'Small helium leak'

An agency of the District of Columbia held a training session last month to teach illegal immigrants and other noncitizens how to vote, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.  News of the training session held by the local government in the nation’s capital comes as House Republicans push a bill—with the backing of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.—to require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. The D.C. Board of Elections conducted the April 10 event, called “Non-Citizen Voting Education Virtual Training.”  Judicial Watch obtained 13 pages of the training session’s PowerPoint presentation through a request under the Freedom of Information Act. On one slide, the presentation says: Non-U.S. citizen residents can vote in District elections for the offices of Mayor, Attorney General, Chairman or member(s) of the D.C. Council, member(s) of the State Board of Education, or Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner(s) Non-U.S. citizen residents cannot vote for Federal Offices. The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project previously raised concerns about noncitizen voting in the District of Columbia. (Heritage established The Daily Signal in 2014.) Washington, DC’s Voter Guide for Illegal Aliens is up! pic.twitter.com/COeIpOba5w— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) May 1, 2024 The District of Columbia is joined by local governments in California, Maryland, and Vermont in allowing foreign citizens to vote in local elections. Federal law allows only U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections.  State courts blocked New York City from allowing noncitizen voting there.  “Illegal aliens and noncitizens should not vote in any elections,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “That Congress allows the votes of citizens to be legally stolen by illegal aliens in our nation’s capital is inexcusable.” The District of Columbia amended its election code last year to allow noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote for local D.C. offices.  As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” Democrats long have sought to change election laws to gain a political advantage. These noncitizen voting laws mimic a tactic used by New York City’s legendary Tammany Hall and other political machines that controlled big city politics.  The District’s presentation explains the qualifications for registering to vote when someone isn’t a U.S. citizen.  “To register to vote in the District of Columbia as a non-citizen, you must: Be at least 17 years old and 18 years old by the next General Election; Maintain residency in the District of Columbia for at least 30 days prior to the election in which you intend to vote; Not claim voting residence or the right to vote in any state, territory, or country; Not been found by a court to be legally incompetent to vote,” the presentation says. Neither the D.C. Board of Elections nor the office of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on this report.  The post DC Holds Training Sessions for Noncitizens to Vote appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. In a world where international law (a set of ratified documents) is being rapidly replaced with narratives about a “rules-based system,” it is no wonder that US tech giants like Meta choose to set their free speech “baseline” not on their country’s Constitution, but on “international human rights norms.” The less clarity there is, the more space for abuse and biased interpretation, critics might say. But Meta Oversight Board member Kenji Yoshino is satisfied that this is the right approach, and even spelled it out. “Our baseline here is not the US Constitution and free speech, but rather international human rights norms,” Yoshino recently told the National Constitution Center, a private nonprofit. Such bold statements require bold justification, and so this Oversight Board member noted that in terms of free speech “values” the US is “an outlier,” while Meta’s global reach means it must adjust its policies accordingly. There are plenty of openly authoritarian regimes out there, with their own “free speech values,” but when Yoshino – from the William J. Brennan Center for Justice – spoke about “striking a balance” between US law and international “norms” – he chose to mention the palatable to his audience example of Europe. What’s striking in this context, however, is that in many, if not all European countries, “hate speech” is criminalized, unlike in the US. It isn’t clear from Yoshino’s statements how a balance between such different approaches to speech can even be achieved in a social platform’s guidelines, particularly around elections. But, that is the explanation for why the giant chooses not to make the First Amendment its “baseline.” And if the baseline is international human rights norms, Yoshino admitted, “often times that calculus comes out differently than it would if the baseline were First Amendment norms.” Such statements will do little to reassure those in the US already wary of Meta’s handling of content, censorship, and free speech, especially ahead of yet another high-stakes election coming up. The fact that after a brief “pause” the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are now officially back in the business of “communicating” (opponents of the policy would say, “colluding”) with social media platforms, doesn’t help matters. If anything, it raises fears of a concerted censorship push, driven both from the outside by government pressure, and from within Meta itself. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Meta’s Oversight Board Adopts International “Norms” Instead of US Free Speech Principles appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Sports Illustrated Hates You

A heartwarming yet amusing video capturing a mother cat and a toddler in a tender moment of confrontation went viral, touching hearts worldwide. The mother cat decides enough’s enough and retrieves her kitten from the toddler. It’s an unforgettable scene that blends maternal instinct with childhood innocence. This touching display, though simple, resonates with millions,... The post Mama cat sees toddler holding crying kitten and decides enough’s enough appeared first on Animal Channel.

A heartwarming yet amusing video capturing a mother cat and a toddler in a tender moment of confrontation went viral, touching hearts worldwide. The mother cat decides enough’s enough and retrieves her kitten from the toddler. It’s an unforgettable scene that blends maternal instinct with childhood innocence. This touching display, though simple, resonates with millions,... The post Mama cat sees toddler holding crying kitten – her next move has internet cheering appeared first on Animal Channel.

As the 2024 election approaches, the left-wing corporate media have lost all interest in President Biden’s frequent lies about his life and career. In the past, these journalists have paid brief attention to the one of President’s latest tall tales, but rarely have they ever bothered to revisit them when the moment has passed. No matter how frequently Biden may lie, the media refuse to see a pattern. As NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham has noted, prominent Biden fact-checkers spend a great deal of time disputing negative claims about Biden, yet they show little interest in fact-checking the man himself. Thanks to this favoritism, the President has gotten away with telling a host of utterly false or unproven stories about his own life. Some of these stories are less than a month old, while others have popped up multiple times throughout Biden’s decades-long political career. See for yourself how many of these fibs the media would prefer we all conveniently forget:  

Last Thursday, Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) teamed up with fellow Republican Senators Kevin Cramer (ND) and Marco Rubio (FL) to unveil the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) Act aimed at giving pregnant women a federally-backed “clearinghouse” of resources — called Pregnancy.gov — for “expecting and postpartum moms, as well as those with young children,” and create grants for caregiving organizations helping women enter the world of parenting. Along with expanding child support to include a woman’s pregnancy, a press release from the senators said the MOMS Act would “provide critical support to women during typically challenging phases of motherhood – prenatal, postpartum, and early childhood development – and bolster access to resources and assistance to help mothers and their children thrive.” Not surprisingly, the far-left, abortion-loving liberal media have decided to be as focused on defeating this pro-life bill with misinformation as they were about pushing women to murder their unborn children. In story after story, the liberal media have claimed the bill would create a database of women currently pregnant for the federal government - in some liberal dystopia/twisted fantasy - to surveil women to prevent abortions. The problem? It’s all voluntary and shy from divulging one’s location. The Guardian went full send with a headline beyond parody: “Katie Britt proposes federal database to collect data on pregnant people; Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in March”. Writer Léonie Chao-Fong doubled down with a disregard for biology, claiming without evidence the bill “create[s] a federal database to collect data on pregnant people” by having them “enter their personal data and contact information.” Chao-Fong also whined: “[t]he bill specifically forbids any entity that ‘performs, induces, refers for, or counsels in favor of abortions’ from being listed in the database, which would in effect eliminate swaths of OB-GYN services and sexual health clinics across the country.” Yes, Léonie, the point is to give women facing sudden pregnancies options beyond abortion. NBCNews.com and longtime Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen piled on in a story whining about the bill giving federal funds to pro-life pregnancy crisis centers and pedaled the lie about HHS becoming a surveillance agency (click “expand”): This is, to be sure, standard GOP fare. Republican officials tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that the party’s sole focus in this area is imposing abortion restrictions, and the MOMS Act appears designed to package familiar GOP measures on the issue. The fact that these senators intend to extend grants to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” is part of the conservative agenda, and a reminder of why the legislation doesn’t have — and won’t have — any Democratic support in the chamber. But a HuffPost report noted that the Pregnancy.gov provisions in the bill are drawing additional scrutiny because they allegedly raise the prospect of “a federal database storing information on pregnant people.” It was against this backdrop that Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington joined with 10 other Senate Democratic women to denounce Britt’s bill, saying it would, among other things, “create a new government-run website to collect data on pregnant women and direct them to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.” To be sure, Britt’s office has thoroughly rejected the idea that the legislation is designed to create some kind of “registry,” but the press release from the 11 Senate Democratic women added that under the Pregnancy.gov plan, the website would “encourage users to provide their contact information, ‘which the Secretary may use to conduct outreach via phone or email to follow up with users’ — meaning that pregnant women would be encouraged to provide data to a potential Trump administration and potentially allow a government bureaucrat to follow up with them about the status of their pregnancy.” The tools at HuffPost did the same in a piece with the headline “Critics Rip Sen. Katie Britt For Celebrating Moms With ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Like Proposal” and hilariously then referred to women as “pregnant people”. Yahoo! News promptly cross-posted this under the same headline. Salon and Raw Story weren’t going to be left out either. Cue the laugh tracks for the latter’s headline: “Katie Britt shredded for ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-type proposal to ‘register’ pregnant women”. At Salon, they melted down at women even being told groups that support women and babies exit: “The bill also outlines the creation of a database of ‘pregnancy support centers,’ or crisis centers, which critics say provide women with misleading information in an effort to keep them from having abortions.” Someone call GLAAD on HuffPost, NBC, Raw Story, and the like for using the term “pregnant women!” Now, for the facts. Here was a piece from the (now digital-only) Alabama newspaper conglomerate AL.com: Britt spokesman Sean Ross said users are not required to register or log in to the site to search for resources. The website will not ask for the user’s pregnancy status or for personally identifiable information. “These social media posts are intentionally, flagrantly false,” Ross said. Website users could voluntarily enter their contact information if they wanted personal follow up from a staff member at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those services would also be available to friends and family members who are not pregnant if an individual was worried about sharing her information with the website. The website would invite users to take an assessment and provide consent to be contacted. The website would not require people to take the assessment to receive more information about local resources, Ross said. “Through the website, anyone can view the relevant resources in a given locale without disclosing any personally identifiable information to the government,” Ross said. The headline, however, only met Britt halfway with a scoffing headline: “Claims that bill would create registry of pregnant women ‘flagrantly false,’ says staff for Alabama Sen. Katie Britt.”

The original group of hunger strikers at Princeton University decided to end their radical form of protesting after 10 days when it became clear the elite college was not going to give in to their demands anytime soon. In a post on Princeton Divest Now's Instagram story on Sunday, the group said the 13 protesters ended the hunger strike out of "health concerns." PDN further revealed the original 13 protesters were replaced with seven new hunger strikers "in the tradition of rotary hunger strikes." PDN reported there were an additional nine people who were participating in a "solidarity fast." 'Since that time, the university has failed to actually engage with our demands ...' — (@) Prior to ending the first "wave" of the protest, a spokesman for the group gave their disappointment in Princeton not agreeing to their demands. “Since we began our hunger strike, we've had simple demands: We want a meeting and good faith negotiations with the university to talk about disclosure and divestment from companies involved in the Israeli occupation. And we want amnesty from legal and disciplinary charges for students that have been arrested for peaceful protests," he said. "Since that time, the university has failed to actually engage with our demands and they've made clear that they still fail to acknowledge that a genocide is even occurring... it has failed to allow the hunger strikers to end their strike by meeting our very simple requests," he continued. — (@) In addition to not eating, the protesters had been staying outside on campus property. But in order to avoid a sweep by law enforcement, the group agreed to not set up tents. This resulted in protesters and their supporters having to set up improvised shelters with tarps and umbrellas to keep out of the rain. "On the third day of Princeton’s Hunger Strike for Gaza, as the temperatures fall and rain continues, [Princeton] admin refuses still to allow our strikers to have tents, leaving them huddled under umbrellas, vulnerable and unsafe. Shameful and cruel," a supporter of the group posted on X. The reason for doing a hunger strike was to highlight the food insecurity in the Gaza Strip. Tons of aid items have been delivered to Gaza, but it has been marred by Hamas stealing the supplies for itself or reselling it at high prices. Hamas also took credit for attacking the Kerem Shalom border crossing, a vital crossing point for humanitarian aid to enter the southern end of the Gaza Strip. The attacks have resulted in the crossing point being closed for different periods of time, delaying aid going into the war zone.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

UFC President Dana White said that he is certainly open to UFC stars making appearances in the WWE wrestling ring since the two companies merged under TKO Group Holdings, Inc. in 2023.White spoke at a press conference following a UFC fight night in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was asked whether he was okay with his fighters competing or appearing in WWE pay-per-views.'You remember Gold Dust? Probably something like that. As long as I get to paint my face.'"Some of the fighters who fight here, you know, have always dreamed about doing a WWE match or whatever it is, and yeah, I don't have a problem with that," he revealed."I mean I didn't have a problem with that when Vince [McMahon] was consistently f***ing me for no reason, and you know now that's not the case anymore. Obviously, I would absolutely do it," White said, speaking of the former WWE chairman.A reporter pointed out that there have been several MMA and WWE crossovers, namely wrestlers named Bobby Lashley and Jake Hager. Lashley, who was a professional wrestler first, went 15-2 in MMA fighting from 2006-2018 but never in the UFC. The same goes for Hager, who fought four times between 2019-2020, going 3-0 with a no-contest. His last fight was at 38 years old.As for former UFC fighters, both Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey enjoyed time in both sports. While Rousey fully joined the WWE after retiring, Lesnar is the only fighter to compete at the highest level possible while being fully immersed in both sports. Lesnar won at least 10 world championships in the WWE and also won the UFC heavyweight championship in 2008 and defended it twice.Reporters brought to White's attention however, that a current heavyweight fighter was expressing interest in the WWE."We were talking to Derrick Lewis this week and he had mentioned that he might have been in talks with WWE," a reporter told the UFC president. "I didn't know that, but I would do anything for Derrick Lewis. I really like Derrick Lewis," White replied.Lewis said later at the same press conference that he had plans to visit WWE facilities in Orlando, Florida, in the coming weeks."I wouldn't stop here at UFC, but I would like to dibble dabble in WWE," Lewis told reporters.When asked what his wrestling attire might be, he likened himself to Dustin Rhodes' character Goldust."It's probably going to be — you remember Goldust? Probably something like that. As long as I get to paint my face so people don't really know it's me ... I'm going to be a whole freak out there and be a little sassy with it," the heavyweight added.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!