The Blaze

California Rep. Maxine Waters (D) suggested Saturday during an anti-Trump administration rally in Los Angeles that first lady Melania Trump is in the country illegally.

It appears that the 86-year-old Democrat’s failed attempt at a mic-drop moment was the product not only of decrepitude and hypocrisy but of a gross misapprehension of key facts.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump
signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. Trump noted in the order that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States” if those individuals’ parents were illegally in the country or not lawful permanent residents at the time of their birth.

Multiple federal judges
blocked the order, and multiple appeals courts have refused to overturn those injunctions. The matter will soon be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, leftists, both foreign and domestic, have complained about the distinct possibility that illegal aliens’ anchor babies won’t always be conferred citizenship.

During a protest over the weekend, Waters broached the issue,
reportedly stating, “When [Trump] talks about birthright, and he’s going to undo the fact that the Constitution allows those who are born here, even if the parents are undocumented, they have a right to stay in America.”

“If he wants to start looking so closely to find those who were born here and their parents were undocumented, maybe he ought to first look at Melania,” added Waters. “We don’t know whether or not her parents were documented. And maybe we better just take a look.”

‘The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the US are citizens.’

Contrary to Waters’ insinuation, Melania Trump was not born in the United States, and neither Mrs. Trump nor her parents entered the country illegally.

Melania Trump, born in the former Yugoslavia,
informed the Associated Press via an attorney in 2016 that she legally came to the United States from Slovenia on Aug. 27, 1996, on a B1/B2 visitor visa. Mrs. Trump subsequently obtained an H-1B work visa then an EB-1 “Einstein Visa.”

The future first lady, who appeared on the cover of British GQ in 2000, received a green card in March 2001 and became an American citizen in 2006.

Viktor and Amalija Knavs, the first lady’s parents,
similarly took the legal path to American citizenship. After living on green cards sponsored by Mrs. Trump, the first lady’s Slovenian parents became citizens in 2018.

Waters asserted as a fact that the Constitution grants illegal aliens’ children a right to remain in America. The nation’s top court will decide if the congresswoman is wrong on this matter, as well.

Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former Department of Justice lawyer, previously
noted that the claim anyone born in the U.S. has citizenship automatically, even if their parents are here illegally, “ignores the text and legislative history of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 to extend citizenship to freed slaves and their children.”

“The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens,” continued von Spakovsky. “It says that ‘[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ are citizens. That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of ‘birthright’ citizenship.”

“Critics erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has ‘subjected’ himself ‘to the jurisdiction’ of the United States, which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike,” added the legal fellow. “But that is not what that qualifying phrase means. Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.”

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A bat-wielding male attacked a man who reportedly was working on his car in his driveway in East Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Monday afternoon — after which the victim of the bat attack pulled out a gun and fatally shot his attacker.

Tulsa Police said officers responded to a home near Admiral and 193rd E. Ave. around 2:45 p.m. over a reported shooting. Officers found a male with a gunshot wound lying in the street, authorities said, adding that the male died a short time later.

‘Poor guy brought a bat to a gun fight.’

Police said that after reviewing surveillance video and talking with the suspected shooter, detectives determined that the incident began with the male who was shot approaching the suspected shooter, after which the pair got into an “altercation.”

Police said the male who was shot pulled out a bat, began hitting the man with it, after which the victim of the bat attack pulled out a gun and opened fire.

Police said the suspected shooter was questioned and was not placed under arrest.

Police identified the deceased male as 36-year-old Dane Swets, WXXA-TV reported, adding that police said Swets was a known homeless man in the area — and that he used a bat to attack a man who was working on his car in his driveway.

Police said that due to the complexity of the case “all the evidentiary details and investigative findings will be submitted to the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office. The DA’s Office will thoroughly review the details and determine if charges are warranted.”

How are people reacting?

Nearly 500 comments have poured into the Tulsa Police Facebook post about the incident. Some are questioning whether the shooting was justified; others are convinced it was. Some examples:

• “Good job Tulsa for not charging this man if it was actually self defense,” one commenter said. “Usually people sit in jail for a min[ute]. Bravo. Nice to see people are protected by [the] law. We all could be in the same situation easily. So now we know: They swing. We shoot. Justified.”
• “Sounds like self defense,” another user said.
• “Poor guy brought a bat to a gun fight,” another commenter quipped.

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National security adviser Mike Waltz assumed “full responsibility” Tuesday for inviting a rabid anti-Trump polemicist into a private group chat where senior administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance discussed attacks on Iran-backed Houthi terrorists.

President Donald Trump made clear that this assumption of responsibility would not be professionally fatal, indicating that the former Florida congressman’s job was safe.

Trump told NBC News that “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson” and that the story is a non-issue.

Quick background

Waltz reportedly sent a connection request on the encrypted messaging app Signal to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, on March 11. Then two days later, he apparently invited Goldberg into a group chat called the “Houthi PC small group.”

Goldberg isn’t just any Trump-obsessed rumor-monger; he is the man behind the debunked “f**king Mexican” burial story, the “‘losers’ and ‘suckers'” hoax, and numerous other smears that Democrats have tried to politically weaponize.

The group chat was reportedly crowded with top officials in the Trump administration, including Hegseth, Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Goldberg, whose presence somehow went unnoticed, observed these individuals discussing airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen; implications of the strikes for trade; messaging about the attacks; and the relative uselessness of European navies.

While Goldberg was more than happy to publish screenshots of relatively innocuous exchanges in the group chat — including Vance’s stated frustration with “bailing Europe out again” — he initially omitted the “war plans” that Hegseth supposedly shared in the chat two hours ahead of strikes on Yemen, claiming they contained sensitive information. The Atlantic has since published the supposed “war plans,” which appear to have been a detail-light mission summary.

The administration ultimately confirmed that the message chain discussed in Goldberg’s Monday article was authentic but disputed the polemicist’s suggestion that Hegseth shared “war plans,” certainly not of a sensitive or classified nature.

Hegseth told reporters that contrary to what was asserted by the “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist,” “nobody was texting war plans.”

‘The Atlantic is a failed magazine, does very poorly; nobody gives a damn about it.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt underscored that no war plans were discussed, “no classified material was sent to the thread,” and the “White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.”

As Democrats and the liberal media tried to make the most out of the scandal, there were apparently discussions at the White House about what fate might befall Waltz.

While unnamed White House staffers told Politico that the general consensus was that “Mike Waltz is a f***king idiot” and there was debate over whether to can him, top administration officials told Axios that Waltz would survive the scandal.

Accountability and mercy

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham asked Waltz Tuesday evening, “How did a Trump-hating editor of the Atlantic end up on your Signal chat?”

Waltz told the legacy media host that he is “not a conspiracy theorist,” then insinuated that Goldberg may have infiltrated the group chat by unseemly means or with an insider’s help.

“I just talked to Elon [Musk] on the way here. We have the best technical minds looking at how this happened,” said Waltz. “But I can tell you, I can tell you for 100%, I don’t know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation, and he really is the bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the president, but I don’t text him. He wasn’t on my phone, and we’re going to figure out how this happened.”

Karoline Leavitt later confirmed that “Elon Musk’s team of experts are looking at this, the White House Counsel’s Office, and the National Security Counsel are all digging into this matter of course to ensure this can never happen again.”

While Waltz indicated that Goldberg’s invitation is presently a mystery, he furnished Ingraham with a simple explanation: Goldberg’s number was in his phone under the wrong name.

“I’m sure everybody out there has had a contact where it … said one person and then [showed] a different phone number,” said the national security adviser, adding that his blunder was “embarrassing.”

“But you’ve never talked to him before, so how is the number on your phone?” said Ingraham. “I’m not an expert on any of this, but how is the number on your phone?”

When Ingraham chased the implication that someone on Trump’s or Waltz’s team might be to blame, Waltz clarified that key Trump officials and staff on the call were blameless, stating, “I take full responsibility. I built the — I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated.”

During a Tuesday meeting with American ambassadors, Trump told reporters that Goldberg is “a total sleazebag” and stated, “The Atlantic is a failed magazine, does very poorly; nobody gives a damn about it.”

‘I think it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael.’

“That man is a very good man right there that you criticize so strongly,” said Trump, referring to Waltz. “He will continue to do a good job.”

The president further indicated that Goldberg’s presence on the chat had no impact on the strikes and that no classified information was shared in the chat.

“If it was classified information, it’s probably a little bit different. But I always say you have to learn from every experience,” said Trump. “I think it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael. He’s a good person. The person that was on just happens to be a sleazebag.”

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Five years ago this month, the government effectively declared martial law. In doing so, it made what may be the worst decision of our lifetime — crushing civil liberties, wrecking the economy, and causing untold deaths through mismanagement of the virus and widespread use of a dangerous vaccine.

We continue to suffer the economic and health consequences of those decisions. Meanwhile, at both the federal level and in many states, lawmakers have failed to address the core liberty issue: preventing those powers from ever being used again.

It took just three years after the Civil War to ratify the 14th Amendment. Yet five years after COVID-era abuses, no comparable protections have passed at the federal level.

After the civil rights abuses that helped spark the Civil War, the country passed sweeping constitutional amendments to protect basic freedoms. Yet Congress has taken no such action after the COVID catastrophe. The same goes for many red states, which have done little over the past five years.

Still, it’s never too late to do the right thing. The following checklist outlines what Congress and state legislatures — especially those with Republican majorities — must do to fix it.

End biomedical tyranny

The COVID-19 era revealed a dangerous truth: It is neither scientifically sound, morally justified, nor constitutionally acceptable to force one person to undergo a medical intervention for the sake of another. Congress and state legislatures must act immediately to codify the following protections:

• No mandates: No federal or state agency should ever require individuals to use a therapeutic, vaccine, prophylactic, or medical device.
• No limitless emergencies: A president or governor may not declare a public health emergency lasting more than 30 days unless both legislative chambers approve an extension by a supermajority.
• No lockdowns: Except for narrowly targeted, short-term quarantines of individuals exposed to deadly, quarantinable diseases like Ebola, the federal government must not restrict individual or property rights under the guise of pandemic control.
• No masks: Outside surgical or clinical settings, no federal or state government should compel individuals to cover their faces as a condition of participating in public life.

These protections must be enacted at the federal level. While several Republican-led states have passed laws addressing parts of the issue, few have permanently banned public and private vaccine or mask mandates in all settings.

Additionally, county health directors should not have the authority to declare emergencies with criminal or civil penalties unless the county’s legislative body explicitly approves it. Even during such declarations, constitutional rights — such as the right to worship — must remain fully protected.

No experimentation without representation

Ban all mRNA shots: Except for terminally ill cancer patients, mRNA technology should not be used. Data now shows that mRNA does not stay localized, contains DNA contamination, and causes widespread inflammation. After five years of studies and real-world outcomes, mRNA technology has surpassed the threshold that would normally prompt the FDA to pull a product from the market. States should either ban its use or at minimum prohibit state agencies from promoting it.

Repeal the 2004 PREP Act: The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act shields all public health “countermeasures” from liability, including vaccines, therapeutics, and testing tools used during emergencies. Even cases involving willful misconduct can only be brought by the federal government. Congress must repeal this law and restore accountability.

Repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act: This law exempts all vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule from liability. Congress should repeal it to restore legal recourse for vaccine injuries.

End marketing of emergency-use products: Any product approved only for emergency use should not receive government-backed promotion or special status. These products should be treated solely as private medical decisions between doctors and patients.

Restore informed consent

The FDA and state governments must not mandate or promote new vaccines or biologic products unless they undergo proper safety evaluation. No product should receive approval without long-term, placebo-controlled trials that test for:

• Allergenicity — potential to cause allergic reactions
• Carcinogenicity — potential to cause cancer
• Fertility impact — effects on reproductive health
• Immunogenicity — ability to generate an immune response
• Genotoxicity — potential to damage genes or cause mutations

Approval should require evidence of reduced all-cause mortality over time. No vaccine should gain approval if trial data shows more deaths in the vaccinated group than in the placebo group.

Regulators must not approve vaccines for one age group while ignoring safety concerns in another, unless they can clearly demonstrate that risks do not apply to the targeted population. For example, after acknowledging that RSV shots caused Guillain-Barré syndrome and walking back its recommendation for people over 60, the FDA continued to promote the shots for those over 75.

Additional protections should include:

• Banning self-spreading viruses and biologics.
• Criminalizing the release of any pathogen, including self-spreading vaccines, and allow individuals to sue those responsible.
• Prohibiting the placement of vaccine-related materials in the food supply.

Congress should also establish a commission to audit the childhood immunization schedule and review new vaccines in the development pipeline. This includes a full review of their necessity, safety data, and efficacy. Enlightened consent must serve as the foundation for informed consent.

The right to treat

Congress must prohibit the FDA from blocking doctors from prescribing fully approved drugs for off-label use.

All pandemic or emergency public health funding for hospitals must remain treatment-neutral. Funding should not favor one therapy over another. Clinicians — not federal agencies or pharmaceutical companies — should guide treatment decisions based on best practices, not profit motives.

Given ivermectin’s broad-spectrum antiviral properties and well-documented safety profile, it should be made available over the counter. Arkansas has taken the lead in adopting this approach.

Protect doctor-patient autonomy

Doctors must not face penalties — such as loss of their licenses or board certifications — for expressing dissenting views on vaccines or mask mandates. State medical boards must overhaul their complaint processes to focus only on cases with actual patient harm.

Boards should accept complaints only from:

• Patients alleging direct injury
• Immediate family of deceased patients
• Medical professionals with firsthand knowledge of patient harm

All complaints unrelated to patient injury should be dismissed without review.

The Trump administration should direct the Department of Justice to drop all prosecutions against physicians charged with so-called “COVID crimes.” These include cases like that of Utah plastic surgeon Dr. Kirk Moore, who faces federal charges for allegedly providing vaccine exemptions and other patient-centered actions taken during the pandemic.

Adopt a new ‘Patient’s Bill of Rights’

Some states have taken steps in the right direction, but stronger civil and criminal penalties must be in place to protect patient rights across the country. Every hospital and senior care facility should be legally required to:

• Prohibit denial of treatment, including organ transplants, based on vaccination status.
• Allow at least one surrogate or visitor to be present for patients in hospitals or nursing homes.
• Permit patients to use FDA-approved drugs off-label, prescribed by a licensed physician, at their own expense and with informed consent.
• Guarantee the right to refuse any hospital-prescribed treatment and the right to leave the facility if the patient is mentally competent — effectively banning medical kidnapping.
• Provide patients or their families a legal cause of action to file civil suits against facilities that violate these rights. District attorneys should also have the authority to pursue criminal charges when appropriate.
• Revoke state tax-exempt status for hospitals found in violation of these provisions.

It took just three years after the Civil War to ratify the 14th Amendment. Congress codified its principles into law within a year of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Yet five years after COVID-era abuses, no comparable protections have passed at the federal level, and only a few states have enacted partial reforms. That needs to change. The time to act is now.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his landmark report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” 60 years ago this month. His warnings in 1965 about the collapse of the traditional black family now seem prescient. In response, one of the country’s most prominent historically black colleges and universities is working to revive the culture of marriage and family that prevailed from the end of the Civil War through the Civil Rights era.

Known today as the “Moynihan Report,” the document was written during Moynihan’s time as assistant labor secretary under President Lyndon Johnson. Moynihan feared that civil rights victories alone would not lead to full social equality. He argued that racism would remain a barrier to black progress for at least another generation. But he also pointed to a deeper challenge: the breakdown of married, two-parent black families in urban communities. In his view, that collapse posed an even more significant obstacle to upward mobility.

The new norms established in the 1960s enabled Uncle Sam to play ‘daddy’ to millions of women.

Moynihan had good reason to be concerned, but the family statistics that alarmed him in 1965 would look like progress by today’s standards. Nearly one in four black children in 1965 were born to unmarried parents at a time when the black poverty rate was roughly 40%.

Today, the black poverty rate has dropped by half, but the rate of nonmarital births has surged to 70% — far higher than the 27% among white children and 13% among Asian children. Similarly, while about 25% of all American children live in single-parent households, that figure rises to 50% for black children.

From ‘big brother’ to ‘big daddy’

Sobering statistics like these brought scholars, pastors, elected officials, and community leaders to Hampton University’s Virginia campus for the 43rd annual Conference on the Black Family. The university’s National Center for Black Family Life hosted the three-day event, which covered topics ranging from marriage rates to mental health.

I led a session titled “The Black Family Blueprint: Restoring Marriage and Rebuilding the Home.” Speaking to a room of students, I addressed the current state of the black family and how, in just three generations, the idea of “marriage before carriage” has shifted from being the norm to the exception.

My presentation unpacked the perfect storm of government policy and shifting cultural norms in the 1960s that destabilized the family structure in black America. The expansion of the welfare state made the government the de facto husband and father in millions of homes. In 1950, total federal expenditures on public aid programs totaled $1.1 billion. By 1975, it increased to $27 billion and topped $60 billion by 1985.

The rise of second-wave feminism encouraged women to see marriage as oppressive and children as a burden. Black feminists wanted to see women pursuing higher education and filling the roles they believed were needed to wage a revolution. One contributor to the “Black Women’s Manifesto” wrote that black women “sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”

The new norms established in the 1960s divided the home by disrupting the relationship between the sexes and enabling Uncle Sam to play “daddy” to millions of women.

One welfare rights activist wrote an essay in Ms. magazine that underscored the nature of this relationship: “Welfare is like a super-sexist marriage. You trade in a man for the man. But you can’t divorce him if he treats you bad.”

If a 25% nonmarital birth rate in the 1960s caused Moynihan to sound the alarm in the federal government, a 70% rate should be the top priority for every institution that claims to serve the black community.

Media outlets like Essence, Ebony, the Root, and TheGrio should be running stories about the future of the black family if these trends continue. Other historically black colleges and universities should be devoting resources to strengthening black families. Civil rights organizations and black churches should take the same energy they have for boycotting Target and apply it to a national boycott on broken homes.

What can be done?

Hampton’s most renowned graduate, Booker T. Washington, is a conservative figure celebrated for his embrace of self-reliance and community empowerment. His ethos is needed now more than ever, particularly as progressive social commentators appear increasingly dismissive of individual agency and slavishly committed to outsourcing racial uplift. They seem to think bigger government and better white people are viable strategies for addressing every social ill. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rebuilding the black family requires a new call for national action, but unlike 1965, it will only happen if black leaders — not white liberals — make this a national priority.

Clearview AI has stirred up quite a controversy, and when you see what the company has been up to, it’s easy to see why.

The corporation has built a robust online database of over 40 billion facial images, which it gathered from various online sources, including social media, news sites, and random corners of the web. This has been done without explicit consent from the people pictured.

The software is pitched primarily to law enforcement, private security, and some corporate clients who need to identify people quickly. Users can upload a photo of a face, and it scans the database for matches and links to where the images originated — like a LinkedIn profile or a Facebook post.

Glenn Beck says it’s trouble. While it may be useful in certain situations, put in the hands of a rogue government, Clearview AI becomes a tool for totalitarianism.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, however, is fighting to expand Clearview’s use in court cases.

On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” the two engaged in a debate.

In a recent Ohio case, law enforcement used Clearview AI to match a blurry surveillance photo to a suspect. This information was then used to obtain a search warrant, which resulted in cops locating a gun and arresting the suspect. The judge, however, threw out the evidence because the warrant paperwork didn’t mention Clearview’s role, its disclaimer about not being court-ready evidence, or other possible matches it flagged.

That’s when Yost’s team stepped in and filed an appeal, arguing that the police’s use of Clearview AI was legitimate and that the evidence should stand. As of now, the court’s decision is undecided.

While Glenn agrees that Clearview technology “is a great thing to get the bad guys,” it’s “exactly the kind of technology” China uses “to track everybody.”

“I worry about that, too,” says Yost.

However, he argues that Clearview AI technology is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment because the images it gathers are from the public domain. It’s different, he says, than the Supreme Court case Kyllo v. United States, in which the court ruled that the cop who used thermal imaging technology to scan for marijuana growing in Danny Kyllo’s home violated his privacy rights.

But Glenn isn’t convinced.

“I am very, very concerned about this slippery, almost straight-down slope to the cage that AI could build for people,” he says. “We can have all of the best intentions, but it falls into the wrong hands, we lose several elections in a row, and it’ll be a prison; it’ll be a panopticon like it is in China.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. It scares me what the government can do about this. If you think back to the Biden administration and social media and what they were doing — you multiply that, make that geometrically larger and that’s the potential. We’ve got to be vigilant,” says Yost.

To hear more of the debate, watch the clip above. Leave us a comment below. What do you think? Does facial recognition technology catch crooks or pave the way for tyranny?

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The superintendent from a Texas school district — along with two teachers in the district — were arrested Thursday in connection with child abuse allegations, the Parker County Sheriff’s Office said.

At Monday’s school board meeting of the Millsap Independent School District, it was announced that arrested Superintendent Edie Martin was resigning from her position, WFAA-TV reported. The board unanimously accepted her resignation, the station said; the board added that Martin wouldn’t receive benefits or severance pay. Millsap is about an hour and 20 minutes west of Dallas.

WFAA said Millsap ISD parent Carissa Cornelius on March 10 shared a video showing her 10-year-old son, Alex Cornelius — who has autism and is nonverbal — appearing to be abused by his special education teacher. The station said another teacher in the video appears to yell at Alex and throw an object at him.

The sheriff’s office said witnesses reported that “life skills” educator Paxton Kendal Bean, 25, physically assaulted juvenile students.

Paxton Kendal BeanImage source: Parker County (Tex.) Sheriff’s Office

Witnesses also said Bean — along with life skills educator Jennifer Cain Dale, 44 — committed mental and verbal abuse against special-needs elementary students, including taunting, mocking, giving threats, using profanity, and giving extensive “timeouts,” the sheriff’s office said.

A witness recorded the abuse on a cell phone and told sheriff’s investigators that she reported the alleged abuse to Martin on Feb. 19. However, the sheriff’s office said Martin did not report the suspected abuse to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services or the Parker County Sheriff’s Office as required by state law. She did contact the district’s law firm to commission an external investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

Martin on Feb. 28 filed a report with the Texas Education Agency regarding one educator, authorities said, and then on March 3 reported the allegations to the TEA involving the second educator.

“Another witness reported they advised the superintendent to report the offenses to child protective services and law enforcement,” the sheriff’s office said. “The superintendent reportedly told the witness that she had already made a report to child protective services as of Feb. 20.”

The sheriff’s office said it first learned about the allegations March 4 when a parent of one of the victims contacted the sheriff’s office to make a report. Officials from the state Department of Family and Protective Services told sheriff’s office investigators that Martin didn’t contact them — and that they first learned of the allegations from the sheriff’s office on March 4.

Bean was charged with injury to a child and official oppression, Dale was charged with official oppression, and 53-year-old Martin was charged with failure to report/intent to conceal, the sheriff’s office said.

WFAA said Millsap ISD parent Carissa Cornelius on March 10 shared a video showing her 10-year-old son, Alex Cornelius — who has autism and is nonverbal — appearing to be abused by his special education teacher. The station said another teacher in the video appears to yell at Alex and throw an object at him. Carissa Cornelius said the incident occurred Feb. 18 but that school officials didn’t notify her about the incident until Feb. 28, WFAA reported.

You can view a WFAA video report here about the allegations; it includes the in-classroom cellphone video in question.

More from the station:

The board has also approved Monday a third-party investigation into Principal Roxie Carter and Assistant Principal Drew Casey of the elementary school where the alleged abuse occurred.

Carter is related to Kendal Bean, one of the educators arrested in the case. Due to their relationship, the school board voted in favor of not assigning employees to the same campus or in an oversight position of an immediate family member.

Casey will return to work at a limited capacity while the investigation is ongoing, according to Millsap ISD. The district said this was due to “multiple requests by the public who said he had nothing to do with one of the suspects or the alleged abuse.”

According to an earlier WFAA report, Martin and Bean have bonded out of jail, but Dale was being held in the Palo Pinto County Jail on a $2,500 bond. However, Dale’s name didn’t show up on an inmate search Tuesday evening.

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Mollie Hemingway, the editor in chief of the Federalist, spoke out against the Biden administration’s “censorship industrial complex” before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

In an exchange with Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont, Hemingway pointed out how his party has peddled and directly benefited from measures implemented by former President Joe Biden that censor or otherwise stunt speech that deviates from the political orthodoxy of the day. Welch, however, insisted that the censorship industrial complex is merely an “abstract term.”

‘You can rely on the censorship industrial complex to do the work for you.’

“The industrial censorship complex is an abstract term that doesn’t mean a lot to me, but it conveys a lot of meaning obviously to the many people here,” Welch said. “But it has to get down to something very concrete as to what the government did. If it’s an NGO, your view and I think the chairman’s view too is that that NGO is hand and glove with the government.”

Hemingway promptly explained the extent of the government’s relationship with NGOs that has caused conservative and dissenting outlets to be censored.

“The government will work in partnership with NGOs on something like the Election Integrity Partnership where they flag items for removal from social media companies,” Hemingway replied. “And so they are funding these NGOs, sometimes they’re actually flagging for these NGOs, for-profit Big Tech companies will then remove the content.”

It’s no secret that the government has worked closely with NGOs to suppress dissenting speech and independent platforms, including Blaze News. Despite the long and well-documented history of this collusion, Welch argued that Democrats are simply not sophisticated enough to execute such large-scale censorship.

“This is just an observation,” Welch said. “I’m part of the Democratic Party. You give us way too much credit for being that organized to be able to put this whole massive enterprise together.”

“In part because you can rely on the censorship industrial complex to do the work for you,” Hemingway said.

Immediately following Hemingway’s response, Welch quickly yielded the remainder of his time.

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The domestic terrorism aimed at Elon Musk’s Tesla is amping up. First, Tesla vehicles were keyed, graffitied, or set on fire. Then, entire dealerships were attacked. Then, Tesla owners were doxxed.

And now — bombs. Yesterday, at a Tesla showroom in Austin, Texas, several incendiary devices were discovered. Police are currently investigating the incident. Thus far, no arrests have been made.

Sara Gonzales can’t understand the hatred toward someone who is “[rooting] out waste, fraud, and corruption in our government.”

The idiots who are harassing Tesla owners and vandalizing dealerships clearly don’t understand that it’s “their money” Musk is trying to save, she says.

“They have this concept of ‘government money,’ and it’s like no, that’s just our money. He’s actually helping you.”

“They’re so dumb that they’re actually attacking people on their own side,” adds BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden, pointing out that most of this vandalism is aimed at Democrat voters who bought Teslas in the name of climate change.

This domestic terrorism is evidence that the left is “on the ropes,” he says. “They are panicked.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that this panic is leading to violence.

“This is where it’s always going to lead with the left. … If you call someone a Nazi, if you call someone a white supremacist, if you call someone racist, then you can justify committing violent acts,” says Marsden, adding that he doesn’t think the Tesla terrorism is grassroots.

“This is absolutely coordinated and funded,” he tells Sara.

“We’ll eventually track that down over some period of time and find out what organizations were funding all this because there’s no way this is just organic,” agrees guest Stu Burguiere.

“They get manipulated by the people that are higher up that just want to move the needle by using useful idiots,” says Marsden.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip above.

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President Donald Trump issued a memo Saturday directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch reviews of attorneys and law firms suspected of lawfare misconduct.

The memo, “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court,” specifically called out Marc Elias, the founder and chair of Elias Law Group LLP, a law firm involved with the Steele dossier that accused Trump of colluding with Russia in the 2016 presidential race against Hillary Clinton. Trump also accused immigration attorneys of “coach[ing] clients to conceal their past or lie” when submitting asylum claims.

‘The Department of Justice began an immediate review.’

“Recent examples of grossly unethical misconduct are far too common,” it read.

Trump listed several legal requirements for lawyers, noting that they are prohibited from engaging in unethical misconduct.

“Unfortunately, far too many attorneys and law firms have long ignored these requirements when litigating against the Federal Government or in pursuing baseless partisan attacks. To address these concerns, I hereby direct the Attorney General to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States,” Trump’s memo read.

He directed Bondi “to take all appropriate action to refer for disciplinary action any attorney whose conduct in Federal court or before any component of the Federal Government appears to violate professional conduct rules.”

Those in violation of legal requirements could have their security clearances revoked or their federal contracts terminated, the memo read.

Bondi was instructed to conduct reviews of attorneys and law firms who participated in legal action against the federal government within the last eight years.

A Department of Justice spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the agency has already taken action in response to Trump’s memo.

“Consistent with the president’s memorandum, the Department of Justice began an immediate review of law firms who have participated in inappropriate activity and weaponized lawfare,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.

Elias and his law group replied to Trump’s memo.

“President Trump is attempting to dismantle the Constitution and attack the rule of law in his obsessive pursuit of retribution against his political opponents. Today’s White House Memo targets not only me and my law firm, but every attorney and law firm who dares to challenge his assault on the rule of law,” Elias said. “President Trump’s goal is clear. He wants lawyers and law firms to capitulate and cower until there is no one left to oppose his Administration in court.”

He stated that his law firm “will not be deterred from fighting for democracy in court.”

Elias also chairs Democracy Forward, which has filed several recent lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Democracy Forward released a statement in response to Trump’s memo.

“This memorandum is the latest in a series of disturbing steps taken by the President, who has publicly declared that he would be ‘going after … a lot of law firms’ and has also targeted the American Bar Association, the largest voluntary association of lawyers in the world,” it read.

Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said, “The ongoing threats to the legal profession and the rule of law by the President are intended to intimidate and inspire fear, but instead they should inspire action.”

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