This fight got serious when the aggressor became the victim.
Be warned there will graphic video and images.
The suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
A stabbing inside a Virginia high school...another moment in white nationalism and conservative outrage.
Or will this be ignored?
West Potomac High School in Virginia was the scene of a stabbing. A physical altercation between three teens led to one being stabbed.
Now the teen is in critical condition and the Alexandria Police are investigating.
Kids these days are little bitches. You got your ass beat in a one on one so you pulled out a knife and stabbed somebody. What a damn clown. Enjoy trying to not drop the soap you little bitch. Teen fighting for his life after being stabbed at West Potomac High School in Virginia pic.twitter.com/roQZKQxZcS
‼️NEW: A 16-year-old student was rushed to the hospital and is now in critical condition after being STABBED during a fight at West Potomac High School 🔪
📍Dumfries, Virginia
The incident—caught on video—involved a 15-year-old student as the alleged attacker who has been… pic.twitter.com/4eklLoRLfy
Kids these days are little bitches. You got your ass beat in a one on one so you pulled out a knife and stabbed somebody. What a damn clown. Enjoy trying to not drop the soap you little bitch. Teen fighting for his life after being stabbed at West Potomac High School in Virginia pic.twitter.com/roQZKQxZcS
Alexandria is seven miles from downtown Washington, DC.
Please note, X, Facebook and Rumble will remove it because it is graphic. I do not control the content.
The victim was the aggressor. Will this be self defense or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
A 16-year-old is in the hospital with serious injuries after a stabbing at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia, on Wednesday morning, according to Fairfax County police.
The suspect was being pummeled by the victim. He ended up pulling out a knife.
A school resource officer rushed to help the teen who was stabbed just before 10 a.m., police said. Officers with Fairfax County responded to the school within minutes.
Police had earlier said the 16-year-old who was stabbed had suffered life-threatening injuries. But during a news conference Wednesday afternoon, police said the student was in stable condition at a nearby hospital.
A 15-year-old boy is in custody and will be charged with malicious wounding, police said. Officers have recovered the knife the suspect is accused of using in the stabbing.
Three students got into a fight in a hallway near some classrooms before the stabbing.
The third student involved in the fighting, a 15-year-old, is being interviewed by investigators but police do not expect that student will be criminally charged.
Authorities have not released the names of any of the teens. No other suspects are believed to be involved outside of the student who is in custody, police said.
Police Chief Kevin Davis acknowledged video of the fight that’s been posted on social media.
“We have the video, just like you have the video, but the video doesn’t tell the entire story,” Davis said.
A mother of one student said she’s concerned about her son’s safety.
“This is something that could have been had stopped,” Aellene told WTOP.
Graphic images warning!
Local leaders
In a joint statement Wednesday afternoon, Fairfax County School Board members Mateo Dunne, Ilryong Moon and Ryan McElveen called for local leads to take action to improve safety in schools in response to the stabbing.
The school board members said the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors should increase the number of school resource officers to ensure one or more officers are at every middle and high school.
The group also called on the public school system to take measures to prioritize safety such as increasing the number of security assistants, and installing weapons detection tech and video cameras.
Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell urged those who are struggling to take advantage of the counseling services and reiterated elected leaders’ commitment to safety in schools.
“This hit even closer to home for me as a West Potomac parent whose son was at school today as the incident occurred and whose three other children and two other siblings graduated from West Potomac,” said Sen. Surovell in a statement.
“These students are so close to the end of the school year and for many, a graduation. This time for celebration is now marred by this ugly incident. These kids deserved so much better today.”
The Austin Metcalf challenge.
Parents pushback
Superintendent Michelle Reid said counselors will be available to students and staff at the school.
“While there’s a sense, obviously, of shock that this would happen at West Potomac High School, one of our high schools here in Fairfax County, I’m very proud of the response of our staff to this incident,” Reid said. “They responded quickly and admirably and may have saved a life today.”
The school was placed under a brief lockdown during the response, which has since been lifted. Parents were notified through the school’s alert system, and classes have resumed under heightened security.
School officials said the building is under “Secure the Building” status, during which students can move about inside the school but exterior doors are locked, according to the school system’s website.
Some parents at the school on Wednesday questioned the law enforcement and school officials about why they weren’t being allowed to pick up their students from school early.
The far right will claim its Karmelo Anthony all over again.
One father told WTOP the communication with parents was “unsatisfactory.” Bill Beal said he hasn’t been allowed to pick up his daughter who saw the stabbing happen.
“At the end of the day, I think that’s all these parents want, is to get their kids, hug their kids,” Beal told WTOP outside the school. “There’s more than one victim in this — people that witnessed it.”
The police chief tried to reassure parents by telling them the school system would “soon” communicate when students could be picked up.
“As all of our emotions are running high, we don’t want to let the school spill out into this residential community and have skirmishes, fights, altercations and maybe even additional crimes take place,” Davis told parents and reporters gathered outside the school. “All those considerations are something that we’re thinking about, just like you’re thinking about, and I’m sorry your children had to endure what they what they had to endure today.”
Meanwhile, the school system has been rolling out a pilot program that will place metal detectors in schools. Reid said the technology was in place at another school in Fairfax County on Wednesday morning, but not at West Potomac High School.
Chaos could put Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth in the cannon.
President Donald J. Trump have not spoken publicly about it but rumors are flying about the Department of Defense and Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump has had enough of Pete Hegseth and his fuck ups. After the Signalgate scandal, the Zionists are pushing for Trump to kick him out. Hegseth is not on board with striking Iran.
Israel is leaking everything.
Allegedly, Hegseth's brother and wife were on those Signal chats. Hegseth had fired his top leads and press secretary.
NPR wrote Monday that the White House was already searching for a replacement after it was reported that Hegseth again shared classified information with outsiders on an imminent military attack in Yemen. The group chat, allegedly the second on Signal that breached security protocol, included Hegseth’s wife, brother and lawyer.
“If the reports are true, the secretary of defense has failed at operational security, and that is unacceptable,” Bacon told Axios. “If a Democrat did this we’d be demanding a scalp. We should be Americans first when it comes to security.”
Bacon’s declaration would seem to put him at odds with President Donald Trump, who earlier dismissed concerns and the report of Hegseth’s second Signal briefing.
“He’s doing a great job. It’s just fake news,” Trump said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the anonymously sourced NPR report “total FAKE NEWS.”
Israel wants Hegseth gone.
But Bacon, a House Armed Services Committee member, appeared to directly urge Trump to can Hegseth in a separate interview with Politico.
“I’m not in the White House, and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” Bacon said.
Bacon is a staunch supporter of Israel and is pressing Trump to invade Iran.
Leavitt denied that there's an effort to replace Hegseth, posting on X that Trump "stands strongly" behind him. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump backed Hegseth and said concerns over the Signal chats are a "waste of time."
"He's doing a great job — ask the Houthis how he's doing," Trump said.
Hegseth had denied wrongdoing at a White House Easter event earlier Monday.
"This is what the media does, they take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people, ruin their reputation. It's not going to work with me," he said.
Don Bacon wants Hegseth gone.
Hegseth was likely referring to four senior advisers who left the Pentagon abruptly last week. Former Defense Department spokesperson John Ullyot resigned and then published an opinion piece calling the past month at the Pentagon a "full-blown meltdown" of infighting that is hurting Trump.
Trump said Thursday that Elon Musk would likely leave his administration in “a few months,” the clearest sign that his most powerful and disruptive adviser will be wrapping up his work inside the government.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that “Elon is fantastic” but he has “a number of companies to run.”
“I want him to stay as long as possible,” he said. “There’s going to be a point where he’s going to have to leave.”
Musk has spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency, which is playing a leading role in downsizing and overhauling the federal government. Trump said that work would continue within various agencies.
The Republican president’s comments came after a steady drumbeat of suggestions over the last week that Musk’s time was limited. Musk also faced a setback Tuesday in Wisconsin, where voters rejected his choice for a state Supreme Court candidate despite more than $21 million in personal donations and his campaign appearance over the weekend. There are more problems for the billionaire entrepreneur at Tesla, his electric automaker, which saw a 13% drop in sales in the first three months of the year.
The White House has not disclosed any timeline for closing down DOGE, and the government cost-cutting organization was never supposed to become a permanent fixture in Washington. But it could be reaching a conclusion faster than anticipated. DOGE was originally intended to operate until July 4, 2026.
Now there are signs that it already is winding down. DOGE employees have been shifted to various federal agencies, which are supposed to take the lead on cutting costs. Government-wide layoffs are underway to accomplish some of the goals laid out by Musk and Trump.
A feud with brewing.
“We think probably over the next two or three months, we’ll be pretty much satisfied with the people that are working hard and want to be members of the administration,” Trump said last week.
The potential end of DOGE does not mean Trump will stop shaking up Washington. But it appears the administration’s efforts will be entering a new phase that is less focused on Musk, whose chain saw-wielding work as a presidential adviser made him a political lightning rod.
DOGE was initially envisioned as an independent advisory panel, with Musk sharing leadership with Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur. Ramaswamy dropped out and is running for Ohio governor, and DOGE became part of the government. It was stocked with Musk’s allies, who were dispatched throughout the bureaucracy to cancel contracts, access sensitive data and push for cuts.
Musk presumably has a ticking clock on his tenure. He was hired as a special government employee, which means he can only work 130 days in a 365-day time period.
“I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk told Bret Baier of Fox News on March 27. So far DOGE is well short of that target, according to its own calculations, which have been criticized as inflated and inaccurate.
Musk did not commit to leaving the administration by any particular date, and it is unclear how the administration is tracking Musk’s time. On May 30, it will be 130 days since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Trump told reporters on Monday in the Oval Office that “I’d keep him as long as I could keep him” and “he’s a very talented guy.”
The Republican president was known for explosive breakups with top advisers during his first term, but anyone hoping for such a split with Musk has been disappointed.
“I want Elon to stay as long as possible,” Trump said Thursday. “Number one, I like him, number two, he’s doing a great job. Number three, he is a patriot, that’s why he’s doing this.”
Once Musk leaves, Trump said “the secretaries will take totally over,” meaning the Senate-confirmed leaders of various agencies, but “DOGE will stay active”
That was a somewhat different message than Trump had on Monday. At that point, he said Cabinet officials have worked closely with Musk and may keep some of the DOGE people at their agencies.
“But at a certain point I think it will end,” Trump said.
Musk’s poll numbers lag behind Trump’s, which Democrats believe they were able to use to their advantage in Wisconsin.
Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel, who Musk supported, and ensured the state Supreme Court’s liberal majority.
In the closing days of that campaign, Musk described the race as “important for the future of civilization.” He struck a different tone afterward.
“I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain,” Musk wrote on X at 3:13 a.m.
Republican Diana Harshbarger calls Democrat Al Green a boy.
Tennessee lawmaker calls Texas lawmaker a boy.
White woman and Black man.
Y'all voted for this.
Hurricane Helene left mass destruction and it still affects the district of Republican Diana Harshbarger. She voted against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act but still seeks funds from it.
Former president Joe Biden’s most significant law is used to rebuilt our crumbling infrastructure.
We are literally losing to China on so many things.
One major infrastructure law can't solve the decades of failed conservative policies the Republicans laid out for our country. If we eliminated racism, religion, hatred and phobias, the United States will prosper.
The white woman used a word that is a code.
During an interview with the podcast FAME Ministries, Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) called Rep. Al Green (D-TX) “boy.”
Green was infamous for his removal from President Donald J. Trump's State of the Union address where he heckled the president multiple times and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had him removed.
Biden never had Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) removed when they heckled him during his State of the Union addresses.
Harshbarger shows constant hypocrisy whenever she opens her Karen ass mouth.
FAME Ministries posted the podcast to their Facebook page on Friday. During the podcast, she also referred to transgender people as “fairies” then said she wanted to “love them into the love of Christ.”
Around 35 minutes into the podcast, the interviewer asked about Congresspeople holding signs during the State of the Union. Harshbarger responded, “I wanted to go over there and grab a few of them, but Al Green was over here with his cane, and I’m like, ‘Gosh dang it, boy, put that…’ He does not need that cane. That cane is a prop. I swear it’s not real.”
During the event in question, Green was removed from the House after heckling Trump and shaking his cane at him.
Al Green.
Green held a press conference on Tuesday responding to Harshbarger’s comment where he called the words slurs. He said that his parents were often referred to as “boy” and “girl” when he was growing up.
“Friends, it’s not about Al Green,” he said. “It’s about whether Black people in this society are going to allow slurs such as this to be normalized. We cannot allow the normalization of these kinds of slurs.”
Green also quoted the 23 Psalm from the Bible saying that his cane was a “comforter” to him that would allow him to defend himself in a situation where the police were there to defend him. He also said it helped him with climbing stairs.
On Tuesday, Harshbarger posted the clip in question to Facebook and wrote the following:
“The weather is warming up, so naturally, the snowflakes are starting to melt!
I was discussing one of my colleague’s erratic behavior during President Trump’s Joint Address, and now he—along with the rest of the Radical Left—is blowing it out of proportion in a desperate attempt to get attention.
BOY oh boy, you just can’t catch a break between the FAKE NEWS and young men wielding canes!”
Representative Diana Harshbarger
Around 36 minutes into the video, the interviewer mentioned the Biden’s administration’s involvement with transgender people. Harshbarger responded, “I’ve never saw so many fairies in the White House dancing around. I’m like, ‘I don’t know where they got them.’ But look, my job is to love them into the love of Christ, and I’ve got to watch what I say.”
In the podcast, Harshbarger also discussed her Christian faith, the importance of families, federal spending and debt and flood relief in Northeast Tennessee and Western North Carolina. She represents Tennessee’s first Congressional district in Northeast Tennessee.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in a Washington, DC restaurant when someone grabbed her purse and stole it.
Now the U.S. Secret Service and Marshals are investigating.
This also puts her at risk of termination.
President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance are quickly declining in polls but a still favored to help Republicans keep the House and Senate in 2026.
The department in an email said Noem had money in her purse to buy gifts for her children and grandchildren and to pay for Easter dinner and other activities.
The department in an email didn’t specify what was stolen, but CNN — which was first to report the story — said the thief took about $3,000 in cash, as well as Noem’s keys, driver’s license, passport, checks, makeup bag, medication and Homeland Security badge. The department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter.
The Homeland Security Secretary is protected by U.S. Secret Service agents. The Secret Service referred questions about the incident to Homeland Security headquarters.
Sounds about white.
Now she is supportive of the president’s mass deportation and punishment of protesters.
The left dubbed Noem, the ICE Barbie because of her constant photo ops.
Far right agitator Megyn Kelly complained about the photo ops and why she constantly has to be in the spotlight.
It is alleged that Noem is having an affair with her advisor Corey Lewandowski.
A man was ran over by a woman in a vehicle in Birmingham. Road rage and domestic violence lead to a deadly confrontation.
The Birmingham Police confirm that Mickese Bostic was a victim of a domestic violence incident this Easter weekend.
What is shocking is the suspect ran over the victim in front of family members.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office on Monday identified the victim as Mickese James Bostic. He was 27.
A large crowd of family members were celebrating Easter and the birthday of one of the children when police say a domestic disturbance broke out between Bostic and the mother of his children.
Police said the Bostic and the woman were still in a relationship.
The ordeal began just before 10 p.m. at Bostic’s home in the 700 block of Lisa Lane.
East Precinct officers were initially dispatched on a report of shots fired at the home.
Officer Truman Fitzgerald said the call was updated to say that the female was trying to run over the victim.
When they arrived, they learned that the woman did hit the Bostic with a vehicle, and the victim was trapped between the vehicle and a house.
“There was a large crowd at the house,” Fitzgerald said. “It was a child’s birthday party on top of Easter.”
“The crowd of family members was visibly upset,” he said. “Officers put out a max emergency because they couldn’t get the crowd under control.”
Responding officers from all four of the city’s precincts were warned of someone with a gun, but Fitzgerald said no shots were fired once police were on the scene.
More than 25 police cars responded.
“Officers from every precinct came to the scene,” he said.
Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service also responded to the neighborhood and helped remove the trapped victim. He was pronounced dead on the scene at 10:21 p.m.
Fitzgerald said investigators learned the woman fired shots inside the house before police arrived.
“The deceased and the woman that was behind the wheel shared children in common,” he said. “There was an argument that took place that led to her retrieving a gun.”
“There was a fight inside of the house. Shots were fired inside of the house,” he said. “The victim left, and we were told she ran him over with the car.”
The woman who ran him.
“I just learned from several officers that some of their kids may have been inside the vehicle,” Fitzgerald said. “One of their (children’s) birthday was today.”
Fitzgerald confirmed that police had been dispatched to the home earlier in the evening on a domestic dispute involving the couple.
“That was a situation where there was nothing criminal that took place,” he said. “Our officers had no arrestable charges, and both parties were allowed to go their separate ways.”
Police said the woman later returned to the victim’s house and that’s when the deadly dispute took place.
Police walked about half a dozen crying elementary aged children from the crime scene and drove them off in police cars.
Fitzgerald said he believed the kids were taken to police headquarters.
Bostic, is the city’s 25th homicide this year.
In all of Jefferson County, there have been 38 homicides including the 25 in Birmingham.
The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Pennsylvania based convience store and fast food restaurant officially opens in Ohio.
The goose is loose.
Wawa has officially opened at the corner of Cincinnati-Dayton Road and Liberty Way in Liberty Township/West Chester Ohio. It is the first of ten locations proposed for the Dayton and Cincinnati area.
Wawa is proposing opening locations in Troy, Springfield, Springdale, Anderson Township, Huber Heights, Fairborn, Fairfield, Silverton, Colerain Township, Beavercreek and Lebanon.
The grand opening event, which took place on Wawa’s 61st anniversary, involved announcements of grants to local "community partners," a "Hoagies for Heroes hoagie-building contest" and a ribbon-cutting, according to Wawa.
The Miami Valley and Tri State are getting new gas stations.
7-Eleven is planning on opening up a Raise the Roast Chicken and Biscuits in Dayton and Springfield.
Casey's is expanding to Richmond, Indiana and Eaton, Ohio.
Sheetz are opening locations in West Carrollton, Middletown and Richmond.
Buc-ee's is still coming to Huber Heights. It is delayed due to lawsuits with Clark County and Medway.
QuikTrip is opening another location in Dayton around Northridge, Ohio and possibly in Fairborn.
It's Spring and Nancy Mace is playing in the snow.
My prediction is that this South Carolina lawmaker will have an encounter with the police. She will return from an event and she will be under the influence. She will try to use her privilege as a Congress member to escape a driving under the influence charge. She will also claim that if the junk food media gets a hold of the body or dash camera footage, it is an attempt by the left to smear a "innocent woman".
Influence doesn't mean alcohol.
Inside in Ulta Beauty store, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said fuck you to a constituent as he confronted her on her refusal to hold town halls.
Mace has single handedly become the most insufferable House member this year alone. Once a pragmatic conservative, Mace turned into this whining Karen.
A total drunk. A cocaine snorting bitch.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) are alcoholics who do cocaine as well.
Prove me wrong.
Mace had rude encounters with Madea Benjamin of Code Pink.
Benjamin asked her why she continues to support Israel, the lawmaker shot back saying she loves Israel and called the woman a supporter of terrorism.
Mace also voted against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. She took credit for the law giving her district allocated funds for projects.
Mace shared footage of an expletive-laden confrontation between her and an “unhinged lunatic” voter over the weekend.
“Some unhinged lunatic, wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store, got in my face today. Dems are nuts. So I went off – and I won’t be backing down,” Mace wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Saturday alongside a clip of the incident.
She added in her caption: “I hold the line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Try me.”
In the clip, things spiral out of control after the man questions if she would be holding more town hall meetings this year while she was out shopping over the weekend.
“I do them every year. Do you want to keep going? Do you want to keep going, keep harassing me?” the conservative lawmaker said, telling the unidentified man in the video that he “could have gone to a dozen town halls last year.”
The man responded, “I asked if you were doing any more this year. It was one simple question,” prompting Mace to then imply that he was gay despite him never mentioning his sexuality during their heated exchange.
I just wanted some face wash on my afternoon off lol
“And by the way, I voted for gay marriage twice,” she said, to which he replied, “What does that have to do with me?”
Mace’s derogatory words came after she previously claimed to be pro-LGBT, telling the Washington Examiner in March 2021 that she “strongly supports LGBTQ rights and equality.”
The dispute between Mace and the man further ignited after the politician accused him of being “absolutely fucking crazy.”
“You people on the left are crazy, you’re absolutely fucking crazy. You are and get out of my face, goodbye. Fuck you,” she fired back after he began to walk away.
Her biting words drew him right back into the clash, with him swiveling back to tell Mace she’s “a disgrace to this state,” a “nasty bitch” and is “going to be voted out so fast this year.”
The clip of them going at each other’s throats ended with Mace replying, “Get the fuck out of my face now. Fuck you. You couldn’t take me on, baby.”
In a separate video shared on Bluesky by a social media user, the man seemingly kicked off the conversation by asking Mace if she is going to host a “a real town hall for the people” this year.
“Did you miss the 15 I had last year?” she asked as he shot back, “the town hall you hosted this year was not a town hall, let’s be real.”
In a follow-up post, Mace poked fun at the spicy war of words, writing, “I just wanted some face wash on my afternoon off lol.”
Reps for Mace didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost for comment.
Last month, Mace was criticized for not attending a town hall organized by the Lowcountry Accountability Alliance, alleging that it was being “driven by left-wing extremists and paid agitators with a clear agenda” and wasn’t “safe.”
“We’re staying away because it’s not safe, and we refuse to be bullied by individuals who are threatening me, my employees, and my family,” she wrote on X.
This is the same woman who threatens Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
This bitch is off her rocker. No wonder her fiancé left her. She is fucking crazy.
Pope Francis' final duties were his Easter message.
Just a day after he delivered his Good Friday and Easter message, Pope Francis has passed away. The pontiff is dead at 88 years old.
The world leaders will react.
The Vice President, JD Vance had the last image of him with the Pope. The Pope kicked off his message to a representative days before his passing. He told Vance to have some humanity.
President Donald J. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Congress, former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will react to this.
Former vice presidents Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle will react to this.
Francis, history’s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88.
Bells tolled in church towers across Rome after the announcement, which was read out by Cardinal Kevin Farrell from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived.
“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” said Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, who takes charge after a pontiff’s death.
Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.
He made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday — a day before his death — to bless thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square, drawing wild cheers and applause. Beforehand, he met briefly with Vance.
Francis performed the blessing from the same loggia where he was introduced to the world on March 13, 2013 as the 266th pope.
From his first greeting that night — a remarkably normal “Buonasera” (“Good evening”) — to his embrace of refugees and the downtrodden, Francis signaled a very different tone for the papacy, stressing humility over hubris for a Catholic Church beset by scandal and accusations of indifference.
After that rainy night, the Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis’ election.
But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists. His greatest test came in 2018 when he botched a notorious case of clergy sexual abuse in Chile, and the scandal that festered under his predecessors erupted anew on his watch.
And then Francis, the crowd-loving, globe-trotting pope of the peripheries, navigated the unprecedented reality of leading a universal religion through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City.
He implored the world to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to rethink the economic and political framework that he said had turned rich against poor.
“We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented,” Francis told an empty St. Peter’s Square in March 2020. But he also stressed the pandemic showed the need for “all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”
Flags flew at half-staff Monday in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy, and tourists and the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, where bells tolled in mourning.
Johann Xavier, who traveled from Australia, hoped to see the pope during his visit. “But then we heard about it when we came in here. It pretty much devastated all of us,’’ he said.
Francis’ death sets off a weekslong process of allowing the faithful to pay their final respects, first for Vatican officials in the Santa Marta chapel and then in St. Peter’s for the general public, followed by a funeral and a conclave to elect a new pope.
Vice President JD Vance meets Pope Francis for the first and last time.
Reforming the Vatican
Francis was elected on a mandate to reform the Vatican bureaucracy and finances but went further in shaking up the church without changing its core doctrine. “Who am I to judge?” he replied when asked about a purportedly gay priest.
The comment sent a message of welcome to the LGBTQ+ community and those who felt shunned by a church that had stressed sexual propriety over unconditional love. “Being homosexual is not a crime,” he told The Associated Press in 2023, urging an end to civil laws that criminalize it.
Stressing mercy, Francis changed the church’s position on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in all circumstances. He also declared the possession of nuclear weapons, not just their use, was “immoral.”
In other firsts, he approved an agreement with China over bishop nominations that had vexed the Vatican for decades, met the Russian patriarch and charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq.
He reaffirmed the all-male, celibate priesthood and upheld the church’s opposition to abortion, equating it to “hiring a hit man to solve a problem.”
Donald J. Trump with Francis in his first term.
Roles for women
But he added women to important decision-making roles and allowed them to serve as lectors and acolytes in parishes. He let women vote alongside bishops in periodic Vatican meetings, following long-standing complaints that women do much of the church’s work but are barred from power.
Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom Francis named to one of the highest Vatican jobs, said his legacy was a vision of a church where men and women existed in a relationship of reciprocity and respect.
“It was about shifting a pattern of domination — from human being to the creation, from men to women — to a pattern of cooperation,” said Becquart, the first woman to hold a voting position in a Vatican synod.
Still, a note of criticism came from the Women’s Ordination Conference, which had been frustrated by Francis’ unwillingness to push for the ordination of women.
“His repeated ‘closed door’ policy on women’s ordination was painfully incongruous with his otherwise pastoral nature, and for many, a betrayal of the synodal, listening church he championed. This made him a complicated, frustrating, and sometimes heart-breaking figure for many women,” the statement said.
Francis with Joe Biden.
The church as refuge
While Francis did not allow women to be ordained, the voting reform was part of a revolutionary change in emphasizing what the church should be: a refuge for everyone — “todos, todos, todos” (“everyone, everyone, everyone”). Migrants, the poor, prisoners and outcasts were invited to his table far more than presidents or powerful CEOs.
“For Pope Francis, (the goal) was always to extend the arms of the church to embrace all people, not to exclude anyone,” said Farrell, the camerlengo.
Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect God’s creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.
After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out “is not Christian.”
While progressives were thrilled with Francis’ radical focus on Jesus’ message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic.
A few cardinals openly challenged him. Francis usually responded with his typical answer to conflict: silence.
He made it easier for married Catholics to get an annulment, allowed priests to absolve women who had had abortions and decreed that priests could bless same-sex couples. He opened debate on issues like homosexuality and divorce, giving pastors wiggle room to discern how to accompany their flocks, rather than handing them strict rules to apply.
St. Francis of Assisi as a model
Francis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasn’t a gimmick.
“I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful,” he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle.”
If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasn’t enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century friar known for personal simplicity and care for nature and society’s outcasts.
Francis went to society’s fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the deformed head of a man in St. Peter’s Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentina’s garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro. He formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward.
“We have always been marginalized, but Pope Francis always helped us,” said Coqui Vargas, a transgender woman whose Roman community forged a unique relationship with Francis during the pandemic.
His first trip as pope was to the island of Lampedusa, then the epicenter of Europe’s migration crisis. He consistently chose to visit poor countries where Christians were often persecuted minorities, rather than the centers of global Catholicism.
Friend and fellow Argentine, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, said his concern for the poor and disenfranchised was based on the Beatitudes — the eight blessings Jesus delivered in the Sermon on the Mount for the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit and others.
“Why are the Beatitudes the program of this pontificate? Because they were the basis of Jesus Christ’s own program,” Sánchez said.
Francis with Barack Obama.
Missteps on sexual abuse scandal
But more than a year passed before Francis met with survivors of priestly sexual abuse, and victims’ groups initially questioned whether he really understood the scope of the problem.
Francis did create a sex abuse commission to advise the church on best practices, but it lost influence after a few years and its recommendation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests went nowhere.
And then came the greatest crisis of his papacy, when he discredited Chilean abuse victims in 2018 and stood by a controversial bishop linked to their abuser. Realizing his error, Francis invited the victims to the Vatican for a personal mea culpa and summoned the leadership of the Chilean church to resign en masse.
As that crisis concluded, a new one erupted over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington and a counselor to three popes.
Francis had actually moved swiftly to sideline McCarrick amid an accusation he had molested a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. But Francis nevertheless was accused by the Vatican’s one-time U.S. ambassador of having rehabilitated McCarrick early in his papacy.
Francis eventually defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused adults as well as minors. He changed church law to remove the pontifical secret surrounding abuse cases and enacted procedures to investigate bishops who abused or covered for their pedophile priests, seeking to end impunity for the hierarchy.
“He sincerely wanted to do something and he transmitted that,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean abuse survivor Francis discredited who later developed a close friendship with the pontiff.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla with Francis.
A change from Benedict
The road to Francis’ 2013 election was paved by Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign and retire — the first in 600 years.
Francis didn’t shy from Benedict’s potentially uncomfortable shadow. Francis embraced him as an elder statesman and adviser, coaxing him out of his cloistered retirement to participate in the public life of the church until Benedict’s death on Dec. 31, 2022.
“It’s like having your grandfather in the house, a wise grandfather,” Francis said.
Francis’ looser liturgical style and pastoral priorities made clear he and the German-born theologian came from very different religious traditions, and Francis directly overturned several decisions of his predecessor.
He made sure Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, a hero to the liberation theology movement in Latin America, was canonized after his case languished under Benedict over concerns about the credo’s Marxist bent.
Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, arguing the spread of the Tridentine Rite was divisive. The move riled Francis’ traditionalist critics and opened sustained conflict between right-wing Catholics, particularly in the U.S., and the Argentine pope.
Mike Pence with Francis.
Conservatives oppose Francis
By then, conservatives had already turned away from Francis, betrayed after he opened debate on allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments if they didn’t get an annulment — a church ruling that their first marriage was invalid.
“We don’t like this pope,” headlined Italy’s conservative daily Il Foglio a few months into the papacy, reflecting the unease of the small but vocal traditionalist Catholic movement.
Those same critics amplified their complaints after Francis’ approved church blessings for same-sex couples, and a controversial accord with China over nominating bishops.
Its details were never released, but conservative critics bashed it as a sellout to communist China, while the Vatican defended it as the best deal it could get with Beijing.
U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a figurehead in the anti-Francis opposition, said the church had become “like a ship without a rudder.”
Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin with Francis.
Burke waged his opposition campaign for years, starting when Francis fired him as the Vatican’s supreme court justice and culminating with his vocal opposition to Francis’ 2023 synod on the church’s future.
Twice, he joined other conservative cardinals in formally asking Francis to explain himself on doctrine issues reflecting a more progressive bent, including on the possibility of same-sex blessings and his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
Francis eventually sanctioned Burke financially, accusing him of sowing “disunity.”
Francis insisted his bishops and cardinals imbue themselves with the “odor of their flock” and minister to the faithful, voicing displeasure when they didn’t.
His 2014 Christmas address to the Vatican Curia was one of the greatest public papal reprimands ever: Standing in the marbled Apostolic Palace, Francis ticked off 15 ailments that he said can afflict his closest collaborators, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s,” lusting for power and the “terrorism of gossip.”
Trying to eliminate corruption, Francis oversaw the reform of the scandal-marred Vatican bank and sought to wrestle Vatican bureaucrats into financial line, limiting their compensation and ability to receive gifts or award public contracts.
He authorized Vatican police to raid his own secretariat of state and the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency amid suspicions about a 350 million euro investment in a London real estate venture. After a 2 1/2-year trial, the Vatican tribunal convicted a once-powerful cardinal, Angelo Becciu, of embezzlement and returned mixed verdicts to nine others, acquitting one.
The trial, though, proved to be a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, showing deficiencies in the Vatican’s legal system, unseemly turf battles among monsignors, and how the pope had intervened on behalf of prosecutors.
While earning praise for trying to turn the Vatican’s finances around, Francis angered U.S. conservatives for his frequent excoriation of the global financial market.
Economic justice was an important themes of his papacy, and he didn’t hide it in his first meeting with journalists when he said he wanted a “poor church that is for the poor.”
In his first major teaching document, “The Joy of the Gospel,” Francis denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, based on a mentality “where the powerful feed upon the powerless” with no regard for ethics, the environment or even God.
“Money must serve, not rule!” he said in urging political reforms.
Some U.S. conservatives branded Francis a Marxist. He jabbed back by saying he had many friends who were Marxists.
John Boehner, the House Speaker infamously weeped during Pope Francis invite to theJoint Session of Congress. Boehner resigned days later.
Soccer, opera and prayer
Born Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants.
He credited his devout grandmother Rosa with teaching him how to pray. Weekends were spent listening to opera on the radio, going to Mass and attending matches of the family’s beloved San Lorenzo soccer club. As pope, his love of soccer brought him a huge collection of jerseys from visitors.
He said he received his religious calling at 17 while going to confession, recounting in a 2010 biography that, “I don’t know what it was, but it changed my life. ... I realized that they were waiting for me.”
He entered the diocesan seminary but switched to the Jesuit order in 1958, attracted to its missionary tradition and militancy.
Around this time, he suffered from pneumonia, which led to the removal of the upper part of his right lung. His frail health prevented him from becoming a missionary, and his less-than-robust lung capacity was perhaps responsible for his whisper of a voice and reluctance to sing at Mass.
On Dec. 13, 1969, he was ordained a priest, and immediately began teaching. In 1973, he was named head of the Jesuits in Argentina, an appointment he later acknowledged was “crazy” given he was only 36. “My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative,” he admitted in his Civilta Cattolica interview.
Life under Argentina’s dictatorship
His six-year tenure as the head of the order in Argentina coincided with the country’s murderous 1976-83 dictatorship, when the military launched a campaign against left-wing guerrillas and other regime opponents.
Bergoglio didn’t publicly confront the junta and was accused of effectively allowing two slum priests to be kidnapped and tortured by not publicly endorsing their work.
Pope Francis.
He refused for decades to counter that version of events. Only in a 2010 authorized biography did he finally recount the behind-the-scenes lengths he used to save them, persuading the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so he could celebrate Mass instead. Once in the junta leader’s home, Bergoglio privately appealed for mercy. Both priests were eventually released, among the few to have survived prison.
As pope, accounts began to emerge of the many people — priests, seminarians and political dissidents —whom Bergoglio actually saved during the “dirty war,” letting them stay incognito at the seminary or helping them escape the country.
Bergoglio went to Germany in 1986 to research a never-finished thesis. Returning to Argentina, he was stationed in Cordoba during a period he described as a time of “great interior crisis.” Out of favor with more progressive Jesuit leaders, he was eventually rescued from obscurity in 1992 by St. John Paul II, who named him an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. He became archbishop six years later, and was made a cardinal in 2001.
He came close to becoming pope in 2005 when Benedict was elected, gaining the second-most votes in several rounds of balloting before bowing out.
Former U.S. Representative Barbara Lee won the special election and will become the mayor-elect of Oakland, California. Sheng Thao, the former mayor was indicted on federal corruption charges and was recalled in 2024.
Oakland has experienced major setbacks. The Raiders and A's left the city for Las Vegas. The A's play in Sacramento for the time being.
The Golden State Warriors moved also to San Francisco.
AIPAC wanted Loren Taylor to win. They pour some significant funds into this race.
Lee's win assures that Oakland continues to endorse Palestinians and the possible ending of Oakland Police being trained by Israelis.
During her tenure as mayor, Thao pledged to focus on crime, homelessness, and affordable housing. Thao's administration faced a series of challenges, including public safety, business departures and budget deficits. In June 2024, the FBI raided the home Thao shares with her partner Andre Jones and their two children as part of an ongoing investigation. On August 6, 2024, Oakland's police union called on Thao to resign. In January 2025, Thao was criminally indicted by a grand jury on federal bribery charges.
The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Lee who ran for U.S. Senator was defeated in a jungle primary by fellow Democratic lawmaker Adam Schiff, who later became the senator. Schiff is backed by AIPAC and is a stuanch Zionist.
Lee declared victory Saturday as the new mayor of troubled Oakland, a San Francisco Bay Area city reeling from economic stagnation, crime and homelessness.
Thank our elected leaders for pouring billions into endless wars, tax cuts for billionaires and constant culture wars. Israel gets billions of taxpayer dollars and cities like Oakland continue to suffer.
Lee issued a statement Saturday as mayor-elect, saying that her chief opponent, Loren Taylor, had called to concede the April 15 race.
“While I believe strongly in respecting the democratic voting process and ballots will continue to be counted ... the results are clear that the people of Oakland have elected me as your next Mayor,” she said. “Thank you, Oakland!”
AIPAC backed Loren Taylor wanted to tie Lee to Thao.
Lee, 78, is a Black female trailblazer who represented the city in Congress for over two decades before retiring last year after running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.
“Oakland is a deeply divided City,” she said, adding that she “answered the call to run” so the community could work together to solve its problems.
Lee was endorsed by former Gov. Jerry Brown and other previous Oakland mayors who said she was the seasoned, uniting presence the city needed after a divisive recall of former Mayor Sheng Thao in November. Thao was indicted on federal bribery, fraud and conspiracy charges in January.
Oakland has about 400,000 residents and is deeply liberal and multicultural, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and claimed by former Vice President Kamala Harris as her hometown.
But Oakland also is reeling from homeless tents, public drug use, illegal sideshows, gun violence and brazen robberies that prompted In-N-Out Burger to close its first location ever last year.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sent California Highway Patrol officers to help combat what he called an alarming and unacceptable rise in crime. And the city doesn’t have enough money to pay for public services.
Despite her high name recognition, the race was surprisingly heated with Taylor, 47, a former Oakland city council member who pledged to bolster police, reduce crime and revitalize the city’s economy.
Taylor said in a statement that “while the outcome was not what we worked for and hoped for,” he was proud of the campaign and the bold ideas he introduced.
On the campaign trail, Lee emphasized the need for more community services as well as more police. Economic development, job creation and ensuring core city services like fire hydrants work properly are among her priorities.
She will finish out the remainder of Thao’s term and would be up for reelection in November 2026.
Lee was first elected to the U.S. House in 1998 and became best known nationally as the only lawmaker to vote against the 2001 authorization for the use of military force in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Don't worry, we still deporting them. The Supreme Court doesn't matter.
It will be a constitutional crisis.
The Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act. In a 7-2 decision with Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting, the Court said that Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Czar Tom Homan and Attorney General Pam Bondi overstepped their actions.
They failed at using due process when they used the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest civilians off the street.
The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Democracy Forward on March 15, 2025. The same day, Trump announced that the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua was conducting "irregular warfare" against the United States and that members in the United States would be deported under the AEA. The Trump administration quickly began the process of deporting Venezuelans allegedly affiliated with this gang on flights to El Salvador.
While the deportation flights were en route, James Boasberg, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia was assigned to the case. He issued an order certifying Venezuelan migrants in the US as members of a class and temporarily enjoining their removal from the US. Although Boasberg specifically ordered that any planes in the air carrying those covered by his order be turned back and those individuals returned to the US, the Trump administration allowed the flights to proceed, potentially violating the court order. Over 260 men were flown to El Salvador, where the migrants were taken into custody and sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). The Trump administration subsequently argued in court that the order did not apply because the flights were over international waters. Critics of the government alleged it was improperly using wartime authority to carry out its immigration policies without due process. The Trump administration appealed the temporary restraining order to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and after that court denied the appeal, the administration filed an emergency appeal with the US Supreme Court, which vacated Boasberg's temporary restraining order, but said intended deportees must be notified in time that they can petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
On March 24, Judge Boasberg ruled that the government cannot deport anyone under the AEA without a hearing. As of April 3, he was considering initiating contempt of court proceedings against the Trump administration.
Trump is defying the Supreme Court as we speak. He will continue to push for deporting immigrants who he alleges are gang members, critics of American policies, antisemitic and from countries hostile to the U.S. and Israel.
The guy who claimed the Biden administration hid records in regards to Hunter Biden’s tax records was appointed as the acting IRS Comissioner by the Trump administration. He only lasted less than 96 hours.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told President Donald J. Trump that he thought Gary Shapley was a problem and the president ordered his firing.
Bessent told the president that White House adviser/Department of Government Efficiency Secretary Elon Musk went behind Bessent’s back to get Shapley installed. The IRS commissioner reports to the Treasury secretary.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender has been named as the replacement and is the fifth commissioner the agency has had since Jan. 20. Trump has nominated former Missouri Republican lawmaker Billy Long as commissioner, but the Senate Finance Committee has yet to hold a hearing on the nomination.
Long is another Zionist who will oversee our taxes. So if you decide to donate to Palestinians, Long could insulate that you are providing material support to terrorist and have you arrested.
Shapley’s tenure as acting commissioner last just four days, which is less than half the famously short tenure of Anthony Scaramucci, who was White House communications director for 10 days in 2017 before he was fired.
Shapley, a 16-year veteran of the IRS, briefly came to prominence in 2023 as a “whistleblower” touted by Republicans in their investigation into Hunter Biden.
“When I took control of this particular investigation, I immediately saw it was way outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past,” Shapley said at the time. “There was multiple steps that were slow-walked at the direction of the Department of Justice.”
Bessent and Musk have clashed behind the scenes, but on Thursday night, Musk amplified an attack on the Treasury secretary. In a social media post, conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer accused Bessent of colluding with a “Trump hater” who leads a nonprofit organization called Operation HOPE.
“Troubling,” Musk responded to Loomer’s post.
Trump named Shapley as the acting commissioner of internal revenue to succeed Melanie Krause, who resigned after administration officials sought to enjoin the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)'s data with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That day, Trump had asked the IRS to revoke Harvard University's tax exemption. On April 18, Trump replaced Shapley with Michael Faulkender, the deputy secretary of the treasury, amid a struggle between secretary of the treasury Scott Bessent and Elon Musk. According to The New York Times, Bessent was unaware that Shapley was named acting commissioner.
Shapley publicly alleged that the Department of Justice had "slow-walked" the investigation into the younger Biden in an interview with CBS News in May 2023. Michael Batdorf, the director of field operations at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), claimed that he removed Shapley and his team from the Biden case in December 2022 after David C. Weiss, who oversaw the Biden investigation at the Department of Justice, believed that Shapley could not "remain objective in the investigation"; handwritten notes from Shapley released by Politico in September revealed that he had concerns over Weiss beginning in October 2022. Biden sued the IRS, him, and Ziegler that month over alleged violations of privacy. He testified before the House Committee on Ways and Means about the investigation into Biden in June. His testimony was used by Republicans to critique Weiss's claim that he had independence in his special counsel investigation. Shapley testified before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform the following month alongside Joseph Ziegler, alleging political bias in Weiss's investigation. He and Ziegler spoke with the Committee on Ways and Means in December, after the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden began.
