Alex Ovechkin and most of Washington Capitals players skip Pride Night ritual
Washington Capitals players from outside North America may not be as used to Pride Nights as other athletes.
On Saturday night, the Capitals celebrated alternative sexual lifestyles with their “All Caps All Love” night, posting rainbow and transgender flags ahead of their gay-memorabilia auction.
‘We proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community.’
After the NHL banned themed jerseys in 2023, some fought for the right to use rainbow-colored stick tape, and won. That is how select Capitals players decided to show their gay pride on Saturday night against the reigning champion Florida Panthers, but as the teams took the ice, viewers noticed only eight of the Capitals’ 20 dressed players took part.
John Carlson, Nic Dowd, Brandon Duhaime, Hendrix Lapierre, Connor McMichael, Dylan Strome, Logan Thompson, and Trevor van Riemsdyk were the eight players spotted on video and cited in an article by outlet Russian Machine Never Breaks.
However, missing from the group was captain, and the NHL’s all-time scoring leader, Alexander Ovechkin.
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Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
Interestingly, all of the players that participated were from either the United States or Canada; none of the Capitals players born overseas participated in the stunt.
This included center Aliaksei Protas from Vitebsk, Belarus, left winger Ivan Miroshnichenko from Ussuriysk, Russia, defenseman Martin Fehérváry from Bratislava, Slovakia, and defenseman Rasmus Sandin from Uppsala, Sweden.
Despite their leader and biggest star not participating in their festivities, the Capitals went all out in their support for certain sexual preferences with promotional videos and statements.
“We proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community, and celebrate the importance of inclusion every day,” Strome, from Mississauga, Canada, said in a team video.
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Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
“It was great,” Dowd of Huntsville, Alabama, said in a post-game interview. “Every year we’ve put this on, guys lean into it and support it, and I thought it was another good night. I thought the Caps did a great job of showcasing it.”
The team also hosted the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., on the ice that night, but that was not enough to push them ahead of the Panthers, and the Capitals lost 5-2.
Fans in Seattle were recently outraged and piled plenty of backlash onto their Seattle Kraken team for supporting transgenderism with a themed logo, which inexplicably featured a unicorn drawn by a tattoo artist who said “queerness” inspires her work.
“Being able to be in Seattle surrounded by the queer community and being exposed to the queerness I never got to experience growing up, it inspires my work a lot,” the artist said.
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‘Place your left hand on the Quran’: Foreign-born lieutenant governor does not swear in on Bible
In one of the clearest examples of elections having consequences in recent times, Virginia’s new lieutenant governor’s swearing-in ceremony made history for its unorthodox changes.
On Saturday, Ghazala Firdous Hashmi took her oath of office to fill the lieutenant governor seat. However there was one major twist to the proceedings: Instead of placing her left hand on the Bible, Hashmi swore her oath on the Quran.
Hashmi sees her election and inauguration as a sign of Virginia’s ‘continued progress toward a more representative and inclusive democracy.’
“Place your left hand on the Quran,” the woman directing the inauguration instructed Hashmi.
“I, Ghazala Firdous Hashmi, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States,” she said during the ceremony.
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Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
According to her official website, Hashmi was born in Hyderabad, India, and was brought to the United States as a child.
She is the first Muslim woman to hold statewide office in the nation and the first South Asian-American to be elected to statewide office in Virginia.
Hashmi sees her election and inauguration as a sign of Virginia’s “continued progress toward a more representative and inclusive democracy.”
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Musk drops $10 million to help MAGA candidate replace ‘trash Trump’ Mitch McConnell
The richest man in the world has made a hefty donation to a pro-Trump Republican looking to take over the Kentucky U.S. Senate seat occupied by Mitch McConnell for 40 years, Axios has reported..
Last week, billionaire businessman Elon Musk donated $10 million to the Fight for Kentucky super PAC, which supports the candidacy of Nate Morris, founder of waste and recycling giant Rubicon.
Axios implied that the Musk-Morris connection may have come about because of Vice President JD Vance.
Morris has billed himself as a MAGA warrior and the antithesis of McConnell. In a scathing campaign video titled “Garbage Day,” Morris suggests that McConnell is a “trash Trump” “career politician” who has been “dumping” on Americans and Kentuckians in particular for decades.
“We’ve let the garbage pile up in Washington, D.C., for far too long. I’m running for Senate to help President Trump clean up the mess,” Morris states in the ad.
McConnell announced last February that he would not seek an eighth term.
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Axios implied that the Musk-Morris connection may have come about because of Vice President JD Vance, whom the outlet described as “close to” Musk and a “personal friend” to Morris.
Axios also indicated that Musk’s massive donation is a sign that he intends to use his wealth in support of Republicans in the 2026 midterms.
Morris did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment but did retweet a post about the Axios report. Requests for comment sent to Musk’s various businesses received no response.
The Axios report did not include a statement from Morris or Musk.
Thus far, President Donald Trump has not endorsed any candidate in the race. In his campaign video, Morris characterizes other Republicans running for the seat — Congressman Andy Barr and former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron — as McConnell’s “puppets.”
Several Democrats have tossed their hats into the ring, including Amy McGrath, who was trounced by McConnell in 2020. However, whoever prevails in the Republican primary is expected to win the general election in November.
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‘How low can they go?’ Maryland Democrat seeks to punish Trump-era ICE agents for doing their job
Democrats have made no secret of their contempt for the men and women of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who daily put their lives at risk to keep dangerous criminal noncitizens off American streets.
Evidently keen to go beyond just demonizing ICE agents, a Maryland Democrat has proposed legislation that would deny them future jobs in the crime-ridden state’s enforcement agencies.
Adrian Boafo, a Democrat member of Maryland’s House of Delegates who is currently running for Congress, proposed legislation earlier this month titled the “ICE Breaker Act of 2026,” aimed at punishing “those who are motivated to support this Administration’s immigration policies and principles by joining ICE.”
‘The ICE Breaker Act of 2026 is an unserious, frankly stupid bill.’
“Under Donald Trump, Steven Miller [sic] and Kristi Noem, ICE has ceased to function as a lawful and legitimate law enforcement agency,” said Boafo. “Instead it operates as a lawless and unconstitutional paramilitary operation.”
“Accordingly, this bill prevents individuals who chose to join ICE after January 20, 2025 in support of this administration’s immigration agenda from serving in trusted law-enforcement positions within Maryland state government,” added Boafo, who claimed elsewhere that ICE agents are neither trained nor qualified to serve as police.
The Department of Homeland Security recently indicated that ICE received over 220,000 applications and hired well over 10,000 new officers over the past year, doubling the number of personnel from 10,000 to roughly 22,000.
Boafo, the son of Ghanaian immigrants, will reportedly formally introduce the bill when the General Assembly reconvenes this week and has promised to introduce similar legislation in Congress if elected in the midterms.
Adrian Boafo. Photo by Eric Lee/Washington Post/Getty Images
The proposed legislation has been condemned by various officials in the state.
Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler suggested Boafo’s bill was “another poorly thought out piece of legislation and one motivated purely by political purposes.”
Gahler told WBFF-TV that ICE agents “have a legitimate law enforcement mission to fulfill, and this delegate wants to punish them for taking an oath of office and doing the job they are constitutionally sworn to do.”
“How sad can Maryland’s legislature — how low can they go?” said Gahler. “The hate, the Trump derangement syndrome would be the basis.”
Betsy Smith, spokeswoman for the National Police Association, underscored that contrary to Boafo’s suggestion, ICE agents have to undergo strict scrutiny and relevant testing in order to join state law enforcement agencies.
“It sounds as though this politician wants people to believe that an ICE agent can just come into their town and tomorrow be a patrol officer,” Smith told WBFF. “It’s simply ridiculous.”
Smith further stressed that it is “ridiculous to not hire ICE agents during a police understaffing crisis.”
“This is a dumb idea,” Republican Del. Kathy Szeliga told the Washington Post. “Law enforcement hiring should be based on the training, experience, and conduct of the candidate, not a partisan litmus test tied to some president you don’t like.”
Maryland House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R) cast doubt on the legality of the proposed legislation and suggested it was “not worthy of serious consideration.”
Republican Del. Matt Morgan emphasized the discriminatory nature of the proposed hiring ban, writing, “What about ICE agents hired under Biden or Obama? The ICE Breaker Act of 2026 is an unserious, frankly stupid bill for the purpose of political pandering.”
Despite its vilification by Boafo and other Maryland Democrats, ICE has worked overtime to make the state safer.
For instance, earlier this month, ICE arrested Oscar Miguel Argueta-Del Cid, an illegal alien from El Salvador who was convicted of sexually abusing a minor in Montgomery County, and last month ICE arrested Kevin Alexis Mendex-Ortiz, a criminal noncitizen from Honduras who caused a head-on collision in Prince George’s County that sent an American citizen to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Blaze News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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‘Total RINO’: Trump vows to oust Indiana Republican leader over redistricting betrayal
President Donald Trump has vowed to “take out” the Republican leader in the Indiana Senate for failing to enact the administration’s preferred congressional map.
With the 2026 primaries fast approaching, Republicans and Democrats have been gone head-to-head in several states over congressional redistricting. While both parties have seen some success in redrawing districts to their partisan benefit, Indiana Senate Majority Leader Rod Bray’s chamber struck down a new map that would have created two red congressional seats.
‘Republican’s House majority continues to shrink.’
“I was with David McIntosh of the Club for Growth, and we agreed that we will both work tirelessly together to take out Indiana Senate Majority Leader Rod Bray, a total RINO, who betrayed the Republican Party, the President of the United States, and everyone else who wants to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump said in a Truth Social Post.
“We’re after you Bray, like no one has ever come after you before!”
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Kaiti Sullivan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
McIntosh confirmed Trump’s statement, saying he and the president are “aligned.”
“Rod Bray is going down,” McIntosh said in a post on X.
Trump’s frustration with Bray comes as the Republicans’ House majority continues to shrink with resignations, impending retirements, and the tragic death of GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California.
Because of the successful redistricting efforts of blue states like California, many Republican seats are rated “toss-ups” by the Cook Political Report, leaving a lot of wiggle room for Democrats to regain control of the House. Just four Democrat-held seats are currently rated “toss-up,” while 14 Republican seats share the same electoral uncertainty.
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Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
There is also a trend of alternating between unified and divided governments every Congress, with the latter half of a president’s term often being paired with an opposing Congress. Although this is not the case for every modern presidency, it is an observable pattern that pundits and political operatives are bracing themselves for.
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