The last couple of days have seen an exponential rise in media personalities getting “swatted” — and almost all of them happen to be conservative.

Thankfully, the new FBI Director Kash Patel is taking action.

“I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures. The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable,” Patel said in a post on X.

“This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement against ANY American is not only morally reprehensible but also endangers lives, including those of our officers. That will not be tolerated,” he continued, adding the agency will be cracking down on the crimes.

“There’s a very clear, targeted wave of harassment directed at conservative influencers,” Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” comments, noting that Benny Johnson, Catturd, Gunther Eagleman, Shawn Farash, Joe Pagliarulo, and Chase Geiser are among those who have been targeted.

In a video, Geiser, who works for Infowars, shared, that a SWAT team showed up at his house in the middle of the night. He was ordered out of his own home and forced to put his hands up. Pagliarulo, known as Joe Pags, discussed his own swatting on his radio show “The Joe Pags Show.”

“I’ve got a video of this guy with a rifle at my door, like holding it, ready to use it. And I called 911. That was the right answer. And I said ‘This is my address, this is who I am, radio, television, talk show host, so some would say public figure, I think I’m being swatted, are you guys at my house?’” Pags explained.

“About two seconds later, she said, ‘Yes, we are. Got a report of this, this, this, and this, dogs were shot, people were bleeding, people were hiding,’ and none of that was true,” he continued.

“Seems to be kind of par for the course with all of these incidents, is that they say, ‘We got a call that you yourself were threatening to kill your own family or that your whole family was dead in there, and we needed to come in,’” Gonzales tells guest Breanna Morello.

“My heart bleeds for them, because when you have young kids in your house, and this is what’s happening outside your front door, and your father, you know, from the kids’ perspective, is being dragged out and putting cuffs and put on the side of the street, I mean, it’s a horrifying situation,” Morello says.

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An “old man” who was caught on video keying a Tesla in San Jose, California, has been arrested for the “act of felony vandalism” — and local officials blasted similar instances of politically driven crime.

The incident happened in a Costco parking lot between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Friday, KRON-TV reported, citing the owner of the vandalized Tesla. The now-viral video shows a male with white hair and a white beard and wearing a USA jacket use a key to scratch the exterior of the Tesla vehicle.

‘Keying a car because you don’t like the person who designed it is like breaking a clock because you don’t like the time it shows.’

A second video shows a similar looking male wearing the same jacket getting confronted about the incident, and he denies involvement. The title of the pair of videos is “WATCH THIS: Old man who keyed Tesla in San Jose is confronted.”

San Jose Police announced Monday night that “we successfully identified, located, and arrested the individual responsible for this act of felony vandalism.”

“This senseless crime and its subsequent consequences should serve as a clear reminder: no matter one’s personal beliefs or frustrations, they do not justify illegal actions,” San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph wrote in a statement. “I urge everyone to respect one another and, above all, to respect the law.”

San Jose Democrat Mayor Matt Mahan added that vandalizing Teslas isn’t the proper way to handle disagreements with Telsa CEO Elon Musk, who has been heading up the Trump administration’s cost-cutting DOGE, which is deeply unpopular with leftists.

“Keying a car because you don’t like the person who designed it is like breaking a clock because you don’t like the time it shows,” Mahan said on X. “If this crime was politically motivated, our residents can’t be held accountable for something Elon Musk is doing 3,000 miles away. I want to thank @SanJosePD for finding the person responsible and urge us all to voice our opinions where they matter — at the ballot box, not in a parking lot.”

Musk replied to the police department’s X post with an American flag emoji.

You can view KRON’s video report here about the incident.

Anything else?

KRON reported that Mahan previously defended Tesla when Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a California electric vehicle tax credit should the Trump administration cut EV federal tax credits. The station added that Newsom’s proposal likely would have excluded Tesla from the rebate and that Mahan said the governor’s proposal had “no economic rationale” and was a “political stunt.”

More from KRON:

The act of vandalism comes during a time Tesla owners in the Bay Area and nationwide are being targeted because of the recent controversy surrounding Musk. Tesla owners in San Francisco are being urged to sell their vehicles as flyers across the city are being posted, which read “sell your swasticar.”

Fremont District 4 Councilmember Yang Shao said last week his Tesla was vandalized in a similar incident to Friday’s. His electric vehicle was “keyed by someone,” the elected official wrote on his social media page.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has promised punishment for such vandals. The station noted that gunshots were fired at a dealership in Oregon and a fire destroyed four Cybertrucks at a Tesla lot in Seattle.

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Journalist Roland Martin is a Democrat, which is why it’s no surprise that he’s crying racism over a simple question he was asked recently.

“White people really crack me up,” Martin said in a video he posted to social media. “So y’all see what I got on,” he added, referring to the Texas A&M jersey he was wearing.

“I color-code. So everything in my bag is Texas A&M,” he continued. “So I’m walking, white dude says, ‘You a fan or did you play?’ I knew exactly what he was talking about. I said, ‘Excuse me?’”

“All I said was ‘No, I’m a graduate,’ and I walked off. That’s the s**t black people have to deal with,” he added.

Jason Whitlock of “Fearless” is amused, to say the least.

“How did he survive?” Whitlock mocks.

“What a harrowing experience.”

“He went to a PWI, and someone asked him whether he was a fan or a former player. Nobody knows the trouble Roland has seen. We shall overcome,” he continues.

“Roland’s a cornball,” Shemeka Michelle chimes in. “For him to even feel like this is some sort of microaggression and this is what you have to deal with with white people. There are times when I may be going to a sports bar to watch a Carolina or Duke game. I may be in Carolina gear; I would not be offended if someone asked me, ‘Did you play or are you a fan?’”

However, Whitlock isn’t so sure this isn’t all a part of some grand scheme for clicks.

“There is a chance that Roland knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to put out this little fake story, and I’m going to trigger people like Jason Whitlock and Shemeka Michelle and I’m going to trend all over social media,’” he speculates.

“Some attention is better than no attention,” he adds.

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The NCAA men’s national basketball tournament has multiplied its TV revenue nearly 70 times since the early 1980s.

This investment has become formidable for both sides of the deal, as the yearly revenue for the annual tournament has now surpassed $1 billion in broadcasting rights alone.

The numbers stem from a 1982 deal in which CBS purchased the tournament broadcasting rights for a mere $48 million for three years, or $16 million annually.

Year after year, CBS has renewed its deals and the NCAA has gladly increased its price. In 2010, CBS and Turner agreed to a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal that gave the networks the TV rights to March Madness through 2024, roughly $770 million per year.

In 2016, CBS and Turner Sports announced those rights would be extended through 2032 for $8.8 billion, or $1.1 billion per year.

This decades-long relationship has not only increased the NCAA’s TV revenue by more than 68 times, but it has allowed CBS Sports to sell ads at prices near to Super Bowl level.

Yahoo reported that ads for the 2023 March Madness finals cost between $2.2 million and $2.3 million for just 30 seconds of airtime.

While figures can be hard to pinpoint, they seemingly continue to rise. The women’s tournament even touted that its advertising revenue had doubled in 2024, likely because the tournament featured star player Caitlin Clark.

In the end, CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery (which now owns Turner Broadcasting) earn an estimated $1 billion+ per year in profit themselves off the tournament.

While figures for the NCAA may have changed due to the introduction of the College Football Playoff, the men’s basketball tournament still accounts for a large majority of the NCAA’s revenue as of 2021. That year, of the $1.16 billion the NCAA took home, 85%, or $986 million, was attributed to March Madness.

Record ticket prices (again?)

Tickets at the Alamodome are expect to break March Madness records for the second straight year. Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images

March Madness 2024 set records for ticket prices for both the women’s and men’s tournaments, with the men’s semifinal reaching an average price of $1,603 per ticket.

Things look like they will get bigger (and more expensive) for the Final Four this year, as Vivid Seats lists the lowest price for tickets at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, at $223. The next best seats are at least triple the price, with some of the 200-level tickets easily eclipsing last year’s record prices.

If fans are looking to get into the lower bowl, tickets are ranging from $500 in the back all the way up to $5,900 for courtside seats. These prices are not just for resales, either. Ticketmaster’s remaining seats will cost at least $3,500 to get anywhere close to the action, meaning the 20th row.

Fans are better off paying for a First Four ticket, the new play-in games that kick off the tournament. Prices at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio, start at just $34, but can go up to $500.

Tickets for the tournament final — which appear to have been bought up immediately — start at $600 on Ticketmaster but quickly reach the $3,000 range for lower-level seats. Some resellers are posting astronomical $7,000, $10,000, or even $13,000 asking prices, but those should not be taken seriously as legitimate asks.

The new trend of resellers posting a “not going” price is simply a fan’s way of saying that while he or she wants to go to the event, there is a price at which the fan is willing to sell. These do not reflect realistic average ticket costs, however.

1 in 4 Americans bet on the tournament

Every year, tens of millions of Americans gamble on March Madness, and the number is steadily increasing in volume and dollar value.

According to the American Gaming Association, 47 million American adults wagered approximately $8.5 billion on the tournament in 2019.

By 2022, the numbers had decreased to 45 million American adults wagering about $3.1 billion.

The reason behind the monetary decrease in betting that year is unclear, but by 2023 the figures had skyrocketed more than ever before. A whopping 68 million American adults planned on betting a total of $15.5 billion that year.

That is a 21-million person increase coupled with a $7 billion bump, or about an 82% increase in spending. At the same time, around 56 million of those adults said they planned on participating in a bracket contest, as well.

The estimated gambling totals of years past were made without actually running the bets through proper channels, the gaming association claimed.

‘Regulated sports betting over the past five years has brought safeguards to more than half of American adults …’

In 2018, the organization estimated that 97% of the bets placed on the national tournament were placed illegally.

Geoff Freeman, the company’s former CEO, said at the time that sports betting laws were so out of touch that “tens of millions of Americans” were being turned into criminals “for the simple act of enjoying college basketball.”

Freeman cited a $150 billion figure in annual illegal sports betting in the United States.

By 2023, the company had changed its tune after betting had become more regulated across the country.

“Critically, the expansion of regulated sports betting over the past five years has brought safeguards to more than half of American adults who can now bet legally in their home market,” President and CEO Bill Miller said.

However, according to the organization’s gambling legalization map, sports betting is still illegal in at least 12 states, including Texas, California, Alaska, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Do the players get paid?

Kentucky’s Jaxson Robinson recently signed an NIL contract with the Dairy Alliance. Photo by Johnnie Izquierdo/Getty Images

Players still do not get paid for their participation in the national championship tournament despite the NCAA making the bulk of its revenue on the tournament.

While revenue-sharing is still likely something for players to put up a fight about, the notoriety of the tournament is resulting in more name, image, and likeness deals for players than ever before.

In fact, brands have been betting big on players who play for teams that are considered shoe-ins for the tournament.

For starters, the Dairy Alliance is turning back the clock with a recent milk-related sponsorship with three college basketball stars. Zakai Zeigler from No. 8-ranked Tennessee, Jaxson Robinson from No. 15-ranked Kentucky, and Zamareya Jones from the No. 9-ranked women’s team at N.C. State each inked deals in February.

At the end of the month, JuJu Watkins from the No. 4-ranked USC signed a deal with United Airlines for an undisclosed amount.

While Syracuse star Kiyan Anthony may not be appearing in the national tournament, he still appeared in an AT&T ad for March Madness alongside his father, former NBA player Carmelo Anthony.

Other players from Auburn, Texas, Kansas, Ohio State, and UCLA all appeared in an Under Armour spot in preparation for the tournament, as well.

Lastly, two basketball stars who will appear in the men’s tournament have climbed their way up the NIL valuation charts just in time for March.

Cooper Flagg of Duke and AJ Dybantsa of BYU are now ranked No. 2 and No. 6 respectively in national rankings for NIL value. Going into the tournament, Dybantsa has deals with Nike and Red Bull, while Flagg has teamed up with Fanatics and Gatorade.

While it seems like a billion dollars per year not being shared with players is still a sore spot that needs prodding, thankfully, young athletes are now being compensated, handsomely, for the spotlight they bring to their schools.

As NIL deals only increase in value and scope in terms of which athletes are able to pull monster deals, it will not be long before March Madness features dozens of teenage millionaires playing in a single tournament, with each of them generating more brand wealth than entire WNBA teams.

Donald Trump’s first term reshaped American politics. Against all odds, he upended the establishment’s consensus on trade, immigration, and foreign policy. He redefined the Republican Party’s platform with an “America First” agenda and proved that conservative populism is not only viable but dominant.

But resistance to his presidency was fierce. From day one, entrenched Washington elites and career bureaucrats worked to undermine him. Even within the Republican Party, many clung to outdated, donor-driven priorities instead of embracing the agenda voters demanded.

The United States must fully decouple from China, starting with a ban on Chinese ownership of American land and critical industries.

As a result, key elements of the MAGA movement — securing the border, dismantling the administrative state, and reducing dependence on China — faced obstruction from politicians more concerned with preserving their own power than delivering on their promises.

Better team, clearer vision

A second Trump administration cannot afford to be held back by the same forces. This time, there are no excuses. The lessons have been learned, and the roadblocks are clear. The next four years must be marked by decisive action, free from outdated GOP orthodoxy and bureaucratic sabotage. Fortunately, the Trump White House now has a team fully aligned with this vision.

To make any of the proposed changes meaningful, we must address the cultural decay that has worsened over the last four years — and that the GOP’s inaction allowed to fester for much longer. Cultural battles are just as important, if not more so, than economic or foreign policy. In his first term, President Trump reshaped the judiciary, defended religious liberty, and resisted the left’s radical cultural agenda. But the left’s extremism has only intensified — targeting children with gender ideology, undermining women’s sports, and weaponizing the legal system against conservatives.

This time, we must go further: defunding left-wing indoctrination in schools, banning irreversible gender-altering procedures on minors, and enshrining parental rights in law. Thankfully, President Trump has already signed executive orders banning biological males from competing in women’s sports and protecting children from the transgender medical industry, taking key steps to dismantle the radical left’s agenda for good.

We must overhaul the federal government to serve the people — not leftist NGOs and special interests that thrive on taxpayer-funded slush funds. One of the greatest threats to the nation comes from the unelected ruling class in Washington. To counter this, the Trump administration launched the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending. This initiative is streamlining operations, cutting bureaucracy, and ensuring taxpayer dollars are used effectively.

Tackling China

With strong leadership and a clear path to a revitalized America, we must also use the new MAGA consensus to address the greatest external threat to U.S. prosperity: China.

For decades, the political class sold out American workers, offshoring jobs and manufacturing in pursuit of cheap labor and corporate profits. Trump’s first term reversed this trend by renegotiating trade deals and imposing tariffs that revitalized American industry.

But the job isn’t finished. The United States must fully decouple from China, starting with a ban on Chinese ownership of American land and critical industries. Trump’s tariff proposals mark an important first step, but this moment demands bold action. A pollution tariff would be a powerful tool, forcing China to pay for its lower environmental standards while leveling the playing field for American manufacturers.

In 2020, then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer proposed to the World Trade Organization that failing to enforce minimum environmental standards should qualify as an “actionable subsidy,” allowing the U.S. to counter it with tariffs. Now, freed from officials who prioritized cheap Chinese imports over American workers and environmental concerns, the United States must ensure that domestic manufacturing and production take precedence over globalist interests.

Momentum for this shift is already growing. Lighthizer’s successor, Jamieson Greer, recently observed, “There’s an unlevel playing field, and I think other countries take advantage of a total lack of environmental regulation. … How do we actually address that issue? I think we do have to think of creative notions on how to do it.”

As Lighthizer’s former chief of staff, Greer understands the challenge and is well-positioned to take real action against China’s cheating this time around.

Global elites are content to let America decline, effectively handing the future to Communist China. But with strong leadership, this century can and will belong to the United States. A second Trump term is the best — perhaps the only — opportunity to fully implement the “America First” agenda and secure American dominance for generations.

No more half measures. No more bureaucratic sabotage. No more pandering to the old GOP establishment. A second Trump administration must act boldly, decisively, and relentlessly to make America great again. The stakes are too high for anything less.

If a federal judge told President Trump to deliver a specifically curated speech and then pull down his pants on live television, should he comply? If he refused, would that trigger a “constitutional crisis”? If you pay attention to the left, the answer might very well be “yes”!

The only “constitutional crisis” we face is the erroneous idea that the judiciary is atop the food chain rather than on equal footing with the other two branches of government. If Trump hopes to succeed this time around, he had better remind the judiciary of its impotence to enforce unconstitutional edicts.

Granting courts ultimate veto power over public policy creates a judicial supremacy the Founders never intended.

Federal judges have repeatedly attempted to restrict Trump’s presidential authority with overreaching demands. They have ordered the administration to fund private foreign aid organizations, reinstate specific personnel, and publish designated information on government websites. In one case, a judge even directed the secretary of defense to retract a statement on the Pentagon’s policy regarding transgender troops. And over the weekend, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg attempted to block the deportation of violent gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.

What’s next? Will they order Trump to stop threatening Hamas or remove the bust of Andrew Jackson from the Oval Office?

Judges have forgotten who they are: unelected shields against government overreach, not legislative swords that can impose policies. Perhaps Trump needs to examine that bust of “Old Hickory” Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office and recall his (likely apocryphal) response to Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling in Worcester v. Georgia: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”

What judges are not

Imagine if the president imposed the same restrictions on the judiciary that federal judges are placing on Trump. What if he dictated how judges managed their websites, controlled which clerks they could hire, or ordered them to rule a certain way? The overreach would be obvious.

Unlike judges, Congress has the authority to regulate every aspect of judicial proceedings, hiring, budget, and conduct. Judges, however, cannot impose similar policies on the other branches — a fact that frustrates judicial supremacists. This limitation exists for a reason: Federal judges are unelected. If they were meant to wield supreme — or even equal — power over public policy, they would be subject to re-election, as many state judges are.

If judicial power has clear limits, then what is its actual role, distinct from the executive and legislative branches?

In a letter to William Torrance dated June 11, 1815, Thomas Jefferson explained who decides constitutional questions.

Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given [judges] that power [authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law] more than to the executive or legislative branches. Questions of property, of character, and of crime being ascribed to the judges, through a definite course of legal proceeding, laws involving such questions belong of course to them; and as they decide on them ultimately and without appeal, they of course decide, for themselves, the constitutional validity of the law.

Bankruptcy cases and criminal charges illustrate the proper scope of judicial authority. Judges can uphold or overturn criminal convictions and resolve disputes over property or bankruptcy. However, when conflicts arise over laws or the Constitution involving the other branches, the judiciary was never meant to have the final say.

Granting courts ultimate veto power over public policy creates a judicial supremacy the Founders never intended. Each branch has a duty to interpret and apply the law within its own constitutional authority. Jefferson reiterated this principle in the same letter.

On laws again prescribing executive action, and to be administered by that branch ultimately and without appeal, the executive must decide for themselves also, whether, under the constitution, they are valid or not. So also as to laws governing the proceedings of the legislature, that body must judge for itself the constitutionality of the law, and equally without appeal or control from its coordinate branches. And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately, and without appeal, on any law, is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coordinate authorities.

Treating the courts as the final authority on public policy grants them more power than even James Madison’s rejected Council of Revision proposal at the Constitutional Convention. Under Madison’s “Virginia Plan,” Congress would have been a dominant, unicameral body with the ability to veto state laws. To keep it in check, he suggested that the president and Supreme Court jointly review laws before enactment, giving the judiciary a role in the legislative veto. Even in that system, however, the judiciary would not have acted alone — it would have shared power with an elected executive.

The system the Framers ultimately adopted works differently. Two legislative chambers check each other, and the president holds veto power. Are we now supposed to believe that the Supreme Court — or even a single district judge — has more authority than the elected House, Senate, president, and state governments combined? Should an unelected judge wield a stronger veto than the one the Framers deliberately withheld from an entire elected Congress?

No such judicial veto exists.

Resolving disputes among branches

What happens when branches of government disagree and exercise their powers in conflicting ways? Is that a constitutional crisis? Jefferson, again, provides wisdom here.

It may be said that contradictory decisions may arise in such case, and produce inconvenience. This is possible, and is a necessary failing in all human proceedings. Yet the prudence of the public functionaries, and authority of public opinion will generally produce accommodation.

Ultimately, the public will decide who is right. Our system isn’t perfect, but it is far better than allowing unelected judges to impose on the people what hundreds of elected legislators could not.

President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the U.S. Secret Service to stop providing protection for Hunter Biden and his sister Ashley Biden.

The president made the announcement on social media Monday after noting that as many as 18 agents were providing security for Hunter Biden, while 13 agents protected his sister.

‘Effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection.’

“Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer. There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous!” said the president.

“He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people has been strenuously questioned. Because of this, South Africa has been taken off our list of Countries receiving Economic and Financial Assistance,” he added.

“Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection,” said Trump. “Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list.”

Hunter Biden was vacationing at a luxury beachfront villa in South Africa in order allegedly to avoid a deposition in California, according to a report in the New York Post.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi would only confirm to the Post that the security detail was in place, but offered no other details.

“While we can’t comment on the specifics of our protective means and methods, we can confirm Mr. Biden is an authorized protectee of the U.S. Secret Service,” he said.

Hunter Biden had asked to drop his lawsuit against Garrett Ziegler, a former White House aide in the Trump administration, after claiming that he didn’t have enough money to continue. Ziegler published 128,000 emails that were allegedly found on a laptop left by Hunter Biden at a computer shop.

Critics on social media lambasted the former president’s son after he claimed in the filing that his paintings were no longer selling and he was experiencing financial troubles. Many implied that the paintings were a way for the Biden family to allegedly launder money to sell political favors while Joe Biden was in office.

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The best way to end racism in this country is to stop being racist — and that includes standing against the left’s obsession over race.

President Trump is cracking down on the left’s pervasive racism, veiled as “anti-racist,” by finally stopping the diversity, equity, and inclusion grift, which is just another iteration of cultural Marxism. Amid Trump’s pushback against DEI programs, however, we mustn’t overlook another destructive force used by progressives that underpins their race obsession: intersectionality.

Minorities serve the left’s intersectionality mission of dividing America.

Intersectionality is a leftist tool to pool various minorities and “marginalized” identity groups together into a politically viable mass. Each group is made to think, feel, act, speak, and — of course — vote alike.

Intersectionality is one of the ways leftists tell minority or “marginalized communities” that they are united in a glorious cause to defeat their oppressors — who always happen to be the ones to refuse the left-wing narrative.

These minority groups are often convinced by left-wing extremists to vote against their own best interests. It’s insidious.

Breaking the narrative

As your liberty-loving Latino, I can attest that race and ethnicity do not predetermine my worldview. For example, despite CNN’s claims, being Latino does not mean supporting illegal immigration. Many on the left argue otherwise.

The very idea that just because I’m Hispanic, I should automatically share a common cause with leftists who also happen to be minorities — or Democrats burdened by “white guilt” — is so absurd that even longtime Democrat mouthpiece and strategist James Carville has recently called on his own party to stop being racist.

Earlier this month, during his “Politics War Room” podcast, Carville — who has long chastised the Democratic Party for its obsession with “identity politics,” calling it “so freaking arrogant” — condemned his party as racist for constantly referring to blanket terms like “communities of color” and “people of color” to describe individual Americans. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who was on the podcast with Carville, agreed.

“The most racist thing that I hear is when people say ‘communities of color’ or ‘people of color’ because that assumes that everybody that is not white is the same,” Carville said. “Filipinos are the same as Hondurans, are the same as Nigerians, are the same as Indonesians? It’s absurd.” He continued: “And [Democrats] just keep using this language, and I think they’re too naive to know how stupid it is. That’s my own view.”

Yet these groups are lumped together by leftists in the Democratic Party and the press into one group. Why? Because, alone, they don’t make up a large enough voting bloc for left-wingers to give a darn. But together, they serve the left’s intersectionality mission: dividing America. Who cares if their issues are never addressed? They are united by collectivist thought. What matters is putting leftists in power.

The intersectional illusion

Even elitist Hollywood is rejecting the illusion of intersectionality. A Hispanic transgender person was caught failing to toe the leftist line when tweets by Oscar-nominated “Emilia Perez” star Karla Sofia Gascon surfaced. Her views on everything from George Floyd to Oscar diversity — Hollywood’s race-based award-rigging — were in complete discord with leftist orthodoxy.

I don’t particularly care about Gascon’s tweets, but the point is this: Someone who, by leftist logic, should have been all in on intersectionality because both brown and trans, wasn’t.

How many times have we seen this before? From Joy Reid’s anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, homophobic, and racist messaging blog posts to Dave Chappelle’s ongoing battle with the trans community to Kanye West’s many controversial statements.

These members of so-called minority groups aren’t supposed to say, feel, think, or do these things. But they did. Ain’t freedom grand?

Free thinking vilified

On the flip side, look at what happens when people who are supposed to be protected under this conformist blanket dare speak out of turn. Consider New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Remember how Bruce Jenner was a left-wing darling for his transition before he donned a MAGA hat?

Take former Democratic National Committee powerhouse Lindy Li, an Asian woman who dared to say Kamala Harris was a weak presidential candidate. Li was lambasted by members of her own party for merely speaking her mind, and she ultimately left the Democratic Party altogether. In an interview, she referred to her “transition” as “like leaving a cult.”

Here we are in 2025 — and the tide is turning. I am the individual Chris Salcedo. I am a liberty-loving Latino. I am a proud Texan. I am not part of some arbitrary larger critical mass randomly lumped together by out-of-touch academics, cultural theoreticians, rowdy student protesters, or brain-dead ideologues in the biased press. And more people are waking up to the fake promise and cult-like reality of intersectionality.

Recent events in politics, entertainment, media, and economics finally indicate what we on the right have been fighting for: Intersectionality is dead. The emperor’s new clothes have been pointed out, and just like in the original fable, the clothes were never there to begin with.

Southwest Key Programs, a nonprofit that previously ran the largest network of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children, took $3 billion in taxpayer cash under the Biden administration and subsequently hiked executives’ salaries, according to a New York Post report.

Southwest Key operated more than two dozen facilities in Texas, Arizona, and California.

‘Contacted the DOJ seeking clarity regarding its dismissal of the Southwest Key lawsuit.’

Based on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data, from fiscal years 2021 through 2024, the organization received billions of taxpayer funds to provide shelter services to foreign national children who crossed into the country without a parent or guardian.

During that same period, the nonprofit significantly increased the annual salaries of several higher-ups.

According to tax filings, the organization’s vice president, Veronica Delgado-Savage, received a nearly 10% raise from $297,792 in 2021 to $326,086 in 2023. Chief information officer Andy Harper’s pay surged 198%, from $214,356 to $637,806. Geraldo Rivera, senior vice president turned chief program officer, saw a 78% bump, from $312,791 to $555,998. Human resources chief Jose Arroyo-Davila’s salary jumped 114%, from $308,694 to $661,298. CEO Anselmo Villarreal’s pay soared 139%, from $491,642 to $1,174,551, over the same period.

The Post reported that 12 other senior employees received 10% to 112% raises. It further noted that all of the major pay bumps, including the executives, occurred during the first two years of former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit was plagued with claims that some of its staffers had sexually abused children staying at its facilities between 2015 and 2023.

Southwest Key faced a lawsuit from the Biden administration’s Department of Justice in 2024 over the allegations. The DOJ argued that its staff had “subjected unaccompanied alien children in its care to unlawful sexual harassment and abuse.”

Southwest Key did not respond to a request for comment from the Post.

Last week, President Donald Trump’s administration effectively forced the nonprofit to shut down, announcing that the federal government would no longer send children to live at its facilities. All of the children in its shelters were relocated.

The administration’s Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice called it a “move to end sexual abuse and harassment.”

However, at the same time, the administration pulled the federal lawsuit against Southwest Key.

As a result of the administration’s actions, Southwest Key furloughed its employees.

Last week, the organization told Blaze News that it was “pleased” that the lawsuit had been dropped and “strongly denied the claims relating to child sexual abuse in our shelters,” noting that there was “no settlement or payment required.”

“At the same time, due to the unforeseen federal funding freeze and the stop placement order on our shelters for unaccompanied minors and Home Study Post Release programs by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, we had to make the difficult decision to furlough approximately 5,000 Southwest Key Programs employees. This decision impacts staff and programs across our nation,” the statement read.

A spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told the Post, “It is disgusting that vulnerable children suffered sexual abuse under Southwest Key’s watch. Senator Grassley has contacted the DOJ seeking clarity regarding its dismissal of the Southwest Key lawsuit and looks forward to a follow-up conversation soon.”

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied re-entry to the United States to Rasha Alawieh, a visa holder and kidney transplant specialist at Brown University, because she had attended the funeral for the former leader of Hezbollah.

The story of Alawieh not being allowed back into the United States garnered attention on Monday, but often without the context of Alawieh’s support for the terrorist group.

“Last month, Rasha Alawieh traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah — a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree. Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah. A visa is a privilege not a right — glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” the Department of Homeland Security said.

‘I think if you listen to one of his sermons, you would know what I mean.’

The New York Times’ story, at time of publication, still does not include the new information provided by DHS.

Politico reported not only that Alawieh admitted to attending Nasrallah’s funeral last month, but that she also had “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures in a deleted items folder on her cell phone before arriving at Boston’s Logan Airport.

Alawieh at first told CBP she did not support Nasrallah, but then later admitted she admired him from a “religious” perspective. She further claimed she did not know Hezbollah was designated a terrorist organization, even though it has been so for over two decades.

“So I have a lot of Whatsapp groups with families and friends who send them. So I am a Shia Muslim and he is a religious figure. He has a lot of teachings, and he is highly regarded in the Shia community,” Alawieh said, according to the transcript filed in court. “I think if you listen to one of his sermons, you would know what I mean. He is a religious, spiritual person, as I said; he has very high value. His teachings are about spirituality and morality.”

After an interview conducted at Logan airport, Alawieh was informed that her visa had been canceled and that she is subject to a five-year bar on returning to the United States. There is a legal battle over her detainment and subsequent removal from the country.

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