Jordan James Parke, the British cosmetic surgery influencer who branded himself the "Lip King," is dead at 34 after what investigators believe may have been a cosmetic procedure gone wrong. Two people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
Parke, a native of Dudley, England, and a recurring presence on E!'s Botched, was found unconscious on Wednesday, February 18, at Lincoln Plaza in London's Canary Wharf district. The Metropolitan Police confirmed they were called by the London Ambulance Service regarding an unconscious 34-year-old man. He was declared dead at the scene.
A 43-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman were arrested on Friday, February 20, on suspicion of manslaughter. Both have been granted bail pending further investigation.
Police said his death "is currently being treated as unexplained," with an investigation underway, People magazine reported. Authorities have suggested that Parke may have undergone a cosmetic procedure before his death, though the official cause remains unknown.
Parke had reportedly spent over $150,000 on plastic surgery since beginning his cosmetic journey at age 19. The procedures included multiple nose jobs, filler in his neck, lips, and jawline, a Brazilian butt lift, and a chin implant. He appeared on Botched twice to address complications from his lip filler, liposuction, and the appearance of his nose.
In a 2016 interview on the British daytime show This Morning, Parke said he "never hated" himself but that plastic surgery had become a "hobby."
This was not the first time Parke's name appeared alongside a manslaughter investigation. In 2024, he was arrested after Alice Webb, a 33-year-old mother of five, died after becoming unwell following a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift, described as a "Liquid BBL," at a Gloucester clinic run by Parke and Jemma Pawlyszyn, according to the Daily Mail. Parke was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in that case but was never charged. He was due to answer bail this March.
The symmetry is difficult to ignore. A man investigated for a client's death following a cosmetic procedure is himself found dead after what may have been another cosmetic procedure. The two cases may be entirely unrelated in their particulars, but they share a common thread: a largely unregulated corner of the cosmetic industry where the line between practitioner and patient blurs, and where accountability arrives only after someone stops breathing.
Stories like Parke's expose a growing and largely unaddressed problem. The market for non-surgical cosmetic procedures has exploded, fueled by social media influencers who serve simultaneously as walking advertisements and, in some cases, as the practitioners themselves. The regulatory framework has not kept pace. In the UK, non-surgical procedures like injectable fillers exist in a gray zone where oversight is minimal and qualifications are loosely defined.
This is what happens when a culture prizes aesthetics over caution and when governments treat the cosmetic industry as too niche to regulate seriously. Two people are now dead in cases connected to Parke's orbit. Parke himself is dead under circumstances that suggest the same industry claimed him, too.
The question is not whether society should allow adults to make choices about their own bodies. It should. The question is whether an industry where unlicensed or loosely credentialed individuals perform procedures that can kill should continue to operate in a regulatory vacuum. That is not a question of personal freedom. It is a question of basic public safety.
Parke's sister Sharnelle wrote on Instagram that their family is "numb, shocked, and heartbroken" over his death.
Whatever one thinks of the choices Parke made or the industry he helped promote, a family lost someone. A 34-year-old man is dead. And somewhere, the people and systems that enabled the conditions of his death continue operating, waiting for the next client to walk through the door.
President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he is withdrawing his endorsement of Republican Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd after the first-term congressman voted for H.J.Res.72, a resolution aimed at Trump’s emergency tariff authority.
Trump said he is backing Hope Scheppelman, a critical care nurse practitioner and U.S. Navy veteran, to challenge Hurd in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Hurd was among six House Republicans who crossed the aisle earlier this month to pass H.J.Res.72, which would repeal Trump’s tariffs on Canada by terminating the national emergency used to justify them.
The vote landed at a volatile moment for U.S. trade policy. The day before Trump’s announcement, the Supreme Court struck down the bulk of Trump’s tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, finding his expanded use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act exceeded his authority. Trump, however, announced a new 15 percent global tariff and vowed to pursue trade policy through alternative legal channels, Newsweek noted.
This is not a subtle message from the president. In a party that campaigns on fighting for American workers, American producers, and American leverage, the question is no longer whether trade will be contested. It is those who are willing to take the political heat to contest it.
Trump framed the move as a direct response to Hurd’s posture on tariffs and what Trump sees as a failure to support an America First trade agenda. In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote:
"Based on a lack of support, in particular for the unbelievably successful TARIFFS imposed on Foreign Countries and Companies which has made America Richer, Stronger, Bigger, and Better than ever before, I am hereby WITHDRAWING my Endorsement of RINO Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado’s 3rd District, and fully Endorsing Highly Respected Patriot, Hope Scheppelman, to take his place in Congress."
Trump also accused Hurd of misplaced priorities, arguing that the Colorado Republican was “more interested in protecting Foreign Countries that have been ripping us off for decades than he is the United States of America.”
And he made clear this is not how he prefers to operate. Trump described taking back an endorsement as “a difficult decision,” saying he has only done it once before, citing his 2022 withdrawal of support from Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks.
Hurd defended his vote in a statement released February 19, grounding his position in Congress’s constitutional authority over trade.
As Hurd put it:
"Today's vote is grounded first and foremost in the Constitution. Article I gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations and to levy tariffs. Those delegations were never intended to serve as a permanent vehicle for sweeping, long-term trade policy."
Hurd also warned about setting a precedent that future presidents could use, even in ways Republicans would oppose.
"If we normalize broad emergency trade powers today, we should expect that a future president — of either party — will rely on the same authority in ways many of us would strongly oppose."
That is the core clash: Trump is signaling that the economic fight with foreign competitors cannot be run with one hand tied behind the nation’s back, while Hurd is signaling that the method matters because precedent lasts longer than any one presidency.
Both arguments are serious. But only one of them is paired with a blunt political reality: the party’s voters are watching who actually stands with the president when the fight gets real.
Trump first endorsed Hurd for reelection in October of 2025, calling him “an Incredible Representative for the Great People” of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. The endorsement was part of a batch of 28 House Republican incumbents Trump backed in quick succession, and it marked the first time Trump had thrown his support behind the Grand Junction attorney, who was elected in 2024 by a comfortable margin in the Republican-leaning seat.
Hurd won that 2024 race after his primary opponent, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, moved across the state to run in the heavily Republican 4th Congressional District, where she won election to a third term.
Now, Trump is placing his bet on Scheppelman, described as a former Colorado GOP vice chair, critical care nurse practitioner, and U.S. Navy veteran. Trump said she “knows the America First Policies required.” In the same Truth Social post, Trump listed the agenda he expects her to carry, including “Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A.,” “Champion American Energy DOMINANCE,” “Keep our Border SECURE,” and “Stop Migrant Crime.”
Hurd and Scheppelman are set to face off in the June 30 GOP primary for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Trump’s decision to pull his endorsement marks only the second time he has withdrawn support from a sitting Republican lawmaker, according to the source material. The first, in March 2022, came after Mo Brooks urged voters to move past the 2020 election, which Trump called “going woke.” Brooks later lost his primary to Katie Britt.
Here, Trump is turning a policy dispute into a governing test: if the administration is moving to rebuild leverage on trade, it expects its own party to stop undercutting it, especially when the legal terrain is already contested, and the Supreme Court has narrowed the president’s authority under IEEPA.
Hurd, for his part, pointed to district-level economic concerns, including agricultural producers operating on tight margins and the presence of “the largest steel rail mill in the United States” located within Colorado’s 3rd, arguing that unpredictable trade policy affects “payrolls, investment decisions, and long-term planning.”
That is the tension Republican voters will have to referee: the desire for stable conditions at home versus a national strategy that uses tariffs as leverage abroad.
With Trump’s endorsement now behind Scheppelman, the primary race in Colorado’s 3rd District is set to intensify.
In the Trump era, endorsements are not ceremonial. They are enforcement.
Vice President JD Vance has been quietly perfecting shokupan, the pillowy Japanese milk bread that commands cult followings at high-end bakeries, and his wife just told the world about it.
Usha Vance shared the details during a joint appearance with the Vice President on Saturday's episode of "My View With Lara Trump," praising her husband's dedication to the craft.
"He's been working on it for a while and he does it really well. Almost as well, or as well, as some of the restaurants that we get it from."
The Vice President, never one to undersell himself, interjected: "I'd say almost as well."
The couple's appearance painted a picture of domestic normalcy that stands in sharp contrast to the gossip mill that churned around them over the past year.
Vance's baking skills have apparently come a long way, the Daily Beast reported. When Lara Trump asked him to name the best and worst dish he ever cooked for his wife, the Vice President didn't hesitate to revisit the disaster.
"Usha is a vegetarian, and I am not. So, I'm thinking to myself, what does a vegetarian eat? Vegetables, dairy, and bread. I got crescent rolls, rolled them out into a pizza shape, and put vegetables and ranch on top, and stuck it in the oven for 30 minutes."
The verdict was swift and self-inflicted.
"It was disgusting. Like, it was actually inedible."
Vance chuckled at the memory, adding that "it's amazing that the relationship lasted." Twelve years of marriage and a fourth child on the way suggest the relationship has done more than last. Usha added that her husband "doesn't believe in recipes," and the pair laughed off the incident together.
The appearance matters beyond its lighthearted content. Usha Vance was spotted several times without her wedding ring last year, feeding speculation that the couple's marriage was under strain. Vance was also the subject of tabloid chatter after being filmed in what was described as an intimate embrace with Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, during a Turning Point USA event.
None of that seemed to register on Saturday's episode. The Vances looked like what they presented themselves as: a married couple expecting another baby, ribbing each other about bad cooking.
There's a lesson here about the political media ecosystem. Every awkward photo and missing accessory gets fed into a narrative machine that runs on inference and innuendo. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one. Sometimes a ring is at the jeweler. Sometimes a hug is a hug.
The shokupan detail is the kind of biographical color that humanizes a political figure without the usual stagecraft. Vance has long introduced himself as a "conservative hillbilly from Appalachia," a framing that served him well on the campaign trail and in the cultural conversation around his memoir. The self-taught baker working his way through Japanese bread techniques doesn't contradict that identity. It rounds it out.
Curiosity is not a betrayal of where you come from. A guy raised in a middle-class Ohio family who picks up a demanding baking technique because he wants to is the kind of story that cuts against every lazy caricature of conservative America as intellectually incurious or culturally monolithic. The left loves to sort people into boxes. Vance keeps refusing to fit.
Lara Trump, who has hosted "My View" since February of last year, drew out the couple with the kind of ease that comes from shared familiarity. She recently recounted her own early dating stories with Eric Trump on Miranda Devine's podcast, including his memorable first impression after learning she attended culinary school.
"He looked at me, and he grabbed my stomach, and said, 'Wow, you're too skinny for any of your food to taste good. You must be a horrible chef.'"
Bold opening line. It apparently worked.
Saturday's episode was not hard news. It was not meant to be. But in a political climate that treats every personal detail as ammunition, two couples trading embarrassing kitchen stories on camera carries its own quiet weight. The Vances showed up, laughed at themselves, and let the bread speak for itself.
Crescent roll pizza with ranch. Twelve years later, shokupan. People grow.
Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the United States, has been released on bail after his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The Metropolitan Police confirmed the news in a statement issued just after 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Mandelson, 72, was filmed being led from his London home to a car by plainclothes officers on Monday afternoon. Police searched two of his properties in London and western England as part of a criminal probe launched earlier this month into his ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The Metropolitan Police spokesperson kept it clinical:
"A 72-year-old man arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office has been released on bail pending further investigation."
The police did not name the suspect. Mandelson had previously been identified as the former diplomat under investigation.
At the center of the investigation are claims that Mandelson passed sensitive government information to Epstein, the disgraced U.S. financier convicted of sex offenses involving a minor in 2008. Messages suggest the information exchange occurred in 2009, when Mandelson was a senior minister in the British government, the AP reported. The information was potentially market-moving.
Mandelson also appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers' bonuses. This was after Epstein's conviction. Not before. After.
And Mandelson once called Epstein "my best pal."
More than 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents were released last month by the U.S. Justice Department. Those files helped trigger the criminal probe now engulfing two of Britain's most prominent public figures.
Mandelson's arrest was not an isolated event. Four days later, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew, landed in police custody on suspicion of a similar offense related to his friendship with Epstein. Both men are suspected of improperly passing U.K. government information to the financier.
Mountbatten-Windsor was released after 11 hours in custody while the police investigation continues.
Two members of the British establishment, each with deep ties to Epstein, each arrested within days of each other, each on suspicion of betraying their government's trust to a convicted sex offender. The pattern speaks for itself.
The political fallout lands squarely on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who made the baffling decision to name Mandelson as ambassador to Washington at the start of President Donald Trump's second term. This was a man with known, deep, and publicly acknowledged connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer chose him anyway.
The decision nearly cost Starmer his job earlier this month. He has since acknowledged he made a mistake and apologized to the victims of Epstein. He fired Mandelson in September.
Consider the sequence: Starmer appointed a man who called a convicted sex offender his "best pal" to represent Britain in Washington, then fired him when the obvious became undeniable, then watched him get arrested on suspicion of passing government secrets to that same sex offender. This is not a case of hindsight being 20/20. The warning signs were visible from orbit.
The British government has pledged to begin releasing documents connected to the appointment in early March. Whatever those documents reveal, the judgment failure has already been exposed.
Mandelson was no backbencher. He was an architect of New Labour, the political movement that brought the party back to power in 1997. He served in senior government roles under Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2001, then returned under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010. He was the European Union's trade commissioner between those stints. He was appointed to the House of Lords for life in 2008. His grandfather, Herbert Morrison, was a former Labour Cabinet minister.
He twice had to resign from government posts. Earlier this month, he resigned from the House of Lords entirely.
The man was Labour royalty. Now he is out on bail.
Gordon Brown, for his part, has been particularly angered by the revelations and has been helping police with their inquiries. When a former prime minister cooperates with investigators probing his own former cabinet minister, the institutional rupture runs deep.
Mandelson remains on bail pending further investigation. The government's promised document release in early March could deepen the political crisis or clarify the scope of Starmer's knowledge before the appointment. Meanwhile, the Mountbatten-Windsor investigation proceeds on a parallel track.
The Epstein saga has already consumed reputations on both sides of the Atlantic. The release of 3 million pages of documents by the U.S. Justice Department made sure of that. But what's unfolding in Britain is something distinct: not just social embarrassment or tabloid scandal, but criminal investigations into whether powerful men traded their country's secrets to a man everyone already knew was a predator.
Mandelson helped secure a trade deal in May. He moved in the highest circles of British and international politics for three decades. None of it insulated him from a pair of plainclothes officers and a Monday afternoon car ride.
President Trump took to Truth Social on Monday to torch a string of media reports suggesting that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine harbors reservations about military action against Iran, calling the coverage "100 percent incorrect" and insisting that Caine knows "one thing, how to WIN."
The pushback came after outlets including Axios, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post published stories characterizing Caine as cautious, even reluctant, about the prospect of a major operation against Tehran. Trump wasn't having it.
"Numerous stories from the Fake News Media have been circulating stating that General Daniel Caine, sometimes referred to as Razin, is against us going to War with Iran. The story does not attribute this vast wealth of knowledge to anyone, and is 100 percent incorrect."
The same day, the State Department announced that all nonemergency personnel and family members of staffers should be evacuated from the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, according to The Hill. The diplomatic and military pieces are moving in tandem.
The pattern here is almost too predictable. Anonymous sources feed sympathetic reporters a narrative designed to suggest internal dissent within the administration. The stories frame a military leader as the reluctant adult in the room, quietly pushing back against a reckless commander-in-chief. The goal is never to inform the public. It's to constrain the president's options by manufacturing the perception of chaos before a single decision has been made.
Axios reported that Caine has been "more cautious in talks about planning against Iran" and views "a potential major operation against Iran as inviting a higher risk for U.S. casualties." The Wall Street Journal placed similar warnings in meetings at the Pentagon and the National Security Council. The Washington Post added that a major operation could face hurdles due to "a low stockpile of munitions."
None of the reports, notably, quoted Caine as being against military action. There is a significant difference between a military commander presenting risks, which is literally his job, and a military commander opposing his president's policy. The press collapsed that distinction because the collapsed version makes for a better headline.
A source familiar with the matter told The Hill on Monday that Caine has presented Trump and other top national security officials in recent days a range of strike options the U.S. military could execute against Iran. That detail sits awkwardly next to the narrative of a general pumping the brakes.
The president left no ambiguity about who holds the pen on this decision. He praised Caine's credentials, calling him the architect of the U.S. bombing of Iran's three premier nuclear sites last June, an operation known as Midnight Hammer. He pointed to Caine's role in the early January raid in Venezuela, where U.S. personnel captured Nicolás Maduro. This is not a president worried about his general's resolve.
"General Caine, like all of us, would like not to see War but, if a decision is made on going against Iran at a Military level, it is his opinion that it will be something easily won."
"He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about, he only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack."
Trump also made clear that diplomacy remains the preferred lane. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are slated to meet with Iranian officials for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva, Switzerland. On Friday, the president said he was considering limited strikes against Iran if those negotiations over the country's nuclear program fail.
That sequencing matters. Diplomacy first, credible force behind it. This is not saber-rattling for its own sake.
"I am the one that makes the decision, I would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don't make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them."
Diplomatic engagement without military credibility is just talking. Every serious negotiation in history has been shaped by what happens if the talking stops. Iran's regime understands this calculus better than most. They watched Midnight Hammer level three nuclear sites. They watched the Venezuela operation succeed. The question Tehran faces isn't whether the United States can act. It's whether this president will.
The media's insistence on framing military readiness as internal conflict serves one audience: Tehran's negotiators. Every story suggesting American hesitation is a story that weakens the diplomatic hand. Whether that's the intent or merely the effect, the result is the same.
Trump acknowledged the human weight of what's at stake, calling the Iranian people "great and wonderful" and lamenting that "something like this should never have happened to them." That distinction, between a regime that has brought its country to the brink and the population suffering under it, is one the press rarely bothers to draw.
The embassy evacuation in Lebanon, the Geneva talks, and the strike options on the table. These are the actions of an administration that has prepared for every outcome and prefers the one that doesn't involve fire. But preparation is not hesitation, and presenting options is not dissent.
The media needed a story about a president at war with his own general. What they got was a president and a general reading from the same page, with the press writing fiction in the margins.
Peter Attia, the celebrity doctor and podcast host recruited just weeks ago as part of CBS News' much-publicized contributor overhaul, has resigned from the network effective immediately. His departure follows the release of a cache of Jeffrey Epstein files by the Justice Department earlier this month, in which Attia's name appears frequently.
A spokesman for Attia said the contributor role "was newly established and had not yet meaningfully begun." The spokesman added:
"He stepped back to ensure his involvement didn't become a distraction from the important work being done at CBS. He wishes the network and its leadership well and has no further comment at this time."
CBS News staff were informed Monday by the network's booking department, according to a source familiar with the matter.
According to the files reported on by NBC News, Attia and Epstein traded jokes, arranged times to meet, and chatted about Epstein's health throughout the 2010s. In a message in February 2016, Attia made a crude joke that female genitalia was "low carb."
This matters because of who Jeffrey Epstein was. He was convicted in Florida in 2008 on a child prostitution charge. He died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. The 2010s correspondence between Attia and Epstein falls squarely between those two dates. Attia wasn't exchanging banter with some ambiguous figure. Epstein was already a convicted sex offender.
On Feb. 2, Attia posted a lengthy statement on X addressing the situation. He insisted his "interactions with Epstein had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone" and stated plainly:
"I was not involved in any criminal activity, never on his plane, never on his island, and never present at any sex parties."
He also offered something rarely seen from public figures caught in an Epstein-adjacent spotlight: an actual admission of fault.
"I apologize and regret putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public, and that is on me. I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it."
Credit where it's marginally due: he didn't blame the release, didn't claim the emails were taken out of context, and didn't lawyer his way around the word "indefensible." But acknowledging humiliation is not the same as answering the harder question. Why was a health-focused physician maintaining a joking, casual rapport with a man convicted of child prostitution?
Attia's departure lands awkwardly for a network in the middle of a deliberate reinvention. Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison hired Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief with a mandate to "invigorate" the network's news division. Weiss recruited a stable of contributors in January that included Attia alongside historian Niall Ferguson and wellness influencer Andrew Huberman. The intention was clear: bring in voices from outside the legacy media ecosystem to signal a new direction.
That strategy just absorbed its first public hit before it ever gained traction. The contributor role, by Attia's own spokesman's admission, "had not yet meaningfully begun." A hire meant to signal fresh credibility became a liability before the ink dried.
This is the risk of building a brand around personalities rather than process. Weiss made her name challenging institutional groupthink, and the contributor roster reflected that instinct. But vetting matters more than vibes. When you're trying to rebuild trust in a news organization, the names you attach to it carry weight. Every single one needs to be clean.
The broader pattern here extends well beyond one CBS contributor. The Justice Department's release of these files continues to send shockwaves through circles that spent years hoping Epstein's connections would stay buried. Every new batch of names and correspondence forces the same uncomfortable reckoning: a staggering number of prominent, credentialed, successful people found it perfectly acceptable to maintain friendly relationships with a convicted child sex offender.
Not one of them can credibly claim ignorance. The 2008 conviction was public. The nature of the charges was known. And yet the emails kept flowing, the meetings kept happening, the jokes kept landing.
The public has every right to demand a full accounting. Not just of who appeared in the files, but of who knew what and when, and why proximity to a child predator carried so little social cost among the elite for so long. The Epstein story was never about one monster. It was about the ecosystem that sustained him.
Peter Attia may have never set foot on the island. The emails that are public may represent the full extent of his involvement. But "I didn't commit any crimes" is a remarkably low bar for a man who just weeks ago was positioned as a trusted voice on a major American news network. And every name that surfaces from these files reminds the country that the powerful operated by a different set of rules than the rest of us.
That reckoning isn't close to finished.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants you to bring your papers if you want to pick up a shovel. Just don't ask him to apply the same standard at a polling place.
As a winter storm bore down on the city over the weekend, Mamdani urged New Yorkers to sign up as emergency snow shovelers. The pitch sounded neighborly enough. During a Saturday press briefing, the mayor laid out the opportunity:
"For those who want to do more to help your neighbors and earn some extra cash, you too can become an emergency snow shoveler."
Then came the fine print. The New York Sanitation Department requires applicants to bring two forms of ID, plus copies and a Social Security card. According to the New York Post, there are no fewer than five forms of identification to bring to your local sanitation garage before you're cleared to push snow off a sidewalk.
Five forms of ID. To volunteer with a shovel.
According to the New York ABC affiliate, the backlash was immediate, and it wrote its own punchlines. Comedian Jimmy Failla captured the mood on X, mocking the mayor for "requiring TWO forms of ID to be a voluntary shoveler for the blizzard" and dubbing the whole affair "Jim SNOW 2.0."
But the sharpest criticism came from Indiana GOP Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who called Mamdani's request what it plainly is: hypocritical. Stutzman posted on X:
"Mamdani opposes the SAVE America Act for requiring ID at the polls — but sees nothing excessive about requiring proof of citizenship AND multiple forms of ID to volunteer part-time SHOVELING SNOW!?"
He followed up with a pointed conclusion:
"Liberal hypocrisy! This is why we need to establish consistency across states' voting laws."
Stutzman's point doesn't need much embellishment. The SAVE America Act would require identification to vote in federal elections. That's it. And yet politicians like Mamdani treat such proposals as unconscionable barriers to democratic participation, the kind of requirement that supposedly disenfranchises entire communities. But clearing snow? That apparently demands a full dossier.
This is the pattern that keeps repeating in progressive governance. Identification requirements are an unbearable burden when they apply to something the left wants to keep loose, like election integrity. But the moment a city bureaucracy needs to process paperwork for a temporary snow removal gig, suddenly IDs are a perfectly reasonable ask.
The contradiction isn't incidental. It reveals the actual principle at work: identification isn't the problem. Control is the point. Progressive leaders are perfectly comfortable with documentation requirements when they're the ones administering the program. They only object when ID mandates might tighten a system they'd prefer to keep porous.
Consider what Mamdani is actually communicating to New Yorkers. If you want to participate in civic life by casting a ballot, asking for your ID is suppression. If you want to participate in civic life by shoveling a public sidewalk, you'd better show up with two forms of ID, copies, and your Social Security card. The city needs to know exactly who you are before it hands you a snow shovel, but it bristles at knowing who's filling out a ballot.
The Libs of TikTok account on X piled on with a broader critique, noting that "mountains of snow and garbage were left on the streets for weeks" in New York City. It's a familiar story for residents who have watched city services deteriorate while the bureaucratic apparatus grows ever more demanding of the citizens trying to help.
This is modern progressive municipal governance in miniature. The city can't keep its own streets clear. It turns to volunteers. Then it buries those volunteers in paperwork before they can lift a shovel. The instinct to regulate, document, and process overtakes the simple objective of getting snow off the ground.
Mamdani told New Yorkers to "show up at your local sanitation garage with your paperwork, which is accessible online." Accessible online. For an emergency snow shoveling program during a storm. The bureaucratic reflex is so deeply embedded that even a crisis can't override it.
House Republicans were among those highlighting the absurdity, and the reason is obvious. The voter ID debate has been one of the clearest fault lines in American politics for years. The left insists that requiring identification to vote is discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary. Meanwhile, you need an ID to board a plane, buy cold medicine, open a bank account, pick up a prescription, and now, apparently, to shovel snow in New York City.
At some point, the "ID is a barrier" argument collapses under the weight of every other context in which progressives accept identification as routine. Mamdani just added the most absurd data point yet to that growing list.
New York City residents who want to vote won't be asked for their papers. But residents who want to clear their neighbor's sidewalk will need to assemble a small portfolio first. That's not a policy. It's a confession.
Text messages obtained by the Daily Mail show a sexually explicit late-night exchange between Rep. Tony Gonzales and Regina Aviles, the director of his regional district office in Uvalde, from May 2024. The messages, sent around 12:15 a.m. and continuing until 1 a.m., include Gonzales asking Aviles to send him a "sexy pic," pressing her about sexual positions, and sending a one-word message too vulgar to print here.
Sixteen months after that exchange, Aviles was dead. The 35-year-old mother of an eight-year-old boy killed herself in September 2025 by dousing herself in gasoline and setting herself on fire in her backyard.
Gonzales, a father of six now seeking a fourth House term, denied the relationship in November 2025. Early voting in his closely contested primary is already underway, with Election Day set for March 3.
The exchange paints a picture that is difficult to square with Gonzales's blanket denial, according to the Daily Mail. In the messages, the congressman wrote "Send me a sexy pic," followed by "Hurry," and then explained himself: "I'm just such a visual person." When Aviles responded that "you don't really want a hot picture of me," Gonzales replied, "Yes, I do."
Aviles pushed back at points. "No, I just don't like taking pictures of myself," she wrote. Twice, she warned him he was going "too far." At one point, she asked him directly:
"Please tell me you didn't just hire me because I was hot."
Further texts obtained by the San Antonio Express-News reportedly show Aviles arranged to meet Gonzales two days later while he campaigned in the Uvalde area. In those messages, Gonzales wrote that the meeting "will be lots of fun" and referenced "at check-in time."
Former staffers told the Daily Mail anonymously, citing fear of retaliation, that the romantic relationship allegedly began in 2022.
The alleged affair unraveled in June 2024, when Aviles's husband, Adrian, sent a group text to Gonzales's staffers that left nothing to the imagination:
"Just a heads up this is Adriana Aviles, Reginas soon to be ex husband I just wanted to inform all of you that we will be getting a divorced after my discovery of text messages and pictures that she's been having an affair on me with your boss Tony Gonzales for some time now, Feel free to reach out if you want more of an explanation."
The grammar was rough. The message was not ambiguous.
After the exposure, Adrian Aviles moved out with their son. According to the ex-husband, Gonzales did not fire Aviles from her position. Instead, she was reportedly given a paid month off work. Adrian Aviles later revealed that she was "spiraling." She reportedly suffered from worsening depression in the months that followed.
By September 2025, she was gone.
The Daily Mail first reported on the relationship in October 2025, weeks after Aviles's death. When asked in November 2025, Gonzales offered this response:
"The rumors are completely untruthful. I am generally untrusting of these outlets."
He has since accused Adrian Aviles of trying to blackmail him. The Daily Mail noted that Gonzales regularly granted interviews to the publication until they began reporting on his relationship with Aviles. Representatives for Gonzales did not immediately respond to the outlet's latest request for comment.
The relationship may have been in breach of U.S. House ethics rules that bar romantic relations with staff members. According to Adrian Aviles, the congressman has been under federal investigation over the alleged affair since last year, though no agency has been named and no charges have been filed.
Meanwhile, Adrian Aviles reportedly tried to negotiate a confidential settlement with the congressman over the affair and his ex-wife's death before going public.
Political scandals have a rhythm to them. Texts leak. Denial issue. Opponents pounce. News cycles move. The mechanics are familiar enough to become numbing.
This one resists that treatment.
A woman is dead. An eight-year-old boy no longer has a mother. Whatever the full truth of the relationship between Gonzales and Aviles, the human wreckage is not abstract. It is a backyard in Uvalde, a container of gasoline, and a family broken apart.
Conservatives rightly hold that personal character matters in public officials. That principle cannot be seasonal, applied to political opponents, and suspended for allies. If the facts bear out what the texts strongly suggest, voters in Texas's 23rd District deserve to weigh that information before March 3.
Gonzales calls the reporting untruthful. The texts call that denial into serious question. Voters will have to decide which version they believe, and they won't have long to make up their minds.
Early voting has been underway since February 17.
C-SPAN stated on Sunday, clarifying that a Friday caller who identified himself as "John Barron" and unleashed a blistering critique of the Supreme Court's tariff ruling was not the president. The network took the unusual step after the clip rocketed across social media, with viewers convinced they recognized a familiar voice on the other end of the line.
The caller, described as a Republican from Virginia, had phoned in to host Greta Brawner's program to discuss the Supreme Court's six-to-three decision to block the president's sweeping tariff policies under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. What followed was a rant so distinctly Trumpian in cadence, vocabulary, and targets that the internet did what the internet does.
"Look, this is the worst decision you ever made in your life, practically. And Jack's going to agree with me, right, but this is a terrible decision."
The caller then moved to his real targets.
"You have Hakeem Jeffries, who... he's a dope. And you have Chuck Schumer, who can't cook a cheeseburger. Of course, these people are happy. But true Americans will not be happy."
If you read those lines without any context and couldn't identify the rhetorical fingerprints, you haven't been paying attention for the last decade.
"John Barron" is not a name plucked from thin air, the Daily Mail noted. It is the alias Trump reportedly used when feeding information to reporters in the 1980s and 90s, per the Washington Post. Trump had to admit to using the fake name under oath in 1990. So when a caller with that exact name dialed into C-SPAN to deliver a monologue that could have been pulled from a Truth Social post, people noticed.
C-SPAN moved to shut the speculation down:
"The call came from a central Virginia phone number and came while the president was in a widely covered, in-person White House meeting with the governors."
The network added a plug for good measure: "Tune into C-SPAN for the actual president at the State of the Union Address on Tuesday night."
Not everyone bought the explanation. One commenter assembled a detailed timeline: the SCOTUS ruling dropped around 10 a.m., the president's briefing ran from 12:45 to 2:06, he was in the Oval Office until 4:34, and "John Barron called C-SPAN at 3:19." The commenter's conclusion: "Caller ID said where the phone was registered, not where it came from. I call BS."
Whether that skepticism is warranted or just the product of people wanting the story to be true is beside the point. The clip is entertaining either way.
The real story underneath the viral moment is the Supreme Court's decision itself. The Court voted six to three against the president's tariff policies, with $175 billion on the line, ruling that the policy was not authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
What stung most: two of the justices who voted against him were his own appointees. Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, John Roberts, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in the majority. The president was hosting the National Governors' Association on Friday ahead of the Governors' Dinner the following evening, a visit that had its own drama after Trump blocked Governors Jared Polis and Wes Moore from attending, only to re-extend their invitations.
But the tariff ruling clearly occupied his attention. Trump fired back on Truth Social shortly after the decision, calling it "very unpatriotic."
"What happened today with the two United States Supreme Court Justices that I appointed against great opposition, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whether people like it or not, never seems to happen with Democrats."
"They vote against the Republicans, and never against themselves, almost every single time, no matter how good a case we have."
That frustration is shared by millions of conservative voters who watched a Republican-appointed majority hand a win to the institutional resistance. The pattern Trump identifies is real: Democratic appointees vote as a bloc with remarkable consistency. Republican appointees break ranks regularly, sometimes on the most consequential cases. Whether that reflects independent judicial reasoning or a lack of ideological spine depends on which side of the aisle you occupy.
The mystery caller, whoever he is, managed to crystallize conservative frustration with the ruling more effectively in ninety seconds of live television than most pundits did all weekend. The language was blunt. The targets were specific. The tone was unmistakable.
C-SPAN says it wasn't the president. The timeline supports that. But the fact that an anonymous caller channeling Trump's exact rhetorical style could dominate a news cycle tells you something about the current moment. The president's voice, real or imitated, still commands the room.
And somewhere in central Virginia, "John Barron" is probably smiling.
A Spanish teacher at Charles W. Baker High School in Baldwinsville, New York, was placed on paid administrative leave in late January after she agreed to help students establish a Club America chapter, the conservative civics organization affiliated with Turning Point USA.
Jennifer Fasulo's offense, as far as anyone can tell, was saying yes to her students.
The Baldwinsville Central School District, a suburb outside of Syracuse, confirmed the leave in a February 10 letter to parents and staff but offered almost nothing in the way of explanation. The district's statement was a masterclass in bureaucratic non-answers:
"The District can confirm that a staff member has been placed on paid administrative leave while a matter is under review."
"We are following established administrative and legal procedures, and we are unable to comment further or share additional details at this time."
No specifics. No allegations. No transparency. Just a teacher removed from her classroom and a district hiding behind boilerplate.
According to Breitbart, the most important detail in this story is one the district clearly hopes people will overlook: the students initiated this. They wanted to start a Club America chapter. They went looking for a faculty adviser, which is standard procedure for any school club. Fasulo agreed to help.
Republican State Senate candidate Caleb Slater, who met Fasulo through his church community, made the point plainly:
"These are students who asked for this organization to be founded, not parents or teachers."
Slater said the teacher is being used as a sacrificial lamb to dissuade conservatives from starting clubs at their schools. That framing is hard to argue with when the district won't provide any other explanation for why a teacher who helped students exercise their right to organize is now sitting at home on paid leave, pending what a petition supporting her describes as termination.
Club America President Jerry Dygert spoke at a February 9 board meeting and didn't mince words about what was happening:
"Our club exists to promote political understanding through civil discourse, removing the one teacher who best embodies those values puts that mission in serious jeopardy."
Dygert also said Fasulo "is being targeted not because of her performance, but for her political beliefs." The district has done nothing to contradict that conclusion.
Here is where the district's own language becomes its most damning evidence. From that same February 10 letter:
"The District is firmly committed to providing a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment for every individual."
"Our policies, practices, and values reflect our belief that all members of our school community deserve to be treated with dignity and respect."
Every individual. All members. Dignity and respect.
Unless, apparently, you're a teacher who helps students start a conservative club. Then you get placed on leave, your name dragged into public view, and your career put in jeopardy while administrators mumble about "established procedures" and refuse to say what you actually did wrong.
This is the pattern in American public education. The word "inclusive" has been hollowed out and repurposed. It now means a specific political orientation is welcome. Deviate from it, and the machinery of administrative review activates. No one will tell you the charge. No one will say your politics are the problem. They don't have to. The process is the punishment.
To their credit, parents and community members aren't letting this slide. A petition supporting Fasulo had collected more than 2,300 signatures as of Sunday. That's a significant number for a suburban school district, and it signals that the silent majority in places like Baldwinsville is getting less silent.
Community members spoke at the board meeting alongside Dygert. The message was consistent: this looks like ideological targeting, and the district's refusal to explain itself only reinforces that impression.
Think about what this teaches every other teacher in the Baldwinsville Central School District. Think about what it teaches every other teacher in New York State. A colleague agreed to sponsor a student club with a conservative orientation, and it cost her the classroom. The specifics of the "review" don't matter for the purposes of the message being sent. The message is: don't.
Don't help those students. Don't associate with that organization. Don't make yourself a target. Keep your head down, run the approved clubs, and nobody gets hurt.
Schools across the country host chapters of every imaginable political and social identity organization. Progressive activism clubs operate freely. But a Club America chapter, focused on civic discourse? That triggers an administrative investigation and a paid leave that sure looks like a prelude to firing.
Conservatives have argued for years that public schools operate as ideological gatekeepers. Districts like Baldwinsville keep proving them right, then issuing statements about "dignity and respect" without a trace of self-awareness.
Jennifer Fasulo said yes to her students. That's all it took.