New Documentary Details Female Sexual Assault Survivor’s Story Of Being Incarcerated With Trans Inmate

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

A sexual assault survivor gave an inside look at living in a female prison with male criminals identifying as transgender in a new documentary by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) released Tuesday.

The six-minute documentary, part of IWF’s “Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Female Prisons” series, focuses on the story of Evelyn Valiente, a sexual assault survivor and former inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility. Valiente, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, was forced to share a housing unit with a male inmate identifying as a woman while serving time for killing someone in a shooting.

“At first I thought it was going to be okay and it didn’t take long before this one particular individual was manipulative, calculating, vindictive and always looking and seeking to do harm to another person,” Valiente said regarding the inmate, who had a history of sex crime convictions.

In 2020, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed legislation requiring the state’s prison system to house inmates based on their gender identity and not their biological sex. Under the law, corrections officers are required to ask inmates privately how they identify and then work to house them accordingly.

Before her time in prison, Valiente had been sexually assaulted, and said that being in the same housing unit as this individual, who had been convicted of sex crimes, as well as other men made it “scary” not only for her but for many women who had “come from very abusive backgrounds.”

“It’s a lot of walking in trauma,” Valiente said.

WATCH:

Andrea Mew, IWF’s storytelling manager and co-producer of the documentary series, told the DCNF that while California lawmakers claimed that the transgender inmate bill was about keeping inmates safe, the law actually further victimized women in prison who often have been abused.

“It’s really interesting that California, at the same time that they are focusing on being all about rehabilitation, are subjecting women to being re-traumatized by a lot of their personal triggers,” Mew said. “Many women who are in prison are victims of sexual assault, emotional abuse, physical abuse and having men in their spaces can be a very big trigger for them. At the same time, it’s allowing violent male criminals to have unbridled access to, in many cases, the thing that got them there in the first place.”

Currently, five states: Connecticut; Rhode Island; Massachusetts; California and New Jersey as well as New York City; have passed laws allowing men identifying as women to be housed in women’s prisons. However, other states, such as Wisconsin, have reportedly moved biologically male offenders identifying as transgender into all-female facilities despite their violent criminal history.

In September 2023, a female inmate sued the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in New Jersey after allegedly being assaulted in prison by a male inmate identifying as transgender. Another female inmate from New York City filed a lawsuit in January, claiming that a prison official instructed a male inmate who reportedly sexually assaulted her to identify as transgender so he could have “access to female inmates.”

Mew told the DCNF that she and co-producer Kelsey Bolar wanted people to imagine how they would feel if someone they loved in prison was forced to share a cell or a housing unit with a transgender inmate with a history of violence.

“People need to put themselves in the shoes of people who are in prison and just imagine yourself in there, imagine your own daughter in there,” Mew said. “There are a lot of things that could happen that could get you into prison that are complete accidents, so imagine yourself or your own daughter is in that sort of accident. Put yourself in the shoes of the person there and think about how it would feel if you’re being physically, emotionally and in some cases, as we’ve seen, sexually threatened by male criminals while you’re just trying to do your time and get home.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment

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Musk Slashes DOGE Savings Forecast By 85%

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Musk Slashes DOGE Savings Forecast By 85%

Published on April 11, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Thomas English

Elon Musk announced Thursday that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is now targeting $150 billion in federal savings for fiscal year 2026 — dramatically scaling back earlier claims of slashing as much as $2 trillion.

Musk initially projected DOGE would deliver $2 trillion in savings by targeting government waste, fraud and abuse. That figure was halved to $1 trillion earlier this year, but Musk walked it back again at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, saying the revised $150 billion projection will “result in better services for the American people” and ensure federal spending “in a way that is sensible and fair and good.”

“I’m excited to announce we anticipate saving in FY ’26 from a reduction of waste and fraud a reduction of $150 billion dollars,” Musk said. “And some of it is just absurd, like, people getting unemployment insurance who haven’t been born yet. I mean, I think anyone can appreciate — I mean, come on, that’s just crazy.”

The announcement marks the latest in a string of revised projections from Musk, who has become the face of President Donald Trump’s aggressive federal efficiency agenda.

“Your people are fantastic,” the president responded. “In fact, hopefully they’ll stay around for the long haul. We’d like to keep as many as we can. They’re great — smart, sharp, finding things that nobody would have thought of.”

Musk originally floated the $2 trillion figure during campaign appearances last fall.

“I think we could do at least $2 trillion,” Musk said at the Madison Square Garden campaign rally in November. “At the end of the day, you’re being taxed — all government spending is taxation … Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that.”

By January, he softened expectations to a “really quite achievable” $1 trillion target before downsizing that figure again this week.

“Our goal is to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars,” Musk told Fox News’ Bret Baier “Looked at in total federal spending, to drop the federal spending from $7 trillion to $6 trillion by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse … Which seems really quite achievable.”

DOGE’s website, which tracks cost-saving initiatives and contract cancellations, currently calculates total federal savings at $150 billion.

Health

RFK Jr. promises to identify cause of autism ‘epidemic’ by September

Published on April 11, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained that autism rates continue to climb, and are now expected to impact 1 in 31 children, up from ‘1 in 10,000 when I was a kid.’

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that his agency has undertaken a multinational study involving “hundreds of scientists around the world” to identify the causes of the growing incidence of autism in children.

“We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy told President Trump during Thursday’s White House Cabinet meeting. “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”

Kennedy explained that autism rates continue to climb, and are now expected to impact 1 in 31 children, up from “1 in 10,000 when I was a kid.”

“It’s a horrible statistic,” Trump said of the latest autism rate figures. “There’s got to be something artificial out there that’s doing this.”

“There will be no bigger news conference than when you come up with that answer,” predicted the president.

As recently as 2000, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research showed that 1 in 150 children were diagnosed with autism.

While many mainstream autism researchers adhere to theories that the rising rate of autism is due to “increased awareness” and an evolving, broadening definition of autism, Kennedy holds to that belief that the cause will be found primarily in environmental factors, eating habits, and currently accepted standard medical protocols.

“We’re going to look at vaccines, but we’re going to look at everything. Everything is on the table, our food system, our water, our air, different ways of parenting, all the kind of changes that may have triggered this epidemic,” the HHS head told Fox News.

“We know that it is an environmental toxin that is causing this cataclysm,” said Kennedy, “and we are going to identify it.”

Kennedy is known for vehemently opposing vaccines, a stance he adopted after the mothers of vaccine-injured children implored him to look into the research linking thimerosal to neurological injuries, including autism. He went on to found Children’s Health Defense, an organization with the stated mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” largely through vaccines.

The federal government spent more than $300 million on autism research in 2023, according to a report by The Hill.