Category: Politics
Democrat claims she was pepper-sprayed by ICE — but her video and DHS say otherwise
A Democratic U.S. representative appeared to undermine her own accusations against federal agents when she posted a video of herself claiming to have been pepper-sprayed at a protest.
The newly sworn-in Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials pepper-sprayed her during a raid at a taco restaurant in Tucson on Friday.
‘If her claims were true, this would be a medical marvel. But they’re not true. She wasn’t pepper sprayed.’
“ICE just conducted a raid by Taco Giro in Tucson — a small mom-and-pop restaurant that has served our community for years,” reads a post from the politician. “When I presented myself as a Member of Congress asking for more information, I was pushed-aside and pepper sprayed.”
She said in the video that there had been about 40 agents in vehicles, most of them masked, but that the community stopped them. She claimed she and her staffers were pepper-sprayed and she was pushed, despite identifying herself as a member of Congress.
“While I am fine, if that is the way they treat me, how are they treating other community members who do not have the same privileges and protections that I do?” she added.
Many on social media pointed out that she didn’t have the appearance of someone who had been pepper-sprayed.
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, gave a spirited response to the Democrat’s claims.
“If her claims were true, this would be a medical marvel. But they’re not true. She wasn’t pepper sprayed. She was in the vicinity of someone who *was* pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement,” McLaughlin wrote.
She went on to say that two agents were seriously injured by the mob that Grijalva joined.
RELATED: Church worker pretended to be ICE agent to extort $500 from massage therapist, police say
“Presenting one’s self as a ‘Member of Congress’ doesn’t give you the right to obstruct law enforcement,” McLaughlin added.
Grijalva said she happened to be getting lunch at the taco place when the raid operation began. She coughed once in the video and said it was because of the pepper spray.
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Supreme Court will hear arguments for ending birthright citizenship
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear arguments for and against President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship.
The Trump administration appealed a lower court order that struck down the restrictions in July over a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of children affected by the policy.
‘We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.’
Trump issued the Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship executive order on his first day in office of his second term. The order prohibits granting citizenship to persons born in the country to mothers illegally or temporarily in the U.S. and whose father is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.
Opponents of birthright citizenship say it stems from a false reading of the 14th Amendment, which was intended to apply only to former slaves when it was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War.
“Congress has never passed a federal statute that confers birthright citizenship. So it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not in federal law, it’s not in the legislative history, and yet it is being used,” argued BlazeTV host Mark Levin.
“Birthright citizenship is the argument, is the position, is the policy the Democrat Party holds on to because they want monopoly power for all time,” he added, “and they don’t care if it’s foreigners or not.”
Supporters of the policy point to the longstanding precedent of automatically granting citizenship to babies born in America.
“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
The case will be heard in the spring, and a decision is expected by early summer.
RELATED: DHS slams Newsom over illegal alien accused in death of 11-year-old boy on Thanksgiving
Others point to the troublesome practice of “citizenship tourism” as justification for the order.
“There is a tourism industry surrounding this whole birthright citizenship. Women come here before they give birth so that they can just give birth here, and then their babies become United States citizens. That’s nuts, and to [Trump’s] point, nobody else does this,” said Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” on BlazeTV.
The birthright order would not take away citizenship from those who already obtained it before the order went into effect.
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Conservative political group fined $95K after correctly identifying male athletes competing with women in Australia
A traditional gender activist group has been fined in Australia for the “vilification” of two transgender-identifying males who competed in women’s sports.
The Binary Australia advocacy group was found guilty in August of identifying the athletes and exposing them to ridicule and hatred from critics of the transgender agenda.
‘Women have effectively been erased from law and attempts to advocate regarding public policy are shut down for the sake of the feelings of a few.’
Binary Australia spokeswoman Kirralie Smith said the fine was an infringement on her free speech rights and said the group would appeal the ruling.
“It is disappointing that the word ‘woman’ has been redefined to include males and that the words ‘violence’ & ‘vilification’ have been applied to speaking the truth about information in the public domain,” she wrote on social media.
“Australians should be very concerned about their freedoms,” she added. “Women have effectively been erased from law and attempts to advocate regarding public policy are shut down for the sake of the feelings of a few.”
Transgender activist Heather Corkhill of Equality Australia praised the ruling and accused Smith’s group of inciting hatred and violence.
“These women were subjected to horrendous harassment online, including being publicly identified, outed, and misgendered,” Corkhill said of the male athletes.
“People who target vulnerable minorities to incite hatred and fear need to be called out and stopped,” she added. “Smith and her supporters are out of step with the law, out of step with community values, and out of step with modern Australia.”
The 95K in Australian dollars equates to about 63K U.S. dollars.
RELATED: ‘F**king horrific’: Liberals rage after largest girl youth group in UK bans trans-identifying boys
“Males should never be permitted to participate in female sport. As a registered third-party political campaigner and a woman, I should have the right to advocate for this without being penalized,” Smith continued.
“The law might state men can be women, but it defies the laws of nature and cannot be sustained,” she added. “Nothing will steal my joy in knowing that I am a woman and no male ever will be. I am proud to stand for truth and reality.”
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NYC councilwoman lays into ‘rich,’ ‘entitled’ Mamdani voters as mayor-elect plans to leave homeless encampments alone
The incoming socialist mayor of New York City says that he will end the clearing out of homeless encampments in the city once he enters office.
Zohran Mamdani made the comments during his “Hot Chocolate, Frozen Rent” event in Manhattan on Thursday, where he posited that homelessness is a result of “political choice.”
‘Radical left communists would rather the homeless freeze to death on the streets, live in tents without showers food or medicine than make sure they have PROPER housing.’
“If you are not connecting homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need, then you cannot deem anything you’re doing to be a success,” he said.
“We are going to take an approach that understands its mission is connecting those New Yorkers to housing, whether it’s supportive housing, whether it’s rental housing, whatever kind of housing it is,” he added. “Because what we have seen is the treatment of homelessness as if it is a natural part of living in this city, when in fact it’s more often a reflection of a political choice being made time and time again.”
Republican NYC Councilwoman Inna Vernikov torched Mamdani over the announcement.
“The radical left communists would rather the homeless freeze to death on the streets, live in tents without showers food or medicine than make sure they have PROPER housing and mental health treatment which many of them desperately need,” said Vernikov.
While the mainstream media has tried to mischaracterize Mamdani as moderate, he has previously posited that the government might need to ban private property in order to address the housing crisis.
RELATED: Actor Jon Voight calls on Trump to ‘terminate’ election of Mamdani in NYC
“Mamdani voters are rich entitled liberals who never have to struggle and who believe that leaving the homeless on our streets in their tents is also appropriate PUNISHMENT for our ‘intolerant and racist’ neighborhoods,” Vernikov continued. “BRACE YOURSELVES.”
Mamdani shocked many when he won the Democrat nomination in the mayoral race despite being vastly inexperienced to run the massive city. At least one liberal commentator has compared him to Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jr.
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Trump administration limits work permits for asylum seekers following deadly National Guard shooting
Following the tragic shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., last week, allegedly by an Afghan national, President Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against foreigners coming into our country. Now his administration is taking action with some important policy changes.
On Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced a major slash in the duration of work permit validity, according to the Washington Post.
‘It’s even more clear that USCIS must conduct more frequent vetting of aliens.’
Specifically the new policy affects asylum seekers by changing the work permit authorization period from five years to a mere 18 months.
“Reducing the maximum validity period for employment authorization will ensure that those seeking to work in the United States do not threaten public safety or promote harmful anti-American ideologies. After the attack on National Guard service members in our nation’s capital by an alien who was admitted into this country by the previous administration, it’s even more clear that USCIS must conduct more frequent vetting of aliens,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a Thursday press release.
RELATED: Suspect in Guardsmen shooting tied to Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome
Photo by MANUEL BALCE CENETA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
USCIS stated in the press release that these changes to maximum validity period for Employment Authorization Documents are part of a broader policy update to ensure more thorough screenings of foreigners.
Fwd.us, an immigration advocacy group, told the Washington Post that the move is expected to impact hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.
The group also estimated that around 1.4 million of the three million asylum seekers currently in the United States are working.
These policy changes come shortly after it was revealed that the suspected shooter is an Afghan national tied to the Biden-era migrant relocation program, Operation Allies Welcome.
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Why the laws of government physics remain undefeated
In an age when government grows with the regularity of the sunrise and the humility of a bonfire, Dan Mitchell’s “20 Theorems of Government” land not as abstractions but as reminders of truths America’s founders understood almost instinctively. The theorems, devised by the co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, capture the recurring failures of centralized authority and the virtues of free people operating in free markets.
These theorems are not predictions. They are explanations of what government always does when left unchecked and how society always suffers when the state’s reach exceeds the citizen’s grasp.
The problem is not the quality of the people in government. The problem is the nature of government itself.
Mitchell’s First Theorem, which describes how Washington actually functions, could be carved above every federal agency door. Politics rewards the spending of other people’s money for other people’s benefit. The entire system is designed to avoid accountability and to maximize political reward. Once you accept that incentives drive outcomes, the rest of the theorems follow naturally.
The Second and Third Theorems make this point bluntly. Any new program will grow, metastasize, and waste money. Centralization magnifies inefficiency because bureaucracies face no competition, no profit-and-loss constraint, and no personal consequences for failure. When the private sector gets something wrong, it pays for its mistake. When government gets something wrong, it demands a larger budget.
Theorems Four through Seven widen the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality. Good policy can be good politics, but incentives push politicians toward superficial fixes and short-term gratification. Even strong ideas rot inside bureaucratic execution. And the larger the government becomes, the more incompetent and unresponsive it grows. Bureaucrats answer to political pressure, not consumer choice, and the results are inevitable: waste, rigidity, and indifference.
The Eighth through 10th Theorems confront the moral dimension of government overreach. Politicians who obsess over inequality rarely seek to lift up the poor; they seek justification for more control. Crises — real or imaginary — become tools for expanding that control. And politics almost always overwhelms principle. This is not cynicism. It is observation backed by centuries of evidence.
Theorems 11 through 15 dismantle common misconceptions. Big business is not the same thing as free enterprise. In many cases, it is free enterprise’s most persistent enemy. Corporations often work hand in hand with government to protect themselves from competition. Meanwhile, anyone who opposes entitlement reform is endorsing massive, broad-based tax hikes, because arithmetic leaves no other option. You cannot fund European-style welfare states without European-style taxation. And history shows voters resist paying for the bloated government they claim to want.
RELATED: Free markets don’t need federal babysitters
Afry Harvy via iStock/Getty Images
This leads naturally to the 16th and 17th Theorems. Economic progress becomes a race between private innovation and public consumption. When government grows faster than the private sector can produce, stagnation follows. Worse, when dependency becomes a norm, the cultural foundations of liberty erode. A nation that forgets how to rely on itself cannot long remain free.
The final three theorems complete the picture. Climate policy becomes hypocrisy when elites demand sacrifice from others while refusing it themselves. Politicians operate under incentives that reward short-term benefit at long-term cost. And the fiscal results — from rising deficits to ever-multiplying promises — are exactly what those incentives predict.
Taken together, Mitchell’s 20 Theorems point to a conclusion Milton Friedman drew decades ago: The problem is not the quality of the people in government; the problem is the nature of government itself. A government that grows without limit will, eventually and inevitably, burden the citizens it claims to serve.
If Americans wish to preserve both prosperity and freedom, they will have to internalize these theorems as practical truths, not relics of libertarian theory. The path forward is not mysterious. Limit government. Unleash markets. These principles are old — and their urgency has never been greater.
Trump DOJ announces arrest of J6 pipe-bomb suspect
Nearly five years after “live, active” pipe bombs were discovered at the RNC and DNC headquarters on January 6, 2021, a suspect is now in custody.
On Thursday, the DOJ announced that 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr. of Woodbridge, Virginia, has been arrested. Cole lives with his mother and other family members and works in the office of a bail bondsman, according to an FBI affidavit.
‘Today’s arrest happened because the Trump administration has made this case a priority.’
At a press conference alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, and others, D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro revealed that Cole was arrested for allegedly transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and attempted malicious destruction by means of explosive materials.
Citing the ongoing investigation, the officials shared few details about the sequence of events that led to Cole’s arrest, but they insisted that the evidence against Cole was not based on any “new tip,” just old-fashioned detective work.
“This wasn’t a new tip. It wasn’t some new evidence. It was the hard work of President Trump’s administration, Deputy Director Bongino, and Director Patel,” Bondi reiterated.
“Today’s arrest happened because the Trump administration has made this case a priority,” Bondi insisted.
“This is what it’s like when you work for a president who tells you to go get the bad guys and stop focusing on other extraneous things not related to law enforcement,” Bongino added.
Bondi further claimed that under the Biden administration, the evidence was “sitting there, collecting dust.” Such “total lack of movement” during the four years under Biden “undermined the public trust of our enforcement agencies,” she said.
Bongino did confirm that “forensic evidence” played a role in the arrest, but did not elaborate further. The officials declined to weigh in on a possible motive.
Patel indicated that Cole is believed to have “made [the] bombs,” and Bondi stated he was charged with “placing” them at the RNC and DNC on January 5, 2021.
The officials reiterated that further charges may be forthcoming and that the investigation is still in its early stages.
“We are the most transparent law enforcement operation in U.S. history, but we are also going to make sure accountability is delivered to its fullest extent,” Patel said. “And that happens in the courts of law, with our U.S. attorneys and our prosecutors. So we will divulge information when it is prudent and constitutionally permissible, while upholding the safeguards of this case, to make sure that the people that this individual intended to victimize get the accountability they deserve.”
“He will have his day in court.”
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The FBI affidavit dated Dec. 3 revealed more details about the evidence against Cole. Investigators were able to link materials used in the bombs — including galvanized pipes, end caps, wires, nine-volt battery connectors, and kitchen-style timers — as well as other items that may have been used during the construction process — such as wire nuts, safety glasses, and sandpaper — to purchases made by Cole.
A cell phone connected to Cole also pinged off of multiple cell towers near the RNC and DNC during the time the bombs were believed to have been placed, the affidavit said.
At 7:10 p.m. on January 5, a 2017 Nissan Sentra registered to Cole was likewise observed “less than one-half mile from the location where the individual who placed the devices was first observed on foot … at 7:34 p.m.” The alleged 7:10 p.m. observation of Cole’s vehicle came just five minutes before his cell phone “began to interact with Provider towers in the area,” 44 minutes before the DNC bomb was allegedly placed, and 66 minutes before the RNC bomb was allegedly placed, the affidavit indicated.
Cole’s height and use of eyeglasses also seem to correspond to the suspect spotted on surveillance footage, the affidavit claimed.
A Nov. 8 Blaze News investigation confirmed by several intelligence sources reported that a gait analysis of a former Capitol Police officer was a forensic match to the gait of the long-sought Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect. Today, the FBI announced that a Virginia resident, Brian Cole Jr., has been arrested in connection with the pipe-bomb incident. At this point, there is no indication that the individual matched through the gait analysis is a suspect or involved in the FBI’s investigation.
An attorney for the Capitol Police officer has since denied the allegations on her behalf, and CBS News reported that the FBI ruled out her involvement, citing three unidentified sources who said there was a video of her playing with her puppies at the time the device was planted.
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