Month: April 2026

Senior leaders from the Department of War, U.S. government, and defense industry gathered at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, April 23, to provide an update about Golden Dome for America (GDA), the nation’s initiative to build a next-generation missile defense shield to protect the Homeland.

Speakers included Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering and the Department of War’s Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael; Director of Golden Dome for America Gen. Mike Guetlein; and Deputy Director of Operations at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Maj. Gen. Mark Piper.

The event, set against a backdrop of current missile defense capabilities, underscored the urgent need to modernize the nation’s defenses against a new generation of advanced threats, as directed by President Trump.

“Golden Dome is the decisive response to a new era of threats,” said Gen. Mike Guetlein, Director of Golden Dome for America. “We are moving with purpose and urgency to forge a shield that is layered, integrated, and automated. The progress on display today is tangible proof that this is not a future concept, but a reality we must build now.”

GDA is a layered defense architecture designed to protect the United States from complex ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, as well as advanced aerial threats. It enhances national security by integrating a persistent space-based sensor network for global tracking, a portfolio of advanced interceptors providing defense-in-depth, and an integrated command and control system to manage threats at machine speed.

The program’s momentum was a central theme, with officials confirming GDA is ahead of schedule and on budget. Key achievements highlighted include the completion of the initial architecture blueprint, the establishment of a Command-and-Control Consortium, and the awarding of active contracts for critical system components.

Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, spoke to the program’s innovative foundation.
“It is this Department’s mandate to definitively secure our homeland,” said Under Secretary Michael. “We are embracing an open architecture that harnesses the full power of American innovation—from artificial intelligence to the commercial space industry—to build the impenetrable shield that this nation deserves.”

During remarks, the operational imperative for capabilities was validated by Piper.

“From a NORAD and NORTHCOM perspective, the requirement is clear,” said Maj. Gen. Piper. “To defend North America and win tomorrow’s fight, we must maintain our warfighting advantages and operate beyond stovepiped systems operating at human speed. Golden Dome is forging the integrated, automated battle management network needed to see every threat, make decisions in milliseconds, and keep America safe.”

The choice of Hampton Roads for the event underscored the region’s role in the national endeavor. The area hosts testing for the Army Long-Range Persistent Surveillance (ALPS), a key terrestrial sensor whose data directly informs the development of the broader GDA architecture.

Department officials explained GDA is a fiscally responsible, vital investment in national security. The program’s modular, open-systems approach is designed to control costs and provide sustained, predictable demand signals to the U.S. industrial base, ensuring the nation can outpace emerging threats for decades to come.

The post Department of War Showcases Progress on Golden Dome for America, the Nation’s Next-Generation Homeland Defense appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A powerful and destructive tornado tore through northern Oklahoma late Thursday, striking near and impacting Vance Air Force Base in Enid, leaving a trail of devastation that has shaken both local residents and military personnel.

According to early reports, the tornado carved a destructive path through Enid, ripping roofs off buildings, flattening homes, and knocking out power across large sections of the city.

Emergency crews rushed into damaged neighborhoods conducting door-to-door searches for survivors amid debris fields and downed power lines.

Initial reporting confirms the military installation was directly impacted by the storm, though officials say they are still assessing the extent of damage and accounting for personnel.

At least 10 people were reported injured as multiple tornadoes touched down across northern Oklahoma, triggering emergency response operations throughout the region.

WATCH:

BREAKING: Vance Air Force Base in Enid, OK has taken a DIRECT HIT from a vioIent tornado, per KOCO

Reports of buildings being flattened and cars flying through the air

Pray for our service members on base pic.twitter.com/Wy6KpMsQP6

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 24, 2026

INSANE: Video of the tornado that SLAMMED into Vance Air Force Base in Enid, OK filmed from an airliner at 30,000 feet

Search and rescue operations still underway.

This is major.

Praying our airmen were out of harms way. pic.twitter.com/P61U5VKzkg

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 24, 2026

#BREAKING: Watch as additional footage from earlier during the Tornado Emergency shows a violent tornado passing dangerously close to multiple people filming as it strikes near or at Vance Air Force Base in Enid Oklahoma. Dozens of reports indicate numerous buildings have been… pic.twitter.com/PzIvN80qSn

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 24, 2026

AP reported:

The Vance Air Force Base was impacted by the tornado, but the extent of the damage was not immediately clear. The base said in a social media post that officials “are currently conducting accountability procedures to ensure all personnel are safe and accounted for.”

“Please join me in praying for the Enid community, which has been severely impacted by tonight’s tornado,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt posted on social media.

Enid Police Department spokesperson Cass Rains said there had been early reports of people trapped in homes and extensive damage. Garfield County includes Vance Air Force Base, which is about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Oklahoma City.

The post Violent Tornado SLAMS Vance Air Force Base — Homes Flattened, Military Installation Impacted appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The city of Los Angeles has a major street light problem. Thousands of the lights are out because thieves strip them of copper wire which they then turn around and sell for cash.

To deal with this problem and fix the lights, the city government is proposing a new TAX on the law abiding citizens who did not steal the copper wire. Can you even believe this?

The city wants to punish the people who didn’t ruin the street lights and make them pay to fix it. Unreal.

FOX 11 in Los Angeles reports:

Los Angeles voters to weigh fee increase for streetlight repairs amid copper theft concerns

A citywide plan to replace thousands of broken streetlights across Los Angeles could come with a cost increase for property owners under a proposed Proposition 218 assessment.

Mayor Karen Bass is urging voters to approve the measure, which would raise property-owner fees by an estimated 120% to help fund a $125 million program aimed at replacing more than 200,000 streetlights citywide. City officials say the current system generates roughly $45 million and has not been significantly updated since the 1990s, when Proposition 218 was adopted by California voters to require property-owner approval for new or increased local assessments.

Under the law, the city cannot raise streetlighting fees without a majority vote from affected property owners, a process that has kept much of the funding system largely unchanged for decades.

Ballots are expected to be mailed this week.

Across Los Angeles, officials say copper theft continues to worsen infrastructure problems, with thieves stripping wire from underground fiber lines and disabling streetlights in neighborhoods across the city. More than 32,000 streetlight repair requests remain pending.

In this video report, one LA resident notes the fact that the city is supposed to host the Olympics in the near future. How are they going to do that when they can’t even keep the lights on?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to enforce the law and punish people for stealing the copper wire? Isn’t that the logical fix for this problem?

When did punishing criminals become a controversial approach to governing a city, and why should the already burdened taxpayers have to fix this problem? Don’t they pay enough in taxes?

The post SAY WHAT? Los Angeles Proposes New TAX to Pay to Fix Street Lights Broken by Copper Wire Thieves appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The people of the East Village neighborhood in New York City are getting exactly what they voted for and they are not happy about it.

In fact, the people of this neighborhood, who voted for Mamdani by a margin of 70 percent, are now suing his administration because they don’t like his plan to locate a new homeless shelter there.

Have they not heard about the warmth of collectivism? Isn’t this precisely what they voted for?

Over 70% of the East Village voted for Mamdani.

Now they’re suing Mamdani because he’s planning to relocate Bellevue homeless shelter to the East Village. https://t.co/O9so7tGGlt pic.twitter.com/B1wPupD7RE

— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) April 22, 2026

From the New York Post:

East Villagers sue Mamdani to stop relocation of notorious Bellevue men’s homeless shelter into their neighborhood

Enraged East Villagers sued Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a last-gasp effort to stop the relocation of hundreds of homeless men to a new shelter in their neighborhood.

The lawsuit filed Monday seeks an emergency restraining order that would prevent the “rushed” May 1 opening of the intake shelter along Third Street.

The site was selected by City Hall as one of two intake shelters in Manhattan that would effectively replace the notorious Bellevue homeless shelter — a haven for often-dangerous vagrants that Mamdani plans to close by the end of the month.

But Mamdani and city officials not only underhandedly declared an “emergency” to close the Midtown shelter, their decision to plunk its clientele into the East Village was dangerously slapdash, the lawsuit contends.

“This case is not about the City’s decision to close the Bellevue Intake Shelter,” the Manhattan Supreme Court filing states.

“It challenges only the City’s hastily made and legally invalid decision to [locate] a new citywide homeless adult male intake center at 8 East 3rd Street without following any of the legal requirements that must precede such a significant and consequential decision.”

Oh the irony.

Libs will literally vote for a communist and then sue him to protect their own backyards.

Sociopathic levels of contradiction. https://t.co/7KeOKpZY89

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 23, 2026

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[takes a breath]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Elections have consequences.

Voting for socialist communists has severe consequences.

This is what you voted for!

Glorious!

— Uhtred of Bebbanburg (@conservativevin) April 22, 2026

It is very difficult to feel any sympathy in this situation.

What did these people think was going to happen when they voted for this man?

The post NYC Neighborhood Where 70% of People Voted for Zohran Mamdani Now Suing His Administration for Locating a Homeless Shelter There appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Foreign Affairs

How the Iran War Makes China Look Good

U.S. belligerence is driving Russia and the Global South closer to China.

There are no winners in the war on Iran. But if there were one, it would surely be China.

Contrary to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s fawning remarks, “the whole world” is neither “safer” nor better for President Donald Trump’s decision to launch an illegal war on Iran. As the U.S. knows, Iran was not in pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Nor were its ballistic missiles intended for, or ever used for, offensive first strikes.

The foundation of international trust has cracked, and partnerships have been broken. The world can no longer trust the United States. The bond between Europe and the U.S. has been frayed. And the hard-won emerging trust between Iran and its Gulf neighbors, which had held the hope of a safer region, has been badly wounded.

There are only losers in this war: the Gulf states, Ukraine, America, and, of course, the Iranian people. An important long-term geopolitical loss suffered by the U.S. is the accelerated erosion of its hegemony and the continued transfer of trust to China.

Recently, Beijing has emerged as a more powerful broker of peace than had been understood. Because of its close relationship with Iran, China was able to help bring it to the table for peace talks in Islamabad; because of its special relationship with Pakistan, it was able to help set the table. 

Prior to the first round of Islamabad talks, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, went to Beijing. According to the Chinese foreign ministry, the purpose of his trip was to “strengthen” Chinese–Pakistani cooperation in making “new efforts toward advocating for peace” in the region. 

The Chinese foreign ministry has said China “worked actively to help bring about an end to the conflict,” and the White House confirms that “there were conversations that took place between top levels of our government and China’s government.”

I am told by Michael Swaine, Senior Research Fellow in the East Asia Program of the Quincy Institute, that there are “numerous reports that the Chinese have had frequent talks with Iran and other regional players and had urged Iran to enter a ceasefire. How much influence China has over Iran, though, is unclear.” Swaine says that China wants to be seen “as supportive of peace and lawful behavior” while, at the same time, “not getting directly dragged into the imbroglio.”

Though China is not a direct participant in negotiations, it has significant influence over the process of diplomacy. Whether and to what extent China is indirectly involved in the war itself remains unclear. 

U.S. intelligence claims to have obtained information that China may have sent shoulder-fired missiles to Iran and may have been considering sending advanced radar systems. The intelligence is not definitive, and China says they have “never provided weapons to any party in the conflict” and has called the reports “fabricated.” In a strangely qualified statement, Trump said he asked Chinese President Xi Jinping not to send weapons to Iran, and Xi assured him that they are “essentially… not doing that.”

Always studious about not getting involved in foreign wars, China has not fully exercised its available military leverage and has likely not sent weapons. But it has supported Iran diplomatically. The foreign ministry called the U.S. closure of the Strait of Hormuz “a dangerous and irresponsible move.” And when the United Nations Security Council took up a resolution on coordinating an effort to reopen the Strait, China (and Russia) vetoed it.

When the U.S. went ahead with a total blockade of Iranian ports, China stood firm in support of Iran. “Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz,” Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun said. “We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honor them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs.”

The American insistence that civilian enrichment is not a sovereign right of Iran but a conditional right to be granted by the U.S. undermines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and constitutes a usurpation of the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency. By waging a war of aggression against Iran, the U.S. has usurped the powers of the UN Security Council. These are not the actions of a benevolent hegemon upholding the international order but of a predatory hegemon. 

These developments have made an already trepidatious Global South even more apprehensive of American power—and have made China’s restraint and diplomacy look even more dependable.

The Global South is consistently wary of what appears to be American primacy and neocolonialism. They are increasingly worried about the replacement of international law by American might. The U.S. war on Iran, which has created an oil supply shock, is a source of extreme anxiety for the Global South, the region most affected by the rising cost of oil.

China has been a voice of support for the Global South and its preferred vision of multipolarity and international law. “Maintaining the authority of international rule of law means not only using it when it suits us and abandoning it when it doesn’t,” Xi has said. “We cannot allow the world to revert to the law of the jungle.”

U.S. belligerence has pushed Beijing and Moscow even closer together, and Xi has called on Russia to join China in promoting a more “just and equitable international order” in the face of a “changing and turbulent” international situation.” The current unbalanced international order has made the China–Russia partnership even more “precious,” Xi said. He added that China and Russia need an even stronger partnership to safeguard the interests of the Global South. The partners need to “firmly uphold and practice multilateralism, work together to revitalize the authority and vitality of the United Nations [and] promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction.”

The U.S. erosion and selective application of international law is driving the Global South and Russia away from America and toward China, which presents itself as a reliable partner and defender of international law. “The United States,” Swaine says, “is helping China make that case through its reckless, unstrategic, and illegal actions.” This will be one of the great long-term costs of Trump’s war on Iran.

The post How the Iran War Makes China Look Good appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs

Western European Elites’ Hungary Hypocrisy

Are their crooks so different from our crooks?

(Photo by Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP via Getty Images)

The end of Viktor Orbán’s premiership in Hungary has been greeted with whoops and cheers throughout Europe’s halls of power. “Hungarians have struck a blow for democracy,” the Economist claims. “Citizens … mobilised to take their country back,” the Guardian informs us.

Well, I’m not going to pretend that Orbán’s rule did not contain blatant gerrymandering and corruption. I made critical points about his Fidesz government before as well as after the election.

But the hypocrisy is difficult to stomach. We can talk about “democratic backsliding” in Hungary. But I don’t think that it can be compared to some sort of principled and righteous Western European alternative.

In Western Europe, after all—such as in Britain, where I was born—successive governments have completely ignored the popular will on matters as existential as mass migration. Of course, Britain is a representative democracy, so politicians are not obliged to bow to the popular will in every case. It was Edmund Burke who said that your representative betrays you if he sacrifices his judgement to your opinion. Yet successive governments have promised change while delivering its opposite. Boris Johnson, most egregiously, came to power in the aftermath of Brexit—perhaps the most inarguable rebuke to the post-Blair status quo—and launched an unprecedented spike in immigration that has come to be known as the “Boriswave”.

The same phenomenon has been seen throughout Europe. (Look at how Angela Merkel claimed that multiculturalism had failed before turning it up to 11.) Just how long can governments ignore their voters, and mislead their voters, without being accused of “democratic backsliding”?

Orbán has been criticized and mocked for funding institutions like the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, which critics argue are right-wing ideological projects. It would be mischievous to outright dismiss such claims. Equally, though, state funding for ideological projects is hardly an alien concept in Western Europe. British commentators, for example, will be all too familiar with the analytic-activistic ecosystem known as “the Blob.” 

“It is a mixture of state institutions, state-funded institutions, and private trusts and charities,” one influential essay puts it, “It is a groupthink bubble. It is a network, an ecosystem, in which everyone operates with a set of similar superficial assumptions about the legitimate domain of state action derived from similar assumptions about human nature.” The Blob is not hegemonic in a party political sense. (One report, the journalist Poppy Coburn has written, “identified nearly £880m in public spending that backed charities involved in campaigns against government policies on migration, trans rights and the climate crisis.”) But it maintains and promotes ideological orthodoxies while feeding on public funds. How different is that?

Of course, most people have no such leg-up when it comes to promoting their opinions. Indeed, they often have to be wary of expressing them. Even under a Conservative government, Britain had led the way when it came to curbing speech. It would be wrong to argue that one cannot criticize government policies or fashionable opinions. But be a little too crass, a little too irreverent, or a little too provocative in front of the easily provoked, and you might end up with the police at your door. Again, I’m not denying that there is a substantive argument that Orbán’s government created a “hostile environment” for commentators who were not on Team Fidesz. But Western European leaders should look in a mirror. What kind of example are they setting when it comes to speech? In Germany, a couple of years ago, a rape victim was prosecuted for insulting her attacker.

No response to criticism is more childish than “you started it”. But I am not objecting to Orbán being criticized here—I am objecting to his alleged flaws being presented as exceptional. The critique of “populism,” of which Orbán is being held up as a representative, has always had value in its argument that the idea of standing up for the “common people” can obscure and excuse thuggery and opportunism. What is left unasked is how governments can align unqualified indifference, if not hostility, towards majoritarianism with wide-eyed attachment to “democracy.” (What does the “demos” even mean?)

It is difficult to escape the suspicion that for Western European elites, a government that is “democratic” is a government that reflects the opinions of Western European elites rather than a government that reflects the opinions of its voters. Orbán’s cardinal sin was not gerrymandering or corruption but disagreeing with them over asylum seekers and Ukraine.

I wish the Hungarian people all the best with their new government. Indeed, I wish their government the best as well. It looks as if Péter Magyar, the incoming prime minister, ran an effective campaign, and he certainly has a powerful mandate. But he should be very wary when it comes to his new allies in Western Europe. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

The post Western European Elites’ Hungary Hypocrisy appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics

Who’s Afraid of Losing Midterms?

The legislature is an afterthought to the actual business of governing.

(Photo by EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP via Getty Images)

The Republicans are beginning to make frightened, unhappy noises about the upcoming midterm elections, and one hesitates to tell them they’re wrong to be afraid. President Donald Trump’s popularity is at or around its all-time low, the party’s popularity is in comparable territory, and the Democrats are sitting comfortably ahead in generic ballot polling. A Virginia redistricting scheme passed on referendum this week; if it holds up in court, it is likely to secure some number of new congressional seats for the blue team, much like a similar referendum in California last November. While the Democrats’ own dismal popularity (below Trump’s!) is of some comfort, not to mention a broadly favorable Senate map, there’s plenty to make the GOP mood pretty glum these days.

Far be it from me to diminish the genuine personal distress arising from job insecurity for any given individual congresscritter, but at the level of government, I am very tempted to say that it doesn’t actually matter much. The White House (let alone the congressional GOP as an independent body) doesn’t seem to have much of a legislative agenda in the post–Big Beautiful Bill era; while there are occasional wistful suggestions of passing some sort of statutory immigration reform, most of the administration’s priorities are being served more or less by unilateral executive action. Nor would statutory immigration reform be a given even if the GOP held on to Congress; there is a reason that moderate but effective measures like national E-Verify mandates never seem to make their way to the floor. The Chamber of Commerce and the farm lobby still have a lot of clout in the party.

Even with tailwinds from redistricting, under current alignment it is basically impossible for either party to secure a veto-proof majority, so the country can breathe easy in the face of whatever demented program the Democrats are cooking up in Ken Martin’s basement. And there is no guarantee that it won’t be pretty, pretty demented—the death of woke has been highly overstated, and the catastrophic economic distortions of Bidenomics have not discouraged the blue team from clinging on to ever-more-expensive-sounding subsidy policies and ever-more-European-sounding antigrowth policies. The Democrats’ apathy and fecklessness is perhaps second only to the peculiarities of Trump the man as one of the conditioning factors of the current political moment. 

What’s left? Basically, harassment by oversight. It seems like a safe bet that the Democrats will raise the big top for another impeachment circus; the only uncertainty is over what. (The lack of AUMF for the Iran War, the Venezuela caper, and the 12-Day War was a likely-looking option, but the failed war powers votes make it a less clean hit.) They make select committees, hale in various administration officials over this or that alleged peccadillo, and generally make a lot of noise. But, while these proceedings can be embarrassing and waste the administration’s time, dollars to donuts they aren’t actually going to accomplish anything concrete. The GOP has demonstrated that, while it isn’t always terribly happy about it, it will always stick by its man, Trump. And even if other officials are removed, well, does that actually matter when the White House itself is the sole center of executive policymaking? 

This isn’t exactly what you’d call healthy government along constitutional lines. It also raises the question of whether rule by executive decree is actually a sustainable model in a time when the White House is hotly contested between national two factions of basically equal size. Polly-put-the-kettle-on, Polly-take-the-kettle-off policy makes it very difficult to implement the sorts of strategic, long-term measures that everyone seems to think the country needs in this century; swinging between mutually exclusive regulation is also highly disruptive in an era when the government has a massive amount of influence on economic and even private life. But it seems unlikely that Congress is going to decide it would like its power back any time soon—isn’t it funny that Madison was basically wrong about human nature, and that the members of the legislature will actively shirk power if they can also shirk responsibility?—and we must take the good with the bad.

The good for the GOP is that a loss in the midterms will not be the stuff of catastrophe for the Republicans or the Trump agenda; nor will it be unwelcome, looking toward 2028, for the nationally loathed Democrats to have a larger stage on which to make themselves hated than the one they have danced on in these two years of unified government. While this might be an indictment of the Republicans’ poverty of vision—this was once the party of smaller and constitutional government—it will have to do for now.

The post Who’s Afraid of Losing Midterms? appeared first on The American Conservative.

A disturbing and deeply unsettling plot to carry out a mass-casualty attack at a Texas synagogue has been foiled

Authorities have arrested 18-year-old Angelina Han Hicks of Lexington, North Carolina, after uncovering what investigators describe as a coordinated plan to carry out a horrific attack on members of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, Texas.

According to court documents and law enforcement officials, Hicks allegedly conspired with at least two other individuals to carry out a violent assault targeting Jewish worshippers.

The plan reportedly involved using a vehicle to drive into a congregation with the explicit goal of killing as many people as possible.

Federal authorities say the FBI received a tip that triggered a rapid multi-agency response, ultimately leading to Hicks’ arrest at her home.

She now faces multiple felony charges, including conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly weapon. Her bond has been set at a staggering $10 million.

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X:

On Tuesday FBI received a tip that an individual out of Lexington, North Carolina was planning a mass casualty event at a Jewish Day School near Houston, Texas.

@FBICharlotte and @FBIHouston acted quickly, and working with our outstanding local partners in the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, the subject has been taken into custody.

Investigation ongoing. Thank you to our Joint Terrorism Task Force personnel, FBI teams and local partners for their decisive work that likely saved lives.

On Tuesday FBI received a tip that an individual out of Lexington, North Carolina was planning a mass casualty event at a Jewish Day School near Houston, Texas. @FBICharlotte and @FBIHouston acted quickly, and working with our outstanding local partners in the Davidson County… pic.twitter.com/pqaItJ55i5

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) April 23, 2026

FOX8 reported:

Hicks allegedly conspired with two men referred to as “Teegan” and “Angel,” whose last names are currently unknown, to commit murder against members of the synagogue, according to warrants.

The Houston Chronicle cites a court order that stated, “The conspiracy is to kill as many Jews as possible by driving through a congregation at a synagogue.”

The attack was allegedly planned for April 21, 2028, about two years from now, warrants say.

“The date doesn’t reflect the entirety of the evidence and shouldn’t be interpreted to mean the contemplated acts were not imminent,” said District Attorney Garry Frank’s Office, which covers North Carolina Prosecutorial District 33.

Frank added that the investigation is unfolding across three states and includes the federal government.

Hicks’ father spoke to FOX8 after her arrest, describing the charges as “fabricated” and “way over the top.”

He says Hicks was playing a dark online fantasy game and described her as a “good kid” who was set to graduate in two weeks. She does not have a vehicle or a driver’s license.

“We miss her and we’re sick over this mess,” Hicks’ father said. “And it looks like they just want to get paid because she’s no threat to anyone other than being a fantasy video [game] player.”

The post Lexington Woman Charged in Chilling Plot to Massacre Worshippers at Texas Synagogue appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A Democrat state senator in Virginia named Lamont Bagby recently said that he understands rural America because he grew up watching TV shows like the Dukes of Hazard and the Waltons.

Does this line of thinking apply to other TV shows? Does watching Law & Order make one qualified to be a cop or a district attorney?

It’s fun to imagine how the liberal media would treat this if it was said by a conservative Republican.

The Daily Caller reported:

Democrat Says He Understands Rural America Because He Watched Classic Shows Like ‘Waltons,’ ‘Dukes Of Hazzard’

Democratic Virginia state Sen. Lamont Bagby claimed Thursday that watching “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The Andy Griffith Show” and “The Waltons” as a child taught him about rural America.

A judge in Tazewell County, Virginia, declared Virginia’s redistricting referendum that passed with just 51.5% of the vote Tuesday was unconstitutional, citing both procedural violations and ruling that the state’s Democratically-controlled Legislature exceeded its authority. Bagby, who represents parts of Henrico County and the state capital, Richmond, argued during a floor debate on the referendum that he understood rural Virginians because he had watched classic TV shows depicting rural culture.

“And listen, I almost took issue with the other side saying that we don’t understand [rural America],” Bagby said during the floor debate. “But I grew up watching ‘The Waltons,’ I grew up with Opie [the son of a sheriff played by Andy Griffith], I even watched the ‘Dukes of Hazzard.’ I think I know a little bit about rural America.”

Here’s the video:

NEW: During a floor debate on gerrymandering, Virginia State Senator Lamont Bagby (D) says he knows a little bit about rural America because he watched Dukes of Hazzard. pic.twitter.com/b3BtbLn4V1

— Nick Minock (@NickMinock) April 23, 2026

Here are a few responses.

I watched Star Trek a few times, does that mean I’m a space man now?

— Deplorable Garbage Petr@ does it matter? (@PragueArtist) April 23, 2026

pic.twitter.com/8LxvMwM32D

— Pedro Tapir (@PedroTapir) April 23, 2026

pic.twitter.com/IAug2FZZEM

— Pitboxer Creations (@pitboxer_crafts) April 23, 2026

He really walked into that one. Oof.

The post Virginia Democrat Says He Understands Rural America Because He Grew Up Watching the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Now that the Southern Poverty Law Center is being exposed, it is important to look back at some of the outrageous claims made by this group in the past.

It is absolutely amazing to think that in 2015, they put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘extremist’ list. Is ‘extremist’ one of the words that comes into your mind when you think of Carson?

Perhaps when they targeted one of the most renowned and highly respected pediatric brain surgeons in the entire country in this way, it was a clue that they were not operating in good faith.

They were eventually forced to take Carson off the list and then apologized… sort of.

Breitbart News reported in 2015:

SPLC Apologizes, Removes Ben Carson from Extremist List

The Southern Poverty Law Center has announced they have removed Dr. Ben Carson from their “extremist” file.

In an unsigned statement released on Wednesday, SPLC said, “In October 2014, we posted an ‘Extremist File’ of Dr. Ben Carson. This week, as we’ve come under intense criticism for doing so, we’ve reviewed our profile and have concluded that it did not meet our standards, so we have taken it down and apologize to Dr. Carson for having posted it.”

Though the statement goes on to laud Dr. Carson’s contribution “to medicine, his philanthropic work,” and his “personal story,” they still “believe his views should be closely examined.” SPLC insists, “Dr. Carson has, in fact, made a number of statements that express views that we believe most people would conclude are extreme.”

SPLC lists a number of Carson quotes they charge are extremist, including his comparison of Obamacare to slavery, and that we now “live in a society where people are afraid to say what they believe.”

SPLC is a group that had raised hundreds of millions of dollars—they currently have $300 million under financial management—publishing lists of Nazis, Skin Heads, and KKK groups. In recent years, they have taken on the LGBT cause and have started putting Christian conservatives on their hate lists.

Dr. Carson is a good and decent man who spent his life saving the lives of other people, mostly children.

For the SPLC to treat him in this way speaks volumes about what kind of people are part of that organization. It’s a shame Carson didn’t sue them out of existence back then.

The post FLASHBACK: In 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center Put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘Extremist’ List appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.