Music <\/p>\n
Musician Kid Rock reportedly got an AH-64 Apache helicopter ride with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Monday morning.<\/span><\/p>\n Ryan Grim of Drop Site posted <\/span>on X<\/span><\/a> that the musician, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, flew to Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia on his private jet for the ride. The helicopters usually fly with two pilots, but Ritchie and Hegseth each rode in their own helicopter with one pilot. Apache helicopters aren\u2019t stationed at the military base, raising questions as to where these aircraft came from. A base spokesperson referred questions to Hegseth\u2019s office, according to Grim.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last month, two Apache helicopters <\/span>flew<\/a> over a \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest in Nashville, Tennessee, and then performed maneuvers next to Ritchie\u2019s mansion in the suburbs nearby, prompting an <\/span>investigation<\/a> and the air crews\u2019 suspension. Days later, Hegseth <\/span>lifted their suspension<\/a> and announced that the soldiers would not be punished, posting \u201cCarry on, patriots. \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\u201d <\/span>on X<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Ritchie seems to be hanging out with Cabinet officials a lot these days, having taken part in a bizarre <\/span>ice bath and workout video<\/span><\/a> with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in February to promote his public health policy. The purpose of the alleged helicopter flights doesn\u2019t seem to be national security, and as of 2022, an Apache helicopter <\/span>costs $5,171<\/span><\/a> per hour to operate. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of the Trump administration\u2019s newest immigration judges said that some women are just a \u201cwarm, wet hole.\u201d<\/p>\n Melissa Isaak, an Army veteran and reservist, was hired by the Justice Department on April 8 as a temporary immigration judge. She was permitted to begin hearing cases immediately, according to an <\/span>announcement<\/a> from the Executive Office for Immigration Review.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In 2007, Isaak graduated from Barry University School of Law, a low-ranked law school where <\/span>less than half<\/a> of recent grads passed the bar exam on their first try. Afterward, she joined the law firm Brock & Stout in Alabama for two years, and in 2009 began her own private practice, <\/span>self-styled<\/a> as a \u201cdivorce attorney for men,\u201d where she has worked ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n She does not have any immigration court experience, but her name was attached to several high-profile, non-divorce cases. Isaak was a defense attorney for three of the January 6 Capitol rioters (she later withdrew from two of the cases), and she also helped Alabama Republican Roy Moore <\/span>dismiss<\/a> a defamation suit from a woman who said he molested her when she was 14. That legal saga is still ongoing\u2014an appeals court <\/span>overturned<\/a> Moore\u2019s multimillion-dollar win against his accuser late last week. <\/span><\/p>\n During an interview with pickup artist Anthony Dream Johnson in 2021, Isaak claimed that \u201cthere are two types of women.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere are good, solid, valuable women who are major assets to men, if you\u2019re a good woman,\u201d Isaak <\/span>said<\/a>. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s a warm wet hole.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Here is video of Trump’s newly hired immigration judge Melissa Isaak calling women a “warm, wet hole”:<\/p>\n “There’s two types of women. There are good, solid, valuable women who are assets to men … Then there’s a warm, wet hole.” https:\/\/t.co\/jbJXtfpTkY<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Y9v8aLdxFq<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2014 FactPost (@factpostnews) April 27, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The following year, she gave a speech on the matter for Johnson\u2019s manosphere convention, 21 Studios\u2019 Make Women Great Again, titled \u201cDivorcing Feminism.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf the only thing you have to offer a man is sex, that\u2019s what you are,\u201d Isaak <\/span>said<\/a>. \u201cAnd guess what? Guess who else has a warm, wet hole? Every other woman out there. What a horrible existence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She compared that to a \u201creal woman,\u201d a subtype that she said was meant to \u201ccatapult a man.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re powerful women, we are, if we use it in the right way,\u201d Isaak said, specifying the necessity to use that energy for men.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had people get offended, and they say, \u2018You know, it\u2019s horrible that you say warm, wet hole.\u2019 I mean, well, if you have one and it\u2019s not warm and wet you might want to seek some gynecological intervention,\u201d Isaak said to crickets.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Read more about immigration judges:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Germany thinks Iran is getting the better of Donald Trump in negotiations.<\/span><\/p>\n On Wednesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz <\/span>told<\/span><\/a> a group of secondary school students in western Germany that \u201cthere is a sense that a whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, particularly by these so-called Revolutionary Guards,\u201d Bloomberg reports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt is quite obvious that the Americans have absolutely no coherent strategy whatsoever,\u201d Merz <\/span>said<\/span><\/a> to students in his home district of Marsberg. \u201cAnd the fundamental problem with these kinds of conflicts is always the same: It is not enough to simply get yourself in\u2014you must also figure out how to get yourself out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n German Chancellor Merz: It is quite obvious that the Americans have absolutely no coherent strategy whatsoever.<\/p>\n And the fundamental problem with these kinds of conflicts is always the same: it is not enough to simply get yourself in\u2014you must also figure out how to get yourself\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/TnzH5Aea9O<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2014 MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 27, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Merz\u2019s criticism is a bad sign for Trump, who has <\/span>complained<\/span><\/a> about a lack of support from European powers for his war with Iran. Merz visited Trump last month and seemed to be on good terms with the president at the time, <\/span>telling<\/span><\/a> the press that \u201cwe are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Iran away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe will talk about the day after, what will happen then, if they are out,\u201d Merz said March 3, less than a week after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Days later, though, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius <\/span>said<\/span><\/a> the country would not send ships to the region. Last week, Merz said that he and other leaders were not consulted prior to the initial attacks on Iran, adding that he has expressed his concerns to Trump in two separate conversations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf I had known that this would go on for five or six weeks and keep getting worse, I would have made my point to him even more forcefully,\u201d Merz said. Rising fuel prices as a result of the war are affecting economies all around the world, especially Germany, the leading economy in Europe, a point Merz stressed in his remarks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis war against Iran has a direct impact on our economic performance and must therefore be brought to an end as soon as possible,\u201d Merz said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has given it the <\/span>upper hand<\/span><\/a> in the conflict with the U.S., and the world is noticing that Trump hasn\u2019t produced any results from negotiations in Pakistan. The longer this conflict drags on, the worse it <\/span>reflects<\/span><\/a> on the president.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A prominent commercial contractor with government ties built a secluded residence in the New Mexico desert for Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n Epstein purchased Zorro Ranch from former Democratic Governor Bruce King in 1993. Then he hired Bradbury Stamm Construction, a company better known for building classified facilities at <\/span>Los Alamos National Laboratory<\/a> and Kirtland Air Force Base, to erect him a mansion on the 10,000-acre property. They also built him a sprawling courtyard, a private airstrip with a hangar and helipad, a ranch office, a firehouse, and a seven-bay heated garage.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bradbury Stamm is the largest industrial commercial contractor in New Mexico, and is not known for constructing private homes, according to journalist and author <\/span>Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez<\/a>. Yet they did it anyway. The company\u2019s telephone number was listed under a series of contacts pertaining to Zorro Ranch in Epstein\u2019s personal phone book, according to unredacted pages released by the Justice Department.<\/span><\/p>\n Why the company would go out of its way to take on the Zorro Ranch project is not clear, though Valdes-Rodriguez speculates that it could have something to do with Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s father.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBradbury Stamm holds classified construction contracts at the New Mexico nuclear weapons labs that Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s father, Robert Maxwell, penetrated with backdoored spy software on behalf of Israeli military intelligence in the mid-1980s, per publicly available FBI files and the testimony of Rafael Eitan, the Mossad operations chief who ran Maxwell as an asset,\u201d Valdes-Rodriguez wrote. \u201cBradbury Stamm brings in hundreds of millions each year in contracts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Zorro Ranch, located roughly 30 miles south of Santa Fe in the high desert, was rumored to be a hotbed of illicit activity while Epstein held the keys. Some of the notorious child sex offender\u2019s victims, including Virginia Giuffre, claimed they were trafficked at the New Mexico estate. <\/span><\/p>\n Emails issued by ranch staffers allege that at least two girls were killed and buried under the building by Epstein\u2019s order, according to documents made public by the Justice Department via the Epstein files. Epstein even contemplated turning the estate into a headquarters for genetic engineering experiments. <\/span><\/p>\n The property has since changed hands. In 2023, it was purchased by Donald Huffines, a former Texas state senator now <\/span>running for comptroller<\/a> as a self-styled \u201c<\/span>Trump Republican<\/a>.\u201d The Huffines family has renamed the site \u201cRancho San Rafael.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Federal prosecutors at Trump\u2019s Department of Justice took over<\/a> a New Mexico investigation at the property in 2019, and it then petered out. In February, New Mexico lawmakers voted unanimously to pursue another investigation into Zorro Ranch, creating a bipartisan \u201ctruth commission\u201d to examine the site\u2019s history. New Mexico Attorney General Ra\u00fal Torrez also <\/span>ordered<\/a> his office to reopen the criminal investigation into Zorro Ranch, demanding \u201cimmediate access to the complete, unredacted federal case file.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This article has been updated.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Read more about Epstein\u2019s ranch:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Department of Justice has reached a second agreement to fork over taxpayer dollars to President Donald Trump\u2019s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.<\/p>\n A <\/span>brief document<\/a> filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Friday stated that the parties had agreed to a settlement \u201cin principle,\u201d but needed more time to finalize the details. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s not yet clear how much money Trump intends to hand off to his ally, in addition to the <\/span>$1.25 million<\/a> settlement the DOJ agreed to last month. <\/span><\/p>\n Friday\u2019s settlement relates to a civil suit Flynn brought against the government, alleging that the U.S. Army had illegally garnished his retirement pay after it found he had accepted compensation from a foreign government source without first seeking approval from the Department of Defense, Lawfare\u2019s Anna Bower <\/span>wrote<\/a> on Substack. <\/span><\/p>\n Flynn previously alleged he was wrongfully prosecuted for making false statements to federal agents as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election\u2014even though he <\/span>pleaded guilty<\/a> to lying, twice. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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