State Champ Radio GALLERY
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is currently in the crosshairs of some members of the military and Congress after details of a September strike on alleged drug boats went wide. With President Donald Trump’s backing, SecWar Pete Hegseth appears shifty yet defiant on the orders to take out the boats, raising more questions than providing concrete answers.
At the root of the discussion is a September 2 operation near Venezuela involving alleged drug trafficking boats that was struck once, with some surviving the hit. It was reported by the Washington Post that a “kill them all” order came from Hegseth, which some consider a violation of international convention.
In a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday (December 2), Hegseth spoke with confidence that the strikes will continue under his orders, but curiously wouldn’t pin the aforementioned order to his vest. In fact, Hegseth said he wasn’t present for the second strike that killed the survivors, adding that he entrusted Admiral Mitch Bradley’s leadership on the matter in a social media post on Monday (December 1).
From X:
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Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.
America is fortunate to have such men protecting us. When this @DeptofWar says we have the back of our warriors — we mean it.
During the Cabinet meeting, Hegseth clarified his position.
“I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do, so I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting,” Hegseth said to reporters as reported by The Hill.
Hegseth claims Bradley made the kill order to take out the survivors, despite it going against the very laws in a manual first administered by the Department of Defense (now War).
Republican Party Senator Roger Wicker, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Democratic Party Senator Jack Reed issued a joint statment last weekend stating that they will investigate the order.
According to reports, 11 people were killed in the September 2 strikes, according to the Trump administration, an operation that was widely shared on the president’s social media accounts as a show of might.
While it appears that SecWar Pete Hegseth is attempting to move beyond the controversy and forge ahead, former military members such as Sen. Mark Kelly, who has drawn the ire of Trump and other GOP members for telling military members to deny illegal orders.
Further, many see Hegseth’s words as an attempt to pin the strike on Bradley to avoid international war crime charges. Adding to this, Admiral Alvin Hosley, who is Black, announced that he was retiring in October amid tensions with Hegseth over the drug boat strike operation and will leave his post at the end of 2025.
On social media, some are looking at the maneuvers of the Department of War and Hegseth in particular. We’ve got some of those reactions below.
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Photo: Getty
Azealia Banks is known more these days for raising a stink online than dropping music, and that is why she’s on our radar once more. The acerbic, if talented, rapper has attracted several detractors after boldly saying that she doesn’t make music for Muslims and adding other forms of Islamophobic insults.
There are a lot of moving parts, but what we believe set much of social media off was Azealia Banks taking to her X account to off her perspectives on Muslim and Jewish relations, siding with Israel, and wanting to do away with Islam period.
From Banks’ X feed:
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Almost every other social group have way too many third world relatives that are violent, unproductive, have poor hygiene, commit crimes and lack education . You guys are a tribal, violent, homogeneous barrel of Africans, Arabs and Asians with no originality or beauty. Looking at Muslim women walking around like a bunch of slapped dogs f*cking sucks.
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Roda Osman, known as the “Brick Lady” on social media, has been found guilty of launching a GoFundMe to defraud donors after falsely claiming a man hit her with a brick for refusing his advances. While most were initially on Roda Osman’s side after she gave her side of the fabricated incident, with the guilty verdict, some are voicing their thoughts on social media.
As reported by local outlet KPRC-TV, Roda Osman, 35, was found guilty by a jury that heard three days of testimony regarding the case. In 2023, Osman claimed that a male Uber driver allegedly tried to kidnap her and, after refusing his attempt, struck her in the face with a brick.
Olan Douglas was said to be the perpetrator of the attack, but surveillance video shows that Osman struck Douglas in the face before he retaliated, hitting her with what looked to be a plastic bottle. When Osman went wide with her account, she shared images of the alleged damage done to her face, but the evidence shown in the case didn’t match her testimony.
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Keke Palmer might be one of the most beloved celebrities in the mainstream today, but it appears that her fans have a bone to pick with her over a new series she greenlit. Keke Palmer is facing backlash after promoting a new series, Southern Fried Rice, which follows the exploits of a Korean American adoptee who gets accepted into an HBCU.
Southern Fried Rice is part of Keke Palmer’s KeyTV lineup and stars Page Yang as Koko, who grew up in a Black family and enters the fictional Wright University in Atlanta.
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Southern Fried Rice follows KoKo Jackson, a Gen-Z Korean-American adoptee raised in a tight-knit Black Southern family. When she leaves her small-town to attend Wright University, an elite HBCU in Atlanta, she enters a world that challenges her sense of belonging.
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Hip-Hop fans are gathered in mourning the loss of a pioneering rapper from Los Angeles’ sprawling underground Hip-Hop scene. P.E.A.C.E., a member of Freestyle Fellowship, passed away over the weekend, and social media has been flooded with moving tributes.
Details are scant regarding the passing of P.E.A.C.E., but the official Instagram account for Freestyle Fellowship shouted out the rapper in a post sharing condolences.
“Rest well brother P.E.A.C.E [flying angels emojis]. You had a great heart and you were authentic. One of West coast Hiphop royal treasures. You will be surely missed my friend,” read the caption of the post with a photo of the rapper.
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Gilbert Arenas defintiely earned one of his nicknames after going full troll after the arrests of Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier in connection with an NBA gambling investigation. After Gilbert Arenas himself had a similar brush with the law, the former NBA player and current broadcaster had a little fun with the news by framing himself as an informant.
Taking to social media, Gilbert Arenas, 43, shared a photo of himself carrying a so-called “informant lunch” wearing a University of Washington Huskies basketball jersey, which some might remember from the film The 6th Man starring Marlon Wayans and Kadeem Hardison.
On a Thursday airing of Gil’s Arena, the former Washington Wizards All-Star leaned into the snitch allegations but also raised a fair point that, despite the NBA revealing that the gambling operation that landed Billups and Rozier in hot water was reportedly connected to the Mafia, only Black people are making the headlines.
As we reported earlier this year, Arenas was implicated in a gambling ring operating out of his Encino, Calif. home with involvement from members of an Israeli crime mob. Arenas posted a $50,000 bond in July. Just as he’s doing now, Arenas played up the arrest and his going free with a hilarious video of him being sprung from the joint.
The claims that Billups and Rozier are facing are still developing in the news. Adding to this, former Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones was also arrested in a separate but related case that also has ties to the Mafia.
On social media, the jokes have been flying after the NBA’s gambling arrest spree. We’ve got reactions below.
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Photo: Getty
Tyler, The Creator is without a doubt a top draw as a musical act currently but before his current superstardom, the founding member of the Odd Future collective hedged his bets on being offensive as possible. With some of T’s older posts resurfacing across social media, fans are placing the rapper, singer, and producer on the cancel train.
Tyler, The Creator has long moved beyond his zanier days with Odd Future, toning down some of the harsh language and imagery that launched the crew to online infamy and spawned a new generation of acts who were inspired by the prodigqous lyrics of Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genesis, and others in the crew.
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Many of the social media posts appeared on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, and they were anti-Black, misogynistic in tone, and sometimes violent. It appears that fans are noticing the artist born Tyler Okonma is combing through social media to delete some of his past offenses, but eagle-eyed fans have caught some of those messages before the California star got to them.
In fairness, Tyler, The Creator seemed to have moved on from the inherently online persona he wielded in his earlier days although some of that acerbic wit and bite still exits in his posts and music.
On X and BlueSky, reactions to Tyler’s old posts are all over the map. We’ve got them listed below.
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Photo: Getty
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After initially stating to mull the decision for a time, President Donald Trump ordered the bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday (June 21), which has escalated the conflict to unprecedented levels. Top Democratic Party officials say that they were not briefed on President Trump’s actions, and a national address from the former business mogul claimed a total annihilation of Iran’s nuclear weapons production capabilities.
As seen in an NBC News report, President Trump boasted of the bombing of three sites in Iran, Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, which the administration framed as the epicenter of Iran’s nuclear weapons production. This comes as the two countries are locked in a long-distance skirmish that has left over 400 dead in Iran and over 24 dead in Israel.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after the attack. The move garnered praise from several GOP officials, including Speaker Mike Johnson, who stated that Congress would have taken too long to give its approval to Trump.
Democratic Party Sen. John Fetterman praised Trump’s actions, writing on X, “Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities. I’m grateful for and salute the finest military in the world.”
Fetterman’s stance differs from those of his party, many of whom said that they were left out of briefing talks ahead of the strikes.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman out of Kentucky, called Trump’s actions “unconstitutional” via social media.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia wrote on X of the bombing, “The American public is overwhelmingly opposed to the U.S. waging war on Iran. And the Israeli Foreign Minister admitted yesterday that Israeli bombing had set the Iranian nuclear program back ‘at least 2 or 3 years’. So what made Trump recklessly decide to rush and bomb today? Horrible judgment. I will push for all Senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war.”
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York shared in a statement, “President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also took to X to give a statement regarding the strikes:
I am gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today. This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.
There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control – with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world.
I call on Member States to de-escalate and to uphold their obligations under the @UN
Charter and other rules of international law.
At this perilous hour, it is critical to avoid a spiral of chaos.
Source: Pool / Getty
Late Saturday night, Trump was flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Jim Hegseth, and State Secretary Marco Rubio, praising the efforts of the military strike.
“I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done, and most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades,” President Trump said.
On X, the reaction to the Iran bombing and the fear of retaliation cast gloom across the social media network. We’ve got reactions below.
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Photo: Getty
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President Donald Trump and the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, once appeared to be in lockstep when it came to foreign policy. However, there are rumblings in Washington that Tulsi Gabbard’s recent actions on social media have angered President Trump, showing a potential fracture within the administration.
Politico published a report highlighting the tensions between Gabbard and Trump that came in the wake of the rising conflict between Iran and Israel. On June 10, Gabbard took to X and shared an ominous video that displayed to viewers that the “political elite” and “warmongers” were recklessly at odds and suggested that Earth is “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
The outlet added in its report that Trump saw the video, which was not approved by the administration, and told others at the White House that she went outside the lines regarding messaging around the Iran and Israel conflict. Trump met last week with Israeli officials who sought the United States’ support in its assault on Iran. It was also stated that Trump reportedly thought Gabbard was trying to steer him away from working with Israel on their recent offensive maneuvers.
“I don’t think he dislikes Tulsi as a person. But certainly the video made him not super hot on her, and he doesn’t like it when people are off message,” a source close to Trump told Politico.
The rumors of disdain appeared somewhat true after Trump spoke to a throng of reporters aboard Air Force One. When asked about Gabbard’s comments made in March that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon, Trump made a stern statement.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump said on Tuesday (June 17). “I think they were very close to having one.”
Tulsi Gabbard spoke to reporters as well yesterday, claiming that she and President Trump were in agreement about the situation unfolding in Iran. That said, outside observers are seeing this potential split as a troublesome thing for the Trump administration.
We’ve got reactions from X regarding the situation below.
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Fox News was once considered the hub of all conservative media and a favorite network of President Donald Trump and his acolytes. Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host, invited Trump ally Steve Bannon to his program, with both framing the networking as pushing propaganda to its viewers.
Carlson invited Bannon to his eponymously named program, and the pair spoke on President Donald Trump’s second term, the political climate in America, and the burgeoning conflict between Iran and Israel. They opened up the show discussing Trump’s policies, centering much of their critique on how the administration is handling the situation in the Middle East.
Much of their conversation meanders about and centers on Israel and the state of affairs regarding domestic unrest under the Trump administration early on, but around the 7:00-minute mark, Carlson aims Fox News with Bannon adding in similar criticism.
“I never criticize Fox because they were so kind to me,” Carlson said. “But they are playing a central role in the propaganda operation here.”
Bannon seized upon this moment after Carlson shared that he helped push the narrative surrounding the Iraq War, which seemed to rankle Bannon and caused him to launch into a further examination of the media’s role in the conflict and its perception stateside.
“An epic, failed war. We were lied to about everything,” Bannon fired back. “ Because if you remember, at first, the American people supported it, given the information they were given. Then later, they realized that, hey, not only was the initial predicate for this a lie, all the updates were kind of a lie. We really weren’t winning.”
Carlson and Bannon continued to take hits at Fox News for pushing a pro-war agenda under Trump’s watch, later turning their attention to so-called “Never Trumpers” surrounding the president and holding jobs in the current administration.
On X, reactions to Tucker Carlson and Steven Bannon’s comments appeared, and we’ve posted some below.
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