Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised parents and Big Pharma skeptics that he would work through the federal government to end the epidemic of chronic disease and illness plaguing the United States.

As with any newly appointed member of the government, cutting through red tape, bureaucracy, and the shadow group known as the deep state are likely to be Kennedy’s biggest challenges.

In fact, if anyone were likely to stand up to these threats, it would be Kennedy, a lifelong enemy to Big Pharma.

In Kennedy’s first 100 days as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the HHS appears to have moved rather quickly on bans related to food products and additives.

First and foremost were phaseouts on all “petroleum-based synthetic dyes” that had long been criticized by the secretary.

The department started by eliminating six synthetic dyes: FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2

These are set to be removed from the food supply by the end of 2026, with a revocation of dyes Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B also down the pipeline in the coming months.

Kennedy referred to the petroleum dyes as “poisonous compounds” that “offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers” to the health and development of children.

Kennedy added, “We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust. And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day.”

Fluoride, which is predominantly added to water in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Chile, and Ireland, has faced criticism for years. Studies from Harvard in 2012 and the HHS in 2024 have claimed the use of fluoride lowers the IQ of children.

“It makes no sense to have it in our water supply,” Kennedy told an audience in Utah.

Utah recently became the first state to officially ban fluoride, with RFK Jr. saying he was reassembling a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention task force to further study the effects of fluoride and make an official government recommendation. Obviously, he hopes more states will follow suit.

'They changed our food system in this country so that it is poison to us.'

Kennedy further praised Utah for being one of the first states to apply for a ban on soda from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Arkansas and Indiana joined Utah in requesting a waiver from the USDA to remove soda and candy from being purchasable through food stamps.

According to the Associated Press, Arkansas’ plan would exclude soda and fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% natural juice. Artificially sweet candy and confections made with flour would also be banned. The plan would allow rotisserie chicken to be purchased, which is currently excluded.

Indiana’s plan would simply exclude candy and soda from SNAP.

“They changed our food system in this country so that it is poison to us,” Kennedy remarked.

Infant formula has also seen enhanced focus from the HHS under Kennedy. A 2022 scare shocked parents across the country with a severe shortage blamed on supply chain issues related to COVID-19.

While noting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and HHS want to ensure a “strong” and resilient supply, much of what the federal government announced was related to testing the baby formula for a nutritional review.

This included increased testing for heavy metals and other contaminants, increased transparency in labeling, and prioritizing research related to long-term health outcomes associated with formula feeding in infancy.

"The FDA remains committed to infant formula safety and nutritional quality and is taking all actions to ensure the U.S. infant formula supply ranks best in the world," a press release stated.

Furthermore, a proposed policy change that may have flown under the radar in March was Kennedy’s direction to the FDA to eliminate the ability for companies to “self-affirm ingredients are safe.”

Describing it as a “loophole,” Secretary Kennedy said that companies are able to introduce new ingredients and chemicals into the U.S. food supply without notifying the FDA.

While manufacturers are currently “strongly” encouraged by the FDA to inform the agency of any new substances Generally Recognized as Safe that they are using, those manufacturers can self-affirm a substance is generally safe without notifying the FDA.

“Eliminating this loophole will provide transparency to consumers,” Kennedy said.

Cost cutting

Upon taking office, RFK Jr. immediately pointed to $1.7 trillion spent annually in the United States on health care, an increase of 17% in just five years.

Therefore, Kennedy immediately began “slashing unhealthy fat” at HHS, which amounted to almost 10,000 employees leaving the department.

While the media framed this as layoffs and “job cuts,” Kennedy said the removals were voluntary resignations.

“We offered our employees, especially those who were not aligned with our mission, the chance to resign gracefully. Nearly 10,000 HHS employees voluntarily chose to depart through our Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, and Voluntary Separation Incentive programs.”

RFK Jr. also announced the closing of five of the agency’s “highest-cost regional offices” in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle.

'It’s clear that HHS had become a cesspool of deep state bureaucrats ...'

While these decisions are certainly quick money savers, the HHS claimed it saved another $67 billion through work with the Department of Government Efficiency. This was accomplished through actions like canceling $14.1 billion in COVID-related grants.

Government contracts were terminated or changed to save another $17 billion, while requiring individuals to produce their proof of income to qualify for federal subsidies saved another $10.5 billion.

“Evidenced by the number of HHS workers who voluntarily resigned once Kennedy took over with the MAHA agenda, it’s clear that HHS had become a cesspool of deep state bureaucrats uninterested in the true objective of the department: keeping Americans healthy,” said BlazeTV’s Sara Gonzales.

She added, “I am grateful for Secretary Kennedy’s swift action to address harmful food dyes and fluoride in the water, both of which predominantly harm our children at greater rates than anyone else.”

Gonzales pointed to other work by the HHS, such as attempts to find the root causes of autism.

Kennedy said he was assembling teams of scientists to focus research on the origins of an autism epidemic that now affects 1 in 31 children.

“We expect to begin to have answers by September,” RFK Jr. explained.

In its report, the HHS attempted to quell the claim that the increased number is attributed to the expansion of diagnoses and detection. The department said the expansion of diagnoses could not be attributed solely to the expansion of testing and that nearly two-thirds of children with autism also had severe or borderline intellectual disabilities.

Along with a new report on gender dysphoria, there is a lot for health-conscious Americans and conservatives to sink their teeth into.

Kennedy recently announced that vaccines would require further testing before approval, including undergoing safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure. An HHS spokesperson called this a “radical departure” from past practices.

“From finding the root causes of autism and eliminating the poisons in our food, to finally testing childhood vaccines with true placebos, there is much more work to be done,” Gonzales said.

With near mind-bending levels of government efficiency, Kennedy seems to have a lot on the horizon that citizens on both sides of the political aisle could describe as making America healthy again. If true, government working on behalf of the health of the citizenry is indeed a radical departure from the past.

Blaze News original: When fed-up teachers fight back against students who cross the line and physically attack them

Quite a few Blaze News readers reacted with interest to a recent story of ours about a Georgia high school student who was caught on cellphone video punching a teacher in the face.

Sadly, that's not exactly a new phenomenon in our society any more, as more and more students appear emboldened not only to talk back to their teachers and verbally abuse them — but also to physically attack them.

'The sad part about it is that teachers are being treated like that every day. They're being assaulted, abused, and something needs to be said about it.'

Meanwhile, teachers have their hands tied. What can they do? Do the victimized teachers simply allow students to pummel them to pieces as they suffer busted-up faces, broken bones, and missed work time as well as ongoing mental and emotional trauma?

Or do they — literally — fight back?

That's what the teacher did in the recent Blaze News story noted above. As onlookers in the hallway in Martin Luther King Jr. High School let out an approving holler in unison after the student let the punch fly, the irate teacher was seen on video hitting his attacker with a punch of his own. Two of them, actually.

With that, two other males — one wearing a gray hoodie and the other wearing a white hoodie — go after the teacher and knock him to the floor. By this point, the frenzied students are behaving as if they're watching a UFC match. The teacher gets up again, and there's a little bit of pushing and shoving, but that's where the 45-second clip ends.

The DeKalb County School District said in a statement that several students reportedly initiated the physical fight with the teacher, and WXIA-TV reported that three students were charged with battery and disrupting public school while the teacher in question was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

In the aftermath, Superintendent Devon Horton said the trio of brawling students should not be "criminalized."

But what about the teacher? At present, his fate has not been made pubic.

The following are some examples of what happens when fed-up teachers fight back against students who cross the line and physically attack them.

14-year-old student hits 64-year-old teacher with basketball amid argument — and hits him with racial slurs, too. Teacher arrested after punching, beating on student. But a year later, DA has change of heart.

Marston Riley's last day teaching at Maywood Academy High School in the Los Angeles area was Nov. 2, 2018 — but Riley, then 64 years old, didn't depart by choice.

On that day, Riley — a music teacher — asked a 14-year-old male student to leave the classroom for not wearing a proper uniform. The student in question allegedly refused, KTLA-TV reported. Cellphone video shows the boy swearing at the teacher and repeatedly calling Riley, who is black, the N-word.

The student also is seen throwing a basketball at Riley, after which the station said Riley pulled out his cellphone to call for backup.

"C'mon, bro," the student is heard saying. "Walk the f**k back [N-word]." Riley does walk back, and video shows the student continue the verbal barrage, including calling Riley a "bitch" and challenging him: "I'm right here, bro. Everybody watching, my [N-word]. What's up?"

Riley warns the student several times, "You better leave" — and a minute and a half after video of the confrontation started, the teacher is seen suddenly punching the boy in the face. The student attempts to defend himself and moves backward to the far edge of the classroom as Riley delivers another blow and knocks him down. The student gets up, drops his backpack, and squares off. Riley then delivers what appear to be at least another dozen or so punches and goes after the kid again after others attempt to intervene.

Staff dragged away the boy who started the confrontation, and he was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for moderate injuries and released, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing the sheriff’s department.

Riley was arrested Nov. 2 on suspicion of child abuse and causing great bodily injury on a child, KTLA reported, and he was released the next morning after posting $50,000 bail, the Times said. But all the students who spoke to the station hours after the fight were sympathetic to Riley and said the student in the video pushed him too far. In fact, one student told the station it was a setup: "Everything was planned out. There were students there who were already taking out their phones to record the incident. I don't think it's completely fair that they're just putting the blame all on [Riley], when I personally know that he's a good guy."

What's more, a GoFundMe page a fellow school district employee set up for Riley to assist with legal fees eventually topped $190,000.

In a 2020 interview, Riley told KCAL-TV he retired before the district handed down a punishment; the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office a year after the fight dismissed the case against Riley, NBC News said.

In the TV interview, Riley said people have to know about the continuous abuse teachers endure: "The sad part about it is that teachers are being treated like that every day. They're being assaulted, abused, and something needs to be said about it."

You can view a video report here that includes clips of Riley's fight with the student as well as the 2020 follow-up interview with Riley.

Angry student bumps teacher, steps on her foot. Teacher explodes, punches student — and gets charged and jailed. Not long after, however, authorities are singing a very different tune.

A Maryland high school teacher was charged and jailed in November 2019 after cellphone video recorded a fight between the teacher and an angry 17-year-old female student, who started things by bumping Vivian Noirie and stepping on her foot in a Largo High School classroom.

With that, Noirie started punching the student, who police said was angry at the teacher for contacting the student's parents the night before. Other school employees separated the teacher and the student, after which the student struck Noirie.

Noirie, 36, was charged with physical child abuse and second-degree assault and was locked up in the Prince George's County jail from Nov. 15 until Nov. 18. However, a lawyer for Noirie said students had assaulted the teacher three times already.

Prince George's County Education Association President Theresa Mitchell Dudley defended Noirie, saying that "what response comes from administration when you call the office and ask somebody to come up because a student is stalking you in your classroom, that's a whole other conversation that we need to have."

Dudley added in a later statement that "there is an issue of a lack of respect for educators. Verbal and physical assaults on educators are too common. There is a sense that as an educator we should continue to keep taking abuse, threats, and assaults from students, parents, and administrators because we are the adults in the room. ... Educators are human and need the same emotional and mental supports as students to ensure that situations are appropriately addressed. ..."

But by the following January, charges were dropped against Noirie, the Associated Press said. Dudley told the AP that cellphone video of the altercation shows the student was “clearly the aggressor” and that Noirie never should have been charged.

You can view a video report here about the incident, which includes blurred clips of the fight; the video report was published before charges against Noirie were dropped.

Substitute teacher's head left bloody in chair-throwing fight with middle schoolers caught on video. Official says students attacked first in classroom fracas.

A substitute teacher at a Dallas-area school was left bloody and required medical assistance after a chair-throwing fight with students caught on video in March 2022. The fight occurred at DeSoto West Middle School, police said, and a DeSoto ISD representative told WFAA-TV students attacked the teacher first.

Craig Miller — a school safety consultant and former Dallas ISD police chief — told KDFW-TV that legal action likely will be taken in this incident. "[The student will] face serious assault charges based upon the angle that I saw in the video," Miller added to the station. "It could very well be an aggravated assault, which also then could be enhanced, possibly because it happened to an educator in a school environment."

Miller also told KDFW the teacher in this case likely has the right to defend himself but that the video doesn't tell the entire story of what took place, particularly what led to the incident. You can view video of the fight here.

Battery warrants obtained for 3 high schoolers after video shows teacher getting physically attacked. Student actually throws chair at teacher, who fights back against student who repeatedly shoves him.

A fight between a Warren Easton Charter High School teacher and three students in early October 2023 was caught on video and soon went viral, WWL-TV reported. The teacher first approaches a student, after which the student pushes the teacher away three times, the station says.

With that, the teacher grabs the student, and the pair begin to fight. Then a second student hits the teacher with a chair and then throws the chair at the teacher.

Arrest warrants were obtained for three juveniles on charges of simple battery, the station said. You can view a report about the incident here.

Entitled student gets physical with substitute teacher who took her phone. But teacher fights back — and a knock-down, drag-out brawl ensues.

Video sent to WRAL-TV shows a North Carolina substitute teacher and a juvenile student arguing over the phone in a Rocky Mount High School classroom in April 2023. The student appeared to attempt to grab the phone from the teacher's hand, after which the teacher shoved the student away. With that, the student took a swing at the teacher with her right arm — and then the brawl began.

The teacher soon brought the student to the floor, threw a few punches, and pinned the screaming student while hollering for someone to get another teacher into the classroom. Soon after, the teacher and student both were charged with simple assault, WTVD-TV reported.

The teacher reportedly quit the profession in the aftermath and defended her actions; months later she reportedly was found guilty of misdemeanor simple assault. It isn't clear what happened to the student.

HS student who apparently believes he's invincible challenges substitute teacher, 'What's up, boy?' — and even gets in teacher's face while bumping, shoving him. Furious teacher finally has enough.

Cellphone video was rolling when a student began fighting a substitute teacher in a classroom at Golden Valley High School in Merced, California, in March 2023, KMPH-TV reported.

The station said video shows a student approaching the teacher and asking him, "What's up, boy?" and getting in the teacher's face and shoving him. Soon the teacher throws a clipboard at the student, the station said, after which the student begins throwing punches at the teacher. KMPH said it appears the teacher tried to hold the student in a headlock until the student surrendered.

Merced Union High School District told the station it has investigated the incident and can't provide further details due to privacy laws. You can view cellphone video here that shows the altercation.

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Blaze News original: OB/GYNs not fleeing pro-life states after all, new study shows

A new study from the University of California at Berkeley, of all places, reveals that physicians specializing in obstetrics and gynecology are not fleeing states that have restricted induced abortions in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.

To better understand the implications of the study, Blaze News spoke with Dr. Christine Francis, a board-certified OB/GYN with decades of experience, a current obstetrics hospitalist who specializes in high-risk pregnancies and deliveries, and the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

'Opposite to the expected finding if OBGYNs were leaving states where abortion is threatened.'

The study, published by JAMA on April 21, which obviously presumes abortion to be a critical component of "quality" OB/GYN care, surveyed more than 60,000 OB/GYNs to determine whether the Dobbs decision might impact where they decided to practice medicine. To the surprise of authors Becky Staiger and Valentin Bolotnyy, abortion policies in the individual states "did not significantly" affect the number of OB/GYNs working there.

The authors attempted to minimize the results, stating only that "there were no significant differences in trends in OBGYNs’ practice locations across states with different abortion-related policy environments after the Dobbs decision."

But that assertion ignores a key finding from the study: States with the most permissive abortion laws post-Dobbs saw the smallest increase in the number of OB/GYNs. While all states apparently had an increase, according to the study, permissive states saw just a 7.7% increase, while states with abortion bans saw an increase of 8.3% and those that have "threatened" abortion saw a startling 10.5% increase.

These results left Staiger and Bolotnyy scratching their heads. Staiger has a Ph.D. in health policy and management and has attempted to identify "racial health disparities" in public health insurance programs in New York. Bolotnyy's Ph.D. is in economics, and he is tied to the Deliberative Democracy Lab at the Center on Democracy at Stanford University.

"The only statistically significant difference suggested that the share of physicians who are OBGYNs decreased less in threatened states than in protected ones, opposite to the expected finding if OBGYNs were leaving states where abortion is threatened," the authors ultimately determined (emphasis added).

The conclusion of the study was so out of step with liberal orthodoxy that Dr. Francis made a point of expressing her appreciation to Staiger, Bolotnyy, and JAMA for publishing it even though "it theoretically goes against the ... prevailing political narrative."

"We need to give credit where credit is due," Francis said.

'Induced abortion can't be part of comprehensive reproductive health care if reproductive health care specialists ... are not doing it.'

Unlike the authors and the journal, though, Dr. Francis is not at all surprised by the findings of the study. She told Blaze News that they merely reaffirmed what she and her group, AAPLOG, have known all along: that restrictions on abortion would not have any meaningful impact on the vast majority of practicing OB/GYNs.

The main reason they were so confident that Dobbs would have little effect on OB/GYNs is that so few OB/GYNs perform induced abortions. According to statistics Francis cited, anywhere from 76% to 93% of all practicing OB/GYNs do not offer abortions.

"Induced abortion can't be part of comprehensive reproductive health care if reproductive health care specialists, the vast majority of them, are not doing it," Francis explained.

Francis noted that such statistics cast doubt on talking points and narratives promulgated by what she called "the abortion industry." Such narratives have attempted to dupe people into thinking that any abortion restrictions will lead to compromised medical care for women.

False though it may be, the presumption that quality health care for women depends on the ready availability of elective abortion appears to be far-reaching. A quick internet search turned up articles and research that all insisted the Dobbs decision posed a real threat to women and doctors:

"In states with strict abortion policies, simply seeing an OB/GYN for regular care can be difficult," claimed a headline from NBC News.
"States With Abortion Bans See Continued Decrease in U.S. MD Senior Residency Applicants," warned a study from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
"Over time, the inability of abortion-restrictive states to recruit new and existing clinicians will exacerbate widening health workforce disparities, with negative consequences for health care access, quality, and outcomes," wailed a Health Affairs Scholar study.

Even a January 2024 article from JAMA suggested that abortion bans had created an "occupational health crisis for OB-GYNs," who reported experiencing anxiety and "moral distress," fears about possibly violating the law, and even symptoms of depression.

Not only does the new study challenge some of those reports, since the number of OB/GYNs seems to be growing across the board despite Dobbs, but, according to Francis, the increase in numbers of OB/GYNs in pro-life states likewise suggests better medical care for the women living there.

"Women that live in states that decided to protect life, it seems, have actually better access to the care of an OB/GYN," she explained.

Francis described that trend as "encouraging" and "heartening" and expressed hope that it will continue.

Francis cautioned that while the study indicates that states that ban or restrict abortion have enjoyed a higher increase in OB/GYN counts since Dobbs, the study did not attempt to determine the reasons that some physicians moved to a new state.

In fact, Francis said she personally knows multiple physicians who left Indiana and its near-total abortion ban specifically because they wanted to continue performing elective abortions. Still, she claimed that pro-lifers should be encouraged that abortion restrictions have not prompted OB/GYNs to leave states in droves, as had been expected.

"At the very least," she said, "these pro-life laws are not discouraging OB/GYNs from either coming to that state to practice or remaining in that state if they were already in that state."

Moreover, Francis continued, by staying put regardless of abortion restrictions, OB/GYNs are signaling the irrelevance of abortion to the overall care they provide. To demonstrate her point, Francis imagined how she might react to restrictions on an obstetrics procedure she considers essential.

"If I was trying to practice in a state that said you can't do a C-section for any reason," Francis explained, "then I would probably leave that state because I wouldn't be able to provide good care to my patients."

Though promising, the new study is by no means a game-changer and will likely have no impact on any abortion laws at the local, state, or national level. However, it does at least call into question prevailing pro-abortion assumptions as well as demonstrate a willingness from apparently doctrinaire leftists to follow the truth wherever it leads.

As Francis neatly summarized, "This study just goes into that group of studies that help support the notion that we see in real-life, everyday practice that induced abortion is not a part of good health care.

"It's not a part of essential reproductive health care."

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Blaze News original: Obama, Biden set stage for Trump's derailing of Harvard's gravy train

The Trump administration has explicitly threatened, and in some cases suspended, the funding of universities across the country, citing violations of federal law and policy.

Amid this governmental campaign to fight anti-Semitism on campus, keep men out of women's sports, maximize viewpoint diversity, eliminate discriminatory DEI practices, and kick divisive critical race theory programming to the curb, Harvard University has emerged as the administration's white whale.

Democrats and other leftists have, through their overreactions to the administration's handling of Harvard, given away their own suspicions that the 389-year-old institution's neutralization as a political entity and restoration to former glory would mark a turning point — perhaps not an end to the left's long march through the institutions but certainly a landmark arrest of the American campus slide into lawlessness, lunacy, and identitarianism.

This concern appears to ground Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer's (N.Y.) statement, "The Trump administration is making unprecedented demands of universities aimed at undermining or even destroying these vital institutions."

'Tactics like these likely will have massive long-term consequences.'

"Universities must do more to fight antisemitism on campus, but the administration should not use it as an excuse for a broad and extra-legal attack on these institutions," continued Schumer. "Harvard is right to resist."

The concern similarly lurks in the background of Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop's assertion that "the assault on Harvard is part of a broader Trumpian assault on elite universities, which is itself part of a yet broader federal assault on progressive institutions and groups deemed enemies of the president."

Prokop added, "Tactics like these likely will have massive long-term consequences, forever transforming the relationship between the federal government and academia."

Despite the alarmist rhetoric peddled by activists and Democratic lawmakers, the Trump administration's insistence that institutional beneficiaries of federal funding hold up their ends of the bargain — especially in the case of Harvard University — appears to be neither unlawful nor unprecedented.

While the Trump administration is less ambiguous in its language and more confrontational with its actions — which have in a number of cases already borne fruit — it is simply exercising muscles previously flexed by previous governments to ensure federally funded universities comply with federal civil rights law and public policy.

Now

The Trump administration has threatened, frozen, and/or temporarily suspended federal funding to a number of schools in recent months. For example, the administration:

temporarily paused U.S. Department of Agriculture funding to the University of Maine System while ensuring its seven universities and law school were in compliance with Title IX and Title VI, which ban sex and race-based discrimination;
brought Columbia University to heel by announcing the end of $400 million worth of grants and contracts after the institution failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic attacks;
froze over $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University amid investigations of anti-Semitism and racial discrimination;
threatened to freeze $510 million of Brown University's federal funding amid investigations into the institution's DEI initiatives and alleged anti-Semitism;
paused around $210 million in research grants to Princeton University pending an investigation — reportedly opened by the Biden Department of Education in 2024 — into anti-Semitism on campus; and
suspended approximately $175 million in grants and contracts to the University of Pennsylvania over its policies enabling men to compete in women's sports.

While the Trump administration has taken a similar approach to Harvard, the country's oldest university has proven a tougher nut to crack.

Blaze News previously reported that the administration notified Harvard University President Alan Garber and Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, on April 11 that billions of dollars in federal funds were at stake unless the institution agreed to implement a number of "critical reforms."

'Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions.'

The government specifically asked for Harvard's cooperation in implementing these reforms:

foster "clear lines of authority and accountability," empower tenured professors who are devoted to the scholarly mission of the university, reduce the power held by students and untenured faculty, and reduce forms of governance bloat;
adopt merit-based hiring and admissions policies and cease all discriminatory admissions, hiring, promotion, and compensation practices;
"reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism";
commission an external party to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity;
reform programs with "egregious records of anti-Semitism or other bias";
eliminate DEI-based policies; and
clamp down on student disruptions and misconduct.

The university, which has an endowment of $53.2 billion, initially responded by suggesting the necessary reforms were already underway and that the Trump administration's demands were unlawful.

Barack Obama, a Democrat whose administration threatened its fair share of universities' federal funding, was among the liberals who celebrated Harvard's defiance, writing, "Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect."

'That stops under the Trump Administration.'

Evidently not interested in playing Obama-supported games, the Trump administration provided the Massachusetts university with a steady stream of bad news.

For starters,

the administration reportedly launched a review of around $9 billion in grants and contracts with the university over possible violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act;
the Education Department's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a $2.2 billion freeze in multi-year grants and a $60 million freeze in multi-year contract value to Harvard;
the National Institutes of Health reportedlytold grant managers to halt disbursements to Harvard;
the Department of Homeland security announced the cancellation of two six-figure grants and indicated the university's ability to enroll foreign students was in jeopardy; and
the administration appeared poised at the time of writing to pull $1 billion of Harvard's funding for health research.

Julie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, told Blaze News in a statement, "The Department has given Columbia and Harvard every opportunity to come into compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws."

"On March 10, OCR sent letters to both universities reminding them of their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus," continued Hartman. "ED has also attempted multiple times to engage in negotiations with both of these universities, and the Department hopes to continue negotiating with them to protect students' civil rights."

"In the past, educational entities were allowed to violate Title VI with little to no enforcement action from the federal government," added the ED spokeswoman. "That stops under the Trump Administration. We will not allow taxpayer funds to sponsor discrimination against American students."

After the administration began derailing the school's gravy train, Harvard doubled down on its defiance.

When announcing the university's lawsuit against the administration on April 21, Harvard President Alan Garber suggested that the pause on injections of taxpayer dollars into his wealthy institution were "unlawful and beyond the government's authority."

"These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world," wrote Garber.

Garber is hardly the first in recent weeks to suggest the Trump administration's handling of Harvard's defiance was somehow unlawful, harmful, or unprecedented.

Andrew Tyrie, senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, previously told the Harvard Gazette, "This is weakening the United States and imperiling the prosperity and the security of millions of Americans."

'This is the first time an administration has tried something like this.'

Joshua Cherniss, an associate political theory professor at Georgetown University, said, "I study, to some extent, authoritarian regimes, and I think that some of what we're seeing — while it's not equivalent to fully formed authoritarianism — is starting to approach it in terms of trying to have the government dictate the ideas that are taught, that can be expressed and that can't be expressed."

While there has been much of this pearl-clutching about threats to Harvard's gravy train, there has also been shirt-rending over the Trump administration's threat to Harvard's tax-exempt status.

Trump recently wrote, "Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?' Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!"

"To my knowledge, this is the first time an administration has tried something like this," said R. William Snyder, a professor at the business college of George Mason University, told CNN. "The whole purpose of higher education is to educate the masses. Just because they educate in a way that you don't like, is that grounds to terminate their tax-exempt status? I'd say no."

Contrary to these critics' suggestions, this was not, however, the first time an administration threatened tax-exempt status or funding.

Then

Like Synder, many critics of the president's proposal to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status appeared to strategically develop long-term memory loss.

Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo and Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett were, however, happy to remind such critics that should Harvard lose its tax-exempt status over alleged noncompliance with federal law or policy, it wouldn't be the first.

Bob Jones University, a private university in Greenville, South Carolina, had racist policies on its books in the mid-20th century — including prohibitions on interracial dating and marriage. Determining that the school's discriminatory policies did not serve a public purpose and were contrary to established public policy, the IRS revoked the school's tax-exempt status in 1975. This decision prompted a heated legal battle.

Ultimately, in Bob Jones University v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in 1983 that the IRS had authority to deny status to Bob Jones University, Goldsboro Christian School, and other institutions with racist policies.

Powerline recently noted that Harvard, like BJU, has already been found by the Supreme Court to engage in illegal race discrimination — meaning the path to status revocation might be an altogether simpler matter, assuming an activist judge isn't ready to throw more caltrops before the administration.

Just as revoking a misaligned university's tax-exempt status would be nothing new, the Trump administration's threats to universities' federal funding are similarly business as usual.

While the Trump administration has followed through by suspending or freezing funding to a number of universities for their alleged noncompliance with federal law and policy, the Biden administration appeared keen to do something similar — efforts that in a number of cases resulted in agreements and resolutions.

In the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the Biden Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened hundreds of investigations into complaints about anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While such investigations are customarily backed by the implicit threat of suspending noncompliant schools' federal funding, NPR noted that Biden officials expressly threatened to cut funding to schools that failed to take aggressive remedial action.

The Education Department noted in its 2024 fiscal year annual report that the University of Illinois, Drexel University, and Brown University remedied compliance concerns identified by the OCR, thereby preserving their funding.

While concerns were expressed about the possibility that these investigations could chill free speech on campus, critics were not up in arms as they are now.

There also does not appear to have been leftist apoplexy when years earlier, the first Trump administration's Education Department OCR took the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to task after concluding on the basis of nearly 400 reports of sexual harassment and sexual violence that the institution was out of compliance with Title IX. The government ultimately secured a resolution agreement with the school in place of fines or denial of funding.

The Obama administration similarly threatened federal funding for schools that fell out of line with federal law and policy without the same volume of uproar seen today.

For instance, the Obama Education Department's OCR came after Tufts University for Title IX violations, specifically with regard to its handling of sexual harassment and misconduct complaints. It also notified schools that noncompliance with Title IX could result in the OCR initiating "proceedings to withdraw Federal funding by the Department or refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for litigation."

In 2016, the Obama administration circulated guidance stating that so-called gender identity was protected under Title IX.

Politico noted at the time that the advisory included "a threat that the Obama administration has leveled against North Carolina in the standoff over the state's law blocking legal protections for gay and transgender individuals: If a state fails to comply with the administration's interpretation of the law, it runs the risk of being sued by the federal government and losing federal funding, particularly for education."

In April 2011, the Obama ED OCR established mandates requiring universities to reduce students' due process rights. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression indicated that failure on the part of universities to heed the regulations, which were announced in a letter from then-Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali, faced federal investigation and a potential loss of federal funding.

Obama also proposed shifting federal funding away from universities perceived as failing to keep net tuition down.

The previous two Democratic administrations appear to have liberally threatened schools' funding without the accompaniment of a chorus of doomsdayers warning of the coming peril and civilizational harms. Their threats also paved the way for those issued in recent weeks by the Trump administration.

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Blaze News original: 'Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period': Karmelo Anthony defenders go viral

As the case heats up against Karmelo Anthony — the 17-year-old charged with murdering Texas high school star athlete Austin Metcalf earlier this month in connection with the fatal stabbing at a Frisco track meet — something else has been playing out apart from the legal and investigative aspects.

There's been no shortage of beliefs expressed on social media concerning how the case should conclude. Indeed, many believe Anthony should go to prison for a very long time. Prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty or life without parole for juveniles, however, due to a 2005 Supreme Court ruling, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis told WFAA-TV.

'Y’all said 17-yr-old Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in killing two people with an AR-15 because he felt threatened. 17-yr-old Karmelo Anthony was defending himself when he killed Austin Metcalf with a knife, and y’all think he deserves to go to prison. I wonder whyTE.'

But others on social media are defending Anthony, saying he stabbed Metcalf in self-defense and should be freed. Indeed, a judge on Monday granted Anthony house arrest and reduced his bond from $1 million to $250,000. Also as of Monday, the GiveSendGo fundraising page for Anthony eclipsed $415,000 after topping $250,000 early last week.

Whether or not Anthony's release from jail is a first step toward a not-guilty verdict remains to be seen, but there is a growing number of folks who would seem to love nothing better.

One X user — in a post that has attracted 1.2 million views — predicted that "Karmelo Anthony will be a free young man soon." The user based the prediction on a now-apparently deleted TikTok video included in the post from an individual who claimed that a Texas male recently was given just 30 days in jail and 10 years probation after fatally stabbing a friend amid mutual combat.

The reason for the seemingly lenient sentence, according to the video creator, is because in Texas, if you're legally allowed to be in a given place, you can use deadly force to protect yourself from serious bodily injury — and that Anthony was legally allowed to be at the track meet.

"Maybe we should train people to not put their hands on people," the video creator also said, adding "control your urges; control this neanderthal, territorial bulls**t."

Another X user — in a post that has attracted over 773,000 views — pointed out a video by a white male who defends Anthony and supports his innocence. And what did the X user say about Anthony's white supporter? "See, this cracka gets it. Karmelo Anthony is innocent — free him!"

An X post with over 683,000 views insists that Anthony "is an exceptional, upstanding, suburban, young teen boy. He is an honor roll student, works an honest job, and he's a hero! If we allow them to paint this teenage boy as some Thug or reckless 'YN,' we failed, and no Black boy in America is safe!"

A post in defense of Anthony — containing numerous unproven allegations — managed to attract nearly 330,000 views, and another X user — in a post that has pulled in 329,000 views — wrote that "Kyle Rittenhouse can be 17 with an AR-15, Karmelo Anthony CAN'T be 17 with a knife. Make it make sense."

Another X poster who pulled in nearly 288,000 views claimed that students who were at the fatal stabbing said Metcalf "beat up" Anthony "at a party a week prior over a girl" — despite witnesses telling police that Anthony and Metcalf, in fact, did not know each other.

Then, there are those who have called Anthony an "American hero" (123,000 views) and even claimed an image of an infant wearing KKK attire is Metcalf's "baby photo" (84,000 views).

That's already a lot of claims reaching a lot of eyes — and well before those who actually matter in the case bring evidence and testimony.

But the latter posts are nothing compared to the ones coming up. The following is a breakdown of five of the most viral social media takes defending Anthony:

Female in viral clip declares that 'Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period'

Perhaps the most-viewed and controversial reaction in support of Anthony is a 51-second viral video showing a female — with the words "Free Karmelo" superimposed over her forehead — declaring that Metcalf "got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period."

The following is the entirety of her spoken statement:

Y'all not gonna make me believe or feel any kind of sympathy for Austin Metcalf at all. He put his hands on that young man when he should've kept them hands to himself. When the young man told him, 'Touch me and see, you [better] not touch me,' that meant that 'I don't want you in my space, I don't want you touching me.' Rosa Park[s] days is [sic] over. You cannot think that can move somebody out of a seat that you don't own and think that it's gonna be OK. And you can't determine how I'm gonna retaliate on you when [you] put your hands on me in an aggressive manner. Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period. It's time out for feelin' sorry for somebody['s] feelings or feelin' emotional about somebody['s] feelings. Austin Metcalf should've kept his damn hands to himself — point blank, period.

The identity of the female in the video is not clear, but the clip can be found in numerous spots on social media. The X post from End Wokeness featuring the video has received 5.2 million views since April 8. Some responses to her take include the following:

"How do you fix this kind of sociopathy?" one commenter wondered.
"Disgusting crap," another user declared. "If we are now in a place of defending murder, what’s next[?]"
"She wasn't there," another commenter noted. "She wasn't a witness. She doesn't know the facts. So what is she talking about??"

Not all of the commenters pushed back against the female in the video, however. One person posted the following reaction: "I wouldn’t say he got what he deserved, but a very valuable lesson was learned for others. For every action, there’s a reaction. 'Touch me and see what happens.' He f**ked around and found out."

Chilling video shows smiling female speaking softly while warning viewers, 'Keep your motherf**king hands to yourself' — and as children are heard playing in background

Another viral video featuring another unidentified female defending Anthony is rather chilling. She smiles and speaks softly as she warns viewers, "Keep your motherf**king hands to yourself" — all while children are heard playing in the background.

The following is the entirety of her unsettling spoken statement:

Keep your hands to yourself ... keep your motherf**king hands to yourself. Yeah. Why should I have to tell you over and over again to f**k around and find out? ... Keep your motherf**king hands to yourself. 'Why he brought a knife to the school? ... Oh, he was lookin' to go there to murder.' Y'all motherf**kers trying to act like y'all purposely tryin' to misunderstand the situation when you see it clear as day like we all do. Hmm. He ain't went there to stab no whole school up. He ain't went there to stab no whole track meet up — like y'all go there to shoot a whole school up. Yeah, he had [a knife] for protection; anything can happen — just like anything happened that day! That's why he had it. It tells you right there. Mmm hmm. Yeah. I can't even stroll good without hearing that sound. Y'all know the sound. When you're black, you're never really lonely. 'Cuz there's always a person all up in your business. Yeah. Mmm hmm. Now let's ask the realest question of 'em all: Why that boy feel entitled to go over there and put his hands on somebody else? Hmm? Why? If the parents was there like they claimin' to be, and the mom that's on TV [crying] her eyes out, why didn't she step up and get up and say, 'Hey baby, you can't be over here. You should find your own original tent.' I've ran track. They've been doing this for the longest, the same way. Kids are spread out everywhere. I have a niece that does it. Mmm hmm. Keep your hands to yourself. When I was in my yard the other day minding my business [someone asked] why me and my baby in the sun in our own yard. Like I told her, 'I ain't answerin' no questions. If you step in this yard, you'll be the next bitch to find out.'

The video is part of an April 8 X post from Unlimited L's, and it has received 4.8 million views so far. Here are some responses to the video:

"Her attitude and demeanor during her entitled rant is enough to just piss you off," one commenter stated.
"I don’t like to typically wish misery upon people, but this lady needs to have karma come knocking at her door. I hope she is humbled in some way shape or form. If not, I hope she feels an influx of misery. She is everything wrong with this world, absolute scumbag!" another user declared.
"She is recording this while little kids are playing next to her smh," another commenter observed.
"The spirit coming out of this is evil — just murderously evil," another user wrote. "I feel like I'm listening to a demon talking through her, and it's practically licking its lips."

Since Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny were 'justified' in using 'lethal self-defense,' Karmelo Anthony also was 'justified' in doing so, activist says

With 4.3 million views so far is an April 4 pro-Anthony reaction from Tariq Nasheed, who has more than 377,000 followers on X. It reads: "If Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in using lethal self-defense... And Daniel Penny was justified in using lethal self-defense.... Then Karmelo Anthony was justified in using self-defense against alleged bullies who instigated an altercation, correct?"

Another April 4 take from Nasheed has garnered 2.2 million views and reads as follows: "A suspected white supremacist named Austin Metcalf ... allegedly demanded honor student Karmelo Anthony give up his seat — like it was the Jim Crow era. Karmelo defended himself from the alleged threat. The Daniel Penny case set this precedent."

One commenter responded by saying, "You’re a disgusting human, Tariq Nasheed. Austin Metcalf was just m*rdered by a thug, and you falsely accuse Metcalf of being a 'white supremacist' and the aggressor. Shame on you. You need to be sued for defamation." Nasheed's response — which was ratioed fairly decisively — reads as follows: "I didn’t say he was a white supremacist. There are many people who SUSPECTS [sic] him of being one. That’s why I said SUSPECTED."

Nasheed has posted or reposted more than 20 reactions focusing on the Anthony-Metcalf situation. He also has a YouTube channel called "Tariq Radio" and links to a website highlighting "Foundational Black Americans," which defines them as "proud descendants of the Black men and women who endured and survived one of the greatest atrocities in human history—American slavery."

Bishop Talbert Swan blasts those who believe Karmelo Anthony should go to prison — and brings up race in the process: 'I wonder whyTE'

Bishop Talbert Swan — who has been covered more than a few times by Blaze News over the years — offered the following April 6 reaction to the Anthony-Metcalf controversy: "Y’all said 17-yr-old Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in killing two people with an AR-15 because he felt threatened. 17-yr-old Karmelo Anthony was defending himself when he killed Austin Metcalf with a knife, and y’all think he deserves to go to prison. I wonder whyTE."

Swan has just over 216,000 X followers, and his above X post attracted 2.1 million views. As you can imagine, Swan's racially charged take was met with just a bit of hostility:

"Are you really this stupid or are you just pretending?" one commenter asked.
"Are you f**king serious?" another user remarked before declaring Swan's take as "one of the most delusional" and that he "should be ashamed" to refer to himself as a "bishop."
"I'm pretty sure there's a special place in hell for people who stoke racial hatred under the guise of religion... you damn false prophet!" another commenter declared.
"Throwing gasoline on the race fire. As usual," another user wrote.

Swan posted a separate but similar April 6 X reaction, which has drawn 653,000 views: "White folks out here asking why Karmelo Anthony had a knife but had no problem with 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse having an AR-15 that he wasn’t licensed to carry."

'Racist people' assume Anthony 'must not have had his father in his life,' that his dad must be a 'no-good person to raise this thug,' video creator says. Then, she declares Metcalf, his twin brother came from 'a broken home.'

Another video from yet another unidentified female asserts that "racist people" assume Anthony "must not have had his father in his life, and his father must be a deadbeat, no-good person to raise this thug, and that he must be livin' in the hood and not livin' good." The female on the video is surrounded by what she says are photos of Anthony's "very middle, upper-class family" that include "his father, his mother, and his siblings"; she adds that the family has been together "for over 17 years."

"Interesting," she continues. "Because I think a lot of racist people were saying that [Anthony] didn't come from a loving family, and that his father was probably in prison or a loser and had abandoned him when he was young because of the stereotypes that you guys hear about black people — 'the black father must not have been in the home.' Well, it seems like his father loves him very much, and it seems like he was raised a good, young man — whether you guys like it or not. But you know who came from a broken home? The Metcalf boys came from a broken home because their parents aren't together. ... I wonder how coming from a home where the parents aren't together ... would have affected the twins? Hmm. I wonder." A clip of Anthony practicing with his football team ends the video.

The female's video appears in a post from a different X user who prefaces the clip by saying, "Karmelo was raised in a stable two-parent home, unlike the Metcalf twins, who came from a broken household. Given the circumstances, the stabbing was clearly an act of self-defense — and self-defense is not a crime." The post has received 1.5 million views.

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Trump's economic blueprint is hiding in plain sight

The Trump tariff plan has rocked the stock market and economists around the world, with the president notoriously labeling the implementation of his tariffs as Liberation Day, while others called his reciprocal moves a “huge mistake.”

Many have argued that Trump did not actually implement reciprocal tariffs at all, though. Look no farther than on X, where even though the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, is one of Trump’s top advisers, a White House post about the tariffs was slapped with a Community Notes label that said the numbers the administration used were not based on actual foreign tariffs at all.

Instead, the correction claimed the numbers were likely based on trade deficits and theoretical tariff amounts combined.

— (@)

Although it is worth noting that Trump did reveal that the numbers consisted of “the combined risk" of all foreign tariffs, “non-monetary barriers,” and “other forms of cheating,” the administration soon changed its tune to focus solely on Chinese trade.

After the White House announced another pause on tariffs for all but China, tariffs for which were raised to 125% (a number that may have changed by the time you read this), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went so far as to say that this was the president’s plan from the beginning.

“This was the president's strategy all along. You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position,” Bessent told reporters.

Bessent then said China’s 84% retaliatory tariffs had exposed the communist nation as “bad actors.”

While billionaire Bill Ackman called Trump’s latest shift “brilliantly executed,” some have argued that Trump’s economic plan is a case of writing on the wall and is following the work of former Hudson Bay senior strategist Stephen Miran.

Miran, Trump's top financial consultant as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, was appointed by the president-elect in November 2024. Miran was also a Treasury Department adviser during Trump's first term and later worked at investment firm Hudson Bay Capital Management, where he published a guide on global trade in November.

The document, titled “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System,” contains many aspects congruent with Trump’s current plan, especially in relation to tariffs.

While the document first noted that Trump proposed 60% tariffs on China during his campaign (the real number turned out to be 34%), the document did note a 10% base tariff on the rest of the world, which panned out correctly.

More accurately, Miran’s piece said the tariff plan would be deeply “intertwined with national security concerns.”

This indeed happened on Liberation Day, when Trump declared it a national emergency for the United States to “reindustrialize.”

'China's the big the big player in this whole tariff war.'

The initial tariffs and national emergency were all too easy to predict, according to Danny Polishchuk, a stand-up comedian who made his first economic predictions in January based on Miran’s document.

"He's gonna tariff every f**king country on earth," Polishchuk said. "[Trump] is trying to just totally redo the entire global financial system to benefit America, because the way that it's currently designed was to not benefit America.”

— (@)

Polishchuk, who has a degree in economics from the University of Guelph, told Blaze News that while media members have been speculating for months, Trump’s plan has “been in this paper the whole time.”

Before Trump’s move to rescind tariffs on all but the Chinese, Polishchuk also accurately predicted that China would be the focus of the administration moving forward.

“China's the big player in this whole tariff war; they're bigger than anybody else,” he explained.

“I don’t think Xi Jinping wants to seem weak,” Polishchuk continued. “It’s a situation of who is going to blink first.”

The Miran document also floated the idea of using tariffs to force China into a deal, an idea Trump endorsed soon after China retaliated.

“A deal’s going to be made with China,” Trump bluntly said. “I just want fair.”

Purposely tanking?

Like a last-place team looking for better draft picks, the Miran document suggested that currency could be purposely tanked to get a better deal. It further suggested that the United States under Trump could attempt to devalue its own currency to make paying off its debts easier, as well as make the prospect of bringing manufacturing into the United States a cheaper endeavor.

As the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency, the “overvaluation” of the dollar has “weighed heavily on the American manufacturing sector while benefiting financialized sectors of the economy in manners that benefit wealthy Americans,” Miran wrote.

While this was theorized in November, Trump himself shared a post early in April about “purposely crashing the market,” something investor David Bahnsen said is a noted strategy.

Bahnsen is the managing partner and CIO of the Bahnsen Group, a firm overseeing more than $4 billion, per Bloomberg, and he spoke to Blaze News about the reflections of the document in Trump’s policy.

“The reason one wants to weaken a currency is to pay a bill with less money,” Bahnsen said. “It is a tool for politicians to excessively borrow and pay back the borrowed money with money that is worthless. That's why there's an advantage,” he explained.

Bahnsen said the method is advantageous to the country with the trade deficit — in this case, the United States — because that country holds the deficit dollars in its own accounts and currency, which then can be manipulated.

Summarized, currency manipulation, or tanking one’s currency value, is done to “either to pay back bills with depreciated dollars or to pay a foreign country for goods and services with depreciated dollars.”

Bahnsen added, “China doesn't like that.”

The Mar-a-Lago Accord

The general thrust of the paper, as Bahnsen put it, is focused on the “excessively strong” U.S. dollar that is being used as a competitive disadvantage in terms of global trade. This is something that President Trump very likely agrees with, the investor claimed.

However, it is the ethics behind the tactic of “currency manipulation” that Bahnsen did not think that Miran specifically addressed; also that Americans need to come to terms with the fact that their government is sometimes the one that is manipulating currency.

“We're hardly blameless on this front ourselves,” Bahnsen stated.

At the same time, both economic experts explained that Trump is striving for what has been referred to as the “Mar-a-Lago Accord.”

The term has seen extremely limited mainstream usage but is mentioned in the economic document as a potential Trump plan to get trading partners to help strengthen their own currencies while decreasing the value of the U.S. dollar simultaneously.

As alluded to previously, this would theoretically boost U.S. manufacturing by making American exports cheaper and imports more expensive.

This speculative strategy seemingly only works with the positioning power that the United States holds, something even Chinese state media seems to recognize.

At the time of this publication, the South China Morning Post has the most detailed reference to the Miran document of any mainstream outlets and warns that it could turn out poorly for the Chinese.

When referring to the Plaza Accord struck with Japan in the 1980s, the Chinese outlet admitted the new American plans could have heavy implications on the Chinese economy and even cited a source that claims China may surprisingly end up agreeing with the implications of the Mar-a-Lago Accord.

“Beijing will make decisions based on its own interests rather than simply follow a U.S.-led accord,” said Ding Shuang, chief Greater China economist at Standard Chartered.

However, the economist added, “In bilateral trade negotiations, China may out of its own interest — and in line with the spirit of the Mar-a-Lago Accord — keep the yuan relatively strong, but it will not agree to a significant appreciation.”

Blaze News investigates: Democrats attack parents and parental rights in Colorado

Democratic lawmakers in the Colorado Senate are poised to pass a controversial piece of legislation that would grossly undermine parental rights and compel speech.

House Bill 1312 would, specifically, classify "misgendering" and "deadnaming" as child abuse; define both perceived offenses as discriminatory acts under state law; force schools to honor students' "chosen names" for any reason; and prohibit educational institutions from enforcing sex-based dress codes.

Democrats in the state legislature not only invoked House Rule 16 to kill debate before passing HB 1312 in a party-line vote on April 6 but smeared parental rights organizations critical of the legislation as hate groups on par with the Ku Klux Klan, indicating they were undeserving of consultation by virtue of their opposition.

Leftist lawmakers' latest attack on parental rights in the Centennial State might have largely gone under the radar had they not also viciously attacked those parents who expressed concern. The rhetorical attack has, however, helped draw attention to the legislative attack.

Blaze News reached out to some of those parental groups that Democrats have smeared as hateful and apparently want to ignore as well as to other critics of the "unlawful" legislation.

It appears that what leftists regard as "hatred" is actually an admixture of Americans' fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and their concern over further encroachments on parental rights.

As for the legislation, critics made clear that it will be challenged in the courts if ratified — although Focus on the Family culture and policy analyst Jeff Johnson indicated there was hope yet as of Thursday that the bill could die before reaching Democratic Gov. Jared Polis' desk.

Hatred, redefined

When Republican state Rep. Jarvis Caldwell raised the matter last week of whether non-LGBT parent groups were consulted ahead of the bill's passage in the state House, Rep. Yara Zokaie stated, "A well-stakeholdered bill does not need to be discussed with hate groups," adding, "We don't ask someone passing civil rights legislation to go ask the KKK their opinion."

'Colorado parents should be concerned.'

State Rep. Javier Mabrey later noted, "There's no reason to go to the table with people who are echoing the hateful rhetoric going around about the trans community."

Caldwell told Blaze News in a statement that "equating caring and concerned parents to 'hate groups' and the KKK is typical Democrat propaganda."

"Colorado parents should be concerned," continued Caldwell. "It's not hateful to be outraged by their agenda. We have crossed the Rubicon for parental rights in this state."

Blaze News reached out to Zokaie and Mabrey as well to Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie (D), the office of Gov. Jared Polis (D), and the Colorado House Democratic Caucus about the Democratic smear of parents across the state. They did not respond by deadline.

The El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty is among the groups critical of the legislation that were not consulted and then smeared as hateful by the Democratic lawmakers.

Chapter chair Kristy Davis clarified to Blaze News that Moms for Liberty's opposition to HB 1312 isn't rooted in hatred but rather in the U.S. Constitution. After all, the Democratic bill "infringes on parental rights and compels speech."

"Our advocacy for parental rights is rooted in the U.S. Constitution and should never be labeled as 'hate,'" wrote Davis. "We strive to ensure that all parents' rights are protected, and we oppose HB25-1312, which seeks to use legislation to separate parents from their children."

"Sections 2 and 3 [of HB 1312] represent government overreach by mandating the judicial system to apply transgender ideology in custody cases, while Sections 4, 5, and 6 force policies that limit parental authority over their children's names and gender expression," wrote Davis. "This legislation appears to be anti-family, pushing an agenda that appeals to only a fraction of Colorado taxpayers. It is harmful to both parents and children, creating unnecessary stress, fear, and separation and negatively impacting their mental health."

Davis, who has faced apparent threats online in recent months, noted that "parents have every right to be concerned about policies that affect their children's well-being and their ability to make decisions for their families."

'We hate that children are getting sterilized and mutilated.'

Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Culture Project and executive director at the Educational Freedom Institute, told Blaze News that Zokaie "let the mask slip."

"She detests parents who disagree with her so much that she doubled down on comparing them to the KKK," said DeAngelis. "Colorado Democrats are control freaks trying to force their insane ideology onto the rest of society. Colorado Democrats want to punish parents who don't accept the delusions of a small child."

"They're stomping on the rights of parents and hoping no one notices," added DeAngelis.

Alvin Lui is the president of the parental rights advocacy group Courage Is a Habit — a group that has furnished some parents in the state and elsewhere with tools to tackle gender ideology and has, along with Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education, been designated an "extremist group" by the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. Lui told Blaze News that his group has neutralized the "hate group" label in part by adopting it.

"I say, 'Absolutely we are a hate group. 100%. We hate what's happening to children. We hate the people that pass transgender trafficking bills, which is what this HB 1312 is, essentially. We hate that children are getting sterilized and mutilated before they can even get their driver's license,'" said Lui. "'We hate everything that you stand for. We want to run you out of schools. We want to run you out of any political office.'"

'Colorado Democrats just told Virginia's Terry McAuliffe "hold my beer."'

Regardless of what parent groups do with Democrats' "hate" label, its use in the first place is telling.

"What these assertions reveal is a troubling disconnect between some Democrats and the real, everyday concerns of parents," said Davis. "It feels as though they're dismissing the legitimate worries of moms and dads who simply want to have a say in their children's well-being. Parents are the ones who know their children best, and when they speak up, they should be heard — not labeled as radicals or adversaries."

Battle lost, war undecided

"Colorado Democrats just told Virginia's Terry McAuliffe 'hold my beer,'" DeAngelis told Blaze News. "Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, lost his race for governor after revealing he didn't want parents to have a say in their children's education."

McAuliffe was governor of Virginia from 2014 until 2018. He ran again for governor in 2021. Whereas his opponent, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), championed parental rights — particularly parents' prime authority over their children's education — the former Democratic governor signaled a desire for a difference balance of power.

During a gubernatorial debate in September 2021, McAuliffe stated, "I'm not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision."

At the time, the battle over critical race theory and LGBT propaganda in the classroom was a hot-button issue for Virginia parents.

"I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach," added McAuliffe.

Youngkin handily beat the critic of parental authority and remains governor of the state.

With McAuliffe's defeat in mind, DeAngelis told Blaze News, "Colorado Republicans should follow Glenn Youngkin's playbook and capitalize on this issue. They need to fight back to rescue parents from socialist takeover."

Numerous Republican lawmakers in the state Senate — where they are outnumbered 23-12 — have indicated they will oppose the legislation, which as of April 9 had not been assigned to a committee.

In a statement shared with Blaze News, Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen (R) noted that "HB25-1312 undermines one of the most sacred and time-honored principles of our society: the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their values, beliefs, and faith."

"When government policies attempt to substitute the judgment of bureaucrats for that of parents, we risk eroding a foundational pillar of liberty and personal responsibility," added Lundeen.

'Colorado used to be very red.'

Lundeen insinuated that the legislation would not only undermine the "sacred right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children without unjust interference," but "pave the way for future intrusions into how families educate, discipline, or spiritually guide their children."

Lundeen vowed to "stand firmly" against the bill and comparable legislation.

While Republicans could, as DeAngelis suggested, capitalize on this issue, it will take time to gain ground in the state legislature.

Both Brittany Vessely, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, and Jeff Johnson of Focus on the Family separately told Blaze News that Colorado's political capture by leftists was decades in the making, orchestrated in part by a cabal of billionaires who poured billions of dollars into the state to strategically flip local districts.

"Colorado used to be very red," Vessely told Blaze News. "It was more of a libertarian state — very rancher-dominated."

"But [entrepreneur] Tim Gill, Jared Polis, and a couple others poured money into the state and flipped these districts," said Johnson. "Once Democrats had control, they passed legislation that appealed to the left, to radicals."

The legalization of marijuana, the promise of other forms of social deregulation, and the state's general leftward shift apparently drew multitudes of radicals to the state, especially from California.

"So there's just been, in the last 10 years specifically, a huge move from Colorado being very red to purple for a while to now being dominated with majorities of progressive Democrats in both chambers and an LGBTQ progressive governor and very progressive courts," said Vessely. "So we have a trifecta in Colorado in the legislation where parental rights are being completely violated."

'HB 1312 is going to end up in litigation.'

The disconnect between leftist lawmakers and traditional Coloradans has been enough to drive majorities in numerous counties to vote either to break away and form their own state, "North Colorado," or to become part of Wyoming.

For the time being, they are stuck with lawmakers who are keen to undermine parental rights; to force them to fund abortion; to bar health benefit insurance plans from denying or limiting coverage for sex-change mutilations; and to keep up the lies about transvestites' sexes even after death.

From Polis' desk to the courts

Opponents of HB 1312 do not presently have sufficient time to change the state of play politically; hence the ongoing discussions of legal action.

Colorado state Rep. Brandi Bradley (R), for instance, vowed to sue and "keep suing" if the bill succeeds, stating, "I've birthed five children" and "will protect them to the Nth degree."

Brittany Vessely told Blaze News that "HB 1312 is going to end up in litigation because it directly impedes upon the religious freedom of conscience and expression for all Coloradans across the state but especially for the faith-based community."

Vessely explained that the public accommodation section of HB 1312 requiring compliance with gender ideology-based speech codes refers to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act — the law at issue in the case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis decided by the Supreme Court in 2023 — which was amended in 2021 to add the terms "gender expression" and "gender identity" to statutes prohibiting discrimination against members of a protected class.

While there is a religious exemption in the state anti-discrimination law, Vessely indicated it really protects only places like parishes and church halls — not diocesan offices, not Catholic schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, or cemeteries.

"These are areas where a lot of our Catholic ministries are going to be directly impacted by the effects of this bill," said Vessely, adding that Christian publications could similarly be impacted.

Jeff Johnson suggested to Blaze News that HB 1312 is clearly unconstitutional and fit for a challenge, adding that he has never seen a piece of legislation "try to do so many things at once."

"So you have the attack on parents' rights, which is unconstitutional," said Johnson. "The Supreme Court has said over and over again that parents have the right to raise their children — they're the ones in charge of their nurture and care and education — and this bill basically usurps that and says, 'No, it's abusive if a parent doesn't go along with the child's sexual identity confusion.'"

Johnson noted that while the bill presently targets court decisions in custody cases, once so-called "deadnaming and misgendering" have been "defined as abusive in this realm, it would be pretty easy for regulations to follow along saying, 'Hey, if you're not affirming your child's sexual identity confusion, that's abusive in any case. And [Child Protective Services] could step in and start taking children away."

In addition to standing on shaky ground because of the abuse classification, Johnson said that HB 1312 is vulnerable to legal challenges both because it tells the court to ignore other states' court mandates regarding parenting and because "it also coerces speech, requiring schools and businesses and employees to agree to the idea that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man, and it forces people to use a person's 'chosen name' and pronouns rather than going by the biological sex."

'They're waking up to the agenda, and they're saying, "No."'

Courage Is a Habit's Lui suggested that besides legal challenges, Coloradans also have the choice of civil disobedience.

"They can arrest one or two people" for reality-affirming language, said Lui. "They're not going to arrest 1,000 people. They're not going to arrest 5,000 people for calling a man a man."

"It's not an easy answer once you get to this point," continued the parental rights advocate. "Once you make fear a habit, they keep pushing you until they've got you over a barrel. And that's why we always remind people: You got to make courage a habit."

Vesseley noted that while the pro-life cause is presently facing neglect, especially at the federal level, there is a "tremendous amount of momentum right now for the parents in those organizations that are fighting back against the LGBTQ narrative that's happening, especially in schools. We're seeing that across the nation."

Johnson suggested that Democrats have unwittingly awoken the sleeping giant by "trying to get every area of society in Colorado to comply with this agenda."

"I don't know if the pushback is from [the transgender agenda] or if it's the parental rights issue, but I think people are starting to wake up and say, 'A man can't become a woman, a boy can't become a girl, and vice versa.' They're waking up to the agenda, and they're saying, 'No, this is harmful to children and adults, and you can't force me to go along with this,'" said Johnson.

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Blaze News original: LA sheriff threw deputy to federal wolves to appease liberal mob, union rep says

As Blaze News reported last week, a Los Angeles County deputy with a stellar record is staring down hard time in federal prison after a suspect accused him of using excessive force during a 2023 arrest. Evidence now indicates that L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna may have prompted a federal investigation into the incident, leaving deputies and other personnel feeling betrayed.

Blaze News caught up with the deputy's attorney, Tom Yu, as well as a spokesman for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Professional Association, Nick Wilson, to better understand the prevailing sentiment among L.A. County deputies about this case and to learn why they hope Deputy Trevor Kirk may yet avoid time behind bars.

'Safely handcuff the suspect': Deputy Kirk and a fateful detainment

On June 24, 2023, Deputy Trevor Kirk and another deputy drove to the WinCo supermarket in Lancaster, California, in response to a report of a possible robbery in progress involving a man and a woman. A source affiliated with LASPA told Blaze News that the woman had been "caught in the act."

When loss prevention officers confronted the suspects in the case — Damon Barnes and Jacy Houseton — the suspects allegedly assaulted the officers. According to reports, Houseton even pulled down her face mask and spat on one of security guards.

Kirk and the other deputy encountered Barnes and Houseton in the parking lot outside the store, identifying them as individuals who matched the suspects' description.

Though Barnes ran his mouth a bit, he was otherwise detained without incident. Houseton was a different story.

'She took a swing at him, backed off, and then continued to actively resist arrest.'

While deputies placed Barnes in handcuffs, Houseton stood nearby filming with her cell phone. Having already identified her as the other suspect in the alleged robbery and possible assault, Kirk then reached for her cell phone.

After a brief scuffle, Kirk brought Houseton to the ground, at which point she began accusing him of "manhandling" her. She also repeatedly threatened to sue Kirk and hollered phrases often associated with George Floyd and Eric Garner, who both died during encounters with law enforcement: "Get your neck [sic] off my … off my … I can’t breathe."

Houseton continued to yell and flail about. She also appeared to disobey orders to put her hands behind her back, so Kirk pepper-sprayed her in the face on two separate occasions.

Houseton later received treatment for injuries.

Bodycam video of the incident can be seen below:

— (@)

A summary of the incident from the Department of Justice painted a grim picture of Kirk's actions. "Kirk grabbed J.H. by her arm, hooked his left hand behind her neck, and violently threw her face-first to the ground," it said. It also accused him of pressing his knee into Houseton's neck and failing to issue her the proper commands.

In February, Kirk, a 32-year-old Army veteran and father of two, was convicted by a federal jury of one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. According to court records, it took jurors just two hours to render their verdict.

In reporting on Kirk's conviction, KCAL described the incident as a "vicious assault" involving a "disgraced deputy."

Attorney Tom Yu and LASPA representative Nick Wilson are frustrated with the way the incident has been framed by federal investigators and critics.

For one thing, by all accounts, Kirk has an "outstanding" record, Yu said. Kirk is well liked in the department and has no other allegations of misconduct against him or any poor performance reviews.

With regard to the incident with Houseton, Wilson told Blaze News that Kirk used only "minimal force" that qualified as a low-level, "category 1" use of force, as listed in the policies of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

Wilson also claimed that Houseton had been "resistive" and "violent" during the encounter with Kirk. "She took a swing at Trevor Kirk when he first went to detain her and put hands on," he said. "She took a swing at him, backed off, and then continued to actively resist arrest."

"Deputies are trained to take suspects who resist to the ground in order to gain compliance and to safely handcuff the suspect," Yu said in a statement in the days following the incident.

What's more, both Barnes and Houseton have a criminal history. Barnes has a string of arrests dating back to 1987, including convictions for arson, weapons and drug offenses, and resisting an officer. He was also accused of robbery in 1995. Houseton was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 2005 but had that conviction effectively dismissed from her record three years later, presumably after satisfying the terms of her probation.

To be fair, Yu noted, Kirk did not know about those prior convictions when he met the pair in the parking lot that day. However, Kirk also did not know whether they were armed, though it turns out they were not.

Neither Barnes nor Houseton was ever charged in connection with the alleged robbery of the WinCo store, which KCAL-TV later downplayed as merely a possible "shoplifting," or the alleged assault on the loss prevention officers.

Houseton did follow through on her promise to sue the department and was reportedly awarded $1 million. At a press conference about the lawsuit, Houseton claimed Kirk "tried to kill" her and implied that the excessive force was racially motivated.

Her attorney, Caree Harper, added, "It doesn't happen to white folks like this, and we're not gonna have it happening to black folks like this."

WinCo did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

'Hanging deputies out to dry': Sheriff Luna gets involved

An internal affairs investigation was initiated almost immediately following the detainment at WinCo, and the fallout might have been kept in house but for one problem: Video of the encounter between Kirk and Houseton had already been made public. Activist groups — including Cancel the Contract Antelope Valley, a far-left "social justice" organization — quickly planned demonstrations denouncing what they viewed as another racially charged instance of police brutality.

"As black residents of this community, we are tired of living in fear of the police," said group co-founder Waunette Cullors.

'The sheriff buckled under political pressure.'

About a week after the incident, Sheriff Robert Luna addressed the controversy publicly, describing the video footage as "disturbing." "It's disturbing. There's no ifs, ands, buts about it," he said at a press conference.

Wilson believes that in the summer of 2023 — a time when BLM riots and "defund the police" movements continued to reverberate three years after George Floyd's death — Luna was sensitive to external pressure. "After this use of force, the civil rights community, the activist movements raised hell within the sheriff's department," Wilson told Blaze News.

Even though Kirk was reportedly "cleared at a station level," Luna decided to invite federal agencies to investigate Kirk's actions as well, Wilson claimed.

"The sheriff buckled under political pressure and made sure that this case was handed over to the DOJ for prosecution," Wilson continued, thereby "hanging deputies out to dry."

Both Wilson and Yu told Blaze News they were "certain" that Luna's office initiated federal involvement, though Luna denies it.

In a statement to Blaze News, Deputy Miesha McClendon of the Sheriff's Information Bureau claimed, "Despite allegations to the contrary, this case was not referred to the FBI nor the U.S Attorney’s Office by anyone within the Department as indicated in the official court transcript."

McClendon also added:

The Department recognizes that having one of our employees convicted by a federal jury is a significant matter, and we understand the frustration it has caused among our personnel. ... The Department will be conducting a thorough review of the case to identify any specific issues to determine if modifications to training are needed.

Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

L.A. deputies were so outraged at the treatment of one of their own — a colleague some believe was "politically" persecuted after simply following department protocol — that upon Kirk's conviction in February, Luna held a private meeting with personnel from the Lancaster sheriff's station.

During that two-hour meeting, which was secretly recorded, Luna expressed regret for characterizing the footage as "disturbing."

He also suggested that he had nothing to do with contacting the feds about the incident. "I can tell you this with confidence that what I said that day," Luna appeared to say, referring to his "disturbing" remark, "did not have anything to do with the FBI.

"The FBI received this case from the plaintiff's attorney," Luna explained. The "plaintiff" in this case was presumably Houseton, who filed a lawsuit.

During the clips of the conversation reviewed by Blaze News, the voice identified as Luna's admits to having "failed" his team members. He also indicates that he had not personally reviewed the incident footage, which others in the room characterize as "innocuous" and not too "grievous."

Deputies also repeatedly ask Luna to use the power of his office to stand with Kirk and publicly oppose his conviction. Luna promised he would consider it.

Luna's history with law enforcement in general is rather mixed, even though he has spent his entire career as a cop, first with the Long Beach Police Department and now as the head of the largest sheriff's department in America.

Though Luna wanted to be a police officer from the time he was little, he indicated to the L.A. Times that he grew up in a community that was generally distrustful of law enforcement.

Luna also recalled to the Times an incident in which he was apparently the victim of unnecessary police aggression. "At age 13, he said, he was slammed face-first against the hood of a sheriff’s deputy’s car for crossing against a red light on his bicycle," the outlet summarized for a profile piece in October 2022, shortly before Luna was elected sheriff.

Luna also campaigned for sheriff on the promise of breaking up so-called "deputy gangs." While he has since managed to ban such gangs, he has yet to name a single deputy gang member, Wilson told Blaze News.

Additionally, Luna has a track record of handling possible instances of excessive force within his department.

During one of the occasionally violent demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd's death, an officer with the Long Beach Police Department shot a journalist with a "foam projectile," the LAist reported in 2020. LBPD — then helmed by Police Chief Luna — ultimately determined that the shooting "was within policy," the outlet said.

'To show unity': Deputies make their voices heard

The deputies of L.A. County have not taken the conviction of Kirk or Luna's alleged capitulation to leftist pressure lying down.

For example, a handful, including a sergeant, have reportedly refused to accept medals and other accolades awarded by the department. They even "refused to actually go to the awards ceremony," Wilson insisted.

'The magnitude of this boycott ... makes Luna look terrible in the law enforcement community nationwide.'

In a more widespread show of solidarity with Kirk, hundreds of L.A. deputies and other staff members have decided to boycott one of their favorite annual events: the Baker to Vegas relay. While the L.A. Sheriff's Department regularly fields two dozen or so relay teams, this year, at least 20 sheriff's stations — including Santa Clarita, West Hollywood, two detention centers, the Training Bureau, and, of course, Kirk's home station in Lancaster — are refusing to participate.

Protesting the Baker to Vegas relay is no minor demonstration. Billed as "the world’s most prestigious and unique law enforcement foot race," the event draws teams from across the country and across the globe.

"There's folks flying in from Brazil. There's folks from Australia, from Germany," Yu told Blaze News. "This is a big thing."

Yu would know. Now an attorney, Yu spent 15 years as a deputy with the LASD. The deputies who race are very "competitive," he said, often averaging five and a half minutes per mile.

"I tried out for a county-wide team," Yu recalled. "I ran a six-minute mile, and I did not make the team."

"It's to show unity," Yu explained. "It's to run for your fallen brothers and sisters, for mental health. There's a lot of suicides in law enforcement, so it's a huge race."

Wilson confirmed to Blaze News that Sheriff Luna has participated in the event and understands its importance to department staff.

"The magnitude of this boycott ... makes Luna look terrible in the law enforcement community nationwide," Wilson said.

"To have the deputies not show up, it makes Luna look terrible."

This year, the Baker to Vegas race is scheduled for April 5 and 6. Instead, many L.A. deputies are opting to participate in a 5K race to raise money for Kirk and his family.

While Yu and Wilson are expecting a good turnout for the alternative race, they claimed that Luna may be trying to spoil or otherwise interfere with the event by attempting to ascertain the individuals orchestrating it.

Wilson shared with Blaze News a screenshot of one such message, allegedly from a Luna ally:

Screenshot shared with Blaze News. Used with permission.

Yu and Wilson believe the purpose behind these probing questions is to intimidate would-be participants and convince them not to join the Kirk race.

"We've had multiple deputies tell us and send us screenshots of friend requests and questions from Luna's staff asking who's boycotting, who is drumming this up, and applying pressure to deputies ... as a form of retaliation," Wilson said.

In the statement given to Blaze News, Officer McClendon of the information bureau addressed the accusations of intimidation:

The Department issued an internal global email on March 5, 2025, to personnel after it had received several reports from personnel who have stated they have been targeted with actions of harassment, threats of retaliation, and bullying related to participating in the Baker to Vegas race. We want to emphasize that whether or not personnel choose to participate, any form of harassment, retaliation, or misconduct will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

'No-brainer': Trump, Dhillon, and righting a wrong

Despite what Wilson calls the "cloud" hanging over the department, he, Yu, and others hold out hope that Kirk can still avoid prison time.

The clearest way for him to do so would be for the judge, a long-serving Reagan appointee, to vacate the verdict. While such an outcome may sound like a long shot, there are encouraging signs. For example, following the guilty verdict, the judge did not remand Kirk to custody, a decision which Yu described as "very rare."

'They were laughing, smiling, high-fiving each other, giving each other hugs.'

Moreover, the federal investigation into Kirk and his federal prosecution began under the Biden administration. During the trial, Wilson and Yu claimed that in a show of force, federal agencies packed the courtroom with young agency newcomers who enthusiastically supported the prosecution.

After the guilty verdict was announced, these agency supporters cheered loudly, Wilson claimed. "They were laughing, smiling, high-fiving each other, giving each other hugs," he said. "It was shocking."

With President Trump now in office, the DOJ has new leadership who may view the prosecution of Kirk in a different light. One individual with some influence in the Trump administration with strong ties to California is Harmeet Dhillon, now the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ. Wilson, Yu, and others are hoping she will intervene on Kirk's behalf.

Dhillon's office and the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

While Dhillon is aware of Kirk's case, she likely does not know "the extent of the miscarriage of justice," Yu said. Wilson believes that if the right people in the administration get wind of Kirk's situation, they will act.

"If they understood the extent of this, this would be a no-brainer," he said.

"It's just getting the information to them."

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Blaze News original: Trump's reciprocal tariffs — and decades of devastating fees the world pushed on America

President Donald Trump has repeatedly scorched decades of unfair trading practices for hindering the United States' economy. He dubbed Wednesday, April 2, "Liberation Day" for America, unveiling a sweeping list of new tariffs targeting nations — both friends and adversaries — that have long burdened the U.S. with far higher fees than it has placed on them in return.

The administration had previously announced that it planned to roll out "reciprocal tariffs," explaining that the U.S. would begin imposing balanced fees. Trump left room for some exceptions to this rule, noting that countries fueling America's illegal immigration and drug crisis would face significantly higher tariff rates.

‘They charge us; we charge them.’

While Trump and his Cabinet have maintained that increasing tariffs will boost the U.S. economy, his Democratic critics and their corporate media allies contend it will have the opposite effect — passing the increased costs of imports on to American consumers. Everything from vehicles to everyday necessities, including gas and groceries, will skyrocket, according to Trump's detractors.

The fierce backlash and potential economic uncertainty of the unprecedented tariff hikes appeared to influence Trump to dial back his initial plan to implement across-the-board equal tariffs. Instead, on Wednesday, he revealed that most of the increases, while still reciprocal, are capped at about half the levels other nations currently slap on the U.S.

The new reciprocal tariffs

On Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced the administration's final decision on tariffs while highlighting how America has been treated unfairly.

Trump held up a chart listing the new "discounted reciprocal tariffs" next to "tariffs charged to the U.S.A.," which he noted factored in currency manipulation and trade barriers, not tariff rates alone.

— (@)

The chart listed China as charging the U.S. 67%.

"We're going to be charging a discounted reciprocal tariff of 34%," Trump said, referring to China. "They charge us; we charge them. We charge them less, so how can anybody be upset?"

"They will be because we never charge anybody anything," he added.

Trump continued down the chart, stating that the European Union has been "very tough traders."

"They rip us off," the president declared.

‘For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.’

Trump noted that most of his administration's reciprocal tariffs would amount to about half the rates foreign countries currently levy against the U.S. However, he stated that the administration would implement a 10% minimum baseline. For example, according to the chart, the U.S. will match the United Kingdom's and Brazil's 10% rate.

The administration rolled out the new tariff rates to address the U.S.' $1.2 trillion trade deficit. According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 15% of countries compose America's most significant trade deficits. He dubbed those nations the "dirty 15" in a March interview with Fox Business.

In its reasoning for the baseline rate, the White House cited a 2024 economic analysis that found a global 10% tariff would generate $728 billion and 2.8 million new jobs.

High tariffs against the US

Trump highlighted instances when foreign countries imposed steep tariffs against the U.S., pulling data from the U.S. Trade Representative's 2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers.

"For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," he claimed.

"Let me offer just a few examples of the vicious attacks our workers have faced for so many years," Trump continued. "The United States charges other countries only a 2.4% tariff on motorcycles. Meanwhile, Thailand and others are charging much higher prices, like 60%. India charges 70%. Vietnam charges 75%. And others are even higher than that."

Trump also explained that the U.S. charged only 2.5% on foreign-made automobiles, while the European Union imposes over 10% tariffs with 20% VAT fees, and India charges 70%.

"Perhaps worst of all are the non-monetary restrictions imposed by South Korea, Japan, and very many other nations," he added. "Toyota sells 1 million foreign-made automobiles into the United States, and General Motors sells almost none. Ford sells very little."

As a result of the "horrendous imbalances," Trump revealed that the U.S. would impose a 25% tariff on all foreign vehicles.

Trump stated that Canada imposed a 250% to 300% tariff on dairy products.

"China charges American rice farmers an over-quota, it's called, tariff rate of 65%," he stated.

‘Official trade data appears to show that China fell far short of implementing its commitments to purchase US goods and services.’

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a tariff quota, or a two-tiered tariff, allows countries to impose a lower rate for initial imports and a higher rate for later ones.

Trump also noted that South Korea charges American rice farmers rates between 50% and 513%, while Japan imposes 700%.

A White House fact sheet from Wednesday highlighted several more "unfair tariff disparities," stating that the U.S. sets a 0% tariff on networking switches and routers, while India charges 10% to 20%.

"Brazil (18%) and Indonesia (30%) impose a higher tariff on ethanol than does the United States (2.5%)," it read. "Apples enter the United States duty-free, but not so in Turkey (60.3%) and India (50%)."

Trump's critics have claimed that his recent increased tariffs will result in higher costs for American consumers, with some countries imposing their own retaliatory fees. However, the administration argued that the U.S. has been mistreated for decades — long before Trump hiked any rates.

While Democrats continue to paint a picture that Trump's increases will spell disaster, a 2018 report from the Pew Research Center stated that U.S. tariffs were "among the lowest in the world."

"In 2016, according to the World Bank, the average applied U.S. tariff across all products was 1.61%; that was about the same as the average rate of 1.6% for the 28-nation EU, and not much higher than Japan's 1.35%," the report read.

However, it noted that the "average rates are weighted by product import shares with all of each nation's trading partners, and don't necessarily reflect the provisions of specific trade deals."

In other words, these averages include all trade with every nation, so the actual tariffs imposed on the U.S. could be lower or even much higher depending on the product and the partner country.

China

The USTR's latest annual foreign barriers report, cited by Trump, further exposed unequal trade practices between the U.S. and other nations, dedicating a significant portion of the document to detailing obstacles with China.

It stated that China has failed to follow through on implementing some of the "more important commitments" from its January 2020 economic and trade agreement with the U.S. The report specifically pointed to agriculture-related provisions and intellectual property and technology agreements.

"In addition, official trade data appears to show that China fell far short of implementing its commitments to purchase U.S. goods and services, which covered the years 2020 and 2021," it read.

Prior to China joining the World Trade Organization, an international group dealing with trade rules and agreements, it imposed notoriously steep tariffs on the U.S. China was charging an average of 22.1% on all general imports and up to 100% on vehicles.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has historically imposed a 2.5% tariff on imported foreign vehicles before Trump took office.

Upon joining the WTO in 2001, China consented to bring auto tariffs down to 25% over a six-year period and farm products to 15% or less.

A 2010 USTR report noted that China had made significant progress in lowering its tariffs after joining the WTO. However, it maintained "high duties on some products that compete with sensitive domestic industries." According to the report, China imposed 30% tariffs on large motorcycles.

"Likewise, most video, digital video, and audio recorders and players still face duties of approximately 30 percent. Raisins face duties of 35 percent," the report read.

India

In 2016, the USTR called India's tariff system "complex and characterized by a lack of transparency in determining net effective rates."

India, also a part of the WTO, reportedly had significant disparities between its Most Favored Nation rates and its bound rates, which are fees that generally cannot be exceeded for other WTO nations.

"India's average bound tariff rate was 48.6 percent, while its simple MFN average applied tariff for 2014 was 13.5 percent," the report stated.

At the time, the WTO listed India's bound rate at 114%.

"India also maintains very high tariff peaks on a number of goods, including flowers (60 percent), natural rubber (70 percent), automobiles and motorcycles (60 percent to 75 percent), raisins and coffee (100 percent), alcoholic beverages (150 percent), and textiles (some ad valorem equivalent rates exceed 300 percent)," the USTR report read.

European Union

The USTR reported in 2017 that the EU's tariffs were "generally low for non-agricultural goods" but listed several higher fees, including 26% for fish and seafood, 10% for vehicles, 22% for trucks, 6.5% for fertilizers and plastics, and 14% for bicycles.

The 2025 updated USTR report revealed that tariffs remained at those same rates.

Brazil

A 1996 UTSR stated that Brazil's maximum tariff level was 70%, which was down from 105% in 1990.

The USTR's 2016 report revealed that despite Brazil being a part of the WTO, its maximum tariff rates were steep, including 55% for agricultural goods and up to 35% on industrial products.

"Brazil imposes relatively high tariffs on imports across a wide spread of sectors, including automobiles, automotive parts, information technology and electronics, chemicals, plastics, industrial machinery, steel, and textiles and apparel," the report found.

The response

The Trump administration anticipates that some countries will respond to the tariff increases by implementing their own retaliatory fees. However, officials remain confident that the U.S. price hikes will bring more economic growth and not less.

Last month, Trump warned, "It's going to be very costly for people to take advantage of this country. They can't come in and steal our money and steal our jobs and take our factories and take our businesses and expect not to be punished."

‘A long-overdue shift away from a harmful economic framework that has devastated the working class.’

"And they're being punished by tariffs. It's a very powerful weapon that politicians haven't used because they were either dishonest, stupid, or paid off in some other form," he stated.

Trump committed to removing tariffs for foreign companies that build their products in the U.S. He rattled off a list of businesses that have already agreed to make significant investments in the U.S., including Apple, SoftBank Group, OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Company, and Meta. Trump also noted that several automakers are ramping up American investments.

United Auto Workers members applaud as President Donald Trump announces new tariffs during a Make America Wealthy Again trade announcement event in the Rose Garden on April 2, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Trump pledged that Liberation Day would go down in history as the turning point that would "make America wealthy again," stating that "jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country."

The United Auto Workers, a union that endorsed Trump's challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris (D), in the 2024 presidential election, has expressed strong support for the president's foreign automobile tariffs, calling it "a long-overdue shift away from a harmful economic framework that has devastated the working class."

During his Wednesday address, Trump highlighted how the imbalanced trade market has also harmed American farmers and ranchers.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association backed Trump's decision to impose higher tariffs.

"For too long, America's family farmers and ranchers have been mistreated by certain trading partners around the world. President Trump is taking action to address numerous trade barriers that prevent consumers overseas from enjoying high-quality, wholesome American beef. NCBA will continue engaging with the White House to ensure fair treatment for America's cattle producers around the world and optimize opportunities for exports abroad," said Ethan Lane, the association's president of government affairs.

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Blaze News original: Tesla in the crosshairs: Leftist attacks against Elon Musk's car brand are massive and widespread

Among the biggest stories of the moment is the increasing deluge of Tesla vehicle vandalism — and worse.

Ever since the car company's CEO, Elon Musk, earlier this year joined President Donald Trump's team as the leader of the DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency — and began cutbacks, leftists far and wide have been losing their minds.

'We don't allow people to act out based on what they believe their political affiliations are and what upsets them and who they are upset with, and allow them to take things into their own hands and become essentially a vigilante. ... What does that say about our country?'

One of the ways they've carried out their anger is vandalism of Tesla cars, primarily by "keying" them — scraping keys or other hard objects against the exterior surface as the offenders walk by.

Blaze News has looked at example after example of this woke phenomenon, and ironically Tesla's onboard Sentry Mode has caught the crooks red-handed, as the technology can record video of activity outside the vehicles.

For example, police in Lakewood, Colorado, arrested Shaydan Hessner and charged the 29-year-old for criminal tampering after video showed a Tesla Cybertruck getting keyed last month in the parking lot of the Colorado Mills Mall, KDVR-TV reported.

Image source: Lakewood (Colo.) Police

Indeed, similar acts have been occurring at an alarming pace. Blaze News has noted documented attacks against Tesla — including arson and vandalism — as well as leftist violence against the cars in more than 20 states.

Here's a rundown, just for starters:

WTTG-TV reported that a swastika was keyed into the hood of a parked Tesla in Arlington County, Virginia, last month. Here's the video report.
A Utah woman told KSL-TV she's been the recipient of "targeted hostility" ever since purchasing her Tesla Cybertruck last summer — including, most recently, a profane sticker affixed to her vehicle. Check out the video report of her plight.
KRON-TV reported that on March 29 a Tesla's tires were slashed at a home in Novato, California, and the vehicle's window was smashed with a rock.
Police in Tustin, California, posted video on March 28 of a crook keying a Tesla the previous week. "If you recognize this male, please notify Detectives by emailing tpdtipline@tustinca.org or calling 714-426-2427," police said. "We’d like to talk to him about his bad day."
Police reportedly are looking for a suspect caught on video keying a Tesla in Seattle on March 23.
A male who admitted to vandalizing a Tesla truck in West Fargo, North Dakota, on March 29 could be charged with a felony, KVRR-TV reported. The station said Ryan Lyle Williams keyed the vehicle in a Costco parking lot. You can view video of the deed here.
Numerous Tesla drivers in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, complained in late March about a motorist they said aggressively pursued them. You can check out a video report here.
Multiple vehicles at a Tesla dealership in Encinitas, California, were spray-painted with swastikas on March 17, KUSI-TV reported. You can view a video report here.
A video posted March 19 on X allegedly shows a male actually reaching into the rear of his shorts and wiping his hand on a Tesla vehicle; he repeats the act another three times. The clip includes a still image of the aftermath. It isn't clear where the incident took place.
Spray-painted graffiti was discovered March 26 on a Santa Barbara Tesla dealership, KEYT-TV reported. You can view a video report here.
Police in Austin, Texas, found active "incendiary" devices at a local Tesla dealership just after 8 a.m. March 24.
An X video posted March 19 allegedly shows a male "throwing his dog's feces at a parked Cybertruck in St. Petersburg, [Florida]."
Photos and video show a Cybertruck at a Tesla dealership on the Santa Ana Pueblo in New Mexico spray-painted with a swastika, KOB-TV reported, adding that a second vehicle was set on fire there during the February incident.
A 27-year-old suspect was arrested March 14 for allegedly vandalizing a newly constructed Tesla Service Center in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, WFLD-TV reported, adding that Erin L. White was charged with felony criminal damage to property and criminal trespass.
Police in Brookhaven, Mississippi, said a 63-year-old male caught on Tesla security video March 28 vandalizing the vehicle with wire cutters is a Cuban illegal alien, WLOX-TV reported. You can view security video — as well as Osvaldo Torres-Rodriguez's booking photo — here.
A 24-year-old North Carolina woman was charged with injury/tampering with a vehicle after she allegedly used a white-milky substance on March 13 to draw "Nazi" and a swastika on a Tesla parked outside a food store near Clayton. Olivia Marie Antoine surrendered to authorities March 25.
Two Tesla Cybertrucks were damaged in a fire late on the night of March 17 at a Tesla service center in south Kansas City, WDAF-TV reported, adding that police believe the fire was intentionally set. You can view a video report here.
Two vandals were caught on video carving a swastika and the word “Nazis” on the side of a Tesla Cybertruck parked in Brooklyn, police told the New York Post on March 28. The pair fled on foot, cops also told the Post, which added that police are probing the vandalism as a hate crime.

The following are further examples, fleshed out with more detail, of the left's recent lawlessness.

Male, 70, at Tesla protest in Idaho accused of driving his car into Trump-supporting counterprotester

A 70-year-old male at a Tesla dealership protest in Meridian, Idaho, is accused of driving his car into a counterprotester, KIVI-TV reported. Christopher Talbot of Meridian made an "obscene gesture" toward a 49-year-old man before hitting the man with his car at the dealership on Franklin Road around 1 p.m. Saturday, the station said, citing the Meridian Police Department.

KIVI said the victim had just parked his truck — which was decorated with flags supporting President Donald Trump — and exited the vehicle when Talbot allegedly hit him with his car. The victim then transported himself to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the station said. The victim took note of Talbot's license plate, after which police went to Talbot's residence and arrested him, KIVI said.

Talbot was booked into the Ada County Jail and charged with one count of aggravated battery, the station said. He was not granted bail.

At the time of the incident, about 30 Tesla protesters and about 200 counterprotesters were gathered at the dealership, KBOI-TV reported, adding that the victim was identified as a counterprotester. You can view a video report here about the incident.

Arrested male is accused of slamming ATV into Tesla vehicle in Texas — and the bizarre incident is captured on viral video

Video caught the moment when a male riding an ATV slammed it into a Tesla vehicle. The suspect reportedly vandalized other Teslas the same day. Police in Texarkana, Texas, arrested 33-year-old Demarkeyun Marquize Cox on March 25 on charges of criminal mischief and failure to identify/giving false information. Jail records indicate Cox stands 5'2" and weighs 449 pounds. His total bond is $105,000.

Police said Cox's rampage began at the Golden Place restaurant on Summerhill Road, where he was captured on the Tesla's surveillance footage ramming into it at full speed. They were investigating the incident when police got a report of another Tesla damaged in a Lowe's parking lot. Police said soon after they saw a man fitting the provided description riding an ATV near the intersection of Summerhill and New Boston Roads. When they questioned Cox, he reportedly gave them a false name. Police got a third report of Tesla vandalism near Genesis Prime Care on College Drive after they arrested Cox. Police also said that the word "Elon" was scratched into two vehicles.

You can view a video report here from WBIR-TV about the arrest.

Female Tesla driver, 61, says male motorist repeatedly punched her after cutting her off, boxing her in on busy Arizona road — and video caught it all

A 61-year-old Tesla driver told KTVK-TV a male motorist recently cut her off, boxed her in, then exited his car and repeatedly punched her on a busy road in Flagstaff, Arizona. The woman, who wants to remain anonymous and went by the alias "Susan," explained to the station that she was on Route 66 when another vehicle started chasing her.

KTVK said Susan has video of the incident, and it shows a motorist in a green car pulling up next to her and then swerving in front of her and boxing her in. Susan told the station that the motorist then exited his car, walked over to her as she was behind the wheel of her Tesla, and then began punching her.

Susan told the station she soon bit her attacker's hand; indeed, video shows the male at one point pulling his hand away from the Tesla and shaking it. Moments later, video shows the male motorist's passenger exiting the green car and pulling the attacker away, after which the pair drive off.

Flagstaff police cited the suspect, who was due in court March 31, the station said.

A statement from police said officers responded to reports of "a road rage incident that escalated into a violent encounter" around 12:30 p.m. March 19, KSAZ-TV reported, adding that investigators said the incident involved a Tesla and a Chevrolet Cavalier.

"The driver of the Cavalier, later identified as Robert Artherton, 33, of Flagstaff, drove in front of the Tesla, causing both vehicles to stop in the roadway," the statement said in part, KSAZ reported, adding that Artherton exited his vehicle and approached the driver’s side of the Tesla, after which a confrontation ensued.

KSAZ said both parties gave conflicting accounts regarding what took place, and police said they both suffered minor injuries. "All parties involved allege that the incident was triggered by driving behaviors, honking, and disorderly hand gestures," officials said in the statement, KSAZ noted.

"Mr. Artherton was arrested via a criminal citation for disorderly conduct, assault, and aggressive driving in lieu of detention due to seeking medical attention for an injury to his hand," the statement said in part, according to KSAZ.

KTVK reported that another female Tesla owner said she recently departed a Flagstaff grocery store and found a note on her car that read, “She’s a Nazi and a loser.” A few weeks later, she received a threatening text calling her a “Racist POS," the station said.

KTVK said both Tesla owners also signed up for a gun safety course at Timberline Firearms, which is north of Flagstaff.

“They were targeted because they drove a Tesla and, as a result, felt quite vulnerable,” shop owner Rob Wilson told KTVK. “They were surprised someone would do something like that and realized if they were doing it, and targeting them because of car they drive, they needed to take additional measures to protect themselves.”

You can view a video report here about what happened to both Tesla drivers.

Crook caught on video repeatedly keying Tesla in Kansas. Family that owns vehicle has daughter who needs it, since she's confined to wheelchair.

The family of 18-year-old Abigail Gill owns a Tesla Model X because its automated driving function helps her drive more easily, the Wichita Eagle reported. Abigail has spinal muscular atrophy, and she uses a wheelchair, the paper said.

Abigail was out to eat with her mother, brother, and boyfriend on March 20, the paper said, after which they noticed the Tesla had been keyed deeply on both sides. Video connected to the Tesla showed that a male who had been sitting next to them had left the restaurant, keyed the passenger side of the Tesla, went back inside, came out again, and keyed the other side of the Tesla, then then picked up his family, the Eagle said.

Video also picked up the suspected culprit's face as well as the license plate of his car, she also told the Eagle.

Johnathan F. Erhart, 30, was charged with one count of criminal damage to property on March 28, the paper said. If convicted, he could be sentenced from five to 17 months in prison, the Eagle said, citing Kansas sentencing guidelines.

"It’s a super saddening and disappointing thing to see," Abigail told Fox News regarding the incident. You can view a video report about the incident here, which includes an interview with Abigail and security video of the culprit caught in the act.

Male caught on video spray-painting graffiti on Tesla in Whole Foods parking lot in Berkeley — but vehicle's owner is doubling down and expediting order for new Cybertruck

A male was caught on Tesla security video spray-painting graffiti on the Tesla in a Whole Foods parking lot in Berkeley, California, KGO-TV reported, adding that the incident took place March 16 and paint cans can be seen in both of the culprit's hands.

The Tesla owner, who identified himself as Hiroshi, told the station, "I wasn't shocked because this has been happening so frequently. Even the police, when they showed up, both officers are Tesla owners as well. They expressed to me that they've been dealing with this so much. It's like a trend."

Berkeley police have not identified the suspect, KGO said, adding that Hiroshi noted that he had the spray paint removed and is remaining loyal to Tesla. In fact, he told the station he plans to expedite his order for Tesla's new Cybertruck.

You can view a video report here about the incident.

'F**k off Nazi': Tesla Cybertruck owner in Western Michigan finds hateful message written on vehicle's window, says he gets 'a lot of middle fingers' every day

A Tesla Cybertruck owner who did not want to give his name told WZZM-TV that on March 15 he found a hateful message written on his vehicle at an undisclosed location in Western Michigan's Kent County.

The message read, "F**k off Nazi." You can view a video report here about the incident.

“We were out with my friends having dinner and drinks and come out to the vehicle with the message on the window," he told WZZM, adding that "there were people around the truck and taking photos and a lot of people laughing. It was very disappointing and frustrating.” He added to the station that his friends were "were embarrassed about it.”

The victim also told WZZM that he ordered the $100,000 Cybertruck four years ago, well prior to Elon Musk's work with the Trump administration. While the station said he didn't share his political views, he also said it doesn't matter: “Everyone works hard for what they have, and regardless of their political views, we should respect that.”

He also told WZZM that he has no plans to sell his Tesla to avoid such incidents: “I’m not going to let people tell me what I should buy or not buy.”

Still, he told the station that every day "I do get a lot of middle fingers" and that "it does not bother me as much when I’m by myself, but when we have kids inside the car, it’s kind of disappointing ... and sad.”

The victim told WZZM he plans to turn in the video to police. The Kent County Prosecutor's Office noted to the station that punishment for such an offense could result in a charge of malicious destruction of property.

Dim-witted protester lights himself on fire while trying to destroy Tesla charging stations in South Carolina; suspect arrested, charged with arson

A male who appeared to be protesting against Elon Musk's political activity accidentally lit himself on fire while trying to vandalize electronic vehicle charging stations, according to South Carolina police.

The incident unfolded on March 13 at the Tesla charging stations near a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in northern Charleston. The male wrote "Free Ukraine" as well as another message against President Donald Trump with an expletive included, according to a report from the North Charleston Police Department.

Police said the male lit material stuffed into beer bottles and threw them at the stations. Witnesses told police the male lit himself on fire by accident and then fled from the scene.

Firefighters cut power to the chargers and then extinguished the fire. Investigators collected beer bottles from the alleged attack and had been trying to lift fingerprints from the glass. Police estimated that the male caused about $60,000 in damage to the charging stations.

Daniel Clarke-Pounder, 24, of James Island was arrested and charged with arson in connection with the incident, according to a March 14 news release from the U.S. Justice Department. Clarke-Pounder faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

Masked leftist thug cuts off Washington state Tesla driver — a mother on her way to doctor's appointment — gets out, walks up to victim's window, and tells her, 'This is a Nazi car'

A mother on her way to a doctor's appointment on March 19 in Lynnwood, Washington, told KCPQ-TV a male wearing a ski mask and a camouflage jacket harassed her in a scary incident because she was driving a Tesla.

Leigh, a Tesla owner for the last two years, added to the station, "He gets out and walks straight up to my door window. So I cracked my window, and I said, ‘What? What is the problem?’ He goes, ‘You need to sell your car. This is a Nazi car. You're driving it, you need to sell your car.’"

Leigh recounted to KCPQ, "I could only see his eyes. ... I had no idea if I was safe or not. I felt very threatened."

You can view a video report here about the incident; it includes a clip of the masked male in question approaching her Tesla.

A week prior in Lynnwood, a number of Tesla Cybertrucks were spray-painted with graffiti and swastikas at a Tesla Service Station, KIRO-TV reported. The owner of one of the vandalized cars told the station that "as a gay Jewish person, I was kind of taken aback." The victim posted photos of the vandalism on X.

Philadelphia-area male accused of scrawling swastika onto Tesla vehicle — but new video allegedly shows suspect singing sorry tune when vehicle's owner confronts him

A Philadelphia-area male is accused of scrawling a swastika into the side of a Tesla last month — an act that was caught on the Tesla's security video system. Now a new video has emerged allegedly showing the Tesla owner confronting the culprit.

The Doylestown Republican Committee shared video of a male vandalizing the Tesla; police said the act took place in the parking lot of a Planet Fitness in Doylestown around 9:30 a.m. March 24.

The new video — which was livestreamed to Facebook — shows the Tesla owner allegedly confronting the suspect, who tells the owner, "I can wipe it off with a towel — it's not a key, it's a crayon." He added to the Tesla owner, "It didn't even work."

But the Tesla owner explains that his car is being fingerprinted by the police "right now," after which the confronted male asks, "What do you mean it's being fingerprinted?"

The Tesla owner said police were trying to "track" the suspect down but noted that Facebook users tracked him down.

“I’m sorry. I have nothing against your car, and I have nothing against you," the suspect is heard saying on video.

The Tesla owner asks the alleged suspect why he would scratch a swastika on his Tesla, after which the confronted male replies, "Obviously, I have something against Elon Musk" and admits that his actions were "misguided."

The Central Bucks Regional Police Department said in a statement that the suspect was identified by his gym membership identification card and his Pennsylvania driver's license. A criminal complaint was filed, and police on March 27 issued an arrest warrant for 55-year-old Chadd Ritenbaugh, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was hit with charges of criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, and two counts of harassment.

Masked thug caught on video spray-painting 'Nazi' on Tesla Cybertruck outside Oklahoma hotel in middle of night

A masked male was caught on video spray-painting the word "Nazi" on both sides of a Tesla Cybertruck in the middle of the night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, KFOR-TV reported.

Tulsa police said officers were called to a Residence Inn at 3:20 a.m. March 11, the station said, adding that the Cybertruck owner received a notification on her phone that someone was tampering with her vehicle. The suspect fled by the time she got to the parking lot, KFOR said.

You can view a video report here about the incident. Those with information about the person responsible can contact Tulsa Crime Stoppers at 918-596-COPS with the reference number 2025-011539.

Texas Tesla owner files $1 million civil lawsuit against male accused of keying his Model X — an incident captured on the vehicle's onboard video system

A Texas Tesla owner has filed a $1 million civil lawsuit against the male accused of keying his Model X last month when it was parked at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, KTVT-TV reported.

DFW Airport Police arrested Rafael Hernandez in late March and charged him with criminal mischief, the station said, adding that the accused is expected to make his first court appearance on April 8. In the lawsuit, the Tesla owner is identified only by his initials due to fear of threats, KTVT added.

Majed Nachawati, managing partner with the Nachawati Legal Group in Dallas, which is representing the Tesla owner, told the station that "this matter has nothing to do with his political persuasions or affiliations. He happens to believe that Tesla, his Model X, is one of the best cars he's ever owned. And he enjoys driving it, plain and simple."

The Tesla's onboard camera captured images of a male holding a key fob and appearing to use it to vandalize the vehicle, the station said. The car's owner shared video of the alleged vandalism on social media, hoping to identify the culprit, after which it went viral and led to Hernandez's arrest, KTVK said.

"It's just kind of mind-boggling to me that there are people who are so triggered and so disturbed by anything these days that they can go so far as to just cause harm to somebody," the car's owner told the station soon after the incident.

Male caught on video keying a Tesla outside Houston Whole Foods confesses to crime — but insists his actions weren't politically motivated

A male caught on video keying a Tesla in the parking lot of a Houston Whole Foods on Feb. 13 confessed to the crime but told KPRC-TV that his actions weren't politically motivated.

Nicholas Carrion told the station that his behavior was the result of road rage after he said the Tesla driver cut him off, and he decided to follow her into the Whole Foods parking lot.

“I felt anger because the woman cut me off. We were both going into the Whole Foods, so I did not follow her directly. I got out and went to the store,” Carrion noted to KPRC. “But after I did my shopping, I came back outside and just couldn’t let it go.”

Carrion is now facing charges of felony criminal mischief — not terrorism charges — for the damage he caused to the woman’s Tesla, the station said. Carrion sent the following message to the victim: “I did not mean to cause you that much fear. This was in no way politically motivated. I just hope you are able to live a normal life and not be in fear to just do normal activities and drive around in the Tesla.”

The victim, however, told KPRC she had no prior knowledge of any road rage incident, expressed disbelief, and said if she had been aware of a confrontation, she wouldn't have left her car unattended in the parking lot. You can view a video report here about the new developments.

Masked punk caught on video scrawling, 'This car supports Nazis,' on Tesla in downtown Syracuse

An unidentified individual wearing a face mask was caught on video March 16 scrawling, "This car supports Nazis," on a Tesla vehicle in downtown Syracuse, WSTM-TV reported.

“Protesting is a right that we all have, but destroying people’s property is not," the car owner, Shawn Freed, told the station in an interview.

Freed posted the video of the vandalism to his X account, after which Trending Politics co-owner Collin Rugg reposted the clip.

Despite the hassle, Freed told WSTM he's not getting rid of his car: "In some ways, I see myself as someone who is a voice for the other people who are innocent bystanders who have their property destroyed."

Freed added to the station that he reported the vandalism to Syracuse police, who are investigating. You can check out a video report here about the incident, which also includes the interview with Freed.

Florida woman charged with felony after allegedly smearing Tesla door handle with large wad of gum, spitting on it — which left door inoperable

The Tesla's owner said the alleged gum-wad vandalism was captured on the built-in cameras of his car, which was in the parking garage of the JCPenney store at the Aventura Mall around 12:45 p.m. March 22.

Yamaris Marrero, 45, of Hallandale Beach was arrested and charged with a felony. Police said she was identified through the video, which showed a vandal smearing the large wad of gum on the car's door handle and then spitting on it. She was also seen getting into a white Honda Pilot before leaving the garage. The Tesla's owner said the damage from the gum rendered the door handle inoperable.

The police report said a security guard spotted Marrero at the mall food court on March 27, after which she was arrested. Police said she made an admission that was redacted from the publicly released report.

Marrero originally was charged for criminal mischief with a hate crime enhancement, but that was dropped on March 28, and the charge was lowered from a second-degree felony to a third-degree felony. She was held on a $2,500 bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

The Tesla's owner told WPLG-TV that politics probably motivated the vandalism and that there was no personal interaction between him and the accused woman; police said it was not a traffic dispute.

The interview with the Tesla owner can be viewed on WPLG's video report on YouTube, while the video of the woman smearing the gum can be viewed on an earlier news report.

Thug allegedly pours gasoline on Tesla Model S in Seattle, lights vehicle on fire, runs away

A witness told Seattle police that on the night of March 13, a male threw gasoline on a Tesla Model S in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, lit the car on fire, and ran off, KING-TV reported.

Police told the station the right front tire area was damaged, while the quarter panel, the hood, and the car's battery all melted. The Seattle Fire Department put out the fire, KING said, adding that police said they are investigating the incident as arson.

The suspect has not been identified, the station said, adding that police found the gas can nearby and obtained security images of the suspect carrying the gas can and a plastic bag.

You can view a video report here about the incident.

'Old man' caught on video keying Tesla in San Jose arrested for felony — and a similar-looking male is confronted in hilarious follow-up clip

An "old man" who was caught on video keying a Tesla in San Jose, California, was arrested for his "act of felony vandalism."

The incident happened in a Costco parking lot between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. March 14, KRON-TV reported, citing the owner of the vandalized Tesla. The now-viral video shows a male with white hair and a white beard and wearing a USA jacket using a key to scratch the exterior of the Tesla vehicle.

A second video shows a similar-looking male wearing the same jacket getting confronted about the incident, and he denies involvement. The title of the pair of videos is "WATCH THIS: Old man who keyed Tesla in San Jose is confronted."

San Jose Police announced on the night of March 17 that "we successfully identified, located, and arrested the individual responsible for this act of felony vandalism."

You can view KRON's video report here about the incident.

Male reportedly 'under investigation' after allegedly keying Tesla Cybertruck at ritzy New Hampshire mountain resort

A male was "under investigation" after allegedly keying a Tesla Cybertruck at ritzy mountain resort in New Hampshire in March.

The culprit was caught on video allegedly dragging a key across the vehicle outside the Omni Mountain Resort & Spa in Bretton Woods, Fox News reported.

You can view video here of the alleged vandalism.

The Tesla owner, Kerri Pouliot, told Fox News that she and her husband "were told at the time of the incident that they would be getting a warrant" for the male suspect's arrest.

Pouliot recorded a video when police arrived at the scene, and an officer can be heard asking, "Do you want to talk about what happened here?" the cable network reported.

The accused vandal snapped back, "No, I don’t know what happened," Fox News said.

Police then told the man that they "had him on video," after which the male replied, "I don't know what happened," the cable network noted.

Carroll Police Chief Tadd Bailey told the New Hampshire Union Leader that "the incident is under investigation by us and the Coos County Attorney’s Office," Fox News added.

Pouliot told the cable network that she and her husband have "no intentions of ever selling our truck." Omni Mountain Resort & Spa could not be reached for comment, Fox News said.

Couple in Oregon wake up to find their Tesla vehicles spray-painted with the words 'divest' and 'depose' — but they're refusing to cave to woke mob and won't part with their cars

A couple in Eugene, Oregon, told KEZI-TV that they found their Tesla vehicles vandalized and spray-painted with the words “divest” and “depose" on the morning of March 20. The couple requested anonymity to protect their safety and added to the station that a camera on their property caught a person approaching the vehicles before dawn. They also said there has been a rise in people being aggressive to them on the road, KEZI reported.

“This is really unfortunate that someone feels they need to vandalize and cost somebody time and money,” one of the victims told the station. “I feel very violated. We’re regular people, we live and work in this community, we contribute to community service.”

The couple added to KEZI that while their vehicles are being repaired, they had to take them to Portland — a nearly two-hour drive — because their insurance company advised them to keep the Teslas away from Eugene. Still, despite the hassle and heartache, the couple told the station they’re happy with their Tesla vehicles and are planning to keep them.

You can view a video report here about the incident.

Federal grand jury charges male, 41, with arson after authorities accuse him of throwing Molotov cocktails at Tesla dealership in Oregon

A federal grand jury charged a Salem, Oregon, male with arson after authorities accused him of throwing Molotov cocktails at a local Tesla dealership, the Salem Reporter said.

Adam M. Lansky, 41, now faces two charges of attempted arson in addition to an earlier charge of possession of an unregistered destructive device, the outlet said, citing an indictment filed in Portland U.S. District Court on March 18.

In the new federal case, Lansky is charged with unlawfully possessing a Molotov cocktail and two counts of attempted arson — one for the Tesla dealership building and the second for a Tesla vehicle, the Reporter said.

Lansky was arrested March 4 after a federal investigation linked him to the attempted arson on Jan. 20 and gunshots that destroyed windows on Feb. 19, according to a previous statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the outlet added

Creep wearing all black in Las Vegas torches at least 5 Teslas with Molotov cocktails, shoots at them — and now authorities have a suspect

A male wearing all black torched at least five Tesla vehicles with Molotov cocktails and then shot at them just before 3 a.m. March 18, Las Vegas police said, adding that the incident took place at a Tesla Service Center on West Badura Avenue.

The word "resist" was also spray-painted in red onto the door of the service center. A photo on social media showed the vandalism.

Paul Hyon Kim, 36, appeared in court March 27 to face federal arson charges in connection with the incident, the Department of Justice said. Kim faces up to 20 years in prison on the arson charge alone; he also was charged with one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm.

62-year-old male charged with criminal damage for allegedly keying Tesla in Arizona parking lot; the act is caught on video

A 62-year-old male was charged with criminal damage for allegedly keying a Tesla vehicle last month in a Gilbert, Arizona, parking lot — and the incident was caught on the car's video system, KTVK-TV reported.

The Tesla owner, Shant Janesian, noticed the damage on his car, then viewed video recorded by his vehicle, the station said, adding that the culprit keyed his Tesla at SanTan Village.

Janesian filed a report with Gilbert Police, and in addition to viewing the Tesla video, investigators also used surveillance video from surrounding businesses prior to arresting David Moller, KTVK reported.

"Just because something that has nothing to do with me, and he’s just going around keying Teslas over certain political reasons, and it's just like, 'Dude, you don’t even know anything about me,'" Janesian told the station in the aftermath.

KTVK asked the victim what he would say to Moller, and Janesian replied, “Was it worth it? Like, was it worth it? Did you really get anything out of it? Did it really help your cause? Whatever you’re against, or ... was it just a dumb mistake?”

Janesian told the station he'll continue to drive his Tesla. You can view a video report here about the incident.

Video shows male slamming suitcase against Model Y Tesla in southern California airport parking lot as he walks by, causing $3,000 in damage

A video shows a male slamming a suitcase against a Model Y Tesla in a parking lot at Ontario International Airport in southern California, which caused $3,000 in damage.

The Daily Press report cited a March 19 post on X from Spotted Model: Cars & Tech which includes two videos and two still images related to the vandalism that allegedly took place at 9:25 p.m. March 2 in parking lot No. 3.

One video shows the male walking in the parking lot with a suitcase, and he suddenly slams the suitcase into the vehicle and then walks away.

"Although it’s dark, we have lots of detail here, including his suitcase, the logo on his shirt, and a pretty clear facial visual. Unfortunately, police have made little progress in identifying him," the post notes, adding that "in just about any other car, the owner would be out of luck. With Sentry Mode we’ve got a good chance of finding this guy with your help. On behalf of the owner and his family, thank you!"

The paper said airport and city officials have not yet responded to messages about the incident.

Tesla owner in North Carolina says vandal etched the word 'Nazi' on his vehicle

A man from Garner, North Carolina, told WRAL-TV his Tesla recently was vandalized.

The station on March 23 reported that the Tesla owner — who gave the station only his first name, Jeremy, since he feared for his safety — that someone etched the word “Nazi” into his Tesla.

“I was working from home, and my wife was out running some errands. [She] came home, and as she was coming in past the car, she saw the damage to it,” Jeremy told WRAL. “We immediately started reviewing the footage from the car because it does have Sentry Mode, but unfortunately we didn’t see anything.”

Jeremy told the station he's not sure when his Tesla was vandalized. He added to WRAL that police also found nothing while checking surveillance videos from stores he's visited.

“I bought this back in 2019 and paid it off a month ago,” he added to WRAL. “This was back in the time when Elon was just some guy tweeting about rocket motors and fast cars and wasn’t problematic at the time.”

Vandal caught on surveillance video keying 3 Teslas outside Florida shopping plaza

A vandal was caught on surveillance video keying three Tesla vehicles last month outside a shopping plaza in Bradenton, Florida, WFLA-TV reported.

You can view a video report here about the incident, which took place in the parking lot of Pinebrook Commons and caused more than $7,000 in damages, police said.

“Two of the Tesla owners, father and son, they were just there enjoying dinner," Bradenton Police Department Public Information Officer Meredith Censullo told the station. "And then there was a third Tesla owner who was, you know, shopping or doing something within that plaza."

Censullo added to WFLA that "it would certainly appear like these cars were chosen because they were Tesla vehicles. At the end of the day, though, it is completely unacceptable to damage anyone’s car."

Tesla owner Russell Blackburn told the station he's concerned: “It has been on my brain, you know, going out to public places. So when I go out with people, I ask them, ‘Do you mind driving?’ Because I don’t want to leave my car unattended."

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Cost cutting

14-year-old student hits 64-year-old teacher with basketball amid argument — and hits him with racial slurs, too. Teacher arrested after punching, beating on student. But a year later, DA has change of heart.

Angry student bumps teacher, steps on her foot. Teacher explodes, punches student — and gets charged and jailed. Not long after, however, authorities are singing a very different tune.

Substitute teacher's head left bloody in chair-throwing fight with middle schoolers caught on video. Official says students attacked first in classroom fracas.

Battery warrants obtained for 3 high schoolers after video shows teacher getting physically attacked. Student actually throws chair at teacher, who fights back against student who repeatedly shoves him.

Entitled student gets physical with substitute teacher who took her phone. But teacher fights back — and a knock-down, drag-out brawl ensues.

HS student who apparently believes he's invincible challenges substitute teacher, 'What's up, boy?' — and even gets in teacher's face while bumping, shoving him. Furious teacher finally has enough.

Now

Then

Female in viral clip declares that 'Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period'

Chilling video shows smiling female speaking softly while warning viewers, 'Keep your motherf**king hands to yourself' — and as children are heard playing in background

Since Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny were 'justified' in using 'lethal self-defense,' Karmelo Anthony also was 'justified' in doing so, activist says

Bishop Talbert Swan blasts those who believe Karmelo Anthony should go to prison — and brings up race in the process: 'I wonder whyTE'

'Racist people' assume Anthony 'must not have had his father in his life,' that his dad must be a 'no-good person to raise this thug,' video creator says. Then, she declares Metcalf, his twin brother came from 'a broken home.'

Purposely tanking?

The Mar-a-Lago Accord

Hatred, redefined

Battle lost, war undecided

From Polis' desk to the courts

'Safely handcuff the suspect': Deputy Kirk and a fateful detainment

'Hanging deputies out to dry': Sheriff Luna gets involved

'To show unity': Deputies make their voices heard

'No-brainer': Trump, Dhillon, and righting a wrong

The new reciprocal tariffs

High tariffs against the US

The response

Male, 70, at Tesla protest in Idaho accused of driving his car into Trump-supporting counterprotester

Arrested male is accused of slamming ATV into Tesla vehicle in Texas — and the bizarre incident is captured on viral video

Female Tesla driver, 61, says male motorist repeatedly punched her after cutting her off, boxing her in on busy Arizona road — and video caught it all

Crook caught on video repeatedly keying Tesla in Kansas. Family that owns vehicle has daughter who needs it, since she's confined to wheelchair.

Male caught on video spray-painting graffiti on Tesla in Whole Foods parking lot in Berkeley — but vehicle's owner is doubling down and expediting order for new Cybertruck

'F**k off Nazi': Tesla Cybertruck owner in Western Michigan finds hateful message written on vehicle's window, says he gets 'a lot of middle fingers' every day

Dim-witted protester lights himself on fire while trying to destroy Tesla charging stations in South Carolina; suspect arrested, charged with arson

Masked leftist thug cuts off Washington state Tesla driver — a mother on her way to doctor's appointment — gets out, walks up to victim's window, and tells her, 'This is a Nazi car'

Philadelphia-area male accused of scrawling swastika onto Tesla vehicle — but new video allegedly shows suspect singing sorry tune when vehicle's owner confronts him

Masked thug caught on video spray-painting 'Nazi' on Tesla Cybertruck outside Oklahoma hotel in middle of night

Texas Tesla owner files $1 million civil lawsuit against male accused of keying his Model X — an incident captured on the vehicle's onboard video system

Male caught on video keying a Tesla outside Houston Whole Foods confesses to crime — but insists his actions weren't politically motivated

Masked punk caught on video scrawling, 'This car supports Nazis,' on Tesla in downtown Syracuse

Florida woman charged with felony after allegedly smearing Tesla door handle with large wad of gum, spitting on it — which left door inoperable

Thug allegedly pours gasoline on Tesla Model S in Seattle, lights vehicle on fire, runs away

'Old man' caught on video keying Tesla in San Jose arrested for felony — and a similar-looking male is confronted in hilarious follow-up clip

Male reportedly 'under investigation' after allegedly keying Tesla Cybertruck at ritzy New Hampshire mountain resort

Couple in Oregon wake up to find their Tesla vehicles spray-painted with the words 'divest' and 'depose' — but they're refusing to cave to woke mob and won't part with their cars

Federal grand jury charges male, 41, with arson after authorities accuse him of throwing Molotov cocktails at Tesla dealership in Oregon

Creep wearing all black in Las Vegas torches at least 5 Teslas with Molotov cocktails, shoots at them — and now authorities have a suspect

62-year-old male charged with criminal damage for allegedly keying Tesla in Arizona parking lot; the act is caught on video

Video shows male slamming suitcase against Model Y Tesla in southern California airport parking lot as he walks by, causing $3,000 in damage

Tesla owner in North Carolina says vandal etched the word 'Nazi' on his vehicle

Vandal caught on surveillance video keying 3 Teslas outside Florida shopping plaza

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