A disturbing incident at the University of California, Berkeley, is once again raising serious questions about whether conservative students can safely and freely express their views on campus.
According to reporting from Campus Reform, a leftist student poured coffee over a table hosted by members of the Turning Point USA club on campus, damaging materials and disrupting outreach efforts.
The account comes directly from eyewitness John Paul Leon, who serves as president of the Berkeley TPUSA chapter and was present at the time of the incident.
Leon described how, on April 1, an unidentified student approached the group’s table under the pretense of interest, saying, “Wow, I’m interested in hearing more about this event,” before suddenly pouring coffee across the table and its contents.
The table had been set up to promote an upcoming speaking event titled “Women’s Rights or Human Rights,” which is set to feature Lila Rose, CEO of Live Action.
The event is expected to include a Q&A session and an on-stage debate with students—precisely the kind of open exchange universities claim to encourage.
Realistically speaking, no one is going to cry over a spilled cup of coffee. However, the incident reveals something far more serious: a willingness to engage in disruptive behavior without hesitation or consequence.
The normalization of this kind of conduct reflects a campus environment where political intolerance is not only present but increasingly accepted. Berkeley’s political climate did not develop in a vacuum.
Many students arrive from K–12 systems with limited exposure to political debate or foundational civic knowledge.
Once on campus, students are often immersed in academic environments dominated by left-leaning perspectives, shaping views in a way that discourages dissent.
The result is a campus culture that overwhelmingly leans in one ideological direction, with little room for opposing viewpoints.
That reality becomes visible in moments like this. When students feel comfortable openly vandalizing a table representing a political viewpoint, the issue is not the coffee—it is the underlying culture that permits and even encourages such actions.
Berkeley has long been associated with political activism, but repeated incidents targeting conservative groups raise legitimate concerns about whether the university is upholding its responsibility to protect viewpoint diversity.
Federal law and longstanding Supreme Court precedent affirm that public universities cannot discriminate against students based on viewpoint. Yet repeated incidents targeting conservative groups suggest that enforcement of those principles remains inconsistent at best.
UC Berkeley has faced scrutiny before over campus unrest and alleged failures to protect student expression. The latest incident adds to a growing body of evidence that certain viewpoints—particularly conservative ones—are not afforded the same level of tolerance.
At a university that prides itself on being the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, the irony is difficult to ignore.
A lawyer for the disgraced far-left Rep. Eric Swalwell has said his client is too “busy” to answer questions about the flurry of rrape and sexual assault allegations against him.
The California Congressman, who was among the favorites to win the state’s upcoming gubernatorial election, was hit by numerous allegations of rape and sexual assault on Friday evening.
During an appearance on CNN, Swalwell’s lawyer, Elias Dabaie, said his client had more important things to do than respond directly to questions about the claims.
“Well, let me start by telling you that we take these allegations very seriously,” Dabaie began.
”The Congressman categorically denies any misconduct took place, and we intend to vindicate his rights in court.”
“So, your investigation is ongoing. Why isn’t he here, though, to answer those questions?” asked host Elex Michaelson.
“Well, he has a campaign to run,” Dabaie responded. “He’s busy.”
”He’s taking these allegations seriously. And, again, as he told you in that video, he’s spending time with his family and his wife and his friends, and that’s his choice.”
In a video posted on X, Swalwell vowed to fight the allegations with “everything I have”.
“These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They are absolutely false, they did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything I have,” he said,.
“I do not suggest to you in any way that I am perfect or that I’m a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgement in my past.
”But those mistakes are between me and my wife and to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.
”I also apologize to you if in any way, you have doubted your support for me. But I think you know who I am.”
Hear it directly from me. These allegations are flat false. And I will fight them. pic.twitter.com/bQSlCquD1U
Politico reported on Friday that Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign is already imploding as a result of the allegations, with multiple staff resigning before the story broke.
Meanwhile, the majority of Swalwell’s supporters including California Senator Adam Schiff have pulled their endorsements and called on him to drop out the race.
The Irish have had enough! “Ordinary Irish people — farmers, truckers, bus drivers — by the thousand have taken to the streets to protest high fuel taxes. They’ve blocked highways, … Read more
ISIS and other Islamist terrorist organizations are on the rise around the world. Photo courtesy of the Modern War Institute at West Point.
The UN Security Council Monitoring Team’s 37th report (S/2026/44), covering June 23 to December 15, 2025, describes the global threat from ISIS and al-Qaeda as multipolar and increasingly complex, intensifying across multiple theaters simultaneously, with no single country or region constituting the sole epicenter.
Al-Qaeda’s leadership remained cohesive but isolated. Sayf al-Adl served as de facto leader despite growing dissatisfaction among rank-and-file members. The group retained ambitions for large-scale “spectacular” external attacks aimed at global media impact. It also continued to act as a service provider and force multiplier for affiliated groups in Afghanistan, particularly Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
With senior leadership isolated, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), under leader Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki, increasingly asserted ideological and operational leadership of the broader network. AQAP’s estimated strength stood between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters. These forces were primarily located in remote areas of Yemen’s Abyan, Shabwah, Ma’rib, and Hadramawt provinces.
Between June and October, the group conducted at least 14 attacks employing weaponized drones, double suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, ambushes, and thermal-sighted sniper rifles. AQAP also explored maritime operations, including uncrewed boats, and took interest in liquid explosives.
The Houthis paid AQAP approximately $65,000 in June in exchange for an attack and participated in joint operational planning in August. Meetings in October aimed at forming a joint unit comprising Houthis, AQAP, and Al-Shabaab were reported. AQAP also profited from Al-Shabaab piracy by receiving a share of revenue from vessels paying to transit safely through high-risk waters and used encrypted platforms, including Telegram, to solicit funds and connect supporters to financial intermediaries.
West Africa and the Sahel represent the most alarming theater. JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin), al-Qaeda’s West African affiliate, continued to expand territory under its control across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger while pressing southward toward coastal states. In October 2025, JNIM carried out its first documented attack in Nigeria, killing a soldier in Kwara State near the Benin border. A new senior leader, Sekou Muslimu, was appointed to expand JNIM’s presence into Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, and Togo, with a separate emir appointed for Benin.
JNIM’s Katiba Hanifa faction targeted security forces, attacked posts, and intimidated and abducted villagers in Benin’s Alibori, Borgou, and Atacora Departments. In Mali, JNIM launched large-scale coordinated attacks on mining sites, industrial facilities operated by foreign investors, and key logistics routes. Beginning in September, JNIM implemented a fuel blockade on Bamako, mobilizing fighters along highways from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mauritania, and Senegal and systematically destroying hundreds of fuel tankers.
The report assesses that, while JNIM lacked the capacity to overrun Bamako, the blockade was designed to force the Malian government into negotiations. Malian security forces killed several JNIM leaders, including Ridwan al-Ansari, a close associate of top JNIM leader Iyad Ag Ghali, and Abou Salam Oumarou in Soumpi, Timbuktu Region.
JNIM’s finances were described as swollen. The report notes a single ransom payment of approximately $50 million, reportedly for a Gulf royal family member abducted in September, with unconfirmed reports that prisoner releases and arms shipments were part of the deal. From May to October, JNIM nearly doubled its kidnappings of foreign nationals to 22 cases. The group raises revenue through territorial control, gold mining taxation, road tolls, livestock rustling, smuggling, and zakat collection, which the report notes can be raised to extortionate levels when communities resist. JNIM was identified as the wealthiest al-Qaeda affiliate after Al-Shabaab.
Violent incidents involving Islamist groups in the Niger-Benin-Nigeria tri-border area rose 90 percent between 2024 and 2025, and deaths more than doubled to over 1,000. Fighters aligned with al-Qaeda and ISIS deepened their presence in Benin’s Alibori and Borgou Departments, Niger’s Dosso Region, and Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, and Kwara States.
Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) carried out more than 500 attacks between January and October 2025 in Borno State, with drone attacks rising from one in 2024 to seven. ISWAP reinforced its bases in Gargash and Sambisa with approximately 100 additional fighters each following specialized training and elevated Sambisa to the status of a formal ISIS administrative province headed by a wali, signaling a shift toward territorial governance. Active ISWAP cells operated in Kogi, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina States, as well as Cameroon’s Far North, Niger’s Diffa Region, and Lake Chad’s Lac Province.
Following the death of ISIS deputy leader Abu Khadija in Iraq in March 2025, Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Ali al-Mainuki, head of the al-Furqan office in West Africa, assumed a more prominent role in global ISIS leadership, with some Member States suggesting he may have become head of ISIS’s General Directorate of Provinces.
The resurgence of Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan (Ansaru) was documented in Nigeria, with bases in Kwara and Niger States collaborating with JNIM. The Lakurawa group, linked to Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, gained a foothold in northwest Nigeria through illegal tax collection and cattle rustling.
Islamic State in the Greater Sahara remained active in Niger’s Tillabéri, Tahoua, and Dosso Regions, with ISGS and JNIM clashing between August and October in Yagha Province, Burkina Faso, and in Tillabéri and Ménaka over territorial dominance, ending a détente established earlier in 2025.
Across all theaters, both ISIS and al-Qaeda expanded their use of commercial satellite communications, enabling cheap, fast, and secure communication in remote areas. Both organizations demonstrated greater proficiency with artificial intelligence in propaganda, using AI-enhanced translation tools for rapid multilingual content deployment.
The Cyber Jihad Movement pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda’s Sayf al-Adl in August, potentially expanding al-Qaeda’s cyber capabilities.
In Canada, nearly one in ten terrorism investigations included at least one person under the age of 18. In Indonesia, 110 minors were recruited through gaming platforms, including Discord and Roblox, in 2025. In Tunisia, ISIS prioritized online recruitment of minors, recruiting over 30 youths during the year.
ISIS propaganda showed a clear shift toward Central Africa, with references to Mozambique and targeting of Christian communities increasing in Al-Naba over the reporting period, while references to Nigeria and Cameroon declined. ISWAP expected delivery of 25 drones from parties in Sudan in September 2025 for reconnaissance and offensive operations. ISIS’s Al-Karrar office in Somalia generated approximately $360,000 a month, facilitating transfers to branches worldwide through mobile money platforms, hawala, and money laundering.
For the third time in a century, Germany is destroying Europe
The suicidal Energiewende (energy transition) that Berlin forced on the entire European continent is now threatening to shatter the EU itself. If Germany refuses to abandon its wind-and-solar fantasy at home and in Brussels, France, Poland, the Nordics, Benelux and Central Europe are ready to form a new energy alliance. One that puts cheap, abundant power first and could link arms with energy-dominant America.
BRUSSELS – While the globalist elite in Europe continue to worship at the altar of the “Green Transition,” a quiet rebellion is brewing that could finally rip the EU apart. A radical new proposal circulating in Brussels cuts through all the climate cult nonsense with brutal clarity. One single article declaring cheap, abundant energy the absolute top priority of the European Union – and automatically nullifying any existing EU regulation that gets in the way.
The text is short, savage, and long overdue: “European Regulation – Single Article. Cheap, abundant energy is now the #1 priority of the European Union. From this day forward, any existing European regulation that contradicts this imperative is hereby declared null and void.”
Translation for the Brussels bureaucrats: Stop destroying your own continent with ideology. The villain of the story is Germany’s infamous Energiewende – the green energy “transition” launched in 2011 that has become the textbook definition of economic self-immolation.
Berlin decreed: close perfectly safe nuclear plants, flood profitable coal mines, bet everything on unreliable wind and solar. Then ram the same madness down the throat of every EU member through the unelected European Commission.
Europe followed Berlin like lemmings
Result? Germany now has the most expensive electricity in the world. Contracts for German power were trading at up to five times the price of French nuclear power as recently as March 2026. German industry is being gutted. Hundreds of billions of euros have been burned on grid overhauls, subsidies, backup power plants, and energy imports. All while households and factories get crushed by prices four times higher than in the United States.
And Europe followed Berlin like lemmings. The continent blew tens of billions more on emergency gas imports in 2025 alone, making itself hostage to geopolitics while its industrial base crumbled. The very foundation of modern civilization – reliable, affordable energy – was sacrificed on the altar of intermittent “renewables” and German green virtue-signaling.
Meanwhile, France looks like the adult in the room. Its nuclear fleet delivers stable, dispatchable, competitive power. France exports electricity to its neighbors and keeps its industry alive. The contrast could not be starker.
Now the bill is coming due. If Germany refuses to abandon the Energiewende – both inside its own borders and at the EU level – the countries that still possess an “instinct for industrial survival” have no choice but to act.
France, Poland, the Nordic nations, Benelux, and several Central and Eastern European states share a vital national interest that overrides everything else: realistic energy policy based on physics, not fantasy.
Toward a privileged strategic partnership with the United States?
The writing is on the wall. A new European energy union could emerge – one founded on abundant, cheap, reliable power instead of German-imposed green dogma. And in a world where America under President Trump is once again embracing “Drill Baby Drill,” opening up domestic production and driving energy prices down, why wouldn’t the saner European nations seek a privileged strategic partnership with the United States?
Energy is not a “nice-to-have.” It is the prerequisite for industry, jobs, prosperity, and genuine sovereignty. An EU that continues to let Germany’s ideological fever dream dictate policy is an EU marching toward decadence and eventual breakup.
The proposed one-article regulation is not just a policy tweak. It is a declaration of economic survival. The Gateway Pundit has warned for years that the climate cult and globalist green agenda would destroy Western industry. Germany proved us right. Now even the Europeans are starting to wake up.
If Berlin won’t drop the Energiewende, the rest of Europe should drop the EU. And build something better with the energy superpower across the Atlantic.
Drill baby drill isn’t just an American slogan anymore. It’s the future Europe desperately needs – whether Berlin likes it or not.
The agency that couldn’t stop a lone gunman from nearly taking out President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, is back in the news for all the wrong reasons.
A Secret Service trainee who once worked as an analyst on the presidential protection team has been arrested for allegedly installing a hidden spy camera in his roommate’s phone charger and stalking him for weeks with creepy text messages.
According to ABC News, citing police reports from Glynn County, Georgia, Joel Lara Canvasser, a student at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, secretly filmed his suitemate, another Secret Service trainee, using a camera hidden inside a phone charger he “generously” offered after the victim’s own charger mysteriously disappeared.
Canvasser allegedly told his roommate the “cleaning ladies may have taken it.” The victim plugged it in below the TV, giving the hidden camera a full view of the entire room, and, as it turned out, the bathroom too.
The harassment didn’t stop at voyeurism. Police say Canvasser launched a weeks-long psychological terror campaign, sending harassing text messages from various numbers that made it sound like a deranged stalker was watching the victim’s every move, even when he was in the bathroom with his phone in his pocket.
The victim initially thought his phone had been hacked. He covered the camera with a Band-Aid. He even went to Canvasser, who has a cyber background and was supposedly “good with technology,” for help resetting the device.
After the reset, the phone mysteriously connected to Canvasser’s personal WiFi. The texts stopped briefly… then came roaring back.
It was only when the victim noticed an “unusual glint” on the borrowed charger and saw the hidden lens that the nightmare became clear.
“There was a specific instance where [the roommate] was using the bathroom and his phone was in his pocket. When he finished, he checked his phone and saw a message referencing him using the bathroom. It was at this point that [the roommate] realized the individual was not watching him through his phone camera but instead from another device,” according to the report.
Upon examining the borrowed charger, the roommate noticed it had an unusual glint, and “realized it was a camera,” the report said. “When he had pulled it out of the wall, the light hit the device in such a way that made the lens visible.”
Canvasser’s alleged harassing voyeurism did not stop at the surreptitious filming, according to the report: the roommate told police that “during the past month, Mr. Joel has gone into [his] room on multiple occasions while he’s been sleeping at night. For this reason, [the roommate] has been locking his things up in attempts to prevent these events.”
Canvasser was arrested on Wednesday and charged with unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance. He posted a bond of $8,458.
His security clearance has since been suspended, and his access to all Secret Service systems has been revoked.
Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn called the charges “deeply troubling” in a statement to ABC News:
“An initial investigation by the Secret Service and FLETC led to the individual’s arrest by local authorities. The charges are deeply troubling and raise significant concerns about the individual’s character and fitness to serve. As this matter is now before the courts, we will allow the facts to be presented through the judicial process. We commend the swift actions of Secret Service trainers and FLETC personnel, whose prompt response ensured the matter was quickly brought forward and addressed through appropriate legal channels.”
Budanov: former spy chief, now Zelensky’s top aide
Can peace finally be on the horizon?
While everyone is focused on the Middle East crisis, the War between Russia and Ukraine is ongoing, as brutal as ever.
But today, news arose that a well-placed source in Kiev’s regime has come forward to say that the two countries are moving towards a potential deal to end the conflict.
The top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and now Head of the Presidential Office, broke the surprising news.
Ukraine’s top negotiator with Russia said he sees progress toward a potential peace deal with the Kremlin.
“They all understand the war needs to end. That’s why they are negotiating,” Kyrylo Budanov said. “I don’t think it will be long.” Read more of this exclusive interview:… pic.twitter.com/1VcmVj9YEj
“Kyrylo Budanov, a former head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, said that he saw progress towards a deal, but declined to say what a potential compromise on territory, a key stumbling block, would look like.
‘No final decision has been made yet’, he said, according to the report. ‘But, in principle, everyone now clearly understands the limits of what is acceptable. That’s enormous progress’.
‘They all understand the war needs to end. That’s why they are negotiating’, Budanov said in an interview with Bloomberg on April 4. ‘I don’t think it will be long’.”
Ukraine’s top negotiator and head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Budanov, has said that he has seen progress on a potential deal with Russia over the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Budanov also says that he believes Russia also would like to see an end to the conflict.
Budanov earned a reputation as head of Ukraine’s military intelligence until Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky appointed him as chief of his presidential office.
He’s become a key figure in Ukraine’s negotiating team, with a leading role in overseeing prisoner exchanges with Russia.
“Budanov acknowledged that both sides have maintained ‘maximalist’ positions in the US-mediated negotiations so far, but said he believes they’ll move closer together in the search for a compromise.
Russia has a clear incentive to reach a deal, he said. ‘Unlike us, they are spending their own money’, Budanov said. ‘These are enormous sums — already in the trillions’.”
Budanov is doing better in the polls than Zelensky
“Budanov argued that a key achievement of the peace negotiations was keeping US President Donald Trump’s administration engaged as a mediator. He said Ukraine expects the top White House envoys at the talks, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to lead a US delegation to Kiev, possibly next week, in what would be their first visit to Ukraine of the war.”
The PRC’s electric cars have the same limitations as other EVs: slow charging, limited practical use, and pollution, as they still rely on fossil fuel for charging. The only factor keeping their price down is government subsidies.
Pro-CCP accounts on social media are spreading deliberate disinformation: “China’s SUVs all have TVs, refrigerators, freezers, chair massagers, and now they can charge in 9 minutes and have range extenders. All for in the $20k range. We are being so played by the oil and auto industries. Bubbles about to be bursting all over this country.”
Every major claim in this post is misleading or outright false.
The amenities cited, TVs, refrigerators, and massaging seats, have existed in vehicles since the vans and luxury cars of the 1970s. They are not innovations. Today, they exist in SUVs worldwide and are not limited to China. Nor are they standard across Chinese models. These extras are available only on select models, and they increase the cost.
Even the term “freezer” is an exaggeration; these are mini-fridges. Chinese EVs at the 2025 Shanghai Auto Show did include models with these features, for example, the Deepal S09 at $33,000 and XPeng’s flagship sedan at $29,000 before subsidies, but at those price points, comparable luxury features exist in vehicles from every major auto-producing nation.
More critically, in a battery-powered vehicle, every accessory draws from the same finite energy source that moves the car. Running a refrigerator, TV, and seat massagers reduces battery range and requires more frequent charging, unlike in a gas vehicle, where the engine runs independently of accessories.
The claim of a 9-minute charge is real but narrowly applicable. BYD launched the Song Ultra EV in March 2026, priced from $21,000, capable of charging from 10% to 97% in 9 minutes, but only using BYD’s own proprietary megawatt flash chargers running at 1.5 MW. Standard chargers cannot do this. BYD had built only 5,000 of these stations as of early 2026, with a target of 20,000 by the end of the year, meaning coverage remains limited inside China and nonexistent elsewhere.
Home charging cannot deliver fast charging. It is slow charging by definition, overnight, with standard voltage. The 9-minute charge requires a specific vehicle and a specific proprietary station, and it carries the highest per-kWh cost of any charging option.
The home charging option is unavailable to most Chinese EV owners. China’s urbanization rate is around 65%, and the overwhelming majority of urban Chinese live in high-rise apartment buildings with shared parking. China had 345.7 million registered vehicles by the end of 2024 but total parking capacity of only 190 million spaces, meaning China faces a severe parking shortage. Equipping those 190 million spaces with chargers at a conservative $2,000 per unit would cost a minimum of $380 billion, for a country with a nominal per-capita income of roughly $13,500.
That figure excludes grid upgrades, which would represent a substantial cost. The existing electrical grid in most Chinese residential areas was not designed to handle simultaneous charging across hundreds of vehicles per building, requiring transformer upgrades building by building across the entire country.
It also excludes ongoing maintenance, periodic hardware replacement as technology evolves, and the environmental cost of manufacturing the copper wiring, steel housing, circuit components, and rubber cabling required for each unit.
In the United States, with roughly 325 million residential parking spaces, the equivalent calculation produces a minimum of $650 billion for residential installation alone, before touching commercial or public spaces.
The range-extender claim also undermines the underlying argument behind all electric vehicles, that they can replace cars that run on fossil fuels. The Geely Galaxy M9 uses a gas engine as a generator to charge the battery or power the wheels directly, achieving an estimated 808 miles of total range, only 130 of which are purely electric. The fact that Chinese automakers are embedding gasoline engines into their most capable EVs to make them practical is proof that fossil fuels remain the most reliable power source.
Chinese EV prices are only so low because of massive government subsidies and state-controlled supply chains. Edmunds noted that the Geely M9, starting at $25,000 in China, would cost $50,000–$60,000 in the U.S. BYD itself reported a 30% drop in domestic sales in Q1 2026, reflecting structural oversupply problems in the Chinese EV market.
The $20,000 price point, meanwhile, represents almost two years’ average salary in China ($13,000/year) in nominal terms. Top-end Chinese SUVs reach $50,000, roughly four years’ salary.
Finally, the “clean energy” framing of electric vehicles collapses on its own terms. Coal accounts for approximately 66% of China’s electricity generation, but that is only part of the story. Fossil fuels combined account for approximately 80–85% of all energy consumed in the country, with transportation running almost entirely on oil outside the electrical grid.
Converting vehicles to electric does not eliminate fossil fuel consumption; it relocates it to power stations that predominantly burn coal. Fully electrifying China’s vehicle fleet would require expanding electricity generation by approximately 10–12% above current levels, at a cost of hundreds of billions in additional grid infrastructure, on top of the $84.7 billion China already invested in grid expansion in 2024 alone.
Chinese EVs are not clean vehicles. They are coal-powered vehicles with a battery in the middle. They are not $20,000, and they do not charge in 9 minutes. Electrifying all vehicles in China or the US would be impossible, and attempting to do so would be an environmental disaster.
Kristi Noem’s husband, Bryon Noem, is facing a fresh wave of damaging allegations after a new Daily Mail report revealed text messages and audio recordings in which he reportedly discussed leaving his wife, the former Homeland Security Secretary, to pursue a relationship with a dominatrix and transition into a woman.
According to the shocking report published on Friday, Bryon Noem engaged in a secret on-and-off online relationship spanning more than nine years with Shy Sotomayor, a 30-year-old sex worker and dominatrix from Colorado Springs who goes by the stage name Raelynn Riley and is known for her extreme “bimbofication” aesthetic.
In the alleged messages and phone calls, Bryon Noem reportedly told Sotomayor:
“I can see us leaving our spouses for each other.”
“I will be your trans bimbo b*tch.”
“I want to be a Crystal so bad. I want to be a woman so bad.”
“I will be your trans girl. Long hair, big lips, boobs … pierced boobs.”
Bryon is said to have agreed when Sotomayor told him she was “so much better” than his wife and that “no one is prettier than me. No one is as powerful.”
WATCH:
Unearthed audio reveals Kristi Noem’s husband professing his love to a dominatrix:
“I do love you… You’re so much better [than my wife]. Would you ever marry me?” pic.twitter.com/hizwSzjKBc
Bryon allegedly responded, “F-cking true,” and discussed plans for plastic surgery, including huge fake breasts, ass implants, hormone therapy, and other feminizing procedures.
“I think I do … hair removal. Huge fake tits. Ass implants. Hormones,” Byron Noem allegedly told the sex worker.
He specifically asked to be called “Crystal.”
The sex worker was shocked to learn he wanted to use a name so similar to his wife’s.
“I was just jaw to the floor, thrown for a loop that he wanted to be called that, so close to her name, when he could have gone with Stephanie or something,” Sotomayor said.
The pair first connected in 2016 on Twitter before moving to paid webcam sessions on Streammate and Skype.
Bryon used the alias “Jason Jackson” and paid Sotomayor thousands of dollars, often via Amazon gift cards, designer items, or cash, under the email “Chrystalballz666.”
The relationship paused around 2020 when Kristi Noem became governor of South Dakota, but resumed in October 2025 and grew more intense through early 2026, while his wife was running DHS.
Sotomayor shared dozens of screenshots and phone recordings with the Daily Mail that she says confirm the conversations. The outlet reported verifying that one of the phone numbers belonged to Bryon Noem.
The new revelations follow initial Daily Mail reporting that first detailed Bryon Noem’s alleged double life, including communications with multiple women in the “bimbofication” fetish community and photos of him cross-dressing with balloons stuffed in his shirt to simulate large breasts.
Bryon Noem has not issued a full public denial of the specific new texts and audio.
When reached by The Independent about the latest report, he responded with a three-word answer, “not all true.”
Bryon did not elaborate.
In response to the initial March report, Bryon told the New York Times he would comment “at some point” but said “Today is not the day. I appreciate your heart.”
Kristi Noem’s spokesperson issued a statement after the first Daily Mail story: “Ms. Noem is devastated. The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for privacy and prayers at this time.”
No new statement has been released from Kristi Noem regarding the latest texts about transitioning or leaving the marriage.
Actress Natasha Lyonne, star of Russian Doll, Orange Is the New Black, and the current season of HBO’s Euphoria, has claimed she was “detained” by ICE after she was removed from a red-eye Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York City, but the Department of Homeland Security has flatly rejected her tale.
The incident occurred on Tuesday, hours after Lyonne attended the Season 3 premiere of Euphoria in Hollywood.
According to multiple eyewitness accounts first reported by Page Six, the 47-year-old actress appeared “out of it” while seated in the Delta One first-class cabin.
When flight attendants asked her to close her laptop and fasten her seatbelt for takeoff, she did not respond.
The plane taxied back to the gate, and Lyonne was asked to deboard.
A Delta staffer inquired if she needed medical attention. She reportedly seemed confused about her location, asked where she was, and was told the flight had not yet left Los Angeles.
The captain later apologized to passengers for the more than an hour-long delay, explaining that one passenger “didn’t seem up to the task tonight.”
On Friday, Lyonne claimed that she was detained by ICE.
The actress wrote that she had taken a Lunesta sleeping pill once seated “to ensure some shut eye on the Delta One red eye flight to NYC.” She claimed she had been “eager for a nap” so she could arrive “bushy tailed & beauty rested” for a scheduled appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.
Instead, she said, “I guess ICE had other plans & I was detained instead. Sign of the times, I guess.”
She added thanks to fans, noted she had “never had a problem” with Delta or TSA before,” and offered an apology to delayed travelers and “our unpaid TSA workers.”
Thanks for the great reporting, @enews. Indeed, I took a Lunesta once seated, to ensure some shut eye on the Delta One red eye flight to NYC. Boarded seamlessly with just a backpack and sneakers, eager for a nap. Plan was to be bushy tailed & beauty rested, as I was meant to head… https://t.co/gdRIKJ41Lt
It is important to note that TSA workers are not being paid because funding is being held up by the Democrat politicians she supports.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security directly contradicted her account.
The official told Variety, “Neither ICE nor TSA escorted or detained Natasha Lyonne.”
Lyonne has previously been open about her struggles with substance abuse.
In January, she publicly revealed she had relapsed after 10 years of sobriety.
Last month, the actress posted that she was “doing a whole lot better” and “back on her feet,” thanking recovery communities and fans for their support.
