Eight people are dead in the small community of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, after an 18-year-old former student opened fire at a local residence and then at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon. The shooter, identified by RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald on Wednesday as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed his mother, his 11-year-old stepbrother, and six people inside the school before turning the gun on himself.
Van Rootselaar was born male and began transitioning to female approximately six years ago. An initial emergency alert described the active shooter as a "female in a dress." A police superintendent later referred to Van Rootselaar as a "gunperson" during a press briefing.
Approximately 25 others were wounded. Most of the school victims were found in the library. One was found in a stairwell. Among the dead: a 39-year-old female teacher, three 12-year-old female students, one 12-year-old male student, and one 13-year-old male student. Their identities have not been released.
This was not a case where nobody saw anything coming. The New York Post reported that according to McDonald, police had visited the Van Rootselaar family home on multiple occasions over the last several years due to concerns about the shooter's mental health. Van Rootselaar was taken into custody for assessment under British Columbia's Mental Health Act on more than one occasion.
Two years ago, firearms were seized from the home. The lawful owner — whom McDonald did not name — petitioned to have them returned. And got them back.
Two firearms were recovered at the school: one long gun and one modified handgun. Whether these were the same weapons previously seized and returned is, according to authorities, "not immediately clear." How Van Rootselaar gained access to the school building during school hours is also unknown. He had dropped out approximately four years ago. Tumbler Ridge Secondary serves grades 7 through 12 and has a student body of roughly 160. Around 100 students were evacuated to safety after being barricaded in classrooms for more than two hours.
Reports of the shooting reached the RCMP at approximately 1:20 p.m. local time. The emergency public alert wasn't canceled until 5:45 p.m.
When asked whether he believed there was any correlation between Van Rootselaar identifying as transgender and the shooting, McDonald said it was:
"Too early to say."
It's always too early to say. And then the conversation moves on, and the question is never revisited — not because the evidence doesn't warrant it, but because the cultural gatekeepers have decided the question itself is impermissible.
The Tumbler Ridge massacre is the latest in a series of mass shootings carried out by individuals who identify as transgender:
Pointing this out is not an accusation that transgender identity causes violence. The overwhelming majority of transgender-identifying people will never harm anyone. But the refusal to even examine the intersection of gender dysphoria, severe mental illness, and mass violence is not compassion — it's cowardice dressed up as sensitivity. When a pattern recurs, adults investigate it. They don't close their eyes and call it kindness.
Van Rootselaar's mother, 39-year-old Jennifer Strang, was among his first victims. She was killed at the family residence alongside her 11-year-old son, Van Rootselaar's stepbrother.
Strang had been a vocal advocate for her child's transition. In July 2024, she posted a trans-inclusive Pride flag on Instagram with the message:
"I really hope the hate I see online is just bored old people and not true hatred. Do better and educate yourself before spewing bulls–t online."
She added:
"Do you have any idea how many kids are killing themselves over this kind of hate?"
She described herself as a "conservative-leaning libertarian" and used the hashtag #ProtectTransKids. In August 2021, Van Rootselaar's grandmother posted a birthday message on Facebook — roughly two years into the transition — celebrating his 14th birthday:
"Happy 14th birthday to our grandson Jesse !! Love you always !! XOXO"
There is something unbearable about a mother who did everything the modern therapeutic consensus told her to do — affirm, support, protect — and was killed by the child she championed. This isn't a point to score. It's a tragedy to sit with. But it is also, inescapably, a data point that challenges the claim that affirmation alone is sufficient treatment for deeply troubled young people.
Van Rootselaar was repeatedly flagged for mental health crises. He was assessed under the Mental Health Act multiple times. He dropped out of school at roughly 14 years old. Firearms were in the home. Every institutional tripwire that was supposed to prevent exactly this outcome failed — not because the signs weren't there, but because the systems meant to act on them didn't.
Only two mass shootings in Canadian history have claimed more victims — the 1989 Montreal massacre at École Polytechnique, which killed 14 women, and the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, which killed 22 people across 16 locations. Tumbler Ridge now joins that list. A school of 160 students in a rural community just absorbed a body count that would dominate American headlines for weeks.
The Canadian flag flew at half-staff at Parliament on Wednesday. Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to the media in Ottawa. No specific policy responses or statements were quoted.
Canada's gun control regime is already among the most restrictive in the Western world. Firearms were seized from this home. The system worked exactly as designed — and then reversed itself when the legal owner asked. The weapons came back. Eight people are dead.
The uncomfortable truth is that no regulatory framework can substitute for institutional courage. The Mental Health Act assessments didn't hold Van Rootselaar. The firearms seizure didn't stick. The school, which he hadn't attended in four years, apparently had no mechanism to stop a former student from entering during school hours. Every checkpoint existed on paper. None of them held in practice.
The debate that follows this massacre will be predictable. Calls for stricter gun laws in a country that already has strict gun laws. Demands to avoid "politicizing" the shooter's transgender identity — demands that would never be made if the shooter's ideology pointed rightward. And a quiet burial of the mental health failures that let a known, repeatedly flagged individual walk into a school with two firearms.
A 39-year-old teacher is dead. Four children aged 12 and 13 are dead. A mother and her 11-year-old son are dead. The system knew Jesse Van Rootselaar was in crisis. It was known for years.
Knowing wasn't enough. It never is, when no one is willing to act on what they know.
A Washington Free Beacon investigation is raising pointed questions about one of Maryland Governor Wes Moore's most frequently told personal stories — that his great-grandfather, a minister in South Carolina, was forced to flee to Jamaica under threat from the Ku Klux Klan.
The report claims that historical records from the Protestant Episcopal Church and contemporary newspaper accounts tell a different story: that James Thomas's departure was an orderly and public professional transfer after he was appointed to replace a deceased pastor in Jamaica, not a secret, middle-of-the-night escape.
For Moore, the timing couldn't be worse. The Democrat is widely believed to have White House ambitions, and the scrutiny strikes at the heart of a narrative he has built into his political identity.
Moore has placed the KKK narrative at the center of his personal brand, according to Fox News. In a 2020 appearance on the Yang Speaks podcast — an episode literally titled "Wes Moore on how the KKK ran his family into exile" — he detailed how his great-grandfather was a minister in Winnsboro, South Carolina, who fled to Jamaica after being threatened by the Klan.
By 2023, the story had become a rhetorical cornerstone. Moore told Time magazine:
"I am literally the grandson of someone who was run out of this country by the Ku Klux Klan, right? So the fact that I can be both this grandson of someone who was run outta this country by the Ku Klux Klan, and also be the first Black governor in the history of the state of Maryland."
That framing does a lot of work. It transforms a policy politician into a symbol — the descendant of racial terror who ascended to the governor's mansion. It's the kind of story that launches presidential campaigns.
And it may not hold up.
The Free Beacon report points to church records and newspaper accounts suggesting Thomas's move to Jamaica was a routine pastoral transfer, not a desperate flight from white supremacist violence. The distinction matters. The difference between "appointed to replace a deceased pastor" and "run out of this country" is not a matter of emphasis or oral tradition softening the edges. Those are two fundamentally different stories.
There's also a location discrepancy that the article doesn't resolve. Moore has described his great-grandfather as a minister in Winnsboro, South Carolina. The Free Beacon report references Pineville, S.C. These are not the same place.
This isn't the first time the Free Beacon has turned its attention to Moore's biography. The outlet has previously raised questions about his military record and an Oxford University thesis. A pattern of biographical scrutiny is forming around a man who has built his political career substantially on the power of his personal story.
Moore's office did not directly rebut the historical records. Spokesperson Ammar Moussa offered this to Fox News Digital:
"We're not going to litigate a family's century-old oral history with a partisan outlet. The broader reality is not in dispute: intimidation and racial terror were pervasive in the Jim Crow South, and it rarely came with neat documentation. Even Bishop William Alexander Guerry — whom they cite to suggest there was no hostility — was later murdered amid intense backlash tied to his racial equality work. The Governor is focused on doing the job Marylanders elected him to do."
Read that carefully. The statement doesn't say the Free Beacon got it wrong. It says Moore's team won't "litigate" the question. It pivots to the general truth that the Jim Crow South was a place of racial terror — which no one disputes — and uses that broader reality as a shield against specific factual questions about a specific family story.
That's not a rebuttal. That's a rhetorical exit ramp.
The reference to Bishop Guerry is doing similar work — introducing a tangential historical figure to create an atmosphere of racial violence, thereby making it seem unreasonable to question whether this particular minister was actually threatened. The logic amounts to: bad things happened in the South, therefore, this specific claim shouldn't be scrutinized. That's not how biography works, and it's certainly not how journalism works.
The comparisons arrived almost immediately. Greg Price, who served as Trump's White House rapid response manager for the first half of 2025, posted on X:
"Wes Moore is being talked about as one of the top contenders in the 2028 Democratic primary and the guy has already told more lies about his life than Elizabeth Warren."
National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru kept it shorter and sharper:
"Moore is reaching Biden levels of fabulism."
Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume simply pointed readers to the reporting:
"Hoo boy. Read this, and the post it is in response to."
The Elizabeth Warren comparison is apt because it identifies a specific species of political dishonesty: the biographical embellishment designed to claim membership in an oppressed group — or proximity to oppression — for political advantage. It's not garden-variety political spin. It's identity construction.
Moore said in September that he is "not running for president" in 2028 and is "excited" about serving a full term if he wins re-election in November. Nobody in professional politics takes that at face value. The DNC convention stage in August 2024, the national media profile, the carefully curated biography — these are not the moves of a man content to govern Annapolis.
Which is precisely why this story has teeth. Presidential campaigns are built on biography, and biography can be audited. The further Moore moves toward a national stage, the more every claim gets tested against the documentary record. The Free Beacon found church records and newspaper clippings. Opposition researchers in a presidential primary will find more.
The Democratic Party has a recurring problem with candidates whose personal mythologies outrun their documented histories. The instinct to build political identity around victimhood and overcoming — rather than around policy accomplishment and vision — creates an incentive structure where embellishment isn't just tempting, it's almost structurally required. If your political value depends on how compelling your suffering narrative is, the pressure to sharpen that narrative is immense.
Moore's response to the scrutiny will tell us more than the initial report did. A politician confident in his story produces the evidence. A politician who pivots to "we won't litigate oral history" is buying time.
The records are either there or they aren't. Oral history is powerful and real — but when you use it on a national stage to build a political brand, it stops being a family story and starts being a public claim. Public claims get checked.
Moore wanted the KKK narrative to carry him to a higher office. Now it's carrying questions he hasn't answered.
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell appeared virtually before the House Oversight Committee on Monday from a federal prison camp in Texas, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and refused to answer a single question. Her lawyer then made the play everyone saw coming: Maxwell will talk — but only if President Trump grants her clemency.
The 64-year-old is serving a 20-year sentence. She has every incentive to deal and almost no leverage to do it with. Yet her attorney, David Oscar Markus, framed the offer as something close to a public service.
"If this Committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path. Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump."
The White House has denied that clemency is under consideration.
Markus didn't stop at the clemency gambit. According to the New York Post, he volunteered an unsolicited declaration on behalf of his client — one that conveniently names the two most powerful men whose orbits intersected with Jeffrey Epstein's.
"Both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing."
He then added:
"Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."
Think about what's happening here. Maxwell won't answer questions under oath before Congress, but her lawyer will assert — without cross-examination, without evidence, without sworn testimony — that two presidents are clean. That's not transparency. That's a press release dressed in legal clothing.
If Maxwell truly possesses exculpatory information about powerful figures, the place to deliver it is under oath, subject to questioning, with the full weight of perjury consequences behind every word. Not through a lawyer's statement on X. The Fifth Amendment exists for good reason, but you don't get to invoke it and simultaneously shop your version of events through your attorney's social media account.
This isn't Maxwell's first attempt at controlled disclosure. Trump's Justice Department already interviewed her in prison last year. She testified to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on July 24 and 25 under limited immunity protection.
The result was underwhelming. Maxwell provided almost no new information about Epstein's infamous associates — a list that includes Prince Andrew, former Harvard President Larry Summers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. On the subject of Trump specifically, Maxwell said she:
"never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way."
Days after that interview, Maxwell was transferred from a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a medium-security camp in Texas — a facility reportedly nicknamed "Club Fed." No official reason for the transfer has been provided.
Meanwhile, a DOJ memo released on July 6 concluded that Epstein held no "client list" and that no additional co-conspirators would be charged. A joint DOJ-FBI document concluded Epstein committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer announced at least five more depositions following Maxwell's non-event Monday:
Comer told reporters after the deposition that the committee still has serious work to do.
"We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed — as well as questions about potential co-conspirators."
"We sincerely want to get to the truth for the American people and justice for survivors. That's what this is about."
Comer said he was open to hearing from more Epstein associates but hasn't committed to further interviews, including with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. According to emails released by the Justice Department, Lutnick planned to visit Epstein's private Caribbean island, Little St. James, in 2012 — though Lutnick told the New York Post he broke off contact with the financier around 2005.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who co-authored legislation allowing ongoing DOJ disclosures, submitted seven questions he wanted Maxwell to answer before Monday's deposition. Among them: whether Maxwell could verify a claim made in a December filing by her own legal team — that 29 Epstein associates had secret non-prosecution agreements, and whether she or Epstein would "arrange, facilitate, or provide access to underage girls to President Trump."
That last question tells you everything about where Democrats want this investigation to land. Not on the bipartisan constellation of powerful men who populated Epstein's world. Not on the systemic failures that let a convicted sex offender serve 13 months — most of it on work release — after pleading guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. Not on the institutional rot that allowed Epstein to build his operation across decades.
They want a headline with one name in it.
Every few months, the Epstein story resurfaces with the promise that this time the truth will come out. It never does. Maxwell won't talk without a deal. The DOJ says no client list and no further charges are coming. The powerful men adjacent to Epstein's crimes have spent years lawyering up, and the victims are still waiting for something resembling accountability.
The clemency offer is a sideshow — a convicted sex trafficker trying to negotiate her way out of a 20-year sentence by dangling information she could provide under oath right now, today, if she chose to. She doesn't need a pardon to tell the truth. She needs a pardon to avoid the consequences of everything else.
When Trump was asked about a potential pardon in November, he was characteristically noncommittal:
"I haven't even thought about. I haven't thought about it for months. Maybe I haven't thought about it all. But I don't talk about that. I don't rule it in or out."
The depositions will continue through March. The Clintons are both scheduled. Epstein's inner circle — his accountant, his lawyer — will face questions. Whether any of it produces genuine revelations or just more Fifth Amendment invocations remains to be seen.
But one thing is already clear: the people who know the most about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes have the least interest in sharing what they know — unless the price is right.
A federal judge has ordered the government to unseal documents tied to the FBI's warrant-authorized seizure of 2020 election ballots from a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility. Judge J.P. Boulee, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, gave the government until Tuesday to file the warrant affidavit — with redactions limited to the names of nongovernmental witnesses.
The order comes as Fulton County officials fight to get the ballots back. Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts and the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections have sued the federal government over the seizure, demanding the return of troves of 2020 ballots taken into federal custody.
They originally filed the case under seal. That veil is now lifting — and both sides say they're fine with it.
Judge Boulee — nominated by President Trump in 2019 — made clear that neither party objected to transparency, Breitbart News reported:
"Although Petitioners originally filed this case under seal, both parties have now indicated to the Court that they do not oppose unsealing the docket or the motions filed by Petitioners."
He also noted that the federal government had no objection to releasing the search warrant affidavit itself, the document that would lay out exactly why the FBI sought a warrant in the first place:
"Respondent has stated that it does not oppose the unsealing of the search warrant affidavit and any other papers associated with the warrant subject to the redaction of the names of nongovernmental witnesses."
That's worth sitting with. The federal government executed a judicially authorized warrant to seize election materials from one of the most controversial counties in American election history — and it has no problem with the public seeing why. Whatever is in that affidavit, the Justice Department isn't running from it.
The FBI operation at the Fulton County election facility took place late last month. It was executed under a judicial warrant — not a rogue operation, not an extralegal power grab, but a law enforcement action authorized by a court. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appeared at the scene. In a letter to Sen. Mark Warner, Gabbard stated her presence was "requested" by President Trump and that she only observed the operation "for a brief period of time."
At the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday, Trump indicated it was Attorney General Pam Bondi who insisted Gabbard oversee the raid. The details of who requested what and why will presumably become clearer as the sealed documents come to light. That's the point of unsealing them.
Fulton County's response has been litigation. Rather than cooperating with a federal investigation backed by a judicial warrant, county officials lawyered up and filed suit — under seal, no less — to get the ballots back. The instinct to hide first and fight second tells you something about the posture of local officials who spent years insisting they had nothing to hide.
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered a characteristically breathless response:
"When you put all of this together, it is clear that what happened in Fulton County is not about revisiting the past, it is about shaping the outcome of future elections."
Warner and other Democrats have warned that Trump may attempt to meddle in the 2026 midterm elections — a claim offered without any specific evidence cited in the source material. The logic appears to be: the federal government investigated election materials in a county dogged by controversy; therefore, the federal government is trying to steal future elections.
This is the infinite loop Democrats have perfected. Any scrutiny of election integrity is itself an attack on election integrity. Any attempt to verify results is an attempt to overturn them. The only acceptable posture, in this framework, is to never look. Ask no questions. Examine no ballots. Trust the people who ran the process — even when the process is what's being questioned.
If the warrant affidavit reveals a serious evidentiary basis for the seizure, Warner's framing collapses. If it doesn't, he'll have his moment. But the fact that the federal government is welcoming the unsealing suggests they're not worried about what the public will find.
Fulton County is not some random jurisdiction caught up in a political dragnet. It is the single most scrutinized county in the most scrutinized state in the 2020 election. For years, questions about its election processes have been met with dismissal, deflection, and accusations of conspiracy theorizing directed at anyone who raised them.
Now the FBI has executed a warrant, seized ballots, and the county's first move was to file a sealed lawsuit demanding them back. Not a public statement of confidence. Not a welcome-mat posture from officials with nothing to fear. A sealed legal action.
The unsealing order changes the dynamic. By Tuesday, the public will have access to the warrant affidavit — the government's own stated reasons for seizing those ballots. Whatever those reasons are, they were persuasive enough for a judge to sign off on the warrant in the first place.
Tuesday's deadline is the inflection point. Once the affidavit is public, the conversation shifts from speculation to substance. The legal battle between Fulton County and the federal government will proceed on the merits. Democrats will either have to engage with the specific facts laid out in the warrant — or keep insisting that looking at ballots is itself a form of election interference.
The federal government wants these documents to be public. Fulton County filed under seal. One side is asking for sunlight. The other reached for the curtain.
Vice President JD Vance sat down for an exclusive interview in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and shared a detail that most parents will find either deeply relatable or slightly nerve-wracking: he and Second Lady Usha Vance still don't have a name picked out for their baby boy, expected later this year. And they're in no rush.
It's a tradition for the couple, apparently. All three of their children — Ewan, 8; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4 — arrived nameless and left the hospital with one.
"We've talked about a few names. We're working on it, but, you know, with all three of our kids, we actually didn't settle on their names until after they were born, which is, I think, pretty unusual."
Unusual is one word for it. In an era of gender-reveal pyrotechnics and nursery themes announced before the second trimester, the Vances are doing something almost countercultural: waiting to meet their child before deciding what to call him.
The couple announced in January that they were expecting a boy, their fourth child. Usha Vance, 40, carries a quiet distinction with the pregnancy: she is the first vice president's wife to be expecting since Ellen Colfax gave birth in April 1870, during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. That's over 150 years between pregnancies in the Naval Observatory household — a gap that says something about the age at which most vice presidents serve, as Daily Mail reports.
The Vances married in 2014 after meeting at Yale Law School, where they attended the same classes. Friends and even a former law school professor reportedly noted that Vance was visibly "lovesick" around Usha. He has described his feelings during their dating phase as "overwhelming." Their eldest son arrived in 2017, and the family has grown steadily since.
"Most people choose a name. Well, before the kid is born. I think Usha and I have never just found a name where it's like, 'Alright, this is what we want to name our kid.' And so we always wait to meet them and settle on the names from there."
Something is appealing about that. A willingness to let the child be a person before becoming a label.
This isn't a policy article. There's no bill to dissect, no agency to scrutinize. But it's worth pausing on what it means to have a young, growing family in the vice president's residence — something that hasn't happened in modern memory.
Vance grew up in working-class Ohio. Usha's parents are Indian immigrants. They built a life together that now includes three kids, a fourth on the way, and the second-highest office in the country. Before his time as vice president, Vance previously split his time between Washington and the family's home in Cincinnati during his tenure as a Republican senator. The family knows what it means to balance public life with raising children.
In a political culture that treats family values as a slogan, the Vances are living them — visibly, without performance. No elaborate announcement campaign for the baby name. No focus-grouped reveal. Just two parents who want to look at their son before they decide what to call him.
Baby number four arrives later this year. The name arrives when it's ready.
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, were jeered by spectators on Friday when their faces appeared on the Jumbotron during the Winter Olympic Games' opening ceremony at Milan's San Siro stadium. The New York Post reported that the crowd, which had cheered U.S. athletes moments earlier during the Parade of Athletes, turned hostile when the vice president — holding small American flags beside his wife — was displayed on screen.
The boos landed exactly where they were cultivated.
For weeks leading up to the Games, local officials and international commentators worked to set a tone — not of sportsmanship, but of political theater.
That the jeering materialized on cue tells you everything about what the Milan Olympics have already become: less a celebration of athletic excellence and more a stage for European left-wing posturing against the United States.
The hostility didn't come from nowhere. Earlier this month, Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala — a member of a left-wing political party — publicly declared he did not want members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security in his city to provide security for the Games. His language was not subtle:
"It's a militia that signs its own permits to enter people's house, like we signed our own permission slips at school, except it's much more serious."
A "militia." That's how an Italian mayor describes American federal law enforcement officers tasked with protecting American officials and athletes abroad. Sala didn't stop there:
"They're not welcome in Milan. Can't we just say 'no' to Trump for once?"
There it is. Not a policy disagreement. Not a jurisdictional concern. A political dare — wrapped in the language of resistance, delivered from the safety of a mayoral office in a country that depends on American security guarantees through NATO.
Sala framed the entire question of U.S. participation in the Games as a referendum on whether European politicians are brave enough to defy an American president. And he did it while his city was hosting American athletes who trained their entire lives for this moment.
When you spend weeks telling your citizens that American officials are unwelcome occupiers, don't feign surprise when the crowd boos the Vice President of the United States.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry acknowledged the risk earlier in the week when asked about the possibility of jeering. Her response:
"I hope that the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful of each other."
"I hope." Not "we expect." Not "we will enforce decorum." Not "we have spoken with local officials about the inflammatory rhetoric coming from the mayor's office." Just a hope — the thinnest possible gesture toward the Olympic ideals the IOC claims to steward.
The Olympics are supposed to represent a truce. A space where geopolitics yields, however briefly, to shared human achievement. That ideal has always been aspirational, sometimes naive. But it has never before been so openly sabotaged by a host city's own elected leader. Coventry's mild plea for respect amounted to bringing a napkin to a food fight someone else organized.
One detail deserves emphasis: the spectators cheered U.S. athletes during the Parade of Athletes. The boos were reserved specifically for Vance and his wife. This wasn't anti-American sentiment in the broad sense — it was targeted political contempt, directed at the representatives of an administration that European progressives have decided to treat as illegitimate.
That distinction matters. It reveals the nature of the hostility. These spectators don't hate America. They hate that America elected leaders who enforce borders, challenge European free-riding on defense, and refuse to treat progressive consensus as settled international law.
The athletes get cheers because they're sympathetic. The vice president gets jeered because he represents democratic outcomes that Milan's political class finds intolerable.
Vance's Friday was not defined by the boos — even if that's the story international media wanted to tell. Before the ceremony, the vice president met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the Prefettura di Milano, a historic Milan palace now used as a government building. After the opening ceremony, he watched the opening session of the three-day team figure skating competition alongside his family and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
No dramatic walkout. No retaliatory tweet storm. The vice president attended the ceremony, represented the United States, met with an allied head of state, and watched Americans compete. That's what showing up looks like.
The contrast with Sala's theatrics couldn't be sharper. One man used the Olympics to grandstand against a foreign government. The other used it to conduct diplomacy and support his country's athletes. The crowd may have booed, but the schedule spoke louder.
What happened in Milan fits a pattern that has played out across European capitals — progressive politicians using international events as venues for anti-American performance art. It's cheap, it's easy, and it plays well with domestic audiences that have been marinated in years of media coverage portraying American conservatism as an existential threat to the liberal world order.
But it is worth asking what, exactly, Sala and those booing spectators are protesting. An American administration that:
These are the offenses that warrant a public humiliation of a vice president's wife at a sporting event. The proportionality tells you everything about the seriousness of the people involved.
Sala's rhetoric — calling American law enforcement a "militia," daring his countrymen to "say no to Trump" — isn't aimed at Washington. It's aimed at Italian voters who have watched Meloni govern as a pragmatic conservative and allied partner of the United States. Sala's performance is domestic opposition politics dressed in the language of international resistance. The Olympics just gave him a bigger microphone.
That a sitting mayor would actively undermine the diplomatic atmosphere of an event his own city is hosting reveals how thoroughly Trump Derangement Syndrome has migrated across the Atlantic. It is no longer an American media affliction. It is a Western progressive reflex — and it now overrides even the pretense of Olympic hospitality.
American athletes will compete. American diplomats will conduct meetings. The vice president attended the Games, met with the Italian prime minister, and watched figure skating with his family on a Friday evening in Milan. None of that required the crowd's approval.
The spectators who booed JD Vance on a Jumbotron will go home and forget about it by Monday. The diplomatic relationship between the United States and Italy — built on decades of shared security interests and economic ties — will not be renegotiated because a soccer stadium full of people followed the cues their mayor spent weeks laying down.
Giuseppe Sala told his city that Americans weren't welcome. A crowd of strangers booed a man and his wife holding small flags. And somewhere in that stadium, U.S. athletes prepared to compete for gold — unbothered, unbroken, and carrying a country that doesn't need permission to show up.
Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York spent over a minute shouting at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday, demanding a "yes or no" answer to a question he never actually let Bessent finish answering.
The confrontation centered on a firm in the United Arab Emirates that reportedly bought a stake in President Donald Trump's cryptocurrency company. Meeks wanted to know whether Bessent would launch a "complete investigation" into the matter. Bessent began to respond — and that's when the theatrics started.
Bessent attempted to explain the jurisdictional reality:
"The [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] is an independent entity. And I would note, congressman—"
He didn't get to finish the sentence. Meeks steamrolled him, escalating into a tirade that consumed his remaining time and then some:
"I'm asking you to do your responsibility as Secretary of the Treasury. You do not … He's the one that passed your time, Mr. Chairman. He did not answer my question. He wouldn't pass the time. It was a yes or no answer. I asked him, will he? Yes or no. Stop covering for the President! Stop being his flunky! … Work for the American people! Work for the American people! Don't be a cover-up for a mob!"
"Work for the American people," — screamed at a man who was trying to explain how the federal bureaucracy actually works. The OCC is, in fact, an independent entity. That isn't a dodge. It's the law.
What Meeks delivered wasn't oversight. It was content. The entire exchange had the energy of a man who knew his clip would circulate before the hearing even adjourned — and structured his questioning accordingly.
Ask a question. Refuse the answer. Claim the answer was refused. Accuse the witness of corruption. Move to the cameras. This is a formula, and it has nothing to do with getting information. Congressional hearings are supposed to function as a tool for legislative accountability. When a member of Congress demands "yes or no" on a complex regulatory matter and then physically won't allow the response, he isn't seeking the truth. He's manufacturing a moment.
Meeks demanded Bessent "stop being his flunky." He called the administration "a mob." This is from a congressman who never paused long enough for the Secretary to utter a complete sentence. If you want answers, you have to stop talking long enough to hear them.
Bessent, for his part, reportedly attempted to redirect the exchange toward Meeks' own record — specifically, his travel to Venezuela for Hugo Chávez's funeral and investigations into Meeks' finances, including non-profit dealings and donor-funded travel. Whether Bessent raised these points during the hearing itself or elsewhere, the underlying facts carry their own weight.
Meeks traveled to Venezuela to pay respects to Hugo Chávez, the authoritarian socialist whose economic destruction of one of Latin America's wealthiest nations produced a refugee crisis still reverberating across the Western Hemisphere. He faced investigations over his financial dealings. And yet on Wednesday, it was Meeks lecturing a Treasury Secretary about accountability and transparency.
That's the kind of contradiction that doesn't need editorial embellishment. It speaks plainly enough on its own.
The "yes or no" demand has become a favorite weapon in congressional hearings — but almost exclusively when aimed at Republican appointees. The trick works like this: pose a question that requires nuance, insist on a binary answer, and then treat any attempt at context as evasion. It's procedural bullying dressed up as directness.
Bessent's reference to the OCC's independence wasn't stonewalling. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency operates with statutory independence for a reason — to insulate banking oversight from political pressure. Meeks either doesn't understand this or doesn't care. Neither option reflects well on him.
The fact that Meeks' own outburst included an appeal to the chairman — complaining that Bessent "wouldn't pass the time" — reveals the game. He burned his own clock, screaming, then blamed Bessent for the clock running out. It's a closed loop of self-generated grievance.
The Wednesday blowup wasn't Bessent's first brush with Democratic hostility, and his responses elsewhere suggest a Treasury Secretary who doesn't shrink from the fight. In a separate exchange, Bessent called California Governor Gavin Newsom "Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken" and labeled him "economically illiterate." In an interview with Politico's Dasha Burns, Bessent went further, calling Newsom "a brontosaurus" with a tiny brain and saying Newsom brought "kneepads to the World Economic Forum."
The imagery is vivid — and deliberate. Bessent is operating as a Treasury Secretary willing to engage on cultural and political terms, not just fiscal ones. The kneepads comment pointed to something broader: that global elites who once dictated terms to American policymakers are now adjusting to a new posture from Washington.
That confidence clearly unnerves Democrats. The Wednesday exchange with Meeks wasn't the behavior of a caucus comfortable with its position. It was the behavior of a caucus that has lost control of the economic narrative and is compensating with volume.
There's a version of Wednesday's hearing where Meeks asks his question, lets Bessent explain the OCC's independent role, follows up with a pointed inquiry about interagency coordination, and pins down whether the Treasury Department has any advisory role in such reviews. That version produces information. That version serves the public.
Instead, what the public got was a minute-plus of shouting, zero completed answers, and a congressman calling the Treasury Secretary a "flunky" on camera. No facts were established. No commitments were extracted. No oversight was performed.
Congressional Democrats have spent years insisting that institutions matter, that norms matter, that the dignity of government proceedings matters. Meeks blew past all of it on Wednesday because the clip mattered more.
The question he asked may have been legitimate. The way he asked it guaranteed he'd never get an answer. And that, it seems, was the point all along.
Is New York City’s judiciary about to be shaped by a man with ties to a law firm under fire for alleged fraud?
Ali Najmi, a close ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, was appointed chairman of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary in January, a role that involves screening nominees for family, civil, and interim criminal court positions. Najmi, an election attorney and long-time associate of Mamdani, also joined Liakas Law, PC, as “special counsel” in October 2025, just before Mamdani was elected mayor.
Liakas Law, a Manhattan personal injury firm, faces a federal lawsuit filed last week in Brooklyn by Greater New York Mutual Insurance Company, alleging a massive insurance fraud scheme targeting vulnerable individuals.
Critics are sounding the alarm over Najmi’s dual roles, pointing to glaring ethical concerns. The setup echoes the infamous arrangement of disgraced former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who pocketed millions as “of counsel” to a personal injury firm while wielding immense political power, the New York Post reported.
Najmi’s history with Mamdani runs deep, from representing his Assembly campaigns to being a key player in the Queens Democratic machine over the past decade. Their bond, forged during Najmi’s failed City Council run years ago, raises questions about loyalty trumping accountability. Why are socialists so often involved with shady business and less-than-scrupulous business figures?
The lawsuit against Liakas Law paints a grim picture, accusing the firm of recruiting plaintiffs—often undocumented migrants—to stage accidents and inflate claims with fake medical records. Examples include a client claiming severe disability, only to be photographed celebrating at a bar just months after an alleged 2020 accident.
Liakas Law isn’t a small player—last year, it filed around 20 lawsuits against New York City, with over 50 active cases in court records. With Najmi’s role in City Hall, court watchers are uneasy about the sway he might hold over judicial nominees who could handle such cases. The optics alone are enough to make anyone squirm.
Tom Stebbins, head of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, didn’t mince words on the broader issue. “We have a massive ‘fraudemic’ that is happening on our streets and in our construction sites,” he warned. His concern is spot-on—litigation abuse costs New Yorkers $96 billion last year, per a tort reform group’s estimate.
Stebbins also questioned Najmi’s impartiality, asking, “How could his affiliation with a plaintiff’s firm, and the money that he’s getting from a plaintiff’s firm, not tilt his perspective towards the plaintiff?” That’s the million-dollar question. When power and profit mix, justice often gets left behind.
Let’s not forget Sheldon Silver’s playbook—using his “of counsel” gig at a major asbestos firm to rake in over $3 million in referral fees while pushing policies that benefited his legal cronies. He even blocked tort reform and steered cases to friendly judges. Sound familiar?
Najmi’s defenders, including a Mamdani spokesperson, note his City Hall role is unpaid, but they’ve dodged deeper scrutiny. Liakas spokesperson Hank Sheinkopf dismissed the lawsuit as “baseless,” predicting it won’t survive court review. That’s a bold claim for a firm accused of exploiting the vulnerable.
Najmi himself has distanced himself from the allegations, insisting the litigation predates his involvement with Liakas. Yet, his social media posts, like an Instagram video high-fiving colleagues at the firm, don’t exactly scream detachment. Actions speak louder than disclaimers.
This situation isn’t just about one man—it’s about a system that too often lets political insiders game the rules while regular folks pay the price. New York’s court system is already labeled the second-worst “Judicial Hellhole” in the nation by reform advocates. Do we really need more fuel on that fire?
The potential for conflicts here is staggering, as one observer noted about “innumerable” risks when a top aide moonlights for a litigious firm. Could Najmi nudge Mamdani on policies that pad Liakas Law’s profits? It’s not a stretch to imagine.
As this unfolds, New Yorkers deserve transparency on who shapes their courts, not backroom deals reminiscent of Albany’s worst days. Tort reform remains a distant dream while firms like Liakas allegedly run rampant. It’s high time accountability took the bench.
President Donald Trump has built a financial juggernaut that could rewrite the rules of midterm elections for Republicans in 2026.
Trump and allied Republican groups have stockpiled $375 million as of the end of 2025, a figure that towers over Democratic reserves, with the DNC holding just $14 million while burdened by $17 million in debt. This cash advantage, bolstered by the Republican National Committee’s $95 million on hand, has GOP strategists hopeful of defying the historical trend where the incumbent president’s party loses congressional seats during midterms.
Meanwhile, Trump’s super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc. (MAGA Inc.), raised an unprecedented $289 million in 2025, fueling optimism for aggressive campaign support.
Supporters contend that this financial firepower could be a game-changer, turning the tide against the usual midterm losses for the party in power, according to the Washington Examiner. The question remains whether Trump will unleash this war chest to back GOP candidates nationwide. Let’s dig into why this matters and how it could reshape the 2026 battlefield.
Historically, the party holding the White House stumbles in midterm elections, often losing ground in both the House and Senate. Republicans, however, see Trump’s massive $375 million haul as a shield against this pattern, especially with Democrats appearing disorganized and strapped for cash. This isn’t just pocket change—it’s a potential knockout punch if spent wisely.
Take MAGA Inc.’s track record: last year, they poured funds into helping Rep. Matt Van Epps secure a special election win in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District. That kind of targeted spending shows what’s possible when Trump’s machine kicks into gear. GOP insiders are itching for more of this, believing it could protect vulnerable seats.
“I don’t think we’d turn down any funding for House races, that’s for sure,” quipped a Republican strategist, capturing the party’s eagerness for Trump to open the vault. The same strategist added, “But in all seriousness, I think we’re very encouraged by the amount of money that is in the ecosystem.” It’s a fresh feeling for a party often outspent, and they’re ready to capitalize.
Yet, skeptics point out that money only matters if Trump chooses to spend it, recalling past criticism that he’s held back from aiding GOP candidates. Endorsements like his recent backing of former Sen. John Sununu for New Hampshire’s open Senate race show engagement, but will the cash follow? That’s the million-dollar question—literally.
RNC spokeswoman Kiersten Pels is bullish, asserting that Trump’s record drives “historic grassroots support” and offers a shot to “defy history in the midterms.” Her confidence reflects a broader belief that this financial momentum positions Republicans strongly for 2026. It’s a stark contrast to a Democratic Party described as leaderless and floundering.
Democrats, meanwhile, cling to a slight 5-percentage-point edge in generic congressional ballot polls, per RealClearPolitics, despite their financial woes. They argue Trump’s unpopularity could offset the GOP’s cash advantage, pointing to recent wins like Taylor Rehmet’s upset over a Trump-endorsed candidate in a Texas state Senate race last weekend. But without funds to compete district by district, that optimism might be hollow.
The midterm map tells a tense story: 14 of the 18 House toss-up races, per the Cook Political Report, are held by GOP lawmakers, putting Republicans on defense. In the Senate, toss-up races are evenly split, with each party holding two of the four critical seats. With a three-seat Senate majority already in hand, Republicans have a cushion, but every race counts.
A potential Supreme Court ruling by July on the Federal Election Campaign Act could further tilt the field, possibly loosening restrictions on how committees coordinate advertising. If that happens, Trump’s financial dominance would be amplified, giving GOP campaigns even more punch. Democrats are bracing for this, knowing they’re already outgunned.
Democratic strategists admit they need cash to expand the playing field, warning that without it, a House majority could slip through their fingers. Their donor reluctance, tied to undisclosed reviews of past election failures, only deepens the hole. It’s a grim outlook when facing a Republican machine flush with resources.
Trump himself has grumbled about midterm prospects while planning weekly campaign trips, showing he’s not sitting idle. His downplaying of involvement in the Texas state race last Saturday as “local” suggests a focus on bigger battles ahead. That strategic clarity could be key to rallying the base.
Ultimately, the GOP’s unprecedented cash reserves offer a rare chance to buck history, last defied under Jimmy Carter in 1978 when an incumbent party held Congress in a first midterm. With Democrats scrambling and divided, Republicans smell opportunity. If Trump deploys this war chest effectively, 2026 could be the year the right rewrites the rulebook.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has confirmed her direct involvement in a recent FBI search of a Fulton County, Georgia, election office, acting under explicit instructions from President Trump.
On Monday, Gabbard revealed that President Trump personally directed her to supervise the FBI operation conducted last week in Fulton County. The search, executed on Jan. 28 with a federal warrant, targeted voting rolls and election records at the office. Gabbard also noted that Trump later made a call to thank the agents involved, while she communicated her role in the operation through a letter to congressional intelligence committee members, which was shared on her X account.
In typical fashion, the left is already spinning this as some overreach of power, but supporters of election integrity see it as a long-overdue step to protect our democratic process. After all, Fulton County has been ground zero for 2020 election controversies, and ensuring no funny business taints our votes is a priority worth pursuing.
Gabbard isn’t backing down, and why should she? In her letter to House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes and Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, she insisted her actions were lawful, tied to ODNI’s mandate on election security as a national security concern. Her presence at the Atlanta FBI Field Office during the search, she argued, was both necessary and within her authority, the New York Post reported.
“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security,” Gabbard wrote in her letter. That’s a clear signal she’s not just following orders but fulfilling a critical duty to safeguard our elections from interference, whether foreign or domestic.
Trump, for his part, didn’t hesitate to express gratitude to the agents who searched. Gabbard facilitated a brief call where the President personally thanked them for their professionalism. This kind of leadership—acknowledging the hard work of federal agents—shows a commitment to morale and mission that’s often missing in today’s bureaucracy.
Let’s not forget why Georgia keeps coming up in these discussions. Trump has consistently pointed to irregularities in the state’s 2020 election results, famously urging officials during a Jan. 2, 2021, call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to address discrepancies. While the establishment—both Republican and Democrat—has dismissed his claims, the lack of airtight evidence doesn’t mean the concerns aren’t worth investigating.
Gabbard’s involvement isn’t some sudden whim; it’s part of a broader push by the administration. Last year, Trump signed an executive order emphasizing election integrity, aiming to pressure states into bolstering their security measures. ODNI, under Gabbard’s leadership, has been tasked with taking all lawful steps to ensure our voting systems aren’t compromised.
And let’s be real: interference in our elections isn’t just a theory—it’s a genuine threat. Gabbard herself has called it a danger to the republic, a stance that resonates with anyone who values the sanctity of the ballot box over partisan posturing. The woke crowd might scoff, but national security isn’t a game of feelings; it’s about hard facts and harder decisions.
Gabbard’s role as DNI puts her at the forefront of these efforts, overseeing the FBI’s intelligence and counterintelligence divisions. Since 2011, ODNI has had representatives in 12 FBI field offices nationwide, a structure that allows for coordinated action on issues like election security. This isn’t new; it’s a framework designed to protect American interests, plain and simple.
Her office confirmed as early as last April that ODNI has been examining electronic voting systems for vulnerabilities. That’s the kind of proactive stance we need when foreign actors and domestic schemers alike could exploit weaknesses in our infrastructure. The left may cry foul, but ignoring these risks isn’t progress—it’s negligence.
During the Fulton County search, Gabbard was spotted at the scene, even facilitating that call for Trump to commend the agents. She clarified that no directives were issued during the conversation, keeping the focus on appreciation rather than interference. It’s a small but telling detail—leadership that respects the chain of command while ensuring the mission stays on track.
Looking ahead, Gabbard has promised to share ODNI’s intelligence assessments with Congress once they’re finalized. That transparency should quiet some of the naysayers, though, don’t hold your breath for the usual suspects to admit they were wrong to doubt her. The real question is whether these findings will finally force states to tighten up their election processes.
Trump’s commitment to this cause isn’t just rhetoric; it’s action, backed by signed orders and a DNI who’s unafraid to tackle the tough issues. While the chattering class debates motives, the administration is out there doing the work—searching records, securing systems, and standing firm against any threat to our votes. If that’s not putting America first, what is?