CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin was taken aback that social media campaigns continue to rip diversity equity and inclusion initiatives out of major companies, with Toyota being the most recent.  During the Oct. 4 edition of Squawk Box, Sorkin expressed his astonishment that political commentator and podcast host Robby Starbuck had driven so much change at many companies. “It’s surprising. Every time this guy goes after them, the companies fold pretty quick,” he said. CNBC anchor Becky Quick also credited Starbuck for the end of DEI at Toyota and a number of other corporations, which cut ties with the radical pressure group Human Rights Campaign (HRC).  Sorkin’s remarks came a day after Starbuck announced on on X that Toyota and its subsidiary Lexus had agreed to end “involvement in pride parades, pride events or LGBTQ children’s summer camps.” Starbuck also wrote that the company will no longer “participate in the [HRC’s] woke Corporate Equality Index social credit system.” Moreover, Starbuck noted that Toyota and Lexus agreed to ensure that business resource groups would be open to any employee and would focus on business issues.  In the accompanying video, Starbuck celebrated his “100% strike rate on flipping these companies.” Since June 27, Ford, Molson-Coors, Tractor Supply, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Furman, Stanley Black & Decker, Caterpillar and Lowe’s have stepped away from DEI and the HRC. John Deere has also made some steps in that direction.  Starbuck has succeeded in driving a wedge between these companies and the radical leftist HRC. The HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) rates companies according to a set of radical demands including fully embracing transgenderism, allowing men in women’s bathrooms and offering “healthcare coverage for medically necessary transition-related care.” The podcast host mocked the rapidly declining LGBTQ+ pressure group and its befuddled president, Kelley Robinson. Starbuck pointed out that Robinson specifically lauded Lexus for showing up the HRC National Dinner on Sept. 7. During an absurd speech, Robinson tried to minimize the significance of so many major companies abandoning her organization by praising the loyalty of companies like Lexus.  I guess not. Huge news: Last week we exposed @Toyota + @Lexus for going woke and now just one week later they’re announcing BIG changes! Some highlights: • No more involvement in pride parades, pride events or LGBTQ children’s summer camps. • They will not participate in the @HRC’s woke… pic.twitter.com/eUp3aBT4wV — Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 3, 2024 A few days after the HRC National Dinner, Robinson spoke to Sorkin on Squawk Box, threatening defecting companies with a 25-point reduction of their CEI score (or as Starbuck calls it their “social credit system”). She also said that Ford was an outlier for ditching the HRC, as “every other major auto manufacturer in this country is participating in the CEI.”  Conservatives are under attack! Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on the dangers of leftist DEI ideology infecting corporate America.

Jack Smith's "October Surprise" was so overtly political and unethical that it was too much even for a senior legal analyst from a liberal network, CNN. The disgust by Elie Honig towards the antics of Jack Smith boiled over on Thursday in New York Magazine in an article whose title reflected Honig's opinion, "Jack Smith’s October Cheap Shot." ...Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects. At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis. “But we need to know this stuff before we vote!” is a nice bumper sticker, but it’s neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith’s unprincipled, norm-breaking practice. (It also overlooks the fact that the Justice Department bears responsibility for taking over two and a half years to indict in the first place.) ...The way motions work — under the federal rules, and consistent with common sense — is that the prosecutor files an indictment; the defense makes motions (to dismiss charges, to suppress evidence, or what have you); and then the prosecution responds to those motions. Makes sense, right? It’s worked for hundreds of years in our courts. Not here. Not when there’s an election right around the corner and dwindling opportunity to make a dent. So Smith turned the well-established, thoroughly uncontroversial rules of criminal procedure on their head and asked Judge Chutkan for permission to file first — even with no actual defense motion pending. Trump’s team objected, and the judge acknowledged that Smith’s request to file first was “procedurally irregular” — moments before she ruled in Smith’s favor, as she’s done at virtually every consequential turn. Honig goes on to denounce Smith's grotesque misuse of grand jury testimony, which is supposed to remain secret prior to a trial, in his very public legal filing. ...Smith now uses grand-jury testimony (which ordinarily remains secret at this stage) and drafts up a tidy 165-page document that contains all manner of damaging statements about a criminal defendant, made outside of a trial setting and without being subjected to the rules of evidence or cross-examination, and files it publicly, generating national headlines. You know who’ll see those allegations? The voters, sure — and also members of the jury pool. Finally, Honig slams Smith for violating the DOJ policy of not taking any action before an upcoming election that may affect its outcome. ...Smith’s conduct here violates core DOJ principle and policy. The Justice Manual — DOJ’s internal bible, essentially — contains a section titled “Actions That May Have an Impact on the Election.” Now: Does Smith’s filing qualify? May it have an impact on the election? Of course. So what does the rule tell us? “Federal prosecutors … may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.” Remember, Smith begged the judge to flip the rules on their head so he could file this document first, and quickly — “any action,” by any reasonable definition — with the election right around the corner. Anyone who objected to James Comey’s outrageous announcements about the Hillary Clinton email investigation on the eve of the 2016 election should feel the same about Smith’s conduct now. What’s the distinction? Both violated ordinary procedure to take public steps, shortly before an election, that plainly would have an impact on that election. I’m going to hand this one over to one of DOJ’s most esteemed alums, who explained it this way to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog: “To me if it [an election] were 90 days off, and you think it has a significant chance of impacting an election, unless there’s a reason you need to take that action now, you don’t do it.” Those words were spoken by Sally Yates — former deputy attorney general, venerated career prosecutor, no fan of Trump (who unceremoniously fired her in 2017), and liberal folk hero. As usual, Yates is spot on. And her explanation conveys this indelible truth: If prosecutors bend their principles depending on the identity of their prey, then they’ve got no principles at all. Hopefully the people working at CNN will take note of what their own senior legal analyst wrote on the subject of Jack Smith's (lack of) ethics and keep it in mind when commenting on his October Surprise.

A parental rights group and Christian scholars are criticizing the new requirements for a teaching license in Minnesota.

Renowned author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza joins Jill Savage on “Blaze News Tonight” to discuss a variety of subjects, including the debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz, as well his latest documentary, “Vindicating Trump.” “What were your main takeaways from JD Vance last night?” asks Jill. “As a Dartmouth graduate, he vindicated the value of an Ivy League education,” says D’Souza. “He was informed, measured, cosmopolitan, likeable, and I think he delivered.” Given that Trump is “getting up there [in age],” D’Souza thinks Vance proved to the nation that he is “a guy with the intellectual ability and the emotional balance to sort of continue with the Trumpian spirit.” Further, he says Vance in a way “vindicates Trump.” “When Trump picked Pence the last time, people said, ‘Well, Trump is an alpha male; he doesn't like anybody else who will overshadow him; he doesn't like anyone else who's smart; he needs somebody who's very passive.’ But I think with Vance you get somebody who has his own mind, who clearly is his own guy, and I think it speaks well of Trump,” says D’Souza. According to him, Vance and Walz were chosen by their respective running mates for the same reason. “This is a case where the vice presidential pick on both sides is sort of aimed at going after the same audience, namely the white working-class vote, which is decisive in a lot of the key states,” he explains, adding that “Democrats think that Walz is a populist on the left to counter JD Vance, the populist on the right.” “The problem with Walz,” however, is that “he's so over the top.” “He borders on the ridiculous” – especially when it comes to his glaring “insincerity” and “fakery,” D’Souza says. Further, Walz is an outspoken proponent of censorship. “We know from a comment that [Walz] made back in 2022 – he said, ‘There's no guarantee for free speech when it comes to misinformation,”’ Jill recounts. “Combine that with an apology from Mark Zuckerberg saying, ‘Oh, I'm sorry that we worked with the White House at censoring so many Americans.” D’Souza criticizes Walz for “[trying] to get out of it” by “invoking the sort of famous example of shouting fire in a crowded theater.” However, “the stuff that they censor has nothing to do with shouting fire in a crowded theater,” he says. “They're censoring people who are fighting back against government-sponsored misinformation,.” To hear more of the conversation as well as the behind-the-scenes details of D’Souza’s latest documentary, “Vindicating Trump,” watch the clip above. Want more from 'Blaze News Tonight'?To enjoy more provocative opinions, expert analysis, and breaking stories you won’t see anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The atheistic communist regime in China has long sought to crush or, at the very least, control Christianity within its borders. According to a new report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the communist campaign to forcibly eradicate "religious elements considered contradictory to the CCP's political and policy agenda" is ramping up under dictator Xi Jinping. Although the report reveals much about the regime, it also signals a great deal about the Chinese people's perseverance and enduring faith. After all, the regime's desperation now is the result of its failure these past 75 years to crush the faith of Chinese Christians with torture, murder, propaganda, and imprisonment. Captive to the Marxist notion that religion is an "opiate of the masses," the communist Chinese regime began taking over churches and temples in the 1950s; deporting missionaries; and closely monitoring religious groups. Pew Research noted that during the Cultural Revolution, dictator Mao Zedong sought to eliminate religion outright, banning all religious activities, viciously persecuting religious personnel, and, in many cases, slaughtering Christian clerics and laypeople. While the regime drew blood and flattened churches, the faithful went underground. 'The government has implemented the coercive "sinicization of religion" policy, which has fundamentally transformed China's religious environment.' While there was a relative easing of restrictions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the regime has continued to subject Chinese Christians of all denominations to harassment, torture, detentions, and executions. Breaking bodies hasn't worked, so the regime is trying harder now to break the Chinese Christian's mind. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's noted in its September report: Under Xi Jinping's rule as the paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government has implemented the coercive "sinicization of religion" policy, which has fundamentally transformed China's religious environment. Sinicization, or the complete subordination of religious groups to the CCP's political agenda and Marxist vision for religion, has become the core driving principle of the government's management of religious affairs. The report highlighted the regime's "Sinicization Work Plans," including for Protestants and Catholics, "emphasize patriotism, loyalty to the CCP and China's political system, and conformity of religious doctrines, sermons, rituals, and architectural styles of places of worship with the CCP's ideological requirements." Authorities have reportedly ordered the removal of all crosses from all known churches and for images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary to be replaced with pictures of Xi Jingping. The regime also requires the display of CCP slogans over the entrances of churches. Religious texts have been censored or removed altogether. Homilies are censored. Surveillance cameras installed on altars surveil all church happenings. Blaze News previously reported that to ensure state atheism takes, people under the age of 18 are also barred from participating in religious ceremonies. 'Tens of millions of Christians have opted not to join these organizations.' These sinicization plans appear to be primarily targeting the "official" churches and associations, such as the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and the China Christian Council, which are all under the thumb of the regime. Meanwhile, the unregulated, underground churches continue to resist the regulation of the state. According to the report, "while the state-controlled Christian religious organizations have pushed and enforced the state's restrictions on religion, tens of millions of Christians have opted not to join these organizations and instead worship independently." Underground Catholics, for instance, "view the Vatican as the sole legitimator of spiritual authority, which the CCP views as a threat," and reject the CCP-aligned bishops installed without the Vatican's consultation and approval. Leaders in the underground Catholic church are often "disappeared." "Independent house church Protestants face similar repression for not joining the [Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement], with the government detaining, arresting, and incarcerating independent Protestant leaders and laypersons," said the report. A 2011 Pew Forum report indicated that the number of Christians, including Protestants and Catholics, exceeded 67 million. The Economist similarly indicated in 2020 that official numbers aren't reflective of the reality; that Chinese Christians and Muslims together outnumber the membership of the communist party (92 million). According to the Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors, there are now an estimated 96.7 million Christians in China. Open Doors indicated that the persecution level in China is "very high," ranking it as the 19th-worst offender worldwide. Freedom House, meanwhile, ranks China as "not free," giving it a score of 9 out of 100, with 100 being the most free when compared with other countries. In its annual report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that the U.S. government re-designate China as a "country of particular concern" for "engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom." The watchdog further recommending imposing sanctions targeting those Chinese officials and entities responsible for such freedom violations. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A Black Lives Matter activist has been sentenced to federal prison after being found guilty of using donations intended for social justice causes for his own luxuries. A grand jury convicted Sir Maejor Page, also known as Tyree Conyers-Page, of wire fraud and money laundering in April. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Helmick on Thursday sentenced Page to 42 months in prison.'Mr. Page took advantage of a cause meant to fight social injustices, using it instead to line his own pockets with thousands of dollars of donations.'Prosecutors said Page, of Toledo, Ohio, defrauded donors of more than $450,000 that they collectively gave to his “Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta” organization, which he claimed was a nonprofit.Page continued to collect donations for purported social justice actions on his Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta Facebook page despite the IRS revoking BLMGA’s “tax-exempt status as a charity” in May 2019.The U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Ohio said in a statement, "He also used Facebook to message privately with users, and he falsely represented that their donations would be used to 'fight for George Floyd' and the 'movement.'"Roughly 18,000 people gave donations to the BLM of Greater Atlanta charity through its Facebook account; Page was the administrator of the account.From April 2018 to May 2020, the group's bank account — which Page solely managed — received minor transactions never exceeding $5,000, according to an FBI press release. However, BLM of Greater Atlanta monetized George Floyd's death to get significant donations. Page's Facebook reeled in nearly $36,500 in June 2020, nearly $371,000 in July 2020, and nearly $60,000 in August 2020.Instead of spending the donated money on social justice actions, prosecutors said the 35-year-old Page spent the donations on luxuries for himself. Prosecutors said Page spent the BLM donations on fine dining, tailor-made suits, “lavish furniture for his bedroom,” a home security system, electronic equipment, entertainment, Walmart shopping sprees, and guns. He reportedly bragged on social media about purchasing his new cuff links, $150 ties, and a penthouse suite.As Blaze News previously reported, Page purchased a $112,000 property in Toledo in August 2020 under the organization "Hi Frequency Ohio." The fraudulent Black Lives Matter activist allegedly required the seller to sign a nondisclosure agreement that would have prevented the seller from listing Page as the actual buyer. In April 2020, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip accusing Page of misrepresenting himself as a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement and misusing the donated funds.“I never intended to deceive or take advantage of any donors who supported our cause and this movement,” Page said in court, according to the Toledo Blade. “There were many nonprofit responsibilities I did not fully understand.”“I am deeply sorry. I apologize to those I may have misled or who did not think I was fully transparent,” Page stated.U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Rebecca C. Lutzko said, “Mr. Page took advantage of a cause meant to fight social injustices, using it instead to line his own pockets with thousands of dollars of donations. People donate their hard-earned money to support causes they believe in, and when a fraudster like Page comes along and tries to get away with a fake charity scheme, it hurts legitimate nonprofit organizations that rely on the generosity of others to advance their missions and make positive change in the world. This Office will hold accountable those who try to profit by scamming unsuspecting people out of their money like Page did here.”WAGA-TV reported that Page had been charged three times with impersonating a law enforcement officer in Georgia. He was arrested in 2014 for reportedly wearing a replica of the Atlanta Police officer uniform, in 2015 for allegedly impersonating a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority officer, and in 2016 for purportedly claiming he was an FBI agent.An IMDb listing shows "Sir Maejor" was an actor in FX's TV series "American Horror Story: Coven" as an "albino guard/henchman."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to answer questions related to allegations from whistleblowers accusing the agency of mismanagement. Gaetz's claims mirrored accusations from many on the ground in the disaster from Hurricane Helene that the federal government wasn't doing enough to help Americans in distress. 'The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is a major disaster, and your waste and unpreparedness are leaving Americans in distress — unable to access food, water, or medicine — and expecting help, with none coming.' "My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues. FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground," the letter read. He went on to say his office had confirmed "hundreds, if not thousands" of service members had been sent to the disaster area but were sitting on the sideline instead of helping hurricane victims. "We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency," the letter continued. Gaetz demanded to know how much of the FEMA annual budget was spent on illegal aliens as opposed to that spent on American citizens. Videos and stories on social media have painted a grim picture of the severe damage and tragic deaths in the hurricane disaster. While many individuals are taking it upon themselves to help their fellow Americans, some are accusing the government of failing to help and, even worse, getting in the way of private aid efforts. On a "rumor" page of its website, FEMA appeared to respond to accusations that it had spent money on illegal aliens.The rumor was stated as: "Funding for FEMA disaster response was diverted to support international efforts or border related issues." FEMA responded that the rumor "is false." No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts. FEMA did not respond in time for publication to a request from Blaze News for a comment about Gaetz's claims. There have been more than 220 confirmed deaths from the hurricane, but more are expected as relief efforts progress. "The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is a major disaster, and your waste and unpreparedness are leaving Americans in distress — unable to access food, water, or medicine — and expecting help, with none coming," Gaetz concluded. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

WHAT CHANGED? Watch Mayorkas Change His Tune on FEMA's Hurricane Preparedness in Three Short Months

Biden's WH Briefing Room Remarks About Kamala Harris Are BEGGING to Appear in a Trump Ad

As Judge Blocks Biden's Student Loan Scheme AGAIN, Charles C.W. Cooke Has Modest Proposal for Grandpa Joe