To the amusement of staff and attendees, President Donald Trump once again went wildly off script during the annual turkey pardon ceremony at the White House.

Trump pardoned two turkeys on Tuesday named Gobble and Waddle, one of which was unfortunately “missing in action.” During his address leading up to the pardon, the president shared several unscripted, Trumpian quips, prompting laughter from the audience.

‘I don’t talk about people being fat.’

Trump first set his sights on Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, who has butted heads with the administration over calls to deploy the National Guard to the crime-ridden city of Chicago. Trump taunted Pritzker for refusing to accept federal assistance in Chicago, and of course, for his weight.

“I’m not going to tell my Pritzker joke,” Trump said. “They have a very cute little joke, you know. Some speechwriter wrote some joke about his weight, but I would never want to talk about his weight.”

RELATED: Trump cracks jokes with Mamdani in cordial Oval Office meeting: ‘I’ve been called much worse’

“I don’t talk about people being fat,” Trump added. “I refuse to talk about the fact that he’s a fat slob. I don’t mention it!”

Trump conceded that although Pritzker is “a fat slob,” he himself could “lose a few pounds too.”

But Trump did not stop at Pritzker. The president got back on track to talk about Gobble and Waddle’s imminent presidential pardons but not before taking another jab at his two greatest opponents on Capitol Hill.

“When I first saw their pictures … well, I shouldn’t say this,” Trump said.

RELATED: ‘Canary in a coal mine’: Ousted speaker warns against the rising risk of GOP House resignations

Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy,” Trump said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “But then I realized I wouldn’t be pardoning them. I would never pardon those two people.”

On the topic of pardons, Trump also joked about former President Joe Biden’s autopen, questioning the validity of last year’s turkey pardon.

“He used an autopen last year for the turkey’s pardon,” Trump said. “So I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined, that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid as are the pardons of about every other person that was pardoned other than … where’s Hunter?”

“Hunter’s was good, that was the one pardon … that was good.”

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​Donald trump, Jb pritzker, Joe biden, Hunter biden, Chicago, National guard, Thanksgiving, Turkey pardon, Autopen, Nancy pelosi, Chuck schumer, Gobble and waddle, White house, Politics 

The days of “The Wire,” “The Sopranos,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Better Call Saul” are gone. And they’re never coming back.

Instead of quality TV, we get a stream of shallow muck that insults our intelligence and wastes our time. Seth Rogen peddling the same stale stoner humor for the thousandth time. Pedro Pascal starring in a dystopian video-game adaptation so obsessed with gay “representation” that it might as well list Grindr as a co-producer.

Sheridan shows a country held together by early mornings, long shifts, and people who take pride in work most citizens rarely notice.

Then, just as you’re about to suffocate in the hothouse atmosphere of algorithm-driven fake-prestige TV, one show comes stomping in with a pair of steel-toed boots and kicks the door off its hinges. Fresh air floods the place — enough that something real might actually grow again. That show is “Landman.”

Drill, baby, drill

Forget “shame”; it’s time to drill, baby, drill. Taylor Sheridan’s hit is back for season 2, with the TV auteur once again proving that he is one of the few people in Hollywood who actually understands the America he is depicting. Many viewers know him from “Yellowstone,” the rare modern hit that refused to treat ranchers the way Hollywood treats anyone who still works with their hands. Where executive elites see deplorables, he sees Americans with stories worth telling.

Sheridan brings that same respect to “Landman.” He writes ordinary Americans with dignity rather than derision. He shows them as they are: hardworking, flawed, loyal, funny, and strong enough to carry a story on their backs. “Landman” is no cheap cousin of “Yellowstone.” It stands tall: lean, mean, focused, and built with the same skill that made Sheridan’s early work impossible to ignore.

The show moves effortlessly between blue-collar reality and white-collar brutality, revealing the canyon between those who pull the oil from the ground and those who profit from it. There’s a real honesty to that contrast. Sheridan knows this world, and it shows. You feel it in every shot of the Permian Basin. You hear it in the blunt, believable way his characters speak.

Billy Bob at his best

And then there’s Billy Bob Thornton. One of America’s finest actors, doing his best work since he stole “Fargo” as a soft-spoken psychopath who could change the temperature of a room with a single line. As Tommy Norris, a ruthless oilman, he brings back that same menace, just a little more restrained. He’s the perfect Sheridan creation: bruised, stubborn, quick to size people up, and capable of cruelty when pushed.

Season 1 worked best when it put Norris at the center and let everything else orbit around him. The very first scene of the very first episode sets the tone. Norris, blindfolded in a room with a cartel heavy, cracks a dry line about how they both traffic in addictive products. His just happens to make more money. It’s a joke with teeth. Sheridan doesn’t shy away from the darker corners of the oil world, the places where danger, deceit, and obscene wealth share the same bed.

Norris once ran his own outfit. Now he’s a fixer for M-Tex Oil, answering to Monty Miller, a billionaire played by Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” fame. Hamm leans into one of the last great “man’s man” roles on TV. He moves through marble corridors and executive suites with the relaxed confidence of a man who has never had to fight for a parking space or a paycheck.

Norris gets the other Texas. The asylum-adjacent McMansion he shares with co-workers. The long, unforgiving drives that eat up whole days. And the late-night waffle joints where truckers, rig hands, and the down-and-outs swallow bad coffee and brood over worse decisions.

Recognizably real

Sheridan shows a country held together by early mornings, long shifts, and people who take pride in work most citizens rarely notice. He zooms in on communities where faith still shapes daily life, where people curse when they have to, where men bow their heads before a meal and chew tobacco like there’s no tomorrow.

For conservatives, and especially for Christians who are tired of being reduced to stereotypes, “Landman” feels recognizably real. Season 1 had its flaws, including a few moments that leaned too hard into climate panic, but it never lost sight of what matters: good storytelling built on real characters and real consequences.

RELATED: ‘Yellowstone’ actor Forrie J. Smith on why America needs to rediscover its cowboy culture

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Men at work

And yes, the progressive pearl-clutchers will claim “Landman” has a “woman problem,” the same complaint they threw at “Yellowstone.” They insist that Sheridan sidelines women or turns them into cardboard cutouts.

The truth is far less dramatic. Both ranching and the oil fields are worlds dominated by men, and Sheridan writes them as they actually are, not as activists wish them to be. That’s not misogyny, but an accurate reflection of the reality millions of Americans live every day. Sure, some female characters could use more lines, but that hardly damages the show. It simply acknowledges that in these worlds, the danger, the decisions, and the dirty work fall mostly on men.

“Landman” also has something most modern shows forget: a genuine sense of place. Not the packaged Americana you see on postcards, but the West Texas that actually exists, where the heat melts your mind and vacation time is something you hear about, not something you get.

Season 2 promises to go deeper — underground for the oil and under the skin of the people who pull it out. More tension between the barons and the boys in the mud. More of Thornton’s world-weary wit. And more of what Sheridan does better than anyone around: crafting TV that wouldn’t look out of place beside the giants of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

If “Yellowstone” was Sheridan’s hymn to the American ranch, “Landman” is his sermon on the American worker. In an age of narrative nothingness, something on TV finally feels worth watching.

​Culture, Entertainment, Television, Landman, Yellowstone, Billy bob thornton, Taylor sheridan, Review 

The Biden administration expanded so-called lawful pathways, allowing millions of foreign nationals to flood into the United States. One of those pathways included the controversial use of Temporary Protected Status.

TPS was created to provide a deportation shield to foreign nationals in the U.S. based on temporarily unstable conditions in their home countries.

‘This decision restores TPS to its original status as temporary.’

Since retaking office in January, President Donald Trump has moved to roll back TPS, which was provided to numerous countries under the prior administration.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday the termination of TPS for Burma, effective January 26.

“At least 60 days before a TPS designation expires, the Secretary, after consultation with appropriate U.S. government agencies, is required to review the conditions in a country designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be met, and, if so, how long to extend the designation,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stated.

“If the Secretary determines that the conditions in the foreign state continue to meet the specific statutory criteria for Temporary Protected Status designation, Temporary Protected Status will be extended for an additional period of 6 months or, in the Secretary’s discretion, 12 or 18 months,” USCIS continued. “If the Secretary determines that the foreign state no longer meets the conditions for Temporary Protected Status designation, the Secretary must terminate the designation.”

Burma was designated for TPS in May 2021, citing the Burmese military’s involvement in “a coup” that “depos[ed] the democratically elected government and declar[ed] a temporary one-year state of emergency,” which paused elections.

RELATED: Noem prepares to deport 500,000 immigrants from one long-troubled island

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

“The military is responding with increasing oppression and violence to demonstrations and protests, resulting in large-scale human rights abuses, including arbitrary detentions and deadly force against unarmed individuals,” the Biden administration claimed at the time.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem concluded that the situation in Burma has improved and that its citizens are safe to return home.

“This decision restores TPS to its original status as temporary,” Noem declared. “Burma has made notable progress in governance and stability, including the end of its state of emergency, plans for free and fair elections, successful ceasefire agreements, and improved local governance contributing to enhanced public service delivery and national reconciliation.”

Noem also concluded that allowing Burmese nationals to remain in the country would be “contrary to the national interest of the United States.”

RELATED: Trump admin revokes protected status extension for Venezuelan nationals

Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) called the move “cruel,” claiming that revoking TPS would endanger lives.

“Ending TPS for Burma, in the middle of the conflict there, endangers the lives of many Burmese, including human rights and democracy activists. It’s cruel and will undermine the fight for democracy in Burma. The admin must reconsider this terrible decision,” Meeks said.

There are nearly 4,000 approved TPS beneficiaries from Burma, according to DHS. Over 200 individuals reportedly have pending applications.

TPS is set to expire for several other nations, including Ethiopia in December, South Sudan in January, and Haiti in February.

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​News, Burma, Temporary protected status, Tps, Biden administration, Biden admin, Trump administration, Trump admin, Donald trump, Trump, Joe biden, Biden, Department of homeland security, Dhs, Kristi noem, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Politics 

The atmosphere in Menlo Park in the summer of 2025 became heavy with a particular kind of ambition. The new Meta Superintelligence Labs was being frenetically assembled. Its stated goal, articulated by Mark Zuckerberg, is to build an intelligence surpassing the human, a “superintelligence.” This artifact is framed not as a remote, centralized oracle, but as a “personal superintelligence,” an egalitarian gift for everyone. The name of the first planned AI supercomputer cluster, a multi-gigawatt facility slated for 2026, is “Prometheus.”

The myth of Prometheus is one of enlightenment and hubris, of stealing fire from the gods and suffering the eternal consequences. To name your machine this is to write your own legend before the fact, to cast your venture in the most heroic, and perhaps tragic, terms available. It is a very Californian story: the pursuit of a world-changing gift, shadowed by the risk of overstepping natural limits.

These projects are meant as a contemporary Apollo program, aimed not at the moon, but at the mind.

To pursue this modern myth, Meta began to “upend itself.” The reports suggest crisis. We learn of four distinct AI division overhauls in six months. We learn of an internal memo that spoke of an “AI arms race” that Meta was, until this consolidation, losing. The reorganization was perceived as an act of existential urgency, one with a specific texture, a specific cost. The 2025 capital expenditures were raised as high as $72 billion. Zuckerberg announced plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more. In October, a $27 billion deal was struck with Blue Owl to fund a single data center. These are the numbers of the new arms race.

The talent war of 2025 feels less like recruitment and more like a kind of high-stakes, frantic prospecting. By mid-August, Meta had poached more than 50 top researchers, pulling them from OpenAI, Google, xAI, and Anthropic. The compensation packages are beyond generous. We hear of nine-figure sums. We hear of a $1.5 billion offer made to a single AI lab co-founder, an offer that was declined. This is not the quiet, collegial work of a corporate lab. It is a frenzy.

This burst of activity was meant to correct a failure. The pivot came not from the excitement of new discovery, but from a place of dissatisfaction. The Llama 4 family of models, released in mid-2025, had landed with a thud. The Behemoth model, a 2-trillion-parameter research project, was scrapped. The reception was lukewarm. In response, Zuckerberg handpicked a new team. The old AGI Foundations group was dissolved, its staff redistributed. A new, small, elite working group was formed, mysteriously named TBD Lab, led directly by the new chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang.

This TBD Lab is the core, the protected center. When 600 roles were cut from MSL in October to “reduce bureaucracy,” TBD Lab was spared entirely. The rest of the machinery was re-engineered around it: the long-standing FAIR research arm, once as independent as a university, is now an “innovation engine” to feed TBD. A product team under Nat Friedman is tasked with bridging the lab to the market. And an infrastructure team must build the necessary colossal computational backbone.

RELATED: A new study hints what happens when superintelligence gets brain rot — just like us

Photo illustration by Li Hongbo/VCG via Getty Images

The physical scale of this infrastructure might seem to justify the mythic language. We are no longer talking about servers in a rack. We are talking about multi-gigawatt data centers with a physical footprint that would cover a “significant part of Manhattan.” These projects are meant as a contemporary Apollo program, aimed not at the moon, but at the mind.

The new story Meta tells is one of focus. A “leaner, more efficient unit.” A “startup within Meta.” The company even instituted a hiring freeze in October, not to save money, but to let the new structure “jell.” As if the chaos of $72 billion, of nine-figure salaries and $1.5 billion declined offers, of warring cultures and dissolved teams, of data centers meant to cover small cities, would simply set with a little time.

Inside this new, streamlined venture, a cultural story unfolds. The new guard, the expensive hires coaxed away from rivals, collides with the old guard, the Meta veterans who believed in the company’s previous ethos of open-source science. That mindset, which set Meta apart, is now very much in doubt. Zuckerberg has signaled that the most powerful models, the ones that might actually approach “superintelligence,” will not be open-source. They will be kept closed, due to safety concerns, or perhaps due to strategic ones. The shift is palpable. The open-source ideal of sharing gives way to the new, closed, competitive, secretive model of the arms race.

The skepticism from the outside world has its own narrative. Analysts warn, as Business Insider reported, of an AI bubble, of “diluted shareholder value without any clear innovation gains.” We are told, as one enterprise AI expert put it, that investors “aren’t wowed by flashy demos anymore; they want to see revenue.” The grand, Promethean vision of superintelligence runs headlong into the quarterly demand for durable, scaled products.

We are watching a company, and perhaps a culture, wager its identity on a future it can only describe in mythic terms. The question is not whether a machine can be made to think. The question is what we reveal about ourselves, our ambitions, and our anxieties in the attempt. Meta has entered its moment of truth, fueled by sums of money that are nearly as abstract as the goal itself, and driven not by the quest for fire but by a most human motivation nonetheless: a founder’s dread of being left behind.

​Tech 

The Trump administration is set to conduct a review of the over 185,000 refugees imported by the Biden administration — especially those imported from terrorism hot spots such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Venezuela.

This initiative, which is aimed at keeping America safe, has liberals at various NGOs throwing fits.

‘I don’t want that person in my country.’

According to a Nov. 21 memo outlining the plan reviewed by Reuters, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will undertake a review and “re-interview of all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025,” having determined that the previous administration prioritized expediency, quantity, and admissions over quality interviews and proper vetting.

Foreign nationals found not to meet refugee criteria will lose their status, says the memo.

The memo, which was signed by USCIS Director Joe Edlow, also orders a pause on the processing of permanent residence applications for refugees who entered under former President Joe Biden.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Blaze News, “For four straight years, the Biden administration accelerated refugee admissions from terror- and gang-prone countries, prioritizing sheer numbers over rigorous vetting and strict adherence to legal requirements. This reckless approach undermined the integrity of our immigration system and jeopardized the safety and security of the American people.”

“Corrective action is now being taken to ensure those who are present in the United States deserve to be here,” added McLaughlin.

RELATED: ‘Begin repatriating’: German chancellor admits it’s time to give Syrian migrants the boot

Photo by ARMEND NIMANI/AFP via Getty Images

Upon retaking office, President Donald Trump paused the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, halting the potential admission of hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals, noting in the corresponding executive order that “the United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.”

This caused consternation among activists and the liberal media, who had evidently grown accustomed to having the floodgates open to the third world.

In fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration admitted 60,014 refugees from 75 countries. Foreign nationals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Afghanistan, and Burma made up two-thirds of the total admissions.

The Biden State Department brought in over 100,000 refugees in fiscal year 2024 and had projected to admit over 125,000 refugees as well as “531,500 other arrivals in FY 2025, the majority of whom are expected to arrive as Cuban and Haitian Entrants through lawful pathways.”

Trump was one of many critics who raised concerns in recent years about whether the Biden administration had done a proper job vetting many of the refugees, particularly those from Afghanistan.

Clearly, some radicals made it over.

In January, for instance, Gul Nabi Rahmati, an Afghan refugee who settled in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, allegedly stabbed a caseworker helping refugees. Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard indicated that the motive might have had something to do with religion. Rahmati’s attempted murder trial will commence in early 2026.

Rahmati was not the only bad egg former President Joe Biden brought into the U.S.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, a 27-year-old Afghan citizen living in Oklahoma City, was arrested after the Justice Department foiled his “plot to acquire semiautomatic weapons and commit a violent attack in the name of ISIS on U.S. soil on Election Day,” former Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement in early October.

Tawhedi pleaded guilty to two terrorism offenses in June. His 19-year-old co-conspirator, another Afghan refugee, was sentenced last week to 15 years in federal prison for his role in the foiled terrorist plot.

RELATED: Virginia high-school principal allegedly suggests anti-ICE ‘hunting’ plot; brother brags about ‘assault rifle,’ cop claims

Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun Staff

“Zada was welcomed into the United States and provided with all the opportunities available to residents of our nation, yet he chose to embrace terrorism and plot an ISIS-inspired attack on Election Day,” said John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security.

Vice President JD Vance said in a January interview with CBS News’ Margaret Brennan, “Now that we know that we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country.”

When pressed on whether some refugees were actually being radicalized once in the U.S., Vance said, “I don’t really care, Margaret. I don’t want that person in my country, and I think most Americans agree with me.”

‘It would re-traumatize tens of thousands of vulnerable refugees.’

The news of the Trump administration’s new initiative to ensure that decisions made and persons imported by the previous administration — individuals like Zada or Tawhedi — aren’t endangering Americans today caused apoplexy among NGOs in the space.

Sharif Aly, president of the International Refugee Assistance Project, claimed that the refugees who entered the U.S. under the USRAP “are already the most highly vetted immigrants in the United States” and characterized the proposed review as “an insult to refugees.”

“This order is one more in a long line of efforts to bully some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, by threatening their lawful status, rendering them vulnerable to the egregious conduct of immigration enforcement agencies, and putting them through an onerous and potentially re-traumatizing process,” said Aly.

Aly, the former CEO of Islamic Relief USA, suggested further that “besides the enormous cruelty of this undertaking, it would also be a tremendous waste of government resources.”

“This plan is shockingly ill-conceived,” Naomi Steinberg, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society vice president of U.S. policy and advocacy, said in a statement.

“It would re-traumatize tens of thousands of vulnerable refugees who already went through years of security vetting prior to stepping on U.S. soil,” continued Steinberg. “This is a new low in the administration’s consistently cold-hearted treatment of people who are already building new lives and enriching the communities where they have made their homes.”

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​Donald trump, Trump administration, Refugee, Refugees, Terrorists, Terrorist, Joe biden, Asylum, Afghanistan, Syria, Uscis, U.s. citizenship and immigration services, Politics 

Mark Levin inherited his love for America and her great founders from his father, Jack E. Levin — a devoted family man, businessman, author, illustrator, and self-taught constitutional historian. Over the course of his life, Jack authored and illustrated several patriotic, historically themed books that became best-sellers on the New York Times list.

His most famous book — “Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Illustrated” (2010) — featured beautifully hand-painted watercolor-style illustrations of Civil War soldiers, battlefields, period flags, mourning families, and solemn portraits of Lincoln alongside the Great Emancipator’s famous speech.

“He thought that Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was so profound,” says Levin of his father. “And it was.”

Reading Lincoln’s iconic address that consecrated the cemetery for the Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg, Levin honors both America’s 16th president and his beloved father.

“That was a horrendous battle in Gettysburg, absolutely horrendous — the number of casualties, the number of dead, how quickly it happened,” Levin reflects.

He retells the story of how the two armies literally bumped into each other by accident outside Gettysburg — General Robert E. Lee’s forces pushing north toward Philadelphia, hoping a decisive strike on Union soil would force the North to sue for peace and let the South go, only to suffer a crushing defeat in the massive, unintended three-day battle that turned the tide of the war.

Lincoln, says Levin, “was furious” that Union commander Major General George G. Meade “did not follow Lee’s army and destroy it.” He wanted the war to end right then and there.

The Civil War, he reminds us, wasn’t just about the abolition of slavery; it was also about the nation’s survival.

Like his father, who was deeply concerned with “the lack of patriotism and support for the country,” Levin worries about the lack of and distortion of American history education in this country.

“That’s why if people don’t know history, they just keep talking about, ‘Oh, it was founded by white [supremacists] and nationalists,”’ he sighs. “No — we were founded by great men.”

To hear more of his commentary, watch the video above.

Want more from Mark Levin?

To enjoy more of “the Great One” — Mark Levin as you’ve never seen him before — subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Mark levin, Levintv, Abraham lincoln, Gettysburg, Gettysburg address, Jack e levin, Jack levin, Blazetv, Blaze media 

Fans and supporters of female athletes are outraged over the results of a world’s strongest woman competition.

Multiple competitors are speaking out after a man allegedly took first place in the women’s category at the event, with organizers saying they had no idea a man had competed against women.

‘This is bulls**t.’

The 2025 Official Strongman Games took place in Arlington, Texas, over the weekend, and saw alleged transgender athlete Jammie Booker, a biological male, defeat nine female competitors. As reported by Fitness Volt, Booker took home the narrow victory after runner-up Andrea Thompson finished seventh in the final event, edging her out by just a point.

The results had Booker winning with 47 points, while Thompson had 46, and Allira-Joy Cowley came in third place with 39 points.

Viewers immediately began circulating footage from the winner’s podium in which Thompson appeared to say, “This is bulls**t,” before walking off the platform.

On her Instagram page, Thompson shared multiple posts that declared her the true winner of the event, with commenters seemingly in unanimous agreement.

In a video posted to Instagram, Booker thanked everyone who donated to his cause and even “checked in” regarding his mental health.

RELATED: Transgender powerlifter easily defeats women as old as 58; USA Weightlifting defends ‘inclusive’ policy

“There were a lot of, like, dark days getting here mentally and emotionally,” the lifter said.

Booker called the other competitors “insanely badass women” and said it was “an honor” to share the stage with them. He added that he did not think he was going to win.

Booker’s page lists “she/her” pronouns and the accolades of “pro strongwoman,” “world’s strongest woman 2025,” and “North America’s strongest woman.” It also provides a link to a GoFundMe page titled “Help Jammie Become ‘World’s Strongest Woman.'”

Booker raised over $1,500 for registration, flight, and hotel costs, which the fundraiser said would total around $900.

On Tuesday, the strongman organization posted a statement to its social media, saying it was unaware that an athlete “who is biologically male and who now identifies as female” competed in the Women’s Open category.

The organization said that had it been aware, the athlete would not have been permitted to compete in that category.

“We are clear — competitors can only compete in the category for the biological sex recorded at birth,” the organization wrote.

Without declaring a new winner, the company said it had “disqualified the athlete in question” and that “athlete points and places will be altered accordingly.”

RELATED: Female powerlifter chases down crook who stole her bag — then gives him a black-eye beatdown

Female powerlifter Morgan Irons released a video criticizing Booker for taking opportunities away from women.

“There has been an individual, Jammie Booker, who has been competing as a biological male within the women’s division of strongman,” Irons said.

“This individual competed in the women’s division as a biological man, plain and simple. As a woman, this is very, very frustrating because their participation in the women’s division has taken away prize money, podium finishes, national bids, and a pro card from biological women,” she continued.

At the same time, women’s sports activist and former national gymnastics champion Jennifer Sey told Fearless that women are still “being erased from their own sex-class, their own sports categories, and their own legal protections.”

She said that Booker winning the title “Strongest Woman in the World” was a clear indication that there is still work to be done.

Critics pointed to a YouTube video seemingly posted by Booker in 2017, which described him as a “21-year-old” transgender person with a “history of abuse, struggling to stay true to herself while under the rule of her religious parents.”

Booker did not respond to a request for comment.

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​Fearless, Powerlifting, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, Sexism, Title ix, Female athletes, Sports 

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warned that political breakups might become more commonplace in the Republican Party.

McCarthy’s prediction comes after Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced that she will retire from the House in January before finishing her congressional term. This announcement followed a public falling-out with longtime ally President Donald Trump.

‘I’ve found Marjorie to be very effective.’

Despite being one of Trump’s most loyal supporters on Capitol Hill, Greene said their falling-out was over her commitment to releasing the Epstein files, which the White House later supported. Other reports suggested that the split came after the White House squashed Greene’s political aspirations beyond the House of Representatives.

“She’s leaving Congress, but I don’t think that’s the end that you’ll see about her,” McCarthy said.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene calls it quits after ‘traitor’ branding by Trump

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“I’ve always believed that any time you have an elected official that’s known by three initials, they’re effective on what they do,” McCarthy added. “And I’ve found Marjorie to be very effective.”

McCarthy, who is all too familiar with having one’s political career cut short by MAGA world, said Greene’s resignation may be the first of many unless Congress changes course.

“She’s almost like a canary in a coal mine,” McCarthy said. “And this is something inside Congress. They better wake up, because they’re going to get a lot of people retiring, and they gotta focus.”

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has received violent threats — and blames Trump

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

McCarthy also noted that the infighting ultimately takes away from a very small window of time in which Republicans hold the ultimate political advantage: a trifecta majority.

“I think keeping members out of Congress, you only get two years to be in the majority,” McCarthy said. “And if the Democrats get you not to work every day for two months, that’s losing two months of the majority.”

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​Marjorie taylor greene, Donald trump, Kevin mccarthy, House republicans, Senate republicans, Speaker of the house, White house, Trump administration, Politics 

President Donald Trump has in recent months brokered peaceful resolutions between numerous warring parties, including Israel and Hamas; Azerbaijan and Armenia; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Cambodia and Thailand; and India and Pakistan.

The major peace he campaigned on securing between Ukraine and Russia has, however, proven elusive.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government’s representative to the U.N. appeared to reject the fundamentals of the Trump administration’s 28-point plan for peace.

The plan would have: barred Ukraine from NATO, having an army exceeding 600,000 men, and acquiring nukes but provided Kyiv with a NATO-style security guarantee from the U.S.; recognized much of the occupied territory in eastern Ukraine as Russian; set the stage for an American-backed rebuilding of Ukraine; and granted full amnesty to all parties involved in the conflict.

‘Don’t believe it until you see it.’

While apparently averse to several of the 28 points, Kyiv has, however, since expressed support for an altered version of the peace plan, the details of which Trump and Zelenskyy — who has reportedly not authorized anyone but himself to discuss territorial matters — may soon iron out at the White House.

An official briefed on the negotiations told the Washington Post that Trump’s peace plan had been reduced from 28 points to 19 points by Monday. A European official briefed on the talks suggested that some of the provisions concerning European security didn’t make it to the new draft.

Ukrainian delegate Oleksandr Bevz noted, “Many of the controversial provisions were either softened or at least reshaped” to get Kyiv on board.

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Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images

After Ukraine’s delegation returned from Geneva, where they met over the weekend to discuss the American peace proposal with representatives of the Trump administration, Zelenskyy said in a statement on Monday evening that “now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable. As of now, after Geneva, there are fewer points — no longer 28 — and many of the right elements have been taken into account in this framework.”

“Our team has reported on the new draft of steps, and this is indeed the right approach,” continued Zelenskyy. “I will discuss the sensitive issues with President Trump.”

Echoing Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s national security secretary Rustem Umerov announced that the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations “reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”

Amid U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll’s meetings on Tuesday with Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi, which a spokesman said were “going well,” a U.S. official told CNN that “the Ukrainians have agreed to the peace deal. There are some minor details to be sorted out, but they have agreed to a peace deal.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Tuesday that “tremendous progress towards a peace deal” has been made, adding that “there are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively said the same thing days earlier, adding, “I honestly believe we’ll get there.”

During a press conference with the Belarusian foreign minister on Tuesday, Russian foreign affairs minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Moscow “welcomed” the 28-point plan but will consider the “interim” plan produced by Washington, Kyiv, and the Europeans in the coming days.

Lavrov noted, however, that Russia expects the peace plan to adhere to the terms President Vladimir Putin discussed with Trump during their August summit in Anchorage.

“We are not hurrying. We’re not pushing our American counterparts. We have waited a long time since Anchorage,” said Lavrov. “We are only reminding them that we stick to those agreements.”

Lavrov added, “If the spirit and letter of Anchorage is erased in terms of the key understandings we have established then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation.”

Trump noted in a Truth Social post on Monday, “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

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​Ukraine, Russia, War, Peace, Donald trump, Peace plan, Peace deal, Zelenskyy, Zelensky, Putin, Trump, Politics