Virtually all of Trump’s cabinet picks have resulted in the left throwing a fit, but no one has sparked more controversy than former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is poised to replace Merrick Garland as attorney general should the Senate confirm him. Besides being unapologetically brash and outspoken against the establishment, Gaetz is ruffling feathers because he’s had some serious allegations filed against him, the most notable being accusations of sex trafficking. However, no indictments have followed, meaning that the scandal has either been buried intentionally or the accusations are false and this entire ordeal is a smear campaign. Liz Wheeler is leaning towards the latter. “We are going to untangle exactly who is behind the accusations against Matt Gaetz,” she says. “When you hear the whole story written out in a timeline of exactly what happened, when it happened, it is quite a phenomenal story.” “Whenever [Gaetz] is mentioned in the mainstream media, for example, he’s always mentioned as being under ethics review by the U.S. House or having faced sex trafficking allegations,” she points out. It’s important to establish that “people in Washington D.C. don’t like Matt Gaetz,” partially because “he was kind of a playboy,” partially because “he’s kind of obnoxious,” but most importantly because he’s been “a fighter for Trump” since 2016, she explains, adding that immediately following his election to Congress, Gaetz began butting heads with establishment GOPers. “What happens in Washington, D.C., when you’re disliked by the establishment is that makes you a target,” Liz explains. And that seems to be exactly what happened to him. In 2020, the FBI suddenly started investigating Matt Gaetz for “allegedly having a relationship with a minor — a 17-year-old girl — ... and paying for her to travel over state lines.” “If an allegation like this is true, then that’s the definition of sex trafficking,” says Liz. “So that’s where the sex trafficking allegations come into play.” However, the person who enlightened the FBI to Gaetz’ alleged crimes is a scandal in and of himself. The accuser’s name is Joel Greenberg, and he’s a former Florida tax collector who was indicted on 33 criminal accounts, including sex trafficking, theft, stalking, and cryptocurrency fraud, among others. Greenberg alleged that he was friends with Matt Gaetz. Following Greenberg’s accusations, the Department of Justice began investigating Gaetz for a period of two years. While the investigation was going on, “Gaetz said that he and his dad were the victims or were targeted for extortion.” And he was correct — a businessman named Stephen Alford indeed tried to extort Don Gaetz for $25 million in exchange for making the investigation against his son “go away.” “Gaetz and his dad instead cooperated with the local FBI office, and it resulted in Alford’s arrest, and he pled guilty to extortion,” says Liz. Fast forward to later in 2022, and Biden’s DOJ announced it would not bring any charges against Matt Gaetz. The investigation was closed because both Greenberg and the 17-year-old girl Gaetz allegedly trafficked were found to be “non-credible.” “In other words, they were such bad liars that even the Biden Department of Justice thought, ‘There’s no way that these two could be believable,”’ says Liz. “This is the Biden Department of Justice — the Biden Department of Justice that invents things in order to target their political enemy. ... There was so much nothing to these allegations that even the Biden DOJ dropped them.” But there’s another layer to the story. Back in 2021, an ethics investigation was opened on Matt Gaetz but was soon paused when the DOJ began its investigation into the sex trafficking allegations. Then, in 2022, before former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was elected, certain GOPers demanded a “series of reforms,” one of them being “that any single member of the House of Representatives could motion to vacate the chair.” “Well, that fight was led by Matt Gaetz,” says Liz. Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted and replaced by Mike Johnson in 2023 as a result of the policy Gaetz championed, “hates Matt Gaetz.” Prior to his removal, “the McCarthy-led House revived the ethics investigation.” “In October 2023, Matt Gaetz motioned to vacate the chair, and McCarthy became the first speaker in U.S. history to be ousted,” says Liz. “Kevin McCarthy claims that Matt Gaetz did this to squash the ethics investigation into him. Gaetz claims it’s because McCarthy was failing to uphold his promises, and now here we are in 2024. Matt Gaetz is nominated by president-elect Trump to be attorney general of the Department of Justice of the United States of America,” Liz explains. The nomination led to Gaetz resigning from Congress, meaning that he can no longer be investigated by the Ethics Committee. Further, any reports it may possess “cannot be released publicly” now. Liz calls the scandals surrounding Gaetz “personal, petty, political grievances”; “a character assassination of the worst kind”; and a “smear campaign from the depths of hell.” To hear more of her commentary, watch the episode above. Want more from Liz Wheeler?To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was caught lying about illegal immigration under the Biden and Trump administrations by PolitiFact. Pelosi was arguing with journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro about whether immigration was a factor in the Democrats' astounding election losses when she claimed that fewer illegal aliens were allowed into the country under President Joe Biden than during the first term for President-elect Donald Trump. 'It’s wrong to say illegal immigration, which reached historic highs under Biden, is lower overall than it was during Trump’s first term.' The former speaker tried to twist immigration into the category of a "cultural issue" when Garcia-Navarro contradicted her. "When the candidate for president is saying that these people coming in are murderers, rapists, thieves and all the rest of that. He made that a cultural issue," Pelosi said. "I don’t think we were clear enough by saying fewer people came in under President Biden than came under Donald Trump," she added. PolitiFact rated the claim false. "Illegal immigration under Biden has dropped significantly in the past four months, reaching levels lower than President-elect Donald Trump’s last few months in office," it wrote. "But it’s wrong to say illegal immigration, which reached historic highs under Biden, is lower overall than it was during Trump’s first term." The fact-checker reported that Pelosi's office did not respond to their requests for comment, but an aide to the congresswoman tried to explain to the Washington Post that she was speaking about deportation data. "That data shows that Biden’s administration repatriated more people than Trump did, but that’s not what Pelosi said in the interview," PolitiFact retorted. The article went on to cite specific statistics that showed illegal entries into the U.S. skyrocketed under Biden as compared to Trump. Under Biden, Border Patrol agents encountered migrants trying to enter the U.S.7.2 million times; under Trump, officials encountered migrants 1.8 million times. Encounters don’t mean people were let in, and there’s no data for how many people who were encountered are now living in the U.S. But the numbers of people released to await court hearings don’t corroborate Pelosi’s statement, either. There were about 313,000 under Trump compared with 3.6 million under Biden."We rate Pelosi’s statement False," PolitiFact concluded. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A union representing staffers at the Democratic National Committee released an angry statement excoriating the DNC firing staffers with little notice and no severance pay despite raising a billion dollars in the election. The DNC Staff Union posted the statement about the layoffs from Wednesday and made demands of the DNC in expectation of further layoffs after the astounding election losses. 'DNC leadership refuses to disclose to the DNC Staff Union the full extent of these layoffs and whether additional cuts are planned.'"The Democratic National Committee is facing the fallout of callous and short-sighted mismanagement by senior leadership," the statement read. "Starting Wednesday night, permanent employees were notified of their termination, effective Friday and with no severance pay. DNC leadership refuses to disclose to the DNC Staff Union the full extent of these layoffs and whether additional cuts are planned. These cuts go far beyond typical campaign turnover and impact employees who were previously told their positions would be retained after the election."The union went on to criticize the DNC for raising more than a billion dollars for the campaign before firing employees. "Despite record-breaking fundraising, the DNC failed to provide any financial support to those who have tirelessly served the Democratic Party and its mission," it said in part. "The DNC staff is proud of the values that our party stands for," the statement continued. "We want to make it clear, however, that the principles we champion on the national stage have been disregarded in our own workplace. The process of regaining the trust of the American people must start with living our party's values."The union demanded that the DNC leadership align its actions with its principles by offering severance pay and addressing the staff "honestly and transparency." The Harris-Walz campaign has been under intense scrutiny after some reports indicated the campaign had ended in nearly $20 million worth of debt after spending more than a billion dollars on lavish parties just to lose control of two branches of government. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

MSNBC Host Says ‘Normalizing Trump Is a Bad Idea’

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If your goal is to make a bunch of authors exceedingly angry with you, I honestly can't think of many better ways than asking them to sell their work to train AI. And yet, that's what publishing company HarperCollins has started doing with its authors, as exposed by writer and comedian Daniel Kibblesmith in a post on Bluesky late last week. "Abominable," Kibblesmith wrote, sharing screenshots of the correspondence between himself and his agent about the deal. The publisher was interested in including his 2017 children's book Santa’s Husband and was willing to pay a non-negotiable sum of $2,500 to license his book for three years in order to train an AI language learning model. The A.V. Club reported on the incident last week. 404 Media then reached out to HarperCollins on Monday for the publisher's side of the story and received this response: HarperCollins has reached an agreement with an artificial intelligence technology company to allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance. While we believe this deal is attractive, we respect the various views of our authors, and they have the choice to opt in to the agreement or to pass on the opportunity. HarperCollins has a long history of innovation and experimentation with new business models. Part of our role is to present authors with opportunities for their consideration while simultaneously protecting the underlying value of their works and our shared revenue and royalty streams. This agreement, with its limited scope and clear guardrails around model output that respects author’s rights, does that. On the one hand, the fact that HarperCollins is giving the authors the ability to opt-out at all is encouraging. Given how much money is presumably at stake, the publisher might have chosen to bully authors into taking the deal instead of asking for permission. On the other hand, it's a bit hard to imagine many authors taking HarperCollins up on the deal and potentially contributing to their own obsolescence, especially for the paltry payday of $2,500 per title. “It seems like they think they’re cooked, and they’re chasing short money while they can," said Kibblesmith to A.V. Club. "I disagree. The fear of robots replacing authors is a false binary. I see it as the beginning of two diverging markets, readers who want to connect with other humans across time and space, or readers who are satisfied with a customized on-demand content pellet fed to them by the big computer so they never have to be challenged again.” Needless to say, Kibblesmith did not agree to the terms. That said, not every author is willing or able to take a moral stand, especially if $2,500 or more could help pay the bills. Don't Miss: Brilliant AI bot imitates a granny to keep phone scammers on the line for hours The post HarperCollins asks authors to license their books to train AI models appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Best Apple Watch deals for November 2024 Today’s deals: $17.50 Apple AirTags, $50 off Madden NFL 25, $30 Crock-Pot Electric Lunch Box, more Today’s deals: $249 Oura Ring 3, 45% off LG C4 OLED TV, $70 Instant Pot Duo, $25 off winter fashion, more Best Black Friday home security deals of 2024

The older sister of Daniel Penny, the U.S. Marine veteran charged with fatally choking a homeless man aboard a Manhattan subway, told jurors Monday that her brother is a "calm, soft-spirited person" with a reputation for honesty and integrity.

Sylvester Stallone graced the American First Policy Institute’s black-tie gala event at the Mar-a-Lago, and he looked sharp in a classic black suit and shirt while sporting his salt-and-pepper waves. He introduced the US president-elect, Donald Trump, who he called the next George Washington. Photos from the ceremony made it to social media, and users had varying opinions about his appearance and political affiliation with Trump. Some thought Sylvester looked different, with rumors of plastic surgery brewing lately. Critics accuse Sylvester Stallone of getting too much plastic surgery Sylvester Stallone/Reddit Sylvester’s photo featuring him between two other women went viral, and fans could not hold back their concern for the legendary actor. “Why do they all look the same, all botched and weird with empty smiles and eyes?” someone asked, while a few stated that they were disappointed but not surprised. Most trolled him for associating with Trump and the Republican Party, calling him a sellout. “Notice everything around Trump is a damn lie! Even the people there are the perfect pictures of a lie, with all the plastic surgery they do on themselves!” a third person raged on X. Sylvester Stallone/Everett Has Sylvester Stallone gotten plastic surgery in the past? Sylvester has admitted to going under the knife, although it was out of necessity rather than beauty enhancement. The 78-year-old had a birth injury that damaged half of his face, and it became obvious when he lost weight. He then got a partial facelift for a better appearance. Sylvester Stallone/Everett Aside from the surgery he admitted to, Sylvester has been accused of getting a brow lift, a blepharoplasty, and Botox to look younger. His wife, Jennifer Flavin has also faced similar allegations, despite running a skincare brand, Serious Skincare, which is behind the non-invasive product named Trace + Erase. It promises to reduce wrinkles and tighten the facial skin without needles, unlike traditional filler. Next up: Richard Simmons’ Housekeeper Allegedly Leaves Beverly Hills Residence With Millions Of Dollars The post The Internet Goes Crazy Over Sylvester Stallone’s Plastic Look At Recent Event appeared first on DoYouRemember? - The Home of Nostalgia. Author, Peace A

A French court said Friday that a terrorist who has spent the last 40 years in jail for killing two diplomats, one of whom was an American, should be released. The court said Lebanese terrorist Georges…