

Using private funding in the 1920s, the American Legion constructed the 40-foot-tall Peace Cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, to honor soldiers who perished in World War I. The sight of the cross evidently enraged iconoclastic secularists, who sought to have it toppled. While the Fourth Circuit proved more than happy to oblige them, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in its 2019 American Legion v. American Humanist Association ruling that the cross did not violate the Establishment Clause.

The court also rejected the relevance of the test articulated by SCOTUS in its 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling as a way of guiding the court in identifying Establishment Clause violations, noting that the Lemon test presented "particularly daunting problems" in such cases that "involve the use, for ceremonial, celebratory, or commemorative purpose, of words or symbols with religious associations."

While the Supreme Court has effectively rejected the Lemon test, Justice Sullivan leaned heavily on it in the Quincy case.

"Everyone is free to have their own opinions about public art, but in America, the fact that something may have religious associations is not a legitimate reason to censor it," said Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket.

"Our nation, like many others, has long drawn on historic symbols — including those with religious roots — to honor courage and sacrifice. The court should reject this lawsuit’s attempt to block these symbols of bravery and courage," added Davis.

Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy's office indicated the police department will have no comment as the issue remains in the hands of the court.

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UFC legend Nate Diaz wanted in New Orleans on battery charge after allegedly choking TikToker in Bourbon street scuffle



UFC legend and soon-to-be pro boxer Nate Diaz is wanted in New Orleans, Louisiana, after a scuffle outside a boxing event resulted in an altercation where Diaz reportedly choked a man unconscious.

Diaz is wanted on second-degree battery, according to Fox News, stemming from a Misfits Boxing event Diaz attended in support of a friend on April 21, 2023.

Police responded to a "large altercation" early the next morning, finding a man who appeared to be unconscious whom officers saw "bleeding from the rear of his head."

"After investigation, an arrest warrant was issued for Nate Diaz," according to police. "He has been charged with second-degree battery."

A man appearing to be Diaz was seen on video standing in front of another man before the two engaged. Diaz then rendered the man unconscious with a standing guillotine choke.

\u201cFormer UFC Superstar Nate Diaz catches some dude in a Ninja Choke and puts him to Sleep during a Street Fight last night...\n[\ud83c\udfa5 @PaulLABamba]\u201d
— Fight Haven (@Fight Haven) 1682170200

Former UFC fighter Jake Shields took to Twitter in defense of Diaz, posting a frame-by-frame breakdown of the altercation and saying that Diaz was acting in self-defense.

"I'm biased, but this is clearly self-defense," Shields concluded.

\u201cAfter hearing New Orleans has issued an arrest warrant on Nate Diaz I called my team to carefully brake down the footage\n\nGive this thread a look and give me your opinion of id this is self-defense\u201d
— Jake Shields (@Jake Shields) 1682392841

The man at the other end of the altercation was reportedly TikTok creator Rodney Petersen, who has over 200,000 followers on the platform.

Petersen appeared in a video with what appeared to be a head laceration he suffered after hitting the ground unconsciously.

“So, I don’t know what the hell I did to Nate Diaz,” Petersen said, with blood seemingly on his neck and head. “But I tell you what, I’m going to knock him the f*** out when I know he’s coming. You caught me off guard, dude. What’d you think I was, Logan?”

\u201cThe man choked out by Nate Diaz last night (Logan Paul lookalike Rodney Petersen) reveals the head injury he suffered as a result\u2026\n\n[\ud83c\udfa5 Rodney Petersen/@Overtflow]\u201d
— Michael Benson (@Michael Benson) 1682186921

UFC President Dana White remarked on the altercation, saying that Diaz is "going to get sued like a motherfu**er," according to the Daily Mail.

"That guy's head bounced like a f***ing basketball," White also said.

Diaz's last UFC fight was in September 2022, when he defeated fellow legend Tony Ferguson. The 38-year-old claims he still intends to fight Conor McGregor for a third time, telling McGregor's next opponent, Michael Chandler, in March 2023 not to defeat him.

Diaz is currently scheduled to fight YouTuber turned pro boxer Jake Paul in August 2023.

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Leftist media backtracks after false reports that conservative host said at CPAC that transgender people 'must be eradicated'



During his speech Saturday at CPAC, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said, "For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level."

Knowles was underscoring how deleterious the transsexual movement has been, not just on the individuals who have been sterilized and mutilated with the help of pharmaceutical reps and surgeons, but on women and girls whose sex-specific spaces (e.g., prisons, bathrooms, shelters) and events have been infiltrated by biological males masquerading as women.

Multiple left-leaning media outlets — the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, and Rolling Stone in particular — ran false reports intimating that Knowles had made physical threats, calling for the eradication of transsexuals and their so-called community.

Knowles immediately demanded retractions.

Despite subsequent changes to their headlines and in some cases editorial notes, a number of these liberal outfits and others continue to intimate that opposition to an agenda is tantamount to "genocide."

The speech

Knowles, a conservative commentator, spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland on Saturday, discussing marriage and gender issues.

He noted that conservatives "suffer from low expectations – we think the thing we can most hope for is that we halt the left exactly where it is."

Rather than accommodate the left, making concessions about the age children must be to undergo sex-change surgeries, Knowles suggested conservatives ought to reject leftist ideology outright, especially when it comes to transsexuality.

Knowles said, "There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing. If transgenderism is true, if men can really become women, then it is true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false, as it is, if men really can become women, as they cannot, then it is false for everybody too. And if it’s false, then we should not indulge it."

Here are the remarks with some context:

\u201c. @michaeljknowles this is deeply concerning language (no matter how bad the idea is). Ideas, good and bad, must flow freely at a public level.\u201d
— Jeffrey Harmon (@Jeffrey Harmon) 1678020850

Leftist apoplexy and disinformation

The remarks were not well received by the left.

John Knefel of Media Matters called the speech "[e]liminationist, genocidal rhetoric."

Adam Vary, a senior entertainment writer at Variety, tweeted, "Pay attention. This is genocidal. That is not hyperbole or alarmist; this rhetoric is calling for the eradication of a group of people for who they are."

The California Democrat, who proposed offering "Drag Queen 101 as part of the K-12 curriculum" and introduced legislation softening penalties for pedophilic statutory rape, suggested Knowles had called for genocide.

State Senator Scott Wiener tweeted, "It’s a straight up call for genocide. That’s what this fight is about. They want us gone."

The liberal media happened to agree.

The Huffington Post ran a piece originally entitled, "At CPAC, A Call For Trans People To Be 'Eradicated' Gets Big Cheers."

The Daily Beast originally ran a piece entitled, "Michael Knowles Says Transgender Community Must Be 'Eradicated' at CPAC."

The Rolling Stone, which has paid out millions in the past for false reporting and defamation, ran a piece with the headline, "CPAC Speaker Calls for Transgender People to Be 'Eradicated.'"

Geoff Wetrosky, Human Rights Campaign’s national campaign director, told Rolling Stone, "Their words rile up far-right extremists resulting in more stigma, discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people. The rights and very existence of trans people are not up for debate."

It would appear that, contrary to Wetrosky's suggestion, the inciting language was not in Knowles' speech but in the liberal media's false coverage of his speech.

Pseudo-revisions

Knowles immediately called out the liberal outfits, accusing them of libel.

He tweeted to Rolling Stone, stating, "This headline is libelous, and I demand a retraction."

The Daily Wire host wrote both to Christopher Mathias of the Huffington Post, who also reported on Twitter that Knowles had "called for trans people to be 'eradicated,'" and to the Daily Beast, noting, "I never said that and demand a retraction."

\u201cI never said that and demand a retraction. @HuffPost\u201d
— Michael Knowles (@Michael Knowles) 1677972965

The HuffPost has since amended its article's headline to read, "CPAC Speaker’s Trans Comments About ‘Eradication’ Sound Downright Genocidal."

Previously, it claimed in the body of the article, "There are an estimated 1.6 million trans people in the United States. Knowles told the CPAC crowd that these people should not have a right to exist."

It covertly added in "essentially," so the sentence reads, "Knowles essentially told the CPAC crowd that these people should not have a right to exist."

The Daily Beast changed the headline of its article to "Michael Knowles Says Transgenderism Must Be 'Eradicated' at CPAC."

The Rolling Stone changed its headline to "CPAC Speaker Calls for Eradication of ‘Transgenderism’ — and Somehow Claims He’s Not Calling for Elimination of Transgender People" and provided an editorial note stating, "This post has been updated to include statements from transgender rights activists and additional comments from Knowles."

The augmented Rolling Stone piece contains commentary by Erin Reed, a male transsexual LGBT activist, on Knowles' demand for a retraction, suggesting that it's "an absurd distinction. There is no difference between a ban on 'transgenderism' and an attack on transgender people."

Reed claimed, "They are one and the same, and there's no separation between them."

Following the changes, Knowles tweeted, "I’m pleased to see that both @thedailybeast and @RollingStone have at least partially admitted their dishonesty by changing their libelous headlines. I look forward to seeing the other outlets that are defaming me follow suit!"

\u201cI\u2019m pleased to see that both @thedailybeast and @RollingStone have at least partially admitted their dishonesty by changing their libelous headlines. I look forward to seeing the other outlets that are defaming me follow suit!\u201d
— Michael Knowles (@Michael Knowles) 1678066644

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) commented on the leftist outfits' false headlines, writing, "It is indeed libelous. It’s an example of how a bad Supreme Court ruling from 1964 (NY Times v. Sullivan) has created a monster—giving the news media a license to lie about any public figure who can’t prove that the reporter acted with 'actual malice,' which is nearly impossible."

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China dismisses FBI director's admission that Wuhan lab is 'most likely' origin of COVID-19, hounds Elon Musk over lab-leak claim



FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted during an interview Tuesday that the bureau has long suspected the COVID-19 pandemic to have been the result of a lab incident in Wuhan, China — a possibility the Chinese Communist Party, Dr. Anthony Fauci, members of the media, and so-called experts have spent years downplaying.

CCP apparatchiks lashed out, suggesting that Wray's recognition of Beijing's possible culpability hurt American credibility.

A CCP-run propaganda outfit similarly lashed out at Twitter CEO Elon Musk over his circulation of a report concerning the lab-leak theory, intimating that doing so may have consequences.

These two incidents, which occurred just hours apart, signal Beijing's growing sensitivity amid mounting Western certainty about the CCP's hand in the deaths of tens of millions of people worldwide.

The FBI's delayed admission

In his Tuesday interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, Wray confirmed a suggestion made in a recent Wall Street Journal report: that the FBI had determined with "moderate confidence" in 2021 that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak and maintains this view.

In the same report, the Journal detailed how the Department of Energy has confirmed that it similarly suspects COVID-19 leaked from a communist Chinese lab.

"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," Wray told Baier. "Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab."

\u201cJust in: In case there was any remaining doubt that the US intelligence community is actively promoting the COVID lab leak theory, FBI Director Christopher Wray has now voiced his support for the theory.\nhttps://t.co/W1fdfeje8x\u201d
— Michael P Senger (@Michael P Senger) 1677629637

Extra to its possible responsibility for a global pandemic, FBI Director Wray suggested that the CCP has been hard at work on a cover-up, seeking to undermine international efforts to ascertain the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

"I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that’s unfortunate for everybody," said Wray.

TheBlaze previously reported that extra to possible culpability over the potential manufacture and release of the virus (i.e., at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab), Chinese authorities also delayed warning the world about the emergence of the deadly disease, going to great lengths to silence doctors like the late Lie Wenliang, who tried to raise the alarm.

Communist officials waited until Dec. 31 to alert the World Health Organization, then claimed, "The disease is preventable and controllable."

A Five Eyes intelligence dossier accused the CCP in May 2020 of engaging in an "assault on international transparency" to the "endangerment of other countries," reported the New York Post.

The intelligence dossier indicated that the genocidal Chinese regime had scrambled to bury evidence of the virus and its origins, "destroying" lab samples, censoring evidence of spread, and denying sample requests from other countries.

Marty Makary, a professor of public health policy at John Hopkins University, told Congress Tuesday it is a "no-brainer" that a Chinese lab was responsible for the pandemic, reported Newsweek.

"The epicenter of the world [coronavirus pandemic] is five miles from one of the only high-level virology labs in China. The doctors initially were arrested and forced to sign non-disclosure gag documents," said Makary. "The lab reports have been destroyed; they've not been turned over. The sequence reported from the lab to the NIH database were deleted by a request from Chinese scientists that called over early on and said, 'Delete those sequences we put in the database.'"

More denial from Beijing

The Associated Press reported that the Chinese regime's foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning claimed Tuesday that "by rehashing the lab-leak theory, the U.S. will not succeed in discrediting China, and instead, it will only hurt its own credibility."

Ning said, "We urge the U.S. to respect science and facts ... stop turning origin tracing into something about politics and intelligence, and stop disrupting social solidarity and origins cooperation."

Despite China having barred entry to members of the World Health Organization team investigating the outbreak in early 2021, destroyed evidence about the outbreak, and silenced whistleblowers, Ning claimed that China has been "open and transparent" in the quest for answers about COVID-19 and has "shared the most data and research results on virus tracing and made important contributions to global virus tracing research."

Wray was not the only target of the CCP's ire over the renewed interest in the lab-leak theory.

Broken pots

The investigative journalist behind the Substack Kanekoa News tweeted a video compilation concerning Fauci's alleged funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Lab and lies about having done so before Congress.

Noting that "now both the FBI & the Department of Energy have concluded that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan lab," Kanekoa asked, "Does that mean Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the development of COVID-19?"

Elon Musk, who previously suggested that his pronouns were "Prosecute/Fauci," responded, "He did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth)."

\u201c@KanekoaTheGreat He did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth)\u201d
— kanekoa.substack.com (@kanekoa.substack.com) 1677436709

As a result of Musk's participation in this particular discussion concerning the "likely" Wuhan lab origins of the virus, the Global Times, a CCP propaganda paper, threatened the tech magnate, suggesting he could be "breaking the pot of China."

CNBC's Eunice Yoon noted that this expression is the Chinese equivalent of "biting the hand that feeds you," likely intimating there could be repercussions, given that China is Tesla's second-largest market and the company has considerable assets in the country, including its factory campus in Shanghai.

Yoon indicated that the Global Times also wrote, "Some may think @elonmusk made those remarks only to attack Fauci," but the posts he retweeted "almost all link the origins of #Covid19 to China and the argument is repeatedly used by the US right wing and anti-China media hostile to China to frame #China."

\u201c#China Communist Party paper warns @elonmusk against pushing #COVID19 lab leak theory. @globaltimesnews posts on social media \u201cElon Musk, are you breaking the pot of China?\u201d (\u201cBreaking the pot after eating\u201d is Chinese \u201cbiting the hand that feeds you.\u201d) https://t.co/iWmMZAOiGt\u201d
— Eunice Yoon (@Eunice Yoon) 1677563235

Some in Washington suspect that this international battle for the truth is backgrounded by a far more significant struggle.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) emphasized Tuesday during the first hearing of the House select committee on China, which he chairs, that China cannot be trusted and must be taken deadly seriously: "We may call this a 'strategic competition,' but it's not a polite tennis match. ... This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century — and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake."

H.R. McMaster testified before the committee, saying, "You could say that the Chinese Communist Party is the Harry Houdini of Marxist Leninist regimes, the David Copperfield of communism, the Criss Angel of autocracy, but the magic is fading. There's really no excuse any more for being fooled about Beijing's intentions."

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Hand-to-hand drug deal occurs during jury selection of RICO trial: Report



Two of 14 defendants standing trial in a RICO case regarding alleged gang activity in Atlanta, Georgia, have reportedly made the prosecution's case against them a bit stronger. According to reports, the two conducted a hand-to-hand drug deal in open court during jury selection proceedings this week.

On Wednesday, defendant Jeffrey Williams, 31, better known as the rapper Young Thug, was in the Fulton County Courthouse sitting next to his attorney when fellow defendant Kahlieff Adams stood up in the back of the courtroom and began walking toward the front. Before he turned toward a door, which some have indicated is a restroom, Adams reached out and grasped Williams' right hand, and Williams immediately placed his hand underneath the table in front of him.

Deputies then converged on Williams, suggesting that they sensed Williams and Adams had done more than simply shake hands. Williams then handed over to the deputies an item in his hand, which officials later claimed was a Percocet pill.

\u201cEXCLUSIVE: My colleague @MarkWinneWSB just obtained surveillance video that shows the moment prosecutors accuse Young Thug and his co defendant Kahlieff Adams of conducting a \u201chand-to-hand\u201d drug deal in court.@wsbtv\u201d
— Michael Seiden (@Michael Seiden) 1674169909

When Adams was searched, deputies reportedly found Percocet, marijuana, and tobacco that had been covered with food seasoning to mask the odor. He was later transported to Grady Hospital after he supposedly consumed other contraband in an effort to destroy evidence.

Adams now faces a handful of new charges: possession of schedule II controlled substance, willful obstruction of law enforcement, possession of marijuana less than one ounce, possession of alcoholic beverage by inmate, and willful obstruction of law enforcement officers. He is currently serving life without parole for a previous murder conviction.

Keith Adams, one of Williams’ attorneys, denied that his client has any culpability in the incident. "The reality is Mr. Williams had nothing to do with what went on in the courtroom yesterday," the attorney said. "One of the co-defendants on his way to the restroom attempted to pass something to Mr. Williams, who immediately turned it over to the deputy."

Keith Adams also claimed that Williams did not even know what defendant Adams had allegedly passed to him. "We don’t know what it is, did not know," the attorney stated. "It was turned over to a deputy right away."

The supposed drug transaction forced a delay in the proceedings, which have already become tediously long. Judge Ural Glanville had to read the entire 95-page indictment for prospective jurors that day and had to do it all again for hundreds of prospective jurors the following day as well.

Earlier this week, the mother of one of the defendants was arrested after deputies claimed she tried to hide an envelope containing tobacco wrapping papers and tobacco products in a bag of clothing that she then gave to her son. Latasha Kendrick, the 51-year-old mother of Deamonte Kendrick, aka Yak Gotti, has been charged with one count of criminal attempt to commit a misdemeanor. A warrant has also been issued for Nyesha Cox, the mother of Deamonte Kendrick's child, in connection to the incident, though Cox has not yet been arrested.

All 14 defendants in the RICO case are supposedly members of a gang called Young Slime Life or YSL, which has allegedly committed heinous acts of violence all over the Atlanta area since its inception in 2012. For example, several of the defendants have been implicated in the murder of rival gang leader Donovan Thomas Jr. in 2015. Williams allegedly rented a car used in the commission of that crime. YSL has also allegedly been linked to the Bloods, a notorious gang that began in Los Angeles in the early 1970s but now has affiliations throughout the country.

The defendants deny that their association is a gang and insist instead that they are a collective of local black artists. That prosecutors have submitted as evidence rap lyrics written by Williams and other defendants seems both to undermine and reify that notion, just as it tests the limits of free speech. The entire RICO trial is expected to last at least a year.

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Biden admin could seek to 'weaponize' government against Twitter if Trump returns, Musk says



Business magnate Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter last year, suggested in a tweet on Wednesday that President Joe Biden's administration might attempt to "weaponize" the federal government to target Twitter if former President Donald Trump returns to the platform.

"Will be interesting to see how the Biden administration reacts to this," Musk wrote when responding to a tweet about Trump potentially returning to Twitter and Facebook. "They may try to weaponize Federal agencies against Twitter."

\u201c@alx Will be interesting to see how the Biden administration reacts to this. \n\nThey may try to weaponize Federal agencies against Twitter.\u201d
— ALX \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@ALX \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1674058151

Twitter permanently suspended Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — but since acquiring the company, Musk has reinstated many accounts that had previously been banned, including Trump's — however, Trump has not posted any content since being reinstated.

NBC News reported that Trump's campaign is aiming to get the former president reinstated on Facebook — he was blocked from the platform in early 2021, with the company later announcing that Trump's accounts would be suspended for a two-year period — but that period has fully passed.

"We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse," the campaign wrote in a letter to Meta, according to NBC News, which reported that the campaign asked for a "meeting to discuss President Trump’s prompt reinstatement to the platform." The letter reportedly said that "every day that President Trump’s political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process."

The outlet pointed to anonymous sources to report that Trump could start using Twitter again. "Trump is probably coming back to Twitter. It's just a question of how and when," a Republican said, according to NBC News. "He's been talking about it for weeks, but Trump speaks for Trump, so it's anyone’s guess what he'll do or say or when." The outlet reported that someone else said Trump had been seeking input about getting back on Twitter and that campaign advisers had mulled possibilities for Trump's initial tweet.

Recently, in a reference to the controversial issue of environmental, social, and governance investing, Musk quipped that the letter "S" in ESG means "Satanic."

\u201c@ShellenbergerMD The S in ESG stands for Satanic\u201d
— Michael Shellenberger (@Michael Shellenberger) 1673829001

The billionaire business tycoon tweeted on Wednesday that the World Economic Forum "is increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don't want."

\u201c@disclosetv WEF is increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don\u2019t want\u201d
— Disclose.tv (@Disclose.tv) 1673978681

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'Lowest of the low': Looters pillage Buffalo while police are distracted saving lives and digging up bodies



For many, the blizzard that recently struck Buffalo, burying the city in 43 inches of snow and leaving tens of thousands without power, meant tragedy, particularly for the families of the 27 who perished in freezing whiteout conditions. For others, the wicked storm has meant opportunity.

Stores have been ransacked, businesses looted, and homes burgled by roving looters whom Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has called the "lowest of the low."

Whereas some have suggested that looters were driven to crime as a result of necessity, WGRZ reported that in most cases, essential items were forgone and luxury items prioritized.

What are the details?

Since the storm hit in full force on Friday, police have been focused on saving lives, recovering the bodies of victims, and tackling the immobilizing snow, suggested Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.

Looters evidently seized upon the distraction provided by the deadly blizzard, which Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz called the "worst storm probably in our lifetime."

Numerous videos of the looters' alleged exploits have been shared to social media.

Video has been released of the Nickel City Liquor store's break-in. The owner reportedly noted that the looters responsible have "cheap and bad taste."

\u201cLast night Nickel City Liquor in Buffalo was broken into & robbed. $500 worth of alcohol stolen. \n\nOwner had to sleep there, unable to board it up. He said \u201cthey have cheap & bad taste.\u201d\u201d
— Michael Schwartz (@Michael Schwartz) 1671996686

In another video shared to Twitter, looters weighed down with ill-gotten goods can be seen pouring out of a Family Dollar store:

\u201cBlizzard in Buffalo today and......................looting.\u201d
— Veterans Taking Back (@Veterans Taking Back) 1672036047

A 7-Eleven convenience store was smashed, stripped of its products, and unwittingly turned into a bird sanctuary:

\u201cThe aftermath of mass looting today in Buffalo, NY following a storm:\u201d
— End Wokeness (@End Wokeness) 1672030470

Looters also reportedly raided Rick's Sports Apparel, smashing its windows and emptying it of items of value.

Patrick Cichocki, one of the owners of Camellia Meats, told WGRZ that looters were "breaking into the Rent to Own, they're taking TV sets."

An employee at Camellia Meats said, "It's heartbreaking. When this is all over the community will have nowhere to go to get the things they need."

Pastor Al Robinson of the Spirit of Truth Urban Ministry confirmed the community impact of this thievery, telling WKBW that the very businesses vulnerable families rely upon have been pillaged, leaving them in the lurch.

"These people, I just don't understand why they just don't care about their neighbor," said Robinson.

Police began resuming their normal duties on Monday, indicated Gramaglia, although search and rescue operations will continue.

"We have made a few arrests. We have intervened in some of those. We've assisted with at least one location that I am aware of in getting a store boarded up, so our officers are out there," said Gramaglia.

BPD spokesman Mike DeGeorge noted that police will be monitoring social media and "reviewing video and posts in an effort to make arrests."

Buffalo's mayor minced no words when calling out those responsible.

Brown said, "People who are out looting when people are losing their lives in this harsh winter storm, it's just absolutely reprehensible. I don't know how these people can even live with themselves, how they can look at themselves in the mirror."

Brown noted that the "people taking advantage of a natural disaster to take what they want from retailers" are "also potentially putting those services at risk in the communities where they are looting."

According to Daniel Neaverth Jr., commissioner of the county's Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, the looting of gas stations has left a number of them inoperable. As a result, the fueling pumps are not working and first responders will be unable to fuel up, reported the Buffalo News.

"So that ambulance that is maybe just going to go a block to refuel now has to go to a facility sometimes outside of the city of Buffalo to be refueled," said Neaverth.

Poloncarz said he was "absolutely devastated to see that many deaths and then to find out that there's looting going on in our community at the same time we're still recovering bodies is just horrible."

Whereas the mayor and other community leaders have denounced the looters, Advocates for Justice attorney Nate McMurray suggested that those questioning the motives and ethics of the looters destroying local businesses should "shut up," intimating that the rampant theft of nonessential items is socio-economically justifiable.

\u201cI just saw a wealthy white guy online say about the looting in Buffalo\u2026\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t they take pride in their communities?\u201d\n\nDo me a favor. Move there. Live on the average income in the East Side. Survive a snowstorm without a grocery store nearby, let alone a plow. \n\nOr shut up.\u201d
— Nate McMurray (@Nate McMurray) 1672071255

Mayor Brown made clear that the criminal elements taking advantage of the tragedy that has befallen Buffalo are "not looting food and medicines, they're just looting items that they want so these aren't even people in distress; these are people that are taking advantage of a natural disaster."

Looting a problem after the blizzard youtu.be