Forty years ago this month — June 5, 1985, to be exact — a high school senior named Ferris Bueller decided not to go to school.

Instead, he took his girlfriend, Sloane, his best friend, Cameron, and a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder (“borrowed” from Cameron’s dad) on an adventure-packed odyssey through Chicago, during which they lunched at a hoity-toity French restaurant, took in a Cubs game, and participated in the Von Steuben Day parade, all while engaging in an epic race against time, parents, and Vice Principal Edward R. Rooney.

Ironically, it’s Ferris who exhibits the very leadership qualities Vice Principal Rooney lacks.

Spoiler alert: He gets away with it.

"Ferris Bueller’s Day Off" is a teenage rebellion fantasy, but of a very different sort from the type Hollywood cranks out today.

For conservative pundit and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, who had a small but indelible role as a droning economics teacher, the movie is a glorious product of the Reagan era. Noting that Hughes “was an ardent Republican” who “believed Reagan could transform all of us into Ferris Buellers,” Stein celebrates Ferris as “an unregulated high school kid in an unregulated world.”

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

But Ferris is no libertarian. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" celebrates loyalty, courage, and even justice. It encourages us to love our families, to stand up for our friends, and to be grateful for the time we’re given on Earth.

Yes, Ferris breaks the rules, but his mischief — unlike that of the 1960s radicals who came before him (or, for that matter, the leftists currently wreaking havoc on our streets) — is creative rather than destructive.

In fact, take a closer look at his itinerary, and you see that Ferris follows a strict moral code of his own.

Real friendship is sacrificial

Ferris’ name may be in the title, but this is Cameron’s story. Ferris is the same carefree, popular guy at the end of the movie as he is at the beginning.

Cameron complains about being roped into his best friend’s “stupid crap,” but eventually we understand that all of Ferris’ elaborate planning — not to mention the risk he assumes — is for Cameron’s benefit. It’s Cameron, not Ferris, who really needs this day off. As a true friend, Ferris realizes that the only way to break Cameron out of his shell is to make him face his deepest fears — even if Cameron ends up hating him for it.

Family bonds are important, no matter how fraught

Ferris lies to his parents, but there’s no contempt beneath his deception. He truly loves them as much as they love him.

Cameron is not so fortunate. His strict home life — ruled by an emotionally absent, domineering father — has paralyzed him with anxiety and fear. When Cameron finally confronts this truth, he resolves not to reject his dad so he can heal his “trauma” (as he might be encouraged to do today) but to stand up to him — a healthy sign that the father-son relationship is worth saving.

Kevin Winter/ACMA2014/Getty Images for ACM

Even Ferris and his seething, judgmental sister Jeanie repair their rift by the end of the film. Jeanie lets go of her resentment and helps her brother when he needs it most, while Ferris learns the humbling lesson that even he can’t always go it alone.

Authority deserves respect — but only when it’s earned

Vice Principal Rooney embodies overreaching authority — petty, ineffective, and consumed by the need for control. In the end, Rooney’s childish obsession with “beating” Ferris undoes him as much as any stunt his quarry pulls. Ironically, it’s Ferris who exhibits the leadership qualities Rooney lacks. With his natural charisma and willingness to take calculated, strategic, and effective action for himself and for others, Ferris can’t help but draw people to him.

We should be grateful for the present moment

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ferris’ deceptively simple motto expresses deep, timeless wisdom.

All that he and friends gain by hoodwinking the adults are a few precious hours to appreciate the city of Chicago and each other’s company. And that's enough.

They don’t waste their time while playing hooky; instead they spend it truly alive to the joy of existence. And while church isn’t one of their stops, the reverent gratitude they display brings to mind Psalm 118:24: "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

'A lot of people say it's not happening!' Blaze News investigates: A definitive list of men who have dominated women's sports

Sports have had barriers broken many times throughout history, and without hesitation, the accomplishments have been celebrated. For some reason, transgender women, also known as biological men, have been welcomed into women’s sports both in the United States and abroad in the same manner: as a glass-breaking moment in sports lore.

As President Trump's executive order aimed at keeping women’s sports for women — and women only — works its way throughout U.S. athletic systems, women seem to be closer than ever to getting back to fair competition.

However, once the country is on the other side, there will likely be as much denial as there has been throughout the ordeal, which to its core is a denial of reality and biological truth.

Blaze News has investigated and continues to investigate the phenomenon of men in women’s athletics and can now provide an (unfortunately) expansive list of instances where men have invaded the female divisions of sport.

Please note that some of these athletes have competed against women for multiple years, with their most recent competition listed.

United States

May 2025: Ana Caldas, a male who has gone by both the names "Hugo" and "Hannah," won five events at a women's swimming competition in San Antonio, Texas.

Caldas competed in the women's 45-49 category and won the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, 50-yard breaststroke, 100-yard breaststroke, and the 100-yard individual medley. Caldas won three of the races by at least three seconds.

In Minnesota, also in May, a 6' male athlete was the starting pitcher in the season opener for a women's softball team. The 17-year-old allegedly hid his real gender from his team and was revealed through investigative journalists to have had his sex changed on his birth certificate shortly after turning 9 years old.

The male pitched a shutout with 14 strikeouts and also hit a double.

April 2025: A group of four high school girls from Oregon refused to participate against a male in track and field. The male named, "Liaa" Rose, won girls' high jump with a jump height of 4'10" and beat 18 girls he competed against.

Sophia Carpenter said she and three other females forfeited the competition after learning they would be competing against a boy.

Rose had already won a girls' high jump competition earlier in the month, despite having finished dead last in the boys' division at the same tournament a year prior.

A male athlete named Annika Rose Suchoski inspired a protest after competing in a women’s fencing event in California. The 6' 40-year-old was participating in the women’s division for the second straight year.

Suchoski made headlines in 2024 after coming in second in a women's fencing tournament just six months after taking up the sport, the Daily Mail reported.

That same month, a woman walked off a disc golf tournament platform in Nashville, Tennessee, after learning a male athlete would be competing in the women’s division.

Abigail Wilson faked an initial throw before she revealed she was abandoning the competition in protest of Natalie Ryan, a male who believes he is female.

Also in April 2025, Stephanie Turner of the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia forfeited a match just before she was set to take on a male fencer at a women’s tournament in Maryland.

Turner was matched against Wagner College's Redmond Sullivan, who approached the female and declared he was supported by the board of directors and was allowed to participate against women.

Turner said she knew this and forfeited anyway.

It was soon revealed that Sullivan had won two out of six competitions since entering female competitions but had only ever reached third place as a male.

March 2025: A high school male athlete won the girls’ 400-meter varsity race by more than seven seconds.

Aayden “Ada” Gallagher, an 11th-grade sprinter from McDaniel High School in Portland, also won the girls’ 200-meter race.

Gallagher won both races in 2024, as well, in addition to winning the girls’ 200-meter at the Oregon state finals in 2024.

February 2025: A male high school athlete in Maine took third place in girls’ Nordic skiing at the state championships.

The boy, named Soren Stark-Chessa, secured enough points on his own to ensure his school placed third overall.

Stark-Chessa was accused of cheating in 2023 when he placed fifth in girls’ cross-country running after having previously being ranked 172nd as a boy.

Also in February, a boy from Maine’s Greely High School won first place in girls’ pole vault at the Maine Indoor Track Meet. The 10th-grader previously competed against boys as John before competing against girls under the name Katie.

John/Katie jumped 11 feet, a height that would have placed him in 10th against the males at the same competition.

January 2025: A male basketball player dominated girls and almost outscored the entire competition on his own. Henry Hanlon scored 29 points to lead San Francisco Waldorf High School to a 59-53 victory over Jewish Community High School.

January also saw a male college athlete set facility records at Brockport’s Rust Buster, a track and field event in New York. Camden Schreiner, who goes by "Sadie," set records by winning the women's 200-meter dash in 24.50 seconds and the women's 400-meter dash in 55.91 seconds. The times were also program records, according to his school, the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Schreiner made headlines in January 2024 after breaking school records for the women's 200-meter and 300-meter sprints and placing first in the 4x400-meter relay. He earned a Liberty League Women's Track & Field Performer of the Week award, according to KATV.

November 2024: Two female cross-country runners from Martin Luther King High School said they wore T-shirts that read "Save Girls' Sports" on the front and "It's Common Sense. XX ≠ XY" on the back to protest a male athlete participating in female athletics at their school.

Kaitlyn and Taylor said Taylor had been bumped from the cross-country team in order to make room for the boy, who did not have to regularly attend practices or meet eligibility requirements for the varsity team. When the girls wore the pro-women shirts, they were told by their athletics director that wearing the shirts around a transgender athlete was akin to wearing a swastika around a Jewish student.

October 2024: A Catholic high school girls' soccer team in New Hampshire refused to play a game against a team with a boy on it. Bishop Brady High School refused to play against Kearsage Regional High School for having a male athlete, a violation of state law.

The male athlete named Maelle Jacques played goalkeeper on the girls’ soccer team and previously won the state championship for girls’ high jump in February 2024.

September 2024: In another high-profile instance, San Jose State University utilized a 6'1" male athlete named Brayden “Blaire” Fleming to lead the women’s volleyball team to their best season in program history.

Fleming may have caused a national movement, spawning protests and forfeits from multiple teams, and even his own teammate spoke out against him.

July 2024: In what has become a rather famous story, a 17-year-old female volleyball player suffered paralysis and brain damage after getting hit in the face with the ball by a male player.

Payton McNabb had brain damage and paralysis on her right side and also had trouble walking for some time.

October 2023: Several female athletes dropped out of a women’s jiu-jitsu tournament after they were slated to compete against males who identify as female.

Two women had previously competed against a male named Cordelia Gregory, one of several men reportedly competing in women's jiu-jitsu tournaments under the North American Grappling Association.

Toward the end of the month, NAGA officially changed its policy to remove men from women's competitions and gave them the option to compete against other men or not compete at all.

August 2023: In an exception to the rule, a transgender athlete dropped out of a competition in women’s tennis in Wyoming, but claimed it was due to a safety risk. Brooklyn Ross (a male) began identifying as a woman around 2017 and then played college tennis starting in 2019.

Ross admitted there were no direct threats to him.

March 2023: A high school basketball coach from Massachusetts admitted to having a “secret weapon” on the girls’ team, referring to a 6'3" male named Addie Ruter.

Ruter dominated the playoffs and was referred to as a girl despite obvious physical advantages that allowed him to garner at least five double-doubles in the playoffs.

February 2023: The varsity girls' basketball team at a Christian high school in Vermont forfeited a match against a team with a male athlete.

Mid Vermont Christian School refused to play against Dorset in the first round of the Vermont Division IV girls' varsity tournament after the team learned that one member of the other team is actually a male.

The team soon took the state to court after the school was banned from state-wide athletic activities as a result of the refusal to play.

May 2019: College athlete Cece Telfer won the women’s 400-meter hurdles national NCAA title.

The New Hampshire male vowed to return years later and mocked female athletes as he said he was going to take “all the records.”

International

April 2025: Two men met in the final of a women’s billiards tournament in England. Harriet Haynes and Lucy Smith, both males, beat four women each to reach the finals of the 32-player tournament.

Under the English Pool Association, in order for a male to play in the female category, the athlete must have "declared that her gender identity is female."

Unsurprisingly, the two have met in competition before.

January 2025: A transgender college basketball player was captured on video flattening female athletes and was later revealed to have broken multiple women’s records in Canada.

Harriette Mackenzie, a 6'2'' male basketball player in his third year in women’s athletics, knocked over at least six women in a physically dominating display.

Mackenzie held records in women’s basketball in the following categories: most single-season total rebounds (212), offensive rebounds in a season (86), rebounds per game (10.6), total free throws made in a season (90), playoff points in a single game (22), and double-doubles in a season (10).

August 2024: An Australian soccer team that featured five males won the league without losing a single match.

The team is called the Flying Bats and was described as soccer club for "self-identified women and non-binary people.”

The team scored 61 goals with just six against and amassed a 14-0 record. The team made headlines earlier in the season with a 10-0 victory in which one of the male players scored six goals.

July 2024: The Summer Olympics in Paris were rocked by two biological males competing, and winning gold, in women’s boxing.

Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) both were disqualified from competitions in 2023, but won against women in the 66 kg and the 57 kg categories at the Olympics, respectively.

Khelif, who has refused to come to terms with testing, was revealed by examiners in November 2024 to have testicles, a penis, and XY chromosomes. The medical technicians who revealed this were in agreement with the International Boxing Association and the World Boxing Organization, which had both previously claimed that Khelif was born a man.

May 2024: A British female dart thrower refused to compete against a male athlete in a tournament.

Deta Hedman refused to participate in a match against male Noa-Lynn van Leuven in the Denmark Open tournament. Van Leuven was actually the defending champion from 2023.

April 2024: A male won a professional women’s golf tournament in Australia and called it a “special” feeling.

42-year-old Breanna Gill first started playing in women’s tournaments in 2015 and began winning them in 2018.

The LPGA Tour added a rule against almost all males by the end of the year and declared that anyone who had gone through male puberty is unable to compete against women.

August 2023: A 40-year-old man set an unofficial women’s world record at a women’s powerlifting event in Western Canada.

Anne Andres, 40, won the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s 2023 Western Canadian Championship by lifting a combined score of 1,317 pounds, far more than the second-place finisher, a woman, SuJan Gil, who lifted 854 pounds.

It was reported at the time that Andres set a new Canadian women's national record and an unofficial women's world record.

December 2022: A transgender hockey player injured in a woman in a tournament.

The National Hockey League promoted the "Team Trans Draft Tournament," which resulted in a player reportedly named Mason "(he/him/his),” concussing a female player. One attendee cited an "enormous difference" in player size.

March 2021: A male volleyball player was named a “pioneer” in women’s volleyball and given an award.

Tiffany Abreu, a man, was heralded as standing up to “anti-transgender hate” and was applauded for wanting to compete as a woman in the Olympics.

Lia Thomas

With honorable mention, William “Lia” Thomas cannot be forgotten. The male swimmer’s success against women was unparalleled and led him to win NCAA championship races despite being ranked 554th in the 200-meter freestyle as a man. He placed fifth in the nation against women.

Thomas was the poster child for the advantages males have over women, as well as the example most have turned to when showcasing that women have been shut down when trying to stand up for themselves.

Some swimmers were told they may have psychological problems because they had issues with competing against, or changing in the same room as, a man. Others said they were bumped into by Thomas with his genitals in the locker room.

Straight denial from governing bodies like the NCAA and even politicians did not help women in their plight.

One NCAA executive pleaded ignorance over the ordeal, while NCAA President Charlie Baker said he was simply following federal law and societal norms by letting men compete against women in their sports.

Democrat Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) suggested the issue wasn't important at all when he pointed to just “10 or fewer” transgender athletes in the NCAA out of 510,000 normal athletes.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) declared in March 2025 that the issue was not an issue at all and sarcastically asked constituents to “find the little trans child” who is ruining people’s lives.

This opposition is normal for women, whether it is being told they “shouldn’t be talking” for the male athlete or being abandoned by their universities.

“People have legitimately blacklisted me for being outspoken about men in women’s sports and spaces,” said writer Natasha Biase, who writes about women’s issues. “But this isn’t because most people are genuinely passionate about trans rights. It’s because people feel like it’s the empathetic thing to say so they can avoid any type of conflict.”

“A lot of people say it’s not happening … that they are obliterating women in sports,” she added.

Former gymnast and entrepreneur Jennifer Sey agreed, saying gender ideologues and trans activists try to control language by insisting that “trans women are women.”

“They feel justified threatening me and my employees with violence.

Both women agreed that much of the sentiment is pushed by social media and educational institutions and said that some women will not stop standing up for biological reality, “no matter how loud and bullying the angry minority is.”

100 days of MAHA: What has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. done so far to make America healthy again?

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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