Category: blaze media

Protests erupted Saturday in Nuuk, the capital city of Greenland, as demonstrators push back against President Donald Trump’s renewed bid to acquire Greenland, chanting that the Arctic island is “not for sale” and insisting that Greenlanders should determine their own future.

The demonstrations followed Trump’s announcement that he would impose new tariffs on several European countries unless a deal is reached for the U.S. purchase of Greenland. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump said Denmark and other European nations would face a 10% tariff beginning Feb. 1, with the rate increasing to 25% on June 1 if negotiations fail.

‘This is our home.’

Trump framed the situation as a global security concern while outlining the tariffs.

“This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet,” Trump said.

“This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

RELATED: ‘Tariff king’: Trump considers imposing economic pressures to secure Greenland

Danish and German soldiers arrive at the Danish Arctic Command building on January 16, 2026, in Nuuk, Greenland. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images

According to Reuters, thousands of protesters marched through Nuuk toward the U.S. consulate, carrying Greenlandic flags and banners while chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat,” the island’s name in Greenlandic. The demonstration was led by Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who addressed the crowd outside the consulate to loud cheers.

A demonstrator, Naja Holm, told Reuters that the protest was meant to send a clear message. “I’ve come here today because I think it’s important to show that Greenland is not for sale. It is not a toy. This is our home,” Holm said.

RELATED: Rubio reportedly reveals Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland to bolster US defense

Photo by Martin Sylvest Andersen/Getty Images

Some protesters wore red baseball caps styled after the “Make America Great Again” hats worn by Trump supporters, but altered to read “Make America Go Away.”

Trump has argued that Greenland is critical to U.S. national security due to its strategic location in the Arctic and its mineral resources. He has also warned that China and Russia are seeking greater influence on the island and has said U.S. control would strengthen Western security in the region.

The dispute has prompted sharp responses from European leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that tariff threats were unacceptable and said Europe would respond in a unified manner if the tariffs are implemented.

“No intimidation nor threat can influence us, neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are faced with such situations,” Macron wrote in a post on X. “Tariff threats are unacceptable and have no place in this context.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Greenland’s status is not up for negotiation by outside powers.

“Our position on Greenland is very clear — it is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and its future is a matter for the Greenlanders and the Danes,” Starmer wrote, criticizing the use of tariffs against NATO allies.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark with a population of roughly 57,000. While all political parties represented in Greenland’s Parliament support eventual independence, they differ on timing and have said they would prefer remaining within Denmark over becoming part of the United States, according to Reuters.

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​Politics, Greenland, Tarrifs 

The first performance car I ever drove was my mother’s daily driver — a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda 383 convertible, yellow with a black top and black interior.

I was 16, and that car left an impression that has never really gone away. So reviewing the all-new 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack Plus feels especially timely.

It doesn’t pretend to be the cars I grew up with, but it proves there’s still room for performance, personality, and attitude.

This isn’t a throwback, and it isn’t powered by a V-8 — though I’ll admit I wish it were. Instead, Dodge has reinvented its most recognizable nameplate as a modern, gas-powered performance sedan, blending contemporary technology, standard all-wheel drive, and serious straight-line speed. The question isn’t whether this Charger is fast enough. It’s whether a muscle-car icon can evolve without losing its soul.

Room for V8

Power comes from a 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six offered in two configurations: a 420-horsepower version producing 469 lb-ft of torque and a more aggressive 550-horsepower delivering 531 lb-ft. Both pair with an eight-speed automatic transmission and standard all-wheel drive — a major departure for the Charger. Dodge has clearly left physical room under the hood for a possible V-8 revival someday, but for now, this turbo six carries the performance torch convincingly.

On the road, the Charger Sixpack Plus delivers numbers that still feel worthy of the name. Zero to 60 mph takes just 3.9 seconds, the quarter-mile passes in 12.2 seconds, and top speed reaches 177 mph.

Fuel economy is rated at a respectable 20 mpg combined. An active transfer case with front axle disconnect allows the car to change personalities, while a 3.45 rear axle ratio, mechanical limited-slip differential, performance suspension, and Brembo brakes keep this nearly 4,850-pound sedan composed.

Launch Control, Line Lock, and an active exhaust make it clear that Dodge still expects owners to visit the drag strip — an idea reinforced by the complimentary one-day session at the Dodge/SRT High Performance Driving School.

Modern muscle

Inside, the Charger blends muscle-era cues with modern tech in a way that feels deliberate. The leather-wrapped pistol-grip shifter, flat-top and flat-bottom steering wheel, paddle shifters, and 180-mph speedometer nod to the brand’s roots. Uconnect 5 with a 12.3-inch touchscreen, a 10.25-inch digital driver display, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and available navigation bring it firmly into the present. The standard nine-speaker Alpine audio system sounds good, while the optional 18-speaker upgrade delivers serious volume and clarity.

Optional packages push the Charger noticeably upmarket. Leather performance seats, heated and ventilated fronts, heated rear seats, a head-up display, surround-view camera system, wireless charging, ambient lighting, Alexa built-in, and a power tilt-and-telescoping steering column all add comfort and convenience.

Despite its performance focus, the Charger remains practical, with seating for five and up to 37 cubic feet of cargo space when the rear seats are folded.

From Bludicrous to Black Top

From the outside, the Charger Sixpack Plus still looks like a modern muscle car. Trims range from R/T Sixpack to Scat Pack and Scat Pack Plus models in both two- and four-door configurations, all with standard all-wheel drive, rear-drive mode, Launch Control, Line Lock, and dual-mode active exhaust.

Options like Bludicrous blue paint, the Black Top Package, available 20-inch wheels wrapped in massive 305-section tires, and a full glass roof let buyers dial in the look. Details such as bi-function LED headlights and key-fob-activated window drop add a layer of polish.

Safety tech is well covered, with standard automated emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, blind-spot monitoring, and adaptive cruise control. Optional front and rear parking sensors and side-distance warning make daily driving easier.

RELATED: Why speed limits don’t make our highways safer

John Chapple/Getty Images

Plenty to like

Pricing for the 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack Plus ranges from $51,990 to $64,480, with my test vehicle climbing to $68,355 when fully equipped. Warranty coverage includes three years or 36,000 miles bumper-to-bumper and five years or 60,000 miles on the powertrain, though complimentary maintenance isn’t included.

There’s plenty to like here. The 550-horsepower turbo six is genuinely quick, the rear-drive mode adds real fun, and straight-line performance remains a core strength. The downside is weight — the Charger doesn’t feel like a true sports car in corners — and traditionalists will miss the sound and character of a V-8.

Still, in a segment increasingly defined by electrification and downsizing, the 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack Plus stands as a modern interpretation of American muscle. It doesn’t pretend to be the cars I grew up with, but it proves there’s still room for performance, personality, and attitude in a changing automotive landscape.

​Test drive, Muscle cars, 2026 dodge charger six-pack plus, Dodge, Barracuda, Lifestyle, Auto industry, V8, Align cars 

Muslim immigrants don’t shy away from letting Americans know what their intentions are with our country — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has the video evidence to prove it.

In a man-on-the-street-style clip Gonzales shares from the account Muckracker on X, a young man stops to talk to a group of Muslims in Ohio who happen to be Somali.

“America will become a Muslim state,” one man yells.

“Our goal is to make America Islam,” he yells again.

“That’s not a conspiracy theory. … No, they’re actually saying it very loudly and proudly,” Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“They’re, like, right there, right in front of your face, saying all of the quiet parts out loud. But there are a lot more seemingly benign ways that they are infiltrating America to just sort of create this society that’s perfect for them, like, something you wouldn’t expect: our food,” she continues.

And host of the “Hearts of Oak” podcast and former campaign manager for the U.K. Independence Party Peter McIlvenna has been sounding the alarm about this seemingly innocent Trojan horse.

“The Halal food market is a huge thing, I think it’s something like $2.2 trillion globally and going to hit $4.5 trillion within about eight years, 2033, growing at nearly 10% a year. And here in Texas, the big hot spots for halal food are Houston and Dallas, growing around 22% a year,” McIlvenna tells Gonzales.

“And it kind of goes unnoticed, and I call it economic jihad, because it is using the levers of power to [insert] Islam in all areas of society,” he says. “And Islam is very smart as an ideology.”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Camera phone, Free, Video phone, Video, Upload, Sharing, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Islam, Islamic, Somalian, Muslims, Muslim immigrants, Halal food, Peter mcilvenna 

According to Salon, nicotine use is apparently the preserve of stupid men, right up there with weight lifting and a fondness for firearms.

This is how you know a substance is having a moment. When something offers even a modest benefit — focus, alertness, a slight edge — it attracts not curiosity but alarm. The kind usually reserved for the stuff that will actually kill you: heroin, fentanyl, toxic masculinity.

Nicotine is not cigarettes. This distinction matters, though it is treated as apostasy in contemporary wellness discourse. Nicotine, isolated and controlled, has been studied for decades. In small doses, it produces a measurable cognitive lift: sharper attention, faster reaction time, improved working memory.

That isn’t influencer folklore. Far from it. It’s why exhausted academics used it to push through marking and deadlines, why surgeons relied on it during long overnight shifts, and why soldiers carried it in environments where fatigue killed faster than bullets — long before Salon’s feeble attempt to dismiss it as a “scam.”

I use Zyn regularly. It helps me concentrate. That’s the entire story. I don’t feel enlightened. I don’t feel transformed. I don’t feel the urge to start a movement. And, crucially, I don’t feel compelled to use the product in any anatomically creative fashion.

Tucker Carlson, a former Zyn user turned rival nicotine entrepreneur, recently aimed a jab at his old brand, joking that its devotees have abandoned the instructions altogether in favor of a more southern route of administration.

I can’t speak for others. I can only report that I place the pouch exactly where the instructions suggest, write my sentences, and get on with my day. If a shadow subculture of rogue pouch experimentation exists, it has somehow escaped my notice.

Backside-bracing humor aside, the Salon piece really zeroes in on Carlson, quoting him at length and treating his remarks with a gravity usually reserved for Senate hearings.

Carlson has described nicotine as “super important,” arguing that the country has grown sadder and less healthy since it was discouraged and that its return coincides with people seeming, on balance, happier — though it is not entirely clear which people he has been interacting with, given that most Americans currently look one minor inconvenience away from spontaneous combustion.

He has also referred to it — again, with comic exaggeration — as a “life-enhancing, God-given chemical” that can make you “feel better than you’ve ever felt.”

The language is clearly playful, designed to provoke rather than persuade. But exaggeration doesn’t automatically mean error. Mild stimulation can brighten mood and restore alertness, particularly in a culture permanently exhausted by poor sleep and low-grade stress.

In a culture serious about public health, nicotine would barely rate a mention. We’d be too busy going after the sugar cartels poisoning the body politic with obesity and diabetes or the doctors throwing drugs at problems better addressed in the confession booth.

Instead, nicotine is singled out not because it is uniquely hazardous, but because it violates the aesthetic rules of modern wellness as defined by smug, affluent, urban commentators who have never missed a meal or a night’s sleep. To them, nicotine belongs to the wrong people — MAGA rubes, rednecks, bumpkins — rather than credentialed strivers in co-working spaces.

Nicotine stimulates rather than soothes. It activates rather than dulls. It may even nudge testosterone upward, however modestly. And for that social transgression alone, it is treated not as imperfect, but as suspect.

Well, it’s time to push back. Think of nicotine as coffee’s scruffier cousin. Coffee is embraced because it has been ritualized, monetized, and moralized into submission — latte art, loyalty cards, sanctioned dependence. Nicotine, by contrast, still carries the faint scent of agency. It has not been fully tamed, branded, or absolved by consensus. You use it because you want to function better, not because it comes with a yoga mat and a manifesto.

The real scandal is not that influencers exaggerate nicotine’s benefits. Influencers exaggerate everything. They once convinced millions that celery juice could heal trauma. The scandal is that nicotine provokes panic precisely because it works, within limits, for some people.

It requires no subscription or expert guidance. It is relatively cheap, widely available, and stubbornly unimpressed by credentialed gatekeepers. That alone makes it dangerous in a wellness economy built on scarcity, jargon, and endless scams. A substance that delivers a small, practical benefit without demanding anything in return beyond a few dollars isn’t easily controlled — and so it must be pathologized rather than tolerated.

None of this requires indulging the more unhinged claims now circulating online. Nicotine doesn’t cure herpes. It doesn’t raise IQ. It can’t turn a fat, lazy slob into a Navy SEAL. Anyone selling it as a miracle deserves mockery.

But pretending nicotine is uniquely dangerous while applauding sugar binges, SSRIs handed out like breath mints, and total screen immersion is selective hysteria. It’s moral panic dressed up as concern, aimed squarely at the wrong target.

Nicotine is not a lifestyle. It is not an identity, but a tool. Used deliberately, occasionally, it can help certain people think more clearly for a short stretch of time. That is all. The insistence on treating it as either a demonic poison or a sacred molecule is the same mistake from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Let the haters hate. I, like Carlson, will continue to use nicotine. I’ll stick with Zyn, use it occasionally, and — this seems important to clarify — continue to administer it exactly as instructed.

​Culture 

The alternate reality Democrats have constructed is falling apart in real time. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said the following when asked to comment on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shooting a woman in Minneapolis who was attempting to run over the agent with her car: “What we saw today was a criminal, a criminal, murder a woman and shoot her in the head while she was trying to escape and flee for her life.”

She then called “disgusting” the “editorializing” of those who argue that the ICE agent was in front of the car as it was accelerating, just before he fired. “Watch it for yourself, watch it for yourself,” she concluded, with supreme confidence that any viewer would see with the same skew of her own lens.

A significant portion of the American media and popular culture has normalized the idea that totalitarians have taken over the government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) went even harder over the rhetorical cliff in responding to the shooting. He classified interpretations of the ICE officer’s action as self-defense as “bull***t” and demanded that ICE “get the f**k out of Minneapolis.” Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) in New York followed suit, calling the event a “murder” and a “horror.”

It is a stark bit of evidence of how American society has been warped by the twisted rhetoric of the radical left regarding political conflict in our country.

The video from the officer who fired at the vehicle indicates clearly, however, that it was accelerating in his direction, with him close enough to touch the hood. How is it possible to watch video footage and see it as the “murder” of someone “flee[ing] for her life”? The vehicle was illegally blocking a law enforcement vehicle. Instead of complying with the demand to exit the vehicle as any sane person would do, the driver hit the gas, making contact with the law enforcement officer before being shot.

Are we to believe that ICE agents came there precisely to kill her?

The New York Times published a video analysis that supposedly debunks the claim that the agent fired in self-defense. How? Well, the wheels of the SUV turned to the right just in time to avoid hitting the agent. Never mind that the agent was standing just in front of the vehicle when it started to move forward quickly, and he moved to avoid it. By the Times’ logic, the agent would apparently have been justified to use force only after the SUV had hit him.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said he doubts an FBI investigation of the shooting could reach a “fair outcome.” He’s given no reason why he believes this. But of course, if your view is that all sides not directly aligned with you ideologically are Nazis, this is a logical conclusion.

One might first hypothesize that Ocasio-Cortez, Frey, Walz, Mamdani, and others who share their bizarre interpretation of the evidence are cognitively challenged in some way. We do not wholly discount this possibility.

But the more likely answer is that such things become possible when a significant portion of the American media and popular culture has normalized the idea that totalitarians have taken over the government and are actively looking to kill their opponents. In such a scenario, attempting to run over the totalitarians with your car might not only be an acceptable choice — it might be the most moral one.

The Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin connected the event to the language the far left has been using to describe ICE: “This is the direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement who are facing [a] 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.”

There is no doubt that political radicals have been foaming at the mouth about ICE and other aspects of the Trump administration’s policies in the most extremist language. They’ve justified using violence against them even since before the first Trump administration took office.

RELATED: Fraud thrived under Democrats’ no-questions-asked rule

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The alleged assassin who murdered Charlie Kirk in September, who was involved in a relationship with a transsexual, had come to believe that Kirk and other conservatives who criticized the overreach of trans radical activism were such a deadly threat that only lethal force was appropriate. He wrote anti-fascist messages on the casings of the bullets he used.

None of this is a surprise in a culture in which American nationalism is seen as the equivalent of Nazism and violent attacks against the Trump administration and its supporters are cheered on and encouraged. And it is not just the explicitly political media that embraces this insanity.

Witness the response to “One Battle After Another,” the recent film by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland.” Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, the film cheerleads for a radical anti-fascist terrorist organization as they wage war on American police and immigration forces. Penn is cast in a stupendously comical role as a caricature of which the left never tires: He is a military figure and a white supremacist who nonetheless is sexually attracted to nonwhites. All of the admirable figures in the film are revolutionary terrorists. The response by critics in the mainstream media has been a virtually unanimous cheer.

We are in a dangerous place. Leftist radicals are giving no indication of cooling their rhetoric — or their actions.

Buckle up. It is going to get rougher before it gets better.

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally at the American Mind.

​Opinion & analysis, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice raids, Fascism, Antifa, Leftists, Political violence, One battle after another, Paul thomas anderson, Charlie kirk assassination, Department of homeland security, Tricia mclaughlin, Tim walz, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, New york times, Self-defense, Jacob frey 

From Iran to Jordan to Gaza, former Muslims have been having incredible encounters with Jesus — and it’s happening in their dreams.

“We estimate that about one 1 out of every 3 Muslims that comes to faith in Christ has had a dream or a vision of Jesus. We have maybe half now. There was a team that was in Jordan getting trained from Saudi Arabia on how to do secret church,” Tom Doyle of Uncharted Ministries tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“Thirty-nine people. They didn’t know each other. They were all from different areas. They found out through the internet. They came to this conference, and the leader asked at the end, ‘How many of you had a dream about Jesus or a vision before you came to faith in Christ?’ All 39,” he explains.

“Over 200 times in the Bible, there were dreams. Maybe he’s using that today,” he adds.

“Why do you think that Jesus seems to be using dreams as a way to communicate with these people?” Stuckey asks.

“Jesus always met people where they were. I mean, you look at the woman with the issue of blood, and she was despised, and he said, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you.’ He just met her there,” Doyle says.

“How would he be meeting Muslims through dreams? That’s how Islam started. Muhammad went into a cave and had a dream. And he says Jibreel, who is supposed to be Gabriel, downloaded the Quran, which, we don’t believe that’s what happened. We believe it was demonic,” he continues.

Doyle points out that dreaming is seen by Muslims as a “viable way that God can communicate truth to them.”

“And also, the last week in Ramadan, they have a night. … It’s called the night of power or the night of destiny, and Muslims will cry out, ‘God, if you’re there, show me yourself. Come to me in a dream, in a vision,’” Doyle says. “That’s the number one day of the year that Muslims have dreams about Jesus.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sharing, Camera phone, Video, Video phone, Upload, Free, Youtube.com, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Tom doyle, Muslim, Christianity, Christian conversion, Jesus christ, Religious visions, Religious gatherings 

The trial of a Virginia man accused of orchestrating a scheme to have his wife killed began Tuesday. The man’s former au pair, who prosecutors say was having an affair with him, testified that another man was lured to the crime scene through a fetish website.

As Blaze News previously reported, 40-year-old Brendan Banfield was arrested in September 2024 and indicted in connection with the February 2023 double murder that occurred in his home in Herndon — which is approximately 20 miles west of Washington, D.C.

‘He mentioned his plan to get rid of [Christine].’

Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis and Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano announced in a statement that officers “descended upon an appalling scene” on Feb. 24, 2023.

Officers discovered Christine Banfield — Brendan Banfield’s 37-year-old wife — in an upstairs bedroom suffering from stab wounds to her upper body. She was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Police said 39-year-old Joseph Ryan was found dead in the home from apparent gunshot wounds to his upper body.

Investigators soon set their sights on Brendan Banfield and Juliana Peres Magalhaes — the family’s Brazilian au pair, who was 21 when she began working for the family in October 2021.

Chief Davis stated, “We know Brendan Banfield and Juliana Magalhaes, the family au pair, were involved in a romantic relationship at the time of the murders.”

According to WJLA-TV, Magalhaes claimed she began an affair with Banfield in August 2022.

When Magalhaes asked Banfield about the possibility of him divorcing Christine, WJLA reported that he allegedly told the au pair that a divorce would cost too much money and that he didn’t want to split child custody.

“He mentioned his plan to get rid of [Christine],” Magalhaes told prosecutors, according to the New York Post. “Initially, he didn’t know what he would do. He just mentioned that he would think about it [and] let me know when he thought about it.”

RELATED: Career criminal with over 20-year-long rap sheet reportedly gets sweetheart plea deal — now a beloved teacher is dead

Citing prosecutors, WTOP-TV reported that two months before the murders, Magalhaes and Banfield went to a shooting range; Banfield then returned to the range on Jan. 28, 2023, and bought a Glock from the range.

WJLA added that Magalhaes claimed Banfield instructed her to get a new phone and Apple ID and ordered her to park in a different location on the day of the murders.

Citing prosecutors, Fox News noted that Banfield — a former IRS special agent — was impersonating his wife on a fetish website for a month. Ryan was then “summoned to the couple’s million-dollar Herndon home” through the site, according to the New York Post.

Court documents also show Magalhaes told investigators that Ryan was framed as a home intruder.

‘There’s somebody here; I shot him. But he stabbed her. She’s bleeding. She’s got several marks on her neck. What do I do?’

Court TV reported that Ryan went by the username “TacoSupreme7000” on the site and responded to the messages, believing he was talking to Christine Banfield. Court TV added that Magalhaes read messages aloud to the jury, saying that she and Brendan asked Ryan to bring restraints and a knife to the Banfield home.

Magalhaes on Tuesday testified that “Christine … yelled back at Brendan, saying, ‘Brendan, he has a knife.’ That’s when Brendan first shot Joe.”

According to NBC News, lead prosecutor Jenna Sands told the courtroom this week, “Brendan enters the bedroom, first shooting Joe in the head, picks up the knife that Joe had brought and stabs Christine repeatedly in the neck. He directs Juliana to shoot Joe a second time with her gun. This time the bullet enters Joe’s chest with Christine dead or dying.”

Magalhaes was arrested in October 2023 in connection with Ryan’s alleged murder.

Magalhaes was originally charged with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in October 2024. She will be sentenced after Banfield’s trial.

According to CNN, Banfield was heard identifying himself as a federal agent in the 911 call to report the stabbing and shooting.

Banfield reportedly told the emergency dispatcher, “There’s somebody here; I shot him. But he stabbed her. She’s bleeding. She’s got several marks on her neck. What do I do?”

Banfield’s attorney, John Carroll, questioned Magalhaes’ motivation for taking a plea deal after nearly a year of protesting her innocence.

“The whole reason she was arrested was to flip her against my client,” Carroll claimed.

WDCW-TV reported that Brendan Banfield was charged with aggravated murder in connection with his wife’s death, plus child abuse and endangerment charges, since the Banfields’ 4-year-old daughter was at home at the time of the deadly shooting and stabbing.

If convicted on all of the charges, Banfield faces a maximum punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 13 additional years of incarceration, a judge said on Monday, WDCW reported.

Banfield pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Fairfax County Police Department and Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Blaze News.

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​Murder, True crime, True crime news, Christine banfield, Joseph ryan, Brendan banfield, Love triangle, Crime, Virginia, Affair, Au pair, Herndon, Arrests 

Most people can care for an ill or disabled loved one for a week on compassion alone. Some can do it for a month. A few can make it a year or two.

But when care stretches into decades, compassion stops carrying the load. Emotion fades. Circumstances grind. What remains isn’t how someone feels about a life. What remains is whether they believe that life still matters.

When a culture treats reality as optional, action becomes dangerous and courage looks reckless. Without shared moral ground, bravery itself becomes suspect.

Caregiving strips life down to essentials. It forces a question our culture prefers to keep abstract: Why does this life still have value when it costs so much to sustain it?

C.S. Lewis warned that a society cannot survive if it mocks virtue while demanding its fruits. In “The Abolition of Man,” he described “men without chests” — people trained to think and desire but not to stand. Without a formed moral center, courage collapses. Duty feels suspect. Endurance looks irrational.

Caregivers learn this in a harsh classroom.

You cannot sustain decades of care if human worth is negotiable. You cannot rise day after day to guard the vulnerable if life’s value depends on productivity, independence, improvement, or the absence of suffering. Long care requires stewardship — the conviction that a life has been entrusted to us, not evaluated by us.

I once met a man who told me he was dating a woman in a wheelchair. He spoke with genuine enthusiasm about how good it made him feel to do everything for her. He sounded animated, even proud. He talked at length about his experience, his emotions, the satisfaction he drew from being needed.

He said very little about her.

I asked how long they’d been dating.

“Two weeks,” he said, beaming.

I smiled wearily and told him, “Get back to me in two decades.”

Care that depends on how it makes us feel rarely survives once feeling fades. What endures over decades isn’t the satisfaction of being needed. It’s settled clarity about the worth of the person being cared for, independent of what the caregiver receives in return.

RELATED: Christian, what do you believe when faith stops being theoretical?

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In that man’s excitement, everything centered on his emotions. What was missing was any recognition of her value apart from her condition — or apart from what caring for her did for him.

I didn’t hear, “I’m dating a woman,” or “I’ve met someone extraordinary.” I heard, again and again, “I’m dating a woman in a wheelchair.” The chair became the headline, not the person. He might as well have celebrated the better parking.

She had become useful to him. That’s not the same thing as being valued.

This way of thinking doesn’t stay confined to personal relationships. It scales.

The public reckoning surrounding Daniel Penny exposed it. He acted to protect others he believed were in danger — not because it felt good but because action was required. That kind of clarity now unsettles a society more comfortable with sentiment than obligation.

We claim we want people to intervene, to protect others, to act decisively when danger appears. Then someone does, and we hesitate. We second-guess. We prosecute. We distance ourselves.

We want courage but not conviction.

Lewis wouldn’t be surprised. When a culture treats reality as optional, action becomes dangerous and courage looks reckless. Responsibility suddenly feels threatening. Without shared moral ground, bravery itself becomes suspect.

Francis Schaeffer traced the path forward from that confusion. Once a culture detaches human worth from anything objective, it stops honoring life and starts managing it. Value becomes conditional. And conditions always change.

That logic now shows itself in plain view. When Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) pushes to legalize medical aid in dying in New York, the same fracture appears. We punish those who act as though life must be defended, while elevating leaders who treat life as something to administer and conclude.

Those aren’t separate debates. They’re the same belief, applied differently.

If life holds value only when it functions well, caregiving becomes irrational. If worth depends on autonomy, dependence becomes disposable. If suffering disqualifies, endurance becomes foolish.

And yet caregivers endure.

RELATED: Caregiving decisions begin in the bathroom

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That clarity came back to me during a conversation on my radio show. A man described a brief illness his wife had suffered. The house fell apart. Meals became takeout. Work got missed. Romance disappeared. He sounded exhausted just recalling it.

“What carried you through?” I asked.

He paused. “I guess … love.”

“How long did this last?” I said.

“Five days.”

“I guess … love” carried him through five days.

Uncertainty can survive a week. It cannot sustain 14,000 days.

He wasn’t wrong though. Love matters. But love that sustains five days must anchor itself in something deeper to sustain 40 years.

Caregivers may begin with compassion. They endure with conviction.

A life doesn’t become less valuable because it becomes harder to carry.

Caregiving isn’t a special category of moral life. It is a concentrated version of the human condition. What sustains caregivers over time is what sustains courage, faithfulness, and duty anywhere else.

Lewis reminded us that our feelings don’t create value. They respond to it. When we reverse that order, we don’t become more compassionate. We lose our bearings.

Treating human worth as conditional may flatter our emotions. It may even make us feel noble. But it trains us to prize how we feel over the people entrusted to our care.

Over time, that trade leaves us prosecuting men like Daniel Penny while electing leaders like Kathy Hochul.

It might soothe the heart for a moment.

It cannot sustain a society.

​Caregiving, Long term care, Human dignity, Opinion & analysis, C.s. lewis, Faith, Love, Endurance 

Joel Osteen preaches a heretical prosperity gospel; Timothy Keller’s “third way” softens biblical truth for acceptability; and Rick Warren’s seeker-sensitive approach waters the gospel down into a self-help guide.

What do all three of these pastors have in common?

They “were really not preaching so much for the people in the pews but because they wanted a broader cultural acceptance from more mainstream or academic or globalist institutions,” says BlazeTV host Steve Deace. “And so they altered their approach as pastors within their own churches in order to appeal to an audience that was actually not sitting in their churches.”

While Osteen, Keller, and Warren belong to an older generation of preachers, Deace is concerned that that same hunger for approval is cropping up in younger generations of pastors who have been seduced by social media fame.

On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace interviews senior pastor of East River Church in Ohio, Michael Foster, about how influencer culture is slowly creeping in and corroding the pulpit.

Some of these young pastors, says Deace, are “not really preaching to Michael in the third row whose marriage is on the rocks, and he’s lost the respect of his kids, and he doesn’t know how to get it back. [They’re] preaching to @dontjewmebro43 on X.”

“I’m not really preaching the gospel to him, but I’m preaching some nascent gospel applications that may or may not be adjudicated properly in order … to feed his fury, to give me the engagement that I want,” he rails, imitating these people-pleasing ministers.

Foster, who’s written several essays on this subject, says that it’s critical that pastors know their individual sheep.

“He’s got particular sheep. You see this in the New Testament when you have Paul preaching the same gospel, the same teaching, but he addresses problems in Colossae that aren’t in Corinth and problems in Corinth that aren’t in Colossae,” he says.

On the other hand, “Influencing speaks to … broad generalizations over a national level.”

“Because the influencer online social media culture is such a huge part of our lives, it is reshaping ministry right now where people are speaking to not maybe the actual issues in their church but the things that they’re hearing other people talk about in their feeds,” says Foster.

“It’s training people to not be pastors anymore, just to be talking heads, to be commentators.”

“Is there a way for you as a pastor to avoid falling into this trap without a really solid elder board and accountability in your life personally?” asks Deace.

That question, says Foster, is the equivalent of asking: “Could you ride a roller coaster without a roller coaster bar and survive it?”

There are three tips he gives to ministers that will help ensure they stay in the lane of pastor and not veer into the influencer lane:

1. Strong elders who are involved in sermons and accountability.

2. Tailor sermons toward specific congregational needs, not broad issues/topics.

3. Reject fame and notoriety if they come.

On the latter, Foster says, “You have to have an abusive relationship with celebrity as a pastor. I think you have to hate it, right? Spit in its face. If it comes back for more, well, that was its choice.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the video above.

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​Steve deace show, Steve deace, Deace, Michael foster, Christianity, Pastors, Woke pastors, Influencers, Influencer culture, Blazetv, Blaze media 

A detainee died after attempting to take his own life while in federal immigration custody at a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, according to the Department of Homeland Security. But that was not what the Washington Post and other liberal outlets originally reported.

On Thursday evening, WaPo shared an article on social media, reporting that a local medical examiner might soon classify the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at the Camp East Montana facility on January 3 as a “homicide” and that another detainee had witnessed the man being “choked to death by guards.”

During the intervention, Campos ‘violently resisted’ staff and continued trying to harm himself, the DHS said.

The DHS offered a different version of events.

The DHS described Campos as a criminal illegal alien and a convicted child sex predator. Agency officials said detention security staff immediately intervened when Campos attempted suicide.

During the intervention, Campos “violently resisted” staff and continued trying to harm himself, the DHS said. In the ensuing struggle, Campos “stopped breathing and lost consciousness.” Medical personnel were called to the scene and attempted resuscitation before emergency medical technicians pronounced him dead at the facility.

ICE said it takes the health and safety of all detainees seriously and that the incident remains under active investigation, adding that more details “are forthcoming.”

Blaze News reached out to the Washington Post for comment.

RELATED: ICE busts child rapist and murderer — 70% of agency’s arrests target criminal illegal aliens with prior charges, convictions

ICE CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

According to the DHS, Campos was arrested by immigration authorities July 14, 2025, during a planned enforcement operation in Rochester, New York.

The DHS said he entered the United States in 1996 and has since been convicted of multiple felonies such as sexual contact with a child under 11, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless driving, possession of a controlled substance, and sale of a controlled substance.

RELATED: Historic ICE hiring surge adds 12,000 as agency kicks off 2026 with major busts

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

An immigration judge ordered Campos removed from the United States on March 1, 2005. The DHS said he was not removed at that time because the government was unable to obtain the necessary travel documents. ICE later transferred him to the Camp East Montana detention facility on Sept. 6, 2025.

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​Ice, Suicide, Montana, Illegal immigration, Illegal alien, Geraldo lunas campos, Politics 

Jeep once bet big on electrification. The pitch was simple: Keep everything that made a Jeep a Jeep — capability, toughness, identity — while adding electric efficiency. For a brief moment, that bet worked.

The Wrangler 4xe didn’t just sell; it dominated. It became the best-selling plug-in hybrid in the U.S., proof that electrification could succeed when it respected consumer priorities instead of lecturing buyers. The Grand Cherokee 4xe followed, extending the same formula into a more refined family SUV without stripping away Jeep’s DNA.

Jeep owners are famously loyal. They tolerate compromises in ride and refinement for capability and character. What they won’t tolerate is silence.

Stellantis had managed what many automakers could not: Electrify without alienating loyal customers.

And then, almost overnight, they vanished.

Without a trace

Without warning or meaningful explanation, the Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee 4xe disappeared from Jeep’s website. They can’t be ordered. EPA ratings for future model years are missing. Dealers are under stop-sale orders. More than 320,000 vehicles are tied up in recalls involving serious safety risks.

This is not how a confident automaker behaves. So what happened?

The 4xe lineup wasn’t a side project. It was central to Stellantis’ North American strategy — key to meeting fuel-economy rules while keeping Jeep profitable. The Wrangler 4xe, in particular, became a regulatory and marketing success story. Until reality caught up.

At the center is a massive recall affecting more than 320,000 Wrangler and Grand Cherokee 4xe models due to a high-voltage battery defect that increases fire risk. That alone is enough to halt sales and shake confidence.

Compounding the problem is a separate recall involving potential engine failure caused by sand contamination. Together, these aren’t isolated issues; they point to deeper quality-control problems in vehicles meant to represent Jeep’s future.

Alarming distinction

Owners have been raising concerns for months — electrical faults, warning lights, charging failures, erratic performance. Consumer Reports recently named the Wrangler 4xe the most unreliable midsize SUV in its annual survey, an alarming distinction for a brand built on durability.

In some cases, fixes amount to a software update. In others, the battery pack fails validation and must be replaced entirely. That difference matters. High-voltage batteries are among the most expensive components in any vehicle, and replacing them at scale creates serious financial strain — even for a global automaker.

For consumers, it raises uncomfortable questions about long-term ownership, resale value, and whether risks were passed on before these vehicles were truly ready.

RELATED: Hemi tough: Stellantis chooses power over tired EV mandate

Global Images Ukraine/J. David Ake/Getty Images

Good on paper

Plug-in hybrids were sold as the sensible middle ground — the stable bridge between internal combustion and full electrification. On paper, the Wrangler 4xe looked ideal: 375 horsepower, strong torque, and about 21 miles of electric-only range for daily driving.

What buyers didn’t sign up for was uncertainty.

The implications extend beyond Jeep. Stellantis invested billions in batteries, EV platforms, and software-driven vehicles. The 4xe lineup wasn’t optional; it was essential. When a segment leader quietly pulls its products, it sends a message that the challenges are deeper than advertised.

It also exposes the growing gap between political mandates and engineering reality. Automakers were pushed aggressively toward electrification before infrastructure and consumer demand were ready. Some products were rushed to meet timelines. When expectations collide with reality, trust erodes fast.

With regulatory pressure easing, hybrids are no longer a necessity — and Stellantis’ commitment to plug-ins appears to have cooled.

Loyalty test

Jeep owners are famously loyal. They tolerate compromises in ride and refinement for capability and character. What they won’t tolerate is silence. Removing vehicles without explanation feels less like caution and more like avoidance. Existing owners worry about support and resale value. Future buyers are questioning whether plug-in hybrids are really the smart compromise they were promised.

Stellantis may eventually fix the recalls and relaunch the models. But perception matters, and damage has already been done.

If Jeep wants consumers to believe in its electrified future, it will need more than quiet fixes and lifted stop-sales. It will need transparency, accountability, and proof that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of reliability.

Because hiding information isn’t leadership — and Jeep, of all brands, should know that.

​Jeep, Auto industry, Lifestyle, Hybrids, Stellantis, Ev mandate, Align cars 

A motorist traveling over 100 miles per hour on New Year’s Eve apparently used a tactic you just don’t see every day to avoid identification — and while giving law enforcement the slip.

The California Highway Patrol in Dublin indicated that around 8:20 a.m. the driver of a black Chevrolet Camaro evaded a CHP officer on the westbound lanes of Interstate 580, west of Interstate 680. Dublin is about 40 minutes southeast of San Francisco.

‘Looks like y’all need faster cars.’

The officer observed the car “traveling at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour,” the CHP said, adding that it had a license plate that was “black with yellow or white writing.”

But the most eye-popping detail would seem to be the CHP’s assertion that “the driver was able to ‘black out’ or ‘turn off’ the plate.”

“Please, if you saw this and have information that will help us track down this vehicle, we would appreciate it!” the CHP implored readers.

RELATED: ‘Just crazy’: Thug throws frozen water balloon through car windshield, hits driver in face while he travels down highway

The Auto Wire had the following to say about the vehicular oddity:

The unusual tactic has raised questions about how the plates were altered. Authorities have not confirmed whether the Camaro was equipped with a digital license plate or a custom modification designed to obscure identification. Either possibility presents concerns for law enforcement, particularly if such technology or modifications are being used to avoid accountability during traffic violations or more serious crimes.

About 8,000 comments and counting have appeared under the CHP’s Facebook post about the unorthodox incident — and let’s just say law enforcement has not escaped a thorough roasting:

“Looks like y’all need faster cars,” one commenter wrote.”If you got gapped, you can just say that, bro,” another user offered before adding, “no shame here.””Props to the driver that got away,” another commenter noted while adding a laughing emoji.”He escaped because he was a better driver in a faster car at higher speeds than whatever random cop went after him,” another user said. “If by some miracle you do catch him, offer that guy a job.”

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​California highway patrol, Speeding, License plate, Weird news, Dublin, Disappearing license plate, License plate turned off, Driver at large, Crime 

Antitrust regulators claim to protect competition. Their decision to block Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot did the opposite. It helped drive an American robotics pioneer into bankruptcy last December and pushed it into the arms of a Chinese creditor.

Antitrust law is supposed to defend consumers and prevent monopoly abuse. In this case, regulators killed a deal that could have kept iRobot alive, preserved American jobs, and strengthened a U.S. company facing brutal Chinese competition. Instead, the collapse of the acquisition forced iRobot into a court-supervised restructuring in which Shenzhen Picea Robotics — its largest Chinese creditor and key supplier — will take the company’s equity and cancel roughly $264 million in debt.

Ultimately, the acquisition’s collapse pushed iRobot into a deal with its largest Chinese creditor.

iRobot began in 1990, founded by roboticists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company built military and space exploration products before it introduced the Roomba in 2002, the device that turned home robotics into a household category. For years, iRobot stood as a rare American success story in consumer robotics.

Then the market shifted. Chinese manufacturers poured in with cheaper models, tighter supply chains, and rapid iteration. iRobot’s share price peaked in 2021, then slid hard over the next year. The company sought a lifeline and found one in Amazon, which agreed to acquire iRobot for roughly $1.7 billion.

That deal made strategic sense. iRobot needed capital, scale, and distribution power to compete against Chinese rivals such as Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, and Xiaomi. Amazon could have provided all three. Consumers likely would have seen faster innovation, deeper device integration, and lower prices, while iRobot kept more of its footprint and engineering talent intact.

Regulators saw a different story. The European Commission objected on antitrust grounds and signaled it would block the acquisition. The commission argued the deal could restrict competition in robot vacuum cleaners by allowing Amazon to disadvantage rival products on its marketplace. American critics piled on, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who framed the acquisition as an attempt to buy out competition, along with privacy fears about Roomba’s mapping technology.

Facing regulatory opposition, Amazon and iRobot terminated the agreement in January 2024. Amazon’s general counsel, David Zapolsky, warned that the decision would deny consumers faster innovation and more competitive prices, while leaving iRobot weaker against foreign rivals operating under very different regulatory constraints.

The warnings proved accurate. After the deal collapsed, iRobot announced deep cost-cutting, including a 31% workforce reduction. The company shifted more production to Vietnam to compete on cost. Chinese brands continued to eat the market.

By December 2025, iRobot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced a restructuring deal that hands control to Shenzhen Picea Robotics. According to iRobot’s own announcement, Picea will acquire the equity of the reorganized company through the court process and cancel about $264 million in debt.

RELATED: Why Trump must block Netflix’s Warner Bros. takeover

Photo by Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

That outcome should haunt every regulator who claimed to defend competition. Regulators blocked an American acquisition and ended up delivering a storied American company to a Chinese creditor. They did not preserve a competitor. They helped bury it.

The iRobot collapse exposes a central problem with modern antitrust enforcement: Officials often substitute fear-driven hypotheticals for real-world consequences. They imagine a future in which Amazon squeezes competitors and consumers pay more. They ignore the present in which Chinese firms gain market power, American companies lose ground, and U.S. workers pay the price.

Markets discipline failure quickly. Regulators rarely pay for their mistakes. They can block a deal, watch a company fall apart, and declare victory because they prevented a theoretical harm.

This case produced the opposite of the intended result. Regulators killed a merger that could have strengthened an American company against Chinese competition. They weakened competition in the robot vacuum market by removing one of the few U.S.-based pioneers from the field. They also shrank the number of meaningful paths forward for iRobot until only one remained: a takeover by the company’s Chinese lender and supplier.

Policymakers should learn the right lesson. Antitrust action should not operate as a reflex against size or success. Regulators should measure outcomes, not slogans. If officials claim they protect competition, they should not celebrate decisions that end in bankruptcy and foreign control.

​Irobot, Antitrust, China, Amazon, Regulations, Opinion & analysis, Roomba, Elizabeth warren, Competition 

Appearing at the “Zoom Ahead: AI for Tomorrow’s Leaders” virtual event from the White House on Friday, Melania Trump addressed the rapid advancement of AI technology, highlighting both its current capabilities and the potential risks and opportunities it may present in the future.

Thanking Zoom founder Eric Yuan for hosting the event, the first lady praised the company’s leadership in the tech space and connected the discussion to what she described as her broader “mission.”

Mrs. Trump said AI has expanded access to creative tools in ways that were previously unimaginable, allowing young people to explore fields such as film, fashion, art, and music.

“Your support directly advances my mission to prepare America’s next generation to use AI to enhance their education and ultimately their careers,” Mrs. Trump said.

She told the audience they were “fortunate” to be living in what she repeatedly described as “the age of imagination,” a new era shaped by artificial intelligence.

“The age of imagination is a new era, powered by artificial intelligence, where one’s curiosity can be satisfied almost magically in seconds,” she said.

RELATED: AI isn’t killing writers — it’s killing mediocre writing

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Mrs. Trump said AI has expanded access to creative tools in ways that were previously unimaginable, allowing young people to explore fields such as film, fashion, art, and music from their own homes.

“For the first time in history, the young girl dreaming of becoming a fashion designer and the young boy who wants to stand up his school animated superhero series can do so from their own home,” Trump said.

She emphasized that curiosity has always been central to human progress, pointing to writers, scientists, architects, and artists who challenged unanswered questions and the status quo.

“Every giant at some point in time questions the status quo,” she said. “Their singular vision pushes humanity in a new direction.”

She noted, however, that the power of the technology actually lies in the human “imagination.”

“Artificial intelligence provides all the tools needed to implement your creative vision today,” she said.

“But what do you need to start? You need to harness your imagination.”

She encouraged students and creators to focus on developing the ability to ask meaningful questions and to think critically beyond the information AI can provide.

RELATED: Can artificial intelligence help us want better, not just more?

Brooks Kraft/Getty Images

The first lady stressed that while AI can generate content, it cannot replace human purpose.

“Although artificial intelligence can generate images and information, only humans can generate meaning and purpose,” she said.

She concluded by urging the audience to treat AI as a tool rather than a shortcut, encouraging intellectual honesty and personal responsibility in how the technology is used.

“Use AI as a tool, but do not let it replace your personal intelligence,” Mrs. Trump said.

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​Politics, Melania trump, Trump, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Technology, Zoom 

From allegedly false claims about Stephen A. Smith’s basketball background to what Jason Whitlock calls a lack of basic sports knowledge and writing ability, the BlazeTV host argues Smith’s success isn’t accidental.

Rather, it’s the result of a system that rewards obedience over independent thinking, particularly among black men.

“Stephen A. Smith, as I have exposed to you all on this show — his background, his narrative, his story: It’s all a fabrication. He wasn’t a college basketball player at Winston-Salem State. He didn’t knock down 17 straight three-pointers and earn a scholarship at Winston-Salem State,” Whitlock begins.

“You’ve seen me expose all of that. You saw Stephen A. Smith get triggered by me exposing all of that. You saw this man snap and put on a 45-minute profanity-laced tirade because I explained to you all — I read his book. We’ve done the research. We’ve gone through all these different lies,” he continues.

Whitlock believes that Smith is nothing more than a “fraud” who is “unqualified for all the things he’s been given.”

“They take someone with very limited talent, give them positions and jobs and a platform that they can’t do on their own,” he says, noting that even as a sportswriter, Smith “wrote at like an eighth-grade level” and “doesn’t know or follow sports in a real way.”

“Claims to be a New York Knicks fan, doesn’t know who’s on the roster, thinks you can kick a field goal on third down — and if you miss it, you can re-kick it on fourth down. That’s who has been installed at the top of the sports media landscape,” Whitlock explains.

“This is all intentional,” he continues. “Black men who can think for themselves, who have some sort of intellectual evolution, need not apply for the clown show that is being run.”

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​Upload, Sharing, Camera phone, Video, Video phone, Free, Youtube.com, Fearless with jason whitlock, Fearless, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Stephen a smith, Winston salem state, Stephen a smith lies, Stephen a smith book, Jason whitlock vs stephen a smith 

At some point, Google went from “don’t be evil” to “never mind.” The evidence is in its latest, duplicitous, and deceptive set of control mechanisms over online commerce.

Google’s vision involves a Universal Commerce Protocol, which allows its AI to access retailer client histories on its customers (all without human acknowledgment or accountability). The Universal Commerce Protocol leverages its shopper data to monitor and cross-reference between retailers the habits of individuals and adjust prices based on the AI bot’s understanding/projection of the shopper’s financial, personal, and psychological situation.

What seems to be happening is that online retailers have taken the AI bait. They’ve been sold on the purchase, implementation, and reliance upon so-called AI agents, which are designed to handle all possible aspects of internet commerce. It feels inevitable even though it isn’t. Either way, it’s happening. Our internet experience, even now, is being massively overwritten to effect the least-human outcomes possible.

Its grabbing up of data is cloaked, misdirected, or buried under mountains of legalese or made intentionally difficult to ascertain.

The truth is there’s been negligible-to-nonexistent customer service for most big corporations for almost a decade. Lose a box with Fed Ex and try to get an English-speaking human on the phone if you doubt this assertion. The differences in the now-unfolding AI era are mainly going to come down to the fact that whereas once a human was involved somewhere in the online experience, the new era will be almost entirely bot-derived, bot-managed, and bot-determined.

According to Lindsay Owens, who breaks all this down in a viral X post, “As one Google exec explained, it allows retailers to ‘offer custom deals to specific shoppers.’ If you’ve granted consent or the agent identifies you via identity linking, Direct Offers uses your conversation to trigger specific offers. At first it might recognize you as a ‘high value’ customer and show you a 30% coupon instead of 10%, without having to extend the same thing to everybody. But Google says the plan is to use the agent’s persuasive power to encourage shoppers to ‘prioritize value over price.’ Put simply, not only does it want you to spend more, it targets you specifically as someone likely to agree to it.”

RELATED: Google has had access to your docs longer than you realize. Here’s how to kick it out.

Photo by Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images

For Google, which despite making everyone angry and churning out increasingly less impressive products for the last decade, the move from not evil to blithely diabolical is proved out insofar as all of its grabbing up of data is cloaked, misdirected, or buried under mountains of legalese or made intentionally difficult to ascertain. Legerdemain involving layering, shunting, enveloping, winding, and overly technical language is everywhere in the description of its Universal Protocol, and levels of fleecing the client heretofore unimaginable are now standard in the era of no responsibility or accountability corporate AI.

Owens, the executive director of Groundwork, a Washington, D.C.-based organization build to “change economic policy and narrative in order to build public power, break up concentrations of private power, and deliver true opportunity,” finishes her epic X thread with a stark conclusion. “By bundling Google ad targeting and conversational data with retailer history and third-party broker profiles, the Agent creates a perfect surveillance feedback loop. And Google isn’t the only one building wallet-seeking chatbot missiles.”

The ruthless logic of “line go up” has been coded into the machines we have come to depend upon, and resale of the data ensures the obliteration of privacy. Of course, we were warned innumerable times about this inevitability, but the shocking facts point to our complicity, or docility, with respect to even caring about the obliteration.

​Tech, Google, Online shopping 

Former Vice President Kamala Harris spent years fearmongering about so-called climate change. Her recent seaside acquisition suggests she may not have been as serious about the supposed threat as she previously let on.

During her first failed presidential campaign where she proposed the U.S. blow $10 trillion on tackling the professed problem, Harris wrote, “Our oceans are warming. Sea levels are rising. Pollution is threatening our air and water. Droughts are hurting our crops. Fires are burning our forests. Extreme weather is destroying our communities. We are poisoning the planet.”

‘To live in a coastal community is to live on the front lines of the climate crisis.’

Harris previously pushed legislation that would annually award $50 million in grants to various entities for the purposes of “carrying out climate-resilient living shoreline projects” and, in her words, “mitigat[ing] against sea level rise.”

When announcing in 2023 that the Biden-Harris administration was recommending $562 million in funding to make communities and the economy more resilient to the alleged climate change, Harris told a crowd at the University of Miami, “To live in a coastal community is to live on the front lines of the climate crisis.”

The Washington Free Beacon highlighted that the Biden-Harris administration also pushed a study the same year that claimed that “24%-75% of California’s beaches may become completely eroded” due to sea-level rises.

Despite Harris’ participation in the rising-sea hysteria that proved fellow Democrat Al Gore a poor prognosticator, she has reportedly purchased an $8.15 million oceanside mansion in Malibu, California.

RELATED: Al Gore wrong again: Study delivers good news for Arctic ice trends, bad news for climate hucksters

Photo by Roxanne McCann/Getty Images.

A Zillow listing for the 4,000 square foot, four-bedroom home indicates that the property has a pool, a hot tub, a sauna, a cold plunge, a professional gym, a landscaped water feature, a “private putting and chipping green with a bunker,” a guest house, and “breathtaking ocean, island, and city views.”

The property, which sold on Dec. 2, is located in Point Dume, an affluent neighborhood with private, gated beaches. According to the New York Post, the community is populated by Hollywood and Silicon Valley elites.

Harris, who is reportedly contemplating a third White House bid, did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

Fortunately for Harris and contrary to her past claims about rising sea levels, a study published last year in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering indicated that the average sea level rise in 2020 was roughly 0.059 inches a year, which works out to about 6 inches per century.

One of the paper’s co-authors told the Post in September, “This is significantly lower than the 3 to 4 mm/year often reported by climate scientists in scientific literature and the media.”

Such a rate might explain why Al Gore’s 2006 prediction of a 20-foot rise in the global sea level “in the near future” has yet to manifest.

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​Climate, Climate change, Sea level rising, Climate alarmist, Alarmism, Sea level, California, Kamala, Kamala harris, Democrat, Radical, Marxist, Enviromarxist, Malibu 

The shooting death of Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has quickly become a rallying point in the broader political battle over immigration enforcement under the Trump administration.

It should also be a lesson for the rest of us to wait for all the facts before making judgments and especially to beware of media narratives that try to simplify complicated events.

When journalists and commentators repeat an unverified transcription as fact, they do more than simplify a complex event. They create a moral narrative that can endanger real people.

Videos of the shooting, which took place on January 7, have been widely circulated, including one taken by Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fired the fatal shot. You would think that since the shooting, or the circumstances surrounding it, are on video, it would be easy to determine responsibility for Good’s death.

But instead, we have evidence once again that eyewitnesses — in this case all of us who have watched the videos — cannot be depended upon to get the story straight.

I am talking in particular about the near-universally repeated narrative that Good’s wife, Becca, shouted, “Drive, baby, drive!” in the split second before Good was killed. The phrase appears to have traveled with early write-ups of the Alpha News-distributed agent-perspective video, then hardened into “fact” as larger outlets repeated it. That goes for everyone from right-wing Just the News (“Drive, baby! Drive, drive!”) to left-wing CNN (the more common “Drive, baby, drive!”).

From the time I first read this representation, I began publicly questioning the interpretation by posting comments online. I’ve listened to the audio hundreds of times by now, and there is no way I can hear those words. Instead, I watch Becca Good hear an officer shout, “Get out of the f**king car” at her wife, try the passenger door handle and realize it is locked, and then recognize that Renee is preparing to accelerate. At that point, she screams either “Do not drive!” or more likely “Don’t drive!”

Not only do the words fit the audio pattern better, but they also make more sense as a response to the circumstances. Yet throughout the media, everyone repeats the “drive, baby, drive” narrative without any hesitation. I later heard commentator Megyn Kelly argue that Becca Good should be arrested — even suggesting felony liability — based on the assumption that she urged her wife to flee.

Kelly went so far as to say that Becca Good should be in custody now, but that claim depends entirely on a transcription that may not be accurate. What if the wife never even said, “drive, baby, drive” at all? What if it was all just a media invention?

It’s not like that has never happened before. Do you remember “hands up, don’t shoot”?

That was the media narrative to describe the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, policeman in 2014. The progressive left picked up the battle cry and accused Officer Darren Wilson of killing the teenager while he was in the act of surrender.

It wasn’t true, but it took weeks for the truth to come out — that Brown had approached Wilson in his patrol car and tried to wrestle the officer’s gun away from him. Shooting Brown was the only way for Wilson to protect himself and others. Yet because of the media narrative, Wilson was put in danger of arrest and of worse — as angry mobs in Ferguson sought justice based on a fairy tale.

Now, 12 years later, another shorthand narrative was out of control. Unable to find any outlet that had questioned the transcription as I had, I turned to an AI-based audio analysis tool, ChatGPT, to examine the clip more rigorously than the human ear alone allows.

Using slowed playback and spectrogram analysis, it reported its results. Bottom line (short answer):

The audio does not support “drive baby drive.”It is far more consistent with “don’t drive” (or “do not drive”) spoken urgently.I would rate confidence moderate to high, given the recording quality.

Asked why “drive, baby, drive” does not fit the sound signature on the audio, ChatGPT responded:

I isolated the quoted moment from the clearest clip available to me and examined it as a time-frequency spectrogram (a standard way to visualize speech). The widely repeated phrase “drive baby drive” doesn’t match what’s in the recording. The utterance is too short for three words, and the audio lacks the distinct consonant bursts you would expect for “baby” (two clear “b” onsets). The sound pattern is more consistent with a prohibitive command such as “don’t drive” or “do not drive,” delivered urgently.

RELATED: Renee Good had 4 gunshot wounds, including in the head, new report shows

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

I’m not asking anyone to treat AI as an oracle — only to notice what happens when the slowed audio and the spectrogram don’t match the confident captioning. Perhaps ChatGPT and I are both wrong. But I don’t think so. After repeated playback, I could not hear anything resembling the word “baby.” And if the argument is that the audio portion of the video recording is too ambiguous for a definitive conclusion, then that point should have been made to the hundreds of media outlets that ran with the “drive, baby, drive” narrative — not with me for questioning it.

Deciding whether Officer Ross was justified in shooting Renee Good does not hinge on what Becca Good said in a moment of panic. But public judgment — and calls for criminal punishment — clearly have. When journalists and commentators repeat an unverified transcription as fact, they do more than simplify a complex event. They create a moral narrative that can endanger real people.

If the audio is ambiguous, that ambiguity should have been reported as such from the beginning. If it is not, then the words attributed to Becca Good deserve correction. Even if I’m wrong about the exact words, the larger point stands: If the audio is ambiguous, it should never have been presented as a definitive quote — and certainly not used to justify calls for prosecution.

In cases like this, restraint is not just appropriate. It is the responsibility that journalists owe their readers. And readers should demand the same restraint from those who claim to inform them.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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Mattel released a Barbie doll this past week that has sparked an important discussion about what representation looks like in doll form — and why a pretty girl wearing headphones and a cute outfit might not be representative of a severe autism diagnosis, or why we shouldn’t be celebrating something we can try to understand and prevent.

“President Trump ended DEI in the government, and I was really, really, glad about that, but it appears there was more work to be done. We need to end the DEI in toys,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

In Mattel’s press release on the new Barbie doll, it writes, “The autistic Barbie doll features elbow and wrist articulation, enabling stimming, hand flapping, and other hand gestures that some members of the autistic community use to process sensory information or express excitement.”

It also writes that her eyes are “shifted slightly to the side, which reflects how some members of the autistic community may avoid direct eye contact.”

“I’m not making fun of people with autism. I actually think it’s terrible. And I’ve done a lot to try to help get us to the place where we can figure out what is causing autism, but we are at this weird place where the left is like, ‘Actually it’s great if people are autistic. Actually I love that my family member’s autistic. I hope we get more autistic people,’” Gonzales comments.

“I want to solve what’s happening to people. I want to solve why so many people are being diagnosed with autism, why so many people can’t make direct eye contact, why so many people need noise-canceling headphones,” she continues.

“It’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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The founder and board president of a new K-12 Montessori school in Illinois has been arrested on charges of grooming and exploiting a young child.

On January 9, Effingham police officers moved quickly to arrest 32-year-old Dakota “Kody” Czerwonka of Montrose after receiving a report that a student at Crossroads Montessori School had received “inappropriate electronic messages.” Czerwonka was “immediately identified” as the suspect, Effingham PD said in a statement.

He even unsuccessfully ran for the Illinois House in 2020 on a platform of environmental, economic, social, LGBTQ+, and racial ‘justice.’

Details of the case are scarce, but court records show Czerwonka has been charged with grooming and exploiting a child under 13/exposing self, both Class 4 felonies. He is scheduled to appear in court again on January 29.

Prosecutors also filed to deny Czerwonka pretrial release from custody. At his initial court appearance on Monday, the court agreed with the petition, claiming that Czerwonka poses “a real and present threat to the community and … the minor victim” that “no condition or combination of conditions can mitigate.”

Effingham police confirmed that they “support” his ongoing pretrial detention.

“After reviewing the content of the case after it was reported to our Department, Officers immediately identified a very real safety risk and promptly effected an arrest of the subject, thereby eliminating any further opportunities for this individual to be in contact with other students or children. I’m very pleased with their efforts. They showed dedication to ensuring the safety of our community through these actions,” said a statement from Police Chief Kurt Davis.

The office of an attorney who appeared with Czerwonka in court did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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Czerwonka has a long history of far-left political activism. He even unsuccessfully ran for the Illinois House in 2020 on a platform of environmental, economic, social, LGBTQ+, and racial “justice,” according to an X profile for his independent campaign.

Posts from that account express support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). One post calls to “tear … down” the Electoral College.

Another X account linked to Czerwonka includes sexually charged images as well as LGBTQ+ propaganda. In 2020, Czerwonka even bragged that he had been “pegged as a pedophile sympathizer” on another social media platform for praising “Cuties,” a controversial movie previously available on Netflix that sexualizes young girls.

Crossroads Montessori School just opened last fall. In a July Facebook post, the school gave a short introduction of Czerwonka, describing him as someone who “brings a deep passion for empowering students through authentic Montessori education.”

“Kody has worn many hats.. teacher, nonprofit leader, advocate.. and now leads Crossroads with a vision to build a student-centered learning environment grounded in curiosity, independence, and compassion. Outside the classroom, Kody enjoys hiking, film, kayaking, and learning something new every day,” the post continued.

“He believes education is most powerful when it’s collaborative: not just teaching students, but growing alongside them.”

The school did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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